JohnCStark’s posterous

Today I visited with two friends in my office about del.icio.us. The first had never heard of it, the other is using it like me. In the near future I hope to grow my del.icio.us network with other friends who like to bookmark and tag interesting sites they visit. A lot of people probably have no idea what del.icio.us is. Until I started using it I didn't either. I still don't think I know everything there is to know about it, but I do know enough to know how useful it can be in keeping track of various sites I find of interest. There are all kinds of services that provide similar features but this one has been really easy for me to use.

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On Sunday, August 13, Mike Rose will visit First Federated again to speak in the morning service. In the evening a special congregational meeting is scheduled at 6:00pm for the congregation to vote whether or not to call Mike Rose as the next Senior Pastor of First Federated Church. This morning following the worship service Bob Sorensen, Official Board chairman, informed the congregation that Mike would be returning. He also informed the congregation about the current status in the youth pastor search. Currently the youth pastor search committee is looking at three different individuals from around the country for the position. Bob also let everyone know that our transistion between Senior Pastors is influencing who actually will consider the position. Based upon the applause that I heard following these announcements I believe the church is excited for the future.

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• Jason Powell - Church IT and other musings
  Jason is pretty on top of IT issues in the church. His involvement with the high intensity Granger Community Church represents a great testimony as to how technology can make a difference in the church. I really need to read this blog more frequently. Ver
  (tags: church blogs IT)
• LeadingSmart | Tim Stevens | Granger Community Church
  (tags: blog church leadership)

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Wednesday night, July 19, the official board gathered along with the staff and senior pastor search committee to decide whether or not to call Mike Rose to candidate for the position of Senior Pastor at First Federated Church. The vote at the end pretty much reflected the direction of the dialogue... all the board members voted to extend the call with one person abstaining from the vote. As far as I know, the next steps in the process included announcing to the congregation three different times that a candidate has been selected and when a vote of the congregation is to take place. Mike will come back to Des Moines to speak again at another service, possibly have a town hall meeting in the afternoon for people to ask questions of Mike, with a vote of the congregation in the evening whether or not to call Mike Rose as the next Senior Pastor of FFC. These are pretty much the last steps in a pretty difficult and extended process. I personally doubt that the congregation won't call Mike Rose to be our next Senior Pastor. The only thing that would keep this from happening is to discover some terrible bit of information that has yet to be discovered by anyone. I've never remembered a vote of the congregation going against the recommendations of the Official Board... at least in the last decade. Yes, you always have a handful of people who vote no for some reason but 98% of the people always tend to agree with the board. I keep praying that the right decisions are made by the leaders of the church. For all I've seen and heard about Mike he appears to be a great fit for the church. The months ahead will be full of change regardless of what the outcome may be in a few weeks. New leaders always bring change. Some only those in leadership really will notice and other the congregation may notice as well. Regardless of what may come I must remain faithful in trusting the Lord with all my heart and leaning on him for understanding. He has always proven Himself worthy of my hope, trust and faith. I may not always understand His purposes but His ways are definitely higher than mine. He cares for me and knows me by my name.

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• Hickory Park Restaurant Co.
  (tags: restaurant local ames iowa) The family ate here on Thursday night. Even though it seems like Ames would be pretty far to drive to eat, it takes a little less time to get there than it does to go to West Des Moines. The prices are pretty reasonable for the quantity and quality of the food. Evan eat everything... Ean picked at his food. Mom and Dad almost cleared our plates. Hickory Park also serves a whole lot of ice cream. We just could leave without sharing a dish.
• Albany Baptist Church | Pastor Mike Rose (tags: work church)

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I've been gathering up all the places to submit events to local community calendars.

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Tonight the family went to Target for some shelves Jayne wanted for the boys rooms. We didn't plan for it to be a long trip to the store; however, we did up there for over an hour because the lights went out. The power in the entire store went out just as we were heading towards the checkout line. It was the first time any of us had been in a store without any power. We weren't in the dark for long. Target must have a pretty big back-up generator because a bunch of lights in the check-out area and throughout the store came on within a minute of the power outage. We later found out that the entire neighborhood was experiencing a power outage. On our way home we thought the power at our home might be out as well. Thankfully, our lights were still on. I don't know what caused the power outage for sure. It was probably demand and heat related. All weekend the heat and humidity were pretty high compared to how it has been for most of the summer. We just wanted to stay indoors with the air conditioning on. It was pretty interesting to see how Target reacted to the power outage. It took them about 10 minutes to get their registers up and running so people could check-out and leave the store. They had a few bugs to work out; however, I was surprised you could check-out at all. I even saw one family use a gift card. The cashier had to make a phone call to determine the balance on the card. It took a little longer than usual but she made it happen. The other interest thing to note about the experience was some of the attitudes customers had. Some people just have no respect or common sense when things don't run as smoothly as they expect. Blaming Target and their employees for a power outage is pretty pathetic. Yes, Target conspired with the power utility to turn off the power so people would have to stay a little longer in the store. I guess I should have taken a few photos with my phone. How many times have you seen a department store without all the lights turned on?

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These are the favorites we had on our home computer. Some we haven't used for quite a while.

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