My Friend Wally Ruth

My friend Wally passed away yesterday morning at 7 am. He wrote an e-mail that was then sent after he died. Here it is, in its entirety:

Farewell, My Very Dear Programs!

I have gone the way of all the earth. I have been gathered to my people, perhaps not old, but full of years nonetheless.

I depart with one wish for you: shalom.

That word is often translated ‘peace,’ but my favorite definition is ‘fully satisfied and satisfied fully.’ Fully satisfied meaning the proverbial glass is full, every requirement is met, nothing is lacking. Satisfied fully meaning that no expense has been spared, the glass is not full of mud, but of the finest champagne; all the requirements were not just barely met, they were blown away. That is shalom, a rich and satisfying fullness.

What a blessing you are, oh Lord, my God! You who have provided far beyond my need; you who have loved me far beyond my ability to comprehend.

What a blessing you are, my precious family and friends! You who did not hesitate to do for me that which I was unable to do for myself; you who have been the love of God in my life.

I love you and miss you and, in every way possible, shall haunt you with my love.

Wally

Much love, Wally.

Ronald McHummer

I thought it was just me, so I had kept silent. But does anyone find it funny/suspicious/skullduggerlicious that McDonald’s, destroyer of countries, is promoting Hummer Happy Meals, burying deep into polluting subconsciouses (subconsciousi?)?

Here’s my take on it:

Create your own at ronaldmchummer.com.

An experiment in wireless and beastly images

So, we have wireless at church now. Yes, I am a geek, but I brought my laptop to work on church database stuff. Here’s an experiment: the sermon notes. Pretty interesting stuff, considering the news:

Personal God and the Middle East
Why prophecy? Partly for our own protection and security – to not be deceived
Making decisions for Christ when you realize there are sides to choose.
Sea – Might be Mediterranean – around that Babylon region for Daniel
Four consecutive Gentile empires
Daniel 7:1-28
1st beast – Lion with wings – Babylonian Empire – archaeologists uncovered winged lion statues and artwork – Nebuchadnezzar – Hanging Gardens – walled city where you could race chariots on the top
2nd beast – Medo-persian empire – pictured as a bear – raised on one side to show imbalance between medes and persians – unwieldy mobs of untrained soldiers – overwhelm through sheer numbers – 3 ribs – babylon, lydia, egypt – devoured
3rd beast – leopard Greece – Alexander conquered Greece – speed in conquering – 4 wings, 4 heads – leopards take on bigger beasts – outmaneuvered – 4 heads – alexander died and empire divided into 4 parts -
Daniel predicts 300 years before Greek empire
4th beast – Roman empire – trampled others – no known creature could represent it – different from others before it – 10 horns – 10 people groups? – or is it a prediction – 10 horns haven’t happened yet? – revived similarities to roman empire – 10 seats of power – nothing in history matched it yet – little horn rises up – antichrist still future -
dan 7 the little horn/ dan 11 the willful king/2 thess 2 son of destruction/man of lawlessness/ rev 13 the beast
the antithesis of christ – great boasts – people prefer a lie – horn rewriting laws/revisionist history
Revelation 13:1-19
10 horns show up again
beast – swiftness of greece – feet power of medo-persian – mouth of lion with Babylon’s majesty – reign 42 months – 3 1/2 years
a time to know who your God is
3 1/2 years – peace in middle east with Israel – walk into rebuilt Temple and call himself God – that’s the sign to get out
most americans (according to USA Today) 60% say Jesus will return – embedded in us
past parts of prophecy confirmed – pretty good chance future stuff will happen, too
Josephus records – Alexander marched on Tyre in Lebanon and marched through – High Priest in Jerusalem showed him the prophecies – he skipped Jerusalem and went to Egypt to destroy it

cyrus raised up – during that time resources given to rebuild jerusalem – God is sovereign – was alexander truly that smart to conquer the known world? dominion was given to the beast – Greek language prevalency helped spread the new testament

on earth as it is in heaven

Helm of Maybe-too-geeky-for-even-me + 3

I guess there’s a Dungeons and Dragons film festival. I don’t know what I think about that. And yet I have a plotline already going in my head.
Here’s the link. The prizes are pretty sweet.

Here’s a woot.com that Mike found:
Crazy Mike

With Malice Towards All is finally on YouTube. Watch it to your heart’s discontent. Maybe it could be as popular as this.

And for the nongeeks…cute photos!



I don’t know where she gets it.

____
Oh yeah. And Weird Al.

Mentos and Mutants

Our gaming group has found a vacation from the Galactic Empire for a little bit. You can find Mutants and Masterminds here. When we start playing that, you can expect a new look on ComicLife for the Mac. I’m excited. Don’t fret, though. We are still playing Star Wars. My Gand findsman says so. (Yeah, an Imperial sentinel took The Wanderer’s life last Friday. I mean, the thing has a 4 meter reach. That’s a big pike.) I’ll also be putting up some resources for RPG fans soon.

Today at school, one of the people from the district office took over my computer. I saw my mouse cursor moving around. I grabbed the mouse and we had a battle of wills, of sorts. (I’m actually friends with the person who I found out later had taken it over.) I was just trying to leave him a message in Microsoft Word.

And, why the Mentos?

Why not?

Here’re the videos.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3 

850739.9932

That’s how many calories, approximately, I would burn if I walked 500 miles. And then there’d be another 850739.9932 more. Just to be the man who burns 850739.9932 calories just to fall down at your door.

I walked 5.946 miles today. That’s 12560 steps. Yes, I have a pedometer. I didn’t even try to walk that much. It was back to school night. I was at school from 7 this morning until 20 minutes ago. Woo.

On the topic of Woo…
Devin and Morgan…Vegas? You better have someone take video, or I will send the barbarian horde to reek havoc on you. (If you think I meant ‘wreak’, you haven’t met these barbarians.)

Seriously, totally excited. Wake up each morning thinking of ways to serve each other and you will do well.

Dark Enforcer

I ended up watching the show with a group of people, so I didn’t write while watching.
Here’s a simulation:

“Oof. That dog plowed into her.”
“What? He was almost there!”
“9 minutes? Wow.”
“No! Not Cell Phone Girl!”
“Dude.”
That last part was when the villain was revealed. Pretty sweet. Lesson to be learned: Never trust TV sets talking to you in trashy values. (Just like my pappy used to say.)

NAU was featured on BBSpot (the satire site) today. If anything, we sure do have funny paleontology maps.

Adrian! Paulie! Punchy! (?)…..Rocky Balboa!

He’s not just another bum from the neighborhood, he’s a fighter. He’s comin’ outta retirement. And that’s just the writer, director, and star. Yes, Sylvester Stallone is doing all three. But, hey, Academy Award, right? (Don’t believe me? Look it up.)
Paulie is back as Mr. Crassman. Burt Young reprises and such. If you can’t get excited about the movie, maybe you can dance around your living room with your fists in the air to the theme song. Here’s your chance.
I saw Lady in the Water. Fantasticonimal. I thought that it would add even more to my terror of of open water. (I still want to see Open Water. Never gotten around to it, yet.) Actually, the lawn is scarier. Watch the movie. Understand.

Tonight I will write about “Who wants to be a superhero?”. I hear that Dave Barry does that while watching “24″. I want to be as cool as Dave Barry. (And that, my friends, is a sentence that has never been uttered in the English language before.)
While you wait, here’s a picture of the spam from my college e-mail. Now the real question: Which is cooler? A name like “Fajra Booze” or “Meeting your soul mate through hypnosis”.

Shop at Ultra Bath!

If you are out of state (like my Mantua, Denver, and Cedar Rapids readers), you can visit their site here. Well, I guess you could reach them at that site if you live in Arizona, as well.

My close friend Bruce runs the place and he helped me with a sink problem I was having.
I submit Exhibit A:

This was my old faucet. I think it was left out at sea. It has barnacles.

Now, there are a lot of things to tighten under a sink. Here’s what it looks like. We thought we had it all assembled just fine. Something that is more than a leak but less than a geyser came out. Very mildewy towels.

One week later, 12:07 am, it works. Many washers died bringing us these plans.

The fruits of labor are indeed sweet. Sweet like a bronze faucet with ceramic rotators that turn like butter. (I guess that would be ‘churn’, but these things are smooth. Like butter.) We actually have the option of hot AND cold water now. We’re movin’ on up…

Now onto the shower. It has a giant crack in it. In 1985 I guess people didn’t need to put support underneath fiberglass showers. Six months into living in the house, we realized that a bad patch job had been done over the crack. Our flooded living room told us. Flash forward a couple of years to our solution.
In the following picture, you will see a drill, attic insulation foam underneath a shower, and a madman.

Once again, thank you Bruce! Shop at Ultra Bath!

Bruce: I put the washer plug in the pipe, put the round side of the ball in (moving on the bigger part of the washer), put the tightener on top of the ball, and fastened it all. Stopped to no stopped sink, the water flows in the pipes and not on my face.