I am a meteorologist and a former youth leader at church…I have a lot to say on both subjects…and then some
Over a couple of weeks ago, while I was working, I noticed that one of the automated observing systems at one of the airports was reporting heavy snow. I had to laugh. This one station has always been known to us as what happens when somewhere in the great bureacracy doesn’t really care about the accuracy of the weather reporting. Just to let you now what was happening, the AWOS was reporting a temperature of 48 degrees, a dewpoint temperature of 46 degrees and heavy snow. Obviously, when the temperature is 16 degrees F above freezing, it is very unlikely that it would be snowing, especially when the dewpoint temperature is 14 degrees above freezing. This has been going on for the past 6 years that I have been at Gaylord, MI.
So I begin to think, does the FAA really know what is going on? Do they care? As a scientist and someone who can be kind of anal about measurements, I think that this is pretty lax and uncalled for. I realize that there are problems with funding and priorities, but this really does negligent over the long haul.
Now after our union stewerd came back from the nation NWSEO convention, there is a push by the upper management in the FAA to stop using the NWS for aviation forecasts and to contract it out to the private sector. The general aviation users and the lower level air traffic controllers think that it would be a mistake, so what is going on in the FAA? Is the bureaucracy just too big to know that some of the things they are proposing will jepoardize safety?
This is a test post from 
, a fancy photo sharing thing.
This story, reminded me of the 1970’s/1980’s as the steel industry and the unions squared off over concessions brought on by foreign steel dumping/management not being able to keep up with modernization. The unions went on strike and now we have fewer steel companies and the “rust belt” came into being as the unemployment rates in those states sky rocketed.
Now, the UAW threatens to strike against Delphi and the waves from the fear pebble being dropped into the auto industry pool. This got Delphi, GM, and the UAW into compromise mode. As experts have stated, GM and Delphi wouldn’t last long during a strike, and the UAW would be cutting its throat as the USW did.
Here are the pictures of the snow.
As Dad has said, Rosie is getting old. She is doing well up here in the north country, or as we have called it in the past “Camp Jeff.” Her only hang up, at times, is the vinyl flooring. Sometimes she glide across it with no problems, and other times (usually if she remembered that she slipped with snow still in her paws), she can be a bit skitterish. However, she has been doing great here. We let her sleep upstairs with us at night. No problems so far. Does miss her tennis ball (i.e. pacifier). We’ll remedy that soon.
After a couple of snow spits that quickly melted, Winter started last night. We received 7 to 12 inches overnight near Gaylord. I had 7 inches overnight at the house and their is more falling today. I’ll try to get some pictures up on Flicker tonight if I remember.
I was reading this story in The Christian Science Monitor. It was about how the French need to rethink their idea of integration of immigrants into French society. How they need to have a “less colorblind society,” but I’m not sure that I agree with that. To me colorblind is what every country should achieve.
The French model of liberty, equality, and fraternity is what we are after. However, as I have read reports over the past 2 weeks, it seems to me that while the French were trying to dole out the liberty, they forgot to provide the equality, by not being very fraternal. The main complaint from the immigrants was the lack of jobs that would be offered to them. It sounded like the racism that we have and continue to struggle with here in the US.
So the first problem for them to solve is the fraternity. If you can love your neighbor as you love yourself, then you are more likely to feel equal to others in your eyes and they would feel equal in theirs. If everyone is equal and feeling like they contribute to society, no matter what their station in life and we are all going with each other in the journey called life, helping one another, then liberty is achieved as we are freed from the bondage of the wounds of life.
As a Christian, the idea is that you love God and you love your neighbor. By using Matthew 25:31-46, if you love your neighbor, then you love God as well. Through Christ people are free.
After spending time in prayer about this, I am getting tired of the legalistic portion of the church universal, that is those who call themselves Christian, but continue to think that in a legalistic act of sanctimony, that they think that God will not help someone based on whether they support Intelligent Design or Evolution.
As a follower of Christ, I believe in the inerrancy of scripture. However, as Christ used parables to teach Old Testament truths of loving your neighbor to the Jewish nation 2000 years ago, I often look at the creation story as just that, a parable describing to early man how he did it (figuring that early man didn’t have the knowledge at that time to understand what he did.).
As a scientist, I follow the facts, and reason out how things work or came into being. I search for truth in what God created.
As both a follower and a scientist, I look at science as trying to determine how God did what he did (the why comes from the Bible or the Spirit), it is a search for truth. He provides the insight to us when it is appropriate and paves the way to discovery. Using the Bible, tradition, experience, and reason; I journey down the narrow path.
So as someone who has read about evolution, I realize that there are some holes in the theory, like the common ancestor that would suggest that we as humans arose from apes. However, the rest of the theory looks sound, so scientists continue to work on the holes to be filled in. That’s why I go back and forth on ID. Now to me it seems that this is part philosophy. Should we be trying to determine how God did it (science) and not just say that God did it (religion)?
One of the problems with ID that I have, is the lack of peer reviewed papers. Of course, there is a problem with getting papers reviewed, because most of the scientists think it is somebody that is not doing science, but religion. So instead of giving the ID scientists a fair shot and critique the problems with ID theory they just throw the whole thing out.
However, I think that this debate is nothing but taking the focus off of what is important; loving God and loving your neighbor. To me, Christ didn’t go to the cross to redeem me of my sins so that I could cram my ideology (disguised as religion) down the throat of the rest of the country. He died for my sins so that I could go out and make disciples. He showed us how to do that with the feeding of the 5000, the woman at the well, and the woman caught in adultery. Heal the person, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, and feed the hungry. From there, people will listen and you can tell them why they are in the condition they are in and where the answer is found.
While I know that God hates sin and that as ancient Israel would wander away from God. He would allow nations and natural disasters to come against them, however, He was always there when they would call on Him and repent. If throwing the Dover, PA board of education out, because they supported ID, is a vote against God (and I seriously doubt that) then God may allow a major disaster to occur, but wasn’t that when the nation of Israel repented in the OT and God helped them? So to say that if something happens to Dover, PA (natural disaster, terrorist attack), that they shouldn’t bother to call on God because they turned their back on Him, to me, is just flat out wrong.
So for that my CFC contribution that would go to the 700 Club will come to an end. I’ll find another Christian charity to give money to.
There was a link on a post at Wesley Blog about Wesley Blog(a different site). Going through the second blog, I found one of those internet quizzes. Mary and I took it and you can tell, from where our main influences for theology come from. Here’s the result. For me, you can tell that my influences are from the UMC and some emergent church things like YS. I was a little surprised that my charasmatic/pentacostal was on the lower side of things. Of course, Mary and I didn’t understand some of the questions so it is possible that we answered something opposite from what we really believe. Mary said you can tell I married a Methodist. Of course, since she has gone through Emmaus (this is how we met), and that it originally started as a Methodist off shoot of the Catholic Cursillo, there’s no surprise to me that she is Wesley influenced.
As we were looking at the other quizzes we took one on our political view. The result was pretty funny. I am an anarchist with Republican and Socialist tendencies…? I guess that’s why I am a declared independent.
Wesley Blog Turns 1: “Wesley Blog premiered one year ago today. I’m not sure how many people came by that first day, or if any even came, because I didn’t have stats installed yet. But one year later, the blog is going strong.”
I really like to read what Shane Raynor at Wesley Blog writes and the conversations that ensue. He gets people from all over the Methodist tradition and from outside as well. A friend of mine turned me on to his site during the spring and I haven’t been disappointed. Not to mention that he also does youth ministry, a favorite of mine as well.
Here’s to Shane and his blog. Keep it up brother…
This is a Test…
I’m testing an add-on for Microsoft Word that allows me to type my posts in Word and then publish to Blogspot directly. If you are seeing this, then it works and I’ve found another way to do this offline before I send it to the blog. That is why I am known in my office (National Weather Service Gaylord, MI), as Gadget Boy! (
