Next Adventure in 3...2...1...

When you seek out adventure, half the fun is waiting to see what will actually happen... half the terror is also waiting to see what will happen!

Just a little over 6 months ago our family committed to looking for the next adventure.  We didn't have much of a plan, but knew it was time to move on from where we were.  We weren't sure where we would end up, but we were open to anything.  I know not everyone shares the faith system we have, but we believe that if we seek out God's will in each decision we make, step out in faith, God is moving with us throughout all the choices we make. We also believe that when you look to do what is right  there isn't one set path, because God is working it out with us.

So guess what?
We're going back into the life of camp! 
I have just accepted the role of Director at Camp Kadesh, in Christopher Lake, Saskatchewan.

Camp Kadesh is an awesome camp with some great people.  They have an excellent team in place already and were seeking a Director that could take on things like marketing, budgets, strategy, vision.... the fun stuff that became little add-on parts in my past role, but wasn't really my job. I'm really excited to take on a new leadership role and work with the full time staff, seasonal staff, board and volunteers that have already poured many years into the camp.  It is going to be a challenge to learn (again!) the culture, traditions and history of a camp, but it really excites us as a family to get this chance to be part of camp community again.

When we left the camp world, I don't think we ever expected to be going back into camp life this soon. Sometimes you just don't know what you have 'til it's gone.  (feel free to sing along)  We will be leaving (Brea and the kids via plane, me via U-haul truck for the loooooong drive) for camp on Jan 31st and will hit the ground running in the first week of February. We know this is short notice for some people. For us, this is the end of months of transition and waiting to see what would be next and we are ready for this.

Along the way we have some big thank yous to give.  First, to Andy and Ang MacDonald (and their awesome kids) who provided us a place to stay for as long as we needed it.  As a family, they disrupted their lives to make space for us. It will be sad to to leave "the farm" but we are grateful we got to live there and get to know them all so much better. 
Secondly to Jon Hisey and Yake Engineered Systems.  Jon let me come back to a job I hadn't done in over 6 years and jump right back in.  He was willing to let me be looking for what was next and I hope I helped accomplish some things while I have been working for the company.  Make sure if you're in the market for audio, video, lighting or any and all things multimedia to contact them about their services.

The direction of the next adventure has been plotted.
Now to find out what it looks like!

It's time for the next adventure.

"You have the perfect job!"

It get that a lot.

I thought that too once, maybe I still do at times.
But life is bigger than a job.

So as of the end of September, my family and I will move on to something new.  We just don't know what yet.  (more on that later)

Why you ask?
It comes down to three things really.

1) We miss being a part of a community of friends.   You know those real good friends you call on a Sunday afternoon, because you feel good just being with them.   For Brea and I that is also connected to being part of a faith community or a church.  We want our kids to be part of serving the community and living out faith.  Camp is a good 45 min away from any community like that for us.  Shoot we're 20 min away from groceries.  We miss having real, live friends close by.

2) I'm not really a pure administrator.  Oh I can handle many balls in the air and refine systems till the cows come home, but you know those people that love list and crossing things off list... yep... not me.  Camp Crossroads has grown and my weekly/monthly task list has been added to so much that I just can't keep up with everything.  Most days I go home sick and tired of my job, not camp, just my job.  But my family gets this husk of a person that is left when I walk through the door.  I want every moment to count with my kids and my wife. 

3) The work load in my job as just become too much.  I feel lazy just writing that.  The reason above likely plays into it, but most days I end of back at work in the evening, and usually on weekends for a bit.  I still can't keep up.  There are some great parts to my job, but the pure administration just keep getting bigger and bigger.  I'm not sure that they can change my job to make it better... sometimes you just have to move on.  It's true I live in a crazy beautiful part of the world, but I sit inside most of the day.   I don't want to wake up one day and have people telling me I'm not doing my job well... I can make that call.

So what's next?
I don't know... got any ideas?

One thing I believe is that God is in it.   I know... some of you don't get it when I say stuff like that.  That's ok.   I believe God gives us all the choice to make decisions and to give us options, and when we listen, he tells us.  I'm trying to listen.

For now, I'm not going to worry about it.   I have one summer left at one of the best camps I have ever been at, and I'm not going to waste it.   Because you know what?  I still love camp... still love Camp Crossroads, just don't like being the administrator.   I'm hoping camp will have time to fill my position with some awesome administrative genius that can up the ante from what I have done.

If you know of something pretty cool starting in October, just let me know

And if you know of someone looking for the perfect job.   There is an opening. 

Why I hate the new Google Reader

If you're a fan of Google Reader you might have noticed the web has been talking about the changes that were coming.  Some people were upset that Reader was loosing the "social" functions.  I only followed a few people and will miss some of the links they sent.  Twitter is great for cool links so I won't miss it much.  (although the signs make me laugh)
Up until tonight, even though I was reading about the changes, I hadn't seen the changes.  But tonight as I subscribed to a new feed, I was forced into an "upgrade" - and I'm not happy.

Now I should say.  I spend a lot of time in Google Reader.  I have over a thousand feeds, sorted and filed and organized.  Many feeds I read everyday - some I mostly skip, unless I'm in the mood.  Some feeds post rarely (I have an MIA folder that can sometimes surprise me) and some feeds fill up if I don't read everyday.  All that to say I read a lot of feeds.... and that is where I have a problem.  The new design is terrible for READING.

Here's a screen capture of the "Before"

If you look at where the reading pane starts it is just below the Google menu bar... some space taken up for search and title bar, but nothing unreasonable.









Now look at the "After." see how much is wasted on the screen to give me things like a subscribe button and drop down menus?  Come on....  I've only spent about 3 mins with it and I hate it.  I know it looks like Google plus, but lets keep things functional.


I'm sure there is a script out there that will fix things (love you Firefox) and maybe even fullscreen mode will work.  There is Full Screen Mode, but I guess I just don't feel like toggling back and forth.
The whole thing seems kind of monochrome as well... although as I type chrome, I think Chrome and wonder if that is the point.  I know I'll get used to it, so not that big a deal.

In fact from the time I started typing about 4 hours has passed....  I still hate it, but admit that, much like a Facebook user, I'm just complaining and will go back to whatever they keep giving me.

(and wow a full screen shot gives you a lot of information about me)

Marketing and Branding

Two different post have caught my attention in the last few days.

David Fitch asks should cease and desist with branding?

Roger Olson asks if it is possible for a Christian to be involved in sales and marketing?

Both are interesting thoughts as to what it means to market and build a presence.

Internet the new TV

In the mix of an article looking at Malcolm Gladwell's examination of social networks and real social change... I saw this.

“If the Internet didn’t exist, Barack Obama would not be president of the United States,” says Ben Rattray, the founder of Change.org. “The fact that the most powerful person in the world wouldn’t be in that position without the Internet and organizing online says something.”

It reminded me of reading about how TV changed everything for elections.  How the early leaders of both the USA and Canada would likely not have been elected in an era of TV  (or radio possibly for that matter).   The importance of how the visual changed debate.   Marshall McLuhan said that the televised debate changed everything and likely the internet changed the landscape again.  

One question I have is:  did the internet really organize people?  The answer is yes if you voted for (or were in favour of) Obama.   Or did the internet change the game again?  Where TV made elections about how good you looked in a suit and how much you fidgeted and looked dishonest etc,  did the Internet make the person with the most tech savey-ness, the best iPod play list or cool factor win?

I'm no Marshall McLuhan so I'm not going to state it as fact.   But I do think the "change" came it lots of places.

Working group sizes

Picked this up from Bill Kinnon  originally on Cult of Mac

The Mac team they were all in one building and they eventually got to one hundred people. Steve had a rule that there could never be more than one hundred people on the Mac team. So if you wanted to add someone you had to take someone out. And the thinking was a typical Steve Jobs observation: "I can’t remember more than a hundred first names so I only want to be around people that I know personally. So if it gets bigger than a hundred people, it will force us to go to a different organization structure where I can’t work that way. The way I like to work is where I touch everything.” Through the whole time I knew him at Apple that’s exactly how he ran his division.

It's an interesting statement about how many people we can work (live, cooperate) with.  While I don't like to contribute to lifting up Mr. Jobs and Apple as bigger than necessary, this is an interesting quote from someone who's success is obvious.  I do think that the 100 person threshold is important and so many people hang on what Jobs says (or at least sells) - so take it at the value you assign.

Technology and Education

Q. Do you think it is our job as educationists to increase the capacity of the student to come to grips with this new experience of a new technology?

A. They are totally at grips with it and what we want to give them is some detachment.

--Marshall McLuhan, Education in an Electronic Age,

in The Best of Times/The Worst of Times:

Contemporary Issues in Canadian Education, 1970

 

(As posted by Benjamin Robertson over at Resident Alien)

Wake up and smell the iCoffee

Ending the article - Is Facebook Killing Our Souls?  Shane Hipps writes this...

Now it will be tempting to conclude after all this ranting that I am simply a Luddite, a technophobe bent on the dismantling of all digital technologies. This is not the case. Admittedly, I was hardly even-handed in my observations. However, to herald the virtues of our technology is mostly redundant, it would be like trying to argue the importance of breathing. It’s already here, and the value it adds is self-evident. This is why the technologies are so prevalent: we automatically know their benefits, otherwise we wouldn’t use them. My concern is that our culture seems only capable of seeing the benefit and utterly blind to the liabilities, the inevitable losses certain technologies bring. I have no interest in trying to end or stop such technological innovations; to do so is like trying to resist the wind or the tides. Instead, I want us to understand them with depth. Not with naïve embrace, or fearful rejection.
If we learn to wake up and understand, perhaps we will be able to use them rather than be used by them.

 Neil Postman wrote about the one eyed prophet that could only see one side of the invention.   This summary is how I feel every time I point out how the latest greatest anything might not be such a device of salvation to whatever.

But it still needs to be said.

Why the revolution will not be tweeted.

Continuing a theme here.

Malcolm Gladwell is skeptically that social media is going to change the world.  The types of inspiration and motivation that social media generate are essentially shallow in results.

Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice.

If you want to change the world, you better make some real friends, not Facebook friends.  It's the real friends that you will have some influence over in the long run

(HT to Ben Arment)

So many things to read.

Malcolm Gladwell is becoming one of my favorite authors.   If you haven't read Tipping Point... or his other work, you need to check it out.

Just saw that Adam at The Second Electric has posted a few interview quotes from Gladwell in a Q&A piece at The New Yorker.

I really do think he has some awesome thoughts on things.

On the Internet’s transience:

The essential fact of the internet is that nothing is permanent. AOL was once the king of online—remember? I doubt that anything that is done electronically will facilitate social activism all that much—at least not unless you’ve put a real world structure in place first.

I do love his skeptical nature about technology (good luck finding him writing anything much online)  He just doesn't buy into the hype, yet has an excellent awareness of what is going on.   He's not some cranky old Luddite - he's young and aware that maybe we're being feed a big hard sell on technology.  (my words not even close to his)

On technology’s impotence:

This is what drives me crazy about the digerati. They refuse to accept the fact that there is a class of social problems for which there is no technological solution. Look. Technology is going to solve the energy problem. I’m convinced of it. Technology is going to give me a computer in ten years time that will fly me to the moon. Technology is going to build a car that goes 100 miles to the gallon. But technology does not and cannot change the underlying dynamics of “human” problems: it doesn’t make it easier to love or motivate or dream or convince.

I wish I could spell it out like that.... Isn't that the opposite of ever Apple commercial you've ever seen? (Actually most technology selling commercials)   I think somewhere in there is the baked in truth of what is going wrong with a lot of the big show church stuff...   You can't motivate change with technology... even when you try really hard.

On using Twitter to motivate social activism:

The issue isn’t informing people. It’s organizing people. Twitter is great at the first. But not so great at the second—and Dr. King and his counterparts needed organizations, not communications tools. Remember in the 1960’s you could reliably reach upwards of 95 percent of the black community in urban areas in the South through the church. And there you had their undivided attention for an hour! Who needs Twitter when you have sermons and regular prayer meetings?

I think the thing I notice most in that statement is the difference of information and organization.   I need to think more of ways that different media do this (or don't) 

What the bible says

I've been doing some thinking lately about how different groups (of Christians) can be so close on what they believe and yet be so far apart and argue so much.   There are lots of answers to that question, but part of it comes from how we read the bible and think about inerrancy

Roger Olson starts off a post with similar (but much more eloquent) thoughts.  It focuses on where the bible sits in most people thoughts about how we view God:

I believe in the Bible as God’s Word BECAUSE I believe I encounter Jesus there and am taught by him there.  For me it is the Book of Jesus.  That means it is extremely important, necessary, valuable, indispensable, but not alongside of or even in the same category (being-wise) as Jesus himself.  It is the unique written witness to Jesus and THEREFORE the book of the church.
I suspect this upsets some evangelicals because, even perhaps unconsciously, they believe in Jesus only because and insofar as the Bible contains him.  In other words, functionally, the Bible is above Jesus.

It a good post and a great feed that I have just resently started reading, even thought I have a couple theology textbooks with him as author.

Who's tracking you?

 Kevin Kelly has this article on The Technium: As Much Privacy As You Can Afford

What we call privacy -- the non-disclosure or transmission of information -- is ultimately a matter of economics. To remain hidden in a connected world will cost money. You can always disconnect, but while connected you will be transparent. Under this regime transparency is cheap and ubiquitous, while opacity expensive.
Apparently there is a service that will provide the current location of any cell phone for $95. You give Best411 the phone number you seek and $95 and then they will tell you where that cell phone is located is between 9am and 5pm CST.
How is this possible? Obviously the cell phone company knows because it has to track your cell in order to deliver calls. But how does Best411 know? They claim:

We are a state-licensed private investigative agency and, as such, have access to many data bases that the general public is not permitted to access.

That doesn't really explain the deal, or the legality, or the process. My immediate question is: Why does it cost so much? Why $95? Technologically this is a trivial query. It's real cost is about zero. I wonder who or what is setting the price?
Second question: If I were willing to pay $100 could I prevent Best411 from tracking me? How much would it cost to have my location "unlisted"?
I am really asking the larger question of how expensive will it become to be unlocateble in the location-aware mobile future?

 Makes you think who controls you data etc. and who has access to it when they want it.

Malcolm Gladwell on social media

Over Christmas I read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point.  (I read it quickly while I was at my in-laws out west and didn't really make any notes, so I actually might get it out of the library again this weekend)  It is about how ideas spread and how people are influenced.

This past week as I was reading dead tree version of the Globe and Mail, I came across this Q&A article in which he answers some questions about the latest social media.  There were a few quotes I thought were interesting

"People aren't spreading ideas on Twitter, they're spreading observations."

I also like his thoughts on all the people that are ready to crown Twitter and Facebook social media champs.

"[The Internet] likes nothing more than to build someone up only to topple them.  Who has an AOL account these days? Not that long ago, AOL was the single most powerful player on the Internet.  Who has a MySpace account these days?  MySpace sold fro billions of dollars not that long ago.  I'm very reluctant to crown Facebook king of the future"

He also has some great thoughts on how social media can not build the same strength to organizations the way face to face contact can.... which I think I'll save for another post

Remembering Dan Fisher

I got news today that one of the best teachers I ever had has passed away.  We knew him as Dan Fisher, he was Daniel Fish in the non broadcasting world.  (try saying Dan Fish with the news, and the 'with' can come out funny, that why he changed it for radio)  The Waterloo Record has his memorial write up.  As much as death happens, you're never quite ready for it.  I sort of regret not talking to him more the last time I saw him at a get together of a bunch of my class mates a few years ago.   He will be missed by a lot of people

I had Dan Fisher as an instructor at Conestoga College.  He was the teacher of the radio lab, training of all the on air elements of a radio station.  He was a good teacher, both an encourager, but also not one to soften his evaluation.  In a way I'm glad I didn't have to work for him in radio, because I still remember some of my classmates who got so upset about the review he gave of their on-air abilities.  Some would say he had favourites, I think he had an ear for talent or at least potential, and knowing what the broadcast world was going to be like, pushed us and didn't coddle.  I think he thought that if someone was going to quit because they were harshly evaluated it was better to see them quit in their first year of school, before the tried to get jobs in the industry.  I wonder what it would have been like to have him as a PD or GM.... when money and rating were on the line.

If I was ever any good at announcing, I think I own some of it to him.   He encouraged me and helped me to be good at what I do (did).  He was a fun guy and actually cared about his students.   I'm sure there will be a lot of Conestoga BRT students that will miss him like I do.   He was a good man.

Being Easter weekend, I have to pause in thinking about how good he was, and wonder did he know Jesus?  He was involved in church, but I don't know what his deep faith thoughts were.   It make me sad to not know.   I hope that Dan Fish loved Jesus and someday I will see him again.   To hear his laugh and see his smile would make me happy.   I pray that I do again.

Faking their fans

Wrestling is so fake that they can even fake crazy fans and make it seem believable.

I don't know why but this made me laugh.



I know it's fake.... but oh if it was real that kid was going to get pounded
(if your new here, you will likely never ever see another WWF clip again.)

Crazy parents

The world is just too scared.   People are scared of shadows and have convinced themselves that the world isn't safe for anyone.

Today I ready this article by Lenore Skenazy over at ParentDish.com the basic story is this

The mother was at the library with her 5-year-old, the library where they go every week, in Rochester, New York....  They had only a few minutes before they had to leave to pick up Daughter #2 (age 3), giving the mom just enough time to run upstairs from the children's room to the adult room to check out her book..... [the mother retelling here story] "So I asked my daughter, 'Do you want to come with me or wait here for a few minutes?' 'Wait.' So I told the librarian, 'I'll be right back.' And the librarian said, 'Well ... okay. But I must warn you: the same dangers that are out on the street are here in the library.'"

I read the story and thought, wow people can be really reactionary.   I was mostly thinking about the crazy response from the librarian... "the same danger that are out on the street are here in the library"    Really?  So the same things that happen in the street happen daily in the library?!?
Now first I don't think the street is as dangerous as the nervous hoards would like you to think.  I'm not crazy I know stuff goes down.... In big cities like New York there are even shootings on the street, but not daily, not often or else you would never see people on the streets of New York.
But when was the last time there was a shooting in a library?   
How about a mugging?
Knife fight?
And this is not the dark alley version of a library, this is one that the family visits weekly.


So anyway.... I stopped my thought with the idea of the crazy librarian.....  


But then I started reading the comments......  so many of them all crazy parents aggreeing whole heartedly with the librarian.   "Never leave a 5 year old alone....not even for 5 seconds"    bla bla bla..... "What kind of a bad parent is she.


I couldn't believe my eyes.   She was going to run upstairs and check out a book.    The reaction was like she was leaving her infant in a den of lions.    People chill.   Nothing is going to happen.


Maybe I'm wrong...tell me so.   I'm not venturing back into the comment forum there, but would love to discuss it with anyone here.

Update:

 Lenore has posted some thoughts on the response on her blog... Free Range Kids.
It's amazing how readership comments differ.....wow

Church Home

A few months ago I had written about trying to find a church.  I realized that I haven't filled in the gaps on where we have ended up.   The fact is that we have found a great church family at Gateway Worship Centre.  They have welcomed us and helped us feel at home.   They aren't perfect, but in all honesty, if they tried to be we wouldn't be there  There is no attempt to be something they are not and we don't have to be more than we are.  They love Jesus and care about the town they live in.   I have grown tired of congregations that try to present as having it all together; whether that means on a personal level or a institutional level.

Gateway is led by the Spirit.   I feel each Sunday that the service could go anywhere if the Spirit leads.   It is an amazing thing to hear a senior gentleman pray out with great emotion, not on cue or as part of the script, but because he is moved.  To have the band whisper to the worship leader, "you have to play that song you wrote" or the pastor cry out in emotion for the message he has.   I haven't experienced these things before, not in a genuine way.

I've watched a dear old senior walk to the front to serve communion, one pant leg half tucked into his boot.  I think many churches wouldn't let this type of fellow near the front with the suits...but there he was serving with a smile.  And each week he greets me and asks how the camp is doing and how we are doing.

They are so friendly.  I feel like we have gained friends, parents and grandparents in the people that are there.
Today they threw a shower for our family on the arrival of Greyson.   So many thoughtful gifts from people that are just getting to know us, but have adopted us as part of their community.  One older lady crocheted a whole blanket for him.... the type of gifts that grandmas give to grandchildren and it was given to our new son.

I'm not setting out to sell anyone on this church.  But I have to say that people are coming and it's not because they have the best program or the coolest technology or a slick whatever..... the love God and the love people.   Sure there are rough edges but I am becoming more and more convinced that this is what Christianity looks like;  a group of imperfect people loving one another, because Jesus said to love one another.  And then together joining to love God and worship him in the best ways that know how.   

On the off chance that you live in the Gravenhurst area and are looking for a church that will offer you love no matter what you state of being.... come and check out Gateway.  End of endorsement

Extensions of the WHOLE man.

Kevin Kelly has his thoughts on where tablets might end up going.  He states two things that will make them different than the average cell phone or computer/laptop, the second being:

The tablet window goes two ways. You watch; it watches you. Its eye can remain on all the time, watching you as much as you like. Brian Eno once famously said (in the pages of Wired) that the problem with computers was that there was not enough Africa in them. By this he meant that computers as we knew them could “see” only the wiggling ends of our fingers as we typed. But if they could see and employ the rest of our body, as if we were dancing or singing, we could express ourselves with greater finesse. This window tablet injects some Africa into computers. It overthrows the tyranny of the keyboard. Gestures are king. Swoosh your fingers to scroll, wave your arms as with a Wii, shake or tilt it. Celebrate its embodiment. The craftsmanship of this device will matter. We’ll spend hours holding it, caressing it, stroking its magic surface, watching it. The feel of its surface, the liquidity of its flickers, the presence or lack of its warmth, the quality of its build, the temperature of its glow will come to mean a great deal to all of us.

This is interesting to my Marshall McLuhan (somewhat) obsessed mind.  McLuhan always referred to technology as extensions of man (or woman) and here Kelly is pointing out that technology is going to feel better to us as it extends more and more of us.   McLuhan saw our actual nervous system being eventually completely extended by our technology.  Conventional computers have done a good job with sight and sounds... and maybe our thought...but now touch screens will start to take our whole body as extensions.  Causing us to move, to dance.   I think McLuhan would also see it as interesting that the newer innovation of touch screens and gestures overthrows the need to know the phonetic alphabet even more.  The keyboard isn't gone completely, but I think this is a move closer to not needing to know written language.  Which moves us farther from the visual to the oral community.  

It's also interesting to see how Kelly describes the romance between the individual and the technology.  The relationship is tangible to the user.   Kind of scary in a way.  You thought that people were already zealots about their Macs.... now their iPad is going to be their lover and best friend.   That might be more scary, I'd hate to see Apple fanboys more obsessed with something.

I think McLuhan would have loved this stuff.  I do too.... and I've only been thinking about it for a little while

Good news for baldy

Going bald, cuts cancer risk

Men who start going bald at a young age are up to 45% less likely to get prostate cancer in later life, a study has found.

yeah win for me :)

The media

Saw this come through my feed reader  (found here)
Good point I thought