"If you ask me anything I don't know, I'm not going to answer." - Yogi Berra

Get it??

My brain and my body were both ready to go at 1:30 a.m. so I decided to run with it. By 5:00 I had all the laundry done, my desk cleaned up, the office vacuumed, next week's lesson and slides done, breakfast in my tummy and the kitchen cleaned up. By noon I had the patio cover stringers and fascia painted and the roses pruned. After lunch - I took a nap!

You probably heard about the seven children that died in a Brooklyn house fire. Not all outlets are reporting that the family were Orthodox Jews. They're prohibited from cooking on the Sabbath, but are allowed to keep food cooked ahead of time hot providing no appliance is started after the beginning of Sabbath. The family was sleeping upstairs with a hot plate keeping food heated when that hot plate malfunctioned. By the time the fire dept. arrived one of the children was already dead and the others died later at the hospital.

What makes this more tragic is the wrong understanding of how one gains favor with God that led to these deaths. Like too many other religions, Orthodox Judaism thinks God rewards adherence to a very long catalog of very restrictive rules. No list, no matter how detailed or harsh, can override the sin problem. Rules deal with outward behavior when the real problem is internal, a nature thoroughly disposed to sin. That's what Christ meant when he referred to the Pharisees, experts on conformity to the minutiae of Jewish traditions, as whitewashed tombs. The outside looks clean but the inside is irreparably corrupt.
"I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing." - Apostle Paul
Christ's death on the cross was the solution, the fix rules and regs could never accomplish. With his death he paid the penalty for our sin, fixing things from the inside out.

It's too sad that those seven children died. Worse that they died as the result of a system that thinks God's favor can be won with harsh rules about things as inconsequential as cooking a meal on the Saturday.

I can't get into the NCAA tourney this year. Don't really have a team I'd like to see win, though I'd be fine with any one of several that good friends root for.
One of the things I don't understand is how they put teams in the four regions. North Dakota State is in the South Division, Wyoming in the East, and Georgia State in the West.
Maybe geography isn't taught at NCAA schools.

The ladies of Pathway will be at Josh & Aubri's tomorrow afternoon for a double baby shower. Our daughter Michelle and Nicole are both great with child. Unfortunately, Nicole will be leaving in a week to join husband Justin, who moved to Missoula two weeks ago to begin his new job at the U. of Montana. So we won't get to see their baby girl.

Pam spent most of the morning in the kitchen making and decorating cupcakes for the shower. They're decorated with little tiny footprints and a toothpick flag with a two-line poem, something about saying goodbye to sleep.
Ahhhh.

Worked on the truck a little this afternoon. Both fenders are now officially bolted in place. Next up: the radiator.