Author Archives: jstueve

Wretched man… continued.

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Last November I wrote a post titled "Sifting” then pretty much just stopped blogging.  What a horrible and empty place to leave off.  Yesterday, I was blessed to hear a great sermon from my pastor on Romans 8, along with a challenge to memorize that chapter in the next six weeks.  It was a little twinge to hear him remind everyone that the chapter numbers aren’t inspired, that where chapter 7 leaves off, chapter 8 continues, and provides a solution to our fleshy dilemma.  I skipped over that part in that last post, so lets start back in chapter seven and flesh some stuff out.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
      So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Romans 7:21-25 NIV

This passage shows that the struggle for a Christian is much different than someone that hasn’t accepted Christ.  A Christian seems to be having a dual nature, one that delights in God’s law, and a parasitic flesh that rebels against the law.  This duality would seem horrible trap should we end the passage right there, a constant struggle between sin and obedience.  We desperately need to get to the next sentence:

1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

Romans 8:1-4 NIV

No condemnation for this struggle?  Is that what it says?  Why do we struggle with such guilt when we fall?  Is that another part of the flesh? the willingness to flay ourselves for less than perfect obedience?  We need to remind ourselves, constantly, that we are free. We need to remind ourselves, constantly, we are dead to the fleshy way of life.  We need to remember that the spirit is there to help us in our struggle.  We live, not according to the flesh, our sinful nature, but according to the Spirit, His perfect love for us.

This is grace: ‘For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.’ God’s requirements, met by God, freeing us from the penalty that we’d otherwise be doomed to pay.  It is already paid in full.

Left Behind Pizza

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Around 10 years ago, probably closer to 9 and a half, I started posting on a message board for fans of the Left Behind series of books.

Well before the worlds of tweets, facebooks status updates, and blog trackbacks, message boards were how I interacted with the masses of people that shared a common interest.

This community shared an interest in christian themes, but had a bit of disfunction running through it. A group of us split off and thanks to the husband of one of our members, started our own message board. Heady times before the onslaught of social media, to have an almost instant community of friends.

The message board still exists. Sometimes I even, post there. But largely the community has moved on. I moved on to blogging, and that has had it’s ebbs and flows. I still keep track of a few of my friends from The Pizza Parlor, as we called it. Some are now facebook friends or twitter followers. Many are just faded Yahoo! Messenger nicknames, always hidden because life moves on.

I look back now, fondly, at those sometimes unhealthy times of Internet absorbtion. Who I am today, was formed in the crucible of yesterday. I experienced 9/11 with the people on that bored, formed many opinions based on those interactions. Learned that while I could ‘turn off’ the computer, these people still lived and cared ( well maybe not Melissa, and I sometimes wonder about Wilbo 🙂 ) about me.

Social networking is weird sometimes, I met my wife on a pre-Internet social network. We wrote letters back and forth using emoticons in 1993, while I was on deployment. Social networking is part of who I am.

Bleeding Dodger Blue with MLB At Bat 2009

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When I was a kid growing up, I was a big Dodger fan.  I remember listening to Vin Skully in grade school, watching the Dodgers in the World Series against the A’s was an early sports memory.  Crying when the Giants kept them out of the playoffs more than once.  I remember various players, Davey Lopes, Steve Garvey, Billy Russel, Ron Cey is still be dream infield.  I used to fall asleep listening to the broadcast in high school.  I remember reveling when Gibson hit his home run.

Then adulthood, and moving has distanced me from my favorite team. Until now.  The MLB At Bat iPhone app is WONDERFUL.  I can tune in and listen to the broadcasters, with Vin Skully, Charlie Steiner and Rick Monday.  I can track the stats, and see the pitches, see replays of big plays in jaggy (but good enough) video.

I’d like to think the Dodgers’ hot start this season is because they have their biggest fan back to listening and following them (but that’d be too prideful).  I’m loving baseball again.  Screen shots of the app below the fold (tonight game in progress) Continue reading →

The DART that missed

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First, thanks for all the DART train distraction ideas. You are truly helpful, internets!

However, after last nights ordeal, maybe I shouldn’t be distracted while riding the DART train.

If you follow me on on twitter (@jstueve) you already know this story. So skip down and hit the comments to let me know that you know how completely daft I am, thanks.

So last night I was waiting to take the DART train back up to Plano. We had the normal meet & greet with tummy Hyatt munchies, and I had one beer, which didn’t effect my judgement at all!

I walked through the undgeound tunnel from the Hyatt to Union Station, and had to wait for the TRE to leave before I could get to the right side of the tracks. I waited a couple of minutes, then hopped on the first train, found my seat, and zoned, reading twitter and facebook updates. About 40 minutes later I lifted up my head, and saw the sign for the stop

Garland

*blink*

GARLAND!?!??!!

Raasafrassa. Got off, got on a southbound Blue Line back to Mockingbird Station, then squeezed myself into the stairwell between two gangstas on a Northbound Red Line train. Forty minutes later arrived in Plano. What was normally a 40 minute ride took almost two hours.

So yeah. Me == Dork

DARTing

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This week I have the good fortune to commute to downtown Dallas each day. Any suggestions on how to best spend the 40 or so minutes each way? I mean besides reading Twitter and Facebook posts…

Some other things coming up this week:
– Brenna’s student council banquet.
– Dinner with my brother Colin
– Prepping for a medical procedure (this is a family blog, no details)
– medical procedure (starts with colon ends with scopy)

Some are really exciting! And some I dread.

Lost – Groupings

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I was thinking about all the different group of sub-groups of people in Lost, and thought a nifty outline might be good. Some graphically oriented person might want to expanded into a really nifty Venn diagram.

Let’s try Chronological order:

  • Black Rock Crew
  • 1954 Others
  • 1954 Army
  • Dharma (circa 1977)
    • – Other infiltrators
    • – Circle of Trust
    • – Flight 316 Jumpers (Sawyer, Juliette…)
    • – Offspring (Miles, Charlotte)
  • Others Dharma Era
  • Post Purge ‘Dharma’ (Hatch survivors)
  • Flight 316 People
    • Main Section
    • Tail Section
  • Freighters
    • Naomi’s Team
    • Keamy’s Team
    • Ship’s Crew
  • Ajira Airlines
    • Shadow of the Statue
    • Island Returners
      • 1977 Era
      • 2007
  • Reanimated Personages (Christian, Locke)
    • Island Ghosts (Eko’s brother, Dave)
  • Off Island Conspirators
    • Widmore
    • Hanso
    • Ben’s Supporters (Jan the Butcher)
    • Eloise

Lost – What does lie in the Shadow of the Statue?

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Did a little past episode snooping last night, and lo and behold, Ilana’s henchman, Bram (thanks IMDB) tried to persuade Miles to switch sides after he was recruited by Naomi.  Who are the SotS people?  They’re not Widmore’s people, they’re not Ben’s people…

Ilana and Bram confront Frank Lapidus

Ilana and Bram confront Frank Lapidus

Bram confronts Miles in the back of the van

Tax Day Tea Parties

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From: http://taxdayteaparty.com/about/

The Tax Day Tea Party is a national collaborative grassroots effort organized by Smart Girl Politics, Top Conservatives on Twitter, the DontGo Movement and many other online groups/coalitions.

The Tea Party protests, in their current form, began in early 2009 when Rick Santelli, the On Air Editor for CNBC, set out on a rant to expose the bankrupt liberal agenda of the White House Administration and Congress. Specifically, the flawed “Stimulus Bill” and pork filled budget.

…

The big one’s gonna be in Dallas but for us North Dallas types, here is a list of places to let your presence be seen.

City: Plano
When: April 15, 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Where: Park & Preston/2201 Preston Rd.  and Parker & Preston/3301 Preston Rd.

City: Richardson
When: April 15, Noon
Where:Richardson City Hall, 411 W. Arapaho

City: McKinney
When: April 15, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Where: Eldorado & Craig/ 2950 Craig Dr.

City: Frisco
When: April 15, 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Where: Gaylord & Preston/ 3100 Preston Rd. and Lebanon & Preston/ 5049 Preston Rd.

City: Carrollton/Farmers Branch/Colleyville
When: April 15, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm
Where: Intersection of Josey Ln. and Trinity Mills (President George Bush Freeway)

Source: http://taxdayteaparty.com/teaparty/texas/

Oh and hey, there are sites for other states too, not just the great state of Texas.

UPDATE: My twitter feed has links to photos from the Richardson noon hour teaparty.

UPDATE Teh DEUX: My Flickr set of both the lunch time Richardson and the rush hour Plano teaparties

[flickr album=72157616743148211 num=20 size=Square]

Blog Redesign…

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I know what you are thinking… what blog.  Well I want to state for the record, my blog and I WERE ON A BREAK.  That thing with Facebook, was just a thing.  I’ll blog again, promise. *ahem*

Anyways, it was time to streamline my blog, and get it working for all the millions of iPhone users that could visit my humble web home.  So I installed the WPtouch plugin, and stripped down the the theme to match it somewhat, and viola, a ready platform to fill with my blather. Woo!

This will be a bit like looking in the mirror at the barber shop, but to show my non-iPhone readers what they are missing, let me display the following screen capture.

dablog via iphone

dablog via iphone

New Tech == bad for you (or is it)

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or contra, studies with bad methodologies will make headlines!

I know, I know what else is new.

As Stacy noticed yesterday, facebook addicts face a hard row in college, and can’t compete with the non-addicts academically.  Seems she’s now found that workers with addictions end up being less productive than their peers.  Truly this is cats and dogs living together time.

We can now rest assured that western civilization is on the highway to hell, thanks to this headline

Twitter can make you immoral, claim scientists

(its big cuz its a headline)

Here is the lede:

Social networks such as Twitter may blunt people’s sense of morality, claim brain scientists.

New evidence shows the digital torrent of information from networking sites could have long-term damaging effects on the emotional development of young people’s brains.

A study suggests rapid-fire news updates and instant social interaction are too fast for the ‘moral compass’ of the brain to process.

The danger is that heavy Twitters and Facebook users could become ‘indifferent to human suffering’ because they never get time to reflect and fully experience emotions about other people’s feelings.

US scientists from the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California (USC) say the brain can respond in fractions of seconds to signs of physical pain in others.

Yep, that’s what happened to Hitler, too much twittering.  So now all you time-travelers, go back and steal Adolph’s iPhone.

Oh wait, here is the buried lede:

But a new study led by Antonio Damasio, director of the USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute, suggests that digital media may be better suited to some mental processes than others.

The study used compelling, real-life stories to induce admiration for virtue or skill, or compassion for physical or social pain, in 13 volunteers.

The emotions felt were verified by researchers in a series of interviews before and after, conducted using a careful protocol.

Brain imaging showed the volunteers needed six to eight seconds to fully respond to stories of virtue or social pain.

However, once awakened, the responses lasted far longer than the volunteers’ reactions to stories focused on physical pain.

Yep, statistics geek, that is an N of 13 that supports the headline.  Now all this neat stuff about how long the brain takes to fully register an emotional story is neat, but hardly directly attributible to ‘Twitter’.  What about MTV, CNN, Headline News, etc…  Nah, the headline gets noticed because of TWITTER.

I WANT MY GRANT MONEY