Normal Rockstar

Jeanne Assam: Colorado Shooting Heroine

"I just felt like it was me, the gunman, and God."

You are probably aware by now of the "religious shooting" incident in Colorado (if not, click here for an updated story). A gunman shot two people at a YWAM training center in Denver and then 12 hours later opened fire at a church on a Sunday morning. A lot has been made of the story and why he did it. I'm not going to spend any time talking about him or his story - I'm sure you can find it all over the internet. I want you instead to watch this video of a press conference with Jeanne Assam, the volunteer security guard who is credited with taking down the gunman (police are now saying that he may have actually died by a self-afflicted gun wound). Thanks to her quick thinking, she saved the lives of potentially hundreds of church goers (the gunman had 1000 rounds with him).

Please remember the families of those who were killed today. My sister is currently on a YWAM base overseas and sat under the teaching of Peter Warren, the base leader in Denver. Please keep he, his staff, and the students there in your prayers as well. For most of us, life will continue to roll on as usual this time of year. But for some families in Denver and Colorado Springs, their worlds have been rocked severely and they are in need of our prayers.

Rockefeller Christmas Tree goes Green

Have you ever heard of a tree going "green"? I though they were green enough already... It would be more appropriate to say that New York City is going green.
The 84-foot-tall Norway spruce chosen to adorn the Rockefeller Center is covered with 30,000 multicolored light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, strung on five miles of wire.

Using the energy-efficient LEDs to replace incandescent bulbs will reduce the display's electricity consumption from 3,510 to 1,297 kilowatt hours per day. The daily savings is equal to the amount of electricity consumed by a typical 2,000-square-foot house in a month.

Way to go NYC! Read the rest of the story here...

Cyber-bullying Results in Suicide

I came across this story the other day and was quite saddened by it. It just goes to show that not everything you read/see on the internet is for real, I guess. Here's the skinny:

Megan Meier, a 13 year-old girl who suffered from depression, committed suicide after her MySpace "friend" of six weeks named Josh suddenly broke off the friendship and said some pretty nasty things about her. Well, it turns out Josh didn't really exist - he was actually the mother of a classmate of Megan's who was trying to find out what Megan was saying about her daughter online. So tragic... read the story about and then this related story.

Free Burma: My Burma Story

My first experience in Asia was Christmas 2003. Asia was my Africa; by that I mean that I would have been fine living and dying without ever having been to Asia. But an opportunity came up for me to spend two weeks on a missions trip at an orphanage in northern Thailand over Christmas, and I took it.

I was not disappointed.

The people were fantastic, the scenery breathtaking, the culture fascinating. Each day was a new adventure with new sights, smells, tastes, and experiences. I definitely learned more from the Thai than I'm sure they learned from me.

One day our group was offered the opportunity to spend a couple of hours in Burma while our hosts ran some "errands". (We were intentionally kept out of the loop for our own safety.) I will never forget those hours.

For starters, we had to leave our passports on the Thai side of the border with the Thai officials so that they wouldn't be stolen - that was nerve-wracking enough. The instant I walked through the gates into Burma I was bombarded with offers: porn, tours, cigarettes, more porn, trinkets... There was a market right there that everyone was doing their shopping in, but it was pretty dirty and sad-looking - my heart was in my throat the whole time I was walking around. I was struck by the contrast at the border and really noticed it when I returned from my wander through the market. In order to get back into Thailand you had to walk over a bridge. I stopped in the middle of the bridge and gazed down at the river below, and this is what I saw: on the Burmese side of the river was a tall fence with barbed wire at the top. Garbage was strewn all over the place, blown up against the fence; crumbed old buildings and paths worn through the rubble were visible.

On the Thai side of the border it was a different story. It definitely wasn't the Garden of Eden, but there was no fence, the bank of the river was not littered with garbage, and the buildings looked much newer and cleaner. It was a very clear picture to me of what a military dictatorship will do a people and a country... a sad day indeed.

This is what today is all about: raising awareness of the plight of the Burmese people and helping give them a voice. Do you have a Burma story? Please share - let's get the word out!

Oct. 4th is "Free Burma Day" for the Blogosphere

If you haven't heard about this yet, you need to jump on board. Tomorrow bloggers around the world will be uniting in support of the people of Burma as they rise up to oppose the militant dictatorship currently in control of the government in their country. I will share my story of my visit to Burma tomorrow as part of my blogpost for Burma. In the meantime, go to Free-Burma.org and register to be a part of the day.

Spin Rage

Here is a great story concerning a case of "spin rage", if you will... Apparently, during a spin class at a posh gym in New York a stockbroker got fed up with the grunting and noises of another participant and picked him and his bike up, slamming them against the wall, and causing a back injury to the victim that required surgery to correct. Someone must have had a hard day at the office!

Technorati Tags: fitness, fox news, spinning

Kathy Griffin and the Emmy Awards

Here's an interesting one [HT: Brock]. It obviously did the trick for her - now everyone's talking about a D-list comedian/actor. Thoughts?

Jay Leno on Why Americans Complain

Someone told me the other day about some comments Jay Leno made about how one of the reasons Americans are not always highly regarded around the world is because of the amount of complaining we do when we have SO much. The first chance I got I spent some time on Google and found his commentary - you can read it below. [It turns out this isn't originally Jay's - he borrowed it from Craig R. Smith. You can read the original post here.]

“The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the source, right? The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the president. In essence 2/3’s of the citizenry just ain’t happy and want a change.So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, 'What we are so unhappy about?'

Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter? Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job? Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year? Maybe it is the ability to drive from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state? Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter? I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.

Steve Jobs Writes Open Letter

I watched Steve Jobs' announcement of the new iPod Touch yesterday and was FLOORED when he revealed the price drop on the iPhone. If you missed it, Apple dropped the price of the iPhone $200 just two months after it was made available to the public. Now, I don't own an iPhone in large part due to the cost of the product - I can't justify spending $599 on a phone! But my first thought when I heard this was, "Oh boy - sucks to be an iPhone owner right now!"

Well, it seems like many iPhone owners felt the same way. Yesterday, in a rather unconventional move, Steve Jobs wrote an open letter to iPhone owners offering a $100 in-store credit to anyone who was an early adopter of the iPhone. Very interesting... Personally, I think it was a great move. Technology changes quickly, but not THAT quickly - I'm prepared to see prices change every six months or so, but two months is a little ridiculous.

What do you think?

iPhone Unlocked by 17 Year-Old College Freshman

If you haven't already heard, the iPhone was unlocked this past weekend by 17 year-old George Hotz. You can read his step-by-step process on his blog and hear the story of how he accomplished this (if you are unaware, Apple had programmed the iPhone to only work with AT&T - a rather unpopular move for millions of cell phone users).

After trying to sell the phone on eBay over the weekend, Hotz got frustrated with the number of bogus bidders and decided to accept the offer of high-tech mogul Terry Daidone: a new Nissan 350Z Roadster and three, new 8GB iPhones.

Read more on the story here.

And for the record, this still doesn't make me want an iPhone... I talked to a guy the other day who told his son if he stood in line to buy him an iPhone he'd buy him a new video game  - so the kid stood in line for nine hours. (Read my post yesterday... it may be appropriate here again!)

If you go ahead and try and crack your iPhone, let me know how it goes - I'd be interested to hear how successful people have been with these steps!