TEMPORARY INSANITY
OR PERMANENT STATE OF CONFUSION?

I was just telling a friend about my new hairdo with new blonde highlights. She pointed out a philosophical question that I hadn't really considered:

Why do we call them "permanents"?

They aren't.

Why don't we call them "temporaries"?

Yes, questions like these will . . . curl your hair.

NEWS FLASH FROM THE KINGDOM OF RANDOM:
WACKY PAPERWEIGHT

I bow in the presence of greatness. I thought I had some unusual stuff. But today, I had coffee with a writer friend who said that he had a paperweight that was a . . .

. . . SHELLACKED BUFFALO CHIP!!!

Now, that's unusual.

DR. BOWWOW OCTAGONAPUS?
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO JOE BLOW?

I was chuckling over the nickname of our uncle's best friend, BowWow. He is in his 70s but still carries the name well. There's nobody like him! After all these years, I finally asked where it came from. Turns out the two of them met a cab driver named BowWow Spitzenberger. How could you NOT adopt a name like that?

Any thought that the older generation had weird names compared to the current crop was quashed when our 10-year-old collapsed in gales of laughter over a video cartoon on her hand-held Nintendo. The bad guy was named "Dr. Octagonapus." Wonder if his first name might be BowWow?!?

IN THIS CULTURE,
GOTTA THINK ON YOUR FEET

A little one asked her mom, "What does 'WTF' mean?"

The mom barely blinked. "Welcome To Facebook."

Kid smiled. Mom sighed. Deviancy stalemated . . . for one more day, anyway.

FALLBACK POSITION:
MYSTERIOUS UNIVERSITY IQ TEST

A young relative was worried and upset because her 2-year-old son fell in love with a pair of pink cupcake Valentine's socks in the dollar bin at Target, and was wearing them with glee.

I told her not to worry about it; I was mad at my husband when he bought our two young daughters Matchbox cars, as if he was trying to turn them into sons. Then I relaxed when I saw how they were playing with them: one little girl would stand her Matchbox car up on two tires and mince over to the other one's little car, lisping, "Hi! What's your name? I like you! Let's play together!"

They were using them like dolls, and it alllllll worked out just fine. No long-term gender confusion.

Anyway, I told my relative, you can always tell the neighbors he's wearing the pink cupcake Valentine's socks as part of a mysterious university IQ test! That always shuts 'em up.

EVEN A MASTER EVANGELIST
HAS THOSE "WHOOPS" DAYS

We had the honor of picking up New York Times best-selling author Lee Strobel yesterday, shuttling him from the airport to our church to speak at the two morning services, and then back again.

We had already bought his books and had them autographed during his last visit in 2009, but it was still a thrill this time to get two more copies of "The Case for a Creator" for two science-minded seekers that we know.

Lee joked that with the current craze toward eBooks and downloading electronic versions of books on Kindles, Nooks, iPads and so forth, he may not get many chances to give autographs any more.

His novel, due out in May, will have an electronic version with some exciting features that will allow you to click on an icon and see a short video with background information on the setting or other aspects of the novel. Very cool!

We discussed how it is sometimes hard to share your faith in this fast-changing world, in which you often get blasted for trying to do that, or thwarted some other way.

Lee put us at ease with this story:

Someone close to him is an atheist, and even though Lee had given him copies of his books in the past, the loved one just wouldn't read them. Then Lee gave him an audiobook, and hoped and prayed that the different approach would be a good hook.

A short while later, he found out that his loved one never got a chance to listen to much of it . . . because it happened to be in the car CD player when he had his car up for sale . . . and a Buddhist family test-drove the car, liked what they were hearing on the CD, and, though they didn't buy the car, they DID ask if they could keep the CD. And the fellow let them.

SIGH! But oh, well. Could be his CD wound up converting the Buddhists, even if it didn't work for the one he meant it for.

And that's par for the course. For an evangelist, tomorrow is always another day!

TECHNO-KLUTZ
STRIKES AGAIN

I wrestled all morning with a confused wireless router that was messing up my email and Internet connection. I was forced to rely on trying to focus my aging eyeballs on the eentsy weentsy type on my BlackBerry. Alternately, I was sliding my formerly nicotine-stained fingers up and down my new iPad to catch up with the many, many world-changing Facebook posts I'd been missing (NOT!).

After all that multitasking, I had to buzz to the mall to get a birthday party present for our daughter. On a tight schedule, I whipped into a parking place, slammed the car door, and hustled for the mall, pushing repeatedly on the automatic doorlock device on my keychain to lock the door behind me.

Didn't hear the click. STILL didn't hear the click.

"Stupid thing's busted," I muttered . . .

. . . only to find that it was my BlackBerry in my hand, and I was hitting a button on it repeatedly that definitely did not connect to my car doorlock . . .

. . . revealing that "IT"wasn't the "stupid" thing after all.

LET'S SHOW KIM
THAT WE LOVE HIM

A popular educator from Elkhorn, Neb., fell off a scaffolding at his house last November and severely injured himself. He is Kim Baumert, husband and father of three beautiful daughters. He's in a rehabilitation hospital getting ready to move home ASAP. He is facing incredible, new, unexpected expenses in the near future.

Won't you please challenge yourself and your friends to give, generously, to the fund-raiser that is being held Feb. 13 to encourage Kim and his family, and enable his homecoming?

Please check out all that is happening, and see how to donate, on:

http://sites.google.com/site/kimbaumertfamily/