In case anyone was confused about that last entry, it was a car joke. Suzuki has a small sedan named the Suzuki Esteem.

 A professional kidnapper with a long and successful career retired and settled down from his life of crime. Soon he found a loving wife and wanted to do everything he knew how to love her the best he could. Folks around were perplexed, though, when went so far as to go out and buy a brand new Suzuki sedan for his wife, and then proceeded to spend thousands of dollars having it “lifted” with a raised suspension and huge monster truck wheels --- and then locked her in it and sent a ransom note to her parents! This time he was apprehended, and a great media circus ensued. Asked by one of the reporters what he was thinking with such a mean and stupid stunt, he objected, saying “I just wanted to hold her in the highest Esteem!”

My first prayer was "God (pregnant pause), if you're there, just show me somehow, and then I'll talk to you about more."

I was desperate. I did not believe he heard me. I did not believe he would answer. I was a very depressed college student, needing some income, and I was at the end of my rope emotionally, the bottom of the barrel. I had driven away all the people who had been friendly to me the first few years, and made a name for myself as someone who it was better to just not try to be a friend to.

He answered. Within an hour I had a job, at a church, out of the blue -- they called me, I did not call them. I had never heard of them, or knew they existed, and had never even put my name out as someone looking for a job, or talked to anyone about needing a job or being depressed --- and this job provided me with some much needed income and (as you might have suspected) put me in a place where I got to know God and talk to him a lot more.

Totally faithless prayer, totally answered.

My point? Don't ever filter what the Holy Spirit is prompting you to pray for. Don't ever run it through that filter that says "oh but that's not likely so I won't pray that." Now, I've done this before, too, but I'm just proposing that we not do that.

I am also proposing, no, begging, everyone who reads this -- please stop dumping gottas on people (and on yourself!) about prayer. You gotta this. You gotta that. You don't gotta nothin !! Except speak the words to God. NO faith required. No need to crank up the imagination machine to imagine that he's hearing you or leaning down from heaven or something.

So what's faith for? So you'll do it again, and more often. But let's remember, God builds faith in us. No heel tapping, incense or chanting required. The same God who made the universe out of nothing can make faith out of nothing too.

 Did a few minutes research on my active exhaust idea.

The active exhaust mod costs about $270 in parts. It also occurred to me that my engine computer activates a 12v line at around 5600rpm, to activate "lift" mode on the valves for higher performance. That's about the same time I start needing less restriction on my exhaust (go figure). So I can piggyback a 12v relay onto that line and use it to also activate "freeflow" mode on my active exhaust. And bingo -  I have a schizophrenic car - nice and quite while I tool around town, loud and fast when I step on it long enough to go over 5600 rpm.

I can't spend the money, right now, but maybe later. Anticipation is half the fun anyway.

I've heard it said before, and saw it suggested again recently, that it's important to have faith in our hearts when we pray, for God to hear our prayers. Friends, I disagree with this. I must have faith in my heart that God hears for God to answer my prayer? If so, then why did he answer my first prayer, before I had any faith? And is it then expected of me to "muster up" faith in my own heart, before God can hear me?

I believe God hears my prayers every time I pray, simply because I am being obedient and praying.

What if my son were exploring, and he got lost. For an hour he called out my name but I could not hear, and he knew he had left me at least an hour behind in a different direction, and had gone a way he knew I would not be likely to go. But he remembered my admonition - "keep calling out for me when you need me."

Now if I made my way to that area, catching up to him, and he was still calling out, despite his complete lack of faith that I could hear, wouldn't I hear anyway, and answer, and rescue him? What would his faith or lack of faith have to do with it? Wouldn't I be even more inclined to hurry to help him if I heard his faith dwindling, or drained completely?

We have a father! He understands our weakness. He understands how circumstances affect our faith. He understands how we are visual beings. And he loves our obedience when we pray, despite what we are feeling.

Someone rescue me, if I have strayed here. Maybe we can meet at James Coney and talk it over. 

You know, I've been told many times that "that stock exhaust is quiet, but it's costing you at least 10 horsepower." I've always taken this with a grain of salt. Well, today's Dyno runs confirmed that keeping the stock Toyota exhaust is actually costing 29 horsepower, almost 3 times as much as people estimated.

The dyno we used today measured horsepower at the wheels. Horsepower at the crank is generally 15% more than is translated to the wheels. So, the 187 HP at the wheels translates to 215 HP at the crank.

Notice there are 4 curves on the chart.

Starting from the left, the bottom two curves are horsepower curves: the red one with the exhaust on, the blue one with the exhaust off.

Again, starting from the left, the top two curves are torque curves; the red one with the exhaust on, the blue one with the exhaust off.

With the exhaust on, the 158 HP at the wheels translates to about 181HP at the crank.

What I'm noticing is that the horsepower curves don't really diverge (i.e. the exhaust is not really a problem) until about 6000 to 8500 rpm. So I'm thinking the solution to this is a device that opens up the exhaust to a straight pipe over 6000 rpm. That way I can tool around town quietly most of the time and only make noise when I want to really get power out of the engine. The noise out of the intake is already a lot already anyway, and the cost of this rig would be about $300, less than replacing the exhaust with something I would really like most of the time anyway (I like my car reasonably quiet most of the time, and especially on long trips).

Meanwhile, the good news is my engine makes 215HP at the crank; the bad news is, that's only 187HP at the wheels and the stock (very quiet) exhaust eats another 29HP over 6000rpm.

So how loud was it with the stock exhaust off? Interestingly, it was a deafening drone from 1000-4000 RPM, but once it got above 4000 RPM, it was more bearable. This was, of course, with kleenex stuffed into my ears as tight as I could get it, to prevent hearing damage, but it was also in a garage with 3 sides enclosed and the exhaust (or lack thereof) facing the back wall. Still. Very loud. Definitely nothing I'd want to drive around with all the time. So I'm pretty excited about my dual-mode exhaust idea, and I've confirmed the parts for it actually exist, and even for an automotive application.

I was going to try to shoot video but it took David and I both our full attention just to do the runs, the tuning, and the exhaust removal / replacement as dyno time is charged by the hour. So sorry, no video this time, but maybe next time.

Stephanie really surprised me one day on the subject of "mods" on my Spyder. She came up with a surprisingly practical modding rule for me and my Spyder, which helps keep things reasonable. I was talking about getting a spoiler and she said, "will it make it faster?" And thinking to myself, who are you and where did you put my wife, I say "well, no," and she says "well then, why bother?"

And so now this effectively eliminates half the things I would try to mod on my car, something I'm happy about in the end. Somehow this didn't apply to the Yamaha badge I applied to the back of my car, maybe because there is actually a Yamaha-designed engine under the hood, but it influences choices such as - a turbo or a body kit? nitrous or a spoiler? And it keeps my car from getting "riced out."

What's "riced out?" Well for example that would be like a Yamaha badge on the back with no Yamaha engine under the hood, or a big wide angled sticker on the the side of the car for some high performance part I don't have on my car at all, or a big loud fart can muffler on a Honda that's running so poorly my wife's minivan can out-accellerate it. That's "riced out." The origins of the term do not sound very culturally considerate to me, but the term itself has come to apply to people of all races who try to make their cars of all makes and models appear to be something more than they are.

Anyway so far this modding rule has "saved" me from putting a spoiler on, and I spent a little over half the "saved" money on a LC1 wideband O2 sensor which will allow me to measure O2 levels across a range instead of just seeing O2 - over or under so arbitrary line that means "too much." In other words, instead of buying a spoiler I bought a device you won't see on the car at all, that helps the onboard computer see outgoing O2 levels very clearly and adjust the fuel-air mix for a more efficient and powerful burn, which, yes, gives the car more power.

So then the other day I told her that I'm taking it to the Dyno on Saturday while she's out of town. She didn't know what that meant, but she understood when I explained it to here and she surprised me again ... she said she wanted to see the videotape.

That's right ... I'M DYNO'ing MY CAR SATURDAY !!!!

If anybody wants to join me at the dyno on Saturday morning, and see my little Toyota strapped down to a ramp screaming for all its worth with a large electromagnetic drum under the rear wheels measuring torque and horsepower, just give me a call and I'll give you directions.

Here's a  video  of another Spyder on a dyno.

Well, great news. We didn't know how we were going to afford for Stephanie to go to school another semester. There just didn't seem to be any way to afford it. Well, God provided. Praise to our benevolent God ... he is so good to us.

Happy New Year, everyone. Trust yourself to the God who made you, and he will never fail you. His ways and his timing will not always match ours, but in the endless end, we will see his faithfulness clearly.

My beautiful wife is taking some classes and wrote a paper I thought was really good, so I thought I'd post it here for y'all to enjoy too.

            Isaiah 55:8-9 exposes the fact that God and humans do not share the same thoughts and ways (v.8). The bottom line is God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours (v.9). The word “thought” in this passage is machashebeth, which means purposes, or intentions; the word “way” is derachay, and means directions, (Falwell, 1396). God’s eternal purposes, including His plan for our salvation through Jesus Christ, are beyond our limited human understanding. Likewise, His ways are beyond our natural comprehension.

            We see this truth again in 1 Corinthians 2:7,8. God’s wisdom is described as having been hidden (v.7). We learn that not even the rulers of that time comprehended these things of God, or else they would not have crucified the Lord of glory, being Jesus Christ (v.8). They would have recognized that Jesus was the Messiah, and they would have accepted Him instead of killing Him on the cross.

            1 Corinthians 2:14 explains that these things are not understandable by man because they are spiritually discerned. No amount of human wisdom could even begin to comprehend spiritual truths (v.13). Not only do the things of God reach beyond our limited comprehension, but they even appear as foolishness to those who do not understand (v.14).

            If this were the end of the revelation for this topic, it would be a terribly sad predicament for those who are seeking to know God. However, God uses Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:10-13 to reveal some very good news! Although we cannot understand these things of God on our own or of our selves, including the plan and way of salvation through Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit will help those whom He indwells. Paul explains that just as only a person’s spirit can know what that person’s thoughts are, only God’s Spirit can know what His thoughts are (v.11). The wonderful news is that for the Christian, who has the Holy Spirit indwelling him or her, the Spirit of God will communicate these truths of God to him or her (v.12,13).

            2 Timothy 3:16 further reveals that, not only can we come to understand the way of salvation, but we can also come to understand how God wants us to live in our daily lives. The Scripture, both as a whole and in every part, is from God (v.16). In the Bible we can read the things that God Himself has said. The Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. The Holy Spirit helps the reader to become the student, taking the words of God and revealing to us God’s truths. The word “righteousness” refers to “inner moral conformity of one’s character to the character of God,” (Richards, 865). As the Holy Spirit sheds light of understanding in the Scripture, the student experiences changes in his or her life. The student’s behavior and actions “flow from a righteous moral character,” (Richards, 865). With the Scripture as the textbook, and the Holy Spirit as the Teacher, He teaches, rebukes, corrects, and trains the Christian student so that he or she may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (v.17).

            It is important for everyone who sets out to study the Bible to understand these concepts. We clearly need to approach our studies in prayer, depending on the Holy Spirit to help us understand. Our intention should be to submit our hearts and lives to our Lord.

Warning: the following post is kinda geeky. OK, really geeky.

I wish the world of computers was an all-Linux world. And none of this "Lindows" junk either. Pure Linux.

In response to my friend Randall, I must say, Mac moved up my approved list substantially when they saw the light and realized that UNIX (and its variants) is actually the superior platform, and created Mac OS X. They even included a UNIX  command prompt (Terminal).

What's my stake in this?

I write software for Linux. Specifically, I write web applications in TCL, served by Apache. There are three flavors of TCL on Apache: Rivet, mod_tcl, and Neowebscript. My flavor of choice is Neowebscript, and my web hosting service is actually one of a small handfull (fewer than 20) of web services worldwide running Neowebscript. I've written an online store application, online gradebook application, and an online office scheduling application. (All these applications run on TCL on Apache, via Neowebscript). Each of these is being used by two or more real companies to do real business every day.

So yes, I wish the world of computers was an all-Linux world. But it's a big world, and I have lots of Windows Server skills too ... in fact 95% of my revenue comes from working with Windows Servers. Since most of my customers run most of their business on Windows Server, last year I even connected these worlds by porting Neowebscript over to IIS / Windows 2003 Server. As a result my applications would still run if Linux and Apache went away (but I would be sad).

Honk if you understood any of this.