Dear Fans, Friends, Fiends, Foes and Family,

I will likely be taking down the picture site with the Plogger software and start using Coppermine, which has better spam protection, in fact I have already done it and the new URL for the photo gallery is http://herbthiel.com/coppermine/

 Last weekend was our church’s annual Father and Son Campout and it was really great.  Ben brought Trent and three of the younger boys from the church whose fathers either couldn’t or wouldn’t bring them.  You don’t have to be a member of our church to come along and nobody gets all preachy at people, but the one man is a hardworking man and also very, exceptionally shy.  I don’t know what the other one’s problem was.  Perhaps he’s afraid that, even though no one would preach to him or get after him to get back into church, his own conscience might.

 Anyway, it is always a lot of fun and this year was even greater because Ben and Trent and these few of my Sunday School friends were there.  I have been teaching so long that many of the dads are people I have known and liked since they were in my class themselves.  It’s a fine time had by all, with Ben’s home-made foam swords and boys and young men testing their skill and strength, the camaraderie of a group of men and the beauty of the Pike National Forest.  It’s this beauty I want to talk about and where the stupidity comes in.

Dear Fans, Friends, Fiends, Foes and Family,

We live in a town with five military installations; four Air Force and one Army, and we get to see many feats of flying skill quite often, especially when the Air Force Academy is playing a home game in football.  The Fabulous Thunderbirds are here for every graduation as well.  I have seen a lot of different types of things that fly in the air, but when I see what I saw I saw earlier today, it always takes my breath away.  This was the real thing, baby, uh-huh!  Aerial combat at it’s finest and right in the skies over our fair city.  A large enemy had tried to attack one of the smaller, hidden, out-of-the-way spots to attempt to do who-knows-what sort of damage to it when suddenly, as if out of nowhere came a pair of fierce, screaming fighters.