It turns out you can sell your deceased relatives.  You just have to have them turned into diamonds first!  You’ll probably lose money though, as the cost of turning ashes into diamonds is not cheap.  A quarter ct will cost you about $3,500.00 but think of the possibilities.

Boy: “Will you marry me?” shows ring
Girl: “That’s so beautiful! Was that your Mother’s?”
Boy: “That is Mother!”

Life Gem is careful to explain that the diamonds will have flaws.  That seems appropriate.  Just like people range in the degree of their flaws so the diamonds range in clarity.

This might necessitate an update in the funeral service.  “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust” might need to be “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Diamonds”.  No not really.

The solar panel is obvious as it sits above the lamp fixture.  The windmill is less obvious. This one was turning at the time.  The park that I saw this light on is on the windward side of the island.  Wind is very common here.

At St. James we use a more elaborate setup.  We take a feed off of our sound board and feed it into GarageBand on a Mac Book Pro.  We then export the audio to an mp3 file and upload it to the website.  Pretty simple, but it requires a sound system and a laptop.  A smaller portable church might not have either.  In some respects this solution is even simpler.

Our solution begins with a 1.7 ounce Sony recorder that will record straight to mp3 format.  It is cmpatible with both Mac & PC. It also has built in USB to make transfer to a computer very simple.  This recorder has good battery life, simple controls, and will record over 17 hours of audio at 128kbps.  This is total overkill for speech recording. I would dial this back to 64kbps which is still a very fine recording but produces a smaller file for the listener.

In addition to the recorder we recommend a high quality lavaliere mic.  The Sony ECM-DS70P is the mic of choice.  It works well with this recorder.  Not all mics work with all recorders.  Shop carefully.  This set up works.  Capturing audio for a website simply does not get easier than this.

Adding the sermon to the website is also fairly simple these days.  After an initial setup, it is usually as easy as uploading it via ftp or in some cases email! Ask your webmaster.

Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni

Getting Naked is a book about relationships. In particular it is about building sticky and loyal relationships.  Even more particularly it is about consulting relationships. Our professional lives rise and fall upon the nature and strength of our relationships, yet we spend very little time thinking about them.  We worry about them, obsess about them, but rarely reflect on their nature.  Things get even more complicated when we have different types of relationships with the same people.  We can be their manager on one project and a consultant on another.  Being clear on what hat we are wearing is really helpful!  This is especially true for Pastors.  A Pastor is a leader, a consultant, a teacher, a preacher, an administrator, and a pastor.  There are many other roles as well.  In “Getting Naked” Patrick Lencioni gives us a fable about consulting relationships.  It is engaging and very useful in an unexpected way. Thinking about consulting relationships will help Pastor’s embrace the “New DNA” by helping them think clearly about their role as consultant to their congregation.

The “New DNA” is a phrase that is becoming common in discussions around church planting and growth. The “New DNA” is really the Ancient Understanding of the role of Pastors and the role of Laity. The New DNA is all about Ephesians 4:11-13.

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

One of the challenges that Pastors face is owning a different model of relationship in their role as leader and preacher. It is difficult to live the New DNA if your self identity is rooted in the Old DNA. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that most clergy work alone. They have no one to show them new models. In this book Patrick Lencioni shows how he learned to be a different kind of consultant. I think that if clergy thought of themselves as consultants to their laity they would more fully embrace the New DNA. The Role of a Pastor is in part “to prepare God’s people for works of service”. That is what consultants do. Consultants do not own the work. Pastors do not own the work. The work belongs to God’s people. This book is an easy read. It is a story. A fable if you will. This book will be helpful for Pastors and anyone else who find themselves in a role as teacher or mentor to others. Buy it for yourself or for a pastor friend. And now, here is a video of Patrick Lencioni about his new book.

It turns out that adding Google Adsense to a Blog is very easy.  The key is to add it in a way that doesn’t bother people.  Is that possible? For example I really do not like ads in the middle of articles I am reading.  So I won’t be doing that on my blog.  I intend to put an ad in the sidebar of my blog.  I earn money everytime you a visitor clicks on the ad and visits the advertiser’s website.  Its not a lot of money.  Very little actually, but it can add up.  Google doesn’t send a check until the amount earned tops $100.  I’ll be sure to post when I get my first check.

This could be a win win for you my readers.  I’ve thought of the possibility that The Episcopal Church may one day have an ad on my blog.  That would be funny.  Now if you are a fan of the Episcopal Church you may well want to click on the link to see what they are up to.  If you are less of a fan, you could click on the link and make them pay. Now isn’t that a win win?

The second way I plan on monetizing my blog is by adding advertising on the RSS Feed.  Research suggests that people who use RSS feeds do not mind getting ads in the feed.  What can I say friends.  My car needs new tires.

In the future I will also add an Amazon Page with links to books I recommend.  Following the embedded link and buying the book on Amazon will result in a referral fee to me. This is I think a reasonable and inoffensive strategy to monetize my blog.  What do you think?

Be a friend will you and visit my sponsor.

As we were heading home he told me about plus3network.com This is a very fun way to raise money for charity by exercising.  Hiking, Swimming, Cycling, and many other workouts are included.  Activities can be added manually using the honor system or via a Garmin GPS device.  They plan on adding support for other devices this year.  Your mileage coverts to “kudos” that are converted into dollar amounts according to the type of exercise. Sponsoring companies contribute to the charity of your choice.

Today I connected my Garmin 305 to the website and uploaded 10 recent rides.  This resulted in almost $4 towards the cost of a $300 coffee bike for a farmer in Rwanda.  These bikes change lives. I have a new reason to exercise.  Is this cool or what?  Check it out.  Exercise and do good.

Dear Ed,

We’ve reviewed your application Ed’s Blog and have determined that this application is not appropriate for the App Store because it is intended for a limited audience.

If you would like to share it with friends and family, we recommend you review the Ad Hoc method on the Distribution tab of the iPhone Developer Portal for details on distributing this application among a small group of people of your choosing.

I’m shocked I tell you.  Shocked.  Well not really.  Ad Hoc Distribution is typically used for Beta Testing an App before it is released on the iTunes store.  There is a limit of 100 users for Ad Hoc Distribution.  It seems that the iTunes store doesn’t think I have 100 friends with iPhones that want my App.

An important concept in the Silicon Valley is “reach”.  Everyone is trying to increase their reach.  It is an important concept, but so is “local” and here is where I think Apple is making a mistake with their App policy.  As more and more people learn how to create Apps for the iPhone there will be an increasing interest is Apps that address very local needs.  This will enhance the usefulness of smart phones.  Downloading and installing an App from the iTunes store is very easy.  It is not as easy to install an App sent by Ad Hoc Distribution. Allowing for very local Aps will only enhance the iPhone’s appeal.

I have raised the question with the iTunes store.  In the meantime if you would like to help me get onto the store ask your friends with an iPhone if they would like to learn how to be Beta Testers of an iPhnoe App.  Maybe if I get 100 users they’ll let me onto iTunes!

This morning I read the access logs and watched hackers from Indonesia, Russia, Nigeria, and Egypt attempt to crack our site.  It is really quite fascinating to watch their attempts fail.  Honestly I have no idea why they are so fascinated with St. James.

The whole experience yesterday felt like Pat and I were fighting off pirates intent to board and own our site.  This was work we didn’t want or need, but we are now more educated on Internet Security.

When your site has been hacked and you are not sure when the first hack took place it is a good idea to completely rebuild the site from ground up.  This is the only way to be sure that you have removed any back doors and malicious files they placed on the site.

Ed's Blog

How hard is it to create an iPhone App? If you are a little geeky and are a little familiar with file structures and coding it’s not that hard.  I took most of a day off this week and became an Apple Developer.  Anyone can register to become a developer.  That’s the easy part.  You can then download Xcode and begin developing you first app.  In one day I developed an App for my Blog.  It takes an RSS feed of my posts and lists them when you open the App.  Tapping on the title navigates you to this blog where you can read the post.  I still have a bit of work to do on it before posting to the iTunes store.  I plan on adding a flash screen during loading and enabling the tilt function to take the display into landscape mode.

My real interest in learning how to do this is to build an app for St. James that will include a podcast of the sermons, a calendar showing upcoming events with details, a contact list with phone numbers, and of course a link to my blog.

As an Apple Developer I get to use my iPhone as a test bed for my apps in development.  If you want to see my blog app just ask.  Learning how to do many of the tasks in creating this app was easy once I found the right tutorial.  YouTube was also tremendously helpful.  There are tons of 14 year olds creating teaching videos to show how to work in Xcode.  I’ll post about this again when my app is approved or rejected by Apple for distribution in the iTunes store.