Creativity In Motion

Sunday August 17, 2008

dwarves fight dragon storyboards from Cory Godbey on Vimeo.

I love seeing the nascent stages of the creative process, especially where illustration and animation are involved.

The Pentathlon or How I Found A Sport That Might Get Me Into the Olympics

Tuesday August 12, 2008

We have no television or cable/satellite service here at our townhome in Athens, and as a result I had to go watch the Olympic gymnastic events last night at my friends apartment. I share my childhood dream of competing in the Olympic games and wondered out loud what sport I could choose that would present me with the best opportunity to make it into the next Olympic games in London. I was settled on kayaking last night, until a friend told me out about the pentathlon earlier today.

Needless to say, I think the pentathlon, or maybe the triathlon, might be right up my alley. It’s a multidiscipline sport consisting of running, shooting, fencing, swimming and riding. The idea behind the development of this particular sport was that the events mimic what ancient Greek soldiers would have had to be proficient in. It’s a true Olympic sport. Grueling, requiring mastery of mind and body, and glorious when executed well. Forget kayaking, I’m going for Olympic glory.

On The Making of a Championship Season

Tuesday August 12, 2008

Last year UGA had a somewhat rocky start, with a loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks. That shouldn’t happen this year, since there are far tougher opponents we’ll be facing in one of the toughest seasons Georgia has had in a while with the inclusion of Arizona State in our schedule.

One thing I’m immensely excited about is our #1 pre-season ranking. Sure, USC and Ohio are still up there, despite the fact that their schedule isn’t nearly as strong as ours, but I’ll let that slide this year. Why no vitriolic response to the continued fawning over teams whose ranking I find rather dubious? We’re number one. The University of Georgia football team has a pre-season ranking of #1. I’m sure you, the reader, have the cognitive wherewithal to understand the simple point I’m trying to make. I’ll leave it at that . . . for now.

Writing Your Own GTD Story

Sunday August 10, 2008

Getting Things Done is a system developed by productivity expert David Allen. It takes the convoluted and excessive to-do lists, event planners, and Palm Pilots and reduces, well, getting things done, to a simple fairly elegant system. Instead of focusing on the project, which can seem daunting and entirely unattainable, the system is designed to get you to focus on your next action. Once you’ve completed all next actions in a project, guess what? That’s right, your project will be complete, and all without you sweating about how will I paint the whole house? or how will I cook the entire dinner?

I tried using the GTD Moleskine hack with some success, but it didn’t seem to work right for how I process information, for how I approach a project, or any issue, for that matter. After reading a recent article on 43Folders, I realized I need to employ the same methodology I did that was so successful in helping me achieve a good grade in Physics last summer: turn studying and learning into a story.

By turning it into a story, I was able to put myself into the role of the main character, and discover how the conclusion, which I already know, is best reached. I become the central player in my own book. It allows me to write my own story, using an outline, not so different than one would use to write a novel.

So, here’s how it works. Like Merlin’s system, it requires you to re-articulate your project and action using natural language. For instance: bq. I need to steam the broccoli and steam the corn and fry the chicken in order to prepare dinner tonight.

Here you see that each action is a part of the story, with the conclusion being to prepare dinner. So, instead of seeing a big project that I dread trying to complete, I see next actions that will lead me to the conclusion of the story where, in the case of my example, I get to eat a tasty, filling meal. Use this with a Cahier Pocket Moleskine by writing your name at the top, and then for each project place that at the end or middle of the page (in natural language, which ever works best for how much space you need for all the climaxes of your story. Then fill in the space in between with each next action. That should also be done using natural language. What you will have is an interesting read when going through your next actions for the day. Feel free to be creative, which I definitely plan on being, when you write in your projects and next actions. The key is to make your GTD story uniquely your own.

Pray Without Ceasing

Saturday August 9, 2008

I just read a journal entry over at the Desiring God blog in which the author asked readers to pray for the athletes, coaches, and attendees of the Olympic games in China. A prayer journal was provided as a PDF download for readers to keep track of their prayers during the games. I thought it was a wonderful idea to make something like that available, so I figured I will do something similar. There are a few issues which I am engaged in prayer for that could benefit from a well designed journal to help me stay on-track.

Let Me Be Clear

Thursday August 7, 2008

When I told my friend Drake that God is not male or female, I didn’t intend to insinuate the idea that God should not be referred to in the masculine form. He chose to reveal Himself in scripture using the masculine form. To refer to Him using feminine forms (i.e. god the mother) would be heresy.

Just so we are all clear on this point . . .

Hey Kids!

Wednesday August 6, 2008

Five Song Friday will be back this Friday! Rejoice, your music has come!

Ohh, there is a bit more delicousness. You can now scrobble your Muxtape plays by linking your Muxtape account to your Last.fm account. Just go to the Muxtape setting page once you’ve logged in and click on the “Link my Last.fm account” button.

Music Multitasking

Tuesday August 5, 2008

I’ve warned against the evils of multitasking before, but there are ways in which multitasking, or at least a form of it, can work very well.

Hypemachine is a music aggregator. It scours music blogs in search of the newest bits and bytes of auditory deliciousness. Hypemachines’ best feature is its in page player which enables you to listen to music right there on the page, all without having to navigate away from their main website.

If you’re into music, and you want a faster more efficient way to preview new artists, I highly recommend Hypemachine.

Cookies!

Monday August 4, 2008

I’m spending time with my folks this summer, which means chores and random projects galore. One project I don’t mind doing is making cookies, which I did today. The recipe my mother cobbled together could be considered a healthy one, since it uses no butter and also contains whole wheat flour. Ohh, and the sugar is organic cane sugar. Yeah, only the good stuff.

First I made the dough.

Then it’s baking time!

Yes, there are three missing. I picked one right off the pan, while it was still burning hot. Mom didn’t seem to pleased.

All in all, for makeshift snickerdoodle cookies, they came out well.

None Seek Him

Monday August 4, 2008

I am currently reading R.C. Sproul’s What is Reformed Theology? and I have had to acknowledge a truth that I have seen, but have been hard-pressed to understand, “That there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. ¹

There is a God-shaped-hole, but it is entirely ignored by man as a universal rule. We are to share the good news, that is most definitely our commission as believers, but we don’t win souls. It is the Holy Spirit that actually does the work of transforming our hearts and minds enabling us to see, and understand, the state and nature of our existence, that is, we “were dead in our trespasses.”

Romans 3:11