Blue Collar Blogger

~We Have Moved~

2008-06-22T15:07:00.000-04:00

For the last year I have been using Blogger to run Blue Collar Blogger. Not any more. The name is changed and so has the host. I have chosen to switch due to the features that WordPress offers over Blogger. Even with the New Blogger Draft that hit a few months back it is still too limited. I like options. Plain and simple. Blogger offers easier blogging but that does not mean that WordPress is not easier. You are able to configure and monitor your blog more like an administrator. Blog of a Geek is still Christian. The more we grow the more we know. The more we know the more it shows. If you are a regular visitor then you know that over the last year my writing has gotten better. I hope that you will find this new site to be fun, thought out, and written so that anyone can understand what is being said. It is a blog for everyone!

72-272 Down!

2008-05-30T23:41:00.002-04:00

This morning started off somewhat rough. I had an interview that seemed very promising. The interview ended in my history taking out the opportunity to work for this particular organization. So have a great interview I was shut down. I cannot lie, I was in shock for the next 30 minutes or so.
No time to soak in sorrow though. I had to go take my 72-272 exam in about and hour. So I drive to the test site and and sit in the car for about thirty minutes doing a quick cram of info. The whole time I was taking the interview I knew that I was about to fail exam. My confidence was rattled. This is the time that I prayed for help with my thoughts. Not to help me pass the exam but to not badger myself over the interview.
I was pleased to find that I passed the exam! While I am fully capable of doing PC maintenance and repair it is nice to have paper behind you to back up what you say. To be able to say that I am an MCP is truly great! My next one is already scheduled for the 18. Great things are coming.
The company that interviewed me is also still looking for a career for me. So with in a few months things could be be better of financially.

Great Week So to Speak.

2008-05-29T08:31:00.002-04:00

One of the recent post talks about a week that was not all that great. This week has been almost the exact opposite of that. So far this week the following have happened.....

1. My wife received her stimulus check
2. I went to Alabama to meet my grand-pop-in-law, the man is brilliant.
3. Got a job interview for help-desk support.
4. Got two Microsoft Exams to scheduled. I get free retakes on both if I fail them.
(Second Shot is a thing of beauty)

Take all of these and add to them the fact that I have a great family. I have a great life.

Vista, Vista, Vista

2008-05-26T23:17:00.003-04:00

I learned something new about Vista this weekend. I am complete unable to access Vista's Recovery Console. Now I try to explain to people why it is so very important to keep all the software that comes with their PC's every chance I get. I tell them that for the very reason that I wish I had mine. One day you will need them. It is not that I lost my Boot CD. I never had it. I was lead to believe that Sony had built the Recovery Console into the comes hidden partition. I should have known better. The partition actually has recover data, restore c(I lose all my data-ALL OF IT), Hardware Diagnostics, and System Restore. That is about as useful as potato chips to a thirsty man lost in the desert.
I managed to mess up badly while in Alabama this weekend. I choose to go to Ubuntu 7.10. 8.04 is a little too new(Windows got me with the hype, no one else will). I started to receive a couple of error messages that all were addressing Beryl. No biggie. After oking a few things I began to fly though the windows. When I was about to the last Windows I noticed that the error had the following words in it... boot and grub. Too late. I had clicked to fast.
After the installation claimed to fail, I restarted to find that it had upgraded. However no Windows. All that was left was the loader. I can see the NTFS file partition in Linux but cannot access it. So what is my solution. Maybe bye bye Linux. Has much as I had to say that I may just run a virtual box. My solution to the issue is to download Windows Vista Recovery Console. You can do it here. I recommend it.
I just got through with the download so now it is time to run FIXMBR and kick the Grub. Once I can access to Windows format the partition that is FAT32 to NTFS and be satisfied.What a mess huh? If you need to get Vista's Recovery Console you can get it at "The NeoSmart Files" for free! This is a very handy tool if you work on any PC or Notebook that needs restoration! It is also available in 64 bit!Good stuff here guys!

Tough Week So To Speak

2008-05-21T23:05:00.002-04:00

This week started out just perfect. A score of 97 on my A+ Software Final, my daughter learning to laugh, and just all around fun! Then they tapered. I was sold the wrong part by Digitek and when I asked about was kicked out, my 70-272 final was average at 79, and work is a litte slow. However it all went good.
I now have the parts, a couple of new vendors, and an A on the 70-272 class.
My week may not go planned. But God still lives! Good or bad times he is still there for us !

Finals Week

2008-05-19T21:45:00.002-04:00

Finally! After 10 weeks it is time. Tonight I took my first final of this term. I took my A+ Software final and passed with a 97. That gave me an overall 98 for the class. I have to more to go this week before moving onto to a horrible term. A term filled with Spanish, Business Math, Written Communication, and a little light with Network +.
I was at school two hours early tonight. I saw all my friends who looked so afraid of failing their finals. They were so stressed out. I myself was stoked. Pacing until it was time. I was ready. I had studied up! All my ducks were in a row. I couldn't understand how everyone was so nervous about what was about to happen. They new it was coming why were they not ready?! It was at this point that I had a realization.... These people remind me of the lost.
People have known that Jesus will return for around 2000 years. Yet people are not ready. Not just the lost but also the saved who are not ready. The ones you would never think would slack do. Now the day of the finals people are freaking out. Be ready people. I hope that I can get excited about Jesus like I do the finals. I have to do three things to be ready....

1. Be Saved- This is given. It is hard to be excited about Jesus if you are not walking with Him.

2. Understand Him- This means to read His Word, pray, and look at influence that He has on everything.

3. Wait for Him- This is the same concept that kids have on Christmas Eve. Want to see Him. Wait for His arrival everyday. Getting excited comes with time. The closer it gets the more excited we get!

I want to get a passing grade fro Jesus when the "BIG FINAL" comes around. Do you?

Live is Moving......

2008-05-11T23:16:00.003-04:00

You may have noticed that BCB is going somewhat slow with the postings. We are in the middle of doing some things that are life changing. Alot of things are changing for us and we are blessed for them. In the last month we have had to get another car, felt as if we have lost two good friends, faced disappointed with in our church(I am not attacking the church just hoped things would go a different way), found myself studying to get my first certification with-in the next 3 weeks (A+ here I come), and just little things that have swayed our course. We are blessed for all of the obstacles and blessing that life throws at us.
A good friend of mine is stepping down from teaching Sunday School. Today was his last day. It has been fun learning from him and growing with him. Today he delivered his last message as my teacher. He taught on what many know to be his favorite verse in the Bible. Revelation 3:16. While me and the wife were late as always, which lead to my being called aside for not being in my place at the door again, God had us come in at the right time. God does not always want you to hear everything. He does not always want you to see everything. He wanted me to come at the exact moment.
My friend was talking about flickering. As in candles that flicker. We as christians are called to be the light. He spoke of a friend of his that has all the right answers in church but once his friend was in the world you would never know. While I don't think he was talking directly about me I know that he was talking to me. I am flickering. At times I fear that I am dying. My faith is truly weak. Do I still have faith that God is supreme and has a plan for my life? Yes. I have never doubted that. Do I doubt that I am able to be what I am called to be? No, I believe that if I am called to be something I can be. I fear that I will fall and fall to no end. It seems hopeless at times. I see my sins and they haunt me. They push me to the point that I am ashamed to pray. I tell myself "Guess I have to go before God and confess this same sin again." I get this image of God shaking His head at me while mumbling,"Here we go again."
I have those days where I am not ashamed. Those are the days when I lift my hands in the car while listening to DC Talk. Not caring if anyone knows that I am praising God. Other days I would want to rip my bumper stickers off because I am ashamed that people will know I am Christian. Not because of what God has done but because of my failures. I hear them saying that I am just like all those other Christians. A hypocrite! Even more painful is the fact that they are right. I talk a good talk to some people throughout the week but I walk a drunken stumble. I am not saying that I drink but my walk with Christ is not a straight one. It must resemble that man who walks by the tracks. Swaying from one side to the other. At times falling down . Yet he gets up. Knees bloody, palms scoffed, and hoping that no one saw.
I don't want to flicker. I want to shine. No matter who you are at one point you have to realize that you will flicker. Everyone will have those days when their faith feels completely distant and strange. At the end of those days we have to make a choice. We have to pray for strength. Asking God to lead us in the right direction. Not looking back at the roads we have walked. To heal our bloody knees and to smooth our rough hands. God will do it but only if we put forth the effort. Make every effort to shine in the dark. If not it is a slippery slope that you will fall down until you do make the choice to reach for God.

Tips to Lockdown your PC!

2008-05-06T07:58:00.002-04:00

Do you have trouble sleeping at night for fear of hijackers, keyloggers, and other little nasties that could cause damage? Well here before you are a couple of tips to get your PC as tight as a whistle.

1. Strong Password- Don't go over kill. At one time it was believed that passwords resembling B10g$p0t (Blogspot) were the perfect passwords. I beg to differ now. A great password would be a phrase that is 15characters long. Put a number in there somewhere. Here is an example of a very strong password....
Idrivea4doorfordexplorer
Do not use spaces. Just run them all in together. This is stronger than the Blogspot password above. Try it out and see. Also if you have a phrase it takes less time to search the keyboard for uncommonly used numbers and you are alot less likely to forget the password than the manipulated word.

2. Use a limited account- Do not sign on with an Administrator account . It is simple. The more access to a system that a hijacked account has the more damage can be done. The most significant reason to using limited user accounts is that you cannot do certain things. Download, download malicious software, download...... you get the picture. If you trust a site and you want to download something then log onto as administrator. Malicious programs can download in the background with out you ever knowing it. Using a limited user account keeps this background software from downloading. Do you see now!

3. Get good AV- Anti virus protection is not created equally. You will want to find an AV program that uses Hijacker Prevention Technology. Do not be confused onto thinking that Prevention and Detection are the same. detection will tell you when you are hacked. Prevention will help to stop the hijacker from entering. Lets say some one is breaking into you house. All you have is an alarm that will sound but not notify the police. That alarm doesn't help. Get AV that use Prevention so that when the intruder cracks a window open the alarm sounds and the police are on the way. This is the way to go!

For more tips on security leave a comment. Use your Firewall, AV, passwords, and for crying out loud don't go to site that you shouldn't be at.

No time to proof read! Look over the typos!

We are Flowers!

2008-05-05T23:25:00.002-04:00

Christian should realize they truly are like flowers! We are this seed that is placed in the ground by God. God placed us where we are so that we will grow and blossom. Like flowers we should lean toward the light! We should try to reach Jesus! Soak up all the Jesus you can get! Also we must remember that we are like flowers because we cannot move from where God has put us! God put us in our places so that we grow there! We cannot switch spots no matter how hard we try. We are were we are and we are there for a reason. Be you! Be proud! Be the flower that you were meant to be!

Credit Up Credit Down!

2008-05-05T00:17:00.002-04:00

The last couple of months I have become serious about rebuilding my credit. While I do not pay a professional to tell me who to send my money too I am using freecreditreport.com(which is only free for about two weeks) to keep track, dispute, and control my credit. So far I have made some progress. My credit did show a score of 563 and in just two months I have pulled it to 575. In Tennessee 580 gets you approved for a bank loan of small numbers. I write this not to brag but warn people.
ANFI Inc is a collection company that will sock it to you and do so illegally. In early 03 I had a debt with AT&T for about 137 dollars. I managed to get it squared away but today when I checked on my credit I saw that a bill for 137 was there from ANFI INC. I owed no body that little! SO I researched then company. Google their title name once and scroll down to see how this company operates. Four pages comments from victims who received hits to their credit due to bill that the knew nothing about. This company buys out 11 year old debts and then tries to make people pay it. Wrong as can be but it is happening. So keep up with your credit and know what you owr and to who you owe it.

Limited for a Bit

2008-04-29T00:34:00.002-04:00

Hi! You have reached Blue Collar Blogger. If you are reading this message you know that I am temporarily away from blog. Probably a combination of family, school, and God have pulled me away for a while. Hopefully I will be back before long. Please pray for me and family! I will do the same for you! Thanks!

Why Should You Listen To God?

2008-04-19T12:09:00.001-04:00

Because he is God!
He is Holy,
He is righteous,
He is just,
He made you,
He can break you,
He blesses you,
He lets you learn,
He is trustworthy,
He is all powerful,
He is safe,
He is friendly,
He is all knowing,
He is Everywhere,
He is Vengeful,
He is mighty,
He always as been,
He is,
He always will be,
He gave Jesus,
His Word says to,
He made the law,
He is the judge,
He is the jury,
He loves you,
When you listen to Him to you will hear Him and your life will be what it is meant to be.

Liking Blogger Draft

2008-04-19T12:05:00.003-04:00

For about the last week I have been playing around with Blogger's new features. I enjoy the subscribtion link so that you do not have to use third party code, I love the "In this day in history", and I like the pre-post feature so that on days that I have time to blog I can put three or four post on a time release schedule that will release a new post on a set time and day. Nice!
My only knock is that we have yet to get any new templates. I would love to see at least three new templates with some new colors and formations. I guess we take what we are given and enjoy what we have!

Is it Not Ironic?!

2008-04-15T21:10:00.000-04:00

Today is April 15! Tax day. Millions of people dread this day. It is like the end of the world for some. People can spend all year complaining about this day. So I decided to research this day and see just how it as come to be the infamous day that so many despise; other than the fact that it is tax day here are two reason some people can April 15…..
On this day in the year of 1912 the Titanic sank. This resulted in the loss of over 1500 lives. The accident could have been prevented if the largest passenger ship in history had hit the iceberg head on. This would have simply breeched the first two compartments. When hit from the side it breeched 7(I believe I remember that number right). Hence the ship filled with water, rose straight up into the air, broke in half, and sank. You can now take a family tour of the beauty under water. How morbid does that seem?
In 1865 The American president Abraham Lincoln is assassinated while watching a play. Some have said that this happened on the 14th others say the 15. John Wilkes Booth was a successful actor who Lincoln had seen many times. Lincoln had stated his approval for Booth’s work. Booth was distraught at the Civil War and made plans to assassinate Lincoln and several other political leader. At one play Booth yelled out his line and pointed in the direction of Lincoln. Lincoln unaware that these actions were more than lines later went back to see Booth preform. On April 14 Lincoln was attending a play. Booth came behind Lincoln and shoot him in the head. Booth then jumped over the balcony railing. He broke his ankle in the process. Lincoln died the next morning(hence the dispute). Booth fled. He was shot and killed two weeks later by Union solders.
So it is safe to say that 15th as brought some bad news. However it as also brought some good news. Like….
James Ross discovers North Magnetic pole. Hence compass sales soared.1800
Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, is awarded the Order of Lenin.1961
First English language Dictionary Printed.1755
In Hartford, Conn. the first school for the deaf was opened.1817
Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen was liberated by Canadian and British forces. 1945
With the good comes the bad. Hey, Jesus lives! Tax day is not all that bad now is it.

Windows Tip!

2008-04-12T15:03:00.003-04:00

System not running to well? Have your tried everything in your freeware ability to fix it but just don't know where to turn now? Once you have tried Search and Destroy, AVG, CCleaner, and all the other great stuff you have downloaded over the few years, then lets see if maybe something is wrong the OS files. This could cause a number of things to go wrong. If you are sure that your system is messed up yet you do not know where to look then this could give a start.

In XP

Open the START MENU>

Click on RUN>

Type in CMD>

In Vista

Open the START MENU

In the SEARCH BOX type CMD and hit ENTER>

Now you should have the Command Prompt window up.Now do the following

Type SFC hit ENTER
Type sfc /SCANNOW
This process may take a little while to work its way through. Once it completes you will see a list off results. From this screen you will be able to tell what is wrong and/or Google an error to see what the best solution is. Just because a file is corrupted does not mean that you have to reinstall the OS. Get out your Windows boot disk and put them in the disk. From here you will be walked through the process of going into the recovery console and fixing the issue. Easy as pie!
Now that you know how to go into the Command Prompt go to Microsoft Tech Net where you will find commands for diagnosing and repairing Windows issues.

Student Given an F for Religious Art.

2008-04-04T14:08:00.005-04:00

This day in age students have to watch what they express when dealing with religion and their beliefs that accompany them. A student at Tomah High School was given an F for their work when drawing a landscape. The assignment barred three things...
1.Blood
2.Violence
3.Sexual Content
4.Religious Icons and such.
Let me establish this, I agree that he should not have been given an A. To be completely honest the F was probably the right call. However this is in black and white. There is a grey area that needs to be addressed. Why was this student given an F when the students who doodled the other two pictures above were given an A? I am expecting someone to say, They could just be fantasy creatures which would mean that they are not religious. The assignment was suppose to be of a LANDSCAPE! How are these other two drawings of landscapes? These two kids were given an A! There is no way to argue with that. These two students also deserved an F. Not an A.
Second off I have to ask why religion is not a personal choice? It is put into the same category with blood, violence, and sex? Blood, violence, and sex can be offensive if done without any form of expression. It can also be art. Art sometimes offends people. Get over it! John 3:16 and a cross should not offend anyone. If it does then maybe you should ask yourself if you are too sensitive. God loves you and send His son to die for you so that you can live. I am failing to see how that offends people.
Third,we do have rights to practice and display our religious views. This could a be violation of it but I would say that it was more of the student being a little too stubborn. I would love to see prayer in school, creation taught, and understanding of religious beliefs from everyone. However I see no reason that this kid could not have just drawn the landscape. Do your assignments. That goes for everyone. Atheist, Christian, or what ever you are. This issue could have been handled alot better by the student and the teacher should have been none biased to this issue.
Finally in all fairness. The teacher gave the student the chance to redo the assignment and the student refused. I find no reason why the student could not do this. Suppression of religious beliefs is wrong and more so when it only applies to specific beliefs. The big issue should be that the teacher allowed A's to be given to other students that who disregarded the assignment but failed another who had at least had some landscape involved.

More Free Software That I Love!

2008-03-31T23:05:00.007-04:00

If you have ever stopped in from time to time you may have noticed that I am big on Open Source Software. I am even more fond of it when it is a replacement for a mediocre or just a down right bad service of Windows. So I will be providing you with four great apps and an OS that you could be some what familiar with. So a total of five great open source software/OS's that you should check out.

1. Security Task Manager- Windows actually makes a pretty decent app with Task Manager but this software goes beyond the call of duty! It not only lets you view actions, programs, and errors but also lets you remove malicious apps or entries. If you are not sure that is safe to remove the issue this app has a Google button so you can learn what is going on. It digs deep into your system so that it access the hives and tells you if you have malicious registry entries. Give this one a download and you will not regret it!

2. Helix- If you do any administationyou will want this app. You can boot into a customized Linux environment or Windows to wirk with this app. It includes customized Linux kernels, excellent hardware detection and many applications dedicated to Incident Response and Forensics. If you have a problem this will solve it! Lose you log on password? This can recover it!

3. Mozilla Firefox- Yes I often tell you guys about this one. In fact the download at the bottom of my blog will start you on the road to better browsing. For those of you familiar with IE7 you will think that Firefox ripped off IE. Wrong! Microsoft did what they do best! Rip off something great and then make it worse! It's the Windows way! What is Mozilla? A web browser! Where is it from? Co-founder of Netscape, Marc Andreessen, was the original developer of Netscape's popular Mosaic browser. Marc like any great developer decided that Mosaic could be better and must die. Hence you get Mosaic Killer aka "Mozilla". The rest is history! Firefox will eventually replace IE as the most popular browser. In fact it is used by over 55% of my visitors! You get more security, faster browsing, constant updates, more themes, and better add-ons then with IE! Better browser hands down!

4. Foxit PDF Creator- Adobe you make me ill! Why must you charge so much for a service that is free?! Open and create your own PDF files with this freeware! Cannot say much more besides this..."Anything with the word Fox in it seems to rock!"

5. Linux Ubuntu- This is the OS I was telling you about. Linux is getting easier to use. People who are trying it out are walking away saying WOW(which Vista as failed to do to people)! I fully believe that Linux will one day be the OS of the future. Not convinced by such simple words? How about these words...Free, Free, Free! Everything about it is free. Well if you pay for direct customer support you pay but why bother when you have forums all over the net that are written by Linux lovers to help you have a brilliant experience with Linux! Guys not only is Linux free but so is the software! If that doesn't catch your eye then I don't know what will. The greatest thing about Linux the customizing that you can do. If you use Linux you will learn it, love it, and make it personal.
This OS is RELIABLE! Since Super Bowl Sunday I have been dual booting and not once have I had a crash or a freeze(cannot say that about windows). Not sure if it is for you? Down load it and put it on a CD to make a Live CD. That means put it in your CD ROM and take it for a test drive. You can boot from the CD anytime you choose and never install it!Dig that!

Trying Something New. AGAIN!

2008-03-31T00:12:00.002-04:00

Many woes have come to me due to the fact that I am fickle! I can and do move on from activity to activity like it is going out of style. I guess that is one of the reasons that I have welcomed the internet into my life with open arms. I am able to go from site to site and do very different things with ease.
So what is my new fix?
Working Windows!
This forum is designed with the intention to help myself learn common and not so common issues with Windows and to help people get their issues resolved! So pray that I take alot if this new site and am not too quick to move on! Thanks!
Feel free to come and tell about the common problems that you may have or had with windows so that we can build up our forum to help more people do more things.

I finally picked my candidate.

2008-03-29T23:33:00.003-04:00

The primary race that we have watched unfold in front of us this year has been unbelievable! I am very pleased to have been able to see such a tight and hard fought battle. Democrats have been beating on each other in a way that reminds me of how Rocky used to punch meat in the factory freezer. I have seen enough now to know which way I will go.

You see, I like the fact that our economy seems to due better under the Democrat party. I am not a big fan of their standards on abortion and being so easy on drug dealers but I am in favor of the economy growing. This race has been tight. I tried not to pick a candidate in an ignorant manner and I believe that I have done a pretty good job of researching and looking past the media. The media is favoring Obama and I mean big time. I believe that they should remain neutral but that just won't happen. So I have looked past them as much as possible.

With the smoke that the Democrat race has supplied it was not easy to look for the proper candidate. After reading statement after statement, watching video after video, and reviewing voting records throughly I have come to the conclusion that I must switch my political view, at least for this race, and endorse McCain.

I feel that McCain is not the best man for the job but that he is the best candidate running in this election. The choices are not to great. I waited as long as I could hoping that one of the Democrats would pull me in their direction but that never happened. This one came down to morals and beliefs. While I feel that our economy would be better off with a Democrat I cannot endorse Hillary or Obama with any confidence that they are going to lead us in the right direction.

I now know!

2008-03-25T14:44:00.003-04:00

I am the worst writer in the world! I can proof read something 3 times(like I did the previous post) and still not spell right or still leave words out or leave letters off. It's okay. I normally notice it a couple of days later though! :)

Sign Then Drive....

2008-03-24T16:39:00.006-04:00

There is no doubt in my mind that this past Sunday every church saw a spike in attendance. We ran out of bulletins, people had to find somewhere new to sit to accommodate the visitors who arrived before Sunday School was out, and people who you have not seen since the third Sunday in March of last year have now shown up to shake hands, shout amen, and drop alittle money in the collection plate. I assume that you, assuming that you attend church regularly, witness something similar to what I did.

As I was sitting there it I could help but to think. Come to think of it, every time of year that we witness an attendance spike I wonder why? Why so many people chose to flood the church on Easter and Christmas then disappear? I know that if I want to see them in church again it will be alittle while before Jesus has a birthday or celebration of his resurrection. I wonder to myself,"What do they get out of being here twice a year?" Does it seem to them that if they show up twice a year that their commitment to God is renewed for that year? Do they mistake the church for a fashion show? One in which they go to Sears and buy that dress that they probably won't ever wear again? You know that dress that is called the Easter outfit all year until Easter next year when another one is needed! Guys we do is too!Don't you have an Easter suit? You better get on if you don't!All the colors of spring overflow from the sanctuary. It reminds me of a Crayon box that has had a cardboard cross cut and pasted to the top of it.

Don't get me wrong. I know that this may be one of those post that gets and an anonymous comment telling me something like, "God know whats in my heart so He knows that I love Him!" My point is what do people get out of it? Can you get anything from showing up twice a year? There is a commercial that is on TV alot right now. It is a car company that is offering Sign Then Drive! Basically if you have good enough credit you can come in, look at car, if you like it sign the paperwork, and drive off with no payments for a while. How does this relate? Let me share with you my second thought....

What if instead of coming in and just looking at a car you actually signed then drove off with it? See where I am going? No? Okay here it goes. Instead of coming into church to shake hands, sing, and clap why not come into church with the intentions to take Jesus with you! All you have to do is Pray Then Walk! Pray for Jesus to be your savior & buddy and walk out with Jesus beside you. As opposed to walking in and feeling religious for a little while. Why not engage into a loving and fulfilling relationship with God? Don't just come in and look pretty. Come in and get charged up to take Jesus back out of those doors and let him live inside of you and through you. You have been approved! You have this co-signer who is willing to pick up your debt everyday! You have nothing to lose! Just Pray Then Walk!

Do What He Says!

2008-03-22T22:57:00.002-04:00

I was checking out the "Ten Commandments" on ABC tonight and about the time that Joshua fled and found Moses in the wilderness, it hit me. What if we really don't listen? What if Moses never went to the bush that never was consumed by the fire? What if he was too concerned with the way he looked after coming down from Mt. Sinai, to complete what God had given him to do! Things we do or don't do that could and usually do have serious effects on our lives and those around us face us all. We just have to do what God says if we are to make the right decisions.

If Moses never went up the mountain then he would not have found out God's plan for him. Moses no doubt knew that God had a plan for him. He felt the desire that we all feel. We are pulled to wondering what is going on, who is really behind the wheel. By listening Moses found the answers that he sought. He meet God. I remember the day that I was saved I heard the call that I had several times yet ignored the voice that called me everytime . I went that day to silence the guilt and the hopelessness that I had inside of me. Moses had to do the same. If he had chosen to run from the calling of God; I believe fully that Moses would have eighter gone crazy or lived a life in which he was miserable and confused till the day he died.

When I went to the alter I came up different then when I went down. Yeah I know that most of you are expecting to here me say,"I was a new creature", and I was, but I came up with tears down my face and so many mixed emotions. Moses came down from the mountain with a faced the let everyone that he had just seen God. Hair that reflected what he had seen. If Moses would have came down and realized that he was different then when he went up and it freaked him out then he would have done what I thought about doing when I got ready to get up. He would become afraid of what people would say about him and might back down from what God called him to do. Fear is crippling to a Christian and no doubt that Moses could have been so afraid that he would have denied to do anything else that God elected him to do( had he been concerned with his looks more than God).

Without obedience to what God said then His chosen people would have to wait for some one else to be elected by God to save them. People would have died a senseless death everyday due to the rule of the Egyptians over them. If we do not do what He says then we will no doubt be kept in the same bondage that the Hebrew salves were and die after living a non purpose driven life. Listen and obey what God says to you. It is the keys to freedom and purpose.

Should I Blog if.......

2008-03-22T20:00:00.002-04:00

I read a post earlier today that dealt with those who blog yet they shouldn't. This person claimed that she would not blog if she did not get 40+ comments each day. She stated that she visited a blog from time to time that never seemed to get any comments at all. She said that there is no way that should could blog and not people to respond. I have a different view.

Blue Collar Blogger will never rank number one on any major blog stat sites. I don't really care though. A blog is nothing more than a web-log. That is what blog literally means. I do not get alot of hits each day. The most I have ever had is 40 something. However my web-log reflects my thoughts, my life, and my faith that drives all of these things. If I only had one view over the last nine months or so I would be fine with that. This blog is a success.

I do not measure success like the rest of the world. I do not wish to get so many comments that I cannot conversate with my users. While some will not blog for more than a couple of weeks without 200 hits a day; I would blog with zero.

My Heart Goes Out!

2008-03-17T23:39:00.002-04:00

Today a fellow blogger and a close friend of mine suffered a huge hit in his life. It is one of those things that is easy to lose control and to get frustrated on but no this guy.
My friend's job was at a company called Sports Belle. Sports Belle distributed jerseys and other athletic equipment. They even provided the uniforms for Tennessee's basketball and football teams. Well Sports Belle caught fire last night. This means that he may be out of work for a little while. I would freak out. Not my buddy though.
My friend said that no one was hurt and that is what was important. My friend commented on a news blog and the only thing he was upset about was that the local volunteer fire departments were not getting printed for their efforts to help fight the fire. I was blown away by this. I would more than likely be ranting and raving about poor pitifully me. I would demand to know what happened and deep down inside be looking for some one to blame. Not my friend.
My heart goes out to my pal who is a model citizen, a great friend, and the type of Christian that you could watch and learn what it is to be humble. Now he of course would dispute what I have said about him. He would claim that he is not that important and just trying to fight the battle with Jesus by his side. No credit, honor, or glory is ever taken by this guy. He can decline the compliments but the value that he and his wife bring to me and my wife is something that he cannot denounce.
My heart goes out to my friend and I pray that he will rebound fast and move forward(I know he will). I would say that if you need anything you can call and ask but we all know that that would be pointless. You don't ask for anything unless you ask for it in prayer! Just know my friend that we here at the Foulks House value you and your wife and we are even bold enough to say that we love you guys!

My Favorite Online Stores!

2008-03-11T18:07:00.002-04:00

I am in the middle of one of my blogger blocks. Yes that is just like a writer's block. While this post may seem generic it is true none the less. These are stores that really get me reaching for my wallet!

5. Ebay- Yeah it is alittle different then an actually store but I love the fact that you can buy some great used or new stuff for next to nothing (sometimes).

4. Tiger Direct- This is a very popular store in which you can find many many electronics for a good price. I think my favorite thing about Tiger Direct is how they set up there bare bones computers.

3. Target- While Target as actually stores all around where I live, I love the set up and simplicity of their website! It is just fun to shop at their website!

2. All Things Remembered- I only shop at this store for my wife. They have things that you know she will grow fond of and quickly. Ladies they have nice stuff for us also!

1. And my favorite store is..............NEWEGG!- I love this place! The prices, the selection, the website, the customer reviews! Everything about this site rocks! Go and check them out sometime!

Seven new sins - The Vatican

2008-03-11T17:51:00.003-04:00

Lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy and pride! You have heard of these! I know you have because everyone as. Did you hear that the Roman Catholic Church now as Seven NEW deadliy sins! I hadn't. If you want to learn more then click here and go to learn more about this matter at Bene Diction Blogs On.

Is Obama Slandering Christ?

2008-03-08T17:33:00.002-05:00

Splinters of Silver wrote a piece questioning Obama's stance on Christ. To read the story click here.

Big Bibles

2008-03-08T17:31:00.001-05:00

Web Site Watch-Techexams.net

2008-03-06T20:57:00.003-05:00

I am planning to take my Comp TIA A+ and MCP exams around June. Around March of next year I am going to take a few more exams. After receiving my books for the classes to help me get prepared for them and after about an hour of looking through the books, I had gained confidence that I could pass the test today. After looking around I found two site where you can take pretests. One stood out. It stood out because it is free! All you do is register and then you are free to take test.

One of my favorite and least favorite things about the site is you can take 5 to 50 questions at a time. I would like to be able to answer more than fifty but hey it is nice if you all have 10 minutes to answer a quick 5 and see where you stand!

If think you are tech savvy(and most do even if they are not) go and visit Techexams.net and see what you know.

Are We Bigots?

2008-03-05T23:18:00.002-05:00

Bigot-a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.

I have been hearing the word bigot thrown around for along time. It is one of those words that people have been just using the word and not really considering what it means. Most Christians I know despise sin. Yes they claim to. Why? Because sin is against God. However we do not commit bigotry by simple not liking something. Atheist will tell you that they despise Christians who try to force their beliefs on you. They have no problem with religion except when it is pushed on others.

Most Christians I know are not able to be pushed under the category of bigot. We shouldn't push our beliefs on you. Does this mean that we should be silent about what we believe. No because then we are cowards. We have the right state what we believe and hope that others believe it. Like democrats and republicans we have a right to say what we believe to be wrong, prejudice, and immoral. We have the same rights as everyone. Because we believe in things that cannot be scientifically confirmed then we are bigots. My friend that is not what a bigot is.

A couple of years ago there was a big issue because a man had John 3:16 (it read JON 316)on his license plate. The man who was prosecuting claimed that it was pushing a religious belief on him and his children. He argued that the state had given the license plate and therefor this was a violation of separation of church and state. Now if the state gives no funding and simply issues a plate with a saying that a man wants on it is the state in the wrong? Church nor state were involved in the matter. It was his personal preference! Now the state would be involved if they were to say he could not have this plate because it was religious affiliated? Well this man had to give up his plate in exchange for a non religious one when it was all said and done. That is bigotry my friends.

It is unacceptable for people to expect anyone to sweep their faith under the rug so that no one else sees it. I myself have two Christian bumper stickers and would get a third if I liked it enough. I like to think that I do wear my faith on sleeve. It may not be loud and obvious at times but I like people to know that I am Christian. It lets them know what to expect out of me and that I follow God! My actions speak the same(atleast they do sometimes) Because I talk to some one about my faith or operate a Christian blog sit does not make me a bigot.

Suppressing of ones religious beliefs, gay bashing, saying that some else is ignorant for having a different opinion that you, or stereotyping by saying that the Christians are bigots is committing an act of bigotry. Think about who is really intolerant to others.

Only Me and My Wife(Conflict of a Geek).........

2008-02-29T16:53:00.006-05:00

We have some issues that we just cannot resolve. They are issues that most would never encounter but in the Foulks House it is everyday. Here are the five things that we encounter that no one else deals with counting down to the most the frequent issue....

5. She doesn't want our lives to be a remake of "Revenge of the Nerds."

4. We have more CRT monitors sitting on the front porch that we do TVs and they have been there for months.

3. That while in the house I still use the iPhone to check mail and browse web sites. My Viao is normally three feet away.

2. Cutting a hole in the bathroom wall to have a slide out laptop stand that includes an IBM Thinkpad. Every one should have one if you ask me.

1. Wanting to name my firstborn son Linux. This tends to go bad when I bring it up!:)

Something New Parents Should Know!

2008-02-29T10:45:00.004-05:00

In the last two weeks I have enjoyed learning how to interact with my newborn. during the day it is easy! They are fun to watch and make you remember how blessed you truly are! It is not so easy when it is 2 a.m., you only have one eye open, the baby is crying, the bottle warmer is taking too long(5 minutes seems like forever at that time of night), your toe is battered and busted from the door jamb that you slammed toe first into, your robe is hanging half off and some how the belt is through your sleeve and around your neck, and the back of the robe is some how locked in a way that a rocket scientist couldn't figure out why it won't fall down. That is the time when you have to learn how to interact with you baby.

It always seems like everyone is wanting to give parenting advice. Some people you welcome it from, some you know that you should probably listen and then disregard it. I have a friend that is much younger than I. This friend has no baby, nor has he ever that, he knows of. Yet, he is an expert on kids after watching Cheaper by the Dozen. Do not take all advice people.

Sometimes our baby has a hard time sleeping. That is unless she is in the bed with us where she can sleep on our chest(FYI:they do this to hear the heartbeat). We have committed a cardinal sin people! Out of the 120,000 people who give us their professional opinions all of them agree on one thing. Do not let your baby sleep with you. Why? Because they will never want to stop. They will eventually! There will come a time when your child will not want to walk with in 20 yards of you in a public place.So to think that they will want to stay in that bed forever is not so.

We know of one person who says it is okay to let the baby sleep in the bed with you. Out of everybody who is saying not to let a baby sleep in the same bed as you, guess how many of them have said they have let their kids sleep in their bed with them?! All of them that I have spoken to! Here are the top five things that people have told us to do or not to do and we went the other way and why we did.....
1. Don't let them sleep in the same bed as you.
Because this does so much damage. You may have to split your bed!
2. You have to breast feed.
No you don't. We tried it and guess what?! It is a lot easier with a
bottle for everyone involved. Baby, mom, and me!
3. Be sure you burp her every at least three times for every oz she drinks.
Sometimes it is not feasible to take away the bottle. We do it every two
oz. Some times we get one burp, some times two.She is fine.
4. Every time she sleeps you need to sleep. Every time!
We don't have a maid! We have work to do. A nap every now and again is
great. Babies sleep 90% of the day. I cannot do that! Can you?!
5. Don't pick her up everytime she cries. You will spoil her. This is the worst. It may be good for their lungs but I am not about to
let a baby cry until she is choking and red as a strawberry. A whimper
is one thing. Crying is another. Let them make sounds and whimpers.
Full fledged ear-rattling cries demand immediate attention.

You may or may not agree with all these. However it is my child and three things matter the most to me...
1. She lives and is safe.
2. I raise her like the Bible says to.
3. She knows that we love her.

Isn't that just creepy!

2008-02-28T13:09:00.002-05:00

We worry about people seeing us commit acts that for no apparent reason would make you uncomfortable if people would see you do it. How would you like it if a store was to record you on a camera that ran online 24 hours a day! Everything you did was laid out for the world to see. That is the case with most businesses that have online security cameras. This is list included but is not limited to churches, parking lot, market square areas where there is alot of action, roller skate parks, hotels,c-stores, and even in peoples houses.
Yes, my friend without a doubt something that you have done was recorded without you knowing it at some point in your life. Creepy as it is it happens. It creeps me out like it does knowing that someone as a picture of me that I don't even know exist. Look through your pictures and see how many you have taken with people in the background that you do not even know. Now how often do you think that as happened to you. This is on a whole different level.
Google maps does not bother me because it is old. They claim to keep updated pictures but the truth of it is that they have beens showing the same picture of my parents house for years. I know that the picture is at least 10 years old(the pool is not in the picture). This is live motion cameras that can and do record you without you even knowing it. So get excited!

To see what I think is so creepy just google the following.....
inurl:/view/index.shtml
The just click on any of the links that come up and see where they take you. It is wild where some of them will take you if you.

Separation of Church and State....

2008-02-25T13:17:00.002-05:00

We are going over the Constitution in American Government. When it came to the part about Church and State I was sucked into the text. It wasn't long before I came to a new conclusion about separation of Church and State. It is a good thing if we would use it right! If we look at it in the original text we can see two points of view.

1. The framers didn't want religion in the State. Why not?! Most of the framers were religious people. Religion had an influence in their lives. Most have been quoted saying things that hint toward religion or written other writings where profession of their faith. So to say that the framers wanted to keep religion from the State is a little strange.

2. What if the framers didn't want the State to corrupt religion? This seems to make more sense to me. If we keep in mind the literal translation of the Constitution and do not get to sucked in to the living and constantly changing Constitution that the supreme court has created. We will pay notice that the State is kept from influencing religion by the separation of Church and State. It is my belief that the separation of church and State is designed to keep the government from controlling the church. To keep religion pure and not defiled. If we could just use the law for what it should be used for then the law would benefit all!

Check these Guys Out!

2008-02-23T20:10:00.004-05:00

I found this website and instantly went head over heels! I myself love technology and the only thing that is better than a great gadget is hacking it to make it go beyond the call of duty! If it is transforming your wii remote into a mouse, use your PC for a space heater, cook a turkey using DVD-Rs and a light bulb, or using a real guitar in Guitar Hero, or converting your Nintendo DS into a smart phone you would love these guys. The site is called Household Hacker. While their site is not overflowing with posts yet it is impressive.

Updates

2008-02-23T20:05:00.002-05:00

I have not been on here to blog in a little while. Today I had alittle time but made the choice to do some update. I lost some items and the one I should have lost a long time ago was adsense. Pointless unless you have 45000 hits a day/ I did however keep the links that will take people to a Fire Fox download page. Why? Try Fire Fox sometime.
The look is different but the content is the same. So if you a still looking for that reading to help you fall asleep on the couch we are still here!

My Voice........

2008-02-18T22:23:00.002-05:00

Praise God for I am blessed!
My eyes are tired and burn from lack of sleep,
Praise God I love my life,
My throat is raspy and I believe I am getting sick,
Praise you God for my health!

God my job is about to be cut,
I know that you will provide me with a new one.
My daughter is healthy and I am pleased,
Because of you she is perfect.

Praise you God for all you have done,
Thanks for the family,
Thanks for the house,
Thank you for the salvation.

I see my friends who are bitter and sad,
They don't see you are in charge!
Don't be angry and allow me to shine to them,
Let me be a beacon of light.
Don't let me fail you Lord!
My honor is great,
I am afraid everyday of not being holy.
I don't pray like I should,
I don't praise you all day.
I am ashamed to be depressed,
Because you have blessed me so much.

If I am afraid then you will deliver me,
If I am cocky you will crush me!
Thank you Jesus!

Blessed!

2008-02-16T02:36:00.003-05:00

My plans were to post on Friday. I have given up on blogging everyday for now and am content with blogging a couple of times a week. I was planning to post on Friday but due to the fact that I am now a Dad that is least of priorities. I am going tp e taking a short(2 days to 2 weeks) break on post. This is due to a need to of being a new dad.My daughter was born on Feb. 14, 08 at 8:51 pm . Get this. She weighted 10lbs 12 oz and was 20 inches long! One big baby! So don't think that I have gone awol. Just taking a few days off to realize my blessing@

I am ANGRY!!!!!

2008-02-07T23:12:00.000-05:00

I was going around from blog to blog, reading some good post and just have some much fun that I felt like my house should be home to the GOP(Grand Old Party). Then all of a sudden I was angered. Beyond belief. I have never been this disappointed at any web site in my life. This is the website of a church! A church! This came from people who claim to love God. A bunch of scripture quoting un-compassionate thugs. Yeah, I am writing angry.

I have never said this about any person or Church before that claimed to be Christian, but there is a first time for everything, They are not Christians! You will know them by their Fruit! That fruit is Peace, Hope, Understanding, Acceptance, Help, and Love! Not hate! My God is not a God of hate! He does not hate you! He does not hate gays! He does not hate killers, nor liars, nor any sinner under the sun! He hates SIN! SIN not the PERSON!

This my friends is the reason why so many people say that God is dead! They say that He doesn't care! They call us bigots, hypocrites, lairs, fake , and all that other fun stuff you have heard your entire life. There is a reason for this!

Westboro Baptist Church this is looking at you! Put yourself under the microscope and see what you are! I am hurt, I am stunned, I am betrayed, I am more upset than I have ever been!

People who don't know God please do not think that this is what we are all about! We want to be your brothers and sisters. If you have been hurt by a church like this one then please forgive us. We should have watched better and gave fair warning! Not all people who say they are Christians really are.

The Goths!

2008-02-06T22:39:00.000-05:00

These are from a close friend's My Space page. I absolutely love these pictures! God loves every one and every one He loves equally. I think that the stating of faith that the Christian Goths display is fantastic(not just words but through actions). Which is why I wanted to share some of these photos with you.
Just to be honest here. I am still not to sure that I 100% understand the Christian Goth Community but I am however able to understand that they work with us to spread the Word. I try not to be too judgmental and try to remember that God made us all different. Just because I don't understand some one does not mean that I should not accept them!

Uber Bowl Sunday?!

2008-02-03T16:26:00.000-05:00

Today is the day. It all comes down to this. Two very different teams face off! On one side we got the high flying Windows Vista on the side we have the underdog Linux Ubuntu 7.04 aka Feisty. This one proves to be a battle. Windows is a good OS(at least to me) but the curiosity of Linux is getting to me. This epic match up started months ago. With the arrival of the Ubuntu Live CD via snail mail.
Since October of 07 Linux has occasionally been booted. My only issue being my user failure of not being able to properly install the 3D-accelerated videocard drivers. Why am I struggling with it? I don't know. I locate the nvidia-glx package, mark it for installation, apply it and download it then run the proper command(or so I think): sudo nvidia-xconfig -add-argb-glx-visuals; then follow the prompts. Save then reboot. To my surprise I have failed every time.
However my stubborn side is not to let it go. I fully believe that will a little more effort I may be able to properly install my videocard drivers and manage to run Beryl like I am longing for. In case you have never witnessed Beryl you have to look no more. The picture you see above is the real deal.
I have always used Windows. Me, XP, and Vista. I have used them. I want to see a change and am looking forward to change. Here is the kicker though! I am going to control the best of both worlds. Dual Boot Baby! Yep!

Super Bowl Sunday!

2008-02-03T15:52:00.000-05:00

Yeah baby! For those of you who don't know I am a football buff! I played with about 20 people until a couple of months ago. In high school I was a line man. When I played with my friends I had managed to earn running back and on defense they played me at defensive end or linebacker. I watch my mighty Vols every game. Pay Per View, ESPN, WVLT(The Vol Network) I watch them all. I love my Titans, love the Colts, Like the Redskins, despise New England. I am a small Giants fan. I cheer for them on occasion. Today I will be fully pulling for them to shut down the perfect run of New England. Why?

1. I have watched New England win way to much. Enough is enough. How good can one team be. I remember when I was growing up and the big thing (when I started to watch football) was the 49ers who were lead by Steve Young. What a QB he was. The Pats remind me of the domination that they had. However the Pats are more publicized.

2. Manning. I think that any one with the name Manning is entwined with great throwing ability in their genes. Peyton went to Tennessee which for some reason sways me to Eli. I really wanted to get him at Tennessee. Didn't work out but hey. People have been saying that he is not has good has his big brother Peyton. I will not dispute that. The numbers favor Peyton for now. Except for one. It took Eli only three years to reach the Super Bowl. I think (don't quote me on this) nine years. Not only that but does he have to be has good has Peyton. Eli is his own man. Why does he have to be has good has Peyton. He is in the Super Bowl. That is what counts.

3. Spy Gate! Yep I said it. People want to sweep it under the rug like it is nothing. Some want to down play it. Cheating is cheating. Last year Shawn Merriman got caught taking illegal performance enhancing drugs. He was suspend for I believe 6 weeks. Then at the end of the year he was given an award. What! Why do we give teams or players who get caught cheating an award or allow them to play for a championship. That makes no sense to me.

4. Plaxico Burress Verse Randy Moss- Yes they are both receivers and you will not see them on the field at the same time but I feel like this is the make or break deal. Moss is great down field. When it comes to nickel and diming the field I would take Burress. Here makes those quick catches that are needed to move the chains. If you could pair the two up on the same team you would have a dynamic duo that would Batman and Robin feel second rate.

I am not only rooting for the Giants. Guys I predict a win. Yep. I am going to go out on limb. I think you will see a close game. I believe that the score will end with the Giants on top. It will end one of two ways. The Pats will get shut down on 4th down while being down 31 to 35. I think that the other way for this game to end will be overtime. I see maybe a finally score of 34 to 31. Giants way. I am set in stone on two things. Both teams will score thirty points and the Giants will pull out the upset.
The Giants have played the Pats twice this year and both times played hard. New England has looked good in the playoff but come on guys. The Giants went to Green Bay and won a game that they played hard for 60 minutes. They Giants have been playing good ball. Lets put on our jersey's, grab our lucky football, sit on the couch and watch some big hits!

Three FREE Downloads That I Now Love!

2008-02-01T20:24:00.000-05:00

I was doing my little internet surfing thing. I managed to get alittle bored so I did what I love to do. Search for free-ware! I found two that are nice utilities and one that I went ga-ga for.
Back when my Vols were playing I went for a TV Tuner. Needless to say that after the lovely 115 dollar investment I was headed back to the store with in a day. Reception was horrible and I managed to get 5 and half station. Half of the picture on one was snow. So I went in search of a free-ware program that would allow me to watch TV. It didn't take long to get a surprise....

1. ANY TV. Simply....AWESOME. I have more channels than I care to count. Any type of sport is there. I can even watch Skateboarding 24 hours a day! If you one of those guys from Swap Blog you can watch Aljazeera(spell check that)TV(Just playing, I think). If you like Revelation then they have two channels dedicated to studying them. They break the different stations down into different categories like..
Channel, Genre, Bitrate, Rating, and comments. To put it simply I love this download!

2. Restoration- Ever done one of those bone headed file or picture deletions and then deleted it from trash only to find out a little while later that out you needed it later. I have! If you haven't then you are lucky. Restoration helps you to recover that information. Thats right folks. It can pull your file or pic back from the grave. It can be useful. I put it on my jump drive. How often will I use? Hopefully never but it is nice to have!

3. DoubleKiller- How many photos do you have on your PC that you have doubles. Never seems like you can find the time to delete the extras. I mean in between My Space, Halo 3, and all that time you send reading my blog you are hard pressed. Right? Anyway let DoubleKiller find those duplicates and remove them. Of course it will ask you if you are sure so no worries. Play and walk away! Not only works with pics but also files.

Of these three I have absolutely a heavy favoritism towards ANY TV. Maybe you can use them maybe not. I can!

God- Good, Bad, or Neutral.

2008-01-31T11:07:00.000-05:00

I was speaking with a fellow college student of mine last night. He is a good guy. He seems to have a good amount of knowledge and can explain things fairly well. The only thing is that he tends to think that you know nothing about everything so he tends to cover some things that are not entirely needed. We had our first theological talk last night before class. He had some interesting views. He attends church, told me he had accepted Jesus, and that he believes 100% in God. Somehow our conversation managed to go astray and he began to share some of what he thought about the Bible and the character of God. Here what we spoke about...

1. Evolution- Now him being a Christian, it was kind of odd for him to be standing up for evolution. Not completely unheard of but rare. We talked of David and Goliath. The fact that he believe Goliath not be a giant but just a really tall guy seems reasonable. After all isn't that what a giant is? A really tall person. He stated that Jewish people were much shorter back then. I accept that. Remains that have been found confirm that. He used that a platform to say that we could have evolved. He believes that while we were not a distant relative of apes we were probably just really short and hairy. Basically we evolved from 2 foot tall midgets that were really hairy. Now let me establish this...This is not the main focus of the blog but what was leading up to the main subject in which we didn't see eye to eye.

2. The Bible was probably written by a mad man. We have no way of knowing for sure who wrote the Bible. It is more logical for him to believe that a mad man wrote the Bible about God. Now why anyone would be a Christian and believe that the Bible was written by a mad man is beyond me.

3. Jesus was good. Well we can all agree on that. That statement however lead to the final topic of our discussion.

4. God is neutral. He believe that God is not just. He believes that God commits enough good to be called good but enough bad to be called bad making Him Neutral. He believes that the Egyptians being flooded when they crossed the sea is bad act on God's part. He believes that the destroying of huge cities and groups of people by God is wrong. He believe that making everyone speak a different language is wrong. Now he believes that God has done some great things. He compares them and gets the conclusion that God is not good, or bad, but neutral.

I see things much differently here guys. God is just. Yes you have heard that all your life. He is a fair God. We have penalties to pay for our disobedience. We have to face the music. When we disobey and are punished for it we cannot say that God is wrong. We have to face what we caused. God has laid down the law. We have strict guidelines on what we can and cannot do. Justice will be delivered. He does not just kill people for no reason. He always has a reason for what He does. To find it you need only to look back at His word. His word tells us that the Egyptians were told to let the slaves the go. They went after the Hebrews(slaves) with the intent to kill them. God protected His children. He devoured those who sought to destroy His chosen people. This is the way it is. If you saw a sign that said bridge out and yet you drove over it only to fall to your death, could you say that those who put up the sign where not good? You have to listen to God and obey Him other wise there will be direct consequences. You may not always see them has clear as you will at other times(like with the Egyptians) but for every time you do not listen to God you will be punished and it is just. Because God is good and just.

Is it wrong to rip CDs or download the wrong way from Lime Wire?

2008-01-31T09:55:00.000-05:00

I have a buddy who is in the music industry. He is a Christian. He does not pay for music he uses. Never has. He borrows cds from friends and then rips to his collection or he uses Lime Wire and downloads his music for free then goes through all the copying, burning and sharing. I have never done this through Lime Wire or any other place. I don't honestly know what the difference is between downloading them illegally or the legit way. I just pay for my music then listen to it(usually through iTunes). He has stated that he knows it is illegal. He actually told me how he has always done it and got by with it.
My question is how is this seen in the eyes of God?! It seems that we download or get free music without paying the artist and think it is okay. Would you go into walmart, grab a cd, then walk out with it? I hope not! Stealing is stealing in my eyes. The "everyone does it defense" does not hold up in the court of law nor does it before the throne. Go buy your music. Look at it has another way to separate yourself from the world.

Mean Face

2008-01-30T00:39:00.001-05:00

Some Ugly Mods....

2008-01-29T23:59:00.000-05:00

Read about these self proclaimed ugly mods at.....
Wikigiz and at Gizmodo

What to do!(This is funny and wrong)

2008-01-29T23:57:00.000-05:00

If you are sitting next to someone who irritates you on a plane
or train follow these instructions:

1. Quietly and calmly open up your laptop case.
2. Remove your laptop.
3. Start up
4. Make sure the guy who is annoying you, can see the screen
5. Close your eyes and tilt your head up to the sky as if in prayer
6. Then hit this link

Make a Joyful Noise Unto God. (Splinter's of Silver)

2008-01-22T09:17:00.000-05:00

The following is an piece of an article written by Splinter's of Silver. It is a brilliant post and all Christians should take a look at this one....
"The thing I would like to ponder is the idea of children verses adult singing specials in the church. In fact, I’ll just come right out and ask the question:

Why do we accept and applaud a child that sings a special, though it may be off key, but seem to dare not let an adult sing that does not have the “voice of angels”?"

It goes on to cover an issue that I had previously not even thought of. Go read it.

New iPhone Update Gets A Big + and A Big -!

2008-01-22T08:27:00.000-05:00

I did my normal routine the other day. I sit on the couch and placed my Vaio ever so gently on my lap(of course I had first placed my feet on the coffee table), gave Vista time to boot up, and then right clicked to click open on iTunes. I then plugged that shiny white cord into the iPhone then into the USB port. I allowed the phone to go through sync. Once that was done I checked for updates. It said that update 1.1.3 is available. No it wasn't going to update my iPhone until 1-23-08 so did what any patient man would do. I did it manually. I was reading the user agreement when I saw one of my biggest issues with the iPhone was about to be fixed. I will be able to send one SMS to multiple receipts. I almost leaped for joy.
There is a catch however. My email was about to forgo a major change. My gmail was a POP account. This means that my email was sent to my iPhone and whatever I chose to do with it I could and the email would remain in my Gmail account. Example. If I got an email that I didn't want to see on my iPhone I could delete it from the iPhone and then read it in my Gmail account once I was a PC. Not anymore. Now Gmail have made it from POP ti IMAP. This means what ever I do on my iPhone to gmail is done to the actual account. Boo Hiss!
The Phone came with other updates that are very cool. They do not account the POP to IMAP but they are cool none the less. Such has...
Bookmarks can be sent to your home screen. Now this seems like it would clutter you home screen but now you have nine pages and you can put has few bookmarks you like or up to 16 items per page. You can also rearrange your home page to suit you better.
The Maps now have some more power to them. Like say, pressing a button and a circle encloses the area that you are currently in(Maybe the next update will actually make the iPhone strong enough to be considered a GPS model, Doubtful though).The Hybrid map that gives you satellite image with the street names able to be seen is cool. Before it was street names or satellite images, You couldn't have both. You can also drop a pin and move it to where you want to start a route or book mark from the positional pin.
iTunes added a cool feature that works with the iPhone. You can now rent movies directly off iTunes then download them to your iPhone. So some very cool updates but one in a bigger bummer than the positive ones. Here are three that I would like to see the next iPhone update do.....

1. Allow multimedia messages to be sent and received on the iPhone. We all love the direct email option from our photo album but would also like to be able to sent the SMS messages to our friends phones. This would be a big plus to any one who are down for their own social network that consist of four friends and picture messages to let them see what they are doing and where they are doing it. Me I just like to take pictures of stuff and send it to my friends at random.

2. Some new wall papers. I just keep the standard picture of the earth that is set to default when you buy the iPhone. I am a little tired of it yet the other ones just do not appeal to me at all. I am stuck on that one.

3. Here is looking at you Gmail. Give me back my POP account settings and take this IMAP back.

Hillary vs Obama with a Hint of Rudy!

2008-01-17T19:09:00.000-05:00

This just made me laugh...

Should Christian Couples Have Children?Swap Blog

2008-01-17T19:04:00.001-05:00

When I was writing the last post it reminded me of a post I read at a better blog. Yes, yes Swap Blog. 99.9% of the blogs out there are composed of better writers, thinkers, and story tellers than I could be. Anyway here is a segment of the post they posted awhile back. I suggest you finish reading this one....

Marriage and kids

Are Christian couples compelled by God to have children? That question seems to arise a lot in today’s world, so what are the feelings of the Christian blogosphere on this?

God ordained marriage to be between a man and a woman, honesty hurts sometimes people. He also ordained marriage to be a means of procreation........(more)

Soon to be.

2008-01-17T18:26:00.000-05:00

In a short amount of time my life will change. The first major change in a man's life come with the unity of marriage. The males world goes upside down and inside out. All of our priorities change. We go from watching Sports Center to listening to Rachael Ray cook eggs benedict 24 different ways. We go from being able to stay u all night playing xbox to staying up and watching lifetime.
More importantly we go to not caring so much about the xbox or Sports Center. We start to care about different aspects of our life. We want to get our lives in order. We cannot do that if we are up all night dominating Madden. It just can't coexsist. We have new proritys. Then once we feel like we are begining to take control of the new phase of life....We have kids!
When I think about kids I think about panic, money, schools, do I have enough space, can they come out potty trained, how did this happen, what am I going to do!?!?! It can be frustrating. These are what I thought when I found out I was to be a dad. Now it is getting closer and I cannot help but to wonder. Why worry? This is going to happen. How much distrust in God do I show by not displaying my faith in Him to provide. Yeah me and my wife are young. Yeah we had a five year plan for children. Yeah it wasn't meant to go down like this. Well it is though. No more five year plan. No extended time to prepare for all this finacally. No way out. Stiaght forward and faith we must approach this. God is in complete control. I know this. Now I must show this.
We look for foward to the birth of Annalise Elizabeth! We know that God made big plans for all of us. No matter what our size or age, have a part in God's everlasting plan. The works of God extend beyond the molten rock, the trees, the sky, and the stars. They extend to all of us. We are the works of God! His most treasured works! So a child birth should never bring concern. It should always be a great thing. When a child is born every dad is proud of what they "made"! Do you think that God is any different! Our loving heavenly Father rejoices in child birth! No you won't find that in those words in scripture. Maybe it is some more of my bad theology. I don't think so.
Soon to be. A work of God is about to be revealed in my life. I get to watch this work come into the world. I am excited and blessed for the opportunity that God has given me.

The Journey-From SWAP BLOG

2008-01-15T23:22:00.000-05:00

THE JOURNEY

Lift your head see the end of the road is near.
Taking the road less traveled is farther away from home,
But when the journey is over;
You’ll know it was worthwhile.
Ask the one’s that have gone on before.
Don’t lose faith.
You’ll make it home.
This battle is not the whole war.
Go on, you’ll make it.
Set your eyes on the prize.
You can’t run-away now, there is no escape.
Shed the skin of your past.
Spread the wings of your future.
In this race we’ll never win,
If we fail to begin.
Off with the old.
On with the new.
The war the race will be over soon.
Jesus will guide you home.

Visit Swap Blog @ http://www.team-swap.com/wordpress/

Comments made in the ear 1955! Thats only 53 Years Ago!

2008-01-15T23:16:00.000-05:00

"I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it's going to be impossible to buy a week's groceries for $20.00."

"Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won't be long before $2, 000.00 will only buy a used one."

"If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going to quit. A quarter a pack is ridiculous.

"Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?"

"If they raise the minimum wage to $1.00, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store."

"When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 29 cents a gallon. Guess we'd be better off leaving the car in the garage."

"Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail hair cuts make it impossible to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair as long as the girls."

"I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying DAMN in GONE WITH THE WIND, it seems every new movie has either HELL of DAMN in it."

"I read the other day where some scientist thinks it's possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas ."

"Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday they'll be making more than the President."

"I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. They are even making electric typewriters now."

"It's too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet."

"It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work."

"Marriage doesn't mean a thing any more, those Hollywood stars seem to be getting divorced at the drop of a hat."

"I'm afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business."

"Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to congress."

"The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on."

"There is no sense going to Lincoln or Omaha anymore for a weekend, it costs nearly $15.00 a night to stay in a hotel."

"No one can afford to be sick anymore, at $35.00 a day in the hospital it's too rich for my blood."

"If they think I'll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it."

Know any friends who would get a kick out of these, pass this on! Be sure and send it to your kids and grandkids too!

Natural Law

2008-01-06T21:39:00.001-05:00

Natural Law- God's or nature's law that defines right from wrong and is higher than human law.

I have this new class for this term. American Government. Now I am not a too smart when it comes to the government and our policies. I even thought that we were a democracy or republic (I know nothing about our government, sad but true)! I never would have thought that we are considered a democratic-republic! The best of both worlds! That was sort of rabbit chasing, let me get back to the point.

The thing that caught me off guard when I started Blue Collar Blogger was the fact that atheist dominate the blog-a-sphere! I came from a really successful blog that was established by those who write much better than I can but I enjoy Blue Collar Blogger. I was stunned at the fact that for the first few months those who came to visit were close to 90% atheist. I had one debated that America has never been a government that place God has their head until that last 50 or 60 years. I knew this was a lie but I had no way of proving it. Until I was enrolled in my American Government class.

The very first thing that caught my mind was

NaTuRaL LaW

Don't worry I am learning more than just natural law! I read the definition(see top) then put it in my own words!

Natural Law- God's law is supreme! God's created nature and controls it! That means that God's law always dominates! No other law is more important. Even man's law! Because God made man!

The framers knew that God should be their driving force. The one who judges right from wrong. Even if we don't agree with it! It is the way it is. God's in charge. He is right and He has laid down the law has to what is right and what is wrong! Let try to remember Natural Law! God is right!

The writer's of the constitution knew that God was the one who could sort right from wrong. They made it clear in the constitution and several things they wrote. The nation at one time was a God fearing nation. People lived by God's law. The law-less are now a huge influence on pop-culture. Sex sales! Money is life! Drinking is for those with class! Foul language is a vital element to self expression! Do what you like! It is pure anarchy. People have turned from God! We live for ourselves. Natural law is now an option in America and everywhere else! Bring God back to America!

Will you be there?

2008-01-03T13:55:00.000-05:00

This is it folks! It has all come down to this. The final game of the year! 4th and goal from the twelve yard line. The Commanders are down 21 to 17. Two seconds left on the clock. This one was all but wrapped up. Now the Commanders are knocking on the door. If they get this they win. They will enjoy the spoils of victory. The glory will become theirs!
Here comes the snap. The QB rolls out to the left, he has had such a great day. He looks. No one is open. Here comes the pressure. He makes one miss! He spins past another! He rolls back to the right HE SEES AN OPENING! IT IS CLOSING FAST! JESUS IS OUT IN FRONT! HE HAS A BLOCKER TO LEAD THE WAY.HE POINTS AT JESUS To BLOCK THE DEFENSIVE END! HERE COMES THE LINEBACKER! BOOM!!!! WHAT A HIT! Did he get in? Did he make it? The line judge says no! The Commanders lose! If only he had let Jesus lead the way and take out the linebacker. He didn't trust his blocker to lead him to victory. What a shame. He fell short with inches to go. The senior in his last game made a bad call.
Every body has to make a choice. This may be the worse comparison I have ever done but it is still true. Let Jesus lead. Follow Him! Nothing good will ever come out of us following our own ways or trying to tell Jesus where to go. It will never work. It will get us into serious trouble. The road is straight and narrow. Just follow Him. It is not has hard has some people make it out to sound. Follow HIM!

Revelation 20:4-6 NLT

2007-12-28T22:36:00.000-05:00

Here we go again. It is taking me longer than I would like to be able to blog but we do what we can, right? So without any more wait, lend me your eyes and thoughts so that I may put them into a state of non-conscious. I am going to go after the next three verses the same way I approached the first three. With has much detail that the Lord gives me and will try to use many cross references to back up everything.

So in the first three verses we saw four key things to remember....

1. An angel has gone down to the bottomless pit with a "chain and key"(death and a burden). Rev.20:1

2. The Angel captured the beast. He will be bound like this for 1,000 years!Rev.20:2

3. Those who take part in the first resurrection will be priest of God and reign with Him for 1,000 years! :) Hope you are there. Rev.20:3

4. Satan will be getting released. :( Rev.20:3

That is the main focus of the first three verses. Now to dig into verse 4...

"Then I saw thrones, and the people sitting on them had been given the authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus and for proclaiming the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his statue, nor accepted his mark on their forehead or their hands. They all came to life again, and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years." Revelation 20:4

Now we see thrones! What are they for? Who is on them? Why are they there? To find this answer we will look back into Revelation alittle bit.

"The twenty-four elders sitting on their thrones before God fell with their faces to the ground and worshiped him." Revelation 11:16

Now before I say what I am about to let me specify this.I try not to put my brain into translating the Word of God because my thinking is corrupt(just like yours and everyone else). However I am not able to find a cross reference on the 24. However it jumps out to me that it(this the Theology of Travis) might/could/maybe be the leaders of the "12 tribes"(Genesis 49)! The other 12 could be...the Apostles? 12 and 12 equals 24 right? Makes sense. Remember that this is my stinking thinking though. Take it, leave it, or challenge it.

These 24 have been given the authority to judge. Judge who? Later in this chapter we learn that God judges us. So who do they judge? Probably nobody. Thats right. Look at the verse again. It never says that they are judging anyone. They have the authority to but it never says that they do. Maybe they are maybe they are not. Once again I cannot find a reference has to what they are judging. By looking at later in this chapter you can see that God judges us. So we can say that they do not judge us. We simply don't know what or who they are judging.

Now we see the souls of all who were killed for being faithful to Christ. Those who turned down the mark that the beast wanted to put on them, or worship the statute were tortured, beaten, and murdered. Rev.13 However those who do not receive the mark are rewarded. They get to reign with Jesus for their faith in Him. They take part in the true life. The life that we are intended to live. An everlasting life. A life of peace, hope, and love. A life with Jesus. Here are a few scriptures that tell you about true life Matt.10:39, 16:25, 18:8-8, 19:16-17, 19:29, 25:46, and 27:52 Only those who follow Christ and trust in nothing else will find life. Narrow road folks.

Something to remember here is that it is not a life like you and I now know. It is eternal, pure, painless, and fantastic. Do not get it confused. It is different.

"This is the first resurrection. (The rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years had ended.)" Revelation 20:5

So there is two resurrections. One of life. It is the one where the people will be able to reign with Jesus. The other is without a doubt the most depressing thing I have ever seen, read, or imagined. Those who do not get resurrected in the first resurrection will miss out on being with Jesus. They don't get this thousand years, and because they were not on the narrow road, they don't get to spend eternity with Jesus. They never get to see Jesus in His truest form other than when He is on His great throne and on the verge casting them into the darkness that they have chosen. I know of no other sadness that should grieve you like this should. The lost are going to be lost forever. No take backs. It is a choice that they have to make for keeps.

"Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. For them the second death holds no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him a thousand years." Revelation 20:6

Now here we are at the conclusion of this post. It is a simple one. We (those who have accepted Christ) are blessed. We are going to made holy. Not the Holy that we try to live has but the true "Holy." Faultless! Standing side by side with God. Nothing can touch us. We will stand with Him for one thousand years has His representatives. His chosen people. No sin, no Satan.Nothing can possibly compare to the blessing that we are given in Jesus Christ. Be thankful. If you are reading this then be thankful. Not everyone will stand beside the Lord. Be thankful that He broke you enough to be for you to see Him. Realize that you are blessed.

Here are the key points that we covered in these verses.......

1. Those who do not worship or accept the beast are blessed with life!

2. There are two resurrections. One of life and the other (in contrast) of death.

3. We are blessed!

So click the comment tab below feedback on this one. If you think something needs to be covered more than cover it! Spread the Word!

.

2007-12-24T11:51:00.001-05:00

One Question

2007-12-24T11:06:00.000-05:00

I know that this time of year many Christian blogs will be telling of the birth of Jesus. I love that. Many others will not. I am one who will be writing about something different. This is a question that was asked to the small children at my Church recently. I thought that it was a brilliant question. The answers ranged from a baby, a motorcycle, and money all the way to love and their sin. Here it goes......

If you could give Jesus one present for Christmas what would it be?

It's a good one! What would you give Jesus? Let us know!

Upcoming Post!

2007-12-19T22:22:00.000-05:00

The next post here will be a continuation of the Revelation Chapter 20 series I started.

Glow in the Dark Christians...(Repost-I Love This One)

2007-12-19T22:18:00.000-05:00

Glow In The Dark Christians- Originally Posted 7-7-07

You remember when you was a kid and you got a glow in the dark toy, or poster, or some thing else that would glow in the dark. It made you excited. It was different. You could help but to love it. They are cool. I still like them.
I am about to be short and sweet. We need to glow in the dark as Christians. In order for the object to glow you have to hold it under the light. You have to let it charge.If you went to bed and woke up in the middle of the night you would notice your toy was getting dim if not unable to glow any at all. Why? Because you have to let it have the energy ,that it gets from the light, for it to be able to glow.
What does this mean to us. We have to put God’s word inside of us. It is what lets us glow. We have to hide God’s word inside of us as much as possible so that when we go into a dark place we can shine for God. The more we have in us the longer we can shine for God. The more of His word we have in us the longer we stand against the darkness. Little word=small amount of fight in us. Lots of word= much ground to stand on. Glow we must.

Parting Sins, Parting Water. Same Difference?!

2007-12-16T23:06:00.000-05:00

"The LORD your God did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God." Joshua 4:24 NIV
Sometimes when I pray I say the following……
“Thank you for parting my sins and making a way to walk across this world to you.”
Why? Because the same as God parted the sea He has also parted our sin. We are living in this constant state of sin in which we cannot find a way out.It is too deep to swim through! The consequences are coming up behind us. Death surely awaits if it catches us. Death awaits of try to make it though the water(sin) on our own. So we have no choice except to pray to God to save us from the death that is chasing us and the barrier(sin) that is before us. When we do, God will do what He did to the Jordan and to the red sea. He will move our sins and let us travel the road less taken. We can go through Jesus and walk through the water(sin). If we pray it will happen. He will take us through the rough times we face and away from the sins we committed that hunt us. We will find the promises of the Lord are true. If we follow Him.
Yes I do believe that it is much like the parting of the sea. I enjoy walking through the dry land knowing that my God has pulled my sin back off my life so that I can be with Him. If I walk in His plan and not my own plan.

Why Does God Let Us Suffer?

2007-12-14T21:53:00.000-05:00

1.Suffering loosens our grip on this life. We some times get so involved in
this world that we forget what is really important and we have
to have those things removed from us.

2. Life is not forever. When others we know die we can learn that
life is a gift that is to be taken serious. We have a mission here.
We have to be willing live out that mission because we are not
promised another day. Make the choices God commands while
we can.

3. Suffering builds character. We face trial by fire. Some things we cannot
do with out experience. Patience, being forgiving toward
others, loving one another. These things come with
experience. We have to learn to do these things. Even faith
must be build with life experience. We do not know how our
faith will hold up if everything is easy.

4. Without suffering we would never get saved. Without suffering for sin
here on earth we would never know what the pain that sin
causes. We would never understand how serious sin is if we
didn’t have to pay for some it here. We would never turn
to God and we would be lost. Right and wrong and we would
not know honestly know that without pain.

5. It is our sin that causes pain. We sin we pay. We all sin. We all pay. No
way around that. Our suffering is a direct result of sin.If we
cheat or have sex before marriage we have no reason to say
I got am STD! Why God? How about if we steal and
end up in jail. Any sin will result in some type of pain. Be
prepared for the price that sin carries.

6. We learn to love God. Without the hard times we would never really know
how good God is. It is when He pulls us through the trouble
that we are in that we really know that God loves us ,thus
we begin to really love God in all His ways.

7. We forget about ourselves. Pearl Harbor, 9/11 had heroes.Heroes who
set the bar could not have done it without the suffering.
In times like that we learn to put others a head of ourselves and
that is what sacrifice is. Laying our lives on the line for some one
or something other than our well being.
This is all I have for now. God is good and He is complex. For us to understand why everything happens we would have to be completely dead and in Heaven. We could go on and on about why God does this our that but the truth is that we can never fully understand Him. The only thing that gets me through alot of things that I deal with is knowing that God does everything for a reason. I don’t understand but my God knows what He is letting happen. Trust is key to facing your suffering.

Revelation Chapter 20:1-3

2007-12-10T20:05:00.000-05:00

Do you love The Book of Revelations? I do. I spent quite a while researching it and learning it. However it has been a while since I have talked about it. So to keep from getting rusty I am going to give a little breakdown of one of my favorite chapters. I am only going to do verses one through three right now. The reason for that is simply that it would take a short book to do one chapter in Revelation. Lets take it slow and K.I.S.S.(keep it simple stupid-geared toward me not you)!

"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the bottomless pit[a] and a heavy chain in his hand." Revelation 20:1

First thing I want to point out is the words "bottomless pit". What is that? Is it the same has hell? Have you ever thought about that? Here are some common names for hell that you will find in the Bible and where you can find them at....

Luke 16:24 this flame
Matthew 13:42 furnace of fire
Matthew 18:8 everlasting fire.
Matthew 3:12 unquenchable fire.
Jude 1:7 eternal fire
Matthew 25:46 everlasting punishment
Jude 1:6 lake of fire
Mark 9:47 Hell Fire
Luke 16:28 Place of Torment
Matthew 22:13 Outer Darkness
Matthew 25:46 Everlasting Punishment

So we see that their is not just one name for hell. It has been called many descriptive things that help to define it. Now in order to find the answer to question like what exactly is the pit you do a cross reference. This is the logical why to understand the Bible. Compare the scriptures and find out what else is said about it.

" Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit." Isa 14:15

So the pit is in hell! Some believe that it is in a separate region of hell. They believe that the bottomless is a separate part of hell that is reserved only for satan and his demons. My theology tells me that hell is hell. Be in a different region or not it is still hell. If the people are separated from satan and his demons , then so be it. I am looking forward to not finding out first hand. Hell is hell.

There is mention of a key here. What is the key and who holds it?

"I am the living one. I died, but look I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave. " Revelation 1:18

Christ is defined has holding the keys to death and the grave. So He is the one who gives the key to the angel. He give the angel the key of death! Now with this key comes another object. A chain! A burden! We see that has symbolized with the heavy chain.Where? Lets compare other passages that deal with chains...

"The orchards and fields of my people will yield bumper crops, and everyone will live in safety. When I have broken their chains of slavery and rescued them from those who enslaved them, then they will know that I am the Lord."
Ezekiel 34:26-28

"The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with two chains between two soldiers. Others stood guard at the prison gate."
Acts 12:5-7

So chains represent slavery and bondage. They are restricting and they are punishment. So this chain is severely bad news for someone. It means that some one is about to get into bondage. However there is more two it. Lets check it out.

"He seized the dragon—that old serpent, who is the devil, Satan—and bound him in chains for a thousand years." Revelation 20:2

We see they chains used here on the dragon-that old serpent, the devil! He puts the devil into slavery! The devil is in punishment! Yes,yes the old defeated one is bound up for a thousand years. Whats going on for these thousand years? Lets cheat and look ahead a few passages...

" Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. For them the second death holds no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him a thousand years.
The angel threw him into the bottomless pit, which he then shut and locked so Satan could not deceive the nations anymore until the thousand years were finished. Afterward he must be released for a little while." Revelation 20:2-3

Oh my! Imagen this...

One Thousand years on this earth with no satan! No tempter! Just peace! Life with Jesus! Ever have one of those days where the bird singing doesn't constitute you slinging your bowl of oatmeal out of the window at the harmless singing bird perched on the branch?! You know that day. When you are just happy! Everything is great. People seem so nice and fragile that you may let some one pull out in front of you! Maybe two! One of those days! Picture that everyday. Picture Jesus being right there. For one thousand years. All of God's children will stand beside him and sing...."Holy is the Lord God Almighty!" WOW! If that doesn't excite you, you need to go check your pulse. That is exciting stuff! We are talking about Jesus and us worshiping Him, beside Him!

One Thousand Years without any sin! Just love! He is gone for now. In that pit that we discussed earlier. Now picture this culture shock. Here you are! Enjoying peace on for the first time since sin took place in Adam and Eve. Then after 999 years, 364 days,23 hours, and 59 seconds of peace and love, in the next second it will all change. If I have learned anything about the Lord it is that He that keeps His word! When He says something will happen it will. When He says when it will happen it happens then! Sure He leaves some mystery to be discovered but He has always been true to His Word. When He says one thousand years, He means a thousand years!

So here we are in this peace and love and then Boom! Here is satan again! Unleashed after one thousand years of bondage. He will no doubt be mad and certain to re-establish the chaos that He created for the last 6000 plus years. He is back! Why must he be unleashed? Why doesn't God leave Him there? That my friend is another post. Coming soon however!

Human Tetris

2007-12-09T22:36:00.000-05:00

Maybe the most fun 6 minutes and 19 seconds I have spent on You Tube to date!

Why I Love Esther.

2007-12-05T17:22:00.000-05:00

Tonight I have a term paper due in my critical thinking class. We have an open forum. Anything goes. My first thought was should I do it? Just jump out there with a former Sunday School lesson? I ponder for about a week and then another classmate of mine informed me that she wanted to Job. I was blown away! Wow here is my sign! Do it.

How ever instead of a former lesson I made the choice to go ahead and tell why I loved the book that the lesson was on. Not the Bible in general but one specific book out of it. Hence you guessed from the title.

I may have stated before in another post, I love, love , love the book of Esther. Did you know that it is still debated by some that it should even be in the Bible. The reason is understandable to an extent. Not one time are the following mentioned......

God, Jesus, Lord, Prayer, Salvation, or any other religious ritual!

Never in Esther is it mentioned. You hear of fast but it is never said to be a fast of religious beliefs. I better watch out how use that word religion. I was informed that I should never use it when describing my beliefs. Maybe a post for another day! Any way, Esther never directly points to God. That is the main reason I love Esther also! What?! What did that Blog Guy say?!?!?!

I love that because although He is not mentioned in the book it is evident that He is there. The way He set Esther to become queen. How God's chosen people (the Jews) were saved from certain death. God delivered them in a way that is not obvious unless you are looking for Him. It is then that you find Him (Are you starting to follow?) How much does that relate to salvation and how we have to get it? We don't find God until we look. God does not force Himself on us! Atheist see no God in life and the things that happen it because they are not looking for God. If some one was to stop and reflect on all the things that God had to have done for them to happen, the evidence would rock them! God is evident but invisible to those who don't open their eyes.

Ever thought or been asked why God doesn't work today like He did back in those good ol' O.T. days?! Look no closer than Esther. You will quickly see that God does. He doesn't work in any bight shining miracles. No water to wine, no walking on the water, no giant earthquakes, no floods, nothing that will make you say how did that happen? It is all personal! Everything God did in Esther was mold the characters you read about into what He needed them to be at the exact time that they needed to be that person. Is working through people. I love that. It shows that God is the same today has He was then!

For the most part I love it because of how well it relates to my relationship to God is. I don't always see God in my life. Sometime I have to look really hard to see how He is working and what He wants me to do. I don't always see the works of God. None the less He is working. Just like in Esther.

Is God a Liar?!

2007-12-04T20:33:00.000-05:00

"Thou Shalt Not Kill" Deuteronomy 5:17, KJV

So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them." Genesis 6:7

Now God said not to kill. Yet He sent a flood to wipe out the earth. There are numerous times that God commanded His people to destroy entire cities. This is the same God right? I mean God would not break His own commandment would He? Of course not! Don't be silly.

What is the difference between a man who goes out and shoots a person in the street for money. Then another man who is a judge and declares the shooter to die?

Motive! Do not kill is saying don't go out and kill someone just because you can or for personal gain. When God destroyed the world with the flood he did it because the world was wicked and evil. God declared that some one had done wrong. In the case of the flood all were guilty of turning from God for their own wicked ways. Everyone except for one family. God delivered what is know has justice.

If a criminal pulls a gun on a cop and the officer shoots Him ,then is the cop a killer? No He was in the right. Now in the same situation. Say that the criminal shoots and kills the cop. Is that murder? Yes it is. He killed and innocent man.
We have people who are appointed to call for justice. Judges, officers, our armed forces,etc.

God is THE JUDGE! The creator of the world says what is right and what is wrong and when someone sins there has to be consequences. There is a penalty. In some events God has declared death to many, some, or none. He judges, He does not murder. He does this because He is a just God. Not a murderer and not a liar.

Examine thyself !

2007-11-26T23:43:00.000-05:00

Are you baptist? I am and I can tell it most of the time on Sunday mornings. Lets face it guys and gals. The baptist church gets an "A+" for all of our gossip. We love to talk about the people we worship with. Everyone is guilty of gossip. I think that the biggest problem is that we fail to really look at ourselves or even better we don't want to see our faults.
How much easier is it for us to load up our guns with words to fire at other people instead of at ourselves. Facing our faults and short coming is not easy. It is so much less complicated to look at the person you saw yelling at the K-mart cashier over bad service then it is to realize that you shouted out "Learn to drive" at the car that cut you off by about three car lengths and then didn't pull out going 45 mph making you have to slow down. How dare them! You get my drift.
This weekend we had a visitor at church. Ken Freeman was in town and he was bringing the word. He used the following scripture....

" Examine yourselves, whether
you are in the faith; prove
yourselves (emphasis added)."
2 Corinthians 13:5

When is the last time that you used that scripture? Not read it, not spoke it, or not even taught on it but actually lived it out like the word of God. EXAMINE YOURSELF!

The Baptist guidelines seems to read like this....

"Examine your neighbor. Make
fun of them. Laugh at their
flaws. You know you want to!"
Baptist 1:01
I am also guilty of this. I love to laugh and sometimes it is at the expense of the none knowing fellow Christian and a few others who are not Christian. It is wrong. No matter who it is. We laugh at jokes that seem harmless but I thought about it. Would I tell these guys about the jokes I am telling? What would they say? How would I feel about it. Would the apostles have followed Jesus had He made fun of them for being some stinky fishermen? No! I needed to examine myself and get right with those who don't even know that I have sinned against them.
If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around does it make a sound. Yes it does. If you joke about someone and it doesn't make it bad to them is it wrong even though you know you were joking? You bet it is. Trying to deliberately tarnish the image of another is cruel, rude, and a sin. Jokes are more capable of the same thing.Gossip is gossip. Examine yourself when you feel the urge to gossip and if you still feel good enough about yourself to laugh at them then you can go ahead. I doubt you will though.

Are you banned?

2007-11-21T01:05:00.000-05:00

For awhile now my friend has been baned from China's world of blogging. I have recently been inducted into this list. To find out of you are banned in China go to...
Great Firewall of China

Need vs Want (link to a another blog)

2007-11-21T00:40:00.000-05:00

My good buddy over at Swap Blog posted a beauty of a post. It is called Need vs Want. I strongly encourage you to go over and take a look at it and his other post.
I cannot currently link to a page with just the post so you will have to scroll down four or five post.

Web Site Watch!

2007-11-21T00:18:00.000-05:00

Do you have a good vocabulary? Do you want one? Want to see how much you know? How about doing this while feeding the hungry? Sound good of course it does! To my atheist reader they are not a Christian site.
At FreeRice.com you play a game. The point of the game is to attempt to answer the questions you are given. The questions are all about vocabulary! You are asked to define the word you are given. If you guess it right the people who operate it have it set up so that they can donate 10 grains of rice. You may be thinking 10 grains of rice?! That isn't enough? Picture this. 100 Grains of rice is a plate. If you answer 30 of these questions correct then you provide three meals. You get smarter(according to our standards which base IQ off of vocabulary) and people get feed.
I am asking that you help to promote this site. It is legit. I assume they fund their rice through ad sense has it is clearly visible at the bottom. Me and my Psychology teacher are in a completive grid lock. I cannot get past having 25 points. She is at 41 and stays between 41 and 39. So go have fun, learn, and help to feed somebody.

I think I am saved?!

2007-11-15T16:47:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine stopped by yesterday a couple of hours before I went to school. The guy lives right next door to me. He has been to church with me a few times and even spoke to me that he was saved.
He had something on his mind. He said that he goes to sleep at night wondering what would happen if he died. He asked what happens in the rapture. We spend about an hour and a half going over things he was unsure of. This was going in a great direction. He seemed to understand who God was and what the Bible said about and more importantly what he said in the Bible. Until I asked a question...
"Who is Jesus?"
His response...
"A guy who died so that we could go to heaven."
That prompted me to ask the question of "what do you know about Him?"
He died on a cross. That was his answer. Now some people might say ty is correct. I am not content with it though. There is more.
When Jesus died on that cross it was not the sign for the ticket punching to begin. It meant we were just getting started. Jesus didn't only die so when we died we could go to heaven. He died for us to be able to have personal, passionate, living relationship. Salvation is not just heaven. Salvation is the freedom to go and talk with God anytime.
Did you know that at one time people could not do that? Yeah it's true. At one time we had to go find a holy man (priest) to go talk to God. Even then he could only talk to God through a huge curtain . Once Jesus died on that cross the curtain was ripped from the top down to the bottom(another post in that itself). The separation was gone. We can now walk up to God and tell him for ourselves what we have done, our love for Him, give His praises, and just as important talk to Him about our day.
There is so much more than okay I will make it to heaven. The expansion of heaven starts here. It starts with the relationship. Building a strong bond between God and ourselves. I never spend more time on telling people about salvation from hell has i do salvation from being unable to communicate to God.
I told him that he needed to be 100% percent sure. He did pray, he didn't let me pray with him. He said he wanted to be sure that he needed to. The last thing I said to him was be 100% sure. This is to serious not to be 100% certain. Get right with God. If you think your saved you better fall to your knees and make sure that you relationship with God and the acceptance of His Son Jesus is understood and known. It is too serious to risk going to hell.

GODISNOWHERE!

2007-11-11T07:36:00.000-05:00

God can seem confusing(though He is not). It is not always easy to see what He is saying. Much like the title of this post-GODISNOWHERE.
Now most people will see this has saying….
God is nowhere
Others however will see it has saying…..
God is now here
We may not always really get what God is saying to us so, before you make a choice on what you believe God is telling you to do. Then look closely and ask yourself is this what I see for myself or is what God showing me.

This is an older post of mine that I enjoy. I saw the GODISNOWHERE some where a long time ago and cannot remember where. I thought it was brilliant to see put the words together and see what people see. In this I also see the atheist who says God is no where, and the Christian who responds God is now here. Both have something they can stand on. The saying can be converted to mean which ever the other one wants. Maybe it is being bias. Maybe it is having an understanding of God. Knowing that He is here is a complex thing that is simple. You stick with God. If you are touch by Him and know that He is real, then you stay true to Him. In time you will begin to gain understanding, faith, and stronger relationship bonds between you and God. You other option is to go explore manipulated bones. Use tools that have been found to be inaccurate, yet the are kept because it is all they have right now. You may even be prompted to learn a fallacy or two so that you can try to crush Christians with you great God rejecting mind. Chose your side. Make a smart, safer, non-selfish move. There are four places most people believe you can go and only one of them is joyful. There is option for me. It is with Jesus Christ.

The Trinity. Do you get it?

2007-11-11T07:32:00.000-05:00

The Trinity. Yes , yes what a lovely bunch of mess. I spent many night attempting to figure out who can this be. I will never fully understand and nor do I believe that you will. at least not in this life any way. How ever is what I did come up with...
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Three separate forms of the same person. Confusing yes. However this is not really all that uncommon to relate to at times. Lets look at time. We have three states of time. Past, present, and future. Now we look at that and it is easy to accept that they all are time. In different form but they all are time. God is like that. 3 separate forms but all are really the same thing. I know that one is sort of shaky but it helped me. Okay, so maybe your a sports fan. Maybe you like Micheal Jordan(who doesn't). Michael Jordan is seen in three forms...
A baseball player, a basketball player, and a golfer. Now all though he expresses himself in three forms does that change who he is? Nope, not at all. He is still Michael Jordan.
Now with God we have the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Just because God choses do act in different forms do not mean He is not God in all aspects.I hope that maybe this helped to but it into reality for you.

Isn't that Catholic(linked post)

2007-11-08T00:07:00.001-05:00

I found a pretty good read over Paradoxology.

It's been five years now that our congregation has been observing Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season. Although our noontime service is rather brief (30 min.), those who attend always find it to be thought-provoking and personally meaningful, including the imposition of ashes.

There have also been a number of other, older, faith-practices which we have introduced into our weekly worship gatherings.
To read the rest of this post click here.

Medicated in Church....

2007-11-04T15:52:00.000-05:00

Last night I had take a short trip to the hospital. I had managed to get an infection on my finger tip. It runs at the tip of the index finger and runs slightly under the nail. First of I never knew that an infection would hurt like this does. The infection has made the finger very tender and it is times like this that you realize how much you use you finger.
After I left the Tennessee game I noticed the infection was large. Prior to this I thought that I had cut the nail too short and that was the reason for the tenderness in the finger. How ever now it was evident that it was something else that needs some attention. The fine staff at SMHS immediately confirmed what I had thought. It was an infection. So they write me a prescription for salfameth and hydrocodone. Now normally i would ask for non narcotic but if you have ever been to the doctor you know that waiting to get you prescription is what most of the wait is. So I just chose to take it this one time. Now I am not a fan of narcotic drugs and I believe that treatment is possible without using more addictive drugs when less addictive substitutes are available.
So I woke up this morning and took my pills like a good little patient. I am not a drug user and therefor it doesn't take much to give me a little buzz. My legs were more limber than normal and I had some free mind wandering. My words had to be thought out little more than normal. Now has we were driving there I couldn't help but think this is so morbid. I didn't like not feeling inspired to worship. Going through the motions with out any real focus on God.
That got me thinking. How many times do I just not get it. Do I go to church on Sunday morning and just go through the motions? Is it like this every Sunday? Well, no. However I am not on fire like I should be. I am luke warm. How many Sunday's do I go to church and not give my all. Probably close to 90 percent of the time. I don't want to be slightly medicated. I don't want to be in an altered state of consciousness. I want to be focus and ready to sing a sweet song to the Lord. I have to make a change here. Things cannot be luke warm in this department. My desire for God has to be all or nothing. It has to be 100 percent. I pray that the Lord will help to set my soul on fire for Him. I don't want to be a medicated Christian.

Shadow of the Cross

2007-11-01T00:18:00.000-04:00

A little while ago my buddy Rob left the church we attend to go where he believed God was leading him. Rob is a stand up guy. He works hard to see that the Lord's work is accomplished. His journey has taken him to Wichita Kansas where he now helps with the ministry know has Shadow of the Cross.
Shadow of the Cross is a unique ministry in which the team is unlike no other. Rob is goth and is using that to reach other people who are goth. When I first meet Rob I had no idea what kind of man he was. Rob goes about doing the work of God like no other I have ever meet. The links provided in the post will take you their ministry home page where you can learn about some of the good things that they are doing. It is still early in the ministry but I fully believe that God will bless them and is already blessing them.
If you are like me your first thought was goth and God? That sort of goes against each other. Not really. The way we dress has little to do with being goth or involved with God. I see him reaching out to a group that I could never reach out to. Remember that just because someone isn't the image that you expect to see sitting in the pew beside that no way reflects the relationship they have with God.

What would you grab/What to save?

2007-10-31T23:53:00.000-04:00

I was taking my visit over to Swap Blog and stumbled upon an interesting post.
The post had been linked from a friend of his named Pink Kitty. It ask the question...
In fire what would you save? So I began to think about it and found that I would burn to death trying to grab 50 different things. I finally narrowed it down. So here is my six( seeing how this is the number they both used)...

1. The rabbit.

2. My cuff links and money clip ( my wedding present)

3. The Vaio.

4. My text books.

5. My Phone ( it is new an I dig it).

6. Our marriage license.

Some are trivial but all currently play an important role in my life at this moment.

What God Wants.

2007-10-31T20:38:00.000-04:00

This is a question that people have cried out in their darkest hour, and asked in their most confused moments. Some people even ask themselves this question when they are wanting to serve Him but don't know where to serve. I cannot tell them the answer to that but I can tell you and them how much He wants.
100%
God does not settle for the 50% relationship. Nor will he settle for the 75, 85, or 95% percent. Make mistake that He will not settle for 99.999999 percent. It is 100% all the way. Nothing else will do. This means your prayer life is healthy (the Bible says to pray everyday without stopping), it means obey commandments. When you fail to obey you try again and again until you are free from the sins that bind you up. It means to tell other about God every chance you get. 100% means to make your life Holy.
Allowing God to take control of your life is the first step toward everything in your walk with God. Once you commit you give your all to living for God. Everyday in everyway you have to live for Him. Eat, breathe, talk, walk, sleep. Hide psalms and hymns in your heart so that you will not forget God. Never give up. Why? Because 99.99999 percent means you have been disobedient. Fall but rise up and over come.

The Golden Compass...

2007-10-25T00:12:00.000-04:00

Phillip Pullman hates the work of C.S. Lewis. He is an atheist. He has made a movie that is the exact opposite of the Chronicles of Narnia.
Nichole Kidman has the starring role. This movie slickly dumbs down your kids into getting them to watch what the atheists believe to be truth.
The Golden Compass is set to release in theaters on December 7, 2007.
For the full story click here...

Faith Mail

2007-10-23T16:37:00.000-04:00

Faith Mail is up and running. At Faith Mail you will read various emails that have been sent to me. It went online today. Feel free to copy and paste them in your daily emails to encourage, uplift, and spread the gospel.
You are strongly encouraged to email me your faith based emails so that they may be posted on Faith Mail.
You can click on the links above to go and check out Faith Mail. Let us know what you think about it and help to build it up.

GOD IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE

2007-10-23T00:59:00.000-04:00

I admit that there are times
That I am tempted to despair.
Then God speaks in all His mercy
To let me know He's there.

He took care of yesterday for me.
Tomorrow is in His care.
Today He will walk beside me
In answer to my prayer.

He brings constant joy and comfort
To ease my concerns away.
I could not go on without Him
To be my companion through each day.

I would just like to remind you
To lean hard upon His breast.
Release each trial to Him.
Wait for Him to do the rest.

Written By:
Evelyn D. Putnam

Web Site Watch-Zipskinny

2007-10-20T00:26:00.000-04:00

This is a fun fact filled web site. At Zipskinny you find what the title says. The skinny on your own zip. Thats right. Type in your zip and you will tons of information. Average wages, education, professions, marital status, age and much more. You can even compare the results of your zip code to others around you or around the nation. This was a blast.
Click here to go to ZipSkinny.

It really is sad to me.....

2007-10-17T23:14:00.000-04:00

They don't believe in God. They choose not to believe that they are created but rather believe that they were able to evolve from other life. Yet the statics say that the odds for evolution to happen would be 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 123. Just so you know that is impossible. You would have a better chance of finding a leprechaun. So why do they stick to their guns. They think that they will change what we believe, they like joke at others belief systems,they are able to accept anything they are told , or just want to debate. One of those four if not all of them can the average atheist fall into.
Why do they write entire blogs about a lies against God? Why waste their time to try to disprove something they don't believe in? Deep down inside they know. Yeah that is why they do it. They have that feeling in the pit of their stomach that says God is alive and He loves them. They fight it with their words and actions to try and make it go away. Wouldn't it be great if they were to all accept it.God has great plans for the atheist if they would stop fighting them.
I have heard it said by many of them that they were once Christian. No they weren't. If they had been they would have loved God and loving being more than feelings they wouldn't, no they couldn't turn away from Him.They would have been committed to Him. They were probably raised in a Christian family. They probably went through the motions of Church, and revivals, and maybe even prayed. However that doesn't make you a Christian. When you are Christian you dedicate your life to God. Separating yourself from the world to live a holy life.You accept His Son to be you savior. It is impossible to be a Christian and not live your life from that moment on for God. That is not what a Christian is. A Christian will profess their faith till the day they die. Seeing how they say they were once a Christian and now are atheist implies the following. They are alive and therefor are not a Christian due to the fact that they didn't dedicate their life to Him if they no longer follow Him. Don't believe that mess of "I was once a Christian." That is a trap by satan to make you think that they may be alot like you and you should give what they say some credit. Research it without being bias.You will find God to be real.
Most of them will say that science shows evidence of evolution. They all must have ran carbon dating test, used radiometric dating first hand, been there when fossil's were discovered, seen evidence first hand that proves that it happened. However over 95% of them refer to books and other peoples writings. They don't refer to their own work in the fields. They call them scholars and brilliant minds. All the while showing bias toward the answers they want. Anyone who believes the opposite is living out childhood fantasies. If they had they chance to use a double blind method and lay their hands on fossils or run radiometric dating they would be lost by the results. They take the words of people who think like them and never question what they say. Quoting authors like what they say is absolute fact without any debate or searching to see if the evidence can be viewed another way. They seem not to use critical thinking. Then call us ignorant.
Most of the atheist blogs I read love to blog about Christian's who fall short and commit sins. Why? What concern is to them? They Bible stats that "everything we think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood".Genesis 8:21
Let me break that down even more. We are going to sin and God knows it. He knows it. So why display it for the world.God already has done that!Our how about tell of evil all people do. Some try to hide it.Like this one here....
Atheist in the prison system...
2% of the State and Federal Inmates are Atheist
The atheist only commit 2 % of the crime? Yeah but here is the kicker..
Atheist make up 14% of the population in North America! All in all if you have the numbers lined up and do the math the numbers are the same. There are just less if them so the margin looks small. 2 out of 14 atheist will go to prison. Same thing for Christian's and other beliefs.They don't tell you that. People commit crime not God.
I was reading recently about how an atheist claimed the death of Cassie at Columbine has never been confirmed to be about God. Referring to the little girl who lost her life for saying that she believed in God. Yes it has! Her classmates who were right beside her and got her blood stained on their clothes witnessed this happen. All people are sinful. I guess since science cannot prove it ,even with many who were witness to it, that it is cannot be said to be true. That is grasping at straws.
Why my blog disrespected with foul language when it is cleared said at top to be a clean site? Who knows. The chat rooms and other blogs were already cluttered with crude uncivilized words that they had to try to containment my site. It won't happen. This blog is God driven. If you cannot handle that then maybe you should stay away. I will not change it, will not shut it down, will not allow the worlds beliefs to spill over and chase of the readers I have who wish to visit a clean site. I will continue to use Blue Collar Blogger to spread the Word of God. If you want to visit and talk civilized then come and visit. If you want come over and leave rude, ill, or foul remarks then don't bother. IT WILL NOT BE POSTED.
This blog is owned and operated by a servant of God who will serve the word of God not matter who likes it or dislikes. Bottom line I am here for God. I will spend my life telling you, your kids, and any one else I meet about God. Like it or not that is the way it is.

Current Blog Rankings

2007-10-15T23:48:00.000-04:00

So what if we don't get 400 or more hits a day. If one person was to read this blog in the last 90 days I would call it success. That one mean that one person had to see a post, some scripture, or just clean topics. I don't think the world has the right view on success. We believe that without individual achievements we are nothing important. That is the American view. Our nation is considered and individualist nation. Meaning we focus on personal achievements. Don't believe me then look at our newspapers or the ads for the Army.
"Be an Army of one!"(Something along those lines)
Where as other nations (not all but some) are collectivist. They promote functioning as a unit. In everything. From work, to their family, to play, to care giving. They accomplish their task so that the nation will function as a unit. That is the way it works. Compare these two examples...
"Come and work for "Blue Collar Blogger!"here you are reward with feedback for your insight on topics that you love."
Compared to..
"Come and help "Blue Collar Blogger" be read. Work as a team to accomplish goals that help everyone around you grow."
Which one do you think you would more than likely read in America? See my point?! With that said I do find fun in watching things like the Technorati's blog rankings from time(I guess I have some of the individualist mentality that I just described). While "Blue Collar Blogger" is not considered a success by most. I enjoy my writing and the choice to express myself to be alike and different. So without any more waiting the new ranking as of today, October 15,2007 is.....

1,644,723

Here are the past rankings..

July 30,2007-7,951,183

September 9,2007-2,515,283

Today's- 1,644,723

Prescribed by the Great Physician(sent to me in an email)

2007-10-15T23:37:00.001-04:00

The next time you feel like GOD can't use you, just remember...
Noah was a drunk
Abraham was too old
Isaac was a daydreamer
Jacob was a liar
Leah was ugly
Joseph was abused
Moses had a stuttering problem
Gideon was afraid
Samson had long hair and was a womanizer
Rahab was a prostitute
Jeremiah and Timothy were too young
David had an affair and was a murderer
Elijah was suicidal
Isaiah preached naked
Jonah ran from God
Naomi was a widow
Job went bankrupt
Peter denied Christ
The Disciples fell asleep while praying
Martha worried about everything
The Samaritan woman who was divorced, more than once
Zaccheus was too small
Paul was too religious
Timothy had an ulcer..AND
Lazarus was dead!

Now! No more excuses!
God can use you to your full potential.
Besides you aren't the message, you are just the
messenger.
Have a great day!!! The SON is shining and He
can certainly use you!

Dear God, I have a problem, it's Me.

There is no key to happiness. The door is always
open.

Do the math .. count your blessings.

Faith is the ability to not panic.

Laugh every day, it's like inner jogging.
If you worry, you didn't pray . If you pray,
don't worry.

Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be
bent out of shape.

When we get tangled up in our problems, be still.
God wants us to be still so He can untangle the knot.

Leave it to a West Virginia Farmer(Linked Post)

2007-10-14T14:58:00.000-04:00

The Following Joke came from The Good Report.
A West Virginia Department of Highways employee stopped at a farm and talked with an old farmer. He told the farmer, "I need to inspect your farm for a possible new road. "The old farmer said, "OK, but don't go in that field. "The Highways employee said, "I have the authority of the State of West Virginia to go where I want. See this card? I am allowed to go wherever I wish on farm land."
So the old farmer went about his farm chores. Later, he heard loud screams and saw the Department of Highways employee running for the fence and close behind was the farmer's prize bull. The bull was madder than a nest full of hornets and the bull was gaining on the employee at every step.
The old farmer called out, "Show him your card", "SHOW, HIM, YOUR,CARD!!!!"
Click here to check out their blog.

Who's your Buddy?

2007-10-12T23:38:00.000-04:00

How true is this picture? For some not all that true. Well I would say for most. Not just for the lost but the saved also(This will probably get a comment asking who is lost,I believe the lost to be any who have not accepted Jesus has their savior). We have alot of people in our Church today who don't understand something really important about Jesus. He is our friend. To any person there are four stages of relationships between themselves and others.
1. Stranger
2. Acquaintance
3. Friend
4. Enemy
To the lost He is a stranger. To the prayer warriors He is a friend. To those who challenge them He is their enemy. to most He is the guy you see outside while you mow and wave but never even think about going over to talk to Him. He is there. He greets you and you greet Him. He blesses you with a chance for friendship and you are too busy to stop and talk. He comes over to talk to you and you just want Him gone so you can get back to the game.
Jesus wants to talk to you and wants to be your close friend that you talk to on a daily basis whenever you can. He want to be the guy that without Him there you don't want to watch the game. He is God but He is also your friend. Even those who don't want to know Him He wants to be a friend with. Have you ever done that in school. Wanted to meet some body and when you do you find out they really have no interest in you or they just plain dislike you. Maybe you knew some one that gave you that look and when you were in the same room you had that thick atmosphere that made it hard not to notice they didn't like. We do that to Jesus. We let Him know we don't want Him by not praying, not reading His word, not allowing Him to be part of our lives no matter how hard He tries, by just not looking at Him. He knows what you mean with that! He wants to be a friend to you, to me, to everyone.
If I had to choose one friend for life I would want the friend who raised the dead. The one who loves me and will forgive me no matter how screwed(sorry about the language) up I am. He wants me! Why would I not want Him? Lets get the word out that Jesus is our friend!everyone should know this. Look at the picture! It is true guys and gals. Who is your Buddy? It could be Jesus! Let Him in!

The Ugliest Products in Tech History. (According to PC World)

2007-10-09T22:52:00.000-04:00

Microsoft Zune, above right
"iMac Flower Power and Dalmatian, left "

The photos you see are from PC World's recent article entitled the "The Ugliest Products in Tech History". I have to agree that some are very much hideous. How ever I like a couple of them. The Zune from Microsoft is a work of art to me. I enjoy the simplicity of the controls and the large screen. The player is no lightweight and cannot be crammed into a pocket but I still like the fact that it doesn't look like every other sexy MP3/Video player you will see out there.
The Nintendo Virtual Boy. I didn't think that anyone remembered those things. I had one when was a little lad. I never did like it much. It was never easy to see what was going on with the game and the thing was ugly and bulky.
Judge for yourself and to learn more about these ugly babies click here(links to PC World).

Who are you preaching to?(linked post)

2007-10-07T15:54:00.000-04:00

The following is the the first segment of a good post over at Biblical Preaching.
Preaching can be considered a relatively simple equation. You try to get the biblical message to the people sitting in the pews. Yet we so easily give all our effort to one half of that equation. We may study the passage for hours, but give little or no thought to the listeners. So next Sunday, who will you be preaching to?
Click here to read the full story.

What my Visitors Tell Me

2007-10-06T07:48:00.000-04:00

These are the O.S. that visits my site. Has you see XP is still the clear leader. Windows 2000 in second, Vista and the Mac OS X seem tied for third. We finish it out with Windows NT. I am disappointed that the penguin gets no love. Linux will be an at home O.S.. It is just obvious that it is not today.

Now this one is a little more interesting. 45% of the visitors I get use Firefox! That means more security for most but sadly once it is the mainstream Browser it will lose that secure element. IE6 and 7 have 42% and 11%. Making them the main browser. Combined the make up 53% of the browsers out there. Opera 9.X and Safari battle it out for the last place at one percent each.

What is it like to be a Christian?(Linked Post)

2007-10-04T23:53:00.001-04:00

The post bellow is from BigDadGib. His blog is growing to be one of my favorites. Stop by sometime to get a great read.
A woman was asked by a coworker,”What is it like to be a Christian?”

The coworker replied, “It is like being a pumpkin.”

God picks you from the patch, brings you in, and washes all the dirt off of you.

Then He cuts off the top and scoops out all the yucky stuff.

He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, and greed.

Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside of you to shine for all the world to see.”

This was passed on to me by another pumpkin in my pumpkin patch.

Web Site Watch- Dinosaurs and Man Co-existed Together

2007-10-02T17:37:00.000-04:00

Looking around on the net I found another website that really caught my attention. It deals with evidence that dinosaurs and man co-existed. This website doesn't only give you text but it also gives you the pictures of art that proves that dinosaurs were not a new concept at the discovery of some old bones(as would be believed by some). This website shows photos and gives the time frame on which it was made and where it was found.
Here are a few of the photos.

Now here is the thing. If dinosaurs were extinct before we ever arrived then how could these Peruvians have drawn such detailed pictures on these pieces of art. Notice the one with the triceratops and the MAN ON TOP OF IT! Yeah that is sort of a big deal. Evolutionist will have you believe that the dinosaur was unknown to man before the 1800's. This says otherwise.
Visit Dinosaur Art From Ancient Tombs In Peru to read more about these pieces of truthful art. They have many more great subjects to read on their homepage at...www.bible.ca

Web Site Watch...

2007-10-01T16:46:00.000-04:00

This is the first in a series I may keep on a regular basis. It works like the title. Surfing the web can be a pain. I was searching for reviews of college institutions and realized that other than big name schools it is hard pressed to find a good review on a school. That was surprising to me seeing how the one I was searching for deals with information technology(they have to be producing some nerds,and nerd is not a negative word to me). I assumed (which never goes good for me) that someone would have written a blog review, discussed it in an open forum, or bashed it somewhere (everything can get negative feedback for something).
The best site I found is collegeboard.com. While it didn't give me the school's student reviews, it is simple to compare any school to any other school you can think of. You can compare three at one time side by side. You can find information on admissions,sports, international students,if it's public or private, their deadlines, the campus life(although it is summed up in one word),and tuition. This web site makes it simple to find what you need. For instance... if you were to click on "Am I on track" it would tell you what you needed to do to meet the requirement to enroll. So if you or some one you know is searching for a college they could easily go here and compare. it.

Can Faith Help You?! No not one bit!

2007-10-01T15:08:00.000-04:00

"And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven." James 5:15
What can faith do? Can it heal the sick? Can it cleanse sins? Can it be the factor that says heaven or hell for you? No not all! Faith does not have one merit on where you go. Let me break it down for you...
A man says that he has faith that he can move mountains and tells you he will. He looks to the snowy top and yells " Be overturned and crumble!" Nothing happens.
A woman goes to a hospital and looks at all the sick people and then says "My faith has healed you. You are no longer sick." The person never gets any better.
Last one. A man is standing before God and says " I have faith that today you will let me into heaven and I will see all of the beauty that rest just beyond this gate." He does not go there.
Now you might be saying that faith is what we need to get into those pearly gates and see the the glory of eternal life. I tell you only if you put it in the right thing. Faith avails nothing with out Jesus being the one you are faithful to and have faith in. Nothing else. Without God driving your faith you stand no chance of doing any of these things at all. God is the one has to move. You don't move the mountain on your own will. God is the one who lifts it up and cast it aside.
All the things that we accomplish in this world are driven by faith in something but the miracles are driven not by just faith but faith by God cause them to happen. Your faith is only as good as where you place the faith. If I have faith that I will be the one to cure the sick then I am mistaken. Only God heals. Faith is dead without Jesus being the one who your faith is given to.

Scientists Admit:Evolution Not Supported By Facts

2007-09-30T08:59:00.000-04:00

Found a good over at Chick Publications. Here are some the things this man talks about in it...
1.Evolutionists Great Con Men
2.Do Fossils Prove It?
3.But What About Those Bones?
4.But the World Is So Old...Isn't It?
5.Carbon-14 Will Tell Us...Won't It?
6.When Did Dinosaurs Really Live?
7.Why Do They Do It?
This reading is all leading up to a book but for a short 5 minute read it is pretty good. I don't agree with evolutionist being con men but to each his own I suppose. Click here for the read.

Back From Black

2007-09-30T00:56:00.000-04:00

Major changes to the good ol' blog have taken place tonight. I really was feeling unmotivated to write and wanted to go exploring other blogs and then do some maintenance on my own. Yes, the black is gone. No reason other than I believe that websites should under go routine changes and updates once a month and makeovers every so often(like once every six months to a year). I think that the colors displayed now and the small changes to the sidebar make the blog a lighter and more fun place to stop by. Hopefully you agree.

365 Days

2007-09-27T23:08:00.000-04:00

Ever had one of those bookmarks that has scripture for you to read. You know a "Read the Bible in One Year" bookmark. You then say..." I am going to read the Bible through in a year!" You get all excited and read three days or more of the scripture at a time then all of a sudden you go over the end table and wipe away the dust from you Bible. You open it up and see the bookmark laying there with about 15 days marked off. It has been 15 since you last saw it. You spend the next two days saying tomorrow I will start reading God's Word again! How does that normally work out for you? It's okay most never finish using those. After all the early books of the Bible are not easy or that "fun" to read.So I know how you can get sort of burnt out on them. Yet they are just as important to us as the New Testament. We have to read our Bibles everyday.
I once heard it said this way...
"If your Bible could write a journal, what would it say?"
Would it say, another great day. I am getting all wrinkled up from the page turning I was put through today! Would it say, Hey weekend visitation is a start. Maybe it would say, fizzled again. My spine is stiff from laying around, my cover is dusty, and I think I was used for a coaster today.
Sadly most would say it was the second or third comment in that last paragraph. Our Bibles help us to read and understand God just a much prayer if not more. We learn of His past actions, His love, His Son, His prophecies, and His will for our lives. We see so many ways that God worked in peoples lives and we can then relate to things that God does in our lives by identifying the way He works.
Wren I didn't believe in God I would challenge His to do a miracle and prove to me that He was real. God did not always work in miracles in the Bible! Ever read Ruth or Ester? The way God worked in their lives is more like the way He works in my life. I would have never learned that if I had not read the Bible and studied it.
Reading the Bible from front to back is not hard. It just takes commitment. You will be seeing alot of that word around here (Blue Collar Blogger) because commitment to people, places, things, and God seem to be what I am learning tight now.You have to say I am going to do this and nothing is going to stop me. Use you bookmark, a devotional, or just flip to the last page for your Bible, look at the number at the top of bottom and divide them by 365. You will get the number of pages you have to read in a year to get through that. Can you really not read 2 to 3 pages a day?
How to read the Bible in Five Steps!
1. Pray for God to open you heart to His Word!
2. Open it up to a page of your choice!
3. Read the Bible
4. Meditate(think about what you read till it makes a difference).
5. Pray for understanding of what you just read and to use it.

They Got Him!(Johnia Berry)

2007-09-26T17:01:00.000-04:00

The search is over. After almost 3 years. The suspected killer(Tyler Lee Olson)of Johnia Berry is now behind bars. He was caught. I found out on my honeymoon and I was more excited than I though I would. The family of Johnia Berry has been through a battle on this one. The local police were not wanting to give this story much coverage and the family wasn't having it. They fought and fought to get the man who killed their daughter. The local authorities wouldn't let any outside agency (that did demand involvement..FBI and TBI) to get involved and even turned down Americas Most Wanted who badly wanted to help with the case.
While I do encourage prayer and love for this young man I have to let it be said that I am all for justice. So lets pray that he finds God(if already hasn't) and that He repents fully of His sins.
Read more about it, see, and hear audio/video about this case at WBIR