here’s life

According to many, not going to church is short-changing yourself. Others hold that skipping church or Sunday school makes others miss out as well. By careful scheduling, I mistreated myself and two churches yesterday.

The sermon at the first church was about leadership in the church, and after a recitation of a passage in Matthew, the pastor drew parallels between the pharisees and themselves. “We don’t have raised seats…” (gestures toward the platform they are standing on) “…well, they aren’t raised much.” The question was raised, If we are all brothers and sisters, and are not to be called “Teacher” (per Matt 23:8) why are we pastors employed by the rest, do most of the teaching and pretty much run the church? Well, pastors are given training to better do what they seem to be gifted in (I got the feeling it was a matter of specialization for practicality and convenience). We were then shown that we had a part in most of what a pastor does, and we needed to step up and do it, because the members of the church are going to be there long after pastors have come and gone. I thought of YAC, and Impact, and how when people, decide to be active and accomplish things.

I left before Sunday school, and went town the road to the second service of the other church. Some of the people I know from there had gone to the first service and were now going out for lunch, so I missed fellowshipping with them. I stayed and listened to another installment in a series on Radical Christianity (radical: of or proceeding from the root). The text was from Ezekiel 34 (ministers who are munching mutton instead of feeding the flock are going down) and the good old story of Korah, Dathan and Abiram continued through God’s confirmation of Moses’s authority. This sermon had a great deal of scripture in it, and focused more on the chain-of-command in the kingdom of God: God>pastor>churchpeople. Obedience was stressed as a necessary ingredient to seeing God work among us. All done in an almost conversational oration.

There was a focus on authority (from God) as being important, and necessary for having power. Having artificial authority without God to back you up is not a fun place to be.
We don’t have to worry about bad leaders–God will take care of it. We were shown what happened to Korah and his friends when they said that the rest of Israel were just as special as Moses, Aaron—Korah et al were Levites, no less, and they were complaining even though they already were part of the priesthood. We saw how God protects His leaders from the people, and His leaders constantly try to protect the people. I was struck by how stubborn we are: It was pretty obvious who was in charge by the way those who stood against Moses got consumed by fire, and swallowed by the earth. Yet, the next day the people are saying that the Administration is responsible for the death of the people. And once again, Moses has to intercede for the people and sends Aaron out to stop the Plague’s body count at a mere 14,700.
Fire! Earthquake! hmmm, maybe we should listen to Moses. (eventually they responded, incorrectly: “we’re all gonna die!“)

All in all, it was an interesting Sunday, getting two sermons, each based in scripture, that seemed to look at different facets of the way the church is run. First was the progressive, Democracy type church model, and then the more theocratic hierarchal system. The priesthood-of-all-believers versus obey-the-leaders-God-has-put-over-you. I know which country makes me feel more comfortable.

It turns out there are things to do in Wichita. Other than sit in my apartment. Today I went to a 2-cylinder John Deere tractor show/swap meet. I wouldn’t have gone, but one of my former roomates who lives in Jamaica was going to see it, so I figured it was worth the drive to the other side of town. There was lots of old pieces of cast iron, as well as shiny assembled pieces of metal. Since many decades of tractors were represented, I got to see a progression from extremely simple (engine, radiator, transmission, wheels–”I could make that”) to much more complex (hydraulics, electric, wires and levers and hoses–”How did they get all those parts to work at once?”)–still much more simple than your car. There was an “All-fuel” tractor with an electric starter on a 4 cylinder gas engine, that started a 2 cylinder engine that, as suggested by it’s name, would burn pretty much anything.

There was also a section that was dedicated to Merchandising. They had John Deere hats, and shirts and signs and collectible toy tractors and any thing else that would make people think of the “good old days” enough that they could turn a profit.

After looking at everything (again) we had lunch and then went to a tool store on the other end of town. It was closed, but we walked around and looked at the dozens of types of trailers they had for sale.

It was good to see J5 again and hear how things are going, as well as meet his brother, who, incidentally, went to RBC with mine. It seems odd that I needed someone to come from out of the country to tell me what sort of things are happening in my city. And there is more than just this tractor show, there are airshows and cool stores and museums.

It was inspiring to spend a day with people who farm, in an environment (onstensibly) focused on farm implements. I need a couple acres in which to muck about. Farming for a living is a life, and it isn’t easy, but can I improve mine and others quality of life, while saving some money by growing some food?

…especially those of us who cannot run or hide from chainsaw wielding agents of a darker world. Who choose not to shy away from or fight the envoys of death. Those of us who stay at our post, solemn and still, until we can not stand anymore. Who bring to others shelter from the blistering summer, but pass on from above the warming winter rays . Move only in the wind, feeding off the breath of the more mobile. And even when dead provide warmth and shelter to others, possibly the very ones who brought about our demise.

I took this tree for granted, which swayed outside my window until today. I hardly noticed it’s presence, until I came home to find it’s severed trunk piled lazily on the grass. It was just another part of my life that slowly brought joy and life into my wreckless existence. I will enjoy the grass while it lasts, it speaks much better than the burnt, hard earth that may replace it tomorrow.

Ok, just some quick pictures of my mouse and saucer. Here is the mouse, under the glass, under the saucer, nicely hanging on.

Here is the mouse with it’s button levers and the bottom of the saucer with the cloth (to make it slide) pulled back so you can see the array of magnets that match some of the magnets I put inside the mouse. The center one holds the mouse ball against the glass, since gravity isn’t helping us out.
The multiple magnets keep the mouse oriented correctly and make sure that it slides along.

And a side view of the mouse and saucer. All of these are in my kitchen because the lighting is much better there–and my camera is very picky.

I plan to glue a magnet or two to the bottom, or bottom edge of the cup, allowing me to manipulate the mouse buttons, by way of the magnets on the ends of the button levers. I will simply move the cup over them to click the buttons.

Epoxy is cool.
I also need to cut away parts of my frame to leave room for the mouse to move–and plug into the motherboard.

Thanks to a suggestion by the winner of the 41 Scholarship, and declaration of it’s impossibility by aduma, I am attempting to make a table that runs linux. I have mounted the computer and monitor, and now I just need to wire it all up and get some cloth to put under the glass top. The next hard steps are picking out the cloth at walmart, and getting the computer to boot without a keyboard–I didn’t make allowance for the cables.

But I don’t think that now is the time to go to walmart, so I will go to bed.

Here is the monitor in the table, which is on a lazy-susan bearing thing, so the whole thing can rotate for flexibility in viewing direction.

It became cold today. In a way that makes me think that it means it this time. I had some Granny Smith apples, but they were too sour to eat for midafternoon snack–I didn’t even try. But, I thought, wouldn’t some apple pie be good? Or better yet, some apple dumplings! So, I bought some brown sugar and a few more apples. I cored the apples (pretty hard with a knife, without cutting it open) And I stuffed butter and brown sugar into the resulting hollow in the apples. Next I mixed up some pie crust–pretty simple: butter, flour and then milk (I put in a little baking powder as an experiment). Rolled it out flat, wrapped each apple, and they are baking now. I have been scooping up the resulting juice and pouring it over the top of the apples every so often. It didn’t seem to have enough liquid, so I added too much. Baking sugar/apple/butter into the crust makes it oh, so delectable. Now I need some icecream to eat it with, but alas.

I had a good weekend. You can read all about it at aduma’s blog.
This saves ink, but I should give you the things I thought important, in case aduma doesn’t cover them.
The drive was cool–all night, but I got a chance to catch up with aduma, although I had used up most of my stories on my blog, or on Impersonal Messenger; first time I have left somewhere and kept up with my friends from there.
It was cool to just be back, not have classes, but be able to walk into a room whose occupant wasn’t there, and act like it was my own room, and go to sleep.
It was good to see that the place didn’t fall apart without me, (suprize!) but seemed to do quite well with it’s new management.
I enjoyed Grey’s Tech Support Hotline.
Church was cool as always, nice mix of songs, good solid teaching.
Bubble’s house was quite a winner. If I lived in town, I would want to live there.
It was helpful to see people again and recalibrate my sensibility and saneness.

I guess that is about all that floats to the surface of my autocentric reality.
Now, I am off to read aduma’s post, and get the rest of the story.

Most of you know I spent this weekend in Longview. We got there friday morning, in time for a nap and then chapel. I got to see the climax of the Fall Fest week, and people I had missed for months. Things had changed, things had stayed the same.

Today I changed the oil in my car. It had been oh so long, and I am thinking about doing some driving this weekend, and at 230,000 miles, it could use all the help it can get. I also cleaned it some–which mostly consisted of removing the topsoil with a shovel. I went to start it up, to get the oil into the filter and,,,it just cranked and cranked. Oh, no, I thought, it is not good to have a car that suddenly stops starting when you are driving 9 hours the next day…
So, I poked around under the hood, wiggling hoses and such–though I know it isn’t the hoses. Then I realized that when I replaced the air filter, I pulled the coil wire loose, and suddenly my car is as reliable as ever.

I was reading a site this evening–a collection of stupid user tech-support stories. It was fun to laugh at the total ignorance of some people–especially when they think they are so knowledgeable. But while the “cup-holder” jokes are funny, it really isn’t that suprising that people would have trouble with computers, and actually doesn’t show them to be all that stupid.

Imagine you bought a house and found that when you adjusted the thermostat, the water in the kitchen started running. Your sense of reality would be challenged. It wouldn’t take you long to notice that the toilet didn’t flush, but how long before you realized it was actually opening the bedroom window. One day you lean against the wall before turning on the coffee pot, and you fall through it, into a thornbush and get hit by an errant cricket ball. How long before you tried anything but what was clearly written in the directions–if you dared to open a book? And then imagine that it isn’t a house at all but actually a giant rubber chicken filled with marshmallow cream. When things happen that you don’t understand, and you can’t get things to happen except by arbitrary complex demanding steps, frustration would quickly cause you to seize up. Take this example of “user stupidity”:

…When he wrote the instructions to the sales representatives on how to do this he got the letter back from one of the regional offices with complaints. His original instructions read like this:

From the File menu, select OS-Shell. This will make your screen look like this: C:\SPS\WIN

Now type DOWNLOAD to…, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc.

The hand-written remark on the sheet of paper was, “These instructions are incorrect and cannot be followed! Right after C:\SPS\WIN, a strange bracket (>) pops up and it will not go away!”

Funny how they didn’t know about $p$g. But could they really expect things to work even if the directions aren’t followed verbatim? Not after the ear-full the collective user heard after this:

….
Tech Support: “Hmmm. The file’s there in the correct place — it can’t help but do something. Are you sure you’re typing I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the Enter key?”
Customer: “Yes, let me try it again.” (pause) “Nope, still ‘Bad command or file name’.”
Tech Support: (now really confused) “Are you sure you’re typing I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the key that says ‘Enter’?”
Customer: “Well, yeah. Although my ‘N’ key is stuck, so I’m using the ‘M’ key…does that matter?”

As I attempt to learn new systems at work, I run into this all the time—did I press enter and then yes, then select the file, then press yes twice, or not at all, to confirm—depending on how I am opening the file? And how was it if I didn’t want to lose all my work?

User interface should be simple and succinct, but it also needs to be consistent, so it can be learned. Otherwise, your world will fall apart. Hey, better close the fridge door before someone sits down on the couch–you don’t want your lights to burn out, do you?