In the last five months, I’ve been doing a lot of work around the web, most notably in the podcasting arena. I’ve started two podcasts, In Between Sundays and Secrets of Flashforward. I’ve been devoting a lot of time to these two shows, and hope to continue to use my time for them.

In Between Sundays is a show that I started with my brother, Pat Padley. We have designed the show to appeal to young adult audiences so that they have a place online to gather in a community. On the show, we have some funny antics and feature a different spiritual topic each week. If you have been looking for a place to gather with other young adults, check it out, become a fan of the show on Facebook and give us a call at our feedback line, 206-337-7945.

Secrets of Flashforward is a show that I created after watching the first episode of ABC’s new show. I was so excited about the topics that were brought up on the show that I decided it would give me some good material to podcast. At this time, we’ve uploaded nine episodes to our website and have been able to create a new podcast each time a show airs on television. If you share my enthusiasm about Flashforward, check it out and let me know what you think.

Those are my two big projects I have been working on. I’ve got a lot more in the pipeline and even more ideas in my brain. Here’s to hoping that I’m able to accomplish them all!

I also find it useful to learn the name of different saints and a little about their lives. There are a number of resources for doing that, including the ones mentioned in the video below. I have two particular websites that I use to learn about the lives of the saints:

First, LOL Saints, which has a weekly podcast featuring a two minute highlight about the life of a saint. Additionally, the website provides some pretty good pictures that make me laugh when I read it. We recently interviewed Jeff, the site’s owner for the In Between Sundays podcast. Check him out on Episode #9, I Can Has Podcast.

Second, there is a fantastic podcast put together by Paul Camarata, called the SaintCast. Paul produces a weekly show that is about 30 minutes long and does some amazing in-depth research to describe the lives of the saints. As of this writing, he has 126 shows up, each about a different saint! Listening to his podcast really has helped me develop a great knowledge of the saints and has helped me to find some devotions to new saints.

Recently, Paul put together a video about the different faith-based applications available for your iPhone and put it up on YouTube. If you’re looking for a way to grow your devotion to the saints, I highly recommend checking out LOL Saints and the SaintCast as well as the other applications mentioned in Paul’s video.

I tend to work from a number of locations and, most of the time, there is wireless available at all the locations. However, I recently ran into a situation last week where the wireless access at my favorite coffee shop was down. This caused a bit of a problem since we had decided to record a podcast episode there and were planning on streaming the show. Luckily, I had remembered an aircard that I had access to and we were able to do the show without too much technical trouble.

This all got me thinking about wireless access through cell phone signals. Right now, I’m led to believe that at some point before the apocalypse AT&T will be enabling tethering on my iPhone. At that point, I will be able to connect my iPhone to my laptop and use it for my connection. While this will all be nice and fun, I’ve been wondering why we need to have the extra hardware just to get an Internet connection. Currently, laptops come with built in wireless and bluetooth, both of which used to be add-on products to computers.

So, why not build in some hardware that allows me to access the Internet using a cell signal straight from my computer? I think that this would be a great selling point for the machine.

Of course, I think that it goes deeper than just hardware: we need to have cell providers who offer more reasonable prices for Internet connections. Currently, the price per megabyte of sending data over a cell signal is exorbitantly expensive. What I would like to see would be cell providers who allow for this connection feature to be tacked on to an existing phone line that will allow a user to only pay $20 or $30 max for an unlimited connection. At the very least, the price should not be any higher than the price of a Cable or DSL connection to the house.

So, what do you think will be the future of wireless Internet access in the US? Would you find this a useful feature on your laptop? Let me know in the comments!

This got me thinking about junk mail and marketing and how you can potentially turn anonymous people into customers. I don’t think that AT&T really went about things the right way.

If the company who is sending me the materials pays money to buy a list with my address on it, I think that they should spend the time or pay the money to at least find out who I am. They are printing all these form letters telling me that I am a “valued customer” and all, but haven’t even spent the time to learn my name. How is that showing me that I am valued? If they had put my name in the address line, I probably would have opened the letter before deciding it was junk mail. Perhaps I may have even taken action on it, since it would have appeared more personalized. Instead, it just went into the trash with everything else.

Take some time to think about how your interactions with customers make them feel valued and whether you have spent the time to learn more about those you serve. Have some suggestions on how to do just that? Leave them in the comments.

Just to clarify, I’m talking about the Facebook Inbox messaging, not their chat application or status messages. Those have all gotten some pretty big upgrades in order to make them more integrated into their service.

What I’m really surprised at is how much I actually send direct messages to friends on Facebook as well as how often we use it to contact one another. In a sense, it’s almost like another inbox that I have to monitor—which gets to the crux of my problem, that I have to monitor yet another inbox.

Messaging has almost no organizational features aside from the delete button. I’m pretty shocked by this, because I would rather be able to file messages away and archive them for later rather than delete them to keep my in box clean. In fact, it’s very hard to delete all the message in your inbox, due to the fact that you can select only 10 messages at a time. Thus, if you have been talking with a lot of people over time, you have 10 pages, or even more, of direct messages you have to wade through. All of this is very surprising, given all of the other very cool social networking features and web 2.0 features throughout the rest of the site.

My biggest suggestion to Facebook would be to start adding some of the features mentioned above, but I have one that would top the my request list: the ability to reply to facebook messages by email. This is a huge thing. I’ve used a number of other sites that allow for this. One of my favorites is Basecamp by 37 Signals. When I receive a message from someone else, I get an email notification and then see something that says “Reply above this line to send a message back.”

What a revelation to see how 37 Signals had implemented messaging. It’s simple, it’s elegant and it works beautifully! If only Facebook had that, rather than sending me some bacn telling me that my friend had sent me a message, in which case I have to open a new tab, navigate to facebook, log in and check my inbox. Rather, I would be able to just reply above said line and have my reply sent back to my friend.

Please join me in my crusade to make Facebook messaging better. Of course, I’m not exactly sure where to start—I tried to search for a Facebook feature suggestion page but it is nowhere to be found. It must be out there somewhere! In the meantime, I guess I just have to settle for trying to send a message.

Recently, I wrote a few blog posts about my intention to limit my exposure to social media. I wondered, out loud and on Facebook, what would happen if I cut my friends list to 100 and really spent the time socializing with those 100 people online.

I haven’t taken any action to limit my friends on Facebook. In fact, what I thought would be a fairly outspoken response was, in fact, more of a murmur among about five friends online. I have, however, realized that at the time, I was pretty much on overload with my use of Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, Ping.fm and a whole host of other services.

In fact, I think that the proliferation of services is making social websites into a commodity. It’s almost a daunting task to try to find a Twitter client these days or a decent facebook application. What was once really fun and exclusive has turned into a commodity. Unfortunately, when things like this happen, people start getting lost in the noise, much like I did. There is so much information rushing at us that it’s really hard for us to process one site, let alone a number of them.

So, what’s to make of all this? How does this relate to young adults? That’s a great question, and I think that there is an essential truth in looking at these social websites and comparing them with our faith.

In my hometown, I have a lot of selection with regard to churches. There are 10 within a short driving distance and a great number more if I’m willing to go a bit further. Some say mass in the pre-conciliar rite, some don’t. Some have praise and worship music, some have more traditional music. At some, I know that I’ll get a long, theological homily, while at others, I know that the priest will be brief, but thoughtful.

While I have the benefit of living in the town that I grew up, I realize that others are not that fortunate. As young adults, trying to find a church that will help us grow spiritually can be hard. We may even go to church on Sunday and, despite the best efforts of the church, feel like we get lost in the noise. After attending, we may feel like there wasn’t enough done to engage us or to keep us interested. What happens is that we eventually feel like I did with the social websites—that going to church is a commodity!

While it is important to find a place where we feel like we belong, I think that we should look at ourselves to make the difference in our own churches. If I could steal a line from John F. Kennedy, I think we should be saying, “Ask not what your Church can do for you, but what you can do for your Church.”

We may feel like we get lost in the noise, but perhaps we are not working to turn down its volume by offering to get involved in various ministries. In my own church, only recently have I started seeing younger faces helping out. While that is a good step, I know that there are a number of people like myself who have a lot to offer, and need to take some time to volunteer. It is in volunteering that I really do find my faith engaged and it stops feeling like a commodity.

However easy it is to “church hop” every Sunday, I know that I need to always work to see my faith as so much more than a simple metaphor—I have to see it as a gift. That is what will keep it unique and constantly fresh. That is what will help me to continue coming back every Sunday for mass and even consider going more than once a week.

Our faith is far from a commodity. Rather, it’s unique to each person because, unlike shouting information about ourselves out into the void of Facebook, Twitter and the like, God knows everything about us, is infatuated with us and cares about us like we are the only person in the world.

I encourage you to spend some time in prayer this week. While you are there, pick up a bulliten and consider a few areas where you might be able to volunteer and turn down the noise. Then, spend some time in the presence of God, who knows you and cares for you so intimately that we dare to call Him, Father.

This is on top of another post that I found at YPulse, on how college students are finding out that there’s a lot more stress and anxiety that comes with being always “plugged in.” This post makes mention of the fact that there’s little to no work-life balance for college students who have smartphones:

Today’s teens and college students have no concept of a work-life balance, and while young people have never been known to keep regular schedules, in a generation that is more sleep-deprived, stressed-out, and distracted than ever, it would be much healthier if young people were able to completely chill out during their leisure time, and save their e-mails for the school week or the daytime.

This is very interesting, as I think that myself and a few other friends that I have been corresponding with are feeling the same way. As part of my thought process to get myself down to 100 friends on Facebook, I am planning on participating in Digital Detox Week to see how it goes. It’s been a while since I’ve spent some time without my phone and really done something “analog.”

For example, one of the things that I absolutely love to do is read. Most of it is done online now, because I use Google Reader to page through a good number of online articles every day. On top of that, I usually peruse the articles over at Google news and then spend some time listening to audiobooks or reading them on my iPhone.

One of the things that I started this past week was actually sitting down and spending an hour or so reading a book. It was very relaxing, and I really felt like my mind was at rest the few nights that I read before going to bed, rather than checking emails and reading some articles online. It seems to me that Digital Detox Week is a very needed thing.

Are you planning on participating? Leave your comments below.

The whole thing with Facebook is that it’s gotten too busy. I don’t have time to keep statuses on what everyone is doing and it doesn’t feel like I’m being authentic with most of the people anyway. Take some time to read the following blog post, Faceless Book. Here are his two basic points:

First, people don’t edit themselves. People uploaded every picture they took, even the duplicate out of focus ones. Why? I don’t know. They don’t have to. But, there they are!

Second, the reality is that I don’t have the time to check out everyone’s picture of every event in their lives. I don’t have time to update and comment and send pokes and flair and surveys and notes and God knows whatever else I could virtually send to my fellow Facebookians.

In continuing my thoughts from yesterday, my friend Sabrina had some good suggestions. She suggested that I actually keep my friends, but add everyone else over 100 friends to another group and only give them limited access to my profile. That way, I retain everyone on the list, but only stay updated on a few people.

What I really want to do is create a list of genuine, authentic friends on facebook who I would interact with often enough for it to be worth the time for all of us. Instead of just shouting it all out, I would edit things and only put up relevant content rather than everything. I actually think that the sheer amount of stuff on Facebook has made information a surplus commodity, making it impossible for any one person to keep updated on what their friends are doing.

So, as I continue thinking about this, please keep sending me your comments. If I decide to go through with this, I’ll have to make some tough decisions on who to keep. And, as they say, the squeaky wheel gets the grease…

Here’s my basic problem that I’ve been thinking about: The vast amount of systems that a person can sign up for (twitter, facebook, linkedin, brightkite, plurk, etc…) makes it hard to keep all of your friends updated all of the time. This has led to many people automating their online presence, having Twitter update their Facebook status, linking profiles between services and other things. In fact, this has led articles such as this article, which talk about how to automate your presence on social networks.

Here’s what I see as part of the problem: We all have too many connections and friends! I have friends who have amassed more than 1,000 friends on Facebook. Honestly, how do you keep in touch with all those friends? Facebook has offered some grouping tools, such as the feed and friend statuses, but how often are you going to keep tabs on all those 1,000 friends.

I’m thinking of doing something a bit radical, and will be developing this idea as feedback comes in. I’m thinking of trimming my social network list to 100 people. Instead of following 600 people and only being moderately interested in what they are doing, what would it be like if you only followed 100 people and were extremely interested in everything that they are doing?

Facebook stalking? I don’t think so. What you’re doing is you’re creating a sense of scarcity with your attention. In order to list a new person as a friend, you’ve got to bump an existing person from the list. Is it worth it? It seems to me that small decisions like this would actually make social networks more engaging. Imagine what it would be like if you joined a social network that set a maximum of 100 friends. Now, that would be a very interesting social experiment.

What I’m interested in is how the visuals were produced. They are high-quality animated vectors and they look really great.

Now, I can understand that there are timed stop lights. I went to college in downtown Milwaukee, WI who, in myopinion, has a pretty decent light system. It’s completely timed and when I’ve ever driven around, it has not been nearly as frustrating as where I am now.

So, my question for you is whether the stoplights are just as frustrating where you are or whether this is just a phenomenon that is more specific to where I am. I’m hoping for the latter, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

For me, it all means that we can take a step back and rejoice that, as humans, we were able to create such powerful and amazing machines. In fact, I think it’s a miracle and it’s something that should remind us to take the time to thank God for the gifts that He has given us. As this Sunday comes to a close, I challenge you to ask yourself, “What have I thanked God for this past week?” and then ask what you look forward to thanking God for this week.

What is interesting about the letter is the language and the tone. It seems to me that Representative Moore was not pleased with a large amount of letters being sent to his office about this proposed legislation. What is disappointing to me is that nowhere in the letter does he take to heart what I said. Rather, he mentions that certain decisions made will more than likely “polarize America,” citing the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the ban on partial birth abortions.

My response to him is to say that things go both ways—passing legislation allowing abortions will also serve to further polarize America. I guess the best course of action is to look at which direction will not cause more polarization. It’s a difficult choice to make, but one of important moral concern. I pray that he listens to all of his other constituents writing about this and makes a conscious choice.

Full text of the letter:

Dear Nicholas:

Thank you for sharing your opposition to the Freedom of Choice Act [FOCA]. This legilation has not been scheduled for a vote in either the House or the Senate.

In the 1973 landmark decision Roe v. Wade, the United States Supreme Court held that our fundamental constitutional right to privacy extends to a woman’s decision whether or not to have an abortion. As you may know, the Supreme Court, with its newly appointed conservative majority, recently upheld the federal so-called “partial birth abortion” ban. It is important to remember that this decision will do nothing to reduce the number of abortions in America. In addition, it will most likely further polarize America, not bring it together.

I believe that this most personal of decisions is best made by a woman in consultation with her family, her physician, and her religious counselors. I strongly support a woman’s right to make this decision as well as policies that reduce the incidence of abortion by preventing unintended pregnancy — especially teen pregnancy — improving reproductive health, and encouraging adoption. Instead of driving people apart, we need to find common ground that reduces the number of abortions while upholding the legal rights of women.

Thank you again for contacting me. I hope you will continue to keep in touch and please feel free to let me know whenever I may be of assistance.

Very truly yours,
Dennis Moore
Member of Congress

[flashvideo file=wp-content/uploads/videos/dodgeball_2009.flv /]

I think these committees need to make it clear that they are not going to fool with any embryos where there is any possibility, even if it’s somewhat remote, that they could be fertilized and become human beings.

I’m a bit amazed at this. It’s my understanding, along with other sources, that an embryo is a fertilized egg that has begun cell division and is on its way to developing into a grown baby.

It’s disappointing to see things stated this way in the video, especially as part of an interview with an actual doctor. It’s sad, but we continue to move each day away from a basic understanding of the creation of new life. Instead, we have decided to let others exploit that new life for research and monetary gains.

Please take a few minutes and say a prayer for our country, that we may be able to get back onto the right track.

Video from CNN:

I remember when I first left college. It was tough. I had been really involved in campus ministry, and now that I was out in the world, I felt like my social network was gone. I didn’t have all my friends that met certain days to go to mass. I didn’t have all my friends to call up and do things with. In fact, it was a little lonely.

Luckily, I’ve been blessed with a young adult group to involve myself with, but I realize that others may not be so lucky—hence the idea behind the podcast.

Right now, we have developed a good portion of what the show will be about and what segments we will have. The one thing we’re still a bit stuck on is the name. We haven’t yet come up with something that we both like. It’s a bit frustrating, but I know that when we find one that seems to fit, everything will fall into place and we can get rolling.

My hope is to finally come up with a name this week. We are taking suggestions. Leave a comment below if you have any ideas. I can reward you with a free t-shirt with the podcast’s name and logo on it.

One of the first things that we are working on is putting together a virtual rosary. We’re asking the question: Is it possible to pray with Catholics all over the world using social media? I think it can be done, and this is the first idea to come out of our think tank.

The framework for submissions hasn’t come about yet, but the guys started talking it up this past weekend. Case in point: an invitiation from Maggie McCarty talking about the virtual rosary.

It’s really exciting to see this idea taking shape. It’s doubly exciting to think that we are truly going to be reaching the high school kids in a new and engaging way.

It seems to me that all too often, we start lent with this huge list of things that we are going to do. It all looks great on paper, and seems wonderful in our minds. Now, I hope I’m not the only one who does this, but I’ll make that list and within a few days, I let something slip.

Maybe it’s a prayer time or, in my case, in my morning stupor on Ash Wednesday, had a sausage breakfast sandwich without even realizing it!

Here’s the question: Do we try to do everything too fast and too early? For example, when you go to the gym, and your goal is to be able to bench 175 pounds, do you put on the plates, and immediately start lifting that weight? Probably not. Rather, what you do is start small and slowly build your way up. It’s the same way with our spiritual life.

So, this Lent, I have my big list of things that I want to do, but I know that I am human and that I need some practice before I adopt the bigger observances. So, I’m starting with some of the smaller things, to help get me in the mindset and then, on a weekly basis, I’m going to add some more “weight” to what I am doing. I’m going to practice with the smaller things so that I am better at the bigger things.

To me, this truly is what Lent is all about: helping us to practice for the big challenges in life. But, it’s a slow building. In fact, I suggest that those who try this approach might be more willing to continue their observances after Lent is finished, because the whole point is to help us live life better all around, not just for 40 days.

May God bless you during this season of Lent!

Lent offers us such a wonderful time to sit back, relax and take a good look at ourselves. For example, I know that one of my particular bad habits as of late was getting caught up in the whole “keeping up with the Joneses” mindset. What a silly thing to do! I’ve now taken some time to start asking myself once again, “Do I need this?” Most often than not, the answer is a resounding “No!”

One of my things that I am planning on doing during Lent is giving this blog another facelift. It’s been way too long that it has looked the same way. So, as I have time, I’ll be working on facelifting the website. Additionally, I plan on doing more blog posts on a weekly basis.

Since Lent is my favorite time of the liturgical year, I will definitely be blogging more about it. There’s such a great opportunity for introspection. I’m hoping to give people some good food for thought over the next 40 days. If you have any particular topics you would like answered, leave a comment below.

May God bless you this Lent!

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

In other news, I am also working on a slideshow presentation for the Men of Valor conference coming up next weekend. I’ve been taking some time to figure out the flow of the slides and the topics that I want to present. It’s going to be a great talk!

Here’s the synopsis: The act of making a choice. Sometimes the choice of inaction has consequences stronger than we could ever imagine. Throughout history, men have been faced with difficult choices in a world that makes it easy for them to conform. This film explores the hope that lies behind every decision made in the face of adversity; the hope that is buried in the heart of those that look beyond themselves and see something bigger worth fighting for.

Europeans and Italians

For now, though, I’m off to bed. I was up way too late last night and definitely need to get some sleep so that I can get up nice and early tomorrow morning!

I happen to be really blessed with a few people who passed the video on to me and I am passing it on to you.

Here’s my take (I happen to agree with video): Technology in education is no longer an option, it’s a requirement. Skill sets can no longer be solely determined by standardized testing. I think they have become obsolete. For example, how can a standardized test look at your ability to aggregate, sort and filter information and then put it together in a project that is content-rich? Is it possible to test for that using fill-in bubbles and #2 pencils?

In the last few days, I have been to two doctors who have both put me on a considerable amount of drugs. Apparently, I managed to get asthmatic bronchitis and I can tell you that it’s not fun to have. I’m glad for a four-day weekend so that I can rest and hoepfully be feling better by next week.

In other news, the website that I had originally mentioned a month or so ago is finally up. It was the new website for St. James Academy that took up most of my July. I’ve been really happy with the way it has come out and have gotten some great compliments about it. The next thing to do is to start aggregating pictures to put up along with the articles and pages that are on the site.

Finally, I am going to be able to turn my Macbook Pro in today for service. I suspect that there is a graphics problem with the logic board, especially after news about that was released this week from Apple. For the past year or so, whenever I’m running on the battery and try to do something that would be mildy graphics intensive such as running FrontRow, the display would mess up and the machine would freeze. Here’s to hoping that they figure out the problem and return it quickly. Until then, I have my work computer, which I ported my profile over to yesterday.

That’s it for me right now. I changed the site to a much better template than the old one I had. I hope this motivates me to blog more. I’m going to try for at least one post a day. Most of them will probably be about technology and things that I find out about at work. God bless!

Oh well, I guess I’ll be content that their sonic rip-off video isn’t as cool as the original! (By the way, this year’s videos are pretty funny.)

The beach house that we are staying in is pretty neat. We are right on the edge of the sand dunes and can see the ocean from the condo. It’s only a minute trek from the house to get down to the beach, which is not nearly as crowded as Ocean City, New Jersey.

I’m going to start taking some pictures tomorrow and will be posting them up as soon as I am able to upload them to Google. I’ve got to get out to the beach in the morning and do some photo taking of the waves and the seagulls.

More tomorrow.

I’ve been working on putting together the online store today and it’s been a bit of a pain. I am definitely a big fan of object-oriented programming, but there are definitely times where someone can take it too far. In fact, you can use object-oriented programming to such an extent that you manage to obfuscate what would normally be very nice, readable code.

In the case of the store component that I have been working with, the original programmer did just that. The code is a mish-mash of a whole bunch of files, each referencing each other. There are so many levels of things going on that it took me an hour just to wrap my head around the basics and start finding the bugs that I needed to fix.

That brings me to my second point—bugs. When you spend so much energy worrying about your objects, you not only forget to debug some stuff, you actually don’t want to debug. Because there is so much complexity that you have added, it’s a huge pain to debug your code. In fact, it’s a pain for others, too, especially when you hide your SQL queries all over the place and split them up, sometimes using global values for them, sometimes coding them into a function. Pick one method and stick with it. Your code and your users will thank you.

It took a little while to get everything formatted properly. Apparently, the theme that I chose to use didn’t take into account what should happen if the title of a widget was a link to another web page. Additionally, Wordpress doesn’t really put classes around navigational entries, so I had to do a little bit of work to get everything looking proper.

My next goal is to put together a small tag cloud page. I just have to find some time to work on all of this stuff! 

Now I’m happy with it, and it’s time to head off to bed.

So, this is a quick post. I’ll put a link up when the site is up and live. In the meantime, here are a few links to the stuff that we are using:

Joomla! Content Management Server (it rocks)
Rockettheme (because they have good taste)
Apple Macs (yeah, we have a lot of them at work)
Linux (for servery goodness)
PHP (the best language for the web)
Google (because I’m a big fan)

And whilst this flea may have suckled we;
where one flea be, three more be hence.
Thus be I a counterdemonstrator—
I will callest me an exterminator.

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we’re met,
And cloister’d in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck’d from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou
Find’st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
‘Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

P.S. We have a bit of a flea infestation in the house!

In addition to the conference, we are attending the Catholic New Media celebration in the morning. We have been meeting podcasters from all over the world and were able to meet up with Fr. Roderick this morning before the general sessions started.

Yesterday, the three of us decided to go take  the Coke tour in downtown Atlanta. The tour was much better than I expected it to be. The highlight of the tour was getting to try 64 different sodas from all over the world. In fact, by the end of the tour, you have tasted so much soda that, believe it or not, you are completely sick of drinking anything carbonated!

If you’re interested in seeing more pictures, check the photos link at the top of the blog. I’ll have more tomorrow as we celebrate New Catholic Media.

That may all be down the road, though. I think for right now, Google gives us enough capacity to send out and archive emails the way that I want them to appear. Of course, the biggest problem is that I can’t necessarily import a list of users from an excel file, so I’ll have to translate it to get it into a format that Google can read.

Perhaps I will look again at using a commercial system in order to handle our newsletters. For right now, though, it’s bedtime for me.

What happened? Someone came in with a hard drive that crashed. True to form, there were no backups that were made and the hard drive contained three years’ worth of work. After initial inspection, I determined that the hard drive had failed and needed to be replaced.

Here’s where the interesting part comes in: I decided that the data was probably still on the drive and was probably somehow salvageable. After doing some research, I came upon a program called Data Rescue II. So, before meeting my Dad tonight for dinner, I made a quick drive over to the local computer shop and grabbed the software.

I had read some reviews about the capabilities of Data Rescue but was a bit skeptical that it would work on a drive that would not even appear on my computer desktop. However, after about three hours of investigation work on the part of the program, I am happy to report that I was able to recover about 99% of the original data! This makes me one happy person and I’m sure makes the teacher whose hard drive this was even more happier.

So, if you ever need data recover services, check out Data Rescue II. It will be some of the best money you have spent!

abortion Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice. Avoid abortionist, which connotes a person who performs clandestine abortions.

So, it looks like the AP is definitely showing their bias one way and not the other.

I did a bit of searching and found a simiilar piece on BlogCritics, talking about the entry as well as SCSUScholars, referencing an actual situation in which a newspaper’s decision to use the phrase anti-abortion was challeneged. The newspaper, in turn, fell back on the AP stylebook, saying that the AP must have made the decision to express a “clarity in terms.”

Interesting, huh?

As for work, this day has blown by about as fast as the storms this morning. I can’t believe it’s 4pm already. I could have sworn I just arrived about an hour ago. What happened to my day?

To help you through your Monday, I came upon a neat site where they are experimenting with removing Garfield from the images of the comic that bears his name. They’ve gotten some pretty interesting (and funny) results. Check them out at Garfield Minus Garfield.

This is how close I was to the Pope during the Wednesday audience. Our trip to Rome was amazing, and once I get a chance to sort through the 600 or so pictures that I took, I’ll post a link to the photo album. For now, it’s back to work before I leave on Thursday for Milwaukee!

The tour in Medjugorje was great, Rome, however, left something to be desired – and that’s saying something.

It’s unfortunate that the journalism student mentioned here is being sued by the organization. What’s more unfortunate is that this is a huge story and we haven’t heard very much of it in the secular media!

Please pray to end abortion and even more, go to the planned parenthood clinics in your city and pray in front of them to end abortion and pray for those women that you see driving in and out of the clinic each day.

I also plan on putting it up on my site for people to view. If you have a few moments, please pray for the success of the filming and production, that God may speak through the video and turn more hearts toward vocations!

Because I’m such a 24 addict, I thought this was totally hilarious.

Tomorrow, I have to head back to work after taking a few days off for myself. It’s been relaxing and I’m looking forward to getting back into my job. I have a whole bunch of projects coming up and at some point this week, I need to compile a schedule through August. Anyone want to help?

Edit: One other thing – I have added a small video page to the navigation bar on the right side. Let me know what you think of the few videos I have posted up. Thanks!

Wait, scratch that last part. It’s currently 32 degrees outside! What is mother nature thinking? It’s supposed to be warm and balmy, the perfect temperature for Easter Egg hunting. Instead, we’re all cooped up in our houses with the heat still on!

I hope that you all have a blessed Holy Week and Easter season.

Well, I had gone about three miles without having my hands on the wheel and the RVan was doing a pretty good job of following the road without my help, so I settled down to enjoy my pizza when I passed a police officer. The officer noticed that no one was behind the wheel and started chasing me. Realizing that I was in some deep trouble, I ditched the pizza and got behind the wheel. I pulled over at the next exit, and the officer came up to investigate.

I worked hard to convince her that she actually just didn’t see me driving the RVan, but she didn’t believe me. I then decided to admit guilt and explain that I was starving and needed a pizza, so I had gone back to make one, and the RVan was doing a good job of driving itself. She told me that she had seen my vehicle go off into a ditch and cause a whole bunch of damage.

After waiting ages for her to process my info, she came back with a ticket for $8,000 plus tax. Realizing that I don’t have that much money, I was really scared, because I had no idea where I was going to come up with a sum that large. For some reason, the dream ended right after that.

Finally, this morning, I woke up singing “O Come, Divine Messiah,” so that’s been in my head for a little while. What a weird night! When I woke up this morning, I even had the impulse to check my bank accounts to make sure that I hadn’t written someone a check for $8,000!

Right now, I’m in my office waiting for a meeting to start. A whole bunch of youth ministers around work are planning on putting together a proposal for a skate park in town. I’m looking forward to seeing what we come up with.

As for this weekend, I hope that you all have a great time. I’m planning on taking the time to relax and recharge.

This crash is worse than I thought, though. Somehow, then entire device erased itself and won’t even reset to the standard palm settings. I don’t know what I did, but it must be pretty serious.

Case in point: The following video I found on YouTube. I think it’s totally creative and funny. Kudos to the people who took the time to make this.

I know that there are certain plans that you can get as a Catholic that supports Catholic values and programs, but this is pretty disturbing, not to mention a fairly large moral dilemma.

Update: Found a new version and updated my page with it.

To me, these slogans reflect our common culture and how we think about the world. Don’t believe me? Keep on reading.

One of the first things that Pope Benedict XVI said when he was elected was that we need to guard against moral relatavism, meaning that we need to understand that we hold certain truths “to be self evident,” and that no person can define truth for themselves. If people could define truth for themselves, everything becomes relative to the person and truth becomes subjective.

Case in point: a great story from my college roommate. From my understanding, one day he was having a particularly grumpy day and, wanting to have some fun, went into a local Burger King. He went up to the counter and asked for a Coke, and wanted it for 22 cents, the reson being that he only had 22 cents with him at the time. Of course, he was refused and the cashier offered to sell him a soda at the correct price. Well, not to be outdone, he maintained his stance and asked for the manager. Upon repeating the story, the manager also politely refused, at which point, my roommate quoted the current running slogan for Burger King. “It says have it your way, I want it my way, I want a Coke for 22 cents.” Surprisingly, after about five minutes of arguing, the store actually sold him the soda for 22 cents.

The point of this story is not that someone can short change a fast food vendor, but that, despite the blatant relativism of the Burger King slogan, “Have it your way,” the cashier and manager still appealed to a fundamental truth that their store was founded upon – that each customer pays the posted amount, anything less is not acceptable. While their slogan said something different, they still relied on that fundamental truth.

This is how we, as a society, seem to view things. I have all too often heard the phrase “don’t force your morals on me” or “what’s good for you may not be necessarily good for me.” The problem with those statements are that the person making the statment is indirectly forcing their “morals” back. In essence, “don’t force your morals on me” is a condemnation of your own morals while forcing another set on you. It just doesn’t work.

Finally, if you are ever confronted with an extreme relativist, ask for their wallet. When they give it to you, say thanks and walk away. That person will immediately demand their wallet back, but why give it back to them?

“That’s stealing,” they’ll reply.

“Maybe for you, but not for me,” I say, and smugly continue on my way.

It’s my understanding that many, if not all of the questions are addressed through the Church’s marriage preparation program. I just wish that people would take advantage of that benefit more often rather than jumping in and getting married as soon as the situation feels right.

Given my penchant for wanting to read everything in an exhibit and work slowly through it, I’m glad that I went by myself. I was able to spend about two hours looking at everything, including some original coins found at Qumran, where the scrolls are thought to have originated. Some of the coins they had there were the same coins thought to have been used for the temple tax all throughout Israel. This is the passage in the bible where Jesus through out the money changers from the temple.

All Saturday was filled with getting ready for a program called Tables for Two, a dinner for married couples to help them dialogue about their marriage. One of the neat things about it is that we provided free babysitting, so that the couples could truly have a good two hours to themselves to talk and enjoy each other’s company. Sometimes, they haven’t had a chance like this for quite a while, in some cases, before they had kids!

Sunday, I drove out for a retreat meeting, which took a good hour and a half to get there and back. We had a good meeting, and I’m pretty sure that brought my car up to its next oil change (again!?!). I relaxed last night while playing the latest games that came in the mail for the Wii, Warioware and Trauma Center: Second Opinion.

Ryan and Megan were quite the hecklers as I struggled to complete surgery on a fairly difficult patient (in the game, not in real life) and concluded that if you ever see a Dr. Nick on your chart as your surgeon, you should leave the hospital immediately! Thanks for the support guys.

Don’t believe me, check it out on this page.

Finally, last night, went to bed around 9pm and woke up at 8 this morning. I didn’t know that I needed that much sleep!

Hopefully, I’ll be able to take some time this week to relax. I’m very much looking forward to getting some Eucharistic Adoration in today.

Have a blessed Monday!

Today, I was visiting the neighborhood Chipotle in order to get my monthly fix. While I was waiting in line, I noticed a family eating there, with their kids enjoying some chicken nuggets. I quickly checked the signs in the store, and couldn’t find any mention of those golden brown and delicious bits of meat.

Then, I saw the yellow containers. From what I could gather, the parents had stopped at a nearby Wendy’s to get two kids meals and then came to Chipotle for themselves. That seems like a lot of time to get lunch. When I was a kid, we all had to decide on one location!

So, how many places are you willing to visit to please your family?