If I say middle school band concert you may envision proud mothers that hear with their hearts and not with their ears and other friends and relatives that find creative ways to say nice things. We are fortunate that our 6th grade first year band student chose to learn flute and not carry around a tuba or take up the drums. We are also fortunate that she is a quick study. Last week she spent the day at an Honors Band Clinic which is like one day band camp. 254 students from 34 schools divided into two groups, 1st year and 2nd year, and spent the day together mostly in rehearsal. The concert we attended at the end of that day was not too shabby.

Nature and nurture work in our daughter’s favor when it comes to scholastic aptitude and the musical/artistic interests she has shown. I am going to be completely honest here. She is driven in a way that I never was. I had the aptitude but not the motivation. I was content to make decent grades while doing less work that others had to. I could only appreciate the frustration that brought my teachers once I saw it in the classroom from the other side, recognizing the same behavior and attitude in the students I was trying to motivate. We are pleased that she is a much better student than I ever was. We don’t want her to feel pressure to perform at a high level but we are supportive in what she chooses, and so far that has been to go above and beyond requirements and expectations.

Lemon juice in the coffee. I’ll take lemon in ice water, even in Diet Coke, but I think I’ll pass on this trending TikTok diet advice. Well, it was trending on TikTok back in the fall but the idea of drinking lemon juice infused black coffee first thing in the morning to kickstart your metabolism has spread to Facebook, Twitter and other more mainstream sources of information including the morning news. This article compares the miracle drink this and lose weight fad to the popularity of chia seeds and cider vinegar, which came and went.

I am a firm believer in preaching through chapters and even complete books of the Bible. Sometimes you gotta be flexible. Read the room Man of God.

They are fact-checking our jokes. I’ve had stuff removed and received warnings from Facebook just recently over things that were posted years ago. A group I’m in posted an obvious shopped picture of a long tailed, winged spider creature asking for advice and claiming to have found four of those in his house already. Several individuals that replied “burn the house down” had their comments removed by Facebook and received a warning. Social media does not have a sense of humor, be careful out there folks. Apps that use facial recognition technology and share your data with Russia, apparently those are okay.

It’s not funny because there was an innocent victim involved. But the man burying her in a shallow grave dying of a heart attack is sort of poetic justice on its own merit.

This is what happens if the National Weather Service displays every temperature they collect from every source. This is an excellent example of how easy it is to overburden someone with too much information. Not only is it not possible to know everything it is not necessary. A few data points on this map would give the viewer a general idea what is happening across the entire region. Anyone that speaks in front of a group, gives PowerPoint presentations… shares pics from mission trips… could benefit from this example.

I thought I was just as excited about Mexican Pizza as the next guy but apparently someone wrote a musical featuring Dolly Parton. I was not that excited about the return of Mexican Pizza.

One beep for yes. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is really good. Some think SNW is Paramount’s response to all the critics that said The Orville was more Star Trek than Discovery. Here’s what I think happened. A lot of Trek fans were turned off by Star Trek Discovery when it premiered a few years ago on CBS All Access (now Paramount+). In season 2 of Discovery they brought back some familiar names, although played by new faces, for something of a nostalgia factor. There were so many voices praising Anson Mount for his portrayal of Captain Pike and asking for more episodes featuring the Enterprise that a market for more vintage looking Trek became apparent. Remember the Ghostbusters remake with a female cast back in 2016? So many fans spoke out asking for another sequel to the original Ghostbusters movies the studio finally decided they could make a profit on one. And they did, big time, with Ghostbusters Afterlife. Whatever your feelings about Discovery it helped Paramount understand Trek fans and how best to serve them, which Paramount has always had trouble with as long as Star Trek has been around.

Waffle Fries are back for a limited time at McDonald’s… but only if you live in Canada. As popular as Chick-fil-A waffles fries are in United States, why McDonald’s has never tried to launch them here also is beyond me. They have a very similar Southern Style Chicken sandwich to compete with Chick-fil-A already. They took on Starbucks and Duncan a few years ago with their McCafe line of upscale coffee drinks. Chick-fil-A is now the number 1 fast food chain my sales in the US, a spot McDonald’s held for so long no one considered it possible to bump them. Enjoy your waffle fries Canada. The Atlanta area is about to get 15 Tim Horton locations.

I’m not going to repeat everything you have heard about Roe v. Wade for the past two weeks, but I will say this. Elizabeth Warren has been ranting about the overturn of Roe citing that 79% of Americans are pro-choice. I don’t think those stats are accurate. The map above shows that half of the country would outlaw abortion immediately is Roe is rescinded. Senator Warren is from California and although she represents her constituency well she is out of touch with most Americans and their values. Look at the map. Middle America is alive and well, a fact that highly populated liberal states like New York and California have trouble grasping and/or hope to change sooner rather than later. I had a conversation with fellow pastors earlier this week about the number of gay and lesbian couples not only on t.v. shows but in seemingly every other commercial. Look at the map again. The vast majority, not all but most, of our movies and t.v. shows are made in New York and California. They cast who they have, they do what they know. While that does move the needle of our cultural and societal values, half the states are still led by conservatives. Half of Congress, in the House and the Senate, is split nearly evenly right down the middle.

I think this has been a good Deja Vu.
So what’s happening your world?