"He hits from both sides of the plate. He's amphibious." - Yogi Berra

Repairs on the fly.

I am NOT a country music fan, at least what they now call country music. I enjoy - in limited amounts - Johnny Cash, Merl Haggard, Loretta Lynn, and other true CW musicians from the pre-crossover mass market era. Which is why I clicked through this morning on an article about Travis being inducted into the CM Hall of Fame. Apparently it was a show-stopper.

I didn't know that several years ago Travis (b. 1959) had a massive stroke in 2013 as a result of a heart infection. Doctors were surprised he survived and gave very dire predictions about his future. As sometimes happens, he went through years of therapy and relearned to walk and play his guitar. But he still has great difficulty speaking and can only say a few words at a time.

Which is why it was a everybody-on-their-feet moment when he walked onto the stage at the induction ceremony. His wife spoke for him. And then he sang Amazing Grace.
Travis had his troubles even before the stroke, including some arrests for intoxication and bizarre behavior while very, very drunk. And his rendition isn't real good in any sense (YouTube snippet here), but he's widely credited with restoring real CM to the mainstream, so the attendees response is pretty touching, IMO.

University Fellowship Church had a 3-week class on bioethics before the morning service that we attended. It was taught by Dr. Lantz, who attends UFC and also hosts the small group we attend on Sunday nights. He's apparently a widely respected orthopedic surgeon who speaks on both medical and bioethics issues around the world and also leads a group for students in med programs at U of O. It was a good class that touched briefly on a long list of issues, the goal being to introduce the topics, identify some of the issues involved in each, and suggest some biblical principles that relate to each. The class was an overview, not a deep, technical analysis.

Something Dr. Lantz said yesterday caught my attention. He referred to a book (Drat! I missed the title) in which the author said the single most powerful argument against evolution is the differences between the sexes. In order for a species to survive the evolutionary changes would have to happen on precisely parallel lines, with each change also being complimentary to those going on in the other. That's just not a probably scenario in any species, never mind all of them.
Never thought of that!

Q: What's the first thing a whiny 7-year old says when he loses a game to his older brother?
A: Mom, he cheated!
Or, he might start that before the game is even over but he can see he's losing.

The forecasted winds never materialized, but the deluge has lived up to their predictions. We've had 5.3" since last Wednesday, with another half inch so far today. The ground is saturated and the smallest low spots in the ground cleared by our logging operation are filled with water.
And mud.
But a week after setting it on fire what's left of the burn pile is still smoking and steaming.

This used to be a six foot high stack of split firewood.

About eight hours of work with a wheelbarrow and that wood looks like this:

They say every creature that's preyed upon by some other creature has some kind of defense mechanism. It may be coloring that helps them hide, or spiny skin, an offensive odor, or a horrid taste. Turns out a 6" salamander's defense is to scare the crap out of you when you uncover him hiding in a wood pile.

But I was nice and gave him time to get out from the pile and under the front porch. No salamanders were harmed in the stacking of this wood.

We've just finished dinner and I'm still HUNGRY. So Pam's fixing me a sandwich to eat while I watch the AZ Cardinals whoop on the Jets.
I feel like I should break out singing "Maria!"