Slipcast_016 “Kindle My Heart”

Sometimes, life can deter you from the lesser things in life, like a hobby podcast with your buddies in Indiana. Such is the case with the delay of Slipcast episode 016 (68MB download), featuring downloadable, free content on faith, web culture, and gaming. Join Chris, Kurt, Chris, and Ryan as they brave the early Saturday morning hours to discuss geeky topics such as movies, Nintendo’s rise of sheer numerical pwnage, Ryan’s new obsession of Monsterpocalpyse, Jimmy Fallon’s true colors, the Palm Pre, and some cheap PS3 non-games.

Show Notes can be found here.

Size: 68MB
Email us at slipcast[at]slipstream.cc

Slipcast by Slipstream.cc is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.slipstream.cc.

St. Gul’libel bound once again!

April Foo…. oh… not a single one of you fell for it this time. Guess I’ll have to try harder next year? In any rate, thanks for playing.

Impressed by my adequate service up in Greenland on the lush elk farms of yore, “Uncle Rick”, my managing Elkmaster for the past two summers in the small town of St. Gul’libel, has requested I lead a team of new design interns to help work on the campaigns that will make his business even more successful than years’ previous. What’s great is, not only do I get to continue gaining great experience in the field I love (and the field I love), I’ll get to lead younger designers, and actually make a few on the side. I completely forgot about posting photos again from last year’s outing, but I won’t forget this time, surely!

Rick’s voice mail made me crack up. I’ll paraphrase and do my best to remember it, “Rhine? Rhine! (It’s how he pronounces Ryan) Git yurself up he’ah. We gotta see you rassle up ‘dem elk! How ma’y times we gonna see you fahfurdis?” (fall in front of these elk, which he often asked me when I would slip in the mud while taking photos of the elk) It took me awhile to understand that was actually what he meant. Call me the fool! Anyways, in light of a new spring month starting, I felt this news needed to be made known. I’ll post my leaving date shortly once I get in contact with his team tomorrow via Skype. I love that little program… brings everybody together!

Slipcast_015 “Early Adopters”

Over two years in the making… Slipcast returns in full force (56MB download), bringing you an hour of downloadable, free content on faith, web culture, and gaming. Join Chris, Kurt, Chris, and Ryan as they brave the early Saturday morning hours to discuss geekly,er… geeky topics such as books, Resident Evil 5, Nintendo’s new DSi, the latest in WoW TCG, submarines for sale, the ESV Study Bible, a look at the Acer Aspire One, and pork. Feed coming soon! (Still working on it)

EDIT: The download found above is a new version (015.1) so don’t be confused, it’s just been remixed for your listening pleasure.

Show Notes can be found here.

Size: 56MB
Email us at slipcast[at]slipstream.cc

Slipcast by Slipstream.cc is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.slipstream.cc.

Trial & Sin: 1 Peter

The first in an 8 month sermon series on 1 & 2 Peter by my church, titled Trial & Sin has been put up online. Enjoy the Frank Miller-esque opening,  stay for the deep and topical discussion. I can’t wait to see what is to come of this series. You can get more info, including the 198 page study guide at 8Witnesses.com

We broke the 8,000 people barrier yesterday within our 20 services spread over 7 campuses. God is good!

Resume broken link

Hi! I just noticed that on the front page of my site, the link to my resume pdf is broken. That’s due to forgetting to move it to my new site URL. I will fix the problem Thursday night when I have time to due maintenance on the site. Thanks for your time!

EDIT 22.November.2008: Due to some technical issues with my computer, I was able this morning to finally fix my resume link. It can now be found here.

In related news, this was my first project using my brand new Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium. I’m loving the new interface and hope it encourages me to get some more personal projects, this site included, completed in a timely manner. This will result in some shifting things around, including probably phasing out Streamlined itself. But fear not, something awesome this comes.

Market Research! Where do you get your niche news?

[I've posted this message in a few message board communities I frequent, and figured my blogbase could aid as well. So take a gander and pitch in in the comments!]

Hi there! I’m working on a side project, but I need some help. You… yes YOU can help! And all you have to do is reply in this thread. Chances are, if you are reading this, you were intrigued by the thread subject line, which could in a way also be a headline. Headlines are used to catch your attention in news articles, whether they be in newspapers, magazines, websites, Google News Reader… whatever it may be, we are intrigued by a headline that stirs interest and in so doing, we click it and read more about what the article belonging to that headline talks about. It may end up interesting us, and it may not. I could go on, but anymore is irrelevant to you right now.

What I would like to ask of you is to compile a list of links, any amount will do. Heck, I don’t even need actual links, just names of news sites or sites you get information from. To give you more focus in creating your list, I’ll give you four categories which you have the option to follow or not, its just for focus if your brain can’t think of any. If you read up on any or just one of these categories is totally fine. One link is better than none, so I ask for a response of some type. I’ll greatly appreciate anytime you put into this. Oh and even if you repeat sites that people have already said, please state them anyways. It helps with my research. Speaking of, you are probably wondering what its for? Well… I’m not prepared to announce it yet, as jumping the gun and saying I’ll do something for sure and never going through with it is something I’m trying not to repeat.

Here are the four categories:

Technology
[ex: computing, web trends, web apps, future of web, science advancements]

Arts & Entertainment
[ex: creative arts, graphic design, video production, movies, television, web series', music, comics, comic books]

Gaming
[ex: video games, board games, table top gaming, role-playing, flash games, card gaming, you name it]

Faith & Theology
[ex: Biblical studies, pastoral blogs, church news, theological discussions, Q+A's, etc]

No site or place of information is too geeky or niche. Don’t be shy. However if you absolutely feel it best not to reveal where you get your sources in public, email me. I won’t publish my information anywhere, I promise. It’s merely for my research.

The New Job

8 days ago, I started my new job at Concur Technologies in Redmond. I am exceedingly thankful to my family and friends for the outpouring of support they have given me to get me where I am today. But in actuality, it is through them that God made it happen. I finally have a job that is using my talents in graphic design and it is exciting! But it’s not all easy, as I’m constantly facing new challenges daily, but I am eager to learn and really harness what I’ve learned from high school to today. Thank you for being on that journey with me.

I am currently in a short term contract working in Concur’s Marketing department. The staff are very warm, friendly, and helpful. I love it, and I’m not just saying that to kiss up (in case the powers that be are reading). I mean it! I hope to work hard and we’ll see where it goes from there.

Chapter II: The man with the cane

[This is part 3 of a trilogy of posts originally intended to have been posted on June 6, 2008.]

QFC/Starbucks of Harmon Rd. – 11:00am-ish
As I wrote the outlines of this small trilogy of blogs, an old man limped past the window to the Starbucks I sat at. He had a cane. I began dwelling on what this man’s life was like. Here was a guy who could barely walk without use of a simple wooden stick. He is reliant upon it for support everywhere he goes, everything he does. I then imagined myself as this man. How often do I carry a cane? Everyday! I treat God as this cane. Simply and too often I treat Him as nothing more than a walking stick to get what I want in life. That is a sad and pathetic way of life. God leads our lives, He doesn’t just support what we want. He can snap us like a twig if He wanted. How dare we treat Him as anything less. He is sovereign and I am forever grateful for it. Not much of a deep thought, but it was profound at the time I wrote it.

I just finished writing a Psalm. Yeah, the kind David wrote at His weakest. As soon as I finished writing it, what began playing in this very Starbucks but the opening sax notes of I Don’t Wanna Waste Your Time by Over the Rhine. Again, if you don’t listen to them, you are missing out, friend. As for the Psalm itself, heck no do you get to read it. Its for me and God. Take care today.

Chapter I – New house

[This was part 2 of a trilogy of posts originally intended for posting on June 6, 2008.]

On June 5th, 2008 @ approx. 2:30am my sisters Rachel and Rebecca drove me to Louisville airport. Bless them for being troopers. I hope to never do that to anyone again by scheduling my departure time a bit better. Not only was it out of the way for departing, but my arrival was a bit bumpy, not only in rough skies and turbulence, but none of my three roommates were able to pick me up. Thus I trusted in Metro, which was quite reliable despite my carrying two suit cases on board. I eventually made it in the pouring rain to my new house in Broadview neighborhood. This house is beautiful and its very close to the Puget Sound itself. I plan to go walking and exploring the neighborhood more after this blog entry is finished.

The house itself has four bedrooms, two on the main floor and two in the basement. It has a spacious living room and dining room complete with a fire place. In the basement lies a den with another fireplace, as well as an area for a washer and dryer and door to the garage. There are wood floors all on the main floor with carpet in the basement. It’s bizarre how the two floors almost seem like two different homes. It’s very clean and I can’t wait to see how it shapes up once we all get settled and the moving boxes disappear. My bedroom, one of the main floor rooms, I plan to steampunk out as best I can. No surprise, eh? Remind me to post pictures of the house once we get it all situated.

Last night while on the phone with mom, I walked out onto our backyard deck to observe the view and take in the brisk air. Mistake. I inadvertently locked myself out of the house, not knowing of a special unlocking mechanism. The temperature dropped about ten degrees while I was out there, but thankfully I was able to call Scott and Brant to bail me out of the silliness. I was afraid I would of had to freeze out there by myself for a few hours, as I only had a short sleeve shirt with nothing to cover my arms. It was at this point that I began to have some home sickness. I was not expecting it at all, but I apparently did not prepare myself as I was leaving the previous night. It definitely felt weird to leave the home of my youth this time around, having a taste of the free comforts of home to go back into the ‘real world’ and make it on my own here in Seattle. It was a gut wrenching feeling, like I wanted to vomit but couldn’t. Thankfully I was cured after plugging in my record player and playing U2′s War album. This was the first time I have heard this album all the way through. What an amazing collection of songs! I am stoked to own such a fine album and I very much recommend it.

I sit here writing the outline of this blog on my Treo, to which I will sync to my computer, write out completely, then sync back to my phone for publishing on the web! I must do this due to Comcast not being able to come out to our house until next Wednesday.

Seattle Life, Book II

Prologue
On July 23, 2007 I changed my life. I moved from Evansville, Indiana, my hometown of 25 years to live in a place I had not even visited before: Seattle, Washington. It was a bold move, with merely the money I had saved in my account and merely friends and people I had only spoken with on the phone or online. I moved in with four guys who all had two common threads: they loved Jesus and were geeks in some way shape or form. Thusly, I felt right at home and within a month I landed a job as a product tester at Nintendo of America, from which I worked until February of 2008.

On April 1st, April Fools Day, I became a member of Mars Hill Church of Seattle. At this church I have served as a designer and learned from others in the field. I have also participated in a community group of loving and faithful men and women my age. I can’t imagine life without them. I also just recently began helping serve communion each Sunday. It has humbled me in a way I cannot fully explain and I am grateful for such a small, but important part in the greater body of Christ.

Between May 21st and June 5th, I went on vacation in Daytona Beach & Orlando with my family of seven, as well as went back home for a short week to not only visit with friends, but see my friends Matt and Michelle Bower become one. During this time, my roommates moved my belongings to our new home.

This now closes the first ‘book’ of my Seattle life, and opens anew Book II. I won’t necessarily keep with a book pattern in these writings, but it seems to bookend how I began this series of blogs nearly one year ago. Thank you for reading.

Edit: I will be posted the next two blogs next week, due to a technical complication out of my control.