JLW2 Blog

When Newspapers Die

2009-03-17T00:19:00.000-04:00

The second major newspaper in the last month will cease publication tomorrow. This isn't the Wakulla News or the Cairo Messenger shutting down, these are heavyweights of the industry: first, the Rocky Mountain News, of Denver, Colorado, and now, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Both of these newspapers began publication well before I was born, my father was born, and even my grandfather was born. The Rocky Mountain News began publication as the split between the North and the South was growing in 1859, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer began during the Civil War in 1863.

The Post-Intelligencer will continue as an online news source, but the Rocky, as folks in Denver apparently called it, is dead. What does this mean? Is the feel of newsprint in hand fading quickly into some sort of Orwellian future? Have we sacrificed our ability to take in large amounts of information for a sound bite?

While I don't currently take the newspaper, I have fond memories of when it was in the house. I have had letters to the editor published in the St. Petersburg Times and the USF Oracle. The Traffic Doctor (aka Ron Hartung, who accepted a retirement buyout from the Tallahassee Democrat as a cost-saving measure) has printed my questions and even re-worked a thing about being careful in the fog that I submitted. Somewhere in my abode, there are paper copies of most of these, and even though the newsprint has yellowed and aged, there's pride that something I wrote was good enough to appear in print read by many.

Part of the reason I don't take the newspaper is there seems to be more than enough paper in my residence, most of which I seem to be reluctant to send to the blue can. Another part is the convenience of reading it online. Perhaps it is time for me to call up the Democrat or the St. Petersburg Times (which is one of the best newspapers in Florida) and subscribe. While I am all about using new technologies, a part of me yearns to be able to pick up a newspaper now and again.

Mike Waers

2009-02-25T01:34:00.001-05:00

Mike Waers is blogging. That is all.

Walk for Life

2009-02-25T01:24:00.000-05:00

Every day in a country that was founded on the ideal that "all men are created equal" and that they are given certain rights: "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"¹, Americans are murdered. These Americans don't have the ability to run or to fight back because they have not yet been born. Seven men decided that a woman's "right to privacy"² overrode the child's right to not "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"³.

Since the judiciary of this country has failed these children, crisis pregnancy centers exist to help women who find themselves pregnant to help them to chose to protect the innocent life growing in their wombs. In Tallahassee, A Women's Pregnancy Center is such a center, and it is conveniently located near the campus of FSU and FAMU, where much peer pressure exists for men and women to engage in sex outside of marriage.

On Saturday, March 7, 2009, my wife and I will be participating in "Walk for Life", which supports A Women's Pregnancy Center. We want this resource to continue to exist in the Tallahassee community, and we want them to be able to continue to counsel women to choose life.

If you wish to partner with us, please contact me.

References

Declaration of Independence (National Archives, http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html)
Roe v. Wade (Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade)
Bill of Rights: Amendment V (National Archives, http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html#5)

Rules for E-Mail

2008-06-19T01:22:00.003-04:00

Marketing expert Seth Godin wrote a check list to go through before sending an e-mail . My favorites:

27. Am I forwarding something about religion (mine or someone else’s)? (If so, delete).

How true it is. I get forwards that people send because they think I will be interested because it is Christian. However, often, I have already seen them or something similar. Besides, is forwarding an e-mail really a good way to “make disciples of all the nations”¹ or to beg others “on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”¹? Wouldn’t it be better to take time to write the person a personal message and carry on an electronic conversation with them?

28. Am I forwarding something about a virus or worldwide charity effort or other potential hoax? (If so, visit snopes and check to see if it’s ‘actually true).

Again, I may have already seen it. Also, it might not be true, and therefore, is a waste of my time. Besides, shouldn‘t a place of such unlimited educational potential be used for it? Not to mention, slactivism accomplishes nothing (that sounds like “faith without works”³).

36. If I had to pay 42 cents to send this email, would I?

Self-explanatory.

Footnotes

Matthew 28:19 (NASB)
II Corinthians 5:20 (NASB)
James 2:26 (NASB)
I guess I am in a footnoting mood tonight.

Prince Caspian

2008-05-24T23:43:00.000-04:00

Kathy, a friend of mine, posted to her Facebook page that she was waiting to see the second Chronicles of Narnia movie (which AMC Theatres called Narnia 2 on my ticket): Prince Capsian , which was released 2 days after my birthday. My wife and I were among the first in the United States to see the film, opting to see the showing at 1 minute after midnight (Tallahassee is on Eastern Time) showing on Friday morning. Kathy saw the film nearly 20 hours after we did, and asked me what I thought.

What I thought is a bit bigger than a Facebook message and useful to those of you waiting to see the film. Therefore, here are my thoughts on the second Narnia movie:

I thought The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was a much better movie than Caspian. With Caspian, they strayed too far from the book and there was the other thing that the San Francisco Chronicle ’s Mick LaSalle captured more elegantly than I could hope to:

Alas, Lewis without Christianity just isn’t Lewis.

The faith was evident in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe . It disappeared in Caspian the movie. I fear that Disney & Walden have a Star Trek -type curse going on where every other movie will be bad. Or perhaps it was that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was such a wonderful production.

Small Problem with Feeds

2008-03-15T18:51:00.001-04:00

I redirected the feeds that FeedBurner uses to produce feeds this afternoon. This may have caused duplication of some posts (it may also be due to the feed reader I use). Please accept my apologies if this affected you.

New Google Maps API

2008-02-24T18:03:00.001-05:00

Google Maps has given us another way to include a map into our sites without either the JavaScript API or the iframe tag (which some people eschew due to the idea that it can be used to effect a cross-site scripting attack or to use a strict or transitional document type for HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1.0).

The new way to add a Google Map to your site uses the very standard and very accepted image tag. Google has provided nice, full documentation for the new method.

A Google Maps API key is still needed, but this gives web developers one more tool in their arsenal to display geographic information without JavaScript (which is turned off in some browsers to prevent hacking, attacks, and unwanted advertisements) or the iframe tag. By doing so, we can share geographic information in a visual way with more people than we could before.

This post has been cross-posted to the new site which is coming soon.

Impending Move-Comments Discouraged

2008-02-24T18:01:00.003-05:00

The template for this blog has been modified (actually, it was done about a dozen days ago). Comments are now discouraged on this blog because it is going to move! I have already exported the posts, and this blog will be launching very soon in its new home. In the interim, I may cross-post here and there until there is ready.

Real Programmers & Their Tools

2008-02-01T00:50:00.000-05:00

I was in a IRC channel dedicated to Church IT this evening, and I commented on how much I am liking Notepad++.

Mark Burleson responded to me with a link to this comic strip, which made me laugh.

Why Web Standards & Accessibility?

2008-01-19T21:04:00.000-05:00

Jeffrey Zeldman, founder of Happy Cog Studios and author of Designing With Web Standards, posted the story of how he and a stranger had to help a woman in the middle of a busy New York City (Zeldman lives in NYC) street.

Read the story, then read it again, but instead of a medical facility, make it your church.

Think about your church, what obstacles are in the way: both in the building and on your web site.

Christmas Greetings

2007-12-23T20:34:00.000-05:00

You may have been busy during the past several days. Personally, I have travelled in 5 different states over two days with my beautiful wife and my parents to my brother's new home. Mary, thank you for putting up with that.

I'd like to take a minute to wish you the fullness of all that this holiday has to offer. The fullness prophesied about 2,600 years ago by Isaiah:

The people who walk in darkness
Will see a great light;
Those who live in a dark land,
The light will shine on them.
You shall multiply the nation,
You shall increase their gladness;
They will be glad in Your presence
As with the gladness of harvest,
As men rejoice when they divide the spoil. Isaiah 9:2-3 (NASB)

Furthermore, Isaiah prophesied:

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace,
On the throne of David and over his kingdom,
To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness
From then on and forevermore
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this. Isaiah 9:6-7 (NASB)

The prophesy of Isaiah was fulfilled around 2,000 years ago. While we do not know the exact date, the early church leaders decided to take the coldest and darkest part of the year to celebrate the time when the light came to shine on us. That light is the Christ-child, whose birth is the reason for the holiday of Christmas. Strip away the toys that will become boring, the electronics that will break, and the clothing that will wear out, and we are left with Him: Jesus Christ, who came to give a dark world a great light that we could not provide for ourselves. May the peace, love, and joy of the Christ-child fill your heart this holiday season and always. May you and your family have a joyful, peaceful, and wonderful Christmas.

You may enjoy Rob's sharing of a telling of the Christmas story.

Comment Spam

2007-09-19T22:39:00.000-04:00

Comment spam, no matter what it is advertising, will be removed from this blog quickly and completely. To the poster who left comment spam on the The Web Standardista post: while I sympathize with your cause, comments that are not related to the post qualify as comment spam, and therefore, were deleted. Comment spam is NOT the way to get out your message, just as e-mail spam is not. Big Brother Wolfgang continues to be watching.

Wordmarks in Web Design

2007-08-28T23:51:00.000-04:00

Have you ever played the Alphabet Game? Now in it's 4th edition, the game even has a Wikipedia entry: Logo extraction puzzles.

Wordmarks provide a special challenge to the web designer. The organization has quite a bit tied up in the graphic identity that is presented by the way the words look (which is why the Alphabet Game is so fascinating and frustrating...where have I seen that "D" and that "A" in the fourth edition???). The problem is that there are only a few fonts available to web designers that work on Windows, Mac, and other systems. Thankfully, the web allows us images which allow us to freeze the wordmark. But, images present problems in that people with visual impairments cannot see them. The fix is alt text, which isn't completely search engine and screen reader friendly.

As a result, methods like Fahrner Image Replacement and Phark Image Replacement were developed. However, Fahrner is not accessible, and Phark leaves you out in the cold when surfing with CSS on and images off. There is one other area where both of these techniques fail: print. Background images do not print by default in Internet Explorer (Advanced Tab of Internet Options) or Firefox (Page Setup dialog). While Dave Shea has come up with a method that resolves the CSS on/images off problem; it does not resolve the printing problem.

I have come up with a method to resolve the problem while working on First Christian Church's web site, and here it is:

<h1 id="Title">

   <a href="/">

   First Christian Church of Tallahassee, Florida

   <img
      src="/images/white11.gif" alt="" class="FakeBG" /><img
      src="/images/logos/TextLogoGarnet.png" alt=" (logo)" class="logo" /></a></h1>

The HTML was styled as follows:

h1#Title       { border-style:         none;

                 display:              block;

                 position:             relative;

                 text-align:           left;

                 vertical-align:       middle               }



h1#Title a, h1#Title a:LINK, h1#Title a:HOVER, h1#Title a:ACTIVE, h1#Title a:VISITED

               { color:                #990000;

                 text-decoration:      none                 }



h1#Title       { font-size:            medium;

                 height:               65px;

                 overflow:             hidden;

                 margin-bottom:        0;

                 padding:              0;

                 vertical-align:       bottom;

                 z-index:              0                    }



h1#Title img.FakeBG

               { bottom:               0;

                 border:               none;

                 height:               100%;

                 left:                 0;

                 margin:               0;

                 padding:              0;

                 position:             absolute;

                 width:                97%;

                 z-index:              1                    }



/* Finally, overlay the logo on the white background        */

h1#Title img.logo

               { bottom:               0;

                 color:                #ffffff;

                 font-size:            xx-small;

                 left:                 0;

                 position:             absolute;

                 z-index:              2                    }

Basically, this places the text at the bottom of the stack, overlays it with a white image to hide it, and then overlays the logo on top of the image.

This is more complex than Shea's method since it makes use of two images instead of one, but it could be re-worked using a single image with an opaque background. Further more, this allows the page to print with the logo intact.

The Coolest Tech News of the Week

2007-07-04T01:48:00.000-04:00

This may be the coolest tech news of the week (yes, I am aware that this little company from Cupertino released this little glass-topped device with a battery you can't replace): Google Maps now let's you drag the route and modify it. That is so cool! I wish I had this feature when we were planning our vacation last month.

In other Google Maps news, the "swim the Atlantic Ocean" joke has apparently been removed.

Hat tip on the draggable routing: LifeHacker via Rob Williams' Good Now box

Best Away Message

2007-07-03T01:14:00.000-04:00

Best seen Instant Messenger status message: "on other computer". Only a computer geek can pull that one off!

Further What?!?!

2007-07-03T01:13:00.001-04:00

In my last post, I posted "without further adieu". Is it "further adieu" or "further ado"? Post your response in the comments.

Sermon: The Price of Victory

2007-07-03T01:00:00.001-04:00

A long time ago (in a state not too far away), I posted about possibly posting a sermon to my blog. It never happened. I did not anticipate that in a short 3 days from that post, my life would be changing more rapidly than I had anticipated. I also didn't anticipate having the opportunity to preach at my home church, First Christian Church of Tallahassee, multiple times after my return. However, Jim Fenderson, our senior minister, is not shy about tapping locals to fill the pulpit while he is indisposed (in this case, on vacation). So without further adieu, I am posting the notes (and a link to the audio recording) that were distributed during the church service for my most recent sermon (the confession here is that this was already done on church's website, which makes it easy to reproduce here), the Price of Victory.

The Price of Victory

Lesson Notes

Victory brings joy!

Commands to rejoice: I Thessalonians 5:16; Philippians 4:4

Then Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song to the Lord, and said,
"I will sing to the LORD, for He is highly exalted;
The horse and its rider He has hurled into the sea.
The LORD is my strength and song,
And He has become my salvation;
This is my God, and I will praise Him;
My father's God, and I will extol Him." (Exodus 15:1-2, NASB)
We are locked in a war that started before the world began.

And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (Revelation 12:7-9, NASB)
We were promised the victory.

"And I [God, speaking to the serpent] will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." (Genesis 3:15 (NIV)

But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:54-55, NASB)
Our victory has a price (or a cost).

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:56-57, NASB)

"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45, NASB)

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8, NASB)

Audio Recording-The Price of Victory (7.1 MB)

Arthritis Walk: Support My Wife

2007-05-10T01:04:00.000-04:00

One in three Americans will suffer from some form of arthritis in their lifetime. My wife is one of these Americans. She suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, which causes her immune system to attack and damage her joints. Through the work of a number of chemists, doctors, health care professionals, and other scientists, she functions almost normally most days. However, the bad days make me want to cry.

On June 9, Mary will be participating in an Arthritis Walk. The purpose of the walk is to fund research to help people with arthritis and related diseases have more good days. Please support my wife in supporting the Arthritis Foundation through the Arthritis Walk.

If you can't support her financially, please pray for the strength of those who walk, many of whom have arthritis; pray for their safety; pray for financial support; and pray that God gives us the wisdom to find better treatments (and a cure) for these diseases.

Thank you and God bless.

What is RSS?

2007-05-04T01:15:00.001-04:00

On the new church website (regular readers may remember a mention of a project for my church a few weeks ago) I recently launched, there are feeds and podcasts. I was asked recently what a feed was used for. My answer was to show a Live Bookmark in Firefox. I wish I had seen this video before being asked.

Hat Tip: Dean Peters, HealYourChurchWebsite.com

The Web Standardista

2007-05-04T00:54:00.001-04:00

I participate in a couple forums where I am asked to opine on the quality of web sites. While there is a "beauty is in the eye of the beholder aspect to this, the first tool I use to do this is Chris Pederick's Web Developer Toolbar (for Firefox). Specifically, I do one of two things with the Toolbar: either, I use the "Display Page Validation" tool or I open "Validate HTML" and "Validate CSS". All of these tools are on the Tools menu of the Toolbar in the current version (1.1.3).

Why I am a Web Standardista? (Alternatively, I have described myself as a Standards Nazi, but Standardista is probably less offensive.) Why do I feel it so important that a page's unseen markup validates? Well, there are several reasons.

Like English, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which is the language creates web pages, has proper structure and grammar. If I say "I ain't interested in Web Standards", I sound uneducated and unprofessional, as opposed to if I said "I am not interested in Web Standards." To craft a web site using just any tag soup that would render properly in the browser seems amateurish, unprofessional, and unpolished to me.

The standards have a purpose. As in English, the grammar and structure serve to enable understanding. "The jumped over fox brown dog red quick lazy the" makes no sense, where as "The quick, red fox jumped over the lazy, brown dog." tells a story of one animal jumping over another. HTML was developed by researchers at a premier institute of physics to allow information to be stored and retrieved locally and remotely. To disregard the standards disorganizes that information and causes more work to have to be done to interpret its meaning.

The standards offer freedom. A few years ago, I switched from using Internet Explorer to Firefox. Web standards allow me to look at the same page and get similar renderings out of both programs. However, pages written without regard to the standards do not. Sometimes, I go into my cell phone company's office to pay my bill. I like to play with the web-enabled phones they have and surf to pages I built. I am proud that the pages I built still are readable because they were built with web standards. In this same vein, using web standards is a practical way to only have to write a page once.

Finally, web standards are a major step towards accessibility. Not everyone on the web has sight or the ability to work a mouse. In the past couple years, we've heard of Section 508, a United States government regulation mandating accessibility, and the retailer Target being sued by the National Federation of the Blind because their web site is not accessible. The web was built to share information, why do we want to take the easy way out and build pages that can't be shared?

Virginia Tech

2007-04-17T19:54:00.000-04:00

We were shocked yesterday as we learned that the actions of 1 man cost 32 members of the Virginia Tech community their lives. Thirty-three people's lives were snuffed out much too early in under three hours of tragedy and horror.

I mourn today with the Virginia Tech community. Although I have never attended Virginia Tech nor worked there; I did attend two public universities where this could have happened. My wife works on the campus of a public university. Just this past weekend, we had a ministry reunion where we walked onto that campus and prayed, the same horror and atrocities could have occurred Monday.

The lives were suddenly snuffed out. Unfortunately, we have no guarantees of tomorrow. The Bible says "Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." (James 4:14, NASB). Our only security comes through Christ alone. In a relationship with Christ, our future is assured in life here on earth and death thereafter. In the letter to the Hebrews, it is written "Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives." (Hebrews 2:14-15, NASB).

I pray that my brothers and sisters in Christ who are in and near the Virginia Tech campus comfort their community. Christ is comforting us, and we should pass on that comfort and "the peace that transcends all understanding."

Our prayers are with you.

Miscellany

2007-03-19T01:00:00.000-04:00

From the blogroll department:
AC shut down BloggedyBlog, where he converted my comments on the foolishness of Jesus walking on ice into a call for wine coolers.

From the shameless self-promotion of the gospel gunslinging department:
I preached again at my home church. Title: Stepping Out. Scripture: Matthew 14:22-33. Sermon recording (MP3, 9.2 MB) is online.

From the web development department:
JAWS, one of the leading screen reader software packages, defaults to not bothering with title tags. That's discouraging to me as a web designer who has tried to make my stuff accessible.

From the blog-writing scheduling department:
I am still in the middle of a big project for my church (not the new MySpace with a Christian bent site), which is curtailing my blog-writing time.

Communion for Fun and Profit?

2007-02-10T02:07:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, Bill Hayes wrote a post entitled "Un-Holy Communion". Bill explains that Gregory Pickow is now selling a product called "The Power of Communion: Receiving the Favor of God". Pickow advertises the following:

The favor of God means that when you are at a disadvantage, God is going to give you the advantage. When you are on the brink of defeat and failure, favor means that God is going to turn it around and give you the victory…God’s favor means that He is going to give you success!

Excuse me? Belonging to a Restoration Movement church, we celebrate communion every week, and here's what God's word says about communion:

For I [Paul] received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. (I Corinthians 11:23-27, NASB)

What that passage says is that communion is a reminder for us--in the same way that the rainbow reminds us that God will never flood the whole world again, communion reminds us of the Lord's sacrifice for us. There's nothing said there about favor, it's about us remembering what Jesus did for us and proclaiming it to the world. Also, it says if we eat it in an unworthy manner, we're guilty. I would say using it as a bargaining chip is "unworthy".

To answer my question: "Communion for fun and profit?" May it only be for the profit of Jesus!

Girl Scout Cookies & Honesty

2007-02-10T01:39:00.001-05:00

It's that time of year when the world becomes awash in orders for Thin Mints, Tagalogs, Do-si-dos, etc. Yes, it's Girl Scout cookie time. I was asked if I would like to order some the other day. My taste buds are screaming yes to some Thin Mints, but the Lipitor-fearing, heart-healthy brain is saying: "Warning! Baked Goods! May contain trans fat!". This may strike you as funny until I tell you that the main force behind cutting my cholesterol 40 points was cutting trans fat (this is after the doctor said go on Lipitor or see the dietitian, who recommended banishing trans-fats from my diet).

The woman attempting to sell me the cookies said the cookies are now free of trans fat, but I know that there is a loophole in the law that allows a small amount of trans fat while declaring having none (again, thanks to the dietitian). So I search the ingredient list for that good-cholesterol-killing, bad-cholesterol-raising nemesis of my Lipitor-free self: "partially hydrogenated ... oil". Surprise, surprise, surprise, I find it on the ingredient list (here's the other baker's list). I say "surprise, surprise, surprise" sarcastically because it is difficult to find commercially-made baked goods without it.

Here's my beef (sorry, bad pun): Girl Scouts, according to their site, "is the world’s preeminent organization dedicated solely to girls—all girls—where, in an accepting and nurturing environment, girls build character". Part of character, in my opinion, is honesty. Also, in my humble opinion, taking advantage of an FDA loophole to label your product as "zero trans fat per serving" when there is clearly trans fat in the product is not honest and does not demonstrate good character.

E-Mail Post Links

2007-02-10T01:10:00.001-05:00

OK, this is a call-out to the Blogger team. Instead of tagging you with a meme, I am tagging you with the task to escape the ampersands (&) in the Blogger e-mail post link code.

With e-mail post links: 24 XHTML Validation Errors
Without e-mail post links: Valid XHTML!

Please?

Where's Jack?

2007-02-10T00:45:00.000-05:00

Three weekends in Gator-ville because my father-in-law was in the hospital, coupled with some busy weeks at work, coupled with an upcoming convention, coupled with long hours on a web site re-launch (it's still sitting on the pad, means there hasn't been much blogging time for me.

I am off on another cross-state jaunt later today, dropping the wife at the in-laws and attending a Faith Promise in northeastern Florida. After the convention, I am looking forward to some weekends at home!

E-Mail Post Links

2006-12-25T01:12:00.000-05:00

E-Mail post links are down because they cause an XHTML validation failure. When Blogger fixes the bug, they will come back. The Web Standards Project offers an FAQ that explains why standards are important.

Time for sleep. Merry Christmas to you all!

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

2006-12-24T23:25:00.000-05:00

As I look at that title, I am not sure I like it. We don't know when Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary, who was engaged (and later married) to Joseph, was born exactly. The Gospel of Luke records:

Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. (Chapter 2, verses 1-7, NASB)

However, I would be terribly remiss if I did not wish you a Merry Christmas and share with you this good news:

In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:8-11, NASB)

Yes, that small child, laid in a manger, grew up and became a gift: the unspeakable, indescribable gift that I mentioned previously. I re-read II Corinthians 9:15 in a number of translations for a Communion Meditation I gave this morning, and I'd like to share the two I found to be the most descriptive:

Thank God for this gift, his gift. No language can praise it enough! (The Message)
Let us give thanks to God for his gift. It is so great that no one can tell how wonderful it really is! (New International Reader's Version)

Andrew posted a link to a wonderful post entitled "As Christmas Approaches" by Richard Hall, who is a Methodist minister across the pond. I also found a number of other good posts about Christmas by Richard, but I am still wondering about Peter using the word "daft". On that note:

Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noel! Feliz Navidad! Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Blogger Beta....Umm...New Features

2006-12-24T23:24:00.001-05:00

A few days ago, I moved over to the new Blogger Beta, but according to today's Blogger Buzz, it's out of Beta and into Production (this is computer geekspeak meaning done with testing and ready for real work).

One of the new features is labels, and I am going to start using them. Labels are like categories, so when you see them down below, use them as an alternative way to navigate my blog.

The 11th G

2006-12-05T01:40:00.000-05:00

The MathML didn't work in that last post, but it ought to have given you the 11th G: GEEK! As in Geek of Science and Computers!

Tags: navel gazing, memes, lists, letters, alphabet

This Post is Brought to You by the Letter G

2006-12-05T01:34:00.000-05:00

No, this isn't Sesame Street, this is a meme that started elsewhere and got picked up by Andrew Careaga, the Bloggedy Blogger. The idea behind the meme (other than making you think) is that AC gave me a letter: "G". I am to take that letter and come up with ten things that start with that letter. If you choose to respond to this post with a comment, I will give you a letter, and you can post (on your own blog) your list of ten!

Here we go!

God: Creator of the universe, Giver of life, Father of Jesus Christ.
Grace: Undeserved favor (or as Merriam-Webster's puts it: "unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification"). The reason Jesus died on the cross. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9, NIV)
Glee: Joy! Jubilee! Unbounded Happiness! What I feel when I think of "God's unspeakable gift" (yes, it may have been wrapped in flesh, a dirty diaper, swaddling clothes, straw, and a manger; but He's wonderful! "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!" --II Corinthians 9:15, KJV). The way I felt on my wedding day!
Gift: I was going to say see above, but it bears repeating: "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!" (II Corinthians 9:15, KJV). "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given..." (Isaiah 9:6, KJV).
Grief: The way I felt when my grandparents died. What I feel when people trample people hunting for Christmas gifts. The way God feels for people dying in a quagmire of sin.
Gainesville: A city in Florida that is about 150 miles from my current position, but where my wife is, who I miss! Home of that other university. It's named for Edmund P. Gaines, who fought in the Seminole Wars. For AC and my brother, Tom Petty was born and raised there. Wikipedia says there are 7 others in the United States!
Gingersnaps: Normally good cookies of which I am eating poor sugar-free imitations thereof from Soviet Canuckistan!
Groping: What I am doing for the final three G's.
Gators: Always a shortened form of the word alligators, large carnivorous reptiles that live in Florida. Also the mascot of that other university.
Gravity: It's a law we can all live with! If I can do this in MathML: Oops! That didn't work! The formula is f(G)=G((m1*m2)/(r^2)), where f(G) is the force caused by gravity, G is the universal constant of Gravitation, m1 and m2 are the masses of the bodies, and r is the separation between the bodies. Isn't God great?

Edit: Some stray weird characters crept in (possibly when this moved to the new Blogger, so I removed them. Also, tags got converted to labels (see the aforementioned post on the new Blogger). Also, the MathML really messed up XHTML validation, so it's gone!

Innocent as Doves...

2006-11-23T23:05:00.000-05:00

File this under "be innocent as doves, but shrewd as serpents" (alternatively, "sheep in the midst of wolves"; see Matthew 10:16):

The Associated Press (AP) ran a story (which I read in the Daytona Beach News-Journal) about a church in Memphis that purchased a $75,000 home for a couple that claimed to be Katrina victims. Joshua and Delores Thompson have sold the home without having ever moved into it and with the plans of moving back to New Orleans. Delores Thompson states "I really don't like this area, I really didn't, and I didn't know anybody, so that's why I didn't move in and I sold it." Joshua Thomspon defends their decision to sell the home: "Take it up with God".

To Mr. and Mrs. Thompson [I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on your identities, although the AP reports that church members "are no longer even sure that the couple were left homeless by Katrina or that they were a couple at all."], I'd ask you to consider what Jesus taught: "Freely you received, freely give." (Matthew 10:8). The church gave you that home under the assumption that you were in need. It didn't cost you a dime. Why not give it back? Why rob them of the ability to help others who are in need?

Meanwhile, I pray that God provides more ways for His people to reach out to those in need.

Edit: Fixed some un-escaped ampersands that were fouling up XHTML validation, and removed tags in lieu of labels.

Blog Search Update

2006-11-23T22:55:00.000-05:00

After I last posted on the topic, Google Blog Search was linking both blogs (live and dead), but it is now only linking the live blog.

Thanks to whoever at Google got this one right. The question now is, when will Technorati figure it out?

Tags: blog search, Technorati

Giving Thanks

2006-11-23T22:48:00.000-05:00

A reason to give thanks this week. Wednesday afternoon, my brother, mother, and I went to drop some things at the Goodwill store near my parents' house. We then ran another errand. We were in two separate vehicles due to the bulk of the donated items, and my mother gave me some money to get some lemon Jello and some more wheat bread.

The trip into Publix on the day before Thanksgiving reminded me that I am thankful to not work in the grocery industry anymore. What a zoo!

Tags: Thanksgiving

Blog Updates: Internal Links & Imports

2006-10-10T02:53:00.000-04:00

I ran through the blog, moved some posts over from the dead experimental blog and updated some old links that pointed to the dead 404'ed website (mainly blog, but a couple resume links, too).

I also tweaked the template, removing the link to the experimental blog, updating the about me section, and updating an address on the blogroll.

Out of curiosity, I hit Technorati right before doing this, and guess what I see? Technorati has indexed the links to my dead 404'ed blog, which was linked with the rel-nofollow microformat tag. Why is Technorati not following a microformat specification edited by two of its employees?

Tags: blogging, Technorati, blog search

Technorati's Rankings

2006-10-10T01:12:00.000-04:00

There's something seriously wrong with Technorati's ranking scheme when this blog is at 1,209,615 and my dead 404'ed blog is ranked 506,087. Does someone from Technorati care to explain that one to me? Can we say index rot?

Of course, Google didn't do much better. Searching for a post from before I moved the blog only returned the dead 404'ed blog.

Tags: Technorati, blog search

I Lack....

2006-10-10T00:39:00.000-04:00

I am lacking something here on the blogging front: time, motivation, passion, or any combination of those.

It's been nearly two months since a single byte has flowed from my keyboard to my blog, and yet the world has continued to move. I've basically committed blogospherical suicide.

There's been topics I have wanted to write about: campaign signage, faith, current events, etc. But it hasn't gotten done.

Is this blog dead much like the joint experimental blog of my brother and I? I hope not. However, with the full-time job, two volunteer web ministry positions, assisting the administration of an upcoming convention, it feels like it is going to sleep for a while. Like the discussion Paul gives in I Thessalonians 4:

[13] But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. [14] For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. [15] For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. [16] For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

I pray that this blog will rise again in newness of life. I pray that God will give me the heart and the passion to express myself here or the wisdom to declare the blog dead.

Tags: navel gazing, blogging, writing

Internet Explorer, Standards, and Ministry Web Sites

2006-08-19T01:39:00.000-04:00

I am re-working an include for one of the ministries for which I am the volunteer web servant. The include handles the menu for the site, and I am trying to include a search box on the menu (on may not be the right word). What I am trying to do looks pretty good in Firefox at high resolution, gets bad at low resolution (800 x 600 and below), and really stinks in Internet Explorer, period. The code is valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional with valid CSS.

Therefore, my dilemma is: is it right for a ministry web site to change their browser if their browser doesn't play well with others, errr, support standards? I know there are secular sites that have told people that their experience may be degraded in Internet Explorer and that they should upgrade their browser. However, we're a ministry, and I am not sure we should be pushing products, free or not. (I just wrote that sentence, and I realized about two shakes after I wrote it that ministries do push products: books, music, conferences, etc.; but this seems different because which browser you use has no impact on your spiritual life, does it?)

Please leave your thoughts in the comments section as I continue to work (for a bit), sleep, and think and pray about this issue.

Tags: web development, ministry, ethics, Internet Explorer

One More Local Dream

2006-08-09T00:26:00.000-04:00

One more local dream: every Florida lighthouse. I know my tarrying has already cost me the opportunity to see one.

Tags: Florida, travel

Local Dreams

2006-08-09T00:01:00.000-04:00

Rob Williams posted about his local dreams and encouraged contributions to the blogosphere. Here's a list in no particular order:

Visit NASA (yes, I know Rob posted this, but it's ridiculous that in my 30 years as a Floridian and 3 in South Georgia, that I have never made it to Cape Canaveral). I guess I have been waiting to schedule it where I can see a launch.
Ride the Sunset Limited. I have been wanting to take it to my parents' house for a while. I hope Katrina didn't end that possibility for me. While we're on this one, I might as well take it to the other coast, too.
Visit Cross Creek. My parents had a book written by a neighbor of Majorie Kinnan Rawlings, and it has ignited my interest in the land that caused a New Yorker to come write about Florida.
Spend more time at the beach. Dr. Beach keeps rating Floridian beaches in the top 10, and I really should spend more time at them.
Spend more time behind my camera. I need to unleash my creativity more.
Go snorkeling. It's been too long.

Are there more? I am sure. Thanks Rob for making me think about it, and if you are near Tallahassee, there's always Wakulla (with glass bottom boats).

Tags: travel, dreams

Life-Influencing Albums

2006-08-08T23:05:00.000-04:00

Andrew Careaga asked bloggers to post 10 albums that changed their lives. I have to ask AC: 10?! That's a tall order. However, two pop right to mind (along with another one from before my trip to Damascus which I will not post about)

The first album is Speechless by Steven Curtis Chapman. It's probably the first Contemporary Christian Music CD which I purchased. "Dive" expresses Chapman's and my desire to have a deeper relationship with God: to be fully immersed in the grace and the love and to be carried wherever His will takes us. It's a goal I am still seeking after, and it's a song that I still love to play much too loud. "Speechless" is the same way. How is it that God loved me so much that He let His Son leave heaven to come to earth and die for my sins. Not just mine, but the whole world as well. Jesus could have called armies of angels to liberate him from the cruel death He was being subjected to, and yet He did not. His words, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do", still cause me the stand in awe at the grace and forgiveness He showed in spite of a punishment so cruel it needed a new term to describe it: excruciating. The other songs are wonderful, and I could write much more about this album. However, I want to touch on two final songs from this album that are intertwined in my life in the events of September 2002. When my maternal grandmother passed on the Wednesday before my wedding, "With Hope" comforted me with its message of peace based on I Thessalonians 4:13-18. She had picked out the dress to wear to my wedding, and yet, her battle with cancer ended days before I would wed. Because of the shingles she suffered through, my wife never got to meet her (my wife has never had chicken pox, which left her vunerable to the virus that causes both chicken pox and shingles. As an adult, one does not risk chicken pox). However, the sadness of her passing was tempered by knowing she had an invite to the wedding feast described in Revelation 19:7-9 and the hope that I will see her at that celebration. I also have the hope that she and my wife will meet and discovered the sisterhood in Christ that they never knew here. The second song from September 2002 was played during my wedding and is called "What I Really Want to Say". It's a song of unspeakable gratitude. Gratitude for my salvation, gratitude for this wonderful sister in Christ that is my bride, and gratitude for the friends and family sharing this celebration. Chapman captures this idea of gratitude that we cannot express perfectly.

The second album is Johnny Cash's American IV: The Man Comes Around. I first heard this album cruising around the back roads of Grady County with my brother in his Audi. I immediately recognized the source of "The Man Comes Around" even without seeing the liner notes. I was inspired that Cash was spreading the good news even to those who weren't brothers and sisters in Christ. I realized that people who would have no interest in buying a Bible did buy Cash's album. I claimed the promise revealed to the prophet Isaiah: "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it." Cash's rendition of "Bridge over Troubled Water" was awesome as well. The voice of a man who has seen troubles and pain brought special meaning to the song. I pray I haven't dissuaded anyone from buying this album.

Tags: music, albums

I Get Paid to Do the Christ Thing

2006-06-11T17:53:00.000-04:00

Andrew Careaga writes about a man who claims to be agnostic offering to let someone share the gospel with him.

I don't know what to think. We should be committed enough to spend the $50 to share the gospel with the man, but at the same time, I wonder why? Is this just a means to get $50? What is his motivation? If he's that interested in knowing that Jesus Christ died for his sins, is resurrected, and has gone to heaven to prepare a place for us: there it is. For free, the story is that Christ died on a cross to pay the penalty for our rebellion against God. He was buried, but in accordance with the predictions made in the scriptures, Christ is not found in a grave: He is risen! (see I Corinthians 15-1:8) It's not earned by works, but is a free gift of God, lest anyone should boast (see Ephesians 2:8-9). If he has other reasons for advertising this, I pray that God changes his heart.

I wish I had the $50, but at the same time I am skeptical. God, this is in your hands. You can work miracles, and we pray for one in this man's life: the miracle of salvation that you have worked in so many people's lives over the past 2,000 years.

Tags: Christianity, evangelism, eBay

Fireflies

2006-06-11T17:28:00.000-04:00

My friend Henry posted about some of his favorite things about summer. The #2 thing Henry was looking forward to this summer was "fireflies - cause they're yellow".

I had to go out on the back porch last night, and I saw fireflies. I was very excited about these small greenish-yellow specks of light flying around the small strip of woods behind our apartment. I stood mesmerized for several minutes by the random spots of light floating between the trees.

Later in the evening, I got to thinking about it. Are Christians mesmerizing? Are non-Christians mesmerized by our lights moving throughout the world? Are our lights shining or have we burned out? Is our light visible, or is it drown out by the world? Are we carrying out Jesus' teaching:

[14] "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;
[15] nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
[16] Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16)

Tags: fireflies, summer, Christianity, evangelism

More Thoughts on Walking on Ice

2006-05-20T16:34:00.000-04:00

I commented on Andrew Careaga's post about my last post (Ice Theory Does Not Hold Water) that I needed to re-read Nof's paper and comment on it as a scientist. I haven't read the entire paper, but one part of it jumped out at me.

Nof and his colleagues state in the paper:

Using one-dimesional [sic] analytical models, we shall demonstrate, however, that local 'springs ice' (i.e., freezing and ice formation in a confined region directly above the plumes created by the salty springs) requires merely a few days of below freezing temperatures. This is because the salty springs water creates a strong salt-induced stratification (above the plume) that inhibits convection. Consequently, the cooling process goes immediately to ice formation on top rather than toward convection and a total cooling of the entire lake to 4 °C. Note, however, that the required cold spell of a few days must be relatively calm, with wind speeds of less than, say, 6 m/s. Otherwise, the wind would mix the plume into the fresh water above, destroying the stratification and preventing a no-convection cooling process. Such calm periods are very common around the lake.

But again in this attempt to explain Jesus' walk across the surface of the Sea of Galilee, Nof ignores an important piece of evidence. Matthew 14:24 states: "But the boat was already a long distance from the land, battered by the waves; for the wind was contrary." The maximum wind speed for ice formation in Nof's paper is 6 meters per second. In the Beaufort scale, which is commonly used to describe wind speeds, 6 meters per second corresponds to Beaufort number 4, moderate breeze. For the open ocean, this is described as "small waves". However, the passage of scriptures describe the boat as "battered by the waves", which clearly indicates more than a calm sea. Therefore, the formation of the salty layer below the freshwater layer would not have happened due to mixing by wind and wave action. Because the mixing disturbs the layer of salty water, the water at the surface cools to 4 °C (which is the temperature at which water is the most dense. The density of water increases above and below that temperature) and sinks, thus preventing the formation of ice at 0 °C.

It is unfortunate that Nof chose to disregard the information that is given before and after the account of Jesus walking on water. While it is sometimes necessary to disregard information in the scientific process, it should be done using sound scientific and mathematical methods, not picking and choosing what data supports our hypothesis.

Tags: Jesus, water walking, science, theory, blogs4God/apologetics

Ice Theory Does Not Hold Water

2006-04-10T20:08:00.000-04:00

Ice is solid water, but there are so many holes in Doron Nof's theory (PDF, 644 kB, from Dr. Nof's personal site that Jesus walked on ice (as opposed to water) that it isn't funny. Dr. Nof is a professor at Florida State University, so the story has gotten quite a bit of press here (Tallahassee Democrat and WCTV follow-up: WCTV's original story is no longer on their web site).

Nof conjectures that higher salinity due to a salt spring caused the water in the area of Jesus' miraculous walk to freeze, creating a solid surface that Jesus could walk on. James Hayes, a religion professor at FSU, stated that "One student raised her hand and said if Jesus can turn water into wine, then he certainly can turn water into ice. It's still a miracle." during a class discussion. While this would still qualify as a miracle and the student is correct, let's discuss the holes in Dr. Nof's theory.

The story Nof refers to in the paper is found in Matthew 14 (I am quoting more of the passage than was quoted in the paper, and I am quoting from the New American Standard, whereas they quoted the King James Version):

[24] But the boat was already a long distance [a footnote says the literal translation is "many stadia" with a stadion, which is the singular of stadia, being about 600 feet] from the land, battered by the waves; for the wind was contrary. [25] And in the fourth watch of the night He [Jesus] came to them, walking on the sea. [26] When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear. [27] But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid." [28] Peter said to Him, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." [29] And He said, "Come!" And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. [30] But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!"

As we see from my quote of the passage, Dr. Nof completely disregards Peter's walk on water as well. Nof writes "Since the springs ice is relatively small, a person standing or walking on it may appear to an observer situated some distance away to be 'walking on water'.", but the Biblical account clearly places Peter and the other disciples much closer to Jesus. Also, how did Peter sink if they were walking on ice? This wasn't just Peter's imagination, as Jesus acknowledges it when He takes hold of Peter's hand and He says "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:31.

Finally, we aren't talking about a bunch of land-loving tourists on a boat. We see in Matthew 4:18-22 that Peter, Andrew, James, and John were all fisherman on the Sea of Galilee. In that profession, you would be familiar with the Sea of Galilee, or you would go out of business quickly. Therefore, Dr. Nof's ice theory just doesn't hold water.

According to WCTV, Dr. Nof is "a self proclaimed atheist". Dr. Nof, the Bible states that "the foolishness of God is wiser than men" (I Corinthians 1:25), and my question to you echoes Jesus' question to Peter: "You of little faith, why do you doubt?"

Tags: Jesus, water walking, science, theory, b4G-apologetics

Food? We don't have Food!

2006-04-02T15:26:00.000-04:00

Today after church, I went to lunch with my friends Tom, Sherry, Sam, and Laura (I hope that my recollection of this incident makes Laura laugh that hearty laugh of hers). My wife was at home resting, recovering from a migraine. What happened at one of the better known restaurants here in Tallahassee can only be described as a culinary comedy of errors.

I had never eaten as this restaurant before, but they are apparently well known for this category of dishes (starts with a q, and don't think of John Wayne). Tom and Sherry attempted to order the two Sunday brunch menu items that fall into this category and were told that they were sold out of these items. Laura had one of the items in mind as a backup plan as she was thinking of ordering the grouper, but they didn't have either. I managed to order something they had: the Cuban roast pork. Sam thought she had ordered the lasagna, but low and behold, the waiter came back bearing bad news. So finally, we get orders situated (except for Laura who stuck with water). We talked for a while, and then they brought food. The only slight problem (which really wasn't) was that they brought me a Cuban sandwich with pasta salad. It was good, but we all had to laugh that they had run out of so many items on the menu.

I guess the bottom line is don't go to this restaurant after church on Sunday unless you go to a church that offers an early service. But at least we were able to follow James' instruction: "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials," (James 1:5); although, I doubt this is what James had in mind!

Tags: customer service, restaurants

MyLameSexLife.com (Follow-Up)

2006-04-02T14:58:00.000-04:00

What a great marketing package!!! I was well impressed with the invitation that Granger Community Church put together for the sermon series that it is currently running. It's only a five week series, but they took the time and energy to put a professional polish on the marketing campaign for it.

The series impresses me as well. It's a series that I believe every church in America should tackle every two to three years. Granger's senior minister, Mark Beeson, says that they are running the series because "There is a desperate need for help in this area of our lives because we all have desires". Tommy Nelson, in his book The Book of Romance, describes a village where a man visited. This village is located by a river, which is populated with crocodiles. While the village and their guest were eating dinner, a crocodile attacks one of the diners, but nothing is done. The visitor is shocked at the lack of response to the attack, and in a final attempt to do something about it, he asks "Can't you do anything about the crocodiles?". The response to his question is "It is impolite in our culture to talk about crocodiles."

Why is it impolite in Christianity to talk about something that affects our lives so deeply? I don't know, but I praise Granger Community Church (and others) who seek to talk the subject because our "adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." (I Peter 5:8) I clearly believe that Satan uses this area of our lives to draw us away from God and His love for us. My only peeve with what Granger has done is that I can't download MP3s of the sermons without paying for them!

Tags: sex, MyLameSexLife.com, church marketing, Christianity

MyLameSexLife.com

2006-03-12T18:05:00.000-05:00

Throw darts now; I'll comment later. And no, it's not a commentary on my life.

Tags: sex

I Hate This

2006-02-21T12:17:00.000-05:00

It's been over a month since I have written anything substantial.

It's discipline, or more accurately, a lack thereof. Yes, life has been crazy, but I have lacked discipline. However, the lack of structure has been nice. It's now nearly six months since I left Cairo, and it has been good to decompress (thanks Jim!) and relax. I continue to recommend John Maxwell's Partners in Prayer for anyone desiring a way to support their minister and their church. As soon as I find my copy in the sea of boxes, I will be re-reading it. My wife and are continuing to work on sorting, organizing, and reducing our treasures on earth. We're holding a joint yard sale with my parents (who live four hours from here, pray for us!) to accomplish some of that. I am starting to slip back into some ministry roles, but I am selective about what I am taking right now (I owe my wife about three years of marriage: see Deuteronomy 24:5). As much as I like to say "Please" to the question "More [unstructured decompression and vegetation]?" (Hat tip to Commander Data and Guinan), it's time to get organized.

God, please grant me the will and the ability to organize my time, my life, and my possessions. They are not mine, they are Yours. Help me to put them at Your disposal, and help me to glorify You. Help me to allow my creativities to flow, because I know You to be a creative God; and I know that You created us in Your image. Thank You, God, for my life, my wife, and all that I have. It's in the name of my Lord and Saviour, Jesus, that I pray. Amen.

Tags: sabbatical, prayer

Sanctity of Human Life Sunday

2006-01-15T22:15:00.000-05:00

Today, our church celebrated Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, which falls on the third Sunday of January. We had a guest speaker from A Women's Pregnancy Center here in town, and then Jim Fenderson preached a wonderful sermon entitled "Two Questions for Life."

The two questions that Jim spoke about were:

Who am I?
Does my life matter?

Jim's sermon then contrasted the secular answers to these questions versus the answers that God gives us to these questions. I took notes during the sermon, and what I am writing here is based on my notes, which is a synthesis of what Jim was saying and what my brain was thinking.

The secular answer to the first question is that we are an animal, who has evolved from the primordial ooze. I am no different than the animals that inhabit my back yard or any other place on the planet. Truth is what I say it is because I can think and reason, and I have evolved above every other creature on the planet. My life is like a grain of sand on the beach, and in the sea of six billion people that inhabit this planet, my life only matters if it stands out: if I am more beautiful, stronger, smarter, or better than other people.

However, God's answer to these questions is completely different. When we look at who we are from God's point of view, the answer is: I am created by God, the Creator of the entire universe, in His image. Despite the beauty of this world, humans are the only ones created in God's image. David reflected upon God's opinion of whether our life matters or not: "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God, and You crown him with glory and majesty!" (Psalm 8:3-5). Our life obviously matters to God because He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross and take the punishment for our sins.

The secular views of our lives here on earth has cheapened life for us. Roe v. Wade made abortion legal under the laws of the United States in 1973, but the commandment to not murder (Exodus 20:13, and the related example of Cain in Genesis 4:1-15) predates that by thousands of years. Furthermore that commandment is based on the holiness and righteousness of God, who created the universe, rather than the error-prone ways of men, which were created by God. To destroy that innocent life in a mother's womb disappoints God and breaks His commandments and teachings. Furthermore, since God sets the beginnings and ends of our lives (I Chronicles 29:11-12, John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:15, Hebrews 9:27), it's not our place to decide when a life should end: it's God's place.

Jim closed by speaking to those who have had an abortion. He said he did not know if anyone in our congregation had done so, but he did know that there was redemption in Jesus Christ. I John 1:9 says "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Dear God, we have sinned. Please renew our minds and cleanse our hearts and help us to glorify You. It's in the name of Jesus we pray.

Tags: Christianity, prayer, society, abortion

2006 Orange Bowl

2006-01-04T01:11:00.000-05:00

Penn State University's football team, lead by their head coach Joe Paterno, fought hard, and won against the Florida State Seminoles, led by Bobby Bowden, in the 2006 Orange Bowl.

More important than who won and lost, Paterno and Bowden showed grace, class, and friendship before and after the game. We need more role models like that.

Tags: football, FSU

Christmas on Sunday (Late Post)

2005-12-31T15:33:00.000-05:00

This is a late post about a topic that received much attention in the news this year: Christmas was on a Sunday. Granted, we won't have to deal with this "problem" again until 2011, but I just read an interesting post on the subject on Bill Haye's blog.

Bill reports that a friend sarcastically asked "How dare God expect us to go to church on Christmas instead of be with family?" While I realize that Bill's friend was making a point with sarcasm, I also know that a number of people feel that way. However, in looking at the Bible, it says "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!" (I John 3:1, NIV). As Christians, since we are the children of God, then spending part of our Christmas Day at church is spending time with our family. We are spending time with our spiritual family which was formed by adoption by God through Christ, and this family may or may not include our biological family.

Rob Williams, Bill's nephew, presents a different point of view for the "seeker sensitive" churches:

However, for Willow Creek and other mega-churches, it could be a different reason for them (I'm guessing here). I don't think they necessarily bent to cultural demands. I don't know about Willow Creek, but I know Saddleback has decided that it's Sunday services are to be "seeker friendly". The Body gathers in homes throughout the week in small groups to grow. That's their model. I could see closing on Christmas Sunday as consistent with their strategy.

My problem with Rob's argument is what are known as ECO church attenders: they only attend on Easter and Christmas (the abbreviation stands for Easter & Christmas Only), and the churches that chose to close on Christmas missed the boat in reaching people when they were willing to come in.

Which brings me to the point that it is a great time of year to share the gospel: it's Christmas. The name of the holiday includes the name who we are trying to get people to think about: Christ, who declared that "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father but through me." (John 14:6). After all, isn't that what we are trying to do? Share the gospel with our friends and family, get them to join our spiritual family, and get them to heaven to be with God and us there. If not, I would highly recommend you read my post on Christianity as a spectator sport and the linked Bible verses. I would also recommend that you review the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

As for First Christian Church of Tallahassee, where my wife and I are members, it was open on Christmas, but Sunday School was cancelled. I know they also had the Christmas Eve Candlelight service. However, my wife and I were at my parent's house, so we attended the Christmas services there. The Christmas Eve service presented the opportunity to have my brother and my parents in church with my wife and I. It was wonderful!

Tags: Christmas, Christianity, churches

Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Digital TV?

2005-12-30T09:45:00.000-05:00

About a week ago, my brother sent me a link to George F. Will's column in the Sacramento Bee. The Bee entitled this column "A Digital TV in Every Pot?", whereas George Will's home newspaper, the Washington Post, gave the column the title of "The Inalienable Right to a Remote".

Regardless of the title, Will has hit the nail on the head with this one. The United States Senate passed the "Digital Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005" (Senate Bill 1932, Title III). In addition to setting a hard deadline for the United States to transition from analog to digital television, the Senate provides that no consumer be left behind:

(1) $3,000,000,000 for a program to assist consumers in the purchase of converter boxes that convert a digital television signal to an analog television signal, and any amounts unexpended or unobligated at the conclusion of the program shall be used for the program described in paragraph (3).

Yes, that's nine zeroes after that 3: 3 Billion dollars to pay for consumer's set top boxes to convert digital television signals to analog so their old televisions will continue to show the programming they watch. The Senate is mandating the release of the current parts of the wireless spectrum used for analog television, and these parts of the spectrum will be used for public safety functions (communications for firefighters and law enforcement) and auctioned off to businesses to provide wireless services. According to the bill: the Senate expects 4.9 Billion dollars (US$4,900,000,000) to be raised by this auction. I have two problems with this:

What if the auction raises less than expected? Are we going to deficit spend to buy set-top converter boxes?
Why not use this for a better purpose? Nutritionists tell us the country as a whole (and I am included in this) is suffering an epidemic of obesity. The television definitely contributes to this (how many people do you know ride a bike or walk a treadmill to generate the electricity for their television?). If you want to keep the money in communications that benefits the public, why not buy Public Alert Radios (or the equivalent that will work with paragraph (3) of the bill1. The use of the funds for Public Alert Radios could prevent deaths in incidents like the tornadoes that hit Kentucky and Indiana last month and would be in better alignment with the Public Safety aspect of the bill's title.

While I agree with George Will that television is not a right (if we're wrong, please feel free to give me the Constitutional reference2), I do take issue with one part of his criticism of the Senate (and related House) actions. George Will states that "Today a digital-capable set with a flat-screen display can be purchased from -- liberals, please pardon the mention of your Great Satan -- Wal-Mart for less than $460." A digital television for less than $460? Flat Panel, too? I decided to check it out, but I could not find a flat-panel television with an ATSC tuner for under $460.

To close, let's ask the Senate and the House to be more responsible with our money. While we might receive a good amount from the auction of the analog television portion of the spectrum, let's not spend it before it is received, and let's not spend it on entitling Americans to television.

Footnotes:

(3) $1,250,000,000 for a program to facilitate emergency communications, of which $1,000,000,000 shall be used for an interoperability fund and $250,000,000 shall be used to implement a national alert system, of which $50,000,000 shall be used for tsunami warning and coastal vulnerability programs.
See also the Bill of Rights and Amendments 11-27.

Tags: television, legislation, society

Cross-posted to the Brothers Blog.

Eighth Grade Science: Still Pass-able

2005-12-29T23:03:00.000-05:00

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 8/8 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?

Thanks to Seminole Middle School, Ms. Mello (6th grade science), Mrs. Cleary (7th grade science), and Mr. Angermeier (8th grade science). While I am at it, thank you to each science teacher that encouraged my curiosity, fueled my imagination, and allowed me to explore and learn: I may not be working in science (it's computer science, and I got here through science) right now, but thank you.

Hat Tip: Andrew and his newly redesigned blog. P.S. Andrew, here, have some cobwebs ;).

Tags: science, quiz

Who Would Jesus Trample?

2005-12-01T00:42:00.003-05:00

My disgust with the commercialism of Christmas grows each year. The retailers put up their displays of holiday decorations and gifts earlier and earlier each year. The advertisements glorify the exchange of goods as what makes a great Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind getting presents, but is a Christmas ushered in by people getting trampled at the store (alternatively: Google News Search) on the Friday after Thanksgiving what we want?

I know it's not what I want, and I believe it's not want Jesus wants. First, let's look at the name of the holiday we are supposedly celebrating: Christmas. That's correct, the first five letters are Christ, from the Greek word Christos, meaning anointed one. I highly doubt we are anointing one another with oil on Christmas, so it must refer to someone else. Specifically, it refers to the One who Peter called "the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:13-16). So if the holiday (which I might add comes from holy day) is about Christ, the Son of the Living God, why are we getting the gifts? Furthermore, Jesus taught us to "love your neighbors as yourself" (Matthew 22:37-39). Put yourself in the shoes of the person that was trampled: do you like it there laying on the cold, hard floor hurting and embarrassed? If you answered that you wouldn't like it, then why treat someone else that way just to get a good deal on that "perfect" gift?

Speaking of gifts, even the "perfect" gift made, sold, and bought with human hands will be destroyed or stolen. Do you remember every Christmas gift you received? Possibly. Do you have every Christmas present you received? Of course not, unless you're an extremely precocious toddler reading my blog. Things tarnish, rot, stop working, etc.: in other words, things are temporary. However, we are told of a gift in the Old Testament book of Isaiah:

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace,
On the throne of David and over his kingdom,
To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness
From then on and forevermore
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.

Isaiah clarifies the prophesy with this: "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel." These predictions came to pass in the small town of Bethlehem, when Joseph took Mary, his fiancee, to register for the Roman census that Augustus called, and while she was there, she gave birth to her first son, Jesus of Nazareth, also known as Jesus Christ. It's his birth that Christmas celebrates, and therefore, I pray that we celebrate it in a more Christ-like manner.

If you don't know why the child was a gift, please feel free to contact me at JackWolfgang (at) GMail.com (remove the spaces and change the (at) to @) because I will be happy to discuss it. Alternatively, you can visit this excellent site.

Tags: Christianity, Black Friday

Edit (03 December 2008): Fixed grammatical error as I revisited the post after history repeats itself on Black Friday 2008. Lord, help us sinners to see You as something to be lusted after instead of all this stuff.

Oh God, Please Help

2005-11-29T00:52:00.000-05:00

I was shocked and appalled tonight as I watched the news. The news was buzzing with the news that officers from the Tallahassee Police Department shot and killed a 17 year old male over the weekend. My wife and I were out of town for the Thanksgiving weekend, and we had not heard about this story. However, when the news showed the video of the police vehicles parked around the scene, my jaw dropped as I recognized it as the grounds of our church. Because I was in a state of disbelief, I went to the web site of our local newspaper, the Tallahassee Democrat, where reading the article releasing the names of the officers confirmed that it was our church.

According to the Democrat ("Police Shoot, Kill Man"), there were shots fired outside a nightclub on Tennessee Street, a major road through town. A vehicle matching the description of the vehicle involved was seen turning onto High Road, on which our church is located, and then the vehicle was seen turning into the parking lot of our church (The Democrat reports that the vehicle was parked in our church parking lot, but the TPD Press Release states that the officer saw the vehicle turn into our parking lot). According to the press release and the newspaper, the driver of the car exited the vehicle as directed and was detained, but the second person in the vehicle did not follow instructions. Officers used a baton and the Taser stun gun before resorting to lethal force.

Please pray for all the parties involved in this. Pray for the officers that had to unfortunately take someone's life to protect ours. Pray for the family of the young man that was killed. Pray that God uses this for good for our church. Pray for our church and its members to have wisdom in knowing how to deal with this situation.

Tags: Christianity, prayer

An Open Letter to Terrorists

2005-11-09T21:38:00.000-05:00

Today, three bombs exploded in Amman, the capital of Jordan. These bombs have killed at least 57 people (according to Wikipedia, at least 67 according to CNN). This follows numerous other attacks against civilian targets throughout the Middle East, in Asia, in Europe, and in the United States.

I want to address this from two points of view: the secular point of view of a democratic (small-D democratic, meaning one who supports a government of the people, as opposed to a big-D Democratic, meaning one who supports to the Democratic party) American and as a Christian.

As a democratic American, I can tell you that your cowardly attacks do not make me want to have my country surrender. Like my forefathers who have fought for the "self-evident" truths that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness", my generation will too fight to defend these rights and protect them from cowards like you who seek to strip them from us. We've defended these rights a number of times throughout our history: 1776, 1812, 1860, 1917, and 1941 just to name a few.

As a Christian, I don't believe that there is a heaven waiting for you after you "martyr" yourself and kill innocent people. This is contrary to the God who taught us to "love our neighbors as ourselves" (Matthew 22) and "if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you" (Matthew 6). As Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost: "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

As I prayed for the victims of Katrina and the victims of the tornado in Kentucky and Indiana, I pray that Christians will emulate the example of the Good Samaritan and reach out to those suffering because of this cowardly act of terrorism.

Tags: terrorism, tag

Kentucky/Indiana Tornadoes

2005-11-07T19:26:00.000-05:00

The news has been reporting about the F3 tornado that struck northwestern Kentucky and southwestern Indiana (Wikipedia article). My prayers go out to the victims, and I pray that Christians can quickly reach out in this time of need.

Tags: prayers, meteorology

The Prodigal Returns

2005-11-02T00:41:00.000-05:00

Kill the fatted calf! The prodigal blogger has returned once more.

My wife and I are moved into our new apartment and moved out of the parsonage. There are still items in storage, but we've committed to unpacking the things in our apartment before dragging the stored items out. The apartment is very nice in a quiet neighborhood. Our backyard is a small wooded area with birds and squirrels (including one that climbed on the back door yesterday) that separates us from the next street over.

We bought Halloween candy. While I am not going to weigh in on the Halloween debate (contributions by Rob, Bill, John, and JollyBlogger); I did like JollyBlogger's quote of Tim Challies' excellent suggestion that it's an evangelistic opportunity. Our church here in Tallahassee made up evangelistic sayings to go with the candy to be handed out to the children. My wife taped them to the small bags of M & M's. Unfortunately, we had no children come to our door. I am not sure why because as I came home from work, I saw them a couple streets down from our apartment.

Where have I been? My last post was 01 October, and it is now 02 November. We finished our move the second weekend in October, and then we were helping some friends of ours. The help kept us out of our apartment quite a bit, and so very little got done. After we were done helping, we both promptly got respiratory infections which knocked us for a loop. However, we're doing better now, and hopefully, things will progress nicely. The DSL is activated and connected, and one of our computers is set up. It is my prayer that I can continue this blog as part of my ministry and as a location for some of my thoughts.

What about ministry? For right now, I am sticking with lay ministry. I will be filling in some as I did this past Sunday at one of our Panama City sister churches, but I will not be taking a new church anytime soon. My wife and I are re-connecting with the church that was our home before we went to Cairo, and we will work and serve there for the foreseeable future.

Thank you for your prayers and support over the past several months. Hopefully, we won't have to kill another fatted calf (they're in short supply around our apartment <grin>) anytime soon. God bless you and keep you.

Tags: navel gazing (Hat tip to Rob and dictionary.com for the term)

Welcome! Bienvenue! Willkommen!

2005-10-01T00:14:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the new temporary home of my blog: JackWolfgang.blogspot.com!

This is a temporary move, and I am sorting some issues with it out right now (like how to host external CSS files on BlogSpot).

Tags: blogs, web development

Personal Update

2005-09-25T15:35:00.000-04:00

I've been on an unannounced, unplanned, and unintentional blogging hiatus. As I last posted, I have resigned from First Christian Church of Cairo as its minister. I wish to thank everyone who has offered up prayers for this transition: on the blog: Faith Journey Robert; Rob "OrangeJack" Williams; a long time friend who I didn't know read this blog: JWM; Bill Hayes, a fellow clergy member; Andrew Careaga, author of E-Vangelism, which I have a copy of in a climate-controlled storage unit, and youth pastor in Missouri; John, a Presbyterian minister from Miami; and RG. In addition, Bill asked for prayers for me on his blog. In addition to these public outpourings of prayer, I have had private expressions of prayer, in e-mail and by phone. Thank you very much to you all for the prayers.

Bill stated that I seemed to be "moving on with life", and he's right. My wife and I view this transition as God's will. Although we worry about some details of the transition, we know that God "is working things together for good." We have moved our membership back to the church in Tallahassee where we were members before coming to Cairo. We received a warm welcome there. We've found an apartment, put down a deposit, and signed a lease. We can move in to the apartment in a couple weeks, and we've pre-positioned some items in the aforementioned storage unit. The Salvation Army came to help us reduce our treasures on earth, since the apartment is smaller than the parsonage. We're making good progress.

As for the cyberspace side of things, I've not established a new home in cyberspace yet. However, as Psalm 37 says, fret not. This blog will continue as an outlet for my views on Christianity, life, science, and technology. I'll let you know of it's new address.

We continue to covet your prayers as we transition back to Tallahassee and as we rest and recover from the wild ride that has been the past three years. It's been nice to have some time off, and if I have only learned one thing (which I have actually learned quite a bit in the past three years), it is pray for your church leadership: the ministers and the board. I would encourage you to read John Maxwell's Partners in Prayer. Thank you for your prayers and your support. May God bless you and keep you, may He make His face to shine upon you.

Tags: Christianity, prayer, transition

Changes are Coming

2005-09-07T23:17:00.000-04:00

I have resigned as the minister of First Christian Church of Cairo. This blog will move because it is hosted by my ISP. To where, I don't know yet. I'd like to do my own domain, but it may have to live on blogspot for a while

This is what I requested prayer about a couple weeks ago.

Tags: miscellany

Katrina Blogging Relief Day

2005-09-05T23:59:00.000-04:00

NOTE: This post is being posted between midnight and 1:30 A.M. on Saturday, 03 September 2005 A.D. Disregard the date above and time below, I am taking advantage of a Blogger bug to keep this post at the top of the list no matter what I blog during the weekend.

The blogosphere is at work to provide some relief to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Hugh Hewitt, author of the book Blog : Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World (which I need to procure and read), came up with the idea, and apparently, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com seconded the idea.

So here it is, a number of blogs are encouraging people to contribute to aid agencies helping Katrina victims (read that: our neighbors who have been affected by Katrina). The effort is headed up by Truth Laid Bear (this link includes instructions if you want to join this effort), and you can track the progress.

Here's the point. I'm searching for my best Uncle Sam voice and look as I type this next sentence. I want you to contribute. Open that wallet, and think about this: Colossians 1:15-16 says "He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him." All things were created by Jesus, through Jesus, and for Jesus; and that includes your wallet and the contents of it. I want you to contribute to the International Disaster Emergency Service (IDES), which is a channel for Restoration Movement churches to assist those in need. Their motto is "Offering help and hope to a hurting world", and their vision is "To bring glory to God by meeting the physical and spiritual needs in our hurting world until Jesus returns.". IDES has giving instructions on its website, including PayPal or snail mailing them a check. After you contribute, if you would please log your contribution, we can keep track of how much of a difference we are making.

In Luke 10, Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is, and to summarize His answer is "Love God and love your neighbor." The person asking the question asked who his neighbor was, and by way of a parable, Jesus taught us that neighbors "show mercy" towards those in need. Thank you for showing mercy towards the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Really posted at 1:23 A.M.

Quick edit at 1:30 A.M.: I forgot to link to Instapundit's roundup page as instructed.

Update (04 September 2005, 1536): I am unable to add the blog to the database at Truth Laid Bear. I've e-mailed TTLB about the problem, and hopefully it will be resolved soon. In the interim, post your contributions to the comments section of the blog, and I will post them to TTLB when I am added to the database of participating blogs.

Tags: Katrina, flood aid, relief, Christianity

Painting, Football, etc.

2005-09-05T21:33:00.000-04:00

The bathroom is painted. While the results aren't perfect (there are drips in some locations), I am pleased with the results. The color is more yellow than it looked on the paint chip (more like a lemon pudding rather than the very pale yellow the paint chip showed, but it so much better than the blue, teal, and purple splotch wallpaper.

My wife is in the living room watching the football game. FSU is winning, and she is happy. She says FSU should beat the Miami Hurricanes as a symbolic gesture of how America will overcome Katrina.

Tomorrow, it's back to our normal jobs, so I know the sermon will be won't be posted tonight.

Although my blog never got added to TTLB's Katrina Blog Relief Weekend Database, I would encourage you to keep donating to IDES. The people in the strike zone (and beyond as they are evacuated) continue to need your help. Thank you.

Tags: housework, FSU, football, Katrina, flood aid, relief, Christianity

Sermons on the Blog #2

2005-09-05T01:45:00.000-04:00

Bill responded to my earlier post about sermon writing. When I asked the question, I stated that I was considering posting today's sermon to the blog. I started that process (which unlike Bill's process, is a difficult process, because I have to convert the outline to prose. I realize that it is normally how I operate, but I type much faster than I speak, and this gives my brain time to work.), but it is 1:30 A.M. I am in need of sleep, especially since my wife and I have a bathroom to finish painting tomorrow (the primer is up, but the paint has to go up. Thank God it, the paint whose color is very roughly approximated here, is a one-coat paint by Kilz.). I hope to finish the sermon later in the week. Good night, and God bless you. Don't forget IDES and Hurricane Katrina's victims.

Tags: Christianity, preaching, sleep

Rebuilding New Orleans

2005-09-04T22:22:00.000-04:00

Before I left for church this evening, I read the interesting commentary going on at Stones Cry Out (which by the way is a very cool name for a blog) about Dennis Hastert's (edit: linking to the Wikipedia article on Hastert since his name isn't the most household of names) remarks about not rebuilding New Orleans. I entered the fray by saying (including the missed space after my parenthetical reference):

While Hastert's remark may have been ill-timed, and Jon's remarks about the largest port in the United States is right on target, one must wonder about the wisdom of having nearly half a million people (data for Orleans Parish, LA from Census.GOV using the Population Finder on the right side of the home page)live in an area that requires levees around 360 degrees to keep it from flooding.

Jon Gallagher is the Jon I respond to in that comment, and he stated that:

There is absolutely no question that NO must be rebuilt. The commercial port of NO is the largest in the US. It is purpose built for the efficient transfer of high weight and low value (per unit of weight) goods. E.g. grain. Without a port at the mouth of the Mississippi the agricultural Midwest is no longer a viable economic entity. Nor would there be the capacity for importing raw bulk goods, so what little manufacturing still exists in the Midwest is gone as well.

Jon also reminded us that 25% of the energy (in the form of petroleum) used in the United States passed through that port, and that we fought battles in the War of 1812 and the Civil War for this very port. The second part of my initial comment suggested a solution to this thorny problem (short-term economic benefit vs. public safety/long-term economic benefit):

I wonder if there is a way to move the residential sections to the north side of Ponchatrain. Traffic would be a bear, but with an effective mass transit system between the port and the proposed residential section, we might avoid the loss of life we've seen with Katrina.

Jon replied that this was economically unfeasible because the poorest segments of society need to live close to their jobs (for a number of reasons which Jon details in his comment). I was about to reply to this comment when I figured it would be better to move this discussion to this forum rather than fill up Stones Cry Out's comments for the post.

John, your arguments make good sense (makes me wonder if his education is in geography and/or urban planning). If we're to rebuild New Orleans on the same site, then we MUST invest in the infrastructure to be able to evacuate the city in a very short amount of time. However, as I Technorati'ed for the original post, I ran across this post discussing the cost-benefit of rebuilding New Orleans. The author makes a good point about a terrorist attack taking out the levees and giving residents even less time to evacuate. There are no easy answers to this question. Unfortunately, we can't step back and study this to death either. The rebuilding of the levees is currently in progress, and getting the port and the peoples' lives back in order as soon as possible is crucial. As I look at the maps (I started with a Google map, but they don't show elevation, but that would be a nice feature), perhaps the best option is to re-build New Orleans much closer to Baton Rouge. From the map, it appears that Baton Rouge was already expanding towards New Orleans, and so a combined city might make the most sense. While it's a bit farther from the Gulf of Mexico, it is still on the Mississippi River (which my north side of Ponchatrain option was not) thus providing an outlet for the Midwestern agricultural area. Access to northbound I-55 remains convenient, and I-59 is still relatively close. I must admit however, that I am not sure to do with the southern routing of I-10. I've always thought that I-12 should be called I-10 (with I-10 numbered as I-x10, or I-6 if you must have a 1 or 2 digit interstate), but the new city will require good connectivity to the north, east, and west. Perhaps I-10 could be rebuilt like the Atchafalaya Swamp Freeway, well above flood level. The side benefit of this may be that the Mississippi could be allowed to flood southeastern Louisiana again, rebuilding those much talked about wetlands that the experts say would have shielded New Orleans.

Tags: New Orleans, engineering

Sermons on the Blog

2005-09-04T14:19:00.000-04:00

Bill Hayes of Wentworth Presbyterian Church in Rockingham County, North Carolina, posts his sermons to a blog, which appropriately, is named Rev. Bill's Sermons.

I've never really posted one of my three years of sermons to my blog. I may have taken the ideas from a sermon and posted it, or taken the ideas of a posting and made it a sermon, but never directly copied one to the other. I suppose the reason is this: when I write a sermon, I don't end up with a paper with every word I am going to say on it. I end up with a four to six page outline. It's the way I've always tackled public speaking since I had to do it in high school. Why do I do it this way? Because I have an intense dislike of being read to. When I am in a meeting and some reads something, my brain always says "Why did you not just give me several minutes to read this for myself?" By outlining instead of choosing every single word before hand, I avoid reading to my parishioner. I don't know how Bill handles his sermons (Bill, do you outline, do you write the whole thing, or something else?), but I suppose the way I do it will be someone's nightmare if we ever establish a hearing impaired ministry.

Why is this on my mind? Because Bill's sermon today inspired me to also preach on where God was in the middle of the destruction. Unlike Bill, I tend to pull a lot of scripture together instead of just working through one passage. However, I am thinking of writing up the sermon and posting it. Too bad our church doesn't have a church reporter, much like courts have court reporters.

Tags: Christianity, preaching

Additional Katrina Relief

2005-09-03T09:57:00.000-04:00

Last night, I strongly encouraged you to give to International Disaster Emergency Service (IDES), which is working in the effort to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina. I continue to encourage you to donate to IDES.

While my Dad and I may argue about how hard it is to give money, I want you to consider doing more. Last night, I referenced the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 (specifically verses 30-37). Not only did the Samaritan give money to help the victim of the robbers, the Samaritan bandaged and tended the man's wounds, the Samaritan placed him on a donkey, and the Samaritan took him to an inn. At the inn, the Samaritan asked the innkeeper to tend the man and promised to repay the innkeeper for his expenses (not to mention an advance on expenses).

Several places in the New Testament (Parable of the Talents, I Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4:10-16), we (all of us) are taught that God gives us talents and abilities. We are to use those talents and abilities for good. So let's step out of our comfort zone and actually help some of these people. My wife and I attended a Red Cross volunteer orientation in Tallahassee Thursday evening, and they are sheltering people in major metropolitan areas (Tallahassee has 104 people in an official Red Cross shelter, and scores more in hotels/motels). I talked with Chris Floyd, the director of the Capital Area Red Cross, and he needs people to not only go into the strike zone, but people to help with shelters, administrative tasks, food transport in the community, etc. He suggested that our church could adopt the shelter on a Sunday evening and feed it. He said that feeding the shelter could simply be serving the food the Red Cross provides and prepares, or we could plan a menu, buy and prepare the meal, and serve it. Be creative, and let's find a way to use our God-given talents and abilities to help!

One final thing we as Christians need to be doing is prayer. Hebrews 4:16 (NIV) "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." James 5:16b (NIV) says "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." Let's spend some time on our knees talking to God, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, about the people in need.

In the words of Todd Beamer, "Let's Roll!"

Tags: Katrina, relief, Christianity

Trackback Pings

2005-09-03T09:26:00.000-04:00

A note to those of you leaving trackback pings. Your post should be linked to my post, that's the point of trackback. If I check the trackback link, and I don't see a link to my post, I will delete the trackback. Thanks.

Tag: blogs

Looting in New Orleans & Biloxi

2005-08-30T23:54:00.000-04:00

It happened after Andrew, and it's happening again now. People are taking advantage of an already bad situation and using it for their personal gain: looting. I realize that some may be trying to get the essentials: food, water, and clothing. To those of you who are doing this: try to ask permission. These are difficult times, and everything each one of us can do to help is needed. To those of you that are trying to profit: STOP! Many of the people in the storm zone have lost everything, and you are just making a bad situation worse. Jesus taught us that the second greatest commandment (after loving God with our all) was to love our neighbor as ourselves. You know that you wouldn't want someone taking your belongings, so why are you doing it to someone else?

Those of us who got spared Katrina's destruction (if not the weather) are praying for you all and seeking to do what we can to help. Please don't make us regret that by the destructive acts of looting and violence.

Though I doubt many in the strike zone are reading this, if you can get the message in, please do.

Tags: Hurricane Katrina, looting

Category 5 Katrina

2005-08-28T16:43:00.000-04:00

Category 5 Hurricane Katrina is bearing down on the New Orleans area. New Orleans is below sea-level, so a Category 5 hurricane is their worst nightmare. We're praying for the people in the path of Katrina. We especially pray for those who were unable to evacuate like was recommended. We need to be in prayer for these people, and we need to help them when Katrina passes.

For those of us that are wondering, we are getting a spiral band moving through our area which is bringing rain, modest wind, and lightning. Therefore, I am shutting down the computer. God bless.

NWS Tallahassee NEXRAD Long Range image

Tags: hurricane, Katrina, meteorology, prayer

Pat Robertson's Assassination Target

2005-08-25T07:58:00.000-04:00

Monday, Pat Robertson suggested we assassinate Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, for promoting communism and Muslim extremism. Rob Williams has an excellent thread going on the situation, in which he first called Robertson an "idgit" and then realized that he should pray for him. Andrew Careaga boldly (and quite creatively) asked "WWJA: Who would Jesus Assassinate?"

Robertson's comments were inappropriate and un-Christian. Instead of suggesting murder as the answer, why did he not recommend Jesus and prayer? A passage we have read recently in our church's Bible Challenge is I Timothy 2:1-4:

"First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (NASB)

James also reminds us that "The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much." (5:16b, NASB) Instead of assassinating Chávez, let's pray for him. Let's pray that he comes to know Jesus' love and grace. Instead of putting the situation in our hands, let's put it in the hands of the one who can "do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20, NIV).

Tags: Christianity, prayer, Pat Robertson

Comment Word Verification

2005-08-23T00:40:00.000-04:00

Blogger's new comment word verification has been implemented on my blog. I apologize for the inconvenience. I wouldn't have done this, except I found comment spam that slipped through. Let me know if you have problems commenting, and I can post it for you (include your name and URL for your website, if you have one).

Tags: Blogger, blogs, comment spam

Prayer Request

2005-08-23T00:34:00.000-04:00

I don't want to discuss the what, but my wife and I need prayer right now. We need wisdom, guidance, comfort, peace, and rest.

"For where two or three have gathered together in My [Jesus'] name, I am there in their midst." (Matthew 18:20, NASB)

Tags: Christianity, prayer

Playing Catchup

2005-08-16T00:28:00.000-04:00

What I missed while I was on my unannounced blogging hiatus:

Andrew Careaga went on a very short, announced blog sabbatical (first post sabbatical post: 22 hours later)
Bill Hayes posted about Discovery's successful return to earth, Apollo 13, and the Columbia disaster. Of course, while Apollo 13 was on Bill's mind, it was before my time, but the twisted white claw cloud of Challenger explosion is firmly etched in my mind.
AC, fresh off that extensive sabbatical, posted about the UN board game called "The Road to Peace", which is supposed to teach about peace and reconstruction. Great, spend money on a board game. Why not get them Bibles and teach them about real peace and reconciliation?
AC, going for the trifecta (three-peat, hat trick, etc.) in this list, posted a Friday Five Frivolity about the worst bands ever. AC skewers Journey, which in spite of the fact that I haven't listened to in quite a while, is pretty good. Then in the comment free-for-all that ensued, AC tried to add ~11 years to my age. My contribution to the list (albeit late): Tiffany, Nirvana, Brittany Spears, Lisa Lisa with her Cult Jam, and Neil Diamond.
Bill Hayes at some point switched his beach lounging picture for something more formal.
Rob Williams links to the University of North Dakota's response to the NCAA's new policy of disallowing some Native American (I say some because the Aztecs and others got exemptions) mascots, logos, etc. at championships. Florida State University also protested and is fighting the policy. What's next, does Seminole, Florida; Seminole County, Florida; Osceola County, Florida; Muscogee County, Georgia; Cherokee County, Georgia; and numerous other towns and municipalities have to change their names?

That's not all I missed, but I know the rest is out there for you to find. It's time for sleep now.

Tags: blogs, news

Cross-Posting

2005-08-15T23:38:00.000-04:00

I've mentioned in prior posts (#1 and #2) that my brother and I are trying an experimental blog together called the Brothers Blog. Chris said he had some thoughts on Hiroshima after seeing an article in Time, but he hasn't put them on the blog yet.

I may in the near future, copy those posts over from Brothers Blog, so that they are fully cross-posted here instead of merely referenced.

UPDATE: (10 October 2006 A.D.) Experiment failed. Postings referencing Brother's Blog are being converted to the nofollow rel tag.

Tags: blogs

hCard Microformat Changes

2005-08-15T23:27:00.000-04:00

Back in June, I discussed the hCard microformat, and then in July, I praised Brian Suda for answering my questions and pointing out my mistakes with hCards.

Brian e-mailed me again to tell me that they had updated the specification for the hCard and that more updates were in the pipe. The change was that the e-mail part of the hCard now must be a mailto: address, which are notorious for being harvested by spammers (which is why if you click the contact link on this site, you get a web form. Note: this was when I was hosting the site on my ISP's web space. Now that it is on BlogSpot, there is no contact form. --JLW 10 October 2006 A.D.). I don't agree with this move, and I have stated why on the hCard issues wiki at microformats.org.

Tags: microformats, web development, internet

Bible Challenge

2005-08-15T23:10:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted a Bible Challenge reading schedule since this one in July. Part of it has been that I have been busy, and part of it has been discouragement with Bible reading habits (more specifically, lack thereof).

Do you find the Bible Challenge posts helpful to you? Do you use them to guide your Bible reading? Has my lack of posting in this category hindered you? Leave a comment, and let me know (I get copies of comments in e-mail, so I won't be ignoring you).

Tags: Bible, Christianity

Sixty Years Ago

2005-08-06T20:47:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: (10 October 2006 A.D.) Originally this post was posted to an experimental blog run by my brother and myself. Since that blog has died, I am moving the post here.

Original Post:

Sixty years ago today, a B-29 bomber of the United States Army Air Force (the United States Air Force wasn't made it's own service branch until 1947) departed the island of Tinian. The plane was commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbets, and it's name is etched deeply into history: Enola Gay. We know the name because the plane delivered the first nuclear bomb and used it against a populated target.

Yesterday, the headline on the Tallahassee Democrat caught my eye: "Hiroshima: 60 Years After the Bomb". Tonight, the CBS Evening News covered briefly the releasing of paper lanterns onto a river in Hiroshima before talking with 2 of the 3 surviving crewmen of the Enola Gay (The story is not yet linked on the CBS News website. I remember the name of "Dutch" Van Kirk, but I don't remember the name of the other crewman.).

Sixty years have passed, and yet, there is still debate on whether the United States was justified in using the "Little Boy" uranium fission bomb on Hiroshima and the "Fat Man" plutonium fission bomb on Nagasaki. Many feel that we shouldn't have dropped the bombs, and many feel we were justified. Sixty years have healed some wounds, but many others remain open.

I feel that the United States was justified in their use of the nuclear weapons in August 1945. It's unfortunate that the Pandora's box of nuclear weapons was opened, but given the situation, it had to be. In August 1945, the United States had finished a costly, three-month long invasion of the island of Okinawa and was facing an invasion of the Japanese main islands. The invasion of Okinawa cost the Japanese more than 110,000 troops, and 18,900 American troops were killed or missing. Secretary of War Henry Stimson estimated in 1946 that more than 1 million (106) American troops would have been killed in an invasion of the Japanese home islands. Finally, it is often overlooked that the Japanese had started their own Manhattan Project in July 1941. On 9 October 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized American scientists to start production of a nuclear weapon, and the National Defense Research Committee started the S-1 Committee to guide production on 6 December 1941.

I do have a very personal reason as well for supporting the use of nuclear weapons in August 1945. Grant E. Wolfgang, my paternal grandfather, was stationed in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He probably would have been deployed to the Japanese Home Islands in Operation Downfall. Would he have perished in the invasion? I don't know. I do know that he suffered through malaria as a result of his service in the Pacific Theater and that he rarely talked about his service. I am thankful that the war was ended without an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands.

One of the crewmen of the Enola Gay interviewed on the CBS Evening News noted that the nuclear bomb detonations were terrible, but necessary. He hoped that terrorists never obtained nuclear weapons. I pray they don't either. The nuclear detonations of August 1945, which killed 160,000 Japanese at Hiroshima and 80,000 at Nagasaki, should stand as a stern reminder of the terrible and destructive power of nuclear weapons. With this reminder in hand, we should seek to limit their spread as a matter of top priority.

Tags: nuclear weapons, Hiroshima

NPR: Citizen Journalism

2005-08-02T23:26:00.000-04:00

On the way home this evening after a late night at the office, I was listening to NPR on WFSU. Talk of the Nation was discussing citizen journalism, including blogging. From what I heard of it (which was only part of the program), it was an interesting discussion. John Temple (he mentioned on air that he had a blog, so I had to link it), managing editor of the Rocky Mountain News, discussed the new YourHub initiative that his paper started. The idea is mix citizen journalists with professional journalists and get a news outlet (both print and web) that is more local and community-specific. It sounds like a good idea, and I am now wondering how I can make it work on a church website. I know of one church hosting blogs, as we discussed at the OSMinistry.com forums, but I am thinking of a more collaborative idea like what Temple described on NPR: communities telling their stories.

Tags: blogs, community, Christianity

Busy Blogger

2005-08-02T23:04:00.000-04:00

I've been quite busy, as evidenced by my lack of blog posts. I have one church member in the hospital, and another church member has her father in the hospital (different hospitals of course). Yet another example of what I said before, as a minister of Christ, expect the unexpected.

I am thankful, although I have been extremely busy, that I have been able to be a blessing by visiting the hospital on a regular basis. While I have struggled with the fact that I am again working in Tallahassee, it is a blessing to be here since one of the people in the hospital is in Tallahassee Memorial Hospital.

Dear Lord, help me to maintain my strength, and help me to glorify You through this situation. Father, help me to be patient and kind when I am tired and may be snappy and short. It's in the precious name of Jesus that I pray. Amen.

Tags: Christianity, Faith Journal, ministry

CV/Resume Microformat

2005-07-21T23:12:00.000-04:00

Panayotis Vryonis suggests a CV microformat. Yes, that could be quite useful. That is a very interesting idea.

Tags: web development, internet, microformats

hCard Posts Corrected

2005-07-21T22:33:00.000-04:00

Brian Suda, who created the hCard MicroFormat with Tantek Çelik, e-mailed me to tell me how to correct my syntax in my hCard sections on the blog and my resume. Thanks, Brian! I've corrected the hCards on the resume, but I am leaving the previous blog post wrong. However, the correct format is:

Jack L. Wolfgang II
Cairo, Georgia, USA 39827

E-Mail via Web Form

Brian also answered questions I had on the use of middle initials (he suggested using the abbr tag and the additional-names class, but I didn't care to expand on my middle initial), the suffix (Brian said the vCard standard considers it an honorific suffix, even though it's part of my name), and address types. Thanks again, Brian!

Tags: blogs, web development, internet, microformats

Blogger Pinging?

2005-07-20T23:59:00.000-04:00

Technorati claims that Blogger automatically pings them, but my experience (which is not quantified, just a gut feeling with anecdotal evidence) is that manually pinging is better. In fact, I just experienced it on The Brothers Blog.

Why is this? Is Google (Blogger's parent company in case you were out of the loop with that reference) building a blog search engine to compete with Technorati? Why not give us the power to pick what to ping? Or why not let us ping Ping-O-Matic!?

Oops, my anecdotal evidence just got weaker. The "Notify Weblogs.com" was set to NO for The Brothers Blog. However, I recall reading somewhere that Blogger's Technorati ping passed through Weblogs.com somehow.

Tags: blogs, web development, internet, Blogger

James Doohan: 3 March 1920 A.D.-20 July 2005 A.D.

2005-07-20T21:38:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: (10 October 2006 A.D.) Originally this post was posted to an experimental blog run by my brother and myself. Since that blog has died, I am moving the post here.

Original Post:

Today, on the 36th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, science fiction fans mourn the passing of James Montgomery Doohan, who played Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, Chief Engineer of the U.S.S. Enterprise (also NCC-1701-A).

My mother notes as a young man, I always liked Star Trek, and I recall liking even as I got older. Doohan always interjected humor into the series. I never met Doohan like some Trek fans have, but I pray that God comforts his family during this time.

I clearly remember Spock's funeral from Star Trek II including Scott's moving rendition of Amazing Grace on the bagpipes. Spock was launched towards the Genesis planet in the movie, and Reuters reports that Doohan's wife plans to launch his remains into space.

In addition to the Star Trek role that made him famous, Doohan was a husband, a father, and a veteran of the D-Day invasion in World War II, where he took 6 rounds from a German machine gun. A silver cigarette case saved his life by blocking a round to the chest, but his middle finger on his right hand had to be amputated.

Star Trek's cast and crew ages, and Doohan was preceded in death by DeForest Kelley and Gene Roddenberry. More proof that our time in this life (on this planet, for the present) is limited, and we should cherish life.

Rest in peace, lad.

Memorials:

Technorati Tags: James Doohan, Star Trek, current events, death

Technorati's Squid Ink Cleared

2005-07-18T21:23:00.000-04:00

Post #100: A milestone for a nascent blog

Technorati has resolved the problems they were having indexing my blog. Therefore, tags on my blog are now appearing correctly in Technorati's index. Thanks to Kevin Marks and David Sifry for working on getting this problem resolved.

Tags: blogs, web development, internet, Technorati

Technorati's Squid Ink

2005-07-15T13:46:00.000-04:00

I have no idea what is going on with Technorati. I do know I am not the only one with problems. The Who's Writing About This? link in the sidebar produces valid results for my site (except for the fact that it has been updated since 23 days ago), but clicking the tag links doesn't show my latest posts. I e-mailed Technorati support on Saturday, 02 July, and I didn't get an auto-reply until Friday, 08 July. So the question for Technorati is: WHAT'S GOING ON?

As I said, I am not the only one having problems, here are just a few:

Andrew Careaga: Bruised Ego-Surfing (I've had this lately)
Hans Mestrum: Technorati Not Linking to Posts (Kevin Marks of Technorati says he fixed your problem; I'm still waiting)
Robert Scoble: Technorati's Index is losing the quality game (I've not figured out BlogLines yet, but if my stuff isn't in Technorati's index, why should I link there?)

Tags: blogs, web development, internet, Technorati

NASA Return to Flight

2005-07-12T23:15:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: Due to the demise of the Brothers Blog, I will be discussing with my brother how to migrate these posts here with appropriate credit.

Chris and I posted some thoughts on tomorrow's launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery on our experimental The Brothers Blog. Chris found an interesting article on CNN which he discusses in his post.

Tags: science, NASA, Space Shuttle

London Bombings

2005-07-10T18:01:00.000-04:00

Here in the southeastern United States, we've been focused on our own emergency, but I know I've had a heavy heart for the atrocities that were committed in London on Thursday. Bill Hayes posts about a call to prayer on 11 July 2005 (ironically, in light of 9/11 in NYC and 3/11 in Madrid, this is 7/11), and Bill and his nephew Rob point to British pastor Adrian Warnock's blogging (#2, #3, #3, #4, & #5) about the bombings and the aftermath.

Adrian, London, and the rest of the UK, our prayers are with you. May God comfort His people so that they may comfort others (II Corinthians 1:3-4). May Christ's body be the salt and light that they are called to be (Matthew 5:13-16), and may we follow the example of the Samaritan as we love our neighbors (Luke 10:25-37, Matthew 22:35-40).

Tags: London, society, prayer

Dennis-Sunday Afternoon

2005-07-10T16:37:00.000-04:00

As of 3:25 P.M. Eastern Time, the National Hurricane Center reports that Hurricane Dennis made landfall near Pensacola, Florida. This unfortunately means that Pensacola is taking it on the chin again, but fortunately means that the weather will start to improve as Dennis weakens over land.

The weather has deteriorated here since lunch time. The wind has increased, and we have had periods of heavy rain. My wife and I have not been over to the church for shelter, but we were there this morning for services. Services this evening are cancelled for safety reasons, but the weather should improve overnight. We appreciate your prayers, and when we went out to lunch after church, things looked OK. There were a number of small limbs down, and the traffic lights were angled in the wind. However, damage here in Grady County looks minimal, and we've only lost power once (and that was only for about 45 seconds).

Rob "Orangejack" Williams from Orlando and John, a Presbyterian (PCUSA) minister, from South Florida have commented on my Dennis posts (#1, #2), and I invite them to blog about their experiences with Dennis, as they were both in areas that got some of Dennis' fury. While you're at it, you could read Rob's posts from the 2004 Hurricane Season.

Tags: meteorology, tropical storms, Dennis

Dennis Update

2005-07-10T08:11:00.000-04:00

My wife and I are riding out Dennis in our home. We moved to the church last night after a Tornado Warning was issued for Thomas County, the county to our east. We came back after several hours of sleeping on the hard, wooden pews. It's raining here, and the winds here are Beaufort Scale 5 or 6 (I don't have an anemometer, so I can't give you an accurate measurement. I know the tops of the pines trees next door are moving, and that's what I base my Beaufort 5 or 6 on. We're doing OK, and church will happen this morning.

Tags: meteorology, tropical storms, Dennis

Hurricane Dennis

2005-07-08T20:57:00.000-04:00

My wife and I are making preparations for Hurricane Dennis (RSS feed), which is expected to hit the northern Gulf Coast Sunday afternoon or Monday morning. The one vehicle is full of gas, and in a few minutes, we will go fill the gas tank on the other vehicle. We'll then return to our home, pack some clothes, pack our medications, and pack our important papers. Tomorrow morning, we will remove items which could become missiles in Dennis' 125+ mile per hour (200+ kilometers per hour) winds from our yard. We live in a manufactured home, and therefore, if Dennis heads our way, we will pack our computers and be headed to an evacuation shelter. If not, I'll attempt to keep you posted as Dennis affects us.

Please pray for the people that have been affected by Hurricane Dennis. In Haiti, at least 5 people have perished. In Cuba, the National Hurricane Center has reports of destroyed power and communications infrastructure and gusts up to 149 mph. Please also pray for us and whoever else is in the path of this dangerous hurricane, currently a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson_Hurricane Scale.

Tags: meteorology, tropical storms, Dennis

U.S.A. Independence Day

2005-07-05T22:33:00.000-04:00

Bill Hayes of the Wentworth Presbyterian Church (PCUSA, which means little to me, as I can't keep it and the PCA straight.) wrote a good post on Independence Day yesterday. He encouraged us to read the Declaration of Independence and posted part of his sermon, which took a good look at "rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's" and "rendering unto God what is God's".

I too, tied my Sunday sermon into Independence Day, but I took another twist: fireworks. I watched A Capitol Fourth because I was too tired to go to Cairo's fireworks display at the high school. I then flipped channels over to Macy's Fireworks Spectacular. The latter gave better shots of the people watching the fireworks and admiring their short-lived glory. I thought of fireworks as I read II Corinthians 3 from last week's Bible reading. We are enthralled with fireworks in spite of their short-lived glory to the point that we vocalize our thrills ("ohhhhh" and "ahhhhhhh"). However, the glory of fireworks pale in comparison to the glory of Christ and His kingdom which is permanent and eternal (Isaiah 40:8, Revelation 1:5-6). As Christians, should we not be celebrating daily the freedom we find in Christ, and the fact that He has called us to be a part of His Kingdom? Should we not be ready to vocalize our thrill with the fact that Christ died for our sins and that we have been adopted as God's children?

As we had church service on Sunday, we used patriotic songs in our service:

"The Star-Spangled Banner"
"America"
"Battle Hymn of the Republic"
"America, the Beautiful"

I was struck by passages in two of the songs, and I was moved to comment on them before I began my message. In "Battle Hymn of the Republic", verse 2, the song's words include "I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamp". I have several oil lamps, and I have used them for light on various occasions. Their light is not consistent: it can be dim and it can flare. Yet, the person took time to read God's word by the lamps. Why do not we take time to read God's word, even though we have been blessed by Edison's invention of the electric light bulb and its constant (but not permanent) light? Secondly, in "America, the Beautiful", verse 2, "America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw". We've made some bad choices in America. We kill infants in the name of a woman's right to choose. We tax the poor, and we call it a lottery. We teach our children that "alternative lifestyles" are OK and we should accept them, in lieu of teaching our children about God, His righteousness, and His desire for us to follow Him. We teach theories with little evidence as fact, but ban the teaching of absolute truth. We're attempting to remove all references to God from our public society, even though the Founding Fathers declared independence "with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence" and based on the idea that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". We need to pray that prayer often, "America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw" because our flaws are many.

In spite of our flaws, I believe God has blessed us, and I have no desire to live in any country other than these United States of America. I pray that you enjoyed your Independence Day and that it was happy and safe; and I also pray that you remembered why we had the day off from work. May God bless America, and may He mend her every flaw.

Tags: Christianity, Faith Journal, society

Bible Challenge: 04-09 July 2005 A.D.

2005-07-05T21:49:00.000-04:00

Day of Week	Date	Chapter to Read
Monday	04 July	II Corinthians 8
Tuesday	05 July	II Corinthians 9
Wednesday	06 July	II Corinthians 10
Thursday	07 July	II Corinthians 11
Friday	08 July	II Corinthians 12
Saturday	09 July	II Corinthians 13

A little late this week due to the busy-ness of the Independence Day weekend coupled with a church workday.

What is this?

Tags: Christianity, Bible

A Funny, Modest Proposal

2005-07-01T00:15:00.000-04:00

Andrew posted news about a funny, modest proposal in response to the Supreme Court decision in the case of Kelo vs. City of New London. According to this press release, Logan Darrow Clements is requesting that a local New Hampshire government seize the home of Justice David Souter, who concurred with the majority on the Kelo case, under the newly expanded eminent domain clause, so that Clements can build a hotel, aptly named "The Lost Liberty Hotel". Clements states that there will be a cafe in the hotel named the "Just Desserts Café" and a museum detailing loss of freedom in the USA.

Reminds me of a Bible verse: "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." (Galatians 6:7)

Tags: courts, society

MicroFormats & Resume Update

2005-06-30T23:47:00.000-04:00

Dougal Campbell posted about MicroFormats having a new website. Being the tech geek that I am, I had to check it out. MicroFormats are cool XML/XHTML (yes, I am aware that XHTML is really HTML reformulated as XML) snippets that contact pertinent, related information, such as an hCard, which is the markup equivalent of a vCard (a snippet containing contact information, like an electronic business card). For example, here is an hCard with information about me:

Jack L. Wolfgang II
Cairo, Georgia, USA 39827
E-Mail via Web Form

Again, being the geek that I am, I re-did my resume in Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional (it was HTML 4.01 Transitional before the update) sprinkled liberally with hCards. The hCards represent my contact information (at the top) and the contact information for the organizations I worked for. There is one exception, and that is for First Christian Church of Cairo. The hCard site doesn't really define how to implement the address types defined in RFC 2426 Section 3.2.1 (or I wasn't smart enough to see it), and therefore, I have left the church's address, which is a mailing address, unconverted.

MicroFormats look very cool, and they look like they have a lot of promise. I hope they get used.

Tags: blogs, web development, internet, microformats

PingOMatic.com Back Up

2005-06-30T00:36:00.000-04:00

I previously reported that PingOMatic.com was down, but it's back up now. Their blog indicates that they had server problems over the weekend.

Tags: blogs, web development, internet

Religion Cocktail?

2005-06-30T00:26:00.000-04:00

I often listen to WCTV, our local CBS affiliate, on the radio as I drive home from OTPS in the evenings. This evening, I tuned in, caught part of the local news, and then had to stop and grab some groceries. When I came out, I started listening to the CBS Evening News. They've been running a series this week entitled "The American Spirit", which is discussing the role of religion in America (or USAmerica as Leonard Sweet puts it).

Tonight's installment, "Mix-and-Match Religion", explores people taking parts of many religions and combining them into a new whole. The individual they interviewed, Deborah Steen Ross (they called her Reverend at one point, and one day I will discuss why I don't like that title, even when it's Reverend Wolfgang), was raised Christian Scientist, married to a Jewish rabbi, and works at an interfaith seminary. Mrs. Ross also attends a synagogue and meditates before various religious symbols each morning. CBS conducted a poll of 1150 respondents (with pretty graphs and some CBS commentary and documentation on how CBS does polls) which found that 64% of Americans found religion "extremely important" or "very important" and that 36% of Americans "bring the teachings or philosophies from more than one religion" into their "own personal religious or spiritual practices". Mrs. Ross is not alone in making this religion cocktail.

Mrs. Ross stated "I find that one, any one, religion is too –– it's too closed for me", and therefore, she meditates before the symbols of 13. Ross also claims "At the heart of every religion it's the same thing, it's love. So if they're all the same at the root, why would we not honor all of them?" Yes, there is love at the heart of Christianity, but Christianity is also about truth. Karen Armstrong, author and religion scholar, was quoted in the story as saying "It's part of a giant universal human quest for [the story's transcribers wrote or, but I heard her say for] meaning." If we're going to go for meaning, let's go for true meaning. Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me." (John 14:6) While some claims this makes Christianity exclusive and arrogant, the fact is in order to have truth, something must be false. So let's spit out this religion cocktail of our own making, and start following the way and the truth. To do anything but means we think men are smarter than God, and that's just not so.

Tags: Christianity, religion, society

Post Formatting Problem #2

2005-06-27T01:18:00.000-04:00

The problem is temporarily fixed with a stylesheet edit, which hopefully will be unnecessary when Blogger gets back to me. Hat tip to those who mentioned it on their blogs which were found with a Technorati Search.

Tags: blogs, web development, internet

Post Formatting Problem

2005-06-27T00:24:00.000-04:00

The post formatting problem is caused by a div tag that Blogger started inserting before each post between Wednesday morning and this afternoon. The tag takes this form:

<div style="clear:both;">

I've contacted Blogger support, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

Tags: blogs, web development, internet