ip tv, train, mother teresa

Has any of you seen IPTV in action yet? I haven't, until a little more than a week ago, when I volunteered to help man the booth for GoodTV at a revival conference at Costa Mesa Hilton one Saturday afternoon. GoodTV had struck a deal with KyLin TV to be part of their offering, so at the show they are demonstrating GoodTV program live through KyLin's IPTV. What they had is just a plain DSL broadband (with upstream 384K, downstream 1M, they said) from the hotel, connected to a setup box provided by KyLin, then to a regular TV monitor. The picture quality is pretty good, the movement very smooth, just like a real TV program playing. I was impressed.

KyLin is offering a special for GoodTV to promote, ie, for $9.99/month, the customer can get 31 channels, including GoodTV. For people who want to watch lots of Chinese channels and GoodTV, that's a good deal. One lady wanted to
sign up for her Mom who lives in Barstow, where they don't have much TV broadcast, even just for the GoodTV channel alone. She thinks it's worth it.

By the way, do you know who started KyLin TV, an IPTV service network targeting all Chinese around the world and has tens of thousands of customers already? William Wang, the founder/CEO of Computer Associates, the number 2 software company just next to Microsoft back in the old days. They said he's a Catholic and that may have something to do with his network carrying GoodTV channel for free. But I doubt that's the reason. I think GoodTV not charging KyLin for their content is reason enough for them to carry it for free in return, not to mention the Christian audience GoodTV
could bring them.

Talking about another first, I just made my first ever trip on a train today since I got to this country 25 years ago. There is an Internet Telephony tradeshow at LA convention center I planned to go. Instead of driving like I always do, I thought, why not take a train this time? So I checked the schedule and took the MetroLink train at Irvine Station at Barranca, all the way to the Union Station at downtown LA, then took the MetroRail Red Line subway for 3 stops, then transferred to the Blue Line light rail for one stop, and here I am a couple of blocks from the LA convention center. I took the same route back in the afternoon, in reverse order, without problem. The train is nice and clean, punctual and smooth. Though it took a little more time altogether than driving, with all the stops and transfers, but you get to read and work with computer on the train if you want (some seats have table on it), without the hassle of driving. The round trip ticket price is $16, including all the transfers. If you drive, the round trip is at least 100 miles long, using 20 miles/gallon, you need to spend 5 gallons of gas. For $3.00/gallon, you need to spend $15 on gas alone. Add the parking ($12 at the Convention Center), you can see the economic sense of taking train vs driving already. Besides, you get to find your fellow citizens--the Latino passenger and the black custodian I asked questions from--are kind.

There is a new book that created quite a stir lately--Time Magazine did a cover story on it and Newsweek had a long article about it in its Religion Section. It is a book about some previously undisclosed letters Mother Teresa wrote that describe the "silence, emptiness" she feels in her over 50 year journey of faith with God. It's quite shocking for ordinary people to hear such sincere yet deeply painful testimonies from a well-known saint that the world had all come to love and admire. To the anti-religion or the atheists, however, this gives them a God-send opportunity to bash all religions and the Catholic church in particular, such as the Newsweek article did, written by an atheist and author of a recent best seller "God Is Not Great." You can almost feel him gloating in the article. But the Time Magazine's cover story is more objective and accurate, in my opinion. It not only tries to explain it from the secular points of view, but also from the theological, faith-based angle, which gives you even more admiration and understanding of Mother Teresa and her faith in the unseen God under duress. If you are interested, here is the whole story by Time Magazine:
http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/5290/

Look forward to seeing you guys this Saturday: same time--8:30 AM, same place-my home yard.

big heart

"All you are thinking about is yourself!"-- these are angry words thrown at me when I was parting with a former business partner of mine. I was flabbergasted to hear him say so, because I thought I had done so much for him and for the partnership, and if anything, I thought he was the one who had been thinking all about himself. Still, these words kept bothering me long after. Have I been thinking all about myself all the time? Am I a selfish person? I keep asking myself. If not, why do these words bother me so much? Over time, I kind of admit I probably am a selfish person, thinking
too much about myself too much of the time. And I don't like that.

Then the other day I met with a guy with whom I went to the same Chinese church a long while back. We were kind of close, and after lunch and some exchanges, he started to complain to me about not being fed spiritually enough in another church he's been attending for over 3 years then left, and that the pastor there never seemed to care about his presence or not. "Not a single phone call from him after I left, after all those 3 long years." he lamented. What a whiner, I thought to myself, not being very Christian like, I admit. But why do you only think about what you need from the pastor, why not think that the pastor may need you too? Eventually, I told him what I thought, in a nice way, of course. I told him my personal experience is "when I went out and tried to help others, I myself got helped," "It's easy to criticize and think bad of others, when you only live in your own virtual world." I was surprised I felt that way and said those words. I heard such complaints from him before, but I didn't have such strong feelings then.

Pastor Rick Warren did a grand review of his ministry last Sunday, as some of you had heard already. As always, his plain talking and genuine passion touched me. "Why do we want to keep growing," he asked. "Because we love Jesus", he said. If it's up to himself, he said he would just build a 300 member congregation and stop there because that's the size he likes best to minister and can get good salary and then retire and play golf twice a week. But this is not about himself, it's God's ministry he is doing. 

Pastor Rick is Pastor Rick because he's great Pastor Rick. But I think what makes him so great is he always has such a big heart for God's business. I pray I have that same heart all the time.