Finally...Competence!

Tonight I finally got a competent tech support agent on the phone.  My internet woes are over!  All I can say is AT&T better be danged glad they have Ebony working for them, or I'd be yanking my business outta there.  She deserves a raise.  Right after they fire the half a dozen inept agents that have frustrated me for the past couple of weeks.

Peace.

How to Liz - 15: How to Be Fit

Allright, I've decided I need to get fit. I found this youtube link over at "The Master's Artist". I think it's full of practical advice that I could actually put into practice. Slim City here I come!

It's alive.....ALIVE!!!

Got the internet back.  We are reconnected with the world.  Still haven't gotten things back like they should be, but we are definitely on the right track.  I have struggled I tell you.  Tech support is about the most sporadic group of people you will ever find at the end of the same phone number.  They ranged from completely inept to fairly ept.  I could tell you the horror stories, but frankly I just don't want to think about it anymore.

Computer Woes

Right now we are having computer problems because I let the virus protection lapse.  I'm still  sorting it out, so bear with me.  Right now everything is reinstalled after a hard drive format, but I'm having modem and router issues.

RIP Dodo bird

On the way home from church Wednesday night, Levi was talking about a Dodo bird.  I asked him where he'd heard about the Dodo.   Come to find out he saw it on a sequence in the animated version of 'Alice in Wonderland'.   So I told him, "You know all the Dodos are extinct.  There aren't any more alive.  People killed them all."  To which he promptly replied, "Yaaaaayyy!"

Now, if I was a hunter with mounted animals all over the walls I might be able to understand his response, though it would still concern me.  I tried to find out why he said 'Yay', but what I got was utter nonsense.  I can't even remember what it was, but it was something akin to: they are poo-poo birds made out of poop.  Anyhow, sorry Dodos, but my five year old isn't the least bit sympathetic to your plight.

Just one of the things we've done this summer.  Here are the boys at the Fernbank Museum in Atlanta.  I'll try to get some more pictures up when I have time.

Happy Anniversary Darling!

August 12 will mark ten years of glorious wedded bliss for my beautiful bride and me.  In honor of this wonderful occasion, God has seen fit to bless the whole world with a night full of shooting stars.  Thank you Lord, for her and all the love and joy you have sent my way through her.  

As for the rest of you.  Enjoy, and celebrate with us! 

PERSEID METEOR SHOWER: Earth is entering the debris stream of comet Swift-Tuttle and this is causing the annual Perseid meteor shower.  According to the International Meteor Organization, observers are now counting as many as 25 meteors per hour during the dark hours before dawn. For Tamas Ladanyi of Taliandorogd, Hungary, just one was plenty:

Happy anniversary darling, I love you with all my heart, and consider myself the most blessed man alive!

Don Williams - Good Ole Boys Like Me

A dude named Bob McDill wrote this song.  And nobody but Don could've done it this much justice.  I heard it on the way home yesterday and had to sit in the truck in the driveway to let it finish.  Great stuff, and that first line is just incredible:  "When I was a kid Uncle Remus he put me to bed, with a picture of Stonewall Jackson above my head."  Don flubs it here, by repeating 'bed'.  But, since he sings it so good, we'll forgive him this one time.

Enjoy.

Publish Post

Welcome to the Apocalypse

This morning when I woke up, if you can call it that, I felt somewhat less than human.  To tell the truth, much less.  The most herculean attempt at movement resulted only in a slow, stiff-limbed twitch.  Somehow, after raking past my wife's nose with what was surely a disfigured arm, I managed to find the off button on the alarm clock.  05:20 am, the time of night when nothing should stir.  But I knew that if I succumbed again to the coma I'd struggled out of, I might never make it back to consciousness. 

Not that you could call my mental state conscious.  Like I said before, my arms and legs were barely responding, my brain was a sluggish...uh...slug.  Somehow I staggered into the bathroom and found the shower.  I thought for several minutes thereafter that I had indeed become the victim of some sort of zombie apocalypse.  The only thing missing was the craving for human brains.  What I did crave however, was a cup of coffee and a donut. 

Which I am now enjoying as I type this.  Those two things, combined with the shower (I truly don't think I could survive in a third world country), have once again saved my morning.  I think I'm going to make it now.

Peace.

Keith Green - Born Again (New Song)

Trial vs Temptation (updated)

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion: Greetings. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.   James 1:1-3.

The question at church last night was:  What is the difference between a trial and a temptation?  (Some translations use the word trials in the verse above, and others use temptations.  We made the determination that the correct word was trials.)

Our pastor set up the discussion by defining trials as something God sends to draw us closer to Him, while temptation is something satan sends to try to pull us away from God.  I wasn't sure if this was a good stepping off point, cause I knew where it would send us.  But awaaaay we went.

As I told a sister afterward, "I try to stay off my soap box, but I just can't."

Sickness and disease do not come from God.  They are not His will for us.  It still appalls me that people have this view of God where He will put illness on his children to draw us closer to Him!  Where is that in the Bible?  You can't show me, because it's not there.  You may show me a verse and render an inaccurate interpretation to try and prove it (usually by going to Job, who was under an inferior Covenant) but on this side of the cross it simply is not a tenable argument.  God is not the author of that.  Can He use it?  He can use anything, but that's not my point.  My point is: Cancer was taken care of at the cross.  Let's stop building our theology on what we don't understand (i.e. - I prayed for someone to be healed, they weren't, and so God allowed them to stay sick until they died, therefore he wanted them to stay sick until they died, and in conclusion God gave them that sickness and wanted them to die.)  This is how a lot of folks seem to build their view of God.  It's not Biblical.  God's name is 'Jehovah my healer'.

Can you imagine Jesus going up to someone, putting a hand on them, and saying, "I love you, so I'm going to allow you to suffer with migraines, because it will build character and draw you closer to me."  For the life of me, I can't find any example like that anywhere in the New Testament.  I do, however, recall a leper saying, "Lord if you are willing, you can make me clean."  To which Jesus said, "I am willing.  Be clean."  And the dude was healed (this is in Matthew chapter 8).  Notice also that in Jesus' reply he used the words 'I am', once again showing us an attribute of the great I AM; that attribute is one that we need to get through our heads and into our hearts:  Willing.  Not only is God able to heal us, He is willing.

Okay, I got to get off my soapbox (again!), cause it's time to go to work.

New show that might be worth something.

I've watched a little TV lately and have noticed a potentially good show: Billy the Exterminator.  This dude, along with his family, go in and get rid of your pest problem. 

Check it out.  After all, now that the Bachlorette is over, you don't have anything else worth watching.

We did it!

My wonderful wife and I got the monitor back up!  I wasn't so sure we could do it, but I used an online tutorial to diagnose and repair the problem.  Cost us about $10 total for capacitors, solder, and soldering iron.  Beats the heck out of a new monitor, let me tell you.  Also got the new wireless router going -- Yeah buddy, we are streaming Netflix movies through the Wii now.  I also picked up my new pair of glasses (lost the old ones in the Atlantic during the 4th weekend at St. Augustine).  Replaced the battery in my truck, since it decided to die Monday.  Good news on that is it chose to die in our driveway, so no getting stranded in inconvenient places, and there was still some pro-rated warranty on the battery, so it only cost me $35 instead of $77.  Got the grass cut AND weed-eated yesterday.  It has been a busy week!  Friday we are heading to Atlanta to celebrate my birthday.  42.  (The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, you know.)  Awright, my minions, I must go to work now.  Peace.

Last Blog Standing

I'm thinking of changing the name of my blog to the above.  Since everyone in my blog roll is giving up the ghost.  No more Wunderkraut.  Will is MIA.  Madison has gone underground.  The only one left is Cullen.  And me.  There will always be me...

I will not go quietly into that good night!  RAGE RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT. 

Which is actually quite apt, since I still haven't fixed my monitor.  The contrast on this old thing is awful.

RAGE RAGE!!!!  I will not go quietly!  I will be the last blog standing!  And then some!  Awright, I gotta go to bed.  I'm getting sleepy.

Monitor problems

The monitor on our computer failed today.  I'm able to post this because, being pack rats, we had an old one shoved away in the attic.  I'm missing that flat screen already, let me tell you.  But maybe I've found the problem.  I managed to get the monitor apart without cracking/breaking anything and found three blown capacitors.  Tomorrow I'm going to try my hand at soldering in some new ones.   Pray for divine favor.