Christy and Danny got married on Saturday - congratulations to them. It was a beautiful ceremony outside on a warm Californian evening in Oxnard. Jen and I enjoyed the wedding, enjoyed a night away where we could actually sleep in and then had a great brunch on the beach in Malibu on the way home. Thanks to Mimi who came from Atlanta to watch the children.

You know the world is changing when Jaguar/Land Rover (British automotive icons) - currently owned by the American giant Ford - is being sold to Tata Group, an Indian conglomerate. A change of empires! For more on these trends, be sure to read Tom Friedman’s “The World is Flat” - a fantastic book (essentially required reading) and one that I just finished.

As I work on developing communications with CRM’s donors, I have been inspired by Kiva. Peter Schrock, a friend and colleague, has written a clever little post on the beauty and simplicity of what Kiva enables.

Quoted in the latest issue of Christianity Today:

$25 Billion - Projected embezzlement from churches and Christian institutions in 2008

$23 Billion - Projected giving to global foreign missions in 2008

This is a stunning and very sad reflection on the state of the American church. Thankfully I can be confident that in my work here at CRM, we are working within the $23 billion and not the $25 billion!

Last night Joel and I attended the Monster Truck Jam at Angels Stadium in Anaheim. We had a great time - lots of noise and lots of crashes. Joel’s favorite truck was the Batman car - I preferred the half-time demolition derby. A whole new world for both of us! It is great to have a son so that we can do things like this together. See some more photos here . . . (more…)

“There is so much we don’t understand. However, as scientists further dissect out human brains, they aim to explain it all: why we love, why we hate, why we believe in something greater than ourselves. At the same time, technology distances us from ourselves. Designers, on the other hand, are charged with feeling our collective emotional pulse, chronicling our relationship to the world in our time - telling our stories. Like a flower growing through a crack in concrete, our humanity will persist. Knock on wood.

DK Holland, November issue of Communication Arts

Santa Ana winds are blowing fiercely tonight - they are dry and gusty and bring high temperatures. They are acting as the spark for a very dry environment and people are losing homes and dreams in numerous raging wildfires. We are not threatened in our suburban environment but tonight there is a strong smell of smoke in the air and the moon is blood red in the smoke.

For ongoing reports see the LA Times.