Problems are for Solving

The Chicago River

If I’ve done this right, above these words is a picture of the Chicago River from the walkway behind my hotel. The picture is actually stored at Facebook, and was taken and uploaded via my Blackberry.

If this works, I now have a shorter way to put pictures in posts than I have before, that is, upload to Facebook and link in the post.

UPDATE: After checking the post, I find that all there is is a link to the picture, which is an OK thing, though I don’t know if people who aren’t my FB friends can get to it. If anyone who is *not* on FB could click the link and let me know if it works in a comment, I’d appreciate it. I know I have at least three readers who don’t do FB.

I have some other thoughts on easy ways to get pictures into posts, but since I’m not taking lots of time on media in posting (I want to actually post), this is what you get for now. I’ll experiment more with photos another day. Whatever I finally figure out will have to be very quick and easy (I wish my Word template that uploads blog posts for me would just upload pictures I paste into the document, for example) or there will be no pictures. Because when I wait around for time to post pictures I don’t post anything and then having a blog is kind of like having a snow shovel in Miami.

Oh–and I’m updating the picture in the title bar again today. I won’t always tell you, but since this is new I am now.

BTW, there was an actual post yesterday that was not blog related, and there will be another coming tomorrow morning.

The browser in my old blackberry wouldn’t let me log in to the old version of wordpress. If you can read this, then some combination of the WP upgrade, the new server, the new Blackberry, and the new cell provider make it possible to post while mobile.

Yay!

You should see more frequent posting then.

…or at least it shouldn’t be.

Michael P. Schutt (MHT-90)
“They want a shark. They want a hired gun. They want someone who will bend every rule possible in order to win. And so part of what the task of the Christian lawyer is is to educate his or her clients in thinking properly about the nature of the legal system and why this particular client is coming to a lawyer in the first place. And in order to do that, you have to think of your clients as human beings and not just legal problems that walk in the door.”

—Michael P. Schutt

I used to quite frequently put in a plug for Mars Hill Audio Journal, a bi-monthly audio “magazine.” On Monday morning I was listening to a couple of segments from Volume 90 while on the treadmill. And this guy from Regent, talking about a Christian approach to being a lawyer, was just fantastic. I’d recommend everyone subscribe to MHAJ (you can do it via CD or MP3), but even if you don’t, get a CD copy of this volume and pass it around to every Christian lawyer you know. The thought of lawyers being counselors rather than hired sharks and social engineers needs to permeate the body of Christ. I was enthused listening to this one and I recommend the whole volume to you, especially this track.

…to come to the actual blog, not just the RSS feed. :0)

I change the picture at the top every now and then. I thought the expressions of the children are pretty typical for the four children in the picture above. There’s actually 5 in the picture, but only Elsie’s arms made the crop.

I also added my google reader shared items to the sidebar.

BLOG and MABLOG
Too many debates about the Lord’s Supper in church history have concentrated on what the bread and wine “are like.” But our central focus should be on what God is like. He is our Father—He gives, He bestows, He provides.

A good short meditation on the Lord’s Supper by Pastor Wilson, particularly the quote above, reminding us (and me in particular today) that God, not the elements, is the focus of the sacrament.

HT: Kyriosity.

Pushing Help on Flood Victims (Cato-at-liberty)
Libertarians often talk about the possibility of private charity picking up the slack for reduced government welfare. Statists scoff at such notions, pointing to the weakness of local community and cultural institutions today. The charge rings true, but the reason, if this is the case, is not that the American character is weak and that it casually ceded responsibility to government. It’s because government largesse is an insidious, attacking organism that goes right for the fibers and joints of civil society to draw down their strength and make them arthritic.

I found this quote to be quite insightful. I believe that more private charity is necessary, and here is one reason why it doesn’t exist. The government will spend your money before a charitable organization has time to jump in, all too often.

So if we are to be salt and light, and to move true charity into our communities, we’re going to have to be aggressive, bold, quick, and competitive. We’ll have to find ways to get ahead of jimmy gummint in the race to do good, so that true good will actually be done.

For his birthday, Toby received a copy of the role-playing game (RPG) Sons of Liberty. In playing the game, one player has to take the side of the tories (no choice, sorry) and the others play characters from the time period like Thomas Paine and John Adams. About the game:

The game’s fast-paced card mechanics ensure high-action madness and revolutionary heroics. If you are playing Benjamin Franklin and you aren’t swinging an electrified kite over your head to clear the streets of redcoats, then you are playing it wrong.

That’s the kind of game it is.

The tory is guided by card draws, 1 through 10, and his solution/tactic is essentially related to which of the first 10 amendments he’s violating in the attack. So I thought I’d re-familiarize myself with the Bill of Rights by writing a short blog post about each, and how it’s worked out so far in our nation’s relatively brief history.

Here’s the preamble:

Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution

More to follow! But I make no guarantees for regularity.

Those of you who don’t use the RSS feed have noticed I have a new theme. The only thing I miss about the last theme is the twitter updates at the top of the posts column instead of in the sidebar. Those of you who use the RSS feed should check out the new theme and tell me what you think–it has a customizable picture at the top, which I really like.

And this is the first post of July. Umm….yeah.

I’ve been busy, but not really too busy to blog. I’m going to try to do better, but I’m not making any promises. I will say that don’t count on any pictures other than the ones in the top of the blog—that takes too long to make a post and I’m giving up on it, at least for now.

I stopped working out for a while. I missed two straight months. But I’ve gotten 5 workouts in the last 8 days: four at the gym and one in a hotel room. I’m praying that is a new pattern, rather than a break of the badness back to the badness.

We had another trip. We visited my sister in Ohio for my niece’s graduation party. Then stopped briefly in Erie (thanks Adiel!) and on to visit my great aunt in Rochester, NY. She had some family tree news that we enjoyed and my kids got to meet her again (not since 2001 have they seen her). (Grandpa Lansberry’s father’s sister) We had a lunch and a chat and then headed on to New Hampshire, stopping for a late supper in Bennington, VT.

We stayed in a cabin at the newly purchased Woodbound Inn with my sister and her family. During the day I helped out at Cindy & Aylmer’s new place of residence which is still a few week’s from being ready to move into. The inn is beautiful and we’re hoping to get back sometime soon. It was nice to see it—and the high point of the trip, as usual, was dinner at Aylmer’s Grille. (soon to relocate to the inn).

Saturday after that we travelled to TC ’s grandma’s house and spent a few days there, including a long morning picking up old fence in the weeds. Then back to Sandy’s for a night and to a meeting near Cincinnati, OH, which included a day at the creation museum.

It was good to be home.

And then TC and I went last week for a couple of days to Atlanta and now I’m back in town for a whole week. Sometime I’ll post the year to date travel numbers. Still pretty light.

More to come sometime—including some writing projects in the work. For today, though, this is it.