It’s been forever…

…or at least it feels like it. In fact, it’s been so long that my preferred blogging tool, Scribefire, has updated two or three times since I last used it. I like some of the new features, but if you’re not into Firefox and Scribefire you probably don’t care And if you do use them….well, you probably already know about them.

Work continues to be a struggle for me, but I continue to make it through. I’ve been with this company for almost three years now, and I rarely take vacation (partially as a security measure) so I decided to take some. Last weekend I took two extra days off and went to my in-laws’ cabin in Northern Michigan. We had a GREAT time, and I was able to relax and reset myself. We didn’t have many plans, so we could take our time and just rest. We ended up going rafting one day, and kayaking the next, which was a LOT of fun! I’d love to get some kayaks for us, but they’re expensive! Even Brooke is able to paddle her own all by herself, and I was surprised! I mean, she’s 6 years old! Yikes!

We’re still fighting debt, and we’re down to our last non-mortgage debt. We’ve lost a little steam lately because it’s summer, and there are so many things to do. Kinda makes us wish we had more money to do more fun things. But then again, that’s why we’re getting out of debt. We’ve got to remember how much more fun we could have if we didn’t have a $200 car payment! We’re hopeful we’ll be out by the end of summer, but that is fast approaching, and I think we might not hit it. We really need to engage the debt snowball more, and start using the money we’ve freed up from other debts to attack the car.

When we were in Cadillac this weekend, we decided we wanted to go to a church up there. Not having any personal recommendations, we cracked open the phone book and found a page and a half of listings for churches! The bummer part is that our fellowship doesn’t have a gathering up there, so we kinda had to guess based on names. We really just wanted a church that was Bible-based and sound. We ended up choosing Independent Bible Church. I couldn’t find anything out about them on the web except their service times, but we tried them anyway.

When we got there, everyone was very friendly, and wanted to introduce themselves. That was very welcoming. the church reminded us exactly the churches we grew up in. Traditional brown brick building, conservative service, pews, hymns, the whole deal. But it also seemed like the speaker (not sure if he was an Elder or Deacon or just a member, but the Pastor was on vacation) wanted to help them be more relevant. he used a laptop with a projector, and had a nice slideshow for song lyrics, and even a PowerPoint to go along with his study.

The problem was, it was like putting a video arcade in a nursing home. Something just doesn’t fit. I think they may be on the right path, but the reality is that a large part of the congregation was older, and probably likes to worship the same way they’ve worshiped for many years. is there anything wrong with that? No. Is there anything wrong with wanting to change to be more relevant to the community and a new generation? If it’s led by God, then no. The point is that those two groups just may not be the best to have in the same service. There is nothing wrong with having a traditional service and a contemporary service. In fact, in many ways it’s better. The form of worship is of much less importance than the object of worship and the quality of teaching.

As far as the teaching goes – it was solidly grounded in the Bible. It was a good message, and the teacher went verse by verse through one passage. While it wasn’t particularly invigorating, it was sound, and we could appreciate that. It goes to show how God can change your heart when you can listen to a less-than-invigorating teacher and not fall asleep .

All-in-all, we miss our church, and look forward to being back there this week. We especially miss the people there. The ones who know us and support us and have invested their time with us. It’s like a sweet aroma.

Over-Censorship

Sometimes our own protection can get in our way. I won’t be launching into a tremendous rant on the authority of government or Homeland Security or police protection in our lives tonight though. I’ll start with something much simpler.

A while back, I started to protect my network with a service called OpenDns. Their site is at OpenDns.org. They provide free protection to your home network by re-routing your internet requests through their servers. If there is content you don’t want to come through, they’ll block it. The nice part for me is that I can set up my router to use the service, and it automatically protects all computers accessing the internet through it. This is especially helpful if I have guests over.

The service allows you to block different categories of websites from coming through – like gambling, pornography, or even online dating or game sites. The only problem is, sometimes it can be a bit too restrictive. For instance, Flickr has been categorized with the “nudity” flag. That mean that I can’t access my pastor’s pics on my network, even though they are FAR from pornographic.

Fortunately, the site lets you customize things down to the tee, so I can add Flickr to my “safe” list and even block out other sites I don’t like that aren’t automatically blocked. The point is, has protection ever gotten in your way?

Life and other foibles

Things have been interesting lately for me. I turn to my blog for it’s original concept: a log on the web.

Yesterday I was tasked with training a new contracted employee at work. This required that we drive around to different sites, and he watch what I do, and ask questions. We had 6 sites on our plate, and everything was going pretty well…until….

We got to the fifth site, and as I drove down the street immediately preceding the site, I noticed a little noise, and a strange “feel” in the steering of my car. When I turned into the parking lot, the car made a very bad sound. Ever ride a roller-coaster run by a chain? It has that kind of “clink-clink-clink” sound as you approach the top of the hill? That’s what my car sounded like. Oi.

The car is a 1999, so it isn’t all that old, and it only has 130,000 miles on it. And I had the transmission replaced last year. But I think it’s something in the transmission making that noise, and I don’t like it.

Needless to say, I was somewhat embarrassed. Here I am training someone who works for me, and my car has a fairly significant failure out of the blue. Bummer. He got a ride home from his brother who lived in the area, and I had a couple great friends make the hour-long drive to pick me up. Oh yeah, I forgot to say I was an hour from home when this happened. So my car spent the night there, and I have to figure out how to get it home today, and what shop it is going to when it gets here.

This post is more for me than you I suppose. It helps me to lay everything out and organize it mentally. Last night when I got home I could barely function. It just kind of hit me with a disappointment about the whole thing. What a silly thing to be down about. It’s just a car. I’ll be able to get it fixed, and it will be back on the road soon. Maybe it was just one more thing at the end of a long day for me. So while I didn’t have the energy or motivation to even respond to emails or check the updates in my Google Reader, I was able to clean our family room, which was long overdue.

Do you ever notice that when things are stressful, sometimes the simple things are the best things you can do? Sometimes you just need to be able to clean, or read a book, or relax in a hammock. It gives you that small sense of control over your surroundings I think. It lets you know you can handle something at that moment, even though it isn’t the big problem. Sometimes cleaning (or reading or mowing the lawn, or, or, or…) can be therapeutic. Just those simple actions.

It actually makes me slow down just a bit, and maybe that’s why I’m going through this.I know things will get better, and the car will get fixed, and I’ll move beyond this moment (after all, it came to pass). I just pray that I learn what I am meant to learn through this, and that I don’t miss the message. I’m truly blessed to have my wife, and good friends to help me out in times like this though.

What the heck is a foible anyway? It just sounded right.

Work

Ahh work. Thank God I have a job, but sometimes it gets on my nerves

Then again, I’m so dedicated to the company that I’ll probably be working this afternoon, even though I technically have it off. The boundaries of work and home time blur significantly when you are a salaried employee.