I mispell things!
this was in my bloglines account today. some guy’s co-wrokers took one side of their conference room and made an elvis image out of post-it notes. it’s amazing. can you imagine how much time and effort went into that?
you can see more photos of the post-it elvis by clicking here.
you can read about how it was done here.
yet another quiz. i have to admit that i think all the quizes are fun. this one though is humbling. it makes a guesstimate of how much of the biologically productive space on the earth it takes for my present existence. it’s humbling (and sickening) to know that i consume so much when so many others survive on so little. once again i have to learn to want less and survive on real needs.
thankfully, i am better about this today than i was six years ago. hopefully things will continue in that direction.
i am not a very creative person. some people think that i am creative and have told me that i am but that’s just because they have never really met a truly creative person. i’m simply not creative but i have learned a good substitute for creativity … time.
jonathan, our minister of belonging, and i discussed this recently regarding the welcome tables he sets up each week. jonathan tries to establish a different and creative welcome table for each week’s youth oriennted worship gathering. two weeks ago he stated that he was running out of ideas. so i told him my ideas on time being an effective substitute for creativity. here are my thoughts.
if you plan far enough ahead you have the opportunity to have many experiences that will contribute to enhancing your plan. so i try to plan my messages and worship services out for a minimum of six months so that i have time for the messages and services to “simmer” and for the experiences around me to build up and find connections with the services and messages. the most creative messages and services i ever contribute to are always ones that have been able to “percolate” and “ruminate” for a long time. time gives me the ability to discuss the message with other people and get their input and help on it. time gives me the chance to have random experiences to suddenly become very pertinent to the worship service. time also allows me to “accidentally” wander into the resources i need to accomplish the plan that has developed. i guess you could say that my basic thought is that time gives one the chance to truly be inspired by the SPIRIT rather than just trying to winging it.
for me worst problems are when i try to “wing it”. you can always tell when i have not put enough time into something. it’s shallow, vanilla, and boring. the SPIRIT isn’t there to give it life and spice because i haven’t allowed it to simmer long enough for any real inspiration to occur.
shane yancey at confessions of an average youth minister just posted about having things “pop up” at the last second and how disturbing they are. i usually hate those last minute ideas for a different reason – for me they are usually just not that creative.
here’s the afi’s list of 100 greatest movie quotes yet. it’s quite interesting.
here are some of my favorites:
12. “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” “Apocalypse Now,” 1979.
21. “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti,” “The Silence of the Lambs,” 1991.
24. “I am big! It’s the pictures that got small,” “Sunset Blvd.,” 1950.
53. “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know,” “Animal Crackers,” 1930.
64. “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”, “Dr. Strangelove,” 1964.
79. Striker: “Surely you can’t be serious.” Rumack: “I am serious … and don’t call me Shirley,” “Airplane!”, 1980.
98. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” “Dirty Dancing,” 1987.
what are yours? which quotes do you think should have been on the list and weren’t?
some of you may have heard that friday there was a 6.7 magnitude earthquake near diriamba, nicaragua (you can read more here) and that our friend kate is already there on a month long mission trip. i am glad to report that i have it on first hand authority (stephen – her boyfriend) that kate is fine and dandy though a little but shaken by the experience.
actually, from reading the news stories on the earthquake it’s quite amazing. 6.7 magnitude is a pretty decent earthquake. it was in the ocean but still close enough to the land that there could have been extensive damage and injury. yet, there wasn’t any. no one was hurt and there doesn’t seem to be any reported property damage. it did cause a tsunami warning for the california coast but that didn’t happen either.
mike yaconelli memorial basic school
our mini-bus started to slow down, and i noticed (car-sick boy that i am, sitting in the front) that there were a group of women standing on the side of the road. they were all wearing brightly colored african skirts and headwraps, and white blouses. they cheered and danced as our bus slowed down next to them, and it was then that i noticed the government sign next to them:
Zambia Ministry of Education
Mike Yaconelli Memorial Basic School
Kisasa”
if you are a fan or yaconelli then you have to read marko’s description of he, tic, and karla yaconelli going to dedicate the school that has been built in yac’s honor. my wife and i both fought back tears.
i was only able to meet yaconelli twice and to spend 20 or so hours under his instruction. still i miss him.
i think this is incredibly cool but i’ve gotten mixed results from telling people (i.e. pam called me a “geek” and waco hitt said it was kind of interesting). anyway, i’ll now tell you what i’m talking about. today i geoblogged. basically i found the longitude and latitude of various pictures i have posted on my flickr account and then sat back and watched as geobloggers placed my photos on a google map. the cool thing about this is that i can se if any other images have been logged around where my images have been recorded.
if you want to try this out simply click on the “geoblogger” link on any of my images that have been geotagged.
the landscaping of my front yard has begun. i just finished spraying roundup on the lawn that we will place the flower beds on. in 24 hours all the grass in the area i have sprayed will be dead. there is no turning back now.
pam and i have decided to begin work on landscaping our front yard (the back will be later probably after the summer is over). we’ve been messing around with plans for 8 months or so but that’s about it. today everything got very serious because we reached the point of no return.
a few minutes ago i loaded some roundup into my trusty sprayer and went to kill some grass. sadly it was innocent grass. the patch of lawn i was going to kill had never really done anything seriously wrong. yes, every now and then it would grow faster than i wanted it to but i don’t know if that is really a reason worth killing it or not. no all this grass did was grow up in the wrong spot. poor grass. it never stood a chance. i’m sure the murdered patch of grass is outside right now grasping for breath and fighting to stay alive. you go little lawn … fight with all you have … you little fighter you. we’re all proud of you lawn.
anyhow, the lawn that i sprayed will be dead as a door nail tomorrow morning and thus we’ll have to start work on the flower beds. of course, we could just settle for being known as the house with the huge patch of dead grass.
i love reading youthblog by ian. awhile back ian detailed the building of his shed and i was surprised at how much i enjoyed reading about and following the progress of his shed. my fascination with the building of a simple shed is probably a rather sad statement on my life (and my extreme jealousy over him having a shed and me not having one is probably a very sad statement on my CHRISTianity).
through the whole thing i was inspired to likewise mark the progress of my own non-youth ministry related home improvement. pam and i recently finished the remodeling of our master bathroom and have now decided to move on to landscaping our front yard. this will be our project for the next three weeks. i could actually finish it in one week except for the fact that i will be leaving in the middle of the whole project on a mission trip with our youth ministry and will therefore be interrupted for a little over a week. anyway, we are starting on the project this weekend and will finish it whenever i get back. hopefully it will throw all of you into shock and awe regarding my masive green thumb.
the first step of this whole process is to determine what landscaping software is best to use for designing the whole project. the image above came from better homes and gardens’ free website landscape designing tool. obviously you get what you pay for. i’m probably going to purchase better homes and gardens’ landscape and deck designer because it seems to have the best reviews of any of the landscape designing software. if any of you guys & girls have any other suggestions on software i would be more than open to your suggestions.
i would also gladly take any suggestions you have on sources of top soil in the baton rouge area. i priced it today and found out it will take between $210 and $300 to purchase the top soil we need for the project. what is wrong with this world when DIRT costs this much? there has to be a better way to raise my flower beds.
