Trust Me, It's Not a Doctored Photo

There we were, the sun was going down. The cool wind blowing in from Wyoming.

Then, from above the crest of the hill, we heard them. We heard 40+ of them. Coming our way.

The little ones at first.

Then the Mothers.

Then the Teenagers.

Then the Fathers.

Then the King, the Master of the Herd, the Behemoth of the Buffalo.

Standing over 8 feet tall. He was the last to come over the crest, as if to say to HIS herd, "I am king, move that car out of the way so I don't have to walk around."

Of course, the high quality camera I had was not enough of a picture to capture all of him, just his eyes in the dark.

He was huge, and was just calmly watching over his 'Family'. Where was the Crocodile Hunter when you needed him? I don't think there is a Buffalo Hunter, at least not living. I wouldn't think about looking oddly at one of the 50 lb babies.

Hmm...they are beautiful, and they say there are 3-4 herds in this area. That's a lot of 'Buffalo Piles'.

Then, after winning the staring contest, he meandered across the dirt road as if to say, "Now that my family is across the street, you may pass. Don't tell anyone what you saw here tonight."

Military Travel

We can all relate to Calvin.

This is how the airlines make you feel sometime. I believe that the Department of Defense (DoD) has a deal with the airlines. The more connections and longer delays, the cheaper the flight. We had four connections coming, and leaving- two days late.

Hmm...sounds like the $200 toilet seats from the 1980s. Someone's hand is getting greased in this deal. And it's not me.

We feel like Calvin on the ground and the Airlines are Hobbes. You are at the whim of them. Pay homage to us, or we will bump you and lose your luggage. Well, you have already done both, so they need to come up with something else to torment us with.

They have, hand over your dime-sized chap-stick. You might be MacGyver and do something with it on the plane.

We were supposed to leave on Friday, now it's Sunday. It's not looking good:

1. The first flight leaving this AM was two hours late leaving.
2. Hortense (made up name of the ticket agent) said my bag was overweight. I saw the scale, 53 lbs. Apparently 50 lbs is max. She wasn't budging. Well, add an 'l' to the word and her shirt and belt were but that's another story.
3. Even when I asked for some slack since UNITED AIRLINES lost my luggage coming here for three days. Nope, Nada, Nyet, Zilch, Zero. She gave me a bag to empty some stuff out. How nice of her!
4. UNITED AIRLINES had that big glitch this past Thursday where 250,000 people were stranded/backed up due to a computer glitch. Hmm...
5. The bumping has now begun. There are seven of us flying back. Two were bumped to tomorrow. No explanation, just a hotel voucher and $20 in meal vouchers.
6. We overheard the next UNITED flight announced that it was overbooked and looking for volunteers. Hmm...
7. When I asked Hortense (again, not her real name) about our flight, she replied "The computers say it's on time". The same computer that ran a smooth operation this past Thursday for United. Hmm...

Why get upset. It's your tax dollars at work (mine, too). I'm sitting here getting paid by the DoD because the Airlines can't get their act together.

I will probably never see that little bag with my uniforms and boots again. I think I see Rudy (Not his real name) trying on my boots.

Maybe I can catch a flight on Aeroflot...

Flexibility

It was 89 degrees when I left home, and up in the Black Hills of South Dakota/Wyoming it was 33 degrees, snowing, and 50-60 MPH gusts. When I called back home, it was 91 with miserable humidity.



Which is worse? My motto has always been to be hot rather than cold. I think that changed when I went to Iraq, when the thermostat hit 138 degrees. I would rather have been cold!



It is a nice respite from the heat and humidity. As long as we have our 'snivel gear'- clothing items for wimps who can't handle the cold weather- we are doing just fine.



Anyone up for a snowball fight?

The Army and the Boy Scouts

My Chief Warrant Officer and I (and about 5 other guys) are doing some training with our reserve unit. He is a 20 year veteran and has been around the block. He is an aviator, dustoff pilot, been to Iraq, Kuwait ('91), and other places. He knows his stuff. After some typical Hurry Up and Wait things with our higher headquarters, he turns around to me and says:

"Sir, do you know what the difference between the Boy Scouts and the U.S. Army is?"

"No I don't Chief, what is it?"

" We have artillery, they don't."

After realizing he was absolutly right, and 10 minutes of humorous reflection, I though about that. I had to correct him, though.

I said, "Chief, considering some other items today, there is no difference. You know those MRE heaters that when you add water to them, they heat up? Well, as you know, if you mix the powder into a 2 liter bottle and twist on the cap, it will explode. Well, both of my sons love to do that and what them blow up. Therefore, one could consider that similar to an artillery piece. The only item they are missing is the launch vehicle!"

He replied, "That's scary. Our local troop would probably do a much better job than some of the units we dealing with here."

Hmm...some points to ponder about our national security.

Of course our unit is not one of them. We have our 'Stuff' together. All of us have been to Iraq (some multiple times) and know how to get stuff done. This is our unit's 'Crest' from their time in Iraq. I was there the same time, but doing a Civil Affairs mission. I think it's pretty cool.

Purposeful Denominational Ignorance

Caveat, I do understand the times we live in. We need to be discerning and harsh when it comes to apostate preaching in our churches. We need to test the spirits.

http://www.christianresearchnetwork.com/, where Ken Silva is Editor, for the most part helps many of us to be aware of the apostasy that is attempting to creep into the Christian Church. However, it seems many times recently he enjoys tearing down brothers in Christ with snippy, smarmy, and flippant comments. Many times, it is quite ignorant and the 'research' in 'christianresearchnetwork.com' is quite often skewed to fit his 'agenda'

His recent article mentions Al Mohler's recent article about a recent event in the Methodist Church, then goes on to make points about Al Mohler's comments about the UMC problems, and accuses him of not making the same comments about the SBC.

As an SBC pastor, Mr. Silva is quick to personally attack people and leaders.

My theory is that Ken Silva may be ordained as an SBC pastor, but he does not demonstrate a very good understanding of how the local Baptist church relates to the SBC as a whole. Any SBC person, especially a pastor, knows how the SBC works and is set up and how the Seminaries are set up. Those churches who desire to ordain women pastors, endorse homosexuality, question the authenticity of scripture, etc, unfortunately might choose to affiliate with the SBC, but in reality that is why the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship was founded almost 20 years ago. There is a reason those apostate churches choose to dually affiliate with the CBF and the SBC. They want the SBC name and resources (and the numbers generated by those older members who want the SBC affiliation and would leave if there were a complete break), yet want the liberal, ungodly theology of the CBF. There are many churches like this. They are the churches of Laodicea.

He spreads disinformation and inflammatory rhetoric to those who are not SBC. He bears false witness toward others outside the SBC denomination. Those outsiders do not understand the workings of the SBC. It is foreign to them. The SBC does not own churches nor employ pastors, like the UMC, PCA, ELCA, and most other Protestant denominations. Each church is autonomous and is freely to affiliate with any organization. Of course, he will deny this.

However, it is obvious he enjoys looking for fights. In fact, I personally know of a church in our own association that chose to be dually aligned with the CBF and the SBC, and our association has told the pastor he can no longer serve on the committees or in postions of leadership as long as his church is affiliated with the CBF. So, to say that no one in the SBC is acting on these kinds of things is not true. These things are typically handled by the local association, not necessarily addressed by the larger Convention.

Unfortunately Ken Silva's message of discernment (which is great ministry tool) gets lost in his rhetoric and personal attacks. He misses the target and loses his effectiveness when he attacks those who are fighting the battle for us and consistently speaking about things that are wrong in evangelicalism today.

Those who claim to be a 'Baptist', which may include over 25 separate entities of 'Baptist'. Of course, one could argue whether some Baptists are truly Christians (we can chase that rabbit in sooooo many directions). Let's redo this map and narrow the search and use the non-negotiables of the faith and then see the distribution of all so-called believers.

I would speculate that not only would the distribution change, but the actual numbers would too. That is what Jesus weeps over when He looks down on this world.

Many will claim the title 'Christian', yet in the Final Judgement, He will say to many:

'I never knew you, depart from me you doer of iniquity'

(Matthew 7:23)

The New Baptist Covenant

The New Baptist Covenant is an interesting idea. A couple of points to get this one started:

They reaffirmed their commitment to traditional Baptist values, including sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and its implications for public and private morality (1).

They specifically committed themselves to their obligation as Christians to promote peace with justice, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick and the marginalized, welcome the strangers among us, and promote religious liberty and respect for religious diversity (2).

(1): Former president, Bill "Is-Is" Clinton, supports this organization. His church, in Arkansas, is aligned with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. I guess these 'commitments' are 'flexible', as is CBF theology (Public and private morality) Hmm...

(2): Since former president Jimmy Carter believes that Mormons are going to Heaven, I guess it is not that important to place the Great Commission in as one of the specific commitments.

Since Jimmy "Many Paths" Carter doesn't require accepting Jesus Christ as Savior, I guess Evangelism doesn't need to be on the 'A' list.

Fortunately SBC President had this to say about this organization:

Southern Baptist Convention president Frank Page released a statement reproving former President Jimmy Carter's New Baptist initiative, saying, "I will not be a part of any smokescreen leftwing liberal agenda that seeks to deny the greatest need in our world, that being that the lost be shown the way to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord."

(1) We see which leader/organization has the TRUE needs of the lost world at heart.

This Generic Brand is a No-Go

There are some things in this life that we can 'Go Generic'. Below is a list of some items that are perfectly fine:

1. Claritin (allergy medication) = Wallitin, the Wallgreen's generic
2. Mountain Dew = Mountain Hollow (Dollar General generic)
3. Frosted Flakes = Crispy Flakes (Food Lion generic)
4. Tylenol/Excedrin/etc pain relievers = Wallbuprophin, Walcedrin, Walenol, etc
(can you tell I frequent Walgreens, Dollar General and Food Lion?)

HOWEVER

There is one thing that I won't scrimp on. That is world Famous

Thomas's English Muffin

This little baby cannot be duplicated. Our hospital's cafeteria recently went from the Original to a generic 'Mediocre Muffin', probably Harry's Hoboken Muffin. I have nothing against Hoboken (New Jersey, the Garden State. That's another story), in fact, I grew up with a friend who was from Hoboken. Nice guy.

However, there are significant differences between the two. The generic fails to have all the precious nooks and crannies that Thomas puts in his English Muffin. It is so sad to not have the ability to fill each little crevice with melted butter. Hmm.

But now I can only blog and complain about it as my Hoboken Muffin's butter just drips off the side because those little nooks and crannies are gone. Poof!

Of course it's George Bush's fault that our cafeteria manager decided to go generic. I knew I could blame someone for it, and since he is the cause of everything evil, I figure I could add to the list this item. It is apparent that the President hates the English, nooks and crannies and loves Hoboken more.

If you put all the dots together, it is obvious to see that it is all a conspiracy. It is all about the 2000 election and Wisconsin. After all it is the Diary State. Butter is a dairy product. He is exacting retribution on this state by eliminating the nooks and crannies thereby reducing the demand for butter. This will result in chaos in Wisconsin and the dairy community. It will spread to Illinois, which also is a Blue State and cause wide-spread panic in the Chicago Commodities Market which will have a domino effect crossing the ocean to the White Cliffs of Dover (That's England).

When will this madness stop? Rise up people and let your voice be heard. The English have stood behind us through thick and thin. We must support them in these difficult times.

To quote Winston Churchill: "We will never, never, never never give up (our English Muffins)"

I added the last few words for emphasis and to make my point.