Category: family

My Letter to God

Dear Lord,

I was asked to sit down today and think about my strengths and think about my weaknesses, and this is what I came to realize:

I am weak, but you are strong. However, I have found that I can do all things when you strengthen me. When I think I know something, when I think I understand, I find I am a fool. You alone are wise. When I ask of you, you give me freely of the fountain of your wisdom. I confess that I am selfish, and self-willed, but you are compassionate and shelter even the smallest of your creation. Through you I understand pure and undefiled religion. I lose my cool so quickly Lord, but you are slow to wrath. Through your patience I learn to wait on you and you give me strength. I am unloving and calloused, I mistreat even those closet to me, but you are love Lord, you love even those who despise you, and through you I find compassion for your creatures.

I realize that I am weak in all things, but through your sufficiency your power is made manifest in me, you strengthen me in all things, and I am reborn:

Lord, I am yours.

Your son,

Jediah

 

 

Predators in the dark

Ok, we’ve seen them down the road before; and we’ve heard them out in the woods – and I once even witnessed a pack take down a deer a couple miles from here – but when they show up in your back yard, licking their chops (I have chickens and children) – what are you supposed to do?

They’re almost to magnificent to kill – but I think the winter kill of the deer last year was so significant that we’re likely to have a big problem with them this year….

Christmas pictures…

Ok, so I’ve listened to Amanda for years complain about the fact that as a photographer, she gets really good pictures of everyone else’s family; but we never have good pictures, because I won’t pay for a photographer to take our pictures (because Amanda is a photographer), and she can’t do a good job at all trying to run back and forth from the camera, or even using the remote to push the button – because she can’t see how everyone is lined up and posed.

In my brilliance (?); I suggested that Amanda call another local photographer that she knows to see if he would like to swap photo-sessions at the studio. Sure enough, he and his wife were just discussing the same dilemma, and they thought it was a great idea.

I think it worked out really well – although I didn’t get a chance to see their family photos – Amanda is a really good portrait photographer, so I’m confident that they were able to get some good pictures (as long as her backdrop was able to fit the whole family in to her Christmas backdrop which wasn’t intended for more then 4-5 people at most). And I’m pleased with our pictures – except camera’s rarely are able to capture my good looking side (I could use the ontological argument to prove that it does actually exist outside of my mind.. but what’s the point)…

Anyway, here are the pictures…

 

The stork has finally showed up!

    

Ok, first part of this story is that I have been waiting for my chickens to lay eggs all summer…

Last Saturday I went out and found that my chickens had laid eggs! While I was surprised that the first eggs were so large, and heavy (I thought maybe they were frozen because they were in the outside chicken run instead of the inside coup) – I took it in stride and was extremely excited that I finally got eggs!

But what I came to find out is that my sadistic sister-in-law (with the help of my eager parents) came over while we were out of town the night before, picking up my broken car that had been fixed, and they placed hard-boiled eggs in my chicken coup. That explained the size & weight of the eggs… I sure would have been surprised when I went to crack them open for Sunday morning pancakes.

I’m not going to forget though; I’m not going to turn the other cheek – and when she least expects it I’m going to get her back, and get her back good…

In the mean time, I went out to the chicken coup this evening, and I have a message for her…

Hey Ellen… go suck on an Egg – in fact actually go suck two! I’ll gladly loan you slop covered eggs I took out of the coup tonight!

 

My son the hacker…


So Donovan informed Amanda a couple days ago that he is going to be a “Scientist, a computer scientist, like papa” and last night he asked me to start teaching him about computers, and he was asking tons of questions about breaking into computers and hacking.



So we sat down and starting having a conversation about CPUs and Memory and Hard drives and Graphics Cards and Sound Cards and Mother Boards and binary and CD-roms – and he was just sucking it all up, he asked me to open the case on his computer so I could show him the components one by one.



Well, when I logged onto my personal email this morning I had an email sitting in my email box saying that I had signed up for a parent account on playhouse Disney and then signed up Donovan for a free trial for a particular game on playhouse Disney – and all I needed to do was click on the verification link and login and verify his account so he could play.



Of course, I didn’t know the password “I” used to create the account, and I’m glad he doesn’t know how to brute force POP3 account logon’s yet… but needless to say, I think I’m creating a monster…. He is only 7…. Before long, I’m going to have to enroll him in an “Ethical Hackers” program @ the university…. J


Family time…

I don’t usually blog for no apparent reason, but I figured I would tonight.  On Monday of this past week I went rock climbing and mountain climbing… I’m afraid of heights.. but I managed pretty well…

I got up 100 feet or so and back down – while harnessed and locked into the side of the mountain, but I was too scared to go up the other 900 or so feet, attached to nothing but a rope and a piece of metal stuck into the side of the mountain – so instead I decided to climb up the side of the mountain, almost as steep, by myself with no rope, but I had trees and roots and rocks to hold on to.

A couple times I was ready to just throw myself over the side and be done with it – but determined as I was to make it to the top – I did indeed.  Then I sat at the top of the mountain and waited to meet God in the clouds.  I could say that He never showed up, but I’m not so sure… it at least wasn’t the rapture – so, unfortunately I was stuck climbing back down the mountain again (which wasn’t as bad as I feared it was going to be).

Anyway, so then on Tuesday, we went to Story land with the kids.  I have to admit, that while I wasn’t overly impressed at the cost of story land, nor the cliché of the whole ordeal – we did have a lot of fun.  The kids actually got along and stopped fighting for like 6 hours straight, and I actually spent time with my family (without a computer or an IPOD for like 6 hours straight). 

Donovan & Braeden & Bella and I played in the ball house for like an hour, and Donnie & Braeden and I went on the roller coaster ride! 🙂  Amanda went on the crazy barn with Donnie & Brady, and we went on the teacup and floating balloon rides together as a family.  I had A LOT of fun.  I enjoyed myself.  I’m going to put pictures up on the MySpace as soon as I get them from Amanda.


To my esteemed scategories cohorts….

I want to formally write a complaint that you guys are intentionally stealing points from me when we play scategories.


Take for example; last night. There was a question that asked us to name something that was in the refrigerator that starts with an N. My answer was “nothing”.


You, my esteemed scategories cohorts refused to accept this answer on the case that you felt that nothing was not something.


Try as I might to help you see the error of your ways by asking you to describe nothing without giving it attributes or qualities which are both necessary and sufficient condition for the being of somethingness, you could only describe nothing by describing something – thus proving my point – and yet, not gaining me points.


I therefore post these three forms of Propositional Logic to affirm the truth of my statement that nothing is really something, and demand a recount of my points! 🙂


Disjunctive Syllogism


Either Nothing is Nothing or Nothing is Something
Nothing is not nothing
Therefore Nothing is Something



Hypothetical Syllogism


If I can describe an object called nothing, then the object called nothing has attributes and qualities
If the object called nothing has attributes and qualities then it must exist as something
I can describe the object called nothing therefore it must exist as something


Modus Ponens


If an object called nothing has descriptive qualities then the object must exist
The object called nothing has descriptive qualities
Therefore the object called nothing exists


If an object exists then it can be included in a set called something
The object called nothing exists
Therefore the object called nothing can be included in a set called something