I’ve had a few projects sitting around for a few months that I am working on this week trying to finish up. Here is one that is nearing completion. There are a few main things that still need to be accomplished, but I am confident that it will be done this week.
Also, this week.
I am feeling awesome today. Even healthwise as the gallstone finally passed (I know, TMI but it’s relevant for those who were wondering about my most recent health status). I think some of the stress of the prolonged job hunt is starting to fall off too. Oh, I guess I didn’t announce that here yet. In fact I don’t think I announced a few things. Like where we are expecting a new baby by December (of which we are about 80% sure is a girl, but waiting on a second ultrasound to confirm). But in other news in the Lehman household….
But job sounds like something you do for money as in “selling out”. I prefer the term “position” because it sounds more like the way I view it. Doing something you love while getting paid and being able to provide for your family doing it. So what does this mean for the immediate future. Well, we are moving for one. Right now the moving is scrounging around for moving boxes and trying to pack while looking for a place to live.
So now for the details. The church is Franklin First United Methodist Church in Franklin, KY. This means we are moving in the next few weeks. Becca is really excited as it means going back south. Kentucky is her home state and as she’s lived pretty much all over western Kentucky, she counts the whole state as “hometown” for the most part. We will be about an hour away from Mammoth Caves, 45 minutes away from Nashville, 30 minutes or less from Bowling Green. I will be the Youth & Young Adults Pastor at the church Full-time & Becca will get to be a stay-at-home mom (which is what she wants to do). She is also probably going to start writing on her site a lot more, www.motherhoodfordummies.com.
Now, the only thing I’ll be worried about is the fact that I’m going to be working with this guy below as he is the pastor at the church I’m going to. He’s the one on the right.
See I didn’t realize the underlying Jewish Rabbi Cult that has permeated the United Methodist Church. The fact that he has Henna Art on his hand along with painted fingernails. I will assume that this image is of some strange new age Jewish wedding or “The Night of the Henna”. Looking at Wikipedia I find: (via this link under the section for “Traditions of Henna as body Art”)
The Night of the Henna was celebrated by most groups in the areas where henna grew naturally: Jews,[11] Muslims,[12] Hindus, Christians and Zoroastrians, among others, all celebrated marriages by adorning the bride, and often the groom, with henna.
I often have been in some kind of situation where I felt like there was little to no hope and somehow God created something wonderful through it. I’ve been in the middle of a situation like that right now. I am on the backend where God is putting things in place to show me how He can work to create something amazing; something I never saw the possibility for. I’ll be able to share more very soon, but not yet.
I’ve been busy today working on a client/friend’s website and some marketing materials. Below is the front of the flier I designed earlier this morning. I still have to design the back of the 6×9 card, but so far I am pretty pleased with how it has come out.
Web & graphic design was never the objective, but it’s what pays the bills when I am otherwise out of work (along with my wife working outside the home). This way, we both can make some income and not pay a daycare service. If we had to do that, we’d be deeper in debt and not have the time we currently get to spend with our son, Aidan. Soon, though there will be two.
Another little one is on the way, so I’ve been trying to up the number of websites I build and host on a regular basis for people. Hopefully, if I get enough (around 10 more) sites, I will be able to tell my wife that she doesn’t have to work outside the home anymore which in turn will free me up more to do more design work.
But that is still plan B. My heart is in Christian Ministry. I’ve applied at a few more churches looking for a full-time opportunity. But if that doesn’t pan out, I guess I’ll just get more involved where I am at now. (See link to the right – in the sidebar)
More often than not, my plan b sometimes is God’s plan a.
If you’ve checked the tech blogs lately, they’ve been buzzing about a next generation iphone that came to light after an Apple employee lost the prototype at a bar. Tech blog, Gizmodo apparently bought the device for $10,000 to take it apart and break the news on it for the sake of a few advertising dollars and a spotlight for a few days on the other tech blogs.
It’s an issue of morality & integrity that I think is unfortunately lost on a lot of our culture. Apparently Gizmodo is also on the bandwagon of moral degradation too. But I am curious what would have happened if Gizmodo had just given the device back to Apple instead of knowingly purchase stolen property to exploit?
Now, I have a lot of respect for Apple over their decision to ban porn applications on their app store. A decision that I think actually embodies the philosophy of Google’s to “not be evil” better than Google has done themselves. In this they have proven a moral stronghold when they could have easily chosen otherwise.
I am not sure what would have actually happened if Gizmodo had just given the device back, but I am sure that bridges would have been been built instead of torn down. Now you have Cupertino upset over the issue. Not because their device was leaked, but because of the lack of respect that has been shown them on behalf of the tech blogs in the face of the massive security measures usually taken by Apple to keep things under wraps till a launch date or press conference.
I will admit I am an idealist. I think a person or company should be respected in regards to information like this.
If the device had been given back, Apple would have taken notice. I do not think that they would have been left out in the cold either when the device was actually launched. Apple likes to do things differently which is well-known. An uncommon company like them would have also probably been uncommonly grateful as well.
Gizmodo hasn’t always been the giant tech blog that it is today. Now it sits in the ranks of TechCrunch, Engadget and Lifehacker with millions of page views every month. But Gizmodo has made it clear that they are the same caliber of journalists that made us hate printed media, blood-sucking journalists that are out to exploit anyone and anything for the bottom line. Of course that’s what makes the page views. That’s what pulls in the advertising dollars. That’s how you make a name for yourself. Exploitation.
It’s also why Gizmodo has been deleted from my feedreader as of late as well as other blogs that have done the same thing.
There are a lot of news organizations out there. There are some really good tech blogs that I still enjoy reading, ones that haven’t “sold out” to get ahead of the game through buying stolen property. I hope Apple shows grace to you. I hope forgiveness is a part of their language. The fact that this was a knowingly unreleased product, any judge in their right mind would rule in their favor, regardless of whether a police report was filed or not.
It was first a classic iPod that I loved for music and video. Then the iPod touch which integrated apps for almost everything. My laptop has been getting increasingly less used since I purchased an iPod touch. I check email on it, I play games and I even compose music on it and use it to make phone calls via skype. I still sit down at my computer every now and then to write an email or a post on my site, or even do graphic work with my wacom tablet. But going through my software that I use on a regular basis, I think I am done using a laptop PC for most everything else.
Let me share what I use my laptop for.
I am sure I will find more reasons why I am most likely never going to buy another PC, but for now I think I better turn off my laptop. It’s getting a little hot.
My wife made an interesting observation today. I write like I am working on some kind of cumulative research project meticulously gathering data and facts ultimately working toward the encyclopedia entry for who I am as a person. She didn’t quite say it in so many words but that’s the way I heard it. I think I initially wanted to argue otherwise and defend it. I have come to the conclusion that she was correct in her assessment. The whole conversation revolved around my frustration that so many other people that I have helped blog and coached somewhere along the way were succeeding where I was failing. I can write day in and out, but actually saying something that is particular to me has become a chore. I felt over the last year or two that I’ve been having some kind of extended out of body experience objectively qualifying everything I write with the filter of bland factual analysis.
I am trying a different tack. Yes, the sharp pointy things that you used to put on your teacher’s chair but now you would probably get expelled from school for doing because in our culture you were trying to kill the teacher with tetanus instead of a mere tack. Tact. Yeah that word too.
A simple journal. This is a deliberate effort to be more real. Be more myself. Something like that. I think the other voice was me too, but it was a critical, self-absorbed version of myself trying to shoot myself with the same gun I was trying to aim. Maybe it’s all a bad analogy… maybe I should just shut up my critical self and write more?
Sorry for the lack of good updates to the blog as of late. It isn’t because I haven’t been busy. I’ve been working on a new website for my church and doing some more artistic type graphic work. We have a men’s retreat that will be taking place next month that is entitled “MANdate: 2010″ The little subtitle/tease for the retreat is “Are you ready for battle?” The graphic above is what I helped put together for the event. It is a collaborative effort between Pastor Erick and myself.
If you write a lot like I tend to do, sometimes you find yourself in a niche. It’s not a bad thing, but when you find yourself here, it’s really hard to just be yourself from time to time. The blog that used to have an objective now feels like a place you have to be someone you aren’t really. For me, it happened on my personal site and I felt like I couldn’t be myself on my personal blog. I started to give myself excuses. I redesigned the site probably 300 times now over the course of eight years. Why? To better show the person behind the site. Some of the excuses were legitimate. Some were just plain dumb. Truth is, I used a domain I had bought, that meant something to me back in college. Since then, I’ve changed. My identity is different than it was then.
I can’t promise I will write more. I’m done with promising that and not living up to my own expectations.
I will promise to be more authentic though.
For those of you who don’t know, I also do website design on the side for other people and companies. I just finished this site for PhageVax. I just thought I’d share it since this is one of the many things that has been taking up my time while my family is sick with the flu.
About the Theme
It is a wordpress-based, minimalistic theme with a rotating transparent header image overlay. I didn’t need comments, so I axed that element along with trackbacks to keep the site more manageable and user friendly. Using the background for the search box was a really nice touch I thought to make it look like a cutout area. I also added a widget area and used the image widget plugin to make the logo one that I could update easily without playing with css.
If you are interested in a wordpress-based design for your site, leave a comment and we can arrange a call to go over the details.