The Goat Profiles,...these photos were taken in a rural community two hours southwest of Fort Worth.

Day Lilies Bloom

Don't know why,...but they did. They are in an out of the way spot in our backyard and we hardly ever see them until it's too late. Amy cut them and put them on the table for our maximum enjoyment. I think they're kind of exotic looking. Not your run of the mill lily.

Krystal's is HERE!

It seems that all of the wishes that I made since we arrived in the Dallas area are coming to true. All of these wishes center around food that's not really good for you(or anyone else), that I experienced growing up in the southeast. The first acquisition we got in town was Memphis style pork BBQ at a Red, Hot and Blue restaurant. Second, we got a Krispy Kreme,...thank goodness the lines have subsided. Now to complete the hat trick, Krystal's opened a few weeks ago. I have had a Krystal burger once a week since I found out they were in town. Initially my son told me, and I refused to believe the truthfulness of his statement,....not that my son would lie about something as serious as Krystal's, but he could easily be mistaken as 8th graders are so prone to be. It wasn't until our youth minister, who is also from the southeast and familiar with Krystal's, broke the good news unto me that I finally saw the light and believed. I did not walk the aisle to express my faith in his statement that Krystal's had truly come into the metroplex, I just trusted his words and drove to the place that he had told me he had seen the light and smelled the grease. By faith I drove there as soon as we drove back into town from a youth retreat weekend. I partook and I was saved. BTW, those aren't Krystal hamburgers in the photo,.....they are way too thick to be Krystal's,...they should be paper thin patties and we should see a hint of yellow mustard and grilled onion jibblets. I just remembered,...they are open 24 hours! I wish I had not.

The Hoyts

[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. ``He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.''But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told.``There's nothing going on in his brain.''"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.''Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore for two weeks.''That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says.Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time'? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.''And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.''So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad would sit in the chair and I would push him once.''Here's the video....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryCTIigaloQ

Fake Ticket

You don't have to miss any concert with this handy ticket maker. Since I never saw The King,...I thought I would like to see just what one of those stubbs would look like. The web address is at the bottom of the ticket,...but for you far sight folks it's: www.says-it.com/concertticket/ . Have fun! Great for Birthdays too!

Lemon Drop

This is a very sweet and lemony drink that came into vogue during the 1970s in California. It is now a favorite drink of the West Coast. The drink was developed at a now defunct bar called Henry Africa's in San Francisco, a well-known singles bar. At Henry Africa's bar, they developed and pushed "girl drinks" - drinks that are potent, yet sweet enough to cover the taste of alcohol. Think of the lemon drop candies! After making and sampling many different recipes, my husband and I declared this recipe our favorite alcoholic drink!

1 1/2 ounces vodka
1/2 ounce Triple Sec
1 teaspoon superfine sugar
3/4 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice
Ice cubes
Superfine sugar for dipping
Twisted peel of lemon

Mix the vodka, Triple Sec, sugar, and lemon juice in a cocktail shaker half-filled with ice; shake well (supposedly the cocktail is to be shaken 40 times to make sure the sugar is well blended). Pour strained liquor into sugar-rimmed martini glass and garnish with a twisted peel of lemon.
NOTE: To create a sugar-rimmed glass, take a lemon wedge and rub the drinking surface of the glass so it is barely moist. Dip the edge of the glass into sugar.

Makes 1 serving.

The reason I'm sneezing and wheezing,...my side of the bed!

Big Cherry Spoon

This is a work in the sculpture garden in Minneapolis taken in the wee small hours of the morning a few weeks ago. I have no idea what the name of this work is,....probably something very obvious, like "big cherry in an even bigger spoon", I don't know the artist,...but I remember it being in my college art appreciation book, so it was cool to see in person. There were some famous artists represented by their works in this jewel of a sculpture garden that the bartender in our hotel told us about(she also made us a couple of Lemon Drops that were excellent, see recipe above). It was cool in the mornings there,.....50's,....so it was nice to stop for coffee after a long walk.

A Screwtape Letter Parody for Today's Confidently Pious

My Dear Warmwould,

I would that you keep those so called devout "holier than thou" Christians enslaved to the law, for in that they become dependent upon themselves and their own works, and make less significant the power of the death, burial and resurrection that truly saves them. Then they will preach this and others will think that they can impact their salvation also! Then Jesus's sacrifice will be for naught. Though the sacred Christians will continue to speak good words about Him as though they need Him and trust in Him for their salvation, their actions will not be in sync with their words. They will work themselves into the fiery pits of Hell, with my colleagues and me.

Also, maintain their interest in keeping the law that was nailed to the cross and see that they continually make waves and cause rifts to form among Christians who don't do everything exactly like them and seem "less Christian" than they. This will divert their attention away from those who are TRULY lost because they have NEVER heard of Jesus, the Christ. And where these high and mighty Christians have preferences about worship and other issues, but no scriptural, God given laws, assist them in making up laws to enforce and bind on other believers. Convince them that they can keep the law perfectly, as Jesus did.

Where there are passages about freedoms and liberty in Christ, make them skip those and avoid those verses in their precious Bibles at all costs! Don't let them read First Corinthians 10:23-30 nor Galations 5:2-15. If they read it, make them think that it doesn't mean what it really says. Keep them enslaved to the law! Assist them in finding more and more laws to take the burden that Jesus bore for them and to place it back upon humanity, so that they are woefully in control of their salvation as they were before Jesus came. They couldn't do it then, but help them to think that they can do it now!

Continue to entice them to make mountains out of mole hills. Again, these type of issues, water down the sacrifice of Jesus and keep their attention on matters that will not, do not, and cannot save them. It diverts their attention from the Cross. They will diligently preach these trivial matters and NOT preach about that which saves. This fits exactly into my plan of divide and conquer. Never allow them to see that they are united in the cross of Jesus. Keep their attention on anything but their unity! If they unite under the Banner of Jesus as the Messiah, they will do much damage to the work I have accomplished and set in place!

Keep those Christians believing that they "have arrived". Deceive them into believing that they are really good people and can keep the law and contribute to their salvation. Again this will divert their attention away from what actually saves them and they will convert others to their way of thinking that their righteousness is actually of value to God,...and that they can actually help the Omnipotent One and that God really needs them, instead of them needing God. Also remember that their pious attitudes will also serve our purposes in "running off" those who are truly interested in Jesus. Some will also go away because they fear that they cannot keep the law as perfectly as these pious "brothers" have portrayed that they keep the law. Prevent these true seekers from actually seeing the fallible and frail humanity of these pious Christians so they will STAY FAR AWAY from the Gospel of Jesus!

These are the exact tactics that you took with the Pharisees, and it worked lovely on them! Lull them into an attitude of self confident piety. Make them feel that they are the sole bearers and protectors of the Truth. Again, it worked on the Pharisees,...and it seems to be working on these self righteous fellows who say they follow Jesus. In utilizing this old strategy you will not have to re-invent the wheel,...for you know that time is of the essence! So, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Continue to use that tactic in this age, as you did in the past, but don't allow these "holier than thou" Christians to actually see their own image in the Pharisees. Disguise their images in their mirrors so they will be blinded to what they really are. Help them to see the good in the Pharisees and help them to believe that the Pharisees weren't all that bad.

Let's continue to divide believers in Christ with those ultra pious believers. Then let's sit back and watch effective Christians spin their wheels, as we conquer those who don't know Jesus and will not know Him because the Christians are too busy with in-fighting and trying to convert people to their way of thinking rather than converting them to Jesus, the Christ. They will continue in their dogmatism and their frivolous activities and quarrels and arguments over issues of no importance. Keep up the good work with those Saints who believe they have it all right! We could really use them up there to get more down here.

Until next time, I am affectionately,

Your Uncle Shrewtape

Read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Pointless Photo

Stray Cat

Last Wednesday evening, I was in the Minneapolis airport 2 hours ahead of my flight departure, as requested,...had no gells or liquids to get rid of before taking off. We were in a good airport to kill time,...the Minneapolis airport is one big mall. We had several selections for food and were having a difficult time deciding,....my two colleagues and I. I really wasn't that hungry. We finally decided on Wolfgang Puck Express. Then we had to find it. Looked at the map, went to where we thought the map directed us but there was only a small bar with many businessmen tanking up for the flight home. So we decided to just find something else, and as soon as we said that, there it was. As we walked into the restaurant I noticed someone that I thought I knew from my college days,....not a student at a conservative Christian college, he was too cool for that. This guy had his "hair piled high and his baby looked so right",....yes it was Brian Setzer of the Stray Cats of the early 80's. It could not have happened at a more opportune moment, since I had my digital camera easily accessible in my jacket pocket,...I had a pen for an authograph,...he was just waiting for a beer at the bar,....all was set for me to get all the normal fan paraphenailia,....but I chickened out. I thought I didn't want to disturb him, call attention to him, ruin his privacy. My colleagues assured me that he probably would be glad for someone to remember him and notice him. He might get a thrill if I would say something. Well,...I let him finish his beer and then I let he and his companion walk out. He was less than a foot from me. That cool rockabilly hip cat from my college era. The Rock This Town Stray Cat Struted right out of there and presumably to his flight to Los Angles. I was content and just greatful to have seen an 80's icon,...and a pretty good guitarist. I was satisfied. No regrets. Hey, I'm no groupie! Now had it been Belinda Carlisle,...I might have slipped on my drool,...depending on how far GONE that GO GO was.

Ironically, when I arrived at the Dallas airport that evening, I saw a REAL stray cat. I was riding the bus to the remote parking lot and we were picking up passengers in terminal E, when the bus driver sharply applied his brakes, I looked up in time to see a beautifully patterned cat darting in front of the bus, then wildly leaping for a pidgeon. He missed and strutted back across the street in front of us. The bus driver laughed appreciating that cat's beauty, prowess and spunk, as I did also. I saw two stray cats strutting in one day. Both were ultra cool cats.

IMOGEN HEAP

I was listening to chillout music on Yahoo Launchcast this afternoon and I heard a sound, a song that really struck me as interesting and significant. Imogen Heap is the artist. The name of the song is "Hide and Seek",....really nice melody. Cool techno voice box modulator(at least that's my description of what I think is going on,...though I am sure there's a more accurate layman's term for the device,...all I know is it sounds really cool). I always notice the music first,...and while doing that, I have no idea what the lyrics say,....I just pray they aren't saying "go sacrifice a goat to your grandmother" or worse. I don't think the lyrics of this song say that, though(they are below). I went to her website: www.imogenheap.co.uk and then went to the You Tube site, which was linked, and watched some of her other videos. There was one of girl playing her song Hide and Seek on the piano, and she is/was definitely worthy of a listen. After listening to that, it kind of drove home the point to me about just how haunting the melody of this song is. Now I guess I should read the lyrics. Check it out! You can listen to her complete latest album, which includes her song "Hide and Seek" at: http://www.imogenheapmedia.co.uk/audio/player/player.html

'Hide and Seek'

Where are we?
what the hell is going on?
the dust has only
just begun to fall
Crop circles in the carpet
Sinking feeling
Spin me round again
and rub my eyes
this can't be happening
when busy streets a mess with people
would stop to hold their heads heavy
Hide and seek
Trains and sewing machines
All those years
They were here first
oily marks appear on walls
where pleasure moments hung before
the takeover
the sweeping insensitivity
of this
still life
Hide and seek
trains and sewing machines
Blood and tears
They were here first
mm what d'ya say?
that you only meant well, well of course you did
this it's all for the best, of course it is
that it's just what we need, you decided this?
what did you say?
Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
Mid sweet talk newspaper word cut outs
Speak no feeling no I don't believe you
you don't care a bit

The Beatles in London Walking Tour

We took a walking tour in London that featured spots in London where the Beatles had once been. We met at Marylebone Station Tube stop. The station is where the opening credits of the Beatles' movie, "Hard Days Night" was filmed, with the Fab Four being chased all about the station(well, Paul was just sitting on a bench reading a newspaper in the station disguised with a mustache and goatee). In that neighborhood and the St. John Woods neighborhood, one tube stop away, we saw some early apartments of the Beatles, their short lived Apple store and of course the famous Abbey Road crosswalk and recording studios(St. John Woods stop). The story goes that the Beatles next album was going to be titled, "Everest", which was the Beatles' favorite cigarettes. The art director for the recording company wanted them to fly to Mount Everest to shoot the cover photo. John Lennon said No, he didn't want to fly a long distance to some cold mountain to take one shot for the cover, so he took the photographers outside the studios to the Abbey Road crosswalk, shot the photo and changed the name of the album to "Abbey Road".

This is a photo my 13 year old took on our evening cruise down the Seine in early June. We were freezing cold that evening. It was cool and the boat's speed seemed to drop the temperature even more. My photos that evening were ca ca. Glad Holden got this one.

At the Movies

I didn't see this film on the big screen, I rented the DVD. (I wonder if it's proper to still call it a film if you watch the DVD version?) Anyway, I watched two movies a couple of weeks ago and they both left an impression with me, but I can't seem to forget especially one of them. The movie was rated R for language and was titled, Grizzly Man,...no, it was not about the mascot of the Memphis NBA franchise, but is a documentary about a man who spent 13 summers living amony grizzly bears in Alaska,....unarmed. He documented his time there and his experiences with his handheld video cam. There was only a couple of places where he used foul language, but in one segment he was angry at the EPA and was dropping the "F- bomb" everywhere. My son got up and walked out. The guy eventually was killed by the grizzlies, or just one. They found his arm, with his watch still on it,....still ticking. John Cameron Swazzie would have a field day with that one were he alive and were he wearing a Timex. I didn't lose interest in the movie. Maybe because I knew he might be getting killed at any moment. There were no gorey, or grizzly(excuse the pun)scenes,...no footage of his death, though I think it was at least partially captured,...they discussed his final words on the recording. In the end, I thought the guy was a nut. But it is a dvd worth watching,...some even worth watching with your kids,...but limited. Choose some segments and preface them with "This guy is a lunatic,....don't EVER believe you can live with a wild animal without him chewing your arm off!"

I just thought this would be an appropriate commentary on the reality of gas prices for the most of us. But, do you know one reason why DC politicians don't care how much gas prices effect our daily lives? Because they don't have to pay for their gas to and from DC,....WE(the taxpayers)pay for it! We pay for a car service to pick them up and drop them off and take them back home. They don't feel the pinch like the common man. This is just another way they separate themselves from the realities within our country, which, then is reflected in the policies they pass to govern us. It's time that part of their gravy train was cut off!

Hey,....I tried this Texas vodka called Tito's recently and it is soooo smooooth. This guy has an interesting story too. So much so that the Discovery Channel did a piece on him. You may view it at: www.titos-vodka.com .

We are heading to England, Scotland and France for a three week trip this summer. Kind of excited about England and Scotland, but really have some anxiety about France. Heard too many bad comments about Parisians, whom we will be dealing with since we are only going to Paris. We will only be there for two nights and three days, so we should be able to handle it. Just fear the language barrier. I know we won't be the first or the last people to visit who do not speak French. I bought a French phrase book/dictionary, as if I could really decipher what someone speaking French in a normal pace would be saying. I can see me flipping through the tiny pages maniacally trying to catch a word or two and then pretending to understand them to save face. Saying "thank you" in really good French since I will have practiced that phrase over and over, and then starting the process all over again with the next kind face we think we see. This will be a good test of our intuition and our abilities to accurately read personalities by faces or very surface signs of human nature. I guess we will just have to rely on the mercy of the French we encounter and pray for a good experience. I can say,....it WILL be an experience for us,...whether good or bad.

Cooking with Rachel Ray

I have become a big Rachel Ray fan. She's on the food network and her claim to fame is 30 minute meals. I like her cooking style cause it's not pretentious, yet not ultra common either. It's for the novice chef,....definitely my catagory. I have three of her cookbooks. The earlier ones have more recipes,....the newer ones have photos of her and the dishes she cooks. I have found that I like having a photo of what the meal will look like,...it draws me in to want to cook. Speaking of dishes,.....this photo is from a pin-up layout that FHM magazine did of R.R. Very well done, yet not overdone, and quite saucy!

Bought a CD at Pier 1 called "Rainy Day",...a compilation of a variety of genres of slow music fit for a rainy day(of course). The first song on the disc was from Blue Merle, a band based in Nashville. Initially, I didn't care for the song, "Burning in the Sun",...but I was just interested in getting to a couple of chillout tunes I had been looking for,...Telepopmusick playing the song "Breathe" and Nightmares on Wax doing "Les Nuits"(both really good and highly recommended by me to lower your blood pressure at least 5 points). After I listened to "Burning" a few times, I started thinking about who the vocalist reminded me of,...it was the vocalist for Counting Crows, then I thought that he had a Coldplay sound. The band is hard to label with a particular muscial genre. They have a fiddle and a mandolin in the background, behind a good rock electric guitar,...when they give the fiddle and mandolin their spotlight on the stage, one might easily think that this is a pseudo bluegrass band, like Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, or Bruce Hornsby who sang "That's just the way it is",...but then when they feature the guitarist or the drummer,...it seems the antithesis of bluegrass. Anyway,...it's worth a listen, go to www.bluemerle.com and you can freely download a concert they gave in Birmingham, AL and burn it to CD. Worth a listen.