a little catching up

A busy week – our summer has been full of events, work, blessings, and challenges.

Some of the challenges came in the last two weeks.

  • An e-mail notice from a church member saying, essentially, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’ Sigh. Of course, we’ll try to call.
  • A discovery of a failed septic system at our house. Ouch. $11K later… my son calls our yard “Johnson Ground Zero”
  • A rock heaved through my truck’s back window, damaging front windshield and dashboard as well. At least I have insurance! So now I have a slider vent window in the back for ‘only’ $200 – the deductible.

But blessings too!

  • My sweet daughter returns from her summer in Mexico with the BJU mission team. Many stories. Much enthusiasm for Christian service. And of course, just having her home! What a blessing.
  • A young couple visited again last Sunday. Third time in the last six weeks. Encouraging. Hopeful. The future of the local church is built through the commitment of couples like this.
  • Regular meetings with one of our young men. A help to his spiritual life, I think. He will be filling one of our preaching slots Sunday, along with my son. I’ll be away preaching for a friend.
  • And speaking of septics… We have a 65 suite condo going up next to the church building. They have been driving HUMONGOUS trucks all over our septic field. We finally had enough of that and will get hooked up to the city sewer … for free! Yay! Now we can expand our parking lot over the old field.

And something I found a little funny today, in the politics way:

I am thinking next month will slow down, but that might be wishful thinking. I still have a lawn to put in (and a window sitting in my basement to install) and the ongoing work of the ministry. There’s never a dull moment around here.

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heard everything?

One of my Canadian news aggregator sites led me to this story:

European Court agrees to hear chimp’s plea for human rights

I am not sure what is more bizarre… the fact that someone is actually attempting to make a case like this or the fact that the European Court of Human Rights has agreed to take the case.

The case involves a chimp in an animal sanctuary facing bankruptcy. A young woman wants to become his legal guardian to care for him if the sanctuary is forced to shut down. In order to be a ‘guardian’, the chimp has to be a person, hence this case.

Some of this young woman’s rationale:

[Read more…]

what big teeth you have

A couple of fellows from our local area found this monster from the deep blue sea washing itself up on the beach.

image

It’s a Pacific longnose lancetfish, usually inhabiting a depth of 1.8 km, one of God’s wonderful creations.

Read the whole story here.

Just thought that was kind of cool…

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the ant and the grasshopper – maple leaf version

A parable for my American friends…

The ant & the grasshopper … Classic Version!

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

The End

The Maple Leaf Version (i.e., The Canadian Version) [with appropriate footnotes to explain things for my non-Canadian friends, eh?]

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. So far, so good, eh?

[Read more…]

any day with books is a good day

Any day with FREE books is an even better day!

Our local newspaper holds an annual book sale with books donated by the citizens of our fair city. They do it for some charity or other. The day after the sale, they have local non-profit organizations in to pick through the leftovers for free!

This was the first year I have had the time to go by and check the leftovers. I found myself standing in a line of 100 or so others at 9am. I saw one fellow with one of those rolling trash bins, apparently to take his haul home with him. Others arrived with many boxes. A whole team of scavengers was just ahead of me with five people and boxes.

Inside, there were literally thousands of books left. I can’t imagine what they will do with all of them, I am sure the non-profits couldn’t carry them all away. I ended up with 13 books – I am picky, and our city doesn’t tend to give away books that are of real interest to someone as conservative as me.

Nevertheless, here is my list of treasures…

[Read more…]

I know it’s true, I saw it on TV

A science script consultant tells all in “My life as an advisor to  TV and film“…

In general, I’ve found that producers of comedy have less interest in adhering to the facts than those involved in dramas.

but…

Even on the dramas, however, a cherished scientific truth will sometimes have to be discarded in order to enable an essential story development, such as a normally three-week-long forensic DNA analysis that’s fictionally done in one hour for the sake of plot pacing. In truth, few will ever notice these gaffs. As one TV producer told me, the number of Ph.D. scientists watching his show accounts for no more than 0.00001% of the Nielsen rating audience.

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a little something for Ryan Martin, et al

Free Bach!

Read all about it here.

Downloads are here.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

on the last hurrah of the holidays

I am not sure what normal is, but I hope that we will soon be back to it. The holidays are draining on an old guy…

We always try to make Christmas last the whole month of December and with kids away at school it seems easy to keep that holiday spirit while they are home. Monday they leave, but sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

My parents headed home to Alberta on Friday while the kids and I headed north to the Island’s only ski hill. We had a great day with my brother and his family, even though the snow was falling in blizzard like conditions up on the mountain. (Down below, where my brother lives, it was pouring rain – welcome to the Island!)

Our ski hill never has to make any snow, they just get tons of it because of their altitude and the fact that we are in a rain forest down here where the people live. On the mountain, it is just snow and more snow.

While we were there, I am sure we got at least six inches of snow, maybe more. It was really coming down. Just checking their website, I see that they have had another 50 cm since [that’s 19 inches in RealSpeak – they’ve had more than 3 feet in the last three days]. The weather made it a bit unpleasant for the skiing, especially the wind, but still… skiing is great anytime. And for me, anytime is now just twice in the last 27 years. Alas, time and money are always constraints. And now I am feeling that an aging body is becoming another constraint. I did ski. I didn’t fall down once! (I fell down four times…)

The trip was the first time skiing for my younger four. And the result? They want to go back. I guess they are hooked.

It is too bad we don’t live in snow country. My brother and I grew up skiing every weekend through the winter. We were skiing all day every Saturday, every Sunday afternoon after church [until time for evening church] and often on Fridays after school as well. Those were the days. Now when I ski, something funny happens in my legs and my upper thighs catch fire. I don’t ever remember that happening before?? If anyone can enlighten me…

Well it was a great way to finish off our holidays. Now it is back to reality. Work, life, death, taxes… all of those things are happening for us soon.

Brethren, let us pray for one another in the coming year!

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

on a brutal start to round two

Man, I have a brutal record on the first two days of round two… just 1.2 points (I was negative the first day). The Canucks win tonight, which will help a lot, but only two goals — not many points there. I have dropped to position 9851 in the HNIC game …

on hockey

The regular season of the NHL has commenced. With my new method of writing my messages first in the week, I had a little time tonight to watch a bit of Hockey Night in Canada.

Now hockey is pretty much a religion in our country, in every sense of the word. Christians need to be on guard against the religious aspects of sport. But I do enjoy hockey – there is no sport quite like it.

I caught a bit of the end of the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Canadiens won on a shootout, an innovation I could do without. The part of the game I watched was a bit slow, but it was hockey so I watched. Then my Oilers came on against the hated Calgary Flames. Edmonton beat Calgary in the opener two nights ago. This game had a lot of jump — a number of factors, the nature of the two teams compared to the rebuilding Habs and Leafs, the style of play in the West, etc. Lots of speed and action, but not much scoring. The Oilers got on the board first with a power play, but then Calgary tied it near the end of the first and went ahead at the end of the second.

Then I quit watching. It wasn’t the game, it was quite appealing. But it just isn’t that important. I don’t need to live and die with every shot. There will be other games and other days and it just doesn’t matter who wins. (Although I do like it when the Oilers win.)

Earlier, I mentioned that the Christian must be on guard against the religious aspects of sport. How do we do that? By limiting our intake. By eschewing the tokens of the hockey gods (emblems, logos, key fobs, mugs, what have you)… or those of the football, baseball, basketball gods …

Is it a sin to wear a cap with a logo on it? No. But is there something wrong with our hearts if we must have all kinds of memorabilia and become a walking billboard for ‘my team’? Quite probably.

The way to deal with this is to put the body under, keep it under control. Turn your attention elsewhere, especially to Christ. Become enamoured with him, as a man and as God, and not just another idol. Give your time and attention to him. Labour for him. Spend your spare time on him. Serve him. Serve in his kingdom.

And if you relax and watch a period or two of hockey or an inning of baseball (or even a whole game now and then), you have not sinned. But keep your body under. Keep it in control.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

PS: I did check to see how it all came out — the Flames won 2-1, no more scoring in the third. So I saw all there was to see as it turned out!