Still here.

Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart do? Will I dance for your Jesus, or in awe of you be still
Will I stand in your presence, or at your knees will I fall
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine, I can only imagine…
      - mercyme, I can only imagine

It has been awhile since I said anything, so I thought I might as well say something. I feel rather like waxing sentimental, the end of summer always makes me feel that way. The festivities of the summer are over, the brilliant color explosion of autumn are still on their way. Its kind of a time for quiet reflection, considering half the year has now been spent - either for good or bad. Hopefully more good than bad.

For me, its been a busy year. In the last six months, I started CS-FSLUG (with the help of the dedicated team of JW, Jerry Kreps, Ciaran Hamilton, and Jonathan Drews); revamped Open for Business into a mostly original content outlet, and pushed on some behind the scenes work toward getting FreeMoz (f/k/a OpenMoz) going again. LinuxDailyNews also came into existance - after an exhausting few weeks of work - in early July.

I've also spent a great deal of time on consulting work, which is really booming at the moment. I've hit the niche of designing sites for speakers and storytellers, and that seems to promise to continue to keep my company busy for the rest of the year.

On the RnR side of things… I've also taken two wonderful trips to the Missouri Ozarks outside of Branson, MO; and traveled to Indiana for the wedding of my grandfather. Pretty busy travel schedule - at least for me - I usually don't travel much (the amazing communications powers of the Internet prevent the need most of the time).

Anyway, that brings me to the present. Several questions loom ahead. I've tossed around the idea of launching another site, although I fear I may take on too much and live (or maybe not) to regret that. Also, while FaithTree.com has done alright, I would like to think of ways to bring those who have quit visiting back - and to bring in new visitors. Google AdWords are my current idea for bringing new people in - certainly FT hasn't been publicized much since its launch over a year ago. Also in the near future, I'd like to see what I might need to get a press pass for next year's LWCE San Francisco…

Oh well, before I bore you, my dear reader, to death; I guess I ought to wrap up this message. I'll try to keep this updated more frequently in the future…

I'm still here

Well, it's been over a month since I posted here, so I thought I should say something. There, I said something. What? You want me to say something actually meaningful? Well, okay…

I've been busy the last month, I went on two trips down to the Table Rock Lake area right outside of Branson, MO, worked on a number of articles for Open for Business, and I've been busy working on various client projects. That combination has kept me pretty busy, preventing me for the most part of doing other tasks such as working on OpenMoz.

Speaking of OpenMoz, depending on my amount of free time, I hope to get some stuff done on it this week. My current goal is to write some command line apps to take care of basic administration until the web-based interface is complete. The first such tool will be a short script to add users to the database and htaccess password list. More on this later…

With Hope

That is not at all how / we thought it was supposed to be We had so many plans for you / we had so many dreams
And now you've gone away / and left us with the memories of your smile
And nothing we can say / and nothing we can do
Can take away the pain / the pain of losing you We can cry with hope / we can say goodbye with hope
'Cause we know our goodbye is not the end
We can grieve with hope / because we believe with hope
There's a place where we'll see your face again
We'll see your face again
— Steven Curtis Chapman, With Hope, Speechless

My cousin passed away yesterday, and it is just hard to actually believe. She had been basically fine until about two weeks ago, and had even been improving a bit last week. Unfortunately she went in to a coma last Monday, and tests showed she was basically brain dead, so she was removed from life support. I do not know if she had accepted Jesus prior to her death.

My family has lost a number of people this past year, and it really makes one focus on the brevity of life. It certainly is something that can be snatched away so quickly - it definately should not be taken for granted.

Which brings me to an important point - if you are reading this, and have not come to faith in Christ - I urge you to consider the evidence for Christianity now, and not put it off. If you are already convinced of Jesus' claims but have not accepted him, I urge you to read The Steps to Faith and learn how to be reborn in Him - don't wait until it is too late.

Hmm...

What happens when you are puzzled about exactly what you are puzzled about? Well, while that question is puzzling in itself, I've been wondering that (I get weird thoughts like this sometimes).

Anyway, I thought I would mention why I never posted the photos I mentioned in my post about the Mayor's Prayer Breakfast. It occurred to me that I probably shouldn't start sticking people's photos on the internet without their permission, and so I decided it would just be easier to skip the whole thing. Sorry.

In other news, I'm looking for a good POS (Point of Sale) or similar program that could do online invoicing and balance tracking for clients (that runs under Linux, I might add). Do you, dear reader, know of such a program?

Day of Anniversaries

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet And a light unto my path. When I feel afraid,
And think I've lost my way.
Still, You're there right beside me.
Nothing will I fear
As long as You are near;
Please be near me to the end.
    -Michael W. Smith, Thy Word

Today marks a number of both good and bad anniversaries for me, so I'm not quite sure what to make of it. My grandmother past away on this day last year which is rather rough. The flip side is that I launched my company's script archive (Uninet Perl Company) five years ago today, and I launched this personal site of mine (in a much smaller form) one year ago today.

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.