Ran into an interesting problem today regarding an Intel motherboard, BIOS and some CPU’s.

First the hardware involved:

• Intel DZ68BC motherboard
• Intel i5 Ivy Bridge CPU

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Thomas loves playing on the piano. We try to encourage his obvious love of music. For this shot he had already pulled himself up on the bench and began gently tapping away at the keys. He’s so intentional in how he “plays” the piano.

That’s the name of the injury Thomas had (Here’s a link that describes it using big doctor words.)

Yesterday I wrote about how Thomas had pulled his arm away from my wife in a fit of toddler rebellion and this had evidently injured his elbow. We then went to the pediatrician and they tried to “reduce” it (that’s a big doctor word that means they tried to fix his arm.) We thought they had succeeded but after spending most of last night awake with him and after noticing that he still wasn’t using his arm this morning we called the doctor back and he said he’d like to see Thomas again. We went back in this afternoon and the doctor tried to “reduce” his injury again and it worked! He was acting like nothing was wrong only 5 minutes after the doctor fixed his arm. Needless to say, we’re extremely relieved.

Through all of this I’ve learned that it helps make Thomas calm when I’m calm. When I start freaking out Thomas does too. I also learned that it’s useless to try to teach a toddler where his elbow is when he pronounces “Elmo” the same way as “elbow.” So, I’d say, “Where’s your elbow?” and he would point to Elmo. He still doesn’t know where his elbow is, but he knows that we had to reduce Elmo so he could use his arm again.

I think I’m a little different than most ministers in regards to my musical taste. I get the impression that most ministers listen mostly, if not only, to “Christian” music. But before I go on, let me define my terms. Aside from the fact the whole “Christian/Secular” dichotomy is a false one and music itself can neither be “Christian” nor “Secular” I will use the terms “Christian music” and “Secular music” as they are commonly used because they are convenient and well known.

I don’t listen to Christian music all too much. I think that on the whole mainstream Christian music is just not up to snuff when compared with secular music. There are probably a number of reasons for this; there are more non-Christians making music than there are Christians, for example. To give credit where credit’s due, there are a few Christian bands that really do it for me. Casting Crowns is great, in my opinion. So are Switchfoot (review coming as soon as I purchase their new CD) and Delirious. But Christian bands like these are few and far between. Not only that, they’re extremely hard to find out about in the first place because most Christian radio stations are still stuck in the 80s playing Michael W. Smith and Petra.

I’ve been reading “Godblogs” ever since I started blogging last year with Blogger. Back then I thought I wanted to be one of those bloggers who would write deep, insightful and convicting spiritual posts. I thought I wanted to write about how the church in America needs to change, how Christians in general are no good at sharing the Gospel and how people who aren’t Christian need to become Christian. But the more I read other bloggers who write about that stuff day after day the more it turns me off. From my experiences the only thing these type of posts do is provoke a flame war. This is why I don’t often write about the “hot button” issues rolling around in the “Godblogosphere.” Instead I try to be more relaxed, welcoming and random. (On a side note, perhaps that’s why my site isn’t as well known as some others. It seems that in order to get recognized in the blgging world you have to yell as loud as you can from your personal street corner soap box. Either that, or get fired from your job because of your blog. Though I suppose writing well comes into play at some point. That last sentence was a gross understatement folks.) Dan Edelen neither yells, nor has he been fired from his job because of his blog. And though he may not agree with me completely, he stated well what I feel regarding blog debates:

> …more often than not, the camps just circle their wagons and pump a figurative QWERTY volley into the other camp. The end product is that everyone gets off a few stingers at someone else’s expense, and like Civil War re-enactors, after a day we pick up our weapons and trudge off the battlefield to go back to being mechanics, photographers, real estate agents, middle managers, and hairdressers.

While there is much merit in sharing and discussing ideas concerning Christianity, God and the such, is it really that profitable to beat others down so you can be “right?” Is our time really best spent flaming other Christians for their (minor) doctrinal positions with which we disagree? People, we can do better than that. We have a golden opportunity to show genuine love and concern to people around the world. Instead of seeing how many people we can displace as we struggle to be king of the theological mountain, let’s see how high we can lift others in the blogosphere. Instead of asking “who’s the best debater?” let’s ask “who’s the best encourager?”