Real Live Wednesday Night Church

Tonight was unusual for me. Normally I can not be at home on Wednesday night. Since I get to work from home this week I got to go to Crystal Hill with Mary tonight. It was very nice to be there in person rather than attend via the Live Streaming Video on the Internet.

New Olympus SP-560UZ Camera

 

 

 

When we took our little weekend trip to Branson a few weeks ago we lost our Olympus camera that we have used for about 4 years. We have hunted high and low and could not find it. Since we are going to Petti Jean Mountain this coming Saturday with the grandkids Mary was wanting our camera very badly. After talking it over she came home with a new Olympus which is a step up from the one we lost. I am loving it so far. It's simple and does everything I want to do with a camera. The picture above is a panorama looking south from our back yard. You have to click on it to really see it well.

Sunday Plus

We use a program called Sunday Plus to present the words for the hymns on the overhead projector at Church. Yesterday this program gave our video/sound crew fits. It refused to run. This evening I went to church to see if I could fix it. After a call to tech support it was an easy fix. We had a currupt cue. I replaced it and all is well once again.

Yikes! Pulled Out My Stent

The doctor left a stent in me when he did the kidney stone surgery last Thursday. He said I should pull it out on Sunday. I guess I waited as long as I could. I took one of Lee's strong pain pills and one of his mussel relaxers.

About an hour later I started working on the tape that held the string in place. Mary thought I was going to die just trying to pull the tape off. Then I had to get up the nerve to tug on the string. That hurt and then I really had to get up a lot of nerve to really pull it out. I pulled and it hurt. I pulled more and it hurt. I pulled more and it just kept coming. I thought I would never get to the end.

After much hollowing and pulling it turned out to be about a foot long. But, oh how much better I feel with that thing out of there. I did not realize how much pressure it was putting on me. Now I can go to the bath room without pain. Praise the Lord it is over!

Great Preaching

I think Bro. Larry was at his best today. I thought both services were outstanding. If you missed it you should view or listen to the archives for yesterday. We hope to get them posted this week on our Web Site.

Feeling Better

I am feeling better today so Mary is driving me to Arkansas. She got me a BIG jug because I still have to go to the bathroom 1 to 2 times per hour and when I have to go, I have to go quickly. I can not wait. I mean when I have to go it is an emergency. It won't wait. I still hurt a lot every time I have to go to the bathroom. Otherwise I am feeling fine.

I spent most of our travel time working on a new PAL(Playlist Automation Language) program for our new CHBC Gospel Radio Station. I am hoping the program will improve the rotation of songs played on the station.

Off Work For Recuperation

I spent most of the day going to the bathroom 1 to 2 times per hour. At least I am not bleeding today but it hurts every trip to the bathroom.

I hate this string hanging out, knowing that I have to pull it out on Sunday.

Big Day - Kidney Stone Surgery

I arrived this morning as their first patient of the day before 6:00 a.m. By 6:15 a.m. I was in my hospital gown with IV in place and ready for surgery. Some where around 7:30 a.m. they wheeled me to the operating room at Research Medical Hospital. Within seconds I was out like a light.

When I woke up the doctor or someone was rattling my kidney stone (broken into 4 pieces) in a jar beside my ear.

They gave me two pain pills and let me go home about 11:00 a.m. and I spent the rest of the day sleeping. When I went to the bathroom I was bleeding and hurting. The bleeding stopped some time before we went to bed.

They left a stint up inside me with a string hanging out to be removed Sunday. I a dreading that already.

Pre-Test At Research Medical

I had to go to Research Medical Hospital this evening for pre-test to get ready for my kidney stone surgery in the morning. Unless I can pass this kidney stone tonight I guess I will be in the operating room in the morning at 6:00 a.m.

Supper with Robby and Rachel

We enjoyed a great meal with Robby and Rachel tonight at Rudy's on Westport Road. Rachel seems to be doing great carrying the new twins. I can now recomend Rudy's as having great Mexican Food.

Lunch With Robby

What a treat it was today when Mary came to pick me up for lunch. I came out of my building at the Sprint Campus and Robby came out of the building next door. We met in the middle and got in the van with Mary. I never in my wildest dream thought that one of my sons would ever work at the Sprint campus with me. We had a great lunch.

Mary Drove Me To Kansas City

I was busy ripping songs from CD's that I borrowed from the master copies of the Crystal Hill Church CD Library. It really takes a lot of time to search through all the CD's and find something I want to use on our new CHBC Gospel Radio station. If I remember right we only stopped once during the entire trip from Little Rock to Kansas City. Normally we stop at least 3-5 times during the trip.

Arkansas State Fair

I really needed to mow our grass today but the family twisted my arm and I ended up at the Arkansas State Fair. I was glad we went. We had a good time with the family. This was Mary and I's first trip to the Arkansas State Fair in many, many years. The weather was perfect.

Late Night Trip To Little Rock

It seemed like I was delayed at every turn this evening trying to get out of Kansas City. I left work about 5:00 p.m. and when I hit the freeway it was totally stopped. Then when I finally got to the edge of town there was a wreck and we were stopped again. I think it was about 6:00 p.m before I really got out of town.

I arrived at home in Little Rock about 12:30 p.m. and could not go to sleep. I guess I drink way too much coffee trying to stay awake.

SVN Command Line Tool

Today I worked on another of the many SubVersion tools. I spent a lot of time working with SVN. This too was very easy to install and I had it up and running very quickly. I still have a lot to learn. I downloaded it from CollabNet Subversion Command Line Client Windows XP

Put 4 Gigs of Pictures in Repository

Tonight I used TortoiseSVN from Windows Explorer to put over 4 gigs of pictures out to my new SubVersion Repository. That took about 2 hours of waiting on my slow network and slow hard drive. Next I have to add my 2007 pictures from my laptop to the repository. Maybe tomorrow night.

SVN Server

I am really getting into the SubVersion thing. Tonight I download the SubVersion Server and Client for Windows. I found that the package includes Apache Webserver and that there are two ways to set up a repository. I first set up the svnserver and got it working pretty quickly. Then I found that the best option was to install the Apache version. So I uninstalled the whole package and then installed just the Apache Subversion server as a windows service. That also went pretty easy. Now I have a SubVersion repository that I can access from a web browser anywhere. This is really cool stuff and easy to use right from Windows Explorer, thanks to TortoisSVN.

SubVersion

We have been given a directive to learn and use a new tool to do our versioning control for our software at Embarq. All the years that I have been here we have used SCCS in the Unix world to keep track of our software modules. Now we have to start using SubVersion. I downloaded TortoiseSVN and I find that it is a very useful tool. I may use this for all my music, pictures and other stuff at home on my personal repository. This is an easy to use tool and it's free.

Back To Kansas City Already

I can not believe it. Something has to give. I just got to Little Rock about midnight Friday night and this evening I had to drive back go Kansas City. I guess I will have to quit and find me a Wal-Mart Greeter job in Little Rock.

Pulling Video Cable

Scott and I spent a few hours this evening pulling in the video and audio cables in our new building at Crystal Hill Baptist Church. We hope to get to hang the new speakers in the new auditorium soon.

Korma Sutra Cusine of India

Wow! That was good. Andy and Chris treated me to my first trip to Korma Sutra at College and Metcalf for lunch today. It was a very good Indian food buffet with excellent service. They even have real cloth napkins all for a little more than $7 each. I must go back soon.

Project Implementation

I would guess that the biggest thing I did today was help with the implementation of our latest project at Embarq. We put our newest code out in production this morning at 10:00 a.m. and so far it has run perfectly. We are very pleased.

New Songs for CHBC Radio

I spent a lot of time this evening stripping out songs from video files for our new CHBC Radio Station. I don't have any listeners yet but I'm having a lot of fun putting it together. I was also able to put the live service on the station tonight from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Missing Mary

I had to go to the Urology Clinic this morning all alone. I am feeling kind of melancholy today. Normally Mary goes to the doctor with me. The doctor said I still have my kidney stone and it is sitting in the same spot that it was a month ago. Now He wants to go in after it. He is going to schedule a time to do that in a couple weeks. I'm sure that will be a lot of fun.

Internet Radio On My Pocket PC

It was very nice to listen to my own Internet Radio Station on my Pocket PC with stereo head phones on my way to work this morning. I know there are much better stations to listen to but it was a great feeling to listen to the fruits of my labor this morning. The music on my station is from my family and the folks at church. I really enjoyed listening to Mary sing this morning.

Virtual Church In Kansas City

Since I did not go to Little Rock this weekend I got to watch the fruits of my labor in action. I attended every service at Crystal Hill Baptist Church by watching them through the live streaming video. I sure am glad I have been training a couple people on how to do the broadcast. They did very well without me.

New CHBC Radio Station

Today I worked for about 12 hours straight figuring out how to build an internet radio station. My brother gave me Sam Broadcaster from Spacial Audio. A very nice piece of software to allow broadcasting from my PC. The problem was you have to have a streaming company for Sam Broadcaster to talk to and that can be very costly. Since I have my own Windows Server running Windows Media Services I figured out how to make Sam Broadcaster stream it's audio through my server. Now we have our own CHBC Radio Station.

New Pocket PC with Internet On All The Time

I dropped my old Pocket PC on the kitchen floor a couple mornings ago and now the screen is totally blank. Since Robby works for Sprint now he went with me to the Sprint PCS store and I got a new Sprint Mongul running Windows Mobile 6.0 at his Sprint discount. Great deal thanks to Robby's discount. Now it keeps all my Microsolft Exchange Email, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks and my personal email in sync all the time over the internet. Very nice.

Trying To Keep My Chin Up

This morning I reported to my office in Kansas City. I am missing Mary already. I hope someday to get to work from home again. Right now there seems to be no hope of that ever happening again.

Work From Home Privileges Revoked

Today my work from privileges were revoked. Tonight I had to drive to Kansas City so I could report to the Sprint Campus in the morning. Bummer. Bummer. Bummer. I am trusting God in this matter.

Embarq Support Call

Tonight about 7:15 p.m. my beeper went off. It was the page I have been dreading. My first EMS (Element Management Systems) support call since I was assigned to the EMS team a few months ago. Sure enough I did not know what to do and had to call for help. Turned out to be a problem for another group and we were dismissed from the call.

Bible Conference In California

We spent many hours today and the past couple days viewing the videos of a Bible Conference held at the North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara, California from September 9-13, 2007. God has used these videos to really touch our hearts. They are a blessing. We thought the best so far is on Sunday night 9-9-2007 with Pastor Tim Rahl.