This Sounds About Right

From my e-mail box.

1. Stray cats will not be fed.
2. Stray cats will not be fed anything except dry cat food.
3. Stray cats will not be fed anything except dry cat food moistened with a little milk.
4. Stray cats will not be fed anything except dry cat food moistened with warm milk, yummy treats and leftover fish scraps.
5. Stray cats will not be encouraged to make this house their permanent residence.
6. Stray cats will not be petted, played with or picked up and cuddled unnecessarily.
7. Stray cats that are petted, played with, picked up and cuddled will absolutely not be given a name.
8. Stray cats with or without a name will not be allowed inside the house at any time.
9. Stray cats will not be allowed inside the house except at certain times.
10. Stray cats will not be allowed inside the house except on days ending in “y”.
11. Stray cats allowed inside will not be permitted to jump up on or sharpen their claws on the furniture.
12. Stray cats will not be permitted to jump up on, or sharpen claws on the really good furniture.
13. Stray cats will be permitted on all furniture but must sharpen claws on new $114.99 sisal-rope cat-scratching post with three perches.
14. Stray cats will answer the call of nature outdoors in the sand.
15. Stray cats will answer the call of nature in the three-piece, high-impact plastic tray filled with Fresh'n'Sweet kitty litter.
16. Stray cats will answer the call of nature in the hooded litter pan with a three-panel privacy screen and plenty of head room.
17. Stray cats will sleep outside.
18. Stray cats will sleep in the garage.
19. Stray cats will sleep in the house.
20. Stray cats will sleep in a cardboard box lined with an old blanket.
21. Stray cats will sleep in the special Kitty-Komfort-Bed with non-allergenic lambs wool pillow.
22. Stray cats will not be allowed to sleep in our bed.
23. Stray cats will not be allowed to sleep in our bed, except at the foot.
24. Stray cats will not be allowed to sleep in our bed under the covers.
25. Stray cats will not be allowed to sleep in our bed under the covers except at the foot.
26. Stray cats will not play on the desk.
27. Stray cats will not play on the desk near the computer.
28. Stray cats are forbidden to walk on the computer keyboard on the desk when the human is asdfjjhhkl;ljfd.;oier' puyykmm4hbdm9lo9j USING IT.

Not Gray Yet!

Eduardo, for his birthday, quoted a bit of Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyatt of Omar Khayyam, and I thought that seemed as appropriate as any poem to quote from for a birthday (especially since I just read through the whole thing last week and dissected it this week), so I shall do the same for mine:

With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd—
“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”

Into this Universe, and Why not knowing
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.

Yes, it is my birthday today (well, actually, my birthday ended 56 minutes ago in my time zone). It has been a quiet, but very nice day. I spent most of the day with my mother (my dad has a cold, so he is going to celebrate with me later this week). It was exactly the kind of peaceful day that I wanted.

I was given several nice gifts. A friend and professor of mine gave me the Great Passion by Eberhard Busch, an expert on Barthian theology and Karl Barth's last personal assistant, as a birthday present. This is the professor who introduced me to Barth a while back. The book looks like it works through the major theology of Barth with a well written narration and a substantial helping of quotes from Dogmatics and other writings of Barth. At any rate, I started reading that today, which was fun.

My mother gave me a nice, compact, leather covered New Century Version Bible, which seems really nice. I'm not familiar with the NCV, but in comparing it against the NIV, and out of memory, with the KJV, NLT and NRSV, it seems to do a good job of saying the same things in a way that is more like modern English idiom (just a cursory survey). It strikes me that it did not seem dumbed down as much as the NLT and CEV sometimes strike me as doing (not to pick on those translations, I like them, but sometimes they seem that they targeted too simple of vocabulary).

As a side note: I've been trying to give the ESV a bit of a try, but I find I'm lazy and keep returning to my NIV as my primary study Bible. However, since my One Year Bible is in the NLT, that is probably what I read the most. I like the NLT better than the CEV, but both seem overly simplified to me at times. For my Old Testament course, we are using a version of the NRSV with extensive notes from the Society for Biblical Literature, and I must say I rather like it as well, although it isn't as pleasant as the others for light reading. However, I suspect that it could very well become one of my favorites by the time I get done with the course. We'll see how this new NCV shakes out, but perhaps it will edge out my pocket-sized NIV, which is starting to get kind of worn (especially since an open package of Lifesavers candies accidentally got pressed against the pages)…

Quiet

Thanks to everyone for the prayers related to this request. Sorry to have been rather silent this week. I'll hopefully post something more tomorrow, but I wanted to say at least that much tonight.

Bad Day, Redux

Today was a painful day, connected to the “bad day” I experienced last October (the date of which, October 20, has been emblazoned in my mind), as well as the much more positive post I made this past May about calling. Much of what had caused the bad day last October had been due to mistaken information, much of what caused today's is the confirmation that those mistakes are no longer mistaken. The pain is dull right now, I've not yet had it sink in — I know I am in shock.

How I'd love to write more, to talk about this, but I can't. I covet an outlet, but must be content to just stew on this for now. I've not yet given up, I've come too far to throw in the towel after feeling as though I was being lead for over a year. I hope beyond hope that I've again misunderstood something, but what I misunderstood before has become so explicitly clear, I cannot see how.

In many ways, it is probably best I cannot detail things. While I have no doubt about the long term impact of this, I realize it would probably seem minor and petty from the outside (perhaps it does even to myself if I can try to position myself as an impartial observer). In the midst of so many problems I see people suffering, I have very little to complain about.

All I'd say for now, is that if I might be selfish, I would appreciate your prayers. Prayers, mostly, about clarity concerning God's leading. If He really is leading in the direction I thought, I need to understand how to get past this show stopper of a roadblock. If I've misunderstood, I need to know where I am really suppose to be going. I have no doubt that God leads me, I just know I'm often too dense to really see where it is He wants me.

Mostly Good News for the CDU

I'm rather pleased to see the Christian Democrat Union (CDU), with Angela Merkle at the helm, has come out ahead in Germany. I am disappointed that she was not able to get the 40% that would have been necessary to allow the “preferred” coalition that has been talked about over the past few weeks, but even if she must work with Schroeder's Social Democrats, it will at least force the left to accept some of CDU's ideas. Perhaps this bodes well for the CDU's pro-life platform plank?

Sheehan: She Doesn't Get It

I've tried to avoid commenting on Cindy Sheehan, because I just don't find her that interesting. To the extent she is a mere anti-war protester, I say let her say what she wants to say. I think she seems a bit off her rocker in her methods (there are anti-war protesters I find far more respectable), but I really couldn't care less.

Now, however, Ms. Sheehan seems to have decided that New Orleans needs her help to become unoccupied. What exactly is she hoping to accomplish with this? Allow anarchy to overtake a U.S. city for months on end? This is the first time I've heard someone indicate having military in the city's ruins is a bad thing — hasn't everyone been complaining they did not get there soon enough?

“I don't care if a human being is black, brown, white, yellow or pink. I don't care if a human being is Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or pagan. I don't care what flag a person salutes: if a human being is hungry, then it is up to another human being to feed him/her. George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they don't fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest.”

I'm sorry, but this is non-sensical. If this is the kind of stuff she is going to spout, then it is time for everyone to go home and ignore her, because I don't think there is anyway to make sense of it. Even if she feels the president should resign, it makes no sense to say we ought to leave a vacuum of power in New Orleans! She acts as if New Orleans is some foreign country instead of one of our own cities.

This person is truly mad and the best thing everyone can do for her is to ignore her.

Song o' the Day: Big Yellow Taxi

They paved paradise and put up a parkin' lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got till it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parkin' lot

They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them
No, no, no, don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone
They paved paradise, and put up a parkin' lot.

—Joni Mitchell

It's a long story of why I'm posting this, don't ask. Really — it isn't that interesting. But, now that the song is stuck in my head, I figured I might as well share the joy.

Working Out the Bugs

SAFARI 2 is fairly stable from your point of view, but the backend is still a bit of a mess due to two transitional factors and one other factor:

1. It still is recovering from the switch to MySQL from a plain text “flat file” database.
2. It still has the remnants of the old issue-based organizing structure.
3. I knew a lot less about Perl when I started writing thing thing in 1999 than I do now, six and a half years later.

I promised Ed a copy of SAFARI for his blog, and I have several other sites that need it as well, so I've been trying to hack away at the final bits of basic administration interface bugs. There are infrastructure problems still, but so long as I get it so that there is a stable database format and a usable article posting interface, I can worry about the rest even after I start doing multiple deployments of the code base.

Just a bit more work, I think. There are some features I'd like to add, but I'm trying to distinguish between “must have” features and “I want” features. I am also trying to distinguish between ones that will require reorganizing the system and ones that I can plan for now and easily “snap in” later.

Hopefully, I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Sunday Lunch, On Tuesday: Pies

Another Sunday Lunch from Michael. Yes, I am two days late, but that still isn't as late as I am on the July PhotoQuest.

1. What is your favorite fruit pie?
Well, I'm not a big fruit pie person, presuming that by that you mean meringue-less fruit pies. My mother made a very good blueberry pie for the Fourth of July, though. Maybe I'll go with that. It is cheating, however, since it is meant to be served with whipped cream on top, hence making it somewhat of a cream pie.

2. Is the Boston Cream Pie, a pie? Defend your position.
I plead ignorance.

3. What is your favorite custard , cream pie or pudding pie?
Lemon, followed by banana, followed by chocolate silk.

4. What other desert item do you like with your pie?
Depends: on a fruit pie, you must have ice cream. On a cream pie, just meringue or whipped cream.

5. Who makes the best pie?
My mother. And, no, she does not read my blog, so I am being honest. Really. If you mean pies purchased some place, I'd say the Hen House (in Michael's neck of the woods) is my favorite.

She'll Not Be Comin', but Moses Is

Ok, call me strange. I've got a quiz in Old Testament class today and one of the questions was why Moses broke the tablets containing the Ten Commandments. That's easy enough, right? Well, I answer it, noting that the scene involves Moses coming down the mountain. That was my fatal mistake. Soon, I had a new variation of “She'll Be Comin' Down the Mountain” in my head. I present it for your perusal. Yes, there is no doubt, I am strange.

VERSE 1
He'll be comin' down the mountain, when he comes,
He'll be comin' down the mountain, when he comes,
He'll be comin' down the mountain,
He'll be comin' down the mountain,
He'll be comin' down the mountain, when he comes.

VERSE 2
He'll be breakin' two white tablets, when he comes,
He'll be breakin' two white tablets, when he comes,
He'll be breakin' two white tablets,
He'll be breakin' two white tablets,
He'll be breakin' two white tablets, when he comes.

VERSE 3
O, we'll all be in trouble, when he comes,
O, we'll all be in trouble, when he comes,
O, we'll all be in trouble,
O, we'll all be in trouble,
O, we'll all be in trouble, when he comes.

VERSE 4
O, he'll destroy the gold calf, when he comes,
O, he'll destroy the gold calf, when he comes,
O, he'll destroy the gold calf,
O, he'll destroy the gold calf,
O, he'll destroy the gold calf, when he comes.

VERSE 5
And, we'll all drink gold an' water, when he comes,
And, we'll all drink gold an' water, when he comes,
And, we'll all drink gold an' water,
And, we'll all drink gold an' water,
And, we'll all drink gold an' water, when he comes.