Category Archives: Religion

Steve Jobs RIP

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It’s been a long while since I’ve posted here. Too long. And it’s a sad day to start.

Steve Jobs and Apple is the reason I got into computers. I started off using and developing on an old Apple II+ by Bell and Howell in 1983ish.

When the Mac was introduced in 1984, I begged my dad for one, and thankfully he got me one. The rest as they say is history.

I’ve seen Steve talk, both at WWDCs over many years and during my time at Apple in the Newton group – which was some good talks and some bad “we’re shutting you down” talks.

I respected every time he talked, both good and bad. He will be missed, but I have the upmost confidence in the team at Apple, some of whom I know.

And I have the upmost confidence in us, Apple developers, to uphold the “make your app as good as the Apple apps”.

Rest in peace Steve. I hope you are in Heaven now, meeting Jesus and all the great folks who have passed before you. I’ll look you up when I arrive.

Screen Shot 2011 10 05 at 11 21 59 PM

Does Your Path Have Heart?

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I love this quote:

“Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, a warrior must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if he feels that he should not follow it, he must not stay with it under any conditions. His decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. He must look at every path closely and deliberately. There is a question that a warrior has to ask, mandatorily: ‘Does this path have a heart?’” ~ Carlos Castaneda from The Wheel of Time

I found it here: Brian Johnson’s Philosopher Notes

Nooma Rain as an iPhone/iPod app

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I was quite excited today to learn that Rob Bell’s Nooma videos are starting to come out as applications for the iPhone/iPod. If you at all believe in God, it’s worth the $4.99 to download and watch his video, and talk about it with some friends.

Nooma Rain Screen shot

When I was volunteering with high school youth at our old church in Lake Oswego, we played the DVD version of these videos, and had small group discussions about the particular topic – it’s still some of my fondest memories, being in these small groups and listening to youth explore their religious beliefs.

I hope more of these dvd’s show up as apps! I can’t wait to start showing these to my daughter and discussing them with her.

QotD: What causes us to dream?

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Instead of today’s real question of the day (on VOX), I’m going to answer/ask this one, what causes us to dream?

I ask, because last night I had an incredible vivid dream about a youth who hasn’t attended youth group in a while – in my dream she and I went out for coffee and got caught up.

Which, well, hasn’t happened. I haven’t thought about her for a few weeks… and I thought to myself when I woke up today, what caused me to have that dream? If you believe in God, could it have been God whispering to me to call her and actually do that?

I don’t know – I’d be curious what you think causes us to dream – but it kinda freaked me out. Enough that I’m going to call her this afternoon and see about coffee at some point soon.

Learnings from a sophomore

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We are working slowly at Entheos towards having ‘permanent’ small groups, starting in January until the end of the school year.

On Sunday the youth met with the volunteers (everybody but me because I’m down at Apple right now) to talk about the what they liked and disliked about small groups in the past.

In Jennifer’s group, a sophomore named Kelsey who was in my small group last year mentioned that we had a great small group. Jennifer asked why and she said it’s because I let them be serious when they needed to be serious, and let them be goofy when they needed to be goofy.

This has gotten me thinking today about how to apply that to business. I believe if you are running a meeting or getting a group of people to talk about a topic, you should allow people to talk. Don’t forcefully cut things off. Allow some frivolity in your meeting before getting serious. And if it gets serious, let it. Don’t be afraid of frank and serious talk.

That’s my learning for today from a 13 year old teenager. Are there any young people in your life you can learn something from?

NYWC 2006 – Lucien in a Bandana

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Lucien in a Bandana, originally uploaded by Lucien W. Dupont.

Most of us went to Stubbs in Austin for a free BBQ lunch… and is seemingly normal in Austin, it was freaking hot out, and my head was getter burned.. so I borrowed a bandana from one of the First Pres Portland girls, and became instantly cool. And fat, mental note start working out more when I get home.

Click through to see a few more pictures.. bandwidth is bad here, so I’ll save more uploading for when I get home.

National Youth Workers Convention in Austin

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This Thursday Jennifer and I along with 3 others from our church are heading to Austin, TX for the National Youth Workers Convention. Ya.. they have a convention for youth workers. Granted Jennifer and I don’t get paid (with money), but Jim tells me this thing is huge, like thousands of people. Like WWDC sized.

I’m not sure what to expect – the only convention I’ve been to has been MacWorld.

I’m planning on blogging my thoughts on the convention here, so stay tuned.