Woolsey Life

Wielding a Hammer…

John — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:21:54 +0000

Can be pretty intimidating when what you are hitting are things you are comfortable with. By nature I am a “get it all done myself kind of guy” because “at the end of the day no one will care enough to do it the way I think it should get done.” I have preached about handing off keys in ministry and have done so to an extent. God is making me do it for real now. Its good though, I can see how this is going to be a good thing for me and for the ministries of Impact Church. I am starting to see through the pressures in my own life how I have held onto keys for too long. I must admit, I am still slow to ask too much of people because I want to be sensitive to their lives and the work load they bear without me coming along. However, since my time is becoming more and more of a rare commodity I am going to start laying things before people and seeing what the leaders around me will take up. My job needs to be less about the work and more about the leaders that are carrying the burden for the work. I need to be an encourager and I need to be inspiring them to find meaning in what they are asking their teams to do. I need to be their pastor…God has been pushing me into this role faster than I had thought would happen 4 years ago and behold, here it is already.

So I confess here publicly that the systems that I have put into place are holding this ministry back. As I walk around breaking them I am praying that God will be moving in the lives of those that will be thrust into leadership. It happened for me as result of a need, its time to allow the Holy Spirit to move through me and into the lives of the emerging leaders around me so they can experience the same empowerment.

Pray for me…its not going to be easy.

Have You Ever Seen One of These?

John — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:50:28 +0000

Well, now you have. Its called a Tri-Runner and its from a Chinese company. They run a 250cc water cooled 4-stroke engine with a pseudo-variable speed transmission (Salisbury) with a centrifugal clutch. Fully suspended and capable of about 40mph. Think of it as a recumbent version of a 3 wheeler like Honda used to make…with a roll cage. I would never consider buying one of these considering their place of origin could make for questionable reliability and repairability…but never the less the Woolseys have come into possession of one! A friend of my dad’s acquired 4 of them and had no where to store them. He offered to give my dad one if he could keep them at his house. My dad at first didn’t know what to do with one but soon realized I would put it to good use.

Next time any of you are ready for a quick trip out to the desert I will be ready with my exotic, china-made ride. Try to keep up

[Show as slideshow]

Letting My Geek-ness Show

John — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:59:45 +0000

While cruising the internets for cool things people do with commuter bikes I ran into a very neat product from England. Its made by a company called Bicygnals. Its a nifty light assembly that contains headlight, tail light and turn signal LED’s. I was pretty impressed and have thought for a while that bikes should have more options for indicator lights rather than the simple ‘look out - I’m here’ lights. In my hunt I have found nothing that I feel is compact and clearly communicates your intent as a driver/rider on the road. I think its a bit of an improvement to have a series of 16 LEDS that will sequentially blink to indicate a direction rather than have a set blink on the right or on the left. Frankly, as small as a bike is, the turn signals that are available seem indistinguishable right or left, maybe with the exception of the Bicygnal front module. If you don’t know what I mean pay close attention the next time you come up on a highway patrol car on the side of the road from behind. The bright orange lights that blink and give the illusion of the lights steering you in the desired direction. Some big trucks use this, you can’t mistake the intention of the lights.

Considering what the commercial products cost and don’t really deliver I started thinking about making my own sequencer for the bike. Plus, I like the idea of a brake light too! With LED power consumption what it is, you can have it all on a pedal powered machine. I could power it with any number of power cell or battery options. I just need a circuit. I am no circuit designer, save the simpler stuff, but I can work with something someone else has made. Google tracked down a good sequencer for me and I wanted to share it with any of you that have read this far.

Credit where credit is due: I found this write up HERE

Expandable 16 Stage LED Sequencer

The circuit below uses a hex Schmitt Trigger inverter (74HC14) and two 8 bit Serial-In/Parallel-Out shift registers (74HCT164 or 74HC164) to sequence 16 LEDs. The circuit can be expanded to greater lengths by cascading additional shift registers and connecting the 8th output (pin 13) to the data input (pin 1) of the succeeding stage. A Schmitt trigger oscillator (74HC14 pin 1 and 2) produces the clock signal for the shift registers, the rate being approximately 1/RC. Two additional Schmitt Trigger stages are used to reset and load the registers when power is turned on. Timing is not critical, however the output at pin 8 of the Schmitt Trigger must remain high during the first LOW to HIGH clock transition at pin 8 of the registers, and must return low before the second rising edge to load a single bit. If the clock rate is increased, the length of the signal at pin 9 of the Schmitt Trigger should be reduced proportionally to avoid loading more than one bit. The HCT devices will normally provide about 4 mA (source or sink) from each output but can supply greater currents (possibly 25 mA) if only one output is loaded. The common 150 ohm resistor restricts the current below 25 mA using a 6 volt power source. If the circuit is operated with two or more LEDs on at the same time, resistors may be needed in series with each LED to avoid exceeding the maximum total output current for each IC of 25 mA. For greater brightness, individual buffer transistors can be used as shown in the 10 stage LED sequencer on this same page.

A Big Night

John — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 06:01:16 +0000

Tonight is a night to remember, Trisha & Liam got hitched at what will surely be remembered as a great wedding. Christy and I just got home (10:58p at the writing of this post) and we are ready to crash. We have church in the morning but the time spent was awesome. These two are a neat couple, Christy and I have known Trisha well for ever and have recently gotten to know Liam better since they have been dating. I was also honored to be the officiant at their wedding. For the record, it was my first wedding and it was such a privilege to be a part of it.

Best of luck to you guys, Christy and I think you are great together and Liam, we are so happy you came into Trisha’s life. You guys are going to do well!

Its A Baby

John — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:03:47 +0000

Today was Christy’s first OB appointment. I was really busy today and felt a little guilty about spending such a large chunk of the day out of the ‘office’ but I knew this was going to be important. I have to say, I was so surprised at how special seeing the baby for the first time was! Christy was really shocked and all she could do was cry when we saw the video of the baby wiggling and bouncing around. I just laughed. The doctor commented on the baby’s long legs and level of activity. She says it looks like a healthy baby. Thats good news. Both of us are experiencing the image of our baby etched into our minds. Christy said that even without thinking about it, when she closes her eyes she just sees the video of our baby. I don’t see it when I close my eyes, but I think about it often. Just thinking about it now kind of makes me want to laugh. I can’t explain it. The official due date as per the ‘magic eight ball’ wheel is Dec 25. Thats right, Christmas. We are hoping a little more like a New Years baby, but what can we do?

Enjoy the pictures. Most of you will look for a few seconds and move along - me too if it wasn’t my baby. Instead, I will just stare for a while.

Two Wheel Lifestyle

John — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:14:40 +0000

Deep down I must be an environmentalist at heart. Before my break from the world of engineering I was gearing up to get LEED certified and have always been drawn to more efficient technologies. That interest and concern has tended to spill into other avenues of my life. That combined with the increasing cost of energy I am getting very interested in alternatives to driving my truck all over town. When I started getting excited about riding my converted mt bike around as a commuter I started wondering what other people were doing. Were others converting mt bikes or was there such a thing as a commuter bike that is made by any of the manufacturers. In the course of my education I discovered the Xtracycle company. They make a frame extension for almost any 26″ or 700 wheeled bike. Simply remove the rear wheel and hardware, install the FreeRadical and put the rack hardware of your choice on and you have a sport utility bike. It looks like a great idea and offers the rider a TON of opportunities to leave the car parked in the garage.

I won’t be doing anything like this soon. I have only been at this for a week and need to see how it goes. This town isn’t an entirely bike friendly town. I can say that my goal is to see if I can make a tank of gas in my truck last a month. Wish me luck!

Taking Measures to Grow the Grass

John — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:19:34 +0000

Tonight we had a heavy staff meeting (the force of gravity has increased here in the future) and we called it around 8pm and decided to hang out on the patio. As you are well aware, the yard is on the home stretch and looks complete at a glance. Jeff, Vince, Micah and Brent were standing on the walkway in the yard and looking at the grass and had observed the handfull of weeds that have developed in one are of the lawn. Vince commented that if he were I he would be pretty mad. I told them that the reasons the weeds got a foothold was because the grass there wasn’t very thick and full yet. Vince asked if I was going to get on my hands and knees and pull out every weed by hand. I explained to him that I would have to do that for now but my goal is to not go on hand weeding. I explained that the best way to prevent weeds is to do the things that strengthen the grass because the grass will choke out the weeds when it it thickens and grows deep roots. We all looked at each other and remarked that there is a Sunday message in that comment.

Once again, God demonstrates how he has every intention of speaking to me about ministry and my own spiritual life through my growing passion as a gardener.

My ‘New’ Bike

John — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:45:14 +0000

I posted pictures of this bike when I put the road tires on it and I thought I would show off the latest addition.

Today Vince had my truck and Christy takes her car down to Temecula to pick up the shuttle to work. Not having any other option I grabbed my clip shoes and hit the road. I found myself at Bicycle Warehouse and went ahead and picked up this rack and pannier bag set. The rack was a new arrival, Matt had to pull it out of a box to show me. It is rated for 50kg (thats 110lbs for you English speakers). That is a far cry from the other racks I had looked at and this one was $5 more. The bags were $39 and I really labored over spending the money on these bags since I wasn’t 100% sure how I would use this bike. I figured if I never used them the shop would take them back. On the way home I ran a few errands for tomorrow and couldn’t believe how the bags kept expanding every time I would stop to pick something up. I stuffed a box of blank lables, several packages of badge lanyards, a 3lbs bag of grass seed and a new watering hose attachment. I could have stopped by the grocery store too! And even with the added weight on the bike it wasn’t too bad climbing hills. Nice thing about being a converted mt. bike is that this thing has LOW gears.

I have really come to enjoy riding this bike around town. I think at first I didn’t like it much because I was too easily winded, too much down hill riding on the DB. A few rides around this hilly town will whip anyone’s lungs into shape. Have any of you responded to fuel prices in creative ways?

A Great Suggestion

John — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:43:15 +0000

A friend of mind from days gone by sent us a book as a congratulations for our first child. It is full of nice sentiments & Catholic prayers. The great insight from this book is that it leaves many pages blank save some instructions. The author suggests writing some stuff down, things that will never stick in our memories. Since I have this blog I thought that I would use this for some of the more observational thoughts. From time to time I will probably use the ‘Keep this post private’ button when its too personal, but I kind of like the idea of writing here. Keep in mind, often times I won’t really be talking to you (the reader) but myself and perhaps my child. I have always liked the idea of keeping a video journal or something during the pregnancy for the sake of the child after he/she is grown up, I guess this is how it will start.

By the way, this post is not one of those posts.

Yard Update | I Know, I Know

John — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:48:43 +0000

I promise, I do think about other thing other than my yard and have in fact been thinking about something I should be doing with this blog in light of the new baby that is on its way. That being said, the reason I keep writing about my yard isn’t because I want to bore you, but because I have become very involved. Do you know that I have taken to spending my daytime office work at the patio table outside so that I can be closer to the lawn!? I wonder if it will be like that when the baby is here, setting up a computer in his/her room so I can be close… I digress. Take a look at these pictures. In the last couple of days the lawn has really greened up. I decided to put a gallery up instead of just one picture because there is a ton of life out back, and I thought I would share some of it with you. Not only will I be holding Boccie tournaments out there but I think a movie night out there might be in order with the neighbors.

[Show as slideshow]

Ok, I promise next time I won’t even mention my yard.