While vacationing in Saugatuck, we toured a passenger ship that was open to the public. This ship was constructed in Scotland in 1906 to be used to shuttle passengers on the Great Lakes until her retirement in the 1960s. It was a short cut from the east for those who wanted to travel west to the Rockies. It was mainly the Carnival Cruise ship of its day.

When this huge ship was being delivered, she steamed up the St. Lawrence seaway to the locks that would allow her to pass into the Great Lakes. They specifically built this ship narrow enough for it to fit through the locks. However, they discovered it was too long to fit in the lock! So they had to cut the ship in half and brought her through in two sections, then reassembled her. And the ship was delivered with several kegs of replacement rivets just in case that would be necessary.

Murphy’s Law says that if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. What has gone wrong for you today and how did you fix it?

Tags: mistakes, preparation, ship

Many times I’ve visited the Emergency Room to pray with people who had had an accident or serious ailment. Its always tense in there for the patient and family, but in many cases, a life saver.

But yesterday it was I who was the patient. I experienced what its like to be the patient instead of the visitor. I’ve struggled with getting my blood pressure under control for a month now. Each time I would call my cardiologist he would suggest I take an additional pill that night, and I would end up taking it regularly to keep the pressure down. That happened several times until I’m taking more and more of what isn’t working.

So, I called the cardiologist Tuesday and told the nurse what my pressure was and she told me I needed to go to the nearest Emergency Room. Fortunately, Anita was free to go with me. The E.R. doctor gave me a pill that worked really great. However, it slowed me down so my heart-rate was 49 at one point. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. I felt just exhausted. They kept me there until they were sure it wasn’t going any lower, then sent me home.

What was your experience with an Emergency Room?

The day we arrived at our Saugatuck cottage, I took several trips carrying everything down to the riverfront rental, locking the car behind me in the parking lot. After about one and a half hours, we headed out to drive to the downtown area to look for a restaurant. We buckled up in our car and I turned the key; and nothing happened! The transmission was locked in park and I couldn’t get the key out of the ignition. No power anywhere! I began looking around to see what may have drained a perfectly good battery in only 90 minutes. There it was: the GPS glowing brightly! We had forgotten to turn it off. But could that little GPS drain a 12-volt battery so soon?

I read through the Auto Manual and it said that if we connect unauthorized electronic gizmos to the cigarette lighter, we could do serious damage to the electrical system and void our warranty (Oh-oh). It also sounded like it could have been a failure of the security system in this car.

As it turned out, next morning we called a local auto repair place to check it out and they found the battery totally discharged, jumped it, and everything was fine. Apparently a six-year old battery will drain completely down to nothing in 90 minutes after all. Lesson learned, problem solved, and forty bucks out the widow!.

Have you ever been stranded far from home? Tell us about it.

Tags: battery, GPS, stranded

Sorry I haven’t blogged for the past week. Anita and I took a vacation trip to Saugatuck, Michigan. I took along my computer and intended to post daily blogs. However, I apparently have such great firewall protection on that thing that it wouldn’t recognize the server at our cottage. So, I had to just sit around and hope you would not get out of the habit of checking this blog daily.

Saugatuck is a port city on the Kalamazoo River, just a mile or so inland from Lake Michigan. Our cottage was located right on the banks of the Saugatuck Bay (a widening of the river formerly used for Lake Michigan ship traffic). Today it is largely a tourist place with a lot of quaint little gift shops, eating establishments, and cottages and motels. School had already started in many places, so the population was mostly older or childless.

My diet was hard to maintain at a place like that and we had to have my favorite ice cream (Butter Pecan) daily. I’m sure I’m going to have to lose a few pounds now that I’m back. But, we did have a restful time and experienced a few adventures, which I’ll recount this week if you haven’t given up on this blog yet. Its good to be back home where I can sleep in my own bed and watch my own TV.

All the “great” people of God modeled intercession: Abraham, Moses, Jesus. Since God loves sinners and wants to work through us Christians, it is imperative that we all step into the role of loving our neighbor and stepping into intercession. Anita and I missed the message, still being out of state on vacation. How did Pastor Adam do?

Did you know that one of the most popular aquarium fish is the shark? If you catch a small shark and confine it, it will stay a size proportionate to the aquarium. Sharks can be six inches long yet fully matured. But if you turn them loose in the ocean, the same shark will grow to their normal length of eight feet.

That can also happen to Christians. Some Christians are the cutest little six inch people swimming around in their artificial pool. But I know others that have gone out into the world system with their faith and then became Great Whites.

How large is your swimming hole?

Tags: growth, shark