I will be out of contact until the last week of December/first week of January, so I am posting this now.

Troparion in tone 4

Your Nativity, O Christ our God, Has shone to the world the Light of wisdom! For by it, those who worshipped the stars, Were taught by a Star to adore You, The Sun of Righteousness, And to know You, the Orient from on High. O Lord, glory to You!

Kontakion in tone 3

Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One, And the earth offers a cave to the Unapproachable One! Angels with shepherds glorify Him! The wise men journey with a star! Since for our sake the Eternal God was born as a Little Child!

Parting Words

Continue Reading ] May all the blessings of Our Great God and Saviour be with you all this blessed season.

I have posted pictures from my trip to St. Tikhon's Monastery a few weeks ago.

Caution, harsh usability waters ahead.  I love Pictorialis, at least the severely hacked up version I am running, but there are some things that are painful about it.  For the time being if you wish to see the images in order, you will need to click the following link and then use the previous page link.  If you do that you will see the images in the order they were taken.

The images start with this one and go on until you reach the image of St. Alexis Toth, which happens to be the newest image.

Enjoy.

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Well it look like any updates for OhioLinux and Midwest Diocesan Assembly will have to wait for next week.

I am about to leave for South Canaan PA, the home of St. Tikhons Seminary.  A group of men from my Parish and I will be installing a computer lab on the campus over this weekend.

Well I need to go, keep us in your Prayers.

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Just a quick note to let you all know that I and my Wife are now in Lavonia Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, attending the MidWest Diocesan assembly.

I will be presenting to the assembly on some software that I and a couple of others from my Church are creating.  It should be interesting.  Well I just wanted to throw out there what we are doing at the moment, since I had promised a more complete update about OhioLinux, complete with pictures.

That will have to wait I guess for some other time.

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In a long time.

This is not a statement about Basil's fitness to carry a weapon, or to serve his country.  No it is a statement that the man I know, the one who wishes to serve Christ's Church is now carrying a weapon that can snuff out life in the blink of an eye.

It is an incredible responsibility, and one that I know Basil does not take lightly.  Let us pray to the Lord of All that Basil is never asked to use that weapon during his service.

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If you are the praying kind, please read the following and do what you feel is appropriate.

For the past week or so I have been experiencing a large amount of pain in my left knee, and hearing a very disturbing grinding noise emminating from it when I would walk up and down steps.  I finally gave in and went to see a physician on Monday, and after some x-rays and consultations they diagnosed me with Patella Femoral Syndrome.

A visit to a physical therapist today confirmed that, and I found out some more info about this condition and what to expect for the future.  Unfortunately there is no way to cure this problem; I will be dealing with it for the rest of my life.  The therapist thinks that I am in pretty good shape right now, and since we have caught it early I might be able to forgoe surgery on both knees.  If I stick to a strict regimine of no high impact excersizes, and keep my weight under control that is.

I am asking for people of the praying persuasion to remember me and my family.  My wife and I are attempting to start a family and I want to be a father to my children.  I want to be vital and strong so that I can keep up with them as they grow; not be left behind because my legs don't want to cooperate.  I ask this for myself.  I ask it for my wife.  And I ask it for my children to come.

May God, the Great Physician of soul and body hear your prayers for this unworthy servant, and visit me in my affliction bringing healing to soul and body.  Thanks for your time and attention.

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I posted some pictures from my Tuesday Night gaming group, this time it was a WAN party featuring Age of Empires II.  You can see some of the pics here: Geek Orthodox Album.

In other news I picked up a new Digital Camera yesterday and I must say I am pleased with it.  I opted for a combination of value and image quality, picking up the FujiFilm FinePix S7000.  The S7000 features a nice heavy, anolog feel great for those of us who cut our teeth on SLR cameras like the N90 and F5.  The image quality is actually quite good for its price range, 6.3 million effective pixels, or ~6.3 megapixels for around $550.

You can find other stats such as focal length, apeture settings and exposure modes on this page.  Anyone who is looking for a good, affordable digital camera, should definately give this one a look.

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Apparently our man Reader Joel didn't listen to me, and I think that he was right to have ignored me on this one!

Here is a photograph of "blessed as a sub-deacon Joel" serving His Beatitude Metropolitan Herman at the Akathist for the Tihkvin Ikhon this past weekend at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago.

I think I can let this one go Joel, but don't push it brother.