Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

The two of you that have read my blog before (thanks Mom and Dad) know that I have a real admiration for Phil Vischer. In the past this was largely born out of the impact that he has had on my sons' lives as the brains behind Big Idea and VeggieTales, but I have a new appreciation for him since he has left the daily operations of the company he found. I was reading an interview with him recently where he let loose with this gem of wisdom: "What I’ve learned to do is to remember very specifically what God has called me to do. It’s very easy for us to put other things onto that and the calling gets very specific over time; ‘He called me to tell stories, he called me to tell computer animated stories … with my own animation studio … in a really nice building’ and so it goes on. ...‘he called me to serve the church ... in this neighborhood … in this store … to those people … with this shelving and store layout’. But what...

A lot of times I don't like to write about or to defend the faith that I have because, well, I could be wrong about how I am defending it. I recall reading about a particular experience that C.S. Lewis had that gave him great pause about believing that he was any sort of philosopher and caused him to soften the language in his books ( Miracles in particular) quite a bit. Apart from the fact that I am under no illusion that I am any type of philosopher or deep thinker I can understand the pain that he had and share it at times. However, in thinking about the dialectical approach and the progression and, hopefully, strengthening of thought from one person to the next, it seems like my fears are either more or less made up, or they rest somewhere else. I would like to think that if someone had a problem with what I would say or a particular vein of argument that I took supporting or criticizing someone or something that they would approach their objections calmly and with civilit...

Last Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday until about 1:00 p.m. our family was all together at Family Camp at Circle C Ranch in Delevan, NY. Don't ask me where Delevan is because I would just refer you to my GPS as to the exact location and path to get there. All I know is that we went West and then South for a while...and I am so glad we did. We had a time we had no business having in a place that holds great significance to us. My wife Nan was saved from the penalty of her sin there when she was 16 and we took couple of trips with the teens from Sodus Bible Baptist Church to the Snow Camp they hosted. Our boys were so excited to be there and did things that they had never done before like rock climbing, horseback riding, and water balloon volleyball. It was also great to just get away with fellow believers, hear from God's Word, and just be in a place that, for 40+ years, has been preaching the Gospel of Christ to kids who desperately need it. I think the thing that I enjoyed t...

I am only now getting my Linux box upgraded to Ubuntu version 9.10 and then, eventually, on to 10.04. I pulled my keyboard for that particular machine out from under the desk and found that it was excessively dirty. Well, I had heard that you could run a keyboard through the dishwasher and, as long as you wait long enough to let it dry, plug it in and it will work. Well, I ran the keyboard through the dishwasher last night and we'll see if I can use it again. It came out very clean by the way. I was reading some review about a laptop that was for sale. One of the comments was that it had a "smallish" hard drive. I looked at the specs and found that the hard drive was listed at 320 GB. Of course, being the old guy that I am, 320 GB is not "smallish" at all. It got me to thinking that by the time my boys care about the specs on a computer of any type I would venture to guess that a terabyte drive would be the minimum they would be looking for. That is amazing to m...

Last night my boys were chomping at the bit to watch a 1982 Muppets/John Denver special called Rocky Mountain Holiday. They loved every minute of it. What really caught me off guard a bit is the extent that they enjoyed the "down home" nature of the show. I mean, here is John Denver with his acoustic guitar walking around and signing his way through real and imagined scenes of a camping trip that he is on with the Muppets and they were riveted to it like it was a chase scene in a Star Wars movie. In their attention to this I sensed their appreciation and even love of simple things. Even though they are a little rough around the edges (they're kids after all) and still so prone to wander (they're sinners after all) they are still so pure and innocent in what they enjoy. It seems like the simplest things take them by surprise and they love, I mean really love, life. There is a part of me that is so satisfied that they love Lawrence Welk as much as Lego Batman on the Wi...

When I eat late at night (say after 7:00 or so) I have very vivid, intense dreams. Most of them are way to realistic for me, in the midst of the dream, to realize that it is only a dream and some are so real that I have a hard time convincing myself, when awake, that it was a dream. Well, lately, I have either been eating late by design or just gotten into the habit of snacking later at night. I have noticed that I have not felt all that rested lately and was wondering why. Hey, it takes me a while to figure these things out. Well, last night I made sure that I did not eat anything before bed. I did have some decaffeinated coffee with a little vanilla creamer in it, but that was it. I don't remember anything that I dreamed about last night (for the first time in a week or so) and I feel a bit more rested today than I had been feeling. Hopefully this is what I need to do to make sure I am well-rested. We'll see. I have always had the issue of vivid dreams after eating later at n...