The Stand-up Philosopher

Book Review: The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment by Tim Challies

2012-01-29T19:36:00.000-05:00

Last year, Tim Challies' book "The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment" went on sale at Amazon, and I decided to buy it. I've known of the book for several years, but I didn't feel a pull toward it. I've been reading Tim's blog for years, so I'm familiar with his perspective. I've disagreed with him on a few subjects (or at least, with his conclusion on the subject). Some of his posts are great. Others are TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read). You can search my blog for posts I've written in response to something Tim said that I disagreed with enough to take the time to write about.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. What I got is some really basic material written for most Christians starting out to understand discernment. I think it's filled with a lot of cliches and has far less meat than the page count indicates. I can't say I learned very much new, but I've spent several years studying this and other complimentary subjects such as philosophy, so I'm not a beginner. This book is not the final authority on discernment, although it only claims to teach you about "spiritual" discernment. I don't think it does that. It might help you with a narrow range of single-minded Biblical issues. I doubt it would help you discern other spiritual issues like Gnosticism and the Merovingian myths. I doubt it would help you on issues like predestination or a Bible version debate (there are people who have elevated the King James Bible to the level of an idol.)

You should know going into this book: it's definitely a Christian book. Tim Challies writes like a pastor. He currently is a pastor, but was not when he wrote the book. Like a pastor, he repeats things to make points, just like he would in a sermon. Sometimes in the same paragraph. He uses a lot of devotional language. I'm convinced he has about a pamphlet worth of hard material without all the repeats, cliches, and devotional writing. Tim makes some good points, but also throws in a lot of 21st century North American Evangelical (Tim Challies is Canadian) cliches that will get a lot of amens from his audience, but make no sense to the discerning reader and probably fall apart under close examination. I don't think they detract much from his argument, and many contemporary authors and preachers use them, so they won't be out of place for most of Tim's audience. I just don't think they make any sense. When I read statements like "The church TODAY suffers from a lack of discernment", it makes me think there must have existed some magical time when the church DIDN'T suffer from a lack of discernment. I've done a fair amount of study into church history, and I find Ecclesiastes to be accurate: There is nothing new under the sun. I'm not denying that many Christians do not practice or develop discernment. But many non-Christians don't either. It's more a characteristic of fallen humanity than a reflection only of the church in our times.

One compliment I'd like to pay Tim is he didn't include the "just in case" material that annoys me in many Christian books. Christian authors will write to what they believe to be a spiritually mature audience, but "just in case" either include at least one chapter on the basic Gospel, or disperse it throughout the book. Tim doesn't do this, except for a very small part of his devotional language. I liken this to an experienced programmer buying a book on programming, expecting it to be written for an advanced audience, and finding several chapters on how to work a QWERTY keyboard and writing your first "Hello world!" program. Most professional authors don't include "just in case" material to cater to the possibility of a newbie picking up the book. I don't understand why Christian authors do this. I guess it's for the same reason pastors in small churches do an altar call every Sunday even though they haven't had a single visitor in months. If I buy a seminary level book, I don't want a chapter on the "Sinner's Prayer" just in case somebody not saved buys a book on an advanced Christian subject. So kudos to Tim for not going down this path.

OK, let's get to the book. Page 10 includes a forward written by none other than John MacArthur. That's impressive. John MacArthur is considered a heavyweight among Tim's likely audience. I don't imagine it's easy to get him to recommend your book. That's a little discouraging when I think about my conclusion on the book.

Chapter 1 is "A Call to Discernment". Tim begins with Solomon's conversation with God in I Kings 3. God gave Solomon the chance to ask for anything. Money, power, women, etc. Maybe not women, but he got that anyway. Solomon asked for wisdom and discernment. God rewarded him with the other things. The women probably weren't a reward, but he got 1000 of them anyway.

Chapters 2-8 are where Tim lays out his case. I won't spend much time reviewing them.

Chapter 9 finally gets into the meat of how to develop discernment. But it's not quite meat; it's still cliche. Tim offers two methods to develop discernment:

1) Read the Bible

2) Join a church.

That's it. He wrote several paragraphs explaining WHY you need to join a church. I'm not disagreeing with him on that point. I just think it takes a heck of a lot more to develop discernment than "a chapter a day keeps the devil away" and "go to church on Sunday".

Prior to his election in 1860, Abraham Lincoln, a man who had been reading the Bible since childhood, said "I am not a Christian- God knows I would be..." Supposedly Lincoln did become a Christian during his presidency. But here is Lincoln showing us simply reading the Bible does not magically convert one to Christianity.

There is a little more to it in this book than those two points. Tim does encourage his book's readers to become involved in a local church, and to find other believers to study with. I have no problem with that. I don't believe Christians are saved to be "Lone Rangers". In the 21st century developed world, the church (as in the building owned by the 501(c)3 non-profit corporation) is what our culture provides us for gathering with other believers in community. I have nothing against it. I don't believe it's a "one size fits all" solution, nor do I believe that most of our programs were laid out legalistically in the Bible like so:

"Verily, I say unto thee, thou shalt gather at 8:15 AM or 10:30 AM on Sunday morning. Thou must open service with a prayer, followed by announcements, then another prayer. Then sing 5 songs, none of which may be written after 1865. Thy modern songs art from the devil, except for Gaither. He is permitted for his songs are holy. But no other contemporary music can be holy. Neither is Amazing Grace because it sounds really cool with bagpipes. Holy music shall only be played with the organ or piano, the only two holy instruments, except for in churches of Christ. Foot tapping and clapping shall not be permitted in those churches for that could be considered an instrument. The five somber 19th century American Baptist songs shall be followed by another prayer, then two more songs. Then communion. Following communion (which shall be done with another somber, joyless old people song) a sermon of not less than 45 minutes but no longer than 90 minutes shall be preached. The sermon shall be as contrived as humanly possible, full of little more than a pre-school level exposition of "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so", which the parishioners should already know but must be reminded of every single week in case it didn't take any of the previous times. Also, in case that one person in North America who hasn't heard it is present, which is unlikely anyway because nobody has invited a visitor to hear this pastor preach in the last five years. The sermon shall also inform the parishoners that to not like such repetitive sermons means they don't love Jesus (Editorial note.- I have heard this in a sermon; I wanted to walk out. I was so mad I started arguing with the pastor on Evernote on my iPhone. My wife didn't believe that I wasn't emailing somebody). Also, they may not watch TV or they are not saved. Then another prayer and dismissal. Following dismissal, the parishioners shall spend up to an hour telling the pastor how great he is and how much they loved his sermon. They shall also lie to each other about how great their marriages and lives are. None of this is true, but to struggle with life is to not love Jesus, and no church member should admit to something that could cause them to look like they don't love Jesus in front of another church member. (They think the verse reads "bear someone else's burdens, but thy burdens shall be born by thyself or thou art a loser and unsaved"). Then they shall go home and live in gnostic duality because trying to follow pastor's admionitions leads to nothing more than constant frustration and a belief that they don't really love Jesus. If they did love Jesus, they could stop watching TV. And getting angry and impatient. And craving chocolate. And not feeling like reading the Bible for 6 hours a day, for that is holy. They shall forget the sermon and forget about Jesus and church until next week when they return to repeat the process, thereby getting their tickets punched. And the Gospel not being spread, for that is pastor's job. And that really weird guy who LIKES to knock on doors."

At least, from some churches, you'd think that's how Jesus laid out the prescription for church life. Or Paul. Or Moses. Or somebody. But that's not in the Bible. That's mostly satire based on a compilation of events from my life and stories from friends put together with figments of my own imagination. It's all sarcasm and should be taken as such. Except for the part about "If you don't like this sermon, it means you don't love Jesus". I sat through a sermon with that point. It also said if you don't like the somber, joyless old people songs you don't love Jesus. That's the last sermon I went to at that church.

After telling the reader to read the Bible and go to church, Tim lays out what he calls "The Character for Discernment". This is composed of two parts as well:

1)Humility before God

2) Humility before men- this is accomplished with meekness and compassion

The confirmation of discernment

This again provides a simplistic, cliched response: obey the Bible, and pursue God. Chapter nine is so simplistic and cliched, I believe you could do a "search and replace" and replace the word "discernment" in this chapter with any other spiritual discipline (ie, fasting, holiness, prayer, solitude, etc) and get the exact same material. You'd never notice the change. The chapter is perfectly modular and could be repurposed for material on just about any pious practice.

Chapter 10 is "The Practice of Discernment". I hoped this chapter would provide some meat. It promises to. The opening paragraph says:

In this chapter I will lead you step by step through the practice of discernment. So grab a pen and a couple of sheets of paper or open the word processor on your computer, and we'll get to work.

Challies, Tim; John MacArthur (2008-03-31). The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment (p. 163). Good News Publishers/Crossway Books. Kindle Edition.

In this chapter, Tim walks the reader through a series of about 17 steps (and some substeps) to deal with a case he presents: is self-forgiveness Biblical? I think Tim makes his case, but I also find it contrived. Tim already had his problem, conclusion, and references worked out before presenting his case, so the reader is not working through it with him. Tim is only leading you through his process to the conclusion he already arrived at. I agree with his conclusion; that's not the issue. I was not really excited by this case. It was a chore for me to read it. I learned nothing new, but I believe in finishing books and I hoped to get this review done honestly.

Tim provides an appendix of recommended books and ministries, a study guide, index, and notes at the back of the book. I'm familiar with some of them. If you follow Tim Challies, it's the kind of material you'd expect him to present. It's the people he follows. Nothing wrong with that. Later on in this review, I refer you to some people I follow. There is some overlap between my references and Tim's.

Please don't take my review as any sort of direct criticism of Tim Challies. I don't believe I've written anything in here that I wouldn't be comfortable discussing with him in person. Tim Challies and I agree on quite a bit, and I'm sure we'd get along great if we ever met. I'm merely providing a review of his book from my perspective. I partly disagree with the way he presents information in this book and develops his case. I don't think this book has as much meat as Tim thinks it does, and I don't believe it will help you develop the actual skill of discernment. It might help you understand what discernment is, but I don't think it will help you in any practical way. It's a "what to do" book, not a "how to do" book.

Note: this has been on my mind throughout reading Tim's book and writing this review. Tim Challies even mentioned having written a critical review of a book, then encountering the author at a Bible conference. He felt bad and hid. I attempted to find this post on his blog, but 30 minutes became too much work of going through his archives. You can email him to ask for the URL. But I have that post in mind as I write my review.

In an earlier draft of this review, I said I recommend this book for Christians eager to learn about what discernment is, and how to begin to develop it. I don't stand behind that anymore. This book is NOT the final authority on the subject, and is only a good place to start if you like softball content. It'll probably help you with discerning if a teaching on the Bible you hear is good, like on those Christian cable channels. But it doesn't talk much about logic. I'm not convinced it will help you discern a sales pitch. I think it's limited only to subjects that start and end within the pages of the Bible.

I believe spiritual discernment (or secular discernment) can and should be practiced outside of the Bible, and Biblical matters. It can be done in a Biblical way. I don't think we do ourselves any favors by placing the word "spiritual" as a qualifier before another word. I think it causes us to live in a gnostic duality. Many parts of our world are not that clear cut between spiritual and non-spiritual.

I use the words "gnostic duality" a lot lately. I do this because I'm convinced in our efforts to be pious, we often set standards that aren't entirely Biblical and serve to only frustrate ourselves and other believers with a failure to achieve them. I'm convinced Christianity is a faith and philosophy that is and should be compatible with our entire lives. We have to be able to discern between what the Bible actually says and somebody else's attempt to apply it in an effort to appear pious or holy. I've read books on spiritual disciplines where the author found a system that worked for himself or herself, at least long enough to write a book about it, and tried to convince the reader that this is the path to holiness. But I've tried to apply the system to my life, and only become frustrated because I can't or won't apply it. I don't care how holy an author feels, I'm not getting up at 3 AM to pray or read the Bible for 6 hours. I get up at 5 for work. That "discipline" does not fit into my schedule. I guess I could quit my job, but am I not supposed to provide for my family? (I Tim 5:8)

I was discussing this with a former pastor of mine. He commented that he heard someone at a conference say "You have to spend eight hours every day in THE WORD!" My pastor's response was "I'm already working more than 90 hours a week and have children at home. How is that supposed to work?" In other words, the speaker, in an effort (I have no doubts about his honesty and good intentions) to lead others into holiness, laid down an unrealistic standard. All he did was frustrate people who could not match that standard.

I've equated discernment with a term that could be considered raw: a bullshit detector (pardon the French). I've written about this before when I was challenged by a pastor to read the book of Nehemiah from a male leadership perspective. I was struck by the fact that Nehemiah had a rock solid bullshit detector. You couldn't pull anything over on him. (Last time I mention). I told God, if it were possible to posses the gifts of men from the Bible in the form of superpowers, I would want Nehemiah's bullshit detector. Yes, I talk to God like this (at times).

I came across a quote in a paper I was reading about the Trivium (Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric). It said:

One of several tests to show if an individual is reaching this awakened state of education is when he can thoroughly and critically entertain various ideas without necessarily embracing them (i.e., he comes into possession of a truly open mind: he frees himself from his own opinions and prejudices).

This is what I consider discernment to be. I don't believe Tim's book will help you discern anything outside of a very narrow range of Biblical topics.

Your first lesson in discernment is, just because somebody in a position of spiritual authority says something, doesn't mean everything they say is true. Tim Challies frequently cites I Thes 5:21: "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good". That's always been one of my favorite verses, more so than Acts 17:11. I'm not convinced I Thes 5:21 means "prove all things within the pages of the Bible". It means what it says: prove all things. At the time Paul wrote that, there was no New Testament, and I Thes was one of the first letters to be written, if not the first.

Rant: I listen to a lot of sources. Some are atheist. Christopher Hitchens called himself an "anti-theist". Some sources I listen to try to be purely scientific. Some try to be only "spiritual". The reason I'm critical of Tim Challies' "spiritual discernment" approach is because I favor a multi-disciplinary approach to life. You can't look at life entirely through the lens of naturalistic science, or through a lens of only the Bible. You have to use all the available tools: science, philosophy, history, etc. Use everything. You can't approach life entirely through a "spiritual" perspective. Nor can you approach life entirely through a naturalistic perspective.

How To Develop Discernment

Here are some resources I recommend you use to get started in developing the discipline of discernment: None of them will give you everything you need, but if you integrate the tools they provide, you'll be ahead of the curve.

Stand to Reason podcast - Greg Koukl exercises discernment as he walks through issues and questions raised by his callers. Whether you agree with him on issues or not, following him helped me to understand the "mechanics" of logic and argument as I watched him apply them week after week.

"Love God With All Your Mind" by J.P. Moreland. This explores a section of the command of what we're to love God with (heart, MIND, soul, strength). We often seem to forget that we're supposed to worship God with our intellect. When I used to teach Bible classes at church, I had a small but loyal audience who enjoyed my classes. Other people, including my own wife, wouldn't go to my classes because "It's Wednesday. I don't want to have to think". When I was scheduled to teach, I was always competing against a video series. Most people just went to the video series. I have nothing against video series. The first class I taught in that church was a video series of the Book of Acts. I'd open the class, play 30 minutes of video, and close with comments and questions. The pastors and elders had me do that to see if I could teach an entire quarter. They were being discerning about testing out a new teacher with the congregation. In this book, J.P Moreland explores what it means to love God with all your mind. One thing I really like about J.P. Moreland is he goes deep into the subject matter, and leaves you with constructive, actionable steps to apply them. He is my favorite contemporary philosopher.

"A Mind For God" by James Emery White- this is the book that got me started on the path to discernment. It's a small book and a short but comprehensive read, calling you to participate in the "Great Conversation". After years of listening to legalistic instructions to separate from the culture, this book encouraged me to engage with the culture. It was eye opening.

"How To Read A Book" by Mortimer Adler. This is recommended in the above book by James Emery White. It really opened my eyes and freed me to make notes in my books. I tend to make the most notes in books with material I disagree with, as I argue with the author.

The Real Estate B.S. Artist Detection Checklist by John T. Reed. As I said, a Christian life really should exist outside the limits of the pages of the Bible and the hours church is in session. Although the language in this web page is a little raw, it's an excellent overview of the methods people will use to trick you out of your money. It's geared toward discerning those Real Estate gurus who show up on paid programming time on the History Channel at 4 AM promising you limitless riches (and a boat full of beautiful women) with no money down, no experience, and no actual work. I find John's checklist applies to many situations in life. I believe I'd already read it before my encounter with Sundance Vacations. Next time I go to a presentation like that, maybe I'll bring the B.S. Artist Detection Checklist and run down it in front of the salesperson. "See, I don't want to buy a timeshare from you because you violate number (x, x, and x).

The Trivium- The first three of the seven liberal arts, Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. Learning the Trivium will teach you to teach yourself anything. I think it is far more important to know HOW to think. Most people seem concerned with being told WHAT to think.

Study logical fallacies. Learn how to identify a weak argument. I've been doing this a lot lately. I was listening to a podcast about logical fallacies, and I caught the philosophy professor committing the fallacy of equivocating. I was proud of myself for that one. The other morning on my ride to work, I was listening to a Rick Warren sermon, and I caught him Begging the Question. (NOTE: raising the question is NOT the same thing as begging the question. Begging the question is a logical fallacy where a point is assumed to be true then referenced back to itself. You hear from Christians all the time that "The Bible is true because it says so". I'm not disagreeing with that, but it's a VERY weak argument because it begs the question. I hear journalists all the time saying things like "This begs the question..." No, it RAISES the question. That's not the same thing.)

Jan Irvin created a site called Pop Up Fallacies. He only has two videos on it. I think my pastor would kill me if I recorded one of his sermons and did something like that to it. I wish pastoral education would teach people how to reason. I hadn't started studying logical fallacies at the time I read Tim Challies' book, otherwise I'd have a lot more notes in it. This review took me several months to draft to a state I felt comfortable publishing.

In addition to reading and listening to material that will teach you discernment, you also need to work to develop discernment. Here are practical exercises you can do (and should continue to do throughout your life):

1) Constantly challenge your assumptions- when I read blog posts by Tim Challies, I often agree with his conclusions, but I don't agree with the underlying assumptions he took to arrive at the conclusions. Likewise, when I watch a Michael Moore documentary, I often agree with many of the points he makes, but I disagree with the conclusions he arrives at. It's important to know the difference. Every now and again, I find it healthy to take apart what I believe and why I believe it. I often find the conclusion I came to to be right, but the assumptions I used to get there to be faulty. Or the other way around. As an amateur philosopher, I often conduct thought experiences to test my beliefs and observations about the world. I once conducted a thought experience about lying. I tried to create a world where it was wrong to lie at any time and for any reason. That was interesting. Fortunately, about the time, Rabbi Daniel Lapin published a weekly "Thought Tools" about the subject, laying out from the Torah where it is acceptable to lie. When your wife asks "Does this make my ass look big?" is one of them. I put his letter into my experiment and it worked better.

2)Read and listen to things you disagree with. This will help you challenge your assumptions. You may have no idea how many people only read about subjects through authors who either support or oppose the subject. For years, I read a lot of web pages and blog posts railing against Rick Warren's "The Purpose Driven Life". It took me years to read that book (it sat on my shelf for 6 years) but I finally gave it an honest read. I found it to be one of the most Christian books I've ever read. Most people who say not to read it haven't actually read it. They read blog posts and books railing against it. I'm not sure how many of those authors have read it either. When I study a subject, I try to find differing views. Even on subjects I'm firmly convinced of, I try to understand the opposing arguments by reading and listening to them. I routinely look for differing viewpoints to keep my thinking sharp. When people fail to interact with opposing ideas, they tend to commit "intellectual incest". This could be why nobody reads my blog. I don't want to serve up softball content that will be readily agreed with. I want to get you to think. I want to present you with ideas or ways of looking at things you might not have considered.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Social Media: Seeds for Blogging?

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000-05:00

Wil Wheaton (who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek:TNG) had an interesting post on his blog. He talks about how seeds for ideas that could have sprouted into posts on his blog often seem to get spent on social media.

I've noticed the same thing. I've grown quite a bit, but a lot of my early writing and social media posting was reactive. It was born mostly out of what am I excited or pissed off about RIGHT NOW. After I got a Twitter account, I could just blow all that stuff out in 140 characters. I noticed my blogging dropped off somewhat.

On the bright side, rather than blogging about what I'm pissed off about, I actually had to think of content. I'm not sure which is better.

Desktop Virtualization Is Here (And For Now, It's Free)

2012-01-10T16:30:00.000-05:00

I could cry. I had a brilliant idea last week. But I lack the resources (money and staff, mostly) to pull it off. Then I learn it's already been done. At least I was on the right track.

One of the managers of an organization that supports mine has an iPad 2, and works through a virtualized desktop. I've seen him using Windows on his iPad. Last summer, our CTO asked him and some of his people to demonstrate desktop virtualization during a "brown bag". We were supposed to have CTO brown bag lunches every month, but so far that's been the only one.

I love the idea of desktop virtualization. I've already started to migrate to web apps as much as possible. I don't miss the bad old days when Windows crashed and I had to reinstall, then spend days installing all the software I needed. Now I reformat, install a few programs I need (iTunes, VLC Media Player, Chrome, and Diablo II) and pick up where I left off. I'm tempted to not install MS Office next time Windows crashes. I only use Word and Excel on my home computer. Outlook has gotten to be about useless.

In desktop virtualization, Windows is running on a server somewhere. You log in through a client (could even be your browser) and it loads Windows. The solution described at the brown bag I attended involved a clean installation of Windows every day, so any worms or malware you've picked up are gone. It then migrates your profile in. Most users will never notice. They'll get the same desktop every day. I like this idea because it's platform agnostic. You can buy any device you like, or go anywhere. No more lugging a 15" laptop around.

I wrote a paper for a class I took proposing the use of desktop virtualization to reduce printing costs and enable telework. I've been meaning to post it here since last week.

Recently, a friend commented that he was having trouble with malware corrupting a profile on his laptop. He's my IT Jedi Master, so I know he knows what he's doing. That's when I got the idea to offer virtual desktops to consumers. I thought it would be a brilliant idea. But I lack the staff or money to pull it off.

It turns out, I don't have to. TUAW has a post about such a service. It also mentions a few others. This technology has been around for quite a while, but hasn't been able to gain traction. Back in 1999 and 2000, when I was an Intelligence Specialist in the Navy Reserve, I had access to a Windows NT 4 Citrix desktop. Of course, it was slow and painful and only had 5 MB of storage, so I never used it. Somewhere between 2005 and 2007, I found another virtual desktop service. I created an account, but it must not have impressed me because I forgot about it.

So now there's OnLive. And DAAS. And many others. According to TUAW, this stuff is about to get real in 2012. I'm looking forward to it. I will be reporting on developments here on my blog. I also plan to redact specifics from my paper and post it here as well. I've thought about trying to get it published so I can get paid for it. I'm not quite sure how to do that though.

Like the "Paranormal"? Here Are A Few Good Resources

2012-01-09T20:23:00.000-05:00

Several years ago, I started watching Ghost Hunters. Part of it is because of a blog post I read on a theology blog I follow, combined with a study of Joe Beam's "Seeing the Unseen" the church I was going to at the time was doing.

I watched Ghost Hunters for a few years. I also got into watching Destination Truth. I finally burned out on Ghost Hunters this past year and stopped watching. I tried watching a few other shows, like Ghost Adventures, but I couldn't get into it. Fact or Faked Paranormal Files is fairly interesting.

Along the way, I was trying to get a feel for "the paranormal field". Like many other interests I've had over the years, I listened to some podcasts. I started with TAPS Family Radio. I've tried several others, including Live Paranormal.

I stopped listening to both of them.

I've mostly lost more than a surface interest in the paranormal. It was fun for a while. But there are still a few podcasts and resources I'll stick with for now.

Nightwatch

Nightwatch is always fun. Todd Sheets keeps it interesting. His interest is in old horror movies. He has on classic horror movie actors, but has a lot of interesting guests. I always enjoy anticipating who he'll have on next. Sometimes it's kooky stuff like the Akashic Records. Other times he'll have on John Zaffis. It's always interesting

Strange Frequencies Radio

This is one I'll stick with the longest, I'll bet. It's basically skeptics on the paranormal. Bobby Nelson and Jason Korbus have been paranormal enthusiasts and even "ghost hunters". They've become skeptical of the field. But they still have a lot of interesting guests. I was sort of shocked to find Dr. Hugh Ross on one of their shows. I heard they tried to get people like William Lane Craig on.

They also have a friend of theirs on the show often, Sani Ceto, who claims to be a reincarnated Roswell alien.

Even if you don't believe a word anybody in the paranormal or supernatural fields say, SFR will not fail to deliver interesting and amusing content.

I enjoy it enough to forgive them for not providing an RSS feed for podcasts. I have to manually download each episode, import into iTunes, and then manually edit it into my podcast folder. That would seriously annoy me in most other cases. I wish they'd deliver an RSS feed, but I like the show enough to do the work.

James Randi Challenge

I would love to see this won. James Randi is a magician and skeptic. He is offering one million dollars to anybody who can demonstrate supernatural or paranormal capabilities. The test is simple. What can you do? Under what conditions can you do it? Then demonstrate it. You design the test.

Nobody has won. James Randi used to walk around with a $10,000 check in his pocket, just waiting to award it to somebody who can demonstrate supernatural power. No takers. Later, I assume other investors came in, and the prize is one million dollars.

I used to listen to a few Christian charismatic podcasts, but I got tired of listening to claims of people who say they can go to 3rd world countries and heal hundreds of people.

Yes, I believe it can happen.

Yes, I believe it has happened.

But I'm uncertain of people who make claims to have done it. Especially people who claim to have books telling you how to do it "Yours free for a gift of $35". (Blog post on that subject in the works).

SciFake

As of 01/09/12, it looks like SciFake was hacked, or Ron Tebo flipped out for good. Not sure which one. Hopefully, but the time you click this link, it'll be back to normal. But as I went to the site to get the link for this post, it's pretty much nonsense.

Conclusion

So that's it. Those are the paranormal sites I like.

_{Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”}

When "Quick" Surveys Get To Be Too Much Work

2012-01-06T21:00:00.000-05:00

I was reading an article on INC Magazine's website. A window popped up, asking if I'd be willing to take a survey. Yeah, sure. It promised to be quick.

So I finally get around to doing it. And I made it three steps in. First it asked the year I was born. OK, easy for an unsolicited voluntary survey.

Then it asked how much influence I had in decisions related to my organization's health plan. I said I had none.

Then it asked me what level I worked in, as in, peon, manager, CEO, etc...

Then it asked me what companies come to mind when I think of insurance companies. It had blank text blocks. I typed in several insurance companies, before I felt like I was being asked to do work. I clicked next. The next screen listed several insurance companies, offering me four choices. The first choice was "I have never heard of this insurance company". The next three choices were all levels of "I've sorta kinda heard of them... and I offer this choice to all my employees".

I could not answer the question. I have nothing to do with health insurance selections, I have nothing to do with hiring employees, and I have nothing to do with benefits offerings. I already answered the question stating that I have nothing do to with this.

So I closed the survey out.

It's almost as bad as going to HP's website looking for a driver. Before the page loads completely, it greys out, and a survey appears asking how easy it was for you to find what you need. Yeah, real easy, asking me before the page loads. I have to wonder what was going through their business analysts' heads. That's as stupid as if Best Buy employees knocked on your car window while you waited at the light a block away from the store on your way there to ask if you had trouble finding anything.

Trello: Another Great, Free App

2012-01-06T18:03:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I wrote about Evernote, an awesome freemium service I've used since the earliest days it was available.

A couple months ago, Fog Creek Software rolled out Trello. It's marketed (and free) as a "list of lists". I'm not sure how to integrate it with my personal productivity system, but I had an immediate use for it: keeping track of stuff at work. I managed the people who do the infrastructure portion of IT projects. We often coordinate with an Applications group on projects. Although I don't manage all the projects, I'm the Point of Contact for all the joint Engineering-Apps projects, so I have to know what's going on between the two groups. Once Trello came out, I immediately put it to use keeping track of my projects. I can't quite manage tasks with it yet, but I can at least make comments on the project cards and maybe keep track of the next few actions to move the project forward. That way, I have an immediate high-level status available of where my projects are at.

Joel Spolski posted to his website today explaining the methodology behind Trello, and how they plan to maintain it, and how they want everybody to use it.

Trello is free. The friction caused by charging for a product is the biggest impediment to massive growth. In the long run, we think it’s much easier to figure out how to extract a small amount of money out of a large number of users than to extract a large amount of money out of a small number of users. Once you have 100 million users, it’s easy to figure out which of those users are getting the most value out of the product you built. The ones who are getting the most value will be happy to pay you. The others don’t cost much to support.

They've definitely made Trello easy to use. Even in the earliest days of the service, I didn't have to create an account. I was able to log in with my Google account and get started right away. No picking usernames and passwords and waiting for validation emails. To quote The Oatmeal (and I'll slightly censor this): "I need more website accounts like I need an a$$hole on my forehead!"

I'll admit, I let Trello lag for a while. But after reading Joel's post today, I logged back in. I realized I've closed a few projects, and others have moved along. It was exciting. I'll go back to using it.

Evernote: INC Magazine's Company of the Year

2012-01-05T16:30:00.000-05:00

INC Magazine published an article about Evernote as their company of the year. I'd say they deserve it. I've used Evernote since version 1. I was a beta tester for Evernote 2.0, which got me a copy of Evernote 2.0 Professional after the final was released. At the time, I kept bouncing back and forth between Evernote and Microsoft OneNote. I eventually settled on Evernote for various reasons.

Evernote 2.0 Pro came with a portable version, so I could keep the .exe along with my files on a thumb drive and carry it back and forth from home to work, in the glory days when I still had admin access on my work computers and thumb drives weren't banned by policy.

Also, Evernote's Web Clipper, from Day 1, was amazing. It would clip anything. OneNote's was sort of hit and miss.

After Evernote got money and their CEO bought a Mac, Evernote 3.0 came out, with a centralized web access and mobile clients. I could keep all my notes synced between the desktop client, web, my mobile, and even a company issued BlackBerry I used to have with admin rights.

By this point, the web client works so well, I hardly ever use the desktop client. I still use Evernote on my iPhone and iPad.

You can use Evernote for a ton of things. I'd say the only limits are your own imagination. Scanners are available that allow you to scan documents straight to Evernote. I've used it for school, work, taxes, my blog, my personal journal, my brief stint in real estate, and a bunch more. When I had to produce weekly and monthly reports on a job a couple of years ago, I kept them in Evernote.

I have notes in Evernote going back to 2003. That's how long I've been on it. It's come a long way. I highly recommend it.

The article discusses Evernote's freemium business model. It was very hard for the company to get cash initially because of this model. The free version of Evernote has always been full featured. That's one of the reasons I've stuck with it so long. I've been looking for a good task or project management type software lately. Many of them offer a version that I find too limited to test drive, but I'm not willing to pay $10 a month to get what might be enough features to find out whether it's usable or not it's worth the price.

On the freemium model, Evernote's CEO says:

Libin explained his theory: The more stuff you put in Evernote, the more important the service would be to you. Who would begrudge $5 a month to a company that was storing your memories and helping you retrieve them? "Your notes, your restaurants, your friends, a year of your life, then years of your life," says Libin. "That's worth thousands." The danger wasn't that people wouldn't upgrade, he argued; it was that they wouldn't try the service in the first place or wouldn't stick with it because the free version was skimpy and failed to impress. Get them to fall in love with the service, and they would eventually pay, because they would be invested in its success. "I want to build a 100-year company, and I'm serious about that," says Libin. "I don't need to squeeze money out of you. I'll have the rest of your life to take your money. It's my long-term greedy strategy. Our slogan is, 'We'd rather you stay than pay.' Basically, I wanted a business model that rhymed."

Another statement from the article representing a part of the company's philosophy that has always kept me using it:

One thing Libin says he refuses to worry about is competition. And there are, in fact, vaguely competitive products and services. Most notable among them is Microsoft's OneNote, which has some of the same features and comes with Microsoft Office. But it doesn't provide Evernote's effortless toss-in-any-kind-of-note-on-any-device environment and hasn't achieved nearly the traction that Evernote has. Nevertheless, it's inevitable that more and better competitors will emerge. When that happens, Evernote users will be able to painlessly take their memories and leave, because Libin has insisted that the information be made easy to export, so that no one feels locked in to the service. "We used to have a saying in the Soviet Union: 'Any country that you're free to leave, you're free to live in,'" he says. "We want our users to feel free to leave."

(Emphasis mine). I have never felt a lock-in to Evernote.

Another freemium product I've stuck with over the years is Remember The Milk. It's not perfect. It does have some serious limitations, but it's so easy and reliable, no matter how hard I try to leave, I can't. I had a Pro account for a year. They keep rolling pro features down to free users.

Cutting The Tether to My Laptop

2012-01-04T21:06:00.001-05:00

My laptop is useful, but with an iPhone and iPad, I've been wanting to do more without it. It would be nice to leave the house for a few days without having to bring my laptop with me.

I am finally staring to make some progress on this front. This blog post is being written on my iPad.

One of the biggest hurdles I've had to overcome is my dependence on iTunes. I have found a few workarounds. For one, Google Music. As I type this, my laptop is packed away and I'm listening to some Goo Goo Dolls through Google Music.

A larger hurdle is podcasting. I am really dependent on podcasts. I guess I could learn to live without them, but I'm able to keep up on some interests during the day while commuting and going between meetings. I recently came across Podcaster 3. I tried a similar product called Podcaster 4, but it only allowed listening at 1.5x normal speed, and it marked a podcast as read after only a few seconds when I decided to listen to another. Podcaster 3 doesn't do this, and allows listening at 2x speed.

I ran Podcaster 3 today. I especially like that I can update on the go, even on 3G. I'll try it for another day. The drawback is it won't work natively with my car's radio. The Kia Soul was built to work with the iPhone, which was a major selling point for me. But I can use an aux cable. I just can't fast forward through commercials with the stereo controls. I'll give it a few more days.

Now, if only the iPad could overcome the peripheral issue, and the Adobe Crash issue. If I could download files to a USB hard drive on my iPad, I would barely need a laptop anymore.

What about you? Have you broken the tether to your desktop or laptop in favor of a tablet type device? What tips do you have?

Quality Time Through Second Life

2011-12-31T23:33:00.000-05:00

I'm a Geographical Bachelor. That is, I have to provide for my family by working on a different location than they live. I've been doing it for just over 14 months. I typically go home for three days every two weeks. This is not one of my weekends to go home. Because my work and home locations are along the I-95 corridor, in addition to gas I have about $20 in tolls each way.

Finding things to do with the kids has been challenging. Caleb will talk on the phone, but Joshua won't. He just has no interest in it.

Then I found Second Life. I took a Master's class called Critical Systems Technologies. I posted the paper I wrote for that class here. I was introduced to the concept of virtual worlds. I'd known of second life since 2006 or 2007, but had no clue what to do with it. As part of the class, we created accounts and they showed us around. I installed it on my computer when I got home.

I realized that since Joshua has always been highly intuitive with video games, it might just be that thing I can use to stay connected with him while I'm away. I was right. He loves it. If anything, if you don't set a limit on him, he'll be on it for hours.

And so, today, I got a call from him asking if I could log in. Thanks to the video chat function, we were able to talk all the way through it. Joshua likes going through the Stargate we found on a place called Huffman Prairie.

And so, I present to you the family picture, circa 2011-2012. That's us in some kind of subway at a Starfleet Academy island. My wife is heavily into the vampire thing, and Joshua watches some of the shows with her, hence his avatar. I went with "Male Student".

Second Life is hardly the safest place to be. Joshua isn't allowed to "play" unless I'm in there with him, or at least in the same room. While I was home at Christmas, I paced around the kitchen reading a book on my iPad while he played Second Life.

Watching Older Movies (Toy Soldiers, 1991)

2011-12-30T22:48:00.001-05:00

This week, I read Wil Wheaton's book "Just A Geek". It mentioned the movie "Toy Soldiers". I remembered liking the movie, so I decided to watch it again. What a blast from the past!

I was probably a junior in high school when the movie came out (1991, according to IMDB). I could have started my senior year. I have no idea which month of that year I saw it in.

It sure brought back a lot of memories. I can't say Wil Wheaton was entirely convincing watching this movie 20 years later as the son of the "New Jersey Mob Boss". I've lived in New Jersey for 12 years by this point, and been co-located between NJ and Virginia for 1. But when I first saw the movie, he was still Wesley Crusher to me, and New Jersey was something Jewish and Italian comedians joked about but my brief trip through there at 1 month old was not in my memory.

Sean Astin was in the movie. I certainly have never met the man personally, but he's been in movies for most of my life, if not my entire life. Some actors seem like total douchebags. Sean Astin has always seemed like somebody I could enjoy hanging out with. He seems like a decent guy; down to earth. I have little to base that on, besides him playing some of my favorite movie characters, including Sam Gamgee from Lord of the Rings and Mikey in The Goonies. In any case, some actors seem like they think they're better than me; but I've always imagined Sean Astin as somebody I could have a beer with and like. I've never seen anything to contradict that.

I caught a could of brief glimpses of Jerry Orbach (Lenny from Law and Order). IMDB says he played Wil Wheaton's charater's father. I guess he was the head of the NJ Mob. Jerry Orbach has passed on a few years ago, but it was refreshing to see him again.

Also, R. Lee Ermey appeared way too young in this movie, even if it was years after Full Metal Jacket.

It's definitely weird to watch movies from decades ago, considering the actors who have matured and passed on since it was filmed.

Of course, being 20 years old, I'd love to see Hollywood do this movie again in an age when everybody has a cell phone. 20 years ago, cutting the phone lines to the campus would have cut it. But what of the students who all had droids and iPhones, and the faculty who probably have school issued BlackBerries and personal droids and iPhones today?

_{Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”}

Reading Books Together

2011-12-30T08:51:00.000-05:00

I've always been an avid reader. Perhaps not a productive reader, but I've always been reading something. The only time I remember not reading is when I was 3 or 4 and discovered my uncle was dyslectic. I didn't know what that meant. All I know is we were visiting and I asked him to read my favorite book to me (Richard Scary's What Do People Do All Day at the time). I had the book memorized even though I couldn't read it. He was unable to read and tried to wing it. I threw the 3 year old version of the BS flag. My kids are fairly smart, but seem to have a little more tact than I did at their ages.

This past Spring, a friend and I decided to begin a regimen of reading books together. We agreed to pick a book and read a certain amount each week. Then get together weekly to talk about it. For our first book, it worked out to be a chapter a week. We recently started our second book.

It's been fun. I assume we'll stick to non-fiction books. It's interesting not only to discuss what stood out to you in a book, but to see what someone else gets out of it.

Our first book was Randy Alcorn's Heaven. We ended up stopping around Chapter 32 and finishing the book independently. The last several chapters were like micro-subjects, where he delved deeper into ideas brought up earlier in the book. It became less productive to take the book in chapter sized bites.

For our next book, we're doing The Life of Abraham Lincoln. There is a free Kindle edition available.

_{Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”}

I Totally Forgot I Had A Tumblr Blog

2011-12-29T19:55:00.003-05:00

I gaurantee I've been on Tumblr since years before most of you ever heard of it. I signed up somewhere around 2006 or 2007. All I remember is I still worked for BAE Systems in Mt. Laurel, NJ, and still listened to Leo LaPorte's TWIT branded podcasts. That's how I found out about it.

You can check me out here.

I've been on Tumblr so long, I forgot all about it. At the time, I was more interested in "monetizing" my blogs, whatever the hell that means. I should just set a goal to figure out how to write stuff people want to read before I decide to make money from it.

Check me out there. I'll screw around with it some. I checked a setting that allows you to ask me questions, which you can do through my comments here too. And it's not like my email address is that hard to find.

My Favorite (and 1 Least Favorite) Books of 2011

2011-12-29T14:14:00.001-05:00

As of today, I've read 48 books for 2011. I might be able to squeeze in one or two more. I tend to read books in binges. I'll read between 2 and 5 in a short span of time, then slowly graze through a few books for a while, then blast through 5 more two months later. I'm reading all the time, but I do a lot of reading online. I notice I also tend to blog in binges.

I also tend to be in the middle of up to 8 books at a time. I do some reading in Kindle. Some books are pdf files in iBooks. Some are physical books. I have access to Safari Tech Books so I usually have one of those open at work for downtime reading.Then there's oftens that one book I start, but always feel like I need to be at my most alert to read properly, and never feel like I'm at that point. I put off finishing it for months, then plow through during a reading binge no matter what state of mind I'm in.

If you actually happen to care what books I'm reading, you can follow me on Shelfari. I need some friends.

I figured since other bloggers are doing similar things, maybe I'd do a quick "Best books of 2011" post. I'll also include what I consider my least favorite book. I'm not calling it my worst book. It wasn't the worst book, but it was my least favorite. This list isn't in any particular order.

I was going to do a list of 10 books, but I changed my mind. I also realized as I went though the list of books I'd read this year, few could actually be considered favorites. I read some specialized books for topics like ITIL and project management. I also read a book on Windows Server 2008. While I gained a lot of useful knowledge, none of them will go down as classics. I also read a couple of books that had been on my list for a while, and I just wanted to get through them.Some books, like "Today, We Are Rich" were good but not great enough for a favorites list.

I think a key lesson I've learned this year is not to read a book for the sake of reading a book. Reading a book takes time, and I need to get a little more discriminating in which books I spend time reading. I should also reread "How To Read A Book".

Here's the list:

Succeeding by John T. Reed
http://johntreed.com/succeeding.html

This is the best book I've read on the topic. I plan to review it separately There is no affiliate link, since it's self-published and self-distributed. I highly recommend it.

Courageous by Randy Alcorn

I read 5 Randy Alcorn books this year. All of them qualify for this list. My review is here.

Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War by Patrick Buchanan

Fascinating analysis of history. Buchanan's premise is that neither World War I, and by extension World War II needed to be fought. Both were the result of pride and bad decisions on all sides. (The German Kaiser was grandson of the British Queen and was a field marshal in the British Army). Additionally, Winston Churchill, during his 50 years of service in British government, presided over the death of the empire. When Churchill first entered service, the sun never set on the British Empire. When Churchill left service just 50 years later, it was all gone. Buchanan lays plenty of the blame on him. Churchill is somewhat of a "sacred cow" to many authors, so I found Buchanan's criticism of him refreshing.

Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller

My review is here

.

John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace

I committed recently to reading more biographies. This is the one that kicked it off. John Newton was an amazing man. Once a slave ship captain, his life ultimately led to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.

I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi

This was the most useful book I read this year. I actually bought it in 2008 when it first came out, but I didn't start reading it until early 2011. It is a no BS, no holds barred look at personal finance. It comes from a much different perspective than most personal finance authors. Ramit has no patience for "Just don't buy lattes" and use a single square of toilet paper finance advice. He gives you scripts and advice that work for getting your interest rates down, getting the best deal, automating your finances, investing for the long term, and other topics.

Least Favorite: Apocalypse Dawn by Mel Odom

My review is here.

Didn't Impress Me:

Read This Before Our Next Meeting by Al Pittampalli. This book had a huge build up. Many of the leadership, business, and productivity blogs I follow pumped it up like a penny stock scam. I was let down, like what happens when you fall for a stock pump and dump. It's a quick read, and the Kindle edition is free for Amazon Prime members (that's how I got mine). I found it way too idealistic. It probably does work really well in Seth Godin's organization. Just try getting it to fly in organizations like those in which I often find myself. I doubt I could have gotten the real estate brokerage I was affiliated with last summer to buy into it. In a perfect world, it would work. But we don't live in a perfect world.

_{Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”}

So Why Do We Put Up With Gatekeepers?

2011-12-29T09:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I read Wil Wheaton's book "Just A Geek". In it, he talked about the life of an actor in Hollywood. You give up family vacations and spend hours or days prepping for an audition, only to show up to producers who don't like you, and don't care. It's like having to go to several job interviews a week in the hopes of getting work that might last a few months. If you get on a good series like Scrubs or Dexter, it could keep you working steadily for years, but the odds are against that.

We have a lot of industries that act as gatekeepers. We trust them to provide us with only the best, but the truth is, they're people with preferences and often are too busy or distracted to actually take risks. We often hear about how much trouble the writers of "The Shack" and the "Chicken Soup" books had finding a publisher. They were turned down up to or even more than 30 times, even though both ended up being a franchise that was practically a money tree. But the gatekeepers didn't see that. They wouldn't take the risk.

In many cases, the gatekeepers are in large, inefficient, bureaucratic oligopolies. This is how we end up with boy bands and "Sh*t My Dad Says" (which I have never watched, nor do I intend to). I almost fell off my chair when I found out about the new Adam Sandler movie, Jack and Jill. I immediately flashed back to the South Park Episode, Awesom-O, where Cartman is asked for movie advice by Hollywood executives. His response (this may not be exact) was "How about, Adam Sandler has a sister, who is also Adam Sandler". So is Hollywood looking for ideas by trolling old South Park episodes?

I'm sure the gatekeepers serve some purpose. But they're rapidly becoming obsolete. For writers, the Internet has opened up vast opportunities in self-publishing and self-distribution. Check out John T. Reed's "How to Write, Publish, And Sell Your Own How To Book". (Self-published and self-distributed). For music, no longer do you have to wait for some record company executive to discover your band. Just put your stuff out there and see what happens.

If you think you have a good movie idea, just go ahead and do it. You can do movies for low budget. You don't have to go for the format the gatekeepers follow, with a 90-180 minute story, or a season of 12-25 episodes. Often, you can tell a story in a shorter amount of time. I've seen some awesome ideas for short stories. Remember "Chad Vader"? It's about Vader (or his brother) working as a grocery store manager. It was unique and funny. And I doubt it took a lot of money to make it.

There used to be a web show called "Tiki Bar". I have no idea if it's still around. I think it probably jumped the shark. The premise was, a doctor, bartender, and woman hung around a bar, which occasionally featured guests and villains. They solved problems with mixed drinks. Each episode had a different drink. It was silly, but at about 5 minutes an episode, it was unique and amusing enough to keep up with.

If you think you have an idea for a movie or show, just go ahead and do it. Get a website or post it on one of the video sharing sites. Not all ideas are meant to last forever. If it stops being fun, or you come up with a better idea, just move on. It helps if you can bring it to a closure or indefinite cliffhanger.

Plenty of books like the one below can help you. I haven't read this book. I stumbled across it today. But if you think you have an idea for a movie, and can't get past or even in front of the gatekeepers, check it out. Let me know what you think of it.

Reading and Writing

2011-12-28T19:14:00.002-05:00

I started this blog about seven years ago now. I was working on a contract to perm job. I started during Thanksgiving week. I only got paid for the hours I actually worked, but my salary on the contract was high enough, I got paid more for those three days Thanksgiving week than I would have all week on the job I left at Lockheed Martin.

Starting a job during the holidays, especially in the defense industry, presents some challenges. I started at the end of November. It was January before I had all the account and access to all the resources I needed to do my job fully. The week between Christmas and New Year's was particularly challenging. It was a four day week. Since I only got paid for the hours I actually worked, I was working ten hour days. Except that my supervisor was on vacation that week, both shipyards we supported were in stand down, and there wasn't much for me to do but show up, charge time, and try to stay awake.

I'd heard a lot about blogging. I decided to try it that week.

This blog was originally called "Eric's Watchtower". I based that on Habakuk 2:4. It didn't last as long as I thought. For a while it was "Eric's Blog", for a while "The Gadget Geek Dad". I tried several different services. I've tried MSN Spaces (which I believe is now Wordpress), I've tried Wordpress.com, and I had a Typepad blog for 2 years. I kept coming back to Blogger because it's free and I can somehow "monetize it", for what that's worth. It hasn't been worth anything to me. I had an AdSense account, but Google banned me for "Click Fraud" and does not accept appeals, even if it's bullcrap.

I've tried lots of different titles and topics. I finally settled on "The Stand-Up Philosopher", as an homage to Mel Brooks. I love that scene.

As for topics, I've tried book review, tech blogging, mobile life, business, and so on. I've never been courageous enough to touch on politics. I've tried doing a little Christian blogging, but that didn't work out much either. I have little patience for devotional writing, and I don't think I do it well either.

I'm not sure what I'm afraid of. In more than 950 posts, I've had damn few comments. I've had a few comments get lost, but they're not that big a deal. In any case, I might as well just say what I think about the topics I care about. I can't get my friends and family to read this blog.

I've been accused of being "too open". John T. Reed was asked if he'd ever had an unpublished thought. His reply was along the lines of as the head of his own publishing business, that would amount to sleeping on the job.

I'm not sure what being too open means. People who have accused me of that are not writers. I have to wonder how valuable that advice is. Most of the writers I like are actually very open. Donald Miller is one example. Just today, I read Wil Wheaton's "Just A Geek". He's fairly open about his feelings and experiences too.

My wife does not like being mentioned on this blog. As in, she doesn't even like me mentioning I have a wife. I have no idea how to write about some of the topics I want to cover without mentioning "my wife". I can show her hundreds of books off my own bookshelf in which the author mentions his wife. I understand her concern, but have no idea how to comply with it. Wil Wheaton mentioned his wife in his book I just read today. I've tried to convince my wife to read Athol Kay's blog, and be grateful I do not approach anywhere NEAR that level of detail.

So I don't know how to write without being open. I have to create that openness, that sense of vulnerability to connect with potential readers. I have no idea who they are yet.

As I'm setting out my goals for 2012, I've tried to figure out what to do with my blog. At the moment, I'm thinking about not taking writing advice from non-writers. Maybe I should just cut loose with what I think. I want to get to 1000 blog posts. I need to figure out where my niche is. I can't figure out how to do that without writing.

I guess that's my "State of the Blog" for 2011. My historical stats indicate nobody will read it.

My all time most-read post is: http://emuelle1.blogspot.com/2007/04/sundance-vacations-is-there-really.html

The next three are related to the University of Phoenix, of which I am a graduate (BSIT, 2007). I once had a comment left telling me my blog was considered an authority on the University of Phoenix. I mostly posted rants, although I attempted to help get Thunderbird connected to the newsgroups.

I do a lot of reading. Back in 2008, I read that former President George Bush and fomer whatever he was Karl Rove challenged each other to read 100 books a year. And I'm not talking about "Who Moved My Cheese?" (which I have not read). I mean really extensive history and political books. I took that as a challenge, and set a goal for 2009 to read 100 books. I read 46. I read 36 books in 2010. Part of it was my layoff and transition to Real Estate. I DVR'ed a lot of Real Estate shows to "study". My mentor was horrified at the prospect that I would use those as an example of how to conduct business, but I found out most Realtors secretly watch House Hunters, even though they're all embarrassed to admit it.

I've read 49 books in 2011. I might be able to squeeze in one or two more by the end of the week. Low hanging fruit...

But I read a lot. When you throw in all the magazines and periodicals and websites I read, I probably do come close to 100 books worth of reading a year. I'm always reading. It's just a matter of what counts as a book or not.

So I'll try some new styles and new topics for 2012. Maybe I'll actually hit on something people will read.

In the meantime, I guess I can say whatever I want. Support Ron Paul.

Why Are Old People Often Mystified By Simple Things?

2011-12-23T14:05:00.001-05:00

This is a mostly rhetorical rant. I get so little blog traffic, I could say anything I want anyway.

I'll start with a disclaimer: Yes, I respect many members of "the elderly". I know some who have led rich, full lives and have incredible wisdom I can only pray I can extract from them while they're left.

Then there are those old people you run into in public. They've squandered their lives and minds, to the point where you wonder how a person can reach 60 or 70 and be utterly mystified by Pillsbury Biscuits. More on that in a minute.

Ponderosa
We used to have a Ponderosa in Stratford, New Jersey. It was there in 2001 when we first bought our house. I remember it being a good place for Friday dinner. Another day we seemed to end up there a lot was on Sunday. One particular Sunday, two elderly women were at the buffet. They seemed not to understand a single item available at the restaurant. If you've ever been to a Ponderosa, you go in first and pick an entree. Usually steak or seafood or chicken. You also order a drink and pay up front. Then you get a tray and a cup, and you can eat from the salad buffet until your entree arrives. I remember it being a great place to get dinner for $7 or $9.

So these two women were in line ahead of us for Sunday lunch. They were utterly confused by the concept of "pick out a steak or chicken dinner". Then, the soda fountain totally blew their minds. It took us 5 minutes of waiting for them to figure out how to get Sprite into a cup before they got out of their way. (Though I held my temper and tongue throughout this ordeal, their mannerisms and accents placed them as lifelong residents of New Jersey. It's not like they came from Nowhereistan and had never eaten at a steakhouse).

Once they finally got food ordered and drinks poured (a trivial task for most of us), they proceeded to the buffet. This is the part where I was ready to yell. At the fresh baked portion of the buffet, they for whatever reason felt the need to squeeze EVERY SINGLE ROLL. Needless to say, I did not eat a roll that day. Then they also acted puzzled by just about every buffet item, as if it's the first time they'd ever seen mashed potatoes or pasta salad.

Seriously, they were elderly women in New Jersey, and acted like a Sunday buffet at a steakhouse was a new experience. I couldn't understand it. I think you have to demonstrate the ability to eat at a buffet to get a driver's license here. (You apparently don't have to be able to actually drive...)

Wal-mart
Just today at Wal-mart, I came across another example of old people (very much American and local looking) who seemed totally confused by what should have been a simple concept. I was dispatched to pick up some Pillsbury Cinnamon Muffins. Two old people were blocking the whole section for at least a minute after I got there. I just wanted 2 sleeves of the things. This time it was a husband and wife, probably in their 60's. They kept picking up different selections of the biscuits and muffins. The concept of baking them at 350 degrees seemed to confuse them. I finally got my two sleeves and left.

As I was leaving, I got caught in an aisle between an employee slowly folding a ladder up, and a woman passing her with a shopping cart even slower. I thought if they moved any slower, the clock on my iPhone would start running backwards.

My Future
This leaves me terrified of how I could end up. Please, tell me I'm not destined to end up so slow and clueless like many of the elderly I come across in my escapades. Even when I'm injured or sick, I don't move as slow as most of the people who shop at Wal-mart or eat at the lower cost restaurants in my area. And yes, I notice this in Virginia as well, so it's not limited to New Jersey.

Using Virtual Worlds To Enable Telework- A Paper I Wrote

2011-12-17T15:27:00.000-05:00

This is a paper I recently submitted for a class I took. We had a session on Virtual Worlds. I've known of Second Life for many years, but never bothered with it. I now have an account and am exploring it. While researching this paper, I discovered there does not appear to be much documented support for the idea of using a virtual world to make up for some of the weaknesses involved in telework, like being able to monitor employees and being able to maintain interaction.

I wrote this paper from the perspective of a recommendation to my employer. I have redacted mentions of my employer and specifics of the organization. Rather than leaving [REDACTED] in place of names, I've tried to generalize them i.e. "This organization". I left my reference list, which had to be an annotated bibliography. I'm sure I botched it. This paper was written in APA format. I have not yet received my grade.

UPDATE: I got a B+. I ran out of time at the end and was not able to flesh out the metrics section.

Introduction

Being “Green” is all the rage today.Companies and government agencies are stumbling over themselves in an effort tobe “green”. One area remains untouched in most “green” efforts: the need tohave employees travel back and forth from home every day, otherwise known ascommuting, in order to perform their jobs from a centralized location. Some jobs,such as service and retail, do require a centralized workforce. Many knowledgejobs, however, do not need to be done from a central office. Technology hasbeen around for years that could allow a knowledge workforce to operate fromhome, but many organizations are reluctant to take that plunge. Instead, theychoose to focus on green tasks such as centralizing data centers and turningoff the air conditioner in the evening.

This organization is in the same situation. Dueto the recent realignment and closure, more than 6000 department employees will be moved to a new facility. The new facility is a“green” facility, but has increased congestion in the area and increasedcommute time for many employees who could work in a decentralized manner. Froma larger perspective, this offsets any green accomplishments gained in buildingand operating the new facility. Token attempts to offer telework are underway inthis organization and supporting contractors. These are not used effectively.

Virtual Worlds as a solution

Using technology such as VirtualWorlds could allow employees to telework with greater frequency whilemaintaining the social needs of employees and the accountability needs ofour organization. “A virtual world is an online community that takes the form of acomputer-based simulated environment through which users can interact with oneanother and use and create objects” (Wikipedia).One of the best-known virtual worlds at present is Second Life, created byLinden Labs. In a virtual world, avatars represent users. The user controls theavatar which can be present in differing locations within the virtual world.Users can interact and collaborate through text and voice chat. Virtual worldsalso allow presentations, video, three-dimensional data modeling, and complexsimulations.

Discussion

Manymanagers are resistant to offer extensive telework because of fears ofemployees taking advantage of the situation. Most people are stuck in aparadigm that defines work in the context of sitting in a chair at a setlocation between certain hours of the day. Additionally, workers are resistantto the idea of telework for various reasons. (Wagner, 2004) cites several, including “The need fora live, physical connection with collaborators…” and “…loss of identity anddistinction.”

This organization’scurrent telework arrangement involves issuing employees and contractors laptopsloaded with Data At Rest encryption, Virtual Private Networking (VPN) and someconnect to a Citrix desktop. Employees are able to telework on a regular orsituational arrangement. Regular telework is limited to a few days a month inmost cases. Situational is often limited to personnel office announcements that the organization will authorize unscheduled leave orsituational telework or special circumstances with prior management approval.

Asmentioned previously, virtual worlds could be an acceptable compromise betweenemployees needs for personal interaction, managers’ needs for accountability,and the organizations goals of being “green”. Employees would log into thevirtual world through a client on their telework laptop. A virtualized desktopsolution (Mueller, 2011) combined with a virtual world couldallow the employee to use a personally owned computer, eliminating the need toprovide telework laptops. Employees will create avatars, which can becustomized to look similar to the employee. The organization can design workenvironments within the virtual world. These can include office space,conference rooms and other meeting locations, and possibly social areas. If theorganization is working on a new project, this could also be incorporated intothe virtual world. The recently constructed new facility is an example of thispossibility.

Theconcept of avatars not only allows employees to fulfill social needs, it adds adimension not available through a teleconference: feedback. Users can commandavatars bodies to gesture. This can allow for the raising of hands duringmeetings and conferences, to prevent employees speaking out of turn or beingtalked over.

Withinthe design of the virtual world, projector screens can be placed to allow thedisplay of meeting minutes or meeting slides. This can prevent the need toprint out slides prior to the meeting, further increasing the organization’sability to declare itself “green”. Additionally, meeting organizers can projecttheir video into the meeting. This could be useful for “town hall” or “allhands” meetings and for training. Our organization can maintain cohesiveness withoutrequiring all employees to commute to a central location.

Threedimensional modeling can allow employees to collaborate and analyze data withina virtual world. Data can be presented in multiple dimensions. Employees, asavatars, can walk and fly around the data model to get a view of it thatwouldn’t be possible on an Excel spreadsheet or Powerpoint presentation.

Asvirtual worlds catch on in federal agencies, this technology can allowcollaboration across organizational boundaries, while still allowing fortelework and reduction of commute time. If our directorate's customers or other organizational directorates, or even if external agencies implement a virtual worlds solution,our personnel could attend meetings and collaborate with counterparts inthose agencies through the virtual world. The more employees allowed toparticipate through telework in the virtual world, the more the proverbial“carbon footprint” would be lowered. This would truly allow the department to claim itself as “green”.

Althoughthis is a fascinating idea, evidence of other agencies or corporations usingvirtual worlds for telework is not readily apparent through available researchavenues. Virtual worlds are, however, being implemented for similar uses. Forinstance, National Defense University’s (NDU) iCollege sponsors the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds (FCVW). FCVWadvocates using virtual worlds in telework and uses them for conferences, soattendees do not have to travel long distances. (Hackathorn, 2011). NDU’s iCollege uses virtual worlds(specifically, Second Life) to teach DL (Distance Learning) classes.

TheUnited States Army has a program similar to the FCVW: The FVWC (Federal VirtualWorlds Challenge) (Army, 2011).The difference in the FVWC versus the FCVW is the United State Army ischallenging developers to come up with a solution. This includes a $25,000 cashprize.

Additionally,virtual worlds are being used by education. One use is to study business,politics, law, sociology, and many others. (Bloomfield, 2007). There does not seemto be any limit to the application of virtual worlds.

Strategy

To implement a virtual worldstrategy, our organization should first decide which provider to use. Second Life likelydoes not meet current IA guidelines. It is also not certificate enabled. Linden Labs oranother vendor could be asked to work with us to design a product that isboth useable and secure. The FCVW and FVWC could be consulted as to whethervirtual worlds exist that meet or could be adapted to our needs.

Our organization needs to develop policies togovern telework through virtual worlds. Questions to consider include: Willthere be standard work hours? Will avatars have to follow a dress code? Mustall avatars wear “business casual”, or can users have avatars of vampires,speedboats, and rock stars?

Oncea strategy and policies are decided upon and enacted, the key is to execute; tomake it happen. The decision could remain “hung up in committee” indefinitelywithout an implementation plan and commitment.

Metric

Nodoubt, if we pursues virtual worlds as a policy and practice, metrics needto be put in place to ensure employees are at least as effective as they werewhen travelling to a centralized location each workday. Employees could berequired to log into the virtual world during the workday. Avatars go inactiveif the employee does not use them for several minutes. Our organization additionally needs to consider othermetrics for work accomplished in addition to time logged. Similar to telework,employees could be required to submit reports documenting work accomplishedalong the lines of their objectives and position descriptions.

Summary

If our organization expects to claim “green”, it must find ways around the time consuming andexhaustive (in more than one way) commute. It should pursue policies that allowboth business effectiveness and limit the need for employees to travel to sharethe same point in space and time.

References

Army, U. (2011). Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge. Retrieved 12 11, 2011, from Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge: Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge

Bloomfield, R. (2007). Worlds For Study: Innovation. Ithica, NY: Cornell University Johnson Graduate School of Managment.

Subject Area: Virtual Worlds Overview

Hackathorn, E. (Director). (2011). Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds Overview [Motion Picture].

Synopsis/Summary: This video is an overview of the mission of the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds and possibilities for the uses of virtual worlds in the federal government.

This video is pertinent to my paper because it provides an overview of virtual worlds in the federal government and attempt to get federal employees to collaborate toward bringing this technology into productive use.

Subject Area: Desktop Virtualization

Mueller, E. S. (2011). Business Case: Reduce Printing Expenses By Desktop Virtualization. Washington, D.C.

Synopsis/Summary: This is a paper I wrote for a previous class. In it, I made a case for my organization to reduce our ridiculously high printer expenses by using a combination of virtualized desktops and mobile devices.

This previous paper is pertinent to my current paper because it thoroughly explains the concept and uses of desktop virtualization. It serves as a reference.

Subject Area: Virtual Workplace

Wagner, C. G. (2004, Mar/Apr). Fear and Loathing In The Virtual Workplace. The Futurist , pp. 6-7.

Synopsis/Summary: This article documents various reasons employees are hesitant to work in a decentralized manner.

It is pertinent to my paper because it provides a reference for my point.

Wikipedia. (n.d.). Virtual World. Retrieved 12 11, 2011, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_world

Thoughts on Talking on the Phone, Texting, and/or Driving

2011-12-14T21:15:00.001-05:00

On my ride home from work, I heard news that the NTSB is urging states to outlaw talking on the phone and texting while driving. They've investigated lots of accident scenes caused by "distracted drivers". I'm sure they investigate plenty of accidents caused by other reasons, but right now, talking on the phone and/or texting while driving has the nation's emotions high.

My friend asked me what I thought about that. I replied "There should be a law that no laws should be written or passed based solely on emotion. If anything, the emotions should die down so everything can be evaluated objectively before any decisions or plans are made." I also said that I don't believe all of the factors are being taken into account. I'm not defending texting while driving. That is dangerous. I'm not entirely convinced that talking on the phone while driving is as bad as claimed. Statistically, I'd like to see a comparison of people who do talk on the phone while driving compared to the number of people who cause accidents talking on the phone while driving. Chances are, there are plenty of other factors outside the phone. Like the person being a bad driver.

Apparently, this law will also take into account HANDS FREE talking while driving. That is, if it passes, you will no longer be able to use a BlueTooth headset or speakerphone while driving. Well, you can, but you can get pulled over and fined stiffly for it. I was a Realtor last year. I ran a large portion of my business from a BT headset and an iPhone 3G. I'm sure a lot of other people rely on a similar setup, and have driven successfully with no problems.

Outside of my Real Estate business last year, I rarely deal with the phone while driving. I just let it go to voice mail. But I’m not the world’s best phone talker.

If you honestly believe that a law banning talking on the phone while driving would make you a better driver, THEN JUST STOP TALKING ON THE PHONE WHILE YOU DRIVE. That's simple. If you think you can't drive and talk on the phone, that doesn't mean everybody else is in the same boat. Why would you support such a law when you can just stop doing it yourself? Are you waiting for a law before you stop?
Let's look at some of the factors involved in this issue. There are a lot of them.

Many people are bad drivers

This one needs little explanation. Spend some time on the road. You should know what I mean.

Drivers don't cooperate with each other

I work in northern Virginia and live in New Jersey. I spend plenty of time in traffic. I've studied traffic. I've come to some observations. Most traffic is caused by people who refuse to plan ahead, and won't cooperate with other drivers. For instance, if I know an exit is coming up, I get in the appropriate lane prior to the exit. If I see a lane closed ahead, I get out of that lane. And I'm punished for it. Other drivers shoot up the lane that is closed, then try to cut over. This causes more traffic, because the honest people like me now have to wait. If everybody planned ahead and just got over earlier, traffic would flow smoother.I've seen it work in places like Virginia and Texas where drivers aren’t as impatient as they are in New Jersey and Maryland. Of course, closing a lane during rush hour is really boneheaded and doesn't help.

New Jersey is a perfect example of drivers not cooperating. Most drivers in New Jersey just don't care. I have a theory that there are two kinds of drivers in New Jersey. Well, three. Two kinds and then me. The first kind of driver in New Jersey is somehow oblivious to the other cars on the road. They just don't see them. Maybe they're stupid, or blind, or their cell phone is blocking their blind spot; I don't know. They'll drift over into your lane on the highway at 45 miles an hour while you're doing 65. They don't notice you slamming on your brakes to avoid them. The other type of driver in New Jersey is an absolute asshole. Every decision they make behind the wheel is governed by the fact that they're an asshole. But it doesn't matter which type you're dealing with because they all drive the same. I hate New Jersey. I've hated it all 12 years I've lived in it. It's just not the place for me. And yes, I'm working very hard to get out of it. I'm sure I'll be missed.

It's already illegal in many states to talk on the phone and/or text and drive

New Jersey is one such state. You cannot talk on the phone in New Jersey (without a hands free device) and drive. And I seem to be the only person who knows this. I've seen police in New Jersey holding phones to their ears while they drive their police cars around. I've also seen a few people get pulled over. It's definitely not enforced universally.

The Mythbusters DID attempt to test this, but couldn't do a good job

I did see a Mythbusters episode where they tried to test whether talking on the phone while driving was more dangerous than drinking and driving. I'm not convinced they were able to test this well enough. They had police present, who would not allow them to drive past a .08 BAL. That was about two beers for Adam Savage. I don't remember what kind of beer. Probably a "light American lager" like Bud or Coors.
The "experiment" did result in talking on the phone being more dangerous than driving. But again, this was only compared to 2 beers and being within the California legal limit. Try the experiment at night after a pizza and a 6 pack of Raging Bitch. I bet talking on the phone would come up as being a BUTTLOAD safer than drinking.

Will making it MORE illegal solve the problem?

No. I don't believe it will. Let's look at a few other things. For one, murder. It's been illegal to murder pretty much since before Cain killed Abel. Has there EVER been a time in the history of man when murder was not illegal? Has that ever stopped it? And yet, we keep making it MORE illegal to murder. Stiffer penalties, death penalties. Yeah, that's obviously solved the problem. We keep taking away weapons. Now, pre-schoolers are expelled from school for carrying safety scissors and plastic knives. That's stopped school shootings, obviously. Yeah, last week at Virginia Tech is perfect evidence that expelling teenage girls for plastic knives has finally made murder illegal ENOUGH.

If you live in a state like New Jersey where it's already illegal to talk on the phone (without hands free) and/or text while driving, and you still do it, can I ask you why? It's already illegal. Is it not illegal enough? Where is the cutoff? At what point will you decide that the risks exceed the rewards and STOP DOING IT?

Lets look at DUIs. We're constantly making it more illegal to drive while drinking. Or after having been drinking. New Jersey has some law that you can't drive while too tired. My kids are 54 weeks apart. I'm sure I skirted that law for the first several years of their lives. At what point do you think I would have just called work and said "Look, both kids haven't slept for 3 nights. I'm not coming to work because it isn't worth the death penalty?" You know what my employers would have said? What would yours say? Why don't you try it and leave a comment telling me how well it worked out for you.

The barrier to entry is way too low

It's not THAT hard to get or keep a driver's license. My friend mentioned Germany. I believe in Germany, it is very hard and very costly to get a driver's license (like more than $1000). I don't know the exact costs or qualifications. Nor do I feel like looking them up. I do remember the last time I was there in 1991. My mom started getting exchange students my Junior year in high school. Or first was a boy from Germany. His family invited me to spend part of the summer with them. I enjoyed it. During the summer, we went to visit one of his aunts, who was a nun. He commented that his aunt's drivers license stated she must drive automatic.
Wow. I love driving stick. In Europe, at least at that time, most people did drive stick. Having a rating on your driver's license stating that you have to drive automatic was like wearing a dunce cap. It was a serious, documented limitation.

But in the United States, once you get a license, you're pretty much good to go. Just send in your renewal every few years. If you change states, you may have to take a written test. No big deal. I got a Texas license when I was 17. I kept a Texas license until I was 25 when I got to New Jersey. I took a written test. I've had a New Jersey license since then. I'm 37 now. I've renewed twice. I just paid a fee and met the 6 points of documentation (Which is a severe pain in the crotch, but has more to do with how many documents I can find in my file cabinet rather than how well I can actually drive).

What do we do with this?

I'm not sure what to do with this. I've said, semi-facetiously, that old people should have to pass a practical driving exam every few years. If they can't do more than 15 mph, sorry, grandma, no driving for you.
I'm serious. During my morning commute, I drive down the Prince William Parkway which turns into Old Bridge Road in Woodbridge, Virginia. (I like Virginia. Much better than New Jersey. Did I mention I hate New Jersey?). There is a car most mornings during the time I'm heading down Old Bridge Road that apparently is driven by an old person. It's an old people car like a Lincoln or Crown Vic (non-police type). The speed limit on that stretch of Old Bridge Road is 45 MPH. This car, if you're LUCKY, is doing a full 30, but often goes back and forth between 15 and 30. You're stuck behind it until you hit the shopping center it turns into. The other cars are flying around you at 45 or more. I hate getting stuck behind that geezer. I wish the cops would pull that person over and take away his or her license.

I've joked that if I were God, driving too slow would be the "unpardonable sin". Think about it. Let's say you're the slow driver. I'm just trying to get to work, and you're nothing but a rolling wall, seemingly going nowhere and preventing me from getting where I need to go.

This goes with the "drivers don't cooperate" heading above. Each driver is concerned with nothing more outside of his or her car.

So again, what do we do?

Higher barrier to entry?

I'm not entirely sure I like this, for the simple reason of: who would administer it? Though I believe it's a little too easy to get and keep a driver's license, I hate the DMV (especially in New Jersey). Even if it led to a slightly more pleasant driving experience to get some of the incompetents off the road, I would not want to deal with the red tape and inefficient bureaucracy of the DMV. I would NOT recommend this solution unless we could find a better way than the DMV to carry it out.

But, we have some factors in America that make it less attractive to not drive

Like, our public transportation sucks

Seriously, our public transportation in America sucks. Let me give you a real world example. I live approximately 30 miles from where I work. I can drive it in a little more than a half hour. Taking the bus would cost me about $6 each way and take more than an hour and a half. That's about $12 and three or more hours a day taking the bus both ways, versus about an hour and $6 in gas if I just drive my own car. But in the Washington D.C. area, we have a program called "slugging". I drive 7 miles to a slug lot, park my car, and get a ride with somebody else. You need 2 passengers to get in the HOV lane, so it's a fair trade. When I drive, I stop and pick up slugs. Still, it's faster and far cheaper than the bus.

When I bought my house in New Jersey, I worked in Moorestown. My house is about 18 miles from Moorestown. It would have taken me more than 4 hours EACH WAY to take the bus, versus about a half hour drive. Which would you choose? (And probably far more in bus fare than gas, even with the piece of crap Kia Sedona I had, the far worst gas-mileage car I've ever owned).

Also, our zoning sucks

It was decided at one point, I believe post World War II when suburbs became a thing, that residential, commercial, and industrial would never mix. And so, we have residential neighborhoods. We have commercial districts. And we have industrial districts. Combine this with our crap public transportation infrastructure, and you CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT A CAR.

When I first moved to New Jersey, I found an apartment within 2 miles of work. A bad commute was when I hit all three lights. But, in 1999, I was paying $730 a month for a tiny one bedroom apartment. When my lease was up in 2000, the rent would have gone to $760 if I'd renewed. It would have been more than $900 on a month to month. Forget that. I took that same amount of money and bought a condo 8 miles from work. Purchase price: $65,000. My mortgage was only a little more than my rent, and I had 2 bedrooms and a lot more space. Then I met somebody. That somebody forbids me from mentioning their existence. I have no idea how I'm supposed to comply with that, but I'll try. In any case, meeting that somebody motivated me to get a house. That involved moving even farther away. Houses close to work cost more than twice as much as the house we eventually bought (and still own, trapping me in New Jersey until the housing market recovers).

That's part of why I live 30 miles from work in Virginia. I found a good deal renting a basement. I pay $500 a month for pretty much everything but a full kitchen. I couldn't rent close to work for less than $2500 a month. I even tried to find a room to rent close by. Not possible. I'm also close to a friend in Woodbridge. I like this neighborhood, and when I can finally escape from New Jersey, this is the neighborhood I want to live in, if the somebody who cannot be named in my blog posts or other intellectual property likes it too.

Last point: WE'RE NOT EUROPE!

People like to mention Europe like it's a good thing. Is it? I remind you that this nation (America) exists in large part because of people who did not want to be Europeans.

That doesn't stop people from bringing it up though. Complain about gas prices? "Well, in Europe, they pay more than $10 a gallon!" So what? Actually, they sell "petrol" in liters. So it's probably more per gallon. Again, so what? What is that supposed to mean to me? That's their own lack of natural resources and bad policies and taxes. Am I supposed to feel bad for them and purposely pay more for gas as some sort of penance because gas costs more in Europe? Get lost. I'm tired of hearing it. If you're so infatuated with Europe, go live there.

Yes, I have. My dad is retired Air Force. I was born in Spain. We lived in Germany from 1980-1985. I went back to Germany in the summer of 1991. Then I joined the Navy and drank my way around the Pacific Rim. That's no reason to have to pay more for things just because they cost more somewhere else.
Europe does have better public transportation and better zoning. When I stayed with that family in Germany in 1991, the father got up every morning and walked down the street to a bakery to buy fresh Brotchen. (It has an umlaut over the O. Not sure how to get that in this client). That means fresh bread. Every day. Do you live close enough to a bakery to walk there for fresh bread EVERY DAY? I didn't think so. Neither do I.

They also lived right across the street from their school. When we lived in Germany, that was the only time I was ever close enough to conveniently walk to school, because our apartment building in base housing was across the street from the school. When I went to Kindergarten and 1st grade in Florida prior to moving to Germany, I had to take a bus to the base school. When we moved to Texas, I was in 6th grade. You had to live 2 miles or more from school to get on the bus. That 2 mile line was literally 3 houses down the street from us. I could not ride the bus. My mom had to drive me to school for a while, then I got a bike and/or walked. I had to take a bus to high school.

At my Basement Command Post in Virginia, I'm about 2 miles from a grocery store. Yeah, good exercise, not not quite good enough for a daily walk. In New Jersey, I can walk to a Wawa and back in about an hour. Again, not quite good enough for a daily. There is a convenience store within somewhat of a walking distance, but their prices are high. It's easier and cheaper to just drive to Wal-mart and back to get the things we need.

Again, our zoning and public transportation in America suck. We've set up a society that REQUIRES cars.

So where does that leave us? Again, I'm not convinced that talking on the phone while driving is quite the enemy. I think bad driving is far more of a threat. But I'm not sure how to fix that. I know that passing laws based only on emotion is a very bad idea. And we can’t survive without cars.

The Onion: Ultra-Realistic Military Game

2011-12-01T18:48:00.001-05:00

This is awesome!

This reminds me of a moment on WESPAC ‘96 when a friend showed me the game “Harpoon II”. I played for about 5 minutes and said “This is as bad as standing watch in Combat. Forget this.”

(Combat being CIC, Combat Information Center. It’s a very dark and boring place. You don’t want to be on a ship for the few moments when it actually gets exciting.)

My Way, Your Way, or… We Both Lose?

2011-11-15T20:28:00.001-05:00

Stephen Covey recently came out with a new book. I first heard about it during Congress’ last round of BS, I mean, debt negotiations. You know, the one where they admitted none of them have brains or spine, and negated all responsibility to a “SuperCongress”? Spineless idiots. The Constitution does not take that long to read.

At first, I thought it was a political ploy. But the book launched, and I revisited it. As a book lover, and a student of leadership, I think this could be a winner.

It’s called The 3rd Alternative. It apparently teaches you to think beyond I win, you lose or you win, I lose. Sounds vital to relationships and leadership. I’ll probably get a copy at some point in the near future. If the book interests you, you can purchase it through my Amazon affiliate link below.

I’ll post a review once I’ve read the book.

_{Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”}

College Majors, Unemployment, and Salaries

2011-11-10T11:11:00.001-05:00

This is interesting. The Wall Street Journal posted a breakdown of college majors with the unemployment rates and salaries for each. If you're considering a college education, this could be a valuable resource in deciding on the path to choose. I come across quite a few young people who want to study psychology. Guess which major has the highest unemployment rate? Clinical Psychology with 19.5% unemployment.

There are many factors to consider when deciding what to do with your life. Don't pick a field based on whether people claim it pays a lot. When I was looking at enlisting, most people (including my dad) told me "Go electronics. You can make a lot of money in electronics". It worked out well for me. I liked electronics, and was able to get into IT and Engineering from my electronics background. It's fun for me. I met a lot of people in the Navy who didn't like electronics, but they had a 6 year commitment to work on electronics systems. Bummer. One guy got out of the Navy and drove a tow truck for a while. He liked it better than working on electronics.

Don't pick a field just because "I want to help people". Unless you're somebody like Rick Warren or Tony Robbins with a huge platform, "helping people"= poverty and living with your parents. Yes, people need to be helped, but being a public school teacher or social worker won't help as many people as you might think. Or Psychologist (see above). One of the highest paying degrees is "Petroleum Engineer." You really want to "help people"? Get that degree and find a synthetic fuel or a more efficient way to produce energy at a lower cost. That'll help a lot more people. But, Petroleum Engineer has an unemployment rate of around 5-6%.

Somehow I expected philosophy to be high up there. I enjoy studying philosophy, but as a hobby. Same for history. My Bachelor's Degree is in Information Technology.

Play with the WSJ chart. You can sort it by unemployment rate or several different salary calculations.

Documentary: Rick Steves’ Iran

2011-11-06T20:15:00.001-05:00

I made a note a while back to watch this documentary. I have no idea how long ago it was. I was going through some of my tasks today, and found it.

The documentary is about 55 minutes long. It’s a cultural look at Iran. The only reason the camera crew was allowed to film by the government is because it was cultural, rather than political.

I enjoyed it. From every account I’ve ever heard, if we could get our politicians to shut the hell up for a few minutes, I believe we would have much in common with the citizens of Iran. By all accounts, they are very kind, friendly, and would make great neighbors.

I understand there are implications in geo-politics, but lets not forget, when the politics end, they are still people just like us. I enjoyed this, and I have to admit, I would love to visit Iran, land of thousands of years of history. Land of Cyrus the Great. Even after he conquered the Greeks (before the rise of Alexander) the Greeks called Cyrus a “just and worthy lawgiver”.

If you have a chance, watch this documentary.

When Brands Lose Their Identity

2011-10-28T19:10:00.001-04:00

I was spurred to post this short rant by something on Graph Jam.

(Image from linked post on Graph Jam).

I have noticed that some of the cable channels I used to love don’t do what they used to do. I mostly DVR shows now, but one night, I felt like watching the History Channel. Except the entire night was American Pickers. No battleships. No Hitler. No Mayans. Not even the Civil War or Ancient Rome. Nope. Auctions and yard sale trash. Or maybe it was one of those pawn shop shows with a name that is a euphemism for pr0n.

Then I tried the Discovery Channel, another previous favorite of mine. Same thing. Auctions and custom motorcycles.

SyFy has gotten rid of most of it’s good shows. All that seems to be left are Ghost Hunters, variations on Ghost Hunters, and wrestling. They killed everything cool, including Stargate Universe, which ended season two on one heck of a cliffhanger. Now we’ll never know what happened next. Did Eli fix the stasis pod or die? Did he come up with another solution? Did Destiny make it to the next universe and escape the drones? Bastards.

From a business perspective, I understand the need to bring in advertisers and investors. But as a viewer, well, why do the shows I like keep going away?

It just goes to show you the truth of a proverb I read on Facebook: If you’re receiving a service for free, you’re not the customer. You’re the product.

On Bandwidth

2011-10-26T20:15:00.001-04:00

I came across a post on The Unofficial Apple Weblog today about hotels and bandwidth. I have no idea why we continually get caught with fixed quantities of bandwidth. It didn’t take long for the first iPhone to be out before AT&T started bitching about how much bandwidth people were using. Now that the iPad is getting incredibly popular, hotels are complaining.

Business travelers are using their iPads to travel, stream video, and work. I’m not sure how much better the iPad 2 is than the iPad 1. I have an iPad 1, and though it’s really cool and great for reading and casual browsing, I’m not ready to leave my laptop at home yet.

Most hotels offer a pretty basic Comcast or DSL solution with wireless routers and repeaters. Yeah, it’s pretty bad. I’ve stayed at so called business hotels and had to keep calling down to ask them to reboot the router. I came back to a hotel from a meeting one time with the action to send the minutes and some documents out. It was over an hour before the hotel got their connection working long enough for me to do that. To complicate the problem, I did have a BlackBerry with tethering, but let’s just say I was in an area where you “couldn’t hear me now”. Verizon seems to pick hotels with the worst Internet connection and skip putting towers nearby.

So hotels are faced with either staying with relatively cheap Internet access, or adding a better service and charging for it.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. I already pretty much hate the hospitality industry, especially airlines and hotels. I don’t understand how they can charge everybody a different price for the exact same product. Two seats next to each other on an airplane can vary hundreds of dollars based on the time of the month each traveller bought the ticket or which discounts were available. In a previous job when I was a contractor to the Navy, the Navy civilians I was travelling with booked a flight for about $500 at the government rate. U.S. Airways was going to charge me $1500 for the same flight. I rented a car and drove. Even though the cost was reimbursable, screw you, U.S. Airways. I hope you sold the ticket real cheap you bastards. I don’t like U.S. Airways, but living in the Philly area there are few options. Then on top of the ticket, they nickel and dime the crap out of you. $2 for crappy coffee (screw you, U.S. Airways, screw you very much). Now they’re charging for carry ons. How long until the bathrooms on the plane are coin operated? For all I know, they are. I haven’t flown in a while, and don’t plan to.

I see hotels as little better. Prices for comparable hotel rooms can vary wildly based on whether you’re government, AAA, whatever that old people association is (I don’t feel like looking it up), or just coming in off the street. I don’t get it. I’ve had hotel clerks give me the AAA discount (I’m not a member) either because they were in a good mood or liked my face or something. When booking a flight or hotel room, I always feel like I’m in a bazaar in the U.A.E. or something. I always feel like we should be haggling at the top of our lungs:

Me: “$150 a night! You insult my intelligence. I wouldn’t pay $80 for two queens and a view of the parking lot!.”

Hotel: “You’re stealing food out of the mouths of my children!”

Except this is usually done online. Try it. Get an account on a hotel website, put in dates and guests, then experiment with the various discounts available. You don’t have to purchase. Just close the tab when you’re done. But book a room at a Marriot Courtyard (one of my favorites) and see what the difference is being government, AAA, senior, and nobody. It can vary wildly. Try a few different hotels.

I’ve gotten hotel rooms for $100 a night, and found that sign just inside the door say the room goes for $259 a night.

I have access to the University of Phoenix library (alumni; membership has it’s privileges) and I’ve been meaning to read some of their hospitality curriculum books to see how or why this is justified. But with all the other stuff I have to read, I haven’t gotten to it yet.

So now that hotels have you in, they’re doing what the airlines do: hitting you with fee after fee. There are those silly “resort fees” at most hotels now. Resort fee? Really? It could be the middle of December, you stayed 2 nights and used 1 towel, but you have to pay a “resort fee”. The fancy hotels are the worst. I stayed at the Marriot Renaissance in Boston once. There were 6 oz bottles of water on top of the fridge, with a note informing you that for your convenience, they would add a $4 charge for each bottle you drink. I started checking the toilet paper for similar notices.

And so, since bandwidth is considered a fixed quantity, hotels may begin charging you for it. You’ll either have to pay a fixed fee just to use the Internet, or a tiered plan based on how much you plan to use.

I don’t get why bandwidth is considered a fixed quantity. As an IT manager, I’m trained to do a little planning. Let’s see, hotel CIO goes “We’re a business hotel. That means we get a lot of business travellers. Apple is about to release the iPad4, which sucks 20 GB a second just syncing the clock. Hmm, I sense a disturbance in the force. Looks like our Comcast Small business and single Linksys router might not support that. What IT business investment can we make to mitigate a huge problem down the road?”

But nobody does that. They just let the problem happen, and then find someone else to blame. It’s kind of like how Windows can spend 2 years in an open beta, but on the day of release, Norton, McAfee, HP, and Apple act like it’s the first they’ve heard of it. “New Windows? What? Nobody told us that. Well, it’ll be at least 6 months before iTunes or your inkjet printer can be supported on it. Don’t upgrade. Stay with XP.”

Don’t feel bad; my organization does little planning either. That’s why like everybody else, we’re still running Windows XP. Sure, in my office, we do that kind of planning, or at least discussing it, but the people doing the real CPIC (Capital Planning and Investment Control) don’t seem to. At one point, I was a non-voting member of the Change Control Board.

That was fun. If you travel heavily for business, and use an iPad, are you willing to pay a hotel more for the Internet connection? Do you wonder why most service providers seem to act surprised over news we’ve known about for months?

Book Review: Apocalypse Dawn by Mel Odom

2011-10-09T18:09:00.001-04:00

I got "Apocalypse Dawn" as a Kindle Freebie. It's written by Mel Odom and published by Tyndale House. This review originally started as a few notes and one-liners I made about some inaccuracies I came across while reading Apocalypse Dawn. Then I started adding comments, and came across some more inaccuracies, and it sort of snowballed. I recognize it's a fiction book. I've read a lot of fiction books. Some authors go to great pains to research and get real world details right. Others seem to make up the real world details as they go along.

This will not go down as one of my favorite books. Many of the characters were two dimensional. The dialog, especially surrounding believer/non-believer discussions, was largely formulaic. There are two types of characters in this book: the "pretty good Christian" who didn't have strong enough faith to be Raptured, and the non-Christian, who reacts violently to any discussion even remotely Christian.

I didn't start reading this book with the intention of writing a review. I figured it would be a quick read. It started out fine. I could tell the author had no military experience, and seemed to be taking some artistic license which wasn't a big deal at the time. When I reached the point where a helicopter copilot is mentioned to be a Sargent, I started to wonder if the author did his military research by watching GI Joe cartoons. That's when I started taking notes, and doing some really basic research to see how easy it would have been for the author to get a few details correct if he'd taken the time. I used very basic sources for my research: mostly Wikipedia. And I used Cracked.com for one reference.

Please don't read any malice toward Mel Odom into this review. It's mostly a collection of my notes and comments as I read the book. I don't know Mel Odom. I hadn't heard of him until I read this book. For some reason, our culture is unable to draw a line between disagreement and dislike. I personally like many people I happen to disagree with. I have no reason not to personally like Mel Odom. This review is a critique only of this book, so any cracks I happen to make should be taken ONLY as sarcasm and not as an attack or insult on the author. I'm confident I haven't said anything in this review I wouldn't be comfortable discussing with Mel Odom in person should the opportunity ever arise. I've talked to people who wrote very harsh reviews of books, then encountered the author and felt very bad about the review. I try to keep in mind the author is a real person, and try to evaluate the author's work honestly. I enjoy sarcasm, so I add some of that. But I try not to be harsh.

I've read books by authors that did extensive research prior to and during writing. I've also read books like this one, where the author seemed to wing it. I don't think winging it does the Christian fiction market any favors. All it does is give the impression that authors are lazy, but since the book is somehow "Christian" we have to give it a pass. I don't believe writing for the "Christian" market is an excuse to be lazy or produce a low quality work, although many "Christian" products seem to aim for the latter. It's like saying "We're Christian, so we don't have to work as hard or be as good, since Christians will buy our stuff because it's Christian. Oh, by the way, we'll evangelize just in case a non-believer picks up the book, then he can get saved by our pre-school "Jesus loves me, this I know..." message.

Authors such as Randy Singer and Randy Alcorn are most definitely Christian authors, but their work is done either in areas they are Subject Matter Experts (SME) in (Law, in Singer's case), or in which they conduct extensive research (Alcorn). Randy Alcorn spent tons of time with journalists and homicide detectives, and created multi-dimensional, believable characters. In this book, I didn't get the feeling that Mel Odom is an SME or has done any research into many of the subjects he writes about, including theology and eschatology.

When you write any kind of military fiction, you have to assume military people are going to read it. We love military fiction. And if you don't do your research into the military, those military people who pick your book up are not going to be impressed. They will not be able to enjoy your work because of those glaring inaccuracies.

When I read Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising", I found a detail he got wrong. He wrote about a missile hitting the USS Nimitz after getting through the CIWS (Close In Weapons System). I was a CIWS tech in the Navy. Clancy's description of that scenario was wrong. I assumed Clancy knew enough to understand how it would really work, but took some artistic license to get the scenario he needed. You've got to figure how small a percentage of former CIWS techs read that book and caught that detail, compared to Odom using an enlisted Marine as a helicopter copilot. That goes beyond license. That's a glaring inaccuracy. I'd gather a significant percentage of his potential audience knows only officers can be pilots in our current military. Some enlisted, such as crew chiefs, can taxi planes, but not fly them.

I can't speak to the Army organization, but I doubt a Ranger unit would be used as extensively as Mel Odom uses them on the front lines. I also believe Capt. Remington would not have that much authority and autonomy in real life. No way an O-3 in the U.S. military would be in that position. John T. Reed is a West Point Graduate and former Army Ranger. He has written extensively about those topics on his website. His article about Rangers is here. Most of what I know about the Army Rangers comes from him, and Mel Odom’s story doesn’t match John T. Reed’s experiences.

I don't remember this much inaccuracy in the original Left Behind novels, although they weren't free from inaccuracies. In the first Left Behind book, Jerry Jenkins wrote that the pilot of Air Force One was selected from the civilian pilot pool. No, he's not. Air Force One pilots are from the Air Force. That's why the plane is called Air Force One: it's an Air Force asset, maintained and piloted by Air Force personnel. Also, from what I know about commercial airline pilots (a friend I've known since high school is one), they can't just change the type of plane they're certified on with one check ride. Also, casting a 757 as Air Force One was stupid (in the movies, it was a 737; even stupider). The original Air Force One was a 707, and during the Bush I administration, 747s went into service to be Air Force One. The 747 was selected because of its long range and capacity. A 757 (and 737) is not known for such things. But those are the largest inaccuracies I remember from Left Behind, and I don't plan to reread the series to look for more. I'm sure journalists or people with experience around the U.N. can point out more. The best I can rationalize that decision is the 747 was older than the 757, and to appear a little farther in the future, Jerry Jenkins decided to cast a newer plane in the role as Air Force One, even if it is smaller and has a shorter range.

On page 300, the following quote appears:

Recharging his weapon, Goose ran for the dropped RPG-7 and scooped it from the ground, praying to God that the weapon remained intact. "Good shooting, Stonewall," he said.

Mel Odom. Apocalypse Dawn (The Left Behind Apocalypse Series #1) (p. 300). Kindle Edition.

Since the U.S. Army isn't using phasers in this book, the proper term would be "Reloading his weapon..." as I understand it. Any former Army wish to comment? Do you recharge your weapons, or reload them? In the Navy, we reloaded them. In Army movies I've seen, they reload weapons.

When Mel Odom gives dates, times, and locations, for the spots in Turkey, he gives all distances in "Klicks". As I understand it, klick is slang for kilometer. While soldiers might use klick for distance over the radio, no formal designation for distance would read that way. I've never seen a map or chart delineated in "klicks". This gives the appearance of an author who wants to appear familiar and comfortable with military slang, but still shows he doesn't know how to use it correctly, and hasn't bothered to research it. Just like the "Recharging his weapon" quote. Also, being the U.S., we tend to think in miles rather than kilometers. I've noticed he uses "klicks" for everything, so it could just be his own affectation translated into his story. Here's another example of his use of Klicks:

"This is Danielle Vinchenzo of OneWorld NewsNet," the young woman said. "We're only a few miles-or klicks, as the soldiers of the United States Army Rangers would say-from the border separating Turkey from Syria.
Mel Odom. Apocalypse Dawn (The Left Behind Apocalypse Series #1) (p. 359). Kindle Edition.

It appears this author is equating "Klicks" with slang for "miles". I admit, it's possible somebody does that. In my experience, I've never seen it. I grew up in the military, spent time in high school Air Force ROTC and the Civil Air Patrol, I've served in the Navy, worked as a defense contractor, known lots of other current and former military from all branches, and I've NEVER heard "klicks" used that widely. Even the movies that don't bother getting a consultant to teach them how to wear a uniform or salute properly don't do that. I'm sure if "klicks" was in that widespread use in the Army, Clancy would have used it a lot more.This takes me back to my assumption that it's the author's personal affectation combined with a lack of research written into his story.

At least he doesn't seem to use "clips" in the place of magazines (that would be battery charger- I couldn't resist). Using clip for magazine is a pet peeve my dad instilled in me. My dad was a Combat Arms instructor in the Air Force. He drilled it into my skull, if it has moving parts, it's a magazine. A clip is what you'd use to feed ammunition into a .50 cal because it clips the rounds together. The piece you eject out of an M-16 is a magazine, not a clip, because it has a spring. Although at times, I think my dad and I are the only people on earth who know that. Just like fewer than 12 people seem to know the United States is a republic, not a democracy.

Another inaccuracy (which is probably license, and isn't that bad) is a ship's captain instantaneously reassigning his chaplain to the Pentagon. I'm pretty sure a CO doesn't have the authority to decide in an instant that his chaplain needs to brief the Joint Chiefs. At a minimum, that would have to go through his chain of command, if not all the way through BUPERS. And at any stage, it could be denied. And I'm pretty sure no Joint Chief in his right mind in an emergency situation like that would agree to a visit from a ship's chaplain flying all the way from the Mediterranean.

It's also hard to believe an elite Ranger unit, commanded by an all-powerful O-3, would lug a Cray computer around. If the Army owns a Cray, it's most likely at the Pentagon or one of their larger bases. I doubt it's battlefield mobile.Why would they need a Cray, anyway? Microcomputers are very darn powerful. A couple Dell servers could handle all the processing a battlefield command post would need. In all the years I've worked in IT, I've only seen supercomputers in textbooks.

Permit me a little flippancy here, and you'll see where I'm going. This demonstrates an author apparently choosing military equipment from a random word generator without bothering to check basic characteristics of that equipment (like a portable, battlefield ready Cray supercomputer). The chaplain is flown off the U.S.S. Wasp in the eastern Mediterranean on a CH-53 to be taken to the Pentagon. I flippantly made a note in my book that I expected the author to write the character is flown directly from the eastern Mediterranean to the Pentagon on a cargo helicopter, but probably didn't bother to do enough research to know whether or not the Pentagon has a helicopter pad. In Chapter 32, on page 375, the chaplain appears back in the story. He flew from the eastern Med to Sigonella, Italy. I assume a CH-53 could make that flight. In Italy, he boarded a C-9 Skytrain for a flight to Dulles. At least he got that right. The C-9 Nightingale is the Air Force version, while the Skytrain is Navy. I see several issues with that choice of plane and Dulles as a destination. For one thing, the C-9 is a military aircraft. Why not land at a military base, like Andrews? In any case, Reagan is right next to the Pengagon. You could almost walk from there to the Pentagon, but there are shuttles and the Metro. Why Dulles? From Dulles, you have to contend with traffic on I-66 to get the the Pentagon, a fate worse than death.I imagine in the destruction following The Rapture written in the Left Behind franchise, I-66 would be far worse than normal.

Now, for our choice of aircraft, here's what Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_C-9) has to say about the C-9:

Many of the Navy's C-9Bs have a higher maximum gross take-off weight (114,000 lb or 52,000 kg) and are fitted with auxiliary fuel tanks installed in the lower cargo hold to augment the aircraft's range to nearly 2,600 nautical miles (4,200 km) for overseas missions along with tail mounted infra-red (IR) scramblers to counter heat seeking missile threats in hostile environments.

Even with auxiliary fuel tanks, the plane's range is 2600 nautical miles (2900 miles). Last time I checked, the distance across the Atlantic was a lot longer than that. Add in the extra distance from Italy, and you have a huge hole in the plot. The book doesn't mention refueling stops (although in one sentence, it mentioned legs), and even then, it would be a waste when the military has planes capable of making the distance (C-5?). Or a commercial air flight could be chartered. This isn't exactly a top secret, sensitive mission. It's "Go forth, and tell the Joint Chiefs everybody was Raptured". There's no way 2 pilots would fly the entire flight without relief. The plane would have to stop somewhere for the pilots to either be replaced or to get some mandatory rest. I estimate if a C-9 were to fly from Italy to the DC area, it would need a minimum of 2 refueling stops. Possibly 3 or 4. That would add many hours to the flight time. There is no way you could leave Italy on a C-9 and make it to DC in 12-15 hours. From a purely mathematical perspective, you might be able to do one refueling stop, but no pilot in his right mind is going to fly the plane to it's utmost limit and land on fumes. I know in small planes, the FAA requires at least a 30 minute reserve on fuel when you land. I'm sure the military has a similar requirement. Anything can happen to your destination airfield, and you have to be prepared to NOT be able to land there. You could be deterred by weather, or a plane could crash, shutting down the airport. You have to maintain enough fuel to make it to an alternate location.

I'm not sure how many flights these days require refueling stops. Growing up in the military, I did a lot of flying. The only refueling stop I remember happened when I was 6 on the way to Germany. My dad flew over ahead of time to get on the waiting list for base housing. We remained at Tyndale AFB in Florida. Once my dad got housing, we flew over. We left from North Carolina on a 707 that had to stop in Newfoundland for refueling on the way to Frankfurt. Every other flight I made across the Atlantic was direct. In 1981, we flew on a C-5 from Ramstein to Dover, then back again. In 1984, I flew with my dad from Frankfurt to JFK and on to Buffalo. And back. In 1985, we left Frankfurt for good on a 767. Direct flight. In 1991, I traveled to Germany again. Direct flight from Dallas to Frankfurt. I'm just saying, other than a lack of research and personal experience in that which he writes, I don't get the point to using a C-9 for transatlantic flight.

[UPDATE: Since writing this review, I talked to a friend of mine who is an Air Force officer. He believes a C-9 could be used for a flight from Italy to the D.C. area, but would need at least 2 refueling stops.]

I've done more research picking apart details in this book that bothered me than the author apparently did in writing it. Granted, there's no law or requirement for an author to do research for a fiction book. In some cases, there's no requirement to research a non-fiction book either. But as Mike Holmes says "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right the first time". Doing even a quick Wikipedia search on the equipment or units you're writing about will result in a better quality product. As I said earlier, if you write military fiction, you have to assume military people are going to read it. It helps to show a little courtesy that you care enough to render the military accurately. Not perfectly,. but accurately. Us former military do understand when authors didn't serve and can't know everything (we don't either), but at least get the high level details right. It's not just the military. Look at how Hollywood seems to think computers work.

I am impressed that at least one of his points on the Pentagon was accurate:

Frantic voices whispered up and down the hallways. The pamphlet also said that the corridors measured seventeen and one-half miles long. Yet the farthest distance between any two places in the five-sided building could be easily walked in seven minutes.
Mel Odom. Apocalypse Dawn (The Left Behind Apocalypse Series #1) (p. 387). Kindle Edition.

Wikipedia confirms this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon
I'll only make a brief statement on the theology in this book. As I said, one of the two types of characters are "pretty good Christians". I hope I'm not inferring something that's not there, but it seems to me the message of the book points to a soteriology where your "Rapture Readiness" can drift in and out based on the strength of your faith and commitment at any given time. Many of the characters had been baptized at some point. I admit I was more comfortable with the soteriology in the original Left Behind books, where you were either saved or not saved, rather than "oh, my faith must have been weak at the moment the Rapture happened". That's terrifying.

To be fair, I decided to do some basic research on the author. Mel Odom's Amazon page lists 100 books. His Wikipedia page says he's written 140 books, since 1988. They all appear to be fiction, spanning quite a few genres. Some fantasy. He wrote a series about NCIS (turns out, I picked up one of those as a Kindle freebie; I'll review it eventually.) He wrote these Apocalypse Dawn Left Behind books. He has some children's fiction, Buffy the Vampire Slayer fiction, and lots of others. Quite a few books. Windows Calculator puts him at an average of 6 books a year. The part that scares me is, from what I know about writing, that doesn't leave much time for research. I've obviously never written a book, and I can't keep up with blogging regularly. I have to go on information from authors I've known and read. I reviewed Randy Alcorn's novelization of the movie "Courageous". I got a review copy from Tyndale House, the publisher of Apocalypse Dawn. I was listening to an interview with Randy on that book. He said he was once offered the opportunity to novelize another movie, but they wanted the book done in 30 days. He declined. He had 4 months to write Courageous, which barely gave him time to do the research he wanted to do. He also traveled to Georgia and spent time on set.

Although this isn’t one of my favorite stories, if you’re interested in it, you can purchase it though my affiliate link:

_{Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”}

Leadership From Beyond The Grave

2011-10-07T23:19:00.001-04:00

Steve Jobs (1996 or 1997) is questioned about some decisions he made when coming back to Apple. I found his response brilliant. He’ll definitely be missed. Obviously, he was a man, and as such, very fallible. But definitely a visionary. Crazy enough to believe he could change the world. And he did.

I hope some day, I can share this courage to say no to things that seem good in the present, for things that will be better in the future.

Personal MBA: Great Artists Ship

2011-10-06T21:12:00.000-04:00

I hate when blogs don't allow comments. That forces me to use my own blog to comment when I have something to add, and I have little traffic. I stand a far greater chance of somebody accidentally stumbling across one of my comments on somebody else's blog than on my own.

Josh Kaufman at The Personal MBA put up a post, a tribute of sorts, to Steve Jobs, who passed away yesterday. Steve had a heck of an influence on the world. I was thinking this afternoon how, not too long ago, if you wanted one song, you had to buy a $20 CD. Most of the CDs I have from that time period only have ONE SONG I actually wanted, along with 9 crappy ones. Steve largely influenced the world so that now, I can just buy the ONE SONG I want. I love it.

I was talking to a coworker today. I asked how things would change if we had the ability, like Steve Jobs did, to tell people "This is D work. It's not acceptable. Start over." In my industry, we're often forced to accept whatever work is given to us. Sometimes it's bad. I had a problem with my BlackBerry. Our telecom team couldn't figure it out, so they ordered me a new one. I still have the same problem, but I'm not likely to get it fixed with the people we have available, and I'm also not likely to get access to the BES to figure it out myself. So I'm stuck, but I have a new BlackBerry with the Version 6 OS, which makes me cool. Few others have it.

Still, as a manager, and a leader, I'd love to have the influence Steve did. I've love to be able to inspire people to produce greater work, rather than adequate work. I've found people will rise to the level of expectation you have for them. In the position I was hired for, I wanted to raise the quality of ticket documentation among my team. It took a while to get buy-in from another manager to back me up, but after he got chewed out for not being able to explain the status of a ticket when the tech wasn't available, I was able to sell him on my idea. We hatched a 3 step quality improvement plan, and over the next few weeks through a series of ticket audits, we managed to get our techs to document tickets once a day. Our rules were simple: if it's an "I can't do my job because something is broke" ticket, and it can't be closed by the end of the workday, just leave a note on the ticket explaining why, so if we get a call, we can explain it. Things improved quickly, and before I got moved to another branch in a reorganization, we could check the tickets daily and find them all up to date. I was proud of our team. We gave them an expectation, and they met it.

Traffic and Accidents

2011-10-04T21:29:00.000-04:00

This post is nothing but a rant. Don't expect much from it.

I work in the Washington D.C./Northern Virginia area. I previously worked in the South Jersey/Philadelphia area. I've spent my time in traffic. I know traffic is not likely to come to an end for me any time soon.

In the D.C. area, a single accident can cause tens of thousands of people one HELL of a commute. It doesn't even have to be a bad accident.

On August 8, 2011, at approximately 2:30 AM, a truck driver hit a construction barrier on I-95 around Lorton, Virginia. That just happened to be the Monday I had to be at Ft. McNair early for a class I was taking that week. I offered my friend a ride in. We slug, that is, park at a commuter lot and get a ride with somebody else. Occasionally one or both of us drives, and picks up slugs. 3 people are required to be in a car to get in the HOV lanes. It's a great symbiotic system.

My friend called me around 0520 that morning to tell me that I-95 was completely shut down. His wife left about 4:30 AM, and was still stuck in traffic. He knew some back roads, so I picked him up and hoped for the best.

We eventually did make it. I dropped him off and headed into D.C. for my class. The ride home was uneventful. My friend's wife ended up stuck on I-95 until about 9:30 AM. That's 4 hours. Because of one stupid truck driver.

Today, again, an accident. In one lane, northbound I-395 around Arlington, VA. The boneheads in the southbound lanes had to stop to look, causing the HOV lanes and the normal southbound lanes of I-395 to back up into DC. I got off work at 4:00 PM and didn't get home until 7:30 PM.

I've come to what will be called a non-compassionate conclusion on car accidents.

When boats have an accident, the Coast Guard always finds somebody at fault. That's because there is something SOMEBODY could have done to prevent the accident. I'm starting to think this needs to be applied to cars.

In the DC area, one freaking idiot driving too fast and slamming into another idiot in front of him who stopped too fast can set tens of thousands of people back HOURS. It can turn a 45 minute commute into 3-4 hours.

I used to tell my kids that accidents happen when you don't pay attention to what you're doing. The same is true for car accidents. Most car accidents are caused by somebody going too fast, not paying attention to other cars on the road, texting, or not maintaining their car. All car accidents are preventable in one way or another.

Anymore, when I see a car accident that sets me back, I think "how rude". I'm sure at least one party is innocent, but in any car accident, there is always one party that SHOULD have done something different to prevent the accident. And that is rude.

Lifeway Removes Discernment Labels

2011-09-18T11:35:00.000-04:00

This post is a draft I wrote a while back. I have a goal to get this blog to 1000 published posts, so as part of it, I'm trying to clean up things I started writing but never finished.
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I think I vaguely remember hearing something about this. I don’t shop at Lifeway. Most of my books from from yard sales, library sales, and Amazon.com. When I first became a Christian, I’d shop at Christian bookstores, until I realized that almost nobody can compete with Amazon on price. Or convenience. If I see a book I’m interested in, I can whip out my iPhone, and if there’s a Kindle version, be reading in seconds. At the very least, I can know it’s going to ship within hours. Under the “old” model, I’d have to wait until I can get to a bookstore and hope they have it in stock. So my lack of shopping at Christian bookstores has more to do with price and business model than a doctrinal one. Also, only the really big chains like Lifeway are still around. Most of the small, local ones are out of business.

Lifeway apparently put discernment labels on certain books, like The Shack, Rob Bell selections, and Donald Miller’s “A Million Miles In A Thousand Years”. I reviewed that book here. I’m not sure what discernment issues are involved with that one. I thought it was a good book, and in no way was it marketed or presented as a theological or doctrinal book.

I have a problem with the kind of mentality of selling books while also warning your customers to be careful reading them. Yes, I know, throughout the history of Christianity, some people have read some really dumb or heretical books and been lead astray by them. I’m not sure if those people wouldn’t have been lead astray anyway through another means. The Bible says that some people will have itching ears and will be looking for teachers to lead them astray. It's kind of a chicken and egg problem: did the false teacher show up to lead others astray, or did the false teacher simply show up to fill a hole in the market?

I don’t think it’s right to assume that everybody else is stupid, and needs to be warned. I tend to enjoy reading books I disagree with (good books, anyway; there are plenty of dumb ones). Exposure to opposing viewpoints is good for healthy intellectual growth. Even among books I largely agree with, I will still argue with the author through my notes. I'm reading a book right now where I agree with the author's conclusions, but I believe his underlying assumptions are faulty and I'm making a lot of notes in the book.

When I first became a Christian in 2002, I turned to the Internet. I had a lot of questions, and church only met twice a week. Because I was left to do a lot of my own research and learning, I went down a few bad trails. I eventually ran some of those trails to their logical conclusion, and walked away from them.

One thing I noticed early on is there are plenty of book and movie reviewers on Christian sites who will watch some movies and read some books, then warn other believers not to watch those movies or read those books. Usually the warning had to do with "they'll lead you astray!". At first, like a good legalist, I followed those warnings, and tried to keep my friends from following that path. It eventually occurred to me that those people would watch the movies and read the books, and supposedly weren't lead astray by them. Did they think I was too stupid to watch a movie or read a book without losing my soul in the process?

I eventually stopped heading those warnings (and listening to those people). C. Michael Patton wrote an interesting blog post about "Beware of Professional Weaker Bretheren", or people who spend a lot of energy robbing other Christians of their liberty in Christ because "you might cause somebody weaker to stumble". I think discernment labels fall into that category. It's also a silly business decision. "I'm going to sell you a product, but I have to warn you it might not be good for you in one way or another." Then why sell it in the first place?

Book Review: Courageous by Randy Alcorn

2011-09-18T10:57:00.001-04:00

Courageous is the novelization of the upcoming movie by Sherwood Pictures, due to be released on September 30. Tyndale House was kind enough to send me a review copy through their Blog Network. The movie (and novel) are about four Deputies of the Dougherty County Sheriff's Department, Adam Mitchell, Shane Fuller, Nathan Hayes, and David Mitchell. All are cops, all are dads. And all struggle with jobs, families, and faith. Do you know what it's like to do your best to do a hard job, only to discover the hardest job of all waiting for you as you walk through the door to your house, and you fail at it day after day?

In addition to their challenges as fathers, all four men must face the ravages of a society in which fathers are entirely absent: the drugs, gangs, and other crime of Albany, Georgia.

When I found out Randy Alcorn wrote the novel, I got excited. Randy Alcorn is becoming one of my favorite authors. I've read four of his fiction books (five now, with Courageous) and I'm reading his non-fiction book, Heaven, with a friend.

I greatly enjoyed the novel, Courageous. Randy Alcorn did a phenomenal job. As I read the book, the story really did feel like a Sherwood Pictures movie. Randy definitely captured the style I'm sure the Kendrick brothers implant on their movies, but he also was able to seamlessly weave his own personal touch into the book. For some reason, I enjoy continuity among stories. I'm not sure if he's present in the movie, but Kirk Cameron's character from Fireproof, Caleb Holt, appears in the novel. Also is a tie in to one of Randy Alcorn's characters, Ollie Chandler. (I was thrilled to hear Randy is considering a follow up to Deception).

In his promotional material, Randy Alcorn commented that the movie is two hours long, while the book contains about ten hours worth of screen time. He created new characters and new scenes to turn the screenplay into a novel. As I haven't seen the movie (it's not out yet), I don't know which characters were created for the book.

The movie was made by the Kendrick brothers, Alex and Stephen. Alex plays Adam Mitchell in the movie. Also present in the movie is Ken Bevel, who played Michael Simmons in Fireproof. He plays the character Nathan Hayes in Courageous.

I've read quite a few movie novelizations. I've read interviews with authors who say they're hard to do. The book has to be out before the movie, and is often rushed. At times, the script changes after the novel is completed, and the novel no longer compliments the movie. I can tell Randy Alcorn worked hard to make sure this book is a complement to the movie, while still containing his unique style. I can tell part of this from the book, but the rest is because I follow his blog and read many of his posts about working on this book. He spent four days in Albany, Georgia with the cast and crew, and even spent time with the Sheriff.

Courageous is a fast paced, quick read. I read it over a span of 3 days. It's hard to put down. I found it to be a realistic depiction of Christian men struggling with fatherhood. Sure, the evangelistic material is a little bit like a tract, where it seems a little contrived, but I've had many of the same struggles and conversations with other men in the course of my walk.

If you're interested in buying Courageous, you can do so through my affiliate link below.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Why It’s Not Cute To Deny Knowledge of Technology Anymore

2011-09-04T23:50:00.000-04:00

Obviously, I’m writing this post as an IT professional. I have a degree in IT, I’ve spent years working in IT, and now I manage IT professionals. I’m getting tired of people complaining about technology. I’d like to remove the excuse in most situations.

A few months ago, my car was acting up. I had to take it to the Kia dealer to be looked at. I spent 8 freaking hours stuck off to the side of the showroom with a TV locked onto a channel playing The View, Real Housewives of New Jersey, and some crappy soap opera. The dealership did have wi-fi, but it didn’t work. I brought my work laptop in the hopes of getting some work done, but wi-fi didn’t work. My iPhone and laptop both saw a network, but it wouldn’t allow me to connect. That typically means the router needs to be rebooted.
I went to complain. Guess what I got? “Uh, I don’t know anything about computers.” I told the guy “Look, unplugging the router requires as much computer skill as unscrewing your gas cap requires mechanical skill. Just pull the plug out of the back, count to 10, and plug it back in.” No good. He wouldn’t do it. So while the mechanic took 8 hours to change 6 spark plugs, I was left bored out of my mind. I almost ran my iPhone’s battery into the red just trying to maintain my sanity.

This happens all the time. I show up for a presentation. The presenter starts complaining about “technology” when he can’t get his laptop to work with the projector. The answer is simple: idiot didn’t get there early enough to set up, and even though he gives the same presentation frequently, hasn’t bothered to learn a simple skill like plugging in a cable and turning a projector on. It’s not that hard.

Look, if you have no interest in learning technology, just be honest with me, and with your audience. I’m tired of hearing about how “technology always fails” when people simply won’t show up a few minutes early to make sure things are set up properly. I understand Murphy’s Law. But you know how you mitigate Murphy’s Law? SHOW UP A FEW MINTUES EARLY TO MAKE SURE THE PROJECTOR IS WORKING! Risk mitigation is not that hard. It just requires a few minutes of thought and preparation, and things should go much smoother.

And seriously, telling me "I don't understand computers" when I'm just asking you to unplug a router, count to 10, and plug it back in again makes you look like a moron. And in 2011, if you haven't learned to show up 5 minutes early to plug your laptop into a projector for a presentation you give regularly, you look even stupider.

Satellite Radio is Still Radio

2011-09-04T23:35:00.000-04:00

In May, I traded in my 2003 Kia Sedona. I didn't want a car payment, but with over $2000 in repairs needed on the Sedona, I figured cutting my losses was the best option. Normally I buy my cars used, but thanks to Cash for Clunkers and high gas prices, the only used cars in my area were just like the one I needed to trade in: old, high mileage, poor fuel efficiency. So for the first time in my life, I needed to buy a new car.

I did some research, and discovered for approximately $200 a month, I was looking at cars like the Nissan Versa and the Kia Soul (base models). There were no base model Versas around, but Turnersville Kia had a base model Soul. I liked the idea of the Soul. I like the way it looks, and it's built to work with Apple iProducts.It's funny that over the last 10 years, every time I go to buy a car, the salesman has made a big deal over a "6 CD changer". Since 2003, I've just wanted to plug a Pocket PC or portable Apple product into the car stereo to listen to my own content. I'm not sure if anybody has been impressed by a CD changer since the mid-90's. I haven't.

I went with the Kia Soul, since it was the only new car in my area I could get for approximately $200 a month, and it could accept my iPhone content in the stereo. Seriously, I'm 37, and this is the first car I've owned without a tape deck. I bought the $40 iPhone cable Kia sells, and I'm good. The car also came with a 3 month subscription to Sirius.

My Soul, on the lot

That's where this post comes in. I've had rental cars with Sirius before. My in-laws bought a car with Sirius. They actually paid the subscription, so when I drive their car, I can rock out to the 80's.

But when it came to my car, and when I saw what a subscription cost, I decided to let it lapse. I only used the satellite radio a few times during the 3 month "complimentary" subscription, and when I saw what it cost, I decided the value wasn't there for me.

Why?

I had a few reasons.

1) Well, it's still radio. That means, somebody else still picks the songs. That means, even though I'm paying (I think it was $148 a year just for the radio in one car), that I can still go through several channels and find nothing I feel like listening to. That's in contrast to my iPhone, where every song on there is something I want to own and listen to.

2) Siriusly (a pun, combining Sirius with the word "seriously", for those of you too dense to understand), how many channels would I be paying ( I think it was $148 a year) for that I'll NEVER listen to? Well, lots of sports channels, and traffic channels. I really don't care about Chicago and Atlanta traffic. Also, hip hop, R&B, and several of the rock channels. If I could get al la carte, I might go for it. Like cable, let me pay per channel that I actually will use, and I might be interested. But $148 a year for lots of channels I'll never listen to, and I don't really want to bother subscribing. I think in the 3 month trial, I listened to the 80's station and one of three Christian stations. The other two Christian stations sucked. I might have listened to the 90's station a few times, until it played songs I didn't like. I tried several rock stations, but they didn't play anything I felt like listening to.

Of course, I only used Sirius when other people were in the car. When I was by myself, I'd listen to podcasts or audiobooks on my iPhone.

The subscription ended a couple weeks ago, and I don't miss it.

And so, as I said, satellite radio is still radio. It still has the same problems of AM and FM radio: somebody else is still picking the songs that will play, and somebody else still determines the channels that are available.

I'd rather just listen to the songs I put on my iPhone, or listen to Pandora, where I have a little more control over the content of the "station", and can skip a crappy song once in a while.

Purpose Driven Life Day 3

2011-07-11T18:17:00.001-04:00

Day 3 of PDL is “What Drives Your Life?” I can’t say I came across any new information in this chapter, but it was still inspirational. It was a good reminder to focus on the most important things.

In this chapter, Rick Warren lays out the five most common things people are driven by: guilt, resentment and anger, fear, materialism, and need for approval. Under fear, he explored unrealistic expectations. I think in my life, I’ve found the most frustration from that; from being expected to be something I’m not, or to do something I can’t do. I recently decided to deal with an unrealistic expectation by understanding that it is somebody else’s opinion. After years of trying to meet it, I decided not to play the game anymore. I’m not saying I wrote the person off. Not at all. I just stopped trying to meet that expectation and stopped arguing about it. Then I looked for other ways to handle the situation that I can actually do.

Rick Warren makes a statement “I don’t know all the keys to success, but one key to failure is to try to please everybody.” He’s right. Years ago, I learned the secret that it’s OK to say no to requests on your time. Not to be rude, but if you can’t do it, you can’t do it.

The next major section of this chapter is “The Benefits of Purpose-Driven Living”. Rick Warren says “We were made to have meaning”. Having a purpose gives meaning to your life. It gives you hope. It also simplifies your life. It focuses your life and motivates your life. And finally, it prepares you for eternity. Rick Warren then mentions that we’ll all give an account to God of our lives, but God wants us to pass the test and already gave us the answers.

This was a good chapter. It felt like it had some meat to it. Chapter 2 was a little light.

If you'd like to go through this with me, you can get a copy through my affiliate link.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The Purpose Driven Life Day 2

2011-07-10T13:33:00.001-04:00

After 6 years of the book sitting on my shelf, I finally decided to tackle Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life”. As much as possible, I’ll try to share my thoughts, insights, and critiques here on my blog.

While Day 1 got off to a good start, Day 2 felt a little basic. Day 2 is “You are not an accident”. It’s a premise I’ve long since accepted. While building his case, Rick Warren goes into territory that could be mistaken for God micromanaging every aspect of our lives. That’s not a debate I want to go into, as I have no idea where the line goes between God controlling things and us making decisions to do good or evil. God can use any person or event for His purposes. I have no problem with that.

For this day, Rick Warren uses various Bible verses to talk about how God formed the earth to be inhabited. He also uses various paraphrases of Psalm 139. The chapter concludes with a poem by Russell Kelfer. The essense of the chapter is “God created you to be loved”. By Him.

I regret I’m getting few insights to share. The chapter ends with a Question to Consider “I know that God uniquely created me. What areas of my personality, background, and physical appearance am I struggling to accept?” I’m not sure I have enough bandwidth to expound on that one.

Hopefully I’ll have more tomorrow, on Day 3. I may not write a blog post for each individual day though.

If you'd like to go through this with me, you can get a copy through my affiliate link.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The Purpose Driven Life Day 1

2011-07-09T15:28:00.004-04:00

I became a Christian in 2002. That was the year Rick Warren’s book, “The Purpose Driven Life” came out. It was all over the place. BJ’s seemed to have several pallets of them. I tend to shun things that are popular, so I didn’t bother with the book.

Over the next several years, I heard a lot of things about it, good and bad. I’ve heard it accused of being occult based, of being apostate, of leading Christians astray and causing them to not focus on what matters. I’ve also heard of it helping people.

I used to belong to a Christian web forum. I gave up on Christian web forums. A text interface is a very hard way to discuss and debate matters, and it’s hard to tell if people are serious or trolling. People also tend not to read or evaluate what you write and go on the attack based on perception. That forum I was on spent a lot of time debating Rick Warren and The Purpose Driven Life. It got very heated. At one point, having read a lot of web sites and blog posts against it, I was against the book. Then I had an earth shattering revelation about critiquing something based on third hand information. I also read a few articles about Rick Warren, and some interviews with him. I realized that when he speaks, everything he says is right. He’s a very orthodox Christian in many ways. I think he’s ordained by the Southern Baptist Convention, or at least was initially. I’ve actually come to enjoy listening to him. He’s very gracious, highly committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and very much about getting out into the world and ministering to people. I know, he runs in some “interesting” circles and I was a little concerned when he joined the Council on Foreign Relations. But I decided I could not discuss or debate his book until I had actually read it for myself.

I got a copy. I t was a birthday present. In 2005.

So now, in July of 2011, I realized I should probably get to it. Only a chapter a day. So I signed the covenant and started with Chapter 1. Rick Warren says he’s prayed for me, and signed the covenant as well. I might ask my wife or a good friend to sign in the other spot to hold me to this.

In the introduction, it says to go through the book with a friend or small group. I don’t have one committed to this book, and doubt I could get one on short notice, so I’m going for broke and I figure I’ll post on thoughts on this “journey” on my blog for accountability and growth.

A note on this journey: I’m aware of concerns over Rick Warren using dynamic Bible translations and paraphrases, and of using only one verse to make his points. Entire books have been written supposedly documenting how Rick Warren is taking verses out of context for his own purposes. Study guides are available giving each verse used in the Purpose Driven Life from the King James. Stand to Reason has a policy “Never Read a Bible verse”. At first, I was going to look up every verse used in context in a more literal translation of the Bible, such as the ESV, which is what I use primarily. But I decided unless alarm bells start going off in my head, I’m going to take this 40 day journey as intended, and take Rick Warren at face value. I committed 6 years ago to giving this book a fair read before I critique it. I will do so. I will read it as the author intended it to be read.

Day One starts with “It All Starts with God”. Rick Warren builds his case for how this is not a self-help book. This book does not encourage you to find the answers within your self. He says on page 18 of my edition

“If I handed you an invention you had never seen before, you wouldn’t know its purpose, and the invention itself wouldn’t be able to tell you either. Only the creator or the owner’s manual could reveal its purpose.”

Obviously, republishing the entire chapter on my blog would violate a bunch of IP laws and ethics, so I can only summarize and comment. Rick Warren goes into a section where he gives you a few ways to discover your life’s purpose. One is speculation. The other is revelation, where Rick points to the Bible as the Owner’s Manual. He goes into three insights into your purpose:

Relationship with Jesus Christ. Rick promises to explain this later.
God planned your purpose without your input. “You may choose your career, your spouse, your hobbies, and many other parts of your life, but you don’t get to choose your purpose.”
Your life’s purpose fits into a larger cosmic purpose.

A note on point 2. At first I equated Rick Warren’s comments on purpose with a strawman caricature of predestination. I doubt I’m the first to do so. I don’t believe Pastor Rick is implying that God micromanages every last aspect of your life. Obviously, as he says you have freedom to choose career, spouse, etc. I don’t believe God having a purpose equates to micromanagement. I’m thinking more like spiritual gifts here than “You’ll get up 3 minutes late tomorrow, and hit 2 out of 7 traffic lights on red.” If the purpose of your life is to teach, you still have a lot of freedom in how you’ll do that teaching. I think I’m on the same page here with Rick Warren.
Day One ends with a Point to Ponder: “It’s not about me”. The Question to Consider is “In spite of all the advertising around me, how can I remind myself that life is really about living for God, not myself?”

If you'd like to go through this with me, you can get a copy through my affiliate link.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Book Review: Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller

2011-07-09T13:11:00.001-04:00

I can’t remember when I first heard about this book. A few years ago, some of the Christian blogs I follow were buzzing about a book called “Blue Like Jazz”. I don’t particularly like jazz, so I ignored the book.

Later, Thomas Nelson offered me a copy of “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” by the author, Donald Miller. I took it since it was free. I just had to commit to a review of it by a specific date. I found it to be a quick, humorous, enlightening, and highly enjoyable read that caused me to rethink the way I look at the world. I like books like that. That’s why I’m “The Stand Up Philosopher”. I hope someday to be able to help others challenge their assumptions and outlook about the world.

Like “A Million Miles”, “Blue Like Jazz” was a very quick read. I started it Wednesday night and finished it Saturday morning. I read the bulk of the book Friday afternoon. It was quick, humorous, and enjoyable. Also, like “A Million Miles”, it challenged my assumptions about my life and faith.

Through events in his life and recounts of conversations with friends, Donald Miller explores his journey to the point he was at when the book was written. It’s sort of like a conversation, although one sided. The writing is very conversational, and I found myself enjoying the company of a writer who wasn’t here with me in any format other than his book, although I feel like if I met him, I’d already know him well enough to enjoy a beer and some time together. At times Blue Like Jazz made me laugh, at times it made my eyes tear up, and at other times I felt relief.

It’s hard to think of a good way to review this book. I’ve read both praise and criticism of it. I have nothing but praise for it. Donald Miller is a committed Christian. He believes Jesus Christ is the Son of God. he says he’s not a fundamentalist, Republican who tows the party line (I don’t consider myself to be either). He’s been accused of being part of the Emerging Church, although his Wikipedia entry says he denies it. We seem to live in a world where we see everything in a binary way. It’s either one thing, or the other. One or zero. If I tell you I’m not a Republican, most of you will assume I’m a Democrat. I’m not. Believe me, I’m far from that. Neither label fits me. Likewise, I don’t believe Donald Miller to be the binary opposite of what he claims not to be.

If anything, I think his books and writing show us partly what living a missional life is about. That’s sort of a buzzword in some circles of the church lately. I’m not entirely sure what it means. I’m sure it means something different than showing up at church once a week to be lectured at, lie to everybody who asks about how you’re doing, then going home and forgetting about it for the next week. I think it has something to do with living your faith out in the open, in community with other believers and also seeking community with those who aren’t believers. I can’t quite get the words to come together to explore that, so I’ll save it for later.

One comment made by Donald Miller that really rang true for me is in the chapter “Confession” on page 115:

In a recent radio interview I was sternly asked by the host, who did not consider himself a Christian, to defend Christianity. I told him I couldn’t do it, and moreover, that I didn’t want to defend the term. He asked me if I was a Christian, and I told him yes. “Then why don’t you want to defend Christianity?” he asked, confused. I told him I no longer knew what the term meant. Of the hundreds of thousands of people listening to his show that day, some of them had terrible experiences with Christianity; they may have been yelled at by a teacher in a Christian school, abused by a minister, or browbeaten by a Christian parent. To them, the term Christianity meant something that no Christian I know would defend. By fortifying the term, I am only making them more and more angry. I won’t do it. Stop ten people on the street and ask them what they think of when they hear the word Christianity, and they will give you ten different answers. How can I defend a term that means ten different things to ten different people? (emphasis mine). I told the radio show host that I would rather talk about Jesus and how I came to believe that Jesus exists and that he likes me. The host looked back at me with tears in his eyes. When we were done, he asked me if we could go get lunch together. He told me how much he didn’t like Christianity but how he had always wanted to believe Jesus was the Son of God.

Another very poignant observation I’ll share here (of the many I marked) is in the chapter “Love. How to love yourself” on page 231. It’s about Jesus’ commandment to love your neighbor as yourself:

And I thought about that for a second and wondered why God would put that phrase so strongly in my mind. I thought about our neighbor Mark, who is tall and skinny and gay, and I wondered whether God was telling me I was gay, which was odd because I had never felt gay, but then it hit me that God was not telling me I was gay. He was saying I would never talk to my neighbor the way I talked to myself, and that somehow I had come to believe it was wrong to kick other people around but it was okay to do it to myself. It was as if God had put me on a plane and flown me over myself so I could see how I was connected, all the neighborhoods that were falling apart because I would not let myself receive love from myself, from others, or from God. And I wouldn’t receive love because it felt so wrong. It didn’t feel humble, and I knew I was supposed to be humble. But that was all crap, and it didn’t make any sense. If it was wrong for me to receive love, it was wrong for me to give it because by giving it I am causing somebody else to receive it, which I had presupposed was the wrong thing to do. So I stopped. And I mean that. I stopped hating myself. It no longer felt right. It wasn’t manly or healthy, and I cut it out. That was about a year ago, and since then I have been relatively happyy. I am not kidding. I don’t sit around and talk bad about myself anymore.

I found that a brilliant observation. How many of us beat ourselves up and kick ourselves around in a way we NEVER would do to anybody else? I never thought about the reciprocity of “love thy neighbor as thyself” before.

Since this is a physical copy of the book, if you want to read more brilliant observations, you’ll have to buy your own. I typed both those excerpts myself. I thought it was a good book, and I recommend it.

Why Do Networks Like To Kill Good Shows?

2011-07-05T21:12:00.002-04:00

I know little about the business of TV networks. I do know when I start to enjoy a good show, and it’s suddenly killed. I also know when I think a show is totally moronic (Friends?) and it seems to last forever.
Somewhere shortly after Sep 24, 2009, my wife (Christina) DVR’ed a show called “Flash Forward”. She insisted we watch it together. I love my wife. It’s been 10 1/2 years since we married on Feb 3, 2001. Yet we have so few shows we enjoy together. I like shows like Ice Road Truckers and Deadliest Catch, Ghost Hunters, Cities of the Underworld, Stargate: Universe, Kitchen Nightmares, and Hell’s Kitchen. She likes Big Brother, True Blood, whatever that teen vampire show is called, and Young and the Restless. So in Sep 2009, she somehow talked me into watching a new show on ABC called “Flash Forward”. It took me a couple of episodes to really get into it. By the time I realized I liked it, the show went into a 6+ month hiatus. Somehow, our DVR caught it when it started back up, and the first season finished. Although the show had a great initial viewership, since ABC put it on hiatus for so long, and didn’t promote the last half of the season properly, the season ended with a HUMONGUS cliffhanger and silently died. The freaking deadbeat loser network moved nights, didn’t promote it, and seemingly did everything possible to kill a loyal viewership, and let the series die. Bastards.
I considered this an isolated incident until I ran into Syfy doing the same thing to Stargate: Universe. My friend introduced me to the show. I got hooked quickly, even though I haven’t seen the original movie or series. I’ve since watched the entire 1st and 2nd season, and recently found there will be no 3rd season. Stargate: Universe (otherwise known among nerd fans, which I am one, as SGU) ended like this:

Seriously, is that a cliffhanger, or what? Eli, smiling. The crew, in stasis. Eli’s outcome, unknown. And Syfy simply killed it. Bastards.
Like Flash Forward, SGU went on hiatus halfway through the season. It’s return wasn’t promoted. Then, Syfy started moving nights randomly, making it hard for all but the largest nerds to keep up with. Even our DVR’s couldn’t keep up with Syfy moving the series around. I started downloading episodes. At least that way, I could keep track of it.
Syfy, which used to be Sci-fi, as in, Science Fiction, seems to be more interested in promoting wrestling. Isn’t that what we have 30 ESPN channels for? What the hell is so science fiction about wrestling? With apologies to former governor Jesse Ventura, a man I highly respect, wrestling is fake and fictional, but not SCIENCE-FICTIONAL.
It’s too late for Flash Forward, but there’s a Facebook group for “Save SGU”. I thought it was a great show. Sure, a couple of episode were sub-par, but it had a good cast, great stories, good acting, great production values, and a good future.
Maybe it’s time for TV networks to go away. It’s 2011. Why do we need to remain held hostage to networks that seem to enjoy killing good shows while somehow leaving crap on? Why would a “science fiction” network give up a great show like SGU for wrestling?
Maybe it’s time for true Internet TV. TV that’s free from the BS space and time continuum. Why can’t SGU be produced and released over the Internet with advertising support?
Hell, why can’t Flash Forward be brought back? Why do we remain at the mercy of television networks, even the so called cable networks?
Save SGU. And bring back Flash Forward.

Do You Like Books? Join Me On Shelfari

2011-07-05T20:20:00.000-04:00

I've been on Shelfari for a long time. I don't remember how long. Maybe 3 years, which is close to infinity in Internet terms.

If you've ended up on my blog because of my book reviews, and you care what I've read, am reading, and want to read, check out my Shelfari profile. Sign up for an account, and send me a friend request. I don't even care if you read the same books as me. I love reading, and books are a great way to learn and exchange ideas. And Shelfari won't let me complete my profile until I get some new friends. So get your butt over there.

Book Review: MacArthur: America’s General by Yokelson & Mansfield

2011-07-05T19:58:00.001-04:00

Since finishing a year of reading Beyond Opinion, I went looking for another Thomas Nelson book to read and review. I’ve known Thomas Nelson is publishing biographies lately. That’s a great coincidence. After reading Andy Andrews’ “The Final Summit”, I committed myself to reading biographies. I selected “MacArthur: America’s General” by Mitchell Yokelson and edited by Stephen Mansfield, author of The Faith of Barack Obama (which I reviewed) and several other books on my to do list.

I can’t say I’ve given Douglas MacArthur much thought. It never occurred me me he was much of a Christian, at least, not one a biography series of the saints who came before us would include. So I already learned something. I knew MacArthur was a West Point graduate, and served in the Army for a buttload of a long time (52 years!) I knew he served in 3 major conflicts and that President Truman relieved him during the Korean (U.N. sanctioned undeclared war police action) War.

And so, Yokelson’s MacArthur was a pleasant surprise and a great read. It started with MacArthur’s grandfather, Judge MacArthur, and chronicled his father’s (Arthur MacArthur’s) service from the Civil War through the Spanish American War and the years afterward.

I read this book in Kindle format. I found it to be a quick and exciting read. I wouldn’t call it a comprehensive read, but it covers the life of MacArthur and his influences well enough that I probably now know more about that man than all but those who have chosen to study him deeply. At least, those who weren’t alive during his time.

I learned MacArthur was a voracious reader. His library of more than 8000 books burned when the Japanese invaded the Philippines, yet apparently he left a still impressive library at his monument in Norfolk. I wish I’d known about it the last time I was there, although I’m currently about a 3 hour drive, so I could talk a buddy or two into taking a drive with me on a weekend. MacArthur’s reading makes me feel better about the books I’ve acquired. I have no count of the paper books I own. I have 20 books in my “ready service” locker where I’m staying in Virginia. God knows how many books I have at my house in New Jersey. I have more than 310 Kindle books to date. I have more than 14,000 books available on Safari Tech Books, with about 70 bookmarked. So hopefully, it’ll do me some good in the future.

MacArthur started his Army career as an engineer, but it doesn’t seem his heart was in it. He made his name as an Infantry commander. And what a name it was! He was a general before the end of World War I, and made a General Of The Army (5 stars!) before World War II ended. He personally accepted the Japanese surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, and oversaw the occupation and rebuilding of Japan.

I can’t say I have much experience reviewing biographies. I plan to get better at it, as I’ve committed to reading more of them. If you want to read about a true American hero, MacArthur: America’s General is a great, quick way to go. I’m sure there are larger books out there, but this is a quick, comprehensive way to find out about the life and career of this great man. You may have heard of him, but this book will help you get to know him.

What Color Is It?

2011-07-02T22:15:00.001-04:00

I just had a talk with Caleb over the phone. I work in Virginia, but we can’t quite move the family from New Jersey yet. So I live in two places. It’s rough, but I expect it to get better. I like my job, and I like my organization and the people I work with. I also now live in close proximity to one of the best friends I’ve ever had.

Caleb called me tonight. He’ll be 6 next month. This isn’t the weekend I go home. I have a 3 day weekend, but we figured I’d have to leave so early on Monday to stay ahead of traffic it wouldn’t be worth the trip home. I’ll go home next weekend as part of my normal schedule.

I was telling Caleb about the church I go to down here. I’m technically a member of 2 churches right now: Berean Baptist Church in Magnolia, NJ and Grace Baptist Church in Woodbridge, VA. So far, no rift has opened in the space/time continuum.

Some background: the church I got saved in was the Pitman Church of Christ. They’ve since moved. They sold the old building and built a new one. As far as Caleb is concerned, it’s the “brown church”. Berean is the “white church” Those colors refer to the color the building is painted. I think Caleb was 3 the last time he was at Pitman. We went there for 8 years. For various reasons, we switched to Berean. It was partly because we’d been taking our kids to their AWANA program at Berean for 2 years. We decided to see what their worship was like, and stuck around. It was 4 miles from home vs. the 10 mile drive to Pitman’s old building. Pitman’s new building is farther. We had other issues, and for some reason, every time we went to the Pitman building, my 6 year old, Joshua, threw up. Literally every time we went there he got physically ill. We have no idea why. It hurt to leave. I was an established teacher there, with a small following. I really enjoyed and miss teaching my Bible classes there. But I had to make a decision to lead my family somewhere else.

I was telling Caleb over the phone about Grace. He asked “What color is it?” For some reason, at his age, the color of the paint on the outside of the church has relevance. I can’t say I noticed. Maybe I’ll take a picture tomorrow. For some reason, Caleb keeps asking to return to the “brown church”. For various reasons, including the extended drive to the new building, that’s not likely.

If it matters, I don’t consider myself to be under any label but follower of “The Way”. I don’t really care what label is on the church’s marquee. At one point, Berean tried to drop the label “Baptist”, which lead to a fecal storm of epic proportions from a small minority of the membership, but that minority was vocal enough to stall the proposal.

I chose Grace in Woodbridge because a really good friend of mine goes there. I hooked up with a small group that has been a real blessing to me. And I hope to take my family there when we can eventually leave New Jersey permanently.

Book Review: Beyond Opinion by Ravi Zacharias

2011-07-02T20:30:00.001-04:00

It took me about a year to get through this book. It was provided to me for review by Thomas Nelson through their Booksneeze program.

Since I received and started reading Beyond Opinion, I’ve read many other books. A few things working against Beyond Opinion are the weight of the material, and the format of the book. Format being, it’s paper. I’ve been reading mostly Kindle books lately, since they’re ubiquitous. I can start a book on my iPhone, read it on my laptop, pick it up at work during lunch, and read on my iPad at bed time. Not so with a paper book. You must have the book with you, and as is the case at bed time, the light must be one. Paper books aren’t backlit like an iPad is.

Beyond Opinion wasn’t exactly written by Ravi Zacharias. It’s an apologetics book in the format of a collection of essays by various contributors, with Ravi Zacharias acting as a contributor and the General Editor.

The subtitle of the book is “Living the faith we defend”. I was attracted to the book by a statement on the back. One of Ravi’s Hindu friends asked him “If this conversation is truly supernatural, why is it not more evident in the lives of so many Christians that I know?” The back cover of the book states this book is Dr. Zacharias’s response.

That made me curious, and as I’d just finished a review of another Thomas Nelson book when Beyond Opinion became available, I requested it. I must admit the premise of this book is aimed at an insecurity I have. I happen to be a Christian. I wasn’t raised so. I came to believe at 28 during a trial in my life. Lots of seeds took root at that time. But I often worry my own life gets in the way of my ability to share what I believe with others. I’m often afraid to share with others. So I requested Beyond Opinion, and about a year long journey began.

It took me a year to read partly because of the format (paper vs. electronic), and partly because it’s a weighty subject and I wanted to make sure my mind was sharp enough to dig in. I finally decided to plow through the last 100 pages today. It took a while.

I would rate the material in this book as about a Master’s degree level. It’s written by very skilled apologists. Beyond Opinion is meant to be a conversation, and is divided into 3 parts, with part 1 divided into 2 sections.

Part 1 is “Giving an Answer”, and comes in two sections.

Section 1 is “Addressing the Difficult Questions”. It deals with questions from six perspectives: Postmodernism, Atheism, Youth, Islam, Eastern Religions, and Science. Each chapter is written by a contributor with expertise in that viewpoint, either coming from it, or ministering to it. Or both.

Section 2 is “Addressing the Questions behind the Questions”. It’s chapters are “Conversational Apologetics”, “Broader Cultural and Philosophical Challenges”, “Existential Challenges of Evil and Suffering”, and “Cross Cultural Challenges”.

Part 2 is “Internalizing the Questions and Answers”. It’s chapters include “The Trinity as a Paradigm for Spiritual Transformation”, “The Role of Doubt and Persecution in Spiritual Transformation”, and “Idolatry, Denial, and Self-Deception: Hearts on Pilgrimage.”

Part 3 is “Living Out the Answers” and consists of a chapter written by Ravi Zacharias called “The Church’s Role in Apologetics and the Development of the Mind”.

Contributors include Joe Boot, Danielle DuRant, L. T. Jeyachandran, John Lennox, Stuart McAllister, Alister McGrath, Amy Orr-Ewing, Michael Ramsden, Sam Soloman, Alison Thomas, I’Ching Thomas, and of course, Dr. Ravi Zacharias. All contributors, as I understand it, are affiliated with RZIM (Ravi Zacharias International Ministries).

This wasn’t meant to be a textbook, but a conversation. I read it as such. Each contributor had something to say, but did address their section as a conversation.

I’m already way past the 200 words Thomas Nelson wants to see on a book review. As I said, this was a very complex book, and it took me a long time to read to believe I could do the book justice. I made a lot of notes and will probably revisit sections of this book again. Two things I can suggest we take away from the book come from the closing chapter. Ravi Zacharias lays out three levels of philosophy. Level 1 is Logic. Level 2 is Imagination and Feeling. Level 3 is Prescription. When a question is asked of you at one level, you must meet the question at the same level. To jump immediately to Prescription before you’ve dealt with logic and feelings is useless. Dr. Zacharias mentions how the Apostle Paul dealt with questioners in both Athens and Corinth. In Athens, the people were focused on philosophy. In Corinth, it was carnality.

Also, from the concluding chapter, “First, do not ever depend on one knockout method that will bring about the desired result”. I know many lay Christians who approach witnessing as if they’re on commission, and must close the sale quickly using high-pressure sales tactics. I told myself I would not operate that way. I try to plant seeds. I know the moment I came to believe, many seeds that had been planted over the years started to take root.

I Cor 3:[6] *I planted, *Apollos watered, *but God gave the growth. [7] So *neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. [8] He who plants and he who waters are one, and each *will receive his wages according to his labor. [9] For we are *God's fellow workers. You are God's field, *God's building. (ESV)

Musings on Telecommunications

2011-07-02T17:47:00.001-04:00

Just a minute or two ago, I heard my work-issued BlackBerry vibrate. I figured it was another automated server message. But it kept vibrating. Must be a phone call.

I picked it up. The number was from a 702 area code. Most calls I’d get that are work related would be from 703 or 571. I answered anyway.

I couldn’t tell if the woman was a recording, or some poor telemarketing worker trying to get through the script as fast as she could. She was talking a little too fast to understand, but apparently that number had been entered in a drawing and I won something. I hung up before the script could go any farther. It couldn’t have been me. My agency doesn’t have minute plans. They pay for each minute on each BlackBerry individually. We’re allowed to use the BB for business purposes, but discouraged to use it for personal reasons. Not a problem.

I got that BB in March, and I don’t think I’ve given the number even to my wife. It’s in my email signature at work, so people can contact me for work related reasons.

Obviously, our data is “unlimited”. We can use as much data as we want. All you can eat…

But that got me to thinking about how outmoded some of our telecom practices are. Every work number I’ve had in my last two jobs was used by somebody else. I keep getting calls for the people who had the numbers before. In my last job, my company BlackBerry rang all the time with calls for other people. I have no idea how many people had that number before, but it got around. It’s too bad we can’t get the telecoms to discontinue numbers after they’re not needed anymore. When I bought my house, the number Verizon gave me previously belonged to somebody going for a Guinness record for how many collection agencies they could get to come after them. My phone rang all the time with collection agencies looking for this person. Ugh. We need a better system, something like Google Voice, where you can use one number and send the calls to multiple phones. I could give my Google Voice number to somebody and set it to ring only my desk phone at work. Or my iPhone. I once set it to ring both my work phone and personal cell. So when one call came in, both phones rang. I answered one, asked the person to hold, and answered the other, to discover it was the same call. I then took my work number out of there.

My desk phone at work gets a lot of calls for other people. That brings us to our next topic: Voicemail.

I routinely get back to my desk to find the red light on my phone lit indicating I have voicemail. 99 times out of 100, it’s a hang up. The other time is the same person saying she’s looking for another same person. Obviously, the fact that she hasn’t been able to reach that person for months and MY NAME IS ON THE VOICE MAIL MESSAGE aren’t enough of a clue for her.

It can take about a minute of my time just to clear a hang up from my voice mail. First I have to press the button for voice mail. Then I get the “Welcome to the voice messaging system. Blah, blah, blah, lots of information you already know after more than 20 years of having answering machines and voice mail systems, but we’ll just repeat it in case we get that one person who has never used voicemail before.” Then I have to press 1. Then press 1 again. Then the voice mail system tells me the phone number that called (which is pretty much meaningless) and the date and time. Then I hear the click. Then I can delete it and hang up.

So I have to wonder, why can’t I have visual voice mail on my phone? Why can’t I have a phone integrated with Microsoft Outlook? I could look up somebody in the GAL (Global Address List), click a button, and my phone dials for me? You know, like how the iPhone does things, and how BlackBerries and Windows Mobile have been doing it for years before that?

I heard we have an incoming project that sounds like an enterprise integrated communications system. I’m going to try to get that one in my portfolio. I try to take projects I’m excited about, like Windows 7. They’re all IT projects, so there’s something interesting about all of them.

So anyway, why is our office communication system still stuck in the 1980’s? Even with VOIP phones, why do we still have clunky and annoying voice mail systems?

Do you work in a place where you have some ultra-cool and efficient communications system? What do you have?

Book Review: When the Devil Whistles by Rick Acker

2011-06-29T18:51:00.001-04:00

When the Devil is another book I got by Kindle freebie. It’s still free, by the way, and worth far more than that.

In a way, I’m atoning for years of reading exclusively non-fiction. There’s so much I want or need to know about so many subjects, I quit reading fiction to get it all in. When I finally picked up a fiction book again, it’s like I was missing a part of my soul.

Allie Whitman is a professional whistleblower, working with Connor Norman, a lawyer with a strong moral compass. Allie gets temp accounting jobs with companies contracting with the government, uncovers fraud, feeds the information to Connor, who then presents the information to the California Department of Justice. The DOJ then investigates, recovers the money the government was defrauded of, and Allie gets a substantial cut. A shell corporation keeps her identity secret.

If only fictional characters’ lives could stay that easy. Allie is dealing with some dark secrets from her past. When her identity is discovered and she is blackmailed, the plot complicates. Throw in some supposed North Koreans and a sunken Russian Typhoon sub, and I didn’t want to put the book down.

When the Devil whistles is action packed and a quick read. Most of the chapters are short, except for the one I was trying to finish before I rushed out the door to meet some friends for wings. There are a LOT of characters and plot elements running at once. It’s hard to keep them all straight. Rick Acker pulls them together at the end.

I’ll definitely look for more of his books.

Again, if you’re interested in reading this book, as of this blog post, the Kindle edition is still free.

Why Do People Still Block Caller ID? And Other Outmoded Telecom Practices

2011-06-19T10:39:00.001-04:00

A few minutes ago, I heard a buzzing sound. It took me a few minutes to realize it was my work BlackBerry. It kept buzzing. Normally there are only two buzzes for an email, so I figured I was either getting tons of email, or somebody was calling. It’s not unusual to get a bunch of email. I get automated server messages routinely. One weekend, a server started acting up and I received over 5000 messages in a few hours. I also get Remedy notifications of tickets assigned to my group, but that rarely happens on weekends.

I picked up my BlackBerry and sure enough, it was an incoming call. But it said “Private Number”. Even though my BlackBerry number is published in my email signature, I’m not important enough to get a call on a Sunday. My agency doesn’t pay for a voice plan. We’re authorized to use our BlackBerries for business purposes, but since they pay for each individual minute, we only use them as phones when necessary. Data is unlimited.

I’m curious why people still block Caller ID. If you’re reading this and you still do, why? Do people bother to answer your calls?

I don’t. I dumped my landline in 2005 and went strictly with a cell phone. I was tired of the phone ringing all day long with nobody I wanted to talk to. Even after I went on the Do Not Call list in 2003, I kept getting calls from telemarketers who somehow believed themselves to be exempt from the law.

I had many years of peace from telemarketers, so I would answer my cell for just about any call. Then, the telemarketers started calling again. Now, I only answer numbers I recognize. If it happens to be a local area code, sometimes I will answer the phone. I’ll answer most calls from 856 and 609 in New Jersey, and 703 and 571 in Virginia. I don’t answer anything else. When I get a call from a strange number, I look it up on Google. If the number has a lot of complaints against it, I file a complaint with the government’s Do Not Call site. I’m not sure if that does any good.

I personally think cold contact telemarketing should be illegal.

When I went into real estate last year, I had a bunch of training in ways to find clients. They spent a lot of time telling us the more calls we make, the more money we’ll make. The agency I was with, Weichert, provides agents with a parsed Do Not Call list. It’s accurate to within 30 days. They actually compare the white pages against the Do Not Call list and provide numbers that can be filtered and sorted. I used it once for an open house I did. I chose numbers for streets close to the house I had listed, and made about 10 calls. After several “no longer in service” and two hang ups, I stopped. I began looking for other ways to find clients besides “Dialing for dollars”. I had a serious Golden Rule issue with that.

Most real estate brokerages will tell you it’s impossible to make money in Real Estate without cold calling. I’ve been told by other agents the reason they tell you that is because it doesn’t cost the brokerage anything.

In any case, I was hired in the Washington D.C. area to work as an IT Project Manager, which is a lot of fun and doesn’t require me to cold call anybody.

Merchandising

2011-05-28T10:17:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies is meeting Yogurt in Spaceballs. Lone Star and company meet Mel Brooks’ character, a spoof of Yoda from the Star Wars franchise. As if I need to explain that.
Lone Star asks “What is it you do here, Yogurt?” to which Yogurt replies “Moichendizing!” (That’s merchandising, of course). He then walks them through Spaceballs, the Lunch Box to Spaceballs, The Flamethower.

No doubt, poplar characters are merchandised to hell and back. There's a lot of money in merchandising, apparently. I came across and interesting video where people went to various stores with a video camera cataloging the plethora of Hannah Montana merchandise available. They hit Target, Walmart, a grocery store, Hobby Lobby, and a few others.

I'm not going to make any social commentary on this video. It would be easy to insert a kneejerk "This has gotten out of hand!" or other comments in that vein. I won't. The world is what it is. Complaining about trends like this isn't really useful. I simply find it interesting just how much merchandise is available of this popular character.

Book Review: Today We Are Rich by Tim Sanders

2011-05-19T08:49:00.001-04:00

I didn’t plan to read this book. Dave Ramsey and some other people I listen to were giving it good reviews. Dave Ramsey even had the author on. Then the book came up as a Kindle freebie, so I took it.

The premise of the book is this: Tim’s grandmother, Billye (I’m unsure exactly how to pronounce it; should have listened better to the Dave Ramsey interview) raised him. Billye went through plenty of hard times in her life. She’s been alternately wealthy and totally ruined financially several times. At the time Tim came to live with her, she was about the bottom of the second slump. The title, “Today We Are Rich”, comes from something his grandmother often said.

I’ll say this, motivational and self-help books are, as the cliché goes, a dime a dozen. There are tons of them, and I rarely get excited at the prospect of another one. I’m ashamed to mention that in the second chapter, I started to think this book was going to be little more than another commentary on Napoleon Hill with Grandma’s southern wisdom through in.

In a sense this book is, but it’s well done. The book has a plot and subplot running through it. The subplot is about a friend of Tim’s who started his career well, but things went flat. He stopped exercising, stopped reading anything but negative business news, and his performance and the motivation of his team were in the toilet. Tim then picks up with the story of his plateau. He started out well, but in college had a tragic event occur, and went into a slump for a decade and a half. Although his grandmother raised him on Napoleon Hill and other success writers, he spent that time in a funk barely getting by and not believing in himself, until jarred out of it by a memory while visiting his grandmother.

The book then goes one by one through the seven principles his grandmother raised him by. Each is accompanied by at least one story from Tim’s upbringing and stories from acquaintances of Tim’s. The story of his friend also progresses through the seven principles. They are:

Feed Your Mind Good Stuff- Many of us tend to “graze” on news, blog feeds, emails, etc and never really dig deep into good stuff. Good stuff can be defined as The Bible, motivational literature, or anything that can help you keep your perspective positive.
Move The Conversation Forward- take what you can from bad news to make things better. Not all bad news is truly bad news.
Exercise Your Gratitude Muscle- Gratitude is powerful. It helps you keep your perspective.
Give To Be Rich- Giving makes you feel better and helps you appreciate what you have.
Prepare Your Self- Preparation is vital to success. Prepare for bad as well as good. For instance, when preparing for a speech or performance, practice dealing with interruptions and objections. Things won’t always go smoothly.
Balance Your Confidence- Have confidence not only in yourself, but also in others, and confidence in your faith, wherever you draw it from.
Promise Made, Promise Kept- Keep your integrity intact. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. When you make a promise, deliver on it.

Someone who has had a tremendous influence on me, Dr. Chuck Missler, often uses the following illustration:

What is the difference between a pessimist and an optimist? The pessimist has more information. But the optimist is uncertain about the future.

It is from uncertainty about the future that we can draw hope. We don’t know what’s going to happen, so why not work to make it the best outcome possible? Although I’ve always tended to be cynical, that perspective helped change me into more of an optimist.

Although I didn’t have much hope for this book, it delivered. I’ll likely refer back to it again in the future.

Today We Are Rich is published by Tyndale House Publishers. Though Tim is a Christian, and the book contains spiritual elements, those elements are fairly vague and I don’t anticipate then being a problem for many. Most people with some element of spirituality in their worldview shouldn’t have a problem with this book.

Book Review: Married Man Sex Life Primer 2011 by Athol Kay

2011-05-18T08:25:00.001-04:00

I wish this book had been around a long time ago.

Some people make marriage look easy. I don’t. We celebrated our 10th anniversary this year, and it’s been a bumpy ride.

I’ve read tons of books on marriage, mostly from a Christian perspective. I’ve read Love and Respect, His Needs, Her Needs, The Christian Husband, several Dobson books, Love Languages, and many others I don’t have time to count. Under the theory that reading three books on any subject makes you an expert (as many people barely read one book on a single subject), I should have multiple doctorates in the study of marriage. Yet I’ve struggled.

I’ve been reading a lot about game lately. Vox Day started writing about it on his blog. Then he started a blog specifically devoted to game. Then I started reading other blogs. Then Vox wrote a brief review of the book “Married Man Sex Life Primer 2011”. I checked out the corresponding blog, and bought the Kindle version of the book. It’s tremendously helpful to me.

I’ll attempt to explain game, but I’ve only been reading about it for a couple of months. Others can do a better job. Check out Alpha Game Plan, Roissy, and of course Athol Kay’s Married Man Sex Life blog (now behind an adult content warning thanks to mindless anonymous coward complaints. Game attempts to break down into easy to remember rules how women think and act, and how men can work with it. Some game blogs are written from the attempt to manipulate women. Others simple to understand why they do what they do and deal with it. Some are written specifically for guys seeking to sleep with as many women as possible. Athol Kay’s is the most married friendly site, although I’m attempting to synthesize points from all the game blogs I read into my own worldview and framework.

Under game, men are broken into categories, usually Alpha and Beta. Vox Day’s Alpha Game Plan, which focuses on a Socio-Sexual Hierarchy rather than only a sexual hierarchy, has more categories. I believe I fit somewhere between a Delta and a Gamma on Vox Day’s hierarchy. I’m mostly a beta on the binary (alpha-beta) hierarchy, for whatever that’s worth.

Once the categories are defined and the characteristics of each are laid out, it’s supposed to be possible to improve your ranking, and therefore your appeal to women, even your own wife.

On to the book review. Athol Kay is a male nurse. He’s been married for 16 years and has two daughters. He boasts of having had sex with his wife more than 5000 times in those 16 years.

In the book, he lays out what he’s learned, and how he improved his own marriage. His work has helped countless men (and some women). In many cases, the wife will come across the blog and site and try to get her husband to read it, because apparently Athol is onto something about what women really want in a husband.

The book is divided into four parts. Part One, Chapters 1-5, is “What She Really Wants”. This is where he explains the basics of his game plan, how it works, and why it works. He explains women’s cycles, “The Body Agenda”, what Alpha and Beta male traits are, and Sex Rank.

Part Two is “The Male Action Plan (MAP). This spans chapters 6-16. He talks about how to improve your body, mind, health, and leading your wife and children. He doesn’t just give theory like many marriage books. He gives solid tips and examples you can implement.

Part Three is “The Sexy Moves”. It consists of chapters 17-24. These are the romantic and erotic moves you can put on your wife and how to do them. It’s taken me years to figure out that it’s my place to initiate. I’ve been treating romance like a democracy, and it kills the mood.

Part Four is “When Push Comes to Shove”. In some cases, things have already come unraveled by the time the man gets this book. This is how to deal with those types of situations. It consists of Chapters 25-29.

Finally, Chapters 30 and 31 provide a summary of the book with “Ten Things You Can Do Right Now” and the author’s conclusion. He intends to update the book yearly as his own knowledge increases. I’m not sure what updates he can make, or how often the book has to be purchased to stay current. When I reviewed the “Revised and Expanded Wild At Heart”, I physically compared the two books page by page to see what changed. I wasn’t impressed with the few changes constituting the label of “revised and expanded”. Hopefully, Athol Kay does a better job with his planned yearly revisions.

One more comment. Often when a blogger writes a book, the book is little more than previously written blog posts, perhaps organized into a book format. Sometimes the blogger doesn’t even do that much work. Several posts are slapped into a book in whatever order they happen to fall. I don’t get that sense with “Married Man Sex Life Primer”. I haven’t read back through Athol’s past blog posts yet, and I get the sense the book and blog compliment each other very well. I’ve added the blog to my RSS feeds in Google Reader.

You can buy the book through my Amazon affiliate link below. If you’re planning to buy the book, please do. In order to provide for my family, I’m currently living away from my family. If you enjoy my book reviews and plan to buy the book anyway, buying through my affiliate link will help me see my family more often, and perhaps buy new books to review to help you with your own reading choices.

Book Review: No Little People by Francis Schaeffer

2011-05-17T08:23:00.001-04:00

“No Little People” is one of the first Kindle freebies I got. I’ve had it for a while; almost two years. I finally got around to reading it.

Many of the people who have influenced me were in turn influenced by Francis Schaeffer in a previous generation. Unfortunately, Christianity seems to externally manifest in the silly little displays (often verbal) of piety from it’s members and adherents. This drives many others to frustration and often away from the church. It keeps people out.

Francis Schaeffer seemed able to cut through all that get to the heart of the matter. He ministered to the generation of the 60’s and 70’s. Many in that generation credit Schaeffer with bringing them back to what really mattered about the faith. Schaeffer himself was almost driven away from Christianity when he realized how much meanness and infighting happened within his own denomination. What he witnessed in the actions of others contradicted the way the Bible says to act and to serve. As he says in his book “True Spirituality”, he went back to his agnosticism and looked at the claims of the Bible through as much of an original lens as possible, unpolluted by his experiences as an ordained minister within a once-great denomination. “True Spirituality” details that journey of his. I’ll review that book separately.

The Premise of “No Little People” is “With God, there are no little people!” A statement from the Introduction (written by Udo W. Middelmann) says:

While all religious and secular standards judge a person by his or her accomplishments toward the end of life, the God of the Bible gives value to the person from the beginning. Man not only becomes someone but is a person from conception on, forever. It matters who you are, not what you have produced, earned, or been noticed for.

Schaeffer, Francis A. (2003). No Little People (p. 8). Good News Publishers/Crossway Books. Kindle Edition.

Thankfully, Amazon finally implemented a copy function in Kindle for PC.

This book is a collection of 16 sermons Francis Schaeffer delivered. The back cover of the book indicates they can be used for family devotions.

As Schaeffer was a minister, and this book is a collection of sermons, you can imagine they tend to go on for a while. This is a trend I notice with pastors and writing: they keep going with example after example long after the point was made. With Schaeffer I don’t mind so much. He seems to have something to say to fill the space, but at times I felt like I got the point and the chapter just won’t end.

The first chapter begins with Moses’ staff. That’s right. Moses’ staff. God used a piece of wood carried by a shepherd for years if not decades in the wilderness. This staff eventually budded in a test of who the true leader was. That’s impressive considering this staff could have been more than 60 years old by that point.

The book goes on exploring the lives and roles of other Bible participants, such as Joseph, David, Elijah and Elisha, and Daniel and his three friends. Then in Chapter 11, it becomes a review of the Christmas story, then (at least in my opinion) degenerates into the typical Christian book review of “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so”. Schaeffer doesn’t treat this material like some pastors and Christian writers I’ve been exposed to, where after providing some meat, he suddenly assumes he’s writing for somebody who has never heard the Gospel and for some reason picked up and read most of a Christian book, so why not go back to Pre-school Sunday School and review the basics? But still, I would have preferred less “I already know this stuff” and more “Let’s look at what we know in a new light”. I assume the latter is what Schaeffer was going for.

I think this book could be a valuable read for many Christians.

Book Review: Do The Work by Steven Pressfield

2011-05-11T19:36:00.000-04:00

I’ll download almost any free Kindle book, unless the review are really bad or it’s obviously a romance novel. When “Do The Work” showed up free, I took it. I’d heard the name “Steven Pressfield” before, but it didn’t register.

Turns out he wrote a book that’s somewhere on one of my reading lists, “The War of Art”. Obviously, it’s a take off on Sun Tzu’s book, which is also on one of my reading lists. I guess I should stop listing books to read and actually read some, huh?

I typically do read 30-70 books a year, at least since I started keeping track in 2009. You don’t want to know how many books a year I buy, or download for free on Kindle, or borrow from the library or… I seem to have some sort of addiction to books. Or at least, to learning. Those I can’t buy or don’t show up for free on Kindle go on my wish list or one of the lists I keep of books I need to read for one reason or another. Perhaps the book is for my professional development. Perhaps the book is supposed to help me be a better husband, father, handyman, or whatever. Or the book is simply one that “everybody” is telling me I need to read. Once I rediscovered a love (and need) for fiction, that only added to the volume of books I can’t possibly read in my lifetime.

Do The Work is more of a manifesto than a book. It’s mostly for creative types and entrepreneurs. I’m apparently neither, yet I try to incorporate skills from both realms into my growth. Someday, I may be ready for such lines of work.

Do The Work is intended to be motivational. It gives a short and concise motivational overview of the creative process, the most important part being: “get started! Do it!” It’s so easy to never get off the ground. But doubt and resistance are with you every step of the way, even to the point of shipping. The author mentioned a friend who wrote an entire book but never shipped it because of doubt.

It covers tricks to keep yourself motivated and moving. It talks about how movies are broken down into 3 acts, and how to use that outline for other creative type work.

I’d say, since it’s free, just get it. Do The Work is a VERY short read. I may read a lot, but I don’t read fast. I was able to read Do The Work during my commute to and from work today. No, I don’t read while I’m driving. I slug. That is, I park my car in a commuter lot and jump in the car of somebody else who is driving to where I’m going because they need 3 people in the car to get in the HOV lane. I repeat the process coming home. On days when I need my car immediately after work for some reason, I drive in and pick up slugs. It’s the perfect symbiotic system. Everybody wins. In any case, I started the book on my iPhone when I got in the car, and I finished it just as we were pulling up to the commuter lot after work. Less than an hour’s reading at my pace, on an iPhone, in a moving car with periodic stops to look around and skip songs. It’s quick and easy, and for the price of FREE, it might actually help you. You can buy it from my affiliation below:

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Buy a Mother’s Day Gift and Help Charities

2011-05-04T19:13:00.001-04:00

I was contacted by Jarrod of Love In the Home and asked to post about his site and a chance to donate to charities. Jarrod runs Love in the Home and has a page set up with links to sites he’s affiliated with that are good for buying Mother’s Day gifts.

If you buy a gift for your wife, mom, or any deserving mother-figure in your life, Jarrod will donate 100% of the affiliate commissions to two charities: The American Red Cross (Japan Disaster relief effort) and The Nurturing Network, which helps expectant mothers.

Book Review: The Energy Non-Crisis by Lindsey Williams

2011-04-24T12:00:00.001-04:00

Lindsey Williams is a pastor. He traveled to Alaska as a missionary, and ended up working as a chaplain on the Alaska Oil Pipeline. He became privy to the inner workings of the oil companies, and to the pressures the federal government was placing on those oil companies at the time, in an apparent attempt to nationalize the oil industry.

During this period of time, the U.S. was in the middle of a supposed energy crisis. However, even though plenty of oil was discovered in Alaska, the oil companies were not allowed to pump and use it. Most of what was pumped was sent to foreign nations while we continued to import foreign oil.

I learned very little by reading this book (written 30 years ago) that I didn't already know. It would probably be informative for most people with little background on these issues. Of course, those people would start screaming "Conspiracy theorist!" as if the government has NEVER done anything outside of our best interests and the media has NEVER lied about anything. But such people don’t seem to know the difference between a fact and a theory, and have no clue how to handle the presentation and evaluation of evidence.

As a pastor/missionary/chaplain, Lindsey Williams talks for a living. This book was written (and reads) like it was going to be set up on a teleprompter for him to read at a weekend conference. He likes to repeat himself. The book could have been about half the length if he'd only needed to say each point once. Also, when he recounts conversations, I give him the benefit of the doubt that he's telling you approximately what the person said and I'm sure it's accurate, but his conversations sound like he's setting up fables for use in a sermon. Each person's conversation reads like they're all the same character. I'm sure we all do it though. Lindsey’s writing is no surprise to me though. It reads exactly as he talks on Alex Jones’ show.

The book is available to read online here: http://www.reformation.org/energy-non-crisis.html

Linux Magazine: Why Did Flock Fail?

2011-04-23T10:22:00.001-04:00

This post probably won’t mean anything to any readers I may happen to have. It’s a geek post, but I’ll make it as simple as I can.

Years ago, I used to get email from Linux Magazine. Those emails stopped at some point in the past (2008 according to a glance through my gmail archives). I didn’t notice. This week, I got a new email from Linux Magazine. Weird. So I checked it out. I found an article that was another blast from the past, asking why Flock Failed.

What is Flock?, you may ask. Flock was supposed to be “the social web browser”. I tried it very early in it’s development, then dropped it and forgot about it. It was an interesting concept, but was missing the most important part for me in using a web browser: a session restore feature.

What is a Session Restore feature? You probably know what tabs are. You have one browser window open and all the web pages you’re reading are open in tabs. I tend to come up with a lot of reading I’d like to do, but don’t want to do right now, so I’ll come across a new site or article and leave it open in a tab until I feel like dealing with it. Sometimes that can take months. In the meantime, Windows downloads updates, Adobe Craprobat needs to update, and your computer has to restart. Or your computer crashes. When you reopen your web browser, it looks exactly the way it did when you shut it down. All of your tabs are back. I love it. It works great for me. I won’t use a web browser without this feature. That includes Internet Explorer and Safari (for Windows). I have no idea why Safari doesn’t have a session manager on Windows. It does on the Mac.

I used to keep a lot of tabs open; sometimes more than 50. Now, thanks to services like Read It Later and Delicious, I can keep my tab count under 20.

Flock was a great idea. It was supposed to pull together your web browsing and social media. I guess the implementation was bad though. I never got past the early versions of the browser because it lacked a session manager.

Book Review: The Malacca Conspiracy by Don Brown

2011-04-19T22:05:00.001-04:00

I’ve read all of the Don Brown Navy Justice Series books I’m aware of. Four of them are a continuing story. The 5th, Black Sea Affair, sort of diverts but at the end ties in the main character from the other books.

Don Brown is like a cross between Tom Clancy and the JAG corp. Don Brown was a former Navy JAG lawyer, and is a decent fiction writer. He writes similar to Clancy. Not quite as sophisticated as Clancy, but close and still enjoyable.

His books are also Christian fiction (published by Zondervan), although not preachy. It touches on the character’s thoughts and brief conversations with each other. The main characters are all Christians.

Recurring characters throughout the books are:

LT-LTCDR Zack Brewer, USN JAG, star lawyer of the Navy, successfully tries several high profile cases throughout the books. He begins the series as a Lieutenant but is promoted to LTCDR quickly.

LT-LTCDR Diane Colcernian- Zack’s love interest. The first book starts with some trouble in the past between them, but closes that quickly.

President Mack Williams- Republican POTUS and former Navy JAG lawyer. Sort of a recurring theme; Navy JAG lawyers with names that rhyme with “ack”.

There are some Presidential advisors and minor recurring characters, but I’m getting bored with this exercise so I won’t list them.

This book starts with a phenomenal plot device: somebody starts driving up oil futures through insider trading just before oil tankers are attacked and sunk in the Straights of Malacca.

This scenario is absolutely terrifying. I’ve been through the Straights of Malacca twice, on a U.S. Navy Destroyer. The straights get really narrow around Singapore. A disaster on the scale of the attacks in this book would shut the place down. Oil prices would skyrocket into the realm of “we either find an alternative fuel, or start buying horses again”. Then our suburbs would stink of horse crap.

In addition to the insider trading and attacks on ships, a rouge general serving as Chief of Staff of the Indonesian military decides to overthrow the President and acquire nukes to attack the U.S. with. His assassination of the Indonesian President is again a terrifying scenario: the President’s personal doctor has a lung removed and replaced with explosives, which are set off during a routine medical check up. Oh, yeah, the U.S. Ambassador is visiting and goes MIA in the blast, along with one of the main character JAG lawyers.

Also, a nuke is set off in downtown Philadelphia.

After this great build up, with some awesome cliff-hanging scenarios that I hope NEVER happen in real life, the book goes downhill. The insider trading is forgotten, as is the oil tanker attacks. It then becomes a formulaic “good guys win the story”. That is unfortunate. Even the supposedly suspenseful moments in the book, like the small plane carrying a nuke into D.C. fail to evoke emotion, since you realize by this point that the good guys are going to win. The last 100 or so pages of the book read sort of like this: “blah, blah, general, blah, blah, President, blah, blah, Navy Seals, blah, blah JAGs goes on SEAL team mission, blah, blah plane gets shot down, end of story, award ceremony, speech, marriage proposal.”

Also, as a former Navy man, I caught a few discrepancies. It’s not a big deal, and you’re not likely to notice. Don Brown shouldn’t feel bad; I’ve caught Clancy being wrong on some Navy technical issues. I suspect Clancy took some artistic license though, as he needed the discrepancy to move his story along. Don Brown’s discrepancies are minor. The Port Royal is not an “Aegis Class Cruiser”. Nor is it a “Heavy Cruiser”. It is a Ticonderoga Class cruiser. The entire class is Aegis. Like I said, it was minor.

The Navy Justice Series is a good read. I enjoyed it a lot, even if it did fizzle out at the end of The Malacca Conspiracy.

Crackle from Sony: Free TV and Movies for iOS

2011-04-19T21:31:00.001-04:00

I learned of something really cool today. Sony had an app approved by Apple called Crackle, which provides ad supported TV and movies to iOS devices.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog says it works on both Wi-fi and 3G.

After I got home and had dinner, I downloaded the app and installed it on my iPad. I think I’m going to like it. I haven’t watched anything yet, but I scrolled through the content. It has classic shows like Seinfeld, and classic movies like The Toy, Ghostbusters, and more modern movies like The DaVinci Code. It has all three Spiderman movies (I haven’t seen the 3rd). It has both Starship Troopers. I haven’t seen the second yet and I enjoy the first one for some strange reason.

Looks like this will keep me occupied on weekends when I can’t make it home.

This is something I’m really happy to see. I can’t completely understand various content providers’ philosophy of how you can or should watch their content. Every show is different. You can go to Fox.com and watch every single Kitchen Nightmares ever aired right there on the website. Episodes are available almost immediately after airing, and don’t seem to expire. Hell’s Kitchen is available shortly after airing, but those episodes expire after 60 days. Fox can’t stream new episodes of House for 8 days after airing.

I was a little ticked off this past year when I found the producers of V wouldn’t allow ABC streaming rights. I’m trying to figure out why. I searched online and could not find a reason, so I was forced to invent one: they’re jerks.

Some providers seem proud to let you watch their content. Others are almost psychotically afraid of letting you see it anywhere BUT the brief window of space-time when it airs on TV.

I don’t get it.

I’ve gotten spoiled the last few years. Thanks to YouTube, Hulu, South Park Studios, and the DVR, my TV watching has become untethered from time and space. I like the fact that I can come home from work and watch a show at 6 PM, rather than having to stay up until 11 to watch it. I like that I can watch 2 or 3 episodes in a row if I want to.

I applaud Sony for releasing Crackle. I hope other content producers follow. I don’t mind advertising. I know TV shows and movies don’t make themselves, and I don’t mind advertising so much, although it needs to be targeted better. You’re wasting both your time and mine by forcing me to sit through a feminine hygiene commercial or a skin cream commercial. I’ve called Geico; I can’t save anything if I switch. It would cost me more. Geico commercials are a waste of my time. Political commercials are definitely a waste of my time. They’re retarded anyway.

What Are You Doing May 22?

2011-04-17T08:45:00.001-04:00

It’s an important question. Harold Camping says the world will end on May 21 of this year. He’s done this before. So on May 22, I plan to wait for word on when the world will really end according to Harold Camping.

I recently came across an excellent series of blog posts on Camping, written by a man who studied under him in church. He confirmed something I’ve long suspected about Harold Camping:

After Camping began to work full-time with Family Radio, he spent much time studying the Bible. His knowledge of Bible verses is impressive indeed. But his study of the Bible was undertaken in isolation from other Christians and theologians. He adopted a proud individualism. He did not really learn from Bible scholars. He studied the Bible in isolation from the church and the consensus of the faithful. As a result his understanding of the Bible became more and more idiosyncratic. No one could help, direct, or restrain him. He was really an autodicdact, that is, someone who teaches himself. He never really submitted his ideas to be challenged and improved by others. He was truly his only teacher. He has repeatedly said that he would be glad to change his views if he is shown that he is wrong from the Bible. But this humble statement covers a very arrogant attitude, because no one can ever show him that he is wrong. He alone really understands the Bible.

This is something I’ve noticed about men who seem to go off the deep end later in their lives. I’ve seen it before, and I’ve heard it from other men. I once heard Chuck Swindoll say he had a mentor who was very solid in the faith, but later in his life, he strayed into some serious error and kooky theology. I added “kooky”. That wasn’t Chuck Swindoll.

I suspect what happens is men reach an age where they believe themselves to be unteachable and therefore above accountability. Once untethered from accountability, a man can head in any direction he wishes because he considers nobody wise enough to set him straight.

This symptom isn’t only reflected by older men. It can happen to anybody who becomes isolated and above accountability. I recently lost a good friend who fell under the influence of some kooky Internet Bible teachers. He started to believe it was unbiblical to assemble in a church building with other believers, and tithing to the church was one of the worse offenses you could make against God. I gently tried to hold him accountable, but he unfriended me on Facebook and I haven’t heard from him since. He was approximately my age.

No doubt, the church has gone astray in a lot of ways. I cringe at many of the pointless and off-base cliches I hear every time I go to church. I have a series of blog posts in my head about some of them. Maybe I should write them. I cringe when I see some members of the church worked into burnout serving to keep some ministries alive while other people do nothing more than show up for an hour on Sunday to get their tickets punched and leave, then complain about everything. My wife once had to teach Sunday School 4 quarters straight because the church supposedly couldn’t find another teacher. We had to cancel a weekend trip because she couldn’t find a replacement. Another time, I flat out told the church we wouldn't be there Sunday, and nobody was returning her calls to fill in, so they would have to find the replacement themselves or have no teacher for that class. We’re no longer in that church for various reasons, but our current church is working her and a few other people into the ground in the AWANA program because there’s nobody else.

If I were a pastor, well, I probably wouldn’t last 3 weeks. And if you sat in MY congregation and after 6 months of my pastoring couldn’t find books in the Bible like Habakkuk and Obadiah, I would yell at you. Then be fired. I know people who have supposedly been Christians and faithful church members for 50 years and don’t know where those books are, or what they’re about. I find it inexcusable. I wouldn’t tolerate gossip and passive-aggressive backstabbing either. I don’t know how pastors do it. I guess for all of our sakes, I’ll remain in IT and Engineering. We’re all better off that way.

Book Review: The Final Summit By Andy Andrews

2011-04-11T08:12:00.000-04:00

I got The Final Summit from Booksneeze. The Final Summit is a sequel to The Traveler's Gift, which I have not yet read.

The main character, David Ponder, makes me think of Dave Ramsey. I confirmed by listening to Andy Andrews being interviewed on Dave Ramsey's show that my suspicion was correct. David Ponder, at least his life since The Traveler's Gift, is in fact heavily based on Dave Ramsey.

I remember from The Noticer Andy Andrews is a biography nerd. His knowledge of historical figures comes into play in this book as David Ponder interacts with fictionalized versions of Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, King David, and so on.

The book finds David Ponder in his 70's. His wife died and he is now alone. Then Gabriel shows up to take him to a summit of Travelers. Humanity is near it's end, and this summit is it's last chance before God does another reorganization. Remember, this is an inspirational book, not a theology book.

The Final Summit was a quick and easy read. It was inspirational, although the conclusion to me seemed a little anti-climactic. I don't see this book affecting my life and impacting my thinking the way The Noticer did. I'm not going to give away the ending.

I did pick up a new quote from the book, which I've already used and shared with a few friends. Gabriel in this book says "Tact is a human trait, needed by those who are hesitant to tell the truth."

Book Review: Paranoia by Joseph Finder

2011-04-09T21:31:00.000-04:00

Adam Cassidy is a half-assed employee of Wyatt Telecom. He manages to hack into the corporate system to throw a retirement party for an assistant loading dock manager as a prank. When caught by the owner and his Security Manager, Adam is given the proverbial "offer he can't refuse". Wyatt Telecom has a competitor: Goddard Telecom. In exchange for not prosecuting Adam, Wyatt grooms him as an espionage agent to infiltrate Goddard Telecom and feed back information.

But problems seep into Adam's life. He turns out to be too good, and ends up as the right-hand man of Jock Goddard. He begins to develop a loyalty to Goddard, while still obligated (at the risk of prosecution) to feed back information to Wyatt.

This book is told in the 1st person through the main character's eyes.

I'm fairly intelligent, and until the final two chapters of this novel, I did not see the end coming. Seriously. It is that good.

This is a riveting thriller. I enjoyed it immensely. I look forward to reading more of Joseph Finder's books.

Book Review: Medicus by Ruth Downie

2011-04-09T16:32:00.000-04:00

One subject that never fails to get my heart pumping is history. I've discovered an enjoyment for historical fiction as well. Sometimes, the holes in history are filled in fairly well by a writer's imagination. In the 8th grade, I read Johnny Tremaine. As I've grown and studied the period surrounding our American Revolution, I found it to be fairly accurate, but the fictional element added an interesting spice to my understanding of the period.

I found a similar experience with Medicus. One historical period with which I'm particularly fascinated is the Roman Empire. Yet some parts of the history of the empire were recorded better than others. The British Isles were one area for which little written history remains.

I came across Medicus as a Kindle freebie. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The main character, Gaius Petrius Ruso, is a Roman Army doctor in Britain during the period when Trajan died and Hadrian took over as emperor (approximately 117-118 AD or CE depending on your perspective). The book begins with a girl turning up dead and Ruso is forced to deal with it as the only doctor not sick or away from the hospital. This girl's death leads him unwittingly into buying an injured slave girl and investigating a string of murders of bar prostitutes.

Complicating the plot, Ruso is also juggling the aftermath of his father's death among an over extension of credit. Though Ruso is divorced, his brother maintains the family farm in southern Gaul (France), and his responsibility is to send whatever money he can from his Army salary to support his family and somehow repay his father's massive system of debt. Ruso's solution is his own intricate system of loans that threaten to unravel at any moment, especially when the tyrannical hospital administrator gets involved.

I enjoyed the book and the characters. The narration is predominately told in the third person surrounding Ruso, the main character, although occasionally we're given a glimpse into the mind of Trilla, the slave girl. The switch didn't seem very consistent though.

Other reviewers on Amazon said the other characters were two-dimensional. I didn't think so. Since the story was mostly told from the perspective of the main character, obviously the other characters didn't appear as filled out. At least, it's obvious to me. I'm not a trained book reviewer, but I am a trained reader. I know what I like. I also wonder how "two-dimensional" people in my life would appear if the only way you knew them was through my journal. No, you can't read it.

My biggest complaint about Medicus is I'll have to buy the rest of the series now that I'm invested in the main character. There are at least 3 more books following this one, and none have shown up as Kindle freebies yet. If you love the triumvirate of history, fiction, and the Roman Empire, you should enjoy Medicus.

Boycott Sundance Vacations Facebook Group

2011-04-09T15:35:00.000-04:00

For those stopping by my blog from a search on Sundance Vacations, there is a Facebook group dedicated to boycotting it now. Check it out here.

If You Want to be a Winner is it OK to Quit?

2011-03-27T08:39:00.000-04:00

We've all heard that line "winners never quit, and quitters never win". No doubt, it's inspirational in some situations. But is it universally applicable? That is, does it apply in all situations?

I don't think so. Neither does Dan Miller, who explored this topic a while back on his blog.

If you're giving something all that you've got, and getting nowhere, it's time to reevaluate your choices.

I've set goals in the past, realized after a lot of heartache and tears that the goal was a poor fit for me, and changed course. Some of these course changes resulted in a lot of what Dave Ramsey calls "stupid tax", but I realized the cost would be much higher if I continued along that path.

I once enrolled in a distance learning college program. The institution was not accredited, but I had no idea what that meant at the time. As I came to understand what it meant to not be accredited, I also realized that the program wasn't the best fit for me. I made the decision to drop out and I switched my enrollment to the University of Phoenix, where I earned my Bachelor's degree in IT, which was a perfect fit for me.

If you're beating your head against the wall on something, don't be afraid to quit and change directions. Successful people do it all the time. That's what makes them successful. I've adopted a mantra of sorts: "If you're not screwing up, you're not trying hard enough".

I'm Getting An iPad

2011-03-27T08:28:00.000-04:00

I got a call from my brother the other day. My birthday is coming up (it's this Thursday and my wishlist is here). Looks like I'll be getting a motorcycle helmet and a 1st generation iPad. My dad is buying himself the iPad 2 and will send me his old one.

Now I need to figure out what to do with it. I can probably use it for reading books and watching movies. Maybe my planning activities and other things that an iPhone screen is too small for. In any case, trying to figure out what to do with an iPad is a good problem to have.

I won't get it until well after my birthday.

Windows XP Wallpaper Meets Office Space

2011-03-21T21:58:00.001-04:00

Looking for new wallpaper? Check this out. I wish I’d come across this years ago.

Dr. John Mark Hicks Habakkuk Study: Imperialism

2011-03-21T21:52:00.001-04:00

I’ve been through 3 seminars put on by Dr. John Mark Hicks. The man has earned my respect. He recently posted a study he did of the Prophet Habakkuk on Imperialism.

I rarely cover politics on my blog. Nobody reads it anyway, but I prefer to avoid trolls and flamers. I am by no means a pacifist. I’m a Navy veteran. I’m classified as a combat veteran for what that’s worth. War is a tool of the state that needs to be employed under certain circumstances.

I’m no fan of some of the latest circumstances. I don’t like the concept of a war on an abstract. Like the IT projects I manage, war should have clearly defined objectives. Sure, the scope might change once underway, but still, there should be a set of objectives at which point victory can be declared and everybody can come home, like at the end of WWII and Gulf War I.

I’m a firm believer there is nothing new under the sun. What’s going on today is a repeat of previous history. We’re not the first nation to plunge into imperialism, and we won’t be the last. Check out Dr. John Mark Hicks’ study here.

Jesus Is Not A Facebook Status

2011-03-20T08:35:00.001-04:00

I was going through some blog posts I started and never finished. I came across this. I think I was going to write a long dissertation, but that’s not really required which is probably why I never finished this post.

I don’t consider this “witnessing”. I don’t consider it “furthing the Kingdom of Heaven”. I consider it annoying. Just like those silly emails that essentially tell you “If you don’t forward this silly, poorly written poem to 10 people, you don’t love Jesus”. I delete those immediately. This is designed to get people who agree with you to feel good, and to annoy people who don’t agree with you. It’s not a good argument, and it’s not a good example.

I recall a bumper sticker I saw once: “Dear God, please save me from your followers.”

There are far more effective ways to show we’re followers of Jesus that forwarding emails and copying and pasting Facebook statuses.

By the way, I did NOT post that message on my wall.

Col 3:[17] And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

Introducing “The Manslater”

2011-02-28T19:35:00.001-05:00

This would be awesome!

Although I’m not thrilled with the “caveman language”. I’m getting tired of the “men are stupid” humor we subject ourselves to. We’re not that stupid. At least, I’m not that stupid. I don’t know about the rest of you. But surely we can allow some intellectual capacity into our humor.

All that aside, I would totally pay for this thing, as long as it spoke to me on MY level, not on an idiot level. I’ve often wondered why women are allowed to get away with passive aggression and lying on such a large scale. Is this a societal conditioning issue, or is it just the way they’re wired? I don’t know. I don’t have daughters, so I can’t run my own experiment, like spanking them for lying about whether they’re fine or not.

Newsflash: iPad Owners Hate Their iPads

2011-02-21T17:07:00.001-05:00

Blogs posts like this make me laugh. Though I am a total computer geek, I don’t have the funding that high-profile blogging computer geeks have. Therefore, I don’t have an iPad (unless you want to get me one for my birthday, Dad). My dad doesn’t read my blog.

I’ve seen similar reports in other tech blogs I follow. If you had the money to drop on an iPad, do you like it?

I’m not sure I’d get one even if I felt like spending the money. The iPad seems really cool, but I can do almost everything it can do with my iPhone 4. Maybe if the iPad had Flash, I’d get excited about it.

For those of you who have followed me, I’m considering jumping to Android for my next phone. That could be a year and a half or so. We’ll see what happens by that point. The iPhone could go through 2 more versions by then.

Freeloaders: Should iTunes Allow Podcasters to Charge?

2011-01-26T19:24:00.001-05:00

This post isn’t necessarily addressed to freeloaders. It’s about a category of people. I’ve been following Ramit Sethi for years. I like his style, his attitude, and the information he provides, most of it for free. Even though he provides a lot of information for free, he still makes a lot of money through quality products he provides. He has quite a business going.

He had a delicious category on freeloaders. I like to check it once in a while. I am a freeloader though. But hopefully, not the kind of freeloader Ramit disdains. With Ramit’s quality content, he advocates his readers to take action. He gives actionable steps to improve your life, negotiate a higher salary, get freelance business, etc. But the “freeloaders” usually ignore the advice and complain when he tries to sell a product. Personally, I’d love to buy one of his premium products, but don’t believe I can justify to my wife doing it out of our current budget. So for now, I’m happy to follow along with whatever Ramit offers for free.

The other day, Ramit tweeted something about freeloaders revolting over being charged. I followed the link. It went to a discussion about podcasters possibly being allowed to charge for podcasts.

That’s scary. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I’ve been through a lot of them. I’ve had points when I was subscribing to more podcasts than I could possibly listen to in a day (or week) and had to unsubscribe. I’ve dropped some good ones. I used to listen to TWIT, until it started to last close to 2 hours and became more like some friends complaining about Windows Vista than useful tech new and perspectives.

The possibility of having podcasts charge scares me a little bit. But I know some will still be available for free. Most of the podcasts I listen to will probably remain free.

I don’t think I’d complain if some started charging. People need to be able to make a living, and what’s wrong with being paid for your work? That is, if your work is beneficial. I’ve been blogging for more than 7 years, and have yet to see a dime. I guess it’s because I can’t seem to write about anything that interests anybody. So I write when I feel like it. When I was laid off last year, I tried to write a lot of content for my blog. I got nowhere.

What do you think? If you are a listener of podcasts, would you pay for any of them? Would you drop them altogether if they started charging?

This Might Explain Why Verizon Announced Its iPhone

2011-01-17T14:47:00.001-05:00

It’s no secret, I’ve been skeptical about the iPhone on Verizon. One of the last reasons I was skeptical is I expected Steve Jobs to announce it himself.

I was going through Google Reader today, and came across a very cryptic post by Fake Steve Jobs (Dan Lyons). It linked to another page here. Apparently, Steve Jobs is facing more health issues.

The Daily Show’s Report on the Verizon iPhone

2011-01-12T20:41:00.002-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Verizon iPhone Announcement

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog</a>

The Daily Show on Facebook

1/11/11- A Day that shall always be known as “VZ Day”.

Spam Decreasing Dramatically: Is Something Big Coming?

2011-01-12T20:10:00.003-05:00

This is interesting. According to the London Telegraph, spam has decreased dramatically. Because a few botnets have been responsible for a large percentage of global spam, this leaves the Telegraph and/or it’s sources wondering if spammers aren’t gearing up for something big.

For an interesting look at spam, I recommend the following two books, Inside the Spam Cartel by “Spammer-X”, and Spam Kings by Brian S. McWilliams. Both were very informative, although they account for a period of time in the late 90’s through about 2004. I learned a lot from them.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Christian Bookstores “Diversifying” To Survive

2011-01-11T21:33:00.001-05:00

This is an interesting post. It talks with sadness about the junk Christian bookstores are having to sell to stay afloat. Many are going out of business.

I can’t say I’ve helped the problem. It’s far easier (and cheaper) to get my books on Amazon. A few years ago, I struggled with the issue of whether I should buy books from the best priced, or pay “just a little more” to support a retailer like Christian Book.com. I realized, from a business perspective, it’s best to go with the most efficient and inexpensive provider.

Not to sound callous. As a student of business, would it be fair to expect a fellow believer to hire me over a superior candidate who isn’t a believer? I didn’t think so. I need to compete in the workforce and in business on my own merits. And I should expect businesses to do the same.

Businesses have to adapt to changing conditions. This is nothing new. Throughout history, conditions have changed. Businesses either had to adapt or go under. The same goes for now. In the early part of the 20th century, horse transportation manufacturers had to adapt or go under. Would it have been right to subsidize them? Were any “too big to fail”? I doubt it.

So, I buy my books from Amazon. I think even the secular bookseller is having trouble these days.

Looks Like I Was Wrong

2011-01-11T20:09:00.002-05:00

OK, there’s going to be a Verizon iPhone.
I’m still stuck with AT&T. I got my wife her iPhone 3GS in May of 2010, and I got my iPhone 4 in November of 2010. That means it’ll cost us a lot to get out of our contracts at this point.
So how did AT&T celebrate this announcement? Well, when I tried to check weather on my way home, I had 5 bars and a 3G connection, but couldn’t connect to anything.
At least my wife and I had a full call this evening without dropping. Must be a full moon or something.

So I’m stuck with AT&T for now. I’m not the only one. A TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) has a post about another person who is consciously choosing to remain with AT&T.
What are the advantages of jumping to Verizon?

Hopefully, their network will be ready to cope.
Totally unlimited data (I have this on AT&T, even with my iPhone 4, since I upgraded from a 3G with unlimited data)
Tethering, specifically, an iPhone can act as a wifi hotspot for up to 5 devices. That would be nice. I think AT&T offers a 2GB tethering plan for a ridiculous amount of money.

Disadvantages?

CDMA won’t allow simultaneous call and data. So you can’t surf or send email while you’re on hold. This feature is available on AT&T’s GSM network, which of course assumes a call connects or stays connected.
You’ll have to buy a new iPhone case. Apparently, the buttons are in different places.

I’ve seen tweets today about “maybe the competition will force AT&T to upgrade their network” and “Maybe all the whiners will leave for Verizon and give the faithful all the bandwidth.” I doubt it. AT&T sucks. I’ve been with Cingular/AT&T for a decade. I haven’t had a single problem with my connection on the iPhone that I didn’t have with all the phones I had previously to the iPhone. I’ve given up on hoping AT&T gets better. I hope Verizon gets that voice/data at the same time issue fixed by the time my AT&T contract is up.

I Guess It'll Be Official Tomorrow

2011-01-10T19:54:00.000-05:00

Apparently, the iPhone will be announced on Verizon tomorrow. I'm still skeptical, but less now. I figured if and when the iPhone comes out on Verizon, Steve Jobs would announce it at an Apple event like he always does. But maybe the shine is wearing off of the iPhone and Steve has better things to do. Who knows?

But now, AT&T's PR department seems to be getting into the act. The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) reports that AT&T is warning Verizon iPhone users about "life in the slow lane". And this is worse than the "life in the can't complete a call lane" how?

Unfortunately, I just got my iPhone 4 in November, expecting that 5 to 6 year exclusive contract to work out just in time for me to switch. I'm still stuck with AT&T until I can buy out my contract.

Yet More “iPhone On Verizon” Rumors, This Time From the WSJ

2011-01-08T16:58:00.001-05:00

The Wall Street Journal of all places is now carrying a rumor about a supposed Verizon iPhone. Although, just like all the other rumors, there is no mention of how Apple and/or AT&T plans to get around that pesky 5-6 year exclusive agreement that nobody but me seems to remember.

I’ve mentioned many times how much I dislike AT&T. The other night, they dropped 4 calls in 30 seconds between my wife and I. We both had 5 full bars at the time. I’d love to have an option besides AT&T, which we’ve been with for a while and have never been satisfied with service.

What I gather from the article is Verizon is making a big announcement this coming Tuesday. The article states that it will be the “iPhone on Verizon” announcement, but offers no substance to back it up although it is stated in the article as fact.

Verizon sent out invitations for an event to be held in New York City on Tuesday asking that recipients "Join us as we share the latest news," but didn't specify the subject matter. The event will be headlined by Lowell McAdam, president and chief operating officer of Verizon Communications
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704739504576068170230339348.html#ixzz1AU0V0XDD

My speculation is Verizon will announce another “iPhone Killer”. I want to be wrong. Let’s hope I am.

Test

2011-01-08T15:26:00.001-05:00

This is a test to see if I can publish to Blogger from Windows Live Writer. It looks like I no longer require a CAPCHA to publish to this blog. That means I can get back to blogging again.

University of Phoenix Students Can Use iPad

2011-01-08T15:24:00.000-05:00

I read a post on Lifehacker about software discounts available for those with .edu email addresses. I thought "You know, I still have an email account with the University of Phoenix". I decided to log in.

I've logged in before for various reasons. I occasionally use their databases to do research or read something in the Wall Street Journal (or other paid publications) for free. I've gone into the eBook library a few times to grow my knowledge. But I don't log in much. So today, I thought to check.

I noticed the image on the left. That's a definite plus. While I was a student, I struggled with an 8MB IMAP email/newsgroup account centered on Outlook Express. I never liked Outlook Express, but in 2 years of struggling, I couldn't find an alternative that didn't suck less. Just in time for my final class, UOP rolled out a new online classroom and after I graduated, all students got gmail accounts.

I've written several posts between 2005 and 2007 while I was in the BSIT program. Most were rants about UOP. I've been told this blog is actually considered an authority on UOP topics. Perhaps someday (like when I pay my Bachelor's degree off), I'll go back for a Masters.

Test

2011-01-05T22:00:00.001-05:00

How To Import Netscape Communicator 4 Messages Into Outlook

2010-12-31T15:54:00.000-05:00

This is sort of a silly post. I was reading a book on John Newton, which was heavily based off his letters and journal entries. While nobody will ever care about my personal correspondence, I got an urge to look at some of the emails I was sending and receiving in my early days on the Internet.

I’ve carried an archive of my old Netscape messages for years. I wondered if I had a way to read them.

It turns out, there is. And that way is Outlook Express.

Because Outlook Express was the only way I could find to do this, I don’t have screenshots. I hope my disorganized ramblings can be of use to somebody else. Otherwise, I’m sure this post will get exactly as much traffic as the other 850 or so on my blog.

The problem I have is that my 2 main computers run Windows 7. Obviously, Outlook Express was discontinued when Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail were released. Neither will import from Netscape Communicator (part of the Netscape Navigator suite). Thunderbird, which I believe is a descendant of Netscape, will not import Netscape Communicator either.

I still have my Acer AspireOne netbook, piece of junk that it is. The keyboard stopped working a long time ago, and since my in-laws bought me a 15” HP laptop, the Acer has been one “I’m too lazy to take it” step from the trash pile.So I still had it. I copied the Netscape Communicator emails to my portable hard drive, and went to work.

Actually, I also have them on a synced folder with Windows Live Mesh, but in typical Microsoft fashion, when I went to install Mesh on my netbook, I got “this is not an installable file” or some typical bullcrap that I get from about 75% of the .exe files I try to download and install from Microsoft’s servers. Yes, I tried it twice, then rebooted and tried 2 more times. The problem was the file.

This process was simple, yet frustrating. I haven’t done anything with the netbook since the keyboard stopped working, so Windows XP had buttloads of updates to install, and since Microsoft hasn’t created a coherent updates scheme, I had to work around several batches of update files.

I fired up Outlook Express, which had never been used. I stopped using OE after I graduated from the University of Phoenix in 2007.

Side note, my Blogger blog is somehow considered an authority on University of Phoenix matters. Even though I don’t use it anymore and all of the posts from there are here, somehow UOP students searching for ways to make Thunderbird work with UOP newsgroups keep landing on my blog.

Once Outlook Express was started, I selected File-> Import. Netscape Communicator was among the file formats. I selected that, directed it to the directory on my portable hard drive, and let it rip.

I won’t bore you with details of trying to get the messages OUT of Outlook Express. The easiest way to do it was to configure OE to use my gmail account through IMAP. Then I created a new folder (label in gmail) and copied all of the messages to it. Later, I’ll sort through them in gmail or in Outlook on my laptop.

Assuming anybody actually reads this, or cares, or is even curious why I want to read an email archive from 1997-2001, lets just say morbid curiosity. My mom passed away in 2006, and I realized that I might have had some email during that time period from her since it was before I got married, so I was lonely and had a lot more time to email my mom. During the brief digging I did, I found the first emails my wife and I sent to each other when we first met. I found some good jokes from back in the days when I collected them. I forgot, but during one period around 1999, I subscribed to an email that sent me jokes every day. Such a service is not needed anymore, but one entire email could have provided enough fodder for Fail Blog for a week. I’m sure I’ll also find a treasure trove of bad jokes and chain emails.

This also brought back some memories. I can remember when Netscape was the best browser around, even though it stalled constantly. Still, it didn’t suck as bad as Internet Exploder. I almost feel bad for Microsoft in the “Browser Wars”. They’ve made some giant stride forward in IE, but it still seems like every IE update, they’re 2 years behind. IE is considered to be the best way to download Firefox (or Chrome, my current favorite browser), but at one point, every time I had to reformat and reinstall Windows 95, the ONLY thing I used IE for was to download Netscape.

I’m surprised I haven’t deleted more email. Prior to the roll-out of gmail, which started with the motto “Never delete another email”, or something similar, most of us had storage limitations and had to delete email. I’ve been on gmail since early 2005, and have about 60,000 emails on it, and I’m at 36% of capacity. And I’m a lightweight by many standards.

This exercise is over, and my netbook is back in the “should I throw it away” pile. If you have old Netscape Communicator email archives you want to access, better do it before Windows XP (and Outlook Express) are gone forever.

When Thinking Ruins TV

2010-12-26T11:50:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I wonder if I think too much. In many cases, my enjoyment of entertainment is ruined by my thinking.

Star Trek

For instance, last week, I finally got to see the new Star Trek movie. After the final Star Trek: TNG movie, Nemesis, I wasn’t planning to see another Star Trek movie. I figured the franchise should remain in my past where I enjoyed it more. But, I’d heard good things about the new movie, which sort of departed from the present by visiting the past. I saw it, and loved it.

However, as a former Navy man, and as an engineer, my thinking in some ways ruined the experience for me. OK, what would a sci-fi action movie be without some epic fight scene in some vast space with small platforms suspended in mid-air? But still, during the final fight scene between young James T. Kirk and that Romulan miner-turned vengeance guy, I spent the whole scene wondering “what freaking idiot would design a ship with that much space, populated by tiny platforms? It’s not like you’d design a mining ship just so Kirk could fight a bad guy at the end of a movie.

I also had some minor issues with the whole “3 year cadet becomes Captain of a starship after 1 mission, no matter how successful”. The military can certainly violate its own rules, but career paths are there for a reason. In the Navy, line officers must do so much time in each department. I had several division officers who transferred from or to engineering after a brief stint in my division. It’s only the specialized officers (chaplains, supply, medical, dental, etc) who only do one thing for their entire careers. If you want to be a captain of a Naval ship, you have to do time in engineering, deck, operations, combat systems, etc. Sometimes, you go back. The first captain I served on the U.S.S. Oldendorf under was promoted to O-6 and left to be the Chief Engineer on an aircraft carrier. From CO to department head.

Stargate Universe:

I enjoy SGU. But, especially in the 2nd season, I agonize over one annoying detail: only 1 member of the crew has managed to find the pilot house. I know, the show centers around Air Force personnel. It may not naturally occur to them that ships have a central point from which they’re operated or navigated. But still, had I been a member of the crew, the first thing I would have done is locate the pilot house (bridge). Also, I would have looked for something like a CIC. But they spend the entire 1st season using some “control interface room”, then in the 2nd season, Dr. Rush “accidentally” stumbles across the pilot house and decides not to tell anybody he found it. And since the concept never occurs to the other members of the cast, he is able to keep it hidden for a while.

I would have found it long before that. But again, I only grew up in the Air Force. I didn’t serve in it.

The Stand-up Philosopher

Book Review: The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment by Tim Challies

Social Media: Seeds for Blogging?

Desktop Virtualization Is Here (And For Now, It's Free)

Like the "Paranormal"? Here Are A Few Good Resources

When "Quick" Surveys Get To Be Too Much Work

Trello: Another Great, Free App

Evernote: INC Magazine's Company of the Year

Cutting The Tether to My Laptop

Top Posts for December

Quality Time Through Second Life

Watching Older Movies (Toy Soldiers, 1991)

Reading Books Together

I Totally Forgot I Had A Tumblr Blog

My Favorite (and 1 Least Favorite) Books of 2011

So Why Do We Put Up With Gatekeepers?

Reading and Writing

Why Are Old People Often Mystified By Simple Things?

Using Virtual Worlds To Enable Telework- A Paper I Wrote

References

Thoughts on Talking on the Phone, Texting, and/or Driving

The Onion: Ultra-Realistic Military Game

My Way, Your Way, or… We Both Lose?

College Majors, Unemployment, and Salaries

Documentary: Rick Steves’ Iran

When Brands Lose Their Identity

On Bandwidth

Book Review: Apocalypse Dawn by Mel Odom

Leadership From Beyond The Grave

Personal MBA: Great Artists Ship

Traffic and Accidents

Lifeway Removes Discernment Labels

Book Review: Courageous by Randy Alcorn

Why It’s Not Cute To Deny Knowledge of Technology Anymore

Satellite Radio is Still Radio

Purpose Driven Life Day 3

The Purpose Driven Life Day 2

The Purpose Driven Life Day 1

Book Review: Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller

Why Do Networks Like To Kill Good Shows?

Do You Like Books? Join Me On Shelfari

Book Review: MacArthur: America’s General by Yokelson & Mansfield

What Color Is It?

Book Review: Beyond Opinion by Ravi Zacharias

Musings on Telecommunications

Book Review: When the Devil Whistles by Rick Acker

Why Do People Still Block Caller ID? And Other Outmoded Telecom Practices

Merchandising

Book Review: Today We Are Rich by Tim Sanders

Book Review: Married Man Sex Life Primer 2011 by Athol Kay

Book Review: No Little People by Francis Schaeffer

Book Review: Do The Work by Steven Pressfield

Buy a Mother’s Day Gift and Help Charities

Book Review: The Energy Non-Crisis by Lindsey Williams

Linux Magazine: Why Did Flock Fail?

Book Review: The Malacca Conspiracy by Don Brown

Crackle from Sony: Free TV and Movies for iOS

What Are You Doing May 22?

Book Review: The Final Summit By Andy Andrews

Book Review: Paranoia by Joseph Finder

Book Review: Medicus by Ruth Downie

Boycott Sundance Vacations Facebook Group

If You Want to be a Winner is it OK to Quit?

I'm Getting An iPad

Windows XP Wallpaper Meets Office Space

Dr. John Mark Hicks Habakkuk Study: Imperialism

Jesus Is Not A Facebook Status

Introducing “The Manslater”

Newsflash: iPad Owners Hate Their iPads

Freeloaders: Should iTunes Allow Podcasters to Charge?

This Might Explain Why Verizon Announced Its iPhone

The Daily Show’s Report on the Verizon iPhone

Spam Decreasing Dramatically: Is Something Big Coming?

Christian Bookstores “Diversifying” To Survive

Looks Like I Was Wrong

I Guess It'll Be Official Tomorrow

Yet More “iPhone On Verizon” Rumors, This Time From the WSJ

Test

University of Phoenix Students Can Use iPad

Test