Happy New Year

Just a quick note to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Just lolly gaggin around

This is my second attempt at getting a blog entry done this week. :) Yesterday was spent catching up with e-mail, and being blindsided by an issue that took all day, and the fix was a reset of a routing peer. *sigh* As a result i have not chosen a song for this weeks "Musical Monday", so, let's try this again... Unfortunately i am going to pass on this weeks song. :/ Things are still pretty hectic and it's hard to stay focused. What a football weekend! The Buccaneers did not make it into the playoffs despite the Cowboys giving them an opening. That left it wide open for the Eagles! Although the Vikings won, i am not sure i would get all too excited about the playoffs... the Giants were not playing a lot of their starters... either the Giants have some really good depth, or the Vikings really need to step up their game for a deep post season run. Speaking of which... The Panthers are in as the #2 seed, and i did get my Christmas wish... the NFC South championship for them. \o/ I was especially happy for John Kasay who kicked the game winning, 42 yard field goal with only 0:01 left on the game clock. I was hoping this would happen for him since he missed the 50 yarder in New York the previous week. What i liked even more is how is put it all in perspective, "By God's grace, this one went in". I am happy that the Panthers are in the playoffs (for only the 4th time in fourteen years), but i am also keeping it in perspective... only twelve teams even made it to the post season. Eleven of them are going home without the Lombardy Trophy. In any event, they get a week to rest up and prepare. Hopefully the guys don't make up for lost time at the holiday meal tables before their January 10th, 8:15 EST game. lol One more parting note before i wrap this up for today. This past weekend i was able to take the family, including my in-laws, out to Fallingwater. If you love architecture, or Frank Lloyd Wright, and you can get out to western Pennsylvania, i highly recommend paying a visit to this spectacular home. My sister has study architecture and design, but i have not. Words even fail me when i try and describe it. I absolutely LOVE this house and its design. What made the trip even nicer was that God granted us some spectacular weather and a wonderful tour guide. We took the "basic" tour which was great, even my two youngest loved it! But, someday i hope to take the longer one... even if it's just me and my beloved.

The Christmas "hangover"

Wow it has been a whirlwind of a week. My vacation started last Friday so that my beloved and i could knock out our last minute Christmas shopping. The mission was a success. Sunday night i stayed up, wrapping presents, and watching the Carolina Panthers lose to the New York Giants 28-34. :-/ I do not play the game of football (fantasy does not count), i am not a professional sports writer, and i do not know any of the players on the team personally (or even second hand... i even have my doubts about the six degrees of separation). I am disappointed in the result only as a fan of the Panthers. But as a fan of football that was a good game. With :04 left on the clock i watched as John Kasay lined up for a game winning kick, only to see it get blown wide left. My heart sank for Kasay. As a fan from the very beginning he has been my all time favorite Panther player. I have to tip my hat to the Giants. They had worn the Panther defense down and when it mattered most, they dominated the line of scrimmage. God willing, the rematch next month should be an excellent game. Speaking of John Kasay, my absolute favorite gift that i received for Christmas this year was a replica jersey (pictured above). I had picked up Panthers jersey (#85 Wesley Walls - black) years ago, but this was the one i've wanted for a long time. So much so i'd be willing to part with ol' #85 - if the price is right. ;-) I really need to get that "man cave" started in the basement. I need a place to hang up my Panthers and Army stuff. LOL This week has been a joy. Time at home with the family - including the in-laws, time to relax with my beloved, play games with the kids, just sitting back and enjoying the time with each of them. Alas such things are not meant to last forever - which makes them all the sweeter when they come. Tis back to work for me...

Serving up a "Soup Sandwich"

I can't remember exactly when, or the situation i was in, i first heard the phrase "Soup Sandwich". Go ahead... let your mind turn the phrase over to decipher it. I can wait... I served over twenty years in the Army National Guard. Before i joined i had never eaten eggs. I guess i had formed some sort of food prejudice against them or something, but a funny thing happened in basic training. We were being fed for breakfast: two pancakes or slices of French toast, two slices of toast, a piece of fruit, a bowl of cereal, two pieces of bacon/sausage, two glasses of juice, a glass of milk, and 2 eggs. Now after reading all that you would think... that has got to be enough even without the eggs... but you know what? It wasn't. I learned to two things... to barter, and to make a sandwich out of them. To this day it is still the only way i eat eggs. On average i was in uniform 40 out of 365 days, expected to train to the same standards as the full time Army, and all that while coordinating my duty with a full time career (and/or college) - not including being called up for active duty, flood/natural disaster duty, or other "critical" state missions. As you can imagine there were times when something unsavory was being "crammed down your throat" (not necessarily food - i think you get the idea). But when you are in the military you do not have the option of saying "no". You suck up whatever cards you've been dealt and drive on. It was a life lesson that has served me well over the years. But there are times when the situation you've been dealt does not have a "win" option. You are going to dive in, get messy, and look like _____ when it's all over. Now picture what happens when you try and eat a soup sandwich and i think you get the idea. :-) Well my career has been served up a "soup sandwich". My employer managed to position themselves out of the running for the contract which i currently work under. The good news is that my government "handlers" have expressed the desire to keep the people in place... \o/. Unfortunately it looks like my soon to be new employer has differing ideas as to what we should get compensation-wise. Don't get me wrong... i am very, very happy to know that i still have a job - especially in these tough economic times. The news is filled with layoffs, bankruptcy, bailouts, company failures, so to know that i will still be employed is huge, i just wish the situation was a little bit more palatable. There are times when you just need to scoop up that soppy bread and take a big honkin' bite of slop, let it dribble down your chin onto your nice collared shirt and khakis, and move on. Sure, you're messy, sure your not happy with the situation, but at least you are still up and moving. And for that i am very grateful to God. I am just still working on my attitude...

A "Stolen" Holiday and other ramblings

As Christmas day gets closer it seems i have less and less time to blog. It also doesn't help that i usually blog from work so my time is even more limited. It has been a huge help fasting from direct Facebook access as i have been able to refocus on the things i am supposed to. Last week i blogged about my feelings regarding "a tale of two Christmases", and a gaming and WWW acquaintance, sent me an e-mail regarding some points of the history of Christmas. So that i do not misquote i will past a copy of it here:

Hiya. The main reason I asked the question I did, is because your comments about people losing the "true spirit" of Christmas struck me as somewhat humorous, in a wry, twisted way. Being a Christian, you may not like what I'm about to say, but I hope you will take it as openly as you have everything else in all the discussions I've seen you in. *** WARNING: religiously contentious issue below *** Simply put, Christmas is a "stolen" holiday. Most of the traditional Christmas trappings come from an older, pagan winter festival. With the exception of Santa Claus, who was originally St. Nicholas, a very real Christian figure, who has since been corrupted and re-imaged thanks to commercialism (iirc, the current image of the fat guy in the red-and-white suit came from a Coca-Cola ad). It has even been argued that it is impossible for the holiday of Christmas to truly match with the supposed time of Christ's birth, because middle-east shepherds did not "watch their flocks by night" in the middle of December. So, in my eyes, the Christ in Christmas is nothing more than the artificial add-ons made by a church intent on conquest by conversion. Indeed, many of the Christian holidays and events are repackaged pagan festivals. And, granted, commercialism has made large and somewhat unsavoury inroads to all these holidays. So much has been lost or altered through time and meddling, that nobody can say what the "true" spirit of any holiday is. All that remains for sure is that Christmas/Yuletide/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is a time for friends and family to gather for a feast (meaning good food, plenty of booze, and a bucketload of fun) and restrengthen bonds that may have weakened over the year past. And that, more than any influence of any faith, is the best reason for a holiday I can think of.

I quote his e-mail not in an attempt to pick it apart, because that is not why i did it. I quoted it because i wanted to make sure i did not mis-represent what he did indeed say. I appreciated his e-mail because he was not trying to lambaste me for being a Christian. He was not trying to belittle my belief in Christ. What he was trying to point out that the Christmas "season" and my point of lamenting the loss of Christ in "Christmas" has no basis because in its origins this season had nothing to do with Christ. This is not some humanistic attempt to undermine my faith, it is the truth. For brevity i am not going to go into it here - but there is little doubt that Christ was NOT born in December, but that the "Christ Mass" was implemented during this season by the church of old in an attempt to help ease the conversion of "pagans" and "barbarians". His e-mail helped me realize that the loss of Christ in "Christmas" i was lamenting really has nothing to do with the loss of influence of Christians during this time of year. It was never really "ours" in the first place. He helped me see what i was really trying to say... That we as Christians need to keep the season and remember why we celebrate Christmas. We have a tradition of celebrating Christ's birth during this time of year and that is not a bad thing, but we cannot expect the world to conform to how we want to celebrate. We are to be "in the world", but "not of [the world]". Here was my response to his e-mail:

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. Life can get in the way of simple correspondence. :-) I, in turn, had to chuckle at your e-mail. I was already aware of the holiday we currently call "Christmas" being a "stolen" holiday and that it is pretty unlikely that December being the actual time of birth of Christ. I had actually blogged about this (albeit not very in depth) not too far back. Your points are quite true, and they did get me thinking about other areas of the season if you will. ***Religiously contentious content to follow*** ;-) In my opinion the church has done this sort of thing all too often. I mean, most of the "Holy sites" in the middle east (referring strictly to the Christian ones) are highly suspect at best. The Crusades... yea, like forcing your will upon a populace converts anyone... not to mention the amount of damage done to probably the most "civilized" cultures of the day - and the loss of knowledge when the Europeans moved through North Africa and the Middle East. Sad really. Oh, another thing about the Christmas traditions... no where in the scriptures does it say that there were three wise men (magi). It does not mention a number, but only refers to them in the plural sense, and it merely lists three gifts. I am by no means a Biblical scholar. I guess what i really want this time of year, especially for Christians, is that this should be a time of reflection of why we celebrate the birth of Christ. We do indeed need to know that this season is a "borrowed" ;-) season, but it is less important to know the exact day as it is to know the who, and what His life ultimately accomplished. In many ways [my friend] the American church as a whole really has strayed from the teachings of Christ. The focus has turned away from God being the focus, to mankind being the focus. These are very broad statements, and I am not really sure how effectively I could discuss such things. I appreciate your willingness to share your points below. I hope you have a great holiday season, and that you get to "feast" and renew your relationships that you have allowed to lapse over the past year. Merry Christmas from your "religious" friend. -[samurai]

This, along with a few other conversations i've been having lately, have been helpful for me to be more aware of what Christ may be doing in my life lately. Where He may be leading me... hopefully i won't let fear get in the way... this time. Ok... on to my other thoughts... i want to take advantage of my time since i may not get to blog again tomorrow... Recently it was announced that McG has already begun work on a sequel to next May's Terminator Salavation. wOOt!!! \o/ I had heard that they were probably going to try and make it another trilogy in the Terminator story line. I also was able to see the second movie trailer: (http://rss.warnerbros.com/terminatorsalvation/) There are several other movies coming out around that time that i am really looking forward to... but this is my "big" one. I recently had tried to run a separate blog on my Fallout 3 experience, but it just wasn't working. I am also having trouble capturing and sharing my screen shots, so instead of boring people in a separate blog i thought i would just bore people here from time to time. LOL Anyway... I am going to run for now.... May God our out His Spirit upon all who stumble upon this blog.

And now a word from my Sponsor...

While catching up on blogs I frequent I came across some thought provoking posts over at Pure Church: The first one i would like to reference could be titled, "Would you come to Jesus if it cost you your life?" I have listened to the two video clips of interview between Kirk Cameron and John MacArthur. I have really been struggling with my attitude between my own church, and many churches that are in the "spotlight". 'Seeker friendly' services are such an anchor to the gospel... that is probably not a good description. What a travesty. What a false gospel! Are you willing to give your very life in service to Christ for your soul? Are you willing to deny yourself? The second is this proclamation by Shai Linne. To be perfectly honest i do not normally walk in this "circle"... but this man "gets it", and he is good at telling it like it is. In the past i have posted a personal dislike of Rap music in general, but i could get into this.

Music Monday - 20081215

My post today is going to be quick... My song for today is tied into my Music Monday post from last week...

Mary Did You Know lyrics by Mark Lowry, 1984 music by Buddy Greene, 1990 Mary, did you know That your baby boy will one day walk on water? Did you know That your baby boy will save our sons and daughters? Did you know That your baby boy has come to make you new? This child that you've delivered Will soon deliver you Mary, did you know That your baby boy will give sight to a blind man? Did you know That your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand? Did you know That your baby boy has walked where angels trod? And when you kiss your little boy You've kissed the face of god Mary, did you know? The blind will see The deaf will hear And the dead will live again The lame will leap The dumb will speak The praises of the lamb Mary, did you know That your baby boy is lord of all creation? Did you know That your baby boy will one day rules the nations? Did you know That your baby boy is heavens perfect lamb? This sleeping child you're holding Is the great I am

A powerful song...