personal reflection

Chris Knight's avatar

Now’s a good time to let everyone know that for possibly the next several weeks, I’m going to be cutting back on writing for this blog. It’s not going to be a complete sabbatical: I’m certainly having too much fun posting reviews of new Doctor Who episodes to give that up, and there are a few other things that I’d love to work on for this blog too.

But there are also a few other projects beyond the scope of The Knight Shift that I need to focus on as well. Some cool stuff that I’d love to give a bit of effort toward. So if y’all see only two or three posts a week, don’t fret: I’m just here and yonder doing other things, and will be back to regular frequency as soon as possible 🙂...

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Today brought an experience that I haven’t enjoyed in a number of years: substitute teaching a second grade class at a nearby elementary school. I heard yesterday afternoon that they needed someone to fill-in for a teacher, so I promptly called and volunteered for duty. Subbing is something that I’ve been doing for a month or so now, one reason is that I’m seriously thinking about teaching full-time and am sorta giving it a “trial run”, you could say.

So I arrived a little after 7 this morning, the kids were in the room by 7:30 and their regular teacher had everything planned out. And I had an awesome assistant that I got to work with. We followed things per the instructions… but I also couldn’t resist “improvising” a bit.

F’rinstance, when it came time to do Math, here was a written problem that the students had to figure out:...

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No doubt I’m going to draw flack for suggesting this, but it needs to be said. Yesterday afternoon I bought Grand Theft Auto IV.

And having played it for a few hours, as a follower of Jesus Christ I would like to recommend that my mature brethren in the Christian faith (both spiritually and those who are not teenagers anymore, parse that as you will) play Grand Theft Auto IV as well. And not to gleefully look for reasons to condemn the game either.

Why?

Because I think that a lot of people who play Grand Theft Auto IV are going to end up condemning their own sense of self-righteousness instead. And I can’t say that it would be a bad thing at all if they did.

Grand Theft Auto IV, whether by design or not, might be the closest thing there’s been to an actual “Giant’s Drink”. In ...

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Several months back I learned that the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County was planning a production of Children of Eden. It’s a musical by Stephen Schwartz based on the first six chapters of the Book of Genesis: from the Garden of Eden on through the story of Noah and the Ark. I’ve loved this show ever since first seeing it performed at Elon when I was a student there. I bought the 2-disc soundtrack CD some years ago, and I’ve tried to catch a performance of every production that’s been done around here since.

From the first time that I’ve seen Children of Eden I’ve wanted to take part in a production. Auditions were last night and today for this one. So this afternoon I went out and tried out for it.

Now, please understand something: I know that I can’t sing! Every time I play Karaoke Revolution, I ...

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Here’s something that I’ve been wondering about for awhile now (actually going on three years). Maybe it’s time to let others ponder it too…

We’re told in Genesis 5:1 that “When Adam had lived 130 years…” (as the New International Version words it) that he gave birth to his son Seth. This is the first time in scripture that we are told that a person had lived a certain number of years. A few verses later it says that Adam lived 930 years, and then he died.

But are those the years total that Adam lived… or only the years following the Fall, and the entrance of sin into the world?

Because compared to the other antedeluvians, who were born after the Fall, Adam had a fairly equal lifespan. But if the 930 years is the total amount of time that Adam lived, from his creation until death, then Adam ...

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Are people really this hostile toward their fellow man, without caring about how cruel they are?

Please don’t answer that, ‘kay?

So earlier this evening I read about filmmaker Uwe Boll, director of House of the Dead, BloodRayne, Dungeon Siege and other movies that have endured lackluster performance at the box office. Boll has said that in light of how ill-received his work is, that he will retire from filmmaking if a petition calling for him to quit garners 1 million signatures.

So this being the Internet there is now a massive drive to do exactly that, in order to compel Uwe Boll to make good on his word.

I took a look in the past little while at the animosity toward Boll in this petition drive. And even though I’ve never really cared much for Boll’s work, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the ...

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How old am I? Heh-heh, well, I’m not quite halfway to 70. Not yet anyway.

But it’s funny: in the past two weeks I have been mistaken for a college kid twice and a high school student once! Lord only knows how much longer that will last.

I wrote here last year about why I don’t like having a birthday, and it has nothing to do with “getting older” at all. That’s still something that time hasn’t fully shaken off of me. For some people, birthdays are already a reminder of one’s mortality and to have one like that is harsh enough to rock you for a lifetime. So I still don’t care very much for birthdays.

But as Lisa told me this morning: “It beats the alternative, doesn’t it?”

Suddenly, it didn’t seem so bad 🙂 Gotta love having a wife like that.

Lots of people my age ...

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Snowfall in Asheville, North Carolina from The Storm of the Century,
March 12-14 1993

The meteorologists saw it coming five days ahead. A high-pressure Arctic system was heading south across the Midwest states, brought down low by a jet stream from Canada. It was set to converge with intense low pressure over the Gulf of Mexico, and was then projected to head north and east… bringing massive amounts of moisture and cold temperature with it.

But for most of us here in north-central North Carolina at the time, this meant nothing. It had been at least three years since we had seen any decent snowfall. There were many young children who couldn’t even remember what snow looked like: they had no concept of the stuff. After three years without snow, it was beginning to seem like a mythic substance that one only found in exotic locales.

Nobody that I knew ...

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Here is my current proposal for a quantum mechanics definition of God:

In reference to a system encompassing the totality of the physical universe, God is that outside observer which has the unique properties of comprehending the position and momentum of every particle and all energy within the system without violating the observer effect and simultaneously across all points throughout the spacetime of that system.

I think that such a definition easily allows for the occurrence of un-scientific phenomenon as “miracles”, since if God is comprehending all quantum behavior throughout every point and moment of the universe’s existence, that this means He can pretty much do whatever He wants to with the universe. He can manipulate the quantum state of anything, including altering mass and energy so that water turns into wine. What’s more, such a definition might not violate the laws of physics at all. It seems to fit ...

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