Two years ago I was driving to the shopette to get some milk before I went to work. I turned on KCRW and it sounded like it was CNN. I checked the radio and it was KCRW. They were talking about a plane crash. I had no idea what they meant. A man said that planes can crash into buildings on accident like that. I got out of the car and bought the milk. When I got back in they were talking about how it couldn’t be an air traffice controller mistake, the pilot had to see the building before he hit it. Furthermore, the possibility that it could happen twice was just too much.

I dropped the milk off at home and headed to work. On the way I heard about an explosion at the Pentagon. I thought, “Is this it? Are we under attack and we can’t defend ourselves? Is this the end of America? When will the explosions end?”

When I got to work, I immediately got busy with the work I’d been doing for the past couple of months. I was reviewing maintenance records for some Pakastani F-16s we were pulling out of the boneyard. We needed to decide what kinds of updates they had missed that had to be done. I was working with a civilian and another Master Sergeant. When we heard about the towers falling, Ray (the Master Sergeant) got really mad. He wanted to nuke just about everyone. He was ready to go to war on the spot. Someone was going to pay.

A week later, I was on an airplane flying to Burma on a short-term mission trip with my church. People said we were nuts. Perhaps we were, but I was not going to let Osama Bin Laden stop me from bring the gospel to the world. In Burma, after a day in the field, I returned to my hotel room and put on BBC. The retaliation had started in Afganistan. I was geographically closer to the retaliation than I was to the inital strike. On the way back, I sat in a hotel in Singapore watching the news of Anthrax being mailed to different people. I was actually more afraid of going home than I was of leaving.

Last night I watched a special on PBS about how the towers fell. When they showed the plane crashing in to the second tower I burst into tears and sobbed for a minute. I didn’t do that two years ago. This time I saw the airliner not as a missle but full of people who didn’t have a clue what was about to happen to them.

Today, my wife is on her way to China on a short-term mission trip. On the two year anniversary of 9/11. We’re still not going to allow Satan or the world stop us from telling others about Jesus Christ. He is worth the risk.

For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind,
  and declares to man what is his thought,
who makes the morning darkness,
  and treads on the heights of the earth–
  the LORD, the God of hosts, is his name! – Amos 4:13 (ESV)

Back in 198x I came home from England on my first leave. Before leaving London, I had to stay in a hotel where I watched Agatha on TV to while away my hours till my flight. When I arrived in Detroit the next day I saw a commercial on channel 50 for the “World-wide Television Premier” of Agatha. I hadn’t realized how America views the world. It am us. Or US.

Well, it seems that the world has bought that line of thought. In Cambodia a “Fear Factor”-style TV program has been axed. Information Minister Lu Laysreng said, “It is a dirty game. It might be OK in America, but it is not proper for Cambodian culture.” Sure, fine. I hate Fear Factor anyway, but don’t blame us. In the mid-80s I watched a British program on Japanese television programming. They were doing Fear Factor kinds of things long before we got around to it.

It just strikes me as funny that an Asian country rejects a television program that “might be OK in America” which we copied from another Asian country!

It appears that Office 2003 will include some rights controls so people won’t be able to monkey with your document. Fair ‘nough, sounds like a nice feature. What has me worried is this:

The technology is one of the first major steps in Microsoft’s plan to popularize Windows Rights Management Services, a wide-ranging plan to make restricted access to information a standard part of business processes.

Microsoft. Security. One simply cannot say those two words in a single breath and not smile. As expressed in the article, I think this is a move to eliminate the alternatives. You can use a handful of other applications to open and edit and save Word documents. Guess what. When this new version of Word (and other Office apps) debuts, those other won’t be able do that any more. Microsoft doesn’t appear to be changing its stripes nor its preditory business practices. (via AtAT)

A hymn
Ye who think of sin but lightly
Nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the Sacrifice appointed,
See who bears the awful load;
‘Tis the Word, the LORD’s Anointed,
Son of Man and Son of God.

Here is scientific proof that fish are really out to get us. “Rather than simply being instinct-driven…fish are cunning, manipulative and even cultured.” See, I’m not crazy.

The HMS Pride
The HMS Pride sailed the Sea of Me when she received the call to put in to Submission Harbor. Her captain sailed her around the Life Islands but couldn’t find the entrance to the harbor.

During one circuit around the island, a storm arose. It drove the HMS Pride hard. Her captain fought mightily to maintain control of the ship. Mr. Humility, her First Mate, pointed the captain toward a harbor, sheltered from the raging storm. “I believe that may be Submission Harbor, Cap’n! But this ship’ll ne’er navigate those rocks.”

Her captain, seemingly unaware of the size of his bloated ship, dismissed his First Mate’s warning and managed to steer a course for the harbor. The storm continued to rage and soon HMS Pride struck the rocks at the mouth of the harbor and broke up. Mercifully her captain was thrown to the ocean and made his way to the rocks that stubbornly resisted the storm and there he clung.

In a mercifully short time, the First Mate came rowing by in the ship’s boat. As he approached his captain, he called to him, “Sir, I cannot row close to those rocks but you could swim to meet me and we’ll together make it safely to the harbor.”

“I barely made it to these rocks, Number One. I fear I don’t have the strength to make the swim,” the captain answered over the roar of the sea.

“Sir, you must lose your heavy garments. Cast off your rank insignia and your decorations from past victories and throw yourself into the arms of the sea. It will carry you safe to me!”

Of course the captain knew his mate was correct but it was hard to release all of his badges of honor. The rage of the storm sounded in his ears, it promised to not relent till he was safely ashore. It threatened and promised at the same time. With a bit of hesitance, the captain stripped off he coat and threw it into the crashing waves. He lingered a moment, clutching the stubborn rock and then with a mix of fear and relief, he jumped in to the trashing waves himself.

Mr. Humility pulled him safely into the boat. Once there, he knew that he was no longer the captain, that in submitting to another he was safe and free. As they entered the harbor, he felt finally free to enjoy the sea, the waves, the island. He was no longer compelled to make quick judgments, the pressure was off.

Yea, that whole fish thing I’ve been harping on (here and here), well it just turned gross! (via Russ)

In light of SoBig.F and MSBlaster, both of which I had to deal with at work, may I point this out: Mac Viruses By The Numbers – Word Macro: 553, Classic Mac: 26, OS X: Zero. [Cough]. Humm…

“An elderly Vietnamese man thought to have died in a hospital revived after spending the night in the morgue”, Reuters reports. He came in with chest pains and his heart failed so they declared him dead. His daughter found him alive when she came to claim the body.

Everyone knows that no one can come back from the dead so Reuters put quotation marks around ‘dead’ in the title of the piece. Yet, Jesus rose from the dead. So did Lazarus, Tabitha, an elderly woman’s only son and a handful of others. At the crucifixion many rose from their graves and showed up in Jerusalem. But dead people don’t come back. Jesus didn’t die of an apparent heart attack, he died on a cross as is attested to by water and blood issuing from a stab to his side. He didn’t spend the night in a locked morgue, he spent three days in a tomb guarded by Roman soldiers. Mary Magdalene didn’t open the tomb to find him alive, the large stone was rolled back. A doctor wasn’t there to attest to his resurrection, two angles were. Reuters didn’t report on his resurrection, but his disciples and more than 500 people did. No one had any idea that Nguyen Van Quan would come back to life, yet Jesus repeatedly told his disciples he would.

Jesus’ resurrection is better attested than is Nguyen Van Quan and yet it is repeatedly denied. The reason is that Nguyen Van Quan’s resurrection proves nothing and demands nothing. Jesus’ resurrection proves that he was the one the prophets looked forward to, the one he claimed he was. And that demands a response.

A friend of mine told me that he’d had fixed a problem with his computer. He said it was a “eye dee ten tee” problem. I looked confused till he wrote it out for me: ID10T. I’ve had that same problem in the past. That and the multiple problems infliced by a loose nut on the keyboard and mouse. Both are common across all computer platforms and OSs. ;o)