Slideshow from Joshua's Ordination Council

The slideshow of photos below is from Pastor (Josh) Franklin's Ordination Council at Hope Baptist Church in Hanover, PA, last Thursday, March 12. Our son was examined by seventeen pastors from the area and was heartily recommended to be ordained into the ministry. The Ordination Service was conducted on Sunday morning, March 15.

Video - Duke is the ACC Champion

Duke has now won 8 of the last 11 ACC Championships. Now on to the Big Dance! Duke plays its first round game at 9:40pm tonight!

March madness begins Thursday

For those of us who follow college basketball, March madness begins on Thursday. Duke finished the regular season by winning the ACC Championship on Sunday, defeating Florida State 79-69. They will begin the NCAA Tournament as a #2 seed, playing at 9:40pm Thursday night.

click to read recap of the game at ESPN

click link to view game photos

click to view NCAA Bracket

family photo Sunday

Congratulations to Josh and Janelle as he is being ordained today at Hope Baptist Church, Hanover, PA.

cartoons with perspective

Being a Christian himself, Gary Varvel always seems to have to right perspective when he draws his political cartoons. Here are a few of my favorites from the last week. (click each to enlarge)

Joshua's Ordination Council

We attended the Ordination Council for our son, Josh, today in Hanover, PA. The session started at 9:00 AM and ended around 2:15pm, including a break for a luncheon provided by Hope Baptist Church. Seventeen pastors were there to "grill" Josh about his views and beliefs on the various doctrines of the Bible. These included his beliefs about the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, the nature of God, the works of God, angels, creation of man, Christology, salvation, pastors and deacons, and the end times (Eschatology) and anything else they could think to ask him. At the conclusion, the council recommended that Josh be ordained into the ministry. The church will hold his Ordination Service this Sunday morning.

Jonathan Krohn at CPAC

This young man just turned 14 last week and has published a book called "Define Conservatism." You can view the video below of his speech at CPAC a few weeks ago, the Conservative Political Action Committee. Jonathan Krohn lives in Duluth, Ga, and is home-schooled. We will probably be seeing a lot of this young man in the future.

just two hours from Atlanta

Last month we visited Birmingham, Alabama for the first time. We have driven through the city before, but since my wife attended a teacher's convention in there, I decided to tag along. I was surprised that it was only a two hour drive from downtown Atlanta to this city. We stayed an extra night (using our SPG points) and visited some attractions Friday and Saturday. First, we stopped at the Peanut Depot, where they roast peanuts all day long in roasters that were made in the early 1900's. Then, we drove to the top of Red Mountain. This mountain was discovered to have lots of iron ore, limestone and coal in the late 1800's. Those are the three ingredients used to produce pig iron. Furnaces were built in the valley where the city is today, and by the early 1900's there were 108,000 workers in the various industries. However, during the Great Depression, 100,000 of those workers lost their jobs.



There is also a tower with the Vulcan statue on top. This huge statue was commissioned for the first World's Fair to be held in the United States, the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. This fair was also known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, celebrating the centennial of that historic purchase. We rode the elevator to the top for a beautiful view of the city. As we left Vulcan Park, we decided to drive out to the Summit, and outdoor mall. You can never trust Mapquest or even Google maps! I think we took three or four wrong turns and after what seemed like an hour of driving, we found the Cheesecake Factory. We had a gift card to eat there and I thought since it was Valentine's Day on Saturday, we could beat the rush by going there on Friday night. Wrong! We had to wait for an hour and a half to be seated, but it was worth the wait!


On Saturday, we drove to the Five Points area to walk off our free breakfast buffet. The city has many historical buildings which have been restored. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. The city owns the gardens and there is no admission fee. We will have to go back when the flowers are blooming, but it was nice to see all the landscaping and I especially enjoyed the Japanese Gardens with the bamboo forest. I had never seen black bamboo before.

Click to view the photo gallery of our trip

family photo Sunday

I found this rare photo (circ. 1940's) of my grandfather, Rev. John Sherman Rice, and thought I would post it in honor of our oldest son who will be ordained into the ministry next Sunday. Grandpa Rice spent many years in the mountains of North Carolina as a circuit riding preacher. We named our first son, Joshua Sherman Franklin, after him. We did not know that Josh would become a 4th generation minister when he was born in 1978. But our pastor in Jacksonville at the time, Dr. Arthur Estes, predicted that Joshua would become a preacher because of his loud booming voice.

fun at the grand prix

Cindy and I had the distinct honor to be the design judges at our church's Frontline Club Grand Prix race a few weeks ago. There were supposed to be four judges, but two of them were no-shows. I was surprised how different our "ratings" were for the cars, so she was able to break my three tied scores in at least one age group! 28 young people participated in making their car (with help from their Dads I'm sure)




It was harder to judge than I thought it would be. In the four age groups, we chose one design winner. The kids also raced their cars four times each to find our the winner of each group.





I guess living in Florida for 30 years may have influenced us to choose this "Whale" of a car as one of the winners. I thought the "hot dog" car would win but it did not fit in the "box" and we had to mark it down because it was over the size limit.


See slideshow for more cute photos.

Slideshow - March Birthdays

Slideshow - Snow Day in GA

Duke holds on to win over Virginia Tech

(Jon Scheyer drives against VT in photo)
Saturday's game was another nail biter for us Duke fans. When the Virginia Tech Hokies tied the game in the second half, it was fun to watch the Dukies hold them off and win. As the sportscaster would say many times during this game, the Blue Devils had to do the hokie-pokie a few times to win this one. Another interesting stat was that Gerald Henderson scored 17 of his 21 points in the first half, and Kyle Singler started the second half with 2 points and ended with 21 points.

The last few weeks of the season have been full of tough games for the Dukies. This week the Blue Devils face two more tough teams to end the regular season with games against Florida State (Tues) and North Carolina (Sun.) I believe they can win both games if they play well, so expect two more exciting ball games.

Links:
Recap of the game at goduke.com
AP Photo gallery
Singler's 21 points fuel Duke to win

family photo Sunday

I just had to post a picture showing our snow today. We came out of church just after noon and the snow had already been falling. Other than a few light flurries in December, this is our first snowfall of the season. This view is from our front door and it is still coming down 3 hours later.

Duke vs Maryland - Top 5 highlights of the game

wall builders

I recently watched a portion of a program on television called "American Heritage" featuring David Barton. His website is called Wallbuilders.com is "dedicated to presenting America's forgotten history and heroes." Since I am keenly interested in American history, this program caught my attention. The television broadcast may be hard to find; it can be found on TBN or Cornerstone Christian cable networks, but the second week I tried to watch it, the station was broadcasting a local program instead. The website has many interesting links. For example, under the "Library" button, you will find links to "Black History," with many African-American resources in pdf format, "Historical Documents," with proclamations all the way back to the 1700's "Historical Writings," with many sermons and other writings from the 1700 - 1800's and much more. It looks like a very useful sight for teachers.

Dukies back in the game

After losing a couple of games back to back, I was having a tough time dealing with the Dukies in the losing column. I could relate to Pat Summit, the Tennessee Vols ladies coach. In an interview after she had coached her 1000th winning game, she responded to a reporter asking how she felt when she lost a game. She said she just gets physically sick when the team loses. Well, I am not quite that bad, but I do feel much better when the Dukies are winning than when they are losing!

Just to recap, the Blue Devils lost to the North Carolina Tarheels at home, 87 -101. It was hard to believe the Dukies scored 87 points and still lost the game. Duke followed their loss to UNC with a close game against Boston College. Even though they were tied and/or ahead with about 30 seconds to go, Duke still lost the game, 74 - 80. It seems the ACC teams always play their BEST game against Duke. So I am feeling much better now after the Dukies beat St Johns 76-69 at Madison Square Gardens last Thursday and then put Wake Forest in their place this weekend. (101-91) Now the Blue Devils are playing like a final four team again. Gerald Henderson and Jon Scheyer were both outstanding in the game Sunday night. Henderson scored a season high 35 points and Scheyer was hitting his 3-point shot again. Even Coach K was showing some emotion for a change! Now, we need to make it through the next two weeks without losing to Maryland (Weds. - 2/25) Virginia Tech (Sat 2/28) Florida State (Tues 3/03) and the final regular season game and rematch against the NC Tarheels ( Sun 3/08 ).

March Madness is already here !

Click to read QUOTES after the game against Wake Forest
Click to read "Lineup change paying off for Duke" at ESPN
Click to read the game recap
Click view photos of Duke-WF game

family photo Sunday

My mother - Martha Loretta (Rice) - age 8 1/2

Photo taken in early 1942

home improvements slideshow

Our family's Christmas presents to us this year were several projects for our new home in Georgia. Our sons worked on clearing the backyard fence and trees of some pesky monster vines, possibly English ivy - no one seems to know for sure. The last of the vines were cut at the bottom of the trees about 2 months ago now, and the vines still look green and healthy - maybe in another month they will die. Another project was to repair/replace the flooring at the entrance. The previous owner had cats which did not know how to use the litter box. So the floor at the entrance and coat closet had cat urine soaked into the sub-flooring. Josh and Stephen cut out and replaced the sub-floor and by the end of the week, Stephen was able to finish installing a new porcelain tile floor. We really enjoy the look of the tile and it blends very well with our stone fireplace in the living room.

family photo Sunday

Among the old family photos I recently acquired is this picture taken of my late uncle Jimmie Rice standing in front of the Azay Le Rideau Castle in France. The castle (click to read more) was "close to camp" according to the back of the photo and was taken on Sunday, March 5, 1952.

Slideshow - places to visit when in Atlanta

The first time I tried to visit the Varsity Restaurant (click to view website) was about 4 years ago when we were tourists in Atlanta. The sign inside the building says that there is seating for 650 people and when we walked in the door that Saturday afternoon, it looked as if all seats were taken and another 500 people were in line waiting to place an order. So obviously, we picked a bad day and time to go to the Varsity and turned around and walked back out. Now that we live only 30 minutes from downtown, we have been several times. Bob, one of my co-workers in Jacksonville who used to live in Atlanta, gave me a couple of gift certificates to enjoy the Varsity when I moved here two years ago. So we took some of our family to visit the world famous Varsity on New Year's Eve. (read more below slideshow)

On that same day we discovered another interesting place to visit, the Cyclorama,(read more) located near Grant Park. Inside this building there is a 360 degree hand painted Civil War canvas of the Battle of Atlanta, about three stories high. You are seated in the center of the room and the seats turn as you view the painting. We were not allowed to take pictures as the painting was done by hand with oil paint in the late 1800's. A Civil War general commissioned the painting to use while he was running for election. But he died before it was completed, and it was sold to a circus. After traveling around the country with a circus for many years, it ended up in Atlanta in the early 1900's when the circus closed down. The animals in the circus became the Atlanta Zoo and the building to display the painting was completed and named the Cyclorama.

family photo Sunday

This is one of the few photos I have of my Dad's mom, Mattie Belle (Keeter) Franklin. It was probably taken in the early 1950's in front of their home in Clifton, SC. My mother recently gave me an envelope full of old photos so I am looking forward to scanning and posting them this year on my blog. Grandma Franklin was born on April 13, 1889 (120 years ago) and lived until she was 91 years of age.

Blue Devils rally to beat the Hurricanes in OT 78-75

Click to view photo gallery
It has been a tough week for the Dukies. Wednesday night, Duke played their worst ball game of the season at Clemson, and the Clemson Tigers played a perfect game - humiliating the Dukies 74-47. At least my sister was happy :) I think that was the first time this season that Duke has scored under 50 points. Duke had at least 13 turnovers in the first half of the game on Wednesday night and most of those were from bad passes. In today's game, they started the first half of the game against Miami stone cold, even though the game was at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The half time score was Miami 34, Duke 19, but the Dukies came to play in the second half and prevailed in overtime to win the game 78-75. (I have no finger nails left) The team was definitely a different team that played the 2nd half, so I can only guess what Coach K told them in the locker room.
Click to read the recap at ESPN

After the game, Coach K had some interesting comments:

Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski
Opening Statement:
“Today’s game was one of the most different that I’ve coached in my 29 years here, and I thought it was a game that we lost, then we won. President [Richard] Brodhead came into our locker room after I was finished talking with the team and I think he put it in the best description. He said, ‘That was a game you had to win over and over again.’ Both teams had to do that. There was so many great efforts and plays in the last 17 minutes and overtime that it was a game you had to win over and over again. [Jack] McClinton was spectacular. The shot he hit with two guys on him was just a big-time shot. I stopped to mention a couple things to him because that’s not luck. The kid is just a great player, a great shooter. You worry that you spend so much to come back that you’re not going to have enough for overtime, but I thought we were great in overtime. Gerald [Henderson]’s penetration of the zone – there was so much more movement in the last 17 minutes that we didn’t have before, but his penetration helped a great deal, and no turnovers and four assists. Then Greg [Paulus] when he hit, and was cutting through, that was pretty good. But, the relentless pursuit of the ball by [Dave] McClure was just a great example for the rest of the guys that we’re going to keep doing until it works, which wasn’t the attitude that we had [in the first half]. We were absent of attitude. I think we just had such residue from Clemson in that first half. I thought we did some good things, but when our shots weren’t going we slipped right back into that, and somehow we got out of it. Paulus’ performance – he became our leader today. . . I saw some amazing things this afternoon for the making of a team that happened for our kids. We were real men, and we beat a team that is very talented and very difficult to play against.” click to read more quotes at duke.edu

February Birthday Slideshow

Duke bounces back to win big over Virginia, 79-54

What a difference a "game" makes! After losing a tough game against Wake Forest, the Dukies were able to bounce back with a win over Virginia. Duke is now 5-1 in the ACC and holds onto first place in the conference. Another tough game is coming up on February 4th against Clemson, but lately every game in the ACC is tough - just look at what happened to Wake Forest Saturday when they lost to Georgia Tech in the last few seconds.

Click to read recap of game by AP

Photo: Kyle Singler dunks the ball during Sunday's game

Click to view more photos at espn

family photo Sunday

One big happy family . . . the Franklin family Christmas photo (2008)