Every parent of small kids knows that bedtime can be a chore or sometimes even a battle. So we all develop little tricks that help us deal with the situation. In my case it is the boys who are sometimes a challenge when it comes to bedtime. To cope with this we've come up with a game. It started with my oldest son. While tucking him in one night I asked, "Would you like me to tuck you in like a burrito?" That sounded interesting so he said yes. I quickly wrapped the blankets around him with his arms tucked inside. Nice and snug like a burrito. I made the same offer to his younger brother but he declined. He might not have been sure about who was going to eat the burrito. Cautious boy.

A new band, a new sound, and a great CD. End Of Silence is the debut album of the new band Red. If you're looking for fresh new sound with a lot of energy then this is the place to go. The high-powered music is heavily layered with strings, crunchy guitars and in your face background vocals. This is very good stuff.

Till We Have Faces is a wonderful retelling of the ancient Greek mythology of Cupid and Psyche. Lewis didn't simple restate the story but he took elements and modified them to give the story a different cast than the original. In this version Lewis explores themes of love, sacrifice, and the relationships between humans and the divine. Good fiction often prompts the reader to identify himself (or herself, obviously) in the characters of the story and then raises the questions implicitly that are explicitly raised as the character deals with the situations of the narrative. Lewis is a master of this as he wraps us up in the story so completely that we are unaware of the deep and probing questions he's putting to our soul. Seeds that are planted and nourished in our quiet contemplations. As the plants of those questions grow we begin to see the answer and it is fully realized with the plant flowers. Till We Have Faces plants those seeds.

This only applies to anyone driving along I-17 north of Phoenix. Just north of the Carefree Highway exit look over to the east at the houses there. If you drive by at night you will see the word "NOEL" in colored lights. This is our house. This is our little bit of festive holiday lighting.

Skillet's new album, Comatose, takes a new musical turn. It moves away from the heavy and edgy sound found on the previous CD, Collide, but it also stays well away from the techno and industrial sounds that were familiar to Skillet's earliest offerings. The new sound combines old school metal, there are some great guitar solos on the CD, with a touch of goth, ala Evanesence, all laid in a solid bed of guitar pop.

As Christmas approaches each year I look forward to continuing a tradition that I started a few years ago. On each of the twelve days leading up to Christmas Day I give my wife a small gift. While this idea was inspired by the song I don't actually give the gifts that the song suggests. She might like the five golden rings each year but I doubt she'd have much use for eight maids a milking, or the swans, or the geese, and so on. Instead, I give her small gifts that are sometimes sentimental, sometimes useful, and sometimes just funny.

 

The twelve days of Christmas referred to in the song are the days following Christmas.  In some religous traditions there are events associated with each day. For my purpose it made more sense to give a small gift each day leading up to Christmas.  Giving the gifts afterwards would be a bit anticlimactic.

Early November, 2006, my dad and I took a quick day hike along Bell Trail. This trail is located about 1.5 hours north of Phoenix and about 45 minutes east of Sedona. It follows Wet Beaver Creek for a few miles and then, after crossing the creek, climbs to the top of the Mogollon Rim where there are spectacular views in all directions. Hiking this trail in the Fall allowed us to see lots of colorful leaves -- something we don't see much of in Phoenix. The pictures for this hike can be found in my Bell Trail Gallery.

Miracles is C. S. Lewis' classic book in defense of miracles. If a skeptic reads this book in order to see how well the author can wriggle around semantics and play with historical fuzziness he will be disappointed. And, if he thinks that Lewis will stop with simply stating his case that miracles can happen, he will be shocked to find that Lewis puts together an argument that supports the fact that miracles must happen. Lewis' explanations are not for the light reader though. He relies heavily on sophisticated philosophical thought and assumes readers are very familiar with authors such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Hume, Hobbes, and so on. If the reader can keep up with the heady reasoning (I'm not at all sure that I did) then this book is full of rich and detailed discussions concerning much more than just simple stage magician type tricks that some like to call miracles.