Team Saturdazzle the one with the 5k and the bobble head

Can't beat fun at the old Saturdazzle

 

Welcome to our first post A to Z Challenge Team Saturdazzle of the year. 

I am on the road today so I am literally phoning this post in. I am emailing this directly to my blog from my phone. 

This morning Amy Charlie and I participated in the Northern Illinois Foodbank 5K. It was a lot of fun. We all finished in less than an hour. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to run the entire race without walking but I was able to.

 

In the A to Z challenge this year in the A to Zs of me J stood for Jester and I was in full jester mode at the race. Where my self designated task was to bring fun and merriment wherever I went. I would make jokes as I passed people and say things like don't these Saturday DMV lines get longer every year. When I ran past the 2 mile marker I told one of the many volunteers encouraging us along the path to ask me to tell her a Broadway themed 5 k pun when she obliged. I said 1 mile more and I'll be less miserable. 

The Jesting did not end after I finished the race.  I waited for Amy to near the finish line and let the audience in on the big reveal...

After the race Amy and I grabbed some lunch and drove to the Rosemont L station where we took a blue line train then a red line train to Comiskey park in Chicago. Now in fairness it hasn’t been called Comiskey since 2003 it’s now on it’s 3rd name change I’ll just call it Sox Park.

 

Today the White Sox played the Astros and despite getting 5 strong innings from their starter and scoring 3 runs in the bottom of the first for an early lead they lost to Houston 8 to 3.

 

This is not what brought Amy and I to the ball park today. Amy went because she’s always up for an adventure and I went for the commemorative Dick Allen bobble head.

 

In The Box

Outside The Box

Photo by John Iacano/Sports Illustrated

The Bobble head was modeled after the iconic 1972 Sports Illustrated cover of Allen juggling in the dugout in his first season with the White Sox.  By the 1970's public perception was already changing about smoking.  Allen was reprimanded by the White Sox for the incident.  The bobble head is true to the SI cover except Allen is not smoking.  

As I’ve said in these pages before, as recently as W is for White Sox fan, Dick Allen is one of the main reasons I became a Sox fan.

 

Allen was at long last posthumously elected to Baseballs Hall of Fame earlier this year. Several members of Allen’s family were on hand today for the celebration and will be in Cooperstown in July when Allen will be inducted into the Hall. It was really quite a day. 

Thanks for joining Team Saturdazzle today.  

Team Saturdazzle : The One Where I caught up

welcome to Team Saturdazzle.  The A to Z challenge is almost over.  Today I am supposed to be on the letter W and I am only on the letter U.  So it's time for some A to A catch up.  In the past when I've been behind I have doubled or tripled up in one post.  When you do that it makes your index post a little difficult  to do.  So instead of that I am going to write 3 small posts for each letter I'm behind without the usual A to Z Prologues and Epilogues.  I will link them all here when I am finished.

My theme for the A to Z Challenge this year is the A to Z's of me: 

A was for Amateur Parodist

B was for Blogger

C was for Christian

D was for David Davidovich

E was for Evangelical Sans the Trump Kool-Aid

F was for Father of 3 Adult Children

G was for Giraffe Lover

H was  for Husband of One Amazing Wife

I was for Iguchi Appreciator

J was for Jester

K was  for Kindergarten Clear

L was for Library Lover

M is for Muppet Man

N was for Narnian

O was for Optimist

P was for Poet

Q is for Quintessential Worker

R was for R.I.T.A. Republican In Theory Anyway

S was for Stonehill Fan

T was for Teacher

The new entries are

U is for U of I Parent

V is for Voracious Reader?

&

 

W is for White Sox 

If you are reading this you will know I am caught up if there are links to the U V and W categories above.  

A to Z Challenge Home Page

A to Z Challenge Master List

I will be back next week for a Team Saturdazzle that will have little to nothing to do with the  A to Z challenge.

Team Saturdazzle: The One Without the Kool Aid

 

Hello, those dropping by from the A to Z challenge and welcome to Team Saturdazzle! 

Team Saturdazzle is the best thing on the internet that no one has ever heard of.  It's one of those super cool, super hip things that needs no explanation.  

Okay here's a small explanation; Team Saturdazzle occurs each Saturday at Leap of Dave and is a Potpourri of randomness and merriment.  Team Saturdazzle began when I led a work group chat at a previous job on our Saturday shift.  I called the chat, wait for it, Team Saturdazzle.

This year I have titled all the Team Saturdazzle posts with titles that look like they are episodes of the T.V. Show Friends.  That's why this post is called The one Without The Kool Aid.  

So for the Saturday's of the challenge I will have my A to Z post as the first part of the Team Saturdazzle post.    

Before I start I want to share that during the A to Z challenge my  Weekly Writer's Workshop submissions will appear as a segment in Team Saturdazzle or as part of my daily A to Z challenge response.

Here are this week’s prompts: 

1.Write a post based on the word roommates. 

2. Write a post in exactly 12 sentences (lines). 

3. What’s something that makes you far angrier than it should? 

4. Write about something you’ve recently spent a lot of time wondering about.

5.  If you could change the color of one thing, what would it be and why? 

6. If you knew you could live forever, how would you spend your days differently?   

 

My A to Z Challenge Theme this year is the ABC's of me.  Each day in the month of April with the exception of Sundays I will be posting about one aspect of my life that begins with the letter of the day.  Today's letter is E so let's get right to it shall we?

A was for Amateur Parodist

B was for Blogger

C was for Christian

D was for David Davidovich 

E is for Evangelical Sans The Trump Kool-Aid

A Quote To Start Things Off ...

As a Christian I believe that the only thing I deserve is an eternity without God as a result of my own sins. I also believe that my salvation comes from God through Christ and is taught in the Bible. Nothing else is needed. When evangelicals defend unchristian behavior because they like the politics behind it they are not showing an understanding of Christ's redemptive love to a watching world.

Dave Roller - The Politics of Christianity 7/1/2020 Random Acts of Daveness  Word Press Blog

Yes, I am quoting myself.  I will be making many of the points today that  I have made multiple times on this and other platforms.  Since it is the ABC's of me, and I am, in fact,  me.  I will be quoting myself whenever possible.  All quotes unless otherwise noted are from the post The Politics of Christianity  which there is a link for in the paragraph above this one. 

John Holton of The Sound of One Hand Typing  put out his prompt list earlier this week for his Writer's Workshop segment. I chose #4: Write about something that you recently spent a lot of time thinking about.  I've been ruminating about this topic for many many years and that includes recently.  It is one of those things that makes me go" Hmmmm?".

I consider myself an evangelical Christian. This is how Wikipedia defines Evangelicalism:

Evangelicalism (/ˌiːvænˈdʒɛlɪkəlɪzəm, ˌɛvæn-, -ən/), evangelical Christianity, or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, trans-denominational movement within Protestant Christianity that maintains the belief that the essence of the Gospel consists of the doctrine of salvation by grace alone, solely through faith in Jesus's atonement.^] Evangelicals believe in the centrality of the conversion or "born again" experience in receiving salvation, in the authority of the Bible as God's revelation to humanity, and in spreading the Christian message.

Wikipedia

 I know I wrote more experientially and anecdotally when I wrote about being a Christian on my C post.  However if I were to take an academic or explanatory approach it would match pretty close to Wikipedia's entry above.  The Wikipedia entry is very similar to the 5 Solas (Latin for alone) the tenet's of the protestant reformation.

They are Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Christ Alone, Glory of God Alone, and Scripture Alone.  Evangelicals, in a nutshell, believe in those 5 points and spreading that message as a regular practice of their faith. -

Why is the church getting engaged to the republican party when we are supposed to be the Bride of Christ? - Dave Roller TPOC

The problem of putting something in a nutshell, is that there is usually a nut or two alongside. (That is definitely a future quote from me.)  Among American evangelicals these days there seems to be many who are nutty about Making America Great Again.  It's as if there was a 6th sola, America alone (Sola America) and since 2016 a 7th Sola : Trump Alone (Sola Donalda) 

It wasn't always this way.  Back in the 1980's and 1990's  I knew  evangelical Christians who were Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and some even who were fans of the Green Bay Packers. aka Packertarians. Back then Donald Trump was not necessarily someone you would equate with evangelicalism of any stripe.  

A  letter to the editor in a suburban Chicago newspaper, The Daily Herald  regarding Muslim reaction to Trumps proposed Taj Mahal casino had this to say about Trump:

Donald Trump's very name has become synonymous with conspicuous consumption, greed and arrogance.  He is now linking himself with gambling more and more.  A Reaction To Trump, Daily Herald April 27th 1990

The author  did not identify himself as an evangelical in the letter, however, since I was the author of the letter, I can assure you that I was an evangelical at the time , and still am (sans the Trump Kool-Aid).

Billy Graham, who I will refer to for the rest of this piece, as EFE (Everybody's Favorite Evangelical) had this to say about gambling: 

“Gambling is nowhere approved in the Bible. Instead, the Bible stresses that the Christian should earn his living by honest work and effort, and this would exclude relying on chance (2 Thessalonians 3:10-12). The Bible tells us to ‘abstain from all appearance of evil’ (1 Thessalonians 5:22). Gambling has often done untold evil to people by making them lose money that could be used for good purposes or even the necessities of life. Money is given to us by God to be used for good, not evil. Anyone seeking to do God’s will should not be involved in gambling.” Billy Graham - My Answer Column quoted in Gospel Herald Article 1/26/17

Trump still profits from his previously owned  casino resorts.  The AP reported this past Tuesday that Trump has an agreement with Bally's that if they build a casino on the former Trump Links that Bally purchased in 2023 that they will pay him 115 Million dollars.  It is just one of many instances where it makes it hard for me to understand the relationship between Trump and Evangelicals.

Michael J. Kruger wrote an excellent article at his website canon fodder entitled "How the 5 solas do more than respond to Catholicism".  Kruger breaks down each sola,  saying what it fights against.    Kruger says that Soli Deo Gloria (For God's glory alone) is about "letting go of our glory, and living for God's glory." He concludes that Soli Deo Gloria fights against pride. 

If that's the case, MAGA doesn't make sense coming from the mouth of an Evangelical. Making America great again and  all our energies on being a proud American sound like what people who need Christ may be looking for Glory but not the evangelicals dedicated to sharing that Christ.  The Wikipedia definition calls evangelicalism a world wide movement.  If that's the case, wouldn't  the aims of evangelicals be more global, if not other worldly, than national? 

In my post, The politics of Christianity I explain how I have both a passion for political involvement and also a passion to shower the world with the love of Christ. I then say:

 If I had to choose between passions I hope I’d choose the passion mandated in the Bible. Jesus states this passion very succinctly in the book of John ...

¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

John 15:12-13

Or in the words of EFE:

“I’m trying to stay out of it and just keep preaching the gospel, because there’s nothing coming out of Washington or any of those places that are going to save the world or transform men and women. It’s Christ,” Billy Graham 1987 – quoted in What Billy Graham taught us about a healthy relationship between religion and politics – Deseret News 2/21/2018 also quoted in TPOC

The point I hope I am making is that evangelicalism has nothing to do with Trump.  This doesn't mean that evangelicals should have nothing to do with him.   Evangelicals carry the good news of Jesus Christ and that message is vital and has eternal consequences.  It is a message worth sharing to presidents, felons, adulterers, poor losers, and instigators of riots.  Evangelicals can and should vote in their countries elections, but that doesn't mean they need to drink the Kool-Aid.  

*******************************************************************************

Team Saturdazzle At The Movies

Powered By Box Office Mojo

Top 10 Films 

 top 10 Films of 2025 as of 3/31/2005 

 10. Paddington In Peru   

9. A Complete Unknown Down 1 from February 

8. Nosferatu down 2 from February  

7. One of These Days  

6. Moana 2 down 1 from February 

5 Snow White  

4. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 down 1 from February 

3. Dog Man up 1 from January 

2. Mufasa The Lion King  

1. Captain America: Brave New World 

 Top 10 Films of March 2025

  10. Dog Man down 8 from Debruary 

9. A Working Man 

8. Paddington in Peru down 4 from February

7. Last Breath Up 13 from February

6. Black Bag

5. Novocaine

4. The Monkey up 2 from February

3. Mickey 17 

2. Captain America: Brave New World down 1 from February

1. Snow White

*************************************************************************

I just love this standup routine from Nate Bargatze from the first time he hosted Saturday Night Live.  The first few minutes are pretty good but it's the last 5 to 6 that just about kill me.  So funny.  

I may have broke AI

While I was researching and writing my A to Z post for today,  I searched for how the 5 Solas would be translated in other languages.  This was for a point I decided not to make.  I looked it up in  Spanish, Russian and Greek.  Each time Googles AI gave me an overview with the 5 Solas and what they would be called in that language and then I could further search the links below that.  Being the totally Saturdazalous person that I am I decided to see how the Solas might look in Klingon.  AI went to work but after 30 seconds it was still thinking and I decided that maybe I should back out before anything really bad happened.  

**********************************************************************************

That's about all I have for Team Saturdazzle today.  Thanks for stopping by either  from The Sound of One Hand Typing or the ABC Challenge.  For More Writer's Workshop click here.  To get back to the A to Z Challenge website click here.  To go back directly to the A to Z Challenge Master List click here.  Otherwise leave a message at the tone and  I'll call you back at my earliest convenience.

Beeeeep!

 

Team Saturdazzle: The One With The Return of Bisquick Man

Welcome to Saturdazzle. Today we have Some Superheroes that begin with B, baseball for the blind, and The best selling movies of February.

   

This video has been sitting in my draft status for some time now.  I thought with baseball being in spring training, this would be a great time to show it.

Team Saturdazzle At The Movie

Powered by Box Office Mojo

Top 10 Films  

 top 10 Films of 2025 as of 2/28/2005

10. Den of Thieves: Pantera Down 3 from January

9.  Wicked Down 4 from January

8.  A Complete Unknown  Down 2 from January

7  One of These Days Up1 from January

6. Nosferatu down 2 from January

5  Moana 2 Down 3 from January

4. Dog Man up 8 from January

3. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 down 1 from January

2. Mufasa The Lion King Down 1 from January

1. Captain America: Brave New World 

Top 10 Films of February 2025

10. Love Hurts

9.   Companion up 9 from January

8.   Ne Zha 2

7.   One of Them Days up 1 from January

6.   The Monkey

5.   Mufasa: The Lion King down 4 from January

4.   Paddington In Peru

3.   Heart Eyes

2.   Dogman up 10 from January

1.   Captain America: Brave New World

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,  There were 4 of us whose last name ended with er. Back in the day when FB was popular it was fairly common to get beleaguered with friend request 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 ad forgotten and we would meet someday and he would clue me in.

Well when we met there was  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: 

1. Write a post based on the word grudges. 
2. Write a post in exactly 13 lines. 
3. Write about something you learned in the month of February. 
4. List your five favorite snack foods. 
5. Tell us about the worst haircut you ever had. 
6. 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,

1.  The prompt I chose for today is to write a post using exactly 13 lines. (L)
2.  I have adjusted that to be exactly 13 sentences.  (A)
3. 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)
4.  I have been wanting for some years to put in a post using Paragraphy and will try to do that today.  (E)
5. How Paragraphy works is you write a paragraph and then the sentences are randomly reordered.  (I)
6. See if you can figure out the original order. (M)
7.  In 1975 when I started 6th grade, I was a huge White Sox fan.  (B)
8. Fifty years later I still am. (H)
9. Back then I was quite the television watcher and had the network schedule memorized. (G)
10. 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)
11. 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)
12. The other two were baseball and bicycling.  (F)
13. 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.  

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.  

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.   

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

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.  

###########################################################

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?

#############################################################

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.  

Team Saturdazzle: The One With The Made Up Holidays

Hello and welcome to the last Team Saturdazzle post for January 2025.  Last April for the A to Z Challenge I wrote about Holidays. On most day of the challenge I found an event that was already taking place on that day and pair it with the letter of the day. 

For example each April 2nd is International Children's Book Day so since the letter of the day for April 2nd was B, I wrote about that Holiday and title my post, B is for Books for Children.  

Writing about made up holidays turned out to be not enough for me.  SO, I actually made up 5  holidays and added them into the challenge  for all the letters that were vowels.  Now that it is 2025,  It has come to my attention that these holidays are coming up again this year.  

A chart or graph of some kind might be helpful here:

Name of Holiday with link to         2025 Date           (When it occurs)

A to Z Challenge Post

Adult Children Appreciation Day                  April 21, 2025.  (The Monday after Easter)

 

 Wedding Planner Black Friday                     April 4, 2025     (1st Friday in April)

Indicted Illinois Governors Day                     April 10, 2025   (10th day in April)

One More Time and You Get A Parade Day   April 16, 2025   (Third Wednesday in April)

                        

Undecided, Undeclared & Unsure Day           April 30th 2025 (Final Wednesday in April)

This is me talking about one of the new holidays last year.

Team Saturdazzle: The One With Downtown Chicago

Third Saturday of the year. Third Team Saturdazzle post. For Christmas this year I gave Amy tickets to a Bulls game. We used them this weekend and drove to the city to watch The Bulls lose a close one to the Charlotte Hornets. Amy likes either playing sports or watching them live. I like those as well as watching sports on TV. , listening to sports on the radio and reading the accounts of a game in a newspaper or online.  But being with Amy makes everything even losing to the Hornets better.

Horace Grant 87-94 Bulls (1st 3 championships)
Randy Brown 95-00 Bulls (Last 3 championships)

A case in point is after I gave Amy the tickets she decided that staying overnight in Chicago would be better than driving back to our home in the suburbs. This is why I sit here at a Chicago hotel chronicling our adventure so far early on a Saturday morning.

One thing Amy and I like about staying in a hotel is television. In the 26-plus years we’ve been married many of those years have been spent without a TV. A few more years have been spent owning a TV. You can only watch DVDs or video cassettes.  So on those  occasions when we have stayed in hotel rooms we have enjoyed watching broadcast television. Yesterday after the game we watched a couple episodes of Seinfeld followed by an episode of Friends.  After that we turned on TUBI and watched a part of an episode of What's Happening and part of an episode of The Floor,  We watched the former because one of the Bull's bench players, Jalen Smith gives off a big Roger vibe from the show.

The latter is because we have been catching up on the 2nd season of the Fox game show sporadically over the past few months.  

This morning I went downstairs for some breakfast and I encountered a young man with a Hornets hoody and a Bulls Cap.  It's the kind of thing I would do with Cubs and Sox gear so he let me take a pic of him. The breakfast was good.  I don't see grits as an offering very much in the Chicago area but was glass to partake.

Bulls Cap Hornets Hoodie

Breakfast these days takes grits and hard-boiled determination.

Checkout at the hotel wasn't until noon.  So we lingered and then on the way home we stopped by a restaurant I'd seen on Friday that appealed to several parts of my nature.  

1. It's a classic Chicago Hotdog spot.

2. The name of the place, LuLu's is also one of our nicknames for our youngest daughter.

3. Three Words: Home Made Chili

4. Art work reminiscent of the Little Lulu comics without giving any of the credit. 

5.  When I went  in I decided I would see if they could put Chili on my Polish.  Not only could they but the Chili Cheese Polish, which I thought I had invented seconds before, was their special of the day.

While I don't subscribe to the no ketchup on hot dog 

theory, I do appreciate the wry wit of this poster.

For the last 3 years our Saturdays were too busy in the winter to get away for the weekend.  Almost every weekend, we were judging a speech tournament which took a huge portion of our Saturdays.  Even yesterday we drove by a high school on our way home blissfully unaware that the Larkin Speech Team was participating in a tournament there.  

Last 5 Sporting Events

1/17/2025 Charlotte Hornets Defeat Chicago Bulls 125-123 @ The United Center Chicago Illinois

11/16/2024 Class 7A Football Quarterfinal IHSA Batavia 17 Downers Grove North 7 @Batavia High Scool Batavia IL

11/2/2024 Dad's Day Weekend Minnesota 25 Illinois 17 Memorial Stadium Champaign IL 

10/26 Mt Carmel 34 Loyola Academy 20 Mt. Carmel High School, Chicago IL

10/19 100th anniversary game of Dedication of Memorial Stadium Illinois 21 Michigan 7 Memorial Stadium Champaign IL