Happy 2 months Clare

Clare is now 2 months old...

more lter

Babelgum and Joost

So I have been beta testing as you know joost. Know I am checking Babelgum. I can't yet give you the breakdown on which one is better but it only confirms that this is the future. BTW, I still have PLENTY of JOOST INVITES. So if you want one leave a comment and I will hook you up.. No invites yet for Babelgum

Unlimited Joost Invites

Joost content is improved tremendously. There are now four National Geographic Channels and Much More. We watched several documentaries today. And I have to admit that I watched an episode of my Super Sweet 16 on MTV channel it was crazy how spoiled these kids are!

So I have Unlimited JOOST invites. If you want one... it is yours!!

All Things and Life

So several exciting things have been going on. This blog is in total transition from personal to informational to tech to whatever... I have so many things that I am trying to keep up with at the same time it is hard to stay focused. I am resolved that this will always be a hodge podge of information. It may or may not be useful. But I started the blog for the purposes of sharing my adventures. I was trying to simplify. And in the process things got more complicated. Simplify with a Blog you say? No just simplify my life. We don't have TV. But we watch a lot of TV shows. We Watch Joost. We Watch Netflix. I guess it is more managed but it is still TV. I like entertainment. I watch a lot video podcast. Anyway, so I rant....

But Life is Grand I have Clare and Emma and there are incredible. Real Estate is a tough market but I have launched several new websites and that is cool. Learning a lot about marketing. The youth group is going well. Kids lives are being changed. I am starting to see why God has us here in Blue Ridge. Anyway, so I rant...

The Garden.... I have restarted three times...

So I Rant!

Later

NetFlix - Watch Now

Very Excited Today. When I logged onto our netflix account we now have the Watch Now Feature Available to us! Been waiting for this after we switched back for Vongo!

JOOST JOOST JOOST

I have more invites. More than ever. I hesitate to do this but I am opening the flood gates. If you want INVITE. Leave a comment and I will do my best to hook you up. SO let the REQUEST begin.

Update 10:36 a.m. - I have given out 9 total invites as of this morning. It looks like they are unlimited. If you want them I will give them.

11:39 - 10 invites total

9:43 - 16 invites total

5/05/2007 - 18 invites total

Skinny Quest

Quest to Be Skinny is going pretty well. I am going to hit it hard core again this week. It has been really hard to stay on the diet we have been blessed by folks bringing us food to our house. But I hopefully that I can get refocused very soon.

The Best Ice Cream...

This is the best tasting Fat Free Ice Cream that I have ever put in my mouth and the Best Part is that it is only 1 weight watcher point per 1/2 cup of Ice Cream... Seriously go get this... I am not getting paid to say this. It is true

Diet and Moore

We finally made it home this weekend. Clare and Emma are doing really well and Mom is hanging in there. I have been stuck in my weight loss. But I hoping that will pick up this week.

I found this awesome Weight Watchers Recipe.


These are Only 1 Point each.

Baking instead of deep-frying these popular Chinese appetisers allows us to serve up egg rolls for a mere fraction of their pre-renovated version.

• 1 head chinese cabbage, outer leaves removed, shredded
• 2 medium carrot(s), peeled and shredded
• 2 medium garlic clove(s), minced
• 2 medium scallion(s), white and green parts, chopped
• 1 Tbsp ginger root, fresh, minced or 1/2 tsp dried
• 1 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 8 average egg roll wrapper(s), about 1/2 oz each
• 1 sprays olive oil cooking spray

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350ºF. Coat a large baking sheet with cooking spray.
  
  
• Place cabbage in a microwavable dish and cover. Microwave on high until wilted, about 4 minutes; drain and transfer to a large bowl. Add carrots, garlic, scallions, ginger, soy sauce, cornstarch and oil; mix well.
  
  
• Arrange egg roll wrappers on a clean, dry surface. Spoon cabbage mixture diagonally onto each wrapper. Fold over one corner to cover filling. Fold up both corners. Moisten edges of remaining flap with water and roll up wrapper jellyroll style until sealed. Transfer egg rolls to prepared baking sheet and coat with cooking spray.
  
  
• Bake until golden brown, about 25 minutes. Serve hot.

Coming Home

We got to come home. Baby Clare is doing well she is going for a quick checkup this morning and then we are going to pick up Emma late morning and we are going to all head home.

At the Hospitial

10:40 - We are at the hospitial today. Naomi is being Induced.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow the doctors are planning on inducing Naomi for our second birth. More to come..

Joost - More Invites (UPDATED 4/23/2007)

I have already given away several Joost Invites and I have a few more to give. The quality of Joost is getting better daily. I have had no stuttering lately of any programs. So Just a few more to give. Leave me a comment and I will hook you up.. STILL HAVE INVITES - Leave a comment if you want one... 4/15/2007...

4/23/2007 - UPDATE I have sent all the invites I have out. Watch here and when I receive more I will announce.

How to Avoid the 8 Most Common Home Buying Errors.

Shopping for a new home is an emotional experience. It is, however, also a business transaction, and must be treated as such. Three of the most devastating things that can go wrong are:

• Paying too much

• Losing a dream home to another buyer

• Buying the wrong home

When you have a systematic plan before you shop, you’ll be sure to avoid these costly errors. Here are some tips on making the most of your home purchase:

Get the information you need
What price do you offer a seller? Is the seller’s asking price too high? Is it a deal? Your own research is important, as is the assistance of a Realtor®. A professional Realtor® can offer an unbiased opinion on the value of a home, based on many factors and a great deal of information. Without knowledge of the market, your offer could be too much. Or worse, you could miss out on a great buying opportunity. Hire the right person and trust that person to represent your interests.

Buy YOUR home
What do you need and want in a home? Sounds simple, but clearly identifying your needs and bringing an objective view to home shopping leaves you in a much better position. How much space do you really need? Too small and you may feel like you live in constant clutter. Too big and maintenance may become too daunting. Outline all of your priorities, and work on finding not just a great home, but a great home for you.

Check the title
Before you sign any document, be sure the property you are considering is free of all encumbrances. As a part of his or her services, a Realtor® can supply you with a copy of the title to ensure there are no liens, debts, undisclosed owners, leases or easements against the title.

Update the survey
Before the purchase is completed, an updated survey is essential. This report will indicate boundaries and structural changes (additions to the house, a new swimming pool, neighbor’s new fence which is extending a boundary line, etc.), and will guarantee that you are indeed getting what you pay for.

Minimize the unexpected
For $300 - $500, a professional inspector will conduct a thorough inspection of the home. Their expertise can mean the difference between uncovering major flaws before or after you own a home. Make the final contract subject to the report’s findings.

Get pre-approved
It only takes a few days to get financing pre-approval. When you are shopping for a home, this gives you more power. A seller is more likely to consider an offer from a serious buyer.

Remember additional costs
Besides the funds for the purchase of a home, you’ll need funds for items such as loan fees, insurance, legal fees, surveys, inspections, etc.

Take a deep breath
Before you sign, ensure that all documentation clearly reflects your understanding and conditions of the transaction. Has anything been forgotten? Don’t rush. You could lose money, financing, or even the sale if you attempt to push things through too hastily.

Get the latest listings in Blue Ridge, Ellijay, Blairsville, Jasper, Young Harris, Hiawassee and Talking Rock directly emailed to your inbox goto http://www.quicklistingalerts.com

Joost Invites

Ok... I do Have joost invites if you want one... let me know..

Quest to be Skinny Update

Well Happy Anniversary to My Wife and I. Six Years. And any day were are expecting another little one. Very Exciting Times.

Onto the Quest to be Skinny Update. I have reached 278 finally after a couple of bumpy weeks. I am very excited. I am actually feeling a lot better. So this is very good. I have been baking weight watcher foods today. My wife remember today how much I enjoy cooking. I don't get to do it as much I use to. But this recipe was my favorite of today. Apple Cornbread Muffins.


UPDATE: As soon as I got done typing this entry. I remembered I had something else cooking. These took over as my recipe of the day.

Cheese Muffins
Points Value: 3

Cooking Spray
1/2 Cup Chopped Onion
2 Cups low-fat baking mix (Bisquik Heart Smart)
3/4 Cup (3 oz) preshredded reduced-fat sharp cheddar cheese, divided
1 Large Egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup fat-free milk

1. Preheat Oven to 400
2. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat; coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion, and saute until tender. Remove from Heat.
3. Lightly spoon baking mix into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Add baking mix and 1/2 cup cheese to onion mixture in pan. Combine egg and milk; add to onion mixture, stirring just until moist. Spoon 1/4 cup batter into each of 0f 9 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle evenly with remaining 1/4 cup cheese.
4. Bake at 400 for 22 minutes or until golden. Remove from
Pan immediately, and serve warm.

Yield 9 Muffins (serving size: 1 muffin)
Per serving: Cal 138 (28% from fat); Fat 4.3g (sat 1.4g); Pro 5.8g;
Carb 20.1g; FIB 0.4g; Chol 31mg; Iron 1.1mg; SOD 384 mg; Calc 266mg

Source: Weight Watchers, five ingredient, 15 minute cookbook

Moore Joost

WOW! Joost did a major ramping up. The new version is even better. Talk about some great content. I absoultely love the World Records Channel, Poker Channel, MTV and more. And they are just testing. This has so much potential. I have read some folks that are negative on Joost but not me. Great Content. They even dished out some Invites (wink).

Open House, Showing Property and The Diet!

Well, last week has been one of those.  I showed property for two days straight and not sure of the results as of today.  The open house was a FLOP, noone showed up.  And the Diet!  Some how I miraculously lost some weight but I am back to hard core dieting today!

 

More Later

How I measure success?

These days I a measuring success by how much weight I have lost? Or how many deals have I closed? And so on...

So my weight is at 283... I have slowed but I am refocusing.

Give me some JOOST™!!

Several years ago, my wife and I made the decision that we weren't going to pay for TV. To be quite honest, we couldn't get cable or satellite where we lived so it was a forced decision. With the exception of a one year subscription to a satellite dish company, we haven't paid for television since.

Where we currently live we could have any number of "pay" television services, but we choose not to subscribe. We have even gone as far as not to have an antenna, because we want to feel better about ourselves and say we don't watch TV. We do subscribe to high speed internet though, which we could not live without.

To be honest, we do watch quite a few TV shows, just not on the television. We will watch a TV show through a network website (I am addicted to Survivor), rent a DVD on Netflix, subscribe to a video podcast, or use YouTube.

So imagine my excitement when I acquired an invite to Joost.

Joost was founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (the creators of Skype, which is now owned by Ebay). Joost's site says that it's "powered by a secure, efficient, piracy-proof Internet platform that enables premium interactive video experiences while guaranteeing copyright protection for content owners and creators". It's a cool new way to watch TV, but over the internet!

The Interface is really slick, and the video quality is great! Mind you, Joost is not like the YouTube player where the videos are downloaded to your computer in the background, and then play from your hard disk. Joost actually streams the content to you over a Peer to Peer network. And just like "normal" TV, it has advertising but these ads are infrequent.

What can you watch on Joost? This is a challenging question to answer: it depends on where you are located. Joost seems to be geographically sensitive. Many users are reporting different sets of channels.

Pixelspread published an exhaustive list of all reported channels, if you're interested. I have installed Joost on two separate computers in my home, and I can report that I am missing some channels on my laptop that I have on my desktop machine.

The videos are clean and clear, and channel surfing is very well done; it is very easy to switch from one channel to another.

Some of the content highlights include National Geographic documentaries, Rocky and Bullwinkle Cartoon Classics, and organic cooking shows.

Some of the content doesn't really appeal to my taste. For example, Bollywood music videos (Savvn) and old reality television shows (Lazy TV US).

Joost recently signed a deal allowing Viacom to be a key content partner. Viacom plans to offer a full range of programming for free. Under the agreement there will be content from MTV, BET and Paramount Pictures. Over the last couple of weeks, Joost has also signed deals with other content providers.

I have used many internet television delivery options. The speed at which the content is streamed on Joost is superior, and I have experienced little delay in delivery. I've rarely experienced a stutter or stoppage of content from Joost. It should be noted that my desktop computer is under the specifications, and despite this Joost performs very well.

Joost does use quite a bit of bandwidth as is mentioned on their website. During an hour of viewing, the application will download 320mb of data, and upload 105mb. If your ISP has a 10gb cap, you'll exceed that in around 10 hours. It's also worth noting that Joost will consume bandwidth when it's minimised and you're not actually watching anything, so they suggest quitting the application if your bandwidth is limited. In short, if you have an ISP that has caps on bandwith, you may run in to problems with Joost.

Right now Joost's beta is closed to the public and is strictly invitation only. Before you ask: no, I don't have any invitations! But many folks have received an email telling them that they'll be invited to the service soon, and that they haven't been forgotten.

It will be interesting to see how their network holds up when Joost comes out of beta in the next couple of weeks. I will be sure to keep you up to date.

Weight Loss

As of this morning I weighed 282. I am about to the weight I weighed before we left Asbury Hills. Hard to think that I put on so much weight in the last year but I guess that is what stress and fast food will do to you.

Mind you I wasn't pigging out. At least I didn't think that I was pigging out. Until I realized that a Big Mac Extra Value Meal Had 940 Calories and 50 Grams of Fat. 23 Weight Watcher Points.

Oh I could eat that If I wanted but that would be eat for the day. I just prefer to stay away.

Lately I have been enjoying Lean Cuisine Sandwiches. They are very good. And of course Subway Sandwiches.

Doug

Joost

So I was fortunate enough to receive an invite to Joost.com . An amazing piece of software. Right now the content is decent but nothing that blows my socks off. The amazing part of Joost is the Delivery. It is Video on Demand. And it most cases it is instantaneous. So If I want to (Edited because of Non Disclosure Agreement). Wow! Does Joost have potential Definitely. So bring on the content.

Catch Up

So..... This week was awful as far as the diet goes. I have no will power when there s candy lying around. Or someone brings brownies to the house. I only lost one pound this week. My accountability partner moved away to Connecticut a couple of weeks ago. So now it is all on my own.

I enjoy doing weight watchers but some days I just am not very good about keeping up on the points. Hopefully tomorrow.!!!

Fasting

So I have spent the last three days fasting. Well, I have had fruit smoothies. This as aclerated my weight loss which is good. Man I want to write alot by can't right now..

Doug

29 days and I am hanging in there. I can doit. Today I weigh 294..

I can do it

Doug

Diet

My Quest to be thin is progressing very nicely. I have lost 10 pounds so far. And I have gone from needing 35 points a day to 32 points a day. A slight correction but a good one. I really want to meet by goal of losing 100 pounds. If not more. So I am going to aggressively seek this out.

Disclosure

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Thinking OUTLOUDG

Thinking OUTLOUD here:

So many problems in the world are caused because people few things differently. People take there believes very personal. Coke or Pepsi? White or Wheat? Murphy or Horner? But seriously, can people with opposite views live in a community together? Can that community be effective?

I say YES! Why? My Simple Answer is that God is the unifying force in the World. Love is a uniting force. And Grace. And Compassion. Selflessness. We get very selfish when it comes to our believes. IT IS MY BELIEF and IT IS RIGHT. And if you DON'T Believe what I Believe in then you are Wrong.

You BETTER BELIEVE IT!

Geni.com - Genealogy for Web 2.0

This is an incredible and addictive site. Interesting "social" genealogy site, lets you build a tree and add relatives who can edit and complete their sides of your family tree using a Flash UI.

My Mom loves to work on Ancestry.com. And she is having a blast with it. This could give them a run for there money!

read more | digg story

Ga Aquarium

Yesterday a whale shark died in the Ga Aquarium. We had just recently visited the Aquarium and we were amazed at how beautiful and large the Whale Sharks can be. As that goes the Beluga Whales are extremely colorful in there whiteness. In a very poetic way.

Doug

New Monasticism

So I have Heard Keith talking about New Monasticism and the 12 Marks. I thought would be cool to post those here and give me input. Because my comments are crucial...8) The Red is Keith's Comments

1) Relocation to the abandoned places of Empire.

Cool like Abandoned Wal-Mart

2) Sharing economic resources with fellow community members and the needy among us.

Yeah why does everyone need to buy there "own" lawnmower.

3) Hospitality to the stranger

Buy a Cup a Joe for Joe!

4) Lament for racial divisions within the church and our communities
combined with the active pursuit of a just reconciliation.

I just don't understand why there still has to be division. Well I understand why! I just there wasn't division!

5) Humble submission to Christ’s body, the church.

Amen!

6) Intentional formation in the way of Christ and the rule of the
community along the lines of the old novitiate.

Sounds Good. Not Really 100% sure what this is saying!

7) Nurturing common life among members of intentional community.

YEP!

8) Support for celibate singles alongside monogamous married couples and their children.

AMEN!

9) Geographical proximity to community members who share a common rule of life.

What yours is mine and what mine is mine. ONLY KIDDING!

10) Care for the plot of God’s earth given to us along with support of our local economies.

I once bought fish at Wal-Mart (I know) and it was from China!

11) Peacemaking in the midst of violence and conflict resolution within communities along the lines of Matthew 18.

Who doesn't want peace. Everyone wants peace! No I really believe most people want peace!

12) Commitment to a disciplined contemplative life.

A Good Idea!

May God give us grace by the power of the Holy Spirit to discern rules for living that will help us embody these marks in our local contexts as signs of Christ’s kingdom for the sake of God’s world.

Above Was Snipped from: "http://www.newmonasticism.org"

I really like the pray above.