I got a phone call late Saturday afternoon - apparently Dave, who was scheduled to lead music at church Sunday,  had a family emergency of some sort.  (Don’t know any more than that, will have to keep them in prayer.)  So, as a last-minute thing, I led music at both services Sunday morning.

It went well, actually; I showed up about an hour early for the first service, planned some music, set up the slides for the overhead, and wrote out a new order of service to make sure everyone was on the same page.  It was good to get up there and bang on the ivories again.

The good people of Noelridge will get a two-in-a-row from Chris now; I’m already scheduled to lead this upcoming Sunday.  I think I’ll plan it a little further in advance this time. 

I just filled out the entry forms for two 5K races in upcoming months: the Marion Arts Festival 5K (May 19) and the Hog Wild Days Squeal’n'Run 5K (June 16). The latter, happily, starts and ends at Gutheridge Park, only 4 blocks or so from my house. While I don’t expect to be competitive in either of the races, they provide some good motivation for me to keep training. I’ve been getting lazy these last few weeks. Can’t let that continue!

Geof pointed this out and it sounds like a lot of fun. Flickr, the fantastic photo-sharing website, is sponsoring a “24 hours of Flickr” event for May 5th. I think it’d be a good opportunity to give the new camera some more use and just take a bunch of pictures. Sounds like Rae and Jeff are going to jump in, too - it’ll be fun to compare days!

• Four Questions: Steve Sensenig on Worship and Music
  good stuff on music and the church
  (tags: music church)

I’m sitting on my PC waiting for the Microsoft Visual C++ .NET development suite to install. And on one of the little information boxes that it brings up while I’m waiting, it highlights one of the benefits of MSVC++.NET:

A “mature and intelligent” developer community? Intelligent, perhaps, but when I think about most of the coders I know, mature?!? To quote Groucho Marx, “I’d never join a club that would have someone like me for a member.”

The picture here is the only one I could find online that illustrated the tshirt I was thinking of for that quote. Fun, huh?
It’s been pretty quiet here on the ol’ blog lately. (I know, it’s a blog cliche - when you haven’t written for a while, you break the silence by writing about the fact that you haven’t written for a while… so sue me.) If you ignore the picture posts and all the linky stuff, I haven’t written anything substantive in a while. Sorry.

It’s not that I haven’t been thinking or wanting to write, but a bunch of issues here locally have been taking up my mental energy, and they’re not things I can write about here.

I’m supposed to write a short piece for the church newsletter by tomorrow; if I get it done and it’s not totally awful I’ll post it here - maybe it’ll be worthwhile.

If you want something more interesting to read, go visit one of the blogs I have linked on my sidebar. You’ll find some good stuff there. I read ‘em all, too.

No, this place isn’t turning into a photoblog. But when you have a new toy…

The new camera is here, and it’s fantastic. Here are a few samples. You can tell who my favorite subjects are. You can click on the pictures to see a bigger version.

A month ago today I resolved I was going to put down my endless string of library books and spend a month just reading the Bible. Today is the end of that month.

April 20 I started reading in Genesis 1 and decided I’d just read through, getting a feel for the breadth of the story. A month later I’m through the book of Ezra, maybe a third of the way through the whole Book if you just look at how many pages I’ve covered. It’s been good reading and good reminder.

There have been some times I’ve really missed having some other good book to read - most notably the hours I was on an airplane traveling to Salt Lake City and back, and occasionally in the evenings when something less-than-memorable is on TV and I’m in the habit of reading while the TV’s on.

I think it was a worthwhile exercise, though. It made me more convinced that I need to focus on reading quality books, things that will be worth my time, and avoid just rushing through a long string of mediocre titles just to max out my reading list. (I know there’s no way my list will be as long as Kari’s - no sense in going crazy trying.)

I’m going to be done with work a little big early today. I’m going to suggest to Becky that we make an “overdue” stop at the library.

• All the Little Reasons That Matter Too Much: Thoughts on Christian Unity
  iMonk hits another home run.
  (tags: religion unity)