My blog is worth $192,508.14.
How much is your blog worth?
Today and tomorrow we'll be heading to Rockville Maryland, a suburb of Washinton DC. Here's what our drive looks like.
What the map does not show is how mountainous the terrain is once we get into western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland. Hopefully the weather will be good for that part. How long will it take? It varies from 12.5 to 14 hours.
Pretty sure the image must be clicked to enlarge it.
| |
|
Pictures were taken last night
Dale put on his academic robes
Yes.
The band played
The graduates lined up
Ben was very happy
Babies had on the school colors
The crowd found their seats
It began and it finished and they are off to wherever they have been called.
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
I can't remember a time when I've felt so physically stiff and sore and tired. Probably last year at graduation, it's such a demanding time. But I'm not the only one and I'd like to give a shout of thanks to everyone on the seminary staff who have worked so hard to get the campus ready for this two day affair. We have staff who planned, checked and doubled checked and followed through for every event, staff who prepared, served and cleaned up after special meals, staff who cleaned and fixed and set up buildings and equipment, staff who got the landscape looking perfect.
All things physically and mentally tiring. Thank you everyone! Nothing you've done has gone unnoticed and we so appreciate the cheerful and uncomplaining way you've gone about all the work.
Yesterday one last thing was begun, the laying of sod in front of the new amphitheater, a place which was constructed entirely by students. The stonework, the grading of the soil, everything done by students who have myriad talents.
The only one missing from this picture was Ferdie, he was home conked out, sound asleep from all the activity. In the middle of yesterday a tour group from Christ Community Lutheran School came to the campus on a field trip and Ferdie is quite the welcome dog. CCLS is where Christian and Connor go to school although this was a fifth grade group.
No wonder he was too tired to help with the sod. Oh gosh, I just realized it's almost 8:30 and our first graduation service, the conferring of theological degrees is at ten. Luncheon for honorees and those receiving honorary doctorates. Then a rush to Kruta's bakery in Collinsville to pick up the after graduation cookies, then get ready for the 7 o'clock graduation ceremonies.
| |
|
Katie stood her boys up next to a Foxglove plant to see how tall they're getting. I'd say the Foxglove won.
Here's the Drewster
And Jake
We're driving out to visit with these boys next week. And to try and save the government. :)
| |
|
| |
|
Graduation events officially begin today after days, no weeks, of planning and preparation. Yesterday all the guys rolled up to our side yard and put up the tent which will be the center of a president's reception for graduates and their parents, grandparents, spouses. This is no easy task, setting up a tent which means wrestling with fabric and spikes and ropes and poles which combine to weigh hundreds of pounds. Here's a look at how the work gets done.
And done
| |
|
New Nielson survey results on TV watching by city, show that St. Louis is second only to Pittsurgh in the numbers of people who do live viewing. And, St. Louis leads the nation in Time Shifted Viewing. I had to look up the meaning of Time Shifted Viewing, which tells you how little programming we look at.
Time Shifted Viewing is the recording of programs (TiVo, DVR etc) to storage for watching at a later time. This is something we never, ever do, but know many people who use this method of watching TV more than any other.
San Francisco watched the least amount of TV.
| |
|
If there's one thing Washington is good at, it's forming committees.
Late night Tweet with a lot of truth:
"I guarantee you Obama cares infinitely more about Jon Stewart tearing him apart then just about anyone else in the media."
Also, it defies belief that Harry Reid would keep repeating that the Gosnell trial and verdict was more about unclean surgery rooms than the death of babies.
| |
|
Watching Morning Joe this morning and had that head slapping moment when NBC reporter Lisa Myers said this to a question about the DOJ confiscating the phone records of the Associated Press:
"The story damages the White House because it upsets the press - "one of the president's most important constituencies."
This got a huge laugh out loud from us. It's moments like this that make us feel we haven't been totally paranoid about the press corps and the Obama administration's close knit relationship. But it seems to be unraveling now...as it should. There has been way too much cosyness between the two which never allows for a necessary checks and balances.
| |
|
| |
|
For the past month we've been in a race against a date-May 17th-graduation. Since May 1st's Call Day events we've been hustling to attend various end of the school year events, get the landscape in perfect shape for visitors and keeping up with the daily routine. It's been one part marathon and one part sprint with this week being an all out sprint to the finish line.
Whew.
| |
|
What we've learned the past few days:
So, to recap: IRS hates conservatives, DOJ's spying on journos, HHS pressuring industry to fund Obamacare and then there's Benghazi.. (Tweet by someone yesterday)
If you haven't heard about the second one it's ok because the news broke just this afternoon. "The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for the Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news."
A tweet from Jonah Goldberg: Government is just the word we use for things we do together, like audit political enemies and monitor journalists' phone calls.
The explanations and so called outrage from the White House are sounding pretty thin right now.
| |
|
Abortion Dr of horrors, Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of murder in 3 of 4 babies and guilty of manslaughter in the death of a woman who died of an overdose at the clinic. Also found guilty of 21 counts of abortion of the unborn, 24 weeks or older.
His defense attorney said, "the “baby problem” was a big factor and the “media was overwhelmingly against” him." The baby problem. Wow.
The jury will return Tuesday to decide on his penalty.
| |
|
ABC posted a draft of the Inspector General's report on the IRS's targeting of conservative groups. It began in 2010. You can see the whole report here.
If this doesn't bother you, maybe it might be a good idea to think ahead to the next administration who may just think it would be just fine to have the IRS look into other political groups that may involve you.
| |
|
One with Lizzie and her brood, the other with Katie and hers. I liked these two pictures.
| |
|
Headline from a story about a Waterloo Illinois man charged with stealing big screen tvs from Collinsville and Glen Carbon Walmarts:
Man accused of RUNNING out of Walmart stores with Big-Screen TVs
Here's the thing, how many of us would be able to run and escape from a store while grappling with a large, boxed, big screen TV? And out of a Walmart no less where there are normally people in every aisle. Quite an image.
| |
|
Every federal piece of legislation seems to have extra things added which have nothing to do with the purpose of the actual bill. The new Immigration legislation is no different except that...
"The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.
Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID."
According to a spokeman for the ACLU, "The most worrying aspect is that this creates a principle of permission basically to do certain activities and it can be used to restrict activities,” he said. “It’s like a national ID system without the card."
Are we to be like the frogs who were put in water in which the temperature was gradually increased until we didn't notice we were being boiled alive? How much of big brother are we going to accept until it is too late?
The other day the president told university students to "reject warnings of government tyranny." Too late.
| |
|
