"Come on Down!" Bob Barker, TV Host of The Price is Right

It's welcome back Monday, May 20, 2013. While I was not able to find those photos of my baby sister Kayla, my younger brother Donald, and myself, it did not mean they did not exist. My sister up in the Dallas area read my blog and found these in her collection. She had found some old negatives and had them developed. The images in the collage were taken with her phone of the prints laying on a table. Technology. Now is that something, or is that something? I heard a Professor who teaches computers at Harvard say the other day that folks carrying the latest smart phone technology have in their pocket more computing power than a super computer from the late 1970's. That super computer would have required space the size of an auditorium to house it along with the specialized electrical and cooling support. In your pocket. Untold millions of them. I don't know about you, but that wows me a little. And, that along with the fact that my sister read my blog, saw that blurb, and was able in a few minutes to shoot me an email with those images. I then took the images into a photo program, cropped them, and then loaded them into a collage utility and now you have proof that while my mind is slipping some, I did remember those photos, therefore, the old fetch routine can still reach back and grab hold of something from that musty memory library, at least occasionally. Thanks Sis, these are great and so are the memories.

I know we are soon to be in the midst of hot and steamy but I did see a statistic about mostly fall and winter TV viewing habits, that, while it was not so surprising, it still seems pretty impressive. The 25 most watched television programs in the Houston Metro area in 2012 included 23 NFL games, one episode of The Voice, and the Academy Awards. Are you telling me there was not even one NASCAR race, no NCIS, and not even an honorable mention for Duck Dynasty? No wonder football is called King in Texas but even more so, I think this statistic shows just how much of a King of all sports the NFL is. It is somewhere around a 10 billion dollar business. I know what it means to be a fan. Most fans identify with their team or in my case their driver and there's an element of living vicariously through the performance rendered. When it comes down to it, what we are fans of is the abilities of mostly billionaires to buy talent from the front office to the playing field down to the concession stands with an effectiveness that produces a championship season. Very few, if any, of the actual participants come from where we come from and their only identity is the jersey they wear. It works. People pay. And, as they used to say back home, that's what makes the world go round including winning 23 out of 25 of the most viewed programs on TV in 2012.

Yes. You guessed right. I was likely along for the ride on a number of those 23 televised sporting events. It's graduation time and we have a number in our family who are finishing their high school studies. Two granddaughters here in our area and two nephews over in Louisiana are completing this major step in their pursuit of God's plan for their lives. In addition, we have several in our local fellowship, along with some children of friends who are finishing their college studies. The high school classes in our area are huge and they typically have to hold the graduation ceremonies in big stadiums where they schedule them back to back. That invites all kinds of traffic congestion and it really is quite different from the less than 30 who graduated with me back in that small rural town. We plan to be right smack in the middle of it all as we honor our Stefani and Kyleigh. I did notice that Sarah Palin will be doing the commencement speech at a high school in Washington state where they will have 23 graduating seniors. Those kids had been on a year long campaign to get her to come. I'm trying to remember the commencement speaker at my graduation. I do know that I did some speaking because of being class president but I'll have to get back to you on that other one. I'm sure those 23 kids will never have any trouble remembering their special speaker. Have a great Monday and may God bless us all. Amen.     ....More later.