When Steve was still in utero I called him Queequeg, the harpooner in Moby Dick. I think some of the old people at our first church were genuinely afraid I intended to give him that name when he was born.
Click to enlarge and read the sign on the back of his trailer.
I'm still toying with the idea of building a Volkswagen, and to that end I'm doing some reading on the internet. I found an excellent site for all things VW, TheSamba.com. "Samba" is what the Europeans call a 23-window Deluxe MicroBus. I learned that from the dictionary part of the site where all the technical and slang terms related to VW's are listed. For example, the German word for "run" is Fahrt. So if you had an early model German Volkswagen you turned the key to Fahrt to start it.
From what I've read so far I think rebuilding the engine will be the easier part for me. I've got some experience with the mechanical side of things, and aside from a few things like getting a block bored out, I think I can do it all myself. But any body work, painting, etc. I'd have to farm out. That's when it starts to get expensive. And I don't know anything about suspensions.
I read today in TIME magazine that Stanford University has figured out that the current value of a year of life is $129,000.00. That's "the threshold beyond which ensuring another 'quality' year of life was no longer financially worthwhile." I guess that means if it requires $130,000.00 to get you another "quality" year of life, you're officially expendable.
If they can do that for human life, why can't a mechanic do the same with a car? "Should I put $1,200 into a new transmission or sign it over to the junk yard?" Have you ever heard of anyone getting a straight answer for a question like that?
I also think that the good folks at Stanford should have factored in who it is that's going to pay that $129,00. Because if it's coming out of my pocket I think the value of that year just dropped to something like $29.50.
The new term is "Sub-vertising" and it refers to mocking or spoofing real ads in such a way that it looks genuine. An example:
Wii-fit
God is good. (not exactly a scoop)
Pathway Bible Church meets at Cutting Edge Dance, which leases space in an office park made up of four or five buildings, each subdivided into a variety of businesses. This particular building houses the dance studio, an insurance agency, and at the far end, the now-empty offices of Desert Springs Church. Before they bought their new facility they needed off-site office space, and signed a lease for this unit. They don't need it now that they have their new site, so it sits empty until their lease expires the end of August. They've agreed to let us store our stuff - chairs, signs, floor mats, etc. - in that space at no charge! Very gracious of them.
One of the big hassles involved in a church start-up is hauling stuff back and forth every week and filling up the garage with it in between. Moving it from two doors down is a huge help.
I hope someday Pathway has an opportunity to show the same kind of graciousness to another congregation.
Obama and Hillary are meeting tonight. Wouldn't you love to be a fly on that wall!
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