Aaronm.NET

Well, it seems another busy week is in store for me.

This week our ship, the M/V Pacific Link, arrives in port here in Townsville; it’s new home. Last year, we were given the Pacific Link, and for the last year or more we have been in preparation for it’s arrival. In February, the ship first arrived in Newcastle, and then toured down the coast before making it’s return trip pst Newcastle. It will be here for a week, I believe, and then continue on up to Cairns.

My involvement, as far as I know at this point is fairly minimal, but it will be exciting to see in person the ship I have heard so much about over the last year and a half.

It will be interesting to see how I handle the ship activities (few though they are) on top of what I already have, which I struggle with. Lately I have forced myself to be more voluntary about several activities that go on around base, but a couple times it has come back to bite me, as I always fear it will. I often feel overcommitted, which is a feeling I can’t tolerate. Maybe I’ll have to get use to it… I can’t come up with a good reason why I should, though, especially if I commit to doing something I don’t have much care for.

How do I do that? I’m here to serve God, to serve people, and yet most of the time I feel like I would rather be away from them. I live in community, I share a bedroom with two other people… I don’t get a lot of time to myself. I can’t go anywhere except by walking, so I can’t get away. Around noon, I am ready to find a obscure closet where nobody will find me and hang out there for the rest of the day by myself.

So… by the time five o’clock comes around, I’m ready to go home, flop on the couch and vegetate. I’ll play guitar, read a bit, maybe watch a movie. Then I have to convince myself to go to bed at a normal time, but usually fail to to so before one o’clock in the morning.

I’ve come to view what I do as a job, something I’m bound to, something that lasts from eight to five every day. I don’t feel like a volunteer or a missionary most of the time, just a guy who does a job that he’s bound to but doesn’t get paid for it.

I don’t want to view it like that. I want to find joy in it, to know that I’m doing a good work. People tell me it is, that it is effective, and affects hundreds or even thousands of people. Great; I don’t feel that in  my heart. Do I want to? Yeah, but I don’t know how.

A while ago while working on data export from a Microsoft CRM 3.0 server, I ran into this issue. I had quite a hard time finding a solution for it, anywhere, so I thought I would post it here in case anyone else comes across the issue . I hope no one is still using MS CRM 3… anyways.

Server Error in ‘/’ Application.

________________________________________

Exception from HRESULT: 0×80044151.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the

current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about

the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: Exception

from HRESULT: 0×80044151.

I figured out that this was a SQL timeout error… probably because I was trying to pull too much data with that query. Anyways, here is how I worked around it:

1. In the registry editor of the machine hosting your Microsoft SQL server, open My Computer/HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/MICROSOFT/MSCRM/
2. If it does not already exist, create a DWORD value named OLEDBTimeout with a Hexidecimal base. Set the value data to 180 (this is in seconds… 180 = 3 minutes. Default is 30, implicit if there is no OLEDBTimeout DWORD already in existence)
3. In Command Prompt, type in ‘cd %windir%/system32&’
4. Type in the command ‘cscript iisapp.vbs /a CrmAppPool /r’ (this resets the Application Pool for the CRM, necessary in order to the changes to take effect).

Hopefully this helps somebody out there, somewhere.

For quite a while now, I have been reading A Practical View Of Christianity by William Wilberforce, who is famous for campaigning the abolition slavery in the British Empire in the early 1800′s.

William Wilberforce

In his book, he sought to (and was successful in) present a clear, no-frills picture of what the Christian life ought to look like; it’s quite convicting, some two hundred years later. We still need to be reading this book.

I was just reading through the third part, Defects Of The Religious Systems Of Confessed Christians. In part of this chapter, Wilberforce responds to a proposed “Opponent” in a “Consideration of the Reasonableness of Affections towards an Invisible Being”.

In this section, Wilberforce argues (and he is quite long-winded at times) that it is not seeing or hearing that most affects our affections (emotions) but the closeness of contact. Wilberforce quotes Adam Smith’s Theory Of Moral Sentiments: (continue reading…)

I’ve been thinking about my future.

Click To Zoom

Right now, I have no idea where I am headed.

I am somewhat dis-satisfied where I am now, this much I know has been evident through the blogs I have written lately; obvious enough that more than a couple of you have picked up on that. If you could pray for me, I would be much appreciative.

I am thinking I will take a few days just to fast and pray… go somewhere out of the way where I won’t be interrupted by people, and examine my heart. Here, there isn’t much room to do it, even in the prayer room.

What are the main things I need to consider?

Where is God leading me in the ministry I am currently associated, for the remaining months I am here (or am I even supposed to stay any longer)? What recurring issues and attitudes continually sneak up on me that need to be addressed? What sort of a future am I preparing myself for? Do I choose one passion to pursue or try and balance them all, or only a few of them? What are my real passions?

Why am I here?

I assume these are normal questions to be asking for someone of my age.

Why are these questions coming up now? I think it’s probably a combination of my circumstances and the things that are immediately ahead for me, things that I am not fond of considering. The very fact I am so opposed to those things makes me want to examine my heart to see what’s going on.

Anyhow… if you want more detail… email me! If you are willing, please do remember to pray for me, I have no doubts whatsoever about the efficacy of prayer.