Dad, the Basement Wall Collapsed!

Looking a little grim my wife handed me the phone. Our youngest daughter Courtney was on the line. “Dad, the basement wall collapsed – but everyone is safe!” I couldn’t believe what she was saying. It was about 9:00 on a Wednesday night in the middle of August. It had rained buckets that day. In fact it had been raining heavily off and on for several weeks. I asked her to repeat what she had just said. In more detail she explained that the entire 30 foot length of their basement wall had collapsed but that everyone was ok and that they were going to be staying in the fifth wheel camper that night. The next day I took off from work and went out to see what had happened. It was just an ugly sight. Broken concrete blocks, mud, dirt, and debris partially filled their basement. A 30’ span of their home was now unsupported, the freezer was blown over on its face; the plumbing was ripped off from the bottom of the toilet. On top of all of that it was still raining – the cloudy and gloomy day seemed to mirror our spirits. The insurance adjuster showed up at about 6:00 on Thursday night, a day after the collapse. He was pretty frank in his assessment that he didn’t think their policy would cover what had happened. As soon as he was gone my son-in-law Gus and I began to brace up the floor with some landscape timbers. Amazingly the now unsupported span of their home did not collapse or even drop down. We dug out the freezer, set it upright and plugged it in. Remarkably it still seemed to work. I took off that Friday also and went out to help brace up the floor some more and begin the task of digging out. The insurance company sent out an engineer to check out the collapse – and probably to validate why they were going to deny their claim. (A few days later our daughter was told that if the entire house had collapsed the insurance company would have paid……say what?) Over those first few days we braced up the floor so that it was safe to be in the basement, we pulled out as many of the concrete blocks as we could and just tried to clean things up as best we could. On Tuesday (6 days after the collapse) that portion of the basement was excavated, the debris was hauled out and a good sized trench was dug so that we could begin rebuilding the basement wall (Gus and Courtney decided to go with a plywood basement). While the rebuilding was going on, our daughter and son-in-law and their three children (ages 3 months to 7 years) and their yellow lab Auggie lived in the fifth wheel trailer camper next to their house. Sometimes it’s really hard to see how God is working. Really hard. Gus had been furloughed from his job at the ore docks for several months and was working very little. Courtney was a stay at home mom with the three little ones. And now this. How were we going to get all of this done? How were we going to rebuild the basement? On one of the Saturday’s before we began work we all gathered in their makeshift home for prayer. I read from Matthew 6:25-34 – the passage that talks about not worrying about where your food and clothes and housing are going to come from. That’s kinda hard to do sometimes. And then in verse 33 it says this, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” I got a little choked up when I read that. And I changed it around just a little bit. The Vander Ark version of Matthew 6:33 reads this way, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all the pieces of your basement will be added unto you!” That Wednesday night when we found out the wall had collapsed I sent out prayer requests to as many people as I could think of. You may disagree with me, but I believe that God cares about basements! Prayers for the basement collapse went up across Minnesota and Wisconsin and North Dakota. I even received an email from a missionary friend in Germany that they were praying. We needed God’s help! Over the next couple of weeks we saw how God could bring things together and give Gus and Courtney a new basement. Volunteers came from a church in Hawthorne, Wisconsin and a church in Floodwood, Minnesota to lend a hand. People just “seemed” to show up just when they were needed. Family members worked hard; my son-in-law Gus and his dad George worked especially hard. I guess when something like this happens you have a choice: you can curl up into a ball or close the window shades and sort of ignore the mess. Or start digging. God can perform wonders, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to work our fingers to the bone. Miracles can start by just picking up a shovel or a hammer. Remarkably, about three weeks after the wall had collapsed and about two weeks after the site was excavated, the basement wall was rebuilt and the big hole in their backyard was all filled in! Sometime during the rebuilding process Gus turned to me and said, “You know, Courtney was praying for a dry basement.” I think I replied with something like, “So she’s responsible for this?!?!?” God answers prayer in some pretty unconventional ways. And so when our daughter prayed for her basement, God probably thought, “OK, you asked for it!” and sent one of His angels to give that old concrete block wall just a little bit of a push. I later asked Courtney, “There isn’t anything else you’re praying about that I should be aware of, is there?” Dan Vander Ark Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com 

My Cholesterol is OK, But My Rhubarb is a Little High

It was time for my annual physical. I was feeling OK but I knew that I should just get checked out. Or checked up I guess it is. After waiting for a few minutes in the family clinic waiting room in our end of town, my doctor’s nurse came out and hollered, “DAN, GET IN HERE, NOW!” Not really. The nurse was nice and asked me to come back to the exam room. However, we first had to stop by the dreaded scale. I knew my weight had gone up a couple ounces since my last physical, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the number that flashed on the huge digital scoreboard out in the lobby. “Hey everyone in the waiting area, Dan’s weight has gone way, weigh up!!!” Maybe in the future that’s what they’ll do to motivate us to lose weight. I thought it must have been showing kilograms, but when I squinted to read the fine print it said, “Sorry buddy, this is America, these are POUNDS!” With the breakneck speed of developing technology I am sure that in a couple of years the scale will be equipped with a face detection camera and will be interfaced to your kitchen’s refrigerator. In a 2001-Space-Odyssey scenario, the HAL voice will soothingly say something like, “Hello Dave, er I mean Dan. Here is a printout of the dates and times that you ate those 27 Dove bars last week. If you were living on Mercury your weight would be OK. But try to remember – this is Earth.” In the exam room the nurse asked if I was on any meds. “Why yes I am. I eat one Dove bar once a day ½ hour before breakfast.” She also asked if I had any howitzers in the home and if I ever felt threatened. “Only if I leave my socks in the middle of the floor,” was my reply. She then took my blood pressure. It was actually pretty good – like 129 over 80 or something. If I remember correctly – for the ideal blood pressure the first number should be approximately twice your age. And for the last number you should add your telephone number to your age, divide by 6 and then multiply by the number of Dove bars you had that day. She then instructed me to put on one of those really fashionable Tommy Hilfiger looking gowns. I work in the purchasing department of the hospital/clinic system that I went to the physical at and it never dawned on me that I should order some really really good gowns that actually have ties on them (and in the front!) and that cover more than 50 percent of your body. I got the gown on and somehow got it tied. I bet those guys on Cirque Du Soleil can’t tie those things. While I waited for the doctor I read a couple of magazines. The oldest, Popular Science, had a really interesting article on the development of the printing press. And National Geographic had an article by Lewis and Clark on how they met Sacagawea. And Life had a cool article about how we landed on the moon. I didn’t know that. When the doctor came in we chatted briefly. I have been going to him for about 20 years (or about 7 “annual” physicals I think it is). He is a really good doctor and very personable. He checked my heart (it was still beating), he checked my lungs (I was still breathing), he checked my reflexes (I still had some), and he checked my ears. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that the light from the otoscope coming OUT THE OTHER EAR created a silhouette of Mickey Mouse on the wall. “That’s odd,” the doctor remarked. And finally he asked me to say “Aaaahhhhhhh.” I guess that was to check out the little hangy down thing in the back of my throat to see if it was still there. When he was done he mentioned I still needed to do the lab work stuff. So off I went to find the lab. When I went by the scale I swore I could hear it snickering. I got to the lab and was greeted by the lab tech (more technically known as the “phlebotomist”). A phlebotomist is one who practices phlebotomy – which is the art of bloodletting. Bloodletting has been around for about 2000 years and has been practiced by the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, the Aztecs, the Mayans and the Lutherans. And to quote from www.reference.com/fleabotomy: The popularity of bloodletting in Greece was reinforced by the ideas of Galen, after he discovered the veins and arteries were filled with blood, not air as was commonly believed…” Maybe they were first called “airteries.” Galen also believed that “humoral balance was the basis of illness or health, the four humours being blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.” Now I’m no doctor, but to me the four humors are guffawing, chortling, chuckling, and side-splitting-milk-coming-out-your-nose laughing. And get this – and again I am quoting from www.reference.com/fleabotomy: “…the practice was continued by surgeons and BARBER-SURGEONS! Though the bloodletting was often recommended by physicians, it was carried out by BARBERS…the red-and-white-striped pole of the barbershop, still in use today, is derived from this practice: the red represents the blood being drawn, the white represents the tourniquet used, and the pole itself represents the stick squeezed in the patient's hand to dilate the veins.” Can you believe that? And how about this: Leeches became especially popular in bloodletting in the early nineteenth century. In the first half of the 19th century hundreds of millions of leeches were used throughout Europe. And that doesn’t include those used for fishing! In 1824 a French sergeant was stabbed in the chest in combat. They took him to the local BloodLetAtorium. During his treatment over the next couple of weeks they “let” more than half of his blood supply and applied more than 70 leeches! And he survived! And we complain because the hospital Jell-O tastes like a Goodyear tire. (Note to my congressman and senators: Have you guys read this? This is one sure way to lower medical costs! Leeches at Bill’s Bait and Barbecues are only $2.95 per dozen. But then again, once you guys start managing leeches they will probably cost $637.12 a dozen). And just a couple other little tidbits about phlebotomitizing. One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence was a phlebotomist. Or at least believed in bloodletting. And George Washington was treated with bloodletting following a horseback riding accident. Almost 4 pounds of blood was withdrawn which contributed to his death in 1799. Shouldn’t the Secret Service have said something? Back to my physical. The lab tech filled the mason jar with blood, removed the leeches and I was done (except for filling that other little container). A few days later I got the lab results back. But before I give you those results I have to confess something. About 17 days before my physical I ate a rhubarb pie. In one day. And not just a piece of rhubarb pie, an ENTIRE rhubarb pie. And about 2 days before my physical I ate ANOTHER rhubarb pie (except for one piece – I knew the dreaded “Scale” was waiting for me so I had to cut back). So when I got the lab results back they read like this: Dear Mr. Vander Ark We have determined that you are still alive. The bad cholesterol is just a tad high, but it’s ok and the good cholesterol is just a little low but it’s ok so you won’t need to eat Lipitor or oatmeal or pine needles. But your rhubarb is a little high. Please watch the sweets. And I always thought rhubarb pie was a vegetable. Dan Vander Ark Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com

An A-Mail From T-Bone: Swimming Lessons

Introduction: For 13 years T-Bone, our Lab/Irish Setter mix canine companion lived with us. But in May of 2006 we had to put him to sleep due to a losing battle with separation anxiety and his old age issues. So the following is what I call “An A-mail (Angel Mail) from T-Bone;” sort of “heaven from a dog’s point of view.” Hey master…I am up to typing 5 words a minute now! They have a huge keyboard by one of the pearly gates of the city that is made just for dogs – it fits our paws perfectly! I guess it’s what they call dogernomic. It takes me awhile to type these, but hey, I gots lots of time! The angels help us (the younger angels-in-training); they help us spell somewhat and then we can pull up anyone’s name on planet earth and just hit the send button and they say somehow it gets to you. So that’s kool. I guess my email address is tbone@heavenisreallycool.dog if you want to try replying. There’s a young (and big) Newfoundland pup up here I met the other day. He can only type one word a minute so I am helping the Angel-In-Training help him. Ain’t you proud of me? And guess what Master? I CAN SWIM! You know how scared I was of the water when I was down there with you? And you tried so many times to get me to swim but I would only go up to my chest? I do remember the one time you tossed me in off the dock at your mom’s lake and I went under for a couple moments and pretended I was a submarine. But I forgives you Master. Up here – I ain’t afraid of the water! I went swimming in the River of Life the other day and was floating on my back even. It’s kind of comical to see. But we had a great time! We wuz watching HDTV the other day (Heavenly Days TV that is) and me and the other dogs who couldn’t swim too good on earth watched the story of when Peter tried walking on water. It was way cool! Its in the Bible in the New Testament (you DO know where the New Testament is, don’t you Master? Just kidding ), in Matthew chapter 14. Remember the story? Jesus had just fed over 5,000 people with just 5 loaves of Wonder Bread and two little walleyes. Then he told the disciples to get into the boat and cross the Sea of Galilee, but He went up into the mountain to pray. That night a really big storm came up and those big brave disciples were straining at the oars and weren’t making any headway. But all of a sudden, somewhere around 4:00 in the morning, they saw someone WALKING ON THE WATER! ON TOP OF THE WAVES! And Jesus said something like, “Hi guys, how’s it going? Don’t be scared!!!” But with the wind still blowing and the waves still raging and Jesus still walking on the water, Mr. Bigmouth Peter said, “If it really is you Jesus, tell me to come to you on the water!” And guess what? Jesus told him “Well come on down!” Peter very cautiously got out of the boat, sort of testing his weight on the water (kind of like when you used to put me into the tub Master). And it was just like walking on Jell-O for him! Boing! Boing! Boing! Boing! He looked like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon! He was having a great time as was walking on top of the water and the waves just like Jesus! But all of a sudden, when he began to get scared (I knowz the feeling) and he took his eyes off from Jesus, he began to sink……reallllly sloooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwllllllllllllllllllllllllly. It was so bizarre. I remember when you told the funny story of how you and your brothers were tubing down the Ottertail River and you came to a spot in the river and wanted to see how deep it was. So you rolled off the innertube – and fashooom! You sank like a rock to about 15 feet deep. Just your hat was floating on the water! Your brother was laughing so hard when you came up he almost shot minnows out his nose. Anyway Peter didn’t do that (hold it – I gotta connect my doggy thoughts – I don’t mean Peter didn’t shoot minnows out his nose, I mean he didn’t sink fast)…He went down really slowly! But when he cried out for help, Jesus grabbed his hand and pulled him up. That was so cool. And Peter just walked non-chalantly back to the boat on the water like nothing happened. But Thomas, Mr. No-Faith, said, “Yo Petey, wuz up with all your wet clothes? I told you not to get out of the boat.” You know what Master? That story taught me too things. Hold it, I mean two things. First, Jesus helps us out in the storms of life. Big-time. Jesus comes in a way we don’t think He will and at a time we don’t think He will. When we are in storms, He loves us and can help us! Next, I would rather be a wet water walker than a dry boat sitter. We gives Pete a lot of grief because he sank, but hey Master – he was the ONLY ONE WHO HAD THE GUTS TO GET OUT OF THE BOAT! So we need to have faith and get out of our boat named “ComfortZone” and see what God can do in our lives. And next….no wait…hold it a moment…let me count on my doggy paws for a second…..nope that was two. Well Master I gotta go. Hey you know what!? The Taco Bell dog is up here now! And he is a she! She just got here and her name is Gidget and she was 15 earth years or like about 105 dog years. She is teaching me Spanish, like "¡Yo quiero Taco Bell!" and ¿Es usted todavía calvo? (Are you still bald?). Sorry Master, I couldn’t resist. Well, me and Bob and Maggie and Ghost and Xander and Alfie and Kegger and Guiness and several Max’s and Tomack are getting together for sort of a Vander Ark extended dog family reunion. The twins are putting it all together for us. Oh, and Gidget is coming as a special guest (I think I love her Master, maybe it’s the way she speaks Spanish). I miss your wife scratching me behind my ears and hugging me. The angels up here do it, but its just not the same. Hey Master, one last thing. I still look for you every day by the gate they say someday you will be coming through. I just lay out there for awhile and sort of think about you. Heaven’s real nice, but it ain’t the same without you and Mrs. Ark. Love, Yer Dog T-Bone Dan Vander Ark Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com

God is....a Toaster

I just joined FaceBook. A couple of people invited me quite awhile ago but I always hesitated to bring myself into the 21st century (my two son-in-laws teased me a few months ago when I said I needed to get batteries for my Walkman…”that’s so last century” was their response). Our computer at the house is just connected to the internet via dial-up so needless to say it sometimes takes a few minutes to motor around and download or upload stuff, have pillow fights, give and accept hugs, view photo albums and generally just do “stuff.” Maybe we are the Dialup-Dinosaurs-of-Duluth; am guessing there are a few more of us out there, but we are definitely becoming extinct. Anyway when I signed up I came to the Pink Floyd, excuse me, I mean the Wall, and noticed a friend had posted this fill-in the blank statement: God is ______________. A few people commented and someone had filled in the blank by posting this comment “…Good!” Now my theological education and 25 plus years of pastoral experience kicked in and I wanted to put something rather profound on there. So after I thought for awhile (well ok, so it was only 3 seconds), I came up with “God is…a Toaster!” I knew that would sort of stir things up a little and my friends would wonder what had happened to their Dutchman preacher friend: “Has he been reading the wrong version of the Bible again?” “Has he been a Viking fan too long?” “Have all the cloudy & cold days in Duluth caused his brain to mold over?” But I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. This was my FIRST day on FaceBook and I didn’t want a couple of missionaries who had approved me as a friend to like, you know, call the district superintendent or something. “Hey that preacher guy Vander Ark up in Duluth thinks God is a toaster. I don’t think that’s one of the 16 Fundamental Truths!” But to a lot of people (and in all practicality) God IS no more than a toaster. Think about it: 1. A toaster sits on the counter or in the cupboard and stays pretty much out of the way until needed. 2. A toaster is pretty manageable in size and we can control it: we take it out, we plug it in, we set the buttons, we put in the bread, and when we are done, we put it away. 3. We put in something and we expect something in return; we put in fresh bread slices; set the shade of darkness and expect it to produce a perfect slice of toast. 4. If the toaster doesn’t produce or doesn’t work right and it burns the bread, then we get upset and throw it out and buy a new one. The parallel? 1. We sometimes want a god that will just sit on the counter and pretty much stay out of our way and not upset our lives or disturb our sleep or make any demands upon us until he is needed. We certainly don’t want a god that will ask us to bring cookies to our neighbor that just mowed over our flowers or ask us to forgive someone that has hurt us very deeply. We just want a god for funerals and job losses or severe illnesses and similar life-is-tough situations. In other words, we want a convenient god. 2. And we want a manageable god. We want a god whose theology we have figured out and packed away in our nice little theological box. And we want to be able to unplug our god and put him back in the cupboard when we don’t need him or if he should start to bother us. 3. And if we give something to our god, we certainly expect some sort of return on our investment. It’s only fair. “I gave my tithes, so now I shouldn't have any more financial problems.” “I read my Bible, so now I shouldn't have any problems at work today.” “I go to church regularly, so now I shouldn't have any problems with my teenage children.” “I memorize and study Scripture, so now I should always be filled with joy.” I put the bread in, shouldn't I expect a perfect slice of toast? 4. Finally, if our god "burns my toast" and does not work things out like we think he should (my relationship fell apart; that job promotion didn’t come through; I am still battling this chronic illness), we get in a huff and look for another church or another god or another theology. Or even a non-theology. Wilbur Rees penned this very biting poem (I am not sure when it was written and it may not be politically correct in this day and age; but it speaks to our innate desire to obtain just enough of a theology to soothe our conscience): “I would like to buy $3 worth of God please, not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of Him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God please.” God is Eternal and defies description. When we have been in heaven for 10,000 X’s 10,000 years, we will still only have just begun to know the depths of His love and His beauty. We will only have just begun to touch the fringes of His ways. He is the Almighty, the Creator of the Universe and the One Who holds the oceans in the palm of His hand. The nations are a speck of dust on His scales. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is worthy of all of my time, all of my energy, all of my talents, and all of my life. Were He to never answer one single prayer of yours or mine, He would still be good and holy and just in everything that He does. (But He does answer prayer, just try it!). Were I to lose everything, He would still be The Faithful One. And He has such an intense love for people that He sent His only Son to die an excruciatingly painful death on Calvary for us. Even though you may not think so or believe so, God has an incredible love for you as an individual and cares deeply about you and the struggles you face and the questions you have. At times we do unfortunately treat Him like our toaster – we tuck Him away in the cupboard and ignore Him until we are hurt or in trouble. But He is abundantly ready to forgive our wrong concept of Him and our wrong attitudes toward Him. 

Dan Vander Ark All Rights Reserved Copyright 2009 onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com transformationthroughintercession.blogspot.com 

The Haunted House on Little Cormorant

For many years my brothers and sister and I had seen “something” in the old abandoned farm house on Little Cormorant Lake. Big Cormorant, Middle Cormorant and Little Cormorant were three lakes just west and south of Detroit Lakes in northwestern Minnesota. Trolling for Northern Pike would often take us to the back side of Sugar Island and into the little bay where the vacant house stood. Although now almost completely veiled by trees and other foliage, back in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s you could see the house fairly easily. And whenever good fishing, sunset, and a perfectly still evening intersected on that portion of the lake, as your eyes scanned the bay they always seemed to be drawn to the upstairs windows. And it was then that you swore something or someone was looking back at you. Even though it had been abandoned decades earlier, some sort of ethereal light invariably flickered through those window eyes once the sun had gone down. More than once when we had given up fishing for the evening and motored away from the bay, your eyes were convinced that you could see someone standing in the upstairs window. And they were looking back at you. In July of 1997 my older brother Jan, my younger brother Kevin, our youngest sibling Lisa and myself were all together for a couple of days of relaxation at my parent’s lake home on Little Cormorant. Dad and Mom had first built a little cottage on the southeast corner of Sugar Island in the mid 70’s, but in the 80’s they turned it into a year-round home and sold their home in rural Moorhead. There are few things in life more beautiful and enjoyable than being on a Minnesota lake in the summer. The laughter of kids swimming and diving off the raft, fishing, water skiing, the July 4th boat parade, the smells of the lake and the sound of Loons were all elements that contributed to sort of a Terry Redlin Americana scene on the island. Sitting on the deck after supper the talk always turned to how the boat was running, was the beaver dam across Cty Road 6 causing the lake level to rise again, and who’s doing what on the island. But that night it turned to the old abandoned farm house. We had always talked about checking it out after the sun had gone down to see what might be causing the ghostly light and shadowy figure in the upstairs window. Whether it was the fact that we four kids were rarely at my parent’s home at the same time or that we finally just figured we had to know what was going on, we somehow mustered up the courage to investigate the house…at night. We had gone to the house a number of times during the day to explore and look around. Mostly under decay, it was just a simple small two story house. When you pried open the front door you were very careful where you walked. The floor was rotting and sagging terribly. The stairway went about 8 steps and then turned immediately to the right. Upstairs were three bedrooms – with two of the bedrooms using a single adjoining closet (you could go from one bedroom to the other through the closet). Throughout the house plaster was falling down. The stale smell of oldness pervaded the entire dwelling. The basement was earthen and I can’t remember if you entered it through a trap door in the kitchen or through a cellar door outside. Maybe we should have, but we never did go down there I remember that July night as though it were yesterday. It was perfectly still and warm. And it was a new moon which meant that there would be no light from the blackened sky to help illumine the bay and abandoned farmstead. The four of us were slathered with bug spray to try to at least repel a portion of the mosquito onslaught we knew would be awaiting us in the tall grass and bulrushes. My folk’s old black lab Max accompanied us. The five of us got into the boat and we began to motor the small aluminum fishing boat from the southeast corner of the island. Following the shoreline we made our way around the island and then to the bay to the northwest. About 100 yards from shore we killed the motor and began to silently paddle toward shore. The Navy Seals would have been proud of us. As I mentioned earlier I absolutely love the sounds and smells and sights of a Minnesota summer on the lake. Toward evening you could hear the Loons or see an occasional muskrat or beaver swimming or hear a distant boat trolling for pike. But this night I didn’t seem to notice any of that. About 20 yards out we all had to push with the oars against the thick mat of weeds to get close to the shore. It became darker and darker and a Londonish fog settled over the bay. When we reached the shoreline all four of us heard a low guttural growl coming from Max. Her hair on her back bristled as she stared toward the farmhouse. We were about 75 yards from the house but almost entirely hidden by the tall reeds. Jan whispered, “I see the light!” Each of us had flashlights but we didn’t use them. Kevin firmly gripped Max’s collar. My heart was hammering inside my chest and I am sure that my goose bumps had goose bumps. For whatever reason we made our way toward the house in birth order order -- which meant Jan led, I was in the middle, Kevin was next, and Lisa followed. We didn’t do a military type low-crawl, but we kept as low as possible. Once we got within 50 feet of the house we stopped and sat down on the weeds and the brush. An owl hooted in the trees just to our right. It was dark but our eyes had adjusted enough so that we could see each other and we could see the whitish farmhouse. We looked into each other’s eyes. We were all terrified. Not only was Max’s hair still bristled, but I think our hair was standing on end also. Without talking we communicated that “I’m scared but I want to go in” look to each other. Even though the hinges were laden with years of rust, the door actually opened pretty silently. Your eyes always play tricks on you; shadows can become a million different monsters. But something or someone was definitely upstairs. We clicked on one flashlight for the briefest of moments and quickly scanned the main floor. It was just the parlor/living room and the kitchen. Nothing. But as our Little Cormorant Navy Seals Team stood there petrified on the main floor, you could see the faintest of glows coming from somewhere upstairs. In a slow compacted huddle we made our way to the second floor. We had to be exceptionally careful in the dark and on those creaking (and rotting) stairs. Kevin still had a good grip on Max. And we decided to stay together. I for one had seen to many scary movies where one of the actors decided to peel off on his or her own. And that’s the last you ever saw of them. We decided to work our way toward the bedroom that faced the lake – the one that we had seen the light in. The top of the stairs emptied into a short stubby hallway; to the right was one bedroom and to the left the other two. All three bedroom doors were closed. Nothing but blackness could be seen spilling out from under the doors of bedroom number one and bedroom number two. But under the third doorway. Frozen with fear all four of us just stared at the bottom of that door. Make that five of us. In the creepy darkness you could feel Max’s hair bristling on her neck. Again we heard her guttural growl, only it was louder. The ghostly light flickered as “something” moved across that path of light on the other side of the door. You could hear each of our hearts pounding with horror. Jan hurriedly turned on the flashlight and pointed it toward the doorknob. It began to turn! That was enough for us! Not worrying about any rotting boards, Kevin and Max tumbled down the stairs first, followed closely by Lisa and then Jan. I wanted to flee faster than they did but I was frozen and too terrified to turn away. I felt like I was living a nightmare. Jan yelled to me, “Danny, come on!” I was shaking uncontrollably and in my fear had actually thrown my flashlight. Jan came back up the stairs. “Danny…let’s go…NOWI Somehow I forced myself to start to turn to go down the stairs when the door began to open! I knew I should have run but my eyes fixed in horror on that opening door. When I backed up into the darkened hallway and turned to go down the stairs I tripped and fell. The door creaked open. The ghostly light spilled into the hallway. A silhouette moved toward the doorway. I was scrambling to get to my feet and to the stairs when “something” grabbed my ankle. “Jan! Kevin! Lisa!” Something’s grabbed my foot! It felt like the cold iron grip of a boney hand. In the mayhem and terror and blackness I couldn’t believe this was happening. I screamed to them again, “Help Me!” Jan raced upstairs again, smashing his shin against one of the steps when he crashed through a rotted board. Kevin and Lisa flew back up the stairs with Max. I was now sliding back toward the bedroom. “Something’s pulling my leg!” Something’s pulling my leg! “Danny, what is it??” “JAN, KEVIN, LISA – HELP ME!!! SOMETHING’S PULLING MY LEG!!!” Just like I’m pulling yours :>) Ok so most of this kinda sorta didn’t really happen that way. But there really was an abandoned farm house in that northwest bay on my folk’s lake. And even though it’s gone now, it was creepy! We went there a few times during the day to look around, and even then in the broad daylight it gave you the heebie geebies! (At least it did me anyway). I would not have spent the night there for a thousand dollars. And remember when I mentioned that the two bedrooms had an adjoining closet? One time when we went to explore the haunted house I went upstairs and so did my brother Kevin. He saw me go into one bedroom – and he went into the other. I made my way through the closet and hid just on the other side of the closed closet door in the OTHER bedroom. When he opened the door I went “Boo!” And he ALMOST fainted. Knock knock! Who’s there? Boo! Boo Who? Don’t cry (over this pathetic story) Dan Vander Ark Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved 

Dr. Amber Frankensteen

My oldest daughter is going back to school to get her degree in Accounting. So it only made total sense to me, in order to fulfill one of her prerequisite classes, that she had to dissect a piglet. And it was an online piglet dissecting biology class that she was taking, so the surgery had to be performed in her own home. She ordered the kit that contained all of the items she needed for her dissection but had it shipped to her sister’s home in the country. Seems people have been stealing UPS shipments off from her home-in-the-city front porch, so she had them sent to the sister’s country home. I was fortunate to be at our daughter’s country home when Amber opened the UPS package. And we were all under the assumption that she had ordered a piglet to dissect. You know, Babe’s younger relative. When we opened the box we found that that box contained two smaller boxes. I assumed it was one box for the bacon and one box for the porkchops. But alas, when we opened the first box we found that it contained some miscellaneous dissection items and A COW EYE! That’s like totally gross. (And it seemed to me that wherever I stood by the table, the eye was looking at me.) So we figured the piggy must be in the second carton. She began to open that box. I pointed out that the writing on the box showed she was opening it upside down. Good thing we caught it. My younger daughter matter-of-factly mentioned that we could have been mooned by the piggy! She continued to carefully open the second carton. No piggy. Just a sheep brain and some more dissecting stuff. I found a box of microscope slides amidst the packing stuff. I opened the little box of slides and held one up to the light. “Oh look!” I said excitedly, “It’s the Eiffel Tower! Must be when the sheep brain was in Paris!” I am not sure if Amber has done the home cow-eye-sheep-brain dissection thing yet, but if not I am guessing it may go something like this: (Her husband’s name is Kevin) Kevin: Oh hi honey. What are you cooking for supper? Dr. FrankenAmber: DON’T EAT THAT! IT’S FOR SCHOOL! Kevin: OhhhhhKaaayyyyy…..and what’s up with the goggles? Dr. FrankenAmber: I am working on my accounting degree. Kevin: OhhhhhKayayyyyy…..you’re cooking for accounting? Dr. FrankenAmber: I have to dissect a pig but it turned out to be a sheep brain and a cow eye. Please! I must have silence! – I have to make an incision along the medulla oblongata. Kevin: What’s the brain’s name? Abbie Normal? Dr. FrankenAmber: OK, ve are now taking ze brain out to ze garage; faithful assistant Kevin, go hook up the jumper cables to ze Zubaru…AND DON’T FORGET ZE COW EYE! (In the garage) Kevin: Ok Dr., ze jumper cables are now hooked up to ze brain! Hold it, why am I talking in zis stupid Transylvanian accent? Dr. FrankenAmber: Ok – go start ze Zubara and rev it to 8,000 RPM and hold it there for 30 seconds. AND I VILL FLIP ZE SWITCH! (With ze Zubaru revving) Kevin: Dr., ve now has 8,000 RPM’s!!!! Dr. FrankenAmber: Kevin, I AM FLIPPING ZE SWITCH! (With a greenish ghostly light and ozone and the stench of overcooked sheep brain filling the garage) ZZXVVVVVVVYYEEERRRRGGGHGHGHGHGHGHGVVVVVVVYIIIPPPPPPPPKKERRRRRRRRBLANGBUMP! Suddenly there is an eerie silence. Both Dr. FrankenAmber and her faithful assistant Kevin peer closely at ze brain. The quivering mass is quivering. Dr. FrankenAmber: IT’S ALIVE! Kevin: OK, I’m outta here Dr. FrankenAmber: Vait! Before you go, hook up ze cow eye to ze new Ford F150 crew cab! Kevin: Ve kan't do zat! I mean, We can’t do that! The car salesman told me that will void the warranty on your new truck…3 years or 36,000 miles or jump starting one cow eye, whichever comes first… Dr. FrankenAmber: Vell…I guess…ok. Come on sheep brain, let’s go watch “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader”…. Dan Vander Ark Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com 

The Universe Must Be Spinning Backwards or Something: Thoughts About the Possible Unretirement of a Certain NFL Quarterback

I emailed a few friends the other day, “The universe must be spinning backwards or something.” In the email I included a picture from ESPN that explained what I was talking about. It involved a certain retired hall-of-famer quarterback named Bert Favrey and his possible unretirement from his formerly retired unretirement. I think I said that right. I am a Minnesota Viking fan. I bleed purple. I have knitted Viking socks hanging in my cubicle and a foam Viking brick on top of my monitor at work to prove it. And to think that the dreaded Bert Favrey might actually be wearing purple and gold was just….well it was like totally bizzaro! One of my cheesehead friends named Mot replied to my email thusly, “Randy Moss almost became a Packer a few years ago ... the heroes go to villains and the villains to heroes ... its like watching "wrastling". We hate Moss ... then he puts on green & gold and we love him. You hate Favre ... he puts on purple and you love him. Like Seinfeld says, ‘We're rooting for laundry.’” Have a great day. Mot (Because my friend wanted to remain unanimous, I spelled his name backwards). “We’re rooting for laundry.” I love that line! Basically, everyone wants to be a winner. But the problem is the Vikings haven’t won the big one since the 11th century where they reigned supreme for three centuries in Northern European Football. Their playoff string began dramatically in England on June 8, 793 when the Norsemen sacked the entire island of Lindisfarne and won their first title. And they were meaner than Mean Joe Greene. A lot meaner – Vikings were portrayed as “bloodthirsty, uncivilized barbarians.” (Is there such a thing as a civilized barbarian?) The Oakland Raiders became the uncivilized barbarians of the 20th century however when they refused to wear ties and sport coats and had long hair and beards. But somewhere along the line public perceptions of the Vikings as “bloodthirsty, uncivilized barbarians” changed. By the 1900’s they became simply known as “thirsty uncivilized barbarians.” And according to historians the cultural rehabilitation of the Norsemen was completed when a winged-helmeted Viking figurine became a radiator cap on a new car in Britain. I am NOT making this up! A radiator cap marked the cultural rehabilitation of the Vikings? No wonder we’re zippo in the Big Game. And just a little historical trivia here. Leif Eriksson, son of Erik the Red and Thjodhild the Blonde, was the second most famous Viking ever. The most famous Viking ever? Why that would be Joseph RAGNAR Juranitch, mascot of the Minnesota Vikings, who holds the world record for shaving his beard WITH AN AXE in less than 9 minutes! Take that you Cheeseheads. Leif Eriksson later became known as “Leif the Lucky” for his daring exploits as an explorer. Fran Tarkenton on the other hand became known as “No Tears Tark” for his Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo commercials. I for one am going to appeal to the Commish Roger Goodell to have our 3 century reign recognized in some format. Perhaps they could give us the Leif Eriksson Trophy or something. I know it doesn’t have quite the ring of the coveted Lombardi Trophy. But I personally think it should have its own room at the Hall of Fame in Canton. The very least that should be done is to give it a place next to the Kensington Rhunestone or Ole the Viking in Alexandria, Minnesota. (A little more historical trivia: there was a line on the Rhunestone that had never been translated until just a couple of years ago. Once translated, it read simply: "Leif Eriksson Bowl XXXVII -- Vikings 42, Saxons 0.”) Back to the email replies. Another friend replied with just this, “At this point, Minnesota can have him!” Seven words that sum up an ardent Packer fan’s feelings about perhaps the greatest gunslinger to ever grace the gridiron. Galloping gonzo gorillas gramma! And another emailed this, “He so needs to get over himself…” Ok, Ok, I totally agree. But if he leads us to a Super Bowl victory, is it ok if he gets over himself next year? And I think Bert will be 40 years old come October of ‘09. Forty. That compares to 97 years old in any other occupation, including kangaroo boxing and cake baking. I honestly don’t have a clue how he would do, but it would be pretty neat seeing him under center AGAINST those no-good-lousy-rotten-Cheeseheads (whom I dearly love and admire). The Vikings at Lambeau and Bert Favrey is our quarterback?!?!?! That’s like Rommel commanding Patton’s army in Germany or something. Wow, would that game get the ratings! And what about the game at the dome? It’s October 5th, 2009. And it’s a MONDAY NIGHT GAME! The public address announcer comes on -- his words echoing throughout the stadium: And Now now now now Number number number number Four four four four Bert Bert Bert Bert Favrey Favrey Favrey Favrey The fans at the dome just go absolutely nuts! YEAH! BOOYA! WHOLETTHEDOGSOUT!!! WE LOVE YOU BERT! NUMBER FOUR FOREVER! Tears stream down the faces of hardened and bitter 0-4 Viking fans everywhere you look. Super Bowls IV, VIII, IX and XI become distant memories. Visions of sugarplums dance in their heads! But then all of a sudden the cheers begin to fade. The dome becomes so silent you could almost hear another Tarvaris Jackson pass hit the turf far short of its intended mark. The crowd looks toward the tunnel in anguished anticipation. But all you hear is a methodical and rusty “Screeek, screeek, screeek, screeek, screeek, screeek, screeek, screeek, screeek, screeek..” Hope fades to horror. Yep…it’s Number Four all right. Pushing a walker. ******************************************************************************** Hold It! Newsflash! May 2009. Reports say that Bert will for now remain retired. Translation: “I would like to avoid those icky sticky hot days in training camp in Mankato…is it ok if I start like say the day before the regular season begins?” Dan Vander Ark Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved  onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com

Hand Dryer Technology

According to various scientific experiments, numerous government studies, and my mom, washing your hands when you use the restroom is important. Very important. In fact it is so important that there are now a multitude of state regulations that mandate that employees must wash their hands before they return to work. I am guessing that somewhere along the line a generation grew up that didn’t have moms like mine; thus it fell to the government to enact the CINTG (Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness) Statute. Back in the Middle Ages people dried their hands on weathered buffalo skins and/or papyrus mats. But those always seemed to jam up the dispensers. So dispensers were dispensed with until a better way to dry your hands was invented. Cloth or linen towel dispensers were invented somewhere about the same time that cars and roads were concocted and people needed to stop and “use the facilities” (it proved too difficult to tow the family outhouse). So when you went into the gas station and used the bathroom you just pulled down on the towel until you came to a clean spot and then wiped your hands. I think the giant towel was unfortunately on a loop, so after about a day or so it was pretty dirty looking. Eventually you just looked for a little white spot between the grease and other crud to dry your hands. (Just a little regional trivia here: in North Dakota I had a friend that would say “I am going to see a man about a horse” when nature called.) Next on the dry-your-hands-at-the-gas-station-timeline were paper towel dispensers. Brown paper towels made out of recycled newspaper, algae and duck feathers. But more often than not the paper towel dispensers were jammed so full that all you were able to get out were ripped little shreds of a paper towel. You then proceeded to dry little itsy bitsy portions of your hands until you were done (or the gas station closed, whichever came first). Also somewhere along this dispenser timeline were the type with cranks, but we don’t have time in this doctoral thesis to discuss those contraptions. Next came wall mounted blow dryers. Those were pretty good – you weren’t wiping your hands on relooped greasy rags or tiny flecks of brown paper anymore. Your hands were blasted with hot air for about 30 seconds or until you just decided to wipe them on your pants. I usually let the blast go for about 10 seconds – and then wiped them on my pants. However, there was one wall-mounted blow dryer in a store we went into recently that blew so violently you wondered if your skin would peel off. I am not making this up. It reminded me of how the faces of Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase looked after being spun in that astronaut centrifuge thing in the movie “Spies Like Us.” The latest trend in bathroom technology is toward infrared sensor towel dispensers. They seem to work pretty well – except when you actually need a towel. I have been standing by the sink several feet away from the dispenser when it has mysteriously dispensed a towel all by itself! Its spooky – those paranormal ghost hunters on one of those cable TV channels should do some investigating. I bet if they did some audio recording at night in one of those infrared sensor equipped bathrooms and then played the recording backwards, you would hear this, “!sgnikiV atosenniM eht rof yalp lliw yervaF treB.” But there is one thing you really need to be aware of with those infrared sensor dispensers. And that is simply this: Where does the motion need to be at?” On most, the sensor is on the front, so you just wave your hand a little and out comes a towel. But at the church we have just begun visiting I couldn’t get the dispenser to dispense and I was feeling a little embarrassed. I waved my hands up and down – nothing happened. I then waved them sideways – but still no towel. Was I supposed to do jumping jacks? I backed up and waited for the restroom poltergeist to have at it. But still nothing. I was just about ready to dry them on my pants when I decided at the last moment to slowly wave my hand underneath the front of the dispenser. To my delight I heard the familiar JSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSZZZSHSDSSHSHSZZATTTT – and out came a towel! I was giddy that I didn’t have to do jumping jacks! Now if you could just get out of there without having to touch that germ infested door. Dan Vander Ark Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved 

From Boils to Blessings…What A Difference a Year Makes

The man was just a repulsive wreck of humanity. His friends had heard about his illness but when they came to visit him he was so disfigured from his disease that they didn’t recognize him. A few months prior to his hospitalization, all of his children had died in a freak accident and all of his businesses had collapsed under peculiar circumstances. One moment he was enjoying the laughter of his sons and daughters, the next he was overwhelmed with grief from the sight of his children’s coffins. One moment he was dreaming about where he and his wife would travel during retirement, the next he was wondering how he would provide for his spouse. And the disease spread rapidly throughout his body. Carpeted from head to toe with a horrific mass of boils, the man was in abject misery and despair. Pus would run from the open sores and some of the ulcers festered with maggots and worms. His skin became blackened and fell off in flakes. The itching was continuous and unbearable. Scratching only increased his misery. His hair was gone, his breath was putrid, and any type of food was nauseating to him. His clothes were resown to match the deformity of his body. Sleep fled from him, but when he could sleep nightmares haunted him. Most of his acquaintances gave up on him and most family members never bothered to visit him. The hospital visitors he did have pelted him with platitudes – he wanted them to just sit with him silently. Depression haunted him; in the morning he longed for the night and at night he longed for the day One of his friends implied, “You’re kids got what they deserved;” another said obliquely, “Bad things only happen to bad people.” He became bitter and broken. And yet a young man had the courage to say to him while he was in this pathetic circumstance, “I know things are tough, really tough! But God is doing great things which we cannot comprehend!” That young man was right. In a short while the man’s health was restored and his businesses again flourished. And in a few years he was once more surrounded by the joy and laughter of his children. The story of Job in the Bible is a remarkable story of faith and patience and hope in God. God is able to turn around the worst of circumstances. In the spring of 2003 I came close to dieing from an illness I had battled for 20 years. In the spring of 2004 my health was remarkably better and my wife and I were sitting in one of the world’s finest resorts – all expenses paid! At the lowest of lows Job dared not dream about the future, his circumstances were too dark and depressing. And yet God had a plan for him. If someone had said to me as I lay in the hospital bed, “See this picture of the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas? This is where you will be next year at this time!” I would have thought it impossible. No matter how dark it is or how depressed you are, God can turn things around for you! Don't ever give up! Don't even think about suicide -- your life has tremendous value and God has a plan for your life! Read the Gospel of John or Rick Warren's book "The Purpose Driven Life" (www.purposedrivenlife.com) to gain an understanding as to why you are here. "God thunders with His voice wondrously, doing great things which we cannot comprehend." Job 37:5 Dan Vander Ark Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved 

Kitchen Archeology

We survived!

We remodeled our kitchen this September through December of 2008 and my wife and I are still married! (Although there was about a 24 hour period where we didn’t speak to each other. But more on that later.)

Most of the rooms in our 1924 home have been remodeled but we just kept putting off doing the kitchen. It was going to take several bags of $100.00 bills; and this fall, with the government “kitchen bailout program,” we finally had enough!


And it wasn’t that the kitchen wasn’t in too bad of shape and just needed a superficial cosmetic job. The kitchen was awful. Plaid carpeting from the 70’s, a dishwasher that hadn’t worked since the last century (honest – I’m not making that up), cabinets from the 50’s (one door was warped and wouldn’t close and a couple of the drawer fronts were held on with sheetrock screws). And the wiring was just plain ghastly; some of it was the old knob and tube stuff (you know, the same wiring technology used by Pharaoh Ramses the Second when he updated his wife’s kitchen).

So we lined up a cabinet guy, lined up a sheetrocker friend, and then had a couple of electricians give us a bid. I asked one of them if this was a one bag-o-money job or a two bag-o-money job. He didn’t laugh.

We started the end of September by ripping out the old flooring. And I am not embellishing this story for literary effect – there were actually 4 LAYERS of old flooring!

The top layer (as I mentioned earlier) was plaid. PLAID! Carpeting that was carbon dated back to the 1970’s – officially known as Plaideozolic Period when normally sane Americans actually put carpeting in the kitchen. This was apparently designed to hide smashed Fruit Loops and dried out chunks of pot roast. There actually was black mold growing underneath this layer – it sort of encircled the fridge. Probably a long forgotten junior high science experiment from some previous family’s mad scientist kid.

Secondly, and directly underneath the Plaideozolic layer was a layer from the 1960’s Hippie Generation called the Vinylozoidian Period. It was sort of a hospital white with a light texture. I think it was meant to offset any psychedelic LSD trips to no-where-land.

Underneath that was a ¼” layer of underlayment from the Plywoodcambrian Period – that layer was held in place 12 gazillion staples that had to be removed ONE AT A TIME!


Underneath that was a layer from the Linoleumiuminum Period dating back to somewhere in the 1940’s. Really cool looking And it actually had (in front of the sink, in front of the pantry, and by the dining room and kitchen entrances) inlaid black and red arrow-like directional pointers (sort of in the shape of sergeant stripes). I guess these were to help you if your mom was like a really bad cook and always burned stuff. You could survive by just hitting the floor and low-crawling your way out of the 10x15 smoke-filled room by following the inlaid directional arrows.

Underneath that was a thin layer of black-felt-tar-glue-like substance that was impregnable to everything just short of dynamite. One night when we were cleaning up our archeological dig I could sorta kinda clearly see imbedded in this layer a set of human foot prints heading toward the fridge from the north and a set of Velociraptor prints heading toward the same spot from the south. It wasn’t real clear but it looks as if they converged right in front of the ancient icebox area. And it looked like quite a struggle ensued. I realize this may be disputed, but in my mind this categorically proves that dinosaurs and humans lived during the same period of time – at least in northern Minnesota.

Finally, under all those layers, we discovered the original flooring that dated back to the 1920’s – the Mapletreesmakegoodfloorium Period. We wanted to restore that floor, but alas, after all that digging it couldn’t be saved.


We tore out the old plaster and lathe (or is it lathter and plath) and carried it out bucket by bucket. The old cabinets were sawzalled and smashed and chucked out the window. We pulled out a lot of the old insulation and prepped the walls for the electrician. He roughed in the electrical in a couple of days. We moved the ceiling fan light fixture over about a foot just because we didn’t have anything else to do. I then ripped out the old windows (three of them) and put in new ones (three of them). You know you live close to your neighbor when you can make sure your new windows are level by lining them up with his siding!

Oh, I almost forgot, I tried to make one small plumbing repair. The part cost 50 cents and I told my wife the water would be turned off for about a ½ hour. This was Sunday afternoon. One day, three trips to Menards, one broken pipe with water shooting to the ceiling, brown icky water flowing into the basement, and a plumber later, it was fixed. Me and plumbing do not get along.


The sheetrocker guy did a great job and was done in about a week (I have learned the hard way that taping and mudding is more complicated than rocket surgery or brain science). We painted the walls and ceiling a color that would best hide any sort of exploding meat loaf (just kidding -- actually my wife is a GREAT cook; in our 35 years of marriage she has NEVER exploded ANYTHING in the kitchen that I am aware of).

Then came flooring weekend. We went with the old style tongue and really groovey flooring (red oak) so I went to the local Rent-A-Weapon store and reserved one of those flooring nailers. After 2 days of preparation and some precise mathematical calculations I was ready to start. My wife laid out the random pattern of flooring lengths (she was the Randomnator), my daughter made sure all the flooring pieces fit together nice and tight (she was the Hammerchiselsnuggelator), and I was the Bossinator/Nailerator. That nail gun was really cool – you lined it up and hit with a mallet. That set off a miniature nuclear explosion that could drive a 2” staple through steel.


After that the floor was sanded, stained and varnished. I applied the varnish with a mop-like sort of thing that was highly recommended by a person at the local home improvement store. When it was dry it looked like the floor had a bad case of P.A. (polyurethane acne). Note to self: if you ask an “Associate” for advice at one of those home improvement stores, always ask to see their “I’ve actually done a home remodeling job” card.

A couple days later the cabinet guys came and got their part done. Wow what a difference! (If you’re looking for a good cabinet guy, call me).

I installed the sink, hooked up the garbage disposal and connected the dishwasher. We turned on the water and I held my breath. NOT A SINGLE DRIP! I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT! IT WAS A MIRACLE! I actually called my mom, turned on the garbage disposal, and said, “Hey mom, listen to this!” (I recently read in one of those handyman magazines where a guy wanted to save a few bucks by fixing the hinge on his dishwasher door. He got that fixed but when he pushed the dishwasher back into place he didn’t realize that he had knocked the water line loose. The next morning his wife came into the bedroom screaming. The basement ceiling was falling down! Water had run through the floor/ceiling and saturated the ceiling tile all night long. It finally collapsed! That’s not a good way to start your day).

The appliance guys delivered the appliances (not a single scratch anywhere – again another minor miracle) and I leveled the fridge and stove and dishwasher and installed the microwave. The plumber guy that I had met during my earlier “How plumbing can turn 50 cents into 15,000 cents” adventure came and hooked up the gas to the gas stove.

Over the next couple of weeks my wife unpacked all the dishes and I finished up a couple of small detail jobs.

What a great feeling of accomplishment when it was done.

But as I mentioned at the beginning, there was about a 24 hour period where neither my wife nor I talked to each other (but now that I think about it – it was actually more like 48 hours). OK, I guess there were a few other times that it got a little tense, but at least we talked to each other…for example:

Kay: Dan, WHERE IS YOUR BRAIN?
Dan: I LEFT IT AT MENARDS IN THE PLUMBING DEPARTMENT!!!


It turns out that our city electrical code demands that a smoke detector must be installed somewhere on the same floor that any remodeling job is being done on. The electrician explained that it couldn’t be put in a corner, couldn’t be put too near the ceiling, couldn’t be put too near the floor, couldn’t be put anywhere that was inconspicuous, and was to be installed directly in the middle of any wall where the homeowner wanted to hang stuff. Period. Which in our case meant installing it in our newly remodeled dining room SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WALL DIRECTLY ABOVE THE ANTIQUE HUTCH! I had to admit it was horrid looking. I thought and thought and thought and thought about how we could disguise it. My mom is a very talented painter and had painted quaint country scenes on an old shovel of ours and an old lumberjack saw and an old ironing board and an old cheesebox and other stuff. Maybe she could do sort of a really tiny Terry Redlin Americana scene on it. I thought and thought and thought some more. Finally, after much prayer and deliberation and reflection, I came up with a solution.

“Honey, lets just hang a hubcap over it!”

And that’s when the 48 hour period of silence began.

The Theology of a Stapler

My brother sent me an email a couple of months ago titled “Through A Child’s Eyes.” It was simply a compilation of short letters that kids had written to God. Among them was one by Nan that said, “Dear God, I bet it is very hard for you to love all of everybody in the whole world. There are only 4 people in our family and I can never do it.” And Larry wrote, “Dear God, maybe Cain and Able would not kill each other so much if they had their own room – it works for me and my brother.” Robert wrote, “Dear God, I am an American, what are you?” Denise said, “Dear God if we come back as something, please don’t let me be Jennifer Horton because I hate her.” And another by Joyce said, “Dear God, Thank you for the baby brother but what I prayed for was a puppy.” They all brought a smile to your face as you pictured each child, deep in thought, penning their deepest questions to God. But there was one that caught my attention. It was written by Ruth and said simply, “Dear God, I think the stapler is one of your greatest inventions. “ Can’t you just see some little red haired, pig-tailed 5 year old watching her dad staple a bunch of papers together and thinking, “Wow!" How does that work?” I was a pretty inquisitive kid and took a lot of things apart to see how they worked. But much to my parents chagrin I rarely put them back together correctly. As adults we immediately dismiss Ruth’s conclusion. We know that the lowly desk stapler was invented by and constructed by man. It’s a pretty simple machine – am guessing maybe around 20 parts. And yet when Apollo 11 landed on the moon in the summer 1969 if they had found a stapler laying in the dusty lunar surface, the immediate conclusion would not be, “Pretty cool how this evolved.” It would rather be, “Hey, how did Swingline get here first?” (That’s one small staple for a man, one giant Stapler for mankind!”). Or maybe NASA would hold a news conference and say, “We have concluded that the only feasible way that a stapler would find its way to the moon is that it was planted there by intelligent life from the Swingline Spiral Galaxy!” For a machine as simple and basic as a stapler to come into existence, it takes intelligent design. That’s a given. Even if you placed the raw materials in a room full of 6th graders for an entire year, you would probably still not get a functioning stapler. And yet when astronomers peer into the outer reaches of space or microbiologists examine the immense complexity of a single cell, the conclusion that “it just sort of randomly happened without any purpose” seems to go against the evidence before us. There is design everywhere we look. You witness design in the spiral pattern of a sunflower head (the Fibonacci number sequence), in the heavenly beauty of a spiral galaxy, and even in a Ford Galaxy! (I think Chevy guys would disagree right about now). In fact every cell in the human body seems to cry out, “Designed!” Within each of the about 2 trillion cells in the human body there is contained a microfine five foot long strand of DNA -- our genetic code. EVERY CELL! And each of those strands contains as much information as is contained in a volume of Encyclopedia Britannica – about 44 million words. Now if Jodi Foster suddenly hollered, “CONTACT!” (Get it?) – and began downloading 44 million words from the Vega System, wouldn’t the immediate conclusion be that SETI had encountered an extraterrestrial civilization? And yet each of our cells is sending us a message, “Yo Adrian! It’s me, God! You are fearfully and wonderfully designed for a purpose. (Psalm 139). A prominent critic of intelligent design and creation, Richard Dawkins says, “A key feature of evolution is its gradualness. This is a matter of principle rather than fact. . . . Evolution is very possibly not, in actual fact, always gradual. But it must be gradual when it is being used to explain the coming into existence of complicated, apparently designed objects, like eyes. For if it is not gradual in these cases, it ceases to have any explanatory power at all. Without gradualness in these cases, we are back to miracle, which is simply a synonym for the total absence of explanation. —*Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden, p. 83 (1995) quoted on www.answersingenesis.org. Charles Darwin said in his “Origin of the Species": “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." Perhaps the “simple” cell is just such an example. The following is quoted from www.ideacenter.org: “Michael Denton, in his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, states "Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10^-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable microminiaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world." In a word, the cell is complicated. Very complicated.” I believe it was Michael Behe, a biochemist from Lehigh University and author of the book, “Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, that penned the concept of “irreducible complexity.” Behe believes that evolution could explain the later development of animals, but he gravely doubts if evolution can explain the existence of the cell. That term “irreducible complexity” basically means that a cell can only function as a complete unit and could not have come into existence through the process of “gradualness.” To illustrate he uses the example of a simple mousetrap. If any of the parts are missing (I think a total of 7 parts) the mousetrap ceases to function smoothly. Thus with the cell: unless all of the parts are there, the cell will not function. Another example that is given to refute the theory of evolution and gradualness is the amazing process through which blood clots – if any of the steps are missing the process will not work. There are those that refute this idea of “irreducible complexity” and point out that Behe’s mousetrap could indeed function with less parts. But it seems that what they fail to point out is that a) they begin with a full set of parts already in existence and work backward from that, and b) they are using “intelligent design” to reduce and rearrange the parts and still be able to catch a mouse! To illustrate this enormous complexity and mind-boggling intricacy of the cell, an example that is sometimes given is the bacterial flagella. (Or is it flagellum? I never get that singular/plural Latin thing right). Behe points out, "In 1973 it was discovered that some bacteria swim by rotating their flagella. So the bacterial flagellum acts as a rotary propeller — in contrast to the cilium, which acts more like an oar."—Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, p. 70. But the flagellum (or flagella ) tail doesn’t just simply rotate – it spins at an amazing 10,000+ RPM! And not only that, it can stop in ¼ turn and reverse direction. There is NO (NONE, ZILCH, NYET) engine on planet earth designed by any car/plane/motorcycle manufacturer that can do that! (Very few can even rev past 10,000 RPM). To suddenly stop an engine spinning at that velocity would really really mess up your garage. David J. DeRosier says, “More so than other motors, the flagellum resembles a machine designed by a human" (David J. DeRosier, Cell 93, 17 (1998)). Quoted from www.ideacenter.org) If you Google “rotating flagellum” (or flagella) you can find a mammoth amount of information about this fascinating microscopic machine. There are also some amazing artistic renditions of this thing. It looks like something out of a futuristic Chilton’s Car Repair Manual or something that George Lucas designed for Jar Jar Binks to ride around in Star Wars II: The Attack of the Clowns (or maybe it was Star Wars I, I can’t remember…I was just glad when Jar Jar went bye bye). In his book “Darwin’s Black Box” Behe makes the following statement, “In summary, as biochemists have begun to examine apparently simple structures like cilia and flagella, they have discovered staggering complexity, with dozens or even hundreds of precisely tailored parts. It is very likely that many of the parts we have not considered here are required for any cilium to function in a cell. As the number of required parts increases, the difficulty of gradually putting the system together skyrockets, and the likelihood of indirect scenarios plummets. Darwin looks more and more forlorn. New research on the roles of the auxiliary proteins cannot simplify the irreducibly complex system. The intransigence of the problem cannot be alleviated; it will only get worse. Darwinian Theory has given no explanation for the cilium or flagellum. The overwhelming complexity of the swimming systems push us to think it may never give an explanation. (p. 73)” quoted on www.veritas-ucsb.org Back to our lowly stapler and little Ruthie’s statement, “Dear God, I think the stapler is one of your greatest inventions.“ I don’t have a degree in biology. I don’t have a degree in astronomy. I don’t have a degree in philosophy. And if I were to debate Richard Dawkins or another eminent evolutionist I would probably wind up as a blithering glob of goo. But I do have a degree in Common Sense (or at least my wife does). And it just seems utterly absurd to me that we can look at something as simple as a stapler and draw the conclusion of intelligent design, and yet we can view the Ferrari of the cell world and think, “It just sort of happened.” Perhaps we think Ruthie’s statement as cute and funny and amusing. But I think in her innocence she strikes closer to the truth than those who, after viewing the intricacy of the cell (and in particular the little flagellum/flagella), conclude, “Wow! It sure has the appearance of being designed. But I guess it’s just some random forces at work through the magical potion of natural selection and gradualness.” Alvin Allison wrote a book titled “From Monkeys to Men and Back: A Preposterously Essential Science Lesson According To A Darn Good Ex Chicken Farmer. In it he said something like, “If a giraffe can evolve a longer neck by stretching, what might yawning end up doing to us humans?” But he also says this about his reason for writing the book, “I wrote From Monkeys to Men and Back in hopes that those who feel as I do about the teaching of evolution might get a laugh out of it while at the same time receiving even more reason to continue believing that the only possible way humans could’ve gotten here is not because some monkey lost practically his entire ability to scamper up a tree, but because of an intentional creative act by a loving Creator.” (Found on www.authorhouse.com”) Psalm 139:14-17 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! Dan Vander Ark 2009 All Rights Reserved onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com

Looking For The R & S Bookstore And Other Mysteries Of Las Vegas (Subtitle: We Don’t Get Out Much)

From 1977 until 2004 my wife and I didn’t fly on one single commercial jet. Its not that we were afraid to fly, it’s just that, well, I guess we didn’t have any place to go. Although I did fly a couple times on a de Havilland Beaver on our way to a couple of fishing trips in Canada – I sat next to the fuel drums and you had to YELL REAL LOUD TO TALK TO THE PERSON NEXT TO YOU SO THEY COULD HEAR. So in 2004 when my wife was awarded a trip to the Bahamas we went. When I told my mom we would be flying she said (and I quote), “Yeah Danny, they even have jets now!”

In 2005 she was awarded another trip to Hawaii and we flew there too (dah).

And we flew to Phoenix a couple times to visit my brother.

So this past February when we flew to Las Vegas to attend my nephew’s wedding, we figured we were pretty seasoned world travelers. And for those who know us, “Dan and Kay are going to Las Vegas” is almost as ludicrous of a statement as “the Vikings have won the Super Bowl!”

We left O’Dark Early on Friday. The ticket lady at the Duluth Airport was really nice. I brought along some cookies my daughter had made and I asked if she wanted one. “No thanks!” she replied politely. Was probably one of those post 911 regulation things – am guessing Homeland Security was on the lookout for a Dutchman wearing suspenders carrying a baggie full of Spritz cookies.

When we went through security we made sure we didn’t have any axes or scissors with us and that we had all of our carry on liquid stuff in a quart sized baggie.
“Pay attention!” my wife said, “Your baggie is in here!”
“OK I said,” noticing how crumbled my cookies had become.
When I went through the Stargate Metal Detector portal it started beeping.
It was my suspenders. I had an inkling they might set off the alarm, but I wasn’t too alarmed
The security guy asked if I wanted a) to take them off (No thank you! They just happen to hold my shirt down!) or b) go through added security. Much to my wife’s dismay I chose door number two. The security guard directed me to go back to the private room that EVERYONE coming through security could see into. As directed I placed my feet on the inlaid footprints and stretched out my arms with the palms up. I felt like I should close my eyes and start chanting or something. After about 10 minutes he determined that I was not a terrorist, just some sort of suspendered geek with a baggie full of cookie crumbs.

My wife and I made it to Las Vegas about 11:00. One of the flight attendants directed everyone to go to carousel C to get their luggage. So off we went in search of carousel C with a zillion other people who were coming to Las Vegas for the weekend.

Turns out carousel C was in another building that you had to take a tram to. A tram it turns out is similar to a train, except that it rams you back and forth as you ride it…thus the name: tram.

But it turned out that one of the trams was not running, so for crowd control the airport people filtered us through one of those zig zag stockyard cattle rope things. You know – where you want to get to point B which is like 10 feet away but first you have to go 100’ this way and then 100’ that way and then 100’ this way and then 100’ that way.

MOOOOOOOOOO!

One of airport guys hollered (and I am not making this up), “Floor Space! I don’t want to see any floor space!” Apparently you are only allotted one square foot per person.

MOOOOOOOOOO!

At last we waddled our way onto the tram and proceeded at the speed of light to the suitcase building. We finally found carousel C, got our luggage but didn’t know where we were supposed to catch the bus to the hotel/casino. So I asked some guy that looked like he worked for the airport.
.
“Excuse me sir, could you tell me where to catch this bus?” I showed him the voucher.

“Door #12!” he said, obviously irritated.

“And where’s door #12?” I asked.

He pointed. “See! Door #9, door #10, door #11, door #12!”

I felt like saying, “Thanks Doorknob.” But I didn’t. It seemed as though “Minnesota Nice” was about 1500 miles east and north.

When we got to the casino/hotel and walked in, it was then that I realized, “We aren’t in Kansas anymore Toto!”

We registered but had to wait about 3 hours before we could check in so I called my brother. “Hey Bro, we is here!” They headed toward us from the Paris and we ventured out and headed toward them from the Imperial.

We really did have a great time visiting with my brother and his wife, seeing Scott and Lindsey get married, going to the Hoover Dam and just seeing the sites. And I was taking more pictures than Jacques Cousteau on the bottom of the ocean.

However, as we walked through one of the casinos I happened to notice a sign that read “R & S Book.” Now I love killing time in a bookstore. “Hey honey, let’s go find this place.” We meandered around for awhile in the casino but never did find the R & S bookstore. The next day I noticed the same sign in a different casino, but we never found that bookstore either.

That was puzzling to me. When we got home I emailed my sister-in-law.

“Moe, does ‘R & S Book’ mean something like Race and Sports Betting?”

“You got it!” she replied.

We don’t get out much. ;>)

Praying With A Lonely Lady on the Vegas Strip

To those who know me, using the words “Dan” and “Las Vegas” in the same sentence seems like some sort of weird anomaly. “YOU’RE going to Las Vegas?!?!” My nephew was getting married and we wanted to be there for Scott and Lindsey’s wedding. So we flew out on Friday, attended the Wedding Saturday, went to the Hoover Dam on Sunday, and flew back on Monday. And I didn’t dance at the reception. I told my wife if they had a slow dance I would dance, but they didn’t so I didn’t. My brother and sister-in-law tried to get me to dance, but I am only extroverted on the inside. Maybe you’ve heard of the movie, “White Men Can’t Jump”? Well this Dutchman can’t dance. I did however tap my foot to the beat…at least I think it was the beat.

It was a really nice wedding and we had a really great time.

I took a bazillian pictures. However, we didn’t gamble a single penny. If there is anyone else out there that has PURPOSELY flown to Las Vegas and NOT gambled, please raise your right hand.

We walked the strip, saw the water show at the Bellagio, witnessed the volcano going off at the Mirage and almost bumped into Elvis. My wife had her picture taken with a rather waxy Nicolas Cage and I did with a paraffin Don King. Even though some spots were shoulder to shoulder people, it was fun. I like the people watching thing. On Sunday night we were to meet my brother and his wife at the Paris for supper but had some time to kill so we just wandered around for a while and did some window shopping.

On our way out of the Bellagio we just “happened” to bump into an older lady (I don’t know – 65 maybe?) that was nicely dressed but a little tipsy. She just sorta started talking with us and asked where we were going. She kind of volunteered to show us how to get to where we needed to go. Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American” was the song at the water show and she stopped, put her glass down, raised her hands and cheered when it was done. (I get a lump in my throat whenever I hear that song). As we kept going and either we followed her or she followed us we continued our conversation. We paused within half a block of the Paris; she put her packages down and just kept on talking. She shared about some of the problems in her family – I knew that we had to meet my brother but I resisted the temptation to look at my watch. After she talked some more I put my arm around her and told her that Jesus loved her and cared about her problems. I then asked her for just her first name and said that we would pray for her and her husband. She said, “Are you a minister?” I said, “Yes I am.” Her immediate reply was, “I thought you said you worked at a medical facility?” (This and a couple other of her comments made us realize that, even though she had been drinking, she was more than sort of with it) I quickly explained to her that I do both but in order not to scare people away by immediately telling them I am a preacher I usually just tell them I work in a purchasing department of a large medical facility. I mentioned we would pray for her and her husband and family. That’s when she grabbed our hands and said, “Lets pray RIGHT NOW!” Pretty much surrounded by people the three of us bowed our heads on a really busy corner just down from the Paris. She prayed a little and then abruptly said, “OK, it’s your turn!” Kay and I both prayed for her. I felt the love of God well up in my heart for her as we prayed and I became immune to the crowds and the need to meet my brother. We finished, chatted a little more and then went our separate ways.

She headed back to her time-share apartment. I honestly have no idea if any of our conversation sunk in or how much of our prayer she grasped. Her doctor-husband had flown out earlier and she was alone. Maybe she just fell asleep, maybe she drank some more, maybe she wished some friends were with her. Or maybe she wondered if God really does love her.

God cares intensely about people. Read the Gospel of John chapters three, four and five. In chapter three Jesus met at night with a VIP of Jerusalem named Nicodemus. To this outstanding and upright citizen (who knows, maybe he was voted the husband and father of the year) Jesus said, “You have to be born again to enter the kingdom of God.” In chapter four Jesus just “happened” to run into a woman at a dusty well just outside of Drunktown. She was hardly your model citizen. Five failed marriages, living with number 6 and the social outcast of Sychar. Yet Jesus took the initiative to gently break through her hardened exterior and extend to her the gift of eternal life. In chapter five he found a man at the pool of Bethesda that was paralyzed for 38 years. You get the feeling that maybe he blamed everyone and everything for his problems. Yet Jesus stopped, healed the man, and lifted him out of his paralyzed condition.

Maybe you are a leader of your community like Nicodemus or maybe you feel like a social outcast like the woman at the well. Or maybe you are lying paralyzed in your problems like the man beside the pool, or maybe you are just like the lonely lady on the Vegas strip. Whatever your situation, Jesus cares for you. John 3:16 reminds us, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever (YOU!) believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life!”