January 4th, 2007, posted in me
One of my favorite high school teachers, John Faile (no, seriously, that’s his name) passed away the other day. He was an inspiration and challenged me like few other teachers did. Especially in Physics. I can honestly say he was an influence in my future career choice (the engineering part of it) and he was one of the most eclectic and interesting people I’ve ever known.
Once, he found I had an interest in classical fingerstyle guitar and he made me several tapes of Andres Segovia and some John Williams music. I remember the passion he had for teaching and creativity he put forth in it. Rather than simple word problems, his test questions read more like a narrative or story.
“John Wayne is positioned on a hill roughly 100 feet from a water tower, and his elevation was 54 feet below the tower’s height. There is an Indian campfire 12 feet to the left and 13 feet in front of the tower. If there are 10,000 gallons of water in the tower, and it’s diameter is 25 feet, where would he have to put a bullet in order to snuff out the Indian’s fire.”
That question was given to me on a test in 1994 and I still remember it (though I would struggle to answer it, now). He will be missed. You can read his obituary here.
January 4th, 2007, posted in links
This is just way too cool. Someone had a good idea and decided to throw an ugly website at it. Geo greeting. Type in text, it finds buildings that look like the letters.
January 3rd, 2007, posted in Christ, art, culture, design
If you enjoyed the post / images of the light wall (video), you’ll definitely enjoy the making of pics. I love to see this sort of stuff, because it’s all too easy to digest something artful and beautiful in a matter of minutes without giving much consideration or appreciation to how much effort was really put into it. I know in the line of work that I do, that’s often the case.
It amazes me to see how much work my fellow NewSpringers put into their craft and presentation. I’m sure it’s often thought of Perry “gee, he’s so polished and great, I bet it comes naturally.” In reality, P spends many, many, many hours on each and every sermon, just making the delivery as excellent as it can possibly. The band? Yes they’re all talented musicians, but they also put in countless hours of personal and group practice to present what is heard as excellent.
Even the production team comes in extremely early and does a complete run through before the first service even begins. We labor over the cues, the timing, specific video shots. And the best part? We’re still trying to improve. That is key.
So, enjoy the art. And take the time to appreciate the labor put into it. It makes it all the more rewarding
And just because I had a link for it…Typies has an article on 15 tips for choosing good type.
January 2nd, 2007, posted in me, tech
Perry asked me to dig up his top 10 posts of 2006, so I decided to do the same on my site. Here it is, the top viewed posts from 2006 on the AV Club.
http://www.avclub.us/2006/06/12/gnarles-barkely-crazy/
http://www.avclub.us/2006/10/29/charlie-the-unicorn/
http://www.avclub.us/2006/06/30/rev-joe-dale/
http://www.avclub.us/2006/10/01/1001061959jpg/
http://www.avclub.us/2006/07/30/welcome-rainey-elizabeth-wilson-to-the-world/
http://www.avclub.us/2006/05/25/the-bug-that-won-the-day/
http://www.avclub.us/2006/04/06/da-vinci-commercial/
http://www.avclub.us/2006/07/22/lost-font/
http://www.avclub.us/2006/08/27/so-what-else/
http://www.avclub.us/2006/05/31/more-perrynoblecom/
2007 is going to be an awesome year, can’t you feel it? Lots of exciting things are going to happen, both personally and professionally. This “blog thing” is fun, and I plan to keep it up. I (at some point. when I get free time. maybe) plan to revamp the AV Club totally in 2007. At this moment, I just changed themes and tweaked a little bit just because I’m getting really tired of the last look. It usually happens that way, I don’t have the time to actually think through and code what I want, but I get restless and make a hasty change. If you see weird activity or strangeness in this temporary look, please do let me know.
Well, enjoy the fun historical posts and memories (especially the “bug-that-won-the-day” post, remember that?), and let’s have a great 2007.
January 1st, 2007, posted in me
So, has anyone ever heard a cat freak out? I mean really freak out. A few days ago my cat, Ajala (pronounced “Ahh… Jah… lah…”) saw a neighbor’s cat through the glass door and the noise coming out of her mouth were both otherworldly and bone-chilling. Please enjoy the following mp3:
Cat freakout (MP3)
