Musings of a Josiah Wannabe

Regardless of the answer, I'm using this blog post to see if I need to remove the blogger -> twitterfeed.com linkage...

I'm thinking that since Google Buzz already does a pretty quick posting of Google-owned linked sites (as opposed to linked sites like twitter (6 hours to post a tweet?!?!?!)), I don't need twitterfeed.com to post to twitter for me.

This concludes this test.

PS.  Google, fix your lag on posts from other sites, it'll make your Buzz entry more compelling in the social networking arena.

Labels: blog, technical

Blogger Buzz said (a long while back) that this was the real way to publish a blog, as your blog is then hosted by Google and can take full advantage of the distributed hosting that Google has available.

It's supposed to be a lot faster in publishing too...

Let's see!

Labels: blog, technical

New post to test the Blogger.com <-> Twitterfeed.com linkage...

Labels: blog

Labels: work

I'm just now getting around to responding to a letter I received in June of this year. That letter came from an insurance / investment group in Fort Payne, Alabama, and was hand addressed with my father-in-law's name. Inside the envelope was a business card, a company flier, a response card, and a personally signed letter with the following initial information:

RE: "STOP PAYING LIFE INSURANCE PREMIUMS FOREVER"

Recently I received your reply card requesting information on the above topic. Enclosed please find the information as promised to you.

My letter of response:

To the "person" in charge:

You sent this material for <Father-in-law's name> to my address earlier this year. You stated (LIED) that you "had received your reply card..."

<Father-in-law's name> died in November 2005. His name is only associated with my address because of that death.

I suggest you find a better mass mailing database. The one you used for this mailing only confirms one of two things:

You're cheap.

or

You're stupid.

Your choice.

Sincerely,

Byron Todd

I mailed the original contents and my response back to the "person". I was seriously tempted to use the word moron or idiot instead of "person".

Labels: potluck

I sent the following letter today. I've edited out some of the personal information in what is displayed below. Just writing up that letter brought up bad memories, and I, for one, am glad to put this behind me. Though I still won't visit the local Chick-fil-A's.

Byron Todd

Chick-fil-A
1008 South 4th Street
Gadsden, AL 35901


To Whom It May Concern:

I'm writing to tell you about a horrible experience thrust upon my family and me a while back. <name removed>, I believe, was the person solely responsible for this incident. It may not be remembered by her, but it will be remembered my family and me for a while. As far as I know, our patronage to the local Chick-fil-A restaurants has ceased and will not continue for the foreseeable future.

The date was September 25 of this year. I remember it well because it was my son's fourth birthday, and he wanted to eat at Chick-Fil-A. We had a party planned in Birmingham for the following Saturday, so the only people to come to this dinner, the only people invited to this dinner were my parents and my wife's mother. Let me reiterate that: a dinner with one child, one baby, and five adults. No other guests, no other invitees. We showed up at Chick-fil-A for that dinner, and were pleasantly surprised to see that it was "Family Night". We - and I'm speaking authoritatively for everyone invited - had no idea that Chick-fil-A had anything planned for that night. Nor did we have any plans to disrupt anything or anyone else.

However, my son had been carrying around a few balloons with him that day (which he had taken with him to pre-school), and <name removed> assumed the worse. I can only guess that she believed that we had a large party with lots of children on the way because the way we were treated - accosted or assaulted is a more appropriate word - showed that she assumed the worst. I believe she made the bad assumption and compounded it by not wanting and not caring to listen to anything my wife or I had to say. A simple question or questions would have cleared up the matter. Her confrontation with my wife and me showed that she did not want us there. When I told her that I could tell someone who knew Truett Cathy about this incident, she said "Fine, tell him!" and stormed off. I was wrong about that person's relationship with Truett Cathy, but not about their closeness to the Cathy family. My cousin is <name removed> and she said that the whole incident sounded too surreal and out of character for <name removed>. I don't know nor do I really care at this point.

What everyone in my family - including family which did not attend - got from that incident is that she absolutely hated our presence and our possible patronage at that time, that she did not want us there. Although we did eat a very bitter meal there, I can state that she will be rewarded with that wish - neither my wife or I will visit the local Chick-fil-A's. As far as I know, neither my parents nor my mother-in-law are planning to come by there again as well. If we wish to have Chick-fil-A, we will simply visit another one in another city.

Sincerely,



Byron Todd

PS. I should mention that the assistant manager witnessed the whole incident - including the storming off of <name removed> - and I believe he realized that <name removed> had made a mistake. He went out of his way to smooth over the incident and tried to make us as welcome as possible. He brought ice cream by the table later for my son, he tried to give ice cream to the adults at our table, and he gave a coupon for future ice cream. However, <name removed> was more memorable. We don't need this coupon as it says it is valid at "Chick-fil-A of Gadsden".

In my 37 years of life - including the 20 some-odd years that my memory serves - I can't remember another single restaurant which did not want someone to celebrate a birthday there. Not a solitary one. It seems to me that every other restaurant - from McDonald's to Ruth's Chris - go out of their way to make birthday celebrations fun and memorable. But good memorable...

Labels: potluck

Dad bought me Stephen J. Nichols' "For Us And For Our Salvation: The Doctrine of Christ in the Early Church" while we were up at Hippensteal's Mountain View Inn in Gatlinburg, TN.

So far, all I can say is "Wow!" I was intrigued into wanting this book by a post on Desiring God's blog. That post says it so much better than I can.

I'm only 34 pages into the book and I can't wait to get back to it. Highly recommended.

Labels: books

This is a "catch-all" post: In the past week, I've setup the church for podcasting and move quite a bit more information on to the Grace Bible Church Wiki.

The podcasting is pretty cool. I use my laptop and Audacity to record the unbalanced output of the pastor's wireless microphone. After recording the sermon, it's just a matter of a quick conferral with Dean to find out any edits he might want made (removing extra silence on the the tail end of the sermon, or any pre-sermon notices given). In all, I can take the raw audio and have it ready in less than thirty minutes for publishing. After that, I use a PHP script installed on the rbcgrace.com server called "Podcast Generator". It's pretty slick in every way - except that I can't upload via PHP due to some weird connection error with large uploads (looks like a BellSouth problem.) Regardless, I can upload via FTP to and then Podcast Generator is smart enough to recognize that a new MP3 is ready to publish. I have a URL that I then goto that pings the iTunes store to state that a new podcast is available.

As far as the wiki work, whew! I've been quite busy. Setting things up initially takes some organization and then adding the content is just a bit more work. No problems though. I do enjoy seeing the end result.

As a result, I haven't been posting about my Bible Reading progress. (Still going!) But I am collecting favorites and blurbs about specific verses in Psalms for a later blog posting.

Labels: bible, blog, church, dean

Just added a quick note about Ray and Marti Williams - missionaries whom the church supports. They are the church's "Missionary of the Month" for September 2007. Here is the page.

Labels: church

I made a wiki entry over at my church's wiki: It's just a study note that I expanded from my Bible reading. A nugget as someone once said. Here.

Has anyone ever (as in the history of mankind) prepared like King David did there?

NOTE: The link has changed to reflect my moving the wiki note from the church's wiki to my personal wiki.

Labels: bible

You can't be a "newbie" anything forever. I couldn't keep calling myself a true aquarist either. Although I do mess with a fifty-five gallon cichlid tank at work (in Dad's office), Christian's (my newbie tank) has long since stopped functioning. It's not all my fault: after the filter mechanism failed a second time, I was facing an expense that was almost a quarter of the tank's entry price. With no living fish and only plants left, I decided that it was not worth fixing. So, I'm no longer a newbie nor an aquarist.

Why "Musings of a Josiah Wannabe" then?

"Musings of ..." was easy. I felt like this blog had always been more about my thoughts, my family happenings, my pictures, etc. than just a fish tank that "Musings of ..." fit. I like the second definition found at "The Free Dictionary": a product of contemplation; thought. Although not every post here begins with contemplation, by the time I've typed out my thoughts, read the typing, edited, corrected, and then posted, I think I've met and passed the threshold of contemplation.

The "..." was the hardest. I spent a few days trying to think of anything to put there. Of course, I hadn't a clue. After my daughter was born - and I pointed more people to this blog - I also kept having to explain newbie aquarist. I started asking for help for a new name. I asked my pastor if he could think of something appropriate. What kept running through my mind is "how do I define myself in one word, two words, three words?" As I told my pastor, my inclinations toward "Musings of ..." with "Godly Father", "Christian", "Jesus Follower" sounded good to me but also disingenuous and a bit prideful. I hope to be all of those, but I also know that I fail miserably and often. [Darn this flesh!]

I've been making my way through the Bible marking progress with my Bible reading spreadsheet.

[Side Bar]
Yes, I know, I'm way behind! I've made progress slowly at times, not at all at other times [I did mention how I fail miserably and often?] No, I'm not saying that Bible reading daily is a requirement for Christian living. I am saying that for me it almost is. (I could probably chart my ups and downs in my Christian walk with that spreadsheet.)
[End Side Bar]

My Bible reading: I was and am still in the Old Testament. Short story long, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are tough - long lists of laws, people's name, their family trees, reiteration of the law. Then you are confronted with Joshua and Judges. Joshua's good - encouraging. But Judges? It's best summed up by it's last verse - Judges 21:25 - "In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes." OUCH! There was a pattern: sin, condemnation, crying out (repentance), deliverance (by a judge). I found it a bit depressing. Ruth is just a breath of fresh air - it's needed and how wonderful is the order of the Bible in that Ruth shows that there were some faithful ones in the time of the judges? Then First and Second Samuel - the beginning of kings for the Israelite nation. Good stuff (but again failures too)! First and Second Kings. Some good kings, mostly bad ones - following the same pattern found in Judges, with the exception that as the king went, so did the country. Good king following God meant that Israelites followed God as well and prospered; Bad king doing evil meant that the Israelites did the same and came under condemnation.

Shortly after Mary Alice's birth, I got to 2 Kings 22 which introduces king Josiah - young king Josiah at the age of eight! Josiah's immediate ancestors: great grandfather was "Good King Hezekiah"; grandfather was the king Manasseh, traditionally the one who killed the prophet Isaiah: 2 Kings 21:16 - "Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; besides his sin with which he made Judah sin, in doing evil in the sight of the Lord." Josiah's father Amon, evil king who only reigned for two years. Amon's servants killed him in his own house. [They had rather had an eight year old as their boss than the eight year old's father!]

Josiah stood out and not just because of his age, not because of his doing "right in the sight of the Lord". So many good things about Josiah: his repairs of the temple, his response to the finding of the law (which is another great story in of itself!), his covenant renewal, his reformation of the nation, his Passover celebration - the like of which had not been seen (in conformity to the law) since the time of the judges! All of which were great things. But his epitaph (or what I read as his epitaph) in 2 Kings 23:25: "And before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him."

Wow! It hit me hard. What a statement. What a testimony. What a life! I wanted that, I want that - for my family, friends, neighbors, and others who know me, to be able to say that *I* followed the Lord with all my heart and all my soul and all my strength.

But the blog name didn't strike me then. I went to my parent's house a day or so after reading and being blown away with Josiah's epitaph and found my niece working on her Bible homework. What was she studying? King Josiah. I was "johnny on the spot!" It was nice reinforcement of my focus on Josiah. I was able to answer her questions with her. Hmmmm. I thought, "Josiah?"

There's an excellent song by Steven Curtis Chapman that comes to mind now. "Waiting for Lightning" tells how easy it is for us to look for the bright, unmissable sign of lightning when God is whispering in our ear. Just when I had been wanting a new blog name, with a short definition for me to define myself. "To be like Josiah?" Yeah, I want to be like Josiah. I wannabe like Josiah.

Labels: bible, blog

Yep. It's past 2AM but we're all home safely. I should mention that that is a minor miracle. I don't remember but short sections of the last twenty or so miles home and I was driving!

I'm glad that Christian had a great time (although the "I want to go bye-bye" that I heard a hundred times or so was not fun), that Auburn won, and that we made it home safe.

Goodnight!

Labels: auburn, christian

Labels: christian, iphone, photos

Labels: iphone, mary alice, photos