volume: 5

issue: 2

Pitman Post

March 22, 2012

groundhogs.
Inside this issue:
Hurricanes Athletics Hurricanes Athletics 2 3

and what Graham thinks about them:

A few weeks ago, a dear creature we all know as Phil emerged from a tree stump and made a prediction. He predicted six more weeks of winter. As we have seen, Punxsutwaney Phil (the official name of the groundhog) was wrong. Already, with temperatures nearly twenty degrees above average, we have seen how off Punxsuwhatever Phil was. So why do we continue to trust this groundhog? Why do we base our predictions on the thoughts and whims of a creature with a brain measuring only a few centimeters in length? When did this cultic following of the groundhog (also known as a woodchuck) begin? Well, it all started in the 1800s when Pennsylvanian farmers predicted how long the winter would last by whether the famous groundhog popped out of his den and stayed out or whether he only came out for a short while. Since then, the tradition has grown in importance until it has reached the fairly outrageous spectacle it was in 2012. And, after all the whoop-de-do over the respectable rodents forecast, it turns out Phil was not even correct, as we are already having a sizzling summer. All I ask is why? Why should we continue to believe this magical mouse? It seems there is no answer. So I ask you to help me. Help me to take a stand and take away the power and political sway of this lying lab rat, Punxsutwaney Phil.

Recipe Box Act of Valor

3 4

Treasures Morgans article

5 5

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Pitman Post

hurricanes.graham
For many homeschooled students and families, the idea of participating in a competitive sports league is just a dream. But, for the Upstate South Carolina homeschool community, that dream is reality. The program is called the Greenville Hurricanes, and it is under the leadership of the Upstate Homeschool Co-op (UHC). The Hurricanes organization began in the 2007-2008 season, when a homeschool father, Shawn Ward, merged his two basketball teams a Varsity Girls team and a Varsity Boys team with UHC. From that point, the program has grown to over ten teams and exceeding 140 athletes. When the Hurricanes were first started, Ward (who was later named the first Athletic Director) and Suzanne Brown, the Executive Director of UHC, were aided by a board of parents who helped to schedule games, enroll students in the program, and assist in other administrative duties. Since the beginning of the program, a few changes have taken place in personnel. Shelly Madson now holds most of the responsibility that the board did, and Ward stepped down as Athletic Director, giving Mike Worley the chance to lead the Hurricanes. Although the Hurricanes program is under the name and protection of UHC, it is not explicitly affiliated that is, other homeschooled students are allowed to participate in the sports programs. Even though only homeschooled athletes may participate now, talks are underway to change that policy for football next year so that private or charterschooled students without a football team may participate in the Hurricanes program. One of the programs hardest tasks has been finding other schools and homeschool organizations to compete against. But, this has become easier, and in the 2011-2012 season, the Varsity Boys Basketball team played against 14 different teams, including private schools, charter schools, and other homeschool teams. But there are still other difficulties. According to Brown, the toughest aspect of competing in and running the Hurricanes program is the constant changes the program must go through. Since homeschooling families must make educational choices from year to year, athletes are endlessly streaming in and out of the program. In her own words, It doesnt ever feel like you have the year going. There has been a lot of turnover in leadership and athletes. This makes it hard to have continuity. Still, the Hurricanes program has left a good impression on nearly everyone who has come into contact with it. As Brown puts it, For me personally, [the best part has been] the sense of community it brings to our families. I love seeing people have a healthy outlet to rally around for fellowship. Sports are a huge training ground for those that participate. It is constantly a place to refine character. Because of the emotions often involved in winning and losing, we have many opportunities to develop and evaluate what is deep in our hearts that often comes out in maybe not so pretty ways! This statement encapsulates how many homeschool families and players feel about the Hurricane program.

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Even as the number of athletes grows and the program changes hands, everyone is on the same page as to where the program is going. Worley says, The mission of our organization really has not changed. The organization began with the goal of providing a competitive athletics program to home school students in the UHC. The mission has expanded in terms of reaching more students and families with these sports. We do want to underline the intentional outreach to our community, competition, and all adjacent areas of support with the gospel lived out through the arena of sport. Worleys dedication to the program has made it possible for many athletes and families to be reached and, and that is what his hope is for the future also. Leaders in the organization are constantly faced with the decision to either keep the Hurricanes program the same or work to expand and improve it. Thankfully, leaders like Worley, Brown, and Madson, have improved and expanded the Hurricanes every year since

its origination. Even this spring, a football team has been added to the Hurricanes roster, and leaders are considering many other opportunities. According to Worley, There have been discussions regarding football, baseball, softball, and golf. But it may take more time than he may hope. Worley made this clear when he said, However, with the current opportunities for participation in other venues, it may take a little more time to bring to fruition. At this point in the 2012 Hurricanes season, soccer and volleyball games are ongoing, and football tryouts are available for students. The basketball season has just ended, with the Junior Varsity and Varsity boys teams taking second place in the homeschool state tournament, and the Middle School boys team earning first place in their bracket. So as the Hurricanes program moves on towards the next season, homeschoolers in the state of South Carolina continue to appreciate what it is doing for them and for the entire Greenville area.

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apps.morgan
all organized. When entering a recipe, it can be categorized under certain groups such as breakfast, dessert, side dish, ethnic, Christmas baking, etc. It even allows you to make your own groups. With each recipe, spaces are provided for ingredients, instructions, notes, and even a picture. I would encourage any cook, either just beginning or a pro (in which case you should send me some food because anything other than the cafeteria is always a treat), to purchase this app!

When I arrived at Anderson University last fall, the faculty and staff were eagerly waiting to present each freshman with a brand new iPad2. I have loved having this little gadget, and I use it all the time. Until I got an iPad, I never imagined the enormous amount of apps that are available for purchase or for free. If you can think of it there is most likely an app for it. One of my new favorite apps, introduced to me by my aunt, is called Recipe Box. With this app, it is easy to store and organize all of your recipes. During Christmas break, I sat down one day and entered all of the recipes from my recipe book. Now, it is exceedingly easy to find a recipe and keep them

Pitman Post

1 Corinthians 10.31 - So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.

At college, Morgan has a psychology class in which she has to write journal articles. This was one of her articles from the class:

tv dinners.morgan

Suppose you always serve dinner with the television on, turned to a news broadcast. Your hope is that your children will learn about the world as they eat. Can this practice be harmful? Unfortunately, it is the practice in many homes throughout America to watch television during dinner. I, however, believe that dinner at home is a great time (and sometimes the only time) that families have to all be together and talk. Having the television on, whether it is directly in front of the table or off in the background, can be a distraction to a familys conversation. With all of the busyness between activities such as sports, jobs, recitals, and church, it is often hard for a family to find time to simply relax, discuss how things are going, and enjoy a meal to-

gether. With all of my familys activities when I was growing up, it was not rare that my family ate dinner out at a restaurant about three nights a week. Whenever we had the opportunity to have a home-cooked meal as a family, however, my parents always made sure that our television was turned off. Some of my favorite memories growing up are of my family simply sitting around the dinner table (sometimes for a couple of hours if we had nowhere to go) just talking and laughing with each other after a meal. It is beneficial that children stay up to date in what is going on in the news, but I think that this can be accomplished at a time other than during dinner. Perhaps families could sometimes discuss the news during dinner, rather than watching it on television. I do not think that it is necessarily wrong to watch television during dinner (my family does it on occasion), but I do think that it is important to make talking during family dinner at priority.

Act of Valor is an awesome movie, with a very positive portrayal of our armed forces. However, as with any war movie, there is obviously lots of blood and killing and a considerable amount bad language. Anyone who knows our family may be wondering why we chose to see a movie with such negative elements. Graham and I saw the Act of Valor trailer before the movie was released and thought it looked like a pretty cool movie. I was a little discouraged after reading Focus on the Familys review on PluggedIn.com, but after doing a little research, I decided that the movie had a lot of positive elements as well. First, Act of Valor is inspired by real life Navy Seal missions and some of the actors are actual Navy Seals. I feel that in our current political climate, many of our teenagers dont get much in the way of positive stories when it comes to our military and I think this movie does a good job in telling the truth. Yes war is ugly, but we are blessed as a nation to have so many brave, well trained soldiers to protect us and our nation from would be terrorists. Also, unlike other movies in the world today, this movie portrays good as good and evil as evil. As far as the language is concerned, Graham fully understands that we dont condone bad language, but the language is fitting for the context. Im sure some soldiers use bad language, and while we honor should them for their service, we should not necessarily look to them as role models when it comes to matters of Godly speech and Godly living. Lastly, at the risk of sounding chauvinistic, I will say this is a guys movie and it will give the guys something to talk about and make references to without their wives, moms and sisters really understanding whats going on. The movie begins with a team of Navy Seals at a get together with all of their families the night before they are scheduled to leave for their next mission. This mission is a routine personnel recovery mission (as if there is such a thing as a routine Navy Seal mission) to rescue a female CIA agent that has been abducted by a group of thugs who is holding her hostage in Costa Rica and torturing her in various ways. While we dont actually witness some of the gruesome torture methods, enough details are shown to get the point across to the audience these guys are bad guys. Unfortunately for

movies.mark

them, the Seals parachute in near their compound under the cover of darkness and surround them. The Seals meticulously pick the bad guys off one-by-one until they can gain entry to the room where the agent is being detained. As they attempt to leave the compound, we hear one of the Seals declare, this is going to be a hot extraction to their extraction team. Then things get interesting the next 10 minutes are full of high speed chases with bullets flying, trucks exploding, bad guys dying, etc. until the Seals and their hostage are forced to drive their truck into the river as they rendezvous with their extraction team. This is one my favorite scenes of the movie, because the extraction vehicles are Navy SWCC (Special Warfare Combatant Craft) boats which are high speed, heavily armed watercraft and the next several minutes of the movie are filled with thousands of rounds of hot, 50 caliber lead hurling toward the bad guys. Needless to say, the CIA agent is returned safely and all seems well until the Intelligence Agency starts reviewing the intelligence information from this mission. This uncovers a far-reaching plot that necessitates several more equally thrilling missions. I wont give all of the details of these missions, but I can assure that you the Navy Seals take care of business and the bad guys are eventually stopped. The movie closes with a somber moment as a long list of the names of fallen Navy Seals scrolls by as the movie credits are played. I do think this was a great movie, but I recommend that you do your homework and make sure it is appropriate for you and your particular situation. Please remember to thank God for our Navy Seals and all of our armed forces soldiers past and present whether you decide to see this movie or not.

treasures.graham
On March 5th, I was forced, ahem, had the chance to go to a seminar by the name of How to Find Treasures in Your Own Backyard. The speaker, Brian Johnson, is a private archaeologist who has recently written a book and is now traveling the state promoting his book and sharing some of his archaeological finds with young children. But the reason I was there was to get some extra credit in Chemistry class. In the presentation, Johnson discusses items that he has found near his own house and yard, such as money, minerals, crystals, shells, or bones, and he encourages kids to look for the same sort of things. In his research, Johnson has collected many of these items, and other items such as gold, Native American artifacts, and most importantly, fossils. While speaking, Johnson wowed the kids with his collection of fossils, culminating the show with a cast of a Tyrannosaurus Rex leg bone. Johnson also talked about the history of treasure finding in our state, and he told us that South Carolina used to have over fifty gold mines, two of which are still in use. He said South Carolina ranks 7th out of 50 in state-by-state gold production, a fact which I was not aware of before Monday, especially since I did not know South Carolina produced gold at all. Although the presentation was interesting, it was not really suited for kids over about eleven or twelve years old. But, as I watched the seminar, I saw the kids in the audience get more and more excited as he pulled out bigger and bigger fossils. So, if you have younger kids who are interested in finding treasures of their own, I would definitely suggest taking them to see a presentation by Mr. Johnson!

Link to Mr. Johnsons book: http://sirbrainiac.com/