The Sun even shines on a Dog's...

I've just watched my UCLA Bruins fall at the hands of the Washington Huskies in Seattle. The No. 5 UCLA Bruins who were basically having their way with most of the PAC-10 schedule (other than USC) were knocked off by the 9th place team. On paper, this doesn't happen, but (here it is again) I guess that's why they play the games. Quite appropriate that Washington's mascot is a Husky here, and that it was indeed a bright sunny day...

Leave it to my son to come up with the most interesting take on something I've heard all day. Scratch that. Maybe even all week or all month. As we were driving east on Highway 24, approaching the Caldecott tunnel, he cleared his throat to speak over the music. I was bumpin' the Soundtrack from Superfly and we were heading to one of my basketball games for a change when he made his grand observation.

"This is like a nose," he said, "the tunnel...."

My daughter and I probably had the same puzzled look on our faces, trying to grasp exactly to what he was referring in that instant.

"Except without the snot," he went on.

It was at that moment that I realized that he was talking about the tunnels cut into the mountain. I laughed initially. But then I turned the music down to ponder this for a moment. You know how it makes you see better when you're lost to turn down the music and squint to see the addresses listed on the houses? It was like that. He was absolutely right. Leave it to an 8-year-old to come up with this very unique way of looking at something so forgettable as a highway tunnel that usually just reminds me of rush-hour traffic.

Joe Marshall from the Omega Boys Club was at Church today and said something so simple that its profundity was quite undeniable. I heard him say it again as I was flipping through stations this evening and his weekly radio show "Street Soldiers" was on. He was recollecting a conversation he had had with a troubled youth and trying to get him on the right path for life.

"If you knew what I knew, you wouldn't do what you do," he said, quite simply.

I daresay that he has uttered this many more times than just to the one individual. It just really struck a chord with me, and made me think back to when I was a teen thinking that I had all the answers. Now I was by no means troubled, but it struck me just the same. I'm sure I'll store this one away for future use and I only hope that I can make it work for me too.