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.

2.009 is even lower than I predicted a month ago. I like it.

Sent from my phone.

We finally received our first of the new MacBooks at work today.  We’re considering making this our default, preferred laptop across the organization. So, I gave it a quick trial run for about 45 minutes.

First, how does this keyboard feel?  I think it’s a tad bit cramped.  The response of the keys is ok, but I feel like my pinkies are held in uncomfortably tight.

The screen seems fine to me.  Less real estate than I’m used to, but much easier to read than my 17″ high res screen.

The speaker response is very adequate.  A bit tinny, but fine for normal work use.

The track pad seems pretty natural - I forget I don’t have a button.

Sitting it on my lap, it feels too small for me.  But, I could get used to it.

The compact size and light weight make it nice for moving around the building easily.

The glossy screen is very nice when the display is set to bright.  But, if I’m trying to save power in a meeting by dimming the screen, the glare makes it hard to view.  But, again, I’d get used to it.

I plugged in the laptop to a projector in a conference room, and it worked exactly as my MBP does as far as connectivity.  Looked fine.

The entire machine just feels well made. While the keys look cheap, they work well. The screen is amazing and very rugged. All the metal and glass on the case feel awesome to the touch and yet extremely rugged.

The only problem I had with the MacBook is that my wireless internet seemed to be really slow. I’m not sure if that’s an issue of the MacBook or if we were having problems here at the office today.

Overall, I think it’s a great little laptop for typical users at our office. Some developers will still prefer the 17″ MBP, but it’s adequate for the majority of our Mac users.

For the past year and a half we’ve been lucky to have been lent a Leprecon LP-X24 lighting control console. This has been a really nice board, but now we’re needing to give it back to it’s owners who have another use for it. As we move forward with expanding into some intelligent lights in the coming year, I don’t really want to spend a ton of money on a new controller which could easily cost $3,500-$10,000. So, I’m exploring some options of replacing the controller on the extreme cheap.

So, we currently have 24 microplex channels and 5 DMX channels, all of which are non-intelligent lights (not moving or color changing). Adam Callender at Granger Community Church posted a while back about how they started into a High End Hog controller system by simply purchasing something like a HOG 3PC DMX Widget and controlling their lights using a spare computer running the HOG 3PC Software. This option appears to cost about $1200 $1,700 plus the cost of a computer. And presuming we went with a real HOG lighting console in the future, the DMX Widget would continue to be part of that.

But, then that got me to thinking, “Haven’t I seen some other cheap or free software for lighting controllers?”

Well, after a bit more searching online, it appears that we could purchase a lower end (no pun intended) USB DMX Interface for $151. This would let us drive a DMX universe using software like the following:

• MagicQ (windows, mac, or linux)
• StageConsole (windows)
• miniStageConsole (windows or mac)
• QLC (linux)

Below are two web sites that I found with some more details on cheap/free DMX control:

• http://www.chromakinetics.com/DMX/
• http://www.opendmx.net/

So… I’m looking for any input or experience with any of these cheap/free DMX options. At this entry price point, I’m just tempted to give several of them a try and see if they meet our needs. But, I’d love to get feedback from others who may have already gone down this path.

Several people I respect have expressed they are voting for Obama, but I still don’t get what they see in him.  Yes, there are several issues that I don’t agree with McCain or Palin on.  But, when it comes down to it, I’m deeply scared about Obama becoming our president.  I’ve struggled for months to understand Obama and I can’t find any peace about electing him.

Maybe I’m imagining this.

But, is Osama’s latest campaign artwork incredibly similar to the Obama-Biden campaign?

It’s a joke people.  Don’t throw too many daggers at me.

You can spread this viral video here. Would you vote for me?

Warning: This is a technical post, mostly to document and share my experience so others interested might stumble upon it.

So, I purchased a couple of new 1TB USB hard drives this week and have been trying to figure out how to best set them up for optimal speed and accessibility.  The latest setup is to connect them via USB to my Apple AirPort Extreme Basestation as AirDisks.  I’ll be backing up my laptops to these drives daily (I’ll share the backup details later), so I was curious just how fast I could dump data to them.

How fast should I be able to copy data to the USB hard drive attached to my Airport Extreme?

• 210 GB/hr (480 Mbps) peak from server - limit of USB 2.0 is lower than my gigabit network
• 131.8 GB/hr (300 Mbps) peak from laptop - limit of 802.11n

But are those numbers realistic for average write speeds?  I’m currently averaging about 10.5 GB/hr.

Somebody suggested that the Airport Extreme is limited to about 5 MBps (17.57 GB/hr).  This has something to do with the processor in the Airport Extreme (APEB).  Here’s what they’re experiencing:

• reading from APEB: 16 MBps
• writing to APEB: 3.5 MBps average and 5-6 MBps peak

3.5 MBps = 12.3 GB/hr which is about what I’m experiencing so far.  I have 4 USB disks connected to by AirPort, but I think this throughput should be for all drives combined.

If you have a USB disk attached to a network with something like the AirPort Extreme, let me know what kind of read and write speeds you are averaging.

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!

I’d do almost anything for my mom if I know she really needs my help.  If an emergency comes up, I’ll take off from work and drive 100 miles to go be with her at the drop of a hat.  She’s family and I love her.  And I’ll do just about anything to help my family when they’re in serious need.

As an unmarried, only child, my physical family is pretty small.  But, as a child of God, my family is ginormous. God asks us to live life together as a family and share and help one another as need arises.  Unfortunately, either I often don’t see the needs of my family, or my family doesn’t express their needs to me.  But, I know various people in my family are hurting and needing help.  How can I better realize their needs and help them in both practical ways and lifting them in prayer?  I want to grow in this area.

Last week my mom had several physical needs and I took off several days from work to help her and be at her side.  About the same time, I learned of 3 families at church who had deaths of close friends and family.  And I also learned about 2 marriages that were going through some pretty rough times.  Normally I’d probably say a quick prayer for these situations, but this past week God has somewhat broken me over these hurts and needs.  I’ve actually spent many different times praying and crying over these hurts and needs of my ‘family’ members.  It’s been an eye and heart opening experience to be broken by these hurts.  I want to continue to grow in noticing and helping my family.

Lord, continue to work in my life so that I’m broken when my family is broken.  Help me to notice when my family is hurting and broken.  Help me to grow in my willingness and passion in practically praying and assisting when my family needs help.  And, continue to lift up and strengthen these 6 groups of people in my family.  I especially ask you to bless these 2 troubled marriages, as well as 2 others that came to mind tonight.  Touch them in a mighty and miraculous way as only you can!

Watch the video featuring my burn notice

Thankfully this is just a clever viral video promoting the 2nd season of Burn Notice on USA.  But, I enjoyed how they created the customized video on the fly.

Well today I’m out to lunch with my coworkers and I see this same aquaintance come walking into the restaurant.  We eventually make eye contact across the crowded room and exchange friendly waves.  So, after lunch I went over and said hello again.  I think I said something about it was odd to run into him again so soon.  Then I took off back to work.  Like I said… I’m slow.

So, tonight as I’m thinking about my day it hits me… God crossed our paths again today for some reason.  Maybe it was for me to open the door a bit more with this guy.  Or maybe it was just so I’d start to recognize opportunities that He puts in my day.  Whatever the reason, God’s funny that way.  He orchestrated my day and this other guy’s day so that we’d run into each other, just a day after I’d realized the first meeting was a God opportunity.  God is funny.

Well, I’m pretty sure I’ll take advantage of the opportunity if I run into this guy again in the next few days.  But, the bigger question is… How can I better recognize God opportunities when they show up?

If you already have a PayPal account, you can use these single use credit cards for free.  Here’s a link for PayPal users to find out more information about the service:

• https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_vdc-hub&show_page=Help
  Note you have to be logged into your PayPal account before the above URL will work.

This seems like a great way to add some extra security when you’re purchasing stuff online.

Have you used anything like this before?  Do you have other tips for securely shopping online?

I’d come to serve these poor people.  I wasn’t sure what tasks lay ahead.  I knew some people were injured — maybe I’d work in triage wrapping bandages.  I knew people were here without money and food — maybe I’d work a food line.  Maybe I’d setup cots or give out clothes or cut branches or unload supplies or clean porta-potties.  I was willing to do whatever.  It’d likely be hard and probably push me out of my comfort zone.  I didn’t know how to encourage and support people after such a terrible event.  What if I needed to help in the clinic and had to touch someone’s blood?  Oh well, I want to make a difference and I guess it will be worth it.

Little did I expect that I’d be surfing the internet, creating online web forms, using my wireless laptop, configuring simple networks, and other geeky stuff that I always enjoy doing.

God has an amazing way of using our passions to serve with.  It’s great to be willing to do whatever for the glory of God.  But since God created us intentionally he’ll generally use the passions and skills that he wired into us to bring glory to him.  That’s part of what makes serving so much fun.

How have you seen God work through the skills and passions that He’s given you?  Did that surprise you?

• Wow, a hurricane.
• Hundreds of thousands forced out of their homes.  That sucks.
• I hope someone helps them.
• The church down there should help them.
• The Church should help them.
• Our church should do something.
• I should do something.
• I should do something tangible.
• This process is unorganized.
• Why doesn’t the Red Cross have this more organized?
• Why doesn’t that leader organize things a bit better?
• Why aren’t we doing this or that?
• If I were in charge, I’d do it differently.
• Why aren’t the leaders doing a better job of leading?  This is their job!
• Wait, these ‘leaders’ just showed up and decided to do something.
• This isn’t organized.  If I were here for a few days I’d do something different.
• Wait, I’m here now.  I can lead now.  I’m here for a purpose.

Be present in the moment.  Don’t criticise from the back seat.  Even if you don’t drive for long, be willing to take your turn when the opportunity presents itself.

It was the end of our first day working at the River Centre shelter.  We’d driven through the night the day before and I was now working on only about 6 hours sleep for the past 48 hours.  I was exhausted and at the end of my rope.  But, we now had a 5 year old boy latched onto us who needed some love and attention.

His mother had left the shelter that morning around 10a and he didn’t know where his mom was.  It was now about 9 hours later and we didn’t want to leave this boy alone.  I’d already sent most of our team off to find the place where we were supposed to be sleeping, but now after searching for his mom for about 90 minutes I was at the end of what I could handle.

In selfish desperation, I said a short prayer…

Lord, if there’s any way possible, it’d sure be nice if this boy’s mother could show up here in the next couple of minutes.

Literally about 90 seconds later I see 2 women walking in and this boy going to them.  It was the boy’s mother and aunt.  God had answered my simple prayer.  I couldn’t believe it.  The timing was just too weird to not have been God’s personal response to me.

So, why do I tend to only turn to God and ask for his help as a last resort?  Why do I think I have to solve things on my own and exhaust all other resources, before turning to God?  It’s either that I don’t trust him, or I’m too proud to feel like I need his help.  Either option is stupid.

Lord, help me to come to you with my daily needs.  Help me to trust and depend on you in both the little and big stuff of life.  Without you I’m not all that hot, and I need your help.

Do you have any stories of when God answered a really simple prayer of yours?  Do you have trouble asking for help with the simpler needs in your life?

When we arrived at Baton Rouge and checked in for job assignments, my team was told that we were needed to comfort and encourage people at a medical clinic and at a shelter.  I remember thinking, “What!  I don’t know how to comfort people.  I was expecting to do real stuff like clear brush, move supplies, or repair houses.  I don’t know how to comfort people, let alone lead others in doing this.  Give me a chainsaw instead.”

Then suddenly I was put at ease.  I told my team that I was a bit anxious about this sort of work but encouraged them (and myself) that this just meant listening to people, understanding their struggles and pain, and giving plenty of hugs.  I could do that.

Over the next two days I used my skills as best I could to look up information for people on the internet.  I connected a mother to her daughter that was about to give birth in a hospital.  I looked up phone numbers for distant family members.  I sent email to people to let them know their family members were in our shelter.  I searched through the lists of missing, safely found, and confirmed dead for names of their family and friends.

But, the bigger thing I did was that I took time to listen to each person who asked for my help.  People were lonely, confused, and hurting.  They wanted a friend who cared, even if it was only for a few minutes or hours.

I heard a elderly man tell me how he got out of his house, only to discover his wife didn’t follow him out immediately and was then trapped.  He left his home absolutely helpless to save her.  I could tell several others had similar experiences, but they couldn’t work up the courage to talk about it.  Instead we’d exchange big bear hugs with understanding tears in our eyes.

Several other people told me how they had been estranged from their families in previous years and how that was so painful now when they needed them.  Besides the trauma of the hurricane, the hurricane brought their normal, every day pain to the surface and they couldn’t ignore it as easily as normal.

People need compassion and relationship more than they need their questions answered or problems fixed.  While it’s good to help people by serving them, everyone’s deepest needs are for love and relationship.

Lord, help me to see people’s need for love and relationship.  Help me not get distracted with doing good things and miss really getting to know the people around me.

Am I the only one who struggles with this?  Tell me about your experiences and struggles with this.  We can encourage each other in this area.

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?

You probably already have several distributed servers in your organization.  But, instead of calling them servers, you probably call them desktops.  But, what’s the difference between a server and a desktop?  What’s the difference between a client and service?  Can’t we start to blend the lines between these?

It’d be like implementing Grid computing into your organization.  Or similar to RAID, which used to mean redundant array of inexpensive disk. Why not a redundant network of inexpensive storage servers?  Most modern desktops have an under-utilized CPU, network connection, and hard drive.  Why not make them useful?

It’d be like P2P in the organization, but it’d have lots of extra features like permissions, levels of redundancy, dynamic network topography mapping, distribution of data, search features, fault tolerance, version history, etc.

It’s like taking RAID, ZFS, a distributed file system, drive mirroring, backup software, data integrity, and a search engine and packaging it all into a desktop client that acts as a P2P server.  It’d ideally be integrated into common directory services like LDAP, Active Directory, and Open Directory.

I doubt this is an original idea.  In fact I seem to remember talking about this general concept (probably involving ZFS) with a coworker a couple months back.

What do you think?  Could it work?
Does anything like this exist already?
What other features would be useful?