Echo was so so

Amazing! It was really fun to see how much they've expanded since I'd been there last. I never got to work with Nicole :( but I did get to work on figuring out how to use palm leaves to thatch a roof. I got to meet a REALLY COOL intern who worked with me on that project for a day or two. She was really nice and wanted to go into missions in Africa. I had a weird feeling that I'd met her somewhere before though. I never saw any alligators this time, though I did catch a corn (rat) snake, and got well eaten by various Floridian bugs. On my last day I was introduced to a new volunteer who was going to work with me. I found out as I was leaving that he was a humanist. I've never met one of those before. Maybe God brought him to ECHO for a reason. I met another couple there who had been part of ATI for a long time. I asked them how they thought it worked out for them, and they said they thought it went pretty well, so I let that subject drop right there.

I had to come back from my vacation to a world where I pretend to work on Thursday afternoon. Got stuck in a plane on the taxiway in Atlanta for 2+ hours because Cincinnati had to evacuate their ramp during a thunderstorm. I flew five legs yesterday and four legs today, went to three new airports (94 now) and got a pretty nice landing in Cincinnati (woo!). I've got another five legs to go over the next two days before I get back home.

My church in Cincy is trying to get a group to go see a Florence Freedom (baseball {below minor league}) game in July. Tickets would cost twice what I paid to see one of last year's major league world series team play in one of the biggest drawing games of the year. What's up with that???

I need to find one of those countdown timers online so I don't have to keep calculating the hours until Calvin in my head.


I'm off to create an ECHO facebook album now.

wooo!

I get to go to ECHO tonight! After church I am taking a direct flight to Ft. Meyers and Mr. Hanson is going to get me at the airport. This is like the best thing that has happened to me since I got a job. I went to that PCUSA church again this morning. After finding out that they have about 50% women elders and getting a "great" sermon supporting feminism. I decided that I probably wouldn't go back. Stinks cause this is the first time that some actual members introduced themselves to me and wished that I would come back. But now that bring up another question~ if a church has true believers, yet also has doctrines and practices that are absolutely contrary to scripture, should I go back to it in hopes of encouraging it to conform itself to the word of God, or should I just run from its heresy to a church with better doctrines? What influence could one visitor without any formal scriptural training have over many hundred members led by a thirty year pastor?

I won't be updating for four or five days so I need two or three of you to argue both sides of my question and I will come back and get a tremendous revelation from the conclusion of your discussion.

random things

I like to make my own recipes. Today I got most of the main ingredients for two of my favorite chicken dishes and dumped them together in proportions that looked good to me and then I baked it. It turned out better than I expected. Not like my johnny cakes:

I don't know what I did wrong, but they didn't rise at all.

This is my street when it floods:


And these are three UPS trucks going down the road like a special forces team on a mission:


Now to a flying photo shoot:
I got to fly Embraer's 800th plane the other day:


The little green arrow at the top means I'm flying because it is pointed to the right.


Mostly I just look at the instruments like this:

and they do their thing and when we get out of the clouds our destination is magically right there in front of us.

Or maybe it is still really far away because we are at 36,000 feet:


Here is a baby thunderstorm trying to suck up all the clouds around it so it can grow to be big and strong:

I woke up this morning

at about 7 and got ready to wander down to the breakfast at the hotel. I had just finished flattening my hair when Crew Scheduling called. She told me I had a 7:30 show to repo a plane to Columbus and another plane to Cleveland and then deadhead back to Cincy. I made her mad when I was like "There's no possible way I can make a 7:30 show" cause I guess she assumed I knew about the trip and I assumed she knew she was trying to get me to be responsible for a late flight by accepting a show time in half an hour. ~Just a tip for anybody trying to make a successful career: The best way to start your day is by making the people who control your life really really mad.~
After she got upset, I started being apologetic and everything, trying to defuse the situation, but it didn't help much. I actually set a personal record and got to the airport by 7:37 without even having a scheduled hotel van. I was in such a hurry that I left my $6 ribs in the fridge :( So I met my captain and we took off for Columbus, but about ten minutes after we passed Cincinnati, dispatch called up and told us to turn around because they needed the plans in Cincy instead. Now I am done with my day about two hours before I planed to be and everything is great except for the fact that my scheduler's day is probably hosed :( I really really REALLY hate making people mad, so I've been going through our conversation in my head all morning, trying to figure out what I did wrong. Why would they call me to tell me about a trip that I already supposedly knew about? Ugg this is going to bug me until the next time I talk to them.

Louisville

Well I did end up going to Louisville this week. I got put on a trip to Fort Wayne this morning, but then scheduling decided to send me to Columbus, Orlando, and Louisville instead. So I got some extra flight hours :) and my captain and flight attendant are cool, so that always makes for a better trip :) AND the coolest thing of all: I got to talk to somebody in Cyprus this afternoon! I called Aaron to see if he wanted to hang out while I was in L-town but he was across the deep blue sea, so it can't happen. Maybe I will fly over and visit him on my days off. But right now I am going to bed. Night Y'all.

woo hoo!

I got called out for a Louisville turn this morning, but I got called off of it just as I was turning into the employee parking lot. I was kinda bummed because that would have been another airport for me, but I'm sure I'll get it sometime so Oh well. I'll just have to wait till the 27th when I get 3 new airports in two days.
I've got four days off coming up on the 23rd and I'm still trying to decide what to do with them. I could drive $$ home and take Caleb on a hundred mile bike trip to get him ready for the calvin tour, or I could go out to see Stacey and Joel if they will let me, or I might see if maybe I could go visit some friends in other states... hmm... choices, choices. Maybe I'll just stay here and do nothing. Ooo Good Idea Josh!
Anyway I got my bike fixed! I took it out for a nice ride yesterday. Found out that I'm REALLY out of shape. Or maybe I'm just a hoosier noob on Kentucky hills. Either way I need to ride a lot in the near future. Of course that will probably get my heart rate back to 30 beats/minute so maybe I should just be lazy and not risk it.

Re question person:
thanks for the comments~ they were helpful and encouraging. Do you remember the story of the gentile who saw the power of God and said something to the effect of: "When I go back to my country and go with my king to the temple of his god, I will bow but I will be praying to Jehovah?" I searched for it for a couple hours this morning to see if it had a conclusion or recommendation, but I couldn't find it.

Laundry

is hot. I started it at 11:30ish and just got done at 6, but that included a nice break about halfway through ironing my shirts to let the apartment cool down. I've been looking for pictures from my ski trip with CORPS, because I can only find the four that I posted on here long ago. I hope my only copies weren't deleted with my Purdue account. I thought I emailed myself with all the pics that I put on the computers at school, but I might have missed some. ***feeling of dread***

to Re Question person and anyone who feels like joining in:
I like what you say. But I should have asked my question to go a little deeper. How far is contrary to scripture? Is it singing hymns? quite possibly. Is it female pastors? definitely. Instruments? God only knows.

The churches I've been going to seem to disagree mostly on points of great debate among people who have their basic Christianity down pretty well~ which is why I mentioned fellowship of the Saints. I really believe that most of the members (as far as appearances can judge) are true Saints.

After returning from one of these services and not really feeling fed, I did just as you suggested (before you even suggested it~ wow you're good!) and listened to an amazing sermon by David Reese I believe. He was preaching on purity of Worship and how it's not very safe to mess with something that God has a history of protecting with great vehemence. And that's gone and made me a little paranoid (if that's the right word). I've been thinking about jealousy and how it is probably THE most powerful emotion, being a mixture of the greatest positive ~love and the greatest negative ~wrath. And to provoke the jealousy of God will logically cause the love to tend toward the lovely ~Himself and His worship and the wrath to fall completely on me -or Christ taking it for me- but either way, it's not a pretty picture.

I guess it a catch 22 because we won't be able to worship God in absolute purity until we reach heaven -O Glorious Day!- but how hard must we strive to obtain the most purity possible here on earth? To the point of not attending a church that crosses your convictions? I don't think so. But it still puts a twinge in my heart that I can't ignore. Maybe I'm just the weaker brother here- stumbling at the liberties that God allows us to take..idk... God help my unbelief.



wow that was long. I haven't read it over yet- have to wait a few hours for that- so I hope I didn't just blather for four paragraphs.

Ugg

I went to the PCUSA church down the road from me this morning. I was late cause I misread the time on the bulletin. :( It looks like a church where everybody knows you, you are welcomed into some great fellowship, but until then good luck trying to get in. I need to email the pastor to see what side of the denomination this church is on. I was looking forward to going to my other church this afternoon, but crew scheduling decided to send me to Columbus instead. :(
After I got back from Columbus I ate dinner and downloaded a heap of sermons from the best website ever [which is just better than the second best website ever (now featuring a free Pilgrims Progress download!)]. I'm currently listening to a great series by Wayne Rogers on Matthew 5:8. He's got some really great points about my amazing savior. Makes me hate how cynical I am. Oh well, I'll just have to learn how to learn in spite of it.

When to the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs yesterday. It was really nice. Here is a picture from it:


And here is a picture of the spider I killed when I got back. I speared her right next to my P-47 Thunderbolt. Notice how she's bigger than the bomb under the wing. She would have bitten my head off if I hadn't learned how to fight giant spiders from the heroic Samwise Gamgee.

I stunned it by shooting rubber bands at it until it ran to a semi-open area, and then I threw shoes at it. Even though I like how spider eat bugs and even let small ones crawl on me, there was no way I was going to sleep in the same house as that bugger. There was also no possibility of me squashing it with a less than long range weapon~ hence the shoes. Turns out that shoes didn't work so well, cause they only stunned it long enough for me to put a jar over it and toss it in the freezer. I took it out for the photo shoot with the plane, and for the first ten minutes I was afraid that it might thaw out and decide to be still alive~ or even worse: UNDEAD. I think I would rather fly a jet on one engine and no hydraulics than fight a giant undead spider.


And now to conclude my random post with a question:
Do you think it is better to worship God in a way that goes against your understanding of scripture, or not at all? (in a public worship setting)

It's something I've been debating in my head for a long time, cause I go to a lot of cities where I can't find a church that complies completely with my convictions concerning worship, yet if I don't go to one of them I am neglecting the gathering and fellowship of the saints.

Wilkes-Barre

I finally got to fly a leg today! Went out to Eastern PA and back. I even got to skirt some major thunderstorm buildup on the way back. I was afraid that my landing in Cincinnati was going to be horrible because I hadn't made a landing in 14 days, but it was nice and smooth! AND I beat my previous record for stopping distance because the captain had to catch a flight home so I knew he wouldn't be mad if I put the buckets (thrust reversers) all the way out. I've already gone to Wilkes-Barre, so I'm still stuck at 90 airports. I think I'll get one or two more on a trip I have in a couple weeks.

As of July 1st in the year 2008

I will be removing the links of people who have not updated their blogs since 2007. And I will try to clean up my list every six months thereafter. If you want me to add your link then give me your blog address, and if you want me to take it away just don't update for half a year.

In other news, I'm sitting around all day thinking about random pictures to post.

Which two go together?

There and back again.

Well, I took the cheap option and flew to Indy last night to practice with the church softball team that is trying to start up, but apparently everybody but me and dad were afraid of the impending rain~ soo it didn't happen. We ended by just going home and I pulled a muscle in the process of being beat by mom at Wii bowling. Never before in the history of mankind have we been able to pull muscles while playing video games, so I take it as a sign of progress.

A happy birthday, Kalamazoo in Thunderstorms, and other things

I had a few days off so I got to go home for Dad's birthday. We got him a Wii so now he can play sports in his living room even during the thunderstorm that I flew around yesterday.
I got out of Cincinnati just ahead of it, but we still got a bit of turbulence for it. We got ground-stopped in Kalamazoo, because apparently they had to send everybody into the tornado shelter in Cincy for awhile.
It was really neat flying last night. We took off into the clouds and when we broke out of the side at 27,000' you could see the whole expanse of the storm and the giant billows of cloud. It was just dark enough to see the lights of other planes in the sky, and it was really awesome to see just how minuscule they appeared next to the giant cumulonimbus. We were like little particles in a lava lamp, trying not to be swept away by a rising mass of air. My last few trips have all been with captains who have less than 100 hours in the left seat, so they have to fly all the legs. :( I hope I get to fly once this month.