Happy 91st Birthday to William Shatner!
For as long as I live, I will always be proud and honored to have once been retweeted by William Shatner, for a Halloween photo that some friends and I made. That will probably be my one and only brush with the force of nature that is The Shatner. But it's enough :-)
Wow. Day twenty of writing a new blog post each day during Lent. I'm starting to believe that I can actually pull off this thing.
Yesterday while looking at the blog stats, I discovered something that startled me. Over the past 48 hours, this site has received three visits from Kiev, in Ukraine.
Someone going through tribulation that I cannot comprehend, for whatever reason thought to visit my blog. Actually, at least two someones. Two of the visits were repeats from the same IP address.
I really don't know what to say, about that. Except this:
Whoever you are, I am praying for you and your fellow Ukrainians. You are not forgotten. You have friends out here. And maybe someday, sooner than later, we can properly introduce ourselves to each other. Maybe someday we will get to meet in person.
I would very much be honored to know who you are, who out of all the blogs and websites out there, you picked this one.
God bless you and be with you.
A week ago I wrote about watching season one of The Chosen: the crowd-funded series about the life of Jesus and His followers. It's been on my mind a lot during the past several days, especially how magnificent the cinematography is. Like I said earlier this is camera work that is HBO premium television quality. The casting is excellent and the performances are endearingly genuine. This is a show that sucks you in and makes you wanting more.
I can also identify much with what Mary Magdalene has gone through. Season one's first episode made it pretty clear that she has been demonized by mental illness, and Jesus heals her of that. Something happens in season two that triggers a "relapse" of sorts, one that Jesus forgives her for. As one who lives with bipolar disorder, it was a reminder that my illness itself is not a sin. Though it has led to things I regret happened. But, His grace is sufficient, right?
Season two is just astounding. I really hope that this show will go the full seven seasons that have been plotted. Season three has been completely funded and Dallas Jenkins and his crew are already taking donations for season four. Season three is bound to be a whopper: there is a character introduced in the final episode of the second season who... let's just say I guessed pretty early on who this was going to be, and I was right and it made me shriek when he said what his name is. It's going to be VERY interesting to see how that particular character is developed.
As noted before, you have some options when it comes to watching The Chosen. I downloaded the app from the Apple App Store and it's also on Google Play. I've been watching it on my iPad but have streamed a few episodes to my high-def TV. They are also selling the series on Blu-Ray, and I've decided that it deserves some space in my library. Check out the official The Chosen website for more. As well as for contributing to future seasons, which I have decided is worth it.
I want more now! Oh well, there are two Christmas specials that I still haven't seen, but I'm going to wait until December to watch those.
I probably wouldn't be so fired-up ANGRY about this if I hadn't been a swimmer in high school...
Above you see a photo of Emma Weyant. She's been a swimmer on University of Virginia's team. She also earned silver as an individual during the Olympics. And in a sane world she SHOULD be recognized as the top women's swimmer in America.
Instead that recognition goes to someone who was ranked 500-something last year in men's swimming. And then "Lia Thomas" (real name William Thomas) decided that he was a woman. Even more so, that he was eligible to compete in women's swimming. And the University of Pennsylvania decided to indulge him that fantasy.
"Lia" proceeded to blast all competition out of the water (almost literally speaking). With the musculature and endurance of a male biology, no woman has been able to compete with Thomas. It has been as lopsided a competition as there has ever been. He has become the number one ranked women's swimmer in the country.
"Lia Thomas" has made a complete joke out of the sport of swimming. I'm not saying that Thomas shouldn't be swimming at all but he is a MAN and he should be swimming against OTHER MEN.
Thankfully, it seems that more people than not are supporting Emma Weyant and recognizing her as the one true women's swimming champion.
Mash down here for more about this travesty of college athletics.
Oleksii Kyrychenko of Kiev, Ukraine took this photo of his nine-year old daughter. He titled it "Girl with Candy":
A few days before the Russian invasion he took this photo:
Let us pray that Kyrychenko's daughter, and all of the children of Ukraine, can be brought through this present madness. Of all the things that are lost in war, childhood innocence must be among the most tragic.
Today... I ain't got nothing. Just too wiped out already from the proverbial "day at the office". And my mini dachshund Tammy is in my lap and REFUSES to let me get any real blogging done.
Maybe I'll have something tomorrow.
In the meantime, hot dogs for dinner! Don't y'all worry, Tammy gets a share too :-)
It's been awhile since I really followed college basketball. It's still the sport dearest to my heart, mostly because I remember cheering on the '83 "Cardiac Pack" team at North Carolina State as they won the national championship under coach Jim Valvano. And on the twenty-fifth anniversary of that game, I paid a visit to Valvano's grave to leave flowers. In high school I thrilled to watching Duke win back to back national titles after so many tries by Mike Krzyzewski (hey, I finally spelled his name right!!). One of these days maybe I'll get to see my alma mater Elon University go to "the Big Dance". And then everyone will be asking "Elon? Where's THAT?" just like we did with Gonzaga.
One person who knows basketball... and I mean REALLY knows it... is my lifelong best friend Chad Austin. He's been finding some good stuff lately and sharing it on Facebook and I thought it was worth passing along to all two of this blog's regular readers. The first is an article from the News & Observer about this being Krzyzewski's final season as Duke's coach, and his relationship with legendary UNC coach Dean Smith. Some may want to have a tissue handy.
Then today Chad posted this article about Griff Aldrich, the head coach at Longwood University. Aldrich is 47 and made a drastic career change mid-stream, from a job paying $800,000 a year to being the coach of a small school's men's basketball program. The Longwood Lancers tip off against Tennessee during tomorrow's opening round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Aldrich's story is nothing short of inspirational. It certainly is to me.
And finally, Chad turned in an article of his very own for the North Carolina Baptists website: about "Bones" McKinney, the legendary coach at Wake Forest University. McKinney had a dual career as basketball coach and also Baptist minister. Chad interviewed a lot of people, including basketball broadcasting giant Billy Packer, to get the story about McKinney and the impact he made on the court and in the pulpit. It's a terrific piece and this one also, is quite inspiring.
Thanks for finding this stuff Chad. Thanks to you I now have a school to root for this tourney: GO LONGWOOD!!
