RecoveringBaptist

On this day

2011-09-11T09:13:00.000-04:00

I have this blog so I can write things that are too politically correct for me to have associated with my real name. So here it goes.

Ten years ago today a brilliant enemy of the United States completed its attack. And truth be told, today I wish I could find a way to avoid all of the attempts to remember what happened. It's not that I'm trying to hide from an ugly truth, nor is it that I don't recognize, honor, and appreciate those who gave their lives trying to save others.

Remembering the aftermath of 9/11 reminds me that the terrorists won.

The purpose of terrorism is to instill fear into an enemy in order to change their actions. Since that fateful day we have gladly traded our freedoms for the appearance of security and have happily sacrificed thousands more sons and daughters on foreign soil. We have toppled two governments that were marginally, if at all, associated with the real culprits and violated the sovereignty of other nations.

And for what? So that on this day, ten years later, people can sell T-shirts and make advertiser-supported TV shows to "remember" what happened. As if any of us could forget...

How big is your Gospel?

2011-08-09T07:15:00.001-04:00

I heard a local preacher who I generally like this morning on his regular advertisement-length mini-sermon. He was talking about the parable of the prodigal son. He said something like “this story talks about our present day relationship with God, but I think it is also a great image of what will come in the next life.”

What a shame. Yes, the Gospel is about our eternity in Heaven, but it is so much more than that. A lot of Christians get caught up in that future hope that they overlook the power of the Gospel in our lives as we live them today. This is a message that Christians need to be constantly reminded of, and it is a more powerful evangelistic message for a post-modern age.

Random technical thoughts

2011-07-25T07:18:00.000-04:00

RB's random technical thoughts from the Dominican"

It's tough to write coherently when there's a fly buzzing around your head
Non-American keyboards are tough enough, but they're even tougher when what appears on the screen doesn't match the button on the keyboard. Good thing I can touch type, because I would never have found the question mark on this thing...
A couple of weeks ago I bought a wacky little gizmo that has an Android tablet on one side and a Kindle-like e-reader on the other. The tablet is useless in the sun, but that e-reader rocks. I can get used to that.
International television is interesting. They have channels in the DR that we don't get in the States like Cubavizion Internacional.

Celebrating survival

2011-07-25T07:13:00.000-04:00

We've already heard the question several times. "Is this your anniversary? Are you celebrating something special?" The answers, although we don't always give them are, "No and Yes."

No, we're not near a nice, even anniversary date. But we don't care. We're celebrating the fact that we've come this far literally and figuratively. We're nearly 13 years into marriage, and we love each other now more than we ever have. Staying married isn't easy; growing to love each other more when you're had some hard times is even tougher, and yet we have. We're very, very blessed.

So no, it's not our anniversary, and it's not a second honeymoon, but we don't care.

Oh yeah, so why would people be asking these fairly personal questions? What's going on? We're in the beautiful country of the Dominican Republic eating, drinking, and doing pretty much whatever the hell we want to for a week. After being together this long we figure we deserve it.

Church Review - Church of the Apostles

2011-07-16T08:56:00.000-04:00

Church name: Church of the Apostles
Meeting place: 3585 Northside Parkway, Atlanta
Denomination: Anglican
Worship Style: Contemporary (piano led with several vocalist leads, backing vocals, band, and horns)
Dress: Varies, with suits for the older and more wealthy and jeans for younger parents
Demographics: Mostly white, almost completely upper middle class
Service times: 9:00 and 10:30

Dr. Michael Youssef is very well known and respected in evangelical circles. And the history of Apostles is impressive. It has grown from a small home church into a near-meagachurch with worldwide ministries.

While not quite as large as some churches in this city, the best way to describe this church is "big." The music is big with every instrument imaginable. Unfortunately the music is somewhat stuck in the late 1980's, complete with vocalists with hand-held mics and saxaphone. Everyone on stage wears a suit (or similar for the ladies). Of course, all of the music is played perfectly, and one of the vocalists had a studio-worthy voice. For those who enjoy the music the best place to sit is in the center in front of the balcony. Sitting under the balcony changes the acoustics for the worse.

Dr. Youssef is a dynamic speaker who comes from the older styled "preachy" preacher. What surprised me as someone who has visited before is how much he resembles some charismatic preachers. If it were ever possible to have an Anglican church that speaks in tongues, it would be Apostles.

Apostles offers nearly every program one could want, and there are numerous adult education (no one calls them Sunday Schools anymore) options. It is a very well run church.

Perhaps the strangest part of our visit to Apostles was how I reacted. I think this is more of a reflection on me than the church, but I bristled throughout almost the entire service. After 15 years as a Presbyterian, I am not comfortable with the Charismatic movement, and I have become accustomed to discussions of how The Gospel impacts our lives today instead of what it means for the saving of our souls. I know a lot of my friends love this church, and I am glad for them, but I have no intentions of going back anytime soon. Besides, I prefer to go to church barefooted, and that would look strange when wearing a three piece suit.

Church Review - Christian Church of Buckhead

2011-07-16T08:08:00.001-04:00

For those who don't know Georgia very well, there is a town in the state named Buckhead. It is a tiny town and not particularly fancy. This is NOT the Buckhead of which I speak in this post. This Buckhead is one of the wealthiest sections of Atlanta. And it's a strange place for this kind of church.

Church name: Christian Church of Buckhead
Meeting place: 3372 Peachtree Road, Atlanta in the old Christian Science Reading Room next to Maggianos near Lenox Mall
Denomination: Christian Church (which is a non-denominational denomination and not creatively named)
Worship Style: Modern pop (acoustic guitar led with keys, bass, and drums)
Dress: Casual (jeans)
Demographics: Mostly white, mostly young families or young professionals
Service times: 9:30 and 11:00

Review: We've visited this church a couple of time with friends. It's a fine church, and we could possibly worship there on a more regular basis. The worship is upbeat and modern with a good band. In our visits all of the songs were recently written with no hymns or songs with complex writing. There is no liturgy, but communion is observed (with grape juice in tiny cups) every week.

The building is rented, and the church has done a good job converting space designed for another religion to something that works for a Christian service. Flat screen TV's flank the stage for lyrics and other purposes. Artwork fills the wall behind the stage and is updated periodically based on the current sermon series. There are no kids in the service because they spend the entire time in Sunday School, which received high reviews from the younger critics in the RB household.

Derek is a cool guy and a fine preacher. His sermons are delivered in a very conversational style. His sermons are practical without a lot of "religious stuff." While he references a number of passages during his sermon, there isn't a lot of page turning. The sermons are applicable without being very challenging or threatening.

Christian Church of Buckhead is a good church, and we can see why our friends have made it their church home. However, our preference is for a church with a deeper root in historical Christianity. Christian Church of Buckhead seems to have left that with the historical trappings.

Reviewing Churches

2011-05-30T20:17:00.000-04:00

I love to dream about my next big idea. I've had a few that have come close to being worthwhile. I know this because other people implemented them long after I thought about it and did well. One day I'll actually pull the trigger on one of my ideas before someone else does and, hopefully, make some money in the process.

One of my ideas is to create a web tool for finding churches. Think about it. In any major metro area there are hundreds of churches, and there's no way to try them all. But if we could build a decent little tool that included objective information like denomination, number of services and starting times, and basic demographics, it would be very helpful. If we could then add on subjective information like "this church is more hipster and less pop" or "the preacher's sermons were dull," then we could have something very useful. But alas, I don't have the time to build such a thing. But should you, dear reader, ever find yourself looking for a church in Metro Atlanta, then you will have the benefit of RB's church reviews.

My next several posts will contain reviews. If you know these churches and want to counter them, then you are very welcome to in the comments. I'd love to know how your experience has differed from mine.

Something new

2011-05-15T08:46:00.000-04:00

Church shopping isn't everything it's cracked up to be, especially when the kids are asking if we've found our new "forever church." So I'm very excited about today's church - a "spirit filled" Lutheran church. I don't know much about the Lutherans, but that sounds like a contradiction. Then again, I never thought I'd find a charismatic Anglican church, but we visited a very large one of those a few weeks ago.

God does work in mysterious ways...

The Gospel at work

2011-05-11T07:00:00.000-04:00

I've sat under 3 different pastors in the past 12 years, and each of them focused on the centrality of the Gospel in our lives. But they weren't focusing on the Gospel in the way that my old SBC pastors did. There was never an alter call, and they rarely talked about Heaven or Hell. (That's not to say that they didn't, and Hell is a very real place that holds a lot of people.) Instead, they were talking about the fact that God, through Jesus, is making all things new and that he loves us because of Christ. There is nothing we can do or not do to make God love us less, and there is nothing we can do or not do to earn more of His favor.

If this isn't what you hear every Sunday, think about that for a moment. I heard this for 12 years, but it still didn't sink in. And now that I've been without a church home for a couple of months it has.

Over the past few years I have been a generally unhappy man. Some people have described me as full of rage. I've felt a need to be right. And I've given in to much more temptation than I would have liked.

But the last few weeks have been very different. Despite a very overwhelming work situation, sick kids, and a dead car, one of my few friends described me as a changed man. He had no idea I was under so much stress. And I have found temptation less inviting over the last few weeks. This is a huge change, and I'm not doing anything. No quiet times. Less worship and teaching. No more prayer than usual. How is this possible? How can God be working in my life?

The Gospel.

The answer is that God is working in my life. I'm not working. Christians don't have to work; that's the Holy Spirit's responsibility. And the more we recognize that and allow Him to work, the more like Christ we are.

Yes, I want to go back to church. And we're still church shopping. But I'm not going there looking for a solution. I'm going there to worship with other people who have realized the same thing. Jesus is the solution.

Lonely

2011-04-21T18:31:00.000-04:00

One of the things that a church can provide is community. When it does there is nothing better. When it does not then it can be lonely. But even then at least there is an appearance of community. Attending church with familiar faces gives a sense of comfort.

We lost real community at our last church. That's one of the reasons we left. It was painful to realize, but it was the honest truth. But now that we've been gone over a month the loneliness is sinking in.

Work has been very tough this week. I went for a walk this afternoon during work and really wanted to talk with someone and realized that there's no one to call, and there's no one to look forward to running in to on Sunday. The loneliness is really sinking in.

Leaving was the right thing to do, but I'm VERY ready to find a new home and a new group of friends.

Drunken theology

2011-04-14T01:07:00.000-04:00

Many years ago I broke up with a girl (or maybe she broke up with me) and found myself with a juice glass and a bottle of Jack Daniel's. I learned two things that night. 1) A juice glass is a poor choice for a shot glass. 2) A little alcohol and some good friends can lead to some interesting and worthwhile conversation.

So tonight I was hanging out with some old friends, trying out new beers, and talking. The conversation covered Nietzsche, Rob Bell, theology, hell, and Christianity in general. It was interesting to hear this crowd of evangelical, reformed, "theologically conservative" types recognizing that what we have known about theology could possibly be wrong or, at the very least, be as rooted in culture as it is in what Jesus actually said.

We never talked about my church search in particular, but it's weighing on me. On the one hand I think beliefs are very important. On the other, perhaps what's equally important is how loosely a church holds those beliefs and is willing to constantly compare them to the scriptures. And it's very interesting to see others recognize that a life consistently lived according to scriptures, even when espousing a theologically different perspective, should be respected and that someone who can logically support his opinion but cannot put it into practical living should not.

I don't know what happens when other people drink, but now you have a view into my world. Yes, I know it's not normal.

By the way, I married the girl. I'd be a poor, drunk bastard if I hadn't.

Turning the tables

2011-04-05T23:22:00.000-04:00

I'm writing a lot about the Baptists these days, but now it's time to talk about the home team. A recent post by an old friend made me think. He became a believer in college and in true PCA style started thinking. He learned all the right theology and, when that wasn't enough, became an expert in apologetics. For those who don't know, apologetics is the big Christian word for convincing someone to become a Christian.

My friend was in a debate tonight in front of an audience. His post is as follows:

a) If the Bible is inerrant then you can trust in the resurrection of Jesus
b) The Bible is not inerrant (Look at all these errors…)
...Therefore
c) you cannot trust in the resurrection of Jesus

But this is an invalid argument.

Who can name the error in their line of reasoning???

My response should be "who cares?" But then I would get in an online argument about arguing.

This may not be true about my old friend, but it was of me when I studied a little apologetics years ago: I focused so much on the fallacies of the other person's thinking and the rightness of mine that I forget the other person was there.

It's an old saying, but no one has ever been argued into heaven. And in today's post modern age Christians should not expect people to follow consistent, "logical" thought processes. A post modern age creates a different set of rules of logic. I'm not saying that apologetics is no longer a valid field of study, but we are nearing an age where we reclassify it as classical apologetics, useful only for historical purposes.

The Obvious

2011-04-05T20:20:00.000-04:00

Let's go ahead and get this one out of the way: Baptists dunk. It's kind of a key thing they do.

For a long time after leaving the Baptist church I wasn't sure what I thought of infant baptism. It seemed pretty clear to me that scripture advocates for taking adults to a river and putting them under water after a confession of faith. And there are good proof-texts for that. (For those who don't speak Christianese, proof-text is finding a few verses to support a particular belief. The criticism of proof texts is that they are often disconnected from a consistent theology.) However, now that I have 15 years of history as a Presbyterian I can find good solid theological arguments for infant baptism, too. So what to do?

There are some theological points that are not very clear in scripture. Since I'm not a theologian, one approach that I take is to consider what the theological viewpoint looks like in real life. If its application naturally leads to a more Christ-like life, then I try to choose that one. Take for example rewards in heaven. Some traditions argue each earns treasures in heaven based on their deeds on Earth while others hold that every is treated equally as a result of Jesus' sacrifice. I am motivated by treasures, so I act as if my work here leads to treasures there. Others are made more grateful because their deeds (or lack of them) have no impact on their afterlife experience and live a life of gratitude as a result. This is a practical viewpoint on theology.

A practical perspective on theology matters for me at this stage of parenting. The result of infant baptism is that my children, should they eventually confirm that they are God's children, is that they never know a day when they are under God's wrath. They will never live in fear that for some indeterminate time between when they became conscious and when they accepted Christ that they might die and land in hell. (I fully believe in hell, but maybe that's a post for another day.) This theology seems to be a practical demonstration of God's grace. Is there a place for understanding God's wrath? Absolutely. And that can be very clearly taught without scaring little kids. Many Baptists believe that the age of accountability is around 4 which leads them to start pushing kids to accept Christ at that age. A decision to follow Christ should not be made lightly, and it should be made by someone who truly understands what they're deciding. A theology of infant baptism properly delays a making a decision to follow or reject Christ to an age where they can truly make that kind of decision without instilling the fear that they're "not covered" in the interim.

How Baptist is too Baptist???

2011-04-03T23:33:00.000-04:00

It was really strange a few weeks ago to fill out a form and leave the "home church" line blank. We thought we might be able to just skip church for a few weeks, but that's too foreign. God works in many ways, but HE especially moves through HIS church. So today we found ourselves trying out a new church.

As a recovering Baptist, trying out new churches brings to mind a lot of questions, such as:

What do they believe?
What's the worship style?
How do they care for the kids?
How Baptist are they?

That last one's a kicker. I've already had a lot of people tell me that such and such a church isn't like other SBC churches. It's much more contemporary, etc. Or maybe a church will skirt the issue by saying that they're non-denominational and shouldn't be confused with the Baptists. Nice try!

Over the next few posts I'm going to break down some of the different aspects of what it means to be Baptist and what concerns me about that.

The interesting thing will be to see what God does. When I left the SBC and found myself at a PCA church I went with the attitude that I would yield to the authorities that God placed over me and learn their theology. So regardless of what I now hold as God-given facts, I may find myself in a church that believes somewhat differently from what I do now. But it will be somewhat awkward to continue to post on this blog if HE takes me back to a SBC church.

Changing churches

2011-04-03T23:19:00.000-04:00

Well, here we go. It looks like I may now be adding "Presbyterian" to the list of things from which I must recover.

Unlike the Baptists, I really don't have anything against the Presbyterians. And that's saying something since I've been Presbyterian for 15 years.

We've been in 2 PCA churches over that time and generally loved them. But as much as it hurts, we've come to realize that our church isn't providing us with the shepherding and community that we need. And so now the church hunt is on. And since all the other PCA churches are on the other side of town, we're probably switching denominations in addition to churches.

This will be an interesting journey to say the least...

I'm back!

2011-04-03T23:10:00.001-04:00

Like the post below says, I stopped blogging on blogspot and started blogging on my own domain in 2006. That blog lasted for a few years and then died for several reasons. The real shame is that almost all of those posts are completely lost, and I don't have a way to import the ones I do have.

But now I have some things to share, and I decided to stop hosting this site myself. We'll see how this goes. I hope to write something interesting and that you enjoy it.

I've moved!

2006-08-17T15:14:00.000-04:00

Not only do I have a new house, but I have a new address. Please feel free to check it out at recoveringbaptist.com.

And I know everyone at atlbloggers.net is waiting with baited breath to know if I'll still be around. The answer is yes; I'm working on getting all the feeds updated. I'm also hoping to figure out how to set things up so that only the interesting posts end up there, but that would imply that I have something interesting to say in the first place, wouldn't it?

Thank you

2006-08-10T10:21:00.000-04:00

As I've chronicled here, the past few weeks have been pretty grueling for my family. What I've been remiss in relaying here is the support of our family and friends, and I need to correct that now.

We closed on the new house last Monday afternoon and began painting the new one on Tuesday evening. Our goal was to paint 7 rooms, 2 halls, and the trim in another room before the floors were installed on Saturday. That's a lot of painting in a little time, but not only did we get it done, we even managed to paint a ceiling, too! (OK, technically we finished the second coat in one room on Monday, but we took the weekend completely off and the floors weren't installed in that room yet.) Considering that during all of this we were also dealing with the difficulties which come with the contract falling through on the house we're selling, I'm very happy with what all we accomplished.

I've been a little surprised at how many of our friends are keeping up with what's going on through this blog (don't ask me why that's a surprise, I know that's what a blog is for), so this seems to be one of the many right places to say thanks.

First, to the hired hands. I lucked out and managed to hire the three best teenagers in Atlanta. Thanks to Corey and Dave for several long days of painting and to Becca for giving up her one free night. You're good painters, but the Anne Murray music's got to go!

Then to all of our friends who helped out. Veleda brought us an incredible lunch and then loaned Mike out for a long evening to paint. Doug watched the girls at home while Vanessa got high on paint fumes at our place. Keith also gave up a night to help out, which means Liz was at home with the boys. Finally, there's Jimmy who's stayed with us so many times over the years that he may as well be family. Jimmy painted more than I did (hey, someone's got to earn some money in this family) despite his cold. Nothing goes with paint fumes better than Robitussin!

Doug, Vanessa, and the girls made sure we took Saturday night off by inviting us to the pool. Little did they know we were going to bring the lightening show of the year to their house and kill the electricity. We all had a great time anyway, even if we didn't get to see Doug light up like a Christmas tree while cooking burgers.

We also need to say thanks to Reid and Kim for caring enough to invite us over for a nice, stress-free lunch after church. We needed that even more than we thought, and meant a lot to us.

I would also say thanks to my parents and in-laws, but they don't spend enough time on the internets to know what blogs are, which is the way it should be.

Friends like all of you make weeks like last week bearable. And we're looking forward to years of welcoming you to our new house.

Don't Panic in Large Friendly Letters

2006-08-09T09:21:00.000-04:00

My grandfather manually set the insurance rates in Augusta many years ago, and my father and uncle are still in the insurance business, so I'm probably more interested in risk than most people. So I can't believe that I'm nearly two years late in finding this five page article from an OSU professor concerning the risk of terrorism. (Thanks to boingboing for the link, btw.)

Just the other night I saw an intro for a new program asking the question of whether we're more safe now than we were just after 9/11. I'm sick and tired of stories like that which play to our fears. The fact you're more likely to be struck by lightening or killed by a deer than to be directly impacted by terrorism should give us some comfort, but it doesn't seem to. Of course, fears are irrational, and few people really know how to assess risk. It's a very common fallicy to overestimate the probability of those things which we consider to be terrible and to underestimate the probability of those things which we do not consider as bad. For example, if I were to advertise that I have a rifle in a place where my kids could possibly get to it, I would be called a terrible parent. However, no one blinks twice when I take my children to the local pool, regardless of the fact that the chances of a child dying from drowning are much, much greater than of him dying from a bullet.

As many analysts have pointed out, the point of terrorism is not to kill people but to inspire fear in them. The more we change our way of life as a result of their despictable acts, the more they have won. I've known this for a while, but it's good to have someone more qualified than me actually do the math to prove it.

Poor loser

2006-08-08T23:48:00.000-04:00

Cynthia McKinney was soundly defeated today. Some other Congressman must now step up and serve as the laughingstock of the House, at least for the next two years.

I am very excited that Hank Johnson has won. We don't agree on political policy, but I'm glad that he seems to be, as one friend put it, "a genuinely nice and classy man."

Cynthia knows how to run a campaign, and she knows how to work the media. It was clear early in the night that she would lose, but unlike all the other losers tonight, she was not about to give her concession speech on live TV. She waited to arrive at her headquarters until 11:35, right as all of the late-night news shows were signing off. Channel 2 claimed they would try to carry it live, but as of 11:52 pm they haven't broken in to show her speech. I guess she just can't handle speaking the truth that she's lost her power.

Update - Since it seems like my other blogging friends have called it a night from Hank Johnson's campaign HQ, I figure I'll take notes
Update 12:14 am - just when I was about to turn off the TV she graces us with her presence. She has some sort of "special presentation." She's got some sort of musical presentation, but the sound guys can't get it to work. You can tell she's lost, she's completely speechless during the 4 minute plus downtime. I'm just sure we'll all be headed to youtube to check out her video.

Update 12:20 am - Cynthia's "special presentation" sounds like some sort of pathetic white singer-song writer chick. Not the kind of thing you'd expect at a McKinney gathering. According to the crack news group at WSB TV it's "Dear Mr. President" by Pink. Apparently she's going to play the whole song, and I don't think she's actually conceded yet. Kudos to Channel 2 for keeping the entire staff around to carry this wonderful moment live. WXIA did break in, too, but I think they were a little later than WSB.

Update 12:26 am - Cynthia claims that the media wanted us to focus on her hair. And now she's talking about someone "in the press in this room tonight" who caused someone on her staff to need stitches. Interesting that's the second thing a cop-beater talks about on the night she loses.

Update 12:28 am - I'm really bewildered. If she was going to make a speech like this, I don't know why she didn't do it during prime-time. She's attacking Bush while quoting Bobby Kennedy and MLK. Now she's praising every left-wing activist after "standing" with all the Iraqi dead and the homeless American and green-card soldiers. Of course, now she's taking advantage of this opportunity to denegrate the memory of so many dead soldiers and joining the likes of Cindy Sheehan.

Update 12:34 am - now it's getting interesting. "Electronic voting machines are a threat to our democracy." This is followed by a statement that they won't tolerate any more stolen elections. And she "wants her party back" too. I'm surprised she didn't spend more time on this.

Update 12:36 am - not really a concession, but she wishes "the new representative of the Fourth District well." And that's the end. Even Monica Kaufman points out that this wasn't a concession speech and didn't mention Hank Johnson by name. Leave it to Monica to say that Cynthia "took a whoopin" from Mr. Johnson.

As they ended the live coverage they returned to a rebroadcast of the nightbeat right as John Evans, Cynthia McKinney's campaign manager, was being interviewed. He was essentially saying that they got their asses whipped in areas where they "typically controlled." And, of course, Hank Johnson got all the white votes in Rockdale and Gwinnett counties. Here's a tip to Mr. Evans, if she had ever paid any attention to us white people in the northern part of DeKalb County, she probably wouldn't be looking for a job right now. One last note, it's interesting that right as Hank Johnson was claiming victory the McKinney team was claiming that Cynthia was in the campaign HQ building. Just one more lie from their team, since WAGA caught her arriving at that building at 11:35 pm.

Goodbye Cynthia, and good riddance. Mr. Johnson showed more class tonight than you've ever had.

Please vote today

2006-08-08T09:20:00.000-04:00

I've tried to minimize my political comments on this blog. There are enough politically oriented blogs already. But today I'm asking my neighbors in Georgia's fourth district to please take the time to vote in today's run off election.

For 12 out of the last 14 years our district has not been represented in Washington. Cynthia McKinney has been nothing but an embarassment, and we have an opportunity to replace her with a much more honorable man in Hank Johnson. If you did not vote in the Republican primary, then please vote in the Democratic run-off today.

I've had it

2006-08-03T16:50:00.000-04:00

I feel like I'm setting myself up to become some sort of terrible viral advertising for do-it-yourself real estate services, but I'm completely had it. As I best understand it, we're completely screwed in this whole transaction. Since the buyer's broker is holding the earnest money, it's up to her who gets it. Of course, both the buyer (or former buyer, as it rests now) says he should get it back, but we've got a claim on it, too. The buyer is the broker's client, and the broker wants him to do business with her again, she doesn't give a rat's ass about us.

So it will probably turn out that our only option, if we want to pursue it, will be to take this guy to DeKalb Superior Court. According to my lawyer friend, that's the most backed-up court in the state, and we'd probably still be working on this a year from now. In other words, we'd all waste a lot more money than is at stake here.

As I've said before, I don't understand the value of an agent. I've dealt with three or four of them now, and I have yet to feel like I got my money's worth. We found both of our houses without an agent, but in both cases the agent got her full 3% commission. And we can't unload this one after two agents, both of whom talked about what a wonderful house it was and claimed it should sell in no time.

Do I sound frustrated yet? I need a beer, but all I get tonight are paint fumes.

I hate it when I'm right

2006-08-02T12:04:00.000-04:00

As we were painting in the new house last night, my wife pointed out that I nailed the personality of the guy who put a contract on the house we're selling. From the very start I said that I didn't trust him and that there was a good chance he'd flake out and break the contract. I really didn't want to go under contract with him from the start, but I figured we really didn't have much choice.

The inspection process, including getting an engineer out to the house, only confirmed my suspicions. I didn't mind getting an engineer on site, but that was the first time I met the buyer, and I didn't like him. My wife says I'm pessimistic about people. Maybe that's true; maybe once I determine I don't trust or like someone it become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Either way, when I don't trust someone, my hunches often turn out to be right.

It turns out I was right about this guy. He's decided to break the contract. We should be receiving a termination letter today. The reason? Ultimately it came down to the way we proposed to "solve" a "problem" with two (yes, 2) outlets in the kitchen. Of course, once we offered to make his requested upgrade to take care of that issue he decided that he still wanted out.

I think I like the Aussie system much better. Your house sits on the market for four weeks. If no one buys it during that time, then it goes up for auction. After dealing with this mess for eight months, that's sounding awfully tempting right about now.

The New House

2006-08-01T08:31:00.000-04:00

OK, so to my friends on atlbloggers.net, sorry that I've reposted this like a dozen times. In case you care and want to see the house in its full glory, blue carpet and all, and don't see it here, please go to my blog.

We went to the lawyer's office yesterday around 2:00 to close on our new house. It's amazing just how many forms there are to sign. It was also somewhat sad to sit across from the sellers. Rather than being a happy occasion, they asked to get paid in two separate checks - they're getting divorced. That's sad enough, but the couple is way too old for that - the husband is 73. It's a sad fact that in real estate you get your best deal when the seller is in a bad situation.

Since Kick keeps asking for pictures of the new house, I'll post a few here. I'm fighting some stupid technical issues with Flickr, otherwise I'd have a stream up and ready.

Everytime we drive up we have the same thought - it looks like a grown up house, and we don't feel that grown up yet! And it's still hard for me to believe that I now own a bedroom with five, count then 5 bedrooms! It also has a living room, den, dining room, and an extra room we'll use for the home theater. It's just frickin huge!!!

In case there's any question, here's why we want to paint and install some hard wod floors. House about a picture of our son's new room?
There's nothing quite like dark green carpet and lime green walls, is there? And then there's the living room with its real estate walls and blue carpet.
We start painting tonight at 6:00pm. We've got 60 hours to get 6 rooms (plus trim in two others and some halls) painted before the floor guy arrives on Friday. The wife's headed to Costco today to pick up enough Coke and Oreos to feed our small army. When it's all said and done, I'm looking forward to sitting on the 1200 sqeare foot deck and enjoying a beer.

The Shaft

2006-07-29T21:58:00.000-04:00

There are some times when my experience at GA Tech come in very helpful. The Institute prides itself on preparing its alumni for the real world, and those five-plus years did help me understand how to prepare for and deal with the shaft. And I haven't faced a bigger shaft in a while than the one I'm facing right now - selling my house.

The realtors who I love so much like to talk about their ethics, and they paint such a pretty picture when it comes to how the negotiations are going to go. In the end, though, sometimes you're just going to get screwed, and you may as well get used to the idea.

Besides real estate agents, if there's one group of people I don't understand, it's those who dislike do-it-your-selfers. Until about a year ago I didn't realize that there were people who actually disliked people like me just because I'm industrious, competent, skilled, and actually enjoy working on my own house. I first ran into some of these people on another house we thought about buying. During the inspection the sellers made it clear that they would never DIY. The tone of voice the wife used was so full of disdain that I was taken aback. It never occurred to me that someone like THAT would end up with a contract on OUR house. Unfortunately, our buyer not only doesn't trust DIY people, but neither does his inspector, and the report was clear about that. My theory is that the inspector is bitter because he used to be a contractor, but his work dried up when Home Depot started convincing people that "You can do it, we can help" is true. So now we're facing a series of silly little repairs, but the buyer absolutely insists that receipts be shown for the repairs.

How silly could this be you might ask. Well, we've got three outlets which need covers, and he insists that a licensed electrician install the outlet covers and provide a warranty for the work. Of course there are some more important items on the list, but this illustrates his mindset pretty well.

We don't trust this guy. To be honest, I suspect we'll make all $2,000 worth of repairs only to have him walk away and find a way to keep his earnest money. But our only choice for now is to give him everything he wants and hope something falls our way. I feel like I'm walking into a calculus final, but I'm just a bit more drunk...

Drink down

2006-07-29T21:51:00.000-04:00

Every so often my wife and I go through an eat-down. Before we buy any more groceries (except for eggs and milk), we eat whatever's in the pantry. It's a great way to save some money while emptying out some much needed space.

In preparation for our big move which begins next week, I've decided to enter into a drink down. Any bottle of alcohol which doesn't have much in it isn't worth moving, so it may as well be drunk. I've already emptied one tonight, and I'm on my second. Half a bottle of Conecuh Ridge really isn't worth moving, is it???

The Inspection

2006-07-26T09:37:00.000-04:00

I've got to say that I'm pretty proud of most of the things my wife and I have done to our house over the past six years. We've done everything from remodeling the kitchen to building a deck, but besides the infamous bathroom, the most challenging test of my abilities was when I replaced all of the pipes in our house. My ass isn't big enough for me to be a licensed plumber, so I was on pins and needles when the inspector arrived on Monday.

Keeping your house clean and hoping someone else will love it enough to go in debt for 30 years is rough enough, but things aren't over once you sign the contract. The most worrysome part is when a professional house critic looks for all those repairs you've put off over the past few years. It's his job to find problems, and if he doesn't scare the buyer just a little bit, then he hasn't earned his money. The report arrived via email yesterday just as we were heading to Pacific Kitchen to celebrate Restaurant Week (best week of the year, and the food was great, btw).

My wife read the report while I fought traffic. She went through each section and we weren't too surprised by what she saw. Then she got to the big test - the plumbing section. I've been dreading this day for months, because somewhere along the way I was convinced that I had seriously violated code and was going to have to replumb the entire house. As she went through each line she read phrases like "consistent for its age" and "acceptable quality" which is the inspector's way of accepting our work. The only comment he had was that there's a slight decrease in water pressure when running all three showers at once - in other words, we passed with flying colors!

Needless to say, that was the most relaxed dinner we've had in months. Now it's on to packing up and getting ready for the new place. It's looking like an all-night painting extravaganza next Tuesday night.

Big sigh of relief

2006-07-18T13:54:00.000-04:00

Whew!

We signed the contract last night. Our house is now officially under contract! We had to settle for less than we think our house is worth, and we've still got to get through the inspection, but we can finally relax and focus on getting ready to move. The best part is that we close on the sale about two weeks after we purchase the new house, which means we'll have enough time to move without actually paying two house notes.

It's nice not worrying that someone might want to see your house at any minute. For lazy slobs like us, that was just way too much pressure. Where's that champaigne?

Did I just hear this right???

2006-07-18T09:44:00.000-04:00

I'm listening to Boortz. When you work at home, you get desperate for anything resembling conversation.

A woman just called in from Northern Fulton County where yet another part of unincorporated Fulton County is trying to form a city like Sandy Springs successfully did. Fulton County has been busy creating new ways to play dirty pool with the split from Sandy Springs, but that's another story. Anyway, this woman is complaining because no one from Fulton County has even bothered to show up at Ocee Elementary School to turn on the voting machines. I guess the geniuses in FulCo figure that if the machines aren't on then the city of John's Creek won't be created.

I don't really have room to laugh, though. I'm a libertarian who lives in DeKalb county. It's not like I'm represented in DC.

The All American Beer and Cheese Experience

2006-07-16T23:39:00.000-04:00

It's taken me way too long to post about last weekend's party. I've been a little preoccupied this week. Like our last tasting, we enjoyed 7 fine beers paired with cheese. Fortunately, our friends hosted all 22 of us, so we didn't have to clean up afterwards. We've been cleaning too much for the past seven months, so it was a nice break.

I still haven't tallied the surveys, but here's a list of the beers and the cheeses we paired them with. You can find a detailed description of each on our handy little handout.

Thomas Hooker Munich Style Golden Lager with Edam
Hennepin with Cheddar (white and yellow, not Tillamook as shown on the handout)
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale with Parmesan
Dead Guy Ale with Romano
Sweet Georgia Brown with Colby
Samuel Adams Double Bock with Gruyere
Gonzo Imperial Porter with Chocolate and Ricotta

Beer lovers will probably recognize the American theme to this list. And there's no shame in the fact that we served a French/Belgian and three German styled beers. The US is the great melting pot, after all. What is a bit surprising, though, is that we managed to find very acceptable American versions of each of the cheeses. To my undistinquished palate, I didn't notice a significant difference between the American cheeses and their European counterparts with the exception of Gruyere which, oddly enough, is stinkier when produced in the US.

Thanks again to everyone who came (even those of you who really didn't like anything you tried - you were good sports). Parties like this give us a legitimate reason to spend nights and weekends drinking as many different beers as we can get our hands on!

Lowball

2006-07-13T11:01:00.000-04:00

Lowballs can be good - I like mine filled with an old-fashioned and garnished with an orange.

Lowballs can also be bad. Like when someone finally makes an offer on your house after it's been on the market for seven months. It's a little painful when you've invested so much in your home and dealt with so many scummy realtors to finally receive an offer which is 10% below the advertised price of 4 days ago. Granted, we have dropped our price quite a bit this week, but geesh.

Of course, the good news is that we have an offer. This gives us something from which to negotiate, and the proposed closing date is just about perfect. If we can make this offer work, then we'll be able to get the new floors in the new house just before we close on this one. We might not even end up carrying two houses for a full month, that's great.

So it's back to negotiating price, and then comes the fun part of the inspection. Who wants a professional critic looking at their house???

Drunken Ribs

2006-07-07T13:15:00.000-04:00

This year's Independence Day celebration was pretty simple. Some friends brought their kids over and we enjoyed a couple of drinks and my favorite recipe - drunken ribs. I don't get to make them often, but they're always a hit. And this year I tried something new, and it's worth the extra effort. So for that one avid RB reader out there, here's the basic process of making drunken ribs. You get to experiment with the quantities.

Season the ribs with Lawry's and pepper

In a pan large enough to hold your rack(s) mix the following:
2 or 3 cans cheap beer (Coor's Light is a favorite)
Vinegar
This morning's left over coffee (it's a great tenderizer)
Several glugs of whiskey (smooth and cheap is fine, but stronger flavor will definately be tasted)
Place the ribs in the pan and pour enough beer (water works in a pinch) to just cover them and let sit for a few hours.

Heat the grill to medium heat (or indirect if using charcoal). Baste the ribs with the marinade. (Here comes the new part) Using a turkey injector, inject the very meaty parts of the ribs with the marinade. Repeat the basting and injecting for as long as the ribs cook. Cover in BBQ sauce towards the end of the cooking. It's best if you increase the heat so that the sauce burns just a little bit.

And now for the sauce. What good are ribs if the sauce isn't any good? Again, you get to figure out the quantities, because I don't believe in measuring.

Dice 2 onions
Brown onions in pot with some olive oil until tender and golden
Reduce heat and add several glugs of Jack Daniels. Cover and simmer for several minutes
Add:
1 can tomato paste (or ketchup)
yellow mustard (until the mixture turns somewhat orange)
dry mustard
cayanne pepper
worcester sauce
brown sugar
vinegar
Cover and allow to simmer for as long as possible.

When made properly, this sauce lands right in the middle of all of the Southern styles - tomato based, mustard based, vinegar based, and sweet. It's zingy and sweet with just a little kick. The Jack (only substitute other strong-flaovred whiskeys such as Jim Beam, Southern Comfort, etc. but not something smoother like Wild Turkey) adds some sweetness and a unique flavor.

I'd love for someone else to try this. If you ever do, please let me know if you like it as much as I do and my friends claim they do.

World Cup Experiment Continued

2006-06-30T16:30:00.000-04:00

Continuing my previous experiment, I'm still watching the World Cup. The sport still doesn't do much for me; it's far less interesting to me than baseball, football, hockey, or college basketball.

I'm learning quite a bit by listening to the US announcers, but a subdued "Goal, Italy" just doesn't compare to a full minute of "¡GOL!" Perhaps if our commentators got a little more excited about the game they're announcing, I might get a little more caught up in it. Of course, if I were as drunk as all those English fans, then it might be little more interesting, too.

Bonafide

2006-06-29T09:59:00.000-04:00

7,065,181

No, you don't undertand it. If you did, you'd have invented it before I did.

Classical this morning

2006-06-28T09:46:00.000-04:00

Back when I sat in a cube surrounded by many other people who did the same, my coworkers could always tell my mood based on what I was listening to. If I was listening to talk radio, then everything was allright. Yes, that makes me very strange, but I never claimed to be normal. However, if I was listening to Classical music, then that meant my nerves were shot. It served as a warning to everyone else - handle with care!

This morning I'm listening to sky.fm's Mostly Classical streaming station. I'm now so officially freaked out about the probability of owning two houses that my insomnia has returned. So today I'm a very stressed out and tired man. For everyone's sake, today it's a good thing that I pretty much work alone. Anyone want to buy a house in Brookhaven???

Jesus saves - Orbit doesn't

2006-06-26T14:15:00.000-04:00

The best legal disclaimer I've seen in a long time.

Storm damage

2006-06-26T10:44:00.000-04:00

While the rain this weekend was an inconvenience for the Pride festival, it caused some real problems in the rest of the state. I didn't realize just how strong Friday's storm was until I got a call from my parents who were headed to the family farm in Bostwick. I think this picture says it all. I've also posted a few more pictures on flickr. We're going to have to hire someone to repair the barn, but we spent a very hard three hours running the chain saw and clearing the wood.

Good Customer Service

2006-06-23T11:48:00.000-04:00

It's not that hard to find bad customer service stories on the internets. And if that's not enough, there's even an entire radio show dedicated to it! Since I had three this week.

First, how about a decent ebay experience? I wanted some accessories for my camera, and the best source was a camera store in New York City. Suffice it to say that NYC camera stores don't have a good reputation, yet panwebi auctions treated me right. Not only did they answer the 1-800 number when I asked a question a couple of weeks ago, but when I did finally place my order it was shipped almost immediately via two-day UPS when I paid for slower shipping!

Next, Motorola showed its true colors. Last year I purchased one of those Star-Trekkie HS810 bluetooth headsets from my favorite cellphone store. I don't know why, but it died a few weeks ago. When I called Motorola, they asked when I bought it and then told me to send it in. I had to pay for shipping there, but I just received my new, free HS850 headset this morning. Yep, they sent me the latest model as a replacement. It did take a couple of extra calls, but who am I to complain?

Finally, I'm fallen in love with woot. One day they offered 250GB hard drives for really cheap. One was so cheap that it didn't work. All I had to do was send a single email to the right address (which was easy to find on their website) and a replacement drive arrived two days later with prepaid postage for returning the dead one.

Are any of these things really spectacular? No, not really. But they've still made me smile on this Friday morning. As if I really need any more reason to smile just before the weekend.

Football experiment results

2006-06-23T08:47:00.000-04:00

So I watched the US lose to Ghana yesterday. I was as drawn to it as I might be to, say, a NASCAR race. That is to say, it's not a sport that I'll go out of my way to watch, but if it's on then it provides ready entertainment. It would probably be a lot more fun to watch with other people while drinking something other than the official beer.

I didn't hate it as much as I could have, and I was impressed by the sportsmanship of the game. I'd be open to being more educated about the world's most popular sport, but if my friends are going to play something other than baseball, I'm hoping for little league ultimate!

On Being a Recovering Baptist

2006-06-22T14:38:00.000-04:00

Chris and Dan's IM exchange is absolutely hillarious. And I'm glad it came at my expense. But it's odd that even after working together for something like 5 years that Dan has no clue about my faith. I don't see how he missed Chris and I saying that the other is going to hell when he sat right next to us!

So, as Dan asked, what exactly is a recovering baptist? It turns out that a few APWBWGTTDers are recovering baptists and even more are recovering fundamentalists.

I'd say that a recovering baptist is someone who grew up in a typical Bible Belt church. Most of us grew up understanding that being a Christian means there is a long list of things you don't do (drink, dance, gamble). To be fair, what's taught from the pulpit may say that a Christian is merely someone who believes Jesus is God's son and died for your sins, but many Baptists have a way of also making a point of running away from anything or anyone that hinted at sin.

Many people are so hurt by this kind of religion that they turn away from Christianity completely. I don't know why, but I never did. As I read the Bible, I became more convinced that it is indeed true (yes I pretty much fit the definition of evangelical from Chris' IM), but that the Baptists have it wrong. Jesus didn't run away from sinful people or things which coud lead to sin, just the contrary, he embraced them. It was the religious people that he derided because they used religious rules to look down on everyone else while making themselves look better. And this is what many people in my old church did. If acting like a drunken idiot was clearly (in their minds) sinful, then I should not drink. Sure, you may not get sloshed when drinking, but somehow I'm better than you since I only drink sugar and caffeine-laden iced tea.

Denominations may be one of the worst things about Christianity, but in case anyone cares, my spiritual journey has led me to the Presbyterian Church in America. I'd say that on the Fundamentalist - Unitarian scale I moved from about a 9.5 to about a 6. That is, I still believe the Bible to be true (including that I don't believe in evolution, but that's because I don't buy the math of it), but I live my life very differently now. Obviously I figured out that Jesus drank alcohol, so now I follow his example. But more important than that, I've learned that in terms of who's better than who, Jesus is in first place and the rest of us are last. It's not my responsibility to try to change how someone else acts, and it's incorrect for me to think that I'm better than anybody else because of what either of us have done. And it's my responsibility to love and include everyone, regardless of what they do or believe. And that may be the biggest difference between my former life and my current one.

Enough theology, I need a beer. Hopefully I can make the next APWBWGTTD meetup!

Football experiment

2006-06-22T09:40:00.000-04:00

With all due apologies to my friend Dignan and everyone at his blog, I hate soccer. And I say this as someone who played it for several years, up through my freshman year of high school. Why do I hate this game so much? Well, it's one thing to say that it's boring to watch a game, but I can honestly say I found it boring to play. That could be because I was always stuck at midfield, which meant I had to run more than anyone else on the field, but I never got a chance to score or even get an assist. Maybe I just sucked, but I didn't like playing the game.

However, since this is the world's most popular sport, I figure I ought to give it at least one more try. So I've decided to try watching the US - Ghana match today. I don't think I've tried to watch a soccer game in over a decade, so we'll see what I think. Yes, I know these things are better watched at a bar, but my boss doesn't look kindly to me drinking before noon!

House selling blues

2006-06-19T16:32:00.000-04:00

My family and I just returned from a week's vacation in beautiful Lake Lure, NC. It was great being away from everything, including the internet, but the whole time we were gone we were monitoring the activity on our house. It's very hard to fully relax when you know you're 45 days away from having two mortgages and no one's even looked at your house twice.

I've seen several articles today discussing real estate. It seems that Georgia is facing a number of problems. Our economy slowing thanks to the departure of many corporate headquarters. The home market has slowed to the point that many people are facing foreclosures because they cannot afford the increase in payments on ARMs (buyer beware). And then there's the effect of last year's immigration bill. For some reason we in Georgia have decided to enact the toughest anti-immigration bill in the country, and we're seeing the unintended consequences. While I'm sure that my $300,000+ house in Brookhaven/Chamblee isn't the target house for an undocumented worker, when people in Norcross can't sell their homes, it can certainly have an impact up and down the Buford Hwy corridor.

As frustrating as it is, no investment is an exact science. Real Estate is especially tricky since there is no way to tell why a person chooses to not buy a piece of property. Selling your house is even worse since you're trying to sell something you've personally invested in and it may well be your sense of style which is sending buyers away. We're worn down and don't know what to do, and that's frustrating for a pair of people who love to take risk and can usually see to or three alternatives to everything.

Well, I'd better quit writing. I think I need to go drop our price again...

Way to go boys

2006-06-08T09:13:00.000-04:00

Score one for the good guys. My friends know that I believe the war in Iraq is more about political jockeying than about a true desire to make people free and keep us safe. However, since our men and women are in harm's way, we should celebrate the victories when they come.

It's always a good day when a known and admitted murderer dies. May Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi burn in hell. I'm sure he would have wished nothing better for any of us.

Goodbye New Orleans

2006-06-05T22:52:00.000-04:00

It was much harder to get started the second day than it was the first. It had nothing to do with our activities the night before; one beer and one cigar isn't that hard to recover from. It's just so hard to get motivated to do something, even something good, when you know it's going to be physically demanding and very messy. What's worse, we still haven't figured out exactly what Cornelia plans to do with the house. If the house is, let's say, going to be torn down, then what's the point of clearing it out first? It wasn't until later that the point became so clear.

We worked all morning by ourselves. Cornelia honked as she drove by on her way to church, but otherwise we didn't see her. We ate lunch around 11:30, and she still hadn't arrived. We called around 1:00 to say we needed to leave soon, but she didn't answer. As we were on our way back to the center, she called to say that she had brought us lunch. We weren't hungry, but we just couldn't turn her down.

When we arrived one of her many good friends was there and immediately offered us a cold beer. There's a premium on cold drinks in New Orleans these days, and I enjoyed my cheap, bad, cold beer. As we ate our lunch (which was left over from a party celebrating 30 years of service for their priest) the point of our whole trip became so clear. It had nothing to do with rebuilding a city. It had nothing to do with cleaning out her house. We made this trip and endured the shit so that a 78 year old widow would know that some strangers three states away loved her enough to endure two days of sweltering heat in miserable conditions. Yes, I hope that she either decided to move back into her house (although I don't think she can bear it), or I hope she gets some money from selling it. But more importantly, I hope that some word of our trip spreads so the reputation of those of us who claim Christ will be improved. God knows that our sins are many and our reputation stinks worse than a refrigerator full of food which has been unplugged for 9 months, and we could use some good press.

We headed home after we finished up on Sunday. We weren't supposed to leave until Monday morning, but there really wasn't anything left to see or do, and we were ready to get back to our families. I'm very glad we went, and my friends are going to be tired of hearing my Katrina stories. That's fine - they can easily shut me up by having some of their own!

A Hard Day in New Orleans

2006-06-03T22:37:00.000-04:00

We arrived at Cornelia's house today around 8:00 am. Cornelia's husband was a professor at the University of New Orleans, and he died in February of last year. In August her house, which is across the street from the UNO campus, was completely flooded when the now infamous London Canal burst through the levee.

There is no way to describe what a house which was once flooded to the ceiling looks like inside. The furniture had been, shall we say, rearranged. There is almost nothing worth salvaging, and it was the job of my friend and me to toss as much as we could on the curb. She laughed everything off as best as she could, offering us cookies which had been in the air-tight cookie jar since August, but you could see the pain in her face. Any little thing we could salvage, such as the pictures from her 70th birthday party or a notebook filled with her husband's writing, were bitter-sweet joy to her. We'll return tomorrow morning to continue with the cleanup. I doubt we'll finish, but at least we will have made progress. I'm really not sure why we're cleaning it out, though, because she has no plans to ever live in the house again, and it would probably make more sense to tear it down and start over than to gut it and refinish the inside.

We quit working around 2:00, before it got unbearably hot. At least we had a small breeze outside; it was nice to breathe fresh air after even 5 minutes in the bedroom, which is the worst room in the house. Imagine all of your clothes covered in sewage water for two weeks and then left to mold for nine months. It was pretty disgusting. So we were glad to head back to the center for a shower and a short nap before heading out to see the sights again.

New Orleans East was the part of the city which was hurt by the actual storm the worst. If the levees had held Katrina really would not have been much of a story. I remember now hearing at first that New Orleans proper had been spared a direct hit. That wasn't the case for the east side of the city. There is a wildlife refuge between the city and the bridge over Lake Ponchatrain which is full of trees. The trees are now all dead because their roots were under water for too long, but what's shocking is to see almost every tree snapped off at 20 feet. The sheer power of the wind can be seen everywhere in that part of the area. All of the apartments have either been rebuilt or will have to be rebuilt. The same goes for just about every house. There's a mall there which is a ghost town, and the only business which is open is the Home Depot. As best as I can relate, it would probably be as if Town Center Mall and all of its surrounding businesses were emptied and the only people living in Kennesaw were living in trailers in front of their houses.

We spent the evening in the French Quarter again. It's the only place where you can be sure to find an open restraunt (other than Rally's which seems to have reopened all of its locations). We ate po boy sandwiches while listening to jazz in an open air cafe and then wandered all over the area. We ended the evening sitting in Jackson Square listening to a great blues band called Slewfoot and Carry B. Their main attraction was the tap dancing old woman who backed them up on the washboard, and the people watching on the square was almost as much fun as the music. We're now back at the Center and about to crash in preparation of another hard day's work.

We were interviewed today by some kids from MIT who are working on a project to make the people in New England more aware about the situation here. They asked if we're making a difference. The answer is that no, in the grand scheme of things, two guys cleaning out one house is not going to rebild the city. But it's all we can do, and we know Cornelia appreciates it, so it's worth our time, sweat, and near-nausia.

NOLA

2006-06-02T22:19:00.000-04:00

I have arrived in New Orleans ealier today. A friend and I are here to do some relief work (of all things, through a Baptist Church). We'll be helping a lady move everything out of her previously flooded house. This is my first time to this city, and I'm at a loss.

If no hurricane had ever hit this city, I wouldn't know how to describe a city with as, how shall I say, unique combination of cultures as New Orleans. On one end of Bourbon Street is more bars and stores blaring music at ear piercing levels. I lost count of just how many strip joints there were on that end of the street. The other end of the street was very quiet, nicely kept, and either displaying rainbow flags or full of people completely covered in body art. I felt more at home on the quiet end.

Before we headed to the French Quarter, though, we drove to the 9th Ward. As we passed through the Upper 9th we were just as astounded at the destruction as we had been after we crossed over Lake Poncetrain (sp?). The water had obviously come up to the roof level and at least a third of the roofs are still completely gone. But neither words nor pictures can begin to convey the destruction which the water caused in the Lower 9th Ward.

I'm part looking forward to our work tomorrow, and I'm part afraid of just how hard the work's going to be. And I'm very humbled. We're just two guys here to help one lady. The Southern Baptists from Arkinsas who are here now were here four days after the storm cleared, and they were serving 20,000 meals a day. They just stopped cooking three weeks again because there are finally enough restraunts here, but the Southern Baptist Convention has now secured a church which will house volunteers for the next two years. From the looks of things, I don't know if two years will be enough to get this city back to normal.

I don't get it

2006-05-25T16:37:00.000-04:00

So let me see if I've got this straight. President Bush believes the NSA has the right to listen to international phone calls and track domestic calling patterns without bothering to check with the secret court which was created for just this purpose. However, when the FBI raids a Congressional office after receiving a warrant for clear probable cause, he bows to the self-important blowhards in the Capitol and freezes access to the documents which the agency obtained.

What's wrong with this picture?

My Wife's Better Than Yours

2006-05-17T09:20:00.000-04:00

My wife was at the local grocery store when she spotted some unusual bottles in the discount wine basket. She bought all of this beer at the store's cost. I married well.

The Project is Finished!!!

2006-05-13T22:19:00.000-04:00

At this point I've completely lost count of how long we've been working on this bathroom. I had to look that it was one month ago today that I first posted about this project, which means it's been one month and a day since we started. In that time we've painted a room, swapped furniture, knocked down a wall, moved and added electrical fixtures, moved and added plumbing fixtures, and tiled a new shower and floor.

Tonight I finished the final tasks - I connected the sink supply and drain lines. Earlier today we finished sealing the tile (using a gloss finish, which makes it look really good), and I tested the shower. There are no leaks, which means the project is finished. The most amazing this is the cost. Not including the furnace, our rough accounting for adding a shower and upscale finishes to what used to be a half-bath is $1,800!

Since my wife is spending mothers day eve and morning away from the kids, I'm looking forward to rushing through cleaning up the house so I can finally use the new shower. I think I'm going to stand there until the water heater is completely empty.

I weep

2006-05-12T11:39:00.000-04:00

I've been interested in politics for almost as long as I can remember. Heck, I was listening to talk radio in middle school and talked politics with friends before school every day in high school. No, I didn't have a lot of friends back then.

I've been a conservative for as long as I can remember, which means that I've almost always been a Republican. In recent years I've become more of a Libertarian, but since our state does not require registered party affiliation, I can change primaries to try to vote out whoever I see fit.

So, while I'm not a Republican, I still identify with the GOP moreso than, say, the Democrats. After all, many members of the GOP give lip service to the ideas of limited government, low taxes, and the free market, all of which are ideals which I share.

It's going to hurt me to type this - it is time for President Bush to leave office.

Just to make sure I've ticked off everyone equally, I believe it was right to impeach President Clinton. He lied under oath which kept a woman from her due process. The President of the United States should never do such a thing and has forfeited his right to hold that office upon doing so.

A man should no longer be President which he improperly signs a bill into law. He should no longer be President when he spies on his own people while bypassing due process which was created to specifically allow him to do so in times of need. And he absolutely should not strong arm private companies to potentially violate the law and their own ethics to give up data which is protected by privacy statements so a variety of governmental agencies can mine the data to see if "questionable" patterns exist. This is as unreasonable search as can exist in the twenty-frst century.

The terrorists have won, and Bush is an unwitting ally in their victory. No, the terrorists did not kill very many people. And they have not, yet, destroyed our economy. Instead, the terrorists have convinced us to willingly give up rights which we believed to be inalienable. Rather than holding to self-evident truths, we have placed our own perceived individual security ahead of our own rights and those of our fellow citizens. Like other presidents before him, rather than uphold the Constitution, President Bush sees it as something which stands between him and what he believes needs to be accomplished, and he will use any loophole, however small, to do what he wants.

Do I believe President Bush intends evil? No. I honestly think both Clintons are evil to the core, but I think President Bush wants to do the right thing. Unfortunately, President Bush's priorities are backwards. He should be protecting our liberties first and our lives second. Once the government sees our liberties as being dispensable, then how do we not know that our lives are, too?

What's worse, is that, as ATL Malcontent and others have said, Americans don't really care. Why are we so worried about potential invaders from the south when there are plenty in Washington who are already trampling all over the documents which made our nation great?

Sorry to write a post like this on a Friday. And I apologize for its length. But hey, I can't control when news breaks.

Rest

2006-05-07T23:28:00.000-04:00

After nearly four weeks, we have rested. The project's not quite done yet, but it was good enough to show to a potential buyer on Saturday. My wonderful in-laws watched the boys while we took a 4 hour nap Saturday, which was needed after bedtimes this week of 3:00 am, 3:00 am, 4:00 am, 9:00 pm (much needed night off), 4:00 am, and 5:00 am. We haven't done a thing since Saturday noon when we were running out the door as the prospects were walking in, and the rest has been wonderful!

We still need to tile the shower floor, seal the tile, and run the supply lines to the sink. I also need to fix one little leak, but for the most part we're done. I've never been more proud of our work. I talked to a friend today who is a professional tile layer, and he said that installing a shower pan is the toughest thing a plumber does, so I feel very, very good about what all we've done. Now for more rest.

Oh Atlanta!

2006-05-03T13:05:00.000-04:00

Working at home does have its benefits. Sure, I miss my friends at my old job and my westward view from the 33rd floor, but it's hard to beat working from your deck on a day like today. For you shut-ins, it's a perfect 79 degrees with moderate clouds and low humidity. I'm being serenaded by birds and the mosquitos aren't out in full force yet.

Days like today are why people are flocking to our fair city.

As a side note - if you work at home, chances are your neighbors do, too. I've decided to start having an occasional cup of coffee with my fellow home-office neighbors. If you happen to live or work in the Chamblee/Brookhaven area, drop me a line and let's grab a cup. The loss of regular, random social interaction is the only downside to the home office.

Tile!!!

2006-05-01T09:32:00.000-04:00

I'm hoping to offer my faithful reader a more complete update later, but for now I'm happy to report that by the time we went to bed at 3:00 this morning the floor is tiled and there is one row of tile on the shower. Why only one row on the shower? Well, let's just say that I now understand why 18" tile isn't very popular for walls, it's very heavy. We may have to tile one row at a time and then wait hours before putting up another.

Needless to say, we're exhausted, but it's good to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

2 steps forward 1 step back

2006-04-28T09:36:00.000-04:00

There are few things worse than doing the same thing twice. That's especially true when the rework is dirty, dusty, and physically demanding.

The wife did a great job painting the bathroom and closet. It's amazing how much she can get done in a day without the boys. But then she went to sleep while I started working on the backer board for the wall where the shower head and control are. Cutting cement board isn't quite as fun as having a toilet flush on your head, but it's pretty physically demanding. I managed to put the board in place and start screwing it in by myself when I realized that I had not fully tested the shower plumbing. So I attached the pipe for the shower head and turned on the shower and water spewed from the wall.

So now I've got to replumb the pipe which will feed the shower head and then re-hang the backerboard. I'm probably going to have to re-cut the board again while I'm at it. So much for getting the tile hung anytime soon.

Progress

2006-04-27T10:49:00.000-04:00

prog·ress (prgrs, -rs, prgrs)n.

1. Movement, as toward a goal; advance.

Nothing about that definition describes the quantity of movement, just its existance. After starting off so quickly, it's been very frustrating when you don't feel like you're not getting anywhere. It's tough to remind yourself that every little thing you do on a project, whether it looks significant or not, moves you closer to completion. No one ever looks at a new bathroom and thinks, "Wow, I wonder how many floor joists had to be cut to make that drain work." I don't think anyone's going to ask how many studs we placed in the wall between the closet and the shower. And I'm certain that no potential home buyer is going to care about how many times I hit my head on that sharp metal pipe while I was installing the shower drain and supply lines. But without those things we wouldn't be where we are today.

By the time we turned in last night the supply lines were run to the shower (with only one minor incident - glue is very important when working with CPVC pipe), the drain was finished, backerboard was placed on two walls in the shower, and the shower pan liner was in place. It's just so much more gratifying to finish a night when visible progress has been made than when you've been working on things no one will ever appreciate.

If we're really lucky, by the end of tonight the bathroom will be painted and we'll begin placing tile on the walls. Whew!

Yet Another Lost Gospel

2006-04-25T11:27:00.000-04:00

I'm always glad to see significant breakthroughs in understanding the history of Christianity. Fortunately Bible.org has posted the translation of the Gospel of Keith. The footnotes are, as always, of critical importance to understanding the deeper meaning of the text. (Thanks to digg, of course.)

A Flush Letter

2006-04-24T08:39:00.000-04:00

Dear Realtor®:

When you spoke with my wife on Friday, she told you that our house was not ready for showing. She explained that people are not interested in our house because the Master Bedroom does not have a full bath and that we are in the process of adding a shower to the Master half-bathroom. She explained that we have two small children and that we'd rather not show the home, but you insisted. You told her that your client was very motivated and really wanted to see our house. And then you did not even have the courtesy to call us to say that your precious client had decided to focus on another area of town.

Is there any wonder why your profession is quickly disappearing? I'm not going to waste a single tear when there are more buggy whip makers than real estate agents. After all, there are some people who find enhanced sexual gratification through whips, but I have yet to hear of a single person with a real estate fetish. Your profession will soon join travel agents among the least useful profession in our fair country.

I've spent some time wondering which of my experiences from the weekend I should wish upon you as fair recompense for your infraction. I might with that you would stay up until 4:00 am cleaning a house so that it is presentable for a potential buyer, but I'm certain you didn't lose a second's sleep on Friday night, and I expect you'd find a way to sleep through an all-nighter. I might wish that you would beat your hand to a pulp with a hammer while trying to chisel out a floor joist so you can install a shower drain, but as painful as that is, the pain eventually wears off and the experience is soon forgotten.

I now pronounce this curse upon you: may your spouse twice flush a toilet while you are sitting underneath an open four inch pipe which is in line with the waste which is being disposed.

Since your idea of hard work is driving other people around in your expensive car to show them houses which belong to other people, I'm sure you have never done any plumbing work, so I will describe the experience for you. The first time it happens, it takes a moment to identify the sound as a toilet flushing. Then you begin to wonder if the giant open pipe which is above your head is going to soon send a large wall of water in your direction. You hope against hope that the down pipe between you and the loo will carry the waste down to the sewer, but you know that large quantities of water sometimes overshoots holes and continues on the same level and it might be coming at you. Then you see the first little bit of liquid and try to decide whether you should just run or scramble to find the cap to cover the pipe; the decision is made for you once you realize that you are caught between the giant, cold air conditioner duct and the wall. The cap is under the duct where you cannot find it and the former contents of the porcelain bowl land on your head as you scream at your spouse in surprise and terror.

The second time it happens to you is much worse, because you have just remove the cap so you can begin gluing the pipes together to prevent a repeat performance. You have just opened the spirit-lifting purple primer and begun applying it to the pipe when you hear the now-familiar sound. Of course, the cap is again under the AC duct, as are all of the pipes which you might be able to use to divert the excrement-carrying water away from you, and this time you know what's headed right for you. The waiting is the worst part as you scramble for anything which might divert the waste, but you know that you'll be too slow and cannot disentangle yourself from the twelve-inch duct before the cold, dirty water lands all over you. It is the kind of experience which makes a seasoned plumbing veteran decide that he does not want to crawl under a house again, and it's not something which I expect I shall forget in this lifetime.

I will not feel that we are quite equal even if you share this experience, but I will feel no pity for you, either. In the meantime, rest uncomfortably in the fact that I am another person who has decided that this shall be his last time using anyone from your profession, because agents like you are contributing to the fast decline of your industry.

Regards,

RB

A recipe for good sleep

2006-04-20T08:33:00.000-04:00

For people like me who often suffer from insomnia, I offer this recipe for a good night's sleep:

Work until 1:00 am on Monday night installing boxes for electric outlets.
On Tuesday pick up hundreds of pounds of supplies for two different projects. Load 11 bags of quickcrete in back of truck. Work until 1:00 am on various little parts of the new bathroom.
Wake up at 4:45 am on Wednesday. Drive over an hour to the family farm. Finish building dock. Return home for a day's worth of paying work. Welcome friends at 6:00 pm who will drink beer and help with drain pipes. Finish running electrical wires and cutting holes in the floor inside the wall so pipes can be hidden by the wall. Fall asleep to the soothing sounds of your wife framing a wall.

Santa Claus is in my bed!

2006-04-19T10:44:00.000-04:00

That's what my 2 year old woke up screaming at 4:30am two nights ago. I'm still trying to figure out why it would be so bad that Santa might be in one's room. I mean, after all, he's a great guy who children are supposed to love, but he didn't seem to be so fond of the idea.

It's hard to stay productive when you're working 9:00 pm to midnight and then your kids wake you up twice a night. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

And in case you're even thinking of asking, no, there was nothing resembling a man in a red suit anywhere to be seen.

The Project - Days 2 through 4

2006-04-17T08:31:00.000-04:00

Is there any better sport to watch live than hockey? Maybe watching paint dry? I got to do both Thursday night with a trip to Taco Mac and helping with a friend's towed car in between (hint: when in Va Highlands, read the signs carefully!) Painting at 2:00 am is not that much fun, but we stayed ahead of schedule.

Friday was very busy. We got furniture moved and began demolition in the bathroom. The toilet's now next to the house (it makes a great planter, I prefer something with bright flowers) and the sink's on the curb. It was loads of fun to watch our two year old trying to figure out what happened to his room. Small changes like that are a big deal for someone of that age.

Things got even more fun on Saturday when the wall was finaly knocked out. Few things are more satisfying than watching a wall fall down. Strange fact - there are no studs in the wall we knocked out. Instead, it was made up of three sheets of sheetrock glued together and held in place by the crown and floor molding. We also moved the wall light and ran the wiring for the shower light. We're now a full two days ahead of schedule.

Easter Sunday is a day for spiritual reflection and dinner with family. It's also time for the traditional turning off of the water in the house. I cut and capped the old supply lines. Fortunately the caps held the first time and everything's dry.

I'd forgotten just how much fun doing this kind of work can be. And we've never been ahead of schedule on a project before. I'm confident that will change once the hard work begins...

The Project - Day 1

2006-04-13T09:33:00.000-04:00

For a family like mine there's nothing worse than trying to sell your house. It's not just that we're trying to keep the house clean with two little mess makers (plus me). It's not even being forced out of our house on an hour's notice so some stranger can open all our closets and snicker about our sense of style. Simply put, we're borded.

The first thing we did after closing on our house a little over six years ago was to start ripping out the kitchen. We've spent most of the time since then tweaking our home in one way or another. In the past six years we've painted every room, remodeled the kitchen, remodeled the laundry room, remodeled a bathroom, built a deck, sodded the lawn, and even replumbed the house ourselves. And that doesn't include the work which we hired out to contractors, including finishing the basement and rebuilding a garage. But since we first put the house on the market at the beginning of the year, we haven't been able to do a thing to the house other than plant some flowers and clean. We lost our hobby and we're bored.

But no more! We've got the perfect excuse to work on the house again - no one's buying. We've not had a single serious inquiriy in the four months that it's been on the market, and we think that's because our 1950's ranch has a powder room for a master bathroom. In 1952 a half-bathroom off a bedroom was a luxory, but today's savy home buyers expect a bit more, especially when spending over three-hundred thousand dollars. So, we're going to give them one. In perhaps our most gutsy home improvement project yet, we're going to convert a hallway closet into a shower, move the lavatory and toilet, and lay tile. We're also going to swap the furniture in two rooms and get the furnace replaced at the same time. All of this while the house is on the market.

Yesterday was day one of what should be a ten day project. We started painting one of the bedrooms in preparation for the furniture switch. Yes, that meant we were up until midnight painting, but that's why I have a bottomless cup of coffe here in my home office.

ABC

2006-04-07T08:23:00.000-04:00

Last night I found myself sitting at the Brickstore enjoying a great beer and discussing politics. This wasn't so strange, but the nature of the politics was. My friend and successful blogger Will Hinton has had enough of Cynthia McKinney's antics and has decided to run against her for Congress. He had his first interview this morning on WGST 640AM, and our job last night was to prepare him for his appearance.

I'm not holding out much hope that a mostly conservative white guy can beat Cynthia, but I'd love to see it happen. A more realistic hope is that her lunacy and inattention to her district will draw a more viable candidate to the race. Since I've never helped anyone with a campaign, it's going to be an interesting few months.

The Christian Cocoon

2006-04-04T17:33:00.000-04:00

ATL malcontent said it better than I could, but there's a real problem with many Evangelical Christians - they realize the call to evangelism, but they don't want to actually get to know the people they're supposed to be evangelizing. It's almost as if they're afraid that getting too close to sinners might cause some sin to rub off onto them.

Nevermind that according to the Bible everyone is a sinner. And never mind that regardless of the type of sin, whether it's adultery, substance abuse, murder, or gluttony (which most Baptists happily overlook), all sins are equally objectionable in God's eyes. It's as if someone else's sins are going to rub off and make the Christian even more sinful. Isn't this what the Pharisees were doing in the New Testament, and aren't they always painted as the bad guys by Christians?

The early church may well have been the most welcoming group in the history of the world. This is the group which not only welcomed the very poor, the whores, and the traitors, it hunted them down and invited them in. It welcomed people of other races and ethnicities, and it even rescued the babies of their oppressors which would otherwise have been victims of infanticide. This is the church to which I want to belong.

Opening Day

2006-04-03T17:32:00.000-04:00

With all due respect to Dignan, I believe Opening Day should be a national holiday. Fortunately for me, I work at home and am now watching my second game of the day. Tell me how many offices would allow you to sit at your desk and watch the ball fly over the fence from Andrew Jones' bat?

I don't know what the Braves will do this year, but there's something comforting about the return of baseball every year. Yes, it's had its ups and downs between the strike in '94 and the cheating which everybody was willing to wink at until this year, but it's still a great way to spend an afternoon or evening.

Another Reason I've Jumped Off the Bush Bandwagon

2006-03-27T14:26:00.000-05:00

My close friends know that I've not been a big fan of President Bush for many years now. That's not to say that I'm a Democrat - I voted for the Libertarian candidate in the last election and will probably do so in the next one.

This isn't to say that everything that GWB has done has been bad, but there are some things that he's done which are just plain wrong. This latest one may appear to be minor and isn't very sexy, but it's a very inappropriate thing for a President to do.

According to several reports, the President knowingly signed a bill into law which did not pass both houses of Congress. It appears that a clerk made a change to the House version of the The Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005. The financial impact of that change is $2 billion, but it doesn't matter if it was $2, the fact is that the President violated the Constitution.

The previous calls for his censure were blatant political grandstanding and have been largely ignored, as they should have been. This act, however, is a clear failure to uphold his duties as President. But don't look for Congress to do anything about it - they don't want to bring up this bill any more than they have to. This is a bill which cuts Medicare funding (which I happen to be for) and is very unpopular.

Now for the scary small print - there was a SCOTUS ruling in the late 1890's which stated that a bill does not have to actually pass both houses of Congress to become a law, provided that the bill which was presented to the President was certified by the Speaker of the House and the leader of the Senate as the correct bill. It is alleged that the Speaker caught the error and notified the President, so he may have known better. However, this is one of those things which may be technically legal, but surely the Republicans aren't so stupid as to think they would be the only ones to use a trick like this. Every politically aware person, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, or Other, should be concerned about this precedent.

March Madness

2006-03-27T13:16:00.000-05:00

About this time last year I received an offer from my alma-mater to purchase tickets to this year's Atlanta regional for the NCAA Men's basketball championship. After weighing the pros and cons of spending $150 per person for 3 games without knowing where the seats would be or who the teams were, I decided that this might be a once in a lifetime chance and that it was worth it since my mom's a big college basketball fan.

I decided to pull for LSU against Duke on Thursday night because, well, they're Duke. That game was so draining that I don't blame the thousands of people who couldn't stay for the end of the Texas - West VA contest, but they missed an amazing ending to a game which should have been a blowout. Of course, Saturday night was even more fun, as the Tigers had to wait for OT to claim the regional championship.

Now that I've been to the tournement, I'm hooked. I didn't think it could be that much fun to watch a game when your team isn't involved, but the atmosphere was so amazing that it was impossible to avoid getting wrapped up in the excitement. I'm already looking forward to buying tickets to the Final Four which will be here next year. I just hope the newly ordered scoreboard can be installed before then!

Boo Got Shot

2006-03-23T16:40:00.000-05:00

I can't believe that there's anyone in Atlanta who has not yet heard about Boo. Simply put, he got shot.

Until now Neal Boortz has not posted his funniest bit online. And, if you've missed it, there's a less funny rap version, too.

(sorry about the ads and the pops on the streams, I can't do anything about those, but it's worth it!)

New Orleans and Flood Insurance

2006-03-23T11:23:00.000-05:00

I recentley made a comment on Dignan's blog concerning his post about Nagin's recent comments on rebuilding that city. Unfortunately, I made my comment without being fully informed and when I tried to reply to someone else's comment HaloScan crapped out.

So here is my reply to Jaime in Metairie:

Jaime,

I'll take back the last part of my comment. I, like those who testified before Congress, was misinformed and under the impression that very few people had taken out flood insurance. I sincerely hope that you had the appropriate insurance coverage and wish that the companies would respond more quickly. My family (including me at one point) has been in the insurance industry for many years, and everyone in the industry dreads resolving hurricane claims because of the difficulties in determining which policies cover what damages. It is a painfully slow process for all involved, and people in your situation are stuck waiting while the companies move more slowly than anyone would like.

I've not been a big fan of Nagin through this entire process, but I like his approach here - rebuild if you want to but don't expect much help from the government. This is the way it should be.

The flood insurance program is a government program which exists because no private insurer is able to provide that coverage at an affordable cost. This should provide some insight as to how risky it is to live along the Mississippi River. Even with the tax subsidies some people were unable to afford flood insurance; this is unfortunate, but it was their responsibility to determine how much risk they were willing to make with their investment. In our search for a new house we have decided to avoid houses where flood insurance is required because we could not handle that much risk. It has meant that we have had to pass up on some areas where we would love to live, but that reflects our risk tolerance.

My tax dollars are already being used to pay for flood claims. I wish the best for you as you rebuild, all I ask is that you and others in New Orleans do not use any more of my tax dollars to do so.

Precrime Arrests in Texas???

2006-03-22T12:42:00.000-05:00

TABC officials said the sweep concerned saving lives, not individual rights.

Shades of Minority Report in Northern Texas.

Apparently Texas has some sort of government agency called the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC), and its purpose is to protect people from the evils of alcohol. The TABC and the Irving County Sherrif recently decided to raid several bars, and found drunk people in them - what a surprise! The Sherrif then proceeded to arrest the intoxicated patrons. While there is a law in Texas against being publicly intoxicated anywhere (including a bar), the Sherrif and the TABC supposedly carried out this raid to curb drunk driving. The kicker is that some of the people who were arrested were at a bar in a hotel where they were guests!

It is the responsiblity of law enforcement to arrest those who have committed or are in the process of committing a crime. Law enforcement should even bust conspiracy to commit major crimes, such as terrorism, robbery, and murder. However, it is wrong to arrest people for drinking to prevent DUI when they have not even walked out the door and aren't holding car keys!

Praise for Irresponsible Parents

2006-03-21T09:43:00.000-05:00

When my parents drove me home my mother held me in her arms. I wasn't in a car seat. I never knew bike helmets existed until I was in college. I played outside with kids (of different ages) in my neighborhood, and we ran through the woods with sticks in our hands and threw pine cones at each other. If my teachers said everything was fine, then things were good, and if I got in trouble then I would get spanked again once I got home!

By today's standards my parents would be considered irresponsible. Today's parents seem to think that they need to control everything about their kids' lives. These parents want to believe that they're "being good parents" and controlling their kids' environments and activities for the good of the children. The truth, however, is that the parents are just plain obnoxious and self-centered. It's not the kids that they're worried about, it's their own reputation and the vicarious success.

I hope that our kids will have the chance to be kids. Children need to run around outside without schedules. They need to climb trees, fall out, get hurt, and go to the hospital. They need to have the occasional fight to learn when the best defense is to run and when the best choice is to defend one's honor. And parents just need to butt out.

If others want to label me as an irresponsible parent, then I'll wear that label with pride.

Calories

2006-03-08T09:22:00.000-05:00

One of the things which made Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth so interesting was the details. He described in detail what it looked like to eat, sleep, and proceate in 12th century England. The food really didn't sound that appetizing, as dinner usually consisted of hard bread dipped in ale - and yes, everyone, including the kids, ate that. Why would ale be included as food in almost every meal? The answer is simple - calories were not easy to come by 800 years ago as they are today.

That's really unfortunate, because I love beer. I especially like ales. But I don't walk everywhere or do twelve hours of physical labor like they did back then. So this means I need to either eschew ales or work them off in the gym. Working out is the most abitrary and unrewarding form of exercise I have ever experienced. I have spent all day working on a farm, doing construction work around the house, or riding a bike with friends without getting tired, but I can't spend 15 minutes on an exercise machine. I could probably push my body more in the gym, but I really don't want to, despite the fact that I know it's good for me. The truth is, if I didn't enjoy beer (and other good foods) so much, I probably wouldn't be overweight by 15 pounds, and I would probably never return to the gym. So maybe, in a twisted way, beer really is good for me!

Tasty dessert

2006-03-04T21:11:00.000-05:00

I've heard of such a thing, but tonight was the first time that I've had a beer float. No, not a rootbeer float, I'm talking about stout and ice cream. Wow! What's better, my wife's the one who made me serve it up.

I poured half a bottle of Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout over two scoops of vanilla ice cream. The first sip was amazing - it just screamed Chocolate! There was something about the ice cream that made the chocolate just jump out and grab me. This very well may be the best float I've ever enjoyed - no more rootbeer or Coke for me, just give me beer. I'm looking forward to trying this with an Old Rasputin next time.

Mmmm Beer

2006-03-04T07:34:00.000-05:00

I can't think of the last time we stayed at a restraunt nearly 3 hours and spent less than 50 bucks. That's how good a time we were having at the new Taco Mac near Perimeter last night. We arrived just after 6:00 and there was a wait, so we headed to the bar. We ordered a Delirium Temens and a St. Bernardus Abt 12 on draught. The barkeep put the darker St. Bernardus in front of me and was a bit shocked when I pointed out that he had the beers reversed. I love that my wife knows how to order beer!

When we needed a refill at the table she challenged me to try something different. It's easy to try something new, but it's trickier to find something new and good, so we called over Cooper the manager. Hey, how better to test out the staff of a great beer restraunt during a soft opening than to quiz them about beer, right? He had some good suggestions, but once we mentioned our Beer and Cheese Tasting, he called over the GM. Donald suggested a beer for me to sample but was knocked back on his heels when my wife ordered a Salvator on draught. Instant respect! I finally settled on a Sierra Bigfoot, which is a barleywine and packs quite a punch.

The night just got more fun from there. Donald dropped by several times to talk about beer and then wanted us to try one he had just gotten in - Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen. Throughout the rest of the night the staff kept dropping by asking how we got talked into trying the bacon beer. Yes, it tastes like smoked bacon. (In case you're wondering, we'd like to try it again before dinner with bread, a good cheese, and some salami.)

Needless to say, thumbs up to the newest Taco Mac. They may not have the most taps in the chain (only 100 beers on tap, down from the Crabapple location which has 102), but it brings some much needed quality beer to the North Atlanta area. The staff was great despite the rush, so kudos to E, Caela, Greg (the beer geek who needs to learn to like bacon!), and everyone else. And thanks Donald for the beer! We'll definately be back. Now if only they had a good dark chocolate cake on the menu to go with that Old Rasputin which is on tap...

How to Lose Friends and Turn Away People

2006-03-03T06:54:00.000-05:00

Among the many unique traits of Christianity which makes it unique is the command to forgive. If a Muslim is wronged, the Prophet says that it is good if he forgives, but it is permissible for him to refuse to do so. Christians do not have that luxury. A group of friends from church were talking about forgiveness the other night, and we were discussing exactly what that compulsion requires and why.

As we were talking, I started thinking about a group that I used to be a part of. It was a group of friends who had known each other for several years, but some of us were closer friends than others. We would get together occasionally to enjoy the best beers we could get our hands on, and in the interim we would trade emails discussing everything from proper city design to theology. But, as recent studies have pointed out, it's very easy to misunderstand and to be misunderstood when trading emails. And all of us were, at some point, rude or cowardly. Rather than point out the times when I was hurt or offended I tried to put aside what had happened. This is not forgiveness.

There's a reason why the Bible says that the sun should not set on our anger. When we do not give someone the courtesy of knowing that we have been hurt, then he can't do anything to make it right. It's especially worse if we just wait for the offender to come to us to apologize; we're either trying to manipulate the other person or feel better about ourselves when we do that. My experience with my friends now teaches me another reason why we should deal our anger immediately.

Over time I came to expect that the people in our group were out to offend me. Eventually it came to the point that I didn't even want to talk to them any more, and ultimately I left the group (and on pretty poor terms, too, I'm afraid). The bad part is that when I was asked why I left I couldn't come up with a reason. Too much time had passed between any single time I was hurt. By the time some guys in the group tried to make things right, I couldn't tell them what was wrong. Rather than being able to list a bunch of small offenses which could be made right, all I had was this huge, overarching bad feeling about the group as a whole and a bunch of the guys in it. What could they possibly do at this point to repair that?

If we deal with small things when they happen, then it is easy to forgive. As time goes on and the offenses build up, forgiveness becomes more and more difficult, to the point that we may never be able to save the relationship. This is what has happened with the guys who I once called my friends. I can only hope that I'll keep this lesson in mind and not make the same mistake again.

Karma

2006-02-27T21:18:00.000-05:00

I'm really not one who believes in Karma. I hold my Hindu friends in too high esteem to use a concept from their faith lightly, and their beliefs are incompatible with mine. However, there are some times in life when life does come full circle.

My mother was raised on a farm. I spent every other weekend of my life from infancy through high school at that farm. My family still owns the property, but we sold our cows to the man who now leases the land after my grandmother passed away. Truth be told, I spent most of my time there wandering around the 300 acres, fishing, or playing, but many of my memories center around the time that I spent helping my father and my uncle tend to the cows. Some of the tasks were simple enough, like herding the cattle from pasture to pasture and trying to keep them from wandering down the road in the process. Others, however, really stand out - like steering bulls.

Rendering male calves infertile is very important to prevent inbreeding. It somehow fell to my father (maybe because he was the city boy) to actually do the tough work while my uncle had the much more pleasant job of catching the animal's head in a chute. As a kid my responsibility was to help drive the bull into the chute. Once I was old enough I then inherited my father's role. Fortunately by then we had progressed from the box cutter (yes, that's right) to a set of giant pliers-type things. It is a strange sight to watch a giant beast suddenly fall to its knees without so much as a cry because of the pain. (It's especially strange when you're underneath the bull finishing the job and you have to jump out of the way!)

These were the thoughts on my mind two weeks ago as I was heading to the urologist. My wife and I have two beautiful boys. We love them, but we just cannot handle another pregnancy, so we decided that a vasectomy was in order. Thanks to a good friend of mine, I was distracted from thinking about farm animals during the 45 minutes I spent in the waiting room (that's just wrong), and it never entered my mind during the "consultation" with the doctor which lasted about 5 minutes and consisted of a very fast recitation of the potential risks. But after the male nurse taped my manhood into place and wiped me down with iodine I had plenty of time to think while waiting for the doctor to arrive, and all I could think of was the torture we put those animals through. I hoped that the doctor would take more pity on me.

I was spared a great deal of pain, although I never knew that Novocaine would make testicals feel heavy. And there are some places where I never want to feel a needle again, much less whatever he was using that wasn't a scapel (contrary to popular belief no-scapel vasectomy does not imply laser). Fortunately the recovery was aided by excellent painkillers and a few bags of frozen peas, neither of which were afforded to those poor steers.

Now that the pain is over and life has returned to normal, I am having some
buyer's remorse. I don't know why. We don't want any more kids; pregnancy and infancy are hell; and the side effects of the pill can be pretty bad. Maybe it's the fact that things still don't feel quite the same down there. Or maybe there's just something universally devastating about sterility. At least I've had the opportunity to have offspring, which is more than I can say for those steers.

Celebrating Christmas

2005-12-15T13:32:00.000-05:00

As I posted earlier, I really don't get the whole idea of churches cancelling Sunday services because Christmas happens to fall on a Sunday. It is very easy for this discussion to fall into the legalistic question of when and how is it appropriate to worship on a weekly basis. I have neither the education nor the inclination to attempt to address that question properly. Instead, I think we should look at this from a cultural perspective.

If Christians are called to impact our culture (an proposition to which I hold but am not about to back up here), then this is a perfect opportunity for us to do so. By cancelling church services to recognize the practice of opening presents (and let's be honest, that's what it is all about, the family aspect exists only because of the presents), the church is giving credence to the idea that Christmas exists to celebrate the opening of presents rather than the other way around. The exchange of presents occurs at Christmas time as a remembrance of the gifts of the magi. Why not encourage church members to celebrate the gifts of the magi this year and exchange presents on the twelfth day of Christmas - King's day? (There is a reason we sing about the 12 days of Christmas, even though none of us celebrate them any more.)

I'm not trying to call anyone out here, nor am I denigrating the work of the pastors, staff, and volunteers who work so tirelessly during the Christmas season. But to those who have chosen to hold services on Christmas Sunday I extend an extra "Thank You." You have chosen to make extra sacrifices that few of us are willing to make, including others who share your calling. I wish each of you an especially Merry Christmas.

Churches Closing for Christmas???

2005-12-07T15:39:00.000-05:00

This year we have seen the continuation of the trend of shutting Christmas out of the December holiday season. Despite the familiar music on the radio, I have yet to hear a DJ wish anyone a Merry Christmas. As Klaus has noted, Christ has been purged from Christmas. Today it was noted that despite the complaints of many evangelical Christians, even President Bush's whitehouse greetings cards fail to mention Christmas.

While many Christians see this as sad, I think this is just the natural result of the progression of the American culture. This is not to say that I condone wishing people "Happy Holidays," but there's a part of me which would like to see the celebration of Christ's birth separated from the day when we gather with family and exchange unnecessary and unwanted commercial goodies and engage in gluttony.

For over 2,000 years Christians have gathered to celebrate our risen savior on the first day of the week. And for most of those 2,000 years Christians have gathered again on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to celebrate his birth. Many American Protestants, including many Baptist churches where I grew up, have seen fit to do away with these additional services, perhaps because they seem "too Catholic." (I am glad to say that there seems to be a rise in Protestant Christmas Eve services, even among Baptist and non-denominational churches.) However, this year, when Christmas happens to fall on the first day of the week, churches are closing their doors! I have nothing against large churches, as I have even worked on staff at one, but it is a sad Sunday when a church closes its doors.

The logic given by one church representative is that the diminished number of people who would attend the service wouldn't make it worth having church. After all, it takes 500 people to hold a service and they would like a break. By this logic, wouldn't it make sense to cancel church during July and August when most people are on vacation? Church is neither about convenience nor about attendance. Besides, if a smaller crowd is expected at church on a given day, then fewer volunteers should be required. Surely the church can scrape together a few dedicated souls to welcome anyone who wishes to actually worship on the Lord's day.

One friend who attends one of these churches argues that his church will be holding services all day Christmas Eve, what difference does 24 hours make? By this logic we could count the number of services which a church holds in the year. Once the church has crossed 52 services (or weeks' worth of services) then we've done our duty. After all, it doesn't matter when we worship, as long as we worship. Perhaps this is where the importance of a creed comes in. To quote one, "I believe in the Church Universal..." For 2000 years the church has met on Sunday; we are breaking fellowship when we fail to gather with our brothers and sisters in worship.

Of course, no argument is going to convince Willow Creek, North Point, Southland Christian Church, or any other church to meet on Christmas Sunday. I'm certainly not skilled enough to convince them that they should. Whatever the logic, however, the fact is that these churches are closed because they believe that their attendees place family time above church time. That's fine, but attendees of these churches and their leadership are certainly in no position to complain about the disappearance of Christmas from our culture because they are contributing to it.

10 years of recovery

2005-11-16T13:00:00.000-05:00

As I was talking with a friend today I realized that this month marks 10 years since I left the Southern Baptist Chuch. It's hard to believe that I've been gone that long. In many ways I feel like it was only yesterday; in many ways I'm still defined by my Baptist roots.

Just because I left the Baptist Church isn't to say that it's a bad denomination. There are plenty of good Southern Baptist churches. And there are few denominations with a better focus on evangelism than conservative SBC churches. But as painful as it was, I had to turn my back on my church and my denomination.

Several things pushed me away from the church where I had been a member for most of my life. Some of them seem trivial now, such as having broken up with a girlfriend, but others are still important.

Dispensational theology - while this was not a major focus from the pulpit, I had one Sunday School teacher who focused on it. He's a fine man with a great heart for student ministry, and he was teaching dispensational theology correctly. However, it never made sense to me. To this day I find the arguments for it convoluted at best.
Alcohol - this may seem like a silly reason to leave a denomination, but many SBC churches preach from the pulpit that alcohol is wrong. Others that don't will argue that alcohol in and of itself isn't wrong, but that it so often leads to sin that it should be avoided. I believed both of these for a long time, and then I started studying the scriptures. If alcohol is sinful in and of itself, then Jesus was a sinner. (Of course, there are the hillarious attempts to explain away the miracle at Cana as Jesus making some sort of barely-alcoholic grape juice, but that's such a distortion of history that it's sad.) And the slippery slope argument is the same sort of argument which the Pharisees used time and again. As C.S. Lewis wrote, tea-totaling is not Christian, it's Mohamedism.
Church government - I never thought about the structure of a church until there was a problem in mine. In short, our pastor's wife filed for separation ,and they ultimately divorced. This came after years of the pastor preaching against divorce. Most of the church members viewed this contradiction as less significant than the pastor's work for God, his excellent preaching, and his vast TV audience. A large minority, myself included, viewed this as cause for him to be removed form the pulpit. Unfortunately the governing body in a Baptist church, as in most non-denominational churches, is the membership of the church. As a result, we fought amongst ourselves and many friendships were broken for good. It was after this that I learned about different forms of church government, such as the Presbyterian system. While no system is perfect, I have seen my particular denomination act appropriately in several cases where the pastor did not. While the pastor was removed from the church, the congregations remained largely in tact, thus avoiding ugly scandals and splits.

Have I fully "recovered" from my years as a Baptist? In some ways yes - I now drink alcohol and mostly embrace most parts of Reformed Theology. In other ways, though, I'm still on my way to recovery. I find something beautiful in the immersion of an adult believer. I may never fully recover from growing up Baptist - I still don't like to dance!

Beer and Cheese Tasting

2005-11-01T19:07:00.000-05:00

Everyone's heard of a wine and cheese tasting party, but beer and cheese? Well, as it turns out, cheese goes with beer much better than it does with wine. This is especially true when you're drinking good beer. And by good beer, we're not talking about the stuff you drink while walking out of a 7-11 or in a beer bong. Most of the stuff we served isn't even available in a 6-pack!

This weekend my wife and I entertained 8 other couples at our home to sample 7 rounds of beer and cheese. We thought it would be more fun if we wrote up a description of each beer and cheese. We got a lot of the descriptions for the beers from beeradvocate.com and ratebeer.com. If you think the people who write up wine descriptions are snobs, you really need to get to know the beer snobs. There's no "hint of shoe leather" here. If you're reading a description of a good beer on one of these sites, you're expected to know the difference in taste between a Belgian yeast and a German one!

The party was a great success. Everyone I talked to had a good time, and I think everyone there found at least a couple of beers they liked. Considering we had some people there who said they didn't like beer, I'm happy to say that. Of course, being a geek, I needed to be able to prove our success, so my wife and I created a survey for our guests. The beer results are not terribly surprising. The overall results are as follows:

Even the snootiest beer snob won't turn up his nose the St. Bernardus Abbot 12. It's a great beer, and the only people at the party who didn't enjoy it were people who didn't like the strong alcohol flavor. What did surprise me, though, was that the pairings results were very different. The favorite beer received one of the lowest pairing scores.

Hoegaarden & Havarti
Ayinger Altbairisch Dunkel & Asiago
Dogwood Youngbloods Imperial Porter & Ricotta with Dark Chocolate
Duvel & White Cheddar
Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout & Ricotta with Dark Chocolate
St. Bernardus Abt 12 Camembert
EKU28 & Gruyere
Herold Bohemian Black Lager & Stilton

My wife and I thought it would be interesting to see what the women preferred compared to the men. We kind of got carried away, and broke things down by gender, the number of different beers people have tried and other things. If you're curious, you can check that out, too. (Yes, my MBA concentration was in business analysis. I do stuff like this for fun.)

Thank you to everyone who came. We had a wonderful time, and I've never had such a great excuse to buy so much beer from Green's. Plus we really enjoyed buying the cheese from Whole Foods, Publix, and Kroger. Thanks to Reid Davis his beer suggestions and to Owen Ogletree for the pairing recommendations. Thanks also to my in-laws for helping us with our "research!" I think they'd like us to have another party so they can research some more, and we're looking forward to planning the next one.

A Summer of Economic Books

2005-08-14T22:26:00.000-04:00

This summer I've taken the time to return to reading. Among other things, I've ended up reading Freakonomics and The Fair Tax Book. Wow, two economic minded books back to back in one summer. That's a lot of economics.

What's surprising isn't that I've read these books. I've studied my fair share of economics, and thought enough of its study to essentially minor it in undergrad and enjoy it while getting my MBA. What's surprising is that everyone else is reading these books. The Fair Tax Book has debuted on the New York Times bestseller list at number 1 for nonfiction, and Freakonomics has been on the list for seventeen weeks.

The Fair Tax Book is a book written with a clearly stated purpose - it promotes the Fair Tax, which is the political name given to the proposed national retail sales tax. This is the kind of book which inspired the first amendment - part philosophical discourse, part pragmatic politics, and part a call to action. It may not be Nobel Lauriete material, but it does its job well. I'm now inspired to work for the passage of the Fair Tax, but I've been a proponent of it for a while so it wasn't hard to convince me.

Freakonomics, on the other hand, is a book without a purpose. It's a collection of fun and interesting stories from an economist who loves to debunk conventional wisdom. The book covers everything from cheating teachers to the cause for the fall in crime (sorry Giulini fans, but he had almost nothing to do with it) to what parents can do to improve their children's early test scores. While it probably won't change your life, it might open your eyes to how incentives affect everything you do. This would be a great book for business students in their first year. It provides an overview of the power of such dull topics as regression analysis and statistics. It does leave people like me wanting more, maybe there will be a followup book which actually shows the math behind catching cheating sumo wrestlers. OK, so that probably wouldn't be a NYT bestseller.

My "best cities"

2005-03-04T01:03:00.000-05:00

Thanks to stumbleuponit I just came across this site: www.findyourspot.com. I'm waiting to see what kind of spam and/or junk mail I get, but it's a pretty interesting site. Basically you enter what you like and dislike in a hometown, including weather, public transportation, city size, arts, etc. The final selection is your preferred region and topography (do you hate the beach, molten lava, etc).

I'm skeptical since it requires you to enter your address, so I created a fake ID, but the results are interesting. Top 5:
1. Knoxville
2. Asheville
3. Charleston
4. Greenville, SC
5. Charlotte

I'm wondering what I said to keep me away from my hometown It could have been the political views, or it could have been city size. Either way, it did not make the top 24 while cities like Nashville, Austin, Athens, Oklahoma City, and Richmond did.

I've always thought Asheville would be a great place to be, and Charlotte's also a good place. Too bad the grandparents don't live there! Of course, my job isn't there, so I guess it doesn't matter...

Belief-o-matic

2005-02-21T21:04:00.000-05:00

While eating lunch today I saw a segment about the belief-o-matic at beliefnet.com. So I thought I'd check it out.

I was skeptical at first, but it turned out to be a very serious survey. If you plan on taking it, I suggest blocking out 5 to 10 minutes. There is an option to have your results sent via email. Here are mine:

Remember: The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in the order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

How did the Belief-O-Matic do? Discuss your results on our message boards .

Rankings:

1. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (100%)
2. Eastern Orthodox (89%)
3. Roman Catholic (89%)
4. Seventh Day Adventist (88%)
5. Orthodox Quaker (85%)
6. Islam (61%)
7. Orthodox Judaism (61%)
8. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (60%)
9. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (44%)
10. Hinduism (41%)
11. Liberal Quakers (40%)
12. Jehovah's Witness (40%)
13. Bahá'í Faith (38%)
14. Sikhism (33%)
15. Reform Judaism (31%)
16. Unitarian Universalism (30%)
17. Jainism (27%)
18. Nontheist (24%)
19. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (24%)
20. Mahayana Buddhism (23%)
21. Theravada Buddhism (23%)
22. New Thought (18%)
23. Scientology (17%)
24. New Age (11%)
25. Neo-Pagan (10%)
26. Taoism (10%)
27. Secular Humanism (8%)

I'm not surprised that I'm a conservative Protestant. What's surprising and a bit scary is that I'm closer to Islam and Judaism than I am to liberal Protestantism. Of course, another survey on this site told me that I was prepared to be a member of the clergy, so I'm not sure what to think of their surveys.

The Value of a Creed

2005-02-05T12:06:00.000-05:00

Baptists do not like to be told what to do. Neither do academics. One of the important principles of being Baptist is the freedom to interpret scripture however a believer sees fit. One of the important principles to professors is academic freedom. On the face of it, one might think that being a professor at a Baptist university would be ideal. Unfortunately, a common trait among Baptists is the need to enforce one's interpretation of scripture, especially in when it comes to telling others what's right and what's wrong. Therein lies the rub at Baylor University.

My wife pointed out this story from her copy of Baylor Magazine. Baylor is attempting to do what few other Christian universities have successfully accomplished: become a respected research university without abandoning its Christain nature. From a university perspective, becomming a research university is critical to the improvement of the school. On the other hand, parents send their children to Baylor because there is the appearance of some form of shelter from what they perceive as bad influences which exist at non-Christain schools. This struggle is epitomized by the fact that anatomical drawing is a required class for entering Baylor's medical program, but Baylor undergrads must take it at another university since it involves drawing nude people.

The proud anti-creedal nature of Baptists makes this struggle very difficult. The provost wants to maintain the Baptist nature of Baylor, but since there is no real Baptist creed (technically there may be, but it basically says that Christ lived and provides salvation), one has to ask what a "Baptist nature" is. It is ironic that the only thing which exists to define a demonination that practically disavows church history must define itself by its own traditions. What's sadder is that the Baptist traditions are more focused on an individual's actions rather than their beliefs. With such a weak foundation, Baylor may be painted into a corner where professors are free to study and debate the inspiration and relevance of scripture, but researchers will probably be prohibited from studying the cause of homosexuality or debating stem cell research.

An agreed upon view of the nature of God, man, and scripture would provide clarity to such issues. It seems odd that something so constraining could actually provide more freedom, but this debate illustrates that point. This is one of the reasons why I value the structure of the Presbyterian Church. While the Presbyterian tradition has had its own struggles and splits, the ground rules for debate are more clearly defined.

I wish Baylor well. We need more schools which are both strongly academic and strongly Christian. They have a long road ahead of them.

About Me

2005-02-01T08:43:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my blog. Unlike many bloggers, I'm not much of a writer. I've never journaled much, and I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update this site. However, it seems that everyone in the world has a blog, so I figured I needed one, too.

As you might have guessed from the title, I am a recovering Baptist. Most Baptists view drinking, dancing, smoking, and cards as against God's law. Now that I'm Presbyterian, I realize that Jesus probably did many of those things and spent a lot of time with people who committed a lot of actual sins.

My interests include good music, excellent beer, politics, theology, etc. My hobbies include camping, kayaking and canoeing, computers, playing music, and sound engineering.