Carry-in or Fellowship Meals.

An interesting discussion developed after church last Sunday morning among a few folks. It was regarding the benefit vs. hassle of having carry-in meals. I was heartbroken just as much as Marty and Kenny that it got canceled for this Sunday! Lets look and the pro's and con's of this subject.
Some of the argument in favor of the carry-ins seems to be along this line:

1. Lunch is often prepared before leaving for church on Sunday mornings so why not just bring it along to church.
2. In most cases, you will find that you actually eat sooner on Sunday afternoon at a carry-in than you do if you go home to eat.

Arguments against:

1. It might be more difficult for those who live a distance from church.
2. It creates too much work for the hospitality committee.

I invite any of you to contribute more arguments in favor of or against carry-in meals on Sunday.

An Interesting Phone Call.

I wonder how many of you heard the young high school guy that called into Rush Limbaugh's show today? He was trying to get advice from Rush on how to respond to his liberal democrat father. Click here > RIGHTONTHERIGHT to find out how to replay the phone call. I actually got to talk to Justin online through Instant Messenger. Here is how the conversation went....

Rm6565: Hey man. Great call on Rush's show today. I bet you can't keep up with all the IM's coming to you!
RightOnTheRight: Hehe, couldn't be more right
RightOnTheRight: And emails
Rm6565: You are suddenly famous! :-)
RightOnTheRight: Ya
RightOnTheRight: Went from 120 hits on my site a day to a couple hundred per hour
Rm6565: Who is hosting your website? Did you have to upgrade or switch hosts?
RightOnTheRight: Hehe, my admin hosts a forum online
RightOnTheRight: He said his server crashed within seconds of my plug
RightOnTheRight: So he called his host company up and got it fixed
Rm6565: After you gave out your web address on Rush's show I figured it would crash! Anyway, I know you are a busy guy. Good chatting with you, keep on doing what you are doing. We need more young skulls full of the RIGHT mush! Merry CHRISTmas!
RightOnTheRight: Merry Christmas, and keep in touch
Rm6565: Sure thing.

Caroling At The Mall.

Our Church was at the mall last night caroling. My father-in-law wrote an email regarding this effort. I thought it was well said and I have pasted it below the picture.

"We ARE the reason for the season!" That is what the preacher said. I heard him say that yesterday. He was not being smart--his point was:

"If it had not been for humanity (you and me) there would not have been Christmas". I have a Christmas cup that says: "Jesus is the reason for the season" I don't think I will be able to look at that statement again in the same way.

Last night, close to 100 Central people stood in the center of Dover Mall and sang our hearts out for nearly and hour!! Usually, we end with: "We wish you a Merry Christmas!!" and when we were finished, someone in the picture taking booth with Santa in it said: Happy Hanukah!" Perhaps he was attempting to be "politically correct"or he may have heard too much about Jesus!! We have been doing this sort of ministry for close to 40 years and as we were singing, I thought: "how special it is to be able to do this!!" My next thought was: "How long will it be 'til we are told--

"sorry--we can't let you do it no more!!" I'm sure you heard where parents were upset, because the teacher told her students: "there is no Santa Claus!" She needed to go back and tell a lie in order to take care of telling the truth!!!

As I watched the 'stream' of humanity moving back and forth while we sang, one could see the 'emptiness' of hearts without the Saviour of the world. no wonder I find myself often sad---

Our Beloved Mnissle

Anybody recognize this fella? He is sure in his element wouldn't you agree?!

Sleeping Late.

This entry will be in the form of a poll. Its 10:15 Saturday morning here and my dear wife is making the typical breakfast/brunch for this day of the week. Pancakes and eggs! During this process, she asked the following question: "I wonder if I'm the only woman who stays in bed until 9:00am on a Saturday morning?" She asked this question with a bit of remorse. I tried to reassure her that there are probably a lot of women who sleep that late or even later! I have to admit that we are not a morning family. We all tend to be night owls around here, including me. So the poll question will be in two parts:
1. Do you often sleep until 9:00 or later on a Saturday morning?
2. What tends to be your typical breakfast/brunch on this morning?

By the way, I also stayed in bed until 9:00 this morning! I had a good excuse though, I have a pretty bad cold right now. Don't ask me what my excuse is on other Saturday mornins! LOL

Firewood.

Today was firewood accumulation day. Many thanks to Kent for providing a nice oak to cut up and split. He even helped out with cutting it up. The fairly large tree was damaged during a storm and was threatening to come down on the road and power lines. A local tree removal service felled it under contract with the power company. That left a nice log for us to go to work on. I recently picked up a "like new" Husqvarna from Lowes that was marked down to almost 1/2 new price. It was sitting outside along with some other returned power equipment. It was returned for some sort of repair etc but still had 1 year factory warranty on it. Today offered a great opporunity to put it to a good test. It performed flawlessly! Below you will see the saw etc....


The Husky Model 359 with 20" bar.
Original new price at Lowes was around 490.00
I picked it up at the reduced price of 250.00!



A gas wood-splitter would have been nice...


Go Kent!


It was a rather chilly day so I, of course, consumed large amounts of coffee!

For Those "Techno-geeks" Out There.

In a previous post titled "The Struggle for Broadband" I mentioned some of the hassle it has been for Bro. Bill to get hooked up with a high speed internet connection. Some of the hassle I didn't mention was the 2 or 3 attempts he made to get DSL at his place. His line showed "DSL available" each time he tried to proceed with the Verizon DSL order. Each attempt was met with Verizon telling him "We are sorry sir, but our DSL service is not available for you after all". What a disappointment to be sure. So we talked it over and decided to try a "plan B". This "plan B" meant teaming up with Comcast to get their cable based broadband service going at his place. This option started out looking rather expensive (in the 1200.00 to 2000.00 range) for the initial underground cable installation. The installation cost was because of how far they had to run the cable back his lengthy driveway. The distance of over 500 feet would require the use of the pricey large "hard line" type cable. After much discussion with a manager from Comcast, he agreed to work with me on getting bro. Bill connected at a much lower price of 120.00 for their install fee! They would run the more standard cable up to 320 feet at which point I would install an enclosure to house the cable modem. From the enclosure we ran a cat5, in conduit, the rest of the 290 feet to the Netgear wireless router that we installed in his garage. We also had to run a 110v. line (to power the modem) to the enclosure.
Before we actually got started on this "plan B" one of the things the manager at Comcast said was "The 320 feet length on their cable will not allow enough signal to support any TV service but should still be fine for the cable modem to work at full capacity". His other words were something like "We have never really tried this sort of installation before but we are willing to give this a try". Wow, it almost felt like we were into some kind of experiment and even had me wondering if it would work! I felt all along that it would work because of some similar things I had done at my own place. The distance of the cat5 had me a little concerned, I must admit, since the maximum distance on a cat5 is supposedly 320 feet. We were at around 290 feet from the modem to the router!
To sum all this up, IT WORKED! He now has 2 computers networked and both online with broadband. The speed test results showed near 4300 KBPS. Folks, that is cruising! Now he is ready to send/recieve Autocad files at blistering speeds.

As you can see, quite a distance from the road!


The trench for the cat5 and 110v modem line is shown here....


We took the guts out of an old meter pan and turned it into "The Enclosure"
Don't laugh. It works!


Hey Willis, are you ready to get hooked up?

Wedding in VA.

Sorry its been so long since the last post! What better excuse to get something new on here than a wedding? Days like this are so refreshing. Weddings have a way of bringing family and friends together on such a positive note. Both Jerrel and Karen are blessed with great families and up-bringings. The foundation has been laid for a new, strong, Christian home to be a shining light in a world full of broken homes! We wish them God's best in the days and years to come.

SMBI

Made the trip to SMBI on Sunday afternoon to take Conrad and his cousin Kendra up for a 6 week term. This is their first time at Bible School. We pray it turns out to be a growing and grounding experience for both of them.

Arrived around 8:30 Sunday night.


Getting unpacked into his dorm room.

The Struggle for Broadband!

Had kind of a busy day today. Working on a Saturday is not one of my favorites. Phineas seems to really get a bang out of it but I sure don't! Went to brother Bill's place to get the cat5 cable in place that will carry the high speed internet connection on back to his office. He is really wanting to get CAD going in his drafting business and broadband is almost a necessity to be able to do it right. Since DSL is not available for him, he had to go with the local cable company. This option started out on a bad note. Originally, Comcast wanted over 1000.00 to get the cable (large "hardline" feeder cable) back his rather lenghty 600 foot lane. I managed to talk a Comcast engineer into running the more standard cable halfway back his lane. I offered to take it from there. It will mean putting the cable modem, and 110v. receptacle, in an enclosure about halfway down his lane. From there we plan to run a cat5 cable, in conduit, the rest of the 300 feet. This will allow us to make it into his garage where we will install the router and connect the 4 PC's located in the office above the garage. All this may seem like a lot of hassle but I feel it will be worth it in the end. The thing that really makes me frustrated is the whole DSL issue or lack thereof! I have to pay 58.00/month for my broadband through Comcast simply because there are no other cheaper options. If Verizon would just get their act together and get DSL more available around here it would save a lot of trouble and money etc. Everytime I see an advertisement for Verizon DSL it makes me want to scream! That Ad seems to be everywhere loudly proclaiming their DSL service for only 15.00/month. That is an incredibly cheap price for broadband to be sure but what good is it if hardly anyone can get it? I just can't believe its almost the year 2006 and DSL service is so sparce. I will keep you posted on how things work out at bro. Bill's place.

Another Deer Pic.

Congratulations to Chad (Kendra's boyfriend) on this nice one! I didn't know they got this big in South Carolina! I wonder if Wesley's is any better than this one? We may never know since nobody gets me a picture! LOL

More of Baby Blake.

We finally got over to see baby Blake for ourselves tonight. He seems to be adjusting really well as do the new parents! It seems just a few short years ago that we had our first child. He is now 18.5 years old and planning to leave for Bible School this coming Sunday! It hardly seems possible. Where did all the years go so quickly? Its too bad there was no capability of blogging back in those days. It would have been fun to post pictures for friends and family to see almost right after they are taken. There are certain things about technology you just gotta love!

Baby Blake...

The picture of contentment....


But it was short-lived!


Even I got to hold him....

School Benefit Auction in VA.

Here it is a cool rainy Saturday morning here in DE. Been wondering how its going at the school benefit sale in VA. I hope the rain is not messing things up too badly. I sure wish we could have made it this year because we really enjoyed being there last year. A couple factors influenced our decision not to go. One is the fact that our 1996 Chevy Astro minivan is still not running very good. I am thinking its a bad valve because the motor has a noticable "miss" when at idle. We already tried changing what seemed like a bad spark plug/wire etc. but it didn't solve the problem. The van only has 112K miles on it and it really disappoints me that this sort of problem has showed up already. I may try ebay about getting another Astro because I like the ability of this type of minivan to pull a trailer. Also the fuel mileage is pretty good with these at around 18-20 mpg.
The 2nd reason of not making it to the sale would be the wedding we will be going to in Stuarts Draft VA. for Naomi's nephew Jerrel. Hopefully we can have the van issue solved by then.

Talk Radio

This post is mainly for those living in, or near, Delaware but feel free to post comments on the subject if it interests you.
I have to admit being a big fan of talk radio. One station we have in our area WDOV AM1410
is pretty much all news/talk. Dr. Laura's show has been part of the daily programming for many years on this station. That seems to have come to an end. I guess station management has decided to replace her show with Sean Hannity. I guess I have mixed feelings about it. I enjoyed listening to Dr. Laura but have found myself really enjoying the Hannity show. I am wondering how you all (those living around here) are taking this change? Are you glad? Sad? Mad? Or simply could care less.
For those from our church please sign your comments with your first name and last initial.
Thanks.

New Baby!

Congratulations to Jason (Naomi's nephew) and Emma on the birth of their baby boy! We wish them the Lord's blessings as they begin this new stage of their lives.

Details:
Name: Blake Sterling Yoder
Weight: 7lbs. 6oz.
Lenght: 21 inches.
Arrival: Today (10/16/05) at 1:15am


The expectant couple just a few days ago.


He seems so content!


Dad seems to be doing ok in spite of the long night!


A close up.

Nice Buck.

I got a call tonight from Travis. (one of the guys from church) He said he wanted to stop over and show me something.

He got this with his bow tonight over at Blackiston's Wildlife area. He said he was only in his stand for 2 minutes! Way to go Trav! I bet a lot of guys would like to say they got one like this with bow.

Crabbing on Friday 9/30/05

This could be the last crabbing trip of the season. When the water temp starts to fall the crabs begin to head out to sea or bury in the mud. Its been a really good year. This time it was Conrad, Kendra, and I on the boat. I forgot my camera but luckily Kendra brought hers. Its the exact same camera as mine. (The Fuji Finepix S7000) A few pics below show some of the highlights. And yes, another 2 bbulging bbushels was the result of this trip. I hope to switch from the subject of crabbing soon to show that its not the only thing that we do! One thing I had to do was work on the minivan today. It developed a "miss" in the engine on the way home from crabbing. I was fearing the worst like maybe a busted valve. I was hoping maybe it was a spark plug or wire going bad. It turned out to be the distributor cap after doing some troubleshooting. It wasn't delivering a hot enough spark to the one spark plug. I got a new cap installed and it seems to be doing ok again.

It was a gorgeous clear cool morning as seen below.


Hanging on to the bait awaiting dippage! LOL


Up close and personal!

Father/Son Retreat

We really enjoyed the time at Camp Mardela again. Plenty of Rook was played, crabs eaten, late night chats, challenging emphasis on the topic "What makes a Godly man?". Many thanks to Steve and Willis for all the effort and time they put into the planning. The big crab effort went over quite well even if there was a delay on getting them steamed. I think there were 5 boats out and we totalled 9.5 bushels!
Thanks also to Bro. Bill and Richard for sharing their hearts freely with us. It was very meaningful. Here are a few pics of the highlights:


Crab steamers getting fired up!


Richard expounding some of his wisdom...


Expounding cont....


Don't look so bored Freeman!


C'mon Vern, aren't you done yet!?


Table after table of shells. We had about a bushel left over
but they soon got finished off the next day or so.


The bleachers at the "fathers against sons" ball game.
PS. The dads won by 2 points I think.


What was so funny?

Yes, crabbing again!

Went crabbing today again and got another 2 bushels! As a matter of fact, several fellows from church took their boats and went. This was a coordinated effort to provide enough crabs to take to our father-son retreat near Denton MD. I would estimate that there will be a total of 8-9 bushels of crabs there at the campground! I wonder if we can consume them all. I doubt it! We do plan to have a hotdog roast to go along with the crabs. We look forward to a nice weekend with "the guys".
Rob

Tutorial on Crab Consumption.

Here is the much anticipated post that all Roblog constituents have been waiting for. The promised "Crab Consumption Post"! It all starts with a successful crabbing trip. In other words, you have to catch crabs to consume them. I am going to try to use Picasa2 to highlight the trip and to do the tutorial on eating the crabs. I realized a little too late that I should have posted from last to first to get them in the right order but I didn't feel like redoing it. I would suggest you scroll down and start from the bottom up. I will do better next time.
My apologies to those of you still struggling along on slow old dial-up. I hope this big batch of pictures doesn't take too long for you to be able to view them all.
Rob

We used sheet paper on the tables before we started. It makes it easy to roll up the shells and put in trash bags. 

What a pile of shells! 

Meat revealed. Now get the meat out with your fingers and enjoy! 

Cut down through both halves as shown to reveal the main meat in the crab. 

Halves are separated. 

Cut through the center as shown to separate the halves of the main body.