I decided to take the flickr plunge because I realize that I’d much rather just post a bunch of photos to show what’s going on than to try to write about it all. You may have noticed that this blog has been woefully underloved recently.

www.flickr.com scottbale’s My Favorites 2008 photoset

Donovan was supposed to have a slumber party that night when all this went down. Poor guy, at the end of the night I think he was most upset that his friends had to go home.

I wasn’t there when it happened. I was at my parents’ with Corinne for Shawn’s birthday, eating lobster and watching the All Star game when I got the call: “Donovan broke his arm, I need you to come home!” or something close to that. Yeesh.

My mom and I took Donovan to the St. John’s ER, which was by a large margin the best ER experience I’ve ever had in my life. They have a fairly new separate kids ER section. Donovan was being a real trooper about everything, he did most of the question answering in fact.

The worst part was that they had to give him IV sedation and then set the break. Of course the IV hurt him like heck. The sedatives didn’t quite put him completely out, not even completely to sleep, but the idea was he would be in almost no pain and would not remember anything. It was actually a bit funny at time because he was mumbling some funny stuff. Example: later as the stuff was wearing off he looked at a nurse and said, “you have two eyes and two mouths!”, and was clearly sincerely puzzled. We all laughed.

Yesterday they put the cast on and then x-rayed again, and it looked like the doctor did a great job last night of setting the break, thank goodness. Also, we have an appointment to change to a waterproof cast just in time to leave for Florida at the end of next week.

Last night at Wednesday night bible class at church, Donovan was the center of attention. He got lots of signatures. At one point I saw him sitting on the lawn with literally a circle of his friends sitting around him. He was holding court. I was told by his teacher that that morning (at Vacation Bible School) that his class was like a funeral, everyone was so somber and worried about him.

I’ve been thinking about this off and on all weekend. I finally decided that it would be interesting to select some quotes from the above article and place them in contrast to some biblical passages that spring to mind, and try to keep my own opinions to a minimum. All quotes are from the English Standard Version (ESV).

The article says, “In Jefferson’s version of the Gospels, for example, Jesus is still wrapped in swaddling clothes after his birth in Bethlehem. But there’s no angel telling shepherds watching their flocks by night that a savior has been born. Jefferson retains Jesus’ crucifixion but ends the text with his burial, not with the resurrection.”

But the Bible says, in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, an epistle written by Paul:

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”

The article says, “In a letter to Rush on April 21, 1803, Jefferson said his editing experiment aimed to see whether the ethical teachings of Jesus could be separated from elements he believed were attached to Christianity over the centuries. ‘To the corruption of Christianity I am indeed opposed,’ he wrote to Rush, ‘but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself.’” Apparently Jefferson was convinced that any Scriptural accounts of miracles were fables added over the centuries.

But Peter explains otherwise, in his second epistle. 2 Peter 1:16-21 says:

“For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,’ we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Not only were Peter and many others eyewitness to the miracles which Jesus performed but, Peter explains, very many of the events and miracles of Jesus’ life were prophecied about centuries earlier, sometimes in great detail. This is just the tip of the iceberg of a huge topic; I’d encourage anyone interested in this topic to study prophecies about Jesus. Keep in mind the “bible” is actually 66 books (39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament) written by dozens of authors in a period spanning over 1,000 years, and yet is unified by a single plan of redemption with Jesus as the center; Old Testament prophecies predict events which have their fulfillments hundreds of years later in the life of Jesus, as pointed out by numerous New Testament passages, including many by Jesus himself speaking.

Finally, the article quotes Thomas Jefferson as saying, in defense of his volume: “‘Say nothing of my religion,’ Jefferson once said. ‘It is known to myself and my God alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if that has been honest and dutiful to society, the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.’”

A couple of scriptures spring to mind. First, Matthew quotes Jesus as saying, in Matthew 7:21:

“‘Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.’”

Hebrews 11:6 says:

“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

John 20:30-31 says:

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

Finally, Acts 4:11-12 says (Peter speaking):

“‘This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’”

Hey Shawn! You’ve just won a new car!

First, everything’s funnier when set to the Benny Hill Theme, even the Battle of Naboo. (Start at 1:18 to get to the good stuff.)

Second, the real reason Porkins blew up:

It was a great show, and my entire family liked it. I can honestly say I wish they’d kept playing (partially because they only played about 1.5 hours). I liked the mix of obvious hits, covers and other surprises. They sounded great. Most of the crowd was on it’s feet from “I Want a New Drug” on.

Huey explained that this was sort of a hometown crowd and they had many family and friends in the audience that night (including the parents of Johnny Colla). So they debuted a new song, “Hurry Back Baby”, which he said wasn’t quite ready for prime time but they wanted to give their regulars a little something special.

Here’s the set list

We’re not here for a long time (we’re here for a good time)
So Little Kindness
Thank You #19
I Want a New Drug
Small World
If This is It
Heart & Soul
Sixty Minute Man [Persuasions cover, done a capella]
Uh Huh [some cover, done mostly a capella plus horns and guitar]
Hurry Back Baby [new song]
Power of Love
But It’s Alright
Workin’ for a Livin’
—-encore—-
Do You Believe In Love
Stuck With You
Back in Time

I did a lot of reminiscing during and after the show. It’s hard to describe the feeling of seeing this band play now, when 25 years ago I used to tape their songs off the radio. I remember listening to the radio endlessly just so I could record copies of their Back to the Future songs, both of which they played Friday night. “Back in Time” was arguably my favorite song for awhile. When I started buying tapes, Fore! Sports and Picture This were among the first.

And my dad and younger brothers knew the songs, too. In fact, going to the show wasn’t even my idea, it was Shawn’s, and he was as excited as I was.

My dad and one of my brothers pointed out that Queensryche is playing the same room later this month. We pondered the meaning of this, that these two bands who have been my favorite bands at different times, who themselves are so different, are playing here so close together. In high school and college, Queensryche eclipsed everything else, and yet I don’t really follow them anymore.

Corinne has certainly been acting her age lately, by which I mean she’s been assertive and irritable, although so far it’s still only cute when she’s like that. She’s picky about what books we read at night – I’ll pick up a stack and she’ll pick through them and choose each one she wants to read, in the order she wants. If she doesn’t want a book she’ll push it away, shake her head and say “no!” Sometimes, just to change things up, she’ll instead say “nooooooooo!” It’s cute when she does say yes – she’ll either say “yes”, or she’ll nod her head and say “uh huh”, or – most recently – she’ll say “sure!” Corinne still doesn’t pronounce her B’s very well, so a book is a “gook”, and there are many other cute examples that all escape me at the moment. Her vocabulary is expanding every day. The longest word she knows is “trampoline!”, which she shouts as she jumps on anything such as the couch or the bed.

Corinne is quite a daddy’s girl, which is fine with me. Her most used phrase may in fact be “Daddy’s home!”, which she uses all the time to basically summon me to do her bidding.

Carla is getting some pictures taken today of Corinne, but in the meantime here are a couple shots from Halloween this year. Appropriately, she was a princess

12/5 update – Corinne just had her two year appointment.  She weighs 31 lbs, which was in the 90-plus percentile somewhere (where she’s consistently been her whole life).  She is only four pounds lighter than Donovan!  She is 36.5 inches tall, which was a huge jump in height percentile from six months ago.  And her head circumference is 19.5 inches, which is also high nineties percentile-wise.

She seems to be right on track for all the benchmarks that her doctor mentioned: at least 50 words in her vocabulary, she is speaking three-word sentences, and she is sleeping in her big girl bed now (for about two months or so).  She still takes one nap a day, about 3 hours.  One area where she goes against statistics is she is not the stereotypical wild monkey second child.  Unlike Donovan, I only have to barely speak sternly to her to get her to stop doing something wrong.  Usually that’s enough to reduce her to tears, even.

Ben, Anna and Joe (Carla’s niece and nephews) are visiting.  This evening we went to the Science Center where I snapped these shots.