Trust Me

Regular readers of this blog will find this topic familiar as it is one of my favorites. This time the trigger for the musings is a book I am reading. My future son-in-law got me the biography of J Hudson Taylor for Christmas. Most of you have undoubtedly never heard of Mr. Taylor. He was an English missionary from the 19th century who was largely responsible for the spread of the gospel message in China and had a huge influence in building the church there into what it is today.

Hudson Taylor believed very strongly in exercising his faith - something that modern Christians do infrequently if at all. He determined early in his life that God was calling him to work in China (this during an era in which westerners were severely persecuted if they left the main port cities like Hong Kong). He quickly recognized that in order for this to succeed, God would have to have a very direct hand in the ministry.

Hudson Taylor chose to decline any subsidies or sponsorships. He practiced trusting God for his daily sustenance. Rather than hound his forgetful employer for wages, he asked God to provide. Over and over we see examples of how God kept Hudson supplied with what he needed to survive. Over and over we see Hudson rely solely on the providence of God.

For my own life, I struggle greatly with this. To place all my trust in God and to no to rely on my own strength is enormously difficult. I am encouraged and inspired by this book and would recommend it to any serious Christian.

blessings on your day

The Fish Song

Wet Dreams by Kip Addotta

It was April the forty-first
Being a quadruple leap year
I was driving in downtown Atlantis
My barracuda was in the shop
So I was in a rented stingray
And it was overheating

So I pulled into a Shell Station
They said I'd blown a seal
I said, "Fix the damn thing
And leave my private life out of it
Okay pal?"

While they were doing that
I walked over to a place called the Oyster Bar, a real dive
But I knew the owner
He used to play for the Dolphins
I said "Hi Gil"
You have to yell, he's hard of herring

Think I had a wet dream
Cruisin' thru the Gulf Stream
Ooh Ooh Ooh Ooh
Wet dream

Gil was also down on his luck
Fact is he was barely keeping his head below water
I bellied up to the sandbar
He poured me the usual

Rusty snail, hold the grunion
Shaken not stirred
With a peanut butter and jellyfish sandwich on the side
Heavy on the mako

I slipped him a fin
On porpoise
I was feeling good
I even dropped a sand dollar in the box for Jerry's squids
For the halibut

Well the place was crowded
We were packed in like sardines They were all there to listen to the big band sounds of Tommy Dorsal
What sole

Tommy was rockin' the place with a very popular tuna
Salmon Chanted Evening
And the stage was surrounded by screaming groupers
Probably there to see the bass player

One of them was this cute little yellowtail
And she's giving me the eye
So I figured this is my chance for a little fun
You know, piece of Pisces

But she said things I just couldn't fathom
She was too deep, seemed to be under a lot of pressure
Boy, could she drink
She drank like a . . .
She drank a lot

I said "What's your sign"
She said "Aquarium"
I said "Great, let's get tanked"

Think I had a wet dream
Cruisin' thru the Gulf Stream
Ooh Ooh Ooh Ooh
Wet dream

I invited her to my place for a midnight bait
I said "Come on baby, it'll only take a few minnows"
She threw me that same old line
"Not tonight, I gotta haddock"

And she wasn't kidding either
Cause in came the biggest, meanest looking haddock
I'd ever seen come down the pike
He was covered with mussels

He came over to me and said
"Listen, shrimp, don't you come trollin' around here"
What a crab
This guy was steamed
I could see the anchor in his eyes

I turned to him, I said
"A-balone, you're just being shellfish"
Well, I knew it was going to be trouble and so did Gil
‘Cause he was already on the phone to the cods

The haddock hits me with a sucker punch
I catch him with a left hook
He eels over
It was a fluke but there he was
Lying on the deck, flat as a mackerel
Kelpless

I said "Forget the cods Gil
This guy's gonna need a sturgeon"
Well, the yellowtail was impressed with the way I landed her boyfriend
She came over to me, she said
"Hey, big boy, you're really a game fish
What's your name"
I said "Marlin"

Think I had a wet dream
Cruisin' thru the Gulf Stream
Ooh Ooh Ooh Ooh
Wet dream

Well, from then on we had a whale of a time
I took her to dinner, I took her to dance
I bought her a bouquet of flounders
And then I went home with her
And what did I get for my trouble
A case of the clams

Think I had a wet dream
Cruisin' thru the Gulf Stream
Ooh Ooh Ooh Ooh

Learning to Read

I feel like I am learning to read all over again. These progressive lenses are making me (even more than usual) nuts. The "sweet spot" where the printed material needs to be in relationship to my head and eyes seems to be elusive. Sometimes I hit it right on - other times my head is bobbing around like one of those dolls you put on the dashboard of your car.

It is hell getting old....sigh

On the plus side, I think that with time I could learn to use these glasses properly. So far more people love them than hate them (love = 5, not sure = 2, hate = 1)

Reading

Well the new glasses have been with me for 36 hours now and I am ready to head back to the optometrist this weekend. The frames are ok and distance and middle vision is fine. However, the close range - for reading - is straight up missing. Not sure if they got the correction wrong, moved it too far down on the lenses or what but I have to hold books at almost arm's length to read them.

Can You See Me?

Picked up my new glasses last night. My wife isn't sure that these work on me. I did break down and finally get progressive lenses which seem to be ok. The reading correction could be a little stronger but overall they seem to provide decent vision. Anyway, leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Face-to-Face

Well I did it - I joined Facebook. I was amazed to see half the neighborhood on there. There also appears to be a Bayside network as the number of the staff that are on FB is amazing. At any rate, I posted a link to my page to the lower left. Check it out if you feel the urge :)

A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

The weather was nice Sunday afternoon even though the temperature was lower than it has been. We were able to park on the Alger driveway for a while and get caught up on people's lives. Earlier we had been out getting some of NoDog's baseball gear. He was supposed to go to tryouts on Saturday but everything was still very soggy from all the rain in the days prior.

Nate took the train home this time. Sarah's friend Dale was up so Nate had a partner on the train which was nice. Not sure if we will do this again as kids under 15 have travel restrictions on Amtrak. Nate was a great help in the kitchen Saturday handling some of the cooking and sharing the cleaning (volunteering no less). It sure was good having him up this last weekend.

A Bit Fuzzy

I have been struggling with a sinus infection for about 5 days now. Between that and the lack of sleep, I am feeling a little fuzzy today. It is like my brains are clogged. Of course that is far better than the big boy who ended up with strep throat over the weekend. In general he had a rather poor weekend. Besides the infection, he also managed to catch the attention of a CHP officer on Sunday. As a result, I believe his services are now for hire, so if anyone has any chores around the neighborhood, be sure to give Andrew a shout ;)

Workin' For A Livin'

Was a long night last night. One of the trade-offs to working in the technical industry is that when you need to do maintenance on systems, you have to do it when the "users" are sleeping. My colleague and I spent from 5:30 p.m until after 1 upgrading one of the systems. Then we came in this morning to fix what we did last night. Not that I am complaining, mind you. This type of thing goes with the job. All things considered, it is better than being a manager ;)

What Price Integrity?

While I disagree with a number President Obama's positions on issues, I will have to say that he has impressed me. He has been very aggressive about fulfilling his campaign promises. Rarely have we seen a President move so quickly and decisively to do what he said he would do. Keep it up Mr President. I expect that you will start to draw the ire and fire of some groups very soon now and that always makes keeping your word much more difficult.

Work hard, Mr. President, to maintain your integrity for once it is gone it can not be recovered.

Finally

We got a little rain today, about enough to make the roads slippery. Hopefully it continues through the night and into tomorrow.

A New Deal

The world (or perhaps the media) was fascinated by the inauguration of Barack Obama as president today. President Obama vowed to fix our economy and restore America to world dominance. I wish him all the best. I think that this task will take all he has and more.

I definitely see the winds of change blowing, however. America has been fading as a so-called Christian Nation for years now. I think that we will see that decline accelerating over the next 4 years. I predict we will see a change in the way the U.S. interacts with Israel as well.

Some of you out there remember the New Deal from FDR's presidency or the regulatory blitz of the Reagan era. I expect to see a lot of the same happening in the next 6 months. Rather than let things play out the the recovery occur naturally, the gubermint seems to be unable to resist the urge to grab control and try to force things.

Stay tuned to this channel.

Consequences

I know I have talked on this topic in the past, but it always bears repeating. (FYI, for an excellent devotional on the topic, click HERE)

Every time I pick up a paper, surf the net or turn on the news, I am inundated with images of people who "just don't get it." Why is it that people feel that there should no consequences to their actions? Since when can you jump out the window of a skyscraper and change your mind half-way down?

One of the first things I teach my children is that their choices have consequences. Sometimes our choices have consequences that are immediate - in the here and now. Other times the consequences are delayed (and may not take effect in our life time). But regardless of who you are, you can not escape the consequences of your choices.

The world is paying the consequences of greed. Too many people wanted to get rich at the expense of others (or even sanity). Some of you out there (the casual reader perhaps) contributed to this. Many of you did not but will still pay the consequences.

Do we bail them out or so we force them to accept the consequences of their choices? How far do we go to protect our own self interests? I suspect that for each of us the answer is different.

The ultimate choice of course, is what will you do with your life? The consequences to this choice reach beyond the grave.

blessings on your day
____________________________________________________________
Matthew 16:26a "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

And They call US Goofy?

In Lima, Peru recently, a judge overturned a case where a worker was fired for being drunk. Apparently that is insufficient reason to terminate an employee

"The firing was excessive because even though Cayo was drunk, he did not offend or hurt anybody"

As one employer noted: "We've fired four workers for showing up drunk, and two of them were drivers," he said. "How can we allow a drunk to work who might run somebody over?"

Think this might have an impact on manufacturing and quality????

For the full story, click HERE

Shall We Dance?

In the past I have refrained from making much in the way of political comments. I have found that by and large, it really doesn't have a huge impact on my life as they are all about the same. I was entertained, however by recent reports that indicated our new prez may not have quite the esy time of it that he thought. It seems that congress is composed of individuals and not just shills manipulated by the White House. Apparently congress didn't roll over and play dead when Mr. Obama asked for the rest of the bailout money. Congress had the temerity to actually suggest that the banks be held accountable (!!!) for how they spend the money.

Guess the honeymoon is over.

We Are The Champions

This is from Andrew's award ceremony last week. That is the championship banner for RHS. He got "Game Ball of the Year" as well as 1st team wide receiver for the district. He set several records for RHS including most receptions and most yards for a wide receiver.

Way to go Andrew!

Project Time

I finished (most of) a project last weekend. I took the mountain of wine corks I have been saving for the last 10 years and glued them to a board which I mounted behind our wine-rack. I am impressed - it looks better than I expected. After I mounted it to the wall, I took some corks (and cork pieces) to fill in the edges.

YAP (Yet Another Phone)

For all my techie friends that have been following my quest for a new phone - Palm has released previews of their latest smart-phone. I am looking for a phone that will manage all my contacts, my calendar, my documents and allow me to read anything in my library. To date, the WinMo phones seem the only choice but most of them have small screens and under-powered processors.

Enter the new Palm Pre. With a Webkit operating system and an interface that will give Apple the first serious challenge to the iPhone, it looks like we may have found the winner. The relase date has not been published yet but they promise it in the 1st half of 2009. No waord on the MS Office support nor how the intend to handle the legacy applications.

Click here for the official site-> Palm Pre

Warm & Sunny

What a nice weekend we had. The sun was out and the temps climbed up into the low 60's. Of course we are at about half our normal rain fall but we still have a couple of the wettest months still to go. The boys were out in the street for a good part of the weekend playing football. Jack-Sean has been conspicuously absent of late, wonder why?

Brandi and 'Toine led a group over to watch the Journey Tribute Band Saturday night - the reviews where very good :)

A Long Week

Last week seemed to stretch for months. Besides the general business of returning to work after a 4-day weekend, my PC was replaced. Now to some, this might seem a good thing. After all I got a faster machine. To the hard core geek, however, this is rarely a good thing. Countless hours went into tuning my prior PC into exactly the kind of workstation that met my needs the best. Now I have to start all over - installing software, customizing configuration, setting up favorites and short cuts. In summary, it was a difficult and frustrating week.

What Have We Missed?

I received the following by email a bit ago and saw it today on Snopes.com. Snopes has confirmed that this is a true and factual account.

“A man sat at a metro station in Washington, D.C. and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

“Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip-a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

“A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly, he was late for work.

“The one who paid the most attention was a three-year-old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

“In the 45 minutes the musician played, only six people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

“No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth $3.5 million.

Two days before playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats averaged $100.

“This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour – Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

“One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?”

Teach Me To Pray

I saw in the news today that the Church of England has published a couple of new prayers (Prayer On Being Made Redundant, Prayer For Those Remaining In The Workplace) for people to use who have been impacted by the current economic crisis.

At first I thought little of this but upon reflection I find this a bit disturbing. The RC church has long held the practice of telling its' members what to pray and I suppose the Anglican church has as well (since I have little contact with Anglicans, I am not really "up" on this).

When Jesus was asked to speak on the subject of prayer, He offered a template - a model for talking to God. He did not supply a stack of pre-printed, ready to submit prayers. He didn't supply a list of things that could be prayed for.

Prayer is a way of talking to God. It is not a formula or an incantation. There are no magic words that will force or coerce the desired results. If I dragged out a set speech or read from a list whenever I wanted to communicate with my wife, I suspect that (at the very least) she would quickly stop listening.

God likes to hear from His children. Take some time this week to spend with the Father in conversation.

blessings on your day

An Adventure

Below are the pictures from our Alger Adventure. Saturday we went with the Algers down to Walnut Creek and caught BART into the city.

Welcome Back

It is back to the grind today (at least for those of us that didn't take extra days off). Spent an hour this morning wading through email and trying to figure out where I left off last year. The weather seems appropriate - damp and dreary. And of course the gym was full of the January-Folk (those newbies that swear to turn over a new leaf and go to the gym - and last an average of 2 weeks).

I'll try to post some pictures of our holiday adventures tonight or tomorrow (the pictures are still on the camera).

blessings on your day