Today I got up early, but then rolled over and went back to sleep.  I guess it was not wise to sit up until 2 AM last night and then try and get up by 6 AM.

I chatted online for a little while and then took a really nice hot bath as the weather we have had the past couple of days aggravated the nerve in my lower back.   It isn't bad, just annoying to have that minor but constant backache all the time.

After the bath I left for church.  I found a better way to get to the parking lot that was much faster than in past weeks.  I got there about 10 minutes early so I had a chance to kneel down a talk to God for a few minutes.  I thanked him for some things and asked for a few more.

Father Ron gave the service this morning.  The first reading was from Genesis 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18 (26B).  It was where Got told Abraham to sacrifice his son, and after he was sure Abraham was going to do it, had it stopped at the last second.  Abraham had displayed total faith and commitment to the lord.

The second reading was from Romans 8:31b-34, which talked about God's love for us, and that he, gave his son to us.

The Gospel was Mark 9:2-10 where Jesus took Peter, James, and John up to a mountain and a cloud appeared and from that cloud a voice told them "he is my son, listen to him".  As they were coming down the mountain Jesus told them to keep it a secret until the Son of Man arose from the dead.

The church bulletin asks the following questions.  What does "rising from the dead," mean to you, personally, in your own life?  Relate and experience from your life that demonstrates your understanding.  What can you do to help ensure that you have the faith to continue the journey when you are "down the mountain"?

I would like to say that I have risen from the dead spiritually.  For quite a number of years now I was neglecting going to church and all.  Now I have been attending regularly and will continue to do so.

The sermon today was that Abraham was ready to make a huge sacrifice in demonstrating his faith in God, and after demonstrating that faith God shows him e does not want bad for him or society.

Our sinfulness demonstrates lack of this ultimate faith.  We sometimes do things for personal gratification, that we know are sins.  We will always pay for them in the long run. 

He then went on to talk about how the church as a community must grow this faith in God.  He said this week is a perfect time to get on track as Wednesday and Thursday they are holding confession and will have 15 priests there to make sure it goes quickly.  He also said that he would like us to stay for the entire service on one of those nights to pray the Rosary and ask for community forgiveness. 

I have been putting off going to confession, but this looks like the best opportunity to do it, so I will attend one of the services and get it done. 

He also said that since St. Patrick's Day falls on the third Friday of lent, the Bishop said we did not have to fast this Friday.  That is a good thing though I don't really plan on making corned beef and cabbage.

After church I went to Popeye's fried chicken and got a 3-piece meal with cole slaw.  I have been staying away from fried food and eating more fruit and salads but I decided to spoil myself today as I have been fasting on Fridays. 

Well today at work it was a little boring as today is the biannual Second Class Petty Officer rating exam and 2/3 of my class was off taking the test, so the rest of the class reviewed the power points and I was available to answer questions.  It kind of gave me a little time to get caught up on some paper work and all.  Hopefully the guys will do well on the test and advance to the next rate.

Kind of reminds me of when I made second class all the way back in 1977.  I had been working out of my rating, though I was working on electronic equipment.  It was equipment belonging to the Interior Communications Rating, (Television Camera's, Television's, Video Tape Players, etc), while I was being tested on things belonging to my rating (Radar, Communications and Navigation Equipment, etc).  I remember taking the test and feeling like a total rock.  The only thing I felt confident about was the fact that I was confident I failed the test.  I didn't and somehow managed to score high enough to advance, which was a great feeling.

The tests after that were very easy as I went up for First Class Petty Officer while teaching Electronics Technician Class "A" School and taking tests after that was like grading homework.  I would recommend that anyone trying to advance should do a tour of instructor duty.  It makes you so much more knowledgeable in the rating.

The tests have changed over the years.  About half the test now encompasses History and Traditions these days, where in my day they concentrated on theory.  I have always wondered why we had to do correspondence courses on Basic Military Requirements along with our rate training courses when they did not test very much on the Basic Military Requirements stuff.  I like to see them testing on this kind of stuff these days as it keeps the young sailors in touch with the History and Traditions, but it is a bit harder for them to advance.  Anyway enough on the Navy stuff, time to switch subjects.

Last night as my woman and I were watching TV via web cam she saw a story that interested her when the 11 PM news came on.   They were talking about a brutal senseless murder at a convenience store in El Cajon that happened last week.  The criminals stole a few hundred dollars and then executed a man and woman working at the store by shooting them in the back of the head while they were on their knees, defenseless.  NBC 7/39 had posted the clip from the in store security camera on their web site and put their web site location over the air.  She checked the link and then checked out the site and was excited that she can get San Diego news stories and updates e-mailed to her automatically.

When I got up this morning she seemed to know more about some things going on in the city of San Diego than I did.  I am glad she is showing interest in her soon to be new home town. 

Anyhow the class was in lab today so I had to do a lot of running around signing stuff off and checking their procedures.  But things were going pretty well, and this is a small class so it was kind of a fun workday.  They only have one more set of performance tests to do before the final test on the transceiver and then I will be able to start my favorite area to teach, antennas and couplers.

I did do one dumb thing today.  One of the guys was looking to see if anyone had change for a $5 bill.  I did so I gave it to him and then later realized that I didn't have any change to buy a soda or anything.  Anyway I was able to survive the day so it was just an inconvenience.  It's funny; when I have a pocket full of change I usually don't drink sodas.  I only want them when I don't have any change on me.  

Anyway one of the nice things about being in lab is that we are able to listen to music on the radio.  We have been listening to classic rock on KGB 101 FM.  It is amazing how all the stuff I listened to in high school is now classified as classic rock now.  It makes me feel young in a way listening to a lot of it.  I have heard stuff that I haven't heard in years like Alice Cooper "Schools Out" and Yes "Roundabout".  Brings out the old school days when I was young and not worrying about having to make a living and all.  Ah if we could just have the ability to go back in time and change some things in our life.  

Well as some of you have noticed, I have been trying to move some things around on my blog and trying to make things a little better looking.  In the process I have been finding stuff to make my life a little easier.  There are some things that I could really kick myself for like posting links.  When I first started the blog one of the things I wanted to do was post links to things.  I knew nothing of HTML codes and here on blogdrive they have a help forum.  I started reading the help files and learned enough code to be able to post links, but it was a long drawn out process and I kept making mistakes and all.   

Anyway while messing around with my preferences trying to enable my blog's search function I changed something from plain text to WYSIWYG and all of a sudden I got a new window to make my entries in.  I started playing around with some of the controls on this new entry page and low and behold, it had an enter link function.  All I had to do is just enter the web page or address of my link and give it a title and there it was.  It was so easy and I feel like such and idiot.  Now to post links I no longer have to copy, paste, and change links from past entries.  So in the future you can expect me to start linking to more stuff.  

The one thing I don't like is that I haven't quite figured how to paste my entries from word yet.  I like writing my entries on word and then I can spell check them.  I hate looking at my entries a week or so down the line and seeing a typing mistake.  I still make mistakes but spell check finds most of them.  I wish blogdrive allowed for the spell checking of entries before posting them.  

I have gotten around that by changing my preferences back to plain text, paste, and then go back to WYSIWYG mode and paste the links and all.  I don't know why it will not allow me to paste in that mode but I will continue to experiment with it until I get it figured out.  And hey you computer savvy people, I hope I didn't make you laugh too hard.  Just remember back to the days when you first started using something new, and were too shy to ask for help.   Anyway I am now off to explore new things to improve the ease with which I blog with.  If the blog disappears then I probably had an experiment go south.  I am being careful to back it up before I do anything wild.