No Grasp of Your Reality

The weather is beautiful!

Pig was put on the grill about 7am this morning. Looking forward to this afternoon!!

Grandma Nancie, Becky and Kate all helped clean the house. Grandpa Tom and Ben Battaglia helped with Strawberries. Tom’s brothers have helped with everything from taking down storm windows to keeping Aiden from touching the grill. The Judges brought over their canopy and helped to set up. Sounds like a lot of the neighbors are coming, as well as various friends. We’re excited.

UPDATE: We’ve got pictures up!

Looks like things are getting a little rough up in Moscow, Idaho, USA. Of course, it hasn’t dulled Doug Wilson’s wit any. He writes the following about the Intoleristas, those self-titled pluralists, who are anything but. Oh well… I’ve been praying for the work that Rev. Wilson has been doing up there, and while persecution is not necessarily a sign of God’s blessing, Christ did tell us that that the world will persecute as. They’ll persevere, and be stronger for it.

They have been telling themselves (for a long time now) that backwater conservative hicks have a narrow and truncated vision of the world while they, listeners of NPR, are urbane, hip, sophisticated, and all the rest of it. They are latitudinarian, they draw circles to include, they dialogue with others, they do not run with scissors. It soothes the soul for them to think of themselves this way. They subscribe to Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, and The Nation, and they drink coffee the beans of which were picked in a way that didn’t involve any corporations (and hopefully no profit for anyone). They embrace, with enthusiasm, a sort of scratch and sniff diversity. They are the poseurs of diversity. They want just a whiff. Their idea of multi-culturalism is sampling spicy foods at an international potluck, nodding sagely whenever someone refers to the best Thai restaurant they ever heard of. They have living rooms just like the rest of us, but have a little plug-in aroma dispenser that smells as though somebody somewhere, on the other side of the world, might believe and live differently, and “isn’t it wonderful?” Yeah, wonderful there. They have a CD player that has the murmuring forest noises of indigenous peoples around the globe living and believing differently far, far away. They have a ten thousand dollar slate shower that makes them feel like they are in touch with the rhythms of the earth, and this authentic shower provides them with a deep bond of solidarity with the peasants of Central America. Whereas an actual Central American is more than likely to be a Pentecostal Trinitarian who washes his face from a tap at the back of the house.

misc/NOTPregOh great. What if I am? How am I going to handle this? Well, at least I’ll have nine months to think about it. Hopefully, Tom will have at least a slight pay raise by then… Maybe it’ll be a girl this time.. too many boys… Leah Grace … Wait… Wait… no line in the first box… line in the second box…. PHEW!”

misc/capt_cx10405242112_big_catfish_cx104Amazing! A man catches a 124 lb. catfish. Even more amazing is that, so far, the fish is still alive, and being kept at an outfitter store in the area.

As Sarah points out in one of the comments, this fish is bigger than the pig we’re getting for our pig roast this Monday.

From the AP story:

Pruitt’s fish, measuring 58 inches long and 44 inches around, was swimming below the Melvin Price Lock and Dam on the Mississippi River at Alton on Saturday night when it grabbed Pruitt’s line. The two struggled for more than half an hour, and at one point the fish dragged the boat carrying Pruitt, his wife and a friend before Pruitt could reel it in.

A couple weeks ago, I bought a new wireless card for my laptop. I looked on PriceWatch for a good deal on a card that works well with Linux, and found the D-Link DWL-650+, and I found that ComputerGeeks.com had a good price for it. So, I placed the order and waited.

When it showed up, I tried booting up Linux, and noticed that the OS didn’t detect the card. Weird, since Ubuntu is supposed to “just work”. I noticed that the lights were really dim on the card, so I tried booting the system into Windows instead. The system would immediately bluescreen and reboot as soon as I put in the card. It looks like I had a bad card.

Anyway, I opened up a ticket with ComputerGeeks, not looking forward to the runaround I knew I was going to be up against. I’d have to first run though their list of troubleshooting steps before they would admit that their card may have a problem. Then I’d ship the card back to them (either at my expense, or wait until they send a mailer). Then I’d wait for them to get it, verify the card was bad, and send me a new one. I was not pleased.

A few days after I opened the ticket with them, they closed the ticket, and just shipped me a new card. I received it today! I was amazed. So, just based on this single order, I recommend the company for all your computer needs. I’ve never had a better experience with customer support.

Professionals came to my house this morning and salted their food before tasting - and I didn’t even serve breakfast.

Good manners also make good business sense. We all prefer to work with those who are polite, tactful and even compassionate. Conversely, if you use poor judgement about the clothing you wear, if you speak crudely, make serious grammatical errors, turn in sloppy work, or if you are awkward and tongue-tied in business related social gatherings, you will be less likely to be promoted than the self-assured man or woman whose behavior and work reflect well on the company. - From the Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette: Entirely Rewritten and Updated by Nancy Tuckerman and Nancy Dunnan, p. 459

Professionals who would consider it unsavory (and even sexual harassment) to ask their boss if they plan on having unprotected sex the next time their wife is ovulating somehow think that when they are speaking to a client who has a number of small children that such a question is appropriate.
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A friend of mine here at work is expecting his first baby in July.

He’s just finished up paining his Dr. Seuss themed nursery for the baby, and it’s looking really cool. Check out some of the pictures he’s taken.

misc/poopWhen a couple sits down and decides that children are a good idea, generally speaking, they discuss how children are going to affect their lives. Usually, these issues have to do with expenses, loss of time, and perhaps, loss of sleep.

The one thing I had never heard mentioned is how poop would become a new and facinating part of our lives. Oh, yes. Poop.

Of course, we all have our relationships with our poop. Those relationships are discrete, and it’s rare that the poop lives of others ever touch our own lives. However, once children come along, all this changes. You will develop an intimate relationship with your children’s bowels, and how they work. You will discover that the human digestive system can digest the toughest steak, yet will pass corn kernels though whole. You will find that a 40 lb. child can somehow dispose of 60 lbs. of waste in a 24-hour period, and you will be amazed to learn that one bowel movement can cover the walls of an entire bedroom, if the child is determined.

Granted, my relationship with my children’s poop is much more limited than my wife’s. This is because she is a saint, and must believe that one adult in a household should have to get used to poop.

“Peace is not the absence of trouble but the presence of God.” - J. Oswald Sanders

Rev. Andy Webb has written a “brief thought” up on the Warfield List, in which I think he means to score some points in the FV debate, but really just shows that he’s confused on how to keep score. He writes the following (I tried to keep the emphasis and formatting the same):

While Waters amply proves this point in the lecture itself, if one simply looks around on the net one finds ample proof of this in the fact that FV proponents fall over themselves to establish cordial relations with the RCC, while at the same time hammering Scots, Puritans, Southern Presbyterians and the vilest of all imaginable creatures… B A P T I S T S… shudder

Well, as I wrote in a previous post, I think this should probably be the case. I wrote, “the Roman Catholic Church still contains nuggets of Biblical theology within her, and in some cases, better than many Protestant denominations do. One aspect of this is the idea of the authority of the Church.”

One thing that I think people like Rev. Webb doesn’t understand is that a false view of the sacraments (i.e., the Baptists) is just as concerning as a false view of how justification works (i.e. Roman Catholicism). I believe that Roman Catholicism gets a lot of things right, and that Baptists and those who espouse a “puritan experimental theology” (as Rev. Webb calls it) get a lot of things wrong. In terms of getting useful theology in a conference, I think I would get better information from John Cardinal Newman, and wouldn’t get very useful advice from Charles Ryrie.

If you’re going to have conferences on the Church, FV proponents would rather hear from people who have a high view of the Church (Catholics, Anglicans) than from those who have a low view (Baptists and other Independants). Of course, they may disagree with Catholics on Soteriology and the efficacy of the sacraments, but they disagree with Baptists on the same thing!

He later writes:

In other words the men we have historically shared common cause with in the Reformation Solas are to be discarded in favor of better relations with an organization that formally anathematized the gospel in the 16th century.

Here, Rev. Webb compares apples and oranges. I would ask whether his views on abortion more closely align to the RC Church or the Presbyterian Church (USA). I would ask whether his views on glossia would more closely align to the RC Church or the Assemblies of God. Methinks it would be the former in both cases. Does this put Rev. Webb into the RC “camp”? Not at all… it simply shows that you can’t say that anyone is “closer” or “further” unless one defines the standard.

Of course, even Webb himself admits that we just can’t talk to those baptists about certain things, saying that Banner of Truth “purposely stays away from divisive wranglings over the sacraments”. I guess Rev. Webb considers the sacraments so unimportant that they can be ignored in such discussions. I disagree… the Baptist view of sacramentology is just as dangerous as the RC view of soteriology. Both need to be discussed, without compromise of the truth.

So, perhaps Rev. Webb thinks his post is a succinct little “gotcha”, but in fact, all he’s done is point out something which the FV folks would probably agree with immediately, and it also shows that Rev. Webb misses the point entirely.

“The best kisses are the ones that leave you wanting more. Now, go away, Sarah!”

I received a press release in my mailbox last night from the Evangelical Reformed Presbyterian Church. “Who,” you may ask? Well, the ERPC is the newest Protestant Christian denomination on the block. For more information, you can read their press release yourself.

An organizing committee of pastors and elders today announced formation of The Evangelical Reformed Presbyterian Church (ERPC). The new denomination is being established in response to conservative Presbyterians’ increasing concern over the acceptance of the teaching of justification by faith plus works, and water baptism as an instrument of salvation, in denominations such as the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).

Perhaps I’m misinterpreting their meaning, but it seems that this new denomination is calling the Presbyterian Church in America and Orthodox Presbyterian Church apostate! Last year, after the OPC overturned the conviction of John Kinnaird, some of the churches left the denomination in protest. Apparently, these churches have been busy in the last year.

“Because these elements hold sway in the OPC, our congregation voted unanimously to separate from that denomination last year,” Sheely continued. “The present situation is very similar to what happened in the Presbyterian Church in the USA (PCUSA) three generations ago. In 1936, conservatives left the PCUSA to form the OPC. One of the founders of the OPC, Dr. J. Gresham Machen, said that when the liberalizing elements hold sway in a denomination, and the Gospel is at stake, conservatives have no choice but to separate and begin again. That is what we are doing. History is being repeated.”

It’s rather sad that they decided to retain the word “Presbyterian” in their name, since they have no idea what the term means. It’s also sad that they look to Machen as a role-model… try Carl McIntire instead. I’m all for the OPC and PCA pursuing charges against these schismatics for their actions.

UPDATE: William Hill wrote up his own views on the issue.

I don’t which I like better… the fact that people are combining existing web tools like Google Maps and GasBuddy to create CheapGas, or that Google is actually encouraging this “reinvention” of their technology.

(via GeekRamblings and Make)

The Washington Times has posted an interview with Pat Buchanan. The man does not sound optimistic, saying that the “conservative movement has passed into history.”

In his 1992 speech to the Republican National Convention in Houston, [Buchanan] declared: “There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself.”

He is still fighting that war.

“American culture has become toxic and poisonous,” he says. “Take a look at what Hollywood produces today and what it produced in the 1950s. The alteration is dramatic.”

He suggests that in some respects, traditionalists might be fighting for a lost cause. “We say we won a great victory by defeating gay marriage in 11 state-ballot referenda in November,” he says.

“But I think in the long run, that will be seen as a victory in defense of a citadel that eventually fell.”

As he later says, “I can’t say we won the cultural war, and it’s more likely we lost it.”

World Magazine’s blog has a link to the teaser/trailer for “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe“.

I will allow myself to be cautiously optimistic about the film.