This week I’ve been able to squat 325 lbs and bench 235 lbs, and although I have hit those numbers before it has been a long time - at least since November. I think one of the major hold ups for me has been my running routine. At present I’m running once per week for as many miles as I can and have time for which is normally six to eight.

We’ll see if the trend of progress continues with deadlifts…

The Nose Whistler…

Beware of low-hanging, broken tree branches while rock climbing.

Chad and I went climbing today at Enchanted Rock. We had a great time and found some good places to really test our strength, stamina, and sanity. I need to head back out again soon. Too much fun.

Ever wonder what frozen pigeon crap looks like?

Sweatpants-Leg Lock!

I caught Taylor in the legs of my sweatpants and had fun watching her struggle and laugh =)

I made up for allergy suffering and sleep loss last night by squatting 315lbs and putting up Elfa shelving in the garage that Mom and Dad gave me six years ago when they moved to Fort Worth. I painted the garage last weekend (about time). Notice the fine craftsmanship found in these pics. Feeling good, but tired.

Yesterday I was feeling about 50% better, but today I’m feeling much worse. My head feels like it’s swimming and like some is beating me on the left side of my head.

I think the worst part about the situation are my eyes. My left eye is swollen to the point were it is about 60% closed and it looks like my right eye is now infected. It’s getting harder to see and read. I’m really frustrated.

Apparently this infection is resistant to Amoxicillin. I have an appointment at 2:30pm to see the doctor again.

If I wasn’t sick I’d go take some frustration out on my weights. I feel absolutely worthless. I feel especially sorry for Elicia right now because she is having to drag my lifeless corpse along side her while dealing with the kids at the same time.

405 lbs on deadlifts for two weeks straight. Sorry folks no videos this time. I know how much everyone likes them =]. Evan is watching Elmo on the laptop.

Cowgirl Taylor at Halloween

My little dwarf…

Awesome day on deadlifts. After months of failures and near-misses, I finally hit 405 lbs on my fourth set. This comes after hitting 400 lbs on my fourth set last week.

If you install The Oracle MTS Recovery Service on a production server, do yourself a favor (and everyone else) and restart the Distributed Transaction Service Coordinator at the same time.

This Sunday in class, I was reminded of a problem that I think plagues many churches today: Being pressured to be active and get involved.

Whit Pennock, was mentioning a fellow that came to him feeling guilty that he was not more involved in the church. According to Whit this fellow worked full time, plus overtime, and was a single father (if I heard correctly) with two fairly young kids.

Having been raised in the church, I can immediately recall countless droves of sermons, classes, and prayers where the basic point being stressed was that you are not fulfilling your obligations as a Christian if you are not:

• Volunteering for service at your local congregation
• Evangelizing at work
• Mowing the lawns of all the elderly couples/widows
• Evangelizing in your local area through door-knocking campaigns, etc
• Teaching class
• Evangelizing at the gym
• Leading prayers
• Evangelizing your neighbors
• Leading singing
• Evangelizing!!!

For many years, I struggled with feeling guilty that I was not scheduling out my evenings during the week for Bible studies with those Jehovah’s Witnesses that came just the week before, or a random person at HEB, or the gas station.

It is evident in scripture that the primary responsibility of any husband or wife is to serve their spouse, and for any father or mother, to serve their children. What good is someone accomplishing if the are serving someone else, through evangelism, and neglecting the needs of their family?

Let me remind you that a Paul says that a husband and a wife are to serve each other, and that parents, most certainly, serve their children.

If we neglect our families are we not doing as James said, telling our kids or spouse “be warm and filled” and yet doing nothing to fulfill their physical, emotional and spiritual needs?

Fortunately, Whit’s response to the fellow that felt guilty for not being more involved was “what part of working and taking care of your family is not kingdom work?”

I barely heard the entire scenario before I started to pull up a passage that jumps to my mind often when I hear the indictment “You need to be more involved.”

For what does a man get in all his labor and in his striving with which he labors under the sun? Because all his days his task is painful and grievous; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is vanity.

There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen that it is from the hand of God.

For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him?

Ecclesiastes 2: 22-25

In this chapter, Solomon laments over the travail and grief of labor, where it is possible for a person to work and for someone else to enjoy the fruit of their labor.

Here, though, Solomon says that the very ability to enjoy the fruits of your labor is a gift from God.

In other words, having the ability to enjoy your earnings, your spouse, your kids, your family, even your food, is a gift from the hand of God.  This also means that he gives us the time to enjoy it.

Solomon then reiterates the sentiment in Chapter 3: 12-13

I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is the gift of God.

Living as a Christian and giving praise to God, is the primary work of a Christian.

And don’t get me started on the whole “The Great Commission is For All” dogma. Too often the church expects everyone to act as if they were anointed for service of the Gospel as were the Apostles and some of the disciples of the early church.

I think that the church has pressured it’s laity unjustly to get involved. There are stages in a person’s life when they have more time or less time, and the church has not filtered the message to the appropriate ages, nor qualified the message so that the congregation does not feel convicted for living their justifiably, busy lives.

However, as is all too common, what is preached from the pulpit is often not exercised by leadership, and that is fortunate in this case. Most of the time the leaders of the congregation go home to take naps on Sunday afternoon, just like the rest of us, and if you listen closely to their conversations with others, they are often more sympathetic to the circumstances individuals and families.

Apparently, there is a well known issue with the iPhone where the camera application’s virtual shutter will not open in some specific scenarios. Here is a discussion of the issue.

Elicia’s iPhone has the shutter problem.

One of the problems that I encounter often when people describe software, hardware problems, or car problems for that matter, is that the user has not correctly identified the scenarios in which a problem occurs. The discussion linked above illustrates the point I believe. Note that the folks that went to apple to get support had their phone reimaged and ultimately received a new phone.

I even found one user that was suggesting that if your shutter won’t open, hold your finger over the front and/or back camera and the shutter will eventually open. Of course, none of these solutions worked.

However, I was able to identify the exact scenario which triggers the problem for her phone. Elicia gave me the task to fix the phone after the camera stopped functioning, and was not much help in giving me details of the scenario.

After some research, I decided to reset the phone’s settings (not the data and content) from the settings menu, since she did not have recent back up (typical). After a reboot the camera shutter opened in the application and it correctly took pictures. Then I tested the front-facing camera, which immediately triggered the application to close the shutter and disable the “take picture” button. I repeated the process and each time I had the same result. The camera worked fine until an attempt was made to access the front-facing camera. This symptom also showed up in other applications that attempted to use the front-facing camera.

Diagnosis: The front-facing camera is malfunctioning at a hardware-level.

It turns out that she has never tried to use that camera before.

Now, when she takes her phone to the apple store, they should have to reason to doubt the problem description or the resolution. The symptom of the problem is 100% reproducable.

That’s my troubleshooting snobbery for the night.