Captain's CornerLove is a cabin in the middle of nowhere.

According to reports released by the European Union and the United Nations, the UK has been named the most violent country in Europe and is listed as being more dangerous than the United States and South Africa, which has long been thought to be the one of the most violent countries world wide.  Check out this article for more information.

All of this despite the fact that Britain has sweeping and severe gun control which is generally considered to be the strictest gun control in the world.

In addition to this, the UK has more CCTV cameras per person than the communist regime in China – the UK averages 1 camera per 14 residents and each citizen is captured on camera approximately 300 times per day. Check out this article for more info.

So what does all this mean?  It means that nanny-state, oppressive control by the government cannot keep their people safe – but it can keep them docile and under the thumb of their government.  What it says is that there is no replacement for taking PERSONAL responsibility for your own safety and the safety of those you love.

Lazy man photo post:

Devin’s First Photo Shoot

The man that makes football sound stupid finally gives up and goes home!

Well since ESPN moved the video that was linked here… I was excited because John Madden finally retired.  Man I couldn’t stand that guy.

Here’s a couple of videos we’ve used in service lately that I’ve shot and edited (with help from my awesome coworkers of course).

One Verse Cafe from Kevin Dooley on Vimeo.

How Not to Prayer Walk from Kevin Dooley on Vimeo.

Alternately – “How to ruin your senior year of high school.”

So this past week someone rang my mom’s doorbell rather agressively at around 12:30 am or so… My mom looks out her peephole, and seeing no one calls the police to report the incident. The police ask if she saw anyone and if they were driving a particular pick up truck. She says nope, cuz she didn’t see anything.

The next day we find out that her neighbor saw quite a bit. He’s a cop and the minute a pickup truck holding approximately a dozen young men parked outside his house, he woke up. Unsure what was going on, he armed himself and kept an eye on burgeoning mob.

Suddenly two of the young men charge across the street and up the sidewalk towards the neighbor’s door. He throws open his front door and levels his issued Glock at what is now clearly two very, very frightened teenagers who were merely trying to get in a little post-graduation “Ding, Dong, Ditch” or “Ring and Run” or whatever they call it near you (we called it something involving a racial slur where I grew up, but this post is not about that). The cop chases after the two guys and watches them hop into the back of the pickup which is quickly filling up with young men who just found out what a stupid idea it is to go onto someone’s property uninvited in the middle of the night in Texas.

By the way, deadly force is authorized against criminal mischief in the dark in the state of Texas. Meaning? Just for annoying the crap out of people like this gives them the right to shoot you in Texas… as long as it’s dark out.

One last note, since I forgot to mention it. My mom was at her door with her custom-made, stainless steel .45, just for the record…

Okay, I’m lazy, so I published these photos from iPhoto into Facebook, so they’re found here:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1853307&l=d1a83054c2&id=513208420

So today I am at one of our campuses and I just overheard a couple of members who are here early because they are serving. They were talking about our upcoming service projects that we’re doing to celebrate our church’s 30th anniversary. One of them said, “I can’t take off work for all the stuff we’re doing – I’ll lose money.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t laying aside your wants, comforts and schedule to feed the hungry and clean up your community supposed to be sacrifice?

So I built a rifle recently.  That’s right, I BUILT a rifle.  It’s an M4 styled AR-15.  Here it is:

For those that are spec driven, here’s the details.  I used a stripped Essential Arms lower from a little company in Louisiana.  It’s not the prettiest receiver (there’s no prancing horse or coiled snake or anything on it), but its functional and it was affordable, and since one forged lower is as good as another, that’s what I went with.  Inside of it is a lower parts kit from Rock River Arms – that’s all the little pins, detents, latches and the fire control group that make the lower receiver functional.  I used a mil-spec receiver extension tube with an H-weighted buffer.  The upper receiver group is from Bravo Company USA which builds some of the finest components you can get.  Their M4 upper comes with the following specs:

• M4 Feed Ramp Barrel Extension (USGI)
• M4 Feed Ramp Flat Top Receiver
• T-Marked Upper Receivers
• USGI 1/7 Twist Rates
• USGI 5.56 NATO Chambers
• Mil-Spec 11595E – 4150 Grade Barrel Steel (CMV)
• Chrome Lined Bore and Chamber
• Manganese Phosphate Barrel Finish
• Mil-Spec F-Marked Forged Front Sights
• USGI Government Profile Barrels
• HPT (High Pressure Test) Barrels
• MPI (Magnetic Particle Inspected) Barrels

All of which basically means that it’s pretty much as close to mil-spec as you can get without enlisting.  Inside of that is a Lewis Machine and Tool Bolt Carrier Group and a Continental Machine and Tool charging handle.  I then added some Magpul goodness to round it out – there’s the MOE (Magpul Original Equipment) buttstock and handguards and Magpul’s new back-up rear sight – the MBUS.  I will shortly be adding a receiver endplate that adds a sling attachment (the ASAP from Magpul) and a weapon light down towards the front sight and this little rifle will be done…

So Friday I watched a movie that (since its release) has been on my list of all-time greatest movies, Children of Men. As I watched the end I was struck by how clearly it can show the gospel. In a literal warzone, where the absolute worst of humanity comes out a single baby calms the storm of depravity because in that one child is the only hope for humanity. It was nice to be reminded of that as I work long hours to prepare for this Easter season. Sometimes I just get lost in the work and forget why I’m doing what I’m doing… then God puts something like that in front of me and I remember why it is that I’m doing this…

This week (Tuesday the 31st – but only because Ann wouldn’t agree to the best April Fool’s day prank ever) Ann and I celebrated 8 years of marriage. The good news was we realized that this year we could actually celebrate being happily married for more than half the time we’ve been married.

I thank God for that wonderful woman every day and I thank God for the great friends who showed us that we could make it, no matter how bleak things got. But today I want to publicly thank them. Roger and Danielle, Brent and Jerren – without the four of you and almighty God, Ann and I would not be together today and we wouldn’t be anywhere near as happy, fulfilled, or complete as we are. Thank you so much!

So this month I will get to see both Black Label Society and Cake, both in small venues, and then today I bought tickets to see Metallica as they come to town for their Death Magnetic tour… Just thought I’d share what concerts I plan on seeing this year…

Well it’s simple enough to say that the economy tanked because people gave money to people that had no business borrowing money and then everyone leveraged everyone else so they could buy tons of these ill advised loans and then (whodathunkit) those ill advised loans turned into defaulted loans and now no one can pay back the money they borrowed… But it’s a whole other thing to actually be able to see it all animated and whatnot… enjoy!

So I had an interesting conversation with my favorite barista/owner at my locally owned coffee shop… (NOT STARBUCKS). He told me that someone came in this week and told him that they knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the Cardinals would win the Superbowl today because Kurt Warner is a believer and God is with him. Jeff’s questions was, “Doesn’t God have bigger fish to fry… what with World Peace not achieved and hunger not yet eradicated?” To which I replied that certainly he does – and in fact there are believers on both teams, so God’s only real concern is that somehow he might be glorified by the game, but by and large I didn’t believe that God really cared who won the Super Bowl and in all probability did not plan to “intervene”…

So all you Christians out there… You make us look petty and, well, retarded, when you say things like this. Sure, we can take time to unplug and enjoy some football… but let’s not blow it out of proportion…

Okay, those of you without geekiness somewhere in you either won’t understand this, or just won’t find it amusing…

So, I’ve been trying to set up my work computer to allow me to access it remotely… not just files on it, but if I wanted to log in to it to see if an encode was happening correctly or to start a process so that I could come in and get right to work in the morning… There’s probably an easier way, but this was the way that made sense… so here’s what I did…

We use Citrix here at work… and I can access that at home – but I don’t even know what Citrix is accessing… It’s a some Windows XP login somewhere… my mail is setup on it and we have access to some proprietary work stuff from it, but I never use it because it’s not the Mac I work on and it has next to nothing I need… but I can install stuff on it (sorta).  So I installed a VNC client.  Now this Citrix login is on our local network, so instead of trying to find a way into our network and then onto my Mac, I just login to Citrix and then VNC into my Mac.  Since VNC functionality is built into the OS of the Mac, I just had to find the right settings… Well, I finally had the time to sit and figure it out today… and then I tested it… on the Mac that I’ve been trying to remotely access.

Most people know what feedback is… but it can happen in audio AND video (point a video camera at a screen that is displaying the feed from said camera on some time… it’s trippy)… and as of today I learned, it can happen in the IT world as well.  I was logged into a remote login that further logged in to control the computer I was on… SO I had a cascading wall of screen shots of 2 different desktops buried in each other.  Every time I moved my mouse the first remote login told the second remote login to move the mouse… which was the same one I was physically moving… So it would move a quarter of an inch and then jump back to it’s original spot.  It was definitely the most hilariously I’ve ever locked up my computer.

Anyway, that’s pretty much how my day has been going…

A while back I promised some scans of the sonograms and just got busy… so here’s all them so far, including the print outs we got yesterday… unfortunately no one reminded us that we needed to bring our own VHS tape to get a recording yesterday… so no video of Devin Allen in utero…

8 Weeks:

10 Weeks:

And then @ 18 weeks from yesterday:

Well that’s my beautiful baby boy!