Category: Uncategorized

I just found Google Video last night.
I haven’t had much time to play with it, but there looks to be a ton of content there if you miss some of your favorite shows.

The 3G card apparently freaked out my computer twice.
I’ve never seen this before, but I had a screen with lots of text pop up and suddenly my computer reset.
When Windows reloaded it gave me the option to send an error report – I passed the first time. Then 20 minutes later or so the same thing happened.
This time I send in the error report to Microsoft.
Microsoft directed me to a website with a patch update. I downloaded it, installed it and haven’t had a problem since.
There’s a feature on this card that I like. It’s called accelerator. Which as best as I can understand it (without researching it), accelerates loading web pages by not downloading all the data information for each graphic. It looks as if it bumps them down to an 8-bit or 16-bit format. They’re alot grainier but load a lot faster. So if you’re in the need for fast loading pages, you can adjust the accelerator to the highest speed and the pages load a lot faster because they’re not downloading as much information.
I haven’t seen any sluggish performance from my text based programs like my e-mail or RSS reader. Both seem to be running fine. They may not be downloading as fast as I’d like, but like I said, this isn’t the fastest speed available and some internet is better than no internet right now.

I started my first testing of Cingular’s 3G card tonight and so far I like it.
I knew going into it that the 3G network is not yet established in Waxahachie, but the card I was given, a Sierra Wireless AirCard 860 will “dummy” down to the lower end network in place here in Waxahachie.
My computer says I have about a 52-percent signal through out my apartment and claims I’m running at a consistant 1.8 mbps, which I find hard to believe.
I’m pinging most sites around 242.
But considering I haven’t been able to find anything other than dail-up available at my apartment, this is a good start.
The cost is higher than DSL or cable, but I can carry my computer anywhere there’s a Cingular network.
I’ll keep you posted on the results and let you know how the Sprint card does tomorrow.

Candidate filings

The Ellis County Republican Party drew numbers for ballot placement on Thursday afternoon. The following is the order in which candidates will appear on the March 7 Republican Primary ballot (office, candidates, with (I) denoting incumbents):

U.S. Senator
Kay Bailey Hutchison (I)

U.S. Representative, Dist. 6
Joe Barton (I)

Governor
Rhett R. Smith
Rick Perry (I)
Star Locke
Larry Killgore

Lt. Governor
David Dewhurst (I)
Tom Kelly

Railroad Commissioner
Buck Werner
Elizabeth Ames Jones (I)

Justice, Supreme Court, Place 2
Steve Smith
Don Willett (I)

State Representative, District 10
Jim Pitts (I)
Q.D. “Duke” Burge

40th Judicial District Court
Gene Knize (I)
Dan Altman

Ellis County Court at Law, No. 1
Bob Carroll (I)

Ellis County Court at Law, No. 2
Gene Calvert, Jr. (I)

Ellis County District Clerk
Melanie Price Reed
Anne Grant
Cathy Beer

Ellis County Judge
Cindy Sibley-Thayer
Chad Adams (I)

Ellis County Clerk
Cindy Polley (I)

Ellis County Treasurer
Ron Langenheder (I)
Greg Wilhelm

Ellis County Commissioner, Precinct 2
Terry Gregory
Richard Lansing Trees Sr.
Billy A. (Bill) Dodson
Larry D. Jones (I)

Ellis County Commissioner, Precinct 4
Ron Brown (I)
Steven Skipper

Ellis County Justice of the Peace, No. 1
Bill Woody (I)

Ellis County Justice of the Peace, No. 2
Jackie Miller, Jr. (I)

Ellis County Justice of the Peace, No. 4
Alan Gell
Linda M. Sibley (I)
Kevin J. McDonnell

I just got a new pre-release version of the Cingular 3G Network card.
I’m pretty stoked about testing it out. Hopefully it will prove to be a possible way to get Internet at my crib and elsewhere.
Sprint should be sending their version within the next day or so as well.
I’ll keep you posted on how things go.
I plan to test them around Waxahachie and Dallas and elsewhere and I’ll do some speed tests to see how the networks compare.

Charles Finney was born 1792, in Warren, Connecticut, as the youngest of seven children.
His parents were farmers and Finney was never able to attend college.
But with his six-foot-two-inch height, musical ability and leadership skills, he gained a good reputation in his community.
He studied to become a lawyer but after a dramatic conversion experience at the age of 29, Finney became a minister of the Presbyterian Church.
He moved to New York City in 1832 where he founded and pastored the Broadway Tabernacle, known today as the Broadway United Church of Christ.
His logical explanations and presentations of the Christian Gospel reached thousands. Some estimate that he led over 500,000 people to faith in Jesus Christ.
Finney is esteemed by Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, singer Keith Green and Jim Wallis of Sojourners’ Magazine.
From the Vineyard movement to political and social crusades, his imprint can be seen.
He was well known for his preaching innovations and allowing women to pray in public.
In addition to his preaching of the Gospel, Finney was active in the abolitionist movement and denounced slavery from the pulpit and denied communion to slaveholders at his churches.
He became a professor and then president of Oberlin College in Ohio. The university became the first American university to allow blacks and women into the same classrooms as white men.
Finney envisioned a church that was large in measure as an agency of personal and social reform.
It was from this thought that the evangelical movement became increasingly identified with political causes. Abolition of slavery, child labor legislation, women’s rights and the prohibition of alcohol became the causes of the 19th century church.
With a huge influx of Roman Catholic immigrants coming to America at the turn of the century, Protestants made desperate efforts to regain institutional power and the glory of “Christian America.”
The church launched moral campaigns to “Americanize” immigrants, enforce moral institution and “character education.”
The church pitched their American Gospel in terms of its practical usefulness to the individual and the nation.
Finney had experienced “a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost” which “like a wave of electricity going through and through me… seemed to come in waves of liquid love.”
The next morning he informed his first client of the day, “I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead his cause and cannot plead yours.”
Refusing to attend any seminary, Finney’s one question for any teaching was, “Is it fit to convert sinners with?”
He instituted the “anxious bench,” a precursor to today’s alter call as well as emotional tactics that led to fainting and weeping and other “excitements” as Finney called them.
Finney reacted to the “Great Awakening” by turning from God to humans and from the preaching of objective content to the emphasis on getting a person to “make a decision.”
His entire theology revolved around human morality.
Finney believed that God demanded absolute perfection, but instead of that leading him to seek his perfect righteousness in Christ, he concluded that perfect justification was only found in full perfect obedience to Christ.
Finney believed that human beings were capable of choosing whether they would be corrupt by nature or redeemed.
He argued against the church’s theology of “original sin,” the doctrine that we have all inherited a sin nature and we will sin anytime given the chance.
Finney attacked justification by grace alone through faith alone.
In his theology, God is not sovereign, man is not a sinner by nature, atonement is not a true payment for sin, justification by imputation is insulting to reason and morality, the new birth is simply the effct of successful techniques and revival is the result of clever campaigns.
Finney’s “New Measures” made human choices and emotions and the center of the church’s ministry and replaced the preaching of Christ with the preaching of conversion.
When church leaders claim that theology gets in the way of growth and insist that it does not matter what a particular church believes, growth is a matter of following particular church principles, they are displaying a debt to Finney.
When churches praise this sub-Christian enterprise and the barking, roaring, screaming and laughing on the basis that “it works” and one must judge its truth by its fruit, they are following Finney.
According to Michael Horton, a professor at Westminister Seminary in California, a Gospel that “works” for zealous perfection one momment merely creates tomorrow’s disillusioned and spent super-saints.
Now if you’ve read this far you’re probably asking what in the world does all this have to do with me?
Allman tells me “I’m too critical of the church today.” I think part of that comes from my belief that a lot of it doesn’t really “work.”
But to find out why it doesn’t work, I think we need to stop pointing fingers at only today’s leaders and look at where we’ve come from and how we got to where we are today.
I personally believe the church should be used to lead the cause in moral change, but I don’t believe the church should lead the charge legislate their morality on others.
If the church truly shines with the “Glory of God” people will see a difference in us and come join the party.
People will want to be a part of what we’re doing, not because of what we’re not doing, but because they see a difference in our lives that they want to see in their own.
If not, we become nothing more than a legalistic party pooper wanting to spoil everyone’s fun.

Portions of this piece were taken from “The Legacy of Charles Finney” by Michael S. Horton, Ph.D. a professor of theology and apologetics at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, CA).