Laurie and I star in our own Jib-Jab movie…
Category: reflections
Are politicians cut from the same cloth?
From NPR:
Sen. Barack Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney are distant cousins. President Bush and Sen. John Kerry have dozens of shared relatives. Megan Smolenyak, chief family historian at ancestry.com, talks to Alex Cohen about tracing back the family tree.
Looks like Walt Disney is also George Bush’s 13th cousin, once removed… interesting.
Better get back to work on my family tree.
The Wiki Tree
I don’t know how many of you looked at our new Wikipedia site yesterday… I haven’t worried with stats since I’m visiting it a lot and making additions, changes and such but I’ve run into a dilemma. I’m trying to map out our family tree (The Blundell/Scherbarth portion of it for now) and I’m not sure of the layout.
The way it is now (as of this posting) made sense to begin with, but it might be a bit more confusing now. As it is I show up under Heading 1 and 2. But maybe that’s how it should be. Feel free to add your thoughts by clicking on the discussion page, or leaving your comments here.
Casa de Blundell Wiki
Cheney ‘the black sheep of family’
From the AP/NPR:
Though they may spar across the political aisle, Vice President Dick Cheney is close enough to Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama to call him “cousin.” Eighth cousin, that is.
Lynne Cheney, the vice president’s wife, revealed this tantalizing bit of political trivia during a television interview Tuesday.
Apparently Cheney’s wife discovered the link while researching her memoirs.
A spokesman for the Obama Presidential Campaign said, “obviously Cheney is the black sheep of the family.”
Gotta love family history. I’ve had a lot of fun tracing our family history back using Geni and other online services. I’m interesting in finding out more about the Pendleton pedigree, which is on my mom’s side of the family.
According to her spokeswoman, Sen. Obama, D-Ill., is a descendent of Mareen Duvall. This French Huguenot’s son married the granddaughter of a Richard Cheney, who arrived in Maryland in the late 1650’s from England, said Ginny Justice, a spokeswoman for Lynne Cheney.
Got any interesting history in your family tree?
Facing the Lion
Our series next month at encounter will deal with “Facing the Lion” based loosely on a book by Mark Batterson, In the Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. Batterson shares this Lion Chaser’s Manifesto today on his blog:
Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshiping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away.
Chase the lion.
What do you find yourself running from? What’s holding you back from being yourself? Where can you expand your horizons?