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Well, today was my first bike ride of the year. Cyndi and I recently moved, and I had to figure out how to get to work from our new place while avoiding 33/Dublin Rd./Riverside Dr./Whatever else that road is called :^0
So, I have the route figured out, but my ride was 22 miles. It took me 1hr 15 min to get there (I had to stop and look at the map often) but it took me 45 minutes to come home. I don't think that is too bad of a ride.
Well, the opportunity has finally arrived. Friday afternoon, Amy called me from the IMB extending a formal job offer. Cyndi and I have thought through this previously, and had already decided that unless the offer were extremely unreasonable, we would accept. Well, it turns out that the offer was good and so we have decided to accept. We don't know when we will be moving, exactly, but are expecing that to happen mid-May.
Thanks for all the prayers!
Well, WorldNetDaily.com is reporting in this article that Mrs. Magouirk has been transferred to a hospital and is now receiving proper medical attention.
WorldNetDaily.com is reporting in this article that a granddaughter is, essentially, murdering her grandma.
In a situation recalling the recent death of Terri Schiavo in Florida, an 81-year-old widow, denied nourishment and fluids for nearly two weeks, is clinging to life in a hospice in LaGrange, Ga., while her immediate family fights desperately to save her life before she dies of starvation and dehydration….
That paragraph could have been written about the recent Terri Schiavo case. If you read the rest of the article, you find out that this lady–Mae Magouirk–is being murdered. She was healthy, but had to be admitted to the hospital with a heart condition. Shortly after that, her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, had her transferred to a hospice and ordered that food and water be withheld. It turns out that Beth didn't have the authority to order that, but her decision is being upheld by the courts. Mae even had a living will–remember those?
The big call after the Terri Schiavo case was "get a living will," "specify what you want," etc…. Well, Mae had one that spelled out what she wanted to have happen:
…In her living will, Magouirk stated that fluids and nourishment were to be withheld only if she were either comatose or "vegetative."…
It looks like the courts and everyone else is simply ignoring what is going on here. Folks, read the entire article! We MUST stand up and fight for those who cannot do so for themselves! To this end, I have sent an e-mail to the only e-mail address I could find for the hospice: info@wghs.org. I urge you to send them an e-mail and urge them to not allow this murder to continue.
For those of you who want to read what I sent, here is the e-mail:
Chief Physician:
WorldNetDaily is reporting that you have a patient in your care by the name of Mae Magouirk. The URL for the news story is http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43688. The article states that "… since March 28 Hospice-LaGrange has denied Magouirk normal nourishment or fluids via a feeding tube through her nose or fluids via an IV. She has been kept sedated with morphine and ativan, a powerful tranquillizer…." The article also states that this "…is being done in defiance of Magouirk's specific wishes, which she set down in a "living will," and without agreement of her closest living next-of-kin, two siblings and a nephew…." The person responsible for this is Mrs. Magouirk's granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, because "…[g]randmama is old and I think it is time she went home to Jesus."…"…[s]he has glaucoma and now this heart problem, and who would want to live with disabilities like these?""
Is this correct? Is your facility allowing Ms. Gaddy to murder Mrs. Magouirk? With the Terri Schiavo case ending, much has been said about living wills and how they allow an individual to specify what they want to have happen to them in certain circumstances. What good is a living will if the instructions are not followed? I urge you to follow the instructions contained in Mrs. Magouirk's living will. I urge you to keep Mrs. Magouirk from harm and injustice, as is outlined in the Hippocratic Oath (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_classical.html).
Sincerely,
Matthew Maxson
Ever wish you knew if there were any security issues with any of the applications you use? Well, CERT can help. They have e-mail alerts, etc… For more information, visit their website here.
Established in September 2003, US-CERT is a public-private partnership charged with improving computer security preparedness and response to cyber attacks in the United States. US-CERT is responsible for
- analyzing and reducing cyber threats and vulnerabilities
- disseminating cyber threat warning information
- coordinating incident response activities
…the book I was reading (Christian Jihad) by the brothers Caner. It was an interesting read. It was, basically, a short history of Christendom focused around the development of a "Church Army" commanded by the pope that went on Crusades. Additionally, it talked about other "crusades" this army went on that focused on the extermination of heritics (heritics were anyone who did not agree whole-heartedly with the Catholic church). For some more information on this, see this post.
When I was done with that book, I read The Lie: Evolution by Ken Ham. This book was very interesting, and if you are a christian, you need to read it. You especially need to read it if you believe that God used evolution to "create" things. Folks, this is a lie straight out of the pit of Hell. The first 11 chapters of Genesis are true, and need to be taken literally. When the Bible says that God created everything in six days, he did it in sis 24 hour periods. He spoke everything into existance.
Reading The Lie has made me take a step back and think about some things. I think what I am going to do is write some short essays outlining what I believe and why (back that up with scripture) and put them on the web. I think this will do two things: first, it will make me evaluate what I believe and why so I can support it and, secondly, it will give others a resource they can go to while researching things. This may take me several months and years to accomplish, but as I get things done, I will keep the website up to date.
In the meantime, I'm looking for something else to read. Does anyone have any suggestions?
On Sunday after church, I decided to go for a drive around Richmond and see what I could see. I spent about 4 hours driving around different areas of the city. My goal was to try and get a general feel for different parts of the city, neighborhood conditions, etc…. I tried to focus on areas of the city that Larry didn't take us to on Saturday. If you want to see where I went, click the map below:
I started near the upper right-hand corner of the map at the H (that is where my hotel was…in the Insbrook Corporate Center). The route I took is marked by arrows indicating the direction of travel. the two spots marked with a 1 and 2 indicate two rental properties I saw that looked interesting. The Cs indicate churches that Cyndi and I may be interested in. I tried to put all this stuff together into one place so we could look and think about everything in perspective. I wish I had taken the map with us on Saturday to mark that route as well. If I had to do it over again, I would take my GPS unit to track where we were, and mark waypoints at the interesting spots. Oh well, hopefully someone else can learn from my experience.
While I was at the IMB for my interviews Monday, one of the team members I interviewed with was Carl. He mentioned in the interview that he had been to some leadership training that focused on Leading like Jesus.
Today, he sent me an e-mail to the group's website, www.leadlikejesus.com. The purpose of this group is:
It's no accident we exist. Neither is it an accident that you are here. You are a leader…whether simply (or not so simply!) at home or at work or at play…you are a leader! The Center for Faithwalk Leadership has but one purpose…
[ To Inspire and Equip People to Lead Like Jesus ]
We're guided by a simple, but profound set of values…
- Honor God in everything we do
- Build relationships based on trust and respect
- Maintain integrity and excellence in programs and services
- Practice stewardship
With a single purpose and simple-but-profound values, here's how we picture the future. To see…
- Jesus adopted as the role model of all leaders
- All Christian churches are being led by Jesus-like Leaders
- Every Christian is taught and is leading like Jesus
- Non-Christians drawn to Jesus by the practicality and positive effect of Christians leading like Jesus
Well,for those of you wondering, I had many interviews today with many different people. Among others, I met with the CIO of the IMB, Cheri! I haven't had a face-to-face meeting with the CIO of NiSource, let alone even be introduced to him (or our previous CIO, Pat)! While tiring, the interviews were pleasant. I think I had a good rapport with everyone, and conversation came easily. I think I gave satisfactory answers to all their questions. Of course, I think I would be a good fit, but the ball is now in their court. Amy said I should hear something by the end of the week, which is good.
Thanks for the prayers everyone!