If I had let this go until next Friday, it would have been a YEAR since I last posted.

No way I could let that happen!

Above all else, guard your heart,
       for it is the wellspring of life.

– Proverbs 4:23

I’ve been known to be a fairly cynical person in the past, something I’ve been working to change over the past few years. In thinking about this verse now, I realize I used to look at it in completely the wrong way. I always took it to mean that you were supposed to protect yourself from pain. In other words, guard yourself from other people — you can’t trust them — because sooner or later you’ll end up hurt.

What a cynical view that was! I now understand that it does mean that you need to protect yourself, but not in the same way that I used to think. Instead, it means that you need to protect your beliefs, protect your faith. The world is an evil place, and the unwary heart can easily fall into the trap of sin. So guard yourself by standing strong in the faith and by staying as far as you possibly can from the temptations of sin (Proverbs 4:14-15).

Because this faith, this relationship, this Christ — HE is the wellspring of life.

Let me tell you a little story about Work Out World (WOW).

I joined the gym in December of 2004. Just like a cell phone, they required a two-year contract. No big deal, I was planning on going. And I did. For the first year and a few months… Well, I realized at the beginning of this year that I hadn’t gone since April or so of 2006, so I decided to cancel. I would get an elliptical machine for home use and drop the gym. Should be pretty easy, I figured.

Let me tell you, WOW does everything they can to RIP YOU OFF. First of all, you pay for your first and LAST months up front. Ok, that doesn’t sound too bad. I can live with that. That’s on top of the one-time fee for joining — they were asking for $500, but I talked them down to $100. Again, sweet. And to be honest, I DID enjoy the facilities while I was going. I just never thought it would be such a HUGE issue to cancel.

1) March 23rd, I decided to cancel. So I stopped by the gym. They had me sign a “Request For Membership Cancellation” waiver. On said paper was a phone number for me to call, for the billing company they use. They explain to me that if I cancel before the end of the month, I will still be able to go to the gym until the end of April, due to paying for the first and last month up front. So no, I wasn’t paying for the last month I wanted to attend up front, I was paying for ONE MONTH BEYOND THAT. I tried to call the billing company, but it was closed, as it was Friday evening.

2) March 24th, I call up the billing company. A nice lady informs me that WOW requires a written request for cancellation. Fortunately, email is an acceptable form of written communication. So, I write an email to the address that the billing lady gave me requesting a cancellation. She said that it would be processed in 24-48 hours. So, Monday or Tuesday, I’m thinking. Which means it will be processed before the beginning of April, so I won’t get charged for yet another month.

3) I never heard back from the billing company, but I didn’t think twice about it. Today (April 2), the charge for WOW showed up in my bank account. Not cool. So, I call up the billing company again, and they tell me they NEVER GOT THE EMAIL I SENT. Uh, huh. Sure. It just disappeared. Not only that, but they tell me that WOW requires a 30 DAY WRITTEN NOTICE.

Let’s see. Where am I. I just paid for April. Which I can’t fight, because a 30 day notice was apparently part of the agreement I signed when I joined, and March 23 to April 2 is well within that time period. Oh well, the $20 monthly fee won’t kill me. It’s the whole idea behind it. It’s the fact that WOW is dragging every cent out of me they can. Super shady, if you ask me.

Not only that, but because the billing company apparently didn’t get my first email, it’s now April 2 when I’m sending it again. Does that mean I’ll get charged at the beginning of May, as it’s within 30 days?? As it is, now I’ll have my membership until the END of May, due to paying for the LAST month up front.

Like I said, a few years from now and I won’t care about the money. It’s the shady business that WOW is pulling on its member. A two year contract, now a complete pain to cancel.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t join. They have good equipment. I’m just warning you up front that they make it as painful as they possibly can for you to cancel, taking you to the bank on your way out.

Now you know.

Well, today is the day that Abby is having surgery on her wrist. She injured it a long time ago now playing wallyball, and after a cast for four weeks, and a cortisone shot, it’s still not better…

So, here we are. We’ll go upstairs for pre-op in 20 minutes, and then once that’s done and Abby goes in I get to just sit and wait.

I have my computer, and a book, so I should be fine.

My laptop has one of the (fairly) new glossy screens, as opposed to the matte of the past. While this can be nice for watching movies, and it has great color, it’s virtually impossible to use outside. Or anywhere where light is abundant.

For those of you who know me well, that’s not too much of a problem, seeing as I tend to keep most of the lights off anyhow. Not to mention the fact that my room is in the basement and I don’t have any windows. So yeah, not too much of a problem most of the time.

On those nice summer days though, it would be super nice to be able to actually use my portable computer AS a portable computer… Enter The Laptop Shade. No, I don’t think I’ll be buying one of these — but it does make me think I could rig one up myself…

Product Page [IT Helper]

Security is getting pretty crazy these days, and I’ve often tried to find the best way to store all the passwords I have to keep track of. Well, today could be my lucky day.

Enter PassPack. It’s an online password manager created just for this purpose. Now, I’m still wary of storing my passwords on someone else’s server, but I’m going to give it a shot. Maybe not all at once, and maybe not the passwords closest to my heart, but I’ll try ‘em out.

Features:
1) It’s anonymous. That means you don’t have to give them an email address, and you can even change your user id down the road, should you so desire.

2) It requires two passwords - one to actually log in, and another to “unpack” your passwords. It’s nice having that second level of security.

3) It’s ajax enabled. Which is just cool.

If you’ve been looking for a way to store your numerous, randomly generated passwords, check it out. Or if you’ve found some other way that works well, let me know in the comments!

As many of you know, I get a lot of my t-shirts from Threadless. Usually it’s too expensive (once you include shipping), but sometimes they have $10 sales… and when they have them, I’ll often buy three or so at a time. No, there’s not one going on right now, but if you keep checking back I’m sure you’ll see one!

Anyhow, they’ve been slowly expanding their business to include kids’ sizes… and now they have their own site: ThreadlessKids.com.

Water shows up in our basement whenever we get a big enough storm. And that’s never fun. Well, this time around, I took the time to check a bit more into the problem. It turns out we have more than one problem.

First of all, we have a crack in the foundation. I talked to our neighbor (he’s a contractor), and he said the crack can be fixed pretty easily using hydraulic cement. The same can be used to fix the leak in the other end of the basement where the water main comes through the foundation. We just need to wait for a nice dry day.

On top of that, however, we have water getting in the wall upstairs and draining down into the basement. We’re not sure where it’s coming in exactly, but hopefully that won’t be too hard to get fixed either.

Of course, I found out we need a new roof too. Sigh.

This perspective is actually the hardest one for me to discuss, because this is my perspective. Therefore it’s the one I analyze the most, and my conclusions vary on a day-to-day basis. I’m constantly trying to find an appropriate balance in what I view to be important, what I view to be real.

As opposed to the Non-Christian perspective, where reality is based on life on earth, and that’s all you have to think about, reality from a Christian perspective is much more complicated. Now not only do I have my life here on earth, but I also have to think about eternity. I have to find a balance between living for eternity with Christ and the fact that I’m here, right now. So what’s important?

Sometimes my focus is more on my life on earth. I lose focus of eternity and my balance shifts to the temporal side of the scale. I get caught up in my job. I get stressed about the contract I’m on and if it will be extended in three weeks, or if I’ll have to look elsewhere. I get stuck trying to figure out the details of my upcoming trip to Cameroon. I wonder what life will be like in five years. Ten years. Twenty years. I want money, just like everyone else. I want the security of a steady job. I want pleasure. What’s life if I don’t enjoy it? I want to be in control. Somehow I think that if I were in control everything would be good.

Then I take a step back and realize that my view of reality, and what’s important, is completely skewed and I’m not focusing on God, or eternity, at all. Oftentimes I overreact and the scale tips drastically to the eternal side of things, and daily life doesn’t mean much of anything.

When the scale is tipped this direction, I shrug everything off to God being in control. Which He is, but it doesn’t give me a right to act like nothing here matters. In this mindset, I start looking at life with a birds eye view, just waiting for this all the pass (in the blink of an eye) and for eternity to begin. The job I have — unimportant. Whether I get married or not — irrelevant. Money — inconsequential. Pleasure — fleeting. I really do get to the point that nothing matters.

Which is where the whole idea of having a balance comes into play. Because life here does matter. Eternity has already begun. No, it’s not all about money, or pleasure, or being remembered. Those things don’t really matter. The Bible tells me that God will provide for my needs, and true joy is in giving Him the glory. What does matter, is that while I’m here on earth I need to be living in a Christ-like manner. I need to be spreading the gospel. I need to be living for Christ every day at my job, and in my interactions with both Christians and Non-Christians. I need to display the love the God to those around me. That can hardly be accomplished by acting like nothing matters.

So that’s where I’m at. I know that my view of reality consists of both life here on earth, and eternity with Christ. It’s a matter of balance. Where am I placing the most weight? Am I too focused on my daily life, stressed by things that don’t matter in the long run? Or am I too far in the other direction, just waiting for life here to be done so I can be in heaven?

And the same goes for you… how do you view reality? Where is your focus? What do you consider to be important?

I feel I must start out by admitting that I’m writing this from a completely biased, Christian perspective, so my thoughts on a Non-Christian perspective are simply how I think I would view reality were I a Non-Christian. Along with that admission, I’m lumping all Non-Christians into this one perspective. I’m sure plenty of people would argue that their religion affects their view of reality, whether they be Muslims, Buddhists, etc., but from my admittedly biased perspective they can believe whatever they want and it doesn’t change how I see things. And I’m the one writing this post. Now that that’s out of the way…

Life on earth is all that matters. This is reality. I don’t need to think about what’s going to happen after I die, because it’s not real anyhow. I just need to think about now. How should I approach life given this perspective?

Well, I have this innate sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. Where this came from I don’t know. I guess maybe it’s because my parents taught me that I shouldn’t be a bad person. So there are certain things that I just know I shouldn’t do. Everything else is fair game. Seeing as this life is all that matters, I want to make it as good as possible. I want to make as much money as I possibly can. I want it to be fun. And I want everyone to look up to me, and respect me, because, well, it’s all about me. But I can’t let anyone know that I think it’s all about me, because well, if they do, they might not think so highly of me.

So how far ahead can I get while still maintaining that I’m a good person in the eyes of those around me?

Money. I want as much of it as I can possibly get, because first of all it will make me happy, and second of all it will make me better than everyone else. So, the more money, the better. Then I’ll be able to do whatever I want whenever I want, and life will be good. It’s a dog eat dog world, so I’ll do whatever I have to do to climb the ladder of success.

Pleasure. Well, what’s life with money if it’s not pleasurable? Marriage commitment? Come on now, that’s a thing of the past. Because well, I can either get my sex outside of marriage (everyone’s doing it), or I can get married and then end it due to “irreconcilable differences” when I find someone hotter who will clearly give me more pleasure than who I’m with now.

Sweet, now I’ve got money, and I’ve got pleasure. Life is good. I’m making the best of what I know to be real. And at least when I die I’ll be able to say I lived life to its fullest. But I don’t want things to end there! Oh no, I want to be remembered. And I want to be remembered as a good person.

I guess that means I should give something back. Maybe donate some of the money I’ve made to charity. Help people out. Say nice things about my friends, so that they’ll say nice things about me. I’ll extend my life (reality) as long as possible. Then I can die in peace, knowing that life was good while I was alive, and I’ll live on in the minds of others for years to come.

If this life is all there is, I want to make the best of it. This is real, and nothing else matters.