Carol's accident.

Carol has been fighting cancer since 2009. She was diagnosed in April of 09 with a lump in her left knee. She had a full knee replacement in May, and they told her if it came back it would hit the lung. A year later it did. She had the lower lobe removed, and then went 3 years cancer free. It came back in both lungs. One nodule was on the outside of the lung and the other spot was deep inside. They removed the on on the outside, and did radiation on the deep one. Then it showed up in her spine in 2014 in two places. They radiated one of them but the other messed up her stomach. Then in February of 2015 she tripped on an area rug and hurt her left knee, went to the doctor and he said there was a hairline fracture just below the glue joint of her implant. Told her to stay off of it. It never got better, just continued to get worse. Finally in may we went to the ER and they did scans up past the knee and discovered she had a fractured hip. They took her to Baylor Dallas by ambulance and she had a partial hip replacement. about a month later her right leg got to hurting her so bad she had to go back to Baylor Dallas and they put a gamma nail in her right hip. I had developed a habit of praying for her every night, while laying in bed. One night I told God that he had put us together and would he please not separate us. I immediately felt my entire body get extremely warm, and I felt a calmness I had never felt before. I don't know if I heard the words or saw them, but the message was that everything was going to be okay. Now, I don't know what it means, but It's in God's hands. I still pray for her, but there is no worry, because God is taking care of us. I really don't know what I would do without God. Carol passed away on November 27,2015, and on December 3, 2015 I went to bed but could not sleep. Her passing really tore me up. I got up and was upgrading a laptop and reading Dr. Charles Stanley's book of daily devotions for December. I got to one titled, " Peace Beyond Comprehension", all of a sudden I felt like something was lifted from my body. I now know what God meant when He said, " "Everything is going to be okay".

Windows 8.1

Our church uses a Sony HDR CX-430 video camera to record the services. I download the MP4 files to the computer in our sound booth. I then transfer them to a flash drive and bring them home to process and upload to our website. I built a special computer to do this. I run an MSI military class mobo, an AMD 8350 8 core processor, 16 gig of DDR3, and an Nvidia 2 gig video card. Plus I have cable internet, which is probably 20 to 30 times faster than our Verizon DSL connection at church. The camera records in 2 gig segments, which means after it records 2 gig it starts a new movie. Our preacher runs long, most of the time, so there are two movies which have to be stitched together into one. Sony provides a software program which will do this, if everything works right. Problem is Windows is seldom working right. All of a sudden the program will not display any videos at all. There was an update availabe so I started to do the update. It got to installing the update and up pops an error message that it can't continue due to an msi. file. I uninstall the entire program and download the latest version. It gets to 99% installed and quits again due to an msi. file. Windows is, without a doubt, the most useless fragment of fecal material on the face of planet earth. It is high maintenance, You have to have anti-virus, adware remover, malware remover, register cleaner, defrag program. The update process is horriffic.It takes a minimum of 3 to 5 minutes to boot, it freezes up, and if you are doing something that shouldn't be interrupted, here comes a third party program wanting to update. It even does it while playing games. I'm running into the same problems with Windows 8.1 that I had with Windows 3.0. Thirty years and it's still a piece of crap. My main OS is Mint Linux. I only use windows for games and the Sony camera. Linux boots up, and is ready to use in around 20 seconds. Never locks up, do the updates and keep on trucking, no reboot or nothing. It does EVERYTHING faster than windows, and is more secure. It's even easier to use than windows,with all their tiles and those stupid little things that pop out of the side of the screen if you get too close. I welcome the day when Windows is an unpleasant memory here on earth.

Humor in the pulpit.

I expect the overuse of jokes in sermons is meant as a camouflage for the failure to provide anything of merit in them. If so, let the preacher take note: it doesn’t work. The sermon which depends on a joke for its effectiveness is an insult to God, to the audience, and to one’s calling. The pulpit is for the preaching of God’s Word, Law and Gospel. Anything that distracts from that shouldn’t be there. The religious experience is largely bound up in the sermon. Most sermons can be edited down to under 10 minutes. Most the scrap material includes humor. People laugh and might remember the joke but it rarely contributes to edification. And don’t kid yourself, most people are not impressed. There is a hunger out there for conversations – dialog, not monologue – and real relationships. The reformers moved the pulpit in the center and our shift should be the other way: Ten minute message perhaps, with lots of conversation and activities that practice the Christian lifestyle in community – praying with others, listening to their stories, serving the community, etc. I say this as one who loves a great story and enjoys being the one telling it. I just think of what Christ did for me; brutalized and nailed to a cross. The lamb of God. When I go to Church I "need" to hear the truth without humor. I love wholesome humor but... when I present myself to my King on Sunday in corporate worship - I think some reverence is in order. Remember; this is what the holy spirit has done for me so this is the way I see it. Our God certainly has a sense of humor. He created us in his own image, and he gave us the ability to laugh and to tell jokes, even to be silly. That said, I don't want my pastor to entertain me on Sunday morning. 1 Corinthians 13 doesn't say "love is patient, love is funny." Scripture doesn't preach winning people over with our clever anecdotes. It preaches the glorious and incomparable love of a risen Savior. I'm much more comforted knowing that my God is Sovereign, Gracious, Infinite, Merciful, than I am knowing he's amusing. I've heard pastors who use humor to shy away from the deeper truth of Scripture or to prove how relevant Scripture is. Our God doesn't need proof! He is always relevant! I'd much rather the Holy Spirit use my pastor's words to convict me and lead me back to grace than to keep me smiling. If our sermons never offend, we probably aren't telling people the whole truth.

8 core Linux box.

I decided to build one more computer to replace an aging quad core. Went to the local Fry's and picked up an MSI, military class mobo, an AMD 8350, 8 core processor, 16 gig DDR3, an Nvidia 2 gig video board, and I already had a 500 gig HD,and a box, and a DVD/CD burner. Windows 8.1 had already crapped out on the older machine, so I decided to see if it would work on this one. Got it installed and it seemed okay, put Mint Linux 17 on and then added PCLOS. I only use windows for games, as I don't trust it for anything online. So far the only problems has been with windows locking up, but then I don't expect it to work full time. I do a lot of video processing, and this machine is probably five times faster than my other 8 core box. At my age this will probably be the last machine I build, but with these specs it should outlast me.

Windows 8.1

Booted into Win 7 to check for updates last week, and lo and behold it had crapped out on me, after only 3 months. Would not boot, so I left it until Tuesday, May 13. I had picked up a copy of Win 8.1, since I had heard it was better than Win 8. I had planned on replacing Win 7 if it was truly trashed. I only use it for games so it isn't a big loss. Just for the heck of it I put in the Win 7 disk and tried the repair option, and it actually fixed it. This is the first time I've ever had repair do it's job. Anyhow, I figured I would go ahead and install Win 8.1 on the same hard drive. I have Peppermint Linux on a 128 gig SSD, and win 7, and win8.1 on a 500 gig regular HD. After the install I upgraded Peppermint to Peppermint 4, 64 bit. Rebooted to check out Win 8.1, and guess what? The Win 8.1 partition would not boot. I put in the disk and ran repair, but it said the partition was locked, and I would have to unlock it. I spent the rest of Tuesday, and most of Wednesday looking for answers, and nothing worked. So, it looks like I am going to have to delete the Win 8.1 partition, and install a Linux distro. I don't know what Microsoft has done to Win 8.1, but I'm not going to put up with this useless fragment of fecal material. I use Linux for all my work, email, and internet, as I don't trust Microsoft mail, IE,plus Linux is faster, safer, more secure, and easier to use. I do a lot of video processing which is why I built this machine. It has an MSI mobo, AMD 8120 8 core processor, 8 gig of DDR3, one gig Nvidia graphics card, HP wireless printer, 128 gig Samsung SSD, and a 500 gig HD. Peppermint 4 is on the SSD and boots up in 6 seconds. Guess I'll see if anyone at work wants the Win 8.1 disks. If Microsoft ever starts building vacuum cleaners, that will be the only product they have that don't suck.

Updating win 7.

Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014, I decided to boot into my windows partition on the computer in the bedroom. It is a home made unit, with an Antec box, 600 watt power supply, MSI FX motherboard, Amd FX 8120 8 core processor, one gig Nvidia video board, Samsung 128 Gig SSD, and a 500 gig Seagate hard drive. I have PCLOS, Win 7, and Mint 14 on it. Linux is my main OS, but I keep windows around for games. This unit had not been booted into the windows partition for several months, so I figured I would check for updates. There were 28 updates. I started installing about 3:10 pm. Well I leave for Church at 5:00 pm, and figured it would be done in plenty of time. Wrong! It had finished installing about 4:50 pm, and then on reboot it had to configure the updates, on shutdown. I just left it to do it's thing, and at 5:00 pm it was configuring on 32%. I got back at 8:00 pm, and the computer had shut down, so I booted back into the windows partition and it started to finish configuring the updates. This took about 15+ minutes. Total time to install 28 updates was 1 our, and 50 minutes that I know of, and however long it took to configure the updates on shutdown. This is the most ridiculous update system I have ever seen.Most products improve with age, as changes are made to better the product. Apparently Microsoft has never heard of this process, they tend to go backwards, and do everything they can to make it worse. No wonder they are losing market share to REAL operating systems. If Microsoft ever decides to build vacuum cleaners, it will be the only product they have that don't suck!

Cable internet speed.

I'm running cable for internet access, and for the last 6 months, or so, it has been extremely slow. I get a lot of emails in the form of newsletters, with links to the full stories. When I would click on a link sometimes it would take 7 minutes or more to load the entire page. I called the local cable company several times and they would suggest things to try to get more speed, but nothing worked. Then on Thursday, October 3rd, I called again. Talked to a young man and he suggested i do a speed test. I did, and it showed 11.15 meg down, and 2.09 meg up. He said the down speed was horrendous, that it should be 25. I then told him I was running Linux, not windows, so he suggested I try windows. I have a homebuilt computer with an MSI 64 bit, mobo, 16 gig of DDR3, a 1.5 terrabyte hard drive, an Nvidia 8400 512 meg video card, and an AMD 640 quad core processor. I have Win XP, Win 7, Peppermint Linux 4, and Mint Linux 15 on the hard drive. I opened Windows 7 and ran the speed test again. This time I got 6.05 meg down, and 1.7 meg up. He couldn't believe it. I explained to him that everything about linux is faster than windows. Anyway, he transferred to another guy and he was of no use either. He transferred me to paid support and this gentleman told me they could send someone out, but I would have to pay, and I told him I had already paid enough. I am paying for the Turbo tier, and am getting dial up speeds. Told him I would seek an alternative ISP. Well, Thursday afternoon I mysteriously started getting decent speed. Don't know what happened but the pages were popping in seconds instead of minutes. And so far it has held. Can't imagine what happened, because I have changed nothing here. but this more like what I expected of cable.