Pie

I love pie.

This became vitally apparent to me last thanksgiving while Dave Letterman was reading from the list of potential pies made by his mom. Every year when he reads those pies I remember how much I love pie. This year something changed.

Since that fateful day in November I have made pie a bigger part of my life. I have experienced much more pie happiness since then. I've also put on about 10 lbs.

I'm on a quest best described by a question from a colleague: "Ryan, what's your favorite kind of pie?"

Ryan: "That's I'm trying to figure out."

So far, I must say that cherry pie is unfailingly delicious. I'm a fruit pie man primarily.

Blueberry, marionberry, peach and Dutch apple round out the top 5.

Tonight was a special night because I had my first piece of sweet potato pie. It's not a fruit pie but it rules over pumpkin pie with an iron fist. I'm in South Carolina for a conference and this restaurant is amazing.

I love the word pie. I like saying it.

Pie.

I look forward to eating my first strawberry rhubarb pie.

If you have any suggestions on where to get a great pie in Colorado or Boston, please note it in the comments section.

I would be grateful.

Pie.

He then, who has ears to hear...

This has become my favorite hymn, praise song, whatever you want to call it.

I find that I am compelled to initiate a campaign to make this song known far and wide.

Drink deeply:

Before The Throne Of God Above

Cook, Vikki / Bancroft, Charitie Lees

Before the throne of God above,

I have a strong, a perfect plea,

A great High Priest whose name is Love,

Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on His hands,

My name is written on His heart.

I know that while in heaven He stands,

No tongue can bid me thence depart,

No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,

And tells me of the guilt within,

Upward I look and see Him there,

Who made an end of all my sin.

Because the sinless Savior died,

My sinful soul is counted free.

For God the Just is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me,

To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there the Risen Lamb,

My perfect spotless righteousness,

The great unchangeable I Am,

The King of glory and of grace,

One with Himself I cannot die.

My soul is purchased by His blood,

My life is hid with Christ on high,

With Christ my Savior and my God,

With Christ my Savior and my God.

One with Himself I cannot die.

My soul is purchased by His blood,

My life is hid with Christ on high

With Christ my Savior and my God,

With Christ my Savior and my God.

Needing to wake up, West just closes its eyes

Mark Steyn: "In five years' time, how many Jews will be living in France? Two years ago, a 23-year-old Paris disc jockey called Sebastien Selam was heading off to work from his parents' apartment when he was jumped in the parking garage by his Muslim neighbor Adel. Selam's throat was slit twice, to the point of near-decapitation; his face was ripped off with a fork; and his eyes were gouged out. Adel climbed the stairs of the apartment house dripping blood and yelling, "I have killed my Jew. I will go to heaven."

Is that an gripping story? You'd think so. Particularly when, in the same city, on the same night, a Jewish woman was brutally murdered in the presence of her daughter by another Muslim. You've got the making of a mini-trend there, and the media love trends.

Yet no major French newspaper carried the story.

This month, there was another murder. Ilan Halimi, also 23, also Jewish, was found by a railway track outside Paris with burns and knife wounds all over his body. He died en route to the hospital, having been held prisoner, hooded and naked, and brutally tortured for almost three weeks by a gang that had demanded half a million dollars from his family. Can you take a wild guess at the particular identity of the gang? During the ransom phone calls, his uncle reported that they were made to listen to Ilan's screams as he was being burned while his torturers read out verses from the Quran.

This time around, the French media did carry the story, yet every public official insisted there was no anti-Jewish element. Just one of those things. Coulda happened to anyone. And, if the gang did seem inordinately fixated on, ah, Jews, it was just because, as one police detective put it, ''Jews equal money.'' In London, the Observer couldn't even bring itself to pursue that particular angle. Its report of the murder managed to avoid any mention of the unfortunate Halimi's, um, Jewishness. Another British paper, the Independent, did dwell on the particular, er, identity groups involved in the incident but only in the context of a protest march by Parisian Jews marred by ''radical young Jewish men'' who'd attacked an ''Arab-run grocery."

I doubt that we'll see any Hollywood movies about this kind of social injustice, any time soon.

Jim Layman's: Students Changing the World

Jim Layman's: Students Changing the World

A new blog from one of my estimable colleagues.

Killing of Jew 'not anti-Semitic'

The Australian: "HE calls himself the 'Brain of the Barbarians'. But France's most wanted man, gang leader Youssef Fofana, has denied accusations anti-Semitism motivated the kidnapping, torture and killing of Ilan Halimi, a Parisian Jew.

The telephone salesman died on February 13 soon after he was found near a suburban Paris train station, naked, bound, gagged and suffering burns and torture marks to 80 per cent of his body.

The three-week hell allegedly inflicted on Halimi by Fofana's gang of 'barbarians' in a densely populated suburban Paris housing block where neighbours turned a blind eye has horrified France, which has the largest Jewish population in Europe."

“UAE and American Ports: a Modest Proposal”

Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “UAE and American Ports: a Modest Proposal”: "Neither side has noticed that there is a fairly obvious compromise staring us in the face, which Big Lizards believes would resolve the very real security concerns without losing the equally real security benefits from this deal.

Both the actual national-security risk and also the political danger come, not from the ownership of the company, but rather from the day to day management -- the actual control of operations. The emirate wants the profits that accrue from ownership; rational Americans want to see control of the port, even the cargo areas, in friendly hands, preferably American.

This suggests a workable compromise: an American company should be chartered -- American owned and American managed -- that is a wholly owned but independently operated subsidiary of Dubai Ports... call it American Port Services, Inc., or somesuch name that makes clear the nationality; and then let all the actual management of the ports be handled by the American APS, not by Dubai Ports.

This will add a middle corporate layer, so Dubai Ports won't make quite as much of a profit as they would running the ports directly; but on the other hand, it's still better than no profit at all. And Americans can be assured that rather than shifting from British control to UAE control, we will in fact have shifted from British to American control of port operations."

Read the whole thing.

Mass Gender

Welcome to MassRight: "'Check here if sex designation has changed?' I couldn't believe what I was reading. Granted, I should have expected that a state that legalized gay marriage would normalize transgenderism by including such a question on an official state form... but this is just too much."

#1 Song on This Date in History

#1 Song on This Date in History: "What was the #1 song in the U.S.A. the day you were born? The day you graduated from high
school? The day you were married? Oh, don't be shy ... how about the approximate date you were
conceived?"

Hide and Seek

"Hide and Seek" - Imogen Heap: "1. Hide and Seek - Imogen Heap"

This is a song that I discovered by using Rhapsody, the monthly subscription music jukebox. It's so great I can hardly describe it.

The harmonies on Hide and Seek are thick and gripping.

I need to get back into choir.

Nanny McPhee (2005)

Nanny McPhee (2005) was a delight.

My kids loved it and so did I.

It's a cross between Mary Poppins, and Cinderella.

A delight.

My Rating: Own it

Want to find those WMD's?

The American Thinker: "Only two weeks ago, General Sada, formerly Sadaam’s no 2 Air Force Commander, told the New York Sun that Sadaam’s WMD was moved to Syria just six weeks before the US-led invasion. Now Ali Ibrahim confirms this and explains the underlying strategy of Saddam:

I know Saddam’s weapons are in Syria due to certain military deals that were made going as far back as the late 1980’s that dealt with the event that either capitols were threatened with being overrun by an enemy nation. Not to mention I have discussed this in-depth with various contacts of mine who have confirmed what I already knew. At this point Saddam knew that the United States were eventually going to come for his weapons and the United States wasn’t going to just let this go like they did in the original Gulf War. He knew that he had lied for this many years and wanted to maintain legitimacy with the pan Arab nationalists. He also has wanted since he took power to embarrass the West and this was the perfect opportunity to do so. After Saddam denied he had such weapons why would he use them or leave them readily available to be found? That would only legitimize President Bush, who he has a personal grudge against. What we are witnessing now is many who opposed the war to begin with are rallying around Saddam saying we overthrew a sovereign leader based on a lie about WMD. This is exactly what Saddam wanted and predicted. "

Bode Miller: Imagine there's no defeat

NBCOlympics.com - Alpine Skiing - Austrian Raich wins men's giant slalom: "Miller now has failed to medal in all four races in these games, but said afterward that he could just as easily have four golds.

'One of the good things about my career is I have such extensive knowledge, so I always go as hard as I can,' Miller said. 'Some guys can go 70-80 percent and get results, but I wouldn't do that.

'If things went well, I could be sitting on four medals, maybe all of them gold.'"

Maybe Nike can start a new ad campaign slogan on the heels of Bode Miller's Olympic results: Just Pretend.

Advice for Traveling Workers 3

A continuation of an incredibly wise excerpt from the papers of John R. Mott regarding wise living during frequent business travel.

Part 1

Part 2

III. Let Us Religiously Keep a Weekly Rest Day

If this is not made a matter of religion all experience of our workers shows that it will not be done at all. If we are so situated that we cannot observe the same day each week. Let us preserve the average of one day in seven at all costs, and make the interval between rest days as nearly six as possible. I have found from experience that it is a help to keep a written record in my pocket notebook of dates of rest days, of places where they were spent, and how they were spent. It is desirable, and sometimes necessary, to spend the day away from the place where we have been working. Let us not use it as time to catch up on business correspondence or reports. Let us not use it as a day of railway travel. It is necessary not only to burn the bridges behind us, but also not to go swimming in the stream which skirts our regular work.

To make this day what it should be it is necessary that we make plans for it, and that these plans include some strong diversion. Each man must determine his own plans and must make them so flexible that they may be adapted to the environment in which his general program places him. Sleep longer than usual. Spend much more time than usual in exercise in the open air. We should get next to nature and fall in with her spirit and ways and laws. Devote from two to four hours to general reading and to study according to some plan. Do not count as lost an absolutely idle hour now and then. If the rest day falls on the Sabbath let us fall in with the observances and purpose of the day.

Summon the Heroes

Eric Swanson: Jeff's Homecoming from Baghdad: "While we were waiting for Jeff, Company Commander Ramos told us that they were returning from a difficult year of intense action and the 126th performed with excellence. His mission was to bring every man back safely and he nearly succeeded, only losing one man to a roadside mine. Their losses were minimal compared to the loses some companies suffered. After reuniting with Jeff we went to Denny's for breakfast and then drove back to Jeff and Ashlies house in Las Cruces were Jeff unpacked his treasures from Iraq--not exactly the spoils of war but great souvenirs--books on Iraq, stamp and money collections, a few silk scarfs and a bunch of dessert hats. Jeff told us a bunch of stories that he couldn't tell us when he was home on leave. Some were rather frightening and by the grace of God he returned unharmed. While we were at dinner late this afternoon, Donny arranged for a fraternity brother, 3 Star General Jan Huley to give Jeff a call. All we heard Jeff say was, 'Thank you sir.....Thank you very much sir.... It was a pleasure to serve my country sir.... I learned a lot sir and had some great experiences.' It was pretty cool.

Can we say we are thankful? When I think of great days in my life I think of the day Liz and I were married, the births of Andy, Jeff and Kacey, Andy and Jeff's wedding and this...Jeff--coming home in the company of other heros. Thanks Jeff. Great to have you home!"

I am honored to know Jeff and his family. He has served his country with courage and distinction. May God bless him and his family.

Remember

I finally realized and fixed this link.

Please don't forget.

PlayStation 3 Over $800?

Slashdot | PlayStation 3 Delayed, Over $800?: "'Cnet is reporting that a research report issued by Merrill Lynch suggests that the Sony PlayStation 3's American release may be postponed until 2007. From the article: 'The analyst firm proposed the idea that high costs and Sony's decision to use an 'ambitious new processor architecture--the Cell' is making it look like the company might not be able to meet its goal of getting the PS3 out in the U.S. this year.' Sony did not immediately respond to a request for comment.' The official report (pdf) would also seem to indicate that the console will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $900 when it launches."

Don't ever tell me that this is too expensive?

Advice for Traveling Workers 2

A continuation of an incredibly wise excerpt from the papers of John R. Mott regarding wise living during frequent business travel.

See Part 1

II. Suggestions on the Care of the Physical Life of the Traveling Secretary

Let us get a genuine vacation before the year's work begins. It is imperative, because in traveling work, more possibly than in any other, we need reserve power. One month spent in real vacation will do far more for us than two months spent in the ordinary so-called vacation. By real or genuine vacation I mean a complete change from our regular work. This involves cessation from speech-making, from executive work, from all efforts to move men, from receiving or writing letters and telegrams, from weighing problems and elaborating plans, from talking or thinking shop or associating with men whose presence makes it difficult tot keep from such talk or thinking, from close application to prolonged study, from working on schedule time. It would not be bad to imitate the German professor who stopped his watch and clock when he went on his vacation. It involves making special provision for agreeable physical exercise. This should include the real recreation, or the play element. It should be a form of exercise which affords intense pleasure.

It emphatically does not involve neglect of exercise for the cultivation of the spiritual life. Nor does it involve ceasing from all intellectual employment. I am convinced that if a man spends one solid hour each day on purely intellectual work, on an entirely different subject from those which command his attention the rest of the year, he will enter the new year with even greater freshness and grip and with less likelihood of breaking down than the man who gives his mind no solid work. Of course there may be exceptions to this rule, for example, the case of a man who has had a serious breakdown, or who is threatened with nervous prostration, or the case of a man who has been reading closely all the year. In a word, a vacation, such as I mean it, involves active, congenial, and healthful employment of body (chiefly), mind, and spirit on new lines, without any suggestion of pressure or driving or treadmill, and all in the midst of surroundings conducive to realizing thorough recreation.

Religion and Politics

Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Loose definitions: "Not all leftwingers in the US are as frankly religious as Hillary Clinton, and many don't even realise that the ideas that they champion have deep religious roots. But even for these people, being leftwing has itself become a sort of religion, with those who disagree viewed as sinister, almost demonic forces, rather than simply as individuals holding different views.

The language of righteousness and sin, if not that of redemption and grace, remains a hallmark of the purportedly secular left, though I find it no more attractive than the language of the religious right.

I don't fit into the religious right or the religious left. But, in America, you don't get to choose a major political party that does not have some sort of religious strain to it.

And it strikes me that one reason why politics in the US have become so much more bitter over the past couple of decades is that two rather different threads of religiosity have come to dominate the two major parties in distinct fashion, where each party had previously incorporated major components of both. This has turned political battles into quasi-religious ones."

This quote is old but it came up at Instapundit recently.

I've believed this for years. Which is why it's so absurd when people say that we should keep religion out of school. There's plenty of religion in school today. It's just not Christianity anymore, as it was when Harvard and Yale were founded. And it has all of the intolerance and narrow-mindedness associated with the worst of religion, made worse by the delusion that it isn't one.

Jacobellis' Hard Knocks

ESPN.com: "Lindsey Jacobellis tried to show off and she got what she deserved: She fell on her tail.

Jacobellis had a 50-yard lead in the first women's Olympic snowboardcross final Friday in a dandy of a race. She had looked over her shoulder several times in the bottom section of the run to see where her opponents were on the course. Obviously, she could already feel the weight of that gold medal around her neck. She was excited. She was confident of her victory. And she tried to show off a bit, throwing a back-side method over the second-to-last jump. But she held the grab too long, lost her edge and tumbled to the snow.


While she was scrambling to get up, Tanja Frieden of Switzerland came around the final turn and blew by Jacobellis to steal what would have been Team USA's fourth gold medal in snowboarding at these Olympics. But then again, Frieden didn't really steal anything; Jacobellis gave it to her."

If you didn't see this, you missed one of the memorable moments in all of sports. I'll have it on Tivo for some time. In fact, if you want to see it, come on over.

At first I was stunned. I caught a glimpse of what I thought was a showboat move and her snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I thought that she got what she deserved.

But as I saw Jacobellis interviewed by Costas last night on NBC, it became clear to me that she is a young girl, an amateur in the best sense of the word. Amateur: [French, from Latin amātor, lover, from amāre, to love.]

This girl loves to snowboard. She worked hard to win but to her it seems that the joy of the sport exceeds her desire to win.

And of course she learned, or can learn from this experience.

Proverbs 1:8-9 8 Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. 9 They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.

I was talking to my son about this very passage yesterday, not knowing that a living illustration of the relationship between wisdom and success would materialize later that day.

This weeks sign that the apocolypse is upon us:

Nick Lachey Requests Spousal Support | Jessica Simpson : People.com: "Nick Lachey filed papers in L.A. Superior Court on Friday requesting spousal support from soon-to-be ex-wife Jessica Simpson, PEOPLE has learned. In her Dec. 16 divorce filing, Simpson, 25, had petitioned that Lachey, 32, not receive alimony. "