Green and The Forest Guard

As many of you know, I'm a huge fan of Ted Dekker. He's definitely been my favorite author over the past 5 years or so, when I first discovered his books. Since then I've read many of his books. I would type out the list, but he writes a lot of books and the list would be long.

Well, Ted, being the genius that he is, has a street team called the Forest Guard, based on his books Black, Red and White, who's job it is to let people know about his books. Well, I, being the fan that I am, am a member of the Forest Guard.

If you would like to join the Forest Guard or find out more about Ted's new book Green, go to http://teddekker.com/readgreen and register for the site. My recruit ID is 6291, don't forget to enter it.

Another great site for more info about Green in general, including a great video is at http://www.teddekker.com/green. The video is amazing.

Also, hit up Ted on Twitter and Facebook, those sites will help keep you in the know.

If you do any of these things, sign up, go to the Green site or hit Ted Dekker up on Twitter or Facebook, let me know so I can report the activity.

New Blog

I have a new blog. Head over to www.shauneutsey.com to join my discussions there.

Windows 7

Ok, I'm officially a fanboy of Windows 7. I'll state that right up front.

The company that I work for, ConsultUSA is a Microsoft Certified Partner. That is my fancy way of saying that I was watching Steve Balmer's (CEO of Microsoft) keynote address at CES on one tab of firefox and hitting refresh on the MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) website on another waiting for windows 7 to show up as available to download.

That night I downloaded the x64 and x86 versions of the OS, created a partition on my laptop and installed the new OS. At first blush, I liked it. It kind of looks like Vista, but when I got under the hood a little, I realized the differences.

One of the nice features that Microsoft introduced in Vista was a system performance ranking system. You could run an analyzer on your PC and it would spit out a ranking of 1 - 4 in several different areas. This was one of the first things that I did when I loaded Windows 7. I do wish that I had the original Vista rankings on hand, but alas, I've since blown away the Windows 7 partition and upgraded Vista completely to Windows 7 and I cannot undo that, specifically just to get the performance ranking.

Alas, I can tell you that my performance increased in all areas, the biggest, not in size of jump, but because it was the biggest bottleneck on Vista was my graphic card performance. On Vista it was stuck at 2.5 on Windows 7 it is given... wait for it... wait for it... 2.7! I know, it's not ground breaking, except for the fact that Windows 7 itself takes fewer resources so it's able to get better performance out of the one system resource on a laptop that is really hard to upgrade. When I first got the laptop it had 1 gb of memory, the memory ranking was 2.5, I upgraded it to 2.5 gb and the performance went up to almost 4. Upgradable, easy peasy. Graphic cards... not so much.

The control panel on Windows 7 is another area that has been greatly improved. Not only is it a nicer layout and easier to find specific items in it. There are more items at your fingertips for managing this marvelous peice of technology.

The one thing that I've discovered that I don't like, primarily because it is frustrating my wife, is that the show desktop has been moved and the nature has been changed. It is no longer an icon on the shortcut bar it is a little section of the taskbar itself, on the right hand side of the bar. Well, as fate would have it, I have a slanted table that fits over the arm of my chair in the living room(just because I do some work at home doesn't mean I have to be away from my family.) I also have a wireless mouse that has a tendency to slide down the slant and flop to its right side when you let go (darn that gravity!) It is frustrating when it does that because the mouse pointer automagically flys to the exact point of the show desktop area.

Ok, so I mentioned that the nature of the show desktop had changed. Now when you hover over the show desktop, it... shows the desktop. If you move the mouse everything comes back as normal, but just hovering shows it. If you want to minimize all of the windows to interact with the desktop, just click that area and everything stays minimzed, just as before.

One of the nicest new features of windows 7 though is the ability to attach programs right to the task bar. This becomes their perminent place on the bar. They've also changed the size of the programs there to be the size of the programs icon. So, for instance. I currently have IE, Visual Studio 2008, Firefox, Thunderbird, Zune and a couple other programs pinned to the task bar. I can click on Thunderbird, and it opens up, it doesn't create a new spot on the taskbar, it already has one and lives on that one spot. At that point it behaves just like an open program from the previous OS's, click the icon while its open it minimizes, while it's minimized, it opens.

Ultimately, Microsoft is in the process of hitting a home run and I say, thank you. I may have been the minority and didn't hate Vista, but even I will not go back. I'm looking forward to the full RTM version as soon as it hits stores.

Safari!

For those of you who actually use Apple's web browser Safari, I'm sorry. You have been duped by "the Man". You've been told that everything Apple is secure, there can be no other. Be a Mac, be a clone, be an automiton, do what you're told.

A major security flaw has been discovered in Safari. One that makes every IE or Firefox security hole seem minuscule in comparison. Here is the original article on the flaw, or at least the one that I was pointed to by one of my friends.

Anyway, it's just nice to get a jab in at an Apple technology.

Have fun boys and girls.

Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1

I just wanted to send out a little note, even though it hasn't been officially announced yet, Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 is now available here.

I personally will not be installing it for another month or so, but it is nice to know that it is ready to go.

Windows "Mojave" the next Microsoft OS!

Here's a quick "preview" of Windows Mojave, the "next" Microsoft OS. I find this very interesting.

http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/

DotNetNuke Skinning Tutorial Book Review

As a developer one of my greatest areas of weakness is in the area of design. Where I have always been able to make a site functional, my designs have been merely passable.

The author, Darren Neese, takes you from concept to finished product. This book is aimed at beginners, so it is perfect for me, perhaps it will fit your DotNetNuke Skinning needs as well.

First, let me say this, I love DotNetNuke. There, I said it.

Second, I hate skinning DotNetNuke. As a developer that is my weakest area. In fact, to quote Scott Hanselman:

"The difference between a Designer and Developer, when it comes to design skills, is the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it." - Scott Hanselman with apologies to Larry Miller

DotNetNuke Skinning Tutorial makes the design element of DotNetNuke a little easier. It does not automatically make your designs pretty, but it opens up the mystery of creating a design that is functional and usable.

I must say thanks to PACKT Publishing for continuing to produce books that break down complicated task in a clear and concise way.

If there were one thing that I would add in the next edition of the book, since they use the DotNetNuke Starter Kit install package, is to expose how to install the Starter Kit on Visual Studio 2008, when Visual Studio 2005 is not installed on the PC. I understand that when the book was written VS2008 was not released and by the next release of the book this may be fixed on the DotNetNuke side, but if it is not, there is a small amount of pain to install the package on VS2008.

Since this is my blog, and I have the space to do it here, I'll tell you how to install the Starter Kit on VS2008.

As of DotNetNuke 4.8.4 this issue still exists, the DotNetNuke installation package for the Starter Kit looks for Visual Studio 2005 to make sure that it is installed. They don't look for "At Least" VS2005, they look specifically VS2005. If you try to install the Starter Kit with VS2008 only, like I have on my new laptop, an error occurs because VS2005 is not installed.

The solution to this issue is to install, even if temporarily, the Visual Web Developer 2005. First, it's free, second it's necessary to get the Starter Kit installed.

It's that simple, but it took a little bit of pain, as I mentioned above, to figure that one out.

DotNetNuke Remember Me Not Working

Well, I had mentioned in one of my last posts that I would be starting to redesign the PMCentersUSA.com website with DotNetNuke. One of the issues that I have run into is that the Remember Me option when logging into the website wasn't working. Or at least it wasn't remembering anything for very long.

This issue can be remedied by modifying the web.config Authentication node. The default setting that you want to change is:

Note: Since this is in the web.config this is not truly a DotNetNuke issue, it is an ASP.Net issue.

timeout="60" cookieless="UseCookies" />


The default timeout is 60 minutes. You can change the timeout value to be whatever you need it to be. This will allow you to make sure that people can stay logged into your DotNetNuke website for as long as you want them to be.

The following would be the setting if you wanted your users to stay logged in for 2 weeks, similar to the way Yahoo! mail keeps you logged in.


timeout="20160" cookieless="UseCookies" />


I hope this little tid bit can help you endure that your website keeps users happy.

Another New Adventure

In 25 or so days my contract with Giant Eagle will be coming to a close.  This wraps up a pretty cool gig and opens up some new doors that I'll get to walk through. 

 

One part of the newness will be getting to go back to the main office for a while a do a revamp of the companies websites.  Keep your eyes out over the next couple of months for a facelift to www.consultusa.com and www.pmcentersusa.com.

 

I'll be using DotNetNuke for the revamp of the site, it'll be the first time that I've gotten to use it.  The best part is, after getting DotNetNuke running 80% of my work will be done!  The rest will be updating the pages and the content and expanding the functionalities of the site.  I'm looking forward to getting this stuff moving.

 

I will have to custom code one or two modules, but that shouldn't take long.  So, I say that about 3 - 4 months I'll be back out in the real world looking to get placed in a new contract.

 

Now, to you, my faithful and dedicated readers, if your company is looking to bring in a contractor/consultant in the Pittsburgh area, call me at 412.963.8621.  That is the number for our home office, ask for Shaun Eutsey, I'll call you back when I get the message (I'm off-site at the moment.)  I would like to have my next contract open up some business opportunities for ConsultUSA.  That will do two things for me, one, it'll make me look great in my new .Net Practice Director position and it will allow me to work with you, my faithful and dedicated reader.

 

So, If you would like to see me, Shaun Eutsey, the Viceroy of VB, The Crown Prince of C#, The Sovereign of SQL, come and work for your company... Call Now! 

Heroes Happen Here!

Well, everyone, yesterday was the Pittsburgh Heroes Happen Here launch event for Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008.  

All in all, it was a lot of fun.  I got to hang out with some friends, meet some new ones and hand out a lot of business cards.  We also got some pretty nice swag.  Check out me holding the cooler that we received, and it was full of food! 

There were three presenters for the developer track.  All three of them were very informative.  They ranged from ASP.Net, AJAX and the AJAX Toolkit to Office Development and WPF. 

The most interesting part of the day occurred before we even arrived at the event.  Apparently, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton decided to show up at a United Steel Workers Union conference that was happening at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, which is attached by a skyway to the Westin Convention Center (the location of Heroes Happen Here).  So my buddies and I decided to leave for the event early to combat the traffic which we were anticipating, and to accommodate the potential walk that we could have.

Well, could have a walk turned into did have a walk.  We parked by PNC Park, the home of the Pittsburgh Pirates.  For those of you who don't know, the Pirates are actually a Major League Baseball team.  About 15 years ago they were actually pretty good, but ever since then they have become the minor league team for the rest of the league.   PNC Park, in distance, isn't that far away from the convention center, but you do have to cross the Allegheny River, and walk about 10 blocks.  It's wasn't too bad, but it would have been really nice to have been able to park in the garage that is, you know, ATTACHED TO THE CONVENTION CENTER.

That really is my only real complaint about the day. All in all, it was pretty cool.  We did walk away with some nice swag and some good information.  The swag included:

• The pictured cooler
• Visual Studio 2008 Standard
• Windows Server 2008
• SQL Server 2008
• Windows Vista Ultimate (not expected)

For all of the things that people can fault Microsoft for, the one thing that you have to say is that they know how to do a launch event and make it work.  If only the presidential candidates would have come a day earlier or a day later my calves would be hurting nearly as bad as they are today.

4 Mid Level .Net Developers Needed!

Hello Everyone!

ConsultUSA has 4 immediate openings for mid-level .Net Developers.

So, I turn to you my faithful readers to help me fill these positions in the Pittsburgh, PA area.  These would be full-time consultant positions with ConsultUSA.  We have great benefits that include paying for continuing education and certifications.

Let me know if you, or someone you know may be interested and I'll have one of our recruiters get in touch.

Thanks, in advance, for any help that you can give.

--Shaun--

Promotion!

Promotion!

 

Well, it's finally happened!  I have been promoted to the position of .Net Practice Director at ConsultUSA in Pittsburgh, PA.

 

This new position has many challenges that I am responsible for accomplishing.  Some of these tasks I will be able to accomplish on my own, but for the vast majority of them, I will need help, from you, my humble, yet dedicated, readers.

 

My first and by far the largest challenge of the new position is to take ConsultUSA from being a Microsoft Partner through the path to becoming a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner.

 

I know, it doesn't sound that difficult, but believe me it is going to be much harder than it sounds.  First we need two Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCP).  We have two already, but only one of them fulfills the next thing that we must gain...

 

Microsoft Competency in Custom Development Solutions (Web Development Specialization).  To get this we also need to acquire three references from current clients.  Well, I'm on site at Giant Eagle and I have been able to get one reference submitted.  This means that I have to get in touch with some of our other clients and get information on other projects that we are doing in other places.

 

The last part of becoming a Gold Partner is to earn 50 Microsoft Qualifying points (for Certified level) and then 120 points for Gold.  This happens when we have more certifications, more referrals and more competencies.

 

These are all things that I need your help, my humble, yet dedicated, reader.  If your place of employ is looking for some good .Net Consultants to come in and help boost your staff, or if you have one or more .Net projects that you would like to have done by an outside consultant, give me a call at 412.963.8621.

 

If you are a .Net Developer in the Pittsburgh, PA area and are looking for an exciting opportunity with the chance to grow, you call as well, we are always looking for solid developers with the desire to learn (we pay for you to be certified as well as give you the opportunity to become a Business Analyst or Project Manager through PMCentersUSA.)

 

In the meantime, I look forward to being of service to you, my humble, yet dedicated, reader!

Merry Christmas

This is one of my favorite times of the year; it's also one of the most frustrating.

 

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a Christian.  I'm proud of that fact.  In a time when it's not politically correct to be a Christian, let alone one proud of the fact I stand and proclaim, I am abundantly proud of my God and my faith in Him.

 

One of the things that frustrate me, in this era of political correctness, is that the words Merry Christmas have become taboo.  "Oh, you might offend someone…"  You know what, fine, if they want to be offended by my expression that they have a Merry Christmas, and then the problem is with them, not with me.  If someone wishes me a Happy Hanukkah, I don't get offended; I turn to them and wish them a Merry Christmas.

 

If you are not a Christian and want to wish me a "Happy/Merry Whatever-It-Is-You-Celebrate", that is fine, I promise not to be offended.  You wish me whatever good wishes you want for me, in anyway that you want, I'll take them.  However, in this season, I will wish you a Merry Christmas.  I'm not trying to convert you; I want you to have a good December 25^th!  It is with my deepest sincerity that I want you to have a good day. 

 

If Christmas day is just another day off of work for you and you have no intention of doing anything special, I hope that you are happy and safe doing it.  I hope that as you travel to and from where ever it is you go or whatever it is that you do that someone hasn't had too much eggnog and plows into you.

 

These wishes get embodied into the words Merry Christmas. 

 

I hate the fact that this world is getting so bound up (as in constipated) with political correctness.  I hate the terms Holiday Gift, when they mean Christmas Gift, Happy Holidays when they mean Merry Christmas and any sideways attempt at saying Merry Christmas without actually saying it.  I don't want to be hamstrung into say to everyone Happy RamaHanQuansMas.  I don't celebrate Ramadan, Hanukkah or Quanza, I celebrate Christmas, the birth of my Savior.  I most certainly don't celebrate Festivus, the new politically expedient thing to hit the waves.

 

Now that I'm done complaining; I want to explain why I love this time of the year.  Roughly 2000 years ago (probably closer to June than December) a baby was born to a mother who had never known a man.  He was the Son of God.  He came, lived a perfect life and became the fulfillment of Gods word.  That man died to become the sacrifice that was required to cover my sins, so that I wouldn't have to pay for them with my life.  He became the bridge between my Father and me.

 

My love for this season has nothing to do with anyone else.  It doesn't have to do with my family or my friends.  It doesn't have anything to do with shopping or gifts.  It has nothing to do with the government or even church.  It has to do with my relationship with my savior.

 

With that I only have one thing left to say…

 

Merry Christmas everyone!

InstallFest

A couple buddies and I had a pretty cool adventure yesterday.  We went to the Microsoft offices in Pittsburgh for the release of Visual Studio 2008, an event called InstallFest (I can hear the collective groan from all of the non-geeks that read this now.)

This was a cool event mostly because I got to hang out with my friend Rich Dudley from Armada Supply Chain Solutions.  I was contracted with them for a while before moving to Giant Eagle, Inc.

Anyway, I met up with Rich at the Armada offices where we got to hang around and talk a little, catch up on old times and what not.

We then got on the road to Microsoft.  I followed Rich over, as I had never been to the MS offices before.  If you've never been to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, you must understand a few things.  It is the hardest city to get around in and is easy to get lost.  Traffic patterns make no sense and there is no grid, like in a "normal" city.  Pittsburgh is centered around the confluence of three rivers (there is a rumored fourth, underground, river, but we'll stick to the three you can see.)  This confluence of three rivers gives the city an interesting landscape, since the rivers form a Y in the middle of the city.  Along with the three rivers you have a TON of bridges (There are more bridges in Pittsburgh than any other city in the world) and mountains.

All of that being said, the trip there was pretty non-eventful, other than me almost getting run over by a 16 wheeler who was going to make that turn no matter what.  He missed me by an inch or so, and my car and I both thank the driver for being so... so... observant.

InstallFest, for all intents and purposes, was about swag.  We went into the building, signed in, took the elevator up to the offices, signed in to the event, got our little name tags.  Then we received our T-Shirt, "WhirleyThing", install disks of VS 2008 Express, our VS 2008 sticker and finally, the coup de grace, the full blown copy of Visual Studio 2008 Professional Version!  Yes, this was only the 60 day trial, but we got a code to get a license key that would unlock the full glory of the development environment.

Then the fun began!  We all pulled out our laptops and started to install VS 2008!  Yes, it took 1.5 hours to get it installed, but during the time it took to install we got to hang out with Dani Diaz, one of Microsoft's Visual Studio .Net Evangelists.  Dani is an awesome guy.  He got to show us some of the cool features of the IDE and talked about some of the other events that he was taking place in.

All-in-all it was a great time.  The next time they hold an event at the MS Offices, if it's a topic I'm interested in, I'll be there.  This one was well worth the $4 that it cost to park, and it saved me a bunch of money on buying VS 2008.

If you are interested in seeing VS 2008 in action, or getting some info about it check out this site.

Message

This past Sunday, I had the great honor to minister to the main congregation at Family Fellowship Christian Center, where I am the youth pastor.

I taught on Revelations 3:14-22 and had an incredible time.  If you are interested in listening to the message you can go here to listen to it.  The title of the message is Sitting on the Throne with God.  At the moment of this blog post, it is the top one on the list of podcasts.

I think it is really cool that I get the opportunity, once in a while, to act like a preacher instead of a teacher.  I talked for over an hour and it seemed like 20 minutes.  No one in the congregation was even getting figitty, which after an hour and nine minutes, I would have expected.

I also started to realize just how much work goes into a Sunday service, how much responsibility that I actually have on a normal Sunday and how much more I would have if I were also the senior pastor.

To put a normal Sunday Service in perspective, here is a list of things that have to take place to make the time between 8:30 am to 12:30 pm go smoothly.

Pastor arrives to building 8:15 am, turns on heat, sets up the first service (Bible and a Bagel).
Pastor waits for people to arrive.
Pastor ministers to the early morning bible study.  (This is the same message as the main service, even though the two messages are delivered in an entirely different manor and the two are seldom, if ever even in the same ballpark.)
Pastor ministers from 8:45 to 9:30 (or a little later.)
9:30 - 10:30 worship team starts practice/sound check for main service. (The pastor and I are both on the worship team.  He leads the worship team, but when he's out, it falls to me.)
10:30 - 11:00, worship service. 
11:00 - 11:15 - "The Pastor" - Pray over school aged children
                                         - Take offereing.
                      "Me"            - Prepare sound for recording
                                         - As youth pastor and elder, pray over the school aged children
11:15-12:30 - Main service ministry / recording.

Now, that is the overview.  These duties are normally divided between me and Pastor Rick.  However this past Sunday, all of this fell to me.  For about 4 hours I was running around like a frantic beast.  When everything works well this whole process is easy.  When things start failing though, it's crazy.  Not letting people see that things are falling apart takes skill, or luck.  On Sunday, for worship practice, my wireless guitar transmitter was flaking out.  I had to use a mic.  This is no big deal, but it limits my freedom of movement.  After we were done with worship, I went to get the wireless mic for preaching and the mic was not in its normal place.  We found it after a couple of minutes of frantic searching, then, for some reason, it wasn't being broadcast out of the main speakers.  After a quick rewiring job, we got everything going and service started, about 4 minutes later than normal, but the people in the congregation were none the wiser.  It was cool.

Anyway, that was a morning to remember, the chaos didn't crack us and the word of God was delivered.

Cheese Wiz

I will start this post with a warning. If you are a Christian and you are easily offended, stop reading now.

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If you are still with me you either didn't heed the warning, you're not easily offended, or you're not a Christian.

First, if you are the last, I want to apologize for the majority of Christians who by their actions and they way they behave give a bad example of what the Christian faith is supposed to be.

Now, to explain that, I want to talk about the phenomenon in the Christian Church that I call Cheese Wiz.

I have been dealing with something for the last couple of years that has recently went from an annoyance to a personal quest. I am on a quest to show believers in Christ that they can no longer be cheesy. Thus the name Cheese Wiz.

First, I want to examine the actual product of Cheese Wiz. Well, it comes in a pressurized can. It kind of looks like it could be cheese, but deep down, or maybe even right on the surface you know that it's not. You know that, if you change a molecule here and there, you just have semi-solid, almost liquid plastic. You squirt this substance on a cracker and it usually just ends up making you sick.

Now, how does this apply to the church as a whole? Well, when a Christian is talking to a non-Christian and there needs to be a translator present, that is Cheese Wiz. When a church has no relevance in the community, that's cheese wiz. When a Christian artist only performs in churches, that is cheese wiz.

How are we to be salt and light if we are disconnected from the community that needs Christ? Do we really think that if Jesus came today for the first time that he would come into our churches? I contend that if he was on the scenes today, he would turn the tables at any of our churches, just like he did at the temple. He would call us "White washed tombs filled with dead mens bones."

I, for one, don't want to get so caught up in church that I forget the reason for church, and the call that is placed on us as the church.

I'm tired of placing silly, contrived rules on people. Rules that are only convenient for the church, rules that God never put in place. Lets stop taking one verse out of the Bible and building doctrines around it, instead of taking the whole council and seeing what God is really trying to say.

We could look at the verse that says that women shouldn't talk in church, while ignoring the fact that Paul had two prophetesses (women preachers) that went around with him. Things like that upset me, because doctrines are built around things like that and they severely limit the power of the church, because of ignorance.

Another one that gets me is the holiness churches. The take a verses that say, "Be holy as I am holy.", or, "Be perfect as I am perfect.", and think that it has to do with the way a person looks! When are we going to stop looking at modern translations and to back to the original meaning? Concordances are out there for a reason. We need to learn how to use them. When the bible says be perfect, it doesn't mean to be without flaw, it means to be mature. God is saying GROW UP!

And I'm saying it now. We need to grow up. We need to stop acting like adolescents and start behaving like mature people.

I have had many people call me irreverent. That I say things that shouldn't be said. That I'm too offensive with the positions I take on a lot of issues. I had parents up in arms when I was teaching the youth group about Daniel translating the vision of the statue for Nebuchadnezzar. What was it that I said that would get the parents up in arms? Part of the passage talks about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. I was talking about them for a second and I said "My shack, your shack and a billy goat." Ahh, that is soooooo offensive!?!?!? How could I say something like that. It's sac religious!

My response to that is... Yes, it is sac religious and we need more of it. Don't we understand yet that religion is bad? Devotion is good, religious devotion is bad. I'm devoted to Christ and His call on my life. I'm not going to get into a rut of doing this and doing that to prove that I'm devoted. I'm going to do what he called me to do.

My point? If you're going to call me irreverent, answer this question, is it more irreverent to act foolish, when you're called to act foolish, or is it more irreverent to act like a board when you are called to be foolish?

I try to present myself in a Hallelujah fashion. The word hallelujah comes from the Hebrew (or Aramaic, forget which.) word halal. The word halal means to "Act clamorously foolish." The word jah is shortened form of Jehovah. So, hallelujah means to act clamorously foolish before the Lord.

All of these things get to me. And they all, in my opinion separate the people who need Christ from the Christ that they need. Can we, as a church, please get back to the true call of Christ, which is:

Matthew 28: 19-20
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

The Blockers

Ah, The Blockers, those pesky little mischievous "gremlins" that pop up from time-to-time and do nasty little things around the house.

Well, we have a house guest for a while, we'll call her "Coagulated Tree Sap" (CTS for short).  Well, CTS was going down to the basement to wash some clothes when she discovered the mess of all messes.  She saw an open paint can, and the contents all over the basement floor.

She called up to my wife, "Uh, I think we have a problem here!"

My wife came down, looked at the mess and started laughing (in order to keep from crying!)  That is when she started her investigation.

Who could have made this mess?

When was the mess made?

What was their motive?

Where was the mess made? (Obvious, she was looking at it.)

 

The mess was relatively fresh, probably within the last 1/2 hour or so.  The paint hadn't started to dry at all, so the clean up wasn't *that* difficult.

In light of that, Hurricane had been at the neighbors playing for a couple of hours.  So he could safely be eliminated as a culprit in this heinous crime.

Godzilla, though he has the ability to create mass destruction, was asleep in his crib at the time.   So, unless he was sleep walking, he could be absolved.

The adults of the house wouldn't have done that, so we were all eliminated from suspicion.

That left only one.

That left the Tornado.  Just like his namesake destruction was sown quickly and effectively.  However, because no one was there to witness the destruction, my wife couldn't "convict" him.

That is where I come in. 

The first words out of my wife's mouth as soon as I entered the house where, "Honey, Tornado painted the basement floor, but no one saw him do it.  Can you talk to him?"

I immediately went up stairs and put on my Good Cop/ Bad Cop face.  First I took the position of the good cop:

"Tornado, what happened down stairs?"

"Paint Spilled."

"Did you spill the paint?"

"No, Daddy"

"Do you know who spilled the paint?"

"Yes, Daddy"

"Um, could you please tell me who did it then?"

"The Blockers" -- ominous music started playing in the background.

"The Blockers?"

"Uh huh."

"Who are the blockers?"

"They're outside."

I looked out the back to where he was pointing.

"I don't see anyone outside, except mommy, and she's cooking on the grill and I know she didn't do it.  So what happened?"

"They hit me on the head."

"Oh, so they hit you on the head and then wen down and spilled the paint?" 

"Uh huh."

"Did you see the spill the paint?"

"Uh huh."

OK, I'd heard enough.

"Tornado, I know that the blockers didn't do this.  I know that you are lying to me and I'll give you one chance to tell me the truth.  If you tell me the truth, you will not be punished, but if you tell me the lie again, I'll be forced to discipline you.  Did you spill the paint?"

"No, Daddy, it was the blockers."

"Wait, hold on, maybe you didn't understand.  You will be punished if you lie to me and you will not be punished at all if you tell me the truth.  Did you spill the paint?"

"No, Daddy."

"OK, you're going to be punished."

He started running, I started after him.  He fell to the floor crying.  I asked again, "Did you spill the paint?"

"Yes, Daddy, I did it, it was me! **Sob**"

"Okay, Buddy, come here, you're not going to be punished, but you need to tell Mommy your sorry for making the mess, and tell her that you did it."

"OK, Mommy, I did it, I'm sorry."

 

Now, why am I telling this story?  First, because it's funny.  Well, at least it's funny when it's told, it doesn't translate as well when it's written.  However, there is a lesson in parenting here that I think is important.

The lesson is consistency.  Be consistent with your kids.  In how you treat them, how you discipline them and how you love them.  If they know that you mean what you say, you will never have to back it up.  I didn't have to punish him for doing the act.  He's a 3 year old boy, they make messes, it's what they do.  However, I couldn't tolerate the lying, that starts a habit that is hard to break, and one that he would pay for dearly later, had he been able to get away with the lie.

I would also like to add that I'm mighty impressed with the story that he came up with, it was quite ingenious.  For a 3 year old to weave that kind of story means that he's thinking and that impresses me, even when it's trying to get out of something.

Anyway, that is the story of the blockers.  I hope you enjoyed it.

More than Meets the Eye

I know, you are thinking that this is going to be a review of the Transformers movie.  Well, it's not, but I will say this about the movie, I was entertained and my 6 year old loved it (He liked Optimus Prime's paint job.)

I keep thinking that we forget that we have been created in the image of God.  We forget that we are the embodiment of potential, whether we, as individuals or the mass, live up to it or not.

There are so many people out there who have all of the potential in the world.  These people can do anything and be anything they want, yet, for some reason, they have never gotten past the starting line.  Actually, they have fall away from the starting line and actually have to work to get back there.

These people are the addicts, the alcoholics and the abused.  I have several friends who fall into these three categories.  Many times category one and two happen because of category three, which I think is actually the most destructive.

There is a movement in this country that I'm not completely on-board with.  It is the self-esteem movement.  I don't think that someone should be made to think more of themselves than what they are and I don't think people should be given things that they haven't earned.  I'm a practical person, I believe that the only entitlement that a person should be given is an equal opportunity.  I think we have a nation of young people who think they deserve everything just because they exist, and that will be what destroys our great nation.

However, I do believe in self-esteem.  I believe that a person who looks at themselves positively will have a better chance of living up to their potential, instead of being an example of wasted potential.

The biggest casualty an addicts, alcoholics or abused persons life is their self-image.  It doesn't matter how much a person is told that they are valuable, if they don't view themselves as valuable, they will never move past that starting line.

I have two friends that have more potential than anyone I've ever met.  I think the only people that rival their potential is each other.  However, they have both fallen into similar traps.  They are or have been caught in an endless cycle of addiction, lies and death. 

Both have been through rehabs.  Both have stepped away from the source of their addictions.  Both have fallen off the horse and gotten back on.  Neither one of them have a real clue on how to even get back to the starting line of life, because neither of them see themselves as having value.

I wish I could show them a picture of the way I see them.  I see both of these young men doing great things.  I see both of them changing the world in their own ways.  I could definitely see both of these guys as ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I can see that.  They both have the potential to be mighty men.  Men who can change and influence the world around them.  Men who can be good, no great, examples to those around them.

Yet, they still don't see any value in themselves.

Like Optimus Prime, there is more than meets the eye to people.  I wish, with all my heart that these guys could see beyond the ugly that they have created in their lives.  I wish they could see beyond the scar tissue and see the clean underneath.

One day they will see that through Christ they are being transformed by the renewing of their mind.  One day they will see that they too are a new creation through Christ Jesus.  They will understand that their potential that is, at this stage of their lives, unrealized, will soon be actualized.

Until then...

Dive Deep!

Independence Day

Today I heard something dark and disturbing. I was alarmed to hear that a company in the United States didn't give their Employees the day off for July 4th!

Now, on it's face that isn't so shocking. A lot of companies work on July 4th in the USA. However, what was shocking was that this same company gave it's employees May 5th off.

Okay, granted, I like to celebrate Mexico's independence day as much as the next slob, but I would never expect to have the day off of work. I love going to Los Compesino's and eating a tortilla and watching the other locals get drunk on Mexican beer. It makes for a good night of entertainment.

However, I must say, that July 4th is AMERICAN independence day and it should be celebrated with much more fervor by Americans than any other countries independence. If that company wants to give it's employees May 5th off, that is their choice, but they should also give off July 4th for the much more obvious reason that, with out July 4th, we'd all still have British accents and having a spot of tea over a glorious forte-night of tennis on grass, instead of forging our own place in our own country.

I'm proud to be an American. That may be cliche', but it is true, none the less. I'm proud of my country, and I'm proud of the ideals on which this country was founded.

To switch gears a little, I think we, as Americans, should be ashamed of what our country is becoming.

Our ancestors came here to escape tyranny. They came here to be free. Some of them came to escape religious tyranny. Some came to escape a communist country. Some to escape socialism. Some to escape totalitarianism.

Yet, here we are. Slowly and methodically slipping back to those things that our ancestors were trying to escape. We have slovenly movie producers trying to tell us that the medical system in Canada is what we need here (that would be great if you want to kill off 1/3 of our country due to lack of care.) We have taxes levied against us that were never ratified into the constitution (that didn't stop the feds from creating the IRS.)

We have created our own little nanny state. We have created a state of entitlement. We have become a country that values equal results instead of equal opportunity. We teach our kids that no one should lose. We teach them that competition is bad and the result is a bunch of snot-nosed little whiners that think they deserve everything.

If we stay this course, if we don't get back to our founding ideals, we will be left behind. Our country has a very short future if we cannot get back to our founding ideals. If we keep marching down the road of Stalin, we will end up just like him, dead, in an airtight glass casket. We will still look good on the outside, but we will be full of death.

I love my country. I love our founding ideals. I am terrified that we are losing them. If we continue down this path we will soon need another Boston Tea Party in order to bring things back, or we will go the way of the dinosaur, and I'd hate to see what this world becomes without a United States of America.

Dive Deep!

Kicking Against the Goads

Acts 26:14–15 We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied.

goad (noun)
1. A long stick with a pointed end used for prodding animals.
2. An agent or means of prodding or urging; a stimulus.

 

Ah, the ultimate image of rebellion.  It's like when a parent tells a child not to touch the hot pan, what does the kid do?  They grab it and get hurt.

Kicking against the goads is like that.  Imagine begin an ox pulling a plow.  The master is using a goad (a cattle prod, if you will.) to get you to go where he wants you to go, but you, being a rebellious and disobedient ox, start to kick.  Who do you think kicking against the cattle prod hurts?  Surely, it doesn't hurt the master, it hurts the ox.

I am a youth pastor.  Last night I saw Saul.  He was right there in front of me in the form of an 18 year old kid.  Like Saul, he had grown up in church.  Unlike Saul, he had fallen away from the faith the last few years. (Saul never fell away from the faith, he just killed Christians in the name of Judaism.) 

This young man and a friend came to the youth group for the first time last night.  They both sat in back and were as close to the door as you can possibly be.  At that point the difference between the two became apparent.

Let me explain, first, I am not a normal youth pastor.  I don't, for the most part, just get up and read a passage and talk about it.  I like to, on occasion, act out a parable or something like that.  Last night I taught on Matthew 25, the Parable of the Ten Virgins.  I had a couple girls act out the rolls of the foolish and wise virgins, and a couple guys act out the rolls of the bridegroom and the herald for the bridegroom, and I was the humble, yet exceedingly talented narrator :)

As I started the mayhem, and it was truly mayhem, this young mans friend came up and joined the rest of the group.  He was getting into the way this lesson was being taught.

Now the young man I am talking about though, got even closer to the door, and after I was done with the narrative he got up and walked out.  He came back a couple minutes later.  Sat for a few minutes and walked out again.  Rinse and repeat.

I talked to him after the class, and he apologized for leaving, but, he told me he can't handle religion.  I asked why.  He told me about growing up in church and how his mom really beat religion into him (metaphorically beat of course, not literally).  So now he is rebelling against that which his mom thrust on him.

Rebellion is a funny thing.  You think you are rebelling against bondage, but all you are doing is getting yourself bound up all the more tight.  Most of the time, the thing you are rebelling against is the very thing that could, indeed, give you freedom. 

If you are in a spiral of rebellion, I want to encourage you to step out of that cycle and make peace with that thing you are rebelling against.  It may just be the thing that sets you free.

 

Dive Deep!