The Feasting Has Ended... (For A Bit)

Well, Thanksgiving went great again. Lots and lots of really good food. Dinner at my Grandmother's house made Rockwell's "Freedom From Want" look like a light mid-afternoon snack! The table was literally full of food. I didn't even get to taste everything. I was stuffed after one trip to the table. Prior to the meal the kitchen was as busy as a beehive - and just as crowded. There were so many family members there that there was hardly a place to sit - so many, that I was looking for a quiet place away from the madness.

As I have just finished writing this I can't help but think that it would be hard for some people to comprehend this extravagance and abundance. Perhaps my description sounds like arrogant boasting. If your experience this past week wasn't like mine, I am sorry, and I truly wish that it had been that way for you too. These thoughts humble me and cause me to reflect on the blessings that God has lavished on me and make me remember that the reason that God blesses us is that we can be a blessing to the world. I pray that He will help me to do a better job of that this year.

On a somewhat different note, I wasn't in much of a posting mood on Thanksgiving. For some reason words just didn't seem to be flowing very well, so although I did manage to post a Thanksgiving message, it really didn't come very close to what I had hoped to publish for you.

Here are a couple of good Thanksgiving Day Posts that I wish that I had written:

The Real Meaning Of Thanksgiving from over at the Bear Creek Ledger

and

Gratitude over at Conspiracy Of Kindness

I hope that your Thanksgiving was great.

An Amazing Picture

I saw this picture over at Babalu Blog. With the picture was a great post by Val Prieto about his experience in Washington. Val is a great writer and I think that you will enjoy it very much. The title of the post is, Gracias

New Blog Available!

If you are interested in a good, Christian read check out my friend's new blog Thoughts Along The Way. She is an excellent writer and has learned some great lessons in God's crucible.

I Just Found The Coolest Website!

I was over looking at Cox And Forkum's Site and found a link to this really neat website sponsored by the Department of Defense. It is called Heroes In The War On Terror and they have stories of American Heroes from all over the country.

The link that I supplied above will take you to a page where they show a map of the 50 states and you can click on each state and see men and women who have been decorated for valor in the Global War On Terror (GWOT.)

Here is a link that will take you to stories about heroes from my home state, North Carolina.

The story that Cox and Forkum linked to was about a soldier from the unit that my grandfather, Billy Miller, fought with during the campaign at Anzio during World War II. Here is the link to that story.

That reminds me. I met a very fine soldier while I was waiting at the Bank Of America on Innes Street in Salisbury, NC. He was home for some R&R from Afghanistan. I guess by now he is on his way back. He's a Blackhawk mechanic. Unfortunately, I didn't catch his name, but he made an impression, and my prayers are with him. Thank you for serving so that I can be here. God bless our men and women in uniform and keep them safe. And God bless America.

Various and Assorted...

It has been an interesting and busy day. Of course, my dinosaur computer tends to make small jobs big, (don't think sexy dinosaur like veloceraptor, mine is more like the big-boned brontosaurus - who has a really great personality and likes long walks on the beach...) but it was just a packed day anyway.

I have been doing some contract software testing for a company for the past month and a half. I figured the job would last a week and a half. Oh well, so much for that. I guess the good (and bad) thing is that I have found some fairly major bugs. It is good from the perspective that they know that I am doing what they hired me to do, bad from the perspective that it is causing the contract to drag out FAR longer than I and planned on.

I used to be scared of computers. They never did what I wanted them to do. Later, I discovered that it wasn't my fault. I just have an innate ability to uncover latent "product features" as the developers like to call them!

One of the best pieces of advice I got on my first QA (Quality Assurance) job. An old, seasoned tester told me to not be afraid to break something. That if I could break it, it needed breaking. Good advice. There is a lot of software out there that needs breaking. Microsoft's is the worst. I am pretty sure that they don't have a single QA person on staff. If they do, they should be fired. Microsoft puts out the buggiest software on the planet I think.

I never buy any of their new release software because I know that it will be crap. They release it with as many bugs as a low-rent mobile home, and then put in this clever little program that allows you to report failures when it crashes and burns - kind of like a black box for software. They get their customers to do for free what they are too cheap to pay for. And people put up with this junk! But I digress...

I have always been accused of not knowing my own strength. Growing up, I often broke things by using force against resistance. I eventually became conditioned to not do this because it usually ended up in something getting broken. (That whole tie up a baby elephant thing...) This is why there are times when I will ask for help with something and end up looking like an idiot when someone half my size and strength comes up and easily accomplishes my task by applying a little more force. I guess this explains why I was afraid to mess with computers.

Isn't it funny how much fear influences our lives? I have really been pondering this lately. In fact we had a pretty strong prayer meeting tonight with some guys from the church, and fear was our number one target. I think that we had a really good breakthrough. I guess the proof will be in the pudding. When we have an opportunity to fear, will we give in to it, or will we respond in faith? Jim Laffoon wrote a really good devotion about that the other day at Our Daily Blog. You should check it out. Here is a quote from one of his recent posts:

Even as faith is your greatest friend, so fear is your greatest foe. In fact, fear is the enemy’s version of faith; even as faith will bring you into the reality of God’s promises, so fear will bring you into the reality of the enemy’s tormenting threats.

- Jim Laffoon

I have a post cooking, actually a couple, that are about fear. I will probably post different ones on the different blogs that I am working on (as if keeping up ONE blog wasn't challenging enough.) If you are interested in more Christian-themed posts about fear you can check out Conspiracy Of Kindness. It is a blog that I set up for my church to use, but so far I am the only one who posts there. I try not to be so political over there and I really try to resist the urge to get in a good rant. Should be safe for a 'G' rating. I might just copy the post that I do on fear over there to this blog too. I can do that. I have the power.

Still, it will be interesting to see how I handle another bad news day and whether it is sufficient to bring me down or if I will be able to respond in faith. Sigh... The bad thing about that is that it means there will have to be another bad news day. I am definitely getting better at handling them, though. By temperament I tend towards melancholy, but Jesus is helping me to deal with that a lot better. Things that would have bummed me out for a month now only seem to be able to affect me for a few hours. That is an improvement!

Another indicator that I am getting better is in the way I handled my recent reading of the book of Job. Job has always been my least favorite book in the Bible. In the past, I have found myself railing at God for not answering Job's legitimate question. This time it was different. I think that I am finally starting to understand Job.

Bottom line? God is good. Period. Even when it looks like He isn't good, He is good. If you can get that, you'll be fine.

Some good news today:

Judge: Ten Commandments Display Can Stay

It's about time we win one of these.

The other day seemed heavy laden with bad news. There is an old treaty that Ronald Reagan refused to ratify (because of the damage that it would do to US sovereignty) that inexplicably is in the Senate at President Bush's request for full ratification. This is a horribly bad idea. I love President Bush and all, but this was not one of the finer moments. You can read about it at the link below. Please call and fax your Senators and tell them that you strongly oppose the ratification of this treaty. Unfortunately, letters and emails have almost no impact on Congressional opinion. Since the anthrax scare, letters take months to get there if ever, and emails are given very little weight.

UNITED NATION JURISDICTION OF THE SEAS - THE LAW OF THE SEAS TREATY

Let folks know about this one. It is bad news. It is always a bad thing for us if the UN is in control of anything. I'm personally ready for the US to kick them out of NYC and tell them that if they want to act like our enemy they can do it in someone else's country. I have heard that there is a lovely mountain ridge in the middle of the Atlantic...

I also read a good article the other day on the Town Hall website. It was called:

Exposing How Liberals Misread the Bible
By Frank Pastore
Sunday, September 16, 2007

It demonstrated a very serious weakness in any biblical argument of anyone who doesn't accept biblical inerrancy. Kind of hard to legitimately use the Bible to support your point if you don't accept that the Bible is what it claims to be - the literal Word of God.

I've also been helping a friend who is trying to sell a couple homes in Rowan County, NC. You can see them here. Sorry about the website. It is new and I haven't finished doctoring it up yet. One property is a farm ($255,000) and the other is a really well renovated single story house ($149,900). I know that is a "ranch" but I thought it might be a little confusing after I was talking about the first being a farm. If you know anyone looking to move to Rowan County let them know about it.

My friend, David P has returned from Japan. Keep an eye on his blog. He has found out some interesting information, and I think that his posts in the coming days, weeks and months will prove to continue to be interesting and enlightening.

It seems that there was something else that I wanted to ramble on about, but I can't seem to remember what it was. Perhaps that is because I should have gone to bed hours ago. Thus, that is enough rambling for this post. I'll try to get those fear posts done soon. They have been tumbling around in my mind for a couple of weeks. I think they'll be pretty good. Should be ready before Halloween anyway!

What? You Actually Want Me To Earn Money With My Degree?!

Gotta keep it short tonight. I have some good stuff cooking right now. Today I have been working on a real estate blog entry for some friends who are trying to sell a farm for sale by owner here in Rowan County. It is a really neat property. I'm pretty pleased with how the post is turning out. You can see it HERE.

The blog is one I started a couple years ago for my real estate business. Well, the business is gone, but the blog remains - as does, technically, my corporation. Anyway, I am thinking about possibly marketing this service to an agent or two in my market. Now to figure out a price. Based on the time that it has taken to put things together, I think that my initial thoughts about pricing were way too low. The cool thing is that I also own two other blogs with great names that I could market in this way. Hey, maybe I can earn some money with my English degree after all!

I've been contributing to two blogs (make it three with the one I just linked to) right now in addition to trying to finish some software testing that I am doing. Who would have thought.

Cool Blog

Thanks to the folks at Blogger I discovered a cool new blog called Talking With Heroes. It is written by an independent citizen journalist embedded with the troops in Iraq. He is the father of a soldier. Looks like a pretty good one from what I have read so far.

Check It Out

This is by far the most engaging thing that I have been reading lately. Just in case you haven't seen the earlier posting that I did, my friend DavidP has left on a one month quest to seek the Lord's will about a possible redeployment to Japan for his family. His daily blog entries have chronicled this journey. It is a fascinating, exciting read with discussions about the culture, God's direction while he has been there, and deeper questions and revelations that he has encountered on his quest. Check it out!

David P's Mobile Blog

Into the Great Wide Open

Today, my best friend from college has left on a quest to discover God's will for him and his family... in Japan. I think that this is the coolest thing.

I always believed that he was called to some kind of vocational ministry, but worried that he either didn't see it or had indefinitely postponed it when he got married. I guess that is why I was so jazzed when he told me what he was about to do.

It takes all kinds of moxy to just pack up and leave your family for a month and go to the other side of the world just to hear what God will say to you. It is bold and daring. I can't wait to hear what the Lord tells him to do.

DavidP tells me that he is going to be blogging about his experiences while he is there. I have linked to his blog here and also have it posted under "Good Reading." Check it out!

More American Steel

USS Orion (Fulton Class Submarine Tender) 

My good friend Ward has made a post to his corporate blog today that just states so well where we are as a country. He eloquently nails it right on the head. This is a good thing because I simply don't have the time tonight to create a decent post of my own. Please check out what he has to say. It is true that freedom is never free. It is our turn to ante up.

The 13th of March

Most of you probably have no idea just how bad things are in Cuba. After all, you hardly ever hear of Cuba except when people are talking about its cigars, rum, or music. Few people realize that right in our backyard there is a country that still practices Stalinesque acts of oppression, repression, deprivation, and murder. I have begun following the blog of a Cuban-American named Val Prieto. On this blog I have begun to learn about the atrocities that are being committed against the Cuban people. They sound just like the atrocities that I heard about under the Soviet empire and that I have heard about at the hands of the Chinese. The only conclusion that I can draw is that this is what communism does as part of its regular course of action. There are no communist countries that are not guilty of these sorts of actions.

Today there was an article on the Newsmax page that Val linked to. I would also like to direct you to this page. This isn't a fairy tale. It is real.

Castro's Tugboat Massacre

Fidel Castro was actually allowed to come to this country and was treated like a celebrity, a hero, a charming grandfatherly type of fellow that we have just misunderstood all of these years. Well, what the media showed us, and what the gullible Mr. Carter assured us was a big, fat lie. Fidel Castro is as much of a blood-thirsty animal as Saddam Hussein, Ossama Bin Laden, or Yassir Arafat. The free world will dance when that evil man dies. Oh, for a man like Phinehas of the Bible.

Too Much Fun Blogging Tonight

Alas, I have spent too much time playing tonight and not enough time printing. So, while I'm waiting for pages and pages of real estate listings to print, I'll write a little more!

My long time friend WB has decided to join the blog world. He has been running a company blog documenting his progress on an emergency response project, but he generally needs to temper the content on that blogsite due to the scope of what it is trying to accomplish. This new blog will allow him to use a more no-holds-barred approach. You should check it out. Granted, he may be crude, rude, and socially unacceptable at times, but I can guarantee that it will prove to be an entertaining read... if I can get him to keep writing. If you see anything there that you like please make sure to comment to him.

Hopefully I will be able to get down to town hall tomorrow sometime and pay them to put a meter box in front of my house so that I can hook up to city water.

I love my parents, and it is fun visiting them, but the guest bed isn't like mine. I'm looking forward to getting back to my place. One neat thing about sleeping in a strange bed, though: I don't sleep as soundly and consequently I remember my dreams alot better. Last night I dreamed I was a spy. It was COOL!

Another nice thing about my parents' home is that it is so quiet that I can hear the sounds of crickets and tree frogs. It is much better than the sounds I usually hear at night, and it has made me start thinking about preparing to make a change in my housing situation. Of course, I don't anticipate this change happening anytime in the too near future, but it is good to get me to start preparing for the change. Maybe something out in the country where I can hear those sounds and actually see the stars!

I have to congratulate Blogger.com on its help screen. I was trying to figure out how to put a picture on my profile and in desperation clicked help. The instructions made it dead easy. Very impressive!

Well, my mountain of documents has finished printing, so I'll call it a night. Until tomorrow!