So looking at my stats I see I get a lot of visitors from my site.  Many more than I am aware of (and I'm aware of enough...).  But did you know you can save yourself some time and still get to read my blog?  There are two ways, one more technical than the other. 

1. Get emailed my post.  Everyday about 7AM there is a service I use that will email you the previous day's post. Its that easy.  Just click this link and fill out the information.  You'll start getting the post tomorrow.

2. RSS Feeds.  This is a bit technical in nature, but there are programs out there that will allow you to follow any site that supports RSS (like this one, or any podcast, or virtually any blog).  If you fall into this category (ie you read several blogs contact me and I'll walk you through the process. Just ask my buddy Brian Richard about how much time it saves you to use an RSS reader. Now one added benefit to this in regard to my site is that not only can you get notified of the new post, but also the comments on each post.  My two RSS feeds are:

Post Feed.
Comment Feed.

So as you can see there is really no need for you to come to my site most of the time.  The only time you need to come is when you want to read the comments (if you choose option 1) or when you want to make a comment.

I've decided that over the next few weeks I'm going to import a lot of old post into this blog.

For a while I had another blog, then upon leaving our last church I wiped it out went with this new blog.

But I'll warn everybody now... that blog was maintained during some very dark years in my life.  I was spiritually bankrupt, and it shows.  I'll be editing them slightly before they go live, but they will be on this site for archival purposes of my own.  I mentioned names and places in the old blog that I will not do on this blog. 

I'm not sure if the RSS feeds will pick them up or not, so it may not matter to you in the long run.  I literally have over 200 post to import... wow.   You'll see that every post from that blog will be marked in the category, "Old Blog"

Well I stumbled across something on another blog and I'm stealing it.  With permission :-)

It has been called 40 days of focus.  Basically commit to doing things for 40 days.  Now when I saw this I had the idea that inviting some men from my church into the fold to go through this with me would be a great idea, so the invite went out to a few select men and here we are.

In August I will be involved in starting a new small group in Bethel and there are three of us guys (the fourth guy is a maybe for the small group) who for the 40 days leading up to the group launch will focus on our spiritual lives. 

Tom C, Scott W, Matt K, and myself have laid out our own goals and we will be moving forward with them.  I will post personal updates here daily, and on occasion will update you on the status of the other guys.  Plus I will encourage them to make comments on each thread as well.

From July 7th until August 15th we will be in focus.  I am really stoked about what I know God will do during this time.  I am scared about what I know the devil will do during this time.

So what are my goals?

• To read the New Testament.  ALL OF IT.  That equates to 6.5 chapters a day, so on dates that are odd I will read 7 chapters on dates that are even I will read 6. 
• To pray daily AND log my prayers. Sometimes we overlook our answered prayers.
• To wake up at 6 AM.  I am very inconsistent on my wake up time, six am gives me some time to do some of my list.
• To play with my kids when I get home.  Before I do anything else to see if they are clinging for my attention, and give it to them.
• To love my wife more.  She deserves it.

I could add more, but maybe that will happen after this 40 days.  As I could easily see this taking on a life of its own.

However I will also lay out one soft goal.  Things I'm just not sure if I can do it due to time, but we will see.

• Walk the dog (and thus walk myself) every night.

If you are a reader of this blog, are you up for the challenge?  If so grab a friend or two (or you can just do it yourself) and DO IT.

One more note to make, due to the nature of this challenge my blog will be silent of other things unless the other things warrant a double post. 

HT: Josh Young
HT: Aron

Its been a quiet blog lately.  I have been SWAMPED in life.  Have been working on a side project 97% done with that.  Have been swamped at work, just released 8 months of work to the wild... and have a lot on my plate. It is baseball season so we have to run from game to game for my two older son's.  And then there is church... lets just say its been less than peaceful there!  Some great, some not so great, but all have ended up pretty well. 

So how do I have the time to blog right now?  I'M ON VACATION!!!

Love it... no cell phone coverage, but available wifi!  We are enjoying a week in Gatlinburg.  We are at the base of the Smokey Mountain National Park.  Wife is out getting information for 'todo' stuff and shortly we will be off.

But with some things starting to settle down, expect the blogging to pick back up.  I really enjoy putting my thoughts to 'paper' and having them stored for historical purposes.

But one thing I need to start being aware of is that many in my church family have started to find this thing.... I guess I have to play nice :-)

What's up first?  How about a church update... will be available 6:00 AM tomorrow!

Being a writer of two extensions for the DotNetBlogEngine I've honestly not installed any non standard extensions on my site... until now.

As  you notice there are some  links inserted at the bottom of each of my post, these are some social bookmarking sites that a lot of folks use.  I honestly don't, but I do know that a lot of people do.

With all that being said Danny Douglas wrote an extension that does this for me.  So if you run DotNetBlogEngine and want to have the links on your site then go check out his extension.

Made a change to the blog about a week ago, upgraded my blog engine to the latest version 1.3.0.10 which fixed a few bugs that I knew about. If you need a good .NET based blog, I HIGHLY recommend DotNetBlogEngine.net.  I've tried many .net blogs and this is by far the best there is.

But the more significant change was implementing a feature in the BlogEngine, the ability to subscribe to the comments of this blog.

So you can have two feeds delivered to your RSS feed reader, one being the site feed and the other being the comment feed. 

What's a feed you ask?  Basically if you visit my site to read it, you are wasting valuable time!  Go to Google Reader, create an account and start adding feeds to it.  Then you go to that site to read this blog (and any other number of blogs) at one central location.  I read about 100 blogs a day it is how I grow spiritually, technically, and stay in tune with politics.

It amazes me who is reading my blog, as they will email me privately or tell me about it when I see them.

My landlord, boss, Elder at my church, wife, couple of preachers, old boss, and friends (though the previous people are friends as well).  And yet they all still talk to me :-)

So come on you lurkers, say hello!

A person has been posting comments on this website that I have been deleting, and it has even caused me to turn on moderation for comments.

So I will first clarify why I am deleting the comments.  I am not going to support the beliefs of this person.  I am not going to give their site validity by letting them link to it... nor is this a blog centered on the debate they want to take up.  

HOWEVER... a good point is a good point.  This person took exception by this comment about Iran:
And on a side note... I can't wait for the day we make a sheet of glass out of Iran. 

I think they made a good point, a bit out of line.  So let me say I can't wait until that radical Islamic government is dealt a striking blow.  Be it from man, or from God.  What they stand for is despicable and how anybody can defend that is beyond me.  Even in light of all the 'bad' stuff the US government is alleged to have done.  It is nowhere near as bad as what the Iran government has been confirmed to have done.

I finally took some time to edit my site to have a better (in my opinion) look and feel as it relates to my personality.  You'll notice the family image to the left side of the banner... that is my family :-).

Then on the right you have the three things that represent me pretty well.  The Christian Fish symbol, the Republican Elephant, and a snippet of binary code.  

Take a minute and let me know what you think!

I have this habit of bookmarking a lot of articles that I find interesting... well I've went through them and my next slew of post (with I'm sure the light hearted exceptions) will focus on those articles.

The topics vary, from why a scientist believes in God to Singapore's attitude toward homosexuality.  It will make for some interesting reading.