Monthly Archives: August 2003

Finishing Well

Chris Tomlin writes: From Dallas, we flew in to Orange County to be a part of the Saddleback Church worship conference. It was what I refer to as a top 5 night. Meaning that I thought it ranked maybe in my top 5 all time experiences in playing music.

Yep. I was there. It was amazing. Chris goes on:

It was one of those concerts you wish you had on a live cd.

I wish I had it on a live CD, too. He joked that night that he wished he had recorded it all so he could the MP3s on his web site for us to download. That would have been way cool.

I was so tired the night he came out to lead worship. We were all exhausted. We had finished three days of training, of conviction, and of very moving worship. By Friday night, the finale, I was ready to be entertained. I really didn’t want to worship. I just wanted to sit.

But within moments, I was on my feet.

We all were.

We had to be.

Link Dump, August 26

New York Times: No matter how eagerly awaited, however, Napster 2.0 will pale by comparison with its renegade predecessor in some ways. Well, duh. It’s going to cost money.

Read the great flavor/flavour debate here.

Here’s what truetech.org would look like if I had designed it in 1996.

Sesame Street for grownups.

RSS comics. Woohoo

There’s an official home page for the Blue Star LSD Tattoo Urban Legend. Took me back to my childhood.

Deus Ex Machina

MSNBC: Christian game developers seek to put God in the machine, while thinkers like Thomas and Clark say that the notion of God is already there. Differing opinions, but both hold a core belief: A game’s influence doesn’t end when you turn off the console.

And on the subject of weird religious stuff: Boy dies in “healing” service; death ruled homicide. This is the kind of stuff that really burns me up. First of all, don’t kill people. Stop doing that altogether. Secondly, don’t kill someone and then say, “God wanted him back.” This was an 8-year-old boy with a medical condition, for crying out loud. I believe in miracles and healing, but I don’t presume to expect anything from God on my terms.

Advice From One Who’s Been There

Mike Tyson has offered some advice and sympathy to Kobe Bryant. “I’ve been in an ordeal like him, and I know how easy it is for a young man to be a big shot, a big star in America’s eyes and then get in another arena and he’s nobody. That means the judicial arena.” Eloquent as always, Mr. Tyson.

Big Monopoly On Campus

Washington Post: The corporation, however, has also directly or indirectly influenced curriculums and research priorities, drawing an outcry from critics who say the donations are turning computer science departments into vocational schools where mastery of proprietary computer programs are valued over the study of theory. This scares the daylights out of me. I remember a couple years back when Microsoft was offering professors kickbacks for using and endorsing their products in class. Wish I could find a link for that one, though.

Hey, Microsoft! I run Active Directory, and I have tons of machines running 2000 and XP. I still actively support NT 4 and Windows95 for crying out loud. Where’s my kickback? Huh?

Actually, I don’t need a kickback. If anything, I wish I could have back the two weeks I lost rebuilding Active Directory three times because Windows2000 is so sucktacular. Not to mention the sleep I lost over the long-standing, long-acknowledged, took-way-too-long-to-fix bug in AppleTalk services on a system with dual Intel NICs.

Jack Attach

Well, Jen and I completed our second session of training to be foster parents. We also discovered something interesting about our dog. A psychologist gave us some information on attachment disorder, which is very common in foster children. Makes sense, since many of these kids have been abused, neglected, and moved around.

So, it many ways it would follow that Jack may suffer from attachment disorder as well. He was abandoned, likely abused (I have no proof of this, but I believe he was abused for two reasons. First, when we first brought him home, he was sometimes very submissive, so submissive that I wondered if someone had beaten him. Second, I’ve lived with this dog for almost two years, and many weaker men would have definitely beaten him.), and adopted.

Here’s a partial list of symptoms, and how Jack fares in each category.

Superficially engaging and “charming” behavior

Yep. Everybody thinks he’s cute.

Lack of affection with parents on their terms (not cuddly)

Totally. He’d rather be at our feet. Even at night, we can’t get him to cuddle up with us.

Little eye contact with parents, on normal terms

Check.

Persistent nonsense questions and incessant chatter

Incessant chatter? You bet. Just spend a day with him.

Lying about the obvious (crazy lying)

I can’t prove this, but I have my suspicions.

Stealing

Just ask Gracie about this one.

Destructive behavior to self, others, and material things (accident prone)

He’s never, ever destructive to himself or others, but he’s been known to tear up a tennis ball or dog toy.

Abnormal eating patterns

Let’s see… eat grass, throw up, eat grass, throw up… yep.

No impulse controls (frequently acts hyperactive)

Check. Two checks, infacts.

Lags in learning

Well, he always seems surprised when his bark-activated citronella collar goes off when he barks.

Abnormal speech patterns

I’d vote yes on this one.

Poor peer relationships

He doesn’t have many dog friends.

Lack of cause-and-effect thinking

See note above about the citronella collar.

Lack of conscience

Well, in his defense, he is a dog.

Cruelty to animals

Probably.

Preoccupation with fire

Nope. He’s clear on this one.

Manipulative — plays adults against each other

Oh, yeah.

Dysregulated eating/sleeping/toileting patterns

Yes. This dog will crap four times during a thirty minute walk. That’s dysregulated.