Q.5. Is there more than one God?

A. There is only one, the true and living God.

Deuteronomy 6:4

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.

Saturday:

This morning, I got up. Got out of bed. But before I dragged a comb across my head, I looked at my watch. 5:57 AM. I stumbled out to find Mrs. Knilram already up.

"We didn’t reset the clocks last night. It really is 4:57, right?" I asked her.

"No, Knilram. Today is Saturday, not Sunday. The time change is tomorrow."

Well, at least I remembered the time change is this weekend. But I would have liked to get that extra hour of sleep.

I had a wonderful breakfast. Mrs. Knilram bought the generic equivalent of Grape Nuts. There are times when you know that someone loves you, and it is one of those times when I see that box on the cupboard shelf.

Grape Nuts are wonderful. Not only can you eat them, but if you let them soak in water long enough, they make a paste that you can use to patch holes in concrete. Nevertheless, I love them. I love them almost as much as the whole grain bread that can double as sandpaper. Strange but true.

On the emergency backup dog front, things continue well. When we visited her in the pound, we never heard her bark. She was in a cage with her brother. He would bark excitedly, asking for attention, but she was always quiet. The first day home, she didn’t bark at all.

If the emergency backup dog doesn’t bark, that isn’t a problem. The primary dog barks more than enough for the both of them put together.

But today, she started to bark some. When we went on the morning walk, she barked at everyone she saw. I don’t know her well enough to know yet if it was her bark asking for attention, or if it was her stranger alert bark. I tend to think it was the latter. She also barked at family members when they walked in the back door. Once she realized who it was, she stopped barking. Again, I think she was warning of an intruder, but I’m not sure yet.

I’ve heard that a new dog will start to bark when it feels at home. It does seem that she is settling in well to the family.

One of the strange things was how she reacted when the primary dog would bark to alert us of strangers (the mailman, a strange sound outside, an imagined sound outside, a cloud that is floating above the house, etc). The primary dog would charge toward the door, and the emergency backup dog would sprint the opposite way and run upstairs.

Where does she think she is going? Upstairs to hide under the bed? We might have a bit of a chicken on our hands.

I’m also learning that her terrier mix doesn’t have any retriever blood at all. Not a drop. She’s not getting this idea of playing with a ball, even with the example of the primary dog. She doesn’t have a clue. She just looks at me in a way that says, "Why would I chase that? It is just a ball! Go get it yourself!"

But to the primary dog, chasing a ball isn’t a game. It is the meaning of life itself. There isn’t anything more important in the world than retrieving that ball. The primary dog can hardly contain herself while I try to play ball with the emergency backup dog. I could tell that she wanted to push the puppy aside and grab the ball. She was clearly thinking, "Stupid puppy! You must get the ball! Oh, let me get it, please, please, please? She’s not even trying, but I can do it. Let me get the ball, please!"

Sometimes life is difficult for the primary dog, but I think she will survive.

This year I watched some of the baseball playoffs again. It is strange. I can’t watch baseball during the regular season, but I usually don’t miss the playoffs. There are several reasons for this. 1. We don’t have cable TV, and there is very little baseball on the network TV. 2. The season is so long that individual games really don’t mean a lot. If you have 182 leaves on the tree, why bother going out into the yard to watch the 73rd leaf fall? (Not being able to make good analogies is like a car driving over a cliff. It is exciting for a while, but nobody gets the point.) 3. I really don’t have time for TV (which is the primary reason we don’t have cable).

But that all changes for the playoffs. Too bad the World Series was such a let down after the great ALCS.

One thing I got out of the playoffs that I did watch: I’m tired of the political ads. Since I don’t watch any other TV, I haven’t been seeing the advertisements. Now I’m back to the ad free world of no TV, and I am enjoying it.

Who are these undecided voters the candidates are trying to woo? The presidential campaign has been dragging on for what seems like forever, but in real life is only a year and a half (or ten dog years). If you don’t know who you are voting for by now, you haven’t been paying attention, and you probably shouldn’t vote.

My favorite Kerry ad is when they take strong statements he has made in the debates and speeches about how tough he will be on terrorism and they cut his statement right before he says “but….” To me it is a tacit admission that when he says “but….” he goes on to contradict the strong statement he just made. They edit the statements and play them back to back to try to fool the people who weren’t listening when Kerry made the original statement, and missed the implications of what came after the “but…”. Well, some of us were paying attention, and we don’t forget that easily.

It’s that “but….” that defines the difference on terrorism between Bush and Kerry. Kerry says a strong statement “but….” Bush says a strong statement “therefore….”

In the emergency backup dog world, the puppy is doing very well. She seems to fit right in to the family.

She hated her bath this afternoon. She cried the whole time, but didn’t get aggressive. She hated it, but submitted. And after it was all done, she didn’t hold a grudge. She treated us as if we hadn’t just committed puppy torture on her.

Funny, but if I forced something that unpleasant on a person, they would be angry with me for quite some time afterwards. But Tyme got over it immediately. I guess dogs aren’t people after all.

Everything isn’t roses and honey, however. She’s been with us for 24 hours and she still isn’t housebroken. Maybe she’s a slow learner. Well, there’s always tomorrow.

But the bottom line is, she has a sweet disposition, and she obviously loves the family. She has found her pack, and I think she plans to keep us. Now if she’ll just go outside.

I’ll close tonight’s random thoughts with a favorite lyric from Don Henley’s If Dirt Were Dollars.

I said, “Now baby, have you got no shame?”

She just looked at me uncomprehendingly

Like cows at a passing train

I’ve seen that look before. I saw it the time I told the librarian that I forgot to rewind the DVD I was returning to the library. She assured me that you don’t rewind DVDs.

I told, “I think you can, you just need special equipment.”

She just looked at me uncomprehendingly like cows at a passing train.

Some moments are priceless. Good night.

Can’t find anyone to play tennis against? Play your shadow.

AFP Photo:

Caption: “Shadowy return : The shadow of Argentinean David Nalbandian returning a ball to his Russian opponent Marat Safin during their Tennis Masters final match in Madrid. (AFP/Pedro Armestre)”

Headline AP: Kerry Campaign Seizes on Halliburton Probe

WASHINGTON - After days of trying to make political hay over lost Iraqi explosives, the Democratic ticket turned Friday to an FBI probe of Halliburton as evidence of Bush administration special favors to special interests. President Bush was campaigning in actor-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Isn’t Bush wasting his time campaigning in Arnold Schwarzenegger when he already has Arnold’s vote?

We received some spam comments here at mj today. Since Bloghorn now offers confirmation text for comments to help stop automated scripts from posting spam comments, I turned it on.

On the comments input page, you will now see a graphic displayed that has some letters and numbers. You have to type those letters and numbers into the "Enter Confirm Text" box to be able to post a comment. I hope this doesn’t cause problems for our flesh and blood commentators. (And I hope it does cause problems for our spider friends.) If you do have problems placing comments, please let us know in the comment section. (Kind of like when they tell you at work that to unsuspend your e-mail account you must e-mail the administrators.) It’s a shame that people come up with a way to spam anything that is out on the Internet.

On the way to the noon Bible study in downtown Pittsburgh, I walked by a man playing the saxophone on the corner, begging for money. He was playing Stevie Wonder’s Sir Duke. I’ve heard him playing before, and he isn’t terrible. (How’s that for a complement. "Damning with faint praise" is the phrase that comes to mind.) But he plays songs he learned while playing in a band. So there he stands all by himself playing harmonies and counter melodies. Every once in a while in the score, the saxophones have the melody, so you can occasionally recognize what he is playing. But then he drops back into playing what sounds ridiculous when played by itself, but would fit right in with the rest of the band.

I recall one day walking with someone else, and being subjected to this man playing Weather Report’s Birdland. Being familiar with the song, I knew how what he was playing fit in with the rest of the imaginary band.

I told my friend, "I don’t understand why he plays like that. When you’re the only one playing, you should play the melody. It doesn’t make any sense to stand out on the street and play one minor supporting part of an entire score of music while the melody goes unplayed."

"Knilram," my friend replied, "he’s a beggar. He’s begging on the streets of Pittsburgh. And you want him to be more logical about it?"

I guess he had a point. But for what it’s worth, today all I heard of Sir Duke was melody. The quality of begging is improving.

Today was a big day in the Knilram household. For ten years we have operated with only one dog to take care of all our household doggy needs. Overall, our dog is still taking care of all we ask from her. She still barks at anyone in the yard (and across the street, and imagined people, and the doorbell on TV, and just about everything else also), and she chases more balls and sticks than we are able to throw. But she is slowing down a little after ten years.

We’ve realized for a while now that we need to get an emergency backup dog in case of a failure of our primary dog.

Well, today we brought home a new puppy from the pound. So far she is completely overwhelmed by the experience. She has really taken to the girls, but she just starting to get to know the place.

When we put her to bed tonight in her cage in the girls’ room, she whimpered for a few minutes, and then settled down for the night. I haven’t heard a peep from her. I think she likes being in the room with the girls (and the primary dog). She might not think of it as home yet, but I don’t think it will take long.

The girls have decided to name her Tyme. As in "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and." I was impressed with their choice. Not bad at all. It sure beats "Garlic".

The first evening has gone fairly well. How quickly I’ve forgotten all the puppy problems. But it will all come back quickly as we get to know our new emergency backup dog.

We got the puppy from a "no-kill" shelter. They refuse to kill the dogs they get. As a consequence, the shelter is completely full, and the majority of the dogs are pit-bulls or pit-bull mixes. No one wants these dogs. It is possible that the dog might be just fine in its temperament, but how many want to take a chance? Very few, by the number of the breed in their care. Since people aren’t taking the pit-bulls, but people are bringing them, they keep accumulating more.

I understand the desire to have a "no-kill" shelter, but they’ve got to come up with a way to move some of these pit-bulls so they don’t have to turn away the other dogs that need placement.

Do you ever get the feeling that the scientists are making it up as they go?

Headline Reuters: Day from Hell May Have Killed Off Dinosaurs

Challenging conventional theory, new scientific research suggests the dinosaurs may have been scorched into extinction by an asteroid collision 65 million years ago that unleashed 10 billion times more power than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb.

Earth’s temperatures soared, the sky turned red and trees all over the planet burst into flames, said atmospheric physicist Brian Toon of the University of Colorado….

“Essentially, if you were exposed you were broiled alive. That is probably what happened to the dinosaurs. They were big creatures that didn’t have anywhere to hide,” said Toon.

It is a novel new theory, but it contradicts the older, established theory that dates all the way back to last century.

Despite opposition from some scientists, the idea that the dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid that slammed into Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula has won general acceptance since it was first mooted in the early 1990s.

Under that argument, academics say the giant reptiles mostly froze or starved to death when a huge cloud of particles kicked up by the meteorite blocked the world’s sunlight for months.

But many people are working on new ideas on why the dinosaurs died. It’s a whole industry. After all, that’s what Ph. D. are made of, you know.

A theory gaining ground is that global warming combined with another asteroid collision in an unknown location other than the Yucatan was what cut short the dinosaurs’ reign….

Global warming caused by 400,000 years of repeated volcanic eruptions in western India weakened the dinosaurs and then another asteroid struck earth, although scientists have yet to find its crater, Keller said.

“It’s a double whammy at that point,” she said.

A combination of the two disasters deprived the Earth of oxygen and the dinosaurs probably suffocated to death, she said.

And what a politically correct double whammy at that. Global warming killed the dinosaurs! Who would have thought of it. Back in the ’70s, the big environmental ‘threat’ was pollution caused ice age, and so back then the dinosaurs died from global cooling. Now that the politically cool environmental threat is ‘global warming’, it makes sense that the dinosaurs now died from that.

So, in one article, Dinosaurs either died from an ice age caused by an asteroid that hit the earth. Or they were incinerated by an asteroid that hit the earth. Or they suffocated from global warming and an unknown asteroid that hit the earth.

But, since what is true is what is taught in school, we have the definitive answer.

The academics are unlikely to agree soon on what caused the demise of the Triceratops, Sauropods and their kin but in the jungly Yucatan peninsula, locals are in no doubt.

“Everyone knows that the asteroid here killed the dinosaurs. They teach it in the schools,” said Isabel Lopez, a shop owner in the village of Yaxcopoil.

If they teach it, it must be true.

By that proof, the theory of evolution is true. After all, they teach it in school.

One theory they didn’t mention in the article: Maybe the dinosaurs died from a lot of rain. Now that would be a novel idea.

A couple years ago, the company I work for created a spreadsheet employees could use to track their vacation time. At the time, I was doing some of the administrative functions for my team while we were temporarily without a manager. I took the company spreadsheet, and altered it so that the entire teams vacation schedule was on the same spreadsheet. We’ve used the team spreadsheet ever since.

The other day, my boss asked our secretary to turn the spreadsheet around for next year. She came today to ask for help with her changes.

“I think I messed it all up,” she said. “I had trouble inserting columns in the spreadsheet and I goofed it up.”

“But the columns in the spreadsheet are days of the week,” I told her. “They are ‘Monday’, ‘Tuesday’, ‘Wednesday’, ‘Thursday’, ‘Friday’. What were you going to insert?”

She couldn’t answer that one, so I can’t tell you what those new days are.

But it reminded me of a few years back when I was working from specifications that said the DAY_OF_WEEK field should be a two digits. I asked my coordinator what the DAY_OF_WEEK field represented.

“It represents the day of the week. Zero is Sunday, one is Monday, two is Tuesday, etc.,” he told me.

“OK. There are seven days. Why is it a two digit field?”

Without missing a beat, he replied, “In case we ever decide to add additional days.”

Now there’s a man who plans ahead. So, if we ever decide to go to a metric ten day week, that system will be able to handle it. And after our secretary has inserted a few columns on the team vacation spreadsheet, it can handle a metric week as well.

Apparently, not every church worships God on Sunday.

Nashua Telegraph: Nashua church sings Sox’s praises

BOSTON (AP) - Some say sports is a religion in New England. A trip to some churches Sunday morning would have confirmed that, as parishes around Red Sox Nation took a moment to meditate on the hometown team.

At the Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashua, N.H., the choir surprised parishioners by singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” as a tribute to the Rev. Stephen Edington, a die-hard fan who said he is known for working Red Sox references into his sermons.

Hundreds of Roman Catholics who packed the West Newton parish of St. Bernard’s, which is facing closure by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, heard the priest compare the Red Sox’s ALCS win over the Yankees to the parish’s struggle to keep the church open, said parishioner Richard Roland.

“It was very apt,” he said. “Of the 750 people (present), there were probably 749 Red Sox fans.”

The Rev. Connie Reinhardt wore her Red Sox cap as she made announcements during a service at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Newburyport. During her sermon, she compared faith to belief in the team.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Q.4. What is God?

A. God is a spirit, Whose being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth are infinite, eternal, and unchangeable.

What an incredible amount of information is packed into this question and answer. We can quickly memorize it and spend the rest of eternity coming to understand it more fully.