Prayers in the Wake of Katrina

I am amazed at the destruction of Katrina has not happened earlier given the weakness of the dykes and water retaining systems that were in place before Katrina. However, engineering and hydro-dynamics aside: I’m praying for the real life people who have lost collectively billions of dollars and the many families who have lost members of their families. This is not like the Tsunami in massiveness geographically, but people from all over the United States and around the world will be and have been effected.

The second half of this post is aimed at city planners, boards in charge of counties and politicians who are making choices.

My father was a civil engineer (he’s an elder/pastor at a church now) in Carson City, Nevada and he spent some of his time working up a proposal for the City of Carson City to consider for a new drainage system. The source of the request of the proposal was a major flood that happened in 1996 that caused a lot of damage to homes, retail outlets and industrial businesses. However, the city planners had no intention of actually spending the money it would have required to get the new drainage plan implemented. So… a big flood happened again. No drainage work has been done to improve this as a whole to my knowledge. It may be a recurring event for years to come when major amounts of water sweep off of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Secondly, in Carson City they have what is called ‘C hill’ which is where the local High School has placed a ‘C’ on a large grassy hill. It gets a lot of wind. When a fire was started in the area it was almost completely uncontrollable and some expensive homes were lost. The firm my father was formerly involved with prior to the change in careers also put a proposal together for the city knowing that this grassy area near very expensive homes was in high danger of fire hazards. The solution was brilliantly simple: get a sheep herder to let 100+ sheep graze on the grass in that area to keep its growth down. The cost would have been minimal compared to the damage that was caused several years back.

New Orleans has had a known issue with its waterways. Parts of the city were below sea level and large dykes were in place to help prevent flooding. However, it was a known issue that a major storm could cause this to be over-flowed and that major parts of the city would be flooded (as I write this the most recent report was that 80% of the city was under water, one major hospital had patients and staff still in it but the first floor was flooded). If you are involved with city planning you have to evaluate your budget and figure out what is the best use of the money that you have raised from your citizens in taxes, etc.. However, putting money towards things that will not be there long term if you don’t put money towards protective measures… is a bad choice.

As I said, I’m praying, but I’ll be praying for world, national, state/provencial, city, town and family leaders to make wise choices. Not a lot in life is under your control.

Color Me “Religionist”

This is not a post for everyone. If you are not a protestant, if you are not a Christian, this is not for you. You will take offense at this most likely. With that said… I’ve probably sucked you in and you’ll continue to read and then get upset at me. I’m not sorry if you ignore this warning 🙂

I subscribe to the Bible in a Year Podcast. This weekend the host/reader/producer of the podcast, Rick, posted a ‘special’ podcast wherein someone else did a “study” on prayer. I place quotes around the study because it was really hinky. The first prayer he looked at was all of the following:

Jesus. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

I recognize that Rick is a Catholic. I recognize that Catholicism is amazingly different from protestantism. I also recognize Jesus as my personal Savior. This is not a prayer. This is the name of my savior, a person. When I pray, it is not one word, it is to one person: God. To put this in perspective, prayer is communication with God. Similarly talking to my wife is communication with Jessica. I would not, no matter how goofy I am, walk up to my wife and say:

Jessica.

And then walk away.

I stopped listening to the podcast after about 10 minutes (I wasn’t keeping track, it could have been less, I’m just guessing). Why is it that I get so riled up about others trying to pray in single word prayers? Mostly because when Christ was talking to His disciples in John 15 he calls them friends. The principle in this context is that believers are not just removed from the Law, but that they are brought close to God and are hidden in Him (Colossians 3:3). If you have a friend in Jesus you’re not going to pray His name! His name is priceless, precious and special because He is a friend. It is not a prayer. Paul wrote in I Thessellonians 5:17 that we should pray without ceasing. Try praying that prayer very long and you’re going to give up and move along. However, if you are praying to your friend Jesus you will have lots to talk about. You will have lots to be thankful for, lots to request that He would be glorified, and lots that you can ask about for wisdom. You can pray for opportunities to share the Gospel, you can pray for lots of things, but it won’t just be His name over and over.

I’m still subscribing to the podcast because its nice to get incremented sections of scripture to listen to. I will not be listening to the rest of the special messages to avoid this sort of rant in the future. If I do listen, I will not blog about them :).You don’t need to read too many of these sorts of things.

OK, sorry if you’ve read even though I warned you not to and you’re now all bent out of shape about it. Like the title suggests I’m an intolerant Religionist. I guess this makes me a “fighting fundy.” [actually, not, I’m not much of a fighter.]

Selective Marriage Principles

I know that various people will be shocked but there are people who will marry anyone. Take for example: Robert Downey Jr. who appears to have been mis-represented by People magazine:
Marries People
You see when you marry producer-people it means that you won’t just marry anyone, you’ll marry anyone who is a producer.

Way to go Bobby. Maybe you’ll get further selective in the future since it sounds by this headline marriage is a common occurance for you.

The Fish Formerly Known as Shody

Shody went to be with his parents this morning. Abby had this little pet for less than a week. We don’t know exactly what killed Shody, but we’ll be replacing him/her/it with a gold [orange] goldfish tomorrow afternoon. Shody was flushed around 9:30 and showed very little resistance to the swirling drain. He/She/It will be missed for a short while until the new fish comes into play. Abby was upset when I said that Shody went to be with his parents. She said:

But Shody asked his mommy and daddy if they could come play with Abby. They said, “Yes, Sweety.”

Jessica and I were really, really sad when she said that, it was very disturbing for her to lose her first pet so soon.

Supersize My Upsell

This morning I took my Honda in to get its oil changed. I took it to the neighborhood Jiffylube because that’s the nearest oil changing station. When I arrived they asked me to go inside where an older man was glad to start chatting with me. I didn’t mind the company but he was really far too interested in the price of my house. Then, a woman called me out to the oil changing bay to ask me about my personal information so that they’d know what size socks to send me at Christmas. OK, not really. She wanted my home address and phone number. I told her I was married, but that didn’t deter here.

Then the big up sell scheme came in. They didn’t want to change my oil. No, just changing the oil was going to be too little for them. Instead they spent 4 minutes walking me through very nicely done graphical screens showing happy little icons saying, “Pick me!” However, because I’m in no way going to buy their schpiel on how I will get better gas mileage if I pay them an extra $30.00 I passed on everything. They would have to show me the prettiest charts with large doctoral dissertations proving that my $30.00 would save me $40.00 in the long run.

With the time they wasted trying to upsell me they could have finished my oil change and I could have gone onto the grocery store and stood in the long lines there sooner. But I’m getting whiney, so I’ll stop now 😉

The Brothers Grimm Beats Eks Vs. Sever

However, its not much better. This movie had potential. However, however… blah, blah, blah. Don’t go see it. Save your money for something else. It’s dark, only sort of intense, and the transformer/werewolf thing was a weird-wolf. The rapunzel witch looks like she dated Yoda when they were both several hundred years younger.

Sorry, I’d put more energy into this review, but its not worth it. Just don’t go see it. Listen to me, the reviewers on rottentomatoes.com and your wallet: you have better things to do with your currency.

News: Government is Paying for Studies That Are Unneeded

In yet another dumb report a study shows fast food restaurants cluster near schools. I could have told you that simply by driving anywhere near a school in any town between Denver and Sacramento California (I’m choosing that direction to avoid driving through Kansas). There is not a lot of mystery behind this decision. I present the following [invalid] syllogism:
1) Cafeteria food is horrible
2) Teens have spending money [from selling drugs]
Therefore McDonalds wants in on part of the [drug] money action and builds restaurants near the schools.

I would always walk home for lunch, but I lived 2 blocks from the school. Plus I could then get away from the insanity of the cliques simply be having my friends come over and have fun with me.

Rice + Chicken = BFF

Apologies for the BFF reference. Since we all know that forever doesn’t last very long with food, I suppose I could hvae written Rice + Chicken = BFWSL. But I digress. When Jessica is gone at lunch time I like to make a tasty treat for myself. I grab whatever leftover meat products I have in the fridge (if you’re a vegetarian you could use Tofu based meat substitutes you have left over), I throw them into a lightly cooking oil sprayed pan and then let them warm up a bit. Then I add leftover rice (we usually have some of that around here, thank the Lord) and some salsa (usually we have the industrial sized Pace sitting in the back of the fridge for when Jess doesn’t make salsa fresca). I usually add water to help the rice moisturize (after exfoliating and washing of course) and put the lid on to help trap the steam. I often stir the ingredients to help assure that all is well and nothing burns or gets funky on me.

When I’m about to eat the food I plunk it onto a fine eating surface (read: a plate) and add some cheese (read: mozzerella or cheddar – again, if you’re vegitarian you could use tofu based cheese-like products) and then head down to my TV and turn on the food network to see if I can pick up any hot tips (Not hot chicks, unless you’re referring to other hot chicken dishes) on how to make more yummy food.