Played around today with digital drawing. I used five minutes to draw my hand.

Lauren (age 4) drew a ‘happy person’.

Then she drew a picture of her lifting weights.

I drew a picture of ellie (this took about 40 minutes).

I had stored this away in the depths of my old web-site. I find it interesting. Thoughts?

Warning signs of a love-lacking heart:

1. Prayer ceases to be vital part of your life.
2. The quest for biblical truth ceases and you grow content with the knowledge of eternal things already acquired.
3. The biblical knowledge possessed or acquired is treated as external fact and not applied inwardly.
4. Earnest thoughts about eternal things cease to be regular and gripping.
5. The services of the church lose their delights.
6. Pointed spiritual discussions are an embarrassment.
7. Sins of the body and mind can be indulged in without an uproar of your conscience.
8. Aspirations for Christ-like holiness cease to dominate in your life.
9. The acquisition of money and goods becomes a dominant part of your thinking.
10. You can mouth religious songs and words without heart.
11. You can hear the lord’s name taken in vain, spiritual concerns mocked and eternal issues flippantly treated, and not be moved to indignation and action.
12. You can watch degrading movies and television and read morally debilitating literature.
13. Breaches of peace in the brotherhood are of little or no concern to you.
14. The slightest excuse seems sufficient to keep you from spiritual duty and opportunity.
15. You become content with your lack of spiritual power and no longer seek repeated endowments of power from on high.
16. You pardon your own sin and sloth by saying the lord understands and remembers that we are dust.
17. You adjust readily to the world’s lifestyle.

These are an adaptation from Richard Owen Roberts on the topic of Backsliding

1976-Born to two 25 year olds, a teacher and an accountant

who planned and dreamed about me.

1978-Moved to Tennessee when Dad was transferred.

1979-My sister was born.

1980-Transferred back to Ohio, I was within fifteen miles

of both sets of grandparents.

I took gymnastics, ice skating, and played soccer and T-ball.

1982-Began kindergarten. I took a trip to Colorado. Awed

by the mountains and AF Academy.

1984-Discovered why teachers were upset with me, for not

paying attention in class. Began gifted education classes. Once I acquired

this label, teachers treated me differently. Began CubScouts.

1985– Started a paper route I had it once a week for the

next five years.

1986-Received the science Olympiad for the highest grade

in my elementary school on a national science test. I entered my first tennis

tournament. Dad began working with me on my tennis game.

1987-Received the social studies Olympiad for the highest

social studies grade in my school on a national test. I began piano lessons

and trumpet lessons. My best friend, David moved to Oregon.

1988-Became a Christian, and rededicated my life at church

camp.

1989-Had a serious head injury at school during gym class,

and I found out just how much my parents loved me. It took me about a year

to fully recover. I never made the honor roll once during junior high.

1990-Won the intramural ping-pong championship in school

over approximately fifty students. Ran junior high track and was on the wrestling

team. Went to Mexico for a month on a student exchange. I had a lawn mowing

business for the summer.

1991-Made the principal’s list. Received the Top Scholar

Award. Went to Sweden for a month on a student exchange. Placed 14th on an

Ohio district math test in Algebra. I began a racquet stringing business with

my dad out of our home. Lettered reserve in tennis and wrestling.

1992-Lettered varsity in Tennis, and was named to the first

team all league and second team all area. Maintained a 4.0 GPA all year. We

hosted two boys from Japan for a week.

1993-T.E.A.M.S. (Test of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics

and Science ) member and our group placed ninth out of fifty-six schools.

Clubhouse Ministry to Inner City Youth, New York City Mission trip, Inducted

into National Honor Society. Cross Country Team Named to second team all league.

Varsity Tennis. Co-captain. First team all league. Sectional and District

Doubles champ. State Qualifier in Doubles. Homecoming and Junior Prom. PSEO

classes at Wright State University I finished 8 quarter hours during the school

year.

1994-Elected Senior Class Vice President. Cross Country Co-Captain.

Most Valuable Player Award,

Second Team all league. Summer Research Intern at Wright Patterson Air Force

Base, working under the tutelage of two Ph.D.’s.( References enclosed in application.)

Guest speaker in churches. Formed Christian Club at high school. PSEO student

at both University of Dayton and Edison State College. Completed eight semester

hours of college work.

1995-Graduated 5th of 200 from Tippecanoe High School. Received

Scholar Athlete Award, Full tuition ROTC scholarship to MIT. Spent the summer

in Germany @ Goerthe Institute in Dusseldorf Germany. Freshman year MIT. Campus

Crusade. Bible study leader.

1996– Sopomore year at MIT. Campus Crusade Bible Study leader.

Summer spent in Berlin, Germany with Campus Crusade @ Berlin Institute of

Technology. Westover Air Force Training.

1997– Junior Year at MIT. Campus Crusade Bible Study leader.

Summer spent in on campus working in Active Materials and Structures lab.

1998-Senior Year at MIT. Campus Crusade. Bible Study leader.

Summer spent in Berlin with Campus Crusade @ Berlin Institute of Technology.

Vice Commander of ROTC Unit. Member of MIT varsity Track Team. Met Chrissy

Sharp, a PT major at BU. Began dating in September. Took her on a Utah ski

trip with my family over Christmas.

1999-Became engaged May 16th to be married. Graduated from

MIT and was commissioned in the USAF as a second lieutenient in June. In July

was assigned to Sheppards AFB Wichitah Falls, TX. In October assigned to Hurlburt

AFB, Mary Esther, FL. Married November 20.

2000– Nominated for Officer of the Quarter. Chrissy and I

lead a Tuesday night Bible study in our home. Chrissy begins her career as

a PT at local hospital.

After noticing lots of loose mortar in our front retaining wall, I decided to try and tuck-point with the mortar repair kits sold at the local home store. I found the work tricky and knew my work was a little sloppy, so I hired a local handyman to do the job.

I removed all of the loose mortar and blasted all the loose stuff away with my air compressor. The first product I used was a single bag of mortar from Home Depot that I just added water to. I followed their directions exactly and I didn’t make the mortar dry enough to keep a bit off of the face of the brick.

I gave the handyman a try with this product, but he was just as messy as I was. I thought I would have better luck with the quikrete tube of easy mortar repair.

Anyway, the wall now has solid mortar, but looks terrible. I bought an attachment for my drill (rotary wire brush) that was supposed to be good at stripping bricks, but on that silicone-like quikrete repair, it just seemed to heat it up and smear it on the bricks.

Any thoughts? The next step for me is to get acquainted with muriatic acid.

Something in our cold water tub faucet assembly wore out and now the faucet is spinning 360 degrees. I regret it not getting checked when I recently read [sewer cleanup in dallas][1] post and got my home’s entire sewer system cleaned thoroughly. It still works, but you never know the best place to stop when shutting off the water. What is even more odd, is that it seems that the hot water is going much, much faster; after about 10 minutes the water cools off considerably.

We have a two wall-mount faucets and a stopper in the spout. To remove the faucet I simple turned the entire assembly counterclockwise. Since the left (hot) faucet works fine, I haven’t touched it. When removed the situation looks like this:

Now, I am left looking at a closeup of what I believe to be the stem. In the past, I have removed this and replaced the washer or O-ring in the back, but that was always to replace a faucet that couldn’t stop the flow of water. And that was far different than the time I had to call in water heater repair professionals. This works, it just doesn’t stop spinning. We have been using the tub in this configuration for two days since we can turn off the water by turning the cartridge by hand. (I know water might leak back there, but I want the motivation to get this done.)

I thought it might be a problem with the handle assembly, so I removed the functional handle and its associated cartridge stopped at the correct place without the handle. The inside of the handle looks like this:

I am sure I need to replace some component of the non-functional cartridge, but I am not sure how to even determine the make of my handle. I can’t find any clues to who makes this except for four numbers on the escutcheon. Desiring any help that anyone can provide. I think I should better call a plumbing contractor to fix it, as an issue like this is beyond my abilities.

Thanks in advance. On another note I did replace all the caulk around the tub, which helped out nicely. It is always good to have at least one satisfying job to counter a frustrating one.

My Christian home provided a very fertile ground for my Christian life. I accepted Christ at vacation Bible school when I was eight years old and prayed nightly thereafter with my loving family. I distinctly remember telling my grandfather at an early age that I wanted to be a pastor when I grew up. And I meant it. But all was not perfect.

I desired so strongly to be loved by others and believed that I needed to be like them in order to be liked by them – so my faith was a very private, and bendable, matter. I tried to do the right thing, but found myself living two separate lives.

It was not until High School that the two became one. God brought me into the fellowship of others who taught me to be proud to be His servant. With their help, I decided that I was going to be known as a servant of Christ. That changed everything. What before was a downward spiral of trying to serve God, failing in the face of resistance and then failing harder became an upward spiral of trying, succeeding with help from others, and then hungering for more.

This hunger manifested itself in Bible studies, witnessing to others and scripture memorization. I tried to memorize 5 verses a day for a while, and am very thankful today for this period of my life and the knowledge that came from it. A secular summer camp resulted in a chance to share with about thirty guys and lead them all in prayer to accept Christ. I had started a student Bible group at our school, preached the Sunday morning sermon in a few churches and even preached at a revival. I read Christian books fervently and filled every moment with some attempt to better my Christian knowledge. I lived a very moral life, avoiding all the token sins of adolescence – but unfortunately looking down on others with different standards. I was sure that I was destined for full-time ministry in the near future.

God, however, had other plans for me. From my work in an Air Force lab, I had gotten some contacts that pushed me towards MIT. I was sure that I wanted to go to Wheaton College, but I when I was accepted with a full-scholarship I decided to give it a try for a year to learn the “secular mindset” then transfer to Wheaton.

Perhaps it was something as simple as my inability to get the transfer application in, but for whatever reason I ended up at MIT for the long-haul. I got involved in Campus Crusade for Christ and even went on two missions trips: one to Florida and one to Berlin Germany. But something changed – the fire that was so fervent seemed to fizzle. Convinced that I had to study every second just to keep my head above water, I started to put God on the back burner. I often thought of Friday night as a chance to catch up to the smarter students in the class, but it seemed like I never could.

Furthermore, I started feeling distant from other Christians. I was always used to being the leader and when I couldn’t lead I fought the opposition. I not only questioned my beliefs, but compromised the standards that I had so proudly maintained. With a lifestyle contrary to other Christians I no longer was motivated to so ardently serve God. Hence another downward spiral.

Now, a married officer in the Air Force, I yearn for the fever of my youth. Wanting to be a good husband, a Godly boss, and Christian intellectual – I yearn to know more and more about Christian history and thought. I am starting to memorize verses again and am seeking ministry opportunities.

My Church life began in the small First Baptist Church of Tipp City. I loved my congregation and my Pastor in a reciprocal relationship. For youth ministry, I attended a local United Methodist Church and became close to many friends there. While in Germany, I attended a charismatic church. In college I went to a Chinese Baptist Church for a year before I found my favorite church to this date – Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts. In each church I strove to be as active as possible, attending Sunday school and always trying to get to know others. Currently my wife and I are seeking to find a Church home in our new area.

The Bible forms the sole basis of my beliefs. I believe in God’s infallible written Word, the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. I believe that it was uniquely inspired by the Holy Spirit and that it was written inerrantly in the original manuscripts.

I believe in one true God existing forever in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Every one possessing completely the divine natures of the others.

I have accepted Jesus Christ as the living Word, fully God and fully man. I believe in his virgin birth and sinless life, which made possible the atoning power of his death on the cross. This completed the requirements of divine justice necessitated by human sin, and makes salvation possible for all who trust in Him. I believe he rose from the dead and went into Heaven where he continues to intercede on behalf of His children.

I know that my nature is corrupted, and without Christ I am totally unable to please God. I need the continuing sanctification of the Holy Spirit in my life to please Him.

I further know that my salvation is a gift of grace and is not, in any way, a result of my works, virtue or participation in the Church. I believe that I can not lose this salvation, and that the Holy Spirit has assured me this by His indwelling and sealed me for the day of redemption, for which I longingly await.

I believe that as man I continually war against the flesh and need accountability and fellowship in order to live the life that God wants me to live. I eagerly await for Jesus Christ to personally return, and call His own unto him.

I fully agree with the Nicean and Apostles’ creeds, and hope to better learn their subtle nuances.

I know I have much more to learn and there is much I will never know while on this earth.

As you can see here, the room that David was going to move into had significant problems. There is no insulation inside our brick and block constructed walls, and there’s a thin layer of plaster on the surface that causes some excessive flaking when a nail pops out. When we tried to paint David’s room, we were confronted with the fact that most of our new paint would fall off of the wall which was severely flaking in several places. In particular, the damage was worst on the wall that touched the external surface, where the temperature gradient was the highest.

So about a week before David was born, we found out we had to do a bit more than your standard normal paint job, and to tackle this one quickly. The first thing we did was to scrape down walls with a putty knife. Not trying to find/create new problems, but to remove any loose or flaky areas. To our great surprise, the majority of the wall touching the external side of the house almost completely flaked off. Besides this, there were a number of nail pops as well as several regions where the wall had completely disintegrated.

In order to fix this, I had to do some pretty serious surface preparation of the existing walls. Instead of just scraping, I found it very useful to use a random orbital sander with 70 grit sandpaper. This removed all of the very loose material on the paper surface of the wall and enabled me to remove any loose material around the nail popped areas as well. Moreover, there were several areas where the settling of the house had caused cracks, especially around the window and doors. Here, I found it very useful to take a utility knife and remove a good section of the crack to remove any loose gypsum and completely start over with solid surfaces. I also put in about 50 screws to hold on the drywall and used a nail set to drive in each wayward nail. After this, I used a mesh adhesive tape to cover up cracks and provide transitions where needed.

With the walls ready for a surface coat we decided to coat the walls and ceiling with joint compound. In order to do this, a friend of mine, Tim Petrie, significantly watered down two large buckets of joint compound and proceeded to coat the entire room. After this I sanded and applied several more coats and areas that needed significant help. You can see the results below.

Naturally, this was a very dusty, dirty, process and the cleanup involved a significant amount of work. Chrissy couldn’t resist a quick photo to capture my misery.

The most important part of the cleanup process was removing all dust from walls. We did this by using a shop vac (with a bag instead of a filter) to get any loose dust out of the room, then migrated to cheesecloth, and finally used some very mildly damp rags and wiped down the walls.

After this, we applied a solid layer of Benjamin Moore’s acrylic primer through the entire room. We found the primer worked excellently, however the fumes were pretty strong and Chrissy had to step aside. After allowing a day for everything to dry, we finished with the final two coats on the walls of restoration hardware paint.

We finished two days before the baby was born, much to our relief. We call that just-in-time production.

Well, we didn’t expect this to happen today (Chrissy was scheduled to be induced tomorrow), but we are proud to announce the birth of our baby boy. He was born this morning at 5:15 weighing 8 lb 10 oz. Some initial pictures below, if the link below doesn’t work, click the direct link here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23298466@N06/

Static shot of two pics:

what is the fundamental anchor which helps us get up the mountain?