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Tomorrow Zaque will be teaching not one, but two lessons at church. The first is in his Sunday School class, and the second is in his young mens’ group. Laralee and I were asking him whether he’s prepared (since it’s now Saturday evening). His response:

It’s a long story, but Zaque carefully explained the three rules of Chinese Fire Drills.

1. You shall not ask if it’s okay to have a Chinese Fire Drill. You shall simply announce it. Loudly.

2. If you hear someone announce a Chinese Fire Drill, you must participate. Even if you’re the driver.

3. You shall not plan a Chinese Fire Drill in advance.

Apparently there was a Situation the other night– which he’s still upset about– wherein all three rules were broken. Oh, the travesty.

You know it’s going to be a good day when you plug in three USB peripherals blindly, and all three of them are the right way.

One of our favorite family games (sorry Mom!) is King of Tokyo. Last night we were playing, and Zaque managed to get a few power cards early in the game that led to a cascading flood of cash (well, technically energy) so he could buy more cards. By the end of the game, he was sitting on so many powers he had to review them every turn to figure out how much damage he was doing…

I’d been eliminated at this point. Laralee almost beat him with a strong roll of five claws, but Zaque managed to squeak out of certain death and eventually win. The funny part: he won with 20 stars, which is (in his words) “the coward’s way”. He was actually forced to win that way, rather than by slaughtering everyone else.

I don’t remember seeing anyone sit on that many power cards at once. I guess last night, he truly was the King.

True to what we said in our riveting work conversation the other day, both Noah and I ordered the Cat Riding a Rainbow-Barfing Space Shark shirts. They arrived yesterday, and we both wore them to the office today.

I will say this: it’s a surprisingly comfortable and apparently well-made shirt. My expectations were pretty low, so I was pleased that it turned out well. And now I have a shirt that’s breathtaking to behold, and sure to start conversations.

A few days ago, Laralee and I disagreed about something (I don’t actually remember what it was, but certainly it was of enormous importance). We bet on it, and the loser had to make homemade hot fudge.

I won.

Today, as I’m working on taxes (whee!) I figured it was time to cash in.

Out of the blue, Noah suggested at work (via our Slack channel) that we should have “uniforms” at Zing. He directed us to a company with an Amazon page, where they sold the most breathtaking sweatshirts imaginable.

I bought one.

So did he and Ben… and maybe, just maybe, Nick decided to go with the “90’s disposable cup” pattern. We’ll see if, one of these days, the Zing office is a place that will make visitors’ eyes bleed.

Here’s the entire hilarious conversation.

Today I was running some errands, and I had a Kohl’s coupon. I dropped into the store to see if they had some ties that caught my eye. It’s been a while since I bought a tie. My collection is pretty impressive, but I’m always on the prowl for more.

Anyway, I ended up buying four of them:

When I showed them to Laralee, she raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You have plenty of ties. I think you have a problem.”

Problem? I wear a tie six days a week, always with a white shirt and black or grey slacks. I need something to liven up that wardrobe!

A little over seven years ago, I shaved off my long-time goatee. This is pretty much how I felt:

To this day, most people can’t guess how old I am. To my surprise (and, I must admit, my great pleasure) they generally pick something in the mid-30’s. There’s something to be said for a babyface.

Today in seminary I was teaching about faith, and how sometimes we’re asked to believe in something we can’t see or even understand. For example, take quantum tunnelling: we hear that it’s possible for an electron to literally teleport from one side of a wall to another, without covering the distance between. That’s so far outside what we expect in our world that it’s hard to wrap our brains around. But it’s absolutely true, backed up by experiments and a whole bucketload of math.

So, I thought it would be fun to show the class the “bible” of quantum mechanics, my old college textbook!

I wrote out an equation describing tunnelling and potential wells and stuff, but the class screamed in horror. Math at 6am doesn’t go over well.