Finally!

Sunday was so hectic I forgot to get the 9am podcast AND the service CD to rip them and put them online! Well, yesterday I finally made time to head over to the storage area and grub around until I found them...I didn't find any CDs of the service and ended up having to burn another one, but finally I got them, got the intro recorded in the studio, pasted it all together, hit it with the compressor tool and BLAM! they are available online finally!

Uncomfortable

I am pretty much like every other red-blooded American male. There are certain protocols to follow when entering the Men's room and while in there. Items like

• Do not make eye contact
• Do not communicate anything more than a head nod
• Do not acknowledge any noises from the stalls
• Do not loiter

Well, this morning, I had to violate some of these rules. My 3-year-old needed to make use of the Men's room and since he came to work with me this morning, I was in charge. There I was standing against the wall of the restroom...I felt like a Wal-Mart greeter

Welcome to the fourth floor Men's room, I hope you enjoy your stay! Is there anything I can help you with?

Ugh! It was an uncomfortable few minutes, but I made it out with my manhood intact. The sacrifices we make as fathers!

It was useful

I can remember 100 years ago (or thereabouts!) when I was in high school wondering if I was going to use what we just learned in real life. There were a ton of things that at the time I didn't see any real use for, but I did it to get the grade and get done. One of the classes I took in high school was auto shop. I like it so much, I took it for years eventually culminating in my Senior year taking Advanced Placement Auto Shop. This was basically the first couple hours in the morning using the resources of the school to work on our own cars. After school was out, I continued on becoming a software engineer and I began paying a mechanic to work on my car.

Well, I lost my mechanic recently. He found better employment in Canada and his wife is from Canada so he moved there. It left me with a hole. There is only one person who knows how to fix my Jeep (a 1985 Jeep CJ-10a...one of only 2500 or so made) so I was in trouble. I've taken it places to have the oil changed before and they couldn't even put the canister filter in correctly. Well, today I found out my time in AP Auto Shop was useful. I actually changed my own oil! I'm sure many of you who are handy aren't excited, but I certainly was excited when I was finally done and realized it wasn't that hard, and my time exposed to this so many years ago in school paid off!

Here's to clean oil!

Blog Cloud

This is sort of fun. A t-shirt company with a small bot that scans your blog for words used over and over again, then it makes a cloud of those words to put on a t-shirt. I'm not really looking for a shirt with my blog words on it, but here's what it came up with from this blog
Big thanks to Scott Hodge for finding this. Sort of fun to see what pops up when a mindless bot strolls through my blog!

You taughts me, Dads

In our family, we take time before each meal to thank God for the meal. It's not a big 3-point message, but we just stop before we begin shoveling in the grub to recognize that God owns everything, and we are blessed to be able to sit down and enjoy our evening meal.

Each night, the children are fighting each other to see who gets to say grace. The other afternoon, right after church, it was just me and the youngest. He hasn't taken his turn since he's pretty young, but I asked him if he wanted to give it a shot. Sure he did, and we said grace together. Well, he thought he was big stuff now, and as soon as everyone else came home, he let them know that he can now say grace.

Tonight, my wife asked him since he now knows how to do it if he'd like to say grace. He did, and proudly thanked God for our food and asked that it nourishes us. When he was done, I told him he did a good job and he said

You taughts me, Dads

These are the moments when I am really proud of those kids. I taught him, sure enough. I had the opportunity to teach my 3-year-old how to pray. The scriptures tell us to never stop teaching our kids, and sure enough it gets in there sometimes.

It was good news!

This morning I told them. I felt like I was springing it on them, but I let them know...we're moving to two services.

The "them" of which I speak are the two women who faithfully show up every single Sunday morning to make sure the theater is setup. With my back down, they can lift more than I can now, and I cannot imagine being able to get theater 16 going without them.

The best part was their answer to my question of can they help out. They said

sure what time do you want us here?

That was exactly what I needed to hear! We're only asking folk to arrive 30 minutes earlier since we have the setup pretty wired by now.

Now the connection center...that's a different one! We may have to make certain there is a pot of coffee so those ladies are functioning in the morning!

Downtime

Oh, man, this has been horrific for me! My computer broke!

Not just a hunk of software broke or where it doesn't do what you want.

There I was, happily in iTunes downloading a new album (I'm really enjoying Little Big Town) when my computer rebooted and sat there.

Nothing.

No beeping.

No video.

Nada.

I need my computer. Maybe I'm addicted or just nuts, but without my computer I can't read my email and I run everything through email!

So off I went today to grab some parts for it. Left work right at the crack of 5...maybe 4:57 and ran home to stuff them in the box.

As is fairly normal for me, it didn't work. I putzed around a bit, then took some time off. Read some of a book, thought about it, went to the shop, fixed the countdown timer...then I got another idea. Back to the computer, played around a bit more, unplugged this and that and finally got it working.

So I'm finally back and up and I lost no data in the process...whew!

My Farm

I occasionally get calls from our listing on Local Harvest about our farm. Recently, with Wal-Mart's announcement that they are going to start stocking organic foods there has been more interest in what we do. I have been interviewed by a reporter at BYU's newspaper and then a month or so later by a reporter for the Daily Herald. Well, now the farm is famous! We made the paper!

Sort of fun to see they even got most of it right and chose the good stuff for the article. Since we don't use the term organic on our farm we have taken to using the word natural. Kent Crookston, dean of the College of Biology and Agriculture at BYU, calls it a loophole and I can see that point. We don't use the term as a loophole, but rather to discuss and educate people on the difference between the food we sell and organic food from the market. There is a distinct difference and we are up front with people with what we do on our place and give them the opportunity to take it or leave it.

We're cooking up some chicken on the BBQ on Friday!

September 10

RCC is a church that is led by the lead pastor and by his executive board. This board is where the decisions are made. If the lead pastor wants to make some changes, he brings those to the executive board where they are discussed and voted on. In my time on the board, if anybody has had reservations, the decision is tabled until we have a unanimous decision. The bylaws do not require a unanimous decision, but I have not found a decision we have made that was not.

Yesterday we discussed moving to two services. We are seeing the theater we meet in filling up each Sunday. Oh, we haven't been at standing room only but a couple of times, but there are enough people in there that some latecomers are restricted on where they can sit. We discussed it, voted on it and decided on September 10, after school is back in session, we are moving to two services.

Our first service will be from 8:30-9:30 and following it will be communion at 9:45 and second service from 10-11 just like we have now. We are hoping to get our video service going for the 10am service so we can start working the kinks out and so we can start getting people ready for it. Our vision at RCC is to have meeting locations up and down I-15 here in Utah County that will alternate between the teaching pastor being live or video, but each location will have a point pastor.

I'm scared. I'll admit it, this move scares me. On one hand I am thrilled with all of my people who have stepped up and made the term volunteer mean so much more. Imbued with big words like obligation, responsibility, duty and perseverance the term volunteer doesn't seem big enough to encompass it all. On the other hand, we don't have enough people getting out of their seats to pull this off long term. If more folk don't step out we just won't be able to pull it off. I also trust that this move is not just our idea but one God wants us to do, so we're stepping out and doing it. There is a scripture that keeps coming up as we are doing this. It's from 1 John 3:16-18

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

We are making an opportunity available for people to not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. I know it's not for everybody. Some people serve in various other areas. We have one woman in our church who couldn't figure out where she fits into RCC. She wanted to help out, but she has a lot going on at home and really can't leave for any length of time to help in the mornings or some of the other areas we have. She spent some time in prayer and found her place. Now once a month those of us there in the mornings are fed breakfast. Not just a doughnut and a cup of coffee, but she brings us biscuits, gravy, sausage (two types!), hash browns, scrambled eggs (two types!), fruit, granola and other stuff I forget! It is fantastic! She came to us and asked if she could serve in this area we never even though of, and now we miss out if we don't get our monthly breakfast.

I'm not saying this hoping a whole bunch more people come up with some new idea for RCC to get involved in. We have a ton of opportunity for people to get involved right where we are right now. I don't say that to discourage any new ideas, but I'll tell you we have heard a lot of good ideas and have only been able to say yes to a very few of them. Our time is tight right now and we are focused on accomplishing our vision. We need folk to step up and start loving people with their actions inside RCC.

I enjoy watching God work

I feel like I shouldn't be amazed, but I am thrilled to see God work. In today's message pastor Dean talked about A God-Shaped Life and one of his main points was the power of giving. He spoke about blessing others opens the door to be blessed. Now I was not a part of him putting the message together and he was not a part of what I put together to talk about for worship response*. During worship response I spoke about Luke 16:11 "So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?" It just sort of dovetailed so well into one of Dean's main points. And it was a God-inspired thing. It was fun watching Him work.


*At the end of RCC's Worship Experience we invite all of the attendees to respond in some way. Either on the overall experience by filling out a card or by getting involved and signing up to help out or with a prayer request or with their financial contributions.

Being Relevant

On 27 August I have the opportunity to speak again at church. My subject is Wise People Take Advice and I've been thinking of a movie to introduce my topic. The one big take away I want people to have comes from Proverbs 12:15 that "wise people take advice." So I've been thinking of a movie that can introduce this topic as I speak on it. I've gone through a few in my head until I hit upon what I thought would be a good intro. I was thinking about Star Wars...either the original trilogy or the new ones. I could use Luke Skywalker or his father Anakin. Then I got to thinking about it...not everybody knows Star Wars any longer.
When I was growing up, that movie was seminal to me being a software engineer today. I distinctly remember when I first saw the wire frame model of the Death Star and all the rebel pilots were being briefed on destroying it I wanted to make that. Not the Death Star and not an X-Wing fighter, but I somebody with a computer put that wire frame model together and I wanted to do that with my life. Here I am now 29 years after Star Wars came out and I'm a software engineer because of that first dream seeing the model.
My problem is Star Wars is no longer relevant to a huge portion of the population. I even am friends with people who have never seen Star Wars! I know, I'm amazed too. Anyway, in my quest to be relevant, I'll continue searching for a movie clip.

Climbing the mountain

One of my friends, let's call him my crazy friend, decided that he was going to climb Mount Timpanogos the other day. For those of you unfamiliar with Utah landmarks, Mount Timpanogos is the tallest peak around here. It climbs to an elevation of 11,700' and some dust at the very top. It's a popular trail with the college students around here, and my own personal belief is that is because their brains have not quite caught up yet, and their bodies work! Climbing this mountain just sounds painful to me. One neat little tidbit about it is there is a glacier up there on the Eastern slope that never goes away. Neat thing, but I'm waiting for transporter technology to get me up there.

Well, I have another friend who is a pilot. He heard my crazy friend was climbing the mountain and saw it as a great mission (read that as an excuse) for going flying and taking some photos of crazy friend at the top. So crazy friend hit the trailhead at 5am (0500 or oh-dark-hundred depending on how you tell time) with a cell phone in his pack to call from "the saddle." A known location about 60 minutes from the peak. Crazy friend anticipated a call for us to get moving around 9am or maybe 9:30am.

Waiting by the phone, 9am came and went. 9:30 came and went. Heck, 10am came and went! Finally at 10:15 or so I got the call from crazy that he's at the saddle, not quite ready to leap from the edge and take the fast way down and we should launch. Pilot friend and I headed to the airport, quickly preflighted the plane (taking the time to clean one window so the pictures would turn out) and took off.

Just a quick aside here...flying over the Utah landscape away from town is fabulous. The green grass contrasted with the rocks with critters moving around eating and preparing for Winter. I really enjoy all we have here in Utah.

The plane took off from the Spanish Fork airport which sits at 4500' more or less. So we clawed into the air climbing to an eventual maximum altitude of 11,800' to shoot photos. Sure enough, there was crazy at the top of the mountain waving his arms like a monkey! And some goober had the nerve to write their name on the side of the building at the top of the mountain.
So my pilot friend, being proficient in The GIMP made an adjustment
Can you spot the difference between these photos?

I've decided that my pilot friend has a much better way of seeing the top of Timp than my crazy friend. Maybe I'll get to the top again sometime!

Talk about blue screen of death...

This is an amazing story. In case you don't want to read it, basically in New Jersey they have such a shortage of land there are parking garages that are completely automated. This allows them to park double the amount of cars in the same space. They run this with elevators basically, but the elevators not only move vertically but horizontally as well. To coordinate this mechanical ballet, there is a piece of software...an expensive piece of software. The developers of this software do not sell it outright, but rather license it on a renewable basis.

Well, in this instance, the state had the software and decided to not relicense it. So it stopped! Yes, the robot controlling this parking garage ceased to function just a few days after the license was no longer renewed! Everybody who had their car parked there continued to have their car parked until the state finally renewed their software license. As frustrating as the Windows blue screen of death was, this thing has it beaten hands down.

Braggin' on the boy

As a parent, there is nothing I enjoy more than when my children do it right. I don't even care what it is they are doing, but when they make the decision to do it right I am super pleased. I enjoy that moment more than any accolades I have received in my life.

Well, on Sunday my oldest did it right. I had a lot of work to do and had to get some lights up and running early. He really wanted to come with me and help out, so I woke him at 5am, we got ready and headed into church. That kid didn't sit down until all our work was done and he had a donut around 7:30. He worked his tail off and never did complain...just did his job. I was super impressed and couldn't be happier with the work ethic he is developing!

Mosquitos

If I can every find some place that will purchase mosquito milk, I'm set!!!

I went out to the pasture tonight around 8pm because my buddy, our apiarist, came by to check on our beehives. BTW, the hives are doing awesome and should give us more honey this year than we have seen yet!

I walked through the pasture to open gates for him and every step seemed to knock up around 20 mosquitos. They are all over the place! I had on long sleeves and long pants and they were trying to bite me through my thumb! All of them with west nile virus running around means our kids are stuck inside at the hint of the sun going down.

Mosquitos...ugh.

Skipping goats

Every Sunday in church, one of my normal tasks is welcoming people to church and reading our psalm for the day. Last sunday we read psalm 114 from the Contemporary English Version which said

The mountains and the hills skipped around like goats

and I mentioned that I had a problem with that. As a small farm owner who has raised goats and lamb, I haven't seen a goat skip. Now the lambs I'm willing to say they have skipped. The young lambs bounce all over the place but a goat--whether old or young--I have not seen one skip. I talked about how I looked the verse up in another version the King James Version which said

The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs

which I prefer. I can work with lambs and rams skipping, just not goats!

Anyway, it started a series of conversations. I've had people tell me that they think goats skip just fine. I got the feeling that their thought was

the bible says it so it is so, no need to ask

and I appreciate that position, but I don't think it is that simple. In the Jewish tradition, questions are good. Questions are more than good, they are expected. A good question is praised and an excellent part of being a student or follower. We read in the scriptures when Jesus was a boy in the temple in Luke 2 that A

fter three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.

Here we see a story of Jesus in the temple asking questions as is the tradition and normal at the time. As I have thought this through since Sunday, I've come to the conclusion that asking questions of the text is a very important principle and shows respect. Not questioning just to be obstinate, but actually trying to internalize the point being made and asking questions of that is important.

I know as a teaching pastor at church, it is my goal each time I teach that people will go home and look into what we discussed on their own to see if it is correct. Just because some preacher said something doesn't make it true. We are to look into these things ourselves and make them our own. This is more than just walking out of church and bringing up an argument, but rather going home, researching a point ourselves, finding what we really believe about something and then continuing the conversation. Realize it takes hours and hours to put a message together so that it is presented as clearly and truthfully as it can, and if somebody spends time at home with a point that bothered them to continue the conversation, that would be welcomed!

So there's my continued take on skipping goats!

WHOO HOO!!!

Right now as we speak I am sitting down with our web designer approving the final web site and getting it uploaded. I am so jazzed! We finally after years of moaning and praying and hoping for one. We FINALLY have a nice web site that is smooth and easy to navigate and shows off what we have to offer. Love to hear your thoughts on it!

Tragedy

I've talked before about my friend who is a private pilot. I have been able to fly with him a few times and I've really enjoyed it. One of the benefits to hanging out at the airport is I have been able to get to know quite a few people. They have given me a ton of information on airplanes and where to find information and what's happening at our local airport.

One of the companies based at the Spanish Fork airport is Spectrum Aero. They developed a business jet that is smallish. It holds ten passengers and is an all-composite aircraft to keep the weight down and the performance up. On July 25, the jet took off for another practice flight and crashed upon takeoff, cartwheeling down the runway while disintegrating and came to a stop in a farmer's field West of the runway spilling 150 gallons of jet fuel on the pasture. The pilots at the airport were speculating on what the cause of the crash was, and two families are without their loved ones as both pilots perished during the crash.

The pilots do not talk about crashes so they can lay blame or point out how they are better pilots than those who had the accident. They review all the accidents that occur so they can become better. Learning from others' mistakes is a whole lot easier than making them yourself. The speculation by the pilots was running towards a problem because of the hot days we had been having and the aircraft taking off before it was going fast enough to sustain flight. According to the initial accident investigation, that assumption was incorrect. The reason this aircraft crashed was because somebody put a control on backwards. The airplane was in the shop for a while getting new struts put on the landing gear to give it a bit more strength, and there was a part in the way so they redesigned it, put it in and inadvertently put it in backwards. This made the plane roll right when the pilot told it to go left. This very expensive proof-of-concept aircraft was destroyed and two men lost their lives because of one little thing that was put on backwards. The mechanic assuredly tested it when he put the part on and didn't notice it. The pilot preflighted the aircraft and noticed that his control stick moved the control surfaces, but didn't notice they moved backwards. All because of this small mistake, so much was lost.