One, Two, the Cow says Moo! Three, Four, the Lion Roars!

Fierce.

No, Thank You!

The Shrine today received a number of thank you cards from St. James school who attended last week's Earth Day celebration.  Here's one from Olivia:

The Other Guy feels a little left out.

Mii Sculptures

Mike pointed us, as Nintendo Wii lovers, to this site where for far too much money you can get a three-dimensional 4-inch-tall sculpture of a "Mii" you send to them: miisculptures.com.  Pictured is their representation of Jack Black (center) based on someone's mii representation of same (left and right).

Here's the real Jack Black, a person that a bearded Orin was accused of looking like this past earth day.  We don't see it either.

Our response to miisculptures?  Eh.

And maybe some _____________ too!

Seen at the dentist's this morning:

Fill in the headline blank in the comments:

And maybe some _________ too!

First Communion Fun

Orin's niece-and-godchild Madelyn celebrated her first communion yesterday in Hokah, Minnesota. The day was filled with unique places and moments. Here are a few:

The 2nd-graders around the altar for the eucharistic prayer.

After communion, the class sings "His Banner Over Me is Love"

The "Reserved Pew" banner, made by Madelyn

St. Peter's in Hokah.  See below:

It really is on the 4th floor!

At the reception, three stories down, on our reserved table.

Apparently, many students had been learning Roman history.  There were many informative signs up with Top 10 lists.  This one, on Roman clothing was probably one of the best.  Note #5: "The Romans knew how to make hoods" and #10: "At 5,000BC, everyone wanted a fur coat."

The hotel thought the afternoon party was for a 7 year old's graduation, I guess.

Cake!

And this morning: snow!  We even drove through a bit on the way to the airport and saw a recently jack-knifed trailer in the ditch.

CosmicWalk?

Thursday and Friday Oddwalk served as emcees for the Shrine's Earth Day celebrations for grade schoolers.  When at this event, you may recall we take on the personas of Earth Man (Shannon) and The Other Guy (Orin) - that helps explain Shannon's cape and hat.

Pictured here is Earth Man and his wife Erin holding signs pointing the way to Fr. Maurice's Cosmic Walk that was part of the day.  

In case you were concerned, we haven't changed our name.

Congrats!

Oddwalk friends Sarah Bauer (featured on "Walk Away Different") and Chris Sansone just got married!  Here a pic of them at the reception with another Odd-Friend, Joia Farmer.

Happy Earth Day to . . . All of Us!

Today is Earth Day - and it is a very Catholic thing to protect all of God's creation through stewardship and environmental justice.

Read more here! 

Or here!

And maybe we'll see all of you at Our Lady of the Snows for their Earth Day for Schools this Thursday and Friday!

Earth Man and The Other Guy Return!

Into the Heavens? Brazilian Priest Missing After Floating Away Under Hundreds of Helium Balloons

As always, no, we're not making this up:

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) — A Roman Catholic priest who floated off under hundreds of helium party balloons was missing Monday off the southern coast of Brazil.

Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli lifted off from the port city of Paranagua on Sunday afternoon, wearing a helmet, thermal suit and a parachute.

He was reported missing about eight hours later after losing contact with port authority officials, according to the treasurer of his Sao Cristovao parish, Denise Gallas.

Gallas said by telephone that the priest wanted to break a 19-hour record for the most hours flying with balloons to raise money for a spiritual rest-stop for truckers in Paranagua, Brazil's second-largest port for agricultural products.

More here...

pOddcast - Mi Chamocha

New on the pOddcast: a version of Mi Chamocha written by Dan Nichols, and recorded by Orin and Cantor Seth Warner and his assistant Dan Geigerman at Congregation Shaare Emeth in Creve Coeur, MO.

Maybe some of you don't know: Orin on many Friday nights and Saturday mornings, when not Oddwalking, accompanies services at this Reform Jewish congregation.  They are putting together a CD of some of their liturgical music to give to new members.  So on Seth's laptop (featuring what else, Garageband!) a dozen or so songs were recorded.  This one is probably Orin's favorite.  The text is from Exodus, it's the song the Israelites sang just after crossing the Red Sea and escaping slavery.  It's in Hebrew; here's one translation.  Passover has just begun for Jews.  (Remarkable too that Pope Benedict visited a synagogue during his USA visit.)

As always, you can find the podcast in the gcast window in the blog sidebar or over at the main site.

We Did Good

The results of the evaluations of our workshop presented at the National Catholic Educators Association Convention a month ago in Indianapolis:

He was a General too

Seen as a tag line on an email recently: “Every gun that is made, every warship that is launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

(Dwight D. Eisenhower, Republican)

Earthquake!

A year and a half ago, we mentioned an area minor earthquake here on the blog.  Today's was a little bit bigger - 5.2 on the richter scale, about 120 miles east of St. Louis at about 4:36am.  I (Orin) don't know if Shannon felt anything another 120 miles or so west, but we got woken up and lightly bounced around for probably 20 seconds or so.  No damage, I guess, except one road near our house had a bit of crumbling concrete (see the picture).  Read more here.

Now we wait for any aftershocks!  Whee!

Eva Johnson Memorial Video

It's been one month since Orin's mom Eva passed away into new life.  Here's the video of some 54 pictures that was put together as a memorial for the visitation and funeral.  Additionally, it's a chance to see many youthful pics of Orin and many various combinations of uncool hairstyles and weird facial hair.  The preview pic is in the Johnson's backyard (near the well-known "hands in the air" location) and is the morning of Orin's first communion in 1982.  The video is about 9:30 in length.  You'll also notice a few breaks which feature a river, waterfall, etc.  The joke was that Dad had landscaped that stuff in the backyard.  (It's not true.)

Welcome B16!

And happy birthday!

OddRingtones and OddWallpapers!

Hey all - We're trying something new - free Oddwalk ringtones via myxer. Here's the first one, a sample of "Get It Together" off the new CD, "Walk Away Different." We now have eight ringtones to choose from! You can just click the link in the sidebar of the blog or on various pages at our main site. Let us know what you think!

More from Oddwalk Ministries at Myxer

We also have five wallpapers available - here's the basic one; there are also "Walk Away Different," "Just Because You Can" and of course Oddwalk Keytar wallpapers too!

More from Oddwalk Ministries at Myxer