Pat Farmer: Driven to Run

 In April 2011, Par Farmer began running form the North Pole to the South. Scott Wegener spoke to him about his 10-month journey.

Signs of the Times cover story, Nov 2012

You’re ‘courageous’ if you battle through a seemingly hopeless situation, or perhaps ‘crazy’ if you created the situation on purpose. However, if you put yourself in such hopeless circumstances in an effort to help those in an even worse predicament, you’re Pat Farmer.

The Slime List

 No Darwinian, Scott Wegener contemplates
what it would be like to, to put it bluntly, "evolve."

Signs of the Times, Oct 2012

There are some moments in my life I wish I could evolve.
Like when you’re carrying a heavy cardboard box and you come to a door that is closed. A literal third arm would come in very  . . . handy (too early for a pun? Sorry).

While there’s many reasons I don’t believe evolution played a role in how I became the specimen I am today, if I DID believe I was a part of a Slow-Level Improve-Myself Evolution  program (or SLIME for short), I would definitely have my own list of things to develop.
It would be a little like a ‘bucket list’, which is a list of things you want to do before you ‘kick the bucket’. A SLIME list is a register of bodily changes my family line is currently working on evolving.
It would be necessary to have such a list so our family line knows whether their evolving sessions should concentrate on developing a reversing eye in the back of the head or a volume dial to adjust hearing levels.

As for my family line’s SLIME list, it includes the following:

Pram-a-thon

Scott Wegener believes he's ready
for the latest Olympic event.

Signs of the Times, Jul 2012

I’m ready for the next Olympics. That is, if short-circuit pram pushing becomes an Olympic event.
It wasn’t until we moved interstate that we started having ‘evening complications’ in getting our one-year-old daughter to sleep. Instead of going peacefully to la la land she would cry and scream as she stood rattling her cot walls. From the noise, you’d think we’d just dropped her into a cage of lions.

Counting Sheep

How can we evaluate our evangelistic efforts?

CQ, June 20, 2012

How-to 
Hebrews 10:24,25

How can we evaluate our evangelistic efforts? What can we measure and how can we get the data to do so? Here are some ideas that may help you decide whether an evangelistic event was successful, needs tweaking or cancelling all together.

Noah's Arkestra

An Orchestral Children's Story

Summary: A conductor tells the children of the audience a story about Noah’s Ark and the instruments keep interrupting with sound effects - to the apparent frustration of the conductor, who eventually plays along with it.

Conductor:

“How many of you have heard the story of Noah?”

[pause for a show of hands, then act surprised and disappointed as everyone already knows the story you were about to tell]

“Oh . . . all of you.”

[mutters as if disappointed that this isn't a new story for the kids] “Great” 

“Well, it’s my favorite story so you’re going to hear it again.

A long time ago, God spoke to a man named Noah. He told him he needed to build a huge boat to save some of the people and animals from a big flood that was coming.

So Noah and his sons started to chop down some trees.” [makes chopping motions with arm]

Drummer: SNARE, SNARE, SNARE, (calls out:) “TIMBERERRRR” LOWER TOMS & BASS DRUM thud.

Conductor: [looks around to the drummer with a confused glare - as if to communicate ‘what was that all about’]

Cutting Board Facts

The following silliness was written for a "Virtual Cutting Board" iPhone app Scott released in April 2012.

Whether you call them “cutting boards”, “chopping boards” or “the flat thingy you divide food up on”, a cutting board can be found in every kitchen that has one.

Chopping boards have been around since they were invented and can be bought in any shop that sells them. (You’ll find them in the isle with the items that are displayed next to them.)

Cutting boards are part of a large family, whose members include iron, surf, white, black, card, circuit, pin, chess, bulletin, diving, wake, snow and I’m.

The largest chopping board ever created was bigger than the second largest ever created.

The world record for the smallest chopping board is yet to be seen.

A Stairway to Heaven

 Scott Wegener looks at the facts and calculates the cost of a connection.   

Signs of the Times, Mar 2012

I have a talent for pointing out statements that are totally impractical.
On one occasion, I had a mother share her longing for a bridge that joined Australia and New Zealand. This was because her daughter had just moved away from her home in Sydney to Auckland.
I probably should have optimistically responded with something like, “Yeah, it would be nice to know that at any moment you could pop in your car and drive over and surprise her for a weekend visit. You must miss her so much – here’s a tissue.”
Instead, in my quest to rid the world of impractical verbal frivolities, I responded by issuing a reality check-which included some of the following: