Pine Rivers UC kitchen rats

Saw this sign in the Pine Rivers UC kitchen.  Could not resist. (It's my mouse)

Flashpoint Sunday 28-July-2013

Today was Flashpoint (Prep scratching notes below)
Talking With God
 
I had been musing over what communications method to use for the science experiment.  (see below)  Ran the theme past son Chris.  Did not mention any of the ideas I had had and he said that he recalled making a really long string telephone that went the whole length of the car park.  So that settled it.  A string telephone with wow factor.

Home Sunday AM before church saw me riffling through the recycling bin.  You know these bins are just a little tall to rummage comfortably.  You really have to get your head in and hold your breath or breathe in and enjoy.  I found two yoghurt containers, two large tuna tins and one small can.  Only one small can left me with a problem.  I figured I could solve it by getting a small tin of peaches from the pantry.  Alas no peaches and no pears but I did spy a tin of baked beans.   

Inspection of the tin showed the top and bottom bulging out.  Hmm.  This tin was loaded.  I put it in the sink, attached the tin opener and squeezed.  Hssssss as the pressure was released.  Emptied the rancid contents into a plastic shopping bag.  Washed the tin and washed it again.  It had a certain odor to it.

Down to the church.


We started in the big church.  The service seemed to have a certain focus on the Lords Prayer.  Consistency is handy.  I guess she reads the same book as us.  Janet had us sing the Lords Prayer to the theme of Auld Lang Syne.  I had this mental picture of a new years eve party and members of Sherwood UC breaking into the Lords Prayer. 

Another interesting part of Janet's service was that she spoke about the "Give us today our daily bread" and talked about how it is OK for us to ask God for the things we need.

Then we were off to the hall for Flashpoint.
 

Sang a few songs and then the science experiment.  That tin brought forward some comment from kids not too enthusiastc about putting it close to their mouths.  In the end we made three string telephones.  The long one used the yoghurt containers and went pretty much the length of the car park.  We took the two shorter ones and tied the strings together to make a 4 way party line and it worked.   just.

Megan did the talk and as usual it was very good.

For the story we had "Crusher is coming"

The jist of Megan's talk was that to get to know what someone is like, you need to communicate with them.  I can tell you all about my friend but until you meet my friend you really won't know them.  So to get to know God, we need to talk with him.  One way to do this is through prayer.  

After church we had coffee and for the first time coffee from one of the Aldi machines.

We were going to the Gramarians rowing club party.  In preparation Megan decided that we should take some strawberries and cream.  Someone has to lick the bowl.  A little brown sugar helped to ..... 

 
  

Lectionary 28-July-2013:

Hosea 1:2-10
Psalm 85 
Genesis 18:20-32 and 
Psalm 138 
Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19) 
Luke 11:1-13 - Lords prayer.

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
² He said to them, “When you pray, say:

“‘Father,^[a]
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.^[b]
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
⁴ Forgive us our sins,
    for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.^[c]
And lead us not into temptation.^[d]’”

 And our theme will be...Talking With God

Brain storm Ideas to do with communication.....
walkie-talkie
a couple of big dishes
tin can and string
old dial phones
Smoke signals
flags semaphore

Consider the "Lords Prayer"
Acknowledge God is God , Holy,
Request God to provide
Request God to forgive and ack that we should forgive others who do wrong to us.
Ask for help re temptation. 



Songs
A1. God Loves You                                                    (God Gives Book 1:13 )
B4. Jesus is the Rock                                                   (God Gives Book 2:24) 
B5. King of Kings                                                       (God Gives Book 2:22) 
D6. Rejoice in the Lord                                            (Praise & Worship Vol D:854)
C2. The Blind Man                                                   (All Together 23)

C3. Creator                                                              (The Lads – photocopy)

Random Thoughts
Two Way Radio
You know with those cheap walki talkies if you shout the message gets distorted.  maybe if one shouts at God the message could get distorted.
If you are in a noisy environment it is hard to get you rmessage across and also it is very hard to hear the reply.

Dan fixes bike tube.

Movie - The Lone Ranger

Megan and I went to see "The Lone Ranger"

Nothing like the TV series of old.  Quite a juxtaposition of things.  In the new movie, Tonto (the Indian) is the smart one.  The character who ends up unwillingly becoming the lone ranger is a somewhat inept starry eyed well intentioned recent graduate from law school who does not carry a gun and appears to believe that criminals will come willingly to a fair system.

It would seem to me that the real story line of the move is the effect of the coming of the white man on the Indian civilisation.  The corruption of power that comes from building and owning the railroad that is being built across the USA is combined with the corruption of greed that comes from discovering nuggets of silver.

 In one thread the bad guys who were found injured and nursed back to health by the Indians turn on the Indians and kill them to keep the location of the silver a secret.  Later the same bad guys disguise themselves as Indians and attack some white settlements so that the white people / railroad owners can break a treaty they had with the Indians and build a shorter straight track.  This allows the white people to bring in the army who use a machine gun to decimate the Indians once again.

All of this is interspersed with humorous scenes where the laws of physics are suspended.   The white horse ridden by the lone ranger is endowed with special powers including the ability to appear on roofs.  This leads to an interesting horse chase along roof tops and onto the roof of the train.  There are symbolic scenes where the Lone ranger is tied to a stake and blind folded on a flat rail car car.  Tonto the indian then using a second flat car pushes him through the middle of the battle with bullets and arrows whistling past and because of his blindfold he has no idea what s going on.  Symbolic of those of us who live our lives unaware of the battles between others. 

All threads intertwine -  The apparently genteel railroad owner turns out to be the brother of the bad guy who found the silver with the help of a young naive Indian boy.  The Indian "Tonto" turns out to be the young boy who showed the bad white guys the location of the silver.  The lone ranger at one stage tries the classic "Hi Ho Silver Away".


I suspect this movie has been partially made to try and write another side to the story of the wild west.  The humor and CGI is used to get people in.  And of of course to dilute the gore in more ways than one.  I guess we leave think that was ...... a bit odd.  A mixture of western, of slap stick humor, Matrix/Bourne conspiracy and a feeling that one has just sat through a sermon without realising it.

Worlds biggest orchestra

Here we are at $uncorp.
I have my event issued triangle to a poor person who had missed out.  Luckily the back hooligan was in the instrument case.  here its chris and I in the triangle section.  I have my tent peg and masonry bit.

 

They are getting each type of instrument to play on their own. Its eriery to hear a whole lot of flutes in Suncorp

Several big screens
Huge delay.
Ah for the days of analog :)

Megan had her music taped to the hand rail

Susan Wuth

Jemma & Megan

Kyra (blue) Janet (blue)

 Dan was down the front.

Wampserver - Error - Could not execute menu item....

WAMPSERVER
Note as installed mysql root has no password defined.  Hmmmmmm

Windows 7.
Trying to get WAMPSERVER going.
Get this error:
Could not execute menu item (internal error) [Exception] Could not perform action:
The service has not been started.

INVESTIGATION
1
Left click the orange W icon in the tray
2
Navigate Apache>Service
Choose Test Port 80
3
Computer responds with a window that pops up saying
"Your port 80 is actually used by :
Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.5
Press Enter to exit...
4
Goto
ControlPanel > Programs and Features
Toward the top left in the blue side bar, click "Turn Windows Features on or off"
A window pops up titled "Windows Features"
5

 Observe the blue square for Internet Information Services.






Click it

This pops up.
Click yes

And then this

Now reboot







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZrE9OvgHkk

All fixed.

Worlds Biggest Orchestra

The Worlds biggest orchestra
have released a new part?  The triangle.  For people just like me.  They are obviously in need of a few extra seats.  Knowing we are resourceful people they are even giving us triangles as part of our registration. 

I am hopeful that there will be a special separate conductor who will point to us each and every time we have to ding the thing.

In order to become a fully fledged triangle extraordinaire one has to practice practice practice.

First an instrument was needed.  Triangles were in short supply but tent pegs were readily available.  A selection of tent pegs were retrieved from the camping gear.  Each was tested for tonal excellence.  It would appear that a shoe lace makes a better holder than a piece of silver welding rod.  A masonary drill makes a good dinger.

Megan has printed out the music.  Normal music may have 5 lines but luckily us triangle people have a subset of 1.  The music is a medley of three songs all in a thing called 4 : 4 time.  But the beats per minute changes from song to song.

So here we are at our first practice.  Megan is playing along on the recorder with Jemma.  Once Jemma gets it then Megan will graduate to the clarinet.  Dan is drumming on his practice pad.  Chris is blowing his trombone.

The Abbey Medieval Festival

We are at the 24th Abbey Medieval festival.
Surrounded by the middle ages.  Steeped in workplace health and safety.  I enjoyed the knights storming the castle complete with safety goggles.
The day begins with checking the fuel level in the generators and the wiring of the PA systems.
A grand parade where local politicians make pronouncements. I enjoyed the MC's introduction where he explained that they had captured the politician. the poli sensibly have a very short speech and declared the day started.
All mannor of reenactment groups set up camp here.  They dress in period costume and sheep in old fashioned tents.  No rip stop nylon in 1500.  it looks like these people have a lot of fun and that they develop some close friendships.  Very communal.
Mind you I sense a problem wirh the medieval economy.  There are a lot of Lords and Ladies.  Knights in shiny armour. There are priests and clergy but as far as I can see no surfs, slaves, unemployed starving dogs bodies.  Perhaps our current political masters should investigate how to run such an economy.
Opening cerimony

.

.

.
.

.Dan and Jemma in the foreground.  Derek in the tent running the PA system.

Back stage

Some kid had a bit of a fit and suddenly this Medieval lady produced a two way radio.  A thousand years before it was invented.  Mind you the speaker stacks in the back ground seem equally out of time.

Glasshouse3 - Ngungun

 

Marcus

Dan and Marcus

On the way back, Chris and I (Frank) climbed into a cave.  Just to check it out in case we need to escape somewhere in the event of an invasion or rising sea levels.

glasshouse1 - tibberoowuccum

The day started with rain and some good intentions to walk up a glass house mountain.  A mere hillock in global terms.  Bob had briefed Megan on a couple of options.  There was but one small issue.......
Rain.

We looked out the window as we ate breakfast at 9am ish and said 'nah'

There was some traction to play that game we all know and love - Monopoly.  Thankfully it had not been brought so we settled for a game of spicks and specks.  You know the awe in which one watches quiz shows.  Well we showed none of the brilliance that causes viewers to return for a second episode.  The game was abandoned in favour of a game of Rummikub.  At the conclusion of that game we observed that the rain had reduced to a mere drizzle.

Bags were packed with sugar.  We boarded the Vito.  Megan navigated and we were off.

Our first challenge was ....

.....The mud......
We walked along this track.  Sort of wishing we had a Land cruiser.  It would have been so much fun.

We were having so much fun that no one noticed that we weren't actually going up.

Megan said "hey lets turn left and walk up the hill"

We found a track and started to walk.  Climb.  Up the hill.  Sometimes the track was too slippery and we had to walk in the grass beside the track or pull ourselves up using trees.

We made it to what looked a bit like the peak.  A sort of preliminary peak.  The real peak was few more meters behind Megan.

Dan with Jemma and Megan in the background on the way to the peak.

This is what the track looked like.  The peak is in the background.

The view.  Wow.  Loved it.

Marcus high on the right along with Chris ascended the peak and then gave advice to the rest of us.

Just a happy Jemma

On the way down.  Marcus and Chris helped Jemma.  It was pretty steep.











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