Don’t judge an old book by its cover.

My grandfather, Henry Junior Roemerman, died last year. Books have always been highly valued in my family. So when we started the process of sorting and distributing a lifetime of things, books where high on my fathers list of items to keep.

One book my father took was my grandfather’s 1943 Bluejacket’s Manual.

The bluejacket manual is a book that millions of new recruits, spanning six wars and countless operations, use to get their first glimpse of the Navy.

Inside he found newspaper clipping concerning my grandfather’s days delivering papers

DELIVERS PAPERS BY TRUCK

Junior Roemerman, who delivers the Des Moines Registers in Blakesburg, makes his “rounds” over town in a big truck leaving the papers at the homes and places of business early in the morning. He is quite a hustler and strictly business all the time. He uses Saturday morning as a collection time and everyone who takes his paper always has the change for him.

This strengthens a lesson I have already learned; never toss an old book with out scrolling through the pages at least once. You just might find a treasure, and if you are lucky it might be something tucked in among the pages.

Technorati Tags: Henry Roemerman
Bluejacket’s Manual
Des Moines Register
Blakesburg Iowa

Ohh channel 6, where to start?

I just read a Channel 6 article about the recall of 2 Tulsa city councilors and the controversy over the recall petitions.

This article is based on half-truths, erroneous interpretations of Tulsa’s city charter, and flat out lame excuses.

Their first error is with regard to the clerk’s dereliction of duty. The city charter clearly states the duties required by the city clerk, but Channel 6 does not think so. “The city charter appears to give the city clerk the freedom to not make that effort.” They go on to quote a sentence from the city charter, Article VII, Section 4, "the City Clerk shall, determine whether, the signatures comply with the requirements". As if some how the word “determine” gives the clerk the power to make up any rule he wants in verifying the signatures are valid. No, this is incorrect; this sentence assumes that the determination is made based on section 3, which clearly lays out the rules for recall petition verification.

The city charter is clear.
1. The signatures must be from “qualified electors” who are “residing in the election district involved”
2. The signatures “SHALL correspond with that appearing on the official voter registration books applicable to the city” (emphasis on shall added)
The city clerk only verified that the signers were qualified electors.

I know from working on many campaigns that people in Oklahoma often move outside their district and never re-register to vote. The fact that these some of people may not even live in district 6 or 2 is appalling. And based on the tactics of those pushing the recall I would not be surprised if some of the signatures are forged.
For more on this read the entry by Michael Bates titled What part of "shall" do you not understand?

Next the article suggests that it would be too hard or inconvenient to perform this check, as if it would preclude the clerk from performing his duty.

“The News on 6 found it wouldn't be hard to put the signatures side by side, but matching them is another matter. It would take an expert to determine if one signature exactly matches the other.”

The city charter does not say that the signatures shall correspond with those on the rolls, unless it’s too hard to perform the check, or if there is no expert on hand to determine if one signature exactly matches the other.

And finally my favorite part of this article:

“Even though the city does not have clearly defined standards for verifying signatures, the state does. They are anything but strict. The state doesn't require a written signature or an address. As long as the name on the petition is legible and a voter by that name is registered, the signature is considered valid.”

First, as already indicated, Tulsa does have clearly defined standards to verify signatures. And second, it does not matter what the state law says because The City's charter supersedes the laws of the state in matters of purely municipal concern.

After reading this article I must come to one of 2 conclusions. Channel 6 is ignorant and ill-informed or channel 6 is biased, in either case it begs the question, “Why should I depend on channel 6 for news”

Technorati Tags:tulsa tulsa+city+council+recall tulsa+city+council

If you love me...

Before I had kids, I had heard several sermons and reflections of parents comparing the act of parenting to God’s relationship with us.

The family is an institution created by God, so it is only natural that there are parallels between our earthly and our heavenly families. The Bible engages in this comparison, as well. Matthew 7-11 “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

Having children really can provide a deeper understanding of our relationship with our Heavily Father. Having Audrey and Regan has been an exercise in this type of comparison. I was convicted yesterday when my daughter came up to me and said, as she often does, “I love you so so much daddy!” This was just after an episode of disobedience. I thought to my self that I’d prefer that she obey me rather than tell me that. I immediately thought of John 14:15 “If you love me, keep my commandments”. Well Steven, are you keeping all of God’s commandments? Do you really love God? Ohh ouch…

S.683 "Childproof Handgun Act of 2005".

This is a bill that has been submitted to the senate by NJ senator Frank Lautenberg(D).

This bill would "ban the manufacture, sale, delivery, and transfer of handguns that cannot be personalized, and to provide for a report to Congress on the commercial feasibility of personalizing firearms."

To view this bill in its entirety, go to Thomas online, and search for this bill by number.

Section 2 b defines personalization as
`(A) allows the handgun to be fired only by a particular individual;
`(B) is not capable of being readily deactivated; and
`(C) may allow the handgun to be personalized to 1 or more additional individuals.'.

This of course has nothing to do with protecting children, and everything to do with trying to limit the sale and transfer of hand guns in violation of the second amendment.

By the way, my 2 guns are always locked in a safe.

I’m blind and deaf

The Exchange server at work is down. I have to resort to phone calls and fax. But its not just communication that is affected; I don’t have access to my calendar, phonebook, or task list. I have set up several automated processes that email me their status, so I'm blind as to the status of several systems; I have to resort to logging in to the system and manually checking their status.

It is amazing the efficiency that is lost when Outlook can not talk to an Exchange server.

Reasons to Believe

A couple of years ago I purchased a book titled Creator and the Cosmos , by Ph.D. Hugh Ross

I discovered this book while attending Evangel College (now University). One of my professors,Gary Liddle, proposed the shocking notion that you could still be a Christian and not believe that the universe was created in 7 literal consecutive days. I found this book to be very helpful in verifying, solidifying, and defending my beliefs. The main problem with this book is that it is printed. The basic premise of Dr Ross is that scientific advances are constantly proving the existence of God, and to “demonstrate that science and the Bible complement one another.” Science is constantly progressing and new discoveries can not be represented in a printed medium.

Ross has a website Reasons to Believe, which has much of the material in this book. Check out What we believe, and 8 Myths About Reasons To Believe under, about us, first.

What’s in it for you?

Go to the city's website to see the proposed bond issue projects broken up by district.

Not sure what district you live in, click here.

Time to plant

If you are going to plant a garden in Tulsa it is now safe to do so.
According NOAA, Tulsa’s last frost, statistically, occurs no later than the 29th.
Tulsa Oklahoma Climatological Records

The lowest temperature in the 10 day forecast will be 37 on Apr 1.

I plan to start my garden this weekend.

Technorati Tags: gardening last+frost

We are all human

I made a very large mistake at work today. I'm in charge of several automated process. From time to time I make minor changes to improve efficiencies or to correct minor problems. Today I made a change that resulted in erroneous information. This ended up causing customer service problems for my company.

I did not realize my mistake for 10 minutes, enough time to cause real problems. As soon I understood what I had done I corrected the problem. After I had a little time to let the full weight of what happened sink in I contacted the appropriate people. For the briefest of moments, I thought about trying to cover up my mistake, but choose to be upfront and take responsibility for my actions.

I was very upset at my self; I knew that my mistake could have been avoided. Fortunately the director of the affected system was very understanding. She appreciated my quick disclosure and suggestions for preventative measures in the future. She said, "We are all human, and some times we make mistakes. There is nothing I can say that will make you feel worse than you already do."

People appreciate honesty and respect those who take ownership for their mistakes. It would have been easy for me to cover up. Unfortunately this is not uncommon in IT; with no other facts to the contrary people are inclined to believe the experts. It can be tempting to abuse that kind of trust. I'm glad I chose to own up to my mistake. I came out the other side unharmed and with a free conscience.