Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

I had a great conversation with my boys (the oldest especially) last night when we were on the swing about spiritual things. It mostly had to do with God and what He created. The oldest asked how God created everything (a good philosophical question that, wrongly, has led many to reject the Creator) and I said we did not know the mechanics of how He did it, but that we know He did do it. Obviously I phrased it something along the lines of God being super-smart and we cannot understand how He did what He did. I mentioned to Him that Jesus was God and, after a moment or two of his disbelief, he thought that seemed right to him. So that continued for a while. Then, just before they both went in the tub, the oldest asked me if God ate food. I said that He doesn't have to eat but that if He wanted to eat He could. Then I said that when we get to heaven Jesus is going to have dinner with us. The oldest took me back a little when he asked if Jesus was going to eat bread and wine with us. ...

Lord Polonius: What do you read, my lord? Hamlet: Words, words, words. Lord Polonius: What is the matter, my lord? Hamlet: Between who? Lord Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord. (Hamlet II, ii, 191-195) I used to be much more careful about assuming I knew what someone was talking about when they asked me a question. Recent assumptions have come back to bite me. For example, when I was in college people knew that I was a Christian. A guy named Mike Hall (whom we called the "Dude") asked me one day if I was a Holy Roller. Now, it would have been easy for me to say "yes." Even though it is an old term for a believer in Christ I guess it could fit me at the time. Well, in a shot of wisdom, I asked him what he meant by Holy Roller. His explanation of what he believed one to be was so bizarre I started to laugh a little and said "no." I was in a discussion with someone about legalism and he defined it as the presence of ritual. I said that w...

Well, the clear sky alarm clock went off yesterday so I did some hasty preparation (more on that later) and headed out to the parent's house for some observations. I wanted to bag a couple of double stars (and one triple) in the constellation Ophiuchus so I recorded their Hipparcos (HIP) catalog numbers and headed out. The air was humid and their was not a breeze to be bought at any time during the night. That having been said the views were still a little soupy but were better the closer to zenith I got. Because there was still a lot of ambient light when I set up (21:15 or 21:30) I went to the moon (waxing gibbous) and Venus first off. Venus was showing a nice crescent but was setting and was not as sharp as I would have liked it to be. Jupiter was next on the list and all four of the Galilean moons were visible. It was getting darker and the first star I saw was Vega so I thought I would try and alignment. Things went well and my second alignment went to Vega and Arcturus (the s...

People who have worked with me before know that I often say "If this doesn't work I will eat my left arm." Why the left arm? Well, I have grown quite attached to my right arm and, for some reason, I think that the left arm would be a tad tastier. Well, this is one of those times I guess. We went out and dug up the azaleas and planted the summersweet over the weekend. We had a choice between three different varieties and went with the Hummingbird as it looked to be a nice height (less than 4 ft) and a decent spread. We both dislike tall bushes in front of the house and do what we can to keep things underneath the height of the front railing. We weren't entirely sold on the white flowers as we would prefer something more pinkish, but our choices are a bit limited as to what we can put in the garden that would match our taste. All and all they are nice looking bushes. Their branch structure remind me a lot of our forsythia but we need to help them maintain their shape a ...

I finally got a clue about what was happening to the azaleas on Wednesday morning. All my clue needed was confirmation from someone in the know, so to speak, and that came last night. We had a couple of lines of heavy thunderstorms that moved through the area on Tuesday night. That was a bad bit of timing for the remaining azaleas as I had watered them on Sunday night and I knew that there would be too much water for them come Wednesday morning. I was right as the big azalea was showing signs of stress.So, my wife had the idea that we dig it up and bring it to a nursery for a diagnosis. It came back as root rot which is indicative of poorly draining soil which leaves the plants too wet to survive. Azaleas have very fine roots that grow close to the surface and any prolonged wetness will damage them beyond repair. So, we need to dig up the dead bushes and transplant the one that is just hanging on in hopes of resurrecting it. So, poorly draining clay soil in partial shade may be a decen...

While I was in the shower this morning I was thinking about an online collaboration space for our annual school auction. Yes I was. Well, I knew that Google Docs was out there and I had played around with it a bit in thinking of ways that I could use it to record the Live Auction results and have them fed back to the registration table in real time and it looked very promising. Another online collaboration space that may look even more promising is one called Zoho . One of the cool things about Zoho is the ability to construct and script entire database-driven applications and launch them in a collaborative online environment. This actually means something. I could, for example, construct the registration forms in Zoho and have the fields that record what each person has won populated as they win items in the Live and Silent auctions. This will all be done automatically and greatly improve the check out experience and time it takes to get everyone through the line at the end of it all...

I woke up this morning and really had a yearning to listen to Dvorak's "New World" Symphony. I am doing that right now. I remember the first time I heard the piece it was with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra on a subscription that I had purchased when I was a senior at SUNY Brockport. One of the nice things was that students received a 50% discount on all tickets purchased so it was a great way to spend one evening a month. I opted for the Saturday night performances as I had early classes on Friday (if I recall correctly). It was very moving and something I will not forget. Sort of like the experience I had hearing the Hebrides Overture ( Mendelssohn ) that Summer night at the Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center. I knew that I had heard something very special (on both occasions) and instantly connected with the pieces and the composers. A foretaste, perhaps, of the dawning of the new world that is yet to come. Powered by ScribeFire .