Websites I Use Every Day

My brother Patrick suggested that I do a post like this when we were on vacation together about a month ago but I forgot to do it until now. Below are a list of websites I visit every day or frequently enough that I find them of equal value as the ones that I hit each time I sit down at the computer.

Digg.com – I browse digg every day for news, humor and news that doesn’t hit my television. I also get a healthy dose of geek culture. If you have never visited this site, I highly recommend you check it out. Users submit stories that are ranked and promoted to the front page of the site by “diggs,” which are basically a digital thumbs up for the article. Using the power of a huge network of social users, only the best stuff tends to float to the top. That’s not always the case, but its true often enough that I get a lot of quality content every day by checking digg first.

Facebook.com – I tried MySpace but never really got into it. The page layouts full of animated gifs, songs, picture galleries and other nonsense are just too annoying for me. Facebook is a much simpler format and I can control what comes at me through my personal feed. I’ve found a lot of old friends there and I even like some of the little game applications.

Wikipedia.org – The bane of teachers all over the globe, I happen to be a huge fan of wikipedia. It’s the power of social knowledge that makes information free to everyone. Studies have shown that wikipedia is every bit as accurate as traditional encyclopedias and are able to contain far, far more information. Don’t believe me? Try looking up an obscure comic book character like Thunderstrike in your Encyclopedia Britannica.

Google.com – I use Gmail as my email provider, link up with other writers using google docs and search for information using the main google webpage. Google is also one of the most innovative and socially conscientious companies on the planet, giving me good reason to support them on many levels.

Penny-Arcade.com – the beating heart of the gaming world online, Penny-Arcade has a hilarious comic, an insightful blog and hosts the best consumer gaming convention in the country. They only update on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but I never miss a day.

Infendo.com / Gonintendo.com – for my Nintendo news and information

Smashboards.com – Super Smash Bros is my favorite gaming series and it helped me launch my career in the gaming industry. I am still active with this massive forum of fans and tournament players and I visit just about every day.

Comicbookresources.com – I have always been a closet comic geek and this is the best site on the net for comic-related news and information. One of the goals I have set for my life is to write a comic book and have it published. I hope that when that happens, what I write is worthy of a mention or two on their site.

ihasahotdog.com – because I like dogs and I don’t like cats. I don’t really check this every day, but its good for a laugh when things are slow at work.

I use a ton of other sites as well, but none of them as regularly as the list above. I have truly become an information junky over the last few years, being constantly connected to the web and these sites satisfy my cravings.

Gramma’s Stroganoff

If your family has a recipe for beef stroganoff, you have probably realized that no one makes it quite like the one you remember growing up. The definition of beef stroganoff, a russian dish, is simply a meal made with beef served with a sauce that include sour cream. It’s popular all over the world, but comes in so many varieties that someone in Brazil or Norway would probably turn their nose at your beloved version of the dish. In some places it includes tomato sauce, in others mustard. Sometimes it is served with just the meat and sauce, while others serve it over noodles, rice or potatoes. Everywhere you go, the recipe changes and while you might like the new varieties you try, there’s a good chance that you still fondly remember the style you grew up on.

My grandmother cooks a beef stroganoff that the family reveres as the best on the planet. Whenever we get together for a holiday or vacation, one of the required meals is stroganoff and Gramma will end up cooking a vat just to feed all of us. It’s a very simple variety of beef stroganoff, made with ground beef, cream of mushroom soup and a few other secret touches that I won’t reveal here, which she serves mixed with extra wide egg noodles. I have been eating the stuff for as long as I can remember and it is absolutely one of my favorite dishes in the world.

The first week of May the Rice’s got together for a few days at the beach in Nag’s Head and keeping with tradition, our final meal together was a huge batch of stroganoff, thick cut italian bread and salad. I quizzed my grandmother over the recipe while we ate, but my uncles told me that no one can make it “like Mom.” Their wives had tried and couldn’t quite capture the magic. Undaunted, I listened carefully to her instructions and decided to give it a whirl myself.

Yesterday I cooked up a batch with a pound of ground turkey (a healthier alternative to the beef) and the same extra wide egg noodles Gramma uses. To satisfy Casey’s low-fat demands I had to make a few minor alternations, but after tasting the final product I feel like I’ve finally landed on a reasonable proximity. It still didn’t quite match Gramma’s masterpiece, but it was close enough that I can add it to our regular cooking cycle and enjoy the results. Hopefully I can continue to refine the recipe to perfectly match the family standard and pass it down so our version of the dish isn’t lost to the fogs of time.

Now if I only I could learn how to make Gramma’s potato salad…

In Memory

My Aunt Paula went to be with her Lord last Tuesday after fighting pancreatic cancer for nearly 18 months. She was a wonderful woman that was loved by everyone who knew her. She passed away in her home in Delaware at 3:10 PM in the presence of her husband and children. She will be greatly missed until we are all reunited in heaven someday.

At the funeral yesterday the family handed out little cards with information on how to donate to pancreatic cancer research. Only 5% of patients diagnosed with this type of cancer live longer than five years and even fewer make it all the way to remission. If any of you have a little expendable income this month, please consider donating in Paula’s name at the site linked below.

http://www.firstgiving.org/prayersforpaula

On Frogs and God

1 Corinthians 1: 19

For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. The intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

This is a verse that I have pondered ever since I read it for the first time years ago. I try not to be a proud person, but I take at least a little pride in being intelligent. I find a little bit of my self-identity in seeking wisdom and gathering knowledge. I have also had enough random misfortune in my life and been restored by God’s blessings enough times that I firmly believe that my wisdom is far, far lower than God’s and I need to trust Him in every situation.

Just like every human being, despite knowing all of that, I still wrestle with life’s difficult questions. One of my aunts is in her fifties and slowly losing a battle with cancer. She is a wonderful woman, a good mother and one of the pillars on which her family has constantly leaned. She doesn’t deserve to be in so much pain and possibly die so young. God is in control of the universe. He’s sovereign and supremely powerful. If he chose to do so, he could heal her. In fact, our family has been fervently praying over her for over a year and He is still letting her get worse. I am frustrated. Her father, my grandfather, who only just started attending church late in life, is angry with God. This will be the second of his four children that he is likely to outlive.

I thought about all of this last week while I was mowing my yard to prepare for our vacation. I didn’t want the grass to grow out of control during my absence and risk getting a nasty-gram or a fine from the neighborhood association. After mowing most of the yard I switched to the weed-whacker to trim the fence-line and somewhere along the way I nailed a big bullfrog and chopped its spinal cord in half. I didn’t even notice the thing until I was walking back towards the front of the house and saw something moving in the grass. The frog wasn’t actually moving, but I could see its lungs and heart pumping through the wound in its back. It would be dead within a few moments.

I instantly felt guilty for having killed it. What did it do to deserve death? It sat in my grass, ate a few flies and had no idea that a machine of destruction was bearing down on it. It wasn’t really a fair way to die and I had no means of communicating to the frog my grief that I was responsible. I also had no way of communicating to the frog the responsibility I had to tend to my lawn. In my world, it would have been irresponsible and (as far as the neighborhood association is concerned) immoral for me to ignore my yard and not go out and mow. In the world of the frog, I was just another predator bent on ending its life. My world is on such a bigger and more complex scale that there is no way the frog could ever understand the difference between us and the purpose of its death.

When that last thought went through my head, so did a verse from Isaiah. In chapter 55, verses 8-9, Isaiah writes:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

And in a moment God used a Frog to show me just how small and incapable of understanding Him I really am. No matter how much compassion I felt for the frog or how I tried to explain it to him, he could never understand me in any other term than murderer. My morality and responsibilities were just too far beyond what he was capable of understanding. Likewise, God tends to all of reality and has made decisions that are far, far beyond my ability to comprehend. No matter how much He loves me, no matter how much compassion he feels for me, God will still act according to his wisdom because He is so far beyond me. And, I will probably never understand it all.

So seek wisdom and keep praying, but don’t expect that the world will ever be as orderly as you wish or hope. Scripture says God causes the sun to shine on the wicked and the righteous. There is no formula we can apply to get everything right. In the end, we have to trust that God’s plan is so much higher than ours that the things we see as defeat, God counts as victories. Find the humility in your insignificance and let God direct your steps. If you need anymore convincing, let me give you more context to that verse from 1 Corinthians.

“18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

20Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him. 30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

God used a lowly frog to shame my wisdom. I have no right to be a proud man. I am content in my insignificance and I hope that the only things I find to boast about are the righteousness, holiness and redemption I find in the Lord.