Go fish

I have three computers hooked up on a network at my house. Right now I'm playing Yahoo go ffish with my wife and daughter. If only we could sit in the same room and play internet games together. Wow.

www.BrianAMiller.com

Thinking about getting a domain name and renting some cheap space for my blog.

Godaddy is pretty cheap ($3.95/mo) and has a database access so I could setup moveable type or greymatter blog and get more power out my blog -- categories, recent listings, email notification, etc.

New Spam Fighter

Coop turned me to Spamihilator. I just installed it. I'll let you know.

Jeff Elbel's Blog

Have you heard that Jeff Elbel has a blog?

What? Who's Jeff Elbel? Lead guitarist for the now defunct Farewell to Juliet of which I have I think all their albums.

Count me in. I'll read for a while. He has a hilarious (true?) story about the ability to litter chicken feathers in California.

Funny Sentence

My four year old son performing a show for me just said, "We have to drag him real slow because he's asleep." That struck me really funny.

Men and Women

I'm hoping to do a sermon series on men and women in Feb or March.

What do you think of this statement (largely taken from the writings of John Eldredge):

A man wants to be found worthy. A woman wants to be found beautiful.
I'm wondering what Scriptures support this and what Scriptures disagree. What do you think?

Jesus' Ten Year Plan

Year 1: Choose some leaders
Year 2: Invest heavily in those leaders
Year 3: Die, resurrect, and leave them to lead ready or not

I think most leadership books would agree that isn't a very good ten year plan.

Friday Five

1. List five things you'd like to accomplish by the end of the year. Wow. Not much year left. Five things? OK.
1. Read two more books.
2. Start exercising at least a few mornings per week.
3. Change the flooring under the sink which has warped.
4. Get Alyssa's (my 8 year old daughter) room finished.
5. ??? Maybe my life is more complete than I think?

2. List five people you've lost contact with that you'd like to hear from again.
1. Wade
2. Dan (not Knight, I hear from him)
3. ... Hmmm... There are other people I wouldn't mind talking to, but I'm pretty loaded up with relationships.

3. List five things you'd like to learn how to do.
1. Paint - like the big haired guy on PBS. The landscapes.
2. Play piano or electric guitar - but it will never happen, because you have to practice.
3. Learn all the ins and outs of the web -- design, hosting, database stuff
4. Learn upper level mathmatics and/or physics. Like learn what all the symbols that the guy in Beautiful Mind was always throwing around.
5. Learn how to be a fruitful leader

4. List five things you'd do if you won the lottery (no limit).
1. Buy two reliable used vehicles.
2. Pay off my house mortgage and probably look at buying a house with a yard and a garage, but not too extravagant.
3. Put a chunk away for retirement, college, etc.
4. Tithe
5. Give another large portion to charities of my choice.

5. List five things you do that help you relax.
1. Play Civilization II on the computer.
2. Shoot hoops.
3. Take a walk.
4. Take a nap.
5. Eat. This obviously isn't a great list. That needs to change.

Used Computer

Does anybody have a used computer they want to sell cheap?

Leadership III

Moses' ten year plan:

Year 1: Go talk to Pharoah
Year 2: Take the Israelites out of Egypt
Year 3: Move them to the Promised Land
Year 4: Fight the inhabitants of the Promised Land
Year 5: Build a fabulous capital city and call it Jerusalem
Year 6: Pray for a new captive group to release
Year 7: Go talk to the dictator of that country
Year 8: Take the new captive group out of that land.
Year 9: Move them to their promised land.
Year 10: Fight the inhabitants of that land and create a new ten year plan.

Does that strike you as funny? It does me. Godly leadership, at least for me, has been much shorter term than I would like.

For the most part, God has told me to deepen my leaders in their relationship with Him.

There has been some vague talk of building houses for the poor.

There has been some vague talk of freeing the people of our community from their bondages by educating them on how to use their money wisely.

There has been some vague talk of planting a new church somewhere around our community.

There has been some vague talk of creating some relationships with people in our community who are disconnected with God -- single moms, rough men, and 20 somethings who see the world completely different than the previous generation.

There has been some vague talk from God about us getting a visible office space in the community, probably downtown.

There has been no talk (from God) about owning our own facility, expanding our children's programs, hiring a youth pastor or worship leader, or having an Easter or Christmas cantata.

Here is my ten year plan:

Year 1: Deepen my leaders relationship with God.
Year 2: Deepen my leaders relationship with God.
Year 3: Deepen my leaders relationship with God.
Year 4: Deepen my leaders relationship with God.
Year 5: Deepen my leaders relationship with God.
Year 6: Deepen my leaders relationship with God.
Year 7: Deepen my leaders relationship with God.
Year 8: Deepen my leaders relationship with God.
Year 9: Deepen my leaders relationship with God.
Year 10: Deepen my leaders relationship with God.

In fact, I believe that everyone would be more of a leader if they only deepened their relationship with God.

So why the vague talk from God? Is that so that one of our leaders can say, "I'm supposed to bring detail to that." And hopefully, God will tell a leader or two to bring detail to those more common expectations too.

Kinship III

David Hopkins is saying what I think many bloggers are thinking. This certainly affects my ability to feel kinship.

I visit the blogs of people I don't know (really good Christian people) and I'm concerned when my site is included in their blogroll. I stopped preaching, because I recognize my cynicism would be a 'stumbling block' for good people. I don't want that. Hopefully, those people do not view my opinions as an attack on their own decisions. You make your own choices. I don't want to discourage or sabotage anybody's faith. Right now, my peace is firmly rooted in hanging out with people and sharing dinner with friends-- the pleasure of a good story, well told.

He has disconnected from a certain type of kinship. He may have done for his own well-being. He may have felt like the life was being sucked from his body by these kinships. I know that feeling to some extent. But at the same time, kinships are the only means to affecting others and breathing life into their bodies.

I wonder if David is concerned with my link to his site? I really enjoy his writing, the way he expresses himself.

The relationships that are the most healthy for me are certainly the three or four small groups I participate in with the leaders in my church. The relationships that suck that life out of me are from the people in our church that look to me for their need, even their spiritual need, instead of looking to God and seeing me as a guide or as fellow journeyman. From what I read of these adventurous guys, they only want the healthy relationships.

I struggle with that -- both good and bad. On the one hand, I have met those needier people where they are at on the journey, yet at the same time, they may not see the need for the deeper relationship. No, that must be a communicated core value that we expect deeper relationships with God. In fact it is one of our core values, and we will be communicating it heavily in 2004.

A Great Gift for Your Child

I just read How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? to youngest son Ethan. He's 2. He loves that book. We read it to him five times a day. He has his brother, who can't read, age 4, read it to him at least once a day.

The drawings are so excellent! You would have to see them to get the full power. They show several different dinosaurs pouting and screaming, not wanting to go to bed, yet the dinosaurs still hold their "real" look. It is really amazing to me.

It's cool when your child obsesses over something worth obsessing about.

Matrix Revolutions

Danelle and I went to see the final installment of the Matrix movies, Matrix Revelutions. Excellent.

I was totally amazed by my response. My expectations were lowered going in because the reviews hadn't been that great. How can they really answer the question to "Why am I here?" Well, they did, but they didn't go over the top. It wasn't too easy either.

The ending was satisfying for me. There were several monologues where the Oracle and Smith take time to talk through what is going on. The action scenes are kept more to a minimum, as the conflict has escalated way beyond one on one, though the final showdown between Smith and Neo, though cartoonish, was enjoyable.

Some spiritual overtones to Christianity remain, but the equating of Smith and Neo as opposites would beg to make Jesus and Satan opposites. Satan wishes.

One thought that came to my mind was that I've always looked at the death and resurrection of Christ from a purely physical vantage point. He was dead. Then he came back to life. I'm aware that Peter talks about Jesus's descent into hell and back during this time, but it is an obscure reference. As Neo sees "beyond" what everyone else sees, it makes me think of trying to see "beyond" in my own life. It makes me think that Jesus death, like ours wasn't an ending, it was a leaving of the body. But he took his body back. That just has a different feel for me.

Good movie. I might try and go see it again.

But a warning, the language is excessive and there are some repulsive sexual images, though I actually think instead of being supposedly cool, they were to show the warpedness of the Merovingian.

Cheap Hosting

Jordon Cooper said that his friend, Alan Hartung, also the general editor of The Ooze, has a web hosting business at SoCal Websites - High Quality, Budget-Friendly Website Hosting. This is about the cheapest I've seen and with Coop's recommendation, this is probably what I will use if I need a database able site and don't set up my own server.

Leadership II

The problem with leadership is that it seems approximately 50% of all the people will not agree with the direction of the leader. There is never a mandate. So a leader has to decide to lead without a mandate, based on whatever foundations they have built into their lives.

We live in a world right now that requires leadership. We can't fight fires too much longer. The fire is almost out of control if not already.

Shopping Ourselves Out of Jobs

In this month's issue of Fastcompany, the headline is The Wal-Mart you don't know {why low prices have a high cost}.

Here is a quote from the article from Steve Dobbins, CEO of Carolina Mills, a textile supplier to Wal-Mart.

"People ask, 'How can it be bad for things to come into the US cheaply? How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart?' Sure, it's held inflation down, and it's great to have bargains," says Dobbins. "But you can't buy anything if you're not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs."

I've thought about this a lot. Here in Mattoon the factories are slowly shutting down. I've had almost no training in economy, but I've wondered, "Can you have an economy based only on service?" I'll preach your sermons. You cut my hair. You protect us from fire. You care for the parks. You work for the utility company (which still feels like a service). And we will continue to live at the same level we are used to, except that both husband and wife will have to work, and even that won't help for very long.

Can you have an information/service economy that generates the same level of income that a manufacturing base provides? I don't know.

So our jobs are going to India (can they outsource preaching?). But the deeper problem is that we still have a higher standard of living than those who took our jobs.

My incredibly uneducated guess -- we will have to change our standard of living through a tooth and nail process which will get very ugly. The global economy will stabilize as global incomes raise, and then we might be able to get back to a stellar income level, as the poor become educated and prosperous.

So actually it is a good thing in that it will provide a good standard of living for the world (as long as they aren't oppressed by dictators). Currently most of the world lives on about a dollar a day. That is the real root of the problem. Wal-Mart is just speeding the process, possibly to their own demise, but Wal-Mart isn't the problem.

This isn't how I thought this post would go. I thought I would find the problem in Wal-Mart. If you've read this far, leave a comment. You a real fan of this blog.

Leadership

A few days ago, Darren Rowse posted a link to Scientists Discover Cure for Being George W. Bush Cure. Stealing the punch line, the cure is ritalin, which is what they give ADD kids (and adults).

I'm not offended by the comment but it did make me think about leadership. One thing I have to give President Bush credit for is he is trying to lead. He sees a global problem, and he is trying to make a difference by leading. He is putting forth ideas and implementing action. He may not succeed but I appreciate his fortitude to take a stand.

I suspect it would be easier for him and possibly more satisfying (in the case he fails) to not take such an active leadership role in the world. To say that he is doing for self-serving reasons makes me suspect.

Some people fear leadership. They don't want to be controlled. They don't want to be criticized. They don't want anyone to get too much power (which can be a problem -- Hitler). But the lack of leadership is a problem too. Vacuums suck.

Friday Five (Late Again)

1. Using one adjective, describe your current living space. Adequate.

2. Using two adjectives, describe your current employer. All powerful.

3. Using three adjectives, describe your favorite hobby/pasttime.cyber techno geeky

4. Using four adjectives, describe your typical day.warm, purposeful, tiring, worthy

5. Using five adjectives, describe your ideal life.barely different from presently (trying to use adjectives, but failing)

Please Don't Call It Church

Raw Faith wrote on her blog that she is starting to get disenchanted with church. She met with some other independent thinkers to discuss church.

It was an interesting group. Half of the group had been in full-time professional ministry, but had since left the pastorate, taken private economy jobs, and were no longer participating in institutional churches of any kind. They were not burned out on God. Their faith was not lacking. They just didn't want to "do" church anymore. Instead they were trying to explore ways to "be" church. A couple of the guys were meeting with a few families in their homes. Another was taking his church to the streets. The Soulfarers contingent, comprised of me and my two friends, represented for the small, but at least semi-organized fixed, weekly service. The others were skeptical. Coming from well-established, well-funded, mega-churches, they had ceased to believe that the slick productions and consumer-driven programs they offered had anything to do with church.

I talked with a man on Tuesday who was fairly plugged into a local church. He said he wasn't going anymore. It seemed like going through the motions. A lot of busyness about nothing.

WHACK! Why does my head hurt so much? Put that big stick down and don't hit me again! Thanks to Darren for the link.

Bono makes powerful plea at Liberal convention

Bono speaks to a Canadian political convention. It is worth a watch at CTV.

Some look at Bono as silly when he speaks to politicians. On the other hand, we talk about getting people more involved. Whenever anyone stands up, there is always a large group that wants to call him pathetic, silly, uppity, do gooder, ...

Bono speaks about Christian things, and he uses words that many call salty. But he is speaking about important things. Thank God!

Blogroll

I updated my blogroll. I'm looking for more to read. These may not stay very long, but they may be the start of a real kinship. I can't wait to find out.

Appropriate Use of a Church Sign

If I have one pet peeve, it is church signs. Thanks so much to aboyandhiscomputer.com for allowing me to make the proper use. He says he has had 97,000 unique hits on his site since the beginning of November!

I love my wife. We have grown closer and closer over our twelve years of marriage and bringing three wonderful children into this world. I'm sure I thought closeness would mean that we read each other's minds about what wonderful thing the other person was about to do. What I have found is that our closeness has allowed us to be more critical of each other, realize the other one is right, know that they aren't saying it to bring attention to our fault, but that they truly want us to do well.

Kinship II

There is definitely a kinship among many of the blogs I've seen. Some names continue to get repeated on almost every blogroll. Are these famous blogs or is there a kinship? From my reading, I would say there is a relationship. In some ways, it feels like these are the cool kids and now a bunch of others have started hanging around the place, as if by association, they are cool kids too.

Who's cool? David Hopkins is cool. David is listed on so many blogrolls.

Is there a kinship issue? Here is a quote from David's blog:

No fault to Brian McLaren. He was addressing older folks and not really "targeting" me. Brian is a nice guy, but I've come to a point where I don't feel like I belong within that game and that language. I try to follow/priviledge/enact the message of Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God, but I'm tired of being "about" stuff. I'm tired of the authority structures, localized church celebrities, and marketing the next big movement of the Spirit.

Something in me doesn't want to like David's blog, but I do. Don't know why. I want to be a cool kid, like David, but I never will be. I don't have the hair.

Rachel is cool. She's young, hip, and pretty. Her rants sound more like a call to mission than just rants. Her design is fabulous. How else would a cool kid look? I want to read Rachel just in hopes that it will make me cool. It won't. My design will always look a little round on the edges.



Darryl Dash is cool. How could he not be with two r's in so cooly placed in his first name? And what a swooping last name. Darryl is always in the cool comments. Always an encourager. I'm not sure if he didn't break into the cool group. Not sure he was an orignal. Good going Dash! His blogroll is a roladex of cool.

Creech is cool. But is he cool in the right way. Saved by the Bell always had its Screech. Do you see a connection? You are right. It is probably only in the rhyming names. But Screech was cool. He went on to teach at Bayside. Everyone else went their own way, probably got a Cocaine addiction, divorced, a heart attack on the way to the top, but Screech was real people. Everyone probably ended up envying him.

Jordon Cooper is the king of cool. And deservedly so. Coop doesn't have the hippest blog or the best design or the best wording. He is Jordon Cooper. It doesn't get any better than that. Coop can "handle the truth," yet Coop is As Good as It Gets with a surprising gentle side too.

My only link to the cool world is Darren Rowse. But it is no surprise. Darren is an underblog (underdog) king. He loves to let people in. He cares about people. He wants people to feel good. Three cheers for Darren Rowse for inviting me to the cool party! Darren is tough as nails (We Were Soldiers) but even so his humaness is so evident.

Every social group has a kinship. Certain people are in. Others are out. And you can't do a lot to change it. You can't just include (at least more than one) anybody in the group. Everyone knows they don't belong. Square Pegs.

Friday Five

My weekly attempt to spill it all, personal inside knowledge. What you always wanted to know and more.

1. What food do you like that most people hate? Tough one. Most people I know are very picky eaters. They like some Chinese and not others (Josh). And so on. I can't think of anything specific. I do like Fried Okra. I'm not sure that many people have tried them.

2. What food do you hate that most people love? Fried Morel Mushrooms. People love to find them in the wood around here, fry them up, and eat them by the dozens. They are a real treat. I don't care for them. I would much rather have fried squash.

3. What famous person, whom many people may find attractive, is most unappealing to you? Wow, these are tough questions. Don't know. I'm not that picky about looks.

4. What famous person, whom many people may find unappealing, do you find
attractive? I don't have a clue. I'll say Tom Toner. (An old friend from high school who is good enough to read my blog. He deserves this.)

5. What popular trend baffles you? The whole Rubik's Cube phenomena. Oh and that pet rock thing. Am I out of touch? Again I don't know. The whole piercing thing really doesn't bother me. I don't want to do it, but it doesn't bother me either. Tattoos are in now. Don't want one. Doesn't bother me. Pants hanging around your knees. OK. Baffled.

Well, there you have it. Now you know me inside and out. What a treat! Nothing personal again till next Friday. Or Sunday night if I'm late.

Wireless microphone

I tried one of these Countryman mics out today. Wow! What a difference. Completely kills the lapel wireless I was using. A little pricey though. $349.00 just for the mic. It will plug into our current system. We are going to buy one. It was that good.

Classical Music Downloads

I'm not a classical music fan... yet. But mp3's can be downloaded here.

Another Blog to Read

Sung to the tune of "Another Brick in the Wall"

randallfriesen.com

Brad Boydston Blog

Maybe. blog.

Online database of audio speeches

Pretty cool. American rhetoric.com

Kinship

Rachel Cunliffe asked me in a comment to unpack the word kinship. I had said that reading Rachel's blog I didn't feel a kinship.

I tried writing this once with the lead line -- "Kinship has to do with overlapping lives in areas of keen interest." But after several paragraphs that seemed like a horrible definition.

Kinship is a gut feeling that I would enjoy having a cup of coffee with this person and that we could talk all afternoon without becoming irritated or bored.

Some bloggers bore me. Not that there stuff isn't legitimate or important. It just doesn't interest me. Too much info about personal life, too many issues that don't concern me, ... don't do much for me. This doesn't necessarily mean they are boring, just that it doesn't interest me.

Some bloggers irritate me. Too much anti-war stuff, various ranting, passion that can find no one worthy, poorly thought out arguments, cussing, ... put me off.

A kinship is harder to define than I thought. There has to be a mutual respect. There is probably a strong correlation to stage of life and generational issues. These seem pretty strong in blogging kinships.

Though if you looked at my offline kinships, you'd find a broad range of thinkers and lifestyles. They are almost exclusively men, but not completely. That isn't a theological issue, more practical.

As I look at my blog roll, there are three categories --

1. Famous blogs -- Jordon Cooper -- he's just plain interesting almost every day.

2. Kinship blogs -- Jon Reid, Darren Rowse, and John Porcaro -- I feel some relationship with these guys. We communicate via email some, not a ton, but some. And I enjoy reading their blogs -- relevant, not boring, not irritating. Maybe Rachel and I are forming a kinship right now. That would be cool.

3. Hopeful blogs -- Alan Creech. I could feel a kinship here. My expectation is that if we don't start some communication outside the blog that he will fall off the list. Not a threat, just a likely reality. On the other hand, he could become famous.

In my Other Blogs list, they are all Famous Blogs, but the kinship is weaker or they don't update very often.

How would you define kinship?

Large events are the air war

Large events are the air war that happens when you get enough people, the relationships and groups are the ground war that makes the movement work. -- Mark Driscoll

Still want to respond to Rachel?

She asked me to unpack the kinship thing. I will. But not today.

Wild At Heart

I finished Wild at Heart last night by John Eldredge. One of the most excellent and challenging books I've ever read.

It has made me think about some of my commonly held conceptions and realize how wrong they have been.

Here is an example: The military. I remember a discussion with my mom and dad when I was in high school and signing up for Selective Service. I remember saying that I would go to Canada if there was a draft. My dad, a Korean war vet, was mad but didn't blow his top. My mom was understanding. I had no idea what I was talking about.

Dad dropped it. I wish he could have set me down and had some continuing conversations about why service is so important. He thought it was obvious. It wasn't.

I remember thinking that the military was a last resort for people who couldn't go to college or get a job. But lately I've seen young men join specifically so they could serve their country. How excellent!

One of my favorite show growing up was MASH. Was there one military guy (not a doctor) who made any sense at all? They were all idiots. Crazy. I'm not arguing whether it was a just war or not. I'm saying there had to be a few sane voices there. Not on MASH. Frank Burns was always ridiculed for trying to be a proud American.

I'm not saying I'm now the complete opposite. The book, Wild at Heart, isn't really about all that. It is about being a man.

Another area I've noticed that I don't see clearly is the area of confronting people. I was really taught to avoid confrontation. You either don't put yourself in that situation, or you use sarcasm to get your point across without actually stating the conflict, or you use humor to skirt away from the conflict and go around it.

But conflict needs to occur. It is ok. It is going to happen. You could say that isn't only about being a man. No. I'm rambling a bit. But it was a good book.

The discussion at EasumBandy on Manly Men by Mark Driscoll is really interesting. He is really making some people mad. Not me. I'm just trying to learn.

Discussion Board Source Code

I'm still amazed that no discussion boards look like EasumBandy.com. Makes me wonder if I'm the one looking at them wrong. Their's seems so right.

Here is a place to get free scripts: Hot Scripts

Firebird Allows Multiple Home Pages

Coop suggested using Mozilla Firebird and Thunderbird. Firebird is a web browser. One thing I know I like about it is that I can set multiple home pages which open in tabs. So now when I run Firebird, it automatically opens my three favorite blogs -- mine, Coops, and Darren's -- in tabs. Very cool.

My blogging has been very web technical lately. Not sure whether to apologize or not. Nah!

Cool Web Design

I stumbled upon this site. It has a really cool design. Go take a peek. It requires Flash and it may be slow loading on a dial-up. Let me know how slow it is if you are using a dial-up.

Web Hosting Confusion

I'm not sure what I want to do. To explain what I want to do, let me give one example. I want to have a website that has threaded discussions. (It isn't like a chat room where everybody sees everybody typing each time. Instead there are subject headers and replies to subjects so you can follow the conversation more easily.

There are free places to get this. Such as Bravenet. The problem is I think these are confusing. If we want to start community and create culture, the last thing we need is a confusing discussion board.

However the discussion board at Easum Bandy (which I don't think you can see without a subscription to the site) is much better. It is intuitive. It is intelligent. It is hand written.

So I find myself asking, what do I need to do? What does God want me to do? Well, I do have a college degree in Computer Engineering, and mostly I did Computer Programming with that degree. Maybe God wants me to write my own. Maybe.

I had coffee with a teenager from my church this afternoon, and while I was there I saw a guy who I had introduced myself to before. He is new to town. He looked busy, but I saw a book on his table -- Java script for something. So I went over and asked him some questions, and he explained some stuff about websites that I hadn't understood.

I really want an overall picture of what this web stuff looks like. What does it take to write my own code to do discussion boards. I even think the code used for the Easum Bandy boards is available for free and I could customize it. How much time commitment am I talking about? Is this what God wants me to do with my time? He's giving me mixed signals.

I did find this site - Affordable Internet web site hosting packages for Windows 2000, NT and Microsoft FrontPage from Winsave webhosts - that does seem to have affordable hosting with MS Access database. Do I need SQL? Will Dreamweaver write in Access? This site does support Flash, which I may be able to afford with the non-profit price.

Enough. Smoke is coming out of my ears.

Spam Solution

According to jordoncooper.com :: more living, less punditry:

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know about my constant struggle with spam. I have tried a lot of products but I think that I may have found the perfect one. Mozilla's Thunderbird. If you don't know what Thunderbird is, here is a short description

Thunderbird is a free, open-source and cross-platform mail client for most operating systems including, but not limited to, Windows, Linux and Macintosh. It is based on the Mozilla codebase. It is a robust and easy to use client, similar to competing products like Outlook Express, but with some major advantages such as junk mail classification.

It is the junk mail filters that make it so amazing. Within a day or two, it has captured most of the spam I am getting. It is free and a safer alternative than Outlook Express. I am in the process of ditching Outlook for it but am looking for a more suitable calendar program. Anyone recommend a really good PIM?

I'm going to try it. Also the Firebird browser looks interesting too.

Dreamweaver at Non-Profit Price

I was drooling over the possibilities but sweating over the price. I saw there was an education price and was tempted to see about my wife buying it. She's an educator. I decided not to do it because... well that would be wrong. The purchase wouldn't be for education. Still, I looked at the prices... and then I saw non-profit!

I can get Studio MX 2004 Education for $US 199 or Studio MX 2004 with Flash MX Professional Educational $US 249. This is like $700 cheaper!

Macromedia - Educators : Education Price List

More... I want more!

Also: You have to have a 501C3, which we are in the process of getting.

Driscoll is teaching an Easum Seminar on Men

I need to be a part of this conversation: Manly Men: An Urgent Plea for Young Men

Blogging Tip

Darren has been printing a lot of really good blogging tips. Here is one from me.

Be careful of the rant. When people start blogging, it seems the first thing they can think of writing is a rant. They don't like this about the culture. They don't like that about people. The rant is not a great blog.

It is ok to vent a bit. It is ok to express some opinions. But What It's All About is to lead people toward Jesus. It isn't about getting people to have the same opinions. That may sound surprising. But my assumption is that as people grow closer and closer to Jesus, our opinions will begin to be surprisingly similar.

There is only way to God... and that is through Jesus Christ. But if Jesus is pictured as a mountain, then still we will approach Him from many different directions.

Blog Tip # 1: Don't distract people from the real issue -- Jesus Christ, the Risen Savior.

Brant Hansen Worth a Read

Brant Hansen is the one the best thinkers on culture I know. I know that from this link Lance will probably start reading Brant faithfully. If I can find the intellectual guts, I might have to start commenting on Brant's blog to see how my own thinking matches up to a master.

Friday Five

A little late, but better late than never.

1. What was your first Halloween costume? Not sure. The earliest I remember is a strong man. I had a leopard print over the shoulder shirt, and a fake set of barbells. Pretty cool. My mom always made my costumes. They were so cool.

2. What was your best costume and why? Pretty sure it was Batman. I was probably 5th or 6th grade. I remember going to the school party. I had a mask on underneath my cowl (Batman's hat) and no one knew who I was (or so they said). I wore it the whole next year just to play. So cool.

3. Did you ever play a trick on someone who didn't give you a treat? No. I was extremely naive. And I don't think anyone ever didn't give me a treat. We just went to family's houses. I don't remember going to anyone I didn't know.

4. Do you have any Halloween traditions? (ie: Family pumpkin carving, special dinner before trick or treating, etc.) We carved pumpkins. Sometimes we would TP (toilet paper) people's trees.

5. Share your favorite scary story...real or legend! Not really into scary stories. Though I did have people tell me the end to ... oh what was that called, where they were lost in the forest and it was shot with their own cameras? Anyway I knew the ending and then saw the ending on TV. Freaked me out. Also the first Halloween was pretty intense.