No.. not the good ones you see in the night sky. I’m talking about the cheesy kind of northern lights.. the annual “lets-dust-off-the-really-old-tacky-lights- we-had-out-last-year-and-hope-everyone-forgets-how-corny-they-were” kind of northern lights. Each year the down town of Owen Sound lights up the Festival of Northern Lights. The displays are pretty much the same as last year (and the year before, and the year before..), yet people still travel from all over to see them. I fully suspect some of the displays are older than me. Where else can you see a Christmas R2-D2?

Or a Santa on a chopper?

I guess from a distance it is nice, in an expensive electric display kind of way.

A group of individuals has created a business to make money off Christians in a unique way. They call it the Post-Rapture Post, a way for a Christian to send letters to your non-Christian friends and family after the Rapture when all the Christians are taken from the Earth by God. How does it work? You pay the PRP to send a letter after you are gone. They are atheists, so they won’t be part of the Rapture, and they will be able to send the letters to whomever you want. Of course.. you wouldn’t be around to make sure they actually did send it..

www.postrapturepost.com

This weekend there were a number of large explosions in the woods not far from our house caused by high-grade military explosives. If it hadn’t been so cold, you might have thought it was lightning that occasionally caused our windows to rattle.. but it was actually just artillery and mortar fire raining down on the country side.

We are about 11 km (7 miles) from the Meaford Tank Range, and sometimes the weekend warriors are out cruising in their tanks or firing off some artillery shells. Transport aircraft will sometimes fly overhead and drop flares at night over the training area. Not the kind of place you would want to trespass… you never know what you might step on..

Two years ago we had a student who was in the reserves and every few weeks he would have to travel to the base to keep up on his explosive skills. While the guys in the dorm were playing video games about this kind of stuff, he was going and firing the real deal.

So if you are ever visiting us here at Word of Life and you hear a deep rumble, the floor shakes and the windows rattle a bit, don’t worry. Either its just me hungry for pizza, or its large explosions nearby.

We have pets. About thirty-six of them. Thankfully they don’t shed, don’t disturb the neighbors, or get into your garbage. So far nobody has been allergic to them. They have been proven to lower blood pressure. And, with an automatic feeder, you can leave them alone for a couple of weeks. But the very best thing of all is that you can stare at them while your wife watches a chick flick.

I have had fish as pets since I was about seven, and at one point I actually had 7 fish tanks. Geeky? Maybe, but what was a 14 year old to do when the only video game out there is Pong? Well, besides reading comic books that is..

Anyway, I really enjoy my wet pets, and Ellie likes the “ish” too. They are quite relaxing to watch as they swim around. Even the variety and beauty of fish that God created amazes me.

I keep my fish in a 35 gallon tank I received as a teenager. The rule of thumb is one inch of fish for every gallon of water. We have:

12 Neon Tetras (the small bright blue and red ones)
7 Fancy Guppies (the rabbits of the seas. Will breed like crazy if you let them)
4 Cherry Barbs
2 Rosy Barbs (the cows)
2 Angel Fish (1 black and 1 white. With a black background you usually only see one)
2 Tri-colour Sharks (large silvery fish, biggest cowards of the tank.)
2 Black Tetras (these guys were among the first I bought when we moved here. They are 5 years old!)
2 Gold Barbs
1 Plecostomus (sucker fish – biggest and weirdest looking one in the tank)
1 Skunk Loach (named Freedie by B-rad. Hardly ever see him as he is always hiding. Eats snails)

So.. that is a total of 35 fish.. probably about 54 total inches of fish.. way over the limit. Hope the Games Warden doesn’t come by..

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