daily rambliniscings

There was a game included with the 1968 cards, and we played, and played and played that game forever it seemed. We collected more of the 1969 cards, and lots of 1970, 1971, and 1972 also. By 1972 my brother was 17 years old, too old for this stuff. He was still extremely kind, and made up a whole season schedule of games for me for the “year”, but without him playing with me, it just wasn’t so much fun. That proved to be the last year for the cards, with only a pack or two bot in the years up to 1981.

In 1981, in college, one of my best friends was a card collector, and the bug hit me again, but this time – to make lots of money. I bot full sets of cards straight from Topps, Donruss, and Fleer for years 1981 and 1982. To keep the condition nice, i bot some plastic holders, and put most of the “stars” in them, and almost completed whole sets for 1970-1972. Then i graduated from college in 1983, and never collected cards again.

I moved to Japan in 1989, but the cards stayed at my folks’ house in Tennessee. After they died and we sold the property in 1998, i packed up all the cards and took them to my sister’s, who graciously allowed me to store them in the shed for awhile until i got anxious about the mildew, so they were kept in the basement until just last week when i took them out to sell them off. Somewhere along the way, within the last 12 years, many of the nice cards “developed legs”. I know i had 6 rookie Nolan Ryan cards, which at one time in the early ’90s were selling for over 600usd/each. And there were around 300 1968 cards, and more 1969 cards. They probably all developed the same legs, as they are all gone. What was left was just about 10 stars each from 1968 and 1969, then the 3 almost complete sets from 1970-1972 (without any duplicates), and a whole bunch of cards (1000?) from 1982.

In looking on ebay, i could see where asking price for a 1972 set was 1,800, and some of the other cards were quite high too. So i was hoping for at least some offers when i went to the Atlanta baseball card show today, but i did know already that the big companies i had contacted on the internet were not interested in anything after 1969…ut oh.

The first dealer i approached said “How much you want?” when i proffered the 1971 set and the box of left-over stars. I told him what i had, and about how much i was hoping to get out of everything, and he handed the set back quickly. The second dealer at least pointed me to someone who might be interested. You can kind of tell by what they are selling if they would be interested in cards from this era or not, and there were probably less than 10 dealers even in the running. Finally the 4th man says he is interested, but doesn’t have that much money on him, but would be interested in the unopened wax packs. I go clockwise around the room, and the last booth happens to be the dealer on highway 58 in Chattanooga that i had scoped out on the internet, and was thinking about visiting his shop on Monday if nothing turned up today – sweet! not. I knew this was not sounding good when he said there was one-too-many card shops in Chattanooga (there are 2 total). He asked me how much i’m looking for, and after about a 10-second cursory look, started telling me i’m basically crazy because the guy across the way is advertising whole sets for those years for about the total i’m hoping for, so i’m asking him to pay retail. I assured him i wasn’t, and saw that we were getting nowhere, and took the cards to the table across the way, actually the first table from a clockwise postion there, but i had somehow skipped the first time thru. I go over there, and immediately the man is interested. He is retired, and seems to be having fun doing this card business. He spends over 30 minutes just going thru my 1971 set and stars, which is a good sign, and then quotes a price just for that which is encouraging, so i go back to the truck to get all the cards and bring them back in. Well, the 1981 and 1982 cards are not interesting for him, but tells me that there is a Cal Ripken card in 1982 that is worth some money. So i sit down on some chairs in the hall of the Holiday Inn hotel, and listen to the Spanish chatter of the people coming out of the HerbalLife rally, and go thru about a 1000 cards looking for one certain “Cal Ripken”.
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going, going, …. goneRead More »

This Testimony is largely directed at ministers in the Seventh-day Adventist church who are basically just working for their paycheck. They may bring souls to Christ, but if they don’t have the living connection with him, they will lose their own soul. Exercise and fresh air are recommended, and then there is a section regarding fanatics. This applies directly to me, and helped me to repent this last week of something I have done: “They have no care to discriminate and render honor to whom honor is due. They manifest a proud, rebellious, defiant spirit against those who differ from their opinions.” While we must point out error and lift up truth, we should not do it in the wrong manner. There is the usual epistle to someone speaking against masturbation, showing how common this sin is among God’s people, and against “castle building” (living in dreamland), and then closes with an exhortation to attend yearly church meetings.

This particular book was taken from a photo-copy of a photo-copy of a photo-copy…. and as such, the original spellings were left as in the original. There are several spelling/typesetting mistakes, listed at the end. There are many instances of what i deem to be “spelling variations”, so did not list them. If there are other spelling/typesetting mistakes in this book, please email me.

As i personally scanned/typed this in, there are no copyright violations, and i make this Testimony available to be copied or printed with no copyright restrictions.

Do unto others what you want them to do to you.

Isn’t that part of everyone’s Bible? How will we be able to face the Creator of the heavens and the earth in that great day of judgment and he says: “Did you feed/water/clothe/visit/care for the needy?” Will we say “Oh Lord, we allocated 2% of church budget to those things”?

Here’s a cool site with lots of interesting maps. The one morphing from countries with people earning less than 1usd/day to those earning over 200usd/day tells a powerful story:
www.worldmapper.org

Remotest place. Notice how India is really lit up!:
remotest places on earth

24-hour air traffic around the world:
follow the planes

As Asian governments grapple with too much rain, wheat- growing regions of Europe and Central Asia have the opposite problem.

Wheat has doubled in less than two months as drought slashed the harvest in Russia, the third-largest grower, prompting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to ban exports yesterday. Dry weather in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the European Union has also buoyed prices. Rice, a staple for half the world, rallied 9 percent in July, its biggest monthly advance since October.

The UN FAO Food Price Index, which tracks global prices of meat, dairy, cereals, sugar, oils and fats around, rose to 165.5 in July, the highest since February, according to its website.

The surge in wheat prices may fuel another food crisis as early as the fourth quarter this year, as millers seek cheaper substitutes for livestock feeds, sending prices of corn higher, and dragging with it the cost of soybeans, said Franciscus Welirang, chairman of the Flour Mills Association in Indonesia, Asia’s biggest importer of wheat.

Another global food crisis “is what we worry about in the fourth quarter or first quarter of next year,” Welirang said.

edited 2011/3/4 to include quote by Ellen White, God’s messenger:
Broadside #2 1849/01/31 – To Those who are receiving the seal of the living God
For two years past, the Lord has shown me in vision, repeatedly, that it is contrary to the Bible to make any provision for our temporal wants in the time of trouble.

I saw that if the saints have food laid up by them, or in the fields, in the time of trouble when sword, famine, and pestilence are in the land, it will be taken from them by violent hands and strangers would reap their fields. Then will be the time for us to trust wholly in God, and he will sustain us. I saw that our bread and water would be sure at that time, and we should not lack, or suffer hunger.–The Lord has shown me that some of his children would fear when they see the price of food rising, and they would buy food and lay it by for the time of trouble.

by Chris Cannon

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Investigators believe a 3-alarm structure fire Tuesday afternoon on 24th Avenue North near Clarksville Pike is suspicious. For nearly five hours, firefighters battled with intense flames and the extreme heat.

Crews responded to the blaze at the former Seventh Day Adventist publishing house around 1:20 p.m. Heavy black smoke could be seen from miles away.
PHOTOS: 3-Alarm Structure Fire

The fire went to three-alarms. Two alarms of the alarms because to the size of the fire.

“And the third alarm is so that our guys can rest and other guys can go in and fight the fire,” according to Nashville Fire captain Maggie Lawrence.

Officials said 120 firefighters responded to the scene.

Temperatures in Nashville were into the low 90s as crews fought the blaze. Heat coming off the burning structure added to the already hot conditions.

In the 1890s, son James Edson White piloted the riverboat Morning Star on the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. Through an onboard printing press he published a journal called Gospel Herald, which encouraged and evangelized blacks in the South.

Moving to Nashville, he set his press up in a former barn chicken house. In 1901 the Gospel Herald Publishing Company became the Southern Publishing Association.

So this looks to be the very end of the line for the Gospel Herald Magazine founded by Edson White, which became the Southern Publishing Association. My father worked there from 1962-1970 or thereabouts, and my brother worked there too. Many truth-filled books were printed there, and i thank God for raising up this light in this part of the world.

Fortunately, last year when in America, i was able to take 6 pictures of the old Southern Publishing Association building. These pics can be seen on my blog here.

But last nite i learned that the new version of e-sword (version 9) has a new configuration for its database, and that some of the old Bibles don’t work. Then i came to this site: upgrade to e-sword 9? of David Cox, who has developed many modules for e-sword in the past. He has had bad experiences with e-sword’s proprietor, and says that many of the modules he’s made are now useless because of the new database design of e-sword 9.

What to do?

What a great day to end the 2010 General Conference Session in Atlanta Georgia! We figured there would be more people attending today than the previous Sabbath, so we left the house early and arrived around 8:45am and got our usual parking space on level 2 in the red deck ($10/day). We always sat in section L23, which we did again, up only 10 rows from the floor where all the delegates were seated. It is kind of funny to look at the small people on the stage far away, and then notice that most of the people around you are looking the opposite direction – towards the large screen at the other end of the dome – ha!

A few rows behind us, there was a group of around 30 Japanese. I asked one of them something in Japanese, and they responded, and then i told them i was from the Osaka Center church, and they clapped for me – haha. After the sermon, one of them came by and handed all of us in our group nicely printed envelopes with 2 bookmarks enclosed.

The Sabbath school lesson was done by a lady and John Fowler and Clifford Goldstein. They had a lively discussion on the book of Romans, keeping interest high. Brother Fowler did display a tendency to talk big emptiness, which is a national liability of his home country. Then Ted Wilson gave the main sermon, an entire hour regarding what the Seventh-day Adventist church is and should do. Before that tho, there was a letter read from the president of America – Barack Obama, stating his good wishes on us.

It was an amazing sermon, titled “Go Forward”, one which i’ve been desiring to listen to from a top church official for over 30 years.
The audio is here: Ted Wilson’s Sabbath July 3 sermon, and the written pdf text is here: sermon text to read

He said “we are a peculiar people”. The word “peculiar” was mentioned twice in the sermon, putting a thrill thru my bones. For much too long we’ve wanted as a people to be just like the world as much as possible, and avoiding any hint of “peculiarity”. So right near the start of the sermon, there is this direct “back to the basics” drive which made my heart sing. He strongly uplifted creation and the SOP, quoted from Steps to Christ, presented Justification and Sanctification in clear terms, said we must be humble, and need revival and latter rain. He said we must have a literal interpretation of the Bible, should be Christ-centered, and that we must support Spirit of Prophecy until the “end of time”.

He came out against a liberal interpretation of the Bible, going to mega-churches, the emerging church, and wrong worship styles. He even clearly stated at the beginning of his sermon that he wished us not to clap, but could say “amen” at appropriate times. He even clearly said that the higher-critical method of Bible interpretation is not good.

The very only one thing that made me pause at all about his sermon, is that in talking about prophecy charts, he said “historical Adventism will not be moved”. This sounds to me like he is set in interpreting the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation in the old, dried, “all in the past” style we have set in concrete, but maybe that is not his intent, and then again, maybe he has not studied it out in detail to know that many of the things we teach are in the past (like the 7 Trumpets) are actually in the future.

My sister and neice came, and we enjoyed all eating out in the park afterwards. Some in our group complained of the heat, but it felt good to me 🙂 I lost connection with the person with the car keys, and as i wanted to get my 1858 Great Controversy books out of the car, i quickly parted company with my relatives which probably made them think i was running away from them….. I need to think more of others than my own desires sometimes. Anyway, the car was locked, so i couldn’t get my stuff until around 4pm. Then i took some of the books to the exhibition hall, where i talked with Brother Henderson of The Great Controversy Project. He had talked in the dome in the morning describing his project until someone came up and asked him to cut it off – ha! Lots of passion, but not sure of results. Anyway, he looked at my book and said he was not interested in putting out a stripped-down version of the book. I assured him it is the ENTIRE original book, and he asked if it was printed in 1844, then mentioned something about the book he is promoting as coming out in 1910. No doubt he was a bit stressed out, but i got the feeling that he is very passionate about spreading the Great Controversy book, but not too well versed in the history of the making of the Great Controversy book. He said some Divison people in various parts of the world have asked him for smaller versions to print, so i handed him one of these 1858gc books, and asked him to at least consider it if there is a need for a smaller book with the whole great controversy story in it. He accepted it, and we prayed together. At his booth i met John Brereton, who used to be the publishing director for the SE Asia Union Mission. We have run into each other at more places (Singapore, Thailand, Sabah Malaysia, etc) than i have run into anyone else in the world i think 🙂 He is now the publishing director or something in the South-Pacific Asian Division, and said sales of books in Papua New-Guinea were up 60% last year, and up 19% in Australia too – wow! Praise God. We had a nice prayer together too.

I went to the prayer room, then went to see the new painting by Nathan Greene that was unveiled at the morning church service. It is nicely done, i understand taking 8 months to plan and paint. It is of the 2nd Coming, and while being politically correct, something about it leaves me flat. I don’t know why…..

The evening meeting saw us surrounded by rows and rows of over 80% black members. That was one thing nice to see about the Session overall – the great expansion of the message to Central and South America and Africa and India. But the “Parade of Nations” itself was a bit strange. There was a short video from each Divison highlighting the scenery from their area, mostly with a heavy backbeat. It was my first time to hear the “Hallelujah Chorus” with a backbeat – ouch! Then the representatives would walk across the stage holding their flags, and then they walked around a darkened dome and then sat down in their seats on the opposite side. It was a bit disappointing, as i had imagined a huge mass of waving flags at least at the end, but such was not to be. The Vatican’s flag did NOT appear, raising several questions in my mind. But the worst thing of the whole show, was that this was on the Sabbath, yet there was no sense of worship at all, with many jumping up and shouting and whistling and clapping when their respective countries were called. This really must be changed to either a different day, or else the whole idea of parading flags should be re-examined.

The human traffic jam (69,989 official attendees at the morning meeting) going out was equalled only by the automobile jam. We got back to the house a little after 11:30pm, extremely tired, but also very happy and excited to think of what God has wrought for his people, both in the way of spreading the gospel over the whole world, and also of the election of a God-fearing leader.

I didn’t think today would be quite so exciting, as yesterday i had two big things AND two EGW Estate people showed very strong support for this 1858 Great Controversy book, but God, as usual, has different expectations than i do, and i found myself with probably the most amazing experience of this whole GC Session.

In the morning i had gone to the Hartland Publications’ table in the Marketplace, surprised to see them knowing how strained relations have been between them and the General Conference. It seemed to be a highlight tho of what i’ve felt during this whole Session — that is, a feeling of openness and less bitterness between those of opposing views. Maybe it is just my feeling, but i hope and pray that it is the real power of the Holy Spirit to meld hearts together 🙂 Anyway, the man there was very interested in actually BUYING some of these 1858gc books. I was taken by surprise, perhaps because he is the very first one to talk about purchasing these books since i’ve come. I asked him to read the Forward and other stuff that i wrote carefully, to make sure he agrees with it before purchasing. He then said i should call him next week, and it seemed to be in the vein of perhaps working together somehow, so i’m looking forward to doing that on Tuesday.

The publishing director for Hartland Publications is interested in buying quantities of these books, and i hope to talk more with him on Friday. In the evening i was even able to personally hand a book to our new president – Brother Ted Wilson. I hope he reads it and follows it.

Today i met the president of the SDA church in Armenia while in the bathroom. I had stayed at his house when i was in Azerbaijan. The other “chance” encounter was with the man in charge of Jeeva Jyothi in India. Just a 1/2 year ago i spent a couple of nites at his place, wondering if the wild elephants would come and rampage and tear the place down. His wife was even with him, saying it was the first time she’d ever come to America. No doubt it looks cleaner to her in many ways, and there are no wild elephants to worry about, but maybe the lack of people induces loneliness or the absence of neighbors calling out to her might make her feel left out….