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Social Monday: Looking At The Numbers . . .
November 2, 2009 in Culture and Media, Disciples of Christ, social media | by John E. Smith | 2 comments
I just achieved the milestone of collecting 500 followers on Twitter. Not really sure what this means, but I'm certainly impressed with myself. Apparently either this many people are interested in seeing my daily collection of random quotations, observations, and links to someone else's hard work and good thinking, or I have attracted a herd of Multi-Level Marketing scammers. Either way, I was just a tad puffed up at my new-found "popularity".
I know getting more and more connections is important because people offer me "sure-fire" ways to accomplish it. I regularly receive offers to share the "secret" of how to achieve follower levels in the forty thousand-plus range. I also regularly receive requests to follow someone else to help them reach some arbitrary number of people following their every electronic musing on some networking site. Apparently this will make them happy.
After all, Ashton Kutcher and Ellen DeGeneris have more Twitter followers than the combined populations of several countries (Ireland, Panama, and Norway, if you're interested) (source: "Socionomics" blog). If piling up numbers is good enough for them, isn't it good enough for me?
Facebook.com has a similar thing going with numbers of "friends", enhanced by the ease of connecting on this gigantic social networking site. Little effort is involved in racking up a respectable list of 200 or more friends.
Even the primay business networking site, LinkedIn.com, supposedly more serious and results oriented, includes a great number of folks that proudly proclaim their status as "LIONs" (Linked In Open Networkers) with thousands of links to other people. They achieve this by accepting any invitations to connect from anyone who asks. I have linked to a number of LIONs and had no meaningful contact with them after connecting, which left me feeling a little like high school, when I thought I had a friendship with one of the cool kids, only to find out differently in a very hurtful way. While some LIONs actively "work" their large networks, many apparently are just engaging in a game for bragging rights.
So, when does the idea of "enough is enough" kick in here?
I have enough trouble just keeping up with everyone in my nuclear family, which includes my wife and brother, four children, three lovely spouses, and five spectacularly perfect grandchildren, let alone all my online connections.
Well, according to a study by Robin Dunbar, a maximum number for effective relationships does exist and that number is 150.
Mentioned in The Tipping Point , this concept has been applied to military units, employee group sizes, and even church congregations. Maybe this is why so many Disciples congregations of my acquaintance seem to hover around this number.
Tobias Escher expands on this fascinating theory, stating that ". . . to put it simply: Your brain can just deal with about 150 meaningful relationships." Meaningful relationships are those with people who you trust, can go to in times of distress, and who occupy a specific position in our social network. So we can have those other relationships, but there does appear to be an upper limit on those which really count.
This whole discussion brings up some interesting questions about our use of social media.
Why am I doing this? Am I connecting with others online for bragging rights or am I interested in more meaningful connections?
Do I really need accounts and profiles on all these networking sites or is it time to focus? Is the time I spend on The Intersection more valuable than other sites (the answer is "yes" to this question:).
Have I identified my true Circle of Influence? Not those I can sell something to, but those who I would contact if I needed help. Many people are struggling with employment issues these days. How many of those 500 followers on Twitter would I feel comfortable sending an IM that I need some gigs to make the rent next month?
Am I spending enough time nurturing those relationships that really matter, both online and face-to-face, or am I just lost in a blur of online living? I may be able to handle more than 150, but when do the numbers get in the way of what I am trying to do?
After all, Jesus only had 12 primary connections and look at what he was able to do.
. . . . Just some things to consider as we all develop our social networking strategies on this crisp and beautiful fall day here in the heartland.
John E. Smith lives in Maryland Heights, Missouri and is a member of Webster Groves Christian Church. He blogs at both A Matter of Strategy and The Strategic Learner. You can follow his tweets as @Stratlearner on Twitter.
Social Monday: The power, the positive, and the poor-in-spirit
October 19, 2009 in books, Culture and Media, social media, Technology | Tags: book review, Christian ethics, Framingham Heart Study, happiness, influence, James Fowler, Jonah Lehrer, Nicholas Christakis, social monday, social networks, Wired | by Rebecca | 1 comment
"The Buddy System," an article in the Oct. 2009 issue of Wired looks at "the infectious power of social networks." In the middle of recent H1N1 outbreaks, that's an ominous-sounding phrase, but what the article's author, Jonah Lehrer, shares instead is the theory that the people in our social networks may have more influence on us than we realize — especially on things like happiness.
Back in 2003, researchers Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler began an extensive review of the Framingham Heart Study – but they weren't looking at vital statistics and cholesterol numbers. Instead, they looked at subjects' social networks.
Graphically mapping out these networks, they looked at certain characteristics (such as obesity) and behaviors (like quitting smoking) over time. What they discovered is that changes occurred in clusters. For example, as smoking rates dropped between 1971 and 2001, the network patterns showed that people were far more likely to quit if those linked to them had quit. Quitting didn't happen evenly or randomly across the network.
And Christakis and Fowler found that while the greatest influence was exerted by friends, there was significant influence among friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends.
While the Framingham data was based on traditional social networks, Christakis and Fowler applied the same thinking to Facebook. They discovered that, while people still maintain about the same number of really close friendships as before, the extended networks of acquaintances still exert influence. Last month, they published their findings in Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How they Shape Our Lives.
This is fascinating, but it raises ethical questions too. So we discover that one of the ways to pursue and assure our own happiness is to be connected to positive, happy people. What if we gravitate toward them and away from those who are depressed, ailing, poor, unattractive, introverted, and socially undesirable, and less tech-savvy? Should we de-friend (or ignore) those grouchy people who complain too much? And as those who are less desirable become more socially isolated and disaffected (and in theory, less happy), then what?
Scott Stosssel, in his NY Times review of Christakis and Fowler's book, does an excellent job of getting at those questions toward the end of his (mostly positive) review. If you don't want to read the whole review, you can skip to the last few paragraphs.
What do you think?
Social Monday: Social media and disconfirmation
October 5, 2009 in Culture and Media, Disciples of Christ, Miscellaneous thoughts, social media, Technology | Tags: Chris Brogan, disconfirmation, interpersonal communication, Julia T. Wood, social media, social monday | by Rebecca | 2 comments
If you've ever passed someone on the street and said "hello," but the other person didn't acknowledge your greeting, you've experienced something called disconfirmation. According to Julia T. Wood, in Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters, we "confirm" someone with both non-verbal (a nod, a smile) and verbal (a return greeting, or even a friendly grunt) communication. "We disconfirm others at a fundamental level when we don't acknowledge their existence," Wood writes.
Most of us have a tolerance, perhaps even an acceptance, of a certain level of disconfirmation in life. We probably don't give that passing stranger another thought. On the other end of the spectrum, the church member or family member who repeatedly snubs us with the silent treatment might cause us greater angst.
Each advance in communication has brought with it the potential for all of us to be the recipients of more disconfirmation, as well as to add to it. The unreturned phone call … the email that went unacknowledged … and now, the requests to connect and be "Friends" and follow someone back. There are more ways to connect, but there are also more ways to miss each other and to miss opportunities to confirm and affirm each other.
Furthermore, as followers of Christ, who went out of his way to "confirm" those who were disconfirmed by many, I believe there's a faith dimension to the issue.
Some, like social media expert Chris Brogan, treat social media as legitimate items on the "To Do" list, and schedule them in daily or weekly. I like this idea, because I'm the kind of person who needs structure, methods, and tools to get things done. Still, I'm not as good at managing my communications as I'd like to be, and if I've disconfirmed you, I apologize.
What do you think? How do you keep up with social media? And are Christians called to attend to the problem of disconfirmation, at least in our own lives, if not in the world?
Chris Brogan at Chapman University
September 29, 2009 in books, Culture and Media, Disciples of Christ, People, social media, Technology | Tags: blogging, business, Chapman University, Chris Brogan, DisciplesWorld, Julien Smith, presentation, social media, social networking, Trust Agents | by Rebecca | Leave a comment
If you are anywhere near Orange County, California tonight you should make every attempt to go hear Chris Brogan speak at Disciples-related Chapman University. Chris is well known in the world of social media and blogging. I read his blog every morning, because I appreciate his short, actionable posts and his analogies. The comments are always a good read too. If you're interested in going to hear him, you can get a ticket through EventBrite. P.S. It's FREE!
Chris and Julien Smith just released a book called Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust. I'm about halfway through – it's interesting. I'm reading it with an eye toward what DisciplesWorld might learn and employ, but also with the Church, churches, and Christians in mind.
Anyone out there going? If so, come back and post your thoughts after the presentation. I'll be watching the comment stream on Twitter (type #broganoc into the Search box to see Tweets from the event.)
Social Monday: Online Eucharist – Asking the right questions
September 28, 2009 in Culture and Media, Disciples of Christ, Miscellaneous thoughts, social media, Technology, Theology | Tags: church, ChurchCrunch.org, Communion, Disciples of Christ, Eucharist, LifeChurch.tv, Lord's Supper, online, Theology | by Rebecca | 3 comments
Last week, I wrote about Starbucks' Green Apron Book and asked whether the 5 Principles that Starbucks' employees are trained to follow might guide the church in its efforts to establish and maintain a presence on social networking platforms. That post prompted some great discussion, not only about social media (in fact, mostly NOT about social media) but about broader topics such as the art of creating experiences, whether other comparisons between Starbucks and the church are valid, and even whether or not they have good coffee. I agree, the jury's out on that last one, but I'd also argue that people aren't paying $4 for coffee (a product) – they're paying for coffee PLUS the experience (or at least, in the case of drive-thru customers, the emotional connection with the brand).
But it was Jerry's comment that sparked today's post: "Let me know when you figure out how to celebrate the Eucharist on the social media."
There are the mechanics of 'figuring it out,' but what I think Jerry was getting at are the bigger questions and issues. Before we launch into a big discussion or debate, what I'd like for you (reader) to help me do is identify the important questions. Let's start there. Then I think we'll have a better discussion.
One place to look for the questions is online. Some churches are already celebrating Communion there – evangelicals in multi-site mega-churches experimenting with online church and Communion, yes; but also Methodists and Anglicans, and probably some Presbyterians. Maybe even Disciples!
In reading around (see the list at the end of this post), here are some of the issues and questions that come up. Some of these don't apply to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), but they're worth knowing about. These are specifically about Communion, not the broader topic of online church.
- The need for participation to happen in the context of a physical community (I'm deliberately staying away from using the word 'real' here) such as a Sunday morning worship service in a church.
- The amount of need for control over who can participate (members of that particular church or denomination only? any baptized believer? anyone?)
- The role of the clergy or celebrants with regard to the sacraments (Do celebrants have to consecrate the elemants? Online, is BYObread-and-juice ok? What about a 'virtual' sacrament, like in Second Life?)
- What is Communion all about in the first place? Is it a 'love feast'? A memorial? Is Christ present, and if so, how? Is it a means of receiving grace and forgiveness?
Some practical considerations:
- People who can't get to church (i.e. homebound, institutionalized, incarcerated, those with disabilities, etc)
- What happens when public health concerns or natural disasters force people to stay home? My experience with online Communion was with a Disciples congregation dispersed across several states in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
- Might participating in online church (and Communion) lead someone who otherwise would not go to church to eventually connect with a local congregation? Or does it keep people from coming to a brick-and-mortar church by aiming to replace it?
- What about those whom the church has hurt? Or those from whom the church has distanced itself?
Theological considerations (beyond those surrounding Communion):
- In most of the discussions I've seen, the predominant theological question seems to be "What is church?"
- A less-discussed theological topic is "Where is God in this?"
Help me out here….what other questions should be in the mix?
I hope you'll follow some of these links and read what others have written, and then come back and add your questions:
Rev. Thomas Madron's site (click on the PDF link to read his paper in favor on online Communion…written from a Methodist perspective but still fairly relevant for Disciples)
Lifechurch.tv – a multi-site evangelical church that also offers an online worship experience, with Communion.
Newsweek's Belief Watch: "Click in Remembrance of Me?"
This post by John Saddington on Church Crunch, about Online Church, which includes several helpful links.
An interesting discussion in ChurchCrunch's Forums
Social Monday: The Green Apron Book
September 22, 2009 in books, Culture and Media, Disciples of Christ, green, Miscellaneous thoughts, social media | Tags: 5 Principles, church, coffee, community, culture, hospitality, social media, social monday, Starbucks | by Rebecca | 17 comments
There have been several humorous comparisons between church and Starbucks. If you haven't seen the YouTube video, "What if the Starbucks Marketed Like the Church?" come back to this link after reading this post and check it out.
Now let's turn it around. What if the church behaved more like Starbucks? What I'm suggesting has nothing to do with coffee…and everything to do with something called The Green Apron Book.
The Green Apron Book is a booklet that Starbucks gives its baristas. My stepdaughter worked at Starbucks for a while, and passed along the booklet. It outlines Starbucks mission: "To provide an uplifting experience that enriches people's daily lives," along with 5 Principles for doing exactly that:
1. Be Welcoming: Offer everyone a sense of belonging
2. Be Genuine: Connect, discover, respond
3. Be Knowledgeable: Love what you do. Share it with others.
4. Be Considerate: Take care of yourself, each other, and the environment.
5. Be Involved: In the store, in the company, and in the community.
Others, like Jeff Myers of the Slumdog Disciple blog, have already picked up on the notion that The Green Apron Book might have something to teach us about the experience we create for people (whether we claim that aspect of 'church' or ignore it). Darrin at the Hands and Feet 2.0 blog wrote a series of posts. Both Darrin and Jeff also mention the book, The Starbucks Experience by Joseph A. Michelli (McGraw Hill, 2006) for a more in-depth look at the 5 principles. But if you don't want to go into that much depth, Jeff says The Green Apron Book is yours for the asking at Starbucks.
Here's what I'd like to add. These 5 principles are a good guideline for Christians and churches when it comes to social media. Think about it. As Will Boyd of 3StoryChurch has pointed out in past posts like this one, there's a lot more you can do on Twitter, Facebook, and other networks than just promote your programs, classes, sermons, and worship services.
We live in a world with abundant information. What people seem to be looking for are authentic, positive experiences. If your presence online and in the realm of social media is about creating that for them, even in small ways, they'll be more likely to come to your website to see what else you have to offer.
And of course, follow through is important. If someone who connected with you or your church via social media shows up on Sunday morning, they should expect an in-person experience that matches the online presence. [For more on that, click the link to the YouTube video at the beginning of this post].
So how about it? Would you take a copy of The Green Apron Book to your next church board meeting, elder's meeting, or small group discussion?
Social Monday: The power of negativity
August 31, 2009 in Culture and Media, Disciples of Christ, social media, Technology | Tags: critique, cynicism, Facebook, negativity, persona, personality, positive, sarcasm, social media, social monday, Twitter | by Rebecca | 2 comments
I'm not known for being an optimist. In person, I can be a little sarcastic, ironic, and cynical — and the people who know me also know that's part of who I am. They "get" me — at least I hope they do.
But in the realm of social media, I'm discovering, sarcasm sometimes doesn't play as well. No one can see the arched eyebrow,or the quizzical look, or hear the inflection of irony in your voice. There's no context – just your comment standing out there, all by its lonesome. Sometimes, it still works, but sometimes, it doesn't.
Now, that doesn't mean that you have to suddenly craft a whole new persona for Facebook and Twitter — one where your updates are nothing but "Chicken Soup" platitudes. As I wrote a couple of months ago, it's important to be yourself on social media. But being yourself doesn't mean typing the first remark or response that comes to mind.
One good bit of advice that I've seen floating around is to balance the negative or critical with at least 10 times more positive remarks, tweets, and updates. Social media can build up, support, encourage — but it can easily tear down, crush, and undermine. I don't have any ready-made criteria for deciding to post something or not (if you do, please share it). Just stop, think — and if you change your mind, you can delete it.
Sometimes, just like in the 'real world,' an apology is in order too.
What do you think? How can we make social media a positive space? When is critique, irony, or negativity okay?
Rebecca Bowman Woods is news and website editor of DisciplesWorld.
You can follow her on Twitter.
Social Monday – 3 Ideas for "Being Church" on Facebook
August 17, 2009 in Culture and Media, Disciples of Christ, social media, Technology | Tags: 2.0, church outreach, evangelism, Facebook, social media, social monday, social networking, Twitter, Will Boyd | by Will Boyd | 3 comments
As many of you may know, I had the great privilege of presenting at the Church 2.0 resource group at the 2009 General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It was a great time, and I hope those that were able to attend got something out of it. I do realize however, that there were some folks that attended who left a bit disappointed. While I spent my time discussing how the changes happening in social media are changing the church, some people simply wanted to know how to use Facebook. Unfortunately, in a setting like the General Assembly resource groups where everyone has a different experience level and different needs, those types of how-to discussions are nearly impossible to have. On the other hand, the how-to's of social media tools are certainly important.
Just yesterday, my wife brought home a back issue of The Christian Century which had a great article that begins to bridge the gap between our discussion at the General Assembly of how social media is changing church and how churches can use tools like Facebook. In "The church on Facebook", Lenora Rand does a great job at showing how, rather than being an advertising tool designed to draw new people into the church building, these social media tools are allowing churches to live their mission in new ways. I won't recap Rand's article here, though I do suggest reading it. What I will do is provide 3 simple ways (not techniques or strategies) for how churches might think about "being church" on social media tools like Facebook.
1. Evangelism
A church's Facebook page can be a great evangelism tool. Quite simply, everything that happens at the church should also be posted on the church's Facebook page. However, just like evangelism doesn't end with the minister, Facebook evangelism doesn't end with the church's Facebook page.
Every Facebook page, group, and event has a button that allows that information to be shared. Those members of your church who are already using Facebook already have lots of friends that aren't members of your church. By simply getting church members to use that share button to share the events and happenings of the church with their friends, Facebook truly becomes social media. As I discussed in the Chruch 2.0 resource group at General Assembly, it is the sharing that makes these websites social. Having a Facebook page is good for a church. Having a Facebook page where the church members share the information and content with their friends is evangelism.
2. Outreach
In any communication, listening is usually way more important than speaking. I think the same thing can be said of church outreach. If we as churches want to be relevant, we need to become better listeners. Social media tools like Facebook can be great hearing aids for our churches. When your church begins to use Facebook, concentrate more on what you as a church can learn about people, both inside of and outside of your church, than on how to attract people to come to your church. Ask questions and listen to the answers. As Rand's article illustrates, find out who your church can be praying for. You might be surprised how much more powerful it is to engage people in community rather than broadcast information AT them.
Of course, just like with evangelism, while this kind of outreach can be done through your church's Facebook page, it is often best done through the members of your church who are already on Facebook. A church with a Facebook page can be engaging. A church whose members are actively engaging others is a church that is truly reaching out — whether on Facebook or not.
3. Worship
If you think that worship can only happen between 11:00 am and Noon in your church sanctuary, then Facebook and social media may not be roads your church is ready to go down. However, if you are willing to get creative, social media tools like Facebook can provide great opportunities for your church to "be church" in radically new ways.
What if your church held an online Bible study by creating a Facebook group? Church members could invite their friends to participate whenever it was convenient. Some folks might not ever walk into a church building simply because they are invited, but they might just be willing to stop by a Facebook group when they have a minute and check out what their friend has been telling them about.
Consider providing short devotionals on your church's Facebook page. How cool would it be if different members of your church posted a short weekly or daily devotional to Facebook based on that upcoming Sunday's lectionary text?
Be creative and try new things. You never know what might be the thing that will provide a space for worship to someone inside or outside of your church. After all, isn't that what church is all about?
I completely understand the desire we all have to find a simple tool that will make the job of attracting people to our churches easier. However, social media is not that tool….and that really shouldn't be our goal. The real work is not getting more bodies into our pews on Sunday morning. The real work is connecting with God and God's children in real and meaningful ways, and that work of forming relationships with each other and with God is no different or easier than it has ever been. Social media tools like Facebook don't do the work for us, but they do give us new spaces in which to do our work. They give us new spaces to "be church."
Will Boyd is owner of 3 Story Church, a church web and social media firm that is focused on helping churches tell their stories. He has worked with Sojourners Magazine, the Disciples of Christ Historical Society, Goddard College, the Disciples Divinity House at Vanderbilt, and others. Will also recently finished a bachelor of arts degree from Goddard College that focused on the role of new media and social technologies in the world of sustainable marketing. Will lives in Seattle with his wife, a Disciples pastor.
Social Monday – See You in Indy: Part 2
July 27, 2009 in Culture and Media, Disciples of Christ, social media, Technology | Tags: General Assembly, social media, social monday, Web 2.0 | by Will Boyd | Leave a comment
Last week, I spoke very briefly about the Church 2.0 resource group that I will be a part of at General Assembly. And, I promised that this week I would have more information for you on what to expect in that group. Since, I don't like to disappoint, I thought I would hit the highlights of what my presentation is going to be about in a few short paragraphs. So, here goes.
Church 2.0 3.0 4.0 — The End of Church As We Know It
Throughout the church, there is a wide variety of experience, comfort level, acceptance of, and use of social media. Some of us dove head first into the unknown waters years ago, some are just now getting their feet wet, and some won't go anywhere near the pool. While our levels of use and knowledge may differ greatly, what seems to be a unifying theme about social media and the church is the desire to understand, not only how to use these tools, but why these tools are important. In the Church 2.0 resource group, I want to explore more than just how your church might use Facebook or Twitter. Instead, I want to look at how these new technologies are changing the church in hopes that our understanding will help us to use the tools more effectively.
What is "2.0"
The "2.0" label is something that is thrown around a lot lately. It has come to mean, for some, anything that is new. However, at its core, it means the second generation of something. In terms of the internet, Web 1.0 was the first generation of the internet while Web 2.0 is the second generation. Where as Web 1.0 was characterized by static, stand-alone websites that provided one way information, Web 2.0 is characterized by user-generated content, real-time discussion and sharing, and other social features. Social Media is at the heart of Web 2.0. When you think of blogs, social networks, podcasts, etc., you are thinking of Web 2.0. Web 2.0, quite simply put, describes the technological shift away from institutional control over the channels of communication toward the democratization of those channels.
Why "Church 4.0"?
So how does this social media stuff relate to church? On the surface, it is obvious that these new social tools such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc., provide churches with new opportunities to reach people. However, under the surface, at the core of what is happening, the church is actually being changed by these technologies.
To understand what is going on and where we are, historically, in relation to this change, we need to look at the way that technology has changed the church in the past. If we adopt the 1.0 and 2.0 naming convention when we talk about church and technology, we would most certainly have to call the pre-Reformation church "Church 1.0." Without getting too bogged down in church history, this period was a lot like the early internet. While people had been sharing information before the internet, Web 1.0 gave them an efficient structure through which to receive information. Didn't the pre-Reformation church do a similar thing? The church didn't invent Christianity. What Church 1.0 did was provide an efficient structure for people to receive their religion. This all changed with a little technological innovation called the printing press.
The printing press ushered in what normally we would refer to as the Reformation but, for the sake of this discussion, should call "Church 2.0." This second generation of church gave people a more direct way of participating in their own faith. Through this technological advance, anyone who could learn to read could own and read the Bible for themselves. While, certainly, the Bible had already been in church, the increased access to the Bible that the printing press offered fundamentally changed how people interacted with and what they expected from church. To put it in perspective, the invention of the printing press was to the church as the advent of blogs was to the internet.
The printing press wasn't the only technological invention that fundamentally changed the church as we know it. While the shift from Church 1.0 to Church 2.0 changed the way people engaged their faith, the invention that brought about Church 3.0 gave the people a tool that, for better or worse, gave them the power to "selectively congregate." That invention was the automobile. As car culture rose to dominance in America and everyone moved to the suburbs, suddenly, church goers were no longer tied down geographically to a church. If the neighborhood church wasn't suitable to them, they could then load up the family and drive 15 or 20 miles to a church that was more to their liking. It's not hard to understand how this changed church. Suddenly, churches found themselves competing for members with other churches that weren't even in their town much less their neighborhood. This new car culture church also meant the introduction of concepts like "church shopping" to the faith life. While many have decried the negative effects these changes have had, it is hard to argue that car culture put more power into the hands of the people when it came to church. I guess we could say that the rise of car culture was to church as the rise of social networks was to the internet. Both technologies allowed people to be more selective about with who and where they congregated.
So, Church 3.0…that's where we are at, right? Yes. And no. It is true that car culture still dominates our church. For example, to my knowledge, there is only one or two families in my church that still live in the same neighborhood as the church. Some of the members of my church drive as much as 25 miles every Sunday. When it comes the the internet, you could make a similar case that Web 2.0 is still going strong, as well. However, there are technological changes that are, right now, pulling Web 2.0 technologies into the world of Web 3.0.
I believe that this Web 3.0 will be fundamental in bringing about Church 4.0. It is hard to argue that Web 2.0 has already had an effect on church. More and more, churches are creating Facebook pages and encouraging their members to "Tweet" about the services. These things must be having an effect, otherwise, why else would you be reading this right now? With the rise of GPS enabled smart-phones and location-based social web applications, Web 3.0 technology is finally beginning to shift back toward bringing people together. The idea that the people on the internet are squirreled away alone in some dark room behind a computer screen all day and night is becoming farther and farther from the truth. We are among you. More and more, we are you.
When I think about how these technologies that are already being used to deepen people's engagement with their faith — things like social networks, Facebook groups, and Twitter — will combine with location-based information, I can't help but think that this will shift the church from Church 3.0 to Church 4.0. So,what, exactly, will Church 4.0 look like? I don't know. I think it will, like the social media that is driving it, be less about structure and programming and more about user-generated content. I also think it will have a greater emphasis on geography and community rather than statements of faith and style.
What do you think? Will Church 4.0 have the same effect on the institutional church as Web 2.0 has had on the newspaper industry? Will churches be able to give up control and allow themselves to be reshaped by these truly social technologies?
If you are at the General Assembly, please come to the Church 2.0 resource group. There we will be able to dialogue about what changes the church is facing in the present and the future. We will also discuss how these changes might inform a church that is looking to get more involved with social media. We will also have a bit of fun as well.
Will Boyd is owner of 3 Story Church, a church web and social media firm that is focused on helping churches tell their stories. He has worked with Sojourners Magazine, the Disciples of Christ Historical Society, Goddard College, the Disciples Divinity House at Vanderbilt, and others. Will also recently finished a bachelor of arts degree from Goddard College that focused on the role of new media and social technologies in the world of sustainable marketing. Will lives in Seattle with his wife, a Disciples pastor.
A conversation with Audrey Borschel, on media literacy
July 25, 2009 in books, Culture and Media, Disciples of Christ, DisciplesWorld | Tags: Audrey Borschel, author, Chalice Press, Disciples of Christ, DisciplesWorld, General Assembly, interview, media literacy, preaching | by Rebecca | Leave a comment
Audrey Borschel is an ordained Disciples of Christ minister, and the author of Preaching Prophetically When the News Disturbs: Interpreting the Media (Chalice Press, 2009) During the upcoming General Assembly, she'll lead a resource group on Saturday, August 1 from 3:45 to 5:15 p.m.
Rebecca Woods, DisciplesWorld news and website editor, spoke with Audrey in late May.
RW: So what will you be talking about during the resource group?
AB: The focus will be on media literacy — helping people to understand how the news is produced, how stories are framed, how biases creep in inadvertently, and what gets left out. We need some tools to understand this, and to get a bigger picture.
Here's a good example — I agreed to be a community blogger for the Indianapolis Star. I'd been doing this for a couple of months, and I noticed one story they ran about recycling. It said that three percent of our stuff in Indianapolis gets recycled, while in other places, it's 30 percent. They quoted Mother Jones [magazine] and called it a 'progressive liberal' magazine. So I went to the source, and I found out they [the Star] were quoting a waste management newsletter that Mother Jones had quoted in full.
RW: So there was a difference between the information the newspaper presented, and how Mother Jones presented it?
AB: Yes. We almost have to be investigative journalists….And then it gets into the definition of 'political' — a term that's misused so much.
Everything is political, if you think about it. The case for Jesus' ministry was overtly political. He wanted to evoke change among the people and he wanted people to continue that change. In our society — a democratic society — it's all about this.
RW: Do you find that people in congregations want to hear about things that are perceived as 'political,' or do they want to avoid the subject?
AB: As far as people coming to church and what they expect, I've heard it both ways. In one congregation I was accused of being too political. I realized that I needed to do more educating. In other places, I've found that people really thirst for connecting the world and their faith. They wonder where the nexus is between the faith and culture.
As far as awakening a congregation to social justice issues — it's not so difficult if people understand that social justice is all over the gospel.
RW: Your book is about preaching. What do you see in today's preaching that causes you to be concerned?
Complacency and fear. Those are two instances when preachers don't attend to the task of bringing the scriptures to life, and engaging the people actively — helping them think about the scriptures and the relationship to their way of living.
And a lot of preachers will stay away from the big news stories, even though they intersect really well with the scriptures. On the other hand there are people who are fearless, and if they see that something needs to be said, they'll go ahead and say it.
RW: Are some clergy worried about the legalities of preaching on social justice issues?
AB: There's probably some confusion — about the IRS, about the First Amendment — I cover this in a section of the book. Once people know that clergy are free to speak on many subjects and once people know what they can't do — that should help some of the pastors who would like to preach on justice issues.
RW: Do Disciples have any particular challenges?
AB: One of the challenges, among Disciples, is in identifying the audience. Even though we purport to be pretty progressive, there are many congregations that haven't had the exposure to a lot of the conversations that others of us have had. Because of that, they don't have the background to understand some of the material that a preacher who might be an activist would try to convey.
Take Jeremiah Wright. That was obviously an example where a little sound bite caused terrible commotion and harm. My advice is to hear the entire story, and if it's visual, then hear and watch the entire thing and understand the context. It's all about context. When I saw [Wright's] preaching, I could understand [his comments] because I understand the context of black preaching and theology.
The same for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. From the get go, I knew people would cherry pick her 'wise Latina' comment about making decisions at the appellate level. But we need to be able to look for context.
RW: Do you think most journalists would prefer a media literate audience? Are there some who perpetuate media illiteracy?
AB: I'm not sure that journalists don't want people to be media literate. I might question some of the radio personalities or blog commentators who are so biased that they want their point of view to be the dominant one.
But in my book, there's a chapter about op-ed writers. There is a lot we can learn from op-ed writers when we compose our preaching. The way that some of the commentators use images and structure, cinema, all kinds of things — it's great. And they want to be understood.
I haven't really become cynical through this process of learning and teaching media literacy, but I do tend to look at some news stories and wonder, what are the facts, what's missing, and why are they framing it in this particular way?
RW: What about blogs?
AB: As a blogger, I'm well aware that bloggers are criticized for being inaccurate. Some of them do misuse information. For example, using e-mails as source of information can be misleading.
RW: How did you become interested in media literacy?
AB: When I was doctoral student at the Aquinas Institute of Theology, somehow I had this idea about the intersection between preaching and 'disturbing' news, and about doing theological reflection on the news. An advisor hooked me up with someone who had done a lot of work with the news. The framework for my doctoral thesis was media literacy for preachers.
RW: What will people learn by coming to your resource group during General Assembly?
AB: I'll be trying to lay the groundwork for why [media literacy] is important. I will be giving some of the tools for media literacy — how to identify pieces of stories, for example. We'll discuss the different types of news media, so that people see that there's a variety of print and electronic sources, not only newspapers. I want to make people aware of how they get the news, and how the new sources of news can be intimidating, and sometimes misleading.
They'll also gain insights that will be helpful not only for preaching but for pastoral care. When we do preaching, we are doing mass pastoral care from the pulpit. If there's a crisis for the community, preaching on it can be a way to help people understand the relationship between their faith and the events that happen around them. There are great pastoral implications for it.
Audrey Borschel's book, Preaching Prophetically When the News Disturbs, is available through Chalice Press. She will be doing a book signing right after the August 1 Resource Group. Audrey is also a member of The Intersection.


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After three years of testing cotton performance in the field, a Texas Agricultural Experiment Station agronomist says subsurface drip irrigation is a workable option for Rolling Plains crop producers.
"Drip is the preferred way to irrigate in many other crop-producing regions," said John Sij, Experiment Station agronomist based at Vernon. "Research has proven it is the most efficient water delivery system available today.
"But is it feasible in the semiarid climate we have here on the Rolling Plains? Answering that question is the rationale behind our research."
So far, the Rolling Plains project has focused on evaluating plant productivity and lint quality of irrigated cotton grown in conventional and conservation tillage systems. Results were then compared to cotton grown with traditional furrow irrigation.
The site for the first three years of this research was a 28-acre field in Munday, Texas. Subsurface drip-irrigation lines were installed 12 to 14 inches deep, using 40- and 80-inch spacings. This allowed the researchers to divide the field into 66 plots, each slightly smaller than one-half acre, which could be individually watered and monitored.
"We installed water meters to record actual crop water use in each plot," Sij said. "We planted our conservation-tillage study into a terminated rye cover crop. The planting dates for each study ranged from early May to early June."
With two years of comparative data at hand and one year's data still in review, Sij feels subsurface drip irrigation has proven its worth.

subset: commoncrawl


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Allens Bend Trail is a 0.9 mile lightly trafficked out and back trail located near Sedona, Arizona that offers the chance to see wildlife and is good for all skill levels. The trail is primarily used for hiking, trail running, nature trips, and birding and is accessible year-round.
kid friendly
nature trips
trail running
no dogs
Directions from Sedona : Drive nort for about 2 miles on US 89A. Grasshopper Point will be approximately 2 miles south of Encinoso Picnic Area on the east side of US 89A. All roads are paved.
Good short hike a little rocky good for beginners.
#wanttohike #.
Cool place to go to get away from the heat
This was mine and my family's first hiking trial in Sedona. We didn't know where we should go because there were so many options. We settled on this trail because we wanted some water involved at some point. It was nice and quiet the whole time, not a lot of traffic and the views were gorgeous. The only complaint I have it there was no distinguished end to the trail. At one point you cross over a tree trunk and then it takes you to some river rock ahead. Just a little further is the Oak Creek. And the trail just seemed to disappear. Otherwise it was a beautiful EASY hike for my family!!!
Very nice trail in the Oak Creek area with very little foot traffic which is much appreciated. Filled with wildflowers and wildlife.
Lots of wildflowers along the trail and beautiful views. Be careful of poison oak toward the end .
Great area for a day on the water.
Pretty cool spot. Crowded but if you go further south, there are a few spots that hidden...still very rocky to navigate though. Water was cool and the scenery was great.


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Archived Jul 2 2009
Debt, oil and healthcare reform
Congressman John Conyers recently quipped that most healthcare reform proposals circulating in Washington are a "cacophony of crap" that evade acknowledging medical care as a human right. With Canada across the Detroit River from his impoverished congressional district he knows firsthand how the Canadian health system bests its American counterpart. It's cheaper by half; covers everyone; citizens don't worry about bankruptcy –they merely get treatment as needed; and the politician who brought it into existence four decades ago, Tommy Douglas, was named the most important Canadian of all time (Wayne Gretzky finished second).
Ironically, Conyers' National Health Insurance Act (HR 676) as currently envisioned, shares a premise with those he mocks. All sides of the reform debate presuppose a return to economic growth. It follows that none confronts the possibility that our massive debt and economic woes are not temporary but the beginning of an epochal transition to a reduced level of social complexity and economic activity, which translates into a lower standard of material living that cannot support the present structure of medicine.
Indeed, most of the reformers who claim healthcare is a human right see discussions about fiscal limits as a stealth way to kill reform. And those willing only to tinker with the financing of system assume a return to economic growth will allow healthcare to continue more or less as is. With its cost at about $2 trillion in 2008 and projected to climb to $4 trillion by 2015, attempting to maintain the current system will result in, in my view, one of two unacceptable outcomes: 1) healthcare only for the wealthy or 2) a crash of the system. There is a third way still possible, and it builds on Conyers' plan with an acknowledgement that our present "Ferrari-Jalopy" (a nod to Congressman Roscoe Bartlett for this metaphor) health system is no longer viable. We should build a Honda Civic health system for all; it's the best realistic chance we have.
From this vantage point, the ongoing healthcare debate in Washington is anachronistic. A future oriented analysis has to include two driving forces: first, the long-term consequences of the fiscal/economic crisis and, second, the arrival of geological peak oil, which is a symptom of the Bottleneck of ecological conditions (climate change, fresh water scarcity, population pressures, dying oceans, etc.) humanity must pass through.
Most Americans do not yet appreciate how dire our debt problems have become, in part because the mainstream media avoid the issue or characterize it as a bunch of addled and angry "teabaggers." Still, people intuitively understand that massive debt is destabilizing, although many in the center and on the left confuse our current situation with a need for deficit-financed growth. It's one thing for a government to borrow and spend to generate new taxes, useful infrastructure and encourage new economic activity. This can –and there is argument about this- create wealth and allow the debt to be paid off. It's quite another to "borrow" from the Social Security Trust Fund and have the Federal Reserve in essence print money to fund further deficits, especially when it goes to financial institutions that–in my view- do not create wealth but cannibalize it.
What is omitted from this economic stimulus line of reasoning is 1) you can't cure a debt problem by taking on more and more debt and, 2) no consideration is given to the availability of natural resources, in this case the peak of light sweet crude oil extraction makes this "stimulus" strategy not just ineffective but counter-indicated. I believe we are attempting to prime (stimulate) a well that's going dry with borrowed water (money).
Let me digress to explain the consequences of a peak in worldwide oil extraction. Peak oil "direct" argues that the out of control financial "debt machine" was toppled because as oil production hit a plateau in May 2005 this imposed a limitation that eventually inhibited growth and wealth creation. This plateau triggered the subprime meltdown, $147.00 per barrel oil, and, overall, the exposure of enormous "systemic" debt that was no longer serviceable because real growth was constrained. Peak oil "indirect" holds that whatever caused the fiscal/economic meltdown of 2007-2008 the fact of geological peak oil –now almost confirmed- interdicts any return to the old pattern of economic growth. Either way, this makes peak oil pretty important to the socioeconomic panorama, including one of our most expensive institutions, healthcare. As we see, oil is now around $70.00 during the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression on the mere expectation that a recovery might begin.
I suggest, therefore, that healthcare reform be discussed in terms of fiscal and ecological realities, not shibboleths like this recently proffered by David Brooks. "There is the liberal way in which the government takes over … and decides who gets what. And then there is the conservative way, in which cost-conscious consumers make choices in the context of a competitive marketplace."
But who in the healthcare reform debate makes this big picture connection between debt, oil and healthcare reform? The closest discussion I've heard is when Bill Moyers told David Himmelstein, of Physicians for a National Health Program, a few weeks ago, "I don't want … you to get out of here without wrestling with this very fundamental question. We're going to have to set limits, are we not?" (Aside: As a regular viewer of his PBS show, I note that Moyers has not forthrightly addressed ecological constraints on economic growth; so this elliptical question will have to do. Moyers has, to his credit, had Kevin Phillips on his show to elucidate our fiscal plight –and Phillips acknowledges the potential of peak oil and other Bottleneck conditions to "change the game").
Himmelstein replied:
Ten years from now, with my colleague's inventiveness in figuring out expensive new things to do [referring to medicine's fascination with expensive and esoteric technology] we're going to have to come to grips with that. But right now, we could reform this health care system. Do everything that's helpful for every American for what we're now spending.
Himmelstein presumes homeostasis when in fact our socioeconomic foundation is rupturing. Since he's worked tirelessly on universal healthcare and practiced and taught medicine for many years I'm virtually certain he is correct in the sense that there's a lot of fat to trim (I have countless anecdotes from doctors and nurses about excesses and waste). But this does not obviate our dire fiscal/economic state and the arrival of peak oil, the driving forces now unfolding and shrinking his ten-year time line.
Granted, the "public option" being debated in Congress –if defined properly- might bring temporary financial and psychological relief to millions of beleaguered and desperate citizens; but even this short-term possibility is unsustainable.
This brings up the issue of logical incrementalism, or the "science of muddling through." Many healthcare analysts, like Himmelstein, assume societal homeostasis and find it easy to conclude that we are muddling our way to universal coverage. From this perspective the public option appears a significant incremental step. Given debt and peak oil, I think the time for incrementalism is past. As I write, California and several other states have budgets severely out of balance. They are facing devil's choices that only a few years ago –when Alan Greenspan was "The Maestro" of the economy and President Bush was marketing an "Ownership Society" featuring private investment accounts for Social Security contributions- would have seemed incomprehensible. But here we are experiencing the limits to growth.
Dan Bednarz, Ph.D., is a former Associate Director, Center for Public Health Practice, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (until 2005) and is now President of Energy & Health Care Consultants.
Dan Bednarz is a frequent contributor about health issues to Energy Bulletin.
In discussing what will be affordable, certain massive expenditures are seldom discussed: wars and military spending. I'm not sure that spending on drug enforcement and prisons is more important than healthcare either. -BA


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When we disconnect from our devices we find a whole new world.
Let's connect by talking about how we're feeling
Connect with your family by serving others
Connect by work together
Let's disconnect and be silly
Connect by saying I love you.
Put down those phones and get outside
Invest in your family
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Phone: + 1 (801) 272-9980
Email: email@example.com
© Copyright 2018 Smarter Parenting


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Posted by vvsdesign | Filed under bio
haha, hi folks. yes i found my blog right now.
so, i'm going to fill my blog step by step and give you more information about me.
who i am? who is vvs?
vvs are the initial letters of my name and i'm mainly a software author for multimedia applications and graphic designer.
in music i'm a simulator and produces my songs digitally. in my youth i have had in music 7 years private lessons and played flute and accordion.
fortunately remained for me the notes and theory of harmony. many decades later i discovered the fantastic possibilities songwriting with the computer at that time still on DOS basic. gradually prepare i mean music software ever further on around better results to obtain to be able. meanwhile i wrote 400 songs and approximately 20 – 30 songs constantly in the production status. occasionally i take myself one of it,… until i have a new melody in my head, again:)
creativity cannot be planned.
so, i'm thus no musician, i'm a composer, who tries to digitize his conception of music.
sometimes succeeds…
Tags: bio


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|» Products
|» Flat Belt Conveyor
|» Inclined Belt Conveyors
Owing to our proficiency in this domain, we are able to manufacture and supply a wide range of Inclined Belt Conveyors. Our offered conveyors are specifically designed for handling sophisticated industrial materials and conveyed them easily from one place to another place of the production line. The provided conveyors are manufactured with the utilization of optimum quality components and sophisticated technology under the stern guidance of our seasoned professionals keeping in mind the international industrial standards. To meet the varied demands of our clients, we are offering these Inclined Belt Conveyors in various technical specifications at cost-effective prices.
Key Features:
SAIFI CON-FAB SYSTEM PVT. LTD. All Rights Reserved.


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I worked on an animal print pattern in Illustrator today (I'm teaching Photoshop and Illustrator to myself. These days it's important that all artists know how to use these tools. Just ask James Jean, who says "learn Photoshop, if only for the ability to create a website, color correct your own work, and deliver it digitally.")
Anyway, I was working on loading it onto the background of my blog. The line down the middle is really bothering me. It will be fixed the moment I figure out how.
I generally don't like to load and show things that aren't 100% to my liking, but putting this up puts some pressure on me to fix it.
UPDATE: I've lightened the background and it looks a bit better. I still want to fix the space down the middle, though.


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Sunday, 31 October 2010
Posted by Carl at 15:21 1 comment:
Creative Networks
With work now getting really underway i have had little time left to myself, this week i have been getting some work experience but also starting networking and getting myself out and into the business of graphic design, starting with the monthly creative networks event. Overall it was a really good experience and i started to talk to people about anything and everything. Artists, photographers, crafts, moving image to CGI, they were all there seeking to expand their horizons, i took it as an opportunity to just enjoy myself and meet new people, getting nearly every business card in sight.
Posted by Carl at 15:14 No comments:
Friday, 17 September 2010
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Not that I've being playing on my Xbox lately but I thought that this would be worth a mention, a beautifully visioned game 'Limbo' a featured game on the Xbox summer arcade I love the monochromatic atmosphere its so dramatic, no sound or dialogue the story is supposed to follow a young boy as he tries to find his sister in the world of Limbo. I also really love the type.
Posted by Carl at 06:01 No comments:
Full of Ideas
Posted by Carl at 05:50 No comments:
Saturday, 21 August 2010
Something to Pass the Morning.
A background image for the Liberty Bathrooms company in West Yorkshire. It was really enjoyable to create actually, I love illustrator.
Posted by Carl at 06:43 No comments:
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
The Shape Of Tomorrow Zine Series Entry
My entry for the Circle Zine as part of a series to be created this August, "Hole". The Zine is to be designed by Ben Bowsher and Kenneth Moore and will hopefully be available at Urban Outfitters with an exhibition. Its been a while since I did some illustrative work so I took it slow.
Posted by Carl at 07:58 No comments:
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Class 4 and Class 5 Softswitches Indispensable for VoIP Wholesale and Retail Business Service Providers
VoIP wholesale and retail businesses must consider a number of parameters in order to deliver satisfactory services at the best cost and yet make a profit. There are considerations such as server colocation for hosted services, bandwidth optimization based on implementation of the right codec, termination and, lastly, softswitches.
Those who are engaged in retail VoIP businesses need VoIP softswitches and many may think that a class 5 softswitch is adequate. It is not. This class of softswitch connects phones and devices and routes calls to the IP/ DID/SIP address and it can be used for local and long distance calls. VoIP service providers may be satisfied with it since it has IP PBX features, auto attendant, call forwarding, call transfer and video conferencing support among others that end users usually want. End users can access VoIP using their mobile devices or use standard telephones through PINless or calling card service. If this class 5 softswitch does fulfill most of the functions why bother with class 4 softswitch at all is the question. For VoIP services, if they wish to remain at a retail and local level, it is fine but if they wish to grow and expand it is necessary to consider the other option as well.
Class 4 softswitch relays VoIP traffic over multiple IP networks across international borders. If a VoIP service provider wishes to serve corporate clients then he will have to offer cheapest rate international calling facility. Class 4 features seamless conversion and transcoding with support for a range of protocols while allowing a larger number of concurrent calls and intelligent call routing over the least congested or least cost route. What corporate users will like is that it has in-built security features as well as information about traffic volume and unauthorized calls. What VoIP service providers will appreciate is that class 4 softswitch has automated call monitoring, statistics, billing and data record facility. It is precise and accurate and saves a lot of time and labor, especially when they have hundreds of clients. An international business with branches in several countries will find it just as useful to have this type of Voip softswitch in their IT environment.
Not all class 4 softswitch solutions are equal. For instance, http://www.ecosmob.com offers superior solutions and implementations that result in increased productivity, reduced cost, enhanced communication and scalability with modular features and multi-level safety mechanisms. Rich set of features underlies a friendly user interface. Customization is another reason why VoIP services are increasingly turning to Ecosmob to tailor make a softswitch solution that takes care of all their present needs with inbuilt facility for expansion, reduces cost and enhances their reputation with their clients. Even international business enterprises find Ecosmob softswitch solutions the right fit for their business models.
Source: https://voipsolutionmine.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/class-4-and-class-5-softswitches-indispensable-for-voip-wholesale-and-retail-business-service-providers/


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Faith-Based Missions Accelerate Social Change
You're a faith-based mission challenged with the need to offer a wide range of services to an ever-growing vulnerable and diverse population. You need to work faster and be innovative while also attracting sufficient funding to meet your goals. To accelerate social change, you must increase your efficiency by:
- Finding innovative ways to economically expand the reach of services to a growing number of individuals and families.
- Readily adapting to the emerging needs of an increasingly diverse population.
- Maximizing the value of your staff by making them more productive.
- Providing pathways for training/supporting your volunteers.
- Delivering resources that will support mission clientele in their pursuit of life goals and the quest to transform their lives.
- Customizing individual solutions for delivering a wide-range of human services.
My Communitas… a Community Learning Center
With My Communitas™—a community learning center —you can shine. It delivers a flexible, innovative platform for education and collaboration so you can meet many initiatives simultaneously. Communitas can be used in classroom instruction and also as a self-serve model supporting your mission's learning initiatives. It can support these key areas:
- Career Planning
- Workforce Development
- Spiritual Enrichment
- Health Care and Housing
- Adult Education
- Early Childhood Education and Literacy
- Academic Support for Primary and Secondary Students
- Parental Involvement and Parental Education


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Because of the strong trade wind (typically blow at a steady 20-25 knots year-around) and its flat seas, Aruba is famous for windsurfing and kitesurfing. The biggest and best known watersports event of the Caribbean for the past 24 years, the Aruba Hi-Winds, occurs at Fisherman's Hut (Hadicurari) annually in June/July.
Hadicurari, known to the locals as Fisherman's Huts, is located just north of Palm Beach. It is just a short 10 minutes walk from the Marriot Resort. If you are driving, you will see a dirt road intersection about ¼ mile north of the last Marriott. Follow this road for about 100 meter and you will see a few huts and lots of colored flags, where you can rent gears or get lessons. Fisherman's Huts is a beautiful white sand beach, with the light blue stretching far out into the sea. It is a good spot for photos.
At any time of the year, this is one of the best spot in the Caribbean to learn how to windsurf or kitesurf. It is also a fun spot to watch beginners struggle with their sails inside the protective reef and experts glide at amazing speeds half-mile out. What make this spot so special compared to other places in the Caribbean is that it has a shallow water as far as 300 feet from shore, so when you fall off your board, there's little chance of drowning. Also, for those beginners like me, we often get frightened when we go too far away from shore, and it is always a comfort to know that the water below you is only waist deep. So when you cannot turn back because you only know how to go in one direction, you can easily paddle back or even get off and walk-pull the board/sail back to where you started. (Believe me, this is a big plus because the first time I windsurfed was in Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia and the lifeguard had to haul me back with their speedboat. I could only go in one direction and couldn't turn back.)
With no reservation necessary, one can walk-in and get a beginners lesson from one of the vendors for $50 (1 hr instruction + 1 hr practice). It was really more like 15 mins instruction and 1:45 mins practice. If you don't need a lesson, you can rent their equipment for $45/half day, $50/full day, $245/full week. This is the standard price for Fisherman's Huts area, but it will be about $10-15 more at/around the Marriott Surf Club (next to the hotels area on Palm Beach). I ended up getting my windsurfing lesson from Aruba Active Vacation (www.aruba-active-vacations.com). The owner of Aruba Active Vacation was really nice. He is from the Netherlands and moved here a few years ago, set up this shop, and enjoying the nice perfect life.
Lesson took place by the beach. The instructor taught us how use the equipment and techniques that we need to know. After 15 minutes of instructing, he just let us go off on our own. I explored the different techniques and was able to turn without falling after an hour. The difficulty I had was preventing myself from drifting out (wind/current drag and the ruder didn't help too much)with each back and forth turns and eventually had to lie down on my board and swam back. The instructors were always watching and yelled out whether you needed help each time he sees you struggling. For those who are afraid to do this, it is very safe, so just go out and do it. You do really need a strong shoulder and upper body strength as the sail is heavy, and to hold it against a strong wind is even worst. My shoulder was so sore the next day. Do put tons of sunscreens on your neck and back as they will face the sun light all the time while windsurfing. It was so much fun that I spend the next 3 morning renting the equipment for ½ day each to try to perfect my skills.
3 Comments
I'd love to learn wind & kite surfing, seems very interesting. Little bit scary when you think of hitting the open sea and going fast opposite to the shore. Nevertheless, I'd love to try it 🙂
Very good post! We will be linking to this particularly
great post on our website. Keep up the good writing.


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Swift Lab Escape
Game Details
The lab assistant just completed his daily tasks in the lab and it was time to leave. But the door was locked and the lab was fuming with dangerous odors after hours of work. Help the man escape, before he loses out to the chemicals.
Category: Adventure
Played 601 times
Tags: Adventure Room Escape
Look around the lab and collect objects that you could use for the exit. Escape before you run out of time or the chemicals would lay you down forever.


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Forbes: Today's Billionaires Are Younger, 'Poorer,' More Numerous
Bill Gates topped Forbes' 2015 billionaires list, and the other top names will look equally familiar, including Carlos Slim Helu (No. 2) and Warren Buffett (up to No. 3 this year, and the biggest gainer on the list). Elsewhere, though, the list contained plenty of shakeups and new faces.


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Edited by Peter K. Spink, Peter M. Ward, and Robert H. Wilson
Despite rapid metropolitanization throughout the Americas and widespread interest in "megacities," few studies have examined the new governance structures needed to address issues of citizen representation and participation and the public service challenges of population expansion and increasing urban inequalities. To fill that void, Peter K. Spink, Peter M. Ward, Robert H. Wilson, and the other contributors to this volume provide original research and analysis of the principal metropolitan areas in six federalist countries of the Americas—Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, the United States, and Venezuela. They find that a common feature of metropolitan expansion is the lack of a unified governmental structure. Using a comparative research framework, they examine the forms, functions, legitimacy, and performance of emerging governmental structures.
Their cross-national study shows that existing institutional structures and political systems impede collaboration among governments in metropolitan areas. Given both the relatively few successful models at the local level and the disinterest on the part of federal governments, regional governments—states and provinces—seem to provide the most pragmatic bases for constructing metropolitan governments that are capable of efficiently delivering services. Because there is no direct path to achieve such new structures, the authors urge reform at the state and local levels to address the need to work out the politics and management structures that will function best within their own politics.
Contributors: Roberta Clemente, David J. Myers, Pedro Pirez, Hector Robles, Andrew Sancton, Peter K. Spink, Marco Antonio Teixeira, Peter M. Ward, and Robert H. Wilson.
"Metropolitan Governance in the Federalist Americas makes an important contribution to the broader debate on subnational governance and to the specific debate on metropolitan governance. The authors provide an excellent, accessible description and explanation of the wide variation in forms, rules, and outcomes associated with metropolitan governance in the Americas. A significant and useful feature of the volume is the authors' inclusion of case studies: they allow the reader to think productively about political history, economics, and the sociocultural context." — Brian Wampler, Boise State University
"The past few decades have witnessed an explosion of metropolitan-scale expansion around the world. Metropolitan regions transcend long-standing political boundaries, challenging constitutional arrangements everywhere. As Spink, Ward and Wilson demonstrate, the Americas have witnessed a flowering over the past quarter-century of improvisational forms of Federalism. Favoring financial devolution and regional-based administrative arrangements, these alterations of past political arrangements create new forms of governance. Metropolitan Governance in the Federalist Americas opens the door for systematically integrating these new institutions and patterns into our thinking about development and governance throughout the hemisphere." — Blair A. Ruble, Woodrow Wilson Center
"This collection is an interesting and unique contribution to the federalism/urban policy literature and promises to stimulate more work in these fields. The book bridges a number of audiences. It will be of interest to individuals whose work focuses on the Americas but it will also provide an example of analysis of other federal countries. It should be useful to students and scholars of political science, planning, and urban policy." — Beryl A. Radin, Georgetown University
328 pages
"Coeditors Spink (Getulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil) and Ward and Wilson (both, Univ. of Texas, Austin) have made a major contribution to the advancement of knowledge in their methodical comparative analysis of metropolitan governance to include civil and political actors in the federal systems of six countries located in the Americas . . . This is a high-quality, methodical, readable book." — Choice
"Overall, this is an ambitious and impressive work. The authors cover a wide spectrum of government and governance issues in the countries examined, and they do so with considerable clarity, insight, and intelligence." — Publius
"Throughout the Western Hemisphere, frustration with dysfunctional national governments is inspiring a search for alternatives at the supranational, regional, and very local levels. This scholarly volume highlights the potential for good governance at an intermediate tier between the federal and the municipal levels: large metropolitan regions, which are well suited, the book's contributors assert, to address pressing collective-action problems, such as natural disasters, inefficient infrastructure, and the unequal provision of social services. But the six country studies (on Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, the United States, and Venezuela) uncover few reasons for hope. Sustained experiments with metropolitan governance are surprisingly few in number, and they often fail to meet the contributors' expectation." — Foreign Affairs


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How to Create a Web Page With HTML
Yes, you can make a webpage without learning HTML. But should you? No. Because, for one thing, you will have problems somewhere down the road, no matter what webpage editor you're using, and you will need to know HTML to fix it. This article shows you the basics of creating a website in HTML. With this basic introduction, you'll soon be able to make a webpage from scratch!


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Some may think so, but I assure you, the opposite is true. But, ever since Vatican II I've wondered when the Church is going to return to its roots, which is Tradition. High-ranking clerics have gone off the deep end, so-to-speak, and seem more concerned with secular, humanistic concepts than Traditional doctrine and dogmas. This was and is especially true, it seems to me, by those occupying the Chair of Peter.
Now, when I was confirmed many years ago, I was told that the Sacrament of Confirmation made us "soldiers of Christ" and we were to defend the Faith against all attacks. So, when I see abuses in the Church which demean Tradition, and clerics acting like clowns, I react. When I see high-ranking members of the Church wanting to dialogue with the devil using the term "ecumenism" to justify their stance, I react. And so, I post the following, hoping that somehow the Church will turn away from the world, the flesh and the devil and return to its roots. At the same time, I pray and pray fervently with rosary in hand that Blessed Mother will assist us and intercede with Her Divine Son to restore all things in Christ.
The Council of Trent sixth session, degree on justification, history.hanover.edu/early/trent/ct06d1.htm
- Nevertheless, let those who think themselves to stand, take heed lest they fall, and, with fear and trembling work out their salvation, in labours, in watchings, in almsdeeds, in prayers and oblations, in fastings and chastity: for, knowing that they are born again unto a hope of glory, but not as yet unto glory, they ought to fear for the combat which yet remains with the flesh, with the world, with the devil, wherein they cannot be victorious, unless they be with God's grace, obedient to the Apostle, who says; We are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh; for if you live according to the flesh, you shall die; but if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live.


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Anais Nin Quotes About MadnessQuotes about: Madness
Acceptance Adventure Age Angels Animals Anxiety Art Attitude Awareness Balance Betrayal Birds Blindness Books Boundaries Break Up Broken Hearts Business Change Chaos Character Children Confidence Courage Creation Creativity Crime Culture Curiosity Death Demons Desire Destiny Doubt Dreams Drugs Dying Earth Effort Emotions Empowerment Evil Eyes Failing Falling In Love Fate Fathers Fear Feelings Flowers Freedom Friendship Giving Gold Growth Guilt Happiness Hate Heart Heartbreak Hunger Hurt Illness Imagination Individuality Innocence Inspirational Inspiring Intimacy Jazz Journey Joy Judging Kissing Knowledge Language Laughter Letting Go Life Literature Live Life Love Lying Madness Magic Making Love Marriage Memories Miracles Motivational Moving On Music Myth Opium Pain Painting Passion Past Perception Perfection Personality Pleasure Positivity Poverty Prejudice Progress Reality Reflection Risk Romanticism Sexuality Silence Sisterhood Sleep Solitude Soul Strength Struggle Submission Suffering Terror Tragedy Travel Truth Ugliness Understanding Universe Violence Virtue Vision Waiting Wall War Weakness Wife Wine Worship Writing
At first I protested and rebelled against poetry. I was about to deny my poetic worlds. I was doing violence to my illusions with analysis, science, and learning Henry's language, entering Henry's world. I wanted to destroy by violence and animalism my tenuous fantasies and illusions and my hypersensitivity. A kind of suicide. The ignominy awakened me. Then June came and answered the cravings of my imagination and saved me. Or perhaps she killed me, for now I am started on a course of madness.
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Anais Nin
- Born: February 21, 1903
- Died: January 14, 1977
- Occupation: Author
- Cite this Page: Citation


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OXFORD, Miss. – Senior outside hitter Marcie Hampton (Gainesville, Fla.) posted a match-high 13 kills to lead the sixth-ranked University of Florida volleyball team to a 3-0 (30-11, 30-20, 30-23) win over Mississippi on Friday night.
The win boosted the Gators' record to 10-0 (3-0 Southeastern Conference), which matches the third-best start in school history.
UF's defense tallied 10.0 total blocks, led by four each from senior middle blocker Kisya Killingsworth (Deltona, Fla.) and junior middle blocker Kelsey Bowers (Gainesville, Fla.), held the Rebels to a -.025 hitting percentage, marking the first time this season the Gators have held a team below .000. The effort also represented the fifth-consecutive match that the Orange and Blue averaged 3.0 blocks per game as a team.
"I can't tell you how proud I am of this team," Florida head coach Mary Wise said. "The atmosphere here is great, and it's a tough place to come in and play, let alone win. We were physical at the net, and we didn't let Mississippi have anything they didn't earn."
The Gators, who entered the match with an SEC-leading .300 hitting percentage, hit .308 on the night.
Hampton added nine digs and a pair of blocks, while Killingsworth chipped in with eight kills on .353 hitting. Sophomore libero/defensive specialist Elyse Cusack (Melrose, Fla.) led all players with 15 digs, and senior setter Angie McGinnis (Fraser, Mich.) tallied a match-high 35 assists to go along with five kills. Freshman outside hitter Callie Rivers (Winter Park, Fla.) helped out with four kills, her most since Aug. 31.
The Gators jumped out to a 6-1 lead to open the match behind a trio of kills from Killingsworth and one by Hampton. Mississippi fought back to narrow the lead to 6-5, but a Hampton kill and a Killingsworth ace sparked a 4-0 UF run that prompted UM head coach Joe Getzin to call his first timeout of the night. Bowers recorded her first kill of the night after the break, and Killingsworth added another ace to make the score 13-5 and extend the run to 8-0 before it was broken. The Florida lead reached 18-8 on a double block by Bowers and senior opposite hitter Amber McCray (Longview, Texas), and Bowers teamed with redshirt freshman outside hitter Janine Williams (Gainesville, Fla.) for another block on the next point, pushing the margin to 19-8 and prompting another Rebel timeout. Cusack chipped in with an ace on her first serve of the game to increase Florida's lead to 22-10, and two more successful attacks from Killingsworth and an ace off the hand of Rivers helped run the lead to 29-11, and a UM error on the next rally capped the game for UF. Florida registered four team blocks in the frame, holding Ole Miss to -.189 hitting. Killingsworth led all players with five kills in the opening frame.
UF fell behind 8-3 early in game two, but kills by McCray and Bowers ignited a Gator charge that saw them take a 10-9 lead on a UM attack error. A kill by Hampton gave UF a 13-12 advantage in the see-saw affair, and spurred on a short run that gave the Orange and Blue a 15-12 lead after a kill by McGinnis. UF hit the 20-point mark with a 20-17 lead courtesy of a McCray kill, and increased its lead to five for the first time in the game, 23-18, on a kill down the left line by Rivers. McGinnis and Killingsworth teamed up for a block assist minutes later to make the score 25-18 in Florida's favor, forcing Getzin to yet again ask for a timeout. The Gators concluded the game on an 8-2 run, culminating in a McGinnis kill, to win the frame, 30-20, and assume a 2-0 lead in the match. Hampton had five kills in the game, to increase her match total to nine at the break, as UF hit .349 as a team.
Hampton notched her 10th kill of the night early in the third game, helping UF narrow the gap to 6-4, Bowers and McCray turned in back-to-back kills to re-extend the margin to four points. Mississippi, however, battled back to within one before Bowers scored a kill off hands and posted a solo block to propel the Gators to a 12-7 lead and force a Rebel timeout. Florida came firing out of the stoppage, as Rivers and McCray both recorded kills to extend the cushion to 14-8. Rivers ripped her second ace of the match to make the score 20-12, and Killingsworth caused UM to call another timeout with a kill that made the tally 22-12 in UF's favor. The Rebels brought the margin down to six, 29-23, late in the game, but a Mississippi ace fell long to seal the match for the Gators, 3-0.
The Gators will return to action again on Sunday when they square off with No. 22 LSU at 2 p. m. EST in Baton Rouge. The match will be televised by Cox Sports Television (channel 67 in Gainesville), and Rock 104 will carry the radio broadcast locally. Audio coverage of the match can also be heard at www. GatorZone. com.


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Charlotte rallies around freshman
Gentile has scored three goals during NCAA tournament
HOOVER, Ala. -- Giuseppe Gentile is the best freshman player in this year's College Cup. You'll get no argument on that point from Gentile. It's not because he's cocky although such hubris has the supporting body of work.
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The 6-foot, 165-pound forward leads Charlotte in scoring with 10 goals and two assists. He leads the team with five game-winning goals, and in the NCAA tournament leads the team with three goals and an assist.
Head coach Jeremy Gunn would prefer he not speak prior to the tournament. In Gunn's eyes, and in the eyes of everyone who has watched him this season, his play speaks for itself.
"Really he's doing his job as a striker," Gunn said. "He's getting in front of the goal and finishing chances, just like we'd want any forward to do. He's has a tremendous year."
"We started him off a little bit quieter. We had a couple of injuries, so he had to accept a little bit more responsibility. He's come through it with flying colors. We always knew he would be. With a name like Giuseppe Gentile you can't fail to be a good soccer player, can you?"
Gentile, a native of Charlotte native was familiar with the 49ers' coaching staff and players through the city's soccer community. As transitions to the college game go, this was among the smoothest.
"We've worked with him at the local club, so it wasn't all entirely new to him," Gunn said. "He had teammates on the team. Quite a few of our guys were in the Charlotte Soccer Academy. It sort of allowed him to settle in."
He got acclimated to the college game early working out with 49ers players over the summer. It was through those drills that the team found out it had a very special player.
"Working with him in June in captain's practices, you could see that he was a class above the other incoming guys," Ike Caughran, the 49ers' junior midfielder, said. "He was one of those really naturally gifted kids. He got here early and definitely put in the work. Everything is kind of falling into place for him this year."
So much so there was no surprise that it was Gentile who essentially put the 49ers into the finals. In the quarterfinals, down to Connecticut, 1-0, on a goal scored in the 81st minute, the season looked all but over. But Gentile put in the tying marker in the 85th minute and Charlotte went on to win on penalty kicks.
"He's a supreme athlete, a great goal scorer who finds inventive, weird ways to score goals," Owen Darby said. "In a situation like that, that's kind of what you need. Just being a freshman and being able to score and put up point it impressive. To be a freshman, he doesn't play like one. You can't overstate that enough. He makes big plays."
Gentile's goal steeled the team's resolve for sure. Gunn said his team is enjoying the competition against the best teams in the nation. And although they respect for the other teams in the country, they're also happy to go up against them.
"To us, if we don't have the household name logo on our jersey, that's not too important to us," Gunn said. "We find ways to win."
Because his big-time players, like Gentile, make plays.
"You just kind of shrug your shoulders because he's done in time and time again throughout this tournament," Caughran said. "We've kind of relied on him to be that guy to get the equalizer or the game-winner, and he came in big once again."
Related Article:
• Charlotte tops Connecticut in PKs


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Krista Purser
Engineering Associate
Krista Purser is a graduate of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, with bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering. Her research utilized Bluetooth data to perform travel time analysis on a local arterial. Krista's project experience includes traffic operations, pedestrian and bicycle planning, signal design, and geometric design. She continues to expand her knowledge of Synchro, Highway Capacity Software, and AutoCAD Civil 3D. Krista is an active member of WTS, ITE, and ITE's Sustainability Standing Committee.


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The authenticity of Vivi-Mari Carpelan's works is exemplary. In her collages and video works, Carpelan courageously strips away layers of convention, routine, and social acceptability to reveal the magic and mystery of what it means to be human in a manner which transcends individuality and invites her audiences to enter her world and share in her explorations. Tämä on taidetta, joka koskettaa sydäntä ("This is art, that touches the heart") ( Jonathan Talbot, artist and editor of collageart.org), New York, 2014.
Fabulous music! Well done, Vivi-Mari. Like nothing else. I'm drawn to what you are doing because it's genuinely uplifting and disturbing at the same time! (Nigel Evans ("Scribbleman" at Greed The Rock Opera) musician, journalist and arts marketing officer, UK, 2014
I've just finished watching Tides and it's so haunting..... I think this is furthered by your soundtrack... I was going to ask where the music is from, but I see from your blog it is an amalgamation of different sounds both captured and staged. I found the film very sad but also that there was a sense of liberation and freedom in this. It reminded me of the work of the Japanese directors like Hideo Nakata. (Beth Davies-Hofbauer MA, visual artist, UK 2014)
All your work contains presence and a deep understanding, almost a kind of mediation, and they convey interesting messages and viewpoints. I have never had the desire to own anybody else's artwork. This tells me something, which I find difficult to put words to. I experience your art in a strong and special way. Even after seeing just a few of your previous pieces a long time ago, I started to cry. I felt that from your brush, something that I was pondering and experiencing on a deep level, came into being - something that I didn't have the means to express, but you did. You make something within me physically visible and in a way that is 'wonderful' and perfect, sarcastic, teasing, insightful, deeply artistic, wise and a kind of message, too.
It feels as though you look at something from the outside and make it visible to others, but at the same time you're in it and the art is very much a part of you - this is all thrilling and perfectly new! I'm not sure why, but I always experience your work - also the multimedia projects - very profoundly. I really come to life when I encounter you and your work. To say that I love your work is not enough. Somehow they really nourish me and I stay hungry after each one of your pieces... It's like a passion... and believe me, I'm not exaggerating in the slightest! (Kirsi Salo, senior legal adviser for the Finnish film industry, Finland 2013)
This is absolutely splendid work. You combine the photographs of yourself with everything else in each collage in a seamless manner; the result is a unique dialogue between Self & Self-Who-Is-Other. It is a visual narrative that when viewed in its entirety flows from picture to picture like a stream of successive scenes in a diary. (Eric Edelman, collage artist at RetroCollage, New York 2012)
I honestly think the smarter you are the more unsatisfied you can be... because there is so much to see with your eyes so wide to questioning life and purpose and the rest... one thing I feel sure of is that whenever you can honour your talents you should. Perhaps sometimes that is all you can do. And you do it with finesse! I can see something burning in your work.. there's definitely fire in it... and whatever the roots are.. you are using them... which is of course brilliance! You mustn't be ignorant and I'm not sure you could be if you tried.. your eyes are wide open. Like I said... think your coming to a flourishing point. Gotta say wow to your boldness and bravery and it reminds me a tiny bit of Gilbert and George...
in the body revealing and the partitions... now they are great... you are great, these are the guys who love the aesthetic of surfaces and science... I'm sure you already know who they are... but they have one another to hide behind even with their revealings... the woman that does this alone... if we were to align to a tracey emin paradigm then she is self revelatory.. she is not the first, she is just the exposed one. so like herself... You are a pioneer. (A visual artist, 2012)
Collage—an art technique which blossomed during the twentieth-century—displays on a two dimensional surface images and texts from various sources, constructing these into a complex and dynamic whole, the component images retaining their own independence as recognizably distinct in style and origin.
Vivi-Mari Carpelan's contemporary collages are profoundly noteworthy. In their enactment of deep symbolic logics, they do nothing less than re-configure time.
Some of the source imagery comes from Hindu art, evoking an ancient and ongoing tradition. Other imagery originates in advertisements from past decades, evincing a nostalgia where loss can never quite be recovered or redeemed. Still other imagery comes from prints of Neo-Classical architecture, a building style that resurrects the antique past in producing stone monuments that defy the ravages of time. More haunting and playful are skeletal images of extinct species, tokens of the arising and perishing of all particular life forms within a vast and mysterious evolutionary unfolding. The esoteric and alchemical diagrams dispersed throughout key an anticipatory time proper to secreted promises yet to be revealed.
The space of these collages is thus the arena of a profound mode of Memory (an inflection of Consciousness itself)—a Memory that is prior to any given form or feel of time, and which accommodates all such forms, allowing them to reverberate with each other through the part/whole dynamic of the collage construction. This is an Art of Memory that is not simply retrospective and receptive, but powerfully and profoundly Creative: the interplay of the imagery sparking novel senses of time—transforming the Self-sense so tenderly and vulnerably at stake in these works. (Michael Schwartz , Professor of History and Philosophy of Art, Augusta State University, Augusta GA, 2011)
"There is something not revealed as I am partially covered up in black fabric.
Not only is it the affliction not obvious, but I also don't really want it to be obvious."
I'm a Finnish artist resident in Wales since 2010. Since 1991, I have gone from drawing to creating mixed media collages, photography and recently artist's films and sound art. In recent years, I've been including performance art by staging myself for photographs and video clips that I use in my artwork. In this way, I'm able to highlight the semiotic quality of a decaying body - from a subjective and objective point of view all at once - and how it impacts my senses and experience of being in the world. I've always been fascinated with texture, and often incorporate photographs of aesthetically challenging yet pleasing surfaces found in the most unlikely of places into my work.
Afflicted with a chronic illness since childhood, it comes naturally to me to explore emotional issues of belonging versus not belonging in a society mostly designed for people with wealth and health. My work expresses paradox, as a fundamental and crucial characteristic of reality. While ill health and alienation are linked with shame and helplessness, these can also give rise to strength of character, deeper insights into matters of life and death, and the advantage of a more objective viewpoint in regards to society at large. Through my art, I express the idea that imperfection is human, whereas a glossy and sanitized world is not. Ultimately, because I'm not able-bodied, neither my abilities nor my expression will be perfect. Human imperfection is something that those who represent the norms of society need to tackle. I believe I speak for everyone who have had to concede that they cannot keep up with the demands of contemporary society. Not until society embraces its disabled members, can it become whole.
In 2011 I decided to explore the possibility of expressing invisble illness and chronic fatigue in particular in my work - I called this process "Project X". Throughout 2012 I attempted to find ways of expressing this symbolically in 2D, I then gradually moved onto making artist's films with my own soundscapes so as to find a more multifaceted way of highlighting these issues. All this work went under the name "Visible/Invisible". In 2014 I realised my dream of making music, and created sound art based on found sounds - this has become an album called "Music for Liminal Times". I also started to contemplate a new aesthetics and other ways in which to reinvent myself while retaining an even firmer grip on who I am and what I want to say.
My Facebook page and blog offer plenty of live updates and analyses of my work in progress, as well as commentary on the art world today.
Enter the galleries.
Do you have something you'd like to say about my work? Please fill in the form on the contact page!