Weekend Reprieve Before Taking the Plunge

I'm writing these words (the term penning does not work here, since I have no pen in my hands) from the home of David & Jennie Smith in Allen, TX. Jennie is the oldest of my wife's two sisters, and it is a bit scary how much alike the three of them are. Actually, the home in reality belongs to my niece, Michelle, allegedly "won" from her parents in a game of Sorry, information obtained from perusing the subject of my next paragraph (Smith 2005:69). We have spent lots of time with the Smith family over the years, in Indiana, Florida and now in Texas. We'll have today (Saturday, Jan. 14) with them, celebrating the first birthday of Jack Mounger, son of Shannon nee Smith. Shannon graduated from high school in 1993, and then spent a school year in Chile as an exchange student. That coincided with our last year in Chile, during which time we spent lots of time with her, and during which time she acquired (not by playing Sorry, the dubious title of favorite niece.) Methinks that she has lost that title for good, now, but that is also the subject of my next paragraph, which begins now!

David Smith, Jr., formerly known in the family as Little Dave (an oxymoron to the extreme!) is the minister at Southwood Christian Church in Greenville, Texas. I was unaware until yesterday that he is a published author. His book, Life's too Short to be an Underdog, and Other Spiritual Lessons I Learned from my Dog, came out just before Christmas. I did some reading in it, and it is a good read. I recommend it. Especially interesting is chapter 8, written about Ziggy, one of the Smith family dogs. I really can't say that I remember Ziggy, but the story told about Ziggy, in which my oldest child Charissa has the role of an antagonist, has the ring of truth. We will get to see the author later today at his nephew's birthday party. I understand that he admits that some of the stories are embellished for the sake of humor. My wife, Rose also has somewhat of a role of an antagonist, in which the niece formerly known as favorite is alleged to have referred to her as evil, thus losing that claim. Buy the book, read the book, I think you'll like it.

In a couple hours we will visit our friends, Doug and Sharon Marks. They recently moved down to the Dallas area. Doug was my colleague at Ozark over the past 5½ years, and is now Vice President for Academic Affairs at Dallas Christian College. They will return to Joplin in a couple weeks to close on the sale of their home there.

Tomorrow we'll go to church with Dave and Jennie, then head north. We'll be in enrollment all day Monday, then Tuesday morning, at 7:00 AM, it's back to Greek, where I will review what students forgot about Koine Greek over their 4-week hiatus, and begin work on the 2nd Aorist Active/Middle Indicative. Is anybody excited? It won't be until a few days later that they will learn the 1st Aorist tense. Does that seem strange to you? It makes perfect sense to me!

Passing on to other mundane matters, we ate last night at Café de France, and I had a salad with blackened chicken. I am hoping out of fifth place in our 7-member family weight contest, without descending to sixth or seventh place. I will eat rationally today, and plan on drinking lots of water, to flush my system out. Since Sunday morning is our official weigh-in day, we brought our scales to Texas with us. Second mundane matter--Jack Bauer is not dead. I have not watched a television series when broadcast live for years. I have, however, become a viewer of Fox's 24 (having recently watched the series on DVD--it is exciting and somewhat addictive.) Season five begins tomorrow night, with a two-hour start. It will continue on Monday with another two-hours, then I believe resume its normal Monday evening slot. A recent acquisition in our home is a DVR. I won't be able to watch the series live, since most Monday evenings I will be in class, but the DVR is set to record the episodes. I imagine that I will find time to watch them sometime during the week.

The next time I write, I will be back into the full-swing of our Spring Semester. I hope an pray God's best to you.

Until I have more random thoughts,

DGF

Reference: Smith, Dave. (2005). Life's Too Short to Be an Underdog . . . and Other Spiritual Life Lessons I Learned from my Dog. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, Inc.