Sunday, October 14, 2007

I bombed the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker

I thought my pocket 8s had the other fellows pocket 10s beat. Of course they didn't....

It's really hard for me to care. UK beat LSU. :)

Update: I think the BCS rankings are probably closest to "right". They have LSU 4th, South Carolina 6th, and UK 7th. The AP poll is close, but the USA Today poll has UK at 13th, which is IMHO too low.

There is just too much parity out there. Any of the "top twenty" teams could beat any of the others on any given night.

Things are just plain wrong when UK's football team is ranked significantly higher than Tennessee.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Conn Terrace is under control

When I attended UK, my first apartment sat at 111 Conn Terrace Drive, near the UK Medical Center and Waller Avenue. It was a big student neighborhood then, and it's a bigger one now. (My old apartment is now under the new UK parking garage...) After UK's amazing win over LSU in football (I think I screamed for three minutes straight), Milady wanted to drive down and see if there was any roudiness.

After UK's win over Louisville, a bunch of partying students tossed around trash and burned furniture down on Elizabeth Street, which is behind Conn Terrace. The police didn't like this, and promised to stop it.

We got down to where Press Avenue turns into Elizabeth Street. We passed one drunk pedestrian, but everything else was quiet. And then we saw why.

In a three square block area, we passed 2 horse-mounted officers, 6 bike cops, 7 cruisers, and 5 cops on foot. Based on the side-street ac tivity, there had to be 50 officers in the area. Every student in the area was sitting on porches or the yards like the Culhanes. They wanted to throw a rip-roaring party, and they couldn't with at least three cops in view at all times. Poor students.... ;)

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Turning down an honor

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.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Taking apart a laptop

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....

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Playing Poker

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.

Online Poker

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 8459745

Been worn out

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 fai led 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 b eing 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 mentio ned 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.


(If you are from Southern Acres, or are upset t hat I'm responding in a pseudononymous fashion, Email me. I'll be happy to "pierce the veil" or say more in public. I have talked to at least one elder about most of the contents of this message, and nothing has happened.)

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

UK STILL has a football team

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. :)