I've been an avid Google Reader fan for awhile and before that I was enthralled with Bloglines. Both are good programs, but one of the services that I've not really taken advantage of until the last few days is the social features.

Information Overload (IO) is a buzzword that gets tossed around, but it has some meat behind it. I rarely think of IO without remembering the KISS principle. I wrote an article that will be coming out in an internal publication on how I handle IO in realtion to email. Maybe next month I'll write a cooresponding article on handling news sources.

Anyway, IO seems to be getting harder to get away from. I feel like the world expects me to know so much and there is still more things that I want to know. Eventually something has to be sacrificed. Yesterday, I realized that my attention to the weather was one of the sacrificial lambs of my IO management efforts. Allentown had 1-3 inches of wintery mix. Mostly that was sleet and freezing rain. That morning it hadn't quite started when I went out to the car to head over here to the home office. It was oddly quiet. Normally, school students would be whooping and hollering at each other as they approached the school one block down from our apartment. None of that was happening and I didn't put much thought to why, just noticed it. When I got to work, there was talk of some yucky weather and around 10:30 I headed home because the roads were getting miserable.

Should my IO management methods include a way to track the weather report? The problem I have with the weather reports is that they change frequently. Is there a way to easily get the weather report for tomorrow through email or RSS? I'd like to not depend on television or going out to a website for it. I'd also like this not to take more than 2 minutes out of my day. How do other people keep track of the weather without spending odd amounts of time on it?

What do you think?

If you haven't reserved a spot in heaven yet, no time is better than the present. Being the Christmas season, maybe you could give a reservation as a gift to loved ones. It is surprisingly affordable, especially when you order more than 5 because of the available group rates.

Seriously though, this website might be a fun and non-abrasive way to start conversations with your friends who aren't assured of their passage into heaven.

Marcia Montenegro of Christian Answers for the New Age wrote an article about The Golden Compass (the book, not the movie coming out soon) and the spiritual issues that it includes. If you haven't heard about the whole spiritual controversy around it, this article might be a good place to start.

I thought her concluding thoughts under the heading "Questions to Ponder" were an interesting thing to think about.

One of the things that really affirmed my feelings about FIM when we were first looking around to see if this is where God had us was Wall Watcher's Ministry Watch profile on them. FIM actively participates in openly sharing information about their financials with Ministry Watch and recently FIM was given the honor of being recognized as a "Shining Light", which is to say that they are considered an Exemplary Ministry and among the "Top 30" ministries in the opinion of the good folks at Wall Watchers.

FIM received a nice note of thanks from one of our missionaries. I wanted to pass on some of the things that were said to you guys. It is exciting to be working with an agency that makes unique things happen by filling the gaps of support. I won't share the whole message as some of it is personal, but there are some great chunks.

So I am extra thankful this year for all that God has done and especially I am thanking God for you and how you stood in the gap, believed in us and saw the bigger picture....

So I just wanted to write you guys a personal letter thanking you for your friendship, love and partnership in our lives. Words are not doing it for me but I hope you can hear my heart.

Thank you for being a part of the team that makes it possible for us to support missionaries. Your prayer, friendship and financial support are crucial.

Do the visitors in your church experience what Mr. Bean experienced?

We're getting ready for a fresh run at getting the news out about our ministry. This time we're focusing on churches, especially those in the Allentown area and trying to put our best foot forward. Rachel and I brainstormed about what the best way to do this would be. We settled on a one page Intro to our ministry accompanied by a CD that goes into greater depth. You can see what is on the CD, mostly, by following this link to our church packet.

If you'd like to be part of our "street team" and share this CD with others, you can feel free to download this ISO file. Your CD burning program should be able to use this file to make a CD. You'll probably also want to download the Intro Sheet and print out a copy to go along with the CD.

• The CD Image (ISO)
• The Intro Sheet (PDF)

I also have a CD label for Memorex CD labels. If you're interested in it holler or if you have any trouble using the ISO CD image, holler about that too. I'd be glad to help you out.

I was participating in one of the forums that has been drawing me in, the Ubuntu Forums, and came across the post on forum trolls. I breezed through it and was pleasantly surprised to see how balanced a view of this particular type of troll was presented. If you've spent any significant time online as a Christian and been involved in conversations of faith in forums, you have very likely run into these trolls. They are the reason I generally avoid group discussions on spiritual matters. I try to draw that into one-on-one conversation so the conversation can't get hijacked.

The Holy Misroller (HM). Holy Misrollers are those online forum participants who give Christians (or other religious adherents) a bad name. The HM believes himself or herself to be a Christian (etc.) and will generally tell anyone who'll listen about his or her faith in God and in Jesus. At the same time, however, the HM will display decidedly un-Christian behavior, frequently making an *** out of him- or herself. The HM is often characterized by a great deal of anger and hostility. The breed tends to lash out at anyone and anything not in keeping with its incorrectly narrow worldview. The saddest part about HMs is that they do not truly understand Christianity at all.

This sent me into research mode. Who is this Mathew guy who wrote this up? It turns out, besides being a forum admin, he is also a published author and cultural researcher living in Fes, Morocco. I came across a gem of a blog post on a remote moroccan village. His book looks interesting also. Called Humor and Moroccan Culture, it sounded like an interesting read that I might enjoy some day.

Anyway, this is a good example of the fun I have with Linux. The community is really fun to explore. I learn about and interact with people from all over the world who have linux in common.

5 Kinds of Christians is an article from ChristianityToday that ThinkChristian pointed me to. The 5 types of Christians that emerged were interesting. Of most interest to me was the group called "Private Christians".