It's a Golden Ticket

Well at least one of the copies of the ticket I received is golden--or maybe they call it canary. Either way my copy was green. Got caught speeding--45 in a 25. Of course they only wrote it for going 9 miles over the limit. Ticks me off. I rarely speed more than 5 mph over the limit, particularly in a residential area. So to be going 16 mph over is irritating. My only excuse is that my brother-in-law was in the car with me (and since he will never read this) so it must be his fault. He distracted me. Crap. Gotta go to traffic school to remove it from my record. Don't want my insurance rates to go up since we just got them reduced. Oh well.

13 is Such a Lucky Number

She's two. Wonderful day. She had her cake, and an overall enjoyable day. She is a fun little girl.

You Say It's Your Birthday!

33. Not much there really. Easier to write maybe. 33 may have some special meaning but really it is just another year. Perhaps it is my cynical side, but a birthday is really not that big of a deal anymore.

Spent the day teaching DNA replication, and RNA transcription. Came home and worked on tomorrow's lesson plan, and later tonight I have young men's. The big family celebration will be on Sunday, so perhaps it will mean something then. Who knows.

Taylor's Birthday Party

Chaos. That was the sight of Taylor's birthday party. Although chaos may sound like a good name for a birthday joint for 7 year olds, chaos and bedlam seemed to be apt descriptors of my kitchen and family room this evening.

Sure 9 seven year-olds sounded like a good idea at the time, but man you would think that the volume would eventually decrease when they realized that no one was listening to you yell. But in the mind of a 7 year-old, if they aren't listening then you obviously aren't talking (yelling) loud enough. And thus we had decible levels in the house that seemed to challenge my rememberence of the Oingo Boingo concert I went to in '89.

The evening appeared to be a smashing success. Though a word of warning, keep the little dingos on a leash when you have a piniata. The minute that thing cracked and spilled its hidden goods, the candy was quickly covered by a mass of scratching, clawing, territorial seven year olds--each clawing and scavenging for the last bit of candy covering the floor. One of the kids quickly amassed at least half the candy and was guarding it verociously, swatting every hand that reached for there share. I finally had to inspect everyone's bag and divide up the candy so that everyone got something. I can chuckle about it now, but at the time I was about to explode as a result of all the "that's mine" that I heard. Wow.

Taylor's 7^th Birthday

Seven years ago today, Taylor joined our little family. It was a rather interesting delivery. He gave us a little scare, but has been a delight from then on.

He has a natural curiosity that is refreshing. His brain seems to always be on. From the time he was three when he began listening to Ky learn to read, and thus taught himself to read, to today he is naturally curious. He is quick to laugh, to tell a joke, to enjoy life. But he is still as stubborn as all get out--he is very much a Berrett in that regard. He is always willing to express his ideas, even when that ends up correcting Mom or Dad's misspoken word.

Knock, Knock!

Who's There?

I don't know.

I don't know who?

I don't know either.

That is Taylor's favorite joke. He's a little nut.

Taylor has a zest for life. It is rare to see him down--well except when he is stuck in the music room because he won't practice. Outside of that room, his joy for life is contagious.

Happy Birthday Taylor. Seven years ago today was a good day, and you have made each day better for being a part of my life.

--Dad

Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

The current day of 24 is great. Am greatly enjoying watching it.

Evolution and the Flood

A friend of mine recently sent a letter to a group mailing list I am on asking for opinions on evolution and the flood. My friends question follows and being that it goes along with the other recent postings, I thought I would post and comment on it.

If the flood is taken literally, all the beasts and fowls on the earth were killed except those he gathered into the ark, which would be a fairly small number compared to the number of species today. So how do you explain the millions of critters on the earth now? The debate about what happened before Noah seems silly, since everything was wiped out during the flood. A debate on the occurrence of evolution would focus on the time from the flood until now. As anyone ever thought this over?

Here are my thoughts:

First in talking of the flood, there are several possibilities:

1--The flood literally occurred and covered the entire earth.

2--The flood was a localized event and only impacted a region of the earth.

3--The flood was only an allegory intended to show the compassion of God and the distance wise and faithful stewards should go in following the word of God.

I am sure there can be others--those were off the top of my head.

Now, as far as I know, the official position of the church is that the flood is a real event. Official may be too heavy, but I believe that reflects the beliefs and the doctrinal stance of the church. So from an LDS doctrine perspective, the only option is 1.

Now as a side note, there is no scientific evidence that a flood occurred. Studies have also shown that there is not enough available water on, above or below the earth to account for the amounts needed to cover the entire earth. A recent discovery channel series discussing the science of the bible came to that conclusion as well, and asserted that the story of Noah may have merely been a story passed from generation to generation that was embellished along the way. End of side note.

In regards to the other 2 positions evolution doesn't really apply after the flood since all animals on the earth were not killed in the flood. So in those cases the discussion reverts back to the time of creation. And for the record I see no reason not to believe that 1) the creative period was longer then a period of 6 24 hour periods, or even 6 1000 year periods, and 2) evolution played a key in the creation of the plants and animals on the earth. We discussed creation / evolution in church a couple weeks ago and my feelings on the discussion are here, so I won't go into them in this post.

Now as for option 1 either Noah had a very large boat, God went through another creation process and "placed" all of the animals back on the Earth, or evolution occurred. The first I find pragmatically doubtful, and Noah would also have to live in a locale where he could gather all of the species of animals on the earth. This would also seem an impossible task, considering the number of species.

So the only two options appear to be another creative process, or evolution. Now I don't believe this is an either or position that one needs to take. Just as with the creative process, I don't believe that the creative process after the flood and evolution are mutually exclusive. Both can readily explain the current diversification of plant and animal life on the earth.

Substitutions for the Real Thing

While at school today I walked past an office that had a rather animated conversation going on. I didn't overhear the whole conversation, as I didn't stop to listen, but the volume the speaker was using made it impossible for me to not hear a portion of the conversation. The portion I did hear was rather humorous, and is most likely taken wildly out of context--which may explain the humor.

Anyway the speaker said:

If you need your caffeine, just drink the GD real thing

So here is a person harping on someone else for not drinking coffee to get their caffeine fix, but in doing so refrained from verbalizing what GD represented.

I guess what is good for the goose, is not necessarily good for the gander. Anyway I got a nice chuckle out of the whole affair.