Because you can observe a lot just by watching.
Dictionary.com Word of the Day: Afflatus
afflatus \uh-FLAY-tuhs\, noun:
A divine imparting of knowledge; inspiration.
I’m going to have to remember that word and use it when someone asks about the Sunday service. Especially when someone asks me while I am standing in that tunnel-like egress area at the back.
NPR’s Morning Edition had a story that caught my attention:
A Victim Treats His Mugger Right.
Also available from StoryCorps: Julio Diaz.
Faced with a mugger, Julio also offers his coat, a meal, and love.
Takes a bit of Matthew 5:38-42 into life.
Do you know what an Ombudsman is? You should. It is an important role.
An ombudsman is a person who stands between two connected groups and keeps the communication flowing. They are an ambassador of sorts, but instead of functioning for the sake of one party they function for both.
In the military, an ombudsman has the responsibility of keeping the humanity of the leadership and the soldiers in mind even when it gets easy to for each to look at the other as just “the brass” or “the grunts.” It creates an amenable short circuit in an otherwise separate hierarchy. How can the average corporal’s wife demand information from a colonel without fearing repercussions without an intercessor?
This has been in my mind because of a recent episode of “The Leonard Lopate Show: Please Explain” (March 21, 2008) where they interviewed the NPR Ombudsman. I had heard an interview with the previous ombudsman a while back, but this one got me thinking about ombudsmen again.
I decided to post this while listening to Buzz Out Loud #690 (at 3min 45sec) where Molly Wood expressed a “life theory”/”one big fortune cookie” saying used as: “It is rarely the situation, it is almost always the communication.”
When a church is small a few negative voices can rip the church down, but as it gets large you have a BB vs. a Battleship situation happening. While the leadership can feel more secure knowing that the people who just tend to be disagreeable will be quickly plowed under, the same thing happens to sincere people with real concerns. In the same way, bad information gets spread around and the leadership is stressed because nobody is coming to them to get the story straight.
While looking for some more comics to add to my personal comics page a few weeks ago I happened across this classic Peanuts cartoon.
A question for those who never went to Bible college: does this joke make sense to you?
Was there a time when the general public who read Peanuts would have understood it?
February 22 & 23, 1998 was an eventful night in Central Florida. I was in my Junior year at Florida Christian College (map) and I was preparing to start working on a paper due the next morning. It was the second nasty storm of the month, we had spent Groundhog day without power just a few weeks earlier. One of my roommates mentioned that there must be a train nearby and my training from years of tornado drills in southern Indiana kicked in and I rushed everyone into the bathroom. 2 minutes later the awkwardness became overwhelming and we went back out.
That night, several tornadoes cut through central Florida. One of them went through the sports complex across the road where it killed someone who was working on the fair equipment they were trying to get out due to the storm. It crossed the road and destroyed the Ponderosa RV Park (map). It shut down the turnpike and destroyed a traceable line of homes for another mile. In the words of one student quoted by a local newspaper, “Dude, it was massive.”
Due to a lack of resources to support all the displaced students (although about 15 of us stayed a night with Prof. Bundy), I came up to Jacksonville with my future wife, my roommate, and his future wife (my future wife’s roommate) and stayed a week up here with my family. While we were gone there were many funerals and President Bill Clinton gave a speech at the RV park. After our return we helped out where we could. I helped to dig through the remains of the RVs and trailers of victims to recover mementos for the families. They were water soaked piles of rubbish, but we found photo albums and other personal items with a lot of meaning.
I did pocket one item while serving, and I have it setting on my desk today in a small frame. This portion of a shredded Bible has been a reminder for me over the past decade that when it comes down to it, the greatest thing we can do for God is to care for his beloved people even if nobody witnesses it other than God.
So, I decided to watch the lunar eclipse on Wednesday night. I used my Casio Exilim EX-277, a 6in. tripod, and my car to take pictures. So, while I stood out in my driveway looking like an idiot for several hours I did get some pictures. The pictures aren’t great, but it was fun to watch (I rarely get a chance to watch lunar eclipses).
First Problem: Lots of clouds and light pollution. We do indeed have sodium lights around the neighborhood. This was taken with night settings at 9:30PM.
White balancing made it look a little better, but my camera does not have cloud balancing.
As the night went on it did clear up a bit. These pictures are of the moon coming out of the shadow around 11:30PM and the only thing I can blame the bad images on are the camera and my skills.
Well, the hat has been on my shelf for about a year, but it is now official.
We are going to Arena!
Unfortunately, our Shelby database was corrupted two weeks ago and the most recent “good” backup we could find was September (oops). Fortunately the Arena announcement softened the bad news.
I am registered on the ArenaCHMS.com forum and ready to go. There is also a new Arena posting category here, so I need to tag previous Arena posts tonight.
I am writing this while I am trying to remember what I was doing before the last 4 interruptions.
Right now I am considering plans for an audio DVR type thing to constantly record audio in my office. Then I need to get into the habit of talking to myself. Once a distracting phone call is over I can then rewind to hear what I was mumbling before I answered the phone.
Last week we had a conference call which I recorded with my mp3 player. The 5 minutes at the end of the recording was filled with the sounds of cell phones, desk phones, email dings, equipment alarms (minor power issue caused UPS backups to briefly activate), and someone at the door.
3 hours later . . . CD duplicator fixed, scheduling issues handled, bleachers in gym taken care of, kitchen stovetop hastily reassembled, and a brief discussion on why gumballs should not be used are decorations.
Where was I again?
You are looking at a picture of the Samsung sph-z400. Yes it is homely, but my current Motorola i530 ain’t pretty neither. Ever since my old phone came off my pocket while coming down the caged ladder in the Attic catwalk and had its screen hinge blasted apart after several collisions on its way down to the concrete I have been waiting for the new Nextel Direct Connect phones to come out. I am currently using a revived i530 that had been left for dead, but I want something better.
The phone matches some of what I want: no antenna sticking up out of the top, clamshell design, camera, works with Nextel Direct Connect. However, it is missing wifi. I really want a device I can use for accessing network data and security camera images.
This is exciting since Sprint has been killing off Nextel for a while now. They are losing much of the spectrum that the Nextel Direct Connect iDEN network runs on. Sprint wants to move all their users to the same system, but Sprint users cannot currently do Direct Connect with Nextel users. Since is used heavily by companies or extended organizations it is difficult to move a few people over at a time. Now Qualcomm’s QChat has the ability to do direct connect over CDMA and reach all Sprint/Nextel subscribers. Since Sprint has been killing off the old system, nobody has been making really good Nextel phones for a while. Hopefully that will change soon. After all, as of right now the clock on QChat runs out in January 2009.
Information found via PhoneScoop.com. For some real excitement, check out the FCC filing.
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A Church Ombudsman
A Church Ombudsman
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