derekjberg.com » Personal

Tribute to Church Tech Volunteers

admin — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 17:00:20 +0000

Can’t say enough about the great tech team we have at Woodland and because of that I also can’t thank them enough!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcqBWJmddC8

NASA Langley #Tweetup

admin — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:35:51 +0000

Yesterday we had an amazing opportunity provided to us by NASA to participate in their first ever Tweetup at their Langley Research Facility in Virginia. Langley is the oldest NASA facility but before finding out about it on Twitter I only thought of Langley and the CIA, not even realizing there was NASA in Virginai. As part of the tweetup we received a behind-the-scenes look at some of the most storied sites at Langley including a hangar tour, lunch with astronaut Susan Kilrain, a wind tunnel tour, going into inflatable moon housing and watching the drop of Orion, an 18,000-pound space capsule into the test pool. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words so I’m going to save my fingers and let you see for yourself.

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White House and DC

admin — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 14:57:42 +0000

After flying into Williamsburg at 10:30pm Friday night we had to be up bright and early Saturday morning because we had a East Wing White House tour that we had to be at by 9:30am. By the way, DC is close to 3 1/2 hours away from Williamsburg. One of our friends fathers works on the White House website so he was able to get us in for a East Wing tour on short notice and was nice enough to go through and give us a personally narrated tour. A couple things about White House tours, you have to know someone to get a tour with less than 21 days notice and they don’t let you take any pictures in the White House. It was a little cooler than us Floridians are used to so we were easy to spot in DC, I think we may have been the only two people in shorts. It turned out to be a beautiful day, just a little chilly when the wind was blowing.

Next up was the Old Post Office, this was recommended by a good friend so we had to check it out. It also didn’t hurt that Shana’s father worked for and retired from the Post Office so it was neat to get to see this early Post Office Building. The bell tower of post office has one of the best views of the city and strangely enough is considered a National Park and has rangers in it to guide you. Check out the panaromic views for the capitol, Washington Monument and everything else in DC.

After the Old Post Office we headed over to the National Mall which strangely had no shops but still had a ton of people all over the place, while there we stopped at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Everything from Oceans, Dinosaurs, and the Hope Diamond are all available to see free of charge at the Museum. As with most of the things in DC there just doesn’t seem to be enough time to do it all at once. And that’s just one of the Smithsonian Museums, there are a total of 19! After that we made the ride on the Metro, our way around for the day while in DC, to Arlington National Cemetery.

Arlington is one of those places that no matter how many times you go, I think it affects you differently each time. The beautifully manicured grounds, everything lined up, nice and neat and organized, but then you remember that each of these grave markers is someone who has lost their life to allow us the freedoms that we each enjoy everyday often with thanks and even worse with a sense of entitlement.

We finished the day up at a restaurant that is DC staple and we had recommended to us multiple times. Well, they recommended Ben’s Chili Bowl but the line was out on the sidewalk and to the street so we went to Ben’s Next Door. The food was absolutely delicious and we will be going here EVERY time we come to DC. The Pesto Pasta was amazing and the Fried Chicken is some of the best I’ve ever had, and this isn’t even the place that was recommended.

We finished dinner, rode the Metro back to our car and then made the 3 1/2 hour trip back to Williamsburg, our home for the trip. And that was just day 1.

3 easy steps to help a teacher

djberg — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:59:30 +0000

If you didn’t know already I am biased towards the best kindergarten teacher there is, my wife! She uses Donors Choose to help support her classroom. It’s a great website that allows people to donate to help teachers and to be assured that money will be going to the classroom and everything is legit. It’s a win-win and allows it be tax deductible. Right now there is a deal on Groupon.com where you can get a $25 gift card for only $10. This is made possible by a match made by the Pershing Square Foundation to encourage people to donate to education. My wife’s current project, always available at www.donorschoose.org/mrs.berg, is less than $200 away from being funded. That’s just 8 people donating $10 if they take advantage of the Groupon offer. It would be a huge help to her classroom so please help and tell your friends to help too.

Register for Groupon.com
Go to http://www.groupon.com/deals/donorschoose-org-1 and get your donation code
Go to www.donorschoose.org/mrs.berg to make the donation
BONUS: Receive thanks from lots of cute kindergardeners

10% Discount for Mozy

djberg — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 19:49:47 +0000

As I’ve said before on the site I make close to $100 a month on my site directly from Mozy.com. This is because i’m an affiliate of Mozy and as my readers and friends sign-up for the 2GB Totally Free Online Backup! Compliments of Mozy or sign-up for other plans they give a portion of that money. The other way I receive money is if you sign-up as an affiliate and promote Mozy on your site or blog, this way we can both get benefits. You can become an affiliate by following one of my Mozy links and on the bottom of that page is a link for the affiliates page where you can register.

But…. why you are really here for the 10% discount for Mozy Annual and Biennial accounts in Ocotber. Sign-up for the Home or MozyPro accounts at that link and then use the discount code “October”.

All proceeds from my webiste are used to pay for the mission trips my wife and I go on each year. The past two years this has been to the Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico. That is the plan again for 2011 with a trip in July.

Help a teacher, no cost to you!

djberg — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:09:15 +0000

I invite you to help my favorite kindergarten teacher who also happens to be my wife by following the simple steps at the end of this post. She is a great teacher and cares deeply for her students. She likes to keep her classroom current, homey and inviting for her students to allow them the best opportunity to receive a good education. There are 3 ways you can help out and 1 of them you can do everyday!

Sonic is funding projects by teachers and allows you to vote everyday and the projects with the most votes get funded. Go to http://limeadesforlearning.com/projects/view/431314
Bing has partnered with Donorschoose and will give you a $3 donors code to use on the project of your choice when you say you’ll use the Bing search engine: Just follow this link to let them know and get your code.
The award winning movie “Waiting for Superman” is coming out in October and if you pledge to see it they will send you a $5 card to use for the classroom project of your choice. I’m asking you to use it for my wife. See it won’t cost you anything to help her out (of course you are more than welcome to make an additional donation).
Pledge to see the movie “Waiting for Superman”
Check your email for the Donorschoose.org credit (mine took about a day)
Go to DonorsChoose.org/mrs.berg and support one of her projects
Retweet, Share and Like this page
THANKS, THANKS, THANKS!

Health and Travel – Navajo 2010

djberg — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 19:43:30 +0000

It’s that time of the year, one of my favorites as groups from our church and churches across the country are sending their people out on short-term mission trips. My wife and I are once again going with our church to the Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico this summer. I will be updating with blogs and pictures as much as possible. We have a large RV and trailer that left last night to make the drive, as well as multiple flights of people flying into Albuquerque till Friday afternoon. The whole team minus the driving team will be in Albuquerque Friday night and then we will meetup with the drive team on Saturday in Window Rock, the capitol of the Navajo nation.

Please pray specifically for the health of each of the team members before and while they are travelling on Friday as well as protection for the drive team as they make the long drive. Also pray specifically for Keith and his health and energy on this trip as he recently finished his chemo treatments for cancer. You’ll remember he found out about his cancer one year ago exactly on Friday after having to fly back early from last years trip thinking he had severe kidney stones.

The Mask

djberg — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:45:48 +0000

The latest blog i’ve done with our senior pastor for timsvlog.com. Make sure to check it out and leave a nickname or a vote for the best hip-hop name for Tim.

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Tim’s Blogs better known as Timsvlog

djberg — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:00:59 +0000

One of the things I got our senior pastor to do was a video blog on a semi-regular basis. The are ususally short, funny, and provide a unique spirtual viewpoint that helps reinforce a biblical truth. I was in the very first one (which you can see here) and am now becoming a regular person to interact with Tim. See the first of the latest videos below and keep up with me (twitter and facebook) and Tim too (twitter and facebook).

Back from Navajo

djberg — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:00:16 +0000

You come back from a Mission trip with all sorts things going through your head. How you’re going to change, what you’re going to change, things you can do, things you should’ve done, going back next year, etc. I kept waiting for this great ephipany of a blog post to write and share….I’m still waiting. It’s hard to even know where to begin but I feel I need to start writing to get the process going. First off I want to thank each of you, those that prayed, those that gave, those that followed along, it took each of you for this trip to happen and for it to be a success. There are many things about the trip I’d like to share but right now I there is something more important to share. Keith Martin, our Worship Arts pastor, is the leader of the Navajo trip. He’s been dealing with back pain for quite awhile and it got progressively worse on the trip to the point he ended up coming home early to have it taken care of. It comes to find they have found a mass in his abdomen. All that to say, please keep up with his status and pray for him, find out his latest at http://www.gowoodland.com/keith