Personalized Spam and More...

Did you know that spammers have found a new way to personalize spam? That's right. And it is (I'm sure

) a very effective way of personalizing spam. How do they do it?

They forge your email address into the sender field of the spam they send to you. I received two emails this morning that appeared to be from me, and to me. One was from SPAMIS, the other from that bogus company that offers to send 2.5 million emails about your website for free.

Of course, it does work well in one sense; you definitely notice spam that has your email address in the sender line. But after you notice it...what then? What happens next is you get downright annoyed with these guys, and you certainly don't do business with them.

In other news, I have a new website. It's still under construction, so I'm not quite ready to post the link yet, because I don't want the search engines finding it quite yet. But if I haven't yet told you the domain name, and you want to take a look at what I've built so far, just send me an email and I'll send you a link to the site.

What is the site? It's a place where hikers can post reports of hikes they have done (mountains, wilderness trails, even cave explorations). Eventually I'll also have a section where people can post reviews of hiking gear they've used. (Brian...if you don't mind, when that section is done, I'm going to ask you to start it off with a review of your GPS).

And in even more other news, we have a pastoral candidate coming in this week. He'll be preaching tomorrow and next Sunday, and meeting with committees, ministries, and church members throughout the week.

Finally, week after next the youth group is going to be doing a scavenger hunt. A bit unusual, because "scavenger hunts" are supposed to be strictly for "fun", but this one will have a deeper purpose...the youth group is going to be traveling about to visit people in the church, collecting supplies for two ministries.

One, we'll be collecting bottled water, non-perishable food items, and other supplies for Hurricane Katrina relief. These supplies will be distributed through Nazarene Disaster Response (a branch of Nazarene Compassionate Ministries).

Two, we'll be collecting a wide variety of items for a Brazil mission; my brother Arnold will be taking those supplies down when he goes to Brazil in October/November.

Posted On Sep 10, 2005 at 4:13 AM

On Sep 10, 2005 Mr. T wrote: "my brother Arnold will be taking those supplies down when he goes to Brazil in October/November"

Well - I guess it's a good thing I read this Blog so that I can keep up-to-date on family news!