Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Random Thoughts and Stories On Life and the Olympics

Interesting Trip To Targe'

Last Friday, Paige and I went to Targe' (that is Target for those of you playing along at home.) We had dropped Ellie off at school (that feels weird to type) and were trying to make the most of our time. While there I had an encounter with The Oracle.

I was wearing a Tennessee t-shirt and was walking along minding my own business when a man drove his little Targe' Hoveround Scooter up to me and began to prophesy-- I am not kidding! He said, "I like your shirt. What do you think the Vols chances are?"

I answered the way any orange-blooded fan answers in the second week of August, "I think this may be the year, " I said with a smile.

Then it came.

"They will go undefeated the next two years and win back-to-back national championships," said the Oracle rather matter of factly. He went on to say that some fortune teller had let him in on that little nugget. Then, just as quickly as he rode up on me, he throttled away toward housewares.

Other than feeling as though I was ceremonially unclean and in need of repentance for having had an audience with the Targe' Oracle, my football spirits were bolstered. I found the whole encounter to be kind of surreal. "Have I just entered the Matrix?" I wondered.

Ellie
Ellie is loving school. She is going all day now and having a ball. That is a great relief.
  • I went into the office at Ellie's school and on the wall were two, large posters each containing what it claimed to be a "Chinese proverb." Do you think they would allow me to gift them two posters that contained Hebrew proverbs? How long would they be able to stay? I really get tired of the double standard.

  • Tonight, we went to Discovery Ice Cream and it was getting late so we got it to go. On the way home, Ellie was sitting in the back of my truck eating her cotton candy flavored ice cream when we passed a police officer in his cruiser. All the sudden Ellie yells, "The Police! Act naturally!" She thought we shouldn't be eating ice cream while riding in the truck. I thought I was going to swerve into him I was laughing so hard. That Disney Channel has got to go.

The Olympics

  • The opening ceremony was truly astounding. Words can't describe it. I just wonder what the outcry would be like if there were a ceremony that had as much Christian overtones as that one had Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.

  • Now we begin to hear the stories of how the cute little 9-year-old girl who "sang" really lip-synced to the voice of another little girl who was deemed unworthy due to her "buck teeth." Can we expect anything different from the Chinese?

  • I am enjoying watching the games. May I just say that the DVR is the greatest thing since the invention of the remote control. I don't have to watch synchronized diving. Who decided that was worthy to be called a sport? I don't have a problem with regular diving. I just don't see the allure of two people jumping in the pool together at exactly the same time and exactly the same way. We are losing baseball as an Olympic game, but we are keeping synchronized diving. Go figure.

  • Michael Phelps is simply amazing. He just broke another world-record while winning his 4th gold medal in the 200-meter butterfly-- with goggles that were completely filled with water! He can do this with his eyes closed.

  • Just as I was thinking that NBC's coverage was pretty stellar up to this point, they air a production piece in which Mary Carillo details the mating habits of the Panda. Huh? Too weird.




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