define: Jared Barden

Something always puzzles me about the credit card scanners at our local Wal Mart. In fact I’m not even sure if that’s the correct term for them, but for the purpose of this post, it will suffice.

What always gets me is that the scanner knows when you’ve swiped a debit card, and it proceeds on accordingly. However, when you swipe a credit card, you are prompted to let the cashier know that you swiped a credit card.

I always hate saying, “hey that was a credit card.” I don’t know why. It just seems awkward and unnecessary to me. My goal in checking out is usually to check out as quickly as possible, and having to take that extra step, even though it seems small, seems unnecessary to me in 2008. Seems like we should be able to make a scanner that doesn’t require letting the cashier know that you just used a credit card.

I also learned a couple new things about credit card scanners this past week.

1.) Apparently they are a pain to use for left handed people. Never really thought about that before, being right handed and all.

2.) What happens to the copy of your signature that is entered into the system and shows up on your receipt? I would like to think that Wal Mart wouldn’t use my signature for nefarious purposes, but you never know.

Credit card scanners at Wal Mart - one of the great mysteries of my life.

Apparently the much-rumored Google Health is going to enter testing soon with a group of patients from a clinic in Cleveland.

I’m not sure what to think of this program yet. I don’t really like the idea of any other company having access to my health records, but let’s face it, how do we know who has access to our medical records currently?

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Google, but the amount of information that they possess is somewhat scary when you step back and think about it. The thought of them having access to my medical records seems just a little much for me. However, the blog post does note that you will have access to your records through a secure API (Application Program Interface - aka. “nerd stuff”). So, it’s hard to say how much access Google will actually have to the records.

Either way, it seems a little scary and “Big Brother” to me.

Here are a couple of shots that Danielle snapped this weekend of our Patriot.

Danielle recently wrote about the latest addition to our family - our 2008 Jeep Patriot.

Here’s how it came to be a part of our family.

Danielle used to drive a white 1994 Ford Explorer, that, while it served her well, was definitely on its last legs. A few months ago it began making weird grinding noises, and it felt like it was going to die at any moment.

Around that time we started talking about replacements for Danielle’s car, but we weren’t terribly serious. I did some research online, and I ended up at the Jeep site, where I saw the Jeep Compass.

On a whim one night we decided to stop at our local Chrysler/Jeep dealer to take a look at the Compass they had in stock. When we got out of the car we were approached by a salesman. The conversation went something like this.

“Do you offer special financing on the Compass?”

“Well, you know you can only get the better interest rate if you have good credit scores.” (said in a rather condescending voice)

“Oh…ok, well, can we test drive it?”

“Well…this car is ALMOST sold, so I’d really rather not have you test drive it.”

At that point, we said, “thanks,” and left. The whole experience was a real turnoff for us, and we vowed not to purchase our next car from that dealer.

Fast forward a few months, and Danielle’s car is really on its last legs. After trying to sell it at our house and my in-laws’ house, we finally end up selling the car to Danielle’s uncle.

Fast forward another couple of months, and we were back to the research stage of looking at cars. I went back to Jeep’s web site and noticed the Jeep Patriot. A couple of things caught my eye immediately about the vehicle.

1.) I liked the boxy look of it.

2.) It had 4 Wheel Drive.

3.) The price was good for us.

4.) It met Danielle’s criteria of holding two kids.

We talked about the car, and it didn’t really go much further than that.

In the last couple of weeks we started getting more serious about purchasing a car, and we found a black Patriot at Calkins Motors in Troy, PA through the Jeep dealer inventory search.

Last Saturday we went to Calkins to test drive the car. When we arrived the salesman was genuinely nice to us and seemed interested in us. I asked what specials they offered, and he listed them, and proceeded to tell us which he felt was actually the better deal in the long run. We then asked to test drive the car, and he said sure. He grabbed a plate and the keys, and the next thing we knew, we were buzzing down the road, determining if this was the car for us.

Of course the salesman (Bob Morgan) wanted to put us in the car that day, but we wanted to think it over and crunch the numbers (the really fun part). We thought it over, and decided we could afford the car.

This last Monday we went to the dealer right after work to pick the car up. I was amazed at how smoothly the whole process went. Not having ever bought a car before, I wasn’t sure how you got the insurance, and the license plate, and all the things that go along with buying a car, but Bob had everything taken care of for us. The whole experience was really a delight for us, and we feel confident that we made a great decision by purchasing from Calkins.

It’s funny how everyone has opinions when it comes to cars. They go something like this.

“You never buy a new car. You ALWAYS buy used.”

“You never buy a used car. You ALWAYS buy new.”

“You never pay the sticker price on a car.”

And the list goes on and on. I’m happy with the way we purchased our car, but we do thank our family and friends for all of their input.

We got home with the car Monday night, and we couldn’t be happier with it.

And now, a picture of our, “new baby.” Or at least what it looks like (minus the silver trim) on the Jeep web site.

As a shameless plug, check out Barden Photgraphy when you get a chance.Danielle and I started the site a couple of weeks ago.At first, I struggled to find good photo gallery software that wasn’t hard to install. At my previous job we had installed Gallery for a client, but it was a giant pain, since we had to actual install it via the command line (think DOS, or UNIX), and Gallery requires several other packages to also be installed for it to function properly. This time around, I happened on the Gallery Preinstaller which made things much easier. I probably had things set up in 15 minutes - tops.Which reminds me, I need to install Leopard for a friend now…

During lunch today, I stumbled upon some news that a seal from the original temple in Jerusalem was found recently.

The article mentions a family of temple servants by the name of Temech, who were also mention in the book of Nehemiah in the Bible.

Very cool to see actual scientific evidence that lines up with what we read about in the Bible.

Continue reading for a summary of the 2007 Barden Family Christmas.

Christmas started a little early for me this year, since our company closed around 3PM on Christmas Eve. In keeping with Barden family tradition, we had pizza with my parents for our Christmas Eve dinner. After dinner we made our way to the church for a special Christmas Eve service where we were treated to various special musical performances and various Scripture readings.

Our Christmas “party” really kicked off after the service, because Danielle and I spent the night at my parents’ house, since we didn’t have any big Christmas celebration of our own planned. That night our running Christmas joke began, when my dad mentioned that two of the Christmas movies they had recently watched, “were really good stories.” I know it doesn’t sound funny reading it, but it definitely was at the time. After finishing a round of “really good stories we headed off to bed.

Christmas morning started somewhere between 9 and 10, when we rolled out of bed. Funny how easy it is to sleep in on Christmas when you’re “older.” After a round of cinnamon buns we opened up presents from my Grandparents and my parents. We didn’t get a lot of gifts this year, as compared to other years, but the gifts we did receive were very thoughtful and had meaning to them, like the stein my Grandparents gave me that my Grandpa purchased when he was stationed in Germany during the Korean War.

Christmas afternoon continued with a delicious pot roast my mom cooked, and then we pretty much spent the rest of the day relaxing and watching loads of those cheesy Christmas movies, many of which were “good stories.”

Lots of people say that Christmas is about family, and while spending time with family is great, Christmas is all about the birth of Christ, without whom we would have no hope in this world.

It’s funny, no matter how much our society tries to make Christmas about presents, Santa, cookies, family, etc. it will always be about the birth of Christ, and there isn’t a thing you or I can do about that fact.

His birth is the greatest present of all.

Just wondering if anyone can shed some light on why anyone would be telling, “scary ghost stories” at Christmas time?

I was listening to The Most Wonderful Time of the Year today, and that thought struck me.

Any thoughts?

Today I got a surprise invitation to lunch with an old friend. It was nice to just “shoot the breeze” for a while at Subway and forget about all the things that have been causing me worry over the last few weeks.

Worry is a funny thing. And I don’t mean funny, “ha ha.”  The Bible says not to do it, and Jesus said not to do it. And for good reason too. It’s a terrible thing that can just about paralyze you if you let it.  It seems to set in like a thick cloud sometimes and just doesn’t want to leave for anything.

Fortunately it’s been getting better lately. My family has been incredibly supportive, and I believe both Danielle and I have grown a lot during this time.

Tonight’s message - Worry, Don’t Do It.

I just realized that my last post here was over two weeks ago. In reality, it seems like it’s been a lot longer than two weeks to me.

We’ve been quite busy at work with a number of different projects. Our most recent release is SchoolMapSales.com, a site dedicated to selling maps and other mapping products to the educational market. This site probably has provided more challenges than our other sites, but I think it turned out really well.

It’s been a challenging couple of weeks for me personally, and I won’t get into all of that here, but it’s been nice to have the support of family and friends and to always know that I’m never going through life alone. I think it’s also helped me to mature emotionally and spiritually, so I’m also thankful for that.I recently finished the book Over a Barrel which deals with breaking our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. It was definitely an interesting read. I definitely wouldn’t consider myself an Environmentalist, but I do think that we need to be smart with how we use our resources.Now I’m reading A Jealous God , which deals with science attacking religion. Also another interesting read. Next I’m looking at reading some C.S. Lewis stuff. His work is really fascinating and thought provoking. And I’d love to get An Inconvenient Book  and give that a read also at some point.I really have a lot of books I want to read. It always seems like there is so little time to read them all, but I’ve found that you just have to make time for the things that are important to you.