New Cat: Sophie

I'm really sorry I haven't posted sooner. We have a new guest, and Cathy has named her Sophie.

We don't really know much about Sophie. The vet indicates that she is about seven years old. She came to the shelter as a pregnant stray. So that's how Sophie came to be with us on Saturday, March 17th -- as a shelter mommy. Cathy was told she would deliver any day now.

When we got Sophie she was almost bony, although her stomach was truly very big. She was very friendly and has no fear of humans, so it seemed unlikely that she was always a stray. The vet indicates that she is in good health, except for being really hungry.

Cathy made a next for her in the "office" of our apartment and set it up in the large cage we keep around. Sophie delivered five kittens, we think three girls and two boys, but we're not really sure. (We thought Zechariah was a boy...)

The kittens are a week old now, with the youngest being one week old at 3 A.M. Sunday. You can see the album of Sophie's Kitties here.

The Love of God for Sinners Like Me

Nicole posted a reflection on sin. Part of what she said is as follows:

...So often, even though I'll recognize my sin, I want to say, "Well, it's because so-and-so is acting like that" or I'll try to justify it by saying that it's because "I had a bad day" or that my actions/attitudes are just one of my "personality traits," "weaknesses," or "struggles." When the bottom line really is that it's, plain and simple, SIN. The sooner I admit that and repent, the sooner the joy and rejoicing will come. :)

I have an additional problem. I, too, justify sin in my heart. However, I tend to admit my sin quickly and pray for God's help. My problem is that I get in my own way when it comes to repentance.

Too often, my tendency is to avoid going to God with my sin. I do admit it, and I go to Him in prayer. But instead of asking God to deal with the sin in my heart, I try to do it myself. I have a tendency to attempt to stand in my own ability. Too often, I don't let God fix my brokenness. Instead, I try to deal with sin in my life, in my own ability, before telling God about it.

As if He didn't already know. He is my Creator, I am the creature. He knows what is broken in me. And there is very little that I can fix myself, and those are cosmetic.

Fundamentally, I avoid God with my broken self, my sin, due to believing a lie. It may be a belief that God doesn't love me as I am. I have long been afraid that I am simply not good enough as I am. And it is true, I am not good enough as I am to earn God's love. I cannot earn God's love.

Fortunately, I don't have to earn His love. God already loves me, broken as I am.

The notion that "God loves me" is the reason we can go to God and tell Him, "Father, this is broken. Would can You fix it?" God probably responds the say parents do when children asks them to do something. God, our my heavenly Father, responds in love.

God responds out of love to our sin.

We can go to God with our sin. He knows, He loves us anyway. And only He can fix what is broken within us. And God is willing.

Oh God, what a wonderful God You are!

Cat & Dog wet food recall

Menu Foods, which manufacturers quite a few brands of cat and dog foods, has issued a recall.

Some of the wet food is calling renal failure in pets! An unknown number of cats and dogs had suffered kidney failure and about 10 died after eating the affected pet food, the company said.

Menu Foods is recalling dog food sold throughout North America under 48 brands and cat food sold under 40 brands including Iams, Nutro and Eukanuba. The food was distributed by major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kroger and Safeway. Two other companies — Nestle Purina PetCare Co. and Hill’s Pet Nutrition Inc. — said Saturday that as a precaution they were voluntarily recalling some products made by Menu Foods.

For Recalled Cat Product Information, call 866-895-2708
Here's a list for your convenience (link to MSNBC list)...

Cat Food Americas Choice, Preferred Pets Authority Best Choice Companion Compliments Demoulas Market Basket Eukanuba Fine Feline Cat Food Lion Foodtown Giant Companion Hannaford Hill Country Fare Hy-Vee Iams Laura Lynn Li'l Red Loving Meals Meijer's Main Choice Nutriplan Nutro Max Gourmet Classics Nutro Natural Choice Paws Pet Pride Presidents Choice Price Chopper Priority Save-A-Lot Schnucks Science Diet Feline Savory Cuts Cans Sophistacat Special Kitty Canada Special Kitty US Springfield Prize Sprout Total Pet Wegmans Western Family White Rose Winn Dixie

Dog Food Americas Choice, Preferred Pets Authority Award Best Choice Big Bet Big Red Bloom Wegmans Bruiser Cadillac Companion Demoulas Market Basket Eukanuba Food Lion Giant Companion Great Choice Hannaford Hill Country Fare Hy-Vee Iams Laura Lynn Loving Meals Meijers Main Choice Mighty Dog Pouch Mixables Nutriplan Nutro Max Nutro Natural Choice Nutro Ultra Nutro Ol'Roy Canada Ol'Roy US Paws Pet Essentials Pet Pride - Good n Meaty Presidents Choice Price Chopper Priority Publix Roche Bros Save-A-Lot Schnucks Shep Dog Springsfield Prize Sprout Stater Bros Weis Total Pet Western Family White Rose Winn Dixie Your Pet

Update: The risk is 1 in 6 pets who eat get sick. The contamination appears to come from a new distributor of wheat gluten. See this link for more...

Update: Rat poison! The source was probably rat poison on wheat gluten bought from China.
Yes, another update: it was probably melamine, used in plastics and pesticides, not rat poison.
Update, 04/06/07: There's a new theory that the melamine was added by a manufacturer... see this link.

Daylight Saving Time

Note: this is an email I sent my church staff. I figured it would be helpful for those of you reading the blog.

Daylight Saving Time rules have changed. Feel free to pass this along to anyone else who may need to read it.

In August of 2005 the United States Congress passed the Energy Policy Act, which changes the dates of both the start and end of Daylight Saving Time (DST). This law goes into effect in 2007. Starting this year DST will begin three weeks earlier (2:00 A.M. on the second Sunday in March) and will end one week later.

As a result of this change, Daylight Saving Time will begin on March 11, 2007, so please review your appointments so you can prepare for this change before that time. Pay special attention to:

1. appointments between the Second Sunday of March and the First Sunday of April
2. appointments between the Last Sunday of October and the First Sunday of November
3. appointments with recurring schedules

If anyone has a large amount of appointments which require modification, use this link (http://www.microsoft.com/DST2007) to get the patch for your computer.

References:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/DST2007
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931667

SCO UNIX and DST

Initially, I told everybody that SCO UNIX 5.0.6 and older systems has no patch and to try ntpdate. Forget NTP; it won’t help us. For an explanation why not, see the very end. However, there is a workaround for 5.0.6, 5.0.5, and perhaps all 5.0.x systems.

For my UNIX clients, the following notes apply. All patches listed below are installed with “custom” so you can run “custom” to see if the required patch is already present.

SCO 6.0.0 – oss706c and mp2
SCO 5.0.7 – mp5
SCO 5.0.6 – workaround, see below

SCO 6.0.0

SCO 6.0.0 must have MP2 installed before applying the DST patch (oss706c). If the client already has MP2 installed, then you have a small patch, only 4.5MB in size. This can be applied while the system is up, and the patch takes effect after rebooting. If you have to install MP2 as well, then you should probably ship a CD. MP2 is 332 MB compressed. After applying both MP2 and oss706c, the system will need to be rebooted.

SCO 5.0.7

SCO 5.0.7 requires MP5. MP5 is 245 MB compressed, so you may want to ship a CD. This can be applied while the system is up. After applying MP5, the system will need to be rebooted.

SCO 5.0.6 and prior

SCO 5.0.6 and prior versions of UNIX do not have an official patch. Instead, a custom time zone can be configured to adjust for DST. For more information, look at the man page on timezone (man timezone). I tested this on a 5.0.6 and 5.0.5 and I suspect it will work on 5.0.4.

To set the custom time zone, edit /etc/TIMEZONE and append the following to the TZ variable:

,M3.2.0,M11.1.0

So, if the file /etc/TIMEZONE had TZ=EST5EDT, make it TZ='EST5EDT,M3.2.0,M11.1.0'

Manually adjusting for DST

Of course, people can always adjust the time manually. The easiest way is probably to login as root and run “asktime” to set the time. Or, the client can also shutdown and reboot, and enter the time during the startup process.

NTP time synchronization

Using ntpdate in cron will sync your system time to UTC. Note that ntpdate will not adjust time if the difference is greater than two hours. Note that ntpdate will not correctly set the date/time in the event of a DST change.

Below is a command using a public time server that should work on systems with an Internet connection and name resolution. Make sure the system time is at least CLOSE to correct before you begin. You can test the connection with:

ntpdate hydrogen.cert.ucr.edu

If that works, you can automate it. In root's crontab, input the following to automate this.

0 3 * * * /etc/ntpdate hydrogen.cert.ucr.edu

Why NTP won’t work for DST changes

NTP synchronizes clocks on different computers based on the UTC. UTC does not change regardless of DST. For instance, the Eastern Standard Time in the Unites States is five hours behind the UTC time when DST is not active and four hours behind when the US is observing Daylight Savings Time. DST configuration is specific to your timezone, so NTP does not help.