http://www.saintjohnvianney.org/school.html

Original content Copyright 2007 Marc Smith
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Outside shot form my office window.

Another shot form the office window. I wasn’t sure how they would turn out, so I took two.

This is our back patio. You can see the bottom of the bike wheel is under the snow.

Another one from the back patio. You can see the fold-up chair and flip flop covered in snow.

Another one of the flip flop and the door step. It seems the snow has piled up against the wall and door.

This is the weird one. This is the staircase in the covered breezeway. You can see the snow piled up pretty heavily on the top step.

Another shot of the whole staircase.

Original content Copyright 2007 Marc Smith
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On 6/13/2007 that’s exactly what happened on HWY 386 just east of the Indian Lake Blvd exit.

While I have seen a few pics of the damage from the highway, I haven’t seen where anyone took some pics from the bridge. I decided to do that. Even two days later the scene was pretty horrific. One scene that caught my eye was this…

This post holding up the guard rail is a good 30 – 40 feet away from where the bridge actually starts. But it was still half burnt through.

You can see all the pics I took at Flickr.

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You can go to this Flickr page to see the whole thing. No photoshop type stuff is gong on here either. It is pure MAC OS X screen capture.

It also makes me wonder why since it is coming from Kentucky and is already in Memphis (not to mention the fact that it can time travel), why should I not expect it for five more days. HUMPH!

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A rare, 184-year-old copy of the Declaration of Independence found by a bargain hunter at a Nashville thrift shop is being valued by experts at about 100,000 times the $2.48 purchase price.

Then there’s always Power Ball.

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Anyway, there are a healthy number of people who dislike my stylings, but then there are the others. The readers who not only dislike me, but go to great lengths to let me know it. Worrisome lengths. Like, “I know what you drive and where you live, you little commie whore, and I know when your pets go outside,” sorta lengths.

She says it scares her. To be honest it scares me too. I feel for her and her family too. I say that because my wife had a scary situation the other day. My wife sometimes has trouble finding a parking place at Vol State because her first class is rather late in the morning. When she found someone pulling out of a space, she patiently waited for them to clear the space so she could pull in. While she was waiting, someone else drove up and decided that even though she had been there before them, that was their space. Not only did they pull up behind her car and sit their for close to five minutes while she collected her things from the car before getting out, the followed her in their car until she turned down a side walk that does not follow the road. She told me this story and it worries me. I’m the type to worry about sometimes silly things. Hopefully, that’s what this is, a silly thing. Hopefully this pimped out muscle car driven by a stupid coward will never darken the lives me and my wife again. I hope and pray the same thing for Brittney. That these threats she gets are all just silly things that are made by people who are just cowards that are too afraid of their own opinions to even make their names and faces known.

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Go check them out!

The Right Brothers – MySpace Page

The Right Brothers – Home Page

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What if Christians are wrong about Homosexuality? What if it is not a choice?
…
What if tremendous scientific research proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Homosexuality is a normal occurrence? What if its nature and not nurture?

To be honest, I didn’t know that as a Christian I believed that homosexuality is a choice. That leads me to believe he’s wrong about Christians generally. He’s just stereotyping..

This Christian (Marc points at Marc) for instance has no friggin’ idea why homosexuals have same sex tendencies. I’m not a scientist, a sociologist or a psychologist. But here’s what I do think. I think people like Bill O’Reilly have it wrong that there must be one end all, be all explanation for why it happens. Isn’t it just possible that just maybe different people that have same sex tendencies have them for different reasons? Isn’t it possible that in a virtual plethora of reasons, all of them might hold true for at least one person or another? If that’s true then people are fighting over nothing. Get over it. Quit trying to find who or what’s to blame and let’s get one with our lives. So what I am saying that the inclination toward homosexuality is not necessarily a choice. I don’t know what causes it. To be honest, I don’t really care. On the other hand, giving in to the temptation of these inclinations, just like any other temptation is a choice. I know that to be true, because as a sinner I give in to one temptation or another so often.

Now, what I am going to tell my kids? Well, I have a few more years to figure that out. If I come up with something good, I’ll let you know. Whatever it is, I know it needs to be an answer that’s charitable. Young impressionable minds need to hear words of love, not hate.

I would like to thank Cole for bringing this up. I hope it makes someone out there not think of Christians as haters.

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I’m not really sure if I specifically targeted for stating my views, or if this is just random. Either way, this is the firs time I have tried to post a comment on NIT since last night (about 14 hours since). So I just don’t get it. For a site that is trying hard to build community, I don’t understand why they have initiated such unfriendly tactics. I don’t really see where I did or said anything abusive in my comments on the post in question. So really I don’t know if someone feels I did something wrong or if I am just some unlucky SOB that got stuck in a software malfunction.

UPDATE: My comment did finally go through, but I had to re-write it, which was still a big inconvenience.

UPDATE #2:Brittney has posted a response to this post here. My faith in NIT has been renewed.

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Pope John Paul II High School in Hendersonville carries the name of the late pope, and now it also houses the black ski jacket he wore during visits to the mountains.

It seems Bishop Kmiec, the most recent bishop of Nashville before Bishop Choby pulled some strings and was able to obtain the ski jacket owned by Pope John Paul the Great. Ever the comic, Bishop Kmiec had this to say.

“Yeah, if you’re wondering, I tried it on. It fit.”

How blessed we are up here to have this so close. JPII high school is right down the road from me.

Click here for the whole story.

Since we’ve moved to Nashville, I’ve been somewhat disappointed with the state of the Church here as I have seen it. Since moving to the area, I’ve been to Thyatira. I’ve been to Sardis. I’ve been to Laodicea. I have to admit it has been a spiritually dry time for me, as I struggled with my own faith as I saw a lack of faith(fulness) in the environment around me. Please don’t misunderstand me. I have attended Mass at four parishes (well, I think most of them refuse the moniker “parish” and prefer “Catholic community”). The Diocese of Nashville has a huge Catholic presence that includes 51 parishes and 3 missions. So, what I have seen so far is probably not representative of the diocese as a whole. Nowhere is perfect though, not even Memphis. I know that. I am just speaking of my experinces. I am not trying to discredit the diocese.

Well now that we have moved to Gallatin, I can happily proclaim that I have found myself in Philadelphia. We are now attending Saint John Vianney in Gallatin. This parish is the stuff of dreams for an orthodox Roman Catholic. Now don’t get me wrong, the holy sacrifice of the Mass is always awesome. No matter how much someone tries to mess with it, it still has the same power and bestows the same graces as long as it’s valid. But it certainly warms this crusty old Roman Catholic’s heart to participate in the Mass where prayers are chanted, you hear the Greek “kyrie eleison”, the hymns are actually hymns and not some sixties feel good ditty that has no theological value and the priest never abandons Christ at the altar during the liturgy of the Eucharist. Don’t get me wrong, some of those feel good songs are catchy. “On Eagle’s Wings” has a lot of sentimental value for me. But they don’t belong in the Mass. I also can’t stand to hear the prayers of the Mass (holy holy holy, etc.) reduced to simple songs sung during the Mass. They are prayers and should be recited as such, not sung as songs where parts of them of turned into a chorus. It makes you forget that you are speaking with God.

I have also been to the Sacrament of Reconciliation at Saint John. I think I can say without breaking the seal of confession that these were a wonderful change of pace for me spiritually. Father gave good advice and penance that would not only fit the sin to make amends, but that would also help fight against the temptation to commit those sins again.

I am very happy to have found Saint John. I personally have renewed faith and spirituality and hope for the future of the Church here in Nashville now. I know it was The Blessed Virgin Mary that led me back to here son, just like she always does by leading me to Saint John. Rosaries always help like that.

I can say I don’t remember having any trouble like with the Union Planters website….

I was still in San Francisco when this happened…..

UPDATE: Click here to see a picture of an 18 wheeler that wass picked up by the tornado and dropped on top of a car.  THis happened at an intersection in Gallatin not twenty minutes after Suzette drove through it.

[Breaking News: Shots Fired in Hermitage | WKRN.COM]

UPDATE: Well, I made it back out alive. I was able to see a little of the site from my complex. It didn’t look good. I wasn’t close enough to see any kind of damage on any of the cars, but it looks like there quite a few involved. They have also moved in the big orange ticker highway sign saying “Road Closed” on Central Pike on the I-40 side. I would assume they have done something similar on the other three legs from that intersection. Now I also have to assume that since they’ve gone to the trouble to place something of that nature there, that they don’t expect it to be cleared up anytime soon. If any one is reading this today and either of these two streets are part of your route home, my advice to you is to take the long way home today.

Please feel free to click on the link below to wish her a happy birthday in the comments of her blog.

[Foxy Suzy » Happy birthday to Suzette!]

It’s wasn’t snowing real hard in Antioch (where I work) or in Hermitage (where I live). It was however coming down pretty hard in the Nashboro Village area when I drove through there this morning. It doesn’t appear to be accumulating yet, but you can see it whip up a little on the streets in the wind.

If it keeps it up and accumulates, I’ll gets some pictures up.

UPDATE:Well, it’s still coming down at lunchtime. But the ground is only getting wet, and not covered. It’s heated up to blistering 36° F now, so nothing will stick. I am wondering what tonight will bring though, since it’s supposed to get down to 29° F. Whatever happens though, it won’t last long. The forecast has it getting up to 51° F tomorrow.

UPDATE #2: How anti-climactic. It didn’t do much of anything. It didn’t even snow hard enough for the Memphis City School to have closed, which means it didn’t really snow at all. Sorry to let you all down, but no pics of this non-event.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. Nashville could end up with 100 homicides in 2005 — nearly double the previous year’s mark and one of the city’s deadliest years on record.
The total will reach 100 if police determine a woman whose body was found burned under a pile of debris Tuesday was a homicide victim.

That would make last year the third deadliest since countywide record keeping began in 1963 and approaches the record high of 112 in 1997.

In 2004, 58 homicides were recorded.

The homicide total excludes justifiable homicide or killings that were ruled self-defense.

One of the reasons I moved from Memphis to Nashville is the crime. I shouldn’t have to explain that. But for the uninitiated, Memphis has a bad crime problem. I don’t say that after looking at numbers or anything. I say that after living there. Nashville on the other hand seem to be much better, if we could only keep the politicians from Memphis out of the city.

I swear though. I did not bring it with me….

I also wonder about this anyway. Why is it being reported on the website for a TV station in Memphis?

[WREG-TV Memphis - Nashville homicides spike in 2005]

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