An old one

this one is a repost. back from my very first blog that I started when I was at uni all the way back in 2004, it kept going until the end of 2005 and kinda limped to a stand still never to be posted to again.
If you're keen on seeing what was running through my mind all those years ago :P have a look here

anyways this is one of the last things I posted on that blog, but in my opinion it's an awesome argument for creation. Might have to elaborate on it sometime.

Using a watch as a compass

Heres an interesting one... an argument for creation that I worked out while I was walking in a national park. My Dad taught me this and it's always useful and I've only just realised why its significant. The above link is relevant to the northern hemisphere, because if you point toward the sun you're facing south... in the southern hemisphere when you face toward the sun you're facing north. But anyways what blew me away was that God sorted it all out so who ever created the analogue clock/watch created it so that you could find your direction from it. I dunno if that strikes anyone but I thought that was pretty cool

Another thing, Photos... sure they help to remember things but they don't capture the moment. I think photos are like certain smells they trigger memories but there's always stuff that the photo doesn't capture. It doesn't capture the way you feel in that moment, it doesn't capture the fact that your heart was racing a mile a minute, or that you were out of breath when you took it. Sometimes they don't even capture whats going on in the scene, like the twinkling of rain drops on the leaves of a tree.

Makes ya think hey.

sufficient for me

I got lucky on the weekend. Big time lucky. I got a ticket, probably the best ticket I could ever have received. And by now you're probably wondering what kind of ticket this is. Well it was a speeding ticket issued by our local constabulary.
Yeah, that's right, I got busted for being sixteen K's over the speed limit, and it's the best thing.
You're probably thinking "wow this guy is screwed up. Shouldn't he be hacked off because he got a ticket?". Well, no I'm not hacked because this ticket has reminded me of a few important things.

1: I'm blessed that I'm not dead!
yeah, that's right. I'm blessed to receive this ticket because it reminds me that God has been gracious enough to let me stay alive. I've gone much faster than the speed that I was doing when I got caught and it's not something I'm proud of, and it have been so easy for something to have gone wrong and me ended up wrapped around a tree. How's that for being an idiot. God gives me all these opportunities and I go and flaunt it by pushing the pedal. Scoffing in the face of everything that God is trying to do in my life and he still says "I love you, and I forgive you for being a total goose".

2: I'm responsible
Yeah, it reminded me of what I agreed to. the responsibilities that I agreed to when I signed the form and paid my $55 dollars to get my licence. I'm not paying for my right to drive, I'm paying for the privilege. Along with the privilege comes the responsibilities. The privilege of scooting around the planet in a 1.5 tonne car comes with the responsibilities of driving in a way that won't endanger the people around me. If I can't handle that and choose to flout those limits then I need to cop the consequences, be it a $150 fine or losing the licence, or the guilt of a life hanging over my head.

3: God's grace is sufficient.
God's grace doesn't change what I did. It doesn't make what I did right. It doesn't mean that I should keep doing it just because it absolves my sin. I am blessed that God decided that he would take my sin away no matter what I do. It doesn't mean that I should go around and speed all the time because it's taken away. Anything but. The good thing that even though we might try our hardest we all make mistakes and he forgives us without question.

Now I've just got to do whatever it takes to keep my driving in line. He's nailed me, now it's time for me to run with it.

Letter to the editor

This blog post is in response to Mark Furler's Column in Monday's Sunshine Coast Daily and the flurry of emails, commends and letters to the editor that it generated..

My letter is below.
---
After reading the various letters that have been shredding Mark Furler’s column about the Harry Potter series to bits because of his stance on some of the values within the series I was motivated to write. Not because of whether or not I agree with any of the stances (I agree with Mark by the way) but because of the mechanism with which the values were delivered.

The series started off all light and fluffy, to quote my mum “you could have mistaken it for Enid Blyton”, with things named Muggles and Quiddich and platform nine and three quarters, nothing too nasty. The kids loved it, and the parents loved it because the kids were reading! Hurrah! Move on down the line about five books and you have something that was still readable but very much darker but with only two books to go you were hanging out for the end because you knew there were only two to go and you really wanted to know how it ends. You might not like what you are reading but you still do because of the careful engineering of the series.

Just look at the movies ratings, they went from being PG up to M, but the kids flocked to the latest in droves and the parents let them because they really don’t want to say no to their kids... And after all it’s just Harry Potter.

Guess we really need to have a good hard look at what we choose to expose our kids and ourselves to. Oh, and well done Mark on bringing this up!

It's just, like, hey wow!

I dont know if you've ever had one of those moments where you take a look at an idea or have some kind of realisation where you're left going "hey, wow! that's awesome!". I had one of those moments (well I have them all the time) yesterday while out walking and looking around at the world.

The moment that I had involved me and the sun... more specifically marvelling at how the brightness of the sun was "just right" and it got me thinking about all the different factors tied up in making sure that this brightness was just right. Lets start from the big ones and work it all the way down to the small.

The sun itself. For starters it's just the right size, burning at just the right temperature to produce light at just the right brightness of some stupid amounts of ANSI Lumens. The other part to the sun is that it's burning with just the right balance of chemicals to produce just the right colour of light, which works in concert with the temperature to produce the colour temperature that we assosciate with white light.

The next part in this equation is the distance between the sun and the earth. It's just right... any closer and it would be too bright and any further away and we'd be squinting all the time we are outside and have the lights on the whole time we're inside

The earth itself has a major influence on how bright the light is that gets to us. The astronauts on the moon have to wear specially gold plated visors when on the surface due to the fact that there is no atmosphere to protect them from the full force of the sun's radiation. the earth's atmosphere has a major affect in how much light actually gets to us, as well as the colour of what we see.

Environmental influences aside, there are also a myriad of human anatomical and physiological factors that play a part in how bright the light is. The first is the design of the eye and more specifically the size of the pupil. I think the pupil is almost like the hole in the doughnut... probably one of the few cases where nothing has a name, but that aside, the fact that we can adjust the size of the pupil to control how much light reaches the retina is amazing. Also, that it happens without us thinking about it even more amazing. But the pupil has limitations as to how big it can get and also how small, those limitations are finely tuned to the environment within which it operates.

The next part is the design of the retina. The sensory nerves in the eye have a set sensitivity in which light is converted from an analogue signal into the digital signal that the nerves pass (yes God designed the Analogue/Digital before we even thought about it and has been operating in binary before we thought up numbers). How light is converted into digital impulses by the retina is an amazing cascade of chemical reactions that result in a fequency of impulses corresponding to the brightness of the different frequencies of light. The retina is also designed so that there is a membrane of tissue and blood vessels over the top of the sensory nerves which plays a part in how much light reaches the retina. The only place where this membrane doesn't cover the retina is called the Fovea which is the point that the eye focusses the light onto so that we can percieve the detail in the image.

How amazing it is that God took less than six days to get this right. One day, let there be light and there it was, the light called day, the darkness called night. Just right.
Let there be something between the water and the water, and the sky was in place.
Let there be two great lights in the sky, the greater to govern the day, the lesser the night.
Let us make man in our image, so God created man in his own image.
All the way through this, And God saw that it was good. I choose to interperate that as God made sure that all the details were sorted out and just so.

I look at everything in it's place and see that there could be nothing else but a creator who made sure that everything was good. Something else I think about is what it would be like if we even tried to get something like this to work on our own. What a nightmare! If it were up to us, we'd have to spend eternity working it all out before even hoping to implement the beta version of the universe, then once we'd run all the tests and picked up on all the unplanned problems, design beta2, run testing and debugging and so on until we reached something that kinda worked.

God did it in six days. And it all worked. Just like that.

How amazing!

The Techie Bible

GENESIS

In the beginning there was the Stage, and the Stage was without lights or sets, and darkness was on the faces of the actors. And the Technical Director said, "Let there be Lights!" and the Techies worked and wired, and there were lights. Spotlights and specials, areas and backlighting - yea, lights of all shapes, sizes and hues. And the TD saw the lights, that they were well aimed and focused, gelled according to the scene, and no more was there darkness on the faces of the actors. And it was good. And the evening and the morning were the First Day.

And the TD looked upon the actors and saw that although they walked in light, they did walk upon a bare stage, and had no place to be, and the TD was moved to pity. And the TD said, "Let there be a Set!": and the Techies scrambled and worked, and there was a set, with platforms, wagons, stairs, and furniture of various types and sized, each according to the need. And the actors did walk within the set, and did have a place to be. And the TD saw the set, that it was good, and the evening and the morning were the Second
Day.

And the TD saw the actors, that although they did have a place to be, they did look like fools, for they waved their hands, clutched at open air, and struck each other with nothing. And in his heart, the TD was moved to pity. And the TD said, "Let there be Props!": and the Techies worked feverishly and
did buy and build, and there were props. And they were good, and the evening and the morning were the Third Day.

And the TD looked upon the actors, and saw that they did go forth in blue jeans and the TD knew that this would not due. And the TD said, "Let there be Costumes!": and the Techies did cut and sew and shape, and there were costumes, each sized to the actor, according to the play, and keeping in with the role. And no more did the actors go forth in blue jeans and the TD saw the costumes, that they were good, and the evening and the morning were the Fourth Day.

And the TD watched the play, and saw that the actors did wait in silence, and was moved to pity. And the TD said, "Let there be Sound!": and the Techies worked and taped, and there were sounds, each according to its place and cue, all at the proper levels. And the TD heard the sounds, that they were good, and the evening and the morning were the Fifth Day.

And lo, all these works were completed in five days, showing that if God had used sufficient Techies in the first place, He would have finished sooner.

More here... if you're not a tech, don't expect to get it. It's a real niche humor thing ok! If you're talent then you might get it but don't be surprised if you're the butt of some of it.

Would the real DeckChair Danny please step forward

How's this for awesome. A man has flow over 300km in his lawn chair, suspended under about 100 balloons filled with helium.

the courier mail story can be found here

Just goes to show that if you really put your mind to something you're going to pull it off.

On a semi related note, I can't remember where I heard this, but I've been thinking a whole lot about what it takes to be great and some of the points I've either heard or been inspired with are as follows

1: Be focussed.
Achieving something great or with a great impact is akin to the difference between a shotgun shell and a sniper rifle.

2: Don't let good enough get in the way
Good enough is a sure fire way to make sure that everything you do is mediocre. I think that was pretty much my attitude throughout school. If I could get away with the minimum amount of effort, that's all I'd do. The result of that was a spate of HA's and SA's throughout highschool. It was only when I started getting picky about my assignments and putting the effort in to make sure the details were correct, and everything was in order, instead of "that'll do" that my results started picking up.

3: Greatness requires sacrifice.
It might be time, effort, or even choice, but there will be a sacrifice there somewhere. Just make sure the sacrifices are worth it. Is the greatness that you're going after driven by a selfish pride or by a desire to elevate those around you to a higher place in relation to their lives?

4: Greatness requires teamwork.
I'm pretty sure Nehemiah couldn't have rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem by himself. With this point also comes the recognition that people fulfil different functions within the team. Some will be leaders, some will be do-ers. There's a new team function that I've realised can actually be really powerful, and that is the solution developer. Basically I'm trying to exploit a characteristic of mine where I can come up with an awesome solution to a problem but never pull it off. Now I'm sure I could but for some reason I rarely finish stuff. But I really think that some people are awesome for thinking up solutions to curley problems, and then others who aren't so creative are the ones who can take the idea, run with it and finish it off.

I guess this is a bit preachy, but what it boils down to is me wanting to make an impact in the world. And really greatness has nothing to do with it. If I want to make an impact in the world then I need to pray as my father in heaven taught me. It's got nothing to do with me and what I do, but with God and what he chooses to do through me.

The lords prayer NIV
Matthew 6:9-13
9"This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11Give us today our daily bread.
12Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.[a]'

Or the Message translation
Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right;
Do what's best— as above, so below.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.
You're in charge!
You can do anything you want!
You're ablaze in beauty!
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Twenty Six Summers

Been listening to a new album that's just been brought out by a very talented worship writer who goes by the name of Vicky Beeching. The album is called "Painting the Invisible" and contains some brilliant worship songs, including a hymn called "The wonder of the cross". Another fantastic feature of this CD is the fact that the chord charts are included with the lyrics for all of the songs that you would want to play for church. Love that idea!

One song in particular hit home to me today and summed up life for me so far, especially over the last two years or there abouts. The song is called "Twenty Six Summers" and is basically, in the words of a review that I read today, a love song to God. Probably no coincidence that I happen to be 26 this year either, but as far as I know God doesn't deal in coincidence... everything is planned out to perfection. I digress.

The lyrics of the song that hit home are these:

Through twenty-six summers
And twenty-six winters
I’ve laughed in the spring time
I’ve cried in the rain
Though I’ve questioned the meaning
Of some of life’s seasons
It’s true that they’ve left me holding on tighter to You

Certainly over the last year and a half there's been stuff happen in my life that I've been left wondering why I had to go through that, and I get the feeling that for some of them, probably most, I won't get to find out what the reason was until I die and go home. But I do know that the promises for me are good... promises for a future and a hope, so I look forward to the things that God has planned for me, uncertain as to exactly what they are, but pushing forward toward the dreams and desires that he's placed in my heart!