Friday, March 7, 2025

A to Z Challenge Theme Reveal: The ABC's of ME

April Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2025 SIGN-UP March 24-April 5 a-to-zchallenge.com

Leap of Dave

2025 A to Z Challenge Theme Reveal

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Lech Walesa stands in solidarity with Ukraine

Lech Walesa has been a hero of mine for a while. His work as a political dissident led him to prison and eventually to become Presdient of Poland. This week he wrote a letter to President Trump after the meeting last Friday between President Trump and Ukranian President Voldymyr Zelensky.

Here is the letter in it's entirety.

Your Excellency, Mr. President,

We watched the report of your conversation with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, with fear and distaste. We find it insulting that you expect Ukraine to show respect and gratitude for the material assistance provided by the United States in its fight against russia. Gratitude is owed to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed their blood in defense of the values of the free world. They have been dying on the front lines for more than 11 years in the name of these values and the independence of their homeland, which was attacked by Putin’s russia.

We do not understand how the leader of a country that symbolizes the free world cannot recognize this.

Our alarm was also heightened by the atmosphere in the Oval Office during this conversation, which reminded us of the interrogations we endured at the hands of the Security Services and the debates in Communist courts. Prosecutors and judges, acting on behalf of the all-powerful communist political police, would explain to us that they held all the power while we held none. They demanded that we cease our activities, arguing that thousands of innocent people suffered because of us. They stripped us of our freedoms and civil rights because we refused to cooperate with the government or express gratitude for our oppression. We are shocked that President Volodymyr Zelensky was treated in the same manner.

The history of the 20th century shows that whenever the United States sought to distance itself from democratic values and its European allies, it ultimately became a threat to itself. President Woodrow Wilson understood this when he decided in 1917 that the United States must join World War I. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood this when, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he resolved that the war to defend America must be fought not only in the Pacific but also in Europe, in alliance with the nations under attack by the Third Reich.

We remember that without President Ronald Reagan and America’s financial commitment, the collapse of the Soviet empire would not have been possible. President Reagan recognized that millions of enslaved people suffered in Soviet Russia and the countries it had subjugated, including thousands of political prisoners who paid for their defense of democratic values with their freedom. His greatness lay, among other things, in his unwavering decision to call the USSR an “Empire of Evil” and to fight it decisively. We won, and today, the statue of President Ronald Reagan stands in Warsaw, facing the U.S. Embassy.

Mr. President, material aid—military and financial—can never be equated with the blood shed in the name of Ukraine’s independence and the freedom of Europe and the entire free world. Human life is priceless; its value cannot be measured in money. Gratitude is due to those who sacrifice their blood and their freedom. This is self-evident to us, the people of Solidarity, former political prisoners of the communist regime under Soviet Russia. We call on the United States to uphold the guarantees made alongside Great Britain in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which established a direct obligation to defend Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for its relinquishment of nuclear weapons. These guarantees are unconditional—there is no mention of treating such assistance as an economic transaction.

Signed,

Lech Wałęsa, former political prisoner, President of Poland

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Bob Ayala: Joy By Surprise - A Heard It For The FIrst Time Review

I know a lot about contemporary Christian music (CCM) and a pretty good amount about the history of CCM/ Jesus Music. Bob Ayala was a CCM Pioneer. While these first two sentences are correct, I just heard about Ayala today.

I am in a number of FB CCM groups and someone mentioned his 1976 debut album Joy By Surprise. Spotify is my go to for finding music like this but they only had one Bob Ayala album or Bob Ayalbum if you will, and it wasn't Joy By Surprise. I was able to find it on You Tube and have shared it below. My plan is to listen to it now and give you a quick as I'm hearing it review.

The album is about 33 minutes long and has 10 songs. Joy By Surprise begins with Stephanie, With Love which is a nice consoling song about a girl who loved and lost.

The next song Do You Know Him? starts with a description of God "He is a poet in the wind a sculptor of the sky line. "

Nice guitar work and some good front ground la la las which are very typical of this time frame.

Try And Keep The Pace

Opening lyrics: You were always haunted by the girl you hated standing in your mirror. The little I read about Ayala stated a couple Keith Greenesque qualities. These qualities are on full display in this song. This song also reminds me of more positive less satire look at the issues Randy Stonehill explored in cosmetic fixation and Barbie nation.

To The Ancient of Days seems to be the most famous song from this album according to notes on the FB page and the You Tube comments. One commenter stated he could not listen to it with out thinking of Narnia, this is not too difficult for an album whose cover art is the singer encountering Aslan. These songs are quick but they have good production value and I can imagine listening to them again and again,

Peace is the next song and starts with the sounds of the outdoors at night. The lyrics continue that theme with a nice guitar accompaniment. The person who shared this album on You Tube stated "that the music drifts further to the middle of the road than one would like". Speaking for myself, this one likes the middle of the road just fine.

1/2 way through the album as we pause to turn the record over I'll say that so far I like it. The songs are quick but they have good production value and I can imagine listening to them again and again.

I enjoyed Silent Witness, which seems to be a love song from an unbelieving husband to his believing wife. There was a really good lyric in the beginning that I couldn't write down quick enough. I look forward to hearing it again on a subsequent listen.

Joy By Surprise, the title track has a Don Francisco country twang to it which I quite enjoyed. The lyrics also reminded me of C.S. Lewis a) because Lewis's autobiography is called Surprised by Joy and b) since some of the lyrics talk about scales being removed which is so very Eustace Clarence Scrubb.

The Song of Joseph is next and while there are many Joseph's in the Bible, This one is definitely about Mary's husband. I found it the most uneven of the songs I've heard so far. Of course this is just one listen in, and often songs have a way of surprising me after multiple hearings.

Lord is the penultimate song on this collection. Where Joseph's song is an Advent song, Lord, is a Good Friday song. The music is slow and sad and helps you imagine Jesus carrying his cross on the way to Calvary. If it wasn't obvious before that this was a1970's album this song brings that idea home with an sledge hammer masquerading as an exclamation point.

To end an album with a song called New Beginnings is kind of different. It's a good song and is very Michael Cardish with the vocals and the orchestration.

A couple of final vinyl thoughts that I'd like to spin. I recognized the names of a couple musicians on the album. First there is Billy Batstone who wears lots of hats, singer, songwriter, worship leader, bassist, guitarist and of course becomes Captain Marvel when he say Shazam. Then I read about the drummer Al McDougal and I was thinking that name sounds very familiar. Then I realized it was probably Alex MacDougal who used to drum for Daniel Amos. Sure enough he has is credited in Discogs for his work on this album.

I like this album and kind of want to finish this review quickly so I can listen to it again. One of the blogs I read mentioned him in early 2020 as still being alive. Apparently in the Fall of that year he passed away while visiting his sister perhaps due to some vertigo issues he had been experiencing. It was kind of strangely sad discovering he died nearly 5 years prior to my discovery of him. In a sense I wish I discovered his music earlier, but in another way it's kind of nice to discover old music that's new to you.

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Wordless Wednesday: Memories from our 2023 trip to Greece. First Night In Athens

Wordless Wednesday is brought to you each week by Comedy Plus. Click here for more Wordless Wednesday.

Monday, March 3, 2025

Cold Topics: President Obama's Message for America's Students

A lot of times when you do a blog you find yourself commenting on whatever the hot topic of the day is. If you are not a posting daily, it is very possible that by the time you get to the topic, it is no longer hot.

I always thought it might be interesting to go back and look at a formerly hot topic and review it after it had long gone cold.

If we go into the way back machine to September of 2009, back when this blog was less than a year old and still called Home School Dad, we can discover a topic that was very hot at the time that has since gone cold, but still has some relevance today.

On September 8, 2009 President Obama spoke to students in Virginia and the speech was telecast to students all over the country. For some reason this created quite a stir.

I remember not understanding what the hubbub was all about and watching the speech with my students (children) at the Izola Becker Home School. Some time has passed and now the K-12 students who may have watched the event at school are all at least 2 years out of high school by now. Students who were seniors in high school will be having their 15th hisg school reunion, and my youngest daughter who was 3 at the time of the speech is now a Freshman in college.

Here is the then "controversial" address:

Click here for a transcript of his speech.

Click here for an Albert Mohler post decrying the controversy

Click here for politico's take on the controversy

Click here for a blog post stating why it was a conservative speech.

I was interested to see if I could find out more about Tim Spicer, the student who introduced Obama. It turns out that in addition to being involved helping students and school districts in low income communities, Spicer was a contestant on Season 46 of Survivor.

There we are, our first edition of cold topics. I was either going to call it that, or perhaps hot topics for procrastinators. Once today's news becomes yesterday's olds we may have another edition.

Saturday, March 1, 2025

Team Saturdazzle: The one where I meet a FB friend for the first time and then unfriend them

Hello and welcome once again to Team Saturdazzle. I have 3 or 4 random things to share this Saturday. Let's get started shall we.

Last Saturday there was a Men's breakfast at my church. As I was waiting in line I saw a friend from a church we had both previously attended. I went and sat with him and remembered that my friend was active in the same prison visitation ministry that the speaker was from. At a table of 8 people most were friends of the speaker through the prison ministry. My friend was asking me if I knew another man at our table who had also attended our previous church and was now pastoring a different church. When I heard the name, I recognized it right away and realized that this guy was a Facebook friend of mine.

The interesting thing was I don't remember ever meeting this guy before. He has been a FB friend for awhile, but I'm not sure I've ever seen him post about anything. I introduced myself to him and told him we were FB friends but he gave me no impression that we had ever known each other. Here is what I think happened: The church I used to attend had at one point 7 men at the church all named Dave. To muddle this even more 4 of the Dave's last names ended with the letters er. Back in the day when FB was popular it was fairly common to get beleaguered with friend requests and friend recommendations. I wouldn't be surprised, if this guy got a "You might also know ... " message and mixed me up with one of the other er Dave's from church. Then, when I got the friend request I accepted thinking we would become better acquainted. For the past few years when I've been cleaning up my FB contacts, I have considered removing this person but hesitated thinking maybe we had a backstory I had forgotten and we would meet someday and he would clue me in.

Well when we did met he seemed as clueless as me in regards to our backstory. So today when I was cleaning up my FB contacts I unfriended him. Since we were basically oblivious of each other in the non digital world until last week, I think we will get over the loss rather quickly.

Earlier this week I participated in the Weekly Writer's Workshop at The Sound of One Hand Typing. Each week John Holton gives multiple prompts to choose from. This weeks were:

Write a post based on the word grudges.
Write a post in exactly 13 lines.
Write about something you learned in the month of February.
List your five favorite snack foods.
Tell us about the worst haircut you ever had.
What are the five things you enjoyed doing the most when you were in sixth grade? Do you still enjoy doing them?

I chose to combine prompt two and six. After which I used paragraphy at byrdseed.com to put the sentences in random order.

Here is my original. The number reinforces the original order. The letter shows what order paragraphy put them in. To see how it appeared originally in my blog click here,

The prompt I chose for today is to write a post using exactly 13 lines. (L)
I have adjusted that to be exactly 13 sentences. (A)
I will also try to remember back almost 50 years ago when I was in the 6th grade to think about the 5 things I enjoyed most back then and evaluate if I still like them today. (K)
I have been wanting for some years to put in a post using Paragraphy and will try to do that today. (E)
How Paragraphy works is you write a paragraph and then the sentences are randomly reordered. (I)
See if you can figure out the original order. (M)
In 1975 when I started 6th grade, I was a huge White Sox fan. (B)
Fifty years later I still am. (H)
Back then I was quite the television watcher and had the network schedule memorized. (G)
Even now when I hear about an old show, the first thing I think of is what network it was on and what day it aired. (J)
In 6th grade I was still in the school band and I played the saxophone, I liked playing but was never very good at it, so that was my last year. (C)
The other two were baseball and bicycling. (F)
They are still two passions of mine. (D)

The number reinforces the original order. The letter shows what order paragraphy put them in. To see how it appeared originally in my blog click here

The A to Z challenge is coming up next month and I am still working on my theme reveal. While I'm not quite ready to tell you what theme I am doing, I can tell you about one that I thought about doing and may do in the future.

On The February 1 Team Saturdazzle post, I wrote a little about Sesame Street and shared 3 clips from the show. Two of the clips featured guest appearances. This got me to toying with thee idea of an A-Z theme with Sesame Street guest appearances. While it didn't make the cut for this year, I may revisit it in future challenges. I am happy, though to share this gem of Andrew Garfield and Elmo talking about grief.

March Madness is not just for Basketball!

This is the third year that I am participating in a Wordle March Madness event. If you reading this post because you are a FB friend of mine look you may have seen an invitation to play along thus year. What were doing is playing wordle as usual at the NYT site each day this month and sharing our results. Like golf we are trying for low scores. I will share the top 10 each competitors each week here at Team Saturdazzle.

We've had quite the Saturdazzle! Unfrienships, mixed up memories, grief on the street, and a March to Wordle Madness. Thanks for visiting.

Thursday, February 27, 2025

Writers Workshop: 13 Lines about five things I enjoyed in 6th grade. (Paragraphy Edition)

Writer's Workshop is taking place again at The Sound of One Hand Typing.

Here are this week’s prompts: (The ones I chose are in bold.)

Write a post based on the word grudges.
Write a post in exactly 13 lines.
Write about something you learned in the month of February.
List your five favorite snack foods.
Tell us about the worst haircut you ever had.
What are the five things you enjoyed doing the most when you were in sixth grade? Do you still enjoy doing them?

I have adjusted that to be exactly 13 sentences.
In 1975 when I started 6th grade, I was a huge White Sox fan.
In 6th grade I was still in the school band and I played the saxophone, I liked playing but was never very good at it, so that was my last year.
They are still two passions of mine.
I have been wanting for some years to write a post using Paragraphy and will try to do that today.
The other two were baseball and bicycling.
Back then I was quite the television watcher and had the network schedule memorized.
Fifty years later I still am.
How Paragraphy works is you write a paragraph and then the sentences are randomly reordered.
Even now when I hear about an old show, the first thing I think of is what network it was on and what day it aired.
I will also try to remember back almost 50 years ago when I was in the 6th grade to think about the 5 things I enjoyed most back then and evaluate if I still lie them today.
The prompt I chose for today is to write a post using exactly 13 lines.
See if you can figure out the original order.

Click here for more Writer's Workshop. In your comments to my post just order the letters to see if you can guess how my paragraph was supposed to turn out,

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

12 New Movies: The Emperor's New Groove 2000

Kuzco Cosplay - FanimeCon2017

By Michael Ocampo from United States - FanimeCon 2017 647, CC BY 2.0, Link

The second new (to me) film I watched this year was the 2000 Disney animated comedy film, The Emperor's New Groove.

As in the last review, I will attempt to do the following:

Rate each movie on a 1 (worst movie ever) to 5 (best movie I have seen) scale.
Provide a 2-3 sentence summary of the movie.
I will share 1 theme from the movie.
Write one thing I liked about the movie and 1 thing I disliked about the movie.
State who I think would make the best audience for this movie.

The Emperor's New Groove (2000) Rating 4 stars out of 5

Summary: A young selfish Peruvian emperor Kuzco, (voiced by David Spade) is accidentally transformed into a llama by his wicked advisor in a failed assassination attempt. The Tribal leader, Pacha (voiced by John Goodman) that Kuzco is trying to usurp land from begrudgingly tries to restore Kuzco back into himself. Over the course of their arduous journey, the emperor begins to see himself in a new light.

Theme: One theme of the movie is the difficulties involved in putting others needs ahead of your own.

Likes: The emperor's new groove is an extremely funny movie. The humor is both character driven and through it's over the top ridiculousness and frenetic pace.

Dislikes: The plot of the movie sometimes suffers from the slapstick nature of the film. I think repeat viewing may place more emphasis on the emotional unevenness of the plot.

A Good Audience for this Film: People who like their Disney animated movies with less musical interludes, fans of Shrek, David Spade, and fast paced romps should enjoy this movie.

2025 New To Me Film Update

I have watched and reviewed 2 films:

Films released from 2009 to 2024 Watched 0 Remaining 2

Films released from 1994 to 2008 Watched 1 Remaining 1

Films released from 1979 to 1993 Watched 0 Remaining 2

Films released from 1964 to 1978 Watched 0 Remaining 2

Films released from 1949 to 1963 Watched 0 Remaining 2

Films released before 1934 and up to 1948 Watched 1 Remaining 1

My Daughter Lucy and I watched this film at the local movie theatre that we work at. It was part of an Employee appreciation party. Watching it in a theatre setting with our co-workers was very enjoyable.

Sunday, February 23, 2025

Allen Levi's Eulogy for his nepehew Jonathan Bizilia

Saturday, February 22, 2025

Team Saturdazzle: The One Where I Finally Say Something About President Trump

Wow. This year is flying by fast. It's already the last Saturdazzle of the month for the 2nd time this year.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, or if you are joining in from my Facebook page, you may be confused by the title of this post. "What?!? Roller talks about Trump all the stinking time. He even had his Dad teach him how to play bridge so he could say No Trump. more often.", you might be thinking to yourself. (You may even be thinking parenthetically, that you're not sure if thoughts should be in quotation marks).

The truth is that in this blog, I have not written a thing about President Trump all year. That isn't to say I haven't had thoughts, I've had thoughts! Here's two I'd like to share today:

1. President Trump is My President.

I don't know where it started, or where I first heard it, but it seems very likely regardless of who is the current president, or who's the governor of your state that you may hear or read someone mention, "He's not my president." or "She's not my governor". This bothers me in many ways, but mainly linguistically.

If I live in Elgin, Illinois, (#Ido), the mayor of that city is my mayor. It doesn't matter, if I don't know his or her name (#IdoIjustlookeditup) or if I voted for him, (#Idid), that's my mayor.

On January 20th 2025 10:00 A.M. central time Joe Biden was my President. No, I didn't vote for him. No, I don't agree with him on a number of issues, but I'm a U.S. citizen as he was in the last hour of his presidency for that hour he was still my president.

In the same way by noon central time Donald Trump had again become my president. I trust Trump about as far as I can throw Mount Rushmore. I didn't vote for him in the 2016, 2020, or 2024 primaries or general elections but yet he's my president.

Saying someone is not your president, when they are is not to me an act of defiance, nor a nod of a disapproval. It's more like saying I'm only part of my country when I agree with their choices. I understand the voting process the way we elect our public officials but then those elected officials work for all of us and represent all of us. This is why they are our elected officials. While it's an essential part of our democracy to speak up when we disagree with our elected officials, disagreeing with them in no way makes them no longer our leaders. It's because they are our leaders that we can ask them to change. I live in the state of Illinois and a Republican presidential candidate has not won the state of Illinois since 1988. Does that mean that President George W. Bush or President Trump aren't the President in Illinois. No! Nor does it matter that I haven't voted for a winning presidential candidate in over 2 decades. The President of the U.S. is my president and this brings me to my second point.

2. President Trump is not my savior, but he's not the devil either.

As stated before, I have not posted on this blog about President Trump all year. This can not be said when it comes to posting my Facebook account. Several times I have written there about our current president. A few weeks nto his most recent term, I asked my FB friends to mention one thing Trump had done in those two weeks which they liked and one thing he had done which they didn't like.

I have 441 FB friends. Two gave me one thing they liked and one thing they didn't like. My submission made for a total of three. 3 out of 442? Wow!

I'm not exactly sure why it was this low. Many people on FB say good things about him and many people say bad things about him. How come so few can mention both the good and the bad?

We are all created in God's image, so we all have good inside of us. We also are all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God so we all have bad coming out of us. Finding both good and bad should not be that hard of an exercise. And if it is, then since we are called to pray for our elected officials maybe we should spend more time trying to think about good and bad things that they are doing to aid in our prayers.

One of my FB friends asked why I hadn't done such an exercise when Biden was President. I had in fact done a very similar exercise when Biden was president. But I'll go ahead and conclude this segment by saying one good and one bad thing about both President Trump and former President Biden.

Donald Trump

Good: When he was on The Apprentice, I liked how in the board room segments he would make the contestants take responsibility for their actions. There was one episode where a project manager was talking about how great he ran his team for that week. Trump turned it around on him and asked, Did you win? Which of course he had not, which is why he was in the board room to begin with.

Bad: As a candidate and as president I have never seen him follow his own advice and admit a mistake. This is shown most in his inability to concede the 2020 Presidential Election.

Joe Biden

Good: Biden thought about the good of the country and the good of his party before choosing to drop out of the 2024 election.

Bad: I didn't mind that he pardoned his son Hunter, I just don't like that he did it after saying that he wasn't going to.

Note: The things I mentioned about Trump are not the same things I mentioned on my Facebook Page. Here is what I said on Facebook:

A good thing I think Trump has done is pardon the 23 people who were being prosecuted under the F.A.C.E act Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances. A bad thing Trump had done is the pardoning or commuting the sentence of all 1500 people convicted of crimes during the events at the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021

Coming Soon: Levi A to Z

Sometimes I like to use Team Saturdazzle as a place to start the conversation about topics I'm preparing future posts about.

A to Z challenge Update. I believe I have a topic for the upcoming challenge. I am in the process of preparing posts and making a theme reveal post as well.

Speaking of Alpha and Omegas: I have some future posts featuring a pair of Levi's. This pair is well worn on the pages of my blog. The first is Allen Levi, a member of my Big 5 list of favorite musicians. Actually I have 2 upcoming posts featuring Allen. The second Levi, is Chuck Bartowski, Flynn Rider, Captain Marvel and Kurt Warner rolled into one, Zachary Levi. I watched The Unbreakable Boy earlier today and hope to post a short review before the next Saturdazzle.

There are 24 hours in a day but only 24 minutes left of this particular Saturdazzle. So on that mathematical non sequitur, I bid you farewell.

Monday, February 17, 2025

Two 10.70 solves

My Son Charlie competed in anoter Rubiks Cube event this weekend. He films all his solves and made this cool video with two solves with nearly identical times from different days of the event.

Sunday, February 16, 2025

Stats Sunday: Worst thing about the 2024 White Sox

The Chicago White Sox start ful squad workout for 2025 Spring Training tomorrow. I thought this might be a good time to review the 2024 team. The 2023 White Sox were horrible. They were record breaking bad. I know, can I analyze or what?

One stat more than any other shows how bad their start to the season was. This stat would be the number of 1 game losing streaks the White Sox had in the first half of the season. A 1 game losing streak may sound like a bad thing but it is actually pretty good. A 1 game losing streak is really a series of 3 games in a row, a win followed by a loss followed by another win. Here is a list of the 30 MLB teams last year listed with their record after 71 games and how many 1 game losing streaks they had at that point of the season.

Arizona Diamondbacks 34-37 12

Atlanta Braves 40-31 12

Baltimore Orioles 47-24 10

Boston Red Sox 36-35 7

Chicago Cubs 34-37 12

Chicago White Sox 18-53 0

Cincinatti Reds 34-37 8

Cleveland Guardians 45-26 10

Colorado Rockies 25-46 5

Detroit Tigers 34-37 7

Houston Astros 32-39 11

Kansas City Royals 40-31 10

Los Angeles Angels 28-43 7

Los Angeles Dodgers 43-28 10

Miami Marlins 23-48 6

Milwaukee Brewers 42-29 11

Minnesota Twins 39-32 9

New York Mets 34-37 7

New York Yankees 49-22 8

Philadelphia Phillies 47-24 13

Pittsburgh Pirates 34-37 10

San Diego Padres 36-35 11

San Francisco Giants 34-37 13

Seattle Mariners 40-32 12

St. Louis Cardinals 36-35 12

Tampa Bay Rays 33-38 10

Texas Rangers 33-38 13

Toronto Blue Jays 35-36 10

Washington Nationals 35-36 11

In 71 games all the other teams in Major League Baseball had at least 5 1 game losing streaks. 1 game losing streaks are a key to any kind of sustained success. A 1 game losing streak means you can start inching back up in the win column. If its multiple losses are followed by a win or two and then followed by multiple losses you are never going to gain any momentum.

lack of momentum was certainly yjr case for the 2024 White Sox. This was partially because it took 72 games to finally stop the bleeding after a 1 game losing streak. By that tine they were 19-53. In the 90 games left in the season they would have needed to go 62-28 to get to .500. They did not go 62-28 in their last 90, They went 22-68 or .244 which was actually worse than the .263 winning percentage for the 1st 72 games.

Very few people including myself, expect the White Sox to be much better than they were last year. They may well lose 100 or more game s for the 3rd year in a row. One thing I will be looking at is if they can put a win or two together and then lose just 1 game before getting back in the win column. In fact I have a plan for a future Stats Sunday focusing on how long it takes each team to stop a losing streak at just one game. Hopefully the White Sox won't be the last team to achieve that this year.

Saturday, February 15, 2025

Team Saturdazzle: The One Where Captain Abearica goes to work.

Team Saturdazzle is in the house. I had many ideas this week for our time together. Some of them I discarded, others I forgot what they were, still others, I discarded , forgot about them, remembered them again, bit forgot that I had previously discarded them, and then discarded them again. This one happened organically but took about a week to culminate, so I'll share a little of the genesis.

Monday or Tuesday of this week I found out that our school was having yet another pajama day. I thought that I might participate this time. There also had been some talk about a lot of snow coming into our are Wednesday and some thoughts that the regular school day might be replaced by an e-learning day. The main difference between a weather related closure, or snow day and an e-learning day is that an e-learning day does not be made up and a snow day does. On E-learning days teachers give assignments to students, the students check in with them over the course of the day and it counts as a day of instruction. E-learning days had their beginnings during co-vid 19 and can be used for weather related closures and other times when meeting at the school is not possible. I think for the most part teachers like these e-learning days but as a building sub at least in my district I do not because I don't work on those days and when I don't work, I don't get paid. In a traditional snow day situation,, I also don't work and don't get paid, but when the school year is extended because of the closure I work and get paid making up for the day I missed.

It turns out that our school was not cancelled. But there was still a lot of snow in the forecast for the majority of the day. So, I wore sweat pants, a tye dye t-shirt and then put warm pajama bottoms over the sweat pants and a thick robe on over the ensemble. As I was leaving I decided to bring

Captain Abearica, the Build-A-Bear Captain America my daughter Lucy brought for me and that I've been using in various ways as a Sub since 2019. I figured what goes better with pajamas than a stuffed animal.

Pajama Day came and went. The 6th grade science classes that I subbed for that day that weren't too cool for school enjoyed his appearance. On Thursday after school I decided to take advantage of the perk I have at the movie theatre where I work and watch the new Captain America movie for free. My plan was to bring Captain Abearica in as well, because family members also get in for free. I remembered to bring him to work on Thursday but forgot to take him into the theatre.

Thursday was the soft opening of the new film whose full title is Captain America Brave New World. The hard opening was Friday, I was working and I figured the place was going to be a zoo. I have a very logical mind, at least to me. I thought if the place is going to be a zoo, why not bring a bear, especially one who's dressed for the occasion?

I talked to my manager, who thought it was a great idea and provided me a name tag for "Cap".

Captain Abearica AKA Steve Pawgers

The Captain was a big hit and some people even offered to buy him. My manager is letting me bring him back for my shifts for the rest of the run of the film. Who knows maybe he'll even let me dress up like this?

I'll probably have to wait until the next pajama day.

April Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2025 SIGN-UP March 24-April 5 a-to-zchallenge.com

The A to Z Challenge blog posted yesterday for the first time since May of last year. Besides introducing the above 2025 badge. They posted the schedule for this years challenge:

2025 #AtoZchallenge Schedule:

The THEME REVEAL (optional bonus hop) : March 9- 15

Official Challenge Sign-ups : March 24 to April 5

Reflections (optional bonus hop) : May 2-9

Road-trip (sign up to keep visiting others all year _ optional bonus) : Opens May 10

I'm not sure exactly what I might be doing for the challenge. I've had 4 ideas and I like all of them, but unlike some of the past years I'm only going to do one of them this year

Even as a big fan of the challenge, I still take umbrage with the way they schedule the reflection so early . This year challenge ends on a Wednesday and you have all of Thursday to reflect on the challenge before Friday when the reflection sign up begins. That's not enough time to reflect!!! Well that's my rant. Remember if you are missing any umbrage, I took it.

Now for a new Saturdazzle feature:

Something I said on Facebook this week

My friend's BIL posted on FB this week that he found the Super Bowl game boring. I so did not! So I said this on FB this week:

I loved everything about this game. The Eagles delivered in every aspect of the game after being overlooked in all the talk about a 3peat. Not a KC hater nor an Eagle lover but this was a quality football game Jeff. I’m sorry you didn’t like it.

That's it for this week. That's my Saturdazzle and I'm sticking to it.

Monday, February 10, 2025

An Open Letter to Bob Morgan

Bob Morgan

Il State Representative 58th District

Dear Representative Morgan:

A few years ago some well meaning member of the state senate decided to fix something that wasn't broke with a bill called SB136. At the time, I was the dedicate home educator of our family home school, and as the bill was primarily aimed at home education I rallied against it even writing several posts about it on my blog. At that time I thought I might be done with blogging about misguided bill proposals. But thanks to you, I get to go at it again.

While it may have seemed to you like a good idea to tie winning records into public funding requests for sports facilities, and it certainly gave you 15 minutes of fame, The question remains why you would set winning records as a requirement for stadiums when it is not requisite for other public funding.

Public schools, for example, continue to receive public funds even when the students are not showing winning records. In fact, one can make the argument that we should put funds in schools that are not winning so their winning percentage can increase in years to come. It's called development. Also ,we spend money on prisons and that money is spent on people who come to have losing records, sometimes in your line of work.

{{Information |Description={{en|1=Staley Da Bear, the official mascot of the Chicago Bears. }} |Source=http://www.flickr.com/photos/blueyeda73/2988610732/ |Author=[http://www.flickr.com/photos/blueyeda73/ blueyeda73] |Date=10 28, 2008 |Permission=see belo

One of the main reasons we should be exploring the idea of spending public funding for sports teams like the Bears is to bring more quality opportunities to our area. If the Bears had a state of the art facilty they woukd be much more likely to be considered for hosting events like the Super Bowl and giving the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago more leverage in winning a future bid for hosting the Olympic games. Those events would certainly bringg revenue to the owners of the facility but would also bring visitors, jobs and positive notoriety to the area.

If you still insist on making winning records part of government financing of a stadium I'm not sure the requirement of 3 of 5 years winning record your proposal calls for is the best way to go. According to your plan, a team could win 3 of their last 5 and then have 9 straight losing seasons. A back end approach seems more feasible. Perhaps after the team that receives financial backing from the state starts playing in their new facility there be a written into the contract that if the team has a combined losing record any 5 consecutive seasons in a 19 year period that they have to pay the state a predetermined amount. This could either be a percentage of the original financing amount or a percentage of their annual revenue.

If such a plan was in place after government money was used to build what was then called Comiskey Park or Comiskey Park II, there would have only been 1 5 year period of 15 (1995-1999) where the White Sox would have needed to pay a penalty. During that 19 year period the White Sox went to playoffs 4 times and won the World Series in 2005. Those 4 playoff appearances were one more than the 80 seasons played at the original Comiskey. When put that way it seems like it was money well spent.

By Tony - Bears vs Chiefs, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

As for calling your act the BEARS act may make sense to you since Lake Forest, I believe is in your district but to name it for just one team when many may want to finance a stadium seems again like a cute way to make a name for yourself. I would suggest a better acronym and a better plan before calling any more audibles.

Saturday, February 8, 2025

Team Saturdazzle: The One where I Mispronounced Meme Twice.

Another Saturday, another Saturdazzle . Todays Saturdazzle could also be called The one with the 14 year old video. After I statrted this blog in 2009, I started in short order a few more blogs most notably Crazy Uncle Dave's Sport-O-Rama and Dave Out Loud. Dave Out Loud was my attempt at a vlog. A few years ago I combined all 3 blogs into this one.

As I often do in the early months of the new year I've been cleaning up this blog. Spending time looking at old posts, and revamping the look of it. While I was doing that I came across this video talking about my the previous week at our home school.

I was participating in a meme called weekly wrap up where you share post about your week and link your post up to a site. These things still happen and I hope one day to see if I can make Team Saturdazzle a weekly link up.

A few years after this post I discovered that I had been mispronouncing meme. In it's correct pronunciation it's pronounced like it thymes with theme. However, I was pronouncing it me me. So when I learned of my mistake, I just corrected my pronunciation and moved on.

What I didn't realized was that there was evidence of my earlier failure to communicate. I invite you to watch what I am calling exhibit A. Where I mispronounce meme not once but twice.

Now if you were wondering what I was thinking when I pronounced meme me me, it is this: Most of the memes I knew at that time were blogging memes and it seemed like the purpose of the blogging meme was to get the attention of other bloggers. It was to me as if you were shouting Me! Me! Look at me, That's why I pronounced it me me.

Memories of Kite Fest 1999

Amy and I were married in April of 1998 and her two brothers gave us a wedding gift of a weekend in Madison Wisconsin, where they both lived and still live. We went up in early February and discovered there was a kite flying festival taking place. I have pictures similar to the picture below in a photobook some where. If you click on the caption below the picture, it will give you more infor about the event this year. While that festival no longer exists. There is a kite flying event on the same lake today as part of a new winter festival in Madison.

Kite Fest 1999 Madison Wisconsin
I do not own this picture, click on the caption for the full story.

Team Saturdazzle At The Movies

Powered by Box Office Mojo

Top 10 Films January 2025

and by default

top 10 Films of 2005 as of 1/31/2005

10. Baby Girl Up 2 from December

9. Wolf Man

8. One of Then Days

7. Den of Thieves: Pantera

6. A Complete Unknown Up 1 from December

5. Wicked Down 3 From December

4. Nosferatu Up 2 from December

3. Moana 2 Down 2 from December

2. Sonic The Hedgehog 3: Up 1 from December

1. Mufasa: The Lion King Up 3 from December

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Writer's Workshop: 4 Prompts in 8 sentences? I'll try.

Here are this week’s prompts(I have the 4 I'm attempting in bold):

Write a post based on the word military.
Write a post in exactly 8 lines.
Write a list of movies that always make you smile.
Choose a social media platform (e.g. Facebook, X, Instagram etc.) and tell us what you love and hate about it.
Tell us about a time you had to go to court.
Tell us about your best friend from the old neighborhood.

My 10 favorite movies which are The Princess Bride, Miss Potter, Marty, Adventures of Robin Good, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Chariots of Fire, Casablanca, Ordinary People, The Muppet Movie, and It's A Wonderful Life (click here for more info) all have moments that never fail to make me smile. What I hate about Twitter can be summed up by the response to my 2/3/2005 tweet, "I'm thinking of quitting Twitter, ( Can't bring myself to call it X) It's not what it once was.", 5 impressions, no engagements, no comments in 48 hours. One time I had to go court, not sure exactly why, proof of insurance, probably. While I was waiting I decided to watch the festivities one young man waited in line with his very energetic baby son and when it was their turn, he had to give an update on what he was doing to get his driving privileges reinstated. He assured the court that he had taken the bus to this appointment. In the town I used to live in there is no bus stop next to the court room but many are walking distance. He was given another court date, and then I was called, I provided whatever documentation was required of me and walked out of the court building. As I walked I saw the man driving his son away in a car, in my town you can put a bicycle in a special holder in front of the bus, I had no idea they also did that for cars!

8 sentences? Maybe. 8 lines? Probably not. But at least, I get an E for Effort. John Holton invites your prompt reply to his prompts at The Sound of One Hand Typing by clicking here.

Saturday, February 1, 2025

Team Saturdazzle: The One with Bits and Pieces.

Today's Team Saturdazzle is just a quick compilation of stories, clips and jokes.

Like many days when I was a kid it starts with Sesamee Strret and it ends with a snack,

One of the things I liked about Sesamee Street from an early age was the guest appearances. One of the ealriest I remember probably since I like puns so much is when the cast of Bonanza came on the show. They were on a lot of season 2 and did segments where they counted or recited the alphabet or demonstrated math problems like the video below.

In the episode I remember they do a play on the Ernie and Bert banana in my ear sketch (original sketch below) except instead of saying banana in my ear they actually say Bonanza in my ear. Epic!

Sesamee Street has continued with their guest appearances. I just discovered this gem with Billy Joel and Marlee Matlin (CODA, West Wing, Children of a Lesser God) . I'm a big Billy Joel fan and also love writing new lyrics to old songs and Joel does this by tweaking one of his standards and adapting it to Oscar The Grouch.

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Yesterday I had one of my days where I was out of the house at 6:30 and not back for good until after midnight. I was home for about 90 minutes in the afternoon. My wife and daughter were preparing for an impromptu game night, where they had invited several people a day or less before the party was slated to begin. A few people did manage to come, but when I was home the only people they had heard from were unable to attend. This gave me an idea for a wry observation which I shared on my personal FB page:

A lot of times when people can't make it to an event youv'e asked them to attend, they will respond something like that sounds great, but I'm busy that day. Just once can't they say that sounds like an awful time, but I'm not doing anything see ya at 7?

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This morning, Amy and I were judging another speech tournament. This time it was at held at Lucy's old high school. When you walk in the hallowed halls of a high school there are pictures of accomplished student athletes and plaques with the names of students who received accolades, awards, accomplishments, and some words that don't start with A like scholarships. None of those halls in any of those schools contain my picture. I wasn't that kind of athlete, and I was not that kind of student. However the apple must have fallen far from the tree because my daughter class of 2024 is pictured at least twice and her name is engraved on a plaque as a recipient of a scholarship for mastery in Language Arts.

Ending the day with a snack

My college friend Angela Rumbold's birthday was earlier this week. We had many fine times over the years. When she first moved from Illinois to Georgia, I had occasion to visit her there and she introduced me to boiled peanuts. It was love at first soggy bite. years later when I lived in South Carolina for 2 years the boiled peanut became my go to snack as there was a street vendor outside our local Walmart. I generally did not go more than a fortnight without grabbing me a bag.

When I ventured back to Illinois in '97 to forsake all others and marry my best friend, I also ending up forsaking regular visits with my favorite boiled legume. This +25 year absence of a boiled peanut routine ended about 2 years ago when I discovered inside A BP in Frankfort, Illinois where my sister in law lives, a boiled peanut station. So now 4 or 5 times a year on visits to her family I get the fruits of Jimmy Carter's first job (Boiled Peanut deliverer).

Tonight was one of those nights. My Niece Gracie was in a production of Finding Nemo Jr. Which is not it turns out a quest to find Nemo's progeny but a children's adaptation of the musical Finding Nemo. I was glad to attend, but everyone in my family knew there was a boiled peanut quid pro quo in my attendance.

By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo - https://www.flickr.com/photos/jenniferwoodardmaderazo/3563681031/, CC BY 2.0, Link

Well that's all the Team Saturdazzle I have for you today. We learned some math, heard some jokes, watched some videos, I shared some stories and even had a snack. It's not exactly 3 points and a poem, but it will have to do.

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