Ghost Photo

Well, once again the ebb and flow of my life this week didn't allow me to get to writing until it was too late in the day to trouble your Inbox, so, as always, everything you may have missed is here on the blog.

Meanwhile, drive safe this weekend as the day turns to dusk. Little ones will quite possibly be out extorting candy from strangers by use of excessive cuteness.

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A photographer went to a castle determined to snap a photo of a ghost that was said to appear at midnight only once every 100 years.

So the photographer waited, sitting in the dark, and suddenly the apparition appears before him.

The ghost turned out to be a friendly one and agreed to pose for the snapshot. The happy photographer grabbed the shot, the ghost disappeared, and the photographer quickly called up the image on his camera's viewscreen ... and then he groaned at the mostly black image.

It seems the spirit was willing but the flash was weak.

[Net 153s Smile A Day]

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WEBSITE of the WEEK: It's still that time of year ... have a great youth outing with your church or school at a local corn maze. Find one at http://www.mazeplay.com/. But hurry before the weather turns too unbearably brisk.

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Mark's Musings is available via an RSS Feed, a Facebook Note, the Amazon Kindle and via e-mail each weekday (usually). Subscriptions are free. ISSN 2154-9761.

Yard Sale Rules

My parents furnished a good chunk of their home with yard sale items and held their own mega-sales until their vehicle collision three years ago. And while the yard sale bug never really got under my skin, I do appreciate finding a bargain. Our subdivision holds a big sale every Mother's Day weekend here.

If you enjoy visiting yard sales, then you will probably find this handy Yard Sale Treasure Map helpful. You plug in your address and the program pulls all the yard sales posted on Craigslist - where the majority of people advertise these days - within a set amount of miles from your starting point.

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YARD SALE RULES

Anything that looks awful at a yard sale will continue to look awful in your home.

Never buy health insurance at a yard sale.

There is only one set of junk for yard sales, and every family gets to rent it from a central office in Peoria and sell it on rotating weekends.

Decide in advance what you want to buy and how much you want to spend. Then completely forget about these rules at the first place you stop.

Remember, if you can't possibly give something away, you probably *can* sell it.

Try to avoid spending $20 on gas to drive around to yard sales where you will argue about paying $3.25 for a lamp marked $4.00.

[selected from ha life.com]

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WORDS for YOUR WEEK: "One of the oldest problems puzzled over in the Talmud is, 'Why did God create goyim?' (a group of people who are not Jewish). The generally accepted answer is, 'somebody has to buy retail.' " (Arthur Naiman)

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Bad Vacation Bible School

Our annual "Hometown Days" festival starts today and runs through Sunday. We close off a section of the main thoroughfare through town and a carnival sets up. Tilt-A-Whirl, Ferris Wheel, Bumper Cars, Big Slide, A Fun House, Chair-O-Planes, and Games of Chance and Skill ... all for a shockingly overpriced ticket amount. We also have some county fair type of things ... oh, heck, you can check it all out here. There's a parade, a big name concert on Sunday -- last year we had one of the "American Idol" runner-ups plus national Christian recording artist Mark Schultz (my band was privileged to warm up for him) -- so really, it's just a big party for about four days, and a lot of fun.

It's one clear sign in our little corner of the world that summer is just about here.

And that means that Vacation Bible Schools will be starting before you know it.

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LEAST POPULAR VBS CHARACTERS and PROGRAMS

Samson with the Wet, Hacking Cough

Noah's Incontinent Ark Adventure

Grizzly Gordon's Mountain Top Kids and the Isolated Plane Crash

Bandito Bad Kid and the Hallelujah Hooligans

40 Years in the Hot Desert with Stale Cookies

God Loves Little Four Eyes, Too!

Carnival Kyle, the Clean-the-Empty-Lot Clown

Castaway Bob's Island of Bi-Polar Puppets

[© 2005 by Dave Tippet via Mikey's Funnies; permission to reprint is granted with full attribution, but not commercially]

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WISDOM for YOUR WEEK: "For nothing is impossible with God." (Luke 1:37)

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Mark's Musings dresses up in an RSS Feed and can also arrive via e-mail each weekday. Get your own subscription - for free! - by clicking here.

Foxhole

Trolling the web for something interesting last night, this story grabbed my attention. Perhaps because it happened just about an hour south of here.

In a Detroit neighborhood, a woman heard the burglar alarm at her next door neighbor's house go off. She went to the window and looked across the driveway that separated their property to see three men in the midst of a breaking and entering act.

One of the men noticed her observing them, pulled out a weapon and fired at her. The woman was struck by the shot but escaped serious harm, however, when the bullet was deflected ... by the underwire in her bra.

And you thought I was kidding.

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A young soldier fighting in Italy during World War II managed to jump into a foxhole just ahead of a spray of bullets. He immediately attempted to deepen the foxhole, for more protection.

As he was frantically scraping at the dirt with his hands, he uncovered a silver crucifix, apparently left behind by a previous occupant of the foxhole.

As the frightened soldier stared in wonder at the crucifix, another figure leapt into the foxhole next to him. The soldier turned to discover that the new occupant was an Army Chaplain.

Holding up the crucifix, the young soldier cried, "Am I glad to see you! How do you work this thing?"

[ChapNotes via Wit and Wisdom]

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WONDER for YOUR WEEK: What's the purpose behind training bras? What can we possibly teach them?

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Mark's Musings is dressed in an RSS Feed or can come via e-mail each weekday. Get your own subscription - they usually don't have lingerie stories, honest - with a quick click here.

A Taste of the Celtic

Every year the little town of Saline, Michigan hosts a Celtic Festival. Their sister city is Brecon, in Wales, and the festival began in honor of that relationship. You can read more about it here.

We went down with four good friends last Saturday and, mostly, enjoyed the day. The picture above was right near the entrance and let us know immediately that we were at a Celtic Festival. One assumes that this event happens, presumably, *before* you've eaten the Haggis.

I say we "mostly" enjoyed the day because Steve made a mad dash for the shuttle bus just after we'd parked the van and ripped a hamstring muscle. He insisted we stay and enjoy ourselves, so we did, but the poor guy limped around the grounds all day and just had to be in nine kinds of pain.

The weather called for scattered showers and so my wife didn't bring her good camera, leaving just my cell phone to snap some photos, which I did. They are now up on my website. There's only five of them, including the one above, but there ya go.

Best line of the day? From the band "Tartan Terrors" when they said, "What's the difference between England and yogurt? Yogurt has an active culture."