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.