This is from an email sent by a friend _ yes, i have one.

What a difference 30 years make

1972: Long hair
2002: Longing for hair

1972: Acid rock
2002: Acid reflux

1972: Moving to California because it's cool
2002: Moving to California because it's warm

1972: Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor
2002: Trying not to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor

1972: The Grateful Dead
2002: Dr. Kevorkian

1972: Going to a new, hip joint
2002: Receiving a new hip joint

1972: Rolling Stones
2002: Kidney stones

1972: Parents begging you to get your hair cut
2002: Children begging you to get their heads shaved

1972: Passing the drivers' test
2002: Passing the vision test

1972: Whatever
2002: Depends

The laughs keep coming . . .

Each year the staff at Beloit College in Wisconsin puts together a list to try to give the faculty a sense of the mindset of incoming freshmen. This year's list:

The people who are starting college this fall across the nation were born in 1983 . . . They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up . . . Their lifetime has always included AIDS . . . The CD was introduced the year they were born . . . They have always had an answering machine . . . They have always had cable . . . They cannot fathom not having a remote control . . . Jay Leno has always hosted the Tonight show . . . Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave . . . They never took a swim and thought about Jaws . . . They can't imagine what hard contact lenses are . . . They don't know who Mork was or where he was from . . . They never heard "I'd walk a mile for a Camel," "De plane, Boss, de plane," or "Where's the Beef?" . . . They don't care who shot J. R. and have no idea who J. R. even is . . . McDonald's never came in styrofoam containers . . . They don't have a clue how to use a typewriter . . .

And the best one . . . Michael Jackson has always been white.

My thanks to Valerie at kyriosity for the link to Googlism. Visit her site, it's quite humorous what she has done. i thought i would share a few items for my own search so all you readers _ all 3 of you _ can know me a little better.

Valerie, i am a shameless copycat . . . but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery . . . for what that's worth.

james is lara croft (this explains the identity crisis)
james is headed to the desert (actually, i just returned)
james is released (no, i forged the papers and escaped)
james is back in (they caught me)
james is ruled out (did it have anything to do with being lara croft?)
james is finally convinced to cremate himself (the logical conclusion of my self-deprecation)
james is wicked ale (no, but i could use a stiff drink right now)
james is peaking at right time (but since i was ruled out, i guess it's all for nothing)
james is cooler than billy (Mom always did like me best)
james is ready to paint the town red (but i lost my paint brush)
james is 30 (actually, 30 is in the rearview mirror and fading quickly)

Station No. 17

John was persistent. He took note of Rosa’s pause and that only peaked his curiosity. He was aware, as a result of observing his father’s response to Rosa, that Charles more or less tolerated her. Jess had taken much the same attitude. But John, well, John was not one to let others tell him what to think or feel. He was interested in Rosa. He was puzzled as to why she would continue being king and helpful considering how his father treated her.

He asked again: “Why do you help us?”

Rosa knew she was caught. She turned and smiled in a loving, grandmotherly sort of way, and said: “Because right now you need me.” She might have just as well said: “Because I need to,” but she didn’t. She might have also said she was helping simply because helping is what decent people do as neighbors; or that she helps because, having suffered a loss without anyone to help her, she feels a strong tug of empathy for families in the position John’s family was now in.

John pondered Rosa’s reply and started to speak, when the kitchen door swung open and Charles entered. He was grumpy and groggy, but Rosa appeased him with the promise of a hot meal in short order. His mood improved, slightly, but there was no talking at the dinner table, and Rosa stayed only long enough to clear the plates before going home.

That night, with a howling wind bending the maple trees outside her living room window, Rosa sat. She stared into the night, with just a few candles burning and a cup of Keemun to warm both her body and soul.

As she was dozing off, she heard a car door shut and a voice call out. As she peered out the window, she saw Charles standing in his front doorway and a man walking up the front steps. The two men shook hands, and went inside. Rosa thought she had seen the visitor before, but was unsure where. He had one of those looks, as though he were someone familiar, an old friend, yet he was not quite what she thought her old friend looked like.

Rosa was mistaken, for the night had not allowed her a clear look at the visitor. It was Jason, someone she would have certainly recognized in the daytime, for it was at his shop that Rosa bought all her tea.

The New York Times had a surprising piece on marriage in its Op/Ed section today. Of particular interest to me was this section:

"I was out in the field all of the time, interviewing low-income single mothers," Kathy Edin, a sociologist at Northwestern University, told me. "And what really struck me in those interviews was how many people talked about the desire to get married. And I would go back, you know, and talk to my friends in academia and they would say, 'Oh, they can't mean that.' But I would hear it again and again."

Here again we see academia really has its finger on the pulse.

On The Lighter Side . . .

The ESPN web site has a list of sports cliches which is quite entertaining.

In putting the list together, the folks at ESPN really gave it 110 percent; they picked it up a notch; they left nothing in the locker room . . .

The late author Sheldon Vanauken used to write about something he called moments made eternity. These were events or experiences whcih break through the banalities of life and remind a person of the greatness beyond themselves as created in nature. i was reminded of moments made eternity this morning as i walked to work. The tempertature was unseasonably mild, there area few rain drops falling, but not enough to require an umbrella. The wind was blowing gently, a refreshingly fresh breath. And then, the clouds cleared for a moment, and i saw a brilliant rainbow. I could not stop gazing at it, and my step certainly lightened.

It was a beautiful sight, and a great reminder of the covenant God made with Noah, a promise. It was also a poignant sign, calling me out of the mundane and into the profound, even on an early Monday morning.

God is present, and He is constantly speaking. i needed that.