Archive for February, 2016

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First Churches

Feb

25

2016

In our town, we have a number of first churches – First Baptist, First Presbyterian, First Methodist, etc.

I understand the history of how that happened. Across the US, it’s a fairly common occurence.

But is it right?

I mean according to the Bible. In theory, these churches should want to follow the Bible, right?

And what does the Bible say about being first? Are Christians supposed to want to be first?

How about naming your church the Last Baptist Church? Wouldn’t that be more Christian?

Or maybe your church doesn’t care about that. Maybe it just wants to follow secular marketing principals. In that case, in order to stand out from the crowd of all the other First Presbyterian Churches, use the name Best Presbyterian Church. Not only is it different from the usual names, it is also promotional. And it is alphabetically earlier than all those First churches.

So the last shall be first, and the first last.

Matthew 20:16

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Cam’s Many Talents

Feb

23

2016

There has been much hype over the celebration antics of one Cam Newton. I have found, though, that Cam is really a talented actor. Watch as he demonstrates his versatility by the following scenarios:

Drama

image of Cam Newton pretending to be a spectator at the crash of the Hindenberg

Romance

image of Cam Newton swooning at the sight of his heartthrob

Action

image of Cam Newton looking for a crash survivor from a plane

Horror

image of Cam Newton hiding his eyes at the scary part of a movie

Public Service Announcement

image of Cam Newton showing how to cough or sneeze into an elbow

Any other ideas of what else Cam could be demonstrating?

Then the whole assembly decided to celebrate the feast another seven days, so they celebrated the seven days with joy.

2 Chronicles 30:23

Posted in Sports | 1 Comment »

Whistling

Feb

18

2016

This story depends on the reader knowing about whistle straws. I don’t know the correct term for them, but those are the corrugated drinking straws that make a whistling noise if you blow through them, or if you spin them through the air like a propeller.

Years ago, when our oldest kids were about 4 and 2 and playing nicely in the other room, I heard the 2-year-old start to complain. “Too loud. Too loud!”

So I went to investigate.

What I saw was the 4YO blowing into a whistle straw to make the loud whistling noise. And the other end of the whistle straw was stuck into the 2YO’s ear.

I could see (and hear) why he was complaining.

Fast forward several years. Those kids are older now and know better. But we have our youngest, who is now 4 and is generally loud.

He found a whistle straw and was blowing on it, annoying the rest of the family with the noise.

The other end of the whistle straw?

Stuck in his own ear.

Crazy kid.

He will also lift up a standard to the distant nation, And will whistle for it from the ends of the earth; And behold, it will come with speed swiftly.

Isaiah 5:26

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A Useless Ad

Feb

16

2016

I noticed an unusual ad on a website:

image of an online advertisement directing you to a 404 not found page

Why would you want to direct people to a page that doesn’t exist?

My guess is that some very popular site published a bad link. A bunch of people then tried to follow that link and got a 404 error. But the advertising algorithm saw a bunch of traffic for that page and, since it is probably programmed to push the more popular pages, thought it was popular enough that other people would want to see it.

I did not click on the link, but I bet enough people were curious enough to do so. And that only perpetuated the problem, because it continued the page’s popularity.

Here is how the ad appeared in mobile format:

image of an online advertisement directing you to a 404 not found page

Anyway, it provided me with a few minutes of entertainment.

Your strength will be spent uselessly, for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit.

Leviticus 26:20

Posted in Marketing, Mishaps | No Comments »

Wins by Quarterback

Feb

11

2016

With much ado made about a certain quarterback’s attainment of 200 career wins in the Super Bowl earlier this week, I thought I’d throw together a chart of career wins.

Quarterback career Wins by Year

chart of quarterback wins by year of career

This is based on the list of top 25 quarterbacks, ranked by most career wins.

I don’t know what one is supposed to learn from this, but here are some things I noticed.

  • Both Brady and Manning would have been even farther ahead of everyone else if they didn’t each have one year out due to injury.
  • Marino had the best start, but the second quarter of his career made up for that.
  • Don’t know that anyone will catch Favre for longevity.
  • Elway has the best finish, as far as slope of his chart line goes.
  • As far as the slowest start goes, I’m not sure if that award goes to Steve Young or Len Dawson.

(more…)

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DRLs at Critical Mass

Feb

9

2016

I noticed that we have reached critical mass with DRLs in the USA.

In case you’re wondering, DRLs are Daytime Running Lights, better known as the headlights that stay on during the day. While they are required in many parts of the world, they are not required in the US. But since most automobile manufacturers try to have globally similar vehicles, most of the new cars sold in the US have DRLs.

For “critical mass”, I mean that there are enough DRLs in use in the US that have effectively become the standard, regardless of legislation.

Whereas former studies have compared the safety of DRLs versus the safety of lights off, they follow the same pattern and have the same flaw. They just compare crash statistics of the different vehicles. What needs to be shown is how dangerous it is to have a mixture of DRLs and non-DRLs.

I was noticing this while driving shortly before sunset. Although there was enough light to see a vehicle without headlights, most of the vehicles had their headlights on. There was a line of vehicles, and the DRLs do make those vehicles more noticeable. But they do that at the expense of the non-DRL vehicles. Before, you would see a line of vehicles. Now, you don’t see a line of vehicles – you see a line of headlights. So you don’t notice the vehicle without headlights – it looks like a break in traffic. That’s the dangerous part.

Cars in a Line – no headlights

image of cars driving in a line

Cars in a Line – at dusk no headlights

image of cars driving in a line at dusk

Cars in a Line – at dusk with headlights except one

image of cars driving in a line at dusk with headlights on

Before, I thoughts DRLs were annoying or useless or frivolous or such. But now they are here, and I recommend turning on your lights manually if you don’t have DRLs. Because although it might be fun to be invisible sometimes, in traffic is not one of those times.

God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.

Genesis 1:16

Posted in Driving | No Comments »

Daniel Plans

Feb

4

2016

The Daniel Plan is a fairly successful diet to help people become healthier.

Physically.

But one’s physical body is only one aspect of oneself. What about mental health or emotional health or spiritual health?

Could we get Daniel Plans for those?

The Biblical Daniel plan, as opposed to the American Daniel Plan, was to eat only vegetables and drink only water, forgoing meat and wine (which would include today’s soft drinks, I assume).

To look at it another way, the Daniel meal plan is about eating what you need and what is good for you, not what you want and what pleases your taste buds.

If you take that concept and apply it to other areas, what would it look like?

Mental health – avoiding television? Limiting your playlist?

Emotional health – limiting your internet? being more selective in the books you choose?

Spiritual health – studying the Bible more? reading fewer blogs?

The only problem with the non-physical Daniel plan is that there is no good way to track progress. Physically, you can measure things: weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. But the health aspects that are not physical are more subjective.

Go ahead and try a 10-day detox, not just of foods that are bad for you, but also of media that are bad for you. Chances are good that whatever pleases God will also be healthier for you – body, soul, mind, and spirit.

But Daniel said to the overseer whom the commander of the officials had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days, and let us be given some vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance be observed in your presence and the appearance of the youths who are eating the king’s choice food; and deal with your servants according to what you see.”

Daniel 1:11-13

Posted in Food, Ideas | No Comments »

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