Seeking, seizing the Kingdom

I went for a short ride on my motorcycle yesterday, so Spring is now official for me. Just had to tell the world.

My friend Jon gave me a great sound card a while back, I’ve had in mind to use it for multi-track recording.  I’ve got this nice dual-core that I’ll be using for video editing, and so I might as well use it for MT recording as well.  The platinum comes with this handy front drive that sets in a 5.25″ spot, like a CD drive would.  This gives easy access to some mic/line inputs, and a headphone output, perfect for recording.  But I had one very sad problem.  I didn’t have the cable to connect this drive to the sound card. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m using pfSense as a firewall/router here at home.  It’s working quite well, far better than my day-and-a-half struggle trying to get m0n0wall going (clue for m0n0wall devs: make an install disk!).  pfSense isn’t perfect, but it’s got some nice features.  The one feature I wish it had was the –enable-password-save build switch for openvpn.  Anyway, I went to upload an audio file to my web host this morning, and realized that FTP was badly broken.  Fortunately, I quickly found the setting that made it all better.  Under System->Advanced, enable “FTP RFC 959 data port violation workaround” under the heading “Traffic Shaper and Firewall Advanced”.  Save and that’s it.  I’m happily uploading my file now.

Being without internet just plain sucks. I’m in TX for the week, and in a facility where internet hasn’t been provided (tsk tsk) for my event. I have a connection where I’m staying that I only get to use late in the evening for a couple hours before getting enough sleep to get up and do it again. So I’ve done it. I got my phone tethered to give my laptop a ~56k connection in a pinch. I give you the results of the couple hours spent getting this working.  Enjoy with my compliments. Read the rest of this entry »

This post will appear in the November issue of Inside Truth.

Right now, God is radically changing the way His body looks at and functions in ministry. Are you feeling the change? I am. The realization of the authentic ministry of the Kingdom is coming forth. Jesus had a team. Paul had a team. We need teams because they are exponentially effective. We need teams because they are powered by relationship, not structure. Did you play team sports? Remember how the whole team goes wild when they score? Only one or two of them actually did the scoring of that point, but the whole team supports, and the whole team benefits. That’s how ministry should be. Ask God how you should start forming relationships that will turn into teams that can do great exploits for the Kingdom!

I know, you’re disappointed that I didn’t fill you in on the rest of our vacation in Vero Beach. So here you go: “It was great!”. Satisfied? ;^)

This post is about my friends, Daren and Rhoda. I saw it last night at Nook & Cranny’s open house, so, um… enjoy!

Yesterday started with the previous post, while my wife slept soundly. She stirred about an hour after I made some coffee in the room. We didn’t get on the Boardwalk until about 12:30p, which put us at MGM Studios around 1p. Joy and I were on our own for the day. We had to catch the rides we didn’t have time for the night before, so we went on the Great Movie Ride, which features scenes from a lot of classic movies, many of which are old black and white movies, The Little Mermaid the musical, and Drew Carey’s “Sounds Dangerous”. Read the rest of this entry »

Joy and I got on opportunity to do something we’ve never done before… go on a vacation. My uncle and aunt had planned a trip to Walt Disney World for mid-October, that’s right about the time when the MN temps drop into the 50s and 40s during the day, while FL keeps a steady mid-80s spread. Joy and I had been there for our honeymoon, but that was 5 years ago, and there was so much we had forgotten, and so much more to take in. When we got the chance to tag along, we had to take it! Read the rest of this entry »

I’m getting my wisdom teeth removed on Thursday. Before that happens, I wanted to offer a quick quip to brighten your day, as it did mine. This came about as I was talking with a co-worker in the wee hours of this fine morning. He mentioned a hobby that his wife was picking up which involved high pressure flammable gasses (20 bonus points if you can guess what hobby this was), and the implied injuries that could happen if a leak occurred in one of the containers.

He balanced that statement by saying, “and yet, thousands of knuckle-dragging rednecks schlep such tanks around every day with wild abandon, and with surprisingly limited loss of life or limb”.

To which I replied:

“The world is a beautiful place indeed. So much room for error, so little of it occupied.”

We both realized the quality of this statement. A very enjoyable time spent with a friend.

My wife got her motorcycle permit a week and a half ago. She came home so excited to learn, so we headed out to the empty church parking lot near our house.

I was running through the basics, and we had her going nicely in first gear. The time came for her to stop, and so she squeezed the clutch, then squeezed the break. The engine started revving and the bike continued to move forward, she squeezed harder trying to stop, which only made the engine rev more and more movement, this time enough to drop her off the side of the bike is it kept going. Crash, bang, went the bike, my wife on the hard ground, a bit dazed from the fall. Read the rest of this entry »