Just a quick post to say that today I learned a problem of having a convertible that as a previous non-owner of convertibles I didn’t realize was an issue. Apparently it is important to look above where ever you are considering parking to see if there are prime roosting areas above the parking spot you are considering. Why is this important? Well because if you don’t consider any possible roosting locations above the parking spot you choose then there is a good chance that birds will roost above you car and do what birds do. In a normal car this just means a car wash. In a convertible it means that the bird poop goes into you car and needs to be cleaned before you are able to drive anywhere. Thankfully it was only a few birds so it wasn’t a huge clean up job.
I have leaned my lesson and will look up from now on before I choose a parking spot for the Mustang.
I am sitting in our den watching “The Dirty Dozen” (such a good movie) while Pam is doing some work for tomorrow and I am thinking about what a wonderful Sunday it was. A few weeks ago Erc G asked what I thought about one Sunday setting up various percussion instruments for the kids to play during the music at Tapestry. I told him that I thought it was a wonderful idea. So today he made sure there were various percussion instruments setup in the back of the room for our little ones to play as a part of our gathering today.
To quote Pam it wasn’t “‘children’s church’ or a special kids Sunday. Just letting little ones participate fully in the regular service with bongos, maracas, djembe, and cajon.” Yeah the beat was sometimes interesting. Yep it got a little noisy sometimes. There were more smiles during the singing than I have ever seen at a Tapestry gathering and that is saying something because smiles are VERY common at Tapestry gatherings. Our kids did a great job of helping us to declare the worth of our God. They weren’t a distraction. They were joy leaders.
It was a really good Sunday. I am very thankful for Eric and our smallest “threads”.
SIDE NOTE – 7 years ago today Jürgen and I became BFFs.
While Pam and I were watching the West Wing last night I went on a Google search of various subjects tangentially related to what we are watching. Pam and I do this a lot. We see something on the show, search it out, and then end up talking about the subject and have to rewind the show. Makes for a more enjoyable watching experience for us. Last night this involved learning about the role of the Acting President, in the few situation were there is an Acting President, and the many different types of pets our presidents have had with them as companions.
The number of parrots that have been presidential pets is quite surprising. I really would have never expected one presidential parrot, let alone five.
Also, while I like Teddy Roosevelt every now and then I think he had to be compensating for some serious feelings of inadequacy. I mean come on. He own bears, kangaroos, a coyote, a lion, a hyena, and a zebra?!?!?!? Sometimes, it feels like he was just trying to hard.
Anyhow here’s the link to the list that brought me a great deal of entertainment.
Presently I am sitting at Emy J’s trying to work on this Sunday’s message for Tapestry, Monday’s message for InterVarsity’s first Large Group meeting (possibly my favorite name for a meeting ever – just descriptive only way I might like it even more if it was “Monday Meeting at 7 p.m.”), reading the 1st three chapters of the letter of James for the group that Pam and I are a part of that read and discuss each week, and also reading a little of “The Girl With All The Gifts” that Adam recommended I read.1. In between all the people I have seen and had conversations with (and the one person I saw but I was talking with someone else and I have now lost – that’s right I’m talking to you Tegan) I have been thinking about two things I want to blog about but just can’t bring myself to extended time upon right now. They are:
Thing #1 Celebrity – I become a little more convinced every year or so that celebrity may be the most dangerous thing to Western Evangelical church and her leaders. I can’t put it all together but a lot of it for me comes from the belief I have that the bride of Christ is at her best when she is weak2 The desire for power and influence is great and it influences the church way too much. First you have a small stage (a church or a blog) and then someone comes and says you should write a book and reach more people. Then you start talking to wider audiences and the possibility for influence seems to be so much greater. I don’t exactly know what it is I want to write but I am pretty sure that when we are face to face with Christ we will learn that the people who brought the most glory to Christ are going to be people who we never would have wanted autographs from. Maybe that’s what I want to say – if someone ever wants my autograph then I have probably done something wrong. I don’t know. I’m just working on this.
Thing #2 Signalling – I have written about this before here but I am still fascinated with signalling theory. Talk to Pam or the boys and they will say that I talk about this all the time. Why? Well because it is all around us. What we wear, drive, eat. Where we live, visit, avoid. So much of this is about signalling. We are signalling that we are part of or not part of groups. Pam and I just had an interesting conversation concerning some of the health food/supplement thingies and also the minimalist movements probably coming out of an unexpressed desire to signal that you are a part of one group and not another. Face it, some of the minimalist and supplement crap I see can only be done but someone who is pretty well off. Maybe it is just another way of saying “I’m not poor” without thinking you sound like a jerk. Signalling is really all around us and I am convinced that many things that we think are important have more to do with signalling than they do our actual values.
What’s with all the recent book titles that have the word “girl”? [↩]
2 Corinthians 12:9 … for my power is made perfect in weakness. [↩]
For some reason I have mentioned and briefly discusses Paul’s letter to Philemon. This is probably because I have been leading Tapestry on Sunday’s the Paul’s letters to Timothy and therefore I have been thinking a good bit about Paul. Anyhow, it is a short and great book that is full of social justice. In this case, how the gospel of the kingdom of God was going to lead to the abolition of slavery eventually – they path was set and it was a matter of time and followers of Christ recognizing the direction of God.
Anyhow, today N.T. Wright a writer and thinker that I respect a great deal announced that he is offering an online course on the letter to Philemon for free. Here’s the link. I’ve signed up for it and would love to hear what others who sign up also think about what we learn.
One of the members of the Tapestry Leadership Team has been after me for years to move the Tapestry website from being hosted on Godaddy because of the them and us not really being on the same page values-wise (Hey Adam). I actually agree with him but the problem is that while I am generally a pretty ambitious person there are some things that I am down right lazy on. One of those is moving an already established website from one hosting site to another. It is the equivalent of replacing a water heater in your house – its a lot of work and will make things better but nobody will notice that anything is new. For me infrastructure work is fun when you are starting something but it is a pain after it has been started.
Anyhow something has happened over the past week and the older servers that we are on have gone crazy. The church website and therefore the church message podcast and my personal blog have been up only hours a day for the past week. Godaddy’s support has said they know about the problem and are working on it. I’ve heard that for a week. Other people are saying that it is older server vs newer server problem and Godaddy is encouraging people to start new accounts and thereby move to a new server. According to what these online forums are saying Godaddy will gladly do that for you for $99. I haven’t heard this from Godaddy but if it is true there is no way I am paying someone to enable me to use a server that I have already paid for. So I guess if things are corrected in a day or two I will be doing infrastructure work and starting up a new server. Oh how I dread that.
I’m probably going to go ahead and move my blog over to Nearly Free Speech hosting. It is dirt cheap hosting but not the easiest to use. We’ll see.
Just posting this here so anyone interested in how the change of the speakers in the Mustang’s “premium sound” went can see that it is finished. Yep, under that carpeted rear trim panel are new speakers that match the rest of the upgraded audio system. They sound pretty good considered they are covered by plastic trim with carpet on top of it. Worst spot ever for speakers!
If you are searching the web looking for photos of the uncarpeted trim so you have some idea what it looks like you’ll find a photo in my last post on the stupidity of this speaker placement. The good news is that the rear 6.5″ speakers do add a little more bass,which isn’t saying much because the top lets all the bass go into the wild.
I don’t speak German, though I do like some German food and theologians. I do however love the word Schadenfreude, which basically means “pleasure derived from the misfortune of others”1. I like this word so much because it conveys a very real feeling every now and then.
I don’t usually get pleasure out of other people having misfortune but every now and then it happens. Such as with this video that I saw thanks to Kirby. Two people on high on trucks crash their Geo Tracker into a fence, only to discover there was a bee hive located in the spot they crashed. Just watch the video.
I believe Gary Lee could be a hero of mine now. Maybe this is a case of instant justice but I’m going with the German word. Anyhow, I hope you have enjoyed this brief moment of Schadenfreude. I know I have.
Here is a shortened version of Patrick’s Breastplate, the prayer that I mentioned today during the message. Yes “shortened” means there is a longer version.
I arise today through
God’s strength to pilot me, God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me, God’s eye to see before me,
God’s ear to hear me, God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me, God’s way to lie before me,
God’s shield to protect me, God’s host to secure me –
against snares of devils,
against temptations and vices,
against inclinations of nature,
against everyone who shall wish me
ill, afar and anear,
alone and in a crowd…
Christ, be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit,
Christ where I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.
How I dream the conversation went at Ford concerning the rear speakers in a 1989 Mustang Convertible.
This is where the rear speakers are in my 1989 LX Convertible
Car Designer (CD): You know what would be great? If we had premium sound in our Mustang convertibles.
Audio Engineer (AE): That sounds good … what does that involve?
CD: Well instead of four speakers we will put 6 speakers in them.
AE: I like that. Of course, we have to make a few design changes to make room for the additional speakers.
CD: Oh no we can’t do that. I like the design a lot. Let’s just put the speakers under the side panels.
AE: That could work if we put a grill in the carpet of the side panels.
CD: No that would mess up the aesthetic of the interior.
AE: But if we keep the carpet there it will muffle the sound and thus it won’t be premium sound.
CD: Yes it will premium sound because they will still have 6 speakers.
AE: Yes, but if we put the rear speakers under the carpet you basically won’t hear anything out of them. They’ll be muffled by the carpet that covers them.
Once the carpet and side panel was removed I drilled out the rivets that were holding the speakers. RIVETS!!!! Who would use rivets!
CD: But they will have 6 speakers and that equals premium sound.
AE: I guess if the owner ever decided they wanted better sound quality they could always change those rear speakers out for better speakers.
CD: No, we don’t want that to happen. They could mess up the premium sound. We should make the speakers very difficult to get to and then make sure that the speakers are even more difficult to remove by attaching them with rivets rather than screws.
AE: Seems like we aren’t making the car sound very good for the owners.
CD: What do you mean? They’ll have premium sound with 6 speakers. What more could they want?
Anyhow, after a good bit of work over the past week (when not roofing a friend’s house) I have been able to remove the rear speakers and will replace them with Kicker DS 6.5 speakers once they arrive. Then the sound in Buddy will be closer to actual premium sound … and still have 6 speakers.
