Not a lot going on here at the ol’ blog at the moment.  All the things I was wanting to write about, is just stuff that you can find somewhere else (how good the Star Trek movie is, that type of stuff). 

I could bore you about what I’m doing today, but you can just follow me on Twitter (DXEndar) if you want hourly updates. 

Instead I’ve decided to quote from a book the staff is reading called ‘it’ by Craig Groeschel, which is actually very good (I was a little skeptical about it at first).  And then put up some links to a few web sites that I have found very useful lately (mostly media and video sites).

First, a quote from the book from the chapter on Vision:

 “Vision […] it’s a little like greyhound dog racing.[…] To keep the greyhounds running in the right direction, a man in the press box controls a mechanical rabbit, keeping it just in front of those dogs so they never quite catch it.  They just chase it all the way around the track.  Well, one time at a track in Florida, the man in the press box got ready to start the mechanical rabbit.  All of the dogs were crouched in their cages.  When he pushed the start button, the rabbit took off and the dogs took chase.  But as the rabbit made the first turn, a short in the electrical system caused it to explode.”

“Suddenly the dogs didn’t know what to do.  There was no rabbit to chase, just a little piece of fur hanging on a wire.  With the rabbit gone, some of the bewildered dogs plopped down on the track with the tongues hanging out.  A couple of them tried to run through a fence and broke some ribs.  The rest of the dogs just sat on the track and howled at the people in the stands.  And not one dog finished the race.”

“Do you have anyone who is just plopped won in a pew with their tongue hanging out?  Do you know someone causing damage by running off in their own direction?  Do you have some members who are howling at the other people, creating problems by what they say, how they say it, what they disagree with?  If so, maybe it’s because they don’t have a mechanical rabbit to chase.  Without vision, people perish.  Dreams fade.  Youth groups loose their life.  Once-vibrant churches slowly die.  You need a clear vision that is constantly and enthusiastically cast.”

This is so pertinent to what we are doing right now at church.  We are redefining the ways that we are presenting the vision of our church (not just Christianity, but DFA’s vision specifically).  I just thought it was a great example of how, when presented with a good clearly defined goal (a vision, a purpose) . . . the people wont just follow, but they will run towards it ! 

Anyways, it meant a lot to me.  Maybe it means more having read the previous chapters and such. 

Now onto some good web pages I’ve found lately . . .

This is blog (and site) designed to give you some basic understanding on simple videoing techniques (like color balance and lighting) for people or groups on a tight budget.  One post shows how to use those paper lanterns for soft defuse lighting on the cheep !

http://blogs.nightglass.com/lightsandcameras/

Image Vine is a media site designed specifically for “Christian Projector Media”.  As their description hints at, while they have high quality media . . . it’s a little on the bland side.  Perhaps ‘traditional’ would be a better word then ‘bland’.  It’s not bad stuff, we just usually go with more of a contemporary look and feel (abstract backgrounds), while they have more traditional backgrounds (crosses with a sunset).  Prices are reasonable, but most of the good media is sold in a pack with other media and not separately.

http://www.imagevine.com/

Most of my media I get from Worship House Media.  They actually have a large selection from many different publishers.  Most of what they have is more ‘contemporary’ rather then ‘traditional’ media.  They have motions (looping backgrounds used behind worship words or sermon notes), mini movies (short inspirational clips about various subjects), stills (just jpeg backgrounds) and sound tracks with words meant to be used as tracks to be sung with (a nice video background with, or with out, words while you sing).  Just about everything they sell is independent, though there are several publishers that offer a pack of media for a discount.  Not the cheapest place to get media on the internet, but their quality is always good.

http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/index.cfm

Worship Spot has a limited selection (compared to other sites that have thousands), but their prices just cant be beat (other then being free) !  Most backgrounds are $3.00 or less (compared to $8.00 at other places).  They also have a yearly rate, where you can download as much as you want for $150 a year.

http://www.worshipspot.com/index.php

http://www.stockxpert.com/ has some good stock photos starting at $1 for a small resolution picture.  Sometimes difficult to find just what you’re looking for, they do have a LOT of pictures.

http://www.typenow.net/ is a great place to find free fonts.  Many movie and game based fonts.  The only problem is looking through the massive amount of fonts to find something you want ! Not that I’m complaining, there’s just so many there.

http://churchmediadesign.tv/ is a site I use to frequent often but kept getting busy with projects.  They have some very good video pod casts with good links too !  Some of the software (such as After Effects) is a little out of our price range, but the info it good !

http://www.freecountdowns.net/ is a site for free count down videos (played before service or before an event starts).  While I love this site, sometimes you get what you pay for lol.

http://www.stufficanuse.com/  is a good site with links to other sites.  They appear to be redesigning the site some at the moment though, as some of the pages are now in different places.  Very cool though.

http://www.openresources.org/ a site where church’s post their used media.  Why spend all that time making it just to use it once and throw it away right ?  A great place to find theme centered media !

I have many more, but alas, it’s time for lunch.

If anyone else has a good listing of Media / Video / Lighting sites, send em’ my way !

Well I’m, once again, waiting on Media to master and then duplicate . . . so that means time for a link dump !

The President is getting a secure alternitave to his Blackberry . . . HERE.

GM will assemble Volt batteries here in the US . . . HERE.

Sea Gate CEO bails . . . HERE.

There are a few web sites for game and film composers that you should check out . . .

Kevin Riepl (Unreal games and Gears 1 music) main site HERE and blog HERE,

Rob Gokee (music for such films as The Last Tenant and Until Next Time) HERE,

Garry Schyman (music for BioShock and the Destroy All Humans 1-3) HERE,

Jeremy Soule (music for Guild Wars, Oblivion, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic) HERE,

Russell Shaw (composer of all of Fable’s music other then the opening theme) seams to not have a web site . . . so visit his wikipedia page HERE,

Michael Giacchino (music for LOST) HERE,

Not much in the way of exciting links to share today.  In other news, I got the Knothole Island expansion for Fable 2 (since I had the points already).  Somehow I have turned totally evil . . . like all the way evil.  I think I remember playing with a friend once and doing some stupid stuff and NOT saving . . . but apperently I saved the game.  Now everyone runs from me . . . and this bothers me.  I may have to finish a few other quests on the main land so I can be ‘good’ again, and then finish up Knothole Island.  Yes, that’s how much it bums me out that I’m evil now. 

Once again I find my self waiting for Big Blue to Defrag to the point where I can actually do some audio editing . . . which means it’s time for a link dump ! 

 If this story is true, it’ll make me kind of angry.  I know we’re in a fiscal crunch, but so many discoveries come from just looking (and not looking for something specific).  Apparetnly President Elect Obama wants to cut the NASA budget . . . a lot . . . and use rockets that my Grandfather worked on to cary payloads (one way) . . . HERE  It’s true, my Grandfather worked on the Titan missles. 

 Ya know, if it were a Christian based work place in this story . . . there would be people all over the media screaming about it.  I dont think that any religion should be pushed at work (unless, as in my case, you work for a religious orgnization lol).  Sure, you can share your faith with people in conversations, but requireing anyone to attent any kind of religious ceremony is taking it too far.  Read more about Scientology in the workplace HERE. 

 So, reading this stroy . . . I’m not sure if that means that XP’s life has been extended only for low cost notebooks . . . or for everyone . . . read HERE. 

Here is a cool looking (well, sounding, well . . . what I read about it was cool) card game spoofing D&D . . . HERE

Here is another interesting game . . . HERE  . . . I might get this one and try it out on The1Shagg or DoctorJones4Ever and his wife some time.

I hate to tell anyone this, but I check this site out often to find strange board games to play . . . HERE

Shhhh . . . dont tell everyone else that I’m doing this during Staff Meeting between topics relivent to me. 

This is an interesting story.  A guy has his 360 stolen at college and finds it with his wireless controller . . .
HERE

There is a nice cloak of Plasma around the Earth, I though we allready knew about this . . . but I guess we didn’t . . .
HERE

This is a very cool article about Fusion Power . . .
HERE

     In other news, I walked into the A-V room this morning to the smell of burning . . . which is never a good smell when walking into the room that holds a network server.  Someone has set the AC unit to heat and turned it up . . . not knowing that the unit was going to heat my office and the A-V room to temps above 83 deg F. and cause a server to overheat.  The thermostat is labeled with a dont adjust sign, but people dont seam to read those things.  I have to tell the Pastor that we’re out a server (at least the processor, maybe the whole main board) and that we need to get a digital thermostat that we can lock people out of so that the other server in my Office dosent fry. 

     The server (RILIEN) was the DHCP server (as well as an Active Directory Server, and a File Server) and I had just moved the FSMO roles to that server (there are a few things that  . . . so now I get to set the network back up after staff meeting.  Funny thing is, I just made RILIEN the ‘master server’ (if you will) because HEBION (another server) is having bad blocks show up every day.  We have a third server (RANDIR) is now taking over the DHCP roles, and I have to read up on how to put the network back together.

Ok, so the top secret projecktzzzz that I’ve been working on are now done and finished.  I’ll post the 9 and a half minute long (and somewhat boreing if you have never been in the Last Defense Youth Group) video later today.  It’s a very serious retrospective of Last Defense.

Anywho, now for the link dump ! . . .

Ya know, if I pay $40 (or $60) for a video game, the last thing I want is an ad poping up.  Well Google is moving into the in-game advertising market now . . . HERE.  For now, it’s just little flash based ‘casual’ games . . . but Fable III isn’t safe !  Yes I know that video game budgets are going up and several major studios say that they cant make any money back unless they sell millions of copies . . . but I dont care. 

This is why I hate the ‘I forgott my password’ stuff . . . especially if you’re well know . . . people can figure out this stuff !  Read how Sara Palin’s Yahoo e-mail was hacked HERE. 

Remember the solar powered calculators you had in school as a kid ?  And sometimes you had to hold them up to the light to get them to work ?  What if you Wi-Fi network was like that ?  If you had to hold you PDA up to the light to get a good network signal ?  Read about wireless networking based on blinking LED’s HERE. 

There’s some (kind of) interesting Halo news HERE, but seeing as it will be Fall of 2009 when it comes out . . . I dont much care about it yet.

You can download a few of the music tracks from Fable II (and a couple from Fable I) for FREE at sumthing digital (yes, it is spelles sumthing) HERE.  I used part of one of the tracks for Barry’s Top Secret Projectzzzzz.  Shhhh, dont tell anyone from Lionhead or Microsoft !

Pete Cullen (of the famous petecullen.net) is writing once again !  And it only took me 4 days to notice . . . which just happens to be the number of days it took me to do the video.  See his blog HERE.  That’s how I stay informed on all thinks tech in the UK / world. 

Insomniac Games has a new Poscast (that I haven’t listened to yet) up about the music of Resistance 2 !  See the page HERE and get to downloadin’ !

Camron (who does the visualworship.com site) is celebrating one year in existance !  Some of the stuff he does with video projectors is just . . . mind blowing.  Check out his blog HERE. 

 Tha is all for now . . . for the CD is done mastering and I must take it to the duplicator !

Well once again I’m doing t

he type of mindlessly boring work that allows me to update my personal web site (I’m scanning pictures into the computer, if you must know).  So I decided to post an update.  The Bad, the Good, and The Link Dump.

1.)  Today I ran out of money. 

Due to several factors I think: price of gas, bi-yearly truck insurance being due, eating out a lot more (some is my fault for being lazy, some because we had a week long conference at the church that didn’t allow time for cooking at home), the fact that I did a few side jobs and added them to the budget but haven’t gotten paid for them yet (stupid, yes I know).

Maybe that was all that it took to put me almost $200 behind my budget (which had about $50 wiggle room every).  Part of it was that I started out the month behind a bit (I was behind last month too).

So this month I’m going to have to be extra careful what I buy.  I’ve already budgeted Fable II into the equation (assuming that I get paid for the side jobs that is, if not then I’ll be reading about it until Christmas time).  But it’s always stressful to know that you’re in the crunch but have little that you can cut. 

Course, I DO have high speed internet that I could cut I suppose . . . I just don’t want to.  So that’s my choice.

2.) My upper back is killing me.

It feels like some has stapled the muscles between my shoulder blades together.  Like seriously . . . they are that tight and hurt something awful.  No matter how I stretch or band they hurt just the same . . . no worse but no better.  Yah, I know . . . I’m whining . . . but I’m allowed to do that once in a while.

In other more happy news . . .

3.) October is here ! 

Which means that in T-minus 19 days I’ll be heading to Arkansas to see Matt and Mel for a few days (and allowing me three days to just relax when I get back).  Fable II comes out while I’m on the road . . . so not sure what I’m going to do about that.  I wonder if I can transfer the reservation from the Dickson store to the Little rock store . . .

4.)  My office is getting cleaner (slowly)

My office, which is also the network room for the Worship Center and the repair / parts room as well, is slowly getting cleaner.  Last Saturday there was a ‘Haz Mat’ day at the fair grounds (where you could take stuff that was potentially hazardous or harmful to the environment) and people in full hazmat suits came and got it out of the back of your truck and disposed of it for you in a (supposedly) safe way.  I got rid of several old computers (we’re talking mid 90’s here) and monitors, as well as two old projectors and miscellaneous other random stuff from the office.  Sometime before my vacation, I need to do a fall cleaning where I go through and get rid of all the spare parts that I end up collecting in the hopes that one day they will be useful, but that I wont end up using because they are too old (PC100 memory . . . not going to use that ever again). 

5.) Bob has been replaced.

The last laptop I was using before my nice new one here, had a shattered screen (one that I broke while trying to fix it).  It works pretty well otherwise, and I just plugged in an external LCD to it and went along.  But the thing was purchased used at one of those trade shows that comes to town every now and again . . . and it wasn’t very good to begin with.  Word processing and surfing the internet was fine, editing videos was not.  Anywho, it is now the new Jukebox / Network monitor in place of Bob.   And doing a nice job of it I might add. 

And now, for the link dump . . .

- The Hubble Space Telescope wont be getting its repair mission this year.   Just a few days before the shuttle was to head up to do a few repairs to it, it’s main processing computer dies . . . read more HERE.

- You thought it was bad when AOL gave away free CD’s to try and get people to join, now Microsoft is giving away ‘cash’ and ‘prizes’ for people who use their search engin (rather then Google or Yahoo).  Read HERE.

- Want to back up your DVD collection ?  Better do it quick, before you cant anymore.  I dont do it myself, and I can see why some people dont want you to . . . anywho read more HERE.

- In it’s first step toward becoming the Anti-Christ, Game Stop buys a French chain of game stores.  Now they just have to merge with Wal-Mart and Microsoft and their total controll over everything will be complete.  Read HERE. THE GAMES MUST FLOW ! KTHX !

- New test for Citizenship in the US ?  I wonder how many High School grads could ?  I cant even answer some of these questions . . . and that’s sad.  Nice that they provide the questions and answers online though !  Read it HERE (it’s a .pds file).  Hey Pete (or anyone from the UK), do you have a citizenship test online that we could look at ?  It would be interesting to try and take it !

- that is all

I’m working on a secret video (Shhhhh, dont tell anyone) and looking through all kinds of old pictures, trying to find some to make a video presentation (read, glorified slide show).

While I wait for all the data I currently have to copy to a portable hard drive, I decided to do a little link dump !

- Nuclear Weapons are bad, I wish no one had them.  But I trust our goverment with them more then I trust the Russians (or especially the North Korea).  Yah, that’s probably a very American thing to say (we can have them, but you cant) . . . but that’s how I feel.  I trust our goverment is more stable then North Korea or Russia.  Read a little article about Russias response to the American ‘ring of steel’ (the fact that we are placing air bases and radar sites all around them to detect and perhaps thwart nuclear missle attacks) HERE. What do you think ? 

- Speaking of Czar’s (watch this slick transition here) . . . a new bill, if passed, will give us a Copyright Czar here in the US . . . read HERE. I think a lot of this bill is good, but there are also portions of it that allow goverment ‘agents ‘to take your laptop, IPod, or any other digital device and send it off to be scanned for illegal downloads (that is, if you are corssing the border back into the US.  They just check for these things at the border at the moment.). 

-New type of Crystal will help infiber optics (no transition here) . . . read HERE. 

- Truck full of games is stolen . . . twice . . . read HERE.

- A cool video about Worship that I’m hoping to show in the next few weeks at church HERE.

- oh, and Iron Man comes out on Bluray Tomorrow (for those peeps in the US that is, ha ha rest of world !).

I have so many big projects that I need to work on, but not a one that I want to start today.  I would spend a few hours taking stuff apart or moving it around, only to have to spend that much time putting it right back for service.  And since we have services all week long, there’s not a lot I can work on in the ‘big projects’ department.

Read more

Once again I am mastering the Sunday audio to CD . . . which means that it’s time for a LINK DUMP !

Today’s edition is very exciting as the world may end !  Oh yes ! 

     You may have heard about the new super collider (the Large Hadron Collider) that is a 17 mile loop spanning across the border of a couple of countries.  People have been worried about this thing for years.  What I find interesting is the conflicting information that’s out there about it.  One of the main worries about the Collider is that, as a result of some of the exparaments, very tiny black holes will appear.  We’re talking about very VERY tiny black holes that evaporate in less then a second.  However, since we have not exparamentally produced these black holes before . . . some people are worried that they wont evaporate but will continue to grow . . . which would obviousley be bad for the planet as a whole.

      Most scientists agree that the chances of this happenning are very VERY tiny.  But what I find interesting is how many of the people involved with the project dont even mention the fact that it WILL, in fact, make very small balck holes.  I supose they dont feel it worth mentioning to the public in general becaue they will think ‘black hole, oh no . . . we’re going to die !’.  And while several studies have been conducted to see if this thing is safe . . . they were conducted by the people building it.  However, an independent panel of scientiests studied it a coule of years later and found it to be safe.  They cited the fact that such high energy collisions happen in Earths upper atmosphere with Cosmic Rays and have not produced ill effects (such as Earth eating black holes).

         Anywho, here is the link to some articles about it . . .
HERE is the Daily Tech article
HERE is a Wiki Pedia article about it, and HERE is a safety concern page about it

In other, less Earth ending news . . .
- Blu-ray has 5 years left as a formatt . . . HERE
- I’m not even sure the point of this article, other then to say the Shuttle program is old technology that is wearing out . . . HERE
- More Red Ring of Death info comes out . . . HERE
- This is a cool Ultra Short Throw projector . . . meaning you can hang it at the top of a wall and it projects down that same wall . . . A blog article HERE and the tech article HERE
- I want this picture canvas that Pete Cullen has on his wall . . . HERE
- A nice review of the Blu-ray of Transformers . . . HERE
- Some gamers not happy with Spore, DRM and Gameplay lack luster . . . HERE

Once again, I’m waiting for Big Blue (the audio computer) to convert Sundays sermon to a 48kbps .mp3 . . . so that means it’s time for a link dump !

 Some truly alarming news about the power for border agents.  I’m not one of those people who sees goverment as having too much power.  I think that to be safe, you have to give up some of your personal freedom . . . I’ll spair you going into that in more detail.  However, this new law will allow border patroll agents to conficate your laptop, ipod, or any other storage device and go through your data looking for copyrighted material.  They can even send it to other places to have it searched.  They need to put more provision on this . . .
HERE

Just incase you dont want to walk anywhere ever again, and grow even more obese, you can get one of these things . . .
HERE

New metals used in electrolysis make is cheeper . . . may be able to power a house useing solar power and watter . . .
HERE

Just in case you’re keeping up with Optical Computing (and, I mean, who isn’t ?), this is a cool story . . .
HERE
or if you dont know what Optical Computing is about go HERE

Oh, and here is a cool thing called Quantum Entanglement . . . very cool HERE