Good articles

Worship Evangelism
It's about "worship evangelism" as the thing has been come to be known - "if your church has a cool and hip worship service, (or service in general) then the unchurched and unsaved will come."

Banned Comic
This is about an Opus comic strip that got banned by quite a few newspapers. Like Veith says - it's quite a bit easier on Muslims than the comic usually is on Christians.

After I forwarded the first on to my pastor, he wrote back and I'm putting up two things he said:

"I thought I was the only one who didn't have a clue about how to reach the unchurched. It appears that even the megachurches and so-called experts really haven't reached them either."

I'd beg to disagree - you do very well in encouraging us toward personal witness. I'd say it's more my/our own reticence and timidity in speaking to others and inviting others to church.

"This is the first time I saw anyone mention in print that portable church setup can cause fatigue."

A fact of life which we struggle(d) with quite a lot. We've got a lot of fantastic people who are willing, even gladly most of the time, to help set up 52 weeks a year. Maybe you could write a "Starting a Portable Church for Dummies" book.

A Clogging-full Weekend

An exhausting, but very enjoyable weekend! We had two clogging performances this weekend - one in PA and one much closer to home, at Lucketts. I can remember a clogging performance in Purcellville that was on a humid 90+°F day, no a stage without any shade or canopy. THAT was the hottest clogging performance I've ever done. This weekend tied for a very close second and third! Saturday's was in a town with solid asphalt around, but it was at 11:00, so it hadn't reached full temperature for the day. Sunday's was at 3:00 in a grassy area with a few trees around. (very few) I have to give the 2nd Hottest Clogging Performance Award to Sunday's performance, but only by a very skinny hair!

J thoroughly enjoyed both performances. Well, maybe not the performances, but the fairs where the performances were. Corn on the cob at the PA fair along with kettle corn! Big strawberry smoothies! Hand paintings! Moon bounces! Little alien fuzzball toys! Playgrounds! Yeah, a very good time!

I also came up with a new bedtime story for him that he seems to have adopted as his favorite - the police, the mouse, the mouse-trapper, and the robber. I told it 3 times this weekend! Most of my stories don't get repeat requests, so this one must have made an impact! Maybe I'll develop it into a series for him - every night gets a new episode in the adventures of the Police Station Mouse!

I can't remember (and I'm too lazy to look back through my posts) if I've mentioned this before, but our church is thinking of joining with another church over in Purcellville. They're a bit smaller than we are, don't have a pastor right now, but do have a nice building. We're a bit larger, have a great pastor, but don't have a permanent building. It sounds like a good possibility, but none of us have heard anything particular from the Lord on this, so we're spending a lot of time in prayer. We've done a couple meet-and-greets with their church, and there are a few questions each group has about what the other group expects and is like. Right now we're planning on having several joint services, some at their church and some at our location, and see how things progress.

Anyway, lots of prayer is needed for this as neither church body would fair well, or possibly even survive, if we joined and then had an acrimonious split. Any time two groups join up, there are always frictions, and if those frictions are not handled well or are about basic foundational issues, it is more likely than not the groups won't remain joined together. Like I said - lots of prayer.

This poor guy!

This is a story that you wouldn't believe if it were sent to you in an email, but this is from a person I "know" through the Internet. He posted this about his trip from Canada down to Comic-con. INCREDIBLE!

The Trip To Indianapolis (Warning: This bit gets VERY complainy and ranty. If you don't want to read my whining, then skip onto the section called "My American Experience".) Danielle and I made a decision to never again travel great distances on a bus. I mean, we were expecting cramped seats and rough nights trying to sleep while sitting up, but what we found was much worse than anything we'd expected. Firstly, there are always more passengers than there are seats and if you fail to be one of the lucky ones to catch one of those seats, you're looking at a 3-24 hour wait for the next one. Remember that scene in the Titanic where everyone is trying to get on a lifeboat and there aren't enough boats for everyone? Well it's like that but with luggage. Also, most of the drivers and other staff members hate you. I'm serious. I haven't been sworn at, yelled at and pushed around that much since high school. Then there was the driver who pulled over in the desert outside Kansas City, turned to us and said "your replacement driver will be here shortly" and drove away in a waiting car. That replacement driver never showed up. When we explained our situation to the driver of the next bus that arrived 4 hours later, he loaded all of our luggage onto his bus and then realized that he only had room for four of us (there were about 30 stranded passengers). After some yelling happened between him and some hot and thirsty passengers, he got mad and drove away with our luggage while we screamed for him to stop. The next day, some passengers (including Danielle and I) were lucky enough to find our luggage laying unprotected on the floor of the next station when we arrived. Others lost some or all of their luggage. But before this incident was the blown tire. The metal belt in the tire blew off in the Idaho desert and we sat amoungst the cacti as the driver of that bus spent two hours trying to get ahold of the company's emergency maintenance line. Apparently, no one was answering. Once he'd made contact with them, he was told that it'd take another couple hours before they could get anyone out to us to repair the tire. When the repair truck arrived, the whole process took ten minutes and we were on our way once again. I watched a passenger get kicked off the bus in some small town somewhere because he was clicking the foot rest with his shoe which apparently annoyed the driver a lot. I watched an old mexican man get refused entry onto another bus because the driver became frustrated with the fact that he didn't speak English and couldn't answer her questions. We drove away, leaving him staring at the departing bus in bewilderment, not having the slightest idea why he was refused entry. Here are some phrases that I said at various points during my trip which are likely to get you removed from the bus or refused entry... (This one was tried at a rest stop while the driver was on the phone.) "Hey driver, you have to come quick, there's a very old man on the bus who's trying to get down the stairs, but he's fallen and I think he may have seriously hurt himself! He's also having some sort of mental attack and keeps periodically forgetting where he is!" The driver actually laughed and said "Yeah okay, I'll get there as soon as I can" I ran back to the bus to tell the others that he was coming as soon as he could. Fifteen minutes later, he walked across the road and got himself a nice dinner at the truck stop there. I'm not making this up. Other passengers on the bus ended up helping the older man who seemed to be okay for the most part. He met up with family the next day and I think he's going to be okay. (This little gem was tried by me a couple times before I started to learn that it's best to keep my mouth shut.) "Hey, don't yell at her/him like that." It makes things worse, trust me. (I tried this one only once, but later caught some other passengers trying it too.) "Excuse me, the bus was late and I missed my connection, what should I do now?" If you can make it all the way through that sentence before you get snapped at or yelled at, then congratulations, you've won! I got yelled at somewhere around the word "connection" but some other passengers did better than I did. Then there was the driver who got lost, the driver who gave us ten minutes to grab food at the fourth McDonalds in a row, then pulled over in front of a steak restaurant and left us on the bus wondering what was going on while he ate his meal. And the bathrooms... y'know, I think I won't bother talking about bathrooms. After typing all of this out, I'm realizing how much it sounds made up. But it all really, really happened. I should be fair and point out that although most of the drivers and staff were like pissed off bullies, there were some incredibly helpful folks too. There was the rare driver who really wanted to help everyone get to where they were going and keep us informed. Each staff member behind a desk that made us smile or laugh, was a breath of fresh air.

It's the End of the World As We Know It

Sorry for all the news articles recently. For whatever reason, I seem to be on a Science kick with a Theology side dish.

Science:
This story (Gaping Hole Found in Universe) is cool for interests' sake. A massive blank area of space, estimated to be a billion ly across! I am looking forward to the theories spun out to try to explain this! I wish I had some myself.

This actually sounds suspiciously like a book I read a couple months back The Eternity Artifact by L. E. Modesitt. I'll go ahead an spoil this for you. It seems that an alien race developed near the beginning of the universe when "dark energy" was much more concentrated. (Yeah, I know. Bizarre, but hey! It's sci-fi.) They required "dark energy" to live, and realized that as the universe expanded that it was becoming less and less concentrated. So they created a new, stable with concentrated dark energy, universe and moved their galaxy into it. The story is actually of humans studying one of their artifacts and finding all that stuff out.

I'm working on The Fabric of the Cosmos now. It's some VERY good stuff!

Theology:
The Apocalypse Code by Hank Hanegraff. I got it and read it and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's not an end-times predictor, but rather a critique of the end times theory-theology popularized by LaHaye's Left Behind series. The biggest drawback about the book is that that he REALLY doesn't like LaHaye and it comes across, loud and clear! He needs to tone it down!

That aside, he gives a lot of very good criticisms against the computer-chips-are-the-mark-of-the-beast, end-of-the-world theology. As far as I can tell, he would support a partial-preterist position. i.e most of the prophecies given by Jesus, Paul and John in Revelation were given to the church dealing with the events of the first century AD - the great persecutions and the destruction of Jerusalem. ("preterist" - comes from the idea of "already happened". "partial-preterist" = part/many of the prophesies were fulfilled, mostly in the great persecution of the early church, and in the destruction/slaughter of Jerusalem and the Temple)

But the book isn't focused on supporting a particular position, rather it promotes a solid and valid method of studying end-times theology, and the Bible in general. It aims to do this while critiquing the "newspaper theology" style of Bible study.

As always, it is much easier to critique than to support, but LaHaye truly does offer up a HUGE target with all the bizarre interpretations he makes. While claiming to be "literal" in interpretation, LaHaye is only "literal" when it agrees with his ideas. Not to mention that LaHaye is literal with things that are obvious metaphors. Those are the easy shots, and HH takes them with gusto. (Like I said, HH REALLY doesn't like LaHaye's theology!)

When he starts promoting a particular understanding of the Bible, he gets a bit shaky in places, but it's not the shakiness of ignoring or glossing over known problems - it's the shakiness of making assertions with only quick supports. On a couple of the areas about which I'm familiar, I know that there truly are solid supports underlying his assertions. In a couple other areas, I have some questions, but they aren't questions that I think are unanswerable.

The short of it - a good introduction book to studying end-times theology, and a good book at publishing the junk of the Left Behind style "theology".

Cool factoid/thing I found was that the whole moon-sun-and-stars-are-darkened statements in Revelation are repeated elsewhere in the Bible: at times when judgment is declared on a nation in the OT. One of the statements of Babylon's judgment has an almost word-for-word description of the sun, moon and stars being darkened in the day of judgment as Revelation uses. Were they literally darkened during the years when the empire of Babylon was collapsing? No. It was a metaphor.

I've got the greenhouse gasses blues!

Norway's Moose Population in Trouble for Belching
Changing Cows' Diet Could Cut Emissions

methane = .7155595 g / L at STP
Cows make 400 L of methane /day (.28622378 kg/day)
Methane is 23x more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas
A Cow makes the equivalent of 6.5831 kg of CO2 per day plus regular breathing (~1.4 L/day)
Earth's 1.53 Billion cows produce as much CO2 equivalents as 12.24 Billion people
Plus all the moose, deer, sheep and goats.
The world's daily airplane flights generate roughly the same amount as the cows.
I couldn't find numbers on the cars.

Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’

Scroll to the bottom to read the "Shattering the great green myths" section.

Is there any wonder why even people who would like to be environmentally friendly give up in frustration? They want to be environmentally friendly by walking to the store, only to find out that they harmed the environment even more than if they had driven! All those nasty cows and mooseses!

I loved the little datum that organic cows are worse polluters per gallon of milk than the steroid cows!

Artificial Life!

Yes, I know that I'm hopelessly behind the times in the Blogosphere. I'm pretty sure this story came out several days ago, but I'm just now getting around to it. I'm busy!

Anyway, several scientists in the biotech field are predicting the creation of artificial life in the next ten years. One of the big problems they're having is in the design of an artificial cell membrane. They finally have some ideas on that, and they're pretty confident that they almost have the capability of making a lot of the other parts of a cell - energy conversion, reaction to environment, reproduction.

Get them all working together and you wind up with a cell that is "alive"! I put that in quotes not because there is doubt of the cell being alive, but rather that life is a pretty elusive thing to define once you get down to the fine details. Is a virus "alive"? It doesn't do much of anything until it comes in contact with a compatible living cell, and then it latches on and injects it's own RNA into the host cell.

That's it. Once the RNA has been injected, the host cell will start making more viruses until it explodes, sending the viruses out to float along until they latch onto another cell. Not exactly what we consider "life".

Regardless of how we define it though, once successful, these cells will definitely qualify as "living". And after that, there's no qualitative barrier to designing multicellular blobs. I think there's a bit bigger problem in designing cells that differentiate themselves as they multiply, like people do as we are developing in the womb, but that shouldn't be outside the realm of possibility; it should just take more work.

I want a TRIBBLE!

The big problem, of course, is how people will behave with this technology. There will of course be those who claim this somehow disproves the existence of God. Oy! Give it up already! There are also Christians and "Christians" claiming this is the herald of the Antichrist and the end of the world. Oy! Give it up already! LaHaye was bad enough!

If scientists could make animals, do we treat them the same as all the other animals? Theoretically, they could even make a human from chemicals. I think that's a LOT further off than I, or even my grandchildren, will live to see.

How would we treat this thing/being/person/animal/alien? Obviously this is just my own speculation based on grossly baseless theorizing, but I don't think it would be anything more than an animal designed to look human. I believe our soul is a necessary part of who we are. After God created man, it wasn't until God gave the breath of LIFE that Adam became a complete person. Until then, I think that what God had created was essentially the "human" that scientists may someday design - "alive" in the sense that it was a functioning organism, but not alive in the sense that Adam became alive after God created his soul and joined it with the body.

Like I said, I'm theorizing on the outer limits of could-be's and what-if's. It makes for some fun theorizing though!

Here's a news article. So far most of the informative articles out there are all repeats of the same base story.
Artifical Life Possible in 3 To 10 Years

And I'm a bit embarrassed to put this up, but it was too hilarious to leave alone! I won't link to the page, but there's some "Christians" (definite quotes around that word!) who are already declaring this is the true sign of the end of the world and that it is in reality "Demon DNA"!!

All by myself

Mo has finally gone, leaving me by myself — the undisputed ruler of all Segmentation!

It's sort of like finding yourself on a 50'x50' island with a palm tree in the middle. You can jump up and down saying "I'm King!" all you want, but at the end of the day, you're still on a little island with a palm tree to keep you company. :^)

I had thought we were getting a new hire, but I just found out yesterday that he turned down the offer - preferring to head to San Diego. Huh! San Diego vs. D.C. I can't imagine why he would prefer sunny beaches over cement and brown grass. No accounting for taste, is there?

The good news - I've got job security!

Job Update

A Promotion! Well, sort of. More like my seniority automatically makes me the only guy available to put in this position, so they didn't have a choice. "Mo" is moving on to another project after 3 years here in Segmentation, and I am now the Segmentation Lead. It has a nice title, but no accompanying pay raise.

One nice thing about this is that we are redesigning the segmentation process, and since I'm the lead, I get to make all the calls on how it should be done. I'll know the process inside-out and upside-down 'cuz I'm the one who is making it.

The big problem is pure technical knowledge - yeah, I'm way further along than anyone else, but "Mo" was getting to positively omniscient-like levels of expertise in the software, and I'm still a long ways from being a true expert on all the areas of the software. Windows - got it. Linux - good enough. Solaris - ick! Oracle - oh dear! DB2 - aaaahhhhhhhhh!!!

But hey, Mo got tossed in and he learned, becoming the great ArcGIS integration guru, so in another couple years I should be there to, right?

Lots of prayer needed!

Mira / Clueless Reporters update

Red Giant Leaves Long Brilliant Trail

I found a better article! This one is much better! The star is moving in relation to this arm of the galaxy and they more properly state that it is spreading heavy elements into the interstellar medium where they could be captured by forming stars and contribute toward making heavy-element planets.

Sigh. I feel better now.

Yes, I know I'm weird.

Astronomically clueless reporters

Stellar tail startles astronomers
Supersonic star forms wake 13 light-years long

These two articles are about a red giant star that is moving along at "supersonic" speeds. HA!!! Gotta love it when reporters who obviously know nothing about astronomy write articles on the subject! There are a couple other articles out there that give a slightly better story, but some astronomer must have given a point of reference for the speed going something like this:

Astronomer: "It's moving along at 288,000 mph. For comparison, sound moves at 760 mph."

So from that original reporter's story, other reporters have come up with a "supersonic" star! I laughed out loud on this one. Never mind that there's not enough gas in space to transmit sound, and that almost EVERYTHING in space is moving at insanely high speeds compared to what we experience on Earth. For instance, Earth is traveling 67,100 mph around the sun, and the sun itself orbits the galaxy at approximately 500,000 mph.

So the reporters have left something out - in comparison to what is that star (Mira) moving so quickly? None of the articles I've found actually mention that little detail. It's leaving a tail behind it, so it must be moving through a relatively gaseous area of space, otherwise, there can't be a tail. Some of the other articles talk about a "bow front" being formed, and once again, if it were moving through truly empty space, a bow front couldn't form.

A couple other articles made it sound like it was leaving clumps of matter behind that would later form into little planets, suggesting the idea that it was something like this that formed our Sun and Earth. Stupidity in-print-ate! What was actually said was that the matter left behind is estimated to be equal to 3000 Earths, and that it was spread along a trail that is 13 light years long. Pfft! You'd have to gather ALL the matter for a distance of 3½ times the diameter of our entire solar system to scratch together a single earth! The mass of Earth, spread out over that distance is incredibly sparse and couldn't possibly be formed into a single mass.

I realize most people aren't particularly impacted by astronomically-challenged journalists, but these particularly got my goat for some reason.

Get a job ya' bum!

Please?

Northrop Grumman (or more specifically the TIMD division, TASC group) has been encouraging us to help them get new hires - we're apparently in a hiring mood - and I'm doing my bit to help out the company. They really are a great place to work!

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm also trolling for bonuses. If you want a job at Northrop Grumman and you have skills you think they could use, go ahead and search for a job here. Just make sure that when you go ahead and submit a job application to Northrop Grumman, that you make sure to put down that I'm the referrer. I get a little bonus if you get hired. I'll take you out for dinner, my treat! The sky's the limit as long as it's under $7.38.

http://horizonscareers.northgrum.com/HorizonsWeb/getCareerHome.do

Update from the mission field

(Name is changed to protect "Daniel" and family. This is an email from a family that my parents-in-law's church supports.)

Daniel had an unusual Sunday a couple of weeks ago and I thought you might enjoy reading about it. The doctors told Daniel that he needed to lower his stress level because most of his blood pressure problems was because of hyper-tension. This may give you a better indication of WHY Daniels blood pressure has gone so high!

As usual, Daniel and I were going in two different directions this Sunday with each preaching at a different church. Daniel had been invited to a church in an area we had never been to. It’s an area that has been considered dangerous because of terrorist activity in the area but the news reports said that they had “cleaned-out” the area of all terrorists. But, very few visitors venture into this area.

Daniel had to leave very early in the morning to be at the service by 8:30am. It was a 3 hour drive north to the church so he rose early, got dressed, took his Bible and his camera, and started out in the van for Madampe. After driving for an hour and a half the terrain changed dramatically. It became hot, dry, and desolate, the farther north that he drove. The military presence increased significantly as well and the traffic nearly completely disappeared. It seemed that he had driven into a waste land although the beaches became more and more beautiful with each passing mile.

Daniel was stopped at several military checkpoints along the way, each questioning him about why he was driving in the area. He told them that he was going to take pictures. This was in fact true…although he will admit…it wasn’t the whole truth. They stopped him one check point with a number of military personnel standing around and they were all highly armed. The officer who questioned him spoke a little broken English mixed with Sinhalese and he asked Daniel where he was going. Daniel told the officer he was going to Madampe. The officer then stuck his head inside the front passenger side window and saw that Daniel was alone. He said something to Daniel in Sinhalese that Daniel didn’t understand, while waving his hand forward as if to say, “move along.”

Daniel prepared to “move along” but before he could, the sliding van door was opened and six military men climbed inside. The officer then got into the front passenger seat and motioned for Daniel to “drive on”. It took Daniel a few moments to figure out what was happening…these military personnel wanted a ride north. As Daniel drove the men in the back seat watched intently out the windows as though watching for something or someone. Every once in awhile they would have Daniel stop the vehicle and they would open the windows and look out through their binoculars into the distance. It made Daniel a little nervous…”What were they looking for?” That was the million dollar question!

The really fun part was that the officer in the front wanted to practice his English on Daniel. Every few minutes he would take his rifle tip and tap it on Daniels’ shoulder to get his attention. He would then ask him questions like, “Wife?” Daniel would answer his question politely…of course WHO WOULDN’T with a rifle pointed at their head! They would drive on a few more miles and the officer would tap him on the shoulder again and with a smile on his face he would proudly ask, “Daughter?” And Daniel would politely answer his question. When they finally reached Madampe the officer had Daniel stop at the check-point and all the men piled out of the van and they thanked Daniel as though he has their best friend. They waved him on and Daniel drove on to locate the church. After the service was over Daniel enjoyed a home cooked meal of rice and curry with the pastor and they chuckled over his experience on the way to church that day. Daniel got into the van to make the return drive home as the pastor stood at the window of the van they laughed together and the pastor said, “I hope this journey is a little more relaxing for you!” Daniel agreed!

The drive back was relaxing…well at least for the first two hours! Daniel was approaching another checkpoint and there was a three-wheeler (tri-shaw) in front of him. As you approach a check point you are supposed to slow down and if asked to stop you are to pull over. The officers motioned for the tri-shaw to pull over and Daniel noticed that the tri-shaw driver made a gesture back and than he sped up and began to flee from the checkpoint. The officer, seeing no passenger in Daniel’s van, jumped into the passenger side of the van (along with two other officer who jumped in the back) and told Daniel to follow the tri-shaw! They were yelling at Daniel to go faster and Daniel sped up to catch-up to the tri-shaw. They chased for several miles (with the officer in the front yelling at Daniel to go faster) before the tri shaw finally stopped and the officers got out with guns pointed at the tri-shaw driver. One of the officers then looked and Daniel, nodded his head at Daniel as if to say, “Thank you and you may now go.”

That evening Daniel and I caught up with each other and Daniel told me of his days events. By this time, Daniel was laughing about his officer friend who kept tapping the barrel of his gun on Daniel’s shoulder and his “high speed chase”. Yep! Now that is definitely some HYPER TENSION!

Actually, I must tell you that your prayers and notes of encouragement have meant so much to us. Daniel’s blood pressure is down to normal. The doctor said it’s from genetics, diet, lack of exercise, and too much stress. Daniel is now on a low sodium diet, he’s resting more, getting some exercise, and he has already lost 10 lbs. Now, if we can just do something about that stress!

He has another check-up with the doctor tomorrow as they are still monitoring him. Again, thank for the prayers! Hopefully this email will give you a better idea of how you can help pray for us more specifically.

I pray your Sunday will also be eventful! But, may yours be GLORY events…a day filled with God’s presence and manifestations of love and mercy.

33 Things from Evangelical Outpost

Sometimes the list of things he has found on the Internet is ho-hum, but this time I thought it was a winner! My personal favorites?

7) BibleGirl on the sin of gluttony (preach it sister!!!)

9) Lauren Winner's top 5 Christian books about sex. (loved her books, haven't read any of these, add 'em to the list, though at the bottom)

11) Fatwas ain't what they used to be (ROTFLOL!!! There are so many things I would love to say!)

18) DrawSpace has a free series of drawing lessons categorized by beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

20) The Seven Wonders of the Totalitarian World. (the real article is here)

22) Charles Adams on "infallibility" (What is truly infallible about our 'Biblical' infallibility?)

23) J.I. Packer on "inerrancy"

27) Women Use Belly Dancing During Childbirth? (another ROTFLOL!)

29) Fabulous Fighters (Part I): Democratic candidate Mike Gravel: "… the Spartans trained their people to be homosexuals, because they're better fighters." (ROTFLOL again!!! Read #30 for a more knowledgeable statement)

31) Students in “year-round” schools don't learn more than their peers in traditional nine-month schools. (because I love bashing the sort of public-schools-know-best attitudes going on)

32) Gene regulation, not just genes, is what sets humans apart (because I'm a science buff)

Scratch that

I wish I had a better pun, but that's the best I have at the moment.

Scratch is a completely drag-and-drop programming language developed at MIT. Check it out here. This is a fun little programming language that gives a nice uber-easy introduction to programming concepts. Don't expect to build an accounting and inventory management application from Scratch, but smaller toy things are fun, and you can put them on a website with a bit of backflipping.

Biggest problems with the language - LOUSY arrays, no file outputs of any kind, no file/database reading except for importing images.

The basic idea is AWESOME, at least to us programming nerds. A programming language that is designed to be used entirely with visual drag-n-drop methods. I doubt that this style of programming language will come into large-scale use any time soon, but Scratch is definitely the precursor to what I think programming will become.

Computer systems, even if they don't go the way of AIs, are getting to the point that thousands of people are working on a single system. Many things will always need to be put together with basic code, but Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and other large-scale systems are starting to move as much as possible toward a plug-and-play style of system or program design.

We may be talking another 50 years before truly visual programming becomes widely used, but I think it is coming. Scratch might be the beginning! Instead of C++, future generations might program in S++!

A shout out to D Babst for first telling me about Scratch. You're an all right guy, even if you do like Macs.

Update that blog!

I know, I know. I'm horribly lax about this. I blame the woman. She got me onto Facebook. Yeah, and she made me too good of a dinner on Saturday. And, um, she's too nice? Well, maybe I don't blame her. Maybe it's more like thank her.

Yup, if you're on facebook, look me up. Dunno how much I'll actually DO on there, but it's been really great for reconnecting with some old friends with whom I had lost touch! Oh, and it's good for posting pictures of one's brother-in-law as he's sleeping on our couch.

CJ&I got back from PA last week and had a great time! I won't bother to put everything that happened because C already posted nicely over on No Longer Just Friends. A good, quickie description is from me and J. When I asked him what his favorite part was, he answered "Working." WHA?!? It turns out that he meant helping Grandpa work by hauling stuff around in his little electric truck. He LOVES that thing!!!! Oh, that and his Batman costume!

For me, aside from being able to stay in bed until 9:00, I got to train with Andy! An exchange student from Germany who used to train with Andy just got back in for another stint here and was itching for a training. We had a good one! I was sore for three days afterwards! Kata and basics were still good, but doing kumite (sparring) felt awkward.

Anyway, since then not much has changed. A lovely weekend with C and some good days back at work. If anyone has a moment to add in some prayer for me at work, I would appreciate it because I found out that "Moe" is shifting to another project and I'll be the lead on our project. Whee!