These Evils Shall Not Come Nigh Thee

I came home from Rose for Thanksgiving Break on Thursday afternoon. It is very good to be home again. I really love my family, and it is always just great to come home.

After a delicious dinner of Jamaican-style rice and peas (photo, recipe) by my Mom, followed by Indonesian-style ketan (sweet/sticky rice) for dessert, my parents had some news to share with me. They had opted not to tell me sooner because they did not want it to disrupt my studies.

My next door neighbor — for whom I had worked lawn for a few summers in high school; who started a local pizza chain; a generally great, friendly, thoughtful guy; a husband, father, and grandfather — had committed suicide. Needless to say, I was shocked. My parents had spoken with him only a week prior, and he’d said everything was going well: his business was improving, his family was doing well, things were good. Well, after the tragedy, my parents found out from his widow that there had been a series of signs that, in retrospect, betrayed his inner struggles. My condolences go out to his family and friends.

While any suicide is traumatic for those who knew the person, two suicides a mere week apart hits even harder. While I only now learned of my neighbor’s death, there was another suicide: a friend who lived on my floor when I was a Sophomore Advisor at Rose-Hulman committed suicide on what turned out to be only the 5th day after my neighbor had done the same.

As I thought of these four deaths of the past 7 months, each of which came as a great surprise, I was nearly overwhelmed. First, my uncle died of a nurse’s mistake while in the hospital. Then our Father called my sister home suddenly only 3 weeks after that. And then the two suicides. “What is with all this death?!” I wondered.

I haven’t even told you of the other deaths on my mind at the time. The best friend of a member in my home church was shot to death last month. The brother-in-law of one of my brother’s friends from his church died in a car crash this week.

I’d never known anybody who had died, nor known anybody who’d been directly affected by death until this year. Is it only as I become more aware of the world around me that I pay attention to these deaths? It really just seems like death is starting to fall around me, at various distances, of course.

Then God took my mind back to a verse I memorized in sixth grade: “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.” Whether or not you agree that the verse applies to the situation of death seemingly falling all around me is inconsequential. Recalling that verse led me back to the chapter in which it is found: Psalm 91.

I read through Psalm 91 and was struck by how relevant it is to me as I ponder the deaths in the last 7 months. I wanted to take the time to write all this down so that you, too, may be comforted and strengthened by the promises therein.

1 Those who live in the shelter of the Most High
     will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 This I declare about the Lord:
  He alone is my refuge, my place of safety;
     he is my God, and I trust him.
3 For he will rescue you from every trap
     and protect you from deadly disease.
4 He will cover you with his feathers.
     He will shelter you with his wings.
     His faithful promises are your armor and protection.
5 Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night,
     nor the arrow that flies in the day.
6 Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness,
     nor the disaster that strikes at midday.
7 Though a thousand fall at your side,
     though ten thousand are dying around you,
     these evils will not touch you.
8 Just open your eyes,
     and see how the wicked are punished.

9 If you make the Lord your refuge,
     if you make the Most High your shelter,
10 no evil will conquer you;
     no plague will come near your home.
11 For he will order his angels
     to protect you wherever you go.
12 They will hold you up with their hands
     so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.
13 You will trample upon lions and cobras;
     you will crush fierce lions and serpents under your feet!

14 The Lord says, “I will rescue those who love me.
     I will protect those who trust in my name.
15 When they call on me, I will answer;
     I will be with them in trouble.
     I will rescue and honor them.
16 I will reward them with a long life
     and give them my salvation.”

Psalm 91 (NLT)

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Commend it to God

I received the following in an email from my dad this morning. As myself and my family have been dealing with life without my beloved sister Rachel, who moved to Heaven on April 18, 2009, we have needed to remind ourselves that we only need to cast our cares on Him. The message in Dad’s email was encouraging to Dad and me; I hope it encourages you, too.

Luke paints some very moving scenes for us in his record of the early church. Not least is that emotion-charged farewell to the Ephesian elders on the docks at the port town of Miletus. Paul was on a tight travel schedule, and time would not permit a visit to his beloved Ephesus. So he sent for the elders of the church to come and see him off. They came. Misty-eyed, and with a dull ache in his heart, the superlative missionary urged parting counsels upon these men whom he had come to treasure—men whom he had prayed, preached, and wept into the body of Christ.

And then he uttered the well known words, "And now, brethren, I commend you to God." That word "commend," I discovered, means literally "to set down beside or in front of someone," and so can be very beautifully expressed,

I lay you down beside God.

In the hot summers of yesteryear we would drive to the beaches of New Jersey to enjoy the sun, sand, and surf. It was always a problem what to do with your wallet, car keys or other valuables while splashing in the Atlantic, for the beaches were crowded, and little was safe. It was no problem when Mother was with us, for we simply entrusted our valuables to her care, dismissed our concerns, and enjoyed the water.

That's what Paul was saying. His paternal instincts to the contrary, he knew that he could not cling possessively to his converts forever. There comes a time when the fledgling must leave the nest, when the parental hand must be withdrawn. Life flows on, and the work we have begun we must soon lay down and trust to the continuing care of the Great Shepherd. There comes a time in the ministry of the missionary and the mission, when in a decisive way we must say to a particular soul, or to a particular church, or of a particular work, I lay you down beside God.

This calls for grown-up faith, when God must be trusted only and utterly to do what is beyond our power to do. And is not this what our Father calls us to do not only with persons we treasure, but with all the cares of life? With the problem that has exhausted our wisdom and patience? Lay it down beside God- With the future and its uncertainties? Lay them down beside God. - With the fear that besets us? Lay it down beside God.

And what shall we say of life itself, and of the substance of time and things placed in our trust? Lay them down beside God, where neither moth nor rust can corrupt and where thieves cannot break through and steal. Paul understood that attitude. He learned out of his own experience of surrender to say,

I am convinced that he is able to guard what
I have entrusted to him for that day. 
                                   - 2 Timothy 1:12 (NIV)

Jesus I will trust Thee
Trust Thee with my soul
Guilty, lost and helpless,
Thou canst make me whole;
There is none in heaven
Or on earth like Thee
Thou hast died for sinners,
Therefore, Lord for me. 
                           - Mary J. Walker

Credit: Conley, Joseph F. 2009. Lay It Down! Reflections: Musings of an Old Missionary. Nashville: Xulon Press, 31-32.

About the Author: Joe Conley was the man who delivered the chapel message at Fort Wayne Bible College that God used to tell my dad that he and my mom were to be assigned to West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Further, he headed Regions Beyond Missionary Union with whom my dad served in Indonesia.

[UPDATED] Komets brawls with LumberJacks (31 Oct 2009)

Update: IHL announces suspensions

Summary—

Brad MacMillan (FW) - Suspended 15 games

Robin Big Snake (MUS) - Suspended 12 games

Jason Lawmaster (MUS) - Suspended 0 (zero) games

Each player was also fined an undisclosed amount.

Links—

IHL Suspension Notice
http://www.ihl-hockey.com/press/league/index.html?article_id=279

The report from the Journal Gazette's Justin Cohn covering the suspensions is here.

Video: MacMillan suspended 15 games | The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, Ind.
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091102/BLOGS11/911029953

The report from News-Sentinel's Blake Sebring covering the suspensions. This includes commentary from Brad Jones, who issued the suspensions, as well as from Komets General Manager David Franke and Brad MacMillan.
News-Sentinel.com (Reaction to the suspensions)
http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/sports/tailingthekomets/?p=2705

Here's the only report from the Muskegon Chronicle online about the game. It falsely claims that the entire incident was set off when MacMillan cross-checked Muskegon's Tom Galvin.

Suspensions, fines handed out after Muskegon Lumberjack-Fort Wayne Komet melee | Muskegon Lumberjacks - - MLive.com

http://www.mlive.com/lumberjacks/index.ssf/2009/11/suspensions_fines_handed_out_a.html

Blake Sebring has published his write-up of the events. It was posted before the suspensions were announced.

K's MacMillan may sit out 20 games | The News-Sentinel - Fort Wayne IN
http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091102/SPORTS/911020304/1002

My thoughts—

I'm fine with the suspension given to MacMillan. Big Snake deserved an equal suspension, though, for his specific targeting and surprise attack on Chaulk. Lawmaster definitely deserved a more severe penalty, though, for his even more vicious attack and abuse of Shafronov. It is noteworthy that neither Chaulk nor Shafronov received penalties resulting from the altercation: they didn't even have a chance to fight back.

I've heard various reasonings: that it was retaliation for Schrock's fight with DiPace; that it was retaliation for MacMillan's blows with Bouchard; that it was retaliation for MacMillan poking at the puck as Muskegon's goalie was covering it up. None of these, however, warranted the level of retribution the LumberJacks doled out. I saw the video, and the way MacMillan, who is known to be taking on a more "real" shift this season, crashed the net was textbook: nothing wrong there. The situation was escalated by Muskegon taking offense to the net-crashing, but MacMillan would have none of it. Why Bouchard got in there with him is beyond me, but I notice that MacMillan did NOT continue to attack Bouchard once it was clear he wasn't going to fight. Finally, DiPace is not merely a skill player; he's been known to tango with other known tough-guys, as noted below in my original post. It wasn't like Schrock singled him out and attacked him suddenly and randomly. It was a natural extension of what happens when defensemen protect their goalies.

I don't blame Muskegon for wanting some retaliation from the first fracas, but they overreacted BIG TIME, and in an extremely unsportsmanlike manner. Big Snake got off a bit too easy, and Lawmaster got off WAY too easy.

Game Replay:

According to Blake Sebring's blog, "the Public Access team will show a replay of Saturday’s game at 7 p.m., Wednesday on Comcast Cable Ch. 55 and Verizon Ch. 25, and again at 11 a.m. on Thursday."

Original Post Begins Here

I'm not sure if all of you heard about the melees (yes, more than one) at the Komets game last night, October 31, 2009, at home versus the Muskegon LumberJacks, but here is some summary information and a link that includes video of the altercations.

Let's get this started by showing you what happened. Here's the video:
Komets battling Muskegon
http://www.wane.com/dpp/sports/local_sports/sports_hockey_wane_komets_battle_muskegon_200910312146


This blog post by Justin Cohn, the Journal Gazette's Komets writer who was at the game, gives a bulleted summary of what all happened:
Timeline of craziness | The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, Ind.
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091031/BLOGS11/910319957/1008/SPORTS

On the above page, Cohn calls John DiPace a skill player. While he is a skill player, he is also known to fight tough guys, including Jeff Zehr (the loser from Port Huron who was attacking our star players behind the play in the 3OT Game 7 Turner Cup victory in 2008), Tyler Willis (Kalamazoo's enforcer for several years), and our own Mitch Woods. For details, see John DiPace - hockeyfights.com.

Cohn also notes that bully Jason Lawmaster went after scorer Konstantin Shafronov, who Cohn also calls "the most gentlemanly player" in the league. For the record, I checked on hockeyfights.com to see who Shaf has fought before — he doesn't even have an entry, despite the fact he's been playing professional hockey for over 20 years. You can check out Konstantin Shafronov's hockey statistics profile at hockeydb.com.


This blog entry from Blake Sebring, the News-Sentinel's Komets writer who was also at the game, has comments from Komets coach Al Sims, LumberJacks coach Rich Kromm, Muskegon's Robin Big Snake, and Fort Wayne's Colin Chaulk.
News-Sentinel.com (More on the altercation)
http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/sports/tailingthekomets/?p=2688


Here are the other articles posted by the Fort Wayne Newspapers' writers about the night's "festivities".

All hell just broke loose | The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, Ind.
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091031/BLOGS11/910319958

News-Sentinel.com (A Mac attack)
http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/sports/tailingthekomets/?p=2684

What MacMillan had to say | The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne,Ind.
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091031/BLOGS11/910319956/1008/SPORTS

News-Sentinel.com (What Mac had to say)
http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/sports/tailingthekomets/?p=2686

K's start and finish it, then criticize Kromm | The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, Ind.
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091031/BLOGS11/910319953/1008/SPORTS


This entry was posted by Justin Cohn while I was writing this up. It includes a photo of Lawmaster bullying Shafronov and a few of Cohn's day-after thoughts.
Here's what K's were peeved about | The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, Ind.
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091101/BLOGS11/911019980


My own thoughts on it all:

From the way that Muskegon's tough guys jumped our players the way they did, it is my belief that what Muskegon's Lawmaster and Big Snake did to Fort Wayne's Shafronov and Chaulk was much more vicious and premeditated than anything Fort Wayne's MacMillan did. Brad MacMillian is sure to receive the mandatory 10-game minimum suspension for leaving the penalty box on top of the "abuse of officials" (which wasn't really abuse at all, he just brushed off the linesman who skated up to him which caused him to lose his balance and fall because of his own momentum, but nonetheless) suspension, but I hope that Brad Jones, IHL VP of Hockey Operations who deals with suspensions, issues suspensions to both Big Snake and Lawmaster that meet or exceed MacMillan's due to the vicious surprise attacks they perpetrated. Whether 'Jacks coach Kromm is responsible for instructing his fighters to do what they did, I cannot say with authority, but I wouldn't be surprised, and in fact believe it would be fitting and proper, if Kromm was fined or otherwise reprimanded for what transpired.

Kromm claimed that Mac left the penalty box twice. I wasn't at the game, and I didn't see that in the video, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen twice. What I *did* see, however, was Lawmaster savagely attacking one of our top scorers, who has probably never been in a hockey fight, pinning him to the ground and wailing away at his head. I also saw Big Snake leave the penalty box (in the video at the 3:20 mark) to try to fight MacMillan after Mac just finished with Lawmaster. So Lawmaster's suspensions should come from his specific targeting of Shaf (Cohn pointed out he had to skate 40 feet to get to Shaf to start his attack). Big Snake's suspensions should stem from (1), his surprise attack on Chaulk, (2), leaving the penalty box, and (3) from "abusing the officials" when he didn't want to go into the penalty box in the first place (in the video at 2:35). While Big Snake's "abuse" of the linesman may seem smaller-scale than MacMillans (seen at 2:41), a key difference was that Big Snake was actually focused on the linesman whereas MacMillan wasn't even really paying attention to the linesman because he was already zeroed in on taking care of Lawmaster. What MacMillan did is the same type of maneuver that you use in many sports to get away from a defensemen guarding you; it was unfortunate that the linesman went down as he did, but it was mostly from Mac redirecting the linesman's momentum away from himself (it doesn't look like an actual "push" to me).

I understand Mac getting suspensions: I won't argue with whatever he gets. Despite that, I still believe Mac did what he had to do to show those hooligans that their specific targeting and surprise attacks were way out of line. And I believe that as a result of those way-out-of-line acts, Big Snake's and Lawmaster's suspensions must match or surpass MacMillan's for the league to demonstrate that it will also not tolerate that kind of "goonery". The very day before, October 30, a report was published at QConline.com wherein IHL Commissioner Dennis Hextall said he'd like to see physical play, but no "goonery" in our league. The fight between DiPace and Schrock would be allowed under the Commissioner's guidelines, while the attacks on Shafronov and Chaulk most certainly would not.

Other links that may be of interest

The official boxscore from the game:
IHL Stats
http://www.pointstreak.com/stats/pro/boxscore.html?gameid=1057445

At the time of this entry, the Muskegon Chronicle had not posted any articles discussing the game. Feel free to check it later, though.
Muskegon Lumberjacks - MLive.com
http://www.mlive.com/lumberjacks/

iChat Feedback - Status Icon Updating Error

This has been bugging me for a while: whenever my Mom sets an away message on her iMac, her status icon would update on my Bonjour list, but not the AIM buddy list on my iMac. I finally did some digging at the Apple forums and came across this thread, where the user mmouse noted a work-around and suggested sending iChat Feedback. So that is what I've done.

I wrote up a nice (I thought it was nice, anyway) piece of helpful feedback that the iChat developers can use when they get around to fixing the error. Click here to view what I put on the iChat Feedback form.

If you have two Macs, you can verify this error on your own. If you do decide to try it out, feel free to report your findings on this blog. And if you find the error occurs for you, too, PLEASE take the time to send feedback to the iChat developers also. Click here to submit iChat feedback. And feel free to just copy-paste what I wrote if those steps led to an error for you.


All for now...
Caleb

My Public Calendars

I use Apple's iCal to do my calendar stuff. Since I use it with iCloud, it syncs automatically over-the-air with my iOS devices and Macs. Also, I can publish them publicly so that other people can subscribe to them.

My primary calendar is public. You might call this my "general purpose" calendar; it has all the other stuff I'm doing that I want to keep on a calendar, such as appointments or concerts.
Subscribe: webcal://p01-www.icloud.com/ca/subscribe/1/VIKr2bWW5i1Ae_2zS6IXrmm8HaVirBOCPnIrjeF7YRYPqEieC-rnWfqC6EJbDXmckrydYiEppyyq9U71AMrMpranbD7aEgd3hRgd8y4jI-4

I've also created a shared calendar with all the Fort Wayne Komets games; it has been updated for the 2011-2012 season.
Subscribe here: webcal://p01-www.icloud.com/ca/subscribe/1/kZNh0d_tPGl_BaKP3eEfV9aOmYSN27J35V7g_hJZ62MWKFg9Rw7gAOFQWdHm3qw6bSo3oNDFkOnU60hYBQjw4Uk9M7MhpGLc2pknM78Lkg8


Caleb

Ways to Save Online - Deals Sites

I want to share a couple links that I think will be helpful for people who like to shop online AND save money. I posted both of these on Twitter, but I wanted to have another record of the links on here, too.

Note on navigation: These sites utilize www.krunchd.com's toolbar feature. This lets you visit only one URL (the krunchd link I provide) and that page will load all the other sites. You can sequentially navigate among the sites in my list using the arrows that will appear in the top right of the krunchd page, or you can select a specific site from a drop-down box and jump to that one.

www.krunchd.com/dealtrackers
This first page has a bunch of deal trackers. To clarify, these are sites to which other users submit deals that they find. For example, my roommates saw that KFC had a deal going on where the Famous Bowl was about 40% its normal price, so they took a picture of the sign and reported the deal to slickdeals.net (which is one of the sites on the list). Then users on slickdeals, or other site, rate the deals that people post and indicate if they can confirm them in their area, too. Other deals you might find could be great savings on TVs; laptops; computer accessories such as RAM, hard/optical drives, or mice; apparel; jewelry; and more.

www.krunchd.com/deal-a-day-sites
This page has a bunch of deal-a-day sites, or ones close enough. Woot.com updates every day at 0100 Eastern, and 1saleaday.com updates at midnight Eastern; but steepandcheap.com puts up a new product whenever the current one sells out. On the other hand, spyoptic.com has an "Unreal Deal of the Week" which of course only updates once a week. I've also included a few sites that track even more deal-a-day sites with which I'm not very familiar, but may have good deals, too.

If you know of other websites that would fit well with one of my categories here, post a comment on this blog entry and I can add it to the list.


//C

Spring 2008-2009 Schedule

Spring quarter begins tomorrow (today?... no, tomorrow.). This is the last quarter of my senior year, and don't let anybody tell ya any different. The fact that I have one extra quarter I'll have to complete in the fall has nothing to do with this still being my senior year. And this is the last quarter of the year.

Anyway, here is my schedule for this quarter.


(click to enlarge)


AFN...
//C.

Test Post from Qumana (kinda)

First let me say that this post is almost meaningless because I couldn't even post from Qumana. It gave me an error when I clicked Publish, even tough it first told me that it was successful (but wasn't really). Just because I spent the time preparing this post, I feel like it'd be a waste not to go ahead and publish it. Even if you don't find it useful, it will probably prove useful to me later.

——BEGIN POST FROM QUMANA——

I'm looking into finding a good way to post blogs from my Macs. I may end up just using the web interface, but I figure I ought to give due diligence to checking out other options. Today I am checking out Qumana.

Positives of Qumana
I'll start out by looking for things I like about this application. It is very easy to figure out; its features aren't hidden behind a plethora of menus. I like that the buttons aren't really small, either. You just really see what everything does, yet it remains uncluttered. I like the layout, too. It is really easy to use. That's the main point for which I'm going here.

It also has a nice way to compose in HTML or WYSIWYG. That's a handy little thing to have. (Of course, the web interface has this, too.)

Any Negatives?
I think that this app works fairly well, but it does have some drawbacks. The keyboard shortcuts aren't all working as the normally do within OS X. It seems to have been written in Java, so the overall look-and-feel of the application is inconsistent with that of native apps and with the OS X interface.

I also just realized that in-line spell checking is not supported in this editor. There is a menu option to perform a spell check, though, it just isn't very fast compared to what users would be used to.

And as I went back to add the bit about the lack of spell checking, I noticed a peculiar behavior. If you have a paragraph entered and then you go back and insert more text above that one, it doesn't really bump the existing text down very well. You don't lose what you had entered, but you do have to scroll the text-entry area up and down to force the app to redraw it correctly.

Pros of Using a Blogging App
Well, if for some reason I don't have access to internet, I suppose I could use one such app to prepare my posts, and then publish them once I regain access. As I was writing this, I scoffed to myself at the prospect of having no internet, but I suppose with my upcoming military involvement, that may not be so absurd. Of course, another approach may be to just write up my reports in a simple text file, or even on paper, and then publish it later.

If a native software solution was good enough, its interface could provide a smoother, faster, better way of composing the new post and otherwise preparing to publish it.

Conclusion
As I was composing this, I tried to think about why I even wanted an application for doing this instead of just using the web interface. I couldn't really come up with any good reasons. I did come up with a reason not to use one: I don't like having extra apps needlessly. If I can do it from my browser, why run an extra app that is going to suck up my resources?

So taking into consideration that I don't like using specific apps if I can avoid it, and, as I mentioned above, a native software application would have to be very good with regard to functionality and usability, I've decided I'm not going to be using Qumana. I think it is a pretty solid app, but I'm not sure I like the behavior and interface quirks I've been able to notice just in the time it took to compose this entry. If I end up without internet, I'll make do with TextEdit and/or a traditional journal.

Apology & Closing
Sorry for making you read this, but I think it was a good thing for me to do because now I know a little bit more of what I'm looking for in a blogging application.

All for now...
Caleb.

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