Credit: A.D.D. Amazon

I was driving toward Dallas the other day when a swarm of kamikaze bugs chose to end their brief lives by making mine more difficult.  Knowing I was hours from a car wash, they dive bombed en masse onto my windshield.  By the time I got to a service station, the Texas summer heat had fused them onto my car.  Since most gas station squeegees were manufactured during the Eisenhower administration, it took ten minutes of vigorous scrubbing and a “deluxe” wash to remove their carcasses. Read the rest of this entry »

An American Airlines Boeing 737-800 takes off at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (Courtesy AA.com)

I had a strange experience Sunday afternoon.  The commuter jet which was returning me from Midland to Dallas was on final approach at DFW Airport.  We were maybe 30 feet off the ground, wheels down, when suddenly the pilot accelerated the airplane and we shot straight up into the air.  This was not your run-of-the-mill casual “go around.”  I’ve been on several such flights where the pilot was told to circle the airspace and land again.  On this occasion the pilot seemed to climb as fast and hard as the plane would let him.  We eventually leveled out, circled around and landed.  Unlike other flights, the pilots didn’t stand at the door to greet passengers as they exited the aircraft.  Both he and the copilot were on their cellphones, talking in animated fashion to someone.  The entire episode seemed unusual. Read the rest of this entry »

Texas DMV headquarters in Austin Texas (Courtesy of user: WhisperToMe at en.wikipedia.org

I spent an eternity at the Department of Motor Vehicles today.  My friends at the Texas Department of Public Safety sent me a letter several weeks ago, alerting me that it was time for me to renew my Driver’s License.  This is one of the great joys of life.  You wait in line and pay money, only to leave exactly the same person as when you came in.  You don’t look any better or feel any different, except that you’re a little poorer and you’ll have a new card in your wallet when your license arrives in your mailbox some day. Read the rest of this entry »

my powerless iPod shuffle

I like walking in our neighborhood early in the morning while listening to worship music on my iPod Shuffle.  For days now it’s been warning me whenever I turn it on, “Battery is Low.”  It apparently meant what it said–this morning I was in the middle of a song when the music slowly faded away and I was left to confront the neighbors alone. Read the rest of this entry »

A.W. Tozer

Well-known Chicago pastor A. W. Tozer was riding to Texas by train in the late 1940s.  He began writing a book titled The Pursuit of God, worked all night and finished the rough draft by morning.  It has been one of his enduring classics.

I encountered the book again this afternoon when I spied Janet’s Fathers Day gift to me on my desk: “The Quotable A. W. Tozer.”  I opened it and was arrested by the first entry: Read the rest of this entry »

Jesus paid it all; all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain; he washed it white as snow.

Janet and I were traveling back to Dallas early Tuesday morning and stopped for breakfast along the way.  While standing in line to pay, I had a new experience.  The young man in front of me at the cash register had his iPhone out and was using its calculator to check the math on his bill.  Satisfied that it was totaled correctly, he then used the calculator to determine the precise tip to add.  After his mathematical determinations were finally finished, he went on his way. Read the rest of this entry »

Hiking trail at Possum Kingdom Lake

I went hiking this morning alongside Possum Kingdom Lake.  I don’t know a better way to start the day.  As I turned a bend, I was suddenly confronted by two dogs and a mountain biker, in that order.  The canines were having a glorious time in the early morning sunshine, loping along in nature’s beauty.  The biker was pedaling furiously to keep up with his excited companions. Read the rest of this entry »

Fireworks on the Charles River in Boston on the 4th of July, 2007 (Photo by Brandon Cripps via Flickr)

Do you remember your first Fourth of July fireworks experience?  Mine is indelibly imprinted on my memory.

In those days, people could buy and explode fireworks pretty much anywhere they wanted.  (I realize I’m dating myself somewhere between the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras.)  My father’s incendiary decision that particular year was bottle rockets and firecrackers.  He let me light several of each, but not before my mother warned me severely “not to blow off your fingers.”  Since I had no idea how fireworks and fingers were related, her warning fell on deaf ears.  Had I been a little less lucky that night, I wouldn’t have doubted her wisdom for long. Read the rest of this entry »

Driver in a Mitsubishi Galant using a hand held mobile phone violating New York State law (Courtesy of user Ed Poor at en.wikipedia.org)

Driving on the North Dallas Tollway is frequently a near-death experience.  Today was no exception.  Coming home from downtown, I accelerated onto the tollway as I mounted an overpass, only to slam on my brakes while swallowing my heart.  A pickup truck was meandering up the freeway, doing around 50 in a 70 mph zone.  He had a line of angry drivers piled up behind him, myself among them.  When I was finally able to swerve around him, I identified the problem: the driver was talking on his cellphone, apparently oblivious to the mayhem he was causing. Read the rest of this entry »

A row of parked shopping carts (Photo by code poet via Flickr)

Today’s local news is reporting that abandoned shopping carts have become a problem in some Dallas neighborhoods.  When I saw the story, I thought immediately of the time such a cart nearly made me a criminal.

During my senior year of college, I sprained my ankle playing tennis and wound up in a cast for several weeks.  Late one night, my roommate and I decided to head over to the Taco Bell adjacent to our apartment complex.  On the way back, we found a shopping cart in the parking lot.  On a whim, I hopped in and my roommate began pushing me along the street. Read the rest of this entry »