Updates in the life of

iPod Nano Giveaway Extended!

2010-03-20T16:59:00.000-04:00

Well, due to popular demand the iPod Nano contest has been extended until Wednesday, March 24. For those of you who do not know, I am giving away an iPod Nano. You can read all about why, and how here in this previous post. But here is an update on the numbers:

We only need 37 more sponsors until I will giveaway the iPod Nano.

Here are all the rules, and how you can win the iPod Nano.

The Rules:
(Read Carefully!!!)

I will not give away the iPod until at least 50 people have sponsored my sister (Molly) for $10.00 or more.
After 50 people have sponsored Molly then those 50 people and every sponsor after that will be entered into a raffle for the iPod Nano.
For each increment given by one person that person will receive another entry into the raffle. The increments are $10, $25, $50, $100, or more. So if you give $25 you will be entered twice for the raffle. If you give $50 you will be entered 3 times, $100 = 4 entries, etc.

So here is what you do:

Firstly, this contest ends at 2AM EST on Wednesday March 24. So all of the following steps need to be completed by this time. (I know, short notice, but I'm hoping we can raise a bunch of money).
Go to this link (http://www.calvarychristianky.org/HP/bowlarama10.htm) and click the "Donate" button and give an amount of $10.00 or more.
You will receive a payment confirmation email from PayPal. Forward this email to me at jkburns@gmail.com (This is just to prove that you actually gave money. Don't worry there is no information in the email that is harmful)
Tweet this: I just entered to win a iPod Nano & supported a school simultaneously. Follow instructions & RT to enter: http://bit.ly/dAtBqJ
Or if you don't have twitter then share it on facebook: I just entered to win a iPod Nano & supported a school simultaneously. Follow instructions & Share to enter: http://bit.ly/dAtBqJ
Comment below with your twitter name, or add me as a friend on facebook http://facebook.com/jburns so that I can confirm that you completed step #4.

And that is it. You are done. And when I have confirmed that at least 50 people have sponsored then I will enter everyone who sponsors into the raffle for the 8GB iPod Nano. So remember to share this on your facebook, and with all your friends because the more people that sponsor the quicker I will giveaway the iPod.

So how do you know this is legitimate? If you are still having doubts just go to this link Bowl-A-Rama and read about the fundraising event.

So this is not just about the iPod, although it would be nice to win, it is also about supporting a school, and giving these students, including my sister, a great education.

Remember, this ends at 2AM on Wednesday morning March 24.

Support A School & Win A iPod Nano

2010-03-13T01:50:00.006-05:00

Yes, I am really giving away a new 8GB iPod Nano, keep reading to find out why and how...

I attended and graduated from a christian school (Calvary Christian School) here in Covington, KY. I enjoyed my education, and am very thankful for what I learned in school, and more importantly the relationships that were built in school, with fellow classmates as well as teachers. I really felt like my teachers genuinely cared for me and my spiritual walk with God. I think this is what made my education unique and special.

I even enjoy coming back home from college and spending time at my school, watching basketball games, and visiting with my former teachers. Keeping up with those relationships is always refreshing, and a blessing.

But sometimes the downside to running a private school is the lack of money. Recently this has become a problem, so the school has started doing several fundraisers throughout the year.

The reason I am writing about this is to tell you about a fundraiser that my high school is hosting this weekend. It is called the "Bowl-A-Rama" and the students have been asked to recruit sponsors for this event. A sponsor can give $10, $25, $50, $100, or more if one wishes. All of the money that is given goes straight to Calvary Christian School and their Bridge The Difference campaign. Their goal is to raise $40,000 for this campaign, so that the school can just break even for this year.

But the question still remains, why am I writing about this? I am not even a student at the school anymore.

Well, my younger sister, Molly is a 7th grader at Calvary and she is trying to gain sponsors for this event. The grand prize for the most money raised by one student is a new Apple iPad. So I told her I would help her out, with hopes that she can win the iPad and maybe she'll let me use it if I'm lucky.

So here's the deal. I am giving away a brand spanking new Apple 8GB iPod Nano (Yes, this is the one that has a camera that records video) to a random sponsor. The winner can choose the color of the iPod and if you want anything engraved on the back.

The Rules:
(Read Carefully!!!)

I will not give away the iPod until at least 50 people have sponsored my sister (Molly) for $10.00 or more.
After 50 people have sponsored Molly then those 50 people and every sponsor after that will be entered into a raffle for the iPod Nano.
For each increment given by one person that person will receive another entry into the raffle. The increments are $10, $25, $50, $100, or more. So if you give $25 you will be entered twice for the raffle. If you give $50 you will be entered 3 times, $100 = 4 entries, etc.

So here is what you do:

Firstly, this contest ends at 2AM EST on Wednesday March 24. So all of the following steps need to be completed by this time. (I know, short notice, but I'm hoping we can raise a bunch of money).
Go to this link (http://www.calvarychristianky.org/HP/bowlarama10.htm) and click the "Donate" button and give an amount of $10.00 or more.
You will receive a payment confirmation email from PayPal. Forward this email to me at jkburns@gmail.com (This is just to prove that you actually gave money. Don't worry there is no information in the email that is harmful)
Tweet this: I just entered to win a iPod Nano & supported a school simultaneously. Follow instructions & RT to enter: http://bit.ly/dAtBqJ
Or if you don't have twitter then share it on facebook: I just entered to win a iPod Nano & supported a school simultaneously. Follow instructions & Share to enter: http://bit.ly/dAtBqJ
Comment below with your twitter name, or add me as a friend on facebook http://facebook.com/jburns so that I can confirm that you completed step #4.

And that is it. You are done. And when I have confirmed that at least 50 people have sponsored then I will enter everyone who sponsors into the raffle for the 8GB iPod Nano.

So how do you know this is legitimate? If you are still having doubts just go to this link Bowl-A-Rama and read about the fundraising event.

A Look Back On The Decade

2009-12-31T15:21:00.000-05:00

This year has contained many personal changes in my own life as you can see my previous post. But I just wanted to highlight a few more changes that have taken place, not only in this past year, but also in this decade. So fasten your seat belts...

I will start out with stuff that has happened in this decade in my life, and then move to things in 2009.

(O yeah, and that picture has nothing to do with post, I just thought it was funny)

Well I started high school in 2002 at Calvary Christian School. High school was an interesting experience overall, but a very positive one I think. Now that I think of it, I made alot of crucial decisions in high school.

I kind of decided to change the people I spent the most time with. I realized that my friends in middle school did not exactly have the best influence on me, and that I needed to surround myself with friends who could help me grow spiritually.
My freshman year was when I really started to get involved in the church, and I realized the importance of that.
My sophomore year I made the decision that I was going to go to a Bible College. And for those of you who know my plans after college, I absolutely do not regret this college decision. I have learned alot at Moody Bible Institute and if I had not chosen to go there then God would not have led me to where I am today and my plans after college.
In 2006 I graduated from Calvary Christian School.

The past 3 years since then I have consisted of my college career at Moody Bible Institute, and alot has happened in those 3 years.

In fall 2006 I started my degree of Sports Ministry at Moody Bible Institute. I was sure that God had called me to the foreign mission field full-time.
In 2008 my passion and burden for church media began rising within me.
In spring 2009 I got accepted to do my sports ministry internship with On Goal soccer camps.
Also in spring 2009 I wrote a proposal and outline of things that needed to change in my home church's media department. On June 3 I met with my Pastor to discuss this proposal and future changes. That same day he offered me a job for the summer as the church's media consultant. This was also the day before I was supposed to start my internship with the soccer camp.
Thankfully it all worked out and I ended taking the job at my church for the summer. Through this I learned a ton about the church, and alot that happens behind the scenes, and this helped to confirm that I believe that God is calling me into full-time church media work.
Now I am about to begin my last semester of my college career and I will be embarking on finding a job, and living life on my own. I'm looking forward to graduating that is for sure.

So just in case you all aren't bored yet with reading about me, I was going to go through some personal changes that have happened in 2009, but I think this is enough.
O yeah, one other sidenote, I have been single for almost a year and a half, and I have also learned alot through that experience.

So I hope that you all have had a great decade and a great year. And I hope that you have enjoyed reading this blog. There will be lots more to come in the next year and in the next ten years.

What changes have taken place in your life this year and this decade?

2009 = Change (No Not Obama)

2009-12-22T11:38:00.001-05:00

2009 has been a year of change in my personal life, and no, Obama has not been the cause of this change.

In a year's time I have changed the career direction in my life from doing sports ministry to doing church media.

More after the jump...

No longer am I planning on doing sports as a full-time vocation in ministry. Of course the keyword in that sentence is "planning." As I have found out this past year, God can change His plans whenever He wants and sometimes those plans may not be our plans.

Another change in my life in 2009 has been the act of reading.
Up until the beginning of this year I have loathed reading books. In fact, I would go so far as to say that before this year I hadn't read a whole book since sophomore year of high school (yes you heard me right, it has been about 5 years).

Then one of my friends made a bet with me, that I couldn't read a whole book in one month. There were no stipulations behind the bet, so I don't know why I took it so seriously, but I did nonetheless. Believe it or not, I finished the book "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan in the month of January, and since that time I have read 4 books in their entirety. A feat that I never thought I would complete in my lifetime. You can find the whole list of books I have read here: http://goodreads.com/jburno

As a consequence, I have actually come to like reading books, and I have learned so much from the books I have read (imagine that).

I don't want to overwhelm you with the length of this post, so I think I'll split it up into multiple parts.

Look for more changes in the coming posts.

What changes have taken place in your life in 2009?

It's A Rant...But Read Anyway

2009-12-21T18:24:00.000-05:00

I'm getting somewhat tired of people asking me what I'm going to do with my life. I guess there is nothing I can do about that, but it has become the default question whenever I am talking to someone. After they find out that I am a senior in college, the very next thing out of people's mouths is, "What are you going to do after graduation?" I usually answer with, "I don't know" and then follow that with what direction I am going in. I have a preset answer in my mind. But it just gets repetitive after the 500th time.

Again, it is not anyone's fault. I guess it is the natural question to ask a senior in college, and I understand that. I am just ranting for the sake of ranting. I do that every-once and a while.

So no offense to you if you have asked me this question in the past, again this is just a rant.
Plus, I have been accused of neglecting my blog for the past week, so I thought I'd better write something to satisfy the masses.

Also, if you'd like to see the direction I'm headed in life check out this post as well as some of my other previous posts. Just a hint, it relates to media in church.

Don't worry, there will be more posts to come in the next week before the new year.

P.S. I'm home until January 8th, so if anyone wants to grab coffee and catch up just give me a call, shoot me an email (jkburns@gmail.com) or facebook me (http://facebook.com/jburns).

Doubts Are Good?

2009-12-13T12:00:00.002-05:00

Do you ever have doubts?
Doubts about what you are doing?
Doubts about what you are planning on doing in the future?
Doubts that what you are doing is actually making a difference?
Doubts that what you are doing is actually having an impact on someone's life?

More after the jump...

Sometimes I have these doubts.
Some of you may know that I have decided to pursue a different career field than what I had originally planned on when I started college. I have been evaluating that decision to make sure that my motives are pure, and that it is what God wants me to do. I have been asking myself these questions, and it has been really beneficial.
Sometimes one just assumes that doubting has a negative connotation, but sometimes it is the exact opposite. Doubting in this situation has actually caused me to somewhat solidify my decision, and for right now I do believe that what I have chosen to do has the capability of making a difference. Now I must examine it even further to ensure that it is making a difference, and if it isn't then how can I cause it to make a difference? These are the next questions that I will be thinking about.

So a word of encouragement, if you are having doubts about something, don't let them affect you in a negative way. Instead seek to answer the questions that you are asking, and chances are your doubts will be erased, hopefully for the positive.

Microsoft Might be Growing Up

2009-11-18T22:01:00.000-05:00

In the past I have been less than impressed with Microsoft's advertisements and marketing strategies. In fact I was so disgusted with one video they put out that I wrote a post about it. While at the same time Apple has been putting out awesome and hilarious ads. I guess I am biased because I am a Machead, but nonetheless it is difficult for anyone to deny that Microsoft's marketing has sucked in the past.

Well tonight I saw an ad that might indicate a change in Microsoft's strategies. No longer are they trying to counterattack Apple with their I'm a PC ads, but now with the release of Windows 7 they have started these 7 second demo ads. Each ad takes 7 seconds to demo a feature in Windows 7. But it is not this concept that is revolutionary for Microsoft, but the features that they demo are actually somewhat cool. Instead of trying to again counterattack Apple by trying to demo how easy it is to create a picture slideshow, they are now demoing features like "one-click side-by-side snap windows," "one window shake function," and "one-click universal search." Some of these may sound confusing, so I'll just let you watch one of their ads to better understand the features.

More after the jump...

So all in all, what I am saying is that I think Microsoft is finally making some headway with Windows 7. I actually didn't know why it was better than Vista until I saw those 7 second demo ads. And I think Microsoft is finally figuring out that all they need to do to make a good ad is showcase some practical features within Windows 7 instead of always trying to compete with and counterattack Apple.

OS X is still the superior operating system and...
If you ask me though, I'll still tell you to buy a Mac.
:)

Money is Not Equal to Value

2009-11-09T12:39:00.000-05:00

There is a difference between "valuing church media" and "spending lots of money on church media." Just because a church spends loads of money on a bunch of media equipment, does not mean that church values media. A church can spend as much money as they want on equipment, but if they don't know how to use it effectively to communicate the gospel, then they are back at square one.

Hiring a full-time Media Arts Director is crucial for a church nowadays. It doesn't even have to be a media arts director, just someone who is paid to commit time to communicating the gospel effectively through media.

Yes, a church can say that their volunteers are great, and that they can run the show, but having a staff of volunteers doesn't always translate into effective communication.

All I'm saying is, if a church is willing to spend money on media, that is not equal to a church valuing media. Instead of a church wasting $60,000.00 on 2 video routers, and an AMX remote panel, why don't they use that money to hire someone to actually create good content. After all, isn't the content that we produce and communicate more important than the medium that we use to communicate it?

Identity

2009-11-05T19:11:00.000-05:00

Well for the past 3 months my life has absolutely been consumed by soccer. Actually for the past 4 years my life has been consumed with soccer.

For those of you who don't know, I play soccer for Moody Bible Institute. This past weekend was our regional tournament. Moody hasn't won the regional tournament since 2001, and this year was the best chance we had of winning it. We went 13-5 on the regular season, and we were very confident that we were going to go to the national tournament in Florida. That was our goal for the whole season.

The accomplishing of that goal came down to one game against Northland International University in the regional championship game. It was a hard fought game, but we ended up losing 1-0. When the game ended I could do nothing but cry. It was hard to believe that my college soccer career had come to an end, and we still hadn't gone to nationals.

Since then I have thought alot about my time on the team. The craziest thing to think about is that I am done. My soccer career is over as I know it. In previous years I had something to work toward after the season was over, because I always looked forward to the next season, but not this time. This time it is all over. There is no next season, and I can hardly wrap my mind around it.

This has led me to question myself. How much of my identity is really wrapped up in soccer, or being on a team? Evidently more than I thought. I didn't think it was going to be this hard.

This is just a great reminder that my identity should constantly be found in Christ, and nothing else. It seems that I have somewhat lost sight of that.

But what does it mean to find my identity in Christ?

It means that He is my motivation for everything I do. I thought this was completely true for soccer, but I don't think it was (Notice I said it was not completely true, because it was partially true).

I guess it is hard to really know where your identity lies until it is taken away.

Where is your identity found?

Its a good thing to really think about

Biblical Community

2009-10-25T16:10:00.000-04:00

I was given a great reminder today by J.R. Kerr at Park Community Church today. First of all, I am so thankful that I am able to attend a church where I am challenged and convicted by the Word of God that is brought before me each week.

Today J.R. talked about the idea of community (and no I'm not talking about the new show on NBC starring Chevy Chase above), specifically Biblical community. Many times we only go to church to have our needs met. The needs of music, lighting, video, a good sunday school for my kids, etc. These things are ok, but when we start making them our drive and purpose for attending a church then it becomes sin. Today was a reminder that church and Biblical community is not about me.

J.R. also talked about the aspect of investing into other people's lives in community. This builds off of the idea that is not about me. If we take the focus off of ourselves, then we will get close to one or two other believers and encourage them in their walk with Christ, as well as gain insight, and perspective about our own lives.

This point really convicted me. My time here at Moody Bible Institute has been great, but it has been a time that has not exactly been intentionally filled with one-on-one accountability. For the first 2 years here I met with 3 other guys once-a-week who kept me accountable, and we just shared life together. But then one of those guys transferred to another school, and another guy became very close with his girlfriend and is now engaged (I'm not saying those things are bad, I understand life happens). And myself and the other guy became roommates, which has been great, and we have grown closer and kept each other accountable for things, but that once-a-week meeting never happened again.

Today I have been convicted to disciple and invest in someone else's life. To begin a relationship with someone, grow close to them, disciple them, and keep them accountable. I guess this builds off of the selfishness post I wrote a couple weeks ago. I have become so selfish in my own life, and I have not really taken the time to get to know someone new, and really help someone through life.

How are you doing Biblical community?

Money & Business in Missions

2009-10-15T23:37:00.000-04:00

The classroom session that I went to today was called
"Money & Business: The Challenge Ahead of Your Generation"
Here are my notes from that session.

Money and Business
Trends

Internationalization of governments
Wealth redistribution

95% of the worlds resources are used by America

The growing non-American church ("The Changing Face of Christianity")
Increasing marginalizing of Christian organization in the USA and abroad
Growth of Islam - ("Impacting the World for Islam") (Islam demographic video)

The challenge for your generation

How to work in places that will not permit religious visas
How to integrate your background, training, and passion with your profession/business or platform

Implications

Fewer platforms for you to perform your passions

My thoughts:

I felt like the presenter knew alot of helpful information, but it could've been presented in a better way. He didn't really use his time wisely, and at the beginning of the session he showed a video (A Thousand Questions) which we had already seen two nights ago in the opening seminar. Don't get me wrong, I love the video, and I don't mind seeing it twice or more, but I feel like it wasn't necessary for that session.

So with those thoughts aside, I thought it was helpful to get at least some information in using a platform on the mission field. And again we see this issue of the growth of Islam, which seems to be a overarching trend that is being highlighted throughout this year's Missions Conference.

I think one of the biggest challenges he presented us with was the difficulty of entering countries that do not permit religious visas. The solution he gave was to use a platform to enter the country. Enter the country with a work visa and use that as your platform to do ministry. While it may not be formal ministry, a job can be the best form of ministry.

What do you think about this method of entering closed countries with a work visa?

The Changing Face of Christianity

2009-10-15T23:04:00.000-04:00

I've got some more Missions Conference love for you all.

During last night's session Dr. Soong-Chan Rah of North Park Seminary spoke. He talked about how the church is becoming more African and Asian and less American in its population. I haven't quite processed everything that he talked about yet, but here are my notes on what he talked about.

"The Next Evangelicalism"

Dr. Soong-Chan Rah

Acts 15

Jerusalem Council
Animosity towards Gentiles
Changing demographics

The Changing Face of Christianity

By the year 2050 the church will be:

Africa - 29%
Asia - 20%
Europe - 16%
Lat. Am. - 22%
N. Am. - 12%

Those are the end of his notes, and now here are my thoughts.

He also threw out some other crazy stats that made it clear that Christianity is becoming more and more minority in population in America, and less white American. What does that mean for us as Christians?

It means we may need change our strategy a bit. Maybe be a bit more sensitive to the African and Asian culture in our churches.

He also talked about how he thinks the church in North America today are conforming to culture in their structure and formats, and especially in their buildings. He made an illustration by comparing an older colonial church with a church of today. This illustration seemed like a bit of a stretch to me, but if you take a picture of a ceiling in an older church and turn it upside-down it looks similar to the shape of an ark, and he made a play on words by saying "ark-itecture." But now today we build our churches to look more like shopping malls, or entertainment venues. His point was that in early history they did not build their churches to conform to culture, but today we want to appeal to the culture so much that we are conforming to it. The "ark-itecture" illustration was a bit of a stretch for me. But I somewhat understand what he's saying.

More thoughts on this later.

Do you agree with these thoughts?

Do you think the American church today has conformed too much to culture?

Missions Conference Kickoff

2009-10-14T00:48:00.000-04:00

Well Missions Conference has officially kicked off here at Moody Bible Institute, and it proves to be a good week. Probably not as good as last year, as the keynote speaker last year was Steve Saint. Last year was the best Missions Conference in my time here at Moody. (Read my two posts from last year: Juntos No More and The Call)

For those of you who don't know, Missions Conference is a week when many, many missionaries from all over the world come into our school and teach different sessions throughout the week on various different aspects of missions. It is always a great week, and I actually find the workshop sessions more beneficial than the keynote sessions. This week also gives students alot of time to meet and talk to different missionaries and missions agencies, and get a good feel for the opportunities that are out there after graduation.

So tonight was kicked off by a professor from Wheaton College, Dr. Jerry Root, who spoke on being intentional about loving others around you, and reproducing the life of Christ. The main point of his message was that there are people all around us, and God loves them, and God wants us to show them His love. He told many stories about started relationships with people by just doing simple things like starting conversations with his garbage man, or mail man, and those conversations turned into showing God's love to them.

I'll be honest, I wasn't impressed with the message. It was a good reminder that we need to be intentional about building relationships with others around us, but as my roommate point out (@natenearpass) he stopped his stories at the point of the people being saved. He didn't really say much about follow up with them, or if they reproduced the life of Christ in other people.

So it was a good reminder, but I'm hoping for something better as the week goes on.

So you can expect to read some summaries and reactions to this week's sessions here on my blog. So feel free to give your feedback and opinions on missions conference this week.

Also, for all you Moody students who are tweeting this week, the official hashtag for missions conference is #mbiMC so anytime you send a tweet about missions conference just make sure to include that hashtag at the end of your tweet, that way it will be easy to look back on all the tweets from missions conference.

What did you think of the first session tonight?

If you weren't there, what did you think of the summary I have written?

Selfishness

2009-10-05T21:11:00.005-04:00

I am a selfish creature.
If I really think about it, a ton of things that I do everyday, I do to benefit myself.
This in itself is not necessarily wrong, but when I start to put myself before others then it is a problem.
I don't want to speak for everyone, but I think that if we all think about this concept, and think about the things that we do everyday, then I'm sure that all of us can think of something that we do to solely benefit ourself, and many times we put ourselves before others, or at least I do this alot.

I know this is a very simple concept, but I was just reminded of it the other day, and it shook me to my core.
It was kinda intense.

We need to be aware and thinking about this constantly.

And take the picture above any way you like, I just thought it was an interesting painting.

Bathroom Stalls & Ministry Signs

2009-09-28T10:53:00.004-04:00

So I spent most of my time yesterday at my church here in Chicago, Park Community Church because I was volunteering on the tech team and I worked for all 3 services.

So I was sitting in one of the bathroom stalls at Park doing my business and I hung my hoodie on the coat hook and sat down. When I looked up I saw a 8 1/2x11 sign for a ministry at Park for people who are just starting out in their faith journey, and I thought to myself "Hmm, thats a good idea, to put up signs about different ministries." But not only is it a good idea, but they were very intentional about it. So intentional that they moved the coat hook to the right side of the door so that they could put a sign directly in the middle. Most coat hooks on stall doors are directly in the middle, but people at Park had planned on putting those signs up so they moved the coat hooks.

Here is a nice little picture I took, cause I knew I was going to write a blog post about this as soon as I saw it.

I know you are probably thinking that this is a ridiculous thing to be writing about, but if you think about it, it is the small things that just put something over the top. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should choose a church based on its convenience, or cultural relevance, or branding, but it is a small thing like that that makes people realize how intentional a church is about investing into people's lives and transforming their lives with its ministries.

Maybe you think I'm completely off on this one, but I don't think I am.

If you think I am, let me know.

Microsoft's Marketing Still Sucks

2009-09-25T11:08:00.003-04:00

Well Microsoft still sucks at marketing. In fact, they suck more than ever.

Some of you might know that Microsoft is launching their new operating system, Windows 7, in the next couple weeks, so to try to get people to buy it they have hired a company that markets "house parties." So their marketing strategy for Windows 7 is to try to get people to have "house parties" for Windows 7. I'm not exactly clear on what a house party is, but it sounds like a less geeky LAN Party (Local Area Network Party). Basically where everyone brings their computers to someone's house and plays with them.

I'm not bashing the idea of a house party as a marketing strategy, but the actual video they made to promote this is absolutely horrible. The acting is horrendous and makes me laugh every time I watch it.

So without further ado, here is Microsoft's Windows 7 house party video, Enjoy!

Uplifting and Encouraging

2009-09-21T23:38:00.007-04:00

If you asked me today how my weekend was, you probably got a response like "It was the most bum weekend ever!" which means that I did absolutely nothing, and I laid around the room all weekend, except to go to church.

To be completely honest I was a bit depressed this weekend. Well...maybe "depressed" is a strong word, but usually a lazy weekend is a great weekend, but not this weekend. This time "lazy" was equivalent to being very unmotivated to do any work whatsoever. This led to me being in a state of almost depression. (Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything rash)

So anyways, that was my weekend, but now let me get to the meat of this post.

So my weekend was not the greatest, but God knew that I needed some encouraging and lifting up, especially because I had a class at 7:30am on Monday morning and Lord knows I did not want to go to that class with everything that was within me.

So here's what happened:

I ran into my good friend and neighbor Josh Jalandoon on my way to breakfast which was great.
My good friend Josh Puckett was at breakfast when I got there, so I got to eat breakfast with him, which was great.
On my way to class I ran into again my good friend Josh Jalandoon, which was great.
After class on my way to my room once again I ran into my good friend Josh Jalandoon...which was great.

To sum up my morning, it was great, except for the fact that I had class, but everything else outweighed the tiredness of class.

Moral of the story is...God cares for you and knows what you need at all times, whether or not you feel like He cares.

facebook fail

2009-09-21T11:08:00.006-04:00

I don't know how many of you have been experiencing problems with facebook today, but I have not been able to login at all, whatsoever. I know I may be acting a little overdramatic, but this is not good when I conduct some of my business over facebook.
(Ok, so I don't conduct all my business over facebook, actually most of it is over email, but the principle I'm about to discuss still applies)

It's crazy how much we (and when I say we I'm more speaking to myself, but I know it applies to others as well) depend on the internet today. And not just the internet but specific services on the internet...facebook, email (gmail my personal preference), twitter, blackboard, etc.

You don't really realize how much you depend on it until one of those services goes down, or your network as a whole goes down. Just imagine if your email client (gmail, yahoo, hotmail, or your own personal server) were to cease to exist. And by cease to exist I mean that all of your emails were gone, you had no way of sending or receiving emails at all. Just imagine what it would be like.

Ok, so we would be fine as far as communication goes, we would still have our phones, and texting, etc. but sending files or attachments would be difficult, sending a link to that portfolio or video would be difficult.

And the same principle applies to facebook or twitter. Although I don't think they are as essential as email might be, but they are essential for bloggers. For me at least, facebook and twitter are my two biggest ways to generate traffic to my blog. So of course when one of those services is down it kind of throws a wrench in my traffic. Thankfully I don't monetize my blog. If I did then facebook and twitter certainly wouldn't be my main sources of traffic. LOL.

So I'm not offering a certain solution to this idea, all I have to say is that we need to always be careful how much we depend on the internet. Have your emails backed up, and maybe have multiple email addresses registered with different services. Don't put too much stock in different social media such as facebook or twitter because they are not flawless unfortunately, and they will be down periodically.

Just a simple reminder from your friendly neighborhood blogger Josh Burns.

Have a Happy Monday!

facebook status mentions

2009-09-19T21:04:00.006-04:00

As you all know, and as it says in my profile, I am a social media enthusiast. Therefore I enjoy using social media and analyzing different social media strategies and what social media organizations are doing.

You may or may not have noticed that this past week facebook released a new feature within their status update. You can now "mention" a friend within your status and it will turn that friend's name into a link to their profile.

For those of you paying attention, they took this idea directly from twitter, which has included this functionality since it's inception 3 years ago in 2006. So for those of you who are on twitter this may look extremely familiar. And believe it or not you implement the functionality in the exact same way as well. Just as on twitter, on facebook you can now "@" a friend and it will mention that friend in your status. So it is pretty obvious that facebook has taken this idea directly from twitter.

Just for the record, about a year ago when facebook began to do a major overhaul of their design and user interface, it was me who said that they were going directly after twitter. I said this because they changed the home page from the old newsfeed to a single feed that contains everything, and again it looked extremely similar to the UI of twitter. And now they have gone and done something like this.

So let me just ask this question...who the heck cares that facebook has now implemented the "mention" functionality into their status updates? I'll be the first to say that I don't care, and I'm sure there are many others who couldn't care less. In fact let me beg a second question...who the heck even knows about this new "mention" feature?
For many of you this may be your first time hearing about the feature. Let's face it, facebook didn't exactly do a great job of publicizing this new feature, and chances are that when people found out about this feature they probably asked the question, so what?

That brings me to my third question...so what?
So what if I can now mention a friend in my status update? If someone is not already friends with that person then it is not like twitter where you can just follow someone without going through an approval process. Whereas facebook is much more private. Becoming someone's "friend" on facebook means alot more than it does to "follow" someone on twitter. So if I see someone mentioned in my friend's status but I don't know them, the chances of me clicking on that their name and "friending" them is not good.

Let's be honest, since this new feature has been released I have literally seen one status that has "mentioned" someone else. Again, I think there are two reasons for this, 1. people have no clue that the feature exists, and 2. people don't see any purpose in this feature.

The truth is, facebook and twitter are two completely different things, and I hate to come out and say it publicly but facebook needs to stop trying to be like twitter. You don't see twitter stealing ideas from facebook and implementing them, in fact the two most recent revisions to facebook's UI have been ideas that have been taken from twitter.

It has been said that twitter is the future of social networking. While, yes, that may be true, at the same time I think facebook is also the future of social networking, but not if they continue to take ideas from twitter.

Regardless, I will still continue to use facebook and twitter for distinctly different purposes, and yes, I will probably use the new "mention" feature on facebook every once and a while, just because it is available, but I honestly don't see this as a revolutionary feature for facebook. They need to stick to what they know and that is private social networking.

Do you use this new "mention" facebook feature?

Why or why not?

Weekend Update 9/19

2009-09-19T16:45:00.007-04:00

It's quite obvious, but I haven't written a post in a couple months. Part of that is just craziness of life, the other part is that whenever I think about writing a post I just question the value of what I have to say. Is it really necessary to write a blog post about whatever I am thinking? Sometimes I think not, but most of the time I think it is necessary, I just need to dedicate the time to doing it.

So here I sit.

So since the title of this whole blog is "Updates in the life of...Josh" I thought I would give you some updates in my life.

I had a great summer where I worked as the "Media Consultant" at my church back home in Covington, Kentucky, Calvary Baptist Church. I absolutely loved that, and learned a ton about many different ares in life. Media, Print Design, administration, decision making, among other things. So it proved to be a profitable summer.

Now I am back at school at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, IL. The bad part about that statement is the part about school. The good part of that statement is that means that I am back at college. I've said this several times but college would be awesome if it weren't for the school part. So as you can tell, I'm not a big fan of school. But it has been awesome to back with friends, and playing soccer again.

Speaking of soccer, we now have a 6-2 record, which is the best record that we've had in my 4 years here, so it poses to be an exciting season for our team.

Also, me and my roommate Nate and our neighbor Alan are back in action with producing "Wheel Seat" episodes. We have put out 3 more episodes since being back at school and they are all great, especially the most recent episode entitled "'I Am T-Pain' - Taylor Swift" where we address some recent happenings in the entertainment world, and we have some fun with autotune. So you all should check it out below.

And be assured that I will begin to post more frequently. Enjoy!

2009-07-20T16:10:00.001-04:00

There's an App for That...Even Church?

2009-07-15T15:26:00.005-04:00

So it turns out that when you have a job that requires you to mostly sit behind a computer all day then you don't really feel like sitting behind a computer when you go home. Imagine that. So that is one reason my blog has been sparse lately. But I'm back with another fun-filled post.

Today I've been in the office working on an intro video for our Pastor's new live internet TV show that we are launching. My office is connected to our Youth Pastor's office, so we get to interact and talk alot during the day. He asked me what I was working on and I told him about Pastor's new show which he thought was really cool. He then proceeded to tell me about an iPhone app that he saw a commercial for last night from Nationwide Insurance. Apparently if you get in a car wreck then you can use the app to fill out a form, take pictures of the car and send it to your insurance company all in a matter of minutes. He was amazed by this.

He then asked me a very stimulating question. What is something that the church can do that no one else has done before? Something that is very simple and easy to use, but is very effective in helping people. It doesn't have to be an iPhone app, although the iPhone is the future, but anything that is very easy to use, and very effective.

This is interesting to think about. There are almost endless possibilities with the power of the iPhone so I think that writing an app for that would be a good place to start. But what else can be done? I think interactive text messaging is one of those things.

We also must think about our target audience. Obviously something like this is going to be targeted at the younger generation. Anyone age 60 and above probably isn't going to understand the purpose of these type of things, and might even end up getting upset over it.

Here at Calvary we must be very aware of this. It is definitely not right for people to get upset over such things, because they are definitely effective tools, but we must be able to reach out to all age groups. But sometimes we just need to forget about the people who might get upset and continue to use the tool, whatever it is.

What does your church do that is unique?

Do they use any effective tools that implement interesting technology?

There are some things I just Don't Get

2009-07-02T19:16:00.009-04:00

There are some things that I just don't get.

I just don't get how you can move on from one person to the next and it doesn't even phase you.

I just don't get how you can be so close to a person for a large portion of time in your life and then all of the sudden drop them.

I just don't get how you can grow so close to someone and then replace them with someone else in your life in such a short amount of time.

People have value!

It seems ridiculous to me. But then again, I think I was doing the same thing about 2 years ago, so I guess I have should have some understanding of how you do it.

This post comes somewhat out of loneliness, somewhat out of frustration, somewhat out of sitting in an office all day, and somewhat out of just complete surprise and awe at the actions of different people.

This is one of those posts that no one will know what I'm talking about, but thats ok, because I know what I'm talking about. Sometimes that is all that matters.

My 100th Post: My iPhone 3GS Review

2009-07-01T17:05:00.007-04:00

For those of you keeping track (i.e. No one) this is my 100th post on my blog. I started this blog just a little over 9 months ago, and it has slowly taken shape into what could be a successful blog. I've learned alot about different aspects of blogging. Writing, layout, keywords, titles, etc. I originally started this blog just to give me an outlet, a place to share my thoughts and emotions, but at first I didn't want to tell anyone about the blog. And I didn't tell anyone for literally months. I just posted updates in my life, mostly just for my own personal goals. But eventually I did start to tell people about, and promote it more, and I started to write about stuff that people might be interested in, rather than just redundant updates in my own life.

So that is where my blog has come from. And now I have the privilege of writing my 100th post, and o what a time to do it, because this post is going to be a short review of the iPhone 3GS. Now you may be asking, "Josh, how can you give a review of an iPhone 3GS? Do you even have one?" And the answer is yes. I have gotten an iPhone, and it is amazing.

I got the Black 32gig iPhone 3GS. I wanted a white one but all they had in stock was black so thats what I went with.

Yesterday was my first full day with the iPhone and it felt like the battery was dying pretty quick during the day, so whenever I was in my office I just kept it plugged in and charging, and it lasted me all day, with about 50% left at the end of the day.

Today, I decided to test the battery going on a full day without charging and see how it does. I am 3/4 of the way through the day and it is down to 57% so far. Not too bad for shooting and emailing a video, texting, and IMing. So, so far so good on the battery life.

The camera is absolutely amazing. The video is awesome quality, if you wanna see a good example check out this music video shot completely with the iPhone, its pretty crazy.

I'm going crazy with twitpic now since before I wasn't able to upload and tweet images from my phone, so now I can do that as much as I want.

So that is as much as I'm going to review right now. This is only part 1 of I don't know how many parts of my iPhone 3GS review. Keep coming back to see more review updates.

Some Blogging Tips

2009-06-22T11:13:00.005-04:00

So I'm quickly realizing that my blogging for the summer may be more sparse than I had originally anticipated. My new job is consuming much of my time, but hopefully sparseness just means richer content.

That leads me to today's post.

This past weekend Josh Puckett and I attended Podcamp Ohio2 in Columbus, Ohio. So we dragged ourselves out of bed on Saturday morning and began our 2 hour trek up to Columbus, OH.

The day consisted of 6 sessions from 10AM-5PM. The sessions were focused mostly around podcasting and blogging. There were also some sessions on digital marketing, and of course almost all of these sessions involved twitter (what doesn't involve twitter these days).

Probably one of the biggest things I took away from the day was some helpful blogging tips.

1. "Content is King" - Keep your blog's content very rich and engaging. If you don't have good content then it doesn't matter how good the design is, or how much you market it, it is never going to take off.

2. To-the-point - Keep your posts succinct and to the point. This may depend on your audience, but under all circumstances you don't want to post a book each time. I struggle with this, sometimes I just find myself rambling on about unnecessary things.

3. Adapt to your audience - Use google analytics to discover what keywords are being hit the most and what days you get the most readers. Google analytics are invaluable to you as a blogger.

Those are the main things that I took away. I also went to a very good session with Gabe Taviano called "Digital Disciples". I will post more on this session later.

For now, take those tips and go blog.

Do you practice any of the tips that I mentioned?

A Fun Job

2009-06-12T17:15:00.007-04:00

I started my new job on Tuesday. And just in the short 4 days that I have worked as the "media guy" at Calvary I have noticed that this job is going to be different from any job that I have ever had before. And I mean "different" in the absolute best way possible.

In the past 4 days I have worked over 30 hours. And usually with any other job that I have had 30 hours feels like 30 years. It just drags on throughout the day and I look forward to that time when I can leave to go home. But this week has literally flown by. Yesterday I worked 9 hours and it felt like it was 3 hours.

So I was thinking about this and the reason why time goes by so fast is because I'm actually doing stuff that I like doing. On Wednesday I spent all day creating signs for an event in the church this coming Sunday, and I enjoyed doing it. There was just such a satisfaction when I was done, because I knew that it was something that I had created and accomplished.

Now I realize it is only the first week, and it is all still new to me and fresh, and it may get a bit old after a while, but I don't foresee that happening. As long as there are always projects for me to work on then I don't think it will get old. And there will always be projects for me to work on. It has also been a good week because they gave me my own office, which is awesome, and today Katrina made me my own name plate for the outside of my office. I'm kinda mad I forgot to take pictures of everything, but there will be pictures coming soon.

So, moral of the story, its awesome to have a job that requires you to do stuff that you love. Imagine that. :)

How was your week?

p.s. I don't know what that picture of the penguins has to do with anything, but it is what came up when I googled for "fun job"

A Curveball in Life

2009-06-08T11:55:00.004-04:00

Brace yourself for a bit more lengthy post. I'll try to keep it short, but you know how that goes.

So a ton has taken place in my life over the past 4 days, and God has thrown me a big curveball. Thankfully I can now talk about this publicly.

I have been emailing my senior pastor at my home church in Covington, KY for the past couple months. While I was still at school in Chicago he told me that he wanted to meet with me when I came home just so I could share with him some of the ideas that I had for media in the church. So I met with him this past Wednesday and it went very well. I can't really talk about all of the stuff that we discussed but it was very exciting to see how much he was willing to implement alot of the ideas that I had.

So we met for about an hour and a half and then I left. A couple hours later he found me at the church at offered me a job for the summer to do media and tech in the church. As many of you might know this was something that I had been burdened about for a while, and it came as a huge surprise that he was offering me this job. The only catch was that I was supposed to start my sports ministry internship with a soccer camp the very next day. I had no idea what to do. I knew where my desires were but I wasn't sure if those were God's desires for me. So I talked to my parents about it, I called my advisor at school, and then finally talked to the leadership at the soccer camp and they told me to sleep on it, come to training and then make a decision.

I went to the first day of training, and by the end of the day I had made my decision. I knew that my church needed me in this time, and this was where God wanted me. So I told them my decision and thankfully they were very understanding, and they didn't want me in a place where God didn't want me.

So I am now officially working for Calvary Baptist Church as the...well I don't know what my "official title" is yet, but I'll be working alot with the media and service production.

So needless to say I am very excited about what this summer holds. I have alot of great ideas, but it is going to be alot of work to implement them in the correct way, but I know I'm up to the task.

That is what has been going on in my life recently.

I've spent the past 3 days cleaning my room, and I really mean cleaning my room. I got rid of so much junk, it was ridiculous. And I had to setup what somewhat resembles an office, so its nice to have some workspace now.

I would appreciate your prayers this summer as I begin this journey into implementing alot of new technologies into the church that I believe can be very beneficial in furthering the kingdom.

Thank you all so much.

What are you doing this summer?

Hedo Turkoglu's Twin

2009-06-05T12:02:00.005-04:00

Turns out I have a friend that looks very similar if not almost identical to the now well-known NBA Basketball player Hedo Turkoglu. He plays for the Orlando Magic, who by the way, got stomped last night by the L.A. Lakers. It is funny because every time me and my buddies watch the Orlando Magic play, without fail, someone will mention that our friend, Joe Aprile has a twin brother, Hedo Turkoglu.

Don't believe me?
See for yourself...

On the left is the NBA player Turkoglu, on the right is our friend Joe Aprile

I Chopped All My Hair Off

2009-06-02T17:42:00.002-04:00

So I got it all chopped off? My hair I mean. It was a sad day, but it had to be done. It was just going to be too much of a pain dealing with it this whole summer while I'm doing my internship, coaching soccer and running soccer camps all summer.

Just for the record, I love my long hair a million times more than my short hair but it will grow back, I promise.

Here's a before and after pic

A Word of Wisdom

2009-05-31T13:42:00.004-04:00

My last post was somewhat lengthy so I'll keep today's brief with just a word of wisdom.

If you haven't seen a person in at least a year, if not longer then don't go around talking about them negatively because of a negative experience you had with them 3 years ago. People change over long periods of time, sometimes in positive ways, so you don't know if that person is still the same or not. So don't speak about them in the present tense like they are still that way.

Thats all for today.
If you're confused, don't worry about it.

Facebook Will Not Die

2009-05-30T13:40:00.013-04:00

Recently a friend of mine, John Underdown, wrote a facebook note titled "The Death of Facebook" in which he basically says that facebook is on its death-bed, and that soon it will die. He then outlines some reasons for this happening. Actually to save you some time, just go read the note and then come back and read the rest of this post.

As soon as I read this note I immediately disagreed with it. I held myself back from commenting on it on facebook because I knew my comment would be way too long. I knew that what I had to say would be most appropriate in the form of a blog post. So I waited a few days and then I read a blog post from my friend Joseph Dickens in which he agreed with John in some ways.

So let me just take this time to disagree with both of you. LOL. (Don't worry, I'm friends with both of them so they shouldn't take offense to that). And let me just preface this post by saying that I am very biased towards facebook, as you will see soon enough.

One of the big reasons that they both gave for the near death of facebook is all of the annoying fan pages that people have created, and dumb surveys that you can take. Consequently all of this stuff shows up in your newsfeed. I agree, this is annoying, but its not near enough to kill facebook. O, and by the way, if one of those dumb surveys shows up in your newsfeed all you have to do is click that little hide button, and it won't show that certain survey anymore. That is the nice thing about facebook, is that it has filters, so you don't have to see things that you don't want to see.

Also, it is not like anyone is forcing you to become a fan of "sleeping in" or any of those other ridiculous fan pages that have been created. If you don't want to become a fan, then don't. Its as simple as that.

Another reason that was mentioned was that facebook is always changing their "look" or UI (User Interface) or "design" to put it in laymen terms. And I'll agree that people have complained, and actually facebook has listened to some of those complaints and given the users what they want. And people might turn away from facebook for a couple days, or a week, or maybe even a month, but facebook has over 200 million users. Let me just say that again, 200 million users. Or maybe if I actually put in the real number form 200,000,000 users. I mean, maybe if a couple million stopped using facebook completely for good, that might put a dent in their user base, but even still, they're not too worried about it. They know that there is nothing else out there that can even come close to competing with them in the social networking world, so they know that those people will eventually come back to facebook. Why?
Because everyone they know is on facebook, and again, nothing can compete.

So I hardly think that the change of the design will contribute to facebook's death. After all, as the internet evolves people want information faster and faster, and they are just adapting to that change. And let's not forget about friendfeed that probably has the most real-time interface of all social networks right now. For those of you who don't know, it is a twitter-like service that actually updates real-time in your browser. Somewhat like the new real-time update in facebook except you don't have to click the "show 3 more posts" button, it just does it automatically. So that is the way that the internet world is headed and facebook is just adapting to that.

John also gives the reason of facebook having a constitution, or more properly a "Terms of Service" and people getting upset over the changing of those, therefore leading to people leaving facebook. And my response to that is basically what I just said about people leaving facebook. They will leave, but they will come back. And facebook has to have those Terms of Service, and people were rightly getting upset over the changing of those because I don't want facebook to have the right to do whatever they want with my photos or information...do you? I think that might be something worth getting upset about.

So those are the reasons that John gives that facebook is dying. He says, "We are killing facebook." And John, we most definitely have the ability to kill facebook, but to say that we are, I believe is false, and to say that we are going to is probably even false.

Why?

Because there is nothing out there that can compete with facebook. Myspace has its place in social networking but it will not kill facebook, Twitter has its place, but I believe even that will not kill facebook. Until something comes along that is...(I'm sitting here trying to think of a word that could describe a facebook killer)...amazingly awesome, facebook will not die, after all, there is too much investment in facebook as a company for Mark Zuckerberg (founder of facebook) to just let it die.

Joseph also wrote some other good points on his blog post about texting and twitter and such, but I won't address those right now. If you all have made it this far in the post then I should probably be paying you to read this because the length was enormous, but here's something just as good, whoever goes through and tells me how many times I mentioned the word "facebook" in this post will win a special prize, but you must follow me on twitter @jburno and then @reply me the answer. And if this wasn't the most biased post that you've ever read than I don't what is, because I'm very biased towards facebook, but only because there is nothing else out there that can compete.

So with that, hey, if you want to delete your facebook account for any sort of reason, go right ahead, I could care less, but don't give yourself enough credit to think that you are gonna "kill" the social networking giant we know as facebook.

To those who I have referenced in this post, I love you deeply even if I disagree with you.

What do you think?
I really do want to know. And I'm glad that John wrote that note because it initiates great discussion.

The Internet's Influence on Education Part 2

2009-05-30T12:07:00.000-04:00

In the first part of this post series I talked about the large influence that I think the internet is having and is going to have on education. I talked specifically about the area of graphic/web design because that is what a couple of my friends have alot of experience in. My friends have had no formal education and training in this area and yet they have jobs in the "real world" in these areas.

Where did they learn everything?

The internet!

So what does this mean for us?

Well when I say "us" I'm referring to myself as a student who has 1 more year in college and then is going to be released into the "real world." So I guess I could better phrase that question, what does this mean for me? But you could apply the question to yourself.

For me I think it means that I must use the internet as a resource. Notice I said, resource, not the ultimate source. The internet offers a multitude of great things to be learned but sometimes it doesn't cut it. Sometimes a book is a great resource. But either way, I cannot ignore the fact that the internet is one of the biggest sources of information available.

Also, I think it means that I must remember the old adage "all things in moderation." The internet is a great thing, and I'll be the first to tell you that social media and social networking are very great things. But I have learned in the past year that social networking cannot and hopefully never will be a substitute for face2face interaction. I'm a huge advocate of facebook, twitter, blogging, etc. but it will always come down to getting away from your computer and meeting those people in person and sharing your passions and goals with them. (Sorry that was a bit of a social media tangent, but I think it applies here).

So I think for students in college or even high school and lower ages I would say this, learn everything you can from the internet. Figure out what your passions in life are and study whatever that is in college. If you have an opportunity to get a job that could be a career then go for it. Notice I'm not telling you to not go to college and not get a degree but sometimes or maybe alot of times you can learn more from researching the internet than you can from sitting in a classroom using outdated methods and outdated equipment. (I mean that last paragraph in the most positive way possible).

What does this mean for those who are teachers or professors?

Use the internet to your advantage. Use it for all the reasons that I just talked about. It is a great, FREE resource. And in many times there are people out there that know more than you might know about a certain subject or can give a different view on a subject that will help your students understand the subject better. I think this can be applied to every grade, every subject, every age. Our kids need to learn how to use the internet the right way because if we don't teach them they're gonna try to learn on their own and sometimes that may not be the best thing.

So I'm gonna go ahead and say it...

If you are planning on studying some type of graphic design, video editing, web design, photography or any other type of media then I'm gonna assume you already know alot about these things. So if you just wanna get your degree just for the sake of getting a job that you could already have then go to a small school because its gonna be easy for you but you're not gonna learn much. But if you want to learn more and really get good training then you should probably spend the money and go to a top-of-the-line school that uses good equipment, and up-to-date methods. This way you are learning alot and getting a degree.

This post was obviously focused around students, but also I hope that it helped out those who are teachers as well. There may be more posts to come in this series, I haven't quite decided yet, but I think this will do for now.

Also, a reader commented on my last post and said that the content of the post was more biased toward the internet rather than education, and I'll admit that yes I am very biased toward the internet, but I hope this post was a little more balanced.

What do you think?

Should we be teaching our kids how to use the internet?

Do we even need to teach them how to use the internet...?

...or should we just let them figure it out on their own?

The Unity of Sports

2009-05-29T12:55:00.000-04:00

Well yesterday was a day filled with sports. Literally, every activity I participated in yesterday was centered around some type of sport. And yesterday I was reminded of why sports is such an important factor in our culture.

First was at 2:30pm the Champions League Final took place. Barcelona took on the powerhouse Manchester United. I watched this game with Jason Tucker at his house because we both love soccer and he has an awesome TV. Everyone was picking Manchester to win, but I was pulling for Barcelona, and Barcelona took everyone by surprise by winning the Championship 2-0. They scored a goal early in the game and then Manchester never really got into a rhythm.

While I was in the process of watching this game I got a call from my aunt who had 3 tickets to a Cincinnati Reds baseball game that was giving away. So I got those tickets and me, Jason, and Joseph Dickens went to that game after watching the Champions League Final. The Reds game was fun. We had great seats and we won 6-1, and Jay Bruce tore it up with 2 homeruns, and a triple to right field.

Then immediately following the game we went back to Jason's house and joined some other friends and watched the NBA Western Conference Finals in which the LA Lakers are playing against the Denver Nuggets. The Lakers won last night to put them ahead in the series 3-2. This was a great time to hang out with friends, friends who I haven't spent alot of time with lately due to being away at school.

So yesterday I was very much reminded of how much of a socializing tool sports can be.
I am reminded of how sports can bring a group of people together whether they have many common interests or not. It can foster relationships in the most diverse groups of people.
I am reminded of why I have devoted the past 3 years and the next year of my life to studying "sports ministry" and different ways to minister to people through sports.

Because sports unites people. People of different color, race, culture, ethnicity.

What experiences have you had with sports unifying those around you?

I Feel Sorry for the Cavaliers

2009-05-26T16:57:00.000-04:00

So recently I have gotten interested in the NBA playoffs. In fact probably more interested than ever in past years.

Why?

Well probably because every time a new game is played I am just watching and waiting to see what amazing feat Lebron James or Kobe Bryant is going to do. What ridiculous amount of points each of them are going to score. I think it is this that has attracted me to the NBA playoffs this year. And I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of any team that is in the playoffs this year, but I will say that I would like to see a Laker vs. Cavaliers Final Series. I could care less who wins but I just think it would be a good series.

But what has caught my interest more than the playoffs in general has been how much the media has been talking about Lebron James. At first I was just hearing them talk alot about him during pre and post-game but then when I was watching a game I couldn't believe how much the commentators were talking about Lebron during the actual game. It was almost as if the rest of the team didn't exist.

And of course anyone who has watched TV in the past couple days has seen the amazing last second shot by Lebron to win the game by 1 point. This just sent it over the top. Ever since then I have not heard one name of another player on the Cav's talked about except for Lebron James. Granted he has led his team this far in the playoffs but without the rest of that team they would never be where they are right now, and it could be argued that without Lebron they would never be where they are right now. So I guess it is a two-sided coin.

But nonetheless, if I were a player on the Cav's I think I would be pretty angry for never getting any credit. But maybe the Cav's are just a team full of awesome sportsman-like guys who all understand that it is not about credit but about the team winning. Maybe...but I know deep-down those guys have to be wanting some of that spotlight.

I do know one thing, that team is gonna need alot more than just Lebron to win the game tonight against the Magic, and that was proven two days ago when they lost by 10 points. So I'm hoping the whole Cav's team shows up tonight and just blows the Magic out, but we shall see.

Is it just me here, or is there someone else out there that shares the same view, and feels sorry for the rest of the Cav's team?

Never Forget

2009-05-26T13:22:00.001-04:00

I was reminded yesterday of how important it is to remember those loved ones who have passed away. I went with my dad and sister to put a small American flag next to my grandpa's grave because he had served in them military. It had been at least a year or more since I'd been to his gravesite. As we got out of the car I started trying to remember the person that my grandpa was. It turns out it had been a while since I had actually given that much thought to remembering who he was. All of a sudden I started to remember all the things that he used to do, the interactions that I had with him before he died when I was 12 years old. It was amazing to me that I really had forgotten about those interactions, just because I had not intentionally tried to remember.

If you have a loved one that has passed away either a long time ago, or recently I would charge you to always remember who they were as a person. Remember the interactions that you had with them. Remember the quirky things they used to do that made you laugh or put a smile on your face. Never get caught up in the busyness of life that you forget about those who have come before you.

I remember as a kid whenever I would see my grandpa in church he would give me one of those Werther's original butterscotch candies.
I remember when I would stay at my grandma and grandpa's house he would always fix me a snack that always consisted of grape jelly spread over bread.
I remember playing wiffle ball in his front yard (as seen in picture above)
I remember when he had false teeth and he would take them out just to kinda creep me out and make me laugh.

Do you have a loved one that has passed away?
What do you remember about that person?

Never forget about them

The Internet's Influence on Education Pt. 1

2009-05-25T18:15:00.000-04:00

Much of the conversation I have been having with a couple of my friends has been centered around

1. the internet

2. education

3. the internet's influence on education.

But I am not just talking about any type of education, although the internet is having a very large influence on all types of education, I am talking specifically about education in the fields of graphic/web design and media. I have had a recent interest in learning more about web design and CSS, because I'm probably going to have to use it somewhere down the road for a future job. So I've been talking to my good friend and graphic/web designer, Josh Puckett, @joshpuckett. He has been helping me greatly in this area, and through this some great conversations have taken place.

I'm quickly realizing that if you don't spend a ridiculous amount of money, and go into serious debt to go to a top-of-the-line "big name" graphic/web design school, then you're not going to learn much in this field. Or at least if you're planning on making this your career then you're going to be very behind in the web design world if you just go to any ol' tech school.

My friend, Matt James has been taking graphic/web design classes from a tech school in South Carolina. He has had no formal training in this area before, and yet he said that his classes have been a breeze and a joke. Everything that he knows has been self-taught up to this point. And not just self-taught by messing around in Photoshop, but he has learned the majority from tutorials on...THE INTERNET.

And this is only one real-life example. I could give the example of myself and how I have never had any formal training in Final Cut Pro but yet, if I wanted to/had the time, I could make a good amount of money from what I know about video and media. In fact let me give an even better example. Josh Puckett has never had any formal training to a large extent in graphic/web design, and yet he has a full-time job as a designer for a fairly large company in Chicago.

I could go on all day with examples, but the point is that the way people are learning is changing. It is changing so much that I think the small design schools will go down drastically, if not go away. The only reason I think they might stay around is 1. because not all people learn the same way, so some might need face2face interaction. 2. Also I think that some people might not have the resources that a school might have. But honestly, for the price that one might pay for a year of school, you could get a decent computer and an internet connection instead. But the biggest reason, 3. is going to be because someone can't give themselves a degree, or a diploma. For some jobs that is all the employer cares about. For some companies it is all about the paper, which is sad, because I'll bet that many people without that diploma could do better work than those with a bachelors in graphic/web design. I hate to say that, but it is true.

So I think it is going to be interesting to see how this affects those schools, actually I'll almost guarantee that it is already affecting them, I just can't see the direct affects because I'm not attending one everyday. But it is very hard for me to think that their enrollment is not being affected by the internet.

So what does this mean?
...for us?
...for our kids?
...for those that we may teach in the future?

Well this post is getting long. So I will give my answers to those questions in the next part of this post series.

What do you think about internet and education?
Agree?
Disagree?

One of the Purposes of Blogging

2009-05-25T16:24:00.001-04:00

A couple months ago I was going through a very large time of learning in my life. I was learning alot about myself, and the way I interact with those around me, especially those in the community that I live in at school. As a result, I wrote a blog post about the things I was learning, and it actually turned out to be somewhat of an apology for my past actions.

I did not publish the post immediately. I was very unsure of whether I should post such personal information on the world wide web. I talked to one of my friends about it and this is what she said (paraphrase),

"One of the purposes of a blog is to help others who might be going through the same situation. To give them some insight into your thought process, and how you came out of the situation."

It was great to have this reminder of why I write this blog. I think we (bloggers) need to be reminded of this daily. We are not always blogging for our own personal gain, but we are always blogging so that others will gain some insight or knowledge. We always need to have this in the back of our mind as we are blogging.

picture courtesy of http://www.stonebriar.org/helping-others.html

Old Friend Encounters

2009-05-24T15:18:00.000-04:00

It is so great to be able to see friends that you have not seen in literally over a year. And not only is it good to see them, but it is even better to get to catch up with them, and see how they are doing.

I experienced one of these encounters today as one of my friends from high school, Matt James, was back in town for the weekend. He has been down south working for "The Academy of Arts," (sorry I would provide a link but I do not have one). He is also going to school at a technical institute, majoring in Web & Graphic Design.

It is great to see how both of us have matured, and we have common interests so it was great to see what he has learned in those areas.

It is also crazy to hear that he is dating a girl that he is planning on marrying in the very near future. But then again, it is crazy to see many of my friends get engaged and married. And yet its kinda ironic because I'm sitting here, single and happy. LOL. O well, thats life, right? We all grow up, mature, get old, married, or stay single, and work. I'm quickly learning that is the way life goes. I'm learning this as people are asking me about school and such, but alas, another post for another day.

Are you running into old friends, or people you haven't seen in a while? Do you enjoy these encounters or loathe them?

A picture of me and my friends as seniors on our high school soccer team. I am second from the right "26" and Matt is fourth from the right "28"

The iWork Suite Saved My Life

2009-05-19T11:43:00.000-04:00

The following post is an account of how the Apple iWork Suite saved my life during the preparation and presenting of the presentation I mentioned in my previous post.

The reason I was up until 5:30am preparing this presentation is because I had to create a sport clinic, and present an outline, a budget, a brochure, and prepare a "Powerpoint" or "Keynote" with iWork. So what did I do? I went to the trust iWork suite. I used "Pages" for my outline and brochure. I used "Numbers" for my budget spreadsheet. And I used "Keynote" for my powerpoint presentation.

Let me just say that everything that I created was amazingly easy to do, and looked awesome. The reason it took me so long was because I had to come up with all the content for everything, but when it came to creating everything, it was so simple. So I was glad that I stayed up so late working on this because it was well worth it.

Here's the kicker though. When I handed out my brochures to the class, and then when I started to present my keynote I could audibly hear the "ooo's" and "awe's" from my classmates. Especially in the final slide when I created a pie chart for the budget of the clinic, and the way that I had the chart enter, and then the look of the chart was just awesome, and again I think my classmates were impressed.

So the moral of the story is, if you don't have a Mac, get one. If you have a Mac but don't own the latest iWork 09 suite and you are going to be giving some type presentation anytime soon then you should definitely invest in the iWork 09 suite. Even having "Pages" just writing papers is worth it. I use Pages as my exclusive word processor now, and I have left Microsoft Word in the dust.

Anybody else use Apple iWork? What is your opinion on it? Was your experience as positive as mine?

My Real-Life Twitter Story

2009-05-19T11:17:00.000-04:00

This is my real-life twitter story for the week.

So me being the procrastinator that I am, put off this big final presentation until the night before it was due. I started working on this presentation at about 9pm that night. I was working on it on-and-off while being distracted every couple minutes. Then I took a 2 hour break to have a massive dance party (that is another story for later). I came back to my presentation at about 1:15am. I did not complete it until 5:30am.

At this time I proceeded to update my twitter saying, "I'm finally going to bed. Hopefully I can get 2 hours of sleep." (I actually ended up oversleeping and getting about 4, but I cut it real close to presentation time)

So I go to class and my professor asks me if I got much sleep, and he said that he saw my twitter at 5:30am that morning. I completely forgot that he was following me on twitter. I told him that I actually got about 4 hours because I overslept. This actually resulted in him having sympathy for me.

I just thought it was funny that the very professor I was presenting to that morning was the one who was following me on twitter and saw that I was up all night doing the presentation for his class. I don't know my grade yet, but hopefully I did well.

Do you have any real-life twitter stories? I wanna know about them.

Growing Close

2009-05-17T15:55:00.001-04:00

Well I am officially done with my Junior year of College, and only 1 more year to go. This post will not be a reflection on what I've learned this year, but rather a reflection on someone who I have grown really close to over the year.

This person has been one of my roommates this year, his name is Nate Nearpass or @natenearpass on twitter. I do have another roommate, his name is Kyle Isabelli, and I love him dearly, but I'd like to talk about Nate right now.

I did not realize it until the day that I was leaving, but I have grown really close to Nate over the past year. And most of this is due to the fact that we roomed together. We have spent measurably much more time together than we have in years past. It is also due in part to both of our break-ups this year, and we have each helped each other majorly through those. But I think the mere fact that we have spent so much time together has made a huge difference.

The day I was packing up and getting ready to leave, I was telling him goodbye, and I realized that I am going to be talking to him alot more this summer than I have in past summers. I have talked to him practically everyday for the past 2 semesters. We have talked about lives, school, everything. Not to mention our videoblog/internet TV show has taken off, and we have had a blast with that.

So even though he is going to be in Africa and California the whole summer, and I will be traveling coaching and running soccer camps, we will definitely still stay in contact with each other and keep each other update on what is happening in our lives.

I just want to encourage you to cherish those people who are close to you, and who understand you, and will listen to you, and will talk to you. Because they are very few and far between.

To all my other friends out there, I love you all greatly, and I could write a whole blog post about each one of you, but this has risen in my mind recently with leaving school, so I thought I'd write about it.

Love you all

Do you have someone in your life that you are close to, or that you will be leaving soon that you are going to miss extremely?

Also below you will find the latest episode The Wheel Seat, if your interested.

Live Episode Update

2009-05-08T02:38:00.000-04:00

Recently I think I've been so busy that either I just haven't taken the time to think about things to write about, or there really has been nothing worth writing about. Maybe a bit of both.

But one thing that is worth writing about is me and my roommate's live talk show "The Wheel Seat" that we hosted tonight. The show is somewhat of a cross between a video blog and a talk show. Usually we record episodes about once a week and post them, but then every month or so we host a live episode where we take people's calls, and give away stuff, and just have alot of fun.

Tonight was probably our most anticipated live show that we have ever hosted. The anticipation surrounding it all had to do with the giving away of an iPod. That was our hook to draw people in. We said that if we reached 75 viewers during the show then we would give away the iPod. I was really excited about the show, and I thought that we could really make it to 75 viewers. Unfortunately though we only achieved half of our goal.

It was still alot of fun, and great to interact with our fans and we did give away a Chipotle gift card, and a mug signed by us, the hosts of the show.

There are a couple things that we still need to work on.
1. The phone system - we have been using Talkshoe which is an online service that allows you to host a show so that people have the ability to call in from their phone or computer. The past 2 times we have used this service, and it works great until about 40 minutes into the show, and then it just randomly locks up for no reason, therefore locking up the phone lines. So we have yet to perfect this system.
2. The phone audio - using the system we have we can only talk to people over my cell phone, which works but even when on speaker phone it is difficult to hear the person on the other end. I need to figure out how to pipe the computer audio through Ustream but I still have yet to do that.

Then there are some other minor things we need to work on. Such as, better content for the show.
But despite these glitches, it is still a blast to produce a show like that, and it leaves me with the desire to produce shows like that all the time.

I have more to write about producing shows, and new media, but I will save that for another post.
Just wanted to write a bit about our live episode tonight.

O, and below you can watch the commercial that we made the day before the show to remind people about it. Its pretty funny.

Weekend Update 5/1

2009-05-04T08:47:00.000-04:00

A quick weekend update.

Didn't really do anything Friday, so I'll go ahead and skip to Saturday's excitement.
We had a scrimmage against Wheaton's Club Team on Saturday morning, and we played at Wheaton, so it was a really nice turf field. This was a big game for us because it was our first time playing together in the spring, and last time we played this team they beat us 4-1.

About 20 minutes into the first half I went up for a ball and came down on my left ankle in a very weird way. In fact as soon as I landed I knew that something was wrong. I felt immediate pain. I ended up being taken off the field and sitting out the rest of the game. We did win though! 2-1! This is a big win for us, for the reasons I explained earlier.

So I got driven back to school, and my roommate, Kyle, drove me to the hospital where I had it x-rayed only to find out that it was only sprained, thank God. So I've been hobbling around on crutches since then, and its been great fun. Ha.

Another update is that we released the 14th episode of the Wheel Seat. On this episode we announced our next live show on Thursday 5/7 @ 10:17pm CST, 11:17pm EST. This is going to be a great episode and I'm really excited about it.

We have set the challenge that if we reach 75 viewers during the show then we will give away the ultimate prize. To Be Announced. I think this goal is totally doable, and I'm excited to see what happens. So check it out.

O yeah, and I purchased http://www.thewheelseat.com which currently forwards to our facebook group, but on Thursday it will forward to our live show. So that's pretty exciting.

Get A Room!

2009-04-29T23:24:00.000-04:00

I don't know about you, but here at my school, Moody Bible Institute, some of the students are seriously ridiculous. You know those dating high school couples that are so high on hormones and physical touch that its ridiculous? Yeah well I thought I was going to leave those people in high school, but when I came to Moody I realized I was wrong.

I just want to tell a quick story, and then conclude my rant.

So I was standing in line in our cafeteria today, waiting patiently to receive my food when I noticed that this couple in front of me are just all over each other. Immediately I'm just annoyed to death. Not that I'm bitter towards dating couples or anything, but its just disgusting sometimes when you see people that are just constantly all over each other.

Back to the story. So I'm just standing in line, waiting to get my food so I can get away from these lovebirds, (what you are about to read is completely true) when I see the guy stick his spoon up the sleeve of his girlfriend's short sleeve shirt and start rubbing her shoulder with it. NO LIE! I about gagged. The girl of course kept saying "Oh stop it" in her little squirrelly voice, and the guy pulled the spoon out of her shirt and then proceeded to use it.

I realize that the people that I saw doing this could be reading this post right now, and actually I'm hoping that you are reading. If you are reading this, take a lesson from the wise, either get your hormones under control or get a freaking room.

Ok, thats my rant for the day.

P.S. I realize this may seem like nothing to some of you. I know some of you go to or have gone to public or state colleges, and you probably see much worse than this everyday, but here at Moody we have strict rules about PDA and physical touch between couples. Because of these rules couples do everything else possible except kiss, therefore it gets pretty disgusting.

Do you feel the same way I do about this?

Have a nice day

Public Transportation vs. Driving

2009-04-28T14:15:00.000-04:00

Today I learned the hard way that traveling by car is not always the easiest nor the fastest. I needed to go to a soccer store here in Chicago and I naturally thought that since I had a car on campus that I should drive there. I know how to get there on the "L" train but I figured driving would be easier, but I was drastically wrong.

What could've taken me 45 minutes by train instead took me 90 minutes by car. Part of that was because I got directions to the wrong store and when I got there it was closed. So I drove to the one I had been to before which took longer than expected because of traffic.

When I arrived at my destination I looked at 2 different shoes. I wanted to try on both of them but they only had one of them in my size. So I tried those and didn't like them, but I'm almost sure that I would've liked the other type but they aren't getting another shipment in until next week.

So I returned from my trip to the soccer store somewhat disappointed. Did I mention it probably cost me a couple bucks in gas and a quarter for a parking meter. But I did learn a valuable lesson.

Sometimes taking public transportation is easier, faster, and cheaper than driving.

Who is Your Mentor?

2009-04-27T16:42:00.000-04:00

This weekend has been a great one for me. It has allowed me to clear my head, forget about school, and just focus on relationships with the guys around me.

I went on a camping trip this weekend with my dorm floor for the first time in my 3 years of living on the floor. I've never really been that interested in going previously, just because I wasn't really close with any guys on the floor, and the guys that I was close with usually didn't go either, so had just decided against it. But this year I did have some close friends going, so I decided to go as well. And I am really glad that I did.

The trip gave me an opportunity to just relax, but to also come closer with some guys that I was already close with, as well as get to know some guys that I didn't know prior to the trip. God has really been showing me how important it is to have strong male relationships in my life. I have realized this through losing some relationships that I've had previously, as well as gaining some new ones.

Without other guys in my life to keep me accountable, and frankly keep my sane, I would be living a life probably far from God.

I look at my current living situation, in a college dorm, surrounded by Godly men, and I am so thankful for the community I live in. Because I think of friends back home that don't live in a community like I do, and I wonder what kind of accountability they have in their life, if any at all. And if they have none at all, do they even realize that, or are they just living life going throughout everyday, making decisions on their own, without help or advice.

I realize that there are daily decisions that should be made independently, but there are also very crucial and important decisions that need to be made. Decisions that should not be taken lightly, and yet I know guys that don't really consult anyone on these decisions. They don't seek wisdom or advice, they just make decisions based on what they know, and alot of times what they are feeling, and I don't think that is the best thing to do.

I remember in high school I would meet with one of my mentors usually once-a-week just to talk about life, and usually if I had a big decision to make then I would seek advice from them, and over my years here at Moody I have found older guys to fulfill that role, but I think there are alot of guys who don't have this mentor role fulfilled in their life, and they don't know what they're missing.

This semester I've actually not had anyone in that mentor position in my life, and I've definitely missed it. My old roommate graduated last year, and I used to meet with him weekly to talk about life. But thankfully I still have my roommate, Nate, to talk to and to help me through life. And I think he will be a lifelong friend that will always be there, and I think every guy needs that.

It is all about relationships. Relationships with each other. But most importantly, a relationship with God.

Our relationships with each other are just ways to help us in our relationship with God.

Do you have a mentor or friend? Someone to go through life with? Someone with whom you seek wisdom and advice?

If not, I think you should find someone who would be willing to. And the cool thing is that it goes both ways. They help you, and you help them. They may have more experience in one area of life, while you may have more experience than them in another area of life.

It is all about helping each other in order to glorify God and grow closer to Him.

Changing of the PCM

2009-04-26T23:17:00.001-04:00

So today is the day...Today is the day that I change my PCM.

For the past 2 years here at Moody I have had the same PCM (Practical Christian Ministry). I have been a Jr. High leader at the Refinery youth group at Calvary Community Church in Schaumburg, IL. I got connected with the Youth Pastor through one of my friends who used to be a former student of his.

Ever since I started as a Jr. High leader I have loved it, and have felt useful and like I'm having an influence on these kid's lives, and helping them grow closer to God. It has been great.

BUT if you are regular reader of my blog then you know that recently I have had a burden for media in the local church. I have really been wanting to get involved in my church here, Park Community Church but just have not had the time to make the commitment. But I have been in contact with one of their media director's, @jasonwidney, and I had been considering possibly switching my PCM to working on the media team at Park, but I wasn't completely sure if it was what I should.

Well, tonight I attended the evening service at Park and I talked to Jason for the first time in person, and asked him if they did PCM's for Moody students, and he said absolutely. So we are going to have coffee this week, and talk more about it.

But I am writing all this to say, that today is when the PCM forms are due, and I am turning mine in and officially changing it, which I am really excited about.

I also emailed the youth pastor that I have been working with, just to let him know what I had been thinking, and he said that I am making a good decision. I told him that I'd like to still be able to come to the Refinery if possible, and he said that'd be great. So hopefully I can make it out there as much as possible, and still keep up with those kids, which would be good.

So I'm excited about what next semester holds as far as my PCM goes. I'm not as much excited about what my classes will hold, considering I have a 7:30am class, OUCH :( but at least I'll still be enjoying my PCM.

Here's to new and exciting PCM's
:)

Should I Change My Twitter Name?

2009-04-21T14:08:00.000-04:00

I'm debating on whether or not to change my twitter name to my real name, instead of burno159. burno159 has been my screen name for everything pretty much since middle school. It started out as my AIM screen name, and ever since then I've just used it for every online service that I sign up for.

Right now I have 230 followers on twitter, which I am satisfied with, but I'm wondering if it could be more if I changed my screen name to my real name. The reason I started thinking about this is because I read a blog post "10 Reasons To Use Your Real Name As Your Twitter @Name" and it raised some good points. For example, it is alot easier for people search for you or retweet you if you use your real name. This is definitely true. It is hard for me to remember someone's name if there are numbers following the name. And there are some other great reasons.

So I throw these questions out to you...

Should I change my twitter name to my real name?

Do you use your real name, or another screen name?

memories

2009-04-20T17:02:00.000-04:00

Do you ever think about 30 years from now when we are floating around in our electric powered cars, and doing whatever futuristic thing you can think of, do you ever think about when we get on facebook how many tangible memories we are going to have. Or maybe they are less tangible than I think, but at least viewable memories.

At least for me, I'll be able to look back on all my pictures, and videos and just laugh and at the things that we are doing now. Specifically I was thinking about me and my roommate's video blog. I just know that I'm going to watch those videos and just laugh hysterically. Not only videos, but also pictures. Just think about the amount of pictures that we are going to as memories compared to our parents. I know for my parents they didn't take a large amount of pictures in their teen and college years. I've seen some, but not near as many as we are going to have at their age.

I mean, just think about the ridiculous amount of pictures that one can take on a single SD card. It is absolutely astounding. And in this post I've been talking about facebook specifically, but who's to say that facebook will still be around in 30 years. In fact I'll almost bet that it won't, at least in the same form that it is today. And who's to say that we will be surfing the net on these "klunky" computers that we have now. I bet in 30 years there will be ways to buy computers that can be implanted into your head, forget the device, just surf the net with your eyes.

Ok, enough futuristic technology talk. But I write all this to say, make memories now, whether it be pictures, videos, journals, and whatever else you can think of. Cause when you're 50 years old you are sure as heck gonna enjoy lookin back on these times.

flip-flop

2009-04-20T00:13:00.000-04:00

Why are some people so fickle?
Maybe its just human nature.
Or maybe its just that some people don't completely think through certain decisions that they are going to make, so they commit to a decision, and then a couple months later they actually start thinking through that decision and realize that "Oh, that is probably not the best decision to make."

Don't get me wrong, I think its great that they eventually realized what they did, but it just really gets me how many times they go back and forth on a decision. So much so, that I think eventually the decision is no longer a big deal, when in all reality it is a big deal.

If people actually thought through things before acting on their instincts I think alot of trouble could be avoided.
Then again, in other situations if people acted more on their instincts then trouble could be avoided also.

I think people need to have discernment as to how to react in certain situations and decisions, and that is when you will learn the most.

The Weekend Update

2009-04-19T16:49:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update from this past week and weekend.

Moody Bible Institute finally has a new President. His name is Dr. Paul Nyquist. If you were following my facebook statuses, or twitter on Wednesday you already know that. He has 2 kids here at Moody right now, and I know one of them. Everyone keeps asking me what I think about him, and I just keep saying, "I guess we'll see won't we." I mean it is hard to tell much thus far. The only time I heard him talk was when he gave his acceptance speech, in which he did ask the entire Moody student body to become his friend on facebook. LOL. So I did.

Anyways, other than that it was a pretty uneventful week. Actually, I don't even know what I'm saying right now. LOL. It was uneventful as far as school goes, but I was editing video interviews all week for Moody's Jr./Sr. Banquet which took place on Friday night.

I also worked a catering shift last night. It was my first shift in a year. I just think it's an awesome job when you can not work for a year, still be employed and work a shift a year later.

Me and Nate recorded the 12th episode of The Wheel Seat, which you can watch below. And we talk all about this week's happenings. It's a good one. Check it out.

sports ministry emphasis?

2009-04-15T23:40:00.000-04:00

I had an interesting conversation with my roommate Kyle Isabelli tonight as we went on an adventure to buy some Chicago Cubs tickets from a guy in a parking lot. Yeah I know sounds kinda sketch, right? But it turned out to be legit and he got the tickets and we both made it out alive, so thats always good.

So back to the interesting conversation. We started talking about our futures after school. Kyle started talking about his home church (Grace Church) and how big of an emphasis they put on sports ministry. They have several sports leagues that they run almost year-round, and one of their biggest ministries is a Jr. High Upwards basketball league which has about 400 kids. Thats awesome!

The interesting thing is that they don't have a full-time Sports Ministry Pastor on staff, instead they just spread out the different sports ministry responsibilities to different pastors in the church. Apparently this has kept things running pretty well for a while, but Kyle said alot of times it takes away from the other ministries that these pastors are leading, which is not good. A full-time Sports Ministry Pastor would definitely fix this problem, and would most likely add even more to the Sports Ministries at the church.

Then I look at my church and see how what seems like little emphasis they put on sports ministry. I'm not sure how much stuff they do for adults in the church, such as basketball leagues, or other things, but I know its not a huge emphasis. I wonder how many more people we could bring into the church through sports who would otherwise never step foot into a church. I believe that it could be quite a few, and they would get a different perception of what the church is, compared to just coming in on a Sunday morning.

There are so many benefits to having sports ministry in your church. I think Calvary Baptist needs to do more of it.

What kind of an emphasis does your church put on sports ministry?

Do they do sports ministry at all?

Let me know, leave a comment.

I'm trying to get a feel for what other churches are doing in sports ministry.

adapting to the audience

2009-04-15T00:25:00.000-04:00

It is interesting to visit different churches and to see how they're services are structured, and how much that structure has to do with the target audience. I just watched a bit of video from a friend's church (Harmony Christian Church) in Georgetown, KY, and apparently the church is bigger than I thought, which is awesome.

I've never heard this friend speak publicly, so initially it was interesting to here how he speaks to his church, but there are just alot of things that are done different in a church like that compared to a church like my home church. The Pastor and my friend, Dean, of Harmony Christian Church wears a t-shirt and jeans while speaking, and starts out his message by just talking to the people. He makes it very personal.

There are alot of things that this church does differently from my home church.

They have a table in the back of the auditorium with Bibles for those people who did not bring their Bibles or do not have one. This table does not exist without first encouragement that the people bring their own Bibles, but it is back there as a secondary resource.

Then there are other things. Much of the setting is very different, and more contemporary.

Many of these things are as such to adapt to the audience, and obviously Harmony Christian's audience is young, so the things that they do will draw that audience into the church.
The audience at my home church is for the most part adult and seniors. Over the past 10 years the audience has become somewhat younger, but the older audience still dominates, and therefore the setting and such must be adapted to suit the audience. But many times I fear that we are completely missing the present generation. And not only the present generation but more importantly those who are lost, or those who have never stepped foot into a church.

I fear that many times the suit and tie scare alot of people away. Not only the dress, but sometimes our attitudes toward people who have never stepped foot into a church, if they wreak of urine will an usher treat them like anyone else who comes into the church?

I hope so, but I can only speak for myself

I've learned alot since living in Chicago for the past 3 years, and it is alot that I will continue to build upon in my future experiences with the church, whether it is at home at Calvary, or here in Chicago, or somewhere else.

A Speechless Easter

2009-04-14T21:28:00.000-04:00

Well this past weekend was Easter Sunday and I spent it in somewhat of an unusual way, for me at least. Me and about 10 other guys from my floor and from the soccer team spent the weekend at my rommate Nate's house. It was a great weekend overall. It was very relaxing, and great to hang out with a bunch of my friends. We attended Nate's church on Sunday morning where his dad is the pastor.

I returned to school with thankfully absolutely no academic homework. Although I did have about twelve 5 minute interviews to edit and condense into about 16 minutes. So the deadline for those was today, and I started on them at about 11pm last night, and got them done in about 4 hours, and went to bed at 3am. Not too shabby.

To make this week even better, we are going bowling on Thursday for one of my sports ministry classes, and then on Friday night is JSB (Jr./Sr. Banquet). So it is just going to be an all-around fun week.

Check out our latest episode of The Wheel Seat to see just how much fun we had this Easter

class?

2009-04-08T12:27:00.000-04:00

Today was one of the most chill days ever, and the above picture represents how chill it was. And yet it seemed like a very stressed day. The following is literally what I did for the entirety of the day:

- slept in till 10:00am
- went to senior aerobics class (yes you read that right, senior aerobics class, ridiculous)
- lunch
- sat in my room for a couple hours catching up on blogs and such
- soccer
- dinner
- amazing shower
- then just hung out in the room with my roommate Nate
- now I'm sitting in the library with no access to the internet cause Moody's wifi is retarded

I don't know why it has seemed like a stressful day. Probably because I still have to teach an hour long session on Thursday, as well as take an exam by Thursday morning. So I still have lots to do, and the anticipation of that is just killing me.

So anyways, today was also one of those days where I felt like I could literally learn more by sitting in my room rather than going to class.

1. Because it was senior aerobics class
2. One of the bloggers I subscribe to was doing a live interview about his redesign of his blog, and some basic blogging strategies that I found really interesting, but I was only able to watch like 10 minutes of it because I had to go to class. I was really considering skipping, but I decided against it.

I find myself feeling like this many times, and for some of the same reasons. Because I know I'm not gonna get much out of the class, and because I know I could learn something by watching or listening to whatever it is. I can usually find some very useful or informational content somewhere somehow online.

So once again I am frustrated because I feel like I can learn more by not going to class than by going to class. Most of the time I don't think this is true, but every once and a while, I know for a fact that it is true.

O well, I guess this isn't helping my motivation to finish school, lol. So I'm gonna end it here.

the future

2009-04-06T13:57:00.000-04:00

Thoughts about the future of my life have been looming in my mind over the past couple months, and especially over the past week. I went on this trip with my Camp Administration class, in which we visited 6 camps and conference centers in Michigan and Wisconsin. I was initially dreading this trip, but it turned out to be surprisingly interesting, and somewhat beneficial.

It was interesting to meet with the Directors of these camps to see how they are being run, and especially in this rough economic time. One of my interests of course was what kind of emphasis these places put on media and how they integrated that into their camp experience. There were some that put almost no emphasis on it, and others who had exclusive staff dedicated to it.

This just caused me to think more about my passions and talents and how I am going to use them in the future. I have a passion for sports ministry and reaching others for Christ through sports, and I also have a passion for media and the integration of it into different ministries and settings. So I am torn between the two.

Of course I know that these two things can be used together for some type of ministry, and I will see more specifically how this can be done this summer in my internship when I am leading soccer camps, as well as shooting and editing promotional videos.

There is also this huge burden that I have had for the local church and how it presents the gospel through media, and specifically in my home church in Kentucky. And I have had the privilege of seeing it done correctly in my church here in Chicago, so there are many ideas that I would like to take back to my church and implement.

Then there is also the desire to create my own startup doing podcasting, videoblogging, and live video. But I'm not sure how real that idea could be.

So all of these things are ideas that have been floating around in my head, and I just can't stop thinking about them, so naturally they come out in my writing on this blog. And they are all updates in the life of Josh Burns.

sometimes

2009-03-31T17:31:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I just have a ton of stuff to do.
Sometimes I have to do things that I don't want to do.
Sometimes I just want to sleep and forget these things.
One of those times is right now
I am stressed because of all of these things

God give me patience
God give me peace
Amen

my roommate twitters!!!

2009-03-30T10:59:00.000-04:00

I would like to apologize to those readers who have no interest in media whatsoever, my last several posts have been all about media and for me it has been great, because it is a great way for me to get my ideas out there, and get your feedback. But for those who are not interested in that type of thing, it has probably been boring you to death. So this might be the last media related post for a bit. But I've just had media on the mind constantly lately, and there has been lots of stuff going on.

One of these things is that my roommate is now on twitter, and has his own blog. Now I haven't figured out yet whether he's actually realized the value in these things or if he just started doing them because I am huge on both of them. I think its a bit of both.
So his twitter is NateNearpass and his blog is "This is for my people".

He said the thing that drew him to twitter was that he read somewhere that Lupe Fiasco had a twitter, and he had heard me explain the purpose and benefit of having an account, so he decided to go for it, and I'm glad he did. I've been preaching about twitter ever since I realized the purpose and benefit of it, but people just don't get it, and they don't take the time to get it either.

But now that someone who is not a geek is on twitter, I'm hoping that it will catch on among my other friends. I think it will eventually, it just takes a long time. I mean, Nate is already getting discouraged by the fact that one day he had 12 followers and now he only has 9. I told him that is the way twitter is, people come and go. And I told him, it is not as easy as adding friends on facebook. I feel like there's alot more commitment with twitter. I mean it took me 2 years to get to 200 followers. But then again, its not just about your followers, its also about the people that you follow.

Also, to talk about Nate's blog a bit more, he loves to write, and he does it almost constantly, so I think this blog will be good for him. He has posted every day since he created it, and the good thing is, they're not long posts, alot of them are poems.
He was telling me last night that he had a problem that he has written so much, that he could do multiple posts per day if he wanted to. Now that's a good problem to have. LOL.

I told him that its ok if he posts multiple times per day, or he could spread them out over each day, so he always has a post for each day. But I think he's definitely understanding the purpose of social media more and more. And its good. I wish more people would take the time to try and understand it.

Now for those of you who are on twitter, lets show my roommate some love and give him a follow. Let's show him the power of twitter...All together now

Do you twitter?
Do you blog?
Do you have friends who don't see the purpose in either of them?

Let's spread the word, there is purpose in these things, and they can be profitable.

Geek Alert

2009-03-29T12:19:00.000-04:00

Well I woke up on this morning of March 29, 2009 to find that it was absolutely pouring down snow outside, I couldn't believe it. Gotta love springtime in Chicago. I had some friends visiting this weekend Bill & Melody Dickens with their son and good friend of mine Joseph Dickens, and they were supposed to attend church with me this morning, but they called very disappointed to say that they were going to go ahead and drive home as to avoid the snow getting worse. So I attended the early service at Park Community alone.

WARNING: Geek Alert!
Since I went alone I decided to sit behind the media/tech booth and kinda see how their system operates, and dang is it sophisticated. When the church built their new building they just decided to go top-of-the-line with everything, and this included the media department. They had a top-of-the-line sound board, light system, and video/projection system.

It took me a while to figure out but they had an iMac and a Macbook Pro running, and it looked like all they were using the iMac for was playing ambiance music before the service and then recording the service audio. Then they were using the Macbook Pro for what at first looked like projecting and controlling the words on the screen for worship but after watching for a while I realized that they were using that machine for the sole purpose of controlling the backgrounds and videos that were projected behind the words. It looked as though they were using a completely different machine for controlling the words, but this machine was nowhere to be seen in the tech booth. So I still have yet to figure that one out, but I found it very interesting.

So anyways, I write all that to say this, I realized today that there are alot of dreams that I have for my church back home and for the media dept. but most of these dreams have come from watching my church here in Chicago, and these two churches are very different in setting and context, so maybe all of these ideas shouldn't be implemented at my church in KY.

Secondly, I realized that to do implement some of these ideas cost a very large amount of money for hardware and software, and that is money that I know my church would not be willing or able to spend for their media dept.

So I came away from the service today having learned much from the sermon about personal standards for our lives, as well as learning much about the way my church in Chicago does media. It made me want to start serving there in the media dept. so bad, and I still might, but there are just so many other commitments in my life right now. I don't think I could do it.

Anyways, I know this post might not have been beneficial for some of my readers who aren't as geeky as I, but I hope that it was beneficial for those who are interested in this area of media in the church.

How does your church do media? Do they put a big emphasis on it or not?

What's on your mind?

2009-03-16T14:46:00.000-04:00

Over the next week or couple of weeks I will be writing some posts concerning the facebook redesign and some thoughts that I have on it. So just a warning, but I know alot of people have things to say about the "new" facebook so if you have feedback give it to me.

So I just want to point out a couple things that I immediately noticed upon the redesign of facebook's home page. And most of these have to do with facebook's blatant move towards a twitter-like concept and interface.

The first is the change of the status update box at the top of the home page. In the previous version it said, "Josh Burns is..." and then there was a box for me to update my status. One of the first things I noticed was the change to this feature. Now, instead of asking me what I am doing, now facebook asks me "What's on your mind?" And then it gives me a box to type, and then a "Share" button to post it to all of my friend's newsfeeds.

This is definitely going for twitter, because twitter started with asking "What are you doing?" And it still does, but it has evolved into a news aggregator as well as sometimes even a chat. So with this change facebook is trying move in this direction as well, they want to move to content posting, rather than just simply status posting.

Another big interface change is in the user profiles. And I just noticed this today, but when you go to write on someone's wall now instead of posting on their wall, you are now "sharing" something on their wall, and whatever you share on someone's wall is automatically shared on all of your friend's "streams" on facebook's homepage. So that is a big change.

Honestly, I could write for hours about facebook's new design, and its obvious steps toward the evolution of social networking, but this is neither the time nor the place. I enjoy discussing it though, so if you have any feedback leave a comment or shoot me an email or @reply me on twitter, and any other way that you can get in touch with me.

So in the conclusion of this post I'd like to mention the new facebook desktop client that was just released by seesmic(the developers of the popular twitter client Twhirl). It is in it's VERY early stages and there is alot of improvement to be made but I am glad that is where facebook is headed. In fact Tweetdeck has now integrated the facebook client into their twitter client, so that is nice. But just wanted to throw that out there, you can download the standalone facebook client here.

Let me know what you think about all of this stuff.

literally microblogging

2009-03-16T00:32:00.000-04:00

The other day an opportunity presented itself for me to promote twitter to one of my friends. I seized this opportunity considering that hardly any of my friends see the purpose in, or even know what twitter is.

My friend, Jon Looy has a blog that he updates somewhat regularly and it is mostly just different events and happenings in his life, something that probably wouldn't interest someone who doesn't personalize know him, but I enjoy keeping updated on what he's doing.

The other day he made a post and this is what it said in it's entirety,
"I vacuumed the house today. I feel like a woman."

I read that and I just laughed. Just because I know him, and I can see him saying that. But I used this opportunity to comment on this post and tell him how funny it was to read that, but I told him that is the purpose of twitter, a "microblog." And that is all I said about it.

Ya know, its just nice sometimes to give a little plug to twitter, especially since its becoming more and more mainstream, and more people are tweeting.

Therefore I will end this post by using this opportunity to plug twitter and my personal twitter http://twitter.com/burno159

Are you on twitter? If so, what is your twitter handle? If you aren't on twitter, you should check it out.

blogging and singing

2009-03-12T15:24:00.000-04:00

This post is going to include a short tip about blogging. This tip may seem kinda obvious, but I just get reminded of obvious things sometimes that at times aren't so obvious to me.

The other day I was sitting in my room in between classes and my friend Josh Jalandoon (a.k.a. Jollypop) walked in with his guitar and asked if he could play for a bit. I happily said yes because I needed to just relax and I love to listen to Josh play and sing. After a couple minutes he then asked me if he could play a song that he had just written, and of course I said yes.

It was a great song about Jesus' love for us, and how even when we sin he still loves us.

After he was done playing the song I just sat there and then thanked him because it was what I needed. He said that he just got this inspiration earlier that day to write that song, so he had to skip his Greek class to write it.

There are many times when thoughts enter my mind that I think would be great to blog about later, but I fail to write those thoughts down somewhere, and then when it comes time to blog I can't remember those thoughts for the life of me.

So one thing that I am learning and I would advise you to take heed to if you are blogging is to simply jot down a couple sentences about thoughts that come to mind, so that you can remember your general thought when you sit down to type out a blog post. Or if the thought is just too good even only write a couple sentences about you may want to sit down right then and there and just write or type the whole blog post. But either way you shouldn't let those thoughts run away from you because you will regret it later.

a good reminder

2009-03-10T18:06:00.000-04:00

I had a great talk today with a good friend of mine who is also a mother of a good friend of mine. We talked about various different things, but one topic of discussion was the church that I visited this past weekend called Crosspoint Church. Out of this conversation spawned a conversation about media in the church.

Some of you know that I have many ideas about media in the church and how it should be used. I have a burden to implement these ideas in my home church. But something I was thinking about after that conversation took place today was that this burden was not so that I could be recognized or looked at for the things that I am doing in the church, but so that the church could become better at outreaching to those around it, and eventually bring glory to God through this.

I have never said that I want to be recognized for things that I do or am going to do in media in the church, but I have never said that I don't want to be recognized either.

Today I just realized the importance of giving all of the glory to God for the things we do for/in the church. All of these media ideas that I have, that I would like to implement in the church should all come with purpose of glorifying God, and they all do, but I think I need to think more consciously about this purpose.

Just a good reminder

short update - beginning of spring break 09

2009-03-09T19:26:00.000-04:00

For those of you who read my last post, I know it was VERY lengthy and pretty heavy, so I thought I'd give you all a bit of a break for a couple days. So, I hope you all have enjoyed your break from my posts, and I am aware that usually my posts are like reading long chapters from a book, so in the future I'm going to try to keep my posts to a shorter length, just for your sake.

So a short update in my life...
I drove home from Moody on Friday for my spring break in which I get 2 weeks, which is great. I then drove down to Morehead, Kentucky the next day to visit my good friends, Jason Tucker, and Joseph Dickens who attend Morehead State University. So I hung out with them this whole weekend which was a blast. I've got some more thoughts about college life in regards to different types of college experiences, but I'll save those for a later post.

Well, I promised that this would be a short post, so I hope I have kept that promise. I am now home, and enjoying my spring break so far. If you are in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Area and wanna grab some lunch or somethin just give me a call or shoot me an email, all my contact info is on my site, www.joshburns.net.

Be on the lookout for some more posts

Love you all
Have a great spring break 09!

conviction

2009-03-04T19:28:00.000-05:00

The Lord is doing something in my life. I'm slowly beginning to understand it. But I know for sure that the Holy Spirit is convicting me of sin. More specifically the sin of selfishness. Selfishness with my time, and with my relationships. This selfishness has also turned into pride in some contexts.

I have always been a quiet guy. Never had much to say, and I've always struggled with what to say when I meet new people. I have always struggled with relating to people. But this struggle has escalated majorly over I guess the past year. Or maybe it hasn't really escalated that much, but instead has come more to the forefront and is easier for me to see. I think it is a bit of both, maybe more of one than the other. But either way this struggle has turned into a sin, and I think it is displeasing God.

I have always struggled with relationships, whether it be with close friends, not so close friends, or even girlfriends. I have always struggled with communication and making sure that it is not just a one-way relationship. I think alot of what I have been noticing in myself has been brought to the forefront because of my last relationship that I was in with a girl. There were lots of things wrong with that relationship, but one of them was my communication.

Through some conversations with my last girlfriend I realized how selfish I really am. And it didn't seem selfish to me at the time, but looking back, I think it really was. I would say things like, "There are some people that just don't seem worth the time that it takes for me to get to know them, or talk with them." My philosophy on relationships here at Moody has always been that it is better to have a couple close friends, rather than a bunch of people that are your "friends" but you aren't close to. And I still somewhat hold to this philosophy, but I took this to such an extreme that I would just ignore people, or it would be really awkward around people when I run into them. I think alot of this comes back to just my inability to communicate well, but I shouldn't be using this as an excuse for that type of behavior.

The way this has become sin is because I won't bother to get to know people that I don't want to know, and therefore that turns into the perception of pride. Or maybe it is just straight up pride. But either way if alot of people are perceiving me as proud then I probably really am proud.

So I've realized alot through my relationship with my previous girlfriend, and then when we broke up I just became somewhat cynical towards girls in general. And I've developed this unconscious philosophy that I don't want to get close to a girl, or become friends with a girl unless I have the intention of getting closer to her, and eventually dating her. I'm still processing through whether this is the right way to think or not. I mean obviously I shouldn't be thinking this way all the time, but I think there is some truth in this way of thinking.

And throughout all of these things happening within my mind, and me unconsciously developing these philosophies on friendships and relationships I have been becoming more and more entrenched and obsessed with the world of the internet and technology, and more specifically the world of social media on the internet. I know, this sounds really geeky, but it is completely true, and this has had an impact on the way that I behave so I think it is profitable that I write about it.

I have always been a geek. Ever since my parents got their first computer back when I was in grade school I have learned more and more about computers, and have gained this ability to problem solve in the area of computers and technology. Then our household got dial-up internet, and this started to shape my world. But there was so much limitations with dial-up internet that I didn't see much profit in it. But then we got high-speed internet and thats when I really discovered the internet. So over the years I have learned more and more about computers, and technology.

So through various different social media mediums I developed this desire to always stay connected to those in my network, or on the internet. Whether this was through facebook, myspace, twitter, blogging, or any other means of staying connected socially through the internet. Through this I cut myself off from the physical world around me. I have become so entrenched in the technology world that I completely forgot about actually nurturing those relationships in real life. Even over the past semester I will spend hours upon hours just sitting in my room, reading things online, building online community, and fulfilling that desire for connectivity and communication through the internet. But I forgot the most important part, and that was that an online community is only as strong as it is real life. And this contributed to my inability to communicate verbally with people. I can communicate fine online, but when it came to face2face interaction I was in trouble.

So all of these things have added to my quiet nature, and have eventually developed into almost a complete inability to interact verbally and physically with another person.

Today is the National Day of Prayer and we have been in prayer sessions all day here at Moody and it has been awesome. The Lord has convicted me of this very strongly, and to be honest I have not fully processed it yet. I came straight back to my room after the session because I knew that I needed to write these thoughts out or else they would be gone.

I know that I need to do something. I need to take some sort of action in order to stop this sin, and reconcile it, but I don't think I am prepared to write about what those things are yet, because I don't even know exactly what they are.

But one thing I do know for sure is that I need to stop wasting my time here at Moody, stop being selfish with my time, and start investing in other people in a positive way. This means encouraging others, getting to know others better, keeping myself and others accountable, and I think choosing one person to really invest some time in. Whatever I need to do to accomplish these things, I will do.

So I want to apologize to those who I have ignored, who I've created awkward situations with, or who I've hurt because of my own pride. I am sorry, and I hope things can be reconciled.

You might read this and say, "Josh, you are being too hard on yourself." But I don't think I am, and if I really am being too hard on myself, then thats good, because I probably need to be.

If you have any feedback for me then let me know, shoot me an email or something.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope you all have a glorious day

the mind

2009-03-03T17:28:00.000-05:00

The human mind is a very interesting thing, and sometimes a very frustrating thing. Especially the mind of a male. Myself being a male I have personal experience with this. One second I will be doing something and thinking about something, and then the next second my mind is in a completely different place. Many times this is not a good thing. Many times the thoughts that come into my mind are not good, and this is when it becomes frustrating.

It is interesting to see my mind in a conscious battle for purity. It is almost like I can see a little devil and a little angel on each shoulder trying to tell me what to do.

It is in these times when I find myself praying alot. I find myself quoting Scripture back to myself. "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy Word." Psalm 119:9. That is probably King James Version but that is how I memorized it, and that is what helps me the most.

What helps you the most when your mind wanders astray? Do you pray? Do you quote Scripture?

investment

2009-02-24T00:50:00.000-05:00

OK SO if you want to skip all the fun stuff and get to the meat of this post then skip down to the next word that is in CAPS.

This past weekend was a weekend of full of stress, and yet awesomeness at the same time. Actually last week I had two papers hanging over my head all week, which is actually somewhat usual for me because I am such a big procrastinator.

Like, I'm not sure if you realize how big of a procrastinator I actually am (dangit, this next sentence may come back to bite me if a future employer read this, o well). A couple examples: Freshman year I took two classes titled "Old Testament Survey" and "New Testament Survey." For these classes we were required to write summary papers for books of the Bible, and these papers would easily amount to 11 or 12 pages. Just to give you an idea, I always completed every single one of these papers the night before they were due. I'd sit down at my computer and not move for at least 6 hours straight until the paper was completed.

That is just how I worked. I feel like I have no motivation trying to complete a paper a week or two weeks before it is due. I am just more motivated under pressure.

So now that you have a better idea of my philosophy on much of the homework in my life allow me to continue with this story.

So I had two papers that were due today (Monday, 2/23). For both of them I needed some sources from the campus library. With this in mind I headed to the library on Friday and retrieved my sources for my first paper which was only 3 pages in length. I completed this paper in about 3 hours after which I went to an awesome cafe that I had never had the privilege of experiencing before. So it was great to spend some time with them. Though I knew I had a long day ahead of me the next day so I got to bed a bit early, and actually woke up the next morning around 10:30am, which for those of you who know me is early for a Saturday morning.

The second paper that I had to do was an exegetical paper on a passage in Romans. Now this was the big kahuna. It had to be 9–10 pages and I had to use at least 8 sources, and it was due on Monday. (yeah what your thinking right now is exactly what I said to myself). Dangit!

To make a long story short, I spent a couple hours in the library scanning all of the sources I needed and emailing them to myself because I knew the library was going to be closed on Sunday. I also did this because I had made plans to go to a friend's apartment that night.

So on that note, I went to my friend, Dan Andrews' apartment and we had dinner, and played a game called "Consequence", which ended in an interesting way. Lets just say that I was on the floor having hot wax poured on my bare chest (I just wanna say "your welcome" in advance for that image that you have in your head right now). It was basically a truth or dare type game, and one of the rounds the loser had to have hot wax poured on his chest. That lucky person was me. So needless to say that was a blast.

The next day I had to work frantically to get this paper done.

WATSUP!

Ok, now lets get to the meat (the important stuff) of this post. The basic thing I had to do for this paper was exegete Romans 8:15–18 in a length of 9–10 pages. This means go through each clause, and sometimes each word of each verse and study it, and exegete the meaning of the passage, or draw the meaning out of the passage, by means of commentaries, or Greek Lexicons.

One thing that I realized as I got further into this paper is that I wished that I had started it much earlier than I did. I wish that I had more time to work on it. It has been a while since I've done that type of in-depth study in a passage of Scripture and I missed it so much. Actually, that is how I used to do my daily devotions, and then for a couple different reasons (that aren't good reasons) I stopped doing this.

One of the reasons is because it just takes alot of time to do, and not that I didn't want to spend time doing it, but many times I would do my devotions in the morning before class, and I would only have 20 or 30 minutes. With so little time I just would not get much study done. For those of you who have done exegetical studies of Scripture, you know what I am talking about. I mean I wrote 10 pages yesterday on just 4 verses alone and it took about 7 1/2 hours.

But that is still not a good reason. If I don't have enough time, then I just need to get up earlier.

I had just forgotten how much I can learn from doing studies like that. After completing the Romans paper I now understand those four verses so much better than I ever could have understood them without doing that paper.

Another thing I was reminded of were my days in high school when my youth pastor asked me and my friend, Heidi Summers, to teach a workshop for the youth group on how to study the Bible. I miss this as well. After I learned how to study the Bible in this way I was so passionate about it, I always had to tell someone what I had been learning from my studies. Where did that passion go?

These are some things I have been thinking about.

Another thing I missed from teaching that workshop was being able to take my passion for studying the Scriptures and invest it into my piers. Like this workshop was intense. Me and Heidi had almost no outside help at all. We came up with the lesson plans ourselves, and we taught it ourselves. We taught them how to cross-reference verses, how to use different versions, and even how to use a Greek-Hebrew Lexicon. I got that feeling like I was useful and investing into other people's lives, much like I've gotten that feeling here at my PCM in Chicago.

It is a great feeling to know that you are investing into someone else's life and having an impact on their life. It is something that I want to do more of in the upcoming days, weeks, months, and years. Especially as I go throughout the rest of my time here at Moody in Chicago. My thoughts on that subject are another post for another day. Also, another upcoming post is going to be about my ideas that I have everyday about using media in churches, and just in ministry in general. Great stuff.

but goodbye for now. do you have any stories about how you have invested into another person's life? If so, write a blog post about it and then leave a link to your post in a comment.

investment

respect

2009-02-17T15:14:00.000-05:00

I'm writing to you from a seat on the Metra train in Chicago on my way to my PCM (Practical Christian Ministry) where I am a Jr. High youth leader in a church in Schaumburg, IL (click here to read a previous post about my PCM). I love working in this ministry every week, but the travel is just very time consuming. This is the second week in a row that I have gone really early so that I can work on the youth group's website.

So on this train ride every week I find myself spending alot of time listening to my iPod, but at the same time observing people on the train. I almost said that I enjoy observing people, but I guess I don't particularly enjoy it, I just find myself doing it alot. Although many times I do get enjoyment out of it just because people are really amusing to watch sometimes.

I just got on the train about 15 minutes ago, and I'm facing this man who looks like your typical city worker. He has his laptop bag, newspaper, 2 big cans of Miller Draft (the beverage of choice for many men taking the train on their way home from their job). I was watching as he was getting himself situated in his seat, and I usually notice things about people that are different from me. So the first thing I noticed was that 1. after he opened his can of beer he broke the tab off the can and threw it on the floor. After he did this I was a bit more intrigued to continue watching him. LOL, I know this post is sounding very stalkerish, but just bear with me. After that 2. he grabbed his newspaper and there was a sticker on the front page so he took that off and literally just put it on the train window. Following this 3. he took out a tissue, blew his nose and then to get rid of it he stuck it in between the train wall and his seat.

Now, I don't know what you would've thought about this, but anytime that I see someone just blatantly litter, vandalize or disrespect someone else's property I can't help but just shake my head. Sometimes I'm even in disbelief of how people treat things, and I mostly see it done to public property, but it urgs (not sure if thats a word) me even more when it is done to stuff that is owned by someone.

Actually, after thinking about this more, I guess what really urgs (see, I used it again in a sentence) me is when people are so blatant about it. This guy on the train just did it with a bunch of people around, and acted like it was his daily routine and that it was no big deal. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was his daily routine, because many times I see the same people on the train every week, and I'll observe them and they eat and drink the same things every week, and many times even sit with the same people. So I could easily imagine this guy taking the train at the same time everyday, sitting in the same seat, drinking the same Miller Draft beer, reading the same newspaper and putting the sticker on the window everyday.

Then again, we are creatures of habit, that doesn't make littering, or vandalizing the right thing to do, but if you do a sin once then it just becomes easier and easier to come back to that sin and not think that much about it.

It could go back to the way we were raised though. I was raised to always respect other people's property, and that included public property. I'm not getting on my high horse and saying I'm better than anyone else, but that is just how I was raised. Some people might have been raised by their parents to not have respect for people's property, and this might not have been blatant on the parent's part, but the kid sees their parent doing this, and then thinks it is okay.

This causes me to think even more about how very important it is to raise my kids the way that I believe is biblically correct. I actually think about this quite often (click here to read my previous post on parenting/raising children) and it often times scares me to think about how much influence I can have on a human life. Let me just say that I am writing this with the assumption that I am going to have kids, which I probably shouldn't assume so easily, but it is still something that I should think about. I mean, it can't hurt to think about it, right?

So this post has quickly gone from respect for others to parenting. Anyways, that is another post for another day, and I'm becoming very very long winded, so I'm going to shut up, and let you think about these words.

Do you ever observe people and just shake your head in disbelief? Do you think about parenting, whether you have kids or not? It is an interesting thing to think about. Comments please.

kids these days

motivation

2009-02-10T17:40:00.000-05:00

One thing I have realized over the past couple days is that I have been very unmotivated to do any type of work whatsoever for the past week or so. Today I realized something else. One of the reasons for my unmotivation is that I have not worked out or ran at all for a little over a week.

Today it has been around 60 degrees all day here in Chicago. It is a huge change from the weather that we have had over recently. So I knew that I absolutely had to do some type of physical activity today or else I would be screwed. So I decided to go for a run outside, which is unusual for me. Usually I run inside on a treadmill because I am able to keep track of my time and distance, but today I just said "forget it" and I went running along the beach. I don't know how far I ran, but all i know is that it felt good.

After I returned from my run, I realized that my thoughts were more positive toward the work that I had to do, and I am just more motivated to do things now. It is weird how aerobic activity and working out can have that much of an effect on me mentally. I don't think this is universal for everyone, but I know it is for me. After working out I just have this strong sense of accomplishment, and I am completely refreshed.

I think the weather has alot to do with it as well. Living here in Chicago in the winter is one of the most depressing things I have ever gone through in my life, and it especially had a big effect on me this year because of all the junk I've had to deal with. So for us to have 60 degree weather here in Chicago has helped me alot in having positive thoughts and such.

So I wanna challenge you all to get out and something today, walk, run, something. It doesn't even have to be outside, but doing some type of physical activity helps, I promise.

o yeah, and I wore sandals today!

sickness

2009-02-08T16:40:00.000-05:00

To be honest I've been avoiding writing a post for a about a week. I know, bad blogger etiquette, but there has been a couple actually kinda big posts that I've been thinking about, and that need to be written, and I've just been lazy and not writing them. LOL. And I'm still gonna be lazy and not write them right now, because I'm gonna just give a quick recap of my past week, and maybe a small description of some upcoming posts.

I got sick last Friday, like, not 2 days ago, but the Friday before that. It started out with really bad headaches and then Friday night I got a fever, and I was in bed literally for the next 2 days. I did not leave my dorm room from Friday night until Sunday evening. I was feeling good enough I thought to get out and watch the Super Bowl at a friend's apartment, so that was fun. But this past week has not been fun. I started to feel a bit better on Monday and Tuesday, and then it all came back on Wednesday. All of this is happening in the midst of Founders Week here at Moody.

I finally got in to see the doctor on Friday, and by that time it had just moved to a bad chest cough. So I go in, and I explain to the doctor what is going on, and I expected some prescription medicine, but instead I just got a stupid look, and they told me to go home and drink tea and wait it out. Not exactly what I was expecting to hear, and kinda frustrating.

Thankfully, it is now Sunday, and I'm feeling pretty good. Still a bit of a cough, but it should be gone in the next couple days.

So an upcoming post is going to address the purpose of blogging.

This past week, one of my best friends from back home changed his status to something to the effect of, "Jared wants to know why people blog about their life when people don't care." Those weren't his exact words, but thats pretty close. So I commented back, me being the social media enthusiast that I am, and tried to defend blogging. So then he commented back, and this proceeded to turn into a "comment debate." Something I was not interested in getting into, so I told him I would address this topic in an upcoming post.

So be looking forward to that. I've just been avoiding because it takes alot of thought and mulling over, something that I have not been a fan of this week. LOL. Sad I know.

Anyways, that's been my week. Also, one of my new favorite shows, "Damages." Other than some unnecessary sexual crap, it is a good show, and I've been addicted to it.

later
and don get sick

the hoodie bandit

2009-01-30T22:58:00.000-05:00

This past week has been an interesting one, alot of stuff has been happening. Some stuff good, some stuff not bad, but I mean not good at the same time. So I'll just give you a short rundown of this week and then I want to elaborate on a certain a funny event that happened.

Monday was my first night back to PCM at youth group at Calvary Community Church and it was great to be back with the kids. I helped lead a small group which was good. One thing I realized during this small group time was how poor my small group leading skills really are. Maybe it was just an off-night, and I think it depends on who I am co-leading the group with, but for the guy who also led (Gary Stachulla) it was just so natural for him, and he had me jump in on one of the group questions, and it was just downhill. I think it also has alot to do with the leader preparation as well. We had not prepared anything together, therefore I wasn't really sure where he was taking the discussion alot of times so it was difficult for me to jump in because I didn't want to take it in a completely different direction. But it was interesting.

Also throughout the week I have done alot of work as a TA (Teacher's Assistant) for Coach Dunn (The Sports Ministry Chair), so that has been good, and I'm actually starting to enjoy going into the office everyday as I'm starting to get more and more comfortable and close to Coach Dunn.

Ok, so now for the funny story of the week. It is really more confusing and weird than it is funny, but it's somewhat humorous at the same time. So a couple weeks ago I was walking through the SDR (Student Dining Room) and I saw this girl wearing a "Vertical" hoodie (Vertical is the name of my youth group from back home and she was wearing one of our hoodies). The funny thing was that I've never seen this girl in my life, and I was wondering how she got a hold of one of those hoodies, but it was one of the older ones so I just thought she might've gone to my youth group before I got into high school.

So then on Wednesday morning I have a class called Romans at 8am. I walk into class and I see this same girl wearing my Senior Class hoodie (ya know, like the hoodie that your whole senior class signs and it has your graduation year on it and such). So now I'm really freaked out. I spent the rest of the class distracted by the question of how the heck did she get this sweatshirt and why is she wearing it? LOL.

Keep in mind, I've never seen this girl in my life. So I lean over to my friend sitting next to me and ask her if she knows who the girl is. She said her name was Bethany (nope wasn't ringin any bells). I leave the class confused, yet amused.

I walk into chapel and the first thing someone says to me is, "Josh, do you know a Bethany Baxter?" I immediately respond, "Was she wearing my senior class hoodie?" She then goes on to tell me that she was sitting behind this girl in class and saw my name on the back of her sweatshirt. "Nope I don't know her. I don't have any clue how she got a hold of that sweatshirt."

A minute later I texted my friend, Heidi Summers because I thought she would think it was weird and amusing. So I explained to her the situation and what made it even funnier was that she was looking for that hoodie that morning and couldn't find it. LOL.

I still don't know who this girl is, or how she got these hoodies, and I mean I'd like to find out sometime, so maybe I'll ask her sometime.

OR

Bethany Baxter, if you are reading this post, please leave a comment or email me or SOMETHING, just tell me how you got those sweatshirts, cause its kinda starting to creep me out. The Vertical sweatshirt was kinda understandable...but my senior class hoodie? Really? I mean, I know for a fact that you did not graduate in my class, so just an answer would be nice.

LOL

That was halfway serious.

So that's my funny story for the week. Don't worry though it wasn't all fun and games this week. The fun was balanced out with an awesome headache that I've had for 3 days straight now. So that's been pretty awesome (please recognize the sarcasm in that statement).

Anyways, feedback please. What would you do in this situation? I mean I guess most people would just straight up ask her...I just feel kinda weird.

maybe hoodies are worth alot of money these days on the black market

dozing and nodding

2009-01-26T11:13:00.001-05:00

Today was the most I've struggled to stay awake in any of my classes so far this semester. This morning in Romans at 8am was the worst. I was nodding, and dozing the whole time.

But there is something that I realized this morning. Its crazy how much of a difference it makes if the professor has a monotone voice or an interesting voice. In my 8am my professor has a really monotone voice and doesn't really make the class that interesting, and I could barely stay awake. Then I was really worried about my next class which was Acts at 9am. But interestingly enough it was with a professor who does make the class interesting and has jokes and doesn't use a monotone voice the whole time, and I was awake as ever.

I think it also helped that we were talking about an interesting topic, the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues. So I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to stay awake and actually pay attention during that class. But now I am done with classes for the day and my next event is lunch at 11:40, so I'm definitely going to take a nap (one of my favorite past times for those who didn't know).

So good day so far.

You all have trouble staying awake in class? Or if not class then at your job?

big boy and fries

2009-01-23T23:20:00.001-05:00

As mentioned in my previous post I had dinner with my parents and aunt and uncle tonight at good ol' Frisch's. It was good to see my aunt and uncle again, since I haven't seen them since my high school graduation about 2 1/2 years ago. I was especially looking forward to talking to my uncle again because he runs his own tire business in New York, and since I've been thinking more and more about what it takes to run a business I thought it would be good to talk to him, and he didn't disappoint me.

So as I was dining over a Big Boy and fries my Uncle Clay proceeded to ask me about Moody and how my time there has been. I told him I have loved it, and am glad that I went there. We then started talking about ministry, and what my plans were after graduation, and what I wanted to do with sports ministry. Questions all of which I have been thinking much about recently.

This is what I told him. I have believed for the past 4 years that God has called me to the foreign mission field to do sports ministry. What that looks like, I'm not quite sure yet, but probably along the lines of sports camps or a recreational center. The reason for this is because I have seen how effective sports can be in connecting with people that I have never even talked to before, or even more, people that don't even speak the same language as me. It doesn't matter, sports is a universal language, and I would like to use that to reach people for Christ. I have had a burden for people in Europe specifically because the church is almost non-existent in some parts, and the continent as a whole is very dark, spiritually speaking. Also, all of my sports ministry experience has been in Europe so I just feel like sports can be used effectively in that place.

I also told him of my inner-struggle that I have been having between media, video, tech on one hand, and sports ministry on the other. For those of you who know me know that I am passionate about both. I am a big geek, and I also absolutely love sports and physical activity, so much so that I have thought that I could do it for the rest of my life on the mission field. And now I just don't know if I'm supposed to choose one or the other, or I'm supposed to fuse them together in some type of way in ministry, which I could definitely do.

My uncle comes from the standpoint that people are needed in the American business life as well. He actually attended Moody for a semester and realized that he wasn't supposed to be in full-time ministry. But what he said was, "I realized that there were people at Moody that wanted to be Pastors but they didn't know how to make a living off of it. They didn't even know how to balance a checkbook. And I realized that I wanted to make a living." So he started his own tire business, and that is his field of ministry.

On my way back home I started thinking about what he had said about making a living. As I have been called to the mission field I had to come to the realization that I don't necessarily need to make a living. I could live life without having to worry about money and trusting in God to provide. I'm not saying that my uncle doesn't trust in God to provide, I'm just saying that in the thought process of being a missionary I have come to the realization that I don't need to make a living. Then again there are some days when I just wish that I had money so I could pay for school, or buy video equipment so I could pursue more of my video dreams. And maybe that day will come, when God provides me with a video camera, and a new computer so that I am able to do what I would like to do with video, but I just have to wait on that.

I write all of this to say, honestly I'm not quite sure what God would have me to do for the rest of my life, and heck, I don't need to know at this point in my life. LOL. I mean I'm 20 years old for cryin out loud. I still have a year and a half of Moody left, and then after that who knows what. But whatever I do I just need to seek God in everything that I do and He will direct my paths. I could live here in the U.S. run my own business, do video, do sports camps, and still do ministry in some way. Or I could go overseas as a missionary and do ministry. The verdict is still out, and probably will be for a while. But my internship this summer will probably help, I'm doing it with a Christian soccer camp organization called On Goal, well not officially, I haven't been accepted yet, but there is a good chance I will be, Lord willing. So we shall see.

I still have more to talk about so stay tuned for more insightful posts, well at least I hope you think they are insightful.

Also, blog recommendation of the week, ChurchCrunch. This blog has alot of great ideas for ministry and for the church. Check it out.

peace

home is where the heart is

2009-01-23T23:02:00.000-05:00

So much to write about, but don't want to overwhelm you with a wealth of posts. I got a phone call on Wednesday saying that my Grandma had just gone into the hospital with serious heart problems and that they had to make a choice to either do open heart surgery or just let it go. Either way my mom said that I should come home to see her. My Grandma decided to have the open heart surgery so that is happening on Monday, but the chances of it not going as planned are pretty high. So realizing the seriousness of the situation I flew home today after classes and I am flying back to Chicago on Sunday.

Needless to say this is going to be a whirlwind of weekend, but I am glad to get to see my Grandma, and I pray that God will have His will in her life and with the surgery on Monday. I would also appreciate it if you could pray the in the same way.

So I saw her tonight, and she looks ok, but her heart is pretty messed up. She's got incoming valve that is blocked and then one outgoing valve that is like torn so blood is spilling into her lungs. I will spare you the technical terms, but as you can tell it is not a good situation at all.

On a lighter note, it is good to be home with the family, despite the circumstances. My aunt and uncle from New York came down today, so me and my parents had dinner with them tonight which was good. I had a good conversation with my uncle about ministry and life. That will be my next post, I'm still processing it. So family time is good no matter what the circumstances.

It is also good to lay in my bed again. So with that I will leave you for now. Thanks again for your prayers, we really appreciate them. I'll keep you updated, seeing as this is updates in my life. LOL.

later

don't stop reading yet

2009-01-21T16:39:00.000-05:00

Well, thanks to a new blog (ChurchCrunch) that I just became interested in the post today is going to be about what type of internet video services I use and why. For those of you uninterested in this type of thing, before you close this page without reading let me explain what an internet video service is. A video service is a service that one uses to either upload videos, stream live video, some examples of this would be youtube, ustream, blip, and stickam just to name a few.

Personally I have used a couple different uploading services in the past. I have videos on blip, but more currently I am using youtube just because everyone is familiar with it and pretty much knows how to use it, therefore more views of my videos is more likely. I started using blip for more of a niche video channel, and the play looks a little more clean cut than youtube, but overall I've realized that blip is somewhat slower, and again it is less familiar to people, and anything unfamiliar is less likely to be visited more than once.

As far as streaming live video goes, I always use Ustream. I discovered Ustream I guess about 2 years ago, and at first I just used it to watch other people's shows. It wasn't until the past year and half that I started streaming video myself. Then when I discovered CamTwist I just got addicted to streaming live video of myself. CamTwist is a program that allows you to do special effects to video as well as add text and a bunch of other cool stuff that makes your video look like a real live television show.

I use Ustream because it was the first live streaming site that I discovered and so I just ran with it. Stickam also does live video, but I've never even tried that. Ustream works great for me, so I just stick with it.

What video services do you use?

deal or no deal

2009-01-19T01:13:00.000-05:00

The last 4 or 5 posts have been practically books so I wanted to give a little shorter post just so I don't lose every single reader that I have, that is if I do have any at all.

This week was the first week of classes. To be honest I was not excited to be back at all, as you all probably have figured out from previous posts. But I am surviving, and one of the ways that I am surviving has been by reading a book by Francis Chan called "Crazy Love." Its a great book, I would recommend it. It is about God's love for us, and then the way that we love God back. I made this deal with a friend that if I read a book in 2 weeks, then she had to make her own blog in 2 weeks. The only reason I did this is because she always makes fun of me for being a geek, so I challenged her with a somewhat geeky deal of her own. And surprisingly enough, we both held up our ends of the deal. I actually read the book in 2 weeks (yes, please try to keep breathing, I know it's hard to believe), and she created her own blog with a little help from me, and wrote her first post. I was actually quite impressed with the overall look of it.

Anyways, so that's just a little blurb from my week. There was other news as well, but like I said, short and sweet, so I'm gonna keep my promise.

Go read a book

Breakfast Business

2009-01-16T11:01:00.001-05:00

Well the first week of classes is pretty much accounted for and let me tell you I am wiped. It has been a draining week as far as thinking goes. LOL. I have had to drop classes and add classes and figure out how the rest of my time at Moody is going to go. I finally have gotten it figured out and it is not the most ideal schedule ever, but I can deal with it. Now if I can just fit a job in there somewhere I will be set to go.

This week it has also been difficult for me to focus because ever since I returned from Macworld in San Francisco all I have been thinking about is podcasting, videography, videoblogging, and the like, and all of this revolves around starting my own business. After meeting some of my favorite podcasters and videobloggers at Macworld it has just given me so much more confidence that I can do it as well. And then talking to one of my best friends about it, Jared Tolley, he's always up for a good idea and brainstorming about things that we could do in life. I also have enjoyed talking to my close friend Josh Puckett about it as well. It is also interesting that about 4 of my friend's computers have crashed this week and all of them are seeking my help to fix them. In light of all of this I have decided to apply for a job at the Apple Store here in Chicago. If I got a part time job there that would be amazing, one of my dreams actually since switching to the Mac 3 years ago. And since my dreams have been coming true lately this might actually happen!

Also, on another note about school, I've been to breakfast 3 times this week. For those of you who know me you know that this is nothing short of a miracle. I value my sleep very much and for me to get up at the crack of dawn to go to breakfast is a big change for me. The reason for this is that I have an 8am class on M,W,F and so I just decided to go to breakfast on Monday because it was my first day of classes, and then turned out that it wasn't so bad getting up at 6:30am so then I just decided to do it on Wednesday and then again this morning. The disadvantage to this is that I only have 15 meals per week and so it is impossible to go to 3 meals a day for 3 days and then go to 2 meals a day the rest of the week, so consequently I'm going to have to skip a meal this weekend but I think it was worth it.

See this is what happens when I don't post for 4 or 5 days, I have so much to say and the post ends up being freakin long. So I'm just gonna save everything else for another post. I love you all.

Happy New Semester! Ugh.

P.S. My close friend, Josh Puckett has a new blog up and running, go check it out HERE.

Macworld 2009 Day 3 "The Community"

2009-01-10T17:09:00.000-05:00

Macworld 2009, Day 3, January 8

Well I decided that today was going to be my last day at Macworld because I've already seen all the booths and there aren't really any sessions or anything going tomorrow, so I'm just going to fly back early which will be nice. So this being my last day at Macworld I decided to make the most of it. O, dangit. I completely forgot to mention in my post yesterday that I went to the feature presentation by David Pogue. So I guess I'll mention that now. This feature presentation was great, David Pogue is a tech writer for the New York Times and he was really entertaining. It was setup kinda like a talk show, he had a couple guests on stage including Matt Harding from the video "where the heck is Matt?", these guys from "You Suck at Photoshop" (they were pretty funny) and the creator of the Ocarina application for the iPhone ( and this was probably the coolest of them all). The guy who developed this application is the music professor at some big university (I can't remember right now, lol) and he has a laptop orchestra there. He gave us a small demo of how it works, and they use the accelerometer inside the Macbook Pro to create sound. In the demo he would hit the screen or touch anywhere on the laptop and it would make some sort of noise. It was so cool, I'll be uploading a video to facebook. So that was yesterday's feature presentation.

I kicked off today by attending a feature presentation by Leo Laporte. He talked about mass media and how media is changing with the internet, and now anyone can produce content and distribute it to the world. It was a really interesting talk. Plus it is always great to hear Leo talk, he is so smart and knows so much about media and the tech industry and always has good things to say. I then went from there and bought myself a tshirt from the Macworld store, it says "I'm a Mac" on the front and then "Macworld" on the back. I was pretty happy about it. I then waited for the expo hall to open.

I went back to the South hall because I had not finished looking at all the booths and such. I also had decided that I was going to buy an Invisible Shield for my iPod Touch. This is a really cool product because they use the same material that the military uses on their helicopter propellors to keep them from being damaged. I also decided to buy some skins for ipod touch as well as one for the back of my laptop. These are really cool first of all cause they have some sweet kick-butt artwork to choose from and because they are reusable, the company is called Gelaskins and I would highly recommend them.

Another cool thing about Macworld is that almost every company is doing some type of raffle or giveaway, so I signed for almost every giveaway possible, but unfortunately did not win anything. But what they do is, they use your badge to get all your information, because there is a barcode on my badge and every booth has a scanner so to enter into the giveaway they just scan my badge, but then they also have my email and all that stuff, but o well. Hopefully I won't get too much spam.

I didn't get to meet any famous people today, but it was still a great day. I got to sit in on a couple live podcasts which is always fun. I was going to go home a bit earlier than I had in the past 2 days, but it was 5:30pm meaning it was rush hour, so I knew I was gonna be sitting in traffic forever. But there was also a meetup at Jillian's at 7 that I wanted to go to, so I just went to McDonald's and got some food and by the time I was done it was time to go to the meetup. O, but wait, I forgot, I did get to meet Andy Ihnatko (a tech writer for the Chicago Sun Times) in McDonald's which was kinda funny. I was just sitting there talking to my dad and I glanced over and I saw Andy Ihnatko standing in line. So I waited till he was walking out and I turned around in my seat and introduced myself and told him I was a big fan of his writing, and that was about it because he had his hands full, but it was still pretty cool. So nevermind, I did get to meet someone famous today. LOL.

Then I went to the meetup and it turned out to be a great night. I ended up talking to this older woman for a bit. She was just asking me what I do on my Mac and I told her I did videography. She has been a school teacher, but she said her real passion is art. It was a really good conversation and so after that conversation was over I wanted to talk to some more people. I met two other guys who ran this news site in Santa Barbara, California, it is called SBLife http://www.sblife.com. We talked about podcasting and videography because they do a bit of that for their site, it was also a really good conversation. Buy by far the best conversation of the night was with the developers of the iPhone applications "Pull my finger" and "Stickie Notes." Their company is called Air-o-matic. It was just really interesting to talk to them about the development process and what the environment is like to develop for the iPhone. Let me just say that after talking to these guys I've realized that developing for the iPhone can be a gold mine. It's crazy how much money you can make from just simple application. I also met the developers of the iPhone app "MIMvista". This is an application that reads MRI's and CTscans of the body brain. It is an amazing application.

I ended staying at the meetup about 2 hours longer than I had planned. This meetup is an excellent example of the Mac community. You can start a relationship with anyone just because we have the simple commonality of the Macintosh. It made Macworld worth it all, and it made me happy and proud to be a Mac user.

Again, it all comes back to the community. This is probably the biggest thing that I took away from Macworld, how important the community of Macintosh is. Without the community the Mac would not be what it is today. And so that is how I will conclude this journal of my Macworld experience. If you a Mac user and have not yet been immersed in the Mac community, I would strongly encourage you to begin doing that, just by simply meeting another Mac user and talk about what you do on your Mac. If you are not a Mac user, I would say that this is one of the strongest arguments for switching to the Mac. Not only is the experience of working on a Mac unbeatable, but the community surround it is incomparable.

For pics and videos of my Macworld experience check out my facebook profile

Macworld 2010 here I come!

Macworld 2009 Day 2 "Tiny Town"

2009-01-10T15:58:00.000-05:00

Macworld 2009, Day 2, Wednesday, Jan. 7

Well, day 2 of Macworld was another great experience. I ventured over to the South Hall since I spent my whole day in the North Hall yesterday, and I ended up spending more time in the South Hall overall. In the South Hall there was what was called "Tiny Town." People kept referring to Tiny Town and I couldn't figure out what they were talking about and then entered the South Hall and saw exactly what they were talking about. I think people called it that because there were alot of small companies and vendors, but also because there were alot of things hanging from the ceiling, and it just looked like a little model city.

I spent the whole day in the South Hall and I still didn't get to see all the booths. There were also alot more companies doing demos and such in the South Hall. This is also where the official Apple booth was located. And of course it was larger than life. Literally it was the biggest booth there, if you can even call it a booth (you can check out pics on my facebook). I mean, the Apple booth was cool, but it wasn't really anything special. They just had a ton of iMacs, Macbooks, and iPods on display. And all of these computers were demoing the new iLife and iWork 09, so it was cool to get to demo those. But I mean I really don't think that it is going to be a big deal that Apple is not going to attend the conference next year. I mean, yes, there might be alot of empty space, because the booth was humungous, but as far as content on the booth goes, there really won't be that much missing. In fact, I'm already excited to attend next year's Macworld.

I got to meet yet another famous guy in the tech industry, Chris Pirillo. He did a small session on how to use Ustream and Camtwist together to do your own live show. I mean I already knew all of the stuff because that is what I use to produce the wheel seat but I just stuck around to see if I could meet him after he was done, and sure enough I got to meet him and get my picture taken with him. He seems like a cool guy, so much so that I saw him later that day in the South hall and he actually recognized me and said hi, and then again that night at the meetup at Jillians he saw me and said hi. None of these run-ins resulted in any conversations which I wish they would have, but I was just surprised that he remembered me. He may not have remembered my name, but he remembered my face.

Probably one of the biggest things that I have realized after yesterday and today is how some of these people lead just different lives than I do. And I'm not talking about like Leo Laporte and Chris Pirillo and the other famous guys, I'm just talking about the other people who are attending the conference. As I walked around to the different booths it seemed like alot of the products were really expensive. I saw alot of stuff that I would have liked to bought, but I just couldn't afford it. Heck I was just lucky to be at Macworld, I was saving every penny just for parking and eating food. But other people there, this is their life. I mean, I consider myself a pretty big geek, or nerd or whatever you wanna call it, but I consider myself a geek with not alot of money. But these other people are just buying things like its nothing. It got me thinking about what its like to just have money at your fingertips. It is interesting to think about. I know for a fact that if I had money that that would not satisfy me. I am reminded as I just started reading Francis Chan's book "Crazy Love" that God is the only one who can satisfy, and glorifying Him is the only satisfying thing in life. It is our purpose as human beings.

I wrapped up the day with a viewing of the world premiere of "Macheads" the movie. This is a documentary about the history of Apple and about the Mac community. I really enjoyed the movie, and it was really good for me to learn more about the history of Apple and how far the company has come as well as the community of Mac users. The movie's purpose was to emphasize the importance of the community that has been created around the Macintosh. Yeah the Mac is a great computer, but it is not just about the computer, it is about the community that comes along with the computer. When you buy a Macintosh you suddenly enter into this community of people that just makes your experience as a user so much better than anything you will ever find on the PC side. I have now seen this firsthand by attending Macworld and meeting other Mac users who do different things with their macs but we all have the same type of experience. So I really enjoyed this documentary, if you are a Mac user and you get a chance to see this movie, I would recommend. I mean even if you are not a Mac user I would recommend it because maybe you will come to good side and finally see the light and get a Mac.

So that was my second day at Macworld and again, it was awesome. O yeah, and here's an example of the Mac community, as I was walking back to my car that night I walked by these fountains so I was taking some pictures of them, and as I was walking to my car this guy was walking next to me, and I saw that he was wearing a Macworld badge and I just started talking to him and ended just having a small conversation on my way back to my car. I mean, not a big deal, but just something small like that is part of the mac community.

So if you all haven't gotten the message by now, the point of this post is get a Mac. LOL. Just kiddin. I still love all you PC users out there.

More posts coming soon!

Macworld 2009 Day 1

2009-01-08T19:27:00.000-05:00

My life these past couple days have been amazing, but busy. For those of you who do not know I have been at Macworld 2009 in San Francisco, which has been a dream come true for me ever since I switched to the Mac about 3 years ago. I got a PowerBook G4 in my Senior year of high school, and I have never looked back. I've been meaning to blog my experiences here at Macworld these past couple days, but I have been much busier than I expected, so I am a little disappointed by my procrastination/lack of time to give you my in depth thoughts and experiences. I have been updating my facebook status and twitter like literally at least 5 updates an hour, so I didn't spare anything with my updates there.

Since I'm already into Day 3 of Macworld and I'm just now blogging, I'm going to start with Day 1, and I might just start a new post with each day. We'll see how it goes, and how long my PowerBook's battery lasts sitting outside of the Expo hall.

Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2009:
Today was one of the peaks of my excitement this Christmas break. I have been staying at my friend's house, Savannah Flores for the past couple days which has been a blast. We went to the beach and just drove around California, and hung out with her family. It has been a great time. But today when I walked into the Moscone Center in San Francisco it was just an awesome feeling. I got registered and when they handed me that badge that said "Josh Burns, JSquared Productions, Covington, KY" I was about ready to explode with enthusiasm and excitement. I had to wait about an hour and a half after that to get into the expo hall but it was worth the wait because I immediately headed for the "Mac Learning Center" booth and got my seat for the recording of the Live episode of Macbreak Weekly. This is a podcast hosted by Leo Laporte, and is one of my favorites. It was so great to be able to see all of my favorite podcasters in person just feet away from me. So that was definitely a highlight.

Let me just go back to the first time walking into the expo hall. The gates opened, and as I was walking in I saw all of the booths and the feeling I got was so crazy. I guess the best way to describe is excited, but I don't even know if that captures my feelings. Ever since I switched to the mac and discovered Macworld I have wanted to go to Macworld, and now it was a reality. (Ok, so let me just stop here, and say that I realize that I may sound a little fanatical right now, but for those of you reading who are Mac fanboys as well, you can understand my fanaticism.)

I spent the whole first day in the North Hall of the Moscone Center, which was good, but when I went over to the South Hall I wish I would've spent more time there. But I at least walked past, if not visited every single booth in the North Hall and let me just say that there were some ridiculous products, and yet there were some really cool and innovative looking products. (I will go over these in a later post).

After a full day of visiting booths, talking to companies, and sitting in live podcasts and sessions, I made my way over to the restaurant, "Jillians" where there was a Macworld party going on. It was pretty cool, there was some free food, there were some football games on, and just lots of people to talk to. I stayed there for the giveaway and then jetted out of there because I had about an hour and fifteen minute drive ahead of me back home, and I was wiped.

So that was my first day at Macworld.

O BUT WAIT, I failed to mention my accidental meetup with one of the biggest podcasters in the world, Leo Laporte. So I was walking through the hall getting ready to leave at the end of the day and all of the sudden Leo Laporte just walked past me. I immediately recognized him but at first I was in shock. He walked past, and after I came to my senses I walked back towards him and yelled out, "Hey Leo, do you mind if I get a picture with you?" He kindly said "Yes" and and I told him that I enjoyed the live Macbreak weekly this morning and then I took the picture, I introduced myself and then I was so starstruck and at a loss for words that I just thanked him and just kinda turned away. After thinking about it later, I was so mad at myself that I didn't talk to him, cause I had so many questions for him. In fact I think he was expecting me to keep talking, but it all happened so fast that I was jut kinda caught off guard. But that was also a dream come true to get to meet him and get my picture taken with him. So that was also a HUGE highlight of week.

Well my battery warning just popped up so I'm gonna go.

More coming soon.

Macheads Unite!

Big Stuff

2008-12-31T17:03:00.000-05:00

Well this is going to be my last post for the year 2008. I only started this blog 3 months ago and yet I already feel so attached to you as my readers. Granted I only have a couple, which I am completely fine with, but I want to thank you for reading my thoughts and even giving me feedback every once and a while. I started this blog initially because I had alot on my mind and I needed someway to write about those thoughts, and honestly when I started I could've cared less if someone was reading it or not, as I still could care less. But I also just wanted to start a blog that was consistent. And by consistent I mean at least 1 post a week, usually 3 or 4 a week. And I think I have achieved that goal of consistency over the past 3 months, and I hope to continue that consistency in 2009.

As I have continued writing on this blog I have found myself thinking more and more throughout the day about certain things, and then coming back and writing about them. Without this blog medium I don't think I ever would have caused myself to think like I have over the past couple months. I've wrote about behavior of people, advances in technology, and sometimes just my everyday life and what I do on a daily basis. So I think it has been a nice balance of thoughts. But I really do enjoy that time when I think about something that I have never thought about before and then I have the opportunity to come back and write about it and share with you, and then get your feedback.

As I was thinking about writing this year end post I was planning on just doing a year review of major events that have happened in 2008, and I might still do that, but I have realized that that it is really cliche. So then I decided to just write about my blog, and the purpose of it and such. But I think I will give some 2008 major event reviews. I will do it by category. And I will start out with my favorite of course:

Technology: Hard for me to think of a single biggest event, but one that sticks out in my mind (besides the release of the iPhone 3G and the ability to put applications on the iPhone and iPod touch) would be the proposition from Microsoft to acquire Yahoo at $31.00 per share. Yahoo then turned down the offer, but this was huge in the tech industry, I'm pretty Yahoo will be bought by someone in the next year, the question is, who will it be? Full Story here

Note: I know the most about Technology therefore that section is longer than the rest.

Political: Obama wins the Presidential election and becomes President Elect. Full Story here

Sports: Michael Phelps wins 8 Gold medals in 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. Full Story here

Music: Kinda hard to narrow down, but here's a link to a list of the top 100 songs of 2008. Take it for what its worth and that may not be much. Song list
Also here is a link to Billboard's site

Those are all of the categories that I feel like doing. Feel free to add more to this though. More categories, or what you think were the biggest stories for these categories that would replace mine.

Happy New Year to everyone.
Keep close to Christ.
I love you all.

Josh

:) Marley & Me :(

2008-12-27T21:21:00.000-05:00

WARNING:
The following post may provide information or spoilers for
the movie "Marley & Me". If you have not seen the movie and are
worried about hearing spoilers you may not want to read this post.
Don't say I didn't warn you.

I saw the movie "Marley & Me" yesterday with my family and I was
pleasantly surprised to say the least. I was with my family because
my little sister was just dying to see it. At first I wasn't really
looking forward to this experience just because I knew that the movie
was about a dog and that was about it. Later I found out that Owen
Wilson co-starred in it with Jennifer Aniston, so that raised my hopes
a bit because I love Owen Wilson.

So let me just cut right to the chase. About halfway through the movie
I found myself asking the question "How have I been entertained this
long by this movie and am continuing to be entertained? All this movie
is about is a dog." To be more specific the life of a dog. But it is
more than just the life of this dog, it is the life of this dog living
with this family.

And once again I find myself asking another question about three
quarters of the way through the movie, "How am I so attached to this
dog?" I'm so attached to this dog that tears are welling up in my eyes
as I watch this dog get older and suffer from a twisted stomach and
then eventually die. And it wasn't just me that was holding back
tears, well actually it probably was just me because the rest of the
audience had already lost it. All I could hear across the entire theater
was the sniffling noses and people just crying.

The creators of this film did such a great job portraying real life
with the family, and the dad's job, and the birth of three children,
and through all this the dog "Marley" is there chewing stuff up and
causing trouble wherever he goes and the family still loves him.

All in all this was a very refreshing movie. As you can tell I think
it was very well made movie. And for those of you who know me, you
know that I am not the biggest fan of dogs so I was amazed myself at
the fact that a tear was rolling down my face by the end. It was one
of the few movies I've ever cried in and the first thing I wanted to
do by the end was write about it. So here I am sitting in the mall writing
this post on my iPod while my sister is shopping. You'd be amazed at
how fast one can get at typing on this touch screen keyboard. LOL.

Anyways, hope I didn't ruin too much for those of you who are planning
on seeing the movie and for those who aren't planning on seeing it,
you might want to rethink that decision. That's all I'm gonna say.
I'll let the post speak for itself.

Hope you had a great Christmas.

Happy New Years!

A Note:
It took me about half the movie to realize how they came up with the name "Marley" for the dog. Earlier in the show Owen Wilson's character starts playing a song from a Jamaican singer and starts talking about him. If you can't figure it out after that hint then God help you.

Christmas to me

2008-12-24T23:21:00.000-05:00

One thing I've realized over the past couple weeks is that I'm
beginning tontiink less and less about Christmas every year. As I was
studying for finals I realized, wow, Christmas is less than 10 days
away. I hadn't even been thinking about Christmas let alone done any
Christmas shopping. All I was worried about was passing my finals. But
even when I did begin to think about Christmas this has been the most
laid back I've been about getting my shopping. In fact as I'm writing
this it is Christmas eve and I still don't have gifts for everyone in
my immediate family. LOL. I don't know what it is but I think my
priorities have just shifted over the years and Christmas has just
become smaller in my mind. My priorities this year have been on
soccer, school, relationships and therefore I just think less about
holidays.

I think another thing that has contributed to the smallness of
Christmas in my mind has been that naturally the concept of gifts has
less significance because at this age I already know what I'm getting
before I get it. In fact I'm usually the one who buys it. I don't know
if I'm going to be surprised with anything this year, which is
completely fine with me. I'm just saying that I think thisbis another
thing that has contributed to what has happened.

Really I'm not too heartbroken by the fact that Christmas isn't a big
deal to me anymore. It Is just something that I've really noticed this
year in my own life. I've been thinking about whether this is right or
if there us something I need to change. I still haven't come to a
conclusion. It is just something interesting to think about.

Has anyone else felt like this recently? Or does anyone feel the
opposite? Does anyone feel like Christmas is a bigger deal to them
than ever?

Ho ho ho

"Guitar Praise"??

2008-12-20T00:50:00.000-05:00

I was out today with my parents getting some Christmas shopping done. Well I wasn't getting much shopping done considering WalMart didn't have the chia pet that my little sister wanted and I have no clue what to get for my other little sister, so it was really just me walking up and down aisles and finding things that I wouldn't mind having. LOL. I mean I'm really not too worried about not being able to find something for them so it's all good. But I did run into my friend Micah Landers, the author of the Remedies blog and it was good catching up with him and talking his past job and his future plans.

But in our shopping adventures my parents decided that they needed to stop by Family Christian Bookstore to get some things so we ventured out to Florence. As soon as we pull up to the store I notice a sign in the window, it says "Guitar Praise". As soon as u saw this I just cringed. Obviously this is a Christian spinoff of the ever popular xbox 360 game "Guitar Hero". The first thing thought that came into my mind was "Why can't these Christian companies just come up with an original idea?" If these companies would just simply come up with an original product they might actually sell some stuff or imagine this, they might actually influence some kids in a positive way. Sure they might have some success selling a product but that doesn't mean that the kid is gonna like it. Usually these parents just buy these kind of things for their kids as a Christian alternative to the real thing and usually the kids hate these products simply because they've already had experience with the real thing and they know what the experience should be like and when they don't get that experience they are disappointed.

Here's an idea. Get some good businessmen to come up with some good original concepts and then get some good marketers for a Christian company and then see what happens. I'd bet that there'd be some success with whatever product they came out with.

As I continued perusing through the Family Christian Bookstore I also noticed some other things that really seem to be some poor business decisions as far as the customer experience go. First of all I picked up a cd to see what the titles of the songs were and half of the back of the cd was covered by this plastic electronic alarm. I couldn't even read the titles of the songs. Now, this may not be the fault of the store, but it most likely is. I mean, I thought the alarms were on just like one cd, but no, they were on every single cd, I couldn't read the titles of any of the titles on any of the cd's. It was annoying to say the least.

The next thing that would definitely hinder me from buying a cd from this store was the fact that they took out the "cd listening stations." These were small scanners that allowed a customer to scan the cd's barcode and then listen about a minute of every track on the cd. These were in the store, but since they have been taken out for some amazing reason. These two things I noticed almost immediately. And I wouldn't be surprised if their cd sales have gone down durastically. Now I could see someone saying that these cd listening stations kept people from buying cd's because all they do is listen to the cd in the store and leave. But this isn't a good argument because its only a sample of the song and I'm definitely more likely to buy a cd if I can listen to it in the store.

These are just some of the things that I annoyed me about the Family Christian Bookstore. This caused me to think about the concept of "Christian Bookstores" and their purposes and what not. This is a different post for a different time, but it is an interesting thing to think about. Hope this post interested you a bit.

Comments, Thoughts.

go read something

one down

2008-12-15T17:35:00.000-05:00

First day of finals down, two more to go. I had my Systematic Theology final today and it went actually better than I thought it was going to. Its amazing what happens when you actually have stuff to study. So I was up till about 1:30am last night studying for that and then got up and went to breakfast for the first time in a while, and then studied for a couple hours before the final. Then I just took a nap, and basically have done nothing. I'm just so glad to have that one out of the way. Now I have an Ethnic Literature final tomorrow which shouldn't be too bad, and then a Greek final on Wednesday which is going to be another huge one.

I just wanna go home, if you haven't already figured that idea out from my last 10 posts. LOL. So, I'm homefree on Wednesday at like 11am.

homefree almost

a success

2008-12-13T21:41:00.000-05:00

It has been another great weekend so far. And its just been great to get all those papers and stuff out of the way. I still have 3 finals to take before I go home on Wednesday, so I'm not looking forward to those, but I'm definitely looking forward to going home.

If you couldn't tell from me last couple posts this week has been a pretty sucky week. But there is always light at the end of the tunnel, and this weekend I think was part of that light. I realized some stuff through some processing and talking with some friends, so its been ok. Plus it helps to get some sleep as well. Yesterday I slept till 3:00pm cause we didn't have any classes, and then today I slept till 2:00pm. It was absolutely amazing. I haven't gotten to sleep in that long in a while.

O yeah, and I almost forgot, on Thursday me and Nate had our premiere of The Wheel Seat Live It was an episode of our videoblog except it was Live. And it was a huge success. We had 27 unique viewers, which really translates into 27 unique computers. We can't even tell how many actual people were watching because at alot of computers there were more than one person watching. I'm guessing we had around 40 or so viewers, which is phenomenal for our first episode. I'm really looking forward to what is to come. And I just want to thank all of you for making that first episode possible. It was a blast. If you join the facebook group you can get updates as to when the next show will be and other things.

Last night our soccer team had a little get together at coach's apartment. We ate some pizza and watched 2 soccer games, it was fun. And then today I went to Starbucks with a friend and talked about this week and got some things figured out which was really good. Then I took Nate and Savannah to the train station and now I'm sitting back in my room. So it's been an eventful day. LOL.

Just 3 more days to go and I'm home free. Thank the Lord.

one down, one to go

2008-12-10T09:21:00.000-05:00

Well, one big paper down, one more to go. I finished my Doctrinal Position paper at about 2:30am this morning. Glad to have it done, but now I gotta turn right back around and do another research paper for my sports ministry class. Hopefully it won't be too hard. And then once I'm done with that I'll be done for the week thankfully. But hey, the fun isn't over yet. Then I gotta come a couple days later and take 3 finals which I'm not looking forward to at all, especially Greek and Systematic Theology. But after those are done, I am home free.

Home free...wow, those words sound so delicious right now. Home free from December 17th-January 11th. And then, yes, I have an important announcement to make here on my blog, (warning: geekiness coming up) I am going to be attending Macworld Expo this year. Some of you may not know what this is, so I'll fill you in. Macworld is like the biggest conference once a year for Mac Computers. I am so psyched about going to this, 1. It takes place in San Francisco, California, and 2. Its gonna be awesome, cause I'm a geek. So anyways, that is happening January 6-9, I am flying out there and then flying back home, and then driving back here to school. Its gonna be an awesome break, and I can't wait to just be home, as you all know.

That's just a quick update for right now. I'll give some more once I'm a little less stressed. O yes, and another important announcement, the Live episode of The Wheel Seat is going to be taking place on Thursday Dec. 11, at 11:30pm. So be sure to tune in to http://ustream.tv/channel/thewheelseatlive
sorry for that little plug there.

stay strong

go home

2008-12-08T11:26:00.000-05:00

Forewarning, this post has the possibility to be somewhat "emo" so don't be surprised when this happens. Just a little disclaimer.

Well I just finished my ridiculously hard greek take home test that I wouldn't be surprised if I failed and it was almost impossible for me to concentrate. That's the problem with take home tests, my thoughts are all over the place. Right at this very moment I just want to be at home, I don't care what I'm doing at home, I don't care if I'm working at home, if I'm in pain at home, I don't care, I just wanna be at home. Why? Don't ask me why? I don't know. Maybe because one of my best friends is at home, the only guy that I can connect with on a geeky level, but I can not only connect with him on a geeky level, but also on a life level, which is great. I miss him alot.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my friends here, especially one of my other best friends who is my roommate, and even since last night its been great to talk to him about life and different stuff, and at that moment last night I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else except right here in my room talking to him. But right now at this very moment I wanna be in my friend's apartment talking to him. Talking to him about computers, about life, about girls, about how he thinks the government is going to eventually be controlling every move we make as humans. LOL.

I don't know. (this is the part of this post where it might get really confusing because I'm just typing at random now, whatever comes to my head...). There's just been some things that I don't even know what the right reaction or the right feeling should be about it. I do know how I'm feeling about it, and some of that is natural, but I don't know if its right. How about this, how about I just skip this last week and a half of school, take my car and just get the heck out of here. I mean, the temperature here in Chicago hasn't been above 25 degrees since I can remember, let alone above freezing. Don't know what that has to do with my emotional state of mind, but I'm sure it has some effect on it. LOL. And this is the second paragraph that I have ended with the letters LOL. Just thought I'd point that out. Maybe my emotional state is as bad as I think it is, at least I'm making myself laugh out loud while writing it.

Anyways, this is officially probably the most confusing post I've ever written, but its probably because I have alot of thoughts about a situation that I can't really just talk openly about on here, so instead I'm just giving all these nuances to things that some may be able to figure out while others will have no clue. But thats ok I guess. I think I'm aloud to write a post like this every once and a while. Right?

any comments or complaints, let me know.

drink your ovaltine

spontaneous

2008-12-07T18:57:00.000-05:00

This weekend has been an eventful one and most of it has been through spontaneous decisions, but those are the best ones right?

I started off the weekend with the creation of a new episode of The Wheel Seat (me and Nate's official videoblog, see the latest episode below). It was a great episode, we had a great shoutout, a special guest appearance by Lil' Wayne, and a big announcement concerning our live episode coming up soon. So that was a blast, and I spent a good bit of time editing that and posting that to facebook. So that was really spontaneous, and even more spontaneous was when I went to McCormick's and Schmick's to eat with a bunch of friends which was a blast, and it was good to hang out with them, cause I don't get to hang out with them that much.

On Saturday I was probably the laziest that I've been in a while because both of my roommates were gone all day. I literally sat in my room all day and just talked to some people online, read some stuff, and then Nate came back around 9:30pm and he convinced me to go to his house with him, so we drove my car to his house and I spent the night there and helped Nate with Sunday school at his church this morning. Eventually we made it back to school, and now I'm studying for Greek and I still have yet to write a paper that is due tomorrow.

So this week is definitely going to be not fun considering the fact that I have 2 big papers due, and a test. At this point, I just can't wait to go home for Christmas break and then just say home. LOL. But only another week and half to go. So anyways, just thought I'd give an update from the weekend and give you an opportunity to watch our latest episode of The Wheel Seat and join our facebook group and be watching for updates on our live show coming up soon.

What a better way to start off your week than reading this blog. Have a good one.

listening

2008-12-04T10:17:00.000-05:00

You know what I just realized, how helpful it is to talk to someone who actually cares to listen, and who actually wants to talk to you, and possibly figure out a solution (if needed) for whatever we are talking about. I also want to emphasize, it is helpful when that person that I am talking to is completely unbiased and simply wants to help me with whatever I am going through. I discovered this the other day when I was talking to one of my friends who is doing this project for her counseling class. She has to interview someone (that someone being me) in front of her teacher, as if she is counseling them, and then she is graded on her performance. So my friend and I had to meet beforehand so she could practice, and so I could get more comfortable with this whole shindig. It actually turned out to be very helpful and very profitable, which wasn't what I was expecting at all. Not that I didn't think that she could do a good job, but just that I wasn't going into this expecting to get anything out of it at all, when after it is all said and done I probably will be helped as much if not more than she will be.

Then I started thinking about it this morning and I realized that, yes, she was using counseling methods that aided her in helping me, but really she was just listening, engaging in conversation, and was just there to help me out, and to talk to me about what is going on in my life. The awesome thing is, that she doesn't judge me, and she doesn't think of me any different because of the conversations that we have had, which is awesome.

So I just want to encourage you to listen to someone today, and then not only listen, but engage in conversation with them. And don't judge that person for what they tell you, and be confidential about it, let them know that when they are talking to you they are safe.

Well, I've got a test in an hour and a half that I haven't studied for, so I should probably start on that. But I just wanted to write about this as the thoughts were coming to my mind, because if I don't do it right away then I will lose it. Happens quite frequently actually.

O yeah, and it is 12 degrees today in Chicago...awesome...I'll try not to die of frost bite

Black Friday Best Buy Campout

2008-11-30T00:13:00.000-05:00

This Thanksgiving was most definitely the most unique Thanksgiving I have ever celebrated in my life. Continue to read and you will find out why. At 11:30am on Thanksgiving morning I find myself sitting in a tent on a sidewalk preparing myself for what was to be an adventure for sure.

Lets start from the beginning. I flew home on Tuesday because my Systematic Theology exam got cancelled, but you already know that because you read my previous post, (right?). So, Tuesday I just hung out at home, and I think I went to Jared's. Wednesday rolls around and my mom is talking to me about my Black Friday plans. (Now for any of you who know me, you know that every year after Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparents house, me and a bunch of my friends go to Best Buy and campout. This tradition was started 6 years ago by myself and my dad. As the years have gone by, my dad stopped coming, but I still camped out every year.) So my mom, knowing that I was planning on camping out again, was just asking what I was gonna get, and what time I was gonna get there. In this process of talking to her she exclaims that my family needs a laptop, because somehow every time I leave for school every computer in the house seems to die. So my family has been without a computer for almost a month and nowadays its hard to go that long without access to a computer and the internet (or at least thats what we think).

I told my mom that Best Buy was going to have a laptop on sale for really cheap ($380 to be exact!).

Before I go on with the story I would just like to say that ever year I have gotten to Best Buy earlier and earlier. My first year I got there at 3:00am and last year I got there at 9:00pm the night before, so I was planning on getting there this year between 7-8pm. And I always would envy those people who were on the front of their building with their tents and such, because I was always on the side of the building. But the people on the front of the building had to get there between like 12pm and 3pm the day before, which I thought was ridiculous, and I would never be able to do. Well here's where it gets interesting.

So when I told my mom about the laptop, much to my surprise her response was, "Well, how early would you have to get in line to get that laptop?" I told her probably around noon on Thanksgiving, and the next thing was even more of a surprise, she said, "Well if thats what it takes to get the laptop then you can do it."

WHAT! Was I really speaking to my mother? The woman who thinks I'm ridiculous for in previous years getting in line at 9pm the night before, and now she's giving me permission to skip family Thanksgiving dinner and go wait in line starting at noon...
I was so taken back by this. But I gave it some time just to make sure she was serious. I asked her about it a while later, and after much compromise she said that if I could get someone to come and sit in my place for about an hour while I go and eat dinner with my family then I could do it. I thought this was so awesome. Don't ask my why, but I was just so excited. I guess just to be able to say that I did it. That I waited in line for 17 1/2 hours outside Best Buy on Thanksgiving for Black Friday sales.

Thankfully I was able to get a hold of Josh Puckett who so kindly sat in my spot in line for an hour while I went and ate dinner. So I got there at 11:30am the morning of Thanksgiving, setup my tent and my lawn chair and waited. Now to some of you that may sound like a real drag, but no, it was actually really fun. I met some cool people, and altogether it was a fun experience.

I didn't mean for this post to be this long, so I'm just gonna wrap it up. But I did make the front page of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Ok, so I was in the background of the picture but it's still cool. And also I made a little documentary of my Black Friday adventures. I was 7th in line, and it was awesome. So you can check out my experiences by watching this video below. Enjoy!

I just wanna thank Josh Puckett, my mom, my grandparents, Jared Tolley, Jessica Krumpelman, and my trust footwarmers (they worked wonders).

17 1/2 hours!

LANing it up

2008-11-26T13:06:00.001-05:00

Just an update from this past week/weekend. It was amazing to say the least. Turns out that half of my classes were cancelled last week from Tuesday to Friday, meaning that I only had 2 classes the rest of the week, so I just decided to skip, and fly home on Tuesday. So the following is what I did last week while I was home.

I slept in till at least 2pm everyday, which was awesome. I haven't gotten to sleep in in who knows how long. So I caught up on some sleep, and then spent most of my evenings at Jared's new apartment. It has been good to get to spend some time with him. We have been really good friends for a while and it is just good to get together and talk about life, and the things we have in common, being technology. One of these nights I got to watch the movie Wall-E on blu-ray, and it looked amazing. I think that was my first time watching a blu-ray movie on an HDTV and I just can't get over how great it looks.

Friday we had a LAN party at Jared's which was fun, and it was the best one that I've been to in a while. We actually got the network up and running and played some AOE (Age of Empires for those of you who are not up on your gaming lingo). And yes, I did play a game of AOE, I sucked it up, but it was fun to get to play. The night went by pretty fast actually. Before I knew it, it was 4am and I was still as energetic as ever. I ended the night by watching "I am Legend" on blu-ray and then went to bed at 6:30am and woke up at 3:30pm. So it was a blast. Check out my facebook profile for some pics from the LAN party and such.

We then had a family game night which was fun. We played one of my favorites, "Cranium" and it was fun to just have fun with the whole family, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Haven't had that in a long time. Then went to church on Sunday morning and had an amazing lunch at Olive Garden, and then flew back to Chicago.

Now, I bet you're asking yourself, Why did Josh fly back to Chicago for only 2 days?" Or maybe you're not asking yourself that question, but let me answer it for you because if you weren't, at least now you are asking it. I was scheduled to have a Systematic Theology Exam on Wednesday morning and then I was planning on flying back home later that day. So that was one of the only reasons that I went back. But I get to my Syst. Theo class on Monday morning and my professor decides to move the exam to next week, so then I really had no point in coming back to Chicago. So needless to say, I flew back home last night meaning that I was in Chicago for almost a whole 48 hours before I came back home. But its nice to get back home.

So that was just an update from last week. I know, nothing too interesting, but just felt like I should give an update from the LAN party, so be lookin for those pics.

LAN (Local Area Network) (Yeah I know, I'm a nerd)

upbringing pt. 2 introspectivity

2008-11-21T01:09:00.000-05:00

So this is part 2 of the previous post, "upbringing." I thought these next thoughts might add a bit too much length to the last post, and I know how easy it is to get discouraged when initially looking at a 6 paragraph post, and just give up before even starting, so I'm just thinking of you. So just picking up where I left off...

Another thing that evokes thoughts about this subject is some introspective observation. Looking at myself and how my behavior, body language, verbal language, etc. how all this has changed over my lifetime. I noticed the most in my freshman year of college. Thankfully I got 2 awesome roommates who I loved, unfortunately they both got married and moved off campus, but its still awesome to keep up with them. But anyways, both of them used to say the word "frick" alot, and I'll just say now that I have no problem with the word "frick." I never said it before college because it was just never a word that was in my vocabulary, but after living with them for only two months, I found myself saying this word quite frequently. I noticed this after a bit, and I was amazed at how this word just became infused into my vocabulary almost unconsciously. This is just one example of how behavior can be influenced so easily and so unconsciously. And this may not be true for all people, and maybe I'm just very easily influenced because I know that is true for some people, but I think this is true for all people to an extent. We as human beings adapt to our surroundings and sometimes that means changing our behaviors and actions, language, etc.

So a thought I would give you readers is to maybe every once and a while, look at yourself and ask yourself why you do the things you do. If they are things that you do because others around you are doing them, or if it is from some outside influence.

Actually after reading back over this post, I guess it has come a bit of a ways from my original subject of how people are brought up, but I think these are some good things to think about. So think about them, and then if you want leave a comment.

peace

upbringing

2008-11-20T23:56:00.000-05:00

You ever think about why people behave the way they do? I don't know about you, but sometimes I just get into this psychology mode where I observe people and the way they dress, behave, talk, and I wonder, how they came to be the way they are today. This doesn't happen to me alot, where I get in these modes, but every once and a while I will see someone do something that I'm not used to seeing, or hear someone say something that I'm not used to hearing, and I wonder, how is it that they came to do these things? This also makes me think about different cultures, and not just different international cultures, but even different cultures within the US.

An example of different cultures even within the US is the Southern culture, the west coast culture, the northern culture, even the midwest culture. Some of these are more distinct than others, but the distinctions are still there. I just wanna talk about the west coast culture. Just this semester I've made some friends who are from California. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the way that these people dress and behave is general to all people in California, but I'm just trying to gain insight into how they are brought up, etc. One thing I have observed about my friends from Cali is that they are very laid back. Not that they don't care about stuff, but they don't let stuff worry them too much, I could be wrong, but I think this could be a result of living in Cali, and just the culture there. Remember, I'm just speculating here, don't go and crucify me because of the things that are written here. LOL. No, but seriously.

I realize, alot of this has to do with the person's personality, etc. but another thing I wonder about, is one's personality a product of how they were brought up, or are they naturally born with a certain personality, I think it could be a bit of both. For example, I'm alot like my dad, quiet, and introverted, but why is that? I think it has alot to do with my upbringing. I was homeschooled for the first 5 years of elementary school. All I'm saying about that is that I definitely didn't get as much interaction with others as other people my age did who weren't homeschooled. So that could've had an influence on this. But like I said, I could've gotten this through some genes, if it is possible for this to be genetical. I'm not sure.

One thing that has caused me to think about all of these things has been imagining myself with kids someday. You can't tell me you haven't thought at least once about how you are going to raise your kids. Well I've actually thought about it quite a bit, just by observing how others raise their kids, and how my parents raise me. Granted I might still be years, and I mean years away from having kids of my own, it is still interesting to think about, and I think we have to think about, even before date, or marry, because the way that I would like to raise my kids has an effect on who I am going to date. If I see qualities in a girl that would give me a sign about how she is going to raise kids, whether good or bad, it will put some kind of influence into our relationship.

Hmm, well I'm trying to decide whether or not go into my next thought that could be a bit more lengthy, or I could start a part 2 of this post in the next post. After looking at the length of this post, I think I will start a part 2 of this post. So look for that. Again these are just some thoughts I've had, but I would appreciate your comments, or criticism.

kids these days

home sweet home

2008-11-19T01:16:00.001-05:00

How many times have I found myself in this situation. I have thoughts that I would like to write about, but I find myself writing this at 1:15am and I'm too tired to put my thoughts together, so again I'm going to resort to writing about what has happened in my life recently, which is one of the purposes of this blog, so I guess I shouldn't see it as a second resort, but I just like to mix it up with things I've been thinking about. We'll save that for tomorrow though.

Well I've been looking forward to this day since last week, after I figured out that 2 of my classes are cancelled from Today till Friday, so I came to my senses and realized that I could fly home today (Tuesday) and stay home till Sunday, and only miss two classes. So today I hopped on a plane and flew home for about 5 days, and I'm looking forward to just relaxing, and spending time with family and friends. So I've put those ideas into action already, I had dinner with my mom and sister tonight, and then went home. Then I came over to Jared's apartment and hung out till about 2am. He's got a pretty sweet setup. I'm looking forward to the LAN party that is gonna take place on Friday night there.

To give you an update of the weekend, I went on a retreat with the Jr. High youth group that I work with every week, and it was absolutely awesome. I'll write more about that later, but it gave me some new thoughts, and I loved just being able to connect with the kids. So be lookin for another update soon, like in the next couple hours. LOL.

peace

quick to answer

2008-11-11T15:30:00.000-05:00

There are so many thoughts that come into my head throughout the day that I immediately then think, "Hmm, I should blog about that" and then I almost immediately forget it. LOL. Sometimes I write them down, like this morning in Syst. Theo. But most of the time, I just tell myself that I'm going to remember, and then end up getting to my room and forgetting everything. My roommate is listening to Christmas music right now, I know right, ridiculous, but what ya gonna do. Anyways, so since I can't remember any other thoughts I've had today, I'll write about the one that I remembered to write down.

This morning in Systematic Theology 1 my professor Dr. Weber was talking about the Hypostatic Union. Then a fellow classmate raised his hand and asked a question about whether God will be in the form of a human when we get to heaven? Dr. Weber immediately answered by saying that he cannot tell us what we are going to see in heaven, but it does say that "the blessed shall see God." And he proceeded to give the Scripture reference for this verse. It made me think about how much training and work he has gone through to get to where he is today. How much knowledge he has about the Bible, and about God. I made a note as soon as he quoted this verse, the note said, "Dr. Weber is like a human concordance, someone asks a question about seeing God in heaven, and he pulls out a verse about "the blessed will see God." Crazy." It just really got me thinking about how knowledgeable this man is, to be able to receive a question from a student and without even flinching in a couple seconds give a very good and thought out answer along with a Scripture reference.

I'm just comparing my professor to myself, in that, if someone were to ask me a question like that, even if I did know that verse, and even if I did have an answer to the question, it still would take me a while to think about the question, give an answer, and come up with a verse to give to that person to think about.

Just a thought I had during class, and thought it would make a good post. Like I said, I had several other thoughts today that I thought would make good posts, but I can't seem to remember what they were. Maybe I'll remember them tomorrow while I'm sitting in class.

its all good

Then what?

2008-11-09T14:47:00.000-05:00

As I was sitting in church today some thoughts started to go through my mind about my college, Moody, and the students that attend here. I started thinking about how much this school is taken for granted by many people here. I hear stories of students going off and doing stuff that could very well get them kicked out of this school, and I wonder why they do these things? It is an understatement to say that it is a privilege to be able to attend here at Moody, and not only attend but also have all of our tuition paid for by donors all around the world. All we pay for is room and board along with some other fees and expenses.

Why is it such a privilege to attend here? Well before I answer this question, let me preface it with, I'm not saying that I or anyone else who attends here is any better than anyone else. All I'm saying is that this is a great school, that teaches the Gospel and Word of God, and if you are pursuing a life in full time ministry then this is a great place to study. This is not the only place to study, there are plenty of other great schools that one can attend in order to get good Biblical training in pursuit of a ministry career. So I say that to say, it is somewhat difficult to be accepted here, there is a rigorous application process, but it is a privilege to be able to attend any school that teaches the Gospel, and the Word of God. Yet so many times people forget why they are here. It is to train for full-time ministry, not to see how many rules you can break without getting caught, because if you are caught then this privilege is all of the sudden gone. Then what?

I just hope people will ask themselves that question. Then what? Before making decisions. I'm not getting into the discussion of whether certain things are right or wrong, regardless of what I believe, all I'm saying is, there are rules that have been set in place for this time in life, they are to be followed.

Just some things I've been thinking about. And this is a challenge to myself as well, as much as anybody. I hear stories of people getting kicked out of school for major things, but yet, there are minor things that I do not follow alot either, such as letting people in the back door of the SDR. So I need to examine myself as well.

O, and by the way, my pastor gave a great message today on judging other people, check it out at www.parkcommunitychurch.org

peace

TGFLS

2008-11-09T02:23:00.000-05:00

Today was one of the chillest Saturday's I've had in a very long time, which was amazing. Here was my schedule today. Wake up around 9am. Go to Brooke's apartment where she fixed us pancakes and eggs (which were delicious). Go to my floor's football game at 11am. Lunch. 6 games of racquetball. Then me and nate continued our "Arrested Development" marathon for a couple hours. Then dinner. Sleep for 2 hours. Then ping pong, shakes, and then more arrested development with the rest of the crew.

Sorry, I just realized that you probably don't care about my schedule at all, but I was just so proud of that, that I really felt like I should put that out there. And to top it all off, Benji has been here this weekend, so its been awesome to spend time with him. So that was my day today. And if you keep up with my facebook status you will know that I am still showerless today as well, which makes it even a lazier day.

TGFLS (Thank God For Lazy Saturdays)

this day

2008-11-07T02:16:00.001-05:00

Today was a pretty good day, except for the fact that I had to get up at 7am for Syst. Theo. But other than that it was a good day. I actually spent alot of good time with friends today. I would say that was the theme of today, friends. I went to a cafe with Nate and Savannah, which was fun. I later went to Starbucks with Tom Clark. After that, me and Nate finally did another episode of "The Wheel Seat" which is our video blog that we started last year. Then we went to dinner, and came back. Our floor had a volleyball game which I went to and Savannah and I cheered for D3. After that we went to watch The Office. Then Benji finally got here, and me, Nate, Brooke, and Emily spent the rest of the night with him. We just caught up and had a great time, just laughing. It was awesome. We then ended the night with watching like 20 minutes of the movie "Hook" before we got tired and decided to go back to our room for the night. And that brings me to right now. I was trying to decide whether I should blog or not, and I decided to because me and Tom had some great talks today just about God, and His power. In fact that is what I originally wanted this post to be about, but it looks like it has taken a turn to another theme. Like I said, that theme is friends.

So I'm just gonna scrap the idea of writing about what I originally was going to write about, and instead just write about friends. Like I always say, "If you got a good thing goin, don't stop it." Actually I don't always say that, but it is appropriate for this situation. I will write about me and Tommy's talks tomorrow. But today I have been shown the importance of friends, and just stepping back and realizing that is good to do. Yes, this day has been busy, but not stressful busy, just busy with friends, which is usually good, especially when it has nothing to do with school whatsoever. And especially when one of my closest friends that I haven't seen in forever is visiting. This is a good thing.

Well everyone in my room is in bed, and I am struggling as I write this to keep my eyes open, so I apologize for the sloppy writing. That first paragraph was probably pretty rough to read, LOL. Anyways, cherish your friends, and don't take them for granted. So I'll end this post with a line from a popular Michael W. Smith song...

"and friends are friends forever if the Lords the Lord of them, and a friend will not say never, cause the welcome will not end..."

enjoyment

2008-11-06T16:11:00.000-05:00

This week has been a bit crazy, even though soccer is over, its like the professors knew ahead of time, "Well soccer is over now, so we can kill them with assignments." That's not really what happened, but it felt like it. Tuesday I had a big Systematic Theology Test, Wednesday I have a paper due, and a big Greek Test. I know that doesn't seem like alot, but those two classes are the two that I'm not doing so hot in, so I had to make sure that I was ready for that stuff.

I've also been thinking more about my videography work. I actually got one project done this week which I was pleased with. Then I got another potential client for a wedding videography this coming summer, which then led me to think about my website, and since I've been in the redesign stage for the past month I haven't gotten my videography section back up yet, so I worked on that some last night, and just thinking about everything that goes along with that. After thinking about it, I've been seeing all my friends get engaged around me, and its just been crazy to watch, but I never looked at it as an opportunity to do alot more wedding videography this summer. But in this aspect unfortunately I have to do my internship this summer, so it would be kinda difficult to do all of these weddings while I'm traveling doing my internship. But we'll see. I'd like to be able to work around it, because I could bring in a pretty significant income if I got a good number of weddings. Speaking of which, if you or someone you know is getting married, let me know, I do wedding videography for a VERY affordable price and good quality. So just throwing that out there. But it has felt good to get back into some video stuff again. I've been putting off some projects as of late, and this week has been good to get back into those.

Well today is an exciting day as Ben Harrison (Benji) is coming to visit for the weekend, and should arrive sometime tonight. He has been one of my close friends for the past 2 years here at Moody, and last semester he decided to transfer to a school back in Iowa where he lives to study Business. It is better for him because that is what he is passionate about, but I've missed him alot. So it will be really good to get to spend some time with him this weekend. We just got a new couch in our room, thanks to myself (another great craigslist find). And it is a sleeper sofa so Benji will stay in our room for a night or two and then stay in his old roommate's room for a couple nights. So I'm just really looking forward to this weekend, and it feels really good to have those big tests out of the way this week.

O yeah, and tonight is "The Office" so we are gonna watch that, at our weekly office night get togethers and then hang out. Those are always fun. I absolutely love that show. If you've never watched it you should definitely check it out. It is alot funnier if you have been following it for a while, but if you're new to the show you will still find it hilarious.

So I just spent some really good time with a good friend named Tom Clark at Starbucks, and I have some thoughts from that time, but I'm gonna write a post about it soon. So look for that.

The Office 9 pm EST/8pm Cent.