Face forward - even if not moving forward

Saturday was the most lovely and warm day (relatively speaking) we have had here in two weeks! It was fabulous for an outdoor wedding!

I was utterly impressed with the ownership the young people took of this whole project. Most of them were between the ages of 21 and 25. To think that this new couple is surrounded by such amazing and hard-working friends. Click on the above picture for more in the photo album. We all had a great time and the newlyweds are now honeymooning in the Caribbean somewhere...

We love our Youth & Community Pastor. He is also legendary for having a messy office. What you see is actually the cleaned up office. There are 4 big tote boxes stored in another room. I did not make up this picture. The only thing moved for viewing was the basketball (he was a good sport about me taking the pic and suggested moving the basketball up front).

1. Basketball (there's a baseball behind the #8 balloon).
2. Nerf noodle (saved from last outside fun carnival).
3. Drumsticks (plays on youth worship group).
3a. Snare tom to go with #3.
4. Lacey headdress pieces (used by women at his own wedding; likely to be used at sister's wedding next June).
5. Pizza delivery menu.
6. Magnetic toy letters for name on door.
7. Duct tape (no Canadian pastor should be without this stuff; bonus points to find the 2nd roll).
8. Old computer speakers (doubling as paper weights).
9. Old computer monitor (same use as #8).
10. Suit he wore at own wedding in February on back of chair.
11. Bible (commentary underneath).
12. Papers of games, ice-breakers and other research.
13. Box of vinyl gloves (inevitable messy food clean-ups).
14. Listerine mouthwash.
15. Styrofoam cup for #14.
16. Rope (you never know when you're going to hang somebody - or yourself).
17. Cordless lamp (???).
18. Laptop computer.
19. Heart of gold (not seen, but we know it's there ).

About 2 years ago a small cable shorted and burned out a channel on the mixing board at my church. It wasn't a major issue since we had a spare channel to use and the dead one was just taped up.

I got the schematics from the national distributer of this mixing board and tried working on it myself to save our church spending some big cash. Couldn't find anything obvious as to why it was dead. Left it until I went on vacation in late July and took out just the dead channel strip to the national service depot on the edge of Toronto. After a couple of weeks, they call back and say it's fine. The technician suggested a few other things to try - all of them time-consuming.

I put the channel strip back into the mixing board and thought, "Why not just see what's going on?" I plugged in the wireless microphone as per usual and fired up the board. No flashing lights. No smoke. Good so far. I turned on the mic, turned on the channel - and it worked! But I don't know why. I experimented with different types of inputs and they all worked. Humph.

Just hope it stays that way.....

I just used what used to be one of my favourite Opera widgets: Dictionary.com

I say "used to be" because when I did a search with it just recently, so much of the "results" were advertisements or "sponsored links". Sigh, out you go...

Did you know Opera is one of the last frontiers on the web that does not have banner ads promoting sexy dates or losing weight? Am I one of the only few bothered by this advert intrusion to just getting simple information? I realize it takes money to launch and maintain a website, but does it need to prey on people's insecurities or fantasies?