thespicelands.com

US News & World Report has named our hometown of Madison, Alabama as the second best place to grow up. The article, published on August 19th, puts Virginia Beach, VA just ahead of Madison in the number one slot. The author says about Madison:

“Madison, Ala.: Of the roughly 43,000 residents in the friendly, churchgoing town of Madison, Ala., about 12,000 are under 18 years old. And this bedroom community of Huntsville, Ala., offers no shortage of outlets to keep these young folks active. “There is an event almost every weekend—whether it is in Madison, Huntsville, or Madison County—that families can attend,” says Paul Finley, the mayor of Madison. Children can take advantage of the area’s expansive outdoor amenities: watching beavers plunge into Bradford Creek or rabbits dart through the 130-acre Rainbow Mountain Trails park. And if they behave well enough, perhaps some lucky children can even persuade their mom and dad to send them to Space Camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in nearby Huntsville.”

Author Luke Mullins finishes out his list with:

3. San Jose, CA
4. Overland Park, KS
5. Boston, MA
6. Denver, CO
7. Rochester, MN
8. Cedar Rapids, IO
9. Plano, TX
10. Edison, NJ

Aerogarden Timelapse

Erin got an Aerogarden for me for father’s day as a *big* surprise. It is an “indoor kitchen appliance.” More specifically, it is a microcontroller based hydroponic garden that is about a cubic foot. It sits on one’s counter and grows things. We have herbs and peppers in ours. For the first month, we set our DSLR camera up, pointed at the Aerogarden, and set it to take a picture once every 30 seconds. The video below was made from those pictures. Also, below you will find a link to an HD video that you can download.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. If you are seeing this from facebook or some other site, click on the link to watch the video on our site.

Here is the 720p HD version at 60 frames per second:
http://spiceland.org/media/timelapse720.avi

^^^ click the link above to download the HD version.

We had a scary night last night. We’d almost finished dinner when Tru looked at Mike and very confusedly said, “Daddy?” She just shut down and started leaning over. She fell out of her chair, and Mike had to catch her. She was shaking or twitching or something, and when she came to, she was very confused and unresponsive. We didn’t know whether it was a seizure or she had just passed out. She was looking all over the place and shaking, and she wouldn’t answer our questions. It took about 5 minutes before she was back to normal. We called 911, and the paramedics checked her blood pressure and oxygen levels, which were fine, when they got here. They stuck around asking questions for about ten minutes while we calmed down. Tru had been fine the whole time, so we drove to the ER ourselves. We got there about 9 and by 10:15, we still hadn’t even been triaged. By that time, we’d talked to Mike’s stepbrother who is a doctor. He assured us that it probably wasn’t a seizure, and Tru’s pediatrician told us we could take her home and come in to the doctor’s office the next morning. She’s got an appointment for 2:15.

She spiked a fever of 102 F 2 days ago, and she got a pretty good bump on the head with the car door about a week ago. I’m going to ask if either one of those events could have sparked this episode. I’m fairly certain it wasn’t food-related, though, because she ate and drank normally all day yesterday. I’ll update after the appointment.

Woot.com has our tiny, handheld video camera for sale today for $79. Target.com lists these for $149. Most of the videos on our site come from this little camera, and it is so easy to use that even Tru can do it. There is no charger or special battery. It just takes two AAs. You can record up to 60 minutes of video. Plug it into your comptuer’s USB port, and just drag and drop the videos onto your desktop. They’re all ready for uploading to Youtube and most other video sharing sites. This camera is perfect for those just wanting a simple point-and-shoot video camera that fits into your pocket. We have two already.

As an advertising gimic, they are giving away free 3d glasses just about everywhere (I picked mine up at Kroger). They are for a super bowl commercial preview of the Aliens vs. Monsters animated movie. If you are like me and too impatient to wait for the super bowl commercial, you want to use them now. They are not the old school blue and red glasses. Instead, they are “ColorCode 3-D” glasses. You can click on the link below for a gallery of cool stuff to look at while you are waiting for the super bowl.

http://gallery.mac.com/csvendb

After making this post, I didn’t like how much of the webpage it took up given the respect that Erin’s post should have. I’ve remove it for now and repost sometime later. The election is a long way out and the post should wait.

Quoted from CNN.com:

I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views.

I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God’s majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.

Digg.com is a community news site. In fact, it is in the top 20 of the most popular sites on the net. Anyone can submit a link or story then people “digg” the stories. The popular ones get to the front page. Recently there was a story about posters who got “dugg” to the front page. In particular, these are poeople who have a 100% digg ration, meaning that every story the submit made it to the front page. Well, there are only 86 ppl who can say that they are on that list and I’m one of them I submitted 2 stories and both made them to the front page. I got 787 diggs for the video I made of Mark Spencer demoing our new open source distribution and I got 508 diggs for a story about a podcast script I wrote. Woot!

Here is the list (just look for mspicela):

http://www.efinke.com/2007/02/16/diggs-100-club/

God has personally touched me several times in my life. I don’t know His purposes for my life, but I want to be open when he calls again. Until then, I’ll do my best to be a good husband, a good father, and trying to keep His will above my own.

There have been several times when I have been positive of God’s presence and that he was personally speaking to me. On each occasion, it was personally moving but didn’t seem to be of interest to others. Because I thought that, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned any of them to many people, even those close to me. Here are a few:

When I was in middle school, I had a strong personal interest in spiritual things that lead me to take a class that ended in Baptism. I felt God throughout the learning process, but certainly on the day of baptism. I rarely use this as an example, probably because it seems so mainstream. I expect others to yawn and think “of course he thinks he felt God when he was around a bunch of folk leading him towards baptism”. Regardless of whether people think that, for me, it was real. The most important aspect about this first close experience was that I read and talked to lots of people about it but I felt God’s acceptance as I internally dedicated myself to His purposes.

Since then, I have fallen away and come back several times being pre-occupied with my own interests and desires.

I had a similar experience since I met Erin. Again, the timing wasn’t unique, the ground did not shake, and no angels appeared. Nonetheless, I am certain that God was with me. I was talking to God quietly in prayer. In particular, just as before, I dedicated myself to Him, telling him that it was my desire to have His will be done, not mine. At that moment, I could feel is presence throughout me. I was much more aware of his presence than where I was or who was around. For whatever reason, I was brought to tears (from being overwelmed, I assume) and told Erin what happened, but no one else.

God also has interacted with my life. I’m sure there are lots of times that I think of right now but a few come to my mind. First, anyone who knows me knows how much I love Seiko. We were really upset last year when the doctor found the tumor that didn’t look good on her leg. Because of the type of tumor it was, the doc said it wouldn’t go away and that he’d need to take it off. We scheduled surgery for a week later. By the time of the surgery, we had posted it to this blog and did lots of praying on our own. The tumor shrunk into almost nothing and the vet said to leave it alone. It has since then completely disappeared! I was reluctant to proclaim it for fear of sounding crazy, but I am positive that God healed it. Whether it makes me seem crazy or not, I’ll let you think I’m crazy since God gave me more time with Seiko. My last experience that I want to share is just our most recent experience. When Tru got her erythema multiforme that turned her swollen, red, and itchy, we researched it online. We researched it enough to know two things (1) it could be dangerous, even fatal (5-10% chance had it gotten any worse) (2) it takes a long time to heal (3-6 weeks). Thanks to God listening to all of our prayers, she not only got better but healed in just a week!

I mentioned a few specifics. I am convinced that God has worked in our lives in lots of other ways, many that we didn’t even know. I’d guess that sometimes we’d think of His blessings as bad things because we wouldn’t know His reasons. For instance, there may have been opportunities that we missed by having Tru so early. These “opportunities” may have caused us to leave Huntsville, spend money, or do anything that might through us off course from God’s plan. I do not know what God’s use for us is yet, but hopefully that makes sense.

I’m not sure why I was motivated to post this blog entry. I had an overwhelming urge to post this but I don’t know why. I’ve got lots of people and relationships that I pray for. At the moment, I think often of a family member of mine who has recent health concerns. I know he believes in God and I don’t feel like I have anything unique to offer him, but still, I wonder if something with that situation is why I should be posting. I have numerous friends who I pray for. I have some friends who do not claim any sort of faith and I worry about their souls. Others claim to be Christian but they don’t go to church or mention God. I always think about how the Bible says “take the log out of your own eye before pointing out a splinter in someone elses” before I say anything. At a minimum, I welcome anyone to come to church with us, come over for a meal and discuss things, or especially, to point out any splinters that I might have. I don’t know if it is to open a dialog with one of them, to open a dialog with a random visitor that I don’t yet know, or for no reason at all.

I thank God for all of you willing to take the time to check out our “goings on.” I pray for you all and hope that you listen for anything God might say to you. Come over or call and talk about it if you like. If we can do anything, let us know. Give to those less fortunate (www.compassion.com). Also, know that God is in control. He has a plan for your life. Trust in Him, and all will go according to plan… His plan.

I was editing some home movies for family and found a short news clip on the end of the tape. It is nothing special but a tad interresting beacuse it is 13 years old (just to see what news looked like back then) and it is about the Gulf War. Its strange to see how similiar it looks to what you might find if you turned on the TV now-a-days.

Short News Clip from 13 years ago

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