My Blog

God is stirring something up inside of me. My entire life has been a
series of events and miracles as He reveals His priorities to me and
challenges me to evaluate my own priorities against His. It seams that
His priorities always center around two very simple themes;

1. love and worship God
2. love and serve those around you

Like
most of us I really like the sound of #1 even though I seem to struggle
with it most of the time. I am always striving to pray more and to get
into the Word more. I can never get enough … and so this is my life
pursuit.

Things start getting a little more difficult with #2.
This involves other people. This involves being selfless (not selfish)
with my time. This involves having something to say. For me I seem to
find excuses for putting it into practice. Despite my non-interest in
strategies I even find myself thinking, "if only I had the right
training, strategy, or method I could go to my neighbor better equipped."

Last
night God struck a chord in me through a wonderful speaker and new
friend. He gently reminded me where I came from and what I should
strive to be in the end … and that is MUD.

God wonderfully created us from the earth, from the mud, in His own image but it goes deeper than this. In the story of the man blind since birth
(representing the spiritually lost). We see Jesus step in and perform a
miracle giving him sight for the first time and what does Jesus use?
…. MUD.
He reaches down and makes some mud by putting his spit in the dirt,
puts it on the man’s eyes, tells him to wash it away, and the man has
his sight for the first time ever!

We are simply called to be God’s  Moldable,  Usable, and  Disposable
servants. We are called to be available, to be in the right place at
the right time. The best part is that we are not expected to be smart
about it. Mud is dumb and God knows it. It is when he puts His
inspiration into us (spit) that we become pliable and useful. This
tells us we will know what to do and when to do it as the Lord leads
us. It is through the miraculous power of God that sight is brought to
the lost but He often times chooses to use us as His agent. What an
honor! What a privilege! Then He washes us away, getting out of the way
so God can receive the glory!

Lord this is the cry of my heart! I
am available — mold me, use me, and then wash me away to the next
appointment. This somehow makes #2 seem much more REAL. This stirs up
my spirit, this gives me hope, strength, and renewed excitement.

For most of us the default Windows or Mac fonts are sufficient to
get our day-to-day work done, however for some we need MORE! For these
there are some wonderful FREE resources available for expanding and
managing a font library.

Our computers are optimized to work
with and manage the fonts that come installed on them and while it is
possible to add additional fonts to our systems doing so can be a
confusing experience. Additionally, if you begin adding too many
additional fonts to your computer it can begin to drastically effect
your computers performance, especially when launching applications like
Word, Photoshop, Publisher, PowerPoint, etc. This is due to the fact
that your system is attempting to analyze and cache each font you have
installed for use in the application you are launching. Luckily there
is a better way to manage a larger font collection.

There are numerous commercial and shareware font management
applications available for both Mac and PC, however there are few FREE
ones. Among these many get the job done but their use can be confusing
and complicated. In a perfect world there would be an option available
that gets the job done simply and cheaply. Although the world is not perfect yet, it is a little closer to being so thanks to FontExplorer X.
FontExplorer X is a FREE application and allows you to manage large
font collections, instantly activate and deactivate fonts,
automatically activate fonts needed by a specific document if it exists
on your system, and much more. It is a beautiful application and it can
flex as much muscle as you need for managing a couple hundred or a
couple thousand fonts.

Once you have a font management plan you can begin searching the
web for free fonts. I found a GREAT collection of 500 FREE fonts online
this weekend. Most of these are pretty good and some are outstanding. I
would suggest you start your new collection with these courtesy of fonts500.com.

Once
you have the fonts expanded to your hard drive simply drag-and-drop or
import them to FontExplorer X. They are now installed and ready for
use. I would highly recommend taking the time or organize your fonts
into a few descriptive categories.

Doing
this will allow you to quickly browse a specific category for the
perfect font you may be needing. I would suggest descriptive names such
as calligraphy, decorative, dingbats, handwritten, modern, grungy,
script, etc. The main point is determining some categories that work
and communicate to you. It may take a little time (or a lot of time) depending on the size of your font collection however the benefits down the road are worth it!

Two final pieces of advice for working with fonts. 1) Always ZIP
fonts, even if it is a single font, when transferring or emailing a
font. Fonts are very prone to corruption and keeping them ZIPPED when
transferring will help prevent this. 2) Always keep a backup of your
fonts on CD in ZIP format. They day will come when you need a specific
font that you used to have which now you can’t find anywhere. CD
backups will make you very happy if you have them.

Happy fonting!

This last weekend I took a little trip with Brian and Nathaniel on our motorcycles to Daranak and Batlag falls near Tanay Philippines. It was such a nice, hot summer day to be taking a morning ride along the beautiful winding roads around Lake Laguna and as the day heated up the destination of a beautiful falls with cool refreshing pools sounded better and better.

Daranak falls is a really popular place since it is within 2 hours of Manila and yet feels worlds away as it is nestled on the edge of the mountains and surrounded by lush forest. As we arrived in the parking lot it was quickly apparent that we were not the only ones with the great idea of taking a swim to cool off. As soon as we got off our bikes we were met by a guy offering to show us where to park and to keep an "eye" on our helmets. While he was at it he gave us a peak at the pies he was selling. They did look good but at that moment all I wanted was to get in the water.

We paid our P20 entrance fee and began picking our way across the bamboo bridges and through the masses of picnic parties. Daranak falls was packed with swimmers and there was barely a place to set our bags down so we went up stream to Batlag falls which is often a quieter place probably due to a second P20 entrance fee. Once we arrived we knew we made the right choice. We were quickly swimming and having a great time.

After a couple hours we were just getting ready to go when we see the pie vendor going from picnic group to picnic group selling his pies. He was a young, friendly guy and had some really delicious pies so it was not surprising when he told us he walked up with 25 pies and sold them all. He did reassure us that he had more in the parking lot for us.

We walked back down the mountain with him, chatting along the way, and found out his name is Timothy John and that he is a Chiropractor but selling pies is his sideline. He hopes to go to the States and have a practice some day. He offered to give us a free adjustment in the parking lot and he informed us there was no need to a stethoscope. I think that is what he was saying.

We declined the adjustment but I did get 2 pies from him to share with our church group that night. After this he said, "So are you guys Christian?" I told him we were and he asked what church we were with. He said he had grown up being Catholic but lately had been in a Mormon church and most recently a Baptist church. He said he is not Christian but is really searching … these are HIS words! Sometimes it really is amazing how God will serve us up divine appointments on a silver platter. We had a brief talk about how simple faith and Christianity is — Jesus is the only thing that matters. No need for the performances or added complications, it’s just about His grace and experiencing God’s fullness of life in Salvation. After eagerly listening Timothy John (the pieropractor) suggested that we pray - of course We prayed with Timothy, God came and showered His grace on him and we parted knowing something really special had happened.

All-in-all it was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday. God is SO good and life with Him is the ONLY way to go. Again I am humbled and blessed to be a son of God and in His service.