A good Wright resource
In the past year I have become a fan of N. T. Wright. Rev. Wright is the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England. He is the author of a number of books, but the one that got me started was Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. While not being a replacement for C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, as some have tried to make it, Simply Christian is a makes a good argument for the sense of Christianity. From there I read Wright's What Saint Paul Really Said, and greatly enjoyed it as well. While I don't necessarily agree with all of Wright's doctrine, I have found his writing to be clear and accessible.
Naturally once I found I liked his writings, I downloaded whatever sermon audio I could find. That had initially come from here and there, a sermon at a time. However, I found a site this morning that is the jackpot: ntwrightpage.com. Billed as "an unofficial website dedicated to the Bishop of Durham", this page links to seemingly every known article and sermon recording of Wright's that's available on the web; some 60+ articles and 40+ lectures/sermons are available. Amazing.
I went download-happy this morning and pulled down about 150 MB of lectures. These will be a happy addition to my iPod as I travel next week. 
Devil’s Lake Camping Trip
Yes, as promised, we went camping last weekend up at Devil's Lake State Park in Wisconsin. My brother Andrew pretty much organized the whole thing; his girlfriend Heather is visiting and it was good to get to see everybody. Some thoughts from the weekend:
- Devil's Lake is a beautiful park. Dave, if you read this, yeah, it's worth going for a day trip or an overnight. Lots of nice hiking, the water is beautiful and crystal-clear.
- What the park service considers "paved, flat, and level" in a hiking trail isn't so much what I'd consider "paved, flat, and level". It scares me a little bit what one of their "difficult" trails would look like.
- Tent camping when it gets down to 40F at night is kinda chilly.
- Tent camping when it rains overnight is more of a pain.
Now, mind you, I don't want to sound whiny. It was a fun weekend, a good time was had by all. Many pictures are available on my Flickr site, and I'll append a few of them here. We had a fun time just crashing around the campfire, playing on the beach, and hiking. We enjoyed watching the rain whilst sitting indoors at McDonald's eating breakfast on Sunday.
Overall, it was a good weekend, but good to be back home, too.
Camping!
When I was a kid, we went camping as a family all the time. I think some of my siblings enjoyed the out-of-doors more than I did, but still, it was a good time for the whole family and a cost-effective way to go on vacation. After we got married, Becky and I went camping a few times; most notably we were in Colorado camping when 9/11 happened... but that's a different story.
Fast-forward to today. Well, to tomorrow. Tomorrow morning we will pack the van and head out to Devil's Lake State Park in Wisconsin for two nights of camping with my family. Andrew's girlfriend Heather (hi, Heather, do you still read this thing?) is visiting for the next 10 days, so Andrew has organized pretty much the whole camping trip. ("Remember to bring your softball equipment" x 100 or so. ) I'm hoping the girls will enjoy it; they'll certainly enjoy seeing all the uncles and grandparents again. How well they sleep in a tent will be an entirely different story.
I'll be sure to take a bunch of pictures and post them here once we get back. This weekend starts what will be a whirlwind month and a half for us; this camping trip, I have a trip to DC, Becky's folks visit for 2 weeks, I run a couple of 5ks, and then we go to Orlando for the better part of a week while the girls stay with their grandparents. It'll be fun, but it'll also be a relief to have it slow down in July.
(Yikes! Did I really just say July?)
Yet another reason I love Andy Osenga
A little video posted on Andy's website:
http://www.andrewosenga.com/blog/2007/05/06/this-is-what-happens/
I can *so* see myself doing that.
24 Hours of the Hubbs: A Celebration of the Mundane
When I decided to do 24 hours of Flickr, I wasn't really sure what my Saturday would entail. Nonetheless, I gave it a go. As Saturdays go, it was fairly basic. We went to some neighborhood garage sales, cleaned out the garage, went shopping, and watched a movie. So while some of the pictures are cute, none of them are particularly artsy or profound. Oh well.
Here are a few samples of the pictures; you're welcome to visit the whole set on Flickr.
24 hours of fun
Today is the first-ever 24 Hours of Flickr. In addition, my little rmfo community is doing our own version, 24 Hours of RMFO. Basically we're documenting our day in pictures and sharing them all with the group. Should be fun, and a good excuse to use my new toy. I'll post some pictures here later.
A much-needed improvement…
I've been using Google Reader for some time now as my feed reader, and one of the more frustrating things has been its really bad email feature. When you find a blog post that you want to share with a friend, the email feature should make it easy, right? Unfortunately, Google Reader ended up dumping a bunch (but not all) of the text from the post in a horribly-formatted email. If I were Google I would've been embarrassed that it was even an option. It was that bad.
Today, though, I find that they've updated the email feature. Now when you click it, it just opens a little panel right in the blog post, lets you type in an email address (which it will auto-fill from your gmail address book if possible), and add a personal message. The email that it sends out then looks good; it includes all the original formatting, pictures, and a link back to Google Reader. Very nice.
Yet another reason to consider moving to Google Reader if you need a feed reader.
Flying it!
Part of the goofiness with my job is that by the time we get these announcements, I've been done with the software for months. Still, it's fun to know that they're flying these things now.
From AvWeb:
FIRST CITATION ENCORE+ DELIVERED TO CUSTOMER
Cessna Aircraft announced Tuesday that it delivered the first Citation Encore+ to an undisclosed customer. The latest Citation V derivative is powered by two FADEC-equipped, 3,400-pound-thrust Pratt & Whitney Canada PW535B engines that offer "high durability and reliability," and "surpasses the most stringent environmental standards for emissions, set by the International Civil Aviation Organization."
Besides the upgraded powerplants, the $8.273 million Encore+ has an increased gross weight that allows for a full-fuel payload of 1,170 pounds, 340 pounds more than the original Encore. According to Cessna, this weight increase also extends the airplane's range with higher passenger loads. In the flight deck, the Encore+ sports a Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 integrated avionics suite, which marks a
significant change from its predecessor's Honeywell Primus 1000 avionics.
A great column for your perusal…
Normally when I read a good column I'm just gonna hit the Gordita button and post it to del.icio.us, which means it'd show up here tonight in the links area. But today's column by Thomas Sowell on NRO is worth a post of its own. Sowell gives us a column of "random thoughts", including some very quote-worthy thoughts. Just a few:
A reader wrote: “Have you ever noticed that opinion polls ask the opinions of people who have no expertise in the subject on which they are being polled and publish these opinions as if they were gospel truth instead of group ignorance?”
Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.
Too many people in positions of responsibility act as if these are just positions of opportunity — for themselves. The ones who simply steal money probably do less harm than teachers who propagandize their students, media who slant the news, or politicians who sell out their country’s interests in order to get reelected.
You should probably go read the whole thing.
Softball
One of my very first posts on my blog was about softball; hard to believe that's been two years ago. But yesterday night we started up the church softball season for another year. It was a beautiful night; the day was hot (at least, hot for April in Iowa) - it got close to 90 degrees in the afternoon. But by evening the breeze was blowing and the temps had cooled; what a great night for softball!
The first game of the year is always a bit of an adventure, seeing who will show up and how the team will fill out. To be sure, we have some regulars in their places; Nate at shortstop, Becky pitching, me at third, Shaun in left. But there's always a new guy or two you pick up who really help you out. This year it looks like we've got two of them: Joel out in center field, and Nick at first. (It does this infielder's heart good to have a tall, left-handed first-baseman to throw to.)
Last night we played against one of the teams from New Covenant. It was the typical back-and-forth game; we were behind by a few runs, but then made a comeback as time was running out; I had a two-out, two-run single to tie up the game. It wasn't all heroics for me, though - I failed to tag up and advance on a base running play the inning before that would've given us another run. 
Oh well, one game at a time.
After playing the 6:00 game, I umped the 7:00 game. I actually really enjoy umping softball games, and it's something that I've improved on quite a bit over the past few years. It drives me nuts, though, that even in our C-league church league softball there are guys who will yell at the ump during the game for calls they don't like. Come on, guys. It's just a game. It's not worth it. (I know, I know - I better get used to it if I want to keep umping games. )
The church softball season runs through July and into early August. It definitely gives me something to look forward to on Monday nights.
