July 2007

Her bib and hands got into her mouth, and then I just gave up and welcomed the photo-op.

I’m fairly ambitious, but sometimes I get into those lazy funks.

Sometimes I take look one look at my daughter all my angst and passion to change the world just melts away.

Now that I’m a father, I’m excused… or am I?

It’s so easy to simply settle because I’m already more than I ever dreamed of being.

Stellar likes to sleep with her arms up. She’s so hard to resist.

She’s finally found her feet!

Life’s just better when it’s in 3D

My two favorite ladies

You can check out some 3D street art while you’re at it.

A fellow voxtropolitan has just informed me that comments aren’t working. I just verified, it seems to only be my site at the moment when browsing through Internet Explorer or Opera. Everything seems fine on mozilla based browsers ie. firefox, flock, seamonkey.

I’m not sure how long this has been going on or when the problem will get fixed, but now’s as good a time as any to recommend you to firefox if you’re not already on it. Especially if you want to comment on the blog.

Besides being faster and offering tabbed browsing, firefox has a wack load of extensions available to customize to your needs. My personal favorites are BetterGmail, ColorfulTabs, Customize Google, Google Browser Sync, and mouse gestures.

I’ll know whether you’ve taken my recommendation by your ability to comment here.

A few pics from Montreal…

Stellar and I crashing at T & A’s

Mmm… those Montreal Bagels…

Post brunch shot

What’s worse,

knowing you don’t have the skill or talent to accomplish your dreams,

or

knowing that you have all the skill and talent in the world, and still constantly come up short?

My wife and I were discussing last night how much of our lives we should be sharing online. Between various social networks, photo sites, and blogs in particular, a lot of our personal identity is accessible to the world.

What are you comfortable with?

In particular I’d love to hear from those of you in the public eye; those who are leaders, managing organizations, in ministry, and other public service roles.

I’ve seen some of you folks with an online presence share birthdays, phone numbers, when and where you’re doing something. Some of you have a site that goes by your full name; some of you share the names of your family members; some of you simply use initials. Then there’s photos, videos, and opinions. I’ve even seen some of you share very private confessions online.

I ask as someone who will likely be entering into a more public role. As I serve people in different capacities and speak in various places we’ve been wondering if we might be putting our family at risk in any ways by having the level information we have accessible online currently.

Are we being too paranoid? Can we ever be too safe? I love sharing about my family and our lives because it presents a more human side of all the convictions that we have and the things that we do.

I typically naively trust just about anybody, but I also know that people can often find ways to attack the ones you love the most. Are we simply increasing our chances for random crime? Can any of this be used to harm us in the future? Are there other things we should be concerned about?

Any thoughts you might want to contribute would very much appreciated…

have gone astray…

but Stellar doesn’t seem to care what she’s stepping on, so she crushes everything in her way.

Woops, was that me? You’re next.

I’m a bit of an information junkie and a bit manic about productivity… So it’s important that I can go through the countless blogs that I follow quickly.

For those of you who are new to this, if you’ve heard the terms rss, feed, subscription, atom, channel, or that icon on the left of the post they’re all referring to basically the same thing.

Many site’s, and blogs in particular, offer their content in a format that allows you to view the latest without visiting the actual site.

There are many tools that allow you to do this, including both desktop applications and browser-based applications. I use Google Reader to aggregate hundreds of sites that I can quickly scroll through. It keeps track of what’s new and what I’ve already read so I can effectively skim through regardless of which computer I’m on.

Besides Google Reader, you might want to try bloglines or newsgator as alternatives and I would recommend feedreader if you prefer offline desktop applications. All of these applications are free.

You can subscribe to a feed on any site by finding that icon above or look for a ’subscribe’ button.

You can always subscribe to my feed here at

http://feeds.feedburner.com/voxtropolis/onelife

You can subscribe to my other site SolarCrash (with more thoughts on leadership, spirituality, creativity, church, and culture) at

http://feeds.feedburner.com/SolarCrash

Of course you’ll still need to click on the actual post and visit the site to comment. Which I encourage you to do.

Hope this helps!

I can never speak too much of my brilliant wife. Here’s one post I’ve shared of her and another. Not only is she a stunner and a super mom, but there is no other person I would ever want to live this incredible adventure of life with.

During one of our long car rides we begin playing this game where we take turns sharing our dreams.

I share with her about becoming a person who helps unleash people’s passions

She says uh huh.

I share about writing books that impact multitudes

She says okay what else.

I then share about building a city within a city. Where there is an underground city of faith, hope, and love that serves the greater city that it’s in.

She says dream bigger.

I selfishly share about how I’ve always had a little fantasy of having a gigantic etching my name on the moon for all to see at night

She says dream bigger.

I give up and say well how about ending world hunger and poverty!

She says dream bigger, Dream bigger!

How do you dream bigger than that? But that’s just the type of woman I’ve married, absolutely astonishing.

Goodness, my wife and I laughed at this till we were in tears. You must watch this.

The concept is so simple, the Japanese are totally brilliant.

I wanted to like this movie, I really did.

I have almost every line of the original movie memorized. Growing up I would literally have dreams at night where I was a transformer. Heck, if I had a boy, I wanted to name him Optimus Prime.

The overblown action and the computer generated graphics were phenomenal. They tried to make it funny and serious, while being reminiscent of the original series.

But, they completely missed the essence of what it was all about. None of the characters that mattered were developed. So much of the action was contrived.

People cheered and clapped at the end of the movie. I can see why people enjoyed it. But have you ever been really excited to show someone something you absolutely loved, but it didn’t deliver?

That’s how I felt. I left the movie not wanting to be associated in any way with the transformers. I wanted to take back every conversation I had where I was ranting and raving about it. I felt like I was leaving the faith, betrayed. I know a bit dramatic.

Sometimes I feel that way about the church. When it’s intended to be full of grace, and beauty, and life… but then people often end up only seeing an empty shell of a religion.

One thing we loved about traveling the past two weeks is that we only had to stay in a hotel for a single night. The rest of the days we were immersed in the homes and lives of other people.

Yvz and I love having people over, but there’s something about being on the receiving end, in an unfamiliar area, and leaning upon others that is refreshing as well. Definitely one of the highlights of our trip was visiting my cousin Gloria and her husband Ernie. They graciously housed us, fed us, guided us around the city, and even attempted to brainwash us into becoming Boston Red Sox fans.

I’m so glad we didn’t just travel on our own and lodge ourselves in commercial hotels this trip. There’s just something so beautiful and human about community, interdependence, and hospitality.

Their lovely home

Gloria & Yvz at the park

Being unexpectedly splashed by Ernie

Our hosts with the most

They introduced us to the boardgame Scotland Yard. I look ridiculous.

She’s seven months old now!