respublica

Interested in the Rose Parade?

We almost always watch the Rose Parade because it's a great parade, but also Dale has ridden on floats 3 times. Two years ago the whole family went out to Pasadena for the parade and it was such a memorable experience to have all the grandsons watching right on the street.

It begins at 10 Central Time. If you're interested in certain entries, here is a link to the order of appearance tomorrow. The Lutheran Hour Ministries float will be 61 out of 91 entries. i have to confess, as good as the parade is, the getting out of there and to a car and back to wherever you're staying is a nightmare of traffic and closed streets and people walking in front of cars. But it's worth it.

After we broke free from the congestion two years ago we stopped at an In N Out burger place and it was so good. Most of us in the family had never had an In N Out burger so it was a treat. I wish St. Louis would get one of these and also a Chicago based Portillo's Italian beef franchise. Why is St. Louis ignored by these well loved places that go to so many other states?

weird stats

There is a statistic for everything it seems, especially in sports. Who keeps track of all these things? Here is one from college football and I do want to know who looked this up.

"Since 2003, every Oklahoma Heisman Trophy winner has lost in the post-season to an SEC team."

This is about as finite a stat as you'll ever see.

List of words to be banished in 2019

Lake Superior State University in Michigan publishes a list of words and phrases they, and probably we, are tired of hearing and put them on a banished list. This year's list is headed up by the word "collusion". It then continues with the following:

Wheelhouse

In the books

Wrap my head around

Platform

OTUS

Yeet

Litigate

Grapple

Eschew

crusty

optics

legally drunk

thought leader

Importantly

Accouterments

Most important election of our time

 

 

New Year's Eve thoughts from the web

Came across two New Year's thoughts this morning which are interesting. Maybe I'll add more as I find them during the course of the day.

From a New Yorker: "New Year's Eve in New York City: stand outside for 12 hours in the cold being elbowed by total strangers so you can watch Ryan Seacrest count down from ten, then get on a packed train and stand with drunks all the way to Bellmore. What part of this sounds like fun?" 

We usually watch part of the Times Square ball drop on New Year's Eve and have wondered the same thing.

From Chad Bird: "New Year's Eve is the annual festival of we're:

Not good enough

Not skinny enough

Not nice enough

Not smart enough

It is the unholy day of the Little Law that always accuses us. Today and every day hear this: Christ is our Enough in Him alone we are 100% pleasing to God."

A family church service

Dale preached at The Lutheran Church of Webster Gardens this morning, the church our kids attend. As it happened, grandson Christian acolyted and Lizzie was a reader.

The Best Tournament food is found in...

Collinsville!

This was an awesome bit of news last night. Each year between Christmas and New Year's there are high school basketball tournaments going on all over the St. Louis area. Collinsville high school has held a BB tournament for years which include teams from all over the state and tonight the Kahoks will be playing in the championship game. This is great news, but even better is a report from Fox2 news.

One of the guests Earl Austin, sat down to discuss some of the games but also gave his annual rating of the "Best Eats" to be found at various tournament sites. Collinsville was number one!  The link has a bit of tournament talk but at the end, comes the food rating and he raves about what is found at the Kahok tournament.

 

A couple of weeks ago I posted a picture I love of Christian sitting with his St. Louis pastor just talking and discussing things. Now a picture I also love of Drew getting hugged by his Maryland pastor after Christmas Eve worship. Two wonderful pastors and the kids are so blessed to have them in their lives.

Sell by dates

I am never without Triscuits or the Chex Mix Cheddar snack mix. I have a rigid habit of putting cream cheese on the Triscuits, adding a handful of the Chex mix to a plate, pouring a glass of wine, and sitting down between 4 and 5 in the late afternoon to watch the news and share this feast with Ferdie. I miss this routine when we have to be somewhere in that time frame. Doing this regularly and buying these things regularly, has had me paying attention to sell by dates. If you don't pay much attention to the dates, you might be surprised at how far out they are.

For instance, I have a couple of new boxes of Triscuits with a sell by date of June 2019. And, the current Chex Mix has a sell by date of September 2019. This means they are the freshest and, if I come across a January 2019 or earlier, I know it's about the oldest. I'm rigid in my eating habits, I'll confess, but watching the cracker dates has made me pay more attention to the freshness dates on everything else I buy in the grocery store.

Packaged crackers, cereal, snacks, all seem to have approximately 6 month and more lead time in their sell by dates. Just an FYI.

A much needed new laptop

I've been struggling with my computers for some time and happily got a new laptop for Christmas. I spent most of Christmas Eve day setting it up, it's not as simple and quick as you might think. For every program or file or app I had to download them and then find and re-enter all the user names and passwords. Not hard but time consuming. I'm just so happy to have one that works fast. Here is a pro tip: Put all your user names and passwords in one place.

My desktop computer no longer has an internet connection because it is fairly old and did not come with the capability to use wireless. It had been hooked up to the cable internet but when I went out and bought the Google wireless system the cable line went into the first of the three routers. It's a great wireless system, it comes with 3 modules, the other 2 can be set out in different spots in the house without plug ins. But that made my desktop useless. I used Dale's laptop for a while to get his Meyer Minute sent out, but it is so slow, slower than the old dial up.

So I'm happy with the new one, it just takes time to adjust to the new features. I was surprised there is not a slot for an SD card which I use to download photos from my camera. It seems SD cards are not part of most new laptops. I did learn there is a flash drive/memory stick I can buy which has a USB end and slots to hold SD cards and other USB flash drives. They're not sold everywhere, but I hope to find one. I use a camera more often than I take pictures with my phone.

A blessed Christmas to all here

We actually have more energy than Ferdie today.