Melania and Me

Reading the memoir “Melania and Me” written by a “friend” of the First Lady who was enlisted to help with the 2017 inauguration, then stayed on to work in the First Lady’s office in the White House – only to be blamed for cost irregularities in the hastily organized inauguration. Interesting stuff.

This is book 54 that I have listened to this year, by far a new record. Closing in on 700 books read in my lifetime. Would be cool to read one thousand. At 50 per year I could make it by the time I turn 72. Seems like though my reading / listening habits will change after I retire. Might have to get real books that I will have to read.

For sure God works things out much better than I ever could. I see this happen all the time.

Monday: worked until 6 pm again. Ceil made a pasta dish in a white sauce, and tossed a salad. Watched the Kirby Smart Show and The Voice.

Watched some of the Manningcast. Jim Gaffigan was a guest. He played football at Purdue “long enough to get his picture taken”. The Cowboys are bad. Their kicker booted a 64 yard field goal, one of the 5 longest in history – but there was a penalty on the Texans so Dallas took the first down instead. Then the Cowboys failed to score.

In yesterday’s team meeting, UGA head coach Kirby Smart told his team that he invited a special guest to speak to the team - an expert on how to tackle. In walked the Dawgs’ punter, Australian Brett Thorson. He had just been named co-SEC special teams player of the week, in part for his open field solo tackle, saving a touchdown. Did you see that?

I love how scientists will come up with all sorts of crazy theories just so they won’t have to acknowledge the existence of God. This article says human existence is only possible due to five “coincidences”. No mention of how the likelihood of each of these “coincidences” is one in a million, making the likelihood of all five “coincidences” taking place on earth to be one in billions. Takes much less faith to believe in a Creator God than to believe in what these “scientists” are postulating. For sure Satan has blinded them from the Light. More "science"...

Tuesday: lifted weights at the gym. Donuts were brought in this morning, and Mellow Mushroom pizza for lunch. Then at 5 pm there’s the Tuesday Taco Bell deal. I need to retire so I can lose weight.

Another first for Lang: his first post game walk off interview. I love the Grizzlies blue uniforms, but the new red city edition unis are good too.

Sweden and Finland tell citizens to prepare for nuclear war and stockpile food and water.

DENISON: Agape is the Greek word for unconditional love, that enables us to love those who hate us and to forgive those who harm us. It is the only kind of love that can heal the divisions we have in the world today. It is the “fruit” of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). When we make Christ our Lord and his Spirit comes to dwell in us, He can manifest this fruit in our relationship with our Lord, our neighbors, and ourselves. When we love others sacrificially then hearts are healed, families are mended, and societies are transformed. See I Cor 3:16, Matt 22:37-39, Romans 8:35-39.

Bike Ride

Sunday afternoon we drove down to ride bikes with W&MC and the girls.

Rode south on the Westside Beltline under I-20 to Ralph David Abernathy Blvd, which was blocked off for a festival. Then we rode east all the way past old Turner Field.

On the ride back we encountered a parade of high school drumlines marching down the street, so we had to weave around therm.

At the western end of the festival we turned back south on the Beltline and rode the mile down to eat pizza at Monday Night Garage, where Matthew used to work.

Then we rode the 2-1/4 miles home on the lighted Beltline, in the dark. A total bike ride of eleven miles. Fortunately the hills weren’t very big.

We had watched the UGA game over at Reid & Noelle’s. Just us and them. A good game to watch. Usually when I watch a game I like to watch in silence so I can listen to the announcers, taking in their analysis since they know more than me, more than anyone I happen to be watching the game with. At the Hall’s house they wanted me to provide my opinions, so I tried to do so. As fans there is so much we don’t know: who is playing hurt. Fans (including me) blame the QB when receivers drop pass after pass, or fail to run routes properly and don’t get open. Blame the play caller when the players don’t execute.

Did you see the replay of the Tennessee lineman #55 who after a play, looked to the sideline and then dropped to the ground injured, stopping the game so UGA couldn’t continue to drive down the field? I looked for that #55 to come back in the game, but I never saw him. Hard for me to see. The Halls have a big TV but it was hard for me to see whether a pass was caught or incomplete. Couldn’t see the flight of the ball. Probably didn’t help that it was a night game.

I missed most of the Falcons game. Saw where rookie QB Phenix got to play. NC State @ GT is this Thursday night. GT@UGA is the Friday after Thanksgiving. Usually they play on Saturday.

Skipped the gym this morning. Since I was off on Friday I came back to 66 unread emails, a total of over 80. Got it down to 21 with plenty of work still to do. Worked like a dog all day.

ANDRES GALARRAGA [SABR Bio] was the first player after Carl Yastrzemski to lead his league in all three legs of the Triple Crown. In 1993 Galarraga led MLB in average (.370). In 1996, Galarraga’s 47 homers led the NL. His 150 RBI led the majors. He hit 41 HR for the Rockies but was released on 27-Oct-1997. The Braves signed him and in 1998 he hit 44. He is the only player to be hit-by-pitch each of the first three games in a season, on 03-, 04-, & 05-Apr-2000 he was drilled by Colorado’s Pedro Astacio, Rolando Arrojo, and Brian Bohanon.

However people may be feeling about the election, the world is still at the brink of a global war.

A Venezuelan gang's human trafficking operations are surging in Memphis, Chattanooga, Nashville, and Knoxville.

“Jew Hunts” are returning to the streets of Europe.

Vehicles most likely to reach 200,000 miles.

Debilitating strokes have increased 50% in young people, in the past 20 years.

DENISON: Have you heard of the 4B movement?

Dawgs Take Down #7 Tennessee

UGA beat #7 Tennessee on Saturday night. Dawgs still struggled to run the ball, but Carson Beck only had two of his passes dropped. 

Vols took a 10-0 lead. Dawgs scored 2 TD's to take a 14-10 lead. Tennessee scored to make it 17-14, then UGA scored 17 unanswered points - holding the Vols scoreless in the second half.

After the game Kirby noted that the ESPN College Gameday crew had picked the Dawgs to win.

With so many flawed teams in the top ten, should the Dawgs make the playoff, they have just as much of a chance to run the table as any other team.

Clemson edged Pitt on QB Cade Klubnik's 50 yard TD scamper with 1:20 left in the game.

Typical 2024 game: Panthers wore blue jerseys, pants, and socks. Tigers wore white jerseys, pants, and socks (their regular road uniform).

Watched some Nebraska@USC. Had a friend at the game, in the Los Angeles Coliseum. Perhaps the best uniform matchup of the day. The game was on Fox, who doesn't run other scores from other games at the bottom of the screen.

South Carolina wore black jerseys, pants, sock, and shoes. Missouri wore white jerseys, pants, socks, and shoes.

Bama cruised past Mercer. Earlier this year Bame blew out Wisconsin. Last night #1 Oregon had to come from behind late to edge the Badgers.

I played golf Saturday morning. 43 degrees wasn't too bad. No wind. Just wore three layers, plus gloves and a toque. Using the layers as an excuse for my poor performance. Only one stop on the way home (RaceTrac). Made it home in time for our Zoom call with friends overseas.

Dave's Day Off

I took the day off and I guess I got a decent amount done. Teed off just after 6:30 am. Tried out my new light up golf balls and they worked ok. Didn't go quite as far as a normal ball, so I used a longer club. Nice to see the flight of my ball for a change. Seemed like I was able to hit the lighted balls straighter than normal balls.

Played the first 4 holes with the lighted balls. On hole five, I forgot how to golf. Hit one in the street. First time to do that in like 2 years. Now I hit it into the woods on the other side of the fairway.

After golf I stopped by two thrift stores. Found a like-new pair of white Cole Haan Grand OS Crosscourt leather tennis shoes. Soles are thinner than I prefer, but for six bucks they'll do. Also bought a new white Columbia shirt, with tags. Two scores.

My closet of white shoes are starting to rival all the black shoes I have. In addition to the Cole Haans, there's (2) Hokas, (3) Nike Court Vision Low, (4) Stan Smith (green ankle), (5) Stan Smith (blue ankle), (6) Puma golf shoes, (7) Puma high tops, (8) Puma Furys, (9) Nike Free Commuters, and (10) Puma Sweepers. I am selling several of these.

When I stopped by RaceTrac I ran into one of Will's old baseball coaches, and had a nice chat. Then to Home Depot, and then to the Y to get a new membership card. Went home and sure enough, I found the old membership card. 

Fixed quesadillas for lunch. Posted four pieces of furniture on Facebook Marketplace, and had two of them picked up already - and the third tomorrow. Had to clean out an old buffet and armoire. The newspapers used to line the drawers were dated 1962 and 1996.

Also did some cleaning and some laundry. Got in my 10,000 steps. Tired. This weekend I still need to take the yard again. Need to order some new eyeglasses as well.

Reid & Noelle's future daughter in law lives near Perimeter Mall. A couple of days ago she had a fall, and went to the ER at Northside Hospital. Will didn't treat her sprained wrist, but Will was able to meet Mariah.

Today my phone rang. One of my high school football teammates called me by mistake. We had a good time catching up. Clement Troutman, retired from the Navy and living in Maryland outside of DC. Stand up guy. I shared a secret with him: I hope to write a book about  our state championship season.

Greatest by Decade

Greatest high school football players by decade. At some point I will combine several players total yards from high school, college, and pro, to see who gained the most.

1900s Jim Thorpe

1910s Harold Brick Miller

1920s Red Grange 75 TDs

1930s Tom Harmon

1940s Glenn Davis

1950s Ken Hall 11232 yards

1960s Joe Ferguson QB (top)

1970s Herschel Walker 6137 yards

1980s Emmitt Smith 8804 yards

1990s Peyton Manning

2000s Adrian Peterson 5011 yards

2010s Jonathan Gray 10889 yards

This weekend’s slate of football games…

1200 Clemson@Pitt

1200 Texas@Arkansas

130 Murray State @ Kentucky

200 Mercer@Bama

330 Virginia @ Notre Dame

415 Missouri @ South Carolina

500 Arkansas State @ Georgia State

730 Tennessee@UGA

100 Jaguars@Lions Sunday

405 Falcons@Broncos Sunday

425 Chiefs@Bills

815 Texans@Cowboys Monday

Georgia Tech and Indiana have a bye.

Lost my YMCA membership card. I looked in my car. Maybe I dropped it in the Y. Might be in the pocket of the shorts I wore on Tuesday. Wednesday morning I got ready and was driving to the Y when I remembered I didn’t have the card. Didn’t feel like going in without it so I just came on to work.

Remembering how Reid named his dog Fraser and we named our dog Speedle. What made me think to name him Speedle was Dr Marsh’s sermon on all the dogs in his neighborhood, and their various personalities. One of the dogs was named Buckhead.

ARTICLE: swarms of UFOs were filmed buzzing over Area 51 and other US military sites for months following 'mothership' encounter.

Bought some light up golf balls. Should help me track the flight of my shots, especially on the first few holes. Supposedly they are harder than regular golf balls, so they’re best used on iron shots as opposed to drivers, hybrids, and woods.

Many all calling for the end of the Federal Reserve, which is neither federal or a reserve. Also for the end of numerous other government agencies whose purpose has long been antiquated. FUN FACT: new government agencies are often formed and funded, but not once has a government agency been shut down.

Iraq reduced the legal age of consent to 9 years old. Where is the outrage from women's rights advocates?

A FEMA official directed hurricane relief workers to avoid homes with Trump signs.

Whoopi Goldberg Claimed a NYC Bakery 'Refused' to Make Her Birthday Dessert. The owner revealed what really happened – catching Whoopi in a lie.

Oswald Chambers: “Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man”.

 

The Westminster Shorter Catechism claims, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever”.

Restaurant Week

I've eaten out six times now in the past five days.

Sunday: a late lunch at the Truist Park Delta Club. Burgers, dogs, tenders, fries. Watched some Eagles@Cowboys, Elsbeth, and Death in Paradise.

Monday: up early to lift weights at the gym. Big crowd, over 30 cars in the parking lot, with at least 17 in the weightlifting area.

Used a $5 off deal at Cheeseburger Bobby’s. Burger was good, but man has the size of the burgers there gotten so much smaller. You go in and you order and they give you a buzzer and your burger is then cooked. You get it 5 minutes later and then you add any lettuce, tomato, etc yourself. Very similar to a Wendys burger but with the extra wait. No drive through. Lots of other things on the menu.

After a rough work week last week, on Monday I started feeling a little better about work. But there’s always another mountain of work that needs to be addressed. In golf I need to focus to make sure I hit the ball straight, instead of pull the ball left. At work I need to focus on not worrying and stressing and just do what I can.

Stayed at work catching up until 6 pm. Ceil had baked a chicken, tossed a salad, and mashed potatoes, but I warmed me up the leftover chili. I have no problem with leftovers. We always have so many. Ceil will eat leftovers on Tuesday and Thursday and then be tired of them. If I eat all the other leftovers, I will be bigger than I am now. Put on Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and The Voice.

Tuesday: lunch at Que – a BBQ pork sandwich, fries, and macaroni & cheese. Very good. 

Wednesday: Mack brought in designer donuts, and of course I had my share. 

Small group was good last night. Via Zoom, but it worked out well. Four in attendance. Finished up just as C returned from her group. I had gotten back home with just enough time to fix me a couple of quesadillas, with rice, refried beans, ground beef, and cheese.

Thursday: lunch at Firebirds. Burger looked just okay, but tasted great. Good meat. Fries nice and crispy but nothing to write home about. Firebirds is similar to Stoney River. 

Got back to the office after lunch all full from the burger. And of course Ceil calls and wants to go out to eat. We went to Grana, the fancy Italian place near Perimeter Mall. It's in a section surrounded by other restaurants: Superica, Taco Mac, HobNob Grille, and others - so the parking lot was full.

Ceil ordered the ziti. I got the lasagna, which was as big as one of Ceil's meatloafs. Pretty good. The pizza at Grana is decent, but it doesn't hold a candle to the lasagna.

DENISON: The challenges of our world are intended by God to draw us from self-sufficiency to Spirit-dependence. We can conclude that if we trust God with our small challenges, God will allow us to face dangers so cataclysmic that we must abandon our self-reliance and admit that we are “so far down we can look nowhere but up.”

More Golf

 

Today was Caitlin Clark’s golfing debut. Saw one of her shots. She looks taller on the golf course.

Up early to golf this morning. Was able to hit several balls on each shot. It was one of those days when I hit more bad shots than good, but it was good to be out there. I had finished three holes before the professor arrived. Chilly and windy, so I threw on my quarter zip, cap, and gloves.

1. Good tee shot. Okay 6 iron approach to just short of the green. Several chips, none good. Okay lag. “Bogey”.

2. Lots of flubs off the tee. More bad chips.

3. Hit a cruddy tee shot that rolled most of the way down the hill. I played it. More bad chips.

4. Decent 7 iron off the tee that didn’t go quite as far as I would’ve liked, but I was close enough to putt. None of the lags were great. “Bogey”.

5. Several bad 6 irons off the tee. Several chips landed short of the green. This is a par three, mind you. Finally three decent chips. Sank one of three putts. “Bogey”.

6. Hit two great hybrids off the tee. Shots of the day. Then a good 6 iron to the left fringe. One of my 3 chips was decent. Two putt for “bogey”.

7. Hit two more good hybrids off the tee. Then two decent 5 irons. One of my two 9 irons was good, to the fringe. Lag putts weren’t super great. “Double”.

8. Okay drive. Hit a good 9 iron onto the green. Long lag putts weren’t great. “Bogey”.

9. Pulled my tee shot left, a hybrid. Poked three wedge shots from under a tree…one was decent. Three putted from the fringe on the tough, sloped green. “Double”.

Finished just after 8 am. Traffic on the way to work. Boss on vacation, another team member working from home, and the third had car trouble. At least there were fancy donuts brought in. Dennis brought me an apple fritter. he knows me well. I bored him with how me and Yearwood and Brett used to make late Saturday night runs to the Krispy Kreme mother ship on Ponce to get the doughnuts for the BSU.

Tuesday: stayed at the office until 6 pm trying to catch up on things. Ceil warmed up the baked chicken and mashed potatoes that went uneaten on Monday night, and added slaw. Tasty but not too colorful.

I am kind of blue. Figured out how to get bills paid quicker, but it will mean even more work for both me and a coworker. One of our vendors lost almost a week’s worth of production because they were out of material. The steel mill was a month late, but the real problem is how long it takes our bureaucracy to approve and order material. Plus I am so busy that I can't just sit around triple checking to make sure orders are placed.

Small group tonight via zoom, since our leader is sick and flying home from India.

Study suggests air pollution is linked to a greater risk of children developing autism.

Cycles that included a Grand Slam:

Batter    Team    GS/Cy Date  WAR

Buhner...SEA....23-Jun-1993....23.0

Foley......BUF....25-May-1882.... 1.5

Foxx.......PHA....14-Aug-1933...93.0

Kubel......MIN....17-Apr-2009..... 4.1

Lajoie......PHA...30-Jul-1901...106.9

Lazzeri....NYY...03-Jun-1932... 47.6

Molina.....TEX...16-Jul-2010.....10.7

Tejada.....OAK...29-Sep-2001...47.1

Terry.......NYG...29-May-1928...56.6

Tim Keller encapsulated the message of Jesus: “the gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus than we ever dared hope”.

Denison: If I truly believe that I am “loved and accepted in Jesus Christ,” then I am free to love and accept you. But if I do not embrace this fact, I am just as susceptible to the divisiveness of our day as anyone. Candidates try to convince voters they are facing an enemy they cannot defeat. In the past this “enemy” has been Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, or a domestic challenge such as economic downturns. Today, the “enemy” is the other party…This is a different form of prejudice than I have seen in my lifetime…to disparage and despise another American because of their political affiliation and the assumption that they are therefore hazardous to our nation—that is an ominous threat to the future of our democracy…the more polarized we become, the less functional our society becomes. FEMA official told workers to skip houses with Trump signs 

Saw a cool van at RaceTrac this morning. So much going on that I didn't have time to edit the post I had wanted to share today, so tomorrow's post will be out of order chronologically. Hope Don doesn't get confused.