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Showing posts from 2009

I tried something different this year

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I knew that once Christmas day was done, and if the pattern from years past was repeated, I would suffer somewhat of a letdown. This year I tried something different. I tried hard to revel not only in the celebration but also in the preparation for it all. I even cracked a smile yesterday when my wife and I, for the third time, got ready to host a whole bunch of family at our house (this time for my sister and brother-in-law's pre-departure pizza party). There is a real satisfaction when Nan and I set out to get something done and we are clicking on all cylinders where I have my jobs and tasks and she has hers. Of course all of the work is for one, common, purpose but it is almost poetic as we move this way and that getting this and that ready for our guests. I almost wonder if, in those real but rare moments, I get a glimpse of the "division of labor" between the members of the Trinity as They seek, draw, convict, and save. I don't think I am making too much of it be

They really are listening

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We, currently, have three services on Sunday mornings where the church can gather and worship. This will be changing when we begin to utilize our new building and I am sure that will be great relief to all of the pastors and support staff that make Sunday mornings possible. I have been teaching in our 10:00 kid's HighPoint time which is, basically, junior church for 4 year olds straight up through 5th grade. This means that we normally attend the 8:30 service as a family so that we can serve during the 10:00 a.m. time slot. We "drag" our boys with us into the 8:30 service and they are, for the most part, very well behaved during that time. Of course, we have higher standards for them then to just "be quiet" and "not be a disturbance." It looks like they are meeting our expectations of them. On numerous occasions I have caught them actually listening to the sermon. Our youngest son requests help on occasion to find a passage in the Old Testament (where

A sad face...

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"It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart." Ecclesiastes 7:2-3 My Uncle Charlie died on Thursday night. It was a sudden death and he went quickly feeling little pain in the process. We went to the house of mourning today with the boys and saw a lot of pain, shock, and wondering. We will be attending the funeral and internment tomorrow where, I am sure, there will be more sadness and the gift of recognition that this is the end of all men. I thank God for him and the impact that he had on my life. I also thank God for this time that reminds me that I am not home yet. He reminds me, even now and with crystal clarity, why he sent His Son to this earth to begin with. Our sin did a number on this creation didn't it? This birth we celebrate this season means nothing without the hope that Easter brings. It is good for me to taste the bitterness of death for it makes m

It seemed like such a good idea

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I help out with our children's church program on Sunday morning called HighPoint. I am one of the "story tellers" which basically means that I bring the Bible lesson to the kids at the 10:00 service and it is something that I enjoy doing very much. Well, this past Sunday I brought an apple to the program and hilarity ensued. There was a point in the lesson (from Acts 2:42-47) where I was going to talk about the early church eating together and make the point that this was a way that they worshiped God together. I asked the host of the program (basically the emcee) to throw the apple and hit me in the hand that was extended to receive the fruit. Well, he threw the apple, but it didn't hit me in the hand. It hit me in a very delicate spot where no man wants to be hit. And, shall we say, I needed a moment. So there I was in front of 30 kids and more than a handful of adults and what I needed to do was sit down. But I couldn't and I started to laugh which is what I do

Oh that's easy, just do this, this, this and this...

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I am a firm believer that God has given us everything we need to live a life that is full and free in the Bible. Now, the application of the Scripture to a particular situation can be excruciatingly difficult. Compounding the issues are my doubts, fears, feelings, prejudices, etc. all swirling around in my head that cloud my judgment, lead me down paths of intolerance, and even diminish my desire to even want to dig through the Word to look for the command or principle that will apply to a situation that I am in. It is all so easy on paper but gets so muddy because, well, I am frail. And I know that I am weak. And I do not afford others that same perspective when I ask them to do something that is hard. I just assume that they want to. I just assume that all of their doubts, fears...all of it can be thrown to the wind so easily and that they will more than willingly subject themselves to the truth of the Bible and live a life that God wants them to live. Even in my orientation toward m

Foretaste

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"I can feel the wind Before it hits my skin..." Alive Again, Matt Maher There have been times, and they seem to be more fleeting and less numerous these recent days, when I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has given me a glimpse of heaven. Just a thimble-full here of what the Son's light must feel like on the back of my neck; just a crumb there of what the streets of gold have to feel like beneath my bare feet. Rather than make me long for more of this earth it always produces a desire in me for this life, and its wearying work, to end. Those are the times when I want to extend my old, wrinkled, worn out hands far over my head and grab onto the hands of the one that will take me to where He, most completely, is. I wouldn't care if that hand were bony, or steel, or sharp. Any discomfort or pain would be swallowed up in the wind that would caress my skin and tussle my hair. Thanks be to God that, at times, I can feel that wind now. Sometimes it is the coolness o

Waning poetic

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For those of you that read yesterday's blog post and, even remotely, entered into the ideal with me as I planned to linger one last time over the hydrangea that were wilting due to lack of rain, well, the poetry of it all trumped reality once again. I got home from work to find that the killing frost had more to do with the state of the hydrangea than the lack of water. It rained practically all day yesterday and I saw no visible difference in their state as a result of it. I did linger over them like I said I would, but it was much less satisfying than I had envisioned it to be. I know they still speak of the death, burial, and resurrection of their Creator as they progress through Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer. I know that I need to rejoice in a God that could build Himself into a plant so completely that it reflects His Gospel 24/7/365.25, but sometimes I get so caught up in the poetry of it all. I get lost in my words, and so much so that I forget that words are, among oth

Kind of digging the rain

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We have been dry lately. Really dry. The leaves that we got up last weekend were bone dry. They were so dry it seemed as though I could have blown them into a pile myself...without a leaf blower or any other mechanical device. Well, we have been experiencing quite a bit of rain today and I am totally digging it. I noticed that the hydrangea on the right side of our hous, that my wife uncovered from their cloak of leaves, were wilting quite badly. Their leaves were still green though and I was wondering if I should water them so that I could give them a proper goodbye as they displayed their subtle glory. Thank God for the rain which should perk them up just fine so that I can get a good look at them tomorrow morning before I head out to work. I'll drink in their splendor one last time with only slightly less regret than I have now. I would have liked to have lingered over them a little more last Spring and Summer as they leafed and bloomed. But now I need to be content with the vap

55 bags and counting

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Since I have been married I have had to do a lot of leaves in the Fall. In our previous abode we had a large oak tree in our back yard that dumped a boatload of leaves (very late in the season I may add) and in our current house we have many more trees that dump many more leaves. The one thing that is nice about the amount of leaves we have to deal with is that we have quite a nice system down for getting them up and into bags and it provides no end of exercise for me. The boys helped out more this year than in years past so I am sure that this will get easier. We scored a nice, new leaf blower over the weekend that significantly impacted the process for the better. We were looking at a gas model, but found an electric one that we were more comfortable buying this late in the season. It was a great purchase and cut our leaf blowing time in half (at least) when compared to our more than 10 year old blower we were holding on to and nursing through another season. Where were these leaf bl

She's good for me

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One of the bad things about a busy life, for me, is that I don't do busy well. I tend to focus on the wrong things which leaves me short in the critical areas. I then have to scramble to get that completed and it always turns out to be something less than it should be. It has been tough to get over the tyranny of the urgent...especially lately. I do deep breathing and sighing well though. The people that are in the cubes around me must think I am unstable. So, not doing busy well, I need her to help sort things out for me. It is hard for me to know where intellectual laziness and counsel meet. There are certain areas, like time management, where I feel a marked incompetence compared to her ability. Those are the areas where I need her input the most. Then there are all of the relationship areas that she seems to have down a lot more than me as well. She has keen insight into how to relate to people and what hospitality and generosity is. I also have a tendency to drive off a cliff

Can't quite do it

Yes, I admit it. I can be truly insensitive when it comes to my humor. I can absolutely guarantee that I have offended quite a few people in the course of my joking and have bitten my tongue on more than one occasion as a result of my sensitivity to the issue. Sounds like a bit of a paradox doesn't it? It does to me too. I believe that if there was a Spiritual Gift of idiocy that it would be my primary gift. The problem with idiocy is that, while it is usually funny, it is idiocy and idiots often offend. I was typing out something this morning to post here and thought better of it. I thought it was funny, and I knew that other people would as well, but I just couldn't quite push the "Publish to Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark - Blogger" button. There were enough questions in my mind that I thought better of it. It was hard not to though. I am sure that I am too PC in my humor (right?). The fact is that the laugh or chuckle is less important to me than me offending someo

This time I'm keeping track

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For as long as I have been married I have raked a lot of leaves in the fall. In our former house we had a very big oak tree in our backyard that was late in giving up its leaves every year. When it did give up its leaves, however, it made a blanket over the grass in our yard that had to be seen to be believed. Well, people would always ask how much raking we had to do in the Autumn and we would always give some sort of guesstimate, but never really had firm numbers. Our house that we moved into in 2003 also has more trees than the average house and, again, we find ourselves raking leaves a lot in the Fall. This year, however, I am determined to keep track of the number of lawn and leaf bags I take to the leaf dump in Greece. So far I have taken 27 bags there and I estimate we are half done with the raking. I always thought the count was around 50 or so but I did not know for sure. Now at least I will have an idea. I was very happy to have found my orange rubber gloves so that I could c

And the reason I say that is...

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When I was saving money for graduate school I worked a couple of jobs. One was at a pizza shop where they pretty much just trusted me with making chicken wings and the other was driving a van for a social service agency. This was well before the widespread adoption of GPS technology so I mainly just got lost and made all of my riders late to every appointment they had, but I digress. I had to transition my van-driving job to an interesting fellow named Marvin Bopp. He had a curious habit of talking about things that I was only marginally interested in. If that wasn't bad enough just when I thought that the "talk" (it wasn't a conversation mind you) was over he would continue by saying "And the reason I say that is..." and would offer me insight into why he just said what he said. That was one of the longer weeks of my life. Well every time I want to give detail about something I just said I like to start by saying "And the reason I say that is..."

Self-examination

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It is incredibly hard for me to self-examine. I don't know what the deal is, but I seem to go blindly on with whatever I am involved in at the moment and then...there it is...something I should have had taken care of. I am busy looking at others an assessing their needs and what they need to work on and too often neglect what I need to do or pay attention to for me to be more Christlike. I think that this is one of the reasons why I appreciate it when people offer me the gift of redemptive criticism. Like a lot of people, I despise the criticism of a rough edge that I may have here or a method of ministry that I am engaging in there. Yet there is something that I love about the look in the eyes of someone who is offering me input or even admonishment for God's glory and for my benefit. I almost want to cry as I fill my lungs with the sweet air that permeates their counsel because, well, it's the stuff of heaven. It is the very act of God in this all too often wasted life of

The end of Geocities

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The wire and web is rife with the news that this is the day that Geocities is shutting down. I have a special place in my heart for Geocities as that was the place I chose to put up a website that touted my agency's services and the like when I was fresh out of college and taking the social work world by storm circa 1994 or 1995. I remember using an early version of Microsoft FrontPage to construct the website and embed all of the navigation in the graphics on it and use a rather interesting FTP client to get all of it on Geocities' servers. The fairly maddening thing was that, at the time, FrontPage turned all of my text and graphics into one large GIF with an image map for the navigation and links. That's right - not an a tag or href to be found on the whole thing. At any rate, when the web and I were young it was a different world. Not a better world, necessarily, but a different one. Please excuse this nostalgic sigh **sigh** as the first seeds of my geekiness were sown

You must have been in my house...

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My wife and I have been co-directing our 5th and 6th grade Wednesday night club for boys and girls called Champions. We have been utilizing a new preteen curriculum to structure the topics that we are introducing and discussing called Grapple from Group Publishing. We have been impressed with the material as its relevance to where our clubbers are is absolutely undeniable. It is interesting to talk about "loving" and "sacrificing" for their siblings and exploring reasons why their parents "always say no". Well, we had a parent step in as a substitute this week and she encouraged me even further when she mentioned that we must have been at her house because the topic we were going over was spot on to what they were dealing with. Not only am I impressed with the topics, but the way they are approached in the material is solid and Bible-focused as well. It is nice to be able to help our clubbers discover who God is and how He relates to them through His Word

Yeah, that's great and all...but...

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I just wanna to know - am I pulling people closer I just wanna be - pulling them to You... Steve Taylor, I just Wanna Know Lately I have been finding the ministries that I have been engaged in more interesting and more fulfilling than work. This is a usual thing for me, but it has been much more acute lately and that fact got me thinking a bit. I am positive that God wants me to serve and that He wants me to use the spiritual gifts that He has given me in that service. The trick, for me, is twofold: I need to find just as much satisfaction in Him as I find in serving Him and I need to measure the effectiveness of my ministry against the great commission. If I could find just as much rest and fulfillment in communing with and contemplating Him while not thinking about the next topic I need to teach, or how I am going to build "wonder" and "discovery" into my next lesson I think that would make my ministry more genuine and heartfelt. It would certainly bring me to lov

A slave to all

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**Click** That's the sound of something finally making sense to me. Usually the **click** is something that should have been comprehended by me already but for some reason it alluded me. Well, I heard a sermon on Sunday that finally put 1 Corinthians 9:19 into my head and heart so much so that I think I understand it for the first time. Of course, understanding the Scriptures and doing the Scriptures are two totally different things, but that is for another time. For me I see this servanthood or slavery as part of the deliberate, focused love that I need to have to help people begin or deepen their relationship with God. I need to, within Biblical parameters, make sure that I make less and less of me and more and more of others. Of course, this may mean that I relinquish some of my preferences or even some of my rights as a free man in Christ so that I can move closer to someone and help them realize who they are in Christ. That relinquishment is the loving thing to do. Of course i

My first 5K

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Well, I did it. A friend of mine put a bug in my ear a couple of months ago about racing in the Run for Hospice 5K last Saturday morning and I actually followed through with it. It was a cold morning as the race started at 9:00 a.m. and I was not thrilled with the course. The hill in the first mile was, shall we say, formidable and it was intimidating to a lot of people including me. At any rate I was hoping to get a time around 30 minutes as I am generally running a 10-minute mile when I run during the week. I started out pretty fast (given the hill) and recorded a 9:16 first mile. I was hoping to get a 9:30 to 10:00 so that I would have something left at the end and that I wouldn't be walking past the finish line. The course curled around and the second mile was almost all down hill and I held back a bit pacing myself behind this bald guy that looked to be substantially older than me. My friend was way ahead of me so I was on my own. Well, that guy got a little slow for me so I p

The Daily Gripe

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In an earlier blog post I wrote about a group of people that gathered in a conference room near me at 9:00 a.m. every day to engage in what I call the Daily Guffaw. They seem to always be saying something funny in that room because it erupts in laughter continually. I think that is why I love my iPod so much so early in the morning. Well, there is another, albeit smaller, group of people that gather on the other side of my cube and engage in what is known in my head as the Daily Gripe. It is hard to not get sucked into all the griping and moaning that they do. Not that I would complain along with them - no - I am much "too spiritual" for that. Rather, it is hard for me to maintain perspective after listening to them complain so much. It is easy for me to become a pessimist about the company, my job security, the state of the economy, car repairs...you name it. See how Christ-like I am? Well, one of the Daily Gripers just left to pick up her car from a repair shop and slung a

An absolute horror

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There are some haunting lyrics in a song composed by Philip Glass called A Gentleman's Honor that make me quake at times: Horses in the air Feet on the ground Never seen This picture before... ...Horses in the air "Whose baby is this?" Never seen This picture before I think I am so shaken by these words because they remind me of the words of Christ when he says to those who beg him to recognize them to depart from him because he never knew them (Matthew 7:23). As terrible as it would be for me to be unrecognized by my earthly father, I can't, and don't want to, imagine what it would be like to be rejected by my heavenly Father and His Son. Thankfully He does not recognize me based on my good deeds but rather through the finished work of His Son on the cross. That gives me a hope and a peace that I am, indeed, known.

An intense couple of weeks

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Man plans, God laughs. Wow. These past couple of weeks have been extremely intense for me. More so than usual to the point where I think that there isn't much more that I can take before I crack. Thankfully I am not teaching this Sunday in our HighPoint kids program or I think I may have to resort to setting fire to things. Or maybe not. At any rate the gift that this season (hopefully that's all it is) has given me is a new perspective on time. Especially on redeeming the time that I have been given. This business has got me practicing the purposeful use of my time. I am not a planner by nature, but I would not have gotten through this business without sitting down and mapping out a course. I am still not quite out of the woods, but I am in a place now where I can point to achievements that were wrought in a deliberate use of my allotted time. Now I know that my planning a course in my heart is subject to the steps that are directed by God, but (I hate the word but because it

Staring straight at it

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I have never been more convinced in all my life than I am right now in: the sufficiency of the Scriptures for the pursuit of the life that God intends me to have my continual need of a Savior in my life to offer me a countless number of salvations from all manner of death my need of relying on the Holy Spirit to lead me into the knowledge I need and provide the strength I need to build His kingdom the utter inability of any other religious or human system to bring about the heart change that I need The bitter taste of the fruit of my half-convinced life still lingers in my mouth. And I have stared straight at it in a mirror that I never knew existed. As ugly as it was, the reflection I saw was a gift. Dad, help me embrace what you showed to me.

Gnat-like attention span

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One of the gifts I have given to my oldest son, Will, is my gnat-like attention span. I have a laptop that has a screen saver that displays various scenes from one of Will's favorite DVDs ( The Rise and Fall of Tony the Frog ). The first two sentences are related so stick with me. My wife asked him to go into the living room and get a pencil out of their supplies box and my laptop happened to be there. After he hadn't appeared for a while, and after she had determined that he should have had sufficient time to locate a pencil, my wife knew exactly what was happening: Nan: "Will?" Will: [Trotting into the room with pencil in hand] "Yes?" Nan: "Were you watching Daddy's laptop with The Pond on it?" Will: [Smiling] "Yeah." Nan: "Sit down, please." It was all a very good-natured exchange, as most exchanges are between us and our children, and Will happily got back to work on the assignment that he was given. As he began to work

I have got to be deficient

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The classic line when getting dumped by a boyfriend/girlfriend is "It's not you...it's me." Of course this never confers the comfort on the "dumpee" that it is supposed to but it seems like the right thing to say. Well, there has been a lot going on lately where I am having a hard time sorting out what is my fault and what is the fault of the others involved. My inclination is to point to some deficiency in me. I mean, I know my issues and screw-ups better than anyone (save God Himself) and I realize that any one of the thousands of them could contribute mightily to the situations that have been happening lately. But, I need to be as objective as possible. It is not always my fault or even 60% my fault, or 30% my fault, or... It just always feels like I contribute more death than life; more destruction than building; more rot than ripe. I want to do what's best, when I am not too lazy. I want to be other-centered, when I am not too busy trying to maipula

Rather than...

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My wife and I had no "alone time" on our 14th wedding anniversary yesterday. Now, normally, this would send me into a pity party, but I got to thinking about it and, of course, there is more for me to be thankful for than I originally saw. The day started like any other day - my wife, with little help from me, got the boys ready for school and out the door. Now the very fact that I have a wife that is more than willing and more than capable of doing this is a blessing that not everyone shares. There are plenty of single people out their that ache for a wife that would do this. There are even some married people that long for a spouse that has this level of dedication, loyalty, and love. I've been given a great woman by a greater God. Now, about those boys; those enfleshments of our love - I couldn't ask for more than I have received. They're healthy, friendly, intelligent, gifted...all of that rolled into two bundles of energy that actually don't mind going to

Never failing

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I guess I take so much about God and His Word for granted. It is quite natural for me to do so because He, His Son's blood, and His Word never fails. I cannot tell you how much peace that brings to my heart. I simply cannot imagine a god who did fail, whose words were only marginally successful, and who made a way for us to be saved that only worked a few times, or off and on. I can't imagine the chaos that would be born as a result of that or the amount of restless nights I would have wondering, if I was not to make it through, whether I would be with him. There would be no trust, no life, no foundation...there would be nothing in a god that impotent. But He is not that and the more I enter into what He isn't I get a glimpse of who He is. The more I think about life without Him or life with a different god I see the life that I have now. I want those glimpses to make me take less for granted. I hope they do. I am so glad He made me in His image and not the other way around

A call to come and die

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There is no possible way that I could die to myself with any amount of regularity if it wasn't for the work of the Holy Spirit in my life. We are involved in a couple of situations (one a bit more private than the other) where God is serving, on a silver platter, an unprecedented opportunity for some fellow believers to die to themselves. I know that when I talk about dying to myself it often is in the context of not sitting down when there are other things to do or not spending $300 on a used snowblower when there are other things we need to invest in as a family...those are the normal things and they are presented to me every day. Every once and a while, though, God brings a situation into my life that shakes me; staggers me at times. And, along with the situation (usually it is some type of conflict) He offers me an invitation to a deeper more profound relationship with Him that can only be accepted by dying to myself. To my shame I have often rejected His invitations. Yet, when

The Twilight Zone

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I was, and still am, a huge fan of the Twilight Zone. It was 50 years ago today that it premiered and I remember the late nights that I stayed up to watch the show and the impact it had on me. I was also into the spin-off shows that the Twilight Zone inspired like Monsters, Amazing Stories, Tales from the Darkside, and, to a lesser extent, Night Gallery and the The Outer Limits. I don't think I am overstating this a whole lot, but the show had an influence on me actually coming to Christ in my college years. I think there are numerous reasons why this was the case. For the most part, the Twilight Zone showed me the weakness of the reliance on both sensory input and the interpretation of that input to discern what is truly real. Through the experiences of the characters that the show put forth it pointed out how weak we as humans truly are and the effect that the impotence we wield had on not only the individual, but the people that interacted with them. The Twilight Zone  also open

Rejected!

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A while back I applied to host a launch party for Windows 7. It was going to be an all-geek affair with a functioning copy of the new Windows release there for people to try and the discussions would focus around wireless networks, XML, Linux (of course), the lack of LAN support in the upcoming release of Starcraft II, and all manner of technology. I may have even thrown in some cool geek-related door prizes and the food would consist of cheese curls, pizza, and Mountain Dew. Of course we would have set up the live video feed so that my brother in law and fellow geek in arms presently living in Georgia could attend. Well, I received an email yesterday that crushed my plans as I slept. A portion of the pain is reproduced below: Thanks for your interest in hosting a Windows 7 ® Launch Party.  There was great response to hosting parties and numbers were limited. As a result many wonderful applicants like you could not be selected. I guess I should be happy that they recognized that I was

And you all thought I was, um, not normal

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I was reading an article from MIT about beatless artificial hearts that, by design, are more durable, more compact, and more efficient than the current crop of artificial hearts. They do hold some promise for the future, but more long-term experimentation needs to be done to assess their utility. Well, I have taken to reading comments on articles as they are usually pretty entertaining. True to form, I came across this little gem: "I've done thought experiments of pulseless blood-flow using nanobots, and utilizing their swarm nature -- swimming like a school of fish carrying blood with them; of course these devices don't exist yet, but give it about 15 years." Either this guy is few feathers short of a comfy pillow or he is merely (in this case) a misunderstood genius. Now, I can admit to never having a thought experiment of this nature, but there have been plenty of quizzical looks shot my way on the ones I have had and I am not entirely thrilled over them. So, who w

No undershirt required

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I have been known to always wear an undershirt with my dress shirts. There are a lot of reasons for this: I sweat a lot and the undershirt catches all of that persperationy goodness. I have a tan face, tan neck and white chest. I have no hair on my chest and I am not a competitive swimmer. I get cold in my midsection quite easily. Well, for various reasons, I am not wearing an undershirt today and I don't like it one bit. It is a different sensation for sure as I am used to the undershirt fabric against my skin, but I have had to deal with the fabric of the shirt today. All day. And my midsection has been a touch too cold for my liking. Thankfully I haven't sweat a lot (either nervously or as a result of being too hot) so that has been good. No one has commented, to my face anyway, of the blinding white light bouncing off of the exposed portion of my chest either. Overall I would rate this no undershirt experience to be about a 6 out of 10. In other words, it is all right in a

Too wide a distribution

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The most significant things that are happening in my life I simply cannot blog about. By choice, the blog that I have started has too wide of a distribution to be useful to me to write about what is truly happening all of the time. I will, gladly, bare my soul to people but when the struggle involves my soul in light of someone else's, well, that gets a little too dicey to broadcast. I had an opportunity to be a deacon at our former church (Sodus Bible Baptist) and it was very intimidating and satisfying at the same time. As a deacon I knew more than anyone else about what was happening with the church. That was tough because there were things happening that I did not want to know about. It was even tougher when I had to examine the situations in the light of the Scriptures and offer Bible-based counsel. Sometimes it was straightforward ("Have they Matthew 18'd it yet?") and other times it felt like there was a veil of gray over the whole answer or approach. What made

All of my friends

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Thanks needs to be given to God for the friends that I have that were once my fiercest enemies. These friends, namely death, suffering, and conflict, have been thoroughly redeemed by Him to such a degree that they serve the exact opposite purpose of the intention of their introduction. Death's sting (my sin) has been removed and it now delivers me into the full presence of God. Suffering's fangs of discouragement and bitterness have been blunted and now it is the megaphone that shouts His goodness to the world and magnifies that gift of faith that He has given me. Conflict is at the heart of the Gospel of peace (who could have made that happen other than Him?) and reveals the sin in my life as He produces Christ-likeness in me giving me an unparalleled opportunity to bring my pursuit of holiness into a laser-sharp focus. I am getting dizzy thinking about it all. He has turned this sin-soaked world upside down. He has turned my all too often heart of stone into an instrument of

I am probably too obsessed with this...

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I know I am probably too obsessed with this, but referring to the church as a building makes me want to dig my heart out of my chest with a spoon. I always try to say that I was "with the church" on a Sunday rather than "at church" because, obviously, the church isn't a place: it is a living body made up of people. Taking this one step further, I refer to the main place where we gather in the church's building (or meeting house) as the auditorium. I know this is not a perfect word but it sounds a lot better than "really big room" and is more theologically correct than sanctuary. I am God's sanctuary like every other blood-bought believer and no room, in an of itself, is. Well, I also have a hard time with calling the auditorium or building a "worship center". I know that this is not quite the same as calling it a sanctuary, but to me it sets the building apart a bit more than it needs to be and confers on it something that it has no b

The end of myself

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Last night I was facing a daunting task. Thankfully I wasn't alone in this as I had plenty of support, but it is funny how I think that I am on the "Just Mark..." show at times. Well, on my way home from work, I was feeling a bit sick to my stomach over the whole thing. I was absolutely at the end of myself - there was way too much that was out of my control and I didn't like it. It was then that I had to give it up. I talked to God and I may have even called Him out a bit. I knew that this was His gig but I needed Him to know that. Of course He did know that but it brought me comfort to let Him know that He needed to know that. I would like to say the nausea went away at that instant, but it didn't. So I let Him know again that He was the show and I begged Him to show up. I think I even had to do it again. Well, I was able to wolf down dinner before the task last night so it was obvious that the nausea went away, but I still wasn't sure what I would find when

Synth-driven accompaniment

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Maybe it is because my oldest son is in third grade (which is when I started playing the clarinet) but I have been thinking a lot about the time that I played and how much of my young life I devoted to it. Building on my previous post I also got to thinking about the differences that this new era of technology has brought on and how I could have enhanced all of those recitals that I took part in as I progressed from the third through the eighth grade. I would like to think that I would have the ability to program some nice synth-bass that could enhance the music (or lack thereof) that proceeded from my instrument. It is also quite possible that I could even reproduce the piano or other accompanying instruments as my clarinet carried the tune of the lyrics that were sung. Of course, electronic-generated anything is extremely unforgiving if there is a flub or two from the human that would be playing over top of it, but I would like to think that I could have carried it off. It is probabl

Joe Jackson, our church's name change, and the internet

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I was twelve years old when the best pop song ever recorded, Steppin' Out by Joe Jackson, was released. It was at that point that I would begin my affinity for Jackson and his music and, not coincidentally, I was elbow-deep in my "career" as a clarinetist. In the Fall and Spring the music students at St. Charles would give a recital that we needed to prepare for quite vigorously. I remember those evenings well as we would start with the youngest students and progress our way up to the oldest, most experienced, students in the room. It was a weird feeling when the person next to me got up and did their thing signaling that I was on deck. I tried to get into the zone and deliver the best performance I could. These recitals would often be precipitated by a trip to the music store to score some good music (usually a popular piece) that would pass muster with our music teacher. Sometimes you got to do something great and, sometimes, it was rejected. I usually scored. I was sea

Direct dosing with Flourish Excel

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It has been well documented that dropping some Flourish Excel (from Seachem) will cause the algae that so often inhabits the leaves of anubias plants to retreat and, eventually, die off. I have consistently dosed by Java Fern and anubias coffeefolia this way for a while with some pretty decent results. Well, since all of the anacharis that I had put in the tank, um, tanked, I decided to try this method again on my anubias coffeefolia, minima, and lanceolata as they were all showing signs of algae infestation. True to form the coffeefolia did well but the minima and lanceolata fared very poorly. I don't think I overdid the dosing but all of the leaves that received the heaviest doses of the Excel have now either died or are in the process of dying. I am not exactly sure why that is the case, but I am going to try to corroborate my experiences with others across cyberspace to see if this is a unique thing or if it is something I should have researched before attempting it. Another on

Hope

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I just can't shake it. Nothing captures my attention and imagination like hope. I am not sure why this is. My disposition, overall, is more towards hope than anything else. I am a positive person (most days, I have my moments) and I have a God that gives legs to my hope. I would like to think that if I did not have a relationship with Him that I would be a tad less hopeful than I am. I have had my share of disappointments with people, experiences, and objects that would have soured my outlook by now. It is just nonsensical to place my hope in things that change, people who are frail, or that which is out of my control. But, squaring my hope on One who is always out for my good makes perfect sense to me. That allows me to be the prisoner of hope that I am. His truthfulness, strength, and faithfulness even allows me the opportunity to translate my hope into a certainty...no matter how much that makes my head hurt. I guess that means that I love Him. And I do. But He needs to teach me

I am coming out

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For those of you who thought what I think you thought when reading the headline, well, we'll talk later. No, I am coming out of the closet as a hot dog lover. I know that at the ripe old age of 39 I am supposed to have outgrown the taste for hot dogs, but I can't help it. To my shame (and to many people's dismay) I will choose to eat a hot dog over a perfectly cooked cheeseburger any day of the week. I am especially fond of the Zweigle's white hot dogs but the red hot dogs will fit the bill as well. I put way too much ketchup on mine and often reapply the ketchup if I happen to run out and there is either leftover hot dog or left over bun to be eaten. I have read (and continue to read) about all of the supposed grossness that goes into making hot dogs and about the shortening of my life by "x amount of years" due to the consumption of them, but I would rather die with my stomach full of hot dogs than the best and brightest cheeseburger. I doubt that any non-ho

Some things are better left unsaid

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With apologies to Hall and Oates, it is true that some things are better left unsaid. But, frustratingly, that isn't even close to the standard I should have for my life. I got to thinking about this a little and have found that there is quite a bit that is operating here that I need to get a handle on: Something happens to me - I can't control this I react to the situation - I can control some of this...maybe most of this but not all of it. I judge the situation - I can control this. There is a desire - I can control this - the desire is born out of my judgment of the situation. So, if I think the situation is unfair, for example, that will raise in me a certain desire. It is not the same all of the time, but the desire is still there. There is an action - I can control this - either I do something or I don't do anything. Either way it seems to me that there is some type of action that is based on at least some of my reaction to the situation. OK, this may need a bit

Out under the stars

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I love Canadian high pressure systems. Of course they have a tendency to suck all of the warm air out into the vacuum of space, but they also create cool, snap-clear nights that are perfect for stargazing. The boys and I headed over to my sister's and brother-in-law's house last night and set up the scope to look at, primarily, the moon and Jupiter. I think the boys got a charge out of it, but I am under no illusions that this experience has made them into budding astronomers of the amateur or professional type. This is especially true since Drew mentioned that he thought the night would be "super fun" but only turned out to be "a little fun". I followed up with the comment that it was probably a little different than he expected and he said that was definitely the case. At any rate, they are interested in going out with me again to see what we can see. It was great just to be with them and do this. I know that, even though these days of hanging out with Dad

An idea that actually sort of worked

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Well, I needed a topsoil screen in the worst way... I am almost there with the trench and had visions of finishing it up this weekend when I ran into an idea. I am, probably, an eighth of a yard of stone short of completing this trench the exact way I wanted to in the beginning. I was going to just throw a bunch of dirt on top of the trench (that is surrounded by landscape fabric) but I got to thinking that there is probably at least an eighth of a yard of stone in the dirt that I dug out to begin this whole process. What I needed was a topsoil screener and, of course, I don't have one. So as I am making my way to the Home Depot I had an idea: drill a bunch of holes with a spade bit into a piece of plywood, place it over the wheelbarrow, and sift the soil through it. OK, I thought, that's cheap and we'll see how good of an idea it is. Well, I made a u-turn and found a piece of plywood that was the exact width and length I needed to make this work. I then drilled 1/2" h

Where is her rival?

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Why does the sweet Spring send its rain to sing its purple and pink unless it was for her to hear? Why does the Summer sun bake the hard clay if it was not to set the reds, yellows, and whites to frame her? Why will the winds of Autumn vanquish the color of the ground and shout their gold to the skies if not to lament its beauty beside hers? And why the death of Winter if not a surrender to her for she remains unbowed...unmoved...unmatched... In her ever-increasing beauty.

Soccer Camp 2009

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Well, the boys started Happy 5 Soccer Camp at (run by First Bible Baptist Church here in Greece) and they look to be much improved from last year. Will is getting much more aggressive and seems to enjoy getting into the scrum for the ball that (unfortunately) is still characteristic of the level of play that the third and fourth grade boys exhibit at this stage. Of course it would be nice if they spread things out a bit, but that will come I'm sure. One of the nice things is that their team is probably one of the best on the field they are playing on (if not the best) and that they have taken to actually passing the ball to each other. Will even had his first assist which is amazing in that it took 8 weeks last year before he got one. All in all this looks to be shaping up a bit better than last year's effort. Drew has actually taken to running after the ball rather than just standing around and waiting for it to come to him. Mind you, this is from the boy who continually annou

Brayn Duncan

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Usually my "nostalgia kicks" leave me by the beginning of Summer. Every once and a while I get a whiff of what used to be and I realize either how far I have come from those times or how far I have fallen from what used to be. I am listening to a couple of Bryan Duncan songs on YouTube songs and recall a conversation that Bryan and I had during a concert in Buffalo when I was in college: Bryan Duncan: "[I forget what he said]" Me (from the crowd): "Bryan!!" Bryan Duncan: "What?! Me: [Um, OK that wasn't supposed to happen...] "Yaaaaagggghhhhh!" Bryan Duncan: [laughs] "[Goes on talking about whatever it was he was talking about.]" I know, not exactly riveting theological musings, but it was memorable. I do recall it was an absolutely fantastic concert and that guy could dance. We would make many trips to Buffalo, Houghton, Roberts Wesleyan, the Auditorium Theater to see all manner of concerts from people and groups like Whitehear

My friends seem to be multiplying

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I am not entirely sure if I like the fact that my friends seem to be multiplying. I have blogged before about a particular idea in C.S. Lewis' Miracles that brought death into a new light for me. I now see God's defeating of death for the masterstroke that it really is. Not only is it a vehicle that carries me into a presence of God that I have not known up to this point, but it ends my tendency toward rebellion as well and allows this mortal to clothe himself in immortality. That is sweetness. But I have a new friend as well...suffering. This Sunday we listened to a message that framed suffering in a way that I had never thought of it before. My overarching goal in life is to glorify God. In other words, I need to make more and more of Him as He sanctifies me and matures me in Christ. Well, it turns out that suffering is a megaphone that shouts that reality to the world counteracting (if that is the right word...maybe augmenting? complimenting?) the whisper that this reality

"You see, the thing is..."

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So my wife and I were shopping the jeans sale at Old Navy last night and we were both chatting with the woman who was ringing up our jeans (well, Nan was chatting and I was more or less engaged in some type of performance art) and noticed that things were not quite right with our total. It was pretty obvious that it was ringing up a bit less than we had anticipated. Our friendly cashier assured us that everything was fine and, after paying for our purchases, we left. Well, on our way out of the mall we were remarking at how good of a deal it was when we realized, yet again, that all was not well. After pulling out the jeans from the bag and comparing the receipt to what we had we realized that she had not rung up one of our pairs of jeans. So, we went back to let her know that she undercharged us. She was pretty surprised and pretty thankful that we had come back. I was mildly disappointed that she decided to charge us for the jeans that she didn't charge us for before (hey - Wegma

Reusable XSLT stylesheets

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This next statement means something to someone: This will only work with XSLT 2.0 as variables in predicates contained in match expressions are not allowed in XSLT 1.0.   I was thinking about an XML solution that could be reusable (and listening to some Phillip Glass) when I came up with an idea for reusing the templates in an XSLT stylesheet. Normally a template in a stylesheet would be written in this way:   <xsl:template match="p"> ... </xsl:template>   This would, obviously, tell the stylesheet to process all of the "p" elements in the document in a particular way. Now, the problem with this approach is that the template is now rendered useless for an XML structure that would have a "para" element designating a paragraph rather than a "p" element.   A better way would be to define a series of variables that would specify the following: the top-level element in the document to be transformed the names of the elements