Lift Up Your Hearts!

When we visited Switzerland for Christmas, I thought our biggest gift was the Hot Wheels Ultimate Garage, which barely qualified as half of our checked baggage allowance.

That gift did indeed make quite an impression on our young grandchildren, but I'm beginning to wonder if we didn't also bring a gift of more widespread impact: Florida weather.

While we were there, Switzerland enjoyed its warmest January on record.

Meanwhile, Florida was experiencing weather that looked more Alpine: snow in Tallahassee, freezes in Central Florida. There were days when it was significantly warmer in Lucerne than in Orlando.

And that's not all. On January 3, a storm, named Burglind, brought Florida-style hurricane-force winds to Switzerland, wreaking havoc across the country and blowing away previous records. Winds of over 120 miles per hour were measured on Lucerne's Mount Pilatus. That's a high Category 3 hurricane if you live in Florida.

Now that we're home, the weather appears to have stablilized in both places.

The conclusion is obvious: It is we, not George Bush or Donald Trump, who are causing climate change.

Is anyone interested in providing us an all-expenses-paid vacation to somewhere up north? Buffalo, New York? Minneapolis, Minnesota? Hillsboro, New Hampshire?

I guess I should end this year with a serious post, some profound commentary, philosophy, or at least a glimpse into my hopes and dreams for 2018.

Instead, you get MarbleLympics.

This is thanks to our Swiss grandchildren, who are huge fans of Jelle's Marble Runs.

The whole family enjoys them, but Joseph (7) and Daniel (4) are obsessed, watching the videos when allowed, running their own marble races with their Hubelino sets, in the sand on the beach, or on the bare living room floor. The family received a beautiful, 3D map of Switzerland for Christmas; in Daniel's eyes, the Alpine valleys were just so many marble runs.

For months, Joseph has been teaching himself Dutch through DuoLingo, hoping for a chance to visit to Jelle Bakker himself in the Netherlands.

Porter and I have also been captivated by the MarbleLympics. Here's the opening ceremony and first event of the 2017 games; from there you can find much more to watch than you'll ever have time for. It's all very cleverly done, and I love the commentator, who not only calls the events like a professional, but reports "an injury on the field" when a collision results in a chipped marble, and issues a serious call for better stadium security when some marbles fall out of the stands and "rush onto the field."

Enjoy!  And have a happy New Year, too.

On our cruise to Mexico and Cuba with two of our grandchildren we were given a quick lesson in napkin folding. Naturally, the kids picked up on it better than the adults. This morning, a friend shared on Facebook a video of napkin folding techniques from the Ever & Ivy site. Unfortunately, I can't find the video on YouTube, so I can't embed it here, but hopefully the link will still work when I want to find it again. (There are also plenty of other napkin-folding instructional videos on YouTube.) Warning: I'm sure there are other good things about the Ever & Ivy site, but I can't recommend it in general. Good ideas + Bad language = I'll find the good ideas elsewhere, thank you. Except for the napkin folding—no words.

Math, art, travel, photography. What's not to like?

For some reason, probably all of the above, this photo of "Seventeen parallel flowlines running between Flow Station 2 and Drill Site 3, Drill Site 9, Drill Site 16, Drill Site 17 and Endicott at the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field" really struck me this morning when I read David July's Mount Sutro post, The Linear Perspective Orthogonals. (The photo is from the Mount Sutro Gallery. License agreement here.)

This is for someone who will appreciate it, even if the rest of you are covering your ears.

One of my goals for the coming 12 months is to re-read Charles Williams' The Place of the Lion (the only book of his I own), plus one more of his novels. Dorothy Sayers said,

To read only one work of Charles Williams is to find oneself in the presence of a riddle—a riddle fascinating by its romantic colour, its strangeness, its hints of a rich and intricate unknown world just outside the barriers of consciousness; but to read all is to become a free citizen of that world and to find in it a penetrating and illuminating interpretation of the world we know.

I'm pretty sure I won't manage all, but I can at least get past one, which did indeed leave me totally confused the first and second times I read it.

While on amazon.com, perusing offerings such as War in Heaven, Descent into Hell, and All Hallows' Eve, I came upon this:

I'm pretty sure I'll go with one of his more well-known works, but the title does have a certain topical attraction. In actuality, it refers to tarot cards, but why let accuracy get in the way of a joke?

In this classic tale of spirituality, morality, and the occult, a dark plot to murder an unsuspecting Englishman who possesses the world’s rarest tarot deck unleashes uncontrollable elemental forces.

This morning I found a good illustration for why it is important to look at the whole picture when trying to determine "what the Bible says."

As choir members, we've all cringed when a conductor addresses "singers and musicians," but did you know that it has Biblical imprimatur?

Your procession is seen, O God,
the procession of my God, my King, into the sanctuary—
the singers in front, the musicians last....

— Psalm 68:24-25, English Standard Version

The King James Version is kinder, saying, "The singers went before, the players on instruments followed after."

The Scene:  A restaurant, where the "background music" is very much not in the background, and questionably musical.

She:  Even if I knew enough to appreciate the music, even if I could understand the words and not be appalled by them, I still couldn't stand the driving drum beat.  I just don't get the attraction of all that relentless pounding.

He:  It's sexual.

She:  You're kidding.

He:  That's what they say.

She:  Well, they must be right, because it gives me a headache.

Hallelujah! Christ is risen! He was OBSERVED by many in his resurrected state.

My serious Easter post is still half written, but thanks to my cousin Stephanie, who shared this from kevinfrank.net, I can give you an Easter chuckle to accompany your Easter joy.

Once upon a time, when my oldest nephew (now 24) was young, he took my cell phone and asked to play games. I replied that my phone did not do games. True, it had some very, very basic games on it (it was a very, very basic phone by today's standards), but I wouldn't stoop to using a phone for such purposes.

Fast foward.

I'm still of the opinion that mobile phones are not primarily gaming devices, but I have been known to acknowledge their usefulness for that function, primarily in two ways: Peak brain training, and the latest addition, Word Chums. I was introduced to the latter by my grandkids during their recent visit. As I find with most video games, there's a lot of silliness to it (competitions, and accessories you can buy for your character with game coins you can earn), and you have to endure a few ads. But the ad-free version is only $4 if you find them too annoying. (You still get the silliniess.)

Word Chums is basically a Scrabble game, but in a form I find much more appealing. Instead of having to spend several contiguous hours over a game board, you can make your move and go on living your life while your opponent(s) are thinking. Or living their own lives—which means there can be hours or even days between moves. I'm fine with that. This is a game for busy people, who can find odd minutes here and there to play.

It is also a game for scattered people. I can enjoy a game with family members in Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and I'm sure even Switzerland, though we haven't tested that yet. We can have several games going on at once, with different combinations of people, all playing whenever it's convenient to them.

In real Scrabble, there are huge penalties for guessing. Word Chums lets you play around with your letters to see what works, get hints, look up meanings. "Cheat" if you wish to call it that, but I'm not a purist. It makes the game accessible for the younger ones, and even us old folks are learning new words. Who know "qi" was a word? In my Scrabble days, if you didn't have a U, your Q tile was useless. I'm happy to add this useful word to my vocabulary. I'm told it means "the energy in everything." I took a boatload of physics courses in college and never heard of it, but who cares? It works very well in this game.

Somebody (Grant Woolard) knows how to have fun!  And I'm sure it was a ton of work, too.   (Thanks, Dawn.)

The Original

Our neighbor is selling the huge collection of antique and otherwise interesting tools (over 450) that once decorated the walls of his barber shop. You can see them all here. If you're interested in buying any of them, you can send an inquiry to the e-mail address at the top of that page. But that's not the main reason I'm posting this; the percentage Porter gets from helping with the sale doesn't begin to cover the time he's putting into it, let alone my own.

I post because I'm at heart a lover of museums. Even if you don't particularly care about tools, it's fun just browsing through this amazing assortment. True, there aren't any captions; I liken it to visiting a museum in a foreign country, where the annotations are all in another language. It's still fun, even if you miss some of the subtleties.

UPDATE 11/13/19:  As items have been sold, some of the links have broken.  I may get around to fixing them someday.  In the meantime, the link to the website still works.

The BBC's coverage of the 44th annual March for Life is lacking a little in credibility. Either that, or they have a phone line to heaven I wish they'd share.

After reporting that Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the march, the BBC added,

Former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W Bush have also addressed the crowds, but over the phone.

I assume they mean that during their time in office these presidents spoke to the marchers, but I rather like this image.

Soon we'll be singing a new Gloria in church: Carl MaultsBy's Gloria in Excelsis. (Yes, that's how he spells his name, with the uppercase B.)  We'd experienced his music and his leadership before, at the ordination service for our bishop, Greg Brewer.  As with the piece we sang then, this Gloria is not easy for the choir, though it's singable and catchy and stays with you, so I'm sure it won't take the congregation long to learn what they need to know.

The syncopated rhythm is difficult for those of us who haven't grown up with it, and the alto part has some, shall we say, less-than-intuitive intervals.  Don't get me wrong; I really like the song and am looking forward to singing it weekly until Advent.  But I mention the difficulty to explain why I was poking around on MaultsBy's website, trying to find a recording.  If I had succeeded, I'd share it here.  Alas, I did not.

However, I did find something that rewarded my efforts.

MaultsBy's music may be difficult, but I can't say I find it frightening.  :)

I never understand how my brain works.  But because our grandchildren will probably enjoy the video, I'll confess that this song is where my thoughts went next.

My father was left-handed, and so was my mother-in-law.  Hence we were not surprised when Heather turned out to be left-handed, too.  I believe there are left-handers on Jon's side of the family as well, so it is a little surprising that only one of their kids (possibly two, it's too early to tell) joined the lefty club.  Probably they all are somewhat mixed dominant, anyway, as most of our family is.  I, for example, am strongly right-handed—scoring 24% on this left-handedness quiz—but nonetheless am left-eyed, left-eared, and have some other left-handed traits (the arm position questions on the quiz).

Be that all as it may:  To Heather, and Jeremiah, and any reader I'm leaving out (feel free to chime in with a comment), I wish you a

Happy Left Handers Day!

(And a Happy Birthday to my friend for whom this day was special long before there was an official Left Handers Day.