• Quick Malware Fix

    Photo by yahnyinlondon via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    Is your PC acting funky?

    Like– when you turn it on you start getting pop-ups that tell you to install a new virus protection software? And when you try to turn it off your computer does more weird things? Like downloading crap you don’t want?

    If your PC is doing that there is a good chance you have malware (short for malicious software) and need to remove it.

    Where did it come from? You visited an infected site. A site owner would never intentionally put malware on his site, but sometimes sites get hacked with the intent on causing havoc.

    How do I get rid of it for free?

    Step One: Reboot your PC in safe mode. (Press the power button, count to three, then hold down the F8 key on your keyboard. Select “Safe mode with networking” option.)

    Step two: Download and install the latest Malwarebytes free version from this link.

    Step three: Run Malwarebytes. This is going to take a while. Get a cup of coffee or go see a movie.

    Step four: When it’s done, it will tell you it wants to delete a bunch of files and reboot. Do that.

    Step five: That should remove it. But just to be safe I like to download, install, and run Combofix. (Watch another movie)

    Step six: This should remove any virus or malware you have on your computer.

    Step seven: Do one more reboot. I actually would suggest turning the computer off all the way, counting to twenty, then turning it back on.

    Step eight: Since you’re at it lets speed up your computer a bit. Go to add/remove programs in the control panel and remove anything you don’t use. If there are programs there you don’t recognize– Google the name of the program and the results will tell you if it is something legitimate or if it is spyware. If it’s legitimate, keep it. If it is Spyware, uninstall it. I like to remove all the junk that Dell or HP or Sony installs on a PC that I don’t use. That stuff takes up a lot of space and resources and you probably will never use it.

    Step nine: Make sure your virus protection software is up-to-date.

    That’s it! Typically, you can do this yourself in about 2 hours.

    What if I don’t want to do this? Who can I hire and  trust?

    If you’re still having problems or just don’t want to deal with this– I’d suggest contacting a local computer repair person. (I don’t trust the people at Best Buy or some of the other big chains, find someone local and support your economy.)

    If you’re in the San Diego area, I recommend Todd Tolson’s Wired Community.

  • Off to TJ

    It’s crazy that I live 15 miles from Mexico but the last time I went to Tijuana was 2003.

    I’m correcting that today.

    Phil Cunningham, a YWAM staffer and adventurous missionary, is kind enough to offer up his afternoon to take me over and show me around.

    I’ll post pictures and thoughts tomorrow.

    Don’t drink the water. Check.

  • The jugglers cup runneth over

    Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. Malachi 3:10

    I’ve heard and read this verse a ton of times. And the phrase that has always popped out to me is– “test me in this.” It’s one of those passages of the Bible that you read and think that it can’t literally be true.

    If I trust God with my money will he really pour out so much blessing that I won’t know what to do?

    Sounds like a load of bull spoken by a TV preacher trying to build his version of Disneyland, right?

    As I’m learning– maybe not.

    I don’t often write about things that are happening RIGHT NOW in my life. As much of myself as I share, I tend to let things percolate a little bit and mellow into principle before I try to capture my thoughts in words.

    But the last few days I’ve just come home and looked at Kristen and said– “My life is crazy right now. I can’t hardly explain it. All awesome stuff.”

    Two photos really capture visually what I’m having a hard time processing into words.

    1. The juggler.

    Photo by Andy_Tyler via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    My work life is a constant juggling act. Big projects, little projects, add leadership over one area and support over another. Go on the road to do one thing while keeping everything in order on something else. It’s a good kind of juggling. As my co-workers know, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even when I come home I’m still juggling all sorts of personal and McLane Creative projects. From a thriving garden to the latest social media campaign– I’ve just got a lot of balls in the air.

    Juggling requires constant attention. And when people see a juggler they like to ask you one important question… can you juggle one more ball? Sometimes I shrug my shoulders yes and sometimes I shrug my shoulders no.

    2. The overflowing cup

    Photo by shioshvili via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    Is Malachi 3:10 really literally true? It sure seems that way right now. The last month was filled with unexpected showers of awesome. Several people and organizations are asking for quotes for new web designs. Several outlets are looking for me to write for them. Our community group is doing some cool things. In a few weeks Lisa is coming here for the summer. In June, Kristen and I have planned an amazing local vacation capped off by a fun celebration. My second trip to Haiti is coming together and basically full. And in the last 2-3 days a whole new shower of unexpected blessings has come my way– earth shakingly awesome stuff, too!

    If you bump into me these days I’ve kind of got this crazed mad Scientist look going. Buggy wide eyes, haven’t slept, and a scary perma grin.

    OK, not that guy.

    More like that.

  • 5 Benefits of Making Public Transportation A Part of My Daily Routine

    Breathing out the stress of my day, while breathing in the view in El Cajon

    Last year Kristen and I made a long-term family decision about having two cars.

    We don’t need one. And when we do we will just rent one.

    Since last Spring I’ve taken the trolley to work as opposed to a crazy driving ritual. We live 1.2 miles from the trolley stop at San Diego State University. And the YS office is 1.6 miles from a trolley stop in El Cajon. So, to keep my commute quick I ride my bike,  take it on the trolley, and then ride my bike to work and reverse that on the way home.

    Here’s the crazy thing. When we shared one car it felt like we needed two cars. But now that we have one car and I ride my bike or take the trolley everywhere… it kind of feels like maybe we could live without a car!

    Granted, we live in a major metropolitan area that has a decent public transit system. While it’s not “easy for me,” it is something I chose to make work in my life because of the benefits.

    Here are five of those benefits.

    1. We don’t have the expense and stress of a second car. No repairs. No insurance. No regular maintenance. No license fees. No gas. I pay about $50 per month to ride the trolley 3-4 days per week. (I’m not religious about taking the trolley. If I don’t want to, I don’t!)
    2. I have about 1:20 per day to myself. When I leave the house at 8:00 AM and get on my bike I pop my headphones in and just relax. Once you nail a routine, the bike ride and time on the trolley is amazing. I listen to music or podcasts, I read the newspapers on my iPhone, stuff like that.
    3. I get to see, hear, talk to, and interact with strangers every day. If you think about your average day… chances are you don’t interact with a lot of the general public. And you definitely don’t interact with the general public if you drive and go to an office! It brings me great joy to interact with “real people” every day.
    4. I make Kristen’s life simpler. This might be the one place in our relationship this is true. When we shared our car daily we had to go through this routine where we arranged for who was going where, when. Now, Kristen just does her thing and I do mine. If I need a car during my work day I can just take our work truck. If I need to do something outside of that– we rent a car. Seriously, the guys at Enterprise in our neighborhood know me by name!
    5. I have a concrete get to work and leave work time. I’m a total work-junkie. But knowing I need to leave the house at 8 and leave the office at 5 to catch my trolley– that’s awesome.

    Of course there are other benefits. Taking public transportation is also green as I’m using very little natural resources to get to and from work. And 5 miles of bike riding per day has health benefits. But, in my mind, those are by-products of these main benefits.

    What about you? How can you ditch the solo-car routine and find some added benefits?

  • The Baby-god Myth, part four

    I don't want you to suck as parents!

    In part four of this series, I’ll offer some conclusions and solutions for reversing the trend of deifying our children. To catch up on the series, check out part one, two, and three.

    Where do we go from here?

    This is the important question. Hopefully you’ve read through this series and reflected on the situation, the parents you know, or even your own habits as a parents and thought, “There must be another option.” When baby Rex pops out of his mom’s womb he doesn’t deserve to be worshipped. He’s a child. To deify him really messes him up. And making baby Rex the center of your life really messes parents up, too.

    It wasn’t always this way. It’s not meant to be this way. And our society just can’t move forward with it being this way.

    Reflect on the goal of parenting

    I actually think most parents never stopped to think about the goal of their parenting. Just like an engaged couple only thinks about the wedding day (and night) and not the marriage, that same couple thinks about becoming parents but not the goal of raising a child. Then the kid comes and their life gets upside down in a pile of photos and dirty diapers. The default goal becomes the American dream. They never stop to think that maybe pursuing the American dream will be a nightmare.

    For me the goal is simple: I’d like my kids to become healthy, happy, and independent adults.

    Certainly, I’d love to see Megan or Paul grow up to be more successful than me. I’d love it if they chose a career path that I can brag about to my friends. But as think about that last statement… “that I can brag about to my friends” I guess I really mean that I want to brag about how satisfied my kids are. Are they pursuing their dreams the way I did? Have they found a spouse they adore? Is their work fun and fulfilling?

    Wow! That changes everything, doesn’t it? If my goal for raising my kids is that they are healthy, happy, and independent… I really can work backwards from that.

    That affords me a working backwards action plan that is reasonable and in line with what I know of God’s plan.

    God first, adults second, kids third

    You don’t have to be a psychologist to know this is true:

    • Healthy kids come from a healthy home.
    • Happy kids come from a happy home.
    • Independent kids come from parents who allow them to take care of themselves.

    Rather than try to offer advice for raising a healthy, happy, and independent child– I’ll just off the questions that we wrestle through. We don’t have it all figured out. But we have determined that we will not have a baby Rex. Our relationship with God is primary in our marriage. Our marriage flows from our relationship with God. And we believe (hope, pray, beg!) that if we get that right, there’s a pretty good chance that our kids will become healthy, happy independent adults.

    Healthy homes

    What does a healthy home look like? What role does church play? What are the rules? Are they comfortable and safe in their role as a child? What are the boundaries? What are the rewards? How does a healthy home talk to one another? How does a healthy home motivate children? What type of schedule does a healthy home maintain? How many nights of activities does a healthy home have?

    Happy kids

    What is the profile of a happy kid? Do they have chores? How are they treated? Are they given autonomy? Do they have friends? Are their lives scheduled? How is success measured? Are they a project to be managed? Are they trusted? How do they acquire stuff? What role does church play in a happy kids life? What role does discipline play?

    Independent kids

    Can they make choices for themselves? Can they care for themselves? Do they know how to clean? Do they know how to earn money? Save money? Budget money? Do they know what to look for in a friend? Can they handle social dynamics? Do they bear the weight of the consequences for their choices? Can they have conversations with adults?

  • 3 Documentaries Worth Watching

    I love documentaries. I think it’s the non-fiction narrative that gets me. But given the choice between a feature film and a documentary, I’ll take a documentary every time.

    Now that we have NetFlix streaming through our Wii, (and Hulu has lots of great ones completely for free) I’m getting the opportunity to catch-up on some great documentaries I’ve wanted to see but missed.

    Lord Save Us From Your FollowersLord, Save us From Your Followers I don’t know who Dan Merchant is, but I really appreciate his outlook on the church. The film is dripping with the “inside the Nashville Christian scene” smell… But if you can look past that and the Michael Moore copying, the message of the movie is really interesting.

    Essentially, Merchant points out that over the last few years Christians have made themselves outcasts in the greater society. Merchant points out some areas where we look especially nutty and reminds us, “Um,  this isn’t the Christianity of the Bible. Where’s the love?” I was especially touched by the scene where Dan sets up a confessional at Gay Pride weekend in Portland. How’s that for cultural engagement?

    If you can get past the cheese and the stupid outfit he wore the whole time– its a decent film. I’m looking for more from Merchant and assuming that future films will be better. I’d suggest dropping the book deals as it just makes the film seem like a commercial for the book.

    Man on WireMan on Wire I wasn’t alive when this event actually happened, but I was completely captivated by the documentary about the  stunt. On August 7th, 1974, Philippe Petit spent 45 minutes dazzling onlookers below as he walked a 3/4″ wire he had rigged between the north & south towers of the World Trade Center. Later, when questioned about the stunt by the media he told them, “When I see three oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk.”

    Besides winning the 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary there were a few things I appreciated about the film. First, while the centerpiece of the movie was the Twin Towers there was never a mention of the September 11th attack which brought them down. Second, the movie was beautiful. The filmmaker uses light and darkness in a way that makes the entire movie enchanting. Third, this movie is about chasing ones dreams– even if they are absolutely insane and may get you killed. Fourth, the film shows the power of artistically and magically breaking cultural mores. The delight on the arresting officers face tells the whole story.

    Jesus CampJesus Camp This movie has been out since 2007, so plenty of people have seen it. As I was watching it, I fell for the sucker pins. The producers of the film wanted to show how crazy Evangelicals can be and how churches are manipulating children to be political activists for the religious right. I was appalled and a bit angry that any parent would allow Becky Fischer to talk to their children like that. (And the one kid with the mullet, man he rocked that mullet HARD!)

    Of course, the movie went to find extremes. It labeled the main characters as Evangelicals– yet they were far from middle-of-the-road evangelicals. These are our Evangelical cousins who are just a little bit short of handling snakes. Where homeschooling is normative and cultural engagement is seen as grabbing the devil by the tail.

    Stepping back, I think the film has a lot to teach those of us who work with children and teenagers in the church. Anyone who teaches teens knows that it is really easy to manipulate a response and what we saw was some pretty nasty manipulation. (I mean, really? Talking to 9 year olds about abortion and giving them tiny fetus’ to hold onto. Really?)

    Anyone who teaches knows that we can scare kids to get them to do whatever we want. But if we want to change a students life we know that they have to encourage them to make rational decisions which they can own for themselves. We know that when we allow students to encounter truth, giving them space to think about it, and respecting their personhood– they will make lifelong decisions. The film reminded me of the phrase, “Fear is a short term motivator.”

    All three are great documentaries for creating discussion. They’d be really cool to watch with your leadership team or adult small group.

  • 1.5 Million Still Homeless in Haiti

    In a city of 3 million people roughly half are still homeless four months after the earthquake.

    Why is a country, once rich in natural resources, a nation whose slave population rose up and defeated Napoleon’s army for independence, and given aid for generations by rich nations like the United States and France, still steeped in such poverty?

    The answer is simple: Corruption.

    There is corruption at every level of government. There are oppressors and the oppressed. And the people with social status to do something about it? Their idealism is often overcome by greed.

    Even the relief aid workers who have gone— too many have succumbed to temptations. Too much talk, too much skimming, and not enough work getting done.

    According to this New York Times editorial, only 7500 of the 1.5 million left homeless have been moved to a resettlement site. Not even a permanent home.

    The cameras are gone. The news attention is now fixated somewhere else. (On the gulf oil spill.) The American publics attention, like that of a mosquito, is looking for the next story that bleeds.

    $1.5 billion in aid was given. About $1000 per person displaced. [In a nation where the average family makes under $200 annually] And yet no one has a new place to live. Tents? Yes. Homes? No.

    7500 people resettled. 1,492,500 still sleep on the ground tonight. Mothers will lay down their babies on dirt, under a tarp with your countries name on it in tent cities that would make your knees buckle when you see them.

    I’ve heard snarky Americans say, “Why is Haiti our problem?” Or “Won’t our help just further the problem?”

    Haiti is our problem. We have funded the corruption. We have turned our attention away from the corruption there… we’d prefer to not think about it. We have stood by and gotten rich off of their natural resources. We have gleefully paid unfair wages to their workers for generations so that we can buy socks at $2.99 for six pairs.

    And while we wear their socks their children sleep on a piece of cardboard under a tarp tent with “USAid” flapping 12 inches above their face.

    Shame on us.

    Why can’t Haiti fix its own problems? Why can’t people just move? Why can’t they just go get jobs? Why can’t they rebuild their own homes?

    My reply to that is plain: Why don’t you go to Haiti and discover the answers to those questions for yourself. If the problem is so simple– why not go and fix it?

    This much I know. This I can assure you. One day a poet will rise up from the squaller of a tent city and cry out:

    How long, how long must we sing this song?

    One day the shame of our inaction will get to us. We will pay $100 to watch this poet pronounce shame and guilt on us for our inaction to a stadium of people who nod their heads in agreement.

    While your children sleep safely in their beds tonight I want you to think of this song…

  • The Tell-Tale Beat

    OK, this made me giggle.

    HT to xkcd. Here's the link: http://xkcd.com/740/

  • Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda, But

    I’m always amazed how little leading most leaders actually do.

    If a leader takes someone where they would otherwise not go on their own— the fact is that most people we label as leaders are just people who talk about leading. On a good day they are administrators. On an average day, they are do-nothings with leadership titles. On a bad day, they are busy saying they are leading while they aren’t actually leading.

    Nobody cares how you intend to lead.

    When you are a leader you are measured by your results, not your intentions.

    Go through your own list of your favorite leaders. They all have great actions tied to their words we quote.

    Leaders have a responsibility to lead. They need to say the words that move people. They need to prepare people to go somewhere or do something they are afraid of.

    Then they need to take their people there.

    Call yourself a leader?

    No more excuses. No more coulda done this. Or second-guessing woulda done that. We’ve all failed, but dwelling on the shoulda just makes you sound like a loser.

    No more talk. Time for action.

  • Real Live Dancing Dog!