Gas prices here have dropped just a little bit to around 3.25 a gallon. 
What are your gas prices? 

Honor student suspended for buying candy

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (UPI) — A New Haven, Conn., eighth-grader was suspended from school and stripped of his class vice president title for buying a bag of Skittles at school.

Sheridan Communications and Technology Middle School handed down the punishment in accordance with a 2003 New Haven school system policy banning all candy sales in schools as part of the district wellness policy, the New Haven Register reported Wednesday.

Michael Sheridan ‘s suspension was reduced from three days to one, but his mother said she still believes the punishment is too severe for the crime of purchasing candy from another student in the hallway.

“It’s too much. It’s too unfair,” Shelli Sheridan said. “He’s never even had a detention.”

However, the district said it has been very clear about its policy toward candy sales on school grounds.

“There are no candy sales allowed in schools, period,” said school spokeswoman Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo.

I’ve heard other school incidents where it seemed the school’s weren’t using common sense.  Is the schools going too far in some cases?

Oh! Look what I found he was cleared     thanks beadbrat

 

Spacewalkers will add tool kit to space station robot

I had a great time last night with my 3 year old.  Head Start had a function.  Coloring eggs, then an egg hunt.  The ambulance also came.  Several teens from my church helped.  They were great. 

What is the single most important relationship in your life today?

Here is some interesting research done by Barna on the subject of relationships:

Among the related findings were:  
       (Most Americans listed family above God as their most important relationship.)

1. The people most likely to list God were 40 or older.
2. Political conservatives were almost three times as likely as political liberals to identify God as their most important relationship (33% vs. 12%, respectively).
3. People in the Midwest were only half as likely as residents of the West and Northeast to say their children are their most important relationship.
4. The only subgroup for which at least one-third said God was their most significant relationship was evangelicals, among whom 70% listed God.
5. Thirty percent of Protestants listed God as their most important connection. In contrast, just 9% of Catholics did so.
6. Blacks were about twice as likely as all other Americans to describe their bond with God as their most important relationship.
7. Women were nearly twice as likely as men to list their children as their most important relationship.

I wrote this article for our local paper:   I’d love to hear your thoughts.

P & D Article – Africa & family

 

In the early part of this year I traveled with a team of Children’s Pastors to Nigeria, Africa.  My 22 year old daughter, Alicia went with us.  We trained over 200 Children’s Pastors/Children’s Workers for Children’s Ministry.  The question that was asked over and over again was this: “What are we to do with all these children?” 

I saw a lot of children while I was in Nigeria.  We went into one village and began to talk to a few children.  The few children soon became over a hundred children.  They were so fun to be with.  They enjoyed trying to say our names.  (We enjoyed them trying.)  They made funny faces at us and us at them. 

In the 2 weeks I was there I made some observations.  I only saw one family unit in all that time and that was at the conference.  What I mean by a family unit is a Mom & Dad with their children.  What I saw was a lot of children by themselves.  Many times the children were headed to the town water well or coming back from school.   Another observation was the amazement of the Nigerians of my daughter and me working together.  Apparently that is unheard of in Nigeria.

I was impacted by a statement of one the Nigerian Children’s Pastors.  His name was Ime Joseph and lived in the southern part of Nigeria.  It took him two days by bus to get to Jos, Nigeria, where the conference was being held.  Ime told me that he had been praying for America.  I was humbled by his statement.  He went on to tell me that he felt America was on a downward trail because of America’s treatment of her children.    I’ve not been able to get that statement out of my mind.  It made me grateful for what we have, but I had to wonder what we’re loosing.  As a nation we don’t value the unborn & the born as we should and there is an attempt to redefine the family.  When we have strong bible defined families we have a strong nation.  

 

“When they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet Him, and began to shout, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.’” - John 12:12-13 NASB

Today I’ll have the kids walk around the church waving palms.  It’ll be fun.

Jules Vern moves to its launcher

PARIS (UPI) — The European Space Agency’s first automated transfer vehicle, the Jules Verne, has been placed on top of an Ariane 5 rocket for launch from French Guiana.

The Jules Verne — encapsulated in a huge container on top of the launcher with a total mass of about 21,000 tons — will become the largest payload ever launched by Ariane 5. The historic mission with the first European space supplier for the International Space Station is scheduled for a night-time launch March 8 from the ESA spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

During the next week all connections — electrical, pyrotechnical and fluid interfaces — will be checked on the ATV and Ariane 5, the ESA said. One week before liftoff, all launch teams and different control centers around the world will simulate a full 10-hour countdown.

The Jules Verne is to dock with the orbiting space station in early April.

When I was young I didn’t like English class.  I learned to really enjoy grammer when I homeschooled my children.  Here is a grammar lesson:

Verbs.
Use active verbs unless there is no comfortable way to get around a passive verb. The difference between an active-verb style and a passive-verb style–in clarity and vigor–is the difference between life and death for a writer.

“Joe saw him” is strong. “He was seen by Joe” is weak. The first is short and precise; it leaves no doubt about who did what. The second is necessarily longer and it has an insipid quality: something was done by somebody to someone else. It’s also ambiguous. How often was he seen by Joe? Once? Every day? Once a week? A style that consists of passive constructions will sap the reader’s energy. Nobody ever quite knows what is being perpetrated by whom and on whom.

I use “perpetrated” because it’s the kind of word that passive-voice writers are fond of. They prefer long words of Latin origin to short Anglo-Saxon words–which compounds their trouble and makes their sentences still more glutinous. Short is generally better than long. Of the 701 words in Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, a marvel of economy in itself, 505 are words of one syllable and 122 are words of two syllables.

Verbs are the most important of all your tools. They push the sentence forward and give it momentum. Active verbs push hard; passive verbs tug fitfully. Active verbs also enable us to visualize an activity because they require a pronoun (“he”), or a noun (“the boy”), or a person (“Mrs. Scott”) to put them in motion. Many verbs also carry in their imagery or in their sound a suggestion of what they mean: glitter, dazzle, twirl, beguile, scatter, swagger, poke, pamper, vex. Probably no other language has such a vast supply of verbs so bright with color. Don’t choose one that is dull or merely serviceable. Make active verbs activate your sentences, and try to avoid the kind that need an appended preposition to complete their work. Don’t set up a business that you can start or launch. Don’t say that the president of the company stepped down. Did he resign? Did he retire? Did he get fired? Be precise. Use precise words.

If you want to see how active verbs give vitality to the written word, don’t just go back to Hemingway or Thurber or Thoreau. I commend the King James Bible or William Shakespeare.

JOKE
Cross Examination

A defense attorney was cross-examining a police officer during a felony trial – it went like this:

Q. Officer, did you see my client fleeing the scene?
A. No sir, but I subsequently observed a person matching the description of the offender running several blocks away.

Q. Officer, who provided this description?
A. The officer who responded to the scene.

Q. A fellow officer provided the description of this so- called offender. Do you trust your fellow officers?
A. Yes sir, with my life.

Q. With your life? Let me ask you this then officer – do you have a locker room in the police station – a room where you change your clothes in preparation for you daily duties?
A. Yes sir, we do.

Q. And do you have a locker in that room?
A. Yes sir, I do.

Q. And do you have a lock on your locker?
A. Yes sir.

Q. Now why is it, officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your life, that you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with those same officers?
A. You see sir, we share the building with a court complex, and sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room.

With that, the courtroom erupted in laughter, and a prompt recess was called.

 

St. Patrick’s Day – Celebrating the Green

St. Patrick is believed to have driven the snakes from Ireland. Once a pagan himself, St. Patrick is one of Christianity’s most widely known figures.

The modern secular holiday is based on the original Christian saint’s feast day also thought to be the date of the saint’s death. In 1737, Irish immigrants to the United States began observing the holiday publicly in Boston and held the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City in 1766.

Today, the tradition continues with people from all walks and heritages by wearing green, eating Irish food, and attending parades. St. Patrick’s Day is bursting with folklore; from the shamrock to the leprechaun and to pinching those that are not wearing green.

I just finished the Winslow series – 40 books.  I’ve been reading the series over the past 10 years.  I stretched it out because I didn’t want it to end.  It’s like I’m saying goodbye to a good friend.

I’m going to be on a panel, answering questions tonight for new foster parents. 

Our Foster Baby is getting tubes in her ears today.  I wonder if she’ll start walking soon. 

Saturn’s moon Rhea may have rings

PASADENA, Calif. (UPI) — U.S. scientists said NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has detected what appears to be a ring surrounding Rhea, one of Saturn’s largest moons.

It is the first time rings may have been found around a moon, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said Thursday in a release.

Rhea, which is about 950 miles in diameter, is Saturn’s second-largest moon.

“Until now, only planets were known to have rings, but now Rhea seems to have some family ties to its ringed parent Saturn,” Cassini scientist Geraint Jones said in a report published in the journal Science.

NASA said Cassini detected an apparent debris disk that measured several thousand miles from end to end. Researchers said the particles that make up the disk probably range from the size of small pebbles to boulders.

 

 

Endeavour lifts off on time for ambitious mission

Experts prepare for lunar ‘Doomsday Ark’ STRASBOURG, France (UPI) — Plans are being made for the installation of an information storage bank on the moon, experts said at a science meeting Strasbourg, France. The so-called “Doomsday ark” would provide the tools for the reconstruction of the human race in case civilization is ever destroyed, The Sunday London Times reported. The ark’s basic version, which would be buried close to the moon’s surface, would include hard discs containing DNA information and instructions for growing crops and metal making, the report said. The underground vault reportedly would transmit data to strongly guarded receivers on Earth. “Eventually, it will be necessary to have a kind of Noah’s ark there, a diversity of species from the biosphere,” scientist Bernard Foing said. The first ark, which would have a 30-year lifespan, is expected to be installed on the moon by 2020 at the latest. The completed archive should be ready by 2035, scientists said.

I know this is only science fiction because I believe everything concerning earth will be destoyed but for conversation sake:  What would you put in the ark?   Johnny’s Mother looked out the window and noticed him “playing church” with their cat. He had the cat sitting quietly and he was preaching to it. She smiled and went about her work. A while later she heard loud meowing and hissing and ran back to the open window to see Johnny baptizing the cat in a tub of water. She called out, “Johnny, stop that! The cat is afraid of water!” Johnny looked up at her and said, “He should have thought about that before he joined my church.”

New York Govenor Spitzer public apology concerning his involvement in prostitution.
“I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family … my sense of right and wrong.”  “I must now dedicate some time to rededicate my trust to my family.”

After I heard the New York Govenor speak, I went through a series of emotions.  1st emotion was one of not caring.  But then I began to think of his family and I felt sad that his family is going to be torn apart, if not outwardly then inwardly.  Then I watched CNN and heard a CNN reporter say, “if this happened in Europe it would be on page 28″.  He continued to say that America’s standards are destroying “Great Men”.  My emotion turned to anger.  My question today is this:  What makes a great man?

I had such a bad day yesterday I forgot to mention to my wife that I was involved in an accident until last night.  (A truck pulled out in front of me -only minor damage.)

Parenting Skills
Gary Smalley writes about vision for a child, in his book, “The
Blessing”.   He writes this, seeing a special future for a child is like building him a campfire on a dark night.  It draws him “toward the warmth of genuine concern and fulfilled potential – instead of leaving a child to head into a dark unknown.
 
Every day you have an opportunity to paint a bright future for you
child.  It’s so much better drawing a child into an area then trying to drive him.  Drawing takes much less effort than driving.    

A law in physics says that water can not rise above it’s source.  The same is true, in a sense, for your child.
Other Parent’s Skills