Is your church a Spa?

What a strange question, well it's metaphoric so follow along. This is one of those post that applies to allot of folks weather they are church people or not. There are allot of people who are what is referred to as church dropouts. There is a wide scale from those who were church people and now never go. There is also those who go on Holidays. I use to joke that god will be cool and let these folks out of hell on holidays. Now if your part of one of those churches that believe there is no hell only outer darkness you will have to deal with it because I believe in hell so let's move on.

So I was raised in a baptist church and went to church 3 times a week until I was about 12. I am not sure what changed but something did and I just stopped going. This was pretty much a family occurrence and I am pretty certain it had something to do with church politics. When I was about 15 or so I went to school with a girl named Tracie and I am not a bible banger really but if you ever read my blog you know I am very verbose about allot of things. Tracie and I started talking religion and nothing makes those closest to me shutter more than when I get going on religion or politics. Anyhow she was a member of a church that operated under the title "evangelical free." So in talking values and beliefs I discovered this church was pretty much the same as what I was raised in less some of the dogma. This was probably my first free church experience.

The key point to that deviation from the the subject is the term Dogma. There is nothing more interesting than coming up as a baptist. I am pretty sure this applies to catholics and other religions but there is a church formula.

There were standards to be in the church. Everyone should be dressed business casual. Women should be in a dress or skirt no shorter than the knee. Men are encouraged to wear a tie and at bear minimum should be in a shirt with a collar. Every service involved a music director doing this hand waiving thing like the congregation was a orchestra. 2 song were done sitting one of which was the offering and 2 standing. The song guy would pray the pastor would come up and do the sermon intro like a sitcom teaser then pray again. Finally the sermon and an alter call. This was the way church was. When worship is a formula why wouldn't you feel empty. It is real easy to be discouraged when you know the service is going to be the same as every other service you have ever been to and when you know you have to go be fake for 2 hours in your Sunday best with your church face on.

Now picture all of that for someone who knows church and has grown up in it. Now take someone from outside that world and drop them in to it. It truly makes you wonder why people are not just flocking in.

There is one advantage to this whole mess and that is to those who stick with it. The title of this blog ask a simple question. Is your church a Spa? Is your church a place where healthy people go to feel better about them selves? This is the saddest thing a church become. A church should be a hospital triaging the sick and wounded. I will go one step further and say it should be a military field hospital with choppers flying in and people screaming incoming wounded. This is what churches are meant to be. Attracting guest who come once or twice is great but should not satisfy the mission. Churches should grow in a manner that emphasizes the charge of Jesus. There should be no Mega churches and there should be no static churches. Churches should take in the weak and wounded, nurse them to health. Jesus said to spread the word. Jesus didn't wait for the sick he found them. Jesus didn't avoid the unsightly he embraced it.

Sadly I had the opportunity about 10 years ago to work a Baptist convention. The convention took place in downtown Phoenix at the convention center. As with any major metro area there are allot of homeless folks. It was a Sunday morning and about 3000 people where in the convention hall and attending services. A homeless man walked in and wanted to join the service. This is the opportunity to be Christ like. Embrace this man and show him god's love. I am sure you will never guess how the folks at that convention showed this man god's love. They got on the phone and had security escort him out of the building.

This is why people don't go to church. If you don't squeeze your self in to the mold or follow the formula then you are cast out. If you come in and your not up to par then your cast out. People are to busy going to church to make them selves feel better.

If that homeless man unshowered in ratty clothes walked in to your church would he feel welcome? Less dramatic a woman dressed loose like she was about to work the streets how would she be greeted? A Gang of bikers perhaps?

It is sad that the folks who need church the most are the most likely to be run out. I your church a spa?

Official word on the FreeSwitch Aquisition by Barracuda

The official word on the FreeSwitch acquisition by Barracuda is





Stop spreading rumors it is not true it is un-founded feel free to talk to the guys in charge on irc in #freeswitch on irc.freenode.net

gPhoto2 + Canon SLR + too much time on my hands

I was at a friends house and she has an active balcony. I set up my Canon DSLR on a tripod strapped it to my laptop and set it to snap a picture every 60 seconds for 1 hour. I present my friends balcony 1 hr in 7 seconds. this is why I love Linux all this was essentially 3 commands.

Natural born skeptik

So not to be overly specific perhaps I will stomp my feet in a manner to which I step on many toes as that is always the most fun.

I write code because it is fun for me. You hear folks say well simple credit doesn't keep the family fed. This is true that is why I have a job that keeps the family fed. I am a coder with a mild god complex which any good geek should have anyway. I like credit it says hey I liked this guy's stuff enough to use it. It really is an EGO thing. I think that is why when some one takes your work and clones it or derives from it without leaving proper credit it is really a slap in the face. Imagine someone comes to you and says hey I need an app does XYZ... You take some time and develop said app and test it and release it in to the wild. It's awesome your code takes on life and people are using it and the universe didn't implode. Over a successful release. Well you hear from others who are using the code but the original requestor never comes back to you or says hey man this works or even wow this totaly sucks what were you thinking.... So you assume well maybe they didn't find it as usefull as originaly thought no sweat because others did. well in comes the original requestor a while later and suddenly they are producing an app that does XYZ and in theory they suddenly learned to write code and produced the same app... Not that what I did was that complex but I actualy took the time to figure it out.. So we will have to see if the source becomes public or if the magic app is closed source. if it is free or if the damn dirty ape charges for it. Only time will tell. I say karma is a son of a B*** so the person will get theirs in the end!

Review: Citel 4110

So I was lucky enough to win one of the Citel 4110 phones from VoipSupply.

As promised to the tweet nation I thought I would put up a quick review.

The thing I thought attractive for this phone was its ability to so IAX2. I have a cheap netgear wireless router at home and nat traversal has been a nightmare. Well I set this phone up at work with a FQDN as the server and took a couple calls on it. Brought it home where my firewall is already set up for my asterisk box, I plugged in the phone and in about 30 seconds was able to make calls through my office. My luck with SIP has been 1 way audio and stuttering so I thought this was cool. I worked from home for 4 hours friday and no one had any complaints on my sound quality. There was about a 500ms delay to cell phones but cell phone callers dont typically expect pure audio. The boot time on this phone kicks the crap out of Polycom and even does better than Aastra

For te BAD: No manual in the box or linked direct off their site, you have to submit a support ticket. I did find a manual via google but it was really pointless as it only explained the obvious stuff. The Gui is pretty intuitive and anyone who has messed with a IP phone will get it for general use. There are soft keys you can make do stuff but there is no guide to say what the functions are. So documentation is a destinate failure. Also for phones in it's price point I guess it is okay but I think the phone is kinda ugly over all. I am shallow like that. In looks and features it is no where near my Aastra 57i but it also is nowhere near as expensive. Over all I would say 7/10

Not funny enough for Craigslist

Took 3 minutes to get flagged off, they do not apparently have a sense of Humor

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Apparently though it was a good weekend for me it may not have been for others. I opened my email box this weekend and was relayed the bad news that I had 3 uncles die. The grief was not to0 bad as I had never met them but they seemed like nice gentlemen. They were all very successful and between them they have left me a large sum of money. In addition to these generous uncles who passed I have also apparently won the UK lotto. So that All said I have had a good weekend. Here is the bad news. We live in a world of lawyers and everyone wants their cut. It seems that trade laws make sending me the combined $40,000,000 dollars an expensive process. In the grand scheme the fees are really low but I do not have the $5000.00 needed to pay them. I am looking for a few good folks to make a temporary investment that will pay 2 to 1. If you can help me raise the $5000.00 needed to get me the money owed I will pay you back $2 for every $1 invested as soon as these folks pay me. I normally would not do this but with the failing economy I think we can all use a little extra money and I would be a very generous millionaire...

You have the right to be an Idiot

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Isn't it amazing freedom of speech. The top priority in constitutional amendments involved the right to speak freely and to worship as you see fit. In 7th grade the constitution was explained to be in a very simple way. In America you are suppose to be free to do whatever you want as long as you do not impede someone else freedom. In even simpler terms, I can walk down the street swinging my fist until they make contact with someone. I believe that if you wanna be an idiot that is your right! If you want to kill your self that is cool too. If you want to not like someone for a belief, action, ideology or perceived genetic attribute cool beans. This is America hate who you want love who you want as long as you don't impede on others in the process. I think it is ok if your a racist good for you here is a brownie badge. It is not cool if you go and harass the group you don't like. Burning crosses and lynching and other actions are not acceptable. I guess the thought is if you truely hate something you will not stand idle while it exist. This is a lie. I hate stupid people. I do not go stupid people hunting. I do not actively seek out and hurass stupid people.

Well as is my nature it takes a 10,000 word essay to make a 4 word point. What is truly killing this country are the Al Sharptons. People who need to stir the flames to make a point and maintain whatever fame they think they have. Al Sharpton is an Idiot. It is apparent to a majority of the population that he is an idiot. Well there is a new player in the game his name is Perez Hilton. Let me start by saying Perez Hilton your an idiot! Anyhow this moron is trying to become the Al Sharpton of the gay world. He is actively attacking Miss California because he didn't like her answer on gay marriage. So the train of thought is if I say no to gay marriage I hate gay people... Funny thing is I am friends with several gay people who are not overly religious and they say no to gay marriage. So following this train of thought all my gay friends are bigot homophobes. I have been married twice and in my humble opinion there should be no straight marriage, much less gay marriage. I think people like Perez Hilton need to be stopped before they start. Miss California should be free to love, hate or disagree with whatever she choses. The circus surrounding this makes it sound like she is one of those nut jobs woth the "god hates fags" signs when in reality she gave a fair answer to an unfair question. In reality I think marrage is a religious institution and as such the government should butt out and let the churches decide yea or nay on gay marriage. Marriage has unfortunately become a civil institution. In the civil institution there is no reason why gays should be excluded as it is a simple 2 party contract. In a contract all that is required is a meeting of the minds. If too people are capable of entering a contract a marriage on a civil level is the same as buying a cell phone. On the religious level I think it is up to the church. In my church I would not see a gay marriage it is against my beliefs. That said you go to the church next door and they will happily perform a gay wedding and good for them. This is how it should be. I am not going to walk in to that church and set it on fire and I hope they would afford my church the same courtesy. If you want to know my beliefs read my blog or ask me and I will be happy to share them with you. If I want to know your beliefs I will ask. Do not come push your beliefs on me I will not push mine on you. The biggest part of the whole thing, do not ask my belief if your not ready for the answer. Perez asked for Miss Californias belief and she gave him an answer he was not ready for. Miss California did not go on to the soap box to push her belief, she simply answered the wrong question.

First death in US from the piggy flu

This morning when I woke up I got a text waiting on my phone about the first U.S. death in this whole piggy flu thing. Well I am still on the fence of weather this is real or if this is a black helicopter spread the word and control the masses thing. Anyway I frankly don't care. The purpose of this post is to head off and answer all the "hey James why are you such an insensitive A** HOLE" emails and comments. Let me start by saying did you read the "about" section. Next if this is a black helicopter control the masses thing being constructed in a hollywood basement the goal would be to pull as many heart strings as possible. This means the announcement is on course for a proper propaganda campaign. Being that I am NOT a conspiracy theory nut job I will buy that it really happened and my heart breaks for the family who lost their child. I am still not going to give the swine flu any power as in the big picture it still doesnt matter. My heart goes out to the family's of the 15 kids who died yesterday from birth defects and the parents of the 3 kids who died last night from SIDS. You see death happens it is a natural part of life. Illness happens the world is full of small viruses and parasites we can't see. You cant sweat the microscopic stuff. Go play with your kids, go to work, get over it. Thousands of people get the flu every year and some die it happens.

Have I gone too far? I hope so!

My latest toy hopes to make light of the swine flu hype that has been floating around. Everyone is up in arms about the pig flu which is fully treatable and to date has killed 0 people in the us and a relatively small percent world wide. Think of all the ways people die:

- Over 1,100 people will die today in the US from smoking
- 1000 people will die from poor diet and exercise
- 230 people will die from Alcohol
- 72 From car crashes

So why are we getting wall to wall coverage of this swine flu.

I Created the piggy flu hot line which ultimately squeals like a pig in your ear though it should probably read off the above stats. Feel free to call it at 253-243-1726. You can also follow it's progress on twitter at http://twitter.com/piggy_phone

Marriage of twitter and Asterisk

As you may or may not know I spend between 50 and 168 Hours a week with Asterisk , Telephony, VOIP and Linux. I have been playing allot lately with the twitter API for personal stuff and I would love to marry Asterisk and Twitter in a useful manner. I have sat and thought about this and can't come up with anything overly useful. So far I have a watchdog that watches the Asterisk proc and tweets every few minutes when it is down. I would like to hear your thoughts on useful or Fun applications for Twitter with Asterisk.

The key feature I like is the ability to have Twitter SMS you and countless others. There are many ways to hack this and twitter has privacy settings to restrict the viewing of tweets.

Please comment with your thoughts...

Some wan't to repeal the 22nd ammendment!

As is with all partisan politics the one side will do whatever it takes to vilify the other. I am a LOUD and PROUD opponent to the whole 2 party system. The main problem with the two party system is one ideology can take over very fast and control everything. The magic number was three for checks and balances. Three branches of government to prevent abuse . Well we need at least 3 major parties if not more. That said I don't like Obama. I think Obama is an idiot and some of his ideas are very dangerous to America. I do NOT however make everything black and white (no pun intended) Because some of his ideas are stupid and just plane idiotic does not make him 100% pure evil. This is what the left did to Bush. People on the right complained about how bad the left was for being the way they were with Bush. Those same people from the right who were up in arms are now applying the same standard to Obama. Next comes the two wrongs blah blah. I think if the right wants any prayer of recovering our country they should act a little less like the crazies on the left.

Back on topic, well it is all sort of on the same topic of bad ideas and stupid people. There is a faction of folks who want to repeal the 22nd amendment. For those of you who do not play Constitution the home game, that is the one which says presidents should only serve 2 terms. Lets look back at the Bush thing. Imagine if 8 years of bush was 16 years of Bush. I realize Obama is the golden child at this point in the game with a little over 3 months in office but what happens when the honeymoon is over and things go bad. A few compromised votes and we are no better than Nazi Germany, Cuba, and most south American or terrorist countries. A leader who is in office indefinitely will lead to totalitarianism or a dictatorship. The problem with our country now is not because of Obama, Not because of Bush, nor Clinton or other Bush. Todays problems are not from Reagen or Carter. All of these guys came in and served the time alloted to them by lucky number 22 and got out. The problems in America today are the fault of a branch of government with no term limits. The United States Congress is full of folks who have been in office through all of the fore mentioned presidents. I say HELL NO to the repealing of the 22nd and it is time for America to stand up and limit the terms of congress. It was never the intention of our founding fathers for there to ever be career politicians. Unfortunately congress will never put any restrictions on them selves so America must!

The bill of rights

I was just thinking that if you sit and read the bill of rights it is written in such a way that protects the people from the government. The bill of rights is not meant to protect people from each other. This applied to the 2nd amendment, will make me come across as a nut job probably and in reality I think the militant groups are often nut jobs but they have it right. The second amendment was written so that the people may keep and bear arms to defend them selves. The right is not to defend your self from an attacker but from the government. These rights are all put in to place to keep the government from having to much control. This brings us to gun limitations. Assault rifles are not for hunting and anyone who uses that as an excuse is full of crap. That said with the purpose of the bill of rights in mind which means keeping arms to defend our selves from our government should the people not be equally armed to those who they must fend off. The government can win these battles and do as they wish because they have simply reduced the peoples capacity to defend them selves. Sure you may have your pistol because we will come at you with a tank. There can be no successful revolution nor change as long as the people fear the government and the government does not fear the people.

They are your rights Save them

Use your rights!
Amendments:
1. I Blog, I carry a bible
2. I Carry a big gun and am well armed
3. Not really applicable at the moment.
4. I keep my door locked
5. Doesn't really apply at the moment but probably will soon the way things in the government are going
6-10. Fortunately does not apply at the moment but I will save this for use at their appropriate time.

Rights are no good unless you use them and may not be valued until you loose them. By the time you lose them it is too late. Fight for every right weather you use it or not because when the time comes and the rights are all gone it will be to late:

I am a voter
I am a Religious Nut job
I am an armed Citizen
I stand when required
I (ab)use my freedom of speech

I encourage at a very minimum people use their right to vote, and their freedom of speech.