Bill's Ponderings

2007-04-16

Kool-Aid in the dishwasher?

Lifehacker had an interesting link today. Apparently you can put lemon Kool-Aid in your dishwasher to clean out the mineral deposits. The red Kool-Aid is not recommended.

Who does this kind of stuff? Who sits around all day wondering what kind of weird things can we do with lemon Kool-Aid? How many small applicances have to be sacrificed in the experiments? Just curious...

I guess the bigger question is "How come lemon Kool-Aid will clean your dishwasher, but not your dishes?"

[ht: Lifehacker]

2007-04-15

Does it work?

Something has been bothering me about Easter this year. I have difficult question to ask of other church leaders. Yea, I know, Easter is over - give it rest. This is the last post on Easter - I promise (well, until next year).

Many churches pull out ALL the stops for Easter. They do up it big. Video, drama, music, dance, etc. It's probably the most produced service of the year. Now there is no doubt that Easter is an important event for Christians to remember. But sometimes it seems like we go overboard on this event. It's crazy huge.

The reason I often hear given for such a big event is, "many people come this week and we have capture their attention so they will come back." Ok, I can go with that, but here is where the question comes....

Does it work? How many of these people who only come on Easter come back the following weeks? Really, I want to know.

Suppose someone wanders in to your church on Easter. The service is perfect in every way. They are really touched. They vow to come back next week and they do. What will they see and experience? I'm betting in most of our churches there would be a serious difference between Easter and the next week. Now there's nothing wrong with having a big day or celebration. Chances are the birthdays in our homes are different than the non-birthdays. That's cool. But does the big event work? Will the person feel cheated because the next week's service isn't the same huge event?

A very smart man (Albert Einstien) is quoted as saying "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Yet each Easter we just about kill ourselves, and the other volunteers and staff, to reach all these people who will pack out the church, but it must not work. Because the next week where are all the people? It just seems to me that we are doing something incorrectly here. Our method doesn't seem to be working... Is it working at your church?

Now, just for the record. Our church doesn't do the huge, huge Easter service. We try to have a nice service. Well done. A few extra features, but it's more inline with a 'regular' service - whatever that means. Is the big event working for you at your church? From my local friends at other churches, I'd say not. But I'd like to hear some other opinions. BTW, if it's working for you - then PRAISE GOD! Keep doing what you are doing!!!

2007-04-04

What is Easter anyway?

As you are probably well aware, the 15 British sailors and marines were released by the Iranian government today. Naturally, I am very happy to see a peaceful resolution to the situation.

But did you notice what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave as part of the reason for the decision to release them?

"On the occasion of the birthday of the great prophet (Muhammad) ... and for the occasion of the passing of Christ ..." he said, referring to the Muslim prophet's birthday last Saturday and Easter, next Sunday.

Easter is not a rememberance of the passing of Christ, it's the resurrection. I wonder if that was a slip of his tongue, an intentional swipe at Christian beliefs or just ignorance of what Christian's believe. I'll probably never know which one it was.

I wonder how many people have no idea what Easter is really about. Is it colored eggs? Freaky bunnies? Strange indestructable candy peeps? That seems to be what the holiday is all about.

I wonder how many people know what Easter is really about?

I guess the real question, is how many people am I going to tell?

2007-04-01

Interesting Guitar

Pretty cool work. Hopefully he will use his talent for things other than the Mario Brothers theme song.

2007-03-31

91% of Americans believe in God

A recent Newsweek poll reveals some interesting information.

A belief in God and an identification with an organized religion are widespread throughout the country, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. Nine in 10 (91 percent) of American adults say they believe in God and almost as many (87 percent) say they identify with a specific religion. Christians far outnumber members of any other faith in the country, with 82 percent of the poll’s respondents identifying themselves as such.
Read the entire Newsweek article here.

Wow! 91% of Americans believe in God.
87% identify with a specific religion.

That's great!

But I have a question. When was the last time 91%, or even 87%, of the people in your community were at church during weekend services? I bet most communities average numbers much closer to single digit percentages. What have we done wrong in our churches that cause so many people to say they believe in God, yet so few show that belief?

That's worth pondering about. If you have an idea, I'd like to hear it. I'd like to make sure my church isn't making that mistake.

2007-03-26

Bolivia has a Navy???

Who knew? One assumes that countries with coastlines have a Navy and landlocked countries do not. Bolivia, being in the later group, usually would not have a Navy. For those who are geographically challenged, here is a map.

That purple area in about the middle of South America is Bolivia. Click on the map for a bigger image.

Since Bolivia does not have coastal access, one would naturally assume there is no need for a Navy. In this case it's not that simple. Bolivia used to have access to the sea. In 1879 Chile "acquired" the land that used to be Bolivia's, removing their coastal access.

Bolivia has not given up hope. They maintain their Navy, even though they have no seaport or ocean going ships, as a way to remember. They continue to hope that some day they will have access to the sea, and once again they will need a Navy.

Read more about the Bolivian Navy here

When my wife stumbled across this story, we shared a couple of good chuckles regarding the Bolivian Navy. Ok, we laughed so hard our eyes watered. It's an easy target. The mental pictures the Bolivian Navy paddling around the lakes and rivers pretending to be out on the ocean, waiting for the day they can grow up and be real sailors are too funny.

After the laughter faded, I was thinking about the Bolivian Navy. Their refusal to give up can be looked at two ways. The first is with laughter or even scorn that they wasting their time. Engaged in a futile endeavor. No hope. The second way is that they are persistent. They have a dream, a desire, and they will not let go. There's a fine line between chasing dreams and being crazy. Which is the Bolivian Navy doing? I don't know..... I guess if they some day get their coastal access back, we will praise their persistence. Until then, we'll probably share a few chuckles at their expense.

How does one know when they are chasing a dream? Or when they've actually gone off the deep end and have no chance? Does it matter? Most would scoff if I announced that I was going to chase a dream to be an NBA player. Not much chance of that for an old, white guy who can't jump. How should good friends react to something like that? Let me proceed in my folly? Or help me understand that I don't have a chance? In this ridiculous example the answer may be easier to determine than some other situations. But the question is worth considering. How do we know when we should intervene or not? It's not always easy.

As Christians, how do we know when we should let our friends know that chasing money, fame and fortune in the life is not the best use of their time and effort? Will they believe us? Will they understand? How do we let them know there are better more productive things they can be doing for God? That's not so easy....

2007-03-18

Guitar, Guitar, Guitar

I love great guitar players. This is a clip from the 2001 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Do you recognize the players in the video?
It's Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne do "My Guitar Gently Weeps". Prince has a great solo at the end. I'm not a Prince fan, but I'm just about convinced he is one of the better guitar players of our time. George Harrison's son is playing acoustic guitar.

2007-03-17

How Would You Introduce Jesus?

This is how Steve Harvey would introduce Jesus. How would you do it?

[ht the wonderful noise]

2007-03-13

Crime Enforcement Services

Passed a car on the way home the other day. It was one of those security company cars that they try to make look as much like a cop car as they can. This one had big yellow letters that said “Crime Enforcement Services.” Now what exactly does the fellow driving the Crime Enforcement Services car do? Does he pull into a neighborhood and say “There’s not enough crime here. I’m here to enforce more crime.”? Does he help convince people that are thinking of committing a crime to go ahead and do it?

What a strange name for a security company. They definitely need to hire a better marketing company.

I know that computer people are famous for doing this too. We use words that people understand and know in ways that don’t make sense to non-computer people. We talk about putting something onto the print queue or starting/stopping a service or some other obscure thing. And the users don’t care about a queue or a service. They just want a piece of paper to spit out of the printer with their data on it. I’m sure that people who hire a security guard from Crime Enforcement Services don’t want to hear about Enforcement Service, they want a security guard to protect them.

I think many Christians are guilty of doing the same thing. Certainly Christians have a whole bunch of words that are difficult to understand. In fact, there’s a whole jargon of Christianese that people would need to learn to understand what we are talking about. Why would we want to do that? Do we think it makes us look intelligent? I don’t think it makes us look intelligent.

2007-03-12

Help Desk

I work for a big company. We have lots of facilities in lots of states. We have a lot of different types of people working for the company. Everything from people building hardware (assembly work), to machinists, to engineers, to computer scientists, to accountants, to managers, to…. well you get the idea. We have at least one of just about everything.

In a company this large, it’s probably difficult to do some things. One thing that is apparently very difficult, is managing the computers. Some of the people at the company are quite computer proficient, some think they are proficient and are not, and some have no clue. I’m sure that makes the problem harder.

One of the things the company has done is roll out a Help Desk, a single place where you can get help if you need it. Theoretically, it’s a good idea. In practice, it doesn’t work so well. Unless your problem is the ultra-simple, my computer is not plugged into the electrical outlet, the folks at the help usually can’t help and simply refer you to someone else. Furthermore, they email you a message telling you how to get in touch with them. So unless you print out at the email and save it, when your computer doesn’t work, you have no idea how to reach them anyway. Wouldn’t it make more sense to print out a little laminated card and give it to everyone? Nah, that would be too easy.

But here’s the kicker. A little while back they actually sent out an email that listed the email address of who we should contact when we can’t get online! Yes, I said what you think I said. Think about that for second. How can I send email to someone when I can’t get online?!?! If it had been April Fool’s, that would have been great. A classic even. But since it wasn’t, all I could think about was Dilbert. Surely someone must have realized that wasn’t going to work. And these are the people who are supposed to help me with my computer problem. I’m hosed.

I wonder if sometimes Christians do the same thing. People who aren’t believers think about life a different way than believers do. Does that make it difficult for us to communicate? Do Christians think they are saying helpful things, but those ideas simply don’t make sense to the non-believer? Or are we able to relate with them an effective manner?

That’s worth pondering about for a while….

2007-03-05

If only....

I guess we can hope and pray this will happen someday.

What do you think it would take to make this a reality?

2007-02-28

Driving the Rain

Yesterday I had to leave the motorcycle at home and drive the truck to work because it was raining. It occurred to me on the way to work that something like 40 bajillion people in Los Angeles and something like 28 of us can drive in the rain.

Today the weather man assurred us it was going to rain again. So I brought the truck. However, now that the sun is up, there isn't a cloud in the sky. Arrrggghhhh......

2007-02-27

Christian Bloggers Survey

I recently took part in a Christian Bloggers survery. Here's a list of the blogs that took part. Look through the list and see if you find anything interesting, there are some good ones here.

2007-02-14

Did you notice?

Google loves to make cute little pictures of their logo on holidays. Today's logo is a keeper.

This untouched straight off the Google page. Too funny. I wonder if I can get a job proof reading for them?

2007-02-09

New User Interface

New technology is always tough to master!

2007-02-07

Big Files

Have you ever wanted to transfer a really large file between computers? I have. Many times the file is too large to email and then it is a pain in the neck. What would be great is a FTP server or other similar service - for free. It turns out, such things exist.

Here is a list of a couple of services you can try out. Several offer free accounts that limit file size or number of transfers - perfect for the person who only occasionally needs to transfer a large file.

www.dropsend.com - The free service will support up to 250MB and 5 transactions a month. They have business plans that support upto 250GB.
www.yousendit.com - The free service is limited to 100 megs maximum file size and it stays on their server for 7 days. The paid services range from $14.99 per month to $29.99 per month for 2 gig maximum file size.
www.dropload.com - 100MB limit for the free service.

Have fun sharing and moving those large files!

2007-02-06

Seriously bummed out

I just went to go get a hair cut and learned that the guy who had been cutting my hair doesn't work there anymore. I know it's not the end of the world, but it took a long time to find someone who cut my hair the way I liked and now he's gone. Of course, no one who works there has any idea of all how to get a hold of him – right, like I believe that.

This guy had a really unorthodox style. The first time he cut my hair I was kind of worried. He did it so differently than anyone else who had cut my hair, I wasn't sure he knew what he was doing. Not only was his technique very unique, but he was fastidious. He was a neat freak – I like that. When I would get home there would be absolutely no hair on me from the hair cut. Not only that, but he was very reasonable - almost too inexpensive. Maybe that's why he's not there anymore. I do know this, I am going to miss our chats and his quality work.

When we are talking about hair cuts, the methodology the person cutting the hair uses doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter if he starts on the right, the left, the front or the back. What matters is that my hair looks the way I want it to when he is finished. This isn't true of everything. Often times our methodology does matter. I think a neurosurgeon doing brain surgery would have a very precise methodology. An assembly line has to follow a detailed methodology to correctly assemble the product.

As Christians I think the methodology we use is of the utmost importance. It seems absurdly obvious, but I continually see churches and Christians using methodologies that just don't work or are deceptive in nature. Some mistakenly believe that the ends justify the means. We think it is ok to "trick" them into believing or to manipulate their emotions to get a response that indicates they accept Jesus. I can't find anything in my Bible that indicates this is ok. Speak plainly. Tell the truth. Pray. Tell your friends about a God who loves them very much and let God take care of the rest.

2007-01-30

Modern Day Bully

I guess people will always find some way to compete.

The Wow?

These guys are supposed to be telling us about the Wow of Vista. Why do they look so sad? No smiles, no happy looks. It looks more like a funeral than anything. So when does the "Wow" start?

I hope that Christians don't look like this when we talk about the wow of an awesome God.

2007-01-29

Expensive Mistake - Part II

My brother asked for some pics of the construction going on. My window at work has a great view of what’s happening, but we can’t have cameras in the workplace. So today I took the truck (instead of the motorcycle) to work so I could leave the camera in the truck. I took some pics from the top of our 7 story parking structure. Not the best vantage point, but it will have to do. I hope you appreciate the effort of me leaving the motorcycle home to take the truck for this – that was quite a sacrifice on my part. Just pointing that out...

Click on the pics to view them larger.

This first pic is from the most recently finished foundation. They are packing the dirt back around the cement. This piece of cement is probably about 5 or 6 feet thick and fairly good sized as you can see from the equipment and the person in the pic.

This is the first foundation and they have started building the pillars that will support the building.

This is the foundation that they poured, packed the dirt around and then determined it was not correct. This is, or was, a large piece of cement, as you can tell from the equipment.

Here is a close up of one of the workers so you can get some idea of the scale of this.

I’m glad I’m not paying for this goof up. Yea, we all make them, but this one is a hum-dinger.

2007-01-23

Expensive Mistake

Regular readers will know that they tore down the building next to my work place and they are building a 16 story condo. It's been great fun to watch them start the building process. People regularly stop by my office and we try to guess what the workers are doing.

The workers spent quite a bit of time digging huge holes and building the forms for the foundations. There are three different foundations. They look like they will be support for the main pillars in the new building. Each foundation looks like it's about 6 to 8 feet thick and full of rebar. They are quite impressively built.

Yesterday, the big jackhammer that they used to demo the old building showed up and they started breaking up one of the new foundations. I don't know what is wrong with it, but something obviously is.

Seems like a pretty expensive mistake to me. I wonder if the price of the condos just went up?

2007-01-20

Don't Forget

Famous last words - Don't forget. There's to much to do. To much to remember. Here's a little site that can help. You can schedule a text message to a mobile phone. Now you won't forget. You can also help your friends remember.

Oh yea, did I mention it's free?!

Oh, Don't Forget

2007-01-14

Feeling Alone???

So you don't have a buddy to play the second guitar in your duet - then just play it yourself! Stick a spoon in your mouth and play the slide part while you play the rhythm.

Warning! This could cut seriously into your cool factor -- if you're worried about such things.

2007-01-09

Hmmm......

Introducing the Ford Airstream Concept. For all it's weirdness, I kind of like it.

I wonder if they will ever really make one. I'm still waiting for my butler robot and flying car from the Jetsons.

More details (& pics) here