Bricks, Bees, Knees, and Cathy's 10-20

Today, our church voted for new elders and approved the budget.. We had one service instead of two and our topic was about building and pitching in, drawn from the book of Nehemiah. It was a good message, encouraging our church members to help in the building of God's vision by picking up a metaphorical brick. Our pastor makes great use of props and visual aides. He is hitting on all cylinders and doing everything textbook right with great timing in terms of leading the church through change. It is a pleasure to behold.

My "brick" , as it were, is to try to make ministry possible, or as easy as possible,through the use of technology and by coordinating the front line ministries. I get paid for the first objective but no the latter. that is fine, as I see the former as logically prior to the latter anyway.

After lunch, I came home and began cleaning Cathy's office, which I share but have rarely had opportunity to use during Sophie's convalescence and the nursing of her kittens. It took me a while to clean it up; five kittens can make quite the mess!

While I was outside cleaning the litter box, I got stung by a bee! I've never been stung by a bee before, and it didn't hurt as much as I had imagined. I got stung on the tip of my right index finger and was able to remove the stinger quickly, perhaps minimizing my discomfort. Poor bee; I wish he hadn't stung me and died.

While moving around the furniture for vacuuming, I think I tweaked my left knee somehow. It's stiff and it really hurts if I bend it much. Fortunately we do not have stairs to climb.

Cathy is in New Mexico (not California, the other New Mexico). She should reach Arizona tonight and be home tomorrow afternoon. I had got it in my head that she would be home this afternoon, so I was quite disappointed last night when I realized she'd be gone another day. Well, that gives me one more day to clean up around the apartment.

She has some nice pictures which I am looking forward to sharing!

DO THIS!! Block Scams & Porn for Free

Amazingly enough, I have never spoke about OpenDNS on this blog. Your should start using this immediately. Here is their Wikipedia entry.

It's really easy to set up, just so long as you have configured your router before. To start using OpenDNS today, just change your router's DNS servers to 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 (if you are not sure how, there's a dozen configuration examples of the most common routers on their web site here).

What you'll get immediately is anti-phishing protection and typo protection. There's an example site at www.internetbadguys.com, which looks like this screenshot when you are using OpenDNS. It has helped my mother-in-law out in the past.

To also set up the adult site blocking, see these instructions. There's no signup for the basic anti-phishing, but for adult site blocking you need to give them your IP address some how. This would be the slightly more complicated part, especially if you have a dynamic IP address for your Internet connection. However, OpenDNS supports dynamic IP addresses, too.

I've configured this for church, and it was easy and free. Totally worth the 30 minutes it'll take you to read and configure this. Even if you don't go for the porn blocking thing (if dynamic DNS is too complicated for you), use OpenDNS anyway for the anti-phishing.

Some important links:
Common router configurations
Adult Site Blocking
Dynamic IP address configuration

Weapons and stuff

I played with nun chucks as a kid - in fact, I have telescoping nun chucks. Metal ones. Two pairs, actually. I almost broke my front teeth with them, too! I lent a pair to the son of one of my church elders. I'm not sure that was a wise move. I bought them after a Bruce Lee movie (who didn't?).

It's no surprise to anybody that we liked the movie, "Lord of the Rings." Cathy even knows the names of most of the swords, including swords that Gandalf used in "The Hobbit." I particularly liked Narsil, and Legolas' short swords. I suppose I could purchase a couple of swords from somewhere like King of Swords, which carries fantasy swords.

Something else entirely cool is the idea of blending martial arts with guns. There's a could of action movies, both written by the same guy (no coincidence), which feature this. They both have a post-catastrophe storyline and both feature the notion of guns as martial arts weapons. One is called Equilibrium, and the other is Ultraviolet. Both pretty violent... but if you are into action films, I'd recommend both.

Finally, we're back!

Well, finally, I am back from summer school. I must admit, I'm not making the best use of my time... and I have been so busy I have no idea what's going on it my friends' lives. I'll have to read some blogs and get caught up.

Some stuff to update...

First, Cathy's in Georgia. She was looking for a good reason to visit Georgia and to see her dad. Father's Day seemed like a good enough reason. There were two choices, to fly or to drive. Tickets weren't cheap, and Cathy doesn't like to drive rentals, so for the slightly increased cost but guaranteed freedom of movement, we opted for the drive. More about her trip in a bit...

Our 2003 Honda Civic badly needed a tuneup, especially if it is going to make a 5,000 mile trip. So, on Friday the 8th we dropped off the car at the dealer and got its maintenance done. I picked up Cathy in our 1990 Civic, which prompted tried to overheat in the parking lot. It also refused to start. I had been dealing with car trouble, and figured I would have to sink two or three thousand into the 1990 Civic for it to be a reliable car once again. I was hoping to nurse it until my graduation in December, and perhaps sell it and get a transfer to Georgia.

Well, we retrieved the 2003 Civic, and since we were at the dealer we checked out the newer cars. As you have likely guessed, Cathy drove home in a 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid, and I drove home in the 2003. Our 1990 Civic has been a very good car for the last 12 years. I must say, however, that I am enjoying having air conditioning and a CD player, and I felt better about Cathy drive cross-country in a new vehicle.

So, we got a new car, and Cathy drove out to Georgia to see her dad. We've driven across the country on the I-10 and the I-40, so this time Cathy took the I-70 to Nashville, and then down into Georgia. I miss her, but she is enjoying her time with her dad, and I finished my class. It is good that she got there before Father's Day.

Ah yes, the class! Darrel Bock is a world-class exegete, and his commentary on the Gospel of Luke is the gold standard work. Bock comes to California as a visiting professor at our seminary each summer, and I greatly enjoyed thinking through the Gospel of Luke. It was two weeks of stimulating and thoughtful handling of Luke and, where appropriate, the Synoptics. I gained much from it, and hope to preach or teach through Luke some day. Just one more class in the Fall, and I'm done!

While Cathy is out in Georgia, I pretty much have the place to myself and the pets. I didn't really notice for the first several days, since I was still busy with the Luke class. But now that the class is over and I'm back at work, I'm starting to feel lonely. I wish it were possible for us to both be there right now.

Cathy likes it there a lot. So much so, in fact, that she would like to move there. There's a Starbucks in her dad's town now, so she feels even better about moving! As it turns out, the company I work for has an office north of Atlanta, so I asked my manager if I could get a transfer. I just asked today, although both my manager and the VP already know I would love to move there. Cathy's dad's church is praying that I will get the transfer - the really like me for my previous visits. If we do move to Georgia, I hope I do not disappoint them.

Let's see... there's the kittens. We had Sophie and her babies, and then another batch of orphan kittens. We almost lost Sophie a couple of times, but she and all five of her girls are healthy now. One of her girls, Marcy, is now named Boots and lives in apartment three. The other four are ready for adoption and are staying at the shelter with Sophie.

Of the other litter of orphans, I'm sorry to say we lost all but one of them. Cathy found hard for their survival, but they just couldn't digest any food. The vet indicated that it was likely a birth defect, and that none of the litter had a good chance. But the one Cathy named Bubba did survive. He's small for a six-week old kitten, but he's growing fast! It's almost like he's a couple of weeks behind on his development. I wonder if he'll be slightly under-sized?

I suppose that is about it for now. Going back to work was pretty difficult. I got into the habit of taking an afternoon nap, and I was soooo tired this afternoon! I better hit the sack.

To all our concerned friends...

Hi everybody! We haven't dropped completely off the face of the earth. But, I did get really, really behind on homework and spent a couple of weeks studying to catch up. Classes end May 24th, so I'll probably post a lot of backlog at that time!

In the mean time, Cathy and I both caught colds.

Sophie & babies are doing very well (wish I had time for posts).

Thanks for all the "how are you" emails. Sorry to worry you! We'll be back at the end of the month.

Quick Update

Keeping Up

Another month has gone by and my life is crazy-busy. I've got a Hebrew Exam on Tuesday and I've not done Hebrew in a week. Eek!

Today, I got a tetanus shot. Sophie bit me while I tried to pick her up. Let me explain...

I got up late today, having stayed up until 2AM working on the church technical budget. As usual, I checked in on Sophie. I found her lying in the middle of the room -- nothing unusual there, but then I noticed that she had made a mess, lost control of her bladder. She was not responding well to me, just barely acknowledging my presence. I saw she had diarrhea at some point, and I woke Cathy. I got the carrier, and, trying to lift Sophie gently into it, discovered that she was in a great deal of pain.

Sophie communicated her suffering by nipping at my hand near her face. When I persisted in moving her, she nipped harder, and tore some skin on my thumb. She wasn't trying to hurt me; the wounds are shallow and are scratches more than bites. The vet told Cathy later on that Sophie is hurting a great deal from a mammary infection, the poor thing.

Anyway, I got a tetanus shot today. Oh, and I got new glasses yesterday -- they have magnetic clip-ons for the sun. I like it.

Cathy's doing well, and is beginning to make jewelry again. I should take a picture or two... she's going to start selling them for some income.

Kittens

Sophie is recovering, and the kittens are growing. They've really started exploring -- Linus is a particularly brave one, and he's taken to following Cathy around. Lucy and Marcy are absolutely adorable. Lucy was the first, I think, to drink water, and Linus led the way in using the litter box. Sally and Charlie are the largest kittens, and very playful.

Random Thoughts

I had to write up a technology budget for my church. It is interesting, because I had a need to replace a laptop, so I'm spending my first bit of significant cash. But here's the interesting thing... I also got my quarterly giving report. Looking at the money we've given back to God, and looking for a replacement laptop for a pastor helped me crystallize something I already believed in: stewardship. You see, when I make a purchase or plan a budget, I'm not just spending "God's money" (which is difficult to quantify), but also "your" and "my" money -- money worshipers have given faithfully to God. As such, I must spend it carefully, judiciously, as a good steward.

I already believed in good stewardship, fiscal responsibility, and fiduciary trust. However, getting my tithing report at the same time I needed to purchase a laptop helped me truly incorporate that belief.

Sophie's kittens are starting to eat

You can see above a very cute photo of Sally (left) and Linus (right) with a dirty chin. Sophie has a potassium deficiency (vet says this is common) and has gotten an infection in one of her breasts (also common). So, this was good timing for the kittens beginning to be weaned.

They're also getting litter-trained as I type.

Cat Ride the Bus

The feline, which has a purple collar, gets onto the busy Walsall to Wolverhampton bus at the same stop most mornings - he then jumps off at the next stop 400m down the road, near a fish and chip shop.

So, there's a cat in England that rides the bus. I wonder who's it is?

Google 411

Try this out... 411 via an 800 number with no advertising (for now). Google Labs is experimenting with Google Voice Local Search. Call 800-GOOG-411, give it a city and state, ask for a listing, and it will return the results and connect you to the listing you choose.

The whole thing can be voice-navigated. I called and found my church and was connected to the main number. Way cool.

Naturally, unless you block your own caller ID, Google will gather information for marketing and later advertising purposes, as well as attempt to improve their service. According to their privacy policy, they will collect and store your phone number, and time of the call, and the voice commands you used, until they connect you to the listing. They don't collect this if you block your number.

You can use Per-Call Blocking (aka Selective Blocking) by dialing *67 before dialing the phone number. You'll have to dial *67 every time, though.

While Google promises to respect your choice to block caller ID, you should know that they don't have to. Because the other party pays for the call, FCC rules allow toll-free companies to use Automatic Number Identification (ANI) technology to identify you even when caller ID is blocked. FCC rules, however, limit parties that own toll-free numbers from distributing the numbers identified through ANI.

Video of Sophie & her kittens

Sophie is well again and the kittens are really big for just three weeks. Cathy named them after the Peanuts cast.

Charlie - solid dark kitten
Sally - dark with tabby stripes
Marcy - black & white, dark head, no white line on top
Lucy - black & white, dark head, half a white line on top
Linus - black & white, dark head, full white line on top

And, of course, Sophie is the momma.