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My dad turns another year older today. Unfortunately, I won’t be there to share in the festivities (which is likely to include Mexican food and multiple episodes of “Everybody Loves Raymond” - yeah, a real party), but we’ll be celebrating from 300 miles away. Have a good one, Dad.
We ordered a fairly new service from Bellsouth for the office. It’s called Metro Ethernet. They run fiber into the building and just limit bandwidth with a rate-limit statement on the router. It’s actually a great idea.
We ordered it in September. It was supposed to be a 30-45 day install. We’re at 4 months now, and it’s almost complete. Actually, to be fair, the circuit is up - we just can’t use it yet. Every instance where Bellsouth could have messed up with this order, they did. It’s almost humorous.
If you’re on the NW side of Atlanta, and if you’re considering a service like Metro Ethernet, you should consider somebody non-Bellsouth. It’s not worth it. The provisioning engineer I’m working with is great, but the project management and the response we’ve received from our sales team is just atrocious. You’ve been warned.
I am probably the last person you would ever expect to make a post about the newest Karen Kingsbury book. My wife is a big fan, but other than hearing the name a few times, I didn’t really know much about Karen Kingsbury until recently.
Many of you will remember reading my posts about how our good friend Joshua Dingler gave his life serving our country. This past Wednesday I found out that Kingsbury’s latest release, Ever After, is dedicated to Joshua’s memory.
From what I’ve been told, the character in the book is a lot like Joshua - even down to some smaller details. That’s even more interesting when you learn that the book was (mostly) written before Karen learned of Joshua. Go buy a copy of Karen’s book. It’s available pretty much anywhere. My wife said it was really, really good.
I’m thrilled that there are people like Karen Kingsbury who are helping to keep the memory of our 19 year-old friend alive. She has set up an online memorial for fallen heroes here. My posts about Joshua are here.
Be thankful for what you have, and be grateful for those who gave it to you.
A few of you mentioned something to me about that sponsored review I posted the other day. Here’s the scoop:
I found this site ReviewMe.com a while back and decided to give it a try. Basically I submitted my blog, and advertisers can choose me to write something about their product or service. It’s kind of a clever idea, and it’s pretty easy money, so I thought I’d try it out.
The first review went pretty well, but I think the next time I’ll try something a little more clever. I think that if I put them in limerick form, they’ll not seem so spammy on the blog, and maybe they’ll be a little more fun to read. We’ll see.
When it’s time to write a new review,
I will write a limerick for you
Whenever you see
a rhyme come from me,
Just ignore the post if you want to.
There have been some pretty big holes in my collection of music that just haven’t been filled, for whatever reason. I’ve picked up some new music in the last month (thanks to Christmas, mostly). I’ve enjoyed the new tunes, and I decided to blog about it.
Sara Groves
“Add to the Beauty”
I picked this one up for my wife, but I’ve listened a little bit, too. Sara was at Andrew Peterson’s Christmas concert in Nashville, and I really enjoyed the songs she played. The CD isn’t the greatest in my collection, but to be fair, I’ve only listened to it a few times.
Pierce Pettis
“Great Big World”
I got this in Nashville last month, and was pretty much blown away (again) by Pierce’s music. He’s got a voice that might take some getting used to, but this guy can tell a story in song unlike anybody else.
Pierce Pettis
“Making Light of It”
This is an old CD (1996), but I’m late to the party for Pierce, so I grabbed this one courtesy of an iTunes gift card. It’s interesting to hear the old Pierce Pettis stuff and think “wow, he’s even more amazing now.” This one has a song about Absalom that I like, and I really enjoyed “Satellite Sky” as well. This one is still very new, but so far, I have really enjoyed it.
Pierce Pettis
“Everything Matters”
Another old (1998) CD from Pierce that I finally got. It’s also very new to my collection. I now have 4 of his CDs - enough to put them in one playlist and get lost in the music for a few hours. Somebody please tell me why Pierce isn’t a name that everybody knows.
Sandra McCracken
“The Builder and the Architect”
You take old hymns, rewrite the music, add some Sandra McCracken, and you get pure awesomeness. Brilliant CD. Sandra amazes me.
Indelible Grace (3 and 4)
If you haven’t heard of the Indelible Grace stuff, you should check it out. They took old hymns and rewrote the music, and just got some great arrangements of some wonderful old hymns. They are mostly an acoustic folk-rock sound and are very well done. It’s nice hearing a new sound to the old hymns.
Chris Mason
“Not So Gracefully”
An internet friend was kind enough to share his extra copy with me. The production is good, but Chris has definitely matured as a musician since this recording. I liked the line “If I had a talking donkey, I would treat her right” in “Balaam’s Place.”
Sufjan Stevens
“Songs for Christmas”
I mentioned this before in a previous blog post. I’ll probably listen even when it’s not Christmas time.
Sufjan Stevens
“Illinois”
I’m still getting used to Sufjan, but I like him a little more with each listen. He’s very talented, and the music is well-produced…it just takes some getting used to (for me, at least). Illinois (the album, not the state) is worth your time.
Justin McRoberts
“Christmas EP”
It’s only 3 songs, but it’s good. Justin McRoberts singing “O Holy Night”…that’s worth the ticket price any day.
Randall Goodgame and Andrew Peterson
“Slugs & Bugs & Lullabies”
It’s for the kids, but I’ve enjoyed listening, too. Randall and Andy never cease to amaze me. I’m sure I’ll tire of hearing this one (the kids demand it every time we get in the car), but at least it’s not Barney the purple dinosaur.
Caedmon’s Call
“In the Company of Angels II - The World Will Sing”
Not their greatest stuff, I know. It’s not even close, I know. But I like the influence Andrew Osenga has had on the band’s sound, so I bought the CD.
This is a sponsored review.
It seems that everywhere you look, there’s a reseller of wireless providers popping up around town. They’re everywhere. These aren’t the actual cell phone companies opening offices, but rather small businesses that have reseller agreements with the major cell carriers. I have always liked the idea of not dealing with the big cellular company, but sometimes you wonder if the small business will be around the next time you need them. Wirefly.com, who has been around for several years, solves that dilemma.
One of the things about the Wirefly.com web site that really stands out is the ability to compare plans. For example, you enter your zip code, and you see a list of providers in your area. Then you can narrow your search by choosing the providers you’d like to consider. Then you see plans from those providers, and you have the ability to compare the little details about each one.
The only down side to dealing with an internet company for a cell phone is that you have to wait for the phone to come to you. They ship their phones by FedEx, so your wait would be minimal, but there’s still a little wait. They answer this negative point (and any other issues) with a 100% satisfaction guarantee.
I have not bought my own cell phone in about seven years (it’s one of the nice things about having an IT job), so I can’t speak about Wirefly from personal experience. They’ve got some good customer reviews posted on their site, and they’ve got a 99+% feedback rating at ebay, so if you are in the market for a phone, they may be worth considering.
My friend Aaron and I have had a lot of crazy ideas come to our minds.
Sometimes they are “our” ideas, like the real estate hotline product we created from the VOIP integration company we founded.
Sometimes, more rarely, they’re “my” ideas. An example escapes me, but usually my ideas are already taken by somebody else.
All the rest of the time, they’re just “his” ideas, like the one he (and probably his brother, to an extent) had to develop a parental controls software package that actually worked. (That software, by the way, has been developed and was rated the #1 filter by Consumer Reports and won the Editors’ Choice Award from PC Magazine.)
Many of these ideas haven’t lived past the lunch table where they were born. Few, like those mentioned already, actually get implemented. Then there are those other ideas that were actually seriously considered.
I spent some time at the office this weekend, and one of the things that I did was to clean out my desk. I found a piece of paper, dated August 23, 2002, where I had written some thoughts about an idea that Aaron and I were actually seriously discussing.
(By the way, I find this idea insanely humorous, so feel free to laugh at us.)
Our idea: a search engine better than Google.
I’ll pause just a moment so you can stop laughing…
Ok, now that you’ve regained your composure, I’ll continue…
There are 11 points written out on this paper. Not all of them are worth putting online here, but a few of them made me laugh:
I know tons more about search engines now than I did in August 2002, but I still know very little on the technology and logic behind search engines. “Need an equation for determining rank….oh!…that’s what this search engine needs!”
Hilarious.
Aaron and I eventually decided (and rightfully so) that this was something better left to the brilliant minds at the Googleplex.
Having ideas like this is a good thing. I sent a note about this to Aaron last night, and he had a very interesting reply:
“…at least we were crazy enough to think we could do it better, and took a shot at some ideas, when we realized it probably wasn’t realistic we stopped with the idea.”
He makes a good point: we gave it a shot. Where would we be if nobody ever tried inventing the light bulb? Or what if nobody figured out how to fly? Or if Google never happened? This world is better off because regular people have been crazy enough to think they can do something great, and then they succeeded.
Maybe we’re not all leading a better life because of a real estate hotline system or because of porn-filtering software. Or maybe we are.
What ideas do you have?
