Ubuntu 14.04

I've been playing around with Ubuntu's Unity for a few weeks now, and I'm having a good time with it. All of my KDE programs still work, so I can choose whether to use the default Unity programs, or my preferred KDE programs.

One thing that I have found that does not work is Newsrover in WINE. The program will open, but I can never access it. If I decide to continue to use Unity, I may have to move it over to the notebook, which is still running KDE.

The default file manager is good, but I still prefer KDE's Dolphin because you can split the screen. Basically it's having two file managers open at once. Makes it very easy to compare files.

An earlier post complained that the weather app (as seen in the screen shot) wouldn't update itself. I'm pleased to discover that after rebooting the computer for a kernel upgrade, it now auto refreshes like I want it to.

Held By the Grip of God.

Philippians 3:12

Never "choose" to be a worker for Christ, but realized that Christ has chosen you to be his worker. Because he choose us, We can't be allowed to think that we're not qualified in some position, nor can we perform the tasks that Christ has asked us to.

In the past I've joked that I'm not qualified to be a preacher, or a missionary, etc. However if God did call me to one of these tasks, or something else, He would give me the ability to perform the work for His glory.

And before we puff ourselves up thinking we're the greatest preacher that ever lived, or whatever, we need to remember that we are simply sinners saved by grace.

The Overshadowing of God's Personal Deliverance

" I am with you to deliver you" says the Lord. (Jeremiah 1:8)

What I pulled from this reading.

1. God will deliver our lives, not our personal property and possessions.

2. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it.

3. If we look for justice, then we'll start to complain about the lack of justice, and could possibly lead to self-pity.

4. We deliver justice as God commands us, but ultimately it's His call if people get away with stuff.

Tonight I had the excitement of a cat walking on the keyboard wanting to play.

My Utmost for His Highest

This weekend I purchased the devotional guide, "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers. I bought the "Updated" edition, because the "Classic" version was $10, and I only had the $5 that the updated version cost. So the updated version it is!

My plan is to read each day's devotion, and post my thoughts on here. Feel free to jump in and read along.

VBS Day One Complete!

Vacation Bible School for 2014 has officially kicked off at Brookwood Baptist Church. We're going with the Lifeway theme of "Agency D3". The "D3" stands for "Discover, Decide & Defend". Basically it's an apologetic theme, getting the kids to think about their faith, and how to answer questions about it.

This year my wife and I get to teach missions, and I'm pretty excited about it. We got a lot of information from the North American Mission Board. What's fascinating (and a little discouraging) is how many cities in the USA have majorities of people who claim no religious affiliation. 

Minneapolis/St Paul (One of my adopted hometowns) is one such city. There is one Southern Baptist Convention church for every 118,248 metro Minneapolis/St. Paul residents.

By comparison, in Oklahoma City there is one Southern Baptist Convention church for every 4910 residents.

Looking at the Minneapolis page, I've discovered that Waconia is considered a "potential" church plant city.

I attended College at St Paul Bible College (Now called Crown College), and it would be a lot of fun to be back in the area!

But for now Oklahoma is home, and I'm content with that.

The kids were a lot of fun, and seemed to be interested in what we were teaching them. The biggest thing we tried to get across tonight was you didn't have to go overseas to be a missionary. You could be one right here in the United States.

More information about Minneapolis/ St Paul - http://www.namb.net/minneapolis-stpaul/

Ubuntu vs Kubuntu

Normally I run Kubuntu (Ubuntu with the KDE on it), but recently I decided to give Unity a try, which is the default program for Ubuntu.

Because it's all Ubuntu underneath, I was able to install the Unity packages from within Kubuntu. After logging off and logging back on, I can now select which one I want to run, KDE or Unity.

One nice thing is that even running Unity, all of my favorite KDE programs are still installed and available! I also have access to all of my files.

I really like KDE, but I've discovered that I'm not much of a tinkerer with the software. I'll do an initial setup, then I'm pretty much happy to run with the defaults.

On Unity I like the launcher bar on the left hand side. I've got my 6-7 favorite applications locked to it.

The weather application "my-weather-indicater" has a lot of features I like, but the auto refresh doesn't work. I have to manually refresh it. No big deal, as it's easy to refresh from the top menu bar.

I'll run with this for a few weeks. I'm hoping to buy a new hard drive in a few weeks, and that will require a fresh install of Linux.

Rain!

This time last month we were looking at a serious drought for the summer in Oklahoma. Happily June brought much needed rain, so the drought situation has improved. Hopefully that will push the 100 degree temperatures further down the road.