Pastor Geek

Election Tracking

2011-05-24T20:34:00.005-05:00

This is actually for me. You're welcome to follow along, but I'm already feeling like it's getting complicated, so a little tracking might serve us well.

Democrats

Obama

Yup. The great one himself. The destroyer of what decency was ever left in the Democratic party. Unfortunately, I suspect that the Democrats will not be wise enough to put up an alternative candidate. I'm sure they want to, but fear the reprisals for doing so. But that's OK, because the Democrats are showing Wisconsin what democracy looks like.

In future, I'll stick mostly to the Republicans, unless the Democrats do something more outrageous than usual.

Republicans

IN

Cain

Seriously impressive fellow. And he just won the straw poll at the Wisconsin Republican convention. Sorry Mr. Krauthammer, but I think you may be calling it wrong where Mr. Cain is concerned.

Gingrich

Stick a fork in him.

Paul

Flashes of genius wrapped in a desire to alienate as many people as possible.

Romney

RomneyCare! I don't care if it was in Massachusetts, it's still socialism. Don't let the door catch you on the way out please Mr. Romney.

Pawlenty

http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/05/governor-tim-pawlenty-announces-hes-running-for-president/

Don't tell me he cheers for the Vikings.

OUT

Trump

http://theothermccain.com/2011/05/16/donald-trump-drops-2012-gop-campaign-citing-herman-cain-surge/

Thank goodness. Although his wife did very well on one video clip I saw, so perhaps she could run instead?

Daniels

http://theothermccain.com/2011/05/22/mitch-daniels-wont-run-in-2012-cites-overwhelming-herman-cain-momentum/

Should I know who he is?

SHAKE IT ALL ABOUT

Giuliani

http://theothermccain.com/2011/05/24/giuliani-2012-crazy/

I enjoyed his book and I respect the job he did as mayor of New York during the attack and aftermath of 9/11. But I think he's old news, has too much baggage and isn't nearly conservative enough for the Tea Party.

WHO KNOWS?

Palin

I heart Sarah Palin, but wonder if she isn't better situated as an external force. She'll have more effect on the election from outside than inside because the moment she announces, the media will restart the witch-hunt.

Ryan

Hands off! Let us keep a few of the good ones outside the Beltway.

Bolton

Every time I hear Mr. Bolton speak, I am more impressed than last time. I have not yet decided if he should run as VP or be ambassador for life to the UN.

West

Colonel West is a fine example of all that is good with the U.S. Military. And I think he'd do well as it's Commander-in-Chief. Perhaps he's a little young right now, but I think eight years as a VP would position him nicely for 2020.

Christie

Too antagonistic for my taste. There's being firm and he's definitely on the far side of that.

Bachmann

A better man for the job than the majority of the men running for the job. And she hearts the Tea Party and the Tea Party hearts her.

Santorum

Nice guy, pro-life and Dr. Dobson likes him. Not sure I see him as presidential material, but that could just be me.

If I had to choose today

Currently a toss-up.

Cain/West with Bolton as Ambassador to the UN.
Cain/Bolton with West as Ambassador to the UN.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T12:58:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas to both of my loyal readers.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

2010-12-02T19:17:00.004-06:00

Oracle Corporation (a purveyor of wickedly expensive databases) purchased Sun Microsystems last year. Sun was the creator of the Java (a highly trademarked) programming language and environment. There were concerns voiced at the thought of Oracle Corporation (also known as the keep buying Larry more ocean-going racing yachts club) owning Java (oodles of trademarks) as they are known for being more interested in making money than running open-source projects or loving up on programmers. These thoughts were usually swiftly hushed and everyone was told that it would all be fine and that as the crown jewels of Oracle's (aforementioned large and heavily lawyered corporation) offerings were all deeply tied to Java (did I mention the trademarks?), there was no way that they would do anything stupid. After all, they said, you don't get to afford trans-Atlantic racing yachts and Gulfstream jets without number unless you know something good about business. So the geeks switched to silent waiting mode.

Lately, there have been quite a few cracks in the facade of Oracle (so big, they make Big Brother look like little sister) as benevolent curator of the Java (way more trademarks than you'll ever have) language and brand. I'll try to keep myself to the two latest examples and then deliver the pithy conclusion.

The Apache Software Foundation (these are the good guys) is a member of the Java (trademarks, trademarks, trademarks) Community Process, the overseeing body charged with guiding the ongoing development of Java (err ... trademarks). Well, they happen to have a project to re-write the Java (trademarks and then some) standard libraries in a cleanroom manner, so they can be used freely and under the business friendly Apache license. All good stuff and Sun (may it rest in peace) had an agreement with them to release the Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK) under a suitable license for the Apache project to use so they could validate their implementation the for Java (trademarks, come and get 'em) standard libraries.

Unfortunately Sun (formerly great networking company) never got around to honoring this arrangement before they mis-managed themselves into the ground. Oracle (dark ominous music plays here) were previously in favor of this arrangement, but now that they own Java (and all the assorted trademarks) they have suddenly gone bi-polar on us and no longer think this is the swell idea it used to be.

This is a big deal, because while Java (marks of tradiness) is now GPL (all hail Richard Stallman) and the replacement libraries are open-source (a shout-out to ESR), there is the slight problem that nothing is allowed to be legally called Java (with or without trademarks) until it has passed the TCK. And Apache can't use the TCK because of one crazy legal clause in the whole arrangement.

Hudson is continuous integration server software. It is hosted on the java.net facility which is now owned by Oracle (not actually evil, but they make Microsoft look cuddly) and even worse, it would seem that Oracle (who should borrow Google's don't be evil mantra) own the trademark or copyright or copymark on the name Hudson. And one of their VP's wrote a snotty email explaining that folks were welcome to fork the project, but they couldn't have the project name.

There is great principle that I normally apply in such situations: "Never ascribe to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence!" And I think it might be useful here. At this point, I am not ready to accuse Oracle (you get the picture) of trying to kill Java (mark that trade), but I am quite certain that there are no signs that they aren't!

The title of this post come of course from that classic Monty Python sketch about the incompetent inquisitors of the Spanish Inquisition.

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T06:00:00.000-06:00

I am thankful for my savior Jesus Christ.
I am thankful that he did not leave me in my previous unpleasant life.
I am thankful for the Church, the body of Christ.
The Church is my family and I love all of my brothers and sisters in the Lord.
I am thankful for freedom, purchased for me by so many people I'll never meet, at a cost I can only imagine.
I am thankful for my wife and family.
I am thankful to be upright and breathing.
I am thankful to be gainfully employed and able to provide a comfortable living for my family.
I am thankful for the honor of being called to pastor a congregation.
I am thankful that as I am learning to pastor "on the job", that my first congregation is not too large.
I am thankful for the interesting roles I have been asked to fill in the kingdom.
I am thankful for the favor that the Lord has given me in my city.
And lastly, I'm thankful that I have no more than two readers of this blog, so when I get too busy to post for a month, nobody is demanding their money back!

Happy Thanksgiving!
(And even if you feel like you have no possible reasons to be happy, just be glad that you aren't a turkey!)

The Stateless Web Not Harmfull

2010-11-23T18:13:00.001-06:00

We've all done it. Every web developer worth their salt has complained about HTTP being a stateless protocol. And this makes web applications much more difficult to write. Waa waa waa, moan moan moan.

Stop and think for a moment. The early web was a distributed repository of information. This information didn't need state. In fact, if the HTTP protocol had included state, it would have made the early web a much more fragile infrastructure. As designed, for the purpose at the time, the web was very well designed.

Now, the advent of web applications did cause a challenge. The lack of state was a huge problem. But ... it's been solved. By using cookies, browsers and webservers layered a perfectly workable state mechanism on top of the underlying transport mechanism. I know that everyone had security concerns over cookies when they arrived. But browsers are more careful in their implementations of them and it's generally agreed that they're the only way to transparantly add state to HTTP, so everyone took deep breaths and calmed down.

And what a testament to the design of HTTP, that something unforeseen could be added ontop in such a straight-forward way. An awesome design.

So, can we all stop bemoaning that HTTP is stateless? Very clever people have figured out how to transport state over HTTP, so let's just get on with using it and making great web applications.

A Star of Radio

2010-10-19T19:27:00.003-05:00

It would seem that I find myself married to a star of radio. The lovely Sister Geek was invited to appear in a radio spot for our local conservative candidate for the state assembly. We have also appeared in his flyers and helped out a two parades. Of course, it helps that we live next door to the chairman of his campaign and they needed someone in a hurry. But still, a certain amount of bragging rights seems appropriate.

One week, one character

2010-10-15T21:23:00.004-05:00

Tracked down a tricky error over the past week. No, I'm not that slow, but I had to get a whole new database sandbox created and populated and then fix my data source definition before I could even get to the point of investigating the problem. Once, the data was flowing into the program, I discovered that I had a broken domain object. I had had trouble getting anyone to be excited about me retro-fitting unit tests into the web application that I'm porting from WebSphere to JBoss and so I'd done a few (about three dozen) of what I thought were the main objects. Wouldn't you know that one of the ones not tested had an error in it! At my hourly billing rate, that's several thousand dollars tracking a problem that would not have existed if I had been free to unit test all of the domain objects. The fix? A single exclamation mark to reverse a wrong boolean statement.

Go Big or Go Home

2010-10-14T16:34:00.003-05:00

Our second Wednesday of each month is focused prayer. Our number one request for the rest of the year is ten new souls baptized in Jesus name and filled with the Holy Ghost evidenced by speaking in other tongues. For a humble congregation like ours, ten shiny new saints would be an awesome boost. I had originally suggested ten baptisms, but Bro. B, who leads up the focused prayer felt led of the Lord to upgrade the request. Go big or go home!

Scala

2010-10-12T20:11:00.003-05:00

Went to my local Java User Group this evening and listened to a presentation about the Scala programming language. I had tinkered with this a year (or was it two?) ago and had thought that it was interesting. For some reason I can't remember, I got distracted away from it. Hmmm, perhaps it's time to dig back in and see what I can do with it.

Not Nimrod ... Not a Mighty Hunter

2010-10-11T18:56:00.004-05:00

The things we do at the request of our children. We have an escaped pet rabbit in the neighborhood, white with red eyes. It has been around for over a month now and all the neighbors have seen it, but I think that I'm the only one crazy enough to try to catch it, after the geeklets informed me that they would just looooove to have a pet bunny. The critter is sneaky and has led me on several chases around the interior of our block, while various onlookers laugh and cheer me (hopefully they're cheering for me!) on in my futile endeavors. I even borrowed a fishing net, but I couldn't get close enough to use it. If the geeklets didn't want it as a pet, I'd have grabbed the .22 and made sure it would never escape me again!

Pastoral Appreciation

2010-10-10T20:13:00.004-05:00

At church today we had a pastoral appreciation lunch. Wow! I feel very appreciated today. I also feel stuffed. There's nothing like a church potluck and the Pentecostals have taken it to an art form! All the food was southern-themed today. Partly, I suspect, because one of the ladies organizing it is from Texas and partly because I like to say "y'all" and claim that because I'm from southern England, I'm allowed to do so.

Goodness

2010-09-09T17:13:00.001-05:00

Goodness, I see that it's been a while since I posted. Thankfully I don't have much of a following and am on only one blog roll that I know of, so I think that the Internet will survive. Still, I think that this would be a good outlet for me, if I can just make myself be more diligent with it.

The problem has not been a lack of things to say or interesting occurrences to report on. Those have been many and varied. Rather, the silence here has been because of a lack of consistent direction in how I want to take this blog. Initially, I thought that a mostly anonymous blog (how many ex-athiest, formerly British, apostolic pastors can there be in the mid-west?) would allow me to capture some of my adventures. Then I started thinking about blogging under my name, but then I got to thinking that would reduce what I felt comfortable writing about. So, I think it's safe to say that I have come full circle and will just stick with being (mostly) anonymous.

Business Is Booming

2010-07-10T19:10:00.001-05:00

According to Ken Rockwell: business is booming.

A civil rights victory

2010-07-09T14:42:00.004-05:00

Saw this on The Volokh Conspiracy via Instapundit: "Iowa Federal Court Finds Sheriff Denied Concealed Carry Because of Applicant’s Political Activity, Orders Sheriff to Take a First Amendment Class"

This is awesome on many levels. Yay, Iowa!

A Perfect Storm

2010-02-25T20:45:00.002-06:00

I have perfect storms at home and work. This leaves nowhere to hide. Work finds me trying to combine my three least favorite technologies at once, specifically security X.509 certificates, XML and SOAP web services. These technologies are all harder than they should be and when you combine them, they approach evil. And I say that as one who has started being used in the area of spiritual warfare ... I'll go toe to toe with a demon (which I have done) before I'd volunteer to work with those three.

At home, it feels like a metric ton of things have decided to break or wear out at the same time. My leather shoes have started splitting after only about six months. I fell in the shower yesterday and while I wasn't hurt, I managed to bend the tub spout, so we need a plumber to look at that. Our Internet connection at home is playing up and we are to the point where we have almost no Internet availability, but I also have no time to chase any of that right now, because we are hosting the sectional conference this weekend and having the bishop speak on the Sunday as he was in town anyway. The dimmer switch in the kitchen dining area is falling apart and we need someone to put a new switch in for us as I have no mechanical aptitude at all. And Sis. Geek is trying to arrange for some of this stuff to be fixed and is not getting the best support from some of the companies she's talking to. Our ISP asked if we'd run a speed check and Sis. Geek didn't realize that the correct answer was that we have trouble getting a connection at all, and we'll gladly worry about the speed when we get that problem solved.

I mention all this not for sympathy, but to let you know that even pastors have life happen to them at times.

I See A Pattern Here

2010-02-21T15:43:00.001-06:00

We baptized an ex-Wiccan two weeks ago. We can call her Sis. M. now. In the last two and a half years, that brought the total to two wiccans and a Satanist. This morning Sis. M introduced me to her fiance and explained that he had been further into Wicca than she was. By the end of the service he requested that we baptize him, so I will be meeting with him later this week to teach him a bible study about repentance and baptism so that he understands what he's getting into. I'm seeing the start of a pattern here!

A Quiet Week Except For When It Wasn't

2010-02-20T16:06:00.001-06:00

Thankfully. Sis. Geek and the geeklets had a quiet night in on Tuesday, although I was late home from work. Because my lesson for the midweek service was already done last week, I spent the evening getting some basic household needs caught up. I went to the hardware store for a new neon tube for the bathroom light and then Farm and Barn for salt for the water softener. I installed those and then started a load of laundry. While the laundry went through, I sorted a large stack of mail that we hadn't touched in a week. In the end, I got to bed a little before 11pm.

Midweek service went well, but everyone was in a talkative mood so we didn't end up closing up until nearly 9pm. Home and straight to bed.

Then, Thursday night, the busyness got to us and we were all tucked up and lights out by 8:30pm. (This is why you shouldn't call your pastor in the evening unless it's an emergency ... he might be trying to catch up on his sleep.)

Friday was date night. One of the families in the church offered to watch the geeklets while I took the lovely Sis. Geek out for dinner. This was our Valentines dinner that we couldn't take on the 14th as Sundays are busy and then ours was more busy than usual as we prepared for Sis. P's funeral the next day.

This morning we slept in a little. Then it was off in a couple of different directions. I took my car for an oil change and Sis. Geek headed off to the church to meet Sis. M to clean. After the oil change I stopped by to help Bro. M move some stuff up to the attic. And now I'm working on my sermon for tomorrow.

So, now you know what pastors do outside of that hour on Sunday mornings.

The Mississipi Squirrel Revival

2010-02-16T21:52:00.000-06:00

Some days (and especially the last few) even a pastor needs a good chuckle. Bro. F. at church pointed me at this amazingly funny video.

Funerals Are A Full Day's Work

2010-02-15T19:08:00.002-06:00

The funeral for Sis. P took place today. I was at the funeral home for 9am and didn't leave until 5pm. Between the viewing and then the service and then the graveside, it was quite an amount of work. I'm ready for an early night.

My life as a roller-coaster

2010-02-14T17:53:00.003-06:00

This week I experienced the death of a member of my congregation, Sis. P. Then Saturday was my youngest's birthday and we celebrated life. Then today the Lord directed me to preach on mercy and now tomorrow I conduct the funeral for Sis. P.

I'm normally a fairly level kind of guy emotionally, so I'm feeling a little like I'm on a roller-coaster right now. Hopefully everything will calm down this coming week and I can get my bearings again.

In Shock!

2010-02-12T19:37:00.001-06:00

I have spent twenty one years earning my living as a computer programmer in corporations. One of the givens that I have encountered is that the annual performance review will be a travesty of documentation that bares no resemblance to what you actually did. Generally, they are a way for the manager to let off steam and blame you for anything that they think makes them look bad.

I had my annual performance review today and I'm in shock. My manager (actually a Director, but who's counting) wrote a magnificent review that was an accurate representation of my years activities. She even remembered some things that I had forgotten I'd done. She thanked me for all my hard work this past year and expressed her belief that I would do well this year in my new role as a Team Lead for my area.

It was a good job I was sitting down!

The Worst Part of the Job

2010-02-11T21:33:00.001-06:00

After two and a half years of pastoring, the day I haven't been looking forward to arrived and I lost a member of my congregation. Sis. P was involved in an automobile accident yesterday and went to be with the Lord this afternoon.

Much as I love pastoring, it hurts and I don't ever want to get used to that feeling.

Pro-Choice Except For When They Aren't

2010-01-30T15:22:00.011-06:00

Is it just me? There seems to be a super-sized storm going over the advertisment that Focus On The Family wants to run during the soon coming Superbowl. My understanding is that no one has actually seen the ad yet, but that the basic outline is available and is the mother of a football player speaking about problems during her pregnancy and her choice to continue with that pregnancy. After all the dancing monkeys, beer commercials with scantily clad women and even wardrobe malfunctions, this seems pretty uncontentious.

Enter NOW, the National Organization of Women, a pretty much washed up group who have a 100% record of siding with anyone other than conservative women. They are now (no pun intended) proclaiming that they are deeply offended by the mere idea of this advertisement. And yet after reading the entry on the FOTF blog, it appears what they are actually upset about is that this mother made a choice. They say they're for choice, but their actions tell us that they only like choices in favor of dead babies. The live ones seem to give them conniptions.

Can we start calling them "pro-death"? They have now forfeit the pro-choice label by being so upset over a mother who actually made one.

And Sarah Palin had some excellent words on the matter too.

Race or tribes?

2010-01-12T23:18:00.002-06:00

So, over the weekend, I read about how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid apologized for previous comments about President Obama's skin color. Here's Fox News report.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/09/reid-apolgizes-racial-remarks-obama/

I suppose I could go on a rant about liberal hypocracy. But I'm sure that bloggers with more time to spare than I have, are already doing that.

Instead, I found myself thinking about one of Bill Whittle's classic essays by the name Tribes. Now, to be sure, Tribes is a little strongly worded, an unusual thing for Bill to do, but it was written as a response to a very strongly worded comment by a liberal. Tribes explores the fact that color has absolutely nothing to do with anything except the genetics of your parents and how much sunlight you personally reflect. And that's exactly it. A much bigger deal should be made of the direction that each of us choose and the people we choose to associate ourselves with. Our choice of tribe shouts a message to the world, while the color of our skin whispers at best. Go and read it carefully. It's one of Bill's most powerful essays.

http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/?s=tribes

Lifer!

2010-01-11T19:54:00.001-06:00

I received my National Rifle Association Life Membership pack in the mail today. It's quite a nice set. A set of bylaws, a gold-plated certificate and several badges, decals and even a suit pin. Thankfully, I now no longer need to remember whether I've paid my dues yet each year ... they're paid for ever!

A Good Day For Customer Service

2010-01-04T17:50:00.003-06:00

I hate calling anywhere for customer service. Even when I keep my expectations low, I usually find myself deeply disappointed. So, imagine my trepidation at needing to make two such phone calls! I needed to call Starbucks and the NRA Store.

My Starbucks Gold Card (colored black to confuse people) is coming to it's end and I needed to register it so that my account balance could transfer over to the new card (actually colored gold this time). Only the numbers on the card were all but worn off. It took both myself and the lovely (and younger) Sis. Geek wearing reading glasses to be able to read the main number, but neither of us could read the security code numbers which were smaller to start with. Thus, I called customer care after reading the FAQ on their website carefully. The customer service representative that answered was amazingly helpful and while he couldn't read the numbers himself over the phone line, he went one better and registered me for the new card anyway and pre-started me at Gold level memebership. That's excellent customer service and one more reason for me to continue enjoying Starbucks coffee.

Next, I needed to call the NRA Store. I had a gift-certificate from my in-laws (have I mentioned that I have the greatest in-laws?) for the NRA Store. Unfortunately, their website does not accept their own paper gift certificates. It happens, so I called in my order. The very nice lady I spoke to then promptly had difficulty getting their in-house system to accept the gift-certificate either. This is why I normally try to do everything by the web these days. After being put on hold, she worked with a supervisor and about five minutes later came back and had everything sorted. Most excellent! (As Bill and Ted would say) So, I can now look forward to my new NRA life-member hat that I *had* to order after upgrading my membership as my year end present to myself.

That's two helpings of excellent customer service in one day. I must be dreaming!

Project 2:38?

2010-01-03T23:00:00.002-06:00

I'm re-reading a book by Donald Knuth. Nothing unusual about that, I actually have several of his books. But this one has likely not been read by too many of my fellow geeks. The book is called "Things A Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About" and is a collection of six presentations he gave on religion. It's an interesting book with quite a few interesting ideas in it. I just finished chapter 2, in which he was explaining his 3:16 project. 3:16 was a personal project where he took the 3:16 of books of the bible and studied that verse in depth, eventually giving rise to a book. He chose 3:16 because he wanted to include John 3:16. This got me thinking that perhaps a 2:38 project could be fun.

Just Tell Me What You Are

2010-01-02T19:57:00.006-06:00

In these wishy-washy days, people don't seem to be keen to be defined by what they are, but prefer to be known for what they aren't. I got to thinking about this on the way home from the in-laws today as I drove past a large'ish Seventh Day Adventist church building. Now, I'm sure they have things they stand for, but mostly they're known as the folks who think that we're wrong for having church on Sundays and that we should celebrate on Saturdays like they do. Hmmm.

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
Colossians 2:16 [KJV]

The Seventh Day Adventists are not wrong for having church on Saturdays, but nor are we for choosing Sundays.

And for those who like a little more politics in their reading material, we can make similar observations about President Obama and especially so of his advocates. A large part of the campaign approach of then candidate Obama centered around the point that he wasn't Hilary Clinton and then even more emphatically that he wasn't George W. Bush. And pretty much that was it. Oh sure, he made promises and expressed opinions, but all politicians do that. It just strikes me that being the un-Bush is a pretty weak platform to run on. (It did get him the Nobel Peace Prize, for what that's worth these days!)

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T17:39:00.001-06:00

I'm an old codger! I was tucked up and snoring by about 9:30 last night. It's been a few years now since I tried to stay up until midnight to welcome in the New Year. The way I see it, the year lasts 365 days, so I'll have plenty of time to enjoy it. Why rush? I'm over visiting the in-laws and they aren't late night folks either, so we all tucked up early.

For those wondering why we didn't have a watch-night service, the answer is that they annoy me, err wait, I don't think I'm supposed to admit that. The other reason is that in a small congregation, the holidays (Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving etc etc) are times of shrinkage. Bigger churches gain bodies with extra visitors during holidays. Sadly, the bodies they gain are usually from the smaller congregations when folks go to see family and visit their big fancy church for a treat. I've considered getting mad about it, but it's just the way life is, so I accept it. It all balances out in the end because our town is close to a popular state park and we get quite a few visitors from other churches each summer when they come to our area to camp.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2009-10-28T17:10:00.001-05:00

Today is my birthday. I'm mumble mumble years old and delighted to be still upright and breathing and able to take nourishment.

The lovely Sis. Geek woke me with a present this morning and packed me off to work with a smile. The geeklets have presents to give me this evening. One of the congregation sent me a birthday text message as I was geting ready to step out of the door. And then when I got to Starbucks for my mid-week study, I was on the phone with Sis. Geek, standing around outside, and Angie, one of my regular baristas came out with my usual order of coffee for me. (When I went in and tried to pay for it, she wouldn't let me. Bless her little cotton socks!)

Life is good!

Set the bar too high?

2009-06-06T18:11:00.002-05:00

So there I am at the fellowship after oldest geeklet's piano recital and I was going through the line for snacks (Mmmm ... snacks!) when I overheard just a snippit of the conversation between piano instructor's husband and some other parent.

Other parent was complaining that people (I assume he meant us evil conservatives) were alledging that President Obama was setting the bar too high. Don't know which bar.

Piano instructor's husband replied, to the effect of "well, why not set the bar high?"

I was under strict instructions to be on my best behavior (even had to take my NRA cap off at the recital), so I refrained from joining the conversation and pointing out that when President Obama even seems to know where the bar is, that he has trouble clearing it on the lowest settings!

It really sucks having a president who still needs training wheels for his leadership role.

Definition of Hell?

2009-05-21T17:35:00.002-05:00

Some kind soul at the day job left this on my chair for me yesterday and so as the last post was quite serious, I thought a little humor would be helpful.

There have been many definitions of hell, but for the English the best definition is that it is the place where the Germans are the police, the Swedish are the comedians, the Italians are the defense force, Frenchmen dig the roads, the Belgians are the pop singers, the Spanish run the railways, the Turks cook the food, the Irish are the waiters, the Greeks run the government and the common language is Dutch.

Actually, that does sound pretty bad.

Does Evil Really Exist?

2009-05-19T17:41:00.003-05:00

Clayton Cramer has an interesting blog entry about the reality of evil existing and that while he is an agnostic, he gave much credibility to an account of Roger L. Simon over at PJTV, who had recently met Ahmadinejad the president of Iran and who had found himself staggered by the presence of pure evil.

So, let's answer the question of does evil really exist.

Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer:

As I'm absolutely sure that I have previously explained that I am a recycled atheist, I feel qualified to comment on going from not believing in spiritual things, to, very obviously, believing in them.

The reality is that most people don't think about the existence of a spirit world while living their life. This doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Those who do think about it don't get much further than getting goosebumps or feeling spooked in dark, creepy places. These sensations are real, but minor enough that they don't give them any further thought after the event.

The landscape changes when you receive the Holy Ghost. (Naturally, I mean the "real" receiving the Holy Ghost, where folks end up speaking with other tongues.) Having the spirit of God inside you conveys a whole new raft of abilities that often catch the newly filled by surprise. Suddenly, your weak perception of spirits starts getting stronger. How much stronger does it get? That seems to depend on a number things.

Some folks get very little improvement to their ability to sense spirit things, while others get very detailed ability to identify them and even visibly discern them. I started out toward the lower end of the scale after I came into the church, but with practice that increased. Then another jump in my ability to sense spirits came when I became a pastor.

That increase really caught me by surprise. Not that I wasn't able to feel the spirit of the Lord when he moved. I certainly could. I could feel the change in the spiritual atmosphere before either an altar call or when one of the gifts of the spirit was about to operate. The thing that really surprised me was the other spirits that I could now sense.

Suddenly, I could sense spirits that I had not previously felt and was plugged into the spirit in ways that I had not previously been. A few examples would be in order here.

Every pastor inherits interesting members in their congregation. The definitions of interesting vary, but while most are harmless, a few are malevolent. Bro. L. was one of these. Nice until you disagreed with him. And downright argumentative if you disagreed over his favorite subject of the "end times". And as I had had to correct his behavior a few times during the pastoral transition before the resident pastor left for his new assignment (the corrections were in private, of course) he really didn't like me. I say all of that to introduce the fact that there was no love in the situation. Once I took over the pastorate a funny thing happened. I started being able to sense when Bro. L. entered the building. For real. I was often up in the sanctuary praying before service and I could feel that an evil spirit had entered the church. A few minutes later, guess who would walk in. I discounted this the first few times, but after it happens every time I started realizing the correlation was real. After trying to work with him for six months, the board and I decided that he needed to go and ever since he left, I have not felt that particular spirit again.

As a pastor you need information to help you minister to people. Unfortunately, many people do not want to tell you the truth. (They still want quality guidance though.) A few times now, the Lord has dropped the information I needed and that they weren't telling me into my mind. This then helps me give the advice that people need to hear. Getting them to follow pastoral advice is another long blog post best saved for another day.

My final example is where I was feeling that our congregation had hit a spiritual wall and while we had good services and the congregation was being fed, we weren't reaching those outside the walls of the church. This is a troubling situation for a pastor. So I was talking to the Lord about this and some other situations and asking him what could be done about it, when he answered by dropping the information that I needed directly into my mind. He told me that the problem was that we were dealing with a spirit and the name of this spirit was "Independence".

The interesting thing about names is that people don't realize how connected we are to our name. This is doubly so in the spirit world. Not having a body, a spirit effectively is it's name. Knowing the name of the spirit allows you to directly address it, targeting it for prayers of binding and casting down. Knowing the name of the spirit that had set itself against us, I started praying against it and encouraged the church to join me in this.

I knew that it would happen, but when it did it was still a little surprising. I was awoken a little after four in the morning by a feeling that was very distinctive. I knew who, what and why even before I was fully awake. The spirit of Independence had come calling. We live in a raised ranch style house, so I walked from the bedroom down the hallway into the living room and it was just light enough to see that while I was the only physical being in the room, I wasn't alone.

I suppose that I should have been scared and nervous, but I'd had a few similar interactions before and to be honest, was really angry about losing an hour's sleep so that some upstart spirit could try to stop me and the congregation fulfilling the objectives of the lord. So, I didn't bother worrying and went straight on the attack. Maybe ten minutes later I was alone again. I'll spare you the details of spiritual warfare, except to say that it's real and doesn't involve anything looking like kung fu.

About a week later, it was back and made the mistake of waking me up early again. This time I think it took about two minutes to toss it out.

This took place about a month ago and with the spirit of Independence mostly out of the way, our congregation has been having even better services than usual and we've baptized three people in four weeks and have at least one more scheduled for next week.

And just in case you think I'm bragging on myself (I'm really not) I'll wrap up with an observation that I heard from one of our missionaries about other organization's missionaries in Africa. You see Africa is an interesting place. It's beautiful and dangerous all at the same time ... and I don't mean the lions or snakes. Have you ever wondered why Africa is called the "dark continent"? It sure isn't for a lack of sunlight; Africa is spiritually dark. The witch doctors and shamen there have demonic power at their command. They rule, each of them, in their own villages or region. Their rule is one of terror. Those who cross them generally end up dead. This includes missionaries. Well (and remember I got this from a retired African missionary) the missionaries from these other organizations seek out our missionaries and get themselves baptized in Jesus name and prayed through to receive the Holy Ghost so that they will have power to resist and overcome the evil spirits behind the witch doctors. I won't share some of the stories of what the witch doctors did because it still makes my hair stand up on end when I think about it. But there is pure evil in the world and Africa is one of the easier places to find it.

If you're still reading at this point, I hope that I've showed that evil does exist. Most people do not come into contact with it, so when they do, such as meeting the president of Iran, it shocks them to the core. Now that I move in more spirit-filled circles, it loses it's fear and now I just find it annoying. (I suspect that evil is starting to find me pretty annoying as well! :-)

A Pastor's Evening

2009-05-13T12:39:00.002-05:00

Ever wondered what a pastor does in the evenings? Wonder no more! Last night was busy enough that I thought I'd record what I did because else people may find themselves thinking that pastors just sit at home drinking tea all evening. (I wish!)

The evening started by getting home late from the day job. Ride-sharing is great for the shared gas costs, but it can be challenging from the trying to get everyone ready to leave at the same time perspective. Just before I leave, I get a call from Bro. M. asking if I can lend him some money to pay some bills. Bro. M. has a long history with this congregation and is a hard working fellow, so I cut him some slack and hit the ATM on the way to run a few other errands. I needed kerosene to burn the wet leaves on my vegetable patch that are offending my neighbor who has his youngest daughter's graduation coming up at the end of the month. And then I had to get some gas for the church lawnmower and weedwhacker.

After getting home from that, I saw the church's banker out in his back yard, so I wandered out to talk to him about the renewal of the church mortgage. (We were waiting on some documents to sign.) Hey, doesn't everyone chat with their banker in the back yard? Try it sometime, it's the only way to conduct business.

Getting in from that, I had a voicemail from Bro. K. letting me know ahead of time that he would be unable to make it for midweek service as he had work to do in nearby town that evening. Thankfully I didn't need to call him back.

At this point, I could finally check my email and make a cup of tea.

That done, I then grabbed my materials for tonight's lesson and started working on it at the kitchen table, interupted on a regular basis by the lovely Sis. Geek and the geeklets wanting either hugs or tucking up in bed. Unfortunately no one was left awake to tuck me up when I finally managed to get horizontal at about 11:30pm.

And that's just one evening.

Mutiny?

2009-05-10T20:39:00.002-05:00

What Republicans need is a mutiny.

Almost too many good quotes to mention, but I will share this one:

Democrats have nothing to fear from today's Republican Party leaders. That's why Democrats have taken to targeting Rush Limbaugh and others who aren't in formal leadership positions in the GOP but who forcefully articulate a conservative vision.

It's all that good.

A Glorious Day For Daddy

2009-05-10T19:16:00.001-05:00

Yes, I know this is Mother's Day (in the United States anyway, other countries vary greatly on their chosen day of celebration), but this my blog and I'm a daddy, so I write from my perspective.

The reason for celebration on my part is that adorable geeklet number two was baptised this morning. There is just something wonderful about being able to baptise your own children as you see them develop their own walk with the Lord.

The in-laws were over visiting for the weekend to see the baptism. I haven't seen them for a few weeks, so that was nice to have some time with them. (I know, I know, I'm unusual for liking my in-laws, but you'd like them too if you met them! :-) Grilled steak for lunch followed by Apple pie and Ice-cream and visiting over strong coffee is a great way to wrap up a visit.

We the people

2009-05-09T10:06:00.003-05:00

Now, you might ask yourself why on earth would a conservative fellow want to become a U.S. citizen at this time? It's a good question and the answer really is very simple.

You see, while I wholeheartedly disagree with the current administration's views and philosophies, I realise that the President of the United States (POTUS) is not the United States. The United States is very simply the sum total of "We The People". Nothing more and certainly nothing less. (Whether our current president realizes this is another conversation.)

The political structure in this country is set up to allow regions (states or congressional districts) to elect fellow citizens to represent them in discussions over matters that are important, but that they cannot easily get away from their business obligations to attend the meetings. This explains the first three words of the United States Constitution being "We the people". The United States of America are run by the people. We are a government of the people by the people. Don't believe me? Take a look at the constitution sometime, the word "We the people" are in enormous letters, as if the founding fathers wanted no one to have any excuse to forget that "We the people" are the final authority around here.

I am proud to be one of "We the people".

I am delighted to announce ...

2009-04-18T12:18:00.002-05:00

I am delighted to announce that after living in these fine and wonderful United States of America for fifteen years, I have now completed my journey to citizenship.

On Thursday, I attended the Oath Ceremony at the Federal Courthouse in Big City and with Sis. Geek and the geeklets watching raised my right hand and swore at, I mean to, the judge and then received my certificate of citizenship.

While I'm obviously very happy about this, it's interesting that very little felt different. The Lord had already caused me to feel at home in this country, my state and especially the town that I pastor in. So, in many ways, the citizenship thing was just the law catching up with what God had already set in place. Either way, I am delighted to be a citizen of the greatest country that exists at this time.

I took treats to work on Friday and found it very interesting that with only a very few exceptions, it was mostly others who had also sought (or are currently seeking) U.S. citizenship who came and congratulated me. Do people born here not realise the magnificent portion of good luck that they received when they became American by birth? I fear that many do not.

Range Report

2009-02-28T10:13:00.001-06:00

I see that Tam is complaining about it being 31 degrees at the range today. Here in deepest fly-over country it was 11 degrees at nearby big city and with wind chill I think it was around 2 or perhaps a generous 3 degrees fahrenheit at my nearest outdoor range. I went and forced myself to send a hundred rounds down range at 50 yards, but after that I had to jump back in the car to defrost on my way home.

Technology Choices

2009-02-19T06:13:00.002-06:00

There is no more opinionated subject matter among geeks than the choice of technologies used for a project. Your choice of technology is a de facto application for membership in a technology tribe.

In an ideal world there would be only the best technologies and we'd all just use that and there would be no arguments. This is not that world. So decisions must be made.

The least contentious is operating system. It still is a contentious decision, but it pales compared to programming language, framework and toolsets. As I want to create a web-hosting business, I need to select a server setup. I had heard good reports of Slicehost and have had a VPS with them for a year that I was gently tinkering with and the stability and reliability have seemed suitable for my purposes. Slicehost only offer Linux hosting, but you do get to choose which distribution you use. I selected Ubuntu as that seems to be the big dog at this time.

With the operating system out of the way the decisions get more difficult. One of my hobbies is learning and tinkering with non-mainstream programming languages. It is very tempting to use one of those for the development work. On the other hand, with the acute lack of time I have, it would be practical to select a more mainstream development environment and save time and effort and have more access to support and knowledge on the Internet.

I pondered on this for a while and decided to go with a pragmatic approach to start with. I'm going with a full LAMP stack and will be using PHP for the programming language. Going with LAMP makes many decisions for me all at the same time. LAMP means I'll be using Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. Once I escape from Corporate America, I'll be able to go back to tinkering and perhaps write some features with those niche languages.

An interesting thing abut PHP is that while it is a very pragmatic choice, after all it was developed specifically for web programming, it is also a very controversial choice with some. I have read many a blog entry blasting PHP and declaring it to be evil beyond compare and totally unsuited for "real web development". I find this funny as I find it nice to use and pretty easy to get things done when I'm using it. I like to think that on my day job I am a "real" web developer, in almost any way you may wish to define "real". While it is easy to write very bad and very unsafe code in PHP, it's just as easy to write equally bad code in Java or Python or Ruby or JavaScript or any other language that people think is better than PHP. As usual, it's the programmer not the language that determines the eventual quality of the code.

I'm Sure That I'm Not Supposed To Say This

2009-02-14T13:34:00.003-06:00

I don't like Valentine's Day and I object to what it has become.

It's not that I have anything against romance. The lovely Sis. Geek and I have been married for twelve years and we went out for an expensive dinner last night and held hands and talked and gazed into each others eyes for an evening. Very nice and something I'd repeat in a heartbeat as I throughly enjoy getting all gushy and dopey about my beautiful wife.

So, having established that I'm not just being a meanie, what don't I like about Valentine's Day?

I don't like the fact that it has turned into another Hallmark Holiday and became an excuse to crank the emotional blackmail up to eleven. And how ever did it become all about the ladies and guys are just expected to empty their pockets and cough up flowers and presents? And where on earth did the idea come from to give everyone one and their dog a Valentine card and gift? When I was a lad, you gave a Valentine card only to your true love or the one you wanted to be your true love.

These days the guy that doesn't want to be in trouble had better buy flowers (at least a dozen red roses or you're forever branded as cheap) and jewelry (lots of sparkle or you're cheap again) and then there had better be a romantic dinner for two at some foo foo restaurant where it's impossible for a guy to order anything that he'd actually want to eat. And the lady? She's just expected to graciously accept it all.

I don't know about you, but that sounds wrong to me. Once a year you either survive or you dig yourself so far into a hole, that you'll be lucky to dig out by the following Valentine's Day.

I reject this approach and have made my feelings to this effect strongly known to the lovely Sis. Geek. There is a much better way to go about this romance thing and any lady that thinks romance involves being wined and dined once a year is selling herself, her guy and her relationship short.

What is this better way? Here's what I do. I tell the lovely Sis. Geek that I love her every day. I call her every workday when I go for my midday walk. I try to find things I can do to show her that I love her. (Doing the washing up is one of her favorite ways for me to help, with doing my own laundry a close second.) I make efforts to buy her flowers periodically, especially when I'm not in trouble. I open doors for her, including car doors. I hold her hand when we go places. I complement her when she wears something that I like her in or when she takes time to fix her hair just the way I like it. I let her choose my outfit when we go out on dates (this is a big deal for her, I'm a T-Shirt and Jeans kind of guy around the house). I go shopping with her now and then and take an interest in what she tries on. (I love taking Sis. Geek to Christopher and Banks; they have great priced, nice looking clothes and she looks great in everything she buys there.) When the geeklets were smaller, I changed more than my fair share of diapers and gave them nearly all of their baths. Every year when she goes off to the district Ladies Retreat, I take a couple of days off of work and look after the geeklets and make sure that the house is clean and tidy for when she returns.

I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty of other things that I do, but you get the picture. If there's a "special secret" to this relationship stuff, then I'd say that it would be to pour a little love out on your dearly beloved each and every day. If you do that, things will go well more often than not. You'll make mistakes now and then. Welcome to being an imperfect human-being. But when you mess up, say sorry, make plans to try not to do it again and go back to pouring on the love. Oh, and never buy flowers when you're in trouble, because then she'll wonder what you did when you buy the flowers at other times.

So, how's that going to Work?

2009-02-11T11:32:00.002-06:00

Isn't every every man and his dog selling websites to churches? It does seem that way. So in order to make a go of this, I need to use a couple of old-fashioned concepts, the first being relationship and the second being niche.

You see, people do business with people they like or who are like them. This should cover the relationship side of things. I will target (almost) exclusively churches and pastors within the UPCI. I am trusting that this will give an increased comfort level to churches to do business with one of their own. Hopefully a few testimonials from happy customers in this district will help as well.

I also learned long ago to not fear the niche business. When you do business in the wide-open market, you are competing with everyone (and their dog) and it's a rough market at times. You are effectively a minnow in the ocean. When you start addressing niche markets, you obviously reduce your effective audience, but you also magnify your effect and switch from minnow to shark or even a whale.

I previously worked for a company that sold consumer product repair information. Trust me, selling repair information to people who repair TVs, VCRs and other consumer electronics is a niche market, but this company was the biggest player in the niche by at least an order of magnitude. Everyone else was selling their information on the side for pocket money, while we were 100% focused on that market. It made a huge difference and we were very profitable.

So by targeting a niche (UPCI churches) within a niche (church websites) and perhaps even concentrating on only the smaller churches (like the one I pastor), I can know what they want and will work to deliver a high quality product with good service at a fair price.

As I am my typical customer I have certain amount of market analysis fairly well covered. I know that most churches do not have a resident geek. (Some are tripping over geeks in the congregation volunteering to help, but that's pretty unusual.) Of course, I am my own church geek, but pastoring takes up most of the time that I could offer to myself. In our district, we had a ministry fair last year and I was drafted to volunteer at the "Apostolic Geek" table. I talked to quite a few pastors who were interested in getting a church website, but didn't know what to do and didn't want to buy expensive packages from companies they didn't know whether they could trust.

More than just selling a church a website, I also see a need for filling the role of church geek for these smaller churches. While it would be difficult for me to be onsite at most other churches, I could at least be a technology adviser and take some of the pressure off the pastor so that they don't feel they needed to spend more time understanding technology than the scriptures.

Call Me Crazy

2009-02-10T20:41:00.002-06:00

One of the disadvantages of being a bi-vocational pastor is that you don't really fit in at work anymore. What little career aspirations I ever had, have long since dissipated; they are gone like the morning mist when the sun rises high enough to burn it off.

Most of my chain of command don't understand my priorities and a number of them now see me as unmotivated because I'm not the first to step forward to seek extra responsibilities. I do stuff and I try to do it well, but it is viewed negatively that I want to arrive, do my assigned tasks and then go home. To this end, I suspect that should there be a need to reduce head count around here, my scalp would be near the front of the list. Please understand, I'm not feeling sorry for myself here, or asking for sympathy, I'm just being honest about my situation. And I actually work for a pretty good company, but like most corporations, they have trouble seeing past their own walls out into the real world.

So, crazy as it might seem, I am trying to get a startup business going in the evenings. Not that I have much time and not that I'm bored, but I feel the need to escape from Corporate America sooner rather than later. And even if they wanted to keep me around for years to come, the side-income would be reassuring.

So, what on earth can a busy pastor do that others might pay for? A good question and one that I have been pondering for a while.

I read (a few years ago so I don't remember where) of a principle for starting businesses. That principle was "Never move more than one step from your expertise". The example that the article used was the owner of a fish restaurant looking to expand and start a second business. The specialties of the owner were, fairly obviously, knowing about fish and running a restaurant. So options would include starting a different kind of restaurant, steak would be my vote or doing something else with fish, perhaps mail-order. Each of these options would be only one step away from the owner's core competency. On the other hand, starting a mail-order steak business would be two steps from his core, so that would be inviting trouble and it's good friend failure.

I see the logic in this principle and so I'll refrain from selling Tupperware and stay close to my core. As a geek, writing programs is the thing and especially interactive websites. As a pastor I know about pastoring and church stuff. Hmmm, so how to build off of one or both of those? Well ... drum roll please ... how about websites aimed at churches and pastors? Oh my goodness, I think I'm onto something here.

Vindicated!

2009-01-25T18:14:00.002-06:00

Last summer I wrote about my bad singing and general lack of song leading skills. I also wrote about the technique I use to graphically describe the possible flows through the songs that we sing. I think I forgot to mention that I received quite a bit of (mostly good natured) ribbing for that.

Well today, our song leader said to me that he's gotten so used to having that notation at the bottom of each of the song sheets that when our new piano player handed him her song sheets without them, he felt completely lost!

Vindicated!

Did I mention that I was geeky?

2009-01-24T11:58:00.001-06:00

So I'm a little geeky. Really, it's not a huge problem. I'm not addicted. I can stop any time I want. I can.

How geeky are we talking about here? Well, our church may be the only one in the UPCI this year to generate it's annual contribution letters with AWK and process them with LaTeX into PDFs for printing. (The lovely Sis. Geek did the statements using QuickBooks.) It all worked so well that I'm already planning on generating the whole contribution package next year with scripts.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T07:38:00.002-06:00

Ah yes, Thanksgiving. A wonderful holiday. A time to gather together with family and friends and count your blessings (over and above not being the poor turkey that is likely contributing to your happiness and gluttony this day). I know that I have many blessings in my life that I am thankful for and I'd like to list a few of them here.

I am first and foremost thankful to Jesus for being my savior and redeemer. I was in a pretty deep pickle fourteen and a half years ago when he reached down and scooped me out of the depths that I was in.

Then I'm most thankful for my wife and children. The delightful, lovely and absolutely gorgeous Sis. Geek is very forgiving and understanding of all my faults and foibles and I am thankful for that. As I tell my friends, I don't know why she married me but I'm very glad she did. Naturally, the geeklets are cute as well. Although, as I like to remind them, that's on account of me having picked them such a pretty mommy.

I am most thankful to my in-laws. I lucked out in the lottery that is the obtaining of in-laws and got some of the best that any guy could hope to have. I wouldn't trade them for anything. Oh, and my brother-in-law is a geek as well.

I am very thankful for our assigned congregation. While the Lord's calling for me to pastor this congregation caught everyone by surprise, they came behind us immediately and have been wonderfully supportive as we learn "on the job" about how to pastor. Sis. Geek and I love them all and they really do feel like family to us. We wouldn't swap them for anything. (Ok, perhaps one or two of them I might swap for a pony, but mostly I'd keep them. :-)

I am thankful for all of the wonderful ministers and saints of the fine district of the United Pentecostal Church International that I am privileged to serve in. I have been the editor of the district newsletter for seven years (wow, where does time go?) and now a pastor for a year and a half. What an honor it has been and continues to be.

I am thankful for the good health that the Lord gives me and my family. I do get a little stressed around the edges by work, but mostly when I don't let go and allow the Lord to go before me.

I am thankful for well paid employment. Especially one that involves nothing more strenuous than sitting at a desk tinkering with computers all day. I'd rather be full-time pastoring, but this will do until I get there.

I am thankful for the wonderful opportunities that I have had and continue to have. The Lord causes me to have far more favor with people than I think I deserve and I have been blessed to serve in both the kingdom of God and to have some interesting opportunities in the technical world. Professionally, I have spoken at several events (including a NFJS), have had an article published in two respected industry journals, ran a popular blog (the previous one, this one is just for relaxation and fun) and am writing a book on JUnit. This is all most agreeable and I am very thankful it.

I am thankful to live in the greatest nation on the face of the earth. I am glad that our founding documents recognize that I have inalienable rights bestowed upon me by my creator. I am glad to be free. Free to try as hard as I want to succeed in whatever way I want to define succeed. I love this country.

I am thankful for all of the Bill of Rights, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the second amendment was my favorite. I plan on dusting it off again this weekend and checking that it still applies in my state. (It still worked last week, but one needs to exercise rights on a frequent basis to ensure they keep working.)

I'm thankful for our military. We have the finest fighting force in the world and they do us proud wherever they go. Whether it's for their humanitarian efforts (building schools or installing water sources) or for their fighting prowess (recently 30 marines overcame 250 insurgents) they leave a strong impression upon those that they are liberating.

God Bless the United States of America.

National Ammo Day

2008-11-19T22:17:00.001-06:00

I haven't finished my last box of ammo that I got from Cheaper Than Dirt yet, but hey, today's National Ammo Day, so it is my patriotic duty to buy at least 100 rounds of my favorite caliber. This is a duty I will gladly fulfill. Hmmm, I wonder if Sis. Geek will mind if I get another thousand rounds of 7.62x39 for the SKS, because I see that CTD has it on sale and bargains are always good, right? :-)

And may I take a moment to wish a happy birthday to Kim du Toit. In case you didn't know, National Ammo Day was started by Kim and is on his birthday. Kim doesn't know me and while I used to be active on his blog and forums, it was not previously under this SooperSekret Codename. Kim was my direct and primary inspiration to start blogging and to start shooting. I love blogging and while this blog is humble (by choice) I have enjoyed my previous time in the spotlight and have enjoyed the blogging culture that grew up around Kim and "The Mrs.". I also love shooting and am proud to be a member of the Nation of Riflemen and often wear my NoR t-shirt to the range in the warmer weather. I guess, I'd better buy another one of those before Kim posts his last blog post.

If everything goes to plan, I will also be buying a new (to me) gun this evening. One of our congregation, let's call him The Merchant of Death on account of his extensive personal armory, has a British Lee-Enfield 303 rifle that he has agreed to sell me for a small sum agreeable to both parties. I'm looking forward to holding such a fine piece of military history in my hands. I'm not looking forward to the cost of the 303 rounds. Now I need to find out if there is anything else that can be shot through the 303 chambering.

Edit: Ended up ordering from AmmunitionToGo.com after seeing comments from others on Kim's blog.

No Tee Vee

2008-11-15T21:57:00.001-06:00

Tam, over at BooksBikesBoomsticks recently mentioned that she has no TV and suspects that people think she's weird. Not having met her personally, I can't say for sure, but I suspect not from what I've read of her writings.

This got me to thinking and if my memory works correctly today (never a sure thing), I believe that I have been TV free for about fourteen years now.

It was never a deliberate thing. I moved location to ReallyBigCity, here in the Mid-West of America. As I was traveling light, I dumped all kinds of stuff, including an entire record collection (showing my age there) and anything heavy, especially household electrical articles.

While in ReallyBigCity, I borrowed a TV and a video player and infrequently watched anything. This was a time of working long hours during the week and heading out of town on the weekend to court the lovely Sis. Geek. I was actually glad to be able to return it as it mostly gathered dust and got in the way.

When the time came to move to a different state, the TV stayed with it's owner and I never bothered to buy one when I moved into my new apartment. Not that I'm cheap or anything; what I didn't spend buying a TV, I spent on a nice music system. The music system still works and currently lives in the den where I can rock out or listen to the football games at this time of the year. A much better purchase.

Where I differ from Tam is in the reaction that I get from people when I explain that I don't have a TV. Certainly people are initially surprised, but mostly I hear some variation along the lines of "I wish we didn't have a TV in the house".

The TV, according to surveys that I hear about now and then, is one of the biggest time wasters in this day. I forget how many hours of TV per day the average child is reputed to watch, but it staggered me. If I lost even just an hour a day to TV, I think I'd be so far behind that I'd never catch up.

I'm busy enough as a pastor that I hardly even have time for regular bible reading. I spend much of my time in the bible, but often finding passages by word searches rather than just sitting down and reading it. It's got to the point that I have to read scripture, while car pooling with a couple of my co-workers, from the Bible program on my Palm TX.

An Age of Miracles

2008-11-12T17:14:00.002-06:00

One of my required reading books for my General License is a scholarish tome by the name of "A Short Life of Christ". It's an interesting book, but as scholars tend to the liberal end of the spectrum it periodically makes statements that are either unintentionally funny or unintentionally annoying.

Call me sneaky, but as I have to read this book for my next level of ministerial license, I am teaching it chapter by chapter at our mid-week services. There's nothing quite like studying a chapter to know it well enough to teach; it beats the casual reading it would get otherwise.

This week we are on the chapter about the miracles of Jesus. I foolishly thought that it would examine the miracles, but instead it discusses the metadata about the miracles. It spends time discussing the categories of miracles and their characteristics and the reasoning and motivation behind and the reception of them. All interesting material.

The annoying thing was the short dismissal made of the number of miracles since the time of the apostles. It was implied that we are in a time of no miracles and that there have been many such times, so we shouldn't be surprised to be in one ourselves.

For the record, we have noticed no shortage of miracles in and around United Pentecostal Church International churches. As the district newsletter editor, I get to hear abut many such miracles. At the church I pastor, we take prayer requests and praise reports most services and we have a very good track record of answered prayer at our churches. And if waiting a week or two for the answer to your prayer means that you're going to discount it as a miracle, then you need to revisit your definition of miracle. I have also seen (and experienced) instantaneous miracles and healing. There is no miracle shortage. If you think there is, then I suggest visiting a UPCI church as soon as you can.

Veteran's Day

2008-11-11T17:56:00.001-06:00

A salute to all the veterans out there. Thank you for your service to this country and your efforts to keep me and mine safe and well. This is not just a thank the veterans because it's the right thing to do (although it is) post. I have personal reasons for being thankful.

My father served his country for 22 years in the Navy. Often sailing to interesting parts of the world and reminding them to play nicely (with the implicit understanding that the next visit would be by the Marines!)

My father-in-law also served his country for several years and while he could have tried to claim an exemption as a licensed minister, he served in the medical wing of the Army, helping to patch up our brave soldiers who received on the job injuries.

I salute both Dads. I also especially salute both Moms, because being a military wife is hard work. (And for the record, being a military kid is no picnic either, but looking back I wouldn't swap it for anything.)

Not many people realize that there are other types of veterans; there are those who have fought in different wars.

Yesterday, I received a copy of a letter sent to one of the ministers in our district who had reached the incredible milestone of sixty years in the ministry. I have a massive year and a half of pastoring under my belt, so the thought of sixty years is fairly mind-boggling to me! Our General Superintendent, Bro. Hanney sent a personal letter to this minister thanking him and congratulating him on his service to the kingdom. (I got a copy of the letter as the district newsletter editor.)

I think this is a wonderful idea. The Army of the Lord may not seem dangerous to anyone outside of it, but for those of us on the inside, we realize that we are indeed in a war, even if the ammunition isn't in the form of lead bullets and the enemy isn't always human.

I am delighted that the United Pentecostal Church International is taking this step to recognize our veterans of the faith. These are people that inspire me and I'm sure they'd inspire you if you heard their story. So, as the editor of the district newsletter, I shall be making every effort to ensure that you do hear about it.

Why do atheists get so worked up?

2008-10-31T18:04:00.003-05:00

Have you ever wondered why atheists get so worked up over Christians? Just watch the news on even an irregular basis and you'll see some lawyer from the ACLU citing the separation of church and state to "prove" that under no circumstances should anything even slightly governmentish have any connection with anything that even looks or smells slightly religious.

The fact that there is no such term as "separation of church and state" in any of the documents used to found these great United States of America is a topic for another time. I can only address a finite amount of stupidity at once.

As a parent, the cries of the atheists remind me of the plaintive cries of a small child that two of the foods you have put on their plate are touching. Not just touching, but TOUCHING! TOUCHING I TELL YOU! Perhaps if parents were required to hold a Ph.D in Biochemistry before downloading progeny, they'd understand without being told by the shorter members of the family that when two different foods touch, they immediately start a powerful catalytic reaction that results in the formation of the most powerful neurotoxins known to mankind.

Oh wait ... it's not true. Silly me. Different foods can touch in complete safety, often even enhancing each others flavors when they do so. And a good thing too, speaking as the world's greatest chili chef. Just imagine if it was not possible to combine all of the herbs and spices that go into a really good chili? At our church, for a recent New Year, we invited our congregation and friends over for some relaxed fellowship and chili. I spent the entire previous evening cooking that chili. I browned off the ground beef, I peeled and chopped onions, washed and chopped bell peppers and jalapenos and habaneros. Then, I added the super secret combination of herbs and spices that make my chili a wonder to behold. And finally, I simmered that mix for another hour after everything was thoroughly mixed in together. Modesty prevents me from telling you that it was magnificent and that members of my congregation were still raving about it for weeks afterwards whenever I spoke with them.

In the certified logic-free world of the atheists, I should, instead of serving a chili, have placed separate bowls of ingredients on the table and have kept them all apart. You want beef? That's in the bowl at the far end of the table. The vegetables are at this end and don't let me catch you mixing them. Methinks that would fail to win prizes at any reputable chili cook off.

Well, it's the same when religion touches (gasp!) something governmentish. Let's face facts here: there are things that are best done by government and there are things best done by the church (or faith based charities to use a modern term). The government is pretty good at getting roads built and defending the country and that's about it and most likely where they should stop. The church is not so good with roads and I don't know how many of my fellow ministers own guns (I have several, I know what to do with them, and I do belong to the NRA thanks for asking). On the other hand as I keep discovering in my own city, the church is good at ministering to people.

We are there when the government aid agencies tell people that they have a six month waiting list for housing and it's just too bad that your landlord is throwing you out of your apartment this evening and you need help to get to the next town because you don't have a car and most of your friends don't have vehicles either.

This is a real and recent example from my own experience. The church picks up the slack that the government fails to address. Our church worked with the couple in question. And just to annoy the atheists, we brought them to church and taught them a bible study to ensure that they knew about God. And we bought them groceries. We caught them when the government failed them. Atheistic government is about large programs designed to be seen to be helping people. Forget that. We were too busy actually helping people to worry about being seen to be doing it.

Oh, and before I forget, the denominal churches in town didn't help them either. Score one for the little UPCI church that could!

I guess I have a bit of a rant going here. Oh well. It's good to let off a little steam now and then. So ... back to our hot and bothered atheist friends and looking at how they get that way.

It can't be just the believing thing because there are plenty of other religions in the world that believe in all kinds of gods and you don't hear the ACLU getting upset about them. Alright, they do get upset at the Jews now and then, but as it's the same God (for those of us who are monotheistic rather than trinitarian), that's understandable.

If I can be completely honest with you, and that's why this blog is anonymous, so that I indeed can be completely honest, I know exactly why atheists get so upset. (Yes, I know that not all atheists get upset, but enough of them that it feels like all of them.)

It's not a complicated reason. It's actually very simple, but it's very hard to prove unless you have the piece of data that I possess and am willing to share with you. Having been an atheist myself, I am able to tell you what no practicing atheist will ever freely admit. Atheists get very upset when I divulge this fact, but despite their protestations that I am mistaken, I know full well that I am correct and that their claims are false.

You see, the problem for atheists (again, most atheists) is that they really do believe in God. The issue with (most) atheists is not that they don't believe there is God, but rather that they don't want God to exist.

The existence of God is quite a problem for atheists. Typically they choose lifestyles that are contrary to the teaching of the scriptures. They realize this and so have to cover their tracks. The best solution for them is if they don't have to pay attention to the bible and can claim that it's all just a collection of bizarre writings written by guys over two thousand years ago who needed to get out more and spend less time tending sheep in deserts. The only way that the bible can be dismissed is if there is no spiritual author of the scriptures. That spiritual author would be God and so they desperately need him to not exist. The problem with that is that he does exist and most of us are pretty certain about it.

Now atheists are an imaginative bunch and so they have been following a plan of assuring people that God does not exist. Obviously this does not cause God to not exist, but if they can get enough people to not think about him, they hope that they'll be left alone to proceed with their selected lifestyles.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of merit to their plan. Many decades into their plan, the atheists have many of the believers beaten down and afraid to speak openly of God. God may be mentioned on the dollar bills, but he's pretty much unwelcome anywhere else in America these days.

God hasn't been welcome in a schoolroom for quite a while now and many companies will frown upon workplace mentions of Jesus or even some quiet bible reading. Universities are quite possibly the hottest battlegrounds for the atheists right now. It's a well known fact that university students are all of the age to be at their peak "I know everything" stage in life, so capturing their thoughts and hearts will net immense gains for the atheists.

This also explains why so much fuss is made about Darwinism and preventing anyone from discussing Intelligent Design, let alone full blown Creationism. It's about getting university students to think there is no God. And how can there be a God when we all formed from slime and then grew fins, feathers or legs and evolved from there? Really, who needs God when your great, great (lots of greats) grandfather was an amoeba instead of some guy called Adam who married Eve, the prettiest girl on the planet.

As an aside: How do we know that Eve was the prettiest girl on the planet? Other than the fact that she didn't have a lot of competition? When Adam first saw Eve, he said "Woah! Man!" and thus was the name of the other gender decided. It's a good job she was pretty because women might have ended up being "woick's" instead. (Think about it for a moment; you'll get it.)

Jokes aside, it is vitally important for the atheists to win the battle for the minds of the university students and they see evolution as their best bet at this time. This should be evident from the number of attacks that are launched against the proponents of Intelligent Design and Creationism. We are not attacking them, they are attacking us.

The sad thing about this is that they are so desperate and so short of proof that God doesn't exist that they are reduced to shell games and sleights of hand. And when those don't work, they have resorted to strong-arm tactics down to the depth of getting scientists sacked who have expressed anything less than 100% loyalty to the cause of Darwinism.

On a regular basis these days, I read about critically thinking scientists who express an interest in having their students look into both Evolution and Intelligent Design so that they can review and weigh the evidence from both camps, being brought under fire from the scientific establishment. Check out the blog by the good folks over at Uncommon Descent and you'll see plenty of instances of this behavior. There is quite a growing list of scientists who have been released by their universities or denied tenure, for having even just talked to the Intelligent Design side of the intellectual house.

This kind of behavior would be funny if it wasn't so sad and pathetic. I don't know that I've ever even heard an explanation (good or bad) about why Evolution and Darwin supporters are afraid to allow their theory to be judged on it's own merits and to have a little competition in the marketplace of ideas. If Intelligent Design and Creationism are so far-fetched and ludicrous, then surely Evolution could only benefit by being compared and contrasted to them?

The atheists are acting like they're hiding something. The reason that they're acting that way is that they actually are hiding something. They're hiding God. Hiding him from others who may also believe that he exists and that his received word, the bible, should be considered, taught and followed. This is an unacceptable risk in the world-view of the atheists.

The good news is that we've rumbled them. The less good news is that they are far into their plan and it's going to take us a huge effort or amount of time or both to catch up and tear down all the lies and misdirections that they have spread about. Fortunately, there are many more of us than there are militant atheists, so it's all doable.

I hope that what I've written here will help you to remember why atheists get so worked up, next time you hear one venting on the news. It's all bluster and misdirection in the hope that you wont look past their high-volume protestations and see Jesus standing behind them calling you to salvation and a personal relationship with him.

Dear Mr. Obama

2008-10-30T20:30:00.003-05:00

The tip of the hat goes to Barking Moonbat Early Warning System care of The Smallest Minority. Copied in full, per the permission at the end of the piece.

http://www.barking-moonbat.com/index.php/weblog/dear_mr_obama/

To Barack Hussein Obama,

The New York Times carried a story on Saturday, October 4, 2008, that proved you had a significantly closer relationship with Bill Ayers than what you previously admitted. While the issue of your relationship is of concern,
the greater concern is that you lied to America about it.

The Chicago Sun reported on May 8, 2008, that FBI records showed that you had a significantly closer relationship with To NY Rezko than what you previously admitted. In the interview, you said that you only saw Mr.
Rezko a couple of times a year. The FBI files showed that you saw him weekly. While the issue of your relationship is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America about it.

Your speech in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008, about "race" contradicted your statement to Anderson Cooper on March 14 when you said that you never heard Reverend Wright make his negative statements about white America. While your attendance at Trinity Church for 20 years is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America on March 14.

In your 1st debate with John McCain, you said that you never said that you would meet with the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea without "preparations" at lower levels ... Joe Biden repeated your words in his debate with Sarah Palin ... While the video tape from your debate last February clearly shows that you answered "I would" to the question of meeting with those leaders within 12 months without "any" preconditions. While your judgement about meeting with enemies of the USA without pre-conditions is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America in the debate with McCain.

On July 14, 2008, you said that you always knew that the surge would work while the video tapes of you from more than a year ago show that you stated that the surge would not work. While your judgement about military strategy as a potential commander-in-chief is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America on July 14.

You now claim that your reason for voting against funding for the troops was because the bill did not include a time line for withdrawal, while the video tapes of you from more than a year ago show that you voted against additional funding because you wanted our troops to be removed immediately ... Not in 16 months after the 2008 election as you now claim. While your judgement about removing our troops unilaterally in 2007 is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America about your previous position.

You claim to have a record of working with Republicans while the record shows that the only bill that you sponsored with a Republican was with Chuck Lugar ... And it failed. The record shows that you vote 97% in concert with the Democrat party and that you have the most liberal voting record in the Senate. You joined Republicans only 13% of the time in your votes and those 13% were only after agreement from the Democrat party. While it is of concern that you fail to include conservatives in your actions and that you are such a liberal, the greater concern is that you distorted the truth.

In the primary debates of last February, 2008, you claimed to have talked with a "Captain" of a platoon in Afghanistan "the other day" when in fact you had a discussion in 2003 with a Lieutenant who had just been deployed to Afghanistan. You lied in that debate.

In your debates last spring, you claimed to have been a "professor of Constitutional law" when in fact you have never been a professor of Constitutional law. In this last debate, you were careful to say that you "taught a law class" and never mentioned being a "professor of Constitutional law." You lied last spring.

You and Joe Biden both claimed that John McCain voted against additional funding for our troops when the actual records show the opposite. You distorted the truth.

You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted against funding for alternate energy sources 20 times when the record shows that John McCain specifically voted against funding for bio fuels, especially corn ... and he was right
.... corn is too expensive at producing ethanol, and using corn to make ethanol increased the price of corn from $2 a bushel to $6 a bushel for food. You distorted the truth.

You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted like both of you for a tax increase on those making as little as $42,000 per year while the voting record clearly shows that John McCain did not vote as you and Joe Biden. You lied to America.

You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted with George W. Bush 90% of the time when you know that Democrats also vote 90% of the time with the President (including Joe Biden) because the vast majority of the votes are procedural. You are one of the few who has not voted 90% of the time with the president because you have been missing from the Senate since the day you got elected. While your absence from your job in the Senate is of concern, the greater concern is that you spin the facts.

You did not take an active role in the rescue plan. You claimed that the Senate did not need you while the real reason that you abstained was because of your close relationships with the executives of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Countrywide, and Acorn ... who all helped cause the financial problems of today ... and they all made major contributions to your campaign. While your relationship with these executives and your protection of them for your
brief 3 years in the Senate (along with Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, and Chris Dodd) is of concern, the greater concern is that you are being deceitful.

You forgot to mention that you personally represented Tony Rezko and Acorn. Tony Rezko, an Arab and close friend to you, was convicted of fraud in Chicago real estate transactions that bilked millions of tax dollars from the Illinois government for renovation projects that you sponsored as a state senator ... and Acorn has been convicted of voter fraud, real estate sub prime loan intimidation, and illegal campaign contributions. Tony Rezko has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to your political campaigns. You personally used your political positions to steer money to both Tony Rezko and Acorn and you used Acorn to register thousands of phony voters for Democrats and you. While your relationships with Rezko and Acorn are of concern, the greater concern is that you omitted important facts about your relationships with them to America.

During your campaign, you said: "typical white person." "They cling to their guns and religion." "They will say that I am black." You played the race card. You tried to label any criticism about you as racist. You divide America.

You claim that you will reduce taxes for 95% of America, but you forgot to tell America that those reductions are after you remove the Bush tax reductions. You have requested close to $1 billion in earmarks and several million for Acorn. Your social programs will cost America $1 trillion per year and you claim that a reduction in military spending ($100 billion for Iraq ) can pay for it. While your economic plan of adding 30% to the size of our federal government is of concern, the greater concern is that you are deceiving America.

The drain to America's economy by foreign supplied oil is $700 billion per year (5% of GDP) while the war in Iraq is $100 billion (less than 1% of GDP). You voted against any increases to oil exploration for the last 3 years and any expansion of nuclear facilities. Yet today, you say that you have always been for more oil and more nuclear. You are lying to America.

Mr. Obama, you claimed that you "changed" your mind about public financing for your campaign because of the money spent by Republican PACs in 2004. The truth is that the Democrat PACs in 2004, 2006, and 2008 spent twice as much as the Republican PACs (especially George Soros and MoveOn.org). You are lying to America.

Mr. Obama, you have done nothing to stop the actions of the teachers union and college professors in the USA. They eliminated religion from our history. They teach pro gay agendas and discuss sex with students as young as first grade. They bring their personal politics into the classrooms. They disparage conservatives. They brainwash our children. They are in it for themselves ... not America. Are you reluctant to condemn their actions because teachers/professors and the NEA contribute 25% of all money donated to Democrats and none to Republicans? You are deceiving America.

Oh, Mr. Obama, Teddy Roosevelt said about a hundred years ago that we Americans should first look at the character of our leaders before anything else.

Your character looks horrible. While you make good speeches, motivating speeches, your character does not match your rhetoric. You talk the talk, but do not walk the walk.

1. You lied to America. You lied many times. You distorted facts. You parsed your answers like a lawyer.

2. You distorted the record of John McCain in your words and in your advertisements.

3. You had associations with some very bad people for your personal political gains and then lied about those associations.

4. You divide America about race and about class.

Now let me compare your record of lies, distortions, race baiting, and associations to John McCain: War hero. Annapolis graduate with "Country first." Operational leadership experience like all 43 previously elected presidents of the USA as a Navy officer for 22 years. 26 years in the Senate. Straight talk. Maverick. 54% of the time participated on bills with Democrats. Never asked for an earmark. The only blemish on his record is his part in the Keating 5 debacle about 25 years ago.

Mr. Obama, at Harvard Law School, you learned that the end does not justify the means. You learned that perjury, false witness, dishonesty, distortion of truth are never tolerated. Yet, your dishonesty is overwhelming. Your dishonesty is tremendously greater than the dishonesty that caused the impeachment and disbarment of Bill Clinton. Your dishonesty is tremendously greater than the dishonesty of Scooter Libby. You should be ashamed.

Mr. Obama, it is time for us Americans to put aside our differences on political issues and vote against you because of your dishonest character. It is time for all of us Americans to put aside our political issues and vote for America first. It is time for America to vote for honesty.

Any people who vote for you after understanding that you are dishonest should be ashamed of themselves for making their personal political issues more important than character. Would these same people vote for the anti-Christ if the anti-Christ promised them riches? Would they make a golden calf while Moses was up the mountain? Would they hire some one for a job if that someone lied in an interview? Of course not. So why do some of these people justify their votes for you even though they know you are dishonest? Why do they excuse your dishonesty? Because some of these people are frightened about the future, the economy, and their financial security ... and you are preying on their fears with empty promises ... and because some (especially our young people) are consumed by your wonderful style and promises for ‘change’ like the Germans who voted for Adolf Hitler in 1932. The greed/envy by Germans in 1932 kept them from recognizing Hitler for who he was. They loved his style. Greed and envy are keeping many Americans from recognizing you ... your style has camouflaged your dishonesty ... but many of us see you for who you really are ... and we will not stop exposing who you are every day, forever if it is necessary.

Mr. Obama, you are dishonest. Anyone who votes for you is enabling dishonesty.

Mr. Obama, America cannot trust that you will put America first in your decisions about the future.

Mr. Obama, you are not the "change" that America deserves. We cannot trust you.

Mr. Obama, You are not ready and not fit to be commander-in-chief.

Mr. Obama, John McCain does not have as much money as your campaign to refute all of your false statements. And for whatever reasons, the mainstream media will not give adequate coverage or research about your lies, distortions, word parsing, bad associations, race baiting, lack of operational leadership experience, and generally dishonest character. The media is diverting our attention from your relationships and ignoring the fact that you lied about those relationships. The fact that you lied is much more important than the relationships themselves ... just like with Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon ... Monica Lewinski and Watergate were not nearly as bad as the fact that those men lied about the events ... false witness ... perjury ... your relationships and bad judgements are bad on their own ... but your lies are even worse.

Therefore, by copy of this memo, all who read this memo are asked to send it to everyone else in America before it is too late. We need to do the job that the media will not do. We need to expose your dishonesty so that every person in America understands who you really are before election day.

Mr. Obama, in a democracy, we get what we deserve. And God help America if we deserve you.

Michael Master
McLean, Virginia

You call that documentation?

2008-10-29T17:28:00.002-05:00

I'm trying to learn CXF and the folks on the CXF project aren't helping!

What is CXF and why on earth should you care? Good questions, grab a cup, make yourself comfortable and I'll tell you.

CXF is the result of the merger of the Xfire and Celtix Web Service frameworks. They now live under the Apache banner and in a prime example of why people think that geeks have no imagination, they called the merged product Celtix XFire, or CXF to it's friends. Woah ... fear those mad naming skills!

At the day job, I need to talk to a SOAP based web service and my co-worker who is project lead on the project suggested CXF. Another co-worker also said he liked CXF, so off to the Apache website I go.

When I look into using a tool, I like to check out the tutorials and follow a couple of them to help bootstrap myself into understanding. Normally, this is a pretty good approach, but after searching for "cxf tutorials" and trying a few out, I was about ready to start pulling my hair out. Where are the good tutorials?

I even tried the simple how-to article from the CXF manual, but it insisted that I needed a file called IntegerUserMapAdapter as an XmlJavaTypeAdapter, but then neither told me where to get it or even how to write my own. Arrgh, and without it, the code won't compile, let alone run. For that matter, most of the CXF documentation seems to assume that you know SOAP web service programming inside out and back to front. Well, I don't, so some tutorials that take you through the boring and mundane steps would be greatly appreciated.

I did finally find a tutorial on the IBM developerWorks website, but that doesn't cover any of the wsdl2java that I was hoping to learn about. At least it helped me create and consume a (very) simple SOAP web service.

Now I have a headache and I still have to preach this evening! So, I'm plowing through the Sun J2EE tutorial for JAX-WS seeing if they explain the wsdl2java thing at all.

And my wife wonders why I don't talk much about what I actually do at the office!

Not quite how I expected it to go

2008-10-28T18:42:00.001-05:00

I mentioned the other day about not enjoying preaching some sermons. Well, on Sunday I preached an anti-Halloween sermon and thought that I'd get some serious push back from it. Wow, was I surprised. When I announced at the start that this was going to be a standard anti-Halloween sermon, I got several enthusiastic amens and after the altar call, I had a line of people asking for a copy of my notes so that they could explain to their families why they shouldn't/wouldn't be celebrating Halloween this year.

I had wasted quite a bit of energy being concerned about how it would be received. I shouldn't have worried. While this congregation normally listens attentively, they were hanging on my every word and soaking it all up like sponges. It's hard to make predictions in pastoring. (Except for Ice-cream socials and pot lucks, you're pretty much guaranteed that they'll go well! :-)

The Joys of Writing a Book

2008-10-24T17:54:00.002-05:00

I have previously posted JUnit information on this blog. The entries are now in the process of becoming chapters in a book.

I don't have a contract with a publisher, but at this point I'm not worried. From previous experience with the world of computer book publishing, I know that the publishers prefer to start looking at a manuscript after you've written a quarter to a third of the material. This helps reassure them that you're serious and not just wishing to write a book, but have actually invested some sweat equity in the project.

I may not even bother talking to any publishers. The wonders of modern technology mean that on-demand publishing through the likes of lulu.com combines nicely with the ability to produce professional-quality typesetting using the LaTeX application. As the newsletter editor for the state for our church organization I'm used to layout and typesetting (using Adobe InDesign), but LaTeX continues to amaze me every time I see it render my documents.

As I come towards the end of the fifth chapter, I am planning to print what I have so far through the services of Lulu.com and see how it looks when I've done everything myself. If it looks good, then I may just finish the book and plan to sell it myself. If my self-promotion efforts fall flat, then I can still fall back on talking to the publishers. At the worst, it should be good fun.

The process of writing has been fun. As a young fellow, I never enjoyed writing, but these days I quite enjoy it and only lack of time slows me down. Previous years of blogging helped me to find my writing voice. I'm sure professors of English Literature could pick my style apart, but I like it and feel no need to change. While I'm quite happy editing my own writing and even get ruthless with myself, I don't enjoy huge changes. One of my co-workers read an early draft of the first five chapters and suggested a big change. It made sense, and I'm in the process of finishing the edit, but I haven't enjoyed it.

I started the book using a plain text editor, then I tried using Microsoft Word and one of the free templates from Lulu, but a couple of months ago I switched to LaTeX to get the professional layouts. While it takes time to get used to not using a WYSIWYG editor, I find it actually speeds me up as I no longer worry about the layout when I'm working on the text. The LaTeX application and the selection of document class will take care of most of that for me. It feels very liberating.

For those who have never used LaTeX, it is powerful, but complex. Simple documents are not too bat to produce, but here I'm using lots of included packages, non-standard page sizes and specifying lots of layout details. Thank goodness for Internet search engines and bloggers who describe the details of how they've published their own works. Once I get this figured to my own satisfaction, I shall add to their efforts and write my own "How to write and publish a book using LateX" post.

Wash, Cook, Clean and Iron

2008-10-22T17:00:00.006-05:00

Rachel Lucas writes about her current experiences going through school as a mature student.

[A tip of the hat to Kevin at The Smallest Minority.]

The blog post is excellent, but the comments complete it. Many commenters have joined in to give their accounts of going through school. Reading the comments is a journey of hope. I am so impressed by all those who have gone back to school to earn their degrees while working full-time jobs. My (free for early renewal of my NRA membership) hat is well and truly off to you all.

Of course, I had it tough. I walked uphill both ways to school, barefoot through the snow. Not really, but I did want to comment on one of the many good things that was drilled into me growing up.

I will always be eternally grateful to my parents for their insistence that before I left home, I should be able to wash, cook, clean and iron. I could do other things as well, but that was my mother's way of lumping them all in together in one easy to remember phrase.

Before I went to university I spent a year training as an X-ray Technician. It seemed like a good idea at the time and even though I only did it for a year, I have no regrets about the time spent. The reason that I mention this is that the school I was attending had a schedule of mornings in the classrooms and then the afternoons in the hospital X-ray department. The students were required to abide by the department dress code and so as an eighteen year old, I was required to wear dress pants, dress shirt and tie every day and the obligatory white coat. (Those who get to just wear scrubs are very lucky!) Having left home to stay at the school's student accommodations, this meant washing and ironing these items on a very regular basis. I can assure you that white coats get dirty really quickly and so I learned to wash and iron them as well.

Cooking is a very iffy thing with me. Most cooking does not interest me that much. I've tried different things, but mostly I just enjoy cooking chili or grilling things. Fortunately, being able to cook rice and pasta and make basic meat sauces and grill portions of dead animal will keep even a hungry student alive and well. Again, many thanks to my parents for insisting that I needed to learn that stuff before I left home.

Lastly, the cleaning side of things was very useful. As a student, I kept my space clean and tidy and I don't recall ever having anyone complain about me leaving a mess or not doing my washing up. For extra cleaning practice, the hospital had an arrangement whereby the regular cleaning crews would wash the floors and dust the stuff around the walls, but all X-ray equipment was to be cleaned by the X-ray department staff. For department staff, think students!

I quickly got used to spending quiet times in the department grabbing a bunch of paper towel and antiseptic cleaner and cleaning the equipment. It was actually kind of relaxing and it got you out from under the watchful eye of the other technicians. What took a little more getting used to was cleaning up after patient accidents. I'll refrain this time from describing any of the details, but I assure you that I'll come back and spill (no pun intended) the straight poop (pun intended this time).

Didn't Wanna Do It

2008-10-21T18:50:00.001-05:00

I hear tell that some denominations send out the lessons to their pastors and the pastor's job is to read the lesson, shake everyones hand and lock the doors after folks leave.

I wish!

Here in the United Pentecostal Church International we do it the old fashioned way. We talk to God. Directly and personally. I don't check with my Presbyter or my Superintendent first. I get the lesson directly from Almighty God himself.

It's a rush!

Anytime the Blessed and Only Potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords chooses to communicate with this imperfect and humble fellow, it's awe inspiring. And every single week (that I've been scheduled to preach) since taking over the role of Pastor at this church the Lord has given me a message for the congregation. Sometimes he gives me a couple of messages for the coming weeks, but mostly he gives me a single message and that's what I preach on the Sunday. Mid-week service is teaching of Apostolic doctrine, so while very important, it's less evangelical and more structured.

The messages have varied greatly in content and direction, while still having a discernible objective. The Lord is trying ground our congregation in the basics so that we will be positioned for growth. Shallow roots and growth do not mix well, so he's trying to get us to drive our roots deep to be ready for the heights that he wants to take us to.

It's exciting!

The messages on preparation are fun to teach. I love the encouragement messages. I love to talk of the coming growth in congregation size and that we need to prepare for an influx of new people, even with all of the work that it would involve. New believers are wonderful. We love to see them, but they are like spiritual babies. There is much to teach them and the occasional spiritual diaper change required. You just haven't lived until you've heard a new believer expressing how wonderful they feel in their new life with Christ. It takes you back to when you were new in the Church. (Of course, sometimes, being so new in the Church, they express their strength of feeling by using the kind of four letter words that would make a sailor blush ... oops ... hence the spiritual diaper changes and damage control! :-)

But then sometimes the Lord needs to apply a more serious correction to the congregation. There are times when the Lord is aware of matters that would be dangerous to the congregation if left unchecked. Guess who gets to deliver those messages? Yup. Me.

Not fun.

I had to deliver one this Sunday and I'm here to tell you it was not fun. Not even close. Of all the aspects of pastoring that I have experienced so far, the delivery of a chastening sermon is my least favorite thing to do. I besought the Lord to see if there was something else I could teach instead, but I received no license to teach an alternative. I even tried ignoring my lesson on the Thursday and Friday evenings and worked on the district newsletter instead, hoping that the Lord would have mercy on me and would give me something lighter and more "fluffy bunny" to present instead.

No dice.

Having tried everything I could think of, except saying "no" (never a good idea to say no to the Lord), I started working on the sermon.

Remember this next time you feel like the pastor just tap-danced all over your toes and you feel mad at him. Understand that there's a pretty good chance that he didn't enjoy it either.

Rise of the Virtual Machines

2008-10-20T17:21:00.003-05:00

I was pondering the matter of the Next Big Language, or NBL as Steve Yegge likes to call it. There are many opinions on what the next big language will be. Some say JavaScript, others say Erlang, naturally there are also supporters of the idea of it being Python or Ruby.

(Of course, no discussion on the future of programming languages can proceed without the obligatory references to LISP. (Please note the extensive use of parenthesis to reinforce this point.))

I have even previously offered pronouncements on this very matter, although I don't think any of them are online to embarrass me when they are proved wrong. And I do think that all discussions on the next big language are both wrong and irrelevant. Let me tell you why.

The days of a single language dominating everything are practically gone. Even the big boys realize this. Microsoft now offer several languages on their Common Language Runtime (CLR) with more on the way, Sun have just hosted their first JVM (Java Virtual Machine) Languages Conference and IBM don't care what you program in as long as they can sell you hardware and services.

My resume says that I am a Java Web Developer, but perhaps it should just say Web Developer? While I do use Java, most web applications these days involve XML, HTML, JSP and JavaScript at a minimum. Then throw in a little REST and AJAX or perhaps some JSON or YAML and your technology count is reaching for the sky. I really don't think most of us are using a single language too often any more. And this is before you start worrying about deployment platforms and application servers. The days of mono culture are numbered and n is looking fairly small to me.

So there's no such thing as the next big language, but I do think that there is a next big thing. Our industry never stands still. New and exciting technology is being developed all the time. The trick is to figure out what's going to be big, or even better, actually useful.

Recently I read this blog article over at InfoWord. It helped crystalize my current thoughts and now I sincerely believe that multiple languages are here to stay, and that the next round of excitement will be over the environments, specifically the platform independent Virtual Machines, typified by Sun's JVM and Microsoft's CLR. The JVM and CLR are not the only players in town. There is plenty of excitement over at the LLVM camp, who if I remember correctly are strongly favored by Apple within their developer tools group. And I would kick myself if I forgot to mention the Parrot VM currently under development for the forthcoming (someday) release of Perl 6.

This is already where the excitement comes from these days, but I think many of us have not realized it for all of our worrying about the next big language. The next big environment question has been flying well below most of our radar screens and has taken a great many of us by surprise.

I'm actually glad about this because I love programming in multiple languages. Being forced to use only one language is quite stifling to me and I'm much happier when able to bounce back and forth between a couple of languages, each selected for it's suitability for the purpose of the task I use it on.

Even with these powerful forces moving with all of the certainty and unstoppability of tectonic plates, many are going to continue to search for the next big language and will proclaim that this language or that language is The One. I don't doubt this for a moment as the urge is strong in geeks to discover new languages. The problem will then be that language A will be positioned against language B with the implicit (or increasingly, explicitly) understanding that it's one or the other ... last programming language standing ... in the arena of programmatic battle. We must get used to using multiple languages and spend our energies on where they compliment each others abilities. Until we get here, the specter of the mythical next big language will continue to haunt us.

Quick! Give Me An Estimate!

2008-10-17T19:43:00.001-05:00

I'll see how short I can keep this one. If I don't try to keep it short, it might turn into a major rant and then I'd feel that I had to publish it as a book.

So there I am talking to a co-worker this morning and we're exchanging stories of management insanity. It's one of our favorite topics and virtually guaranteed to never run dry of source material. He tells me that he talked to the new big boss who wanted an estimate for some work that needed to be in production at the January deploy.

For those who may not be used to the way things work in Corporate America, let's revisit that one in slow motion so that you can admire the sheer talent required to ask a question of that nature with a straight face.

We're pretty used to being asked for estimates in the IS world. We're also used to having those estimates ignored, but that's another rant for another day, so the question doesn't seem out of the ordinary at first. The jaw-dropping display of audacity comes when the manager slips the answer they want on the end of the question. Did you notice that?

It must take a level of poker skill beyond the ability of mere mortals to construct a question that includes the only permitted answer. The asking of the question in the first place is only to give the programmer the momentary illusion that their opinion is valued and then the realization dawns that it doesn't matter what your estimate is, because there are only a finite number of weeks/days/hours between now and late January.

I don't think I've ever pulled off a trick like that and I'm pretty certain that I'd never want to. Even while I can recognize the immoral nature of the question, I must concede a certain initial grudging admiration for anyone who can pull it off. After that, I just settle back into my normal bitter and twisted cynicism for all things Corporate.

Texas Deputy Sheriff vs. New York Lawyer

2008-10-16T20:26:00.005-05:00

A friend of mine emailed me this the other day. Naturally I do not endorse violence, but no harm came to any police officers in the telling of this joke, so that makes it alright by me. :-)

A lawyer runs a stop sign and gets pulled over by a sheriff's deputy. He thinks that he is smarter than the deputy because he is a lawyer from New York and is certain that he has a better education then any cop from Houston, Texas. He decides to prove this to himself and have some fun at the Texas deputy's expense.

The deputy says, 'License and registration, please.'

'What for?' says the lawyer.

The deputy says, 'You didn't come to a complete stop at the stop sign.'

Then the lawyer says, 'I slowed down, and no one was coming.'

'You still didn't come to a complete stop, Says the deputy. License and registration, please.'

The lawyer says, 'What's the difference?'

'The difference is you have to come to complete stop, that's the law. License and registration, please!' the Deputy repeats.

Lawyer says, 'If you can show me the legal difference between slow down and stop, I'll give you my license and registration; and you give me the ticket. If not, you let me go and don't give me the ticket.'

'That sounds fair. Please exit your vehicle, sir,' the deputy says.

At this point, the deputy takes out his nightstick and starts beating the daylights out of the lawyer and says, 'Do you want me to stop, or just slow down?'

One Trick Pony

2008-10-16T18:23:00.002-05:00

There I was teaching at our mid-week service last night and I was describing how Satan pretty much comes across as a one trick pony in the scriptures. While he does have powers and a number of them are described, he tends to stick to the one that works best against us humans.

Sometimes, certainly not very often, I wish that the evolutionists were right and that we humans could evolve to be a little smarter than we seem to be right now. You see, Satan worked Adam and Eve over in the Garden of Eden using only a lie. He sowed doubt and discord into the first man and his wife by questioning the word of God and using a few "fake but accurate" statements.

Satan is still using the same trick because it has worked so well for most of history. He still lies and many of us still believe him, despite no history of truth on his part. This is distressing to me as I keep hoping for better from my fellow humans.

Naturally, in the more enlightened environs of Corporate America, no such thing could ever take place. Right? I mean, with all those managers with MBAs, it must surely be an impossible thing for a lie to last 5 minutes in the full glare of an analytical management team? That's what I used to think. Then I observed our current contractor group in action.

The leaders of our primary onsite contractors have exactly one line that they use again and again and again. They do have another one, but the first one works so often, that they nearly always forget to use the second one.

When we, the customer (you know, the folks who are in charge), ask for something and specify any detail that they don't like, they come right back with "That will mean we miss the deadline." and our management fold like a limp rag. It's an amazing (and frustrating) sight. It's like watching the strings being cut on a puppet. One minute they're standing tall, laying out requirements and specifying how things should be done and the next minute they're backpedaling and saying words to the effect of "Oh! Really? However you need to do it then. That'll be fine."

While the pony may have only one trick, it's quite effective! Unfortunately, the same trick doesn't seem to work when we employees try it. Oh well.

Dealing with Yard Sign Theft

2008-10-15T17:49:00.003-05:00

MorningGlory was a regular blogging friend of mine a few years ago when I blogged previously. I am delighted to see that she is still blogging, still conservative and doing well.

http://morningglory2.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/touche/

Welcome (back) to the BlogRoll MorningGlory.

Sick Days

2008-10-15T17:00:00.001-05:00

Sick days are funny things in Corporate America. Being sick generally isn't funny, but the games that companies play with their HR policies to try to prevent rampant abuse by a few unscrupulous characters is borderline hilarious.

Back in the old days (or at least at places where I have previously worked) salaried staff just took sick days as needed. If you were sick enough to go to the doctor, you got a note and presented it to your boss when you dragged yourself back in. Abuse was pretty low, because only salaried staff could do this and back then managers would actually watch your sick days and make honest judgement calls as to whether you were really just having a bad flu season or that you were "swinging the lead". This seemed to work pretty well.

Then came the concept of the timebank and logic seemed to rapidly leave the building. The timebank feels like a devious way to try and get more work out of the employee. By taking the old-fashioned concept of vacation time and adding a few days to it and calling it a timebank or the trendy acronym PTO (Paid Time Off) the companies now penalize sick employees by forcing them to use valuable vacation time for reasons other than rest and recreation.

Naturally, this concept has backfired and as could be easily foreseen, the fact that it has is completely lost on the HR folks. In the same way that being forced to work extended overtime causes people to compensate by taking longer lunch breaks to allow them to run their errands, the lack of real sick days causes otherwise sensible employees to drag themselves into work when they are sick.

This is a problem because sick employees are less productive in terms of real work and there is a huge chance of them infecting their co-workers. It only takes a few of these "heroes" to drag themselves to work during a round of sickness to seriously affect the productivity of a team or even an entire office.

The irony is that most management equate seeing you with knowing that your working. This is obviously not true, but it is their primary metric for deciding whether you are a slacker or not. So, even though you're running to the bathroom every half an hour and getting through tissues like they were going out of fashion, you are seen in the office, so you must be a good employee. No account is made that you are likely less productive at your work, and highly productive at infecting those around you so that they can be less productive for the next few days or week as well.

If companies would bring back the old-fashioned sick days, they would greatly reduce the amount of sick time that they currently endure by allowing sick employees to stay home and recover and not infect co-workers. Obviously sick days would have to be watched to prevent abuse, but adapting the advice to "let sleeping dogs lie", it's time to "let sick employees stay home"!

(Yes, I went to work today even though I was sick! Thanks for asking. :-)

An Hour On Sundays

2008-10-14T18:12:00.001-05:00

Pastoring is many things and it's very hard to describe to people what it is. It really is something that has to be seen up close or lived through to understand. But I find when I'm trying to describe what a pastor's life is like, it's easier to describe what it isn't ... it isn't an hour on Sundays.

Let me tell you about last week. Even though we're just a small congregation, we handed out two sets of groceries to those in need on Sunday morning. I went for breakfast with one of the men of the church on Saturday morning to discuss various matters and play catch up because he and I hadn't had any time to get together for a couple of months now. Then I zoomed over to our local farmer's market to help my wife with the church stall we had there. That took up the entire rest of the morning, leaving me with only the afternoon and evening to prepare my lesson for the following morning. Naturally, the Thursday and Friday evenings had been spent preparing for the farmer's market; we made peanut brittle on Thursday evening and I printed and matted some photography on Friday night to sell. And I think I forgot to mention that on Wednesday nights one of the ladies in the church has my wife watch her daughter after school and then usually stays for dinner with us before we head off to service. And then Sunday evening, I updated the district news website. Phew. Good job this pastoring stuff only takes an hour!

We are constantly on the move and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't very draining. So draining, that I'm exploring available options so that I can give the church all the time it needs even at this early stage in its growth. Naturally, I have also been seeking the Lord's help to get through this difficult time. As I observed to a friend of mine yesterday, the congregation don't contact us in proportion to the time we have available for them. They have needs and call their pastor regardless of the time or convenience for us. My wife fields as many calls as she can, but even then she often needs to escalate the issues to me.

On one level this is obviously me feeling sorry for myself, but it is also to let people know that if their pastor isn't just coasting through, then they are one of the busiest people you know. As a bi-vocational pastor, I work a day job, but even the full-time pastors I know pull down a quantity of hours per week that would make a lesser man cry.

Allow me to leave you with this thought. Think of your pastor as a swan: quiet and graceful to see, but paddling like crazy underneath to make progress.

Still alive and kicking

2008-09-15T15:19:00.003-05:00

Maybe only just alive and kicking, but I have a pulse and can sit up and take nourishment.

I have apparently finally overdone everything. I knew that working in corporate america was tiring, and that pastoring was tiring, but I hoped that I could keep them both going. I'm seriously questioning that thought now. I managed to get myself burnt out many years ago with too many months of sixteen hour days followed by a couple of years of straight twelves. I crashed hard back then and I feel the same thing coming on now.

I realize that I have a very small readership (hello both of you) and that's by design, so that I can just blog when I want to and have time to, but please either pray for me or think some positive thoughts if that's more your style.

Thanks.

My all-time favorite Ron Jeffries quote

2008-08-18T20:10:00.000-05:00

From the NeverIsNeverNever page on the C2 wiki:

I know that if you agree NEVER to let the unit tests drop below 100%, you'll only do it that one time when you just couldn't figure out an incremental way to change all the deductions from negative to positive. If you agree NEVER to keep a task open for two weeks, you have a better chance of finding the way to do it incrementally, and that one time you'll make sure you've sucked every idea out of the universe before giving in.

When I say something should never be done, it should mean that you'll never do it unless you really have to.

And if you really have to, you'll ask everyone you know first so you still won't have to.

And if you still have to, you'll be looking over your shoulder scared to death that I'm going to materialize there and say "why didn't you just ..." and be RIGHT, and EVERYONE will know you're an idiot.

When you're sure that you'll be able to say "because X" and I'll quietly lower my eyes and say "oh" and de-rez back to wherever I come from ... then break the rule.

Then do one more thing. When it's over, and you've suffered - as you will - for breaking the rule, think back and figure out what you could have done, and learn the deeper meaning of NEVER.

No, no and thrice no!

2008-08-04T18:31:00.003-05:00

Over at Coding Horror, Jeff Atwood has run off the rails and gone over to the dark side. He has uttered words that are indistinguishable from those that come forth from the majority of Corporate America Information Technology management. Don't believe it? Check it out for yourselves. I'll be waiting for you when you've read it.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001160.html

Not being one to beat about the bush, let me offer this comment to Jeff's idea.

No, no and thrice no!

Since pastors aren't supposed to say naughty words, I am left with little alternative but to fire up some sarcasm and get to it.

There are so many things wrong with this perspective that it's almost impossible to know where to start debunking this foolish notion. After all, if quantity was all that mattered, then the Microsoft Vista operating system would be the best thing since sliced bread, the bee's knees and the cream of the crop all mixed in together and served with a cherry on top. Last I heard, it was seven shades of dreadful. (Or at least that's what I hear, I use Mac's at home and my employer hasn't moved past Windows XP yet.)

I've mentioned this before in this blog, but the system that I and my co-workers are trying to fix, is an eight year accretion of code. If quantity trumps quality then how come I can't find any in the system? There isn't any. I've looked. My co-workers have looked. And then because we hoped there was something of merit in there, we ran some automated code quality tests on the codebase and some of the modules on their own break the email system when the error logs are emailed internally. That's quite a lot of errors and not a lot of quality.

If quantity trumps quality, then how come the twelve line blank templated JavaDoc before each of the methods don't give me the warm fuzzies? It should. I mean, what's not to like about fifty percent of the source code in any randomly selected Java source file being empty JavaDoc? And broken JavaDoc with invalid JavaDoc tags at that. Goodness, I bet Jeff would love them. There's so many of them, I might ship him a few as we have so many of them to spare.

Now, don't get me wrong here, I think that the best way to learn to write code is to read a little theory and write a lot of code and throw it away. Then repeat. Read a little more theory and then write a bunch more code and throw it away again. Keep repeating this, as I have for about twenty eight years, and you'll be a fairly good programmer. It's not quantity of practice code that I object to, it's the inference that any code base can attain quality by just churning out code with no regard to quality.

Sorry. Ain't gonna happen!

You see, the ceramics example that Jeff gives us just proves that practice does help. There were items made by the "bulk" half of the class that were excellent, because the quest for quantity effectively forced the students to practice their craft. But the admission that not everything was of high quality shows the problem.

Any programming project is the sum of all the code that gets written for it.

By seeking quantity and taking a "quality be damned" approach, you may eventually have the quality that comes from practice, but that quality code will be on top of the early dross and a diamond in the mud, while still a diamond is still muddy and hard to appreciate.

So, may I suggest, as I have learned from experience, that quality comes from caring and practice and not as an accidental discovery within bulk code.

Men are just happier people

2008-08-01T08:31:00.001-05:00

As I get ready to head off to our district's Men's Camp, allow me to leave you with another classic Internet funny. Enjoy!

NICKNAMES
If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah.
If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla and Four-eyes.

EATING OUT
When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in $20, even though it's only for $32.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back.
When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

MONEY
A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need but it's on sale.

BATHROOMS
A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel from M&S.
The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.

ARGUMENTS
A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

CATS
Women love cats.
Men say they love cats, but when women aren't looking, men kick cats.

FUTURE
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

SUCCESS
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

MARRIAGE
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does.

DRESSING UP
A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the bins, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail.
A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.

NATURAL
Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

OFFSPRING
Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.
A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
A married man should forget his mistakes.
There's no use in two people remembering the same thing.

Technical Debt

2008-07-27T20:17:00.001-05:00

Technical debt is a great term, originally coined by Ward Cunningham, to convey the reality of future problems brought about by making decisions with an eye to short-term gains instead of long-term correctness. This is not a new concept, but before Ward, it had never been applied to software development. (Martin Fowler reports that the term was used in Ward's report at the OOPSLA conference in 1992.) Let's say that again incase you missed it.

Technical Debt: future problems brought about by making decisions with an eye to short-term gains instead of long-term correctness.

This exact concept was used years ago in the advertisements for Fram motor oil filters. Every car owner knows that they need to replace the oil and filter in their car on a regular basis or they will eventually experience engine problems. The advertisements in question stated that using inferior oil filters (naturally, anything that wasn't sold under the Fram brand name) would eventually cause the same problems. At the end of the commercial the mechanic looks at the camera and invites you to "pay me now or pay me later". This is how you avoid mechanical debt; take small amounts of appropriate action now, or take massive (and expensive) reparative actions later.

The financial world has had this concept from the beginning of money (or at least the lending thereof). Debt is a very real thing for many people and it's something that gets dramatically worse the more you fail to address it. The definition of worse can vary of course. For some "worse" means having a credit card declined, or a car repossessed, or a house repossessed, or a business declared insolvent. And then there are some who operate outside of the realm of the legal, who will be more than happy to break your kneecaps when your debt exceeds the agreed repayment amounts.

One aspect that most forms of debt share is the personal pain (sometimes literal pain if you borrow from stereotypical Italian gentlemen named Vinny) from failing to address that debt. When you ignore it long enough it has a way of getting your attention, often to the exclusion of everything else. While this is generally quite unpleasant, it does effectively concentrate the mind on efforts to bear down on the debt and start making it go away.

A big problem with technical debt is that the personal pain is often not applied to the one making the decisions and who, by all rights, should be experiencing it. I'm talking about Information Technology managers here. While not a few bad decisions are made by programmers, the clear and massive majority of them are made by managers. The problems and pain of the technical debt is then felt by the programmers. The irony in the situation is that those same programmers have likely warned against exactly the situation that they now find themselves placed in.

I have seen technical debt accrued in almost every company that I have worked for. There seems to be a slavish adherence to the concept of "first mover advantage". This would be lovely if the concept worked, but the general public seems to be learning to place a premium on correct over fast. Sadly, the memo hasn't made it to Information Technology management yet. Consider Microsoft's Vista operating system. I understand from reading technology blogs that Vista was released because they were fed up of the computer press asking when it was going to be ready (Really, what's the rush? Doesn't everyone take five or six years to release a new operating system version?). Microsoft picked a date and shipped it "no matter what". The result was a stack of bugs tenuously piled up into the shape of an operating system.

I'm sure some are reading this and saying words to the effect of "but you have to spend money to make money", meaning you have to accrue some debt to make money. I call "nonsense" on that. The only way to get out of debt is to spend less than you earn. It also happens to be the only reliable way to not get into debt in the first place.

Technical debt is completely avoidable. You can run your project in a debt free fashion. I've done it and thereby feel that I have the right to refuse to hear that it's impossible. The trick is knowing what's right, sticking to your guns and doing it. Lather, rinse, repeat; as the shampoo instructions say.

WHEN IT'S DONE

A good example of running a technical project debt free may be had by watching almost any open-source project run by the Apache Software Foundation. The Apache folks have a reputation for high quality work. Part of this comes from the natural tendency of good programmers to want to work on Apache projects. Another part of the quality equation comes from the peer review that naturally happens in an open-source project where everyone can see all of the code and is free to examine and comment on it. The biggest part of the reason for the quality of the Apache projects comes from their standard answer to the most common question received on their mailing lists.

The most common question that I remember seeing when I frequented the Apache Struts mailing list was "when will it be done?" A few months after any release I remember seeing this question being asked about the next version or point release. As regular as clockwork this question would come up time and time again. The impressive thing was that the answer was always the same. The answer was always "when it's done!"

Even a superficial consideration of the question leads to the conclusion that it's the only answer that can realistically be given. If a project team sets out to perform a certain unit of work, then they either perform it or they don't. It's a binary issue and that unit of work is delivered or it isn't. While I understand that life brings surprises and plans can change, the work is still either done or it isn't. Sometimes those life surprises are bigger than expected and the plans have to change and the unit of work is modified and that will affect the estimated completion date (remember, an estimate is only a wild guess in a suit) because the work is still done when it's finished. Even changing scope does not eliminate the binary nature of the matter.

All Apache projects are done when they're done. Period. Apache projects carry a heavy expectation of excellence. I know that even back in the 1.0 days of the Struts web framework, I was able to rely upon it totally for the system that I was the tech lead over. In fact we even went to production with a beta version of Struts 1.1 as the quality was so high that I couldn't see any reason not to use it while I waited for the final 1.1 release.

The Apache projects know what the right thing is and they stick to their guns. They know that they pick a unit of work to perform. They work on it until it is finished to their satisfaction and only then do they release it to the waiting world.

Sadly, the concept of "it's done when it's done" is foreign to the modern Information Technology manager. Modern Information Technology projects are all driven by deadlines; arbitrary deadlines at that. I'm working on just such a project now, fixing a compliance issue with our widget sales. We're already out of compliance, but the management thinking was that it should be fixed by the end of the year so that we'd be compliant next year. There was no examination of whether that was doable by a single developer still getting used to the system in question and for which there are no tests so who knows if anything gets broken? Management says proceed because it's more important to be seen to be fixing the issue even if it's a hurried fix that might in turn need to be fixed.

I don't think I could begin to count the number of timeframe driven decisions that I have witnessed or have heard details of from reliable sources that I trust. These decisions have a long history of turning out badly, but because the pain is felt by the programmers, the managers find them most agreeable.

This is root cause of technical debt. Information Technology management making bad decisions based on a desire to get things done "at the speed of business" and then not feeling any of the follow-up pain of those decisions. And the punditry wonder why there are falling numbers of programmers. I know that I've advised my little geeklets to not even think of working in Corporate America and especially not Information Technology. Even just last week I was chatting with co-workers about Corporate Escape Routes; just how do we tunnel out of the cubes that are our prison cells?

So, how does a deadline driven approach to project management, the way that it's implemented in Corporate America today, cause technical debt?

Let me start by saying that deadlines aren't all bad, especially if they are determined by a careful examination of the amount of work that needs to be done and the availability of skilled programmers to do it. This is not how it's done in Corporate America today, so we'll skip straight to discussing "pick any two".

PICK ANY TWO

Information Technology is still a relatively new discipline, but it has been around long enough to have had classic project management principles applied to it. These principles tell us that there are three aspects to a project and that two can be tightly controlled at any time with the third varying depending upon the decisions you make on the two you choose to fix.

The three aspects of an Information Technology project are Scope, Time and Quality. Some people use the term Cost instead of Time, but Cost tends to vary in direct proportion to Time, so with the time obsession of Corporate America, it seems more appropriate to call that aspect Time. The interplay of these aspects are seen by way of tradeoffs. The more rigidly you fix any two of the aspects, the more the third one is left to vary.

A good example of an engineering tradeoff would be NASA. These folks put people into space and bring them back again alive and well. NASA fix Quality at it's maximum and Scope doesn't change because otherwise there's no point in the mission. This leaves Time/Cost as the variable. Of course, being a government agency, it seems like Time/Cost is the last thing they worry about anyway!

Now, in most Information Technology projects, and when I say most I mean every one that I've been on and just about everyone I've heard of from my contacts, the two fixed aspects are Time and Scope. As a motivational speaker that I heard many years ago said, "Every project starts out with a deadline and a name."

Even the Scope is not usually that well defined. Hence the large number of incidents of scope creep. It's not really scope creep ... it's more that the project was started before they knew what they wanted. This is the usual behavior of Information Technology management. They aren't sure what they want, but they're deadly certain about when they want it. To get a change in the planned project completion date usually requires a presidential declaration, delivered by pink pigs flying in formation with white unicorns.

This is why it's so dangerous to offer estimates to managers, because once they've heard a date inside the timeframe they wanted to hear, they stick to it like the proverbial limpet. I know that I've offered estimates to managers and have had the number halved right in front of me. Usually they say something to the effect that they had to do that as their manager wouldn't accept an estimate that large.

So with the Time aspect being cast in concrete and the Scope staying still at best and increasing under normal conditions, the only other aspect left that can vary is Quality. And the universal observation is that Quality will always very downwards. This fits with the law of conservation of energy. If Time is fixed and Scope tends to increase, then the only direction that Quality can go is down.

This concept does not seem to fit with the worldview of the average Information Technology manager. Funnily enough, everyone else seems to get it. I particularly like the way that the U.S. Navy SEALS express it: "Fast is slow. Slow is fast." When everything is melting down around you and you need something done right, then slow down, deliberately slow down and concentrate on doing the action slowly and correctly the way you would have done it in training and let the muscle memory take over. It will be done right (for whatever your definition of "it" is).

Information Technology managers are the reverse of the SEALS. When a problem occurs they switch into panic mode. Everyone is expected to stay late. Senior managers tend to start hovering outside the cubicles of those performing the fixes. Hourly status meetings get called and are conducted in stand-up fashion outside the fixer's cube.

BON APPETITE

I'm going to wrap up with an example currently being worked on by others while I relax at my local Starbucks and enjoy a cup of coffee. The core pricing module for our widgets is broken for the introduction of a new widget. It is blowing up when pricing is requested for that widget. I'm in the process of coming up to speed on this module myself and so I know that there are zero unit tests in the code base. I have written tests for all of the code in the area that I'm working on, but these have not been promoted into the main code base yet. The lack of unit tests means that there are no areas that can be considered as bug free. So the bug could be anywhere. (Where there are good unit tests, there can be no bugs!)

It would seem that the problem involves a NullPointerError, so the chances are good that some domain object is being incorrectly initialized. Unfortunately no one knows which one it is because none of our domain objects have any kind of guard conditions for their input values. Any of our domain objects can be in any condition. There are no guarantees that they are ever in a valid state.

The decisions to have no tests and no guard conditions to force data integrity are the result of previous bad decisions motivated by the desire to get stuff done quickly. These decisions have consequences, we know these as Technical Debt, and those consequences have grown large teeth and claws and have developed a taste for untested code. In this core pricing module the untested code stretches as far as the eye can see.

Bon Appetite Mr. Consequence!

The Fastest Guys on the Block

2008-07-26T11:16:00.002-05:00

A classic of the Internet. I was reminded of this one the other day. Read and enjoy! :-)

There were a lot of things we couldn't do in an SR-71, but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. People often asked us if, because of this fact, it was fun to fly the jet. Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane. Intense, maybe. Even cerebral. But there was one day in our Sled experience when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be the fastest guys out there, at least for a moment.

It occurred when Walt and I were flying our final training sortie. We needed 100 hours in the jet to complete our training and attain Mission Ready status. Somewhere over Colorado we had passed the century mark. We had made the turn in Arizona and the jet was performing flawlessly. My gauges were wired in the front seat and we were starting to feel pretty good about ourselves, not only because we would soon be flying real missions but because we had gained a great deal of confidence in the plane in the past ten months. Ripping across the barren deserts 80,000 feet below us, I could already see the coast of California from the Arizona border. I was, finally, after many humbling months of simulators and study, ahead of the jet.

I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for Walter in the back seat. There he was, with no really good view of the incredible sights before us, tasked with monitoring four different radios. This was good practice for him for when we began flying real missions, when a priority transmission from headquarters could be vital. It had been difficult, too, for me to relinquish control of the radios, as during my entire flying career I had controlled my own transmissions. But it was part of the division of duties in this plane and I had adjusted to it. I still insisted on talking on the radio while we were on the ground, however. Walt was so good at many things, but he couldn't match my expertise at sounding smooth on the radios, a skill that had been honed sharply with years in fighter squadrons where the slightest radio miscue was grounds for beheading. He understood that and allowed me that luxury. Just to get a sense of what Walt had to contend with, I pulled the radio toggle switches and monitored the frequencies along with him. The predominant radio chatter was from Los Angeles Center, far below us, controlling daily traffic in their sector. While they had us on their scope (albeit briefly), we were in uncontrolled airspace and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to descend into their airspace.

We listened as the shaky voice of a lone Cessna pilot asked Center for a readout of his ground speed.

Center replied: "November Charlie 175, I'm showing you at ninety knots on the ground."

Now the thing to understand about Center controllers, was that whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna, or to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm, deep, professional, tone that made one feel important. I referred to it as the "HoustonCenterVoice." I have always felt that after years of seeing documentaries on this country's space program and listening to the calm and distinct voice of the HoustonCenterControllers, that all other controllers since then wanted to sound like that... and that they basically did. And it didn't matter what sector of the country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere. Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the radios.

Just moments after the Cessna's inquiry, a Twin Beech piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his ground speed.

"Ah, Twin Beach: I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed."

Boy, I thought, the Beechcraft really must think he is dazzling his Cessna brethren.

Then out of the blue, a Navy F-18 pilot out of NAS Lemoore came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Navy jock because he sounded very cool on the radios.

"Center, Dusty 52 ground speed check."

Before Center could reply, I'm thinking to myself, hey, Dusty 52 has a ground speed indicator in that million dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a readout? Then I got it -- ol' Dusty here is making sure that every bug smasher from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He's the fastest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new Hornet.

And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion:

"Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground."

And I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to remind myself that Walt was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done -- in mere seconds we'll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Hornet must die, and die now.

I thought about all of our Sim training and how important it was that we developed well as a crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I was torn. Somewhere, 13 miles above Arizona, there was a pilot screaming inside his space helmet.

Then, I heard it. The click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke:

"Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?"

There was no hesitation, and the reply came as if was an everyday request:

"Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground."

I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice:

"Ah, Center, much thanks. We're showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money."

For a moment Walter was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the HoustonCentervoice, when L.A. came back with,

"Roger that Aspen, Your equipment is probably more accurate than ours. You boys have a good one."

It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day's work.

We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast. For just one day, it truly was fun being the fastest guys out there.

Cute kitten story

2008-07-21T22:08:00.000-05:00

LawDog seems cured of his writers block. And with a cat story to rank among the classics. Now I'll have to dust off some of my cat stories. Having previously been blessed by seven (sometimes eight) cats in a previous chapter of my life, I have a tale or two of my own.

Best. Church. Picnic. Ever.

2008-07-13T17:48:00.002-05:00

Stuffed. Roll me home stuffed. Far too much food. And it was all good. Mmmmmmmm.

We rented a shelter at one of the local municipal parks and grilled too much dead animal and eat it with too many carbs for desert while drinking too many sugary carbonated beverages. And the guys talked about guns. Whats not to like?

Fair Warning

2008-07-12T16:53:00.000-05:00

I feel obligated to issue fair warning to all pieces of paper with concentric circle patterns drawn on them. My order from Cheaper Than Dirt has arrived and much target shooting will be scheduled real soon now.

I love CTD's Wolf 7.62x39 ammo for my SKS. I've tried the fancy stuff, but the Wolf just shoots tighter groups and feels better. And it's cheaper! Try some, you'll like it.

Now, that's political humor!

2008-07-12T14:39:00.000-05:00

Several good political cartoons over at Irons In The Fire. My favorite one is the one about John Bolton as president.

A tip of the hat to The Smallest Minority.

Employee Reviews

2008-07-10T19:24:00.004-05:00

As a pastor and the editor of our district's newsletter, I have always been used to having to report on what's happening and how my team is performing.

Being the editor of the district newsletter this responsibility includes reporting before the full district board and the district superintendent each fall during the district planning session.

While it might sound intimidating reporting to the Bishop, it's really not a huge deal as I stay in contact with my representatives throughout the year and make sure that I know what we all did, why we did it and what we are planning to do in the year to come.

It's not much different at church board meetings. I meet with the church board roughly every quarter and we discuss the state of the church, finances and direction. I consider it part of my job to know what is going on in every part of the church, who is doing it, why they're doing it and how it's going.

Then at work I find that the process for end of year reviews is totally messed up. This is not just a slam on my current employer. I have found this to be the case almost everywhere that I have worked for going on twenty years. The whole approach that Corporate America takes is fundamentally broken.

Part of the reason for this is that Corporate America is full of managers instead of leaders. That's a rant for another day, so I'll move on to the rest of the reason. The big part of why end of year reviews are so broken is that managers don't know what people are doing because they get themselves so overloaded with anything other than interacting with their direct reports.

The funny thing about that, is that many Human Resource departments even have rules in place to limit the number of direct reports that a manager has, to ensure that they are not overloaded to the extent that they can't track their direct reports. At my current employer, I believe that the maximum number of direct reports is in the region of a dozen.

Everything is in place for the manager today to know what their people are doing. Yet they don't. I just talked to my manager yesterday for the first time in months about what I'm currently doing and that was only because I bumped into him in the bathroom. Now, my manager's a nice guy and I have nothing personal against him, but I'm pretty sure that's not how the Human Resources department thinks that information flows in the corporation.

As I've spoken of before, the size of the congregation that I pastor is in the low thirties. I can tell you how they're all doing. I see these folks once or twice a week for a few hours at a time, yet I know more about my congregation than most managers know about their direct reports who come to work five days a week for a minimum of eight hours a day. Does this strike anyone as odd? I think it's disgraceful.

I know which ones of the congregation are undergoing medical treatment and have visited a number of them (or their spouses) at the local hospitals. I know which ones are struggling with issues and what the issues are. I know which ones are trustworthy when it comes time to ask for tasks to be done. I know which ones with kids are in charge and which ones let themselves be walked all over by their kids. I know which of our men wear the pants at home and which ones have abdicated the family leadership to their wives. I know who works in which industries and how their jobs are going. I know who is happy at work and who isn't. I know who is praying regularly and who is tithing regularly. I don't do this to pry. As far as I am concerned, this is just part of the job. You cannot lead someone or minister to them if you don't know them.

But it gets better. Almost everywhere I have worked, the end of year review process involves the direct report filling out a self-assessment review in which they write what they've been doing and rate themselves on how they've done with their projects. The big giveaway is that when the manager hands out the end of year review, that it bears an uncanny resemblance to the self-assessment that the direct report handed in.

Did I say "uncanny resemblance"? How about when you get your evaluation and the manager has copied and pasted your text into their document changing "I" to "You". Perhaps I'm alone on this, but I find that uninspiring and unimpressive.

May I kindly suggest to any manager who can't give an on-the-spot report of how their direct reports are doing that you are obviously not managing. I don't know what you are doing (and it's likely that your staff don't know either), but you are not managing. Please, either start managing, or ask for a different job title and have your direct reports transfered to someone who is prepared to put in the effort to know what they're doing!

Why project managers get no respect

2008-07-07T20:18:00.004-05:00

I think that Scott Berkun comes close to understanding a fundamental truth of modern project management in his blog post about Why project managers get no respect. There's more to it than he suspects, but he gets high marks for realizing that, on average, the problem lies with the PMs rather than the programmers.

I have a good rant simmering on the mental back burner about project managers, but it'll take several more weeks (at least) until it's ready for posting. Stay tuned and watch this ASCII character 32.

Happy Birthday USA and a busy week

2008-07-06T21:23:00.000-05:00

Wow, what a busy week, but in a good way.

We started with district camp. As the editor of the district newsletter I attended for Purpose Institute graduation ceremony (it's our district bible school and our first four year students were graduating.) Geeklet number one received the Holy Ghost at the children's church service on the Monday evening.

Then Friday was the fourth of July, or as we like to refer to it in the good ol' US of A, Independence Day. This is the birthday of this fair country and for a 232 year old, I'd say it was looking pretty good. Happy Birthday Uncle Sam! :-) To celebrate this event, I headed out to the range with a friend of mine and he even brought his daughter for her first time ever shooting. As said daughter is a slim 15 year old, I had mercy upon her and just took the .22 rifle. Much fun was had by all and we add another one to the Nation of Riflemen. Pictures were taken, but I'd better get permission from my friends before posting them.

Saturday, with our recently received stimulus check recently deposited, we headed off to Sis. Geek's favorite furniture store and made quite a contribution to the economy. We're doing our part for the economy, Mr. President!

2008-06-28T06:46:00.000-05:00

Last time, I poked a little fun at the Architects. In the interest of fairness, it's the turn of the programmers who don't test.

The image was made over at diy.despair.com using an image from Wikipedia.

Who moved my bliss?

2008-06-21T12:14:00.001-05:00

Far too many years ago, as a young computer enthusiast I thought to myself that it must be wonderful to be paid to write programs. After all, I wrote them at home, for myself, for free, so the idea that someone would pay me to do that for them seemed somehow magical to this teenager. So I diligently applied myself to the art of creating computer programs, got a degree and headed for the big city to ply my new trade.

Ah, yes, the optimism of youth. Silly me! There is no joy in corporate software development. None. Not even a little bit. The reasons for this are numerous, but a couple of recent blog posts highlight a few of the reasons nicely:

I don't understand computers is not an excuse

and

I quit my job today

I'm sure I'll get around to listing a few more here in the coming days, especially after my experience with our company architect yesterday. My last few dregs of remaining hope for Corporate America pretty much shriveled up and died on Friday afternoon.

Poking a little fun at architects

2008-06-10T22:11:00.005-05:00

I made this one over at diy.despair.com using an image from Wikipedia. Most excellent! I have some more I made as well, but I'll save them for another day. (Click on the picture for a larger version.)

Project Managers

2008-05-24T21:54:00.005-05:00

There are few things in this life that can instantly raise my blood pressure, but I.S. project managers can. While researching this Sunday's lesson, I re-discovered this scripture that I think perfectly captures my feelings about them.

Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
Job 38:2

Nothing else to add.

Unit Testing

2008-05-23T20:28:00.001-05:00

Unit Testing or, as J.B. Rainsberger likes to refer to it, Programmer Testing is a seriously undervalued and underused technique within the I.S. industry. I just read a post by Andrew Binstock over at his personal blog asking "Is the popularity of unit tests waning?" This is an interesting question.

I also found interesting, his observation that TestNG is effectively invisible. For the record, I had not only heard of it, but was previously asked to be one of the pre-press technical reviewers for the book. But, it is true that when you speak of unit testing these days you are, by default, referring to JUnit.

But back to the question. As I ponder this, I am drawn to the conclusion that it never was popular. Unit testing is pretty much the programming equivalent of flossing your teeth. You know you should do it and you understand the health benefits that will come from it, but you just never quite manage to get yourself to do it.

I think that unit testing has been promoted by the alpha geeks and early adopters of tools and techniques. I have been using it more on than off for over five years now, so I can honestly tell you that getting programmers to write unit tests is seriously hard work. I have had the most success with my JUnit evangelism with teams that I am personally leading. As a technical lead, I try to lead my teams by example and show how unit tests help me be certain that my code does what I think it does and how it is safe to refactor because I can prove it works with a simple run of an ant build.

I have had a moderate amount of success with management. Most managers now recognize the term unit test and they will generally agree that they are good things and that programmers should indeed write them. The problem comes when the deadlines get short, because so do their memories and they "forget" that they agreed that unit tests should be written no matter what, even if that means an overrun on the targeted due date. All hail the great god Deadlines!

I have had so little success convincing fellow programmers to use unit testing that I'm almost embarrassed. I was even the "JUnit sheriff" at a previous location and I still didn't get much traction. I think that the problem comes from the lack of positive feedback. Knowing that you get more of the behavior that is rewarded, the lack of unit testing must be because of the lack of seeing unit testing produce positive results.

On previous projects of mine, thinking especially of a big one a couple of employers back, I have insisted on unit tests (writing them myself where necessary) and the positive feedback loop starts to kick in and the others on the project start writing them as well. At the current employer, there were zero unit tests in the house when I walked through the door just over a year ago. I was involved in a couple of projects where I wrote unit tests, but after they got canceled, the positive feedback loop was short-circuited and we are still having an awful job getting folks to write tests.

If you haven't seen a suite of unit tests working its magic and saving you from certain crashing, then it's hard to internalize why you would want them.

So, one of life's great dilemmas. Unit tests are good for you, but until you see them work, it's hard to see that they could work.

Bad Singing

2008-05-22T20:03:00.000-05:00

More specifically, my bad singing.

I feel very sorry for Sis. Geek on Wednesday nights. We have midweek service and our normal song leader is still working on understanding the importance of making it to every service, so I lead the song service. I like to describe my singing voice as worse than a gravel crusher. I have the voice of one suited to written media. Various people have told me that I actually can sing, but I think they're just being nice. Even if they're right, there are still a couple of reasons why you don't want me behind a microphone when music is playing.

The first reason for keeping me away from a microphone is that I have no memory for song lyrics. None. Nada. Zip. Sis. Geek provides me with song sheets for the main service, but she picks songs according to the moving of the Spirit during altar service and that's when my bad memory really does me the most disservice. I loose count of the number of times, I haven't been able to remember the words to some really appropriate song that she's selected. Sigh.

The second reason is that I don't have a creative bone in my body and have no natural music comprehension. This shows itself in my inability to figure out how to lead the flow through a song. Knowing that I'm not a creative sort (and being fairly used to it by now) I applied some geeky analysis to the problem. I was fairly pleased with the result, but Sis. Geek still shakes her head when I use this technique. Allow me to explain.

Songs have verses and choruses and sometimes even bridges. I'm not really sure what the exact difference between a chorus and a bridge actually is, but my best understanding is that a bridge is kind of like an extra chorus. (Feel free to flame me in the comments if I have this all goofed up!) My problem is that with the new-fangled songs (rather than the traditional hymns, which I have no problem with) have very loose "rules" on which part goes where and when and in what order and which pieces you can repeat and even whether you finish at the end of a chorus or a verse. What is a geek to do?

Flow diagrams to the rescue! Check out this simple one:

  I -> I -> II -> II -> I -> II -> II -> II

This is a real example where the song has two parts and are best sequenced with the first part sung twice, then the second part sung twice, the first part once more and then the second part three times. I have this penciled at the bottom the song sheet and typically follow this sequence for that song.

Naturally, there are some songs with more leeway and flow diagrams allow for this. An example will help:

      .----.*
      v    |
 I -> C -> I -> C

This shows that the song starts with the verse, then moves to the chorus. It then alternates between the verse and the chorus (the asterisk depicts that the loop can be followed zero or more times), with the chorus being the end point of the song.

A very geeky way to solve a creative problem, but it works very well for me.

Ladies Retreat

2008-05-10T14:50:00.004-05:00

Umm, no, I didn't attend our district's Ladies Retreat. Sister Geek went with several ladies from the church. I took time off from work to stay and look after our Geeklets.

What did we do? Well, we have a fairly well established tradition at this point as we've been doing this for several years and we have pretty much the same routine every year. I checked with the Geeklets before the long weekend and they still wanted to follow the usual pattern. So we did. As the best weather was forecast for Thursday, we went to the zoo and then followed that with the aquarium on Friday because we don't mind being inside on an overcast day.

This is a wonderful combination as it's interesting to both me and them. We also have plenty of opportunity for quality daddy time. Much fun was had by all. A good thing really as they spend months looking forward to this event every year.

What is pastoring?

2008-05-03T15:37:00.000-05:00

A worthy question indeed. And one that cannot be answered in a single blog post, or I suspect, a single lifetime. Pastoring is many things, but right now, sitting here at my kitchen table, it feels like love.

As a pastor, you find yourself loving your designated congregation. Not a gushy, worldly love, but the love of God himself flowing through you. I can only describe it as a family-style love. I feel fatherly towards my assigned congregation. (I can see how Catholics are tempted to call their priests "father", despite the biblical admonishment not to call any except God by that term.) I feel parental towards the saints under my ministry (with the exception of the young ladies, who I also feel big brotherly towards ... so, be warned, all you single guys, because I do have a shotgun!)

It's an incredible feeling to have that much love flowing through you. I don't know if it's describable in ways that anyone who wasn't a pastor would understand, but I'll try anyway. The closest non-pastoral thing that I can use to describe it is the moment when my first child was placed in my arms and I felt my life and heart enlarge to allow more love to fill my life and flow to this precious bundle in my arms. For the record, I bawled my eyes out and didn't care. Interestingly, I bawled just exactly the same way when the Lord confirmed my calling into the ministry. I guess I should have seen the connection then.

The power of love is strong. By way of example, let me give you this little vignette. I had talked to one of our congregation earlier in the week and given some very strong advice and as my Friday evening went by I felt more and more like I needed to call and invite him to breakfast the next day. I eventually called him and we spoke for a while and he accepted my invitation. This morning, we had breakfast at my local Country Kitchen restaurant and he asked if Brother SoAndSo had put me up to it. I told him that no one had said anything, but that my heart was heavy with worry for him all evening and I felt that I had to call and arrange to get together with him. The supernatural power of God's love is powerful beyond what many of us ever suspect. Some days it still catches me by surprise!

National Day of Prayer

2008-05-01T21:35:00.007-05:00

Over here in the United States of America, we have the National Day of Prayer. This is scheduled for the first Thursday in May each year and it is a time when we stop and pray for our country and its leadership.

As a pastor I was asked to lead a small prayer circle at our local event. My choice of bible verse this evening was:

Wisdom [is] the principal thing; [therefore] get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
Proverbs 4:7

Why that verse when there are so many others that would do just as well? Partly it was that without wisdom, the ship of state is unlikely to steer straight, but mostly the Lord just dropped that one on my mind right there while waiting for my turn to speak.

Still reading

2008-05-01T14:31:00.007-05:00

It would seem that Joel Spolsky doesn't think that we programmers are reading very much any more. I question whether most of us ever really did much reading in the first place. Now, don't get me wrong, I like to visit my local Barnes and Noble and Borders book stores as much as the next geek and I certainly see many books being bought, but I don't know that many of them are actually read. So, from that perspective, I agree with Joel.

On a personal level, I'm reading more than ever before. With pastoring added to the mix, I find I'm reading more and bigger books than ever before. And they have less pictures on the pastoring side of the house ... not even an architecture diagram to break up the slabs of text! I have always been a voracious reader and will about read the print off of a really good book. (I even did a stint as a book reviewer a while back, so I fear that I am a hard core addict.)

The other thing that has changed for me is that where previously I would exclusively choose the dead tree version, I now like to get paper and PDF. This way I can leave the paper version at work and keep the PDF with me for those times when I either work at home or do a little personal geeking outside of work. (Such as at my local Starbucks!) I do find myself using the PDFs more and more, so I wonder whether I'll soon be waving goodbye to paper books. Maybe a few more years, but I see it coming.

Computer languages and facial hair

2008-04-29T20:19:00.000-05:00

There's a fun entry by Tamir Khason over at Microsoft Israel on the link between successful computer languages and facial hair. As a former wearer of a big ol' bushy beard and as a geek, I found this hilarious.

Heavy Load

2008-04-27T20:06:00.002-05:00

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Matthew 11:29-30

When you think of how many burdens each of us carry around when living this life the world's way, it's hard to believe that more of us don't take advantage of this offer from Jesus. There are three primary points that I take from this verse. First, I think that it's interesting that the Lord emphasizes his meekness. I believe that he does this to reassure us that we are free to approach him even if we think that our problem or need is too small for the king of kings and lord of lords. Secondly, we learn that his yoke is easy. What is his yoke? It's his word and the teachings therein. The New Testament teachings are actually pretty easy to keep; we just don't like keeping them. Third and last, is the fact that we need to take an action to receive the fulfillment of this offer. The offer is freely made, but if we don't personally take his yoke, then we find ourselves still with our heavy worldly yoke.

An accidental pastor

2008-04-26T12:26:00.000-05:00

It was never in my plans to become a pastor. Going further back, it was never in my plans to join the Church either. Obviously something happened to change that and this is (a condensed version of) that story.

See, there I was enjoying my IS career when I meet a nice family with an even nicer daughter. Well, they invited me to go to church with them and for some reason I said yes and started attending regularly. It didn't take long and I got baptized and then not too long after that I received the Holy Ghost. To prove that good things come in threes, I also married their daughter. (You saw that one coming right?)

So, there I am, a fully signed up, card carrying holy roller. Not in the plan, but it felt pretty good and I was happy with that. I love the people of God and enjoyed being in the family.

Next, I felt directed of the Lord to study. I wasn't sure what to study, so I asked my pastor and he directed me to study our organization's ministerial home study material. There was lots of good material there and for the next couple of years I enjoyed studying and reading.

A few years after that, I felt directed of the Lord again to up and move to the next state over and take a job at the big employer in that city. This I did and discovered that we had a home missions church in that place. The lovely Sister Geek and I attended the church and helped out however we could, including at least six months of teaching the mid-week lesson because pastor had to work second shift. It was around this time that I started saying things like "I'm glad I'm not a pastor!"

Roll forward a couple of years and I get duped, err, blessed with being appointed as the editor for the district newsletter. This is not something that I'd ever done before, but the district board bribed, err, encouraged me by supplying a brand new Mac computer with all of the software I would need for the job. I was then also required to attend district functions including several minister only events. I remind you that I was not licensed at that time, so it was quite an honor to be invited to such events. After having the opportunity to spend so much time with pastors and other ministers, I was more certain than ever that I did not want to be a pastor. This feeling was due to the behind the scenes view that I was given of pastoring, not from any lack of respect of the position of people filling those positions. The more I saw of pastoring, the more I realized that it was real work and involved a good deal more than just droning on for a while on Sunday mornings.

Things were good, albeit much busier now that I was the district editor. My anonymity was an early casualty and I quickly had to get used to folks recognizing me at events, coming over and commenting on the newsletter. Thankfully the comments were almost uniformly appreciative, so that helped.

Sister Geek and I, by now, were the longest continuously attending saints in the congregation and were still helping out in every way we could. As pastor was busy with his own district level position that meant lots of helping was required. Sister Geek was regularly playing piano during mid-week services and I was starting to get lots of preaching practice filling in for pastor.

Looking back, after the way that everything had been building up, we should have seen it coming, but it was a complete and total surprise when it happened. We had been invited over for lunch after Sunday service (and the annual business meeting if I remember correctly) and we were relaxing after an excellent meal when our pastor told us that the Lord had told them that they were to move to a different city on the other side of the state and take the pastorate there. This was quite a shock to us, but not as much of a shock as when they explained that the Lord had also told them that we should take over the pastorate for this city! We were pretty much speechless for the next half an hour or so. After that, I got right to work seeking the Lord and asking for a confirmation of this call. After a couple of weeks at a Sunday afternoon prayer meeting, I got the confirmation that I sought. This was the start of life getting much more interesting.

Now that I was confirmed by the Lord that I should take over the pastorate of the church I was attending, there was the small matter of not being a licensed minister. I got my confirmation in mid-March and needed to take over the church by July. Thank goodness the Lord had already caused me to get all of my required studying out of the way years before. Our current district had a couple of extra requirements and I was able to go through them in short order, so I was meeting the district board in June and was approved for my local license (the first level in our organization). I took over the pastorate in July 2007.

It has been an interesting journey since last summer. There are so many things that you don't learn about pastoring from any other source except real life. I suppose that those who have an opportunity to be an assistant pastor for a while first may have it easier, but I didn't get to do that, so I'm not in a position to be certain.

I like the term accidental pastor because it reflects the fact that while I do now love the role and even the responsibilities that come with it, it was not something that I sought out in any way.

Green Shift

2008-04-25T08:26:00.004-05:00

Reg Braithwaite over at raganwald has a great post about Green Shift. What is Green Shift? Well, it's a term coined by Scott Ambler (back in 2006 writing for DDJ) for a wide-spread corporate anti-pattern. The pattern does like this:

Nobody likes to report bad news to the layer above them, so managers (it's usually managers, most programmers are brutally honest) take the reports they are given and spin them positively. Repeat this for a few layers and a massive compound interest of spin will accumulate until the report that reaches the highest level has no similarity to the reality being reported on.

The reason that it's called green shift is from the "traffic light reports" that modern project management likes to employ for their reports to senior executives. Green means everything is good, yellow means there are issues to be addressed and red means serious problems. If the programmers on a team report problems, that should turn the report red for that project. This would reflect badly on the project manager, so they will often report it as yellow with a written note that they are confident that the current batch of issues will be addressed successfully in the near future. See how this is close to the truth, just with a very positive "glass half full" kind of perspective? The problem is that this is now a subjective rather than objective report. The next layer will take this report and take the project managers expectations and read them as cast-iron guarantees that the problems will be solved before the project is delivered. This layer will then pass on their report with the project status as green, because they believe that everything will come in fine at the end and that there is nothing that senior management needs to worry about. Again, they feel that they haven't lied, but have just taken a positive view of the report they received.

The more layers there are between the programmers and the CIO, the worse the effect gets. Unfortunately, this is a very common occurrence within Corporate America. I have seen this everywhere that I've worked and it seems to be getting worse.

This may come as a surprise to many programmers who think that it's only IS managers who suffer from this form of insanity, but it is in fact so widespread that there are classic Internet jokes about it:

In the beginning was the Plan.
And then came the Assumptions.
And the Assumptions were without form.
And the Plan was without substance.
And darkness was upon the face of the Workers.
And they spoke among themselves, saying, "It is a crock of sh-t, and it stinkith"
And the Workers went unto their Supervisors and said, "It is a pail of dung, and we cannot abide the smell."
And the Supervisors went unto their Managers, saying "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it."
And the Managers went unto their Directors, saying, "It is a vessel of fertilizer and none may abide its strength."
And the Directors spoke among themselves, saying to one another, "It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong."
And the Directors went to the Vice Presidents, saying unto them, "It promotes growth, and it is very powerful."
And the Vice Presidents went to the President, saying unto him, "This new plan will actively promote the growth and vigor of the company with powerful effects"
And the President looked upon the Plan and saw that it was good.
And the Plan became Policy.
And that, my friends, is how sh-t happens.

[A tip of the hat to the Jewish Humor and Joke Page]

It's All Good

2008-04-20T17:22:00.010-05:00

Have you ever thought about the word "good"? It's used 720 times in the King James Version of the bible and represents (if my arithmetic is right) 49 different Greek and Hebrew words. This tells me that it's a very versatile word, used to describe many different aspects of that concept. The fact that the word "good" is used to describe the works of God and as one of the attributes of God, suggests to me that we have been undervaluing this fine word. During the creation, when God had finished with each day's work, he reviewed it and saw that it was good. Jesus was described as going about "doing good". Lastly, Jesus described himself as the "good shepherd". Next time you see the word good used in the bible, remember that it means bigger and better things than it's small size might normally indicate. God is good!

First post

2008-04-19T06:49:00.000-05:00

It's a Slashdot thing. :-)