One of my bigger fears while riding is getting rear-ended. Not much I can do to prevent that one, other than pray and work on visibility. You’ll notice the last post on this blog was about prayer – and this one is on visibility. Trying to cover my bases…

So, I bought a “Turn Signal Conversion Kit” from the Electrical Connection in Knoxville. Cost just under $50, online. (Disclosure: they didn’t pay me to write this review, however, if you’re reading this, folks, I’d be glad to change that…)

The kit is pretty simple: two RED amber LED rings, one for each rear turn signal lens. The rings attach to the lens with included silicon adhesive. Bonus points to the Electrical connection for including the adhesive and alcohol pads for surface prep.

The LEDs get wired to the turn signal power and ground, the brake light power and ground, and the tail light power and ground. When you’re running regularly, the red is illuminated at a low setting, providing additional red taillights. When you brake, the LEDs illuminate at full strength, giving you two additional brake lights. When you turn, the red LEDs deactivate, leaving only your standard amber turn signals, so everything is street legal anywhere in the states.

The installation took me about 4 hours, mainly because I’m an idiot. It took me nearly an hour to find a way to fish the wiring through the turn signal stalks. The stalks were not meant for extra cabling, but several tries later on each side, they went through. Finding the correct power lines wasn’t too difficult: they Hayes manual pages I found online pointed me in the right direction, and a couple of probes with a voltmeter confirmed my guesswork. The kit included vampire clamps (t-taps) that make decent connections, but not that great.

After installing the kit and testing it, Leslie brought her mad PhD soldering skills outside to sure up the connections a bit. I’m very pleased with the final product…so take a look at a quick video:

If you’re looking to add to your nighttime visibility, I’d give this kit an A+. Being LED-based, I didn’t have to worry about it over-stressing the limited power capabilities of this small bike, and it didn’t break the budget. Here’s a link to the manufacturer’s information.

Did you see this news story? An error in programming gave hospital patients overdoses of radiation for 18 months before it was detected. If you read the story, it boils down to the fact that the guy in charge messed with settings he shouldn’t have been allowed to even see. So, maybe we don’t blame the programmers…

I’ve added a section at the top of the site "Church Technology." I’m working on putting together some of the more useful tips, tricks, and websites that I’ve come across that have something to do with ministry.

I get asked on a pretty regular basis for software recommendations to keep home PCs safe. I’ve put together a list of a semi-comprehensive package of tools you can use to protect your computer on a subpage of my Church Technology Section. I hope you’ll check it out! :)

Pictures after the fold….

Here she is:

And just so Emily Cat doesn’t get jealous:

You can view everyone on TeamFHU or go directly to my page to support my campaign. My goal is $500. It has a pretty cool progress meter so you can see how our team is doing and how everything is working out.

Thanks! :)
Matthew

I don’t know about you…but I thought this was pretty terrible. Mr. Tucker was more interested in an exclusive than a grieving family. Channel 2 had the arrogance and audacity to air such a disrespectful segment. I hope you’ll send them an email (their website is http://www.wkrn.com) and you can send email to a variety of accounts. I personally prefer their newsdesk (news@wkrn.com) because it gets in the way of them reading other “exclusive stories.” I hope Mr. Tucker loses his job for this, and I hope our pressure causes several advertisers to abandon WKRN like I plan on it.

Spread the word.

Tennessee State Constitution

ARTICLE IX 

Disqualifications. 

Section 1. Whereas ministers of the Gospel are by their profession, dedicated 

to God and the care of souls, and ought not to be diverted from the great 

duties of their functions; therefore, no minister of the Gospel, or priest of any 

denomination whatever, shall be eligible to a seat in either House of the Legislature. 

Section 2. No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards 

and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this 

state. 

Section 3. Any person who shall, after the adoption of this Constitution, 

fight a duel, or knowingly be the bearer of a challenge to fight a duel, or send or 

accept a challenge for that purpose, or be an aider or abettor in fighting a duel, 

shall be deprived of the right to hold any office of honor or profit in this state, 

and shall be punished otherwise, in such manner as the Legislature may prescribe. 

I’ll leave the commentary up to you. Quite a difference in the perception of the value of ministry and the importance of a belief in the Lord and His plan on ethics and decision-making, isn’t it?

Her response: “Why thank you! That was a very political answer. You’ll make a fine preacher someday!”

I didn’t exactly know how to respond to her comment. I believe she meant it as a sincere compliment. I wasn’t aware that passing the credit for a good photograph from the instrument to the candidate was a political process, and I really wasn’t aware that politics make or break preachers.

Now, this is not intended to bash preaching, religion, etc. etc. These same problems exist in all arenas of life. Shucks, I’m not even going to complain about this attitude. (The lady’s husband is a preacher, by the way). My question, and the only reason I’m posting this, is what will I do to fix this problem?

It was a really neat experience. There were a lot of people who worked really hard for the kids and raised a lot of money…and all that good stuff. It was amazing to go and run for nearly 3 solid hours (and yes, I know that’s terribly slow). It made me think of the days before cars. When we were driving in, I noticed just how far 13.1 miles was. That takes a little bit of time in the car…and I was about to do it on foot!?!

Anyway…these might be entertaining for you. The results by age division (ha! I beat 6 people!) and overall.

Ane they also had race photographers (let’s just say they didn’t need a very fast shutter speed to keep my pictures from blurring…) who put the pictures on the internet.

It was fun. I think I’ll do it again next year. And maybe I won’t be sore for quite so long…

And no, we didn’t win. And no, we have never won.

Also in the near future: school! Yay! And the camp reunion TNT. The video is already lookin’ pretty stinkin’ funny, if I don’t say so myself. Also expect the email devotional list to be restarted in the next week or so. I’m excited!

I guess the closest I can come to topping skydiving is to tell you I had my wisdom teeth cut out today. I must say that this experiment to test whether I prefer drugs or Jesus is leaning heavily towards the Jesus side… I suppose it isn’t really crazier than jumping out of an airplnae.

Which, by the way, was not caused, forced, ordered, etc etc etc by Leslie. So quit asking! It was lots of fun, and you need to do it. The skydiving, not the wisdom teeth, that is.

So you, dear reader, have a wonderful day.

We (Leslie, Jerry, Amanda W, Amy F and I) get to West Tennessee skydiving at about 1:40 sunday afternoon. Ten minutes late, thanks to my inability to notice when your higway veers around small towns like Bolivar and men named Leon’s inability to figure out what girls named Leslie are talking about…

The facility is down a winding 1.5 lane country road in farm country, flat as can be. The fields are tilled and brown with the rest just covered in grass and whatever else grows by itself. We present and watch a 20 minute video explaining to us what fun we’re about to have, as well as informing us that we can’t sue the airplane manufacturer, pilot, gas manufacturer, parachute manufacturer, harness manufacturer, goggle manufacturer, guy who inflated tires in the plane, fellow who washed the airplane window, guy who poured sugar in the gas tank, the company doing the jumps or the man who throws you out the door. I don’t remember everything it said, as the video was narrated by ZZ Top meets amish man meets David Koresh.

So the crazy owner (Mike, I think) walks in with waivers. We literally have to intial close to twenty times and sign away all rights to anything and everything. They also explained to us that if we wanted a lawyer to interpret the agreement, to make sure he was from Tennessee, so we don’t get messed up. So we signed and sealed the seven seals.

We hoped to all jump together, as the plane seats 14 jumpers. Unfortuately, they didn’t have that much room or that many cameramen. So, we planned for Jerry and Amy to go first. Leslie, then me, then Amanda would go on the second plane. A few minutes after we made that plan, Mr. Owner-Man calls me up to the desk and informs me that because of weight and cameramen, I need to take the first flight with Jerry.

Now, the irony. Leslie and Amanda were the people most excited and least scared. Jerry and I were terrified. And we had to go first.

We got suited up in “form fitting” jumpsuits. My instructor’s name was Bill. He was funny and knew that it didn’t really matter what I did. So he just told me how to get to the door and how to steer the parachute, basically. Jerry’s guy made him practice jumping out of the mock-up airplane in the center. We got harnessed up, put up with the weird video guy, took some pictures…and nearly 45 minutes later, boarded the plane.

The plane was “interesting.” You sit in the floor, facing the back, in two rows. You have to spread your legs and go as far back into the lap of the person behind you as possible. The jumpmaster attaches himself to you at around 10,000 feet. As this was a pretty small plane that had been souped up pretty well, the takeoff was very quick. We got to altitude (14,500 feet) in pretty close to 7 minutes from wheels-up. The jumpmasters had a great time at our expense in the plane. At about 3,000 feet, Bill pulled a knife out of his suit and told me that if something went wrong, he was cutting me loose. In his words, “No sense in getting both of us killed!” He said later, “If this parachute messes up again, I’m just gonna quit using it!” I’m still not sure whether he was lying that time or not…but he later told me that the last time he used it, it didn’t open correctly at first and he had to adjust it, but for me, he had packed it a different way so it shouldn’t have a problem.

The plane takes off pretty quickly, and the whole time, all the jumpers are eyeing altimiters. It was pretty neat to go through the clouds and realize just how high you were. Once you get to altitude, the plane slows to around 100 miles per hour and pulls a nice little parabola, just like NASA’s famed “Vomit Comit.” It gives you a second of near-weightlessness so that you and the jumpmaster can sort of stand up.

Once the plane levels off and everyone is standing in a crouched position, they roll open the lexan door and people start waddling towards it. The plane is completely full, so someone is in it immediatley when the door is open. People walk towards it and then just dissapear. Now that’s weird!

I waddled towards the door, very much not wanting to jump out of it. I know I could have turned back, but I was not about to come back to the earth on the plane. I’d never hear the end of that.

So, it was my turn. Before I got to the door, my cameraman climbed out the door and moved to his left, clinging to the outside of the plane, so he could capture my exit. I moved to the doorway, with my feet on the very edge, my toes hanging over 14,500 feet of nothing. My arms were folded so I wouldn’t be tempted able to try to hold on to the door or grab for anything (like the wing) on the way out. We rocked in and out of the plane to a count of “Ready” – “set” – “jump!”

Jumping out of the plane was perhaps the most counter-intuitive thing I’ve ever done. Given the choice between solid plane ground and nothingness, I’ll take the solid ground any time.

I rememer jumping and falling and thinking about what in the world I had gotten myself into. It took me a few seconds of falling to remember the position I was supposed to be in. It didn’t feel like falling at all. It was like floating, not touching anything, with a really really really strong wind. A few seconds later, it occured to me that I was enjoying this. At first, it was difficult to breathe, kind of like if you stick your head out the car window on the interstate. (We tested that theory on the way to skydiving…) After a few seconds, it just occured to me that it wasn’t the wind keeping me from breathing, it was me. A few deep breaths solved the problem. My instructor started waving his arm in front of my face, and I looked away from the ground for a second and was surprised to see the camera man right in front of my face. I smiled and waved a few times and was loving it.

It seemed like just a couple of seconds later that Bill stuck his arm in my face again and pointed to the altimiter to show me that we are just at 5,000 feet. I had already fallen close to two miles, and it felt like it just took an instant. I was disappointed that the fall was going to end, as hard as that is for you to believe!

He pulled the ripcord. The parachute opening was definitely a noticable occurrence. It didn’t hurt, it wasn’t sudden or shocking. It was like being stretched and being pulled from facing the earth into a standing position. It only took a couple of seconds, and it was almost completely silent. The earth still seemed incredibly far away.

My ears cleared pretty quickly, and the descent was gorgeous. Bill let me steer and we did some spirals going down and practiced landings. The canopy ride lasted around five mintues. It doesn’t occur to you just how high up you are until the last few seconds, when the ground actually starts to get close and you can see the tops of trees. We landed squarely in the middle of a pea gravel target, softly and gently. We landed standing up with just a step or two, and it was very easy.

So that’s what skydiving was like. It was incredible. And you, dear reader, need to do it as well. And I get a discount if I ever go again if I refer you….so remember who told you! :-) What a rush!

Gospel Meeting is this week. Tonight: Ed Owens: Restoring Purpose–God is our King
Tomorrow night: Me. Restoring Life: God is Love

Directions to Roby:
From Freed. Take hiway 100 east towards Nashville. Pass hiway 22a at Jack’s creek. About halfway between 22a and 22 is Roby Roby road on your right. It’s at the top of a hill and there’s a sign that says Roby Fire Department. Take that right and go about 5.5 miles. You’ll pass a fire station on your right. Just past the cemetary on your left is the church building. The trip should take somewhere around 20-25 minutes. Watch for deer!

• The picture Jimmy took of me returning his…special drinks…to the shelf managed to appear in the PowerPoint in a Bible class. Impressive!
• The Roby campaign work is still going very well. The Gospel Meeting started today and has been wonderful so far. If you’re anywhere near West Tennessee, you should come visit. It’s at 7 pm through Wednesday night.
• I reached new levels of geekdom when I competed in a programming contest on Saturday–and enjoyed it.
• This weekend is XBX Banquet and CH Retreat. See y’all there!
• I bought a betta fish today. I’ll explain why later. But he needs a name. Any ideas?
• The weeklyish e-mail devotional list is being resurrected, soon, I hope. Any ideas? Drop them in the comments. Hopefully within a week or two, I’ll have a sign up box over on the right.

That’s all for now. Have a great day.

We’re both on ‘roids! Woo hoo!

Leslie’s birthday has come and gone. Made food. The fire department only came once. That wasn’t my fault!

Makin’ Music has nearly come and soon will be gone. Hallelujah.

It’s nice to have some completion every now and then! :-)

Good grief! What else do you need? Why are you sitting here reading this–go enjoy life!

It’s crazy. My friends just spent like 25 hours doing practice for Makin’ Music. I have a major paper due on Wednesday, and we’re going to try to paint the baptistery. This weekend, I’m supposed to be in Nashville for a church planning retreat and at Freed to help plan the cast party. On Tuesday, another paper and presentation is due. Door knocking starts on Saturday, incidentally, the same day as the Crieve Hall lecture series. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of that week are the open Bible study nights. Sunday marks the beginning of the gospel meeting. I preach on Wednesday. The next weekend is XBX Banquet and the CH Spring Retreat. Aaaaand the next weekend is XBX Goat Roast and a wedding to film as well as immediately preceding finals week. Then, two weeks at home, 24 days in transit and at New Zealand. Two full days back in the States and then Louisiana. If I take it, my online summer English Lit class begins somewhere around here. One week back at work, then Summer Series and Camp on that Saturday for a week. Then, time to breathe. But until then…

I hate Daylight Savings Time. But at least it is light until late! :-) Have a great day!

So welcome, Jimmy, Tim, James, and now Leeper! Wooo hooo!

I’m curious how wrongly spelled a word could be spelled and still be considered a search for the same term. Not like I care…

Did you know that USB drives on keychains can be slammed in doors and their covers can come off and you can just plug a memory chip on a USB end directly into a port? Whoever invented Super Glue deserves to go in the same hallowed hall of fame as the benevolent mastermind of Duct Tape.

It took a very stinking long time to get to Kevin’s house last night! I suppose I could make some cheesy point about appreciating opportunities to change direction in life…but I’ll let you do that. Have a good one.

I had sort of hoped that this first real post would have some real content. Something substantive, you know? Evidently, I don’t have much of that sitting around waiting to be codified in a blog entry.

Last night, I met the XBX mission team at Crieve. We enjoyed some food and goofing off together, then gathered in the chapel for singing for probably 45 minutes. Those little semi-spontaneous singings are always interesting. There were fewer than 30 people together in a room with the acoustics of a dirty gym sock…but it was better singing than I’ve heard in there in a very long time. Of course….what does “better” mean, anyway? Maybe people decided to sing more because they were friends. Maybe it was because it was the night before really getting into the travel of a campaign. Maybe it was because it was getting late, and they were getting delirious. Maybe….?

Regardless, it was a wonderful evening. Made me wish I were heading towards ol’ VA Tech. It made me thankful for a good group of friends. I wonder if any of you are reading this. I guess the world will never know… I guess that means I can’t talk bad about you here, doesn’t it? There went one good fun topic of conversation…

Welp. All for now. Have a glorious day. And come write a paper about FDR for me.

• New theme on the way
• Scripturizer Plugin so John 3:16 appears fancy!
• Post-by-email
• And maybe even some content worth reading! Nahh…just kidding!

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