At Becky's request... more pictures!

No, this place isn’t turning into a photoblog. But when you have a new toy… :-)

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A time to read...

A month ago today I resolved I was going to put down my endless string of library books and spend a month just reading the Bible. Today is the end of that month.

April 20 I started reading in Genesis 1 and decided I’d just read through, getting a feel for the breadth of the story. A month later I’m through the book of Ezra, maybe a third of the way through the whole Book if you just look at how many pages I’ve covered. It’s been good reading and good reminder.

There have been some times I’ve really missed having some other good book to read - most notably the hours I was on an airplane traveling to Salt Lake City and back, and occasionally in the evenings when something less-than-memorable is on TV and I’m in the habit of reading while the TV’s on.

I think it was a worthwhile exercise, though. It made me more convinced that I need to focus on reading quality books, things that will be worth my time, and avoid just rushing through a long string of mediocre titles just to max out my reading list. (I know there’s no way my list will be as long as Kari’s - no sense in going crazy trying.)

I’m going to be done with work a little big early today. I’m going to suggest to Becky that we make an “overdue” stop at the library. :-)

New toy coming...

Thanks to some unexpected cash influx, I was able to purchase this earlier this week:

It’s a Nikon D70s, a quite nice Digital SLR camera. Only 6 megapixels, but that should be plenty for me.

Fedex promises it’ll be delivered tomorrow… can’t wait. Looking forward to posting more pictures here… you can be bet I’ll be taking a lot of pictures. :-)

Sunday Sermon

This morning I had the privilege to preach at the Noelridge Sunday morning services. My text was Exodus 18, entitled “A Father-In-Law’s Lesson” - based on the lesson that Jethro had for Moses. I think it went pretty well, I was excited to have the chance to preach again. For those of you interested, you can download the sermon (mp3, 7.1 MB) or stream it here.

Edit: It sounds like I screwed up the audio; instead of converting it to mono, I managed to just delete one of the tracks. I also need to amplify the whole thing a bit. Maybe tonight. Still, if you can stand just listening to it in one ear, go for it.

I uploaded the new audio just now - converted it to full mono and amplified it so that it is about the right volume. Gotta love Audacity.

Stuff

Life has been crazy this week, keeping me from writing much in the way of a thoughtful post about anything. I will inadequately attempt to make up for this by providing some random bullets from my week.

  • Orlando, here we come. My employer has decided to send me to a “technology forum” put on by a microprocessor company. It appears to me that “technology forum” is code words for “wine and dine the engineers so they’ll buy our product.” It’s the last week in June, and we’re planning that Becky will come along on the trip. She’s just slightly excited.
  • Sermon preparation. I will be in the pulpit Sunday at Noelridge. (I’ll try to remember to post audio next week for the 0.03% of you that are interested.) Secret sneak preview for my few NPC readers: Jethro. You can figure it out from there. Actually, you probably can’t. So you have to come and listen on Sunday. Ha!
  • Jabber servers, MySQL, PHP. Set up a Jabber server on a machine here at work for a project this week. Used Wildfire, it went super-easy. Then learned enough PHP to generate web pages that display a given days’ chat logs by pulling them out of the database. Good times.
  • Arcade Fire. Been listening to their latest album Neon Bible this morning and I like it.
  • “Get the picture.” With some unexpected funds coming in I am hoping to buy a digital SLR camera. I have my eye on a Nikon D70s, hoping to be able to order it next week.

Back home... at least for a day

Got home last night from a quick business trip to Salt Lake City. I haven’t been to SLC since a family trip many years ago. It’s a beautiful place, and the weather was fresh and warming to spring. My co-worker and I spent 2 days in meetings before flying home. All in all, a good, worthwhile trip, uneventful flights, not bad at all. It was sure good to be home and see Becky and the girls again.

Tomorrow morning we’ll be heading out for Wisconsin to see my folks over Easter weekend. It will be good to see them again - it’s only been a few weeks, I guess, but still… the girls change so much in just a few weeks, I’m sure they’ll be amazed.

That’s the basic update from the home front. I’m debating pre-buying (and then downloading) the new Derek Webb album (on Amazon or check it out at www.theringingbell.com) so I can take it along on our drive tomorrow. I’m listening to it streaming right now and it sounds really good. I’m also shopping around for a Digital SLR camera. At the moment I have my eye on a Nikon D70s. I’m hoping in the next few weeks I’ll be able to put in the order.

Well, enough for now.

Entering the Whirlwind

I feel like I’ve been in it for a few days already, but I know there’s still more to come this week.

Friday afternoon I drove four hours to Omaha to see Andy Osenga in concert at a little place called The Foundry. It was a great show, fun to see Andy again and visit. There was a 7:00 Saturday morning elder meeting scheduled at church, so I had to turn around and head back home right after the show. What I did learn from that experience was that the right combination of diet pop, sweet tea, Red Bull, and candy will keep me wide awake on a four-hour drive in the middle of the night. Good to know.

Saturday was the aforementioned meeting and then time at home to catch up a bit - cleaning, spending time with the family, watching some of the Final Four on TV. Also watched a pretty cool SciFi channel miniseries that I’d TiVo’d back in December called The Lost Room. Becky even enjoyed it. Good stuff.

Sunday morning I led music for both services, then we had an afternoon elder meeting, then the church’s annual meeting in the evening. Thank the Lord most of that stuff is done with for now.

Now it’s Monday morning, and I’ll be at work for a few hours before heading home, eating lunch with the family, and then flying out to Salt Lake City for a quick trip for work. I’ll be back home on Wednesday night.

Friday morning I get off work (Good Friday) and so we are taking the girls up to my folks’ place for the weekend. The girls will have fun seeing Grandma and Grandpa again. By the time I get back home on Sunday night, well, I’ll be ready to be home for a while. :-)

Welcome to the Whirlwind. It’s a wild ride.

Name That Tune

[Meme fearlessly stolen from CJ].

Step 1: Put your ipod on random. Step 2: Post the first line from the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarassing. Step 3: Strike out the songs when someone guesses correctly.

Now, y’all got lucky here and got some easy ones. Bonus points to the person who guesses the artist for #1.

  1. Crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon the throne
  2. It’s all right, it’s all right, carrier, carrier…
  3. Well I can always tell a liar, and I always know a thief
  4. She turns like the ocean, she tells no emotion
  5. From glass alabaster she poured out the depths of her soul
  6. Part of me, you are part of me I never want to lose
  7. Save yourself, cause the only thing that matters that you get away from the pain and the thought of losing your mind
  8. All your ways and all your thunder got me in a haste running for cover
  9. I started asking some questions about your walk with the Lord
  10. Feel the weight of this passing time all those crazy faces run through my mind
  11. I was thinking the other day, what if cartoons got saved
  12. Another day that I’m runnin’ and I hear somebody pounding on my door
  13. Hard times have fallen on you even when you smile I see the hurt come through
  14. I mount up with waxen wings, high to reach the sun
  15. Once upon a time you dressed so fine
  16. Every tree is green again in the wood out of my back door
  17. You dwell in glory, the heavens are your home
  18. There’s a man goin’ round taking names
  19. In your hands I know he could be a man of peace
  20. I stood on that Cherokee plain and the Cimarron broke free and jumped its banks
  21. It’s a muggy night in Houston
  22. Barbara Manatee, you are the one for me
  23. Hard time here and everywhere you go, times is harder than ever been before
  24. No one serves both God and money
  25. I thought we would always be together, never be apart

Have fun!

A real post

This place has been full of links lately and very short on actual posts. Partly that’s been due to some network difficulties, partly that’s just been due to my own laziness. So finally I’ve got my blog reconfigured so I can get to it all the time, and now it’s time to write something.

Becky was remarking last night on how funny we are with our scheduling. If we have our whole week scheduled full with stuff, we go crazy. It’s just too much. We have to have a couple of nights on the calendar kept open just for us as a family. That being said, when we have nights free on the calendar, we are unlikely to just stay home; more often we’re out doing something as a family. (Maybe this’ll change a little more now that spring is here and there is more outside work to be done?)

Take last night, for instance. We had the night free, so what did we do? Head to Coralville to the mall. Becky needed some summer clothes, so we spent a few hours, found a bunch of stuff for her, ate some supper there, and got home way past the girls’ bedtime. But it was a good night. Now morning has just come a little early. :-)

I’ve got a bunch of travel coming up in the next week. Friday afternoon I’m driving to Omaha to see Andy Osenga play a concert. I’m planning to just drive back after the show, so it’ll be a lot of hours on the road, but still definitely worth it.

Then Monday I’m headed out on a trip for work to Salt Lake City, and will be there until Wednesday night. Then with Friday off (Good Friday), we’re heading up to Wisconsin to visit my folks for Easter weekend. So yeah, it’ll be nice to finally be back home after all that. So far April isn’t booked up too much… dunno how long that’ll last. :-)

Having thus caught up on the trivial business of my life, I’ll sign off.

A Resolution

As I updated my 2007 reading list yesterday, I became convicted about how many novels of dubious quality I’ve read (23 books in 75 days!) and how short my time in the Scripture has been lately. As such, I am making this resolution: for the next month (March 20 - April 20), I am going to restrict my reading to just the Bible. I want to read it in broad pieces, to try to pick up the sweep of the grand story of God’s work.

I don’t know how far I’ll get in just a month, but I have a feeling it’ll be a ways. So don’t expect any reading page updates for a while. I don’t think it’ll be a great loss. :-)