You cannot deny it...

Apple makes the coolest products! Apple has released the iMac G5; and it is cooler than snot. It will be mine... oh yes, it will be mine.

Tuesday... my "Monday".

It's Tuesday, the first day of my work week. It's been a pretty non-eventful day. Not a whole lot of work to do... a little bit here and there. This past weekend, our key church staff had a meeting to put together an organizational flowchart for our little segment of the body of Christ. That went better than anticipated. It shouldn't come to anyone's suprise that the first complaint about the new WFFC.NET design would come from the Ogden household. "The font is too small!"... they say. This being judged against the standards from some website name "Bobby" (I don't remember the URL.). You should thank me that I don't remember... because it took me all of about 0.34 seconds to determine that "Bobby" doesn't have any right to be setting web-design 'standards'. We're yet another step closer to high-speed internet at the church. The guy came in today and setup up the modem and connected the cables together or something. Now we're just waiting on the bloody firewall. <"Patience is a virtue, grasshopper."

My one and only...

... day off. Yup. It's Monday. The only day of the week where I can make an attempt to do enough stuff around the house to suffice my wife for the entire rest of the week. I think that I have accomplished that today. Four loads of laundry and a load of dishes. Not too shabby, considering I didn't get up until 12:30pm. Not only did I get all of that done... I still mananged to make time to get some quality SOCOM time in. The highlight of my today (it's real pathetic)... I joined another clan. This time +1S1K+ (1 shot, 1 kill). A clan that I have had my eye on for awhile. With the +1S1K+ tag on my name, I have clout and instant respect. Yay... me! Yup... I'm a pathetic nerd.

Very Low Sodium

Well, tonight is All Music Night. I can remember times when I couldn't wait until the next AMN; times back when "Clinch" was around. Nowadays, I darn near dread them. Although, I appreciate the fellowship (churchy word) between different churches and I know that is the primary goal of AMN. I can't stand most of the music (that term is used lightly) that is offered at AMN. I think sometimes we just need to take a close hard look at the things that we do. And well, if they are producing "fruit"... then what good are they. Tradition can sometimes keep us in a rut. Somethings are just better left dying with the past. I'm not saying all this about AMN; but there are certain things that we tend to do just because "We've always done them." And, that's just stupid. The Bible says that Jesus is like a river of flowing water... not like a moldy pond of stagnant water.

I missed a day...

My apologies go out to all my "regular" blog readers. It was a busy day yesterday, so there was no post yesterday. So here I am today, writing in my blog. I've tried a couple of times to put a "custom" banner at the top of my page to get rid of the generic title header that "Blogger" gives me. Much to my dismay, I can't figure it out. At least not it in the amount of time my patience allows for. This week I've been working on our church website. I gave a complete overhaul. It was starting to get real cluttered, and I didn't like the direction it was going. So, the majority of my time this week was dedicated to Photoshop and altering CSS files, until my satisfaction was achieved. I'm pretty happy with the results. This design has more of a 'business' feel to it, and I think the navigation is far superior this time around. Tell me what you think...

Another Wallpaper

elevate_win
Originally uploaded by Josh R..

This one has more of a 'grungier' feel to it. I dunno, it's okay. What do you think?

Elevate... from the norm.

Dave Matthews' POO....

This is the funniest thing that I've read in a few days... CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- The state of Illinois sued the Dave Matthews Band on Tuesday for allegedly dumping up to 800 pounds of liquid human waste from a bus into the Chicago River, dousing a tour boat filled with passengers. The lawsuit accuses the band and one of its bus drivers of violating state water pollution and public nuisance laws. It seeks $70,000 in civil penalties. "Our driver has stated that he was not involved in this incident," band spokesman John Vlautin said in a statement. He said the band "will continue to be cooperative in this investigation." According to the lawsuit, on August 8 a bus leased by the band was heading to a downtown hotel where members were staying. As the bus crossed the Kinzie Street bridge, the driver allegedly emptied the contents of the septic tank through the bridge's metal grating into the river below. More than 100 people on an architecture tour were showered with foul-smelling waste. The attorney general's office said no one was seriously injured. "This incident may be unique, but that does not lessen the environmental or public health risks posed by the release of at least 800 pounds of liquid human waste into a busy waterway and onto a crowded tour boat," Attorney General Lisa Madigan said in a statement. After the incident, the boat's captain turned the vessel around and took passengers back to the dock. Everyone received refunds, and the boat was cleaned with disinfectant.

In the works.

Okay, well back to work today. After doing some general administrative stuff at the office.... I worked on the "new" WFFC.net designs. That is my "major" project at the time. I'm thinking that I'm gonna do a mini-site for each of the primary ministries of our church. I think that would be good. I dunno... what do you think? In other news... I joined a "clan" on SOCOM yesterday. Our clan is "WINGS". There's only like 6 people in it. But, hey... whatever. So, yeah... I need to get me one of those headsets pretty soon. So, I can communicate with my team members. GOOD DESIGN... I found this kick-butt site full of kick-butt designs! If you want to see some good graphic design check out Pixel Girl Presents ... it's the stuff.

Broke as a joke.

Dude, I friggin' hate money. Why does there need to be currency and credit and all that crap anyway? Whatever happened to the days when a handshake was all you needed. Yeah, I just did the bills today... and well I've got like $100 to last us for the next two weeks. That sucks. So, don't be asking me to play paintball or go to the movies... unless you're paying. We went out to eat with my parents tonight; which is cool because I get to mark up some "parent time"... but generally uncomfortable, because I owe them so much money. Not that they are on my case about paying them or anything... but still it makes me uncomfortable. Yup... we're in it deep. So far in debt I can't see the end, without an act of God... or a death of some rich long lost relative or something... or maybe a class-action lawsuit. I guess the biggest thing that bothers me about our financial situation is... I feel like a failure as a husband and provider for my family. Oh well, I guess I'm just whining. Things should probably be looking up in the next few months as "the wife" starts bringing in some cashflow.

My friggin' feet hurt.

Yo. So, we played some volleyball at AE tonight and I had my new shoes on... so I didn't want to get them dirty... so I decided to play barefoot. I knew that this was going to result in much pain; but hey, I did it anyway. Why pain?! Because I have super dry feet... like the cracks are crevices. Then, taking those cracks and filling them in with sand doesn't result in happy feelings. Anway, we played and I had a good time... so I must now suffer the consequences. I also checked out Em's blog tonight... she uploaded a new picture... it's odd. Sorry Em. :-) I took a look at a couple other blogs too... man I really begin to feel bad for these people. Some of them have a rough way to go. Things they shouldn't be dealing with as teenagers. Take my advice kids... Be a kid while you can be. You'll have plenty of opportunity to be an adult. I know that some them don't have choice in the matter... and that just sucks. .... and quit 'blogging' up the toilet...

To all my homies...

Hey... whassup?! Just trying to get my daily blog entry out of the way here. I just finished up playing a little bit of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow; seems pretty good so far, much like the first one. We also rented Wheel of Fortune... Sabrina actually wanted to get it... which I'm cool with, because she never wants to play video games. We rented a movie as well... The Butterfly Effect. Dag'gone good movie man. Super-awesome storyline. Through the first part of the movie I was like "what the crap?!"; but then it just kept going... and it was good. Aside from some brief nudity and some bad language... pretty nifty flick. Is it a "family movie"? Not hardly. Very well directed and written. So, the youth group went canoeing today. I kinda would have like to have gone, although I must say that it wasn't that big of a deal not to. Instead, I stayed and did the media team work. Hey, someone's gotta do it. I finished that stuff up at around noon'ish and went home to grab a sandwich. While at home, Joel called at around 12:45 and asked me to come help them get the liner in their pool. Which I was cool with. It's good for me to get out in the sun sometimes. :-) Putting the liner in their pool would probably be much easier if their pool wasn't "oval shaped". Not that there is anything wrong with an oval shaped pool... unless it's supposed to be a circle. Which is the case here. So, to make a long story short... We got the liner in the pool, but it still wasn't right. So, basically, they've gotta still get the liner in the pool... the right way. Which means adjusting the physical shape of the pool. I'm thinking there will be no swimming in that pool this year. Just a hunch.

AE Wallpaper .:02 (Windows)

ae_desktop2_win
Originally uploaded by Josh R..

AE Wallpaper .:01 (Windows)

ae_desktop_win
Originally uploaded by Josh R..

Hypocrisy in the church

After having a rather in-depth conversation with someone last night that is dealing with stuff in this regard, I've come to the conclusion that people just need to grow up. This person had some very valid points as to why he feels the way that he feels about Christians. Some of them just act like children in the way the behave outside the walls of the church. Hebrews 6:1 Let us stop going over the basics of Christianity over and over again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. People are human, and they are bound to make mistakes and offend us. But, the trick is understanding that and loving them anyway. Spiritual growth is like physical growth --- we start small then grow up one day at a time.

My day.

I'm about 45 minutes from P/W practice... which will probably start at more like 7:30pm. Generally, on Thursdays I just stay at the church after work. I figure that it's pretty pointless to go home for an hour, just to come back. I grabbed some potato chips from the kitchen for dinner... and of course, a Coke. I took a late lunch today. My stomach hasn't been feeling too hot... probably because of the insane amount of Coke that I consume. I'm sure it is slowly eroding away the lining of my stomach. It was a pretty slow day. Not allot going on. Larry wasn't here for most of the day, he was sick. Generally, days when he's not in are pretty productive. Not saying anything bad against Larry... I just think that it's less distracting. One of the downfalls of sharing an office. Maybe one day I'll have my own office. That will be cool. I spent the majority of today yelling and cursing our bloody internet connection. It makes me sick! In all seriousness, this is the fourth time I've tried to post today. Some days my creative process involves me just going to websites and looking around at things... portfolios, designs, pictures, etc. Getting ideas for the next design. It's real hard to do at work when the friggin' connection to the internet is useless! Hopefully, soon we'll have our high-speed internet connection. I asked the guy about it last night, and he said that hasn't found a firewall "that he likes" yet. I just smiled. But, deep inside I wanted to let him have it something like this... "Perhaps you should spend 8-10 hours a day in our office trying to accomplish anything." I understand that it's not a high priority to him, because he's not the one that has to deal with it on a daily basis. But, c'mon... a firewall is a firewall. Well... I digress. So, anyway... I designed a few slides for some upcoming events. Did a "little" inspirational research on the internet. Went home for lunch. That's really about the productivity that came out of me today. That's sad. Sometimes on days like today, I feel like I'm ripping off the church; but I guess they have to pay someone to be here all the time. That'll do, for now, donkey.

Pig Wallpaper

Pig Wallpaper
Originally uploaded by Papageorgio.

Here's my infamous "Pig Wallpaper" for all my peers to share. Pig out.

Atheism

"A good reply to an atheist is to give him an excellent dinner and then ask if he believes there is a cook." - Anonymous

Getting to know you...

I just spent the better part of an hour reading through BLOGs. It really interests me, getting inside the mind of what people are thinking. Well, at least what they want you to think... that they're thinking about. Assuming that it's somewhat true... It's very enlightening. I came across the blogs of several of the members of our youth group. After reading, I can really see exactly how disconnected I am from them. I'm old. There wasn't anything bad about me; so that's a good thing. It fascinates me how much they write on these things. Very personal feelings. I think it's pretty cool. I hate to see them go through the things that they deal with. But, I once was a teenager; and can relate. Dealing with dating, and people not liking you, and wanting that person to like you, and so on... Reading about their feelings just makes me love them even more. Man, I'm glad I don't have to deal with that anymore. I remember when I wasn't much different than them. I guess marriage does that to you. It adds responsibilities that you just don't have when you're single. I'll be honest, I sometimes wish I was still single. The freedom that I had to come and go on any given whim. But, I suppose that's what I gave up when I married. My gift to my wife. To put her as a priority, and take myself down a notch. The kids in our youth group are very special to me. There are a select few that are very dear to me. Like Nathan, Courtney, Rachel... mostly the people on the media team... these are the ones. I cannot wait to watch God mold and form their lives into what He wants. It's gonna be good.

Terrorism threat.

vert
Originally uploaded by Papageorgio.

Where was the CIA to warn us about this guy?

Movie Review: "Collateral"

Last night, Sabrina and I went out with Joel and Adrea to see the new Tom Cruise flick "Collateral". Overall, I pretty decent movie. It was definitely a change of pace for both Tom Cruise and supporting actor Jamie Fox. It seems as though Jamie Fox is really trying to break out of the "usual" comedy roles that he plays by playing leading roles in movies like Collateral and the upcoming Ray Charles movie. The storyline of Collateral was okay. It took a little while to get into it. You really got to know Jamie Fox's character in the movie. Tom Cruise's character, on the other hand, was more of a mystery. Hardly any background, and really no explanation of why he's touring Los Angeles "whacking" these people, aside from "it's his job". The cinematography was pretty good. I'm one of those people that look at things like that. I did notice that in the first part of the movie there was entirely way too many overhead shots of LA... Not much to work with Mr. Editor? I also took note of the "blurry" shots; this gave the movie a raw feel that I enjoyed. Although, at some points it was overused. With the exception of foul language, some dirty dancing, and much violence; the movie was pretty clean. No nudity or sex scenes. If you go into this movie knowing that your going to be watching a movie about a hitman, you shouldn't be surprised about what you see. On a 1-5 scale, I would give "Collateral" a 3.5. It was above average.

As I sit and wait.

It's things like dealing with the incredibly slow internet connection we have here at church that make me not want to do things like "blogs"!!! This is the third attempt at posting. Grrrrr! Anyway... I'm sitting here at church watching time pass until P/W practice tonight. Groovin' on some St. Germain tunage. It's what relaxes me. So, if you happen to be looking for a present for me... that'll do. I found some interesting bits of info while browsing through some other blogs and xangas. Which leads me to elaborate on the topic of "trust". If someone has done nothing wrong to us or against us.... do we have a right not to trust them? Where does trust begin? For instance... this person said, ".... I don't trust her..." That made me think... why? I know that she hasn't done anything against this person; why wouldn't she trust her? I mean, I think I know why this person feels this way. I believe that it's moreso how this other person comes across, rather than a specific action or incident that took place. She has high expectations and just doesn't want to see anyone make the same mistakes that she had made in her life. I know that if Person #2 had personally read the comments made by Person #1, she would be very hurt. I know for a fact that it took some courage for her to approach this other person and just offer to talk to her if she needed to. Well anyway... I can only hope that people don't view me that way. I hope that I am approachable and don't make people feel sick.

Keepin 'er goin.

Yup. Keeping this blog thing going... just barely. I had a pretty decent weekend. On Saturday, I had Media/Creative Team meeting from 10am 'til about 2pm. We all went to lunch at Church's Chicken... they were incredibly slow. But hey, the manager gave us some free biscuits with frosting on them... so you can't beat that. After media team, I went and hung out with Mike pretty much all day. We went to the Young's driving range. Where I couldn't find a left-handed club long enough for me; so I settled for a shorter club... bad mistake. My whole right hand is covered in blisters, one of which the skin came completely off. It's amazing how much that crap hurts when you put shampoo on it. Also hitting with the wrong size club will make pretty much every muscle hurt... even the ones between your ribs. There was also some kinda car show going on... so we checked that out. Pretty nifty. Evidently, we didn't get our fill of golf; because we went to Mike's house and played Tiger Wood PGA Tour 2003 on XBox for pretty much the remainder of the day. We squeezed in some time to go to Applebees to hang out with the wives. I preached at AE tonight. Sabrina said I did well. I wasn't feeling real prepared, although I spent the most time I'd ever spent preparing. Funny how that works out. Anyway, the message was "Four Steps to Changing Your Image". I thought it was pretty good. I think I jumped around a lot... but that's just because I don't speak enough. Pretty good night though. Four people came forward to receive Christ this morning in church... and three were baptized. Definitely a good service! PJ spent so much time ministering that he didn't get to his message. Oh well, we'll get to it next week.

A Trip to Apex

Okay. Interesting day today. The Kerry/Edwards campaign made a pitstop in our wonderful city today. The attended service at a church that shall remain nameless. But, I'll say that the congregation is predominantly African-American. What a coincidence?! Some members of our church and several other organization went and protested the presidential candidate. I would have myself, but I always have responsibilities on Sunday mornings. Anyway, after our service Sabrina and I jumped in the car and headed for Apex Community Church... where my buddy Joel just relocated to for his place of worship. Naturally, as any good friend would do, I had to check it out. Apex, is an interesting church. Since I know some of the members of the congregation... that made it easier for me to feel comfortable there. Greeted by disgusting orange carpet and pews, we made our way through the hallway into the lobby area. Based on the improvements that Apex has made to the old Far Hills building... I can appreciate where they are at. The worship band was all acoustic today, so that was pretty groovy. I must admit that I was scared at first, when the band opened with "Victory In Jesus"... I thought I was in for a treat. I'm happy to say that they moved in a different direction after that song. Thank God. Definitely a different atmosphere from that of the Warehouse. I appreciated the pastor though. His message was good. He seems like a real cool guy. Although, it took me a minute to get over his little speech impediment. For a second, I thought that he had just gotten his tongue pierced or something. In closing, I most surely approve of my buddy's choice in Apex. I think that the pastor of the church is right on target. Well, gotta eat now.