Kentucky Packrat

Several members of our church suggested that I consider standing as an elder or as a deacon for next year, since I had several suggestions on things that have been wrong at the church (see here). I was honored, but I told everyone who mentioned it that I considered myself too young for either position.

Someone wasn't listening: they went ahead and nominated me as deacon anyway. Whomever that was, thank you.

I am going to decline the honor. Even if we weren't having troubles at the church, I don't have time to do the job with the kids young. It is something I can see doing in 10 years, when they're in college and desperately trying to find ways to not come home and see Mom and Dad (unless they're broke, hungry, and/or out of laundry... ). For now, I have to focus on being a husband and father, and try to work on a college ministry somewhere when there is room to spare.

I forgot pictures, but I've been doing surgery on our laptop today.

We bought a Toshiba P35-S6111 a couple of years ago. We needed a laptop that was more desktop-py, and it fit the need. It's certainly a luggable.

There are several known flaws with the P35s. They clog their CPU fans with dust bunnies pretty quickly. I've had to invest in air cans to clean the coils off. Then, a couple of weeks ago the laptop quit charging.

The Internet is so nice. The plug on Toshibas of the P35 era break under any pressure, leading to problems like ours. Of course, our two-year support deal was over, so I was either looking at paying a couple of hundred to get someone else to fix it or I fix it. Duh.

As I mentioned, this problem is common, so there's a lot of plugs for sale on Ebay (and I buy one). I just have to unsoldier the old one, and soldier the new one in, without cooking the board.

It just took two Wal-Mart runs and three burns, but I did it. And then I gilded the lilly: I took the CPU fans and heat sink off and re-gunked the heat sink. The CPU is now wanting to stay hot, so I had to turn it down a notch (the games will LOVE that....).

When I get the new speakers in (did I mention I broke a speaker? oops...), I'll also have to redo the CPU heat sinks....

As I've mentioned before here, I am a Christian who enjoys playing poker. I have been playing free tournaments and freerolls for a while now. Once again, I've applied to play in PokerStar's freeroll Blogger Tournament.

My grandfather is recovering from the morphine-induced mania well, and you can hardly tell that he's had surgery. We're still trying to unwind from that fun.

Milady's brother-in-law has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. It still appears confined to the prostate itself, so they're very optimistic. He's talking with the specialists at Good Samaritan in Cincinatti about possibly having their robotic surgery team do his surgery. He would appreciate any and all prayers.

Politics bores me. I'm going to register Republican solely to vote for Ron Paul, even if a few of his answers concerning Islamic terrorists bother me. Otherwise, I refuse to think too much about the election until 2008.

I've also been typesetting a new book. More about that later in the month.

Finally, I haven't been blogging a lot because of problems at our church, Southern Acres Christian Church. We've had a lot of problems over the last several years. We failed to execute a land-buying program (for very good, God-led reasons). We transitioned to three different worship services with three styles. We have a new, VERY young minister. Then the elders and that same minister saw that we were running our volunteers to death trying to do three services.

Our older population had gotten very attached to their 8:30AM traditional service, but the elders and the minister said "No, we are going to have two services. Period.". Between the older people disgruntled at the changeover and those people who left with the old minister, we've gone down from 1200 people to around 700, and that includes the 110+ people we've added this year alone. Basically, our minister has replaced older rich people with younger, poorer people. As a result, our weekly offerings have dropped from $35k a week to $24k-$25k, and that's barely enough to make our payroll.

The blame here abounds. Our ministry staff often appears underworked, and are notorious for not being of use when people need help. The elders are executing changes without getting congregational buy-in, and are not willing to respond to concerns from the congregation. When people in the congregation bring up problems, they are told that the current way is the way things will happen, and to hush, but sometimes the item is then later quietly fixed.

The congregation has also not responded well. Complaints were lodged over trivial things. Anonymous, hateful letters have been sent to the minister and the elders. People have gotten mad and acted in un-Christlike ways. A committee of members was formed. Lifelong friends are refusing to speak. Many of the people I most respect in the church have had to leave.

I was also greatly upset by the appearance of Barry Cameron at our church. He is appearantly a financial guru in the Restoration Movement, having written a "Godly" finances book. (IMHO, he's not Dave Ramsey, but that's another discussion.) During his sermon, he mentioned that the church wasn't smart about money, at least McDonalds and movie theatres got their money in advance! As one of my co-workers mentioned, "I thought that simony was an obsolete sin." We would have left SACC immediately, except that he was a guest speaker, and we had some leadings that made us think the Holy Spirit was against a move. (At this point, those leadings have failed, so I don't think they're from God.)

Dysfunctional social situations wear me out. I have a hard time dealing with social situations anyway. I can't deal well with people who only take and don't give, and now my church is taking too. It's finally got me to where I'm not wanting to go to church.

If you can pray for our church, that the egos get turned off and they turn on to the directing of the Holy Spirit, I would appreciate it. I just don't think we can stay to see how things work out.

We are ranked eighth in the AP and USA Today polls, mostly because everyone other ranked (or formerly ranked) team in the country stinks (right, Jeff?).

Does UK have a serious chance at the BCS Championship game? Probably not. We shouldn't be outranking Florida, that's for sure. Not unless we beat them, at least.

The SEC is just murder on football teams. Florida, UK, and LSU could beat each other fairly consistently, but could take any other team in the country on any given night. UK could even have trouble with Tennessee at the end of the season (and boy, is that a turnaround). I don't think any SEC team will be able to go unbeaten to get to the BCS championship, and with things as squirrelly as they are this year, that could be the only thing that puts a team in.

It's just amazing that we've gone from the cellar of the SEC to a reasonable chance at a real bowl and an outside chance of BCS contention. Yes, it may have taken a weak year nationally to do it, but whatever it takes.

Last night, they set themselves well on the path to top-25 excellence. Now if they can just keep marching that way....

Yesterday, my grandfather went to the surgeon to find out when the surgery would occur. They ended up scheduling it for today.

He went into surgery at 12:50PM EDT. They expect that he'll be in ICU overnight, and longer if the surgery requires.

Please pray that he loses as little of his lung as is required for the cancer, and that it hasn't spread.

Update: 9/12 21:50: My grandfather is resting comfortably (albeit a bit groggy from the pain medicine). They removed the upper lobe of his right lung (about 40% of the lung), but as long as the lymph nodes are clear they will not recommend any chemotherapy.

For the last couple of days, my iMac G5 at work has been powering itself off randomly. It's been very dependable ever since the motherboard replacement to fix the bad video that the first generaton iMac G5s suffered, so to see it appearantly eating a power supply was disappointing. Resetting the SMU and the PMNU didn't help, and it died in the middle of the test CD run (so it wasn't software).

Then, I found a page that said to change power cords. Appearantly the power supply in them is very sensitive, and if the cord isn't pushed in 100%, or if there are problems with the cord, the machine can randomly shut off. I dragged an ugly (but heavy-duty) black cord out of the desk, and switched it after the last power-off. No more problems.

Apple's stock cord is sitting in my trash can, cut in three pieces, (NEVER leave a bad cord intact; someone will want to use it again.) and my iMac is happy. Hopefully, that's the only problem and my iMac can keep humming along happily.


Update: It wasn't the power cord. The power supply is dying. Fortunately, my employer bought AppleCare, so the repairman will be there in a day or two.

My grandfather went last Friday to have a biopsy on a suspected lung tumor. The doctor is preparing us for operable lung cancer, and there were some slight hints that he might even avoid chemo if the cancer is large cell. I'd love for the lump to be non-malignant, or even not even cancerous. It'd be a wonderful miracle to use to witness to him. Otherwise, healing would be nice.

Update: The lump is definitely cancer, but as long as it hasn't spread to the lymph nodes, they think it can be treated with surgery only. This is certainly a blessing in a rough situation.

(Hat tip to Captain's Quarters) Richard Jewell died yesterday, probably due to complications from diabetes.

IMHO, the FBI agent and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter(s) who leaked that he was a suspect should be given a fair trial for murder and then hanged. Jewell put himself in harm's way for hundreds of people and saved all but one of them. Because he was a "bubba" who lived with his mother, he had to be a psychopath who did the bombing. Some FBI agent had to be Deep Throat, and some Atlanta reporter had to be Woodward.

Richard Jewell didn't deserve what he got for his troubles.

The web server didn't like the storms Thursday. The DSL line didn't either, and I noticed that first.

Be patient, I'm working on it.

Wonderful news for my fellow Kentucky blogger, Jeff of Think Sink. The tumor found in his mother's brain was really just an abscess. She is expected to make a full and complete recovery.

Jeff, know that you, your wife-to-be, and your mother are still in our prayers.

Too bad the State Bar couldn't throw him in jail.

The bloggers have turned. LaShawn Barber, the Captain (of Captain's Quarters), Heading Right (seconded, and again, and again), Peggy Noonan, and even Karol over at Alarming News are stirred up.

I voted for George Bush because I believed that, as non-conservative he is, John Kerry was worse. If it weren't for the judges (and conservatives had to scream to stop Meyers), I would completely repent. As it is, John Kerry couldn't have been much worse.

We have a government that is bankrupt, a currency that's two or three steps away from toilet-paper hyperinflation, and an economy that is pushed against the wall by predatory undercutting by China and India. We don't need No Child Left Behind 2, Amnesty 2, or the Lizard Queen (a.k.a. Hillary).

King George had the perfect opportunity to do a drastic government overhaul at 9/11. He could have said "the Federal Government needs to defend us. We're building a fence at the borders, we're sending illegals home PERIOD, and we're going to focus on getting ourselves out of debt, off of oil, and getting competative overseas. The states will have to do roads, schools, and welfare, but the Federal Government is going to lower taxes enough to pay for it."

Did even one of these happen? No. Dr. Paul might do this, and Mr. Huckabee comes the closest after him. Otherwise, the rest (Democrats and Republicans alike) sound just like Roman senators arguing about which circus to change while the Visigoths are at the city walls.

A pox upon all their houses.

I've been noticing a hawk or falcon operating from around campus for several weeks now. Last week, Number One Son noticed the hawk resting on one of the antenna atop the Patterson Office Tower.

I was walking into work, and I noticed him flying around one tree. It seems that he is in fact a she, and she has two chicks in a nest near the Main Building.

I'm still working on pictures. Give me a bit of time.