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After all the hamburgers I have eaten in my life, I must be an expert. Now, when they say, "You are what you eat", oh that's scary. I'm the world's largest hamburger. I might have to spend the rest of my life on a bun. No, no, no. Well, my schedule actually sometimes leaves me no choice but fast food. I'm kind of stuck with something like a fast-food hamburger.
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It's really hard for me to drive by Civil War battlefields without stopping. I'm a history buff, and I like to stop at those things! Now, when I say Civil War, I might have to explain that to some of my friends, because if you grew up in the South, they say there was nothing civil about it. It was the War Between the States. At least that's what they taught my wife at her school. One of the battlefields that I've driven by a lot is in New Market, Virginia.
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Back in my old Bible school days, some of my friends liked to get a little "punchy" when they got tired. And that's when you would see them doing what they would call "rapture practice." Yeah, you probably know the Bible describes Christ's coming for His own people, and a trumpet will sound and Christians caught up in the air to meet Him.
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It was one of the classic commercials of all time. It was the Alka Seltzer commercial: two tablets dropping into a glass of water to the tune of "plop, plop, fizz, fizz"? Usually, they showed someone eating something disagreeable just before bedtime; someone who could only be rescued from terminal indigestion with "plop, plop, fizz, fizz". Several years ago, I met someone who knew that agony; the agony of late night stomach revolt.
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Boxing! Some people like it and a lot of people don't. But those ever present "Rocky" movies sort of elevated boxing to a battlefield between the nice guy underdog and the not-so-nice favorite. A lot of boxing favorites thought it was sort of a rocky matchup when Evander Holyfield went against Mike Tyson some years ago for the WBA Heavyweight Championship. Now, Holyfield was a 25/1 underdog when the fight was booked. Tyson was the almost invincible Iron Mike, called by some commentators the baddest man on the planet. Well, much to almost everyone's surprise, including Las Vegas where a lot of money was lost, the underdog - Holyfield - soundly defeated Mike Tyson.
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On the one hand, the drive from New York to Chicago can be pretty long and boring. On the other hand, it can be an opportunity to get a lot of work done if someone else is driving. I was typing in my laptop computer while my wife was driving. (Not recommended to type on your computer while you are driving!) I was trying to meet some deadlines but my battery wasn't up to the task.
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A self-respecting hummingbird would never have been caught where we used to live, because there were just way too many people. But now we are in a quieter area where we get to see those little guys. They're the original helicopters you know. They hover; they dart around with their wings moving so fast you can hardly see them. If you want to have them visit your place, your best bet (My wife tells me) is to hang a hummingbird feeder outside. You fill it with this sweet sugar nectar, (It's delicious. I tried some) and before long they zoom up to that feeder, they insert their long straw, I mean beak, and then they start loading up on the sweet stuff.
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It was a steep trail! It was during the summer and we were up about 12,000 feet on this mountain. Of course the air was pretty thin, but it was worth the climb because my wife and I were hiking up to this magnificent glacier. Now, you can't see it from the road, but as you climb the mountain, you finally get a peek at it near the top of the trail. That would be shortly before I collapsed from oxygen deprivation. There's this beautiful white blanket on top of the mountain, especially at the end of the summer. Actually, it looked more beautiful from a distance.
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Once a year, it's gets to be that time again-annual physical checkup. I know it's important, but that doesn't mean I have to get excited about it. I mean, they're going to poke me, and they're going to take my blood, and they're going to analyze me, and they're going to weigh me, and they're going to test me and hook me up to machines. Of course one of those is especially important in light of my family's cardiac history. Sometimes they give me an electrocardiogram; otherwise known as an EKG. And in a sense, that EKG gives information you couldn't get without it. It's sort of a picture of what's really going on inside my heart.
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Our friend, Kathy, has walked to get around most of her life. Recently she started floating. Yeah, she got the glow, a new bounce in her voice when she answers the phone, a new confidence. Kathy's more alive than we've ever seen her. Now, what magic could bring about all these wonders? If you haven't guessed, you've been away too long. She's in love! She's in her twenties, and this is her first really big romance. It might be her lifelong romance. It's pretty exciting to watch.
