Διδαξον με τα δικαιωματα σου

How to get rich

Fri, 04 May 2012 19:27:39 GMT

Here’s how to get rich:

1. Identify social ill.

2. Imagine theoretical fictional character who stands as antithesis to that ill.

3. Write character into book/movie series and make billions off of people who would rather spend a few bucks watching someone pretend to fix aforementioned ill than actually get up off the couch and do something about it themselves.

Oooh! I got one! I think I’m gonna pick “inequitable distribution of wealth” for line #1! WOOHOO!

Encyclopaedia Brittanica to cease print edition

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 05:01:24 GMT

[Encyclopedia Brittanica president Jorge] Cauz admits that he will miss holding its volumes in his hands. That product, he says, is "not only romantic, it's also nostalgic."
(from http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/story/2012-03-08/encyclopaedia-britannica-print/53516812/1)

BLOG: Yeah, isn't that what I said?

John Adams on Congress and talking too much

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:12:46 GMT

"This assembly is like no other that ever existed. Every man in it is a great man--an orator, a critic, a statesman, and therefore ever man upon every question must show his oratory, his criticism, and his political abilities.

"The consequence of this is that business is drawn and spun out to immeasurable length. I believe if it was moved and seconded that we should come to a resolution that three and two make five, we should be entertained with logic and rhetoric, law, history, politics, and mathematics concerning the subject for two whole days, and then we should pass the resolution unanimously in the affirmative."

--John Adams, referring to the Continental Congress (which I think we can argue at least loosely is the same legislative body as Congress today), in a letter to his wife, somewhere in 1774-76, as quoted by McCullough, p. 86.

The defeat of the British in Boston

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 12:30:59 GMT

"The British had been outwitted, humiliated. The greatest military power on earth had been forced to retreat by an army of amateurs..."
--David McCullough, "John Adams," 76.

Two hundred and thirty six years later, we Americans are still rather proud of that little accomplishment in the last days of the Winter of 1775-76, perhaps more so than any other. We rest on our laurels too much.

We also forget that the leadership of two men set the wheels of that episode in motion. Ethan Allen captured the artillery at Fort Ticonderoga. And Henry Knox led the expedition that, by all expectations, should have been suicide: he moved the guns to Boston.

Without either of those two acts of heroic bravery, we might--*might*, by God's grace--today be an affluent province of the British Empire, and be looking back on the good old days when eventual Governor General Jonathan Sewell restored peace in the colonies and proved those traitorous rebels wrong.

Hey, look at me. I'm writing "what-if" history now. Heh. :)

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Food

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 02:17:31 GMT

It is Lent.

Also, my children are hungry.

I shall now go into the kitchen and make a pizza. From scratch. (Well...from a tube of Pillsbury dough, granted. But close.)

Judge me, if you wish. I am attempting to master the art of repenting and failing simultaneously.

It's most efficient.

I promise not to make prosfora from Pillsbury dough. Ever. Don't worry.

McCullough - John Adams

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:40:26 GMT

That McCullough can be a quarter of a millennium removed from his subjects and yet still make me think he is sitting in the room with them astounds me.

Authors and time travelers. Would that I could be one or the other. Or both. In either case, I might do well to take up wizardry first.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Complaints

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 15:52:17 GMT

1. Our heater/blower stopped working the other day when it was hot. Not a big deal. It only got up to 78°F. But now a cold snap is coming.

2. In order to repair the blower, I need to clear out the garage so the repairman can access the furnace. It's a disaster out there.

3. I can't think of anything else to complain about. I'm usually more creative than this.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

Mr. Atoz

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:16:03 GMT

I'm going to go work at the library.

It is my favorite place to work.

A decade

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:17:13 GMT

Quietly, this journal turned ten a couple days ago.

Nobody sent me cake.

Ravioli

Sun, 29 May 2011 03:35:52 GMT

My 4yo is in the bath, pretending to cook.

"I made ravioli!" she says.

"Ravioli! What kind?"

"Strawberry!"

"Strawberry! Mmmmmm."

If you need a creative imagination, hire my daughter. If you need a chef? Not so much.

Quitter

Mon, 16 May 2011 17:58:39 GMT

I love you, Jon Acuff. You’re like some magical Ferris Bueller actualized into reality through a Star Trek “holo-deck” with the failsafes and the Heisenberg compensators disabled, which, until you, was something only the butler from The Nanny had managed to accomplish. Sort of. I want to take a high-speed ride with you down a Chicago highway in a 1978 Alfa Romeo 2000 Sport Sedan with John Williams blaring on the stereo. Just to say I did. I’ll pick you up right before lunch, mmmkay?

#2012

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 08:22:53 GMT

Entry 2000, and then some... At one point, I was planning to celebrate my 2,000th entry on here with great fanfare.

Unfortunately, I apparently posted it in February and never noticed until just now.

Anticlimactic.

Interview with a non-vampire On a non-anticlimactic note, I'm interviewing a "famous" person for the first time in a couple days, and I'm kinda making a mad scramble to figure out how to do it. It's pretty informal: I'm going to be having lunch with her anyway and I asked if I could interview her for my blog.

So I'm looking forward to meeting her, but I'm nervous about looking like a complete idiot conducting an "official" interview with someone who used to give interviews all the time when she co-hosted The 700 Club with Pat Robertson.

I want to be the next Larry King. I'm more likely to be shining Dennis Miller's shoes. If I'm lucky.

2012. If I'm counting correctly, this is entry #2012.

Isn't that when the world is supposed to end?

Am I emergent or traditionalist?

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 18:14:57 GMT

Crossposted to Tumblr

Emergent Christians say that the traditional church has lost its relevance and must be changed.

Traditionalist Christians say the emergent church is made of renegade heretics and they must change.

I’ve occasionally said that I want the emergents to think I’m a traditionalist, and I want the traditionalists to think I’m emergent. But I never really understood why I thought that. I believed it, but I wasn’t sure how to articulate it. Now I am.

Joshua Skogerboe wrote a brilliant analysis of both camps and came up with a solution that slaps them both down where they belong.

We are POTMG. Can I get an “amen?”

Don't Be a Fundamentalist Anti-Fundamentalist

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:38:59 GMT

I BLOGGED
Don't Be a Fundamentalist Anti-Fundamentalist

Why are writers important

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:12:16 GMT

We're all here livejournaling. We're all writers.

Yes, if you can type and press POST, you're a writer. In case you didn't know that, congratulations.

Check this out:

When you see a business with [6 CDs worth of] documentation published for customer support, it's not just about support, it's about driving down the costs of support. Think about it this way: According to Forrester, the average call center call can cost a business as little as $5.50 on average, or as much as $50 per call--why do you think they always try to sell you the extended warranty at the end of the call?

For deeply technical issues, some of the businesses I've spoken to lately report that costs per support call can hit as much as $150 per call. But if the customer used a piece of documentation or a forum to solve their problem, the average cost is usually less than a dollar. In fact, Forrester's research indicates that the average is about 10 cents.

(From The Evolution Of User Manuals, by Aaron Fulkerson)

Seriously.

Get the show on, get paid.

Sunday in the park...

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 20:05:27 GMT

I took a picture.

Before Editing

After Editing

I like it. What do you think?

Should I grayscale the poles in the foreground, too?

Coming to Seattle

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:43:34 GMT

I am still in need of a place to stay in Seattle on the night of the 25th of this month.

I'm going to the Catalyst One-Day leadership conference on the 26th. It's at The City Church in Kirkland.

If any of my Seattle readers are gullible, available, extroverted, kind, or otherwise hospitality-oriented enough, I'd be indebted to you.

I can come armed with baked goods.

Backhanded insult

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:36:26 GMT

I have just succeeded in constructing what I think may be the world's first reflexive backhanded koan insult.

Ready for it? Ok, here it is.

The problem with fake humility is that you're better at it than I am.

Ground control to Major Lee Funny

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 01:28:52 GMT

I was just attempting to explain "Major Tom Coming Home" to my 3yo.

"If your car breaks, you pull over and wait for someone to come fix it. But if your rocket breaks, what do you do?" I asked.

"Nothing," said her older brother.

Unsatisfied, she thought for a second, and then concluded, "You come back and they sing a song about you?"

Bingo.

Girls perspire

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 05:53:40 GMT

So, a little over a week ago, my father-in-law jokingly says to my three-year-old daughter, "C'mere, boy."

"I'm not a boy. I'm a girl," she responds, and then for some reason adds, "but I'm sweaty."

We laugh for a moment, and then I suggest, "Ladies don't sweat. They perspire."

My daughter chews on this and concludes, "But I'm still sweaty."

Q.E.D.

Time, age, memory, etc.

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:55:34 GMT

Work with me here.

When I was a little kid, Simon & Garfunkel was old. Real old. Ancient. Like, ten years old, from before I was born.

I just noticed that Graceland was released almost 24 years ago.

Twenty-four years before I was born was the 40s.

The 40s are coming up again in not too much more than 24 years.

One of the following must be true:

1. Jeff should be put out to pasture.

2. Someone needs to move the Island again.

Waiting for the DVD with bonus footage

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:34:13 GMT

Damon Lindelof just Tweeted, "I found the ending of Isner/Mahut satisfying, but wish they had answered more questions."

Oh, that's funny. :)

Catalyst, here I come (or...there I went?)

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:03:09 GMT

I found out yesterday that I won a ticket to the highly-acclaimed, one-day leadership conference, Catalyst. I submitted an entry on Jenni Clayville's blog.

Jenni had to hunt me down to let me know I won because, frankly, I didn't expect to so I didn't check back.

It's in Seattle on August 26.

Which happens to be the same day that ntiva won tickets to see Melissa Etheridge.

I don't really want to go to Seattle alone. And I don't really want to go see Etheridge (especially over Stanley and Groeschel). But I think Dina wants to enjoy her winnings, too.

What to do, what to do...

Recent blog posts

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:11:04 GMT

Yes, it's true that I've been blogging somewhere else. I know, it's like I'm cheating on LiveJournal.

I still want to use this space for more personal comments. Maybe. I'm trying to control the level of professionalism I use in day-to-day online activities, and I just opened up my LiveJournal to the world a couple months ago, so we'll see.

Anyway, I wanted to let y'all know that I have some posts that have been getting a lot of hits. You might like them:

Six things to do while you're unemployed

Mary DeMuth's "Thin Places" is a phat book

Love (musings on fatherhood and how to destroy the world)

A spiritual look at lust (How to lust properly. Complete instructions included. All free today.)

Why do I blog?

How Dyson sucked me in (thoughts on branding and elegance)

Lazy wind (my first attempt at the beginnings of a memoir)

Leadership lessons learned from my father-in-law

A thousand words...

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:49:39 GMT

If writing teaches you nothing else, it will teach you this—sometimes you have to be selfish. You have to get your words in. Your family won’t always understand. Neither will your friends. That’s okay. It comes with the territory. At its core writing is a lonely task... Because in order to share myself with the world, there are times when I must remove myself from it.
--Billy Coffey ,A Thousand Words