Prayer Support Update

My friend is back from visiting his terminally ill father.

His father is improving in small ways. His attitude has improved. You can tell because he is complaining more and wants to be more active, probably more active than he actually should be. By the end of the week long visit, his dad was looking a lot better. Still his life expectancy is still fairly short.

He's been moved to a nursing home where he can recieve health care and physical therapy, but still be out of the hospital. Everyone is hoping that his quality of life will remain high and that he'll still be able to do the things he enjoys until the end. The quality of care available at the nursing home should help with that. The family gets together for an annual trip to Disneyworld every December, they're hoping he will be around and able to participate.

On the spiritual side, his physical improvement has also helped the families anxiety. They haven't been able to really talk with him about God or salvation though.

We still need to have a clear talk with him about eternity but are hopeful that maybe some of the people at the facility will be able to remind him of God's love so he will be open to hearing about it from us (he thinks we are "brainwashed"), so prayers are still needed on that front -- on all fronts, I guess.

More prayer? Its the least I can do.

Last MP3 Post

Until the next one at least. While perusing Gizmodo, I found a link to a great Digital Audio Player Review site called, ironically enough, dapreview.net. They have a very fair review of the Mobiblu Cube among other things. They have reviews of a wide number of players and allow comments to those reviews which gives good balance to them. Its good place to stop if you're in the market.

Rebuilding New Orleans

Via Evangelical Outpost, Gerry Phelps is asking the question that everyone is thinking but no one has been saying: How should we rebuild New Orleans?

As everyone with access to cable news knows, New Orleans is located in a bowl-shaped depression. Most of the city is several feet below sea level. It lies between two major sources of water, the Mississippi river and Lake Pontchartrain. Both the river and the lake are slightly above sea level. As many have noted and Katrina has now proved, this is a very stupid place to put a city. Even the French had the common sense to build on the relatively high ground for fear of flooding.

Now it may be too expensive to move the city outright. There will certainly be a lot of steel and concrete commercial buildings that will come through this without major structural damage. However calls to rebuild exactly as it was, should not be heeded. If you are going to rebuild a city inside a bowl between two major bodies of water, at least put in systems that are capable of localizing the flooding in the case of severe weather. Redundant levee walls around the perimeter would be a good start. Running additional flood walls within the city would also be a great idea. This way when there is flooding of this nature next time, we won't lose the entire city.

1 Hamster Power

What a great idea. Make your rodents work for you.

Peter Ash of Lawford, Somerset designed a hamster wheel that utilized gears and turbines to charge his cell phone. According to his tests every two minutes of wheel time gives his phone 30 minutes of talk time. If only the hamster knew how he was being exploited for free energy he would be going on strike demanding bigger carrots and more wood bedding.

Stupid organized hamster labor. Knowing British organized labor, I'm sure the guinea pigs would sympathy strike too.

Katrina

Michelle Malkin has an extensive roundup of Katrina coverage. Things don't look good in New Orleans after several levees broke and have flooded much of the city.

Eric Seymour is suggesting you give to Samaritans purse.

There has also been rumors of looting. The police are trying to stop it but aren't having much luck.

There are many ways to kill a man, many of them involve bodily trauma. A different route is to steal from someone on such a massive scale it destroys their livelihood and puts them on the street. Generally, this is what looters do. They destroy people's lives because they want their stuff. This is why I'm normal a shoot-the-looters kind of guy.

However in this case, I'm actually more inclined to tolerance. Much of New Orleans is under water. The roads in and out are cut. The storm has had a similar impact in other areas. If you were stupid enough to get stuck there, your possessions may be under 20 feet of water. That includes food, which certainly isn't edible now that it has been immersed in God-knows-what. Looting is still not something to be happy about, but it is pretty understandable in this case.

UPDATE: Michele has some first person coverage of New Orleans at A Small Victory.

Here Sally!

This comic is so true. My brother bought a Nintendo DS and Nintendogs to go with it, I helped him move some stuff Saturday and saw him play it for bit.

Seeing a grown man hunched over his gameboy and yelling his electronic puppy's name to get it's attention is, well, disconcerting. Have you ever watched a tape of people dancing, but with the sound turned off? They just seem to be flailing about for no reason. Yeah it is that kind of awkward. Maybe I would consider the game if it didn't involve making an ass out of myself, but as it is I think I'll wait and buy the meatspace version.

WoT is that?

Messy Christian reads the Robert Jordan Wheel of Time books. The next one will be coming out shortly. I might pick it up in paperback. I have many of the others. Somewhere I stopped caring and stopped reading. When his last book in the continuity was over eight hundred pages and took place over the course of a single day, it broke me. Ok I'm done. I don't care that I have been reading this crap since I was in high school. Robert, when you finish the series, I'll pick up the back books. Until then, if I have an urge to read one of your novels, I'll read Tolkein instead. The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy has a lower page count than Lord of Chaos. It will be easier on me.

Jordan writes in the genre of Big Fat Fantasy. These are the fantasy authors who are incapable of writing a book of less than 500 pages length. They are also incapable of writing a fantasy series of less than 4 books length. Generally they only have about 4 books of material planned out, but that doesn't stop them from writing eight or ten. Jordan obviously ran out of material to connect the dogs several books ago, but he keeps writing them. The good news is that he knows how his books are supposed to end, so maybe it will get better at some point.

Making Change

I am in the usher rotation at my church. Normally this entails wearing a suit or sportcoat, smiling, saying hello, offering bulletins, and occasionally scrambling when not enough people show up to take the collection. There are a few other things that I might have to do. I have first aid training, know CPR, and am familiar with where the church keeps the defibralator. I've even wondered what would happen if the church were to be attacked by ak-47 toting terrorists. I have never considered what would happen if someone were to need change for a $20 in the aisle during the offering.

It was almost a surreal event. An older man, very polite and devout but probably on a fixed income, couldn't afford to give all of the $20 in his wallet. My co-usher was thinking ahead and simply told him to keep it and talk to us after the service. Then we had to scramble in order to find someone who could actually make him change. The cash in the offering plates would be counted and in the church safe by the end of the service. The church administrator wasn't in, the pastors don't handle money, what do you do?

In the end what he wanted was $10 back. I had a ten in my wallet so that took care of things. I left the money in an envelope on the administrator's desk.

MP3 Bug

Rainy Day Magazine has a good independent review of the Mobiblu cube. The review is nice because, if nothing else, they have pictures of the thing that did not come out of the manufacturers press kit. They also have wired one into the stereo on their Porsche.

Video Music Awards

And the VMA for Most Over-rated Band goes to....

Green Day!

Congrats guys. You made an album with a few good songs on it and your vitriolic hatred of conservatism made it a huge hit with critics and the anti-war set. Now if only I could tell half of the songs apart, I might have an urge to listen to my copy again.

In other TV related news, the season finale of the 4400 was amazing. It makes me sad that I probably won't see any new episodes until next summer.

UPDATE: Michele Catalano seconds the motion.

Asking for Support

I've post-dated this entry so it stays at the top of the blog for awhile, the new stuff starts below it.

A lot of bloggers ask for support. Usually it is for money and it turns the blogosphere into a strange PBSish pledge drive, only without all the reruns straight from the BBC.

In my case I'm not raising money, I'm asking for prayers.

A member of my bible study (and good friend) has just learned that his father has pancreatic cancer. I'm not going to mention his name and God knows it anyway. The cancer may be terminal. Doctor's opinions are currently divided between "easily operable" and "six weeks to live." His father is 78 and he's been moved a hospital that specializes in both pancreatic cancer and geriatrics so there is hope.

My friend has taken off work for the next week and is driving back to his old homestead. He and his family could use a lot of prayer. Not only is his father very ill, but there is also a question of whether he is a Christian. He believes in God, but he also has lived through a lot including the Japanese conquest of the Philippines in WWII.

So I am asking for prayers for health for his father and family, both physical and spiritual. I pray that God would soften the heart of his father and spiritually equip the rest of the family such that his father may come to a saving knowledge of Christ.

UPDATE: They have replaced his father's pacemaker and given him drugs to help his depression and insomnia. The cancer situation is still unclear, but they believe it has spread from his pancreas to his internal organs. Using chemotherapy, current estimates are 4 to 6 months. That is a lot longer than the six weeks estimate they were given. Keep on praying folks.

No Parking

Turns out the porch at the Deer Park Tavern in Newark is good for more than just excessive drinking. Amybear and I were there celebrating with friends. The occasion was one of the friends freshly minted paralegal certification. After we had finished our meal (beer, nachos, burger, sundays, woo hoo) we had some unexpected vehicular "entertainment."

The Deer Park is situated right next to the CSX railroad tracks. The second story deck, where we were seated, has a perfect view on them. At one point in our meal, a train went by uneventfully, that was kind of fun. The next engineer would not be so lucky.

To make a long story short, a driver did something very stupid. The railroad crossing is right next to a major intersection involving 4 roads. The idiot in question must have made a wrong turn, so instead of using a real road he decided to cut down the tracks. Not across, down like he was a train.

Either his car stalled or he lost traction or he had a death wish, in either case his car wasn't moving when the gates came down. He stayed in the car for a few seconds more, perhaps trying to save it or perhaps contemplating his own mortality. In any case, he bailed out leaving the sedan empty and on the tracks with it's truck pointed towards the oncoming train. The trains whistle cut through the air with urgency as the sound of it's approach grew ever louder. The tension rose to the breaking point as the headlamp of the locomotive illuminated the intersection.

The car crumpled like a cheap paper cup and was pushed along the tracks until it left our view behind some nearby trees. The collision rattled most witnesses although thankfully no one seemed to be injured. The car was empty and the railroad workers would be insulated by the freight train's massive size. Police and fire department were on the scene in barely a minute. The local reporters from the Review, University of Delaware's paper, beat them easily. They had been drinking only yards away on the porch.

Now that it's all over, I really really wished I'd brought my digital camera to the party. But that's just the sick bastard I am.

Speeding Cops

Do cops that speed on the highway annoy you? My answer is yes, but Jared at Thinklings feels otherwise.

I know and agree lawmen aren't above the law. But I don't mind if my local police speed. I consider it a perk of the job. They have a lot to worry about; they bear a public burden I wouldn't bear. I like to think of them at least getting some satisfaction in driving fast. It's fun to drive fast. So I say let them have that small pleasure as a release of the pressures of their duties.

I don't mind when cops speed in their cruisers on the job. There are good reasons for them to do this, like seeing more traffic than what is immediately around them. So really, I don't have a problem with it. That is unless I'm pulled over for speeding when I was keeping pace with one.

But that applies only while on the job. Cops also routinely let each other and each other's families out of speeding tickets. It is a professional courtesy among law enforcement officers. I have a real problem with it. It is using your position for personal advantage, something civil servants like me (and presumable them) have foresworn.

For the record, cops are not above the law. It is perfectly reasonable to allow them some wiggle room while they are enforcing the law. But I have a real problem when they show contempt for the law. It is a poor and hypocritical example and it pisses me off.

Structure of the Left

Both John and Glenn Reynolds are linking to some strategerizing about Cindy Sheehan:

It's as if Rove has set the Democrats up with a Kobayashi Maru. If a major Dem goes to Cindy's side, they're doomed as a national candidate. No one in Tennessee or Indiana is going to support someone who agrees with the policy that Afghanistan was a mistake. But if they don't, as Kaus points out, they'll never get nominated by the emboldened left-wing base.

Maybe. But doesn't this same analysis apply to the primaries in 2004? Howard Dean was the favorite of the far left and he didn't really get anywhere. Instead old reliable Lurch received the nomination.

There are two reasons why this might be the case:

1. It is quite possible that the Democratic base is actually made up of people significantly further to the right than the loonies on Democratic Underground or DailyKos. Were those people the true democratic base, would they have to pander so them so heavily in 2000 and 2004 to keep them from going Green?
2. As with the the 2004 presidential race, many Democrats may be much more interested in getting someone elected than who that person might be. Many primary voters went for Kerry because they thought his military record might make him more electable. Kerry ran on vaguely pro-war platform, not Dean's "get us the hell out" platform.

If either of these are true, then Cindy might not be the deathtrap democratic insiders are taking her for.

Television Physics

King of Fools has proposed several bullet points (pun intended) about how guns seem to work on TV. I especially like these two:

• Guns are not subject to the laws of physics
  Neither friction or conservation of energy seem to apply to a dropped gun. It immediately moves out of reach of the original holder when dropped regardless of the impact surface, angle of impact or impact velocity.
• Bullets make moral judgements
  The stopping power of a bullet is not a function of its caliber or composition but rather the motive of the target. Any bullet from any gun can immediately incapacitate a bad guy; however those of a friendlier disposition can take multiple bullets from very large gun with little or no adverse effect.

These two principles also compliment each other a lot. Badguys will be blown back thirty feet by the power of the hero's gun, while he barely budges when he fires it. Conservation of Momentum be damned.

Blogging about Blogging

Simon World has is giving advice to new bloggers. The guys at QandO have read it and are adding comments.

Some of his advice is great. Blogging is a random event. You can never tell how people are going to react. You will spend lots of time on it even though 99% of what you write will never be seen by anyone outside of a small circle of people. Most of them won't even bother to comment.

A few pieces of good advice:

• Comments do not have any connection to post quality. Most people feel no need to comment on a post if they can't add or correct something.
• Chances are you will never be one of the big boys. Blog for yourself. I have seen people complain about how few readers they get, when they get more readers a day than I get in a week.
• Put effort in the look and location of your blog. I ran a stock Blogger format for the first six months here. Nobody came back. You aren't a real blogger until your blog has your unique fingerprints to it. I will probably move off blogger eventually, because blogger has Noob stigma, but right now I don't know what I want to move to. I only want to move once if I can help it.
• Build friendships with other bloggers, if you have a small readership then get to know them.
• As Signal11 once proved on Slashdot, people react better to heat than light. If you want to shed light, expect to have a long slog ahead.

Interviews

Amybear has one tomorrow. Hooray! If she gets the job we will finally be local for the first time in over 4 years. Prayers on her behalf would be welcome.

The Trouble of Tipping

Volokh Conspiracy has an interesting thread up on how to tip. I eat at buffets a lot and I have similar questions about how to tip. Is 15% too much since it isn't full service? What about pizza delivery, etc?

Prayer

I've been leading my bible study on the subject for a couple of lessons now. We started with the Lord's Prayer which is a simple model for our personal prayer life. Then we moved on to Jesus's intercessory prayer in John. It deserves more depth than I can give it here. Tonight we'll probably be covering Jonah's prayer for deliverance from (what a shocker) Jonah.

While googling the subject of prayer, I ran across a link to the Presidential Prayer Team. This is a non-partisan group dedicated to praying for US leaders present and future. I may have to check back there on a daily basis.

Targets

Amybear finally has pictures of one of her targets up on her Flickr account. She was shooting at the green and black shoot-n-c target in the middle. The smaller groups on the outside are mine. Amy did really well.

The bottom right target was shot with my hipower, as you can tell I'm not as good with it as with the .22. This is mostly a function of the trigger. The buckmark has a great trigger right out of the box. The hipower has a notoriously bad trigger although mine has been cleaned up a little by a smith.