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I want it all…part 2

rand — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:29:56 +0000

I recently saw this commercial again and think I left out one of the most troubling parts – the ending. The tag at the end of the spot says, “Chase what matters.”

ER visit

rand — Mon, 28 May 2007 15:37:18 +0000

I just got home from surgery. The much anticipated nice, long Memorial Day Weekend isn’t going so swimmingly. Saturday morning I drove myself to the ER as my wife and baby went out shopping (thought I had gas). Later that night, I had an emergency appendectomy.

The interesting aspect I want to write about happened in the ER. As I sat there waiting to be called to check in and be examined (yes, I was in obvious pain) a family who brought their daughter in after a car wreck stopped and asked if they could pray with me and for me. Of course I said yes. You know what, the pain subsided for a while. Does prayer work? Yes. Some critics would say that them coming over just distracted me from the pain. Yes, prayer is a distraction, but a positive one and in either case, it helped alleviate pain.

I’ve now determined to not just continue praying for people, but to involve them if they are near and inform them if they aren’t.

God and science

rand — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 02:16:38 +0000

The other day I was in for my annual eye exam. While I was waiting in the exam room, I studied a poster of the eye and its muscles. As you would assume, the eye has muscles attached to the eye at numerous points allowing full rotation and movement of the human eye. One muscle in particular caught my attention – the superior oblique. This muscle actually passes through a loop of bone to provide intorsion and abduction (no, I didn’t know that, the reference is below). As I looked at the phenomenon, I marveled at God’s divine plan. I believe in science and I believe that God can use anything to achieve His outcome. To simply deny that God created life and humans implies that science, which typically takes the path of least resistance, created a muscle that grows through a loop of bone that grows for this sole purpose – to provide ocular motion. To see an image of the muscle:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.perret-optic.ch/optometrie/anatomie_oeil/anatomie_oeil_image/muscles_oeil.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.perret-optic.ch/optometrie/anatomie_oeil/opto_anato_oeil_gb.htm&h=448&w=368&sz=33&tbnid=eLQRBx8Kyx2-pM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=104&prev=/images%3Fq%3Deye%2Bmuscles&start=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=1

From the great wikipedia:“The superior oblique muscle, or obliquus oculi superior, is a fusiform muscle in the upper, medial side of the orbit whose primary action is intorsion and whose secondary actions are to abduct (laterally rotate) and depress the eyeball (i.e. it makes the eye move outward and downward). One of the extraocular muscles, the superior oblique is the only muscle innervated by the trochlear nerve.

The primary action of the superior oblique muscle is intorsion; the secondary action is depression (primarily in the adducted position); the tertiary action is abduction. A brief survey of neurology and physiology texts and websites reveals much confusion about the role of the superior oblique muscle, with many sources claiming that its role is to move the eye towards the nose. In fact, because of its positioning, it is able to rotate the eye away from the nose so that when the eye is already adducted (looking directly “inwards”) its rotational action turns the pupil downwards to look towards the mouth, which many texts misinterpret as its primary action.

Man, science is amazing.