Simultaneity

Thought some of you might enjoy this video from camp and seeing what the Jr. High counselers put themselves through.

A friend of mine that worked at the school in my old church recently published his first book - Are You Curious About Kurios?

I didn't know that he was publishing anything, but it's neat to see a friends name in lights. I hope to find the time to read it sometime in the near future...(near future defined as anything within a year of finishing school). In the mean time, maybe you'd like to check it out.

Last night we went to the Lake County Fair as a family and had a great time. Kevin and I had already been with camp and I thought that Alex would enjoy seeing all the animals. We told Kevin that we would just be seeign the sites and not playing games or riding rides, but we wound up making an exception.
After watching some Mutton Bustin', Kevin expressed an interest. After we told him he could, that was pretty much his focus for the next two hours while we waited for the next show. If you've never heard of this, it's okay, neither had we. Basically, children under a certain size get to participate in a rodeo-type event. They dress in protective gear, then try to stay on the back of a sheep for 6 or more seconds. Many children fall off the sheep as soon as the gate is opened, Kevin lasted just a bit longer.
After watching Kevin we went over to the other side of the fair so Alex could see the big trucks in the truck pull. We watched the trucks and a few tractors pull, then headed out for a snack and home.
Alex enjoyed a bag of cotton candy almost as big as he is, Kevin had some popcorn, and I enjoyed a fantastic caramel apple with nuts.

One in three children are now considered overweight or obese and it is estimated that 30 percent of boys and 40% of girls in the US are at risk for type 2 diabetes in their lifetime...so, do we really need a National Drive-Thru Day?

I'm certainly not against them, it's helpful to stay in your car when you get a coffee, pick up a sandwich, go to the bank, or any number of things that they have drive-thrus for...but do we need to have a day to encourage people to go thru them, to celebrate them?

After a few attempts I am now in possesion of an Illinois commercial driver's liscence with a passanger endorsement. Basically, that means I can drive a bus.

In order to get a CDL in Illinois, you have to pass a series of written and performace tests. On each test, you get three chances. On the third fail, you have to wait 30 days, pay the fee - I'm not sure if you have to start from scratch or if the parts you pass remain passed.
The written tests consist of:

• Core Knowledge (basic driving skills and basic knowledge of large vehicles)


• Air Breaks (or you can be restricted from using them, but that would really restrict the large vehicles you can drive)


• Passanger (you need this for anything that carries more than 15 people)

A while back Kevin's computer was hit with a rather nasty malware. It was a pain to clean out, but after some forum help almost everything has returned to normal. The malware appears to be gone, but I can't maintain an internet connection for more than about a minute. In some recent reading I found that the IP stack could be corrupt and that would remain even if you deleted and readded devices (which I have done). So, I found how to reset the stack to the original state...still no help.

This happens for both a wired and wireless connection.

I'd wipe and reload, but he has a school program that's difficult to port the data so I'm hoping to solve the issue another way.

Home-schoolers threaten our cultural comfort
You see them at the grocery, or in a discount store.
It's a big family by today’s standards - "just like stair steps," as the old folks say. Freshly scrubbed boys with neatly trimmed hair and girls with braids, in clean but unfashionable clothes follow mom through the store as she fills her no-frills shopping list.
There's no begging for gimcracks, no fretting, and no threats from mom. The older watch the younger, freeing mom to go peacefully about her task.
You are looking at some of the estimated 2 million children being home schooled in the U.S., and the number is growing. Their reputation for academic achievement has caused colleges to begin aggressively recruiting them. Savings to the taxpayers in instructional costs are conservatively estimated at $4 billion, and some place the figure as high as $9 billion. When you consider that these families pay taxes to support public schools, but demand nothing from them, it seems quite a deal for the public.

I occasionally watched Battlestar Galactica (in the 80s?) but didn't really get into it. I suppose it was a serial and I needed to see all the shows in order to be hooked.
A friend has been encouraging me to watch the new seties, but given that I wasn't that big of a fan of the first, I resisted. Last week while Teri was away I watched the mini-series...and followed with the rest of season one anytime I had some spare time...I'm hooked.

I wonder about a few things though...and please, if you respond, please be kind and don't post spoilers, I've only just begun season 2.

First, is this the same story as the original or is it vastly different?
Second, they keep losing people by the buckets - especially military personnel. It's cool that they are keeping count, but there is only so many people to go around and they've lost a ton of military.
Third, I know that they are good piolts...ok, some are rookies...but how feasable is it for 20 some vipers to go up against what seems to be a billion cylon raiders?

One of my favorite Bible speakers says, "the text can't mean what it never meant." Yet, over and over again, the Bible is used to defend positions that it not only doesn't support, but often speaks against. There was a time when the Bible was used to support slavery - saying that Africans were an inferior form of humanity. Or a time when the Bible was used to support the wholesale slaughter of a people group. Scripture was also used to teach that the Roman Empire would usher in the new millennium. Each of these were widespread beliefs, supported by scripture and preached by the Church. This is what was taught, this was what was understood, this is what was believed.

We are, by nature, subjective beings. Everything that we see, hear and feel affects how we percieve future events. No matter how much we want to ignore our upbringing or events of our lives, they taint our perception - even the act of trying to ignore our past to see clearly taints our view. We can't get away. That's not a bad thing, unless we disagree.

I think it is easy to say now that if we were in the midsts of any of those times that we would not have gotten the same message from the Bible - but I think that we would - our background would have heavily supported it.

So, given that throughout the history of Christianity scripture is again and again warped and used to support some bizarre dogma, would we know if we were in the midst of a dogma that future generations would show to be a twisting of the scriptures? If so, what would this be? I would think it would not be on the level of genocide, but what would it be? Something simple, along the lines of permissible music (though that is still debated within the Church) or perhaps the idea of a Christian nation (as if a nation rather than people could be Christian), what would it be?

...at least for this year.

Camp started monday, though as I mentioned, our school district wasn't out of school yet, so we'll have week 1B this coming week.
I think week 2 will be much like this week is and I'm looking forward to the upcoming weeks. I'm not sure how I'm going to squeeze school in though. If the weeks continue like this one, which I will assume that they will, then I can say that I'll miss camp when August rolls around. God has blessed camp by putting a great bunch of leaders under me and I look forward to helping them grow in the coming weeks - actually, I'm excited about it.

No lost kids, no emergency vehicles..Good camp day.

I've still not been home much, so that'll need to be worked out, but it was certainly the right choice to make the move. I'm enjoying teaching leaders and leading them. And, as a bonus I get to play with kids.
Leadership meeting getting ready to start, so gotta run.

...there's an oven that needs to be cleaned. At least that's what the firemen said. Today was the first day of camp and this afternoon one of the K-5 stations was baking cookies. Instead, they filled the kitchen with smoke and set off the fire alarm, which automatically called the fire department. That was the most interesting thing that happened today - not much else stood out.
We didn't have many campers today, our school district doesn't get out until next week. We had 23 today and I imagine that will be our average until next week when it will quadrupal.

I intended to go in at 6 this morning to open, leave for a bit, make it back for staff meeting, leave again for a bit in the afternoon to let Jake out and come back for close. That wouldn't be my normal routine, but I thought it might be a good start to make sure everything went well. However, when I woke up at 5 this morning, I thought about it again. The leaders are more than capale and I didn't want to send the wrong message, there wouldn't be that many children, and I've been fighting a cold so an extra hour would be a help. On the other hand, I could also think of no good readon to go in that early. (I'll go in at open at some point this year though). So, instead, I arrived just before 8 to find that no kids had arrived before 7...so that was a good call.

It was rainy today, so no swimming. Instead, I lead the K-5 group in a bunch of games - it was great fun! I need to work on my children's game some, but we had a blast.

Camp begins tomorrow and runs for the ten weeks.

Tomorrow I'm planning on being there from open to close, but I'll take a break in the middle of the day. Other days this week will be less intense.
It's supposed to rain tomorrow, which means the pool is out...I'm sure the leaders will come up with something.

I'll most likly be posting less (is that possible?) during camp and school will start during the second week of camp, right when our school district lets out and camp attendance goes into full gear.

The day got off to a semi-early start as I packed up the car for Teri and the boys and they headed off to North Dakota to say good bye to her grandma and visit her mom.

One of today's accomplishments was getting First Aid and CPR certified. The instructor was really good - kept the class interesting and, as a first responder was able to tell us about what doing these things was actually like.

After work some of the Senior Camp Staff came over for dinner. For an appetizer I made Tex-Mex Chicken Melts, which turned out quite well. I had some pulled pork that had been cooking since this morning and cooked up some fries for the main course. Closed out dinner with Banana Split Shortcake.

It was fun to get in the kitchen today, i enjoy cooking like this, but I arrived home about 30 minutes later than I wanted and wasn't familiar with the new kitchen so I wound up spending time in the kitchen while the guests where here. I wound up trashing the kitchen with dirty dishes, but they're all cleaned up now.

Oh...and I managed to finish a book as well - now I'll have to update the sidebar.

I just checked in on Kevin and Alex and their sleeping soundly.

Last night, Alex wanted to sleep in Kevin's bed and Kevin also thought it would be a good idea. No fights, no running up stairs to see what Alex wanted or to switch blankets for him, just some reading then, when it was time to turn out the lights, they went to sleep.

Tonight, Alex asked again, and Kevin agreed. Typically I've been telling Kevin how much time he had to read, tonight, I didn't. After a little while, Kevin came out looking for a stuffed animal and said he was tired. We let him get the animal and after he went back up stairs, he turned on the closet light (which they've been using as a night light) and then I heard him talking to Alex. Then, he turned out the bedroom light. As I said, they're now sleeping soundly.

Should Home-Schooling Be Illegal?
In February, a California state appeals court ruled that unless parents have recognized teaching credentials, they must send their children to school. The judge, citing a state education law, said that "parents do not have a constitutional right to home-school their children." Parents and politicians were outraged, and the court will rehear the case this month.

Amazon tribe sighting raises dilemma
"I think there is an ethical question whether you can in the end keep them from any contact and I think the answer to that is no," Lovejoy said.
The Brazil-Peru border area is one of the world's last refuges for such groups, with more than 50 uncontacted tribes thought to live there out of the estimated 100 worldwide.

Yeah, this is another I'm disgusted at gas prices post...it's the first one I've made. I'm not usually one to jump on the latest topic in the blogesphere, but being excited by gas that was less than $4 a gallon and then seing my final total after filling my Passport did me in.
I'd been complaining about how much money the distributors, like Exxon and Mobile, have been bilking us for and decided that it's time to see who I am really giving all this money to compaired to previous years. The results surprised me - the profit margin on distribution and refining has actually gone down about 65% since the turn of the century. It doen't make me sympathetic, but it was a little surprising.

Here's where your money (for branded gas) goes:

I'm collecting thoughts on Bible software for the PC...I have a couple of different programs and haven't loaded them, so I will likely start there, but here's some things I think I'm looking for and I'd be happy to hear back on what you think I do and do not need and any software suggestions.

Most places I go have wi-fi so I have most of the tools I'm sing, but occasionally I'm away from a good signal so I'd like to at least have the same things I get for free:

• Several versions of the Bible
• NIV
• NLT
• Message
• NKJV
• ESV
• NASB
• NIrV
• Greek/Hebrew Concordance(?) (ala BlueLetterBible)

• Hebrew Text (w/ translation help)
• Greek Text (w/ translation help)
• A few better (scholarly) commentaries then are found on BlueletterBible
• Bible Dictionary
• Maps

I was asked to submit one of my photos to be reviewed for the East Coast Guide of Schmap. They sent me an e-mail a few days ago to let me know that they've selected the photo to represent the Maryland Science Center.