I’ve never made a post like this before in my entire life. I am not even sure I should be making a post like this since I have never been a very religious man. Don’t get me wrong, I pray (when I remember to), I believe. I’ve just never been one to talk about two things…Politics and Religion. Not that I can’t, I just don’t want to…those two subjects never end in a peaceful manner…meaning someone always gets hurt or something.

I’ll just get right to the reasoning of this post. The other day I was sifting through some links I had in my Bookmarks. Places that I like to check out from time to time. Most of these are Technical in some way, (x)html, css, php, javascript, design, code, etc. I clicked on Joshua Blankenship, a site that I haven’t been to in a while…but have always liked his design and development work. I read up on what’s going on with him and his work and noticed that he had changed jobs…now working for NewSpring. I had never heard of this church…hence my comment above that I have never been a very religious man.

Let me change direction for a second. I do go to church when I can. I encourage my family to go to church when ever possible. I wished my wife and I could get to the church more often than we do! I just keep finding it harder and harder to manage my time for it. Work from 8/9am-6pm Monday thru Friday. Three kids to take care of once we get off work…homework, drill team, chores, friends, etc. Then by the time we get everything done, kids fed, cleaned up and tucked into bed, house picked up…it’s 10pm. Saturday rolls around and the process starts over…feed everyone, get Marla off to work, play with the kids, feed them lunch, play some more (or take them to some function that’s going on), take naps if tired, etc. Sunday is much the same except I have the pleasure to do all these wonderful things with my Wife at my side. The point of this paragraph is TIME.

In today’s Information Age…you can find anything you want on the Internet. What does this have to do with this post? Since I find it hard to find the time to do much outside of what it takes to take care of my family (mentioned above)…I can now find the church through podcasts and video…when I can find the time…on my time.

My boss invited our family to Life Church, a very nice and interactive church that has brought their technology up to date and broadcast all over the US via satellite campuses. They’ve modernized the way they conduct service. They’ve brought excitement and emotion into it. They’ve brought music and movement. I can watch a service over the internet from the comfort of my own home…or from any place I am at with an internet connection. They’ve made it fun and easy to be a Christian.

So back to the main reason for this post. Through Joshua’s website I found the link to his new job…NewSpring. I was curious. I went to the link. I looked around the site. I even downloaded some of their podcasts…

I was moved. I wanted to listen to more…so I went looking for every available podcast they had…set up iTunes to automatically download when they were available. I spent three days listening. When I ran out of stuff to listen to I went looking for more…something to read. I then found the main pastor of NewSpring website: Perry Noble. I read his blog, went back as far as two months worth of posts.

I know this post is all over the place…and very random. I know I probably shouldn’t make this post because it may not make sense to many people. But it makes sense to me. This is my way of telling all of you that I think I have begun to follow that path…

I guess they are having issues with some of their maps and flash banners…so Here’s a nice looking static banner. Remember! It’s this Saturday!

I didn’t get too many things off my 2007 Wish List…so hopefully this year I can! This have changed a bit…check out this running list:

• Toyota Tundra - Last year I wanted an IS350, things have changed and a Truck is a better option!
• MacBook Air and/or MacBook Pro - I do need a new computer so either one of these would be just fine!
• Go on a Vacation! We never got a ‘real’ honeymoon, and in the three years we have been together we have not been on a vacation that amounted to more than just a weekend. I want a WEEK (or more) LONG VACATION!
• Sony Playstation 3
• iPhone - Still gotta have it, just not as important this year.

There’s more, I’ll add them in time…keep your eyes out. Also, what’s on your wish list for this year? I’d love to read about them in the comments!

Not sure what I think or what to say about this at this point since I don’t make enough off either to worry. Heck, I don’t even have a high enough page rank right now for it to (a)effect me. Here’s some news you can read about this situation.

I’ve always been a member of Newsvine since it started a couple years ago. I thought it was a brilliant idea and wished I could have done something like that. Now look at them! They’ve grown to an outstanding size at a pace that blows most other news sites out of the water. You want up to the minute news on just about anything, you can go there, sign up, customize your own news area, and watch it all come streaming into your browser. Not only that, you can seed (get it? newsvine) any articles you want. And to top it all off, you can write your own columns/articles! How sweet is that! Now just about anybody can publish. Wait, is that a good or bad thing? I’ll let you decide, go check out what I have done over there so far. Nothing of my own, but I’ve created an area for Texas Tech (Newsvine) that’s so far just been mainly sports.

I’ve also taken out the Categories list below, and switched it to something I am toying with. I am mixing the newsvine site with my site, creating an always updated area for Texas Tech. I’ll eventually move this to my Texas Tech link, but for now this is a good way to test for future reuse. Just take a look below and you’ll see a list of items that you’ll see on the Texas Tech Newsvine site.