Inklings

Blog

  • Theories

    I’ve always been intrigued with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. It’s amazing how many people are willing to hold it up as scientific law when it is, in fact, a theory. Not all of Darwin’s ideas are bunk, however. I do believe microevolution exists within a species over time as it adapts to its environment but the whole ‘fish growing legs’ thing? Well, that’s just plain science fiction in my opinion. If there were some possible way that man evolved from electrically-charged, primordial protein soup you’d expect to find more substantial evidence in the fossil record to prove it– the missing links as they’ve come to be known.

    Even evolutionist Gerald A. Kerkut noted several troubling assumptions that Darwin’s theory proposes, though most supporters only consider the seventh. 1) Nonliving things gave rise to living material. 2) Spontaneous generation occurred only once. 3) Viruses, bacteria, plants and animals are all interrelated. 4) Protozoa gave rise to the metazoa. 5) Various invertebrate phyla are interrelated. 6) Invertebrates gave rise to the vertebrates and 7) Vertebrates and fish give rise to amphibia, amphibia to reptiles, reptiles to birds and mammals. It’s interesting stuff. I wonder how many self-proclaimed Darwinists truly believe all seven of these tenets of the theory?

  • Tater Tots

    Ore-Ida should lobby to make tater tots one of the food groups. Well, at least according to my youngest and Napoleon Dynamite. It’s funny how much a kid’s taste buds will change over the course of a few years. It wasn’t that long ago that you had to beg our boys to eat tater tots – and, no, they weren’t part of any funky, church potluck hot dish (though admittedly I recall despising tots in this form as well at their age, but have grown to love them) – and now they crave them. In fact, just recently, our youngest begged every night for a full week to have tater tots for supper. I wonder if asparagus, Brussels sprouts or beets will be removed from their food embargo anytime soon.

  • Fun Diversion

    Our little beavers love the sight of water running in the gutters. Who can blame them? If they’re not recreating in the curb-side river with their leaf boats then they’re diverting it with little twig dams. It’s one of the first times a child realizes he can enjoy as well as influence the effects of nature. At some point, of course, the dam bursts and nature prevails but then every little boy kind of likes to see wanton destruction anyway so it’s a win-win situation.

  • When The Going Gets Tough…

    Few things test the will of individuals like stress and hardship. The old saying ‘what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger’ is often more true than most realize. I’m counting the many blessings I have this day because I have my health and the love of family and friends surrounding me. When things get tough I know I can count on them for support and prayer. I’m not one to give up very easily when thrown a challenge, but I also realize that I can’t do all the pulling by myself. I’m forever grateful to all those that choose to pull with me, keeping me from being dragged through the muck and mire and to the good Lord above who supplies me the strength to make all things possible.

  • Gardening

    We may live in an agricultural state, but I am certainly NOT a farmer. Considering my lawn is currently the only ‘crop’ that I attempt to grow doesn’t say too much. Farming a yard is pointless when you think about it. All the chemical controls, pruning of weeds, irrigation and cutting yield nothing more than a nice green carpet for all your efforts. If your neighbors don’t do their part to control the weeds, your work is pretty much all in vain. It’s the one crop that bears no fruit but gets ‘harvested’ several times a month. If you don’t mulch, you take the spoils and bag them to the curb. Why do we toil so hard for such a ‘crop’? Well, aside from preventing erosion, I’d say vanity. How insane is that?

  • Toothpaste

    All good things must come to an end. Such is the case with a tube of toothpaste. Sometimes I wonder if there isn’t a more efficient design to ensure that you can actually get every last bit of toothpaste from the tube when it goes ’empty’. Instead one must resort to laying the tube flat while repeatedly pushing with your fingers, a comb or brush handle to ‘squeeze’ the paste to the opening. Once you’ve reached this stage you know it will only be a matter of days before you have to do the bionic finger squeeze, a maneuver that entails folding the tube like an accordion and squeezing forcefully – sometimes requiring both hands, which is often very challenging. Because you’re using both hands, the brush is either resting on the vanity or with the handle clenched in your teeth. You can run the risk of either missing the brush all together or tipping your brush over while trying to load it; both equally frustrating if you have no more toothpaste.

  • Perpetual Logomotion

    We’ve been fortunate to have Identity Engineer Jeff Fisher of Jeff Fisher Logomotives visiting campus this week. Last night he delivered his keynote on Planning, Packaging and Promoting Yourself to a full audience of students and professionals within the local community at the BSC NECE Auditorium.

    Jeff was incredible to work with and in the short time he was here we kept him very busy! Not only did he deliver a great keynote session, he also met with three different design classes during the day and shared a lot about his work.

    A special thanks goes out to the BSC Foundation and ArtsQuest as well as Tait Sundstrom of Sund Design for starting the process over a year ago. Also, thanks to Tom Marple for leading the efforts to make it happen and for being a willing chauffeur and chaperon for Mr. Fisher. Above all we thank Jeff for being a gracious, patient and personable guest.

  • Nocturnal Journeys

    Well, our fears have returned. Just when we thought our youngest was cured of his late night voyages, we discovered him wandering outside at 1 am! The motion light and storm door closing was what woke me. I peered outside to see our seven-year-old barefoot on our front walk calling for his bigger brother. We called him in and he still wasn’t quite awake. He usually does this when he has to use the bathroom, so that’s where I sent him and, sure enough, he had to go. Looks like it’s time to start limiting those drinks of water right before bedtime!

  • Michael Cera

    Cera was the young actor who hit it big as Jason Bateman’s cousin-loving son, George Michael Bluth in Arrested Development. Since that time he’s been cast in a number of comedic roles that continue to typecast him as the young, hapless man-boy. All I can think about is how challenging his future will be because of these roles. Will he ever be the male lead in a big budget actioner? A romantic drama? A smart psycho-thriller? It will be interesting to see how he reinvents himself. Every flick I’ve seen him star in he’s basically the same character. Only time will tell if he has the acting chops. Even DeNiro was able to charm audiences with his comic talent in Meet the Parents and made it believable.

  • Clean Up, Fix Up

    ‘Clean Up, Fix Up’ week is a hands-down favorite among neighborhood scavengers. It’s not uncommon to see scores of slow-moving half-tons trolling the streets while an able-bodied shotgun peruses the curbside treasure. The resulting pile in front of your house may have been the official purging of your garage and shed that happens during Spring Cleaning, but to the scavenging opportunist it’s pure gold.

    It is surprising what some people consider unusable ‘garbage’. There has been many years when our pile disappeared before the city sanitation had a chance to load it. In fact, there’s a woman in our neighborhood that I know of who searches for old furniture, fixes it up and resells it at garage sales. I guess anything can be ‘saved’ if you’re willing to put in the time and effort.

    Probably the best ‘dumpster dive’ we ever had was when our neighbor curbed a small deer lawn ornament. Being cast concrete, the thing easily tipped the scales at 100 lbs. Upon further inspection I noticed some artistic fellow had Sharpied all over the little fawn, illustrating a collar with a simple dog tag bearing the name ‘Bambo.’ A black mohawk completed the ensemble. Well, this was just too good to pass up, so at the insistence of my wife I hobbled little Bambo into my garage.

    Don’t misunderstand. We’re not avid lawn ornament collectors, just practical jokers. From the moment my wife set eyes on little Bambo she thought of a way to use him for evil. It was Veteran’s Day when young Bambo was innocently planted in my brother-in-law’s backyard peering into his patio door.

    The next time we saw him we assumed he’d accuse us, but we had officially stumped him. For almost two years he laughed about how his neighbors had put this ugly concrete deer in his yard and then pretended that they hadn’t done it. My wife blew it later when she ran into these neighbors who began to share the baffling story with her. Apparently when the neighbor asked who would do such a thing, my wife smirked a devilish grin and laughed about it. It was enough to convict her of the crime.

    For the weeks following the confession I expected retaliation from my brother-in-law – like him burning ‘I like chickens’ in my front lawn with fertilizer or something. He never did even the score (to my knowledge), but I have this sneaking suspicion that if a concrete lawn ornament ever finds its way into our yard he may have something to do with it.