Month: October 2003

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ouch #2

this afternoon i learned of another natural symbiotic relationship that yellow jackets have (for the first symbiotic relationship see the entry from [url=http://www.parkviewyouth.org/blog/?postid=5] August 23rd[/url]). today noah’s tiger cub den had a field trip to the bluebonnet swamp reserve to observe nature and to do a service project. the service project was picking up trash around the reserve. the observing of nature was watching the mass of yellow jackets swarm out of the area in which we were picking up trash.

we were walking around the pavement picking up small pieces of trash and trying to make the reserve look better. what we didn’t know is that yellow jackets have apparently not only made a bargain with bushes to protect them but they have also cut some type of deal with random pieces of trash. i’m not sure if the deal works for every piece or trash or not but i am sure that is works for tootsie roll wrappers. one of the kids there saw the wrapper and bent down to pick it up. at first i didn’t see what she was picking up, because if i had i would have screamed for her to stop. i have vast personal experience with yellow jackets and i am familiar with all the symbiotic relationships they have. therefore, i knew about the little known yellow jacket / tootsie roll wrapper deal. unfortunately she didn’t so she picked up the wrapper.

yellow jackets apparently really believe in keeping their promises because the second she picked up the wrapper they began to attack every breathing thing within 100 feet of the disturbed tootsie roll wrapper. if you think the thought of a 35 year old man running from yellow jackets is funny, just imagine six tiger cubs running away from the little beasts. it was chaos.

of course, the midst of all the action only two people were stung – 1) the girl who disturbed the tootsie roll wrapper, 2) me – the knower of all things yellow jacket. oh, i hate the little pests. i think i will begin killing all the yellow jackets i see. they can have a symbiotic relationship with my fly swatter.

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holiday inn

i bet by now the two people who actually read my blog think that i have given up on doing this. well don’t worry mom and dad (the only two who read this thing) i have not given up on it. i just took a small sabbatical from typing up the events of life (translation nothing funny was happening).

i’m through with my typing respite now and i have an entry that relates to a holiday inn express television commercial and a friend of mine�jim wallace, the parkview associate pastor of education. two sundays ago “the ring” (parkview’s college worship service) had a cd release for “the junkyard taboo,” the band for “the ring.” as a part of the whole release-fellowship thingy the waco hit sunday school class decided to give free food to the college students. it was a cool idea and all the students loved it.

after the fellowship was through the class began to clean up the chairs and tables used during the event. steve, one of the class members was moving a stack of chairs when it suddenly fell on top of his left leg. i’m not sure if you’ve ever had a stack of chairs fall on your leg but from the sounds made by steve as a result of the chairs landing i would have to tell you that i would not recommend it. the result of the crash was the dislocation of steve�s left knee. not a pretty picture. lots of people rushed over to help him. one of those helpers was jim wallace. jim used to be a basketball coach and upon seeing steve�s dislocated knee he reached down and “popped” it back into place. of course, steve still needed medical treatment but at least his knee was no longer 6 inches away from being in the right spot. an ambulance was called to take steve to the hospital.

when the ambulance got to parkview steve told them what had happened and that jim had put his leg back into place. the paramedics turned to jim and asked “sir, are you a doctor?” without a second�s hesitation jim responded “no, but i did sleep in a holiday inn express last night.” 🙂

p.s. if you haven�t laughed at the humor of this you need to watch more commercials.

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dare to be stupid

How To Fly
� by Douglas Adams

There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day, [The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy] suggests, and try it.

The first part is easy. All it requires is simply the ability to throw yourself forward with all your weight, and the willingness not to mind that it’s going to hurt.

That is, it’s going to hurt if you fail to miss the ground. Most people fail to miss the ground, and if they are really trying properly, the likelihood is that they will fail to miss it fairly hard.

Clearly, it is the second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.

One problem is that you have to miss the ground accidentally. It’s no good deliberately intending to miss the ground because you won’t. You have to have your attention suddenly distracted by something else when you’re halfway there, so that you are no longer thinking about falling, or about the ground, or about how much it’s going to hurt if you fail to miss it.

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the test of fire

nothing funny today but a verse of scripture that has been stuck in my head for awhile.

12Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13each man�s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man�s work. 14If any man�s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. 15If any man�s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. 1 Corinthians 3:12-15

have you done anything today that will survive being tested by fire? not sure about you but the have been quite a few days in which i’m not sure that i’ve done anything that would lst and be considered worthwhile. just want to encourage you, while i am also encouraging myself, to try to do something each day that will stand the test of fire.

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it’s chuckie therapy

some of ya’ll know that pam, my wife, is a speech pathologist. this means she has the incredible job of helping children and adults learn and sometimes re-learn how to communicate with the world around them. she does some fascinating stuff. awhile back she was telling me how certain individuals with various communication problems are able to communicate better with animals or puppets (for those who stutter or love someone who stutters you can relate this to the way so many people who stutter have a much more difficult time talking on the phone than they do talking in a one sided conversation face to face). the biggest problems they face are with talking with humans. because of this some therapist have started using animals and puppets with very young individuals to get them focused on learning to communicate. pam read about therapists who did their therapy through puppets and the children would communicate with the puppet and basically forget that what was going on was actually therapy – i know this sounds a little odd but if it helps a child to be able to talk and interact with his/her world then i am all for it.

being the great speech pathologist that she is pam decided to give this whole thing a try. she order a puppet and had two children picked for a trial run with the whole thing. the first test of the therapy was today and it met with less than stellar results. when pam started talking through the puppet it did not help her two subjects to communicatebetter. they did not find it easier to talk with the puppet than with pam. no! the puppets simply scared the crud out of both of her test subjects. instead of opening up to the world around them each child stared wide-eyed, slowly backed away form the puppet, and then hide in the corner of the room whimpering about the crazed little person that was coming after them. so much for puppet therapy. now these two poor kids have to go through psychotherapy to chase away the nightmares of the killer puppets within their speech therapy. chalk one up for modern science.

okay, here’s my disclaimer. pam is amazing at what she does. i can’t tell you the numbers of people who can now talk because of what GOD does through her. she blows me away. she just told me this story today and we both laughed about the humor of the puppets not only not helping but actually scaring the kids. she knows i put the story in the blog, so i’m not talking behind her back. she’s great … even is she does terrify small helpless children.