The Land of Ozz

There has been much buzz about the possibility of Google building a data center right here in Goose Creek, SC. This has become a subject of frequent conversations among the engineers where I work. Some have dreams of a better life through Google’s corporate culture. I first heard the story during one of those water cooler style talks in the lab at SPAWAR. Later that say I saw a post on Trace Pupke’s blog. Trace dug up some numbers that say, “…they plan to make a $750 million investment there, employing at least 400 workers who will earn an average of $90,000 a year.” The Post and Courier ran a story last week to give us a taste of what Google might be looking for when filling these 400 positions. Here are my answers to a few questions found in the P&C article:

What programming languages are you familiar with? C, C++, Basic, Fortran, several markup languages…Does it really matter if I am applying for the Network Engineer position?
Is your work space messy or neat? Neat, on the surface
Are you an extrovert or an introvert? Depends on caffeine level
What magazines do you subscribe to? AOPA Pilot and what ever techie journals I can get for free
What pets do you have? None, but I wish I had a Cheeah Pet. Oh, my back yard provides plenty of birds, squirrels, rabbits, and a raccoon from time to time. If that is not enough there are plenty of roadside whitetail deer and opossums in the local area that I have to dodge when driving at night.

The article goes on to say, “As things turned out, there was no single factor that seemed to find the top workers for every single job title. (And pet ownership did not seem to be a useful predictor of anything.)” Whew! I threw in the backyard and roadside stuff just in case the pet thing was a deal breaker.

The official word is not yet in on this mysterious Google data center, but you can pretty much bet that if it does come to Goose Creek (affectionately known as Duck Ditch by some natives) then it will likely be planted in the Mt Holly industrial park just off of Highway 52 about half way between Goose Creek and Monk’s Corner.

The local media has covered this story and a few bloggers. One commenter from the Charleston area by the name of Lynwood Hines (hines1957) did a great job of hammering out some criticisms by others leaving comments on a Valleywag post about Google’s consideration of Goose Creek for one of its new data centers. The biggest beef in those comments seemed to center around the possibility of hurricanes hitting the coast of SC and disabling data centers. Hines said, “Keep in mind that other areas of the country are not immune to nature’s energetic tantrums. Google’s headquarters is located in Mountain View CA, which is at considerable risk from earthquakes.”

A story published by The State newspaper’s web site gave some information about yet another possible data center site in South Carolina. And there is always the Si-Fi version of the story found in the comments of a Slashdot post. My favorite comment on the Slashdot article can be paraphrased as “Google ain’t stupid”. Stay tuned for updates on this developing story from Google Creek, SC.

UPDATE: In December a company by the “named Maguro Enterprises paid nearly $17 million for about 520 acres in Mount Holly Commerce Park…”
Source

These property purchases in mid-December by Maguro Enterprises can be verified by sifting through the Berkeley Country property cards at: http://gis.co.berkeley.sc.us/

An article by Data Center Knowledge helps sort out whether Goose Creek is still in the running or not.

There is a new virtual venue at Seacoast Church. A couple of staff members from Seacoast have posted plugs for this beta campus. Shawn Wood is the Creative Pastor and my friend Trace Pupke is the IT Director for Seacoast. I have not seen the new service in action, but I plan to check it out in the next few weeks. You can check out the Internet Campus for yourself at Seacoast.org. Pastor Shawn gives credit to LifeChurch.tv for inspiring this project at Seacoast.

This new Internet Campus is not the only place where Seacoast is making move regarding technology. Our Seacoast Summerville Campus will be getting a behind the scenes technical upgrade this weekend. I also found an article on Light Cast Media featuring an interview with Pastor Shawn where he talked about how Seacoast has moved to outsourcing the streaming video for the church instead of doing it all in house.

These upgrades may not sound like that big of a deal, but you would have to see a Seacoast satellite campus in production mode to appreciate these changes. I have been a part of some very fragile and nerve racking moments as a Seacoast Summerville tech team volunteer. The delivery process of a Sunday morning message at Seacoast Summerville has some single points of failure which have been tested a time or two. I remember one Sunday morning when the equipment trailer was MIA. This particular trailer held the sound board (affectionately named “The Ark”), the video switching gear, the lighting system, along with most of the items used to stock the information and small group tables. The Ark and everything else was finally delivered and the service was went on without a hitch. I remember a conversation I had with Pastor Phil after that service where I asked him what the back up plan was if our technical team was unable to deliver the recorded message using the overhead projectors and the sound system. As I expected, there was a good plan.  He said that he would deliver a live message. He did say that having to deliver a complete message was nowhere near his greatest concern when it comes to equipment failure. Pastor Phil said that it would be way more difficult to pick up in the middle of a message that had already begun playing from a recording of another pastor.

I have to say that Seacoast has come a long way in technology, and it still amazes me how so many people can be reached in a rented space with a week old video taped message. I have heard our senior pastor say that we have more people attending Seacoast via satellite campuses than we have attending the original Mount Pleasant campus where many of the sermons are still delivered live. I think we are averaging somewhere around 600 people between two services at Summerville and we are nowhere near the largest satellite campus. I am pretty sure that the West Ashley Campus tips the four digit mark on their attendance numbers on a regular basis. The big difference between the Summerville Campus and most of the other large campuses is that we are in a rented space that we can only occupy between on Sunday mornings. We walk into an empty room at 7am to set up and deliver two services at 9:30 and 11:15. Then we tear it all down and load it into trailers. Tomorrow is a big day for Seacoast Summerville because we will be coming together as a church to pray for God’s direction and provision for a more permanent building to have worship services.

One place where technology is being implemented is at the heart of the leadership and personal spiritual growth training for the church.  A web site called MyNextSteps plays a key role in providing tools and lessons to disciple small group leaders and help all Seacoast members become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.
I expect the new Internet Campus to be a huge success.  This new venue and the technical upgrades to Summerville and other areas of Seacoast are testimonies to the commitment of the Seacoast staff to deliver the highest quality worship experience to every single person who attends a Seacoast service.

Our good friends Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo will be joining us at Seacoast Summerville on January 19, 2007. They will be presenting a unique and exciting one night teaching titled “How to raise a Responsible Child”. The announcement of this event has just been released this week and the RSVP messages are pouring in. You can get more details on this event by visiting GFI Charleston.

The Ezzo’s have been writing parenting curriculum since 1985. Their curriculum has impacted over four million parents throughout the world. They have written 13 books on parenting to cover birth through teens. Their books have been translated into 17 different languages.

This event is a great opportunity to meet Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo if you have not yet had the pleasure. This one night teaching is also a small glimpse of what you can learn from the Growing Kids God’s Way curriculum. Sherry and I offered a DVD version of this teaching as a supplemental lesson to our Growing Kids God’s Way class last year.

Don’t forget that there a ton of new classes beginning in the Charleston area in the next several weeks. You can get the details on these local classes by visiting the Class Schedule over at gfigharleston.org.

What is this all about?  These are screen caputure from my browser at about 9am on Wednesday 12/6/06.  I know weather forcasting is not that accurate, but this is funny.  Maybe we were having solar flares or something that interfeared in weather data communications. One image (left) is from my custom Google home page and the other (right) is from my “My Yahoo!” page.

There are two things that make these weather feeds funny to me. The current temperatures are definitly out of sync from each other and both show that the current temperature at time of these screen captures as lower than their own forcasted lows for the day.  I don’t know what the temperature was this morning, but I am guessing the Yahoo!/Weather Channel feed was a little more accurate.

Here is some suggested basic logic for weather feeds.

ForcastLow < = CurrentTemp

ForcastHigh >= CurrentTemp

“This Christmas Seacoast Church presents Word on the Street, a contemporary Christmas drama. This musical production centers on the relationship between a modern-day Joseph and Mary, and the challenges they encounter when faced with God’s plan for their lives.”

I saw three separate Christmas dramas at three different churches over the weekend. The first two were good, but last night I saw the opening night of Word on the Street and it was a grand slam.  Now I will offer a couple of disclaimers. I am a member of Seacoast Church and I have performed with many of the awesome cast members in two previous Seacoast Easter Productions.  I must say that the pre-service video trailer offered in the weeks building up to the show was not very revealing.  That left much to imagination as the opening approached.

The cast and musicians did a great job of transforming this miraculous story into a modern day musical.  The show is a great choice for anyone looking to expose their family to a Biblical sound representation of what this holiday season is all about.  The first two nights sold out in advance.  The show runs through this Friday night with Wednesday already sold out.   You can still purchase tickets online for Tuesday, Thursday, or the two shows on Friday by visiting the Seacoast Church web site.

Seacoast is also offering twenty-seven (27) Christmas eve services this year at nearly a dozen different locations.  Check out the church web site for locations and times near you in SC, NC, and GA.

Have you ever experienced spiritual warfare first hand? I got an up close and personal view of spiritual warfare this weekend. I fought a battle with Satan on Saturday. There is no doubt in my mind that the things I experienced this weekend can clearly be defined as spiritual warfare.

The weekend started with my wife and I attending the Cleansing Stream retreat at the Seacoast Church West Ashley. There was well over 500 people in attendance from at least seven different churches in the local Charleston area.

Sherry and I had been through the Cleansing Stream seminar series a couple of years ago, but I was not able to attend the retreat at that time due to my travel schedule. Maybe the travel was Satan’s way of keeping me out of the retreat back then. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that Satan was all over me this weekend trying to keep me out of this retreat.

Let me give you a brief history of my work year to set the stage for this weekend. For most of this calendar year I have been the after hours on-call engineer for the government project that I support on my job. The duties of the on-call engineer require being able to respond to very complex technical circumstances in a short amount of time (minutes). The duties that the on-call engineer performs require troubleshooting, diagnosis, and repair of network security related problems for our government customer. Most of the problems are related to virtual private network (VPN) outages. We manage and monitor the third largest VPN network in the US government. The on-call engineer is sole person that serves as the last stop before a piece of equipment is replaced or the telecommunications company is contacted for possible circuit outages during non-business hours. I generally serve as this on-call engineer by choice because none of the other 10-12 guys who are qualified want it. Most of them travel extensively and do not want to take a chance of getting called in the middle of the night while they are home off the road. I believe that this duty, which does come with some compensation whether calls are received or not, has been a direct financial blessing to my family from God this year. The extra income from being the on-call engineer has boosted our house-hold budget to a point that has allowed us to be set free from a near super-natural debt situation in the past year.

For the details of my weekend, let me just say that I can not remember the last time I got a call on a Saturday morning as the on-call engineer. Weekends are almost always very quiet. I had no reason to think this weekend would be any different so I did not ask anyone to cover for me during this retreat. That was a BIG mistake. Satan knew I was on call and reached out and grabbed hold of my cell phone and dragged me out of that retreat no less than seven (7) times this weekend in 24 hours. Four of those times happened between 8am and noon on Saturday. It was so bad that the guy working the 24/7 help desk at work asked me, “What in the heck is going on this morning?” Not knowing where he is spiritually, I did not try to explain it over the phone. Besides, I wanted to solve the on-call issue at hand and get back into the retreat. The first call came very early Saturday morning just after we arrived at the retreat. The second and third calls came while I was waiting in line to receive prayer for anger and fear. I did not really think I needed to go up for prayer for fear or anger because I have been dealing pretty well with those issues myself… I thought. I will get back to that in a minute.

By the afternoon when I got call number six, I just started laughing as I stepped outside. I really got to the point where I found this to be funny that the enemy would try so hard to keep me out of this retreat. By the time the day was over I had received a total of seven calls on totally different issues within a twenty-four hour period. That is absolutely unheard of in my experience of being the on-call engineer for over 30 weeks this year. This was a really weird measurable attack by Satan and I stood strong in the name of Jesus Christ.

I am so glad that I stood strong against this attack from Satan and returned to the prayer line after answering my call. What I did not know was how much I needed prayer for fear and anger. I have had anger building up inside of me over the past couple of years in particular. I had just recited a prayer of repentance and forgiveness, but the Holy Spirit moved me to go forward to receive prayer for anger. I finally got to the front of the line and was waiting for the next ministry team member when I just became a pile. Tears started to stream down my cheeks. I realized at that moment how angry I had become over the lies, partial truths, and deception that had been fed to me about my son Caden’s doctors. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not coming down on all doctors or even a particular doctor. Praise God for doctors. The fact is, that you hardly ever get all the facts that are known from the doctors regarding decisions that need to be made on treatment choices. Your average person would have to go to medical school to understand even a small percentage of the facts anyway. I believe that Satan uses these facts to stir up fear and deception that can overshadow what God wants us to do concerning the health of our family members or ourselves. This can lead to our trust in God being overshadowed by a stronger trust in the doctors. That can be very dangerous.

Getting ahead in this war first requires us to realize that there is a war. God’s Word clearly tells us:

“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 (NIV)

If you have a hard time understanding or believing this scripture, then you are likely the victim of some pretty creative deception by Satan already. Satan does not want us to believe the Word of God.

The events of this weekend were an attack on me from Satan. The attack was intended to keep me from demolishing strongholds that he has been planting in my life for a while now. The fear and anger were just two examples of things that I was dealing with on Saturday morning. A battle was won this weekend in the, all powerful, name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Attention SC Lowcountry Cyclists

A co-worker has asked me if I would help put the word out on a great fundraising event happening in a few weeks. Here is what Kelly had to say in an email to me:

My father’s church (my dad is the pastor) is holding their 3rd annual Tour De Round O Bicycle Ride. The Tour began three years ago as a benefit for my boyfriend Stephen after his accident and has continued over the last few years as a benefit to a local in need. This year, the beneficiary is an infant girl who underwent heart transplant surgery in July. As you well know, the ongoing medical costs can be rather daunting and we would like to help her family.

What: 40 mile benefit bicycle ride

Where:

Bethlehem Baptist Church
12898 Round O Rd
Round O (Colleton County) , SC

When: Saturday, October 14, 2006 8:00 AM

Details as found at Active.com

“The Tour de Round O is a 40 mile benefit bicycle ride sponsored by Bethlehem Baptist Church in Round O. This is Bethlehem’s 3rd year sponsoring the event, with all proceeds of this year’s ride benefiting Teyonnia Lambert. Teyonnia, who was born on January 28th, underwent heart transplant surgery in July. To keep her in good health, Teyonnia must take 11 different medications and visit a specialist monthly. This year’s ride will help to supplement the mounting costs of Teyonnia’s care.”

I can not impress upon you how import it is for us all to help those in need. Our family has certainly seen medical expenses and tons of non-medical expenses caused by long hospital stays. Caden set a single day record for pediatric heart surgery according to one lady in the MUSC billing department. I lost count on the total for Caden’s medical cost about a year ago and it was at more $300,000 then. Thank God for insurance and the support we have received from so many sources. Please help this family if you are able.

Please pass along a link to the details of this event to anyone who might be remotely interested. This event will take place in a neighboring county about 30 miles west of here. There is actual a town called Round O, SC. Even though it only shows up as a crossroads on Google Maps, it does actually have a zip code. (29474)

Lowcountry Bloggers: Please help get the word out!

The folks over at xxxchurch.com claim to be the #1 porn site for Christians, and they should be your #1 porn site if you are a Christian who struggles with pornography. The concept of taking the Good News to folks caught up in the porn industry seemed like a noble and challenging task to me. Today I got a first hand message from J.R. over at xxxchurch.com. Well, it was as first hand as I am going to get in the near future. You see, J.R. came and spoke to me and about 7000 of my closest friends over at Seacoast Church. You can read about J.R.’s Porn Sunday visit to Seacoast over at the X3 Blog.

I have followed the xxxchurch.com ministry from a distance for a while. I have refrained from posting on anything about the xxxchurch.com ministry until today. The main reason I have been so slow to post on this ministry is that I did not want to bring any embarrassment to my church. I have never been asked by my church to tone down on a subject matter on my blog and I have never been asked to add or remove anything. My blog is just that, my blog. BUT, I am a member of Seacoast Church and my words and actions can and often do represent the body of the church. This representation is not in any official capacity. I remember an email that was sent a while back. It came from a lady who wanted to know more about Seacoast. I went through with a pretty long spill to make sure she knew that I was not a staff member of Seacoast and that she should contact the church office for more information. Here is a small part of her response to my disclaimer:

“I may argue that members represent a part of the whole, so that means your view should mirror that of Seacoast- well that’s just my opinion. I want first of all thank you for replying to my query instantly. Your in-depth explanation of what the purpose and intent of the small group meeting entails clearly shows why you host one of these meetings. I am glad you not only reply in a short span of time but also give me an insight to what Seacoast is all about. I will follow your advice and contact the church in Summerville for further assistance.” (some editing for grammar/punctuation)

All that said, I try to make sure that I do not post on a subject that may shed a negative light on Seacoast, or the body of Christ in general. I felt all along that the xxxchurch.com movement was a sound and worthwhile ministry. On the other hand, I have not be a party to conversations with the senior leadership of my church to know whether they would share my opinions on xxxchurch.com. How many of you other Christian bloggers ask yourself if your your church and Jesus is being properly represented before posting. Now I have my answer about xxxchurch.com and you have a link to another awesome ministry.

The message that J.R. and Pastor Greg did is only good for issues related to sin associated with sex and pornography. One of the things that jumped out at me from this message could apply to many other areas of ministry. J.R. contrasted the difference in how xxxchurch.com ministers to the porn industry by going into the porn conventions to share the Word with the participants to lead them to Christ verses how other people and groups will stand outside of porn conventions waving signs and screaming at people as they enter telling them that they are all going to burn in hell. This is just another level of my biggest beef with “Christian” organizations. They think that name calling and criticism will some how change someone or convict them to confess their sins and turn to Jesus Christ. J.R. used this scripture in his talk and I think it is worth repeating:

Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived. (Galatians 6:1-3 MSG)

I am downloading the x3watch accountability software from xxxchurch.com. There is a free version and a pro version for $14.95. The X3PRO version allows for more accountability partners of your choice as well as support. My best friend (my wife) will be my first accountability partner. I am looking for two more if you are an x3watch user and are interested in being my accountability partner.

Oh, and parents, the first step in protecting your children against pornography is to protect yourselves. That is my own two cent on the subject.

Listen to the Seacoast message by going to iTunes or you can find the most recent series at Seacoast.org.

Charles Capps came to speak this past week right here in Goose Creek, SC. He said it was his first visit to Goose Creek. His message was a great overview of many of his teachings that I have already heard plus some new material. My wife Sherry got to hear him live for the first time. We also ran into some friends that we have not seen in a while. It was a really great night of fellowship, worship, and receiving of God’s Word.

The highlight for me was an opportunity to speak with Charles Capps in person. He took a few minutes to share some wisdom with me one on one. I had emailed him about a month ago and he recognized my name when I introduced myself after the meeting Friday night. He shared some recommendations on how to grow my faith in some areas where I have struggled. It was an honor to meet such a gifted man of God.

Charles Capps teaches faith building principles found in the Bible that many people pass right by without realizing it. I have been missing some very basic applications of God’s Word in my daily walk with the Lord for years. I have learned so much from Charles Capps that has complimented and expanded my spiritual growth and my personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

I encourage you to check out the Charles Capps Ministies official web site. You will find a copy of Charles Caps itinerary along with lots of books, CDs, DVDs, and tapes to choose from to help you grow in your faith and understanding of God’s Word. I am sure that his teachings will bless you.