No Grasp of Your Reality

Well, I’ve switched over my home ISP from Verizon to Comcast. While I had to do a little hackery to get it to work, I am happy to say that all has been successful. Along with my new Comcast account, I have also ordered a Vonage account, and once that is up and running, I will be entirely Verizon free!

Before de-Verizoning our house, my wife and I were paying about $130 per month for telephone (including all-you-can-eat long-distance) and DSL. Now, we’ll be paying somewhere in the vicinity of $75 for a faster Internet connection, and all-you-can-eat VoIP telephone service.

Now, I will become engrossed in the world of VoIP. With the telephone, there’s really nothing with which to play. You pay your bill, and you get your service. With VoIP, though, you can start playing with high-end PBX phone solutions, like Asterix.

There were days, though, where I would leave for work after messing with our home network, telling Sarah, “Sorry, love… the Internet is down. I’ll work on it when I get home.” I don’t think she’s going to be happy when I do the same with her telephone.

Sarah and I went to see Sin City tonight with my brother and his new wife. I thought the movie was worth a review.
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I’m currently downloading a torrent of the AMD64 version of Ubuntu Linux for my new laptop. I hate Windows XP (especially the “home” edition), but there are still some issues with Linux and laptops, since a lot of laptop hardware is extremely cutting edge and proprietary.
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misc/pig05It’s that time of year. Sarah and I are preparing for the annual Memorial Day Pig Roast, and you all are invited to attend the party at the home of Tom and Sarah Albrecht.

We will commence the festivities around noon and last year’s party went until around 9pm, and we don’t expect this year to wrap up any sooner. The pig should be coming off the grill around 4pm, but food will be abundant before and after the pork is served.

Last year, we had a poker game after the party started slowing down, and we had such a good time that we’ll do it again this year. We’ll also be opening the two new batches of beer I’m going to be brewing this weekend, Lord willing.

If you’re planning on coming, please RSVP by calling Tom and Sarah Albrecht. When you call, please let us know if you can bring a side dish or dessert to share.

We look forward to seeing you here!

Tomorrow is PresWIC (a gathering of the Women In the Church from all of the different churches in our Presbytery), and I’m really looking forward to attending.

I am particularly looking forward to seeing Barbara Thompson again.

While we were at the leadership training conference in Atlanta, she and Susan Hunt and I spent time talking about the importance of friendships between older women and younger women, and how both can of encouragement to one another.
They were both very interested in Great Godly Girls.

In the book, “The Legacy of Biblical Womanhood” (Hey – no one has reviewed this book at Amazon.. will have to submit one! ), which was co-authored by Hunt and Thompson, you’ll read in Chapter 1: “The Call – A Legacy of Grace” their admittance of their differences. After all, Thompson was a “liberal feminist social worker before becoming a Biblical counselor”.

They really struggled to write the book, and their differences were at first a stumbling block. It was refreshing to stand there, just the three of us, and listen as they openly talked about their conflict, and how they trusted in God – and were not fearful – and were willing to allow their conflict to be open and laid bare before God and the World, so as to be an encouragement to others and ultimately glorify God. Their genuineness and openness makes this book even more real to the reader – not just as a theoretical how-to-book on developing relationships in the covenant community, but as an example that it can be done. Read the rest of this entry »

Next Saturday, we’ll be making our beer for the summer – to be unbottled for the first time at our Annual Pig Roast on May 30th.

We’ll be making an Irish Red Ale and a Bavarian Weizenbier (wheat beer).

Some of our friends will be helping make the beer. I’m sure pictures will be posted. Looking forward to a great time!

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m back in the states. The trips were generally productive, but I’m looking foward to a few 40 hour weeks to relax.

I went to AC last night with my brother for his bachelor’s party. Had a pretty good time. It’s amazing how dead the streets are at 10:30pm when we arrived, but the Trump Plaza and the Tropicana were packed.

I spent about three hours playing Limit Texas Hold ‘Em at the $2/$4 tables… and walked away up $6. I don’t think professionals can live on that level of profit. “Limit” is a totally different game from “No Limit”, so that took a bit of getting used to.

I ended up winning about $100 playing blackjack afterwards, so I’m happy.