Constructive Interference

Like Seed Corn

2011-05-09T00:17:00.002-04:00

"As the seed corn sheddeth on the threshingfloor
That which once was precious--needed now no more--
So the nearest, dearest that would hold in thrall
Let thy winnowing fingers loosen:
Love be Lord of all.

As the seed corn falleth in the quiet ground;
As it lieth hidden, with no stir nor sound--
So would I, They seed corn, deep in stillness fall,
That of me there may be nothing:
Thou be All in all.

As the seed corn springeth lowly at Thy feet--
Spear of green uplifteth, yieldeth ear of wheat--
So in tender mercy, though the seed be small,
Let it bring forth for Thy glory
Who art Lord of all."

~Amy Carmichael

Stir-Fry

2011-04-04T22:05:00.005-04:00

A few days ago I was at Central Market and noticed some snow peas for sale. Crisp, fresh, green snow peas. So today after work I decided to grab some and make a stir-fry. I also bought some top sirloin, broccoli, and mushrooms to complete the dish. Here is the recipe:

-1/2 lb top sirloin, sliced thin and perpendicular to the grain
-a handful of snow peas
-a handful of cut up broccoli
-4 cremini mushrooms
-1/8 cup (approx) of teriyaki
-1 tbsp honey
-salt, pepper, garlic powder to taste
-1/6 cup (approx) vegetable oil

Marinate the beef in the teriyaki/honey mixture for 20-30 min. Heat oil in pan to med/high. Sear beef for a couple min. Remove beef and juices from pan. Add a little more oil and add the vegetables. Cook for 6-8 min on medium. Then add beef and juices back in. Add a little more teriyaki if you need to. Commence eating.

Really, this dish is about just using fresh, quality ingredients. High quality top sirloin makes it extra nice.

I popped the top on this bottle of 2007 Steel Creek Pinot Noir that my brother gave me a few years ago. It was one of the better pinots I've had. And went pretty dang well with the stir-fry.

The Threat of Truth

2011-04-03T02:13:00.005-04:00

This week I hung out a little with a new friend of mine named "J". J is a 43 year old out of work fish aquarium expert who has HIV and has battled through cancer twice. Recently he had his second hip replacement surgery in a year, due to chemotherapy eating away at his cartilage. He's one of the nicest people I've met and is very open to talking about anything and everything. He's completely transparent about all aspects of his life--his homosexuality, his upbringing in the Jehovah's Witness Church, and how that upbringing still affects him even after being removed from it for decades. He will often ask my opinions on faith and he even asked my stance on homosexuality this week. I really enjoy his aptitude for open discourse without an agenda.

However, he said something this week that bothered me a lot. After hearing my thoughts on homosexuality and faith--not just hearing, but listening--he said that he's just plain comfortable with his lifestyle and with his thoughts on religion (he's sort of a new age relative moralist who believes in some sort of higher power). In a moment, it made me realize why he's so comfortable talking about, and even listening to, thoughts on these subjects: he has no intent of changing. Truth presents no threat to him. I'm beginning to wonder if this is worse than someone who refuses to have civil two-way discourse on deep matters. At least someone like that seems threatened by truth. And truth should be threatening. The threat is change.

I left thinking, I hope I never come to be this way. I hope I never give up on refining my beliefs. But even as I type these words I feel my hypocrisy. How often do I refine my beliefs only to let the peace of head-knowledge satisfy me--and then leave these beliefs in my head instead of applying them to my life? Am I any better for refining my beliefs if I do not put them into practice? Does truth threaten me like it should? I fear I've domesticated truth by keeping it in the cage of my head.

And this begs he question, do I really believe the things I say I believe? If I truly believed them, wouldn't they permeate my life more? Yes, I believe them, but there's more to faith than belief. Action must accompany. As James points out, faith without works is dead. It is a lifeless form. A morbid corpse. Yes, we must not ignore the call of truth.

"Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does." ~James 23:25

Sweet Salmon Teriyaki with Shiitake

2010-12-04T10:55:00.003-05:00

Since I didn't have any plans and I hadn't cooked in about 2 months, I decided to head to the Central Market last night after work and get some good ingredients. Since I've been eating out almost every meal lately, I knew I wanted something healthy. So, I got a half pound piece of some New Zealand Salmon (per the fishmonger's recommendation) and decided to do a teriyaki. As I was perusing I saw some good looking Shiitake mushrooms and thought they'd make a good addition.

The recipe was pretty simple. I marinated the fish in Kikkoman Teriyaki with a little olive oil for 30-45 min. Then I cooked the fish in a small teflon pan with a tiny bit of olive oil in it. Nothing higher than medium heat or the sugar in the teriyaki will burn. I kept mine on 4 or 5 and it had a slight char (turned out to be just the right amount). Six or seven minutes on each side seemed about right. I also made a sauce to put on top of the fish that had some reduced teriyaki, some honey (about 4:1 teriyaki to honey) and sliced shiitakes (3 or 4). I let it reduce for 5 min before I put the mushrooms in. Served it all up with some steamed broccoli topped with some truffle vinegar my mom brought me back from Israel. It was amazing. And pretty dang healthy too.

Expectations and Transparency

2010-10-20T23:08:00.003-04:00

When I was in high school I was involved in many church related activities. I was a "Junior Leader" at youth group, I was active in Young Life, and I was a CORE Leader in FCA. Beyond that, I had a (wonderful) group of Christian friends who kept both hands and heart far away from the typical teenage temptations of sex, drugs, and alcohol. I constantly had people telling me what a great kid I was and let me tell you, I believed them. I enjoyed being seen as something I wasn't: holy. (Sure, I'm holy in God's eyes because of Jesus, but I'm talking about the rank my actions earn me)

The problem with this is that when you start to struggle with something that people would find "unexpected', you keep it to yourself. You downplay it. You convince yourself in your mind that there's a certain set of expectations people have and you don't want to break that.

I have struggled with this for a long time. God hates it and I hate it. I think I've come a long way with it, but it still gets me.

Most recently it has been my struggle with anxiety and depression. And, ironically enough, I believe it's part of the cause of my anxiety and depression. It certainly amplifies it anyway. When I get really anxious, I always feel better once I open up to someone and talk about it. In fact, I think one of the reasons that God is allowing me to have this struggle is to help me be more open and transparent with people.

So there it is, I'm just like anyone else. I struggle with this life all the time. It's REALLY hard. I know I'm not alone and I hope you know you're not alone. And most important, I hope you know this:

"And the Man of all Sorrows
He never forgot
What sorrow is carried
By the hearts that He bought
So when your questions dissolve
Into the silence of God
The aching may remain
But the breaking does not."
~Andrew Peterson (The Silence of God)

Woodfire Grill

2010-09-22T23:45:00.002-04:00

Dinner tonight at Woodfire Grill in Atlanta. Executive Chef Kevin Gillespie, made famous by the TV show Top Chef. Smoked pork belly might be the most perfect collision of southern cooking and fine dining possible. Cant recommend enough.

Metanoeto

2010-09-19T01:52:00.002-04:00

Father,

Forgive me.

I have strayed from you yet again.

And though my thoughts about you are plenty, I have not abided.

I have tasted your goodness and moved onto other things. I have only sampled.I have been distracted by Satan's hand and fed on that which fills with fear and regret.

In You alone I find my peace. In You alone I find my rest.

Shades of Green

2010-09-14T13:00:00.001-04:00

It’s midday and I’m sitting on my deck watching the sunlight dance through the trees. The light illuminates some branches, brightening their color, while others are blocked out, resulting in a deeper shade of green.

The bright green is electric. It glows with life and it’s warmth I can almost feel. The shadowed deep green is a bit dull on first glance. But it is mature. It waits patiently for its glorious exposure knowing its time will come.

I feel a bit like that dull green. I have been waiting for the favor of the sun. A job. A wife. Every man has his share of glory and shadow in this life. And like with the trees, both are necessary for growth.

Everything Is Spiritual

2010-08-19T01:35:00.002-04:00

Tonight at small group we watched a video by Rob Bell. Bell is the pastor of Mars Hill church in Michigan and a well known author and speaker. He's probably known best for his book Velvet Elvis. I love the concept behind this book (even though I've only read a little bit of it) which proffers the notion that the Christian faith must constantly be re-examined and refined. This has been known to ruffle the feathers of traditional conservatives but in my opinion he's right on and would even get a heart "Amen" from Mr. Martin Luther.

Anywhoo, the video we watched tonight was titled "Everything is Spiritual". It is quite an impressive talk that focuses around the creation story found in Genesis. After spending a majority of the time talking about the complexity of the physical world around us (which, as a bachelor of physics, I can say he does a pretty good job), he moves into his main point which is that...well...everything is spiritual. While I agree with this point, I was a little disappointed he didn't spend much time explaining the thesis of his talk. But, I enjoyed the whole thing so much I don't care all that much. It's definitely worth watching if you have a spare hour and twenty minutes. I'll even provide you with a link.

One point that I especially liked was the bit about how an observer in two-dimensions sees a three-dimensional object. I'm won't begin to recap this because I won't come close to saying as well as he does. You can find this bit in the video around the 33:20 mark. His implications are purely speculative, but I love them. Anyway, enjoy!

The Benefits of Less Media

2010-07-30T00:51:00.003-04:00

It's now been about 3 weeks since I started my media fast. I feel I must confess upfront that I have not been steadfast. There have been days where I have fallen back into the depths of facebook/twitter/sportsblogs/etc. Old habits die hard.

But the general trend is upwards. And really, this isn't about a one-month fast. This is about weaning my dependance off easy, mindless uses of free time.

I feel compelled to tell you, friends, of the benefits of decreased media consumption. The biggest benefit is my slowed pace of thinking.

You see, the internet is geared around one thing- instant gratification. There is a storehouse of knowledge out there at our fingertips which we can access instantly without labor or difficulty. This is in fact quite a wonderful thing. It's a pool of collective knowledge--minds collaborating globally. Surely men throughout time have dreamt of such a thing.

But sin, seizing the opportunity, generates a mindset of "this is how things are". We get so adjusted to getting anything and everything with the press of a button. This is a dream come true for people like myself who LOVE to think fast......right? Right? I mean, finally, my mind can go where it likes without being hindered. It will race and race and before I know it, I've got the momentum of a train racing down a mountain. If the goal of life is to accumulate knowledge and accomplish as much as is humanly possible, then we are on the right track. But if life is about something else--something that necessitates slowing down and drinking from still waters, then we are in danger of becoming captives of our own runaway mind trains.

"The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul."

I have enjoyed so many more times like this since I began this media fast. There have been many other benefits like reading books and journaling--both slower paced and MUCH more enjoyable (if you can discipline yourself). You see, enjoyment is not as much about quantity as it is quality. This is one thing that seemingly most of the world understands except the US, which is why we're a nation of mass-produced misers. But I digress.

I will continue to keep a close eye on my media intake when this fast is over. In fact, I don't plan on recognizing the "end" of it. This is the beginning of a life-long change.

Life is like a bowl of cherries. Hopefully they're Ranier.

2010-07-27T18:23:00.004-04:00

Have you ever had a Ranier Cherry? I hadn't until yesterday. They are AMAZING. I bought a little bin of them at Publix because I wanted some cherries but didn't want 2 gallons of them and they're the only ones that come in small amounts. They are a little more expensive, coming in at $5 per pound, but it's well worth it. I've mostly been eating them as they are, but I also diced some and put them in some chicken salad I made yesterday.

It's always lots of fun finding a new food. I'm gonna be grabbing these off the shelf for many, many summers.

Coming Soon

2010-07-26T00:44:00.003-04:00

New Andrew Peterson album is finally in my hands well on it's way to my head and my heart.

Full review to come soon!

Media Fast - Day 6

2010-07-15T23:09:00.002-04:00

Next week I will have a chance to be truly tech-free. I'm going to Anchorage, Alaska with my dad to go Salmon fishing! Therefore I won't have any posts probably from Monday till next weekend. I know you'll miss these nice little chats we have.

Tonight I went to the Braves game with my buddy Sam from my small group. Braves won 2-1 and if the Mets lose we'll have a 5 game lead in the NL East. It's great to be back on top! The last 5 years have been rough as a Braves fan. It's been good for our spoiled fan-base though. But since it's Bobby Cox's last year, we're turnin it bak up! I've got a glorious vision of us winning the World Series and carrying Bobby off the field. I've already decided if we make the World Series, I'm going to at least one if not multiple games. I'll sell stuff if I have to.

Media Fast - Day 5

2010-07-14T22:25:00.002-04:00

Not much to report today. Didn't even turn on the TV today because there was no baseball whatsoever. The day after the all-star game is what I consider to be the worst sports day of the year. No baseball, football, or basketball going on. The only sporting event of note is the preliminary rounds of the Brittish Open (which I plan on keeping up with this year since it's at St. Andrews).

I've had fish for dinner the past two nights because I've been at the grocery store each day and wanted to get something healthy. Last night it was blackened tilapia and tonight it was parmesan and cornmeal baked catfish. Both turned out great. I should have taken pictures. Ok, that's all I got.

Media Fast - Day 4

2010-07-13T13:50:00.004-04:00

Well, I broke the fast momentarily today. After Brian McCann hit a 3 run double in the All-Star game, I wanted to see who all posted about it on Facebook. Oh well. I also spent a while looking at fantasy baseball stuff, which technically wasn't against the rules, but I spent a while on there which kind of defeated the purpose of the fast. Again, oh well. I still plan on staying on track.

I'm sure I'll have my ups and downs with this, but I know the general trend will work in my favor. And I don't have much guilt over breaking it today because it's not something I committed to God. It's just something I want to do.

On a side note, I decided to buy some Oreo Cakesters today on my brother's recommendation. These are like regular Oreo's but instead of having chocolate cookie sandwiching the icing, they have a chocolate cake-like substance. I found many things about these less pleasing than original Oreos. First, the consistency. The mushy cake-on-icing is not near as good as the crunch you get from a regular Oreo. Also, you lose the ability dip the Oreo and get that wonderfully paradoxical crunchy-yet-soggy consistency. Also, the taste isn't as good as the original. The chocolate flavor isn't as strong so the icing becomes overpowering. But the worst part of all came when I looked at the nutrition information. Two cakesters come in a package. These are slightly larger than regular Oreos by the way. Two cakesters contain 180 calories. That's 90 calories per cakester. And on top of that, one package contains 18 grams of fat. Now, one gram of fat has 9 calories (carbs and protein both have 4). So that means there are 18g x 9cal = 162 calories from fat. That's right, 162 of the 180 calories that are in cakesters are from fat. For those without calculators, that means OREO CAKESTERS ARE 90% FAT. I might as well be gnawing on a stick of butter. I can't believe people eat and enjoy these. If I'm going to clog my arteries with pure, concentrated fat like that, I'm gonna do it with something I enjoy, like straight bacon drippings or heavy cream. Seriously though, if I'm going to eat unhealthy, I'm going to enjoy it. I'm not gonna settle for some sub-par, gross, oreo wannabe. I can just imagine fat Americans everywhere apathetically chowing down on these and it makes me sick. Oreo Cakesters are everything that's wrong with America.

Media Fast - Day 3

2010-07-12T20:37:00.003-04:00

It's been a little harder today to stay away from my go-to time-wasters (Facebook, twitter, etc). The hardest part is when I know I don't have enough time to sit down and read or do something constructive. Entertainment media is a great way to fill those small moments. The problem is that those small moments have a way of stretching themselves into long moments. Perhaps my goal in returning to these things will be to limit them. The problem is not these things in and of themselves, but rather how I treat them. I know they cannot fill me, but they are EASY things to turn to. But what good things in this life are easy? Not many. And maybe none at all.

Media Fast - Day 2

2010-07-11T17:56:00.002-04:00

Today, after church, I met up with some friends to watch the World Cup final. I don't really like soccer, but I got into it a little bit. Then the garbage officiating and sissified flops reminded me why I don't watch soccer. But, it was fun to be out of the house.

I wouldn't have necessarily stayed home and watched TV/surfed internet today if not for the media fast, but there's a chance I would have. Tonight I'm gonna watch a movie over at my friend's house. I've decided this is ok because I'll be with other people. Until then I'm gonna fix some dinner and maybe do some reading. I've just started The Son of Laughter by Frederick Buechner (author of possibly my favorite book of all time, Godric, which you can read a great review of here).

Two days in--so far so good!

Media Fast - Day 1

2010-07-10T15:35:00.003-04:00

I decided last night to do a one month media pseudo-fast. Not a complete fast because there are many things which would be irresponsible to neglect. Here's a list of what I can use the internet for:

-Work/ anything related to Back Relief Products
-Email
-Fantasy Baseball
-Reading articles on Rabbit Room
-Responding to any messages/wall posts on Facebook (I can't initiate these or even browse Facebook)

I'm also limiting TV to the following:
-Braves
-If I'm at a friends house

I'll be updating here daily what this is like. I'm going to spend more time reading, journaling, praying, and being with other people.

And yes, I realize the irony of blogging about being tech-free.

Normal Life

2010-07-06T00:10:00.006-04:00

"There is no normal life, Wyatt. There's just life."
~Doc Holliday

It seems like such a simple thought, but there's so much wisdom in it.

Beginning when we're just children we form ideals of what a life should look like. Here in America, it's especially clear (or cookie) cut. Finish school. Go to college. Find a wife. Find a job with a company. Have kids. Spend the next 20 years devoted to your wife, kids, and company. Not necessarily in that order.

This plan works well for many people. But the problem comes when the people who aren't on this track start to feel like they're doing something wrong. Ok, I'll get real: I feel like I'm doing something wrong because I'm not floating down this river. I know in my head that there's not one way to live life (how boring would that be) and that there are many pros to my life, but I still can't shake the feeling that I'm off track and I need to work towards getting on track. I feel a little like Wyatt Earp at the end of Tombstone, when he confesses that all he ever wanted was a normal life. Wife, kids, property. The American Dream.

But why do I want these things? Is it just because they're "normal"? Do I really want these things right now? I'm not sure that I do as much as I think I do. I love the freedom that I have being single. I love that I woke up today and decided to float down the Chattahoochee River with one of my best friends. I love that I get to enjoy my niece a couple times a week but don't have to deal with the rough times. I love that my search for a job has forced me to examine what I'm really passionate about in life.

There is no normal life, Wyatt. It seems that Doc Holliday's implications are such: don't feel like life is a line to be followed. Don't concentrate all your efforts on getting over to that line when you see you've veered off.

There are many good things about education, marriage, children, and job security. But life is not a line to be walked. It's a jungle to be explored.

Lord, help me to explore life with the passions you've given me. Let me be shocked and amazed around every corner. And help me remember you have no stencils for how to live life, except to love.

Project 36

2010-03-20T17:40:00.006-04:00

A lot of people are amazed when I tell them that in the past 12 years, I have only had my hair cut at one* place: Top Cuts Salon in Roswell. It's true. Ever since my freshman year of high school. I don't know why I'm so loyal to them, but I am.

Before

After

Why am I all dressed up in the second photo? Well, it's because I got invited to an early showing of the new exhibit at the High Museum of Art: The Allure of the Automobile. The early showing was a private event for Porsche employees and their families. Since my brother works for Porsche, I got to go! There were 18 classic cars on display, all made in the "Golden Era" of carmaking, between 1930 and 1965. Here are a few pics from the evening.

1935 Duesenberg JN Roadster

1937 Delage D8-120S

1938-1939 Porsche Type 64 (body shell)
This is considered the "grandaddy" of all Porsches. When this body shell was put on the existing VW Beetle frame, Porsche was born.

1961 Aston Martin DB4GT Zagato

1961 Ferrari 250 GT

*Ok, I admit I had ONE haircut elsewhere. It was 2002, I was in Myrtle Beach for the summer and I needed a trim. Please don't tell Top Cuts.

Yogli Mogli

2010-03-14T16:42:00.021-04:00

A couple months ago I was in Yogli Mogli and saw a sign on the wall advertising a contest to write a song for the company. I thought, hey, I've got free time, I'm gonna give it a shot. Well, here's what I came up with.

CHORUS:
Yogli-Mogli Mogli Mo
One dozen flavors and 40 great toppings
Yogli-Mogli Mogli Mo
I want some Mogli More

VERSE 1
Healthy and sweet
A paradoxical treat
Made by the best
By YOU you're the chef! At....

CHORUS

VERSE 2
Just pick up a cup
And go fill it up
Now to top it off, just top it off
With fresh fruit or nuts, at....

CHORUS

BRIDGE
Don't skip the flavor
Just skip the fat
So for a guilt-free good time
Bring some friends or the fam, to...

CHORUS

Bacon Cheese Turtleburger

2010-02-22T13:12:00.003-05:00

My friend from Penn State, Ben, is an outspoken lover of bacon (who isn't?). He is also culinarily ambitious and documents his adventures quite well on his blog. When I first found the fine art of bacon weaving, I knew who to share it with. And last week when I found the bacon cheese turtleburger, I knew just the man to bring it to life. Ladies and gentlemen, please take a moment to stop by his blog and learn more about this odd creature (the turtleburger, not Ben).

http://thebenjamin.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/constructing-a-bacon-cheese-turtleburger/

The Last Frontier

2010-02-04T00:32:00.002-05:00

So, in case I haven't told you a thousand times, Andrew Peterson is awesome. May I present evidence #6895: The Last Frontier. He just finished recording this album, no release date set yet. Naturally, I'll keep you updated.

Letter to Me

2010-01-31T16:31:00.004-05:00

This past Christmas season I was spending some time cleaning out a closet at my parents house that had boxes of my old stuff. Amidst the nostalgic sea of pictures, stuffed animals, and toys, I found a treasure: a letter I wrote to myself during my freshman year of highschool. This was an assignment for my freshman English class, so I'm not some weirdo who just randomly writes himself letters. Anyway, I found it to be pretty entertaining so I thought I'd share with everyone. Here it is.

1997--Quite a Year

Dear Paul (if that's still your name),

How was 1998? 1997 was quite a year. The biggest thing that happened was the move. Right now, I am still living int he apartment We go to Tallahassee a lot, to cleanup, and see David. The best thing for 1997 was getting my permit. I haven't driven much, but I'll get better. Today, my life is pretty good. I have a good family, church group, and good friends. And a good cat (go pet him real quick for me). As I sit here in class, I wonder what I/you will be/is like. Are you still the stud I am now? Just kidding.

(Good) movies I saw in '97 included Titanic, Tomorrow Never Dies (007), and Bean! Unfortunately, Seinfeld just went off the air. I can still see reruns. I also like Simpsons, and South Park. Also, at the beginning of '97 I got my moped! It's awesome. Do you still have it? Hopefully you'll have your license by now. What car do you have? Right now I want you to have a Wrangler or one of those old BMW convertibles (or a Ferrari!).

A typical day in my life now is: get up, get shower, eat, go to school, come home, check email, do homework, eat dinner, do more homework, and go to bed. Thank goodness for weekends.

One of the most important people that I've met this year is Rich Jones. He is my youth leader (but you probably already knew that). I miss all my friends in Tallahassee, and the ones who went to college, like David, Brent, Darrell, Lee Anna, Tripp, and Bryan. Another person I've met this year is Leigh Jansson. She is a senior. She's really nice, and fun to be around (don't ever tell her I said that!).

As of now, I'm about 5'7" or 5'8". Hopefully, as your reading this, you'll be about 6'0" or 5'11" (maybe even bigger!). Yeah right, you're probably more like 5'10". I still have blonde hair, and weigh about 120 lbs. Do you have a 6-pack? I'm working on one right now (with the ABFLEX).

Oh yeah, 1 bad thing that happened to me was the Mr. Barnett accident. I don't like him because he still thinks I cheated!

also, right now, I'm taking the WWJD 30-day challenge. I kind of slacked off at first, but I'm getting better. Are you close to God? If not, try to. Think of this as a reminder.

Ideally, right now, I want you to be about 5'11", dirty blonde hair, (same style), a little thicker (about 150 or 160 lbs), muscular, good lookin (you never will lose that), dressed nice, Christian, and I guess a lot like David. Oh and more confident about yourself.

Anyway, I guess I'll see you in the future (or just look in a mirror).

See ya,

Paul Burkhalter

You Got the Right One Baby (P365 D4)

2010-01-28T01:26:00.003-05:00

Well, the past few days have been pretty uneventful, thus, no pictures. Trust me, you don't want a picture of me sitting around watching TV or applying for jobs or playing guitar.

So why Coke? Well, two reasons. One, I went to the NEW World of Coke Museum last week with my friend Jered from Penn State when he was in town for the American Meteorological Society's 90th Annual Meeting! It was exhilarating, I'm sure. The second reason is that I actually applied for a job with Coke. It signified my first application to a non-science related job. Yes, I've reached that point.

One Salad To Rule Them All (P365 D3)

2010-01-21T14:48:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I jumped into the veggies today. This is a Big Salad made with red leaf lettuce, yellow bell peppers, roma tomatoes, white mushrooms, salt, fresh ground pepper, EVOO, and balsamic vinegar that I bought while in Rome last February. It was glorrrious!

P-365 D-2

2010-01-20T22:19:00.003-05:00

THIS is a fresh assortment of locally grown organic veggies. Thanks to groupon, I got this cornucopia for half price! I'm not sure I can even eat all this before it goes bad.

These were provided by Nature's Garden Delivered. Check out their website. It's a little pricey, so I probably won't order again until I have some form of income.....

Project 365-Day 1

2010-01-19T20:53:00.004-05:00

Ok, so a few peeps talked me into doing this "Project 365" where I take a picture EVERY DAY for the next year and upload it to my blog. I'll try to keep them interesting.....

These are the coaxing culprits.

Mere Fear

2009-10-27T21:56:00.005-04:00

If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.
Psalm 130:3-4

I have run into Christians who have a hard time understanding the concept of fearing God. Usually the reasoning goes something like this: "If God is all loving and good, why should we fear him?". Often, God is seen as a big, soft teddy bear. While He certainly is full of love and mercy, it is easy to overlook the goodness of his justice.

God does not sweep our sins under a rug. He is not looking the other way when we rebel against Him. In fact, I think God abhors this idea. If our sins were merely swept under a rug, then Jesus died for nothing. No, our sins were paid for.

We must first understand the extreme depravity of our nature to understand why God is feared. The Psalmist understands this quite well. "If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins/ O Lord, who could stand?". I like to read the second verse like this: "But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are ONLY feared." My NIV text note says this: "If God were not forgiving, people could only flee from him in terror." Without God's forgiveness, we would experience a feeling before God that far exceeds fear. Who could stand? Instead, we are forgiven and get to experience mere fear before Him. Awesome, humbling, sobering fear.

Letters From God

2009-09-09T12:38:00.004-04:00

Hi, if you have reached this page after clicking on the Google advertisement for Letters From God, welcome! This product is currently being developed and will be available for purchase shortly.

Letters From God is a new way of reading the New Testament Letters--as they were originally written! That means no notes, verse numbers, chapter numbers, or pesky line breaks every 5 words.

Pictures of the product will be available shortly.

Each letter is available in three translations: NIV, NASB, and The Message. Letters can be bought individually or in packages. Available letters include:

Romans
1 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Phillipians
Colosians
1 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
Philemon
Hebrews
James
1 Peter
2 Peter
1 John
2 John
3 John
Jude

Each letter will be contained in a large envelope labeled with the according recipient (ie Romans). The whole set can be purchased with a wooden holding tray. Thanks for your interest, please feel free to email me at paulburkhalter@gmail.com

God Bless,

Paul Burkhalter

Christian Music

2009-05-14T09:07:00.002-04:00

Readers,

This article was posted in the Rabbit Room today. It is written by Jason Gray and he has some great thoughts on contemporary music/art. This is why I love the Rabbit Room/Square Peg Alliance/Andrew Peterson:

Tuesday of GMA was a great day. It was filled with more good conversations and interviews, but with some great little detours, the best of which was mid-day when Andrew Peterson asked if I was done with my interviews, and if so if I’d be interested in sneaking out for a quick visit to the Frist, Nashville’s prestigious art museum. We both had to be back by 5 for a Centricity showcase we were both slated to play for, but with an hour and half to kill, we went on a quick little field trip.

The Frist is only a few blocks away from the Renaissance hotel where GMA week is held. A brisk walk and 10 minutes later we stepped out of Nashville and into another world. One of the exhibits was from the Cleveland museum of art featuring relics from the Byzantine era and Christian art from the Antique Period, ca. 200 – 400. We were looking at works of art and utility from nearly 2000 years ago – sculptures, vessels made for carrying water, coins and artifacts of the church, mosaics, and books made before the printing press, with elegant lettering and illustrations individually painted by hand with gold and tempura paints.

It was breathtaking, to put it mildly. The books especially moved me – the great care and detail that went into every page, to make it beautiful and singular. The advent of the printing press with all its virtues has had at least one detrimental effect: it has made books common.

But every piece in the exhibit that we looked at spoke of a time when artisanship and artistry were more than commodities and valued over pragmatic usefulness. Care was taken to make things beautiful and lasting. It was a stark contrast to the world I had just left, which can often feel transitory, ethereal and fleeting, where your worth is determined by how hot your song is on the charts or if you’re wearing the right kind of scarf (GMA 2009 was the year of the fedora and the scarf – I’m not knocking it, just making an observation). Separated by only a few blocks, the contrast between the two worlds was startling. I thought of how I wished it could be mandatory for everyone at GMA week to come and take a little walk through this historical exhibit, looking at art that has stood the test of time and let it call to something timeless in us.

At some point, it seems that one of the engines that started driving Christian music was justifying its existence as music for youth groups, an alternative to secular music with all it’s sex, drugs, and celebration of every kind of hedonism. And while I get why it’s good and useful for us to provide young people with positive alternatives, it does seem like there’s room to aim a little higher than only making music that imitates secular music but inserts wholesome lyrics. Jesus deserves our best, and I wish our market could be more supportive of great art made to the glory of God and is more about worship than it is about what is useful or what is marketable. But greatness – like truth, is hard to market and often, Christian music – in order to survive – has been reduced to imitating the latest trends in its bid to be a safe alternative.

Because of this, sometimes Christian music can have a flavor of the day quality to it. Pop music is notorious for how disposable it is, but Christian pop music is even worse and hasn’t produced much in the way of great and enduring artists like Sting, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Billy Joel, Etc. Christian Music’s brightest lights burn out quickly and there are very few cases of longevity in an environment that caters to youthful consumerism. I think you can feel this especially at GMA week where everyone’s radar’s are trying to pick up on who’s going to be the new hot thing this year.

To step out of this environment into the Byzantine world and experience Christian works of art that 2000 years after their creation still take your breath away and speak of the Glory and Mystery of God was quite inspiring – and convicting. It also provided a blessed perspective.

Andrew and I lingered a little too long and had to huff it back to the Centricity suite to get there in time for the showcase we were playing for. As media and radio people gathered, I was first in the line up. Again, it was literally unplugged and I belted out an acoustic version of “More Like Falling In Love” followed by the confessional and humorous (I hope!)“That’s How I Ended Up Here” (a portion of which ended up on the Acoustic Storytime record, but will appear in it’s entirety on the new record.). Though the latter goes for a few laughs, it’s really a song about self-imposed isolation as we find fault in everyone we meet as a way of keeping everyone at a safe distance:

“Building a wall so no one can bother me
Living my life in isolation
Opening up to only those close to me
Nobody’s close to me, what have I done

You see I really want to be known
But I’m not quite as strong as the fear
That you won’t understand
The fool that I am
And that’s how I ended up here…”

I talked briefly about my own isolation and the ways I’ve effectively shut people out of my life, and it became more of an honest moment than I intended. Next in the line up was High Valley, followed by Matt Papa, Lanae Hale, and then Andrew Peterson. Andrew shared the story of hearing his father share the gospel for years as the pastor of his church before, as a 12 year old, he unexpectedly walked down the aisle and said the prayer. He then talked about the intervening years of rebellion and what brought him back. A quick summary here won’t do it justice, but trust me when I say that it was beautiful and that there wasn’t a dry eye in the house as he sang “The Good Confession.”

Poor Jason Germain of Downhere was up next and, undone by Peterson’s song, introduced their first song through tears. Jason shared his own moving story of all the years and steps in the journey that had brought them to this place, before singing “Here I Am”, just he and Marc Martel on acoustic guitars. His tears were a moving benediction as they closed the evening.

For all the negative things I have said about the state of popular Christian music, I can’t say enough how proud I am of my Centrictiy family and the artists I get to work with. It was a short and sweet set of music with great heart and depth, and I felt affirmed – even after being reprimanded by the beautiful art I’d taken in earlier at the Frist.

The Killing of Time

2009-03-22T15:55:00.013-04:00

Read this.

Read this, read this, read this.

It is long, but READ IT.

The following is a passage from Frederick Buechner's book The Hungering Dark. The chapter is titled "The Killing of Time" and it has spoken to me deeply on several occasions. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do. (Apologies for typos.....I couldn't find this anywhere online so I typed it all myself)

"I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die." ~John 11:25-26

We all suffer to some degree from deafness, are certainly at best hard of hearing. We find it very hard to hear what other people are saying to us, either hard in the sense of difficult or hard in the sense of painful and sometimes hard in both senses at once. Somebody comes up and makes a remark about he weather, let us say, and all that we are able to hear or all that we allow ourselves to hear is someone making a remark about the weather. "Looks as though we might get some rain" is all that gets through to us when what he is really saying, of course--and sometimes we know this and somtimes we do not--is maybe, "I'm lonely. Be my friend. for Christ's sake. Speak," or maybe, "I know you are lonely." And in our deafness, our only response is to say, "Well we could certainly use it," and then we indicate that we have plenty of our own work to get on with. The truth of it is that if you really listen to another person, whether on the surface he is talking about the weather or predicting the outcome of the World Series or even preaching a sermon, if you really listen, you begin to realize that what he is really talking about is himself. He is saying, "Love me" or maybe "Hate me" or "Pity me," but always he is saying one way or another, "Listen to me. Know me." Only most of the time people like you and me are deaf to this. We hear only the words. We hear only what is most comfortable to hear. But once in a while, by the grace of God more often than not, we hear scraps at least of what people are actually saying.

My wife and I were buying groceries one day and I was on one side of the store and she was on the other, and over a shelf of breakfast cereal and cake mix I said, "Don't forget the cream," and she said, "All right, but don't you forget you're trying to lose weight," and I said, "Oh well, you only live once." And then it happened, this thing that broke for a moment through my deafness. The store was nearly empty so that the woman at the checkout counter had no trouble hearing us. It was a hot, muggy afternoon, and she had been working hard all day and looked flushed and hectic there behind her cash register and the racks of Life Savers and chewing gum and TV guides, and when I said, "Oh well, you only live once," she broke into the conversation, and what she said was, "Don't you think once is enough?" That was it.

It was a mild jest and I laughed mildly and so did the boy carrying up some empty cartons from the cellar, but it was also very much not a jest because I had a felling that what by some rare chance I had happened to hear was a human being saying something like this: "People come and people go, most of them strangers. I'm sick of them, and I'm sick of myself too. One day's very much like another." What i thought I heard was a human being saying, "I'll live my life out to the last, and I expect to have good days as well as bad. But when the end comes, I won't complain. One life will do me very nicely." Then somebody plunked a bottle of something down on the counter and the cash register rang open and the check-out clerk with with her hair damp on her forehead said, "Don't you think once is enough?" Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me though he die, yet shall he live." It was life and death that she was talking about too, her own life and her own death, and by some fluke I happened to hear her despite that hardness of hearing that we all share. Even the Lord Jesus Christ somehow made himself heard that steamy August day among the detergents and floor waxes. "Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die." "Don't you think once is enough?" the woman said.

There are so many things to say, of course, One thing is that whether one life is enough or not enough, one life is all we get, at least only one life here, only one life in this gorgeous and hair-raising world, only one life with the range of possibilities for doing and being that are open to us now. Wiliam Hazlitt wrote that no young man believes that he will ever die, and the truth of the matter, I think, is that is true of all men. Intellectually we all know that we will die, but we do not really know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as though our lives would go on forever. We spend our lives like drunken sailors.

The drive to one place from another place, for instance--an hour, two hours, whatever it is. You think of it as kind of a necessary evil that you have to endure in order to get wherever you are going, and you turn on the radio if you are, or if you are not driving maybe you take a nap or read the billboards, to "kill time", as the saying goes. And what a grim saying that is if you stop to think about it, because the time that you are killing, of course, is your own time, and there is precious little of it at that. One life on this earth is all that we get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the obvious conclusion would seem to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can. Yet I do not believe that the woman at the checkout counter was any rarity. The world is full of people who in one way or another are by and large merely "getting through" their lives, who are killing their time, who are living so much on the surface of things and are so bad at hearing eachother and seeing each other that it is little wonder life seems enough to them more than enough: seeing so little in this world, they think that there is little to see and that they have seen most of it already so that the rest probably is not worth seeing anyway and there is nothing new under the sun. There are lots of people who get into the habit fo thinking of their time as not so much an end in itself, a time to be lived and loved and fulfilled for its own sake, but more as just a kind of way-station on the road to somewhere else, to a better job or the next vacation or whatever, and all the interim time that remains to be killed starts looming up like a great mountain that has to be climbed, so that if there were a little button somewhere that we could push to make it disappear all at once, I am not sure how many of us would have the strength not to push it.

But there is no such button and we all tend to look for other ways to make the years go fast, that terrible kind of phrase again. You often hear the advice that if you keep busy, it will be over before you know it, and the tragedy of it is that it is true. Life is busy. It comes at you like a great wave, and if you handle things right, you manage to keep your head above water and go tearing along with it, but if you are not careful, you get pulled under and rolled to the point where you no longer know who you are or where you are going. Life is a very busy affair, and in many ways that is a fine and proper thing, but there are other things about life that are also fine and proper.

Late one winter afternoon as I was walking to a class that I had to teach, I noticed the beginnings of what promised to be one of the great local sunsets. There was just the right kind of clouds and the sky was starting to burn and the bare trees were black as soot against it. When I got to the classroom, the lights were all on, of course, and the students were chattering, and I was just about to start things off when I thought of the sunset going on out there in the winter dusk, and on impulse, without warning, I snapped off the classroom lights. I am not sure that I ever had a happier impulse. The room faced west so as soon as it went dark, everything disappeared except what we could see through the windows, and there it was--the entire sky on fire by then, like the end of the world or the beginning of the world. You might think that somebody would have said something. Teachers do not usually plunge their students into that kind of darkness, and you migh have expected a wisecrack or two or at least the creaking of chairs as people turned around to see if the old bird had finally lost his mind. But the astonishing thing was that the silence was as complete as you can get it in a room full of people, and we all sat there unmoving for as long as it took the extraordinary spectacle to fade slowly away.

For over twenty minutes nobody spoke a word. Nobody did anything. We just sat there in the near-dark and watched one day of our lives come to an end, and it is no immodesty to say that it was a great class because my only contribution was to snap off the lights and then hold my tongue. And I am not being sentimental about sunsets when I say that it was a great class because in a way the sunset was the least of it. What was great was the unbusy-ness of it. It was taking unlabeled, unallotted time just to look with maybe more than our eyes at what was wonderfully there to be looked at without any obligation to think any constructive thoughts about it or turn it to any useful purpose later, without any weapon at hand in the dark to kill the time it took. It was the sense too that we were not just ourselves individually looking out at the winter sky but that we were in some way also each other looking out at it. We were bound together there simply by the fact of our being human, by our splendid insignificance in face of what was going on out there through the window, and by our curious significance in face of what was going on in there in that classroom. The way this world works, people are very apt to use the words they speak not so much as a way of revealing but, rather, as a way of concealing who they really are and what they really think, and that is why more than a few moments of silence with people we do not know well are apt to make us so tense and uneasy. Stripped of our verbal camouflage, we feel unarmed against the world and vulnerable, so we start babbling about anything just to keep the silence at bay. But if we can bear to let it be, silence, of course, can be communion at a very deep level indeed, and that half hour of silence was precisely that, and perhaps that was the greatest part of all.

I said, "You only live once," and the woman said, "Don't you think once is enough?" and in a way she was right. In our semideafness and semiblindness, in our killing of time, our boredom, our thirst for the dream of tomorrow and our neglect of the miracle of today, to the degree that this or someting like this is our life, once is certainly enough. But in another way, a thousand lives do not seem enough, not when we are really alive, and I wonder if there is any particular confusion about when we are really alive. I suspect that the truth of it is simply that we are alive when, instead of killing time, we take time. When in the midst of tearing around in our busy-ness trying to do something, we stop once in a while and just let ourselves be something, be who we are. When by unclenching our fists, we give life a chance to do something with us. When we take the little piece of time that we have in this world and pay attention to what it is telling us, not just to what it is telling us about the beauty of the sun as it sets, God knows, but to what it is telling us about all the wildness and strageness and pain of things, the tears of things, the lachrimae rerum, as well as the joy of things.

If the time that lies ahead looks like a great mountain that must be climbed, rest assured that is just what it is, and that is good. It is good to climb mountains, and the view from the top is good, and so is the climbing itself lots of the time. But there is more to our time than the mountains. There is our spirit, our intuition as well as our reason, the wisdom of the flesh as well as the wisdom of the mind. There are our dreams to listen to as well as our transistors and there are games to play as well as work to be done. There is our occasional gift for being silent, by ourselves and together. And unless all of these things are happening, we are less than alive.

We are really alive when we listen to each other, to the silences of each other as well as to the words and what lies behind the words. "Looks as though we might get some rain," somebody says. Speak to me for Christ's sake. Know me. "Don't you think once is enough?" I'm bored and tired as hell, if there's such a thing as hell. A cup of cold water. We are really alive when we are together as human beings, when by sunset or daybreak or by the fluorescence of a grocery store or the shabby twilight of a church the walls between us crumble a little. (Read that line again)

What I try to avoid because the world has become so threadbare in our time is that we are really alive, of course, when we manage somehow to love--when we love the mystery and beauty and terror that loom vast just beneath the air we move through, when we begin to hear a voice not just in the setting sun but in the earthquake, in the silence, in the agonies of means well as in their gladness. We are really alive when we love each other, when we look at each other and think, "Grace and peace be with you, brother and friend." When there is such life as this, once is not nearly enough.

Yet it is all we get--with these chances to be truly alive, this kind of life to love with. Then there is death, the final deafness, the final blindness, the final separation from each other and from God which with part of ourselves we have always wanted. Unlike the great oriental religions, Christianity takes death very seriously, which is of course why it also takes life very seriously, why there is such urgency about living it right and living it now. In the New Testament there is no doctrine of endless rebirths on the great wheel of life, no doctrine of a soul which by its nature cannot die. On the contrary, by our nature we do die, as Christianity sees it, with our bodies and souls as inextricably one in death as they are in life.

But if death is the end in Christianity, it is not the final end; it is the end of an act only, not the end of the drama. Once before out of the abyss of the unborn, the uncreated, the not-yet, you and I who from all eternity had been nothing became something. Out of nonbeing we emerged into being. And what Jesus promises is resurrection, which means that once again this miracle will happen, and out of death will come another realm of life. Not because by our nature there is part of us that does not die, but because by God's nature he will not let even death separate us from him finally. Because he loves us. In love he made us and in love he will mend us. In love he will have us his true sons before he is through, and in order to do that, one life is not enough, God knows.

So back to the grocery store again and the tired lady behind the cash register. Back to each other again and to the mountains we have to climb this year and every year. Back to the time again that will kill us finally better than ever we can manage to kill it. Thomas, doubting Thomas, was the one of the Twelve who asked the question that must have been on all of their minds. "Lord, we do not know where you are going," he said. "How can we know the way?" And Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life."

Well, and we none of us know much about where we are going really, not in the long run anyway, beyond the next mountain. We keep busy. We climb. We learn. We grow. Hopefully. But we are going, I believe, much, much further than at this point we can possibly see, and in everything we do or fail to do, much more is at stake, I believe, than we dream. In this life and in whatever life waits us, he is the way; that is our faith. And the way he is, is the way of taking time enough to love our little piece of time without forgetting that we live also beyond time. It is the way of hearing the lives that touch against our lives. It is the way of keeping silence from time to time before the holy mystery of life in this strange world and before the power and grace that surround us in this strange world. It is the way of love.

I'm Sorry

2009-03-09T22:48:00.002-04:00

Folks,

I apologize that there hasn't been an update in a while.

Basically, I haven't felt like blogging.

And since it's MY blog, I don't have to.

But I'll be back soon, I promise.

The Artentist

This World is Not My Home

2009-02-12T17:06:00.001-05:00

Two New Albums

2009-02-02T06:18:00.010-05:00

I've gotten two new albums in the past week from two new artists. The first is Fiction Family. Fiction Family is comprised of Jon Foreman (Switchfoot) and Sean Watkins (Nickel Creek). But this is not exactly Switchfoot meets Nickel Creek. Most of the influence comes from each of the artist's independent work.

Most of the songs are an eclectic acoustic/rock/folk blend. Both artists have a history of unorthodox chord progressions and melody lines which are present here.

An unlikely cover made its way onto this album. The song is called "Throw it Away", originally recorded by Abbey Lincoln. The original is a jazz tune, but FF's version is darker and heavier....definitely a reinterpretation of Lincoln's lyrics. This is probably my favorite song on the album, though I can't say why. My other favorite is "When She's Near" which you can hear here (hear hear!).

The next album is "Orange Days on Lemon Street" by Lex Land. I first heard Lex on iTunes last spring and was very impressed. I'm not sure why I didn't buy it then, but fortunately I was able to correct this mistake.

The first thing you notice about Lex's music is her voice. She is somewhere in between Norah Jones and Regina Spector--a good place to be. As Norah discovered, this kind of voice is perfect for alt Jazz.

I only got this album last night so I'm afraid I can't provide too much more insight. Click here to listen for yourself.

On a quick side note, I'm quite ready to come home. Denmark is great, but I would give a lot to hop in my car, drive to Zaxby's, then over to a friend's house. A lot.

Northern Denmark

2009-01-19T14:50:00.006-05:00

This past Saturday I traveled up to the north end of Denmark to visit Helsingør and then took a short ferry over to Helsingborg, Sweeden. I traveled by train, which was neat. Here are a few pics from the adventure.

This is Haven Cafe, where I stopped for lunch and enjoyed Danish meatballs with bread, pickled beets, and sweet pickles. Good people at Haven Cafe.

This is Kronborg Castle, famous for being the setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet. In the play, the castle is referred to as Elsinore (like Helsingør).

I elected not to pay the 100 DKK ($20) they wanted to see the rooms in the castle because I'll be visiting another castle soon that's supposed to be much nicer.

After walking around Helsingør a little bit more (and finding a glorious cheese shop that I wish I had taken a picture of and that I bought some Old Amsterdam cheese from) I took a ferry over to Sweden (which I have only recently discovered is spelled Sweden and not Sweeden) (sorry, I know I'm going a little parenthesis-happy right now). For some reason in Denmark, it costs about 40 Kroner for a beer, but only 47 Kroner to buy a round trip ferry pass to Sweden. Here are some pics from Helsingborg.

Apparently there are a lot of folks in Sweden who don't like Israel. They were yelling a lot so I quickly took this pic and left.

Later on the riot crew left and so I was able to climb the steps that they had been standing on. This is the view from the top. You can see Denmark in the background, across the water.

What's that, you wish you could experience the view from up there? Perhaps this will help.

Ok, that's all I have time for right now. Tomorrow, I'll post about Weinerbrød!

So Far, So Good

2009-01-13T12:08:00.006-05:00

Hej! Greetings from Copenhagen (pronounced Kobenhown). I've been here for three days now and am starting to feel settled in. I'm living on the outskirts of Copenhagen in a town called Gammel Holte. The office is about 1.5 miles from home so I'm taking the bus for the first time since middle school. This bus is much nicer.

I'm living with a Korean family here called the Ryu's (ayuken!). Yunseong, the father, works for B&K and deals with acoustic solutions such as material testing and beamforming. His wife, who's name escapes me, and his son, Ji Hun, are both great. Ji Hun is 14 and is my guitar apprentice. He also serves as translator sometimes.

I arrived on Sunday morning and slept part of the day. Around 4pm I went out for a walk with the Ryu's so that I could see Dr. Per Bruel's (one of the founders of Bruel and Kjaer) house and also stop by the house of Søren Gregerson, who will be working with me these next several weeks. On the way we actually ran into Dr. Bruel! This cat is 94 and still rockin. He walks around the neighborhood with his "walking sticks" (they looked more like ski poles to me). Here are are some pics from the walk.

Misty, grey, serene, surreal

Dr. Per Bruel and myself

Dr. Per Bruel, Yunseong Ryu, and myself

I wish I had taken some pictures at Søren's house. It is 250 years old and as cozy as.....well, as a 250 year old furnace-warmed danish house. Søren proudly described his hip new furnace which burns compacted wood pellets and has digitally controlled temperature. We took off our coats and scarves and sat down to hot tea, coffee, and some thin sandwich cookies that I can't really describe but were amazing. We talked there for a while and then headed home.

I'm thinking maybe this weekend I will go visit Kronborg Castle in Helsingør. This is the Danish castle famous for being the setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet. A few miles down the road and across the Øresund from Helsingør is Helsingborg, Sweeden. I'll probably try to see both towns on Saturday.

Maria Sharapova Would Be Proud

2009-01-04T15:47:00.003-05:00

Recently I bought a Canon Powershot Digital Camera to take to Denmark with me (for those who don't know, I leave Jan 10 to work in Copenhagen for 6 weeks). I was playing around with the camera and ended up taking this picture. I don't know too much about photography, but there's something I like about this pic. And it's not just Tebow.

So anyway, now that I have a camera, look for plenty of pics from Copenhagen.

Song of the Day: Tonight

2008-12-31T09:13:00.005-05:00

Today's song is Tonight by the OC Supertones. I listened to the Supertones a lot in high school, but never really realized the depth of the lyrics in their songs. It's a bit odd to see ska music paired with great lyrics, sort of like seeing a clown sitting in church. Clowns are welcome in church of course, but you'd think they'd dress in normal clothes. But then again if you got a church full of clowns in clown attire, you would have one crazy awesome service. And that's exactly what the Supertones are.

Listen

I can feel the old earth shake tonight
Mother earth feels labor aches tonight
I can feel the old world passin'
I can hear the whole world crashing down tonight

And if I died here tonight, I know my soul is with You
I'm sure about the promises You've made

Surely then I will be judged tonight
Surely I'm a little scared tonight
Surely now the sheep and goats are split upon the
Threshing floor tonight

And if I died here tonight, I know my soul is with You
I'm sure about the promises You've made

Lord, You are my only good, I will hold to You
Should the fires of hell sear and singe me
Lord, You are my protector
I will hold to the fold of your robe
Should the devil himself come to claim me

And if I died here tonight, I know my soul is with You
I'm sure about the promises You've made

"If I died here tonight, I know my soul is with You/ I'm sure about the promises you made". This kind of lyric could only be in a Christian song. Matt Morginsky realizes a fundamental Christian truth: that all hope, comfort, and security is found in God's promises for us and not in our own feeble attempts to be good enough for Him.

Click here to see a hilarious Sims video someone made to the song Jury Duty.

Choosing a Major

2008-12-29T09:24:00.005-05:00

I ran across this article by Dave Berry today on choosing a major and thought it was pretty funny. No offense to my non-science friends....

Here is a very important piece of advice: Be sure to choose a major
that does not involve Known Facts and Right Answers.

This means you must *not* major in mathematics, physics, biology, or chemistry, because these subjects involve actual facts. If, for example, you major in mathematics, you're going to wander into class one day and the professor will say: "Define the cosine integer of the quadrant of a rhomboid binary axis, and extrapolate your result to five significant vertices." If you don't come up with *exactly* the answer the professor has in mind, you fail. The same is true of chemistry: if you write in your exam book that carbon and hydrogen combine to form oak, your professor will flunk you. He wants you to come up with the same answer he and all the other chemists have agreed on. Scientists are extremely snotty about this.

So you should major in subjects like English, philosophy, psychology, and sociology -- subjects in which nobody really understands what anybody else is talking about, and which involve virtually no actual facts. I attended classes in all these subjects, so I'll give you a quick overview of each:

ENGLISH: This involves writing papers about long books you have read little snippets of just before class. Here is a tip on how to get good grades on your English papers: Never say anything about a book that anybody with any common sense would say. For example, suppose you are studying Moby-Dick. Anybody with any common sense would say that Moby-Dick is a big white whale, since the characters in the book refer to it as a big white whale roughly eleven thousand times. So in *your* paper, *you* say Moby-Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland. Your professor, who is sick to death of reading papers and never liked Moby-Dick anyway, will think you are enormously creative. If you can regularly come up with lunatic interpretations of simple stories, you should major in English.

PHILOSOPHY: Basically, this involves sitting in a room and deciding there is no such thing as reality and then going to lunch. You should major in philosophy if you plan to take a lot of drugs.

PSYCHOLOGY: This involves talking about rats and dreams. Psychologists are *obsessed* with rats and dreams. I once spent an entire semester training a rat to punch little buttons in a certain sequence, then training my roommate to do the same thing. The rat learned much faster. My roommate is now a doctor. If you like rats or dreams, and above all if you dream about rats, you should major in psychology.

SOCIOLOGY: For sheer lack of intelligibility, sociology is far and away the number one subject. I sat through hundreds of hours of sociology courses, and read gobs of sociology writing, and I never once heard or read a coherent statement. This is because sociologists want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding code. If you plan to major in sociology, you'll have to learn to do the same thing. For example, suppose you have observed that children cry when they fall down. You should write: "Methodological observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated isolates indicates that a casual relationship exists between groundward tropism and lachrimatory, or 'crying,' behavior forms." If you can keep this up for fifty or sixty pages, you will get a large government grant.

2008-12-23T16:14:00.003-05:00

It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David's town

And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother's hand to hold

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

Noble Joseph at her side
Callused hands and weary eyes
There were no midwives to be found
In the streets of David's town
In the middle of the night

So he held her and he prayed
Shafts of moonlight on his face
But the baby in her womb
He was the maker of the moon
He was the Author of the faith
That could make the mountains move

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love
For little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
It was a labor of love

Written by Andrew Peterson
Performed by Jill Phillips

Come and Follow Me

2008-12-09T12:10:00.003-05:00

You may have noticed (but probably not) that I recently added a new section on the righthand side of the blog titled "Followers". Please take a minute to become a follower so I can feel better about myself and learn who all reads this silly blog.

A Couple of Hoes (Songs of the Day)

2008-12-08T10:24:00.003-05:00

Two "Songs of the Day" featured today, both named Hosanna. The first is by Andrew Peterson (big suprise). I've been thinking about this a little bit and this may be Andrew's best, most complete song yet. I'm basing this on a combination of songwriting, melody, and production. Before performing this live, Andrew likes to explain a little about the name Hosanna. "Hosanna" is both a shout of praise and a cry out meaning "save us!". When the Jews called Jesus "Hosanna" on Palm Sunday, during his arrival into Jerusalem, they were saying that a) they recognize their need to be saved and b) Jesus was the one that saves and that they were praising him for that. Listen here.

I am tangled up in contradiction.
I am strangled by my own two hands.
I am hunted by the hounds of addiction.
Hosanna!

I have lied to everyone who trusts me.
I have tried to fall when I could stand.
I have only loved the ones who loves me.
Hosanna!

O Hosanna!
See the long awaited king
come to set his people free.
We cry O Hosanna!
Come and tear the temple down.
Raise it up on holy ground.
Hosanna!

I have struggled to remove this raiment,
tried to hide every shimmering strand.
I contend with these ghosts and these hosts of bright angels.
Hosanna!
I have cursed the man that you have made me,
as I have nursed the beast that bays for my blood.
Oh, I have run from the one who would save me.
Save me, Hosanna!

O Hosanna!
See the long awaited king,
come to set his people free.
We cry O Hosanna!
Come and tear the temple down.
Raise it up on holy ground.
Hosanna!

You have crushed beneath your heel the vile serpent.
You have carried to the grave the black stain.
You have torn apart the temple’s holy curtain.
You have beaten Death at Death’s own game. Hosanna!

O Hosanna!
Hail the long awaited king,
come to set his people free.
We cry O Hosanna!
Won’t you tear this temple down,
raise it up on holy ground.
O Hosanna!
I will lift my voice and sing:
you have come and washed me clean.
Hosanna.

I you listened to this song in the link, you probably noticed the choir singing the "Oh Hosanna"s in the chorus. This choir consisted of 40 Andrew Peterson fans who came to Nashville for a weekend to be on the album. Andrew posted a notice on his blog that the first 40 people to respond would have the chance to come and be on the record. Pretty cool.

The second "Hosanna" was written by Brooke Fraser and is performed by herself and Hillsong United on All of the Above. Listen here.

I see the king of glory
Coming on the clouds with fire
The whole earth shakes
The whole earth shakes
Yeah

I see his love and mercy
Washing over all our sin
The people sing
The people sing

Hosanna
Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest

I see a generation
Rising up to take their place
With selfless faith
With selfless faith

I see a near revival
Stirring as we pray and seek
We're on our knees
We're on our knees

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me

Break my heart from what breaks yours
Everything I am for your kingdoms cause
As I go from Earth into
Eternity

Hosanna
Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest

While the lyrics are pretty good in this song, it's the music that I love more. Hillsong is great at building up songs into huge crashing climaxes. By the time the bridge comes around (heal my heart and make it clean) I'm pregnant with excitement and literally can't wait to sing out.

Anyway, I hope yall enjoy these songs as much as I do.

Today

2008-11-30T22:16:00.003-05:00

Today is a great day to go here and buy Andrew Peterson's album Behold the Lamb of God: The True Tall Tale of the Coming of Christ. If money is an issue, I will be more than happy to mail you a check for the amount of the CD.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T11:06:00.002-05:00

I wish a very happy and a very thankful Thanksgiving to all of you. Whether you realize it or not, you have a lot to be thankful for. The very breath of life in our lungs is a gift from God, considering what we deserve.

Advent

2008-11-25T08:47:00.004-05:00

As a general rule of thumb, I try to avoid Christmas hype/decoration/music untill after Thanksgiving. One thing at a time. But the spirit of Christmas has blossomed in my heart a little early this year, mostly due to these two things.

1. This is a youtube video my friend Clark sent me.

2. This is a great piece by Russ Ramsey posted in (where else?) the Rabbit Room.

May these two links be a gate into advent for all you readers. Merry Christmas!

Shrewd As Snakes

2008-10-30T09:22:00.004-04:00

Hey Guys,

I found this article yesterday and thought it was worth sharing. The writer is a lifelong journalist who now works for ABC. The premise is his observation of the evolving bias of the public media.

No matter what your views on politics are, it's hard to deny the obvious bias that public media holds. Good deception is a subtle craft, and those who are best at it avoid blatant lying. Our job is to be shrewd (Matt 10:16).

Paul

Media's Presidential Bias and Decline
Columnist Michael Malone Looks at Slanted Election Coverage and the Reasons Why
Column By MICHAEL S. MALONE
Oct. 24, 2008 —

The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game -- with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates.

The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I've found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.

But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I've begun -- for the first time in my adult life -- to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was "a writer," because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist.

You need to understand how painful this is for me. I am one of those people who truly bleeds ink when I'm cut. I am a fourth-generation newspaperman. As family history tells it, my great-grandfather was a newspaper editor in Abilene, Kan., during the last of the cowboy days, then moved to Oregon to help start the Oregon Journal (now the Oregonian).

My hard-living -- and when I knew her, scary -- grandmother was one of the first women reporters for the Los Angeles Times. And my father, though profoundly dyslexic, followed a long career in intelligence to finish his life (thanks to word processors and spellcheckers) as a very successful freelance writer. I've spent 30 years in every part of journalism, from beat reporter to magazine editor. And my oldest son, following in the family business, so to speak, earned his first national byline before he earned his drivers license.

So, when I say I'm deeply ashamed right now to be called a "journalist," you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul.

Now, of course, there's always been bias in the media. Human beings are biased, so the work they do, including reporting, is inevitably colored. Hell, I can show you 10 different ways to color variations of the word "said" -- muttered, shouted, announced, reluctantly replied, responded, etc. -- to influence the way a reader will comprehend exactly the same quote. We all learn that in Reporting 101, or at least in the first few weeks working in a newsroom.

But what we are also supposed to learn during that same apprenticeship is to recognize the dangerous power of that technique, and many others, and develop built-in alarms against them.

But even more important, we are also supposed to be taught that even though there is no such thing as pure, Platonic objectivity in reporting, we are to spend our careers struggling to approach that ideal as closely as possible.

That means constantly challenging our own prejudices, systematically presenting opposing views and never, ever burying stories that contradict our own world views or challenge people or institutions we admire. If we can't achieve Olympian detachment, than at least we can recognize human frailty -- especially in ourselves.

Reporting Bias
For many years, spotting bias in reporting was a little parlor game of mine, watching TV news or reading a newspaper article and spotting how the reporter had inserted, often unconsciously, his or her own preconceptions. But I always wrote it off as bad judgment and lack of professionalism, rather than bad faith and conscious advocacy.

Sure, being a child of the '60s I saw a lot of subjective "New" Journalism, and did a fair amount of it myself, but that kind of writing, like columns and editorials, was supposed to be segregated from "real" reporting, and, at least in mainstream media, usually was. The same was true for the emerging blogosphere, which by its very nature was opinionated and biased.

But my complacent faith in my peers first began to be shaken when some of the most admired journalists in the country were exposed as plagiarists, or worse, accused of making up stories from whole cloth.

I'd spent my entire professional career scrupulously pounding out endless dreary footnotes and double-checking sources to make sure that I never got accused of lying or stealing someone else's work -- not out of any native honesty, but out of fear: I'd always been told to fake or steal a story was a firing offense & indeed, it meant being blackballed out of the profession.

And yet, few of those worthies ever seemed to get fired for their crimes -- and if they did they were soon rehired into even more prestigious jobs. It seemed as if there were two sets of rules: one for us workaday journalists toiling out in the sticks, and another for folks who'd managed, through talent or deceit, to make it to the national level.

Meanwhile, I watched with disbelief as the nation's leading newspapers, many of whom I'd written for in the past, slowly let opinion pieces creep into the news section, and from there onto the front page. Personal opinions and comments that, had they appeared in my stories in 1979, would have gotten my butt kicked by the nearest copy editor, were now standard operating procedure at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and soon after in almost every small town paper in the U.S.

But what really shattered my faith -- and I know the day and place where it happened -- was the war in Lebanon three summers ago. The hotel I was staying at in Windhoek, Namibia, only carried CNN, a network I'd already learned to approach with skepticism. But this was CNN International, which is even worse.

I sat there, first with my jaw hanging down, then actually shouting at the TV, as one field reporter after another reported the carnage of the Israeli attacks on Beirut, with almost no corresponding coverage of the Hezbollah missiles raining down on northern Israel. The reporting was so utterly and shamelessly biased that I sat there for hours watching, assuming that eventually CNNi would get around to telling the rest of the story & but it never happened.

The Presidential Campaign
But nothing, nothing I've seen has matched the media bias on display in the current presidential campaign.

Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass -- no, make that shameless support -- they've gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don't have a free and fair press.

I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather -- not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake -- but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to her home state of Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the big leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play.

The few instances where I think the press has gone too far -- such as the Times reporter talking to prospective first lady Cindy McCain's daughter's MySpace friends -- can easily be solved with a few newsroom smackdowns and temporary repostings to the Omaha bureau.

No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side -- or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del.

If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.

That isn't Sen. Obama's fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.

Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?

Joe the Plumber
The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber.

Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man. So much for speaking truth to power. So much for comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by.

I learned a long time ago that when people or institutions begin to behave in a matter that seems to be entirely against their own interests, it's because we don't understand what their motives really are. It would seem that by so exposing their biases and betting everything on one candidate over another, the traditional media is trying to commit suicide -- especially when, given our currently volatile world and economy, the chances of a successful Obama presidency, indeed any presidency, is probably less than 50/50.

Furthermore, I also happen to believe that most reporters, whatever their political bias, are human torpedoes & and, had they been unleashed, would have raced in and roughed up the Obama campaign as much as they did McCain's. That's what reporters do. I was proud to have been one, and I'm still drawn to a good story, any good story, like a shark to blood in the water.

So why weren't those legions of hungry reporters set loose on the Obama campaign? Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal?

The editors. The men and women you don't see; the people who not only decide what goes in the paper, but what doesn't; the managers who give the reporters their assignments and lay out the editorial pages. They are the real culprits.

Bad Editors
Why? I think I know, because had my life taken a different path, I could have been one: Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you've spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power & only to discover that you're presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn't have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you'll lose your job before you cross that finish line, 10 years hence, of retirement and a pension.

In other words, you are facing career catastrophe -- and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway -- all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.

And then the opportunity presents itself -- an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career.

With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived fairness doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.

And besides, you tell yourself, it's all for the good of the country &

This is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.

Michael S. Malone is one of the nation's best-known technology writers. He has covered Silicon Valley and high-tech for more than 25 years, beginning with the San Jose Mercury News as the nation's first daily high-tech reporter. His articles and editorials have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, the Economist and Fortune, and for two years he was a columnist for The New York Times. He was editor of Forbes ASAP, the world's largest-circulation business-tech magazine, at the height of the dot-com boom. Malone is the author or co-author of a dozen books, notably the best-selling "Virtual Corporation." Malone has also hosted three public television interview series, and most recently co-produced the celebrated PBS miniseries on social entrepreneurs, "The New Heroes." He has been the ABCNews.com "Silicon Insider" columnist since 2000.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

Song of the Day: Love is a Good Thing

2008-10-24T10:46:00.003-04:00

I love good music. I REALLY love good music. So I've decided to start sharing some of my favorite songs on here. I'll post the lyrics and spend a few moments explaining why I love the song. Also, I'll try to post a link to the song on myspace if available. Although the posts will be titled "Song of the Day", I will not be putting a new song up each day. That would be ridiculous. I'm not near as blog-dedicated as The Benjamin.

Today's song is "Love is a Good Thing" from Andrew Peterson's newest album, Resurrection Letters Vol. 2 (A review of the entire album is in the works). (BTW, does anyone know whether a parenthesis statement is supposed to come before or after a period if it's at the end of a sentence?)

"Love is a Good Thing" by Andrew Peterson

It knocked me down it dragged me out
And left me there for dead
It took all the freedom I wanted
And gave me something else instead
Blew my mind, bled me dry
And hit me like a long goodbye
And nobody here knows better than I
That it's a good thing
Love is a good thing

It'll fall like rain on your parade
Laugh at the plans that you tried to make
Wear you down till your heart just breaks
And that's a good thing
Love is a good thing

It'll wake you up in the middle of the night
It'll take just a little too much
Burn you like a cinder
Till you're tender to the touch
It'll chase you down and swallow you whole
It'll make your blood run hot and cold
Like a thief in the night it'll steal your soul
And that's a good thing
Love is a good thing

It'll follow you down to the ruins of the great divide
Open the wounds that you tried to hide
And there in the rubble of the heart that died
You'll find a good thing
Love is a good thing
Oh, love is a good thing

Take cover
The end is near
Take cover
Do not fear

Cause it'll break your will it'll change your mind
Loose all the chains of the ties that bind
And if you're lucky you'll never make it out alive
And that's a good thing
Love is a good thing

It can hurt like a blast from a hand grenade
When all that used to matter is blown away
There in the middle of the mess it's made
You'll find a good thing
Yes it's worth every penny of the price you pay
It's a good thing
Love is a good thing

The song is set in 2/2 and holds a mellow bluegrass/folk feel. And in my opinion, it's the best melody AP has ever come up with. Stewart Duncan provides a flawless fiddle, as usual. But as with most AP songs, it's all about the lyrics. This song is great because it embraces the mess that Love creates in our lives. It acknowledges the fact that we are hardened, misshapen jars of clay and we need to be broken. That "the Lord disciplines those He loves".*

*Heb 12:6

Speaker Evaluation

2008-10-23T11:05:00.009-04:00

About a year ago I built my first pair of speakers. I built them alongside several other Penn State AES members. Basically, the enclosures are made out of PVC pipe that's been spraypainted black. We installed the drivers, made the crossover, and then put it all together. It took about 10 hours.

Since these speakers were made by us students, there was no frequency reponse information (think speaker stats). Fortunately, I have recently started working for a company who specializes in sound and vibration measurement. So, this past week, I was able to take some equipment home that would evaluate my speakers for me! Here are the results for the right speaker. (Click on the picture to get a close up view)

Now, each speaker has two drivers: a woofer (for mid-range frequencies) and a tweeter (for high frequencies). The blue line represents the response from the woofer and the red line represents the response from the tweeter. The crossover circuit was designed to make frequencies below 5 kHz go to the woofer, and above 5 kHz go to the tweeter. (Hence the drastic drop in the blue line at 5 kHz)

Ideally, the combination of the two lines is flat. What that would mean in practical terms is that the speakers are equally reproducing each frequency fed into them--no frequencies are being "favored" or "shunned". Generally, you want all of the frequencies to be within about 6dB of each other. As you can see, the low to mid range frequencies vary up to 8 or 9 dB which is not very good, but also not suprising for a 6" driver. However, the mid to high frequencies are quite nice, something I already knew subjectively.

The equipment I had can also measure distortion, but I didn't have time to do this because my whiney roomates made me put my toys away because they wanted to watch TV. Maybe next week I'll have distortion meansurements up.

Rabbit Room

2008-09-26T08:58:00.003-04:00

Two things:

1. If you are remotely close to me, you've heard me talk about Andrew Peterson. Most likely I raved about his songwriting or just his writing ability in general. If you are still delaying in tasting of his work, be ashamed. Be very ashamed. But don't let your shame weigh you down. Almost all of his work can be found online at the Rabbit Room. STOP PUTTING IT OFF. GO BUY SOMETHING OF HIS. ANYTHING. I don't work for Andrew. I get no commission. I just want everyone to know how much I have been blessed by his work and that I think you will be blessed too. And since Christmas is right around the corner, go ahead and get his CD titled Behold the Lamb of God: The True Tall Tale of the Coming of Christ. DO IT.

2. If you have yet to click on the link on the right side of this blog which leads to the Rabbit Room, it is a fine place to wander to. This podcast helps explain what the Rabbit Room is. I visit the site with a frequency of about 1.1574e-005 Hz, sometimes double that.

iThesis

2008-09-25T11:28:00.002-04:00

A few of you have requested to see my thesis. Although I can't upload files to this blog for you to be able to download directly, I have just found a link to the PSU website where you can download it in .pdf format. Enjoy!

Danes and Saints

2008-09-10T11:17:00.003-04:00

Last week I had the priveledge of attending Bruel & Kjaer University in Copenhagen, Denmark. It's really just a sort of training class for new employees of the company. The classes covered a broad range of topics, from technical explanations of how accelermeters work to company marketing strategies. We also got to tour some sweet areas of HQ like the clean room where the condenser mics are made. Although I already knew a lot about the technical presentations, I learned a bit about company business and more importantly, I became (even more) pumped up to be working for B&K.

The best part about Denmark is the people! It seems like everyone I met there is good looking, friendly, smart, and funny. And guys, if your preference is blondes, Denmark is your jackpot. Seriously though, I enjoyed time spent with the people there way more than the time I spent sightseeing.

Here is an album of some pictures I took in Copenhagen. You gotta be a facebooker to see em though.

The 10 hour plane ride to and fro provided me with ample opportunity to finish reading a book I have been enjoying immensely as of late. The book is Godric, by Frederick Buechner. I hesitate to tell that the story revolves around a 12th century saint because such a premise sounds dry and dull. Godric is no such book. Although it is based on this historical character, Buechner brings the story to life by filling in the gaps that history leaves out. And really my primary enjoyment with the book came from Buechner's writing style, not the plot (although the story is great too). He is just as much a poet as an author. This book is already in my top 5. Here is a good review of the book. Go buy it!

Still Alive

2008-08-25T20:33:00.002-04:00

Devoted Readers,

My apologies for not updating in a while. In short: life is good. I'm back in Atlanta, enjoying friends, family, and even work. Soon I will post pictures of my new living arrangements and give a more detailed update on my life.

Sincerely,

The Artentist

Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust

2008-06-28T03:19:00.003-04:00

Never has a band so quickly become a favorite of mine than when I got Sigur Ros's album Takk... from a friend last year. The Icelandic quartet is a brilliant blend of atmosphere, pop, ambient, rock, and classical. Actually, scratch that. Placing a genre on Sigur Ros is like calling Babe Ruth a baseball player; you've covered a little bit but left so much unexplained.

Whenever I refer Sigur Ros to a friend, I always insist they listen to a song the whole way through. A 30 second clip from iTunes just won't cut it. Why? Because the magic of Sigur Ros is in the gradual dynamics of their songs. They have mastered the (extremely) long crescendo. You might be able to "get" some bands after hearing few 30 second clips, but if you take a musical phrase from a Sigur Ros song out of context, it just doesn't make full sense.

Sigur Ros's newest album, Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust, just released this past week. [The title roughly translates: with a buzz in our ears, we play endlessly....about on par with some of their other strange album titles which translate "a pretty good start", "thanks...", and "haven-home". And then there's the one simply titled ( ).] Med Sud is a bit of a departure from traditional Sigur Ros sound. A little less etherial and much more real. Sigur Ros announces this departure with the two opening tracks, "Gobbledigook" (don't laugh) and "Inni mer syngur vitleysingur". These are both much more upbeat and happy than anything they have ever recorded. This scared me at first, but now I embrace the Sigur Ros head-bob. With the exception of "Vid spilum endalaust", the album slows down a good bit....an a tempo if you will. The jewel of the record, IMHO, comes in track 7, "Ara batur". This slow ballad spends 7 minutes lulling you to sleep before rousing you to tears in the final 2 minutes with lush orchistration, crashing symbols, and the London Oratory Boys Choir. To say this song has a big finish is an understatement. Ara batur belongs in a dramatic movie ending and I don't doubt it will find its way into one someday. The album finishes with "All Alright", the band's first song sung in english....although the words are as hard to understand as ( )'s hopelandic.

Med Sud is Sigur Ros's first album recorded outside of Iceland. Perhaps this was done to symbolize their departure from the old sound. Bands can only get by with a certain sound for so long (save U2) before getting criticized. While the homeland is missed, this new ground is just as beautiful and breath taking.

State College: Not Such A Bad Place

2008-06-24T01:13:00.005-04:00

It's starting to sink in that I'm leaving here soon. I have spent a large part of the past two years making fun of State College, yankees, and the north in general. But, I have to admit there are some things I'll truly miss here. I'll miss the serene winter nights when the moonlight is both soaked up and amplified by the snow covered earth. I'll miss the ridge of mountains that explode into view driving only a mile east of downtown. I'll miss the flashing yellow streetlights at 2am.

I'll miss E-Free. Especially all the great people I made music with there. I have never felt so appreciated as I have at this church.

I'll miss my best friends here: Chris, Jeremy, Scott, Tim, and Pete (among others).

I'll miss the E-Free softball team. As terrible as we are, we had fun losing together.

Places around town I'll miss: Otto's Pub, The State Theater (though I didn't go there as much as I would have liked), Herwig's, Faccia Luna, Pete's house, Jeremy, Chris, JJ, and Alex's apartment (specifically the den with the XBOX 360 and Halo 3).

God has been good to me here. Big suprise.

A Good Way to Live

2008-06-18T15:42:00.004-04:00

Just wanted to share a great passage from Psalm 19 that I just read:

"The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy
making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring forever.
The ordinances of the Lord are sure
and altogether righteous.
They are more precious than gold,
then much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the comb.
By them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward."
[Psalm 19:6-11]

I can't recall ever reading or hearing verses 7 and 8. They observe the goodness of the laws of God from a few different angles. "Reviving the soul" points out that following God's laws can bring you out of a numbed rut....something I have experienced a bit of lately. "Making wise the simple"--A simple man can obtain wisdom by simply following some outlines laid out by God. "Giving joy to the heart"--Here, the Psalmist moves from practicality to hedonism. God's laws are not just practical--they are life-giving and enjoyable. "Giving light to the eyes"--Following God's ways reveals things.

I'm having a tougher time interpreting "The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever." Anyone have any insights?

So much of Christianity today is based around feelings. So much of everything today is based around feelings. Feelings are great, and not to be ignored, but in the words of my wise friend Dave Bachman, "feelings make poor leaders". If we just "follow our heart", we have a deceitful leader.* If we decide to follow God's ways, we have the greatest leader imaginable.

*Jer 17:9

Pictures of Sydney

2008-06-15T02:08:00.002-04:00

Well, a couple months ago I promised pictures of Sydney Kate. Here they are at last! These are four recent photos (just taken a few days ago). Enjoy the overload of cuteness!

No Such Thing

2008-05-26T17:12:00.005-04:00

Well, it's official, I'm about to enter the "real world".

This past Friday I got my first job offer, and I have decided to take it! The offer is from a company that I respect very much and am excited to work for. Their name is Bruel & Kjaer and they are a Danish company that specializes in sound and vibration solutions. I used some of their products for my research here and was highly impressed.

More info on the company can be found here.

My title will be Senior Support Engineer, which is a fancy name for tech support. But this isn't your run-of-the-mill tech support job where the guy sits around on the phone all day telling soccer moms what Alt+Ctrl+Del means. I will have to take phone calls, but that only accounts for about 25% of my time. The rest of the time is problem solving. That is, customers (namely scientists, though not exclusively) will encounter problems using the equipment we sold them and I will have to figure out why their particular setup isn't working and tell them how to get their desired results. Some of these solutions will take time to obtain, so that's why I won't be on the phone all the time.

Ok, how about a few pictures of some B&K products?
1/4" condenser microphone
Miniature Piezoelectric Charge Acceleromter (for measuring vibrations on a surface)
Sound Level Meter
PULSE Analyzer Hardware

PULSE is actually the name a software program that B&K developed. Its applications are numerous but all revolve around data analysis. This is the product that I will "specialize" in.

Oh, and best of all, my new job is in Atlanta! Starting in July, I'll be moving back to the promised land. A land flowing with Coke and Braves baseball. Not to mention family and friends. It's a little weird going back to Atlanta (I've already done it once) because I realize things won't be like they used to be there. People are growing up and changing. Atlanta has changed a LOT since my days in high school.

But I believe this is where God wants me and I couldn't be more excited. I've had to "replant" myself a few times now, and it's not fun having to start over. It's going to be nice to move somewhere where I already have a group of friends (not to mention family).

BUT, I still have a LOT to do before I go.

From Death to Life

2008-05-03T17:02:00.007-04:00

Apologies for not updating recently...it's been a busy past few weeks. And the fury will not cease for at least 6 or 7 more weeks. As most of you know, I'm in the midst of pounding out a thesis. It is progressing slowly due to a nice shock wave of end-of-the-semester class assignments. But amidst all this business I had an opportunity to slip down to Atlanta for a few days to meet my new niece, Sydney Kate Burkhalter! She was brought into this world on April 16th by the brave Erin Burkhalter (with the help of David and some doctors).

Now, when I tell you she's an adorable baby, it's not just my biased uncle opinion coming out. She's a bonafide cutie. I have the pictures to prove it too, and they will be posted soon.

Many thoughts passed through my head as I held her tiny body (under 6 lb) in my arms. I thought about how she would soon grow up and show forth her own unique personality. How she would get pimples, start to like boys, and even have kids of own one day. She will be filled with all sorts of knowledge and wisdom, love and experience, and then in a few short decades, return to dust. That sort of thinking makes it a little strange to hold her.

The great theologian Jonathan Edwards believed that God has the ability to see the world through two lenses: a wide angle lens and a narrow lens. I agree with this. One one hand, God created time and is outside of time. Through a wide angle lens He sees eternity past and eternity ahead. But it is also true that He dawns the narrow lens and enters into time (hence, Jesus). Jesus weeps for Lazarus though He knows breathe will return to Lazarus's lungs in a few short moments.

Sydney will grow up and become many things. But RIGHT NOW she is an adorable little baby, completely dependant on mom and dad. Right now I can enjoying giving her her first tastes of love and affection. And it's great!

Edwards also said, "There is an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Jesus Christ." I love this quote and I love this nature of my God! He sees all of time and yet enters in. He is fully God and fully man. He is the lion and the lamb.

Words will always fail, so I'll just leave you with this:

God...what an amazing dude!

Recently listening to: Jon Foreman Spring, Phil Wickham Cannons, DeVotchKa How it Ends, Coldplay Rush of Blood to the Head.

Mustang Burkhalter

2008-04-18T12:03:00.001-04:00

My cat Mustang was put to sleep two weeks ago today. He wasn't our family's first cat, but he was the first that was "mine". At 14 years old, he lived a nice long kitty life. Most days were spent lounging around, eating, and in the later years, playing with his sister-cat Lucy (aka Queen Kong, named for her black fur and 20 pound frame). Not exactly a life full of purpose and meaning, but sufficient for a cat I suppose.

Mustang was not an especially affectionate cat. He didn't do any tricks. He ran away from me a lot. But I loved him, simply because he was mine. I didn't realize these feelings until these past two weeks. It has given me an insight--albeit on a MUCH smaller scale--of how God feels towards the Sons of Abraham. Though we aren't especially affectionate towards God (except on occasion), though we don't do as many deeds as we should, though we run away from Him constantly, He loves us simply because we are His. Because we were bought with a price.*

I have also been thinking about the finite nature of animals. Some say it is hard to grip the concept of a human's semi-infinite soul (having a beginning but no end). However, I'm having a harder time dealing with an animals finite soul. Or do they even have souls? They certainly have personality and breath in their lungs. How can a soul just cease to exist? The Bible offers little insight here.

And finally, I thought a lot about the fact that we, in essence, were killing him. At first, it didn't sit well with me. Shouldn't we be trusting God with life and death? How is this different than pulling the plug on a vegetable or abortion? God has not given us the authority to do such things. Then I remembered that God said to Adam, "Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." Although we do not have the authority to take the life of another human, we do have authority over animals. So, we decided it was best to relieve Mustang of his pain (he had a large tumor in his spleen which was giving him jaundice).

I will miss seeing him when I come home. I'll miss him jumping into bed with me in the middle of the night. I'll miss him playfully biting my hand.

I'll still love him though, simply because he was mine.

*1 Cor. 6:20

Itzhak Perlman

2008-04-01T22:54:00.007-04:00

For the second time in my life tonight, I got to see Itzhak Perlman play the violin.

I hate to use the word "play". I play the violin. Lots of people play the violin. What Perlman does is completely different. It's as if the violin is a natural extension of his body. The firm gentleness he plays with comes from more than just years of rigorous practice. It comes from being connected to the instrument in a way that only violinists know. It comes from deeply understanding each and every piece that he plays. It comes from a God-given passion and ability. And, of course, it comes from years of rigorous practice.

I could go on and on about his technique, especially his bowing hand, but I realize no one wants to hear about that. What most people love about Itzhak is his demeanor. He is extremely passionate about the music he plays, but he also doesn't take himself too seriously. Most violinists I have seen (cough, Joshua Bell, cough) act extremely professional on stage. A little too professional. And far too serious. It's music, not a business proposal! Jokes in between songs are acceptable. It won't take away from the depth of the music.

A few years back, I made a note to myself. It read,

"The Two Rules of Life

1. Remember that what we do with our lives is of the utmost importance.

2. Don't take yourself too seriously."

Paradoxical? Almost, but not quite. It just requires some thinking.

Anyway, back to Perlman. If you EVER get the chance to see him live, DO IT. Even non-violinists can appreciate his playing...er, music making. He's quite the performer and entertaining to watch even if you don't know who Fritz Kriesler is.

I'll leave you with this video, but don't think for a minute that it does him any justice.

Garfield, Faulkner, Baseball

2008-03-26T15:56:00.006-04:00

I just wanted to make everyone aware of Garfield Minus Garfield.

From the website: "Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb."

Check it out here.

In other news, I'm starting to get some writing done on my thesis. The plan is to have a rough draft by the end of April. I've also been reading The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. The Dark Sea of Darkness inspired me to be more of a reader. I'll post a short review of the book when I'm done with it.

Also, MLB 2008 is officially underway! This also means that Fantasy Baseball 2008 is underway. My draft was this past Saturday. Here is my team:

C- Joe Mauer
1B- Carlos Pena
2B- Howie Kendrick
3B- Ryan Braun
SS- Michael Young
OF- Nick Markakis
OF- Alex Rios
OF- Matt Kemp
Bench- Jeremy Hermida, Orlando Cabrera, Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Hamilton

SP- Johan Santana
SP- Erik Bedard
SP- Felix Hernandez
SP- Jered Weaver
RP- Matt Capps
RP- Jokim Soria
RP- Brian Wilson

A special thanks to Allyson and Amy for being my draft helpers.

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness

2008-03-20T17:15:00.004-04:00

"Adventure. Peril. Lost Jewels. And the Fearsome Toothy Cows of Skree."

This book is every bit as stereotypical as it sounds. And I loved every page.

Andrew has completely embraced the typical fantasy/adventure story. There's nothing new or original about the plot here. Bad guys, good guys, adventure, adversity. But if it ain't broke, why fix it?

Here's a quick synopsis of the book:
"Once, in a cottage above the cliffs on the Dark Sea of Darkness, there lived three children and their trusty dog Nugget. Janner Igiby, his brother Tink, their crippled sister Leeli are gifted children as all children are, loved well by a noble mother and ex-pirate grandfather. But they will need all their gifts and all that love to survive the evil pursuit of the venomous Fangs of Dang who have crossed the dark sea to rule the land with malice and pursue the Igibys who hold the secret to the lost legend and jewels of good King Wingfeather of the Shining Isle of Anniera.

Andrew Peterson spins a quirky and riveting tale of the Igibys’ extraordinary journey from Glipwood’s Dragon Day Festival and a secret hidden in the Books and Crannies Bookstore, past the terrifying Black Carriage, clutches of the horned hounds and loathsome toothy cows surrounding AnkleJelly Manor, through the Glipwood Forest and mysterious treehouse of Peet the Sock Man (known for a little softshoe and wearing tattered socks on his hands and arms), to the very edge of the Ice Prairies.

Full of characters rich in heart, smarts, and courage, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness presents a world of wonder and a tale children of all ages will cherish, families can read aloud, and readers’ groups are sure to discuss for its layers of meaning about life’s true treasure and tangle of the beautiful and horrible, temporal and eternal, and good and bad."

This book is two parts Tolkien and one part Douglas Adams. There is definitely a unique world that Andrew has created. But don't take this book near as seriously as you would Lord of the Rings. Not that Andrew leaves that option open to you. After all, the world of Aerwiar (where they live) was named such because the first inhabitant woke up the first morning there and said "Well, here we are!". (here we are --> "Aerwiar")

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness is filled with fun little trinkets through out the book. They mostly come in hilarious footnotes, but there are also a few poems within the book. One such poem is written on the treasure map:

"Be you friend or be you foe
Beware to all who follow
For in the catacombs below
Is hidden in the hollow
A way that leads to pain and woe
Sadness, grief, and sorrow
The hungry ghost of Brimney Stupe
Awaits your bones to swallow
So think you long before you go
Exploring here tomorrow."

Although there are a thousand predictable scenarios throughout the book, there was one thing in the last few pages which I have never seen before, except in the bible. Obviously I won't say what it was, but it moved me in a deep, deep way once I realized the analogy.

Overall, this book is just plain fun. Completely entertaining and tough to put down. I recommend it to kids of all ages, especially grown up ones.

Click here to buy your own copy of the book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400073847

Ok, ok, now I know what everyone is waiting for: trivia questions to win a free copy of the book! Well here they are. The first person to post a comment with the correct answer to one of the questions gets a FREE copy. NOTE: There are 3 questions but only 2 books to give away.

Question 1:
In the Andrew Peterson song "The Silence of God", Andrew refers to "A statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll/ In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold"

What is the name of this monastery?

Question 2:
What was the name of the Driver's Ed. instructor on Saved By The Bell?

Question 3:
Who did I take to homecoming my Junior year of high school? (Hint: she was the homecoming princess)

To see the rest of the lyrics of "The Silence of God", click here. GREAT SONG.

PS- If you live in State College, I'll be more than happy to lend you my copy of the book.

Review Coming.....

2008-03-19T12:24:00.002-04:00

For those of you looking for the Andrew Peterson book review/trivia challenge book give away, check back later this afternoon. I'm workin on it okay????

Paul

Book Review

2008-03-10T15:15:00.004-04:00

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of Andrew Peterson's music. More specifically, I am a huge fan of his song writing. I have known for while that Andrew has been writing a fantasy book. Well, it's finally done! The book releases next Tuesday (March 18).

So why the early notice? Well, it just so happens that I signed up to be part of a Blog Tour. Basically, a bunch of people get an early copy of the book in order to read it and write a review of the book on their blog! Said review will be posted early to middle of next week (probably on Wednesday).

And now for the coolest part: I get to give two free copies of the book away! That's right, two lucky blog readers will get a free copy of On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson! So how can you win this book? Well, I'm not sure yet, but it will probably be a trivia challenge of sorts. Check back later for details.

Anyway, I just wanted to give everyone the heads up on this opportunity.

Thanks for reading,

Paul

Opposite Way

2008-03-02T18:30:00.010-05:00

This past Tuesday marked the release of Leeland's sophomore album Opposite Way. When the Texas based band released Sound of Melodies in 2006, it quickly became one of my favorite albums of the year. Needless to say, I was pretty excited about the new album.

So did it live up to expectations? I'm gonna say almost. And that's pretty good for a sophomore album.

Leeland's songwriting--done almost exclusively by 19 year old lead singer Leeland Mooring--is definitely worship centered. He writes some pretty good songs (especially for a 19 year old), but I'm not completely blown away by them. Michael W. Smith is more impressed by the kid than I am though. Smith has taken Leeland under his wings and invested much time into developing him as a songwriter. I guess Smith sees something I don't. He's the one with 3 Grammy's and 34 Dove awards though.

The musical styling on this album is pretty similar to their first but with a little more rock mixed in with their melodic-pop sound. Rock has never been my cup of tea, so I'm glad they didn't move too far in that direction.

Leeland's unique vocals are definitely a selling point. The guy reaches notes I don't dare attempt. And he sings with a genuine passion. I'm really excited to see these guys progress and grow up......literally. They're all around the 18-20 year old range.

If you don't buy the whole album, do yourself a favor and buy "Like a Theif in the Night" off iTunes. GREAT song. My other favorite songs are "Enter This Temple", "Opposite Way", "Beginning and the End", and "Let it Out Now".

Leeland's Website
Leeland's Myspace

A fallen tree and a risen awareness

2008-02-27T14:45:00.009-05:00

So today I found out that a tree fell on the house of some of my best friends back home in Atlanta yesterday. It was about 6:30 in the morning. My friend Andrew was getting ready for work when he heard a what sounded like "a train hitting the house". The tree, a sixty year old pine, fell onto the next room over. The room belonged to another good friend of mine, Andy Rocker. The tree, about two feet in diameter, stopped about a foot and a half above Andy's legs. A little bit further and Andy would be in a wheelchair for life.....at best. I get a little choked up just thinking about what could have been.

I can't help but see the hand of the Lord in such events. As I wrote about in my last post, God uses "bad" events in our lives all the time to purify us and to bring us closer to Him. He also uses these events to keep us on our feet! We never know what's coming next in life.

James puts it this way:

"Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'" -James 4:13-15 (NIV)

Now, the context of the verse is referring to the way in which people were boasting about what they would do next. But it still stands that, "you do not even know what will happen tomorrow." You don't have to tell Andrew and Andy that twice.

You can read Andrew's account by clicking here. He has a link to some pictures of their house in his blog.

And here is Andy's account with some more pictures.

I'm so thankful that God saw fit to spare my friend Andy. I'm even thankful that God chooses to keep us on our feet--to keep us aware of our daily dependance on Him.

The Good Bad Times

2008-02-25T19:12:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago, I thought I was entering a season of "good times". You know how sometimes everything just seems to be going right in life? That's how I felt. I won't go into specifics, but I had plenty to be satisfied with and excited about. However, things have taken a little bit of a turn. Again, I won't go into specifics, but there have been a few circumstances which have left me feeing a little hurt and down.

This passage has been running through my head today:

"In the day of prosperity be happy, But in the day of adversity consider-- God has made the one as well as the other so that man will not discover anything that will be after him." -Ecclesiastes 7:14

As I was thinking about this verse earlier in the day, my thoughts were focused on the concept that God creates the bad times in our lives to purify us. I have always loved the visual of a flame drawing out the dross in a piece of metal such as gold. The analogy of course is that God uses pain and suffering in our lives to produce purity. But I don't think that that's what this verse is getting at. This verse states that the reason we have series of good and bad times in our lives is so that we won't know the future. Basically, we don't know whether good or bad is coming next. I suppose this keeps us on our spiritual toes--a good thing for people who get lazy and complacent easily.

Another verse that has been running through my head is this:

"And we know that in all things, God is working for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose." -Romans 8:28

This verse closer embodies the theme of this blog. I know that God is using all circumstances in my life--especially the difficult ones--for my good. To purify me. So really, how can I call these times "bad times"? They are The Good Bad Times. Not that I am rejoicing in them, but I can still have an underlying satisfaction in my life knowing that He is working all things for my benefit.