everything designed

Clicked onto Expedia.com to see how much it would be to visit family in New Zea-land next year.  Looks like we can get the tickets for round-trip with 3 week car rental for about $1600 per person. Not bad actually. Then I stumbled on to their new Trend Tracker Tool – it tells you the trends on best time of year to travel (for cost). Digging it. So I know I was thinking initially about New Zea-land but I have been curious about the best possible time to visit Cozumel, Mexico and it looks like January is the best time to get out of town – around $360.00.

Love travel, love good deals. Love Expedia.com, still.

Auto dealership photo from wired.

Revolutionary Change and Brilliance for $1
What if we all pitched in $1 each and hired Seth Godin and Malcom Gladwell to speak at a live stream “tv, radio, internet” event in Chicago reviewing the next 3-5 year strategy and business plan for The Big Three automakers. I say yes. It is time for GM, Chrysler and Ford to hire the best. Or better yet we can “lease” them for a 2-day summit. Leasing is always better, except when it’s not.

Or we can save our money if they will just empower some of the visionary minds and hearts already in their organizations to help them re-invent.  Your thoughts?

Just in case your in for $1

While we are at it. Let’s apply the same concept to the church.

Myra and I had an amazing time last night at The Living Water International Gayla. A friend from church invited us to attend and learn more about what Living Water is doing for people around the world. These guys have been around since 1998 and have completed over 7,300 projects. They have impacted conservatively hundreds of thousands of people in 26 countries. It was truly amazing to see people give so sacrificially to help those in need. We are praying about funding one water well project and one pump project for 2008-2009. We will see where we go from here. I have never seen a better process for helping people. 83% of funds received go directly to projects with the other 17% going towards administrative and research.

Recently Completed Water Well in El Salvador

Link: http://www.water.cc
Mission Trip Schedule: http://water.cc/living-water/get-involved/trips/
Training Schedule: http://water.cc/living-water/get-involved/training/
Facebook: http://apps.new.facebook.com/causes/5398?m=a9688&recruiter_id=14335667

What are you involved in that will outlast you?

Seriously.

“Sethisms” are now posted:

“You are either the best in the world or invisible.”

“When times are good buying is a sport.”

“When times are not so good we buy somethings because things will never be this cheap again.”

Link here: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/
Posted by: Bruce Nussbaum on September 25

They call it “Customer Service”, I called it jacked. I just found out what happens when you let a domain expire. I know, very much old news for those who have already been jacked.

Domain Registrars are offering a really helpful feature called domain recovery. Instead of deleting your domain like in the old days, they hold on to your domain for a period of days as a service and all you have to do is pay the small fee to have it recovered. I had four domains that were set for auto-renewal and somehow the domains were not “auto-renewed”. So “Steve” kindly asked me to take out my wallet and hand it over (he did say please).  $80 x 4 plus regular annual domain registration fees. Sorry, bro but I work for a living. I canceled the domains and purchased some comparable names for the client. We will see if that will fly for now.

After a quick search at Google.com I found that registrar recovery fees compare from $150 and $260 dollars per domain.  What in the world? Is everyone smoking crack out of heavy-duty Tupperware? ICANN has recognized a Redemption Grace Period or RGP probably with good intentions (grace) and registrars took it a ran with it.

“Registrar-level ‘grace’ periods differ from registrar to registrar. It could be 0 (yes, zero) days or up to 45 -1 days (usually 30 – 40 days). Registry-level (ICANN endorsed) RGP (Redemption Grace Periods) last exactly 30 calendar days, during which BOTH the registry AND the registrar are entitled to charge extra ‘recovery fees’.”

Whew-we! That sounds like a solid way to make all kinds of extra cash. Who wants to go in with me a start a Domain Wreckovery Service. I’ll get DWS airbrushed on the new Mac Book Pro and hang some fuzzy dice on the desk lamp and we are in business. It’s all about the money.

So the short version is as soon as we are free from OPEC, ICANN steps in. Ah si, comprendo. Gracias. I  would seriously be interested to hear who has stumbled on to this already and how much did it co$t you?

(ICANN; Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers; www.icann.org)
(OPEX; Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries; www.opec.org)

Thank you TwitterFone. Seriously. I have had two crazy missed accidents because I was trying to update a twitter status while driving. Yes, addiction is the word that comes to mind. And, since the so called near death experiences I have stopped twittering while driving. Anyway, get signed up – this new app allows users to record audio and it translates into text then posts to your twitter account. Fun stuff. Technology is awesome.

Link here: http://www.twitterfone.com/
Oh and if you don’t have twitter yet, it’s never too late to start =) http://www.twitter.com

The news is labeling Hurricane Ike as a #freak. Intersting. We were not even expecting the storm to hit Galveston until 12 hours before. Kind of scary to see peoples faces and reactions when the news started predicting the path to hit us, directly. We scrambled and put together emergency plans and communication channels just before the storm hit. National Geographic sums it up well. Right before it hit us, it smacked right into Cuba and Haiti. Check out the shots and video:

“Hurricane Ike will be entered into the record books for the severe damage it inflicted in and around Galveston, Texas, experts say. “This one’s going to be famous for a long time, if for no other reason than it hit Texas, which hadn’t gotten a strike by a damaging hurricane in 25 years,” said Jeff Masters, director of Weather Underground, a private commercial forecasting service.”

The shot above is from the video “Giant Waves Crash Over Buildings” in Cuba.

link here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080915-hurricane-ike.html

Check out the request for proposals for creatives. Interesting projects and grants for organizations investing in expanding the creative arts; film, photography, design and more. The site also covers projects for technology, research and development, government, professional; all kinds of cool stuff. I bet Woodlands Church could apply for the $15,000 short film grant for creating educational programs promoting film. Anyway, good stuff, good site.

Check it out here: http://www.rfpdb.com/view/home/category/Creative

Pouring a fresh cup of coffee this morning and thinking about how cool it would be to tap into the coffee business. My Grandmother just told me about six weeks back that her brother owned a Community Coffee plant in Monroe, Louisiana (Jack Kelley). How cool is that, our family owned a community coffee plant? I love the taste of Community Coffee (almost as much as Starbucks Coffee). It just really makes me think about the risk he had to take to get that bad boy off the ground, the hard work and time that was invested. Was he able to leave the plant to someone he trusted; to his kids or to a trusted business friend? Did he sell out and use the money for something even bigger or did he just blow it on something else? I will definitely have to dig a bit to pull out the details on that one. How cool would it be to know that one day you would be left something as big as a Community Coffee plant? That opportunity would be amazing!

Family History and Legacy is interesting for me. I have not exactly been left a Community Coffee plant. To be honest, to think about what our parents left us is extremely painful at times, yet some parts are so mysteriously gratifying. Even though things have been tough, we are “struggling well” today.

Option #1 – Leave an Amazing Legacy

Our mom invested in us Spiritually, she followed Christ and submitted her life to God – not perfectly but she did. She loved us, she loved others, she loved life and we saw it. She got all that from her mother who got that from her Father – my great grandfather. They have instilled a deep rich love for God and Christ that I am so grateful for. Even though I have struggled through this life I know I have a Father God who cares for me and has invested in me and protects me even today. So my mom, grandmother and great grandfather loved Christ – for some reason they all chose to settle down with people who could care less. Two very important words come to mind: equally yoked. This inequality in Christ and contrasting views of life have made a ripple in our family that we are still battling today.

Option #2 – Leave a Painful Leftover

When I think of leftovers, I think of the “stuff” that we were left with that we are still struggling through today even with God leading and guiding us we are still paying for what our parents left us. This isn’t your normal midlife crisis bullet list – we were left with some crazy stuff (Drugs and Alcohol use, domestic violence, loss of parents, divorce, shame, guilt, physical abuse just for starters) that has really brought all of us to our knees to focus on God’s plan for our lives. At times we have allowed our parents consequences to impact our choices in a negative way which brings about more negative consequences. I learned this lesson quick.

Myra and I talk about this every now and then about how God must have a plan for our lives – it is really amazing when we look back and see what we both have experienced and how God had protected us but that most of what we experienced was a direct result of our parents decisions and their consequences. We are still experiencing their consequences, the trick is for us to do the hard work and trust God to help lead us into a place where we can leave a legacy for our kids. To throw out the leftovers.

At the Leadership Summit Bill Hybels presented the life of Mother Teresa as an amazing testimony to leaving a legacy. She clearly heard God’s call on her life and left everything she knew to go care for the sickest in the world. She did not live to leave a legacy she just answered a call to care for others which left an amazing impact. She was not all jacked up on her ego, escaping in drugs, trying to be like everyone else and “buy” a better life. She simply prayed that God would use her and that He would speak to her and that He would love her. He did. Even when she did not feel so loved, she still did His work. She left an amazing legacy.

Am I going to inherit and pass on a successful coffee plant or something a bit simpler yet so much more impactful? We were designed to leave our print on others; to let God work through us. We were designed to leave an amazing legacy. As I begin to think about the legacy that was left for Myra and me and our brothers and sisters it makes me want to live a life that our kids will one day be proud to write about – that they will feel that we cared for more than just ourselves. That we have had a glimpse of the life that we were created for and that we will make the choices that will leave a legacy that will outlast us.

Something cool, get a FREE Legacy Journal online here to get started thinking about the legacy you are leaving your family, friends and community: http://www.legacyjournal.org/

Do me a favor and check out this world comparison on how rich we are……

http://www.globalrichlist.com/

Ok, now make a list of the people and/or organizations that you supported last month; what are you investing in other than yourself?

If you are like me you probably are spending most of your money on yourself, your immediate family and 10% to your church. Think about the difference between a want a need. Anyway, this a quick discussion with my big sis. She lead me to this site and I thought it would be interesting to look at.