Just Because: Real Life Examples

A couple weeks ago, our friends at Popple did at event at Shannon's parish in Jeff City, MO. They sent us this picture a couple days later, that they had found online:


It reminded Orin of a similar scenario from his growing up. Visiting his family over the weekend, he dug out a newspaper clipping from the Summer of 1993:


As silly as it is, "Just Because You Can" does have some real-life implications, folks.

Happy Halloween!

(photo courtesy of Lucy Gossett's facebook page)

Orin always has to one-up Shannon

So, remember that story, like, a couple weeks ago, of Shannon getting two flat tires the day before a big weekend Oddwalk trip?

Yeah, well, Oddwalk is hitting the road again this weekend, to the diocese of South Dakota, and what happens?

That's right, Orin's car bursts into flames. No, I'm not kidding, says Orin.

I was driving home from temple about 9:15 Friday night, and the car stalls out. I drift over to the shoulder, and turn it off and try to restart it a couple times. The second time, I heard a faint poof sound, and saw flames shoot out the passenger side of the hood/tire area. So I quickly hopped out of the car, not thinking well, and called Erin then 911 - yeah, don't ask me exactly why that order. Anyway, I then discovered in my haste, I had successfully locked myself out of the car, in which was still my keyboard, all my books for school, and several other less important possessions.

Within a few minutes the fire trucks, police cars etc. all arrived, and completely shut down Eastbound I-64 in St. Louis. That's right, I shut down the whole eastbound highway. The flames never really were that impressive, but there was an awful lot of smoke as you can see. Miraculously, they got the two important items just mentioned out of the back seat and continued to put out the fire. Miraculously, all of the other possessions, save a couple Spirit and Song hymnals were completely unscathed in the process - no fire, smoke, or water damage. Amazing.

Erin and our soon-to-move neighbors Dave and Jen came out to load up Orin's stuff and help out. The tow truck came and took Orin's car off to the lot, and We all went home and relaxed for a while. Now, I write this post, before going off to bed.

What may have caused this? Let's just say that Allstate and JiffyLube might be having some conversations in the near future.

Orin's car has served him well for just over 9 years, and as we recently observed, over 200,000 miles. It is a sad passing, so to speak, but the car served honorably and faithfully until tonight, 10-26-07, about 9:15pm. Farewell old friend, you will be missed.

Orin's car on Orin & Erin's wedding night

We've Got Garageband Too!

Jared alerted us to this site, thefump.com - now, not everything there is clean and "appropriate" shall we say, but there are some real winners, like this tune about Apple's program for Macs called Garageband, which is a basic music editing program with loops and such in almost any style of music. Oddwalk has used it as an aid in composing and even on some of our early CDs. However, when placed in the wrong hands... well, as the description of the song says, "Perhaps this wasn't such a great idea."

If You Grew Up In Rural Minnesota:

Some of these work for rural America in general, I think. Thanks to Orin's sis, Gwynne:

If You Grew Up In Rural Minnesota:

· You know what knee-high by the Fourth of July means.
· You know the difference between 'Green' and 'Red' farm machinery, and would fight with your friends on the playground over which was better!
· You buy Christmas presents at Fleet Farm.
· You hear someone use the word 'oof-dah' and you don't break into uncontrollable laughter.
· You or someone you know was a 'Dairy Princess' at the county fair (pictured, above.  Orin doesn't know her, but is amused the picture file is "tinabutterhead.jpg")
· You know that 'combine' is a noun.
· You let your older siblings talk you into putting your tongue on a steel post in the middle of winter.
· You think Lutheran and Catholic are THE major religions.
· You know that 'creek' rhymes with 'pick'.
· Football schedules, hunting season and harvest are all taken into consideration before wedding dates are set.
· Saturday you go to your local bowling alley.
· There was at least one, if not several, in your class who had to help milk cows in the morning.
· You have driven your car on the lake.
· You can make sense of 'upnort' and 'baatree'.
· Every wedding dance you have ever been to has the hokey pokey and the chicken dance.
· Your definition of a small town is one that only has one bar.
· The local gas station sells live bait.
· You think that the start of deer season is a national holiday.

A Little Good News

As Orin and Erin approach their 3rd anniversary, here's a nice story about a couple on their 27th:

Couple get wedding photos after 27 years

MANSFIELD, Ohio - A couple won't mark their 27th anniversary until Thursday, but they've already received the perfect gift: the wedding pictures they couldn't afford when they married as teenagers. Their photographer showed up last week at the diner where Karen Cline works and surprised her with a photo album from her big day in 1980.

"About a month ago, I was just cleaning out some of my old things and I found it," said photographer Jim Wagner, who's now 80. "I knew she didn't have any money back then, and I just thought she might like to have it."

Is it Christmas Yet?

http://isitchristmas.com/

Thanks to muddys.net.

Archery Banned in Archery Park

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. - The city's Archery Park may need a name change. How about No-Archery Park?

Tom Draper was surprised recently when he found a sign that cited a city ordinance prohibiting bows and arrows.

"Several archers that I've talked to are kind of in disbelief," Draper said, who along with his bowhunting friends have practiced archery at the park for more than 20 years.

Full Story Here.

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Haiku Challenge IV is still going strong as well!

Erin (H) Saves the World in Her Own Unique Way

Orin's wife, Erin H, is changing the format of her blog a bit. Right now she has this amusing story posted:

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For Church History I we were assigned a ginormous annotated bibliography to help us further along our research. I was having some trouble finding recent enough scholarship on the Early Irish Church, when I found an essay that I really wanted. I checked the library and the book wasn't there, so I made an interlibrary loan request - like you do.

Here is the response I received:

This request has been cancelled by the interlibrary loan staff for the following reason:

Other. Please see note field below.

You have Pius Library's copy of this book checked out. The due date is 1-31-2008.

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Don't forget to keep playing our Haiku Challenge (no. IV), just below!

Haiku Challenge IV

Hey, we haven't done this in a while (here are rounds I, II, & III)! The rules are simple - a haiku is composed with three lines, of syllable-lengths 5-7-5. Add yours in the comments, below. Your haiku must begin with the last word of the one just before yours. You may play more than once, but not twice-in-a-row. Here's one to get us going.

Orin feels lazy.
No motivation, rather:
Procrastination.
.

Keep In Mind

On Tuesday, October 9, 2007, Reverend Lucien Deiss, CSSp, celebrated what he often referred to as "the most joyful day of my life" in returning home to be with his Lord. Fr. Deiss, a native of France and resident of the Seminaire des Missiones in Larue, France, was during his lifetime a pastor, liturgist, author, international lecturer, renowned Scripture scholar, and an expert on liturgical music.

Orin grew up in his youngest years singing the music of Fr. Deiss. Please pray for him and his family. One of his more well known pieces his quoted below:

Keep in Mind
that Jesus Christ
has died for us
and is risen from the dead.
He is our saving Lord.
He is joy for all ages!

Another New Look

You might have noticed that we've done another facelift here at the Oddblog. Let us know what you think of it by voting in the OddPoll over in the sidebar:

What do you think of this look for the Oddblog?

– Groovy! Keep it.
– Eh.
– Bring back one of the older ones!
– Hey, I ordered a cheeseburger.

As usual, you can vote for about a week. Whee!

Why Do Shannon's Blog Post Titles Always Contain Bad Puns?

Or, "I'm Tire"d, Part II (by Orin)

Saturday Morning, Oddwalk hopped in their rental car and drove 5 hours west to Cedar Rapids, IA for a middle school rally, themed "SuperGod" as evidenced by the picture of the team members' shirts.

Oddwalk had a great time, and a couple pictures will help tell the story. First, as part of the art and environment for the day, the team attempted to put a Superman mannequin in a mock-up of a
phone booth. Superman turned out to be really short, and his head wouldn't stay on. Also, he had the head of a woman:



During the day, Oddwalk business cards and stickers were very popular. After taking this pic, Orin informed the youth that they should check the website in a few days to see it. One of the youth with the sticker-card-beard asked if we had any paper so he could write down the website. Orin lifted the bottom of the bear up in front of the young man's eyes and said, "Here it is."

I'm "Tire"d (Part 1 of this weekend's saga)

Before starting this post, I would just like to say that Orin and I are extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to do what we do. If it weren't for the growth of our ministry, none of the following would be possible:

So...Thursday morning, Orin and I led music for the all-school Mass at Althoff Catholic High School in Belleville. Thanks again to John Bouc, Althoff Campus Minister, for the invitation. After Mass had finished, we packed up and headed out to our cars. It was then that we discovered that my front driver-side tire was flat. Those of you who are aware of my procrastinative nature will not be surprised that, up until that point, I had been putting off fixing my flat spare tire. This meant that I owned a total of three (for now) fully aired-up tires.

Luckily, we have a lot of really great friends. Among them is the aformentioned John Bouc, who took care of my children while I went into Belleville and got my tire fixed. When the repair was finished, I gathered up my children, got some lunch and headed back home to Fulton.

Later that evening, I dropped my kids off at my wife's parent's house and headed to Helias Catholic High School to help with the Sophomore Retreat. When it was over and we had cleaned up, I offered to walk Kate, a fellow youth minister, to her car. She then offered to drive me to my car on the other side of the school. These details are important because, as we drove up to my car, we discovered ANOTHER flat tire. This one was rear driver-side tire. This was a problem. A BIG problem. It was now 11pm and there was no way of getting a tire fixed. There was also no spare tire because of my troubles earlier in the day.

I then spent the next 30 minutes or so on my cell phone, sitting in Kate's car, trying in vain to get someone to fix or replace my tire. The reason for the urgency was because Orin and I had a 6 o'clock flight to Chicago the next morning and I had no way of getting there. I hadn't packed yet and I had no idea if I would even make my flight. Luckily for me, Kate is a really nice person. She ended up taking me to my house so I could pack and then took me half-way to Orin's house in St. Louis (about an hour from Fulton). Orin then picked me up (at 2am) and brought me the rest of the way to his house. THANKS KATE AND ORIN!

After getting about 1 1/2 hours of sleep, Orin and I woke up, drove to the airport, and flew to Chicago. Why Chicago, you ask? That's where the practice was being held for our concert at NCYC sponsored by GIA. Actually the practice was in Barrington, a suburb of Chicago, and included Gary Daigle and Chris DeSilva. A lot of work got done and all of us had a pretty good time.

On one of our breaks, Orin, Chris, and I went down the street to get some sodas. On our way there, we saw a promotion for an upcoming Barrington festival:





What a start to our weekend!

-Shannon

An Early Start to Halloween

Returning to the Shrine after a long weekend (more about that to be posted here soon, just you wait), Orin opened his unusually shut door, only to discover this little person waiting for him behind his desk. Some of the staff for Youth Sing Praise had been sorting through costumes and props this weekend, and apparently left Orin a friendly greeting. He/She seems nice, but a little quiet, and with an interesting fashion sense.

Automated Confession

Thanks to Oddwalk friend David B: