We’re Off!

Truck is running well enough to get out of town. Whether it gets us to where we are going may be another matter. But, at least we are leaving.

I should not be completely Internet-less while we are gone. So I will have some updates along the way.

Book review: God’s Secret Agent

One of the podcasts I listen to was offering the book God’s Secret Agent as a free gift back in November or December last year. I took them up on their offer and had them send me the book. It is written by Sammy Tippit. Though I feel like I know the big names in conservative fundamental religious circles, I had never heard of Sammy Tippit.This book is an autobiography. It shares his spiritual quest from his salvation to his opportunities to stand on some of the world’s largest stages and present the Gospel of Christ. It is quite remarkable the places that God led him during the cold war. He was in the USSR during the 1980s when it was hard for Westerners to get in, let alone Christians.

It is inspiring to see how God led him and his team into some wonderful, and often scary, preaching opportunities. Sometimes, in ways that would not be considered rational. Though I personally shy away from “shock” evangelism, he shows how God used it during times and situations that was very effective. He even admits in the book that there are some things that he did in the past that were right for the times he did them, but he would not participate in them today.

Lest you think this is an autobiography of an old man telling about what great things God has done in the past, let me assure you that the book comes right up to the present. Mr. Tippit is not yet an old man looking back on the past from a rocking chair on the porch. As a man in his 50s, he possibly has another 20 to 30 years to take a stand for God.

The book ends with him talking about places where he will soon be preaching (the book is 6 years old now) where God is working. He was not even able to name the countries to which he would be going. Though he has not been involved primarily in Bible and tract smuggling, he has gotten into countries to share the Gospel under some pretty clandestine ways.

Again, I know nothing about the man or where he stands doctrinally. Perhaps I would not agree with him on many issues. But it appears to me, from reading this book, that we can agree with the fact that God has a work for us to do and that each one of us needs to seek God’s guidance in our daily lives.

Even if you are not of the same religious persuasion as I (Why not? Don’t you know I am right?), I think you could enjoy the suspense and intrigue in this real life story of a man who wants to be wholly given over to God.

God’s Secret Agent: An Autobiography, 296 pages, Tyndale House Publishers, 2001, Sammy Tippit and Jerry Jenkins

Strange download numbers

The My Thought Spot podcast is not a runaway hit since there is really no target market. Today I noticed something strange with the numbers.

Download stats

The number to the right is the total downloads number. Notice the highest number of downloads is the very first one. That makes sense. People have had more time to listen to it. Episode 5 plummeted. Strange. I thought maybe there was just a stat error in my server logs, but that number is consistent with the episodes after 6.

Episode 6 is the one where I recorded while running. My mom said she had trouble listening to it because she kept trying to breathe for me. My wife thought it was novel, but suggested I don’t do it again.

So the episode that has gotten the most critical comments is the one that has been downloaded more than the others around it. Maybe I will have to do another running one to see how it works out. Don’t worry Mom, I will try to warn you so you can have your oxygen tank handy.

Waiting for the truck

I took the truck in this morning to another mechanic. Maybe he can find what is wrong. I was looking for professional advice this weekend, so I called my uncle. He is a Chevrolet nut. Though not a professional mechanic, he knows a little something about engines. He has built his own race cars for the last 20 years. Currently he is building a mid-80s Chevy S10 race truck for his girlfriend.

After describing my symptoms to him the other day on the phone, he simply said, “When you figure it out, let me know. I have a truck that is doing the exact same thing and I can’t figure out what is going on.” Wow, that was encouraging.

I seriously suspect the computer, as does my uncle.

It is having a fuel issue. It acts like a delivery problem, but it is not that. It is not getting proper mixture and therefore it has no power. Sensors, computers, intake valves, etc. can be causing the problem. Whatever it is, it is telling the computer that the mixture is not right between fuel and air.

The mechanic I took it to this morning says he has it pinned. At 11:00 he said that he had replaced a horribly carbonated gasket that seals off the intake manifold. It was leaking air into the wrong spots. Which then caused the air/fuel mixture to be wrong. Sounds reasonable.

When I was there at 11:00 he said that he had already taken it on a test drive and it ran great. He was waiting for it to cool back down so that he could run the diagnostics on it again to see if there was something else he could charge me for. He was going to run it again after it cooled.

I went back there at 2:00 and he said that it was still cooling. Huh? 3 hours to cool? He said he would call me at 3:00 with the truck ready to go.

I am crossing my fingers that this really was the problem or that he will find it and fix it quickly. My only hesitation is that I have been told by 3 other mechanics that they have tracked down and fixed the problem. When I took it back to them they said there was no longer a problem. Hmmm.

My Thought Spot 10: Traveling Wonders

I got up early to record before the kids got up. But with trying to get everything together they were up and interested in the recording process before I got it done. So you will hear some extra noise (besides the birds) in the background. The rest of the noise has been edited out.

It was good to get a review of the show this week. That is what prompted me to try and get one out before we leave on our next trip. We should have left this morning, but car problems delayed us. So I am using the time the car is in the shop to put this together. Enjoy!

Show Notes