Robert's Blog

June 27, 2005

the quest for the camera

so now i’m trying to figure out how to earn, steal, or print enough currency to purchase a nikon d70 (which looks like it will probably be my choice camera instead of the canon d20). earning a spare $1,000 is not an easy thing for me. thus my plan has been to make a “deal with the devil” per se.

about four years ago i started publishing the discipleNOW/retreat curriculum and bible studies that i write and putting them on the net (under www.disciple-now.com which i have since shut down). my desire was that small churches could use this material for free and that larger churches that wish to use the material would pay a small fee that would cover the costs of the website. the site worked well. in fact, it worked too well. the whole enterprise started to take too much of my time. originally all i had wanted to do was help out some ministers in smaller churches who couldn’t afford to buy their material. i wasn’t wanting to be an entrepreneur. i was constantly having to fill orders and that was more than i had ever wanted. so about 8 months ago i became tired of the whole process and dropped it. since quitting the website i’ve still had people calling and emailing asking for any new material i had.

so i’ve kind of decided to set up another website to let people use the discipleNOW / retreat curriculum and bible studies i write for my own ministry. yet this time i’m going to use a little more modern technology to enable the whole thing. i’ve set up another blogger site in order to upload adobe acrobat versions of the material i have published. this way smaller churches can print copies of the material for free. all i have asked is that if someone from a larger church uses the material and they have it in their budget i would appreciate them “spreading a little love my way” via paypal. pam, my wife, says it will never work because youth ministers will never give money for something they can simply take for free. that might be true but i really hate the thought of going back to selling the stuff so that’s a chance i will simply choose to take.

of course, the “deal will the devil” is really placing google adsense ads on the blog. today i actually earned $0.94 through these things. now i only need 1,063 more days like that and i will have enough to buy the camera.

June 26, 2005

just a friendly reminder

hey there guys & girls i just want to remind all those who are involved within the student ministry to continually lift up in prayer kate, our friend and sister in CHRIST. over the next month she will be ministering with our friends in nicaragua. we will see her again when some of our number go down to nicaragua in late july.

in the student ministry we have often talked about missions as a bow and arrow. the arrow goes to the target but it is the bow that supplies the power and direction. kate is the arrow being sent to the target. we, her church, are the ones who are supposed to send her and continually support and empower her. she is going to nicaragua to be faithful to what GOD has called her to. we have to be faithful to make sure she knows that she is not alone.

haley, another of our family, will go down and join kate next week.

June 25, 2005

digital photography

my amazing wife said the other day that she thought my interest in digital photography had reached the point that she would agree with me shelling out the money necessary for me to purchase a digital slr camera (i lean towards a nikon d70 or a canon eos d20). she says i should use the pastor appreciation love offering all the pastors in the church get each october but i don’t feel comfortable with that because i would rather than continue to go to family things. so this means that i am free to buy a camera that i don’t have the money for.

thus i need to figure out a way to raise $1,000 or just keep dreaming about a great camera. if any of you want to send a few hundred my way i would greatly appreciate it. 🙂

June 25, 2005

polaroid-o-nizer

the polaroid-o-nizer is cool. it takes any digital picture that you have and converts it into a polaroid-looking image. as you know everyone wants to take their high-tech digital photo and make it look like a very low-tech polaroid image. there are other ways of doing this but the polaroid-o-nizer is a web based program for doing it and it’s free (yippee).

from the above description of the polaroid-o-nizer you should be able to figure out what is important about it … it is yet another thing on the internet that previously i didn’t know or even care about but i am now no longer able to live with out. that’s the beauty of the web – it makes stupid things a necessary part of life.

June 24, 2005

going under

Going Under

Originally uploaded by DYFL.

this is for all those who consistently have automobile accidents. you can’t feel too bad until you drive for a living and do this with your vehicle. until you reach this level of accident you can always rest assured that there is at least one driver in the world who is worse than you.

of course, once you “top” this accident you have reached an entirely new level of terrible driving.

June 23, 2005

something new

i’m bone dead dog tired (whatever that means) right now. it’s been a long but fun week.

earlier this week i had the privilege of eating lunch with j.t., the youth minister at jefferson baptist church here in baton rouge. we ate some rather large cheeseburgers at cheeburger, cheeburger and had a great conversation concerning exploring the possibility of together developing and setting up some alternative worship experiences. neither of us know what will come out of the dialogue but we’re open to continuing it and maybe bringing some other people into it. if nothing else it was very refreshing.

BTW – to the right is a rather ticked off looking j.t. oooooohhhhh! scary!

June 23, 2005

m.i.t. survery

June 23, 2005

go karting with alan

some of us went go karting this afternoon and i learned a valuable lesson. today i learned that alan is invisible to authority figures. you see alan has the rare ability to use his kart to slam people into the side rail without ever being seen by the people who are supposed to throw troublemakers like him out. it was an amazing thing to watch. alan bounced everyone who came by him. he would pound his victim into the rail and just continue driving while hitting the person. he didn’t even try to hide it. yet no one who could do anything about it ever saw his behavior. it was like he was invisible and since he was invisible he just continued to slam everyone he saw. bad alan, bad!

June 22, 2005

commissioning

tonight at the view we are commissioning one of our own to go to nicaragua for a month and work with our friends there in spreading the good news of the kingdom of GOD.