PE Connections with Eric Treuil

My interview with Eric Treuil, Chi Alpha South-Central Area Director.

Crocs of Costa Rica

Wild crocodiles infest the Rio Tarcoles in Costa Rica. I shot these in June 2010 when I was in Costa Rica for a week of ministry.

Throw the Bums Out

Stanford & Oregon Roll

The 2 NCAA Football results I was glad to see yesterday:

No. 16 Stanford Downs Notre Dame, 37-14

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (Sports Network) - Nate Whitaker connected on all five of his field goal attempts and two-way player Owen Marecic scored on consecutive plays from scrimmage in the fourth quarter, as No. 16 Stanford cruised past offense-starved Notre Dame, 37-14.

No. 5 Oregon Downs Arizona State, 42-31

TEMPE, Ariz. (Sports Network) - Darron Thomas threw for a pair of touchdowns and ran for another score, as fifth-ranked Oregon opened its Pac-10 slate with a 42-31 win over Arizona State at Sun Devil Stadium.

My interview with Curt Harlow

New PE Connections with Curt Harlow, Chi Alpha West Coast Area Director, just posted on AGTV.

Ditka on Singletary

I am Ken. And I am a Forty-Niner fan. I feel this confession is important. I am one of the frustrated faithful.

Football has not been kind to Niner fans for a bunch of years. We were reminded of this last night when Jerry Rice's #80 jersey was retired. There stood Joe Montana behind him. Steve Young had been on the pre-game. Those were the days.

But the glory days have long been over for the Prospectors. Forget about championships, wins have been hard to come by. And we had no chance at all last night facing the New Orleans Saints, right? Well, we had a chance. And when we scored the TD and replay gave us the 2-point conversion to tie the reigning Super Bowl champs with a little over a minute to go, I didn't even cheer. I felt it was inevitable.

When the Saints' 3-pointer knuckled through with no time left on the clock, I turned off the TV, kissed my wife, and went to bed. (I stayed up late for this? Games are 2 hours later here in Missouri than in my old California home.)

The Niners played great most of the time, and indeed could have beaten the Saints ... if it hadn't been for several bonehead plays. Oh, well. This is my reality. And at least I'm not a Cowboys fan.

But there was a highlight for me ... not in the game, but in the pregame show. I don't usually watch it, but since my Niners were making a rare Monday night appearance I turned it on.

The highlight came from something commentator Mike Ditka said. I can't believe I would ever be impressed by something said by Iron Mike, the legendary player and coach of the Chicago Bears who many fans loved to hate.

Talking about Singletary, perhaps the best middle linebacker ever, who played for him on the Bears, Ditka actually talked about his Christian faith and his character.

He said that Singletary was a man "driven by his faith.'

Ditka said that Singletary has made it clear that the priorities of his life are "faith, family, and football," in that order. And then Ditka said what really mattered. He said that Singletary lives what he says.

Near the end of the segment, Ditka said that as good as Singletary is as a football player and coach, "he's even better as a person."

High praise. High-light!

Competition at My Favorite Fishing Hole

This great blue heron was actually standing right in my preferred spot when I arrived last week. This was taken after he moved a short distance off. Not surprisingly, I caught nothing in that spot. It takes a lot of fish to fill this big bird up.

PE Connections with Gina White

My interview with Gina White, Chi Alpha Director at the University of North Carolina.

Our Suspicions Are Correct

From Andrew Malcolm of the LA Times:

We now know that federal employees across the nation owe fully $1 billion in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.

As in, 1,000 times one million dollars. All this political jabber about giving middle-class Americans a tax cut. Thousands of feds have been giving themselves one all along -- unofficially. And these tax scofflaws include more than three dozen folks who work for the president with that newly decorated Oval Office.

The Post's T.W. Farnum did some research and found that out of the total sum, just 638 workers on Capitol Hill owe the IRS $9.3 million in back taxes. As in, overdue. The IRS gets stiffed by the legislative body that controls its budget. How Washington works.

...
Privacy laws prevent release of individual tax delinquents' names. But we do know that as of the end of 2009, 41 people inside Obama's very own White House owe the government they're allegedly running a total of $831,055 in back taxes. That would cover a lot of special chocolate desserts in the White House Mess.

In the House of Representatives, 421 people owe a total $6,524,892. In the Senate, 217 owe $2,774,836. In the IRS' parent department, Treasury, 1,204 owe $7,670,814. At the Labor Department, where Secretary Hilda Solis' husband had some back-tax problems before her confirmation, 463 owe $7,481,463. Eighty-one workers for the Federal Reserve System's board of governors owe $1,076,733.

Over at the Justice Department, which is so busy enforcing other laws and suing Arizona, 1,971 employees still owe $14,350,152 in overdue taxes.

Then, we come to the Department of Homeland Security, which is run by Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona who preferred to call terrorist acts "man-caused disasters." ...

Within that department, there reside 4,856 people who owe the tax agency a whopping total of $37,012,174.

Full article here.

PE Connections with Sarah Malcolm

Pentecostal Evangel Editor Ken Horn visits with Sarah Malcolm, National Chi Alpha Training Team

Oliver Squirrel

Next General Council in Phoenix

Make plans now to be a part of the 54th General Council in Phoenix, August 2011. generalcouncil.org

Interview with Dr. George O. Wood & David Grant

The World AG Congress is the topic as Dr. George O. Wood, Chairman of the World AG Fellowship, and David Grant, Director of Eurasia Development and founder of Project Rescue, visit with Editor Ken Horn.

The Congress will be held in Chennai, India, Feb. 6-9. Visit worldagfellowship.org for more info.

PE Connections: Terry Broadwater

My interview with Terry Broadwater, Director of the Chi Alpha Network.