Beer

I had Brandon as my roommate for one year when I lived near Washington State University in Pullman Washington. Brandon had to take technical writing class in order to finish earning his Bachelor of Science degree and he wrote about beer for his final project. I understand that his writing about beer was well accepted and that his teacher was willing to put his or her points where his or her mouth was so that Brandon's grades were quite good.

Brandon was quite generous and has provided the digital copies of his work to me. He has also given me permission to publish his work here for your enjoyment.

The Pullman/Moscow Beer Handbook

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my current community group leader and Seaside Church's newest elder for inviting me to his residence to drink beer with his family on the evening of December 23 of this year after he learned that I was sitting at home all by myself.

Picture #2

This is a picture of the Engstrom family which visited me on the evening of Sunday, November 4th, 2007. I am including it here because when I visited my neighbors a little while back (probably on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007) they asked me about the family that visited me which they noticed because of all of the child noises. I also include it because people have been accessing my blog and spending time on it because they were performing Google searches for Mr. Engstrom. I figure that more mentions of him means more traffic and since I don't have to pay for traffic, it can't be bad.

Mr. and Mrs. Engstrom have hosted a number of Seaside Church events at their home during this past summer and Mr. Engstrom has often taken the trouble to be sure that I am fed one way or the other. During one event this fall, I decided to return the favor and I was very surprised at how quickly he jumped for it. It has been observed that in many churches, the members are just waiting around to turn down any and every invitation that is extended to them (perhaps this is for the purpose of appearing self-sufficient) but I haven't run into that too much at Seaside Church.

Picture #1

I have just decided that I could probably get a whole lot of fun blogging done by uploading pictures and then typing about them. Here you go:


I took this picture at the Bible Study Methods class that Bishop Jefro teaches. The black writing on the right was copied by myself, although Joey read most of it to me. This picture was taken inside of the house that Seaside Church began to rent for office space because the Seaside Church office was being pushed away from the previously existing Seaside Church building by many many children. Fortunately, the landscape between said house and the Seaside Church building is conducive to controlled access between these buildings.

Those of us who attended this particular class session (11/7/07) learned that walking in the light is strongly related to confessing sins.

I don't always attend this class because sometimes I am busy serving the Seaside Church musicians instead. Now if I could just learn to do that cheerfully, I'd be all set. Well, maybe.

Not feeling good about myself

On Saturday, November 17th, I finished reading the first book that I have finished reading in a long time because I had stayed home from work for a couple of days prior to that due to an illness. You might think that I would have gotten around to reading this book as soon as I had nothing better to do, but when it comes to non-biblical books, I generally don't get around to reading much until there is almost nothing else to do.

I had been borrowing this book called Humility: True Greatness from my community group leader for a long time, but I got around to reading it after listening to a sermon about joy in humility by pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. That sermon can be accessed by clicking here.

When I started reading the book at my community group leader's home a long time ago, I got through a couple of chapters and I thought to myself, "This isn't so impressive. I could have written this because it is not rocket science," but I didn't get around to even remembering that until I was almost finished with reading the book this last time because I was so busy with thinking of my own problems and about how I don't seem to be as mature as I used to seem to be, even from my own perspective.

So if you are looking for a book that is guaranteed to not make you feel good about yourself, there you go.

October 31st, 2007

Because my church's Halloween costume party and under attended concert were held before October 31st, I had no particular plans for the use of my time after work on October 31st. As I was about to leave work, I decided to buy myself some skittles because I like skittles and I didn't get to eat any skittles at said Halloween costume party. I drove to Target in Sliverdale and bought some skittles. I also bought a copy of the Firefly TV-show on digital video disk because it was only $25 and I had already downloaded it all from the internet. I also drove to the library, but then I drove home.


As I was walking near my apartment building I saw one of my neighbors (I'll call him #5) entering the apartment of one of my other neighbors (I'll call her #10). #5 was dressed for the occasion and as I saw him, I began to think to myself about how Jesus got invited to parties and had a good time. I then proceeded to think to myself about how I never get invited to anything (exaggerating slightly). After that, I did some thought processing about how I must not have been like Jesus and about how being like Jesus would be preferable to my then current state because sometime after I entered my apartment, I prayed, telling Jesus that if he wanted to invite me to a party that night, it would be alright with me.

Not long after that, #5 & #10 arrived at my door (the one labeled #8) and invited me to the bar with them because they were going to attend a costume party. Being the really sharp person that I always have been, I decided that God's will was for me to go to the bar with them, so I thanked them and waited for the right time and put on my black Johhny Cash clothes and walked to the bar and drank my first Guinness which was not incredibly good. I think that they were surprised to see me I stayed for an hour or so and told the first part of this story that I have been typing and I left and I walked home without being run over.

I had forgotten how eating too many skittles makes me feel hung over well into the morning after.

Covenant Theology 2

Well, I just found out that my recent blogging about covenant theology is little more than a display of my own ignorance about covenant theology. I used title Covenant Theology as kind of a joke because I didn't even realize that anything that I was writing about could actually be related to the baptism of infants. I was wrong.

I have been referred to a great big book that was first published in eight (8) volumes on twenty-eight-hundred-eighty (2880) pages. I have located it at the local comedy (community) college library and maybe, just maybe, I will have something less ignorant to type about it later. By the way, isn't amazing how many different books have Systematic Theology as a title?

If you happen to be one of those people who understands these things already, please forgive my previous oversimplification.

Candy Partying

The October 31st of 2007 (and all future years) is being approached by us in our single speed time machines which we call our bodies. Seaside Church is planning to have a costume party on the 27th of this month instead of a candy party, but I have decided to publish my Candy Party Memo from last year again because it went over so well last year. Bleep, I even had a young, unmarried woman compliment it! Let's see what happens this year.

I plan to make an effort to get some more costume party information for this years event so that we can all see your costume and take your picture and never see it again. Bleep bleep, maybe there'll even be candy!

Covenant Theology

I attended the missional community group at my neighbor's home last night. For some reason the people who attended began to talk about covenants. The text was Amos chapter 3 and the word covenant does not appear in Amos, except in chapter 1, so I am not exactly sure why the people who attended began to talk about covenants, but I think that it had something to do with the fact that God had made a covenant with Israel and Israel is mentioned in the first several verses of Amos 3.

So I jumped in and recalled some knowledge that I had picked up from a sermon that I had listened to three (3) or four (4) years earlier which included an explanation about how eternal security works so well because there exists a covenant between God the Father and God the Son of which the other children of God are the beneficiaries. I was asked to blog about this this week. Hence, this writing.

The community group leader read to us from a Systematic Theology book and from Hebrews 8 & 9 and from Galatians 3 and from Jeremiah 31 & 32 about how the covenant which God made with Abraham is the same covenant that all of God's children are involved in now (the one that says that God counts faith in Jesus as the righteousness required to live in His presence as His friends), but since the time of Abraham, Jesus has fulfilled the human end of the covenant so that the covenant is effectively between God the Father and God the Son. This is convenient because a covenant that required something of men would surely fail. This makes me suspect that the mosaic covenant was rigged.

But I do plan to contact the person who delivered that one sermon all of those years ago and find out what is the reasoning for thinking that there is a particular covenant between God the Father and God the Son. I it isn't too hard to say that there must have been an informal covenant (binding agreement) between them to bring salvation to men through an acceptable vicarious sacrifice because that is what happened.

I have included my sermon notes from all of those years ago here. Note particularly the large paragraph on page 1.

Football

Now I have been to three football games during my lifetime. All of the football games that I have been to were high school football games. The first football game that I traveled to was in Sultan, Washington. I went there and watched my friend Lane Barnhill lose. I went to another game last year at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds, hoping to see Central Kitsap play, but I attended on the wrong day.

Last night I decided to attend another high school football game and I traveled with the family of one of the coaches so that I would be sure to choose the correct time and place.

We got to see Real Deal Mark Keel do one of his jobs. You can see his back in this picture. The back of his jacket has an orange triangle on it. The team members associated with Central Kitsap High School were wearing the orange shirts. I think that the Central Kitsap High School quarterback did not get sacked during this play.


Some of the people pictured here are some of the people with whom I traveled to the high school football game.


Here is an image of Real Deal Mark Keel's wife.

I was told to take pictures of a particular young lady doing junior cheer leading during halftime. I didn't do a very good job. One of the pictures that I took is pictured directly below this text.
Perhaps a more interesting picture of the same subjects is directly below this text.No one sitting around me was feeling very enthused during the minutes one either side of halftime. I wonder if that was my fault. I guess that I'll include another baby picture for you, and then some more football pictures.
The Central Kitsap Cougars did not allow those out of town Lion people to score any touchdowns.

Of all of the times that I attended football games this was the first time during which the team that I attended to see smashed the other team. The score was 21 points - 3 points. Don't confuse points with watermelons or other things.

Even better Judgement

A reasonable person might think that the last post was quite enough. Bishop Jefro has probably been thinking to himself that he doesn't ever want to make root beer again except perhaps for his own personal use and that Joshua should have just shut up and been grateful for it.

I am sure that all of you noticed that I was trying really hard to be annoyed with the comments that became attached to my last blogging post. I really wish that I hadn't tried so hard to be annoyed with these comments, particularly those from the church leadership because I have learned that at least two church leaders have had to have discussions about me and that must have required time. That time is time that could have spent on the mission or on resting or being refreshed by my joy and progress in the faith (if I had chosen to have joy or progress in the faith). But I didn't. I was too busy trying to create and maintain confusion regarding the alleged mixing of children and alcohol at a Seaside Church event.

I hope that all of you will forgive the foolishness which I typed into the last blog post. I will likely re-write it and do away with the document as it exists now. If you particularly like it for some reason, please save it to your hard drive now becayse for me to have where it is is embarassing.

My Weird Church

This morning I decided to act in accordance with my better judgment and submit to the wishes expressed in the comments of the official elder and the unofficial elder both of whom dared to tell me what I should write. I used to think that I was slow to anger. I used to think that I could live with authority. That was before I met people who actually use authority.

So, let it be known that it is the expressed desire of the Seaside Church leadership that all of you who read this blog post know that none of the bottles pictured herein did contain alcohol at the time during which these pictures were taken.

Now, if I could just find some way to get around those biblical commands to be subject to spiritual authority so that I can do whatever the hell I want.

Today there was a baptism at which three people became baptized. Lots of us decided to travel to Tom Engstrom's house (pictured below). That person doing the cooking in that picture up there told me yesterday that by watching a movie called The Blues Brothers I could learn what would be required to build a culturally relevant church for black men (and their families).

Tom Engstrom had some very uncomfortable surgery performed upon his body last week. For some reason, he decided to be hospitable anyway. Please note the beer bottle in Mr. Tom Engstrom's hand. This beer bottle is kind of like the beer bottle which is pictured in the picture above it.

This is a picture of Tom Engstrom's backyard.

Here is an image of some kid with another beer bottle.

I figure that as long as I am making people happy, I had can make Crystal happy by removing this picture also.

Here is a picture of two of the people who were about to be baptized who were also having their picture taken while holding beer bottles.

Here is a picture of the person who was baptized first. Inconveniently, I don't seem to have an image of this person holding a beer bottle. Conveniently, there seemed to be a number of beer bottles such that each person present seemed to be able to empty one all by himself or herself. I didn't even hear any mothers saying, No Billy, you only get ONE!

This is an image of the person who was baptized second. It is also an image of the newly installed elder whose name is Eric Schuette and who is also my community group leader. I think that he is the only elder of Seaside Church who plans on attending any one community group consistently.

This is an image of the person who was baptized third.

Here are some other pictures that seem to have come out well:

MS Office 2007 vs. MS Office 2003

Today I uninstalled Microsoft Office 2007 Home & Student trial version so that it neither runs nor is installed upon my new computer. I did this because ever since I got used to Microsoft Office 2003 Professional on my first computer, I felt like Microsoft had kind of arrived as far as the program doing what it was supposed to and managing to do lots of things for me without doing them only halfway and without doing a whole load of things that I never want. It doesn't try to be smarter than it really is, but it makes things easier than they were in previous versions.

Even so, I gave Office 2007 a try for ~three (3) weeks and I have not been favorably impressed. I don't know what is to be gained by doing away with the traditional menu bar, and the substitute seem to arbitrary for me. Maybe I would like it better if I took a class. But I don't want to take a class because that would require time and money.

I came home from my little trip to a portion of the east side of the Pacific Ocean, during which I had a fair amount of time to think because I didn't bring very many audio compact discs with me and because radio reception is not good way over there, and I thought to myself that I should make sure that Microsoft Office 2003 will function on top of the Windows Vista platform. So I did, and I also found out that there is a Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. This pack is available for free download from Microsoft and allows said Microsoft Office programs of some previous versions of said programs to view, edit, and save their respective files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.

I haven't tried it yet, but this download was the thing that convinced me to switch back to Microsoft Office 2003 Professional.

Practicing

Do you like the way I manage to have so many pictures become parts of my Words blog? A number of people have told me that they like the pictures and that the words are just not interesting enough for them. Oh well. As I looked at the pictures from Adam's wedding, I realized that I had forgotten that I have a camera that can take halfway decent pictures when it is used outside during the daytime (local time of course), so I have been using it a bit more than I had been before that time.

I traveled to a portion of the eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean. I guess that a more orthodox way of saying that would be I traveled to a portion of the west coast of Washington State. I was hoping (unrealistically) to meet someone there, but I ran out of energy with which to look for him when I arrived there hungry (my own fault) and then rain began to fall with intensity that seemed to be ever increasing (nothing that I could have done about that). Seeing the ocean was nice, but it involved a lot of driving. I began to think of all sorts of things that I could have done instead, but the activity did beat sitting at home with my own degenerative thoughts. I need to find a place that is very conducive to spiritual discipline other than my own home when it is in good order. Have you any ideas?

as I was driving along, I remembered a portion of a book that I had previously (as opposed to futuristically) which indicated that anytime that men are on road trips with women and they are driving, they need to stop every half hour. So just to practice (just in case I ever find myself driving in such a situation) I decided to stop twice -- once on my way to said ocean, and once on my way back home from said ocean. I took pictures of the location of my second stop because it was kind of interesting. The body of water pictured in said pictures is called Lake Crescent.

This is an image of the Illuminate 2 which has yet to fail me.

Work Pictures

This is a picture of my shoes and my blue jeans and my shoelaces which match my bluejeans. I selected the shoelaces at Target where there was minimal lighting because said Target store was not being provided with electricity. I was able to go shopping that morning because my place of employment was not being provided with electricity either. Fortunately, my home was being provided with electricity, so I sat at home for most of the rest of that day.

This is an image of me and the piece of watermelon which I ate yesterday afternoon. It tasted kind of nice and I didn't spill too much of it on the drawings or on the desk.

More Visitors

I matched my all time high of five (5) visitors again this evening. I had a very nice time because Eric and Abby and Avery and Emily and Halsey came to visit me and eat my food and share their food with me. Eric is my community group leader and he came directly from his football coaching to his family's home where his family honored him by waiting so that they could all travel to my home together.

The older children seemed to be cranky and hungry because the energy that used to be within them had been depleted during their afternoon at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds, but that hunger and crankiness seemed to vanish during the meal.

So while I was eating and after my guests had finished eating, their was some conversing. Some of that conversing went something like this:

Emily: Mommy, why doesn't Joshua have a wife?
Abby: Why don't you ask Mr. Horky? Ask Mr. Horky.
Emily: says nothing. Is again prompted by her mother
Abby: Go ahead and ask him Lilly, it's nothing to be embarrassed about
Me: (not yet knowing what Emily's question is) It's over there (pointing toward the bathroom)
Emily: That's not what I was going to ask.
Abby: Say, "Mr." (waits) "Joshua" (waits) "why" (waits) "don't" (waits) "you" (waits) "have"...
Emily: ... a wife?
Me: Because I'm picky and the women whom I pick are picky and there are conflicts in the synthesis of our pickiness.

Alright, that last line didn't really come out quite that well, but I was happy to hear such a question from a little girl who just walked into my home for the first time to eat a meal.

After dinner we took some pictures and watched some football and music videos on my two notebook computers and Halsey fell asleep while I held him and then it was time to leave. Oh. Eric didn't take long to discover that I haven't read nearly all of the books on my bookshelf.

This is a picture of Eric holding Halsey while sitting in the chair that Avery says looks as though Halsey pooped green or yellow or some such color all over it.

This is a picture of Emily realizing that she really is still hungry and wants to eat even more dinner.

This is a picture of Abby (not to be confused with Abby herself).

This is a picture of all of my guests staring at other pictures which are being displayed by my computers.

This is a picture of baby Halsey who began to sleep numerous times during the evening.

Thank you for viewing these mediocre quality pictures.

Adam & Liumi become married 1

I attended a wedding today. Today was a nice day as far as the weather goes. I've included some pictures in this post. A couple of them are pictures of me having my picture taken. I think that I need some more practice with that. Oh well.

This is an image of me and the man who became married at the event which I attended today.

This is an image of me and the woman who became married at the event which I attended today.
This is an image of the first champaign that I have ever consumed. I consumed it during this afternoon.

This is an image of my community group leader providing for the needs of his family before the wedding began, but after the wedding was supposed to have begun. My community group leader attended the same wedding event that I attended this afternoon.

Blogging after the Jazz Event

Last night's jazz event has ended. I found out that the feedback was caused by the lead musician on purpose, so I don't feel so bad about it anymore. I was given some pictures of the event, but I don't like any of them very much, so I left them out of the blog. Not much money was made for the chairs, but I guess that that beats losing money to caterers and musicians.

I managed to not give the lead musician such a bad time that he never wants to come back. I know this because the man who ran the show told me that the lead musician wants to help with advertisements next time. Free advertising is always nice. Now if we could just make money while we get people to advertise (I never did understand those beer shirts).

I found out that root beer bottles that have root beer inside of them are not supposed to be shaken up.

Blogging from the Jazz Event 4

Well, Real Deal Mark Keel has arrived with his wife and begun to eat. The saxophone player has become a flute player. I didn't know that flutes were part of jazz music, but now I know that flutes (or at least this one) are a part of jazz music. Oh, that song has ended and now she has become a saxophone player again.

Blogging from the Jazz Event 3

Well the dinner part is over and the desert part has begun. I know this because the dinner serving dishes have been removed from the food distribution area and the deserts have been moved from my left to the food distribution area. Conveniently for all of these people, I am a phenyleketonuric and I am not able to eat the deserts in a healthy way, so there are some deserts left for the attenders of this event. Isn't that nice?

I wonder what will happen next.

Blogging from the Jazz Event 2

Well, the 1st root beer was good and people have arrived and the live music has started, but I haven't seen anyone checking tickets.

I think I mentioned in the pre-event post that the proceeds from this event are to be spent upon chairs for church, so if any of you would like to get up from your computers to Seaside Church directly across the street from Evergreen Park here in Bremerton just to drop some money off for us here, please do because someone's rear end will appreciate the purchase(s) resulting from your donation(s). An even better plan would be for you to show up at said church on Sunday morning and hand over said money.

The man in charge just told me that the tickets got axed.

Oh, and I just had some feedback through the guitar channel. Perhaps that is because I have never heard that guitar before I didn't get to set it up ahead of time, or maybe it is because I jacked the slider as far away from me as I could move it without moving myself or the board. I suppose that I should know better. Oh well, at least I didn't let it become very developed.

Blogging from the Jazz Event 1

I arrived at this event before I had planned to because I was called at home about one half hour before I had planned to leave said house. I was told that the musicians were ready to do a sound track and play background music and so on. I tried to leave said house immediately but was unable to do so because of the magazine saleswoman who was trying to win personality points for a contest because the reward for the contest was $1000. It sounded a lot like the program that I was told about my another sales woman on the Wednesday before. I disappointed them both.

When I arrived here, the band leader asked me when I wanted to have the sound check. I thought that he was in a hurry and unhappy about me not arriving as early as him so I answered, "in about forty seconds." I entered the building and began to turn things on and he followed me and told me that we should wait for a band member and perform the sound check half of an hour later.

We finally made it through a sound check without his band and argued about the best way for him to make a recording with his MD recorder. Then I was offered a root beer and dug out my computer, and I'll probably be blogging about this little event as the slow parts come.

Jazz Event at Seaside Church

On Friday, August 17th, I get to do some sound mixing for a jazz event. Well, perhaps my volunteer will be doing it instead of me, but neither of us has ever mixed jazz before and neither of us has ever mixed anything that anyone has paid money to listen to, but maybe it will go well anyway. Please note that the date on the poster shown below is wrong. Oh, and there will be alcohol. I mention that because I have recently learned that knowledge of the presence of alcohol seems to make people interested, even in church events. So consider yourself invited if you are old enough to legally consume alcohol and enjoy jazz music without disturbing the people around you. Oh yes, the profit is to be spent on new chairs so that the next event can be made even more classy and comfortable.

Clarity of mind

I helped a business in Poulsbo move after work on Wednesday and this moving took four hours and the job still wasn't done at the end of those four hours and I became quite tired because I am a paper pushing, mouse clicking civil engineer who doesn't generally visit the field even once a week.

I returned to my home after I was all through and cleaned myself off and climbed into my twin-sized bed and fell asleep after a while. Then, after a while longer, I woke up again and then after some more time had gone by, I thought to myself, "my body is quite tired, but my head is quite clear. My head was not clear like this before talking to worship pastor Patso on Tuesday." Then I remembered how the NIV reads in 1 Peter 4:8.

The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray.

So we now know about one of the things that can be done with a clear mind.

Of course we can think of things to do to acquire or maintain a clear mind like:

1. Confessing our sins
2. Not becoming drunk
3. Eating our breakfasts
4. Sleeping when we're supposed to so that we can be awake when we're supposed to
5. Many, many other things which you may choose to type about in the comment field

1 Peter 4:7 indicates that doing these little things can help us to deal with the end times.

From my secretary to all of you

My secretary (who is not really my secretary) set her doggy on my desk today while I was trying to do work. She then took a picture of me with her doggy. Aside from the evidence of the goo on the lens, I like the picture, so I have placed it here. Note the new-to-me 19" flat screen monitor that I get to use. It is much nicer than monitor that I used to use at work. Also note the large array of project boxes.

After I finished working, I drove to Kingston and used the ferry boat to transport me to Edmonds so that I could travel to my dear sister's house in Monroe. She will be leaving for missionary school in a week or so. She is pictured here playing a word game with my brother.

We finished off the day with the not-so-great Charolett's web movie in Lake Tye Park and Apples to Apples and ice cream. I never have a good time sleeping at my dear sister's house and that is why I am blogging right now.

Sitting in a room, big and dark

Last night I went to a local movie theater and received a student (or military) discount for the first or second time in my life even though I am no longer a student and I have never been a part of the United States military. The movie which watched was recommended by Trevor and was called Transformers. I had no idea what the transformers movie was about because I was not allowed to play with transformers or read about transformers as a child because my mother determined that she had better things to do than to determine whether or not the somewhat ugly looking toys were related to anything good. It had its problems, but was quite fun. Even more fun than the Spider Man 3 movie. The person who gave me the unexpected discount at the movie theater was a lady and most of the men whom I know would probably have advised me to pay a bit of attention. But none of them were there to remind me, so I don't even remember anything about what her name is or what she looks like. Oh well.

Having more movies that I want to see, in a theater than I can justify spending money to see is unusual for me. I am not used to more than two interesting movies being built in a year.

Curbing your disappointment

On Saturday night, worship pastor Patso informed me that the rate at which I have been posting updates to this blog has been disappointing of late. Having disappointed leadership is not good, so I am typing this to offset that disappointment in a desirable direction.

Unfortunately, I do not seem to have sufficient imagination or inclination to type a real post or to finish any of those posts which are in my drafts folder, so I am left with referring you to something that you have never seen before (most likely).

I am referring you to blog writings that were written by the wife of my good friend Brandon. Brandon and his wife are more liberal than I am, but we are still friends because they seem to love Jesus.

Loving Jesus is one of the subjects of the writing to which I am about to refer you. The lady typed about a song called, My Jesus, I love Thee. The song has a chorus and this chorus ends with the words, If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, tis now. I have wondered a number of times, "What makes the vocalists think that they love Jesus any more during the last chorus than during the first chorus? Is it just the singing of the song? Perhaps we should get the whole world to sing this song so that everyone will have some love for Jesus." Brandon's wife wrote better and more interesting things about this song than these. You may read them by clicking here.

This lady also wrote a bit about patriotism while I was in church this week. You may read it by clicking here.

Oh yes, this same lady also wrote the gag tract which I posted earlier.

New people igniting dry humor with fireworks

Have you ever been in a church or at the meeting of a special interest group and had your buddy take hold of your shoulder while earnestly whispering in your ear, Friend, look over there! It's a new person! If this has ever happened to you, you probably responded by turning your head in the same direction that your buddy had been pointing and you expected to see someone who had been born only the day before. But of course, you were disappointed because there before you, seemingly at the end of the finger of his or her introducer was someone who had clearly not been born yesterday, or had he? You never know, because some people are born twice.

I finally got around to taking a picture of a person whom I met upon the day directly after the day upon which he was born the first time. His name is Halsey. Please gaze upon this picture which contains an image of himself. The same picture also includes an image of another person named Joel whom I met once at church and have spoken with several times at community group.

I have included that little bit of dry humor because I need to explain the difference that exists between dry humor and wet humor by contrasting them.

I had community group at my house last week and only two people showed up and both of them were women (they were still women when I saw them this evening as well). One of them brought a whole load of food because we were expecting a lot of people who decided to not come. We read through a lot of scripture verses about the day of the Lord and how disastrous it will be for many people (all of those who do not trust in the Lord). We prayed. We ate food. One these women left. The other woman invited me to watch fireworks in Poulsbo with her and yet another woman. I'll call this other woman Lady C.

I think that fireworks on the 3rd of July is a really good plan because it enables people to have a good time staying up late before a vacation morning which can then be used for what could normally be called excessive sleeping, but would normally just be called sleeping in. This leaves the evening of the 4th of July free for going to bed at a prudent hour so that work can be done well during the 5th of July. I don't know why I didn't think of it. It works just like New Years Eve and New Years Day!

Lady C was still busy working when I arrived with one of the first two women. I'll call this woman Lady A (Just in case you were wondering about Lady B, be informed that she departed and left my home directly after the community group event ended and was hidden from my sight until Sunday). So Lady A explained to me a bit about power ballards whilst I explained to her a bit about how to wipe compact discs without damaging them excessively even though lady A kept going into and out of the place of employment of Lady C to see if she had yet completed her labors over which she had presumably been laboring laboriously.

At l e n g t h these labors were complete (or maybe quiting time finally arrived, I don't really know which) and we picked up chairs from the place of employment (perhaps I should say from a place of employment for she has a couple) of Lady C and sat upon them in various locations about the parking lot from which we expected to see fireworks. After some discussion we found a place near a kid who needed to be told to not tackle bushes. This location was mere feet away from a fence which surrounded a large stormwater detention pond, so I got to spend a while explaining to ladies A & C about why stormwater detention ponds are built. Lady C related to myself and to Lady A one of her own experiences which she experienced while employed by an engineering company in California and how she quit over a conflict between her own wardrobe and the dress code of said company. It was quite enlightening for me. Then some people shared some wet humor.

My mother raised me to avoid wet humor entirely, so I stuck to dry humor, which leaves me many more options than wet humor because everybody knows that all wet humor is about the same thing, but dry humor includes endless variations.

Several pictures were taken by a 2.1 Megapixel camera that had a battery that quickly became depleted.

The fireworks were not very impressive in any way. They could not be heard very well from my location.

I was transported back to my home without incident.

Ladies A & C were very nice to put up with me for part of their evenings, and to request this report.

Traveling to Mars Hill Church

I went to Mars Hill Church yesterday for the first time in 364 days. Mars Hill Church is the flagship of the Acts 29 network. I figured that I had been away so long that I could justify going again when Tim asked me if I wanted to go on Thursday. Tim is my volunteer at church. I used to think that I was the A/V lead, but I learned from a piece of church literature yesterday that I can probably get by with calling myself a service producer.

Tim and I finished up with our one (1) service at Seaside Church and decided that we wanted to show up for the 1700 service and joked that we would attend both the 1700 service and the 1900 service. I offered to build lunch for Tim, but he had family to visit, so we agreed to meet at the ferry terminal at 1500. I went home and ate something and drove back to Seaside Church for parking and walked approximately one mile to the ferry boat. I arrived as the gate was opening so that I could board the ferry boat. Tim and Tim's sister joined me after I had decided that I would make the trip all by myself if Tim didn't show himself. We managed to get along during the ferry boat ride to Seattle and we discussed how I could save approximately $500/month on housing.

We arrived in Seattle and found the bus stop. Tim and Tim's sister decided to buy coffee and managed to finish just in time to hurry across the street and into the bus before it departed.

I have not traveled on very many buses. I traveled on a bus in Seattle with my friend Darin Brill when I visited him in Seattle once, but he had to tell me exactly what to do and what not to do. I rode a bus in Pullman Washington once, but I had instructions on the amateur radio and from other passengers. I think that the only other times during which I rode a bus were long ago when I was quite young and I was following my mother around because I was not allowed to chose to do otherwise.

I looked like I didn't know what I was doing when I tried to begin the bus trip by paying at the beginning of a trip that originated in the ride-free zone. Then I insisted that we get off one stop too soon and we had to walk across the 15th Avenue bridge. I have included a picture of Tim and Tim's sister traveling across the 15th Avenue bridge because of my mistake while carrying some of my stuff so that I could take a picture of them walking across the 15th Avenue bridge because of my mistake. None of the cars smashed themselves into any of us.

We arrived at Mars Hill Church Ballard in just enough time for me to greet my friend Darin Brill and to utilize the facilities and to be one minute early. I mean, we arrived in just enough time for my friend Darin Brill to greet me (because he was in charge of all of the greeters).

1 Timothy 2:8

Perhaps I should be putting this on the dead man blog, and perhaps I will after I verify my citations. I will be quoting a pastor regarding a subject about which I have not heard him speak in a number of years and I have recently received rebuke for misquoting people. So there may be some revisions

This little part of my blog is about the application of this verse here:

I Timothy 2:8
I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing. (NIV)

Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension. (NASB)

Although there are many ways in which to worship God, to worship God in a way other than the way which He has established as acceptable is not necessarily recommended.

To "worship" God in a way contrary to the way which He has established has been condemned and is still dangerous. E.g. Leviticus 10

In the application of the scriptural text which is above, these two ways of worship are mutually exclusive (although I suppose that worship of God that is an afront to God may not really be worship of Him at all, but only something else, i.e. an afront to God)

1. Acceptable: Raising your hands in worship to Jesus while trusting God to restore all things and also bring His judgment with speed and finality
2. Condemned: Raising your hands in "worship" to Jesus while dissatisfied because of His foreign and/or domestic policy (think about Jonah)

This was pointed out to me by Pastor Dale Swanson of Reaching Men Ministries and other such things who was once an interim pastor at Sky Valley Bible Church which I attended immediately prior to moving myself to Pullman Washington. I remember that on more than one occasion he indicated from the pulpit that during worship services some of us acted even more uptightly than a bunch of baptists [in a bar]. There were a number of people there who likely would have been members of the frozen chosen society had there been a local chapter. But in pointing out an application of the above passage, he asserted that the reason that so few people in that congregation raised their hands during worship services was that the majority of the people there were angry with other people and didn't want God's mercy for those other people.

When I heard this, I thought to myself, "that sounds about right." Because of this warning (coupled with my anger towards some people) and the fact that I had grown up in that particular church, I never raised my hands during a worship service before December 6th of 2005.

I find the above scripture to be inconvenient because there is much aggravation to be had in the church and I have noticed that I have to do spiritual discipline if I am going to be able to get along with the people with whom I minister. So I have found that I can go to church and waste my time by not worshiping Jesus appropriately because of my anger, or I can trust God to take care of the things that I am angry about.

This can be difficult because I have a tendency to invent things to be angry about when there is nothing to make me angry. I forget that God is more interested in changing me to become more like Him than He is changing the whole rest of the world so that I will like it (--Danielle Deniet). On the other hand, this has nothing to do with failing to resist evil in its various forms.

Competition and Community Group

Well Crystal finally put up her new blog. It is much more interesting than I thought that it would be because it is not primarily about the thing that I thought that it would primarily be about. I thought she was just going to use it to make fun of my blog, but she quickly became bored with that and started blogging about herself and about Jesus, both of whom are more interesting than making fun of my blog. You can read about all of those things at http://thisgirlspointofview.blogspot.com/

I had community group at my house for the first time last night. Four people besides myself came. The people who attended had all sorts of questions to ask me like, Why is your apartment not furnished? and Why are only two of the light bulbs in your chandelier shining? I don't really have a good answer concerning my chandelier except that it keeps the energy consumption and heat down and I have not been lacking light, but I was able to win somebody over concerning the lack of sufficient furnishings in my apartment.

We did get around to re-reading the texts from which the sermon had been preached and to asking ourselves questions about how the different parts fit together and we all seemed to be able to bring ourselves into agreement with what we understood God to be saying. One major point was that we should not waste time on trying to figure out how the end times are going to work because no matter how they work, they will be disastrous for many people without Jesus, whose death and resurrection are the primary points of the gospel. These two extremes (wasting time on times and dates and the primary points of the gospel) are assigned values in 1 Cor 15 (note verse three and verse 35).

Then prayer time came and went and then everybody left. Oh yes, someone brought cake too. Oh, and I felt strange when one attendee thanked me for my hospitality because he is an active part of the United States military, without which my hospitality would not be possible. It was kind of funny, almost like when we give God the money and other things which He gave to us previously.

My mistake

I received some negative comments about my blog on Sunday. Crystal told me that she really didn't say that my empty bun was a veggie burger. Crystal was really trying to inform me that I could fill my empty bun with something called a veggie burger. I neglected her kind message to me and missed out on the veggie burger as well as the pleasure of quoting her correctly the first time on my blog.

Crystal has threatened to start her own blog at http://ibloginspiteofjoshua.blogspot.com, but it has yet to appear. If it does appear, I will have my first real opposition and I am sure that my site traffic will increase a lot. Perhaps I should make more mistakes. But if there are mistakes that I should make, are those really mistakes at all?

Father's Day 2007 (or visiting SVBC) part 2

Right, so I played Age of Empires 2 with my little brother. We lost the first game, but we made things easy on ourselves and won the second game. My mother built mashed potatoes for me and I ate them at the dinning room table with mom and dad and little brother and other little brother. We ate late so that my brothers were made to prepare for sleeping immediately following the meal.

Dad and I watched a movie on VHS. This movie was called John Q. about a man who put up a violent front to save his son's life after his company sold his insurance out from under him. The movie made me realize that I have no idea what being a father is like. I went to sleep after that and managed to wake up in time to ride with my father to church.

I even woke up in time to load my father's recording equipment into the little car which my mother had kindly emptied the night before. I have included a picture of my father with his recording equipment.

This was to be the first time that I attended Sky Valley Bible Church in six months, but I knew that a fair amount of the format there had changed. Sky Valley Bible Church meets in a high school and has been in the habit of using the seats which are at multiple elevations (those at the back are higher than those at the front), but Sky Valley Bible Church leadership really likes to talk about and think about being a family and they also like to make themselves feel like they are a family, so they decided to use an electric motor to move the elevated seats on one end of the room to make room to set up a multitude of seats at the finished floor elevation instead. This seems to make everyone feel more like a family than did the former format. I noticed that the music sounds substantially better within this new format than it did within the previous format. This may be because of the new electric piano and the increased skill of some musicians.

The sermon was about Father's day and the text was from Psalm 86. I have no idea what the pastor was trying to say because I wasn't listening at all, but was wondering how long his sermon would last. It wasn't even that long, but I began to wonder even before the service began. Oh yes, he quoted a bit of secular research regarding the importance of fathers and said something like, If you haven't been a father to your children, start now. I am sure that there was something more biblically based in there somewhere, but again, I wasn't listening.

I spent the rest of the afternoon by taking a nap and visiting my brother's new horse and by eating a piece of dutch apple pie from Burger King because that is where my dad likes to go to eat food away from home.

I left my parent's house at about 2130 because a late dinner and arrived at my own home before midnight. I didn't even wreck the Illuminate 2.

I wish that I had a more grateful heart regarding my father because he has been an enormous blessing to me. Actually, I could stand to have a fair amount of who I am reconfigured entirely. Maybe I will get around to typing how I came about this little bit of information about myself later.

Community Group 1

One of the meetings of my Missional Community Group took place last night.

I have included the picture of an instant of this meeting on the left there not because it makes me look good (clearly), but because it is the only picture that I was able to have taken last night; my batteries only had enough energy for one picture and my backups had been sitting around for far too long to be worth anything.

The beer in the blue cup was the first beer from a can which I had ever consumed, and I did not find it positively impressive, but it was a gift which was offered to me by a military man directly after he learned that I had finished with my engineering exam. I felt very uncultured after I had begun to pour the can of beer into the blue cup which I had been using for dihydrogen monoxide because Crystal decided to tell me that there was too much foam on the top of the beer which I had poured into the blue cup and that I was supposed to tip the blue cup while pouring. I was later informed that I was not supposed to pour the beer into the blue glass at all. Isn't it convenient that people in the beer drinking community are so pleased to share the correct cultural protocols?

My whole community group seemed to be on a mission to rejoice with me, even though I wasn't bent upon rejoicing.

Hostess: When you found out that you passed, did you jump up and down?
Me (not wanting to think long enough to remember that I did jump up and down): I don't remember.
Hostess: I would have jumped up and down.

I got to eat oreos and potato chips and a hot dog bun. Crystal told me that the hot dog bun is called a veggie bun or something like that when it is empty. I can't imagine why it is called that.

Please note that Real Deal Mark Keel (pictured) is not the military man whom I mentioned above.

Father's Day 2007 (or visiting SVBC) part 1

I went to visit my dad on the day before father's day. I arrived at 1500 because I had been busy listening to pastor Dale Swanson preach about relating to women for four hours in a little tiny baptist church in Bremerton which took me forever to find. Listening to him was most interesting because most of it was stuff that I have heard from the Acts 29 Network, but with different illustrations. There is to be another such event in August, and I think that I know of some other people who would benefit from it.

Upon my arrival at my father's house, my father and my little brother continued building an additional sling for their trebuchet and took it out to the lawn for testing. They now have two slings: one for golf balls and one for tennis balls. The trebuchet seems to work well. I caught the tennis ball which was hurled by the trebuchet as a result of my first attempt.

After testing the trebuchet, I went inside and prepared to play Age of Empires II with said brother while my mother and other brother returned home. So of course I had to postpone the game a few minutes to unload my mother's car and to make sure that my mother knew that I had noticed her and regarded her presence because no one likes to be ignored.

This reminds me of the only time that I went to a Bible Quiz meet in Cranbrook British Columbia because upon the somewhat late arrival of myself and my teammates, those hosting the meet met us all (~30 quizzers and coaches) and gave us a welcome and told us exactly where to put our stuff, how we could help them to get the meet started quickly, and passed around the please spend money here type gifts from the mayor of the city (that letter has got to be one of the only letter that I have ever received from a politician that doesn't say vote for me).

All of that is to say, if you live with someone whom you love, you may be able to show it by deferring whatever you have been doing to the unloading of his/her vessel or the lightening of his/her load as he/she enters your residence. Similar ideas can be used in other places on people who are not living with you.

FE/EIT

I passed the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, which is also called the Engineer In Training Exam!

I had to take this exam twice. I do not particularly think that I did any better the second time than I did the first time, but during my second examination, I did manage to accurately indicate which module of the exam I was going to take in the afternoon so that my exam key was graded correctly.

Now that I have finished with this exam, I won't have to explain the last paragraph to any employers ever again! Isn't this nice? Praise Jesus!

I am not completely helpless

I am taking a little break from blogging about spiritual things. I may never cease to be amazed (from time to time) at how much aggravation there is to be had inside of Jesus' church, just among those who are committed to the one mission. I must remember what Pastor Dale Swanson once said, which was to the effect of, "If you knew that tomorrow morning, one of your Christian brothers or sisters was going to be found dead, hanging on a streetlight downtown, you wouldn't care which church you went to. You wouldn't care if they spoke in tongues or not, you wouldn't care if they baptized their babies... you would just be glad to be with a brother who loved Jesus and believed the Bible. I don't think that having the ability to be choosy and seemingly independent means that I should be so. But I am taking a break from that (now where's that seat belt?).

The reason that I can say that I am not completely helpless is:

You guessed it! Yesterday, I sewed my own button onto my own pants with my own needle and my own thread all by myself after I realized that the original thread was failing. I even used thread that matched the pants. My employer's wife informed me that I should have done it her way, and not just the way that I was instructed to do it by the internet, but it seems to be working.

Civil Engineering

I have been working as a civil engineer for more than a year now and I have decided to share with you some of the things that I have learned during that time.

1. Always use some sort of interface between your body and a manhole cover when moving the manhole cover. I am sure that you all remember reading about how I got my finger stuck directly beneath a manhole cover.
   
2. When topographical maps created from data gathered by your company's survey team conflicts with the opinion of a property owner who says "your survey doesn't show how the land really is," believe the survey. One property owner entered the office of my company because he claimed that my design assumed that water would flow uphill. He dragged myself and my boss out to his property where he had to apologize for his ignorance which he had forced upon us in arrogance. He brought us flowers later that day. Job 38:2
   
3. Sometimes people invent problems. Like Professor Hill in The Music Man musical, people call engineers to tell them things like, "Oh we've got trouble, yes, we're in terrible, terrible trouble. We've got trouble and that starts with T and stands for Tank. The tank you designed is full of water! I visited the site along with a county inspector and a county engineer who immediately determined with me that the tank would begin to drain immediately following the installation of a tank outlet (which was included in my design). My boss's wife said that it was a good thing that they sent pokerface (that's me) for the site visit because my boss would have died laughing if he had been there.
   
4. Don't change your analysis just to please a client. I recently analyzed an existing detention system to determine whether or not it would be sufficient to mitigate the increased runoff that would be expected to flow from a newly planned development. I determined that one part of that system needed to be expanded. Because this expansion would cost money, I had multiple people calling me and telling me that I was wrong and that I had missed something and that this would have to be discussed with my boss and so on. Just last week, the most persistent of those people admitted that he wrong and all but apologized for questioning my work.
5. When a man and a woman disagree regarding the location of a property corner, the woman is right. I don't know how this works and it has never been shown to me, but my boss tells me that women remember these things best.
6. Never back the company truck off of the stabilized construction entrance.
   

Spiritual blogging (unmarried this weekend?)

I just blogged about more spiritual things (just what you all have always wanted to read).

http://wakingthesleeper.blogspot.com/2007/05/being-single-on-saturdays.html

Bishop Jefro

I will be blogging about worship pastor Patso again soon because I wound up at his house again last night, even though he didn't invite me to his house and I did not plan to visit his house.

I can't seem to remember exactly how I did it, but on Sunday evening, I talked bishop Jefro into allowing me to invite myself over to his house anytime that I wanted to. On Wednesday, I tried to invite myself over to his house, and we decided that I could visit his house on Friday evening.

So on Friday, I climbed aboard the Illuminate 2 and traveled along the same road that my dad lived on years ago to visit bishop Jefro. I was five minutes early so I decided to sit in my car on the side of the road, near the outside edge of a bend in the road and wondered whether or not any cars would fly off of the road into the Illuminate 2. I decided that I should stop wondering about that.

At the appointed time, I was received into bishop Jefro's home and the television was turned off and bishop Jefro and his wife began to tell me all about their cat and their local library and how repulsive bishop Jefro used to be to his wife before they were married and they fed me an orange and a sweet potato and brown sugar and butter substitute. Then I watched them feed their son and prepare their son for bed because their son is not yet one year old and needs help with these things. Oh, they told me about their cat too.

I was asked about how I got to Seaside Church from Pullman, and they didn't want to hear about how I got into my little car and drove, so I had to tell them which church I used in Pullman and which house I lived in and which website I used to learn about Seaside Church and what I didn't like about the other churches that I tried in the area. I didn't mention Dale Swanson to both of them, but I have realized that he is probably the person who prepared me most for typical Acts 29 events like the one I had last night at worship pastor Patso's house.

In as much as most of the women who attend Seaside Church had gone away to learn about sabbathing, but bishop Jefro's wife was unable to do that for various reasons, bishop Jefro then decided to take me to worship pastor Patso's house to meet with men who were exploiting the absence of their wives in various ways.

Worship pastor Patso part 1

It is kind of funny that the people with the authority and the responsibility at the church that I attend are the three people with the comical nicknames: Lead Pastor Swanny, Bishop Jefro, and worship pastor Patso. Worship pastor Patso canceled a meeting tonight and told me to spend the extra time blogging and reminded me that he hadn't read any blogs about himself recently. He must have recently read the proverb that says, "let another praise you and not your own mouth" recently, because he had the wisdom to avoid blogging about himself. So here we go.

Here is a picture of worship pastor Patso sitting to the left of "Real Deal" Mark Keel. "Real Deal" Mark Keel was sitting directly between worship pastor Patso's little green car and the camera that took this picture during the time that this picture was being taken.

Worship pastor Patso does his ministry in an unusual way. I have observed that most worship pastors get things done by doing the things that need to be done all by themselves because that is one of the ways to be sure that things get done (see the end of my blog called What I did last night). One of the responsibilities of worship pastor Patso is seeing that the congregation at Seaside Church is led in worshiping Jesus with songs on Sunday mornings, but instead of doing this himself, worship pastor Patso has been able to find musicians whom he has directed to perform this task and the tasks related to it so that he can perform more pastoral tasks like premarital counseling and less deaconatorial tasks like tuning his own guitar.

I have been imagining in my own mind that you who have read the last paragraph are thinking to yourselves, "What good is a worship pastor who can't lead worship music," so I guess that I should say that worship pastor Patso used to lead most of the worship music at Seaside Church and still does lead worship music from time to time when the other musicians are otherwise engaged.

Not too long after I sent my resume to the elders of Seaside Church in an electronic message, the subject line of which read, Put me to work. I was assigned to the Audio/video (mostly audio) team which is also under worship pastor Patso. At the time, Seaside Church was running only one service and I was expected to arrive at the facility two hours ahead of said service. My first remark to worship pastor Patso was something like, "What in the world are we going to do for two whole hours?" and worship pastor Patso told me that he thought that I had chosen a strange way to begin a ministry with someone. I should probably not begin any dates that way because it might be the beginning of my ministry to my wife, and that would be a strange way to start.