long live the lightening bolts!!!

winners of the Bible Jeopardy challenge today – don’t get me started on all the mistakes we made – starting with the team name…

“Running with Phidippides” – amazing story of the 1946 boston marathon winner – he was from greece – survived the nazi occupation for five years – five years of starvation for his people – after seven years off running – he decided december ’45 to run and win boston – in four months time – and he went out and did just that – which is truly remarkable – very inspiring story

“eight keys” – okay, lil bri – help an old man out – this was elem BOB, right??? it was better than anything at the middle school – and ironically about middle school – 6th grade – but it wasn’t great – at all

“the last season” – awesome book about a political strategist who at 60, took a fall off and took his 95-year old father – and 86 year old mother – around for ole miss’s 2013 football season – included flashbacks of going to the games in the 1960s – just a heart-warming amazing read – all my guys that love football and have watched it with their dads would love this book

“swimming upstream” – i’ve got a ton of ideas from this book for teaching next year – just for starters… i want to teach everyone to be a Detective – rather than get a bad grade on a quiz and say “I’m a failure/loser/never going to get this” – treat it like evidence – and you’re a detective – would the evidence really confirm that you’re a failure/loser – or would it just say that you didn’t do well on one quiz? for my kids that overtrust their emotions, i think the detective thing is a good way to pull back from that – thoughts???

maf

dry enough to be the valley of dry bones from zeke 37…

it was all i could do to read with comprehension since i have pre-parade anxiety…

“calvin” – calvin and hobbes – i think billy is a fan – honestly, you all should be – anyway, this book envisioned a boy, 17, who imagines a pet tiger – and tries to hunt down the cartoonist to help solve his mental illness – the book was very atypical YA – as such, i really, really enjoyed it – would be a great high school BOB

“the lost art of reading nature’s signs” – cool book – i learned several ways to spot north – outside of a smartphone:) i also learned a bit about nature – birds and deer – and about weather – ooh, and i don’t feel as special now – i thought i was the only one that saw shooting stars – or space dust – but turns out, they occur a lot at parts of the year – and at a rate of like every six minutes – so i should seem them when i run early on the weekends

“missoula” – saved the best for last – although, not a young adult book at all – that said, it should be read by every high school senior going off to college – as a law junkie, i found the court coverage awesome – just like the book – but awesome in a way that the book is incredibly sad – unfortunately, i will probably be the only person that will read it at the public library – because people have this notion that if you ignore sad things, then sad things never come – which is completely absurd – but the book was really good about reminding me how important it is to take every elected office seriously – the county prosecuting attorney in missoula was a former defense lawyer – and the book reminded me of the somewhat tragic existence of freshman college girls

mafeld

the sky is now blue instead of black at 5 am in the morning…

oh, those long summer days…

“every day i fight” – espn anchor stuart scott – this one is at the county public library – so great for my sportscenter guys – but very sad – b/c it was a goodbye book to his daughters – scott passed away of cancer early this year – the book talked about the hardest thing to do in life – keep hope when hope isn’t there – really good – and prayers for his daughters who will grow up w/o a wonderful father

“the art of character” – great book – the basic premise that we’ve lost humility in today’s world – we don’t admit to sin, personal sin – we inflate ourselves to be the center of the universe – now, those ideas aren’t new, they’re a large part of the conservative view, but the author made the ideas new in his argument – so it wasn’t just left/right political deal – and i’ve taken more to considering my faults daily – which i think is good and healthy

“saban” – great book coming out in august about everyone’s favorite football coach:)

“losers take all” – YA – i know, i finally got around to reading another one of those – of course, it was a disappointment – they all are:) in the book, a school forces all seniors to play a sport – one group decides on purpose to be bad – really bad – so it’s their story

i need Coach Tone to write an inspirational book in the middle of Binder Girl II…

 

maf

last call for presidential announcements

i’m amazed that my choices for “podcast of the week” in cspan are a huge list of presidential announcements – yawn…

“john walker: champion” – once upon a time, there was a miler who ran really fast for a really long time – from essentially 1972-1984 – often, biographies can be more like a subject – so rather than telling a story, it’s just giving advice on running – this book was good – even autographed straight from connecticut to the local library – it was a personal story – so i enjoyed the book more than i thought i would

“in defense of a liberal education” – the book that answers the question “why do i need to study _____ b/c i’ll never need it in life” – if you haven’t realized it yet, there’s probably a lot in life that you’ll learn that you technically may never need – so why learn it? because the process of learning is fun – and should be celebrated – tragically, we live in an age where everyone’s supposed to know what they want to do by 8th grade (become a detective) and then focus all on that – this book rejects a narrow/technical focus early in celebration of learning for the joy of knowing things – it was a good point

“2 hours” – book coming out in the fall on the marathon’s quest to break the two hour barrier – very awesome book

back to watching women’s world cup

mafeld

“live from the library, it’s monday morning!!!”

so the internet mice chewed out wires way back on friday – so i have dropped off the web for the time being

i’m so lost as a result… 🙂

it was good to hear from the bunny killer – everyone else, meh…

“long shot” – by piazza – 63rd round pick made it to the big leagues – and will more than likely be a HOFer some day (hall of fame for everyone NOT billy) – it was a whiny book though – lots of “everyone misunderstood how awesome i am” type stuff – giving the guy credit, he was sensitive – and most athletes don’t do that in a biography – but that said, he was really sensitive

“boston” – by higdon – book on the marathon in 1996 – good – some old stories – fit well with the demar book from the week before

“boston by the mile” – this one was the awesome book of the week – like great trivia – the second city we run through, ashland, was named after kentucky’s trees – there are no ash trees in Massachusetts – so that was a cool fact i hope to remember early in next year’s race

“natural born heroes” – another good one – the guy that wrote “born to run” has one that incorporates a crazy WWII plot to kidnap a german general with greek gods and goddesses – i was fired up to refind my edith hamilton’s mythology book afterward

sorry again about this being so late – i understand if billy is too swamped with VBS to respond – everyone else, great first week:)

mafeld