Musings, Ramblings and Other Assorted Rubbish

Just about anything that I can think of...

A True Competive Grant

Well it has been quite some time since my last post, and between the demands of a new job and 3 nights a week at a police academy, I have been sorely missing the simple joy of writing blog posts.  I am happy to announce that I have completed my academy and am not-so-patiently waiting to get the required permission to take the peace officer's state certification test.
However that in not the thrust of this post, I recently found out that the Great State of Texas (Said as should be with the hand held over the heart) held a grant opportunity that was not advertised very well: The Feral Hog Abatement Grant Program.  The thought behind the initiative was to give Texas counties money to help control the wild hog problem, but with only 40 counties out of 254 participating I don't see how this helps. It seems they may need some help with getting the word out... This program is set to give the highest scoring county $20,000; the second highest will be $15,000; the third highest will be $10,000; and the fourth & fifth highest will be $7,500 each. Please contact the The Texas Department of Agriculture and request this program be continued for another year. Why are hogs so reviled in rural areas? Read on.
Wild hogs, wild boars, razorbacks, pineywoods rooters, or woods hogs, what ever you want to call them according to the link above there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.6 million feral hogs in Texas causing some $500 million in damages to a host of items such as property or livestock and given the rate of reproduction I am sure these figures are outdated. 
The rate of reproduction is simply amazing, a herd of wild hogs can double every 4 months. These hogs are usually weaned within 2-3 months of birth and sow (female hog) can start breading when she is 6 to 10 months old. At that age she can produce two litters containing 4-8 piglets every 12-15 months. The older sows can produce 10 -13 piglets every litter twice every 12-15 months and both young or old sows have a male-female ratio of roughly 1:1 in every litter. That's a lot of hogs!
What about natural predators, you may ask.  Can you think of natural animal in Texas that would stand up to something as tall as 3 feet and will weigh in at around 100 to 130 pounds with 44 sharp teeth including tusks?  Me either. Because many ancestors of these hogs were released for game hunting in the 1930's they lack natural predators to help with population control.   So it is up to us to control the population. Fortunately, the state legislature has made it OK to hunt these vermin year round with out the need for a **hunting license. So do your part, if you see a herd of swine, shoot'em trap'em or what ever just help control'em. It appears that this problem is only going to get worse unless we do something drastic. 
Finally, here is a very useful PDF that explains all this way better then I can.. http://icwdm.org/publications/pdf/feral%20pig/txferalhogs.pdf
 
 
** If they are on your property and are doing damage.
 
 

Launching Links With Google Chrome In Incognito Mode

The other night I was fiddling around with Google Chrome. It occured to me that it would be a great thing to be able to click a link on a web page or from Twitter and it not show up in my history...

No not because of that!

Anyway, the only help I could find on the subject was for Ubuntu and since I run Winders XP, it was less then helpful.  So with out futrther ado..

Goto My Computer -> Tools -> File Types and find and hight "URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol"

Click Advanced

Blog1
In the new window click on Edit

Blog2
"In Application used to preform action" (Path where Chrome is stored) add everything after the "--" (including the dash dash)

"C:\Documents and Settings\[Username]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --incognito "%1"

Then fore good measure type --incognito "%1" in DDE Message blank. Click on OK untill you are back a My Computer and you are done! 

The next time you click on a link it should open in Incognito Mode. Enjoy.

My People

2 Chronicles 7:14. 

This is one of my favorite verses from the Old Testament.  It describes not only the way to Salvation but also the way to bring our country back from the current road it’s on.

 

It reads: 
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 

 

We are, despite what some of our leaders think, still a Christian nation.  We were founded on the principles and teachings of God and will continue to be as long as there are folks here that will do as today’s scripture says. 

 

There are 4 things that we must do before God will listen to mankind.  We are promised that He will hear our pleas and heal our land if we become humble, pray, seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways.  But what do these things mean? Humility is weakness right? Isn’t prayer and seeking His face the same thing? How can we turn from our wicked ways when we are surrounded by wickedness?

 

The scripture says to humble themselves: This is not an invitation to be weak or timid. It is a frame of mind, recognizing that God is in control of every thing and that without the power and love of Christ we could do nothing. Being humble is the first step to forgiveness because unless we realize that we need help, we would never do the rest of what the passage says and we would never submit to the authority of Christ.

 

Next it says Pray: Prayer is our most powerful weapon against the evils of this world.  It is the act of talking with God to seek his desires for your life.  It is also where we can gain the strength to finish the tasks that He has laid out for our lives. And get a measure of comfort for the hurts we must endure. Without prayer I dare say most of us would not be here today. I know in my own life, there have been many people faithfully lifting my name up to God.

 

Then is says to Seek His Face: This is prayer and study of the bible in action. We are to study the word of God, talk about what it means in our lives and apply it the best way we can. I have seen several people read the same scripture and get different things out of it. That doesn’t mean that one was right and the others were wrong, it just means that each of those people were at a different place in their life and were looking at it differently.  For example, I think of today’s scripture when the tanks are getting low and the grass in the pasture is dying and we pray for rain, or like I said at the beginning today about our leaders.  Both fit, our land needs to be healed but in very different ways.  However, the remedy is the same, by seeking God we can make a difference in the world around us. It is crucial to seek God if you want to have a personal relationship with Him.

  

Finally the scripture says to Turn from their wicked ways: This is what the term repent means, to literally turn away from sin and change the direction of our life. Yes, we are surrounded by wickedness, and it may seem that turning one way is no different then turning another, but God offers us a way to live our life that is pleasing to Him.

 

Romans 10:9-10 says that if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised Him for the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made to salvation.  

 

This is repentance.  This is how you can turn away from wickedness when you are surrounded by it. We can not look to worldly solutions for spiritual problems.  God has a plan for us.  He wants to be a part of our lives and most of all He wants to restore that relationship He had with mankind that was lost in Eden when sin entered the world.

 

Texas DPS's Odd Office Hours Makes Me A Criminal

Here is an email I sent to the DPS Customer Service Center today.  

I have been trying for 3 months to renew my driver's license. The closest office to me (some 20 miles away)has had a sign on the door for the past 2 months saying it will be closed until further notice due to computer problems.  Every place else (more then an hour away) only processes renewals in the morning hours.  As shocking as this may seem, most people in this area have jobs and are unable to meet these unreasonable office hours.  Is there anything that can be done? I have tried to renew online and was told I am ineligible. Your customer service center will not take my call "due to high call volume".. Does the DPS enjoy making criminals out of Texas citizens that would other wise like to comply with state law? 

I do not like being a criminal solely because I have a job that does not allow for 2 hour round trips that would have to start at 8:00am. Couple that with most offices being open only one day a week and you are inviting a long que of disgruntled customers.  

We are forced by law to have a "valid" driver's license, but it seems the state has in every way contrived to make it as difficult as possible to get these renewals. We have the Technology to make it a painless event.  Why not use it to do so?  It seems asinine to me to only allow one online renewal, but what can we do? Call your Representatives and ask them to make this a priority maybe something can change. Here is a page listing your Texas House of Representatives call em and see the lethargic response.  Otherwise, on a birthday coming soon you too will be a criminal.

Word Search For Freestone Co. Academy

While studying this weekend for my TX Penal Code test, I thought I would create a word search or 2 for all the spelling words that we have. They are broken up into ~20 word puzzles and fit on one page.  Please feel free to download and use these as you wish.  

BTW, if you want to create your own puzzles you can find the page here: http://www.armoredpenguin.com/wordsearch/ Have fun!
 

Click here to download:
FCSO Word Search Puzzle1.pdf (34 KB)
(download)

Click here to download:
FCSO Word Search Puzzle2.pdf (34 KB)
(download)

Click here to download:
FCSO Word Search Puzzle3.pdf (34 KB)
(download)

Click here to download:
FCSO Word Search Puzzle4.pdf (34 KB)
(download)

Click here to download:
FCSO Word Search Puzzle5.pdf (34 KB)
(download)

Click here to download:
FCSO Word Search Puzzle6.pdf (34 KB)
(download)

Techie Type Post

I haven't had a techie post in a while, so I thought I would let you know what I have been piddling with at the office.  I suddenly became in desperate need of a way to rotate pictures on our website and didn't have a clue how to make that happen.  After many hours of scouring the web I ran across this page by Matt Mullenweg: 

http://photomatt.net/scripts/randomimage 

Basically, you create a .PHP file and drop it in a (web accessible) folder then put a link to the .PHP file where you want the pictures to show up. SCORE! No typing in the names of each picture! This was hugely important to me, as I truly hate having to go line by line typing in a picture list. The only down side was that it would only show one picture.. Yes it was random and yes  it saved a lot if time but you know me, it did not rotate them out with out reloading the page and I wanted MORE. So after a little time well spent banging my head against the monitors on my desk I figured out that I could combine this imminently awesome PHP file with of all things, a HTML file with the link inside as a source for an iFrame. Uhmm.. here let me Try this again..

Things you need:
The code from the link above.
An empty HTML file
A page to encapsulate every thing in.

Copy the code on Matt's page into a text file, name it rotator.php and save it to a folder that has a bunch of pictures in it.  For this example I will use the directory "pictures" and is accessible from my website with this address <sitename>\pictures.  Next create a HTML file in the root of your website folder and name it picrotate.html. 

In the head section type this line:
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5;url=/picrotate.htm">

In body of the HTML file save this line:
<img src="/pictures/rotator.php">

Now in the page that you want the picture to be seen on use an iframe like this:

<iframe src="/picrotate.htm" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">
</iframe>

After you save this file you should have rotator.php called from picrotate.htm which is called from the page where you want to see the picture.  The meta tag will cause picrotate.htm to be redirected to itself every 5 seconds causing rotator.php to be reloaded and will display a new random picture from the folder. It is beyond the scope of this post to get into page formating, but I will say this: div tags are the best thing to happen to websites in a long time!

This may seem convoluted, but it does work. If you want to see it in use, go to my video board page here http://www.calvertisd.com/index.php?page=tv-out This is shown on a 42" flat screen TV in one of our hallways.  Enjoy!

NOTE: If you are doing this on a more public page, I would suggest that you increase the meta refresh value to at least 15 or 20 seconds. and use a program to reduce the over-all size of your pictures. Most cameras today take pictures that are in the 5-10MB (very large) range and is way too big to be useful on a website. I recommend Gimp and the ever useful DBP (David's Batch Processor) plugin, both are free. 

My Rather Simplistic Thoughts On Rolling Black Outs

I the wake of the recent "rolling black outs" here in Texas it occurs to me that there is another simple way to avoid them and maybe increase our employment numbers to boot. 

We start by encouraging the electric companies to build more sub-stations and power plants with incentives for them to do so, i.e. tax incentives for the length of say 10 or 20 years and relaxing some of the more idiotic EPA rules so that the construction could begin post-hast.  This would in turn put people to work causing an economic boost to communities across the state.   What would this get us?

1. More power to service the people of Texas. 
2. Make our state more energy independent. (Another cost savings)
3. Increase Employment - more money in the hands of consumers
4. Increase economic stability of surrounding businesses -because of above.

Not bad for a couples of sentences huh? Best of all, the only governmental involvement is the temporary abeyance of tax collection. I know this is a little simplistic maybe, but I think it will work don't you?

The "Evils" of Drinking.. Explained

This past weekend I was taken to task for a picture I posted to my FB page.  This one in fact:

Meal

As you can see it contains not only a bottle of wine but -Gasp!- a glass full of the stuff.. E-gads what was I thinking?? Me, a preacher of the Gospel of Christ drinking -in my own home.. with a meal- Hmmm.. 

Now this will probably raise all kinds of Doctrinal debate especially because my particular faith if based on the Baptist Doctrine, but let me be clear, as our umm esteemed POTUS would say, there is not a scripture in the entire bible that says THOU SHALT NOT DRINK. No you ask, what does the bible really say then? Keep reading, we'll get to that.  

Paul said that he became all things to all men that they may come to the knowledge of Christ. If one comes to a friend sneering at the drink in his hand and with a "holier then thou" attitude what do you think will happen? Now imaging going to that friend in the love of Christ sharing with him the Good News of Eternal Salvation, while politely refusing an offered drink till your work is done. Do you think there will be a different outcome? Yes, telling people about God is like a job and I don't know about you, but I don't think it is a good idea to be drinking while your working. A reference listed below talks about the priest may not drink when he enters the inner court. 

The thing to remember is that above all, we strive to be Christ-like. We are ambassadors of Christ and as such should comport ourselves in an upright and dignified manor at all times. Drunkenness does NOT help you remain upright or dignified so if you can not control yourself, literally for God's sake, stay away from the hooch! We have enough idiots running around trying to give God a bad name and don't need your help in the matter. 

Old Testament
Proverbs 20:1
Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.

Proverbs 31:6
Give strong drink to him who is perishing, And wine to him whose life is bitter.

Ecclesiastes 9:7
Go, eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, because God has already approved your works.

Ezekiel 44:21
No priest may drink wine when he enters the inner court.

NEW Testament
1 Corinthians 5:11 
But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who calls himself a Christian who is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or verbally abusive, or a drunkard, or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person.

Titus 1:7
Since an overseer is entrusted with God’s work, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain.

Ephesians 5:18
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

My reading and study of this subject has told me that the consumption of alcohol in excess makes you a fool, and unworthy of honor. This has been and is borne out almost daily in the bars and parties across this country.  This is where God has an issue with drinking. However, drinking in moderation with family or friends after your work is done seems to be ohkey dohkey with God.. 

Its at this point that I must make something absolutely clear: If your drinking, or for that matter eating, causes a brother to stumble the onus is on you bud.  What does this mean to me? If I, in my idiocy, offer a recovering alcoholic a drink, causing him to return to a life of indulgence that would be a sin. So be careful and most of all be honest with yourself, if you can't handle what the bible tells you about drinking, i.e. don't get drunk 'cause it makes you stupid, then don't do it.  

May God continue to love ya! 

NOTE: For the curious the wine in the picture is a sweet red made in Texas, the food in the bowl is Chili Con Carne that I whipped up. and yes, that is a salt and pepper shaker in a cowboy boot holder.. 

Email to the Baptist General Convention of Texas

Below is an email that I sent to Executive Director Steve Vernon I will keep you updated on any response I receive..

Matthew 18:15-17 

Mr. Vernon,

This is a very hard email to write, I do not do this lightly but I am concerned about the recent publicity that has been generated by the Westboro "Baptist" Church. I have neither the means nor authority to approach this group directly, but you and your counter parts in the several states do so I ask that you exercise those rights.  Please understand, I'm all for free speech, but when it disrupts a funeral, be it a fallen soldier or that of a child, its no longer free. As a preacher I find it repugnant to vilify a grieving family and deny them the comfort God wants give in a time of need. Do the sermons of sexual immorality need to be taught? Absolutely! But if those sermons are not presented in the love and compassion of Christ, will there be any gain?

After reading the vile and hate filled press release on January 8, 2011,(PDF document) and the FAQ section of their site I was moved to contact the state level Baptist organization via Twitter and was directed to your email. I understand that they are in Kansas not Texas, but it has to start somewhere. As John F. Kennedy once said: "If not us, who? If not now, when?"

My questions and concerns can be summed up as follows:
1. Can a delegation be formed to speak with Fred Phelps, the "pastor"?
2. If after all biblical means of reconciliation have failed, will the Baptist organizations publicly denounce association with this group? 
3. Is there a recourse available to preclude them from further destroying our (Baptists) message of Salvation?

Thank you for your time and consideration, I leave with this thought: A few years ago I read several news stories wherein religious leaders were demanding Muslim clerics disavowal or rein in their more radical sects, and rightly so, but can we ask any less of ourselves? 

Posterous theme by Cory Watilo
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