I almost feel like Britney?

Yea, I did it again :( Haloscan finally created a way to install their comment software into the new version of Blogger and I ran it and of course it wipped out the old comment Jim made on my Bye Bye CW post. Oh well, live and learn :)

dj

Bye bye, CW

Well the end has come for the Morse Code requirement for Amateur Radio. I have held my Tech ticket for almost 10 years now always wanting to pass my Morse Code, or CW as it is known by in ham radio, but never been able to study long enough to learn it. The FCC just released information that CW will no longer be a requirement for amateur radio and will probably take effect in February. So now I just have to wait until then and take a test to advance up the next level which is general class.

I still have all of the study material so I hope to come back later and learn it and try to use it, but don't know if I will get to or not. I guess time will tell.

dj

ps Yea, I know, two post in less than 24 hours :)

Time to vent

Ok. I just have to vent some more. I went to a church's website and seen a sermon that I would like to listen to. My choices are to listen online, which is something I can't do at work or pay for a mp3 file. I guess I just don't understand why pay for the mp3 file. This church doesn't podcast which I don't understand either. The church can do it. Trust me. In fact, they offer a podcast tease. I can understand charing me if I get a cd or tape. You do have to pay for the media and materials.

I guess to me, this is almost like charging admission to get into church. I feel like with technology the way it is, podcasting is a way to reach the lost and shutins. You offer them a way to listen without making them come to you and force them to stay. Anyway, that's my vent for now.

dj

First snow

We got our first snow of the year this morning. It wasn't much, but it was snow. Misty said she was in our bedroom while the boys were watching tv in their playroom. She noticed that she didn't hear much and went in to check on them and Zach and Gabe were staring out the window watching it fall.

Happy Birthday boys

DCP_2487
Originally uploaded by dljordaneku.

The twins had their second birthday on Sunday. We had a "Cars" party at McDonalds Sunday evening. There were about 11 kids there of all ages. It was fun. The boys are all growing up so fast. It's hard to imagine that they are 2 and Colby is 4 already. Where does the time go. Anyway, Happy Birthday boys. I love you.

Sometimes rest is just not worth it.

I think the twins passed off their sinus infection to me the other night and I didn't sleep worth anything. I left work early so I could go home and get some sleep and knock out this infection. After sleeping for two hours, I came back downstairs to eat some dinner. I was watching tv with the boys just waiting for them to go to bed so I could get back to sleep myself. Misty then took the twins upstairs to go to bed so I started flipping channels to see what was on the tv when Colby seen Animal Planet and wanted to watch it.

He just got into it and then climbed up into my lap sitting there watch tv with me. No matter how much I wanted to go to bed then, I wasn't about to. Colby is getting to that point where he doesn't want the affection as much from Misty and I so I took what I could get. It was well worth it and I still got plenty of rest last night.

dj

Biblegateway searching from Firefox

I know you can add a search box plugin for Firefox to search Biblegateway.com, but on their blog, they posted today on how you can create a bookmark and go to a specific verse. Easy and simple.

You can read it here

dj

Blogger for Word

Anybody know how to make the Blogger for Word tool work with the new beta version of Blogger? So much to post and no time :) But having the Word plugin always made it easier on my to post. Thanks for any help out there


dj

Comments turned off for a bit

Well, I've did it again :( I upgraded to the Blogger beta the other day and upgraded the template tonight. Well, I can't get the Haloscan comment system to work. I have ran acorss some hacks, but haven't got them to work yet. Oh well. I will try again later.

dj


UPDATE: FOUND THE CODE CHANGES I NEEDED AND COMMENTS ARE BACK UP

Banana bread and sausage balls

The smell of Banana bread and sausage balls fill the house this evening. Misty and some of her friends are having brunch tomorrow morning/afternoon and she fixed some banana bread and asked me to fix some sausage balls. She said she would fix me some bread to take to work so I asked her to get some extra sausage and cheese to make two batches of sausage balls. UMMM :) Some of the best sausage balls yet. I think Misty got some good cheese and that made a huge difference.

Fall and the holidays I usually fix several batches of sausage balls for parties and family get gatherings. They are easy to make and even easier to eat :)

Umm, they taste good. Can't wait to really dig into them in the morning. If they make it that long :)

dj

Pumpkin patch

DCP_2341
Originally uploaded by dljordaneku.

Took the kids to one of the local pumpkin farms over the weekend. All we heard when we went in was "Pumpkin, Pumpkin". It was a fun time. The boys got to pick out their own pumpkins. The place is really an apple orchard but also has pumpkins and some other stuff and the pumpkins are all over the front of the place when you go in.

When we went inside, they had bins of apples of different varieties which turned out to be a good thing. While walking through, Gabe grabbed an apple and started to take a bite out of it. Misty went ahead and grabbed a bag and got several apples for us. When we went out back, Colby seen the play area so I had to go back in and buy him a ticket to play. Zach and Gabe were free so that wasn't an issue. Misty had some snacks and since we went in at lunch the boys got to eat. And we had some apples thanks to Gabe who wanted an apple early.

Out of the mouth of babes

You never know what a four-year-old is going to say :) We were having breakfast Sunday morning and Colby had asked us something. I can't remember what it was now, but Misty told him it was hard to understand. And what was Colby's response? "No, you are hard to understand"

All I could say was AMEN ;)

dj

Dinner with Tony Dye and crew

Ok. I have got to stop doing this. Going so long without posting, but its fall and fall is crazy around here.
Anyway, although I am missing the “Official” IT Roundtable up at Granger put on by Jason Powell, I did have my own smaller round table. I met up with the bunch from Perimeter Church led by Tony Dye. Tony, John Dolan and Whitney Cantrell stopped in Lexington on the way up and I met them for dinner. It was good to sit for an hour or so to just chat. What works? What doesn’t? What’s it like to be volunteer.
It’s been good, at least for me anyway, to get to meet some other IT folks who are using their God given talents for the Kingdom of God. Hopefully, next year, I can make the IT roundtable. It helped me to make contacts. John has his own consultant business and is someone I can now come to with questions.
When you sit down and think about it, the internet, blogging and podcasting has really made this world smaller. Our Sr. Pastor told us about a lady whose husband was involved in Comair crash 5191. She told him how he was her family’s pastor and that they came to service when they could. They lived a county or two away and watched our TV broadcast, downloaded our podcast and our curriculum off of the web to study.
God makes all things to help build his Kingdom and I love being a part of it.

Wny I love my church

Herald-Leader photo Charles Bertram/Staff
We have attended Southland for a couple of years now and everyday I can always find something new I love about the church. I seen this picture in the local paper today along with a story that mentioned our church and about 50 of our staff going out while the families of Comair flight 5191 headed to the crash scene for the first time.

Fifty-two staff members from Southland Christian Church got out and stood alongside the six-lane stretch of road holding their signs. As the procession passed by, family members could be seen inside the busses dabbing their eyes.

Jon Weece, senior pastor for the city's largest congregation, said the staff sought to show their support.

"We just want this to stand for itself," Weece said.

Quote taken from the Lexington Herald-Leader.

52 people took time from their work and made it known to 49 families that we love them and we are there for them. Our mission statement is simple "Love God, Love People".

I love Southland.

Do the shuffle

Jason Powell posted about playing “Do the Shuffle” where you start your music player and set it to shuffle and then list the first 15 songs. So I thought I would post mine here as well as in his. Rules are simple, just list the song and you can’t be embarrassed about the song. If it comes up, you must list it.


Every Move I Make - David Ruis
Lose This Life- Tait
I Saw The Light- David Crowder Band
Who Am I- Casting Crowns
Open the Eyes of My Heart - Paul Baloche
Who's Your Daddy? – Toby Keith
Go Tell It On The Mountain - Ginny Owens feauting George Rowe
Blessed Be Your Name- Three63
Jesus To The World- Newsong
Mr. Brownstone- Guns N' Roses
Life in the Fast Lane- The Eagles
Love Came Just In Time - Taylor Sorensen/Alathea
Step up to the Microphone- Newsboys
Facts Are Facts - Steven Curtis Chapman
Wide Open- Newsong

Dinner time

Got to have dinner with Jim from Churchtechmatters.com this evening. He was in town for business so we met for pizza. It was good to met someone from the blogging world. It was good to just sit and fellowship and learn about someone who has faced the same things in life you had. Interesting to learn how much we have in common. The pizza was a bit spicier than Jim thought it would be. I told you Jim, it was spicy. :)

dj

Skype and free business cards

If you are a Skype user and need business cards, Skype has teamed up with Vistaprint to offer free business cards where you can put your Skype username on the card. I know Vistaprint offers free cards on a regular basis, but they are also offering Skype users a 25% discount on all other products. You can read more about it here.

Still Missing

Michelle Malkin blogged today about the two Fox Journalist that are still being held captive in the Gaza Strip and asked for people to blog about them still missing as a reminder to their families that they are still remembered. You can read her post here.

Thunderbird test

I'm setting up a new computer for my parents and testing RSS feeds in Thunderbird for them. Have a great weekend.

dj

Date Night

Ah Date Night. Misty and I were able to get out for a couple of hours last night by ourselves. It’s been a while as money has been a little tight and we have about a million things going right now. But we finally were able to get some time last night and were able to go to dinner and do some shopping for the boys for their preschool which starts next week.

We went to one of the mexican places in town and it was just relaxing to just sit and enjoy each other’s company. Even if it’s just dinner for 45 minutes, it’s better than nothing. We try to get every so often when we can but having three kids and finding someone to watch them can get crazy sometimes. We are lucky that Misty’s aunt and uncle live in the same town, so when they can, they will watch the boys for us.

After dinner, it was off to Walmart to pick up some items and the night before school starts is probably not the best time to go in that place. The back-to-school isles were packed. You couldn’t get your cart through there. The worse part is that they don’t really take into count the construction of the store and the support poles are right in front of the entrance to the isles. Looks like they could build the place where the poles would be built into the fixtures that way they are kept out of the isles. As Misty was paying, I have to slip over to the video games. Yes, I am a video game junkie and need to find my power supply to my playstation. I haven’t seen it since we moved and that’s been over a year now. Argghh. No Madden. No Metal Gear. Not good.

Anyway, after Walmart, we were like, ok, I guess we have to go get the boys. Then Misty said, well, we could have some ice cream first. So off to Brusters we go. It’s a new place here and was pretty good. Not as good as Cold Stone but not bad. It’s all hand dipped and they make their own waffle cones. After some chocolate oreo it was finally time to go get the boys. Couldn’t put it off anymore. Gabe had hurt himself earlier in the day so we needed to go see how he was. I will have to post on that later today. It was funny to see what it took for him to start putting weight back on his foot.  

Soccer dad

I'm a soccer dad. Read about on my latest Dadbloggers post here

dj

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COLBY!!

Four years ago, my life changed for the better. Colby turned 4 today. We had a party for him over the weekend where just under 20 kids showed up. Mister Popularity I guess. I took a half day off of work today and we took him to his favorite pizza place for lunch and then after watching his new Larry Boy video, we went outside for a bit to practice with his new tee ball set. He is going to play soccer this year in an Upward league and man is he growing up fast. His first practice for soccer is later this month and they start playing in October. He did go to a birthday party tonight. Another girl at church has the same birthday as Colby so Misty took him this evening. So.



HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUD !!  

Looking for another podcast download option

Ok. Does anybody use anything other than Juice for podcast for a Windows machine? I know I can use iTunes but I don’t want to use it. At least for now anyway. I have missed a couple of podcast and Juice seems to have some issues with feeds from Feedburner. I have either missed or not been able to download the last couple of podcast from the Simply Strategic Show. The last one would never download and the latest one doesn’t show up yet. Another church here in town, well I just got two from them and nothing last week. I know that could be the church, but it’s just the latest thing that is bothering me about Juice.
Anyway, any suggestions?

dj

Here I go

Ok, so it’s time. Almost a year ago I posted about looking in a new direction in my work life. I have felt like God is calling me into the IT field. With working in Southland’s IT for the last year or so, I really can see the need. At the end of 2005, during a meeting at church, it was announced that Southland was adding a staff position for a web communications person. I thought that was pretty cool and looked into it. Shortly after that, one of our IT people announced he was leaving. I thought this is it, but God has other plans. Needless to say I didn’t get it. I can’t argue with who got it because he is very talented and very good at the job. I enjoy working with him and the rest of the crew.
So, I guess it was time to go back and pray and ask God what He wants me to do. Anytime I prayed, one name kept coming to my mind so I finally decided to email Stuart Cowen and we have chatted back and forth several times since then. After sending that first email, I have had nothing but peace about doing so but drug my feet on getting things started.  I have been talking with Jim Walton along with Stuart about what they do on the side of their fulltime jobs. I have also chatted with Jason Powell and want to say thanks to these three guys just for their support and willingness to talk to me.
After returning from the Churchmedia.net convention, I decided it was time to get off my tail and get this thing going. I worked with Tony Kanago, a 16-year-old from Washington state to move a domain I had picked up a while back and get a site up and running. So Central Kentucky Computer and Networking is up and running. This will only be part time for now, but you never know where it will lead. I would like to see it go full time, but we will see what God has in mind.
I hope to start a blog within that site based on Church IT soon, but don’t hold your breath just yet. Give me time to get some work coming in.
So, spread the word. I could use the work. :)

Feed issues resolved

Well, I don’t know what Blogger did, but my last post on the Google news feeds had some weird tags embedded into the html code so my feed was really messed up. I don’t know if it was something I did but I noticed the other day on a forum where I am an admin that my feedburner animator was not working. So I did some research and noticed that my feed was formatted weird but didn’t know why. After a post on the feedburner support forums, I was directed to the problem using Feed Validator.
You put your feed address into this site and it looks through it and finds formatting issues. After I looked at it, I was able to go into blogger and edit the html and fix the issue. As soon as I edited the post and pinged feedburner, I refreshed my post on the support forum where my animator was also and it started working.
So thanks to the Feedburner support folks for the help and the link.

dj

ps, I was looking at my feeds in bloglines and noticed about three of you using the atom feeds. Could you switch to the feedburner one? Please :)

Creating news feeds from Google News

This may be old news but I found a way to create your own specific RSS news feeds using Google news. After going to Google News, create your search. You can go to the advanced search and limit which sites are searched and which ones are left out. For an example, I wanted to search for any news on the Eastern Kentucky University Colonels, but I didn’t want to search the Western Kentucky Athletic site. That way if they post a story on how a player did against us, it won’t show up in my feed.

You can have the search leave out a site by putting a –site:sitename at the end. Here is my search term for the EKU search

"eastern kentucky = colonels -site:wkusports.com

After you run the search and it brings in what you want, on the left side of the page you will see the RSS link. Click it and it will take you to a XML page with the feed address in it. Just copy and past that into Bloglines or what ever you use for RSS and you have your feed.

Holiday week

Ok. It’s been a busy month and it’s not even half way over. Gee wiz, I thought summer was a time to relax. It’s not really been bad, just the holiday was busy. Brian’s son Jake had his first birthday on the Sunday before his real birthday on July 4th. It was a good time. My parents and my aunt came up on Saturday and we cooked out at our house for dinner. The boys were wired after that and about never went to sleep. The party was over at my brother’s in-laws house and Jake didn’t disappoint with the cake. He dug in after picking at it for a bit and then smeared the cake all over his face. The bottom of his face was covered in blue icing. It was great.
Being a contractor, I had to take Monday off as well as Tuesday since the place I work at was closed on Monday. No pay, but a day off. Oh well. I got to sleep in that day so that helped. Nothing really to do but to get ready for fireworks on Tuesday.
Some of the guys in my men’s group put on their own fireworks show. They invite a lot of people from our groups and other groups over for a big cookout and just sit around and fellowship until the evening when the show begins. We were worried that the twins would freak out over the fireworks. Zach did a little bit but fell asleep shortly after they started. We took the twins inside close to the end and I came back out to watch the end. Misty came back out with Gabe and she told me later that he seen some of the fireworks go off and jumped up on the couch and said “sparkles” while pointing at the fireworks. So, Misty brought him back out to watch the rest of the show. On the way home, Gabe saw all kinds of fireworks out the van windows and all we heard on the way home was “sparkles” It was good to see him react good to the fireworks.
Also, I have a post on dadbloggers on Wednesday. I will post the link to it once it’s up on the site.

Churchmedia.net convention

Ok. I am going to have to quit going so long without posting. I meant to post some last week while I was at the Churchmedia.net convention in Indianapolis, but with all of the classes, general sessions and the great fellowship which keep us up sometimes until 1 or 2 in the morning, I just didn’t get around to it.
It was great to finally put faces to names and avatars of people whom you have talked with, helped and received help from over the last four or five years. It’s amazing to see how well a worship service can go when people who have sold out to Jesus come together and just want to worship. Our band and audio crew came into a hotel conference room and transformed it into one of the best sounds worship centers I have ever heard.
Men and women with the desire to just spread the Word of Jesus just coming together, learning from one another and enjoying the fellowship. It was great. One guy told me as we were leaving, see you later, or see you in Heaven. How great is that knowing I will see him again, one way or another.
It’s also great to see the people who have come into their own by Tim Eason’s ministry. My buddy here in Central Ky, Paul Clifford who has started his own church media podcast, Tech, No Babble. Paul started about a year ago and is a really good speaker and teacher. His keynote at the conference was nothing short of amazing.
Phil Graves with Out of the Mud is one that talks about his growth in graphic design just because of CMN. Phil told us how he used the Media Exchange Center, or MXC to get ideas and grow his talents. Phil has some pretty amazing stuff and is getting ready to start doing some training session as part of his ministry.
Tony Kanago is another one. Tony doesn’t have his own ministry yet, but look for him to in the future. I think his parents want him to finish high school and maybe college first. You see, Tony is only 16, but was teaching a web design class at the conference and is helping me with a website for myself which I hope to announce here in the next week or so. To listen to Tony, you can tell he is just a teenager, but his passion and desire for churches to have the best design is just amazing. Paul and I were saying if we knew just half as much as he does when we were his age. He just tore down his site the other night and hasn’t finished it yet so keep on the lookout for good things to come.
I already can’t wait until next year’s convention
dj

Colby's Email

Well, he's only three and he got his first email today. No, he doesn't have his own account but a guy in my men's group sent him one. The guy who gave us tickets for the Lexington Legends emailed Colby about a thank you note Colby wrote. The preschool at church has a hand writting program and it's pretty impressive. Colby can just about write any letter, upper and lower case, so for pratice in writting and manners we have Colby write John a thank you note for the tickets.

I gave John the note the other night at our men's group and he wrote Colby last night saying he was welcome for the tickets and that he had hoped he had fun. He also thanked him for the note. Colby was thrilled to pieces as I read him the email. With Colby though, he may have been able to read it himself.

dj

Prayer request

I should have posted this last night, but I was hoping they would put off the trip a day but my parents for a family emergency had to take off for Florida this morning. My mom's sister is not in her right mind and my mom and some of her family are going down there to talk her into coming back to Ky. Anyway, they are currently as of noon Tuesday driving down I95 in South Carolina on their way to Fort Lauderdale. They are getting ready to drive into the first big band of rain from the tropical storm. I am watching the radars a lot today, but keep them in your prayers for a safe trip down and back. Thanks.

UPDATE: My parents made it to Florida with no issues. Hit some rain in South Carolina and Georgia. They just have to work thorugh some other issues but it appears that my aunt is ready to move back home.

Major league experience.

Some people remember where they came from and what it means to be famous. I posted a while back that the local Houston Astros A club had a chance of having Roger Clemons pitch for them. Well, it happened Tuesday and I didn’t get to go. Bummer I know, but tickets sold out within hours after the announcement and I was out of town at the Zoo.
Clemons pitched three innings, striking out 6. One guy from Lake County did go yard in the first inning off of Clemons, but that was about all they got.
The Lexington Legends have a promotion call the “Field of Dreams” where players from local little league teams get to run out on the field with the starters of the Legends at their respective positions. The team that went on that Tuesday was from Nicholasville and the player who went out with Clemons got an autograph there on the mound. You can read the story in the local paper, The Lexington Herald-Leader.

Extra key

Well, it’s time for an extra key to the house. I had just returned home from a church IT work night and was watching tv after eating a bowl of cereal when Colby comes back inside asking me to come outside and watch him play hopscotch. Well, good old me just comes outside and to keep the bugs out, closes the door. It didn’t dawn on me to check it first. Yea, it was locked. I didn’t lock it and Misty could tell by the look on my face something was wrong. I told her the door was locked and that I didn’t lock it. Colby speaks up, “I did.” The twins are sleeping upstairs and the three people that can unlock the door are locked out.

As par for the course with our luck, there is a locksmith that lives at the end of the cul-d-sac. We have never met them before but I have seen his truck as we are leaving for work about the same time in the mornings. So off I go to see if he can help us. Like I said, par for the course with our luck, he’s not home. His wife grabs some of his equipment and her cell phone to see if she can help. She tried several times to reach him on his phone but nothing but voice mail.

After several attempts, she gets it open. Good way to meet some of your neighbors. We couldn’t thank her enough. I see a trip to Walmart tomorrow to get an extra key made to have around. We also learned that without our cell phones, we have no way of reaching some people because we don’t have their number. One of the ladies that Misty works with, her husband is a locksmith. With our cell phones in the house, we would have had no way of reaching them. I guess I need to get those online somehow. I have a Plaxo account, so I guess I will be updating that online pretty soon.

Zoo trip

I have taken a couple of days off of work and we took the boys to the Cincinnati Zoo today. We got up early in the morning and headed north for the 2 hour drive and arrived at the zoo around 9, right when the opened. Getting there early, we were able to get a parking spot right at the main entrance. It’s been a long day by the way. We spent six hours in there seeing just about everything they had. We took Colby when he wasn’t even a year old so we didn’t remember going so he’s been real excited about going. We couldn’t decide at times what he wanted to see next. I will post more in detail along with pictures later as I forgot to pack the cable for the camera. After getting to our hotel room and resting we found some dinner and came back to go swimming. Now, Colby before the twins were born went swimming one time and about a year ago wouldn’t even go near a pool. This last year has been a real growing experience for him. He has done so much in the last couple of months that he wouldn’t even consider before. He rode on the train they have at the zoo and going swimming for example. Anyway, time to hit the hay as we have another big day planned for tomorrow at Totter’s Otterville.

Churchmedia.net Convnetion

I know I don’t have a huge audience here so I am asking if you read this and are a blogger to post this on your blog to help get the word out. I am teaching at the 2nd Churchmedia.net Convention to be held June 20-22 in Indianapolis at the Adam’s Mark Hotel. You can see the schedule and registration information here.
I will be teaching along with two other bloggers on blogging on the hows and whys. There will be classes on video production, projectors, podcasting, audio and team building. The guys from Midnight Oil will also be there.
It’s well worth the time and money so if you get a chance, post it and go sign up to come.
dj

First game

I took Colby to his first baseball game Sunday afternoon. It didn’t go as good as I had hoped but it was fun. The facilitator of my men’s group give me two tickets of his along with a parking pass to the Astros Class A club here in Lexington, the Lexington Legends. We got there in the middle of the first inning and got our food. Colby wanted a hotdog and a big pretzel. We each got a hotdog and fries to start and we found our seats which were four rows behind home plate. Thanks Jon. Before going inside though, I had put some sun screen on Colby to keep him from getting burned. Well, I put too much on and as he was eating, he kept rubbing his eyes. I noticed his eye was getting a little red and after he finished eating, we went to see if we could get the sun screen out of his eye. I took him to the restroom and tried, but didn’t do any good. So, off to the first aid station we go. They took some gauze and soaked it in saline and I held it on his eye for a couple of minutes and that helped a bunch. He was a trooper. He didn’t cry or complain any at all. I told him several times that I was sorry for putting to much sun screen on him and he kept telling me it was ok.
After that we started back to our seats when we ran into “Big L” the mascot of the Legends. Colby still doesn’t like to be around characters dressed up like that so we stayed away until Big L left. Colby then wanted his pretzel so we shared one and ate it before going back to our seats. After the pretzel was gone, Colby informed me he was ready to go home. It was the fourth inning but he wanted to go so we went back to our seats first and had someone take our picture together standing behind home plate.
I took him into the souvenir shop first where he looked around and held up a ball and mini bat. I asked him which one he wanted and he said he wanted the ball and the ball.
By the time we had left, it was the end of the fifth inning and the Legends were not doing so good, so that was ok with me. Colby told me that he only left because of his eye and that he would have stayed if it hadn’t got sun screen in his eye. I told him that next time we would come to a night game so he wouldn’t have to have sun screen and I can’t wait. Now I wonder if I can talk Jon out of some of those tickets ;)

dj

Hand in the cookie jar

Well you hear about it, but it’s never as funny until it happens in your home. Colby got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Well, at least in the cookie plate. We had fixed some chocolate chip cookies over the weekend for Mother’s Day. We celebrated on Saturday since it’s a lot easier for us to do things with the family on Saturday instead of Sunday. Well this evening, Gabe had took a fold up chair for kids off of the steps and brought it into the living room.
Well, Colby had taken it into the kitchen without us noticing. When Misty went to go upstairs to put the twins in bed, she looked into the kitchen and seen Colby just eating cookies. She had asked him how many he had and he didn’t know.
It’s one of those moments where you just have to turn your head and laugh and hope he doesn’t see you. I talked to him some about it but what can you say. It was funny, but like I said, you just don’t think about how funny it is until it happens in your house.

Also, if you want to read about what Colby picked out as gifts for his teachers, go to Dadbloggers.com and find out.

Painting

Ok. I am not as sore as I was on Sunday. The boys were out of town over the weekend so Misty and I took the time to paint. I mean paint as in the entire downstairs. It took us around 12 hours on Saturday and by the time we were finished, I could barely move. We went to bed just after midnight and woke up at 10, just in time to make it to church. My entire body was sore. It took around three gallons of paint to paint what we needed. We have to do some touchup work, but for the most part I am done painting. Misty wants to do the bedrooms upstairs. I think I will take the boys out next time for a weekend at my parents and her and her aunt can do the painting since they like it so much.
dj

Slurpy noodles and dvds

It’s been a crazy week so posting has been on the back burner. Just a lot going on that hopefully I can post about later.

Well, I guess Colby knows how to fix spaghetti. Misty was at her small group last night when he came up to me and said he was really hungry and wanted slurpy noodles which is what he calls spaghetti. I was hoping to change his mind and told him that I couldn’t fix them as good as mom did. He then told me how to fix them.

1. Make some water hot


2. Put the slurpy noodles in the hot water


3. When it beeps, they are done.

Now, how come I couldn’t figure that one out is beyond me. And he is really getting an attitude going now that he is well into being a three-year-old. He wanted to watch a dvd last night while waiting on his food so I put a Little Einstein video in for him. He told me which episode he wanted to watch and I pressed the wrong one. When it came on he said it was the right one and I went back to check on his dinner. Shortly after that I hear him smacking the couch so I went back in to see what was wrong and he says “Will you look at this?” pointing to the tv. “Can you see this?”  I told him he needed to tell me if it was the right one or wrong one and after a couple of more comments like the other ones, he finally told me it was the wrong one. So I found the right one and told him they all come on the same and you don’t know which one it is until it gets started. He said ok.

Don’t let anybody tell you it’s the terrible twos, it’s the terrible threes.
dj

Busy weekend

Well, I had a busy weekend. Just now getting to write it all down so I will break it up some.

Rachel Ray and Emeril have no fear from me.
Misty thought she had to work at church Saturday evening so after getting the boys something to eat I made my way back into the kitchen to find something for me. Misty hadn’t made it to the store so it was slim pickens for me. I looked through our recipe book and found a recipe for buffalo chicken I had printed a while back and thought I could fix that for my self with no problems. Yea right.
After mixing the spices up and defrosting the chicken, I was ready to go. I already had the skillet heated up so here I went. Put some oil on the chicken to help and set it in the bowl of the spices and then placed it in the skillet. Well, it made a good frying noise and the spices were really kicking. I followed the recipe to a tee, including how long to cook on each side. After the time was up I thought I better check it first. I cut into it and the chicken on the inside was no where done. In fact, it looked like it hadn’t gotten any heat at all.
Well, to make a long story short, I had the skillet on to high so I pretty much just seared it and it didn’t allow any heat in. So I had to cut it up some and cook it more. As for the spices, well I did follow the recipe to the tee. Yea for 4 pieces of chicken, not one. It was pretty kicking. After cooking longer, I put the pieces into the hot sauce mix and everything turned pretty much black. It was ok to eat, but no where what I wanted. Misty got a good laugh out of it when she got home.

Radio installed
After my chicken disaster and Misty got home, I went outside to look at my Ford Ranger to see how hard it would be to install a kit for my amateur radio. It allows me to mount the radio behind the seat and put the control unit on my dash and get more of the wires out of my way. One easy step after another and before I knew it, it was in. I hadn’t planned on installing the whole thing, but it kept going real quick so I just decided to finish it. I still have some wire management to do, for the most part, it’s done. Just glad it was that easy after my chicken mess.

Yard work
Well, I had reseeded some of my backyard and we have received plenty of rain over the last couple of weeks and my yard needed to be mowed in the worst way, so I took about two hours after church on Sunday and went to it. The back yard was still wet some underneath so I bet I started that mower about 10 times. Fun stuff.

Seems like I am forgetting something so I did, I will post later.
dj

Snake fossell

14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
Genesis 3:14 (NIV)


I seen this story on FoxNews.com this morning and wonder how many of these they will find. My guess is one. They want to argue on where snakes evolved on land or in the sea. I think it just proves Genesis 3:14 myself.
dj

Happy Easter

Hope you have a Happy Easter and hope all of your services are great. We have had two already and are gearing up for three on Sunday. They have been awsome so far.
dj

A surprise visit

I made a surprise visit to my wife and oldest son today. Colby’s preschool class had a small and I mean small Easter play this morning. It was only 10 to 15 minutes long. I mean, how long can you keep a bunch of three, four and five-year olds on stage singing and such. Misty only found out for sure last night when it was. Colby came home with a sheet two weeks ago with his lines on it. His lines were only about 10 words if that much and were to be spoken with about two others in his class.
When I got there, I tried to call Misty but she didn’t have her phone with her. Or at least I don’t think she did as she was already on her way to the chapel. So I stood in the door trying to find her and turned around and there she was. She was like, “what are you doing here?” I told her I wanted to see the play so after she talked to one of the parents, we found a seat and waited. It took Colby a couple of minutes, but he seen us when he walked in. Of course, being the three-year-old, we waved. And of course, with us being parents of a three-year-old, we waved back.
He did what we expected. Said his lines, but didn’t sing and just stood there when they were singing. He is not much into the public in front of everybody stuff. But anyway, it was fun and after it was over, we had a quick snack and they headed back to class while I headed back to work. It was a good break from work.

Mobile RSS Readers

Well, it looks like you can soon be able to track your favorite blogs over you cell phone. I know you can see your bloglines account through your mobile web now, but it looks like RSS readers are coming to your cell phone. The 2006 CITA convention just wrapped up and Phonescope.com has had some previews of the phones being announced this year and Nokia and Sony Ericsson previews phones with RSS readers built in.
Phonescope.com put the phones to the test and have some photos of how the
feeds and articles look on the phones. You can find the information under the Day 3 tab.

dj

PLAY BALL!!!!

Time to hear those favorite two words of mine this time of the year.  

PLAY BALL!!!!!

The Lexington Legends, one of the Houston Astros Single-A teams, open their season tonight. There is a chance of rain so I may get wet. Hopefully it won’t rain the game out. It rained on us some last year, but they are expecting more rain this year. They went the entire first season back in 2001 without a single rainout on their way to winning the SAL championship. The series was cut short due to 9/11, but Lexington was up about 2 or 3 games to none so they were well on their way. I haven’t missed a home opener yet so rain hold off please. Of course if it does rain, tomorrow’s game doesn’t count as the home opener. :)
Roger Clemons’ son Kerry is on the roster this year and there is a chance if Roger resigns with Houston that he will pitch a game or two in Lexington. He is supposed to be in town to work out with his son while he is playing in Lexington. Might get to see the Rocket pitch sometime in May.
dj

Playing catchup

I have some reading to catch up on. My men’s group started Wild at Heart a couple of weeks ago and I also purchased the Field Manual to go with it. It basically takes you back through each chapter and asks you questions about the chapter you just read. It will also take a movie and kind of compares it to the chapter and to Jesus. One movie is Braveheart. Pretty interesting concept. I was just looking back through the second chapter in the manual and thought, I have two more chapters in the book to read for tonight. Might want to put the manual down and read the book.
It’s a good book so far and I can see it will challenge me on a couple of fronts. I can’t wait to read chapters 3 and 4.
dj

ps. Pray for me Friday at 11. Hopefully more to follow.

Past two weeks

What a rough couple of weeks. The past two weeks have been really tiring. We are getting over some sickness at the house. It seems like once someone gets over something, some one else gets something. In fact, I didn’t sleep well last night at all. I don’t know if it was dinner or if I am catching something. Misty was sick a little bit earlier this week. I hope I didn’t catch anything. So, that explains why I haven’t been posting a lot here lately. Just wore out from the last two weeks. Hopefully next week will be better. Misty and I are going with some friends to see the Southeast Easter Pageant on my birthday on Tuesday. Their Pageant is one of the best productions I have ever seen. We went about three years ago when Colby was just a newborn. We watched from the cry room as we didn’t get anybody to watch him for us and childcare was not available. This year, we have someone to watch the kids for us so we can watch from our seats.
Some facts and figures from the pageant

1. One of the largest church productions in the nation


2. One of the largest drama productions in the state of Kentucky


3. Over 600,000 people have attended the production in the past ten years.


4. 1,500 volunteers each year


5. Rehearsals start in the beginning of November and do not cease until the end of the run.


6. Two choirs participate, one backstage and one on stage.


7. We have a large and diverse cast, including camels, horses, sheep, doves, goats, and donkeys!


8. The stage set is 200 feet wide with rotating center platform with the sanctuary of Southeast transformed into a cityscape of long ago.

Pretty impressive. They are going to take a year off next year to revamp the whole thing from top to bottom so it should be even better in 2008.
Oh well til next week.
dj

Highs and Lows

Talking about a week of peaks and valleys. This was supposed to be a great week for me. Yesterday was my 8th wedding anniversary. I was supposed to talk about how great the last 8 to 10 years have been. How my life was changed for the best when I met Misty during a really tough time in my life. But Monday was a morning I want to forget and just get this week over with.
My second line manager come by early Monday morning and told our team that our team lead had passed away over the weekend in some kind of accident. Just out of the blue, bang. Your week has gone to pot. Our team can’t get focused and we really don’t want to do anything. We just can’t get focused on work. We just keep thinking about his family. He has two kids who are home schooled. In fact, it has taken me about two hours to write this. The IT department here is taking up a collection for his kids and their education.
Maybe I can think straight next week.

Twincidence?

Twincidence? What is it? Check it out with my latest Dadblogger entry.

Recovery

Well, we are finally over some sickness we have had in the family. This past weekend was pretty much a blur as we had stomach bugs running around. So, we are still recovering from lack of sleep. I guess one of the good things about attending a large church is the service times. I was able to attend church on Saturday evening while Misty went on Sunday. I stayed home with the twins Sunday, getting up at 5 with Gabe who was the last to get sick. He got sick on us Friday evening in the middle of K-Mart. We were worried about Zach getting sick again on us while we were out and Gabe showed no signs of being sick. I guess he let us know otherwise.
I really have no point to this post right now other than to post which is probably not a good thing. But I felt like I needed to post something. I need to work on my next post for Dadbloggers.

Church IT

Well, I hadn’t posted anything on this since August and with things going the way the currently are, I figured I would go ahead and post something. For the last couple of months, I feel as if God has been moving me in a direction to work in IT for a church. Well, currently, I am somewhat in the running for three different IT jobs at two different churches. Two of the jobs are at Southland where I am currently a member. I will just say for now that the other one is not. Sometimes I just wish things would go ahead and happen, but I know all things work in God’s time.
At the same time, Misty has felt led to start a support ministry to mother’s of multiples at Southland. She is just in the stage to see if any other mothers want it and so far she has had some positive results. The only real reason for this post I guess is for me to say something. I am just sitting and waiting and feel at times, going crazy. I just need to pray for clarity as I feel that God wants me to do something and I just can’t figure it out right now.  Anyway, I guess that’s enough rambling for now.
dj

Adobe petition

Tim Eason of Churchmedia.net has setup a petition to try and get Adobe to setup a chartable license for their products for churches. You can sign it here. Sign it and pass it along to someone else you know who could use the discount.
dj

UPDATE: Tim recreated the petition so he could like it from his site. Please go back and resign here.

I win again!

Hey, check this out. I won a webcam from Skype. Where I have been trying to learn new things, I ran across book a while back talking about Skype and how to program for it. In the book, it mentioned the Skype blogs and I added them to my Bloglines account. One of the developers had a contest yesterday to win one of four webcams. You had to correctly guess the score of the soccer game yesterday involving the developer’s favorite team. I guess his team would win 1-nil and they did. I was one of two people who won. Now, what am I going to do with the webcam LOL.  I guess I will have to program something for it.
dj

Dadbloggers post

My latest post on DadBloggers has been posted. You can read it here.

Podcast rant

Ok. I have been putting this off for a bit, but can’t do it anymore. I am not a rich person so, I was thrilled to death to get a RCA Lyra for Christmas. I can’t afford an iPod and don’t expect anyone to buy one for me. My RCA won’t work with iTunes, although I do have a subscription with them. That is not my problem. Why do people who do a podcast just use iTunes for their subscriptions?
Now, if I want to listen to this podcast, I have to come back to their website each week and check for an update and then download it. I know the majority of mp3 players out there are iPods, but how many people don’t have an iPod specifically?
I guess I just need to rant, but how many people are missing your content because you use iTunes only? How many people are missing your message because you just want to be popular? If you are a church, why are you shutting out lost people who don’t have or can’t afford an iPod?
Maybe I am just lazy, but it doesn’t take anymore to do both. In fact, you have to have the link for the podcast that’s not iTunes to send to Apple to make iTunes work.
Oh well, stepping off my soapbox now.

Quick and easy question

Quick and easy question for you. Anybody know of any churches that have a ministry for mothers of multiples?

Willow Podcast?

One thing I have gotten into this year since getting my MP3 player is podcast. I was listening to a few before hand, but now I am more interested and keep looking for new ones to listen to. I was searching for something different this morning and landed on the Willow Creek website and was wondering if they had a podcast. I didn’t see anything on the weekend services page so I thought, maybe just search it.

Well, it looks like they are testing one now. The address is here and they do have one file up there. A sermon by Mike Breaux. The address doesn’t look like to be the one they will use as it says test in it, but looks like we can expect one soon.

dj

How do you learn new skills

How do you learn new skills? I have been working on learning some programming skills lately. Visual Basic. I have a background from high school programming Basic. I have purchased a couple of books and my team lead here is ok with it. He has written a tool that helps us in our job here and I have written a couple of apps to help us patch and update our anti-virus software for new machines and reloaded machines before they get on the network. The books are ok but I have mainly relied on code I have found online to do certain task within my app.

So, how do you learn new skills? Do you find stuff online? Buy books or just jump in head first with something and go at it?
Dj

Interpreting a toddler

We were asking Colby today if he wanted to go to the big bookstore in town and he asked which one and Misty told him it was the one with the big Thomas the Train set and he said the one with the big alligator in it. We didn’t know what he was talking about and said he must be thinking of another place. He said no, the alligator, you know the thing that helps you go up and down. Misty said you mean escalator the moving steps. Colby said yea. I thought it was an alligator.
Dj

Tie your shoes.

All I can say is ouch.

Tagged

Well, I’ve been tagged. Rod Pearcy tagged me with the four things questions so here are my answers. I sort of feel honored to be mentioned in the same post as Terry Storch.

1. Four Jobs I’ve Had- IT Deskside support, Sports Editor, Chief Photographer and Car Salesman
2. Four Movies I can watch over and over-Top Gun, Running Scared, Back to the Future (any of the three) and Star Wars (Any of the 6)
3. Four Places I have lived-Nicholasville, Ky., Richmond, Ky., Barbourville, Ky and Cincinnati, Ohio.
4. Four Shows I like to watch- West Wing, Las Vegas, NCIS and Amazing Race
5. Four Foods that I like-Steak, Pizza, Fajitas and very hot and spicy chili.
6. Four Websites I Visit Daily-Bloglines.com, Churchmedia.net, Southland Christian and EKUPride.com
7. Four things I want to do before I die- Take my kids to Disney World, Work for a church IT dept., Take Misty on a week long Cruise and go storm chasing. Although my wife thinks I am nuts for that last one.
8. Four People I'm tagging- Paul Podraza, Jim Walton, Jason Powell and fellow West Wing fan Brian Bailey. I would have tagged Kevin Young, but he would just complain on how he didn’t have time due to getting married this weekend. :)

Southland Podcast

Well, we’ve taken the next step at Southland, at least in IT.  We have now started a podcast for our services. You can sign up with iTunes here or use this link in your favorite podcast software.  

dj

I'm a winner:)

Don't know if you have ever heard of InBubbleWrap or not, but each day they offer a free book. I won a copy of The Fred Factor. :)

dj

Another prayer request

I just got word that my best friend's father has passed away. He's been sick off and on for a bit and developed an infection that antibiotics couldn't help. My friend has been through a lot over the last year and a half including a divorce. He's feeling pretty rough right now as he is feeling like he is carrying the weight of his entire family on his shoulders.Also, pray for me to have the strength to be there for him through this week. He lives two states away and is bringing his dad back to Kentucky for burial as that is where he wanted to buried at.

JJ is a friend that I know I can count for anything. When I went though a divorce, he was there for me, no questions asked. He opened his door for me to crash at when the world was caving in on me. I just want to make sure I am there for him even though he feels like he needs to do it himself.

Prayer request

My brother was rushed in for somewhat emergency surgery this evening. He is doing well. He was only in for about 45 minutes. His appendix had swollen and they wanted to get it out before it ruptured. He had been feeling bad off and on for the last little bit and started to a new doctor in the last month. His doctor had scheduled a cat scan or MRI, can't remember which, for Wednesday, but after feeling bad again Monday evening, they pushed it to Tuesday morning. After seeing the results, they sent him straight to the emergency room. They were able to use a scope to remove it and he could come home on Wednesday. Thanks.


UPDATE: I just got off of the phone with my brother and he is on his way home. The doctor told him to not lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk for a week or two. That will be rough considering he has a six month old at home.

Feed for comments

One thing with using Haloscan for my comments, I now have a RSS feed for my comments.

Dealing with Tech Arts Burnout! - Part I

Anthony Coppedge has a great entry today about working in tech and not worshiping. As one who went through this, I can say that Anthony is 100 percent correct in his assessment. I can’t wait to read the next entry on how to avoid the burnout which will come with not worshipping.

Did Jesus exist?

A man in Italy is suing a priest in Rome saying that Jesus didn’t exist and that the church shouldn’t be teaching about him. The man is an atheist and actually went to same seminary as the priest. You can read about it on CNN

Frappr

Just playing with more stuff. I created a Frappr map for my blog so go add yourself so I can see where everyone is.

UPDATE: One of these day I will learn that if Paul and I are both involved in the same group to let him add himself to Frapper first. We are both in the same town so his entry gets put on top of mine
dj