Hello, my avid readers - yes, both of you!

I took a few minutes today and re-designed my blog. Your thoughts?

There is a Christian-ophobic furor about Huckabee's latest offensive ad in which a Christmas tree was next to a bookshelf, and a Christmas card about Christmas from President Bush.

In response, Democratic candidates have unanimously agreed to remove all resemblances of Christianity from future campaigning.

The 9 Point Commitment Includes:

• No campaigning at street intersections, in case someone looks down from above and sees the cross-streets.

• No going to church, though some were contemplating starting
  

• No looking up, as this is reminiscent of Stephen, the first Martyr, and others looking to heaven.

• No more use of the letter "t," because it is the shape of the cross (when unable to avoid using the letter, they will use symbols of all religions, t=cross, *=Jewish star, c=crescent, %= yin-gang, @= universalism, $= worship of money, -=no religion, as in the sentence,
  
  "I'm happy (t*c%$@-)o be the candidat(t*c%$@-)e for presiden(t*c%$@-) of (t*c%$@-)he Uni(t*c%$@-)ed S(t*c%$@-)ates of America. (t*c%$@-)hank you."

(end sarcasm)

This week Mike Huckabee, one of the few practicing Christians in the presidential primary races released a Christmas ad. The guy was a Southern Baptist pastor for years before his 11 years as Governer of Arkansas, so he's always talking about his faith.

So he releases a Merry Christmas ad, reminding everyone that regardless of the nasty politics that are happening right now, we need to remember the reason for Christmas is Jesus' birth.

The response? The shelves of his bookshelf behind him with Christmas decorations looks like a cross!

Peggy Noonan, who didn't even notice the bookshelf on first viewing jumped on the political insanity bandwagon stating that in America, we don't "hit people over the head with [religion's] symbols in an explicitly political setting, such as a campaign commercial, which is what Mr. Huckabee's ad was." - His commercial wasn't forcing religion because he said Jesus is the reason for the season, but because a vertical and horizontal piece of painted wood made it into the shot.

But here's the problem : he was saying that he's a Christian and believes that Jesus is the purpose behind Christmas!

Subliminal messages are to get by un-noticed - he was saying the words outright!

I find it very interesting that it's not worth attacking the guy for what he believes, and what he is actually saying on the ad, but for some supposed politically-minded bookshelf that is subliminally agreeing with the speaker.

Doesn't this attack seem like the result of some disorder? I'm not sure if it's passive aggressive or just insane.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton's campaign is distributing fliers bashing Obama, using a quote from John Edwards to make Obama look bad, with Hillary no-where mentioned, so it looks like Obama has bad policies and Edwards is the one who is attacking... and who does everyone attack? The guy with the bookshelf that made a profession of faith.

I'm in the market for a video camera. Which makes me wonder - will I vlog? (Video Log)

I've edited video clips into montages and music videos before, which makes me wonder if we'll video blog.

Have you seen any vlogs?

I've only seen a few, which usually consist of someone sitting in poor lighting at their desk looking into a cheap webcam yelling and screaming about something not worth caring about. I've had webcams for a long time, but haven't ever really used them. The quality usually sucks.

Vlogs will need to be done well or not at all. Whether it's the form of a newscast, a reporter-on-the-scene, or a compliation of video clips to music to re-hash what has happened, sitting in a dark room on a lousy webcam won't cut it.

Individual vlogs? Maybe for posterity, but not for publication on the web.

Group vlogs? Perhaps, though I think mini-newscasts would work best - whether it's serious, half-serious, or totally 'weekend update' SNL style. So... let's call it a vlog, because then we'll have a 2.0 savvy name.

In the dark and cold the crowd gathers, facing the sealed portal. Shivering groups of 2 or 3 ignore those around them. A young man brushes against the cloak of the woman in front of him. She turns and glares. Is he trying to move past her? She stiffens her stance vowing internally not not allow him or anyone else to get past her while she simultaneously plots how to pass those ahead of her.

This is not science fiction, nor the story of the people hoping to escape with their lives from the flood by getting on the Ark.

It's Black Friday - 8 days from today.

This year I'll brave the savages to shop for a video camera. I haven't participated in the materialistic orgie of Black Friday in years.

We usually think the primary sin in our society is promiscuity. Or voting for a Democrat.

I think the primary sin that plagues our society is materialism, and Black Friday is a great display of our depravity.

I just received a call from my old boss, offering me a higher, better paying position that would be created just for me.

It's flattering, and good to know that after such an awful job experience I'm still on good terms with my former employer...

But when an employee is forced to leave because you wouldn't pay what was promised in the job offer, are you really going to get the employee back by again promising more pay?

I've used Paypal for payment processing in the past - they charge just over 3% as a transaction fee - this covers the cost for their services and the credit card transaction fees. They've got tons of features, and its easy to add buttons to your website and start selling things, including memberships, subscriptions, and download-able or shippable goods.

Google payments has these things in it's favor:

• No fees through the end of the year
• No fees for non profits until 2009 (they just started working with non-profits)
  
• Automatic direct-deposit of funds within 48 hours
• They won't work with porn sites.
  

They don't do re-curring payments, and selling subscriptions with Google is right out of the question, but especially for rendered services and donations for non-profits, it's a great new option.

(Say that title ten times fast)

"Lying is sin."

I challenged for the sake of clarification, "But what's the definition of a lie?"

It started as "saying something that isn't true is a lie, and that is always wrong"

and ended as "saying something that isn't true, or withholding any part of the whole truth is a lie, and it's always wrong unless you're not comfortable revealing all of the truth (if someone asks you too personal of questions) or you think that lying will lead to a greater good (protecting someone from harm)."

I don't think anyone was happy with the beginning or the ending definition. What surprised me is how a very straightforward and harsh moral guard dog became a soft, comforting little kitten.


I see the problem in two ways that are a pattern from Eden.

1. We re-define God's laws. Eve told the serpent God did say the couldn't eat from this tree, or even touch it. (She added the part about touching it.) In our case, I'm convinced that God is far more concerned about deception than lying.
2. We justify breaking God's laws. Eve saw that the fruit was "useful for obtaining wisdom" - how can obtaining wisdom be wrong? And when is wanting to be like God bad? Isn't that what we're called to do? In our case, we justified lying and deception, though mostly in reaction to our poor defintion of what part of lying/deception is wrong.
   

I Just got my new Blackberry cellphone, and I'm writing this blog post
from said phone. It's taking me a little long, not because of the
small keyboard but because my wife found out I'm doing this and is
beating me for being such a nerd.

I'm glad I didn't check the stove when I heard the weird noise.

A few minutes earlier I had turned on a burner to boil some water for tea, then went upstairs to get ready for my commute to work. I heard some popping from the stove downstairs and though about checking, but figured something probably just spilled on the burner and was popping as it heated up.

A then I heard the glass shattering.



I had turned on the wrong burner.



On this other burner was a large glass dish, which had heated up and exploded, shooting glass shrapnel across to all corners of the kitchen. If I had gone down to check when I heard the popping noises, I would have gotten shot with red-hot splinters of glass.

Authorship has defined credibility - who wrote the book? If you don't know, you don't know if it's trustworthy. Thus, defending Biblical authorship became a strong part of apologetics (see the intro to any book in the Student Bible or NIV Study Bible).

Some scholars state that the closest you get to 'authorship' in a biblical sense is that God is ultimately the author. It was not considered wrong or even strange to append a previous writing and still assign authorship to the presumed original author.

If the printing press caused this huge change in perspective brining in the modern era, is there a similar invention or changes that marks a move on to 'the era after modernism'?

I propose the answer is Wikipedia.

With Wikipedia, it doesn't matter who wrote the information. Instead there are two factors involved in assigning credibility to the text:

1. The Necessity of Community. The text is created, corrected, filtered, and interpreted in the context of community. The idea behind Wikipedia is that the community can continue to refine what's true about a given topic, even suggesting alternate theories, and linking to external references for support.
2. Individual Responsibility. Everyone who reads the article is required to use critical thinking, and make contributions when necessary, to provide footnotes, and alternate readings.

These are two of the most necessary things that are far too often missing in the Protestant and Evangelical church. What a great move in the right direction!

There's the weakness too:

• Lack of Authority. Because authorship is disconnected from authority, what does that mean for God's ultimate authorship of the scriptural text?

Your thoughts?

In The Nanny Diaries a college grad tells her story of taking a happenstance job as a nanny for a set of awful parents, phrased in anthropological terminology, which made it all the more interesting.

The tools of cross-cultural anthropology, even in New York can help one understand what is going on, who is doing what, why they're doing it, and what they mean when they talk.

Last night in a class I'm taking we were discussing some cultural difficulties in studying the Bible and how we've made it worse with modern methods.

We try to prove the Bible by our current Western cultural views of what it means to be historically accurate, scientifically accurate, and non-contradictory.

But in an ancient near-east they didn't see the world the way we do, or think in the ways we do.

One specific example could be in quotations. There are different quotes of Jesus' sermon on the mount, for example.

What if more important than repeating a teacher's exact words, you were to remember specifically what was meant when they spoke? Arguable, you could more accurately passing on the teaching.

This doesn't lessen the authority of the scripture, but it makes it much much more interesting, and more fun, and more work - instead of critiquing a given passage by our standards for literature or history text-books, we venture into another culture in another time.

We have translations from the language from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek into English, but we cannot assume that the culture, worldview, and traditions have also been translated. That work is still left for us to do.

Add one more movie to the list of movies we've walked out of to get our money back. We loved Arrested Development, so we had high hopes, but we walked out of Superbad last night.



Why did we walk out? I think that persistent phallic or sexual humor is geared toward forcing nervous laughter. If your comedy is so bad that's the only way you can get people laughing, it reflects very poorly on your quality of comedy.

I think it's true of stand up comedians and of movies.

I'm taking a few courses at this fall semester, and I was on campus for orientation yesterday. Here's a few quotes (paraphrased) from professors there yesterday, that I loved:

2 Timothy 2:15 says "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth." There are plenty of teachers and leaders in the church today who ought to be ashamed and are not - they are considered leaders because they are dynamic, popular, well presented, and do not care if they correctly handle the word of truth. (Dr. Doug Groothuis)

Stop thinking you're poor. You are living in the world's greatest civilization of all time in it's golden age. You are not poor. (I don't know the name of the prof who said this to the incoming students)

Brad volunteered with us in the high school student ministries (sgc180) at our church last year, and once told me a story of a friend who had left a very well paying, secure job as a corporate accountant after confronting the question:

So it is in the news today that several liberal bloggers now want a union.

It seems to me that the bloggers who want to unionize are missing the point of new media. The beauty of new media (read: "internet") is that it is made up of unorganized people, available to be the voice of the people, not of a group to which the author is obligated.

Or, perhaps it's just a sense of entitlement.

But the "blogosphere" is organic, limitless, endless, and totally different. You can't try to put the Internet into the same boxes the newspapers fit in.

I suppose this is the same across the Internet; You can't look at it the same way.

It is global, not local.
It is always changing, never the same.
It is the harnessing of impersonal technology for interpersonal community.

It's a whole new way of thinking. Many of us who have or want websites think of them in old ways that don't actually fit.

I've heard that you can't put new wine in old wineskins. I think the principle sticks. Principles never change, but methods and ways of processing and reaching the world are changing faster than ever.

For my birthday my wife got me a copy of the first year of superman daily comics - from the newspaper in 1939.

I find comics interesting because I think that's where we've created our American Mythology. Myths are stories of truth, which may or may not be true stories. That is, they communicate truths, whereas the actual events may be fables.

But you can learn more truth from a mythological fable than a true story.

I just finished reading this first year of superman, and it's interesting to see how he's evolved. In the comics, he could jump really high, was fast, and strong - just like his father on Krypton (his father could leap buildings and sun super fast on Krypton - see the first ever superman daily comic strip).

It wasn't until about 9 months later he had x-ray vision, but he couldn't fly, he was knocked-out by explosions, didn't have magic freezer breath. At that point he was not a semi-diety, but a super-man. He didn't mind when the bad guys died, even if it was his fault. The bad guys were bad and justice needed to be accomplished. (And, the newspaper was the Daily Star, not the Planet.)

Despite the changes in his character and abilities, the truth of the story remains. Superman, disguised as Clark Kent during the day is here to protect us, and be the champion of justice for the oppressed.

We all know in business and in ministry there is not a one-size-fits-all solution for relating to our customers/audience.

The principle holds for websites.

While I work on developing the website systems for smaller organizations, I'm also looking for a lot of contract work.

I turned down another contract today.

This time? The guy (who never gave his name over 3 e-mails), wants a website that can do everything that yahoo can do and more. He wants it up and running in 3 days, without ever having to get technical support. He doesn't know the difference between a blog and a corporate website.

Sometimes people get sold on an idea, and want to turn it into a get-rich-quick program.

Every week multiple people come up with a great idea and post it on Craig's List hoping to get a programmer on board.

• The new Youtube.
• The new myspace.
• The new google.
• The new Amazon.com.

Somehow they get the idea in their heads that they can, in 3 days with 1 programmer, beat out a service that has the entire audience already.

This can be done, but not solely on a whim driven by greed.

Most small businesses don't have the money to pry the best website designers and programmers away from the more lucrative contracts from major corporations.

This leaves the rest of us with a two options:

1. Get a cheap-as-free website. You can get an eBay store, a Yahoo website, or sign up with a service that allows you to add your business name, information and 1 photo. You can even choose the color of the sidebar.

The problem?
Your website is not unique. Your website does not say anything about you and your organization. Your website cannot grow. For example, getting videos on your eBay store, or a discussion board on your cheap-as-free website may not be po

2. Find a friend, relative, or customer to help. Many of our organizations have gone this route. The bakery has a customer who would create a website in exchange for cup-cakes, or a nephew will do the website for cheap, or a layperson in the church volunteers.

The Problem?
Your nephew goes to college, you cup-cake loving customer moves, or the layperson gets too busy. Your website goes out of date very quickly. You may not have access to your website at all. Now you've got an inaccurate, out-dated website.

There's a solution to the problem. Or there should be. There needs to be a way that professional website designers and programmers can still earn a living while small businesses can still afford to pay for the high quality, personalized, expandable websites.

That is our quest. Care to join us? Grab some empty coconut shells, mount your invisible horse, call your signing squire and join us in the quest for the holy grail of small organization websites.

Jon is the owner of Unhindered Technology LLC. We remove the barriers to online technology for ministries and small businesses.

Who Would Jesus Bomb?

Not a helpful question. Seems similar to the question: "What fighter jet would Adam & Eve prefer?"

Even ignoring the obvious road-block presented by ridiculous chronic displacement, it also presents a very complex question as if it's a black-and-white yes-no question.

It's not.

Behind the question is the idea that it is God alone who decides who lives and who dies. In general we believe in this. But the question "WWJB?" implies there are never any exceptions.

Thus, it is wrong to:

1. Throw yourself in front of a bus to push someone else out of the way.
2. Take out Hitler.
3. Protect your child in self defense if you risk fatally injuring the attacker.
   

Due to the length of the quotes, I've moved them to the end of the posting. To sum up...

Augustine writes about Scipio, a Roman, who advised against conquering a wealthy enemy, and against installing seats in theatres, because security and wealth lead to avarice and moral pestilence.

av·a·rice (ăv'ə-rĭs) - reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins)

pes·ti·lence (pĕs'tə-ləns) - an epidemic disease with a high death rate



We live in luxury in the West, like Rome but more so. Reading this made me wonder. Scipio, that Agustine is admiring, challenged having seats in the theatres of Rome. The parallel today would be having seats in movie theatres.

He called it an enervating and emasculating influence to have theatre seats!

Can you imagine having to stand in movie theatres?

Our lives are so full of luxury we can't even see it. Yet, he calls luxury an affront to manliness, a threat to good citizenship. Augustine points out that having the feeling of security along with wealth lead to avarice and moral pestilence.

Pagan Roman citizens had gotten so bogged down in this that even after Rome had fallen, and there was neither security nor wealth, they could not pull their lives together for they kept running after money and pleasure rather than piecing their lives and regions back together.

The west's two most remarkable characteristics are avarice and moral pestilence.

We as Western Christians have gotten so bogged down in this that our leaders teach that God wants us to ruthlessly seek more money to enlarge our territory or have our "best" life now by seeking wealth. For us is modeled moral pestilence.

How did we come to embrace into our faith one of the "seven deadly sins"?

Pagan Rome was beyond redemption - even being conquered did not get them to pull their act together. Is the west beyond redemption in this?

Did the great depression halt the influence of avarice and moral pestilence? May the depression have added on 50 years to the lifespan of western civilization because of this?

Should I get rid of lots of my luxuries - things as "basic" as seating in the Roman theatres?

Augustine writes to the survivors of the fall of the Roman Empire:

For certainly your desire for peace, and prosperity, and plenty is not prompted by any purpose of using these blessings honestly, that is to say, with moderation, sobriety, temperance, and piety; for your purpose rather is to run riot in an endless variety of sottish pleasures, and thus to generate from your prosperity a moral pestilence which will prove a thousandfold more disastrous than the fiercest enemies. It was such a calamity as this that Scipio, your chief pontiff, your best man in the judgment of the whole senate, feared when he refused to agree to the destruction of Carthage, Rome’s rival and opposed Cato, who advised its destruction. He feared security, that enemy of weak minds, and he perceived that a wholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens. And he was not mistaken;

And again:

For similar reasons, and animated by the same considerate patriotism, that same chief pontiff of yours—I still refer to him who was adjudged Rome’s best man without one dissentient voice—threw cold water on the proposal of the senate to build a circle of seats round the theatre, and in a very weighty speech warned them against allowing the luxurious manners of Greece to sap the Roman manliness, and persuaded them not to yield to the enervating and emasculating influence of foreign licentiousness. So authoritative and forcible were his words, that the senate was moved to prohibit the use even of those benches which hitherto had been customarily brought to the theatre for the temporary use of the citizens. (you can read the text here, the whole book is online)

Per CS Lewis, and a college prof I had, I've been reading Augustine's City of God.

I once read advice by CS Lewis to read one ancient book after reading a contemporary book. We wonder how people in the past thought the sun circled earth, or how they thought the world was flat.

There are, Lewis states, always mass mis-understandings, sometimes bridging cultures so it seems that everyone in a certain period of time thought a certain way. Our entire culture, or the entire known world seems to miss the obvious in some significant way. If this is true, then we have our own gaps in knowledge and wisdom today.

How do you find out what parts of your world view are baseless assumptions?

As part of your personal permanent presuppositions, you won't notice them on your own. As part of a contemporary cultural or global problem, no one speaking or writing or blogging today will be able to show them to you.

Thus, C.S. very strongly admonishes his readers to read ancient literature. If there are problems that we cannot see within our time or culture, they can only be spotted by someone outside of our time and culture. We have a way of viewing and interacting with the world view of someone else. You'll see it's flaws where we have strengths, but you will also find areas where they were right all along and your world view is challenged in ways it has never been challenged by anyone you've talked to or whose writings you've read.

I've been challenged over the last few days by Augustine. I'll post more details soon. Even if he's right on this, it will sound crazy if it indeed points to errors in our world view assumptions.

I have answered the door at my home twice today to find sales people annoying me to sign up for a free estimate for windows or gutters. Reminded me of the worst sales-person ever to come to my door.

[JonTC is sitting by the front door with a cat.]

[Salesman enters stage-right, walking from neighbour's house, walks across the lawn to where JonTC is sitting]

Salesman : Hi, are your parents home?

JonTC : No.

Salesman : Oh. When will the homeowner be around?

JonTC : I am the homeowner.

Salesman : Really? You're awfully young. Blah blah blah, blah blah blah.

[JonTC staring at guy, wondering how inept he is]

JonTC : No. No thanks.

Salesman : Blah blah blah, blah blah blah

JonTC : No, not even then.

[Salesman walks across grass again leaving the property]

[This is a response toTrevor's blog about the comments by this guy to an original Infuse blog post. Because of the length of the post, I've shortened it. To read all of what I thought, just click here.



Perhaps if you're into initiating confrontational evangelism (curiously rare in Jesus' ministry, though people were constantly approaching him and being confrontational), being "on the offensive" you can get into the mindset that you have the gift of offensiveness, and your mission from God is to argue with people.



Unfortunately, no discussion actually exists there. A discussion works best when both people are humble enough to be pursuing more than their ego - seeking for their understanding to agree more with truth.

Without a discussion, and only an argument, is it even something you want to enter into anyway? That seems to go against the idea of evangelism originally presented in the Infuse blog (link at the top of the post). Jesus tended to end those situations pretty quickly and move on by confusing them with a parable or getting them stuck with a question of his own.

When Paul wrote the churches he said to do our part to live at peace with everyone, and to have speech seasoned with salt. I fear that those seeking to always show confrontation, correction, and whatever else it is that is perceived as self-righteous spite by their targets - that they've lost their saltiness.

I do think we need to always be open to the intellectually and spiritually honest discussion with these same people, but we don't need to get into the argument. The Bible says some harsh things to those trying to stir up controversy in the church.





Question for Trevor - and to see if he reads the blog - you reference something along the lines of a problem of shallowness in the church being that many think that because they repeat certain words on a tract as a prayer they're good to go and don't actually have to follow Jesus with their lives.

Do you think that it's the same problem when people think that to evanglize they just have to go out and say certain words in a certain presentation, and they're good to go and don't actually have to show Jesus by their lives?

We've got three kittens who we think were born under our deck last fall. They're pretty cute, and the live mostly in our backyard.

But I've interacted with three pests today as well:

1. The weed from hell

• No one has ever successfully killed this type of weed.
  
• It seems to feed off some types of weed killer.
  
• Roots can go down 20 feet.
  
• You can't pull it up by the root - it just breaks off.
• It grows by splitting it's roots underground and by seeding.
• It is growing through our wall in one room that's 1/2 under ground in our split-level house.
• It's now not just growing by the house in the front, but in the backyard as well.

So I went to weed the garden a bit, and was reminded of another pest.

2. Wasps - yellow jackets. I don't know where they're nesting, but there's always 1 or 2 right in front of & right behind the house. I've killed one small next as it was starting, but can't find others.

3. Mice - we get them in our garage, though never yet in the house. Occasionally the kittens sneak into the garage, catch & kill a mouse, and bring it onto our deck by the door.

As I was walking back into the house, barefoot, having pulled plenty of the weed from hell, and avoided the wasp that was buzzing...

I stepped on a dead mouse on the deck.

Lovely.

I've started using a service called Jott (jott.com). You call the toll free number, it recognizes you based on your caller ID, and you can record a short message that will be transcribed (via voice recognition) and e-mailed to the recipient, whether yourself, another person, or your blog.

I originally posted this message from Jott, but it cut me off after the first sentence.

Watching this week's Heroes...

"My destiny is not to shoot you.
The universe cannot be that lame."
-- Claire (Teenager)

Project 1.27 is an organization here in the Denver Metro area that is helping Christians get increasingly involved in adopting from the local foster care programs.

An article through the Associated Press and posted on MSN's website was getting a lot of comments in response to the article.

Many of the posts, perhaps a majority of them were just bashing Christians. How dare they adopt. How dare they support 'rights' for the unborn - the unborn don't pay taxes, how can they have rights?! (that is a scary proposition), they Christians down helping after Katrina were preachy, the Christians don't care or they'd be helping the starving in Africa. So I posted:

I think it's very interesting that in response to an article of Evangelicals adopting and providing homes for abandoned children that there are so many responses attacking (with straw-man arguments nonetheless) Christians. These people are working to take care of the orphans.

I've been through Project 1.27's training. It's not about brainwashing anyone. Mostly, they are couples who can't have children on their own, and want to provide a safe and caring place for these kids.

I don't know, it wasn't in the article. Are N.O.W., the ACLU, or Planned Parent Hood heavily involved in pushing for adoption? Perhaps People for the Separation of Church and State were the heroes in Katrina. It's possible that moveon.org is providing more aid to Africa than Compassion International and all of the other Evangelical sponsored movements that are saving the lives of thousands and thousands of people. I don't know about all of that. But what I do know, and you do too from this article, that Evangelicals are not just out there shouting slogans about how children are valuable (even if they don't pay taxes), they are providing homes for the abandoned.

How is this a negative reflection on Evangelicals?

Crazy Christians, there they go again. Their crime this time? Wanting to actually and practically love people.

I've long held to the idea that any small "Mom & Pop" shop can compete with Walmart and other Mega-companies by providing outstanding service and knowing your customers. I am willing to pay (a little) more to go to Ace Hardware than Lowe's or Home Depot, because they care about their customers.

We can make up for not having as low prices by making up for it in other ways.

However, a web site is not something you can excel without.

Not every youth group, church, and business with no website will fail. But they won't excel like they could.

A business today without a website is like a business with no front to their store. No windows, no displays, no signs.





It is no longer just teenagers who use the internet. People of all ages are using the internet now for work, and have stopped using the yellow pages. They look on the Internet. Your website is the first impression your audience will see of you. Your website is the presentation of your organization to the world.

You just might make it by without a website. But what is the reason for avoiding the internet? There are reasons that we use, and I'll be writing about those in the coming few days.

Story 1:

Since I've been self-employed, The vast majority (nearly all) of my work has been for one client, a design firm. They don't want to lose me, so they want me to join them as a full-time salaried employee.

I'm very flattered.

It's been a great experience working with this team, and we've been working on some large projects for VISA USA & the Federal Reserve Bank and Sun Microsystems.

They don't want to lose me like they have other contractors. They're offering a nice salary, and they want me to sign on full-time and commit to not doing freelance work on the side.

Story 2:
I really love serving ministries and small businesses, who usually cannot afford to work with a professional design firm like this. They simply cannot afford the same services that VISA USA can pay for.

The second story is that between Friday and Monday I have been contacted by 2 new companies and 2 new ministries that want my services.

I'm not sure what to do. At the moment I'm thinking about just becoming an hourly 25 hr/week employee for the company (if they'll go for that) and keep doing business on my own outside of these hours.

Any thoughts?

Found this on Craig's List tonight, thought it might be a good follow up to my post earlier. No, I'm not the author:

Are you a coder?

---

Reply to: job-314517196@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-04-18, 6:59PM MDT


We are looking for idiots who are willing code for hours and hours with asbolutely no compensation. We might, MIGHT, give you some Red Bull and Mountain Dew. If you stupid enough to waste your college education and professional skills on a free job that will lead to nowhere, and deflate the salary range of every programmer in town, we may have a job for you.

Seriously. Please keep working for free. Hurt yourself and the industry. We beg of you.

If you don't have enough self esteem to demand the salary you are worth you are perfect for our company.

Please apply to......

NO MORE FREE WORK!

I've noticed an interesting trend over the last several years, working with small businesses and non-profits and their websites.

I get contacted because they have been dissatisfied with their current web designer. Best part had been: it was free. Church members volunteer because they want their church to have a good website, and businesses often compensated with barters and trades, giving away some small service so the web designer will work for free.

I thought these volunteers must have really been jerks to drop off like that.
My opinion has changed.

As I started getting into business on my own, I did a couple of projects as part of barter agreements, over craig's list. Yes, I was working for free, receiving some barter but no payment for my services. This is what I found out:

When they got something for free, they expected to get everything for free.

Suddenly, my free clients were the most demanding people I worked with, constantly barraging me with e-mails about additional work to be done (which wasn't part of the bartering agreement), and wanting the work to be completed yesterday (while I was still waiting for them to provide access information).

This sense of entitlement probably creeps up everywhere when we get things for free. When I managed the doctor's office, the most manipulative and abusive patients were on Medicaid - getting their medical care for free. People are unsatisfied with their churches where every benefit they receive is totally free of charge. Once married and in a "free" stage of relationship where you don't have to buy the other person's affection with gifts and dates and poems and appearance, many become much more critical.

Not everyone on Medicaid, not every church-goer, not every spouse is like this, but it's a trend I'm noticing.

• What does this mean for soup kitchens and charity?
• What would this mean for socialized government-run health care where everyone is essentially on Medicaid?

And I wonder...

• What am I critical of, or have excessively high expectations of that I get for free?
• Do I now totally avoid doing work for people for free?

I saw a book on Dan's shelf tonight, Inspired by it's spine , I began designing the book cover for
Dan's next publication. Here is the spine of the book:

Great article today in Business Week about the US immigration policy.

On Apr. 2, the gates opened for applications for the H-1B visas that high-skill workers from other countries use to come to the U.S. By early afternoon one day later, all 65,000 of the prized visas for the entire fiscal year 2008 were claimed.

The problem with the immigration system is that we punish people for biding by the rules, and reward people for breaking them. Why are we allowing anyone willing to violate immigration laws to enter the country and refusing the vast vast majority of those who go through the process?

The fix? Make legal immigration easier. And enforce the immigration laws.

Glad I bought it retail. I don't often say that, but this time I am glad. I bought an HP desktop computer, which, of course, came pre-loaded with Windows Vista (pronounced 'windows crap-bag').

Dave, I know you're into windows vista , but it's given me nothing but trouble.

My advice for those who want to buy vista? Just go ahead and join the military or have yourself tarred & feathered instead. It'll be less stressful.

HP is going to repair it because I got it retail. And, it only took about 30 minutes on their online chat-tech-support. Oy.

Have you heard people upset that Mexican immigrants seem to be the only immigrants from surrounding countries that make the news in negative ways. What about the Canadians?

I found this news story this morning, a story about the violent Canadian immigrant.

While it is not stated outrightly, I believe the subject of this story is a Canadian immigrant.

As you read the story, just remember - the Canadian immigrant was shot by the American first.

The whole story...

I'm firing my boss tomorrow.

I'm quitting 40 hours of work tomorrow. I'll either quit my full time job, or stay there part time and quit my part time job.

It feels crazy because getting enough work to go into business on my own has taken less time than it took to find the full time job where I'm working now.

It also feels crazy because I've been working 80 hour weeks (or so) for the last few weeks.

I've learned something new while working this 90-ish hour work week: I have time.

I had stopped going to the gym consistantly, reading, limited my volunteering activities because I didn't have a lot of free time.

Then I got a part time job. Working 50-60 hours during the week, I thought about all of the time I was now working I could have used. Now I really didn't have any free time.

Then I got freelancing work, 30 hours this week, on top of everything else, and am working 80-90 hours this week.

This week I also went to the gym, volunteered with the youth, spent last evening watching LOST with friends, spent time every evening with my wife, had a lunch date with my wife, and will be going on a date with my wife tonight, and won't be doing any work or freelancing on Sunday, just resting.

I had the time all along for the things that matter - I've proved it this week. If I'm working less than 90 hours (my dream - only working 12 hours a day or less!), it is no longer any kind of excuse for me to say I'm too busy to do any of the things mentioned above.

Here's what I think made the difference:

1. What I'm doing (that which has been added on top of my already busy schedule) is what I'm most interested in. My goal is to be doing business on my own, and that has given me so much more energy. And not just energy to do that, but energy and motivation to everything else as well.
2. There's a destination. I ran 16 miles one day in college. I got to a point where I stopped caring about speed, form, appearance, anything except for keeping my legs moving. If I didn't keep contracting my leg muscles, I'd fall over, and not be able to get back up. I ran 8 miles one direction, so the only way to stop was to finish the distance. If I didn't know there would be an end, I wouldn't have kept going. I would have stopped and taken long breaks or just stopped altogether and gotta frappaccino at the nearest starbucks.

Now I don't know what the timeline is for becoming self employed then starting my own business. But I know this is a temporary transition, there is an end. And it may be in sight. I've got a meeting in 20 minutes to discuss a work relationship with a company that has major website clients they need help with. I'll keep you posted.

What an exciting work week- 90 hours of work that I get paid for (60 as employee, 30 as self-employed), and more volunteer work on the side!

Right now I'm making the transition to being self-employed, then I'll incorporate and be a business owner.

If this side-work that I had 30 hours of this week becomes steady, I can stop working 60 hours as an employee for the two places I work for now.

I've had some great opportunities this week, and will for next week as well. I'll be meeting with a company to become a steady independant contractor for them, and another to talk about taking over the website services of the company. If these two things worked out, this could be the tipping point I've been waiting for.

Very exciting!

Now if I could only figure out how to get sleep back in my schedule. . .

I have small eyes.

I must.

Last week I spent 30 minutes at the optometrist poking myself in the eye trying to get contact lenses in, to no avail. Tonight I got my contacts in fir the first time, after only 45 minutes of poking myself in the eyes.

They're irritating, but I can see.

Kind of.

Everything's a little... smudgey. Not blurry as if I'm not wearing glasses as much as smudgey.

Then again, I just realized... I'm not sure my right contact is still in.

Be back later.

Looking on the Denver Craig's List just now I found the following post. It's mis-categorized, so I'm sure it will disappear soon, as it is in the jobs posting section, so I wanted to preserve it for your enjoyment. Other than removing the poor guy's name, everything is exactly how it is posted on Craig's. What a way to make first impressions. (Or maybe someone trying to make another person look bad?)

My Name is **,
I’m writing this because im currently looking for a job. Apparently no one hires anyone these days with out some kind of degree or cert which if ask me is kind of ridiculous considering the fact that me myself I have about 8 years or more exp in an assortment
Of things plus schooling not finished. For the simple fact is that either a. I moved b. needed to support my family or c. a family crisis and I had to stop school to take care of family needs. In my eye my family comes first over all. I’m settled down here in Colorado Springs just moved here from Florida so I and my wife can start our own family I'm 25. I’m currently well skilled in computers/software/web design I have about 10 yrs in that. I also have exp in other fields as far as construction in that 4 yrs Painting/ 1yr Framming/2 yrs Alarm installing/2 yrs land scaping so on and many more. To start I have a problem I'd been accused of something I never did so I had been charged as a accessory to a attempt of burglary I never attempted which in my case and opinion you get what you hang around well my so called friends got me in trouble and I guess I picked the wrong friends that was when I was 21. Now I’m 25 and it’s kind of biting me in the butt sorta speak so now even if I get a degree I’m not promised anything which sucks. My wish would have to be a computer company of sorts either web design or whatever I love computers I love to design I love to work on any computer related stuff. My wish would have to be a company of sorts like I said previously would hire me even though I have a crap record and no degree would give some one like me a chance and try me out to see what I have. I’m a hard worker. I'm passionate when it comes to anything about computers. I'm an honestly a quick learner. Just wish some one would give me the time of day and give me a chance to prove my worth.

Then again, the guy does have experience in "framming" and "scaping"...

I've found that when people find out that I want to go into business for myself, I get two polar reactions (brrr) from different people.

1. That's crazy! It's much harder than you think, you'll never make it I/my friend tried to do that and failed.
2. Well it's about time Jon! You can totally do that. You need to do that. I can't believe you haven't already!

Response #1 only comes from people who don't know me. Whether by personal experience or the experience of a friend of family member who has failed, they know it's not a cake-walk. (What is a cake-walk? Literally. What is it?) Alternatively, perhaps because they or others they know thought that going into business on one's own is about turning a quick buck. Or maybe they just assume that's what I'm after.

The good news is that everyone who knows me even semi-well responds with #2, spurring me on. I figure that means a lot, because these are the people who I know would tell me not to do it if they didn't really think I should.

Now I'm trying to figure out the transition: I'm currently working 2 jobs totalling 60 hours each week, and working on the side. How do I transition from this to doing business on my own? I'm looking for a good flexible part time job with decent pay to give me flex time working independantly.

Any suggestions?

As I read about starting a business I find plenty of references to the sacrifices required to go into business:

1. Place your business as a priority above your family.
2. Be ready and willing to max out your credit cards and take out loans.
3. Work 7 days a week, 16 hours each day.

These are things that I won't be doing. I'm working long hours, but I will:

1. Place my family above my business.
2. Make balanced financial decisions, attempting to not go into debt at all.
3. Keep 1 day every week of no productive work. Everyone needs a Sabbath.

Am I asking too much? Is it even possible to successfully move from working full time to being fully self-employed and make the decisions I have?

Stay tuned, I'll keep you updated

My new business is under development. I'm undecided as to the name of the company, right now I'm still leaning toward

Name: Unhindered Technologies (works with the Blub below... what do you think?)

Blurb: Allowing small businesses and non-profits to bypass the hurdles blocking technological advancement... primarily focusing on websites.

Business Idea: Small businesses and non profits, often hindered by limited budgets tend to go one of two routes for websites:

1. The nephew solution

You got your nephew, a volunteer, or a student to do your website. They may have charged too much to start with, but even if they didn't, they've disappeared now, and only they have access to your website. Even if you do have access, you're afraid to touch it because you're afraid you'll break it.

2. The Attack of the Clone solution

You discovered that there are companies out there that give websites away for next to free and you can edit the content from your home computer. You realize soon after your site is online, you've got the same website as hundreds or thousands of other businesses or groups.

There must be a better way. You've worked hard to create a culture and environment that you work in. It's part of who you are, and how you present yourself. In the world of technology today, websites are often your audience's first impression of you. You've got to make it count.

At the same time, you need a solution that gives you control, without risking "breaking" the design, in the event that you don't have time to reach the web developer, or you just don't want to have to pay to have your website updated.

That's what I am providing for small businesses, youth groups, and churches - Professional development, easy maintenance.

The journey to starting a service company is a rough one, and I'll be blogging on this more as I move forward.

This is the third major snow fall we've had in as many weeks.

Fourth day of work I've missed this winter because of the snow, the ice and the road conditions.

Third week we've gone without having our street plowed.