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.