Simulcast -- Two Thumbs Up
Well, I wasn't so sure about a 1 1/2 hour simulcast (or actually non-simulcast — getting the satellite feed was too costly, so we opted for the DVD version) that much, but it was very good. Rick Warren was a good enough speaker to make the time go by fast, not bad considering, as the pastor's son said, “it was like five of your sermons.”
Indeed, it sort of was like 5 sermonettes, a preview of the next six weeks worth of sermons. It was interluded with videos as well as several musical performances, including one from Natalie Grant.
It was also nice because we got to watch it in the Southwestern Bell Auditorium at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, our church's next door neighbor. They were kind enough to open their spectacular doors for the evening, allowing us to use the theater and then their main “lobby” (the word doesn't do justice for the size) area afterwards. It comfortably held the 250-300 church members that went.
It was neat to see, considering that the Danforth Plant Science Center is one of the foremost bio-tech research centers in the world. It's a collaboration between Washington University in St. Louis and Monsanto Co. We have at least one Center employee that is a member of our church and a scientist that worked there that attended our church while in the U.S. So, there were a variety of reasons that it was interesting to go into the building that casts it shadow on ours.
But back to the actual point of the night. It was a good start to the 40 Days. For anyone whose church is saving the simulcast for tomorrow — I think you'll really enjoy it.
In case you haven't been here today due to BlogRolling being down, read on to the next post about Christopher's internet small group.
More Stock
For those that missed the last issuing of stock, I've issued more asisaid.com shares of stock at BlogShares. Take a look, here.
40 Days of Purpose Internet Group
Well, Christopher had a good idea: he started a bulletin board based small group for those away at school that wanted to join in on the 40 Days of Purpose at his church. He was also kind enough to invite any of his blogging friends that might want to join, to do so.
Well, I've joined, and he said I could invite asisaid.com readers to join as well. If you'd like to take part in the 40 Days of Purpose with Christopher's small internet group, you can leave a note in the comments on his site and do so. Just click here.
This could be really interesting. I've often thought an internet small group might be neat (after all, in a slightly larger format, CS-FSLUG's CS-BibleStudy always worked well), but I hadn't thought about one for the 40 Days of Purpose. Why not give it a whirl?
Schwarzenegger, 40 DoP and Limbaugh Updates
Ah-nold isn't Right: The rest of this post is about Mr. Limbaugh, but I first wanted to mention that Mysterium Tremendum has an excellent post that mostly says what I've been saying and thinking about Schwarzenegger. He might not turn out to be a bad governor, but I'm not sure conservatives should be celebrating. It's hypocritical, folks, there's no way around it.
Follow-up: Also, I finally responded to all of the great comments on my 40 Days of Purpose post. Thanks everyone.
Rush Limbaugh and Addiction: If you didn't already hear, Rush Limbaugh acknowledged the truth in the reports of addiction today. Shortly before signing off for the weekend, Rush started the undoubtedly difficult statement:You know I have always tried to be honest with you and open about my life. So I need to tell you today that part of what you have heard and read is correct. I am addicted to prescription pain medication. I first started taking prescription painkillers some years ago when my doctor prescribed them to treat post surgical pain following spinal surgery.
Apparently, the surgery didn't stop the pain and Rush eventually got addicted to the pain pills. He will be in rehab for the next 30 days while others host the “EIB Network.” Rush went into more detail, which you may want to read, but I really liked one statement that I thought I'd quote here:
You know, over the years athletes and celebrities have emerged from treatment centers to great fanfare and praise for conquering great demons. They are said to be great role models and examples for others. Well, I am no role model. I refuse to let anyone think I am doing something great here, when there are people you never hear about, who face long odds and never resort to such escapes.
They are the role models. I am no victim and do not portray myself as such. I take full responsibility for my problem.
That's unusual for someone of his position. While I could be cynical about the statement, I found listening to it that he seemed sincere (a video of the statement broadcast from the “Dittocam” is available for free here, but only in Windows Media Player format). I wish more people would take complete responsibility for their actions. Rush has, at least to some extent, done what he has said people should do, and for that, I respect him.
He closed by saying, “I deeply appreciate all of your support over this last tumultuous week. It has sustained me. I ask now for your prayers. I look forward to resuming our excursion into broadcast excellence together.” I do too, Rush.
The Main Question: Are They Quartz Movement?
A girl was visiting her blonde friend, who had acquired two new dogs, and asked her what their names were.
The blonde responded by saying that one was named Rolex and one was named Timex.
Her friend said, “Whoever heard of someone giving dogs such stupid names?”
“Hellooooo,” answered the blonde, “they're watch dogs!”
Depressed
Of those things, I was most excited about the brochures. During my first year as publicity taskforce coach, I've been focusing a lot on the creation of the Uniform Brochure Design (UBD). The plan behind this is to create a unified array of brochures on whatever topic one might want to find out about our church, our beliefs, etc. I've been working on the UDB even before the publicity taskforce was formed and I was very excited that it would come to fruition during the ministry and missions fair (part of the 40 Days of Purpose).
Unfortunately, things have not been going smoothly at all. First, the powers that be ripped apart the press release I crafted and gave me a different one to send out. Then, after doing some requested modifications to the pre-built site, I was told to reverse all of them plus redo the pre-built site into a site with a number of extra pages. The site stuff was alright, although I wish if they wanted to do a bigger site that we weren't trying to do it with the pre-built template (which uses very messy HTML), but that was fine. The death of my PR piece was a bit disheartening, but I got over it.
Obviously, I still had one piece of work that hadn't been rejected: the UBD-based brochures for the ministry and missions fair. Early on the head of the ministry fair taskforce approved the use of the UBD for the brochures and a matching UBD-esque cover for the accompanying ministry directory booklet. Finally today, after work on those brochures was already well under way, I found out that the main DoP team reject the design. Completely. I've been told to redo the brochures with a new design that consists of black bold Times New Roman text on white paper and no graphics. Every dot and iota of the UBD was removed from the rough draft I received to work on.
In the big scheme of things, none of this is that big of deal, but with time constraints (see last post) and the shooting down of all three projects, I'm a bit weary at the moment. Considering everything has either been replaced or is waiting to, I wonder if it wouldn't have been better if I'd spent my time working on the next generation church web site or some other project instead.
I think I need a vacation.
Tired
This week has been very hectic… nothing is going according to plan. sigh Maybe I'll just go back to bed until next Monday.
Oh well… tomorrow I setup our church secretary's new computer during the afternoon. That could be fun — there's nothing like seeing the delight in someone's eyes when they realize they can actually get their work done rather than fighting with a slow, old computer. Now if it just works out OK…
Another New Site, Meetings
Kevin Hartwig, the founder of the Sakamuyo Network, which was his personal blog for a long time (now it is a group blog), has launched a new personal blog — Birkenpreacher. Take a look, it has lots of good stuff already, and knowing Kevin, it will keep getting better!
The site has been up for a few weeks, but Kevin was doing a sort of “soft opening” (as a retailer might put it). Now it seems he's ready for the world to know about it — so at least asisaid.com readers should know about it!
In other news… tonight was Administrative Night at church. A worker at some printing shop, that was closing, stopped by and gave us a bunch of reams of high quality paper that will be really useful. I was there tonight for the Evangelism Committee (I'm the “coach” of the Publicity Taskforce subdivision of that committee), but I'm also the chair of a small committee that oversees our volunteer librarian staff. Somehow it got on the calendar that this other committee was meeting tonight and I had people wondering where the ERC committee was. Oops!
Ah, exciting night…
What Technology Do You Really Want?
I'm just curious, dear readers, what piece of technology would you get right now if you had, say, $4,000, and could spend it on just one item? That's a tough question, isn't it?
Well, I think I know what I'd go for. It'd run this and this very nicely. It'd also complement my Dell Dimension 4550 running Mandrake Linux quite nicely (silver and black always look nice together — as the Logitech MX700 mouse demonstrates).
So, how 'bout you?
Get yer asisaid shares!
Well, I haven't been messing with BlogShares much lately, but I decided to today. I accidentally pushed this blog way over the edge and crashed it to 1/4 its old BlogShares value. It has almost regained all of its value however from me buying a large number of newly issued shares (and through some other buying I've almost gotten back to my old $4.3 million in BlogShares worth).
At any rate, there are presently 700 newly issued shares available at $23.38 a piece. If you'd like a few shares, why not jump over here right now? This is an ideal time to pick up new asisaid.com shares if you lost yours when Just James Productions quite maliciously did a hostile takeover last month.
Disclaimer: For anyone who isn't familiar with BlogShares, this is a fantasy stockmarket. I'm not really worth 4.3 mil., and the money you use to by asisaid.com shares is fictional money. Just thought I'd mention that in case you'd never heard of BlogShares before.
