You Can Know God

Community Outreach Plan

I've said that one of our goals as a church is to make life better for everyone in Bartow County, even those that don't go to our church.  One of my dreams is to see every person, family, or group in our church adopt a mission opportunity right here at home.  Maybe a school.  Or a homeless shelter.  Or anything.

To that end, we're working on servecartersville.com.  It will be a master listing of all the volunteer opportunities available right here at home.  For now, the site is a blog.  But we're going to develop it into a searchable database and want to keep it constantly updated.  My dream is for individuals, small groups, families, businesses, groups, or churches to find ministry opportunities where they can make a difference.  The idea is just for as many people as possible to serve and volunteer somewhere in the community.

Check out what's on the site and let me know what you think.  What can we add?  What else can we do? Do you have any suggestions?

Almost All Mac

We've just got 2 Dell Laptops, but we're almost rid of those. That will give us a complete Mac office. We're already all-mac on Sunday morning. In the office, there are 4 Mac Book Pros and three iMacs. On Sunday, there are two Mac Book Pros and three Mac Minis in the production area and two iMacs at kids check in.  Apple should give me a prize.

Moving to Wordpress

I'm moving over from Typepad to Wordpress. There seem to be a little more features here, and it's free. I'll try and update all the feeds and all that stuff, even though I don't really understand how that works.

iPhone

In 15 minutes, thousands of people will be buying an iPhone.  I confess...I'm a bet of a gadget freak and I love some of the things this phone is supposed to do.  Like choosing which voicemail I want to hear and syncing with iCal and iMail.  If it wasn't for the fact that I don't like Cingular/AT&T, then I would probably switch sooner.  As it is now, I want to wait and see that the reviews say after some of the buzz dies down.

On a side note, Apple should show live streaming video from some of their major stores.  I'd love to see what the Apple store in New York is looking like now.

Computer Woes

Less than a month after my hard drive crashing and losing most of my data, last night, a cup of coffee got spilled all over my keyboard resulting in a freaked out computer that wouldn't boot up. A trip to the apple store did no good, as liquid damages are not covered by Apple Care. So my two recent issues were not covered by the "great" extended warranty.

So a person in the church, who shall remain nameless but who may or may not have been responsible for the coffee spillage in the first place, appears to have taken it apart, dried it out, and gotten everything working.

I think my phone got as the touch screen requires more of a hit than a touch to operate properly.

Restoring, Backing Up and Apple Care

Everybody says to do it; it's really not that hard to do it.  So why is it that when the hard drive on my Mac dies, that my most recent backup is about two months old? I've spent the better part of last night and today reinstalling programs and copying files from an external hard drive.  And now I am backing every single one of my files (650,000 of them to be exact) to a hard drive using a back up program.

Can I make one complaint?  I took my MacBook Pro to the apple store where they said the hard drive was friend.  I can leave it with them and they will replace it and restore to factory settings.  Or I can pay money to take it to an authorized service place to try and recover the data.  If I were to take it to a friend of mine who could restore data, it would void my warranty, including the Apple Care extended warranty.  So my options were a free repair and no data, an expensive repair and recovered data, or a free repair and a voided warranty.  I think Apple should have been able to open the computer and give me the defective hard drive, therefore not voiding my warranty and giving me access to my files.  After all, I paid for Apple Care.

Crash

So the hard drive on my MacBook Pro crashed.  Gone.  Dead.  Apple store says so and is replacing it.  I backed up stuff about 6 weeks ago, but I lost some data.  Like next weeks message.  And some videos I had edited.  And some iTunes stuff I'd purchased.  Once I get back up to speed, I'll be figuring out how to back up stuff better.

Comcast still stinks

Since my internet has been out for four days now, I made an appointment for a tech to come out today between 9-1.  I'm out of town but my wife has been waiting at home.   Apparently, they tried to call my cell phone this morning to verify the appointment.  I had it off since I was speaking this morning.  And since they couldn't reach me to verify the appointment, they just canceled it.  Nice.  Could they look for any more opportunities not to do work? They rescheduled for tomorrow with my wife, meaning they want her to sit around and wait for four more hours.

I called them back and they told me verifying the appointment was their policy.  Never mind the fact that they didn't tell me this before.  What good is a policy if the customer doesn't know about it!!!  I wanted to tell them that I have a policy not to pay my bill until I receive a copy in Morse Code.  I wanted to tell them I have a policy not to do business with companies that can't seem to tie their shoes.  Instead, I told them that if they couldn't send a tech out to my house today, then tomorrow I would call to cancel, and sign up for DSL.  I will watch tv with tin foil and a paperclip before giving these yahoos any more money.

To top matters off, I still have not received my refund from the January and February payments that were lost when Adelphia was bought by Comcast.  Apparently, faxed confirmations from Bank of America are not good enough.  They must have a policy to rip people off.

Seriously, Comcast...you are a worthless company that cannot take care of customers.  Anybody giving you money for anything should seriously consider.  I think I may start a petition. Or a boycott.  Or I'll start forwarding them all the spam e-mails I get.

I Hate Comcast

Since Comcast took over from Adelphia in my area, I have had nothing but trouble.  I don't know if there are clowns running the operation over there, but the service and the customer service stinks.  Adelphia apparently didn't switch over my January and February payments (or my account history), so when Comcast took over, they said I had a $300 past due balance.  Even though I have had my bank on the phone with Comcast and have faxed over proof of payment, they refuse to make things right.  The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing over there.  Departments don't talk to each other.  None of their internal struggles are this customers fault though.

My service is also spotty, and is currently out until Tuesday, when a tech can come between 8-11.  That's the third time that has happened.  I'm posting this from a neighbors wireless.  At this rate, I will be switching to something else.  Juno dial up would be more reliable than this flippin' service.  Comcast...you stink.

iPhone MySpace

The iPhone now has a myspace page! I'm a friend.