An alternative to Office
I try to rarely promote commercial products on this blog, but when a good FREE tool presents itself, I like to talk about it.
When I got my new computer awhile back, I really wanted to buy MS Office to go with it (so I could work at home easily) but I just couldn’t afford it. For just a few bucks, I got a basic office suite from Wordperfect included with my computer. Then I discovered Open Office, an open-source office suite that is available for free (legally, I might add). Open Office is backed by Sun Microsystems and is built by programmers all over the world who donate their time. It contains an excellent word processor along with a spreadsheet, database, etc. I basically just use the word processor, and it communicates SO much better with Word than Wordperfect does.
One qualifier: I word process all the time, but I don’t use many advanced features, and I’ve heard that people who do run into more problems with compatibility. But as a basic user, I can email my sermon or lesson to myself when I leave the office and pick it up at home and continue to work on it seamlessly, for the most part.
As for Powerpoint and Publisher, which I also use a frequently but for short periods, Bart Mayo (our church tech guru) showed me a program called LogMeIn which provides me simple remote desktop access for free, so I can sit at home and control my office computer as if I were sitting at my desk at church - and you don’t need Windows XP Professional to do it. It IS a bit slow to run a remote session, but it is definitely workable.
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We have the hope of the world
We have the hope of the world - 1 Peter 1:1-12 - Dennis Mullen - 7.30.06
Listen (stream) - MP3 (right-click to save)
SERIES: Aliens, Strangers and Misfits
A series from 1 Peter on living as missionaries in this foreign culture. Part 2 of 8
Why I do what I do
I just finished reading Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller, who also wrote Blue Like Jazz. One of Miller’s main points is that we, being separated from the security of God’s love, look to everybody else to tell us that we’re OK. He included this magnificently honest quote from Tom Arnold, the former Mr. Rosanne Barr and former host of The Best *** Sports Show, Period. It comes from Arnold’s book How I Lost Five Pounds in Six Years (sounds like my diet plan):
“The interviewer asked him why he had written the book, and I was somewhat amazed at the honesty of Arnold’s answer. The comedian stated that most entertainers are in show business because they are broken people, looking for affirmation. ‘The reason I wrote this book…is because I wanted something out there so people would tell me they liked me. It’s the reason behind almost everything I do.’”
It’s the reason behind more of my actions, sermons, and blog posts than I care to admit. Oh to reconnect with the Father in such a way that we can live with and love others and not worry about their opinions!
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So a preacher walks into a mall with a blonde and a brunette…
Most of you know that my wife Cindy and I have no children of our own. I have no regrets about that because I think it’s important to live the life God gives you and to live it faithfully, and we have many wonderful blessings for which to be grateful – my greatest blessing being her. But occasionally I get to look through the window at what might have been…
This past Saturday, for reasons you can read about in an earlier post, I found it necessary to go to a mall in Chattanooga with Mallory and Jessica, the college students who have been working at MHCC this summer. Both of them are twenty-year-old college juniors, Jessica at Wheaton College near Chicago, and Mallory at Vanguard University in Southern California. Now most of my friends my age (42) have children who are in early high school and younger. But it wouldn’t be unusual at my age to have a twenty-year-old child. My parents did when they were 42.
This little road trip opened me to a new world, one which is commonplace for many of you. I pray that you don’t take it for granted. First, the drive itself – I listened to their music (Coldplay, Pedro the Lion, Ben Folds) and I made them listen to some of mine (I had to pronounce the name “John Mellencamp” a couple of times before they said it sounded familiar). Then when we walked into the mall, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t been in a mall for maybe three years. Not exactly my kind of place, you know. But more than that, watching these two young women shop and make wise and mature buying choices was fascinating to me and made me proud on behalf of their parents.
What an awesome responsibility and privilege to raise daughters these days! The best parents teach their girls to be strong, independent, and smart, to respect themselves because they are beloved daughters of God and to expect nothing less than respect from others. Most of you have seen these two young women at church and you know that they are both beautiful. But what I have seen over these last seven weeks (and what I pray their parents see) is that each is, in her own way, wise, confident, steel-strong, excellent in leadership, compassionate and gracious.
Here’s my advice to those of you who are working hard to teach your daughters the same qualities, and feeling the pressure, the strain, and maybe even the heartache of raising your girls: Don’t miss it for anything.
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Ya ain’t from around here, are ya?
Ya ain’t from around here, are ya? - Dennis Mullen - 1 Peter 1-2 - 7.23.06
Listen (stream) - MP3 (right-click to save)
SERIES: Aliens, Strangers and Misfits
A series from 1 Peter on living as missionaries in this foreign culture. Part 1 of 8
Fishin’ with Jessica and Cindy
When I suggested to Mallory and Jessica (from Group Workcamps) that we should go fishing this coming week, I knew I should do some boat maintenance and fish-scouting in order to have a successful trip. Through various circumstances, Jessica (a Junior at Wheaton College) and Cindy (my wife, natch) came along on what was supposed to be the scouting and boat-shakedown trip.
It would be an understatement to say that things didn’t go exactly as planned. I made my first mistake when, after the boat motor didn’t start right away, I hooked up the electric trolling motor and pointed us away from shore. I figured that I’d get it started soon, and I didn’t want us drifting back onto land in the meantime.
My second mistake happened when, as I saw a really ominous black cloud heading in, I didn’t turn us back immediately. After all, it hadn’t rained around here for weeks!
So what happened? I never got the motor started, and we were overtaken by an ugly storm (with lightning) that blew us to a point midway between the launching ramp at the city park and the one at the Highway 58 landing. Along about the time that Jessica and I were swimming and pushing/pulling the boat along the shore, she laughingly reminded me that her mother had sent me an email thanking me for taking good care of her. Ouch!
There is a Latin phrase, in absentia parentis, that used to describe the responsibility of colleges and universities (no longer, unfortunately), and should still fit the church. In absentia parentis means that we look out for the children of other people even as we look out for our own. Even though I had offered to Jessica the chance to let Cindy take her back to the church and leave me to fix my mess, I really felt rotten later for letting her family down and getting her into this “adventure” just because I didn’t want to give up.
Well we did get the boat back home, Cindy and I had a brief fight about my poor judgement (it’s all better now), I ended up replacing Jessica’s rain-damaged cell phone (glad to do it, Jess), and the inside of my truck smells like a kennel (from water, not from any specific passenger).
Despite all of this, I had a really great time. Jess is such a great girl that she had me laughing most of the time instead of insanely clubbing my boat motor with the paddle, Chevy Chase-like. Still…
The bad decisions we make don’t usually affect us alone. My desire is to live and lead responsibly out of respect for those who work (and “fish”) with me and those who care about them.
P. S. - Tonight, after a little tinkering, the motor started on the second pull!
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This just in…money doesn’t buy happiness
Last month I heard an interview with Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness. This book immediately went on my must-read list (haven’t read it yet) because Gilbert gave some intriguing ideas about how most of the things from which we expect happiness fail to provide it, and how we blindly sacrifice real happiness now for imaginary happiness later.
One of Gilbert’s points was about money. Going from $4,000 to $40,000 in annual income certainly increases happiness for most people because basic needs are met. But going on up to $400,000 or $4 million doesn’t make a predictable difference. I.e., money can buy happiness, but only to a point.
A new study called “The Happy Planet Index” confirms it, by comparing happiness v. Gross Domestic Product in 233 nations. Economic and consumerist giants like the U. S., Japan and Germany are unhappy places (the U. S. ranked #150) while the happiest place in the world is Vanuatu, a tiny South Pacific island nation (well, sure!).
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So how big is MySpace?
John Pryor first told me about MySpace in November of last year. He got me to join in January, just a couple of days after I first blogged about it. Now MySpace has almost 94 million members, and according to TechCrunch, signs up nearly a quarter of a million new users per DAY, has 15 million unique log-ins per day, and 30 billion page views per month. MySpace accounts for 4.5% of all U. S. Internet visits.
But here’s how big it really is: Tonight at church, worship got underway while three of us in our 40s and 50s stood out in the Atrium discussing the coolest tricks for customizing our MySpace profiles.
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Get in shape with a 5K
I found this article called “Go from Couch to 5K in Six Weeks” at one of my favorite blogs, Lifehacker. I haven’t run a 5K since 1991 (in Denver - the altitude was a killer for me, but I made it), and I don’t plan to run one just now, but I think I might try this simple training plan as I try to lose the twenty pounds I’ve gained since last summer. When I trained in 1991, I designed a plan similar to this one, except that I broke my goals down into quarter-miles (which are marked on the Kingston walking trail) rather than minutes. Most folks in reasonable health can train themselves to run a 5K (3.1 miles) in a little over 30 minutes. (When I ran in Denver, I finished behind a 77-year-old man - but he was in GREAT shape!)
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As nasty as they wanna be…
I wondered when this would finally happen. When Titanic hit video stores in the late 90s, a company called CleanFlicks began selling edited copies with nudity and foul language removed. Since then, CleanFlicks and a couple of competitors have built a nice business around cleaning up other feature films.
I sympathize with this idea, but the practice never seemed quite legal to me. Last week, an appeals court in Denver agreed, saying that cleaning up films without permission is an illegitimate business.
OK, but I have to scoff at this bit of sanctimonious pap at the bottom of the article: “Audiences can now be assured that the films they buy or rent are the vision of the filmmakers who made them and not the arbitrary choices of a third-party editor,” said the President of the Director’s Guild of America.
Hey, I’m in favor of artistic freedom, but follow the money on this one. Every movie you watch on TV is cleaned up, edited for time, chopped up for commercials, and (worst of all) “panned and scanned” to make a wide-screen feature fit your TV, in effect redirecting the movie by reframing every shot, often without the director’s approval.
OK, so this post is nothing but a rant. And the point is…CleanFlicks can keep doing this by making it profitable enough to fit the “vision” of the filmmakers…or at least the studios.
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