JADDOG

It’s been over a month since I last posted. Lots has happened. Sickness, work, new baby on the way, training for the triathlon and God has been faithful through it all.

This week I’m in Chicago at PyCon ‘09. I’ve been enjoying the conference and have a few new concepts to apply to my python programming.

I’m on the train to meet my family for dinner. Mmm Thai. Just wanted to through down a couple lines. I have been wanting to write a couple posts on things I’ve been learning. I finished Basic Christianity and have cross referenced Worship Matters with Authentic Christianity. I also started Why Small Groups by CJ Mahaney. It’s a book I’m reading with a Leadership Development group at church. All have a post associated with them.

I’m thankful for the desire the Lord has given me to read in the past few months and I pray the more consistent consumption of reading material continues.

Tonight a couple of buddies of mine and I saw the new Clint Eastwood movie. Not at all what I expected. The movie had a religious flavor to the underlying story. While there was absolutely no accurate depiction of salvation, there was a strangely touching sacrificial message delivered. Stop reading here if you don’t want the end of the movie ruined. The movie ends with Eastwood’s character, Walt, being shot an excessive amount of times by a gang. This brutal murder is witnessed by many people and has the gang arrested to be locked up for a long time. One of the gang members cousins lived next door to Walt and through out the movie is befriended by Walt, not really intentionally.

I don’t think that the movie was trying to depict the sacrificial death that Christ dies for the sake of believers. Though, the movie does a  fairly good job of it. Christ died for sinners, of whom he owed nothing to. He died that they would be freed from the wrath they deserved for their sins. Walt dies for his next door neighbours, of whom he owed nothing to. He dies that they would be freed from the pain and suffering the gang was inflicting on the family. A fairly important difference is that this family did not necessarily deserve to be mistreated by the gang. Sinners deserve eternal  death.

I’ll admit the parallel isn’t perfect. Though, it was and unexpected ending to an unexpected story. An ending that reminded me of and unexpected sacrifice that Christ made. A sacrifice that those who  believe and follow will live eternally with Christ.

Touch my toes. (without bending my knees)
Run a triathlon.
Learn to play the drums.

I was stretching after running last night and realized I can almost touch my toes from the stretching I’ve been doing. Then I realized that my curiosity to compete in a triathlon will soon be completed.

I guess the drums can wait for now.

I’ve been MIA for a while. Just finished updating wordpress. Added a post notification plugin, you can subscribe in my pages list. Also linked myself into Google Analytics. Hope to get back on track with my initial intent with this blog. I have a couple pending drafts I’ll have to finish up and post.

This past November my mom past away. Today was her birthday. I have launched a blog in her memorial at www.AliceRadez.org. This site is intended to collect posts from those who loved her of their memories of her and direct traffic to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s web site. Mom’s battle with MS lasted longer than I have lived. I pray this memorial site keeps up the fight against MS and collects the memories that honor the wonder woman she was.

Some props are in order for Matthew West. On his album Happy he has a song titled “The End”. In that song one of his lines is “It’s just another day depending on grace”. SO I did not coin the term. I just registered its acronym as a domain name. Visit Matthew at http://www.matthewwest.com

Thanks MW!

So here’s my blog….

Still setting up links and such… but I have a few posts that I’ve archived in hopes I would one day put a blog up. I’m also working on the theme. So things will progress and content will accumulate. I’m also working on setting up planet to aggregate other folks blogs… of course I’ll blog my progress