Nice Digs

Okay, in the past week we re-arranged all of our offices at work and a lot of us moved to a new office (which I did).

Apparently, everyone got together and decided the new phrase to use for describing someone’s living environment is “nice digs.” I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve had at least 8 different people at work walk by my office and say “nice digs.” Not a single person has referred to my office as anything but my “digs.”

And to top it off, a friend came over to my apartment for the first time last week and she took a look around the place and, yep, “nice digs.”

“lost emotion”

7-17-05 // Jesse J. Anderson

a seed which planted long ago,
was merely just a smile.
taller, taller it would grow,
embracing now.
blossoming a love to show
at least a little while.

seasons change.

now golden leaves of faded hue,
descend into the sea.
faster, faster out of view,
erasing thou.
such emotions meant for you,
are merely memory.

Boy Meets Girl

Normally for my movie, music, and book reviews I just sort of slap them on the sidebar and the reviews archive and just let them be without making too much of a formal announcement. Well, I just finished the book Boy Meets Girl by Joshua Harris and slapped up the review but I can’t help but post about it.

Honestly, I didn’t really want to read this book. The cover even emblazoned the point right on the cover - “Bestselling Author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” a book I’d skimmed through a few times and hated. The thought of courtship just sounded stupid. I don’t know what caused me to pick up Boy Meets Girl in the first place, but I did a little skimming to the header of Chapter 2.

Why Dating Versus Courtship Isn’t The Point: Getting Past A Debate Over Terms And Back To What Really Matters.

I read the chapter in the bookstore and was apparently satisfied with it’s explanation enough to give it a try.  So I bought it.

I can’t praise this book enough, it has really opened my eyes to the differences in God’s plan for our life and the world’s “Rules Of Engagement” i.e. dating. It’s written in a very inviting and informal format, but does it in a way that’s non-offensive to opposing viewpoints. I highly highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in glorifying God in their love life and allowing God to fully bless it.

I have not completely decided that courtship is for me, but this book has definitely stirred up enough thought that I will seriously be considering and praying about it.

My Weaknesses And My Strengths

I visited the saturday night Illuminate service at Overlake Christian Church last week.  Great service, definitely check it out if you’re in the area, I’ll probably be back. Just to give you a completely out-of-context sampling - the preacher said that mannequins, even without a head or arms, can be hot.

Anyways, at the end of the service we were given “homework” to list our weakness and strengths so here I go.

Weaknesses

• Laziness: What can I say, I’m truly American at heart. If I can sit around and do nothing versus, well anything else, guess which I prefer.


• Accepting Responsibility: When I’m forced into a position of leadership, responsibility comes naturally to me. But when not the established leader, I find myself trying all I can to shed myself of any real responsibility.


• Tardiness: I’m known for being late to everything, and that sucks. I have the distinct ability to think of that one thing I absolutely have to do before I leave, and it always seems to take twice as long as I think it will… and then I remember that other thing I have to do.


• Confrontation: I hate one someone else does something wrong, especially when I’m in the position to have to deal with it.  I’d rather speak in front of a huge crowd than confront that one person about it.

Strengths

• Creative: I’ve been gifted in creativity (art, music, etc) and I most enjoy doing something creatively.


• Problem Solving: I think this comes along with creativity, I’m a pretty good problem server and like to wrap my brain around something that needs fixing.


• Accepting: I’m pretty good at accepting people as they are and picking out the good things about them and ignoring the bad.


• Kindness: Kind of goes along with accepting, but I tend to think of myself as generally being a kind and giving person.

Well, there you have it.  I think I might be able to come up with a few more strengths and I know there are plenty more weaknesses, but I figure 4 and 4 is a good ratio.

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Digital Keyboard

Okay, now this is pretty sweet.

The Optimus keyboard has little keys that don’t just light up, but can change what is displayed per key to match whatever application you’re using. Little icons to remind you of what the ‘clone’ key shortcut in photoshop is, or perhaps your ‘Give Ammo’ key for Day Of Defeat. Also has support for different languages.

What I would love to see is all lowercase leters turning to CAPS when the CAPS-LOCK is pressed, and other similiar functionality.

Unfortunately, this is still patent-pending so no word on when it will be released or how much it will cost. The fact that it is wireless and powers these keys worries me a little bit, I’d rather just have a nice USB plug to keep it powered for all time.

Thanks to Engadget for the original article.

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Fat Actor

Holy crap.

My whole life I’ve fluctuated between waist size 32 and waist 34 in pants (always 34 length). Usually when wearing waist 34s I’ve had to wear a belt.

Jesse, skinny white boy Jesse, bought his first pair of pants with a waist size of 36 yesterday. I tried to get the 34s, but I couldn’t even get them buttoned. And (sigh) I can wear them with all my accessories included, without a belt.

It is a sad day indeed. Time to start working on Goal #4.

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Getting Serious

For those that don’t know, I’m on the core team for United Foursquare, an upcoming church plant.  Things have been starting to get pretty serious as of late. I’ve got a lot of crap on my plate that I gotta start looking at.

Design & Technology

• Website

Haven’t even really thought much about a design and this is needed complete by August 28. That gives me about 6 weeks, better start crackin!

• Boom Cards

Boom cards?  Yes, boom cards.  Wait, and ye shall see.

• Powerpoint

Unless we are able to get MediaShout pre-launch (which is pretty unlikely) we will be forced to use Powerpoint as our main lyrics and presentation software.  I need to really look into the capabilities of this to hopefully take it to the highest quality as powerpoint will allow.

Worship

• Songs

We’ve come up with sort of a master list of about 50 songs that we’re hoping to narrow down to about 20.  We will most likely rotate through just these 20 songs until our Public Launch on Easter 2006.

• Worship Team

My buddy Jake is an awesome guitarist and singer and has just joined the group. I think we have a pretty solid team with vocalist, 2 guitarists, bassist, and jembe (also spelled djembe, according to my spelling research). Also, all of us are able to sing so we will most likely have at least 3 vocalists most of the time.

Anyways, we need to start practicing pretty quick here.

Pricing

Some of this (obviously) is a little private but the final big thing that I have to do is nail out exact prices for everything I’m going to need for each date along our first year timeline.  This is so that we can put together our proposal and go out beggin for money, a job which falls mostly on our poor Pastor Peter’s shoulders.

Bitmap VS Vector

Being the only graphic designer where I work, I get asked about the difference between vector and bitmap graphics all the time. Pear Logo Design has a great informative article on this (ooh, with pictures!) but most of the people that ask me about it wouldn’t take the time to read that entire guide, so I thought I’d break it down real short and simple.

Bitmap

Filetypes: This is the type of graphic you are probably most familiar with. Just about every graphic you see on the web (with the exception of Flash) is bitmap. .JPG, .GIF, .BMP, and .TIF are some of the main filetypes.

Details: Bitmap graphics are made up of little squares of color called pixels. For instance ‘ if you have a logo that is 50’50 pixels (50’50 = 2500 total pixels) and you try to enlarge it to twice that size, you still only have that total of 2500 pixels to draw from, so the quality degrades significantly and it becomes pixelly or blurry.

Advantages:

• The format for photographic content


• Widely supported on the web

Disadvantages:

• Cannot be enlarged without significant quality loss


• May have much larger filesizes

Vector

Filetypes: For the most part vector files are proprietary to the software in which it’s written (.AI for Illustrator, .CDR for CorelDraw, .FLA for Flash). The most common generic Vector format is .EPS, although .SVG is starting to get more and more popular.

Details: Vector graphics are created with shapes and math. If you had a circle in vector, the information in the vector file would something like ‘circle: 1 pixel black border, white inside, radius 50px’ and when you opened the file your software would redraw that circle based in the information. Since vector is basiced on math rather than pixels, you can resize it to any size and it won’t lose quality.

Advantages:

• Enlarges to any size without quality lost


• Usually has smaller filesizes

Disadvantages:

• Only on the web with Flash plugin and very limited SVG support


• Does not support photographic content

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UPD: Gmail Account Maintenance 2

So I log onto my computer this morning and do my daily check of gmail and’ it actually loads!

Shock and amazement!

Followed by, disappointment and frustration.

I now have 13 unread messages in my inbox. 13? That seems pretty low for 2 weeks of email. Let’s see, the oldest unread email dates’ July 5. Holy crap, that means that from June 23 ‘ July 4 I didn’t recieve any email sent to me.

Not. Cool.

So now I’m debating whether I want to keep my gmail account or trash it. But where would I move to?

I don’t know if this is likely to happen again’ but even the chance of it is just scary. I’ve never had to deal with an email account go down for 2 weeks ever’ and don’t want to again.

If anyone knows any good alternatives to the big gmail powerhouse let me know.

Also, if you have emailed me by gmail in the last couple weeks, please try again using my other email jesse@echofaith.com (or my contact page which I’ve adjusted the email link on)

Freedom Fest and Such

Still no Gmail’ I’m beginning to worry that it will never come back! And that would be a very BAD thing, as I have lots of valuable info in that email account. And I may be missing important emails such as a nice friendly email from Don deQuillettes of Freedom Fest.

As luck would have it, I was missing a nice friendly email from Don deQuillettes of Freedom Fest with the details of an upcoming ad they needed designed. Luckily, he called in the early morn yesterday (i.e. 8:30) to ask me how ‘that newspaper ad I emailed you about last week is coming?’ Oh, and to remind me that it was due tomorrow (i.e. today).

Needless to say I stayed up late last night working on it, and I think it turned out pretty sweet! The empty space at the very bottom is for sponsor logos.

While I was working on that last night, I found time to (after a couple of quick fixes) upload the new design to Hillside Chapel. There still a couple of tweaks to be made (including adding the calendar) but they should be adjusted soon.

Let me know what you guys think!