Marc’s Musings

So Cuil got press today. It’s a search engine started by people that left Google. Supposed to be oodles better.

I wasn’t impressed.

Call me an egotist but when I searched on marc pitman, I didn’t come up in the first page but the obscure movie actor with my name did. I’ve worked hard over the last decade to make sure I’m in at least 50% of the top results. So it’s weird to not be in it at all. And “Marc A. Pitman” showed no results.

And for fundraisingcoach? Not even my own site www.fundraisingcoach.com came up! It comes up with obscure link farms and other questionable URLs.

So much for indexing billions of pages. And it seemed slow too.

Apparently, Cuil is picking up all the bottom dwellers the other search engines have long since learned to ignore.

Ike Pigott nailed it in a tweet just now:

You’re not missing much. Cuil is Google’s little cousin who’s into Goth but too chicken to get piercings. Google Dark.

I’m pleased to be sticking with Google, thank you very much.

Got one of those new Orange Mango Vivanno smoothies from Starbucks today.

At least it doesn’t really clash with my Prius’ seats or floor. *sigh*

Guess I won’t be able to be as edgy about the kids spilling food in the car!

Last week we logged about 1400 miles on our car.

Yep, one thousand four hundred.

And thanks to our Prius, we averaged between 51 and 52 miles to the gallon.

Travel is still more feasible at that mileage! Our Windstar would’ve cost us oodles more!

There was a great joke on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me! this morning. Well many, but only one about Inbev’s purchase of Budweiser.

Evidently, the deal was sealed when Inbev, the company behind Bass Ale and Beck’s, promised to not mess with the Budweiser formula. Apparently there was concern that Inbev might change Budweiser to make it actually taste like beer.

I’m here in DC having given a 4-hour pre-conference session on “Marketing and Fundraising for a Small Shop” at the American Marketing Association’s Nonprofit Marketing Conference. We had a great, lively session.

The best part is I get to be here with my 8-year old son. We’ve gone to the International Spy Museum and the ever popular Air and Space Museum. And tonight, we played Battleship at a very posh restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental.

It used to be that everytime I came to DC, I could feel the power saturating the city. It was heady. And easy to get caught up in.

This time, I sense none of that. So I’m wondering if I’m getting more mature…or more naïve .

I firmly believe God talks. And that dreams are one of the ways He talks. But apparently I can’t understand the language yet.

I few weeks ago, I woke from a dream specifically remembering “47:20″…I think it was a time in the dream. But when I woke, I knew it must refer to Scripture.

Do you know how inconvenient it is to find what books have 47 chapters and then of those which ones have 20 or more verses? Oy.

So today, I decided to BibleGateway.com it. Very easy!

Here are the results for the only 2 47:20’s in the Bible:

Genesis: So Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. The Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields, because the famine was too severe for them. The land became Pharaoh’s,

Ezekiel: “On the west side, the Mediterranean Sea will be the boundary to a point opposite Lebo Hamath. This will be the western boundary.

Clear as mud, huh?

Wish I’d checked this earlier. I might have remembered the context of the dream!

(The one from Genesis is, for me, one of the saddest passages in the Bible. The next verse says that Joseph made all of Egypt slaves to Pharoah. How ironic that a few centuries later, the descendants of Joseph become the slaves, isn’t it?)

A friend just emailed me this great CNN article about how young evangelicals don’t fit the “evangelical” stereotype. Or a political party.

These two guys are out promoting a book Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals. But this is more than selling books. Here’s a quote from CNN:

Back on stage [Shane] Claiborne takes the crowd through a multimedia presentation.

“With the respectability and the power of the church comes the temptation to prostitute our identity for every political agenda.”

It’s nice to see evangelicals questioning the lock-stock-and-barrel acceptance of partisan politics.

I’ve been listening to Air 1 recently and have heard an incredible song by Brandon Heath called “Give me your eyes.” Here’s the chorus:

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me you heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see

Man. That is the kind of prayer I wish I prayed more often.

[Thanks to stykel for posting the lyrics.]

I used this for the invocation at Rotary today. Since so many have asked for it, I’m posting it here.

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.
Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.
Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.
Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.
Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

-written on Mother Teresa’s childrens’ home in Calcutta, commonly attributed to her

I found this on the website of the Prayer Foundation. I know nothing about the organization, but I am glad they posted this!

I’ve been a fan of the Highlands Abilities Battery ever since I took it back in 2002. It’s still something that helps me in finding the right “place” for myself.

And like Victor Kiam, I liked the company so much I became a trained administrator of the Battery.

So I was thrilled to see it mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article!

(Seeing that my colleagues offer the Highlands “usually for about $450″ makes me wonder if my $399 is too low. Hhmmm.)

Read the whole artice at WSJ.com.