Randy Wray's Blog

In preparation for taking the CBEST, I’ve been working on my penmanship.

Word processors and computers are a life saver for one, like me, who struggles greatly with legible writing.

In the old days, every message was written out word for word on notebook paper or a legal pad.

Then came the typewriter days – what a chore it was to make a correction or heaven forbid move a sentence.

Remember the first word processors?  They looked like fancy typewriters with digital displays.

With my first computer came WordPerfect and I was hooked!

You could move sentences and paragraphs around with ease.

Editing became part of the science of composition.

But this week I’ve returned to the old school and have been writing on a legal pad.

I need to get my hand in writing shape for two essays.

I’m not worried about composing the essays for the CBEST, I am worried about my handwriting holding up to the scrutiny.

My brain gets moving fast and my hand tries to keep up and the penmanship slowly deteriorates.

My mantra for the essay portion of the CBEST is “slow down, take your time, slow down, take your time.”

How’s your handwriting?

Because of our current situation here in Stockton and some general political, military unrest in Baja California we did not send a team of workers to Ensenada.

It’s the first time since 1995 I haven’t led a team to Ensenada and it’s been difficult.

The church in Ensenada held a meeting a few weeks ago and decided that we had adequately prepared them for the task and that they would undertake the construction project by themselves.

We said, “we’re not sure if we can make it this year.”

They said, “God moves in mysterious ways and we are up to the challenge.”

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A while back my friend Cohn encouraged me to join facebook.

I joined but did nothing with until a couple of days ago when I updated my profile and uploaded a picture.

Facebook is a social utility to help connect you and keep you in touch with friends.

True to form, I’m starting to see people risk it all and claim to know me.

It should be fun to see who comes up from the depths of the internet to connect and keep in touch.

My role in S.O.S. has been to provide gastrointestinal culinary logistics.

For breakfast yesterday we made pancakes and sausage (a working person’s staple).

The work teams make sandwiches for out in the field so that gives plenty of prep time for dinner.

For dinner yesterday we made chicken enchilada casserole (green sauce) and beef enchilada casserole (red sauce) with Spanish rice and beans.

Leading off this morning, we made some delicious potato, bacon, egg & cheese breakfast burritos.

We have a “guest chef” coming in to make dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow is cereal so I plan to take full advantage of the break.

A few months ago our youth guy came to me and told me about a youth group from the Northwest that wanted to come here for a mission trip.

Makes sense.

Places around Stockton feel like Mexico and sound like Mexico.

Considering the price of gas it’s certainly cheaper than driving to Mexico.

So we came up with the idea of Stockton Outreach School.

We have 5 days of projects lined up as we take it to the streets and flex our outreach muscles.

The main project today is mowing lawns for foreclosed homes.

Since we lead the nation with home foreclosures it’s a great and needed task.

The crews will be talking to the neighbors around the foreclosed homes and telling them who we are and why we are out mowing lawns.

Pretty good way to spend a day.

We were treated to a concert by Warren Barfield last night.

His single “Love is Not A Fight” you can catch on any Christian radio station.

Funny thing is we’ve never heard the song but it was playing on the radio as we drove to the concert.

We enjoyed it, he was good.

His friend and warm up act (Logan Martin) quite possibly stole the show.

Just typing those words I see the image in my mind of the skier slamming into the barrier from the ABC sports promo.

Our team lived and experienced every part of the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

We were eliminated from the tournament with two (back to back) very difficult losses.

In both games we were ahead and in both games it unraveled for one reason or another.

I was so proud of the girls and the way they competed and the way they were graceful in defeat.

It has been said that sports do not build character but reveal character.

That being the case, we had no reason to question the character of the Roadrunners.

We are in Reno this week competing in the NSA World Series.

The team came out of the gate charging this morning and put one in the win column.

The good thing about the win (besides the win) is they don’t have to play again today.

It’s been a long time since I suited up and squatted behind the plate.

My first position in baseball was catcher and it is the only position on the field that is equipment mandatory.

You realize this after you have suited up and still take a ball off the unprotected areas of your body.

The Roadrunners are preparing for the NSA World Series next week and we’re trying to save our catchers (we only have 10 girls on the roster).

So, yours truly for the last two evenings has suited up and stepped in (more like squatted in) to anchor the defense.

It’s been fun catching for M and the others, but HAY CARAMBA!  I am sore!

I constantly tell the girls “keep your throwing hand behind you” and of course I forgot on one pitch and care to guess where the ball hit me?

I’m hoping once the sore muscles come back from being on strike that it will get easier (if I have to do it again).

At this point, the catching has caught up with me.

The words math wiz have never been used in a sentence to describe my mathematical prowess.

Last night I was looking over a standardized math test and was amazed at how well my kids understand the problems and how easy the problems seem to be for them.

It was also a delight to see how patient the oldest child was in explaining the problems (and how to solve them) to dear ol’ dad.

When all was said and done I felt pretty good about my 72%!

It was annoying that I missed 4 questions because I wasn’t paying attention to the question.

Just wait until the standardized bible (or fishing) test makes the rounds!