Vacation time

We just made our reservations in San Diego for the end of August! We're staying on Miramar - the location of the famous Top Gun pilot school. I intend to make every Tom Cruise and Top Gun reference possible while there. We're planning on going to the beach, Sea World, the beach, the SD Zoo, the beach, and then maybe go to L.A. for a day and then hopefully up to Malibu for a couple of days to stay with a relative (we'll probably take in a little beach while we're there). Should be fun, cooler than here, and relaxing!

I found this page on the SD Zoo website that you can watch live video of either polar bears, apes, elephants, or panda bears at the zoo. As I write this it's too dark to see anything - bad timing, I guess.

I found it interesting that on the Zoo's home page that they have information about Wolong's horrible earthquake in 2008 - 7.9 magnitude. 70,000 people died. Unfortunately, a couple pandas died too. Luckily, if you want to help the pandas you can donate $$ through the Zoo's website! I didn't see anything about helping the people there, though...

Coming soon!

The next installment in the Inheritance cycle comes out in September! We've been waiting a long time. If your looking for a good book to read and fantasy-type stuff is interesting, check it out. He's a very good writer. If you've seen the movie based on the book, ignore it. The books are really good but they were afraid to stay true to the book because the first one resembles The Lord of the Rings series. It, however, is much different, especially in the second book.

How I became a secret agent.

Well, some people have asked why I go by Agent Pipes. In fact, it's kind of weird because my email contains that name and people don't grasp the concept of such a silly name so I end up spelling it. After I do they say "agentpipes?" "Yup!" I say and then... well, that's a tangent I won't take.

Anyhow, I've actually been Agent Pipes (AP) for over ten years now. It started in high school (well, my last high school, anyway. I moved twice my junior year.). I have a friend named Sean who is now a police officer in Brookfield, WI. In high school we were inseparable, but we were a little different than most juniors and seniors. We just had different interests. We were both Christians so we looked for a little different activities on the weekends and during the summers.

One of the things we did was watch Elvis movies. I've seen tons of them. They are actually pretty entertaining if you don't take them seriously. One of my favorite lines is from Jailhouse Rock (guess what song Elvis sang in that movie). Elvis confronts a guy who is pushing around his girlfriend at a bar. The guy says something like "Watch it, bud." And Elvis comes back "Oooh, you scare me. Women beaters always scare me." I can't continue because it will give away the plot, but, anyway, I digress.

We went to fairs and recorded Elvis songs. I have a lot of lyrics stored in my bag of goodies, too. Our favorite was "Don't Be Cruel."

We also recorded home videos. I'm really glad that Sean never figured out how to put those on YouTube - I would never live it down. At first we started out dancing to the good old tunes like "Walk Like an Egyptian" and "I'm Too Sexy" and "Grease Lightning." Soon we graduated from that (because we ran out of moves).

At that same time, Pierce Brosnan was featuring in his first and second Bond movies. That became the inspiration for our new persona. He quickly adopted 00 Hound Dog (it was him that got me into Elvis). I didn't really have anything interesting about me except that I was into power lifting at school; thus, Agent Pipes was born. I'm not going brag about that stuff now - I had my chance to do that at my 10 year reunion and chose to miss it. Sean put together several very funny videos throughout senior year and our first year of college as us living the life of secret agents - but, alas, I'm retired. It does give our families a lot to laugh about when we bust them out to watch.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Dodge ball!

Monday was a nice break from work. The maintenance folks had some sort of training or catch-up to do so there was no flying. As a result, we had no work to do (well, that's sort of true). Anyway, I saw this as an awesome chance to get a sporting event together for the tower. At first we were going to run. Then someone suggested dodgeball (of course I had to include the wikipedia link).

There was really no question about which to do.

We played for two hours. It was intense. The best showdown we had was between the 28+ vs. the under 28s, which ended up being 7 on 12 (the old dudes had 7). We old dudes won 5 out of 6 games. I am sore today in areas I had forgotten I had. My ankles muscles are sore and I don't there is such a thing! I took a few shots right on my pride, but no one got seriously hurt. I'm pumped to do it again.

You can check out the real rules here for setting up your next tournament.

Sweet quote

"Whenever we repent of sin, we must have one eye upon sin and another upon the cross; or, better still, let us have both eyes upon Christ, seeing our sin punished in him, and by no means let us look at sin except as we look at Jesus. A man may hate sin just as a murderer hates the gallows but this does not prove repentance if I hate sin because of the punishment, I have not repented of sin; I merely regret that God is just." - Charles Spurgeon

Old friends

I got in contact with a long, lost friend recently. I met John in the AF at my first assignment - Shepherd AFB, TX. He worked on F15s and I was training on F16s. We had a lot in common and had a close friendship with until life took us apart. We've kept in contact enough to know where the other is. I'm really excited because we're going to California next month for vacation (I'm super-duper excited about it in general) and he lives in L.A. now. It'll be great to see what he's been doing. He went to Full Sail in Florida for movie directing (I hope I didn't simplify that too much John!) and now he's putting it to the road in Cali. I added a link on the right to some photography that he did and pics of some of the cool stuff he did at school.

Switchfoot concert

I am really pumped about the upcoming Switchfoot concert in Pheonix! I went to this site explaining who is going to be there. Some of my favorite bands - Switchfoot, Third Day, Jars of Clay, and Robert Randolf & the Family Band! Their all part of the Music Builds tour that is raising money for Habitat for Humanity. September 25th, yeah baby!

Favorite C.S. Lewis quote - kinda

"All that is not eternal is eternally useless." - C.S. Lewis

Well, that's the way I remembered it for some reason. Here's what he actually said. I hope he's not upset for being misquoted. I don't understand what he actually said anyway.

So here's my favorite D.P. Sickels quote, "All that is not eternal is eternally useless."

Election research

I was looking at Barrack Obama's website today to find out where he stands on different issues. Here's a quote from the Call to Renewal address that he gave.

"[Conservative leaders] need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice. Folks tend to forget that during our founding, it wasn't the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment. It was the persecuted minorities, it was Baptists like John Leland…It was the forbearers of the evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religion, because they did not want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith…" – Call to Renewal Keynote Address

I have wondered why people call for separation of church and state. It seems to me that if I think my church should not be involved in my government, then (1) I probably don't really believe what I say I do, or (2) I know that what I do believe would exclude and persecute people in its basic tenants.

I can firmly say, without question, that my Christian beliefs would not. My country desperately needs the God of the Bible in its government. The exclusion of God at almost all levels of government has resulted in an increase of every violent crime and the decay of families.

To quote a pastor at our church, the purpose of Thomas Jefferson's personal letter outlining the "wall of separation" between church and state was "to keep the government out of the church, NOT to keep the church out of the government." If you read the link above, you'll see that in the context it does not mean that our faith should be removed from the governmental process.

More wisdom... but not from me.

As I read this morning, more stuck out to me about "wise" persons.

Prov 15:31-33 says "31. The ear that hears the rebukes of life will abide among the wise. 32. He who disdains instruction despises his own soul, but he who heeds rebuke gets understanding. 33. The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom, and before honor is humility."

I keep seeing really strongly worded admonitions in Proverbs. Vs. 32 says that someone that refuses to be corrected or instructed about things hates his own soul. They not only fail to gain understanding; it's not a matter of 'can I make good decisions' or not.

One of my favorite verses of late is Proverbs 12:1 (easy to remember) "Whoever loves instructions love knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid" That's right - stupid! It's the same in the NIV and KJV (& NKJV). That's a word we all try to teach our kids to not say because it is plain offensive, but do I take correction - no, do I seek correction and instruction? Do you? If not, we're stupid. The rest of Proverbs is really clear on what happens to people that fail to be corrected.

But then it's the pride of being right and not needing help that causes a lot of our cultures issues. "Sure I'm an alcoholic, but I can take care of it myself." "I know whether I should by this house or not, I don't need to get advise." "Why wouldn't I take advantage of this great investment deal - it'll make me money." "Only my wife and I know whether we should have more kids; what would my parents or friends know about it." "I don't need parenting advise."

And on the flip side, what advise are we giving those that do seek it? Are we ear-pleasers? If we aren't renewing our minds with God's word, then we can't help but give a worldly response.

Thought

The AF has skill levels for every job. At specific time-framed increments all Airmen go through knowledge and skill training. The levels are 3, 5, 7, and 9-level; I have no idea why they aren't just 1 through 4. Yesterday I took and passed my 7-lvl upgrade test for ATC. In air traffic it's not too big of a deal, though. We controllers have our own upgrade training that is more rigorous and intensive; that will come next spring.

Anyhow, I'm rambling. My point is that before I walked out the door I said "Wish me luck!" Candi reminded me that there's no such thing as luck for this type of thing. She said (this is a paraphrase), "I will hope that you prepared and studied for it!" (smile). How true it is!

I started reading Proverbs about six months ago. I do that one-Proverb-for-each-day-of-the-month thing. I have a bunch of stuff that I was planning for and thinking about doing - decision-type stuff - so I decided to pick out everything that Proverbs says about planning, decisions, counsel, etc and write it down together. I found that almost every chapter in Proverbs talks about planning, how planning and preparing will produce good fruit, failing to plan is dumb, and about how invaluable it is to get plenty of wise "counselors".

It also says it is good to be married to a wise woman! ... yet another undeserved blessing from God.

What things are you planning for? What things should you be planning for?

5th of July

Another fun day today. We went to the zoo. We always stop to see the gibbons first thing. We love watching them swing around - I'd love to be a gibbon for a day. They were also whoopin' and hollerin' a lot. I can't put a sample of their whoop on here, but you can stop by and Christian will do it for you; he's good. Then we checked out the otters, played in the splash park for a bit.

They did a demonstration of the king vulture. It's amazing to see a bird that large fly, almost hover, above the ground for yards. They had trained him to do a bunch of tricks (jumping through hoops and the like). I just am amazed at God's creativity and how almost all animals can amaze us if we take the time to really explore how they work. I think I got a pretty good picture of him.

All in all, it was a good time. We ate at Chuckie Cheese and cruised home in time for me to go to work again. I'm almost finished with my paper on which interpretation of Revelation I think is accurate. The instructions were for it to be a minimum of five pages. I'm at ten pages and not quite finished. I think it's time for a first draft edit session.

Then, guess what!

4th of July

Well, today was an o.k. day. It started out hot. Then friends came over for lunch (I didn't burn the chicken, yaaa!). Then I went to work and did homework. It was a very quiet night. All the controllers came to the tower, grilled, and stuck around for the fireworks. Candi and the kids came for a while (until Wyatt got too antsy). Then I did homework until 11. To say I'm a party animal is an understatement. Here's a pic of the show.

Dubai Islands

A co-worker showed me pictures of some of the development in Dubai. They are undertaking massive building projects, which include several hundred man-made islands laid in the ocean in shapes which will be habitable. They are being sold for 7 to 35 million dollars a piece. Where did I leave my piggy bank?...


The first two massive projects undertaken were two palm trees. This is a link to a progressive slide show of 2001 to 2006 when one of the Palms was nearly finished.


Here's are pictures of the completed products.

What I may bee

I just had a break-through. This week in my current college course, Daniel and Revelation, we are writing a paper on the four approaches to interpreting the book of Revelation. I just had a revelation of my own - I am a classical dispensationalist. That was close. Now I can rest well; at least, when I finish my paper; 200 out of 1000 words done.

On a side note, I got stung by a bee on my iron horse yesterday... again. This time it was the right arm. This time it was a bee or a wasp that I killed before it had the opportunity to strike again. This time he got me right on my right elbow and it is swelling up pretty good. I don't think pictures would do it justice on the blog.

I'm beginning to think my body, in reaction to the bee stings I've had this summer (five so far), is developing an allergic reaction (if that's strong enough of a word). I have been stung a few times in my life - no big deal. This time the swelling goes from almost my wrist to half way up my tricep. It's really itchy (which rhymes with Richie - what's up, brotha!).

The swelling is kind of sweet because it makes me look like that guy from Lady in the Water - only on the right side, too.