Did you know? The Olympic rings symbolize unity by being interconnected and each ring represents a continent. North and South America are together, Australia is sometimes referred to Oceania and Antarctica has no permanent residents. For Team USA fans, Lindsey Jacobellis wins gold in women’s snowboardcross and then again with teammate Nick Bumgardner in mixed snowboardcross. For Jacobellis at 36, and Bumgardner at 40, this is the probably their last Olympics. Germany, Norway and the US are 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the gold medal count at my time of publication. Click here for more.
I’ve worked a couple of stints helping my brother do commercial HVAC. Building automation has been a growth industry for at least 10 or 12 years now. The average homeowner can lock and unlock doors, turn lights on and off and adjust the thermostat from a mobile app. I knew about text and email alerts to warn about dangerous or undesirable conditions, but it never occurred to me to consider the usefulness of these things in terms of insurance. Church Mutual Insurance Company sent us a box full of sensors a year or two ago with installation instructions. There was an incentive, in terms of our premiums, to install them. We now have space temp sensors and wet floor sensors in our church building, connected through a wireless router to a monitoring service. If the temperature inside the church drops to near freezing, or water is detected by the water heater or under the kitchen sin, I will get text alerts and a phone call. It’s cheaper for the insurance company to give away the sensors than to fix major damage that can occur if problems go unnoticed. Insurance is all about calculating risk. It’s the same thing with companies that offer auto insurance rates based on your driving habits, which they will monitor when you install their device to track those driving habits.
Internet Monk Compound beneath Saint Sades Maryland mentioned for the first time as the intro begins taking shape, as well as the BHT wonderdog Van Til handling the technical aspects of production.
Have compassion for issues you may face later in life.
Small churches in big buildings.
It’s hard to turn old blog posts and sermons into a book. We know he eventually did it but in this early episode the process was just beginning.
You can read the soli deo post here and Purchasing Books with Wisdom here.
For the past several months we’ve been going through the Internet Monk Radio archives and re-sharing those episodes. Each time Michael Spencer mentions another blog or podcast I try to find that and see if it still exists. Many times they do not. I often find websites that have not been updated in years. When he shares a resource that is still operating I try to point those out and include a link in my post.
Back in my day we didn’t have cell phone video and doorbell cameras. If something epic happened all we could do was tell somebody. Which is why old people today start so many stories with “back in my day…”
Tom Brady has more Super Bowl rings that each of these NFL teams. But wait, isn’t that all the NFL teams? Yes, it is. Tom Brady has seven rings. The New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers each have six. All six Patriot wins came with Brady playing quarterback. He then went to Tampa Bay and won a seventh time in 2021 meaning that he single-handedly has more Super Bowl wins than any NFL franchise. So although he’s not going to the big game this year, try not to feel too bad. Overall he’s doing okay for himself.
I’m working through the early podcast episodes in my archive. The very early ones are somewhat sporadic so last week was #5 and you haven’t missed anything.There are no appetizers in the intro that lead to a longer discussion at this point. So it’s more like
On today’s episode: Vytorin working on cholesterol numbers; the line between internet and real world pastoral care; The Missionary Headache is available on the iMonk archive site; irreconcilable differences between Roman Catholics and Evangelicals.
Long distance telephone service used to be a thing. When AT&T was split from Bell Systems (sorry about the ancient history from my childhood) federal regulators sought to bring competition to the long distance marketplace. AT&T, US Sprint, MCI and others advertised heavily to woo customers to choose them as their long distance carrier. It used to be that the longer the distance a call covered the higher the rate was. I myself may have been given a stern talking to for running up a huge phone bill, over $150, while talking to a girl over Christmas break while in college.
In the past 30 days we have lost John Madden, Betty White, Sidney Poitier, Bob Saget, Meatloaf and Louie Anderson. As far as I know none of these deaths are being blamed on Covid. Betty White was only a few days short of a hundred. Louie Anderson had been admitted to the hospital earlier this week and was fighting late stage cancer. It will be several weeks before the coroner releases any more information on Bob Saget.
Here’s a fun fact I just learned: Louie Anderson was originally cast with Bronson Pinchot in Perfect Strangers. When the show got picked up they didn’t feel the chemistry was right between Anderson and Pinchot and Anderson was replaced by Mark Linn-Baker. The Lou Appleton character became Larry Appleton and the show ran for eight seasons.
The Master's Table 