Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

I don't know why, but I continue to be amazed at the depth to which relationships have been affected by the fall. I know that every molecule of our being is depraved and in need of regeneration. The Calvinists have it right when they talk of the total depravity of man and the implications it has. But every once and a while I hear of something (or I perpetrate something) that makes me step back and ponder it all over again. Sometimes it gives merely gives me pause and sometimes it absolutely staggers me. It seems that imperfection piles on imperfection as snow falls on snow and buries that which should have been. The marring of this life (these lives) is all the way down and completely and utterly unredeemable save for the work of One. Truly hopeless and wanting am I so much so that the want was even produced by His Spirit. That I am an instrument at all is a testimony to who He is. That I am useful to Him and in His hands is no small miracle in itself. Thank God for His Son's e...

I have to say that I am liking Ubuntu more and more nowadays. I have been looking for a solution to an issue that I was having where the hard drive was developing some unusual clicking noises. I found out that I needed to set the advanced power management level to disabled using the "sudo hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda" command. That stopped the clicking (and reportedly extends the life of my hard drive), but I needed to get the command to run automatically as I want it to be as brainless as possible for me to set it. Well, I came across a web page that instructed me to copy the command into a script file (99-hdd-spin-fix.sh) and copy that file into three different directories that will automatically run it upon suspend (/etc/acpi/suspend.d), start (/etc/acpi/sstart.d), and resume (/etc/acpi/resume.d). I tested it and it did not work initially but I forgot to make the script file executable (chmod 755 99-hdd-spin-fix.sh). After I did that all is well. I think. I was rather concerned...

I was listening to the radio a while back and there was a gentlemen being interviewed that was peddling his new book. I heard him say something that I wasn't too sure about, but it seems to be ringing a bit truer to me now that I have had time to think about it. Not that it seems entirely true, but truer nonetheless. He talked about the labels we give our kids at times: "You're a troublemaker." or even "You are so smart." and how damaging both positive and negative labels can be. I rather thought that positive labels were good, but he mentioned that not everyone is smart all of the time. Not everyone is strong, handsome, intelligent, or witty all of the time. We put pressure on people when we label them with something because it sets expectations and expectations can lead to disappointment. I guess part of me had to get into the emotional side of this statement to assess its validity in my life (being rejected caused me to doubt who people said I was) but al...

As good as I feel now, I should have been more on the game yesterday. I wrote in a previous post that I had some soreness in my "vlorch" and muscled through it on my morning run not wanting to tank it. Well, the soreness didn't go away so I was in an extended period of healing for that. Then the snows came and running outside was an improbability most days and an impossibility some days. I decided that I had to find some other way to exercise. Well, I just couldn't get motivated to do that. Try as I might running, it seems, is what I was meant to do. It was a real struggle to do anything else. So, this morning, I ran. And it felt great. It felt like I was home as I hoofed it through the neighborhood. I stuck to the roads because they were nice and clear (there were some icy patches on the sidewalks) but it was a great morning and I only had to step in one snow bank. Even though it was a "fun run" I am excited to be back in the saddle. We will see what the do...

I was looking to get my Dell IR port enabled so that I could synchronize my Palm with the content on the laptop using it and ran into some interesting issues. For one, the serial connection between the Palm and the laptop works flawlessly so that is always an option. But I am not all that interested in plugging yet another cord into the laptop to achieve something so I thought that I would embark on getting the infrared port enabled so that I could sync that way. Well, it looked like I needed to install an update to the irda-utils and setserial packages. Off to Synaptic I went and, when I selected the packages to update, it prompted me for my install CD. This was much to reminiscent of Windows updates for my taste, but I did manage to burn a new CD from and .iso that I had lying around and popped it in the drive. Well, it turns out that the setserial package could not be located on the CD because of a hash sum mismatch. It turns out that there is an option in Synaptic that allows you t...

I may have to moderate my stance a bit on circumstances controlling how I feel. Maybe. Last night I hashed some things out with a fellow minister that had been simmering for a while and causing me a bit of stress. I cannot tell you how much better I feel having done that. I am amazed that I waited as long as I did to talk to them about the situations that were causing me stress and I thank God for recent events that paved the way for me to talk to them. All that to say that there were definite, uneasy feelings that I had in response to the situation (read: circumstances) that I found myself in. I pray they were Spirit-led. I may need to refine my mantra of not letting circumstances control how I feel. I have noticed that my blog is being accessed, more and more, by people that are searching for help in configuring their modems in Ubuntu 7.10 and looking for my experiences with a program known as i2Workout. The Palm m500 that I scored off of ebay for the low low price of $35 came on Sat...

I have written in at least one previous post about my life and that I am always losing things and then, sometimes, finding them. Then I lose more stuff and am in need of finding those things as well. Well, this morning, I found the red snow brush that we had been missing. The tip of the handle was peering out from under the front, passenger-side seat in my car. It is jammed in there pretty good, but I will free it tonight in time for more snow and sleet that is forecast for this weekend. I am still missing some things (most notably my Once Dead Vengeance Rising CD) but at least one mystery is solved. I am looking forward to the next thing that turns up missing. I have a feeling the oldest son is going to inherit this gift of mine. He came home from school one day without one sneaker. The next day he was missing one boot. The next day he was missing the new pair of gloves that were purchased for him for this winter. All of these things have since shown up again (we are still unaware of ...

It's the beat Don't give me your opinion, show me a chapter and a verse - It's the beat, Deliverance Those who know me find one of my more endearing (annoying) qualities is my affinity for Christian heavy metal music. I remember talking with my second college roommate about the music he introduced me to and being incredulous when he mentioned that it was controversial in greater Christendom. But that is another story. One of my favorite metal bands, Deliverance, recorded an album called What a Joke and it really wasn't all that good especially as the follow up to their Weapons of Warfare album which is till considered by some to be one of the best Christian metal albums of all time and as the precursor to their "change of direction" album Stay of Execution. Well, they had a song called "It's the beat" where the above lyrics came from. As unremarkable as that song was on an equally unremarkable album the two lines above really struck me and have ...

"Pagans" that we are we went ahead and decorated the tree last night after having secured the beast on Saturday and erecting it in the living room on Sunday night after the Amazing Race. There weren't too many hiccups in the process although we noticed a slight (ok more than slight) tilt in the tree that required some not-so-subtle readjusting. The boys were really into it this year and were less than patient with their mother and me as we strung the lights and the garland that we have forgotten more than remembered. Once that was out of the way they were very excited about the ornaments and hung them with great zeal. Speaking of zeal I was a bit over zealous with cutting the branches off the bottom the tree does look good. It is not as full a tree as in years past but it is more than made up in the fact that the four of us had a hand in picking it out and getting it looking as good as it is. In addition I am more than impressed with my reciprocating saw and the ease in w...

Here we are We have come this far To say a prayer On Lindisfarne - Journey Into the Morn, Iona I am not sure what to make of it. I know that God fills this universe such that every atom holds the whole of Him. Moving in God such that I breathe in and out inhaling and exhaling oxygen and carbon dioxide that contains all of who He is I don't know what to make of it. There are so many people (myself included at times) that have this incredible sense of place and pilgrimage. As if this place that they have come upon holds such special significance that there is a greater sense of the One who created it. Is this a person that lacks faith and doctrine such that they lose sight of the omnipresence of God, or is there something more than that? I know Christ Himself retreated to special places to pray and to commune with his Dad, but I wonder why. Was it to just get away from it all or was there something more significant about Gethsemane that night or in the previous times he prayed there...