Ok... I am going to "live blog" Thanksgiving today.
3:25pm - up from nap. Helped my grandmother to the car. Listening to the national anthem on FOX before the Cowboy kick-off. Man, I need some coffee.
By the way, anyone else notice the gel in Romo's hair? Come on man!
2:15pm - stuffed... going to check on Katherine. I might lay down back there with her.
1:30pm - eating!
1:24pm - Katherine fell asleep on Leslie so she is putting her down in the front room (the cool, dark, quiet room with a big comfy bed).
12:59pm - Katherine just came it with a mouth full of dirt. She fell off the swing and busted her lip and hurt her pride. Leslie is cleaning her up in the bathroom.
12:52pm - my uncle just walked in with dove wrapped in bacon. Wow. The pies are coming out of the oven - chess, pecan, pumpkin, chocolate (there are 8 pies). The turkey is being carved. My grandmother (92) just arrived. The Titans are killing the Lions (everyone is sitting around talking about the problems with Detroit 0 both the team and the community). We will eat soon. Man this is fun!
11:41am - ok we've had our traditional mimosa's. Pies are baking. The Titans are on tv. We have thrown the football outside. This is the kind of day I love. There is such a freedom to relax on a holiday.
9:39am - now I'm headed to the shower.
9:36am - uhmmm... haven't showered yet. I just posted a Happy Thanksgiving post on the Bethel blog. It is kind of corny, but it is Thanksgiving so I thought it would be good to talk about being thankful.
9:15am - about to shower and head over to my mom's to get into the Thanksgiving fun over there. Going to stop by and get some coffee first because she is out... ??? - - can't believe she let that happen.
8:30am - Went in to the living room and crashed the kids Wii party and made them turn on the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade. I then began to tell them how cool it is and that I watched it every year as a kid and how it is a "tradition." They aren't buying it.
7:30am - I woke up and greeted Leslie with "Happy Thanksgiving!" I told her how thankful I was for her. Brushing my teeth first would have made the moment a little more effective.
My apologies to you if you still read this... this blog has sucked lately. I mean totally sucked. I have been on a dry spell. I have not taken the time to be creative.
Creativity takes time. I don't know if it does for everyone, but it does for me. I have to carve out time to think. Not a lot of time, but enough that I can step out of the routine and look at things from different angles. I sometimes joke that I am a "creative black-hole." What I mean is that creativity takes some time and thought for me and I usually get into a groove of getting things done, that I don't stop to evaluate or reflect on what I'm doing.
Creativity also requires a little bit of risk. It means doing something, to some degree, in a new way. Not all creativity has to be new or novel, but for me it often times means stepping out of the comfort of my routine or thinking to take a risk with a new perspective or idea. It means writing about something I know and talk about in a different way. It means thinking about different words and phrases to describe things I've thought for a long time. It means looking for fresh and stimulating word pictures or images to replace the images that have become stale in my mind. For me, it means interacting with my "stuff" in a different way. Reading a different book, working in a different program, listening to some different music, talking to some new people. All of these things stimulate my mind and gets me thinking in ways that are helpful and productive. "Producing" for me can be the enemy of "productive."
Finally, I think creativity means a little failure. Not all the "creativity" that happens is going to be good, interesting, helpful or result in praise. But, that is ok. Taking the time to risk a little creativity will mean that I might hear, "that was ... well, weird." OK, I've done things like that. But, I want to embrace it as an opportunity to learn. Creativity leads to learning... and I love to learn. I like learning about myself, my vocation, my God, my gifts, ability. Learning has a way of making me feel alive. It is worth it.
So, this week (Thanksgiving week), I plan to read a couple of books, spend some time out of my routine praying, thinking, writing about things I don't usually take the time for. I plan to take some walks at odd times. I plan to sleep in a little. I am planning time with people I don't usually see. I'm looking forward to taking some risks. I can't wait.
I'm interested in what you do to spark creativity and what you have learned in the process... anyone?
Daily Affirmations:
"I deserve good things. I am entitled to my share of happiness. I refuse to beat myself up. I am attractive person. I am fun to be with."
"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggonit, people like me!"
I guess we'll see if it works....
OK... I must have had a momentary lack of judgment, but about 3 hours ago I posted a recipe on my blog. YES A RECIPE.
No, I am not a woman, or a girl. I am a man. Or at least I think of myself as one. But, there is no denying I posted a recipe. What in the heck was I thinking? I even asked people to make it and then comment on it. I am very sorry for that.
I will leave the recipes to my sisters and mother and wife and daughters. I will blog about computers and yard work and masculine stuff.
Had to get that off my chest.
Let me cut to the chase - Twitter is many things to many people but what often goes unnoticed is that it can be an incredibly powerful marketing & community building tool with the ability to develop your brand, build relationships with your audience and provide a promotional medium that has the ability to go viral!
In this guide I have tried to present a complete picture of Twitter and show techniques / tools / guidelines for Twitter usage for all kinds of people. However this is a blog about Internet marketing so I do have certain bias towards using Twitter for marketing purposes. With that out of the way, let’s get started!
According to the Twitter FAQ, “Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you’re doing.” That doesn’t really tell us very much. Wikipedia says, “Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates via SMS, instant messaging, email, to the Twitter website, or any one of the multitude of Twitter applications now available”.
Twitter asks the question, “What are you doing?” and allows you to send a small update (limited to just 140 characters) to your followers. The concept is amazingly simple and that is perhaps one of the main reasons why it has caught on like wildfire. The restriction to 140 characters has resulted in Twitter being labeled “micro blogging”. A traditional blog is a log of what somebody is up to, but in a richer, more detailed format. One of the key benefits of Twitter is that you can send and receive updates (also called tweets) via your browser, email , instant messaging clients and SMS so you can keep in touch no matter where you are.
I first encountered Twitter at least a year ago. I loaded it up and watched the activity on the main Twitter page. All I saw was a seemingly pointless stream of tweets that literally documented every movement of people’s daily lives down to the unnecessary detail of what they were eating for dinner! I tried sending a few updates but nobody was following me so I was just talking to myself. I played with it for a couple of hours and then ignored it for a year or so.
Twitter is now being recognised as a valuable marketing tool and I’ll explain why in the upcoming sections of the guide. But here’s the thing - you don’t have to listen to the incomingignore it if you choose to. Unlike email, Twitter is just ‘fly on the wall’ communication. On the other hand, if you have people following you, you hope they are listening so you can get your message across. noise! You can
Ideally, you keep the people you are following to a minimum, and have more people following you.
Email, Instant Messaging and SMS are all direct messaging systems. You choose the person with whom you would like to communicate and you send them a direct message. Blogs are open broadcasting systems. When I publish a blog post, it will go directly to those people who have subscribed to the RSS feed but it is also available publicly. Twitter is rather like blogging with just an RSS feed. Consider this diagram:
We have two people, Bob and Betty. Bob can follow Betty, Betty can follow Bob and if they both did that they would be following each other. That is literally all there is to the relationships between people in Twitter. It’s extremely simple and what it produces is a situation like this:
Every time you send out a tweet, all your followers will see it. Unlike blogs, Twitter is a real time broadcasting medium. You update, it is broadcast to your followers, and then it is largely forgotten (but not quite!) When you first join Twitter you have no followers and you are not following anybody else so it can seem pretty lonely. I think this one of the reasons that some people just “don’t get it” when they first start.
However, there is much more to it than that! There are now many tools and other web applications that will integrate with Twitter allowing you to broadcast your tweets all over the web even without followers. I’ll show you how to do that later in the guide.
After you join Twitter you have the option to link it to your mobile phone and / or to your instant messaging clients. By having Twitter accessible on your phone you can both send and receive updates which means that you can stay in touch wherever you are so it is a truly mobile communication tool. This can be a pretty powerful thing.
Want to try something fun?
How about a homemade chocolate cake in a coffee mug... in 3 minutes?
Here is the recipe:
INGREDIENTS: hot chocolate mix, flour, an egg, cooking spray, and oil
Grab the biggest microwavable coffee mug you've got in your cupboard, and cover the inside with cooking spray. Mix up four tablespoons of flour and nine tablespoons of hot chocolate mix, then throw in three tablespoons of water and oil and one egg. Once it's thoroughly mixed into an even batter, microwave for three minutes - Viola!
Here is the actual website with the directions and step-by-step guidance
Make Cake in a Mug
I'd love to know how it turns out...
It is finally (almost) here. Logos for the Mac has been greatly anticipated and it is going to be here for Christmas. If you own a Mac, then this is for you. If you don't - I don't want to know. (Actually, if you are still on a lame PC, then you need to check out the Logos for PC - it is amazing.)
Logos Bible Software: mac from Logos Bible Software on Vimeo.
If you have been used to the PC version, you will realize that this is the first release and I am sure there will be more to come in the next year with this program. It is very exciting to see Logos in the Mac world and I have no doubt that this program will harness all of the advantages of the Mac OS.
Don't miss the election day love:
I'm interested in what my friend Benji has to say about this: Oldest Hebrew Text is Evidence for Bible Stories.
There is never a shortage of stories that come from the world of archeology about the existence or non-existence of evidence for the authenticity of the Bible - especially related to the reign of King David.
Benji is one of the smartest people I know and reads backwards unlike anyone I have ever encountered. I'm interested in his thoughts...
I love google. I have been reading the book Planet Google and am so impressed with the enormity of vision they have.
Today is another example of being way ahead of the curve. Google maps has been harnessed to be the "Voting Center Central" for anyone wondering where they are supposed to vote today.
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