Church this morning was...interesting. When we came in (yes, that means we were late) they were singing 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' and a bunch of other Americana songs. The guest speaker was one of the missionaries the church supports, a guy with Youth for Christ in Minnesota. His message was from Amos 4&5 and actually wasn't that bad (compared to the singing, someone reading the ingredients from a box of Bisquick wouldn't have been bad.) I think I would have handled the text differently but he still did pretty good.

After the service we headed off to the Sonshine Cafe (gag) for coffee and donuts. Donuts were 50¢ each. After we stood around and talked to the people we came with (no one came over to introduce themselves) we went off to Sunday School. This was a class on the book of Revelation. As as soft Amill sort of guy I knew that what was going to be taught was not my cup of tea but I'd decided to keep my yap shut any how. Good thing. The woman who taught the class (forget 1Ti 2:12 I guess) was a big Kay Arthur "Precept" person here. I was plesently surprized to find that she was at least post-trib, but she was making some pretty bold statements with very little scriptural back up. My friend who is pre-trib tried to nail her on some stuff but she was very confident. I find it hard to tollerate teachers who are not teachable.

BTW, I'm on my friend's DLS with my iBook. Cool and fast. He has a wireless LAN too but it is encrypted and when I enter the password via my AirPort card it doesn't work. The AirPort finds the base station no problem but I can't log into it. I must be doing something wrong.

Standin' on Leg Two Arrived in Broomfield, CO safe and sound. I thought the drive from Albuquerque would be murder since the van only does 25 MPH going uphill. It was actually pretty flat most of the way. Temperature is cooler than it was in Arizona too.

We'll stay here tomorrow and go to church with our friends and then take off Monday AM. I don't remember building that into the plan but it will still work out that we arrive in IL on July 2nd. That's cool since Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest. The church they attend (and Evangelical Free Church) has been without a Senior Pastor for about a year and they just hired a guy who lives 5 minutes from the church! I don't know if he's going to be preaching tomorrow or not. Actually it doesn't matter too much to me who is preaching as long as Christ is preached. Those "application" sermons drive me nuts. "Here's five ways to be a better husband" they say and none of them involve being born again in Christ. I listened to an old tape in the van today by Tim Keller titled "Applying Christ." Keller wanders quite a bit but he had some very good points. It all remindes me of 2Pt 1:3. God, though His great power, has given us everything we need for life and godliness through knowledge of Christ. That doesn't mean that sermons don't have application, but it does mean that the application has got to be more than "try real hard cause Jesus saved you." Every time I hear that kind of preaching (and sadly I hear it a lot on Christian radio) I think of Paul's rebuke of the Galatians:

You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Keller quoted some Reformed guy (was it Burkhouer?) who said that the real difference between Arminians and Reformed is not justification by faith alone, though the Arminian is inconsistant, they still believe that. The real difference is sanctification by faith.

Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent. I'll just be glad to be in church worshiping tomorrow.

Had gotten a little behind on the Mac OS X updates. Plugged the iBook into my sister-in-law's cable modem and had an update party! Man this thing is fast, must have one....

First Leg Complete We all made it to Albuquerque alive and well. This is the longest drive of the trip: 14 hours. We'll spend the day here at a family reunion and then take off tomorrow morning.

We cleared out of base housing at 10 AM and were on the road by 1 PM. It was a loooonnnnnggg uneventful drive. The bad part was that the A/C in the cab doesn''t work. The U-Haul tops out at about 70 MPH and there were a couple of hills where we maxed out at 25 MPH! Yes, I did pull over and let people pass.

If things continue to go this smoothly we should arrive in IL right on schedule.

I got a new case for my iBook, its called a Whump! Case. This this is perfect! It is a slip case so there isn't a ton of room for carrying books and such but it is thickly padded, has a rigid panel under the nylon weave cover and it the exact size for the iBook. This is just what I wanted so that I could drop my iBook into my backpack without banging up the case. Not only that, but the company really worked with me to get it here before I moved. They're from Canada and my debit and credit cards kept declining (NAFTA be damed!) so they shipped it the same day I mailed them a check (or should I say "cheque"?) Great stuff.

The Beginning of a Faith Adventure I went on a couple of short term mission trips with a madman named Dan Hitzhusen. He told us that we were "going on a faith adventure with God" before each trip and he was quite right. Well, this move has turned into a faith adventure too.

It started Saturday the 22nd. We took our bed apart and I saw that the frame was pretty much falling apart so I decided that we'd stop by Ikea and pick up a new one. The only time we had to do it was Sunday after church. As a soft Sabbatarian, I don't like doing that but it was needful. There was a baptism at 4 PM and we wanted to get back by then so we turned to kids over to someone else and took off. About a quarter of the way there the van started running rough so I pulled over to see if I could figure it out. Nope, but I suspected the fuel pump since it has a history. We stopped at an auto parts place and picked up a new one then turned around and headed home. We just missed the baptism but got to hang around for the fellowship afterwards.

Monday was spent dropping a 3/4 full 26 gallon fuel tank (gasoline is about 8 lbs/gal, you do the math) changing the fuel pump and fuel filter. Once the tank was down (no mean feat either!) I discovered that I had the wrong fuel pump. Bummer. I borrowed a car and drove into town and exchanged it. Put the new one in an mounted the tank then tried the car. I wasn't running roughly anymore, now it would run at all! I squirted some carb cleaner in the intake and it didn't help. Must be an spark problem, right? I picked up a new coil but by then the sun had set and I couldn't install it. We did have dinner with some dear friends though.

Tuesday I was supposed to pick up the U-Haul and start loading. U-Haul was supposed to call Monday to tell me where to pick it up, they didn't so I called them. They had my reservation but nothing had been done on it. I expressed my dissatisfaction and told them to come up with a van. They sent me to a town about 40 miles away. When I got there I was told that they had two 26' vans but they were both reserved. I wound up at another U-Haul in the same city and I got my van.

When I got home (noonish) with the van I started working. Soon some friends from church showed up and we got moving on the U-Haul. Back to the van. The instructions on the coil said to use the existing mounting hardware. Cute since the old coil was rivited in! I replaced it and it didn't help. Sent the wife in to town for a bunch of stuff including a new cap, rotor and wires. Went back to loading the U-Haul.

Tuesday was also my 40th birthday. At about 6PM I felt every single inch of 40. My wife returned with the goods including pizza. Three slices later and I was ready to get back to work. Replaced the cap, rotor and wires on the van. Still no help. Back to loading the van. Three guys from church showed up right in the nick of time. We were down to the last few feet of room and still had some big items to go on. I was sure they wouldn't fit but by 11 PM we got them loaded. Whew!

Wednesday I called the garage and AAA to get the van fixed. AAA picked it up about 9AM. The plan was that my wife and her sister and my daughters were supposed to get in the van and head off to Albuquerque while my son and I cleaned the house. Turned out my wife and I cleaned the house and no one headed to Albuquerque. We got the house cleaned and the last bits loaded into the U-Haul. The garage called. The fuel pump is supposed to produce 60 psi and was only cranking out 15. Yup, the boneheads at a different store, same chain sold me the wrong fuel pump again. The garage will install a new one tomorrow AM. Also, my final inspection of the house is tomorrow at 10:15 AM. If I pass, and I'm pretty sure I will, then I'm free.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Romans 8:28 "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Another favorite is 2Pt 1:3.) Most often we cannot see those good purposes when we're in the midst of having all things worked, but in this case I think I recognize some. First, since the regional U-Haul office messed up my reservation (which I made on the 12th) the guys at the office gave me two extra days free. They also used the old price since the office I was at didn't have the new book. All in all they saved me $380 on the rental. Second, there was no way I could have gotten the last little bits of furniture in the U-Haul myself. I'm good at Tetris but not loading moving vans. They did some really cool things and we got everything loaded with room for the odds and ends. All told we loaded something like 8,320 pounds of household goods. I'm guessing that the Air Force will end up paying me about $5,000 to move it myself.Third, though my son and I could have cleaned the house ourselves it was better the way it worked out. My children got to spend the day at my pastor's house. We're pretty close to their family and our kids love each other. But also, my wife and I got some quality time together. Sure we were cleaning an hauling out trash, but we had a good day together. I'll be driving with my son so we'll get some time together too.

Oh yea, before I forget, I'm moving to Illinois this Thursday. We're loading up a U-Haul and driving from Southern California to Northern Illinois. I'm going to try to blog my journey each night as we stop. Check back for the exciting adventures of a family of 5 in a minivan and 26' U-Haul as they head off to across the great United States! I just hope this doesn't turn into one of those Chevy Chase "Vacation" movies. "Hey kids, only 47 more miles to the largest hot dog ever made in the continental United States!"

If you're the kind of Christian who is interested in the question "what is the least I have to do to be saved" then my new "Minimalist Church" is for you! Tired of hearing about discipleship and sacrafice and struggling against sin? Ready to be still and know that He is God? Isn't it time you rested in the arms of your Savior?

The whole idea came up during a men's group meeting when we were going through Knowing God by JI Packer. Don't ask, I don't remember the connection. I'll put a link to it on my Theology page sometime.

The Leaderboard lists Christian blogs in order by the number of links. I made the list! But that isn't such a hot deal since one site with zero links did too.
(From Paulo)

I was flipping through an old MacAddict (April '02) and noticed a review for "Survivor: The Interactive Game" which read in its entirity:

An utter wast of money and disk space, and not worth writing another word about.

To the point, huh? That got me thinking about a Monster, Inc. game I bought for my youngest. It has a great intro and Monster's Inc. characters plastered all over the case. But the gameplay is that old teeter-tatter game where you slide back and forth to catch on guy on one end and send the other guy sailing into the air to pop baloons or whatever. I wasted $10 for THIS?? To add insult to injury, the cover says "Collect all 3 to unlock a SECRET game". Right, like I'm stupid enough to do that again.

Why is it that so many movie tie-in games are so lame? Does the studio think it will compete with the movie? Or is it that they just see it as another merchandising gimmick, one to not spend a lot of money on? This seems like another way to squeeze as much money out of the public.

Saw "The Bourne Identity" last night with my wife. It was fantastic! The story moved along at a reasonable clip, Matt Damon was very good as an action-movie actor. I never read the book and I'm glad because the movie was just fine. Reading the book may have jaundiced me against it (as it did with some Tom Clancey novels.)

The only down side to the experience was that we got there late and wound up in the very front row.

Okay, I finally broke down and paid for a year's worth of Sensus Plenior comments. Give it a try, after all, I shelled out good money for them.

RazorMouth has now published the fifth installment in a two-part series on infant baptism. Tristian Emmanuel now appeals to what is his worst enemy in this issue: the Regulative Principle of Worship.

To demonstrate my extreme vanity let me point out that he continues to ignore my critique of his first paper and continues to repeat the same errors I pointed out in it. I'm sure it is because he as received many shorter, more quotable questions.

On a related note, I'm also involved in a dialog (not a debate!) on this issue with a fella on the antithesis discussion boards. We're both being nice to each other. (Note: My nickname there is Ahnyer Keester, scroll down a bit and the discussion is between Mookie and myself. Really a nice guy!)

Well, you knew it was a'comin'. Toshiba has announced a competitor for the iPod. Toshiba's Gigabeat will come with a 5 GB removable hard drive and connect via a USB 2.0 port. It will, however, be a bit bigger and noticably heavier than the iPod. And a fair shake uglier.

But please note that the Gigabeat comes with a removable 5 GB hard drive (removable is cool) and will have 2 GB and 5 GB hard drives available for it. Meanwhile, the iPod is better looking and comes in 5 GB and 10 GB fixed hard drive configurations. Also, the Gigabeat will use USB 2.0 which currently is not widely avaliable on PCs but it is a notch faster than the current FireWire Apple uses. No mention of the size of the skip buffer nor expected battery life.

My MP3-player tech lust remains fixated on the iPod, thankyouverymuch.

1Jn 2:28 reads in part "not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming." I don't understand how this would work if the Church is raptured, caught up in the air with Him and wisked away from the earth. If, as the bumper sticker reads, your car will be unoccupied in the event of the Rapture, how is it that you might "shrink away from Him"? You're floating in the air, aren't you?

Thanks to crummy weather in Florida, I got to see the space shuttle land one last time before I leave California. I even got to take the kids and my wife with me. I remember when I first got here the shuttle was landing at a fairly regular interval. I was working on a computer one time and heard the double boom and thought "Ah, its only the space shuttle." and went back to work. I watched it glide in to make a landing and told the kids that it had been in space 15 minutes ago and was docked with the space station the other day.

I'm going to miss Edwards AFB. I have seen some great things here. Space shuttles, stealth bombers, filming Armageddon, Race to Space and a Mariah Carey video. It has been a great place to live and work.

Here it is, now you can analyze that nerd in the cubicle next to you just by looking at his computer! No, I'm not talking about hacking his hard drive or sniffing his e-mail. The BBC has an article about what people's computers say about them:

Analysing the computer screen, the images you use or simply the way you organise your icons can reveal much about your inner desires and ambitions.

This seems to go beyond the "Mac users are from Venus/Windows users are from Mars" concept. Let's see, my wallpaper shows a picture of a new iMac and says "iMac 2" at the top and "iWant 1" at the bottom. No deep psychological meaning there, should be pretty obvious. Screen saver is a slide show and the only thing it shows right now is a Foxtrot cartoon. I have OS X automatically arrange my icons based on the kind of file it is. I keep WebDAV, Mail, IE5, OmniWeb, Quicken and iTunes in the dock.

This says that I am a boring computer geek who needs to get out more often. No, wait. That's what my wife and kids are tellilng me. Whatever.

I was reading Deuteronomy chapter 2 and I came across an interesting thing er two. When we think of the promise God made to Abraham to give him a land and a people, we often think that the promise of the land is unfulfilled. The Dispensationalists tells us that Israel never held that plot of real estate even under Solomon so therefore God still owes the Jewish nation of Israel something so therefore there is a future for Israel.

That is a pretty big leap but what I have been questioning lately is whether God did in fact fulfill that promise. Remember, the promise was that Abraham's descendants would own the land. Who are Abraham's descendants? Ishmael, Isaac, Esau and Jacob (Israel) and all of Jacob's children (the twelve tribes of Israel). Who said that only Israel would own the land?

Check out a few quotes from Deut 2:

4 and command the people, saying, "You will pass through the territory of your brothers the sons of Esau who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. So be very careful;
5 do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, even as little as a footstep because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.

9 "Then the LORD said to me, 'Do not harass Moab, nor provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession, because I have given Ar to the sons of Lot as a possession.

19 'When you come opposite the sons of Ammon, do not harass them nor provoke them, for I will not give you any of the land of the sons of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot as a possession.'

22 just as He did for the sons of Esau, who live in Seir, when He destroyed the Horites from before them; they dispossessed them and settled in their place even to this day.

So God seems to think that it was okay to give parts of the land to Abraham's family and not just Israel.

As far as the rest of the real estate goes Joshua seems to think that God was faithful in delivering:

Joshua 21:45 Not one of the good promises which the LORD had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass.

Fair enough, it speaks of a promise to Israel and not Abraham but it still says that all of the promises He made were fulfilled. Furthermore, though this passage can be interpreted differently, it seems good King Artaxerxes thought they held it all:

Ezra 4:19-20   "A decree has been issued by me, and a search has been made and it has been discovered that that city has risen up against the kings in past days, that rebellion and revolt have been perpetrated in it, that mighty kings have ruled over Jerusalem, governing all the provinces beyond the River, and that tribute, custom and toll were paid to them.

I find this all fascinating. I would rather go with what the Bible says about that promise than what Dispensationalists tell me.

Saw Panic Room today. Glad I only paid $1 for it. I expected better out of Jodie Foster.

Mickey Mouse. Think about it, what was the last movie he starred in? What was his last major motion picture or TV presence? And yet when I was at AAA a little kid, no more than three years old recognized him. Disney is so powerful it is scary.

Back to Creed. I listened to their CD in the car today and I wonder if these guys are not only Christian but Reformed?! In the song "Who's Got My Back" are these lyrics:

Run...hide
All that was sacred to us
Sacred to us
See the signs
The covenant has been broken
By mankind
Leaving us with no shoulder...with no shoulder
To rest our head on

And it is a good song to boot. There is no vulgarity on the CD, just some hard rockin' music.

I've never met him but we did exchange e-mail and posts in The Mac Observer forums so it was very sad for me to learn that Rodney O. Lain (iBrotha) took his own life this weekend. I had no idea that he was struggling with depression, Rodney's always been a very intelligent, sharp-tongued Mac pundit and sometime critic. He always made me think and caused me to look at things in a different way. Because of Rodney I stopped using the pejorative terms "Pee Sea", "Windoze", "Pee Cee", and "Micro$oft" when referring to the other computer configurations.

Rodney was a Christian but got badly burned by a church so he became a "Christian Iconoclast." He adopted some unorthodox doctrines and questioned some foundation things about Christianity. Is Rodney in heaven? I have no idea, but I really hope he is. I hope his rebellion was against a church and not against Jesus Christ, God incarnate.

One last thing before I get off line and take the kids to a concert in the park: I picked up Creed's CD "weathered" and popped it in the iBook. I know that I like "My Sacrifice" but the rest of the CD is pretty good too! Are these guys Christians?

Speaking of that Saturday Religion section, about a year or so ago the paper stopped running religous letters to the editor in the regular "Letters to the Editor" section of the paper. Instead they were segregated and put in the once-weekly Religion section. I was miffed when they did that. What they're saying is that religion has nothing to say to contemporary issues. Well fear no more, the entire section is gone. As I think back over the past couple of editons of the paper I realize that is has been gone for a little while.

I'm not going to yell "Censorship!" Nor am I going to gripe about freedom of speach. What irks me the most is what has bothered me from the beginning: the notion that religion has no place in the public square. The Founding Fathers wouldn't have liked that idea at all.

Saturday's paper is always a favorite because it has the Religion section. I love to see what the Church, and not-church is up to. The heading "Faiths set to share historic conscecration" got my attention. It is about an Orthodox priest from a local church being elevated to bishop. Nothing noteworthy there but I read on...

The consecration, led by His Grace Dr. Bernard Bishop Price, head of Mar Thoma's...Southern California diocese, will also involve clergy from the Episcopalian, Roman Catholic, Baptist and Lutheran faiths.

Aside from the unnamed Baptist, the list seemed fairly routine. Then it got worse:

"A host of clergy from various ritual groups will participate, including Jews, Muslims, Hindus, pagans, Baptists, Native Americans and Buddhists," Price said.

What? Why not invite the local atheist! Has the rite no Christian meaning? Is the gospel, an offense and foolishness, not going to even be involved that the non-Christians might hear? I can't believe that the sacred icons will save anyone.

What does the church think it is doing or is supposed to do? This kind of thing breaks my heart because Christ is not central anymore. How sad.

This week I heard a cover version of Tears for Fears' 'Mad World' by Gary Jules. Caught it on KCRW's 'Morning Becomes Ecclectic.' The song has crept in and camped out in my mind. What a fantastic cover! Now I'm probably going to have to buy this cat's CD (which is self released.)

With what is happening to radio stations and the music industry in general, guys like Jules and a friend's band 'Golden Ticket' who deserve a shot at some air time can't get it. If you don't fit the demographic and have national appeal, you don't get played. I'm glad that there are programs like 'Morning Becomes Ecclectic' to give this artists at least a shot. The down side of MBE is that it is very ecclectic. Sometimes you have to sit through a really bad song or two before you find something you like. Like the time they played someone doing Bach on a banjo. But that is how this stuff works. If you want prepackaged trollip that some number-crunching music exec has figured will fit your demographic, then stick with the ClearChannel stations. If you want to find something fresh and different, wade out into the deep water and take the good and the bad.

Welp, I did it. This morning at 0900 (that'd be 9 AM for you civilian types) I did my final outprocessing from the US Air Force. Starting tomorrow I am on what we call "terminal leave." In other words, the leave I had coming before I formally retire. I have 69 days saved up plus 9 days for househunting. We get 20 days of house/jobhunting but I took 11 days in May. It isn't leave, it is just time off. Starting Saturday, my razor gets some time off. I've wanted to grow a beard since before I came in the Air Force but I was only 17 and the best I could manage was a fuzzy lip.

A friend at church gave me a copy of J. Gresham Machen's paper "Christanity and Culture". What a fantastic monograph! It is littered with so many great things I'd like to quote. I'll have to start marking the pages and quoting and commenting. Great read. BTW, the link is to Reformation Ink, a fantastic website with tons of great reading. Pop over and take a look.

Wow. I'm cleaning out my desk at work. This whole "retiring from the Air Force" thing is a reality all of the sudden!

I have arrived. I just noticed that Russ included a link to me over at his blog. I find that particularly cool because, having never heard of a blog before, I stumbled upon his blog while searching for something about or by Jonathan Edwards. Russ has a paper posted on his site and since the name "mybrainhurts" grabbed my attention I checked it out. Next thing I know, I hit blogger.com, establish an account and turn my website into a blog. Now I'm hooked.

New graphic thanks to Paulo. Thanks bro, it fits very nicely. :)

Ho! What's this? Then next version of Mac OS X (10.2) will include handwriting recognition. Now why would you need handwriting recognition on a non-pen based system? The website says its for graphics professionals but I wonder. Could it be that there is a tablet in the future of the Macintosh line up? Now that would be cool!

I happened to walk past a TV in a waiting room today and caught the end of an Apple commercial. All I saw was the Apple logo and "www.apple.com/switch" and then a woman saying what her job was. Immediately I knew what it was all about. Apple is starting to lure Windows useres. I love this. I went to Apple's website and watched all the commercials.

This is a brave step by Apple. Microsoft does not like to lose market share and we have seen in the courts how they are not afraid to play dirty.

From a New York Times story:

"Our relationship with Microsoft is really pretty good," Mr. Jobs said. "What's a few market-share points between friends? It wouldn't matter to them, and we would be eternally grateful."

So the assult on market share begins. I'm thrilled!

Must have been a slow weekend. I just skimmed all of my favorite blogs and there hasn't been much activity on them. I know it was a big sports weekend. I know this only because I heard it on the radio. I am so sports dis-inclined it isn't even funny. Is that were everyone was? Glued to the TV trying to switch between sporting events?

My formal retirement ceremony from the Air Force was today. I'm not "retired" yet, that won't happen until September 1, 2002 but the ceremony was today. My Pastor came out to the base and did the invocation and a dear friend from church sang the national anthem. I thought I might get all choaked up or fell very strange but it seemed like a very natural thing.

My Yahoo! account has suddenly turned into a spam magnet. Here's an idea that everyone with an e-mail account should follow. Never, NEVER answer a spam! If that source of advertising doesn't produce revenue, they'll stop using it. Come on now people, we can all do it.

Monday was what will most likely be my last Elders' meeting at the Lancaster Evangelical Free Church (*sniff*). What a great group of men to be associated with. Each one has been such a positive influence on me. Men of prayer, devoted Christians all. Anyway, they started with some gag gifts for me. Amongst other things I got a bag of Scripture Candy and a full colour Tim LaHay dispensational chart! Wow. The real gift was fantastic; Charles Spurgeon's A Treasury of David. Thanks guys, I have wanted this one for quite a while.

Oh yea, comments are gone again. I'm not sure when or if they'll be back. I may actually have to pay for them and use Sensus Plenior.

Congratulations United Kingdom on Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee! More info.

Intending to freak him out a bit, I walked up to my son and asked, "What is the opposite of blue?" Without missing a beat he answered, "Squeeky." Should I be proud or worried?