Friday, April 11, 2008

Listen to Me!

Before you think that I've simply gone on a power trip, let me assure that the headline is an invitation, not a command. Per the requests of a couple of friends, I have found a way to post audio files of my sermons on this page. Perhaps you've seen the sermons on the sidebar. You can scroll through and access any sermon I've uploaded -- click on the sermon link, and *Voila!* the sermon will open in the audio player of your choice and begin playing. (How cool is technology sometimes!?) So for those of you who miss the lyrical sounds of my voice, or for those who simply need background noise while they surf the web, you can fill your need by clicking on a previous sermon.

Personally, I'm happy to post the sermons -- I've even posted them on my Pastor's Blog. Now I'm curious to see how attendance reacts. Many in the church have exclaimed that worship has become "an event" (in that they feel like they miss something if they're not there one Sunday). But I wonder if some drowsy people might start rolling over in bed on Sunday morning, figuring they can at least hear the sermon at their own convenience later in the week. At the very least, those who cannot avoid missing service seem thrilled to be able to listen to the sermons later.

Things are progressing here in Fairmont. Now that there's a hi-speed Internet connection in my office, I seem to spend more time there (coincidence?). Yes, I've been working out at the gym. I've also enjoyed some fine spring weather recently, including some 70 degree, sunny days this week. This means that I played my first round of golf this season. (For the record, I was terrible. Second worst round of golf I think I've ever played. To put it in perspective, Tiger Woods could stumble out of bed asleep, suffering from the flu, carry only a 7 Iron, offer to play 50% more holes than me, and still easily beat me. But at least it was beautiful outside -- and I made par on the 18th hole, which pretty much salvaged the whole experience.)

There's not much else going on. I've stepped up my movie viewing slightly, including a matinee of Leatherheads yesterday (pretty entertaining -- if I watched it again, I could probably recognize some more actors that George Clooney pays homage to by explicitly imitating their screen mannerisms: Clark Gable and, interestingly, Sean Connery). And I watched Children of Men this week, which was criminally overlooked at the 2007 Oscars -- it should have won Best Picture, which means that it certainly should have been nominated. But for some reason, the AMPAS doesn't ask my opinion on these things. Reviews should be forthcoming at Cinema Utopia.

I've discovered the magic of RSS feeds, which allows people to receive updates to certain web pages through an email-like program (or through Microsoft Outlook, I'm told). I've begun subscribing to such feeds through Google Reader, which I see will make my life so much simpler online (I can just subscribe to the pages I want to read everyday, and it will post any new updates to my Google Reader account -- which, happily, is BlackBerry friendly). I highly recommend this to others. And, if you're interested, you should know that I've created RSS feeds for my blogs, which means that you can simply subscribe to the feed and you'll never miss another post.

Lastly for this week, certain people have complained that there are not enough pictures on my blog. To my mind, this is a good thing, but I will try to occasionally post pictures.
photo

This is picture was taken on Easter of this year, following Easter dinner. A few interesting things: I am still awake, I am still wearing my suit, I am still welcome in someone else's house. To my mind, each of these qualifies as a minor miracle.

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