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“Cool!” I said, “How much do you practice?”

He gave me a quizzical stare before saying, “Maybe three hours a week?”

“Pffffffffffffttt……….!! that’s it?”

“Yeah I thought that was a lot!”

Honestly, though he’s right. Three hours is a lot for most people just learning an instrument. But unfortunately mastery of an instrument does not come in three hours a week. How much time do you need? Well there is not definite answer, but one source (Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers) suggests that 10,000 hours is the required amount for mastery. That’s the equivalent of working 8 hours a day, 7 days a week for 3.5 years. The problem is that most people need to eat, work, attend school, and fulfill other responsibilities during that time.

If this young man wants to become an expert at the French horn, he will need about 65 years to do so if he is going to practice only 3 hours a week.

One of the main reasons that I play and practice the guitar is so that I can use that talent for the Lord. I am a firm believer in doing things for the Lord as first class as possible and that includes playing music. I feel sometimes that Christians will practice more for a recital at school or some other performance and not invest much time or effort in performing at church. This is completely the opposite of the Biblical approach to music.

Remember Psalm 100 that says we are to make a “joyful noise” unto the Lord? This is in the context of sining with our voices and the Lord’s priority is that we are singing and making noise to praise him. That’s biblical and people shouldn’t be afraid or embarrassed of their voice when they sing out unto God. However let’s also add another verse into the mix:

Psa 33:3
Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise.

While we should always be singing and making noise, God wants us to also play skillfully! Do your best for the Lord!

Unfortunately that means a good dose of PRACTICE is in order. What!?!? Yes practice.

I recently posted a video of myself playing “Power in the Blood” and I intend to play this as a special in church. But I decided that I could do much better than my first video and kept at it for a couple of weeks. Now the song has improved quite a bit. I’m still not an expert by any means, but I am a lot closer to “playing skillfully” than I was several weeks ago.

Compare the two versions and let me know what you think:

New:

Old:

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But as fate would have it, my wife and I both had a delayed opening before we had to go and grind our respective mills and I decided that I would go outside and work on getting the car broken out of the seven foot glacier that the street plow had left us.

But I got distracted…

I kept staring at the snow and for some reason I wanted to build a snowman. So I did.

It was strange no doubt for my neighbors and those walking down the street to see a grown man rolling a 100 lb. ball of snow all over the lawn. I suppose I might as well have been barking at the moon in their eyes. But who cares, life had given me slushy snow and I was going to make a snowman!

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So naturally I have begun to read some books on this subject. One book that I recommend whole-heartedly is To Train Up A Child by Pearle. It is well balanced and comes straight from the man’s experience in raising his children who are all serving God with their lives. Of course the best book on this subject is the Bible. I’m going to take a look at all the parent examples in the Bible and come up with a list of all the good and bad things that they did raising their kids.

The first in this series is a relatively simple example. The prodigal son’s father in Luke 15:11-32. I believe that this was a true account. Any time in the Bible, when Jesus says, “A certain main…” I believe that this is real life account. These are the words that Jesus used in the next chapter in reference to the rich man and Lazarus, who we are told are real people.

1. Lack of Anger: The first thing that I notice, is that the father in this story doesn’t get angry. As a father, there are bound to be plenty of things that will make you mad, not the least of which is a foolish son (Prov 17:25, 19:13). But in this story, the foolish son took his inheritance early and ran out of the house and wasted it with harlots and drunkenness. I know that would make me mad. But notice in verse 20 that instead of an, “I told you so/you disappointed me/how dare you…” speech, the father ran out and was filled with compassion for his son. What a tremendous example.
   
   My kids will never be perfect (they are related to me after all!) and so it is important to realize that they will sin and do dumb things. That is guaranteed! The only thing I can control is how I react when they do make these mistakes. I think I learned here that compassion is the key. Now of course, the compassion only came after the son truly repented of his error. We should never condone sin in the lives of our children and furthermore we should always try to rebuke them and give them the truth.
   
   
2. Wisdom in Allowing His Son to Leave. These two boys in this story were older sons at this point in their life. As our children get older it is necessary that we allow them more freedom of choice. It is a natural thing for their independence to grow with age even though it may be difficult to allow this.This father showed wisdom by allowing his son to make his own error.
   
   While it is not specifically mentioned in this account, I believe this father did warn his son about the dangers of leaving home with so much money as a young man. But instead of refusing and allowing rebellion to take control of his son’s spirit, this man wisely allowed his son to learn this lesson the hard way. In the end, it produced a much wiser son. Eventually your kids will have to be independent and make their own decisions in life. Don’t be afraid to lovingly and bluntly advise, but then back off and allow them to experience life.  You cannot protect your children from everything.
   
   
3. The father didn’t ignore a bad attitude. At the end of this story, the other sibling who stayed at home with Dad had a bad attitude. He wanted to know why great rejoicing was being made for the foolish son who had returned home, but nothing had been done for him though he had been faithful all this time.
   
   When your kids have a bad attitude, you must NEVER ignore or allow it. This wise father, decided to deal with it immediately and cut it off before it became a much bigger root of bitterness and anger. Never allow your children to pout or stew. Attitudes CAN be controlled and since they dictate our direction in life, they are vitally important.

4. The father gave a reason why. How many times have you heard a child ask, “Why not?” Kids always want to know why they are told to do things. As really young kids, they must first learn to obey without knowing why. Obedience is something that must be trained without questions. Later, as our children get older, the “why” becomes vital. They can’t just say, “I don’t drink alcohol because my dad said not to” when they are being pressured by their friends to have beer. They must know the reasons why so they can believe the truth for themselves.
   
   This father didn’t just stop at telling his son not to have a bad attitude, he told him why he needed to shut up and put a smile on his face. The foolish son had already lost several years of his life, his inheritance, and his dignity. The least that could be done was a welcome home party. The wise son still had all these things because of his wisdom in staying put, but he was too blinded to realize that he was really far richer than his foolish brother. Instead of griping he should be thankful that he was spared what his foolish brother had to endure, and realize that what he still had intact was worth far more than any fatted calf.
   
   

5. The father was fair. Notice in the first verse of this account, the father gave them their portion. As a Dad, if you are planning on doing something exceptional or out-0f-the-ordinary for one of your kids, be prepared to do the same for the rest of the kids.

6. The father had an inheritance to give to his kids. In Prov. 13:22, we see that a good man will lay up his wealth to give as an inheritance to his children’s children! In today’s society that is virtually unheard of. Very few people bother to save even for their own retirement, much less for their children’s sake.
   

There isn’t a real end to this story, but we can be sure that the wise son got his act together, the foolish son learned his lesson, and a wise father had his family back together again. Let’s learn from this man’s example and apply these principles to our own children.

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This was my first take, and although it’s not perfect, it does the job.

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What a shame.

This incredible pressure from popular culture has sharply increased our rates of eating disorders and no doubt, many other depressive symptoms and probably even suicide rates.

What makes me nervous is that this thinking has been making its way into teen groups in good baptist churches. Yes I understand that we have a duty and a responsibility to take care of our bodies since they are on loan from God. I wouldn’t want him to come back and be disgusted at how I’ve kept up the place! But with that said, we were all given different bodies with different shapes, sizes, and looks.

What does the Bible say about our outward appearance?

One good example that comes to mind is the well known story of Samuel looking for a new king for the people of Israel. God doesn’t care too much about how our outside looks. Anyone can put on a good show, but this blip of life is so transient when viewed within the scope of eternity that a few extra pounds, a zit, or braces hardly have even the smallest significance.

Psalm 139:14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

Maybe we should all go back to the Bible and realize that our souls are more important than our bodies.

Every woman should read Proverbs 31 and focus on verse 30: Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised

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I usually never try to begin a design project by describing what I want to make for the client. This doesn’t really help either of us I think. Instead I try to make a quick, fast, (even hideous) draft to convey two basic things: the idea and composition. That’s it.

This method also has a draw back though in that the draft I make is usually horrible in quality. Even though it is not supposed to indicate the actual final product, most people take it like that and the result is confusion and concern that my product won’t be good.

Take this for example:

This first image was my composition and idea for having a dramatic shot of moses parting the red sea. It’s terrible in quality, but that isn’t my intent. I want the client to be able to say no to the idea without me having to throw hours of work into the toilet.

Now compare the draft to the final product (click to enlarge):

What do you think?

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One pet peeve I have is parents pretending to be good at disciplining their children. Let me explain. You are at a restaurant with another family and the kids are acting up. One child in particular is grabbing food from someone else’s plate. The child obviously has done this before and knows that there should not be any real discipline based on past experience, but is surprised when the mom lashes out at the child for this seemingly small infraction. You see, this parent does not discipline her children at home, but is embarrassed by their behavior in public and lashes out in hopes of compliance. This usually doesn’t work.

The parent who only disciplines their child in public (and you can usually tell this is the case when the discipline is largely ineffective), is lazy and selfish. Lazy because they don’t do what they’re supposed to do behind closed doors, and selfish because the only motivation to discipline comes from their own self interest and not the child’s spiritual well-being.

Lastly, this type of behavior really confuses a child. Why are some bad things ok at home, but not cool at church, a restaurant, or a friends home? Kids don’t understand that and you are really teaching them that obedience is only important when other people are watching. The effects of this parenting style become more telling as the child gets older.

If you discipline your kids properly (including training) you will rarely have to discipline them in public, and this is good for everyone involved.

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The exam was scheduled for 8:00am and I arrived promptly at 6:50am just to make sure I would be there on time. I had heard from other students and from one of the proctors that if you wanted to be in the nicer of the two available labs you had to be there early so I made sure to be the first one there. Right before they let us in I felt like I could have thrown up I was so nervous.

After I was admitted into the testing room, I listened to them spout out a bunch of their pre-test jargon that nobody really hears and when the exam was passed out I felt like I was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

The first thing I did was the I.V. calculations. I did them almost nine times. I calculated my drip rates and infusion rates over and over and over until I was SURE that they were right. I had heard of a few people failing from that kind of error. I spent probably the entire first hour making sure the I.V. calculations were right. Let’s hope I didn’t miss anything stupid!

When I had to go into the I.V. room to actually make the bag, I did fine up until the proctor hit the timer and when trying to pull back air on the first syringe I inadvertently blocked the air flow to the plunger. I paused for about a solid minute thinking about what I had done and if I thought the proctor noticed. I decided I didn’t want that thought to haunt me for the next 6-8 weeks so I asked for a re-do which lost me 5 points on the I.V. product. I was so upset with myself. At one point during the second try, my hand was shaking so bad that the needle jumped out of my hand! I was lucky enough to catch it without compromising the sterility of the product. With three minutes to spare, I was done!

The remaining two products were a hydrocortisone/calamine/petrolatum ointement and a tamiflu suspension. The suspension was tricky because they didn’t give you the dose needed. The prescription just said it was for an 8kg child and was to be dosed for post-exposure prophylaxis. Luckily I had made several of these at the CVS that I work at and knew the correct dose, but I spoke to a few who didn’t. That was a lot trickier than I suspected it would be.

The ointment was fairly easy. There was an oddly worded question that implied two different answers that could be correct and from the people I spoke to the answers were split both ways. It will be interesting to see how they grade that question.

Anyway, now I just have to wait and see if I passed or not!

6-8 weeks of torture…

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As of right now, I think I did fairly well on the written portion and I’m confidant that I passed it – especially after conferring with some of my friends after the exam. There was one tricky math question where we were asked to convert a 15mg/mL q4h dose of morphine to the equivalent dose in mL’s using a different strength (20mg/mL). It seemed pretty straightforward but I did not notice that they requested in the answer in mL’s per day and not mL’s per dose until the third time that I checked my work. Several people that I talked to missed that!

The errors and omissions part of the exam was the part I was dreading the most, but strangely enough it was the easiest part of the exam. One error that I found was a Toradol prescription where everything seemed to match up except the instructions read: “10mg po tid for 10 days”. This exceeded the max duration of 5 days for this drug. I can thank one of my retail preceptors for making sure I had this memorized completely.

There where a couple of old brand names for the medication error section that I did not recognize. For example, Sinequan has not really been used since the 1970’s and on the other side of the spectrum, Nexavar was only approved about 4 years or so ago for liver cancer (and doesn’t do a very good job at it either after looking it up!), but was not actually included in my coursework when during school. So I didn’t get any credit for those questions.

All things considered, it was a lot less stressful than I anticipated. I added up every question that I was not 100% sure about, and assuming I got them all wrong I’d still have an 80% on the exam which is good enough to pass with some wiggle room to spare.

Now the next test is the actual compounding portion!

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