I’ve just returned from a pre-screening of the new film Evan Almighty. I’ve been curious about this one, ever since I saw an ad for it on the back cover of a major Christian magazine. And banner ads on several Christian websites. And trailers on several Christian TV programs. Do I detect a pattern here? Could it be that someone thinks there’s money in the Christian marketplace? That the Christian market is worth the effort?

Golly. Who woulda thunk it.

But the real question is this: Is this movie any good?

My answer is a resounding “Oh, yeah!” It’s a clean family film with a great message and a great storyline. It’s well-produced, well-thought out, and well-written.

Now, if you’re on the far right extreme of Christianity, you might not like this film. After all, it’s not completely true to the scriptures. Noah wasn’t a guy from Buffalo. There is, at one (and only one) point, what might be considered a mildly offensive word (”…I’m gonna be pissed.”) And there’s dancing. If those things produce major offense for you, you probably won’t be going to a theater to watch a movie anyway. For that matter, you won’t be reading my blog, either.

If, like me, all the buzz has you wondering about this film, let me make it easy for you.

Quit wondering.

Go see Evan Almighty tomorrow. You’ll be glad you did.

D.

Here I am, pretty much in the same chair and same spot I was in last time I made a blog entry. The weather is even the same. It’s even about the same time of day.

But things have changed.

I started out with a grand plan to blog my way through the week, posting pictures of the beautiful facilities here at Ridgecrest, and pictures of me with impressive writer-types and and such, and pictures of the goings on here at the conference for the benefit of a few folks who wished that they could be here. It was a wonderful plan.

Then it happened.

It was late Monday when I finally got back to my room and sat down at the ol’ laptop. I noticed that it was warm–an unusual thing, since it was supposed to be sleeping at the time. I opened the lid and saw a black screen with a little window in the middle that referenced some obscure internal Windows process that had failed, and the machine was hopelessly locked inside its own brain.

The only thing I could do was reboot. That yielded an ugly “blue screen of death.” The internal diagnostics told the story: “DST Short Test Failed.” Translation: Hard Disk failure. Ouch.

I called Dell Support Tuesday morning, and on Wednesday a shiny refurbished drive and a set of re-installation disks was dropped off at the front desk by DHL. Later on Wednesday, I had a functioning computer again, albeit without most of the software I use routinely, and without a buncha my files. Not to worry, though. Once I get home, I have the means to extract most of the files from this sickly drive before I return it to Dell. But, that will teach me to go off without doing a FULL backup.

So, my plans were scuttled, but that’s okay. Seriously, I don’t mind. True, I was cut off from the rest of the virtual world for a few days, but that left me with nothing to do but focus on the conference and getting the most out of my classes and pitches. I survived quite nicely, much to my surprise.

And, it’s been a fabulous week. I’ve gotten to meet a few folks I’ve met with online, I’ve had the opportunity to rub shoulders with the likes of James Scott Bell, McNair Wilson, and Dr. Ted Baehr. I’ve met with some great editors and agents, and I’ve been asked to send proposals for my current novel-in-birth. I’ve been educated, challenged, inspired and refreshed.

And frankly, I would rather not leave Ridgecrest and go back to the real world. . . but I know I must.

I was talking with a girl at the front desk the other day, commenting on how much I love Ridgecrest and wish I didn’t have to leave, when I came to a startling realization. If I were able to stay here on this mountaintop, sooner or later I would take it for granted and lose my deep and reverent respect for the place. You can’t know you’re on the mountain if you’ve never been in the valley, and you never know how special a place is if you’ve never been to places that aren’t special.

All that makes me wonder. Am I missing something wonderful and amazing right in my own neighborhood? Is there a place right where I spend most of my time that’s just as special as Ridgecrest? I’ve got a feeling that there is, and I pray that the Lord will give me the vision to see it and make the most of everything he’s gifted me with.

One thing I’m certain of–there’s a wonderful spot in Little Rock where I long to be, and my yearning to be there is stronger by many times than my desire to stay at Ridgecrest. And it’s because of that wonderful spot that I will soon say goodbye to this blessed mountaintop and head for the airport. I’ll be on my way to the best place in the world. Right next to my soul-mate, my lover, my best friend–My wife Sharon. Wherever she is, that’s where my heart longs to be.

Dorothy was right. There’s no place like home.

D.

It’s a sad day for me, a day of mixed emotions and inner conflict. Today, the remains of one of my dearest friends in the world, Christopher Kota, will be laid to rest here in central Arkansas. I miss my friend, and that in itself is enough reason for sadness. My inner conflict stems from the fact that, as my family, friends, and church are celebrating Christopher’s life, I will be somewhere between Cincinatti and Ashville, North Carolina, my bountiful frame crammed into a far too small airplane seat, and my grieving heart still in Little Rock. I’ll be on my way to the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers’ Conference in Ridgecrest, North Carolina. The trip has been planned for nearly a year now, and it’s where I need to be . . . but still, I wish I could be with those who will be celebrating Christopher Kota’s life. His is a life worth celebrating.

I’ve known Christopher for around five years now. Ours has been a wonderfully indefinable relationship; we bonded almost immediately, and even when separated by great distance he’s been close to my heart since the day we met at Parkway Place Baptist Church.

Christopher loved a good debate, and at times, we were nearly polar opposites on the issue of the moment. But, we had the sort of rare and delightful brotherhood where we could disagree in love without harming our friendship. We saw the world through the filter of our own life experience, and the paths that our lives took prior to our meeting were much different. Yet there was always a sense of unity in our diversity. We shared a common passion—the “wonderful grace of Jesus, greater than all our sin,” to quote the old hymn.

And now, my friend Christopher, the dearest and best friend I have, is gone. The hole in my heart is so great that it defies description, and if you know me, you understand how very significant it must be to render me speechless.

The mourning of my heart today is overwhelming. Tears come easily, but my tears are not shed for Christopher. They are shed for nine year old David, who has lost his grandfather, his male role model, and his best buddy all at the same time. They are shed for Margaret, who has lost her husband, and for Manju, Sekhar (aka Bobby), and Jen, who have lost a father. Any my tears today are, selfishly, for me, and for all the rest of us who have no choice but to go on living in this world without Christopher Kota.

But I will not weep for Christopher Kota. Today, as we are learning to cope without him, he is dancing and rejoicing before God’s throne, free from all of the limitations of his earthly body, celebrating the one who gave him life, who sustained that life for 66 years, and who brought him safely home to live eternally in the presence of his Lord. How could I begrudge him that wondrous joy?

Proverbs 10:7 says that “The memory of the righteous will be a blessing,” and Christopher’s memory will certainly be a blessing to me. Even from the grave, his passion for the things of God challenges me to grow deeper in my spiritual walk. I will warmly remember his smile and his hearty laugh. But the most precious memory will be the delight of his hugs and his greeting whenever we would see each other. He would wrap his big arms around me in a warm embrace and say, “Oh, my God!” to thank God for our friendship. I will live the rest of my life in anticipation of the day when I will once again feel Christopher’s loving embrace, and hear him speak those words over my shoulder, “Oh, my God.” But on that day, Christopher Kota will be looking over my shoulder and speaking his thanks directly toward God’s throne.

I will not say goodbye, Christopher—I’ll see you later.

D.

 BTW, Christopher’s family has set up a website so that his family and friends both here in the US and in his native land of India can share their thoughts and remembrances. Check it out at http://www.christopherkota.com/ .

I’m writing from gate E1 at the Philadelphia International Airport. There’s a lovely WiFi signal here, and it’s free in a few hotspots on concourses B abd C. However, it’s eight bucks a day here in concourse E, and I’m just too cheap for that. Cingular 3G to the rescue! I’m getting a great 3G signal here, with good throughput and consistent speed. Not the fastest I’ve seen anywhere, but still a great step up. It’s a beautiful thing!

It’s always sad when something wonderful comes to an end, like a great film or a pint of HaagenDas Sorbet. The Sandy Cove Writer’s conference is over, and that is a sad thing in many ways. I have some wonderful new friends that I won’t see again for a long time, and I still haven’t had my fill of the magnificent views of the Chesapeake Bay that are such an integral part of the Sandy Cove experience. On the other hand, I really miss my beloved Sharon and the kitties. I’m not looking forward to Little Rock’s heat (it’s 91 there now, 74 at the Cove), but I can’t wait to be back home with my soulmate and our little friends.

There’s so much I want to say about Sandy Cove, but I’m too tired to do it justice. I’ll hold off on anything further until I’ve slept and decompressed, lest an editor happen by and see anything less than my best work. But make no mistake — I’m going to miss Sandy Cove and the wonderful new friends I made there. If you’re one of them, give yourself a hug for me.

 D.

I’m writing tonight from my hotel room in North East, Maryland (which is the actual name of the town, not a direction or quadrant). I had to stay off-campus tonight, because there were no rooms available at Sandy Cove for tonight. I’m attending the AuthorizeMe workshop on Saturday, and will move to a room at the Cove tomorrow night. For tonight, it’s the Best Western.

 I was reminiscing earlier tonight about the last time I was in this neck ‘o the woods. It was about 25 years ago. Believe it or not, I used to be a Chamber of Commerce executive. I was Executive Director of a the Corry Area Chamber of Commerce, in the small Pennsylvania town of Corry. To make a long story short, I did what I believed was right in a particular situation, and by doing so, I committed policical suicide and was forced to “resign” (aka “get the heck out and we’ll let you maintain a little dignity”). Toward the end of my C of C career, I attended the Institute for Organization Management, an annual seminar event for Chamber Executives that was held in Newark, Delaware. I drove past Newark on my way to North East, Maryland earlier today.

It was my first trip anywhere close to the coast; We were land dwellers. In my experience, clams were breaded strips of mysterious, rubbery stuff that felt like rubber bands in your mouth. There was a clambake one night while we were at Institute, and I was intoduced to steamed Little Neck clams. That’s when the love affair began. I don’t get to eat them often, but I wasn’t about to spend a night in this neighborhood without spending part of it with a bucket of clams.

When I asked at the front desk, there was only one place recommended for seafood — Woody’s Crab House. I had done some homework in advance of the trip, and it didn’t take any selling to get me committed to the place. Woody’s is the kind of place that has brown kraft paper on the tables instead of tablecloths, and a solid core of regular customers who love to sit at those tables and beat steamed blue crabs with a wooden mallet. My supper was a big bucket of clams (3 dozen), a little container of drawn butter, and a Diet Sprite. YUM! What a wonderful delicacy!

What amazes me is that the locals don’t seem all that crazy about seafood. They like it, they eat it, but they don’t get excited about it. I think there’s so much of it that they take it for granted. In the mid-south, we’re kinda like that about barbecue. It’s everywhere–Sharon and I have lunch at Corky’s at least once every week. it’s so plentiful that we tend to take it for granted.

I wonder… are we the same way about God’s grace? It’s plentiful, and it’s everywhere we turn. Have we become so familiar with the Lord that we take Him for granted?

Lord, please don’t let me forget how wondeful, powerful, and precious your grace really is. You’ve done some pretty cool stuff in and through me — please don’t let me forget that it’s You, not me, who is the source of my success and the strength of my life. Thanks for being so lavish with your grace, even though I don’t deserve it.

 D.

As I type this I’m sitting in the Atlanta airport, enjoying (in an “as compared to a root canal” sense) a two-hour layover. Once I deplaned and observed the standard post-flight bladder ritual of 51 year old men, I found my gate and pulled out the Latitude D820 for it’s first cruise through the land of WiFi outside my sterile and secure network at home. Dell has added a really nifty feature to many of their notebooks called “WiFi Catcher.” The nifty part is that you can check for open WiFi availability withut having to boot the computer, which can be a great battery-saver.

Unfortunately, WiFi Catcher can’t discern between “open” and “open but not free” WiFi. ATL has a great WiFi system that is wide open if what you want is airport and flight information. It politely hijacks you browser to present the airport’s website and lots of detailed info on flights, services, and all the other “stuff” you might need to know about an airport when travelling. But, if you want more access, you need to select one of several WiFi vendors and, if you don’t already have an account, pay around $5.00 a day for access. In airport dollars, five bucks isn’t bad, given the cost of a cup of coffee and a sandwich. Still, I’m too cheap to drop five bucks if I don’t have to. And I don’t have to with the D820.

After calling Sharon to reassure her that I made it to Atlanta alright, I popped the SIM out of my phone and slipped it into the D820’s SIM slot, hidden under the main battery. After firing back up and starting the built-in Cingular HSDPA card, I was soon a happy camper. At first, I thought that there was no 3G service available, as the applet indicated that it was connected to the EDGE network. While I was running a few speed tests, however, I started getting errors saying that the connection was too fast for the speed test I was using. After a recheck, I discovered that I was, indeed, connected to Cingular’s new 3G network!

I’m pleased to report that I’ve seen realtime throughput consistently in the 650-750 kbt/s range. Very encouraging, and not bad at all for things like email, web surfing, and blog updating. Very cool, indeed.

I’m on my way to the booming metropolis of North East, Maryland for the Sandy Cove Christian Writers Conference. I’ll have more on that later, as they are about to start boarding my flight to PHL, and the battle for overhead bin space is already underway. I have, however, made an addition to the Blogroll, adding the website/blog of Jim Watkins, the director of the conference. No, I didn’t add this just to kiss up to the conference director — it’s actually a great site with some funny and insightful stuff. Check it out!

More on the conference when I get there.

D.

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve posted to the blog. So much for my initial commitment to keeping it fresh and relevant.

It’s not that I haven’t been writing. I’ve been writing my little fingers to the bone. I’ve also been really busy with the radio job that supports my writing addiction. Work, work, work!

Well, okay… there has been a little play, too. I’ve got a nifty new tool under my fingertips, a brand new notebook computer. We had been talking about upgrading for a while, and after one of my laptops was stolen a while back, that pushed an upgrade closer to the top of the list. Since I’m actually attempting to (and seriously in danger of) making a few bucks with my writing work, a laptop devoted almost exclusively to that business becomes a legitimate business expense, further helping to justify the cost. It’s a tool, not a toy… it’s a tool, not a toy… it’s a tool, not a toy…

Being the geeky tech-boy that I am, and having spent many years supporting computers around radio stations, I would never be satisfied with any of those consumer-oriented cheapie laptops at the local “big box” chain stores. I did look at a few, but none of them was the right fit. Your mileage may vary, so if you bought one of those $499 laptops from a “big box” chain store and you’re happy with it, I’m happy for you. Just don’t call me when it breaks and you have to send it off for a month to have it repaired under warranty.

My close techie friends might find this surprising, but I actually considered buying a Mac. I looked at the new MacBook and MacBook Pro machines based on Intel processors, and was not unimpressed. Mac’s OSX Operating system does have some strong upsides, largely because it’s based on good old fashioned BSD Unix. In fact, if Apple offered OSX with drivers that would work on my new machine, I’d buy a copy and install it as a dual-boot OS just for the sake of experimentation. Apple, however, doesn’t believe in playing well with others when it comes to hardware. If you want to run OSX, you have to buy their overpriced machine to run it. When I was shopping around, I found that they just weren’t competitive enough, particularly when looking at warranties and support. Apple offers longer-term support warranties, but doesn’t offer the one coverage that ought to be mandatory for a notebook/laptop that will be in motion: Accidental Damage coverage. You can get it through third parties, but it’s pricey and I never did find the level of coverage and support I demand.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned through my years of radio engineering and working with computers, it’s that how well a computer is supported after the sale is just as important—or in some cases even more important—than the hardware, software, bells, and whistles. That’s why I decided to buy another Dell. I’ve owned three other Dell laptops, and I’ve never had anything but good experience with Dell’s support. About four years ago I bought a used Dell Latitude C600 on eBay from Dell Financial Services. It was an off-lease machine that had been refurbished and still had several months of CompleteCare (includes accidental damage) warranty remaining. A week after I bought it, it began misbehaving, and after some troubleshooting I felt there was a problem with the motherboard. I placed a call to Dell’s support folks, we discussed what was going on, and bright and early the next morning there was a tech at my office with a new motherboard in hand, and 30 minutes later the machine was good as new. I bought my Inspiron 5150 a couple of years ago (with s 3 year CompleteCare Warranty), and on my third day of ownership I was listening to something with my Koss Pro/4AA headphones, which have a ¼” plug. I adapted down to the 1/8” plug with a straight, solid adapter. The combined length of the adapter and the plug from the headphones was around four inches, sticking out from the side of the new machine. When I accidentally dropped something on that connector combo, I heard a distinct “snap” and I lost both headphones and speakers. I had snapped the headphone jack off of the motherboard. Again, one call and the next day I had a new motherboard installed by a friendly tech, no cost, no questions asked.

Try to get that level of service/support from your local “big box” chain store!

So, my previous laptop, the Inspiron 5150, is now Sharon’s computer, the Latitude C600 she was using has been retired to less stressful service, and I bought a new Dell Latitude D820. I held off on the purchase until September 6, the first day that Dell was offering the newest generation mobile processor (Intel’s Core 2 Duo, AKA “Merom”) in the Latitude line. I got a T7200 processor, a dual-core 2Ghz with 4MB internal cache that’s ready to run a 64-bit OS. It’s pretty well loaded, with 2 GB RAM, 100GB 7200RPM Hard Drive, WSXGA+ display, the 512MB Nvidia video card, and even an HSDPA mobile broadband card that will work with Cingular’s new 3G Network. If you’re not a techie, just smile and say “that’s nice” and move on.

This thing screams. At first, it didn’t seem all that much faster than my Inspiron 5150 (P4 3.06 G proc with 1GB RAM), which is no slouch. It was when I started actually using the thing heavily that I began to see the speed advantages of the Dual Core processor. Very impressive, indeed. It’s a beautiful thing.

Yet, after I got it out of the box, installed all my software, and moved all those gigabytes of files to the new machine, I found myself sitting here saying “now what?” It has a display, and a keyboard, and all the stuff you expect a computer to have. It’s fast… oy, it’s fast. And it’s pretty. The display is lovely. But, it’s just a computer—a tool that I can use to write words, write music, create impressive graphics, read and write email, pay my bills, and all of the other things we do with our computers. I didn’t feel giddy like a child on Christmas morning, which is what I expected to feel. It really is a tool, not a toy.

I’m reminded of a story I heard once about a humble, philanthropic zillionaire from a family of almost insane wealth. Someone asked him how he could grow up in an environment with so much wealth and not become materialistic. His answer was profound: “Mother taught us that everything we had was either a tool or an idol, and mother would not tolerate idolatry in our home.”

Lord, I don’t want to be an idolater. Please keep me balanced and help me keep my eye on the prize. Thank you for my new computer. Please help me use it as a tool, not as a toy.