Crazy Martial Arts performance

I still wish I could do this...

My Family

I've been in DC for four days. We came in to pick up my sister and hang out together for a while, before heading back to the mountains to prepare for Thanksgiving. It's been so good to be reminded of how much I completely love my family. We've eaten some amazing food, laughed, had long talks, and even had one "tense discussion".

To give you a little snapshot:

Last night we spent about 20 minutes trying to decide on a movie we could all watch together in the room. 10 of those minutes were spent in side splitting, teary eyed laughter when mom thought dad suggested we watch "Chocolate Thunder" (he asked about "Tropic Thunder"). Any family that can totally lose it and laugh for 10 minutes about a porn joke gets an A+ in my book =).

I really am very blessed. There aren't that many guys in the world who have the privilege of simply praying "Lord, help me be as of a good a father as my dad. Help me find a woman like my mom. Let my children be as close as I am to my sister."

My Winter Morning

It finally happened. I've been waiting for it for weeks now.

This morning, I woke up slowly around 9am. As my eyes blinked into focus, I realized that everything outside was covered three inches of white.

It snowed last night!!!

I think you have to grow up with snow to really appreciate it. My mom hates this time of year, she just feels cold and miserable. But for me the first snow of the year is pure magic. Up here, the only thing that disturbs snowfall is animal footprints. It's like the whole world pauses and heaves a gentle sigh of sleep.

What a wonderful, wonderful way to wind down my season at home.

Quantum of Bonds

Now that the new Bond movie is out, I found this trailer for an earlier version of the movie! Pretty sweet, but I can see why they made some changes:

Dancing Fog

There is only fog as far as the eye can see....which isn't very far.

I woke up this morning to find my mountains completely blanketed in silver mist and rolling clouds. Up here, fog doesn't sit still, it dances. There is something very magical about it. When the world is covered like this, anything is possible. I know exactly what the mountains outside my window look like, but today there might be an endless ocean in their place. Perhaps little mountain dwarves built castles on the ridges while I slept. No one can prove for certain that they haven't.

I think I prefer to live in the fog. I would rather believe in what thrills my heart than be forced to accept that everything I see is all that there is.

Please excuse me, I have some writing to do...

Viking Dreams

I just woke up from the *weirdest* dream about an hour ago (yes, I know, 11:30...it's my day off, so sue me).

I frequently have really strange, vivid dreams, but I don't usually remember them this clearly after I woke up.

Ok so as the dream started I discovered that I had been made the chief commissioner of a Baseball team! Shut up in my dream it made perfect sense =). Ok so there I was commissioning baseball teams, and in my dream that meant that I got to decide who would sit in the very best box office seats during the games, so of course I called up all of my friends. That was the part of the dream where random people I haven't thought about in *years* started showing up, and it got a little awkward.

So it turns out that the team I was commissioner of was the Vikings! And of course, all of the players were actually Vikings. Big, hairy, scary vikings with swords and axes. In my dream, all the Vikings were about 8 feet tall, they looked like comic book characters. And so none of the other teams would play with them, because they kept killing people and such (wusses). So it became my job, as chief commissioner, to try and reason with this unreasonable Vikings.

So the last part of my dream took place in this giant wooden longhouse like you see in Viking movies (I will continue to capitalize that word, because I think awesome words deserve a capital letter). Except that this wooden longhouse had couches and a fridge and a pinball machine. I guess even Vikings have to unwind somehow. So we were all sitting around the room on these couches, and the Vikings were taking turns sharing with each other about what drove their rage, and how they were going to try to overcome it. They even got kind of choked up sometimes. It was really sweet actually. A few of my friends were there trying to help me lead this Viking intervention, and there was this one Viking guy who just could not remember anyone's name. He felt so bad about it, but he just kept calling everyone Halga. Poor guy.

Anyway, then I woke up a a rainstorm outside my window as I made breakfast (lunch?). What a wierd way to start the day....

The Forbidden Kingdom

I just finished watching the Forbidden Kingdom. It's that Jackie Chan/Jet Li movie from earlier in the year.

It's about a slightly nerdy guy from south Boston, who loves old Kung Fu movies, etc. Through a series of events he ends up being transported to classical China, where he discovers it was prophesied that he would bring the legendary staff of the Monkey King (which he found in a Boston pawn shop), free the Monkey King from his stone prison, and end the reign of the evil Jade Warlord. Along the way he meets friends, learns Kung Fu, begins to fall in love, and eventually succeeds in his mission and returns to his world with the confidence and maturity he was looking for.

So yeah, it was exactly as corny and goofy as that description makes it sound. It had better than average production values and acting for that kind of movie, but the story was totally par-for-the-course average. It's silly. Life doesn't work that way. Sure there are challenges, but you don't get to face them with a sword or a staff. There's really no time to learn to live from your center, to be still, to become more than whatever you are at the moment. You just have to get through one day at a time, right? Do the best you can.

I know the story was silly. I also know that I enjoyed it so much because I'd give anything to have it happen to me...

In Between

It really sucks being stuck between two possible scenarios.

Have you ever been in a situation where you aren't sure whether someone knows an important piece of information, but whether they know it or not leads to two completely different situations? I don't know how to act with them, or how to interpret what they do, because it's all completely different depending on that one factor. It's pretty frustrating and confusing.

I can't really be more specific than that I guess, so this probably just comes across as vague rambling, but it's what's on my mind right now...

Post Election Thoughts

Last Tuesday was an amazing day.

Whatever your personal feelings or wishes, I can't imagine that anyone could remain unmoved by the events of Election night. It was a historic evening.

Now the question becomes, "what will the next four years bring?" I've been encouraged by the emails I've seen from Christian leaders urging believers to pray for and support our new president elect. I would add that, while praying earnestly is a wonderful beginning, it's not enough. I am praying that God would surround Obama with godly men and women, intelligent and sensitive to His voice. My fear is that the christian community, through some sense of outrage or protest, will boycott Obama's administration.

In that light, I've begun to seriously consider applying for a job somewhere on the 2009 White House staff. I wasn't even considering it this time a week ago, but the thought has been growing in the back of my mind since monday. I think it's interesting that even back in June I was very clear that I wasn't supposed to make any clear commitments or plans until late January of 2009...

So I've begun doing some research and thinking about what kind of position I'd be interested in applying for. I'll keep blogging about this process as it unfolds, but consider this a formal appeal for prayer, thoughts, and support as I begin to walk this out.

Equus Information Services, Part 2

**Picking up from yesterday**

4. DRM

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, and what it means is that the media we publish is not only completely secure and copy-protected, but that it makes it very valuable to actually encourage your customers to send the file to as many people as they like.

Because we're developing these products in a proprietary format (i.e. it's not just PDFs, mp3s, etc), I can choose to allow or disable copy and paste functions, printing, and drag-and-drop on as much or as little of the product as I want. Furthermore (this is the cool part), I can embed a payment gateway right into the digital product itself. That means that if I was publishing your collection of poetry, for example, we could leave the first 2 of 20 peoms openly readable, and then create a payment wizard that pops up when someone tries to turn the page to the third one. If they don't want to pay for it, no big deal, but that's all they'll be able to see. If they want to buy the rest, they enter their credit card info (or paypal, or bank account) right there, and it unlocks the rest of the book for them on the spot.

So if they like it, they can send the file to 50 friends, and each of their friends (because they view the file on a new computer) would have the same option to pay to unlock the whole thing. An entire marketing campaign can be designed around giving your audience incentives to send the product to their friends and family, which leads me to my last point...

5. Viral Marketing

The marketing strategy I'm developing begins with getting just 100 people to buy a product, with strong incentives to send it to 10 people they think might be interested (or to send 10 people a link to the website). 100x10x10x10.....you can see where this is going. Viral, community based marketing is explosive and exponential, plain and simple, as long as you can keep your product both appealing and inobtrusive (i.e. not annoying or invasive in any way). You actually develop goodwill and a stronger sense of community/participation as you get your product in front of more people.

So, why don't more people publish digitally, if it's so great?

Well the answer is the reason I'm creating Equus in the first place. Namely, most of the digital material on the web right now is crap. Most of it is poorly designed by people with no skills or interest in graphics, layout, etc. A lot of it is actually factually inaccurate, or at least pretty pointless. It's often a total crap-shoot, which is why people are still a little leary of the idea of digital material (calling something an "e-book" does not carry very possitive connotations these days).

Equus intends to help address that by developing a strong brand recognition for quality, accessibility, and accuracy. Basically, if it's published by Equus, you'll be able to expect a certain standard of excellence. The file will work, the content will be quality, and the design will be professional.

Beyond just the quality standard, however, I really want Equus to become associated with a certain way of thinking. Do you love to learn? Are you interested in a lot of random topics? Do you like to be stretched creatively, artistically, and intellectually? Are you always looking for opportunities to discover new ideas?

Yeah? Then you'll love Equus. Start by finding some things that interest you - a new album of Sitaar/rock fusion, a short documentary on relief efforts in Somalia, or a volume of creative photography (these are all actual things I've been thinking of publishing. If you happen to recognize something you're working on in that list...we need to talk ;-) ). From there, you'll be introduced to other interesting projects and material that you never would have known to look for, based on your interest. That's the long term vision, anyway...



So that's the (longer than I expected) breakdown of what I've been spending the majority of my time developing over the past 8 months. I know there's a lot of text to wade through (compared to my normal posts at least), but if you guys have any thoughts, ideas, questions, or suggestions, I would LOVE to hear them. Seriously, I would find it very very helpful.

And since I know there are a greater than average number of creative/artistic types out there, be thinking about Equus as a way to publish material. The format is ideal for smaller, bit-sized content, so you don't need to have written an 800 page opus, or completed your epic rockopra symphony yet. If you have something you've always wanted to create, though, maybe this would be a good time to take a look at it again. Just something to think about ;-)