One reason for my absence here recently: I’ve been working on the beta version of Bloo. Just adding some much-needed features and spam controls. Some I will be trying out in this space in the next few days.
I love writing software. It’s one creative outlet I have where I actually have some skill (if I may be so immodest). I’ve got some great alpha-testers too, who took a risk on using a brand-new and not quite ready for prime-time blogging tool.
Among the more active testers are our pregnant friend, Jen, my good bud AJ the excellent Brandywine Books, a pair of missionaries dearly loved by us and, of course, . I have other alpha testers who don’t blog quite so much but who I still really appreciated.
Good stuff. Read these blogs.
The beta of Bloo is coming!
Besides this, I’ve been in a pretty long and involved conversation with an atheist over on Thinklings, along with some other people. It’s been tiring, but illuminating too. It all starts at comment 210 or thereabouts. I don’t think I’ve gotten through to him at all. But we’ve been good and civil and that’s cool.
Finally, some randimosity: I don’t know what you think, or thought, of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd. They were big back in the 1970s, but their success was cut short by a tragic plane crash in 1977:
Lynyrd Skynyrd’s legend is grounded in a plane crash that occurred on October 20, 1977, three days after the release of Street Survivors. A chartered Convair 240 carrying the band between shows from Greenville, South Carolina to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana crashed near a forest in McComb, Mississippi. A damaged magneto in the right engine resulted in the plane literally running out of fuel. The resulting crash killed singer/songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines, vocalist Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray. Other band members were injured, some very seriously. Drummer Artimus Pyle crawled out of the plane wreckage with several broken ribs, yet ran nearly a mile to a farmhouse to try to get help. The farmer Johnny Mote, on first seeing the wild-haired blood- and mud-encrusted drummer babbling incoherently, greeted him with a (non-fatal) shotgun blast to his shoulder. Only when Mote realized that this person was connected with the plane crash he had just heard did he call for help. Allen Collins suffered two cracked vertebrae in his neck, and both Collins and Leon Wilkeson nearly had arms amputated as a result of crash injuries. Wilkeson suffered severe internal injuries and a punctured lung and had most of his teeth knocked out. Gary Rossington broke both of his arms and both of his legs in the crash, and took many months to recuperate. Leslie Hawkins sustained a concussion, broke her neck in three places and had severe facial lacerations.
Only pianist Billy Powell was relatively unhurt, but he nearly had his nose torn off and suffered severe facial lacerations.
The thing about the shotgun blast just blows me away (no pun intended). That and the “relatively unhurt, but he nearly had his nose torn off” line about Billy Powell. That’s nuts.
Lynyrd Skynyrd was a band of good ol’ southern boys (who named their band after their old gym teacher), and I like their music. They actually put out anti-drug and anti-gun songs back then, which was pretty unusual (especially the anti-drug ones).
If you’ve never heard the song Freebird, you might take a look at the youtube video below. Freebird is a poignant song, and it ends on one of the best electric guitar arrangements ever. Here they are live in Oakland in 1977.
God's desire for you and I is that we be mature. And this is not a boring state. A person who is mature in God's eyes is someone who is battle-hardened; they are a useful weapon in God's hands, someone who has their powers of discernment honed through long training in the Word and who is thus able to distinguish good from evil. In my view, people who are mature in this way are rare. I certainly don't count myself among them (just follow me around on any given day and you'll know what I mean), but I hope to continue training and honing my God-given powers of discernment. So that I can be fully mature, complete for the task God has set before me, having the ability to digest and put into practice the solid, hearty food of God's Word, which is the sustenance that every warrior needs for the battle.
