Ordinary Life

I don't have much to say at the moment, but feel compelled to write anyway. Not much is going on in our lives right now other than the mundane. I am working hard at turning the BSU into the 800lb. gorilla of campus ministries at MSSU, Mandi is homeschooling the children, and the kids are just being kids.

Our most recent 'excitement' was Alyssa's Pinewood Derby race at AWANA last night. It was frustrating from the beginning and ended badly. First, the date was changed and we weren't notified until less than 48 hours prior. Second, it was our first effort at doing this together and I don't even have a workbench on which to craft a decent car. Third, I was laboring under the false impression that kids were supposed to do most of the work for the 'kids' division of the race. Most of the cars were CLEARLY the work of skilled men, not 8-year-old children. One idiot went so far as to carve his son a dragon and his daughter an airplane (complete with working prop). Seriously, the cars were beautiful, I mean, magazine quality beautiful. What kind of Jack-a-double-squiggle does PROFESSIONAL quality work, then enters it in his kids' names like that? Alyssa hand painted her car and was crushed to see other kids winning trophies when they clearly hadn't touched their cars (or even seen them?) until their fathers were through. I was embarrassed to be so underprepared, but not as embarrassed as those adults should be who cheated--Yes, CHEATED--in order for their kids to win. I was so proud of Alyssa for doing so much work on her car, and so dissapointed for her when we arrived at the race to find out that the only way to win was for the adults to make the cars, and give them to thier kids to play with.

I was told the race was supposed to foster Parent-Child relations by giving them something to work on together. Alyssa and I did that. We win, yes, WIN. To all the other idiots--Yes, IDIOTS--(and especially the Father-of-All-Idiots, Mr. Dragon/Airplane), I can only say, SHAME ON YOU. I only hope you repent, because you should.

Disc Golf

So, I have been playing disc golf off and on for about 12 years now and it amounts to about 22 courses in 12 states. I'm still not very good, but I did hit my second 'Ace' today. It was a 171 ft. shot on the first hole at Oak Grove Park in Springfield, MO using a yellow 172g Millenium JLS that I've had in my bag since the mid nineties. It was a great shot, pure vintage Jon. I tossed it high left and let it cut back down to the hole. It was sweet. No one else saw it, but a guy named 'Dave' whom I met just a few minutes before leaned back from the tree he on which he was urinating to tell me he heard it.

Letters to the Editor: Joplin Globe: Evolution

Updating the post of 9/27/05...

The Joplin Globe did, in fact, see fit to publish my editorial pretty much as I wrote it. That, of course, makes me very happy. See 'Primates' on A9 of today's paper or click here. It will be interesting to see whether or not anyone responds...