Sacred Trust is the giving campaign at my church Newport Mesa. It is basically modelled off of a book called The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn

Some cool things that are implications that follow from Christian theology as mentioned in both of these venues (and a reminder that ideas have consequences):

• God owns everything! We are simply managers or stewards of what he has entrusted us with
• My heart always goes where I put God's money
• Give with an eternal perspective in mind, not just an earthly one
• Giving is the only antidote to materialism
• God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but to raise my standard of giving.

I especially love the last two points. Orange County are you listening!

I just went through a life insurance reevaluation with Excel, some online tools and a rep at USAA, my financial services company (which I highly recommend - they rock).

One interesting thing I discovered is that even if I wasn't going to up my coverage, which I'm doing in response to a new baby and living in Southen California, I should have "refinanced" my coverage anyway.

About a year ago insurance companies changed their actuarial forecasts for life expectancies. People are living longer, so people are dying later. So the cost of term life insurance has gone down. Policies taken out before the change don't typically change their rates. New policies can be bought that cover you starting immediately (and hence covering you for longer than previous policies started earlier) for less, given the same coverage level and no changes in health, at least in my age bracket.

From the totally boring, but useful files

It smells like smoke all over Irvine this morning. It reminded me of commuting in Japan this morning. The sunset was beautiful as a result. Click on the image on the left for the CNN photo gallery of firefighting photos.

Awesome alternative jack-o-lantern from Bits & Pieces: Big Mac pumpkin

One of life's great questions:

Do I have a headache because I've had too much caffeine or because I haven't had enough caffeine?

And for the record, it will take 151.57 shots of Espresso to kill me.

This T-Shirt is the newest addition to my online store. It reflects both the annoyance I have with the marketing of Jesus (which I guess I'm doing), my annoyance with spin doctors, my curiousity that someone could have a job of "Image Consultant", but at the same time reflects the truth that a Christian really should have Jesus working as their image consultant. At least to the degree that changing one's image is a result of changing one's core character.

Maybe if more people reflected on what Jesus thought of their image, we would have less Pat Robertsons and more of these types and these types.

Consume yours here.

This commercial for "Fresh Up" soda cracks me up. At first, as you are watching it, it's like every other commercial for anything, but by the end they play on the ad formula to absurdity. Click on the image on the left to watch it and see what I mean.

This is a link to an awesome movie that shows how a person becomes a model. It has very little to do with beauty and everything to do with makeup and photoshop. The movie is a time-lapse of the whole process.

Let's throw in a little theology just to keep it real, "Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting [if that], but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."

These are totally cool. Ice cube trays that make ice legos. Finally an easy way to build an evil ice palace.

I am happy to report that the Internet has produced this image of a 365 Foods executive burning in effigy in response to the recent outrageous embargo on raisins in Whole Foods raisin bran (see here). This shows the international consumer community's outrage over the heavy handed dealings with the raisin bran consuming world. We refuse to be silent while our rights are trampled like so many old dead grape vines.

Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager. A Channel 101 series about the Sith Lord who runs the local grocery store. Hilarious, warnings on language.

Episode 2 is even better

There is no God. Our Existence is without purpose.
Oh Definitely... we are adrift in an uncaring void indifferent to all our mortal toil

Exactly! In the end nothing we do matters.
Totally.
We Just ... why are you climbing that tree?

Because the future is an adventure! Come on!
But...
Hey! I found squirrels!

A friend of mine recently purchased a box of Raisin Bran from Whole Paycheck Foods. Unfortunately the number of raisins was underwhelming. In fact the number of raisins shown in one bowl on the cover of the box was more than was in the entire box (as shown in the photo).

Outrage! I will only be satisfied when an angry mob burns a 365 Food executive's effigy!

I have had very poor success trying to share my Wi-Fi connection with my neighbors. The few conversations I have had about it with neighbors end with suspicious glances and fears about terrorists and pornography. Yet none of them seem to think twice about paying $60.00 a month for a connection they use, maybe, um... one hour a day.

I think it's tragic because it is another indicator of the breakdown in community that is happening broadly in the U.S. I live less than 20 feet away from a guy I know absolutely nothing about (at least nothing that I can't learn from his cars).

The one family that I was successfully sharing Wi-Fi with just recently quit because they got service bundled into their cable bill for about the cost of what he was paying to share my connection. That's understandable, but still too bad.

Now, a great potential solution has entered the field, "La Fonera". It is a wi-fi sharing community in which you share your home connection in exchange for getting to use other people's connections. What a great idea. Plus on top of that they will sell you a cheap AP ($15.00) that prioritizes your traffic when you are at home. There are some other options that let you try and make money off your access point as well.

I signed up and am going to give it a shot.

A nice summary of the service is here

The actual website is here.