I always thought this seemed like an idea you could potentially see someday, I found it interesting and wanted to share the link for those that don’t stumble upon tech articles very frequently.

ScienceDaily (June 8, 2009) — Not a plant to be seen, the desert ground is too dry. But the air contains water, and research scientists have found a way of obtaining drinking water from air humidity. The system is based completely on renewable energy and is therefore autonomous.  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090605091856.htm

I know that title seems to scream this can’t possibly be correct, a cheap financial app, and more importantly how can this possibly  help someones Journey?  In a “it’s hard to focus on the right stuff when you have financial issues blinding you” sort of way.  So the app helps by not only giving you peace (information) as to how and when you could pay your bills, but how an when could you pay them off.  Dave Ramsey espouses all sorts of great information about how important getting your debt paid off is, his methods were always just a bit to extreme for me, I wasn’t eager to get a second job.  But what he and several others say is true, having yourself in a position where you don’t have a large debt with or without heavy interest allows you to live in a better place, mentally and spiritually.  It frees you up to use your gifts and resources to their maximum, imagine what a big impact on how you financially give so the Lord’s work if you weren’t paying on all those debts.

In short, this little app (Sorry Mac only, maybe someone knows of a similar PC app) allows you to put in your incomes, your debts and your expenses and then it goes to work showing you what would happen if you scrimped a bit here, or picked up a few hours there, or just stopped blowing whatever extra cash you have.  Seeing what $300 - $500 or more a month could do to paying off your debts in a report or graph is inspiring.  You’ll need to do a bit of homework about your income, debts and expenses, but when your done you’ll get a budget out of the deal;  and a clear picture of what goes where and when to help pay off your debts.  So I know your thinking what is it already, its called “Debtinator” and it works pretty well, especially for the $29.99 price tag.  Go to Bassetsoftware.com and check it out, the developer is also very responsive to emails if you stumble upon a bug, which lucky me I did, and he had it fixed literally that day.  Below is the attention grabbing image about what paying off things early can accomplish from his website.  (Used temporarily without permission, hopefully I can remove this tomorrow )

WOW.

Before you continue my comments consider going to James Prathers Blog to read the entire article I’m referring to.

I believe that church became hollow when we (evangelicals) turned Christianity into an intellectual religion.  We boiled down the Gospel to its basics and started evangelizing by teaching people: (1) Jesus died for your sins.  (2) You must accept the gift of eternal salvation (though denominations vary as to how), and (3) You must walk in “newness of life,” which usually and unfortunately meant to most people generally being a good person (not lying, cheating, stealing, etc) and just showing up at church once or twice a week (or year).  Sometimes step 3 was left out altogether!  And so people were fed a Christianity where you merely had to accept salvation and then come to church and you were good with God.  That’s it.  And you know what?  People bought into it!  That’s how the evangelical movement grew to be the monstrosity it is today.  We preached an intellectual gospel - one that only requires an intellectual commitment, not one of the heart where you radically change your life in response to the incredible gift of salvation. ThinkHebrew Blog

I am stunned, your very right, we all do need to just return to the concept we see demonstrated throughout the new testament.  It is shown as a state of being that the apostles were in and yet sadly we did not pick up that portion.  We jumped to seeking to follow the crowds example of coming to listen to a sermon, rather than the disciples example of dropping everything and living to become just like our saviour.  What you’ve brought attention to is sadly something I am not even sure I am prepared to be able to attempt, not that I don’t want to, I just have to think about how I would go about it.

The lifestyle the modern christian lives within is so jumbled with outside obligations that actually being a real disciple would push out all the other items to the secondary.  That is completely backwards from how I fear I am living my life, I want to think I am first for Christ, but I fear I am first for John.  American Idol would not live up to it’s name in my life and I would first seek to know and understand more my saviour.  We are taught balance is important in business, that we need to keep things equal and never focus too much on one thing to the detriment of another.  Yet I think we may all be balancing our way to Hell.  I am going to have to think on this some, I hope to respond further later.  In the mean time, very good job pointing out the nose on my face, Its been there but I have been overlooking it.

Eee PC 1000H

I get asked quite frequently what machine would I suggest someone get for themselves or often a loved one. I am always torn because if they had the cash i would always recommend a mac. they are easy to learn to use and do almost anything a Windows box can do. Everything if you’re willing to run windows on your mac inside vmware or parralells.

But what do I tell them if they don’t have $1000 burning a hole in their pocket?  in the past i just kind of hem hawed and said I don’t know if you don’t want a Mac.  But what about using their existing PC if it is less than 5 years old with a copy of Ubuntu Linux. Or if they want a small light weight laptop they could get what I just got for around $325, an ASUS Eee PC 1000H.

So I got it on Saturday of last week, and it did take me a bit of effort to get Ubuntu on it just the way I wanted and some of you may say, “Your a computer guy I could never do that” and perhaps your right.  the unit does come with XP home edition if you just can’t stand the idea of a little research, or asking a friend.  But in my case I found that if you have access to a windows pc that can get to the web, a 1 GB USB thumb drive, and a little patience you can have a Netbook just like mine.  I’ll post helpfull links at the bottom shortly. Read the rest of this entry »

Well i’m still going to post here as well, but this is a dedicated weight loss blog for me @ BiggestLoserWannabe.com So what do you say John wanna lose some weight and try to get on the show?

A few of the photos from the vacation.  Have a look.

If you know me, your aware of my fascination with electronic books and my foray into that world with my Kindle experience.  I really liked the device but saw a financial opportunity to sell it for what I paid for it and took it.  I have been patiently waiting ever since for a way to read my kindle books on my mac or a newer kindle.  Who wants to buy the same one again, then I might as well not have sold it.  Plus I was and still am stymied by the hole battery life issue, it needs to not die when i want to read it, only when I am done… In any event if your at all interested John Siracusa over at Ars Technica has a great article on the history of the e-book industry ad his thoughts on where it may be going.

~ John

The once and future e-book: on reading in the digital age - Ars Technica

Well the vacation was wonderful, as hopefully most are. I was concerned about the weight I might gain, but unfortunately the food seems to be one area the cruises have cut back on.  Or I may have just gotten used to food being prepared well, which is a possibility here in the DFW area.  The food on the cruise wasn’t bad per se, but I only gained 2 lbs. from the week long adventure, so I guess it was a good thing.

Here’s a teaser photo from the trip.

I really enjoyed the time I spent with my wife, and got some fun photos along the way.   I also learned to play gin rummy, at first I must have been doing something wrong, because I lost almost every game. I suppose always waiting for that perfect card to complete my hand was a bad strategy.  By the end of the week we were pretty evenly matched, and it’s now a card game I actually like to play.  Historically I am more of a domino fellow, say 42 and my ears perk right up. I’m not great at 42, I’ll try and keep up with you if your really good, and I just don’t play enough now to get great.  But as far as cards go spades was really the only card game I was pretty good at, and liked.  Check back and I will post the rules of a odd Turkish game we learned from a waiter on board I call “Turkish 52″, no it’s not 52 card pickup.

So it’s time to continue my journey toward a better more healthy weight, from the vacation I really walked my feet off so I want to find a way to continue that.  Improving my choices on my quantity I believe is another huge step, but keeping it present in my thoughts will also help.  There’s another point of my life I want to try and tie to my weight journey and that is my prayer life.  I’m beginning to look for inspiration in the scripture along these lines so if you have anything, post it in the comments.  The fact my body is a temple is a given, I’m just starting renovations.

~ John

First i’d like to thank my brother John for giving me the opportunity to share this forum with him in an attempt to encourage one another to make the necessary changes to lose weight.  A little bit about me, i’m Johns younger brother and have always enjoyed a fun bit of competitive spirit between the two of us.

I was at my heaviest back in October 2006 and at the time was hospitalized due to an infection known as MSRA or mersa as the media refers to it in my right calf.  The doctor said it was due to an infection in my leg that had gotten out of control because of my lack of activity and weight.  She said my lack of activity caused the lymphatic system to not circulate the infection for my immune system to be able to successfully battle it and I only had one choice to lose weight or die.  The thought of widowing my wife and leaving a six, four, and three year old without a father made it a very real motivator. 

I went on to lose close to a hundred pounds, quit my job of six years and start a non-profit dedicated to educate parents of overweight children make the necessary changes to lose weight and lead healthier lives.  What I learned from this is that I did not have the necessary skill set to run a non-profit and was trying to accomplish five years work in six months.   Ultimately due to poor planning and not having a clear road map after five months I had exhausted our financial resources and realized I didn’t have the educational background necessary to be a credible expert in the field of weight loss for children.  This set back caused me to stop working out and eventually put all but two pounds back on.  Anyway enough about that I won’t bore you with anymore details right now, more to come….

Have you ever had your hopes set for a certain level of something. You say to yourself, I can weigh X but please don’t let me weigh Y when I get on this new scale. Well it wasn’t a full on Z but it was over the Y I had held out hope for. So I am going to say to get to what I would consider a milestone for me is to lose 15 lbs, That would get me back under the magic Y major number. Believe me my Y number would be most peoples Z number or more for sure, but everyone needs to start somewhere. Now I am not starting this weight right sizing effort at a particularly easy point as I am about to go on vacation, but I hope to be very active on my vacation and come back not to far above where I am now.

Hope is a funny word, too frequently we use it even when we are pretty sure something is not going to happen. I hear us say frequently my hope is based on Jesus, or rests in Jesus, surely this isn’t the same hope we mean when we talk about our weight like I just did or about our favorite team winning. Is there a better word I should be using? Because I am sure my hope does rest in my relationship to Jesus, and through him to the forgiveness of my sins, but i need another word for trying not to go overboard on vacation.