Temecula & Murrietta Messiah Program is on for 2010!

My wife and I got a missive in our email box and even though I've slowed down on blog posting this is one event I don't want to miss posting! More than once I've met people after the Messiah performance who saw this posted while searching for info on it. My pic is on the right side of this blog (the fuzzy face) so if you can introduce yourself we'd love to meet you.

For those of you in Southern California, particularly Riverside, Temecula/Murrietta area this is a FREE MUST SEE. (Freewill Offering is taken...)

My wife Renee sings soprano and I sing bass so that keeps us on opposite sides of the stage so we don't get to play "The Battling Bickerson's" during the performance. We might put on a show afterward so you might want to stick around.

For those of you who can attend you will not be disappointed. This is not a hokey event. They even make me wear a red bow tie. Great 30 piece live orchestra and this year it might be 70 voices.

One opportunity a year for this single annual performance that is, as it is each year, on the first Sunday of December. This year it will also be held at the same location as last years event...


Modified email below.

Dear "Celebrate Messiah 2010" Lovers

We’re back!

Once again, our annual "Celebrate Messiah" Christmas Concert will be held Sunday December 5th at 4:00 PM at the Temecula United Methodist Church, located at 42690 Margarita Road, Temecula CA 92592. We anticipate having a 70-voice community choir and a 30-seat community orchestra to celebrate Handel’s incomparable oratorio.

This year we will be performing more Messiah selections than ever before, a total of 26 numbers. We are adding 2 new choruses (All We Like Sheep, and The Lord Gave the Word) as well as a new bass solo (The Trumpet Shall Sound). Last year’s event included the addition of sing-along Christmas carols, which we will reprise this year as well. Event Founder Madge Griffing will be sharing conducting duties with her sons Rev. Barry and Steve Griffing.

~~~~~
Technorati Tags
- Rancho Music Association
- Messiah
- Temecula
- Murrietta
- Music

-~~~~~

2010 Temecula & Murrietta Messiah Concert GREAT once again!

Once again the annual "Celebrate Messiah" Christmas Concert was held on the first Sunday of December at the Temecula United Methodist Church. The church was packed and this singer's view of the audience showed a lot of happy, smiling faces. After the concert I heard quite a few people complimenting the performance. The orchestra was wonderful, the soloists brought tears to people's eyes and even yours truly teared up on occasion as we sang scriptures set to the music of Handel.

This year Madge Griffing had passed the baton of conducting duties to her sons Rev. Barry and Rev. Steve Griffing. Their switching use of the conductor stand went flawlessly and even their differing styles of conducting had a positive effect on the music. A few more songs were added this year for both soloists and the full choir. I especially loved the song, "All We Like Sheep" which really keeps the singers and musicians on their toes and has at the end one of the most profound statements in Christianity.

The recording of our concert evidently did not work properly due to technical issues so I found the above mentioned song on You Tube by the Brisbane Concert Choir which has a lot of excellent postings of their performances of various songs from Handel's Messiah. Maybe next year...

Afterward I also had the opportunity to make some new friends and once again my verboseness (Is that a word? Well! It is now...) had my wife getting on me that it was time to leave. Happens every year. In fact, the first year my wife and I were involved in performing in this concert, it was blogger extraordinaire Douglas V. Gibbs and I, meeting face to face for the first time that had both our wives acting in conjunction and one in spirit as they dragged us apart, both still talking. and I can't remember if we were shouting across the parking lot to one another as we were getting in our cars but I can imagine it happening.

Well (once again) I digress. Put it on your calendar for next year. The first Sunday of December. Temecula California, Rancho Music Association.


~~~~~
Technorati Tags
- Rancho Music Association
- Messiah
- Temecula
- Murrietta
- Music

-~~~~~

Get me to the church on time!

Pastor Mike at 'A heart for God' posted last January (5Jan2010) a piece titled, "Why I'm Showing Up Late for Church" He had recently 'tweeted' the link and I happened to catch it. - Good points he makes in his posting and I had to reply. Since I'm such a slow typist and have not been posting here as much as I should I decided to put my 'comment' on this blog as well as his. Sort of a two-fer.

Also managed to get a song rolling through my head (don't worry it didn't hurt) and just had to use it for the title of this posting. I hope it does not distract those of you that like to sing and dance from the message below... Print it out or send the link to your pastor. Better yet! Add to my ideas with a comment AND get this message to your pastor.

I have an advantage over many in our congregation due to the fact that I (as a lay member congregant not 'paid staff') have pre-service ministry duties. As a result my church time starts well ahead of the service time. Although one disadvantage is that When church starts I'm usually in 'Martha Mode' doing busy work and it sometimes takes a few minutes to switch to 'Mary Mode' where I'm ready to sit at His feet and listen.

I would encourage pastors to seek out those that are continually late, figure out their gifts, find/make helps ministries that would fit them and as Ephesians 4:11-13 suggests, put them to work (hopefully prior to church/services starting times).

From the pulpit I think pastors should also encourage people to get to church early not with events or for Bible studies or meetings with agendas and such but just for the opportunities to fellowship with friends.

Pre-service times can be a great opportunity for people to minister to one another with the unique gifts and fruit of the Spirit that God gives to each of us. Sharing these with one another in the 'safe' environment of the church can only help us when God calls us to use these same gifts and fruits outside of the church.

After all, the Lord does not call us to be 'self centered' but 'other centered'. Getting to church on time is just one of the ways we can fall in line with God's calling.

Some pastors may feel uncomfortable dealing with this issue. If so, that is great! Because it will give them an opportunity to get out of their comfort zone and at the same time get some of the congregants out of theirs...

~~~~~

Technorati Tags
- Church
- Religion
- Christianity

-~~~~~

Final Notice: Target - I Though this spam a HOOT!

Found this in my spam box. I thought it a hoot because the headline/leaderline was, "Final Notice: Target"

From:
"Final Notice"

To:
my email address here


=====Confirmed Alert======Confirmed Alert=====

Attention: my email address here

Confirmed for: Target Card

my email address here:

Your Target Card is ready for shipment, please complete the following:

http://124989029.erotic-friend-request.com/***


My Best,

Kurt Litte
Card List Manager

I didn't know Target sold Erotic Friends. Wonder what aisle they keep them on?


~~~~~
Technorati Tags
- Spam
- Porn
- Humor
~~~~~

One of the WORST Scam Letters Yet

Got the following in my spam box.

"Why inflict us with it?", you say.

Well I thought it rather humorous and I like funny OK?

As I said, before you so rudely interrupted me, it was in my spam box and the line said from: 'taran sawhney' --- 'Greeting from Mr. Mr.Peters Jim' --- This piqued my interest because I wondered why Mr.Peters Jim needed to use Taran's email to send me his obvious Nigerian 419 scam. I thought perhaps the letter might have some sort of explanation... - - - Nope. - - - Not even a mention of Taran as assistant or secretary.

Digression Follows ~~~
This came from a Yahoo account to a Yahoo Account, had a nifty little icon of an envelope with a bright yellow key. A mouse rollover showed it clickable with the words, "This sender is DomainKeys verified." appearing. - Clicking it opened a new window for me and on the top line Yahoo says, "DomainKeys is one of the tools Yahoo! uses to fight against forged email. It uses encryption technology to verify that an email is really from the domain from which it appears to be. If a message has been verified through DomainKeys, you'll see a small icon of an envelope and key in the email header."

So the little envelope/key that is designed to instill trust in an email was verifying the scammer did not forge the headers. I feel better about that. Forged headers are the first thing I wonder about with 419 scam letters. And that is cool that it really came from a Yahoo account. Yahoo DOES work fast to delete such accounts and it means the scammer will be spending a bit more time setting up a new account instead of fleecing people. So I've forwarded the message with headers to Yahoo and they will know without jumping around that, 'Yes indeed! This is a misuse of our services'...
End Digression ...

Greeting from Mr. Mr.Peters Jim
Monday, November 15, 2010 5:04 AM
From:

This sender is DomainKeys verified

"taran sawhney"

To:
undisclosed-recipients

Greeting from Mr. Mr.Peters Jim

ATTENTION:

Please i want to inform you that your fund was brought to my desk because the director of the WESTERN UNION MONEY trasnfer said that they should divert your fund to the government treasury account just because that you can not pay the trasnfer fee, As result of the information we got i told them to wait untill i hear from you today so that i will know the reason why you rejected such amount of money $1.7m which is your over due inheritance payment just because of transfer fee.

But the reason why i sent you this email now is that you still have the chance to claim your fund if you could send the$38 today because i have already arranged the special courier company which will deliver your fund to you within 2days with your tracking number to see when it is coming to you but failling to do this, they will have power over your fund by monday morning and am very sorry if you failed as this is the last chance .

Please here is the western union information in the name of my messanger to avoid delay in receiving your fund and remember that i have done my best for you and i will make sure that your fund get to your hand next tomorrow.
i went you to call me if you send the money to him so that i will call him , the number to call is this+229-9836-5568 ok do it now

Receivers Name:...JOHN IKELI

Country/... Benin-Republic
City address is Cotonou
Test Question:.. WHAT CITY
Answer :.. COTONOU
Amount: ...$38.00
MTCN NUMBER....

Send it to me for easy collection, the MTCN control number, amount sent, name and address of sender
Thanks
Greeting from Mr. Mr.Peters Jim

SO for $38.00 they will send me 1.7 million? I bet if I wrote to Mr. Peters Jim he would take $25. Times are tough for the Nigerian scammers too.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Update: In less than 20 hours I received this message from Yahoo!
- - -
Hello,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Mail.

In this particular case, we have taken appropriate action, as per our
Terms of Service (TOS), against the Yahoo! account in question that was reported for fraudulent activities. ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks Yahoo! Keep up the good work!
~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~Technorati Tags
- Nigerian Scam
- 419
- Fraud -~~~~~

Questions

According to a Google search I said it first! At least on the internet...

When and where who said what and why and how?

Now, I wonder, if there should be comma's in there, but, the old adage, regarding commas is, "when in doubt, leave it out!".

~~~~~Technorati Tags
- Questions

Prop 8 - Gay Marriage - My Thoughts

Has been a while since I posted. Well, here is something I wrote as a comment on another person's blog -- Separation of church and state except regarding Proposition 8 --

"legally marry" - You used this term and I have to wonder if you have really thought about it. Plus I wonder if you know the history of the marriage license in the U.S.?
- http://www.answers.com/topic/marriage-license -

Prior to the Civil War there was no interference from the state or federal govt. in the union of two people.

It seems that after the Civil War there were many women asking for their legal compensation for their husbands dying in service to their country. This was when the govt really started to hand out the licenses and they found it was a way to control the populace.

From above link: Black's Law Dictionary defines "license" as, "The permission by competent authority to do an act which without such permission [...] would be illegal." The authority to license implies the power to prohibit. A license by definition "confers a privilege" to do something. By allowing the state to exercise control over marriage, it is implied that we do not have a right to marry; marriage is a privilege. Those born in the US receive a birth certificate, not a birth license.

and this: In the early part of the 20th century, the requirement for a marriage licence (sic) was used as a mechanism to prohibit whites from marrying blacks, mulattos, Japanese, Chinese, Native Americans, Mongolians, Malays or Filipinos.[1] By the 1920s, 38 states used the mechanism. These laws have since been declared invalid by the Courts.

The Constitution was designed by The Founders (TM) not to control the populace but for the populace to control the government. Unfortunately this has been turned around on us with everyone wanting a handout and their own interests served first. So now we have a government that is controlling and overbearing and getting more power than The Founders (TM) meant for them to have.

Back to your use of the term "legally marry". - Lets ask ourselves the following, without 'religion' or 'church' involvement.


What is the past & current definition of marriage? (even most of those who want homosexual marriage agree it now is - one man/one woman. That is if they will be honest. That is what they are trying to do after all is redefine the word)

Should one small segment of society (albeit it is growing due to peoples ignorance) be allowed to change the legal definition of 'Marriage' through tugging on heartstrings, with accusations of 'hatred', 'homophobia', and 'bigotry'?

Once this legal definition is changed what is next?

The argument in the comments, "Except for the fact that history does not bear out that slippery-slope argument." is false AND misleading.

History does bear it out and we can see it through numerous examples. Did Hitler take control in a single day? Did Social Security go bankrupt the first day our government started abusing the funds? Even if there were no examples of any past 'slippery slopes' could this be 'the first one'? What would be next? Perhaps something I like and you don't?

I don't expect you to change your mind on this matter. But I do hope that you will slack off a bit on the rhetoric.

Personally I think the government (both state and federal) should get out of licensing peoples relationships as well as licensing pets.

target="_blank"~~~~~Technorati Tags - marriage - prop 8 - religion -~~~~~

More On (or is that Moron?) Spam Emails

Twice yesterday I received messages from friends that their email addresses were compromised and not to click any links until further notice. One was from a MSM account and the other a Yahoo account.

One lead to http://pvc0.ukparasd.com/ (AKA - http://medicaltoystore.net/ - which touts itself as Canadian Health & Care Mall {also Canadian health&care mall} ) which is one of those cheap pill pages. How those sites ever make money I don't know. The competition is immense and they all have the same cookie cutter web pages on them. I just hope that their stuff is not poisonous. Had a friend say that probably all they send out is sugar pills anyway.

The other website that used a friends email address and list of friends addresses is: http://www.snnsn.com/ - Supposedly selling cameras and computer related items. Just thought I'd put this out there so people that might be wondering about using either of these sites will have a chance to find out that there are some people that have been spammed by them.

The owners of those sites might say that they contracted with some other outfit that spammed people. If that were true then they are guilty of not doing their homework and making sure they are dealing with reputable outfits. that excuse still does not assure me that putting my credit card info into their site will be a safe thing to do.

Any outfit that does business like that will not get my dollars

Another thing is when you get a forwarded email with a long list of emails send it back to the person who sent it to you with a reprimand. Using BCC is easy and if they don't know how to use it (AND delete previous email addresses) they should not be allowed on the internet. They only make your email address susceptible to spammers and hackers.



~~~~~

Technorati Tags - Spam - Emails -