jmcgready’s misc universe

One of the churches I mentioned in my article on
Where to find Japanese Christian music, songs and artists.
First Japanese Baptist Church
in Sacramento, CA was ransacked - thousands of dollars in instruments were taken.

Burglars ransacked a church and a dozen other businesses
in south Sacramento overnight, making off with expensive equipment
and leaving costly damage behind.
The First Japanese Baptist Church suffered the loss of
thousands in musical instruments, a vital part of their services….
The thieves also swiped a pricey overhead projector…

The thieves also took money and computers from a non-profit
that helped needy fathers.

My first reaction was disgust, along with
anger and hatred towards the thieves.

Then I remembered the sermon at Bethel this Sunday,
about how the pastor recalled facing the guy who broke into his car
and stole a lot of valuable stuff and his natural instinct was to get annoyed,
but then he looked at the notes for the sermon he was preparing -
it was about guilt, grace and forgiveness in Christ.

That gave him a reality check that got his mind refocused
much like my recalling his recollection has given me a reality check.

Decisions have consequences - and not just for the bad guys, either.

anyway, if you’re the praying sort, please pray for them,
the church and the thieves, that the highest and best good is done
in all their lives - for God’s greater glory.

Technorati Tags: bethel, christian Japanese music, costly damage, First Japanese Baptist Church, japan music christian, japanese christian music, japanese christian music artists, Japanese Christianity, musical instruments, Nessen Music Ministry, Sacramento baptist church, sacramento ca, sacramento church, south Sacramento

That sentence, spoken by Michael Brown
and accompanied by a gift of one year’s expenses,
sparked the creation Harper Lee’s greatest work -
To Kill a Mockingbird. I bring it up today because
she was born 82 years ago on this very day.

I also bring it up because it brings up
some interesting points about doing the One Big Thing -
the work that focuses your gifts, talents and callings.

The first is more of a question -
“even if I got a year’s worth of expenses covered,
would I be able to get the work done?”

I know I’d have problems doing it - it’s not the
shangri-la that it seems to be when viewed
from the vantage point of working a job
just to keep a roof over your head.

It would be a year of no excuses,
where the life work you wanted becomes work.
The job becomes a convenient excuse for
not doing your true work.

Maybe having a job that isn’t your true work,
but is more amenable to your true work is better option.
83 years ago today, T.S. Eliot took a position
at Faber & Faber, leaving his dreary
former position at Lloyd’s Bank.

The problem there is that even sort of true work
still becomes work, and thus a new source
of rationalization and procrastination.

If I had the perfect summarization to offer
on this subject, I would be offering it now.

I would also be a bit more renowned than I
am right now, which is to say that I would be renowned.

So I’m now back where I was before this,
but for these two hundred some-odd words.

Does anyone else have any ideas?

Technorati Tags: causes of procrastination, faber, harper lee, job escape from work, lloyd, merry christmas, michael brown, procrastination, rationalization, rationalization and procrastination, t s eliot, talents, to kill a mockingbird, true work

It seems that my reconsideration of HitTail, the
decidedly inspiring Web 2.0 long tail writing suggestion tool,
has me becoming an Influential Blogger.

Influential Blogger Reconsiders HitTail

This long tail tool has made me some more money than I normally make
and garnered me some really sweet SERP rankings to boot.

Technorati Tags: blogger, hittail, long tail cash, long tail keywords, long tail money, long tail tool, search engine hits, SERP, SERP rankings, suggestion tool, the long tail, web 2.0, Web 2.0 long tail, web 2.0 tool, writing suggestion tool, writing tool

I made a post a couple of days ago about Real-TimeReferrers.com
and how it was a good alternative for getting better SERP rank,
especially for the known good keywords actually used in the searches.

After a few days, the situation has changed,
mostly due to my newfound use of Google Analytics.

I’ve returned from my straying to the
SEO-licious SERP-enhancing keyword goodness that is HitTail.

I’ve returned to HitTail for a few compelling reasons.

First reason:
HitTail (the free version) saves more than the last 20 referrals
(unlike Real-TimeReferrers.com), which helps since I’m not always
at the site grabbing referrals as they’re generated.

Second reason:
Being able to export the reports to a .csv file -
not that I do it that much but it’s a great option to have.

The link rating (which shows up in the .csv file) also helps to
assess the link’s SERP ranking. I mostly do manual checks for unusual
search terms to check SERP ratings.

Third reason: The to-do list is just icing on the cake.
It’s great to have something on the site that makes applying
your keyword strategy an on-site option and not offline.

Technorati Tags: csv file, free version, google, google analytics, hittail, hittail scam, keyword strategy, manual checks, real time referrals, real time traffic, referrals, referrers, SERP

if you read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield,
you’ll notice a small section in it where he essentially
declares fundamentalism (defined as a belief in a fall from a higher state,
in a systematized corpus of recieved truth [i.e. scriptures], etc)
to be so incomaptible with true artistry that no one holding said beliefs
can be said to be a true artist.

As I hold enough beliefs to qualify
(and know of true professional artists who do), I was
initially annoyed at the passage’s tone of arrogance and condescension.

While it would be incredibly easy to blow off
anything else the rest of the book had to say,
I chose to go through the rest of the book to see
what it could teach me.

What it taught me was how to deal with criticism.

1. Criticism, whether right or wrong, is
inner resistance’s greatest ally.
You don’t need to give it any more ammo than
it already has.

2. Cull any actionable feedback from it
and trash the rest. When Moses was in the wilderness
dealing with the Israelites’ criticism,
he learned to delegate facets of his work without surrendering his mission.

3. Only one thing can counter inner resistance and
outside criticism - sit down and do your work.
The most elequent counterargument is continuing work -
be it a novel, an article, a painting, or a going venture.

Come to think of it, I’d suggest THE WAR OF ART to anyone
in the same situation as I am. The book not only lays out the course,
it gives you, in that section I mentioned, road-tested practice material.

Technorati Tags: arrogance, condescension, fundamentalism, how to deal with criticism, inner resistance, professional artists, scriptures, the war of art, true artist

He interrupted second service last week.
Our pastor, the ushers and security handled it like pros.

He left reluctantly, making a show of wiping the dust
from his shoes, giving the thumbs up sign
and grinning like a Cheshire cat.

As much as I’d like to rag on the guy, I can’t.

To be honest, the same force that pulled him
away from his true work and towards heckling
is the selfsame force that can thrash me soundly on any given day
if I even think of slacking off -
inner resistance.

I’m not talking about external resistance,
that stuff that happens to us from outside us
(like having a heckler interrupt your sermon).

No - I’m talking about the resistance inside,
the pressure to take any action except for the one you
know you should be taking.

For the heckler it was trading whatever
genius, gift and calling God had (and still has) for him
for a moment of cheap junk food shock -
his 15 seconds of fail.

If I think I’m any better, then I’m next in line.

You see, doing church can leave you blind to the ways that
inner resistance can screw you up, over, and out of
the life you’re meant to live.

Procrastination lies behind much of this -
not the outright denial of the work which needs to be done,
but its delay by any and all means possible.

Let me put it this way -
If inner resistance was called a headache, there would be:

• headache seminars
• headache ministries
• a bestselling book on the theology of headaches
• at least one Headache Sufferer’s Bible (in large print, of course)

instead of the simple advice to heed the still small voice saying:

“Medicine cabinet.
2nd shelf.
White bottle, red label.
Take two.”

Over-externalization is the problem here -
it’s so easy to want to make external acts,
especially those of uncommon grace
(healings, deliverances, and miracles in general)
the expected norm even when the internal prompts
of common grace beckon towards the medicine cabinet.

So it is with inner resistance -
it’s easier to cast the devil as the author of all our failings and foibles
than it is to own our own complicity in much of our present state in life.

Let’s get back to the heckler -
perhaps he has ministerial aspirations,
perhaps his gifts, his genius,
and even his calling all confirm this.

Instead of doing the work needed to be true
to his calling, genius and gifting,
he does what so many of us do
[and I'm convicting myself even as I write this] -
take what seems to be a shortcut to glory,
only to be shortchanged and shamed in the end.

Technorati Tags: causes of procrastination, cheap junk, cheshire cat, christian procrastination, complicity, externalization, genius, gifts, heckler, inner, outright denial, overcoming procrastination, procrastination, procrastination effects, resistance, sermon, theology, true work, ushers

I’ve been listening to an audio version of The War of Art.
by Steven Pressfield.

Aside from a small and slightly annoying
“Fundamentalists (rather broadly defined) can’t be creative” tear
within the first third of the book, there’s much to be learned about
resistance and the aid that comes when we actually sit down to do the work.

So what has this got to do with invoking the Muse?

Part of his ritual to begin work is praying Homer’s
invocation of the Muse that starts The Odyssey
as translated by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia).

I’d like to work something like that into a creative ritual,
I’m uneasy invoking the aid of daughters of Zeus,
much like Thomas Hobbes’ “Answer to Davenant’s Preface to Gondibert”:

But why a Christian should think it an ornament to his poem,
either to profane the true God or invoke a false one,
I can imagine no cause but a reasonless imitation of custom, of a foolish custom,
by which a man, enabled to speak wisely from the principals of nature
and his own meditation, loves rather to be thought to speak by inspiration, like a bagpipe.

hoosgot an invocation that could be better suited to a Judeo-Christian sensibility?

Technorati Tags: creative ritual, daughters of zeus, fundamentalists, homer, invocation of the muse, invoking the muse, lawrence of arabia, odyssey, resistance, steven pressfield, t e lawrence, thomas hobbes, true god

You hear all of these stories about stem cells
and how many revolutionary new therapies are possible with their use.

But have you ever wondered just where these stem cells come from?

In some cases, it’s fat.
Adult fat.
Fast food slammin’, Moon Pie eatin’, Supersizing All-you-can eat buffet Adult FAT.

The proper clinical term is Adipose tissue.

More on adipose stem cells here:

From The Adipose Stem Cell Center of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.

Imagine a post-cancer breast reconstruction technique that
uses a woman’s own stem cells, isolated from a sample of her fat,
to form a breast with the look and feel of natural tissue.

Imagine a treatment for congenital skull and face defects that
continues to grow and develop along with a child.

Imagine regrowing the soft tissue — including the nerves —
of soldiers injured in battle.

We’re combining basic science and clinical research
to turn these possibilities into realities.

We are isolating, characterizing, and testing adult stem cells from fat.
Fat, or adipose tissue, contains an abundant number of adult stem cells,
over 10 times more than in bone marrow.
These cells not only regenerate adipose tissue,
but they can reconstruct a variety of injuries and defects by
being coaxed to develop into nerves, bone, or cartilage.

The Adipose Stem Cell Center provides the University of Pittsburgh
with a center of expertise in the isolation, growth and differentiation,
biology, and therapeutic applications of stem cells derived from adipose tissues.

By partnering physician-researchers with investigators in the fields of tissue engineering,
cell therapy, adipose biology, stem cell physiology, and growth and development,
we are uniquely positioned to translate our findings into new medical treatments.

The center is co-directed by Kacey G. Marra, PhD, and J. Peter Rubin, MD.

What’s even more interesting is some of the progress made:

In animal models, we have used adipose-derived stem cells
to repair defects in soft tissue, muscle, and bone.

In a rat model of nerve injury, adipose-derived stem cells regenerated
the sciatic nerve and restored hind leg mobility.

We anticipate beginning clinical trials of
adipose stem-cell based treatments within three years.

Technorati Tags: adipose tissues, Adult, adult stem cells, Biotechnology, bone marrow, breast reconstruction, clinical research, fat, muscle, nerve stem cell, Stem cell, Stem Cell Research, therapeutic applications, Tissue engineering, University of Pittsburgh

As you can no doubt tell, my blogging as of these past weeks
have been centered upon 2 subjects:
Economic Stimulus Payments and Japanese Christian Music.

photo credit: labnol

The reason being that I’m scoring pretty well on the SERPS
for variants of those terms and figured I’d flog it for as much
search engine hits (and Adsense goodness) as I can get.

BG is slowly receding - was 154 today.

I’ve become rather good at repair installs of Windows XP, as I had to do so 3 times today.

Bought Mom a new barebones AMD Sempron 3000++ with my tax return money -
moved over the HD and CD from the badly ailing (but free) P2 400.

well, it’s 0100 and I need to be in at work early - so I’ll be leaving now…

Technorati Tags: amd, barebones, blogging, christian music, mom, search engine hits, sempron 3000, windows xp

photo credit: Photo-Mojo

From the source itself -
link

Q. I chose direct deposit for my 2007 tax refund
but also requested a Refund Anticipation Loan (RAL) from my preparer.
How does that affect my stimulus payment?

A. Taxpayers who use RALs or enter into any other loan
or financial agreement with their tax professional
cannot receive their stimulus payments by Direct Deposit
and instead will get a paper check.

Q. Can my stimulus payment be directly deposited
onto a stored value card or debit card where a
bank product such as a RAL/RAC is not involved?

A. No. [New 4/14/08]

the IRS list of Error Codes for Economic Stimulus Returns

Also, returns with a foreign address or a U.S. Possesions address won’t get ‘em either.
And don’t go adding extraneous paperwork to that Economic Stimulus Tax return either.

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