Excited about Social Studies?

This photo is from Adolfo. I found it hilarious!

Eddie is obviously failing to get Frank as excited about Social Studies as he is.

Good Deeds

Here's a rather inspiring story of my niece, Emma, and her Nana (my mother), and the quilt they designed to raise money for children's charities. All of it was Emma's idea originally. And, gosh, it's a beautiful quilt.

Last of the Autumn Leaves

The very last of the leaves are falling. This one, a silver linden (Tilia tomentosa) from Pam and Phil's yard, was rather unusual in its beauty.

Full Moon Rising

Last night, the sunset and moonrise were spectacular. I had to underexpose the second shot to get the moon and all its features.

Puzzle Time

After last night's cold front, it's very cold outside today. Perfect weather for a puzzle!

Thanksgiving Blackout

The turkey was in the oven, the table was set. It was about one hour before Thanksgiving dinner, and we were about to start making the side dishes--mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, Brussels sprouts.

Then, suddenly, an enormous gust of wind hit the house. The porch swing lifted 20 inches in a nearly vertical direction. The lights crackled on and off for a moment, and then finally--- dark. Absolute dark.

We all looked around at each other. How long would the power be out? Should we wait for the power to return and have our enormous Thanksgiving feast as planned? Or what if the power stayed off?

We decided to wait a bit, and used the waning hour of daylight to open some presents that Chuck and Adolfo brought with them. Meanwhile, the turkey continued to stay warm in the oven.

Finally, I called Dominion Power and they informed me that we had a "widespread outage" and that the power would not be restored "before 10 PM."

Hmmpfh! That kind of screws up our Thanksgiving plans. And not just ours. I looked out my front window, and my neighbor, Dan, who had a house full of people, was furious. His wife, Judy, was trying to console him, and finally she took him by the arm and walked him reluctantly back inside. From further in the neighborhood, a generator was running.

Thanksgiving would go on. I pulled the turkey out of the still warm oven. Thankfully, the turkey was done. As was the stuffing inside it. The rest would have to wait until Friday. I carved the turkey by candlelight and without the use of my electric knife.

We set down in the darkening evening to our Thanksgiving feast of roasted turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pickles, raw vegetables, and unwarmed dinner rolls. And the funny thing was, it was enough! We were experiencing a Thanksgiving without power, eating by candlelight, with a much simpler spread of food than ever before. This was more true to the real spirit of Thanksgiving than any meal we'd ever had.

We were suddenly thankful that we had enough to eat, that the turkey was cooked, that everybody around the table could be together for this great meal.



What's more, the pies were also cooked the previous day, so we enjoyed a dessert of raspberry, pecan and homemade pumpkin pie. (Made from actual pumpkins, and not from canned pumpkin.)

It was definitely one of the most memorable Thanksgivings ever, and probably one of the best.

Thanksgiving Day Hike

It was such a nice day, we all hiked up to Bear's Den on the Appalachian Trail. This is our perennial favorite, overlooking the Shenandoah Valley, and a very convenient 10 minute drive from home.

Everybody is in for Thanksgiving this week, and Chuck, Adolfo, Ed, Kathleen, and all of us enjoyed the brief exercise before launching into the turkey feast!

Sausage Making Day

It's become a bit of a tradition for us to make sausage the day before Thanksgiving when Ed comes to visit. His suitcase always contains a few pounds of venison from the great northern woods of Wisconsin.

This year, we made a very fine Yankee Sausage out of the venison. Eat your heart out, Jimmy Dean!

~~~~~~

Yankee Venison Sausage

5 lbs venison
2 lbs pork butt
½ pound pork fat
7 Tbsp crumbled dried sage
3 tsp kosher salt
2 Tbsp coarsely ground pepper
¼ cup ground juniper berries
½ tsp ground cayenne pepper
1 tsp red pepper flakes
½ tsp dried rosemary
½ tsp dried savory
½ tsp dried marjoram
½ tsp dried thyme
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground cloves (or 2-6 cloves in the grinder when you do the juniper berries)

Cut all the meat and fat into one inch cubes. Combine all the meat and fat into one large bowl. Add all the seasoning to the meat and toss to coat. Grind through the coarse grinder. Take a small bit to fry up to check seasonings and taste. Adjust seasonings as desired. Form into 1-pound rolls and freeze immediately. Makes approx. seven 1-pound rolls.

It's All Over Now

It's all over now for Scotland. After a very controversial call by a Spanish official that arguably caused Scotland it's rightful place in the Euro 2008 Finals, Italy eked out a goal in the last two minutes to beat Scotland 2-1.

All the guys played a very respectable game, and I was encouraged by the level of cross-team camaraderie despite the fact that it was a very rough game. The rain poured down the entire game, and with temperatures in the 40s, it must have been absolutely miserable.

Here are some great photos from the game:

I'm Going to A-merry-ca

Eddie had a solo tonight in his 4th grade school musical, "Letters Tell the Tale: From Settlement to Revolution." He did so wonderfully! We couldn't be more proud!

Here's a video of his singing--you won't have to wait long, he's the very first singer. It's worth watching the whole video though (because it's short, for one), but also because it's funny to watch the three boys wrestle with the mic at the end of the performance.



The kids performed all kinds of musical numbers relating to the settlement and creation of our country. They even covered the uncomfortable chapter of slavery with admirable honesty. It was hilarious though, to see our lily white population of children singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen." Yeah, somebody stole their fruit roll-up... nobody knows their trouble!

Tartan Army -- Loudoun County Branch

Scotland v. Italy

Saturday, 11:30am EST
Pay Per View
My House

Watch Scotland take down Italy to secure themselves a place in the Euro 2008 Finals.

Be There!

(Wear your kilt!)

2007 Raingutter Regatta

Tonight was the Pack 39 pack meeting, and what a night it was!

We started off by introducing a bunch of new boys in as Bobcats in the pack. This is a very solemn ceremony where we paint the boys' faces with colors representing honesty, courage, hard work, etc.



After the ceremony, the Webelos performed a delightful song, much to the amusement of the rest of the pack.



Then, the main attraction of the night: The Raingutter Regatta!

This year's Raingutter Regatta proved even more calamitous than last years! Recall that last year, one of the boys tugged on the side of one of the raingutters, dumping its entire contents (four gallons of water) on the school's gymnasium floor.

Well, this year, we did thrice better. And this despite Shane's assurances that the newly designed guardrails were infallible!

First, one of the saw horses spontaneously collapsed, sending a tidal wave of water gushing into the shoes of the few Cub Scouts at the front of the line. I wish I had gotten a picture; it sure was a pretty sight!



After that was all cleaned up, we spilled the contents of water again when moving the gutters from the saw horses to the floor. But soon after that, the boys were back to racing, this time on hands and knees.



Then, after the races were all done, and the floor was totally dry, Shane and I went to lift the gutters to dump them. Shane began lifting the gutter while straddling it, and quickly coming to a point where he would either have to walk like a crab or put the gutter back down. I was paying so much attention to this that Shane and I got a little mismatched in our lifting the gutters, and I sent eight gallons of water shooting towards his trousers, with all of it again landing on the newly mopped floors.

I can say one thing, the school flooring has never been so clean!

Yes, but do you believe in Dog?

Debating Creationism

My friend, Gaz from the UK, posted a rather thoughtful defense of creationism and literalism of the Bible. This topic always gets me fired up, as I always feel we're on the verge of The New Dark Ages when rational educated people hold beliefs which to me seem so irrational.

I was going to comment on his blog, but then I thought twice about it. I didn't want to clutter or offend his blog with my rants and ravings. Instead, I decided to post my rant here, where it properly belongs.

I welcome discussion on this topic, if anybody cares to debate the issue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh boy. Here I go.

I don't understand is why everything in the Bible has to be literal for it to be compatible with our faith. Why cannot the Bible contain allegorical stories, especially the early chapters of the Pentateuch?

Just because it says "day" doesn't mean that it is a day. If it was allegorical, it still illustrates the same exact concept (in a nice literary way), and is still compatible with the faith.

I just don't see the point of all this Bible-defendism. People through the ages have picked and chosen what they want to believe from the Bible, and what they deemed irrelevant or anachronistic. There are plenty of examples:

• Exodus 21.22-25
• Exodus 23.19
• Exodus 25 (the Tabernacle, anybody here still worship in one of this exact description or do burnt offerings?)
• Leviticus 11 (only the Jews and Muslims still follow these rules!)
• Leviticus 19.19
• Leviticus 26 (goodbye black pudding and shaving one's beard)
• Leviticus 20:10 (death for adultery)
• Leviticus 24:16-23 ("An eye for an eye" is directly opposite of the examples in Samuel 1 & 2.)
• Deuteronomy 12:32 (implies that anything but the strictest form of Judaism is heresy, including Christianity and Islam)
• Deuteronomy 13.9-11 (death to non-believers)
• Deuteronomy 20.12-16 (pretty tough stuff if you're a pacifist, as is almost all of Joshua and Samuel)
• Deuteronomy 21.18-22 (Stoning to death any rebellious sons!)
• Deuteronomy 22.10-12
• Deuteronomy 23.1-2, 10-11
• Deuteronomy 24.1-3 (divorce OK)

... and so on. Where do we draw the line, and who gets to draw it?

Personally, I can hold the Bible as the single most important book in the history of man, and still not need to believe that every single word in it is the uncorrupted Word of God.

My faith runs deeper than needing it all in plain black and white.

Here comes MacNicholas!

Every now and then, Eddie's muse visits him, and together, they produce the most amazing creative writing. Often, it's after 9:30pm, when Eddie should be in bed asleep, but instead, he is sitting up in his bed, with his bedside lamp on, writing away on scraps of paper.

A few nights ago, inspired by (and obsessing over) a Scottish Santa statue he saw in a mail-order catalog, he penned the following tale, still a work in progress.

Besides the obvious care put into the penmanship and the quality of the writing (never mind his persistently poor spelling), what impresses me most is the fact that he used an atlas to research the place names in the story.

It's truly wonderful!

Latest Artwork

Here are a couple pieces of art from the boys. Luke brought home a ceramic plate he made in school. He even got to paint it with glaze and fire it in a kiln. The subject matter? Bob, the rat, of course!

Eddie's assignment was to draw monuments to his grandparents. Apart from the fact that the grandfathers kind of got added in as an afterthought, he pretty much nailed his grandmothers. If you're family, you'll totally get it!

G'wee, ye traitor ya!

We've begun the early planning stages of our next holiday trip. In late June and early July of 2008, we'll be heading to Ireland for a two week tour. This will be a really special trip, as we'll be doing a self-drive tour of the entire island, accompanied at least part of the way by our friends Sharon and Desi.

Now we begin the daunting task of assembling desired tourist stops, clustering them into an itinerary, and booking hotels for all the stops. So far, I've assembled a first draft of "must sees", based partially on a list from Sharon and Desi, who are experts on Ireland (both being Irish).

If you use Google Earth, I've assembled an Ireland Tour KML file to with all the stops assembled into one contiguous loop. Click here for the KML file.

"Must see" stops include:

• Dublin - stay in Ballsbridge, Guinness, Whiskey Corner
• Newgrange
• St. Nicholas Church, Ardglass, County Down--my great (x 5) grandparents' church from 1820's
• Belfast
• Carrickfergus Castle
• Giant's Causeway
• Dunlunce Castle
• Bushmills Distillery
• Donnegal - hiking?
• Aran Islands (possibly a one night stay?)
• Cliffs of Moher
• Bunratty Castle
• Ring of Kerry Dingle Peninsula
  
• Blarney Castle
• Old Midleton Jameson Distillery
• Lismore Castle
• Dunbrody Famine Ship
• Powercourt House

Soccer Season--Year in Review

Today ends the Fall 2007 Soccer season. Luke had a really great team this year, and I was really lucky to be the boys' coach. The Rockets closed the season with a very respectable 5-1-1 record, due entirely to the boys' skill and hustle. These guys really played hard all year long and gave me their all. But even more importantly, these guys had FUN! This has got to be one of the best years I've had as coach and one of the most fun team of boys I've ever played with.

Here are some photos for the year in review. Thanks to Tom for catching most of these, since I was on the sidelines coaching.

Bijan, nice feet!


Luke, mixing it up!


Charlie, turnin' on the heat!


Easton with the power kick!


Alex with the nice slide tackle!


Great kick, Jacob!


Austin. Look at that focus!


How many kids do I have? Let's see, one.. two.. three..


Takin' it easy on the sideline.



After the game.


End of the year--Pizza Party!


Trophies!!