Just a pleasure visiting the wayback, remembering my daughter’s first far-flung travel. And a chance to reprise it for Christmas and New Years wishes from the original Santa Claus. Many lay claim to the origins of the Santa legend, but St. Nicholas, of the ancient city of Myra in Turkey, is the real deal. Trace them back, most other countries’ Santa legends are spinoffs.

Oliver was crossing the street Sunday night. Suddenly, with his peripheral vision, he noticed a huge object headed straight for him --- a brand new Toyota Tacoma with the headlights turned off was about to run him down. With seconds to spare he twisted his body just enough to put both of his hands on the hood of the truck. The impact propelled him on top of the truck and then his body rolled over to the pavement.

My life flashed before me (in a good way) last night. I picked up my old dusty Bible that my wife gifted to me back in 1995 as a Father's Day present. I had put it aside for several years because the book binding had given up on the pages and the wrinkled sheets kept on falling off. I'm one of those who abuse books --- I underline, write notes and even draw pictures (lots of them because I'm a visual learner) on the margins and in between columns. Reading my desecrated notes, I was impressed at the insights from my "quiet time" and the many teachers that passed on their scriptural wisdom to me. What a joy! What a treasure! Many of my notes were written when my kids were still under 10 years old. I carried that Bible as well as the many milk bottles and toys we had to drag along whenever we went out. No wonder it got beat up.

A woman was cranky because her husband had been coming home late every night. Today was especially bad because he decided to work late and it was Thanksgiving morning. So she decided to leave a note saying, "I've had enough and left you, don't bother coming after me" and she hid under the bed to watch his reaction.

Me: "Hello." Tech Support: "Hello. This is Bob Bobson from Microsoft Support. We are seeing a lot of virus activity from your device."