Odds and Ends

Saturday my son in law’s younger brother got married and my grandson JJ got to be the ring bearer. He was very serious about getting the job done properly as he stood motionless until asked for the rings. He held the heart shaped pillow up and knew right away that his part was over; looking over his shoulder at me with a huge smile and then popping a thumb’s up sign as he winked. I never notice stuff like that, never.

Somehow I was involved in a conversation about magic shows and performers. I happen to mention that I’d seen plenty of good magicians; but one of the most memorable was a kid trying to show off a fairly simple trick. Just a guess on his age, put him somewhere between 8 – 11 years old as he stood by himself in front of the audience with perfect confidence.

“I’m going to make this ketchup bottle disappear right before your eyes.”, holding the familiar shaped bottle for all to see. He then took an everyday brown lunch sack and carefully introduced the ketchup bottle into the inverted bag.

We wanted the boy to enjoy his “magic”, holding a straight face, all the while observing the shape of the ketchup bottle cloaked within the brown paper bag. Everyone started clapping and the young magician smiled and bowed, carefully maintaining a grip on the sack. He crushed the empty sack into a ball providing the real end of his performance; the ketchup bottle wasn’t in the sack and we never figured out how he fooled us, great close up magic.

Our Sunday School instructor was getting us off and running as we begin a course of study in the New Testament this year. He went over the basic outline and showed us a King James Bible on CD ( link via title bar ) that’s available through the LDS distribution center for about 6 dollars. He said that most of what’s on the disc is available via the internet; then went on to say that for the serious scholars they could read the Bible in Hebrew, Greek or Spanish with the English version on one side of the screen along side the language of choice. It might be fun looking at such a display side by side; of course I’d be lost as a goose since I speak neither Spanish, Greek and for sure not Hebrew. I enjoy the ease of looking up Scripture on the Church website; all the same it might be worth sending $ 6 just to say I had the fancy one next time anyone asked what I was studying this year at Sunday School; that and an hour a day spent studying the New Testament might impress the instructor.

Extra points if you identify the challenge and correctly record it in the comment section.