My Theology Degree Finally pays Off--with Mockery!
Categories: Non-Categorized
By MerricMaker, 1/7/2012 3:16 PM (PST) - 236 reads.

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One of the local right-wing preachers in town goes to meetings with my wife, and as a result is a Facebook friend, therefore his comments alternately enrage and amuse me daily. Some non-Trinitarian group in town has his dander up so he mentions pelagianism and how bad it is. Hilarious detail, he had to look it up first. Which is pretty much starting by saying: "I don't know anything about it, but I don't like it." If I ever actually meet the man I might try and talk with him about Felix cupla and how differently Pelagius' work plays out if we assume that the Fall was intended and even necessary. He's a Biblical Literalist though, so I wouldn't be able to get to the good stuff and talk about the Fall being metaphorical.

Then, in another posting from I believe the same day, he said that we must "Worship Jesus Christ." Really? Because (and being non-trinitarian myself I'm not quite solid on this) wouldn't worship of Jesus Christ be symptomatic of a basic misunderstanding of the workings of the Trinity?

This ignores the fact that the real Jesus would probably have been horrified to find out people worship him when his entire teaching ministry was about directing everyone's attention back to God and not worshiping anything earthly.

Snarky Comment
Categories: Non-Categorized
By MerricMaker, 1/4/2012 5:04 PM (PST) - 262 reads.

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A friend of mine posted: "What's the big deal in Iowa today? They didn't even play in a bowl game."

Sure they did, it's called the Toilet Bowl.

This is particularly true for Santorum, who was involved in Jack Abramoff's influence peddling, and is also chock-full of crazy theories about Iran and the end of the world. I'm beginning to wonder if all this early polling by the Republicans is just a fight to see who gets to be at the front of the line for the guillotine.

I Finally Learn when Christmas Falls... so that We can Celebrate it a Week Later
Categories: Non-Categorized
By MerricMaker, 12/24/2011 6:06 PM (PST) - 234 reads.

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The run-up to Christmas itself this year felt a bit... onerous. Growing up I can remember Christmas as a very simple and relaxing time. Once all of the church and music stuff was out of the way we were all just lazing around the house waiting for Christmas morning and trying to figure out what would be fun to cook. That's not the case now. Advent and Christmas are work for my wife and so the time leading up to Christmas eve is all preparation time--either her preparing for the next service or us preparing to leave town after all her ministry duties are finished. Packing presents in our car to take with us on the trip, figuring out if boarding our cats is the best option, cleaning up so that when we get back it's not to find a ton of menial tasks waiting for us. Along with all of that preparation is the need to make sure Grayson starts to learn what Christmas is (without disturbing nap and bedtime).

Today we opened all of Grayson's presents after lunch and before his afternoon nap because tomorrow we don't have time to laze around the house before it's time for Sunday morning service followed by our getting out of town. My wife seemed to think that my general philosophical feeling that presents should be opened Christmas morning was not a position which bent before the basic realities of departure times and family that lives in another state. Apparently she thought I would just grouse and refuse to let anyone open any presents. Before I was married I can remember scoffing at anything on the news about holiday travel. Travel during the holidays struck me as an absurd exercise, and certainly never ever leaving the comforts of your own home to go to someone else's. My Christmas was for me, why on earth would I want to inflict it on them?

Odd though it may sound, that dragging sense leading up to Christmas went away as soon as we passed off our cats to the vet for boarding. No insulin for Poo to worry about, no post-operative antibiotics and inappropriate urination with Kali. Christmas just became Christmas, the fact of our incoming travel or multiple present-opening destinations became comfortable realities rather than grating ones. So what if our December calendar runs one week longer than everyone else's because we don't get our own Christmas until after the 25th?

I Felt His Pain
Categories: Non-Categorized
By MerricMaker, 12/10/2011 6:42 PM (PST) - 289 reads.

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Let it not be said that I am a father who does not share in my son's experiences. Being vomited on apparently qualifies as "exposure to infectious material" it just took five days of incubation before I could really get down to sharing. I felt a little funny a few hours after dinner and, rather than go to bed, I took the less conventional option and spent the entire night in our basement bathroom. I didn't exactly sleep but there were times when, while curled on the floor of the shower, the elbow propped on my thigh slipped and caused me to sit up suddenly. So there was some drowsing had but no sleep. Lying down made the nausea worse so I stood and leaned against things. If Grayson's experience with this thing was anything akin to mine then he's a pretty resilient kid, being able to lie down and go to bed when that simple comfort was beyond me. I couldn't, at least not until about eight that morning when I had been completely wrung out by the night's efforts and had taken a third restorative shower.

Unlike my son, I am quite adept in the manly art of vomiting.

Parenting is Glamourous
Categories: Non-Categorized
By MerricMaker, 12/5/2011 11:29 AM (PST) - 333 reads.

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The last time we scheduled something here at the house it was Grayson's birthday party. We started doing our cleaning and tidying up, then my wife spent that entire week in bed with the flu. Now what we have is our open house so that neighbors and parishoners and such can come see the house and visit. Therefore, Grayson spent all of last night vomiting. The first barf was while we were out to dinner, and included great gouts of the stuff. Then again after we'd put him to bed (in sheets I freshly changed) and then again while he was snuggling with me on the couch.

Teaching a two-year-old how to barf is sort of in the realm of potty training. When he was throwing up at the restaurant he looked over at me in desperate confusion. He didn't know what was happening or what to do about it, so he just sorta went everywhere. When he threw up in his bed I found him lying in it trying to sleep. When we were on the couch and he sat up suddenly from drowsing in my arms I didn't realize it was to throw up. However it became quickly apparent when he barfed onto my upper chest and over my shoulder and onto the arm of the couch. As I hefted the kid up over my shoulder and headed for the nearest bathroom my wife (in proper motherly concern) stood in our way. In the manner of the proper and loving parent I said, "MOVE!"

I could feel Grayson barfing over my shoulder and could hear droplets landing on whatever was on the floor between the couch and the bathroom. After this, I decided to teach Grayson about throwing up into things. My wife helpfully provided a large empty gray plastic storage container. I put it in front of Grayson and explained that when he felt sick, he should retch into the tub. I then demonstrated, making the retching motion and saying, "Bluuuuh." Grayson spent the rest of the night dragging a plastic tub around the basement and occasionally stopping and going, "Bluuuuh" into it. We can't potty train him, but dammit we'll teach him how to throw up.

Now that it's morning and I've been tidying up around the house I'm feeling vaguely nauseous as well. Hopefully that's just lack of sleep, rather than catching whatever little bug it was that made him do that. Anyway, he's keeping down clear liquids and crackers now and the house looks pretty good from our party preparations. 
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In other non-body-function news, following the mess in Ascension my raid group opted to come back to Sunder with me. This is several months ago, by the way. My old raiding crew (we call ourselves Wipe in Progress) seem to get along famously in Sunder and the established people in Sunder are happy that we add a great deal more activity in guild chat. It's nice to kibitz with them and do so in an atmosphere of mutual respect. The core Sunder raid group are seven bosses out of seven in heroic Firelands. Moreover, 4.3 and its new raid was released on Tuesday, and they had Deathwing dead by Thursday night.

Our group has more modest progression with just four out of seven heroic kills in Firelands. The new raid seems somewhat too easy by comparison to heroic Firelands but I'm sure we'll run into some fun challenges. That said, of the three consistent raiding groups in Sunder ours is #2, which is a hell of a thing. The other raiding group doesn't have a hunter though. So I'll magnanimously allow myself to be dubbed "lead hunter-guy" until one of the old-timers brings back their hunter.

The new raid finder feature is kinda a crapshoot when it comes to getting gear what with people constantly popping into and out of the group. It is a wonderful diagnostic tool though. The changes to survival are looking good. Generally I'm 2,000-5,000 dps behind marksmanship hunters in comparable gear, but several percentage points ahead of them in overall damage done (me doing 6-7.7% and them doing 5-6%). With the new buff to explosive shot I'm finding the majority of my damage coming from it, rather than from Cobra Shot. But the major change is not the raw damage increase, but rather the reduced cooldown for Lock & Load. 

While Explosive trap's damage ticks more often and therefore has a higher chance to trigger Lock & Load than Black Arrow I'm finding that there is sometimes a range issue in using the trap for my Lock & Loads. On some fights there's no trouble, Hagara for example. However, for Warlord Whathistenticle there are range issues with always using explosive trap and I find myself having to sometimes use the now sub-optimal Black Arrow.

So there we are. Barfing baby and continuing to raid as survival.