BBQ Festival

Saturday we made it to the Lexington BBQ Festival, mainly to see the pig sand sculpture. There were other sights to see as you can tell from these pics. There was the candy store, and the climbing wall that the kids enjoyed. The girl shown here was a natural--she felt quite at home climbing up and rappelling down.

And the Lord Caused It to Rain

And the Lord caused it to rain upon the earth for over 2 days. We received more than 4 inches where we live. This is really a blessing. I have heard people say, "Well, its too late for the farmers. They could have used more rain during the growing season." Yes, and the folks in southern California could have used rain to prevent fires and to put out fires last week. Let's remind ourselves we are not in Heaven. Or at least Heaven hasn't come down to earth yet. The book, Heaven, by Randy Alcorn says that according to Scripture, one day the earth will be restored and the New Heaven will be here on earth. But as I was saying we are in need of this much needed rain and of course we need more. Let us give thanks to God for the rain this week, and pray that he will continue to send more.

Mount Pilot

Saturday Pat and I were able to visit Mount Pilot (as they say on Andy Griffith.) As you can see it was a beautiful day, fairly clear and all. It was somewhat crowded, and understandably so. Someone asked, "OK, so where is Mayberry?"

Question of Evil

I was having lunch with friends yesterday, (very special friends I might add) and the old paratrooper said he asked someone if there is more evil in the world today (than before.) The answer was "no, but there is more awareness of evil now,"( with the communication technology and all.) I didn't get to share my thoughts at the time, and I will have to say I didn't really think about it much until later last evening, so here are some of my thoughts now. I think there is more evil, because thee are more people. Just take murder for example. There must be more murders today because there are more people than ever before. However, if you ask the question, "Is there more evil per capita?" that is totally different. For example, the first murder, recorded in the Bible, of course is Cain's killing of his brother, Abel. At that time before the murder, we think there were just four people on earth, Adam, Even, Cain and Abel. When Abel was killed, that reduced the world's population by 25%. (And I may be wrong about there only being 4.) However, if there were one or two more at that time, do we think that there ever was a time, or ever will be a time when 25% of the world's population will be murdered? 20%? 16 2/3%? I don't think so. I am sure that was a very sad time for Adam and Eve. So per capita, you would say there was more evil then than there is now. But as for overall evil, there has to be more total evil now.
Skip to the flood. God decided to destroy all of the world (except Noah and his family) because of the evil in the world. That is a major decision. (I know there must be some animal rights advocates out there talking about the murder of all those "innocent animals.") I am sure that God thought about the animals as well before he made his decision. But I digress. Those folks must have been into some serious sin, (not to say that we aren't doing so today also.) Of course, the evil cannot be measured at this point, and we really have to "guesstimate." And we move ahead to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. God would have saved those cities if there were 10 righteous people! God didn't destroy them because they missed Sunday School once or twice. (I know they didn't have Sunday School back then.) Again we don't know the level of evil at that time. We think its pretty bad right here in our country right now. And it is. We can pray for God to change what is happening in the world. At the same time we need to be willing to ask God to change me--to be more like Christ each day. I know I have a long way to go, but I think that I can see some progress, but then again, I may be slightly biased. How about you, fellow Christian? Are you seeking to become more Christlike each day? That is something to think about.

New Phone

I suppose I have had this phone for a while now, but haven't taken the opportunity to show you guys. It is kinda like an early Christmas present, from my company. Its really working out great for everyone, as far as I know, unless of course you are getting bugged by my excessive calling. But I am trying not to annoy anyone--too much anyway.

Big Fish

Now here is a really big fish. I suppose this is a fairly popular pic out there on the web, and I printed it to show it to a few folks, and didn't keep record of where I got it, so I can't give proper credit where credit is due. I read in a brand new blog here about a fish story where it would seem the fish won, so I thought this might help even the score. Now don't get this confused with the bulgogi fish mentioned here. (Scroll down to Sept. 25.) Do these guys think they will try to have this baby mounted?

Bad Parking

I know I have talked about this before, but I think this is important. The red car was parked improperly if not illegally. Then the blue car comes along beside the red car and parks even further out of place. You can't see from the pic, but there was plenty of space to the left of the blue car. (It is sad that both of the cars are Hondas, but the car is not really at fault here.) All the driver of the blue car had to do, was to back up just a bit and get inside the while lines. Is that really too much to ask? It is also too bad this shot was taken with my cell and you can't read the licences. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe I just need to get over this. What do you think?

Happy Columbus Day!

A friend of mine reminded me that I had not posted in a number of days, so here is an attempt to say something. I thought it would be neat to come up with something clever for Columbus Day, but it seems that someone has beat me to it, and they probably did a better job than I could do, so here is their blog. I have read only today's post so I don't want to be responsible for anything else that is said there.