Sony PSP 2000 – Piano Black   $155
Used about 1 hour till I confiscated it from him.  In excellent
condition.  Comes with opened box, battery, and power charger.
http://www.amazon.com/PSP-2000-Console-Piano-Black-Sony/dp/B000UA0LXQ/

God of War  – Chains of Olympus – for Sony PSP   $28
New in sealed box.  Never used or opened.
http://www.amazon.com/God-War-Chains-Olympus-Sony-PSP/dp/B000R3BN4M

Email me if you’re interested in either of these items.

Every once in a while I get a creative cooking itch that I just have to scratch.  Recently those itches have involved rice and cheese.  Tonight I wanted to explore what I could do to use up some eggs that had been in the fridge for a while.

As I explored the cupboards I imagined an egg and rice hash that had a bit of kick to it.  After exploring some recipes for ideas I began to create my new IlliMex Egg Hash.

INGREDIENTS:

• 7 eggs
• 1 cup of milk
• 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
• 3 cups of cooked rice (brown or white)
• black pepper
• 1 15oz can of corn, drained
• 1 7oz can of green salsa verde
• 1 16oz can of diced tomatoes, drained
• 2 cups of grated cheese

DIRECTIONS:

1. Blend the eggs, milk, and Worcestershire sauce in a small bowl.  Then cook the egg mixture as scrambled eggs in a large skillet over medium heat.
2. Add the cooked rice and a drained can of corn to the cooked egg mixture.  Add black pepper to taste.  Brown the hash mixture for about 10 minutes over high heat.
3. Once the hash has slightly browned, mix in the salsa verde and diced tomatoes.  Simmer for about 5 minutes over medium heat.
4. Top with shredded cheese and let sit for 10-15 minutes before serving.
5. Serve over toast.

Serves 4 people.

OPTIONS TO CHANGE IT UP:

• Try hash browns instead of rice.
• Use traditional salsa or picante instead of the salsa verde and diced tomatoes.
• Add some ham or sausage to the hash mixture.
• Add onions or green peppers to the hash.
• Add some Tabasco sauce for a bit more kick.

Let me know if you try this off the cuff little hash recipe. Or shoot me ideas of ways to improve it. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

A month ago I was also remembering how I’d signed up for the Navy ROTC program when I was a college freshman.  I’d initially applied for NROTC for the tuition scholarship that came with the program.  But, I ended up getting another full scholarship that didn’t require me to sign over my life after college.  So, after the first 2 weeks of college and NROTC, I began to question why I was still in NROTC and ended up dropping out of it before I had any commitment to our US military.

While ‘signing over’ a few years of your life to a trucking company or to the military might not sound like your cup of tea, I think either experience could have been good for me.  I’m sure my life would have been both better and worse from either experience and I’d likely be in a whole different situation, better or worse, than I am now.

I really like where I am now.  It’s not perfect, but it’s good and God has definitely worked some big stuff in my life over the past few years.  I don’t regret any of the big life-choices I’ve made, but I sometimes just wonder how things might have been different.

God, thanks for leading me along my life’s journey.  Often times life’s choices are hard and unclear, but you are willing to offer us guidance and wisdom about such decisions.  Thanks so much for your guidance in my life.  I can’t wait to see what lies ahead along our path!

On that Monday and Tuesday I served in a temporary data center for a 6,000 person shelter that had been setup at the River Centre in Baton Rouge, LA.  As a computer guru and web application developer, I knew that a few technology tweaks could make this data processing much more useful.  It was frustrating to be there and know that something better could be done.

Then on the drive back to Illinois on Wednesday, we were listening to a Steel on Steel podcast and they were talking about how technology could possibly solve our oil shortage.  I was like, “Yeah… technology can solve any problem.”

Then, suddenly, I realized what I was saying.  I really did tend to think that technology can fix any problem.  Technology is amazing.  It can solve starvation, resource scarcity, data analysis, recovery from natural disasters, etc.  It can literally save people.  Or can it?   Can technology fix all our problems?  I sure tend to think it can if we can just wrap our minds around a solution.

I realized that much of the time I look to technology to fix us, instead of God.  The world’s core problems can only be solved by God.  My deepest problems can only be made right by God’s miraculous touch.

If I don’t watch myself, I start to worship technology, rather than the one who created order to our world and gave us the left and right parts of our brains in order to develop and apply technology to our worlds.

Lord, help me to rely only on you and realize daily that technology is something you created for us to use to glorify you.

How do you tend to worship technology?  What else do you worship instead of God?  Politics?  Wealth?

But, tonight I was reminded of a huge thing I learned during Labor Day weekend in 2005.  That was the weekend following disaster in the Gulf Coast, known as Hurricane Katrina.  As I was thinking about this one lesson that I learned that particular weekend, I realized that there were some other lessons I learned that weekend.  And each of these were really huge, significant lessons that have shaped my life since then.

So, this is an introduction to 5 key lessons that I learned from the weekend after Hurricane Katrina.  Read about my 5 lessons here over the next few days:

1. Techno Savior
2. A Little Less Action, and a Lot More Talk
3. Pray Tell What?
4. It’s Safer Driving from the Back Seat
5. Shouldn’t This Be Less Fun?

One of the habits that I want to develop is documenting my life lessons and glimpses of when I’m certain God showed me something.  These lessons from this one weekend are just that.

How do you remember when you learn a life lesson?  How far after an experience do you typically need to be to understand what that experience has taught you?

I think it turned out OK, but I think I can do a better job next time now that I’ve got some experience with it. One thing I learned is that I really do need some better hair clippers than what I used. It was really hard getting the hair even with my cheap clippers that are designed mostly for facial hair.

I was using this hair style as a guide and I think it came out close. I’d rather cut my hair like Matt Damon or Paul Walker, but I don’t think that’s possible with my receding hair line.

Let me know if you have any haircutting or styling advice for me. I think I can improve on this next time.

So, last night I headed over to the church tech booth to hook up the HDTV receiver and make sure everything was working fine for Sunday.  Everything looked like it was going great till I tried to tune into FOX.  “Huh, the HD signal from FOX must be weak here.” So, I tried to tune it in on an old fashion VCR.  “Uh oh. No signal at all!”

Well, hopefully it’s just an issue with the antennas up on the roof and they just need to be reaimed slightly.  Unfortunately there’s about 8 inches of snow up there.

I wonder if I could convince a roomful of football fanatics to watch the Biggest Loser instead of some silly football game. 

As the traffic started to flow I saw this guy start thrusting his fist into the air and pumping it down. It caught me off guard for a second till I noticed the semi truck traveling toward him. This guy was so excited to see the semi and it was going to make his morning if this semi driver would blast his air horn. I started to feel sorry for the guy as the semi began to pass quietly, but then at the last second the driver let out a short horn blast. The man on the corner had a huge grin on his face as the semi rolled away.

That got me thinking about why I don’t get noticeably excited by life very often. Why don’t I find joy in the simpler things of daily life?

It’s easy to look at people like this guy on the corner and feel sorry for them, but we can learn about joy from them. I think one secret to the joy I see in people like this is simply their innocence or lack of what I’d call more worldly concerns. They’re not focused at impressing people, climbing the corporate ladder, or ashamed of their failures. They’re authentic. I want to live my life more like this!

How about you? What robs you of joy in your life?

It actually started over a year ago. In October 2006 God really started challenging my faith and belief.

“Bill, if you believe that faith in Jesus is key to people finding hope, forgiveness and eternal life, why don’t you seem to care? Why don’t you care about people? People who are far from God? People you work with? People from church? Family? Bill, what have I called you to? Didn’t I say love me and love the people around you? I didn’t call you to some other mission.”

I never heard an audible voice or anything, but God started putting that burden on my heart last fall.

So, life lesson number 1: Relationships matter everything. God’s core desire for us is to know Him and share our lives with people around us (see: Greatest Commandment). If those relationships aren’t at the core of what I’m doing, I’m not really in the game. This wasn’t really new to me, but the newness was an understanding and appreciation that God sets this as the top priority.

So, in October 2006 I started to move toward investing in relationships as a core focus. There are times when I’ve gotten off track and sat on the bench, forgetting how to play the game, but this new passion for relationships has been the basis for making the past year incredible. You’ll hear about some of these new relationships in future parts of this post.

What about you? Do you really let the value of relationships be the top priority in your life?

Do you have any advice for keeping this a core focus in your life?

Our Deepest Fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

by Marianne Williamson
from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles

This poem struck a chord with me when I heard it. After looking up Marianne Williamson online, I’m pretty sure I don’t agree with her on a lot of her philosophy and theology. But still, I like this poem.

What do you think? Do we often play small instead of shining like the stars?

That was until this evening. I just completed one of the most tantalizing beverages that I’ve ever experienced. Who could have imagined that a Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha could have captured my tastebuds and provided an almost euphoric reaction? WOW! My life has changed.

Excuse me, but I have to run back to Starbucks for a couple more Tall Peppermint White Chocolate Mochas.

Which of the following license plates do you think fit me best?

Yesterday I had an idea to simplify this task. I setup a new Twitter account specifically for this task. Then I downloaded a Twitter client and setup a cron entry to automatically open the twitter client every 15 minutes throughout my work day. So now documenting my work day is pretty unobtrusive. And if my coworkers ever want a glimpse of what I’m up to, they can simply subscribe to my Twitter feed.

I’ve been auditing my work time in a similar manner for the past couple of weeks and have found this extremely valuable. I’m finding 4 main benefits:

1. I feel pressured to be more productive so I actually have something to include in my entries. It’s a kind of accountability.
2. I can quickly review my week so that preparing status reports for management is easier.
3. I’m seeing areas where I get bogged down and am unproductive, as well as times of day that I’m simply wasting time or goofing off.
4. I have a historical log so that I can diagnose issues down the road. Lots of times we’ll see where one of our systems started having problems on a certain date or time; and now it’s easier to recall what might have changed during that particular time frame.

Have you ever found it useful to track your work and time in this much detail?

Do you have any other creative uses for Twitter.com?

Will Eugene Glick
born November 3, 2007 at 7:31p
weighed 7.13 lbs and 20″
parents: Chad & Denise Glick

Kinsey Grace Jarrett
Born November 6, 2007 at 9:55a
8 lbs., 20 1/2 inches
parents: David & Kristin Jarrett

Effingham, IL

• height: 198 ft
• built: 2001
• satellite map

Groom, TX

• height: 190 ft
• built: 1995
• satellite map
• some cool photos

Edmond, OK

• height: 163 ft
• built: 1996
• map and details
• satellite map
• This is at one of the LifeChurch.tv campuses that my church is networked with.

Castro Valley, CA

• 3 Crosses, side by side
• height: 100ft
• satellite map

And for a little context, the tallest cross in the world…
Valle de los Caídos

• near Madrid, Spain
• height: 500 ft 152.4-meters)
• built: 1940-1959

Have you seen any of these in person OR do you know of other huge crosses like this?

Coming next… Colossal Statues of Jesus. (not really)

I’ve been seeing a lot of news articles about the new Godcasting phenomenon (e.g. 1, 2, 3, & 4). While it’s not really that terribly new, people are slowly catching on to this cool new resource.

So, in light of the old profiles where you’d tell what is currently playing in your CD changer, I figured I’d tell you my current, favorite podcasts.

God Tech
God in Tech
Blogging Church
Mayberry Driven Church

Sermons/Messages
Grace Community Church
Seacoast Church
Ginghamsburg Church
Mosaic
Daybreak Church

Techie
Security Now
MacBreak (video)
Wired News Podcast
CNET News.com Daily News
This WEEK in TECH
NPR: Technology

Other
CNN News Update
NPR: 7AM ET News Summary
RevTim