We had our Yoof Cell last night. A bit of a poor showing from the ladies, it must be said: the gentlemen (Ben, Mike, Fat Mike and Sam) dealt with their absence with great fortitude.

We had a look at Galatians, in particular, chapter 5, where Paul talks about how things that are wrong are pretty obvious, and are completely opposite to what we do if we're walking with the Holy Spirit. Above all, the test for our behaviour is not a written law, but love.

So if we're being loving then we are automatically fulfilling God's law, and nobody can tell us we're doing the wrong thing.

Being the proud father that I am (of Benjamin, 23 months, and another due to arrive in May, who is known in the family as "Holly" for reasons we won't go into now), and being also a geek, I naturally wonder how I can teach my children about computers, IT, the internet, and all that stuff.
This isn't because I want to push them into becoming like me (heaven forbid!?), but because I want to teach them stuff I think is cool and because this particular cool stuff is going to be very handy stuff for them to know as they grow up.
As it happens, Benjamin doesn't need any encouragement to use a computer. In fact, anything with buttons holds a magnetic attraction for him.
A mouse which has buttons on top _and_ a light underneath is just too much to handle!
Keeping him away from a keyboard is just impossible. It's cute _some_ of the time, and intensely frustrating when I'm trying to actually use the PC.

"No, Daddy, you need to press _this_ button." ...Of course. How dull of me. Why didn't I think of pressing ESC in the middle of a download?

Well one of these years I'd like to get him into a little programming - not so he can grow up to be a programmer, but so he can understand computers (?and understand is father?) a bit better.

I'm thinking that the best way to go with this is LOGO, which has been out of mainstream fashion for a couple of decades, but I know teachers who still rave about it. I've even read (although I haven't been able to confirm this yet) that LOGO is part of the National Curriculum.

What do you, oh esteemed reader, think?
How can I teach my children about IT?
Is it ever too soon to learn programming? Or should Benjamin have written his first compiler before he goes to school?

Went to the dentist this morning (cracked a tooth on Sunday).
The tooth didn't hurt - it's just that there's a really sharp edge which catches my tongue, and felt like it was shredding it into tiny pieces. No matter; the marvellous Mr. Foy sorted it out with a temporary filling today. The bad news is that it will have to come out at some point in the fairly near future. Still, the pain has gone! (enabling me to see clearly now ;)

I have started meeting regularly with Richard and Duncan. We're working with alternate Mondays at the moment. Last night, Dunc was ill, so it was just me and Rich. I wasn't there at all. I'm feeling yuk cos I've cracked a tooth. I'm going to the dentist tomorrow to sort it out. I can see a crown in my future, but it's not a crown of spleandour!?

This year's birthday present arrived on Friday. 5 disk LOTR (Return of the King) DVD. The only bad news is that Sq wasn't in when it arrived, so the postman took it back to the depot. Usually they just leave it in the cupboard outside the front door, but perhaps he thought it was too valuable. Good point.

Lovingly, Sq went and picked it up on Saturday morning. We have now watched most of the film. :0) Much extra stuff (I think it must be up to 4 hours now!). I definitely feel that I need a video projector in order to truly appreciate this kind of thing. Ah me, poor age, the problems I have to deal with.

Feeling better today. Throat still a bit dodgy, and I still feel a little bit weedier than normal, but it's definitely getting better. :0)

I re-read the bit about Matthew Levi on the train. You know what else struck me? In all 3 accounts (Mt9, Mk2, Lk5), it starts with "As Jesus was going somewhere, he noticed Levi, sitting in his tax collector's booth." It started with Jesus going about his Father's work. Most crucially, Matthew only got called because Jesus noticed him. I mean he didn't notice Jesus. What if Jesus hadn't noticed him? (I know that's the wrong sort of question, but still...). This is an example of what Jesus describes elsewhere when he says "You didn't choose me; I chose you." I don't know that I like the thought that Matthew's savlation (and my salvation) is contingent on Jesus making a choice. It makes me feel very out of control - very insecure. The truth is, though, that I am out of control, and I should be jolly grateful that it doesn't rest with me (cos I'd mess it up). Jesus isn't just the means of my salvation, he's the motivation and the very origin of it.

Yesterday on the train into work, I suddenly realised that my throat hurt a bit. I felt worse as the day went on, and went home with a slight temperature and a general feeling of weediness. Fortunately, my lovely young wife is v. understanding, and was undemanding and supporting.
:)
<3
I manfully worked my way through the steak she cooked for tea :)
After tea, I just about managed to stay awake through an episode of "Jeeves and Wooster" (I had the first series on DVD as an anniversary present - did I mention my wife's overall loveliness?).

So today I was feeling about the same as I got up, but have managed, through sheer determination, grit and Great British Bloody-mindedness to haul myself up the the metropolis and into work. While sitting on the train, I dragged out my Bible, and read the bit where Jesus tells Matthew Levi to follow him. It's one of those 1-liners in the bible where the brevity of the account belies the enormity of the event. Matthew's sitting there collecting taxes, and when Jesus says "follow me" ... he does! What's that about, eh? I mean, I can see why a fisherman (Peter et al) would be prepared to give the wandering preacher business a go: fishing isn't top of the economic ladder, is it? But Matthew's a tax collector: not the most popular of occupations, true, but he must be raking it in, right? So in a moment he's basically chucked in his old way of life (well, chucked away everything, really), and gone out completely on a limb. And remember, he doesn't have our advantage of 2k years of hindsight; he didn't know that Jesus was going to be someone great. All the information he had was standing in front of him. And what he saw was enough to make him put everything on the line. He was a rich man. A rich man typically loves riches more than life. Matthew gave up his riches.

Why?

In my mind, this event marks out Matthew as one of the heroes of the New Testament. I hadn't seen it before today, but now he's one of my heroes because he didn't hesitate to throw away what he couldn't keep to gain what he couldn't loose. [Appologies to Jim Elliott]. I'm not like that. I like to know all the facts before I step away from my comfort zone. I don't want to be like this, and by God's grace I won't always be this way, but for now Matthew is my hero. :0)

The weekend was pretty good, but a bit full:
Cat & Richard pitched up on Friday evening (with dogs) to stay until Sunday. It was, as ever, nice to see them! Jones wasn't too happy with admitting Misty and Rowan to his territory, and there was a bit of fisticuffs (and not a little whining Friday night), but they seemed to pretty much sort it out by Saturday.

Sat. lunchtime, we (humans!) all headed out to "The Spotted Dog", for which Sarah & I had won a GBP 40 voucher in a raffle. We had a jolly nice lunch, and the total bill was only GBP 60, so we thought we did rather well. Definitely recommended. :)

Sunday was fun. Church was good. God was there, and I was prayed for by a number of people, inc. Mark, Dave (who anointed me with oil) and Uffuk. I wanted prayer about the whole fear / confidence thing - basically, I think God thinks it's time for me to be free of fear of man. nuf sed.

After church, I was priviledged to be a small cog in a logistical operation the likes of which we have not seen since Market Garden. A large clan, including 14 related people from church and a number of their relatives were off on a mega-holiday together. I went to Gatwick with the Kings, and drove their car back to TW. I now have to drive it back to Gatwick in a fortnight's time and leave a message for them @ left luggage. Their flight arrives at 02:30 or some equally uncivilised hour.

Interrestingly, their car is a Fiat Multipla (1.6 petrol, basic spec). We're wondering vaguely about getting a bigger car (as we're hoping for another child at some point), and we'd like to get a people carrier. Dave raves about his Multipla - perhaps we should look at one? Having one for 2 weeks is certainly a good opportunity to check out that option. :)

After scooting back from LGW, we had lunch with the NCT crowd. OK, but I would have preferred a nice nap!

OK, so I haven't done a lot here for a while, have I? 

Well, I just posted a question I've been thinking about for a while over on Larkware (http://www.larkware.com), and I thought I might as well pop it here as well, so here you go...

----------------------------------

OK, so here's a question for you great and good who visit here. Before I ask it, if any of you happen to have a vested interest in the answer, I'm trusting you to put it aside for a moment... My team is not following most of the best practices we should be. I'm thinking about version control, unit testing, automatic documentation, help files, daily builds, ... I have just read (i) "Coder to Developer" and (ii) "The Pragmatic Programmer". Both books cover best practice, and recommend very similar practices (most of which I am very keen to start following). They do this with quite different styles and at different levels. Which book should I give to my team to read first?

Please don't feel limited to just those 2 books! tell me what you suggest. My team have varying levels of programming experience and aptitude, but they're smart guys, and I hope that they'll respond well to reasonned argument! What other books, courses, websites, articles, etc. can I use to educate them?

All polite suggestions welcome!
Thanks :)
- AJ
><>

 

Yesterday (28th) was our anniversary.
We had the best yet (of 4). :0)

I took the day off and booked us in for lunch at Thackeray's. It's a top notch restaurant in Tunbridge Wells. Their lunchtime menu is basically the same as their evening menu, but the prices are much lower, and we'd often talked about going there. So I organised Amy to babysit for us. I didn't tell Sarah until the evening before. It was all v. fun. We wore our nice clothes and (oh luxury) took a cab both ways! :)

It was a sunny day, and we sat out in their courtyard bit. The food was fab. I mean absolutely amazing. The service was some of the best I've experienced (we were addressed as Monsigneur and Madamme). I have already inflicted detailsed descriptions of the meal itself on too many people, ... but I'm still going to repeat it here:

bread: hot from the kitchen, half a dozen different types of bread roll. We chose the dried apricot ones. As soon as I finished mine, the nice lady popped up and enquired as to whether I would like another. I declined (good call, as it turned out).

pre-starter: we were served an amuse bouche, a fish consomme. I am surely a pleb, but a meal where they bring you stuff you haven't even ordered: how posh is that?!

starter: I can't remember what Sarah had, but I went for the smoked eel. It was a pretty tiny amound of breaded smoked eel on top of a small tower of grated vegetables in some kind of dill sauce. The tastes were beautifully balanced, but - not having tasted eel before - I'm still not sure exactly what eel tastes like!

main course: Sarah had a salmon thing, about which she made positive noises. I chose the assiette of Kentish lamb - a wise choice, if M'sieur says so himself! There was liver, some joint meat (not sure which joint) and some bits I couldn't identify - but they tasted great :0) The meat was all cooked perfectly. I mean it fell apart, but all the tastes were there. Amazing.
They slipped up minorly in that they forgot Sarah's side salad, but they remedied that in about zero seconds, so who's complaining?

sorbet: Next, my lovely new ladyfriend appeared bearing orange sorbet. Again, the real taste was there, not just a sugary cold lump, which is how sorbet often turns out. I think part of the secret was that it was served above absolute zero, so the orange juice and the water hadn't separated out into distinct layers.

dessert: We were both tempted away from the "cheap" menu for dessert: Sarah had a banana tarte tatin, and I had the assiette de chocolat. I really must congratulate myself again on a simply impeccable descision. I recieved: a mini baked alaska with chocolate ice-cream, a mini chocolate souffle (!? how do they do that??) a shot glass filled with layers of different mousses and a slice of chocolate torte. Somehow I ended up with a glass of muscat to wash it down. Oh well.

coffee: So: coffee. "How can they turn a cup of coffee into an upmarket culinary experience?" I hear you ask. Well, they managed: coffee was duly delivered, accompanied by petits fours, brandy snaps and a pile of truffles the size of East Sussex. How I managed to get up the stairs, through the main restaurant and into the cab, I'll never know!


PS. Huge thanks to Amy for babysitting. She did well under difficult circumstances! :0)


why was this our best anniversary yet?

This was the first year when we haven't been cross with each other about something. In the last year, we've talked about and dealt with some things that had come betwen us. We've been really helped in this by the marriage course (http://www.htb.org.uk/marriage/), which was top. I think the most useful thing was that it gave us time with no distractions to simply talk about things we needed to talk about.

The most exciting thing about this being our best anniversary yet is that if this year we love each other better than we did last year, then it's possible that next year we'll love each other better still. - that sounds worth looking forward to, doesn't it?