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Occasionally one gets to enjoy a very nearly perfect day.  Our Fourth of July was just such a day.  Sherry was already here.  (For a staff photographer, she does one heck of a cleaning job.)  Thanks for the help, sister.  Then mid-morning Mother, Dad, my two sisters, my brother-in-law, my niece and Jack arrived.  Jack had been seated at the far end of a Rio Grande restaurant table one night some time ago but we had never had a chance to visit.  I started to become a fan when he wore Moku out with a game of fetch.  Diving off the dock and playing in the water just cemented the deal.  We spent most of the day sitting in the shade at the lake and watching people launch their boats on the ramp across the way and piling on to and off of tubes those boats were there to pull.  It is quite an entertaining show.  They brought some good Carolina bbq and cole slaw which made for delicious sandwiches.  Most of us piled onto the pontoon boat and did a quick-ish tour of the lake.  This was followed by more eating and drinking and cheering on the bustling waterway full of people.  Everyone seemed to have a good time and to help everyone else to have a good time, so guess what?  I had a very good time.

Can Meena Build An Indian Google? is a great article posted on TechCrunch.  Roshni helps young girls from the slums in India realize their dreams of an education in technology despite obstacles most of us cannot even imagine if we wanted to.  Some of you may remember that in my book I spoke about how the Old Testament Jubilee not only set slaves free but returned land to the original equal distribution across the tribes of Israel.  That was because in an agrarian culture land was the source of both monetary wealth and social standing.  Today education is the great equalizer and there continues to be injustice worldwide in access to the hallowed halls of academia.   I intend to learn more about the Roshni Academy, but I salute their service in the Judea-Christian principle of balancing rewards and opportunity.  Go to TechCrunch for the full story.  It will inspire you.

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I was blessed to have the opportunity to see my Dad on Father’s Day. I tried to make him waffles but they stuck to the waffle iron in a heretofore unprecedented manner. Ugly, but still tasty. It was great to have the chance to go to the Strip in Pittsburgh with my “girls”, too. Capping it off I got a call from my son in Nevada while I was driving home yesterday. Another great family weekend.

Before dinner, Saturday, Joy and I toured Matt’s new and first home in historic South Park.  It is a beautiful 1920’s Arts and Crafts brick home in what is probably my favorite part of Morgantown.  I hope to have more on that in a later post.  Saturday night my brother’s family celebrated Dad with us at “Dad’s” restaurant, Rio Grande.  Sunday morning I got to see my California nephew, Alex, and my sister and her husband, who had just returned from their vacation in Maine.  If you weren’t with your Dad yesterday, I hope you were blessed with happy thoughts and sweet memories.  Aren’t Dads great?

Sarah and Paul, thanks for having us over for a fun dinner. Here are some of the pictures Ruth and I took.

Joy and I had a fun weekend. Thursday night we drove to Morgantown.   Friday Joy saw her kids in Pittsburgh and I toured Matt’s new house.   My brothers car wash is running now and his new convenience store looks about ready to open next week.   Jean and Harvey joined the group at Rio Grande. (It was kind of freaky some of the overlapping history Harvey and I shared.)   Saturday we had this great time at the Steels. Sunday we had breakfast with Mary in Alexandria.   She is doing and looking well.   We then went to Hades, I mean Colonial Beach, where my crazy friends were working on their sailboat in extraordinary heat.   I envy them their project, the potential of their boat is off the charts, but can’t imagine the commitment that had them working on such a scorching day.   Overall, our whirlwind tour was made great by seeing so many of the people we love.

(As usual click on the picture for a slide show or the caption for the album.)

I went to see Letters to Juliet this past Friday. Like a lot of people, I read movie reviews before deciding to lay my tiny fortune down at the ticket gate of my local theater. Although no longer an account holder at Rotten Tomatoes after their merger with Flixster, it is a great site for a quick overview of critics’ opinions about my potential choices. Sadly, it is clear that many of these reviewers need to be schooled in the art of writing a movie review for a chick flick. Good news. I’m here to give them that schooling.

First let me tell you what not to do. Do NOT criticize a romance movie for a predictable plot or an inevitably happy ending. The genre requires either said happy ending (Nora Ephron) or a melodramatically weepy romantically tragic ending (Nicholas Sparks). A movie critic who complains about the plot being predictable or the ending being happy is kin to the moron who complains that comic book movies like Iron Man 2 or Spider Man 3 lack character development or war movies like Saving Private Ryan are too violent. Failure to grasp fundamental concepts underlying the genre inform us as consumers that the reviewer is an idiot and should not be taken seriously.

Read more…

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Well, this should be the last post about this specific cruise. I loved the cruise. I have enjoyed sharing it with you. I hope you have enjoyed sharing this as well. A few last pictures from the ship and a video of my “hardships” at sea.

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Recently, I was asked off line whether I was viewing the ports of our travels through rose colored glasses. This question arose from my positive review of Miami. Well, strike the pose of Rodin’s Thinker, boys and girls (or click here for some mindless YouTube entertainment), we’re going in.

More tragic than a fallen angel, we are fallen bearers of the image of a glorious God. This is the dilemma of man as written about in Reinhold Niebuhr’s book, The Nature and Destiny of Man. Let us call this dilemma ‘ying.’ Where then is the ‘yang’? The yang is in the mystery of God’s judgment and grace. God judges evil and offers grace (through the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ) to fallen image bearers.

This is the theological truth underlying the dark and glorious mystery of our world and our lives. Whether we look at history or the present day, there should be no doubt that evil is real: holocaust, hunger, pollution, oppression, repression, ignorance, hate, laziness, gluttony, insensitivity, selfishness. Why do our languages have words for these things? Because we needed to describe what we see outside ourselves. Perhaps even more depressing, is that we can see dark shadows in ourselves as well.

But there are other words: love, laughter, compassion, creativity, rescue, sacrifice, forgiveness, support, friendship, family. We need words like these because this, too, is a part of our experience.

Read more…

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The monkeys of Panama were a rare treat for me. But one of my favorite things in the world to do is to snorkel and Grand Cayman filled the bill. The bountiful reefs of Seven Mile Beach kept me mesmerized. We hope you’ll enjoy these pictures and the video sharing in more detail our fun in the Caymans.

Click on the picture above for a slideshow or its caption for the album. It may take a while for the slideshow to load because there are quite a few pictures in this set. The video below lasts a little over three minutes – take a deep breath before you dive in!

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Our third port was Colon, Panama. From here we headed to the Gamboa Rainforest along the Panama Canal and rode a boat out to Monkey Island. Monkey Island is in Gatun Lake, the fresh water source for the Panama Canal.

If anyone wanted more monkey pictures or to ride along in a boat on the Panama Canal, this post offers both opportunities. Click on the picture above for a slideshow or its caption for the album. Don’t miss the little boat ride video below, either.

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Our second port was Cartagena. Click on the picture above for a slideshow, the caption for the album, or the picture below for a video.