soupablog

A guys' trip to Colorado

 

Jordan and I just returned from a week-long roadtrip to Colorado, driving with my Dad to a secluded cabin not too far from Woodland Park. My brother and my nephew flew in to join us for the second half of the vacation — it was great seeing both of them for an extended, guys-only retreat. We all had a lake completely to ourselves, which meant a lot of quiet, reflective time sitting and thinking, talking, walking, preparing meals, sketching, casting a few lures, tending to the fireplace, and puttering around without an agenda. The other four guys stayed in the main cabin, and I retreated to the smaller cabin just uphill.

Jordan and Austin both caught brown trouts with spinning reels (what Gus Orviston called angling) while Dad and Mark practiced their overhead fly casting; I found a flat boulder and fished a bit one morning before commandeering the canoe: one thing I'm a purist about is quiet canoeing. Oars should not bang against canoes; and water splooshes should be avoided.

We also enjoyed a day in Colorado Springs, walking around the Red Rocks open space, driving through Garden of the Gods, and revisiting a flood of good, 20-year-old memories at Glen Eyrie and the Flying W Ranch. I'm posting these illustrations of the main cabin (a front and back view), the tool shed, and the dam bridge. I had originally intended to watercolor these, but I think I'm going to leave them as pen and ink.

I know I'll look back on this trip with great memories; the trip managed to capture a moment in time where my son was old enough to be considered one of the grown-ups, where Dad was young enough to participate in everything, where my nephew was old enough to run around without too much supervision, and where Mark and I were freed up from work distractions long enough to really relax and take it easy for a few days. I'm hoping we'll get in a few more guys' trips like these before Jordan goes off to college. I'll probably post some pictures soon.

Illustrations © paul soupiset. do not reproduce.

SXSW Interactive Sketchnotes 04 - @soupiset ((tag: #sxsw, #sketchnotes, #viznotes)

Posted via email from soupiset's posterous

lakeside, Monday morning

woke up at 7:30, made double batch of pancakes while abi and emma were fishing with martin and caleb. breakfast was enjoyed over a volley of monty python grail quotables. after I cleaned up the kitchen I poured myself a cup of coffee, black, and headed out to the back porch. words can't properly describe the placid cool of the morning. willie nelson is playing in the background -- "I'm not trying to forget you anymore" -- and I'm thinking about trigger's luthier and about the quiet of the morning and about the girls sitting there fishing and getting along and just being pals and about this cool breeze and about how some folks recognize each of these various bird melodies and how each bird has a name. now someone who sounds like toad the wet spocket is in martin's changer but we can't ID the band. all 6 kids are up; the two amys are sleeping in. martin's shuffling songs now (fragments of chris taylor, vintage spin doctors, mercy me, r.e.m, etc) jordan is fishing. the sleepy day unfolds. in the distance homeowners start up their weedeaters and planes fly overhead. the girls lose interest in the lakeside activites and head inside. the magic of the morning fades a bit, but the day still holds it's secrets, waiting for timely revelation.

"here's a truckstop instead of st. peters, yeah yeah yeah."

Breakout Session: Between Heaven & Helvetica

“[A]n art work has value as a creation because man is made in the image of God, and therefore man not only can love and think and feel emotion, but also has the capacity to create. Being in the image of the Creator, we are called upon to have creativity.… We never find men anywhere in the world or in any culture in the world who do not produce art. Creativity is a part of the distinction between man and non-man. All people are to some degree creative. Creativity is intrinsic to our mannishness.” — Francis Schaeffer

Yesterday I gave an hour-and-a-half design breakout session for participants at the 2009 Baptist Media Forum at Camp Buckner, up near Inks Lake. The seminar was entitled Between Heaven & Helvetica: How Good Design Can Energize Your Existing Communications.  I hadn't delivered a talk that long before, so I was a little nervous to say the least. I figured I'd leave a half-hour for Q&A and prepared what I thought was an hour's worth of content.

My stated purpose was to "embark upon an interactive, multi-sensory conversation among 
designers, self-proclaimed non-creatives, quasi-creatives, and people who have 
to work with creatives in order to sketch at the intersection(s) of good design, good theology, and our role 
as culture creators." True to form, it was meandering and quirky — a soupçon of  history, theology of the Imago Dei, a little design philosophy and advice, and visual inspiration/stimulation (I hope).

About 15 minutes into it, I realized I had too much content, but pressed forward, and we ended up getting through most of it without much compromise. Before I went on, my friend Marcus Goodyear gave a great presentation on online community building; I knew he was going to skew his content heavily (actually completely) online, so I weighted my presentation toward traditional media and channel-neutral branding design.

The preso was a mashup featuring three youth media case studies tied to some theological points I made at the presentation's "history unlesson" ... as well as a gallery of twenty logos I had designed, which I will glom together and present to you below. I also re-fashioned and re-presented my "six design nuggets for non-creatives" talk as a 10-minute overview.

I was really pleased with the mix of people — I asked the group of media professionals (I assumed I'd be getting mostly PR folks, writers and editors) to classify themselves (how modern of me): almost a third of the room comprised designers and creatives. Another third considered themselves quasi-creative, and only one guy thought he was a non-creative.

My friend Tim Snyder made the trip out to the hill country with his visiting friend (my new friend) Josh. They audited the whole session and Josh participated in the interactive [Playdoh sculpting!] portion of the talk as well. With them and Marcus and my friend Brad Russell from The Baptist Standard there in the room, I was more at ease than I would've been.

After the presentation, Tim and Josh and I spent the rest of the day together. On the drive back to San Antonio, we stopped in the Blue Bonnet Café in Marble Falls, TX. That's Josh and his chocolate meringue pie. After that we crashed at my house for a bit ( I really needed a nap) before heading to Alamo Drafthouse Theater to see Slumdog Millionaire.

It was a nice break in the middle of the week.

I leave you with an excerpt from an essay by Leland Ryken that I published in Communiqué back in the day, and dredged up for the conversation yesterday (but didn't have time to share with the group):

"What does the image of God in people say about the arts? It affirms human creativity as something good in principle, since it is an imitation of one of God's own acts and perfections. Someone once wrote, "As image-bearer of God, [people possess] the possibility both to create something beautiful, and to delight in it (Kuyper 142). Christian poet Chad Walsh once wrote that the artist "can honestly see himself as a kind of earthly assistant to God..., carrying on the delegated work of creation, making the fullness of creation fuller" (308). This applies equally to those who are not themselves creative artists but who delight to enter into the creativity of others. And it stands as a rebuke to those who disparage God's gift of creativity in people."

Here's a handful of the logos I've designed* — I used these in the presentation:

 

*the All Saints logo was a collaboration between myself and Von Glitschka, whose work also made it into the presentation.

autumn reminds me of london

just ran across this old photo. not under a bed or in a dusty album, but hanging, right there on the wall, unnoticed for so many years. i think of myself as a visual person, but sheesh. right under my nose.

yes, kids, we were once young. here, amy was two months pregnant with jordan. we had headed across the pond for one last hurrah. london, england. we stayed in a little b&b: macdonald's & devon hotel on argyle square, a few steps away from kings cross st. pancras underground station.

the trip comes back to mind now as a swirl of memories and lots of walking and many strange meet-ups — amy's college girlfriend jena was there, taking classes at a baylor-in-london program, as was our friend janelle (syler's best friend's wife!); my mom and a close family friend carol coincidentally also overlapped our time in london while they were visiting carol's daughter julie and her then-boyfriend (now husband) jamie, so we all hung out one day; our tour guide was one of amy's old boyfriends, a cinematographer d/p named koen. amy and i also took a train out to southend-on-sea to visit our friend debbie's parents and their prized koi. we even ran into gordon sumner, but that's another story.

days and days of taking it all in ... westminster, piccadilly circus, trafalgar square, buckingham, ah! portobello road, the tower of london -- ravens -- tower bridge ... as i recall my mom and i listened to a hauntingly beautiful requiem in st. paul's cathedral the same day that we all toured st. martin-in-the-fields.

halfway through the trip i traded my relatively long hair (shown in the photo, above) for an ultra-short, very trendy-at-the-time razor-cut caesar. it was the best hair cut i'd ever had, and i've never had better. odd confession: every time i ease myself into a barber's or stylist's chair, i can't help but compare the cut i'm about to get to that one day in the u.k.. -- in my mind, i throw down the gauntlet to each would-be cutter: who here can top that haircut?

no one.

i answer in my head before they've even started. they're cutting, but i'm not paying attention. i'm remembering the place, the stainless chair with black leather — i remember it having a le corbusier feel to it — the exposed brick wall of the london salon, the feminine/masculine smell of the oddly androgynous butch wax, the violent precision with which the stylist worked, the feel of the short haircut in the cold london streets, the crisp buzzed neck-hair brushing against my shirt collar and jacket — it all comes back, and when my attention returns to the half-awake stylist in front of me, i know i'll be disappointed with any haircut i receive.

a fortnight in london is just about right. you shed your american self long enough to be a sensitive interloper, glad to return to the comforts of home. for all the vacation scrapbooking and journaling amy and i have done, we've never taken the time to document london. i think sometime soon i'll go hunting for the rest of the photos.

San Francisco Trip, rear view mirror

So like I said, Amy and I just got back from eight days in California.
Click for a first gallery (more to come)

It was wonderful on so many levels. First and foremost? Time alone to rediscover, enjoy and relax with Amy. A celebration of fifteen years of marriage. The weather and the flights and food and the downtime were all superb, the journey and the destinations were picture-perfect and meaningful. The friends we reconnected with along the way were hospitable and fun and funny and myriad. The trip was even educational (learned a little about wine during the first third of the trip and a little about youth media in the last). I did a much better job about living in the moment. Didn't spend my whole time behind the lens or buried in sketchbooks. Our 5 senses were each a little more alive, aware, acute.

Wednesday
We flew San Antonio to San Diego to San Fransisco (the via santa?); wove through the City, over Golden Gate Bridge (stopping only long enough to snap a quick photo) and drove all the way up hwy 101 to our B&B in Cloverdale. Stopped along the way in Santa Rosa for farmers' market. Italian  for dinner. Strolled Cloverdale's main street; Explored our B&B's gardens.

Thursday
On Thursday, Amy and I were awakened by the time zone difference and the excitement of being in a new place — plus, we got a good night’s sleep in a very comfortable bed. Where the night before had been hot and humid — Wednesday had reached 106°F in this inland part of northern California — this morning was crisp and cool. Large temperature differentials are a hallmark of Sonoma County — good for grape-growing. We got up and milled around the upstairs of the B&B a little: there’s a little hospitality room on the other side of the house that has coffee, hot tea, a small ice maker, and a fridge with sodas, juice and water.

After a bit we decided to go out for a pre-breakfast walk in downtown Cloverdale. The B&B is on Third St. just a block off Cloverdale Drive, the main street, and pretty much in the center of this tiny town. We took our time, snapped some iPhone shots of interesting buildings, and after some searching, eventually found Underground Coffee wedged in the back of an antique store. Amy: a blueberry muffin; me: a dolce latté. On the side wall of the antique store four large murals depict historical scenes of life in Cloverdale — one for each season, though the seasons were vaguely depicted and to the point where for  a while we weren’t sure which painting matched which season. Heading back, I snapped a tiled panorama of Pick’s, a hamburger joint that’s been around for 70 years or so.

Breakfast was fun: we had two house mates, a young couple from Stockholm, who were enjoying California while on vacation and probably enjoying the favorable exchange rate as well. We were served Dutch pancakes with homemade pomegranate syrup— as well as some apple-gouda sausages, mini muffins and coffee. I also had a light peach nectar which had the consistency of apple juice, and Amy and the Swedish couple had orange juice. Don, our host, would disappear from time to time, bringing out the small courses; first, the muffins, then the sausages and pancakes, then returning with the syrup. He’s a good conversationalist and was very interested in helping us plan our day in the Dry Creek appellation. Within fifteen or twenty minutes, we had recommendations and a highlighted map.

We toured a handful of Dry Creek wineries and ended up sampling wines at fewer than we stopped at. Asti's Cellar No. 8, Fritz, Ferrari-Carano (mostly for its well-tended gardens). We enjoyed a picnic luncheon overlooking Lake Sonoma (note the Dublin Dr. Pepper we enjoyed with panini from the Dry Creek General Store. Later in the day we fell in love with Bella vinyard and its wine caves and checked out quaint Preston winery as well. Romantic drive along West Dry Creek Road to Quivira. Poked around bookstores and stationers in touristy-but-serene Healdsburg, and walked barefoot in the cool grass in their town square. Back at the B&B's beautiful gardens, we watched dusk turn into night as we traded stories with the innkeepers Don and Mary before turning in.

Friday
More fascinating breakfast conversation. More guests had arrived, and our table mates included a couple from Nova Scotia and our Swedish friends. We packed up the car and kicked back in the gardens before bidding farewell to Don and Mary and the Swedes. Instead of retracing hwy 101 back to San Francisco (hereafter, the City), we decided to take the scenic route, which allowed us to explore the Eastern side of 101, back through Healdsburg (found some cute shops and a really cool kwanset-hut antique store). Peeked into Simi winery but didn't stick around for the tour.

Lunch in Windsor, mostly to find free Wi-fi. Happened upon a pizzeria on its second day of business. During lunch's email-check, we discovered one of my dear high school friends is pregnant, and another high school friend was in the Bay area touring colleges with her son and her high school aged daughter.

Friday afternoon we made our way into the City, did a driveby of The Haight, and settled into Golden Gate Park where we toured the Botanical Gardens for a couple hours. Then it was off to Grace Cathedral (that's where my friends Vanessa and Will are both associate pastors), where we met up with Ryan, Holly, Paxton, and others in the Seven community, because the Jesus for President tour coincidentally had rolled into town. Cobalt Season played during the intermission, and I had an amazing evening, and got to say a brief hello to Shane and Chris. And I met the head of Grace's labyrinth guild. They have a guild that takes care of their two Chartres-styled labyrinths (one indoors, the other out). Made me want to learn more about the Psalters.

The Sharps pointed us to Liberty Café for a late-night nosh in Bernal Heights, but it closed as we were walking up. Rats. We ended up getting really turned around and frustrated with driving around the Mission District before settling on a 24-hour diner, then coming back to Ryan and Holly's and crashing.

Saturday
Slept in. Way in. Smelled the coffee sometime after 9:30 and stumbled toward the aroma. Then I saw it. The view. The house where the Sharps are house-sitting has this amazing view of the water. It's breathtaking in daylight and beautifully sequined at night. We chatted with Holly and Ryan, ate some AMAZING Cali cinnamon toast, watched Pax, and made plans to hook up with Lisa and her kids at the notable Zachary's Chicago Pizza at Berkeley (note to self: the drive from Oakland Hills to Berkely on 13 was amazingly beautiful in July). We walked around Trader Joe's, then made our way (with a hot pizza in hand for our hosts) back to Casa Sharp where our Emergent friend Adam Klein was celebrating his birthday. His extended family members were there as well as his Seven friends, many of whom Amy and I met for the first time. From about 1pm to maybe 1am we enjoyed the longest pool party in my remembrance, with some really neat people as well. I built a little fire when it got cold and we were thankful for the heated pool (thanks again, Ryan). At some point in the evening, rock-n-roll photographer and friend Daley came to the house as well, after shooting a wedding in Berkeley. Everyone was in rare form that evening. Rare form.

Sunday
Our original plan was to visit St. Gregory of Nyssa for a "now-for-something-completely-different" worship experience (watch the whole video if you have time). But the pool party and travels had decided for us: more sleeping in. So here's what we did. More morning coffee and cinnamon toast. (Sorry, Bob, we never made it to bakesale betty either)... we lounged and caught up on email. So did Daley and Ryan and so the whole breakfast table looked like an Apple convention. We just embodied the sabbath. Rested. Then said some sad good-byes and snapped some photos before Amy and I left for the Union Square area. Crossed Bay Bridge into the city and before long, arrived at Hotel Nikko. Checked in and rested a little in our room before walking up (and up and up) to California, back to Grace Cathedral, where Amy and I were the guests at a Sunday School class (in a beautiful library) where they were talking about being Ordinary Radicals. Vanessa and Will invited us there so we could talk about our faith-journey, our Trinity House experiences as well as our Covenant experiences, and a little bit about my role in illustrating Jesus for President.

Then we went up to the choir part of the cathedral and had a beautiful evening contemplative service with a Eucharist. Sigh. It was really amazing, and an amazing cap to an amazing weekend. Vanessa, Will, Matt, and Anna treated us to dinner and laughter at Farmerbrown afterwards. Then it was back to the hotel, time to shift into Conference Mode.

Monday/Tuesday
Soon I'll blog more about the 2008 YPulse Mashup, an international youth media conference that drew a diverse crowd. Prosocial was the meme this year. Like founder Anastasia said here:

"While we do focus on effective ways to reach youth with technology, our audience is about one third non-profit/advocacy organizations so branding could be branding for a company or branding for an agency serving youth. [We had] sessions on this year's election, youth activism, on whether girls are the new geeks, and [one on] what folks who create web sites for youth can do about cyberbullying.

So it was not just about "selling stuff to kids" it was also about using those technologies effectively and authentically to reach them whether it is with a product that is actually useful or a message that could save their lives or inspire them to create social change."

Wednesday
Was a travel day, so following a night of Chinatown and cable cars, it was nice to just sit on a plane and be. The kids gave us a great welcome, as did my parents, who along with my mother-in-law, took care of the four little ones.

More blogging soon. Again, check out the photos.

I'll post more once our 35mm gets digitized.

Hospitality at the Sharps

daley hake snapped this as we were saying our farewells to ryan and holly sharp. staying with our friends was the perfect punctuation mark between the sonoma county mini-vacation and the ypulse youth media conference.

i'll do some more intensive blogging soon about the whole trip, but just wanted to say hello, we're having a blast, and we miss you all...

— paul

greetings from comfort, texas, pop 2358

that's my mom in the blue striped shirt; that's my dad down there in the shades and baseball hat.

this morning amy and i accompanied my parents to comfort, texas 45 miles northwest of san antonio, up in kendall county. growing up we drove through comfort to get to my summer camp, and my parents have enjoyed weekends there before.  

we enjoyed the small town parade and being pelted by candy. i can wholeheartedly recommend high's café and store on high street. i enjoyed a lot of old typography and hand-lettering on signs). we saw a family friend who was actually in the parade. we didn't stick around to see miss comfort crowned later this afternoon. instead we headed back to eat lunch at the longhorn café, one of the triumvirate of great san antonio burger joints (the other two being chris madrid's and chester's, followed very closely behind by orderup).

according to wiki, this town of 3.2 square miles "was a community of freethinkers and abolitionists in the 1800s. pro-slavery marauders carried out massacres in this town of german immigrants."

unabashedsummercamppost

believe it or not, back in 1990 i was a young, relatively thin and tan summer counselor at singing hills, the elementary-school-aged summer camp at laity lodge youth camp (LLYC) — an amazing 1900-acre encampment nestled in a canyon along the frio river. that's me in the white hat.

there i taught 6 and 7 year olds how to properly use a carabiner, how to tie abseiling harnesses from scratch, how yell to their belay and rappel off cliffs; i prayed with homesick kids, played guitar in nightly "round-up" worship services, got in shaving cream fights, played a lot of dodge ball and capture-the-flag, snuck the kids out to secret midnight popsicle parties that were really over about 9:45pm, worked on art projects with them, and painfully worked through the most immature, insanely jealous stage of my fledgling relationship with a young, beautiful girls counselor named amy, but that's another conversation. the memories go deep there. and in short, i grew to love the place.

now its almost two decades later and i still have this affinity with that land, with the water and the hills and the people i've met.

this weekend we made one of at least three yearly pilgrimages back to leakey, texas, back to LLYC, and specifically, back to the camp's annual work weekend.

it's a blast, despite that "work" word. a lot of alumni families, current staff, work crew and random folks who have been associated with the youth camps for the last 40 years bring multiple generations of their own families there to pool their energy for a weekend and come together to put the finishing touches on the camp just prior to opening day. we sweat, we work hard, and in exchange, we get fed like kings (e.g.: saturday evening was beef tenderloin), we get to stay in the same cabins as the campers, and we worship there along the banks of the frio, singing many of the same old-school worship songs we did 18 years ago, replete with hand motions and silly inside-joke asides. whether you're back east, in the deep south, or up in the texas hill country, any camp that's survived 40 years builds up a lot of traditions. we sleep, we laugh. we talk.

this year's work weekend, i was on the grounds crew. weeding flower beds and later raking acorns out of a volleyball sand pit. harder than it sounds. in prior years i've hauled heavy equipment out of their winter storage barns, climbed precarious ladders to clean cobwebs off of huge wagon-wheel chandeliers in the ranch-house, hauled speaker mains and monitors into place in their pavilion, worked with six or seven men to drag unbelievably heavy pontoon docks into the water for the swimmers ... that kind of thing.

we go home and then, two months later, we'll take our kids to be campers there. this year, three out of our four kids will be old enough to attend. we can only afford the one-week session, but the kids love it nonetheless. amy and i have this years-old tradition with the kids. on the last stretch of the highway, just before arriving at camp, we pass a road sign for the haby ranch.

"Hey, Mama…," I call in a really over-the-top vaudeville voice.

"Yes, Daddy?" she sweetly comes in on cue, knowing what's next.

"Say, that's the sign for the Haby Ranch … do you know who used to live at that ranch?"

and then as an answer — to the younger kids' delight and to the older kids' chagrin — the whole mini van launches into an overly loud version of Bill Grogan's Goat, a call-and-response kids' song we used to sing for our campers back at singing hills:

Bill Grogan's Goat (repeat),
Was feelin' fine (repeat),
Ate three red shirts (repeat),
Right off the line (repeat).

Bill grabbed a stick (repeat),
Gave him a whack (repeat),
And tied him to (repeat),
The railroad track (repeat).

The whistle blew! (repeat),
The train grew nigh (repeat),
Bill Grogan's Goat (repeat),
Was doomed to die (repeat).

He heaved a sigh (repeat),
Of...aw-ful...pain (repeat),
Coughed up the shirts (repeat),
And flagged the train! (repeat).

the song is timed by daddy to wrap up just as we arrive on the camp property. the kids get dropped off, we drive home, and miss 'em and send them care packages.

then, one week later, we drive back to pick 'em up and hear the crazy camp stories that we used to tell our own parents. and we remember that camp is ineffable. we remember getting frustrated with our own parents' line of questioning following camp. so we don't pry too much, making sure to leave camp a sacred mystery. i am already predicting that kate, who shares my tendency for waxing nostalgic, will weep much of the ride home because of the painfully beautiful experience and the inevitable departure. it is a thin space, to be sure.

but this place, part of the HEB Foundation, is more than just a youth camp.

many of you are aware of the related adult, ecumenical retreat center there on the same property, overlooking the river, a couple of hours' drive from san antonio. heck, this summer alone (!) you can catch the following at laity lodge's adult retreats: lauren winner, j.i. packer, marva dawn, gordon macdonald,  david dark and sarah masen, michael card, gordon atkinson, ashley cleveland, charlie peacock, and cynthia clawson. whew; that's just a partial list. now, a friend of ours, john, has started a family camp there at laity lodge as well. this is in addition to everything i've already mentioned, plus free foundation camps for groups during the year.

in a few weeks, it'll be time to pull the kids' camp trunks out of the barn and start filling them with flashlights, rain ponchos, and travel-sized toothpaste. there will be health forms to get signed and more gasoline money spent than we'd rather.

and somewhere out there tonight, there's probably a college grad student googling for capture-the-flag, just making sure she's got the rules straight in her head. and somewhere out there tonight, there's probably a school nurse biding her time until she can spend nine weeks with "camp" instead of "school" in her title. and somewhere out there tonight, there's probably a young, relatively thin and tan college kid, making sure he's got picks and backup strings and capos packed tight in that hard-shell guitar case.

let the summer begin

overdue spring break photos - ruidoso new mexico

here is the long overdue gallery of photos from our 2008 spring break trip to ruidoso: it's a photo-collaboration between members of the soupiset and broderick family, taken using several cameras and phone-cameras. highlights include emma just being silly, a cool collection of old neon motel signs (i spent a morning doing nothing but driving around ruidoso looking for 'em!), and an obligatory shot of jordan with a candy cigarette for shock value. you'll see trestle bridges, ancient petroglyphs, some stalagmites, a greyhound named pirate, an ancient can of shuffleboard wax, and yours truly on snow skis. [march 16-21, 2008.]

i should note that many of the best photos were taken by high school freshman sheridan broderick; impressive eye for composition. she's at least a third generation artist.

Paul Soupiset featured in An Illustrated Life podcast episode

or, A Tale of Two "Dannys" and Two "Everydays"

When I knew I was traveling to NYC recently, there were three people I wanted to sit down with and have conversations. The first was a former design intern named Danny Adrain, who is now a senior designer at Razorfish. The second was Thomas Turner, the young editor of Everyday Liturgy. And the third was Danny Gregory, a fellow creative director / author / sketchbook artist / podcaster, and creative force behind the Everyday Matters movement / craze / meme.

I ended up getting to hang with all three. I digress.

Danny Gregory, his wife Patti, and their son Jack welcomed me into their world for an hour or so — they live in a beautiful eighth floor apartment in the Village. Every inch of their apartment was either window glazing, book shelves, or space for hung artwork.

After talking a while [and letting the dogs smell me], we sat down and recorded this audio podcast about my moleskine journal sketching, about my faith and art and intersections therein. It's one of those things where afterwards, listening to it, I felt strange and self-conscious about all of the things I would've said differently (did I represent my art well enough? did I represent my faith well enough? my upbringing, parents and education? did I come off like a total dweeb? important questions like that).

Nonetheless, I invite you to listen. And commentezvous, por favor.

photos by oscar williams

bricolage :: manhattan, brooklyn, west cornwall, and back again

i waited to blog about my recent new york trip, hoping some unifying thread would be found running through the whole of the tapestry — some way to serve up the sights and sounds and smells of the last week that would remain engaging. some way to let you experience some of the energy of the city, some of the joys and loneliness of being a solo guy traipsing around manhattan, of being a fish out of water in a consultancy full of anglican vibe, some of the small pleasures in meeting new friends, in logging a few precious hours with some heretofore online friends, in spending a few quiet evenings with friends danny and kristen trying restaurants in their park slope neighborhood of brooklyn.

no magical thread has been found, other than a celebration of the beautiful, threadless remnants that would not be sewn together, and a new label for that tendency of mine towards assemblage, appropriation, pastiche, and montage: yes, the word of the week was bricolage.

bri•co•lage (n)  Something made or put together using whatever materials happen to be available

robert wuthnow's book after the baby boomers: how twenty and thirty-somethings are shaping the future of american religion was the preparatory text for the consultancy hosted by trinity church wall street; one of the main pulls from the text was the idea of spiritual tinkering:

Like the farmer rummaging through the junk pile for makeshift parts the spiritual tinkerer is able to sift through a veritable scrap heap of ideas and practices from childhood, from religious organizations, classes, conversations with friends, books, magazines, television programs and web sites. The tinkerer is free to engage in this kind of rummaging...

maybe i'll post some of my new york sketches soon. but for now, i'll post a few of the photos i shot (haven't been color corrected yet or anything).

m is for: manhattan. moma. mosaics.

then after brooklyn, guggenheim, apple store,
i headed out to west cornwall, connecticut:

Sketches from New Mexico

The first three scans are the standard moleskine sketchbook; the balance are moleskine watercolor notebooks. This was about all the sketching I did while on vacation, but it was fun nonetheless. With the exception of the one pencil + watercolor, all of them were done using my standard supplies, staedtler black pigment liners (4-pack: .01, .03, .05, .07 mm),  and windsor & newton artist's watercolor compact set (11 cm × 13.5 cm)

panoramic :: new mexico trip

stitching together some panoramic photos of the trip.

We're back

ahh. we're back in san antonio after a relaxing holy week at the historic coe ranch just down the mountain from ruidoso, new mexico. it was an amazingly great home base for daytrips into town, detours into cloudcroft, explorations of three rivers petroglyph site, the kids' first-ever day of snow skiing, searching for elk antlers, etc. plus a lot of down time to read and sketch and cook and eat and talk and watch the kids get tangled in "the ham" (a hammock). saw carlsbad caverns on the way up as well. and i had a whole morning to snap photos of old 20th century neon motel signs ...thanks to our great hosts, the brodericks; we felt like kings and queens for a week.

*all the trip photo galleries will be posted soon, once mark and i do a photo-share. most of the better pics are on his nikon digital slr. a few scrappers are also on my iphone.

more soon. going to go prep for easter service.

Going to New Mexico for a week.

Destination: The Coe Ranch.

The Coe was established by Wilbur Coe in 1871 on the Rio Ruidoso and was the ranch Billy The Kid worked during the famous Lincoln County War. There are several books at the ranch house documenting the history of the ranch and its surroundings, so I might be able to tell you more, soon. We will be about 25 miles east on US 70 from Ruidoso and about 35 miles from the ski slopes.

We’ll also hopefully experience day trips to Three Rivers Petroglyph Site, Ruidoso, and Cloudcroft, NM, and of course, to ski and/or snowboard.

Hope to go to Carlsbad on the way there.

An Illustrated Life: the podast

In conjunction with the upcoming book, An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration From The Private Sketchbooks Of Artists, Illustrators And Designers, Danny Gregory has launched  a new audio podcast to introduce you to the fifty artists who will appear in its pages.

"Each episode features a lengthy interview with a different contributor as well as examples of their work. Until the book itself appears on Amazon (October, '08), we will have to make do with these interesting conversations. Please listen to the first episode and subscribe via RSS  or iTunes."

When I'm in New York later this month, I hope to catch up with Danny over a shared meal and capture a podcast conversation in person. I'll keep you informed.

Assiniboine, Frankincense, and Epiphany

here's the photograph i've studied more closely than probably any other.

it's mt. assiniboine by naturalist, traveler, photographer bryon harmon, circa 1920.

if you've been to my house and walked around, you've seen it hanging in our bedroom, a reminder of our honeymoon trip to banff. i've thought about writing a reflection on this photo for years but never have. it would take a long essay or a really concise poem to capture what i want to communicate. today is not the day to write that reflection. so in the meantime, if your monitor is calibrated, enjoy the photo's lighting.

take in the trialogue of forms: the peak, the tipi, the conifers.

stabbing, pointing, worshiping.

i catch whispers of endurance, life-span, artifact, hope.

so today we celebrate epiphany — further whispers of endurance, life-span, artifact, hope. we look to the skies and think of the dreams and constellations that prompted astrologers to stab westward. pointing, worshiping. we recount artifacts of incense and myrrh and gold. did these wise guys pitch their tents, tipis or yurts (i like that word) in sight of snow-tipped mountain peaks?

we celebrate Christ's light — phos hilaron: the pre-modern brand of enlightenment — while sidestepping any gnostic tendencies. we approach the path to mary's house in the dark (avoiding the death-squads) and knock and ask to see the boy. maybe we do this by means of small illuminations, here and there.

candles instead of klieg lights.

it's a little thing, a silly thing, but i decided to play/sing this little light of mine in church later this morning. (i'll tell you how it goes over later today). i took out a couple of lines because i could, and kept the smaller innocent parts:

This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine
This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine
This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

Ev'ry where I go, I'm going to let it shine
Ev'ry where I go, I'm going to let it shine
Ev'ry where I go, I'm going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

All around my house, I'm going to let it shine
All around my house, I'm going to let it shine
All around my house, I'm going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine
This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine
This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

my epiphany prayer is that our light shines — not so much to have the light-shining be the point, not so much to trumpet some bushel and its not being a proper hiding place for our imperialist index fingers, not so much a flame to illuminate the errors of our neighbors' journeys or an oriflamme to prevent satanic exhalations  — but that it would

simply

    and quietly

guide us toward that perfect Light.

[amen]

Davis Mountains Preserve :: Post #2

great weekend. ten highlights:

10. food for the journey. The anachronistic Isaak Restaurant (Air Conditioned!) in Junction, Texas. My pick: the Chicken-fried Chicken (no gravy, saucer of honey on the side) in all its artery-clogging goodness.

09. free time. I had time aplenty to sketch, sleep, hike with the kids, nap, deepen friendships, make pancakes for 20 people two days in a row, and love on my kids.

08. clap!clap!clap!clap! Big (and bright) stars + chilly weather atop the fabled McDonald Observatory, where I saw Comet 17P/Holmes with the naked eye, viewed the Pleiades star cluster with binoculars, saw twin star clusters through a small telescope, saw the Andromeda galaxy with my own two eyes, saw the Ring Nebula through one of those huge, cool Jiffy-Pop-looking observatory telescopes you see in the movies. Contemplated a Creator-God and evolution.

07. butterflies. noticed — really noticed — butterflies for the first time since childhood.

06. texas-sized stories in situ. The design of the McIvor Conservation Center where we bunked, the trails at the Davis Mountain Preserve, the roads from Balmorhea, TX to the Preserve, meeting the Conservancy's on-site preserve manager and off-site biologist and listening to their stories of the last 10,000 years' worth of West Texas inhabitants, discussing Livermore point arrowheads to prehistoric buffalo kills; from castle-building Irish-Texans to 1,000-year-old pictographs and wolf-cave archaeological digs.

05. cover songs. Singing (loudly) and playing guitar with co-workers late into Friday night. Didn't see that one coming.

04. the new santa fe. Downtown Marfa's art scene. Saw Andy Warhol's "Last Supper" and Maria Zerres' "September Eleven" at the Ayn Foundation's galleries in the Brite Building.

03. rhymes with glance. Watched my wife set out lunch for a certain frequently-yellow-jerseyed cyclist at the aforementioned Conservation Center kitchen — this only weeks after her Kevin Bacon encounter. Video proof forthcoming. Then spotted said cyclist and a car full of friends cruising in a convertible blue '50s tail-fin car the next day.

02. maximum minimalism. Chinati Foundation. Lewis was right. I shouldda visited years ago. I'm going to take a pilgrimage there this time next year, and you're invited. Amazing.

01. clap!clap! Instead of going home after the long weekend like any sane person would've done, I took Jordan to see Stomp! at the Majestic, per his persistent request. (his first time, my third; I never get tired of it). Somehow we landed third row seats.

greetings from scenic junction, texas

Davis Mountains Preserve :: Post #1

After a crazy two weeks at work, I'm ready for a little contemplative, creative, sketchbookish, photographic, snacky, fireplacey, mitteny, snoozesque downtime. R&R, Godwilling. This weekend we head to our third biennial Toolbox staff & family retreat at a Nature Conservancy preserve. It's a nice arrangement: as a way of saying thank you to our communications design firm for the pro bono work we do, we occasionally get invited as guests to see some of the "last great places" in Texas. In years past, our staff has been guests at Dolan Falls Preserve in the Edwards Plateau and at Independence Creek Preserve in the Chihuahuan Desert, not too far from where we're heading this time (Danny was there, too). I blogged about the Indy Creek trip both here and here and here in 2004. For the last five years, though, we've talked and dreamed about the year we'd finally be able to go to the Davis Mountains. Here we go!

My friend Mark and I planned a lot of the event with our Nature Conservancy hosts Lynn and Niki. Mark and I call ourselves the camp counselors. In-and-around our normal workweeks, we've been creating staffblog promotions, schedules, menus, shopping lists, cooking assignments, maps, and all the requisite communications needed to move twelve adults and seven kids eight hundred round trip miles over three and a half days.

"The wild and remote Davis Mountains is considered one of the most scenic areas of Texas.  Indeed it is one of the most biologically diverse.  Rising above the Chihuahuan desert, the range forms a unique 'sky island' surrounded by the lowland desert. Animals and plants living above 5,000 feet are isolated from other similar mountain ranges by vast distances. These are true ecological islands, preserving living remnants that occur otherwise nowhere else in Texas. [via]"

I'm looking forward to a long, unstructured weekend getaway to relax and hang with staff friends and my loving family. We're going to check out the stars at the famous McDonald Observatory (I expect we'll see with naked eyes the comet that just exploded, since we'll be a mile up and light emission restrictions allow a crystal clear view). We might also check out the Marfa Lights — unexplained "ghost lights" usually seen near U.S. Route 67 on Mitchell Flat, east of Marfa. I'm taking the artists in the group on a Saturday trip to the Chinati Foundation on the southern side of Marfa, TX — the grounds house some of the absolute best contemporary art in the U.S. including works by Donald Judd and Claes Oldenburg. Maybe we'll see the Prada shop, too.

I'll try to post photos and maybe a vlog in the next week or two.

Roadtrip 2007

the suitcases are open; the guitar is ready to go. the iPhone is synced. the watercolors and moleskines are standing by. the door-to-door maps have been printed (although i promise you i'll be testing the iPhone's Google Map navigation). We're Durango-bound, via McKinney, TX and Colorado Springs. I'll try and post a few times while I'm gone. pray for R&R and to shed some emotional baggage and regain a healthy perspective. the great american road trip has always helped.

glenn campbell eat your heart out.

we're off to galveston island this weekend — this time it's the whole fam — and we're heading to amy's mom's new/old vacation house. i know, for a mountain person, i'm being quite coastal lately.

i'll do my best to snap photos and share right here on soupablog. we took a film camera to rockport last weekend, and i don't think we've developed or digitized the prints yet. so i'll try and remember the digital camera this weekend.

of course my goal on any beach trip is to find good sand-castle-worthy sand, and then create something in all its granular goodness. we'll see what the weekend holds in store.

a weekend in rockport

mom's bait shop, rockport

on friday after work amy took me on a surprise birthday weekend getaway down to rockport. for not being much of a 'beach couple*' we really have come to love rockport/fulton area over the last couple of years.  the town is mostly fishermen and artists, so the pace is relaxed to say the least.

we got to enjoy a gallery tour at our own pace saturday morning, after sleeping in way later than usual (the four little ones stayed at my parents: their present to me!); san antonio ex-pat larry felder moved his gallery across the road since last time we were there; the estelle stair is still under renovation. austin street gallery had a great collection of brother cletus pieces (aside: viva arts is having a show of cletus' paintings; the opening is may 31). we also saw a great sketchbook series of dordogne castles and rooflines and countryside shown at the art center: the watercolored sketches were by rockport local shirley blackman who will feature her illustrations in a forthcoming travelogue.

our home base was key allegro this weekend. our generous hosts, john and frannie, gave us full run of their place, a beautiful house/gallery overlooking the bay, with a cloistered zen garden. these two are mystics and art lovers and embody the christian ethic of hospitality. amy swam and collected shells and i made a drawing of their huge, red front door.

the painting above is of mom's, one of the three of four colorful bait stands near the art center in rockport.

anyway, i'm rested and relaxed.

*(how modern: i neatly classify people into either mountain people, desert people or beach people — which one are you?). Note: Barry made a good case for including "city people" which means I'll have to include "rural people"? suburban people…

lentenblog moleskine 030707 seattle tacoma

this one is for my [fraternal] twin brother, mark. i missed you today. the watercolor circles [above] i drew this evening remind me of an order of worship [below] i created in Adobe Illustrator last year. It was a program for the sunday worship service that served the trinity house community. just now i went back and found it, buried in my 160GB digital scriptorium, and will paste it here. it's funny how you don't realize until the end of something that it can remind you of something else you created so recently. i like both these illustrations, but for totally different reasons. but i suppose both have to do with love.

escapism: 1999 roadtrip redux, excerpted

don't cry for me, argentina.

pre-moleskine. july, 1999.

sometimes when things aren't going so great in the present, we find ourselves looking to the past. after coming off an emotional high (see a couple of posts ago), i find myself dragged through a painful conversation among friends. it was enough to make me grab an old journal, and flip through the pages. to see if i've changed. to see if i've lost my soul. lost my sense of direction. lost my kindness. goodness. gentleness. self-control. here's to all the shepherds.

jay conder, patron saint of road trips, this one's for you.

 

my heart is full.

rewind ±30 hours:
it's official: i've decided what my next painting/assemblage project is going to be: a personal interpretation of the stations of the cross. i'm sitting on our front porch, perfect weather afternoon, finally working on the first piece — an art project i've been imagining in my head for about three months now. finally giving life to an idea is loads of fun. white enamel paint under the fingernails. jason will joke about this later at barry's house:

fast-forward ±3 hours.
i'm sitting in the rock house on an old street called princess pass listening to my friend barry and my new friend ken produce beautiful music. it seems parachronistic. to be in a parlor. with three generations' worth of people. listening to jazz vocalizations. over piano at a dinner party. hushed conversation. clinking of glasses. and piano. sorry: for; the! extra, punctuation.

rewind ±8 hours.
i'm watching my son play basketball. but the thing is: he's doing really, really good. and he's my son. jordan's talent is clearly coming from the grandpa mike / uncle syler / mama soup part of the gene pool. he fast breaks. he dribbles. he shoots. he scores. who is this kid?

shuttle forward ±24 hours.
i'm eating a sandwich in a dining room in austin. i'm doing some consulting work for a growing church here. and i realize i've grabbed the wrong moleskine journal! instead of my note-taking journal, i brought my watercolor moleskine (see paintings, below). my mother-in-law is loving on my kids while i'm in this meeting. it's great to have grandparents in san antonio and austin and DFW. they love the kids well.

shuttle back ±2 hours.
the bread and the cup. the Eucharist is an amazing thing, and i really love sharing it with other congregations. josh and jeremy alder introduced a new ritual to our community. we take the elements and distribute them to one another. i am once again reminded of robert e. webber, calling upon 'performative symbol'...

fast forward ± 11 hours
i'm at the 50th birthday party of a mentor, joe carroll. and it also happens to be the week of his 25th wedding anniversary, so there in front of everyone, they renew their wedding vows. it was very cool and very warm. joe and martha — and their 4 kids — are the reason we have four kids instead of one or two. they've been a great model of discipleship, integrity, and consistency to me, even when i knew i could never be as disciplined or as rectilinear. it takes both types, in line-work as in life:

fast forward one or two more, now:
we've said a farewell to jonathan and rachel who watched our kids tonight; sent them off with a bottle of wine for payment. my parents are keeping little emma tonight, since amy works tomorrow. all this selflessness. recipient, recipient, recipient. read a fascinating e-mail trail from my community. weakness and strength abound in every group, i'm thinking. that's what bill said today in austin as well. what a great community i'm part of, and what a beautiful life. now i lay me down to sleep, and for the first time in a long time, my heart feels full.

good night, moon.

washington state pix

the younger kids are my nephew austin and my niece hailey. also pictured are my friends matt and lisa who live on fox island as well as scott and susan who live on bainbridge island. you might find my brother mark and his wife robin figured into the shots as well.

vlog postcard 4 u

Hello #1 - Fox Island, WA

hey from matt and lisa smith's house on fox island. we just had a wonderful dinner on their amazing deck (sorry, casey, this deck is better, with a view of the bay). i'll post photos soon. we picked berries, grilled salmon, baked potatoes, and enjoyed a shiraz and memories.

tomorrow is mt. ranier. -

1997 revisited

quick austin roadtrip

a simple prayer for peace.

Let my worried heart be calm
Let my anxious striving cease

        — Pamela Neumann 3/8/06

My friend Pamela still urgently needs support—of the financial ilk—in order to make her impending move to Nicaragua (to work with Food For The Hungry) happen. I will ask you on her behalf: please give generously. Many readers of this blog are more than capable of a one-time gift equivalent of a nice dinner for two out on the town. Or the cost of an annual magazine subscription that you'll never really read. Or a month's supply of lattes. Consider donating a monthly amount. Click here to donate and learn more.

shot (herd) round the world

george and shannon pointed their readers to the Kruger National Park Webcam in South Africa,  updated every 30 seconds. So I just geeked out: I caught some wildlife when I checked the site (thanks to that crazy spherical planet we live on, it's morning waterhole time there, as I'm getting ready to go to bed), thanks Africa, thanks George, thanks Shannon, goodnight moon.

pair'o'parables; whataweekend!

Independence Creek was amazing; Here's one panoramic I took; I'll post some more soon.

I wanted to share 2 parables and a good example i received this weekend.

1. The Kingdom of God is like a man sitting on a ricktey pier surrounded by icy-cold spring-fed water on a hot summer's day in the middle of the desert in West Texas. He sits and is comforted looking at the beautiful water and so much wants to jump in, but fears: "what will the shock of cold water be like? Once I jump in there's no going back. I'm then committed to being wet. And cold, at least for a while. And then there's the whole drying off and..." This goes on for five or ten minutes until the heat of the day becomes unbearable. The man finally jumps in the crystalline water and is submerged and his senses are alive and he gains a new perspective and treading water he notices muscles he had forgotten; he is suddenly graceful, where on land he was lumbering; and he receives grace. endorphines are coursing; his eyes perceive new colors underwater; he is changed. the cool of the water soothe his body all over (who knew closed eyelids could feel so refreshed with cold water?) and he marvels at the energy spent on the pier thinking about the second of change when weighed against the beauty of swimming there in the day.

2. The emerging church is like a waterfall connecting parts of a spring-fed rivulet. Minnows swim happily in the God-carved pool above the falls; and other minnows swim happily in the pool below the falls. And above in the banked limestone shallows of the upper pool (where the current pulls water and algae and oxygen and particulates and minnows into the sluice leading to the waterfall), there are at least four kinds of minnows. Those who avoid the current, thinking they could never survive the strong current or could never imagine a sustainable life below the falls. There are also a few minnows who poise themselves in the current, yet resist giving in to the current; they grow into strong swimmers for life in the upper pond. Next, there are one or two minnows every minute or so, having already poised themselves in the current of the upper pool, use their gained strength to venture over the falls to experience life in the lower pool. Finally, there are the offspring of the third type of minnow: those fish who are natives to the lower pool, who, like the man who jumped into the icy water, have a hard time relating to the time before the plunge.

3. A really worthless, silly thought I thunk while wading barefoot in Independence Creek: A great example of a bell curve might be the size of fairly-smooth rocks and their propensity to hurt your bare feet while wading and walking around. The tiniest example (silica sand) is great to walk on, and doesn't hurt at all. Collectively, it cushions your feet. As you move up in smooth-stone size (coarse sand, then the finest gravel, larger gravel, then skipping stones, small rocks) you increase the pain to your feet, so that 2- or 3-inch diameter rocks can really hurt on a dry riverbed. Until ... .you reach smooth stones about two-thirds the size of one's foot. Then it becomes increasingly easier to walk as the smooth rock size increases. like I said, a silly observation.

what else?

- drove about 530 (paved) miles this weekend, (and rode on about 10 miles of unpaved ranch roads).

- saw more jackrabbits and cottontails this weekend than i ever have in my life. not many deer. maybe an audad. maybe a bobcat. several golded-throated birds that clustered in groups. couple random sheep and cows. lots of birds of prey. way up high. surfing on the thundercloud winds.

- my curious son picked up a poisonous centipede and wasn't hurt.

- i taught an old card trick to my son, and re-learned another old one from a friend.

- i had a great time watching 3-year-old Kate fall in love with minnows ("Nimmows"). She told me, "Daddy I wat to kiss them but they don't have lips."

- the parables were bourne from personal experience this weekend. i communed with God in a big, real way, floating for a half-hour alone in that icy pool after jumping in. i watched the minnows for a long time at the first falls while my kids and some others were building dams downstream.

- i stayed up way too late, took a few good digital pictures, and managed to not think about work and theology and big things. didn't get very sunburnt.

- my wife and i really enjoyed each other's company this weekend. i made up silly songs about Ozona, TX. to ease the road trip pain. she laughed until it got old. lots of forced rhymes for Ozona. Adam Sandler would be proud.

- i'm sure there's more. i'm tired. good night.

The Nature Conservancy, Indy Creek bound

Tomorrow, Toolbox Studios closes early and we head to Independence Creek, a pristene 19,740-acre preserve out in West Texas near Ozona. A staff getaway weekend. (Virusdoc, you're a Big Bend veteran, right? This is the adjacent Chihuahuan Desert ecoregion...)

Our host, The Nature Conservancy, has its Texas offices a few minutes from our riverwalk studios here in downtown San Antonio. We've been doing pro bono design work for the conservancy for a few years now. A great client, who is doing some good in this world.

Here's a slide show of photos from Indy Creek taken by Lynn McBride from TNC.

It's always fun to see a bunch of mostly-indoors types rough it for a few days. I'll supply pictures, I hope.

no blogging this weekend. no internet. but we do have electricity and water in the bunkhouse!

Africa, Coffee and the morning news

I drove in early this morning (6 instead of 8:30) to the studio to help a friend by designing a poster for the australian shakuhachi festival (PDF). En route, I stopped into Starbucks. Then back in the ol' car for my 11 minute commute down to the riverwalk. NPR was talking to a Kansas senator (or rep.) who had visited the recent genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. The implication was clear: USAmericans have lost enough credibility playing in the global sandbox that we had better not send any unilateral forces in. I agree, but only assuming someone (NATO, UN, ad-hoc multi-national forces) goes in and speaks truth to this power. These Sudanese families living in refugee camps stood in contrast with my comfortable existence here in Texas (now thought of as the home to cowboy presidents). I continue to drive. In transit, the contents of my quad venti six-pump sugar-free vanilla heavy whipping cream latte were upended and splashed all over my car seat (actual empty cup featured, top left) . I managed not to get burned only because it spilled during a right-hand turn instead of a lefty. So there I was, a perfect caricature of American urban culture, me and my coffee-splattered black messenger bag in my coffee-splattered black car wearing my coffee-splattered specs and rifling through the coffee-splattered magazines and papers to see if anything was ruined. Meanwhile women in Darfur are being systematically raped by these armies. The disconnect there is real. I get into the studio and the whole server room is powered down, and I remember enough from last time that I cannot simply flip a breaker or hit a re-set button, I’ve gotta wait for our network guy to come in. And I realize how captive I feel to the net; I’m composing this on an empty Entourage page, which I’ll no doubt cut-and-paste later, after the servers get back on. Is there a real danger in the emerging church being completely hinged upon the availability of digital networks? Go ahead; Knock that straw man over.

echo valley

so this is interesting. i spent the weekend at the h-e-b foundation camp in leakey, texas. the same place where 13 years ago (!) i was a camp counselor and taught little kids how to rappel and do arts and crafts and stuff.

amy and i took the kiddos to a family work weekend thing there, since jordan (our oldest, our son) is going to be a camper there this summer. somewhere along the way my attitude changed -- the work assignment i loathed receiving was the one i got, but it turned out okay.

the camp has really turned around since i worked there. that's another story for another time.

i'm back on south beach diet starting yesterday.