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Home Life

The First Day Of School

Magnolia Elementary School, Lanham Maryland
Magnolia Elementary School, Lanham Maryland

It’s the first day of school all across South Florida – delayed by two days due to Tropical Storm Fay. It’s a good day to remember back – way back – to when I enjoyed going back to (grade) school after a long hot summer.

This is Magnolia Elementary School located directly within my former Lanham Maryland childhood neighbourhood. It was just a couple of years old when I attended Kindergarten there during the 1972-1973 school year. I then went to a Catholic School for 1ST and 2ND grade (1973-1975), and then I returned to Magnolia for the next four years for 3RD, 4TH, 5TH, and 6TH grades (1975-1979). I enjoyed my best four years of school during those four years at Magnolia. Ironically it was probably the worst four years of my life. It’s 30+ years later now, and I’m still looking back fondly at those wonderful years of school. It was an escape for me from the other 18 hours of the day that were not so wonderful.

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Internet People

The Chris Day Club

This is not me, but if I ever need to hire a Public Relations Director then I may call this cat.

‘Here I am. And this is why.’

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Food Internet People Politics Sports Television Travel Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

Why wait until tonight what I can do right now – at 9 AM on a Tuesday morning. That’s right – it’s a special Tuesday morning edition of the ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’.

You think a girl named Fay is on my mind ?

1.  Tropical Storm Fay passed several hundred miles to our south late on Sunday night, and she passed about 75 miles to our west early this (Tuesday) morning. She made two landfalls – at Key West yesterday (Monday) afternoon and south of Naples early this (Tuesday) morning. She’s now taking an inland route through Florida northward along I-75, eastward along I-4 over to Daytona Beach, northward along I-95 up to Jacksonville, and then she’ll meander westward along I-10 over to Tallahassee and Panama City Beach between now and the weekend.

2.  Since she’ll be spending the next 5 or so days over the state of Florida before she dissipates we’ll be feeling the effects of her for the remainder of this week via gusty west winds out of the Everglades, and torrential downpours at anytime – especially with the heating of the day during the afternoon hours. We could see temperatures soar into the lower-to-middle-90s because of Tropical Storm Fay. Expect lots of sunshine in-between the tropical monsoons.

3.  Homestead has received just a little over 4 inches of rain out of Fay. That’s less rain than we’ve received on selected days during this rainy season thus far. Gusts of minimal tropical storm force (40 MPH or greater) were also felt here at times.

4.  I took a planned day off from work on Friday, I worked for 4 hours on Saturday (a rarity), I worked for 6 hours on Monday when I didn’t have to (since the base was theoretically closed), and today is another day off from work. I can’t wait to return to a more normal routine back at work tomorrow (Wednesday). I actually enjoy working at my job.

5.  How do you spot a survivor of Hurricane Andrew here in Homestead ?  He’s (She’s) the one that tends to overreact to all tropical systems that come within 1,000 miles of Homestead. Common sense is generally not a player during these overreactions. As a survivor of Hurricane Andrew I am not of the norm down here. It’s because I am a weather forecaster. I just don’t play one on TV !

6.  This morning on ‘The Early Show‘ on CBS-TV the ‘Happy Days’ gang had a LIVE reunion up in Milwaukee Wisconsin as they prepared for the unveiling of a statue of The Fonz. It was cool to see Fonzie, Potsie, Ralph, Joanie, and Mr. and Mrs. C back together again. I watched them every Tuesday night at 8 PM for 11 seasons back in the day. It’s one of the greatest television shows of my lifetime !

7.  Pastor Rick Warren did a fantastic job interviewing Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama this past Saturday night from his church. He was on ‘Larry King Live !‘ last night.

8.  If you do a Yahoo search on John McCain and Barack Obama then you may find that there are some 322,000,000 results for Obama – and 233,000,000 results for McCain. If you Google Obama then you’ll get 56,000,000 results compared with 40,800,000 results for McCain. So in conclusion Obama has a 58% to 42% lead on both Yahoo and Google.

9.  My Washington Redskins are undefeated at 3-0 in the preseason. Backup quarterbacks (veteran) Todd Collins and (rookie) Colt Brennan are looking impressive – even moreso than starting quarterback Jason Campbell. Is there a quarterback controversy brewing in the nation’s capitol ?

10.  I think that today may be a Domino’s day. It’s been a long time since Domino’s delivered to me. Once upon a time I used to have pizza delivered to me once – perhaps even twice per week. Nowadays it’s more like 6 times a year !  I still enjoy pizza today as much as I did back in the day. I just don’t eat it as much anymore. I’ve got 30 minutes. Where’s my Lipitor ?

Have a great Tuesday everyone !  ENJOY the rest of it.

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God Music

Monday Night Countdown

Early in the morning during a typical 7-mile drive from home to work nearly two years ago towards the end of August 2006 I flipped the radio dial off of Y-100 (Mainstream / Secular TOP 40) and discovered CALL-FM (Christian TOP 40). Little did I know that such a mundane moment as changing the radio station in the car would signal the beginning of God’s fantastic journey for me. Little did I know that my previous life was about to come to a gradual end. Little did I know that I was about to be saved and reborn onto a new Life.

Peter 1:23-25 (NLT)
23  For you have been born again. Your new Life did not come from your earthly parents because the life they gave you will end in death. But this new Life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.
24  As the prophet says, “People are like grass that dies away; their beauty fades as quickly as the beauty of wildflowers. The grass withers, and the flowers fall away.
25  But the word of the Lord will last forever.” And that word is the Good News that was preached to you.

This life-changing period in time was clearly documented at the time on my once popular hit music web site. This week’s ‘Monday Night Countdown’ signifies what was essentially my personal soundtrack at the time. It’s the TOP 5 songs that were on the radio at the time as God was rescuing me from the darkness and leading me into the daylight.

5.  Love Addict – Family Force 5

4.  High Of 75 – Relient K

3.  Time After Time – Spoken

2.  The Stand – Last Tuesday

1.  Desensitized – Jonah33