Bad Weather

I had an interesting night last night. As I write this we have had a serious evening of storms in the greater Tulsa area. It is kind of interesting that God puts people where they need to be to do the most good sometimes. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I have not had a chance to go to Wednesday night service in months because of my working evenings. Earlier this week my co-worker came back from surgery. He needed to go to physical therapy several days a week, so we switched shifts so he could go in the mornings and not have to burn a lot of sick time. Since I had Wednesday night off now I decided that I would go to church. There had been tornatoes reported in Oklahoma City but that was 120 miles away. I did not think much of it. At 7:00 I got to church and as I was heading into the building I thought I heard the sirens, but was not sure. Dropped Annie off for her group and I went over to 'big people' church as the kids and I call it. While praise and worship was going on, the senior pastor on staff got up and said for us to head over to the Children's Building. The children had already been moved and there were storms in the area that were dangerous. Quietly and in prayer we moved.

Now the area was not chaos, but it was not normal either. Children were in one area, adults were in another but we did not know where. There was a trust that all was OK. As I was sitting their in a long hallway that lead to a stairwell the Children's pastor came down and announced that the children were in the stairwell (which I had not gotten to because of the amount of people, and if we had children, we should get them as many of the kids were scarred. I went over and checked for Annie. When I found her she was just like I thought she would be. Someone had grabbed a couple of balloons and she a few kids were bouncing them around amongst themselves.

Since I knew Annie was safe I looked around and saw the Associate Children's pastor moving around a lot between a bunch of grade school kids. Since I work with this age group, even though I did not have the ministry t-shirt on, I got down and sat with the kids and started talking with them. Most of them recognized me and I could see that they had a little bit of fear in their eyes. They knew they were safe, and they knew their parents were safe, but they were out of the normal way of doing things. To see a face they knew helped a lot. We talked about a lot of things and made sure they were OK. We played Rock, Paper, Scissors, and sang some songs. There was a lot of rumbling and they asked me about it. Now I would not have been there if things had been normal, but I was their because of it and they were.

As we got ready to leave, after all the kids got picked up, I stopped to listen to the radio on the way home. I found out from the radio that Rhema Church in Broken Arrow, not far from where we were at Grace Church, had been hit fairly hard. The image here shows some of the damage. It is from KOTV.com

I looked up in Google Earth how close we were to the church that got hit. As the crow flies it is 4 miles almost due NE. And the storms were moving in a NE direction. In other words, the storm went right over my head.

I thank God that I was with those kids and able to keep them calm. I was able to take a bit of stress of the Children's ministers. It was not something that I pride myself on, it was the fact that God put me where He needed me to be. and I was able to do what He needed.

Wonder why no one wants to sign him?

Jeff Borris, the agent for Bonds, said, "No team has made me an offer for any amount at any time since Barry became a free agent."

ESPN - Free agents Bonds, Lofton key parts of MLBPA investigation - MLB

I wonder if the reason that no one has offered a job to Bonds is that the do not want the question of illegal steroid use in their clubhouse. Also, Baseball is a young man's sport. Bonds is at the age when he needs to think about being a manager. Just my $.02 worth at least.

Clinton wants to go Fast

Clinton makes Speedway stop to visit Fisher's garage - Auto Racing - CBSSports.com: "INDIANAPOLIS -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton visited the Indianapolis Motor Speedway garage of driver Sarah Fisher on Tuesday as she awaited results from her own race in Indiana's primary."

I think she made a mistake. She is supposed to be getting the vote of the NASCAR dads, not the Indy Car woman drivers. There are more of us NASCAR dads.

NASCAR.COM - Economic difficulties felt in garage, seen in the stands - May 2, 2008

RICHMOND, Va. -- Morgan Shepherd's goal for Friday night's Nationwide Series race at Richmond International Raceway was easy -- run the entire event. Sounds simple enough, modest at best. But for Shepherd, that tops any goal he's had this season.

Richmond was Shepherd's ninth start in 11 Nationwide events this season. He retired early in the first seven events for the same reason -- handling. Only at Phoenix did he run more than 50 laps.

But at Talladega last weekend, Shepherd finished 13th in the race, completing all 117 laps. It was the first time he had finished a race since a 2004 Cup event at Daytona, and it was his first Nationwide Series finish since 2003.

The reason he was able to finish the race -- he only had to change tires once.

Running his team from his own pocket, from his own garage in Conover, N.C., racing isn't the most economic-friendly business for Shepherd. His Web site lists 10 employees, if you include his dog, Charger.

So this week, the initial plan was much the same: Qualify for the race, start the race, run until the tires went out, then go home. But that plan changed.

"A good friend of mine, Tony Stewart, decided to buy our tires so we plan to run the whole race," Shepherd said before he qualified Friday night. "I hate going out and running and having to retire because of handling, because when your tires go out you don't have handling.

"Stewart hated to see it, too.

"Just felt like doing it," Stewart said. "Morgan is a great guy. There are a lot of people in the stands that don't realize who Morgan Shepherd is. They think he's just some guy who drives a green racecar that says 'Racing with Jesus' every week. They don't understand that years ago he used to be one of the top guys in the Cup Series.

"Shepherd's heyday in Cup was during the 1980s and '90s, when single-car teams could succeed and did. Shepherd won four races in his Cup career all while driving for single-car teams. Now as a single-car operator himself, he's trying to overcome the failing economic crunch that has a firm grip on a vast majority of the nation.

NASCAR.COM - Economic difficulties felt in garage, seen in the stands - May 2, 2008



Thanks Tony.  I was so glad to see him finish the race last week and tonight.

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Fenway Park Like you have never seen it....

One Day At Fenway - Letus Extreme Film - Time Lapse - HDTV from Tom Guilmette on Vimeo.

Facinating piece of footage. And not just because I am a Red Sox fan.

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You can do it, Tony can help

NASCAR Silly Season is officially underway.  It gets earlier and earlier each year.  I guess we could say that this is just a lot of smoke!

(For you non-NASCAR fans, Tony's nickname is Smoke)

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Michael Moore endorses Obama, chides Clinton (AP)

AP - Michael Moore wants voters in Pennsylvania to cast their ballots for Barack Obama.

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Now I know that I could NEVER votes for Obama.

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Congress To Probe Bowl Championship Series, Bipartisan Trifecta Wants To Examine College Football's Championship Series Constitutes A Racket - CBS News

Reps. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., and Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, are introducing a resolution rejecting the oft-criticized bowl system as an illegal restriction on trade because only the largest universities compete in most of the major bowl games. The resolution would require Justice's antitrust division to investigate whether the system violates federal law.

You know, I think that the Government has a lot better things to do with their time and my tax money than to investigate the NCAA.  I wonder what brought this on....

Abercrombie said the matter is worthy of federal review because college football is big business with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.

"It's money. That's what this is all about," he said.

But it's no coincidence that all three lawmakers have home-state schools with recent beefs against the bowl system.

The University of Hawaii and Boise State University in Idaho each had an undefeated season in recent years, but were denied a shot at the championship. And Westmoreland said he is still smarting about his University of Georgia Bulldogs being passed over for the national championship game last year.

Ahhhhh.... it all becomes so much clearer now.  It is money that bothers the Reps.  Gee.  Can you spend less of mine while you are at it?

Congress To Probe Bowl Championship Series, Bipartisan Trifecta Wants To Examine College Football's Championship Series Constitutes A Racket - CBS News

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