7 Quick Takes Friday (vol.3)

Click here to view the original post at ConversionDiary.com

- 1 -

Lent snuck up on me.  Living in the Evangelical bubble, where lint is mentioned but never Lent, it is no surprise that it did so.  However some online friends of mine (translation: I have no life) have encouraged me to observe Lent in my imperfect little Baptist way.  That should be an interesting source for posts... not that I'm doing it for that reason!  

 - 2 -

The Severe Weather/Tornado Season also snuck up on me.  I hate how the weather goes from peaceful, quiet snowfalls to violent whirlwinds of death. My favorite website to stay glued to during severe weather has to be NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.  I'll warn you at the outset that there is a lot of technical jargon on the site, but I think most people can probably wade through it.  One feature I love is the large-scale convective outlooks, which display the overall severe potential for a storm system (so you have an idea what the severe potential is and when the major-outbreaks are coming... usually days in advance) and it breaks down the likelihood of tornadoes, wind damage and hail. During severe season, hazardous weather outlooks are issued regularly for your area often giving you a specific timeframe and idea of what is going on.  You can often see tornado and severe weather watches "in discussion" before they are officially released and they even have stats and probabilities on tornado and severe weather watches (not all watches created equal).  NOAA's forecasts are not always 100% accurate, but that's the name of the game with weather; it is percentages and chances not a crystal-ball of the future. I could go on and on about this website and information on it.  Of course I have two reasons for this. 1) I'm a trained storm spotter and 2) I'm horribly afraid of severe wind and tornadoes.  I'm scared of what I'm spotting, so I tend to stay pretty close to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center when the dark clouds gather and the thunder starts to roll.  

- 3 -

I may just stop posting about the weather.  The last time I posted about the record cold, we got record highs.  Then I posted about the record highs and we got ice.  Maybe I'll try this: "Wow, it sure is NOT like the beach outside today.  There is no shrimp, no sand, no sea breeze, no salt air and no warm weather."  Tune in next week to see if that worked. 

- 4 -

Bye-bye treadmill.  One positive side to the change in weather is that it is (sometimes) nice enough to run outside instead of indoors on the infernally mundane treadmill.  Just when I was at my breaking point thinking I could never run another thirty minutes staring at the same black pock-mark on the wall in front of me... it got nice outside.  I'm grateful I get to run to something like a human being and not run on something like a gerbil.  

- 5 -

Called to Communion.  I have received some really good comments on this blog already, but the one piece of advice that has occupied more of my time than any other was a plug for the website Called to Communion.  It deals primarily with Catholic - Reformed Protestant dialogue.  There are some fantastic articles and very in-depth discussions.  I have been studying many of these issue for nearly 2.5 years now (granted, from a conservative Evangelical background) and during that time I have been to many websites, read many books and spent a lot of time reading.  Through all of this research I don't think I've found any material as in-depth and philosophical supporting the Catholic claims to non-Catholics.  My only complaint is that some portions of some of the best articles are a bit "over my head" which is saying something... not that I'm a genius, but I have been reading this stuff for a few years and I have a degree in religion.  But that being said, I have spent hours over the past few weeks, staying up way past my bed time, reading the articles on CTC.  Definitely worth checking out if you haven't done so before. 

- 6 -

My wife is going through what other moms are calling "nesting."  They say this natural behavior happens sometime during pregnancy, where the mother-to-be begins cleaning up and cleaning out in an instinctive preparation for baby. It happened this week.  I had no idea that our tiny little apartment could hold that much junk!  We hauled off a car load and threw away a few bags worth of stuff and we are not packrats!  How does junk like this accumulate?  Does it breed like some species of rodents?  Does worthless clutter reproduce by fission like amoeba or grow invisibly like Sea Monkeys?  Where does this crap come from?!?!?  


Okay, rant over.  

- 7 -

Hopefully, by the time I make this post next week...  My wife and I will know the gender of our first child!  Its funny... ordinarily I have strong stances about the silly little minutiae of life like whether I want ketchup or mustard, or whether I'd prefer Diet Dr Pepper to Diet Coke, or wondering if Darth Vader or Darth Maul would be better at surfing (I do have some definite opinions there).  Yet, when it comes to this really important area of my life I have to say that I really, honestly do not prefer to have either a boy or a girl.  I have no idea why.  Maybe I have a defect, but the only thing that really matters to me is that it is a healthy child and that I can raise him or her as God intends.  Its strange for me to not really have a preference.  Oh well, here's hoping our baby co-operates with the ultrasound next week!