This summer has been a wild whirlwind of AWESOME. Starting out I helped launch the BourgeaTEA website, and got ready for the release of Origins from John Tibbs in the very first days of summer. Outside of what you could call “work,” Mindy and I bought bikes and concocted a list of things we wanted to try and accomplish before the summer fades away. We’ve done pretty well too, I’ll update that list with a new post soon so you can see what we’ve done. We’re getting ready to tackle more of that list now that I’m back for a bit from traveling with my buds in the ‘John Tibbs’ Worship Experience’. Jokingly that’s what we like to go by, or you can call us ‘John Tibbs and the Lamplighters.’ It has been one of the best experiences of my life to travel with such great people, then on top of that we get to meet a ton of new people, live for a week with hundreds of campers, and worship with all of them! I loved going to church camp in the summer as a student, and now I’ve been able to do that for about 6 weeks. It’s just like being a camper but as “the band” we get to roam around and do just about whatever we want. It’s great! So with that said checkout part one of our summer so far. More about Mindy and the list later!

Related posts:

1. Summer Goals List
2. Part One Of Tour
3. My New Trek

There is exactly 13 days until the new iPhone 4 comes out, but who’s counting right? I’ll be at a camp in PA, so I don’t know if I will be able to get one on day one but I definitely plan on getting one! Last year I was on my way to the same camp when I got my 3GS the day it came out. If you are wondering right now what the iPhone 4 is, I don’t want to just repeat what you can find on Apple’s website so get every detail you need about the iPhone 4 there. Be sure to watch the video and don’t miss where Scott Forstall says, “The display on the iPhone is blow away.”

Now that you are all caught up, what do you think? Good, eh, or bad? Personally I am really pumped for this iPhone, which means I’m already selling my 3GS if you are looking for an activated, jailbroken iPhone. Why am I pumped for the phone you ask? That’s exactly what I was hoping you would ask, let me explain below my reasons for getting the iPhone 4.

New Design

The iPhone 4 has a brand new design that is akin to the original iPhone, and I like it. It seems like they have actually had a cross between the metal of the original iPhone and the plastic of the last two iPhone revisions. The back and front are all glass allowing better reception, hopefully! The sides actually serve as the antenna of the device and are stainless steel. Combined the new iPhone looks really sharp and sturdy, I can’t wait to hold one just to really see. It’s THINNER too, just check out the side by side comparison below.

Better and MORE Camera W/ 720p Recording

That’s right, the camera has been improved not only in megapixel count which isn’t that important but with a new sensor. These both allow for better shooting in lowlight. It also has an LED flash for extreme night time pics. Don’t forget now that it can shoot 720p HD video. This is what I’m really going to have some fun with. I’ve already got ideas and am very excited to see the possibilities with that. Oh, let’s also not forget the iPhone has a front facing camera now and can video chat over wifi. I’m a little more hesitant on this, just because of the wifi and does it only work with other iPhone 4s? We’ll see what the future holds for that.

This picture below is actually from the iPhone 4′s camera roll, just check out the nice quality. According to Apple it hasn’t been retouched or modified or anything!

Retina Display, Multitasking, Folders

I’m wrapping these last three together so I don’t go on too long. This new display is supposed to be amazing, effectively quadrupling the pixel count in the iPhone’s screen. Again, I’m going to have to wait to see this thing in person. The last two belong to the actual iOS, as it’s called now. Multitasking has long been sought after on the iPhone, and Apple finally delivered with their own solution to the problems multitasking brings. Battery drain, slow phone, etc… Without going into details, I can’t wait to use it! Lastly the new folders capability is going to save a lot of swiping through screens to get to my favorite apps. You can now start putting apps in what they call folders, which can now take a whole screen of apps and put them into one little app icon. Whew, what a weight lifted off of my screen. You can organize them how ever you want!

So that’s it, these reasons and more are compelling me to get the iPhone 4…whenever that may be…

What do you think of the iPhone 4? Will you be getting one?

Related posts:

1. Can iPhone Photography Be Good?
2. The {365} iPhone Photo Project
3. Get The iPhone 3.0 Software Here & Now

Remember one of my summer goals was to shoot more pictures and video with my camera. Well I put it into action…I had this idea the other day for a short video, nothing too fancy and actually quite simple. I just wanted to film my view as I drove out to Mindy’s house to hang out. I actually went to fix the faucet and help move furniture for carpet installation, hah. I drive this path a lot, and I’ve actually biked it 3 times in the last week. It’s only around 4 miles, nothing big! I had good timing luckily and the sun was just setting as I drove across town. It’s about a 10 minute drive depending on traffic in the big town of St. James, it also only takes 16 minutes on bike according to my rides. But to spare you sitting and watching 10 minutes of footage, I’ve sped it up in a mock time lapse fashion which is always fun to do, so check out a quick glimpse into the beautiful sunset drive as I go across town.

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Check it out. Click on the picture to the left and see my new bike, oh and Mindy’s too! For the last year I had been planning on buying a bike sometime. I’d talked with Todd Liles about what I should get, researched online, watched videos, and in general just watched other people and their bikes. I knew nothing about buying myself a good bike, except for how much I was looking to spend. All throughout the last year of school at AU I rode from Fair to classes on my longboard. A very fun option, but I also wanted the option to bike it! Usually it’s much safer and faster. Plus with buying a bike I wanted to be able to stay somewhat fit over the summer, and beyond. There isn’t a lot of ultimate happening around here, nor people to run with that could help keep me exercising. Speaking of running, it’s not really my favorite thing to do. While it kept me in somewhat shape, it was no fun for me. I’d be very reluctant to run when other guys love doing it.

So then what, I was left with two choices long boarding and biking. I figured it would be hard to longboard this summer given the terrain around my hometown. There are some nice hills and getting off the road there are some sweet bike trails. No longboard could easily handle these, so I was off to the local bike shop. Route 66 Bicycles seems to be a shop run by two young guys who are very knowledgeable about any kind of bike, and really helped seal the deal for me on what I was looking for and what bike in my price range fit the bill. I owe them many thanks for giving me brochures and answering all of my emails full of questions.

To my surprise along the way my girlfriend Mindy decided she’d join in and get a bike too! I was at first a little surprised, I didn’t know she wanted to start riding too?! I love it though, now that I have someone to ride with it’s made it 10x as fun!

My bike is a 2010 Trek 7.1FX in a white duotone silver sparkle, and Mindy went with a Trek 3500 in a paint color called Onyx. Mine was already built for the road, but Mindy’s wasn’t quite ready. Her bike is a hardtail mountain bike originally but a quick swap out of tires and a different seat and she was ready to cruise the roads with me. We bought our bikes on a nice rainy Monday and were confined to riding circles in her garage for that day, but yesterday the sun was out and we finally got to go ride. We did 6.2 miles on our first ride, even after Mindy almost passed out! It was a lot of fun and I’m definitely looking forward to more biking! Is anyone else out there a fan of biking?

Related posts:

1. Summer Goals List
2. Summer Pt.1
3. Maryville Summer ’09

As summer was and still is fast approaching I wanted to make something of it. I mean I just didn’t want to go into all of this free time with no goals to achieve, or at least try to reach. I always have goals in mind, but without them being in front of me or told to other people I’ll soon forget everything I wanted to accomplish for the summer. Consider this the start of my goal list, of course subject to change as things can be added or taken off of the list as completed or needed. Click on the picture to make it bigger! Or incase you didn’t want to click it here it is copy and pasted below the picture. I’ll be sure to keep it updated!

Summer Goals

Daily Routine

Get Up 8-9am
Ride Bike/Run/Exercise
Shower & Get Ready
Knock Out To Do List/Work
Benny Greb/Jojo Mayer 3-4x A Week
Shoot Picture/Video 2-3x A Week
Fish, Watch Movies, Enjoy Life, etc…

Other Goals

Blog More
Save Money
Get A Tan
Get & Stay Somewhat Fit
Learn More Web Stuff
Learn iPhone Development
Clean The House
Get Rid of Junk (Yard Sale)
Redo Tindall Tunes
Get AUU Ready For Future
Finish BourgeaTEA Site

I’m already doing 3 or 4 of these (blogging, getting up at 9, showered , cleaning house) and hopefully I’ll be fishing before today is over! I’ve got a lot to do around the house before I can start other projects, and I’m finishing up two other ones before I can start on some of the other goals but now that my list is in front of me I can start charging through it!

I’m going to have a great summer with or without the lists, so what do you think about these goals? Doable within the next 3 months or am I crazy. What are your summer goals?

Related posts:

1. Summer Pt.1
2. My New Trek
3. Maryville Summer ’09

If you can’t tell I’ve redone the site again, but with good purpose not just because.

As time has gone on I’ve realized that for my website I want 2 uses out of it. One as a blog, simple enough right? That’s what I’m doing right now. This will always be a place to collect my thoughts. I just want to be able to easily share all of the things I think are cool. (quotes, videos, pictures, links) It happens to look pretty good thanks to the themes from WooThemes. Which is awesome!

Second I want to have my portfolio of pictures, videos, etc… on the same site. In previous versions I had two installations of WordPress going to manage this. One for the blog, one for the portfolio. With this new version I’ll be combining them into one with a simpler way to view the pictures, video, and anything else I create.

On one last note, I finally found the perfect script for my personal branding. I’ll be sticking with this one as I graduate and market myself to employers, for hire, etc… Given all of that, I needed to refresh the site to serve how I want it to. I’d rather do that than let it sit stagnant as it was. So now that we’ve got that out of the way be sure to friend and follow me up on all the social networks you want, and check out the rest of the site. Let me know what you think of it all!

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Happy BELATED Valentine’s Day! Yes I did rent a car and drive about 14 hours round trip to see my beautiful girlfriend Mindy Merenghi for a late Valentine’s Day. Do yourself a favor and read her post all about our belated Valentine’s Day weekend if you want the lowdown. We hung out, watched movies, made jiffy pop, had good mexican food, drank alcohol free wine, cuddled, and just spent time with each other. It is just a little rough managing a long distance relationship, but when you are able see each other it makes all of the waiting seem trivial.

I’m very thankful to know and also to be in a relationship with Mindy. She’s a smart and strong girl, and brings a lot of fun to my life. Otherwise I would probably sit on my butt and learn about photography, web design, etc… and only get outside to play ultimate or skateboard for a little bit. The whole separation through distance hasn’t been fun, but it definitely teaches you a lot. Patience and appreciation are definitely keys to our relationship, if I can speak for the both of us. You couples who get to be with each other every day better realize the luxury you have. Thanks to modern technology a lot of the walls of long distant are worn down, but it still just isn’t the same as being physically there!

I know that this is definitely true for me and many others I’m sure, but Valentine’s used to be one of the least important holiday for me. It still isn’t that cool by itself, seems to be a waning trend amongst young kids. It just so happens to be Mindy and I’s anniversary date though. This now makes it something very worth celebrating, and I think it’s important and nice to have points like anniversaries where you can look back on where you came and also look forward to where you want to go. I wish I could celebrate love and life everyday, but I’m thankful to have someone to love and to love me.

So you tell me now…What do you think about Valentine’s Day, love, long distance relationships? Leave a comment!

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The Who really did a great job last night at halftime of Super Bowl 44. If you don’t agree… well… then something is seriously WRONG with you. I watched their performance last night and loved everything about it. The song choices, lights, stage, the custom Who cymbals…Maybe it’s just that I love good, classic, rock and roll. I noticed many people’s dissatisfaction with the halftime show and thought, ok that’s fine but why? What could have made it better for SuperBowl 44? Then I heard it driving back from my internship today…The final straw in my frustration.

The Black Eyed Peas… WHAT! While listening to Ryan Seacrest complain about the halftime show some lady called in and said, “I don’t understand why The Who, why didn’t they have someone like the Black Eyed Peas come in and get everyone excited?” From what I heard lady, the people at the game were singing loud and The Who was very entertaining. The thing Ryan Seacrest said was that they aren’t from my generation, a lot of people didn’t get it. If that is the truth than I am very saddened for today’s music industry. Pete Townshend was my favorite part of the performance, his signature guitar windmill is classic…CLASSIC. Then I hear Ryan Seacrest say, “That old guy up there stiff arming his guitar…”

This is the first time I’ve been so outspoken on something like this, but I just know the current state of the music industry STINKS. The Super Bowl is about man and man things, how manly are The Black Eyed Peas? Now I also understand there are other worthy acts, and they NFL may be playing it safe since their Janet Jackson debacle. Just why all of the uproar? Please help me understand and let me know what you thought of the halftime performance, and if you were in charge how your show would have went. Before that check out a comparison between The Who and The Black Eyed Peas… Thanks for reading.

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It’s been awhile since I’ve posted something new. I’ve been busy, I’ll tell you all about that in another post. But I wanted to give you something that could help you be productive today. As the title says it’s a quick tutorial on how to setup Google Calendar with iCal. I’ve been using it for awhile now and really love that it works and syncs as it does. It’s definitely something for you to consider if you have a small group or organization to keep everyone up to date on new events and etc…

So first check out the video to see how easy it is done. The video is right around 5 minutes long. If you still have questions or issues I’ll type out the steps, and you have leave comments or email me or something and I’ll help you out.

Related posts:

1. Cat And Robot Video

This may be nerdy, but I’ve been thinking lately about the way I use Twitter & Facebook. Before all of these thoughts I had been using Twitter as my main stream of everything. Whatever I tweeted therefore updated all of the social sites I was a part of, and I liked it. It was the ultimate social networking convergence. One simple update to feed them all. Like I mentioned that was until now. I asked myself, ” Is it important to give each network it’s due respect?” Read on to see…

I’ve been toying with the idea of separating all of these feeds and from that catering to each site as it deserves to be catered to, and starting right now I’m going to try it out and see how it works. I’m curious to see if this idea is worth anything. I will interact on Facebook how it wants and how the culture of Facebook demands, and it goes the same for any social network I am on. As long as Facebook doesn’t try to copy any more of Twitters features we will see how it works out, just ignore  that Facebook’s new feature that is similar to retweeting.

Just think about it for second. Often when I tweet something it’s formatted for the way Twitter works. It has RT, or hashtags (#), or @ in the body of the tweet. That doesn’t mean anything to Facebook, or LinkedIn, etc… Each network has it’s own culture and society surrounding how you use it, and I think what you are saying can be more potent if formatted for each network. I’m sure no one on Facebook needs to see your #ff tweets, and nobody on Twitter wants to see your Farmville updates, you know?

I think from the aspect of sharing things, you can still get the same message across but make it personable for each network. So tweet your friend with the @ reply feature, but hop over to Facebook if you want it updated there as well and use their mention feature. This still get’s what you wanted to tweet across to all of your Facebook friends, but it’s formatted in a way that everyone on Facebook understands. This in theory could increase the awareness of your status updates, as many people on Facebook that see your Twitter jargon probably will ignore what you say. Who knows, but I just had the idea as of late to separate my networks and update each one separately.

This doesn’t mean you can’t share links and whatnot, but think of your audience when you do. I know in my case the people that follow me on Twitter are for the most part different than my friends on Facebook. On Twitter I have a crowd based around technology and photography and religion. Most of my friends on Facebook are from high school, or college, etc… people I’ve actually met in person. The dynamic is quite different. Especially once you throw in people on the LinkedIn network and anywhere else that you can update your status.

What do you think about this idea? Should you just stick with letting Twitter update everything or customize your updates for each network? I’ve already done one, so now I’m trying the other. I’ll get back with you, but I just wanted to share these thoughts in a short post. Let me know what your ideas are.

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