i’ve been using freemind mind mapping for awhile now for organizing everything from studies to our church planting adventure. today lifehacker listed mindmiester on their website. mindmeister is collaborative mind mapping and it was just what i’ve been hoping for. i love using the mind mapping software but i’ve been desiring to be able use it with other people so that we could map out an event, idea or whatever together. that’s exactly what mindmeister seems to be for. i haven’t used it in a group yet but the single version is just as good as freemind. i think i will probably use it for organizing our nicaraguan mission trip in july.
you should probably take a shower then
our church’s preschool has a chapel every tuesday. these chapels consist of a group of 3 to 5 year olds singing a few songs and then being led through a short bible story by one of the ministers. this means that i get to lead one of these chapels every month. this past week was once again my turn to lead the preschool chapel.
when i lead these chapels for the the kids i like to involve a good bit of participation from the kids so i usually pick a story that i can get the kids to interact with in at least a small way. tuesday i decided to use the story of JESUS healing the 10 lepers. as a part of telling this story i had ten kids get up in front to help me tell the story. when our kid/JESUS walked close to our kid/lepers they were supposed to shout “JESUS, master, have pity on us” as loud as they possibly could. that was the plan and nine of them understood and followed it. one of the kid/lepers apparently misheard me because while the others were shouting “JESUS, master, have pity on us” she instead shouted out “JESUS, he peed on us!”
needless to say all the adults in the room lost it at that point and the chapel devotion was over.
[tags]JESUS, pee, preschool chapel[/tags]
spidey 3
the fam and i just got back from watching spiderman 3. i’m not real sure of my overall impression of the movie yet. i’ll probably figure that out in a few days when i know if i would actually like the watch the movie again or not. so these are just my initial thoughts:
- spidey 3 was quite good – not as good as the second one but it was still a good movie.
- it’s nice to see the spidey franchise do better than the batman franchise did with it’s initial movies (i exclude batman begins from this characterization because it was, in my opinion, a very good movie).
- i didn’t like stan lee’s appearance in spidey 3 as much as i did the others – it was too obvious. it’s better to sneak him in.
- i really enjoyed the first 1/3 of the movie, was a little bored by the middle third, and then won back over by the final part of the movie. the first third was the best part in my opinion.
- i’m not sure how i feel about a fourth spiderman movie. i kind of hope they stop while they are ahead – of course, they won’t though.
- i do not enjoy watching movies in full theaters unless the theater is filled with fanatics. fanatics understand how to respond to the movie without missing anything (star wars and lotr fans are a good example of this). the theater we were in was filled with people who wanted to talk about their day and let their kids run around the theater during the movie.
- the popcorn at the rave 16 cinaplex barely had any salt on it – this almost ruined the whole experience for me.
no matter what i think about spiderman 3 it is still head and shoulders above rambo 3 which is on superstation wgn as i type this. i liked sylvester stallone in the original rockie because it was semi original but all the sequels pretty much killed my opinion of him.
a crisis that will sting us in the end
there is a honey bee crisis developing within america. for some unknown reason or reasons millions of honey bees are randomly dying across america. this is actually no laughing matter because honey bees provide almost 90% of all insect pollination and approximately 90 different foods that we eat (mostly fruits and nuts) depend upon insect pollination. in the past few months u.s. beekeepers have lost about 25% of their colonies due to what is now being called colony collapse disorder. this is five times their normal winter loss.
pam and i have always wanted to raise honey bees. maybe this means that we should start when we move up to wisconsin. if this happens i expect everyone of you to thank GOD for me when you eat your meals. 😉
[tags] honey bees, colony collapse disorder[/tags]
[Listening to: Useless – Imogen Heap – I Megaphone (5:19)]
just for now
blaine w. introduced me to imogen heap’s music awhile back. josh c. sent this video to me today. she’s incredible and this video is one example of her musical greatness.
JESUS talk
if you have ever walked past “free speech alley” at l.s.u. then you have probably experience the wrath that is the consuming fire fellowship. this “church” brings members (adults and kids) over to l.su. regularly and spouts hatred at pretty much anybody who walks by. if you’re wearing shorts, are walking beside someone who is wearing shorts, know somone who is wearing shorts, or you have ever looked at a pair of shorts then you are ripe for their condemnation. the consuming fire fellowship (hence forth cff) don’t mind it when people shout back at them because they rest in the confidence that JESUS said that those who followed HIM would be hated and persecuted (luke 6:26 & 2 timothy 3:12). the irony is that the nonCHRISTians who hear them don’t usually hate the cff. instead, they love them because the cff is great entertainment. people will bring their lunches outside and cheer as the cff spews their hatred. the only people who don’t really like the cff coming around are the CHRISTians because the cff fits into a hollywood stereotype of CHRISTians. the CHRISTians on campus end up getting painted with the same brush as cff and nobody really wants that.
one man has finally come up with the perfect answer for the cff. i haven’t met him yet but many of our students have. from what i know his name is ivan and he goes to free speech alley each week and sits close to where the cff preaches its hatred. he brings his newspaper and wears a shirt that simply says “JESUS talk.” ivan sits there until someone approaches him and asks what his shirt means. he then tells them that he is a follower of JESUS and has come out to free speech alley to listen to, pray with, and talk with people concerning his LORD. he doesn’t beat anyone up verbally. instead he is more concerned with getting to know these young men and women who were created by his LORD. ivan freely shares the gospel with anyone who approaches him but he never uses the gospel as a weapon to inflict hurt on someone. it has now reached the point that people track him down to ask him to pray for them. ivan gladly puts his paper down and shares GOD’s love with them. cff lives and says that GOD hates the students of l.s.u. and merely desires to condemn them. ivan lives and tells them that GOD loves them and wants to lead them to true life – the way it is supposed to be.
“JESUS talk” is a brilliant answer to the lies of the adversary. i wish i had thought of this seven years ago when i first moved to baton rouge. i guarantee that if there is a cff-like movement up at the unversity of wisconsin – stevens point that i will be following in ivan’s shoes as he follows in our LORD’s.
[tags]free speech alley, louisiana state university, JESUS talk[/tags]
[Listening to: Getting Scared – Imogen Heap – I Megaphone (4:53)]
i’m a pro
i’m about to sell my second unsolicited photo off of my flickr photostream. a pizza company in the u.k. wants to use my photo of my halloween family for one of their commercials. how odd is that?
round and round
cartoon by dave walker.
the cartoon blog had this up earlier today. i thought it was fitting. i was talking with someone today who left our church awhile back and has been bouncing around for the past year. he said that he was coming back because he was beginning to realize that anytime people are involved in something there are going to be ones who like to screw things up. JESUS described it as wheat and tares. if you try to get rid of all the tares you are going to hurt the wheat in the process. instead you deal with the tares as best you can and let GOD sort it out in the end.
you can find more cartoons at we blog cartoons.
what j.a.r. will not be like
1.63 million dollars for a tennis court
today roger federer and rafael nadal are playing a match on a specially designed tennis court that’s half grass (federer’s specialty) and half clay (nadal’s preferred surface). the court costs 1.63 million to develop for one match. seems just a wee bit wasteful to me. here’s the article.
[tags]tennis, half-court[/tags]