When the recreation center becomes a shelter

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This morning I went to work out at the Rosemeade Recreation Center, but found out that it’s temporarily closed to serve as temporary housing for the American Red Cross. While I’m happy to know that my city is helping out the hurricane victims I wasn’t happy that I didn’t get to work out. I think it was mainly because I got up a few minutes after 6:00 am, which never makes me happy. When I’m tired I tend to get a little cranky, so that probably caused it.

I guess this is just further proof that God isn’t finished with me yet. I still need to be more fully formed into the character of Christ.

Initial review of Google’s web browser Chrome (OR Further proof that Google is taking over the world)

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This afternoon Google released their brand-spanking-new web browser called Chrome. I’ve been using it this afternoon for my normal, day-to-day browsing and web use. My initial take is that it’s a great browser with some room to grow.

 

Chrome Screenshot
Chrome Screenshot

I spend most of my time using Google products: Gmail, Google Reader, Google Docs, and search. Overall it seems like the response and load time of these apps is quite a bit faster. No surprise here really, though, since they wrote the software they want their products to work really well on it. I also signed into a couple Yahoo products (mail, Flickr, and Delicious) and they seemed to load really well too, so they didn’t just write an app for their own products.

 

I did notice a few small bugs. First, I was not able to change or upload a new profile pic. I’m thinking part of the problem is with Facebook’s programming, though, since I’ve had a few issues with the site in Firefox. Also, I was not able to sign into Rhapsody’s web interface. The sign in window would open, but there weren’t any fields that I could enter text into. I’m also going to miss the Delicious bookmarking addon, so that will be an adjustment, too.

Other than those minor annoyances I’m impressed with the browser. I’m planning on using it as my primary browser for the time being, so after a week or so I might be able to give a fuller review of the product. Download it for yourself and give it a try (if you use Windows as your OS, that is).

See also:
Google’s official announcement/comic book about Chrome
CNET’s Webware Blog Review
Lifehacker’s First Look

Don’t sweat the small stuff…Pray about it

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The past few days have been somewhat frustrating around the house. We could not find our digital camera. This normally would be frustrating anyway, but we had not copied pictures from the card off of it for over a week, so there were a bunch of pictures of Emory and family on it.

Over the weekend there were two times that I know God was reminding me that he wasn’t kidding about wanting us to “pray continually” like he told us to do through Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. I knew I should pray about the lost camera, but it also seemed like such a small thing to bother God about. My brother-in-law Chris was the first person God spoke through. He told me that his normal routine now is to pray about lost items as soon as he realizes that he’s misplaced something. He told me about a time in college that he couldn’t find his wallet, stopped to pray about it, and as soon as he was done praying he looked down and the wallet was sitting right there.

The second time that I knew God was wanting me to pay attention was when my mom called me to tell me she found the camera. She told me that she had started looking for it, stopped to pray, and then the first place she looked she found the camera. Let me be clear that Brea and I had just gone over to my parents’ house the night before to look for the camera and had looked in the recliner where she found it. It’s not a coincedence that I didn’t find it. God had a lesson he wanted me to learn. He wants us to pray to him about EVERYTHING in our lives…even the mundane.

If you have any stories about answered prayers, even the smallest ones like a lost digital camera, I’d love to hear them.

Are lower gas prices good for America?

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A couple years ago I blogged about ExxonMobil having record 3rd quarter profits because of higher gas prices. Since then almost every major gas company has had record profits every quarter. It hasn’t just been hurricanes driving up prices. The actual price of oil per barrel has shot up, too. It’s been a trend that has been no fun, but I’ve gotten used to it.

My former response was to get mad, but I don’t really get angry anymore. It’s not that “Big Oil” has won, I just have a different perspective thanks mainly to my brother-in-law, Chris. He helped me realize that the only real way that we’ll see any significant changes to our nation’s policies on drilling for oil and building refineries was if there was an outcry from the entire nation. I believe that time is finally coming.

You see, as much as Barack Obama wants to believe that keeping our tires properly inflated and cars well maintained will reduce our dependence on foreign oil it really won’t. There will be more people in America driving more cars for the foreseeable future. While those cars will probably get better has mileage they will still use gas. Even with a reduced dependence on foreign oil their will still be a dependence.

The only way that our country will truly be able to make significant strides in having a sustainable plan for energy indepence is to start tapping into the natural resources that are available within our borders and to build more refineries to turn those resources into usable fuels. I heard a guest on Glenn Beck’s radio show comment that the very reason that we purchased Alaska in the first place was becuase of the resources (oil) that were available there. I don’t really know if that’s true or not, but it’s a good place to look.

Turn on the drills and let that black gold flow!!!

The Presidential race is officially heating up.

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It’s been a busy week in the political world. Barack Obama officially announced that Joe Biden would be his running mate, the Democratic Party held their national convention, and John McCain announce that his running mate would be Sarah Palin would be his running mate.

Normally I don’t really pay a whole lot of attention to politics. In fact, I didn’t watch ANY of the coverage of the Democratic National Convention. One thing that I did find amusing was that Kevin Kiley, co-host of the Michael Irvin Show on 103.3 FM ESPN Radio in Dallas, was outraged by the Cowboys decision to not postpone their final pre-season game in order to not distract from the historic moment of Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech. I personally don’t have a problem with the Cowboys decision. While the first African-American to be officially nominated by one of the major political parties is an historic moment in the history of our country, it’s not a big enough moment to have the whole country come to a stand-still. The logistical nightmare of shuffling the game made it worth proceeding as scheduled.

I do know for a fact now that Joe Biden’s son is either a liar or a lunatic. I saw him being interviewed this morning on one of the major news networks and referred to Delaware as being the “greatest state in the country.” I’m all for state pride. Being from Texas it kind of comes with the territory, but come on! It’s Delaware!!! This is the same state that gets made fun of in TV shows and movies ALL THE TIME! It’s just laughable to even consider it being in the top 10 list of greatest states.

The biggest news of the day, of course, was that John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his VP running mate. This was historic as well, since she will be the first woman to have ever been on the ballot for either major party could be the first female Vice President (I obviously don’t know my political history: see Geraldine Ferraro, thanks to the commenter). I really don’t know much about her, so I won’t get into whether or not she’s qualified for the position (which she appears to be from initial reports), but I do want to comment on what I think is somewhat hypocritical in how some of the conservative voices have reacted.

When Hillary Clinton was still in the running for the Democrat nomination I heard multiple times from multiple people that you should not vote for the president based on the person’s gender or skin color, but on their character and whether or not the are qualified for the job. The rationale was that African-Americans should not vote for Obama just because he’s African-American, nor should women vote for Hillary simply because she’s a woman.

This makes sense and I think I agree with it, but now that McCain has picked Palin as his VP I’m hearing the other extreme. I’m hearing conservatives point out that he’s capitalizing on the women who probably would have voted for Hillary who might now vote for McCain because of Palin. This is probably true, but I think it’s hypocritical to condemn one group for using that strategy in one regard, but then speak positively about it for the other.

It’s not surprising, however, because this is politics. As much as both candidates are talking about bringing a change or shaking things up in Washington, when it’s all said and done it’s going to be business as usual. One side of the aisle will bash the ideas of the other side, political backstabbing will take place, and both McCain and Obama will throw dirt at each other in an attempt to win the office. It’s been this way since as long as I can remember and it will be this way as long as our political system is in place.

Get a free commentary from Logos…for a limited time

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The Bible software that I use, Logos, is giving away a free copy of the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary on Matthew and Mark for free. Here’s the info from their blog:

We have arranged with Tyndale to give away the Matthew, Mark volume for free–no strings attached! For a limited time (until the Pre-Pub ships) you can head over to product page and add this wonderful title to your Libronix digital library absolutely free of charge. Use coupon code CORNERSTONE during checkout.

Check it out over at their blog.

Drowning in email? Maybe you’ve believed a myth.

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Communication used to be much easier. Before the days of email you would either send a letter, place a telephone call, or simply talk with someone face-to-face. Those days are long gone. We are bombarded with communication from many more angles. Email, text messages, facebook wall posts, and more make it difficult to stay on top of being current on communicating with people.

But the problem may not simply be the massive amount of emails we receive. In fact, it’s probably more to do with how we have chosen to process email. I know a lot of people who leave EVERYTHING in their email inbox. They have literally thousands of messages, many unread, that are sitting in an inbox. No wonder they feel overwhelmed. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Right now I have six messages sitting in my work email inbox. There are also 17 that I have starred that I either need to review or act on. The oldest of these is only one week old. I’m actually way behind on my email by the standards that I’ve set for me. I don’t like to leave the office with ANY messages left unprocessed. At most, maybe 2-3 that I’m waiting on someone or something to act on.

I haven’t always been like this. There was a time when the normal response time for me was 4-7 days and it wasn’t uncommon for me to take 2-3 weeks to reply to messages. I finally woke up out of this email stupor and decided I needed to make some changes.

There was one thing that was really the catalyst for this change: Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero. The basic premise is that you can get your inbox to zero and then keep it that way. It’s true and it’s a great feeling.

In addition to this I recently came across a post over at lifehack.org that lists 7 Email Myths That Plague the Workplace. I’ve fallen trap to some of these myths before and imagine you have too. There are two that stand out to me in particular:

  • You need to reply to every email. This is not true. There are many email that you really don’t even need to read. If you know you don’t ever want or need the message just delete it. What I do is use Gmail’s archive feature that lets me know that I’ll have the email if I ever need it again, but most importantly it gets the message quickly out of my inbox so that it won’t distract me from messages that will require my action.
  • Email is a beast that can’t be tamed. Again, a myth that’s easy to fall pray to. There are many people who receive hundreds of emails a day that require some sort of action. I know because I’m friends with some of them. They may at times get behind, but I know that at some point they plow through the messages and tame the beast. No matter how many messages you get on a daily basis you can tame the email beast. It might take you changing your email provider to use a system that will block spam, but you can do it, you just have to make the choice.

If you have any strategies for taming the email beast share them in the comments.

Google Spreadsheet + Google Maps Gadget = What I’ve been looking for since 2003

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Ever since I can remember I’ve been a fan of maps. We had a world map on our wall when I was growing up that I would stare at for a long time. Anytime I’ve gone on a road trip I’ve planned out the routes by looking at road maps. I love being on a flight that has a GPS map available in-flight. Very early in my ministry I also made a map of where all the students lived using a big wall map and pushpins.

But about five years ago I really thought there could be a better way to keep track of people on a map. The great thing about having the push pin map was that I could get a feel for where everyone lived and plan events based on that info. The bad part was that in order for it to be useful the pins had to be numbered and anytime someone new came to the ministry it totally threw off the numbers being in alphabetic order.

I tried messing with some software and plotting, but I never liked the end result. Google has since come to my rescue. I recently stumbled across a post at the Official Google Docs Blog giving simple instructions on how to insert a google map gadget into your Google Spreadsheet. All you need is a column of addresses, but it’s very useful to have a second column to describe what the marker on the map is (the gadget calls these the tooltip). Once you have both of these columns the steps are very simple:

  1. Highlight all the cells in both columns.
  2. Click Insert | Gadget …
  3. Click Maps.
  4. Click the Add to Spreadsheet button under Map.
  5. Give your map gadget a title.
  6. Click the the check box next to “Last column as tooltip” then click “Apply and close” and your map will appear in your spreadsheet.
  7. OPTIONAL: If you want your map to be bigger click the arrow on the top right corner of the gadget and choose “Move to own sheet…” and it will be as big as the screen will allow.

I made an example of the map that will show up using a list of Chipotle restaurants close to my house. Here it is:

You can also see the original spreadsheet for this map here.

Got any other cool Google tricks? Share them in the comments.