Big Dadgum Bug

OK, the pics will speak for themselves. Suffice it to say, I'll be packing up my computer & photography equipment and moving my office to the safety of my own home if the Terminix guy doesn't show up by the end of Friday. This bug was stomped to death by my boss in MY office early this morning. Seems I'm working in a rainforest.

I added the dollar bill in the photo for scale purposes. These images have not been retouched or grossly misrepresented in any way. Well, except I messed with the contrast and saturation just a little so the dollar bill looks greener and sharper in the first image. I also deleted the gray background from the first one so it looks cooler on the screen. And, OK, I fixed the exposure in the second one because it was way too dark. At any rate, I didn't mess with sizing AT ALL.

I just hope it didn't have babies.

Simple Isn't Always Easier

I've been at my job a little over a year now. Since I started, I've been trying to convince the marketing guru to give me a little more creative license with the html email I design for every sale. Our emails are always so choc-full of sale items, the ridiculous list usually ends up ruling (or even ruining) my design. I subscribe to about a million (give or take one or two) email campaigns from other retail websites, and NONE of their emails have a mile-long list of sale items. They just have simple text and cool graphics.

FINALLY! My boss put his proverbial foot down and said this week we could do a simple email, no items. It was a rare opportunity, since the 'gist of our sale this week is "10% off everything." I was so excited I could hardly think straight. My mind reeled with the countless cool ideas I've seen. I got to work straitaway, eager to deviate from our "norm" and produce something ground-breaking and fresh. I thought, gee, how much time I will save on this one!

Little did I know, those people who are designing and sending all those really cool graphic emails have:

1) a lot more talent than I
2) a lot more time on their hands

It took me three entire work days with no lunches to produce the following:

http://www.cavenders.com/images/email/GrandOlSale2007/GrandOlSale2007.html

Incidentally, I did have to add a bunch of listy stuff at the bottom, but at least I was able to stave off the ever-encroaching items enough to keep them from affecting my main image.

Enjoy.

A Break from Theologizing

Well, I am on to a new pursuit in my life/vocation. After 30-some-odd years, I may have finally settled on a career. I have completely embraced my inner nerd (OK, so it's never really been all that inner). As you know, I've been in web design merely a year now, but in that short year I have been introduced to a world of opportunity...including (but not limited to) design, photography, marketing, and programming.

I love design, but I find it gets downright draining when you do it full time. The constant demand for creative output can become as difficult as creative opression.

I've also developed a deep and abiding interest in photography, and I'm pretty sure I'm not half bad at it. However, it's difficult to really make money at it without being some globe-trotting, hard-core adventurist or the polar opposite, a wedding/portrait schedule-driven, customer-enslaved businessperson (ahem...NOT my personality).

I'm not a marketer, really. I have great ideas from time to time, but no follow-through (my life-long struggle...dare I label it an illness :).

Enter the discovery of computer code, glorious code! The more code I learn, the more I find there is to learn. My curiosity is not only peaked, but daily fueled by more and more amazing discoveries about what one can force text and images to do on a computer screen. I love that I know how to design a web page, but what I really want to do is slice up that design, reduce it to hundreds of obscure commands, and breathe life into it via HTML and her myriad offspring languages like XHTML, Javascript, AJAX, CSS, ASP.NET, etc., etc., etc. There is so much to learn! So much to do! The work is both creative and analytical...not to mention lucrative.

So I'm stocking up on how-to's and burning the midnight oil practicing my latest craft.

Ah, the fabulous nerdiness of it all...

Addendum to Yesterday's Topic

Amber raised some very good questions and asked for my opinion, so here goes! Again, this is my personal conviction, I'm not trying to condemn anyone...

Mark 7:19 ("...in saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.")
At the beginning of Mark 7, some Pharisees confront Jesus about the fact that His disciples were eating meat without washing their hands. I believe Jesus' statement here is only saying a bit of mud does not make clean meat unclean. The conversation with the Pharisees involved only their concern with the cleanliness of otherwise clean meats.

There actually is a difference between biblically kosher and traditionally kosher. There are a lot of "extra" rules and regulations added by Jewish tradition that weren't stated in the scriptures. I believe Jesus was rejecting the ritualistic adherence to these traditions, as well as driving home His point that nothing you put in your body can endanger your salvation.

Acts 10:15 (“Do not call anything impure that God has made clean”)
The apostle Peter once faced a dilemma on this matter of clean and unclean. Some ten years after the resurrection of Jesus he had a vision of "all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air" being lowered before him in a huge sheet. A voice said "Rise, Peter, kill and eat". This was completely shocking to Peter:

"Surely not, Lord! I have never eaten anything impure or unclean". Peter knew the vision could not relate to food, so he was confused, but, as events unfolded, Peter came to understand the point of the vision: all men are equal in the eyes of God. Regarding salvation, there is neither Jew nor Gentile. Peter was not to consider any man "unclean". In the vision, God was telling him that salvation is open to all men. I believe the vision had nothing to do with food. Peter himself later tells Cornelius, "You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean."

Romans 10:4; Galatians 3:24-26; Ephesians 2:15 (each of these is about Christ abolishing the law)
I firmly believe Christ did abolish the law when He died on the cross for our sins. Indeed, it is clearly stated. But if that means we are no longer to observe it for the purpose of our good (though NOT necessary for salvation), then Christ, Himself, would be contradicted in His teachings. Jesus quoted the law during His temptation in Matthew 4. He taught us to follow the commandments of the law in Matthew 5:17-20:

"'Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

I think He's telling us following the law is still what is best for us. Only, He knows we cannot follow it in our own strength, and it is not by our righteousness (the Pharisees were puffed up by the illusion they were righteous), but by His that we will enter the kingdom of heaven. He knows we are flesh, but that shouldn't give us the license to reject any part of the law. Rather, in humility we should seek His strength and invite the Holy Spirit to live out His commands in us until the day He comes back for us!

As I said in the original post, I believe the closer we stick to God's original laws (all of them), the more freedom and abundance we will experience in this life. I just can't escape the conclusion that this is one area Christians have not been taught, and we should be diligent to study it for ourselves and prayerfully consider this question until His good and pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2) is revealed.

The LAST thing I want to do is come across as a legalist, enforcing the law to the letter and considering myself better than someone else because we differ on this issue. I just want to reinforce my own health and well-being by taking God's diet to heart and experiencing the health and wellness that can come from it. I've been a nutrition nerd for a while now. That's just part of who I am these days. To me, looking to God's word for what He has to say about it is just a logical next step, simplifying my search for what is best to put in my body.

Perhaps you will study and come to a different conclusion. If so, I love you all, and as long as we agree on the gospel of Christ Jesus, we will still live in unity, yes?

You Are What You Eat

So, I'm not a wierdo, or a legalist, but I have been casually studying fitness and nutrition for about five years now, and the more I learn, the more stunning becomes the parallel between the findings of modern science and the dietary laws set forth by God in Leviticus.

The more I study it, the more I come to believe we were never meant to completely chunk the diet God commanded for his chosen people. Obviously, our salvation does not depend on whether or not we eat pork. That was Paul's point in I Corinthians:

25 Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience,

26 for, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it."

27 If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience....

...30 If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?

31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

32 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—

33 even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

He didn't want the jewish christians to be so legalistic about diet that they confused new believers into believing it was necessary for salvation. He made the same point in reference to circumcision, which is now generally practiced in our society for practical, widely-accepted, well-documented health reasons.

I am convinced that all God's laws were commanded for our benefit, so that we may experience abundance in all things, thereby glorifying Him. Although we don't have to follow the letter of the law in order to gain salvation (God's free gift), the closer we stick to his commands, the more freedom and abundance we will experience in this life.

The argument has been made that the dietary laws were only ritualistic in nature, and had no relationship with physical benefits. I disagree. God said the law was for the purpose of holiness. What is holiness, if not divine protection? Why separate if not for the purpose of keeping us safe? We certainly don't deserve such protection, but God tells us over and over again in His word that He wants to bless us, wants to give us abundance. I've racked my brain to find one commandment of God which, if followed, will not result in our good. So why do we embrace the ten commandments as such, but ignore the diet?

Is not physical purity stressed heavily in our churches in the form of abstaining from sexul immorality? How much more important is it, then, to maintain physical purity by following God's prescription for an activity in which I participate three-four times daily?

Just food for thought (no pun intended...well, OK, it was intended).

Again, I'm not trying to start a controversy or anything. It's just something I've been studying and praying about, so I thought I'd share. If you're interested, here's a compelling (though extremely long and at times hard to read) article about pork. If it doesn't scare the bacon out of you, nothing will :)

http://www.kyrieology.com/drupal/wwje/adverseinfluenceofpork

There are other interesting articles about it on the menu bar to the left. The one titled Pig and Pork Facts summed it all up quite well.