Is Firefox the New Bloatware?

Is it just me, or is Firefox running slower than ever lately? Maybe it's the extensions I have installed, maybe that I've got an old computer, or maybe it's just that I've gotten spoiled by Chrome, but man, is Firefox slow. On my older home computer, if I leave it open overnight, it starts growing in memory usage, until it takes up 100% of CPU power.

Anyone else had this issue? If so, any suggestions?

New Pastor

Thrilled to announce that after many months of searching, our pastor search is complete. We have called a new pastor, and he has accepted. We are so blessed, and praise God for His hand during this whole process.

Or, as our new pastor put it, "We give God great praise for all that he has done through this process, and it has been obvious at every turn that He has orchestrated every detail to bring Himself glory and to provide good for all of us! We also praise Him for all of the confirmations He has provided along the way to the search committee, our family, and the elders. What a joy to serve a sovereign God who works His will into the lives of His people!"

Thankful

I'm unavoidably frustrated at the fact that I've found so little time to blog these days. Yet I find myself quite thankful at the circumstances.

There are two circumstances I'd like to highlight. The first is work. To say that I'm too busy working is an excuse, not a reason, yet I find myself thankful to have as much work as I do, in the current economic environment. I know of others who are struggling, and I'm thankful to God for how He has provided for us through my job.

The second circumstance that I wanted to highlight is our church's ongoing search for a new pastor. For reasons only He knows, God put me on the pastoral search committee. It has been a lot of work, but our work appears to be nearing an end, as we have extended an offer, and we are going through the congregational affirmation process beginning this week.

And about #2, I would just say that even though only God knows His reasons, we have seen His sovereign hand throughout the search, including several things about our final candidate, and we are trusting Him to bring our search to fulfillment.

So although I've not had time for much blogging, I'm thankful for God's work and His provision in my life.

Freebies from the 2010 Shepherd's Conference

The 2010 Shepherd's Conference was at the beginning of this month, and it looks like the audio has been made available on the website for free. 38 different downloads at last count. You can also download the speaker notes to go with it. (There is video, too, for those of you who have more bandwidth and disk space than I do.)

As if that wasn't enough, you can also go back in time (so to speak), and download audio from Shepherd's Conferences all the way back to 2001.

You can also get a bunch of sermons from the Grace Community Church Sunday School classes.

Should be something there for almost everyone.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Here is the beginner's class from O'Donovan School of Irish Dance, dancing for the 2010 parade. My little Gummball is on about 2:20.

Congrats to Team Canada

And congratulations to all my Canadian friends who are hockey fans out there. What a great game!

There was a great final shot as the flags went up, where the Canadian flag was just over the scoreboard. If anyone sees a picture of it, throw me a link in the comment box.

Cheap Christian Ebooks - until the end of the week

I was blessed to receive an e-book reader for my birthday (and Christmas, etc.). It's really great. And I have a tendency toward fantastic fiction (lately it's been David Weber), but I try to temper that with some reading that's good for me, and not just junk food.

I found out Crossway was offering the ESV Study Bible in EPUB format for $15, and decided to get that. The nice thing about the electronic version is that if you choose to ignore the footnotes, you've got a regular Bible for reading, something you absolutely can't do with the print version of the thing.

Better yet, it turns out that my favorite ebookstore for fiction also carries a whole bunch of Crossway books. Who knew?

Fictionwise has 130 titles available from Crossway. They are distributed in multiple formats (abbreviated multiformat on the site), which basically means that any reader you have you can download a version of the book for it. You can download in one format, or several. Not only that, but through the end of this week, all of those books are 40%-60% off. So instead of paying $10.00 for Mark Dever's "The Message of the New Testament: Promises Kept," I paid $4.00.

In fact, I think most of the Crossway books are $4.00. Here's the link to a list of Crossway books on the site.

I don't know whether their week ends on Saturday or Sunday, so you'll have to act quickly.

P.S. They've also got Tim Challies book there. Don't know if I'll be getting it this time around, but it's nice to know it's available electronically. 

John Piper on Hell (and more)

John Piper wrote a brief piece last week addressing how willingly people go to Hell. It was a good piece - a reminder that Hell isn't just a not-nice place - it is worse than the worst thing we could imagine, and no one will want to be there.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

...when a person chooses against God and, therefore, de facto chooses hell—or when he jokes about preferring hell with his friends over heaven with boring religious people—he does not know what he is doing. What he rejects is not the real heaven (nobody will be boring in heaven), and what he “wants” is not the real hell, but the tolerable hell of his imagination.

...What sinners want is not hell but sin. That hell is the inevitable consequence of unforgiven sin does not make the consequence desirable. It is not what people want—certainly not what they “most want.” Wanting sin is no more equal to wanting hell than wanting chocolate is equal to wanting obesity. Or wanting cigarettes is equal to wanting cancer.

Helpful reminder for believers of the absolute necessity and urgency of preaching the Gospel to those who are perishing. Those who, Jesus said, are condemned already (John 3:18).

Also in the John Piper vein, the audiobook for Desiring God is available at Christian Audio for free this month. Several of his other audiobooks are on sale for $5 each through Nov. 21. Here's the link for all this good stuff.

What is NaNoWriMo?

What is NaNoWriMo?

A) A glorious and exultant writing experience.
B) One of the most hideous tortures invented by human beings.
C) A month-long contest in November wherein the challenge is to write a 50,000 word story.
D) All of the above.

This post is for Neil Shay, mostly, in answer to his question.

NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It is the brainchild of one Chris Baty, and happens every November. It's one of the craziest things you might undertake in your life which doesn't involve physical bodily injury.

The goal is to write 50,000 words of fiction, between midnight November 1st and midnight November 30th. That's it in its simplest form.

Your writing style changes when you write to a deadline like this. You forget about spelling every word correctly, grammar goes out the window, and (for many people) even those blind alleys you take when you're doing the creative thing end up staying in.

It's rather hard to describe. Baty has written a book, and even that really doesn't begin to cover it. At the end of the day (and I know it's cliche), you really do have to experience it for yourself.

2008 was my first real experience with it (I conked out in 2007 after a couple thousand words). It was, as I said in the opening, both a glorious, exultant experience and at the same time hideous torture.

And even if I thought I could psych myself up again for it, I just don't know where I would find the time. It's possible, but unlikely. But I will still probably sign up, and still root for others, if I know they are participating.

For more info on NaNoWriMo, you can visit NaNoWriMo.org. 

Obligatory Blog Post - September 2009

I had a post halfway written, but unfortunately, it was killed because it was in an unsaved buffer (ah, the joys of learning a new software program), so instead I'm settling for notifying everyone that I've added a countdown timer to the right-hand column of the blog which gives the time until NaNoWriMo 2009 starts.

I doubt I'll be doing NaNo this year--too busy--but I think one of the kids is going to do it. And I'll be happy to root for anyone who does try it.

P.S. Here's a link to the suggested word counts for students doing the Youth Writing Program.