Feeling Uplifted
I'm diving in I'm going deep in over my head I want to be caught in the rush lost in the flow in over my head I want to goWhat a refreshing day it has been. Dive seems like an appropriate song for a day like today. As I noted before I am tired, but at the same time I feel more energetic then usual. The Prayer Breakfast was a refreshing change of pace, and the whole day was finished off with a great Lenten sermon by Pastor Walter. Being the witty guy he is, Pastor Walter found a very good way to interweave his looking into time shares with the way the merchants where taking advantage of the gentiles in the gentile's court of the Temple in Jerusalem (Mark 11:15). I guess all the merchants got jobs as time share sales people after being thrown out of the temple. Wanna buy some swamp land?
the river's deep the river's wide the river's water is alive
so sink or swim I'm diving in
— Steven Curtis Chapman, Dive
Ah, what a day. I think this was exactly the kind of dive I needed.
Mayor's Prayer Breakfast.
—Amazing GraceAmazing grace! How sweet the sound
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now can see
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed
I'm tired. That's probably not the way you'd expect a “Very happy” mood post to start, but hey - I want to keep things interesting. Anyway, I went down to the 26th Annual St. Louis Mayor's Prayer Breakfast. I had to get going at 5:00 am, early for me, which explains why I'm a bit tired, but it was certainly worth it. Approximately 4,000 people gathered at the event to hear from Mayor Francis Slay, County Executive George “Buzz” Westfall, Zip Rzeppa (former sports anchor at a local TV station and president of Goodwill Enterprises), and the main star of the day - Kurt Warner, quarterback of the St. Louis Rams.
As most people who know American football (and even some like me that don't) know, Kurt is an outspoken Christian with a perfect “fairy tale” rise to the top spot on the Rams. Warner provided a great speech comparing the steps that brought him to faith in Christ to the steps that brought him to be a three time Most Valuable Player in the NFL. In both cases he ended up doing something other than he had wanted - and benefited greatly because of that.
Before I keep blabing on, I'll just say again it was really great. This Mayor's Prayer Breakfast is the largest, and longest consecutive sell-out event of its kind in the USA. Very impressive. I will post photos once I get the digital ones uploaded, and the APS ones developed.
PHPNuke != Good Software
Everytime I think I've got PHPNuke working on Open for Business it seems to do something new to remind me this isn't the best CMS in the world. For the obvious reasons, I don't want to reveal the current problem, but I will say this - I'm going to work up to switching to PostNuke. I'm sure there are better CMSes than PostNuke too, however it seems to offer the best upgrade path from PHPNuke.
Good Meetings
When I look into Your eyes
I see the love that died for me
When I look into Your eyes
I see the hope that I will be a faithful child
Following close behind
Following ever blinded
To the things that should not move me Saying to my soul
fix your eyes on Jesus
Saying to my soul
fix your eyes on Jesus
Fix your eyes on Jesus
—Twila Paris, Fix Your Eyes
Well the meetings went well, with a duration of about two and a half hours.
I got the job to work on our stain glass window tour, it needs some serious help. They are beautiful windows (picked in a book as one of the 80 best in America), but our tour certainly is not. Hopefully that can be fixed though.
We also worked on our small group program, our visitor bulletin, and our reach out caller program (probably the main point of the night). The Reach Out Callers will deliver jam (which we “tested” tonight) to visitors to St. Paul's. Anyway, all in all a very productive, and fun night of meetings.
Stuff to do...
Anyway, I've been spending some time working on another long overdue project lately - OpenMoz. OM will eventually (hopefully sooner, rather than later) provide an Open Directory system - something that the Open Directory Project's name has been begging for ever since it's orgins as GnuHoo. I've come up with a design for the OM site that is exactly what I was aiming for, although I'm waiting for Ciaran to come on to see what he thinks.
Another project is in the back of my mind these days. I need to get some graphics done for the BibleTime project preferably within about two and a half weeks. I've been rather slow in getting previous graphic work done for them, so I need to be on time this time. We'll see how that goes.
It is a somewhat sad day though. It appears my good e-friend Jerry Kreps has terminated his internet account, as he had mentioned he was planning to on CS-FSLUG last week. So, anyway, it wasn't a shock, but none the less, I didn't enjoy seeing my message bounce back. Hopefully I will hear from Jerry again some day - he will definately be missed.
Anyway, on a happy note, it's Administrative Night at Church which means I get to have some fun on the Evangelism committee. Call me strange, but I love being on committees.
Hiya!
My friend Ciaran Hamilton gave me this nice script, waddya think?
