A few weeks ago, I heard a sermon by Amos Kropf at our church called the Idol of Success. He mentioned nine ways success can become an idol. Three that spoke directly to me:

2. Pursuit of accomplishment crowds out pursuit of God. I had to think of that in the context of this last term. My busyness did crowd out my pursuit of God. Pursuing God, going after Him, is where it's at.

6. Measuring success more by what I've done than by what God has done. When the focus is on me, how I'm doing in pursuit of my goals, then success has become elevated too high.

7. Sacrificing God's time for pursuit of success. See #2.

I had something worthwhile to say, I thought.

I made it home from the IAC trip. Good stuff, I learned a lot, in addition to racking up 14 hours of overtime.

For the last hour+ of our trip, we talked philosophy and Christianity and Marcus Borg.

Christianity is so different from the perspective of academic intellect. For someone not exposed to it (that phrase itself is troubling to me), it would seem like an unattractive jumble of sects each with their own little ways of doing things. And that's if you get past the great liberal/conservative divide that exists.

Live out loud. Live the life. Shine. Do all that.

Love 'em. By that, everyone will know that we are Jesus' disciples.

Yea for lazy Saturdays.
Yea for golf.
Yea for cool research projects.
Yea for family reunions.
Yea for passion.
Nay for not being sure what career I'd be passionate about.

For some reason I sort of hate to steer away from Engineering. It's, like, been a part of my identity for so long I'm having a hard time leaving it behind. And I can't rid myself of the nagging wish that I was a mechanical engineering student modeling fluid dynamics and thermal systems, solving differential equations...becoming a real engineer.

I'm sort of sentimental tonight, though "sentimental" doesn't seem like
the right word. "Emotional" doesn't either, but it's closer.

I love being around Christians. This fact is exemplified in my
rendezvous with the Marvin Strubhar family tonight. Marvin picked me up
at the local Super 8 (I'd try to spell C'oeur D'lane, but I'm afraid of
butchering it) and we drove to their home. I like their family.

It's been a good time so far, this trip. I feel that I've been an
incidental witness, if not an overt one. It's strange, how talking about
purpose came up so easily and quickly with Marvin, but nothing like that
has presented itself with my OSU friends. Check that, someone did
mention how that woolly mammoth's never did live at the same time as
humans. Opportunity; failed.

I practiced God's presence better today. I found that it's a lot easier
to do that when everything's going fine. But even so, it made my day
much fuller and more meaningful, having that communication with the
Almighty. But it could still be so much more.

One more thing, the Strubhars had a story time tonight and one of the
stories made the point that "things" are either tools or toys, either
things that one uses to serve God more effectively or things that one
uses to satisfy oneself. It's a good point, one worth examining oneself
in light of.

Ok, those "one"'s and "oneself"'s are annoying.

Oh, "one" more thing. This lack of physical exercise, it's killing me.
I've got to get active! This summer should be a good time, though I can
just imagine, trying to work 10 hours a day with an additional hour of
driving, there won't be much time. But I need to make time to make sure
the outside of the temple is in good shape.

Know what I mean, Vern?

Like I said before, the biggest thing about this IAC audit thing was the
unknown part of it. It went ok, there wasn't anything that was
overwhelming. I got a project that's probably not really feasible.

We took a plant tour and I tried to understand the process of this
sawmill as well as look for any productivity things I might be able to go
after. There wasn't much in the way of productivity stuff to do, at
least that I was able to figure out.

I ended up pursuing a rock detection system. Rocks in the logs cost the
mill hours in downtime and labor a month. I'm going to try to find a
system out there that would be effective in detecting those non-metallic
foreign object. It's not likely that it will pan out, I don't think
there's a good one out there.

The good things about this summer are:

I have flexible jobs that allow me to take some time off for family and
AHQ stuff.
I'm working on a research project that is on the theoretical side, but is
lots of fun.
I'm working with the IAC which is on the practical side.
I'm working for my dad which pays better.

Thing I don't like about the IAC after my first day: the stuff I'm doing
isn't very technical at all.

So is anyone seeing a messed up blog because of the juno ad at the end of my e-mail posts? I hear from one person that weird stuff is happening.

I was working out on the treadmill at a bit over 7 mph. That's not very fast--I'm not in very good shape. But as I was finishing up an excruciating 20 minute run, I realized that to run a 4 minute mile you would have to be running at more than twice the rate that I was. That is almost incomprehensible, particularly when you are exerting to the point of exhaustion.

So is it wrong or is it understood to take Hotel accessories like shampoo? It's interesting, because at this hotel they have a phone number to make reservations printed on the shampoo packets.

This will be interesting. Right now I'm in the back of a van listening
to Classic Rock and heading along the Oregon Washington border on I-84.
You're just going to have to put up with the crazy Juno ad at the bottom
of this post I guess. I've been reading old reports and utility bills so
far. Not too exciting, but I'm a fan of traveling, especially if I'm not
driving and I have a laptop.

Who knows, you might get more stuff on this trip than you do when I'm
home, because of the extra time I have on my hands.

By the way, if you want to sound cool and you're referring to another
department within the organization that you work for, don't say, "Do want
to call the human resource office?" Say, "Do you want to call human
resources?"

Doesn't that just...feel...like...you're...with it?

Hopefully a non-ad post this time.

This is a test, only a test to see if I can blog via e-mail.

A man is headed toward New York, a few miles from its outskirts, when he receives a phone call on his cell phone from a stranger informing him that his wife, while working in the city, had been involved in a terrible accident and was not far from death. Horrified, the man turns and rushes in the opposite direction. Why?

This is dedicated to Conrad & Naomi Gingerich, who share my love of Minute Mysteries or whatever you call them. I made this one up all by myself, but I have no idea if it's any good.

Maybe I'll ask it on the way to Sheridan tonight. The youth are giving a program there.

Q. Do you think a statistician has a place in public policy decisions?

A. Yes, I do. I don't think statisticians are equipped by their education to lead these discussions, but they are equipped to equip people with information that will allow them to engage in these dialogues. So in that way, the statistician has an important part to play in these decisions.

"Nice guys finish fast."
-Byran Smucker