A new approach to an autumn chore

It’s fall, and the leaves have been falling for a while; most of the trees on our street have fairly well been cleaned out. Fortunately, we hadn’t had much rain to speak of until this week. On Sunday afternoon, it was high time I cleaned out the rain gutters on our house.

Cleaning the gutters is such a dirty and slow task. Hoisting the ladder out, putting it up, climing up, cleaning out what I can reach, then getting down, moving the ladder, and repeating until done.... ick. Even if I climb up onto the roof, it’s quite a process, having to move the bucket along with me. Last year, I decided I’d just throw it on the ground, and clean it up afterward. Still messy, but a little less precarious than hauling a bucked up and down, or along the roof’s edge.

This year, I was wondering if there wasn’t some way I could make it go faster. I thought of trying my shop-vac, but realized that its hose is too short, and there was no way I was dragging the whole thing along the roof with me. Nina reminded me of our leaf vacuum thingy. It’s actually a leaf blower that you can attach a catch bag and a vacuum cone onto, to pick up all the leaves from your lawn. Take off the bag, and remove the cone, and it’s back to being a leaf blower.

So I dragged that thing up, and found that there was no way to get the end of the vacuum cone into the gap between the roof’s edge and the gutter’s lip in order to make the suction pull the leaves out. The cone is just too big.

Then it hit me. Why not just use the blower to blow the leaves out? They should still be dry, and come flying out. Could be fun!

Well, the gutters weren’t entirely dry. Turns out the rain from last weekend, and the residual moisture from the dew of the chilly mornings we’re getting kept a decent amount of mud in the bottom of the gutters. BUT -- it worked, anyway! Leaves came flying out, and then, so did the mud, raining down on the ground below, our cars in the driveway, the lower part of the roof, and, naturally, all over the nut with the leaf blower!

The first spatters caught me by surprise, and I thought, “Well, maybe not.” Then I saw just how effective this method was of cleaning not only the dry leaves out of the gutter, but also the wet leaves and the remaining sludge. It worked well, it worked fast, and if I kept at it, I could be inside and warm (after a hot shower) in record time. So, on I forged. I warned the kids to stay away, or to go get an old umbrella, and ran the blower all the way down along the front of the house. The front took about 8 minutes (not that I was counting), and the back took about 5, since it was less damp, and collects less foliage.

Now, I’m sure some one was looking down the street and saw me up there with a leaf blower, with leaves, muck, and debris blasting up out of the gutters, and down onto me, our house, and our yard, and thought, “That has to be the dumbest guy I’ve ever seen. Hauling a leaf blower along the roof -- he could fall and break his neck! Why doesn’t he just get a bucket and a ladder, and muck them out the way you’re supposed to?”

Then again, there were probably one or two guys who thought, “Man, I wish I’d thought of that.”

It feels so good to be an inspiration to people.

This is SO me...

"Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age." - William Feather

Another quotable

"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it."

- Terry Pratchett

ZOE Conference Reflections

I have spent the past couple of days trying to write my reflections on the ZOE Group worship conference that I attended last weekend, with mixed results. It’s hard to try and sort out everything I learned, because some of it isn’t easy to articulate. But, fool that I am, I’m giving it one more try.

As I flew to Nashville last Wednesday, I found myself wondering where my attention to God had gone. It seemed like every now and then I’d wake up and think, “Oh, yeah, I’m a Christian. I need to be organizing my thoughts to do good things in God’s name.” I spent more time thinking about the mundane things of life, and about the non-Godly things I was expecting for the weekend -- where I’d do a little shopping, where I’d eat, where I’d do some sightseeing -- and little time trying to open myself up to what God had planned for me to hear for the weekend. Appropriately enough, the theme for the conference this year is “Closer,” and it focuses on finding intimacy with God.

I puzzled over odd things on the flight out; from Oakland to Dallas, I was in a window seat next to someone that I barely looked at, and didn’t interact with at all. It was one of those situations where you are forced to be physically close to someone, but you put up an invisible wall to retain some strained sense of personal space. I wondered what it was that makes some people more able to interact with strangers in such situations. I’m a generally friendly guy, but I do tend to clam up in situations like this. I was very relieved that my second flight from Dallas to Nashville put me a whole seat away from the nearest human being.

Wednesday evening, I attended the “Vespers” service at the Otter Creek Church. It’s a contemplative service, with low lights, candles, and softer music. The theme had to do with prisoners; I expected to focus on being prisoners to our sin, or something spiritual like that, but they were talking more about their ministry to people in prisons in the area. Still, it was a good experience. I’d like to do something like that at our church sometime.

At the Leadership Conference, which went from Thursday afternoon to Friday afternoon, the keynote speaker was Lauren Winner, author of several books, including Girl Meets God. I had been reading the book over the week before the conference, and have been challenged by it to consider ways to focus my relationship with God through adopting some liturgical practices in my daily routine. Her talks at the conference further moved me in that direction. Ms. Winner (soon to be Dr. Winner) spoke very well about finding God when He seems to be hidden, and also about Sabbath-keeping and its role in the Christian’s relationship with God. I got a lot out of it.

Jeff Walling spoke Thursday evening about the fact that God has done everything necessary for us to be close to Him; we just need to accept and recognize His presence in order to “grow closer.” Jeff is always a real kick to hear, and he usually finds a way to use laughter to disarm us, then jumps in with very clear, moving statements that drive his point him. He spoke about Moses at the burning bush, and had everyone in the place take off their shoes and socks! He used that to illustrate our need to remove the barriers that we put up to keep God out. Jeff’s talk was very helpful to me.

Mike Cope spoke on Friday night and Saturday morning, as part of the main Worship Conference. Mike brought us lessons from two stories in the life of Jacob. When Jacob was running to Haran (and away from Esau), and had the dream about the angels going up and down the ladder, he realized that God had been right there all along.


A similar thing happened 20 years later, when he was returning home, and wrestled with God; Jacob didn’t recognize that it was God until the end of the event. It was as if he was walking around in a fog, not realizing that God was with him.

Kinda reminds me of me.

During the Leadership Conference, we had four sessions talking about how we use our heart, hands, head, and home to engage in God’s work, and draw close to Him that way. Some of the best parts of those sessions were the small groups we divided into, and the discussions we had there. My group was two gentlemen who are worship leaders and one young lady who participates in her church’s praise team. We got to bounce ideas off of each other, and help us work through the topics of the sessions. It was a good experience.

The workshop sessions on Saturday were good. I went to one led by Brandon Scott Thomas, and that was good. I respect Brandon for all he has done to serve other worship leaders, as well as his own church as a worship leader himself.

I also attended some tech sessions led by Matt Maxwell, and got to chime in with a lot of geek information, which is always fun. Matt’s a real good guy, and has put together a lot of very creative videos and media for his church in Abilene. I’ve learned a fair amount about video from him, in just a few short sessions. I love talking tech with him whenever I see him!

The worship times and singing were also very stirring. I found sometimes I couldn’t sing; I just had to listen and focus on the words being sung, trying to open myself up to God. The ZOE Singers, led by Brandon and Peter Wilson, and Woodmont Hills Church praise team, led by Randy Gill, really brought their whole hearts to worship, and drew us in with them.

It’s hard to say what I came away from the conference with. There were some ideas: God is close, I just have to pay attention -- but I knew that. Being close to God takes discipline -- but I knew that. I guess I was reminded of things I knew, and the weekend gave me a real sense of refreshment and hope. I feel like God got through to me, and that I can find the time and energy to listen to Him more.

It was a good trip, and I enjoyed seeing friends that I have made over the years. I enjoyed meals at Cracker Barrel, Corky’s and Waffle House, and enjoyed the scenery around Nashville. I was glad to get home to my wife and kids, and to start facing my life again with the things God brought me through the ZOE Conference.

Fading illusions...

So, it looks like we Californians are going to have to use handsfree devices for cel phones starting in 2008. That's fine with me, though it probably means seeing more people wearing their Bluetooth headsets all the time, as if they were watches, or jewelry.

But what kinda bugs me about the whole thing is this: Weren't we supposed to have handsfree cars by now? I remember reading predictions about this kinda stuff in Popular Science when I was a kid, and I'm still waiting to be able to buy a car that flies, or drives itself! Where are the 45-minute commuter flights to Europe, for that matter?

It just goes to show you that not enough people read science fiction.

A new favorite

I will admit to being a man who is quite comfortable with the familiar. Some things don’t change: The Dodgers are favorite baseball team (though I pay very little attention to baseball at all), Chicago is my favorite band (closely followed by Level 42 and Toto), and Dr. Pepper is my favorite soft drink.

But in other respects, I have somewhat meteoric tastes. I can switch favorites in other areas pretty quickly. Favorite TV show? Lost... no, wait, Stargate SG-1... or maybe reruns of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Favorite item on the Chevy’s menu? Shrimp fajitas, unless the fish tacos look good, or maybe I’ll go for the spicy flautas. Favorite beer? What micro- or craft brew is on sale?

Right now, my favorite a cappella jazz group is Groove Society. I just discovered them via A Cappella Always, my current favorite Live365 internet radio station. Their “Tribute to Earth Wind & Fire” blew me away, and I just had to track them down. Fortunately, their first album (self-titled) is available via iTunes, my preferred way of finding new music. Great voices, great harmonies, great arrangements.... few groups get as good as this.

My apologies to Blue Line Max... you have just been unseated, though your Christmas album will always have a treasured place in my library. And, of course, you will always be my favorite a cappella jazz group, half of whose members I have met, which is based in Portland, and which has recorded “There Was a Star.”

Compartmentalizing keeps the favorites from fighting.

Discuss among yourselves...

Every now and then, some crazy thing pops into my head -- or, more likely, out of my mouth -- that really makes sense. Last night at our prayer meeting, I got one of those. We were talking about being mad at God for things in our lives not going the way we want. As if we had any clue about how things really ought to be. But it’s okay to be mad at God, so long as we let it open up a dialog with Him.

So, here’s the thought for the day:

Sometimes, getting good and mad at God is the best way for Him to get my attention.

You can quote me. Or just point and giggle, whatever works.

Happy Anniversary!

On August 17, 1991, I had the good sense to marry Miss Nina J. Oliver. (Questions about her sense in the matter will not be discussed.) In the ensuing 15 years, there have been a lot of ups and downs, as with every good marriage. We have made good and bad decisions, we have been respectful and disrespectful of each other. We have laughed together, cried together, and sometimes cried, each of us alone. We have both grown up quite a bit, and have just begun to see now how much growing we still have to do.

She has blessed me with her wisdom and intelligence, and I have blessed her with my concern and compassion. She has taught me to think more clearly, and I have helped her take time to stop thinking every now and then. Our strengths cover each others' weaknesses, and our gifts meet each others' needs.

I am learning more every day to hear her heart when she speaks, and to speak to her in a way that she will hear my heart.

I am not proud of everything I have done as a husband. I am, however, proud to say that I am her husband. She has endured my faults, and encouraged my strengths. I am a better man for having let her into my life. I pray that she is a better woman for having let me into hers.

Happy Anniversary, Nina. I love you beyond words.

(Note: Yes, that picture above IS us. She is still as beautiful as the day we got married. I am still as dashing and handsome as I ever was. Which, of course, is open to interpretation!)

Our thought for the day

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers."
- Daniel J. Boorstin

Vacation in Oregon

We’ve been on the road since last Saturday, on a little trip to Oregon. We drove up Highway 101 out of the Bay Area, through Sonoma and Mendocino Counties, and up through the redwood forests of the Northern California coast. We stayed in Gold Beach, Oregon the first night out, and then spend the next day driving up to Seaside, Oregon, where we stayed for three nights in a little hotel on the beach. On Wednesday, we drove over to Portland, and are staying with my brother and his wife, primarily to attend the Columbia Christian College/Cascade College reunion. More on that later.

One thing I have noticed during the trip: Oregon drivers have the rather annoying tendency to view the posted speed limit with awe and respect, as if it were something they aspire to, but are afraid of attaining. Californians, of course, view it as an advisory about how ticked off to expect the law enforcement officer to be when we get pulled over.

Did I mention that I got a speeding ticket on this trip?

Oregon’s “highways” through rural areas, including the coastal region, have far too few passing lanes and turnouts. We’d have had a much shorter drive last Sunday if it hadn’t been for that, and all the speed-law-abiding Oregon drivers. I’m not bitter, though. If you’ve got to take your time getting somewhere, the Oregon coast is a good place to do it!

While we were in Seaside, it was rather appalling to discover that I couldn’t get a good cup of coffee from anyplace in the downtown tourist district at 8:00 on a Monday night. I thought this was the Northwest, the bastion of caffeination of the country! Aren’t there laws about the quota of coffee shops required on each block of a city, and the mandatory hours of operation? Pure insanity. I had to content myself with coffee in our hotel room.... ick. I should have brought my French press.

The Columbia/Cascade reunion has been a lot of fun. Nina attended Columbia from 1985 to 1989, and it’s been good to see some of her old friends (even some friends of mine from various places) and show off our kids. For many of the Columbia graduates, it was a time to reconnect, and recognize that Cascade is still their school. After Columbia shut down, then Cascade opened in its place, many of them felt displaced. This weekend has helped to reconnect them -- I know that’s true for Nina.

It’s been good to see several folks I have come to know through WorshipForum -- Ike Graul, Dan Dalzell, Jim Murphy, “Big Mike” Lewis, Joe and Pam Burris, and probably some others, who I have already forgotten.... I have gotten to know some of Nina’s college friends over the past few years, as well, like the LaValley family, Don and Mary Lou Boderman, Dan and Linda Coburn, Jeff Brady, Kami Ellenz, and a few others. So it helped me to not feel completely like the odd man out.

I even got to sing, along with Nina, on a praise team at the chapel service on Friday morning. Dan Dalzell had been asked to lead a couple of songs, and so he put together a group of us to sing together. It was great fun, since the group included Dan and his wife, Lani, Ike and Kaelea Graul, and Phil Hurley, all of whom had sung with various groups at Columbia/Cascade. Also singing with us were Dan’s parents, Dick and Sue Dalzell -- Dick directed choirs at Columbia for many years, and is one of the best vocal conductors I have ever seen. I was in awe of the talent Nina and I got to rub elbows with for the morning. Nina was very glad to be included, since she wasn’t known for singing while she was at school -- she did the band thing, playing flute (quite well, if you ask me).

Friday evening, there was an event called “Campus Collage.” It was billed as a talent show, but the talent in question was... well, questionable! It was neat to see some folks perform together who had done so when they were in college together, even if they were a tad rusty. And Greg and Kevin Woods’ rendition of “To Dweam the Impossible Dweam” was hilarious!

For me, though, the highlight of the evening was Wayne and Lori Aus reviving their “Jake and Kate” act. I had seen Wayne do “Jake the Peg” at camp when I was 12 or 13, where he comes out as a three-legged man and does a little song and dance number. (“...at school when we had the three-legged race, I could win it on my own!”) Later, he and his wife added her part to it as a three-legged woman who Jake meets and falls in love with. It was fun to see it again, and even more fun to watch my kids watch the act, and try to figure out how they did it!

It’s been a good trip, and tomorrow we start for home. We’ll stop tomorrow night in Redding, and get home sometime Monday. It’ll be good to get back to our own beds, our home church, and my French press.

Eyeglasses and the things that stick to them.

I found this sitting on my hard drive while cleaning things out today. I wrote it on July 7, 2000. I didn’t post it on my blog because that was before blogs. I could have posted it on my website, but I didn’t get around to it. I think I’ve got two or three other things I wrote for no other reason than I felt like writing -- or I felt like not doing what I was supposed to be doing. Anyway, here are my thoughts on eyeglasses from six years ago.

--------------------------

There are many disturbing things that happen as a result of aging. Aches, pains, incontinence, the inability to understand current popular music lyrics, overwhelming bouts of maudlin nostalgia, the getting-up-and-going of one’s get-up-and-go, and the increasing effect of caffeine on ones system are just a few.

I think, for me, the most annoying product of impending middle age is that I can’t seem to keep my eyeglasses clean anymore. From time to time, while staring dully at my computer screen (which also happens much more frequently these days), I’ll notice what appear to be smudges and spots on the monitor. I’ll dutifully clean them with a static-free cloth, and then notice that the same smudges have moved to my desk, telephone, clock (which gets an increasing amount of attention, as well), or coworkers. Now, with some of my coworkers, I don’t mind it as much, but it’s nice to be able to tell who’s coming to see if you want some fresh fruit apart from the young punks who are trying to stab you in the back!

Eventually, I’ll realize that it’s my glasses that are smudged, not the rest of the world. I seriously do not recall it being this much of a problem when I was younger. (Oh, great. More nostalgia!) My glasses could stay clean all day… even when I ate pizza for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and every in-between-meal snack! (Alas, that, as well, would now have embarrassing, if not disastrous effect on my ever-nigh-unto-decrepit body!) Occasionally I’d wipe them off on my shirt tail (which is much higher than it used to be), or other cloth that was lying around (more and more I’m only finding ragged underwear), and be set for the rest of the day, or more!

But now they seem to be grease magnets! Finger prints, spots from a particularly strong sneeze, blits of moisture from watering eyes (happens with kids, don’t’cha know!), dust, lint, animal dander, eyelashes, and who knows WHAT else, seem to use my glasses as a meeting place.

I’ve considered getting laser surgery to correct my vision. Only one thing troubles me. No, it’s not the though of some nut waving an exacto-knife around my eyeball while his mind is on his golf swing. It’s the thought of all that stuff that’s floating around, trying to get on my glasses…. Where’s it going to go if my glasses are gone? Exactly -- Right onto my eyeball!

I’m beginning to wonder if this wasn’t what great-aunt Maisy used that can of Scotch-Gard for, the one she kept handy at her sewing table when I was a kid. I thought it was kinda funny that she had it there; one doesn’t normally water-proof gingham dresses and ugly plaid shirts, as she was fond of making for all the kids. Granted, it would have made sense some of the summers we spent there, with the heat and humidity making our time in the yard more like time in a sauna…. Gee, there goes that nostalgia again!

Where was I? Oh, yes, pontificating… I’ve thought about blaming the smears and smudges on my spectacles on my infant son. But then I realize that he’s four now. Fortunately I have an infant daughter to blame it on. She hasn’t learned to keep her grimy, greasy, dirty, adorable little hands off of my glasses yet. She thinks they (and everything else within reach) are chew toys. She’ll grab ‘em when they’re on my face, try to climb the dresser to where I keep them when I’m laying down, and generally do what she can to leave her adorable, if grimy, fingerprints on the lenses. Yes, that would certainly explain it.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t explain what happens on the days that I clean my glasses before leaving the house, while she’s still asleep, and then find them already spotted and streaked by the time I sit down at my office. It must be gremlins.

Couldn’t be age.

Favorite quote for today

Walter Bagehot said, “The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.”

Growing up is weird.

Today I find myself at Pepperdine University, at the annual Bible Lectures. My family and I have been coming to the Lectures for over 20 years, with only a couple of breaks. It’s part learning, part Church of Christ family reunion, part vacation.

I graduated from this campus 19 years ago, and there is still a feeling of coming home when I visit. More and more, though, it’s feeling like a house I used to live in, with new residents who have no idea who I am. This year, it’s even more true, since several of the most familiar and dear faces are absent. Some folks are in the process of moving, some are very bogged down with work and family projects, a few have fallen ill at the moment, and others are traveling elsewhere. The first two familiar faces I saw on campus called me by the wrong name, which was a little unsettling. It feels a bit like the place has forgotten me.

On the other hand, there are many friends here, and some acquaintances I have made that I get to talk with once a year, here at the Lectures. Some people recognize my name and face from Worship Forum, and others I have met at the ZOE Group conferences. I’m also here with my wife and kids, and there are several folks from our church here. So it’s not as if I’m feeling lonely or abandoned.

I am a bit reflective, though, about the change in my identity over the years. I used to see myself as so much a part of the Pepperdine community. Now I still am, but only indirectly. I used to be identified as “Garey and Gerry’s son,” and I’m finding more places where they are identified as “Tim’s parents,” instead. I used to be just another member at our church, and now I’m enough of a loud mouth that some think of me as a leader there.

I suppose the point is that I never realized how long growing up was going to take. Wasn’t I supposed to be grown up by 21 or so, or at least by 30? Now I’m 41, almost 42, and am still getting a handle on being an adult.

My son, who is 9, was recently lamenting how much harder is life as a 4th grader is than it was when he was two or three years old, and wishing he could go back. I didn’t want to tell him that it only gets crazier as you get older. He’d probably curl up into a fetal position and start sucking his thumb. I know I sometimes want to.

If I did, though, I would be failing to value the things that God has taught me through my life, and would also not recognize the things that He has done with me over the past 41, almost 42, years. Growing up is His design, and I need to be more thankful for it than I am, sometimes. On balance, all the responsibilities I have to attend to are probably offset by all of the talents I have and skills I have developed by His grace.

Well, by those things, and by outgrowing zits.

How bright is the future?

This week our school district is doing it’s Standardized Testing. Oh, thrill, oh, joy. I’ve got my issues with these things; the performance of the students determines a lot of funding issues for the district, and the individual schools, but the tests results have very little impact on the students themselves. That means that the schools all have to teach the kids to do well on the tests, instead of being able to concentrate on teaching the kids to do their best as individuals. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, but where money is involved, guess which one has to take a bit of a back seat?

I believe strongly that a child will learn more and perform better in life (including on tests) if their parents show at least some interest in their education; the more interest and concern and cooperation a parent gives their kids schooling, the more likely the kids are to do well in school and in life. This isn’t an earth-shaking revelation, of course, it’s a pretty commonly-known fact. My point is that I’m not as concerned with my kids performance on these tests, since it doesn’t affect their grades. I am far more concerned with them acquiring the skills it takes to excel in life, including life within academia.

As a somewhat-involved parent, I volunteered to proctor some of the tests. This means that I show up and wander watchfully through the room, making sure kids are filling in the right bubbles, staying on the right pages, not looking around at others work (though the format makes cheating very difficult), and generally staying on track. It involves encouraging smiles, warning looks, and, unfortunately, absolutely no smacking of hands with wooden rulers.

This morning, as I was proctoring in a 5th-grade class, I gave in to the diversion of trying to guess which kids would finish first, and which ones would be falling asleep. It was interesting to see how wrong I was in some respects. I was looking at the kids from the front of the room, and I was suddenly struck by the fact that they were all so focused and intent on their tests. There was very little staring around the room blankly. They were quiet and ready to work, and did a very good job of working their way through the material. Out of 26 kids, only 4 needed a little more than the allotted time to finish.

Then I got to thinking about the potential of these kids, the possibilities that will they will have available to them. Some will be able to take advantage of the opportunities that come their way, and some won’t. Some will work hard, and some won’t. Some will succeed, and some will fail, and some won’t care.

I suddenly found myself praying for them. “Lord, bless these kids with Your presence. Give them opportunities to do great things. Help them to overcome anything that gets in their way. Give them courage for difficult times, and make them generous when times are easy. Send Your people to encourage them and bless them, and help them to see You all around them. Give their parents extra wisdom to guide them in the right direction. I know that some of them are in bad situations now, or will be someday; people will hurt them, people will abuse them, people will push them down. Lord, lift them up and keep them whole, so that they can find their way to You and be healed.”

I prayed in this way for a good part of the test, wondering what God would do with each of them. Some of them, I know, will never give themselves to God -- some will never have the chance, and others will run away from God. I don’t know what good my prayers will do, but I just figured it was important to give them whatever I could, aside from the encouraging smiles and warning looks.

If you have a chance, find a school that needs volunteers. Go in and ask if there’s anything you can do for them. They may look at you funny if you don’t have a kid going to that school. They have to be careful, of course. Perhaps, though, you can find a way to be a blessing, anyway. Be persistent in offering your help. And pray for the school, for its students, and its staff. Ask God to let you become a blessing to them, and watch what He does with you.

Gotta get this out of my head

I’m blaming my Uncle Roger for this one...

Camp Food
To the tune of “Bicycle Built For Two”

Camp food, camp food,
The food that makes rats afraid.
I’ll bet tramp food
Would taste more like mom’s homemade.
The hot dogs are boiled for hours,
The milk is so old it sours,
The butter’s lard,
The bread is hard,
And the kitchen is dirty, too.

Someday, someway,
Someone will hear my plea;
Serving camp food
Should be a felony.
I’ll give them my testimony;
I’ll show them the camp’s baloney
As evidence
Of negligence
On the part of the camp’s cook crew.

About 30 years ago (and it still shocks me to realize that I remember stuff that long ago), we found that in an issue of Mad Magazine, not long before we were to go to a church camp. My uncle Roger, who is less than 10 years older than I am, was with us that summer, and we decided that it’d be fun to sing that song at campfire one night. Roger wrote the words down in a notebook he was taking with him. Of course, by the time he’d written it, we’d all sung it through twenty kajillion times, and pretty well had it committed to memory.

As it turned out, the food at camp was pretty good. My mom and several other amazing ladies did a fantastic job of cranking out good food for over a hundred people in a makeshift kitchen in a wilderness campground, and nobody was complaining about it, except for those who didn’t have another notch to let out in their belt! We decided not to sing the song, since it didn’t make sense, and because we realized that we’d have to go to that same kitchen crew for our meals during the rest of the camp!

Roger, however, still had his notebook there, and one time left it at the campfire circle one afternoon. Someone was collecting the items left there and looked through the notebook to try to figure out whose it was. They found Roger’s name, but they also found the words to the song. The next morning at breakfast, Roger got a very special stack of pancakes, with paper from his notebook cooked into them. It never pays to even think about insulting the kitchen crew!

We all had a good laugh, even Roger. I, unfortunately, am still suffering with the words stuck in my head, so I suppose the last laugh is on me.

An update about MacJournal

I mentioned just over a month ago that I’d be trying out MacJournal to edit and manage my blog entries. It was a bit frustrating, as the thing didn’t always upload my entries to blogger.com and publish them correctly.

This afternoon I launched it again, and it notified me that an update was now available, so I downloaded it and tried it out. It seems to be behaving itself much better now. I’m a much happier individual.

The actual interface itself, if you were just using it as a personal journal, is very good, with a list of the entries in your journal, and a calendar showing what dates you write entries on. You can save out any journal entries to RTF, PDF, Word, web pages, plain text, and a couple of iPod-happy formats.

There is also this “full screen” mode, which gives you green text on a black screen (or your own customized color scheme), with nothing else on your Mac showing up. I guess that’s for those of us who are easily distracted by other windows on our screen, like those for any work we’re supposed to be doing. For me, it’s not really compelling, but it’s kinda cool.

I don’t know which feature I like better: being able to write while offline and post later, or being able to see all of my entries contained in a program on my computer, rather than having to go into the archive links on blogger.com. Being able to download all of my existing entries in my blog (or any new ones I make outside of MacJournal) is an extremely handy feature. It’s definitely a better writing tool than the web interface, and much cleaner than writing in Word or TextEdit, then copying it to blogger.com.

I’m establishing my ratings scale here, in terms of hot peppers:
• Bell peppers - not so hot; skip it
• Pepperoncini - mild; worth having sometimes
• Jalapeño - hot; good for anything you’re doing
• Habañero - smokin’; so good it hurts

So I’m calling the current beta (4.0.b4.1) “jalapeño” for now. If the release version maintains its quality, I might even upgrade it to “jalapeño-and-a-half” status!

After a trip to Arizona

My family and I took off for Arizona last Monday, since the kids were out of school for Spring Break. We flew to Phoenix, drove to Sedona, and visited the Grand Canyon. It was a fun trip, though a bit too short to really relax enough to call it a vacation.

A few thoughts:

• Arizona drivers like their speed limits low, and like to observe them. It was a bit of a shock to this California driver’s system.
• We rented a GPS navigation unit with the car. Why haven’t I already gotten one of these things? It was way fun. I didn’t need it, as I’m really good with maps and planning out routes already, but how much more fun to program in a location and let the little box give me directions! If I’d been able to connect it with my laptop, it would have been even more fun, but I guess I’ll have to buy my own for that.
• On the drive from Phoenix to Sedona, we stopped by the Montezuma Castle National Monument. My son was really excited, because he’s been studying a lot about Native Americans in school, and the Sinagua of Arizona were new for him.
• Sedona itself reminds me a little of Malibu; touristy, but enough “local gathering places” in the middle of the tourist areas to make it seem less so. Of course, I’ll take the beach over the red rocks anyday.
• The Grand Canyon -- wow. That’s one big hole in the ground. I’ve seen pictures so many times, but a picture really cannot do justice to the size of the place. It’d be fun to have a week or so to see all the places around the rim, and get a chance to hike down in. We had an afternoon to gawk and take pictures, but it was still memorable.
• Why in the heck do overpriced lodging establishments charge so stinking much for wireless internet access while you’re there? The installation and maintenance costs of the connections are so small, there’s no justifiable reason to charge just for that. In fact, adding on the software to manage the pay-to-surf connection only adds to the cost of the system, and adds to the cost of running it. Save some money, folks -- make it free! And if you’re not going to make it free, at least make it possible to use dialup from the rooms!
• The Phoenix airport has consolidated all of their rental car operations into a terminal a couple of miles from the airport. This, I suppose, makes it a little less crowded at the airport, but other than that, I can’t see much of an advantage for the traveler. We had to find the shuttle, ride 10 minutes, then walk into the rental terminal (big enough to be an airport in itself!), and wait in line 45 minutes at the Alamo desk. It was less than welcoming.

The high point of the trip for the kids was the swimming pool at the condo where we were staying. They’d have stayed anywhere there was a pool. The high point for me was the Grand Canyon. A very close second is that we got to make three visits to Cracker Barrel while we were traveling. I’m a fried okra an turnip green addict, and I’m not ashamed to admit it!

Too... much... information

Found this link to an article on The Cure for Information Overload. Good reading; a bit intense, but worth the time.

Enjoy!

My favorite quote for today.

From The Quotations Page today:

“Actions lie louder than words.”
- Carolyn Wells

Trying a new blog tool

I’m checking out the beta version of MacJournal 4, a journal application that supports posting to blogs. I’ve been looking at it for a while, since MacWorld Expo, because this new version not only lets you post, but will also download all the existing entries from a blogger.com blog and let you keep them on your system. That’ll be useful if I ever decide to move off of blogger to some other tool.

I recently came across mention of WordPress, and have been impressed with its feature set. For the hardcore blogger who wants to blog with lots of multimedia, it’s looks like a good tool. And I found out that the hosting service I use for my own website has it available as a plug-in to an existing site. I may do that at some point, even though I don’t think I’ll get to doing multimedia stuff.

Why not, you ask? Why wouldn’t a dyed-in-the-wool technology addict like me want to add podcasting, video blogging, or at least photocasting to my site? Well, frankly, I’m just more comfortable working only in words. Besides that, I’ve got a great face for radio, and a great voice for silent movies. When I started my blog, started out by admitting that, “...the only reason a person blogs is because their ego succumbs to peer pressure.” If I decided that people wanted to see my mug and/or hear my voice, I think even my ego would laugh itself to death.

Anyway, this is my first post using MacJournal. I’m hoping it will make it just that much easier to write, so I’ll post more. ‘Cause my ego is telling me that you all want to hear more of my ramblings.

Mind you, it’s giggling when it says that. It must be watching something amusing on TV.

A good pour...

[DISCLAIMER] I wrote this about four years ago, and sent it to my brother and my friend John. John reminded me of it today, and suggested that I post it. Such a smart boy. Now that I'm spending entirely way too much time studying and writing for another class at church, it seems even more appropriate to bring it out again.[/DISCLAIMER]

Last week, I took my reading for the class I'm teaching with me and went to dinner by myself. I decided to go to Harry's Hoffbrau -- the corned beef was calling my name. By the way, the horseradish sauce they serve there is done by Beaverton Foods (in the Portland, OR, area), and it kicks butt! Good burn, good flavor.

Anyway, I got my tray and went into the back area, then popped over to the bar to get a Guinness. The barkeep was in the middle of pouring two pints for other sots; he'd started a minute or so before, let the glass fill partway, let it settle, then came back to finish the pour. I was quite impressed with his style, and started drooling a bit. As he went to take the pints to the lucky slobs who'd ordered them, the guy who had dished up my corned beef came back behind the bar and said, "Okay, Sam, break time!"

AAARRRRGGHGHH! The chap smiled at me and said, "What can I get you?" I said, "Guinness, please," and prayed that he'd be as good at pouring the mahogany nectar... but, alas... he poured it as if it were just another glass of Bud.

Sam, however, had not left yet. As Bud-boy turned to ring me up, he asked Sam how to use that particular register (apparently a new, second one at the bar). Sam came over to help him, and fortunately for me, saw the freshly-mangled pint that Goofus had profaned, and asked him, "Have you ever poured a Guinness before?"

"Yeah, over in Mountain View," was the reply.

Sam didn't comment, but asked the offender to go get some change before taking over. The little turd oozed away, glad to be of help. I stayed, glad to have my pint of blessing back in the hands of someone who KNEW.

Sam said, "Let me see if I can fix this up." He proceded to pur out most of the top half of the glass -- all foam -- and then slowly to complete a very nice pour of Guinness. I said a tearful "Thank you" to him. He smiled and said, "Remind me never to go over to Mountain View."

Amen, brother. A-men!

Ick. I'm sick.

The day after my last post, I started coming down with a nasty head cold. I'm still feeling lousy. I got it, I believe, from my daughter, who was sick and who is ever one to share anything she has... So I have been congested, feverish, achy, headachy, coughing, sneezing, and generally unable to sleep more than an hour or so at a stretch for four days now. 

Can a geek get a "There, there, poor dear?"

This is, of course, of no great interest to anyone except the poor souls who have to put up with my grouchy self (i.e., my family) and the makers and vendors of cough, cold, and pain remedies, all of whom have no doubt seen a marked bump in their profit, owing to my rabid consumption of their products. There is a corresponding dip in the profits of vendors and distributors of coffee, since I have had absolutely no desire for any since coming down with this mess.

To me, the worst thing about being sick like this is the total inability to concentrate on all the trivial and useless pursuits that usually bring me such joy and hours of diversion. Things like TV, or reading geek news, or doing Sudoku, or reading sci-fi novels. I suppose it is bad enough that I don't feel good enough to do the things I really need to do, but the indignity of not being up to do the things I usually do to avoid productivity is just too much.

Makes me wanna go cry in my NyQuil.

Mops and ministry

I had an interesting experience in ministry today. Well, maybe "interesting" isn't the right word.

I've been spending some time during the week at our church building, studying for the class I'm teaching and doing some administrative stuff for the worship ministry. I was getting ready to update our song database, and pulling some filed song sheets in our workroom, when I noticed a pretty bad smell. Brian, our minister, had mentioned a few minutes earlier that the toilet in the bathroom off of his office had overflowed, and he had spent a few minutes mopping it up. There is also a bathroom off of the workroom. Its toilet had overflowed, as well, and without getting too graphic, let's just say it was yucky.

Obviously, we have a systemic problem, plumbing-wise.

Now, I'm not on staff. I'm not involved in the building & grounds ministry. I don't even need to be at the building, I can take the materials and work elsewhere. But I'd be a real jerk if I didn't do something to clean up the problem, myself. Brian would have done it, but should I expect someone else to clean it up, when I'm capable and available? I'm a part of this church family, and I ought to be willing to pitch in for things like this.

Granted, I hated this part of working in restaurants when I was in high school, and that's one of the main reasons I was motivated to get an education and make a living as far away as possible from a mop.

But Brian's position as our minister doesn't qualify him to do this any more than my status as a sometimes-volunteer. He's got a Bachelor's degree in Bible, a Master's in Religion, and a PhD. in Communications -- that'll earn you a free trip away from mop-land, even more than my Bachelor's degree, if anything will.

But, as I said to him as I was cleaning, "It's all part of full-time ministry."

Because even though I am not a "full-time minister," in terms of employment at our church, my status as Jesus' disciple makes me a full-time minister of reconciliation, and with that job comes a lot of opportunities to serve. Sometimes those opportunities look like teaching, sometimes like leading worship, sometimes like counseling, and sometimes like doing technology stuff around the building. But sometimes, it looks like a mop.

Too many Christians are very willing to let someone else do the dirty work, whether it's plunging toilets, mopping floors, teaching Sunday School, carrying food baskets to a shelter, listening to someone who is asking for help, or reaching out to tell people about God.

Obviously, we have a systemic problem, service-wise.

So, what about you? Have you mopped up anything messy lately? Have you overlooked an opportunity to free someone else from an undesirable task, even though it's not your job?

Just something to think about on a Wednesday.

Et tu(nes), Amazon?

Regarding the story that broke yesterday about Amazon working to develop their own competitor to iTunes, and even an Amazon-branded MP3 player:

Is it just me, or does this count as another "ho-hum" for Apple? Virgin said they were going to do the same thing, and we haven't heard a peep about it since the announcement. The only advantages Amazon might have is that the companies they're planning to partner with have a boatload of titles that people might actually want, and their database technology will probably adapt to the music store task very well. Other than that, it's pretty much going to be just another potential source of stuff to put into iTunes.

If they were to come up with their own branded media player app for both Windows and Mac (and really, why even try on the Mac?), I doubt it'll convert anyone from iTunes. Having to re-import your library and playlists would be enough of a deterrent for me.

As for another hardware device, have they learned nothing from watching Sony, the inventor of the personal media player (by way of the Walkman), flounder in the digital music space? If Sony (who used to be coolest-of-the-cool) can't keep up, and Creative (the only other company whose players you can buy just about anywhere) runs a distant second to the iPod, why is introducing another device into the market going to get them anywhere?

Besides that, if you're walking around with an MP3 player bearing the Amazon logo, you're GONNA get razzed. "Did you win that player in a contest? Was it a freebie for buying a bunch of books or something? What's with the logo?" It'll look like a cheap "me-too" product iPods have the cool factor mindshare locked down, which is why they have the market locked down.

To the music-buying public, Amazon is a guy in business-casual attire, ready and willing to sell you CDs and books. Apple is one of those silhouettes in their ads, dancing around with reckless abandon, listening to the beat of their own personal drummer. And the music-buying public thinks that Amazon guy, while he can get you just about anything you can think of asking for, doesn't know what's cool. The silhouette guy can tell you what stuff is cool, and help you show off that you're cool, too. The music-buying public is, by and large, all about being cool.

I don't blame Amazon for jumping into the space, though -- even if they bleed off only a percentage point or two off of Apple/iTunes/iPod, that's still a significant chunk of change. They'll make some money off the deal, perhaps.

Now if it were Google announcing this, it might work up a little sweat in a certain Cupertino executive suite. But then, Apple could just buy Google and solve that problem. Right after they buy Disney.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep, Retold

Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Once he notices that they haven’t been around lately, he stands by the sheep fold, shouting, “Sheep! Here, sheep! Come home, Fluffy, come home!” Then, he looks around, wondering if he’s done something wrong, something to offend the one who wandered off, and he tries to think of what it will take to keep any of the other ninety-nine from leaving.

After a while, he decides that he’ll just have to live with it. If God had meant him to have all one hundred sheep, after all, then God wouldn’t have let that one sheep wander off. Perhaps, the shepherd thinks, he wasn’t given the gifts to lead all one hundred, and he should lower his sights to having only ninety-nine sheep, and accept what God has given him. God bless that lost sheep; he probably just wandered into another fold, where he’ll be taken care of, just fine.

------------------

I think that I'm done with thinking that my church isn't supposed to be very evangelistic, because we don't have anyone really gifted in it. Well, maybe it's better to say that I'm done with thinking that I'm not supposed to be very evangelistic, because I'm not that gifted in it. The parables in Luke 15 tell us that God is willing to go to extreme measures to bring every individual back to him. If we're going to be like Him, shouldn't we follow this example, too?

I'm not saying that giftedness isn't relevant. I'm just saying that ignoring the mission of every Jesus-follower -- to point the way to God -- misses the point of the gifts we have. Our gifts aren't just for encouraging other believers, they are for drawing as many people to God as we can.

I read an illustration last night of the point. At the firehouse, each of the firemen has various duties to do when they're not fighting fires. One cooks, one cleans, another maintains the equipment, another feeds the dalmation... But those duties aren't their job; their job is to fight fires. When fighting fires, they also have their various roles, based on their training.

So it is with us as Jesus-followers; our job is to point the way to God. How we do that is largely influenced by our gifts and skills. What we do the rest of the week (jobs, school, hobbies) is secondary, even though it may take up most of our time.

I've got some re-thinking of my gifts to do. I have been letting myself get away with thinking that because my gifts have more to do with things that happen on Sunday mornings, that my time is best used on that, and not on reaching out to people who need to know God. I need to find out how to apply my gifts to serving others.

So how does a big-mouthed, music-loving, computer geek with aspirations as a writer do this? I'll let you know as it happens.