Your Design – 15 Years in the Making

December 9, 2011 in Technology, Web Design with 2 Comments

Servants By Design
The long wait is over.

Way before I knew anything about building websites, I was introduced to something that has changed my life. An instrument used in the hands of the Almighty to teach me about who He made me and provide small glimpses into what I was put on this earth to do.

It’s called Servants by Design – a personality profiling system from Transpersonal Technologies, LLC that, like no other, predicts how we will behave under stress as well as normal conditions. This system is based on over 30 years of research and has been validated in all sectors of life.

It has been used to build NASA teams (it was the reason Chuck Yeager never got into space) as well as educational classrooms to help teachers profile their class to improve communication. It has applications in marriage, parenting and teamwork. And now, its online thanks to a great many contributors including yours truly.

Tukey Hunt II

December 7, 2011 in Fun, Life, Web Design with 2 Comments

Turkey Hunt II
I thought it might be a good idea to document the second annual Turkey Hunt – a scavenger hunt meets Geo-caching meets family fun activity I developed last year and decided to continue again this year. I knew that I had to at least maintain the level of complexity to fun ratio that we all had last year, but I was really trying to do better. I’ll let you be the judge…

The participants were my brother and his family and my family – not even my wife was privy to the workings of the Hunt, which meant she could play right along. We also had to do this on Friday night after the Arkansas vs. LSU game (we won’t go into detail on this subject) because Saturday was supposed to be rainy all day. Luckily, I planned for rain.

This year started with three anonymous texts to my wife, brother and his wife. Each with one word each that when you put them together kicked off the Hunt officially. The words were UNDER, WELCOME, MAT. There they found an envelope with a letter stating the Hunt was now underway should they want to play.

Knocking the Rust Off

December 6, 2011 in Info with 1 Comment

As you can see by looking at the date of my last post, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything. I’m not sure why, but I do know that I miss it. Tinkering around with WordPress and putting life down on “paper” is fun to me…

Regardless, the plan is to ramp it back up and start letting you into the mind of Steve Manatt again…enter if you dare…

Two Truths

May 20, 2011 in God, Life, Love, Philosophy with 0 Comments

My friend Matt and I, from time to time, engage in friendly chatter regarding the core truths of the Christian faith. I love it because he is very grounded in his faith and seems to be able to filter out the noise pretty well. Also, he’s pretty much the only one who will actively comment on anything I say online, which wins him an extra cookie in my book.

The last go around was between two topics and it was a very short serve and volley:

THE SERVE [Matt]
Justification = just as if we never sinned & just as if we had always obeyed

Read it again because you might miss the profundity in the brevity. Now read it one more time. Isn’t that wonderful and so absolutely true!

Whenever I see the term “Justification,” I immediately hear the word “Sanctification” in my mind. It’s like when I hear the name “Marsha”, I hear, “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha…” from the Brady Bunch. So, I replied with:

THE VOLLEY [Me]
Sanctification = Proof positive that there’s always room for improvement

Now I sometimes say things to gauge the reaction of someone – especially in church circles these days, but this isn’t one of them. I truly believe that our justified lives are one big work in progress that has no ending point this side of heaven.

The point is that everyone around you is some sort of work in progress. And your Christian friends are being worked by the Creator of the Universe, who can be trusted to finish that work. May the Grace and Love of Jesus abound in how we engage those around us.

Let Us Love…Really

May 19, 2011 in God, Love with 0 Comments

I desire a fundamental and wholesale change in approach to how we care for the needy. When we ask the question, “How are you caring for the needy?”, it is being interpreted by most people to be, “Give me your list of activities so I can determine whether or not you measure up.” It’s a loaded question because of how the church reacts when people don’t have an answer. So, I will make sure I can rattle off 3-5 ways that I’m caring for others just so I won’t be judged by the people I want to impress. Do you see the dysfunction in all of that?

That’s not love and that’s not what Scripture teaches us that Christ wants from us. Instead, let’s start digging into and teaching people about how to love God, which begins with a deep understanding of how God loves us and goes all the way back to Genesis 1 and the chasm that Jesus bridged to bring us back into a right relationship with our Heavenly Father.

It’s harder and takes much longer, but the sustainability for real-world impact is far greater than maintaining a list of activities that can be recited at the drop of a hat.

Hear me on this – I absolutely believe that caring for our neighbor is the best and most effective form of expressing the love of Christ, but if we do it in order to check a box on some list rather than out of love, we have become noisy gongs and our efforts honor nobody. If we are going to hold people accountable to something, let it be love.

Computer Buying Guide Part I

February 11, 2011 in Business, Technology with 1 Comment

“What kind of computer should I get?” I get this question all the time and always answer the same way: “Well….what will you be doing with it?” Followed up quickly with, “What’s your budget?” Armed with those two pieces of information, I can typically find the right machine.

There’s just one problem: Not one person has been able to answer those two questions with enough clarity for me to make a recommendation. It usually takes a much longer process. So, I thought I’d pull back the curtains a bit and get you a little further down the road once the decision for a new machine has been made. The amount of information has forced me to split this article up into multiple parts. This is part one and covers why to buy a new machine and whether to focus on a desktop or laptop.

Let me also say one thing here. This article is focused on helping to make the very best purchase based on need. If you don’t much care or are made of money, just go get something that fancies you. If you’re on a budget and dropping $1,500 – $2,00 on a computer is a big deal, then the work described in these articles should prove valuable.

NOTE: If you see a term here that you don’t understand or just want to brush up for the SAT, visit the Computer Glossary I put together that defines the basic computer components. I included a handy UPGRADE SCORE for each component that is used in designing your next computer.

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