Cellphone vs. The Bible

Dad, thanks for sending this...

I wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phone.

What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?

What if we flipped through it several times a day?

What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?

What if we used it to receive messages from the text?

What if we treated it like we couldn't live without it?

What if we gave it to kids as gifts?

What if we used it when we traveled?

What if we used it in case of emergency?

This is something to make you go...."Hmm, where is my Bible?"

So remember this...
You'll never have dropped calls and unlike our cell phone, we don't have
to worry about our Bible being disconnected because Jesus already paid
the bill.

But most important of all...you'll never have to ask Him, "Can you hear me now?"

Makes you stop and think, "Where are my priorities?"

Vacation Over, Pictures Explain

So finally, I got away from work & took a needed vacation. Here below are some of the moments that were captured. Check out the album here or watch the slideshow. Here are just a few pictures from the album.

Microsoft's Sphere Preview

This is the same multi-touch technology used in Microsoft Surface, but it is mapped across a multi-touch sphere, allowing users on all sides to use the device and send data to other users interacting with it. Hopefully they will invent some useful programs for everyday consumers so the technology won't be held back to convention type gatherings.

World’s Largest Homemade Waterslide

I want to try this one out!

Balance Bike Queen

This is pretty awesome. Have a great weekend, but don't try this at home.

Busy All Day, Everyday!

Lately I have been quite busy all day from sun-up to sundown. With work, on-call, house-hunting, church, and other stuff, it's been flying by quickly. On the plus side, the weeks have been moving so fast that a needed vacation is coming up next week. So most of next week I will be out near Carolina Beach with my three favorite ladies, Mom, Abby, and Sarah. See ya!

Octopus escaping through a 1 inch hole

Location: Whalebone Bay, St. George’s, Bermuda



Octopuses have an amazing ability to squeeze through tiny crevices, cracks and holes. This investigation by Raymond Deckel studied just how small a hole Octopus macropus could fit through as well as how long it took them to squeeze through different sizes of holes. Ray timed its escape through a 1 inch hole while the camera shot video clips for later analysis.

Photos a'Plenty

Just a couple of days past Independence Day & getting some time to head downtown to try out some new things...and this is what happens. Check out my HDR Gallery that has been started on flickr as well as July 4th shots & the rest of downtown mess of Fayetteville. The new lens addition(EF 17-85mm IS USM) is my favorite so far. There wasn't enough time to get into some night-time lapse shots, but that'll come soon.

Still a Reason for SUV sales?

The article below should not have been a wake up call to those driving SUVs still...well unless there are legitimate reasons for doing so(work, too many kids to count, etc).

"For people who love their big vehicles, the pain is acute." - This statement pulled from below is just people shooting themselves in the foot then whining about it for no good reason.

Seriously, if you have joined the triple-digit club for gas already, it's a good idea to get out early. Now if you enjoy throwing money away, continue driving the Hummers & Land Rovers.
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At $100 for Tank of Gas, Some Choke on ‘Fill It’ from the New York Times

With gasoline prices high and rising, a new financial milestone has arrived: the $100 tank of gas.

Bryan Carisone, a heating and air-conditioning contractor in Raritan, N.J., “absolutely loves” his new GMC Denali XL, an extra-large sport utility vehicle with televisions built into the leather seats. But in June, one week after he bought it, he pulled into a station on a near-empty tank and watched the total climb higher and higher — to $109.

“It just about killed me,” Mr. Carisone said.

For decades, the $100 barrel stood as a hypothetical outlier in doom-and-gloom conversations about future oil prices. And nobody could even imagine an American family paying $100 to fill the tank.

But the future is here. Oil passed $100 a barrel in January and now seems headed toward $150 a barrel. Gasoline prices surpassed $4 a gallon on June 8, stalled for a while, and have been rising again in recent days, setting a record Saturday.

By late spring, owners of pickups and sport utility vehicles with 30-gallon tanks, like the Cadillac Escalade ESV and Chevrolet Suburban, started paying $100 or more to fill a near-empty tank. As gas prices continue to rise — the national average stood at about $4.10 a gallon Saturday — membership in the triple-digit club is growing. Now, even not-so-gargantuan Toyota Land Cruisers and GMC Yukons can cost $100 to fill up.

Data on exactly how often people pay $100 for a tank of gas are scarce, given price variations from market to market and day to day. But during the first five months of 2008, about 11 percent of American drivers said they bought 24 gallons or more at their last fill-up, according to a survey of 81,000 drivers by the NPD Group, a market research firm — which at today’s prices would place many of them at or around $100.

For people who love their big vehicles, the pain is acute.

Members of the Chevy Avalanche Fan Club of North America prize the Avalanche, a large sport utility vehicle, for its versatility, including a rear cab wall that slides forward for a larger pickup bed or backward for more passenger room.

But the Avalanche also has a 31-gallon tank, which would cost $127 to fill at Saturday’s national average price. Even the truck’s most dedicated fans find that galling. David H. Obelcz, who founded the club in 2002 and is still a member of the board, sold his Avalanche because he could not afford gasoline for it.

Thirty members of the fan club’s Arizona chapter used to attend off-roading and other events three times a month. But now that Avalanche owners pay more than $100 per tank, the club is lucky to attract 10 members once every two months, said Eric Tolliver, a chapter leader.

“Everybody’s trying to save money on gas, so now we mostly chat online instead of driving,” Mr. Tolliver said.

Eric Laugen, a firefighter in Seattle, is administrator of the Chevy Avalanche Fan Club of North America. For a trip to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, he wanted to drive his truck because it has enough room for his fishing and camera gear, as well as space in the back to sleep. But he rode his motorcycle instead. That means pitching a tent every night, and no fishing.

“Motorcycle touring is a pain,” said Mr. Laugen, talking on his cellphone from a park in Alaska. “But then I looked at how much gas would cost in the Avalanche. It just doesn’t make sense anymore.”

Hummer clubs are hurting, too. In Nebraska, Ric Hines of the Omaha Hummer Owner Group — known as Omahog — stopped doing off-road trips this summer and started riding his recumbent bicycle instead. “I get to camp either way, and biking pushes me to save a few hundred dollars on gas,” Mr. Hines said.

Mark R. Price, founder of the Illiana Hummer Club in the Chicago area, owns three Hummer H1s, which get about eight miles per gallon. “A lot of our members won’t travel 70 miles just to support a parade anymore,” Mr. Price said. “People wait for something a little closer.”

Families that were accustomed to the convenience of sport utility vehicles are having to cut back as well. Colleen Hammond of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, loves packing her three kids and all their soccer gear into her 2000 GMC Yukon XL. But she hates paying $160 to fill the 38.5-gallon tank. Last month, she parked the Yukon in her driveway and borrowed her friend’s Toyota Land Cruiser.

“I don’t know if it gets better gas mileage, but I like her car because it costs $100 to fill it,” said Ms. Hammond, 40. “I think $100 for a tank of gas is cheap now.”

Steve Burtch bought a Dodge Ram truck last year, when gas cost $3.75, because he thought gas prices had peaked and would start coming down. Instead, he pumped his first $100 tank in June. “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to keep this up,” said Mr. Burtch, 43, who lives in Marion, Ohio.

It seems that plenty of other drivers are sharing his dismay. An automotive information Web site and market research firm, Edmunds.com, compiled sales data showing that in the last seven model years, Americans have bought 25.4 million vehicles with tanks 24 gallons or larger — the point at which three figures is now a real possibility. A few big trucks and sport utility vehicles have tanks exceeding 30 gallons.

But people who try to pump $100 worth of gas often find that they cannot, since most pumps that take credit cards shut off at $75 to prevent someone with insufficient funds or a stolen credit card from running off with gas. In addition, some older pumps still are not capable of registering triple-digit bills.

“It’s a huge inconvenience,” said Dr. Walter Bahr, a chiropractor in Cape Coral, Fla., who drives a Dodge Ram 2500 pickup and pays $130 per tank. Many consumers whose tanks would easily swallow $100 worth of gas refuse to pump that much at once, just to avoid the trauma.

“Usually I don’t let it get real empty so that I don’t have to see that $100 on the pump,” said Bob Hammond, 61, of Chesterland, Ohio, who drives an Avalanche. “It’s a mental thing.”

Gary Chamberlain always pays cash for gasoline, so the pump kept right on spinning two weeks ago when he made his first triple-digit fill-up of his Ford conversion van.

“The bill was $104.98, which was a real shock,” said Mr. Chamberlain, 71, of Marion, Ohio. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

Dancing around the world