I began saving my tweets in my blog on a daily basis so I can search for them later.  This is an example of my crippling perfectionism.

The biggest news in my tweets was the announcement of baby #4.

Family

• What your baby looks like — 13 weeks | BabyCenter. http://bit.ly/scshw Sep 21 15:25:09
• And then there were four | Secret Asian Man. http://bit.ly/3oevSl Sep 21 15:26:13

Christianity

• Missionary Photography in Korea. Encountering the West through Christianity. Boston University Art Gallery. Check it out http://bit.ly/sNHXG Sep 22 15:32:53
• The Nones – Marches. 22% of younger Americans no religion. Reasons – sex abuse, intellectual collapse, Christian right. http://bit.ly/wF91F Sep 23 07:20:25
• Personal Reflections on Power and Privilege @ News from the Marches. I loved this post and encourage you to read it. http://bit.ly/3AOkTz Sep 27 07:28:13

Education

• Confessions of a home-schooler | Salon Life. It’s nice to read the father’s perspective. Recommend. http://bit.ly/1iywmp Oct 1 12:30:37

Society

• In Surprise, Nobel Peace Prize to Obama for Diplomacy. I love Obama but this illustrates the Nobel Peace Prize is becoming increasingly irrelevant. http://bit.ly/9qzsC Oct 9 08:15:16 
• In South Korea, an Effort to Defend Unwed Mothers – NYTimes.com. Nearly 96% of unwed pregnant women choose abortion. http://bit.ly/b2ShG Oct 12 09:13:05

Food

• Blood and Chocolate : gourmet.com. Buy Divine Chocolate, Equal Exchange, and Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates. http://bit.ly/2N9BBU Sep 23 10:43:39
• Asian Cuisine as Diverse as Vancouver – Frugal Traveler Blog – NYTimes.com. Sounds almost as good as Toronto. http://bit.ly/Wja6x Sep 25 08:33:27

Sports

• Be like Michael Jordan? No thanks – Rick Reilly – ESPN. More people are roasting MJ than MJ did during his HOF speech. http://bit.ly/48nDed Sep 23 07:40:32
• The Secret of the Dancing Boxes Revealed – Pogue – NYTimes.com. Fun article about Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies. http://bit.ly/3unzTe Sep 30 06:20:08
• In the NHL, we’re all winners – ESPN. The Maple Leafs lost their first game of the season but still got a point, OTL. http://bit.ly/19Zl64 Oct 2 06:38:27
• Toronto Blue Jays fire general manager J.P. Ricciardi – ESPN. It’s about time! I am willing to be the next GM. http://bit.ly/2J70YX Oct 3 13:34:09
• As a loyal Blue Jays fan all I can say is "Lose Tigers Lose!" Sorry Erick but I still remember the rivalry from the 80′s. Oct 4 02:40:08
• ESPN experts: Who’s going to win? – MLB – ESPN. Why won’t I watch the MLB Playoffs? Because the Yankees are going to win http://bit.ly/RytkY Oct 6 06:42:34
• ESPN 30 for 30. Love Wayne Gretzky. Hoping to see it tonight. http://bit.ly/3ZaCrc Oct 7 07:06:09
• Prediction: Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, Dodgers. Formula: Run differential. http://bit.ly/2sWQ7Q Oct 8 06:42:10
• Kings Ransom. Not great, not bad. Peter Pocklington bad. Nothing really revealing except that Gretzky could have said no to the trade. Oct 8 06:44:48
• Choo Shin-soo Becomes 1st Asian in MLB with 20-20 Season – The Chosun Ilbo. I’ve heard for awhile how good Choo is. http://bit.ly/drpIf Oct 8 10:57:41

Technology

• Seth’s Blog: Things to ask before you redo your website. I am often asked to be part of redesigns. This list is great! http://bit.ly/1PLRbR Sep 24 08:52:22
• “Up” Keyboard Shortcut for Windows 7 or Vista Explorer :: the How-To Geek. This makes my life easier. http://bit.ly/Nx7fY Oct 6 06:38:32
• LeechBlock :: Add-ons for Firefox. LeechBlock is a simple productivity tool designed to block those time-wasting sites. http://bit.ly/l2bRo Oct 8 07:22:17

Tags: blue jays,firefox,homeschooling,south korea,toronto,tweets,windows
Categories: Miscellaneous
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August 2, 2009
Speaker: Pastor Gregory Bishop
Series: Lead/Feed/Intercede
Passages: Mark 6:30-44

(Photo: 5 Loaves and 2 fish_0905 by hoyasmeg)

Pastor Gregory Bishop is from León de Judá in Boston and a graduate of Gordon-Conwell.  We actually are good friends with a friend of his, only two degrees of separation.  He preached about the famous Jesus feeds the five thousand passage and you can hear the sermon here.

The disciples had gone out on a mission trip, driving out demons and healing the sick.  Now after giving and ministering they might be feeling depleted.  They want to go back to their mentor, Jesus, to process what they experienced.

Now a bombshell has dropped.  John the Baptist has been executed.

Jesus saw the crowd that had followed him and the disciples and he had compassion on them.  John the Baptist is gone.  The people are hungry.  Jesus asks the disciples to feed them.

The disciples calculate how much it would cost and say it’ll take eight months of wages to pay them.  The disciples are focusing on what they don’t have.  Jesus tells them to find what they do have, lift it up to the Lord and see what happens.  The disciples are way out of their comfort zone.

For the Jews listening to this story they would have a flashback to the manna in the desert.  Numbers 11:4-23.  “Is the LORD’s arm too short?  You will now see whether or not what I say will come true for you.”

“Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass.” Mark 6:39

“He makes me lie down in green pastures” Psalm 23:2a

In college Pastor Gregory Bishop worked as a security guard.  He wanted to improve his high school Spanish so he would talk to the Latino workers.  One day he noticed one person, Diego, always ate alone.  He looked like the type of guy who was up to no good but he decided to try to meet him.

One lunch time he went up to Diego and asked him if he could sit with him.  Diego asked him if he was a Christian and asked if he could go to his church.  Gregory ended up taking Diego to a Hispanic church.  It turned out Diego was indeed up to no good and was leading a cocaine cartel.  But in prison he became Christian!

Fed to feed.

At the end the disciples picked up all the leftovers.  If this was a typical church gathering much of the food would have been thrown away.  What did the disciples do with it?  They picked up twelve baskets, one for each disciple.

We will shepherd.

Reign in Us – Starfield

Stand – Hillsong

You’ll Come – Hillsong

Tags: grx
Categories: Sermons
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This is from Pastor Greg Boyd’s blog. I added in links to all the Scripture references.

Your Identity In Christ

In response to one of my messages I told some folks I’d post a sampling I have of what the Bible says about our identity in Christ, so here it is. I encourage you to take each truth on this list and not only SAY it throughout the day, but SEE it and HEAR it and LIVE IN it.  Be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rom. 12:2).

In Christ you are …

• God’s beloved child (Jn 1:12; Eph 1:5)
• Christ’s dear friend (Jn 15:5)
• Declared perfectly righteous (“justified”) (Rom 5:1)
• Free from condemnation (Rom 8:1; Col 2:14-16)
• United with Christ, “one spirit” with Christ (I Cor 6:17; Eph 5:31)
• A member of Christ’s body (I Cor 6:15, 12:27)
• The Temple of God (I Cor 6:19)
• Filled with the “fullness of God” (Eph 3:19)
• A “holy one” [saint] (Eph 1:1)
• Blessed with every spiritual blessing (Eph 1:3)
• Holy and blameless (Eph 1:4)
• Bought with an infinite price and forgiven (I Cor 6: 20; Eph 1:7; Col 1:14)
• Bathed with wisdom and understanding (Eph 1:8)
• The recipient of an eternal, infinitely rich, inheritance (Eph 1:11, 18)
• Possessed with the mind of Christ (I Cor 2:16)
• Inseparable from God’s love (Rom 8:35-39)
• One who will NEVER be abandoned (Mt 28:20)
• The beautiful bride of Christ who “ravishes” the heart of God (Song of Songs, 4:1ff; 6:4ff).
• One over whom the Lord rejoices, sings and claps his hands (Zeph 3:17)
• One for whom the Lord throws a party (Zeph 3:17; Lk 15:7-10)
• A recipient of God’s own peace (Jn 14:27)
• Filled with the peace and joy of God (Rom 14:17)
• One in whom Christ’s joy is fulfilled (Jn 15:11)
• Given direct access to the Father by the Holy Spirit (Eph 2:18)
• Seated with Christ in heavenly realms (Eph 2:6)
• Seated “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” with Christ (Eph 1:21).
• Hid in Christ in heavenly realms (Col 3:1-5)
• Crucified, Buried and Raised with Christ (Rom 6:1-11)
• Made perfect forever (Heb 10:14)
• Made complete in Christ (Col 2:10)
• Indwelled by a fearless Spirit (2 Tim 1:7)
• One of God’s precious works of art (Eph 2:10)
• Indwelt by a spirit of power, love and stability (2 Tim 1:7)
• A citizen of heaven (Phil 3:20)
• Predestined to look like Jesus and see him in his glory (Rom 8:29; I Jn 3:1-5)
• One in whom God is working to bring good out of evil (Rom 8:28)
• Salt of the earth (Mt 5:13)
• A branch chosen to bear fruit (Jn 15:16)
• A co-worker with God (I Cor 3:9)
• An ambassador of Christ and minister of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:17-20)
• A priest of the most high God (I Pet 2:5-9)
• More than a conqueror in all things (Rom 8:37)
• One who knows Satan is a disarmed laughing stock (Col 2:14-15).
• One who knows the truth and is set free (Jn 8:32).
• One who can do all things in Christ (Phil 4:13)

I encourage you to reprogram your mind meditating on these truths.  Further help on being transformed by the mind can be found in Seeing Is Believing and (with Al Larsen) Escaping the Matrix.

Be Blessed !

Maybe I should try memorizing some of these verses.  Want to join me in memorizing them?

Tags: bible,greg boyd
Categories: Studies
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David Batsone of Not For Sale gave a sermon on June 14, 2009.  I found it to be one of the more inspiring sermons I have heard.  I want to be faithful and take small steps as David encouraged us to do and see where God leads.  Following are my notes from the sermon.

Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.
1 Peter 4:10

We don’t have to obsess about “What will we do with our lives?”  God is always bringing us opportunities.  It’s just about how we respond.  God honors small steps.

¹⁴ But you, O God, do see trouble and grief;
       you consider it to take it in hand.
       The victim commits himself to you;
       you are the helper of the fatherless.

¹⁵ Break the arm of the wicked and evil man;
       call him to account for his wickedness
       that would not be found out.

¹⁶ The LORD is King for ever and ever;
       the nations will perish from his land.

¹⁷ You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted;
       you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,

¹⁸ defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
       in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.

Psalm 10

We help those who don’t have access to justice.

Vocation – where does our passions and skills meet the needs of the world?  Jesus said “restore sight to the blind” because we lost sight of who we are.

Prayer is key to our life.  Reading Scripture to prepare ourselves.

“But there are so many choices.”  God is not bringing you those choices.  God already has a plan.

Veronica’s House in Peru.  Victoria came to Not For Sale asking for help but they didn’t have a shelter ready yet and asked her to check in with them every two days.  Victoria was strangled to death by a john.  The house was named after her to remind them about their purpose.

We follow a living God that has given us (gifts) … .  And we are open servants.
David Batsone, Not For Sale

Tags: grx,not for sale
Categories: Sermons
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It was a nice Friday summer morning.  Victoria and I were alone so I thought I would take her out.

First we went to the neighborhood bank.  The parking lot is always crowded but this morning it was worse because an SUV was parked with half its body sticking out into the center lane.  As I maneuvered around the SUV I wondered why the driver parked the way he did.  A few minutes later though I did almost as poor of a parking job.

After I got out of the minivan I realized how much it was sticking out  I had already taken Victoria out of her car seat and was enjoying holding her.  Instead of putting her back in her car seat I got into the driver’s seat with Victoria on my lap.  I had Victoria hold the steering wheel and then I drove the minivan forward a few more feet.

When I got out of the minivan I saw an elderly lady staring at me with a most peculiar expression.  I said hello but she just kept staring at me.  At first I was puzzled why she was looking at me until I realized she probably thought I drove the whole time like that with Victoria.

I thought of explaining to her what had happened but decided it probably wasn’t necessary.  I’m just glad she didn’t call the police.

Tags: Victoria
Categories: Victoria
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The other day at a friend’s house I could not get onto their wireless network.  The MacBook and iPhone were connecting without problems so I finally Googled for “windows is unable to connect to the selected network.”  The first link on Google’s search results led to a very helpful page titled “Windows is unable to connect to the selected network.”

It turns out that Windows has a bug where it assumes that all the wireless access points it detects use open authentication.  For some reason my friend’s router was using shared authentication.

To solve this problem I did the following.

1. Double-click on the wireless icon   in the windows system tray (normally in the bottom right hand corner).  A Wireless Network Connection Status window will pop up.
2. Click on the Properties button in the Wireless Network Connection Status window.  A Wireless Network Connection Properties window will pop up.
3. Click on the Wireless Networks tab in the Wireless Network Connection Properties window.
4. Click on the Add… button to enter in the information about the wireless network with the shared authentication.  A Wireless network properties window will pop up.
   1. Enter the Network Name (SSID).  This is the name of the network you tried to connect to before getting the message that Windows cannot connect.
   2. Set the Network Authentication to Shared.
   3. Uncheck the box that says “The key is provided for me automatically.”
   4. If there is a key enter it in the Network Key and Confirm Network Key boxes.
   5. Press the OK button.
5. Now either Windows will automatically connect to this newly configured wireless network or you can rescan and connect manually.

The above steps should work.  It worked for my laptop and the Windows laptop of the owner of this wireless network.

Tags: windows,wireless
Categories: Hardware
1 Comment »

Almost one month ago, July 12, I saw an ad on Facebook for a temporary part-time web developer position at the International Justice Mission (IJM).  Though I was in the midst of getting a contract I still decided to apply because I admire IJM so much and wanted to build a relationship with them.  I contacted them and asked if I could fulfill this position remotely from my home in California and they said yes and to please apply.

On July 23 I had a forty-five minute phone interview and at the end of the interview the recruiter said hope your phone call with Brian Cress goes well.  I said “Who is Brian Cress?” and the recruiter said “Oh, forget I said anything.”  (By the way, I didn’t get the job.)

On July 27 Brian emailed me, introduced himself as the IJM West Coast Director of Development, said he was going to be in the Bay Area and wanted to connect with me.  We emailed and talked and I invited him to come to our home for dinner on Tuesday, August 4.

I asked Brian if he would like me to invite others and he said sure.  So I quickly invited via Evite over 50 people but I was not expecting many to show because of the short notice.  Later I realized people didn’t come because I set the start time at 5:30 PM.  One friend wrote me and said “who gets off work at 5:30 =)”.  A lesson learned for next time.

In the end a neighbor and her three children and a married couple we knew from Boston attended.  And the night was a roaring success.

Brian Cress is a large, friendly man who immediately disarms you with his engaging personality.  He is comfortable with everyone including the children.  For example Dylan enjoyed telling his array of silly jokes to Brian and Brian patiently listened to them all.

Because of his outgoing personality Brian ended up becoming the host for the evening and I think that is why everyone had a good time.  We first had dinner, mediocre Chinese food from a local restaurant.  I apologize Brian that the eggplant wasn’t palatable.  My wife ordered it because I’m a pseudo-vegetarian.

After dinner we watched a short three minute video about IJM which is on YouTube.

Next Brian did a quick PowerPoint presentation about IJM and then we watched a longer video about what IJM has been doing in India.  Everyone had a lot of questions and were really engaged.

During this time I often find myself saying “Thank God for IJM” when I saw videos of people being saved from bonded slavery, sex slavery, police abuse, etc.  IJM is awesome.

At the end of evening Brian gave everyone Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen, the founder and CEO of IJM.  I read the book a few years ago and reviewed it on my old blog.  Before I moved I gave it away and it’s nice to get another copy.  Maybe I should give away this book to whomever leaves in a comment for this post the most compelling reason to present it to him or her (and who lives nearby).

Brian also gave me Gary Haugen’s newest book, Just Courage .  I’m quite excited about getting this book and am hoping to read it soon and to review it here.

In the end I think everyone had a good time.  Even Dylan and Isaac had a great time playing with the kids from across the street.  Here’s a group photo from the end of the night.  The only ones missing are the neighbor’s kids who were still upstairs playing with the Legos.

Tags: international justice mission,youtube
Categories: Society
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Tonight I finished reading Scott McNulty’s book, Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read.  It’s a good book for beginners wanting to learn how to use WordPress.  But I think the title is misleading, it doesn’t teach how to write blog content that people want to read.

Something new I learned while reading this book was about the admin functionality to convert categories to tags or tags to categories.  Simply go to your Dashboard, go to Tools > Import and select Categories and Tags Converter.  The URL for converting categories to tags is /wp-admin/admin.php?import=wp-cat2tag and for converting tags to categories is /wp-admin/admin.php?import=wp-cat2tag&step=3.

I also learned about Steve DeGraeve’s Favicon Generator which seems somewhat useful.

Tags: wordpress
Categories: Web
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I have been using emoticons for awhile in my posts but I did not about the breadth of them until I read about them in Scott McNulty’s book, Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read.

Scott points to WordPress Codex’s helpful document, Using Smilies.  Now I know how to LOL.

You can also replace the emoticons with your own set by replacing the files in wp-includes/images/smilies. You just have to use the same file names.

Tags: wordpress
Categories: Web
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