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!”

Help! I’m Taking Care of a Six Year Old!

About a month ago I asked my daughter if it would be ok if I took Noah with me back to my mom’s for the weekend (about a 200 mile trip to her lake home in western Minnesota). I am 53. My grandson is 6. “Sure,” she said, “He would like that.” I picked him up at about 10:00 AM on Friday and promised to have him back at about 4:00 PM on Sunday. That’s about 54 hours; I figured I ought to be able to survive that. Before I left my wife gave me some very explicit instructions. Like, “Make sure you don’t lose Noah!” And “If he’s down by the water make sure he has his lifejacket on!” And this, “Make sure you put plenty of sunscreen on him.” And this reminder, “Make sure you feed him!” Now like I’m gonna forget that. And finally this, “Remember, he’s a six year old!” We made the trip there in about 5 hours. Noah brought along his portable DVD player. Wow, are those cool…it’s like having a Nanny riding along with you. As I was driving my S-10 Pickup, he pretty much just watched a couple of movies on the way there. When I glanced at him watching the video I began to wonder. I wondered how, when our kids were young, we ever made it across the Dakotas in the old 63 Plymo Limo Belvedere with no radio, no tape player, no seat belts, no air conditioning, no air bags and a steel dashboard. Anyway, back to the trip. When we got there Friday the weather was a little cool but I took him for a ride on my brother’s jet ski. I cranked the throttle wide open on a calm portion of the lake and we were suddenly thrust backward with about 4G’s of force. Noah hollered, “Wow! That’s why they call it a JET ski!” A long time ago Charles Dickens wrote a novel titled “A Tale of Two Cities.” He began the novel by saying, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” That summed up Saturday. About 11:00 we went to play miniature golf and then we went go-carting. That was the best of times. Around 2:00 Noah began to get sick, he slept a couple of hours and then got really sick about 5:00. That was the worst of times. About 7:00 he began feeling better and we went for a long jet ski ride. It was a gorgeous evening. That was the best of times. After the jet ski ride he fished for a few minutes off the end of the dock. He was dressed in shorts, sandals, t-shirt, sweatshirt and a lifejacket. When he went to get the worms and bring them to me he fell off the dock and was soaked. That was the worst of times. I dried him off, had him put his pajamas on and got him a bowl of ice-cream. That was the best of times. When I came back into the bedroom I couldn’t figure out why there was a white flakey substance all over the bed. And in his hair. The ceiling slopes in that bedroom, and yep, you figured it out. He started jumping on the bed and must have smacked his head pretty hard against the ceiling to knock loose all that white ceiling texture. I asked him if it hurt. He said, “Yep Grampa, it did.” That was the worst of times. He played some computer games on my laptop and then we went to bed. That was the best of times. The next day we left my mom’s about 11:00 and made it back in plenty of time I thought about the checklist my wife had given me: #1...Don’t lose Noah! Mission accomplished. #2...Make sure he has his lifejacket on! Mission accomplished. And good thing – when he fell off the dock he floated just like the styrofoam container the worms were in. #3...Put plenty of sunscreen on him! Mission accomplished. #4...Make sure you feed him! Mission accomplished. My mom’s cooking, especially her pancakes, did the trick. #5...Remember he’s a six year old. I remembered. I also remembered I’m 53. Note to self: to prepare yourself for next year’s adventure, first…go through Navy Seals Training. Dan Vander Ark Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved

Oh Two Sensors, A Kitty-Litter Converter, and Other Mysteries About My Wife’s Car

My wife’s car isn’t quite a lemon, but it’s close. Whatever fruit comes just before lemon in the “how reliable is your car?” fruit rating system, that’s where our car is at (kumquat maybe?) In fact, it seems abnormal NOT to have the check engine light on. We have replaced the crank sensor, 3 coil packs, one head gasket, the wheels (not the tires, but the WHEELS), and a multitude of other million dollar parts. When the head gasket started going bad I tried to sell the car to one of my coworkers, but he didn’t bite. I told him it didn’t really run that bad – all you had to do was replace the number 3 sparkplug each morning and then you were good for the day! I even said I would throw in some spark plugs, but for whatever reason, he didn’t want to buy it. So this past week when the check engine light came on just four days after having it “fixed” (and I use the term “fixed” in the loosest possible meaning of the word), I again had to contact the mechanic. His response? “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.” Not really, he’s a very good mechanic, but he just can’t figure out why I should be having so much trouble with this make and model of car. “I have never heard of this happening before” is a common expression he uses whenever I tell him about the newest car problem. But this time I decided to first try one other thing before I took it to the mechanic. I knew that the local auto parts store loaned out tools so I thought maybe they would loan out one of those mysterious Auto DaVinci Code readers (you know…one of those little hand-held “check engine light” gadgets). And perhaps they would also help me interpret the code. So I asked if they loaned them out for normal citizens to use. They didn’t but one of their employees would gladly hook it up and read the code out in the parking lot (and help decipher it). And all this for free! I will have the “check engine light” code read for less than the cost of the car itself. So out she came with the magical instrument to read the check engine light code. And I guess it’s not really a “Check Engine NOW” light.” When mine comes on it simply says this, “Service Engine Soon.” And I have to confess – I see it more as a suggestion light rather than a warning light. If it really was a warning light, wouldn’t it shout out in big bold red letters something like, “HEY! ARE YOU AN AMOEBA? GET TO THE MECHANIC NOW! Instead, it’s just sort of a warm and friendly sunset golden color light that softly whispers in a Minnesota nice tone, “I know you’re having a hard day, but maybe you should think about taking your car in to your mechanic whenever it fits into your schedule.” And another thing…how do you interpret “soon?” Is that “soon” as in “Your Engine is going to Explode in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 KABOOM!” soon? Or “soon” as in “The Minnesota Vikings are going to win the Super Bowl soon!” soon? (Meaning your car will have long since returned to iron ore before you have to worry about it). She plugged it in, and under her instructions I turned the ignition to “ON.” I thought I heard her say, “Oh my, Oh dear! Whoa…I’ve never seen that before!” I quickly stepped out of the car to look. “What? Never seen what?” It was probably just the glare of the sun but I thought I saw the screen say “EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE REPLACED! With the picture of lemon next to it. “Aha! Its saying your O2 Sensors are bad.” “Oh, Two Sensors? I have two sensors for what?” I asked “Not “Oh-Two” sensors,” she replied, “O2 sensors – oxygen sensors.” Now I was starting to think, “What do I have oxygen sensors for? Like when I go through Beartooth Pass in Montana or Wyoming or wherever that mountain pass is located…it senses the lack of air and O2 masks will drop down from the head liner?” She continued, “I think you have one in the engine compartment and one underneath by the kitty-litter converter.” Now I am like totally befuddled. My car converts kitty litter to energy? No wonder the Japanese have moved ahead of Ford and GM. But I later learned it’s not a kitty-litter converter, it’s a catalytic converter. Sometimes I don’t hear so good. Like all these decades I thought Julie Andrews in the movie "Mary Poppins" was singing, “Super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.” I just recently learned IT’S NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL! I always wondered why she would be singing about a bitter and brittle old wiseman that had bad breath. “You have one in the engine compartment and one under the car, and this first one is saying that your left bank is lean?” Now I am somewhat overweight according to the governmental standards, but I NEVER thought it was causing my car to lean. “And,” she continued, “Your right bank is also lean.” Lean to the left, Lean to the right, stand up, sit down, my car ain’t right!” She then asked if I wanted the SERVICE ENGINE SOON light cleared out so it would turn off. “You can just clear it out without me having it fixed? I asked in an astonished tone. “Yep,” she replied. I wanted to hug her. “Yes!!! By all means…Clear it out!” Because I prefer denial over reality, I just put a piece of duct tape over the SERVICE ENGINE SOON message board area. I am guessing the light is on. And I guess I will service the engine soon…as soon as the Vikings win the Super Bowl. Dan Vander Ark Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved

Gutter Blaster

I made a trip to my local home improvement store the other day to try to improve my home. While I was there buying cool stuff I will never use, I saw something on sale that I thought might actually come in handy. And it was only $3.00. It was a “Gutter Blaster.” Now I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of finicky the way my yard looks. If even a single blade of grass so much as looks like its going to get out of place I am there to trim it. Sometimes me-thinks the neighbors just roll there eyes over my finickiness. And I especially don’t want stuff growing in my gutters! Anyway some of the gutters are really high off the ground so it’s hard to get at them. So when I saw the gutter blaster I thought to myself, “Someone else on the planet must be sick of trying to get to really high gutters to clean out all the junk in them.” When I got home I hurriedly opened the box to get a first hand look at the “Blaster.” My heart sank a little as it was in about 3 pieces – I had to put it together. I stuck the aluminum part A with the down spout blaster nozzle into part C, only to realize I had forgotten part B so I stuck that on (who needs directions), and then hurriedly hooked it to the hose. (Oh, by the way, at another local home improvement store I was looking at hoses and wanted a really nice one and saw a couple that said, “Professional Garden Hose.” I came really close to asking the clerk if they had any “Amateur Garden Hoses”.) With the blaster in hand I headed to the first gutter – the low lying ones on the garage to test it out. I flipped the little lever thingy to turn the water on full throttle and, ummmm, (I am searching for words right here.) Well I guess all I can say is, “WOW!!!” Doouble WWOOWW!! My arm almost wound up in my neighbors yard!!! That thing had enough pressure to pulverize granite! If you aren’t careful it will almost peal the gutters OFF FROM THE HOUSE! Against all of my manly instincts, I raced back to the house and read the directions. And they said this under the section called “Safety and Maintenance”: DON’T TURN THE WATER LINE ON TO FULL PRESSURE THE FIRST TIME YOU USE YOUR GUTTER BLASTER!” I am totally serious; I am not making that up. And it also said this (again under safety and maintenance): Do not point the nozzle toward any living creature!” I can see why. I wonder if the Army knows about this thing. So I went back to my gutter blasting (making sure to use both arms while leaning into the gutter to offset the blast pressure) and got those gutters so clean you could almost eat off from them. But here’s the real kicker. At the bottom of the directions (again I am not making this up) it says this: “Your gutter junk blaster and HANGING PLANTS WATER SPRINKLER!” Hanging plants water sprinkler? I can just see it now. You take your gutter blaster out to your wife’s hanging plants on the deck and turn it on. With dirt and debris flying everywhere and green stuff whizzing by at the speed of sound like its being shot out of salad shooter, your wife asks (in the cool, calm and collected voice of a basic training drill sergeant), “WHAT ARE YOU DOING VANDER-ARK??? WHY ARE YOU DESTROYING MY PLANTS!!!!”???? And your answer? “Oh hi honey, I’m just following the directions…” Dan Vander Ark Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved

Tear Bottles

Does God care about your problems? There’s a very interesting verse in the middle of Psalm 56 that indicates that He does, and in a much closer and more passionate way than you and I may think. Psalm 56:8 says this, “Thou hast taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Thy bottle; are they not in Thy book?” This Psalm is a recounting by King David of a very stressful time in his life when he had been wrongly accused and found himself to be a fugitive in his own country (remember the TV series and the movie remake “The Fugitive” in which Dr. Richard Kimble was wrongly accused of murdering his wife and had to flee for his life?). David was innocent and was trying to stay one step ahead of the “Law” (King Saul). He was fleeing for his life and even sought shelter in remote caves. Afterward, when David thought about what he had gone through, he wrote, “Thou hast taken account of my wanderings…” The New Living Translation puts it this way, “You keep track of all my sorrows.” And the version of the Bible called The Message puts it this way, “You've kept track of my every toss and turn through the sleepless nights.” You (God) are profoundly concerned about me as I am driven from one place to another. Adam Clarke paraphrases it this way, “I am hunted everywhere; but You number all my hiding-places, and see how often I am in danger of losing my life.” Then David continues in this verse by making this remarkable statement, “Put my tears in Thy bottle, are they not in Thy book?” The New Living Translation says, “You have collected all my tears in Your bottle. You have recorded each one in Your book.” And The Message says this, “Each tear entered in your ledger, each ache written in your book.” What was David referring to and what did he mean when he said, “You put my tears in Your bottle?” To best describe what this portion of verse 8 is saying let me quote from a commentary called Barnes Notes. Albert Barnes says this, “It is possible, and, indeed, it seems probable, that there is an allusion here to the custom of collecting tears shed in a time of calamity and sorrow, and preserving them in a small bottle or "lachrymatory" as a memorial of the grief. (A “lachrymatory” was a very small bottle, like a perfume bottle, sometimes made out of simple clay and sometimes made out of agate or other precious stone.) The Romans had a custom, that in a time of mourning (for instance, on a funeral occasion) a friend went to one in sorrow, and wiped away the tears from the eyes with a piece of cloth, and squeezed the tears into a small bottle of glass or earth, which was carefully preserved as a memorial of friendship and sorrow…these lachrymatories are still found in great numbers on opening ancient tombs. A sepulchre lately discovered in one of the gardens of our city had scores of them in it. They are made of thin glass, or more generally of simple pottery, often not even baked or glazed, with a slender body, a broad bottom, and a funnel-shaped top. They have nothing in them but dust at present.” So to sum up this short passage, when David had time to reflect about that period in his life when he was literally one step ahead of death, he said essentially this, “God you care so deeply for me that You literally have taken account of every single one of my tears. And you not only notice them, but you also treasure them up Your divine Tear Bottle and record them in Your book!” God notices, treasures, and records your tears! There is a verse in Revelation that amplifies this astonishing love and care. The last part of Revelation 7:17 says this, “…God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Does God care about your problems? The answer is absolutely YES! You may at times feel like you are being hounded and harassed by problem after problem. Or maybe your heart has been broken through the loss of a loved one. Or it may seem that there is no way out of your financial predicament. Or perhaps you are having difficulty in your marriage or other family relationships. God cares for you! There is a God that notes every single one of your tears. Pour out your heart before Him today, take all of your cares and concerns to Him and watch Him answer in remarkable ways. Dan Vander Ark Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved 

Things I Think Are Funny

Back in the last millennium a former coworker and I got into an argument about whether hot water or cold water made ice cubes faster. She had heard (and so did I but I didn’t tell her that) that hot water in ice cube trays turns into ice faster than cold water in ice cube trays. I think the article was in Reader’s Digest, so it had to be true. We made a bet. Out in the warehouse was a refrigerator with a small freezer on top. I filled my tray with cold water, Jane filled hers with steaming hot water and we put them in the freezer. I think we decided to give it 3 hours and then check on the trays. She worked in the office and I worked in the warehouse. After about 2 hours and 50 minutes I took her tray out, snuck it into the bathroom and filled it up with really hot water and put it back in the freezer. At the 3 hour mark we went together and checked the trays. I think mine actually started to ice over, but the water in hers was still hot! And steam was rolling off her tray. She sort of shrugged her shoulders and said something like, “Well I guess it doesn’t work.” Her faith in Reader’s Digest was shattered. I didn’t tell her what I had done and just said with a straight face, “Yep.” She went back into the office, but only moments later she yelled, “DAN!” Someone told her what I had done. I thought that was funny. I think it would be funny to mow the lawn in the winter – maybe right after the first snowfall of about 6” of fluffy snow. Our house is on a busy residential street with a yard only 29 feet wide. Just crank up the mower and watch the snow fly! And then rake it when you’re done…that would be funny. Once we did see a guy after a snowstorm clearing the sidewalk with his snowblower while just wearing shorts. That was funny. Only in Duluth. When we were fishing on the Bloodvein River in Canada my brothers and I thought it would be funny to put on bear suits and sit on the river bank in lawn chairs with fishing poles and wave at any boats that went by. We would have to be prepared to run like crazy though in case anybody wanted to shoot at us. And I think it would be funny to drive around town in a gorilla suit and wave at people. That would be funny. My friend at work thought it would be funny to replace my hand lotion with Elmer’s Glue. I couldn’t figure out why my hands were so sticky when I went to use the hand lotion. Another coworker happened to walk by just as this was happening. She said the look on my face was priceless. She was the same coworker that usually parked crooked in the parking lot at work. So me and the Elmer’s Glue Coworker (henceforth known as “GlueMan”) went down to the print shop, asked them to cut some long strips of yellow paper for portable parking lines. We went out into the parking lot and just rolled out the parking lines right where she was crookedly parked. We gave them to her so she could just park whichever way she wanted wherever she wanted – all she had to do was just park and roll out the lines. We thought that was funny. Although I hesitated telling this as I have noticed how crooked I park. My wife and I went to a rummage sale the other day. There was an old wooden kitchen chair that was priced at 25 cents. I asked if they would take 24 cents. I thought that was funny, and so did the rummage owner. I bought the chair for the full quarter. I saw a young woman at the mall going up the up escalator (dah) while talking on her cell phone. We were going down the down escalator. I thought it would be funny if I had her cell number, called her and said, “Hey, I see you’re moving up in the world!” I think it would be funny to have one of those big old Army walkie-talkies from WWII (you’ve seen them – they’re about as big as a horses leg), go walking down the sidewalk in our busy residential area, and talk on it just like a normal cell phone. That would be funny. Or hang an old rotary desk phone from your waist and use the handset just like the cell phone. That might be funny too. Oh…and you know when your plane lands at the airport and then comes the moment when you can use your cell phone again? With 99% of the people calling home, calling their friends, calling the people waiting for them in the airport, or calling Mars, I think it would be funny to call someone, anyone, and say, “Oh hi kids how’s it going?......(and then really loud) WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE ELEPHANT GOT OUT AGAIN??? GO GET HIM AND PUT HIM BACK IN THE BASEMENT RIGHT NOW!” Then hang up, shake your head, and just mumble “Teenagers!” to the person next to you. Somewhere in the 1960’s my dad thought it would be funny to, as a publicity stunt for radio station WJON, announce that an elderly lady would be learning how to water ski at Lake George (a really really REALLY small lake in the middle of St. Cloud, I think less than 700 ft by 700 ft). An excellent water skier, my dad dressed up as the elderly lady and “pretended” to learn how to water ski! We thought that was funny. Back in about 1993, Gary (the maintenance guy) wanted to play a joke on Randy (the warehouse truck driver guy). We meticulously planned it out so that when Randy came to pick up supplies to go back from the clinic to the warehouse, that Gary would hide inside a rather large box on a flatbed cart. And with Randy rolling the cart out of the storage room and toward the dock, when Gary felt the cart hit the little bump where the tile ended and the carpeting began, that was his clue to leap out of the box and scare Randy. A whole bunch of people knew what we were planning and just “happened” to be sort of standing around when Randy showed up. After chatting for a few moments Randy took “THE CART”, and began to push it out the door. Inside-the-box-Gary could not have timed it better. He leaped up and scared Randy half to death – maybe even ¾’s to death. Randy flew backwards a good 10 feet, landed on a pile of laundry or supplies and grabbed his chest! When we realized he was NOT having a heart attack we laughed and laughed. We all thought that was funny. About five years ago my former boss and GlueMan conspired against me. Just as I was beginning to teach a class on how to use the materials management software system, they did something that caused me to have what I believe to be an out of body experience. Just minutes before the class began, the boss and GlueMan phoned me to let me know that my job was getting advertised in the paper (they emailed me the ad) and that I would have to reapply for it! With my body in front of the class mumbling stuff about how to order syringes correctly, the lighter-than-helium-inner-part of me floated above the classroom trying to figure out how they could possibly do this to me! (While I was up there I also noticed how bald I was getting.) I was furious! After the class I floated back down and rejoined my 48 year old body. I immediately phoned GlueMan and told him to tell the boss we were going to have a meeting ASAP. He then informed me it was just a joke. My helium self was still sort of disconnected from my balding self and I just hung up the phone. Now however, we all really laugh about that. That was funny. Just the other day I received a call from a nurse in one of the units at the hospital – she needed to order a special commode for a patient. After she gave me the basic information, I needed to verify the manufacturer’s number that she had given me so that I had all of my ducks in a row when I called the vendor (over the phone the person may be saying “that’s part number BMGT,” and you may be writing down “DNPE” so you have to read the part number back to them to verify). Nurse Diane gave me the part number of TFI-3225. It was a busy morning and a bunch of stuff was on my mind, so when I repeated it back to her I was looking at the first letter but my brain (which is usually attached to my eyes by way of the optic nerve) was already on the second letter. So I said, “So that’s “T” as in “Frank”….???” There was sort of a pause, and then I realized what I had just asked. It took everything for me to not laugh out loud and continue my professional, although disconnected with the alphabet, reality. I just kept on going like I hadn’t said anything stupid and verified the rest of the information. That was funny. A while back someone in the building where I work discovered that her cheese cake had been stolen out of the fridge. She fired off an email to the entire building (more than a hundred people) about the impropriety of permanently borrowing other people’s food. You could tell she was angry because everything was in capital letters and the grammar and punctuation were all mangled. My email reply went something like this, “If you ever want to see your cheesecake again, please leave a dollar in an unmarked bag out by the picnic table…” I thought that was funny. And no, I didn’t take the cheesecake. And finally, this. I overheard a coworker make this statement the other day, ““My family isn’t known for good looking toes.” I thought that statement was hilarious (okay, maybe you had to be there). So three of us began telling, “My toe story is more horrible than your toe story!” stories. When I got back to my cube I emailed the coworker whose family is not known for good looking toes and said, “Our conversation almost sounded like that scene in Jaws where the cranky fisherman guy Quint and Richard Dreyfuss Hooper start comparing scars.” I told her that sometime I may write an article titled, “My Family isn’t Known for Good Looking Toes and other Funny Things at Work.” I guess this is it. Dan Vander Ark Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved 

I’m Not an Amateur-Crastinator, I’m a Pro-Crastinator

“What are you doing, Honey?” I asked my wife one evening. “Making my lunch for tomorrow,” she replied. “Making your lunch for tomorrow, why?” I asked. “Its 14 hours before you have to be to work…why not wait till 7:25 tomorrow morning, like me?” My name is Dan -- and I am a procrastinator. When I was in college I usually started my term papers the night before they were due and then stayed up all night to type them (usually by sitting in the bathtub with a board across the tub for the typewriter to sit on. Seriously, I’m not making that up…I didn’t want to keep my wife and daughters awake. And of course I had my clothes on). A friend named Lee had his done a couple weeks before they were due. How he did that I will never know. I have discovered that I put off doing a lot of stuff: Taxes Packing for a trip Filling the car up with gas Going through the mail Shoveling snow Filling out reports Christmas shopping Some guys do their Christmas shopping for their wives at about 2:00 on Christmas Eve. I told a friend one time that I was different from all of them – I PLAN to do my shopping at 2:00 on Christmas Eve. I put off going to the dentist, doing my exercises, raking the yard, even writing this article. A while back I was reading through the Gospel of Mark and one word seemed to keep popping up. It was the word “immediately.” In the Greek it’s the adverb “euthus.” It’s used 53 times in the NT, but 39 of those are found in Mark! So that’s just 14 times for the remaining 26 books of the NT. And the word appears 11 times in chapter one alone. Immediately, immediately, immediately. When I saw that, it spoke to my heart about the fact that not only was Jesus’ life filled with a sense of mission, but there was also a tremendous sense of urgency to that mission. The dictionary defines procrastination this way: 1) To defer action, delay until an opportunity is lost 2) To put off till another day or time 3) To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness 4) To postpone or delay needlessly Habitual laziness? That can’t possibly be the reason why I defer, dally, dawdle, delay, and drag my feet! You mean at the root of me being Procrastinator Extraordinaire is laziness? That can’t possibly be true. But there simply are some things though that you CANNOT put off. Like: Saying “I love you” to your wife each day. I bet some of the husbands in the Twin Towers on 9/11 wished they had said, “Honey I just want you to know I love you” before they left the house that ill-fated morning. Hugging your kids (and your grandkids). Calling your mom. Calling your dad. Giving your heart to Jesus. A teenage boy named Teddy mowed the church lawn where I used to be the pastor. He was about 16 and was such a nice kid. But late one Saturday I received a heart-rending phone call. Teddy was driving his car down highway B but when he went to cross the four lane highway, he never made it. Paul said in II Corinthians 6:2, “Behold, now is the day of salvation.” You may think you have tomorrow, but you don’t. “To delay until an opportunity is lost.” That should sober us up a little bit concerning the precious commodity of “time.” Your life can change forever in just a moment. Don’t delay, defer and drag your feet in spiritual things. Make every day count! Dan Vander Ark Copyright 2008 All rights reserved 

ChickenOccoli is Alive!

A few days ago my wife Kay had to be gone for the evening -- she was going to help the kids mark rummage sale items. “You’re on your own for supper,” she shouted as she headed out the door for the front lines of the Great Rummage Sale Battle. Other than grilling, the only thing I can cook is French Toast. But I had some things I needed to get done on this Friday night so I just threw a couple of frozen chicken and broccoli things in the toaster oven and cranked it up to 30 minutes. I got involved in doing some stuff and forgot about supper. When I realized my food was now getting cold I went up to the kitchen to get them. I figured I’d just pop them into the microwave and reheat the recooked precooked chicken&broccolithingys. I grabbed the STEEL tray lined with TINFOIL that they were on and, without thinking, opened up the microwave oven (which is directly above the toaster oven) and threw them in. I punched in one minute on the timer, turned on the microwave, and started thinking about other stuff. With my mind on another planet I could hear the microwave going bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz shzhzhhhzhzhzhhhhhhhhhhhs zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr zhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzh. Or maybe it was zhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzh bbbbbbbbbbbbb gzgzgzgzgzgzgzgzgzgz rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr whpwhpwhpwhpwhp. I can’t quite remember. I looked up, and there, directly in front of my eyes, was an elongated spark or blue flame going across the entire front of the chicken patty tray. WOW! It looked like a tiny aurora borealis right there in my kitchen! A brilliant northern Minnesota Northern Lights display in my microwave! I was so wishing my brothers were there to see it. And I wanted so much just to keep the microwave going. Just to see, in the name of science and the interaction of broccoli electrons with chicken electrons and all that’s good about America, what would happen. But my wife would be back from the front lines of the Great Rummage Sale Battle preparations and I didn’t want the microwave to be just a puddle of plastic and metal. So I panicked and hit the cancel button. I very, very s l o w l y opened the door. I halfway expected the chicken&broccoli things to get up and walk. Sort of a microwave version of Young Chicken Frankenstein. CHICKENOCCOLI IS ALIVE!!! Nope…they were still dead…and they smelled like ozone…but tasted like chicken. Dan Vander Ark All Rights Reserved 

Stressed Out About High Gas Prices?

I remember my dad saying, “I never thought I would see gas at $1.00 per gallon.” Of course that was many years ago. But now, wow! $2.00 per gallon…then $3.00 per gallon…now where I live its on the verge of $4.00 (and might just be there by the time this is out on the web). And the price of diesel has skyrocketed. I talked to a trucker friend of mine and asked him how he’s making it. He just said it’s really tough when it costs $1,000.00 to fill up. Unless you’ve won the lottery, for the average Joe out there you almost want to close your eyes when you pull up to the pump. I obviously don’t have a magic cure for high gas prices. I haven’t figured out how to make that Mr. Fusion thing they had in “Back to the Future.” We tried cow magnets back in the 70’s, but that didn’t work. And I emailed my brother about a contraption out on the internet that is supposed to give you a big increase in gas mileage. He said our uncle Bruce tried that back in the 70’s also and it didn’t work. Yes there are some things we can do to conserve, but if you have a fairly long commute or maybe you and your wife work separate shifts, or you can’t afford to buy a hybrid or higher mileage car right now, filling up at the pump can be pretty stressful. You sometimes feel like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, between filling up the tank or putting your money somewhere else very necessary. And at times you feel like there is no solution and no where to turn when you’re so squeezed financially. Stress. If you were to ask 10 people to define “stress” you may get 10 different answers. Hans Selye first coined the phrase back in 1936 but wrestled all his life to find a satisfactory definition. Eventually he redefined it as “the rate of wear and tear on the body.” In 1983 Time magazine’s cover story called stress “The Epidemic of the Eighties”; it has been estimated that anywhere from 60 to 90 percent of all doctor visits can be attributable to stress. There is an encyclopedia worth of information available to anyone about the definition, causes and cure for stress. This short article will focus on one little aspect of coping with stressful situations in general. One of the reasons I like reading the Bible is because there is so much practical information that helps us out in our every day world. The Bible isn’t meant just for seminaries or just for Sunday sermons, it’s meant to give help and wisdom to working people on working days in working places. David (the Old Testament character David) had to deal with stress a multitude of times in his life. Whether it was fighting giants, hiding in caves, fleeing from enemies, facing political storms, or being hounded by family members who wanted to kill him, all of these events brought terrific times of stress to his life. The deepest feelings of David’s heart during these struggles have been recorded for us in the book of Psalms. One such passage is in Psalm 18. Let me point out something interesting in verse 6 and verse 19. Verse six says, “In my distress (or stress) I called upon the LORD, and cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry for help before Him came into His ears.” And verse 19 says, “He brought me forth also into a broad place; He rescued me, because He delighted in me.” The word that’s used in verse 6 for distress is the Hebrew word “tsar.” It literally means this: a narrow or tight place.” It is used in Numbers 22:26 in an interesting way that gives us some insight into what stress is all about. “And the angel of the Lord went further, and stood in a narrow place (our word “tsar”) where there was NO WAY TO TURN TO THE RIGHT OR TO THE LEFT. That graphically displays what stress is all about – being in a narrow place (a tight spot) without being able to turn to the right or left. In other words – I am stuck between a rock and a hard place, I don’t have an avenue of escape, and I don’t see any way out of my predicament! Strained relationships, raising children, financial problems, trying to find a job, high gas prices, illnesses, the loss of a loved one, the list goes on and on. All things that can bring terrific stress to our lives. And sometimes it seems like there is NO WAY OUT of our dilemma (which is a cause of depression). But King David didn’t just say, “I’m Stressed!” and leave it there. He said, “In my stress…I called to the Lord, and cried to my God for help!” One of the reasons why David was so successful in his life was because he was always praying about his problems (and he had lots of them). God cares about you and the difficulties you are going through! Bring your problems, your concerns, your worries, your unbearable situations, and your stress to Him in prayer. He is genuinely concerned about the “stuff” you are going through! This is the progression that’s recorded for us in Psalm 18: First, “I was in distress” – I couldn’t find a way out of my problems, I was stressed out. Secondly, “So I prayed about it” –I called to Him in prayer. Thirdly, “He listened to me” – He heard my prayer! (The second part of verse 6). Do you realize that the God of the Universe longs to listen to your prayer? And fourthly, “He gave me an answer.” David was stressed, he prayed, God heard, God gave him an answer! And part of the answer is recorded for us in verse 19, “He brought me forth into a wide open field, He rescued me because He delighted in me.” Being “brought forth into a wide open field” in the Bible is the opposite of the “distress” (the “tsar”) -- the narrow place or choke point of verse 6. Have you ever been in a large crowd where you were so constricted that you almost felt claustrophobic? And how did you feel once you were free from the crowd and had plenty of room and were able to relax and breathe freely again? This is exactly the scenario that is spelled out in verses 6 and 19. In verse 6 problems are pressing in upon David to the point where he has no where to turn – he is at a choke point and feels claustrophobic in the midst of his difficulties. But then God answers and brings him into a “broad place.” Spiritually speaking, he is taken from the crush of people in an overcrowded subway to the wide open spaces a Dakota prairie! He now can see multiple avenues of escape from his problems and can see a way out of his predicament. Again, I obviously don’t have a magic bullet solution to the high price of gas and diesel. High gas prices are probably here to stay. And I am obviously not saying that if you begin to pray that your SUV is going to suddenly start getting 50 miles to the gallon. But this one thing I do know with certainty – God cares about the smallest details of your life! He is concerned about your stress, distress, and worry. Take your problems to Him in prayer. You will be amazed at what He can do in you, through you and for you! Dan Vander Ark All Rights Reserved 

Dental Checkup

I received a really nice postcard in the mail the other day. It was from my dentist. And it was time for my 6 month checkup. Now I don’t know about you, but I usually go to my 6 month dental checkups about once a year.

The hygienist, Debbie, was very nice. She invited me to sit in the dental version of a La-Z-Boy, and then proceeded to tilt the chair back until I was sure I was going to slide off onto my head. I held on tight to the arm rests and wished for a seat belt.

After a quick glance at my records, the hygienist informed me that I should have my x-rays updated.

“OK,” I replied gleefully. I was then draped in 20 lbs of lead and a couple of little pieces of cardboard with film in them were placed as far back in my mouth as possible. I think even farther. The ray gun of death was pointed at my mouth and the pictures were taken.

Debbie then gazed down at my mouth through what looked like a pair of night vision goggles. After a preliminary check by her and an examination by the dentist, I was informed that I needed a crown. Not just a tiara, but a full blown gold crown. Apparently tooth #31 was rotting away.

Knowing that the price of gold is now at about $1,000,000.00 per fleck, I immediately wondered how much that was going to cost. When they informed me that my dental plan would probably cover at least 50% of the cost, I asked if I could just get the 50% portion done that the insurance would cover and call it even. There was a little bit of silence and then laughter when they figured out I was kidding. They don’t know me.

I was then informed that my teeth looked pretty good except that my gums were receding. Recession can be caused by brushing too hard, they told me. (And I always thought it was caused by us not maxing out our credit cards). Now I knew my hair had been receding for quite some time (all the way to the back of my head), but I didn’t know that your gums could recede. I asked my dental dream team, “Is there a connection between the receding hair and the receding gums?” They are both located in the head, so I figured there was. (This is a good spot for a little science lesson: You know that law of physics that says, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction?” So if something is receding on my body, then shouldn’t something be advancing? Maybe that’s where the weight gain comes from. The gums and hair recede, the age and weight advances.)

The dentist said something like, “Maybe there is Rogaine for your gums!”

I mentioned I was going to do some research on the internet about this as soon as possible. And if I couldn’t find a cure then I think this might work: Take your wife’s colander (you know, that spaghetti strainer thingy), your daughter’s Ipod, and a 9 volt battery from your grandson’s remote control Humvee. Oh, and some duct tape and wire. Duct tape the Ipod to the colander on the right side, cut off the ear phone/buds and attach a couple of alligator clips to the end of the wires. Duct tape the 9 volt battery to the left side of the colander and attach a couple of wires to the battery and have a couple of alligator clips on those wires as well. Place the colander on your head – attach one Ipod wire and one 9 volt battery wire to the right side molars (one top and one bottom) and one Ipod wire and one 9volt battery wire to the left side molars (one top and one bottom). Oh yeah, make sure you put a dimmer switch somewhere along those battery wires or you’ll regret it. Start with a very low voltage setting (dimmer switch almost to “dim”) and some Barry Manilow music at low volume (the earphones are gone but don’t sweat it, your teeth will crank out the song). Try that for one hour before bed each night. If after 6 months your hair and gums are still receding then crank up the voltage and switch to some heavy metal music like Metallica.

After the hygienist was finished cleaning my teeth, she did the floss thing.
She then asked the dreaded question…..”How often do you floss?”

I was trapped. “Well, I am thinking how I should answer that question.” She laughed.

But the guilt was just overwhelming, so I finally blurted out, “Once a year! At my 6 month checkup! When I come to see you!“ Although I guess I have flossed a couple of times when I’ve had something like whale blubber stuck between my teeth. (Perhaps in the future if you want to get a job with the government, there will just be two questions at the job interview: Them: Have you ever been convicted of a felony? Applicant: Uh, No. Them: Do you floss? Applicant: Ummmmm, well, uh not really. Them: NEXT!)

Then she asked about the fluoride treatment. That’s the part I hate the most. Those two little trays smooshing on your teeth with the little suction instrument stuck between them. I think the CIA uses the “fluoride treatment” to try to get the truth out of people; and if that doesn’t work then they use water surfboarding or whatever that is.

She asked me what flavor I wanted. I wanted coffee flavored but they didn’t have that. There was banana, strawberry, chocolate, pine and I think cement flavored. I chose strawberry.

She put the trays in and I inserted the little suction thing. I noticed the suction thingy had a small knob on it to either increase or decrease the suctivity. I wanted so bad to crank it wide open, but was afraid my head might collapse. Or worse yet, create an orthodontic version of a black hole right there in the dentist office causing everything not fastened down to come toward my head at the speed of suction.

I was so relieved when that was done.

As I left she handed me a new toothbrush and a thing of floss.

“Oh thanks!” I said, “I will add this to my collection! And I will see you in a year at my next 6 month checkup!”