WordHurdle

Something about this made me chuckle

Older guy out on the town with his fancy hat on in his wood-panel Lincoln convertible (with a trailer hitch) with the top down and a "Secure Our Borders" bumper sticker
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Something tells me that Zach & Nathan like watermelon

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Amy & Nathan at the 4th of July fireworks in Bolivar

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Molly's first fireworks show (with Grandma Jean) in Bolivar

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Nathan and Zach enjoyed their ice cream cones, too

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Molly's first ice cream cone -- she likes it, too!

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Molly's first sushi (and she liked it): Crunch Roll at Yen Ching in Ozark

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On the Ozark square for the Thursday night farmers market

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Brady and Zach just finished running the bases at Hammons Field in #SGF

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Zach walking the SGF Cardinals outfield

Nice view of the stadium, Hammons Tower, and the Cardinals employee woman who led our parade around the stadium with the YMCA baseball teams.
 
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Walking the SGF Cardinals infield with Zach

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Because everyone needs a coffee mug from their favorite Chinese joint

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Sadie the Puggle and the 4 Wheeler at Tom & Jean's

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Zach at his first t-ball practice

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We now own a Puggle

First photo of our new Puggle puppy. We just picked her up in Marshall, Missouri. We don't have an official name yet but Peanut is the frontrunner. Tanner, our aging German Shepherd-Lab mix, is in for a surprise when we get home.
 
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Big dreams

I have a big vision of a city where there isn't a railroad track crossing every major road. Join together, fair citizens, rise up, and demand streets with no tracks!
 
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Molly and Nathan playing together

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Impromptu public Sound of Music

More than 200 dancers performed this techno version of "Do Re Mi" in the Central Station of Antwerp on March 23, 2009, with just 2 rehearsals. The performance lasted 4 minutes starting at 08:00 AM. It is a promotional stunt for a Belgian television program looking for someone to play the leading role in the musical of "The Sound of Music". These sorts of impromptu public performances have cropped up over the past few years, and I enjoy watching the joy they create in those who aren't involved in the performance. There is something about hundreds of supposed bystanders coming together in a performance like this that really captures the hearts of people that can only be described as the joy that art brings.

ImprovEverywhere.com is one of the groups that puts together mass artistic moments, also called "flashmobs". Their YouTube channel is full of videos like this, including the one below where over 200 people froze in place at the same time in Grand Central Station in New York City, plus one where a musical breaks out in a Los Angeles mall food court, another where over 100 shirtless guys wander through the New York Abercrombie & Fitch (and get kicked out for being shirtless in A&F -- go figure).

Ozark farmers market coffee

I'm sampling coffees roasted by my buddy Sean at his table at the Ozark farmers market on the square. He roasts under the name Ozark's Coffee Co., and he also owns the Coffee Rush drive thru stand on Highway 14 in Nixa.
 
I tried the Ethiopian blend and the Black Velvet blend, which is a blend of Indonesian and Kenyan beans. I bought a pound of the Black Velvet to share at a family reunion this weekend.
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Fishstick joy

I stole Nathan's fishsticks because he wasn't going to eat them anyway, but before I could eat them, Molly gave them a look, so I ended up giving the stolen fishsticks to her. She likes fishsticks a lot!
 
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Kris Barefield sighting at The Coffee Ethic

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Nathan out cold in the car

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Not a big fan of conferences

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Roasterie Cafe

I will drive 20 blocks the wrong direction in Kansa City for great coffee at the Roasterie Cafe
 
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Truman dusk

Dusk over Truman Lake just south of Clinton, Missouri
 
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Skylight

Clouds and sunlights between Springfield and Bolivar
 
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On a Mother's Day trip to Lowe's

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Please, please just pick a stinkin' movie

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Wind damage on South Campbell

Winds this morning tore up the McDonald's sign on South Campbell
 
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Kanakuk coffee cake recipe

I've had several requests to post the Kanakuk coffee cake recipe I have.  The recipe as I have it was published in a winter Bible study devotional guide that Kanakuk mailed out to campers back in maybe 1989 or so.  The original printed version made two 9x13 pans of coffee cake, which I would never need, so back then, I did some conversions, changing references to lbs. to cups and such and reducing to one 9x13 pan, and wrote them in on the original recipe.  I found that original version a few weeks ago, so I converted it to a recipe card so we can actively use it.  I made it last night for the first time since college, and the kids loved it.  In fact, my oldest asked if we can make it Sunday again for Mother's Day.  We served it (for dinner) with scrambled eggs in true kamp fashion.  So, here's the recipe, reduced to make only one 9x13 pan:

MAIN INGREDIENTS:
2 cups sugar
4-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon & 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon salt (I think you could reduce this & it still work out fine)
3 eggs
1/2 can Milnot evaporated milk (which works out to 6 oz.)
1-1/4 cups water
3/4 cup melted butter
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla

TOPPING INGREDIENTS:
1-1/8 cups brown sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup softened butter

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 pan.  Mix wet and dry ingredients separately, then combine wet and dry and pour batter into 9x13 pan.  Mix topping ingredients together in a bowl with a pastry blender or fork to combine.  Sprinkle topping over batter before baking.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.  Makes one 9x13 pan.

What I'm reading: Clutter-Free Christianity

I'm in the first chapters of a new book called Clutter-Free Christianity, and I'm liking it so far.  No -- this isn't a book about organizing your workspace to be a better Christian.  I've found the title to be misleading.  Instead, the "clutter" the book encourages you to clean out is the rules and "to dos" that we gather up in our attempts to grow in Christ that really have nothing to do with what God wants for us.  If you've ever found yourself asking "What does God want from me?", then this book is for you.

The author, Dr. Robert Jeffress is pastor at First Baptist Dallas, but don't hold that against him.  He openly admits in the opening chapters that he's a Southern Baptist and that his kind, over the years, have been some purveyors of rules that really have nothing to do with what God is calling us to.  He does a great job of pushing the door open and letting in the refreshing truth of what God wants from you, and when it comes down to it, his answer is letting Jesus live His life through you.  Each chapter deals with a heart issue, not with your actions, and I find it's a refreshing approach.  Jeffress' writing is easy to read and is very approachable as he challenges the reader to become more like Jesus in action, attitude and affection simply by turning their heart toward Jesus and letting Him take control.

I'm only in the first few chapters, but I encourage you to check out Clutter-Free Christianity  Hopefully, you can shorten your spiritual to-do list and come out with a deepened commitment to let Jesus live through you in everyday life.

The story of cashew chicken

"Springfield Cashew Chicken" as it's known in places other than Springfield, Missouri, was recently featured in the New York Times.  David Leong, the man credited with creating cashew chicken, now age 88, was interviewed, and the article does a great job of running through the history of cashew chicken and showing how significant cashew chicken is to the culture of the Missouri Ozarks.

The 'dirty bomb' that never was?

I just ran across an interesting story on Reddit that lead me to Wikileaks.  The back story is effectively that a millionaire neo-Nazi from Maine named James G. Cummings was working to put together what appears to have been a "dirty bomb" with possible intent to set it off during the Obama inauguration.  We will never quite know for sure because Mr. Cummings was shot to death on December 9, 2008, and his wife has been taken into custody in the matter after apparently admitting to the shooting.

Wikileaks, which is known as the Wikipedia of leaked documents, published a confidential FBI field intelligence report (these briefings are amazing to read) on January 12, 2009, that reported the incident in the context of a Presidential inauguration threat analysis, under the title,"9 December 2008 Discovery of Radiological Dispersal Device Components, Literature, and Radioactive Material at the Maine Residence of an Identified Deceased US Person". The Wikileaks analysis of that report says:

According to the FBI report, Cummings had four lots of one gallon containers of bomb-grade hydrogen peroxide, uranium, thorium (also radioactive), lithium metal, thermite, aluminum powder, beryllium (radiation booster), boron, black iron oxide and magnesium ribbon.  The FBI states it also seized literature on how to build “dirty bombs” and information about cesium-137, strontium-90 and cobalt-60 and other radioactive materials.
. . .
There was also evidence linking Cummings to white supremacist groups, including Cummings' membership application to the US National Socialist (Nazi) party.

According to Wikileaks, the Associated Press has independently confirmed the Wikileaks FBI report.  Wikileaks says it was noted in the Maine media, but I'm not sure many outside Maine have heard any details of this event. This is the first time I've read about it.

Wikileaks has an interesting perspective, detailing the reasons why conservatives, liberals, libertarians, security contractors, Maine government officials, the FBI, and main stream journalists have motivation to not make a big deal out of the story.  It smacks of conspiracy theory, but I'm intrigued by the Wikileaks discussion on the matter as well as the original documentation.

Win a copy of Mark Driscoll's new book, Vintage Church

Bible Study Magazine and Mars Hill are giving away 20 copies of Mark Driscoll’s new book, Vintage Church. Not only that, but they are also giving away five subscriptions to Bible Study Magazine and a copy of their Bible Study Library software! Enter to win on the Bible Study Magazine Mark Driscoll page, then take a look at all the cool tools they have to take your Bible study to the next level!

Barack Obama: Photos of his life before the White House

I really like this photo gallery.  I've seen many of the images before but when you put them in the context of daily life and life as a parent and husband and a real human being, it's very interesting to look at Barack Obama's normalcy, or at least the Daily News' attempt to make a multi-millionaire U.S. Senator look "just like us."

Indestructible Mike Malloy

Mike Malloy lived during the Great Depression but had a problem with alcohol.  Four guys in New York City decided to run an insurance scam, take out life insurance policies on him, and then drink him to death in a speakeasy owned by one of the scammers.  The story only gets started there.  There's a Wikipedia entry on Malloy, a New York Daily News story from 2007, and a FindAGrave entry for him, which all provide the details of the different ways the scammers tried to kill Mike Malloy.  The NY Daily News version is very thorough but there are extra facts in the other entries as well.

The Wikipedia entry makes note that this story is clearly the basis for an episode of Steven Spielberg's television series "Amazing Stories" back in the mid-1980s.  I'm amazed to realize that I actually remember that episode.

"Good enough" parenting vs. hyperparenting

Today Zach was diagnosed with strep.  It's the 2nd Vaughan strep casualty of the season so far.  But Zach's documentation said strep and "scarlet fever", which sounded ominous.  I did a little WebMD search and came up with the fact that scarlet fever is just strep with a rash.  No biggie.

Having solved the crisis, I clicked on another link at WebMD. From there, I read an article, which led me to Google something, which led me to this blog article titled "The Good-Enough Mother".

Seriously -- don't ask me how I ended up at MommyBloggers.com, but this article really struck a chord with me.  It contrasts "hyperparenting" and "attachment parenting" with "good enough" parenting.  I'm not saying it's the gospel truth, but this mom has a point, and it's worth a read if you're a parent, especially if you're not a perfect parent.

Trailer for the new Star Trek movie

In the way of Batman Begins, Star Trek is getting a facelift, and the trailer was released yesterday.  It has action, it has adventure, it has emotion, romance and apparently a little time between the sheets with Kirk and Uhura.  It gives insights into the younger Kirk and Spock and the coming together of the Enterprise crew.  And J. J. Abrams is directing it.  I could get into this.  The UK's Mail Online tears apart the trailer and tells us what we're seeing.

Mad soccer skills from a 6 year old

Obama flips the bird unconsciously at his opponent? TWICE?

This morning, the Drudge Report is linking to a YouTube video of Obama congratulating McCain for a hard fought battle.  But in the midst of the congratulation, he wipes his mouth 3 times, first with his forefinger, then with his thumb, and the last time with his middle finger.  So, looking at it one way, as he's in the middle of congratulating his opponent, it looks like he flips McCain the "bird".

Here's the clip:

If anything, it's hard to believe he would do that intentionally so publicly, so you want to think it's subconscious or just coincidence.  But YouTube's "related videos" column makes you begin to question that.  Below is a video from a North Carolina speech during the primaries during which Obama, slightly irritated, is discussing Hillary Clinton.  This one looks even more subconscious or inadvertent, but this version of the video has a slow-motion that notes the responses from audience members who seem to immediately notice that it looks like he just "flipped the bird" to Clinton while talking about her.

You've got to wonder what's going on here when it's happened in 2 different speeches at the exact moment when he's referring to his opponent.  Is it intentional?  Is it coincidence?  Is it subconscious?  How strange!