Time Flies

It has been almost a week since my last post and I am not sure where the time has gone. Heck I am not even sure I know what all has happened during that time.

The most memorable event in the past week was my little Geocaching adventure on Saturday near Monksville, Texas. It was my first long hike (nine miles) Geocaching and has to be one of my favorite trips ever. It ranks right up with my caching trip to WV a few weeks ago. You can read more on that over at my geocaching blog.

Work as been tolerable. There are always little things that irk me (like changing processes and not telling anyone) but over all things have been pretty good. My colleague is on call this week and we are both covering for a colleague in Brazil who is on vacation. I am not sure how other countries can afford to let employees take two to four weeks off at one time (we could never get by with that here in the States) but I am glad he can get some time off. He is a very busy man.

Our weather here has been warmer lately than I would have expected. We had a cool snap that kept me in long sleeves at night for a few days but that is gone now...we are back to normal later summer temps which is causing two problems for me: Allergies and the tempurature of our office.

Rag weed is heavy right now and since I am allergic to the stuff, I have been stuffed up so bad I can hardly stand it. 24 Claratin only lasts about 12 hours or so at best (one day it lasted about 6) and I hate to mix and match meds just to get some relief. Thankfully this should end soon and I will be back to "normal"

With the late summer temps comes the HVAC's system at work becoming "confused" on what to do. Right now it is blowing ice cold air into an already cool office. Not only is out office ice cold but the restroom closest to my office is bitterly cold. This happens every fall and it really is annoying. It is so bad my office mate wears a jacket in the office. It is about all I can do to tolerate it.

My wife got an e-mail from our pastor the other day. He is a young pastor, with the majority of his experience coming from pastoring youth. He also is very likable and somewhat boyish, but I digress. The reason for the e-mail was to have my wife and I pray for him as he delivers a sermon on Sunday on tithing. The subject of giving is always a touchy subject. Many who feel they do their share are offended and feel singled out. Those who do not give a tithe or give one regularly think the church is greedy. I used to feel like the latter until I decided to give tithing a try.

It was not easy but after a few years I was able to gladly write out my tithe (10% of my income) check to the church. And while things have been tight, we are still eating, have a roof over our head, and employed. Besides, if your budget is so tight that 10% will make or break you, then you need to reexamine your priorities.

A lot of people look for a way to lower their tithes like some people try to lower their taxes. They bicker over tithing on the net or the gross, on re-embursed funds, tax returns, bonues, etc. I think it is silly to do that. The rule is in my house, that unless you have already tithed on it, you will tithe on it! And sometimes we will tithe on something like a tax return as an offering to God. Yes, since we tithe on the gross, we have already tithed on that money, but what the heck, it all belongs to God anyway.

Los'fer Words

I have been sitting on this one and I am sure it will stir up a hornet's nest of mail and comments but it is on my mind and my heart.

Last Friday my boss and I (a former divinity student and active member of the Episcopal Church of the United States dropped a bombshell on me. He does not believe that Jesus Christ was resurrected. He said something about that Jesus was the pinnacle of man and he died a horrible death, but he was not raised from the dead. We were just getting into this when he had to leave for a meeting. I wish he would have given me more time but maybe God has other plans for this.

All I can say is, "wow". I cannot wrap my head around the concept of a Christian not believing in the Deity of Christ. Why attend a Christian church if you do not believe in one of tenets of the faith?

In my days before I accepted Jesus and my personal savior, I struggled with the Trinity. I had no problem believing in God, but I had problems with personifying him. I cannot imaging a person going to Divinity school and graduating a non-believer. That just boggles my mind. So much so that I have no words for it.

I guess I need to pray for my boss.

The Truth Project

Out church has been offering the small group series "The Truth Project". It was created by Focus on the Family and even though I am not a huge fan of that group, this is a very good series.

During the summer, our small groups officially take the summer off. Many of us are saddened by this so we were thrilled when the church decided to have this in our sanctuary every Thursday night.

Del Tackett is an excellent presenter and speaker. His comments are thought provoking and insightful. This is not a fluff series...you have to think. Maybe that is why I have enjoyed the first two parts so far.

Bias Against The Christian Faith

I am an avid (although not fanatical) Geocacher. Not only do I hunt for caches but I return to the geocaching community by placing about 5% of the total of my finds. Today I have 23 active caches and two that have been archived. The other day (Memorial Day) I placed three and the Saturday before that I placed one. I have not placed all that many lately, but I am getting back into the groove.

All of the ones I placed were approved and published without incident except one. This particular cache I called "Strong Tower" after a pretty cool Christian Rock band that I am a fan of. After all the other caches had been approved and published I wondered why this one had not. Then last night about 8:00 PM or so I get an e-mail from the approver who told me that he could not allow this one to be published because putting the lyrics to a Christian song on the cache page was promoting an agenda.

I was pretty ticked but I remembered that I am a Christian and I will turn the other cheek. While I did not compromise my faith, I edited the cache listing and removed the lyrics. I did not however, change the name of the cache. It was published a couple of hours later.

This may seem trivial to those of you who are unchurched, but for a Christian, it is like taking away the right to free speach. No where on the cache page was I telling anyone to convert, I was just stating my faith. It would be no different than someone making a cache dedicated to a sports team...which I am sure has been done.

My wife told me I should contest it but I believe in picking my battles wisely. I can still remain true to my faith and geocache...I will just have to be a bit more careful.

It is a sad day when a person cannot celebrate his faith while participating in a fun hobby like geocaching.

Walkin' In Mepis

Well, thanx to the grace of God, Mepis is wireless. Two things appeared to be working against me:

1) Outdated BIOS. I downloaded the newest one from HP and installed it. I thought I had an Omnibook 4150, but I found out I have a 4150b.

2) Network Manager does not seem to work at all with my wireless card. When I activate it, I lose my connection. Reboot, rinse, repeat and I get the same result. Turn off Network Manager (meaning I have to manually start and stop the network if I go from wireless to wired and vice versa) and all is well...so far. I have not tried to use the wired connection. I am kinda afraid that if I do, I will lose my wireless :) and wireless is more important to me.

Our Elder at church was taken to the hospital Thursday or Friday after collapsing at home. He is in normally good health so he passing out was a surprise. They took him to the ER and they eventually found out that he had an ulcer, which they are now treating him for. He was at church today but he looked very weak. I prayed with him for a little while during service. That man means a lot to me.