Baptism Teaser

We had three video cameras rolling, plus an audio recorder, to capture this baptism. I don't have all the footage in hand, yet, so it's going to take me a few days to get around to editing it together. I'm certainly glad that she was keen to have the moment recorded. I'm getting better at aspect of COTM's operation. Anyway, here is a short (15 second) teaser of her getting into the water....



It was a remarkably moving and joyful Pentecost!

-t

Synod 2009

Synod was nuts. Fun, but nuts! Got up at 4:30 A.M. on Friday to give me time to pack and to finish the stuff for our workshop. We were a little later leaving from the church than planned, but we still made it to the Synod location (Durham College in Oshawa) before registration closed. As a result, however, I always felt like I was barely keeping with the day's events. Along the way I put down my seersucker jacket on the back of a chair and went back for it there was no sign. Lost and found hadn't received it. Hopefully someone will turn it into the campus security soon. Otherwise, it's a causality of war. Bummer, I love my seersucker suit!

Anyway, I set up a display for the ARC. People seemed to like what they saw and heard about. No word on a grant, yet. Cross your fingers!

Phil Potter came from the U.K. to talk about Fresh Expressions and Missional Church. I was struck that a lot of people in our Diocese hadn't heard of these concepts before. Hopefully this Synod took care of that. We probably spent two-thirds of our time talking about Missional Church and the other third talking about the same-sex blessing issue. We did that (in both cases) using the Indaba process that the Archbishop of Canterbury used at the last Lambeth Conference. So the pattern was gathering as a whole synod (some 600 people?) for worship and singing, bible study, and listening to a talk by the Bishop or Phil Potter. Then we'd go off into smaller Indaba groups of about 40 people to share. Our group was fine, though I did hear that some of the Indaba groups got little uncomfortable when the same sex issue was discussed.

You see, the Bishops are proposing a policy that would create a structure to last in this interim time of uncertainty in the church. They believe the question of whether the church will recognize "gay marriage" is really up to the national church. Yet, in the mean time, there is a need to establish a "generous pastoral response" to gay and lesbian Christians who come to us seeking the blessing of the church. The proposed policy would allow a small number of parishes chosen by the bishop to offer blessings to long-term, committed relationships. No parish and no priest will be required to participate. The bishop will have to give permission for the blessings on a one-by-one basis. The policy would also involve the drafting of guidelines for how that blessing would look, liturgically, but it clearly fill fall short of a "marriage." In addition, a group will be formed to evaluate and oversee the implementation of this policy.

In our Indaba group of about 40 there were only four people that didn't like the direction the Diocese was heading, but almost of them said that they "could live with" with the policy. I heard that some other groups were more contentious. For the time being, however, nothing changes. This is only a proposal. The vote will come later, probably at the next Synod that gathers at St. Paul's Bloor Street in November.

On Friday afternoon Kerrie and gave our workshop. We had about 30 people in the room. I had a Powerpoint presentation and handouts and posters on the walls and books for people to look at. The hour went quickly, but people seemed to get something out of it. One person told that they found it very "permission giving."

Friday sessions weren't over until 9 p.m. After that many of headed to the campus pub. I brought my bottle of Woodford Reserve Bourbon. The bar didn't seem to mind for the first couple of hours. Eventually the manager did come over and take my booze! She kept it behind the bar until I left. At the pub I had many fine conversations with friends and colleagues. Eventually they closed the bar around 2 A.M. A couple of us went back to a room to keep the party going. I finally went to bed at 4:30 A.M.

I admit I was a little tired when I showed up to morning prayer at 8:30... but at least I was there. Coffee... Coffee... More coffee... More sessions and Indaba groups. The whole thing wrapped up around 3 and we got on the road not long after that. During the conference they had separated the members of the parishes from each other, so it was only in the car ride home that the three of us from Church of The Messiah could talk and share. It seems that people enjoyed themselves and learned some new things.

Back at home I was toast. I had Chinese delivery and watched the recording of the Blue Jays FINALLY winning a game. Went to bed at 6 p.m.--slept until 6 a.m. this morning! Got up, felt great. More in my next post!

Final Preparations for Synod '09

Got up early to drive Betsy to the airport... the Buffalo airport! Left around 8:30. Got there around 11:00. This saves money, but takes time. Got back to the GTA around 1:30. Traffic was slow, but steady through the rain. Betsy will be visiting her sister for a few days.

On the way back I decided to stop by the duty free and pick up a bottle of Bourbon (Woodford Reserve) to consume with my fellow clergy at the Synod (there are usually some good late-night discussion groups). Duty free is a good deal, but unlike crossing from Canada to to the U.S., you have to be out of Canada for at least 48 hours to qualify. But they won't necessarily make you pay the duty, it depends on which customs inspectors you get. So I rolled the dice. As I drove through the checkpoint I got the usual questions. When he asked me what I was bringing back I was honest. He shrugged and handed back my passport saying, "Have a nice day." Sweet. It's great to feel lucky...

Back in my office I finished the exhibit display for the ARC. I also made progress on the workshop presentation that Kerrie and I are giving. I didn't manage to finish the powerpoint, but I can get up super early tomorrow and do that part. It means a long day tomorrow, but that was inevitable. The Candidate for Sunday's full adult immersion baptism came by for a walk-through. She's excited. I'm excited. The congregation is excited. It's not that often that you get to bring someone into the faith like this! She even asked me if she could get a DVD--so naturally I'm going to do my best to record it. it's going to be awesome!

Also had to pick up the LCD projector and drop off the keys with the cat-sitter. Synod is an overnight thing, so I had to arrange for someone to stop in to feed the cats and check the litter. I also started assembling a sort of go-bag for tomorrow. It includes things like a stapler, tape, and other stuff that we might need for the presentation. I'm also taking along my camera bag (to videotape the presentation).

Now I'm just relaxing. The next two days are going to be intense!

-t

For Teenagers--Hugging is the New Hello

The New York Times notes that hugging has become very popular among teenagers in the last couple of years. Whether its girls hugging girls, boys hugging girls, or even boys hugging boys, it has become so popular that many schools have banned it! No one is quite sure why this has become popular, one theory is that children are raised to be more cooperative and social now--less given to cynicism and detachment. Another theory is that counterbalances the facelessness of facebook, twittering, and texting.

I'm a big fan of hugs, but I have a hard time initiating them. Fear of rejection, I guess. I always appreciated that hugs, not handshakes, are the customary greeting at the exchange of the peace at the Masses at Holy Cross. It's sometimes a bit awkward, but I think that's part of the usefulness of the practice: it's training for heavenly places.

Speaking of Holy Cross--I'm redoing their website this summer. That will mean reorganizing the current content as well as adding a bunch of new stuff. I'm particularly looking forward to producing a few short videos. I've been boning up on things like video lighting, editing techniques, sound, and optimizing video encoding. Jack of all trades, me. Funny how I'm happiest when I'm learning new skills.

-t

New Ways to Give Yourself Cancer

Check this out, R.J. Reynolds is test marketing new tobacco products that dissolve in your mouth. No smoke. No spitting. Camel "Orbs" are bead-like droplets of flavored nicotine. "Strips" are like those breath-freshening strips and give a heavy dose of nicotine (much higher than a cigarette) very quickly. "Sticks" are shaped like toothpicks and stretch the high out.

Critics say these candy-like delivery methods are an attempt to appeal to kids, but really it's just a creative solution to the problems of "smoking." Time will tell whether it works, but given the success of tea-bag like "Snus." Will this stuff kill you? Of course it will! Will it make it "easier" for people to get a nicotine high without the problems of secondhand smoking? Of course it will! Who dreams these things up?

-t

Count Down to Synod

Sorry I haven't been posting so much--it's been a crazy busy week getting ready for Synod and dealing with various issues that have come up in the life of COTM. But things seem to be coming together fine. Thursday (err.... today... after I get some sleep) Kerrie and I will finish putting our workshop presentation together for Synod. I'm also meeting with the baptismal candidate I'm baptizing on Sunday for a run-through.

The ARC going to have a display table. Wednesday I finished making the pieces of that--Kerrie and I will put them together today. I will be curious to see what kind of reception to the ARC gets. I haven't heard back about the grant, yet, which honestly makes me nervous. I seriously have a hard time understanding why "they" wouldn't want to give us a grant. This project has enormous potential and is aligned with current Diocesan thinking about the future of children's and youth ministry (see the recent report on youth ministry by Erin Martin, for example). But we'll see.

So Thursday morning I'll drive down to Buffalo to drop off Betsy at the airport (she is flying to North Carolina to see her sister and co. for a few days). Then I'll finish this presentation preparation. The baptismal prep. Then a few errands I need to get done before going to Synod on Friday morning. Crazy, crazy busy!

-t

Sermon - Easter 7 2009

This Sunday I preached about the Gospel call to be "in the world" but not "of the world." That means that Christians are called to be intentionally marginal, occupying a place between this world and the heavenly kingdom. In that sense we are continuing the work of Christ, who also mediated that divide. I argue that virtually is called to live on the edge of life in this way in one part of life or another, it's part of being human, as so we can take comfort and insight from other examples. Poets and teachers also abide in this place of bridging the divide between the collective experience and something they alone have ventured forth to be learn. What is unique about the Christian vocation is that we do this bridging as a holy act that transcends the metaphysical divide between the universe and its creator.

It was a busy Sunday morning for me. Lots of stuff going on right now. I often wish I could be in more than one place at once. I'm really pleased with some of the changes I've seen around here. Lots of warmth and holiness. When asked about his impression, a visitor on Sunday said that it struck him as a very warm and friendly place. Bingo! I want to build this place on love.



Here's the audio...


Here's a direct link to the MP3 file...

*PS for liturgical purists: the still photo I used above is from Palm Sunday, hence the red stole. In the video you'll see I'm wearing the correct color--white.

-t

Adobe CS4

Today I spent some time in the office answering e-mails, a few phone calls, and I made a pastoral visit.

I can't really talk about the interesting adventure that was that pastoral visit (ever put together shelves on such a visit). So instead I'll talk about the interesting adventure that is the new Adobe CS4 Suite. This is a set of professional-level programmes for producing all kinds of media including websites (Dreamweaver), photos (Photoshop), movies (Premiere Pro), etc. I've been using CS3 for a while, but there are at least three features I found missing, all of which have been resolved with the latest version.

First, the old version of the Adobe Suite did not have the ability to take advantage of the complete power of my workstation (ORAC)--principally in that it didn't take advantage of the 64-bit architecture (though most of the suite was able to use the four-processors simultaneously). The new version makes much more efficient use of the latest processors/operating systems.

Second, I was always frustrated that Premiere Pro Couldn't import the MP4 files from my Flip HD camera. The Flip Cam takes surprisingly good footage considering that it is very small (easily fits in a chest pocket), but I was limited to using the editing software that came with the camera. I had yet to find a good (lossless) way to convert the footage into a format Premiere Pro could work with. So it was good for spontaneous, informal video snapshots, but that was it. Now, however, that problem with CS4 is solved! It has no problem at all taking the footage at 720p and editing it.

Third, here is a feature I didn't know I wanted until someone invented it: speech recognition. Basically, CS4 can create a transcription of the speech in a video that is then searchable as meta-data. Searchable not only from within Premiere Pro, but from within other programmes like Adobe Bridge. Imagine you just shot a three hour interview with two cameras. That's six hours of footage, and you want to find where your subject said something distinctive like, "it was at that moment that I knew that pickles are good in hamburgers." Rather than have to "scrub" (fast forward) through hours of footage, you can simply search through the automatically generated transcript! How cool is that? Here's a demo:



There are lots of other improvements, as well. The media encoder is much improved, especially because you can have it running in the background while you do other work. There are also a lot more pre-sets and options for importing and exporting data. it's all very, very cool.

-t

Rectors Who Don't Call You Back

So a few weeks ago I was tasked with finding out which churches in this Episcopal Area of the Diocese would be participating in the Back to Church Sunday Programme. This a programme where churches ask their parishioners to invite someone to come to church with them on a particular Sunday (this year: September 27). My task was to find out which churches would be participating and how many pre-printed invitations they would need.

So I dutifully printed off a contact list of some 60 parishes that might participated and started calling them. Mostly I got answering machines--which made for some interesting listening. Most were up to date, but some still had Holy Week information or obviously hadn't been changed since shortly after Christmas ("...and we wish you a happy New Year"). The tone of voice on some messages was extremely off-putting while others made me genuinely want to try their worship. It's a good exercise to remind oneself how important the voicemail message on a church answering machine can be!

I was able to get a hold of most churches within the first week or so. They called me back or I got them on the first try. No problem.

But it's been several weeks now and there are still 13 parishes that haven't called me back. In the mean time I've left two more messages (for a total of three messages in three weeks). You might think that the culprits would be really busy priests without support staff--or bad answering machines. But, in fact, some of the worst offenders are some of the largest churches in the Diocese! I'm leaving messages with real people, but the priests aren't calling me back! I don't think it's a personal thing--I hardly know these folks. Rather, I think it's a good indication of just how focused churches can become on their own little patch of garden. They really can't be bothered talking about anything else (even if it has the potential to benefit their parish). It's all quite fascinating and somewhat annoying! This would be unacceptable in some large corporation--but we expect far less professionalism in the church, I'm afraid!

-t

Sriracha

More proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy

It will surprise no one that reads this blog that I'm a fan of hot sauces. I love strong tastes, and have a higher-than-average tolerance for hot foods. So I was delighted to see this article about the ubiquitous Sriracha hot sauce (pronounced "SIR-rotch-ah"). You might think this was a traditonal Thai sauce, but actually it "may be best understood as an American sauce, a polyglot purée with roots in different places and peoples" (source).

Part of what makes Sriracha superior for many applications than, say, Frank's or Tabasco (*) is that it doesn't have the acidity of those vinegar-based hot sauces. It's more a blended chili-garlic-salt kind stuff. Many restaurants, even high-end ones, will use Sriracha in hollandaise or frying-batters.

The NYTimes article interviewed the inventor, Vietnam-born Chinese-American David Tran.

"I made this sauce for the Asian community," Mr. Tran said one recent afternoon, seated at headquarters, near a rooster-shaped crystal sculpture.

"I knew, after the Vietnamese resettled here, that they would want their hot sauce for their pho," a beef broth and noodle soup that is a de facto national dish of Vietnam. "But I wanted something that I could sell to more than just the Vietnamese," he continued.

"After I came to America, after I came to Los Angeles, I remember seeing Heinz 57 ketchup and thinking: ‘The 1984 Olympics are coming. How about I come up with a Tran 84, something I can sell to everyone?’" ...

Multicultural appeal was engineered into the product: the ingredient list on the back of the bottle is written in Vietnamese, Chinese, English, French and Spanish. And serving suggestions include pizzas, hot dogs, hamburgers and, for French speakers, pâtés.(source)

It's a classic immigrant success story, but it's also a fine chili sauce. I particularly like to use it in leftovers and on hot dogs. Here is a recipe that I would like to try...

Pete's Shrimp with Sriracha Cream Sauce over Toast Points

Ingredients
1 Lb Large Shrimp
1 Large Shallot (minced)
4 Cloves Garlic (minced)
1 Large Roasted Red Pepper
¼ cup Diced Sun-dried Tomatoes in Oil
8 oz Stemmed and Sliced Shiitakes
Half & Half or Heavy Cream
Butter
Extra Virgin Olive oil
Sriracha Pepper Sauce
Salt
Black Pepper
French Baguette

Directions

1. Toast some baguette slices cut on the bias.
2. Coat a sauté pan or saucepan with olive oil and butter, and sweat the shallot and diced red pepper on low heat. After several minutes, add the minced garlic and season with Kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper, and Sriracha.
3. Once garlic has been cooked, pour the mixture into cup, add heavy cream and puree with immersion blender. Pour the mixture back into the pan and add diced sun dried tomatoes and additional cream if needed. Sautee mushrooms. Let the sauce reduce for approximately ten minutes on low heat adding mushrooms about halfway through. Sauce should coat the back of a spoon when it is ready.
4. Sautee shrimp in butter then toss with sauce. Pour over baguette toast points.

(source)

* Fun Fact:
Tabasco is included in about two-thirds of all U.S. Military rations (MRE's) and is served in every Officer's Mess in the Marine Corp. Since the Vietnam War the Tabasco company has been producing "unofficial" cookbooks for troops. I don't know if the Canadian military's version of MRE rations (known is IMP's in the Canadian Military) include Tabasco or not). I've eaten MRE's before--they remind me a lot of airplane food.

-t

Fly Wheel Energy Storage

The engineering problem of energy storage is very important for making things like Electric Cars and efficient green architecture, etc. Normally you immediately think of batteries. The problem, however, is that batteries are heavy, sensitive to temperature, and require maintenance. Enter the concept of Flywheel Energy Storage.

Now, this is actually a very old idea. My dad has several antique industrial/farm engines that are designed to get a large steel flywheel spinning at a target RPM. The engines then only use fuel to maintain that RPM. As the load on the flywheel increases (that is, as energy is taken out of the wheel) the engine kicks in to compensate. It's a very efficient, simple system.

Now, flash forward to 2009 and the need to be able to store large amounts of energy. Say you need to provide an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to a hospital or data centre. You might immediately imagine a large diesel engine hooked up to a generator, and then a bunch of (DC) batteries that provide electrical power while the engine gets up to speed in the event of a power failure. But in larger applications (say, when you need to provide 4 Megawatts!), the batteries necessary take up far more room and require much more maintenance than a comparable flywheel system.

So here is a real-world example, the Hitec UPS...


Note how there are actually two different fly wheels going, one that maintains a constant RPM (and is connected to the generator) and one that spins three times faster to store energy necessary to keep the other rotor spinning when no new energy is being put into the system (in other words, in the time between loss of power and the diesel engine firing up).

Another real-world application--transient energy. Imagine that you need to produce brief, extremely high electrical currents for testing circuit breakers. Simply wiring these into the grid and shorting them out would cause a great deal of stress on the utility system. Storing the energy onsite in batteries would take a lot of space and hassle. Instead, you could have a giant flywheel with a motor on one side and a generator on the other. The motor may take several minutes to spin up the fly wheel, but then the energy could be released on the other side in a fraction of a second--effectively making the flywheel into a capacitor.

Can it be used in a house? Sure. Electricity generated from say, photocells, would be used to spin up a flywheel. Then that energy could be drawn off to run the house electricity. Can it be use in a car? Yes. There was at least one proof-of-concept type vehicle made with a drivetrain that used a device like this. And it has been used in race cars to recover energy from breaking. But one of the key issues to be resolved in the gyroscopic effects of having such a large, spinning mass!

Cool, heh?

-t

General Tso's Chicken Recipe 3

I made General Tso's chicken. A different recipe than last time. It turned out pretty well. Here is the new recipe--my favourite so far...

General Tso's Chicken Recipe Number 3

3 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks
2 cups green onions, sliced
8 small dried chilies, seeds removed (bird pepper or thai chilies are good)
1 head chopped broccoli
--Cornstarch slurry--
1/4 cup soy sauce, low sodium preferred
1 egg, beaten
1 cup cornstarch
--Sauce--
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh garlic, minced
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup sherry wine or white wine
14 1/2 ounces chicken broth (a can)

1. Place sauce ingredients in a quart jar with a lid and shake to mix. If you make this ahead of time just refrigerate until needed, shaking it again when you are ready to use it. This also keeps your dirty dishes down.
2. Mix cornstarch slurry in a large bowl- the mixture will be strange but trust me it works. It will be VERY thick almost paste like.
3. Add chicken pieces to coat. Using a fork remove ONE chicken piece at a time and let the excess mixture drip off. YES even though the mixture has a weird consistency it will not stick like paste and the excess will drip off.
4. Add chicken to the hot (350 degree) oil and fry until crispy. Only cook 7 or 8 chicken pieces at a time. You do not want to raise the temp of the oil by cooking too many at a time. You can use a simple cooking or candy thermometer to judge the temp of the oil.
5. Drain on paper towels. Keep warm- I just put them in the oven with the oven off. Repeating until all chicken is fried.
6. In a separate wok or large skillet add a small amount of oil and heat to 400 degrees. Again, a candy thermometer works great. You can fry all the chicken, drain the oil to the desired amount and use the same pan if you like.
7. Add green onions, hot peppers, and broccoli and stir fry about 30 seconds to one minute.
8. Stir sauce mixture, and then add to pan with onions and peppers, cook until thick. If it gets too thick, add a little water. The thickness of the sauce should be similar to what you get when ordering this at a restaurant.
9. Add chicken to sauce in wok, and cook until all is hot and bubbly. The quicker this is done the crispier the chicken stays.
10. Serve over rice.

(slightly modified from this source)

The sauce is particularly close to what you might get in a restaurant, though I found myself wishing I had added more chili and more sugar and had less sauce per the amount of other ingredients. I'll keep experimenting.

-t