I spent the entire weekend at La Foret, a UCC-supported retreat out in the Black Forest just west of Colorado Springs. It was an all-family retreat, so it included nearly anyone wanted to go, and was headed by Luke, our new pastor ( Read more... )

Today I got the pmG software key in my email!! Very, very bare bones installation instructions, but entirely doable and the 64-bit version chugs along on my machine Just Beautifully. Now to actually figure out the interface! *laughs* Amazing stuff.

I had a wonderful visit with grey_lady on Saturday. She was in the US for business, and had a rental car ( Read more... )

It turned into fall here when I was away in Oakland. We've now had a morning that started at 17° F (-8° C) and ended up at 65, and in the ensueing week and a half, all the leaves have turned gold and red and been blown away in 50 mph winds. Colorado's fall is *short ( Read more... )

Went to the memorial for a friend of ours, that John's worked with quite a bit in the last couple of years, and whom I knew and liked and talked with now and again at church. He was positive, capable, smart and solid ( Read more... )

It takes a little work... but... there's this amazing little video about a Rev. Ben Guess, who was first called to a 12-member church in West Kentucky to be their out gay-pastor. The members were in their 80's and 90's... and felt called to do what they did.

Just go to this link. Suffer through the horrible control on the right and scroll down to ( Read more... )

Instead of our usual Maundy Thursday service, we had the local Sabbat come and take us through a Seder service. They did an excellent job with a printed booklet for all the bits and pieces of the meal and all the stories and questions and all the parts that we were supposed to do, including the singing. It was a simplified version and mostly in ( Read more... )

But a good one all in all, but the conflagration of Valentine's Day, Chinese New Years, our church's Jazz Sunday, and the commissioning of all the folks going to Biloxi turned it very busy indeed. It didn't help that we'd been signed up for snacks for the coffee hour after church months ago, and then just a few weeks ago they found out that they ( Read more... )

On Saturday, the boys and I went and got two loads of mulch from the City Tree Limb place, and we covered up all the formal roses with them. They already had an insulating blanket of snow on 'em, but the extra mulch didn't hurt. I ache today, all over; but the weather turned really cold, and we've had teens all day and are already in the single ( Read more... )

We had a really great dinner with Jon Singer and JacqueM, at which I got to taste my first sake (Otokoyama was really good cold) and had some mildly good sushi and surprising tempura strawberries. Jon also gave me another of his astonishing Song Dynasty lookalike China Black glazeware pieces, a solid little bowl I now use for oatmeal *laughs*. ( Read more... )

Since amberley asked, here is our church's web page. If anyone wants to contribute to our Biloxi mission, feel free to send the church a check made out to FC UCC, with the memo filled out as "For Biloxi Mission". It'll be tax deductable and will go completely for just the trip and to the folks that are finding it harder to afford going this year than ( Read more... )