basketball is just around the corner

Yes, I know it is the middle of football season. But I am already looking forward to the start of college basketball. Here are some links to help keep up with the Dukies!

Getting to the point . . . this article about Greg Paulus was written in July, so I have been saving it for this blog. Since he was injured recently, there is still a question about his status for this year, but he will definitely be out for weeks with a "weird" ankle injury.

Checking the identity of Duke . . . this blog by Luke Winn of Sports Illustrated is about the old and new identity of Duke. Last year it was all about JJ Redick and Shelden Williams; this year 10 of the 11 scholarship players are freshmen and sophomores.

Devils clothed in fresh designs . . . from the Blue Devil Weekly explains the six new designs for the Duke jersey. “We play for the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back of the jersey,” Krzyzewski has been known to say.

classic spooky tales

What better time of year to read these classic spooky tales than this week! Tales such as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. These short stories and books have been scanned so that you can read them online at googlebooks/scarystories.

born to serve the Lord

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground,

and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;

and man became a living soul. (Genesis 2:7)

I was reminded of this topic and the song, Born to Serve the Lord, recently as I read Genesis 2:7. The reason we were all created was to serve the Lord. We were created to give God the glory, not just so that we could grow up, get married, have children, etc. This old "southern gospel" song came to my mind. Our family used to sing this at church when I was a child.

Born to Serve the Lord

From the dust of the earth God created man,
His breath made man a living soul.
But God so loved the world, that He gave His only son;
And that is why I love him so.

Chorus:

For I was made in his likeness,
created in His image,
For I was born to serve the Lord.
Oh, I can't deny Him,
I'll always walk beside Him;
For I was born to serve the Lord.

My hands were made to help my neighbor
My eyes were made to read God's word
My feet were made to walk in His footsteps
My body is the temple of the Lord.

Repeat Chorus.

Gators over Bulldogs

Just in case you missed it, the Gators beat the Bulldogs 24-17

Florida forces 4 turnovers in win over Georgia at ESPN.com

college game day

Today is the biggest college game day of all - as I write this it is about 2 hours to kickoff here in Jax at the Georgia-Florida game (see it on CBS-TV at 3:30 pm). Half the stadium will be full of red GA Bulldog fans, and half will be full of Blue & Orange Gator fans. The only time I was able to go to one of the games was at the old "Gator Bowl" long before it became "Alltel Stadium". Our school used to work concessions at this game to earn money. The last game I worked was cold and rainy and we had no coffee or hot chocolate to sell and NO ONE wanted ice cold Pepsi!! Then I made the mistake to wear our school's red jacket and Florida fans thought I was a Goergia fan (heaven forbid!) and called me lots of names, etc. I did not feel very safe that night.

Here are some links to the game day media . . .

Gators not overconfident against Buldogs (USATODAY)

High-stakes game (Jacksonville.com)

Top quarterback (Tim Tebow) aims to stay grounded in Christ (BP.com)

Times-Union photo gallery from the game

Grace Like a River

“Play it again,” my father would say.
“Play it again, seven times perfectly!
If you’re not one of the top four or five in the world,
you’ll starve with this instrument."

Christopher Parkening, one of the best classical guitarists in the world today, has written an autobiography recently called Grace Like a River. He began playing at age 11 and became famous as a teenager, but it was not until the age of 30 that he found true happiness in God.

Grace Like a River is the story of a young man,
filled with determination and drive,
who was willing to sacrifice everything in order
to achieve the highest level of excellence.
It is also the story of how God pursued
Christopher Parkening in order to give him eternal hope.

Also available is a companion CD of classical guitar music by Parkening entitled also Grace Like a River.(link to Amazon.com) You can read the first chapter on line at this link to tyndalebooksellers.com, including the forward by John MacArthur, who is also Christopher Parkening's pastor.

news worth repeating

You probably heard the news last week about the school in Massachusetts that recently banned the game of playing tag during recess. If not, you can read about it in Dave Ruse's blog titled Tag, You're Out. I can see why some schools around the country would ban "war ball" (or as we called it back in the day - "dodge ball") But to ban the most popular game of "tag" just makes no sense. As I was reading about this, I happened to hear Jay Leno's comments about the ban. He said the worst part of all this was the poor kid who was the last one to be tagged, and just imagine that poor soul has to go through the rest of his or her life as "IT" !!




Shwinn is looking to corner the market with their new 2007 Streamline electric bike. They claim this bike can go approximately 40 miles or 4 hours, whichever comes first, I guess.



The Gators had the last weekend off to give them extra rest and preparation for the big Georgia-Florida game in Jacksonville Saturday, Oct 28th. You may have missed this article title UF, Tim Tebow on the rise from the Times-Union on Oct 8th.
Tebow is from Jacksonville and was a home-schooled student, and he was able to play high school football at Nease High School in St. Augustine. His parents were missionaries but had to come home for medical reasons. Tim Tebow and his family still go back to the mission field for a few weeks each summer.

vacation photos

Photos of our trip to Pennsylvania are ready to view at the link to my gallery on the sidebar - or you can view here at franklybaggs gallery

Josh shows off the "Bubba" pacifier he found to match his "Billy Bob" teeth!

more favorites from Gary Varvel

check out more at the Varvblog

songs of praise

The Lawrence, Kansas newspaper recently published an article about Dan Forrest. He graduated from Bob Jones University and also taught piano for three years on staff. He and his family have now moved to Kansas and he will be working on his PH.D. in music composition at Kansas University.

Forrest says he can’t separate his faith from his sacred
music. “I know a lot of composers who write church music,
and for them it’s more a business,” he says.
“The texts aren’t necessarily as meaningful to them.
I believe personally — my faith is in Christ
alone — and I want that to come through in
music.”

read the article "Songs of praise"

Soundforth Music has published a book of SATB arrangements by our church music pastor, James Koerts. You may know him as the pianist and arranger for the Voices of Praise Quartet. Many of his arrangements were published in the TTBB collection Crown Him. Congrats! to James on his new collection from BJU Press "Come & Sing"

the next generation

Brandon's friends from college, Edwin and Cassie's son Gabe was born in September, the same week as Brielle


Photo of our 2nd granddaughter, Brielle, taken last week at four weeks old.


Jeremiah and Catie's son, Colin in a photo from his birthday this year.










A summertime photo of our first granddaughter Natalie with her cousin Matthew




Nephew Kenny and Casey shared this recent photo of their son Caden who was born in July





Natalie "babysits" her other cousin, Libby, in Wisconsin







AND we found out yesterday from Leah that our next grandchild due in December will be another girl!

trip to PA, day 8 & 9

Saturday, we spent our last day of vacation by first traveling to York, PA to shop at the Pfaltzgraff outlet store, and then headed up to Hershey, PA to visit Hershey's Chocolate World. In the town where the street lights are shaped like "kisses" we were able to tour the "simulated" factory. We had a two hour limit before parking was charged, so we had time to watch the 3-D show, similar to "Shrek" at Universal Studios with the special effects. Where else can you go and spend $55 on chocolate???

Sunday morning, we attended church where Josh is the assistant pastor. Hope Baptist Church was recognizing that day as their 18th anniversary. Pastor Harris has been there for six years. I am still getting used to everyone calling my son Pastor Franklin. Josh, Brandon and I sang a trio for the service called "Everlasting God" and Brandon played his trumpet solo of "It Is Well With My Soul". After enjoying one more meal with our granddaughter we headed home.

Other than being stuck in DC "Redskins" traffic from 5-6:30 pm, we had a good trip home, arriving at 5 AM Monday (just in time to go to work!) Thankfully, Brandon had Monday off from work, so he drove all the way home. I guess I looked very sleepy because when I went through the drive-thro of McDonald's for lunch on Monday, the cashier asked me if I was sleeping. And then about 1:30 pm, my boss made a point to tell me I could go home early and make up my time later in the week!

trip to PA, day 6 & 7

Front view of their home in Spring Grove, a two story townhome with a basement, built in 1898

Many trees in the area show the fall colors

Thursday actually felt like a vacation day, lots of R & R that day. Of course, we did sleep until 10 or 11 the first few days, so that was truly a vacation from the snooze alarm. For lunch/brunch, we met Josh at Perkins Restaurant in Hanover. Then Janelle took us on a "driving tour" of Hanover to see "downtown" Hanover and Codorus State Park. We spent the evening with the other set of "new grandparents" as the Harrises hosted us for dinner.

Josh and Janelle, the happy parents

Brielle was four weeks old today

Josh and Grandpa Harris keep Brielle entertained

Friday was another story! We awoke to an urgent phone call from Josh at the church. The hot water heater in the church kitchen had sprung a leak, and the floor had about 2 inches of water upstairs and was dripping through the light fixtures downstairs. We hurried over to help out and spent most of the morning with the shop vac and rug doctor, and moving furnishings in and out of rooms. After lunch and showers, we took a shopping trip to Ollie's where I found a lot of books to buy (on sale!) We ended the day with pizza at Genova's in Spring Grove.

trip to PA, days 3, 4 & 5

From Monday thro Wednesday I was able to spoil Brielle as much as possible since "grandma" Cindy would not be there yet! Josh and Janelle had just moved into their home the week that Brielle was born, and there was still plenty of work to do. Brandon and I helped with painting, pressure washing and landscaping, and the weather was warm and beautiful. I told their neighbor that we brought the warm weather with us from Florida.

Wednesday night we picked up "grandma" from the Baltimore-Washington airport. She was so surprised to see Brielle in the car seat, that she went straight to the baby (not sure if she said "hello" to anyone else!)

trip to PA, days 1 & 2

I was able to attend the 41st Homecoming Sunday at Calvary Baptist in Cowpens. My dad started the church when I was a kid, and I was one of the original charter members. The church is "going strong" and their current pastor has been there since my dad retired, about 21 years ago.


Brandon and I traveled to PA Sunday night, leaving SC around 4pm. We stopped in Candor, NC, to visit with Brandon's friends from college, Edwin and Cassie and their baby boy, Gabe. He was born the same week as Brielle. After supper at Mickie D's we headed for PA. Mapquest showed it was about 8 hours, but since we drove through DC at night, we made it in 7 hours. It was strange to see road signs for Washington, Mt. Vernon, New York, etc. We finally found Josh's home in Spring Grove, PA and hit the bed about 4am Monday.

Amish stop sign

I am heading to Pennsylvania to visit Josh and his family so I will probably take a break from blogging. We may visit Amish country while we are there.

family news update

October is here and it is my favorite month of the year - as I was born on the 21st - many moons ago (I will be 51 years young!) Other family birthdays for the month include: Morris Blackstock on the 4th; Derek Baggett on the 23rd; Aurora Skavatsos on the 27th; Mike Blackstock on the 30th, and Darrell Mitchell on the 31st.

Celebrating their anniversary this month are David and Joann Baggett.

Jeremiah's wife, Catie Baggett will be participating in the Heart Walk in Texas. You can visit her special web page to donate online at this link.

Brandon and I will be traveling to PA this weekend, by way of my parents in SC. My home church, Calvary Baptist Church in Cowpens, is celebrating their anniversary October 8th with homecoming and dinner. It will be nice to be there for the first time in many, many years. Cindy will be flying on Wednesday to join us and spend some time with our new granddaughter, Brielle.

Congrats! to April Logan, our niece, who received a special "Student Worker Appreciation Award" last month at Bob Jones University. The article below is from the BJU website-

The Student Worker Appreciation Award was presented
to April Marie Logan,senior nursing major, who works at IT
Telecommunications as a switchboard operator. After coming to
Christ, taking a step of faith to trust the Lord for her finances,
she transferred to BJU. During her first semester, while in
training to be an operator, April had a cancer scare and
had to return home several times to undergo surgery and to
determine whether further treatment would be necessary.
During this time she exhibited faith in the Lord, never lost
her joy in Christ, and was the first of the trainees to complete
her training. Her confidence in the Lord is an indication
of the depth of her relationship with Him.

April is in the year-round work program, staying to work over
holidays and summers. The Lord has provided financially
through her work and anonymous gifts to her school bill.
Although she has only three weeks off per year, she has gone
on summer mission trips to the Dominican Republic and the
Ukraine rather than go home. The Lord richly provided the
expenses of both trips, as well as her school bill.

April's service at Telecommunications is an encouragement
to the staff and fellow students with whom she works. She is
always willing to substitute and switch shifts. Her character
speaks of her love for and commitment to Christ. She seeks to
do what is right and to honor Him in all that she does, and
she encourages others to do the same

Oink Oink Oink

If you like puns, you will enjoy the challenge of this humorous quiz...

1) What is a pig’s favorite ballet?
2) What do you call a pig who’s been arrested for dangerous driving?
3) What does the little pig get every morning from his parents?
4) What do you call a crafty pig?
5) Why did the pig run away from the pig sty?
6) What does a pig use to write his term papers with?
7) What do you get if you cross a pile of mud with a pig?
8) Why didn’t the piglets listen to the teacher pig?
9) What do you call the story of The Three Little Pigs

Scroll down to read the answers....

1) Swine Lake
2) A road hog
3) Hogs and kisses!
4) Cunningham
5) He felt that the other pigs were taking him for grunted
6) Pen and Oink!
7) A groundhog
8) Because he was an old boar
9) A pigtail!

cookie madness

I think I will make this blog my home page! Just click on this link to cookie madness.net and you will see what I mean!

We watched the end of the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest that was broadcast on the Food Network last weekend. The winner of this year's Bake-Off Contest, Anna Ginsberg, also has the hobby of cooking "every day" and taking a picture of the cookies or cakes, etc. and posting them on her blog called cookiemadness.net. You can also watch a video of the winning recipe at this link.

declaring the glory of God

cold morning sunrise at Green Bay, Wisconsin

earth at night photo from nasa.gov

These photos remind us that only God could have created a world like this! These photos can be found at Astronomy Picture of the Day archive at nasa.gov