A Fool and his Words are Soon Parted

Driving down a busy street in Louisville, Kentucky, I noticed a bread truck in an adjacent lane. I did a bit of a double-take at the brand name advertised.

This is, in fact, a legitimate brand, and not a Photoshop’d picture. You can find proof here.

Punch lines for this picture are left as an exercise for the reader, but points will be taken off for anything utilizing the words “hot” and “toast.”

For several years now, my Starbucks addiction has manifested itself in the form of a Quad Con Panna with a shot of white chocolate. It has a strong espresso taste (from the four shots), but the presence of whipped cream and the white chocolate takes a bit of the edge off the espresso early in the morning. Making it even harder to avoid getting this instead of “regular coffee” is the price: $2.81.

However, as the weather gets warmer, I’ve found myself able to steer away from the many Starbucks locations, largely because something about a hot beverage in hot weather just seems contradictory to my soul. On rare occasions, I would spring for a “Venti Iced Black & White” (four shots, white chocolate, mocha syrup, milk, and ice in a 22 oz cup), but this is cost prohibitive at $4.65.

Now, Starbucks has thrown a monkey wrench into my plan for reduced spending in their store. They did this by introducing the “Iced Double Shot.”

Do not be fooled by the name. The only version that contains just two shots (which you would expect from the “Double Shot” name) of espresso is the strangely-named Tall size. The Venti (my personal favorite) contains five shots, and though the standard version contains the “classic” syrup (liquid sugar), they will substitute white chocolate at no cost. Adding insult to injury (and calories to the drink), one of my many barista buddies alerted me to the option of topping it with Half & Half instead of milk.

So why am I cursing Starbucks for this glorious, caffeine-laden beverage? I can answer that very simply:

$3.13

My older son and I made the following video on the Saturday of Father’s Day weekend. The local Kino group put this on, and at the last minute, we decided to give it a shot. Enjoy!

One of the interesting things I’ve noticed over the past couple of years is the number of people who come across my blog after searching for something like “words to son for graduation.” A few years ago, I published something I wrote for my son, “To My Son (at Graduation),” and this seems to be a common introduction to my blog for many readers.

My oldest just finished his sophomore year of college, so it’s a bit early to be writing to him in anticipation of his collegiate graduation. My younger son is about to finish his junior year of high school, so it might seem a bit early for that too. Instead, I want to share something that I have already shared with both of my sons, and it’s something I wish someone had shared with me, long before graduation day. It’s called “What You’ll Wish You’d Known,” by Paul Graham. Enjoy.

Here’s a sign that you’re not awake enough to get behind the wheel of a car and drive (in spite of the fact that I had already brushed my teeth, let the dog out, and put my laptop in the trunk):

Fortunately, I noticed that this shirt normally has a pocket on the other side.

So today, I get an update from Classmates.com, telling me about new profile pictures that various people from my high school have posted. However, when I log on, I’m greeted with this:

Just to clear things up, I am not presently a Mom, nor do I plan on ever becoming one. It does make me wonder… how difficult is it to use the gender variable in a social networking site. For some time, I’ve wondered how a site like Classmates.com can continue to exist, and the answer seems to be, “until the people who use it figure out that you can do everything that you can do there, and more, on Facebook.”

At least Facebook seems to have figured out that I’m not a potential Mom.

Last night, I decided to bring a PC online that had been an offline gaming system for a year or so. Naturally, I was quite excited to see XP SP3 available from Windows Update.

Much to my dismay, upon restarting, my machine went into continuous reboots. So I rolled back using System Restore.

Much to my surprise and pleasure, I noted that Microsoft had, apparently in response to several issues, like continuous rebooting, revised SP3.

Ah-HA! Victory is mine! I excitedly went back, redownloaded and reinstalled SP3.

And now?

Continuous rebooting. Again.

As part of some work I’m doing with my church, I’ve been recording audio of the relevant passages in the Bible for a given Sunday. Here are the three chapters that we’re using in April/May:

Matthew 5

Matthew 6

Matthew 7

Feedback is always welcome.

[Ed Note] In one of the auto-generated links below, “The BIBLE has a VOICE,” you’ll find links to “The Bible Experience,” which is a full dramatization of the Old and New Testaments. Clearly, as one guy sitting in a recording room, operating the recorder myself, I’m not trying to reproduce this. I wouldn’t begin to try. If you’re looking for an intensely dramatic reading, where the reader tries to take on the “voice” of the Biblical characters, then I recommend The Bible Experience. It sounds awesome. Here, I’m doing my best to “disappear,” and let the words themselves take on the drama. - Tim

From ABC news coverage:

Outside the courthouse, where satellite trucks lined the street, a man who said he was an FLDS father waved a photo of himself surrounded by his four children, ranging in age from an infant to about 9.

“Look, look, look,” the father said. “These children are all smiling, we’re happy.”

As I read this, my reaction was “I bet slave owners in the South said the same thing to people in the North.”

The events at the polygamist FLDS compound in West Texas have haunted me, and for several reasons. First, it haunts me that parents would allow their children to have their minds and hearts twisted the way that they have. However, I’ve also been haunted with questions about what Christians do that parallels some of the FLDS parents’ behavior in disturbing ways. (more…)

It’s 5:30 AM, and nature calls. However, as you enter the bathroom bleary-eyed, you note that the toilet is clogged. This is your first sign.

After a quick trip to another toilet to deal with the most immediate problem, you locate the plunger. Even in the stupor of less than 5 minutes of consciousness, you’re able to inspect the plunger and see the crack in the rubber that will render it completely useless. This is your second sign.

Not to worry, you have a “backup plunger” (a backup to deal with… uhm… backups). You grab the backup device, return to the scent of the crime, and begin plunging. Unfortunately, the backup device is slightly inferior in design to your primary plunger (which is why the other, now defective plunger, was the primary tool). As such, it turns itself inside-out periodically, and requires a bit of “toilet rim gymnastics” to get the rubber edge flipped right-side-out again.

And so you plunge away, and pause to pull and rotate the handle, flipping the business-end of the plunger back into the correct shape. But the final pull seems too easy, and that’s when you have the third and final sign that it will be a crappy day: (more…)