For The New Secretary Of Commerce

For great wisdom and discernment for Bill Richardson, President Elect Obama’s choice for Secretary of Commerce

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."
—James 4:13-15

Holy Lord God, in Your wisdom You see the nations and their affairs with clarity and power. You are sovereign and in control of all that takes place between nations and economies, commerce and trade. I praise You for the blessing and privilege of trusting in You in all things at all times. You are holy and good, O God!

Today I bring before You Bill Richardson, President Elect Obama’s choice for our nation’s new Secretary of Commerce. I ask You to strengthen and guide him as he prepares to serve, so that commerce in our country may thrive, and so our nation and her citizens—particularly those who live at the margins—may prosper. In Your righteous and powerful name, amen.

This is the latest in the series of prayers led by the Presidential Prayer Team for the new President and for our nation. If you are interested in receiving the email with each day's prayer assignment you can click here and sign up.

A Quick Update... And Some Lovely Swiss Chard

Anyone for some colorful Swiss Chard? I have a feeling that it probably wouldn't taste as sweet as it looks like it should. It kind of reminds me of rhubarb. I have never eaten Swiss Chard before. My best guess would be that it is like any other salad green or cooked green. Still, the colors are nice.

I have been able to spend a decent amount of time outdoors the past couple of days. I spent a little too long today and ended up with my first farmer's tan burn of the season. It doesn't hurt that bad and it is in about the only place on my body that will tan - my arms.

Today I mowed my dad's place. I have been in a mowing mode. Tuesday I mowed my grandfather's old place. Yesterday I mowed my yard - well, most of it anyway. And today I mowed my dad's place. I expect to finish my yard tomorrow. It should be a good day for it. Unfortunately, it sounds like it is going to get cold again this weekend. I could do without that. I've been without fuel oil for the furnace since January, and I'm tired of being cold. Still, it could be worse. At least I have ways of getting warm. There are plenty of people in the world who can't.

I nearly bought some oil towards the end of February, but at $3.52/gallon (with a 100 gallon minimum) it was a little too rich for my wallet. These folks don't even act embarrassed when they tell you the price. I asked the fella if it came with dinner and a show, and he laughed and said no. That's what I figured....

I don't know about y'all, but I have to throw the BS flag when they come on the news and say that we're not experiencing inflation. Everything is up except the housing market - and even that still is in many markets. There is just no way to avoid inflation when the greedy oil tycoons are pushing the prices up higher and higher with no end in sight. It is bound to effect everything else. All of our goods are shipped using some petroleum derivative. (THIS is the reason that we need alternative fuels!) Add to that the inflation in food due to the push towards ethanol and there is no way to deny that prices are going up, and it is getting harder and harder for folks to make ends meet.

In other news...

Yesterday I also began work on a website for my sister. It is amazing how quickly you can put one together once you have learned how! Hers is nothing too complicated, just a nice basic informational website for her interior design business. I am awaiting a logo device from a friend who is an expert with Photoshop and with about one more day's work I think that I can have her site finished. I'll give you a link when it is done. I think my layout is improving.

By the way, I have heard yet another confirmation of the story that I published a few days ago. This one was from a nationally recognized individual who hears from God quite clearly. Batten down the hatches, y'all, it looks like some stormy weather is approaching.

Saturday the StillWaters Jazz Band will be playing for the veterans at the NC Veterans' home in Salisbury, NC. I'm really looking forward to getting to serve these folks. I hope that they enjoy the show. I am humbled by the sacrifices that they have made on my behalf.

Well, that is about all the stuff that is floating around the front of my mind at the present. Thanks for reading!

These Clouds Are Getting To Me...

If you have been reading for a while you are aware that there has been a fair bit of discussion here about the need for rain in my part of the country. Since the unbelievable drought of the past summer, I have not complained about rain at all. Still, I have no intention of complaining about rain, but I must say that it has been way too long since I have seen the sun.

OK. It did come out this afternoon for a couple of minutes, but that was hardly enough to get my tanks stoked back up. I can't take this gloominess much longer. It makes ME gloomy!

Today it was so incredibly hard to get anything done at all. I have been melancholy all day. There were certainly many factors that went into setting that emotional state, and the cloud cover wasn't the least of them.

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny. I plan to do some mowing. I hope that it will do the trick for my mood. I have to get out of my cave for a little while. I have been too much alone lately. Hopefully, getting out into the fresh air and sunshine will help me to clear my head and get it back on straight. I can't afford to get off track right now.

On another note, I got a call tonight from someone who read the warning post from the other day. He told me that not two hours after he read that he had a conversation with another friend who had been in a seminar with a financial professional who was predicting the very same thing: a stock market crash. This morning I published a comment from a friend who had seen the same thing on the 700 Club recently. I have seen several other confirmations of this prediction. I am more and more convinced that it is going to happen in the next 12 months if not sooner.

I hope that it doesn't, because many will be hurt by it, but I can see how it may be necessary for God to do this to either help set people free from their bondage to mammon or to bring deliverance to those being oppressed by American capitalistic greed and justice to those doing the oppressing. The greed of so many in our country is becoming more and more evident.

See? I told you I was gloomy today! Perhaps I'll do better tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

A Very Important Message

This is a message that is targeted primarily to my Christian readers, but should be of benefit to anyone who reads it. It is largely an excerpt of a post that I wrote for the Conspiracy of Kindness blog, but I believe that its message is important enough to duplicate it here.

Very few Christians would deny that God still speaks to His people. This communication can come in various forms: from general impressions, to visions, to dreams, and to a voice that isn't heard with our ears but is instead discerned by our spirits.

One of my friends has a particular fluency in their communication with God. Recently, in the midst of a conversation that this individual was having with God about a situation that they are dealing with, God shared something that I believe is very important for many to hear. Based on my experience with this individual, my knowledge of their understanding of the subject matter of the message, and the context in which it was given, I believe that this is a bona fide message from the Lord.

The Bible tells us to "Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment." While many in traditional and even evangelical churches are uncomfortable with calling someone a prophet today or even in allowing that prophecies are still given today, I hope that you will not be offended by this term. A prophet is merely someone who tells others what God has told them. It is our job as priests in the Kingdom of God to consult with the Holy Spirit to test the prophecy. It is with this caveat that I submit this message for your consideration:

If you have an abundance don't invest it in the stock market. That's going to crash later this year. It will be a lot like 1929, but for those whose investment is primarily in the Kingdom there won't be a problem.

Wealth, as America knows it is almost over.

Dave Ramsey's teachings about mutual funds work well in this season - this system, but the economic system is about to change dramatically. The same rules will not apply.

I'm getting ready for the great wealth transfer. Many will be saved. Those in debt will suffer the most. Many will lose everything. "But those who know their God will do mighty exploits."

Let me begin by explaining something of the context in which this message was given. What I have shared was an excerpt from a larger conversation between my friend and God. There was nothing before this in the conversation that even made mention of the stock market, although financial matters had been discussed. This is one of the reasons that I believe that this message is from God.

A second reason that I believe that this message is authentic is that my friend has no knowledge or understanding of the stock market or the economic factors that drive it. This individual has (as was indicated in the prophecy) listened to Dave Ramsey, but that is the extent of their knowledge. In fact, my friend hardly even listens to or reads the news. So I don't believe that this is an idea that could have come from this individual's own concerns about the economy or knowledge about it.

Where does this leave us then? One of the purposes of prophecy is to encourage God's people. The entirety of the context of this message served to strongly encourage my friend.

Another purpose of prophecy is to warn God's people of sin and/or impending events. Proverbs tells us "The prudent sees the evil and hides himself, but the naive go on, and are punished for it." and "A prudent man sees evil and hides himself, the naive proceed and pay the penalty."

I am no financial expert. I cannot tell you what to do in response to this message. Perhaps it would be wise to study the events of the Great Depression and look specifically to the areas that thrived in the midst of the collapse of the Stock Market. I have heard that when one type of investment falters there are often other areas that do well. This may be a time for God's people to be able to prosper because of this warning.

Perhaps it would also be prudent to move funds from stock market based investments to investments with guaranteed interest. (I'm thinking particularly of folks with 401-ks and that sort of thing.) However, once again, I don't really know what I am talking about. Your best bet would be to ask God what you should do with your investments.

I would also encourage you to ask God about expediting the payoff of any home equity lines and about refinancing your home if the mortgage is not locked into a long-term fixed rate.

Can I guarantee that this is a word from the Lord? No. But I felt strongly enough that it was that I felt a responsibility to warn as many people as I could about it. Please pray and ask God to show you whether this prophecy is true and to tell you what you should do about it.

One last thought... Christians are not to be motivated by fear. This message should not cause fear, but should encourage us to praise God for giving us a warning before this event takes place.

If you are heavily in debt this may cause you some distress. That is understandable, but do not operate out of fear. Cry out to God in repentance over your situation and ask Him how to fix it. Allow your faith to rise up and trust your God to take care of you and your needs. I can attest that He does and He will. That is not to say that you may not suffer loss, but God will not allow the righteous to be forsaken or their children to beg for bread.

For any of my non-Christian friends who are reading this blog, I hope that this information will benefit you too. If it does, my sincerest prayer is that you will give glory to God for giving you this warning and that you will submit your lives to Him because of His goodness. He truly loves you and wants the very best for you.

Learning and Growing

I have been working on the website for RealSalisbury.com and have made a few improvements. Most of the changes have come to the feature articles for the houses that are being advertised there. I have made the features a little easier to read and it is much easier to see the pictures. I have also added some borders around pictures and have added some background color. I am pleased with the way that the project is beginning to come together.

I have talked with a local builder who has a couple of houses that he may be willing to advertise. I would love to get them because they would help me to be fill in a couple of other categories on the website. I need to begin to take some time to start selling the service now. It is stable enough for me to be able to start doing that.

I do need to develop one more template before I get too far into it though. Not everyone will benefit from a full-blown feature article like I have done for the three homes advertised on the site right now. I need to develop a nicked down version that will include a main picture, the basic details about the property, a short description, and a few thumbnail pictures. It really shouldn't take me that much to do it. I already have most of the raw materials in my existing features.

Doing that will allow me to have some pricing flexibility too.

Today I got my Content Management Bible in the mail. It is a huge book - over 1,000 pages! I have read through the preface and the forward and a couple of other introductory bits and it looks like the book will be very readable and helpful. I hope so. I bought it with the hopes that it would assist me to get a better idea of what I am doing in developing the Joomla site.

In the next day or two I also need to get started on the tutorials for the scripting language PHP. It will allow me to be able to add searches and other functionality to the websites. (It will also help me to understand what the heck I am looking at on my Joomla template.) I hope that there aren't too many more layers that I have to add before I am able to start making good headway on the Joomla site.

One thing is certain though - there is no better teacher than experience. The more I work with this stuff the better I am understanding all of that information that I have crammed into my head. I am beginning to understand when to use different elements and how to put them to work for me. I'm far less frustrated than I was.

The more I work on this project the more I realize just how big a bite I took off. I think that if I had realized what I was getting into I would have been far more likely to write this business off as a crazy dream. It still feels that way sometimes now, but I am beginning to feel more confident that the tide is beginning to turn and I am finally starting to get to a level of competency in my basic knowledge. I am not saying that I am competent to the task yet, but I do feel like I am getting much closer. Of course the new book may bring me back to my senses!

I guess the biggest puzzle that I am dealing with right now is how to get my website to show up in the search engines. I have submitted it to Google and Yahoo!, and have worked on my meta keywords. So far I haven't been able to find my site using the most general key words in the search engine. I definitely need to find a way to get to the front page.

Well, that is all of the shop talk that I will bore you with for now. If you get a chance to check out the site please do. If you want to make suggestions to improve the site feel free to do so. You can email me at the link on the main page. If you know someone in my area who could use my service please let them know (or me.) And if you have the answers to any of my various conundrums please share!

Live!

I am very pleased to announce that my upgrade to RealSalisbury.com is now live. Hopefully, in the coming days I'll be adding additional properties for people to see. I hope to have something in each property category just as soon as possible.

Now things get really interesting because I need to do some sales, but I also need to do some development to the site so that I'll be able to handle a higher volume of properties. This solution will only work in the short term.

I also need to find a graphic designer to come up with a logo for me. I have some ideas, but for me to make those logos a reality would mean a whole new learning curve, and I'd really rather cut that short for right now.

On top of that I need to talk to an attorney about my terms of use and liability issues. And, and, and... Oh well, I knew it would come to this and that is part of making this whole project a reality. I'm excited about it really.

This has been a very gratifying couple of days. I have been extremely pleased with the progress I have made. Hopefully we will continue to go up from here.

What A Day!

Today was great. It was the most productive day that I have had in months. I woke up early and was able to get through my morning routine fairly early. Then I got to work.

When I stopped work on Saturday night there were some problematic little buggy things with the website. Today I got almost all of these problems sorted out and created a lot of content.

The last thing left to do before I can go live with the new design is to fix the feature article that has been up there for the property at 105 O'Hara Drive. I don't think that it will take me that long to get it worked out. I am also going to add a couple amenities to the feature articles too. I am going to add a Mapquest link and a couple of other things.

If you have been keeping up with things here on the site, you may have picked up on the fact that I had been employed as a lift salesman. I cut that short on Friday. I knew that I shouldn't do it when I took the job, but with my situation I didn't feel that I could turn down work.

What I found was that it divided my energy too much. The Bible says that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Well, I was living that. I'd try to get started working on one thing, but felt guilty for not working on the other and I ended up so addled that I didn't do either one. It made for one stressed out fellow.

As soon as I cut the sales job loose, I knew I had done the right thing. Of course, I'm kind of flying without a net again, but I've been doing that for months. So what's new? I really have faith that this is going to work in spite of some of the challenges that are still before me.

I have lots of challenges. I still have to figure out how to handle large numbers of properties being advertised on the website. How can I allow people to search for properties based on their preferences? I'm still turning this one over in my mind.

I do have a real estate program that may allow this to be done out of the box, but I am afraid that I will have trouble configuring it to look the way that I want it to.

I need to learn PHP (a scripting language) so that I can understand what is being done on the template that I am using. I also need to start selling my service. Fun! I can actually get paid for working! How cool is that?

I am finally getting to the fun and exciting parts I think. Yes, I am sure there is probably more headbanging at some time in the future, but I am actually seeing the potential for reward for all of my hard work. Hopefully one day soon I'll have an "Eureka!" moment with Joomla. When I do there will be much rejoicing and you will be among the first to know!

A Little Different Perspective

It is funny how new information can change an opinion. Take, for instance, yesterday's post. I saw the headline on an RSS feed on a friend's computer today and suddenly realized that with the picture that I had posted and the headline someone might get an entirely different picture of what I was trying to communicate than that which was actually intended! Rrrrowr!

Similarly, I am finding the results to the placeholder page that I posted tend to get an entirely different perspective depending on the browser, monitor size, etc. used by the viewer. I am really not happy at all with the way that the page is being publicly displayed. There are huge gaps in the layout that weren't present when I developed the site and checked it against both IE and Firefox. It would seem that using relative values when doing layout isn't an effective practice.

After I looked at the template for my Joomla site, I began to understand why I was having so many problems. They had created specific CSS fixes for each browser that the template encounters. I don't have time for that. I will probably rummage around in the next day or two and see if I can find a decent template to clean things up until I can get the Joomla site online. I do think that I will attempt to fix the HTML for the real estate feature that I have created for the site. (By the way, that house really is for sale.)

Speaking of the Joomla site. I AM VINDICATED!!!!!! I spent the better part of today working with a developer (who has almost 20 years' professional experience) who was as annoyed and perplexed about how to configure Joomla as I was. (It was nice to find out that no, I'm not an idiot when it comes to Joomla and that yes, Joomla is neither easy nor intuitive.)

Together we were able to come up with a couple changes to the new website, including downloading and configuring a weather module and an RSS news module. I'm pretty happy with the weather module, and the new website will be getting RSS feeds from The Weather Channel. I'm not completely happy with the RSS News module. I may end up grabbing another and seeing if I like it better. We also did some configuration to the layout of the page and discovered a module map for the template. (VERY useful piece of information.) Overall, I am thrilled with the progress that we made today.

One thing seems evident, though: it is time to revisit the Joomla tutorials. I understand enough now to where they should actually be helpful.

It's Here!

OK, if you have actually been craving an opportunity to see the website I have been talking about you can check it out at http://RealSalisbury.com. There are a few links that aren't connected yet because the pages that they will link to are still under construction. I hope to get them finished in the next 72 hours.

My friend, Rick Carangelo was a huge help this morning, helping me to get everything FTPd up to the server. His keen eye helped me to spot some things that kept the page from displaying correctly. Thanks, Rick!

By the way, the house in the main feature really is for sale by a friend of mine. If you are interested, I can get you more information. (More will be following about it on the web page soon.) I am also really trying to organize an NC State Alumni club for Rowan County, so if you are interested in that let me know too. Finally, if you are from this area and have something that would fit into one of the categories on the site, please feel free to let me know about that as well.

Please offer your critiques on the site. This isn't exactly the way the Joomla site will look, but it is the same general idea. Don't worry about hurting my feelings. I'll get over it. But I need brutally honest feedback about the look of the site and the navigation of the site to make it the best that it can be. Do the buttons make sense? Would a different color combination be more appealing? Should I vary background colors? Does it display OK on your browser? Etc.

You can either comment on it here or email me at administrator at realsalisbury dot com.

Thanks for your help and thanks for reading!

It's Coming...

Well, I think that I have enough of the placeholder done to publish. I hope to have everything FTPd up there tomorrow some time. I will make an announcement here when it is ready to check.

It is amazing how different things are between browsers. I referred to Mozilla Firefox mostly while building and when I checked things over on IE there were some fairly noticeable differences. I ended up splitting the difference between where I really wanted it on Firefox and where it had to be on IE to keep from stepping on one of the other elements.

I have a couple more files to create to make things work smoothly, but I will probably go ahead and publish as soon as possible - even if everything isn't as functional as I will eventually make it.

I guess that is all I have to say for right now. Hopefully, the FTP will go smoothly tomorrow and I will be able to announce the unveiling of the proof of concept as early as then. We'll see.

Coming Along

Today's web building exercises were productive. I got all of the nav bar linked and created the pages to which they would link. I also added most of the content to the main feature of the front page and also added content on the two sidebars.

I realized mid-afternoon why I was having some trouble manipulating the positioning of some of my elements and began to restructure both my HTML and CSS document. I needed to group some of my divisions together instead of leaving them all as individual elements. I think that will make things work much better. I also re-organized my main CSS document to make it easier to find the various elements. Now I think that I finally have the home page organization figured out.

Tomorrow I hope to create the content for my three remaining main elements and hope to get them configured so that they end up in the right places. That will be a major coup. I will also hopefully complete the remaining elements for the side bars. That will probably be more than enough to keep me busy with the time that I will have for tomorrow.

I'm not completely thrilled with the way the page looks just yet, but I am going to go ahead and get everything laid out and possibly even publish it while I fiddle with making the improvements to the design. I doubt that I'll have it published by the weekend unless I am able to work most of the day tomorrow, but it should be up and running next week.

Thanks for reading!

Forward Momentum

Today I managed to move forward on the vaporware project for my website. I have completed 90% of the header. I have also created an "under construction page" and the CSS page to go with it. I am pleased with my progress, considering the lack of sleep that I got last night, the fact that I was on the phone all morning, and that I was interrupted regularly through the afternoon. I should have fewer distractions tomorrow... I hope.

Tomorrow I hope to have linked the nav buttons on the top of the page and created my first main division. I would like to figure out how to do drop down lists on the nav buttons. I guess it will depend on how complicated they are. I would also like to get the content for my second through fourth main divisions completed. Hopefully I will be in a productive frame of mind. If I am, I may even be ready to publish something tomorrow.

Well, I'm exhausted. It has been a rough couple of days. More updates tomorrow, but for now I'm out of here!

Webdesign Update

No, I didn't invent the internet, but I know of someone who thinks that he did...

Work began today on a placeholder page for my web project. I am actually trying to write the HTML and the CSS for this page from scratch. Should be interesting - at the very least it will be a good practice exercise for the big dance that will be coming up when I start trying to configure the Joomla site.

This will be a pretty bare bones version of the ultimate goal, but I hope to be able to make it look the same. It will have very limited functionality. Yet I hope that it will possibly serve as a vaporware version of the final product. One of my good friends has volunteered to be a guinea pig for this proof of concept exercise.

I have spent the better part of (what is now) yesterday converting images to a smaller, more manageable size. It is amazing how much better a 60k jpeg file can be uploaded than a 1.3 M one can. It doesn't look like much has been accomplished, but that is often the way things are at foundational stages, and there is much foundational work going on. Gratefully, the time is coming soon that the structure can begin to go up.

I'll keep you posted on the progress and will let you know when you can check out the vaporware. Thanks for reading!

Update On The Web Page

Well, I am nearly done with my internet education - at least the "bachelor's degree!" I have about 5 more modules to finish on CSS and hopefully I will be able to figure out what I am doing enough to actually build MY web page.

I must say that I have been learning a lot. Perhaps you have noticed some of the formatting changes that I have been making to the blog here. Well, you probably didn't notice them. Most are pretty subtle, but I am finding the blog a good place to practice both my HTML and CSS.

Yesterday I downloaded some weather extensions to use on my Joomla site. Hopefully they won't be too hard to figure out or configure. I am really starting to chomp at the bit as I see the end of the tunnel on the "classroom" phase of this endeavor. Soon the real learning will begin.

Overall, I have found the tutorials at the World Wide Web Consortium to be very helpful, but I must say that not all of the creators of the tutorials are equally skilled. It has been more evident in the tutorials for CSS. Most of them give you the syntax fine, but not all of the creators do a good job of explaining all of the details or the rationale behind some of the things that they are showing you. (Tip: if you decide to check out the tutorials, make sure that you click through to the examples. Some of them contain information that you don't get anywhere else on the website.)

I have found Elizabeth Castro's book HTML, XHTML, & CSS: Sixth Edition helpful in understanding rationale in using some of the different elements and techniques. It hasn't proven the most helpful to me to learn the languages (it isn't hands on enough for that) but it has been invaluable in helping me to understand what is in the world of website design versus what should be (at least according to the w3 group) in the world of website design. I am confident that it will also prove (along with my notes from the tutorials) to be a very useful reference.

Hopefully, the next time I update you on my progress, I will be finished with the tutorials and looking for extensions to make my webzine a reality.

Stop the Stupidity!

I found this new career opportunity online today. Global Warming is going to make Y2K look like a legitimate threat! If you think that you got fleeced for Y2K you ain't seen nothing yet!

If you want to wallow sideways in the public trough here is the perfect opportunity for you. (What do you think Al Gore is doing? I'll bet he is beating these salary levels too.):

Carbon coach
Reducing contributions to greenhouse gas emissions, or the carbon footprint, is one huge step toward sustainability, but few guidelines exist for how companies gunning to be green should proceed. Carbon coaches offer this essential information. In addition to calculating carbon footprints and offering advice for offsetting them, carbon coaches help companies fit sustainability into their overall mission. Their services range from providing branding strategy for "green" product launches to advising companies on their relationships with NGOs....

Few guidelines exist, indeed. In fact I read an article today about how the UN is now saying that bio-fuels will cause more trouble than they will mitigate, but I will get to that in a moment. Back to the article at hand.

Most carbon coaches work at consulting firms, where they command salaries ranging from $40,000 to $60,000 for entry-level positions and $60,000 to $100,000 for mid-level positions.

Sadly, folks working for not-for-profit companies aren't going to make that much. "Non-profit organization salaries aren't as high; an entry-level carbon coach with a master's degree can expect a salary of $30,000 to $50,000." Well, it's for the children, though, right? Just like John Edwards' compassionate legal work for all of those poor children, right? It WAS for them, wasn't it? But then why did he take HALF of the rewards in legal fees? But I digress...

In another "What the crap?..." story, check out this headline from across the pond:

A British bus company has apologized to a girl who is led around on a leash by her boyfriend and describes herself as a human pet after one of its drivers threw her off a bus. Tasha Maltby, 19, told British newspapers she was the "pet" of her 25-year-old fiancé Dani Graves….

WHAT?!!! Yes, I read that right.

Maltby -- who lives on state benefits and got engaged in November -- said her choice of lifestyle might seem unusual but was harmless.

"I am a pet," she told the Daily Mail. "I generally act animal-like and I lead a really easy life. I don't cook or clean and I don't go anywhere without Dani. It might seem strange but it makes us both happy. It's my culture and my choice. It isn't hurting anyone."

Well, can't say that I could see that happening here... the very suggestion that a woman wear a leash would end up sending a fellow to the dentist for a new set of teeth with most of the women I know. People are weird.

So back to the UN article I was talking about earlier. I find it hilarious (in an infuriating sort of way) that the UN is backpedaling on its claim that bio-fuel will be the great messiah of our poor, little, carbon-polluted world.

...Regan Suzuki of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization acknowledged that biofuels are better for the environment than fossil fuels and boost energy security for many countries. However, she said those benefits must be weighed against the pitfalls — many of which are just now emerging as countries convert millions of acres to palm oil, sugar cane and other crops used to make biofuels.

...Foremost among the concerns is increased competition for agricultural land, which Suzuki warned has already caused a rise in corn prices in the United States and Mexico and could lead to food shortages in developing countries.

Is anyone besides me not surprised that no one stopped to think about the possible negative effects of this policy? Politicians never do. Just like the stupid bill that was passed by the geniuses in Washington that outlawed incandescent light bulbs - while favoring fluorescent bulbs that contain heavy metals and other serious toxins. I stopped needing someone to wipe my nose about 34 years ago, thank you very much.

Here's a shock for you: I am totally in favor of the development of alternative / renewable fuel sources. I suspect that I just surprised some of my more loyal readers with that statement. Why am I in favor of the development of alternative fuels and new technologies? Do you think that it is because I am concerned one iota about global warming? NOT A CHANCE.

The reason that I support bio-fuel development is because (based on my own reading) it looks like a relatively small farm could produce enough ethanol to allow a family to cut its dependence on oil severely if not completely. I am sick of the oil companies and commodity traders and the local gas stations charging as much for their product as they can without starting a riot.

They know that there is no competition for their product. They have a captive market. Americans can't just stop driving cars. The public transportation infrastructure does not exist on a large scale and the structure of our communities is not conducive to public transportation. Big oil knows that they have us between a rock and a hard place. The development of bio-fuel technology gives me the chance to produce my own fuel and stick it to the man. Viva la revolucion!

Anyway, this new "concern" by the UN is a big smoke screen in my opinion. They are already looking for a graceful way to escape the corner they have put themselves in by buying into the Chicken Littles' dire predictions and drinking the loonies' Kool Aid. See, it will cost all of the big wheels in the UN too much profit if petroleum goes away. They can't have that, but in the meantime they will line their pockets with ummm, spend waste trillions of dollars (yes, Virginia, that is trillion with a "t") until everyone figures out that the sun still keeps coming up in the morning and realizes that all this climate change is a bunch of hooey. (Then they'll blame Al Gore for it all, but he'll shift the blame to President Bush somehow.)

Come QUICKLY, Lord Jesus!

Gideons Getting the Cold Shoulder In Many Hotels

It would seem that many hotels are giving the Gideons a taste of the religious discrimination displayed by Target Corporation against the Salvation Army.

According to an article that I read today HERE on the Presidential Prayer Team website:

(A) growing number of hotels are opting not to allow the placement of Gideon Bibles, according to an article in Newsweek magazine.

"In the rooms of Manhattan's trendy Soho Grand Hotel guests can enjoy an eclectic selection of underground music, iPod docking stations, flat-screen TVs and even the living company of a complimentary goldfish. But, alas, the word of God is nowhere to be found," the article begins.

Such hotels say society is evolving and a younger, hipper generation has no interest in the Bible. They also say they would have to cater to a variety of belief systems and could not single out Christianity.

Does anyone else smell horse manure? Or is it bull? Maybe it is chicken.... Come on, people, can you not come up with a better excuse than that?

I hope that if these "younger, hipper" guests have no interest in the Bible they have the good sense not to read it. And from what I have been reading, the clientèle isn't getting any younger.

And it isn't like these Bibles are costing the hotels anything. The Gideons put them there for free. Perhaps if the representatives of the other belief systems feel left out they might be willing to pony up some free literature like the Gideons do. The Mormons do it in the Marriott Hotels. And it isn't like there are all that many other belief systems out there with holy writings. You can double up the Jews and Christians - you wouldn't even need an extra book. That only leaves the Muslims, the Hindus and the Buddhists.

The hotels can't claim that there isn't enough room either. I have never been in a hotel room that didn't have an overabundance of drawers.

Sad to say it, but this is probably the best way to handle this situation: The next time that you are staying in a hotel, check to see if there is a Gideon Bible. If there isn't, call the front desk and ask to speak to the manager. Tell them you cannot find the Gideon Bible in your room. If they say that they don't allow that, then tell them that you will need to check out immediately and will expect a full refund because they are not respecting your needs as a guest. Conversely, if there is a Gideon Bible present, make sure to contact the manager and let him know just how much you appreciate them allowing the Gideons to place a Bible there. Make a really big deal out of it. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

I have heard dozens of stories about lives that were saved by Gideon Bibles in hotel rooms. It is short-sighted at best to prevent their placement. Why is it that everyone is threatened by a Bible? If you don't pick it up, it certainly has no chance of changing you. If you read it and don't believe it, it is merely words. And it isn't like lost folks would be giving anything up by believing the Bible anyway, because the basic message of the Bible is, "Hey, buddy, you're holding on to a sack of dog crap. Put that down so you can have a real treasure beyond your wildest dreams." Too often people prefer their bag of dog crap.

A Long Day Can Lead To Random Thoughts

It has been a pretty long day. I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep, so I went ahead and got up. It kind of reminds me of that old Army commercial that ran back in the 80's I think. The slogan said something like "Army. We get more done before 7:00 than most people do all day." Of course there is a reason for this - they got up a lot earlier than anyone else too!

I think that I have probably mentioned that I am helping with a church plant here in Salisbury. We got some negative news yesterday at church. One of our oversight committees has recommended that we pack up and call it quits. Fortunately I already knew about this before I got to church yesterday morning. Last night the majority of our core group met at the Pastor's house for a meal and to discuss the morning's news. I was very pleased that to a person everyone wanted to keep going. No one felt like we had finished our course here in this area.

Another committee was meeting tonight to discuss the recommendation of the first. The big difference is that this committee has the authority to act on their recommendation. One of the things that I did this morning was write a letter to the committee to let them know how I feel about the situation. Hopefully, we will have a positive outcome. I still haven't heard yet.

The rest of the day was spent pretty much working on tutorials and reading. There is so much information out there. I have all but finished the HTML tutorials and will be beginning CSS tutorials probably on Wednesday. After I have finished them I will take another swing at developing my website.

Tonight was Jazz Band practice. We were all off tonight. My guitar sounded pretty awful, but I am not sure if it was only because I was playing it. I think it needs a tension rod adjustment. It is really buzzy right now. I wish I knew a REALLY good luthier around here. When I used to live in Greensboro there was one who was very skilled and I was on his wait list, but never heard from him. (I have heard that one day he just shut things down, packed up, and moved out of town. Strange, but then that is the way those artistic types can be.) Still, I need to practice WAY more than I do right now - especially soloing.

I got to see a clip of one of Obama's speeches. That guy can speak - and he can work a crowd. Of course, so can John Edwards. The problem is that John Edwards is full of crap. Obama has bought into some pretty off-the-wall things like global warming. The thing is he is running this nice guy campaign. This is the same ploy that Edwards used to win the Senate seat in NC so long ago. It was just an act for him, and he used it to distract from his extreme left position on everything. I don't think that Obama is any different.

I have also moved deeper in Look Homeward, Angel. I am still of the opinion that Wolfe could write circles around Faulkner. There are some pretty tragic characters in the story. I always hate to watch a train wreck, but I am enjoying other elements of his style and his insights into Appalachian (Ap-puh-LATCH-un) culture. Though I have never lived there yet, that culture is very much a part of who I am. If I have anything to do with it I'll spend my last days there.

So there you go, the full gamut from religion to literature. Thanks for reading!

While You Are Shopping This Holiday Season...

Did you know that Sears supports the troops? You may not be aware of it, but Sears pays its active duty National Guard and Reserve employees the difference between their Sears salary and their military pay while they have been called up. They also maintain the employee benefits for these patriots. You can read about it at Snopes HERE. According to the article at Snopes they aren't the only ones who do this. HERE is a link to the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve website. They maintain a list of the other employers who maintain the same policy.

I am still on the warpath with Target stores over their ouster of the Salvation Army during the Christmas season. They won't be getting any of my money, but I will do whatever possible to spend some money at Sears. I hope you will too.

This One's Gonna Be Short

Perhaps you are wondering why I am posting at 3 in the morning. Me too. I was busy working on the website and, well, you know how those things go. I finally got to a stopping place a few minutes ago and foolishly went to check out the blogs. It's not quite an addiction, but I want to make sure everyone has something to read with the morning coffee.

This whole website thing has really bogged down. I think that the technical documentation for the software that I am trying to use was written by savant chimpanzees on a banana-induced fructose buzz. I am beyond frustrated.

I have at least figured out how to make parts of the web page in one program. The problem is I am having a hard time figuring out a couple of things: #1 Why isn't the FTP transfer working correctly? #2 Why can't the design program that I am using find an internet connection? #3 How do I make the CMS software talk to my design software? and #4 Why didn't I go ahead and check myself into Broughton when I came up with this hair-brained scheme? Those are the basic questions as of now. I have loaded Joomla and a couple other programs on the server that I think will be of use, but I have no road map and, frankly, I may be trying to drive to Hawaii.

I think I am going to try to bribe all of my developer friends with pizza and beer - or if they're not into that, whole milk and Little Debbies! Heck, I might even go so far as to offer all four! Maybe not all at once, though. Ewww.

Good Progress

I have made very good progress on my web design project today. I finally have a layout that I am pleased with and will be putting the finishing touches on it tomorrow before I start showing it around some to get others' opinions. There is still much work to be done on it - like making the buttons work, finding the html widgets that I want, and actually publishing it to the site, but I am pleased that I seem to be learning the software at a reasonable pace. I am tired of sitting at the computer, but I am simultaneously pleased with the achieved result. I'm sure that I will be sharing it with you soon.

I have just completed 1776 by David McCullough. I've had it on my "to be read" list for over a year now and finally dove in. It wasn't quite the riveting read that I expected, but was good nonetheless.

I realized quickly how little I actually know about the the Revolutionary War. As a young boy (before I was 7 years old) I had a great interest in the stories about this war, most likely spurred on by re-runs of Daniel Boone. (No, I'm not quite old enough to have seen them first run.) Unfortunately, history books written about the Revolution at an elementary school reading level were pretty hard to come by back then. I doubt it is any different now. How many 7-year-olds are interested in Revolutionary history? I suppose a bit of my interest was also driven by the fact that I was 7-years-old in 1976.

One of the things that struck me as I read was that the British weren't the baby-eating demons that I had imagined them to be (at least not during the period of the war covered by the book - although there was mention of a number of atrocities carried out.) At times their generosity and concern for the well-being of "the colonies" was not unlike our own concern for those that our armies have encountered. The main fault of the British seemed to be their arrogance.

I was also struck by some of the similarities that I saw between America at the time of the Revolution and America today. The British were arrogantly secure in their belief that as the world's greatest superpower they couldn't be beaten by a ragamuffin army like the one fielded by America. They were wrong. There is no doubt in my mind that our military is the greatest on the earth, but we would do well to learn from the lesson we taught the British when they were in a similar situation.

Another similarity is that America was as greatly divided then as it is today. There were major fundamental differences between the Tories (or Loyalists) viewed things and the way that the Patriots (or Rebels) viewed things - Conservative versus Radical all over again. The only difference I would suggest is that the conservatives are on the right side this time. (I dare say they believed that they were on the right side that time!)

Politics was just as convoluted then as it is now. Nobody seemed capable to get anything done in Congress. We KNOW that hasn't changed.

Finally there was also the general apathy of the populace towards victory or defeat. The future lay in the hands of a handful of soldiers - some as young as 14. One quote by Colonel William Tudor about Washington struck me particularly. To his wife he wrote:

I cannot desert a man (and it would certainly be desertion in a court of honor) who has deserted everything to defend his country, and whose chief misfortune, among ten thousand others, is that a large part of it wants spirit to defend itself.

My, my, my, how history does repeat itself. His condemnation could have been written of the defeatists in the Congress, on the campaign trail, and in the media this year, self-serving cowards that they are. It is truly a shame that history is so neglected in our schools (and culture) today, and it is sad that so few realize the dear price payed for our liberties today.

God bless our troops and God bless America. Honor the veterans that you know this weekend.