He works!

I always knew that one day my child would be old enough to help out. To be truthful, they all are helpful to the best of their ability, but for some reason in my mind mowing the lawn is an achievement. And today it has been achieved. My daughter pulled the flags and the boy...the boy mowed the lawn! Very exciting day for me, the mowing of the lawn. The passing of the baton for some years. I'm sure by the time it comes back to me to mow the lawn regularly, we'll be paying some neighborhood kids to do it, but for the next 14 years or so, I have my own kids to do it!

What's on the--uh, oh

it broke.

My iPod broke.

After all we have been through together. The nights sitting in the chair together. The long road trips together, the time spent on the tractor together. Now she's dead.

Oh, it's probably not her fault. I've dropped her and abused her and got dust in her, but dang I need my iPod!

The good news is Apple knows what customer service is all about. I didn't have to hunt around for a receipt from buying it or documentation from the warranty card that I probably never sent in. I just went to their web site, entered the serial number, went through some troubleshooting that was actually useful (but didn't solve the problem) and they sent me a box. More than that, they sent a box with a label on it to send back. They also sent packing material. They also sent tape.

Tape. Apple was thoughtful enough to not just ask me to tape the box up once my iPod was nestled inside, they sent me the tape to use on it. Then I called DHL and asked them to come pick my iPod up. That was it. Completely covered under warranty. I'm out a few days without the iPod, but I don't have to hunt for a box, I don't have to haul it to the store to send off, I don't have to send in a receipt and wait 6-8 weeks for reimbursement from sending it back to Apple, they just took care of it.

That is the way customer service should be. Not spending two hours on the phone trying to do some troubleshooting of the product with a person who does not speak my language natively and we're both getting frustrated. Then having to hunt all over to find a receipt I know I should have kept but I lost somewhere along the way. Nope, go to the web site, enter a serial number, walk through some steps and BAM there's a box on my doorstep.

Nicely done, Apple.

The Rev

In some traditions, they see the ordination process as the time when the minister receives authority and power with the laying on of hands of those in authority over them. Not ours. Our tradition sees the ordination process as affirming God's call on the minister's life and publicly recognizing that. I had the privilege a couple of days ago of attending Carol Jackson's ordination ceremony. In our faith tradition, the district in which you minister holds the power to grand credentials. While the main headquarters is found in Springfield, Missouri, the district in which you minister is the one that will interview you and grant credentials. So I was able to travel to Casper, Wyoming (very flat) and attend the Wyoming district's ordination ceremony and agree with those assembled there that God has called Carol Jackson to His service and share in the ordination ceremony itself. She had the privilege of her husband praying the ordination blessing over her while her two sons also prayed for her. It was a tremendous experience and I was very happy that I was able to attend. Congratulations, Reverend Carol!

That was neat

You know the feeling when your child does what is right even though they don't know you are watching? Like when you see them out of the corner of your eye hold the door for somebody or help out when somebody needs help or offers to serve when they don't know anybody is looking? As a leader, sometimes you get feelings like that. Feelings of pride in how well people are doing. Rejoicing when those you lead get it right.

Sunday afternoon after church we had a meeting about how RCC has a youth ministry and what the future of it will look like. We had figured on about 20 people showing up. To be honest, of those 20, almost half of them are board members and their children.

We had 60 people show up.

It was awesome. 60 RCCers care so much about the future of young people in our church that they took a couple hours out of their day to sit down and brainstorm ideas of how we can best serve our youth. Not only that, but they walked away with assignments. The brainstorm will not come to fruition unless people hold up their end of the bargain and own their bit of the truth.

That was neat to see. Really neat.

The nature of relationships

One of the natures of a relationship is that everybody's is different. Your relationship with your parents is different than the relationship your kids have with the same people. The same goes for their friends...they have a different relationship. I recently was thinking about our relationship with God when listening to Amarillo Sky on the iPod. The chorus goes

Takes the tractor another round
Pulls the plow across the ground
Sends up another prayer
He says, "Lord, I never complain
I never ask why
Please don't let my dreams run dry"

That's a different relationship Jason Aldean has with God than I do. The person he's singing about never complains and never asks why, just begs that his dreams don't run dry. While we both are talking about God, we also have different relationships with Him. I complain and I ask why! Oh, there is a right way and wrong way to go about it in my opinion. We can easily whine and moan and be disrespectful towards our Heavenly Father and that is not the way to go about questioning. But there is a way to wonder and ask questions that illuminates and helps us to understand. That's a big part of my relationship with God.

Search phrases

One item our web host lets us look at are the phrases people used in a search engine to find some page on our web site. It is funny sometimes to see what people used to find their way to our church's web site!

rock canyon church
rockcanyon.org
wisdom for dummies
pastor dean jackson
rcc provo
tom buckley
and here is where it gets funny...the rest are normal search terms
replacement heelie wheels
cinemark
massey ferguson clutch alignment tools <- this poor person probably didn't get what they were looking for!
sparrowhawk gyros for sale
removing a lambs tail

I do tend to blog about whatever in the world is going on here, don't I?

:-)

Being proud of oneself

I almost couldn't believe it. I received an email the other day from a buddy saying his CEO was an action figure. It didn't make much sense to me until I clicked on the link. Did you know there were place out there to turn you into an action figure?! Check it out! I could not believe it. Somebody spent $600 for a one-off action figure of themselves! Or maybe $1000 for two of them. Wow, wouldn't you have to be proud of yourself to do that?

Podcasts are returning!

We have been on hiatus because of my back not being functional. Now that I'm getting back into it, I sent off the email yesterday that Real Time and Spike Speaks are ready to be recorded again! I know some of you have really enjoyed the podcasts and I know that I enjoy recording them. Hopefully, we can get all of our schedules coordinated and start recording them in another week or two. It takes about a week for post-production, then we will have them back online again! Look around the first week of May and I'm sure I'll blog about them when we finally have them again.

Next iPod round

This morning was Jason Aldean and Amarillo Sky on the iPod to get me in.

When TV gets it wrong

I was watching a show the other evening...and they messed it up bad. The idea was they received an IP address (internet address) and were to go to that web page. There were a couple of problems with it, though. The first was the IP address. 131.146.151.412 UGH! That is not a real IP address. Any nerd watching the show knows that. Then to make it more fun, if you are going to that fakey address in a browser window (Mozilla Firefox, Opera or Internet Explorer usually) you would type in "http://131.146.151.412" but in the show they type in "http://www.131.145.151.412" double UGH! That really distracts from the show for me when I see blatant disregard for how things actually work.

Now Heroes does it right. Primatech Paper plays a big role in the show and they purchased the URL and update it with insider information from the show. One of the characters, Hiro Nakamura has a blog that has insider bits. It's really neat how you can mine the internet to get a ton of insider information on the show Heroes and really know more. They did it right and put some funds into all the web sites (I believe they have 8 total sites for the show). So on the show if somebody goes to the Primatech Paper web site, the URL is right, it goes to the same place we can get to, and we can see on the show that clicking the symbol gets you into the inside stuff...kewl!

Baseball

I am really excited about my boy's baseball this year! I had the opportunity to meet his coach, Coach Adam, in a team meeting at his house and the guys thinks a lot like me. He wants the kids to have fun, but also requires them to meet certain requirements and if they do not they run! He wants to teach the kids at their level and they will get a chance to play all season long and get better. I think we have a winner here! Practice three days a week is a toughie, but I think this will be a great growing experience for my kid as he needs to take a bit more responsibility for getting himself ready to go to practice and ready for the games. Balancing homework, scouts, chores and baseball is going to challenge him and at 9 years old I think that is a good thing for him. His mom and I have sat down with him and let him know we will get him to practice on time so he doesn't have to run, but he is responsible for getting all he needs for practice together. If we're ready to go and he is not, he will be late for practice and Coach Adam will have him running for it! Shouldn't take too many laps before he starts getting his stuff together early!

Love grows legs

It's interesting that just a few days ago I blogged about I Love You and how I am uncomfortable with saying it and prefer doing it. What makes it interesting was the sight I saw when I came home today. But first there needs a bit of backstory.

My back has been out for a while and that has caused some problems around our place. One of the biggest issues has been the lawn. Or the lack thereof. We need a lawn, we have no lawn and I cannot do much of anything to put in a lawn. We paid a guy to come out last year and get the sprinklers and pump installed, but that still took a bunch of work from me to fill in the trenches and get the wiring done and all of that. Well, as my back got worse and worse last year I couldn't do anything more on the lawn and we ended up with sprinkler pipes run, valves installed and dirt around it.

My CG has been out a few times helping getting the ground leveled and moving dirt around. They have helped with which heads should go where and what we should do to get the lawn installed.

This year my wife has been jealous of the neighbors...one of them has a lawn last year they have been mowing and the other neighbor just installed sod a day or two ago. We have sat down and reviewed our finances so we can just pay somebody to come out and finish this project up.

Well, today I came home from work to find five vehicles that don't belong to me and a tractor parked at my house! My neighbor who just sodded had an extra palette or so and came over with a bunch of other neighbors to blow out the lines and finish the front off and install sod. We now have green in the front! Rocks were being raked, weeds were being pulled, lines were being flushed and actual green grass has been installed. I have got to say I have the best neighbors you could imagine. They know about my handicap and inability to lift much of anything and have rallied around me...even neighbors I have never met. Thanks, neighbor!

What fun!

I really enjoyed yesterday at church. We changed things up a bit from the traditional Easter service and rather spoke about the movie Amazing Grace and William Wilberforce from the film. What made it a lot of fun for me was I was able to do the introduction without any constraints on my time. I didn't have to fill 32 minutes with what I had and I wasn't stuck with only 11 minutes to say it in. Because Pastor Dean is such a good communicator and he was following up, I was able to say what I had to say and he finished it up nicely. That was a lot of fun! If you want to listen, clicky

I love you...

an RCC-er said to me as he was getting off the phone.

Hmm

I am not the most demonstrative person on the planet. Heck, some people would call me uptight! I tell my wife and kids that I love them. That is just about it. I cannot even remember but maybe once or twice while growing up telling my parents that I love them. Now that doesn't mean I don't show people I love them. I like our definitions of love as

The accurate perception and adequate provision for another person's needs

that works for me and I can work with the definition. I can show people I love them by the work I do for them, but helping them with things I am knowledgeable about, by having them over and cooking...I am not good and verbally expressing the fact that I love them. So there I was getting ready to hand up the phone with an I love you hanging in the air requiring a response. So I said thanks and that was it, but I know people can get offended and take things I do in a way I never meant. I'm just not very verbal with my I love yous! Are you?

What a week!

I have been coming down on some of my pain meds this week and it has been hard! You see, when you have been on narcotics long term, your brain gets lazy. Those receptors that would have been filled with endorphins from your brain have been filled for a long time with morphine (which is what fentanyl metabolizes to in your brain). Now, as the fentanyl is taken away, your brain needs to start filling them again with endorphins. That takes in my case about four days for the brain to catch up. For those four days, though, it is rather uncomfortable for me. I'm struggling through and I hope to have this finished on Saturday.