Think This // After Hours

By Dr. S.M. Lockridge
The Bible says my King is a seven-way king
     He’s the King of the Jews; that’s a racial king
     He’s the King of Israel; that’s a national King
     He’s the King of Righteousness
     He’s the King of the Ages
     He’s the King of Heaven
     He’s the King of Glory
     He’s the King of kings, and He’s the Lord of lords. That’s my King.
Well….I wonder, do you know Him?

David said, “The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork.”
     My King is a sovereign King.
     No means of measure can define His limitless love.
     No far seeing telescope can bring into visibility the coastline of His shoreless supply.
     No barrier can hinder Him from pouring out His blessings.
     He’s enduringly strong.
     He’s entirely sincere.
     He’s eternally steadfast.
     He’s immortally graceful.
     He’s imperially powerful.
     He’s impartially merciful.
Do you know Him?

He’s the greatest phenomenon that has ever crossed the horizon of this world.
     He’s God’s Son.
     He’s the sinner’s Savior.
     He’s the centerpiece of civilization.
     He stands in the solitude of Himself.
     He’s august and He’s unique.
     He’s unparalleled.
     He’s unprecedented.
     He is the loftiest idea in literature.
     He’s the highest personality in philosophy.
     He is the supreme problem in higher criticism.
     He’s the fundamental doctrine of true theology.
     He is the cardinal necessity for spiritual religion.
     He’s the miracle of the age.
     He’s — yes He is — He is the superlative of everything good that you choose to call Him.

He’s the only one qualified to be an all sufficient Savior.
I wonder if you know Him today?
     He supplies strength for the weak.
     He’s available for the tempted and the tried.
     He sympathizes and He saves.
     He strengthens and sustains.
     He guards and He guides.
     He heals the sick.
     He cleansed the lepers.
     He forgives sinners.
     He discharges debtors.
     He delivers the captives.
     He defends the feeble.
     He blesses the young.
     He serves the unfortunate.
     He regards the aged.
     He rewards the diligent….and He beautifies the meek.
I wonder if you know Him?

Well, my King….He is the King!
     He’s the key to knowledge.
     He’s the wellspring of wisdom.
     He’s the doorway of deliverance.
     He’s the pathway of peace.
     He’s the roadway of righteousness.
     He’s the highway of holiness.
     He’s the gateway of glory.
Do you know Him?

Well, His office is manifold.
     His promise is sure….and His light is matchless.
     His goodness is limitless.
     His mercy is everlasting.
     His love never changes.
     His word is enough.
     His grace is sufficient.
     His reign is righteous.
     And His yoke is easy, and his burden is light.
     I wish I could describe Him to you, but He’s indescribable — Yes He is!? He is God!
     He’s incomprehensible.
     He’s invincible.
     He’s irresistible.
Well, you can’t get Him out of your mind.
You can’t get Him off of your hand.
You can’t out live Him, and you can’t live without Him.

The Pharisees couldn’t stand Him, but they found out they couldn’t stop Him.
     Pilate couldn’t find any fault in Him.
     The witnesses couldn’t get their testimonies to agree.
     Herod couldn’t kill Him.
     Death couldn’t handle Him, and the grave couldn’t hold Him.
     Yea!!!, that’s my King, that’s my King.

Yes, and Thine is the Kingdom….and the Power….and the Glory….Forever….and ever, and ever, and ever — How long is that? And ever, and ever.

And when you get through with all of the forevers, then. AMEN!
Good God Almighty!  AMEN!   AMEN!

I love Scott Adams and Dilbert. First off, the comic strip alone is a complete riot. Some things that I find amazing about it are that all or almost all of it is based upon whatever Scott Adams receives via email. It’s pretty much as if the strip writes itself these days. I like that I can get it emailed to me for free every morning by signing up to receive it at Dilbert.com. What amazes me even more is that he was afflicted with a strange muscle control disorder a couple of years ago and had to draw the strip with his left hand. Nowadays, he draws the strip using a special computerized drawing tablet that allows him to use bigger pen strokes and less pressure, and this appears to have helped him continue with the strip. The entire ordeal was detailed in a Washington Post article from 2005.

Aside from the riproaring comic strip, he post to the Dilbert Blog about every other day. The blog often has nothing to do with Dilbert but are amusing observations that Adams makes. He’s usually quick to get his humorous point across, which I like as it is therefore a low-cost committment (same as reading a comic strip) for me.

In addition to the Dilbert comic strip and Dilbert Blog, he puts out a riotous monthly Dilbert Newsletter. This one is well worth signing up for and it too, is largely driven by user contributions. Of course, Scott Adams writes books as well and I just finished reading (well, listening to the audio version) Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel. The audio version is read by Adams himself. I’d recommend this one if you’re ever interested in a quick, funny read.

Lastly, something many people may not know is that years ago, Adams hired some special food engineers to create flavorful burritos that provided a whopping amount of nutrition in one shot. I personally haven’t tried one of these as I haven’t found any locally. The Dilburito.com website highlights some of these burritos. As a recent convert to vegetarianism, I’m especially interested in a quick but nutritious vegetarian meal such as these.

[Scott’s family website and blogs can be found at www.Yanoff.org.]

I love my iPod. I listen to it on the bus or on my bike as I commute to work. I listen to it in bed to help me fall asleep. Sometimes, I hook it up to our stereo and listen to it while the family eats dinner. I also love iTunes. As first, I didn’t understand why I needed another specific jukebox-style piece of software to manage music. However, I really like the interface. You can add any column you want, you can easily change MP3 tags, even on a mass scale, and the ability to keep the music on your computer in synchronization with your iPod is an asset.I’m a big fan of the podcasts as well. I’ve tried a few of the “song of the day” podcasts out there and enjoyed them. However, I found the music they played to often be obsure and by unsigned acts that I had a hard time finding elsewhere, so I abandoned those podcasts. I currently listen to:

• Grammar Girl (http://grammar.qdnow.com/)
• Mr. Manners (http://manners.qdnow.com/)
• Frank Deford (Sports commentator on NPR)

What I really love are the little details that separate the iPod and iTunes from other music players that I have tried. Being a numbers junkie, I love to sort the list by the number of times I’ve played various songs, just to see what my listening habits are. I like that it tracks that. I can also sort by the number of times I’ve skipped a song to see if the song is no longer worthy of my collection. I also really dig the ratings as I can create smart playlists based on those ratings.

Speaking of smart playlists, that’s possibly my most favorite feature of the iPod and iTunes. Beyond just plain playlists of songs, smart playlists allow you to create a playlist with rules that filter which songs you hear. There’s even a site, SmartPlaylists.com, where people share ideas about smart playlists they’ve created.

Currently, I have the following smart playlists created in my iTunes and iPod:

• “Lost Friends” - this randomly plays anything with a play count of less than 1. This helps me find stuff in my 4,000-song collection that I haven’t been listening to
• “Unrated” - this plays anything without a rating. This allows me to listen to songs and rate them as I listen to them. I made this one such that the songs with the lowest playcount are played first, so it’s like a less-random version of “Lost Friends”.
• “4-Star Random” and “5-Star Random” - These play anything I’ve rated 4 and 5 stars, respectively, at random. This is when I want to really listen to the best stuff in my collection.
• “Children’s Random” - Since I’ve labeled all my kids’ music with an artist of “Childrens”, I created this playlist to play those songs at random.
• “Sleepy - Random” - This is one I listen to when I’m trying to fall asleep. I created a regular playlist called “Sleepy” where I’ve put some of the more mellow songs in my collection. Since I haven’t found a way to may a regular playlist always set to play songs at random, I created the smart playlist to pick songs from the first playlist and play them randomly.

Marek’s invited me to blahhhg on his blog. I have no idea what to really write about, so I think I’ll make my entries called “This I Love…” which will be similar to the NPR series “This I Believe…“. Instead of writing about a personal belief (which Marek has cornered anyway…*wink*) I’ll write about stuff that impresses me or stuff I just enjoy. That said…

I love Wikipedia. I love the concept where everyone chips in with information to build up a fantastic encyclopedia. Yep, I know it’s not always accurrate or up to date. Still, it came in handy when my daughter, Gillie, had to research her second-grade project on crickets last week. As for being out of date, well I love the fact that I was able to update my own entry on Wikipedia (which someone else must have started, because it certainly was not me).

Get this — they even have the tall WITI TV tower by my house listed in Wikipedia. If it were not for that, I would not have known that it was briefly the tallest free-standing tower in the world.

Lastly, as I’ve become more diet- and nutrition-conscious, I appreciated how balanced their entry on milk is. There’s a section on the health “benefits” but then an even bigger section on the detriments and controversies. It’s not a huge article, but it’s pretty well-written and talks about how a good portion of the milk in the U.S. would be illegal to sell in Europe or Canada because of pus or rBGH content. An interesting fact I learned from the site is that skim milk is 0.1% fat but is allowed to be called “fat free” according to USDA guidelines. That’s all for now…

[Marek: You can read more about Scott on his website at Yanoff.org.]