Delayed opening (3) Mar 2, 2006
The term "delayed opening" is a combination of two simple words that come together to form one of the best phrases in the English language.  People that live in snow-laden areas know what this means.  I wonder if southerners or other hot-weather-dwellers have something similar. 

Probably the best thing about a delayed opening is that it's usually unexpected.  When I was a kid and we had a delayed opening at school, my mom would come wake me up at some ungodly hour (because she worked at the school and found out early) to tell me to set my alarm later.  The feeling of sleeping in when you weren't planning on sleeping in is a great thing.  My current employer still has delayed openings (something about it being too expensive to pay the road crew overtime to come in early, so instead they pay all the rest of the employees for time spent at home).  When I get up in the morning and see snow out my window, I call a phone number and hope to hear those beautiful words spoken into my ear.  "There is a delayed opening this morning.  We will be opening at 9am." 

Unfortunately, we didn't have a delayed opening this morning.  When I left my house at 7:30am, it was just starting to come down.  Now, as I'm looking out my window at work and watching the snow pile up on my car, I'm hoping to hear those other beautiful words strung together to form an even more beautiful phrase:  "early dismissal". #psychology
Bible census Mar 2, 2006
I was reading from the book of Numbers this morning and learned something I didn't know before (yes, new things can be learned from the book of Numbers):  In chapter 26, a census is taken of all the men 20 years old or more who are able to serve in Israel's army.  This number turns out to be 601,730.  I flipped back to the other census taken in chapter 2, where it said the total number was 603,550.  I thought it was kind of weird that there were less people for the second census, seeing that this census was taken about 40 years after the first one.  Then I continued reading in chapter 26:  "Not one of them was among those counted by Moses and Aaron the priest when they counted the Israelites in the Desert of Sinai." (Numbers 26:64).  This is because the people got sick of waiting for God and complained about living in the desert.  So God said he wouldn't let any of those people enter the promised land (Numbers 14:21-23).  When this second census was taken some 40 years later, none of the same people were there.  So God's promise held true, and the Israelites weren't completely wiped out.  I was always confused by the part where God said he wouldn't allow the people to see the promised land.  I wondered how anyone would have seen the promised land if they were all wiped out.  Now I get it.  He was only talking about the men 20 years old or more who could serve in the army.  That doesn't include the women and the children ("Won't someone please think of the children?").  And it doesn't include the generations of people produced in the span of 40 years. #religion