Turkey troubles

Every time we have a 'big' meal, like thanksgiving or Christmas there always seems to be something going on with the turkey.

Anyways, this year I bought a bigger bird than I normally get, usually I buy the smallest one I can find.  Bought it brought it home stuck it in the freezer and put it in the basement fridge on the twenty-first.  I figured four days in there would give us a thawed bird to roast.  Not so much.  I should have checked on it in that time but didn't.  I found a not rock hard frozen turkey but a kinda of softish frozen turkey.  A quick search on the internet found this web page about cooking a turkey from frozen.  We tried it, I mean what choice did we have?

It turned out very well actually.  Rave reviews from Tara and my mother in law and even our guests thought it was good.    This particular turkey was the fattest thing I have ever seen that used to have feathers.  I mean wow, drippings like crazy, we could have made more than four cups of gravy.  

So that's the turkey story of 2008.

Challenged.

There has been a Bible character that over the last decade or so, that has kinda jumped out at me around Christmas and afterwards.  Simeon.  The guy in Luke 2:21-35 that Mary and Joeseph met when they brought Jesus in for his circumcision.  

I heard a monologue given from the viewpoint of Simeon years ago and it struck me.  Then the other day I read this over at another pastors' blog.

And well, again, God is challenging me with some stuff from Simeon again.  What is my hope built on?  What am I looking forward to?  Would I follow if I was "moved by the Spirit" (vs27)?   How big a deal is Jesus?

There's about a zillion other questions that start to pop into my head, but then I breathe deep and remind myself that this Jesus; He loves me. As I am.  He wants me to know him.  So I dust myself off and move forward, thankful for the grace and mercy he has for me.

Today was a good day, I'm off to bed.  Good night folks.

Princess Bride Lightsaber Battle

Okay, this is just for fun. Made me laugh out loud, for real even!

cold

Took this today.  Did you know that it's cold here?  It is.

stitched with hugin.

Best viewed LARGE

Collage

Some pictures from Thanksgiving and early December of Phil, Erica and our family, there's even a few of my mother in law in there somewhere. If you are willing to click through you can find a supersized version.

(p.s. Mom, I will try and mail you one of these before Christmas!)

Likely your camera wouldn't take these pictures...

Most of the time I think that the best camera is the one you have with you.  For most of us, the limits of our photography are in our ability to translate what's in your head to an image.  

Sure I could use a better camera, sure it would help me make better pictures, but I don't believe I have come up to the limits of my camera as I have come to the limits of my imagination and ability.  

That being said; THIS blog post could be made into an ad for the sheer mind numbing speed and ability to focus of the Nikon D3.  Even if you don't read the post (which you should) just scroll down and see the mayhem.  Very cool pictures, I hope the guy was okay.

Livestrong

This video is intense. As far as communication goes, this is great. Take 2:47 and watch it.

More learning and maybe some inspiration

Lately, I've been hanging out a little at ted.com.  TED stands for Technology, Education and Design, it's all about ideas, as they say, Ideas worth spreading some you'll agree with, some you won't; but there's some great stuff in there, I've only scratched the surface.  Most of the talks are less than twenty minutes, which makes listening to them easier.

I've been thinking about communication this week; what does it mean to communicate something?  How do you communicate, or give to someone else that which defies words, passion?  Do you use a story, do you present and interpret numbers in a way that shows something really neat.  Do you show the problem and carry people through the solution?  All of them work, but bottom line is, are the ideas you're trying to share with people ideas that have changed your life?  Are the ideas that you are learning about are they things that can change attitudes, lives and if we let it the world?

I think the gospel fits into that space as an idea that can change attitudes, lives and indeed the world.  Can we communicate it in a way that people people will see that?

presentations

The other I did some learning.  I worked through a youtube video session (caution: one hour and eleven minutes) that was given by Garr Reynolds of the Presentation Zen blog.  He deals with presentations.  Here are some of the quotes from his presentation on presentations.

Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means. - Dr. Koichi Kawana

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. - Leonardo daVinci

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated awesomely simple, that's creativity. - Charles Mingus

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few. - Shunryu Suzuki

It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play. -Dizzy Gillespie

[Presentations] are a balance of three rhetorical proofs: ethos (ethical), pathos (emotional), and logos (logical). - Aristotle

It was good.  I learned stuff. Not the least of which was that I learned (again) that Google Talks is an amazing little place on the interweb if you want to hear presentations on different things.  I love watching the styles of presentations that different people are using.  It's a good way for me to stretch my thinking in how to communicate.

Check it out.

For now...

I have been working on a blog post for too long. I likely will have to chop it up and let it out in a few posts now, but for now I looked for (and found) this little bit from Charles Swindoll.  I needed the reminder with the world being what it is.

ATTITUDE

by: Charles Swindoll

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.