Notes

The day after finishing reading the Hobbit with Dan, our 10-year-old, he came home from school with tales of what he’d been doing in maths.

His class had been playing with palindrome numbers. Take a number, reverse it, add the two together and keep going until you’ve got a palindrome.

e.g. 68. 68+86=154. 154+451=605. 605+506=1111.

Most 2-3 digit numbers are palindromes after 2 or 3 steps at most.
Dan chose to work on 98. 24 steps later he found that 8,813,200,023,188 was the palindrome he was after. He was working by hand - no programming!

Good job he didn’t try 196. No-one even knows if that ever gets to palindrome or not! (Probably not!)

Being from North Wales and then living in Merseyside for over 20 years, it’s a little surprising never to have been to Talacre Beach.

We finally got there at the very end of 2011 and it was lovely (if a little cold at this time of year!).

The full set is on Facebook.

Now this is quite cool. These chaps have a range of maps that are free to use.

If you’re into that stuff.

Which I suppose I must be, a little bit, to think this is cool.

So, here I am after finishing my first 3 months as a Pastor at Matheson. I’m loving it.

After so many years of having to provide weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports on all sorts of things (not to mention ad-hoc analysis or even hour-by-hour updates in crises), it’s odd not to have to do so.

That said, it’s still very helpful to take stock and see what’s going on.

1. I’ve enjoyed preaching through the end of Ezekiel and starting a new series in Judges on Sunday mornings.
2. I’ve also enjoyed 1 Thessalonians on Sunday evenings, particularly when we followed up with further discussion in the Monday night Bible studies.
3. Prayer meetings aren’t as well attended as I’d like (as most churches!) but are otherwise encouraging and loving. Prayer will be a big focus in early 2012.
4. Toddlers and Searchers are brilliant, and we need to think about having something in place for the older children too. More to come!
5. The Carol Service is coming up and I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a very special all-age service, and I’ve enjoyed them too!
6. January’s Christianity Explored already has one name on the list, and I’m hoping for a good number more.
7. Studies at the college are going very well indeed and there’s a direct link between some of the material there and my Sunday preaching, which is perfect.
8. I have most of 2012’s regular stuff planned out though there’s much to be done to flesh out detail.
9. The deacons meetings have been very helpful and conducted in a co-operative, forward-looking spirit, and we’ll have a members meeting in the near future too.
10. I’ve visited a number of people in the fellowship, though not as many as I’d have hoped by now. This is something I’ll need to be better at in 2012!

All in all, an encouraging start and one I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.

This was the status of one of my favourite teenagers at the end of August. Soon after, she lost someone very special to her, and it was terribly sad. Yesterday, another teenager lost his life in a car accident near Heswall, a friend of our Matty. The death of the young, all full of life and possibilities, brings home the cruelty of death and a reminder that that’s not how things are supposed to be.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

A few times over the years I’ve been aware of Facebook changing things and it’s surprised me how unhappy it makes people. This time, I’ve become one of those people very unhappy at what’s been done!

I love Google products. When they make a change, there’s usually a link that says “Hey, try the new look - you can always go back.” You try the new look and if you don’t like it you click on “Nah, put it back the way it was.”

Facebook take the view that they know best, and it’s probably this assumption that is more irritating than anything.

The other thing I learned is just how plugged in to Facebook people are - it would be very hard to switch to anything else - even (sadly) Google+.

I’ll just have to keep on hacking around with FB to make it work the way I want…

It’s always lovely to see references to Welsh names, and there are quite a few around Hoylake for some reason.

Spotted this one today.

I wonder if he’s got a website…?

Dear M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6 (of course!), M6 toll, M8, M54, M56, M57, M58, M60, M62, M78 and all the A-roads and slip roads in between - you know who you are!

The time is drawing to a close where I will no longer need you as I have these past 20 years…

We’ve spent many long hours together in sunshine, rain, hail, wind and snow. From the sunflower fields of Lincolnshire to the low hills of the Scottish borders, from the dizziness of spaghetti junction to the way you split around that farmhouse on the M62 - we have seen way too much of each other!

I’m leaving you.

From now on we’ll only meet infrequently, and you’ll have to rely on M53 to hear from me for the most part.

Thanks for always getting me home.

When companies build organisation structures with defined roles, it seems to me that not enough thought goes into the personality of a role - how does it feel to be in that job?

In my area of expertise, great forecasters don’t make great schedulers and vice versa, but they’re often lumped together.

This is a big factor is job satisfaction. My best results in line management have ways come from putting people in roles that suit them personally.

Why do people adopt monotone in speech in business meetings?

People who are otherwise very animated often speak in uncharacteristic monotone, especially when reporting on or explaining complex stuff.

Conversely, in the same meetings, the senior people usually have much more variety in tone.

Ears to hear…