Friday, 30th of July, 2004
They're playing Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban at the St. Louis Science Center Onminmax domed IMAX theatre, and so my brother, Haley, Mairin, Nolan, and I went to go see it tonight. They digitally remastered the movie, so they slapped the wide rectangular image in the middle of the dome - so it wasn't a fully up-and-down wrap-around experience, but it was plenty wrap-around side-to-side. It took a few minutes to get used to having images projected into your periphery, but after that it was cool to see stuff so big. Better than the impressive image, though, is the audio - movie theaters in St. Louis have generally mediocre sound systems, so watching a 2.5 hour film in the nice sound system at the Omnimax was definitely a treat.
Picture - Wow, waxing the car with a polisher is so much more effective - this is the beading action on the door 2 weeks after I waxed it!
Saturday, 24th of July, 2004
Friday, 23rd of July, 2004
Tuesday, 20th of July, 2004
On Sunday, 10th of December, 2000, I took SelectSmart.com's belief system selector, and I was impressed that it gave me a dead-on 100% score on Mainline to Conservative Protestant. Since then, they've changed the test a little, and I think my beliefs have changed a little maybe, but it's definitely not as accurate anymore. It takes the top 4 to nail down the correct "guess". The results are the following:
I took the Evangelical Denominations quiz 3.5 years ago too, and got General Baptist Churches for #1, and Southern Baptist for #2. Today, I take it, and I get Orthodox Presbyterian Church for #1, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod for #2, and Southern Baptist for #3.
Saturday, 17th of July, 2004
Picture - "Lane Closures Ahead", but that doesn't phase this motorist. With the road construction that has been going on on Hanley road recently, one can understand the recent modifications to this Ford F350 crew cab. The headlights of my mean machine are reflected in the tailgate. This thing makes SUVs look small.
Jibjab - This Land - Best political Flash movie I've ever seen!
Cooking things I've discovered in the last week or so:
- Taco seasoning saves the day again. Searching for a snack, the only thing remotely close in the refrigerator are hot dogs. Warm up the hot dogs, add taco seasoning, and put cheese on top of it, and the result is something close to a Chilli Cheese Dog - much better than just a hot dog.
- I was making green beans tonight, and when I tasted one it tasted like, well, green beans, which is boring. So while they were still hot, I drained them, and threw a slice of butter on it, and it tasted three times better after the butter had time to melt through.
- When substituting, sometimes you discover that a combination of substitutes may taste better. Fried chicken tasted much better than I remember it, tonight, and I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that I didn't have enough vegetable oil to do fried chicken. So I just topped off the pan with some olive oil too.
- I don't follow receipes, for the most part, so it's important to keep watch on the progress of the food. Apparently the oil combination was not deep enough for the fried chicken, still, which left the insides of the chicken breasts not-so-well-cooked. Seeing that the outside is well done and about to become overdone, I took the chicken out, chopped it up according to how well it was done, and put it back in the frying pan for the appropriate amount of time for each piece.
Friday, 16th of July, 2004
Wednesday, 14th of July, 2004
Picture - The crankshaft pulley I ordered from the Subaru parts department arrived today. As you can see, on Subarus, the harmonic dampener is in the pulley.
Picture - The old pulley had a ton of play in it at idle speed. Something was wrong. After removing it, I discovered it - the notch that keeps it in place has been sheared!
The whole process took under an hour - Subaru designed it so it would be very easy to work on.
Monday, 12th of July, 2004
Saturday, 10th of July, 2004
Subaru WRX? Look again. It's a Kia Rio, and Kia want to sell it, with the body kit and wheels installed, for $14,990 drive-away. That's genius.
Friday, 9th of July, 2004
And can HP make installing a printer any more complicated? The "Photosmart" PC came with about 600MB of printer drivers/software (that's right!), but it didn't have the driver for the HP PSC 2410 Photosmart All-in-One that she bought. This is one of those "plug-and-play" printers that they tell you not to plug into the conmputer until you install the software. So I put in the software, and it tells me a previous version of the Photosmart software is already installed (yeah, it's a brand new computer, and it was pre-installed, but obviously the wrong one) so it spends about 20 minutes removing parts of that 600MB worth of printer software that was pre-installed. Then it finally asks me to plug in the printer, and I plug it in, and it runs for a few more minutes installing stuff before finally completing. Ugh. Well at least all the pile of software seems to be something that is intended to improve user-friendliness, so that when you pop a flash memory card full of pictures into the All-in-One, a screen on the computer pops up asking you if you want to transfer the pictures to the HP Photo Sharing service (which you have to pay for).
Wednesday, 7th of July, 2004
Tuesday, 6th of July, 2004
Picture - Dual HVAC controls
The power came back on here at noon, but shut down again at around 15:30, and didn't come back until the evening.
Sunday, 4th of July, 2004
Picture - A street in Krakow.
Picture - Same street, closer view of the Mariacki Church
Picture - Very close view of the Mariacki Church
Picture - Subaru Forester Turbo in the square at Krakow, near Mariacki Church
Picture - A restaurant established in 1364, also where the king invited royalty from all over Europe to gather.
Picture - Another church in Krakow, with statues of the twelve apostles in front.
Picture - A very old stone church.
Picture - Some of the woodworking shops in Krakow were incredible - there are some cool toys here!
Picture - Wooden dachshund toys - the Polish people love dachshunds.
Picture - The castle in Krakow.
Picture - One of the castle towers.
Picture - The palace in the castle. Krakow was the capital of Poland in the 17th century.
Picture - A dome made completely of gold.
Picture - Inside the palace square.
Picture - A prewar building, half-destroyed but still usable.
Picture - Construction on the World Trade Center in Warsaw.
Picture - Construction on a french fries tower at Mcdonald's.
Auschwitz:
Where do we draw the line between symbolism and idolatry? "You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make your yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." - Exodus 20:3-4. The purpose of stained-glass windows and paintings on the walls and ceilings of churches was for communication, since most of the population was illiterate, and yet somehow needed a way of being able to see God's word. Music does the same, as well as other forms of art. Symbols also communicate in the same way. However, these symbols become idols when we liken them to be God himself, or even something greater than God. It's when we elevate the human creation (the music, art, or symbol) to something more than what it really is. Idolatry is from the heart. We were created to worship God, the invisible and omnipresent creator of the universe - it is when we offer praises to a symbol, or pray to a symbol, that it is idolatry. Having a symbol or an environment (like a church) to remind you of things when praying to God, is probably not idolatry.
Just about every church I have been to has some sort of symbolism and art in their worship. The cross as a symbol, music, even drama and theater. Any of that can become an idol if one worships, say, the beauty of the music, instead of the beauty of the music that God has created. "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." - James 1:17. "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 11:1
A good test, probably, of whether or not something is idolatry or symbolism, is your reliance on it. If a person finds it completely necessary to pray to God at a certain place, or in a certain environment, then they need to ask themselves if they are worshiping the place or environment, or if they are worshiping God, because God is omnipresent, and can be worshipped anywhere and at any time.
Picture - The palace in Old Town Warsaw.
Picture - A couple of our Day Campers perform at the evening concert.
Picture - I played the first movement of Bach's unacommpanied Violin Sonata No. 1.
