It has been a very long time since I last posted.  I guess this begs for a new beginning, so, here it goes.  I figured rather than try to keep up a specific theme in my blogs, I plan on posting whatever is on my mind.  If you agree with it, great! love to hear about it.  If you don’t agree with what I’ve said, I want to hear about that too.  I will try to post up any comments I receive provided they are in good taste and won’t majorly offend anyone.  So… without wasting any further time, here goes…

 Barack Obama, what do people think so far.  I know, he isn’t in office yet but I still believe he is already trying to make headway and doing a great deal to prepare his team to hit the ground running in January.  Selecting and talking Gates into staying on was brilliant on Obama’s part and I think it goes a long way to show that Obama wants a bi-partisan cabinet.  For those who felt that he didn’t have experience reaching across party lines, you can shut up now.  What policies do any of you like that he has planned?  I for one and looking forward to my wife being able to go back to college and us being able to afford it.  I most certainly hope that one comes to fruition.  Anyhow, that’s all I have time for right now.  I will try to check in again soon and hope not to leave more than a day or two’s gap in my posts again.  Questions or comments are welcome!

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Ok, our family has been playing an on-line game or MMORPG (massively multi-player on-line role playing game) called City of Heroes/Villains for over three years now.  The entire household has been addicted to it!  What started out as a gift for our son back in 2004 has steadily grown into a household addiction here in 2008.

 What makes it so addictive?  Probably due to its original nature.  There are so many games out there that are knock offs of on-line versions of Dungeons and Dragons (i.e. World of Warcraft, GuildWars, Lord of the Rings and many others).  It is refreshing to find something unique out there that has no equal on-line. 

Welcome to the playing field of City of Heroes (COH)!  The game that allows you to be what you’ve wanted to be since you were a kid!   A Super Hero!  Pick your type and your type of powers!  Either way this game will satisfy your need to be a Super Hero and save the day.  Want to be a Hulk like character, how about Thing?  Maybe being more like Iron Man or one of the X-Men is more your style.  How about being in the role of working on a team and being the glue that binds the team together and keeps them from dieing?  Try playing a defender.  No matter what you want to be, you can be it on COH.

Don’t feel like being one of the good guys?  Ok, try City of Villains (COV).  Be any villain you want to be.  Be a stand-alone bad ass (Brute/Stalker/Corrupter/Dominator) or work on creating your own empire (or at the very least a gang leader) being a Master Mind.  This should satisfy anyone’s super hero/villain cravings!

 What can I say?  I’ve played MANY of the games out there and/or have seen many of the ones I have not played myself.  City of Heroes/Villains has THE BEST costume and character designer interface of ANY game out there in my opinion.   NCSoft/PlayNC is 100% behind their game and constantly developing new material/content for it which keeps the game both interesting and fresh.

If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand out at being a super hero, watched a movie and found yourself twitching in your chair as the hero is fighting, I think this game may be for you.  This game definitely helps take the stress out of a bad day when you can come home from work and bust some bad guys in the chops!  Very therapeutic if you ask me!

Check it out!  They have 10 day trials and it is definitely worth a looksee!  If you are interested, send me an e-mail letting me know the e-mail address you would like me to send an invite to and I will get one over to you.  It’s first come first served as I can only do a limited number of these per month.  Click on the link below to send me an e-mail.

Send me an invitation!

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If you are putting a comment on one of my posts simply to get a link out of it, don’t bother, it will be deleted.  If you make a valid comment about a post that provides some form of value and your link is related to the comments you’ve made which are in turn related to the post you are commenting on, no problem, I will approve your comments.  You provide my site with value and I will do that same for you in turn.

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The same guy who has been plaguing our church’s website by hacking it has been at it not again, but several more times!  What’s up with that?  The guy who runs it, Matt, is a really nice guy who doesn’t deserve the harrassment he is recieving at the hands of this moron.  Tip #1 for all web designers out there who host your own sites, don’t leave ANY FTP accounts open.  Doing so will simply invite disaster.  It is a shame that this person cannot find something more productive to do than to harrass innocent people and destroy their hard work.  Its a shame and I pray for this person that God will forgive him where we struggle to.

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Are these terms at odds with one another?  It sure seems so, at least from this blogger’s life perspective.  These terms sure seem like they should work well together, but from my perspective, it doesn’t.

Religion for example.  We have been pretty happy with your church for some time.  I was drawn to the church because of our Pastor.  He helped me see religion in a new way.  Many of our current members came to the church because of him.  We love our Pastor, even though he has been somewhat dark lately and needs to lighten up some.  We recently found out that he and his family would be moving to Arizona, leaving another Pastor in charge of our church. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for the woman who would be taking over for our Pastor when he leaves.  I think she is extremely knowledgeable and very willing to give her new role 150%.  My commitment in me says I have a job to do (I handle the sound systems) and that I need to stay to continue my role in the church.  Although lately, my committment has felt more like an obligation than a committment.  I feel torn that my wife needs my assistance in order to even make it to church on time while I am already at church in the morning.  My feeling is that she needs me more than the church does right now.

My loyalty is at odds also because I am being strongly pulled in another direction to look at other churches and possibly moving on.  This factor tears at me the most.  Hearing that others are already looking for other options outside of our church doesn’t seem to help my decision to stay very much.  Additionally my fears include starting over at a new church, with new people and new expectations.

Finally, my faith says that maybe it was meant to be.  My wife and I had been questioning whether to stay at the church but stayed anyhow, long before it had been made known that the Pastor was leaving.  Does my need to be faithful mean I should listen to the signs and take this as a sign from God that it is time to move on?  Is this really a test from God and am I failing that test by leaving for another church?  I am not sure.  At this point, there is a stonger pull to move on and find a new church to call home, even if it is with a heavy heart and a feeling of guilt, but, time will tell.

Outside of religion, what do you do when you have given your utmost loyalty to someone or something and had faith that the loyalty would be rewarded.  When it is clear that the loyalty will not be rewarded and your faith has been crushed, do you still remain committed?  I just don’t know.  I have recently had many events happen in my life which are challenging these very principles and I do not have any sense of what I should do next.  I guess I will just have to place my faith in God that he will direct me the right way and down the right path.

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Why do people have to be so mean?  Our church’s website was hacked and in it’s place a bunch of arabic words and statements were in it’s place.  Obviously someone out there does not like what our Pastor has to say about different topics, otherwise they wouldn’t be so upset that they felt they needed to attack us.  Now, I do say a prayer for this person and I certainly hope that at some point in their lives they recieve the healing they need for their soul.  Fortunately our existing web site admin appears to have retained a backup and the files have been restored.  We will definitely review our security protocols as a password with 5+ characters and a combination of nums and letters is not enough to keep these people at bay.  I asked the church to pray for this person and to pray that God helps this person whatever sickness this person seems to have to cause them to do something like this.

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Welcome to my first real venture into Blogging.  I figured I would give it a go, maybe someone will care about what I have to say about different things that come up in my life, maybe no one will, but, what the heck, I’ll give it a shot anyway. 

 Away we go!

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