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April 29, 2015 10:01 am

He has 155 e-books to his name and is at war with Amazon. But his is the kind of story the media never tells.

Drac Von Stoller

I first stumbled across the work of Drac Von Stoller while browsing the new releases on Audible.com last year. Suddenly, the list had filled up with audiobooks bearing lurid titles like “Cannibal Lake,” “The Night It Rained Hell” and “Nazi Zombies,” all by the same guy and each emblazoned with a garish, inexpertly Photoshopped cover image featuring leering, demonic or half-eaten faces. None of these recordings was more than 10 minutes long or cost more than Audible’s rock-bottom price of $2.76; cheap, but with such short books, still a pretty small bang for the reader’s buck.

CannibalLake-e1408138354746-212x300A search on Von Stoller’s name revealed dozens and dozens of these titles, all with professional narrators and many tagged with one- and two-star reader reviews. Over at Amazon, where the Stoller e-books on offer currently number 155, most clock in at no more that a handful of pages in length and quite a few are free. (In the iBooks bookstore, nearly all of Von Stoller’s works will cost you nothing.) Most of the reviews there are just as harsh. “This is probably the worst written short story that I have ever had the displeasure of reading,” one reader wrote of “Rise of the Zombies.” “I read this in under five minutes,” wrote another. “A child could have done it. In fact I think a child did do it.”

Here was a conundrum. Von Stoller’s 150-plus e-books can be obtained from at least 12 online retailers, each with its own particular and often demanding formatting and distribution arrangement, and the audiobook adaptations (most of which feature sound effects embellishing the narrator’s performance) must have been time-consuming and expensive to produce. Even a crude cover design — let alone 155 cover designs — takes some effort to create. The establishment of the self-publishing empire of Drac Von Stoller gives every appearance of having been a gargantuan effort. Yet the author himself couldn’t be making any money from it, not with so many of his titles priced at zip. As for public renown and recognition, the laurels have not been exactly forthcoming; although he has some fans, the vast majority of Von Stoller’s books bear an average Amazon rating of one and a half stars.

Google von Stoller’s name, and you’ll be taken to photos of a baby-faced middle-aged man standing in a murky graveyard and wearing a high-collared movie-vampire cape, the images bathed in colored digital filters. Drac Von Stoller is on Twitter and Tumblr and Goodreads and Pinterest and Reddit and BuzzFeed Community, none of which offer much personal information amid their bewildering collections of highly specialized stats: “Drac Von Stoller has now been viewed and downloaded in ’92′ Countries around the world”; “Drac von Stoller was the only author that had 5 Audio Books featured in ‘Audible.com 2012 Halloween Promotion; and ranked 4th in sales out of 30 Authors featured in the ’2012 Halloween Promotion.’”

And so on. He’s not one of the handful of exceptional authors whose stories of selling millions of self-published e-books have so captivated the media, but he’s also not one of those woebegone literary novelists who sat back after booting a homeless manuscript into the Kindle store, then bemoaned sales in the low two figures. He was clearly determined to work the system for all it’s worth. We seldom hear about writers like Drac Von Stoller, the countless ones who fall somewhere in the middle, cranking out quickie books that sell for at most a few dollars a pop. He’s a new kind of author, one that could not have existed before the dream-bedazzled revolution of digital self-publishing and the gold-rush atmosphere it has engendered. I wanted to know who this guy was, so I tracked him down.

His given name is not, of course, Drac. When he first decided to write horror fiction, he told me in a telephone conversation, he resolved that his real name, Kevin Stoller, would not do. “Nobody would buy that book. So then I went around three or four different names and came up with Drac Von Stoller, which is a vampire, a character.” Despite an official author bio portraying him as a lifelong horror buff since the days when he was “a little boy watching his favorite actors such as Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi on his little black and white television alone in his dark room,” Stoller’s ambition to become a horror writer was late in coming. It’s the most recent in a string of big plans and hopeful dreams. And Stoller is more typical than you might think. What motivates him is less a burning desire to write than a burning desire to be a writer — and, eventually, so much more.

Kevin Stoller lives in Gallatin, Tennessee, and has the accent to prove it. He works as a pharmacy technician. He’s been married for 32 years and has three daughters. “I wasn’t happy with my jobs,” Stoller explained when I asked him what prompted him to try self-publishing. (He currently works two jobs, 80 to 100 hours per week.) First, years ago, he attempted the music business, writing songs. “I wrote like 10 songs and got some cuts off of it, but the guy, when he edited it? He took just about everything I wrote out of there.” Then he tried to capitalize on his idea for a board game, but pursuing that would have required a $10,000 upfront investment, a non-starter, so “I got depressed about that.”

Then he patented an oral liquid adapter (a device for use in healthcare), but this plan, too, “didn’t go nowhere. I’ve always got stuff going through my mind. The wheels don’t stop turning. … So then it was, ‘OK, I’ll just try writing, see what happens with that.’ Then I had to pick a genre.” This was 2010, three years after the launch of Amazon’s Kindle and around the time that self-published authors like Amanda Hocking and John Locke were starting to make headlines by selling hundreds of thousands of e-books. Stoller looked at his home video collection and realized that most of the titles he owned were horror films, so horror fiction it would be.

Humans Can Lick, TooI asked Stoller the question that had perplexed me from the first time I’d noticed his diminutive offerings on Audible’s website: Why are his stories so short? “Because my attention span isn’t long enough,” he laughed. “I’ve got a Harry Potter book in the attic that I’ll never read. I’m so damn busy. I don’t have time to sit down and read a novel at all. And the majority of people out there do not either. There’s a lot of people out there who do read novels. I understand that, and I see people at work that’ll read on their Kindles, or they’ll have a paperback book and read a chapter or two. It’ll take them I don’t know how long to read that book. But most of us people are too dang busy nowadays. We don’t have time to just be sitting at home like Mom and Pop on ‘Leave It to Beaver’ and reading a book. My point was to give someone a quick read, and that’s it.” So does he read short stories himself? “No, not really.”

This surely goes a long way in explaining one of the persistent objections raised to Stoller’s e-books: Their abundance of spelling and grammatical errors. One Amazon reader offered an extensive critique of “Its Dead Leave It Alone,” whose defiantly unpunctuated title gives a pretty good sense of what lies in store over the next four pages. “It is said that if something is dead it might just be a good idea to leave it alone especially if it is evil,” reads the first sentence. Stoller then goes on to relate the misadventures of a hubristic fellow named Luther who foolishly accepts a friend’s dare “to dance and desiccate the grave of a man that legend has it was a real werewolf.” Like virtually all of Drac Von Stoller’s characters, Luther ends up torn to bloody bits.

“The thing that people miss,” Stoller said when I asked him about the complaints, “is, like Rod Serling said, they look at the grammar too much. You need to read the story. Quit worrying about did I put a dot there, I should have put an apostrophe there. I see this all the time on the Web. I’ll read articles and I’ll see punctuation errors. I don’t call them up or make a comment to say, ‘Oh, you forgot to put a dash there.’ That doesn’t make sense.”

I asked Stoller if he’d ever consider hiring a professional editor, and he said he’d thought about it, but he remembered that guy who once edited his songs and how much he’d changed them. He also tried collaborating once with an audiobook narrator. “That ain’t never going to happen again. They either like me or they don’t. It’s my writing. I wrote it. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to download it.” And, as he pointed out to me, “thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of downloads are coming in. I’m up to something like 18,000 downloads per month from all the retailers.”

It’s the download count that really matters to Stoller, not the income from book sales. He said he’d be “starving” if he counted on his books to generate cash. Bumping up the download count is why most of his books are free. When he first started, he’d priced them from $1 to $5, until a co-worker suggested giving them away. He thought she was crazy, but it worked. Right now, he’s been fighting with Amazon for over two years because the retailer refuses to let him give more than 17 stories away. That’s been tough. “They wouldn’t even answer my email when I sent them a screenshot from the UK [demonstrating how many more copies he’d moved of a book once it was free]. They cost me about 100,000 downloads in a month! It’s like your first love. They’re the first ones that gave you the opportunity to be on there and they’re the hardest of them all. And it’s all about money.”

I was particularly curious about Stoller’s hundreds of audiobooks on Audible, an Amazon-owned company. Surely the professional narrators he uses don’t come cheap? “Oh, up to $200 an hour,” Stoller said. “There’s no way I could have done that.” Instead, his audiobooks were created through Audiobook Creative Exchange (ACX), a platform that connects authors and narrators in a revenue-sharing arrangement. “ACX gets 50 percent of my money,” he said, “the narrator gets the other 25 percent and I get 25 percent. You can lose a lot of money doing that.”

But if Stoller is willing to work so hard — handling every aspect of the writing, editing, design, publishing and marketing himself, a process he characterizes as “going through the back door through razor blades trying to get where I need to go,” and he’s not doing it for the money, what is he doing it for? The exposure, of course. “They’re going to know my name. It’s going to be out there, and once my films get released, it’s gonna probably be all over by then.”

The ImpalerYes, films: A B-movie actor/director/producer named David Heavener (also “a martial artist” and “a composer and performer of Christian music,” according to IMDB) has been making short films of Stoller’s stories, beginning with “Bloody Mary” and “The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs.” (If these titles sound familiar, many of Stoller’s stories are based on familiar horror-movie tropes and urban legends he looked up on the Web. Personally, my favorite Von Stoller title is “Thump! Thump! Drag!”) Stoller talks about this project, which he says will ultimately be released as an anthology DVD next Halloween, in a way that makes his own role unclear. Has he been involved in the production? “Little bit here and there. I OK the script and stuff, read it over really well and make sure it’s all right. And I’ve seen the films. So far I’ve got two done and am working on the third right now.”

Although there are no plans for Stoller to appear in any of the films in his Drac Von Stoller persona, he believes the anthology could culminate in his ultimate ambition to be “the host of a TV series. Anybody can write stories with words blah blah blah. I want to step further. You’ve got Stephen King, who wrote the books. He had ‘Creep Show’ [a feature-length horror anthology film]. And then there’s Rod Serling, ‘The Twilight Zone.’ I’m kind of like both of them mixed together.” He added: “There’s marketing that’s unbelievable with my character. It’s a vampire. There could be trading cards, comic books. You could have a theme park attraction at Disneyworld.”

So Drac Von Stoller’s own story isn’t a horror story. Instead, it’s the oldest American story, the one where a single brainstorm and a ton of hard work can rocket an average guy into a whole new life as a famous and prosperous vampire impresario. “I’ve just got a drive inside of me,” Stoller explained. “That’s just me. I’ve got the will to survive. I can envision. A couple of years ago, if you’d asked me about Drac Von Stoller, vampires, a TV series and all that stuff I would have probably laughed at you. But the more the years go by, it’s just not stopping. It’s getting better.” Whether anyone will end up torn to bloody pieces at the end remains to be seen.

source: salon.com

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Vista Woes

I made a very slapdash decision on Saturday morning to install Vista Beta 2 on my desktop PC. I think most people who've tried it have had a relatively painless experience, but I wasn't so lucky.

Suddenly, none of my network cards will work at all and so I have no network connectivity. Network issues have to be one of the most frustrating problems - you can't just point the box at Microsoft and let it sort itself out. I've already spent about 4 hours trying to fix my desktop PC and have made no progress. Both NICs just give a 'Media Disconnected' state from ipconfig. I suspect drivers are the issue and I've tried a few variations but without any luck.

Luckily, I primarily use my laptop these days so I'm not without computer, but I thought I should post so that anybody about to take the plunge is aware of the risks and has a backup plan. In the meantime, I'll be psyching myself up for a rebuild :)

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Josh Post By Josh Twist
1:50 PM
29 May 2006

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Posted by Crimar @ 29 May 2006 4:00 PM
You really should install beta products on a virtual machine. There is always a risk of beta software, especially an operating system not working properly. There really is no reason why a professional should be doing such a thing?!?

Posted by Eric D. Burdo @ 31 May 2006 6:21 AM
And with the free VMWare package, you can do the virtual machines at no monetary cost.

Posted by Josh @ 31 May 2006 6:42 AM
Beginning to regret posting this...

Firstly, the machine I performed the installation upon is used for some light surfing at home and little else.

Secondly, have you tried running Vista on a VM? A colleague of mine did so on a very high spec machine and had little joy. Rick strahl reports the same on VPC: http://west-wind.com/weblog/posts/5677.aspx

Posted by Eric D. Burdo @ 01 Jun 2006 5:39 AM
I haven't tried Vista yet (on VM or on native hardware). I do know that XP doesn't perform that well, so I can image what Vista would be like.

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Happy Friday Readers!   Welcome back to our Friday Inspector’s Corner, where we are continuing Matt Steger’s discussion on Chimney and Fireplace inspections.  Matt is a Home Inspector with WIN Home Inspection and he is the one I call for all of my Lancaster County Pa Home Inspection needs, you should call him too!  Check out his info after the jump!

Matt Steger is available for Home Inspections in and around Lancaster County PA almost any dya of the week, give him a call at 717-361-9467!

What is done as part of a home inspection?

 Last time, we discussed the basics of a level 2 clean and service for a chimney and fireplace.  This week we’ll discuss what a home inspector does during their inspection when it comes to a fireplace and chimney.

 In the course of a home inspection, the inspector will view the chimney and fireplace from the exterior and within the firebox (if accessible).  If a wood burning insert is installed, the home inspector is limited to the chimney.  Removing a wood burning insert or pellet stove is well outside the scope of a home inspection, yet many of these older systems are not properly installed.  The inspector is not performing a code compliance inspection, nor verifying that the unit was installed per manufacturer’s instructions.  When an insert exists, the best bet is to consult a certified chimney/fireplace professional.  The chimney or fireplace professional can remove the insert and ensure the flue is properly attached.  Home inspectors are generally not trained or certified to perform level 2 or other invasive chimney inspections, so only relying only on the home inspector’s non-invasive home inspection doesn’t tell you the whole story.  Remember that home inspectors are generalists, not specialists, and that the home inspection is a non-invasive visual inspection.  A certified chimney professional is the specialist and can do a more invasive analysis and repair.

 On the chimney’s exterior, the home inspector will look for visual damage to the chimney (such as cracks in the brick/stone, flue, or mortar cap [aka, a chimney crown]), indications that a flue liner is present (terra cotta or metal), and even look at the chimney’s height.  There is a 10-3-2 rule for chimneys.  This rule says that chimneys must penetrate the roof by at least 3 feet and must also be 2 feet taller than anything within 10 feet of the chimney.  I often run across chimneys that appear to be too short and the adjacent roof peak is at nearly the same height or sometimes higher than the chimney just a few feet away.  On occasion, I’ve also seen other roof vents immediately adjacent to the chimney that are simply too close.  Chimneys must be the proper height and distance away from other objects so that the chimney can vent properly.

 When damaged masonry or a cracked mortar cap is found, repair is recommended.  Cracks in brick and mortar or the mortar cap can allow for water infiltration and further damage from freeze/thaw cycles.  Loose bricks can also fall and damage the roof below or injure someone on the ground.

 While inspecting the chimney’s exterior, the flashing is also checked to help prevent roof leaks.  Often a roof leak will occur where there is a penetration through the roof, such as at chimneys, vent stacks, or skylights.  Preventive maintenance is key to ensuring a dry home.  Chimney and other roof flashings should be regularly checked and resealed as needed.  Tree branches should be trimmed at least 10 feet away from the chimney to help prevent them from affecting proper drafting.

 The inspector will also look for leaning of the chimney.  When found, of course, if this is allowed to continue, the chimney may collapse at some point.  Bracing or other repair may help prevent a collapse.  Attaching overhead utility lines and TV antennas to a chimney is not a good idea since these can put extra stress on the chimney and may lead to future problems.

 As mentioned above, since the home inspector can most often not see the entire length of the chimney’s interior, he can not determine the interior condition of the flue.  Terra cotta may be cracked or misaligned due to settlement and age or it may be altogether missing (this is common with homes prior to the 1940s).  Damaged or missing liners can allow interior deterioration due to rain and exhaust gases reacting with each other.  Also, unlined chimneys allow heat to pass through chimney walls very quickly which can lead to a house fire.  Animals such as birds, raccoons, or squirrels like to nest in chimneys for protection and warmth, so nests can also block the flue and prevent proper venting.  All of the above can spell problems.  Improper venting may also allow dangerous exhaust gases, such as carbon monoxide, into the living space.

 Next week, we’ll continue discussing what a home inspector should do when it comes to inspecting fireplace and chimneys.

Tune in next friday for the next part in the series!

I’d like you to be part of the conversation, so if you like what you read here please comment, forward The Lancaster to your friends, subscribe and as always, if you have questions, need real estate advice or want to buy or sell a home, you can call or text me at 717-371-0557, email me at or contact me at the office at 717-490-8999!

Your Friend in Real Estate,

Jason BurkholderWeichert, Realtors – Engle & Hambright

Search for Lancaster County Homes for sale at by clicking here!

Want to see what’s happening to home prices in your neighborhood?  Go to !


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Constitutional Law

Constitutional Law

Citizenship Bill (2019) awaits President's assent, challenged in the Supreme Court [Read the Petition]

“Classification based on individual's religious identity offends the fundamental principle of ‘Secularism’”, said the petition filed by IUML

December 12,2019

Right to Privacy

Facebook bats for WhatsApp privacy protection

In a rare case, Facebook-owned company Whatsapp goes all out to resist move to link Aadhaar with social media accounts

August 9,2019

Constitutional Law

Scrapping Jammu & Kashmir’s special status is unconstitutional, undemocratic

Substituting “Constituent Assembly” with “Legislative Assembly” modifies the text of Article 370 without meeting the provision’s requirements

August 5,2019

Constitutional Law

Transformative Constitutionalism- A post-colonial experiment

The right to free speech is now an endangered species of rights

July 22,2019

Constitutional Law

Delhi HC issues notice on plea for a judicial commission on a Uniform Civil Code

Petitioner also seeks direction to Law Commission to draft UCC in three months

June 1,2019

Right to Privacy

Shifting stakes of privacy

The government-corporate nexus to monetise data compromises our privacy

Law Enforcement

Slum dwellers’ right to the city

Is there an unconscious neo-liberal bias in the judiciary.

April 18,2019

Law and Citizenship

Today a citizen, tomorrow an enemy

A Critical Analysis of The Enemy Property Act, 2017.

March 24,2019

Law and Religion

Sabarimala forces us to recognise unacknowledged violence against women

We see a form of untouchability being practised against the woman in excluding her from the household itself. Senior Advocate Indira Jaising has accurately pointed out to how this extends beyond just “exclusion” and to a complete social boycott. The purification rituals that were conducted inside the temple after the first two women entered is reflective of the deeply entrenched notion of untouchability.

February 7,2019

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US court orders banks to release Trump’s financial documents

A US appeals court ruled Tuesday that two banks must hand over documents about Donald Trump’s finances to Congress, in the latest legal blow to the president.

Two Democratic-controlled committees issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Capital One in April demanding that they hand over financial records related to Trump and his family.

Trump, who is fighting attempts by Democrats and a New York prosecutor to force him to release eight years of tax returns, sued to stop the banks from complying.

Two appeals courts have already ruled that he must make documents available, including information held by the accountancy firm Mazars USA, but decisions are pending in the Supreme Court.

In a 106-page decision released Tuesday, a New York federal appeals court said the banks must comply with the congressional subpoenas but introduced a caveat given the volume of documents requested.

The judges said the president could oppose the disclosure of certain documents that contain sensitive personal information that is not related to the ongoing investigations.

They added that the exceptions should be limited, however.

“The committees’ interests in pursuing their constitutional legislative function is a far more significant public interest than whatever public interest inheres in avoiding the risk of a chief executive’s distraction arising from disclosure of documents reflecting his private financial transactions,” they wrote.

Trump is expected to challenge the ruling.

Last month, he said he would publish information about his finances before next year’s presidential election without specifying which documents he would release.

Trump broke with a presidential norm during the 2016 contest by refusing to release his tax returns as most presidents have done since the 1970s even though it is not required by law.

He claims that his tax returns are under audit by the Internal Revenue Service.

Open chat


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Was the Sun on Washington’s Chair Rising or Setting? A Reconsideration in 2018

Serena Zabin
The Rising Sun Armchair, made by John Folwell in 1779. Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA. Picture courtesy of ushistory.org

The Rising Sun Armchair, made by John Folwell in 1779. Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA. Picture courtesy of ushistory.org

During the months of writing and revising my conclusion to the joint issue, I described it to friends as a cri de coeur. Oh, the outmoded Electoral College! The retrograde ideas about women! The racial (white) vision of America! Hadn’t we gotten past all this yet? Most of all, how could the United States have elected a man who apparently had no idea how our government worked? Don’t worry, said the pundits, our Constitution will ensure that the United States can survive even a person with no knowledge or respect for the document.

When I got ready to teach, however, and looked through my notes on the Revolution, I had to laugh at such confidence in the Constitution. How (in the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison’s famous description) could the “covenant with death” save the republic? Didn’t the document’s concessions to proslavery advocates from Georgia and South Carolina show precisely what would happen when we decided that the Constitution was the bulwark against chaos?

I know why so many of us emphasize the dark history of the Revolution in our classrooms: because to suggest optimism in the American project is often to deny the exclusions, the violence, and the pain of the past. The goal of this dark history is to acknowledge the horrors of the past for those whose pain is in the present. And yet I could not bring myself to teach that there is nothing worth saving from the founding period. After all, if the nation is built on such a rotten foundation, why not just let it fall to pieces? Why are many so distressed at the idea that the nation might not survive?

But if being a historian had brought me to this moment of existential angst, I wondered if thinking like a historian could help us rise from the slough of despond. Those of us who work on the founding era are particularly aware that there is no direct link from the past to the present. History does not run in a straight line, neither in Whiggish ascension or nostalgic declension. In fact, I sometimes tell my students that time does not even always run in one direction. What may look like causation may actually be a false causality; links from the past to the present may not exist, or at the very least they rarely exist in the ways we imagine.  Do we reinterpret history as we look backwards, or in fact, do we create it anew?

Howard Chandler Christy, Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States (1940). Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Howard Chandler Christy, Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States (1940). Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Once I start channeling Hayden White and going all postmodern, my students roll their eyes. They remind me that they came to history because they love stories, and because they are interested in people. And they are right to remind me that in the end it is people who animate our vision of the past. For it is in reflecting on these people that we find the humility that we need to continue to try to make changes in our present.

All of us who study the late eighteenth century know that there was no clear “right side” of the American Revolution. The revolutionaries’ language of liberty and equality was deeply moving for people throughout the Atlantic world, both then and for centuries to come. At the same time, some aspects of the American Revolution were truly counterrevolutionary. Should we always say today that we know precisely how to categorize every action? The small choices that people made were seldom weighted with the significance that we now accord them. Like those in the past, we cannot always tell what impact, if any, our decisions will have. But the everyday actions of all of us—writers and readers alike—do help shape the world. Such is the nature of unintended consequences.

I was struck by many of the ideas in those wonderful articles. But most of all, as I read the newspaper, I held on to Andrew Shankman’s account of “affective” relationships with the parts of government that people experience face to face; I held on to Jessica Roney’s story of settlers who managed an end run around the Constitution; and I held on to Eliga Gould’s reminder that the Constitution did work far beyond organizing a national government. Taken together, these three insights break down the seemingly monolithic and formidable governmental structures in which we now live. To a few of my students, the “deep state” does seem to control the government. To others, the presence of corporate cash in the election process makes it hard to believe that they as individuals have much political impact at all. But these articles help us remember that we can forge relationships with that congressional staffer whom we call weekly; that for both good and bad, the powers of the Constitution are only as robust as we make them; and that the idea of a collective nation—even one that is so conflicted about the place of heterogeneity and inclusion—can still contribute some good to the world.

At the end of my essay, I wrote, “The struggle continues; a truly inclusive democratic republic has never, except in rhetoric, been a part of the American story. Its seeming impossibility may be mirrored by the impossibility of writing a fully inclusive history, one that populates the past with vulnerable, complicated, and contradictory people. But for the sake of the people in both the past and the present, we must try.” This is the history I teach.

28 February 2018

About the Author

Serena Zabin is Professor of History and Director of American Studies at Carleton College.

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  1. Jane Mackintosh
    Jane Mackintosh says:

    I have always been drawn to history not because I love stories and am interested in people, but because history explains how the world works. This is both in the literal, prosaic sense — which includes both how the “things” of the world work (how everyday objects and complex gadgets have been used, evolved, endured, and enabled); and how societies work (what different kinds of laws (formal and informal) have tried to regulate human behavior on both the small and large scale) — and in that other sense which I categorize as the “action” sense. And it’s the action sense which begins with the wide range of individual (youthful and adult) experiences and circumstances (wide, but not so wide that they can’t be understood) and ends with adult desires and quandries, human motivations, problem solving, and actions both large and small. History is human behavior and interactions; plus interaction with material things. (Individual motivation is key; access to “tools” of all kinds (every object being a tool of some sort) is the enabler.) The study of it all is righteous and fruitful.

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9 Things Moms Should 'Never' Wear or Even Try

Lauren Gordon | May 31, 2017 Beauty & Style
9 Things Moms Should 'Never' Wear or Even Try

allison kimmey with daughter

Once a woman becomes a mother, that is **clearly** her sole purpose in life. Forget the 30+ years she spent as a runner, a painter, a friend -- or whatever silly titles she may have had before. They are irrelevant now. And since one is a mother and a mother only, there are some rules she'd better follow. To fit her new role, she needs to look the part -- and by that, we definitely mean society's strict version of what a mother looks like.

More from CafeMom: 31 Meaningful Tattoos Parents Got to Honor Their Kids

We all know what when a woman has children she can no longer have long hair, she must only wear turtlenecks, and she has to really boost up her budget for good, full-sleeved tops. And forget trying to be sexy. We all know that mothers can only be dowdy or matronly. **No one** wants to see a sexy mom ... (Can anybody tell that our eyes are rolling HARD over here?)

More from CafeMom:

The truth is, there are NO rules for what women should or should not wear, and that is also true of moms after baby comes. There is no reason why a woman can't dress however she wants once baby arrives. Here are a few totally not sarcastic* fashion no-nos that every respectable mother should avoid ...

*Clearly, this means we're being sarcastic.

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Curry Zuppa di zucca con crostini di Apple e del Pacifico Foods Prodotti recensione

One of my favorite things about the colder seasons is making and eating lots of soup. Nulla si riscalda meglio, dentro e fuori, che tiene una ciotola fumante in mano e spooning deliziosa, Minestra salato in bocca. E 'caldo, accogliente e confortevole.

Con Ringraziamento in arrivo, my cooking turns to all things pumpkin. Pumpkin pasta, pumpkin tofu scrambles, pumpkin baking and so of course, pumpkin soup. While I suppose I could take the time to roast my own pumpkins for my recipes, right now they are busy making my table look all harvest-y autumn-y.

That’s why canned pumpkin is such a lifesaver. And a huge time saver. I’m sure we all have a stack of canned pumpkin just waiting for us to create seasonal noms. But this year, my pumpkin came in a container rather than a can.

Pacifico Foods makes the most incredible Organic Pumpkin Puree that comes in a 16-oz. (1-lb) contenitore. It’s smooth, rich and full of flavor.

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Since I was making my pumpkin soup with Pacific Foods Organic Pumpkin Puree, it only seemed right to use Pacific Foods Organic Low-Sodium Vegetable Broth.

Pacifico Foods makes very flavorful broth full of savory vegetables like leeks, cipolle, aglio, carote, celery and tomatoes. They also make Simply Stock – an unsalted organic vegetable stock that has all those vegetables plus mushrooms that get simmered for hours. Yum!

Trudy approved!

Pacific Foods has lots of delicious products that can help with your holiday cooking from broths and soup starters to gravies and cranberry sauces and they make my favorite Organic Hemp Milk.

So with my pumpkin puree and vegetable broth in hand, I started out to make my pumpkin soup. I wanted it to be spicy so I added some curry powder, cinnamon and ginger for some heat. Then I added apple sauce to balance it out.

To make it creamy, I added some milk but not just any milk. I added So Delicious Dairy-Free Pumpkin Spice Coconut Milk. Why not add another layer of pumpkin flavor if you can? Onestamente, I could add So Delicious Pumpkin Spice Coconut Milk to everything.

To top off the soup and to continue the apple flavor from the apple sauce, I roasted apple chunks with some brown sugar to make apple croutons. The sweet apple croutons add a pretty and flavorful balance to the spicy soup.

My Curried Pumpkin Soup with Apple Croutons makes a perfect dish for your holiday menu. Pacific Foods helps make that happen. Check out all their great products and enjoy!

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Curry Pumpkin Soup con Apple crostini

For the soup:---------------

1 Tbs. olio vegetale

1 cipolla media, tagliato a dadini

4 spicchi d'aglio, tritato

1 Tbs. curry in polvere

1 cucchiaino. ground ginger

1 cucchiaino. cannella in polvere

1-16 oz. contenitore Pacific Organic Pumpkin Puree

1 salsa di mele tazza zuccherato

4-6 coppe Pacific Organic Low-Sodium Vegetable Broth

½ cucchiaino. sale kosher

¼ cucchiaino. pepe nero

1 tazza Così Delicious Pumpkin Spice Latte di Cocco

For the apple croutons:

2 grandi mele, sbarramento

¼ tazza di zucchero di canna

To make the apple croutons: Preriscaldare il forno a 300 gradi. Foderare una teglia con carta da forno. Cut the apples into bite-sized pieces. Spread the brown sugar on a plate. Roll the apple bites in the brown sugar until they are coated.

Spread the coated apple bites onto the baking sheet in a single layer. Cuocere per circa 20 minutes until the apples are golden brown. Don’t let them get too soft. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack. Set aside or keep refrigerated until ready to use.

To make the soup: Heat the oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Add the onions and cook for 4 minuti, until they are translucent. Add the garlic and the spices. Mescolare per combinare. Add the pumpkin puree and the apple sauce. Mescolare per combinare. Lasciate cuocere per 3 minuti.

Aggiungere il brodo alla pentola, along with the salt and pepper. Let the soup come to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 30 minuti. Transfer the soup in batches to a blender or use an immersion blender to blend the soup until it is silky smooth. Return to the pot.

Add the milk to the soup. Mescolare per combinare. Heat the soup until it is warm. Gusto per la stagionatura. Serve in bowls topped with apple croutons.

Gli “V” Parola: Ditelo. Mangia. Live it.

(Visitato 749 volte, 1 Visite oggi)

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

4 Le risposte alla Curry Zuppa di zucca con crostini di Apple e del Pacifico Foods Prodotti recensione

  1. Robin Kish-miller Dicembre 8, 2016 a 2:44 pm #

  2. Michellini Ottobre 29, 2013 a 4:42 pm #

    Adoro questo

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Warning – This post has footnotes!

I read the book of Malachi again this week and was so blessed by it that I wanted to provide a theological overview of the whole book (from my perspective) that I hope will encourage you. You may want to read the whole book of Malachi yourself first, and then work through it again with this post in front of you. Enjoy!

A law was passed on 2 May 1648 making denying the Trinity, or doubting that the books of Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah or Malachi in the Old Testament were the word of God, punishable by death.[1]

Apparently it was important for people living in England in 1648 to believe, among other things, that the book of Malachi was truly God’s word. Indeed, it seems their lives may have actually depended on it! It is not clear whether or not this archaic British law was ever repealed or nullified, but it is certain that the British are not enforcing it today, and it is clear that most British citizens living today have no idea that it was ever a law. It is not hard to imagine a present-day Briton discovering this law, and asking –

Is this still relevant to us?
Is it still in force?
Has the law ever changed, and does it even apply to us today?

This is an interesting parallel with the book of Malachi itself, and especially with the people living during the time when Malachi was written. The book of Malachi serves to answer questions such as, “Is this still relevant?” and “Is this still applicable to us today?” I believe God Himself answers His people in Malachi 3:6a by saying, “For I the Lord do not change.”

This (rather long but hopefully helpful) post attempts to identify the message of Malachi by looking closely at the book along three lines:

(a) A brief survey of the context and historical background of the book,
 A brief survey of several core theological themes of the book, and
(c) A brief discussion of the central issue of the book which I believe is the question of the continuity of God’s covenant with Israel – or more simply –

“Is God still our God, and are we still his people? Is his covenant and law still in force after all this time and after so much change?”

The Historical Context & Background of Malachi

The final book in the Old Testament in the Protestant canon is addressed to Israel (cf. Mal. 1:1b). In 538 b.c., after their exile and Babylonian captivity, a remnant of the Jewish nation, led by Zerubbabel the governor, returned to Israel. Together, they were able to restore the walls of the city, and complete the rebuilding of the temple by 515 b.c. With a restored Temple, the center and symbol of their devotion to Yahweh, the Jews purposed to avoid the sinful ways of previous generations, and serve the Lord in faithfulness. But over the course of the next century, as seen in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, that commitment was short-lived. Devotion to the Law of Moses weakened, and some of the men took wives among non-Jews. Nehemiah returned to Judah as governor in 445 b.c., and immediately discovered that the people were not keeping the Sabbath, and that tithes and offerings were being withheld (Neh. 10:30–31, 37–39). Corruption had infiltrated even the ranks of the priesthood (Neh. 13:7, 28–30).

The name “Malachi” (Heb. mal˒ākɩ̂) means “my messenger” (see 3:1). Some scholars interpret this as a title rather than a proper name. In keeping with the pattern wherein all the other prophetic books are named after a particular individual, I embrace the assumption that Malachi was the author’s name.

Malachi is, among other things, a book of questions and answers. I’ll use the questions to outline the entire book:

Six Questions

  1. A question about God’s love (1:2–5)
  2. A question about God’s honor (1:6–2:9)
  3. A question about faithlessness (2:10–16)
  4. A question about God’s justice (2:17–3:6)7
  5. A question about repentance (3:7–12)
  6. A question about speaking against God (3:13–4:3)

A basic form-critical analysis of Malachi’s structure reveals typical and stable components in line with most all Old Testament prophecy. Walter Bruegeemann has written about this:

“While the prophets, in their various ways of inventiveness, spoke in what we regard as many different genres, three genres most typify prophetic utterance in mediating Yahweh as sovereign and faithful. [2]

Brueggeman’s insights into the basic structures of Old Testament prophecies are helpful here. He concludes that they typically include: Lawsuit Speech in which the oracles are “addressed against the leadership for its exploitative practices of injustice and for its complacent attitude toward Yahweh, who is assumed to be indulgent toward Jerusalem.” [3] Secondly, they include Appeals for Repentance.

Primary Theological Idea: God’s Love for Israel

Romans 9:13 contains (and has made famous) a direct quotation from the Book of Malachi:

“I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated” (cf. Mal.1:2–3).

The framework for Paul’s use of this text is election. In this light, the reference to God’s “love” for Jacob is a way of expressing his choice of Israel (Jacob) rather than Esau to be his special missionary people through which he would bring blessing to all of the (shall we say) non-elect nations of the world. Esau, Jacob’s brother, was the patriarch of the Edomites. The Old Testament pictures Edom as a nation that became an object of God’s wrath (cf. Mal. 1:3–4). In Obadiah’s prophecy, the Edomites did not assist their “brother” Israel, but instead, rejoiced when they fell (cf. Obad. 10–12). At Mount Sinai Israel is spoken of as God’s “treasured possession” (cf. Exod. 19:5). This term is used by Malachi in 3:17. In spite of the fact that many Jews were questioning God’s love for Israel (1:2), the Lord affirmed his enduring love, and swore that those who feared him would indeed be his special people. God would never forget his covenant with Abraham. He would not abandon his people (cf. Mal. 3:6). As God promised in the Abrahamic covenant, there would come a day when all the nations would call Israel blessed (Mal. 3:12).

Primary Theological Concern: The Character of God

In spite of Israel’s unfaithfulness, the greatness of Yahweh was evident to the nations during the writing of Malachi. Edom, Assyrian, and Babylon had all learned (the hard way) that Israel’s God was superior to their false deities (cf. Mal. 1:5). In Malachi, Yahweh is “a great king” whose name was “to be feared among the nations” (cf. Mal. 1:14). Malachi predicts that in the end, God will receive the offerings and the praise that belong to him. There are allusions and forward glances to the time when the Gentiles will be embraced and included in the company of God’s people (cf. Mal. 1:11). It should not escape our notice that even though Israel failed in her vocation be the people who show the world what God is like, many Gentiles became believers in him (cf. Rom. 9:26–33). Israel was fickle, but Yahweh said, “I, the Lord, do not change” (cf. Mal. 3:6). God’s love for Israel was unfailing, though Israel’s commitment to God was broken and weakened time and time again. Nevertheless, Yahweh is a holy God. He required obedience from His people. If Israel sinned, but then refused to repent, God would remain true to his own character, and Israel would be judged (cf. Mal. 4:6). This, too, is related to Malachi’s concern for the character of God. God is love. God is faithful. God is holy. God is merciful. God is judge.

The themes of God’s love and justice are pervasive in the Old Testament Scriptures. But interestingly, in this final prophecy in the Old Testament Israel questions God’s both of these attributes of God (cf. Mal. 1:2 & 2:17). It may be that the Jews were struggling with a relative sense of insignificance in comparison to the Persian Empire, or with impatience as they contemplated the delay of the messianic age that they had heard so much about. In Malachi 3:13–15 there is an unmistakable sense of frustration about the prosperity of the wicked. But even in the face of all this, God assures them that the wicked will be punished, and the people of God will be preserved and see days of blessing and rejoicing (cf. Mal. 4:1–3).

Primary Theological Quandary: The Sinfulness of the Priests and the People

In spite of the fact that Israel had rebuilt their temple, they failed in their vocation to reflect God’s holiness. According to Malachi 1:6–14, the priests showed contempt for the sacrificial system by offering crippled and diseased animals. Their poor example made a mockery out of worship. As a result Lord had them to close the temple operations and put an end to their hypocrisy. Previous generations had to learn the same painful lesson: Religious activity without a heart committed to the Lord is useless (see Isa. 1:11–17).

Following the poor example of the priests, the people fell into oppression and immorality, and divorce became pervasive. Israel’s practice of intermarrying with neighboring Gentiles and pagans had already been condemned by Ezra and Nehemiah. Men were dissolving their marriage covenants and marring women from among the pagans. This proved to be recurrent gateway into idolatry (cf. Mal. 2:11–14). In response to this, the Lord said, “I hate divorce.” The disintegration of the family would denigrate their society, and would make it nearly impossible for them to teach spiritual values to their children (cf. Mal. 2:16).

Central Theological Promise: The Rewards of Faith and Fearing the Lord

There are six exhortations in Malachi urging God’s people to fear (revere, respect) the Lord, and to serve him wholeheartedly (cf. Mal. 1:6, 14; 2:5; 3:5, 16; 4:2). Failing to heed these calls would bring both priest and people under a curse (cf. Mal. 2:2; 3:9), including the possibility of total destruction through the “ban” to which the Canaanites and Edomites were subjected (4:6; see Josh. 6:17; Isa. 34:5).

On the other hand, those who truly feared the Lord would have their names recorded in a “scroll of remembrance” and would be rewarded (cf. Mal. 3:16). A central means of showing devotion to the Lord was to bring tithes and offerings into the Temple storehouse. Rather than “robbing” God, the people were exhorted to bring their gifts to the Levites. In response to their obedience, the Lord promised to “throw open the floodgates of heaven” and provide such bountiful crops that they would “not have room enough for it” (cf. Mal. 3:9–10).

Two Eschatological Identities: The Messenger of the Lord and the Messiah

The Coming Messenger: In three texts in the New Testament John the Baptist is identified as the messenger “who will prepare the way” before Jesus (cf. Matt. 11:10; Mark 1:2; Luke 7:27; and cf. these with Mal. 3:1). Luke also connected Malachi 4:5–6 with John the Baptist, noting that John ministered “in the spirit and power of Elijah” and called the nation of Israel to repentance (Luke 1:17).

The Coming Messiah. A second “messenger” is mentioned in 3:1. In this case, it is “the messenger of the covenant,” who is also identified with “the Lord you are seeking.” For Christians, the primary emphasis on the Messiah’s restorative (and judging) ministry tends to focus on his second coming. But Christ did cleanse the temple and confront the hypocrisy of the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. An additional messianic seems bound up in the phrase “sun of righteousness” in Mal. 4:2. Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, called Jesus “the rising sun.” He was the one who would bring the light of life to the people living in darkness (cf. Luke 1:78–79).

A Certain Eschatological Event: The Day of the Lord

The idea of the day of the Lord is featured prominently in the Old Testament prophetic books. These envision the time when God would intervene in the affairs of nations both to judge the wicked and rescue the righteous. In Malachi the judgmental aspect is particularly emphasized, in that the day of the Lord is a “dreadful day” in which evildoers will be set on fire (4:1, 5). Much of the judgment connected with the Messiah will take place at Christ’s second coming, but in 3:2–4 it is the priests and Levites who will be refined and purified.

The Central Issue: The Relevance of God’s Covenant with Israel

With all of this theological, historical, and textual material providing a backdrop, I return now to the big idea of this post. Through the prophetic dialogue between God and Israel in the form of several questions (or disputations), answers, and proof, the primary question is the question of covenant. That is, “Is God still our God? Are we still God’s people? Is the covenant still in place after all this time, and after all this change?” Regarding the prominent and central idea of covenant in Malachi’s prophecy, Charles Savelle notes:

“The term covenant occurs seven times in the book. References are made to “my covenant” (2:5), “the covenant with Levi” (2:8), “the covenant of our fathers” (2:10), “the marriage covenant” (2:14), and the “messenger of the covenant” (3:1). The respect and obedience to the stipulations of these covenants is most evident in the six disputations that make up the bulk of the book.”[4]

But the Covenant God will require covenant faithfulness from his people. Thus, the purpose of Malachi’s prophecy seems to include four important ideas related to the covenant question:

  1. To affirm to Israel that Yahweh loves them, and that his covenant with them is still intact.
  2. Since the covenant is still intact, Israel must be called to account for their violations of their relationship to God.
  3. Following this calling to account, Israel is exhorted to re-engage in faithfulness and devotion to Yahweh, and to honor their own participation in the covenant.
  4. Repentance and obedience will be required if Israel is to be prepared for the coming of the divine messenger.

Regarding this bridge between God’s past covenantal pledges, and his future promises to Israel (and Malachi’s role in reminding them of both), Eugene Merrill has written:

“As the last of Israel’s kerygmatic heralds, Malachi reached back to the beginning of her covenant election and forward to the promise of covenant fulfillment, bridging the two with his urgent insistence that the theocratic people be worthy of their calling, for the King of all the earth was at hand.”[5]

So what?

So, what is the point of Malachi?

It is to answer the BIG covenantal questions on the minds of the people in Malachi’s day… “Is God still our God? Are we still his people? Is his program for us still on track? Does his law still apply to us? Should we still be living as God originally called Israel to live, or have things changed? God’s answer in the prophecy is… “You are still my people. I still love you. We are still in covenant. I am keeping my end of the covenant. Now keep yours. Be my people in this generation and you will see my promises for you fulfilled.”

Or put more simply —

I am the Lord. I do not change.

[1] Nigel Cawthorne. The Strange Laws of Old England, (London, England: Piakus, 2013), 63.

[2] Brueggemann, W. (2005). Theology of the Old Testament: testimony, dispute, advocacy. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, p. 635.

[3] Ibid, 636.

[4] Savelle, Charles (2006). The Book of Malachi. Greenville, TX: CenterPoint Publications, p. 1.

[5] Eugene H. Merrill, An Exegetical Commentary; Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi (Chicago: Moody Press,1994), 385.


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Disclaimer: Mike Turrigiano is one of my favorite people in the Vineyard movement! Luke Geraty (his co-author) is a friend and kinda my boss here at Think Theology. What follows is my attempt to, none-the-less, provide an impartial, unbiased review of Pastor Mike’s new book – I’m No Superman: Holy Spirit Ministry for the Rest of Us.

One of the things I love about Mike Turrigiano is that he is one of the most down to earth guys you’ll ever meet in your life. For starters, this book is an easy read at just over a hundred pages. Mike writes just like he talks, so the work has a very conversational tone (plus he’s a great storyteller). I could literally hear his voice as I was reading through the text. This is not the typical 1000-page heavy duty tome that you would expect to read about on a site called Think Theology. This is more like where Kingdom Theology rubber meets road of real life praxis – “Theology from the Trenches” if you will.

Pastor Mike Turrigiano speaking on his new book, I’m No Superman: Holy Spirit Ministry for the Rest of Us

I was literally hooked from the very start with this Dedication:

To all those many followers of Jesus who dream of being used by God to
help advance his kingdom but disqualify themselves because they consider themselves too unqualified and ordinary. This book is for you…

I’m No Superman (Dedication)

That’s me. I’m in! I’ve spent my entire life serving in lay ministry – what far too many of us view as second class in our so often Pastor venerating church culture. Turrigiano believes that there are no “spiritual superstars or celebrities” (or at least there shouldn’t be). He believes that the practice of Holy Spirit led ministry is for everyone, “regular everyday believers” (p.1). Without specifically using the term, Mike calls us back to the Priesthood of all Believers – something that should be second nature to us as Protestants, but so few of us actually believe in our practice!

He begins with his own Christian journey which began in Pentecostalism. While he appreciates his roots, he:

“soon grew uncomfortable with what seemed to be showy, strange, and, at times, manipulative behavior. I loved Jesus and the people in the church, but I didn’t like the package.”

I’m No Superman, p. 6

It was only after this that he began to embrace a different approach to Holy Spirit ministry that he refers to as “naturally supernatural” – “no hype… relaxed, comfortable, real.” [This is fleshed out more in chapter 9].

“I learned that I didn’t have to put on some spiritual persona, change the tone of my voice when I prayed, or get dramatic or frenzied in
order for the Spirit to move. The most significant and liberating discovery was that I could just be myself”

I’m No Superman, p. 6-7

In chapter 4, he deals with the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, again departing from the traditional Pentecostal understanding which ties it directly to glossolalia (i.e. speaking in tongues) as a one-for-one correspondence. I won’t say more than that here. Just get the book and read it for yourself!

Turrigiano deals with charismatic excesses & how to avoid them, and spiritual gifts (Hint: “your” gifts aren’t gifts for you, they’re for others) in chapters 5 and 6. Another thing I like about Mike’s writing is that he isn’t afraid to say when he’s just not entirely sure on a subject (p. 27). Not only does that show humility, but its just plain good hermeneutics – when scripture is not entirely clear on a subject or topic, we should not be dogmatic or pretend that it is clear. Pastor Mike also takes a pretty clear stand in the book that there is to be “no spiritual elitism” in the body of Christ (p. 28)! Nor is he afraid to embrace mystery (p.35) – something I think our typically overly intellectualized brand of Evangelical Christianity could benefit by embracing more of.

Being against spiritual elitism falls right in line with the assumption that ‘Everybody gets to Play.’ So Turrigiano wants people to think and do Holy Spirit ministry in the “marketplace” of their everyday life (as much or more than in the gathered church setting). So you’ll find plenty here about ‘seeing what the Father is doing and joining in’ (p. 39f.)

Chapter 8 hit home for me. Because it’s about control! Not only have I found the issue of control to be a struggle in my own life, but I have come to believe that it is the root of a lot of unhealthy relationships, patterns and dysfunction. Relinquishing control to the Spirit (the same way Jesus did) is the answer to so much that is dehumanizing and destructive.

Slowing down and listening are also keys to Holy Spirit ministry (p. 62f.), but these ideas won’t go over well in a “McChurch” environment. Earlier in the book, Turrigiano connects the idea of the contemplative life with the Charismatic (p. 3) – an idea that he (and I would guess most of us) have previously thought of as polar opposites. Our time spent with God, resting quietly in His presence, and learning to listen for His voice, equips us to be ready when Kingdom ministry opportunities come along just when we least expect them!

No Vineyard book on Holy Spirit ministry would be complete without a discussion of the 5-step Prayer Model. You’ll find it here in chapter 12. Mike ties it back to John Wimber’s understanding of Jesus’ own “watch, listen, ask and obey approach” (p. 69).

Vineyard?!? But what about that whole ‘barking in the Spirit’ thing? I’m glad you asked! When the Spirit comes in power, weird stuff does happen. But how can you attribute all that crazy stuff to the Holy Spirit? Well, for Turrigiano, he sees these things (shaking, falling, etc.) less as manifestations of the Holy Spirit and more as simply how people react to the power encounter that takes place during the clash of the kingdoms when the Kingdom of God encounters the kingdom of darkness. People’s reactions differ. I can tell you from my own personal experience that when I have experienced the power of the Spirit’s presence, I was filled with an incredible peace that I can’t quite express, as well as an awareness of the “hugeness” of God’s love that, again, I just don’t exactly have words for. But yeah, I was one of those that “you couldn’t tell by the looks of it” (p. 82) that I was having a profound experience with God. But don’t take my word for it. Read Mike’s full treatment of the whole “Shake Rattle & Roll” question in chapter 14 of the book.

Toward the end of the book, my good friend Luke Geraty gives a theological treatment of the Spirit’s work in chapter 15. Perhaps surprisingly for some, Geraty brings in ideas from traditionally “non-charismatic” theologians and movements to expand our understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit both in the church and beyond. It’s worth the read!

Always the Pastor, Turrigiano returns to close out the book with a real life illustration of how this all really works out in practice with “Rachel’s Story” (chapter 16). It’s fairly detailed and definitely moving! One final thing about the book that I haven’t mentioned yet is that there are great discussion questions at the end of each chapter. So I’m No Superman not only stands on its own as a great book, but could easily be used as a small group curriculum where you could literally put into practice the principles of Holy Spirit ministry that you just learned about right there in your own bible study, home group, house church, or missional community!

In short, I strongly encourage the reading of Mike Turrigiano’s I’m No Superman. But more importantly I exhort you all to put into practice the principles of Holy Spirit Ministry for the Rest of Us! Who knows? You just might change the world.

Read the book and be sure to share your own insights in the comments below.


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Purity Ring, Shrines

Despite the almost-wall-of-sound they produce, Purity Ring are a Canadian boy/girl musical duo. It’s not the Canadian thing that’s notable; it’s that this much music can be delivered by just two people.

Purity Ring perform a distinctive blend of vocal-based electro-synth, that paints blissed-out soundscapes that are, frankly, difficult to categorise.

Some arty-farty critics have coined the phrase ‘post dubstep’ to describe Purity ring’s unique sounds. But that’s a cop-out.

What you want, though, is an answer to the question ‘Are Purity Ring any good?’

Well yes, of course they are.

The thing is, though, Shrines – Purity Ring’s debut album – is not really an album-worth of listening, and here’s what I mean.

I caught Purity Ring on the Chevrolet Sound Stage at this year’s South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas. Purity Ring topped the bill – and all eight bands on the bill, with one notable flat spot – delivered five solid hours of live sounds. Live sounds that were one massive orgasmothrong of music.

When my copy of Shrines recently arrived I jumped on it like an excited schoolboy would jump on the latest fanzine. With sweaty palms I unwrapped the cellophane and carefully slotted the CD in to the drive bay of my laptop. I hit ‘import’. Then I hit ‘play’.

The first track, Crawlersout, awoke memories of Austin. I wanted more. Much more. The second track, the fantastically beautiful, Fineshrine had me jumping up and down, in the kitchen, the way I jumped up and down in the Sound Stage.

With my pulse racing I hungered for the third track. And here’s the unexpected thing. When I started to listen to it I began to feel, well, disappointed.

What? How?

Megan’s voice sounded as sweetly beautiful as it always has. The instrumentals sounded as freakily funky (in a high-tech way) as they always had. And yet something was missing.

I abandoned Ungirthed and flipped forward to Amenamy. And began to feel another tinge of disappointment.

And then I realised what was missing.

In Austin, Purity Ring were the top of the bill in a packed-out venue. They played to an over-full house. The realisation dawned on me that it had been the feedback from the crowd that helped to make that Purity Ring gig so awesome.

Simply put, the crowd reacted in such a strong way to the evocative other-worldliness of Purity Ring’s instrumental/vocal combination and oddly peculiar sounds; it was the crowd that made Purity Ring’s sound whole.

The live atmosphere added an extra dimension to Purity Ring’s performance, an extra dimension that Purity Ring can’t reproduce in the studio.

Shrines has a couple of stunning tracks on it; the breathtaking Fineshrine and the melodically haunting Obedear. But the album is not Purity Ring. It’s a part of Purity Ring.

If you want something better than Shrines, You need to see Purity Ring live.

And then buy Shrines.

That’s the way to do it.

Shrines by Purity Ring, exam result: B-

Purity Ring – Fineshrine by Last Gang Entertainment

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NVIDIA Ansel experiments with CTF-PaleoPark

NVIDIA has a plugin for UE4, called Ansel. Ansel is an automated way to capture screenshots in game – including 360 panoramas, and 360 stereo panoramas. Ansel has been intergrated into a couple of games already, but the UE4 plugin makes it easy to integrate it into your project.

Simply enter Ansel mode and capture a 360 picture. The result looks something like this:

A 4k picture, with 2 360 panoramic images.

This is a stereo panorama, the scene has depth when viewed in VR. (Hint: Click the “fullscreen” icon in the bottom right!)

The Ansel plugin is not integrated in the new Unreal Tournament. I ported my PaleoPark map over to a separate project and installed the plugin. Here are some results:

NVIDIA Ansel experiments with CTF-PaleoPark

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Letting my mind go with music…

I have a long and wonderful history with music. It really started while I was growing up listening to whatever my dad was playing on his HiFi. The “whatever” portion is important, as my father listens to a huge variety of music. I won’t go so far as to call him a fan of everything, but he is the ultimate musical experimenter. He’d read HiFi magazines with reviews of newly released music, compiling a list that then results in a shopping trip. I am too young to remember my Dad buying vinyl, but the CD shopping trips are the stuff of legend for me. My father owned a retail pharmacy and Mom worked with him in the business. The hours were long, leaving only Sundays for any real family time. So, once in a while, my Dad would get all four of us (me, my sister, Mom and him) in his gloriously metallic blue Jaguar XJ6 and drive to his favourite CD shop in Rosebank. We’d spend the morning, browsing for new music, tracking down stuff from his lists and ultimately end up going home with a ton of CD’s. The next few weeks would then be spent listening to all the new stuff. The genres included pop, classical, rock, female vocals etc. As I grew up, we’d spend hours discussing music and all other matters, with music on the HiFi. As I grew older, I’d also get to taste the red wine my Dad loved (resulting in my huge love for red wine today), all in front of the HiFi. This set the scene for my ongoing love affair with music, wine, electronics and cars. My dad is also a firm believer in owning a “proper” HiFi. He selected an amplifier, CD player, record player and speakers after endless reviews and auditions. The result is a system that sounds bloody brilliant, to this day.

I grew up playing piano and classical guitar as instruments. I sang in a regional youth choir, resulting in my first trip overseas when I was 17. Music and its associated equipment and activities shaped my life in a big way. When in love, I’d spend hours on the thick carpet in the HiFi room, on my back, Sennheiser headphones on while listening to soppy love songs. In times of turmoil, Nirvana would be in the CD tray. To this day, my mood can be expressed or set by music. While a man of mediocre playing and vocal talent, my love for music never faded. As I sit here, I am in front of my own HiFi, listening to a variety of classical music on the Deutsche Grammophon label, all conducted by Herbert von Karajan. My dual 10″ Tannoy’s are singing, driven by a bi-amped and bi-wired setup.

Today my love for music is as strong as ever. My instrument playing is limited to the occasional tickle of my Stratocaster guitar, and I rarely sing these days. But listening to music while thinking, writing, reading etc consumes vast amounts of my time. The way my brain can make all sorts of weird and wonderful connections, stimulated by music, is amazing. I use this to stimulate the creative side of my day job. Music transports me to a place where my mind roams freely, unencumbered by the constraints of daily life, accessing the deep regions where weird and wonderful things happen.

The way I access music has certainly changed too. With a background in electronic/computer systems engineering, I love the electronics as much as the music reproduced with them. My vinyl collection has grown at a steady pace, especially after I took over my dad’s turntable and vinyl collection. The NAD 533 turntable (an OEM version of the famous Rega Planar 2) was serviced, fitted with a new motor, cartridge and properly set-up on a heavy plinth. A Rega Phono stage connects the turntable to the rest of my HiFi. Because of the ease of access with digital music, I bought a dedicated headphone amplifier with built in Digital to Analogue converter, driven through a vintage vacuum tube (to soften the hard digital edge a bit). This is used at my desk, powering a variety of Sennheiser, Grado and JBL headphones (selected based on what I am listening too). Spotify, iTunes, Linn Records and HDTracks.com are all places where I buy my digital, high-resolution music. Finally, bringing the music to lif at home, is a set of Tannoy Saturn S10 Dual Concentric speakers. Their ability to reach low and deep is amazing. You need that ability when you listen to Tomaso Albinoni’s Adagio for Organ and Strings in G minor, else the bottom registers of the organ simply disappear.

Today I lament the state of live music in South Africa. It seems to me that the days of being able to go and listen to a full scale, live symphony orchestra are gone. I cannot even remember the last time that I saw a symphonic orchestra live, playing pieces by Dvorak, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Beethoven and Mozart. Luckily I have vivid memories of doing that with my parents. I’ll never forget my first time, hearing the full orchestra in full cry, experiencing the full stereophonic effect with the strings and percussion bringing the music to life.

My own musical journey has brought me closer to certain types of music. As I started listening to older, classic rock bands, I moved closer and closer to Blues. As I moved closer to Blues, I started discovering Jazz (still not a favourite) and other genres. Today I firmly believe that the best stuff is not what plays to mainstream audiences via mainstream media. There is a world of music far removed from the mainstream, where true art lives and thrives. But to experience this world you need an open mind, the drive to discover and the ability to open yourself completely to new experiences. Do that and a wonderful journey of musical discovery awaits!

Thank you dad, for introducing me to this amazing world.

A 5 minute excersize

The time has come for me to admit to a seriously receding hairline. While the loss of my hair is regrettable, the time saved on quick haircuts is useful. I am not quite at the point where I can place a call on hold and get a quick haircut, but I did reduce from a 7 minute task to a 5 minute task. Words like “short” and “style” have lost all haircut meaning for me. I now primarily worry about my hair being “neat”. How things have changed…If you have a lovely head full of hair, get yourself styled properly, because age will take that simple pleasure from you… On the flip side I now have more time on hand to enjoy other things. Such as the new limited edition Jack White – Lazaretto album that arrived as part of my Third Man Records Vault #20 package.

Who needs hair when your record player can spin awesome tunes?


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Michelle Lard

3335 Bell St, Amarillo, TX, 79106

Hi, I’m Michelle Lard. I’ve been a realtor for 16 years. I have 3 kids, Braden, Kaitlyn, and Jacelyn. My son Braden is 25 years old, lives in Colorado Springs, and is a hard working manager for a chiropractic office. My daughter Kaitlyn is 16, currently attending Randall High School, and plans to attend nursing school. She is in the Randall High School clinical program and has also been accepted into the CNA & EMT program. My daughter Jacelyn is 11 and enjoys animals of all kinds. I love my family and would do anything for them. Through Christ who strengthens me, I have built a family, a home and a real estate business. I have wonderful connections in and outside of the real estate world. I ‘m very experienced and will go above and beyond for my clients. My grandfather and aunt were also in the real estate, so the real estate business is in my blood. I am very passionate about my job, it’s what makes me smile.

Contact the Agent


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Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum

We're racing through history!

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GALE V (1st)
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At 10:39am on December 4, 2010, David D. Williams said…
Of course! You can set it up your self or
send it to me.

 I've got three or four events lined up
 for 2011. Will you be ready to run!

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