Herbal Detox Cleanse Day Four

Just like I thought, I’m going through sugar withdrawal, and man it’s tough! I’m sure it’s nothing compared to breaking a hard-core addiction like smoking or heroin, but I’ve been fiercely craving something sweet all day and it’s taken a lot of willpower not to cave in and eat something I shouldn’t. The eating plan we’re on for the cleanse is very pure: lots of vegetables, nuts, fish, some fruit, no dairy, no grains, no sugar, and nothing processed. It’s been a bit hard, but overall I feel pretty good. I’m kind of fatigued though – no gym this week. On the morning I started the fast, I was 222.5 pounds and yesterday morning I was 218 pounds – tomorrow morning I hope to be somewhere in the 215 or 216 range. You don’t get that much fat loss in a matter of days, but it’s a combination of waste removal, fat loss, and who knows what else. I’ll feel good once I make it to day six, the half-way mark.

Movies Worth Watching: Man On Fire

Now this is a great movie. Released in 2004, it’s perhaps my favourite Denzel Washington movie (Glory is right up there with it). Great action, believable acting, and a storyline that centres on the very un-Hollywood concept of sacrifice. Well worth watching!

Why Do Microsoft Mail Servers Hate My Exchange Server?

A couple of times a month, I’ll get a bounce-back from Microsoft mail servers where an email I’m sending to a Microsoft person, usually a reply, will get rejected. Here’s today’s rejection:

#< #5.7.1 smtp; 554-5.7.1 Rejected, id=04110-50-2 – BAD_HEADER: 554-5.7.1 Improper folded header field made up entirely of whitespace: 554 5.7.1 References: …0@NA-EXMSG-C…> #SMTP#

So if the problem is improperly folded headers, how exactly do I un-fold the headers? 😉 It’s ridiculous to have to email a Microsoft person at their Hotmail account because I can’t reach them at their @microsoft.com email address. And the Microsoft people I’m trying to contact can’t do anything about the problem because apparently dealing with Microsoft email support is like drinking acid (as in, not pleasant).

Email is do damn unreliable nowadays, it’s driving me nuts. I emailed someone about voice lessons, a week went by without a response, so I emailed again, and it turns out my email was in the woman’s Gmail spam folder. Same thing with a friend of mine who I email several times a month – Gmail spam folder. Did you know that Gmail doesn’t have a “white list” function? I think it only allows email through 100% of the time if you have them in your contact list.

Someone really has to fix the email/spam problems – this is all so incredibly frustrating.

Hello Blog, I’ve Missed You

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here, but I’d like to get back at it. Life has a way of getting complicated, whether you want it to or not. The past few weeks have been pretty stressful for me, the primary reason being someone close to me was in the hospital for some exploratory-type surgery. Things are looking positive though, and I can feel my stress levels slowly decreasing.

Today I started a cleanse with Ashley; it’s called the Wild Rose Herbal D-Toxландшафт. Since returning from Japan in March, I’ve found it really difficult to be consistent with going to the gym. Leading up to our trip to Japan, I was very consistent, hitting the gym for 60 to 90 minutes four or five times a week. The result? Not a single pound dropped, or any inches off my mid-section. I’m sure I gained a bit of muscle mass, but in terms of “inches lost”, no results worth mentioning. There are lots of reasons why, but the primary one is that I didn’t really alter my diet. I thought I was eating “pretty good” but the more I looked at my diet, the more I realized I was putting more garbage into my body than I was burning off of it with my workouts. It’s disheartening to go to the gym and work hard, then see no results from it.

April, May, June, July…I might have hit the gym once or twice a week on average. There was a period there where I didn’t go to the gym at all for a month! There’s nothing quite like paying $38/month for a gym membership and never using it to make you feel like a complete idiot. August has been a little better, though not by much – I started doing push-ups and sit-ups at home, but I found that my arms/wrists started bothering me a lot more than normal. I think it’s the push-ups; my RSI problems were aggrivated by the stress the push-ups placed on my wrists. I’m going to switch to the clenched-fist method for the push-ups and see if that helps.

Why the herbal detox? Doing a cleanse is a good way to reboot your system, and I feel badly in need of a reboot. Going off sugar is going to be the hard part – knowing the cleanse was coming today, I ate an unhealthy amount of sugar over the weekend…chocolate bars, a bag of 25 cent candies, and a large Dairy Queen Blizzard. Today I feel a bit tired, tomorrow or Wednesday I’ll be going through sugar withdrawal and will be extra grouchy. You’ve been warned! 😉

Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008, Day Two

Here are my notes from the second day. Unfortunately I was quite tired on day two, so my notes (and my ability to absorb everything) likely suffered for it. The second day also had a couple of sessions that were harder to take notes on – namely Chuck Colson and Brad Anderson.

IT: How Leaders Can Get IT and Keep IT – Craig Groeschel

  • He told the story of the starting of his church: Lifechurch.tv started in a two-car garage
  • 13 sites across the US, 25,000 people reached every week, one online
  • Some churches have IT, some don’t have IT
  • God makes IT happen…IT is from him, by him, and for His glory
  • It’s rare for one person to bring IT, but it’s common for one person to kill IT
  • Wherever you see IT, lives are transformed
  • The early church had IT…when people tried to kill IT, IT spread
  • Acts 2:42-47
  • Four qualities that are most often there when IT is present
  • Churches with IT have ministries that have razor-sharp focus. More ministries are not always better. Better ministries are better. What can we be the very best at in our ministries? In order to reach people that no one is reaching, you’ll have to do things that no one is doing. They do weekend worship, small groups, kid’s ministry, student ministry, missions. They don’t do concerts, men’s ministries, women’s ministries, single adult ministries, and many other things. What are you doing that you need to stop doing?
  • Churches with IT see opportunities where others seem problems. We have everything we need to do what God wants us to do. What is God trying to show us through our greatest limitation?
  • Organizations that have IT are willing to fail. Failure is part of the process in finding God. Peter failed many times at the beginning before he made powerful strides for God. If God is speaking to you, have the courage to get out of the boat (like Peter did). If you fail, shake it off and step up. What has God called us to do what we’re afraid to attempt?
  • Organizations that have IT are led by people that have IT. You need to have IT for your ministry to get IT. When you have IT it draws others. It’s easy to get distracted and focus on the results of IT rather than IT itself. He lost IT when he became a full-time pastor and a part-time follower of Christ.
  • If you don’t have IT, what are you going to do to get IT?

Continue reading Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008, Day Two

Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008, Day One

I spent today First Alliance Church participating the 2008 Leadership Summit (beamed in via satellite). It was a really worthwhile first day, and if you’re a leader in any capacity, my notes from today may help you understand new facets to leadership. These notes can’t capture the vibrancy of the event, so if these notes interest you, I’d encourage you to check it out for next year – it’s broadcast to 117 churches world-wide. This is my second time attending this event, and every year I leave it feeling recharged.

These notes are my take-away from each of the speakers, not necessarily my own thoughts – though I can’t think of anything that I disagreed with.

The High Drama of Decision Making – Bill Hybles

  • Leaderships’ highest usage is the furthering of God’s kingdom.
  • Leadership is all about making decisions, and some decisions have very high stakes
  • Leaders need a decision-making process that they implement whenever it’s time to make a decision
  • Christian leaders should look to the bible first and foremost as a guideline for decision making
  • What would smart advisors suggest I do? Proverbs 11:14: “In the abundance of counsellors there is much wisdom.” Advice from people will often conflict though – as a leader you must sort through the advice
  • P/G/E/ Principle: Pain, Gain, Experience. What kind of pain have your past decisions caused? What sorts of gains have your past decisions resulted in? How has the experience of the results of your decisions impact you?
  • Is there a prompting of the Holy Spirit in your decision making process?
  • When you’re heading in the right direction, there will be an exhilaration of spirit
  • Sometimes Hybles will make a “trial decision” – he tests out how the decision feels
  • Leaders have to take responsibility for their decisions. If the decision turns out well, you thank God, your advisors, everyone around you. If the decision turns our poorly, you don’t blame anyone. You bear the consequences, you don’t point fingers, you admit that you got it wrong
  • Taking responsibility for our decisions keeps the sharp edge on our learning process as leaders
  • Some leader compress the above decision making processes into micro-sized bits of wisdom, a self-created proverb
  • Abraham Lincoln: “The best way to destroy my enemy is to turn him into my friend.” The Christian application of this axiom is to build bridges with those who have wronged you
  • Bob Galvin, Motorola Corp: “Create motion for motion’s sake”. Action is better than inaction. When people are moving, they often move onto a better place
  • Colin Powell and the Powell Principles: “Check your ego at the door.” “Promote a clash of ideas.” “Reward your best performers, get rid of non-performers.”
  • As a leader, do I reflect often enough about my own leadership and my leadership problems such that I have my own leadership axioms?
  • Bill Hybles: “Vision leads.” “All I have to do is get the right people around the table.” “Facts are your friends.”
  • Willow Creek did a survey called REVEAL that allows them to learn facts about their congregation. These facts helped them shape their decision making process
  • Being misunderstood is sometimes the price of being a leader
  • Bill Hybles Axiom: “When something feels funky, engage.” When a problem in the church is brewing, do not believe the lie that unattended problems go away
  • Bill Hybles Axiom: “Leaders call fouls.” When something happens in a meeting you’re leading that crosses the line, the leader has to challenge the inappropriate behaviour. Leaders also have to call fouls on themselves and their own behaviour
  • Bill Hybles Axiom: “Take a flyer.” Take a risk. Ask God to rock our world, and He will
  • Bill Hybles Axiom: “This is church.” Relating to others, sharing meals together, growing together – this is church. Celebrating together, baptism, helping raise each other’s children – this is church. Comforting those who have lots, dealing with grief – this is church
  • You will never know life fully until you are uncompromisingly devoted to Christ

Continue reading Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008, Day One

Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog

This is one funny online project! There aren’t many things that will make me spend 42 minutes watching my browser (I watched this in several small parts), but this online episodic project from Joss Whedon is hilarious and very entertaining – and I generally loathe musicals. The only thing that kind of sucks about it is that they picked iTunes as their exclusive method of distribution, so it’s either iTunes or watching it in your browser. Bleh. There’s more in the world than iTunes Joss!

PayPal And Credit Cards: They’re Lying To Us

I’m generally a big fan of PayPal, but I don’t like being lied to: PayPal advertises that you can pay with a credit card using PayPal. I swear you used to be able to do exactly that, but you can’t any more: you only get the option to pay with a credit card if your PayPal balance is zero dollars. If you get a PayPal invoice from someone for $100, and you have $20 in your PayPal account, you can’t use your credit card to pay the $100…you can only use it to pay $80, and the remaining $20 comes from your PayPal balance. This is doubly irritating when you try to not pay via your PayPal account, and instead just pay with your credit card – if you’re using a credit card that’s attached to your PayPal account, PayPal won’t let you use that card, it forces you to sign into your account and pay it that way. Frustrating!

I Bought Into a Myth about Car Idling


[image found on Carbon Offset Solutions]

Don’t ask me where I heard this, but for my entire life I believed that starting a car used up the same amount of fuel as an idling car used in five minutes. So for as long as I’ve been driving (which is inching up on two decades now), I thought the “smart” thing was to leave the car idling for a few minutes rather than turning it off. Turns out I was completely and totally wrong according to this article. Idling for 10 seconds uses the same amount of fuel as starting a car in the first place. Idling a car for 10 minutes can use as much fuel as it takes to travel 5 miles. And even on the coldest days, idling your car for 30 seconds is all you need before driving away – the car will warm up faster on the move rather than idling (though the article says not to accelerate hard or drive at high speeds for the first 3-5 miles…which isn’t exactly practical advice in all situations).

I’m generally one of those types of people that thinks he’s right most of the time, but I try to keep myself open to correction and further learning…and I’ve just been schooled on the issue of idling.