What Does Two Convenient Presidential Endorsements, A Congressional Investigation, & An Earring Have In Common?

2008 is going to go down in history as one of the most pivotal years in terms of politics and Christianity I sincerely believe.

There has not been a year that has produced as much intense controversy, backpedaling, and PR spin at the air-thin heights as 2008 has although there have been some that clearly led us to where we are now.

I am now detecting that there is going to be a highly focused triangulation and clever scrutiny given to a worldwide pastor, televangelist, author, conference host, and multimedia mogul.  I have heard and viewed countless number of sermons from this preacher although somehow I have never been able to see and hear him live.  Now I know why.

I am both shocked, saddened, and realistic enough to know that we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God as well as to recognize that the dots started connecting at the same time as the stars were lining up over the head and over the impeccable ministry of this recognized leader.

The first crack in the esteem that I have had for this fellow laborer of the Gospel came way back in the 2000 presidential campaigns as this pastor had the bold audacity to throw his support openly for W who has more than proven to fulfill the stereotypical role of a prince that felt entitled to become king himself.  The entire nation and world has suffered through W's presidential thievery and administrations.  Yet we still give God the glory for bringing us through this turbulent period and to continue our quest onward and higher.

At the time, the only logic that made sense of the 2000 presidential endorsement was that W and the pastor had the same state of residency and still do.  Maybe there was a state grant provided in Texas to the pastor's growing congregation, but to place such a congregation over the lives of thousands or millions that watched and supported the television ministry, seminars and conferences, and multimedia ministry still has me dumbfounded.  This had to be short term thinking at its finest in order to be willing to sacrifice for some form of 30 pieces of silver not only your own people, but essentially to silence one's voice on anything political going forward.

The 2000 presidential endorsement is only the first star or X placed over this ministry that cannot be refuted because it simply happened and the present and history has proven the result of W becoming president.

The second X to be hung in the rafters like a championship banner comes not its presence but through its absence.

I blogged earlier in 2007 that I felt the congressional investigation of several televangelists and Christian leaders by US Senator Chuck Grassley was highly political and still stand by this opinion.  But what was cemented my opinion was the absence of this same pastor when he clearly had connections to virtually every televangelist who was named in the investigation.

You see, it is not enough to look at who is named or mentioned in such an event that seeks to tarnish one's reputation.  One needs to check to see who was excluded, overlooked, not included, and/or "off that day" when the armed robbery crime takes place to see if there is a connection by disconnection.  Usually law enforcement has the presence of mind to take the confidential informant down to the precinct as well during the police raid, but maybe making a presidential endorsement of a Republican presidential candidate who was your governor and hooked you up on the state level gives one a "stay out of the highly publicized congressional investigation that is clearly not over" free pass card.

My mathematical training whispered to me that it is mathematically impossible to have been excluded from the investigation when the same person was openly named as being an indirect cause and relevant to the investigation of several mentioned.  The probability of being excluded in the court of common sense went to 0 and the percentage that the fix was in skyrocketed straight to 100%.  There was and still is no room for any middle ground within this particular congressional investigation if there is one. 

So the second X flag goes up the flag pole although upon revisiting the named Christian leaders who were named, I have not heard or read anywhere that the now slippery televangelist has preached, counseled, or offered any support to any of the named ministries being investigated.  Somehow I strongly get the feeling that it will be a frigid day in hell when he gets to preach again in their pulpits.  Or at least throw some restitution to them that was passed on to you from W:)

Press forward to today July 13, 2008.  I do not know how I stumbled on the news, but I see that people online at least are now asking questions whether photos of this pastor were "photoshopped" or doctored with by a proficient person using a computer involving a family celebration considered mildly public since the presence of cameras was to be expected.

But let me back up to now say that this same pastor has gone on the record to endorse presidential candidate and US Senator Barack Obama to become President of the United States just as I have and do.  I strongly suggest that Senator Obama keep this endorsement at arm's length and especially upon taking the oath that grants a 4 year residency at the White House because this slippery slope will clearly cost you any hopes of being re-elected in 2012.

Unlike Rev. Jesse Jackson's words, the nationwide animosity that this pastor is going to generate will surely castrate Obama (and won't stop there) worse than Ken Starr's investigation of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal which not ironically set the stage for W to become president.  Unfortunately, the Secret Service does not protect one's reputation from guilt by association.

Now let us return to the jewelry that the still conservative Black church does not find as appropriate for men especially one on the level of this international evangelist and the ministerial regard in which he is held even as the controversy is no where as high as it will become.

Personally I could never wear an earring because my personal standards are beyond current fads and fashion.  Maybe if I was shown a photo where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Marcus Garvey, Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, NASA Astronaut Dr. Ron McNair, Booker T. Washington, or even Barack Obama were to have their ears pierced or stylishly wear a clip-on earring maybe I would consider getting one:)  Not!!!!

Needless to say, there is going to be a round of heated debates, arguments, and potentially unfortunate church splits over the presence of some bling on this preacher's ear.

Does he have the right to wear an earring?  As far as I know, the US Constitution does not forbid him from wearing one.  But within the realm of the Black Church within these United States, a more perfect union is not the outcome reached by adorning oneself with such a fashion statement.

Since the preacher does not hold public office, there will be no barriers or possible accusations that other preachers will have violated any beliefs or laws separating church and state and/or placing the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status of their churches and ministries at risk.  As a result, there is no flame retardant apparel available for this preacher to wear.

When will the feces hit the fan?  I now believe that it already has and the whispers that this emperor has no clothes has already begun to spread on some grassroots level.

Only the awful aroma will spread once the individual believers that held this man of faith come into contact with the growing undertrend that should have never taken place.  The damage of this escapade will come in the form of further threatening and expanding a generational gap within the Church where many feel that it is okay for men to wear earrings.

My ministry is now focused in the intermediate terms on preparing Christians for the difficult days ahead that are rapidly approaching and some would say are already here where faith based emotions will be shaken to the core.  Evangelism and ushering others to know Christ is still my primary mission while introducing them to the Christ that I know and worship where one can witness the darkest days unimagined and still rest assured that Christ Jesus has already overcome the world.

The world where this pastor will undoubtedly become just as infamous as W is one where one's soul, reputation, and legacy unfortunately go to the highest bidder among man:(

But Christ Jesus has already paid the price!

As much as hooping has a place in the art gallery of the Black Church, I have still yet to read a mandate for hooping especially to relieve the pains and witnessing of the once-considered fantasy to take place within the next 4 years!  This preacher was considered the absolute best in the US if not the world.  So many will be hurt deeply unfortunately.

Just remember "Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven".  Nothing considered external to this world is able to overthrow the Word of God already written and shared.

The implosion of the unnamed pastor and anything seen and unseen will never invalidate the Word of God.  So keep the faith and move in greater confidence that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess.

Nothing shall separate us from the love of God.

Peace!

2 Podcasts that will give you a deeply relaxing, musical massage!

Right now I'm listening to DarrenKeith's "My Love For Music" podcast and along with Mr. Fresh's "Vibes N Scribes" podcast, one has the perfect audio tag team for your ears:)

In the web2.0 construct of things, I met and befriended both of these gentlemen only online to date via Twitter and have found that music is probably the fastest ways to determine any common ground people might have without meeting each other face to face.

Today was the first day that I distinctly will remember hearing DarrenKeith's podcast other just previously reading his Twitter and Plurk posts previously.  I already knew the Mr. Fresh podcast would lay down a sonic vibe that remind me of a musical flight on demand.

I would not suggest to anyone any attempts to work while either one is playing since you would better benefit from having them take you for a ride.  Play either one first and you will see that they are just that good at producing a musical journey.

But if you are traveling or going through an airport or driving at any time, you could not find a better way to lower your blood pressure and find relief from any tension within your body and mind.

These podcasts are so smooth that they should require a doctor's prescription:)  Such music should be played in medical waiting rooms to take away any stress!

One idea that came to this morning alone is that independent coffee houses and shops should commission such musical ears like these highly talented guys and musical tastemakers to produce MP3s, CDs and/or playlists to be heard, bought, and experienced within and outside of the businesses.

This is clearly a concept that I am borrowing from my own consulting works on ElectricSlide.com and these two podcasts absolutely prove my point very well.

This is musical soup for one and/or tea for two:)

As an artist and renaissance man, I feel that I either know or have heard of most musical artists or genres.  But these two podcasts introduced me to ear-opening artists that I have not heard before as well as reintroduced me to classics that will scratch your eardrums in your favorite spot.

Check them out, get ready to lay your burdens down, and remember that I told you so!  I will see you on the other side of musical bliss:)

Peace!

10,000 B.C. was much better than imagined

My wife and I watched the movie 10,000 B.C. last night courtesy of Netflix and I must apologize to everyone and anyone affiliated with the movie or said that it was a good flick!

With this being said, the movie was clearly marketed wrong when it was released and the appearance of appealing to the audience of 300 was either wrong or too closely behind 300 to compel me to see the movie back then.  The copycat approach clearly did not work since this movie has legs of its own with a cast not often seen in other movies.

My expectation level was so far below ground zero that it probably did not have far to go to surpass my expectations, but the movie held its own consistently throughout the film.

At more than one place in the flick, the movie could have gone into a Stargate meets Close Encounters meets anything else involving aliens or another world but wisely the movie did not.

This movie did show great professionalism in its deleted scenes and the throwaway lines and scenes were clearly eliminated.  The attempts at humor that could have undercut the movie were deleted as well.

The one twist that was quite a shocker for me was on the level of seeing Darth Vader unmasked and was rather brilliant in the scheme of things.  It will make the conspiracy theorists stand up in shock and awe to say the least:)

So I am giving 10,000 B.C. a thumbs up for the pay-per-view and DVD rental audience among us.  It was almost good enough to buy it, but I won't go that far.

I will say that the movie was a nice mashup and compacted-into-one-smooth-mix of The Lord of the Rings, 300, and The Matrix (just for the main character's acceptance of who he really was).

So definitely see the movie and judge for yourself!

Peace!

Logic Does Rex Files! W00t!

I was just able to import a Rex file (.rx2) into Logic for the first time and hear it play back successfully. The key is downloading and installing the shared library (Universal Binary) file from the Reason site at:



http://ping.fm/Ls8Np



After seeing a similar trend with another piece of software and anytime that you are having a problem with either Logic and/or your Mac, check to see if there is an Universal Binary file available.



The Universal Binary file is key to making the plugin, file, or soft synth visible within Logic.



Otherwise, you will have downloaded and installed something that is indeed there but not visible to Logic and/or GarageBand.



One other tip is to redownload the same file again and install it if the first installation does not fully work. I have gone through the experience to install a file one time only to see that a later download and installation was

much successful than the original installation.



Peace!

just learned via The Today Show that there is a lunch box museum in Columbus, GA which is a city that I have never visited.

loves the difference Ping.fm has made in my blogging count on http://ping.fm/oBTCH) W00t!

is pleasantly surprised at the number of competitors to eBay that I'm discovering this evening alone:) Ding dong, the witch is dead:)

had 0 items to install

has a Macbook that does not like to operate when running a fever! I had to shut it down before a gasket was blown:(

is using Safari more since FF3 seems a little buggy still. Safari is not bad at all so far.

had a program get down to 0 further items to install

says if p.m. plan goes according to plan, more excuses will be disintegrated like Martians on Bugs Bunny:)

ran an errand this morning & was forced to turn AC on. Drank 32 oz Powerade like it was 8 ozs. Don't let your shades fool you, it is hot!

likes Tim McGraw's chivalry:) No, I love it! I hope he plays the White House soon:) W shows domestic violence to Lady Liberty daily:(

has learned that my former employer has already closed 40% of its US call centers. Layoffs or sale approaches like Jaws! I hear music!!

says the FDA needs to ease up on the multiple vaccination approvals. Recipe for long-term disaster!

says it's funny how technology was able to see Big Brown's shoe coming off while bin Laden is supposedly cozy in Pakistan. He's dead really

learned that it is called "reverse globalization" that is returning jobs to the US per by high gas prices states ABC News.

says James Dobson put forth weak, incoherent points about an Obama speech as factual. Nothing JD states will be given easy access going fwd

says if only the political party occupying the White House at any given time could find balance within US domestic & foreign policies;(

says that I really did not know that things had gotten this bad on eBay, so check out the comments too: http://ping.fm/0AHOo

says TweetStats @ http://ping.fm/m9Bbv will really tell you how you are Twittering & when:)

suggests http://ping.fm/hODI4 & http://www.pbs.org for Summer of Love info. History repeats itself.

is recognizing that the brief era of high finance is clearly over. It's time for marketing to step back to the mic in the forefront.

Musical Vampire Candidates!

Playing musical tag has already turned out to be so much fun and reminds me of someone being bitten by a vampire to in turn become a vampire and bite others.

I am looking for candidates that may not have been bitten by others:)

So here are a few more candidates to get in on this summer meme:

The Vixy

Wayne Sutton

Zadi

Blogdiva

Baratunde

Idadi

Boom

Peace!

Got tagged to list seven summer songs & here's my list: http://ping.fm/zy36R Now moving on to bite other musical vampire candidates:)

Summer Meme: Sing Along / Seven Songs

This evening I got tagged by one of my Twitter and music friends named EJ Flavors to participate in the following musical game of tag with the following guidelines:

"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your spring summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to."

Not one to back down from a musical challenge, here are my seven songs and how they made my list:

7.  Kill Joy N.E.R.D.  Not to offend anyone, but this track was the only one that sounded interesting to me besides the track "Spaz".  I can see a nice, car chase with this song as the background music.  The 80s rap style laid down a nice, percussive, retro vibe on top of the lack of bass in your face throughout the entire project.

6.  Silly Love Songs - Paul McCartney & Wings.  Somehow this song has been imprinted into my mind from a spring-summer trip to Carowinds on the NC-SC border and I have no way to remove it.  It must have been my first trip to the park at a minimum.  No romance was involved in the memory:(

5.  Don't Go - Deitrick Haddon.  From the Mary J. Blige sample in the intro to the end of the song, this is Gospel R&B at its finest.

4.  Don't Disturb This Groove - The System.  I cannot think of too many songs that create a time capsule like this song can for any moment.

3.  Planet Rock - Afrika Bambaataa & The SoulSonic Force.  It is illegal to think of summer without this song for its heat alone.

2.  Sunshine - Alexander O'Neal  A frat brother was supposed to sing either this song or Babyface's song by the same title at our wedding 18 years ago, but sang "You Are My Lady" by Freddie Jackson instead.  Either "Sunshine" is a winner in my book.  Buy this song via iTunes for a better price.

1.  Love Song #1 - Me'Shell N'degeochello.  I just heard the entire project a few weeks ago on Last.fm and ended up buying it right away.  The vibe is perfect for a red light in the basement (throw away the blue one for this project).  TMI, but we could add another young one to our family while being intoxicated by the entire project:)

Now here are a few of my usual suspects musically to get tagged by me as a result:)

DJ Diva

TheJennTaFur

Jordayn7

MrFresh

Anewlis

Tofu916

Thirtydaes

Now it is going to be very interesting to see what everyone else comes up with:)

Peace!

wonders why CNBC is so visually disfigured with their color scheme. No other channel or network goes so awry outside of prime time:(

just discovered that Comic Life app that came with Macbook is a full blown version versus a trial version. Another W00t for the day!

Dude didn't get the memo of HDOTY: http://ping.fm/XRd6k

believes when 85F feels like 83F, you're having a great day!

I really like the way Firefox opens a new window without taking up massive, duplicate space. Almost undetectable too:)

Do kids want to eat instinctively based upon time of day or when they are truly hungry? lol:) Summer time dilemma raised daily!

The only real challenging threat to my personal, high standard for fatherhood is the need for space when the creative vibe suddenly hits me.

Wife is searching an area that is giving up items off our radar for years:) I hope no real, cold cases are solved as a result:)

My wife Wyteria just found our 12 year old tripod that was covered with cobwebs, so W00t, W00t, W00t!!!! Camcorder's base was only broken.

Note to MGR: Using hand sanitizer after shaking hands w/your employees is best done out of their sight:)

Despair, Inc. = http://www.despair.com

Despair, Inc. is being profiled on Nightline. Company makes demotivational items:) Dysfunction is profitable!

Firefox 3 for Macs is making me feel like I'm using a bootleg version of Safari due to the color scheme or lack of one:)

The new MySpace home page has people thinking there was a terrorist attack on a building while it's a scene from the new Batman movie:(

With global economic conditions worsening, it is going to be amazing at which business functions get spotlighted again or become least fav.

The current heat index is making the temp 83F feel like 81F. I can deal with this any day of the week or year:)

Does the Celtic bench know they're up by 40? Wow!

is respecting the Celtics for the way they went the distance to win this championship even though I'm a 76ers fan or their opponent:)

Zoo Atlanta Provoked Nightmare!

I had a nightmare shortly after our Zoo Atlanta visit last week. I was watching two snake handlers having some type of drinking contest to attract a crowd.

One had African tribal paint on his face while the other one was Indian. The snake handler with the face paint made some type of counter clockwise motion with his glass around his face and pretended to be bitten in his neck by the drink.

Then it was my immediate turn to hold a rubber, water hose. Someone looked in the end of the hose that I was holding and saw that it was a King Cobra inside.

I then dropped the rubber, water hose:(

My reaction was so real that I said "Ooh" out loud or "Umph".

Immediately I had to get up and go to the bathroom:)

Needless to say, dropping the water hose with the King Cobra inside ended the nightmare before things got any worse:)

There has been nothing laughter with everyone that has heard this nightmare of mine:)

Good night All:)

believes Phil Jackson might need to consider retiring after taking such a beating in this series.

Just updated Ping.fm to not post to Twitter to avoid redundancy:)

Ping.fm is a web2.0 loaded weapon:)

Powerful Verse of the Day: Joshua 5:9 in New Living Translation (NLT)

Happy Sunday!

Marinate on this verse today from Joshua 5:9 in the New Living Translation (NLT):

9 Then the Lord said to Joshua, "Today I have rolled away the shame of your slavery in Egypt." So that place has been called Gilgal^[d] to this day.

Check this page for more out!

Thanks goes to Quest Community Church where I heard the verse in the specific translation today.

Peace!

Recent Sermon Uploaded: Where Is The Party? by Roney Smith

Although it appeared that I was having technical problems in uploading the sermon earlier this week, this morning I discovered that the uploading attempt was successful after all.

This is how some of our efforts will work to expand the kingdom of God, so we must not get discouraged when things do not appear to go our way on the surface.

The sermon is entitled "Where Is The Party?" and was delivered to the Team Soteria Deliverance Church on June 1, 2008 in Smyrna, GA where Apostle Terry Graham is their pastor.

I hope that the sermon and Apostle Graham's exhortations will bless and inspire you today!

Peace!

New Music: Make A Change!

Today I am finally making public a song entitled "Make A Change" that I produced earlier this year!

"Make A Change" is an instrumental track inspired by US Senator Barack Obama as he has inspired many worldwide in his quest to become President of the United States.

For one reason or another, the timing to release the song never felt quite right with my own schedule. With the Democratic nomination essentially clinched today and the need to unify the Democratic party present, there is no better time to make this song public.

I would deeply honored to see personally or hear that the song was played as Senator Obama takes the stage somewhere or even as song replaces "Hail to the Chief":)

You can hear song on either Last.fm and/or iLike and if you wish to make a purchase, just visit Electric Slide.com for a purchase and an instant download.

I hope to place the song on iTunes soon as well with other music created. You can also sign up to resell the song yourself and make a commission.

We are looking to use part of the proceeds to purchase two life saving products (malaria nets via Nothing But Nets and a dynamic, personal, water filtration system called Life Straws) as a part of my worldwide ministry.

Whether you purchase the song or not, please consider helping people worldwide with these products.

Also, feel free to share any thoughts, comments, and other forms of feedback:)

Peace and Enjoy!

No Longer Accepting What Was Previously Tolerated

The title of this blog entry came to me earlier this morning and it is still ringing within my spirit.

Time is one of the most precious resources that we have given to us by God and to see others willingly waste your time should upset you both in the moment and whenever you take the time to evaluate your relationships. Even when we waste our own time, we should not allow it to continue when we finally wake up to our own errors.

As a minister that just celebrated my 12th ministerial anniversary, I find myself listening to God this month especially for an evaluation of where I've been, what I am doing, and where I should be heading.

Too many people are saying these days "I gotta do what I gotta do" while I am hearing that "I gotta do what God tells me to".

Courage is the keyword for this month and too many Christians are vessels of fear and not faith.

Courage is the wall separating knowledge from understanding and understanding from wisdom.

To know what to do is one thing, but courage is the required ingredient in order to put the right things in motion. Stepping out in faith never occurs without courage being present.

Knowing that change is desired and needed is no longer good enough. We must demonstrate our faith in courage and not fear.

Cowardly fear will always be the gravity that separates our potential from what is actually experienced.

So we, you, and I must walk by faith and not by sight for without faith, it is impossible to please God.

To live otherwise places the blood of the souls of both the touched and unreached on our hands and we will not be able to take pride in what we have not done when we were empowered and equipped to be the critical difference in their lives.

Peace!

One of the Toughest Days of My Ministry for the Homegoing Ceremony of a Young Soldier: R.I.P. Joshua Caleb Burroughs

Earlier today (Thursday, April 24, 2008), our church where I am the youth pastor (Bethesda Baptist Church in Austell, GA) conducted a home going ceremony (funeral) for a young teen who was gunned down in broad daylight last week.

Gang involvement is being attached to the death and the lines are still blurred and the starting and ending points are still yet to be identified.

Our youth that was buried today, Joshua Caleb Burroughs, was a gentle and compassionate young man who had absolutely mesmerized our church family during a Black History play in 2007.  I was not fortunate to see the play, but every statement made about the play included how well Caleb had performed.

He was our budding playwright or actor and he was reminded of this several times since.

Caleb always had a smile on his face and his eyes always signaled that he was aware of any preaching, teaching, and biblical instruction that was taking place regardless of who the minister was and how the information was being delivered.

I could always personally tell that he was getting it and knew what needed to be done.

Now that the procession of cars and release of balloons have been done, we are depending upon God to lead us on how to not only honor our memories of Caleb, but how to move aggressively in a way to expand the kingdom of God to reach the young men and women who are drowning in lifestyles that will not sustain them.

There is no room or time for physical revenge because such thoughts and actions are simply not productive.

The necessity for our steps to be taken boldly and to demonstrate to the surrounding community and world that a better way does exist that meets your physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual needs.

The kingdom of God is not boring but the uninspired and laziness of mankind will cause it to appear that way.  Today, I am rededicating myself to become more bolder and creative to do whatever it takes to make a difference to reach today's youth and this present age.

My difficulty that I am now experiencing is that I was already in the process of releasing new music beginning in the month of May when this tragedy occurred.  Although the enemy wants to further accuse us all of either activity or inactivity that led to Caleb's death, we have already realized as a church family that this battle is not over yet.

So I am asking anyone that comes across these words to reexamine your relationship with Jesus Christ, allow Him to be your Savior, allow the Holy Spirit to guide you, and be inspired to be, see, do, and have the kingdom of God expanded in earth as it is in heaven.

If Christ Jesus was good enough for young Brother Caleb, then Christ Jesus is good enough for you. 

Now we will work continuously to show you how much better Christ's wine is.

R.I.P. Joshua Caleb Burroughs

Here are URLs related to the funeral conducted today: http://tinyurl.com/52z7e2 http://tinyurl.com/4oywqp http://tinyurl.com/4qg7o3

Peace!

Happy St. Patrick's Day from the Smiths in Mableton, GA

This morning the idea hit me to make green lemonade and my Wyteria jumped on the idea before our daughters came home from school.

Our youngest daughter Hailey kept going to the nearby bathroom to see if her tongue was turning green:)

It may become a Smith family tradition on St. Patrick's Day and was tasty too.

Somehow the mind tricked my oldest daughter Rachel and my wife's mind in that they said the Irish Lemonade tasted "minty".

Atlanta Tornado Pictures

The world is really wanting to see the damage from this past weekend's storms here in metro Atlanta.

The best footage that I've seen is located on a CNN-affiliated site named i-Report which is actually taken by residents of the affected areas.

The storms were highly unusual in that Friday's storm hit downtown the hardest and a tornado had not actually done so since 1975.

We live in Mableton, GA which is located within "tornado alley" and usually feel the brunt of any high winds year round, but the storm featured thunder and lightning and subsided very quickly Friday night.

Yesterday at church, I heard that a hail storm really poured down in Lithia Springs, GA which is probably less than 7 to 10 miles away in Douglas County, GA.  Our pastor's car had multiple dings all over from Saturday's storm which also hit the east side of metro Atlanta within Lithonia, GA very hard.

I personally only saw tiny, pellet sized hail outside of our home.

I met a photographer yesterday who took a photo of hail from Friday and Saturday's nights storms and the hail was golf ball sized and clearly might kill you if you were hit by them.

I thank God that we were spared from the damage that is having a large impact on the other areas.  To my knowledge, 2 deaths have occurred from the storms.

Peace!

Interesting Discovery While Going straight DSL versus Local Phone Service

After years of resisting an inevitable trend nationwide, I finally saw the light Thursday night and have switched our service to straight DSL and dropped local phone service altogether.

We can be more easily reached by cell anyway.

The point of no return was when I realized that we were paying over $400 annually for what essentially came down to caller ID service.  Taken together with a recent cellphone plan change, one utility bill (water) and another bill essentially becomes free each month with the new cost savings going forward. 

Our cell phones have pretty much become our cordless phones even at home, so there have been no benefits of having local in-house phone service.  We got burned this winter with several triple digit cell bills.  When the bills were mentioned to our service provider T-Mobile and the fact that we were on the wrong plan was undeniable, they provided a credit to us since we have had the service since 2000.

But the biggest discovery of this entire process is that the local phone number that we have had since November 1992 does not get thrown back on the open market after all.  The number is already permanently assigned as our DSL number anyway and can be reactivated at any other time in the future.

If this single fact had been known earlier, then the decision of dropping the local service could have been made a long time ago.

I know that keeping the number was a legacy of "old school" thinking that my parents and grandparents would have had years ago:)

Another thing that was interesting to me alone possibly is that my wife Wyteria made a comment to the effect of "I was ready months ago" when I explained my logic of the changed opinion:)  So you know how the wives are when it is said and done:)

I hope the above discoveries will help someone else if you have been thinking about it.

Peace!

ElectricSlide.com has a new design and music concept!

Check out our new music and creative concept on Electric Slide.com that you have been instinctively looking for!

Tiger Math Coach.com is back online!

A few years ago, a squatter got their hands on one of our domains entitled Tiger Math Coach.com and I was not too happy about it to say the least.

But whatever is meant for you will never be profitable within the hands of anyone else and being able to re-acquire our original concept is making me very happy on an otherwise gloomy, weather day.

Using my years of teaching math and business courses to grades 9-12, middle school students and even adults as the foundation to help more people learn better worldwide, our services and dynamic strategies formed a reinforcing circle that made the website and concept a huge success.

Now with the available technology, we will be able to reach even more people than we could during our most productive years.

One of the beautiful developments that we are offering this time around is that others will be able to resell our services.

We are going to take math education even higher in 2008!

Peace!

Link Updates for New Business Developments

Here are the links mentioned previously.

They should all work correctly now.

Free Money from Free Services: http://tinyurl.com/38n32k

Original Credit Guard: http://tinyurl.com/2fwfn4

Mac Mogul: http://tinyurl.com/25a3qd

BPSD 101: http://tinyurl.com/yt9kvy

Have a great day!

Peace!

New Business Developments

Earlier today, several new products and services have been released to the public. The best part about them all is that technology has finally provided an infrastructure strong and suitable enough to operate each one nation and world wide in most cases.

The biggest twist however is that other business professionals will be able to offer the products and services and receive commissions for sales made. There are products and services that every household is already looking for someone reputable to provide. I feel that it might as well be you and I versus anyone else:)

The list includes:

Original Credit Guard's Lifetime Credit Repair (from my very first business venture started in 1987)

Buy Pennies Sell Dollars 101

Free Money from Free Services (even when you get to a cash register to spend the money yourself, you will still have doubts like I did at first)

More products and services will be added weekly until everything is made available to the public.

I am excited since every product or service reflects industries that I am still within or have already achieved proven results.

The products and services initially only require using e-mail to make others aware of them and receive the commission. Every sale is tracked automatically for the salesperson and customer which I totally love versus manually calculating anything. Just send your friends and family a link that they can click and buy through, and receive the commissions as a result. I hope to make it even simpler if possible.

Feel free to ask any questions as well. I will make the links available within the hour hopefully and feel free to contact me directly otherwise..

Peace!

New Lighting for Creating Videos at Home

Here are a few of my thoughts on Super Tuesday 2008 and it is mostly non-political.

New energy for this blog!

I recently discovered some information that I clearly did not know attesting to the popularity and inherent profitability of this blog.

I was rather shocked since I thought that the information (and resulting royalties) would be sent to me automatically.

With the new information, I hope to create more blog entries on a regular basis as well as add video content as well.

I also found out that I was included within a prominent list of Black tech bloggers, so I must clearly blog more to uphold the recognition:)

This year is a breakout and breakthrough year, so everything included needs to reflect the new level of achievement and opportunities.

Peace!

Reversed Course on Planned Apple Purchase

After making a solid plan to buy a Macbook Pro very soon, I have changed my position and received confirmation that it was the right to do.

The markets collapsed to a degree on January 15th and everything has been a little too wishy-washy to accurately predict the short-term outcome.

Some words shared with others also came back to me and one thing that I have learned over the past 2 years is that a complete solution is far better and less stressful than a partial solution.

This means that to buy the needed HD replacement is a far cheaper solution and represents an "over and done with" moment versus going through the multiple payment option even if there is zero-percent interest available.

The funds required for the multiple payments can produce a greater harvest and then the buying will be within the proper season.

A visit to the website where I was going to buy the MBP then indicated that the price had dropped $500 but there are no multiple payments available. The price drop alone justifies buying Leopard as an individual purchase. But the Ghz on the chip was lower than the one I was eyeing.

So I am content staying on the sidelines still other than replacing the hard drive with a larger one.

A lot of online friends are creating content that includes video, so getting the larger HD will work best to incorporate video on the Macbook when the timing is right for video content for me. I believe that it will happen in 2008 for sure.

Today's bottom line is that through my activity within the financial markets, changing course happens every hour.

At times, one can feel like a hypocrite for changing your opinion so often and so fast. But without allowing the position to be dropped in favor of a larger trend, financial losses can put one out of the game forever.

It is better to let pride go down the toilet versus capital earned through hard work. So getting the HD is a decision I can live with:)

Peace!

Audio from Bible Study Series "Christ Jesus and His Anointing" Available Online

Recently I had the pleasure of teaching a Bible study series within our church Bethesda Baptist Church in Austell, GA under the leadership of Senior Pastor Charles B. Goodman that blessed everyone including myself greatly.

The series "Christ Jesus and His Anointing" answers many questions that new Christian converts and even those raised and functioning as members of congregations for decades have wondered about in terms of properly identifying and understanding the ministry, life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The content is not always taught within traditional Protestant churches.

Feel free to listen at your pleasure and ask any questions at anytime. If you wish to obtain a CD or DVD of the audio, just let me know.

The weekly Bible studies at Bethesda usually include songs, prayer, and testimonies before the lessons are taught, so all is included for you to have the full experience as if you were there.

The three parts are uploaded as wave files and they vary in length and part 1 is approximately 1:19 in length. I do plan on uploading the files as MP3s soon also.

Listen and enjoy!

http://www.tnlis.com/podcasts/ChristJesus_and_HisAnointing_Part_1.wav

http://www.tnlis.com/podcasts/ChristJesus_and_HisAnointing_Part_2.wav

http://www.tnlis.com/podcasts/ChristJesus_and_HisAnointing_Part_3.wav

Peace!

Down Goes Macbook Hard Drive Like Frazier!

On Friday, I learned that my Macbook hard drive had indeed bought the farm to push up daisies and all contents went back to the Architect's construct for lost data.  Call it a sign of technological maturity or simply being blessed far above what I could ask or think because I have not been fazed at the development in the least bit.

Everything is clearly out of my hands and one of the biggest surprises learned is that there are no differences between hard drives for the PC and Mac.  This tidbit meant that I could do the repair myself and skip paying Apple $300 to $500 just for the hard drive alone plus the labor charges or to any authorized Apple repair shop.

Since my Macbook is already out of warranty, there is nothing to lose on the repair itself since it is within my repair range.  I have fried enough computers to know:)

I had a great day on Friday and had my oldest daughter with me the entire time.  She had a full week of winter break left and most kids had already returned to school. 

Earlier within the day we had gotten our new 2008 tag sticker with a zero wait (walked straight from the door straight to the counter) and I picked up a wireless mouse made by Microsoft that I am still loving with each touch.  After hearing my favorite oil change place try to fry me on a relatively simple repair, I knew that I was not going to pay a lot for this hard drive repair.

With any suitable hard drive serving as a candidate for the repair, I have discovered that there are prices easily below $200.  I am going with Western Digital as the manufacturer regardless of the actual size of the hard drive and could have purchased one today right at $150 but I saw one online at $134 (before taxes are applied on each quote).

The Macbook Pro (MBP) is available at my favorite online store for music equipment and Apple computers with multiple payments available, so I plan on obtaining one within a week and postpone the hard drive repair until February or almost indefinitely.

The Macbook may become a system for either my wife or my kids to use.  As a result, I am inclined to keep the size of the hard drive to be bought higher than the previous, original hard drive space (80GB) but under the maximum seen so far (320GB).  My target price is looking good at $134 for the 250 GB HD.

250 GB is still no joke and it is awesome to see how storage space is really the new commodity that is to be taken for granted these days.

I always fought to no avail the hard drive wars of limited space and one can buy terabytes of space for what used to cost sub-gigabyte storage space.

But I will need to confirm why the MBP is needed and what advantages are being picked up versus repairing my Macbook.

The repaired Macbook will clearly have more HD space than the MBP does at 160 GB.  I already knwo that the MBP will not have Leopard even though the price is the full price for MBPs sold by Apple, but Apple does have a program called "Leopard up-to-date" that provides a free upgrade to Leopard in the post-iPhone fiasco that occurred last year.

The multiple payments at zero-percent interest are simply phenomenal and are loosening my mind and wallet at the same time.

The portability factor is the real asset being purchased because being able to work, surf, produce, or invest anywhere that has wi-fi is an asset that is really not fully understood until the capability is obtained.

Limitations melt and new opportunities are revealed to the initiated.  Doubters or the not-easily-convinced will never know how much they loss as an opportunity cost for not "getting it" earlier.

Just from the flow of this blog entry tonight, the debate of the HD space is pitting the MBP and Macbook head to head harder than they went at it earlier today.  90 GB of HD space is the real difference, so I need to put a price tag on the 90 GB.  The time required to obtain the HD for the repair is 3 business days after the order is placed and there is an unknown time limitation if the multiple payment options disappear as it did after I bought the Macbook.  So what's a geek to do?

Through the risk and money management that I have been practicing and still learning more in this new year, I see the solution coming over the horizon.

The 250 GB HD will be obtained first and we will see how the repair goes.  If the repair goes smoothly and without any hitches, the MBP ---whoa, whoa, whoa!!!!

The MBP has to be purchased first because of the "Leopard up-to-date" program that expires on January 26th I believe.  I almost do not feel like buying Leopard now or later for some reason and the Macbook did not have it.  But I know that the HD space limitation was a reason why.

So dude, you're getting a MBP!  LOL:)

The only data loss of the original HD is one song that was still being developed but I've lost greater masterpieces before.  I am just glad that my FlickrBeats were not lost since they represented not only a creativity breakthrough, but an investment of time and effort that cannot be recaptured otherwise.

I will share the new car smell of the MBP soon!  At least there will be multiple laptops with the iSight cameras that will allow me to create "at the computer or desk" videos that would have been too prohibitive with my time schedule for anyone else to be involved.

So it all works out in the end one way or another!

Peace!

Still Not Enough to Wreck 2008: Macbook Is Blind to Hard Drive

Today I have a surprise recreational afternoon planned for my girls and since the place has wi-fi, I thought about taking my Macbook.

The Macbook froze during its last usage in 2007 with my wife and I was too busy to invest much time in it until today.

I installed the original CD and RAM to no avail.  It is simply not recognizing the hard drive.

I have an appointment scheduled at an Apple Store on Friday to have it checked out.

I already knew that adding more Macs to our lineup was going to be necessary and I am just curious at this point what is going on with it.

First generation technology is never easy on you once the original warranty runs out.

I now know to avoid such early purchases especially with Apple from now on but 2008 is already going so great and although it would have ripped me apart on some level before, I can take this technology glitch or hardware massive coronary in stride this time around since I backed up everything late November 2007 after seeing the initial warning signs:)

A friend recently shared his backup plan with me and it was so broad in scope that I may implement it as well since multiple backups and remote storage increase the security and reduce the potential stress levels tremendously.

Peace!

Peace!

Tivo Adds Google Picasa & Photobucket for TV Viewing of Photographs

Here is a blog entry that I was creating on December 3, 2007 and just got too busy to finish it in a timely fashion.

I just tried out the new capability on Tivo's digital video recorders (DVR) and came away with mixed feelings in the short-term but positive feelings in the long term.

I had to look for the feature repeatedly today and found the new Photos & Slideshows menu item far below the area where the now non-existing Yahoo! Photos still appears unfortunately.

The menu item should have been placed either at the top of the list or at least viewable on the same screen without scrolling down.  It falls into the background and without any emphasis currently which is unfortunate.  The Yahoo! should be totally removed.

My earlier search this morning upon receiving the news was a failed attempt due to the placement of the new features.

I already had accounts with both Photobucket which is owned by MySpace and Picasa which is owned by Google and entering the appropriate login information was very straightforward.

I got distracted by my daughters while entering my information for the Picasa account and was pleasantly surprised to see that I did not have to start completely over.

You are able to stay logged into both accounts to view photos without going through a cumbersome process to switch between the services.

Picasa has the capability of viewing photo albums within your account and I will need to do further research to see if Photobucket offers the same capability.

There is basically no competition between the services other than the ownership of the services.

While viewing the photographs on the television, they did take on a new personality due to the increased size and seemed richer in depth.

The slideshow capability allows the transitions to be changed to either display the captions and photo titles or not as well as the amount of time between each photo.

Before I believed that Tivo would be acquired by Yahoo! but I now believe that Yahoo! has already missed the train and resulting opportunity.

Amazon has stepped into the picture and the Amazon Unbox service is very cool and we have rented and downloaded paid and free stuff over the weekend.  No trips back to the video store is a good thing!

Amazon could acquire  Tivo in a far better move and with greater synchronicity than if Yahoo! acquired  Tivo.

I doubt that Google is interested since they are more interested in the advertising aspects versus the content side.  On second thought, the data generated by  Tivos would be a goldmine to Google but Google has not moved far enough in this direction still.

Peace!

Erase and Install Recommended for Bounce Issue w/ Logic Express 8

Hello All,

There was no solution found today and this evening with Apple for the inability to bounce a project to my internal or external hard drives with Logic Express 8.

At the Apple Store, a creative and technical person both suggested creating a new account to see if it would work and the problem continued.

Reinstalling the program twice this evening and removing certain files from the Library did not work with an Apple Software Support Specialist on the phone.

Since another erase and install would make my third one in less than a year, I have decided to forego doing another one at this time.

I will transfer the files or create a MP3 through other means and wait until a Macbook Pro or iMac purchase takes place in early 2008 before erasing and installing Tiger again during the holiday season.

I still thank everyone for their help, concern, and suggestions.

One interesting tidbit that was discovered on the phone with Apple this evening is that the earlier version of LE did not have to be reinstalled in order to get LE 8 on the system.  All that was needed was the LE 8 upgrade DVD itself.  With a PC, earlier versions typically have to be installed first before the latest version of a program can be used.

This will be a time-saver going forward within itself!

Peace!

Roney
http://www.myspace.com/seedoflife

Thanksgiving Music Experiment Highly Successful:)

On this past Monday night, I discovered a video podcast entitled "The Weakest Beat" on Podshow.com. What made this discovery so cool is that I got it to work via Tivo first. I did not run across the show on the web.

On the show that lasts probably no more than 10 minutes, a music producer is shown a photograph and given two (2) hours to produce a song that matches the photo.

The host then talks to the producer about what they saw within the photo and how they were inspired to produce the song.

Two hours is clearly not a lot of time for most music perfectionists but one major benefit that the reduced time frame does provide is a single-minded focus and clarity that most music producers (including myself) pray for.

Being that the show appeared to be produced in or around Oakland, California and not with national correspondents, it dawned on me to try my hand at using visual photographs for musical inspiration since we were traveling out of state to Latta, SC for Thanksgiving and I knew that my musical productivity was being restricted home in Atlanta for some reason (probably due to our routines with school drop-offs and pick ups which provides a narrow window of opportunity as well).

So I took my Black Macbook, M-Audio Trigger Finger, and M-Audio Oxygen v2 25-key USB midi controller along for the ride. My Macbook was going regardless:)

I thought that I had all that would be needed but Murphy's Law kicked in within the perfect storm to limit my experiment.

My initial goal was to produce 15 songs over the 3 day period but had to settle for less when the dial up access kept the photos on Flickr from being fully viewable in a timely fashion. 5 songs per day would have been doable but after getting stumped at the entire process of getting online (this was not my first time using my Macbook with dial up at the same house either), I gave up and worked instead from a thumbnail photo of Chicago taken by a Twitter friend during her recent visit there while she was driving. Having traveled to Chicago in 1996, I knew how the vibe should feel and worked from there.

The song created is a medium to slow tempo hip hop jazzy ditty named "Windy City". At 95 BPM (beats per minute), I used only the instruments within Logic Express 8 without any loops or preset tracks.

During the 4.5 hours of travel time from Mableton, GA to Latta, SC, I listened to XM Radio. Using what I heard as a class in structure and music theory and as a result of my musical growth, I wanted to simplify my music composition style versus having too many parts within my songs. But I wanted to use point and counterpoint equally well for balance and creativity.

Chicago has a sophisticated vibe within everything except for my Chicago Bears this year. Other than kick off returns, it is a rebuilding year:) So the groove had to have a sense of style, class, and a clever nuance of elitism.

Near the end of producing the various tracks, I ran across an instrument entitled Atmospheric and lo and behold, it sounds just like the wind while soaring in a plane. This sound was the icing needed.

Upon playing the song for my family, they did not know what the sound was supposed to be and heard it as noise instead. So I lowered the volume on this track of the wind and the song fell into the pocket nicely.

The pizzicato on the violins and a spacey delay on a piano team up to square off against an electric guitar for anyone needing a rock star experience:)

Then while moving a section to a different place within the song, I moved it to the wrong instrument which played it as an instrument I am getting a huge mental block on the name now but it is like an octave curtain of small wind chimes.

The pattern can be heard near the end of the song and I learned that musical mistakes can sound better than intentional thoughts at times, so I flowed with my mistake and accepted it as divine intervention:)

I believe that "Windy City" was initially created on either Tuesday evening and fully completed by Wednesday afternoon.

I tried again on Wednesday to get my connectivity issues behind me and they remained. But I saved the thumbnails to my hard drive and proceeded to create more music.

One thought that is coming to my mind now is that the second photographer actually lives in Chicago and I totally love her photos of food and believe that she can seriously cook. I have never seen food photograph so well:)

While scanning through her photos, I ran across a photo of a cat on a bed with its belly exposed. We have similar photos of our pets, but this photo clearly had a cat that was not startled or surprised in any way.

A favorite song of mine entitled "Don't Disturb This Groove" by The System popped in my head as what the cat was saying to the photographer. I had the necessary vibe as a result and started with a simple piano part to say the words of the title.

More pizzicato violins were thrown in and I think that the same instrumentation set up was used from the previous song.

I found a nice snare-hand clap combo to match with a kick drum and stumbled on a sensual, minimalistic vibe that producers Tim & Bob created for singers Brian McKnight, Deitrick Haddon, and Joe separately.

A simple, descending chord progression quickly fell into my hands and the song took a cohesive life of its own. The bass line was kept to a bare minimum as well.

Somehow the song was missing a lower end anchor and I played the same progression on an electric piano as was played on strings. Then a nice and airy choir vocal instrument was added to play off the chord progression.

After adding an acoustic guitar to pull on the heartstrings and reducing the number of time a motif was played on alto sax, a gentle breeze of a vibe was created.

The final result is a track entitled "This Groove Is Mine" which has a vibe that I felt when I traveled earlier this year to Jersey City and stayed at the Hyatt Riverside which was my first experience with the Hyatt chain. The best keyword that describes my experience is PLUSH.

The groove is so plush that you can consume it either alone or with a loved one:)

The track alone has a chilled groove that says upscale in every way and the track would make a nice musical presentation within a commercial expressing an upscale and sophisticated lifestyle.

The hotel was playing similar music within the atrium and dining area. With the view of Manhattan and Hudson River, I remember being in the city of my birth (Jersey City) near Wall Street and feeling that I made it career wise. "This Groove Is Mine" is going to be an affirmation to myself musically as I write these words. No matter what happens or what others may say, you need to feel a vibe that lets you know that everything is going to be alright and you can make it with or without those who feel they hold the keys to your destiny.

You are not defined by what you do as much as you are defined by what you believe. The amazing thing is that a photo of a cat on a bed drove this point home to me on another level:)

The third song is one that I view as largely experimental, funky, and avant garde at the same time just as much as it is hip hop with a retro feel to something that Afrika Bambaataa might do as a collaboration with Mannie Fresh:)

I found a photo of a young lady walking out of a darkened tunnel and the sunlight was hitting her face for the first time. The photographer is one of my Flickr contacts, so his photos already had caught my eyes before.

Other than a Jam Master jay scratching loop and a loop with a wicked double-time hi-hat, the song is all me. The first discovery was the spacey, delayed bass which is the foundation for the song.

The name of the song is entitled "Step Into The Light" and is the fastest song at 106 BPM that was created during this period.

As a minister who performs gospel hip hop, this fishnet (what I call my songs) is going to be a life changer. The meaning is for the listener to give their life to Christ if they have not done so already. With the funky beat that is irresistible to dancing, everyone is going to celebrate.

I actually hear this song being performed by Kirk Franklin's choir with yours truly getting a short 8 or 16 bars to spit a verse. The song may not be considered a full blown hip hop track due to the verses not being 16 bars in length on the original song as it stands now. But it could be lengthened for that type of rapper.

But it is a party song no doubt that even a marching band may play in the stands.

I could not tell the ethnicity of the lady within the photo, but I found an Indian and Middle Eastern tabla percussion kit that I feverishly twerked as a mad genius:) Yeah, I said it. Your Brother got down thanks to God indeed!!!

Even though I had the Trigger Finger available, I played the tabla part on the 25-key Oxygen2 midi controller with only 2 keys on the keyboard. I think of each instrumental part as one who would actually play the instrument in order to not do anything too crazy or unrealistic.

The bass line leads one out of darkness while there is a clavinet part that sounds like a lead guitar to provide the title motif throughout the verses.

"Step Into The Light" has a couple of breakdowns thrown in for added surprise and to build intensity. I just heard a tom tom roll I added to not leave the percussion too dry.

The thought has just hit me to add the photos used to this blog even though I may just link the photos to the song titles. As soon as I get the MP3s created, I will upload them to my Seed Of Life Records' page on MySpace.

Finally, I created a new group on Flickr entitled FlickrBeats to see and hear others use the same process to create music. It may even inspire someone to shoot photographs for the purpose of inspiring music. The double helix effect should work wonders and create bridges musically, culturally, and internationally.

If the process of creating FlickrBeats inspires you, then join the group and get in where you fit in!

I truly enjoyed the experience although I did not handcuff myself to 2 hours for each song!

Thanks goes out to "The Weakest Beat" for your fine example! A special thanks goes out to the 3 photographers that shared their vision that expanded my musical vision!

Peace!

Citigroup's Downgrade of ETFC Seems Fishy to Me Now

E*Trade Financial's (ETFC) stock took a "my name is Kunta" beating last week after Citigroup ( C) research investment analyst Prashant Bhatia had downgraded the stock.

I am not an investment analyst or an employee of ETFC any longer (exactly on the afternoon of the 50 basis Federal Reserve cut of all days-September 18th) and have nothing on the line either way but within my own opinion, I smell a "knock down the price and let's buy them cheap" move on the table.

Big fish devouring the little fish is what I am beginning to detect for some reason.

Now today Goldman Sachs (GS) kicks the chair out from under Citigroup while they were demonstrating how ETFC's demise might look to financial CSI types. Poetry in motion I say:)

If this is not a "Kill Bill" stand off in progress, then show me the door:)

Charles Gasparino is one financial reporter whose insights I trust almost blindly and his book "Blood on the Street" gave me a red pill on Wall Street wholesale, but the conspiracy theorist in me is seeing the string theory connect the dots like a room sweep flashback at the end of Mission Impossible. Why is everyone so quick to assume that it could not be a possibility in the wake of the financial service industry having to supposedly separate research analysts from investment banking activities?

Of course it would be premature to fully accuse C or Bhatia of intentionally doing this, but game recognizes game and real recognizes real and C is not looking too admirable right now especially with former C CEO Prince falling on his own sword honorably (wink, wink).

I am not going on a hunting or fishing trip with anybody in this climate:) Any such requests are being turned down just as the numerous job offers from Nigeria, staff of disposed dictators, and to process orders for art dealers in the UK. Strings are being pulled somewhere for somebody.

The downturn appears to be a scenario where "I hope you die before I do to distract the attention from my own misfortune". Cramer may have this one right after all.

The best thing that everyone can do is to take a grain of salt with any analyst's upgrades or downgrades until February at a minimum.

No one has to the fortitude to downgrade GS or challenge them honorably at the present time. Does GS have a bone to pick or are they looking for a discount? It does not matter since they have been doing so many things so right for so long, it would be welcomed if they were:)

I studied the financial supermarket concept in graduate school for my MBA in finance and it was a lofty idea back then in the mid 90s. But the execution of the idea has fallen short consistently.

Every company that I have worked for within the financial services industry has not gotten it right either. American Express (AXP) divested of its financial advisory division which is now named Ameriprise ( AMP). The only place where the consolidation of functions appear to be working is actually after an industry divestiture has taken place--the telecommunications industry.

After the US Department of Justice broke up Ma Bell (T) in 1984, time has revealed that the dry bones have been reconnected and a child (formerly known as SBC Communications) has grown up to consume the parent (bigger fish) through acquisitions.

Corporate philosophy and leadership are at an all time low right now. Too many companies are demonstrating that they do not know how to make money in hard times and the economy is paying the price through the wallets of the middle class. A hedge fund full of quants cannot save every company at the same time and although forex is a gravy train right now (even investing guru Warren Buffett has the Kool-Aid on his lips and tongue), corporate America is already busy forming a new bubble within foreign currency exchange from their long-term investments there.

Only after a system has been declared a failure has there traditionally been a restructuring and opportunity for new minds to be recognized and come to the table for implementation.

The AT&T that I worked in the early 90s undeniably failed just as those with a financial supermarket offering are doing so now.

I am not saying that the idea will never work, but clearly it will not work with the current personnel at the helm of these companies. The solution will only come from external sources or those not at the table when the current strategies were considered the right thing to do.

One significant problem that I saw at pre-AMP is that the card carrying customers being called on repeatedly for a formal introduction to the financial advisory side of AXP at the request of managers and supervisors simply had a psycho-graphic composition totally different from what the marketing department thought they did. They were interested within the exclusivity and benefits of membership of the AMEX cards but not within investing.

Linking mentally (somehow as a great idea to an unnamed corporate John or Jane Doe) these customers' credit scores with their investing inclinations had the same effectiveness and was at the same level of doing a hardcore substance-abuse intervention for toddlers:) I kid you not!!! No one even looked at the advisor attrition levels to identify this as an input to my knowledge.

No one at pre-AMP had a clue of a suitable customer profile on any level (I asked repeatedly before taking things into my own hands) and as far as I can tell, the same is still happening there and is more prevalent than these all-in-one-stop companies would dare to imagine.

Anyone within any company that is being told to cross-sell and up-sell existing clientèle should begin to recognize the fallacy of this marketing myth.

You may ask what I am going to do as a result and I am glad that you have done so:) First, I am going to continue the implementation of a long-term proprietary strategy launched in the aftermath of my latest employment transition (nice way of saying that you will have to see my fruit since my seeds are more secure than VP Cheney's assets--LOL:) Secondly: since history has a fondness for repeating itself, I am going to keep my eyes open for the next SBC-type company that springs up within the financial services industry. I missed it last time due to working for the Death Star (as T was called back then in some corners).

Being outside the system is the only hope since the Kool-Aid has to be loyally consumed with every direct deposit.

Even since being terminated from my last employer, I still cannot get my jaw out of the divot from the mindset running rampant at the wholesale and retail levels within the supermarket segment of any industry pre-paradigm shift.

But I do know one thing that will absolutely never fail in my analysis of it all: the management severance packages and golden parachutes are being kept safely and securely by personnel dressed as the old Intel shiny suit commercials appeared. Maybe Diddy and Ma$e will auction their form of the shiny clean-suits:)

By choice and by force, no executive is fighting to stay in control in lieu of taking the big payday and running with it:) Their mamas did not raise any fools on that level!

May God help us all that are not as fortunate in our placement on the pyramid organizational charts.

Maybe the three-card Monty of network marketing may not look so bad after all when compared to this. LOL:) Surely I jest for the record.

Peace!

Interesting Soul Train Episode

This evening I saw on Tivo an old school episode of "Soul Train" that had BT Express on it.

Playing keyboard was a young Kashif.

I never knew his given name Mike Jones until today and believe that I remember reading that he had a conversion of religion that gave him the name Kashif.

He is one of my favorite music teachers although from a distance:)

I do not know what Kashif as a name stands for, but Kashif had written a book and given seminars on the music industry for years.

I think that I also remember being on a mailing list or newsgroup for him years ago as well.

The songs that BT Express performed clearly had a train theme within the music and nice structure.

Keep doing your thing "Brooklyn Boy" and thanks for the inspiration!

Peace!

Two Ordinary but Unique Networks Created Tonight

I got a hair cut today which is not unusual but while my barber was cutting my hair, another barber who is moving to the area from out of town came into the shop. What made their interaction strike a chord within me I cannot determine yet but clearly as a result, two networks were created tonight to see what can possibly develop from the network of customers who get their hair cut at a regular barber shop of choice or upon visiting a new one.

I guess the idea was already within me for some time since I had mentioned to several barbers over the years that they should look to network their customers. This thought may have had too much risk for them due to their reputations going on the line for someone looking to get over on someone, but it happens anyway with or without the barbers involvement.

So why not take the bull by the horns and keep the ball in your court or at least have some online method to cast your support or disapproval consistently.

As a result the Barber Shop Network and Beauty Salon Network were created tonight on Ning which is a great web 2.0 platform.

I will readily admit that the names are not high tech or high definition, but at least you do not have to wonder what they are about:)

Barbers, hair stylists, and shop owners will have the opportunity to create their own networks within the network as well. It may become a Bronner Brothers Hair Show online or something since videos, audio, photos, and pretty much any type of digital content can be shared there.

So check these networks out and let's see where the technology and networks take us!

Peace!

Now Sen. Grassley's Investigation Begins to Make Sense

After reading this article reported by the Associated Press, the most unusual request by Sen. Grassley (R-Iowa) begins to make sense.

He is essentially investigating anyone directly associated with Oral Roberts University (ORU) it appears as well as their ministerial relationships to other pastors and church leaders. Three ORU board members out of the 6 ministries that received the senator's request for more information were named in his investigation.

There is an unworthy guilt by association and I suspect that this investigation will continue and go through several degrees of separation nationwide.

The development also goes to show the prudence and discretion needed to serve on a board of directors as well.

Peace!

Congressman's Investigation Into Televangelists Stinks for Multiple Reasons

Immediately upon hearing the news about a request for operational and financial information from Iowa US Senator Chuck Grassley to 6 different international ministries, my reaction is that something is rotten not only in Denmark, but within Congress particularly from Iowa as well.

This is clearly the misdirected and asleep-at-the-wheel patriarchal hand of the USA at work directing people not only where they should give their money, but what constitutes their faith. The single request will have long-term ramifications and repercussions as well regardless of the short-term outcome.

Forget about the falling US dollar, war and deaths in Iraq, bin Laden still running free, Katrina victims, wildfire victims, and pending recession, Sen. Grassley is looking to earn brownie points somehow somewhere. He immediately raises the quote "You're doing a heck of a job Brownie" to another level.

Even without taking the time to put his political career on the witness stand, his request opens a door that will not bode well for Republicans nationwide.

Is this a final kick of some sort on his part regarding his tenure in Congress? Does Sen. Grassley have too much time on his hands?

Who would he have vetted such an idea within his own party at the least? Does he really need an opponent who will be clearly well-funded now during the next election?

Or is this some time of swan song before his soon political departure that sounds worse than the Aflac duck?

There is no need for some individuals, groups, and ministries to pile on because actions such as this indicate that there is clearly going to be room for everyone to sit in Sen. Grassley's barber's chair. Every church will have to justify its own existence without reason.

The nonbelievers nationwide will drink this Kool-Aid and rush to his side as fools often do. Be careful of what you ask for because you just might get it!

The White House had better pull on his coattail on this situation and give him room to start his own post-Senate nonprofit organization that serves as a watchdog group if that is his pleasure.

His request is not about federal grants or primarily actions taking place domestically since a part of his request to Joyce Meyer Ministries had to do with their international crusades.

His own fellow Iowa residents will not be suitably served through Sen. Grassley's actions either regardless of what their state reputation may have been before. Grassley's actions stains the entire state not with grass either:)

Even within the worst case scenario of financial impropriety by any of the ministries, Sen. Grassley's actions would have been better served if someone other than a member of the US legislative branch carried it out or started it. He needs to re-enroll into political science 101 or give up his seat in Congress more gracefully than the bathroom patrolling congressman.

This is the second most worst-than-amateur demonstration of politics after the chain of events which led to the war in Iraq.

Cheney, get your boy before he pulls down the heirloom china off the coffee table!

This fiasco is not about Sen. Grassley as much it is a pimp slap at the entire experiment known as the United States of America.

Peace!

New Gmail Update

I have the latest version of Gmail and here is a full article to go deep in the new features.

Peace!

Apple Leopard Looks Worth The Upgrade

I just finished viewing the Leopard Guided Tour and am pleasantly surprised with the upgrades within the operating system.

Apple retail stores will open at 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. tomorrow and t-shirts will be given away to the first 500 people. Since I am dropping off my youngest daughter in the morning to pre-k not too far away from the store whose grand opening I attended, I may swing by to pick one up if they do not run out by that time.

My initial plan was not to upgrade right away just in case there are any bugs discovered but after seeing the video, there is a new itch that I am going to fight for at least a week:)

Some of the upgrades are so dynamic in nature while not being too complex for anyone to understand. It makes getting a Mac much easier and desirable.

One of the biggest strategies employed by Apple appears to make the Leopard upgrade its own network just like faxes were when they were first made available for public purchase.

Every Leopard user is going to become an instant evangelist for the new operating system since there are many features that are based upon at least two users both using Leopard.

Sharing desktops is something that you would only trust to a well versed technically literate friend before, and nothing appears to place your Mac in danger since you keep full view of everything taking place.

Collaboration is going to take prime advantage of Leopard as a result and iChat is going to be one application often used far more than it currently may be.

I also become more impressed with the upgrade made to the Mail program since I only used it with my .Mac account. After seeing the templates that I never looked for before if they were available, I can easily see myself using Mail more than before.

I would like to keep the emails remotely versus my Macbook though. Gmail absorbed this function and relieved my hard drives and I never wish to store e-mail locally again.

There were features called Cover Flow and Quick Look that worked very similar in the way you can browse album artwork within iTunes. They were very smooth. But you can virtually view any file created without having to open the application that created the file itself. This feature allows a ton of time to be saved and speed to be introduced for users.

I will probably buy Leopard from Amazon at a lower price and look to find which Mac buddy has it afterwards just to check out the advanced collaboration features out of curiosity.

So if you have a .Mac account just look for me at my first and last name Roney Smith.

Congratulations Apple and you have done it again!

Peace!

Looking westward in Mableton, GA

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Originally uploaded by wysiwysell

Here is a late afternoon photo snapped from my phone minutes ago!

Mableton, GA is within southern Cobb County and many gale force winds come from the direction the camera is pointing within.

The area where we live is almost like a ridge before the elevation falls as you head southeastward towards Atlanta 15 to 20 minutes away.

Peace!

Stepped Outside Into This!

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Originally uploaded by wysiwysell

The morning quickly went from a cool chill to a beautiful, blue sky.

I snapped this with my phone and the sun looks almost like an eye.

The glare was so bright that it was more of a point and shoot versus a look and shoot:)

One more photo to upload and share!

Peace!

Perhaps the biggest "I Told You So" is Necessary, Loud & Clear on Harry Potter

After this episode, hopefully the Babes in Christ most of all will sit up and pay closer attention going forward.

I have never read or watched anything related to the Harry Potter series of stories and characters and the author's recent revelation that one of the central characters being a homosexual is no surprise to me.

Clearly I was and still am more upset with those within the Church that lapped up the movie tickets, memorabilia, and anything associated with the author's work.

The unsaved world will never have its eyes opened spiritually with the wisdom of God and those who are saved and called according to God's purpose had to actively overlook or disregard the overt associations with the kingdom of darkness in order to accept the consumption of such material as acceptible.

Step back to altar and ask God's forgiveness in this matter if you consumed the ungodly as it relates to Harry Potter.

It is already stated that there will be deception in the world strong enough to deceive the very elect if we are not careful. There were more than enough red flags on this topic.

There will be no further appeals necessary within this case either. The case is indeed already closed and buried.

Peace!