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August 29, 2004

MCC Ordination Service

I just got back from a weekend in Richmond, Virginia. After 5 years of work, study and practice, my partner Emma was ordained as a Reverend in the Metropolitan Community Church.

It was a very significant weekend for me, my dad expressed an interest in seeing her service, and by going to Richmond, he'd get a chance to meet Emma's parents as well, who he's never met, due to their poor health and inabilty to travel.

One of the neat things is that Emma's dad had been a Methodist Minister most of his life - he retired a few years ago after preaching for 50 years. Her uncle is also a retired Methodist Minister, so Emma going into the ministry was following in a family tradition. (Yeah - she's a PK - Preacher's Kid)...


Bagpiper on the steps on MCC Ricmond
Click to enlarge
Considering that Emma's family is of Scottish descent,
what kind of a service would it be without a piper?

Continue on for picture highlights ...



The altar features significant items from her life ...


The Choir from MCC Nova share their beautiful voices in song ...


Emma's Dad has a few words - he got a standing ovation!


Reverend Elder Garner came from Mexico to help with the ceremony.
She was the pastor at MCC Nova when we first started attending, and encouraged Emma to follow her calling to ministry.


The final part of the service was a call for all the pastors in attendance
to come forward for a laying on of hands, blessing and annointing Reverend Emma into Ministry.
There were a number of pastors from MCC region 3, as well as Emma's father and her uncle Reverend Norman.
This was a Very cool day!

Pastors present in the Ordination (alphabetical order)


Rev Kharma Amos - MCC Northern Virginia (Fairfax, VA)
Rev Stephanie Burns - MCC Fredericksburg, VA
Rev E Lee Chattin (retired)
Rev Norman Chattin (retired)
Rev Elder Darlene Garner - MCC Region 6
Rev Robin Gorseline - MCC Richmond, VA
Rev. Candy Holmes - Hallelujah Ministries of MCC
Rev Wayne Schwandt - MCC of the Chesapeake, MD
Rev Candace Shultis - MCC Washington, DC

Posted by Heather at 6:44 PM | | Comments (5)

August 27, 2004

Beginning a new Journey

My partner Emma has reached the end of her training and waiting - on August 28th, on her birthday, she becomes ordained as a full Reverend in the Metropolitan Community Church. Its a real big deal to both of us, and to her family, who are travelling for the occasion. We're also having some MCC pastors and elders travelling in from a distance. Rev Elder Darlene Garner (who was the pastor when we joined MCC NoVA back in 1996) is flying in from Monterrey Mexico, and some other surprises are expected. Even my Dad is coming to see the service, and he's not regular church-going folks!

As you might imagine, I'll be away from the computer most of the weekend. My hands will be busy with family and guests and such - - but I'll post pictures once I have them.

Posted by Heather at 7:21 AM | | Comments (0)

August 19, 2004

Seriously

Found via Shaula's weblog http://tsuredzuregusa.blogspot.com/

As she says ... best Campaign spot
Ever ...

http://www.n3t.net/humor/Seriously.mpg
Very funny, but if at work, use headphones ...

Posted by Heather at 10:54 AM | | Comments (2)

August 10, 2004

Non-geek time!


photo of our backyard July 17, 2000     photo of same backyard Aug 9, 2004
Backyard July 17, 2000 | Backyard Aug 9, 2004
Click either picture to enlarge

If you consider that my recent posts here have all been about pushing the range of an Apple Airport Express adapter, you might think I spend all my time indoors at a computer screen. But in truth, its just part of the things that keep me busy ...

Of course, we have the backyard pond to maintain, and about 18 very tall trees ... recently reduced by one. Thats the problem with living among old tall trees - the shade is wonderful, but even with regular watering and deep root feeding, they only live for so long. And in the 4 years we've lived in this home, we've had 4 large trees cut down. Its troubling, but on each occasion we found a huge amount of decay hidden within the trunk, so its actually a blessing to take the trees down gently at our pace, instead of waiting for them to crash down in winter, loaded with ice.

As you can see from the pictures, the last homeowner let the yard go to seed - so I've spent a lot of time clearing weeds and undregrowth from a lot of the yard. Somebody in the past had even filled in the little pond years ago - but I show how I got the pond set up in pictures and pages here

Its a lot of work, but its very pleasant to go sit in the chairs on a sunday morning with a nice cup of coffee and watch the birds play in the trees. Very soothing - like a vacation in our own backyard.

Posted by Heather at 9:41 PM | | Comments (4)

AEx and the indoor Cantenna!


photo of a my WiFi Cantenna

Continuing my project to boost the received signal to my Airport Express (AEx) at home, I got my (MC-Card to N fitting) 5' pigtail from EtherDesign in the mail yesterday, so I was ready to build the antenna with the Cookie can! See the Seattle Wireless website for design specifics. I followed their basic plan, but because I was going to use the antenna inside, I used an old folding microphone tripod and short gooseneck, and twisted a wire coathanger around the cookie can, slipping the ends into the mic stand gooseneck. Having that easily bendable wire allows me to vary the antenna beam, relative to the AEx downstairs at the other end of the house. At the moment, its standing on Emma's monitor in the office. Click the picture for an enlarged view at a different angle.

I tried to get the Airport Express (AEx) open yesterday, but I can't see any screws or fittings, and I don't just want to pry along the centerline. And nobody has any usable internal pictures of the internals - it'd be nice if I could put an antenna on the AEx to improve its gain ... as small as it is, there can't be much of an internal antenna in that box - even a short "rubber duckie" type whip antenna would probably help.

Using the MacStumbler tool, I have seen the signal strength numbers go from the 37-39 range, up to 47-50 with the Cantenna. The (Airport Express) AEx's status light is still blinking yellow, but I haven't fine-tuned the length of the tuned stub length yet, so maybe I can get another 5 or 6 units improvement (I'm hesitant to consider them dBs, as nothing is calibrated) ...

ipodding.com photos of AEx internals
<>br /> AEx internal phots and Antenna patterns

Posted by Heather at 7:00 AM | | Comments (0)

August 5, 2004

A tight beam to my tuner! (More WiFi Fun!)


photo of the pigtail and connector inside my G4 Powermac

I checked inside my G4 PowerMac to confirm the little pigtail with a 90 connector that's plugged into my Airport Extreme (802.11g) card. My plan is to build a high gain cantenna, connect it to my powermac instead of the existing Omnidirectional internal antenna, and use it to feed a focused beam to the Airport Express downstair on my stereo. See Pepperidge Farm Cookie Cantenna with a 15-18dB gain!

So I checked my old ham junkbox yesterday and found a bulkhead N connector - I got a can of Pepperidge Farm Pirouette cookies when I did the groceries today - and I ordered a 60" pigtail (MC-Card connector to N) a few moments ago! About $30 for the pieces (mostly the pigtail). I'll make a little mount from an old gooseneck microphone stand. With any luck I'll get the pieces late next week and maybe get a chance to try all this out in the next couple weeks.

Lotta work for an automated (computer) radio station ...!

Posted by Heather at 10:37 PM | | Comments (0)

August 4, 2004

WiFi Links and more


photo of a WiFi Cantenna, courtesy of Seattle Wireless Net

I'm still playing around with my Airport Express (AEx) at home.

The signal strength LED blinks yellow (medium) most of the time, rather than glowing green as I'd prefer. The AEx is in the Den (our TV/Stereo media room), down a floor and at the other end of the house from my G4 Mac in the office. The AEx has an internal antenna, so without cutting it open to hack on a bigger antenna, I'm pretty much stuck with leaving it alone. But I can increase its received signal strength by focusing the transmitted power into a narrower, more concentrated beam, rather than using the omni-directional pattern of the built-in G4 antenna.

Basically this means I need to build or buy a tighter beam anternna (with a 2 foot long or so lead) and connect it to the antenna connector on the Airport Extreme card within the G4.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, its makes sense to look at what others have already done - there has been an evolution beyond the old Pringles "Cantenna" technology. And considering I've worked in CATV/TVRO technology and around the edges of antenna tech before I gave it up and came to web development, I have some old N connectors and such stashed away from those old days (somewhere!).

Here are some reference links for later use:

Posted by Heather at 9:30 AM | | Comments (0)