Howdy Again, Ya'll

I'm glad to be back in the blogosphere after an absence of almost a week. We had a good vacation with another family from our church, and the kids had a blast, which is, of course, the point of a family vacation.

The one thing that didn't happen on our trip was that I didn't get to meet Stacy of Not a Desperate Housewife in San Antonio. Her family's vacation there just happened to coincide with ours, and I had hoped that we'd both by chance find ourselves at the same place at the same time, but it didn't happen. I did, however, get to talk with her briefly by cell phone, and she sounds as interesting "live" as she does on her blog posts. She's still on vacation today, and I hope she and her family have fun.

I have a few topics I'd like to post on, but don't have the time right now to sit down and type. My desk is piled full of stuff that was waiting for my return, and there's lots of work to be done on our overgrown yard to boot. So I will hopefully be back by tomorrow with something halfway interesting.

In the meantime, I noticed while I was gone that Marla Swoffer, one of the contributors to Intellectuelle, is taking what she calls an "indefinite sabbatical" from her personal blog. I not only found her long post explaining her decision, titled Dying to My Blogging Self, to be quite interesting, but it also contributed to some thoughts I've had in my own head about the future direction of Muley's World (which I'll share sometime down the road). If you have five minutes to spare, Marla's post is worth a read.

One final memento from the trip -- a movie plug. If you're looking for a good family movie to go to, one with a decent plot, some funny situations, great special effects, and no bad language or vulgarity, try Sky High, the latest movie from Disney. It stars Disney veteran Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston as married real estate salespersons who just happen to also be the world's mightiest superheroes. However, most of the story revolves around their teenaged son, who is starting "Sky High," the high school where kids of superheroes go. Each kid at the school is branded either as a "hero" or as "hero support" (a PC name for "sidekick") based on how good their super powers are. This allows for subtle comment on high school cliques and stereotyping amid all the fun. It's not as good as the first "Spy Kids," but it's a good way to spend an afternoon with your family, even the pre-teens. And I don't get paid for this endorsement.

Quote of the day:

"I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it."

--Harry Emerson Fosdick
in Riverside Sermons