Liquid Salt

My husband has been blogging. I’ve heard all about it… what he’s blogged, how’s he’s blogged, when he’s blogging. Blog, blog, blog. So, I broke down and checked it out. After all, I need to be encouraging for this new interest of his. What has he really been saying, I wondered? So, off I went to explore the land of Blog.

What did I find you might ask? I’ve got to admit – I was pleasantly surprised. I figured it was probably a lot of “blah, blah, blah” about techno wizardry that my little non-techny mind couldn’t comprehend. Lots of tales of modules, jigdos, kernals and config-eros, that will revolutionalize the free world. Well, there was a little of that, because, well, my husband is a geek at heart, and I love him for it. But there were other topics, great ideas, praise for cool reads, bible stories, tales of interesting people and more. My interest was beginning to peak.

So I asked my hubby, “What exactly is the point of blogging?” He says it’s a way of communicating thoughts, feelings, opinions, and interests. Basically, whatever you want to talk about. Express yourself! Tell the world a tale.

Impressive! What an idea. Here is a venue that allows you to say whatever you want to say – however you want to say it – to the world! No more worrying about saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, or perhaps jumbling up your words, letting your mouth engage before your brain. You can rehearse it, tweak it, rewrite it, perfect it, whatever “it” is and “wahla!” you post. You can post these thoughts that have been idly meandering down the corridors of your mind, taking up space between your ears, mingling with the dusty bunnies in your head. Have you ever wanted to shout to the heavens for an injustice? You can write about it. Have you ever babbled to yourself in the car, complaining about this or that? Write about that! Have you ever had a secret passion for salsa dancing and never told anyone about it? Here’s your chance! Blog it!

Whether anyone else reads it, really doesn’t matter. Whether someone will agree with it or not, really doesn’t matter. You just post it – whatever “itâ€? may be. You get those thoughts and feelings off your chest, out of your mind and onto the world wide web.

Wow. I think I may have found a new love. See you in the land of Blog!

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A week or so ago, Sonya and I (and a couple of friends) got to relive some of our youth (along with several thousand other youths) at Night of Joy. It’s been a little busy these past few weeks, so that’s why this hasn’t hit with everybody else’s reviews.

First, the bad

I really don’t like to bad-mouth things, anything or anyone if I can keep from it. AND, given the fact that Sonya is a huge Disney fan, this is just a little bit harder.

I expect Disney to be masters at putting on concerts – after all, they’ve been putting on NoJ for 24 years, as well as numerous other concerts and events for even longer. So, count me as hugely surprized to find there were numerous places in front of the performances where I could only hear bass. Second, there were places in the park where you were literally being assaulted with 3 or more sources of audio at one time. Now, i can completely understand having bleed-over between the concert venues; what i can’t understand is why Disney decided to have a radio station full-blast in between the venues. Sorry, Disney, it was ridiculous to have so much audio in sometimes very small spaces. Next year, cut out the radio, or better yet, use those speakers to broadcast the closest concert for those that can’t get anywhere near the stage – maybe then I’ll get something besides bass.

Next, the ugly

Disney’s lack of crowd control the first night bordered on dangerous. Movement between the concerts was nearly impossible and resulted in numerous attitudes (from other people of course that most definately did not reflect where we were. In all fairness, the second night was not as bad, but for me that damage was already done. Because of the impossible walking situation (going from one concert to another would take the entire time of the concert), we missed Casting Crowns and Mercy Me – two of the main reasons we went.

I can attest that for at least one person, the crowds were too much. While Leaving the David Crowder Band concert, a woman had collapsed and was being looked after by medical personnel. Disney, i won’t be back because of crowd control issues. Honestly, there were far too many people in the park overall. I don’t have the numbers to prove it, but i suspect the event was over-booked. Either way, I will probably go to Rock the Universe next year.

Finally, the good

The performances (that we were able to see) were fantastic. We saw BarlowGirl both nights! They have incredible music and the best message I’ve heard yet for teen (and older) girls (and boys). The couple we were with has already bought all of their CDs since we got back. I absolutely hope my daughter thinks their message is “cool” when she gets there. Hope and pray, hope and pray.

David Crowder Band pumped so much energy into their perfomance, I was hard of hearing for two days, still humming their tunes. I had heard, but not seen David Crowder before, so he came as a little shock to me. Not a bad shock, he’s full of energy and uses it. Sonya kept asking when he takes a breath. I think this was probably the longest concert and they definately know how to worship. Even when we weren’t jumping up and down, our hands were raised in worship. A Collision is my next purchase.

Jeremy Camp was the last concert we got to. I think we were so tired that by the time we got here all we wanted to do was sit. JC definately put on a good show, but we couldn’t stand any longer. Sorry Jeremy, really we were jumping in our seats!

My hope

My honest hope is that DCB will go get BarlowGirl and come play at my house, well maybe not at my house – my walls won’t take it – but somewhere close. OK, my real hope is that someone with knowledge of how multi-concerts should work, with a large area of land and the inititive to get Christain artists out of the theme parks, will host some sort of woodstock event and transform some lives. Just make it near Ocala.

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MBR stands for Master Boot Record. It is the part of your hard drive that tells where the partitions on that drive are located. It is also the part of your drive that becomes worthless if you try to install Windows on your hard drive after Linux. Of course, i have never done this … more than twice.

So i came across a poor soul that had done this and wished he had kept a backup of his MBR and it got me thinking “i could automate that,” because I hate to do something like this more than once. So I wrote a quick bash script to handle the issue.

#!/bin/sh

SAVETO=”/etc”

# Do ATA drives
for DRIVE in `ls -l /dev/hd* 2>/dev/null | grep -v [0-9]$ | grep disk | cut -d”/” -f3`
do
dd if=/dev/$DRIVE of=$SAVETO/mbr-$DRIVE bs=512 count=1
done

# Do SCSI drives
for DRIVE in `ls -l /dev/sd* 2>/dev/null | grep -v [0-9]$ | grep disk | cut -d”/” -f3`
do
dd if=/dev/$DRIVE of=$SAVETO/mbr-$DRIVE bs=512 count=1
done

Obviously, there is a whole lot that could be done to improve the script (error checking, user notification, overkill), but if you aren’t already backing up your MBR, start here. Throw it into a cronjob and forget it – cron.monthly not cron.hourly.

Download it here.

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What a sight the Israelites must have been in Moses’ day. A vast people numbering around 2 million, camped in the desert, as structured and large as any other city on earth, yet moving like like no other city.

Their actions and customs would have been completely foreign to any other people, yet it would be incredibly obvious that these were a special people.

I used to thank God that we don’t have to live by the extreme rules and regulations of the Old Testament. How much easier it is to simply love Jesus and follow his teachings than some archaic protocals.

Now, i realize that the rules of the Old Testament weren’t a cage, but a release; release from the diseases, idolitry, and enslavements of the day. Jesus gave us his rules as well – and through Jesus, those rules give us the way to The Father.

We are still called to be recognizably different by our actions and customs. The actions and customs have just been changed to keep pace with the world around us.

The modern world is conflicted concerning sexuality. Jesus said to stay pure and avoid immoral thoughts. [1]

The modern world says the pursuit of wealth is most important. Jesus says money is not a treasure [2] , Love for the Father is most important. [3]

The modern world says spirituality comes from inside ourselves. Jesus says the Spirit comes only from God. [4]

We are called to be recognizably different. When the people around us stop asking why we are different, we have forgotten who we are here for.

[1] 27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. – Matthew 5 NIV

[2] “Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.” – Luke 12:21

[3] 35 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” 37 Jesus replied, “`You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. – Matthew 22 NLT

[4] 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, who will never leave you. 17 He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world at large cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you do, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. – John 14 NLT

Tags: Relationship, Society // 2 Comments »

18 Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat. They tried to push through the crowd to Jesus, 19 but they couldn’t reach him. So they went up to the roof, took off some tiles, and lowered the sick man down into the crowd, still on his mat, right in front of Jesus. 20 Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” – Luke 5:18-20

I would not be in love with the LORD had someone else not carried me to Jesus. We often think that we do everything for ourselves, and we try to. Yet this is not how God planned life or how it is in reality.

God puts people in our lives; some for us to help guide, some to help guide us. If we ignore the friends and family God has given us, we also ignore the gifts God is trying to give us through them. Beyond our current friends and family, God also wants us to seek out new relationships, to bring others to Christ – especially those who cannot carry their own mat.

I am so thankful for the members of my small group. They continually provide views i hadn’t (and wouldn’t have) thought of on my own. They offer fellowship freely, but most of all, they allow me to freely share my love of Christ. Without them, i don’t know that i would be growing as fast spiritually, or even growing at all without their help.

We don’t get to God on our own, at the very least Jesus takes us to the Father. I have friends who don’t yet know Christ. They say that they see a change in me, but that “Religion isn’t for [them].” I let them know that religion isn’t for me either, Christ is. I try not to pressure them – i know God will bring them around, and when he does, i hope i get to help lower their mat in front of Christ.

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All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert! Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” – Numbers 14:2-3

 

[The Lord said] “Have I not commanded you? Be stong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
So Joshua ordered the officers of the people:”Go throught the camp and tell the people, ‘Get your supplies ready. Three days from now you will cross the Jordan here to go in and take possession of the land the Lord your God is giving you for your own.’ ” – Joshua 1:9-11

Grumbling against God was all too common for the Israelites of the Exodus. It is amazing that a previously enslaved people would dare speak out against God – who had just removed them from the oppresive Egyptians.

Just as the Israelites failed to comprehend how powerful God must be to remove them from such a crushing force, i too forget that God is capable of anything. I believe that for me – it is an issue of not being able to imagine that much power (but that’s probably a cop-out).

When i grumble is when most people grumble – when i’m under stress. I think and say things like “Why is this happening to me?” or “I don’t deserve this.” When in reality, i deserve that and far more for my sins.

I am blessed that God is slow to anger and that Jesus paid the way for me to ask God for forgiveness, before He gives me what i truly deserve.

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Its obvious I haven’t been writing lately. At least not publically. I have a few posts that I’m revising, but mainly I’ve been working on re-designing the site.

I’m not a big fan of “default” settings. So, Work on a new WP theme is progressing, about as fast as everything else I have going on. The site name will change with the new theme, hopefully reflecting the content posted here. For now, I have a little teaser …

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I just discovered that my site is bouncing off aggregators everywhere.

If you are reading this site, you should be warned that it is in pretty much a constant state of flux right now. I don’t plan on changing the content, so feel free to register and comment. But Site design is going to change, SOON. Those pictures of cats and flowers have got to go.

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This is a copy of the original post I put on the NWN forums. I post it here because it’s my code.

[Read more →]

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Why in the world do I need a blog? There are millions of them out there, some of them are even good. So why do I need a blog?

Like everyone else, I have something to say. At this point I’m not sure what that “something” is though.

And like everyone else, what I have to say is different, even in the most miniscule way, from what everybody else is saying.

So, I expect that I will post on here programs and scripts that I create, usually for Linux, though I have one of those boxes here too. I expect that I will post my views on society, which I have found rapidly changing lately. I’m positive that I will post my views on God and religion (they aren’t the same you know) as well.

I’m also hoping that my wife will post her thoughts and pictures here as well.

If that interests you, check back and comment. If not, that’s OK too.

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