Grampy Gets A New Job

I just found out yesterday that I got the job I've been talking about here for the last couple of months!

Starting June 12, I will be working as a computer repair instructor at the local vocational school in the adult education program. It's part time and a cut in pay with no health benefits, but I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth. We can transfer my health benefits over to my wife's provider. If I can find some freelance computer repair work in the evenings to supplement our income, we should be able to squeak by for another year. I'm taking this as an opportunity to learn some new skills and get some certifications that I've needed for a while. One nice thing, although I'm done with my duties on June 9, my contract runs through the end of August...so I'll be getting double paychecks for a little while.

Thanks to everyone for all of your prayers, I'm sure they are what made the difference.

Quick Update

Well, I got the chance to interview for the job I've been talking about this morning. I thought it went fairly well, although there were a couple of questions that I sort of fumbled the ball on. A couple of those "off-the-wall" questions that always catch you off guard. "Recall an incident where you weren't able to fix a problem and how you dealt with it." What kind of question is that? I couldn't recall anything recently that I couldn't handle...drew a complete blank. I dunno, maybe that was good.

Anyway, I must have impressed at least one of the interviewers (there were four), because they called me later to schedule a second interview on Monday.

Keep praying folks, it seems to be working.

May Update

I guess it's time for a monthly update.

My job search is sort of lingering at the moment. The job I mentioned in previous posts has not started doing interviews yet, but I've heard through the grapevine that my resume is one of those being given serious consideration. I've sent out a couple of other resumes, but none of those are really too promising. I'm also planning to start doing some computer repair work on my own, "be your own boss" type of stuff.

My wife is nearing the end of her work for the school as well, about six or seven more days and she's done for the summer. No prospect of a full time job, but she'll probably have some opportunities to do substitute work next fall...which she doesn't really enjoy too much.

My younger son graduated from college last weekend, he's now looking for work in the realm of newspaper and broadcast journalism or graphic design. There is also a possibility that he may be able to get a job working for the school as a graduate instructor.

My older son has been doing some substitute teaching, but that's about to dry up with summer vacation upon us. He's hoping to get a full time teaching job this fall, several good prospects and a lot of resumes have been sent out, but nothing definite as yet.

So...all of the members of our family are sort of in limbo in as much as the employment arena is concerned.

Your continued prayers on our behalf would be appreciated!

It's Too Quick

Having been unemployed twice before, I have sort of discovered a few things through experience. One is that the best qualified person for a job isn't always the person that gets hired. Even so, whenever I see a job that I know I would be a great candidate for, I get my hopes up that I'll be the one that gets hired.

I knew back in December that I might be looking for work this summer and got the confirmation about three weeks ago. Two weeks ago I asked the folks in my home Bible study group to pray about the situation. I also asked some online friends on a message board I hang out on to pray about it as well. I got a call from a friend on Tuesday about an almost "perfect fit" job that was advertised in the local paper. Not only do I fit the job description, I know some folks that work there already that I can use as good references. I've already mailed out my resume to apply for the position. Now I get to wait for the phone to ring.

Two weeks seems like an awfully short time based on my past experience. The two previous times I've been unemployed it took me nearly a year to find a decent job. I know God works in "mysterious ways" and that it's entirely within His providence to provide me with a new job tomorrow if He wants to. Yet I don't want to get my hopes up. It's too good to be true. It's too quick. It's too easy. I haven't suffered enough. Other "sure things" never came true, this one probably won't either. There's my problem of doubt and trust popping up it's head again. I can really identify with Thomas. Show me the scars, Jesus! As Yogi Berra said, "I'll belive it when I believe it."

Anyway, I'd appreciate everyone's prayers on this one. I probably won't hear anything until the deadline for applications passes, April 24, so keep praying about it and I'll let you know if I hear anything.

David & Bathsheba

I ran across this today and just had to post it. Sort of puts a modern light on the whole David and Bathsheba thing. Click the picture for a readable image. Thanks to peteykins for the picture and have a happy day!

Monthly Update

Hmmm, I'm surprised there aren't cobwebs hanging from the HTML tags here. Has it really been over a month since my last post? I've been letting this and my other blog linger for a while...haven't really felt like blogging. I was sick for a week and, well, I just haven't been too inspired lately.

I got my formal notice the other day that my current job position is being eliminated at the school, so I'll be officially unemployed effective July 1. I've been brushing up my resume and getting ready to hit the road looking for another job of some sort. I'd appreciate your prayers on this matter, I'm afraid I've got a few strikes against me in the job market what with my age and weight. I do have plenty of experience and talent though, so hopefully potential employers will pick up on those.

It's easy to get depressed over a situation like this, and I do have short bouts of it, but overall I think I've been pretty positive about it so far. I'm sure God has something in store for me, I just haven't gotten the memo about it yet.

Well, that's about it for this round.

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

Sorry I haven't posted anything here in a while, I'm still here. Time just seems to slip up on me and before I know it weeks have passed by. I've been fairly active on my other blog, but this one has been languishing for a little while. It's mainly because I feel a need for what I say here to be significant in some way. I'd like for everyone who visits to have something to take with them after they've read one of my posts. A thought or an idea that maybe somehow will help them thru their day. I haven't had a lot of deep spiritual revelations lately...so I haven't posted.

I guess I go through life with blinders on a lot of the time. Busy with trivial personal stuff and not really giving much thought to spiritual things. Get up, get to work, do the job, go home, crawl in bed and start all over the next day. Most of my free time I spend surfing around on the Internet. I enjoy reading the news, particularly the weird stuff. My other blog is a reflection of that, but I don't run across a whole lot of things that deal with religion...not in a positive sense anyway. Anything about religion is usually dealt with in a negative way by a lot of websites. There's a lot of disillusioned non-religious people out there, and a lot of religious folks that just can't seem to get along with one another.

One thing that caught my eye in the last couple of weeks has been the furor over the cartoons of Mohammed that were printed in the Danish newspaper. I don't know if you've seen the cartoon, but it was pretty tame. Nothing spectacular, yet it caused a great deal of commotion including quite a few deaths. A lot of media outlets have been sympathetic to the Muslim viewpoint, stoping just a bit short of endorsing the violence. Where are these sympathizers when Christian sensibilities are offended? I can't begin to count how many times somebody has portrayed Christ in an offensive fashion. For example the artist who created a copy of Da Vinci's Last Supper using elephant droppings as his medium. To me this would have been much more offensive than a cartoon...yet it was permitted to be displayed with only a smattering of complaints.

Another item that I found interesting was one about an Israeli construction company that is digging up a Muslim cemetary and moving the bodies to a different location for reburial. The Muslims are understandably upset over this and are complaining loudly to the local government, which is turning a deaf ear to their complaints. The ironic part of the whole thing is that the construction company is clearing the land so that a museum can be built on the site. A museum whose purpose will be to promote tollerance and understanding between different religions.

The bombing of the temple, mosque, or whatever you want to call it in Iraq last week is another prime example of how some folks just can't seem to get along. One day we're all going to wake up and say "why is it so hot and why am I in this handbasket?"

Super Devo

I've got to admit I'm not much of a sports fan. I was always the last kid picked when they chose sides for baseball or any other game. I was overweight, had two left feet, couldn't hit the ball and certainly couldn't catch it. So, for some strange reason, I never developed much of an interest in sports.

When someone invited me to a "Superbowl Devotional" yesterday, my initial reaction was less than enthusiastic. "Superbowl? What's the big deal?" It's just another football game as far as I was concerned. I don't really have a favorite team and certainly couldn't name a single player on either team. Yeah, I've watched some of the Superbowls in the past but I couldn't tell you who won any of them. I remember the commercials more than the games.

But I got to thinking, why not? Just because I'm not interested in sports shouldn't be a reason to skip out on the fellowship. I skip out on too many things like that as it is...so I went.

And I'm glad I did. I was impressed that the fellows kept the devotional discussion going way past kickoff time...and nobody said a word about it. Big deal, we missed the kickoff. Of course there was pizza and chips and a lot of noisy hooting and hollering during the game, but it was all in fun.

Halftime rolled around and instead of watching the Rolling Stones, we watched a video of Bono's speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. He gets a little slow start, but once he gets going he makes a lot of thought provoking comments.

Anyway, I had a good time despite not being able to hear the commercials for all of the noise. Thanks for the fun, food, and fellowship, guys. I'm looking forward to doing it again next year!

00:00:05

I just finished a book the other day by one of my favorite authors, Matthew Reily. If any of you are familiar with his works, you know he writes action adventures. One of the trademarks of his stories is that the action never stops. His heroes go from one nail-biting scenario to another with hardly time for a bathroom break. From the first or second page they're either in a gun battle or swinging from cables over molten lava. And of course, all of these perils are surmounted with split-seconds to spare. For example, in the book I just finished, the hero has to defuse a nuclear doomsday machine with seconds to spare. When it's all over the timer has 5 hundredths of a second left on it.

So what does all of this have to do with Dry Crusts? Split-second rescues: do they happen in real life? When I see this kind of cliche used in a book or a movie, I want to say "no way, that dude would have been toast in real life." Yet time and again, I've witnessed this kind of thing in my life. No, I haven't had to defuse a nuclear doomsday machine lately, but there have been countless times when I needed help of some type (usually financial) that I didn't know where to turn. Almost invariably, an unexpected check arrives in the mail. Either that or somebody repays a loan that I never expected to be repaid, or a gift from out of the blue...you get the picture. I never expected it, but there it is, the solution to my problem. It has happened too often for it to be mere chance. I should be homeless on the street...and maybe someday I will be. But I thank God that, for the moment, I'm not.

Which leads me to the final point of this soul-searching post. Why can't I trust God more? I know He cares. I know he has pulled my butt out of more scrapes than I can count on both hands. I say publicly that I trust him to see me through my trials and tribulations, but privately...deep down...there's this nagging doubt. What if this time God doesn't save my sorry butt from whatever disaster is looming on the horizon this week? I suppose it sounds like another cliche to say that's Satan doing his thing, but I think it is. That nagging doubt is him telling me to give it up, to stop trusting God. And no matter how close the timer gets to 00:00:00, that's one thing I can't do. I'll never give up on God to defuse that bomb.

Hillbilly 10 Commandments

I stumbled across this today and got a laugh out of it. I thought it was mildly humorous, so I'm passing it along for what it's worth...slightly edited for overly offensive verbage.

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The Hillbilly Ten Commandments

1. Don’t read the horoscopes ‘cuz they’re based on the planets, like Jupiter and Mars and those other fellers and heathens and jezebels that were fake gods in that there mythology so if you read your horoscope it’s just like worshippin’ fake gods not real ones like me, ‘cuz I’m the one and only God. So don’t do that, ya’ll.


2. Don’t worship nothin’ that ya carved outta wood—even tho’ that there seven foot pine tree bear carvin’ that ya made with yer chainsaw is pretty darn impressive.


3. Don’t say my name as a cuss word even if ya did just smash yer thumb all to bits with a ball peen hammer, ‘cuz that ain’t right, usin’ my name like ‘at an’ all.


4. Go to church ever’ Sunday like yer s’pposed to, unless it’s Super Bowl Sunday; ‘cuz even the preacher ain’t gonna be at the church on Super Bowl Sunday. Oh, an’ don’t work on Sunday either, unless yer scheduled for that shift or ya need the overtime real bad.


5. Be good to yer Mama an’ Daddy — even if yer Mama is a drunk an’ yer Daddy is a jailbird. Just be glad yer Mama didn’t abort ya an’ yer Daddy didn’t let her take ya down to the dump an’ leave yer cryin’ butt there like she wanted to.


6. Don’t kill nobody unless it’s a huntin’ accident or you’re protectin’ yer property.


7. Don’t cheat on yer wife even if she did git all fat an’ ugly. You shoulda known she’d turn out that way—just look at her Mama.


8. Don’t take nothin’, ‘cept fer little thangs like them free pens an’ refrigerator magnets from the bank an’ the grocery store an’ whatnot.


9. Don’t lie ‘bout nothin’ or nobody unless it makes fer really good gossip or you’re tellin’ a huntin’ story an’ you’re sure ya ain’t gonna git caught (or if yer wife asks ya if she looks fat in her new hot pink polyester pantsuit—you’d best better lie your butt off, then).


10. Don’t want nothin’ just ‘cuz somebody else bought somethin’ ya like a whole bunch — just borrow it and fergit to return it.

Downtime

Has it really been a week since my last post here? Wow, how time flies. I've posted a few new things on my other blog this week, but that doesn't require a lot of thinking. All I have to do is find a funny or unusual news story, locate some clipart to go with it and post the link. Here I've got to do some thinking...and I think my brain is still suffering from paradigm strain.

Nothing much new to say about things in general. Everything is about the same ol' same ol' around here. I wonder if it was like that for Jesus? I mean, when we read about Him in the Bible, He's always running around preaching, telling stories, praying, healing folks, attending a banquet or stuff like that. I don't recall a mention of any significant amount of "downtime" for the Savior in the gospels. Of course things like that don't make for a good story...so do you suppose the gospel writers just sort of edited those parts out? I'd like to think that He had time to relax once in a while. Maybe watch the chariot races, read a good scroll, or perhaps play a game of chess or something. Wait...forget the chess. He'd beat you every time. After all, He is a Grand Master. :)

I've had several visitors leave comments, I want to thank you all for that. The comments are appreciated and help let me know that my opinions are actually being read and the visitor counter isn't just racking up hits from people just passing thru.

Well, that's it for today, I'll try to post a little more often if I can squeeze something significant out of this ol' brain of mine.

Brain Strain

This "blogging" thing is fun, but it can be a hassle as well. I have time to work on it, but having the time and taking the time are two different things.

There was a new post on the church blog a couple of days ago about new paradigms, postmodernism and such things...some heavy stuff. Things that strain my feeble old brain to think about. I'm comfortable with my "religion" and tend to resist change. I don't want to think about new paradigms, I'm happy with the old one.

I guess that's sort of what it must have been like back in Jesus' day. The Saducees and Pharisees were happy with the status quo. They didn't like Jesus rocking their boat. They were comfortable where they were.

Change is inevitable. For the church to appeal to new generations, I realize that some things need to change...just don't change them too fast or change them just to be changing. Have a good reason for the change and make sure it's not going against the scriptures. I might be able to accept it...or at least tolerate it.

Random Ramblings

Sitting in the kitchen again, this time on my own (or should I say my wife's) laptop. The new hard drive arrived on Tuesday afternoon and I spent that evening and most of yesterday installing it and getting Windows XP with all of the update patches and hardware drivers reinstalled.

I've been playing around with some software today and keep running into things that still need to be installed...I didn't realize there were so many different programs that I used without thinking about them. I do a lot of photo editing and work with sound files, so Paintshop Pro and Sonic Foundry were a couple of the first things I installed right after the full MS Office suite and Filezilla. But there are so many other little things that run in the background that you tend to forget about. Things like Adobe Reader and Flash plus a bunch of video codecs and assorted support goodies.

No earth shaking spiritual insights today. I suppose I could come up with some sort of allegory about the people who work behind the scenes and how we forget about them to parallel my experiences with software installation, but I'm too zoned out right now to make too many relevant comments on that.

I ran across a blog this morning by a fellow Christian who edits the weekly bulletin for a mega-church. He was complaining about some problems he ran into with the color copy machine they use. A lot of it was familiar to me, I suffer similar things on a smaller scale fairly often. I found myself a bit envious that they had a color copier...slap myself on the wrist...shame, shame, shame. He produces a little over 1000 bulletins a week, 5 times the number we use. Their church also has two separate services to accommodate the large number of members. An interesting blog.

I'm sitting here thinking about going downtown and picking up the new listings for job openings at the local hospital. Don't know how many of you have heard, but my job with the school will probably be terminated at the end of this school year according to the superintendent. I've been trying to keep an eye open for employment possibilities of a similar nature, so if any of you know of an employer looking for a good computer technician, steer them my way.

Well, that's it for this morning...I'll see if I can come up with something a little more inspiring for my next post.

Auld Lang Syne

I'm just sitting here at the kitchen table in the early morning hours, surfing the blogs on my borrowed laptop. I noticed a dab of lemon pudding on the wireless card, a leftover from last night's Christmas dinner with my wife's brother and sister. The rest of the family is still fast asleep. It's nice to be able to sleep in on a weekday, makes me feel a little bit guilty that a major portion of the local population is already on their way to work and I can take time to sit here and goof off. One of the many perks of working for a school district. You don't have to go to work when you get a bad snow, just about every major holiday off and long paid vacations at Christmas and over the summer. Unfortunately, getting up at the crack of dawn for so many years has programmed me and I rarely am able to sleep much past 7 a.m., so here I am blogging away until the rest of the family decides it's time to wake up.

Christmas is pretty much over, folks are now looking forward to the new year or looking back at the year we are about to finish off. One of the blogs I happened to pause and look at for a minute or two this morning asked the question "How do you want to be remembered?" and it's gotten me to thinking about that subject. I've been thinking about people I remember that have passed on, not just recently but throughout my life. What do I remember about them?

For example, my grandparents. All of them are now long gone, most of them passed away before I was 10 years old. I can remember my grandfather on Dad's side sitting in his big brown recliner chair in the front room. I can remember what his voice sounded like and that he always had a smile on his face. That's about it. Grandma was a good cook, her chicken sandwiches were always a holiday treat. She tended to whistle very softly when she was really busy.

My grandmother on Mom's side was a lot different. She led a hard life and seemed to be uncomfortable around children. I don't have many fond memories of visiting her or my two uncles who still lived with her. For some reason they never called me by my first name, they always addressed me by my middle name. I can remember sitting on her couch when Mom went to visit, Dad rarely came along. There was a big coal stove in the middle of the tiny parlor and I would patiently watch the fire flicker through the panes of glass in it's door while Mom chatted with her about who knows what. About the only time there wasn't a fire in that stove was in the hottest part of the summer. When I pestered Mom about leaving often enough she would make me go outside to play by myself. No cousins to play with like there were at my other grandmother's house, I couldn't wait to go home.

It got me to thinking, how will I be remembered? I know my immediate family will have a lot of memories about me, my kids and maybe grandkids...but how about everyone else? I guess a lot of folks will probably say "he knew a lot about computers" or "he wrote a good church bulletin." Most folks will remember what a big fellow I am...sort of hard to miss that. I've had a lot of time to make an impression on a lot of people I have met over the years. Hopefully most of them were good impressions. I would like to be remembered for more than my computer and writing skills, but I'll take what I can get.

One person I know won't forget me is my Savior. What a terrible thing it would be to finally meet him face to face and have him say "Depart, I never knew you."

Am I a chicken or a pig?

Christmas is just a couple of days away and my wife was busy last night doing her "crafty" stuff. For those of you that don't know her, she's a talented artist and enjoys making hand-painted items. One of the things she was working on last night was a picture frame she had purchased for her sister (shhhh...don't tell her). It has little roosters around the border and her sister collects chicken chatzkes (did I spell that right?) stuff with chickens on it. She wanted to make it special and so she asked me to get on the Internet and see if I could find any "chicken quotes" that she could use to create something caligraphic to put in the frame.

Most of the quotes I found were old "why did the chicken cross the road" jokes, and there were even a few porn sites that Google suggested when I searched for "chicken quotes"...what's with that, people get excited looking at plucked chickens?. Anyway, one of the quotes caught my attention. It's attributed to Martina Navratalova, the tennis player:

"The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed. "

That's a really funny quote to me, but if you think about it long enough you realize it's kind of significant as well. I got to thinking, "Am I a chicken, or am I a pig?" I guess a lot of the time, I'm just a chicken. Not in the frightened sense, but in the sense that I just get marginally involved with some things. I help out, I lend a hand, but I'm not really totally committed. I don't give it my all. I leave some dry crusts and move on. I suppose we all are like that with some things, with life as hectic as it is these days, there's not enough time to make a full committment to every little thing.

When it comes to spiritual things, I need to be more piggy. I think I am committed to what and who I believe in. I don't think that I just give it lip service, but sometimes I wonder if I'm as truly, deeply and totally committed as some of my brothers and sisters around me.

The things of the world sometimes intrude in my life when I try to be "churchy." I find myself distracted and pulled away to do inconsequential things when I should be praying or studying my Bible. Some of the things, like the fixing other people's computer problems, I look at as a part of my ministry...helping other people. I enjoy doing it, but is it really committment or is it just window dressing? I sometimes wonder, am I truly committed or am I just playing the game? Is it like that for you? I wonder.