Chris Poch

Like David Crowder * Band? Then go vote for them over at MSN music. You know you want to.

I’ve modified my site so that you can more easily access my photos. Now you can click the gallery link at the top of the left hand side of the screen to go directly to my gallery. I’ll be uploading Christmas photos soon.

It’s been more than a week since classes ended. Well, actually, I have an assignment that I need to do sometime this week for one of last semester’s classes (long story), but I’ve enjoyed my week off. Several highlights from this week:

• Snowshoe – The conditions were the worst I’d ever seen at Snowshoe (only about half open as well), but it was still a blast. Drove up in the morning from Blacksburg, tore up the slopes all day on my board, drove to Washington in the afternoon/evening. I left Snowshoe a little earlier than originally planned because the powder had blown away, revealing ice from their unseasonably warm temperatures and melting/refreezing.

  My trip back took me through Cass, WV (5 miles from Snowshoe–the whole town is a historic park) and also past the fifty story tall Green Bank Radio Telescope (which is the reason cell phones don’t work at Snowshoe–it’s in the national radio quiet zone). Some day, I want to visit both these places. Also saw a beautiful sunset in the Virginia mountains. I even made it to the interstate just as it was getting dark, which made the trip much more enjoyable. I love back roads, but not in the dark.

• Total Praise gospel song at Frontline – Total Praise is the Frontline choir. On Sunday, they helped lead worship and did an awesome Kirk Franklin gospel song (Now Behold the Lamb). The song was perfect gospel stylistically, the best I’ve ever seen for a choir that doesn’t usually do gospel and doesn’t have many black members.
• Digital Sandbox – Good to spend four days back with the peeps at Digital Sandbox. Being near to Christmas, the commute wasn’t that bad most mornings. The office is moving closer in come March. I eventually would like to live very close to Washington–perhaps in Arlington, so closer in is good for me.

  

• National Christmas Tree – Monday night, my family took my mom’s parents and sister downtown to see the national tree. Even at night, it was over 50 degrees, which made it one of the most fun times of seeing the tree that I can remember. Although the Yule log isn’t quite as fun when it’s warm out.
• Annual Cookie Baking – Today was the day of the annual Poch family cookie baking. We made molasses cookies a few days ago and today made several batches of cutout sugar cookies and also rosettes. Well, I made most of the rosettes, which we made outside on a little burner to keep the mess out of the kitchen.

Tomorrow, we start the family celebrations mid-afternoon, which will go until Christmas night. Then, a few quieter days with the family, some more celebrations, some shopping, and I’m off to Atlanta for the Peach Bowl (Go Hokies!) and Passion 07.

I’m done with another semester! Just one more to go!

I’m also done with my Christmas shopping and my Christmas wrapping.

Boy does it feel good to be DONE.

I’m hoping to get back into a more regular blogging schedule, now that my life has some sense of normality again.

You have to watch the whole thing for the whole effect.

Link

I haven’t been doing a good job of posting.  I’m working to get back into the swing of blogging, but for now, let me say happy thanksgiving!

This is one of the best political posts I’ve read in a long time.

Courtesy of History in the Making.

I can’t tell you how many e-mails I got before Tuesday about the Christian values at stake in this election. The calls to prayer… the passionate pleas to mobilize our congregation… I haven’t heard from those people since.

This is a dangerous post for me to write, but I think it might be good for us to be ‘losers’ in the political arena for a while…

…Just in case we got the idea we could legislate our way to a transformed culture. ~ Just in case we aligned the church with a particular political party. ~ Just in case we mistook the USA for that city shining on a hill… rather than the Church of Jesus Christ.

I’m afraid people have associated the movement of Christ a little too closely with a political agenda. And it’s killing the church. It would be highly beneficial in our ‘Daily-Show-culture’ for us to be stripped of any political influence until we can learn to rely on Christ for cultural transformation. We cannot legislate our way to a revival.

Today, we officially opened the vtONE Prayer Room. The first half hour served as our time to dedicate the room to prayer. We had nine people (about the limit of what the prayer room can hold) come to the dedication. I’m excited about the prayer room and how God is going to use this place to impact Virginia Tech.

God has big things in store for our campus, but we’re not going to see big things happen here unless we are asking for them and believing that God will deliver. Let’s dare to imagine a day when the entire campus is part of God’s kingdom.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:20-21 (NLT)

I have a love-hate relationship with politics.  It’s stuff like this that makes me hate politics:

SUGAR LAND, Tex., Oct. 30 — President Bush said terrorists will win if Democrats win and impose their policies on Iraq, as he and Vice President Cheney escalated their rhetoric Monday in an effort to turn out Republican voters in next week’s midterm elections. (via Washington Post)

Regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, that’s an outrageous statement to make.  In essence, Bush is accusing the democrats of being in alliance with terrorists.  I don’t care how different their plans are from his, but I’m confident that the democrats are not in alliance with terrorists. I’m not going to declare that the democrats are saints, but I’m not surprised that democrats are on the verge of taking over congress.
I’d like to think that most people can see through shoddy political rhetoric.  My brain hurts.

And we had our first night game tonight. It’s very chilly now (39 degrees), but it was worth the cold to play at night. Plus, the trees are turning colors.

I’m also going to withdraw from Operating Systems. Praying that we can get Embedded System Design to count as an equivalent course so we never have to take OS again.