This morning, one of the guys at work sent around a link to the Citroen C4 commercial (or here), that has a dancing transformer car, and another one with the Citroen as an Ice Skater. Now, this is of course, pretty darn cool, for the geeky minded, but apparently before Citroen did this, Mini Cooper did an ad with a Mini Cooper transformer robot, which at first got passed of as real, but was just a great marketing ploy. In any case, Mini Cooper lets you build your own transformer robot on their website, which is where my St. George Mini comes from.

What's interesting to me, is that only yesterday, after church, I helped Luke put together some Lego Robots, the Robo Platoon, so I've had two days of transformer type robots. Strange to me, because I normally don't think much about robots (of course, as I write this, I just got an email to play Robo Rally during lunch - there must be a conspiracy...). In any case, we realized while putting them together, that the people who spend time putting together the designs for Lego products are some incredible geniuses. It's nuts how many tiny pieces go into a little bitty Lego Robot, and how all of these pieces are interchangeable to make the next intricately moving robot. Like I said: geniuses.

Posted by Michael at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Abba Doulos, the disciple of Abba Bessarion, said: When we were walking along the sea one day, I was thirsty, so I said to Abba Bessarion, Abba, I am very thirsty. The old man prayed, and said to me, Drink from the sea. The water was sweet when I drank it. And I poured it into a flask, so that I would not be thirsty later. Seeing this the old man asked me, Why are you doing that? I answered, Excuse me, but it's so that I won't be thirsty later on. The old man said, God is here, and God is everywhere.
(Desert Wisdom)

Basically it boils down to, as he said it, Humility. How much are you willing to admit to people that you simply don't have? or can't do at the moment? You may have a car, but if the car is a drain on your personal economy, how willing are you to ride the bus, or ride your bike, or if there are certain other things you do regularly, like eat out, how willing are you to forego those and admit to people that your lunch is hidden in a brown bag? Humility.

Oh, and miracles. He also stressed the point of God's provision. Begin to pray for God to help clear debt, and be surprised how quickly God helps you to clear that debt. Because if you're changing your entire mindset, the way you view money, God will be more than happy to provide you with the necessary tools to move into freedom.

So, off I go, into the grand adventure, tightening my belt, and taking nothing but my sandals.

God is here, and God is everywhere.

Posted by Michael at 3:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Michael at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The following is a rather long - and yet still edited for length - excerpt from Brennan Manning's book entitled The Importance of Being Foolish. I like the way he writes, and the way he just tells it straight.

In a less obvious sense, the hunger for security is mostly a matter of our emotional programming. My feelings of insecurity are not a necessary consequence of external circumstances (such as a business recession) or the actions of other people. The power to achieve equanimity and stability lies within me. It is not at the mercy of whim, caprice, and unpredictable external forces. What keeps me feeling insecure are my addictive emotional needs, which must always be satisfied. When reality does not live up to my expectations, I become frustrated, angry, bitter, anxious and resentful.

For example, say you meet me on the street and tell me you found this book to be a complete waste of your time and money. Your criticism triggers my inside programming, and I sink into a swamp of sadness, self-pity, and depression. Reality has not lived up to my expectations. I anticipated at least constructive criticism, possibly appreciation, and maybe even praise. But you are not the one who has destroyed my inner equilibrium. I did that. Inordinately attached to my preconception of what I need to feel secure (in this case, your approval) and willfully convinced of the way the world should run, I have needlessly deprived myself of the fruits of the Holy Spirit and the abundant life that Jesus promised.

…

Just as the sunrise of faith requires the sunset of our former unbelief, our false ideas, and our erroneous and circumscribed convictions, so the dawn of trust requires the abandonment of our craving for material and spiritual reassurances. Security in the Lord Jesus implies that we no longer calculate or count cost.

The kind of trust that depends on the response it receives is a bogus trust, one based only in anxiety. In trembling insecurity, the believer pleads for and even demands tangible reassurances from the Lord that his affection is returned.

...

What the insecure Christian has not learned is that tangible reassurances, however valuable they may be, cannot create trust, sustain it, or provide any certainty of its presence. Jesus Christ calls us to hand over our autonomous selves in complete confidence. Only when that decision is ratified and the craving for reassurances is stifled are transparency, certainty, and peace achieved.
(pp. 60-62)

And if you want more of the same, I recommend: Ruthless Trust & The Signature of Jesus

Posted by Michael at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Last night, while sitting at home watching Voyager, and taking care of financial stuff, the power suddenly went out. Lately, because of the heat, apparently, this has not been so unusual. In fact, on Saturday our neighborhood was without power for 9 hours, and it's been out more than five times in the last 4 days, all for more than 2 hours each.

In any case, last night I decided to go and take a look and see who all was affected. The people directly outside my door had power, but everyone on my street had none. As I stood there, I heard a nice big "Bzzzzaaaat!" and the sky lit up white, illuminating a cloud of smoke that had started forming a ways off. Then again, "Bzzzzaaaap!" and more lights. It was like a fireworks show... only this was with the transistors powering the neighborhood.

I thought, "I should probably call someone, like fire, police, SoCal Edison...." Only one problem. My cell phone doesn't work near my house, my land line doesn't work without power, and I don't have a phone book to know who to call.

So I went inside, lit a few candles, and started reading. It would have been incredibly satisfying to read, if only the heat hadn't sucked the life out of me. My house was 90 degrees last night, and without power, I had no fan to create a draft, so I lay on my bed sweating like a pig. Oh, if only for some cold mud...

(I wish I could have gotten a photo of the fireworks.)

Posted by Michael at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

An incredible story of forgiveness.

Posted by Michael at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So, what to do when you've been assigned the task of writing a bulk email marketing program that tracks when a user opens an email, and keeps track of all the links that the user clicks on in the email? And by keeping track, I mean, by writing everything to a database, and by user, I mean round about 8,000 people.

Somehow, there is this vague notion that says that this might not be legal, except that it's completely legal. It's called marketing. We're not doing anything other than keeping track of when a message is opened, and when that same anonymous person - whoever they might be - actually clicks on a link. The whole point is to see what content gets people to click on links, and what links get the most hits from the email. A simple enough marketing ploy, and it was my job to implement.... so I grabbed the weapon my company gives me and typed away.

The most exciting part about all of this is that during the recent conference we had at work - which brought in people from major schools across the country to talk about fundraising and development concerns - I went to a seminar entitled "Field of Dreams: The Promise and Peril of e-Communications." In this seminar we learned what the UC Berkeley has done to implement email solicitations, and etc. It was good to hear new things. However, for me, what made me happy was the fact that several schools pay for a service to send emails out to their alumni and other donors. These services mail out an email to their donors, but do not provide any means of personalizing the email to make it more appealing to the recipient.

Our email marketing script personalizes the email, sends it out, tracks if the email was opened, and if a user clicked on any links, and what email marketing campaign these statistics refer to. In other words, we have a system that's more robust than what some other schools are paying for. Still, these schools are paying for it, which leads me to the only logical conclusion: I just killed "the middleman" for Caltech, and saved us some money. And this, of course, leads to another logical conclusion: Someone who wrote a script like I did just lost money. > If I were that other company, I would dislike people like me. Intensely. Because they would be keeping me from raking in large quantities of money for a small amount of work. > Wait a minute! Why am I not in business for myself?

Oh yes, I remember, because while the pay may not be exorbitant, it is consistent.

Posted by Michael at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This morning, following Morning Prayer on the Padre's patio (which, by the way, he does every weekday morning at 5:30am), I went to breakfast with Naomi at Tommy's Diner, where she filled me in on various and sundry tidbits, because, well, she "knows things." In any case, just before we walked into the diner, I noticed that I was getting a migraine, and this didn't make me so happy, since I don't like headaches. I figured it would be good to order a tall glass of water to get rid of this headache, but Tommy's water tastes like old, dingy house. The tea doesn't cover up the water flavor either, so after a short deliberation I figured, "Hey, I've got a headache already, why not get a coffee?" So I got coffee.

I spit on my allergy.

Now, the doctor has told me that drinking coffee would give me headaches, but what I've just recently figured out is that coffee actually stuffs up my nose, too. For most of my life I had a stuffy nose, until just recently, when my nose has cleared up on a regular basis. It seems the stuffy nose clearing up coincided with the non-drinking of coffee. The last two times I've had coffee - today being the second - I've had an almost instantaneous booger fest. Now I have one more reason to say that coffee is of the devil.

the day brightens...
In any case, after coming home and taking a quick half-hour nap, I headed off to work, where I gleefully went about my days tasks, so that I could hop on the tour bus to the Jet Propulsion Labs. I've worked for Caltech for almost 16 months now, and this is the first time that I've gotten to go and tour this NASA facility. On the tour, we saw a full-size working model of the Mars Rover, and got to see the Space Flight Operations Facility, where we watched real-time data come in from 13 different space craft, including Voyager I & II, Cassini, and the Mars Rovers.

Now, you have to understand. For a raving Geek, this is a huge perk of the job: getting to see nerdy stuff like computers tracking spacecraft, and mocked up versions of space vehicles, and pretty pictures of far-away planets...

Yup. Nerd heaven.

Loved it.

Wish I could work there with the space stuff.

Posted by Michael at 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Apparently, this has been in the news for quite some time now, except that I only just now got wind of it. And getting wind of it is right: this stuff stinks.

The Presbyterian Church USA just recently voted to rename the Trinity to various other metaphors that they say allow them to seek "fresh ways to speak of the mystery of the triune God" and to "expand the church's vocabulary of praise and wonder."

Now, while I would agree with the notion that we need to seek "fresh ways to speak of the mystery of the triune God" and to "expand the church's vocabulary of praise and wonder," I do not believe that it is in any way justified in changing the way we address the Trinity. When Jesus taught us how to pray to God, He used the word Father. Similarly, when God Himself sent the Holy Spirit down to earth in the form of a dove, He said "This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased." If the Trinity addresses each other with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then I think that we should too. Just a thought. (Sources: 1, 2)

Still, let's backtrack a moment. While I can understand the arguments for wanting to present the feminine qualities of God, I think that the ultimate goal, and ultimate driving force behind the PCUSA's change to the Trinity comes the panel's opinion that the limiting of the Trinity to Father and Son "has been used to support the idea that God is male and that men are superior to women." In other words, there are several deeply wounded women who have been trampled on by men. Granted, some men have overstepped their bounds and behaved like raving lunatics, standing on an idea of man's innate superiority, while in fact this idea works as a shield for their own insecurities. Granted. Nevertheless, this is still not a good enough reason to go against Scripture.

Now, if denominational demographics are any indicator, I think we might be able to put a finger on why the PCUSA may have ended up voting the way they did. Women tend to seek comfort and relationship when coming to church, and one of the issues women find important includes the Family and raising children in the Church (Mother-Child-Womb fits nicely here, doesn't it?). Now, according to their own demographic material, 58.6% of their denomination is comprised of women and almost 70% of their deacons are women. While men clergy still outweigh the women 2 to 1, you have to ask yourself what men will see when they walk into one of these churches: a sea of women, talking about a Mother God, surrounded, perhaps, by a few men who apologize for the destruction their gender has done to women in the name of a masculine Trinity. Sensitive, self-effacing men, who, in the end, are unwilling to stand for the Scripture.

Not very appealing to a man, I can tell you that.

Which is why, perhaps, only 35% of men attend church regularly. Quite simply, because they find the church too effeminate.

Of course, this isn't just a PCUSA problem, but a nation-wide problem. In part, I believe, to the softening of the Gospel message. The more we put on the soft gloves to smack people with - if we even smack them at all - the more likely we are to push people away from Church - men in particular. Men are wired strangely. A man will follow another man who will knock him on his ass - both figuratively and literally - then help him up, and say, "Now, what can you learn from this pain?" and " Let me help you get stronger." A soft Gospel is no gospel at all, and if we look at the trends in US theology, we find that what is preached is nothing but a soft Gospel.

The Word of the Lord, however, is intended to be sharp, dividing bone from marrow, such that anyone who hears it should be cut with sword that brings healing.

Posted by Michael at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

When you first come down the steps to my little basement apartment, you come across a strange concrete mass to your right, nestled among the trees and shrubs. Among further inspection, you realize that there can only be one explanation for this odd little room, and the explanation is not one you would want to dwell on.

Lucky for you, I have.

Or, actually, I've dwelt near it ... for almost two years now.

In any case, rather than giving you the gory history of this fancy little shack, I thought I'd give you the opportunity to view it in photo, so you can make up your own mind.

The Bleeding Shed

Posted by Michael at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Some of you might remember that I thought I lost a filling while on my trip to Mexico back in February. Actually, as it happens, the filling actually stayed in, but the tooth around it appears to have sheared off - or something like that - so that I ended up with a razor-sharp tooth inside my mouth. And, since my tongue likes to fiddle with the thing that's "not like the others," I've ended up scraping my tongue on that darn tooth for the last five months.

Anyway, today I went to the dentist to get this thing fixed. As soon as the chair went backward, my eyes went shut, and they just didn't seem to want to stay open, even though the Dr. was drilling away. Three times I fell asleep, and on the third time, I woke up with one of those whole-arm-twitch maneuvers, and a half a snort.

After it was all said and done, I managed a brilliant conversation with the Dentist: "Wow, that was so gentle, I fell asleep." His reply: "So I noticed."

I'm so cool.

Posted by Michael at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

So, when we left Texas, we drove those 950 miles to Tucson, where we spent a whole day with my sister, in her humble abode. The second night, Friday, we went to J-Nippon, a Teppan restaurant, where they cook the food right in front of you. That was fun, and good too. Unfortunately, the serving sizes were so huge, I couldn't finish it, and had to bring it home. I'd have liked to, because it was sooooo good. Oh well, at least we had a decent breakfast.

The drive from Tucson to Pasadena was rather uneventful, considering there's not much new to see. We didn't bother with photos either, since we've done this stretch together a few times - and I've done it almost 50 times by now, since my family lives in Tucson. So, off we went, with Stacia sleeping in the passenger seat, and me plugging away on I-10.

Since we were coming home on Saturday, the night for Laudate, we bypassed Pasadena altogether, and went straight to Santa Clarita to make it on time for Church. Sadly, we came late, but we made it anyway, and had a good time at the service. The worst part about coming home that Saturday is that we missed Nadia's birthday party - dress up like Cinderella. Still, after service we went to the Mski Hilton, and hung out with the Laudate regulars and the padre's family. That was a good time. Lot's of fun.

So, without further ado, here's the photos.

Posted by Michael at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, no hype this year.

I hardly knew it was even on.

No hype because Lance won it for the seventh year in a row last year, and then promptly retired. Sadly, the US takes very little interest in this sport unless we have a big name in the running.

In any case, here's the route, and here are the standings.

Posted by Michael at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While Stacia and I were visiting in Vernon, TX, we decided to take a hop, skip, and a jump over the Red River, and visit my friend Twilla in Olkahoma. As it turned out, Vernon is only about 45 minutes from Altus, Oklahoma, so it was a foregone conclusion that we'd go and say "Hey" to Twilla.

Twilla and I met in Seattle, where we both worked for Alaska Airlines. She managed to escape the insanity about a year before I did, but we kept in touch, while she went to work for various and sundry other places around Seattle. About five years ago, Twilla moved back to Oklahoma to be closer to her family, and so we've only managed to keep up via phone and email since then.

So, off to Oklahoma. When we got there, we met Twilla's friends, and then went for a quick tour of the city of Altus, to see where Twilla works (so when I call her, I'll have some kind of picture of what she's talking about), and went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant. Twilla footed the bill, which was muy bueno, and we then bought her coffee at Fred's Espresso, a nice place that "proudly serves Starbucks coffee." Just like my Mexico Trip, and Santana's Coffee, Fred apparently thought that the Starbucks logo could potentially work for him.... Then, after coffee, it was off to the park, where we pretended to be intrepid adventurers, and finally, we said goodbye to Twilla, and her house.

The time with the grandparents was good. Stacia calls them, "the most peaceful people she knows," and I agree with her. They're completely laid back, and just downright easy to talk to and be around. I spent a good many hours in conversation with Granddad, talking everything from theology to power tools. For the most part, we hung out at the house and talked with them, rested, and then even went out to eat. It was truly a relaxing time.

One Wednesday night we went to church with Grandma and Granddad, and then came home and got ourselves ready for the grand adventure drive home. This time around, rather than taking only two major interstates, we decided that we would go the northern route, through Albuquerque. The cool thing is, that the way the route runs, we actually had to take a left turn at Albuquerque (I hate to say it, but Stacia had not idea what I meant. Made me feel old. But I'm not that much older.). Ok, but back to the task at hand. On our route, we went through Amarillo, TX, and found our way to The Big Texan, where you can get a free 72oz. steak - provided you eat it in one hour, or less. Seventy-two ounces of steak is mighty big. My calculator runs it out at 4 1/2 pounds of meat. I'm not even sure my stomach could hold that much food at one time. Still, if you don't make it, you pay the price: $72 + tax for the dinner. Apparently 1 in 8 people actually manages to get the free meal, and their name put into the "roll me home" book of Big Texans.

So, enough with the babbling. On with the show.

Posted by Michael at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Free speech, so long as you aren't a Christian: District pulls plug on speech: Foothill valedictorian criticizes decision to censor her proclamation of faith

Posted by Michael at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, the long awaited photos are here. At least part one of them anyway. The part where we drive from Los Angeles, CA to Vernon, TX in two days, and cover almost 1400 miles in a little silver Hyundai.

The first day we only drove about 450 miles to Tucson, where we spent the night with my sister. When we got there, we went to a nice Mexican restaurant and got some good food, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Day two began bright and early - again - and set us up for a long day: I think the total drive time the second day was 15 hours, and about 945 miles. Weee! The thing that made it really exciting was stopping off at Cracker Barrel for lunch. If you're on a road trip, don't pass up good eats like this.

Anyway, since there's not much to say, other than "Yes, I-10 is long," let's get on to the photos.

Posted by Michael at 1:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So I just finished the last season of Deep Space Nine, which I started after I finished Star Trek: The Next Generation. Or, actually, I started it after season 3 of Star Trek: Voyager, because I decided that I wanted to save a spaceship series for last, over a series set on a space station. But now, I think I should have watched Voyager first.

See, on Deep Space Nine, since it was a space station, the writers were able to work with larger themes, and longer story arcs, since characters could potentially be 'in the area' and return to the station on a consistent basis. And, because the backdrop included a civilization that was recovering from occupation, and dealt with spiritual issues, the writers were able to delve into some great story lines that spanned several seasons.

On a space ship you can't do that. You've got your crew, and each week you meet various new aliens and civilizations, and they are only around for that episode, while the crew deals with the crisis of the day. The crew provides the only overarching story arc, which limits the amount of themes that can be brought up. For instance, Deep Space Nine, because it deals with the highly religious and faithful Bajoran people, can deal with issues of faith, religious duty, religious convictions, and religious politics, while Voyager, or The Next Generation, can only deal with ethical issues, as everyone on the ship is a believer in nothing more than science.

Still, it won't keep me from finishing out seasons 4-7 of Voyager. Can't stop something I started without finishing it and all...

Posted by Michael at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)