O is for Oreos

It has been a while since I participated in Friday Fragments at Half-Past Kissin' Tim. So I thought I'd give it a try.  If you are not familiar with Friday Fragments, last week's offering is very typical of the genre: a few short fragments of posts that don't have any cohesiveness or unity.  I am also doing A to Z blogging this month, so my first fragment will be a thing that begins with the letter N.  This is in keping to my A to Z theme of nouns

Fragment 1: O is for Oreo.

When I was a kid there were sandwich cookies like the kind my parents brought at grocery store and then there were Oreos.  Boy were they different!  The sandwich cookies didn't look like Oreos,  hey didn't separate like Oreos and they sure didn't taste like Oreos. Oreos were reserved for special occasions because the store brand cookies sure didn't cost as much as Oreos.

Boy have things changed! These days store like Target and Aldi have their own brands of sandwich cookies.  We call them Fake Oreos.  They still don't cost as much as Oreos, but I am happy to report that they look like Oreos, separate like Oreos, and they even taste like Oreos.

Fragment 2 K-Love Pledge drive

Our family really enjoys listening to Christian music and the station K-Love is often on in our car as we drive back and forth through that thing called life.  A few times a year they have a pledge drive.  I have a strange sense of humor, and like to over analyze things.  So I pulled my vlog Dave Out Loud out of mothballs and made this video about K-Love and the pledge drive.

Pledge drive, in all seriousness has been fantastic this year.  God is doing so many wonderful things just through people listening and giving to the station.  To give K-love a listen click here..

Fragment 3: Age of Ultron

I was looking through some old posts this week and I came across this one (also a Friday Fragment post) from 4 years ago entitled I thought Super Hero Movies wer for kids.  Just like the fake  Oreos situation,  things have got better for kid-friendly super hero .  Since I wrote that movies like Thor, Captaian America, and Avengers have produced movies I enjoy and will allow my kids to watch and love.  Avengers 2 comes out in 14 days and  a majority of our family is psyched.  Here's a short featuette that came out on youtube yesterday ...



Fragment 4 Imago Film Festival

I promised before the A to Z challenge started to tell more abot ut my experiences at this year's Imago Film  Festival.  Here is the trailer for Believe Me, a film I saw at the festival.



That's all the fragmments we have time for today. Go back to whence you came by clicking on A to Z Or Friday Fragments we have time for today.

N is for Nordhhagen and Nicholson

White Sox Homerun hitters from A.J. to Zeke

N is for Nordhagen and Nicholson

Wayne Nordhagen and Dave Nicholson aren't exactly household words even around White Sox faithful.  They started the season tied for 69th all time on the White Sox HR list with 37 home runs.  Their combined 74 long balls Alex Rios   would  tie them for 36th with Alex Rios. 2 current players Jose Abreu and Tyler Flowers have already surpassed Nicholson and Nordhagen this season putting them down to 71st all-time

Nicholson played in the major leagues in  1960 and from 1962 to 1967, 1963 through 1965 for the  White Sox.   He added 14 MLB homers outside of a White Sox uniform for a total of 51. He averaged 18homers over a  162 game season or 1 home run every 9 games.  He hit 22 in 63 and 13 in 64.

Nordhagen (,282 life timeBA)was a much better hitter than Nicholson (.212. lifetime BA).  Nordhagen played for the White Sox from 1977 to 1981 hitting all but 2 of his MLB homers with the Sox.  Nordhagen would average 13 homers for every 162 games played in his career.  Nordhagen hit 15 homers for the Sox in 1980, 8 more than he hit for them the year before,

For more A to Z blogging click here.   

N is for Nobody (Person), Nowhere (Place,) and Nothing (Thing)

Negative Words Can Have a Positive Meaning

You may wonder what I mean by that title.  How can negative words have positive meaning?  First, let's define terms.  I am not talking about discouraging speech.  These words are nobody, nowhere, and nothing.  Wait, you say, those words don't have a negative connotation.  They just describe absence.  They do that.  But also they certainly can have a negative connotation at times.  Just listen to this common self-talk:

                                    Why would THAT girl talk to ME?  I am just a nobody with a job that's going nowhere. In short, I'm a real nothing.  


Today, I want to use those words for positive emphasis by looking at the story of Jonah for the Bible.

1. There is NOBODY that God doesn't care for. 

 In the book of Jonah, God sent Jonah to a place called Nineveh to preach repentance.  The Ninevites were not only an enmy of Jonah's people but were thoroughly wicked.  If there was eve ra group of people God couldn't love, the Ninevites would certainly be it. Yet God loved them enough to send a prophet to them to warn them of their need for Him.  God had created them just like he created Jonah, me, and you.  He loved them and wanted them to have a relationship with him just like he loved us.

2. There is NOWHERE on Earth you can hide from God.  

God no only created us.  He created the world and the creaturs of the world.  If God calls you to do something and you go the opposite direction, do you think God won't find you?  That's what Jonah did.  He didn't love the Ninevites like God did and did not want God forgiving them so he split.  Jonah was called to go to one end of the known world.  So, Jonah quickly booked to the opposite end of the known world.  Hiding from God is something that so many of us do, one way or the other.  In the end, God finds us.  That's definitely in the job description of one who came to seek and save the lost.

Because God found Jonah and sicked a storm on him, we may think that God is out to get us.  And, He is.  But not to get us like punishment, but get us like--bring us home!  When the others on the ship heard Jonah's testimony about serving the God who created the universe, and then saw the power God had to bring and calm a storm, many of them found him, and worshiped him for the first time.  So after Jonah was found in the ship, God again "found" him in the fish and brought him back to the purpose he had called him for.

3. There is NOTHING you can do that God can't forgive.  

Jonah goes back to Ninevah and preaches repentance to the people of Ninevah.  The Ninevites, if you remember, were wicked people.  But Jonah chapter 3, says that the Ninevites believed God.  In Jonah chapter 4, Jonah says, "I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love."

I think everybody thinks that they've blown it at some point.  That they've done something so bad that if anyone were to find out, no one would be able to be in the same room with them.  They feel separate, alone, and utterly unforgivable.  Guess what?  They're wrong.  In every instance, God knows exactly what they did, and has already died to forgive their sins.  Our view of justice gets in our way of accepting that. This was true of Jonah, as I said before, he didn't think the Ninevites deserved to be forgiven.  He was right of course.  None of us do.  But God loved us SO much, he chose to forgive us anyway.   As Judd Hirsch famously says to Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People, "You can live with that, can't you?"

For more A to Z blogging click here.

1/2 way point at A to Z blogging.

13 letters done. 13 letters to go.  In the first 15 days of the A to Z Challenge I have shared videos, thoughts, information and anecdotes for 15 nouns ( 5 people, 5 places, and 5 things.).

I have set my schedule for the rest of the month and have posts about 15 more nouns.  That's right 5 more people like Allen Levi, 5 more places like Comiskey Park, and 5 more things like Giraffe Poop  (Actually I hope there are no more things like giraffe poop.).

Come back later today for my post featuring the letter N.  It has a person (nobody), a place (nowhere) and a thing (nothing).  Until then you can head back to A to Z blogging for more fun and adventure.

M is for Minnie Minoso( Person)

1925- 2015

Orestes "Minnie" Minoso broke the color barrier for the Chicago White Sox in 1951.  While played for 3 other teams than the White Sox but played most of his career in Chicago.  He played with them in the 50's 60's 70's and 80's.  On March 1st of this year Mr.  White Sox passed away. He had played, coached and been an ambassador for baseball his entire life.   Click here to read about his homerun prowess with the Sox.  Click here to go back to Blogging A to Z.