December 31, 2004 at 5:19 pm
grid::blog | Project 365 is complete!
365 days and well over 4500 photographs later (in all honesty, I’ve probably taken over 10,000 photos, except that I’ve deleted a bunch from my camera in the process), I’m happy to say that grid::blog | Project 365 is finished! (By the way, that’s an average of about 27 pitcures per day.) It has been a crazy year — and even crazier taking pictures and uploading them everyday. But I am proud to know that I was able to do it (I don’t even feel bad about the fact that I could never do something like this).
This project didn’t really turn into the grid::blog that I would have liked, but it was still very fun (and challenging) for me to attempt. In any case, Jordon and Richard both kept up for most of it so that was cool too.
I’m not going to be doing the every-day-thing in 2005, but I will definitely still keep my Photoblog going. It’s a fun way to journal my life in a different way and it is a great way to keep up my photo chops.
For those of you who were able to keep up with me and look at my pictures every once in a while:
Thank you!
(The photo pictured here is from today, December 31, 2004.)
December 31, 2004 at 08:29 am
The family's in town...
I neglected to mention that my family is ( or, “parents are” ) in town for the weekend — my parents came in on Wednesday night and my sister and her daughter were supposed to come in today. Unfortunately, my neice has been getting sick, on and off, for the past couple of weeks. We thought she was better, but about halfway from where my sister lives to the airport (mind you, it’s a six hour drive in all), my neice began vomiting again. Sadly, we all decided that it would be better if they cancel their trip.
So, it’s just us and my parents this weekend — which is totally fine, but we will really miss Amie and Acacia.
This being said, my end-of-year blogging will be (has been) sparse. I have a few things left to say today, but it will just have to wait until later.
December 29, 2004 at 1:10 pm
Why's & What if's...
I haven’t spoken about the tragedy in Southeast Asia at all — except for a few comments on others’ Blogs here and there. That’s the thing, so many people are blogging about the tsunami, that I didn’t feel like I had anything else to say — and a lot of people were saying it better anyway.
Take Jason Clark for example:
God when I see this I see how I live my life with faith built upon making me safe and well, and forgetting that everyday I have is a gift, and evey day could be my last, and everyday is not a right but a gift from you. Jesus you pray on our behlalf interceding, please pray for us, bring our ‘whys?’ before our Father, so we might experience your resurrection life in the aftermath of these experiences.This prayer was brought about by his grief over the tragic events that have befallen Southeast Asia — events that hit very close to home… You see, my brother and his family live in Southeast Asia. Monday evening, we found out that they were safe, but something inside of me echoes Jason’s prayer: Why?
And then there’s Gordon (aka, Real Live Preacher)... Prompted by Rayne‘s observations of the amount of money the U.S. has pledged to send to Southeast Asia ($15 million — contrasted with the $30 – $40 million that President Bush will spend on his inauguration), he writes:
Still, one wonders what would happen if George Bush were to cancel everything, have instead a simple ceremony in the oval office which could be televised, and at the end, turned to the camera and pledged to send all the money that would have been spent on ceremonies to relief agencies working in the countries around the Indian Ocean.Wow. I might even rethink some of my opinions about Bush if that were to happen.
If you want to help those who are affected by this recent, tragic turn of events, there are plenty of ways to do so. One of the organizations that I support is World Vision. Another is UNICEF.
You’ll also see a button over on the right of this page that will allow send money to the American Red Cross for relief in Southeast Asia, via Amazon.com. Thanks, Amazon!
Aside from the typical avenues of philanthropic support, please don’t discount your prayer. It works.
December 28, 2004 at 12:48 pm
Mappr...
(Link via Darren Barefoot.)
December 28, 2004 at 11:50 am
Bill Arnold has a vision for Emergent...
I finally got the time to read a (fairly) recent post by Bill Arnold about how he envisions Emergent continuing. It has been linked by a couple of people already (here and here that I know of), but they are pretty good thoughts that deserve to be read and discussed.
Read Bill’s post here.
Update: I just read Will Samson‘s thoughts called, “Emergent As A Society?“ (also linked above) and I really like how he elaborates on Bill’s initial ideas. There’s too much thinking to do today!
December 25, 2004 at 08:36 am
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas, everyone! May this day be joyous and festive and contain the love of Christ…
If you haven’t yet, go listen to my “Christmas Song.” (Sure it’s two years old, but it’s still a good one.)
It dawned on me, this morning, that there are only seven days left in 2004. That means that there are only seven days left to grid::blog | Project 365! This is both exciting for me and a little sad. I’ll be happy to leave the pressure of taking and uploading photographs everyday, but I really did enjoy the project — and I feel like it has made me a better photographer. In any case, it will be neat to have this visual “record” of the past year.
The photograph your looking at here is called, “Frosty Windows,” and it is my photograph from yesterday, December 24, 2004.
Have a glorious day!
December 23, 2004 at 1:24 pm
A 26-letter personality...
Meme-of-the-day:
Clear the address bar of your web browser and type in each letter, one at a time, to see what URLs come up in your history.
Here are mine:
- AudioScrobbler
- BlogExplosion
- ChristianityToday
- Drupal
- Emergent Village
- Flickr
- Harbinger (Steve Bush’s Weblog)
- IMDB
- Jacob’s Well!
- Knowspam.net
- Lisa Samson
- Merriam-Webster
- BBC News
- Ofoto
- Pivot
- QuikBlogs
- RSS Genesis
- Sense-Datum.org!
- Teshuva (Zach Lind’s Weblog)
- UMKC
- Visa
- World Vision
- Xphiles (Eric Evers’ Weblog)
- YellowPages.com
- Jeffrey Zeldman
(Link via Suw Charman.)
December 23, 2004 at 10:14 am
PC Magazine's People of the Year...
The top sites for creating and hosting your own blog—Blogger and Six Apart—each boast more than 1 million registered users…
The others named are Evan Williams, Meg Hourihan, and Paul Bausch, the creators of Blogger.
Pretty incredible.
(Link via Loïc Le Meur.)
December 22, 2004 at 12:37 pm
Tony Jones defines "Emergent"...
From Tony Jones:
Emergent is a fairly loose gathering of pastors, artists, missionaries, church planters, songwriters, bloggers and others who are engaged in a quiet revolution within the church. Disaffected with the reified structures and theologies of both the Protestant “Left” and “Right,” a dozen of us began meeting together in the late 1990’s, and as our work has become more public, many more have joined in. Currently, we are forging friendships with church leaders around the world, all of whom are on a similar quest of rediscovering the gospel in their contexts.Read the rest here.
December 21, 2004 at 10:26 pm
MobyGames...
Has anyone ever heard of a website called MobyGames? Thanks to Google Alerts, I just found out that I have been added to their “Rap Sheet”:
Tim Samoff was credited on a game in 1997. His/Her career probably spans more years than those displayed since these dates are based on the credits documented in MobyGames (which are incomplete). Tim Samoff has been credited with the roles Design and Production. Tim Samoff has been credited on games developed by the following companies: Asylum Entertainment. This does not imply employment by these companies.First off, I love how personal this “bio” is with the whole “his/her” thing. That’s kind of funny.
Also, this summary is sort of misleading… The company I worked for at the time, Sound Source Interactive, actually purchased Asylum Entertainment — who only went by that name for a few more releases. This being said, the game that they credit me with, Star Trek: The Game Show (of which I was the Associate Producer or something), was published under the Sound Source Interactive moniker. Shortly after SSI purchased Asylum, we all became TDK Mediactive when the TDK Corporation purhcased us. 
Furthermore, the only game MobyGames lists as a Sound Source Interactive game, The Abyss: Incident At Europa, was actually a game that I wrote and produced (I think my official title on The Abyss was Senior Producer) — believe the reviews: it was a sucky game that was a year too late and hindered by budget and bureaucracy. (And, by the way, The Abyss: Incident At Europa was the game-based sequel to the James Cameron film, The Abyss.)
I admit that it’s cool to see my name — and some of my work — come up on a website like that, but I sure wish the facts were a little more…plumb.
December 21, 2004 at 2:43 pm
Blogger Idol 2 - Week 2: Top 5
My personal Top 5 picks for Blogger Idol 2 – Week 2: First Dates (not in order from first to last place):
- Lake Neuron Bait Shop ~ When Miller Got Home…
- Jesslin ~ Waiting…
- Livingroom ~ First Date
- Tuneouttv Braindownload ~ First Date (Defined)
- Sanity Optional ~ My First Date
December 20, 2004 at 2:28 pm
Maintenance...
- The archive links in the sidebar all work now; easily travel back in time, to June 2000.
- Searching will search all Weblog entries instead of just the newer ones.
Old Trackbacks are still not ported from MovableType Blog.
December 18, 2004 at 1:30 pm
"Christmas Song"
I wrote and recorded a Christmas song a couple of years ago and I thought, in the spirit of Christmas, I’d share it with you all (it was originally posted it on my mp3.com page when mp3.com was still an online venue for independent musicians).
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little folk-punk Christmas ditty (click on the tree). 
December 16, 2004 at 11:25 am
Checking Sources: More on the "Local Church"
I picked up the latest copy of ChristianityToday Magazine at church yesterday morning and, while leafing through, came to an article called, “The Chinese Church’s Delicate Dance,” by Mark Galli (the managing editor of ChristianityToday Magazine). The article is interesting — it’s about the duality of the Christian church in China; it’s government-registered segments. the “Three-Self Patriotic Movement” and “China Christian Council,” and the unregistered, or “underground” segment.
As I was reading, though, two things caught my eye: (1) Galli was on a trip to China with Living Stream Ministry; (2) Galli mentioned Watchman Nee’s “Little Flock” movement ( which he said was also called the “Local Church“ ).
December 16, 2004 at 10:03 am
From the Blogosphere to Meatspace...
I had a really fun time meeting Zach last night. As I said yesterday, Zach is the first non-Kansas City-based blogger that I’ve had the chance to meet. I wish we had more time to hang out and talk — I would have loved to show him around a little — but he was more than generous with his time with my friend Mike Crawford and me. We had some great conversation, and even after the short amount of time that we had (maybe a couple of hours in all), I feel like I know him a lot better. (The picture is of Zach and me, taken by Mike.)
Mike and I got to the Uptown pretty late, so we missed most of the bands (G Love, The Donnas, Elefant, and The New Amsterdams). We did get to catch the last ten minutes of the Donnas which was kind of cool — I’m friends with some of their friends, so it brought back some fun memories.
But, like Mike said, “This is, like, so late-70s power rock, man. They’re like a female version of Bad Company or something.”
I couldn’t have said it better.
Jimmy Eat World rocked.
If not for the sort of crappy sound system at the Uptown, it would have been even better. But, they didn’t sound bad by any means… They sounded amazing — it just goes to show what a tight band can do with a room that is huge and hollow. The crowd was very fun, dancing and singing along…
It’s funny how jaded I have become to the whole rock star thing. I used to be as excited as all of those kids, screaming and singing and dancing. Now, I have fun, but I’m not at all star-struck by anyone anymore. I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing. I still really enjoy myself when I go to shows. (See? I don’t even call them concerts anymore.) I love the music. I love the vibe and the excitment. I just don’t feel it anymore. It could just be because I’m older now and I’ve been to countless concerts, I’ve been on many guest lists, I know a few “rock stars” personally… I don’t know.
In any case, I had a great time and I’m so glad I got to see my world shrink a little by meeting Zach, who I’m glad to be able to call a friend. It really means a lot to me that he took the time out to meet me.
(You can see another picture I took of Jimmy Eat World rocking the Uptown here.)
December 15, 2004 at 2:56 pm
The Night The Buzz Stole Christmas...
Thanks to friend and fellow blogger, Zach Lind, I will be heading over to 96.5 The Buzz‘s annual, “The Night The Buzz Stole Christmas” at the Uptown Theater this evening. 
Fun!
Update: I just realized that I have met another non-Kansas City-based blogger: Jason Clark. Who knows? Maybe there are more. Hmmm… (12/17/04)
December 14, 2004 at 12:42 pm
My Top 5 in 2004...
No, say it isn’t so! Another “Top” list — making three — in one week! (And two in one day, at that.) Well, it seems that I misread the rules of the Top 5 list that I just posted. Man, I feel dumb.
Well, without further embarrassment, here are my own personal Top 5 blog entries from 2004 — all written by me (duh!):
- Reevaluating “postmodernism” for 2004… (January 01, 2004)
- PTD (Public Transit Doofus)... (March 04, 2004)
- Blogger Idol – Week 11: Blogger Pageant ( “Pageant Passage Paradigm: A Postmodern Parable” ) (March 31, 2004)
- Pomo vs. Porno? (June 04, 2004)
- “Transit Lament” (June 18, 2004)
- A little bump in the ol’ Troponin… (July 08, 2004)
- Who Controls the Layers? (September 08, 2004)
December 14, 2004 at 10:30 am
Top 5 in 2004...
I apologize for two Top 5 lists in one week, but I just received this from Bob Carlton:
1. Create an entry with your best 5 entries of the year. 2. Send me the entry link at bobcarlton@speakeasy.net 3. I am going to repost your entry on http://thecorner.typepad.com/top5/ 4. Subscribe to the RSS feed 5. Spread the word 6. Enjoy the fun.Believe me… I have waaaaayyyyy more than 5 good links, but in the spirit of the “challenge,” I pared them down to just 5.
Drumroll please… Here are my Top 5 favorite entries of the year (from earliest to most recent):
- “Is our preaching out of touch?,” by Tom Allen (February 10, 2004)
- “Cold Turkey,” by Kurt Vonnegut (May 10, 2004)
- “Something for Nothing: The Free Culture AudioBook Project,” by Suw Charman (May 24, 2004)
- “Defeating Nazi…,” by Noam Chomsky (June 8, 2004)
- “The Emergent Mystique,” by Andy Crouch (October 22, 2004)
- “The Lord’s Prayer,” 24-7 Prayer & Life2TheMax (April 2004)
- “Hey, Hey 16k!,” by Rob Manuel & MJ Hibbett (May 2004)
- “(Didn’t Know I Was) UnAmerican,” by Ian Rhett & Eddie Carden (October 2004)
December 14, 2004 at 08:25 am
On the team...
December 13, 2004 at 12:47 pm
Blogger Idol 2 - Week 1: Top 5
My personal Top 5 picks for Blogger Idol 2 – Week 1: All I want for Christmas…. (not in order from first to last place):
- Pearls and Dreams ~ Christmas Wish List
- Tuneouttv Braindownload ~ All I Want For Christmas
- Rather ~ Naivete scene
- Connexions ~ All I want for Christmas?
- A Dervish’s Du’a’ ~ All I want for Christmas….
December 13, 2004 at 08:14 am
Quiet...
I guess it’s the impending holiday that has caused me not to write much over the last few days. There is a lot to think about and a lot to do… Or maybe I just don’t have all that much to say.
But things are well…
The other day, while walking from my bus to work, I found a basketball in a nearby creek. I’ve been wanting a basketball for some time now — I even registered for one before getting married, but no one came through for me. God has finally answered my prayers, over two years later. Thanks, God.
Now all I need is a hoop. But the money that a hoop would cost would be much better spent here. Which we all should do.
Maybe I’ll find a hoop in the creek one day.
December 09, 2004 at 06:17 am
Dimebag Darrell killed...
Dimebag Darrell was killed last night. For some reason, it’s kind of weird for me. I was never the biggest Pantera fan, but I did enjoy some of their tunes. And Darrell was an amazing guitarist.
RIP, Darrell.
December 08, 2004 at 1:32 pm
NewsFan...
I just downloaded and tried the latest version of NewsFan — yet another RSS aggregator/web browser vying for “market” popularity.
NewsFan is OSX-only (like NetNewsWire). This may be it’s only major short-coming (if you’re a multi-OS user such as myself), as my initial usage of the program was very positive. NewsFan is designed around a typical three-paned GUI and is very clean and quick. RSS feeds that reference Style-Sheets look great (aside from a few html inconsistencies that will probably be worked out at some point) and making feed text zooming is easy via Command+/-.
But, I said that NewsFan was an aggregator/browser, right? (This is similar to how Tickershock works.) While this isn’t a major issue by any means, it is a little annoying to me. The web browser functionalities in NewsFan work well, but I would much rather have my links and thumbnails trigger FireFox that open inside the aggregator itself. That being said, there are a couple of cool web browser-ish features, though, such as “History” and “Bookmarks” menus.
Overall, I think that NewsFan is more like NetNewsWire than any of the other RSS aggregators I’ve tried. And this is not a bad thing. While NetNewsWire is the cream-of-the-crop in the RSS-reading world, competition like NewsFan will do it good.
How?
Here are few NewsFan specific features:
- News Ticker
- Transmit News to iPod
- Transmit Audible News (convert text to audio)
- News Clippings
- Export Headlines
- Import from NetNewsWire
- Find more RSS sites (iTunes, Syndic8, etc.)
- History
- Bookmarks
December 07, 2004 at 1:50 pm
"Christianity Maybe an Antichrist"
Dwight Friesen writes:
Christ trumps all religious systems. Jesus Christ did not create a religion, he lived meta-religion; no religion could contain him.Read the rest here.
Challenging stuff, but very well said.
December 06, 2004 at 10:34 pm
Blogger Idol 2!
Darren Rowse is starting “Blogger Idol” back up, but at a new home. The first topic is “All I Want For Christmas…“
Blogger Idol is a great way to get inspiration for writing, practice writing in different styles, get critique on your writing skills, and make new friends in the process. And, if you’re not interested in writing, many entertaining and provocative pieces are created for your reading and viewing pleasure (short stories, poems, photo essays, etc.).
This year, I think I will take a reader’s role in Blogger Idol — it was a lot of work to keep up with the weekly topics last year. I am anxious to see how things change this year and I’m always looking forward to the creations that are inspired by Blogger Idol.
If you’d like to read some of my Blogger Idol submissions and my weekly “Top 5s” from last year, click here (or for all of my submissions and “Top 5s”, click here).
December 05, 2004 at 4:13 pm
Athenaeum...
I’m in the Import/Export business.
I finally took the time to import all of my old Weblog’s entries into this Weblog (all the way back to June 2000). I’m still working through a few bugs, though:
- Currently, clicking on one of the pre-2004 archive links down there on the right side of this page will only take you to a 2004 archive.
- I’ve lost all of the Trackbacks from those older entries — which I am going to try to get back.
- There are a bunch of images that the older entries display…er…don’t display because of some file-corruption that occurred after a server transfer I made a little over a year ago.
- There are a bunch of formatting issues that arose because of the MovableType – to – Pivot import/conversion process.
- Who knows what else? But I am working through everything over the next week or so.
Update: Searching this site doesn’t seem to be working either… What is working? Me, trying to fix the problem.
December 01, 2004 at 10:28 pm
Thirty days and counting...
There are thirty days left to grid::blog | Project 365. I’d say that I can’t believe it, but I can… I really really can. This has been one long year, and taking new photographs and uploading them everyday has not been the easiest thing I have ever done — it has stretched me and bored me and taught me and excited me… But, I will save my “story” until January 1st.
Here’s today’s photo…
December 01, 2004 at 12:43 pm
"The Lost PoMo Debate"
I’m listening to “The Lost PoMo Debate“ right now as I work. It’s very interesting if you’re into that sort of thing.
Debate Location: emergentYS 2003
Date: November 2003
Panel: Tony Jones, Dan Kimball, Brian McLaren, Duffy Robbins, and Chap Clark
(Link via Sivin Kit.)
December 01, 2004 at 12:18 pm
Zondervan has a Blog!
Here’s a helpful list of books for those of you who are still wondering what “Emergent” means.
(Link via Rudy Carrasco.)
December 01, 2004 at 09:46 am
Burt Rutan...
I’ve never had a lot of heroes in life, but for more reasons than one, Burt Rutan might just be one of them.
From Wired News:
For nearly half a century, the government has held a monopoly on manned space exploration. Quite predictably, this approach has not served us well. NASA is clinging blindly to an embarrassingly expensive and dangerous space shuttle program that should have been scrapped years ago. Before SpaceShipOne, if you wanted to get to space you’d have to pay $20 million for a trip on a Russian Soyuz rocket. Now it’s clear: Manned space travel’s best hope is the private sector, not NASA.Read the rest here.