My Top 5 takeaways from "Avengers: Age of Ultron"

While I would never be considered a full-blown fan boy, I am a fan of comic book superheroes, having been a casual reader of Spider-Man, Batman, The Avengers, Justice League and various other titles as a young fella.

The recent run of comic book heroes to hit the big and small screens has rekindled my childhood enthusiasm for the genre. I've especially enjoyed Christopher Nolan's take on Batman, Bryan Singer's approach with the X-Men and Joss Whedon's assembling of the Avengers.

See what I did there with the Avengers? Assembling. Okay. Sorry.

My family went to see "Avengers: Age of Ultron" the weekend that it opened and we thoroughly enjoyed it. More than enough action and adventure to keep us on the edge of our chairs and some compelling dramatic scenes that my wife and I appreciated.

So here's the list of my Top 5 thoughts inspired by "Avengers: Age of Ultron."

• Good grief! James Spader really is Ultron! #spooky
• No matter how noble his intentions, Tony Stark will always be driven by his massive ego.
• If Captain America is the heart of the Avengers, then Hawkeye is the soul of the team.
• Black Widow is, without question, the coolest Avenger.
• Hawkeye is a husband AND daddy?!?!?! Explains why he's the soul of the Avengers. 

Stupid Walmart Moment No. 7542 -- The Legend of Nanna Ellie from Cheshire

I was the third customer in the 20 items or less lane this evening at Walmart.

No big deal. The sharply dressed gentleman in front of me had nine items in his basket. In and out quick. Yesss!

Not so for the first customer in line.

We'll call her Nanna Ellie from Cheshire to protect her identity. Not that I know her, but I just like using that reference.

Anyway, Nanna Ellie from Cheshire brought just a few more than 20 items to the 20 items or less lane. Nanna Ellie had 37 (!) items to ring up. And those were the items I could see to count! She already had three bags in her buggy.

On top of that, Nanna Ellie from Cheshire had coupons. I quit counting those bad boys at 14. 

Irritated was I with my three frozen pizzas, box of bandaids, Neosporin, dish detergent, 8-pack of Irish Spring and 2-pack of Degree deodorant.

Even if you count the Irish Spring and Degree separately, my item count was 16, well within the legal lane limit.

Now Nanna Ellie from Cheshire seemed like a nice lady and the cashier was a saint. She handled Nanna Ellie with grace and a sweet spirit.

I could tell the gentleman in front of me was irritated, but he handled it well, too, taking the time to make a phone call to distract himself.

Yes, I eavesdropped on his coversation, but that's another story for another day. The lady he was talking with spoke very loudly.

Me? I started counting every item that Walmart stashes at the check out line to entice your kids.

I'm a counter.

It's what I do.

What?

In fact, I counted all that stuff three times before Nanna Ellie from Cheshire finished checking out.

I can't be overly irritated with Nanna Ellie, though.

After all, if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't know that there are 24 different kinds of snacks in the 20 items or less lane.

No I didn't buy any of them.

College Football Chaos!

It's 1:17 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 5. 

Do you know where your favorite Associated Press Top 25 college football teams are? 

For fans of No. 2 Oregon, No. 3 Alabama, No. 4 Oklahoma, No. 6 Texas A&M, No. 14 Stanford, No. 15 LSU, No. 16 USC, No. 17 Wisconsin, No. 18 BYU and No. 19 Nebraska ... well, your boys are probably somewhere licking their wounds. 

Yep. That's right. All ten of those teams lost this weekend. 

Oh, as I'm writing this, No. 8 UCLA is trailing unranked Utah 24-21 in the Rose Bowl. That outcome might be settled by the time I'm done with what will amount to a coroner's report on the AP Top 25. 

My Saturday of college football started as it always does, off and on watching of College Game Day on ESPN. Game Day was more amusing than usual this week since they dragged in pop singer Katy Perry as the guest picker. I'm not a Katy Perry fan, but she was pretty funny and she picked No. 11 Ole Miss to beat Alabama, one-upping all the professional prognosticators on the show. 

Heaving corn dogs at the cameras to end the show was a nice touch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyWuFG0iCQU

To appease My Smokin' Hot Wife, we settled in and watched No. 20 Ohio State "welcome" Maryland to the Big 10. Even if you are a Buckeyes fan, that was a wasted three hours. Don't tell my wife I said that. 

While we were immersed in the Buckeyes-Terps titanic struggle, epic carnage was unfolding in Starkville, Miss., where No. 12 Mi'sippi State was administering a 48-31 beat down to No. 6 Texas A&M. That opened the floodgates for four more Top 25 upsets on the day. 

Here's the rest of the upset rundown from Saturday: 

• (11) Ole Miss 23, (3) Alabama 17 
• (25) TCU 37, (4) Oklahoma 33 
• Arizona St. 38, (16) USC 34 
• Northwestern 20, (17) Wisconsin 14 

NOTE: No. 8 UCLA leads Utah 28-27 with 2:47 to play in the fourth quarter. Utes ball at the UCLA 33. 

You could just feel that this weekend was going to be a wild one after Rich Rodriguez's Arizona Wildcats upended No. 2 Oregon IN EUGENE on Thursday night. I even turned off that game late thinking, "Ah, the Ducks are gonna pull it out." Next thing I know it's Friday morning and the top sports story is about how Rich's RodCats skewered said Ducks. 

Do what!?!?!?! Uh oh. Look out, Top 25! 

UPDATE: Utah is getting ready to try a 22-yard, potentially game-winning field goal with :37 left in the game. 

It's an historic weekend in college football. I've been watching the sport for a good forty years and never have I witnessed what happened on Saturday. Five of the AP's Top 10 teams fall on the same weekend. Never happened before. It was fantastic! 

UPDATE to the UPDATE: Field goal good. Utah leads 30-28 with :34 left. 

Who would've thunk that the state of Mi'sippi would be the new capital of college football (at least for this week)? Surely the Rebels and Bulldogs are Top 5 bound after their wins. 

And has the balance of power shifted in the SEC, moving from the state of Alabama to their Gulf Coast neighbor? 

"Whoa! Whoa! Easy there, bubby!" yells Auburn coach Gus Malzahn, fresh from hanging toilet paper at Toomer's Corner. 

Okay, Gus, I'll give it to you. No. 5 War Eagle just might be the best team in the land after a 41-7 hijacking of No. 15 LSU. We'll find out, fella. 

Then there's the Pac 12 and Big 12. I'm not a believer in either conference. And their top teams did nothing to bolster any smidgen of faith I may have had in them. 

FINAL UPDATE: Utah upsets No. 8 UCLA 30-28 in LA. That's Los Angeles, not Lower Alabama. Actually, the game was played in Pasadena, but that didn't fit my joke. 

So long, smidgen of faith in the Pac 12/Big 12. It's conceivable that neither of those conferences will have a participant in the inaugural final four of college football come the new year. Ugly stuff, kids. 

With UCLA's loss -- add one, carry the two, take off my shoe -- make that eleven of the AP's Top 25 teams that went down to defeat this weekend. That's probably a record, too. 

How many more of these Pandora's box weekends will we see in college football this season? How many more times will the Top 25 pundits have to play 52 pick-up with the rankings? 

If the sportswriters have their way, many more. 

Chaos sells. 

God in the voice of a 9-year old boy

What does the voice of God sound like? Have you ever wondered about that? I have.

Ezekiel 43:2 (NKJV) offers one description, reading in part, "His voice was like the sound of many waters;"

Many waters. 

Is that like the mighty roar of a waterfall, galloping over the precipice and colliding head-on with the riverbed below? 

Or maybe it's like one of my favorite sounds, the soothing rush of a heavy rain that lulls me to sleep on a lazy afternoon.

We're still settling into our new digs here in Marion, Ohio, and looking for a new church to join is one of the top priorities we hold dear as a family.

Moving to Marion is one of those unexpected things that comes up in life. But that's another story for another day.

Last Sunday, we visited Berean Baptist Church. Its pastor and his wife are alumni of Tennessee Temple University, where My Smokin' Hot Wife and I went to college, so we wanted to visit and meet some fellow TTU folks.

We enjoyed the service. The congregation is friendly and Pastor Chris Peria and his wife Sonya welcomed us heartily. It was a great experience.

After the service, we enjoyed lunch at their house with their three children, two friendly dogs and a pair of pudgy guinea pigs. The fellowship was great. The kids were great. The dogs were great. The guinea pigs were ... pudgy.

Our son Joel and their daughter Emma hit it off right away. Joel is usually the life of the party wherever we go and I have the distinct feeling Emma is cut from the same cloth.

Fast forward to Friday. Joel and I were headed to pick up Mommy/My Smokin' Hot Wife for lunch when he asked me a question.

Here's how that conversation unfolded.

Joel: Daddy, are we going to church this Sunday?

I love to hear to hear my son call me Daddy. It's a warm fuzzy thing. I also love the fact that he enjoys going to church. More than anything else, I love the fact that Joel has trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord.

Me: Yeah, baby. We're planning on it.

Joel: What church are we going to?

Me: I don't know, buddy. Mommy and I will talk about it.

Joel: I want to go back to that church where we went last time. I really liked it.

Me: So you want to go back even though there weren't a lot of kids there?

Berean is a small church. Pastor Chris and his family have been ministering there for a little over a year. After chatting with him last Sunday, I have the sense that there's a neat move of God afoot there.

Joel: Yes. I want to go back there. I really liked it.

Me: What did you like about it?

Joel: I really liked the teacher.

A college-age young lady taught the kids during children's church. Apparently, she made an impression on Joel. He even remembered the content of the lesson when we asked him about it after the service was over!

Joel: That's the church I think we should go to, Daddy.

He was very insistent about it.

Even before we moved to Marion in late July, we had been praying that God would lead us to a good church in the area. Our family and many of our friends joined us in this prayer effort.

I am always amazed at how God answers prayer. I have my own idea of how I would like for my prayers to be answered, and it's always wrong. That's not a bad thing, necessarily, because God is always teaching me and adjusting my thoughts and my view of Him.

God did that again on Friday after my chat with Joel.

I have often wondered what the voice of God sounds like. On Friday, it sounded like the voice of a 9-year old boy.

Thank you, Lord, for speaking to me through this beautiful little boy You have given to us nurture and train up according to Your word. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

Life

Change

Transition

Trust

Pray

Obey

Adapt

Succeed

Life

Proverbs 3:5-7 (NIV)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.

Loss

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, 

And naked I shall return there.

The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away;

Blessed be the name of the LORD."

-- Job 1:21

At various times in my life, my family and I have suffered loss: death of loved ones, loss of employment, financial setbacks. But we've never experienced the level of loss that Job did during the period of his life documented in scripture.

Loss in any form is painful for us as human beings to deal with and understand; especially when the loss is caused by the unjust actions of others.

Job lost his whole family and all of his wealth in a single day. How devastating!

He could have easily surrendered to his base nature and blamed God for taking away all those he loved and everything he possessed, but, instead, Job recognized a great truth. He entered the world with nothing and would leave the world with nothing, and along the way all that he enjoyed was given to him by God.

And Job praised God for that.

Do I have that kind of faith? I know I desperately need it right now.

"The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away;

Blessed be the name of the LORD."

Life in the third grade

Well, it's official: A third grader lives in our house.

Today, our son Joel embarked on a new adventure commonly known as third grade. And after a summer's worth of groaning and wishing he could go back to second grade, I'd say "Third Grade: Day 1" was a rousing success.

Confidence was not at an all-time high heading into the annual Meet the Teacher Night on Monday of this week. Joel wasn't at all thrilled about leaving second grade behind. He really loved his teacher, Mrs. Wilson, and told me on the final day of school in the spring that he didn't want to be a third grader. Despite my best effort at assuring him that third grade would be just fine, he would hear none of it.

And so began our summer.

Any mention of school by My Smokin' Hot Wife or me brought about the same response: "I don't wanna go to third grade. I wanna stay in second grade. I miss Mrs. Wilson."

And so it continued; until today.

As usual, he awoke early (like 4:45 a.m. early) to give me a hug and see me off to work. I squeezed him, kissed his head and told him school would be fun and that I'd pick him up afterward. He was all smiles in the annual "first day of the new school year" photo that My Smokin' Hot Wife took of him this morning and was still bouncy and upbeat when I collected him at parent pickup this afternoon after school dismissed.

"I like third grade, Daddy!" he proclaimed as he climbed into Ye Olde DadMobile. He then rattled off a list of all the positives about third grade that he had gleaned from his first day, including a glowing recommendation of his new teacher, Ms. Riggle. Best of all, he told me, "there's no home work in third grade!"

Of course, I disputed this claim, but he assured me that Ms. Riggle told the class that there would be no home work in third grade.

"No home work this week, probably," I said to him.

"No home work EVER," replied Joel the Confident.

Okay. A bridge to be crossed later. I don't want to kill the mood today.

So we're off to a good start with "Third Grade: Day 1" in the books.

A win's a win, right?

Yep. We'll take it.

Thank you, Lord, for the blessing of a happy boy.