Running Diary: 6km in 38min

Here's something new: Running Diary!

Every time I finish a run, I'm going to post a blog entry with the above title, along with the distance and time.  Its to keep me accountable and to track my progress.  It may be an empty post with a title, or some random ramblings about running.

At the beggining of the year, I committed to run the upcoming half marathon.  I trained up for Round the Bays and completed it on target (8.5km in 47min).  But then soon after that, winter came and I fell back.  Before long, the half-marathon deadline passed and I didn't think I was fit enough to run it.  So I am starting my training for next years half-marathon now!

My goal is to be able to run 10km by the end of Oct, 15km by the end of Jan, and 20km by the end of the summer.  Of course I intend to run Round the Bays again, hopefully beating my previous time, and I may be trying out the 100km Oxfam walk.

About: Salvation Army

Just a few excerpts taken from Wikipedia, to inform anyone interested as to what the Salvation Army is. I currently attend their Church services out in Howick. I already consider myself a regular member, but probably need to sign some proper documents to make it official.

The Salvation Army's stated objectives are:

The advancement of the Christian religion as promulgated in the religious doctrines—which are professed, believed and taught by the Army and, pursuant there to, the advancement of education, the relief of poverty, and other charitable objects beneficial to society or the community of mankind as a whole.

The Salvation Army was founded in London's East End in 1865 by one-time Methodist minister William Booth and his wife Catherine. Originally, Booth named the organization the East London Christian Mission, but in 1878 Booth reorganized it along military lines when his son Bramwell objected to being called a "volunteer" and stated that he was a "regular" or nothing. The name then became The Salvation Army.^[3]

When William Booth became known as the General, Catherine was known as the "Mother of The Salvation Army". William preached to the poor, and Catherine spoke to the wealthy, gaining financial support for their work. She also acted as a religious minister, which was unusual at the time; the Foundation Deed of the Christian Mission, stated that women had the same rights to preach as men. William Booth described the organization's approach: "The three ‘S's’ best expressed the way in which the Army administered to the 'down and outs': first, soup; second, soap; and finally, salvation."^[4]

The Salvation Army's main converts were at first alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes and other "undesirables" unwelcomed into polite Christian society, which helped prompt the Booths to start their own church.^[5] The Booths did not include the use of sacraments (mainly baptism and Holy Communion) in the Army's form of worship, believing that many Christians had come to rely on the outward signs of spiritual grace rather than on grace itself.^[6] Other beliefs are that its members should completely refrain from drinking alcohol (Holy Communion is not practiced), smoking, taking illegal drugs, and gambling.^[7] Its soldiers wear a uniform tailored to the country they work in; the uniform can be white, grey, navy, fawn and are even styled like a sari in some areas. Any member of the public is welcome to attend their meetings.

Do you watch TVNZ OnDemand?

TVNZ allows you to watch streamming TV, you get to watch some of the latest TV shows 12hours after they air on actual TV.  Check it out here.

Firefox plugins: Download from YouTube

These two pluggins are really awesome! See for yourself...

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John Piper's Christian Resource Library

One of my favourite and most respected bible teachers/pastor is John Piper.

And I have located his site Desiring God, a resource center where you can download in PDF all of his books, listen to his sermons, pod casts and many other great resources, all for free! This just goes to further increase my respect for him, as it shows he's not just trying to make money out of his books, he is actually giving them away, my idea of the ideal Christian author!

His main philosphy is “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”

I highly recomend reading some of his material, or listening to his sermons. Great stuff!

Qwikir BrainDump

My company has released Qwikir BrainDump! Its still not open for public sign up but it is being used by several clients, and we use it as a way to interact with our clients. We have also been using it internally for some time. I have a private one too!

What is Qwikir BrainDump? Its a Knowledge-Networking platform. Its knowledge management meets social networking allowing for collaboration in a fun and free-flowing way.

What can you use it for? Anything where you want to share knowledge with other people. I have my own Old School BrainDump to share all things old school! I posted some old 80s cartoons up there for now, but feel free to contribute more stuff. Simply email the address: oldschool@braindump.co.nz and its in. Drop me a line and I can register you as a user.

Give it a go and tell me what you think of it.

Pricing

I found a very interesting article online about how clients rip you off for your products and services. It talks about how clients often get you to provide them with something but yet only pay you for a small fraction of the price its worth. Below is a video illustrating how ridiculous they are and the article gives you tips on how to avoid it.