Science Fair

Today, I judged a science fair at a local primary school. I wanted to share some of the highlights so you can understand why I enjoy it so much. It’s awesome to see the kids get excited about their projects, except for the kids who have no clue what their project is about. One kid told the other judge she didn’t know much about her project because she was asleep when her parents were working on it.

First, here are some of the best projects…

This was the overall winner, who researched fingerprints and genetics. He examined the similarities of fingerprint styles in family members to show whirl and loop patterns are often common. He used the balloons to show how your fingerprint grows as you get older.

This kid placed samples from around the school in Petri dishes to see what kind of bacteria grew. His conclusion, “Our school is dirty!” was a big hit with everyone except the janitor, who mumbled as he walked away.

This little girl did a very nice job with an experiment she designed herself. She said her little brothers like to wear bandaids all the time, but they always come off in the bathtub. She placed four manufacturer’s bandaids on eggs and allowed them to soak in water. The sturdiest was an off-brand name called Pizzaz! or something like that. They’re probably made in China and contain banned chemicals that make them really effective.

This first grader created a model of an eardrum. When you talked into the pink tissue paper cone on the left, the aluminum foil covered disk on the right vibrated. The quality was amateurish, but pretty good for a first grader’s parent.

Now on to the lesser entries. First up: kids who put very little effort into their project.

Here’s a science fair classic, “Which brand of popcorn pops the most?” It combines all the characteristics of a great science fair project: low investment of time, no real scientific data, and bright colors. Plus, on the upside, you can eat the project when you’re done.

Another classic, but this one requires a little more time and effort. The rubber chicken bone uses one of science fair’s most important substances…vinegar. One year we had eighteen volcanoes and one vinegar rocket that managed to blow up, dousing me in vinegar. That was the year they changed the rules to outlaw explosive/erupting vinegar experiments.

Another classic, the lemon battery. The smallest light bulb this poor kid could find was a 25W bulb, which is just outside the wattage range of two lemons. He demonstrated it was actually making power by sticking it on his tongue, which he described as tasting nasty and feeling weird. He offered to let me try, but I declined. I did give him bonus points for the super hero graphics.

And our final category…kids who are totally clueless.

I really don’t think this little guy had any idea that he had dried grapes in a dehydrator to make raisins. The only thing he remembered was boiling the grapes to make the skin come off. I guess the rest was just a blur. You know, the hours of watching grapes slowly dehydrate into raisins.

This entrant researched how an egg becomes a chicken. Except she didn’t really do much since she said her dad and sister looked up the information and told her what to write. My favorite part? “You can expect 12-15 live chicks from 24 eggs. The rest of the chickens die.”

And saving the best for last, this little guy performed the classic “dissolving salt in water.” His results were kind of sketchy and when I asked him why things hadn’t turned out well, he said, “Well, I just started it this morning.”

Ridiculous

We had visitors at work last week and met them at Texas Roadhouse to eat. This is what I saw while crossing the lot:

The Monroe County Sherriff has a Prius. I can hear criminals around the county… ”OK, so if the cops come after us, just remember we need to go uphill. They’ll never be able to catch us.”

Unintentional Intolerance

I spent the last two days at the Crane Strategic Communications Conference. Yesterday’s highlight was a guest speaker that talked about diversity. We normally get guest speakers that are fellow government weenies that believe their purpose in life is to remind us of the importance of public policy as the panacea for injustice. Luckily, yesterday’s speaker was not one of us. He was a diversity guru and an engaging speaker, which is a quality in short supply at most government conferences. The purpose of this gentleman’s lecture was to encourage us to step beyond our comfort zone to engage folks that look, act, or think differently than us. One point in particular really struck me because it resonated on a spiritual level also. He was describing unintentional intolerance, which is the bias we carry with us that we don’t realize we carry. He had an equation to describe how we build these intolerances, which went over big since the entire group is pretty much all scientists and engineers. The equation is:

Unintentional tolerance = mindlessness + multiple redundant messages

Mindlessness is how we react when we don’t consciously think things through. He described it as the cognitive script we run without thinking, similar to our heartbeat or breathing. This script is created by our experiences or lack of experiences.

Multiple redundant messages are the things that are imprinted upon us by repetition like TV commercials. They become part of our thinking over time without us consciously putting forth the effort to do so. For my generation, I believe this is exemplified by the Oscar Meyer wiener song. After you hear it a few thousand times, it’s in your brain for life.

So, what does this mean to me as a Christian? What mindless things am I doing that are blinding me to what God wants me to see? Where am I allowing my cognitive script to run instead of perceiving the truth of the situation I’m in and reacting as the person God needs me to be? What redundant things am I doing simply out of comfort or habit? Where do I need to make changes to rationally consider where I am and how I should respond?

A week of travels

I pledged to blog more frequently, then headed off for a week in a hotel without internet access. So, while they aren’t exactly timely, here are some of my thoughts from the past week.

I stayed in Louisville on Monday night so I wouldn’t have to fight the snow to get to the airport on Tuesday morning. On my ten minute drive to the airport Tuesday morning, I was praying God would keep me safe in the snow and ice so I could make my flight. Then, I looked around and guess what? There were other people on the road and I hadn’t thought to pray for them. I was so consumed with myself that I forgot about all the people around me. There are lots of applications in this one…self absorption, lack of compassion, etc. It bothered me all week. If I don’t care enough about others to pray for them to get through the snow safely, how can I pretend I care about their souls?

Our meetings finished at noon on Friday, so everyone was anxious to get to the airport. Folks were worrying about all kinds of stuff: traffic, getting through security, flights being on time, sunspots, you name it. I was anxious to get home, but I tried not to worry. I’ve done my best to give up worrying about things I can’t control like airline flights. The key for me is putting everything in the context of the power of God. It’s not that I believe God is my genie in a bottle, turning stoplights green to get me through traffic and re-routing storms to keep my flights on time. Instead, I believe in a God who has the power to make good things happen even in the midst of bad things like a missed flight.

The world needs a lot more towns like Mitchell. Big cities and their anonymity really do bring out some bad habits in folks. On my flight home Friday night, an elderly well-dressed gentleman sat next to me reviewing what appeared to be legal briefs. After we stopped at the jetway, I grabbed my backpack and stood up in the aisle to stretch my legs. I glanced over at the well-dressed gentleman and noticed he had buried his thumb in his right nostril. He then proceeded to repeat this procedure with his left nostril. Keep in mind that this wasn’t a graceful quick flick of the nostrils, but a deep and prolonged search that drew a crowd of onlookers. Several folks were staring at this gentleman and he obviously didn’t care. He was secure in his anonymity, knowing he was on a plane with a bunch of strangers. As for me, I like the accountability of Mitchell where friends and family help keep me in line.

True blogging

I read Gary’s blog post about Collin turning six and realized he was right about true blogging. I’m going to follow his example (not usually a good idea) and post more thoughts and worry less about composing the perfect story. I’m going to attempt to share things I heard or read that inspired me to think.

I finished reading Neil Cole’s book, Organic Church, this week and wanted to share some of the quotes that made me pause. This is a very good book with lots of great ideas for reaching the lost.

“If you want to win this world to Christ, you are going to have to sit in the smoking section. ”

“We spend so much time building nice barns with padded pews, air-conditioned halls, and state-of-the-art sound systems, yet we have neglected the fields. We are as foolish as as the farmer who builds a barn and then stands in the doorway calling all the crops to come in and make themselves at home. It is time for the Church to get her hands dirty in the soil of lost people’s lives.”

“I went to a seminar on how to start a church. Church planting was reduced to simply getting more people in the seats on Sunday. Personally, I want to give my life to something a little bigger than that.”

“There are two kinds of lost people in the world, the moths and the cockroaches. In the darkness, it’s impossible to tell them apart, so the best way to discover the difference is to turn the light on. The moths will be drawn to the light, and the cockroaches will flee.”

“The end is not accumulated knowledge but a life of obedience that will be willing to die for Jesus. The process isn’t over until there is a flat line on a screen.”

Responsibility

I was driving home from Indy last Friday night, lamenting the fact that I was stuck in traffic. I left the airport about 6:15 pm and things were moving very slowly. Just south of Martinsville, traffic piled up behind two cars. I’m sure you’re seen it before. The car in the right lane was going 58 mph and the car in left lane was passing him at 58.3 mph. Everyone was jockeying for position and people were getting really aggressive. I just happened to be in the left lane when I caught up to them. A couple of cars tried to get around me by cutting into line, but they backed off when I didn’t flinch to let them in. After the left lane cleared, there were lots of snappy lane changes ala Robby Gordon and things got kind of crazy. I was running about 75 mph and white knuckled before I realized I was caught up in the pack. I got back over into the right lane, took a deep breath, and wondered why in the world I had let myself get caught up in that pack of stupid drivers. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized that’s what I do with most of the stuff in my life. I guess now is the time when I’m supposed to stand up and say, “Hi, my name is Curt and I’m a control freak.”

I really do worry that I get caught up in things without realizing it and end up with too many responsibilities in my life. Someone desires for me to influence a process or I stumble upon a situation begging for my manipulation. Then, for reasons varying from servanthood to downright selfishness, I charge into action. I do my best to show God’s love in all of these endeavors, but I’m convinced that most of the time I’m missing genuine opportunities to live God’s love because I’m consumed with the busyness of demonstrating God’s love. I involve myself in lots of good things that eat up most of my time, to the point that I don’t have any spare time to let God’s will and love flow naturally through my life.

How to change my life has mostly been a muddled bunch of thoughts rolling about in my subconscious for a while, but they’ve been starting to become more refined lately. I can’t pinpoint an event that started me down this path, but instead, it seems God is leading me toward something that I’ve yet to comprehend. Whatever this thing is, it seems simultaneously imminent and distant, urgent and leisurely. It’s when I contemplate this dichotomy and where it is leading me that I often get stuck on the busyness and responsibilities of my life. The thought I can’t rectify to myself is how God can lead me to this undefined something when I have bills to pay and a bunch of other things I am responsible for. I’ve literally been wrestling with this dilemma for months and then last week the beginning of the answer came to me. I’d like to say it was brought on by a fasting and prayer, but it wasn’t nearly that noble. In fact, I really don’t believe I was thinking anything dignified since I was in the middle of a relish, onion, and mustard drenched hot dog in the Chicago airport. I believe my thoughts at the time were… chew… chew… chew… swallow… another humongous bite… chew… chew… and then it hit me. God can do what He wants done. If God wants me to lead me to a radical change in my life, He will take care of getting me there. I don’t have to worry about how to get there, I just have to be willing to follow and let Him be God. So, I end this rambling tale with a request: Pray for me. Pray for me to get out of the way and let God lead me to whatever He wants me to do. And, pray for me to have the wisdom to smack down the control freak when his eyes widen and his knuckles get white.

Things have got to change

It was an exhausting weekend that left me feeling so refreshed…

Southland celebrated their 50th anniversary this weekend and it was great to spend time with some friends and make some new friends. Deeper Still led worship and they were even better than I remembered. They have an amazing ability to lead worship without getting in the way. Hearing Patrick Mead was very cool as I’ve been a fan via podcasts for a while. His overall theme for the weekend was “get out of the building and engage the world.” Of course, he was much more eloquent and quite a bit funnier in stating it. Also, it was cool to talk guns with a preacher.

Saturday night we were treated to a fabulous feast at the Slone’s…crab legs, shrimp scampi, garlic biscuits, key lime pie…it was awesome. Oh yeah, there were some people there too, but I was too busy stuffing food in my face.

The weekend was topped off at church last night with a report from a missionary to the Middle East. Jake summarized things well in his blog post “Conviction”. It left me feeling uplifted, humbled, and ashamed. This man is risking his life to spread the gospel and I don’t exert the energy to walk across the street to talk to my neighbor. Things have got to change and I’m starting with me.

Do It Yourself

I’ve always been a do-it-yourself kind of guy although I have to admit it’s a control thing. Should society crumble into a Lord of the Flies scenario, I want to be ready. I can skin a catfish, I can rebuild an engine, and I can make my own Lipton Onion Soup Mix. I think Bocephus included those in a version of “Country Boy Can Survive” that was only released in Holland.

Tonight’s do-it-yourself exercise was to change the oil on my Yukon. It’s a fairly easy process since the truck sits high enough to slide under and the drain plug and filter are located close enough you can drain both at once. Things proceeded well and I buttoned everything up pretty routinely. After refilling the oil, I started the truck to let the oil circulate before I checked the oil level for the final time. The oil pressure only came up to about twenty pounds, so I knew something was wrong. I quickly shut off the truck and heard oil dribbling on the ground. Sometimes dribbling means a little, but this was the other kind of dribbling. When I looked underneath, I could see a good bit of oil dribbling off the oil filter and dribbling off the engine and dribbling off the crossmember. It was pretty much dribble-mania down there. I was almost sure what I had done and a quick check of the old oil filter confirmed the old gasket has stuck to the block. However, it had decided to squish out to the side instead of remaining in place, leaving a nice exit path for my newly purchased oil. So, I pushed the drain pan back under the truck and removed the filter so I could remove the offending gasket. Being careful in nature, I thoroughly cleaned and inspected the good gasket to ensure it would seal properly before placing it back on the motor.

My only remaining task was to refill the crankcase, but I had used all but about a quart and a half of my oil. So, it was off to town, chauffeured by Beth, to procure more oil. Since we self-reliant country boys like to live a good bit outside town, it was forty-five minutes later when I returned home to top off my oil. By this time it was dark and hard to see what I was doing, so I topped off the oil a little too well. In fact, it was about two quarts too well. So, I drug out my trusty drain pan again and went back under the truck to drain two quarts of brand new oil. Adding two quarts of oil is fairly easy since it comes in handy one-quart bottles. However, draining two quarts of oil is a lot harder. I used the timing method, which amounts to pulling the drain plug and counting off a few seconds before re-inserting it. After two trips out from under the truck and leaving my flashlight at the wrong location both times, I had removed half the needed oil. Being somewhat of a math whiz, I reasoned that I should add the two previous drain times for one last trip under the truck to reach the desired oil level. Reason went out the window and I totally lost count when the slick little drain plug slipped out of my hand. After some frantic searching and quite a bit of general thrashing, I remembered the story of the little Dutch boy and jammed my finger into the drain hole. After doing my imitation of a turtle stranded on its back, I located the drain plug and tightened it securely into place. Surprisingly, the oil level was right where I wanted it. I cleaned up my tools, parked the truck, and hustled into the house to clean up.

So, in summary, it took me about three hours to change my own oil including the trip to town for more oil. I ended up spilling a couple of quarts of oil on the ground, which Al Gore will tell you can make an oil slick about four acres in size while simultaneously driving several species to the brink of extinction. Luckily, and quite responsibly I might add, I spilled my oil in the gravel instead of seeking the nearest four acre pond. Additionally, I drained about two quarts of perfectly good oil into my drain pan that will be hauled to the Lawrence County Solid Waste Transfer Station where it will likely be drained into a nearby sinkhole.

The moral of this story? I did it myself. Despite all the dumb stuff that happened, I still know I can do it myself…so long as Wal-Mart will keep selling me oil and Beth will keep driving me to town. Rock on, Bocephus.

Camp quotes

Here are my favorite quotes of the week:

Lester on what he needed folks to do for him: “Shut up and don’t question my judgment.”

Matthew: “Whether by mouth or by other avenue, it is time for night time meds.”

Lester on the microphone during mail call: “Remember baptisms are free this year.”

Caleb on the Beth’s Roomba: “Aaaa! It’s an alien!”

Dookie pronouncement on eating his seventh biscuit with gravy: “It’s God’s number.”

Paul Armstrong to Gary: “Your daughter is beautiful.  I bet she’ll have good eyesight when she grows up.”

Corp after staring at Liz throughout breakfast, “Umm, Curt, Liz Young has been staring at me.  Can you ask her to stop?”  And later to Liz: “I’m not a piece of meat.”

Caleb to Gary prior to leaving on Friday: “I hope you win the concert tonight.”

Camp, take me away!

One week from today I will be basking in the glory of SMBC.  Life has been weighing me down lately and I need the break.  I need the time to quiet the noise and re-focus my life.  It reminds me of the silly Calgon commercials that used to be on during my Mom’s “stories.”  It featured a woman facing some hectic situation and she would say, “Calgon, take me away!”  The scene would then cut to her relaxing in a Calgon bubble bath.  Camp isn’t a relaxing bubble bath, but it is refreshment for the soul and I can’t wait.