Jason Reynolds Life and Times

I am in North Carolina at the Web Empowered Church Conference

// June 29th, 2006 // No Comments » // Design, Ministry, Programming

Last year, I brought Kasper to Texas and put together a little conference for church technologists around the Typo3 Content Management system. This is the main tool I use day in and day out in Web Ministry at the church where I work. Web Empowered Church has also been a major advocate for the use of Typo3 in churches, and was kind enough to sponsor the conference for a second year. WEC is a ministry of The Foundation for Evangelism. So, we are at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. Beautiful place near Asheville. I hear I am near the Biltmore Estate… but doubt I will be able to see it while here. I am going white water rafting on Saturday with the folks here. Should be interesting considering most of these guys are geeks… so hopefully the guide will do most of the paddling and steering. I fly home Sunday night to an empty house. The girls are hanging out in Natchitoches, La. with Ashley’s parents.

Running small teams… a different philosophy

// June 26th, 2006 // No Comments » // Business, Design, Economy, Management

Jason Fried Video
A plenary address at the Collaborative Technologies Conference on Tuesday was delivered by Jason Fried, the CEO of 37Signals. His lecture was titled, “Small Is Beautiful.” Here’s the lecture, in its entirety.

I am not a huge fan of Jason Fried in particular (has made some real blunders when commenting on his and others’ blogs), but I sure love 37signals software services. In general I agree with a lot of the philosophy he outlines in the speech… particularly the focus on efficiency, quiet time, trimming the fat (my interpretation). If you are a small company who needs to compete with the big guys, I recommend you listen in.

History in the Making: PC vs Mac Churches

// June 21st, 2006 // 2 Comments » // Christianity, Community, Ministry

History in the Making: PC vs Mac Churches
PC churches approach ministry with rules, inflexible systems, illogical methods, death by meetings, etc. Mac churches share life together, have simple structures, and emphasize relationships.

Many of you know I love my Apple 17″ Powerbook Laptop as much as any singular piece of technology I have ever owned. Even though in October she will be three years old, the Tiger still blazes along.

‘Thirst for Knowledge’ Same as Opium Craving!

// June 20th, 2006 // No Comments » // Learning, Reading

Neuroscientists have proposed a simple explanation for the pleasure of grasping a new concept: The brain is getting its fix.

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So, that is why I am constantly searching on google wanting my “google fix”. I am coming out of the closet and admitting my Google and Wikipedia addiction right now.

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What makes me sick

// June 20th, 2006 // 3 Comments » // Business, Community, Economy, Environment, Government, Management

What makes me sick are oil company executives who justify their criminal profits by saying America has it good compared to other countries and that high fuel prices help curb demand. In the movie Failure to Launch How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days there is a really cute part where the two stars are playing a game that requires one party to determine if the other party is lying or not. If they believe the party to be lying they say B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T. Seriously though, these oil companies are full of liers and I am saying Bullshit (forgive me Lord) right now about this horrific approach of winning our confidence.