Merry Christmas

Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, As when at first He lightly esteemed The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, And afterward more heavily oppressed her, By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, In Galilee of the Gentiles. 2 The people who walked in darkness Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined. 3 You have multiplied the nation And increased its joy; They rejoice before You According to the joy of harvest, As men rejoice when they divide the spoil. 4 For You have broken the yoke of his burden And the staff of his shoulder, The rod of his oppressor, As in the day of Midian. 5 For every warrior’s sandal from the noisy battle, And garments rolled in blood, Will be used for burning and fuel of fire. 6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of His government and peace There will beno end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
Isiah 9:1-7

1 And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. 3 So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.4 Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. 6 So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the place of dwelling.
Glory in the Highest 8 Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. 10 Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: 14 “ Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” 15 So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. 17 Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. 18 And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. 19 But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.
Luke 2:1-15

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14


Merry Christmas

He Is The Same Yesterday, Today And Forever

And as for you Son of Man, thus says the Lord God;
Speak to every sort of bird and every beast of the field:
"Assemble yourselves and come;
Gather together from all sides to My
sacrificial meal
Which I am preparing for you,
A great sacrificial meal on the mountains of
Israel,
That you may eat the flesh and drink the blood.
You shall eat the flesh of the mighty,
Drink the blood of the princes of the earth,
Of rams and lambs,
Of goats and bulls,
All of them the fatlings of Bashan.
You shall eat till you are full,
And drink blood till you are drunk,
At My sacrificial meal
Which I am sacrificing for you.
You shall be filled at My table
With horses and riders,
With mighty men
And with the men of war,"
Says the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 39:17-20

Tragic, But Preventable Death

For those who do not know the story of the Kim family, here is a link to the story.
They found Mr. Kim's body today. All day I have been wondering just where they were, so when I got home I jumped on Google Earth(which is about the best download...ever.) and got out my trusty Oregon Recreational Atlas and found the area they got lost. Keep in mind they were lost for about a week.
They were on a Forest Service road approximately 12 miles from a town, Galice. Now, I'm not too familiar with that area, but from GE it looks like a small village. There is a resort there. At least there might have been someone around. I looked around some more, and they were 5 miles from a lodge. Granted, the terrain is mountainous, but they were far from being in the middle of nowhere. They found Mr. Kim's body a mile or so from that lodge.
Reports are speculating they might have been using a navigational system in the car that told them to go on Forest Road 23. Being from San Fransico, they were unfamiliar with the area.
Here are where my questions begin.
1. There is a sign at the bottom of Rd. 23 that says it is not advisable to drive on in the winter, as it is unplowed. Why did they continue on?
2. When they became stuck, why did they simply stop? Why not back up? Even if you have to dig the snow out to get out, why not?
3. Why did Mr. Kim go the opposite way they came in, not back down Rd. 23? It was at most 10-12 miles from Galice. Instead, he went down an extremely steep ravine.
I think the point at which they decided to go on, past the sign telling of the potential difficulties of driving on that road, is the point at which this tragedy could've been avoided.
I cannot understand the thinking in this situation. They had very little supplies, and were unfamiliar with survival techniques (one of the first things they say is STAY PUT! A person can live around 2 weeks on water alone, and moving makes it exponentially harder to find you.), and seemingly making poor decisions (Mr. Kim's route after leaving the car).
Someone on the radio said there are two types of people today. There are those people who depend on themselves alone. They are the rugged people who settled and built this country. They compose(he hypothesized) about 10% of the population. Then there is the other 90% of people. They are dependant people. Food is at the store for them. They do not equip themselves to live on thier own. While I sypathize with the family, I think the evidence points to the Kims being in the 90% group.

Quick Post

Just a quick post to let all know I am still alive...barely.
I just e-mailed my Greek prof. our final project. It took around 40 hours to complete.
Pretty much, false teachers are bad. Like dogs and pigs. They will go to a dark place forever.
So says 2 Peter 2:17-22.
That's right, 40 hours for 4 verses. Isn't Greek exegesis fun?
Oh, and it's snowing in the Willamette Valley. Prepeare yourselves for Armagheddon, 'cause the're expecting up to 2" of snow tonight.

The Last Greek Class

Today was the last Greek class I will have while in seminary!
It was an 8 hour journey through I Peter 3:18-21. Well, we started on Thursday night, continuing on Friday night, then working on it all Saturday.
Basically, Christ suffered on our behalf so we might be brought toward God with a good conscience.
No, it is not saying that water baptism saves.
Amid the excitement of having completed the last class is the sadness that my 'Cougs couldn't take care of business against the bottom dwelling Arizona Wildcats. They lost 17-27.
I knew it was too good to be true. The 'Cougs are just to beat up from injuries. Their star running-back had to fill in as a kicker....

Questions and Concerns

I saw two very disturbing bumper stickers yesterday.
The first was a home made sign that said, "Impeach Bush." I want to know on what grounds we should impeach the president of the United States. I see that sign a lot, but so far, I haven't seen why. As far as I know being "the world's number one terrorist" is a little hard to prove in a court. And I haven't seen any evidence of any crime. Here is a link to a site listing the history of impeachment. By the way, since 1797 there have been 16 impeachments, only 2 of them presidents and neither of them were convicted.
The second bumper sticker said, "Frodo failed, Bush has the ring." This one really chapped my hide. I tried looking for a decent discussion about what they mean by it, but to little avail. Apparently, there is a rumor that Rick Santorum, a legislator said that the Eye of Mordor was being drawn to Iraq, and away from the US. Some smarty-pants Liberal thought it would be cute to play with this, and came up with the dumb bumper sticker. Are they actually saying that Bush=the Dark Lord of Mordor? Excuse me, but last I checked, he is the duly elected president of our great nation. I didn't know he was a purely evil god bent on the destruction of life by using hordes of mutated elves, dragons, and undead ghost-kings.....
Just my thoughts for the day.

Nothing Better

There is nothing better
Than Greek and WSU football.
Leaves Change
Adjectives confuse
WSU scores.
Leaves Fall
Meanings gell
WSU holds 'em to 15 first half.
Ahh....

My Weekend

So, this is what I did this weekend...what did you do?
All the words on the right side were originally in Greek font, but I guess Blogspot doesn't have Greek. It also doesn't keep the formatting of the original copy I copied this from. It was originally much more organised.

Ephesians 3:14-21 Syntactical Analysis.

toutou Dem. Pronoun, Neut.Gen.Sing., Antecedent=the preceding
ideas in 2:19-22 including Paul’s role, the nature of the church, and Paul's
experience because of his role, because of this

carin Noun, Fem.Acc.Sing., Preposition of Cause, because of

kamptw Pres.Act.Ind.1st.Sing, Iterative(Wallace 223), I am
repeatedly bending

ta Article, Neut.Acc.Pl., Simple ID, the

gonata Noun, Neut.Acc.Pl., Dir. Obj, knees

mou Pers.Pro., Masc.Gen.Sing. Antecedant=Paul, Possesive, my

proV Prep. w/Acc., to

ton Article, Masc.Acc.Sing., PrevRef

patera, Noun, Masc.Acc.Sing., Obj of Prep, Father Textual
Problem:Most Likely Catalyst, Mss Support, father

ex Prep. w/Gen., Prep. of Source, from

ou Rel.Pron., Masc.Gen.Sing., Antec=patera

pasa adj., Fem.Nom.Sing., 2nd Attrib., from

patria Noun, Fem.Nom.Sing, Subj N, family (TDNT 5, 1017
gives idea of the origin of all things, connecting back to
God. father

en Prep w/Dat of Location, in

ouranoi V Noun, Dat.Masc.Pl., See prep “en” Why plural? Idiomatic
Pl. Textual Prob.? Some singular. Variant has weak textual
support. Pauline style supports plural (1:10, 4:10, 6:9, et.
al.)., heavens

kai Conj., Continuative, and

epi Prep. w/.Gen, upon


We also worked this up:

It's a diagram of Ephesians 3:14 through 16b (?)
My head hurts.....

?

Clearly, the chimpanzee felt disgruntled at the cutbacks
in the "afternoon banana time treat" budget.
Interestingly, he is employing a rather odd half-gangster style shooting form.
Not too good for accuracy. Well, it is a Glock, so just firing it is not too good for accuracy.

It's been a while since I blogged.
I worked 206 hours in Aug/Sept.
I started Greek Exegesis II and Old Testament Exposition.
I've been a little busy.

It's not Haiku, but its close.

the first cold shower;
even the monkey seems to want
a little coat of straw.

Now THAT'S Haiku!!

Time to grill the salmon.

Vacation II

Remember, at a High Mass the subdeacon no longer wears the humeral veil; the paten is left upon the altar, and the subdeacon joins the deacon in assisting the celebrant.
Thus endeth my instructions regarding the "Vacation II" post.
When we last ended I was describing our trip home from Spokane. Karen and I wanted to take some pictures of the area where we grew up.
This is a picture along Highway 395, near the junction of Highway 17. If there is a "nowhere" this is really close. This picture is typical for this time of year in Eastern Washington. I think it was a little cooler than normal that morning, only around 80F. For a long time the signs here didn't include "Othello." We were really excited when they changed the sign and we were on it.




This is a view looking Southwest from 395. The mountain in the distance is Rattlesnake Ridge. Rumor has it that it is the tallest hill in America without a tree on it, but I can't find any substanciation on that. You can decide for yourself. Here is a link to another blog with the same claim. Hey, if two people who do not know each other make the same claim, it must be true, right? Anyway, as you can see, there are vast areas of flatness in Eastern Washington puntuated by high ridges. And farms, lots of farms.

This was taken several miles down 395. They have harvested the wheat in this field, then cut and baled the straw, and are now picking it up to stack it. If I remember that is a John Deere 4850 driving around there.

Well, after viewing all this excitement, we met my sister for lunch, which was very fun, then made our way home. We stopped at REI in Tuallatin before continuing to Salem. Karen got the hiking bug after trying out some backpacks.

I close with perhaps my favorite pic of the trip......

Owl poo. Cool.

Finally, News from the Vacation, Ch. 1

I finally have a minuet to sit down and do a thourough job reporting on our vacation! I got back, worked a long week, then had an IICRC class for work. I learned how to do repairs that I have already been doing for 5 years, but at least I'm certified now!
Well, Karen and I left home for Washington Saturday, July 22. We left late because I had to work Friday night until 10:30pm. We drove a rental because our Outback was going in for a face-lift and hip surgery (new front bumper and fixing a dent on the rear quarter panel). It turned out the vehicle we has reserved was unavailable, so they had to give us a luxury car! It was a brand-new Mercury Montego. A nice cat indeed. I chronicled our time at my parent's house already, so I won't dwell on it much, other than to post a few pics.
This is my dad. I am up in his bucket truck, about 40ft. off the ground.

Notice in this corner the hay bales and hay bunk. There are currently about 12 lambs occupying the pasture around my parents' house.

This is the dog. His name is Sam. He's old.

There were the typical beautiful sunsets while we were there. The mountain at center is Mt. Rainier

We had a lot of fun...













From there we went to Karen's parents' cabin near Deer Lake, Washington. It is a great "cabin" tucked back in the woods, but still close to the lake.
We went boating a lot


This is Karen being dragged along by her papa. He tied a rope with a buoy on the end so swimmers wouldn't float way. The wind would push the boat across the lake, so he had to move it. He'd just putt along and pull us through the water.

There was an osprey nest near thier cabin. I went up to take some pics of them. They are a beautiful bird, and smart. This one is the female. She would fly off and grab a stick and dive-bomb me with them. She got within about 10ft. of me at one point. I decided it was time to leave them alone for a while.

We (Frank and I) also did some projects around the place and went shooting. It was nice doing some manly stuff with him.
Just down the road from thier cabin there are hundreds of acres of dry-land wheat fields. They have been growing wheat in the Spokane area for over 100 years. If anyone is interested, there is a large farm for sale along Hywy 395 for sale. The fields with the mountains in the distance are breathtaking. Spokane was at one time the biggest city in Washington, largely because of wheat production. We noticed also that the area is relatively clean. There wasn't very much garbage along the road, and where Frank and I went shooting there wasn't the piles of garbage there are in some of the areas of Oregon. There is also much more small areas of private property. Here in Western Oregon, the land is either Weyerhauser or State Forest. Eastern Oregon has either huge ranches or BLM land. Near Spokane there were lots of medium-size farms and little 20 acre areas of forest.
Well, it seems I've uploaded the max ammount, so I'll post a "Vacation II" post later. It will loosten regulations for readers and all posts will now be in the native language, rather than in Latin. Also, the phrase, "anoiting the sick" shall replace "extreme unction." Further, all things destined for use in divine worship should have simple dignity; lavish display does not accord with the worship of God (I guess they haven't gotten around to taking down all the "lavish displays" at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre). Each blog should have its own Commission of Sacred Art; ecclesiastical laws, relating to the building of posts, are to be revised wherever necessary. ;-) I am of course, jesting.

Back from Vacation

Got back from vacation and apparently a week being unhooked from power, then re-connected caused my power supply to fry. I had to go get a new one, but I was so busy with other stuff, I just now got around to it!
I've been tagged!
Angie the "IBEX Scribe" tagged me.
1. One book that changed your life: Being the complete dork I am, I cannot say, "the Bible" as the Bible is actually a compilation of many works. As far as "writings," I would say James' letter. My wife and I went through it this winter, and thoroughly got our butts kicked. Other than sacred writings, Wild At Heart by John Eldrege and Every Man's Battle by Steve Arterburn and Fred Stoeker. Wild At Heart has been criticized for some of it's theological issues, but the central theme of it is solid, that men need to be men. We need adventure, risk, and "battle." I think it may have changed my wife as much as or more than me. Every Man's should be read by every man. We do not realize the hold our culture has on us through sexuality. Christian men must by "constantly vigilant," as my wife and I like to say, against falling into sexual sin (especially through our eyes and thoughts). I realize that was more than one, but it's my Blog - deal.

2. One book that you've read more than once: All of my Calvin and Hobbes compilations. I don't know how many times I've read Revenge of the Baby Sat. Connecting to the previous answer, Calvin and Hobbes cartoons present my view of the perfect life of a boy (Here's a site dedicated to Calvin's snow art).

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: It began as one book, but has been subsequently broken into 5 volumes, but the Dune series. It takes a looooong time to get through them. By the time you get through the whole series, you forget what happened before. I think it would also take years of thought to understand what Frank Herbert was trying to say.

4. One book that made you laugh: See answer to question 2.

5. One book that made you cry [or feel really sad]: Charlotte's Web.

6. One book that you wish had been written: A fictitious story of how Russia progressed as the West did, set in the early 1800's. Eastern Russia is akin to the western USA. Oh yeah, and the Mongols rise to power a few centuries later than real life and threaten Russia. Too bad for them Russiaentrepreneursrs have perfected the self-contained center fire rifle. Instead of "Winchesters" and "Colts" it's Mosin rifles and Nagant revolvers. Europe is stuck in the Dark Ages as well, and America is only inhabited by Indians (until Russian explorers reach the Bearing Sea and begin colonizing the West Coast). I think I've been reading too much alternative history and playing Rise of Nations.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: I like Angie's answer of The Book of Mormon.

8. One book you're currently reading: Around the World in Eighty Days, by Verne

9. One book you've been meaning to read: The Spreading Flame, by F.F. Bruce

10. Now tag five people: Karen, Bill (If he reads this :-) ), umm, don't really know anyone else with a blog.
I will write more about our trip at a later date, but I thought this was fun, so I did it first.

On Vacation

We are in Eastern Washington State visiting family. From Friday until tomorrow, Wed., we are staying at my parent's house. My mother has done an amazing job building a huge and amazing yard and garden. Almost all the veggies we have eaten this week have been from the garden. Lettuce, onions, carrots, spinach, you name it, we ate it!
Unfortunately it has been a blast furnace outside, with temps. somewhere around 110F. Today was relatively cool at 97.
We did get to go on the boat though, and a dip in the cold Columbia River felt very nice.
Tomorrow we head for north of Spokane to Karen's parents' cabin on Deer Lake. It should be fun! I don't think they have high-speed internet, which is a blessing, so I'll post sometime next week.

Oofah

So I turned in my Romans paper this afternoon. As I was talking with the "registrars" in the office, the prof. overseeing me dove into it. After a couple minutes he came over and began questioning me about my thesis and supporting points. I begged him to be lenient with me, as this is only the second paper I have written in about 5 years. Of course I was kidding, and I told him I actually looked forward to his critique. By the time I graduate, I would like to have improved greatly in my paper writing. I have heard some of the guys at Faith(OTS) want students to submit papers for ETS! Wow. That's the big leagues in the theological world. I just want go to a meeting(BTW - I had to edit that sentence because it was passive and Karen is driven nuts by my passive sentences. Of course I explain to her that all my Greek training is seeping over into my English. The above sentence would most likely be, "I would like to just go to a meeting," in Greek. Oh well. Rabbit Trail end. Please step carefully back onto the Train of Thought.).
Well, various computer games call. 'Night.

What a Weekend!

Karen and I helped out at a wedding this weekend. It was at Mt. Hood. The actual ceremony was at the Silcox Hut at the 7,000ft. level of the mountain. It was one of the most beautiful settings for a wedding I have ever seen.....
Karen played beautiful music and sang as though "there was an angel in the room(an actual comment made by one of the people there)." She also did all the makeup and hair for the girls and had general crazy fun. I am so proud of her. She was a great blessing for all involved.
I really wanted to be here...


This picture was taken around 10:00am. It is of the Palmer snow field. Timberline has one of the longest seasons in the country. I think it's open until September. And that is just to give the employees some time off and time for maintenance. I have skied a couple times during the summer. It is quite an experience.
For those who don't know, Timberline lodge was built in the 30's under the Works Progress Administration. It is amazing. I don't think it would be built today. There are four old growth trees cut into columns in the lodge, as well as rough-hewn stones all over. The story of its construction is really interesting. Here is the official site.
We got back on Sunday and Karen helped me finish my paper's second edit. So I am all done with the Romans class. It is on to Greek Exegesis 2 this fall. It's the last one in the Greek series at Faith (OTS). I need to start re-practicing my Greek!
Well, that's all for now I guess. Enjoy.

Blurry Eyes

Today has been quite a whirlwind day.
Last night sometime around 12:00am we finally shut the lights out. Got up the next morning planning on doing my paper on Romans. It would have to wait...
Our saga of car problems continues. Friday someone tagged the Outback while Karen was downtown. It went unnoticed until Saturday night, when I went out to drive us to dinner with some friends. I saw that the front bumper was dinged and cracked and the fog light cover gone. Being Saturday night everything was closed. Monday morning I went down to a body shop and got an estimate, while waiting for the insurance agent to call back. I got a hold of him around 11:00am and got the claim going. From my earlier time at the body shop I thought they would be able to take the car today, figuring I'd give them a week-and-a-half or so to fix 'er up. So on the way back to the body shop to drop it off we stopped at the rental car place (Enterprise). They didn't have a car for the ammount we were covered for, so we got one we would have to pay the difference on, a Ford Taurus (The supervisior told the guy to give us a "good deal" on a Caddy, but that brought it to 36.00 a day! Why they couldn't give us a good deal on the Taurus, I don't know). We got to the body shop and found out that they couldn't even take it until next Friday!! So we went back to Enterprise and dropped the Taurus back off (they were nice and didn't charge us). Besides not needing it, I got a headache from the smoke odor driving it 10 blocks. Yuk! The guy at Enterprise was sheepish about it, saying, "Yeah, well we take them to a detail shop and they do what they can." Karen piped in that her husband happened to be able to take it out, but he wasn't intrerested in it. By now it was 1:30 and we were hungry and angry, so we went to DQ. While there an employee of Kettle Foods (they make Kettle Chips) made a scene because he thought it was taking too long to get his ice cream. He finally got it then proceeded to stare at all the women in DQ as he ate his tardy frozen treat. I made sure Karen had her back to the creep. I should call Kettle. 'Course they probalby have a few "Johns" working there, and I don't know his last name. Gives me the jibblies. Well, after eating I finally got around to typing the paper.
I just finished it 20 min ago. It ended up being 16 pages single-spaced. I haven't formatted it or edited it, but it needs to be 15 pages double spaced, so I got some cuttin' to do. Whew. So, I am blurry-eyed from staring at a computer screen for 8 hours.
Tomorrow I will be greeted with fresh torture, as I will return to cleaning all things nasty out of carpets. Good thing I have all my shots...speaking of shots, I haven't posted a good shot picture for a while so, here it is.

He was at a dead run. My friend Jim got him with a .223 Remington 700 last November. A nice shot. Shows how that little bullet shatters on impact, with all of its energy being displaced on contact.

"What Bugs You" Thursday

There's a local sports talk station that has a "What bugs you Wednesday." Well, it's Thursday, but I have a couple bugs, and it's my blog.
First, I got two phone calls on my personal cell phone and one on my work cell today from some number I didn't recognize (469-476-6982). Each time it was a recording in Spanish. Translated it said, "Hello, you have terminated all options this call will be ended now, thank you. (roughly)." WHAT???? I googled it and found this has been going on for over a year, with different numbers. No one knows why it is happening. The number is from the Dallas TX area. I tried calling it back and got a "this number cannot be called as dialed" message. Very annoying!
Second, as I type this, our computer room window is open to take advantage of the cool weather we are having (67 F as of 7:20pm). Twice now a car has come by with the music so loud that it vibrated my computer monitor. Grrr....One was "oom-pah" Mexican music. The other was Rap-crap. What gives them the right to force me to listen to their dumb music as they sit at the light? Makes me want to share my rusty nails-pushed-through-tar-paper collection.....In the street.....
'Course then they would spend more time out there with their loud music, so it would defeat the purpose. Maybe I could share my keys-nailed-to-a-car-door-height-2-by-4-and-placed-along-the-street-in-a-bucket-of-cement collection. Yeah, that'd do it.
Seriously. I thought there were volume ordinances. Where are the police? As I type, a third car is waiting at the light with loud music. Another oom-pah song.
Well, enough griping. I shouldn't let other people's rudeness ruin my evening. I'm gonna go get some ice cream....

New Links, Old Friends

I have been re-connecting with some of my old IBEX acquaintances as of late. "What is IBEX," you ask? Well, it stands for Israel Bible Extension. It is run by Master's College in CA. They allow students from several other colleges to participate also, including: Biola, Cedarville, Concordia, and Western Baptist(Corban). It is an extension campus in Israel about halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the Judean Hill Country - the Shphelah. Students go for a semester, learning about the land, the Bible, history, language and people of the Holy Land. There are many field trips and too many activities to mention. I went my last semester of college. I thought it would be a good culmination of my Bible training. Boy was it! It was more fantastic than I could ever have imagined. Almost every day I think about going back. If the Lord would allow, I would move there tomorrow. At the very least, EVERY Christian should go at least once. Time does not allow me to communicate all the things the Lord did for me there. Suffice to say I went an immature Christian boy, and came back "a man," as Karen likes to say.
Anyway, I found a blog run by one of the profs there, Todd Bolen. He posts almost every day about events in Israel and it is excellent. Here is the link :http://blog.bibleplaces.com/
I also found a blog run by "The IBEX Scribe," Angie. It is good too :http://ibexscribe.blogspot.com/ She gave Karen and I a really comfy fleece blanket for our wedding. We still love it. Anywhoo...time for bed!
But not before a random pic!


This is our friend Joe and I being boys at the beach. Enjoy.

Is anyone out there? Including me??

It has been over a month since I blogged. Sorry.
I worked 196 hours this month, moved some friends into the basement for the summer, and oh yeah, am working my way through 62 study questions for my Romans class. Still. I have yet to start the paper. Although I learned that according to "Chicago Style" it is supposed to be 12-15 pages double spaced! No prob. now. I can whip out a 7 page paper easy. One on into., four on language issues, two to three more on interpretational views, and one conclusion page. Wait....that's one, five, seven or eight, nine or ten...I haven't written it yet and already I'll have to edit it down. :-)
Karen gets here gall yanked...err...I mean her gall bladder is being removed Monday. I'm taking Mon., Tues, and Wed., off to nurse her.
We saw Karen's sister and brother-in-law yesterday and thier cute baby Aaron. "Do I want one?" you ask? Nope, I'll just play with yours :-)
As I blog, the resounding music, cows, and sounds of gunfire can be heard. Karen's watching Silverado. Yup, my wife likes westerns.... :-)
I'll end with a pic from our new camera. The old one had three or four pixels out and would shut off by itself periodically.

This is a pic of Manzanita(notice the uncannily similar pic on thier page, although you may have to hit "refresh" several times to get the right one) beach looking North using the 300mm telephoto lens. We love our camera.
Until some unknown and probably far in the futute time....good day.

Ok, ok, so it's been well....entirely to long since I posted. Things have been very busy around here. Yes, Cherrie, the car is running. In fact the guy who put the new transmission in it specializes in hot rods, so it shifts like a race car - very short clutch throw. Nice.
Well, I can't find the lecture notes and I don't have time to search right now, so I will post something from what I am working on right now, a class on Romans. I am taking it via DVD because our Greek Exegisis prof. had quadruple bipass surgery (he is on the mend) and had to postpone the class. The prof. for Romans made a list of 62 study questions for me to answer in a, "thourough and scholarly" way.
(Q.) Romans 2:7, Is this not salvation by works?
(A.) If it were truly possible to lead a life of only doing good, then yes, but Paul will begin to build the argument that it is not possible to do this. In fact in 3:9-20 Paul quotes the Old Testament, arguing that not one person does good, and that “because by the works of the Law, no flesh will be justified in His sight;[and this is important to the question] for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.” The Law established what “good works” are, but there is no man who has or will be able to fulfill the entire Law, and God planned it that way. We are to look to the Law to see we are incapable of only doing good, so that we would be “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” As Moo (the author of the commentary I am using for the course) says, the promise Paul makes in 2:7 can never be fulfilled because a “consistent, earnest seeking after good can never be realized.”
On top of all these, he wants a 12-15 page paper on the "meaning of Romans 6:3,4." I have my work cut out!
I should be able ( and would like to) post more when we are in Hawaii. Until then, who knows.

It really has been a long time since I posted here. Wow.
Well, things are going along. Our Sentra's tranny died. It sounded really cool limping it home. We are going to see if the one Frank has in the junk (errr...I mean scrap) yard will fit it. The engine is a '90, the tranny is an '88. If it does we are going to see how expensive it would be to have someone put it in for us.
Today I am typing this blog while I install Win98 on my backup gaming compy. The hard drive from the computer my parent's gave me was about to go out ( in fact it kinda sounded the same as the Sentra's tranny - a kind of metallic scraping sound). My friend Jim had an old Hewlett Packard he gave me so I pirated the hard drive out of it. Only problem is that the HP's hard drive didn't take kindly to being yanked out of it's home, so I had to format it.
For the time being, spring is here in the Willamette Valley. Today it is sunny and in the high 50's. There are some flowers blooming and others coming up. It's nice.
I must attend to software loading. I know I said I'd put more info on about the Habermast lectures, but be patient.

I like to post in "trebuchet." Although I am not entirely sure why it is called "trebuchet," as a treb. Was one of the most destructive war machines of the Middle Ages.
Well, as is the case with many of my questions, I promptly did a web search of the topic. It yielded this. It doesn't say why the guy named it after a siege weapon, but it was still interesting.
I have been interested in trebs since I began to play Age of Empires 2 where they play an important role in smashing your opponent's defenses (or leaving you scrambling to find those pesky light cavalry units to destroy them!). I always wanted to build one. I might someday.
How disappointing! I clicked on a station on XM online because it said Johnny Cash was on. Apparently is was almost over because by the time it connected it was Reba McIntyre from the 80's. BLACCH!
This week we had a lectureship by a great apologist Dr. Gary Habermast. He led us through an apologetical method we can use with everyone from world-class scholars to lay people because he only uses scripture that is accepted as "authentic" by even the most liberal scholars to prove that Jesus claimed to be God, was crucified, and rose from the dead. From there you can work back to prove the existence of God and the exclusivity of the Christian message for salvation. It was great! I will give more detail later. Right now I have to work on a new project....

Hello all. Not that there are very many people who know this site even exists.
Wow. We had our last Greek Exegesis class for the semester today. What a great class. We put all the things we learned this semester together and "exegeted" Phillipians 1:1-2 and 4:2-11.
Phil. 1:1-2 is Paul's salutation to the church in Philippi. Paul includes Timothy in his greeting but not because Timothy is a co-writer, but probably because Paul is getting the Philippians ready for Timothy's upcoming visit. Paul addresses the letter to the "saints" together with the "elders and deacons" in Philippi. There has been much discussion why he did this. People want to connect the two terms to say that the letter was only to the leaders in the church ( a term in Greek grammar called apposition). But they are not the same. We came to the conclusion that Paul is including the whole church, emphasising that the problems Paul deals with will also have to be dealt with by the leaders.
Phil. 4:2-4 is Paul's plea to get along. There are two women who have a difference of opinion that has apparently spread to the entire church, with people taking one side or the other. It is a conflict over something involved in ministry in Philippi. Paul appeals to the time when the Philippians and Paul's fellow workers were striving in the work of the Gospel, asking them to return to that point in thier thinking. They need to return to fellowshipping in the gospel. If they can't have fellowship doing something, they need to stop. Of course the appication applies to us today. If some ministry program is better monitarally or efficient but causes a rift in the church, it needs to be ended. The point of the section is to work together.
We also looked at Phil. 4:13. Many interpret the verse as saying "I can do anything through Him who strengthens me." But exegetically that interpretation does not hold up. The context is Paul speaking about how he has learned the secret of contentment in times of adversity (with an emphasis on finances). He says he cannot do this on his own, as the Stoic philosiphers of the time argued (he even uses the same type of language as the Stoics). He says it is only possible through God. It is also clear that the believer in need must go to the Christian community for help, and that the community is bound to help the one in need. Finally we are only able to do something if it is what God wants us to do. If God really wants us to be able to lift 300lbs we will do it. But if we want to lift it, we cannot hang our hopes on this verse.
There was a TON of work behind these summaries. There were literally pages of notes we wrote down on individual verses. The more we studied, the more questions we came up with that we needed to answer. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Just kidding. By all means, study as much as you can, using all the tools at your diposal. This is what "meditating on the Word" means. It does not mean to empty your mind, rather fill it with thoughts about the Word. You will find it very rewarding.

It certainly has been a while since I updated! Lots of things have been going on!
Jan. 20,21,and 22 was the men's retreat at our church. It was, as it has been for 20 years, at Tadmore Camp.
The speaker was Dr. Phil Howard. He pulled no punches and talked to us men straight about living for God and keeping ourselves pure. I think a lot of men were changed, including me! There was also paintball and pistol shooting, lots of Super Monkey Ball, great food, and great fellowship. I am waiting until someone puts his messages online to comment because they were so good I don't want to sell them short.
As for paintball, our team ran the table, winning both team-elimination games and both capture-the-flag games. The first game I got hit in the face running blindly (my mask was so fogged, I almost tripped several times) toward the other team. The second game none of us got out. In fact, we employed some great military tactics of cover fire and flanking. The first capture the flag game was double elimination, that is you can get shot once, run back to your base and get back in. My boss, Shawn hit me in the face as I was running for the flag but it allowed Joe (a great friend and co-worker) to hit Shawn in the heart area. Joe hit another guy on the other team. This gave one of our guys an opportunity to grab the flag. The second capture the flag game was non-elimination. The judge overheard us discussing strategy and suggested a rather radical one. I left my paint gun at our base and ran full-bore for the flag as soon as it started, with Joe covering with his gun. I made it to the flag and made a grab for it. As paintballs whizzed by I tugged at the flag. It was stuck in the tree. Finally I was hit and Joe right after me. We bee-lined it back to our base and flipped a u-iee, sprinting back toward the flag. This time I reached it and broke the tree holding it. I started to run back toward our base and fell flat. As paintballs flew by and spattered around me I jumped back up and raced back to the base. It was quite exhilarating!
For the pistol shoot they organized a card game. At piece of cardboard was attached to a stand and playing cards were taped on it, face down. A small pack was included and these counted double. The objective was to rack up as many points as possible with 6 shots (revolvers were involved, so 6 was the max). I came in late. Since the rules said "any caliber," I went with my Browning Buckmark .22 since it is almost a target quality pistol, as opposed to my Desert Eagle .40 S&W which is a combat arm. It turned out I tied for 1st and we had a shoot-off. I had already put the Buckmark away because I thought we were on to the next activity. I got 8 points on 2 cards with the Eagle, while the other guy got 1 double card for 14 points. It was great fun. There was even a guy with a blackpowder revolver. Some complained about having to stand downwind of him ;-)
I came back refreshed and challenged. And with Karen's help and the conviction of the Holy Spirit, we will continue in our spiritual renewal.
More later.
P.S. Phil, I have the comments set to "anyone" now! :-)

The bikers are getting out of hand here in the NW. Every Sunday there is a large gaggle of them that rides up and down the street in front of our house, taking up the whole bike lane and most of the car lane. This morning I saw a pedestrian almost run over by a biker riding down the sidewalk, going against traffic.
And now there is the story of the biker in Portland who is suing the bus authority there because..well, read it for yourself here.
Outrageous. The bikers in Portland have become militant. They are staging protests where they block streets, they are calling for more money to be spent on "bicycle-friendly" traffic imporvements, and now apparently expecting to be able to just ride down the middle of a lane of traffic and have cars, trucks, and busses go around them. Oh yeah, and they don't pay a cent for any of it, because the highway dept. here in Oregon is funded almost exclusively from gas taxes.

And another thing. I have been noticing that people have been dumping thier Christmas trees willy-nilly all over Salem. I have seen several in the barrow along the road, piled up near trash containers at apartment complexes (apparently for the manager to deal with because far be it from the tenents to take any personal responsibility) in open fields, and piled or just randomly tossed in parking lots. I even heard of someone's neighbor planting thier (cut, mind you) tree in a nearby park because they, "didn't want to throw away a perfectly good tree when it could grow somewhere." Amazing.

Well, a couple rants. I'll end on a positive note:

This is a mule kicking the snot out of a mountain lion that decided to try to make a meal out of the mule. Final score: Mule 1, Cougar 0. Mules are cool.

Well, I just spent the last 3 hours studying New Testament manuscripts and weighing the pros and cons of whether an article was present in the original or if it was added by a copyist later. It is a tedious process of looking through a lot of expensive books.
But I love it. I don't know why, but I am facinated by history. I love studying old things.
Alas, tomorrow I must go and clean filth out of carpets again....

Well, I spent an hour posting pics and putting cool linkies in the descriptions, then I accidentally refreshed the page w/o saving. Poof. So much for that. I don't want to go through that all over right now. Maybe this weekend I'll try it again.

I heard a great story on public radio this morning. It was about a "researcher" who is studying how windows effect birds. He says that it is an unknown fact that a billion birds are killed every year flying into windows. He found this out by taking some window panes out into the forest and seeing if any birds hit them. Lo and behold they did. Next he went and found the average number of birds that hit a particular building, multiplied by the number of days in a year, then multiplied by the estimated number of buildings in America. Hence, one billion. He says that every new building should have "bird-friendly" glass.
Let's dissect this for a second. First, if he cared so much about birds, why did he murder them by placing window panes in a previously window-less environment? Of course the birds hit them. If I was walking through a forest that I had frequented for years and all of a sudden there's a window pane hanging there I would hit it too. Next, did he take into consideration that there are many areas of the country where birds don't normally hit windows? I don't remember birds ever hitting any of our windows where I grew up in Eastern Washington. I have a freind here in Salem who commented that there had been two birds to hit the window of thier home in five years!
Next in the story they found a university somewhere on the east coast that installed so-called "bird friendly" windows in a new building. They installed two "thump" detectors to see how many birds hit those two buildings in a year. They found that five hit the windows. So say there are 50 windows. That means these "bird-freindly" windows KILLED 125 birds! And it is a major science building, and they said it was mostly glass. So I'm guessing the total number of windows is more like 500. I don't even want to contemplate the carnage 500 windows would visit upon those poor, defenseless birds.

Oh yeah, Greek is hard too.

That's it for today.

Well, thanks Danny! Now I can post with reckless abandon.
I took a week off work to work on homework.....and do other Christmasy and New Yearsy things. It was great. I did everything from researching the history of biblical Philippi (BTW, why is the city spelled with two "p's" while the ruler, Phillip, for which it is named spelled with two "l's"?), to playing 12 hours of Battlefield 1942 with a good friend. Life is grand.

In case you haven't heard, the Willamette Valley is floating away, well, parts of it. It isn't as bad as No. Cal. but I saw a news report of how "heavy rains" caused flooding in Salem. The city works department said there was nothing they could do. If you know us then you know how I feel about the city works department. Somehow they manage to spend $2,738,701 of our taxes and fees last year and every time it rains some part of Salem floods. This city goes nuts anytime there is a major weather event. If it ever snowed I think you'd have to put most Salemites on suicide watch.

Well, I have to help out at work tonight (9pm to 1am), so I better get to goofing off. My wife got me Age of Empires 3 for Christmas and it is beconing me....