Don Bowen Memorial Service

I had the great pleasure to participate in a life well lived. Watch Don's memorial service video and you will see what I mean.

Don Bowen's Memorial Service from Steve Bowen on Vimeo.
Blessings to you and yours!

Brad

90 Minutes in Heaven

In light of the recent passing of my good friend Don Bowen from earth to heaven, I thought that people might enjoy hearing about the book 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death & Life. This book has been a great encouragement to me.

Here is a brief synopsis provided by ChristianAudio.com followed by a brief video teaser that includes photos from the accident as well as commentary from the author.

On the way home from a conference, Don Piper's car was crushed by a semi that crossed into his lane. Medical personnel said he died instantly. While his body lay lifeless inside the ruins of his car, Piper experienced the glories of heaven, awed by its beauty and music.

Ninety minutes after the wreck, while a minister prayed for him, Piper miraculously returned to life on earth with only the memory of inexpressible heavenly bliss. His faith in God was severely tested as he faced an uncertain and grueling recovery. Now he shares his life-changing story with you.

90 Minutes in Heaven offers a glimpse into a very real dimension of God's reality. It encourages those recovering from serious injuries and those dealing with the loss of a loved one. And now it is available in this audio edition, emotionally read by Don Piper himself. The experience dramatically changed Piper's life, and it will change yours too.



I hope this is a blessing to you!

Brad

To You Be The Glory

To You Be The Glory is one of my favorite songs from Glory Revealed II. This song puts to music Romans 11:33-36.

33Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
34"Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?"
35"Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?"
36For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen

Even if you could care less about the scripture reference or words of the song, I hope that you will enjoy the music. However, this passage and beautiful song are a reminder that He is worthy of all my praise. To Him be the glory!

You can listen to the song and watch a video related to it by clicking the picture below.


I hope this is a blessing to you and yours!

Brad

Until We Meet Again Friend...

This is a personal tribute to my friend Don Bowen to keep his smiling face etched in my memory forever.

Don, you have always been a great friend through the years. I loved discussing all things Directory Services with you during your tenure at Sun. I loved even more swapping spiritual encouragements during good times and hard times. These last couple of years though, Don raised the bar on encouragement not only to me but to everyone that followed his pilgrimage through his blog. Even my mom, a cancer survivor herself has followed your blog and been encouraged immensely by it.

To Eileen and the girls, my prayers continue on for God's comfort and provision for you in the days and years ahead.

2 Corinthians 5 reminds us that to be away from the body is to be present with the Lord. Many have been praying for a big miracle for Don these last couple of years. On October 31st of 2009, Don finally got the biggest miracle of all to be embraced by the loving arms of his Lord. I look forward to seeing you again one day my friend. Until then, blessings to you and yours!

Your friend and brother in Christ!

Brad

What Should I Do If I've Become A Victim Of Identity Theft?

A friend recently reached out to me regarding what to do when they have been victimized by identity theft. This can be a rather thorny subject because the solution may not necessarily be as clean as one would like it to be. That being said, I would refer them to expert resources that deal with this issue.
The top two resources that I have found thus far are the Identity Theft Victim's Guide by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC) and the US Department of Justice Identity Theft and Fraud page, which is just a subset of the PRC's checklist.
At a minimum, both encourage you to:

• notify all of your bank and credit card accounts of the fraudulent activity (in writing) and request new cards with new account numbers,
  
• monitor your account activity,
  
• monitor your credit report,
  
• contact the Federal Trade Commission (FTC),
  
• and contact the fraud units of the three principal credit reporting companies (Equifax, Experian (formerly TRW), and Trans Union)

And be sure to do all these things as soon as possible.

I highly encourage you though to read through the full PRC checklist to determine what actions best fit your needs.

Blessings to you and yours!

Brad

Getting Things Done

When I returned from our family vacation, I was greeted by an enormous amount of e-mail and work that had piled up during my absence. In addition, I have more projects on my plate than normal. Keeping this large pipeline of parallel projects going is more than I can manage well. In this state of disarray, I started looking for a system that can help me more effectively manage my project pipeline.

The three main criteria that I needed for success were:

1. A pipeline manager for the Apple Mac
2. A corresponding tool that syncs with the iPhone or iPod Touch
3. A system to use these technologies effectively for managing multiple personal and work projects

After researching for a short while, I discovered OmniFocus. OmniFocus isn't a hard core project planner with Gantt charts and the like. However, the Omni Group does offer OmniPlan for serious project planning. Instead OmniFocus helps you manage your "Next Actions" for all of the projects in your personal and professional project pipeline. For me this is huge because I often have to put some projects on hold for long periods of time. When I finally get some focus time on a particular project, OmniFocus can help me effortlessly resume right where I left off without having to comb through my journals to figure out what I was doing last.

OmniFocus for iPhone enables me to enter in action items anywhere and at any time. This is really important to me as I often get great ideas on projects when I am no where near a computer or my office. Capturing ideas and action items immediately in my iPod Touch or iPhone will help me to get more sleep at night I often remember a long list of things that I need to do shortly after I lay down to go to sleep for the night.



These two great products are automatically kept in sync through my Apple MobileMe account. This enables me to capture ideas and actions while away from the office even for extended periods of time. Then when I return to the office, my project data is already in sync with my iPod Touch (or iPhone). Very Nice!!!

My last requirement is to have a system that enables me to maximize the use of the technology. OmniFocus had as one of its first project tasks to buy and read Getting Things Done by David Allan. I bought and have been listening to the Unabridged AudioBook version through iTunes. The book has opened my eyes to a much more effective system of project management through managing "Next Actions" and reference materials than I had seen before. I highly recommend this book and the system as whole.

Truly, this is a 1-2-3 punch that delivers results.

Blessings to you and yours!

Brad

Glory Revealed II

Hello friends,

One of my favorite CDs over the last couple of years has been Glory Revealed. It is one of those CDs that I enjoy listening to the full CD over and over again all day long. The music lifts my spirit. We recently purchased the next release, Glory Revealed II. The music of Glory Revealed I and II are scriptures (from the Bible) put to wonderful music in very creative ways. Be sure also to check out the free The Making of Glory Revealed II video.




I hope that these are a blessing to you.

Brad

The One Year Audio Bible

I and my family are very blessed in many ways. One personal source of tremendous blessing is spending time daily in the Bible. Historically, daily Bible reading has been a challenge for me because I am reading challenged and it is hard to find contiguous un-interrupted time for reading anything.

This year however, I discovered The One Year Audio Bible produced by Tom Dooley. The One Year Audio Bible has set me free to get daily time in the Bible. Tom does a tremendous job of introducing and providing context for each passage.

I really enjoyed listening for free to the daily devotions over the last few months. However out of gratitude for Tom's tremendous investment in this work I invested in the whole set for only $59.95.

Tom, thanks for your excellence in all that you do.

If you struggle like I did to get daily time in the Bible, I highly encourage you to try out The One Year Audio Bible.

Blessings to you and yours!

Brad

What is Health Insurance?

In the United States this seems to be a promise by an insurer or health plan to pay for health care services in exchange for a combination of co-payments and premiums. However from a coverage perspective, it seems like the majority of insurers emphasize reactive care instead of proactive or preventative care. In other words, the insurers are will pay for over the counter drugs and medical procedures that address the symptoms of all sorts of disease. However, they rarely or in most cases never will pay for nutritional supplementation and exercise equipment or gym dues that could help prevent disease by keeping people's bodies healthy and well nourished.

On the nutrition front, I personally have benefited greatly from taking glyconutrients, great food sourced multi-vitamins, and other natural sources of intelligent nutritional supplementation. Good sources for these items isn't cheap. However to me, the quality of life that results from good nutrition is worth the investment. If I were to estimate how much money that I have saved by not having to go to the doctor for things other than a well check visit since I started my personal pilgrimage back in 2006, I would say it was well worth every penny. If the United States health care system took the same approach, I wonder how much healthier and happier the citizens of the US would be? Interestingly enough, even the Journal of The American Medical Association says that ALL Adults Should Take Vitamins.

On the exercise front, it isn't a good idea to pay for exercise equipment nor gym memberships without accountability. However, if insurers could hold people accountable for exercising on a regular basis, the health benefits and disease prevention would most likely be well worth the investment.

Given that the United States of America ranks 37th in the world for health care, you would think that insurers would be the main constituency that want to reduce costs by promoting prevention. That's my opinion at least.

If you would like to learn about the nutrients that have benefited me, contact me.

I hope that you and yours have a healthy and happy day!

Brad