Somber and Dull

Charge!

2010-01-04T08:11:00.003-05:00

Every media has transformative power, even the lowly cartoon.

Some pastors' studies are decorated with photos of famous preachers or quotes from prominent theologians. Mine is littered with cartoons.

Many are there simply because I find them funny. But on the edge of one bookcase, there are three which have had a significant impact upon how I view ministry.

The one that is shown here is one that I saw early in my ministry and then lost. Just the other day while digging through a file, I found it.

I don't know the artist. His name is not on the cartoon. If anyone recognizes the style and can put me in touch with the artist, I would love to credit him.

I would credit him with not only his work here, but with softening the edge of many a sermon and with reminding me what Gary Waldecker said to me many years ago, quoting his professor John Sanderson: "Always end with grace."

Some Bible Reading Resources

2009-12-31T07:50:00.000-05:00

Reading the Bible slowly is analogous to walking through the streets of a great city, taking in the sights, wandering in and out of its stores and gaining a knowledge of the city's smells and sounds and colors and personality.

But sometimes, to know what the city looks like from the top of a 95 story building or from an airplane flying high above enables us to see how the various neighborhoods and streets and districts all meld into a coherent whole.

Sometimes it is important to get such a view of the Bible. How to do so can sometimes stump us. It is particularly helpful to have a means of pacing ourselves so that we do not get overwhelmed in this task.

I have posted two plans for reading through the bible in 2010 on the Hope Church website. One is designed to guide you through the whole bible. The other is a bit more ambitious, covering the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice.

For those who want to make the journey at a less hurried pace, I've provided this.

I trust that some of you will find these helpful.

Some Prayer Resources

2009-12-30T07:33:00.000-05:00

I have posted on the Hope Church website some resources which some of you might find helpful in nurturing the discipline of prayer in your life. Each are a bit idiosyncratic, but some of you might find some of these resources helpful. Clicking on the links below will download the files.

1. A simple prayer plan. This was shared by Tim Keller in a class a number of years ago. I modified it slightly, but it is in essence all his. (If anyone from Redeemer sees this and believes I have violated some copyright, please tell me!)

2. General prayer guidelines. These are some thoughts I put together some time ago to help me navigate my own prayer life.

3. A Simple Way to Pray. Martin Luther's barber once asked Luther how to pray. Whether Master Peter the barber was serious or was simply making talk we may never know, but the result was a 20 page treatise on the matter. The whole is worth reading, and is widely available on the internet. For convenience I've uploaded this here.

4. Luther and Prayer. Perhaps Luther's barber would have preferred a summary of the good Doctor's helpful comments. That is posted here.

5. The Lord's Prayer. Luther recommends praying through the Lord's Prayer. But how do we do that? Luther's comments are helpful, but so is the exposition of the Lord's Prayer given by the framers of the Westminster Larger Catechism. This document simply takes their exposition and explodes it into various phrases to help us use it as a guide for prayer.

I hope someone finds these helpful!

Candle MPG Test Drive

2009-12-29T08:13:00.001-05:00

Previous studies on Christmas Eve candles were performed under laboratory conditions.

In real life situations involving wiggly nine year olds and wind currents caused by AC fans kicking on and off, candle burn time is reduced to at most 40 minutes. People get nervous after fifteen.

Still, it is clear that we can burn these babies longer than the traditional three minutes!

Discipline

2009-12-29T07:33:00.001-05:00

I quit piano lessons when I was in third grade. It wasn't 'cool' when all my friends were into football.

I took up the piano again in seventh or eighth grade, motivated by a girl who had caught my fancy. I was starting to show promise, and then the teacher quit.

I never again pursued this with any seriousness, so that today I can play a butchered 'Whinnie the Pooh', most of Chicago's 'Color My World', and a smattering of this and that.

And I so wish I could return to third grade and take up where I left off.

It's a strange truth, but the greatest freedom belongs to those who for a time bound themselves to the taskmaster discipline. Those who play music with the greatest freedom are those who at some time in the past applied themselves to the discipline of practice when more obviously enjoyable things beckoned.

So, too, in the Christian life, the spiritual disciplines of bible reading and prayer and worship all seem to be so confining. They seem to demand a joyless labor which runs counter to the freedom we proclaim in the gospel.

And yet, there is to those who are trained by such discipline the eventual blossoming of freedom and delight. The disciplines of the Christian life put us in the way of God's grace, in the place where he blesses. And as we battle off the lethargy of the flesh to put ourselves in worship or in the Scriptures or in prayer, we put ourselves in the places where perhaps slowly at first but more richly in time God reveals himself to us.

There are books that put this all so much more eloquently and practically than I. Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline and Donald Whitney's Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life are two I commend.

But the encouragement here is to step up the discipline in your spiritual life just a notch. The mistake we all make is this time of year trying to correct every fault through a resolution or two that are so unreasonable that we cannot possibly keep them. Make little commitments and keep them rather than big ones which defeat us.

Such steps will bear good fruit. Over time. If we don't quit.

MPG on a Christmas Eve Candle

2009-12-23T09:30:00.005-05:00

What is the manufacturer's estimated MPG (Minutes Per Glow) on a Christmas Eve candle?

I don't know. No where does the box indicate. So, we have to do our own experimentation.

I put a 'candlelight service' type candle in its sleeve (with sufficient candle below the sleeve for a hand to hold). I placed this in a cup on my desk and let it burn.

The picture shows the progress at the 40 minute mark.

I'd say we are looking at an MPG of at least an hour or more under laboratory conditions.

As they say, results may vary. Especially in the hands of a six year old....

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Note: If you would like to try this under real-life conditions, join us for our Christmas Eve worship at Hope Church Thursday night at 6:00 PM!

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UPDATE:
At 60 minutes, the candle entered the 'twilight' stage.

At 75 minutes, the candle entered the 'somewhat iffy' stage.

At 90 minutes, the candled entered the 'seriously iffy' stage.

At 94 minutes, the paper sleeve caught on fire:

Rays Give Up...

2009-12-23T07:45:00.001-05:00

I have a 1/2 dozen posts conceived and another 1/2 dozen started, but I have this time of year multiple 1/2 dozens of other things that I need to do.

Like read up on the Tampa Bay Rays...

If you like the Rays, and have an appreciation for well conceived irony, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy this post.

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[And, while I'm at it, from the shameless promotion department: Cinnamental Bakers has a very nice Christmas gift package of four rolls in attractive packaging for $10. We will deliver in the Bradenton area on the afternoon of the 24th if you need a last minute unique gift idea! Email me if interested.]

* * * * *

Okay... back to work.

Scrivener On Sale

2009-12-22T14:22:00.001-05:00

If you do ANY research oriented writing projects (sermons, books, whatever) and you use a Mac, I HIGHLY recommend Scrivener. I don't have time right now to tell you how I use it or how it could be useful, but it has become for me in my sermon prep one of those how-did-I-ever-work=without-it kind of tools. I mention it now because this program is a great deal at its normal $39.95 price. But from now until New Years Day, the publisher is offering a 25% discount.

Worth every penny!

Look to the Bridge

2009-12-20T06:50:00.002-05:00

This morning I use an illustration drawn from portions of a letter. Here is the setting of the letter re-stated and the full text of the letter.

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Robert Lewis Dabney was a great and renowned preacher and theologian of the nineteenth century. His work was brilliant and his love for his Savior passionate (and his blind spots as regarding slavery well documented). Yet, as he advanced in years, he was afflicted with innumerable physical trials including complete blindness. Even great theologians are prone to lose heart if proper spiritual care is not taken. So, Dr, Dabney’s old friend C. R. Vaughan perceived, and wrote when Dr. Dabney was 78 years old. I believe there is so much practical and godly wisdom contained in this letter of a friend to a man of God in need of encouragement that it is worthy of consideration by us all.

-----

N. P. Manse,
February 3, 1890

Dear Dabney:

Yours of the 28th, just received, relieved a tension of feeling which has held me painfully ever since Mrs. Dabney’s last. I dreaded to hear, and then to hear you are in any degree better was an inexpressible comfort. It melted me to hear of your prayers for faith and dying grace. The stress of such constant and severe bodily pain is enough of itself to try you; and the tempter is sure to use it to affect your hope.

Pray on, dear old soldier, of course; but listen to me awhile. I want to give you a morsel of honey out of one of my dead lions, though, in fact, there is a large herd of them still living, and they roar on me often till I an sick with fears. You know we are sanctified through the truth. Sanctification is just the growth of the particular graces of the spirit, of which faith is one. Just here is where Christians make a great mistake. When they want more faith, or want to know whether things be believed, they turn their eyes inward and scrutinize their faith. They want to see something in their faith to trust in, something that will certify their faith. Of course, self-examination is all right, but not when it practically substitutes faith for our Lord, grace and righteousness. Even a great theological thinker is as apt to make that mistake when he has come into the practical stress of this awful world as a common Christian.

Now, suppose a traveler comes to a bridge, and he is in doubt about trusting himself to it. What does he do to breed confidence in the bridge? He don’t [sic] stand at the bridge-head and turn his thoughts curiously in on his own mind to see if he has confidence in the bridge. If his examination of the bridge gives him a certain amount of confidence, and yet he wants more, how does he make his faith grow? Why, in the same way; he still continues to examine the bridge.

Now, my dear old man, let your faith take care of itself for awhile, and you just think of what you are allowed to trust in. Think of the Master’s power, think of his love; think how he is interested in the soul that searches for him, and will not be comforted until he finds him. Think of what he has done, his work. That blood of his is mightier than all the sins of all the sinners that ever lived. Don’t you think it will master yours? Think of his great righteousness; will it not avail for all you hope to gain? That great work is enough; it needs not to be supplemented: it meets every demand. It warrants you to come into the King’s very presence, assured of welcome, because you can come in the name of the King’s Son. That work of Christ is like a bankrupt for ten thousand dollars allowed to draw on the revenues of an empire to pay out. Think of the Master when you want your faith to grow.

Now, dear old friend, I have done to you just what I would want you do to me if I were lying in your place. The great theologian, after all, is just like any other one of God’s children, and the simple gospel talked simply to him is just as essential to his comfort as it is to a milk-maid or to plow-boy. May God give you grace, not to lay too much stress on your faith, but to grasp the great ground of confidence, Christ, and all his work and all his personal fitness to be a sinner’s refuge. Faith is only an eye to see him. I have been praying that God would quiet your pains as you advance, and enable you to see the gladness of the gospel at every step. Good-bye. God be with you as he will. Think of the Bridge!

Your brother,

C. R. V.

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[picture from Wikipedia page]

Avatar

2009-12-18T16:39:00.001-05:00

The trailers have not enticed me, so I'm not in line to see it. Even a $230,000,000 budget only makes me think that special effects will get in the way of story. This review seems balanced and mildly critical, and consistent with what I've read elsewhere. I'm curious what others think.

Movie Notes, Part One

2009-12-18T04:52:00.003-05:00

I'm so far behind in reviewing the movies we have seen that I'll never catch up. So, let me make a few notes here in lieu of more extensive evaluations.

Spurred on by a great "Black Friday" deal from Amazon.com, I bought a copy of Disney's 101 Dalmatians. (The same impulse landed me a copy of Spaceballs for $2, an impulse I'm almost afraid to confess!) I feel a particular attachment to this movie due to its having been released at a time when I would have been in its target audience. My parents gave me an LP of the music and story line which I can remember playing over and over again. It was a delight, therefore, to introduce this to my son and share it with my wife. I had not realized until I watched the special features how innovative this was and how it represented a technological step forward and trade off from past animated classics. A wonderful movie, though.

Another vestige from our 60s childhood is one my wife picked up from Wal-mart in their discount bin: Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. Back in the days before DVR and before DVD and before VHS, to watch a piece of video entertainment, one had to find when it would be on TV and make a concerted effort to be there in front of the television the moment it started. At Christmas, the networks had a stable of 'specials' they would air year after year. This was one of those specials, featuring a cartoon character named Mr. Magoo who was nearly blind. I remember watching this as a child, and I must have loved it as a child. And sense I loved it as a child and my wife loved it as a child, we had to foist it upon our children, at least those we could corral long enough to watch it. I confess, watching it now as an adult, I see though it is generally faithful to Dickens original, it hardly has the charm of A Charlie Brown Christmas or even Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Far, far better was a 1951 classic A Christmas Carol. It is a feature film length adaptation starring Alistair Sim, an endearing British actor some of us were introduced to in a film called Green for Danger (a classic whodunit, very much worth watching).

You know the story. But know also that the value of this film is in Sim's portrayal of the transformed Scrooge. I think this is a picture of the joy and freedom that should attend the Christian who comes to understand the Gospel. Would that it were so.

Not a Fluke

2009-12-16T17:32:00.002-05:00

I stopped by Lov a Da Coffee to meet someone the other day and sat in a comfy chair near a speaker. As I worked and waited, my attention was captured by the music that was being played. The arrangements were classy and the singer's voice was captivatingly pure and beautiful. She sang fascinating arrangements of the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" and of the Monkeys' "Daydream Believer".

When she began to sing "I Dreamed a Dream" from "Les Miserables" my curiosity began to form a hypothesis, later proved correct. This was Susan Boyle. The frumpy, homely, Susan Boyle from "Britain's Got Talent" and YouTube fame. The Susan Boyle whose singing silenced an auditorium full of mockers. If you are one of the three people in the world who have NOT seen her performance on YouTube, you must.

Her dream was to be a singer, and as unlikely as that dream might have appeared at one time, it is no longer. Her album I Dreamed A Dream is now available for download or purchase.

I know that much of the quality of this music is attributable to quality arrangements. But she handles those arrangements so well. How could she have remained in such obscurity for so long?

Later that night, I stopped by a friend's house to take care of some things, and he had some music playing in the background. It reminded me so much of what I had heard earlier in the day that I plopped down at his computer to bring up the Amazon link to play some Susan Boyle samples for him.

"That's good, Randy," he said. "Sounds a lot like this" and he held up her CD. His wife had bought the CD for him and that is what was playing. No wonder it reminded me of her!

She's good. In the end, I decided she was not $10.99 good. But she's good nonetheless.

I watched the video again just to watch the judges' jaws drop.

Priceless.

Shakespeare Bio?

2009-12-16T11:06:00.001-05:00

I need your help. I need someone to recommend to me the best biography of Shakespeare for me to read.

My degree from Michigan State University is in English Education, a degree which, sadly, required me to read absolutely NO Shakespeare.

Currently I'm reading a bio of Billy Strayhorn. Raise your hand if you have ANY idea who Billy Strayhorn was. Anyone? That's what I thought. That's why God invented Wikipedia and Google!

Strayhorn did not have the benefit of a college education, but did not need that to come to knew enough Shakespeare to quote him and to write a jazz suite around Shakespeare's works, performed by the Duke Ellington Orchestra at an early Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

Admittedly, Strayhorn was a genius. But this non-genius former English teacher turned pastor would like to patch some holes in his education.

So, I repeat, anyone have any recommendations of a really good bio of Shakespeare?

Bacon

2009-12-15T20:25:00.004-05:00

I am known in my family and to a few close friends as the guy who was sick one day, and bored, and in order to pass the time took his temperature every hour and charted its variations in Excel.

So, to those, the following will come as no surprise.

Bacon, you might notice, is much smaller when it is cooked than when you pull it from the package. But how much smaller?

To find out, I cooked 8 ounces (227 grams) of Publix regular bacon on a hanging rack in the microwave, which does not leave the bacon in its own grease as it cooks. I weighed the entire apparatus when it went into the microwave (408 grams) and the whole when it was done cooking (296 grams). I assumed that the difference between those two weights would be accounted for by water in the bacon that had turned to steam and dissipated (112 grams). I then weighed the bacon itself after cooking (47 grams).

Yes, one starts with 227 grams of bacon, but only 47 grams of it ever gets eaten.

Putting it all together, we are left with these facts. Out of every pound of bacon you buy at the store:

* 49% will evaporate
* 30% will stay in the pan
* 21% will make it to your plate.

More graphically, if the package of bacon is ten inches long, you can mentally chop off eight inches and toss it away. You only eat two inches.

Hmmm. I think I'll be buying less bacon.

[Of course, every "scientific endeavor" is subject to peer review. Though this is hardly scientific, and though I don't imagine there is anyone out there as obsessive about these things as I, I would be interested to hear if there are!]

E-Prime

2009-12-15T11:51:00.001-05:00

I've tried, but can't come close to matching this work of word-smithing: writing a whole column without depending upon any form of the verb 'to be'. I read this years ago, and was referred to it again recently. It is classic.

[I tried to think of an economical way of expressing the sentiment of those last three words in e-Prime, and could not do it. Who can help me? Anyone?]

Family and Prayer

2009-12-13T17:49:00.004-05:00

The exhortations made here are not uncommon:

"My friend, if you are not able to leave your children a legacy in the form of money or goods, do not worry about that. And do not wear yourself to death either physically or spiritually in order to accumulate a great deal of property for your children; but see to it, night and day, that you pray for them. Then you will leave them a great legacy of answers to prayer, which will follow them all the days of their life. Then you may calmly and with a good conscience depart from them, even though you may not leave them a great deal of material wealth."

What makes this quote uncommon is the context in which the author sets it, a context I find adds the encouragement to persevere that the mere exhortation lacks:

"Our family has been a believing and praying family for three generations. The elders have prayed faithfully for their descendants. During my whole life I have walked in the prayers of my parents and forbears and in the answers to these prayers. A quiet rain [of answers to prayer] drips steadily down upon me. I reap, in truth, what others have sown."

(quotes taken from O. Hallesby, Prayer.)

Free 'Holiday' Music

2009-12-10T08:00:00.005-05:00

ITunes is giving a way a CD sampler of 20 'holiday' songs absolutely free. I resisted Amazon's offer of 99 tracks for $5, but this one I had to go for. Obviously, when someone else is choosing the tracks, there will be winners and losers. In the latter category I'd put Rascal Flatts singing "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen". But Sarah Mclachlan's rendition of "Silent Night" is a very beautiful thing and, we might add, worth more than the price of the collection! And Weezer doing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", well, you have to hear it. There is some good and interesting stuff here. Christmas music stuff.

UPDATE: Okay, so now I've heard the whole thing, there may be no more than two or three you will listen to a second time, but hey, it's free!

ADD and the Pointless Christmas Tree

2009-12-09T01:30:00.002-05:00

I sat across the desk – the monstrous, authoritative, imposing desk – from the doctor who had just run a battery of does-he-have-ADD tests on my then 15 year-old son. "Yes, your son shows classic symptoms of ADD," he said to my wife and I, and then he looked me in the eye, and asked, "Mr. Greenwald, were you ever diagnosed with having ADD?"

The answer is technically 'no'. These days when I do happen to admit to being 'borderline ADD' my wife sweetly can be heard saying, "Borderline?"

I've coped all these years with whatever peculiar ways of processing I possess and so a diagnosis, formal or informal, doesn't really mean much. I've never really felt impelled to delve deeply into how this might effect the way I function.

But then there was the incident of the Christmas tree.

A week or so ago, I walked into a large tent at a local Lowes with the intention of buying a tree to bring home for the family to decorate. I was able to navigate to the stack of trees labeled '7-8 feet' without any problem. But then the problems started.

There were probably fifty trees to choose from. Then there were, it seemed 100. Then 1000. How could I choose the one perfect tree from that pile of 83,000 trees? The prospect of making a choice seemed so daunting and mentally overwhelming that I couldn't handle it. I had to get out of that tent, which I did clutching the first tree I laid eyes on.

I can't say that was ADD. I don't know what it was. All I know is that the prospect of making a distinction among so many subtly different objects overwhelmed my poor little brain.

We ended up with a pointless tree. That is, there was no 'point' at the top on which to mount our tree-topping ornament. This was easily fixed with a piece of gray PVC pipe and a couple zip-strips. You can't tell that our tree, like this post, lacks a point.

So, I'm satisfied. But next year Barb, not I, enters the evil tent.

Inside - Outside "Jokes"

2009-12-08T16:29:00.003-05:00

Three times I have had someone direct my attention to a bumper sticker/T-shirt which has, apparently, become quite the rage among politically conservative Christians. It says "Pray for Obama." So far so good. But this legitimate concern is linked with a bible verse, Psalm 109:8, and thereby subverted and made despicable.

The Christians who have pointed this out to me, thoughtful men both of them, thought it was funny. The verse referenced reads, in part, "may another take his office." It was, to them, a clever way of saying, "I wish we had a different president." It was not a happy thing for me to correct them.

The problem is that they were ignoring the other part of the verse: "May his days be few."

It is this portion of the verse that leaps out and is deeply offensive to others. To their ears, it is a call for Obama's death. And I have to say I think THEY in this case are reading it correctly. Taken as a whole, it is offensive.

Let me assume the best, that these were produced as a joke (like 'baseball' being mentioned in Genesis 1, "In the big inning...").

The problem is that that which may be funny when told inside a closed culture may not appear as funny when broadcast outside that culture. To take the inside jokes outside without considering how insensitive they will sound to those not on the inside is very, very careless. It is not loving to those we are called to serve, and it is damaging, further damaging, to the very testimony of love and grace that we believe is integral to the Christian message.

We need to learn to hear with 'alien ears' and therefore speak with more gracious lips. And that requires constant repentance and repeated draughts from the fountain of God's grace.

In the meantime, ditch the bumper stickers and burn the t-shirts. Please.

The Blind Side

2009-12-08T05:00:00.002-05:00

A couple of Christmases ago, HPC associate pastor Geoff Henderson gave me Michael Lewis' book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game which I read with interest, knowing nothing of the book's human subject, Michael Oher, and nothing about its technical subject, the importance of an offensive left tackle to a right handed quarterback. I watch both with greater interest now.

But I never imagined the book would be turned into a movie, much less a movie starring Sandra Bullock, and even less of a movie starring Sandra Bullock in which she is receiving kudos for her acting. (Trailer here.)

I've not yet seen the movie, but I will.

Here is the fascinating thing for me. Ordinarily, a movie is released to much fanfare and to blockbuster receipts, and then plummets to more average takes. Occasionally, a movie opens to average receipts and then increases its take in subsequent weeks.

New Moon, for example, dropped 70% in the second week, and an additional 63% in the third. In contrast a movie like The Sixth Sense opened strong, and then for three weeks decreased only minimally, and then began to increase its take.

What explains the difference is word of mouth. A movie which generates the kind of 'you have to go see this movie' kind of conversation will begin to attract new people weeks after its initial release. And that is the kind of film that I think must be worth seeing. A couple of other movies which followed this pattern that come to mind are O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Little Miss Sunshine.

Add to that list The Blind Side. Released the same weekend as New Moon, it increased its second week take by 18%, and though it fell by 49% the third week, a traditionally poor week for movies, it still maintained enough oomph to surpass other movies for the top spot in the weekend draw.

All that to say that people are talking and saying that this is not only one good story, but a well done movie as well. I'm not expecting it to be in the category of great, but it sounds like one to see.

[Stats are from Box Office Mojo.]

On The Road Again

2009-12-07T06:22:00.004-05:00

For fans of Cormac McCarthy's book The Road, recently made into a film, this interview for the Wall Street Journal will be of interest.

Some extracts here:
I have a great sympathy for the spiritual view of life, and I think that it's meaningful. But am I a spiritual person? I would like to be.

I have the same letter from about six different people. One from Australia, one from Germany, one from England, but they all said the same thing. They said, "I started reading your book after dinner and I finished it 3:45 the next morning, and I got up and went upstairs and I got my kids up and I just sat there in the bed and held them."

There's not much you can do to try to make a child into something that he's not. But whatever he is, you can sure destroy it.

[Link courtesy of Bruce Kirby.}

PC Culture

2009-12-05T16:47:00.001-05:00

In our house, we have two computers running Mac OSX 10.6, one running XP Professional, and two running XP Home. I win the job of being network administrator.

So, today, I was working on updating my daughters XP computer. The antivirus software updated without a hitch. (I was reminded, of course, that I do not need such on my Macs.) Then, Java wanted to update itself. I concurred, and it began to load in the background.

Before long there was a requester which, if I had not clicked the proper boxes, would have loaded the Yahoo! Toolbar as well as Java. I did not want the Yahoo! Toolbar.

After that, I downloaded Ad-Aware so that I could check her computer for all those nasty things that seem go be attracted to PCs. In the process, again, I had to click carefully, or the download would have installed in addition to what I asked for also Google Chrome web browser. I might have wanted Chrome, but when I want it, I'd like to go get it, thank you.

I have to conclude that this is simply one of those things which distinguishes Mac culture from PC culture. In nearly four years of using a Mac, and downloading and trying tons of shareware and freeware, I have not once run into a situation where a program tries to install something I did not ask for.

That is one of the reasons I use a Mac and have no desire to head back to PC-ville regardless of arguments about price or the slickness of Windows 7. Mac-ville is a much more pleasant - and courteous - place to live. No one tries to slip into your house uninvited.

Where Have All the Robins Gone?

2009-12-03T11:25:00.001-05:00

For all our friends up north who are worried about your robins and whether they made their flight successfully, I can assure you that they have arrived and appear to be in good condition.

At present, they are using the retention pond behind our house to take their post-migration baths.

They'll work on sending postcards later.

The Buzz

2009-12-02T21:35:00.003-05:00

How does a business (or a church, for that matter) generate 'buzz', that positive reverberating acknowledgment of its existence in a community? Can't say that I know. But for the past couple of weeks from sources I cannot now all recall I've heard tell of a new coffee shop in town, and I've been told that it was top notch.

I was there today. Nearly all day. The advance billing was not out of line.

Over the past five years I've watched all but a couple independent coffee shops in Bradenton bow to economic pressure and go out of business. Those who have survived have done so by radically abandoning in some way their commitment to being a coffee shop. I'm not a Starbucks hater. I like Starbucks. But I'm also a huge fan of the distinctive character of independent shops. I'm sad to see them come and go.

A while back I watched as a 'Barnies' coffee shop opened, existed for a few months, and then shut down. It never looked appealing, I was never drawn in, and by the time I finally determined to visit, it was out of business.

Out of the ashes, in the same location, has arisen 'Lov A Da Coffee'. I don't know if it will last, but everything about this place indicates the owners have done things with the intention of making it work.

I was at Lov A Da working (I work a lot in coffee shops) between an early morning hospital visit and a noon lunch nearby. In between I needed to take my car to a mechanic which was also in the area. After my lunch appointment, the car was not done, so I moved a 4:00 o'clock appointment to Lov A Da and simply spent the rest of the day there, consuming in the process three cups of coffee, one caramel cappuccino, and one Café Americana (I think that is what it was called). I had plenty of time to evaluate the place.

What can I say? The only fault to me is the odd and difficult-to-say name.

The space is large, divided into two rooms. One room has a traditional coffee shop feel, lots of tables, a service counter, and sounds of grinding beans and steaming milk. The other has the feel of a large family room, carpeted, with a dozen or more stuffed chairs and coffee tables. It has as well a well appointed stage for live music. This room is already filling a niche for a comfortable meeting space. I sat there with my 4:00 o'clock appointment, and with nearly 20 others in small groups doing the same, he and I spoke as comfortably as if we were alone. It was wonderful.

As one who lives on his laptop, the first thing I do when entering a new place is scout out the outlets for my power adaptor. This place is loaded with outlets, most discreetly hidden on the bottom sides of the tables, a clever, handy, and aesthetically pleasing solution. For those without laptops, there are a selection of computers scattered around the space, both PC and Mac. (I'm told that the owner is a Mac guy. Of course he is.)

The background music was alternative rock when I first got there, but it soon changed to real (not 'smooth'!) jazz. It fit.

Every cup of coffee is freshly ground and brewed to order. My cups were excellent as was the service. After my first cup, I asked the barista, "Are refills free?" Very pleasantly he replied, "This one can be."

I understand that a coffee shop, where a guy may sit for four hours or more, can't have a free refill policy. I'm okay with that. So, I insisted on paying for my second cup. Later, he brought me a third cup, free. A cheap way to buy a customer's favor!

The business here was brisk. Very brisk for a store that has only been open for six weeks and has yet to have a sign installed at the road.

Someone there told me that this coffee shop used to exist as 'Java Moon' further down the road. The contrast between what that was and what this is could not be more striking. I tried to visit that shop a couple of times, but felt like a CEO in a tattoo shop. It just wasn't comfortable. Whatever muse led the owner to relocate and redesign, it was a good one.

This, then, is the secret of 'buzz': replant, relocate, rename, remake yourself, and do it with a deep commitment to quality. Of course, what is 'buzz' other than friends inviting friends. That drives coffee shops as well as churches.

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Up, Reprise

2009-12-02T04:54:00.001-05:00

I've already weighed in on Pixar's Up. That I am a fan is no secret.

It has been wisely pointed out that a book is not fully enjoyed until it is read by friends and discussed. The same must be said about movies. I suppose it is true with any art. Though it can be experienced individually, it is meant to be experienced communally.

Since Uphas now come out on DVD, I've had the pleasure of watching it three more times. The pleasure now comes in watching the movie with others.

We recommended the film to some film lovers the other day, and they were hesitant, saying they were not great fans of animated movies. I was reminded, though, that this is one of those unique movies which SEEMS to be for children, but which has layers that make it worth the attention of the more discerning adult. My daughter-in-law pointed out a theme in the film that I had totally overlooked, which enriched the experience for me.

Art, I repeat, is enhanced when experienced communally.

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I commented earlier that I did not think the 3D features of the theatrical release added anything to the movie. Having seen it now on my tiny 27", low definition, analog TV, I find that nothing is lost. The power is not in the 3D effects, but in masterful storytelling.