:[ Streamlined ]:

With the recent fear of giving out personal information over the web and simple ignorance of those who willingly give their information, it baffles me of people’s thought processes with a certain trend I am seeing on Facebook.

Often times than not, I have witnessed on the Newsfeed, or as I like to call it, the Gossip Wall, creation of certain events relating to loss of cellphone. This trend is running rampant like a plague.  The scenario is explained in the following. Those with enough friends on Facebook have probably seen this before or even participated, not knowing what you were doing.

Susie, through random happenstance, or for you Calvinists out there, was predestined to dropped her phone on the pavement… shattering its will to function and or chances of sentient life or future important SMS messages. (like omg!!!)

Susie, is disheartened. Her Chocolate/iPhone/Sidekick/RAZOR is gone forever! Data erased. All her phone numbers of friends and loved ones, gone forever in the aether. What is a girl to do?

Susie, through memory of what her friends have done in the recent past, recalls a quick fix. Facebook! Rather than go through all 2,342 of her friends pages and inserting cell phone numbers, dorm room numbers, former ex boyfriends’ numbers (so to not pick up when they call her, of course)… she creates an Event!

Susie is on a roll. She’s brilliant, she thinks to herself. Why, she’ll create an event called LOST CELLPHONE! And in the description she explains the predicament, possibly in all caps as well, after all CapsLock is CRUISE-CONTROL FOR AWESOME! In this she pleads for all her friends to post their phone numbers proudly and clear to see on the events page. Soon, the friends gladly/ignorantly help. They have minutes to spare. They were just Facebook stalking anyways.

Susie unfortunately, is clueless about the possible harm and repercussions this is causing on her fellow man. Let’s for a moment list a chain of people that this is affecting.

Susie’s immediate friends and family are now posting numbers, thus appearing on their Newsfeed.

One of Susie’s friends, Anna, has now posted her number on the Event page. Anna also has a large amount of friends, two people of which happen to be Carl and You. This event appears on a select amount of Newsfeeds on Anna’s friends list, depending on varying slider settings of those friends and influx of feeds draining onto their Newsfeed at any certain time. Guess what? Both Carl and You are two of those people.

Susie does not know Carl. You do not know Carl. Anna knows Carl, though only in passing. He was this shady guy she might have said hi to in Algebra back in high school. She really doesn’t remember him all that well. “But hey, he went to Generic Public High School with me, I’ll add him. No harm done right?” Wrong. Carl, for this story, is in fact, a danger to this internet community, triggered all by Susie’s thoughtless act of omission. Carl (not to mention You) can now see in full view this event and every public response to said event, i.e. their precious digits. Some of these people, while they thought only allowed a certain number of people access to their private phone number on their profiles, now have it exposed for the Carl’s of the world to see. The implications, awkwardness, and any other problem this causes is scary. Thankfully, because of reading this blog entry, You know better and won’t publicly post your number. Because if You do, Carl has your number now. Way to be Susie, way to be.

Just something to think about the day your cell phone falls in the toilet.

One of my younger twin sisters have now graduated from college. I can tell from all my siblings and conversations with the parental unit that our upcoming vacation to Daytona Beach is something we are all really looking forward to. We all need that escape from the chaos and frustrations of normal life. I am really hoping for our adventure to be very low key, refreshing, and most importantly, stress free. My mother announced her retirement, to happen in about a month (Mom, I hope you don’t mind me mentioning that). I am proud of her for doing so, I feel like my career as an artist, designer, design consultant (whatever I end up being for this time in my life) is something worthwhile and worth meaning, to not only myself, but my family, friends, and the Kingdom.

Progress on the new version of Slipstream is coming along. I’ve updated the teaser page to reflect the logo which will be used in the next theme.  While excited, there is still much I have yet to learn (at least learning how to make it work!). So, if everything goes to plan, it will be a moderately content heavy site. It’s more than just a portfolio or blog this time.

As for the extra content, I would like to make this post an open invitation. If you consider yourself in one of the following categories: writers, copy editors, journalists, photojournalists, bloggers, trend setters, philosophers, theologians, web surfers, designers, web media moguls or have interest in posting links about technology, arts & entertainment, gaming (all types), faith & theology… contact me via email and let me know what you like doing or currently doing in your life. This can be both an extracurricular activity  or something that takes very little of your time, and I’m talking very little. In your email, please include a link to your blog, articles you’ve written, Flickr gallery or attach works you are proud of. This invitation for collaborators is open at least to the end of the year, so if you aren’t free now, you’ve got time to consider it. Lord knows you actually do have the time, but you just don’t want to admit it. Everyone can at least find ten minutes of Facebook stalking to cut out of their week. Heck yes, I went there!

As described in this post, I am leaving Seattle for a few weeks for family vacation, a sister’s graduation, and participating in a wedding. I am now leaving on May 21st instead of the originally mentioned May 24th. This may result in hurting future job leads until I return, but I hope it will not cause major problems. I will be returning to Seattle no later than Thursday, June 5th.

Interestingly enough, when I return, I will also be returning to a new home, as my roommates and I are selecting a new house to live in. This also means the weekend prior to vacation, I will be packing up my room considerably into boxes and ready for the roommates to transport them. Its all kinds of excitement this summer.

This passage this morning really spoke to me as it is something that has needed to be on my heart more and more. Its good for all to be reminded of it.

Psalm 34, verses 11-22.

1 Come, O children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
12 What man is there who desires life
and loves many days, that he may see good?
13 Keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking deceit.
14 Turn away from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.
15 The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous
and his ears toward their cry.
16 The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
to cut off the memory of them from the earth.
17 When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears
and delivers them out of all their troubles.
18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit.
19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
20 He keeps all his bones;
not one of them is broken.
21 Affliction will slay the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
22 The Lord redeems the life of his servants;
none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

CSS, where you were you in the 90’s when I needed you most?

I discovered widgets within the dashboard of WordPress that I was unaware of being available to me. Thusly, you may notice a search box, calendar, del.icio.us feed, categories, and tag cloud now added to the left. It may improve your visits to this blog, or they may not. But isn’t it swell to know they are there? Unfortunately, and someone please tell me if this is just a bug with the new WordPress or not… but as I’ve added said widgets, my blogroll list has now poofed. How do I get it back? I did nothing to make it go away.

In my CSS studies, I’m now learning the big kahuna: page layout! Oh this is fun.

Both my weekdays and weekends are really starting to look about the same. A lot of studying CSS, dvd watching, web surfing, and Skype chatting. Lather, rinse, repeat.

As described in this post, I have been undertaking the thought of joining Mars Hill as my church home. I did not want to simply slide into it with ease or with simple conscious. I wanted to really put Mars Hill to the test in my beliefs, and in return, it managed to test a lot of what I believe. In fact I couldn’t find a single reason to not say it was my church home. The elders and deacons of Mars Hill Church really do have their act together! And that isn’t because of something they read in a New York Times or Amazon bestseller list… it simply was founding the church from the get-go on the living, breathing Word of God. Jesus’ message is enough, and needs not any extra panache or fanfare added in. There is no need for golden pianos, metal plated Bible covers, or inspirational sports commentaries placed inside to be called “extra features”. The Bible is not a DVD box set. It just is.

Going back on the original topic: membership. It actually means something for this church, and not just to the elders. I’m talking the sheep here. The laymen. It is required for all leadership positions and its a way that the community stays active and accountable of each other. In terms of leadership, I will probably lead a community group in the next year. Much of that will depend on location and career opportunities playing the mix. Regardless to say, as of April 1st, 2008, I am a member of Mars Hill. I could not be more thankful to God. Being that I was appointed a member on April Fool’s Day is not a coincidence. It’s a good reminder that by myself, I am the biggest fool of them all. With Christ, I am called to be a disciple and live my life for Him in action and deed.

On and unrelated note, I am finishing up CSS: The Missing Manual this week. I’m having fun going through the tutorials and learning a lot of applicable knowledge when it comes to the backend of web design. I hope to implement these changes with Slipstream.cc and eventually get my portfolio hosted directly on my site, though Carbonmade has done an excellent job just in terms of a free service. Time to get back to studying.

[The following was an April Fool's gag. Thanks for playing!]

Last spring you may recall I took an internship on a elk farm in St. Gul’libel, Greenland as a resident graphic designer. Well, it looks like they’ve asked me to come back and do some design work for them! Do you believe it??? The yield of product skyrocketed there this past year, apparently due to the help on the farm and my slightly improved branding for them! Better ads make happier elks, it seems!

So, I’m taking leave from the good ol’ Seattle and once again going North. Instead of flying, I’m considering taking a train through Canada. I’ve always enjoyed trains and it would be a great time to get to see more of Canada. I’ve been cooped up in this town for a bit too long. I need to stretch my legs a bit. I’ll post once my boss “Uncle Rick”, as he likes to be called, nails down the specific dates. I did let him know about my summer plans as mentioned in the blog below and he said it would not be a problem. So he’s gonna work around it!

Some of you complained I didn’t take a camera last time. I’m not much for taking pictures, but I’ll do it for you all. I might have to finally open a Flickr account. I’d hate to be a patsy and miss out, would you?

I just nailed down some specific dates for this summer today. On (EDITED from original May 24th) May 21st I’ll be leaving this fair city to fly down to Orlando. I’m meeting with my family and we’ll be staying in Daytona Beach (I believe) for a week. During that time I’ll be visiting with friends from Crusade (possibly), the Kandel’s, and friends I originally met through the interwebs itself (Craig, Marty, Brian and Christy). On the 30th, I will be returning to Evansville with the family in time to participate in the wedding of my best friend Matt as he gets married off to some girl named Michelle. I guess she’s cool :P. And as of today, hence the post, I moved my return time from June 1st to June 5th, the following Thursday, to spend time seeing friends in Evansville. It should be a good two weeks of rest and relaxation. I’ll be ready for work (wherever that may be on Friday, June 6th.

Also when I return from said trip, I’ll most likely be living in another house. My roommates and I are unsure of where, but we would like to find a new place, as this one, well… it could be better. No doubt, its in a perfect location and the rent is absurdly great, but we would like a place to come home to that doesn’t depress us just by looking at it. You know? We’d like to welcome guests and not feel ashamed of the cracking and peeling of the walls. So until then, that is the game plan. The lease ends in the end of May, thus our considering moving.

:[]:

As an errata, my brother Jeff and I have nailed down weekend passes for Penny Arcade’s PAX08 convention here at Seattle’s Washington Convention Center. The event is August 28-30, 2008. Jeff will be flying out to visit and hang out with his little brother for some fun of the geek variety, our personal favorite. I’m pumped, as I had a blast going last year. I’ll post links with more info once Penny Arcade’s site is up, which appears down as of this writing.