Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church) just started a three year journey through the Gospel of Luke. If you can't find time to listen to the full sermon, listen to this last few minutes of the first sermon in the series. It will expand your understanding of the crucifixion further than you thought possible.

(download)

It turns out there is a wind farm just outside of Lincoln. Who would have thought we were so green? I don't buy into the extreme rhetoric of global warming, but I also don't have a problem with using energy from alternative sources windmills are just neat...unless you're my wife in which case they are scary.

Sent from my iPhone

If you want to get those DVDs (of your wedding) onto your Mac, iPhone or iPod Touch so you can watch them on the road or simply to back them up, the best freeware solution is HandBrake. There is one huge ugly problem with HandBrake. The icon is simply hideous. Icons can be ugly and you live with them, but when icons are this ugly something has to be done. Fortunately, Taylor Carrigan took care of the problem. You can download his replacement icon directly from his website. The icon is free (and for most icons I'd be ok with that), but if you've seen HandBrakes icon you know what I mean when I say it's the right thing to do to drop Taylor a couple bucks. Enjoy!

I heard about Ricky Skaggs new CD, Songs My Dad Loved,  during an interview on NPR the other night and enjoyed it so much I bought the album. The album has fifteen tracks in all, five of which are spiritual, a couple instrumentals, and various other songs. The mood of this CD isn't fast paced bluegrass, but it's also not "bluegrass blues". If you like bluegrass I don't know how you couldn't like this...grab your copy on iTunes.

There's one thing my wife doesn't like about the iPod Touch...the touch part. As pathetic as that is, I still love her so I bought her the Pogo Sketch by Ten One Design. I also bought her the clip pack that allows you to clip the pen to the side of your iPod or iPhone (it comes with several different clips). To be honest with you, the pen is overpriced. If they included the clip it would be reasonable, but $15 (before shipping) for a stylus (no matter how stylish the stylus might be) is too much. Then you add $5 for the clips and $5 for shipping and well...too much. Still, I did get a copy of their Autograph software (Macs with Multiouch Only) free with the order. I don't think I'll use it much, but it did lesson the blow a bit. In the end, if it makes my wife's life better it was worth it. We shall see.

UPDATE: About five minutes after I posted this I discovered that the top of the stylus has broken off in my wife's purse. I will be contacting Ten One Design and will update again later.

UPDATE: I got a reply to my email about ten minutes after I sent it and a replacement will be shipped out tomorrow! So far, so great.

UPDATE: Recieved a replacment yesterday as promised. Satisfied customer.

A couple days ago I was in a discussion with my brother and a good friend about what is known theologically as "soteriology". That fancy word just means the study of the doctrine of salvation. We were discussing the role of reason and faith in our salvation, and also asking questions about how old someone needs to be in order for their profession of faith to be efficacious. I think 2 Timothy 3:14-17 is germane to our discussion.

But as for you, ​continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom​ you learned it and how ​from childhood you have been acquainted with ​the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God​ may be competent, equipped ​for every good work.

This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world, the birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass;
He speaks to me everywhere.

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

This is my Father’s world, dreaming, I see His face.
I ope my eyes, and in glad surprise cry, “The Lord is in this place.”
This is my Father’s world, from the shining courts above,
The Beloved One, His Only Son,
Came—a pledge of deathless love.

This is my Father’s world, should my heart be ever sad?
The lord is King—let the heavens ring. God reigns—let the earth be glad.
This is my Father’s world. Now closer to Heaven bound,
For dear to God is the earth Christ trod.
No place but is holy ground.

This is my Father’s world. I walk a desert lone.
In a bush ablaze to my wondering gaze God makes His glory known.
This is my Father’s world, a wanderer I may roam
Whate’er my lot, it matters not,
My heart is still at home.

I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard and made the decision NOT to use multiple user accounts and the "fast user switching" feature. There are several reasons I chose to avoid multiple accounts, but sharing data (iPhoto, iTunes, Calendar, and Address Book) is the primary reason. It can be done, but it can also be a huge pain in the posterior. Having multiple users operating under the same user account isn't all that bad. However, there is one huge irritation. Namely, it is extremely frustrating to constantly log in and out of websites such as Gmail, Facebook and Google Reader.

My first solution to this problem was to let Firefox save my user names and passwords. This is something I have never done in the past, and was still not comfortable with. Still, it made the process somewhat smoother. Then I started to wonder if there was a way to have multiple instances of Firefox running at the same time and I accidentally ran across the Firefox Profile Manager when I downloaded MultiFirefox. MultiFirefox is an app that allows you to run multiple versions of Firefox on the same machine. The app is really for developers, and isn't exactly what I was looking for, but it utilizes the Firefox Profile Manager which I didn't even know existed. Let me emphasize that this was an accident! I don't understand for the life of me why this feature is not obviously visible. At all events, I had MultiFirefox running so I used it to access the profile manager (rather than using the terminal), and created two profiles. I should note that when I ran the profile manager from the terminal I was unable to access the GUI controls. I don't know what the problem was, but using MultiFirefox I was able to create my profiles.

When you access the profile manager to create your profiles you have to be sure to untick the check box that says "don't ask at startup" IF you plan on choosing which profile to open each time you run Firefox.app. I did this for about 60 seconds before it occurred to me that there must be a way to create an alias that would open a specific profile by passing it the appropriate parameters. It turns out you can't. What you can do (thanks Anthony!) is create a shell script that will do the job. Through much trial and error, and rather prodigious use of Google, I discovered there is a bug that prevents the usual terminal command from running properly on my machine. I think it has something to do with the combination of Firefox 3.5 and Snow Leopard. Rather than go into the details lets just say that if the usual command does not work on your system, you may need to create an AppleScript that executes the following shell script: "do shell script "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -P XXX &> /dev/null &" where XXX = the name of your profile. Now I can dump a Firefox icon on top of both my scripts, dump them in the dock and I'm all set.

UPDATE: I ran into another issue. I dropped both scripts on the dock (two icons), then I opened both profiles resulting in two instances of Firefox (two more icons), at this point I had FOUR FireFox icons in the dock...not good. This is the solution I chose. I set the profile manager to NOT show the actual profile manager dialog box when Firefox starts up. This has the effect of opening the default profile when you click on the Firefox icon in the dock (one icon). I then dropped the script for the second profile in the doc with a different firefox icon (one icon). Now there are two icons in the dock and each user simply closes Firefox when done with their session.

I see this from time to time and I just don't get it. It's almost always some musician and lots of the time a worship leader. Why dress up like an actor in Fiddler on the Roof? Sorry about the bad pic.

Sent from my iPhone