Around the House
We have another graduate in the family. My son Val, (pictured at left with his friend Lyndal), received an Honor Diploma last night at our local high school graduation. He has grown into a fine young man. He plans to attend Harding University, my alma mater, and major in Bible with an emphasis in Missions. He also plans to use his elective hours to fulfill the prerequisites for optometry school. Once he becomes an optometrist, he hopes to work 10 or 11 months per year and spend 1-2 months each year doing mission work. Yeah, I'm VERY proud of him!
Around the Town

Look at the picture to your right. See the girl right in the middle? The one with a charcoal-colored headband? Her name is Shekinna Stricklen. You'll likely hear it again, if you're a basketball fan. She just finished her junior year at our local high school and has already made All-State three years in a row. This year, she was named a Parade All-American, and in many recruiting polls, is the top recruit for high school girls, class of 2008.
The big news this week is that Shekinna has been invited to the USA Women's Basketball Olympic Team trials in Colorado Springs next month. The school hosted a fund-raiser yesterday with hopes of covering the costs for Shekinna and her parents to fly to Colorado Springs, their motel expenses, and a rental car. The community really came through for this cause, raising over twice the goal amount. We're all very proud of Shekinna and the entire Morrilton Lady Devil Dog basketball team (2006 State Champions--pictured above; 2007 State Runners-Up).
Oh, and yes, my daughter, "Miss I'm a Big College Girl Now," is in that pic, too--just a little to the right and down from Shekinna. (You can see her star shining!)
And, as if we didn't have enough things to worry about...
I bumped into an article this week that said many blogs are judged by the (since I forgot the writer's exact word, I'll paraphrase) "coolness" of their RSS Feed Icon. Blogs are apparently judged by numerous criteria: Technorati rankings; Platform (WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, etc.); theme or template; Google placement; how geeky the blogger is; and...I'm sure the list goes on. Well, not to be outdone by the blogsperts out there, I inserted a new feed icon into my blog this week. I even went into the code file and changed the color to match. (Pretty geeky of me, huh?)
I've been wondering about blogs lately. I mean, does anyone really read them? We all have blogrolls, but who reads all those blogs? There are probably millions of them out there, swarming around cyberspace.
It's kind of like Amway. Does anyone use the soap? If you've never been suckered into joining a multi-level marketing organization, it works like this: The company manufactures a product. Some supposed-millionaire buys the product and sells it to their "downline," which is, in actuality, your "upline" (unless, of course, you're the supposed-millionaire). Okay, so the box of soap makes its way through the ranks--backwards, mind you. After all the uplines sell the box to their respective downlines, the soap box finally reaches your home, and what do you do? You sell it to your downline. And so, I ask again, does anyone ever use the soap?
Until next time...
Update: I found yet another template I like better, so gone is my fancy RSS feed icon. Such is life!