I’ll Tell You What…

I think the database is finally correct. phpMyAdmin is such a pain when it comes to very large databases. I suppose it’s not really the applications fault but the server settings for mysql. The default timeout for “importing” an SQL dump is 5 minutes and when one has a few hundred thousand lines of SQL commands to run it takes a while.

I think I’ve lost a few comments in the past few days but will try to get those put back in the database real soon.

Also, I’ve tried to speed up the loading of the main page by moving the Bloglines links to an early morning cron job that runs the following code and redirects it to a static file that gets read with each page request:

#!/usr/bin/php

// Let’s filter the Bloglines feed so that it
// kind of meets XHTML 1.0 standards
$page = preg_replace(’/&/’,'&’,$page);
print $page . “\n”;

It looks like there some word wrap going on with the fopen statement.

The next thing I’m going to do is save all those badges to the right locally so they load faster. I’m also going to to convert the TTLB Ecosystem thing to something other than javascript and see if that makes it load faster. I think that’s the next biggest bottleneck.

I will be switching web host providers this week so if you experience any broken links or strange error messages while trying to load my site it’s just me. Just try back later if you get an error.

Thanks.

I’m approaching the 2-day post op mark and I must say that this hasn’t been fun. Of course, nobody said it was going to be fun but I didn’t think it would be as bad as it was.

My anesthesiologist knocked me out while I wasn’t paying attention. Usually they will say something like, “Count back from 100…” I never made it past 93. And the next thing I know I’m writhing in pain in recovery and trying to breathe around my oxygen mask. I heard sentence fragments such as “increase the morphine dosage” and “Let’s switch to Dilaudid.” I also heard, “I’m taking your wallet” but that was just my ex-wife letting me know that since I would be staying over-night at the hospital she would hold on to my wallet. I never doubted I would get it back in one piece because I trust her.

Honestly, I have never experienced pain to such a degree. Even in the midst of my harshest RSD pain, it was never close to the pain I felt post op. It took several more hours to get the pain under control. That was not the highlight of my day!

No, the highlights came in the form of nurses. All three of the nurses that took care of me were wonderful. They were genuine in their concern for me and they made me feel as though I was the only patient on the second floor. I will have to find out their names so I can send them some flowers. I’m sure they would appreciate it.

It’s good to be home.

Tomorrow’s the day I say goodbye to a close friend: my gall bladder. While the surgeon’s in there a liver biopsy will be taken to see what’s up with my liver function test numbers.

Prayers at 1:00 PM EST would be greatly appreciated.

Luke 9

There’s a lot happening in this chapter. Jesus sends out the twelve, Herod gets confused, the five thousand are fed, Peter correctly responses to the question “Who do you say that I am?”, Jesus predicts His death, the Transfiguration, the healing of the demon-possessed boy, Jesus predicts his death again, the disciple’s learn about being the greatest, minister’s outside the inner twelve, the opposition of a Samaritan village and the cost of following Jesus. *Breathe*

Well, to me one thing that has always stood out in this chapter was Jesus asking his disciples the famous question, “Who do people say that I am?” (Luke 9:18) Why do you think He said that? Do you think He was only asking to get Peter to correctly answer the question? If so, was He asking for Peter’s benefit or for the twelve? Those are tough questions and I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know the answer to all those questions. And after thinking about it, I’m not going to provide those answers in this text. What I will do, however, is tell you that it’s important to write down your person statement of beliefs. A personal creed, if you will.

A statement of beliefs is important to have since it should be a written list of the core beliefs of your faith. The apostles saw the importance of such a document and hence came up with the Apostle’s Creed. The statements you write down shouldn’t be just what your church has written on their national website or what’s copied down from the back of a bulletin unless you really and truly believe it. After you write them down you should then critically evaluate the statements made in light of scripture. Does anything written contradict what’s said in the Bible? Is anything written based on something a preacher said on TV or in the pulpit without proving it’s truthfulness from the Bible? A critical mind is, well, critical to the process.

Here are some of my beliefs. I believe in the deity of Jesus Christ; in His virgin birth; in His sinless life; in His miracles; in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood; in His ascension to the right hand of the Father; and in His personal return in power and glory. I believe that the Bible is the only inspired, infallible and authoritative Word of God. I believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I believe that baptism in water by immersion is a direct commandment of our Lord for believer’s identification with Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. Although water baptism is not essential for salvation, it is a powerful demonstration of a living faith. I believe that salvation is not by good works, but by God’s grace through faith alone, in the perfect and sufficient work of Christ on the cross, by which we obtain right standing with God, forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

See, that’s not so hard. By writing down what you truly believe you can “always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” (1 Peter 3:15)

So, who do you say the He is?

The more I read about China the more I’m convinced that companies are only concerned with making a buck and could care less what China does to its own people.

It looks as if China is becoming the Big Brother of George Orwell’s 1984.

There’s nothing like intimidating people to get your way. Some bosses employ that technique to get employees to do their biding. Couples do that to each other as well as brothers and sisters. It doesn’t matter who intimidates who because the root is always founded in selfishness.

La Shawn Barber pointed out one such case in Massachusetts.

It appears that a couple of gay-rights advocates have threatened to post the name, addresses and phone numbers of anyone who signs a petition that could lead to a ban on gay marriages and civil unions. And that’s not all. One of the men has already paid a personal visit to one of the first signers of the petition.

Are they trying to embarrass people by doing this or are they doing this so that they can go door to door interrogating those who signed the petition. Who knows their true motives but one thing’s for sure, the mere threat of doing this is an act of intimidation. Nothing more and nothing less.

My uncle died of AIDS during the mid-80s and in the end he regretted his choices. Because of that no one and nothing can convince me that the gay lifestyle is physically, emotionally or spiritually healthy in any way, shape or form.

If you or anyone you know is gay or even thinks (s)he is gay, check out Exodus International to learn more about freedom through the love of Jesus Christ as related by former homosexuals. Jesus can change you. You just have to let him.

Just testing out a new Mac OS X Tiger widget called RapidMetaBlog. I really like the interface to this one. It seems really polished and well laid out.

All blood tests were normal (except for the liver test), CT scan was normal, HIDA scan was normal (except for some pain during the constriction phase), upper GI endoscopy (with biopsies) was normal…

Next stop, appointment with a surgeon to get an opinion regarding gall bladder removal. Yeah! What makes this even better is that I have to wait 3 weeks to get an opinion! Yeah, again!!!

Schwarzenegger to veto gay marriage bill.

It’s been a while since I last told you about Dirt Poor Robins so I thought it was high-time I said something again.

I listen to a lot of music. My iPod has almost 2,100 songs on it (for some people that’s not much, I know) and I continually come back to Dirt Poor Robin’s Volume One. I can’t help it! It’s just good music written and performed by extremely talented people, Neil and Kate DeGraide.

Do yourself a favor and buy their CD. You will be blessed!

Well, tomorrow’s one of the big days for this liver/gall bladder problem I’ve been suffering from all year long. My doctor is going to perform an upper GI endoscopy to check for possible ulcers and such in my esophagus, stomach and duodenum. If all is well, he will then refer me to a surgeon for gall bladder extraction and liver biopsy. I’m excited. Can you tell?

You prayers in this matter are very much appreciated.