Pantera Retro Scooter

I'm seriously considering this. Kristin's afraid I will die on it.  I just need something to get myself to and from the transit station (and occassionally to Dairy Queen).  Good idea/bad idea?  Please weigh in.

Cherry Tree

I stop by Caitriona's photoblog every few days. She posted this photo today and I've been staring at it off and on for over an hour now. The blue light and bronze leaves are fascinating. I'd love to discuss this shot if anyone has any thoughts.

South Park Donovans

This was a fruitful waste of time.

Home early & a need for new pants

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4. What does it say? Browse, organize, and view your …

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What can you touch? My bedroom wall. It's green.

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV? A British historian talking about the Revolutionary War on The Discovery Channel.

4. Without looking, guess what time it is. 5:03pm

5. Now look at the clock. What is the actual time? 5:09pm

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear? The fan from my bathroom, Kristin closing cupboard doors in the kitchen, Jaimes saying "owie" over and over.

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing? This afternoon when I left work early because our internet and phones were down.

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at? USbank.com in order to grab the logo to try and LiveTrace it in ai.

9. What are you wearing? Gray GAP pants that I wear pretty much everyday, gray short-sleeved plaid shirt that's a little too tight.

10. Did you dream last night? Yes – but I don't remember what it was about. Zombies were probly involved. I have zombie nightmares A LOT.

11. When did you last laugh? This afternoon when Jaimes was flipping through the Bible. She was babbling to herself. I looked back at her from my desk and she looked up at me. "Read – Beyebo," she said. I laughed. She thumbed through silently from that point.

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in? A large, beautiful painting involving the sacraments, painted by my friend, Shaun LaRose.

13. Seen anything weird lately? Not really – why? Am I in trouble?

14. What do you think of this quiz? It's ok.

15. What is the last film you saw? In the theatre? Motorcycle Diaries (Excellent). V For Vendetta (Lame).

16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy? After we paid off school debt we'd create an emergency fund equal to six months of expenses. Then we'd purchase two good (though gently used) cars – probably a PT Cruiser (bleh) and a VW GLi (hooray!). We'd pay cash for a large house in the country with lots of rooms and land. We'd invest a good portion in mutual funds. We'd create and complete Jaimes's college fund and stop putting off adopting another kid. We'd hold the first annual White Mug Bon Fire the following October and fly all of our friends and family in to attend. I imagine we'd tour Europe for a month or so. There's a lot more I can think of, but the necessary details are hazy.

17. Tell me something about you that I don't know. I'm AWESOME at coming up with band names.

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do? Eliminate the "christian music" industry and any subsequent radio stations/merchandising.

19. Do you like to dance? Yes, but others prefer I refrain. I REALLY want to learn to break dance.

20. George Bush: oops.

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her? Jaimesey Waimsey

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him? Possibly Clive. "Possibly Clive" would also make a good band name (see #17)

23. Would you ever consider living abroad? I lived in England for 2 years as a kid – it was good, but also often very hard and lonely. I've been "new" most of my life and I'd kind of like to settle down somewhere for a while.

24. What do you want God to say to you when you reach the pearly gate? Well done.

25. Four Five people who must also do this quiz in THEIR journal:
Sanford, Kovacs, Larose, Fields, Dodson

Good Will Trusting

Lately I’ve been feeling a little anxious. Things have been going really well for me and I keep worrying there’s a catch. My new job at the web design firm seems like a perfect fit. Love A Child continues to send me work and there is promise of plenty of work to come. Life had been so hard for so long. My debt and my dreams towered over me – seemingly unconquerable. Now, for the first time in a very long time, I’ve regained some confidence. Though the hard years guard me from arrogance, I doubt myself less and less. But I’m uneasy. I don’t deserve this and my natural inclination is to suspect it will be taken away.

I was sharing this with Kristin and she reminded me of Good Will Hunting. Toward the end of the film, Sean (Robin Williams) and Will (Matt Damon) are having their last therapy session in Sean’s lower-level office. Sean is holding Will’s record. He tells him, “You see this shit? It’s not your fault.”
Will says he knows.
Sean says, “No – you don’t. It’s not your fault.” He steps closer.
Will backs up. “I know,” he says.
“No. Listen to me, son. It’s not your fault.” Closer still.
“I know that.”
“It’s not your fault-”
Will fights back tears. “Don’t fuck with me, Sean – not you.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Will shoves him back. With trembling hands, he then buries his face in Sean’s shoulder, sobbing.

Kristin pointed out that this is how we are with God. He steps toward us with with understanding and extends kindness. We (or at least I) say, “Don’t fuck with me, God – not you.” I shove him back – I distrust his goodness. I receive the good gift, but I wonder what’s up his sleeve.

Let the lying lips be mute,
which speak insolently against the righteous
in pride and contempt.

Oh, how abundant is your goodness,
which you have stored up for those who fear you
and worked for those who take refuge in you,
in the sight of the children of mankind!

-Psalm 31:18-19

Can you hear Me now?

Talk about a wild week. On Tuesday I received/accepted a job offer from Level 10 Design. We’ve been searching/praying for a new job for me for about a month. Today I negotiated a continuation with Love A Child on a part-time basis (which I discussed with my new boss during my second interview – he’s cool with it). This means that gigantic prayer number 2 for the month of March – namely that upon finding another full-time position, Love A Child would want to keep me on at about 20 hours/week – has been answered. The process of seeking employment is sort of exhilarating to me. After reading 48 Days to The Work You Love last spring, I’ve adopted a super pro-active approach to job searching. A couple of quick tips, then I’ll get to the point of this post:

1. To conduct an effective job search, it is essential that you first define what you want to do, what kind of organization/entity you want to do it for and why. The reasons for this are two-fold. One, nobody (worth working for anyway) wants to hire someone who is just looking to do anything. Good employers pick candidates with goals and passions. Second, if you never make time to discern your skills, interests, gifts, and how they align, it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever wind up in a fulfilling career. You’re positioning yourself to be a slave to circumstance.

2. Job postings in newspapers, employment bulletins and online represent about 8% of the job openings out there. If all you’re doing is scanning the want ads and filling out online applications, you’re wasting your time. When I’m looking for a job, first I define what I want to do, whom I’d like to do it for and why. Then I search like crazy for companies and organizations that meet the “who” criteria. I find out who would be the most likely person in charge of hiring for the job I’d like to do and I do three things – three things no matter what. FIRST I send them a cover letter and résumé (preferably snail mail, because a lot of these people get over 100 emails a day and I WANT TO GET NOTICED). In that letter I explain what I want to do for them, why I’m qualified to do it for them, how I’ve made a difference doing it for others, and why I want to do it for them. I don’t ask them to contact me for an interview. I ask them to please accept my call on such and such a morning to discuss any opportunities they may know of. SECOND, I call them just when I said I would. Whether an interview is arranged at that point or not, my THIRD step is to follow up with another letter thanking them for taking the time to speak with me. The only person I’ve never made contact with was the Advertising Creative Director at JC Penney, and that’s because the gentlemen I thought held that position no longer worked there. I got a job somewhere else before I had a chance to find out who the current Creative Director was.

The fact is, most job openings never get advertised because the employer already knows someone who might fill it. Be that someone.

Embarrassingly – that was an aside. The reason I sat down to write has more to do with “hearing” from God. There’s been a lot of discussion about this in our home group and, in light of my career activity, the subject has been on my mind a lot. Let me give you a very practical example of where I’m at. During my job search, an opportunity was presented to me that, had it worked out, it would have required us to move again. Having moved about five times in the past four years, we cringed at the prospect of packing up our life again, pulling up roots again, looking for a church again, and (most of all) being the new people – again. However, the opportunity would have given me a massive head start in Art Direction, which is what I see myself doing in a few years. It also would have likely paid very well. We’re not the kind of people to chase money all over the country, but we are still under the burden of some significant debt.

Naturally, the thing to do here is “pray about it.” This is where I get honest. I’m struggling with what this means exactly. What do I pray for? Some have suggested praying for a closed door or an open door – some kind of “clear guidance from God” as to what road to take. While a closed door is sometimes a helpful discernment tool, I have some problems with this mentality. What if the door isn’t shut – it’s just really stubborn? What about persistence and fight? I mean, don’t get me wrong. If God Almighty shuts a door, it’s shut. I just feel like this ethos yields itself to passive pursuits, which, in my experience, are not very effective or rewarding.

What if both (or multiple) opportunities remain open? How do I pray then? I think it’s good to ask God to help us discern our desires. That’s how I’ve suggested to Kristin we begin praying concerning whether to adopt our next child or try to conceive again. We suffered two miscarriages this year. Both pregnancies were unexpected. The losses were very hard on us. We really want to adopt, we really want to conceive and really want to avoid doing both at the same time! Which do we pursue first? Well we’re going to pray for God to help us see more clearly what it is we want.

Hiccup number two (at least for me): How do I hear from God? Some have suggested that The Holy Spirit will give me peace about things and that’s how I know God approves of or is leading me in a certain direction. The problem is I’ve very peacefully made some stupid decisions in the past. Can we really hear from God outside of reading/meditating on/praying over and about Scripture? I don’t know – maybe, but I’ve never experienced it. Or I have and I’m just not aware of it. For some reason, I get antsy when someone tells me, “God’s telling me to tell you that (insert something encouraging)” or “I think the Lord is speaking to me about (insert some kind of decision).” Couldn’t it be that you just really want to encourage me because you love me? I mean – it’s not like that would be an act of disobedience. And why do decisions made by Christians have to be made by some intangible nudging. The truth is, we’re always acting out our deepest desires. Can’t we just look to scripture to shape them and thank Jesus for redeeming our dark hearts?

What do you think?

Would you love Jesus if …

Walking home from work this evening, I was feeling affectionate toward Jesus. Not overwhelmed by a downpour of emotion, there was drizzling sweetness that accompanied my contemplation on His humanity. Being more aware of my affection than wrapped up in it, I was struck by how little love I felt for my Savior in years past. “If someone had asked me six or seven years ago,” I pondered, “why it is that I love Jesus, what would my response have been?” I answered to myself, “I would have talked about how much I loved Him because of what He did for me on the cross.” This propelled me to think about all of the other reasons (inlcuding the cross) that I love Jesus Christ. In the Bible I get to read about his intimacy with really rough people. I love his patience with people and his enthusiasm over both large gatherings and solitude. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about his sexual purity and how much he loved, honored and respected women.

“What would I have said,” I mused, “if – six or seven years ago – someone asked me, ‘Would you love Jesus even if He never died on the cross?’” Upon that notion I thought, “Nevermind ’six or seven years ago!’ What would I say this minute?!” Maybe the first questions is – could I love Jesus if He hadn’t been made a sacrifice for my sins? Would he be any less worthy of my love and affection? Thankfully, this is a hypothetical situation, but would you love Him if this were the case? Could you love Him? Why or why not?

A List to Leave You Wanting

Dang – I’ve been working like nuts on my new site. Kristin gave me some great ideas last night concerning the main navigation bar. Hopefully it will be all good to go in about a week or two. The possiblity of doing the redesign on Ransom’s site is giving me a lot of motivation to finish donovanworks.com ASAP. At any rate, I apologize for the hiatus over here.

Per Jason’s request, here’s my most recent top five movie must-rent list. Renting has been infrequent at best these days, so this list is a little weak … but whatever:

1. Capote – I don’t know if this is out on video yet, but Kristin and I saw it in the theater (before Hoffman won the Oscar for best actor). It’s really dark and you may want to kill yourself upon finishing the film. If, however, you do survive the experience – wow – what fertile material for discussion. This is just great cinema.

2. Chicken Little – That’s right, I cover all the bases. Another movie I’m not entirely sure is out on video yet – this list may not be helpful for another month! Disney’s first computer animated motion picture, Chicken Little didn’t receive very good reviews. We took Jaimes to the dollar theater to see it – it was her first theater experience and she LOVED it. I also thought it was pretty funny. Beware – it’s rated G, but should probably be PG. Some parts were a little too scary for munchkins under 3.

3. First Descent – I haven’t seen it yet, but I hear it’s AWESOME. Next up in my Netflix queue, I simply can’t wait to see this.

4. The Office (BBC series) – We recently finished the second season. Maybe the most uncomfortable comedy I’ve ever watched. Shot as a mockumentary, each episode masterfully exploits the many absurdities of middle-management Amer … er … I mean Britain. If you don’t like crude humor, but can stomach it in order to laugh at the inappropriateness of it in the work place, this show’s for you. By the way, if you’re familliar with the American version featuring Steve Carell, the BBC series is it’s predecessor and (in my opinon) far superior.

5. Last but not Least is House of D, directed by Agent Mulder himself.  This supposed semi-autobiography written by, directed by and starring David Duchovny was surprisingly delightful.  Why Robin Williams’ character required dentures is still a mystery to me, but his performance was pretty good.  Anton Yelchin, a talented young actor from one of my favorite films, also stars as Duchovny’s childhood persona.
We’ve got a couple films (Motorcycle Diaries & Walmart: The high Cost of Low Price) in the queue that I’ll likely be reviewing in the coming weeks. If I don’t, just get on my case again and I’ll get back to it.

GEEKY QUESTION: Anyone know of a plugin to export a Netflix Queue into a blog?

pay cuts, hair cuts, & burning at the stake

For any who don’t already know – my work situation has been a little screwy for a while. My boss has basically been paying $800/mo. for my office, only for me to telecommute from it to Naples, FL – where she is 99% of the time. Monday, she called me at said office and asked me to start working from home. I am very stoked about this. She also said I could take home the computer from the office (again – stoked) and keep it no matter what … (still stoked, but growing uneasy). Then she said she had to cut my salary by 25%. Stoked no more. The upside is, she only exppects 30 hours a week from instead of 40 – giving me time to garner more freelance work.

I’ve been want ing to get a portfolio online for a while and finally hit it hard last week. Donovanworks is at least presentable now. I invite your feedback (and by “feedback” I mean words of praise and encouragement). I spent a lot of time this weekend working on both the site and a minifolio to give to potential clients/employers. Last night was the first free night I’ve had in a very long time. So Kristin and I watched a movie on the laptop in bed.

My friend Rich hates movies directed by Mel Gibson. I think he’s still not seen The Passion of The Christ. Everytime someone mentions The Passion or Braveheart, Rich cries a little inside. Then he encourages them to watch The Passion of Joan of Arc. Originally shot in 1927 by French Director, Carl Th. Dreyer this silent film stars Maria Flaconetti (Jeanne d’Arc).

This film is amazing. It is no exaggeration to say it may be one of the finest examples of cinema to date (and that is what Rich always says). The burning of Joan at the stake is more real and more tasteful than any torture scene I’ve ever witnessed on screen. However, the most moving scene (to me) was when Joan’s hair is being cut as a preparation for her execution. Flaconetti’s performance is superb. It’s raw and emotive and gathers even more power through Dreyer’s vivid close-ups (which he uses unsparingly). This is nothing like Luc Besson’s freaky The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. The following is from the opening credits of the film:

Shot in France by Carl Th. Dreyer, The Passion of Joan of Arc was the victim of several ordeals. Censored before its release in 1928, the original negative was soon destroyed by fire. A second negative reedited by Dreyer from alternate takes was also thought lost to fire.

For more than a half-century, this great classic of silent film was known only in mutilated copies, or in a sonorized version which made numerous changes to the original.

Then, in 1981, an original Danish copy, complete and in very good condition, was miraculously discovered in a closet of a Norwegian mental institution. Thanks to the aid of Ib Monty, Director of the Danish Film Museum, and of Maurice Drouzy, who reestablished the French text, the Cinematheque Francais has been able to reconstitue this French version, probably very close to the original.

A score for the film, entitled Voices of Light was later composed by Richard Einhorn. The score is optional on the Cirterion Collection DVD. Kristin and I watched the silent film on it’s own last night. I plan to watch it with the music soon. The following appears before the opening credits:

ABOUT THE MUSIC

The Passion of Joan of Arc is a silent film. At the time of its initial release it was presented with various pieces of music performed live, and there is no information that Carl Th. Dreyer ever selected a difinitive score for his film.

However, we feel that Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light adds an extra dimension to Dreyer’s film, and that both works benefit from being presented together. Not actually a score, but rather music inspired by the film, Einhorn’s work interweaves medieval texts and original music to comment both on the legend of Joan and Dreyer’s depiction of her.

I commend this film to you – all who read this blog. It’s fantastic.

godbit, crossconnector, and a good Tuesday.

Most of you know I’m a web design novice. I’ve been working on the new site for Love A Child for far too long, but I’m finally making some measurable progress. Yesterday I was perusing godbit.com, a web design/development forum for Christian geeks. I posted a problem I was having with my CMS. Not only did the answer confirm that I was right in the first place, but one of the sites authors told me I was “a master in the making.” Make no mistake – this has completely gone to my head.

I guess as a “thank you” to Ryan for his kind words, I’m becoming an evangelist of sorts for his current project – Cross Connector. From crossconnector.com:

CrossConnector helps you plan and manage mission trips and church activities. It works like a blog, so you’ll get your own website where people can read your messages and check out your projects. You can coordinate with churches and missionaries, send messages to supporters (or anyone), post messages like a blog and invite people to leave comments, research and search past and current mission work, and lots more!

This seems like a very helpful tool. I encourage all eight of you who read this blog to check it out and spread the news.

The praise of a peer wasn’t the only nice surprise I received. Finally – after months of begging, I was given an access card to the building I work in. I was also given a key to the timeclock room. No longer will I have to climb through the shrubs to tap on Mark’s window to let me in the building before it’s officially open. No longer will I have to bare scrutiny from my boss for “writing in” my hours on my timecard. I also got to spend time chillin’ with Jaimes last night while Kristin went to a ministry meeting. Hopefully today doesn’t totally blo.