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I was watching the Speed Channel on TV this afternoon, and saw these cars running around an oval circuit. Apparently stock car racing is one of the fastest growing spectator sports in the US. I personally don’t understand what the fascination is. To see cars going round and round for how many ever laps just seems like a boring thing to see.

What I enjoy is something like Formula 1, where there’s actual driver skill involved, tight turns, decision on when to overtake, races on streets, etc. It seems that NASCAR racing is a pale comparison to F1, and yet so many people watch it. I just am really baffled at this.

Tags: Racing, Nascar, F1

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This article describes the results of various studies that claim prayer doesn’t help heart surgery patients through the procedure and recovery period. In some cases, the study claims it increases complications during recovery because of heightened expectations.

Although I can’t argue with the results, I find a couple glaring issues from these studies:

1. The patients’ actual belief in God.

We aren’t told whether these people are believers in a certain faith or atheists. For prayer to work, I believe that someone being prayed for has to also have faith in God that he/she will be healed. Without this, I think other people’s prayer would not be as effective.

2. The people praying for the patient don’t know him/her.

Somehow I think that this is also a major hindrance from the prayer working. Yes, people pray all the time for others they don’t know, but in this particular case, combined with fact no 1 above, I think is what makes these studies less effective. It’s hard to really focus prayer for someone you don’t know and never met.

3. Conviction.

We don’t know if these groups that are doing the prayers actually have a conviction from God to do it. Without such a conviction, the prayers can be just empty shells of words which have no power at all. There are tons of intercessors around the world who pray for people / causes they haven’t touched personally, and yet because of God’s conviction, they pray with purpose and that’s where the power lies.

What I would like to see is some studies where these 3 issues are addressed. Find patients who are actual believers in God, find people who know the patient and are convicted to pray for him/her and see what happens.

Tags: Prayer

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Man this week has been quite a bad one. My eldest son had a fever on Saturday, and it didn’t go down until Monday. The doctor said it was quite common in kids this season and it was a viral infection. The bad part is that he’s coughing day and night and can’t sleep well, very whiny and cranky and downright annoying sometimes. Last night he finally caught some sleep, hopefully by tomorrow the cough will be gone.

Our second child got his first immunization yesterday, it was quite funny. He got 2 shots, one in each thigh, and he cried quite a bit. After the second needle was done though, he let out this very cute sigh that made all of us laugh He was a bit fussy, but after some fever medicine decided to sleep as usual the night, which was good because I could get some rest (baby sleeps with me, older son with my wife).

It seems I’ve got a bit of the cough, been taking tons of Extra Strength Fisherman’s Friend and that yucky tasting Buckley’s cough medicine to counter it. Hopefully it goes away soon, I hate coughs.

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Hi everyone, due to reasons I’ve mentioned in my blog, there have been no posts for the last couple of weeks, but now I should have some time on my hand to start posting again.

You’ve noticed that I’ve also moved the site to a WordPress 2.0 engine because, as with my site, I couldn’t get it to work with QumanaXP.

Should be more posts coming up soon.

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Just wanted to let everybody know what’s going on in my life right now. A couple of interesting things happening, so here they are in no particular order:

My plan was to take parental leave from work beginning at the end of January, but my manager was kind enough to buy out my contract since she said I probably needed the money with another baby. So they bought out my 4 months left on my contract, and told me to call back in a few months to see if there’s any other contract that can be offered to me, which brings me to my next point.

We’re going back to Indonesia for good within the next few months. It’s becoming clear that raising 2 children here is tougher than it seems, and my wife can’t stand it anymore, so the decision has been made to leave Canada sometime in September or even before then. I’m still not sure as to what I’ll be doing in Indonesia yet, possibly start some IT consulting company, but by God’s grace I’m sure I’ll find something that can be done

In relation to that, we’re in the process of trying to select agents to sell the condo, and also find people to sell all the stuff we can’t possibly bring along. These include, but are not limited to: the piano, unopened book rack, mattresses, TV, furniture and tons of other small stuff. If you feel you need something (or even if you want to buy a condo), give me a call, I might have it

Also in preparation for that, I’ve decided to study for the PMP certification, so I might have it handy should I need to open an IT Project Management company in Indonesia. It might take a couple of months of study, so I’m thinking of studying in June/July once the baby is a bit grown up and my wife can handle taking care of the two kids alone.

So, a couple of life changing decisions made, an interesting and quite tiring last few months, but I’m really looking forward to this new chapter in life.

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I’ve decided to give WordPress 2.0 a whirl, mainly because I couldn’t get Qumana XP to work with NucleusCMS properly. Now to find a nice looking theme for it.

Tags: WordPress, Qumana, Nucleus

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Hi everyone, I’m back after a long absence. Sorry for not letting anyone know. It’s been a hectic couple of weeks trying to cope with another baby in the family. The last few weeks, my older son was sick twice, baby got a cold, and now my son is sick again with a fever, so it’s been a vicious cycle.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I’m still here, and will start posting more often now that I can breathe a bit easier (I said a bit Still lots of those sleepless day and nights, making me feel like walking cyborg some days).

Will post an update after this about what I’ve been up to and what’s going on in my life.

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