In service for freedom

I have been searching for a while to find out what awards my Dad got during his time in the Navy. This image shows what I believe his rack to be. The records I got from the archives in St. Louis left a lot to be desired. When I got out of the Army the clerk that was processing me made sure that every single award I had earned was listed on my records. I guess they didn't take that much care with folks getting out 50 years ago. My dad's records showed only the National Defense Service Medal and the Navy Occupation Service Medal. The other ones wer in his old stuff that my Mom still has though they were extremely worn and faded. His rack may not be the biggest or most impressive of the era but for a WWII era sailor it's not too shabby. I'm proud to come from a line of military service and I'm proud to be continuing that tradition of defending the rights we hold dear in this nation. I count it an honor to be one of the many who have voluntarily answered the call to serve. Remember that all the men and women serving in our armed forces today do so of their own free will. We are not compelled to serve, we are not sent to war; we choose to serve the interests of this nation. And if it means that we must lay our lives down on foreign soil, like so many of our predecessors, we will do so, in order that our loved ones, and those that we may not agree with or even like very much, may enjoy the freedoms that make this nation great. My father did not lose his life in service to our country, but he did answer the call to serve, and did so honorably. I pray that none of our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, or Marines would ever again have to lay down their lives for the cause of freedom but I know that that prayer will probably not be answered in the way that I would wish. However, even though they lose their lives, it shall not be in vain if their sacrifice brings continued freedom to our nation and carries the cause of freedom to other peoples.

If you are reading this, whether you agree with the current war in which we are fighting or not, please take a moment to say a prayer for the safety of the men and women in uniform who are fighting to keep this country free and to bring that same freedom to other peoples around the world.

fitness training - a new idea for setting goals

Since I got done with my Air Force training last summer I must admit that I have been pretty lazy. With work, school, church and finding time for family I just didn't eke out the time that I needed to in order to keep up with my physical conditioning. I finally realized something in December about the way I set goals for myself. In the past I have tended to set goals such as "Do 100 pushups and 100 situps everyday" or "Read 5 chapters in the Bible everyday." The problem with these type of goals is that when I miss one or two days I say "What's the point? I can't do it" and I give up the whole enterprise. So I decided to set my goals a little differently this time. Instead of setting a daily number for my fitness goals I decided to set a larger goal to shoot for. I set an average number of pushups and situps that I want to do for the month of January and figured out what the total number for the whole month would be. That way if I miss a day or two I can make it up by doing extra on other days and still reach my goal. For subsequent months I will add to the average number per day. Setting my goals this way I came up with a total number that I want to do for the entire year (38,420). Actually I set an ultimate goal of 40,000. I know that sounds like alot, but when you break it down over a year's time it's only about 110 per day.

I've also set a goal for the total number of miles of cardio exercise I want to do for the year. I didn't want to limit this to running alone in order to plug in some variety. I'll keep track of running, biking, elliptical, etc. My goal for the year is 1500 miles. I might have to adjust that goal some as I go along, but we'll see how things progress.

Ultimately of course, it's not about the numbers. The numbers are just a way to keep me focused. The real goal is to make physical fitness a lifestyle and not a means to pass my annual Physical Fitness Assessment for the Air Force.

In order to keep track of my progress (and just because I wanted to try out the Wordpress blogging tool) I started a new blog. I'm also using this blog to keep track of money that I find laying around. I started doing this on paper sometime last year after finding several blogs in which people were doing so. I haven't really been trying to find money the way some of the other folks do, but so far I've found a total of $59.82. Not great, but not too shabby either. I might find other things to track on there also. You never know. As the tag line on the blog says it is going to be "A place to track random things that no one else cares about."

1 picture, way more than 1000 words

I saw this story today on Baptist press. It's about a memorial for victims of abortion. The picture is what really grabbed me. So many in our culture today think of babies while still in the womb about the same way that they think about pennies. Many see pennies as worthless and just toss them away. Long ago many saw babies as worthless and wanted to be able toss them away in the same manner. In 1973 they were told they had the right to do this and this picture is a representation of the results of that decision by the Supreme Court. In 33+ years almost 5 million choices have been made to toss away what was seen as a worthless life. The picture shows a penny for each life that has been aborted. It adds up to almost $500,000. I guess pennies aren't so worthless after all and each life is worth far more than this. Life is a priceless comodity. Psa 139:13 tells us "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb." We were formed by an act of God so each human life has infinite worth. We should not so blithely toss it away

political games, when do we get to have an offseason?

Hillary Clinton officially threw her hat into the ring for the Presidential race in 2008 today (as if anyone in the country had any doubts whatsoever that she would). We just got done with the mid-term elections, which were oh so much fun (yes that was definitely sarcasm you noticed in that statement), and now we get to start the whole process over again and listen to these people trash each other for the next 2 years. For once I'd like to see a politician run a campaign in which they actually talk about what they believe, and what they plan to do instead of spending all their time trying to discredit their oponent. I don't care what party a candidate is from, if they would take an ethical stance to build their campaign on their own merits instead of focusing on the bad points of thier oponent they would definitely have an advantage in getting my vote. I stop short of saying that I would definitely vote for them because what they consider to be their merits might not match up with my own worldview. Am I alone in this, or are there others who are tired of seeing these negative campaigns drag on and on for years on end.

to blog or not to blog...? to blog!

It's been a while since I blogged anything significant. I want to blog because I want to exercise those writing muscles, to keep the creative juices flowing as it were. I know that's a tired old cliche, but it's true. I want to write and I know that the best way to improve writing is simply to do it over and over again. I've simply been in a blogging funk for the past several months. This past semester at seminary wasn't as difficult or time-consuming as previous semesters but for some reason I just had more trouble keeping up with the reading and finding time to do the things that I really wanted to do. The spring semester starts in a week and a half and I'm taking more classes this time. Maybe with more time constraints on me I'll actually do a better job of managing my time and finding the time to blog.

One of my biggest concerns as this semester starts is finances. Our credit card balances are creeping ever higher and our income is not reciprocating. Even with a small scholarship this semester's tuition and books will come to around $1600. I received a small raise at the church to start the new year but I'm still only working part time. Plus, due to the busyness of the holidays Dee Dee has not had any Pampered Chef shows for approximately 2 months. Things will start getting a little better pretty soon as she has 6 kitchen shows and 1 catalog show scheduled over the next 4-5 weeks. I placed advertising from Yahoo! on the blog a while back in the hopes of creating a little bit of income from that, but the fact that I haven't blogged much has not helped the effort. That's one incentive to keep blogging. The more I blog, and the more people I get coming to the blog regularly, the more chance I will have that someone will actually click on an ad now and then.

I'm officially done with my language study now. I took Introductory Biblical Hebrew this past semester and by the grace of God managed to pull an A- in the class. So, no more foreign alphabets, no more vocabulary, no more grammar. At least not until I get onto active duty with the Air Force and they see my background in languages and decide to send me back to DLI to pick up yet another language. Actually, I'm not sure if they would bother sending a Chaplain to DLI for language school, but I wouldn't mind spending another year out there in the Monterey Bay area.

This spring I'll be taking four classes - Systematic Theology II, Biblical Counseling in Human Crises, The Ministry of Teaching, and Lifespan Developments. I'm really looking forward to this semester. I've got some great professors and the classes sound really interesting. I was planning on taking The Ministry of Proclamation (a preaching class) but after looking at the syllabus I decided that I needed to put that class off another semester or two. The class is basically designed to be a culmination of your seminary training so I'll wait and take it in the final semester or two before graduation.

Well, that about does it for tonight. I'm going to go surf the web for a while and try to find something interesting to blog about for tomorrow. Hope to see you then.

My Exciting Life

It's been a while since she did it but a friend from Baton Rouge posted this list on her blog. I finally decided to go through it and post it here. The idea is to highlight the things on the list that you have done.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game (and survived the crush afterwards)
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne (let's say tipsy)
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends (see the previous post for proof of this one)
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced (might as well take this one off the list, not gonna happen)
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children (still working on this one)
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over (not sure if this counts, but I've moved twice for school, to Baton Rouge, and to Louisville)
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol (yes, yes, and yes)
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper (I had a bag over my head, but it was me)
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

amazing friends

Dee Dee and I had some visitors from Baton Rouge this past weekend. Two friends of ours from Parkview (both are now part of the Ring Community Church) came up Friday. They had been planning this for a long time and the date shifted a time or two. They were trying to get a date when another friend of ours (Angela) could come as well. We thought that all three of them just wanted to come together to see the kids (oh and us too by the way), but when they got here we discovered the real reason for all the planning. Paula and Ann drove the 12-14 hours (depending on how much you stop) from Baton Rouge and arrived here at about 8:15 Friday evening. Paula called and asked if Dee Dee and I could come outside to help them unload their stuff so they wouldn't have to make two trips in the cold. When we walked out the front door of our apartment building we saw Ann with a video camera and Paula holding out a key and asking "Can you give us a ride to the airport on Monday?" Looking around we saw, not Paula's car which we were expecting, but a strange car with a big red bow on the hood. (For those who may have missed it, my car died on me about 5 miles after leaving the Air Force Base where I was training this past summer.)

I still don't think I have the story completely straight but it seems that Ann's old roommate Katy got a new car and wanted to donate her old one to someone who she knew really needed it. Ann told her she knew just the people. They picked the car up a couple of months ago and Patrick, Angela's husband, has had it and has been working on it ever since. A couple of weeks ago their entire community group at the Ring got together and prayed over the car before bringing it to us. I don't know how many people have been involved in this whole thing but to each and every one of you I say "Thank you and I pray that God blesses you as much as you have blessed us. We love each and every one of you."

Semester #3 in the books

I've now completed my third semester of seminary. I took fewer classes this time than I have in previous semesters but for some reason I seemed to be more stressed out this semester. I think part of the problem was that I actually had too much time on my hands. Since I had less to do I tended to put it off longer. Time management is obviously not one of mine strong points and I really need to try to improve on it. I'll get my chance pretty soon. I'm taking a one week course in January so I'll have to manage things pretty well in order to get everything done on time.

Hopefully, now that I'm out of school and life is going to be settled down a little for the next month or so I'll be able to blog more often. We'll see how things go.

Veteran's Pride

I just read on Military.com about a campaign to get veterans to wear their medals this month in honor of Veteran's Day to show their pride and patriotism. VA Secretary Jim Nicholson says that he hopes that this will become a tradition for all national holidays, and said he thinks it will benefit the current services as much as the retired troops. I think this will start dialogues, inspire neighbors to talk to veterans who live next door about their sacrifice. I hope it will help with recruiting, because our veterans are the face of America.You can read the entire story here.

Well, I decided to show my pride and patriotism by wearing my medals on my blog. That way they are always visible. If you know someone who has served in our Armed Forces remember to say thank you this Veteran's Day. In fact, you don't have to wait until Veteran's Day, you can say thank you to a veteran any time of the year. It will make their day. If you've never served in the military you can never understand just how much a simple thank you can mean to someone who has made the commitments and sacrifices that our military servicemembers make every day.

P.S. For any vets or servicemen reading this the ribbon rack above was created with Ultimaterack. This is the best rack builder I've found on the web. The programmer has actually incorporated the regulations for order of precedence for each service so that your ribbons are ordered correctly. Military.com doesn't even have this implemented yet. Plus he's got many of the National Guard and civilian awards incorporated into his ribbon sets. Check it out.

Car repairs. Is there a bigger money pit out there?

The past couple of weeks have been stressful for us. A few weeks ago I went out to get in the van to go to school and it wouldn't start. I pulled the battery and had it tested and it was fine so the problem lay elsewhere. We ended up having the van towed to a garage and after more than an hour it turned out to be a loose connection to the passive anti-theft system. The system is designed so that if power is cut to it power is cut to the entire electrical system. So they reconnected the wire and charged me $12 for the time it took them. No big deal, except... We've known for a while that there was a slow leak somewhere in our coolant system but no one has been able to find it. Well it obviously finally got big enough that these guys found it. To make a long story a little less long we waited until Dee Dee's parents were in town, so we could have the use of their car, and put the van in for the repairs this past Monday. I picked it up 1 day and $950 later. Of course that amount only covered the absolutely necessary repairs. The total bill would have come to around $1300 if I had gotten them to do everything that needed doing. Anyway, we got the van back and Dee Dee's mom left to drive back out to where they are parked in their motorhome. Ten minutes later we got a call from her. Her car broke down. Their problem was with the transmisison and ended up being significantly more expensive than ours. Everything is back up and running again now but finances are tighter than ever as you can imagine. I know God never promised that seminary would be easy, but sometimes I pray it could be just a little less stressful.

Saints go marching home... but at what cost?

Last night I watched as the Saints returned to the newly refurbished Superdome for the first time in over a year. I loved seing the team draw on the emotion of the night to beat the rival Falcons. Alot of people have criticized the city of New Orleans for rebuilding the Dome while people are still without adequate housing in the city. Being from south Louisiana I understood the necessity of rebuilding the Dome and drawing people back to the city in order to stimulate the economy. However, last night, one of the comments made by the announcers really struck me. He said that the new coach, Sean Payton, had someone come up to him this summer and tell him that even though he did not have a place to live or a job he had purchased 6 season tickets because that's how much he believes in the Saints. The announcer told this story to emphasize how important the Saints are to the city and how much havign them back home will help to energize the citizens. But I couldn't help but to draw the exact opposite conclusion from his statements. Here is a person who does not have a job or a place to live who is spending what money he has on tickets to a game. How lopsided has our culture become? How addicted to athletic competition? I don't even know what else to say but that I am disgusted.

Hello world!

That simple statement has been the result of countless computer programmers' first lines of code. As they move on to learn new languages they often return to this familiar phrase. I think that it is appropriate here for my return to blogging after such a long hiatus since I am moving to the new version of Blogger. Many, many, many, many things have transpired since my last post more than 5 months ago. I'll give a quick run down of the summer's activities here and will likely expound on some of them later.

1. I finished out my first year of seminary on May 11.
2. I worked full time (plus some) at our church for the next two weeks preparing for our software switchover from Shelby to Fellowshipone (these are church management database programs).
3. On May 28 I packed up my car and drove down to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, AL for Commissioned Officer Training (with 209 other new Air Force officers) and the Chaplain Candidate Course (with 47 other chaplain candidates). My instructor for COT turned out to be from Louisville, and I found out around the middle of the course that he is actually a graduate of SBTS and is a pastor of a church here in town.
4. On July 14 I graduated from CCC and was ready to spend a week on vacation in Baton Rouge before returning to Louisville and work.
5. Less than 5 miles after leaving Maxwell my car overheated which cracked the block. We ended up selling it for scrap and are now living life with one vehicle.
6. On July 24 I returned to work and to all the problems that had been waiting for me all summer. I worked full time until school started back.
7. On Aug 15 I began my third semester of seminary. I decided to take things a little lighter this semester. I'm only taking 3 classes (Ministry of Leadership, Elementary Hebrew, and Systematic Theology I), but since 2 of those classes have a combined 3000 pages of reading and Hebrew requires quite a bit of study, on top of the fact that we're still getting the new software properly configured for the way we do church, I thought this would be a good idea.

Well, that's the whirlwind version of my summer. I'm planning to do a complete redesign of this blog sometime in the near (or possibly not so near) future. I just need to come up with a good name. If anyone is still poking their heads in here periodically, don't give up on me (and leave me some suggestions for names if you'd like). I promise there will be much more coming soon.

P.S. Here's a shot of Dee Dee and I just before going to our Dining Out (a formal, military dinner).

immigration debacle

OK, I've stayed out of this whole immigration reform thing till now, but I've finally gotten fed up enough with this ridiculousness that I have to comment. I am so sick of hearing people on the MSM complaining that some of the bills being put forward to reform the immigration laws would "criminalize undocumented workers". These people are here in violation of current immigration laws and therefore they are already criminals. I'm also sick of hearing people talk about the need for a "guest worker program". We have one. It's called getting a green card. What we need is not reform of the immigration laws, but enforcement of the laws as they currently stand and I think that the vast majority of Americans feel the same way. Our senators and representatives spend too much time debating what they think we want and what they think is best for us and far too little time actually representing us and listening to what we really want.

GEAUX TIGERS!!!

My brother-in-law pointed out that I have been remiss in posting about the incredible run of the LSU Tigers basketball team in the men's NCAA tournament. So Kyle, here it is. I'm sitting here right now getting ready to watch the Tigers take on UCLA for a chance to play Florida for the championship. And our women's team gets a chance to knock of Duke just like the men did. It's always a good thing when Duke loses but it's even sweeter when the Tigers knock them out in the tournament. Geaux Tigers!

Update:
Well the game just ended and the Tigers were on the short end of the final score. It was still an incredible season. This was a team that wasn't supposed to do much. We were picked to finish third in the SEC West and ended up as one of the final 4 teams standing in the Big Dance. Way to Geaux Tigers!

I feel like I need to say something about the commentators for the game. With 15 minutes left in the game and UCLA up by 21 points the commentators basically called the game and said it was over. I've played and watched enough basketball in my life to know that you cannot call a game at that point no matter how badly the losing team is playing. I've actually seen a high-scholl team that was down by 21 with 3:00 left hit 6 three-pointers, a two-pointer and a free-throw and end up winning the game in overtime. Through the last 15 minutes of this game the commentators continually talked of how dominant UCLA was in the game and at one point said that this performance by UCLA was the best they had seen in the tournament so far. They must have been watching a different game than I was. UCLA only scored 9 points over the final 15 minutes. How is that dominant? If LSU could have hit a few more shots down the stretch it would have been a totally different game. I just wish these guys could drop their bias for the big name schools like Duke and UCLA in basketball and USC in football and call the games like they actually happen.

anniversary

It was one year ago today that God set in motion the events that would lead us to apply to the Air Force Chaplain Candidate Program. For those that have been following this blog you probably already know the story, but in case anyone wants to read the details you can find them here. As I stated in my last post I found out that I have been accepted into the program. Well, I have received my letter of appointment and this past Friday we drove to Cullman, AL to meet Dee Dee's parents so that her dad (who is a retired Air Force officer) could swear me in as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Force Reserve. All that's left now is to get the final paperwork in so that I can receive my orders to attend training this summer. This has been a long process and at times we wondered if we were really following God's plan. But every step of the way He has revealed to us that we are doing what He wants us to do. Thanks for all the support and especially for all the prayers that so many have offered up for us over the past year. They really mean alot to us.

into the blue

Well it's official now. I just got off the phone with my recruiter and he has received my letter of appointment as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Force Reserve. All that's left now is for me to be sworn in and to contact the Chaplain Candidate Office to have my orders cut for this summer's training classes. I'm not sure yet exactly when we'll get the oath accomplished. I have asked my father-in-law, who is a retired Air Force officer, to swear me in, so we have to wait till they can wrap things up in Louisiana with his dad and drive up. This has been an incredibly long year of working towards this point but we have seen the hand of God on us throughout the process. We continue to pray that he would guide us and we continue to covet your prayers as we prepare for this next phase in our lives. I'll be gone for 6 weeks this summer so Dee Dee will need lots of prayers and support to make it through that time with 3 kids and no family in the area.

Well I better cut this off. I have two mid-terms this week and I need to get to studying. I post more details later.

ports, pork barrels and whiny politicians

Wow. It's amazing how quickly time can pass by between posts. It feels like just a couple days ago that I made my last post on this blog but I see that is has been almost two weeks. With school assignments and meetings and projects at work time can very quickly get away from me. Anyway, on the the reason for this post.

I have not said anything about the whole port scandal though I have been following it via talk radio and the internet. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about a Middle Eastern country controlling some of the terminals in our ports. The security is still the responsibility of the Coast Guard and the Dept. of Homeland Defense but it just doesn't seem quite right to me to allow a potentially hostile country to control some of the means of shipping in this country. But that's not really what this post is about anyway. My problem with the whole situation was the way legislation was presented to oppose it. Attaching an amendment to a bill that the President could not possibly veto just seems like a dirty underhanded trick to me. I know, I know, it's the way things are always done in Washington. You attach an amendment to a bill in order to get your pet project through. And that's my problem. Our politicians act like a bunch of kids. If they can't get enough other people to agree to vote for their pet projects they whine and cry like a bunch of babies and find a way to slip it through. You can almost here them sitting around saying "Well if you don't vote for this, I won't vote for that." In fact, sometimes you actually can hear them saying it. I hear echos of children playing "If you don't play like I want to play I'm going to take my toys and go home. Nyah." I just wish they'd all grow up and let their bills live or die on the strength of their own merits, and stop attaching riders for silly insignificant junk to bills that really matter.

*Stepping down off soap box now.

some companies still believe in customer service

As I'm sure many others have, I have long been decrying the general decline in customer service in our culture. The old adage of "the customer is always right" seems to have been pitched out the window in favor of an "I just show up to get my paycheck and I don't care what you want" type of attitude. Well, today I found one company that still has excellent customer service. I ordered some of my books for this semester through Christianbook.com. One of the books was on back order so it was not shipped out with the others. I checked my account yesterday and noticed that the back ordered book had indeed been shipped, 2 weeks ago. I called Christianbook today. As is common a computer answered and gave me a list of options to choose from. But it was only 2 options as opposed to the confusing list of possibilities at many other companies. I selected my option and was placed on hold ... for a total of about 3 seconds. The person that answered listened to my explanation then asked for the order number. When she pulled up my order she said "Yep, it would probably be there by now so we'll reship it." I was flabbergasted. In a world where we have to navigate increasingly confusing automated phone systems, and then explain our problems to 17 different levels of management before being told that it's not the company's fault and that there is nothing they can do to rectify the situation, here is one company that still believes in customer satisfaction. I'll definitely be ordering more from them in the future.

bible software

My first class of the day was cancelled today so I went to the library to complete an assignment for another class. We had to spend an hour working with the BibleWorks program to familiarize ourselves with it. So I spent my hour playing around with the program and found out that it is incredibly powerful and also incredibly un-user friendy in my opinion. I somehow got the display changed from showing a single version of the Bible to showing a parallel display of 5 different versions and couldn't change it back. I ended up exiting the program and getting back in. Granted I only spent an hour of the program but it just didn't impress me all that much. I much prefer e-Sword. While e-Sword does not have the tools for grammatical analysis and the like (which I probably wouldn't use outside of class requirements anyway) it has one MAJOR advantage over Bibleworks. Bibleworks 6 runs $299 while the new version 7 is $349. e-Sword is free! That's right boys and girls, you can download it for free from the internet. There is also a huge user community on the web which provides support and additional modules. There are several user groups on Yahoo! Groups that are devoted to e-Sword. Just go the the Yahoo! Groups page and do a search for e-Sword.

I'm sure that if I were getting into incredibly detailed exegesis of a certain Bible passage, or if I wanted to know how many times a certain form of a word appeared in the Greek New Testament, then BibleWorks would be the program I would go for. But since I'm using my computer to read the Bible and possibly do some research in commentaries or dictionaries e-Sword more than meets my current needs.

proud parent

On Saturday Ashtyn and I braved the frigid temperatures and the snow and ice covered roads to go to her final basketball game of the season. Her team hasn't done very well (they finished 1 and 5) but they had fun and really improved through this short season. When we got to the church the coach asked all the players and parents to come downstairs into one of the school rooms. He wanted the parents to witness the type of devotional that the kids have been hearing before each game. He used an Evangecube to present the plan of salvation. If you are unfamiliar with the Evangecube, it's a really neat witnessing tool. It's one of those perpetual cubes that you can continually unfold in the same direction and they keep going back into the cube shape.

Anyway, as he was walking everyone through the cube when he got to the picture of the empty tomb Ashtyn raised her hand and said "I know a good verse for that. 1 Corinthians 15:4 - that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,". Most of the other players on the team were kind of looking at each other like "huh?". One of our ministers kids is on the team and her mom spoke up and said, "That's one of their Awana verses". So the coach put in a plug for the Awana program at our church on Wednesday nights. And of course through all this I'm sitting there going "Yes! That's my girl!" It's awesome to see how spiritual things are starting to come together in her mind and how she is beginning to connect them.