Anti-Theft Sticker

It takes more than this to protect your vehicle and belongings inside!
Remember to hide bags and lock up!

The Earth's Spin

After 9/11

One company invited the remaining members of other companies who had been decimated by the attack on the Twin Towers to share their available office space. At a morning meeting, the head of security told stories of why these people were alive... and all the stories were just,

the ' L I T T L E ' things.

As you might know, the head of the company survived that day because his son started kindergarten.

Another fellow was alive because it was his turn to bring donuts.

One woman was late because her alarm clock didn't go off in time.

One was late because of being stuck on the New Jersey Turnpike because of an auto accident.

One of them missed his bus.

One spilled food on her clothes and had to take time to change.

One's car wouldn't start.

One went back to answer the telephone.

One had a child that dawdled and didn't get ready as soon as he should have.

One couldn't get a taxi.

The one that struck me was the man who put on a new pair of shoes that morning, took the various means to get to work, but before he got there, he developed a blister on his foot. He stopped at a drugstore to buy a Band-Aid. That is why he is alive today.

Now when I am stuck in traffic, miss an elevator, turn back to answer a ringing telephone...all the little things that annoy me. I think to myself, this is exactly where God wants me to be at this very moment.

Next time your morning seems to be going wrong, the children are slow getting dressed, you can't seem to find the car keys, you hit every traffic light, don't get mad or frustrated; God is at work watching over you.

May God continue to bless you with all those annoying little things and may you remember their possible purpose.

(Here's a relevant article http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/our-daily-bread/2008/09/11/devotion.aspx)

We Made It!

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's or 70's, probably shouldn't have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking).

As kids we would be carted around in cars with no seat belts or air bags and riding in the back of a truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on, and no one was able to reach us, because cell phones hadn't been invented.

We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no law suits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame, but us... Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We ate cakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar cordial, but we were hardly ever overweight... because we were always outside playing and although we shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, no one actually died.

We did not have Play Stations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, video games at all, 99 channels on cable, recorded movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, Internet chat rooms ...we had friends. We went outside and found them. We rode bikes, roller skated, or walked to their homes and stood in front and yelled for them to come out to play, or knocked on the door, rang the bell or just walked in to visit them. Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel world! How did we do it?

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.

Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat it. And the next time, they usually passed.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected and there was no one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law, was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. And despite...or, perhaps, because of all this...this generation has produced some of the most outstanding risk-takers, problem solvers, innovators and inventors, ever.

The past 50 years has seen an explosion of advancement and new ideas. Why? Because we were given freedom and responsibility: the chance to succeed and to fail. And we learned how to make the most of what we were given.

If you were one of us, congratulations! If you weren't, too bad!

(Side note: Violent crime is in reality no worse than in the 70s and 80s, but the news coverage of it is. Most laws created to "protect" us, have actually been created to protect companies from law suits. Turn off the news and you will feel better about things!)

HAPPY 100th MOTHER'S DAY to all you Moms!!!

(Text below is from the American Bible Society)

On this Mother's Day, we want to remember and give thanks for biblical women of remarkable faith, especially mothers mentioned in the Bible. We want to honor you. Your gift of motherhood indeed "honors the Lord and deserved to be praised" (Proverbs 31:30 CEV)

And let's take some time this week to remember a few examples of how God has used the determined and generous love of moms throughout the pages of Scripture:

SARAH: The Mother of Isaac, Clinging to God's Promises –
With a child arriving long after she had given up hope of motherhood, Sarah models the passionate confidence of relying solely on God's provision. (Read: Genesis 18)

Mother of Moses, Risking to do What's Right –
Defying the greatest political power on the planet in order to give her son, Moses, a chance of survival, her courage and unyielding determination are a testament to the brave and faithful call of mothering. (Read: Exodus 2)

NAOMI: Mother-in-Law of Ruth, Discovering Trust in a Faithful God –
While still grieving the loss of her two sons, Naomi leaves home and country to find a new life with her daughter-in-law and new hope in the faithfulness of God. (Read: Ruth 1)

MARY: Mother of Jesus, a Portrait of Sacrificial Love –
Full of amazement and fear, Mary provides an extraordinary picture of a mother's love in action — unstoppable, determined, and trusting in the greater-still love of God. (Read: Luke 1:1-56).

LOIS: Grandmother of Timothy, Fostering Brave Faith –
Despite an array of personal and social risks, Lois helps steer her grandson toward his role as a leader in the early church. (Read: 2 Timothy 1)

ELIZABETH: Mother of John the Baptist, Bold Trust in God –
Rejoicing in the upcoming birth of her own son who would be the forerunner to Jesus, Elizabeth acknowledges God's plan and promise to send a savior to God's people. (Read: Luke 1:57-80)

Especially this Mother's Day, we give thanks for remarkable women of faith – those from God's Word, those who have gone on before us, and all those revealing the love of Christ in our lives.

Blessings to all and a very Happy Mother's Day!

Longest Burning Light Bulb

This light bulb has been lit up for over 100 years! They sure don't make them like they used to! Click here for web page.

England In The 1500s

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children-last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it-hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

Houses had thatched roofs -- thick straw -- piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the dogs, cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off theroof -- hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance way -- hence, a "thresh hold."

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while -- hence the rhyme, "peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man "could bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous. Most people did not have pewter plates, but had trenchers, a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Often trenchers were made from stale bread, which was so old and hard that they could be used for quite some time. Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms and mold got into the wood and old bread. After eating off wormy, moldy trenchers, one would get "trench mouth."

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the familygot the middle, and guests got the top, or "upper crust." Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eatand drink and wait and see if they would wake up -- hence the custom of holding a "wake."England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer". And that's the truth (maybe)...(and whoever said that History was boring?!)

Answers to Trivia Questions

Here are the answers I promised you for last Thursday's trivia questions:

1) Boxing.

2) Niagara Falls. The rim is worn down about 2 and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it every minute.

3) Asparagus and rhubarb.

4) Ten times (not eleven, as most people seem to think, if you do not believe it, try it with your watch, it is only 10 times.)

5) Baseball.

6) Strawberry.

7) Dwarf, dwell, and dwindle.

8) Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses.

9) In Minnesota. The team was originally known as the Minneapolis Lakers, and kept the name when they moved west.

10) Batter hit by a pitch; passed ball; catcher interference; catcher drops third strike; fielder's choice; and being designated as a pinch runner.

11) Lettuce.

12) If the catcher drops a called third strike, and doesn't throw the batter out at first base, the runner is safe.

13) Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, snowshoes, stockings, and so on.

Trivia Questions

Here are some trivia questions to try in your leisure time. I'll post the answers next Thursday.

1) There's one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends. What is it?

2) What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

3) Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

4) At noon and midnight the hour and minute hands are exactly coincident with each other. How many other times between noon and midnight do the hour and minute hands cross?

5) What is the only sport in which the ball is always in the possession of the team on defense, and the offensive team can score without ever touching the ball?

6) What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

7) Only three words in standard English begin with the letters "dw." They are common. Name two of them.

8) There are fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name half of them?

9) Where are the lakes that are referred to in the "Los Angeles Lakers?"

10) There are seven ways a baseball player can legally reach first base without getting a hit. Taking a base on balls (a walk) is one way. Name the other six.

11) It's the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh. What is it?

12) How is it possible for a pitcher to make four or more strikeouts in one inning?

13) Name six or more things that you can wear on your feet, that begin with the letter "s."

Cool Stuff You Really Should Know (part 2 of 2)

Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.

The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint - no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.

There is a seven-letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters: "therein" -- the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.

'Stewardesses' is the longest English word that is typed with only the left hand.

The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways; the following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful loughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."

Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian seal for that reason.

Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.

The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead."

The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.

Cool Stuff You Really Should Know (part 1 of 2)

The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."

"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".

Almonds are members of the peach family.

The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.

The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.

Ingrown toenails are hereditary.

The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.

"Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."

There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

The only other word with the same amount of letters is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.

The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokai-wenuakitnatahu, a New Zealand hill.

Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula" and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size, "L.A."

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.

(NOTE: Part 2 of this list will be posted next Thursday)

Easter Greetings!

Read about Easter here

Easter questions here

Today is Good Friday!

What's so good about "Good Friday?"

Read here.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Click here for the historical facts about St. Patrick's Day.

Holy Week

The condensed version of Holy Week can be found here http://www.bibles.com/holyweek.

It's Palm Sunday!

Click here for information on Palm Sunday, it's meaning and traditions.

Click here for the events of Passion Week.

What's an Adam's Apple?

What's an Adam's Apple? Where's your Adam's apple? Do you even have one? Find out in this article for kids. To read more, go to http://www.kidshealth.org/kid/grow/boy/adams_apple.html.

White Killer Whale Spotted! (link with photos)

Rare color Killer Whale in Alaska
http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=34353

Stress Eye Test

Stare at this picture and you may see the "wheels" moving. The faster they move, the more stressed out you are!

Interesting Facts

"Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand and "lollipop" with your right. (Bet you tried this out mentally, didn't you?)

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.

"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt" (Are you doubting this?)

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet. (Now, you KNOW you're going to try this out for accuracy, right?)

The words 'racecar', 'kayak', and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes). (Yep, I knew you were going to "do" this one.)

There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous" – tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. (You're not doubting this, are you?)

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious". (Yes, admit it, you are going to say: a e i o u)

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard. (All you typists are going to test this out)

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

A snail can sleep for three years.

Almonds are a member of the peach family.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

Babies are born with kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.

Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.

The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. (Now that was a good thing)

The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.

There are more chickens than people in the world.

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Now you know EVERYTHING!