Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

Thank God for the nice weather last night. We had our annual Scavenger Hunt with the Truth and Training and Champions groups last night (3rd-6th grade boys and girls) and it seemed like everyone had a good time. We had a list of activities, items, and other sundry things to find/do this year and I am looking forward to putting the slide show together as this provides no limit of entertainment...especially for me. Here is the list that the workers and clubbers had to work off of this year (I'll let you guess which item was my favorite, but here is a hint: it rhymes with "tobot mossy"): Item #1 – It's white, hard, and you ride it when nature calls Extra points for a mixed gender photo. Item #2 - Can you add? (one clubber) Show us something (NOT a license plate) that adds up to a big sum. The team with the largest sum rocks our socks. Item #3 – Hold something that's alive. If you can't catch it at least get it into the picture somehow (four clubbers) And no, plan...

This install of the new version of Ubuntu (9.04) has not gone as smoothly as the last one. I have a feeling that a lot of it has to do with me, but there must be something that has to do with the media/software that I am just not catching. I have tried numerous times to burn the .iso file to a couple CD-RWs that I have had lying around for a while but that has not gone well at all. Then I tried to install from a different partition on the hard disk and that turned out to be too much work to set up and get running. Finally, now, I burnt the .iso file very slowly to a CD-R and it looks like things are going well. All that to say how glad I am that I took a co-worker's advice and created a partition for my data and one for the OS itself. I am making a requirements database available over the network through this Linux box and I would have been smoked if I has the OS and the data in the same partition as I have installed and re-installed I don't know how many times. Of course I cou...

I just got back from the dentist and my mouth is very, very numb from the Novocaine that I absolutely need before any drill comes near my mouth. I don't even want to hear a drill without being hepped up on the stuff. I cannot tell you how difficult it is to drink coffee while not feeling anything on the left side of my face. I also cannot tell you how much I need this coffee. I feel as though it is staring at me from this tall red mug...mocking me as I long for it. I will need to trust in the fact that if my upper and lower right lips have made a seal around the cup the left have followed suit. I am in great need of a sippy cup right now.

There are a couple of jokes that are not particularly clever but that make me laugh every time: Knock knock. Who's there? Knock knock. Who's there? Knock knock. Who's there? Knock knock. Who's there? Knock knock. Who's there? Knock knock. Who's there? It's Philip Glass. Also, any time someone says: "I don't care what [insert name of someone here] says about you, you're [insert attribute here]." The best joke that was played on me recently was by my youngest son who, on April Fools Day 2009, came out with this winner: "Daddy, you have a chicken on your head...April Fools!" That is just patently absurd, and I know he didn't intend it to be, but it is as close to an expression of dadaism that I have encountered in a long, long time.

Could the reason that I am not a vegetarian be found in the fact that I have not had a decent roasted carrot with ketchup on it as a substitute for a hot dog? I can say without reservation that is not the reason (or a reason) but I did try the aforementioned cuisine and it was not bad at all. The carrot was nicely flavored due to the roasting and it was in a New England style hot dog bun which made it all that more appealing to me. I would definitely choose it again but not at the expense of enjoying a nice white hot dog with too much of said ketchup on top of it. I don't know if there is a continuum where the carnivore is on one end and the herbivore on another. If there was, but resting point would be somewhere closer to the herbivore side of things after this experience. I wonder if there are other choices I could make to move me closer to the herbivore side of the scale? We'll see. As it is the only two things I will not try again is Teriyaki Eel and select Ethiopian dishes...

This may go without saying, but if I was Spiderman, I would be supremely ticked if someone had the audacity to tack on "Friendly Neighborhood" before my name. He may be a bigger man than I am, and may be more secure than I am, but c'mon...is that really the image he wants to portray?

I have had two experiences this Spring, so far, that have been absolutely palpable. I love feeling this way and wanted to remain in them for the longest time... I did some seeding in my front lawn last Sunday in anticipation of the rain that was forecast for the next three days. I looked out of my window on yesterday morning and saw that there were some rain drops on the garden stones in the front yard. My heart became instantly full almost as if there was a longing that was fulfilled in a providential way. It was so real, this rain, that I felt like I could reach out and grab it. I wanted to, so desperately, wrap my arms around it and hold it close to me. It was an incredible feeling, but, alas, it quickly faded and I was left running through the rain and into the car to get my buhumpkis to work at a decent time. Then, this morning, after a day and night of rain I stepped out the door to an unbelievable morning. The smells of Spring were so thick that they washed over me...immersing m...

Another technology post today. I have one monitor. Well, actually I have two monitors but the one that is sitting under my desk (behind me to the left) is much too big for this much too lazy person to lug out and plop on top of my desk. Besides, it takes up a lot of room and hides the dust bunnies that seem to accumulate in the left-hand corner of my desk. We wouldn't want that to continue now would we? Well, I have two systems now that I need to administrate and I needed to find a way to get to by Linux box (Ubuntu 8.10) from my Windows XP laptop so that I could start the VNC server on it. That way I would be able to run the VNC client that I have installed on XP to get the GUI I need to do all the Linuxy stuff I want. Enter SSH . It is nice that Windws XP comes with an SSH client already so that it did not require the installation of another application to administer my systems. Through this client I can connect to the Linux box through the command line, log in, start the VNC ser...

Don't revive painful times, let them rest Don't drag net through the sea of forgetfulness The cut was deep, the blood was warm I can't deny what it's done But if we don't release the past We'll slap the face of the days to come. - The Days to Come, 77's I remember my internship in graduate school with The Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York in Latham, NY like it was yesterday. It was 1994 and I had just gotten my review of my first couple of months there and, quite frankly, it sucked. They were just about to ready to run me out of there on a rail and I had a decision to make. Was I going to dwell on the cruddy job that I had done up to that point or continue treating people like I was or was I going to do something different. I couldn't go back, nor could I deny the warm blood that was a result of the wounds I had inflicted. I needed to release the past in fear of slapping the face of the days to come. I grabbed that beast by the horns (I think...

I warned my wife that I was going to be blogging about Linux today. I think she appreciated the warning and didn't even give me the eye roll I have scome to expect when I geek out on her. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to create a Linux file server so that I could share a requirements database that I am maintaining. Of course (or maybe not so of course) the database is in MS Access and the clients that will be connecting to it are Java applications in a Windows XP environment. Of course this meant that I would have to install Samba to share files back and forth between the Windows and Linux boxes. I got it working all right, but there were a few hiccups along the way: I first formatted the file system in Ubuntu as ext3. That was a bad idea as I kept getting access denied messages when attempting to write to the shared directory from Windows. To solve that dilemma I resized the ext3 partition down 4.6GB and then created a data partition formatting it as NTFS. That...

I never thought I would hear a grammatical construct in the English language illustrated with anything anything more twisted than Sean's example...but I did this morning. After Elizabeth Barret Browning's poem "How Do I Love Thee" to our attention and remarking that it is an excellent example of iambic pentameter our English teacher set us off on a task to construct our own. After a suitable interval she asked for us to share what we had come up with. Now, it was an accepted practice in the class that if Sean had something to share the rest of us would keep our hands down in deference to him. You see,the teacher never really liked to call on Sean for any type of substantial input. But, this day, we forced her to: his was the only hand raised in the air. With a mild sense of fear and regret she asked for his example and he let loose with a classic: "I love to kill small furry animals." It wasn't the perfect example, but it was perfect example for that tim...

I had always known that if I walk with fools I will grow more and more foolish, and the opposite is true as well. If I hang out with people who, for example, love marriage, I will love marriage: in other words I will be more wise. Obviously, I act foolishly at times and always had an implicit assumption that if people saw me acting wisely and communicating wisdom then they would be all right. They would be walking with a wise person and growing more and more wise. Leave it to the Spirit to put that little deception to rest. Two Sundays ago I was introduced to the principle of the shrapnel of the fool. Obviously, the most forceful and deadly part of an explosion it at the center of it. This is the most obvious part of it as well and can be heard for miles and miles. But then there is the shrapnel - those bits of the bomb or the structures in its way that fly from the center. The shrapnel is survivable, but it maims and can kill as well. So, if people are not encouraged into foolishness ...

I am not, ever, one for directions. I am, not arguably, the most clueless directionally impaired driver the road has ever had the privilege of making way for. This cluelessness has a tendency to manifest itself in other areas of my life, but I, and those around me, are the most acutely aware of it when I am behind the wheel. I have a feeling that is about to change. My wife got me a GPS for my birthday and I think I have found something that has fulfilled a pure, genuine need in my life. I received a Garmin 260 W in the mail a couple of days ago and I have a new-found confidence behind the wheel. I have a feeling that I will be heavily dependent on that little voice that tells me to "turn right on Stone Road" when I need to get somewhere outside of my general neighborhood. There are numerous business trips (almost missed that plane in Newark) and even on our honeymoon (what a way to begin a new relationship) where I needed something exactly like this. I hope that I will use t...

I have blogged before about my love of all things antihistamine and decongestant. Especially if that antihistamine happens to be chlorpheniramine and the decongestant is pseudoephedrine (which is probably the longest word I know how to spell). Well, it is that time of year again and, even though we have been getting mad rain lately, my head feels like it is full to the brim. Yesterday in my travels I stopped at the local grocery store and grabbed some Chlor-Trimeton and some generic Sudafed for my drug cocktail that keeps me sane until the first or second week of July. It seems like the allergy symptoms are starting a bit on the early side this year, but I am ready with an ample supply of my second most oft-used drug (the first being caffeine). I had the first taste of my antihistamine/decongestant-induced state last night before attending the evening service with the church and let me tell you it felt great. I had been in states of off-and-on suffering the past couple of days and it w...

It's tough for me to think otherwise (or for me to want to think otherwise), but I wonder how many of the positive and negative feelings I have towards my children are felt by God towards me. My oldest son read a passage from Acts for the school chapel service on Wednesday morning and I know that he was excited about it and well-prepared. He has a growing love for the Bible and is pleased when he can relate something that is going on at home or in school to a passage he may have read or heard. Well, all reports are that he knocked it out of the park with his reading. That made me extremely proud of him and thankful that he has the opportunity, desire (especially desire) to want to do something like that and the commitment to do it well. And then I wonder, when I preach, teach, love, pick up something off of the floor, is God as pleased with me as I was with my son? I would like to think that His feelings towards me are somewhat more than perpetual disappointment that I didn't d...

From the "yeah that didn't take long" department comes this report: I subscribed to some podcasts that may even help me think more about God and improve my relationship with Him. I have had an iPod since December of 2006 and only now am I realizing that I could actually subscribe to podcasts that will replace the hole that was left when the local Christian radio station (that is now gone too) dropped broadcasting messages by Dr. David Jeremiah during my morning commute. I have since subscribed to the Grace to You (John MacArthur) and Let My People Think (Ravi Zacharias) podcasts and am listening to them in the car on the way to and from work and during assorted drivings around town. I wanted to find a Dr. David Jeremiah podcast, but, alas, there isn't one. I am in good hands with MacArthur and Zacharias though so I am not going to complain too bitterly about it. I have, at the admonition of one of the pastors at my church two Sundays ago, taken up a challenge to pray ...