One thing that I see that we take for granted too often, is a wonderful gift that we have, which is the gift of life. I personally believe that we are here for a purpose. God has out every moment and breath planned out. He knows when we will struggle, hurt, mourn, cry, laugh, celebrate and even when we will die.

The thing is, He knows when all that will happen, but at the same time we ourselves do not. We can plan...plan...plan, but that only gets us so far. Something always has a way of changing our plans.

We are not guaranteed tomorrow...or even five minutes from now. With the death in my family this week, it really has upset me. It has me thinking about us, as human beings. We take so much stuff for granted. Beautiful sunsets, laughter...and even something as life. I find that we place our wishes on our top priority list, but is that how Jesus would want us to live? I beg to differ.

I think if Jesus came down and gave a seminar to His church, He would encourage us to life for others. Not for us. "Do unto others as that should do unto you." I would personally hate to have my life go to waste. Just think about all of the people that you (or we) can be reaching that we are not?

If you have read this blog, I have prayed for you. It is my encouragement to you that you go out and change the world...one day at a time. Go share the love of Jesus with that one person in your class that seems like they are along and hurting. Go and heal thing with someone you are fighting with. Go to the beach and spend time with the one and only God of this universe. He wants to be your everything. He wants you to live your life just for Him...share the Gospel to the unreached people.

I love you all.
Thanks for reading.

-Ken

Labels: application, Celebration, christ, Jesus, life, others, suffering, tomorrow

As I grow older, the only thing that I regret is not doing something when the time is right. I am sure that many of you can relate.

I received an e-mail from my Grandfather earlier in the week. It was one of his forwards that he blesses me and many others with daily. It was a very interesting story. In a nutshell, it is an elderly lady who begins taking college classes. When asked by one of the younger students why she was going to college, she responded with something to the extent of she had always dreamed of coming to college, so now she is finally doing it. She also said that the one thing that older people regret is dreams they did not follow through with during their life, making it to late to do anything about it now.

It took a couple of days for that to sit in, but this morning that line really spoke to me. I thought on my way to lecture this morning, how many opportunities have I passed up that may be to late to do anything with? How many dreams have I passed up because I was not totally dedicated?

Monday evening I was chatting with a friend of mine. I mentioned to him a dream that I had, that had been developing recently. He was very encouraging with the idea and thought it was great. I have also mentioned this "dream" or vision to other people and they have been very encouraging as well. Sometimes you need that type of support in order for a dream to become a reality.

Through the years, I would like to think that I have not let too many dreams slip away. My move to Orlando was probably the biggest dream that I have had in a very long time, and that was tough, but it has been great since I have been down here studying. Another major dream I had was to serve at a church again. It had been a couple of years since I had done that, but I was able to work through some stuff I was battling with and had lunch with the Media and Communications Pastor at First Baptist Orlando. Every since that day back in early 2008, I have been serving in the broadcast ministry at First Orlando.

Let me encourage you to read this post, and take it to heart. Please, do not let you most cherish dreams of today become a big regret later on in your life, because you were too scared or afraid to pursue them.

-Ken

Labels: application, Buckhead Church, dreams, First Baptist Church Orlando, ministry, no regreats, Orlando, politics, serve

Today, the internet search giant, Google encountered some "turbulence" when attempting to adjust some key routing numbers, in an on-going effort to transition from an older networking standard to a newer one called IPv6. This was a major issue for the search giant, leaving about 14% of their user-base in the internet dark.

Larger ISP networks that "peer" off of Google, such as AT&T, Verizon and others that are interconnected with the Google networks were effected greatly by this glitch. Google did have a backup system which became activated. This server is based in Asia, and was not designed to handle the amount of traffic the internet threw at it. This caused a major traffic issue, just as a simple car accident can bog down an interstate for miles. Google had the glitch repaired, stories report, by 9:14am PST.

Was this a forgivable mistake? Or should we start tallying up the points for Google? The way I see it, although it may be annoying or an inconvience at the time it occured, things happen. Google does, have backups for when a specific cluster of servers goes down, which is good. I have no beef with Google. I do rely very heavily upon Google. From e-mail, calendar, blogging, chat, news gathering, maps, research...blah blah. I would say about 80% of my internet activity would not exist without Google. What is amazing though is that a major glitch was repaired within an hour and everything was back up and working properly. If this had been a larger period of time, things may be different.

Point number two. I think patience has lost its value in society today. People seem to be in "I need it NOW" type of mindset. They then proceed to throw a hissy fit when time is not in their favor. One of many things that my parents drilled into my head is patience. When I see people demainding something "now" then observing the temper tantrum afterward, I just sit back and realize...do they know what kind of fools they are making of themselves? Really? What would they be thinking if they were watching themselves through my eyes?

Do some thinking. Take today and be patient. Even if it takes a few more seconds than longer to do something simple on the computer, calm down. Does that five seconds really matter that much in the long run??

-Ken

Read the complete story here.

Labels: application, att, glitch, gmail, google, hissy fit, internet, ipv6, mistakes, patience, verizon

In audio, we use "Phantom Power" to allow Condenser microphones to function which need an additional +48vdc of power. These microphones are more sensitive that traditional dynamic mics or ribbon mics. The fascination I have with this type of technology is the incorporation of the audio signal that is traveling through the cabling and also the added +48vdc of current.

Everyone has friends...or hopefully so. The degree of those friends (how much you speak...see each other...things you have in common, etc) is a variable factor from each friendship to friendship. Some, you can't go a day without speaking or being in communication with each other and the extreme being you can go months and months between conversations. The later is what I refer to as a "Phantom Friend." That term is not being used in a negative or condescending way.

In this "social networking age," we are able to instantly have communication with people from all around the globe in fractions of a second. This can keep is connected through whatever medium we choose to. In fact, many of my friends that I have are a great distance away! From Tampa, FL...Atlanta, GA...Nashville, TN...New Orleans, LA.

Yesterday, I received a message from a friend a few hours away. It has been at least six months since we had a real conversation. It was really great hearing from him, and what is even better is I am glad to see his success.

Even though we had not had a conversation in a number of months, that does not mean that the friendship was null and void. I am sure that there was at least one time in that number of months that we had thought about calling each other, but for some reason, that did not work out. That to me is the fascinating part of this topic...just as phantom power secretly powers microphones, "phantom friendships" secretly powers support and concern for those you call your friends.


-Ken

Labels: application, audio, friendships, phantom, social networking