About five years ago, I was walking around on the streets of Chicago Ave. and Lake St. in Minneapolis and we were talking about Christ and praying with people in the neighborhood. There were many homeless and very poor people walking around and it was a tough neighborhood. We told people that we wanted to make the neighborhood better by leading them to Christ. I remember one man saying, "If you want to help out this neighborhood, buy that building."

Just a quick note to people who are using any of the sites on my server. We just finished upgrading the Apache webserver. We also may do some playing around with it this afternoon. If you notice anything odd, feel free to contact me so i know it needs fixing.

Yikes. Last night was just a regular night for me, but apparently it was the first TV event of the year, if everyone at my office is any indicator. Half the office spent the first 20 minutes of the day talking about that show American Idol. Maybe one of these years I'll be able to report on why anyone actually watches shows like that, but I doubt it'll ever make sense. I mean, seriously, the only things that are good on TV these days are reruns of Seinfeld and The Simpsons.

I love stuff that is designed really well and functions amazingly well. And, because I live in a house with 16 other people, it's always important to think about big scale. And Jennifer from 9of.us pointed out an amazing (and probably fairly expensive) custom-made product: the expanding table! Check it in action:

What do you think? That's so much cooler than just the table that adds some leaves in the middle. But it looks expensive, and we already have plenty of tables at our houses.

Just a quick post to mention a couple new blogs on my blogroll. They're both great reads.

First up is Justin Walters. He first commented on my blog when I mentioned People of Praise. A couple weeks ago he introduced himself to me. And then a couple days ago, while working on Emmaus Project, I realized that Justin was in the same industry as I. He fooled me with most of his recent posts being over-my-head philosophy and theology stuff.

For me, this weekend is one huge celebration of life. Many of my brothers and sisters in Christ are coming to town for the People of Praise covenent making. Myself and a handful of people are making the covenant, many of which I know well. It's going to be great to have many special people in town to celebrate, including my sister. It's so exciting to have many great friends who I am going to live the rest of my life with.

Tonight it took me over two hours to get home.

As most know, I usually take the MetroTransit Hiawatha Light Rail line to and from work. Today was no exception, although I was very disconcerted when no trains showed up between 5:20 and 5:40 at my stop (not even going in the other direction).

About a month ago we had a "fun day" at work and spent the morning doing anything but work in this amazing car. I just had to post a couple pictures of this thing (thanks to Joelle and Paul for the photos):

We were all trying to figure out why this was at our work.

Well, I guess this "Land Yacht" is for us...

Finally!

After three or four weeks of agony, da-Man.com is back! Yes, I lost my domain name to some neglegence and shady hosting, but I have managed to buy it back. I have learned the hard way, though, to make sure that you have absolute control over your domain names. Using a missin-critical domain that you have not registered yourself is a bad idea, because if you don't have complete control, it can slip away.

Hopefully soon I'll fill you in on all the fun stuff recently. We'll see.

I don't know how you got here, but I've had a bit of a problem with my domain name. Right now "da-man.com" is not owned by me somehow through some slightly underhanded dealings from an old hosting company. I am working to get it back, but until then we'll just have to hang out here.

Thanks for your patience and prayers that I will get back up on my feet again. ;-)