We tried a new church today...

I started this blog because many a times, late at night when my mind is flowing with good thoughts, sometimes God speaks. And I never had a place to store those thoughts other than in my brain. So I started this blog and tonight is one of those nights. Its currently 1:04 in the morning, I have orientation for my first day of a new job tomorrow morning and I'm in bed thinking about churches & the Holy Spirit and now I'm out of bed with my laptop blogging about it. Odd, huh?

So we tried a Baptist church today. Its our first Sunday trying a new church after having just left our old church. Why did we leave our old church? Well the short and true story for the Bennett family is we were at a Missions Banquet our church puts on and the worship was awesome, I cried, I praised God, it was awesome. Then the sermon was awesome as well and by the end of it, I wanted to open up my check book and financially share in God's work to the best of my ability. Then our associate Pastor got up to speak and immediately the Holy Spirit informed me something was very wrong. That combined with many oddities that were occurring as well is what prompted the Bennett family to leave.

So again... we tried a Baptist church today. It was very nice. The Pastor had a very good sermon and definitely appears to be a true man of God. I very much liked him. What Sarah & I didn't like however, was the worship. We sang hymns (which is more than fine) but what bothered me was not a single hand in the place was lifted up in worship. That doesn't mean for a second that no hearts were lifted in worship, but it didn't fit a style of worship that we're accustomed to and in retrospect doesn't feel like a place where I could openly weep or get excited during worship and not have the whole congregation staring at me. I'm not saying the church isn't what God has for us but it didn't feel like a good fit.

So then we went to Sunday School and boy, oh boy was the teacher fired up. He started off with what was on the front page of the newspaper and how there are all kinds of alternatives (activities) open to folks besides going to church on Easter. He then went on to read the whole Easter story, from crucifixion through being raised from the dead and letting Thomas touch Jesus' scars. I learned a few details that in merely reading the Bible I had missed in the past. It was very good.

But the teacher also mentioned a few things that really jumped out at me, especially for being from a Baptist Church. He said, "I believe every Christian should be a Spirit filled Christian". He mentioned that while explaining why he was deviating from teaching the next section in their Bible Study curriculum and instead teaching what God put on his heart.

Then, he later talked about the story of a guy going on a cruise and eating peanut butter sandwiches every day until the very last day when he decided he would eat from the scrumptious buffet and pay whatever it cost. This guy then went to the buffet only to find out that it was free the whole time! The teacher then asked how we as Christians don't take all that is available to us from God. At the time, the 2 statements didn't click until I was lying in bed just 40 minutes ago. Is he talking about the gifts of the Spirit being available for today? I don't know, but I think I'll call him and talk to him about it.

However, I firmly believe God does have a lot more for us that we as Christians don't take advantage of. Is it possible to live every moment, making every decision based on the Holy Spirit's prompting? Is it possible to laugh and joke with the Holy Spirit and bring Him into every facet of our daily walk?? Is it possible to pray God's heart for 15 minutes one night only to 2 months later be asked to recite it to the church congregation? Is it possible to reach for your Bible to read His Word and instead have God say, "Rest. You'll need it." Is it possible to look for a job for 2 months with no optimistic outlook to only 5 weeks later having 2 companies begging for you to come work for them all on the same day??? YES. YES!!! All this and more is possible with God.

Unfortunately I'm so easily distracted by the dirt bikes, busy-ness and sin of this world that I often miss where and what I should be doing...

So to try and tie all this up. Are we going back to the Baptist church? I haven't ruled it out, but I think after eating from the buffet it might be hard to go back to not eating from the buffet.

Tim.

Pinewood Speed...

On a lighter note, just prior to Elise's scare (read below) we went up to Denver to Sarah's brother's house as his wife Naomi, is quite the artist. She agreed to paint my pinewood derby cars for me and man, I couldn't be happier. She hand painted matching themed cars with flames. See the results below...

     

Also, if you notice, the 2 cars are different sizes. The big one's for the modified class and the small one for stock. If a discerning eye were to look closely, one would see a whole host of small go-fast tricks. Axle location, axle width, holes drilled, weight location, etc. But the real speed comes in the wheels, so I don't mind showing you these parts. Plus, what good is knowing the answers, if you don't understand the why.....

Quite Scary

Well last night we had quite the scare with Elise. We noticed on Saturday a nasty cough she had, Sarah even mentioned it sounded like Croup, but Elise had battled it before and been just fine, so we didn't think much of it. She was still running and jumping around the house just like always.

Well, Saturday night (actually Sunday morning) Elise wakes up with a serious cry. Sarah immediately jumps out of bed and the next thing I know I hear water running in the bathroom. I figured Elise threw up and is getting an impromptu bath. So I decide to be a good husband and go clean up whatever's on the bed. However, when I go to Elise's room, there's no throw up. So I head to the bathroom and Sarah has Elise in her arms and the shower going on full hot and Elise is fighting just to breathe. Sarah looks at me and says, "We gotta go to the ER, she can't breathe." I see Elise struggling to even breathe & immediately the 2 of us are throwing on clothes and in the car. I figure it took 30 seconds for us to get out the door. By the time we arrive at the ER, the cold air has helped a bit and she's no longer really struggling to breathe, but still definitely not breathing easy. (Turns out the hot air from the shower wasn't good and the cold air in the car was).

Then the doc comes in and looks at Elise and after listening to her breathing comments that she's really struggling to breathe. Then things get tense. The doc asks how long she's had the cough, being 3:30am Sunday, I say since yesterday, inferring since Saturday. Sarah says, no she got it today, really meaning Saturday. The doc in the meantime is getting more concerned about her breathing and not getting a straight answer out of us gets panicky and demands to know exactly when the coughing started. We quickly figure out we both mean Saturday and that seems to calm the doc a bit. So then they give her some oral steroids of some sort and then put her on a breathing apparatus breathing EpiPed I believe. Basically it speeds up her heart rate, and gets her endorphins going a bit so she can fight it.

But it came down to being a croup attack. The ER nurse suggested cold air and humidity. He said driving around town with the windows down would've done her a lot of good, but admitted that it was pretty bad and it was good we got her in to the ER.

Pretty scary to say the least. As a parent, you just handle it as the time comes, but it takes a toll on you. Later when I told my Dad what happened, I couldn't keep from getting emotional telling him about it and I thought I was doing just fine...

Sooo, that's our ER story for this weekend.
Thank goodness for docs,

Tim.

Pinewood Sim nearing completion

Well, the Pinewood Simulator is nearing completion. I need to create some embedded help text to help guide the user in how to use the application, but other than that the application is basically done. However, I also need to hit Home Depot to find parts for a track I would like to sell with the application.

After that's done, I figure I can start selling it on eBay. Check out the pictures & tell your Pinewood Derby friends!!! If you want to buy it, leave a comment & I'll get an email and respond!!

Tim.

I'm famous...

Well not really, but enough so in my eyes. The good news is Apple added my Dice Roller application to their iPhone applications list.

See it here in all its glory.

Pinewood Derby Simulator

Getting the 3D bug from a chat with a friend at church, I embarked upon having some fun with Java's implementation of OpenGL, known as Java3D. I figured what better to animate, than a Pinewood Derby simulator I wrote about a year ago.

Basically the old simulator takes the dimensions of a track and then allows the user to run a pinewood car down that track. By inputing the car's wheel base, its center of gravity, and the distance until the car stops on its own, one can measure the kinetic friction of the wheels rotating on the axles (including any bumping the side of the track on its way down). I confirmed the accuracy of my model by verifying that the time required for the car to stop and the distance traveled are equivalent to actual test runs. Pretty cool, eh?

Then, once you know the kinetic friction of your pinewood car, you can then add that to your car's specifications and proceed to run the car down any simulated track you desire!!!

So what I've done now is taken the simulator and added animated 3D graphics to it. Very cool (at least to me). Now you can visually run multiple cars against each other and see the results. Woohoo!

Timmay!

Made me cry a little bit...

Sarah ran across this video this morning. Its simply awesome. God talking to a little boy and giving him truth and answers in a time of need.

Amazing...



Here's the direct link to YouTube in case it doesn't fully load...