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Humor Test

the Wit (57% dark, 38% spontaneous, 36% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN COMPLEX DARK You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion. You probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais The 3-Variable Funny Test! - it rules - If you're interested, try my best friend's best test: The Genghis Khan Genetic Fitness Masterpiece

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 61% on darkness You scored higher than 28% on spontaneity You scored higher than 46% on vulgarity

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Mike Shula Watch

It sounds like he might be gone.

My Favorite Albums - Number 2

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti (1975)


Physical Graffiti, a double album that appeared in the middle of Zeppelin's career, is arguably their best (supporters of Led Zeppelin II and the untitled fourth album are excused). Featuring some of their longest and most sonically dense tracks, Graffiti features several of the best Zep songs of all time ("Kashmir", "Custard Pie", "Trampled Underfoot", "In the Light"), but several underrated numbers like "In My Time of Dying", "Ten Years Gone" and "Night Flight". One of the best-selling musical acts of all time, Led Zeppelin did it without singles (they released only two) or much radio airplay at the time. If you had never heard any other music by them, listening to this album would show you why.

What a day!

I think almost every system we have went down today in some form. We had a motherboard die in a domain controller last night, and Doug and the technician replaced it, but the time for the server was set to PM not AM (it was after one in the morning). Turns out the domain controller was the time server for the network. When we changed it back to AM this morning, everything went haywire. Terminal servers stopped working, the e-mail cluster crashed, accounting systems inaccessible, web portals locked up, backup jobs failed - it was a mess. I got several of the more minor problems resolved, but Doug has been on the phone with tech support for over eight hours trying to resolve the e-mail problem. It's nasty stuff.

LJ just IM'ed me and asked me how the day has been. I told her that it's been terrible. She asked if I had gotten everything fixed, and I said yes, except for the e-mail, and she said, "why isn't that a good day?" I told her that in IT, a good day is when nothing unexpected happens. Sure it's challenging to solve problems, and rewarding to fix a system that lesser mortals would have given up for dead, but most IT folks (at least the ones I know) would rather have things peaceful and boring.

Well, looks like Doug's making progress. Talk to you later.

Christmas album reviews

Is it too early to start talking about Christmas? I realize that the Halloween "holiday" doesn't even take place until next week, but as we have not really spent any time focusing on or talking to the kids about Halloween, I keep thinking it has already passed. My Halloween plans typically revolve around not going to the office costume party and trying to figure out how not to be at home for the trick-or-treaters.

Anyway, every year I typically buy one or more new Christmas CDs. I call it a tradition, but the only one who really pays any attention to the tradition is me, so that's probably a stretch. The last month or so, I have gotten several e-mails from Third Day regarding their new Christmas album, Christmas Offerings. As I have stated before, Third Day is one of the few Christian groups that I listen to with any frequency, and since the other two albums in the "Offerings" series have been pretty good, I was looking forward to this one. I bought it online when it was released. I also saw a new James Taylor Christmas CD at Wal*Mart the other day and picked it up on a whim. This one is titled, very originally, James Taylor at Christmas.

I listened to the Third Day CD in the van for the first time last week, and I have to say I was disappointed. I generally expect Third Day to do some interesting things on several of the songs on any particular album, and to put together a real gem or two. The original Offerings album begins with "King of Glory," which is one of my all-time favorite songs. It rocks, it quotes directly from the Bible, and it builds from this low-key guitar and vocal piece to a powerful full-throated band and choir number that can bring tears to your eyes if you're not careful. Even Offerings II: All I Have to Give features a few rousing numbers like "Sing a Song," although overall it is inferior to the first. The source of my let-down on the Christmas album is that I expected at least a couple of tunes that Third Day really put their stamp on, maybe even a couple of rockers. The best song on the album is probably "Do You Hear What I Hear?" which is just a live version of a song that they did for one of those in-store promotional Christian CDs that we already had anyway. The sad thing about it is that every one of the tracks could have been done by just about anyone - nothing terrible, but just 'blah.' There are a few original songs scattered amongst the traditional ones, and while they are slightly more interesting musically, in my opinion they are all lyrically weak. Without Mac Powell's distinct voice, well, I'd probably never listen to it again.

So before I bought the JT album, I had this musical washout on my hands. I picked up the James Taylor disc mainly because his Greatest Hits CD is a perennial favorite of ours, and I know he still has the voice. This album, which turns out to be a re-packaging of a Hallmark exclusive album released in 2004, nevertheless turned out to be a surprise. The arrangements of the traditional songs are jazzy and interesting, and as I said before, JT still has the voice. I remember LJ coming into the room while I was listening to it and asking "Is that 'Jingle Bells'?" She wasn't sure, because it sounded different - i.e., not like every other version of "Jingle Bells" ever recorded. I mean, once you've heard Bing Crosby sing "White Christmas," is there ever a need to hear anyone else attempt it? Negatory, good buddy. Aside from "Baby, It's Cold Outside," which I got tired of years ago (no offense to JT or Natalie Cole) this is an album I can tell that I'm going to listen to again and again for years to come.

YEEEESSSSSS!

I have finally established my ownership of all things Oracle and have completed the never-ending Oracle project. I resolved the final outstanding issue with the poll, and everything is working at least as well as it did before I ran the upgrade. You don't have to know what this means to celebrate with me. Whoo-hoo!

Laundry time

I don't usually do a whole lot to keep the house clean (just ask LJ!). I have allergies to dust and mold and other things, and vacuuming or dusting just knocks me over. I hate washing dishes, partly because it's just nasty, but mostly because I am almost 6' 5", and I have to bend over the sink to do it and it makes my back hurt. So pretty much the only household task I don't mind doing is laundry. Since I was home today and didn't have anything I needed to do, I have been washing clothes all day, and I do mean all day. I think I have washed somewhere between 12-15 loads so far, and I still have at least three left.

Usually we don't have quite this much laundry, and LJ hasn't even been falling down on the job. We recently bought some winter clothes for HannahBanana and BenjiBoy. We also got last year's clothes down from the attic and closets and cleaned them for NoahKrakatoa and AbsCadabs. I just had a birthday, so there are some clothes from that. Plus, LJ got a bag of shirts from an aunt that she couldn't wear any more. Add it all up and you get a $90 water bill.

You know, while we were shopping for the kids, I looked around at dresses. For a seven-year-old and a three-year-old, there were dresses that were $60 and $70 and up. I guess that's a drop in the bucket for some people, but I'll bet there's not an article of clothing in my whole wardrobe that I spent $70 or more on. I just don't see the point of spending that much on an outfit that they are going to wear just one season. And we at least have the advantage of using everything twice!

The other thing that really aggravates me is the clothing for girls. Once you get past about two or three, the choices for girls are pretty slim. I don't mean that you can't find clothing, because there is obviously tons of it. But we have had a hard time finding clothing that is appropriate for a seven-year-old to wear that makes her look like a girl and not a hooker. We finally gave up on finding her a pair of jeans that fit modestly. I don't necessarily want her to look like she's Mennonite or anything, but you would think that there would be a few choices for people who don't want their daughters to dress like Eva Longoria. Is that too much to ask?

Well, back to work for me. Now I have to go fold 12-15 loads of laundry!

EC Concert

Tomorrow night LJ and I are going to hear Eric Clapton in concert in Birmingham. Two other folks from the IT department are going, so that should be pretty cool. I'm really looking forward to it. Mom and Dad are keeping the young'uns for us, and I'm taking the rest of the week off from work (icing on the cake). This will be the third time I've seen EC in concert. My brother and I went to see him in Birmingham in 1992, when concert tickets could still be had for under $30. LJ and I saw him for our anniversary in 2001 at the Pyramid in Memphis, which was a rocking show. Robert Cray is opening for him, and I'm excited about hearing him too. Should be fun!

I always enjoy talking with folks about concerts that they have attended in their lives, especially if they have seen a few. Here are some concert highlights and lowlights from my past:

• Best Performance - James Taylor, Coleman Coliseum, Tuscaloosa, AL
• Best Opening Act - Taj Mahal (opening for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), Coleman Coliseum, Tuscaloosa, AL
• Best Venue - Alabama Theatre, Birmingham, AL (Bob Dylan)
• Most Sentimental Show - John Denver, BJCC Concert Hall, Birmingham, AL (just months before he died)
  
• Best Song in Concert - "River of Tears" - Eric Clapton, The Pyramid, Memphis, TN
• Worst Concert - Reba McEntire, BJCC Arena, Birmingham, AL
• Most Pot Smokers - Dave Matthews Band, Oak Mountain Amphitheatre, Pelham, AL
• Best Christian Concert - Third Day and Michael W. Smith, BJCC Arena, Birmingham, AL
• Biggest Letdown - Ray Charles, City Stages, Birmingham, AL (only played for 30 minutes)
• Biggest Surprise - Kool and the Gang, City Stages, Birmingham, AL
• Closest to Stage (Whole Concert) - Tie: Taj Mahal, City Stages, Birmingham, AL; B.B. King, CityFest, Tuscaloosa, AL
• Closest to Stage (End of Concert) - Bob Dylan, Alabama Theatre, Birmingham, AL
• Farthest from Stage - Bonnie Raitt, City Stages, Birmingham, AL
• Most Singalong-Friendly Show - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Coleman Coliseum, Tuscaloosa, AL
  
• Most Enjoyable Show - Chris Isaak, City Stages, Birmingham, AL

Hope you enjoyed sharing some of my concert memories. Now, share some of yours!

Thirty-Three

Today is my birthday. I turned 33 years old this morning at 7:55 CDT. Now one doesn't usually think of 33 as a milestone birthday, but I have thought about it as such ever since I realized as a child that Jesus was 30 when he began his ministry and (most likely) 33 when he was crucified (based on the number of Passovers mentioned in the gospels). I remember when my parents turned 33 thinking about the fact that they were the same age as Jesus when he had completed his ministry on earth, and now I am as well.

Now if you consider it, that's pretty profound. Jesus had spoken and accomplished everything that he was to do on this earth (until his return) in 33 years, more or less.

Then I look at my life. Have I accomplished everything (or anything) that God has planned for me? Well, that's a question that I'm not sure I can answer. Only God knows what he has ordained for my future. But as I reflect on my life, there are some things for which I am grateful - an intelligent, funny, beautiful wife; four fantastic children; a loving, supportive extended family; a good job, doing work I enjoy; a home in a nice, safe neighborhood; and most of all, a Savior who loves me in spite of who I am. Not bad for 33.

World leader quiz

Leslie took this world leader quiz last week and her result was that she was Abe Lincoln. So she was very enthusiastic about having me take the same quiz. I came out as Saddam Hussein. The money quote was "People who don't like you better like chemical weapons." I'll admit that gave me a good long laugh. Hey, who says that evil dictators can't laugh at themselves?

Well, that was something!

When I told you all that it might be a while before I updated again, I had no idea how long it would really be. My Oracle upgrade did not go as planned, and we never made it to Charlotte last week. I thought about sharing the whole ordeal with you, but suffice to say I worked over 52 hours on the upgrade last week, including a 36-hour stretch without sleep, not counting eight hours of travel time to and from the ATL. So I didn't have much time or clarity of thought to blog last week.

Of course, all that is old news and this week we're on to fresh challenges. My boss has asked me to come up with a vision statement for my group, and informed me today that we are going to do things differently next year. I think my response was about five seconds of silence, followed by, "Okay."

That reminds me of a story that we like to tell about Microsoft. Several years ago, we were audited by Microsoft and they asked us to document all of our software licensing. Long story short, we ended up spending lots of money on software, including purchasing their brand new Software Assurance on much of our server software. Three years later, we were visited by Microsoft reps again, this time selling us on the benefits of continuing our SA contracts. My boss and I had talked prior to their visit about how we had spent so much money on SA for all of our SQL Servers, and that since Microsoft had not delivered on their promised upgrade to SQL Server during those three years, we were going to confront the Microsoft guys about it and see what they had to say for themselves. The conversation went something like this:

Us - "You know, we bought Software Assurance for our SQL Servers because it was a better deal than relicensing every one of them, provided that there was a new version of SQL Server."
MS - "Okay."
Us - "So it's really a ripoff to have paid 60% on top of the software cost to get an upgrade that was never delivered."
MS - "Okay."
Us - "Now you're asking us to re-up for SA, and we can't see why it's a good investment, given the fact that we haven't seen any new versions of any of the software for which we purchased SA in the first place."
MS - "Okay."

Every time we made a statement about how we felt abused and misused by their licensing extortion, they acknowledged that we had spoken without admitting they had done anything wrong, or even attempting to make a case for SA. It was really mind blowing, and yet funny at the same time. So now every time someone says something to me for which I have no response, my response is "Okay." Don't tell me that Microsoft is good for nothing!

So anyway, my boss explained further that I shouldn't worry and it was going to be good for everyone. I have no idea what that means. And the cynic in me is already struggling with the whole vision statement assignment. But, I'm going to do my best to try to synopsize our goals in a short, visionary fashion.

The second week begins

So I'm on my second week now of business traveling. This time I am in Atlanta again for a day or two, then on to Charlotte, NC for a couple of days. In Atlanta, I'm finally performing my 28-step procedure for the Oracle upgrade from 8.1.7.4 to 10.2.0.2. After many false starts, I eventually performed it successfully three times on the test and development environments, so I am hopeful that this will go smoothly in production. Chris, Doug and I are all up here at the co-lo to work on the upgrade. Chris is observing me, since he will eventually take over the Oracle support duties as DBA. Doug is here to test the mail and application after the upgrade is complete, and he's going on with me to Charlotte to install a server up there.

Anyway, I may or may not have time to blog since we're doing a lot of driving, but I'll try to keep you posted on how things are going. Pray for a safe and successful trip!

This should scare you...

The UK Telegraph reported this week that China has been attacking U.S. surveillance satellites with lasers in attempts to disable them while they pass over China. If this had been the Soviets, we'd be at Defcon 2 by now.



SEE ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/26/wchina226.xml

South Carolina loses a close one

Well, I just got through watching the Auburn-South Carolina football game, and the Barn won 24-17, with USC missing out on a tying touchdown on the last fourth down of the game. I had no thought that South Carolina would be able to stay with Auburn, but they made it interesting up until the very end. Their quarterback, Syvelle Newton, is a player. He single-handedly kept them in the game.

On top of going for it (successfully, no less) on several fourth downs, the biggest difference between Tommy Tuberville and Alabama head coach Mike Shula was there for everyone to see in the third quarter. The Barn is leading by 4 at the half, and drives down the field in 17 plays to finally kick a field goal and take a seven-point lead. So what does Wingnut do? He goes for the jugular. Onside kick, drive down the field, and score the touchdown. South Carolina did not touch the ball for the entire third quarter. Twenty-nine straight offensive plays.

Even so, USC didn't give up. Newton actually threw the tying touchdown pass, but his freshman wide receiver dropped it. South Carolina still gained one more first down, but couldn't pull it out. Unfortunately, since Alabama is likely to get blown out this Saturday by #5 Florida, this looks like a long weekend ahead.

Weird things to eat

Have you ever wondered how we as human beings ever got into eating the things we do? I find it fascinating to think about how people discovered that certain fish or animals or plants were good to eat (or not), and even more so, how people have come up with thousands of different ways to mix ingredients in pleasing combinations.

One of the great things about being in a big city this week is that there are literally hundreds of places close to the hotel to eat, and we have been to Italian, Thai, Caribbean, and Mexican, just to name a few. Tonight though, I tried something new - escargot au fromage. Yes, snails. Well, just one snail. It was interesting. Not exactly what I expected. It wasn't particularly tasty, in my opinion, but it wasn't slimy or particularly odd in texture. It was sort of like a mushroom, but the taste was just different. And yes, I think it is the weirdest thing I have ever eaten, although calamari is a close second. I followed it up shortly afterward with a filet mignon, just to be safe.

So what's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?

Monday Night Football

So, I'm sitting here in the hotel room in watching MNF on ESPN. Now, I don't often get to watch football any more, so this is the first pro game I've seen from the beginning in a while. Tonight is a "special" night because the New Orleans Saints are playing Atlanta in the first game at the Louisiana Superdome since Hurricane Katrina. Now, I know that's a big deal for New Orleans, and it's a big deal, I guess, for the NFL. But the hyperbole from everyone associated with this broadcast is just unbelievable. If I hear one more thing about how "what was once a scene of devastation is now a scene of celebration," I'm going to vomit. The pre-game show included U2 and Green Day, and the hype is almost the equivalent of a Super Bowl. I mean, did either of these teams even make the playoffs last year? It's just a football game people. Quit acting like it's more significant than that.

Now, as a football fan, I want to give props to Roman Harper, former Crimson Tider and rookie starting cornerback for the Saints. Halfway through the first quarter, he's already made two noteworthy plays, including breaking up what would have been a touchdown pass. Good job, Roman!

SQL Server 2005 training

I am in Atlanta this week, attending SQL Server 2005 administration training. This is the first training that I have been to since I've been at Randall-Reilly Publishing that relates to something I use every day. That's a good thing. So far the class (through Global Knowledge) has been pretty good, which is to say that the instructor is knowledgable and isn't just a slide reader.

Atlanta is close to four hours away from my home, so it's going to be a long week (without the wife and kids)! Then next week, I'm going to be in Atlanta and Charlotte for two different projects. And in between, Alabama is going to get shallacked by Florida down in Gainesville. :(

Christian Carnival CXL is up

LJ is hosting the Christian Carnival this week over at Lux Venit. Y'all go give her a shout out.

My Favorite Albums - Number 3

The Beatles (aka "The White Album") - The Beatles (1968)

As my favorite musical artists, it was easy to predict that the Beatles would make it on to my list of top ten albums, and they do. Twice. For the only artists to have sold over 1 billion records worldwide, this should come as no surprise. However, what is amazing is that hardly any of the Beatles' record 20 number one singles is even on an album. In the days that the Beatles recorded, singles and albums were purposefully kept separate. The catalog of Beatles songs is deep, well over 250 songs, and comprises 12 studio albums, an EP and nearly 30 singles, over a scant eight years from 1962-1970.

The arc of the Beatles' recording career follows three distinct phases. The musical styles are so vastly different in these three phases, that it is often amazing that you are listening to the same group. The first phase, from 1962's Please Please Me to 1964's Beatles For Sale is the poppy, lighthearted music, derivative in many ways from their diverse influences, such as Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and others. The second phase, beginning with 1965's Help and Rubber Soul, and continuing through 1966's Revolver, and 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour, showed the influence of both drugs and Eastern philosophy, and revealed a growing musical depth as well as an amazing penchant for innovation.

By the time of The Beatles, the supergroup was moving into their third phase - the breakup. The band had devolved by this point to recording basically solo songs with the other Beatles as side men. Many of the compositions on this double album were written during the group's infamous "vacation" in India with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and the album is almost jarringly different than those of the previous year. Gone are the multiple session musicians and orchestral arrangements. Instead, the cuts run the gamut from hard rock ("Helter Skelter" and "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey") to acoustic guitar ballads ("Julia" and "Mother Nature's Son"). There is a lullaby ("Good Night"); a tongue-in-cheek homage to the Beach Boys ("Back in the USSR"); a pastiche of sound clips, backward loops and nonsense ("Revolution 9"); an unlisted "hidden" song (we'll call it "Can You Take me Back?"); a first-ever solo composition by Ringo ("Don't Pass Me By"), and an old-West saloon number ("Rocky Raccoon"). Eric Clapton even contributed an uncredited guitar solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." In all, there are 30 songs (31 if you count the unlisted track), in almost every style imaginable. Even the album cover, with its lack of any photo or even color, was a statement in sharp contrast to the bright, busy cover of Sgt. Pepper.

In a nutshell, the sheer diversity of the album is a large part of the reason I like it so much. You can listen through the over 90 minutes of running time and not run into two songs that sound alike. It is fascinating to me that John, Paul, George and Ringo had the ability to produce so much good music over so short a span of time, and the White Album showcases their broad range of musical gifts. It is definitely worth your time.

The Church as Entertainment Media

I was in the Ham (that's Birmingham, for all you out-of-staters) today at a BellSouth conference for major customers. The keynote speaker was former FCC chairman Michael Powell (the son of the former SecState/CJCS/General Colin Powell). He gave an engaging and interesting speech, and I even got to ask a question afterwards, although I won't bore you with the details of that. However, there were some things he said that got me thinking.

Powell told a story about his 12-year-old son. He said he told his son that he needed to stop downloading pirated music and start using an online store like iTunes, because it was wrong to "steal" the music. His son responded, "That sucks! Music should be free!" like he was Che Guevera, fighting the Man, and he stormed off. Sometime later Powell got the cell phone bill, which included $35 worth of charges for ring tones that his son had downloaded. Powell asked his son "Che" why it was okay to pay $2.99 for 10 seconds of ringtone music, but not 99 cents for an actual full song. His son's comment was something along the lines of, "You just don't understand." However, Powell thought about it after a while and concluded that the reason that his son, and by extension others of the digital generation, didn't have a problem with this was that music is music, but ringtones are personal. They make a person's cell phone identifiably his, and not someone else's, and he doesn't have a problem spending money for them.

Powell went on to say that the children of the Information Age live in a world where entertainment content, catered to their personal desires, is available virtually on demand. Entertainment media like newspapers and television, that are designed based on a one-size-fits-all model, are failing because they cannot compete with immediately available, personally-tailored content.

This got me to thinking about the seeker-sensitive church movement. Pastors like Rick Warren preach a gospel that is about personal fulfillment and purpose, and their churches are designed to appeal to people who are curious about Christianity but don't want the "churchy" stuff. This is perfectly understandable. But is it right?

I have gone about as far as you possibly can over the last five years or so on this question. About five years ago, LJ and I were members of a relatively large "First Baptist"-type church. The church had six or seven full-time and part-time paid staff members, lots of wonderful people, a fantastic choir, and a well-developed and established children's program. The problem was, the church was effectively as dead as a doornail. Many people were attenders by habit or for appearance's sake. There were few people who were interested in studying the Word or sharing the gospel. When we participated in a sixteen-week visitation program to share the gospel with people who visited the church, we never visited one person who claimed to be unsaved. They were ALL members of other churches. That's not to say that all of them were Christians, but that obviously only people who claimed to be Christians were coming to this church.

That really started to bother me. I had realized that I was not concerned for those who were lost, and I had prayed that God would break my heart and give me a desire to see people come to Christ. When he answered my prayer, I started to become really dissatisfied with the church. At the same time, a couple who had been members there for many years had felt called to plant a church that would be focused on reaching the lost. They asked LJ and me to join them, and after some prayer and thought, we agreed.

The church plant, despite the best intentions, was probably doomed from the start. None of us had any experience planting a church, and almost everyone involved had small children, which meant that nearly all of our efforts had to be focused on ministering to our own kids rather than to those outside the church. What we also realized was that contemporary music and topical preaching, while refreshing for a time, was not very spiritually satisfying. Although we grew close in relationship to each other, we didn't reach very many new people before our plans and dreams fell apart.

Soon afterward, we joined an existing church that was contemporary, and seemed to be really growing. There were lots of young parents and small kids. The preaching was interesting and exciting. The pastor used visual aids and videos, and the music leader looked and sang like Justin Timberlake. It seemed to be a happening place. But after a while, we realized that many of the members there had come there specifically because of the pastor, who had worked at at least six other churches in town. The members were not all that interested in meeting the church's ministry needs, and LJ and I found ourselves running programs there with almost no willing helpers. After just 18 months, we decided to move on.

So now, we have been searching for a church home for more than a year. We have visited 20 different churches, and while we haven't made a decision yet, the place we have been attending lately is a very traditional church, about as far from the church plant we tried to start as is possible. Over the last few years, what LJ and I have been searching for in a church has changed dramatically, and we have come full circle (or at least I have - I'm not sure LJ was ever sold on it) on the seeker-sensitive mentality.

I wholeheartedly agree with Powell that our culture is teaching us that our desires can be met at the push of a button. We can receive voice and data communication 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at almost any place on the globe. We can meet our spouses and order our dinner online. We can shop for anything, anywhere, right from our home computer, and the only limit is how much credit you can convince some company to extend to you. In our consumer culture, is it any wonder that churches are conforming to the a la carte, on-demand model as well?

The problem is that CHURCHES ARE NOT BUSINESSES, and CHRISTIANITY IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT. In the business world, a company's success is based on bottom-line profitability. Many pastors and Christian leaders attempt to base the church's success on bottom-line member numbers. The best way to make those membership rolls grow is to cater to as many desires as possible, right? Meet people's "felt needs?" This is the worst possible solution. In Matthew 23:25, Jesus condemns the Pharisees for their greed and self-indulgence. Is it possible that he has changed his mind? "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23 ESV) Is it possible that God's desire for us is not to gratify ourselves, but to glorify Him? How is it that we have gotten things so backwards?

My Favorite Albums - Number 4

From the Cradle - Eric Clapton (1994)


Eric Clapton's career has followed a long and winding road. From his start with the Yardbirds in 1963 at the tender age of 18, the guitarist went through several bands and reinventions (John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, and Derek and the Dominos) before striking out as a solo act in the early seventies. Through his entire career, though he explored pop, reggae, rock, jazz, soul, and country, the music that has most influenced and defined him is the blues. Clapton, and others of like mind, have introduced many to music that they would not have otherwise heard, all while pointing back to the originators, like Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon and Elmore James to name a few as their biggest influences.

Although it may to difficult to believe now, Eric Clapton was thought to have reached the nadir of his creative career in the mid 1980s. While he continued to have commercial success with two Phil Collins-produced albums, he was struggling with alcoholism, and his guitar-playing seemed to be relegated to almost an afterthought. But by the early nineties, Clapton had not only returned to his guitar-hero roots, but achieved amazing success, first with his "comeback" album Journeyman (1989), and then with his 1992 MTV Unplugged appearance, which garnered him six Grammies, as well as his first and only number one song "Tears in Heaven," dedicated to his four-year-old son who died in a freak accident in 1991. By the time that 1994 rolled around, Clapton was on top of the world commercially, and he set out to pay homage to his influences by recording an album consisting entirely of blues covers.

From the Cradle finally served to throw off the over-produced polish that had characterized most of his music from the eighties. The album was recorded live in the studio, with no overdubs, and with Clapton obviously singing and playing his heart out. For those critics that speculated that Clapton could no longer play as he once had, "Five Long Years" alone would put that to rest. It features a biting lyric ("I worked five long years for one woman/She had the nerve to put me out") and incendiary guitar work. Other standouts include "Tore Down," "Someday After A While," and "Groaning the Blues." Clapton is here at the top of his form.

The best-selling blues album of all time, some critics carp that From the Cradle is nothing more than a collection of inferior versions of the originals, but those critics would be missing the point. Clapton isn't trying to outdo the original blues artists, or to somehow improve on their legacy. He is paying tribute to them, and turning in my favorite album of his to date.

Flying high

LJ's uncle John is a pilot for the police department. This afternoon after I got home from work, we took the kids over to the airport and we all got to take turns flying in the helicopter with John. Well, actually the kids mostly just hovered around the hanger with him, but he took LJ and me on separate trips around the city. It was pretty cool. This would be a good time to show you a cool picture from today, but we left the camera at my parents' house this weekend, so we got video but no snaps.

Anyway, we arrived at the hanger while John was at lunch, so we went with the kids over to the airport park and the kids swinged (swang?) for a while. As John drove past the park in the police truck, we saw us and turned the lights and sirens on to let us know he was back. We then walked over to the hanger and the kids all got in one of the helicopters that was parked there and pretended to fly it, flipping switches and pulling the triggers (the helicopters are all Vietnam-era Army surplus Hueys, and were once armed). Abs pushed a button and the engine tried to start. She scared herself (and us) and removed her finger quickly from the button. After that NoahKrakatoa made sure that she didn't touch it again (he said later that he "fweaked out"). After they played in the helicopter a little bit, we went outside, where John preflighted the helicopter outside and showed me how to strap everyone in and gave me instructions for how to bring the kids back and forth to him.

First up was NoahKrakatoa. I walked out to the helicopter with him and strapped him in, put on the headset, and plugged him in so he could hear John. Then I walked back and John started the engine. Noah looked unsure, very clenched up, and LJ commented to me that out of all the kids, Noah is the one most afraid of heights. I guess I should say that this particular Huey had the front doors removed, so there's nothing between you and the ground other than your seatbelts. Anyway, John brought the engine up slowly and Noah gained confidence, so that when he took off, Noah waved to us. John took him up from the pad and hovered backwards toward the grass between the hanger and Runway 29. Then he turned and hovered around back and forth for a few minutes and brought him back. BenjiBoy went next, then HannahBanana. When I came to get HannahBanana out, I asked John if Abs would be able to go. He wasn't sure how she would do, and he asked what she said. I told him that she wanted to go (she had asked to every time the others went), so he said that we'd give it a try. So Abs strapped in and went and she liked it a lot. Then LJ got her turn, which was probably 10 minutes of flying, and then finally was my turn.

I'm a big, tall guy (we'll leave it at that), so my biggest problem was that the flight controls had to make it past and around my legs. This meant that I had to sit in sort of a cramped position so that the collective and cyclic could make it past my left leg while I made sure that I didn't touch the pedals with my feet (there are live controls on both front seats). This made it a little bit nervewracking, since I felt like I might block a critical movement by accident, but John did a great job. This was the first time any of us had been up in a helicopter, and it was interesting to contrast it with airplane flight. I have been up many times in airliners, and I have flown in a Cessna and an "experimental" kit plane. Flying in the helicopter was much different.

For one, the takeoff and landing was much easier than going up in a plane. Although you feel the power of takeoff, it was a much more gradual transition than in a plane. Landing was much softer as well, and since you are at zero air speed at both times, it feels less dangerous, although I'm pretty sure that isn't the case. But it isn't as scary. In the air, it's a little bit different, although, granted, that could have been because I was totally exposed to the outside, my arm was out the door, and I could look straight down to the ground. But the sensation of flight was different too. I am pretty sure we were going slow enough that we would have been at the lower end of the flight envelope for even a small plane, so you really felt the rises and falls caused by wind, even though it was not windy at all today. I would hate to be in a helicopter in a bad storm (I have been in a plane in a bad one). Somehow the forward momentum of flight in a plane gives me a sensation that even if we hit an up or down draft that we will still be flying forward and that we'll be okay. I could imagine the helicopter getting tossed around quite a bit, although I'm sure John could have taken the speed up significantly had that been necessary. It was neat to see the city from above with the ability to really focus and identify things as you leisurely circle around.

So all in all, it was a lot of fun. Once I got back, NoahKrakatoa was ready to go again, but we will have to save the next ride for later. BenjiBoy and I were talking about it after we got home, and I told him that he got to do something today that billions of people will never have a chance to do. I'm not even sure that I even know anyone else who's ever ridden in a chopper, except for John's family. Cool stuff.

Total War

I am just looking over the headlines on Drudge, and man, are we living in scary times. Just a couple of examples:

"Iran still refusing to halt enrichment"

"Bush Assassination movie coming to U.S. theaters"

"Syria foils American embassy attack"

"Oliver Stone hints at film tackling 9/11 'conspiracy'"

So it's obvious that while terrorists and the states that support them are still hard at work on their plan to destroy our country and our way of life, the liberal moonbats are hard at work blaming the Bush administration for all the evils in the world. The dichotomy is breathtaking.

I realize that Christians of good faith can hold differing political views. I try hard not to look upon Christians with socially liberal viewpoints as apostates, and there are certainly a lot of things that are distasteful to me about the Bush presidency (although probably not the same things that liberal Democrats have against it). However, this irrational hatred of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, et al, is starting to become psychopathic. It's amazing to me that people are so blinded by their politics that they cannot see that there is an enemy out there who would just as soon see both sides lying dead in a pool of their own blood. I was heartened after the September 11th attacks to see both sides of the political spectrum come together symbolically to stand against terrorism, but I feared that it would be short-lived. I had no idea it would be like this.

I disagree with the way that the administration has prosecuted the war in both Afghanistan and Iraq, although interestingly enough, the war-fighting part of both wars was initially incredibly successful. Unfortunately, we seem to have become so concerned with convincing everyone that we don't want to stay any longer than we have to that we have relinquished the initiative, and most of the territory, to the enemy. I am a bit of a history buff, and I have just finished Shelby Foote's three-volume, 3000+ page history of the Civil War. As a Southerner, I will be committing a little bit of a sacrilege here, but for the sake of argument, let's compare the South to the Islamist fanatics we are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Southerners had fewer resources, less people, less land, and less weapons than the North. They had nothing going for them but a fanatical belief in the justice of their cause and their personal honor. However, for a good part of the war, almost every battle was won by the South, and if things had gone slightly differently at Gettysburg, the South could possibly have forced an end to the war.

What are the parallels? Like the anti-war crowd today, there were many in the North who weren't interested in fighting to keep the South in the Union. They frankly didn't think that the Southern states were worth the effort. Many went into the war thinking that it would be over in a matter of months - as a matter of fact, many of the first enlistments only lasted three months, and thousands of Union soldiers left the army without having fought at all. There were many in the North who wanted nothing to do with fighting a war over slavery, thinking that the slaves weren't worth risking white men's blood to free. And of course, there were those who were enthusiastic at first, but who became tired of the seemingly relentless conflict.

So what can we learn from the North's successful prosecution of the war? It is a little-known fact that only one major battle in the Civil War was fought on Union soil, again similar to the current war. When the Union moved over Southern territory, total war was waged. Crops were eaten or burned, houses were burned down, livestock was slaughtered, factories were destroyed, railroads demolished. The ability to live on the land was removed, and the Confederate Army was slowly beaten down by hunger, lack of clothing, and shear hopelessness.

Now one might argue that the battle to win hearts and minds would be forever lost if we decided to wage total war on our enemies with overwhelming force. However, I would contend that we never had much chance to win the hearts and minds of most of the inhabitants of Iraq and Afghanistan. They mistrust our motives, they have varying degrees of affinity with our enemies, and they have a long history of animosity toward the West in general and the U.S. in particular. Also, the bungling, ineffective way in which we have managed the post-war situation has created less confidence in our eventual success than there was before we started.

Now I'm not advocating burning down Baghdad. What I am suggesting though, is that the so-called "Bush Doctrine" should be completely implemented. The countries should be smothered with American troops. Weapons smugglers coming from Iran and Syria should be bombed, and strategic targets in Iran and Syria bombed as well, if efforts aren't made to cooperate. Terrorist/insurgent fighters should be tried quickly and executed. The Iraqi police should be brought under control and tried for crimes that they commit. The countries should be blockaded to the best of our ability. And leaders that foment unrest, even if they are members of the "government" (I'm talking about you, Muqtada al-Sadr) should be apprehended and imprisoned if possible, and killed if not.

Winning the U.S. Civil War was not about wiping out the hatred of the typical Southerner for the Yankees (some would argue that it still exists). It finally boiled down to Grant's determination to removing the South's will to fight, and accepting nothing less than "unconditional surrender." That was done by removing all hope the Confederacy had of winning. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that the terrorists have figured out that, if our strategy doesn't change, they only need to hold on until Election Day, November 2008 for victory.

Five years

I remember the day started pretty innocuously. I had been at work for about an hour or so when our department admin, Cari, came over to my office and said something like, "You're interested in airplanes and stuff, right?" I replied affirmatively, and she continued, "They said on the radio that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center." I asked what kind of plane it was, and she told me that they were reporting that it was a small private plane (the news was still pretty sketchy at that point). I asked if the weather was bad, and she said she didn't know. I told her that a B-17 had crashed into the Empire State building back around World War II because of heavy fog, and maybe it was something like that. So we made small talk for a little while longer and she went back to her office.

A little while later, Cari came back, white-faced, and said that another plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I immediately said, "That wasn't an accident." I remember the stomach-wrenching feeling of knowing that attacks on the country were taking place while we were sitting trying to do some relatively meaningless work. I went over to Doug and Ellen's office, because they have a seldom-used television there, and watched the news with a small knot of people for a little while. Doug came back to my office a little while later and said that one of the towers had collapsed. That, I honestly could not believe. Then, of course, we were back watching on the TV, and I saw the second tower collapse.

Even now, it seems impossible that those two buildings would go down like that, and I'm sure that in their wildest dreams, the terrorists never imagined that they would either. Other images I have of that day are the terror and panic of the people around the WTC as it collapsed; President Bush speaking for the first time and breaking down in tears; and of course, people jumping to escape the flames. I also remember thanking God that George Bush was president rather than Al Gore.

It astounds me that today we know so much about the men who committed this terrible act and that we had allowed them free access to the means by which they attacked us. It disturbs and angers me that rather than addressing the system that allows Middle Eastern men to learn how to pilot an aircraft, get easy access to student visas and pass into our country undetected, the citizens of this country are required to take off their shoes and pour out their beverages before boarding a plane (as if that will somehow stop an attack). Could anything be more ridiculous than the extremes to which we go not to offend people who have no qualms against blowing themselves up to kill as many of us as they can?

I know it is unpopular and politically incorrect to view the conflict with Islamist terrorists as a conflict between Islam and Christianity, or a battle of good versus evil. And yet, the terrorists themselves have no problem framing their jihad in just those terms (with themselves as the good guys, of course). LJ and I recently watched the first season of the HBO series "Rome" (WARNING - viewer discretion advised). The first year of the series focused on the rise and fall of Julius Caesar. One of the most profound things about the series is that it brings home how the culture of Rome in the days before Christianity is almost unimaginable to the West today. However, the brutality and disregard for human life in those times is rivaled by that of the Muslim world today. We in the West do not realize how much the teachings of Jesus Christ inform our cultural respect for human life, even for those to whom Christianity is repugnant. There is no parallel in the Muslim world. The history of Islam is rife with war, betrayal, assassination and cruelty, not only to "infidels," but to other Muslims as well. I know that there's a school of thought out there that holds that the history of Christianity is no different, and there are, sadly, numerous examples from history to support this. However, the truth is that human beings are depraved, and that evil people will wrap themselves in whatever legitimacy serves their purposes. However, if you look at the overall impact of Jesus Christ on our culture, as opposed to the life of Mohammed on the Muslim culture, it's easy to understand why you will never see a vast crowd of Westerners jubilantly dancing in the street when 3000 civilians are purposefully murdered.

And just in case you were wondering, CNN Reports, "A lengthy statement from al Qaeda number 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks calls on Muslims to step up their resistance to the United States."

Why I am not a salesperson

I could never be a salesman. I don't think I have the patience for it, for one. I don't have the ability to walk up to people I don't know and initiate meaningless small talk (much less meaningful small talk). I have to fumble around and think about what I could or should say, and usually by the time I've worked up the nerve to initiate something, I have no follow-up. Also, I am a wee bit too cynical and sarcastic to spread the sunshine on some unsuspecting customer. On my last evaluation from my boss, under the heading of Integrity, he put "Too Honest." Frankly, I don't know if that's a compliment or a slam, but since he gave me a 10/10, we'll call it a compliment. The closest I get to being a salesman is eBay.

So anyway, a significant part of my job is dealing with salespeople. When I'm working on a project and I know I need a server with four CPUs and 32GB of RAM, I'm know I'm going to wade into a feeding frenzy of four or five salesguys who want my business, and I'm fine with that. It's days like today that I find it difficult to be civil.

Sometimes I exaggerate when I say that I am multitasking (working on several things at once), but not this week. I have been rebuilding a SQL Server from backups for our ERP upgrade, configuring my Oracle test server for the third time, getting server specs and pricing for a project to upgrade one of our web portals, reviewing lease contracts to plan for the 2007 budget year, testing a financial reporting application with our new ERP software, rebuilding three data import packages from scratch that blew up when the user account of the developer who built them was disabled, making a decision about how many desktop computers to buy this month, troubleshooting a SQL Reporting Services installation that has stopped working, compiling capital expenditure requests for 2007, figuring out how to replace the cell phones of the editors at one of our remote offices with Blackberrys (Blackberries?) without the company actually paying for them, and trying to get a quote from a vendor for a UPS and generator to replace what we have in our data center. That's just the stuff that I can recall as I sit here, and it's been a short week! Needless to say, at the end of the last two days I've been mentally drained.

Enter the cold sales call. We have caller ID at work, so when I see the numbers for some of my vendors come up and I know I don't have the wherewithal to speak to them, I let the call roll over to voice mail. But today I was expecting a call from the aforementioned UPS vendor, and I made the mistake of answering a call from [salesguy] over at [big box computer vendor]. So the first thing he asks me is, "what's going on?" Now at this point, if [salesguy] had been in front of me I would probably have strangled him with the phone cord, but I believe I said something like, "uh, lots of things." This of course was the cue for [salesguy] to jump in like a superhero and ask if there was anything I needed. I said, "Yeah, I need someone who knows Oracle better than I do so I can get this Oracle project off my plate." He says, "Really? We can set you up with that!" And I say, "Well, the only problem is that there's no money to pay for it." That kind of deflated him. Then I ran down most of the projects I mentioned above, none of which he could do anything to help me with. (I didn't mention the desktops, because he is never the low cost provider and it wastes my time and his).

Anyway, eventually I was able to get him off the phone and try to focus back on whatever I was doing at the time. Net result? Five to 10 minutes wasted on a meaningless phone call, and another couple of minutes delving back into the work I had to drop to talk to him. Don't these guys know that if there's something I can throw off on them, that I'm going to call them? Like I'm over here trying to hoard all the work. This salesguy's problem is that he's nearly always much more expensive than everyone else, so he never gets business from me. So he thinks he needs to call more often because I need personal contact. See I can't even empathize with the salesguy. That's why I could never be one.

My Favorite Albums - Number 5

Crash - Dave Matthews Band (1996)

I had a roommate in college that loved Dave Matthews Band. My roommate Pak had what I would call eccentric tastes in music. He liked Frank Zappa and Dead Kennedys and Fishbone and several other groups that I had never heard of then and haven't really heard since. But for a while there Pak was playing Under the Table and Dreaming by DMB all the time. I remember when I first saw the video for "What Would You Say?" on MTV, I had been hearing that song for MONTHS already. I must admit that it took a while for Dave to grow on me, but by July of 1995, my brother, girlfriend and I were going to see him in concert.

Crash debuted in 1996, and was the first DMB CD I bought. I immediately loved it. To me, it is a much better listen than its predecessors, and has hints of the direction Dave was taking the band, mainly expanding into more electric guitar and complex arrangements. There are several great songs on this album, but the (almost) medley of "#41" and "Say Goodbye" along with "Lie in Our Graves" are possibly my favorites of all time by DMB. They are so musically interesting that they would be fantastic without the lyrics at all. Carter Beauford's drumming alone on the transition between "#41" and "Say Goodbye" is fantastic. To date, this is still my favorite DMB album, not only because it represents a particular period in my life in a way that the other ones do not, but because it's arguably his best.

Actual letters from actual viewers...

The company for whom I work runs a web portal geared toward the trucking industry (www.etrucker.com). The company owns several trucking magazines. From time to time this means we get e-mail from actual truck drivers. This has led to some pretty interesting e-mails. Here's one we got today (the names have been changed to protect the ignorant):

hey ... how is it going, my name's tom and i was wondering if you ever used funny photoes for your magazine.

recently me and my buddy JD was met up with a friend of mine harry, a trucker from dothan, alabama and his son jerry. harry and jerry smashed JD with pies in the face as a belated birthday gift LOL! JD got creamed. i was wondering if you would like to have the photoes we took of it for the magazine.

take it easy man,

tom

Well, my gut impulse was to tell the guy to grow up, but thankfully for the company, I don't receive or respond to these e-mails. How would you answer our foolish friend?

The Paradox of Birth Control

LJ posted over at Lux Venit about an article on MInTheGap today. The article is about birth control, and whether or not it is a sin. Check out the article here. I have posted a few comments there as well, and rather than trying to rehash it here, just go check it out.

This week's Christian Carnival is posted

Christian Carnival CXXXVIII (138) is up at From the Anchor Hold.

The Great Commission and the Holy Spirit

This Sunday, the pastor at the church we attended spoke on missions, using Acts 13:1-4 as the basis for his sermon. He talked about how the church at Antioch commissioned Saul (Paul) and Barnabas as missionaries, and discuss how he felt that his own church had failed to raise up missionaries from the congregation from baptism to commissioning. He also explained that he felt that Christians who were waiting on a specific call from the Holy Spirit to serve as missionaries had already received the only call that they really need - the Great Commission.

Now for those of you who might need refreshing, the Great Commission as recorded in Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV) says, "19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." In this context, I agree with the pastor that we are all called to make disciples as we go through our daily walk. However, I would distinguish this from a call into full-time missionary work. The Great Commission was delivered, in my opinion, to all believers. Yet, the church at Antioch did not close the doors and send every one of its members out to be full-time missionaries, they only sent Saul and Barnabas, as far as we can tell from the passage, so there appears to me to be a special calling from the Holy Spirit on these men that set them apart from the others.

That goes to the heart of what I thought the pastor failed to emphasize in his sermon, namely the first part of verse 2 - "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said..." Now the passage doesn't explain how the Holy Spirit said that these two men were called to be missionaries, but I don't think that that is important to us. What is important here is that the men of the church were worshiping and fasting, and God, through His Holy Spirit, told them something specific about these two men. Now, when things were tough for Saul and Barnabas down the road, which they undoubtedly were, they both had a specific calling that they could cling to as evidence that God meant for them to be doing what they were doing. That's not to say that we too don't have a specific calling from God to be His witnesses - we do. But the calling for Saul and Barnabas went beyond that. I am sure that it was something that they both felt, but it was also confirmed to a larger group through other means than just Jesus's final words.

Now again, I don't think that there would necessarily be anything wrong with a believer going out and serving on the mission field without any other calling other than the Great Commission. However, when doubts and fear arise, and times are hard, it seems to me that a firm calling from the Holy Spirit, confirmed by your church leaders, would be a strong point on which he (or she) could cling. I know from our experience with the church plant that the lack of a clear calling from God (for both of us) was the source of many hours of confusion and doubt for LJ and me once things got truly hard. I imagine that the same is true for many pastors as well. Am I off base here?

"Crocodile Hunter" killed by stingray in freak accident

View Article.

Rest in peace, Steve.

Triple Digits!!!

Whoo-hoo! I have had 100 visitors in the two weeks since I've started blogging! Thank you to all of you who sought my blog out to find out what LJ's husband was like, or who came over to see what I am all about from a comment, or who just tripped over it. My next goal is to accumulate more visitors than there are buyers for Paris Hilton's CD. That shouldn't be too hard.

Star Wars Action Scene - I

Remember how I said that I collect Star Wars action figures? Well, since I have so many of them, and I really am too old to play with them (except with the kids), I don't get to see them too much. LJ only allows me one area to keep them out, which is my dresser in our bedroom. So every couple of weeks I set up a different scene with some of my figures. This week's scene is from the Battle of Hoth (Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back). It features an Imperial walker (AT-AT) and a scout walker wreaking havoc on the Rebel front lines. Luke Skywalker is hanging from the walker and has ignited his lightsaber in preparation for planting an explosive on the AT-AT's belly. Here's another angle:

If this is a popular-enough feature (that means if you folks comment positively), then I'll post photos whenever I change it.

Find a church or leave town?

Paul Martin over at kerux noemata has posted about finding a church where God is. Basically he says that if you aren't finding a church where God is present and Jesus is Lord then you should move somewhere that you can. Here's the comment I left on his site:

"I definitely can understand where you are coming from. My wife and I have despaired of finding a place where the gospel is preached and the members of the body are spiritually alive. My question though is how do you find a church where God is at work if the church is in another city (or state)? I have found that the opinions of people I know and trust on other matters are not terribly helpful when it comes to their own churches, so I think it would be hard to find a place that I was sure of without spending time there myself. I don't see how that's practical without quitting my job and going church-hunting full time. Which would work for about two weeks. "

If Paul responds, I'll post it here.

Happy Birthday, Sweetie Pie!!!

Abs is 3 today!

Forced conversion

Catez over at allthings2all recently posted on his blog about the release of two Fox News reporters by terrorists in Gaza. As you may have heard, the two reporters "converted" to Islam as part of the agreement to release them. This got me and Catez thinking about what we would do if faced with the same situation. Check out the post here.

I'm not going to debate whether Wiig and Centanni made a bad decision for themselves, because I don't know whether either of them is a Christian. I started wondering what I would do in the same situation, and whether it would be wrong to falsely claim that I had converted to Islam to escape death. I agree with Catez that the ability to stand up and say, "NO" would only be possible through the Holy Spirit. The early Christians faced the same dilemma in the Coliseum though - renounce your faith and bow to Caesar and go free, or be torn apart by lions. Whether or not those early believers would have truly abandoned their faith in their hearts had they capitulated could be a matter of debate, but there was no debate in their minds over whether bowing to Caesar was a sin. I am afraid that publicly declaring one's conversion to Islam, forced or not, to escape terrorists would be a sin for a believer as well.

My Favorite Albums - Number 6

Free-For-All - Michael Penn (1992)


This album was released at about the same time that I was starting as a freshman in college. My brother had bought Penn's debut album March back in 1989 on the basis of the minor radio/MTV hit "No Myth." I liked the original album moderately, but it wasn't necessarily something I listened to very much. I didn't even have a copy of it, and we always copied each others tapes at the time if we wanted a copy to listen to ourselves. Anyway, my brother had bought the new tape and offered to let me take it back with me to school (2.5 hours away) and listen to it. I still remember that because I listened to the album over and over again on the way back to Tuscaloosa. With only ten songs and a running time of slightly under 40 minutes, that's nearly four times through. It was so interesting, different, and enjoyable, I didn't want to stop listening to it.

This album features some fine acoustic guitar playing, lyrical complexity, dark themes, and catchy, singable tunes. At the time of his debut, Michael Penn seemed poised to take the mantle of poet singer from the likes of Bob Dylan. However, the grunge revolution led by groups like Nirvana changed the music world by the time this album came around, and Penn's career has never reached the popular heights of his first release. Free-For-All is an example then of what might have been, and is perhaps Penn's finest effort.

My favorite track on the album is "Long Way Down (Look What the Cat Drug In)," which features a pure, clean acoustic guitar that sounds like Penn is in the room with you and a biting, cynical lyric about the girl he loves who is returning from a night on the town without him. There are other acoustic gems in "Coal" and "By the Book" with fast-paced rockers like "Free Time" and "Seen the Doctor" to liven the pace. This album is highly underrated, and gets better with every hearing. And it looks like Amazon has it for 1 cent, so how can you beat that?

"Painter of Light" in trouble

Apparently Thomas Kinkade's greatest crime may not be painting cheesy, overpriced works of art.

The Article

Christian Carnival Posted

Christian Carnival CXXXVII (137) is up at Brain Cramps for God.

The Church Search

I am 32 years old. I have been a member of seven churches in my life - one briefly as a young child and new Christian, one for the next 11 years until I went to college, two during college, another after LJ and I married and moved, the sixth when we attempted to help plant a church, and the seventh and final one after the church plant failed. Our family left that church a little more than a year ago after some serious consideration and prayer when our problems with the pastor's leadership style finally came to a head (the pastor has since left that church). We have been without a church home for a year and have visited 20 churches in that time, four of them at least twice. We live in Alabama in a county of 160,000 people. In this county, there are over 100 Southern Baptist churches alone! So why is it so hard to find the right place?

I guess part of the problem is that we have high expectations. LJ and I expect the people to be friendly, the worship to be vibrant and glorifying to God, and the prayer to be fervent. We homeschool our children, so we'd like to find other homeschooling parents. We believe in evangelism, so we want to see Christians who are enthusiastic about reaching others. And we long for Christian fellowship, so we'd like to make friends that share at least some of our interests. We originally thought we'd like to find a place that had not had a major split at some point due to infighting, but had to rule that out because we couldn't find any. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we want to locate a pastor that preaches the Bible, not a verse or two and a couple of good stories. We've had all the purpose-driven, seeker-sensitive nonsense we could stomach.

It's amazing to me how so many churches that we've visited have been cookie-cutter images of each other. Oh sure, the buildings are different and the styles of dress may vary some, but when you look beyond the surface you find the same repetitive "praise music," the same cold, disinterested parishoners, the same three points and a poem feel-good sermons, and the same feeling of a wasted hour (or two) when you walk away.

What is the purpose of a church? The second chapter of Acts says that the early church was "continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." Acts 11:26-30 indicates that the church is designed for teaching and for providing relief to other Christians in need. In Romans, Paul reminds the church to be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Does this sound like your church?

To my shame, I have gone to church for years with people I have barely known, some of whom I couldn't name if my life depended on it. LJ and I tried to conduct a Precept Bible study in our last church. The pastor would only allow it to happen on Sunday nights during the worship services. By the time the study concluded, only two or three other members were even attending the meetings, and none of them had gotten anywhere near completing the study. We visited one church for four or five months at a stretch during our search (by far the most time we've given a church - we had family there). Not once did a member of that church visit us (there was one "formal" church visit), or invite our family to visit them. Not once were we ever asked to go to lunch at someone's home or even to meet at a restaurant. Not once were we ever called to see how we were doing or just to talk. Not once was LJ or I ever invited to do anything with anyone outside the church building. At another church we visited, my Bible was stolen right off the pew next to me. Is this what the writer of Hebrews warned us not to give up doing?

I have a great fear that God looks down on our tired Sunday rituals and desires to spit our lukewarm Christianity out of his mouth. How I pray that God would direct us to a church where his gospel is preached, his love is proclaimed, and his Spirit is at work. I have begun to despair that there is such a place where we live.

Why is Christian Music so boring?

What is the deal with Christian music? I know I am probably going to offend some of you out there, but according to my exacting standards for good music (write your own music, play at least one instrument, have talent, and be an innovator), a vast majority of "contemporary Christian" music does not qualify. Pop music today is a vacuous wasteland, so if your musical style apes the pop music of today, like most Christian music, you're already in deep trouble.

Now I realize that pop music, by definition, is the most-purchased music out there. But check out the top 10 artists on the current Billboard Hot 100 list (Fergie, Gnarls Barkley, Nelly Furtado, Sean Paul, The Pussycat Dolls, Cassie, Ciara, Christina Aguilera, Ne-Yo, and Panic! At the Disco) . Are you kidding me? There's only two of these supposed "artists" that I have even heard of, and whether or not they can sing or are even a great singer is beside the point. Will anybody be listening to these songs twenty years from now? Is any one of them doing something interesting with their music? Are any of them virtually interchangable with each other, or a thousand other singers out there? What are Christian artists doing trying to sound like them, or worse, trying to sound like pop music that's 10 (or more) years out of date.

I think musical giftedness is a talent from God. I sing and play a little bit of guitar, and I have written music, but I have no illusions about my talent level. I have heard artists in many churches that greatly exceed my musical abilities, and yet still have no business with a recording contract. So why is one of the most obvious of God's gifts seemingly missing from the pool of his servants? Where are the innovators in Christian music? Where are the artists who are masters of their instruments, who worship God with their amazing talents? Where are the Mozarts and The Beatles? The Beethovens and the Bob Dylans? Where are the bands who are creating music that truly glorifies God rather than sounding like a cheap knockoff of Celine Dion or Nickelback? Is God really pleased with music that couldn't make it among the likes of Josh Turner and Rihanna?

My favorite Christian band - well, the only one I listen to anyway - is Third Day. I like Mac Powell's voice and I think some of their songs are pretty good. But as far as innovation goes, they are probably 30 years behind the rock bands they sound like (Lynnyrd Skynnyrd or the Allman Brothers). What has happened to the talented and interesting performers? Is there nothing new to play or sing?

In my opinion, Christian music should be better than pop music. The singers should have better voices, the instrumentalists should have more prowess. Can it really be the case that none of the most talented musicians in the world are Christians? I hear music on our three local Christian stations that would not have been interesting on Top 40 radio in 1986, much less 2006. And don't even get me into the theology of Christian music. Most of it is either lightweight "Jesus is my girlfriend" type nonsense, or simple and repetitive praise music (or both). When was the last time you heard a confessional song along the lines of Psalm 51 ("Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight")? Or a lament like Psalm 79 ("They have given the dead bodies of Thy servants for food to the birds of the heavens, The flesh of Thy godly ones to the beasts of the earth.") Where are the Christian artists who sing out about our country's struggle against Islamofascists or the moral issues of the day (abortion, crime, poverty, personal debt, etc.) and cry out to God for help? Instead we get man-centered songs that are so innocuous that they can crossover to the pop charts and be inoffensive to everyone (see MercyMe's "I Can Only Imagine" for a recent example). Something is very wrong here.

I just took "The Politics Test"

You are a Social Conservative (18% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (75% permissive) You are best described as a: Strong Republican You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness.

Well, I have to say I think this one works. Try it.

PET PEEVE!!! (WARNING--RANT AHEAD)

I work in IT and I've been a user of internet e-mail since 1991, so maybe the novelty of it has worn off. I get between 50-100 e-mails a day, every day. This only refers to the e-mail that passes through the multiple spam and virus filters that we employ to block the folks who are hawking V1@gr@ and porn and low mortgage rates. I realize that there are people out there who get four or five e-mails from their friends in a week's time, and they're happy to get every piece of it, so I realize that not everybody feels about it the way I do. But I have one big e-mail pet peeve. I'll give it to you in a nutshell. If your e-mail looks like this:

[numerous e-mail addresses]

FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: [some stupid crap]

[numerous e-mail addresses]

FW: FW: FW: FW: [some stupid
crap]

[numerous e-mail addresses]

FW: FW: FW: [some stupid
crap]

[numerous e-mail addresses]

FW: FW: [some stupid crap]

[numerous e-mail addresses]

FW: [some stupid crap]

[blah blah blah blah blah]

Please pass this onto your friends even if you don't usually
take time to forward mail...do it this time! If this touched you as much
as it touched me, please forward it on.

I DON'T WANT IT!!! Don't you people have something better to do than forward this crap to me? Half the time whatever is in the e-mail is some urban legend or hoax that has little basis in fact, and the other half of the time it's some sappy shmaltz that I can't believe I wasted two minutes of my life reading. I'm not getting that time back, people!

It's getting to the point when I see an e-mail from certain people that I know, I can just go ahead and delete it without review because I know it is totally worthless. My company gets around one million e-mails a week. We have less than 500 employees. That's over 2000 e-mails a week for the average worker, and you know what? Ninety-eight percent of it literally is garbage. We filter that crap out before it even gets inside the firewall. Junk like this message makes up another half a percent. Okay, you say, half a percent isn't so much. Well, that's 5000 e-mails in a week. If it takes a person thirty seconds during their workday to read those messages, that's 41 person-hours wasted. That's a work week wasted for Pete's sake! And that's just one small company out of thousands. If you are sending these messages (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE), FREAKING STOP IT ALREADY!!! I don't need to get an e-mail to convince me that God loves me, that we should support our soldiers or that illegal immigration is a problem. No one has signed a law prohibiting us from going to church, 9/11 wasn't staged by the government, and there is no secret e-mail program that Bill Gates' is going to pay me $1000 to beta test for him. Viruses ARE a problem, but sending an e-mail to warn me about one is not the best way to handle it, especially since many viruses are spread by e-mail, and most likely we're going to catch those anyway. There's hardly anything you can send me in an e-mail that I haven't already learned somewhere else, unless it's personal, and in that case I'm all ears. I would love to get a personal note telling me how you are doing and asking about my family. But DON'T SEND ME ANY MORE OF THIS CRAP!

I mean it.

Oracle problems

I started out working as a Microsoft SQL Server DBA (database administrator) about six and a half years ago, and even though I'm a manager now, I still do a good bit of work with the company database servers. We have, oh 9-10 SQL Servers, a MySQL server and a couple of Oracle servers (one in production, one development). The production Oracle server is the back-end for our web portal. We're running Oracle Database 8i on the server, which is no longer being supported by Oracle, so I have been working on a project to upgrade this system to Oracle Database 10gR2, which is the current version.

Here's where the problem comes in. The web portal that uses Oracle is no cash cow, and given the fact that no other system in our company runs on Oracle, there's no money available for training. On top of that is the fact that the system works perfectly fine with Oracle 8i, thank you very much, so I've been trying to get this project underway for over a year. Something else always takes precedence. After doing some testing a few months back, we determined that upgrading to 10gR2 wouldn't break our site, so I've been trying to squeeze in some time to upgrade the development server (as a test) and then the production server. Well, this week I finally had a few hours to work through it. Unfortunately, it didn't quite go as planned.

After downloading the latest patches, I ran through the 10gR2 install, but once I got it in place, I realized that the new system would have to have a different database name, which was okay for the dev environment but wouldn't be for production. So I uninstalled the software. Next I tried to run the install and do the upgrade wizard as part of the installation. The upgrade wizard apparently couldn't communicate with the 8i database, even though I could still connect to it with the 8i tools, so I cancelled the 10gR2 installation and deleted all the services and related files from the initial install. I stopped all the 8i services and ran the installation and upgrade again, and after a couple of hours, the upgrade had completed successfully. Great! So then I went ahead and tried to run the latest patchset installation over the upgraded database. For some reason the installation would not replace a particular .dll file. I looked on the Oracle support site and couldn't find any reference to this error, so I cancelled the installation. Bad mistake.

So now the database isn't responding and the services won't start. I ran the patchset installation again, and still got the .dll error, but I ignored it and progressed through the install. Still the services wouldn't start. So I deleted the Oracle 8i folder and rebooted the computer. Then I installed the patchset again and it installed successfully, so I thought, "Now it's going to work!" I rebooted the system, and was able to start the services and mount the database, but it wouldn't open. When I dug into the logs, I realized that the database was looking for some of the custom database files that no longer existed, having been conveniently deleted by yours truly when I dropped the Oracle 8i folder. Now I had an upgraded system that was totally broken with no way to recover. So then I uninstalled all the Oracle software, deleted the files and services and reinstalled Oracle 8i and the patches to bring it up to our current version. So I'm almost ready to start all over again, after I import all of our data from production. Keep in mind that this has taken me a week, and I'm not any closer to getting the upgrade completed than when I started. It's a good thing I don't need Oracle training.

My Favorite Albums - Number 7

Are You Experienced? - Jimi Hendrix (1967)

There were originally two versions of this album - the U.K. version, which did not include the previously released singles "Hey Joe"/"Stone Free," "Purple Haze"/"51st Anniversary," and "The Wind Cries Mary"/"Highway Chile" - and the U.S. version, released six months later, which had the A-sides of the three singles but dropped "Remember," "Red House," and "Can You See Me." My preferred rendition of the album, only available as the CD format came into being, combines both versions in a 17-track homage to one of the greatest, and probably most-talented, guitar-slingers of all time.

This album is widely regarded as perhaps the best debut album of the rock era, and it's a testament to the artist that many of the tracks sound as fresh today as they did in the Summer of Love. Compared to the other "great" album of 1967, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which is interesting as a snapshot of the times but sounds dated, Are You Experienced? blazed a trail that, whether they know it or not, every rock guitar band since has followed.

Considering the fact that Hendrix's recording career barely lasted four years, and that he was a black American musician in the 1960s that had to move to England to get noticed, his lasting influence and continued commercial success is truly astounding. His amazing instrumental virtuosity and creativity have been rarely duplicated.

My Favorite Albums - Number 8

Odelay - Beck (1996)

Beck Hansen's major label debut, Mellow Gold, and the ubiquitous MTV single "Loser" introduced him to the world, but the quirky nature of his slacker poet lyrics and bizarre instrumentation led many to assume that Beck was a flash-in-the-pan one-hit wonder. Odelay proved them wrong, winning two Grammies, garnering rarely-awarded perfect reviews from Rolling Stone and Spin magazines, and selling over two million records. Beck has been compared to Prince for his instrumental proficiency and to Bob Dylan (think "Subterranean Homesick Blues") for his stream-of-consciousness nonsense lyrics, but the truth is that Beck is unique in that he just really doesn't sound like anyone else. Equally at home with rock and rap, jazz and blues, hip-hop and bossa nova, there is no style of music that is off limits, and no limit to where he will go to explore his musical art. I remember watching Beck at the Grammies singing/rapping his hit "Where It's At" in a powder blue suit and asking myself if he was serious. The truth is that all of Beck's music is serious and none of it is.

What does it mean to have "a devil's haircut in my mind?" My favorite thing about Beck is that you can read as much or as little into his lyrics as you want and still enjoy the music. Odelay is in my opinion the only Beck album that seems to have a blend of musical styles in equal proportion, so you can rock out on "Devil's Haircut" and "Novacane," mellow out on the smooth, quiet tones of "Jack-Ass" and "Ramshackle," or get your groove on with "Where It's At," "The New Pollution" or "Sissyneck."

Then of course, there's my personal favorite "Lord Only Knows," which has the great singalong chorus "Lord only knows it's getting late/Your senses are gone so don't you hesitate/Give yourself a call/Let your bottom dollars fall/Throwing your two-bit cares down the drain." At the time that Odelay came out I was a college student working something like 35 hours a week and my girlfriend and I had just broken up, so I had a lot of two-bit cares. This album helped me take my mind off my problems for a while and just enjoy some really unique music, and it still has a special place in my collection because of that.

Oh, and by the way, my girlfriend and I got back together eventually. We've been married eight years.

My Favorite Albums - Number 9

Nevermind - Nirvana (1991)


I was the last guy on the Nirvana bandwagon. Well, not really the last guy. I was 17 when this album first came out, and I saw the video for "Smells like Teen Spirit" on MTV and I just didn't get it. I didn't listen to music like this on the radio - although in Montgomery, Alabama, none of the radio stations were playing anything like this anyway. I didn't have a whole lot of teenage "I hate the world and everything in it" angst, and I just couldn't get where they were coming from.

Then, I remember shopping at a music store in a mall somewhere (ah, the days before the Internet), and hearing virtually the entire album on the store sound system. When it got to the intro of "Territorial Pissings" and Krist Novoselic hollers out the line from "Everybody Get Together" and then Kurt Cobain goes into a guitar riff that sounds like the guitar and amp and soundboard are held together with duck tape (and knowing what I know now, it might have been), it all made sense to me. Nirvana was the anti-John Denver. The music of the "Make Love, Not War" era - the 1960s - had devolved into the feel-good but disillusioned 1970s, which had devolved into the lightweight, synthetic 1980s. Nirvana kicked in the door to the 1990s and dethroned Michael Jackson from the top of the pop charts with an attitude that said "the world sucks, and we don't care." Nirvana almost singlehandedly destroyed hair bands like Poison and Cinderella, who suddenly looked woefully out of touch. Here was a band with no gimmick, no makeup, no costume, stringy hair, and out of tune instruments playing a style of music that was raw, angry, and yet melodic and catchy too.

Aside from the fact that the album is a milestone in rock music, it is actually an easier listen than you might expect, being the most polished and "produced" of Nirvana's albums. Many of the songs - "In Bloom," "Come as You Are," and "Lithium" come to mind - have a genuine singalong quality. There are even a couple of quieter numbers; the dark "Polly" and the emotive, autobiographical "Something in the Way," where Cobain sings about living underneath a bridge, as he did for a brief stint in Aberdeen, WA.

It's hard to listen to Nirvana today without thinking about the sorry end of Kurt Cobain, who couldn't tame the addictions and self-destructive behavior that brought about his untimely demise at the end of a shotgun in April 1994. But in this album you can hear the voice of a band that changed the music world in its prime.