"I'm sorry, we have a 45-minute cutoff for check-in."

"There's still time to make it to my flight."

"I'm sorry, you're going to have to take the next flight, and it's going to cost you $50."

"Why is it going to cost me $50?"

"It's a mandatory service fee."

"Is the service mandatory too, because I don't want the service - I want to try and make my flight."

"I'm sorry, we have a 45-minute cutoff for check-in."

"Deja Vu... Can you waive the fee?"

"I'm sorry, I wish I could, but I can't."

Sure you wish you could... So here I sit, in the airport terminal, $50 poorer, with lots of time to think (stew)...

Disclaimer: Any offensive or objectionable material hereafter is the sole responsibility of Delta Airlines (the Delta made me do it).

30 minutes ago I was irritated. After being herded through security like a cow and making it to my gate ten minutes before my initial flight left, I'm livid - I still have 3 more hours until my flight... I've never been late for a single flight in my life, but I've had flights canceled, I've had extended layovers and been rerouted all over the place - what do they care, it's just my time they're wasting. But don't waste their time, because if you're late, its $7.14/min! ($50 for 7 minutes late.) Those probably weren't terrorists that attacked on Sep. 11 - they were probably just frequent flyers that had enough! (Can you believe I just posted this from the airport? I'll probably be surrounded and arrested soon...)

So I'm sitting here thinking, "Why do Americans, the modern poster-boys of freedom, put up with stuff like this?" Why do free people pay several hundred dollars for a service to then be treated with no respect and be walked all over by both the company and the government? They do it all in the name of 'national security.' What drives this desire for security at the expense of freedom? Selfishness.

The parallel is amazing.

The core of God's kingdom is love - the essence of love is selflessness. The devil's rebellion is the antithesis of that: selfishness. What's the result of a government based upon selfishness?

Knowing this, that our old man [selfish desire] was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. - Rom. 6:6

Those who serve self are not free, but slaves. I saw a bunch of slaves today standing in line, waiting to be told what to do next: "Turn over all your personal items." "Remove your shoes." "Walk this way." How long until we echo history's words, "If you're a Jew (or any group), get in this boxcar..." We inveigle ourselves to believe such a leap is impossible. After all, what's the difference between a terrorist and a human of 'inferior breeding' - both are a threat to the future of the human race.

Already, this 'me' generation has selfishly turned to the government for 'free' protection, security, and structure. Nothing is free, and these 'benefits' have come at a price.

Wow, what a rant - comparing TSA to SS (maybe not so far off - I've met some TSA Nazis). Before I finish, I want to share a story.

A week ago, when I flew in to Colorado, I sat in Salt Lake City for 3 hours on a layover. I heard a little voice behind me,

"Mommy, someone left a bag over there."

"We should report it to security."

"Why?"

"Because that's what they tell us to do - it's for our safety."

"Why do we do what they tell us to?"

GOLDEN! I wanted to shake that child's hand. Someone was still thinking for themselves. I wonder how far we would go in the name of national security (personal safety). "It's for our safety that these people be arrested - they're dangerous." Do you get my drift?

We can sacrifice freedom for self, or self for freedom. Which will you choose? Maybe a more relevant question is, "will you choose for yourself, or will you do what you're told?"

It's not much, it's mere thinking.

Enjoy!

Thanks again, Evan and Joni! You guys were great!

'Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.' - Einstein

Have you ever been tempted to give up? You strive toward an objective for so long and then one day you just say, "it's not worth it." The finish line seems so unattainable you're discouraged by the amount of work necessary to cross it. Maybe you don't think you have what it takes. That's me.

Not very long ago I was thinking of selling my camera. I would try to encourage myself by believing that the next lens or filter would revolutionize my work. When it didn't, I thought maybe I just didn't have what it took. I'd look at pictures from other photographers and rather than get excited I'd be discouraged, "Why can't I get a picture like that?" I try to convince myself that they had an advantage in equipment, but when you find out they're shooting with equipment that's inferior to yours it's anything but encouraging. But I stick to it. Sometimes I'm not sure why, but I stick to it.

Sometimes you get a "bone" that encourages you to keep striving. One such bone came via an article in Chris Shepherd's photography blog. After reading that blog, every time I wasn't happy with a picture, I was reminded of what he said. You should give it a read - even if you're not a photographer. The principles can be applied elsewhere in life.

I guess I should know from experience, but success is preceded by persistence. The greater the persistence, the greater the success and the amount of persistence required is directly related to your standard of success. Great success requires great persistence. That's not something they teach in North America anymore.

Well, that success came this week. I finally captured an image that made it all worthwhile. I still feel that it's a combination of luck and equipment, but persistence did have something to do with it. I haven't arrived yet, but I don't need to - I just need something to tell me I'm getting closer to my goal. This is it - this is the one:

I'm not sure I like the vertical layout, especially the signature bit. Feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Okay, so the first generation iPhone was way overpriced. I took one look and said, "Ya right..." Then iPhones started showing up in my friend's hands. After my first couple of encounters I said, "Oh, I wish..." So what held me back? The price had fallen, the capacity had increased - they even released the SDK for iPhones. Why was I still so far behind the curve? The iPhone was still too expensive.

So I log on today and Apple's home page displays a new iPhone ad - the iPhone 3G! I think I said something like, "ooOOOOOOoooooooo". At $200, the iPhone 3G costs only a little more than the last phone I got - yet with twice the features and an unbeatably intuitive interface. It even has the rounded back so you can spin it on the table during meetings... So will I get it? Probably not.

What!? It can't be the price. What must Apple do to get my patronage here? Actually, it is the price. The initial cost of the iPhone is only a drop in the bucket in the big picture. Once you sign up for a plan that includes all those features that put the "i" in Phone, you're looking at a pretty fat bill every month. I'm also on the Verizon network. Unfortunately, any Verizon users out there can sympathize with my woe that Apple has remained so exclusive in marketing the iPhone only to AT&T. And although AT&T has good coverage, it's significantly weaker in the area I live. And so this last January, I signed another 2-year service agreement with Verizon. To switch now would cost too much.

So I'll just keep drooling. Maybe one of these days the iPhone you see in my hand will be mine and not a friend's. But for now, I'll just have to listen to my iPod.

"No - I got them all cut."

Kyle Tumberg taught me that one. I thought it was great. My other favorite response is, "No, I blow-dried my hair and it shrunk."

The Length of a person's hair makes quite a difference in their appearance. In the last couple of years I've tried long and short and everything in between. I never really noticed how different I looked (with the exception of that mohawk). I guess it's because it grows so gradually you just get used to it. But I was looking back through some pictures and realized I really do look quite different with short hair.

The Radiant Living Team doing what we do best - chillin'.

Time Machine is one of the greatest innovations since the hard disk. It's a program imbedded in Leopard (Apple's latest operating system) for archiving and backup. Simply plug in an external hard disk and designate it as your Time Machine backup disk - the rest is history! Time Machine automatically syncs to your computer every hour or every time the external disk is plugged in. It doesn't just back up system files either. It backs up every folder, file, and application on your computer. If you accidently delete a file, simply open Time Machine, find the last date that the file existed, select the file, and click restore. Boom! Your file is back. It's the simplest, most thorough, safest, and easiest way to backup your computer.

Now, contrary to folklore, Macs do occasionally crash. Though they do crash, it is far less frequently than PCs. Ironically, though the Mac crashes less, it seems to have a far better backup system than any PC I've ever seen.

The day before the meetings started I got an update for my Mac. Unfortunately, my Mac, being a computer, crashed upon installation and refused to boot.

"Oh dear... My presentation slides were all on that computer. If I'd have known this would happen I'd never have started that update! I wish I could go back and do it over again..."

I know, this sounds really weird to you PC users. The extent of my thoughts when I was a PC user were, "not again..."

I simply plugged in Time Machine and with a few clicks of the mouse I was on the way to restoring my computer to its exact state 3 days earlier. It all worked seamlessly - almost...

The only hitch was that Time Machine doesn't archive e-mail. I had opted to keep all incoming mail in my gmail inbox instead of archiving it after downloading. This meant that every e-mail I'd received since I got my Mac was still in my gmail inbox. Since Time Machine didn't archive my mail, I had to re-sync my inbox with my mail client. So, after setting up Apple Mail to retrieve mail from my gmail account, I had a lot of unread messages - a lot. Checking your e-mail is like Christmas morning - if there's nothing under the tree, it really disappointing. But imagine coming downstairs Christmas morning to find 4705 presents under the tree - wouldn't you feel special? I sure did!

:: THE SUN RUN ::

I have never liked running. It always seemed to me to be futile to run until you're exhausted, and be right back where you started. But somehow I got talked into doing the Vancouver Sun Run. April 20th rolled around - the day of the race. We were up with the sun. Sunrise is an amazing time - I forget because I often miss it.

The plan was to go over to the McCann's for smoothies and to follow them to the race. The problem was that we were out of gas - well, almost. We actually made it all the way, but we were expecting to get a warmup push...

We made it to the race right on time. We all had to go to the bathroom, but there were about 80 people in line. So we found a nearby church that was open (after all, it was Sunday...) Then we pushed our way through the crowd to the starting place. I was with the yellows which were at the front of the line, so it was a bit of work to get there.

It was actually quite amazing. 59,179 registrants! There was loud music and lots of spandex. We were packed in between the buildings like sardines (in this case spandex means you can fit more people in a small space). There was just no room to move at all - everyone shoulder to shoulder. I'm just glad this was before the race and not afterward when everyone is sweaty and stinky. Then a buzzer sounded and the race was on!

Now, when I imagine a race, I see athletic people bent over at a starting block ready to sprint off at the sound of the gun. Not only were there no starting blocks here (which is understandable), nobody actually ran... When the buzzer sounded, everyone just started waddling toward the finish line... So much for finishing in under an hour.

As we neared the starting point (a place where the little computer chip you wear on your shoelace starts counting) the crowd started to spread out enough that people could run. So I crossed the starting point and started jogging. Fresh air and lots of excited people made the first kilometer really easy. One down, nine to go.

I wasn't the only one who thought the first K was easy. Lots of people thought it was easy and were running past me. But I kept my pace and didn't get carried away. At the second kilometer, however, I started passing many of these people. Two kilometers down, eight to go.

This was now only the second time in my life I'd run this distance... The first time was about a week earlier while I was training (can you call it training if you never do more than 1/5? That's like saying taking a bath is training for a swimming championship...) I ran just under 3k. Somewhere around 2.5k my knee started bothering me (I think it's from a knee injury when I was about 14), so I walked the rest of the way home (about another 1.5k). By the time I got home, my knee was in pretty bad shape. I pretty much had to stay off of it until the race. For this reason, I'd gotten a knee brace for the Sun Run. I'd also bought some special gel inserts for my shoes to minimize impact and hopefully keep my knee pain-free until the end of the race. I should have spent the money on crutches instead...

By about the 3rd kilometer, my knee started bothering me. It wasn't bad at first, but it got worse quickly. I decided to walk for a bit and see if I could walk it off. Besides getting yelled at, there's not much to do when you're walking, so I watched the scenery crawl by. All along the route, there's different bands and performers. Companies set up eye-catching ad banners with employees there to cheer on the runners. A homeless man was passionately playing a harmonica on a park bench with his hat on the ground - though I doubt many of the runners were carrying spare change. There's water stands about every kilometer manned by school kids who hand out little cups of water to the runners as they go past. There was plenty to see.

There's a bit of a hill (more like an incline) at one point during the race. Apparently this is one of the most difficult places. It's at about 4.5k. As you near this point, everyone comes shoulder-to-shoulder and the pace slows to a waddle. At this point I was able to gain some ground and ran past a lot of people. My pride felt good but my knee didn't, so I had to slow to a walk again.

As we neared the finish line people started speeding up. Gasping and wheezing, they pushed and shoved past others in an attempt to shave 2.6 seconds off their time. By this time I was getting passed by people wearing green race numbers (that means they started 20 minutes after I did...) I tried to run, but I just couldn't. So I walked across the finish line. 1:13:52. That's how long it takes to run 3 kilometers and walk 7 - in case you were wondering.

Here's where we went:

It was a great experience, and I definitely got a taste for running. I've been doing exercises to help strengthen my knee so I can actually run... In retrospect, I also learned some very valuable lessons:

- Enthusiasm and excitement may get you ahead at first, but only discipline will get you to the finish line. Emotion isn't bad, but it's not enough. Discipline is a necessity in life, both physically and spiritually.
- There's many things to see and appreciate in life, but you'll miss them if you don't slow down a bit and pay attention along the way. Success was great, but I wouldn't run again if it hadn't been for the 73 minutes before.
- A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. It was an enormous frustration to see people wheezing and sweating as they ran past me. Never once did I break a sweat - I couldn't even get my pulse elevated. Physically, I had so much energy, but it was useless. I had so much motivation, but it didn't help. I had so much to give, but I could only move as fast as my feeble knee.

You're only as strong spiritually, as your weakest character trait. Make sure that every aspect of your character is examined and exercised. The fact that I didn't know about my lame knee until a week before the race was very frustrating. Had I started training early - had I been diligent to push myself and test my limits from the start - I could have caught the problem and made progress toward overcoming it.

Now is the time to be diligent - the race we run is infinitely more important than the Sun Run.