Image from Wikipedia page for ZX81

Back when I was a lad, I started learning about computers at school. There was no official computer curriculum, but one of the physics teachers started a computer club, brought in a couple of his home computers and started teaching interested students how to program in BASIC. I was one of those students and I fell hard for the subject of computer programming and started spending many of my lunch breaks at the physics lab working my way through the manuals that the computers came with back then.

I preached last week on the need for Christians to armor up against the challenges of life and to protect their hearts. Last week's main scripture was from the Proverbs. There are plenty of scriptures that speak to the importance of protecting ourselves, but this one particularly stood out to me this time.

23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

Proverbs 4:23

One of the natural references when addressing our need for self-protection is The Whole Armor of God. I didn't have enough time to go deep into it during that sermon, so this week it gets its own time in the spotlight.

Time is rushing by and I'm into my fifth month of driving a school bus. The changes are subtle, but noticeable. I am mostly over my fear of reversing. I still don't enjoy it, but I don't get nervous. Recently, I had to reverse about a third of a mile along a country road, around two corners and down a hill, when my only available turnaround point was not plowed out and was too full of snow for me to safely use. I wouldn't want to do it on a regular basis, but I did it and that pretty much put the final nail into my fear of reversing.

Despite my bad memory, I have both of my current routes memorized. I drive Blue in the morning and Purple at night and know where to go, when to be there and am making good progress learning the names of my students. For some reason I remember more naughty student names than good ones.

Having driven for far too many years on the Madison Beltline I've seen my share of bad American driving, but at the helm of a school bus I've had a grandstand seat to witness some awful driving. (Ok, not as bad as the Russians, but pretty bad. Search on Youtube for Russian dashcam footage, but be warned that it's scary stuff.) There are three main things that people are getting wrong. First, they are failing to understand the warning and stop lights on the school bus. I'm pretty sure that's in the driving test around here, but it feels like most drivers skipped class that day.

Sometimes the Interwebs are truly as awesome as we all hoped they'd be back at the start of the millennium.

For your edification today we have the classic computer science algorithm for Quicksort presented flawlessly through Hungarian Folk Dance.

The driver of the blue route in the afternoon has a tendency to leave the radio set to the local classic hits station, so when I start it up in the morning, I get whatever classic hit they're playing at that time. I hadn't listened to the classic station for several years, but was pretty sure that they played stuff that my parents used to listen to. Well, lately the station has been playing songs that are squarely from my teens and I'm starting to feel old.

This morning, they were blasting Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. This song was huge during my late teens and was also used as the theme music for the American Football show on Channel 4 back in England.