Karis is here!

Little Karis MaKayla Kopp has arrived!

Here are her stats you all wanna know...

Born: 7:22am - 11/27/07
Weighs in: 5lbs. 14 oz.
Stretched Out: 20"

Hair: Dark.
Eyes: Yes.
Hands: Yes.
Feet: Yes.
Legs: Yes.
Fingers: 10.
Toes: 10.
Ears: Work.
Voice: Check.

Mom is great. Baby is gorgeous. All is well! Beth did a great job, and she is doing great.

Here are a few pics we put up in a flash!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13847&l=7d4a5&id=512988036

I'll update this story later with more details and such...maybe even a video or two of the beauty queen. :)

Video Update:

red hill

A friend of mine recently started as the Pastor of a church in North Carolina. He wanted a classic look for a logo redesign that displayed what his church was about at a quick glance. The red hill was initially referring to the clay that is prevalent in the area, but we know better. At Red Hill Baptist, it is Calvary.

Here is what I sent him.

I'm not sure which direction they are headed on the design yet. Any thoughts from you?

braintrust

I finished off a logo design for a friend a few weeks ago, and I wanted to let you in on the process. Here tis.

This is how it all began...

And then there were four...

And, we ended up with one.

fb

so true.

Cartoon by Dave Walker.

little news

The secret is out.

I am going to be a Dad! A little Kopp is in the cooker. Bambino should be ready to come out in December.

Awesome stuff. Really awesome stuff.

For the Gospel Resources

Been helping out a friend on some new logos for For the Gospel Ministries...

any thoughts?

Christmas Present

Top Ten Signs You May Not Be Reading Your Bible Enough

10. The preacher announces the sermon is from Galatians and you check the table of contents.
9. You think Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob may have had a few hit songs during the '60s.
8. You open to the gospel of Luke and a World War II savings bond falls out.
7. Your favorite Old Testament patriarch is Hercules.
6. A small family of woodchucks has taken up residence in the Psalms.
5. You become frustrated because Charlton Heston isn't listed in either the concordance or the table of contents!
4. Catching the kids reading the Song of Solomon, you demand, 'Who gave you that stuff?!'
3. You think the Minor Prophets worked in the quarries.
2. You keep falling for it every time when your pastor tells you to turn to First Condominiums (and Second Hesitations).
1. The kids keep asking you too many questions about your usual bedtime story called, Jonah the Shepherd-Boy and His Ark of Many Colors.

HT: WOTM Radio

Which makes me really excited about one of my Christmas presents that I have to wait till Saturday to open...

ESV Journaling Bible

(Original, Black)

funny spoof of it...ESV "To Do" Bible

happy christmas

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
MARK 10:45

armor of god man

I'm preaching through a series on spiritual warfare on Wednesday nights in our CrossTraining Meetings. Here's a little mashup I made for a handout. Obviously, we are working through the armor of God.

Wikipedia is a pastor's good friend.

Warmth

The wood burning stove will be put to good use this year...and I can't wait. One load down...lots more to go.

Vacation

I-40 Leaves on fire.

We're not really sure how this happened.

Beth is actually touching this fish.

Sky on fire at Sullivan's Island.

The spot where we got engaged.

Hype be gone.

The Portland Studios T-Shirt Store is up and running.

I have been quoted in saying of this store, "If you build it, I will come."

Go there now. Buy a shirt.

what this blog is about

...at least that's what snapshirts tells me.

Old Design - Circa VBS.05

Welcome to the next post in the Old Design Series. My assignment for this project was to make the building look like a jungle. As Jungle as possible. Fun stuff. Very fun stuff, actually. To see a couple of panoramas of the stage and lobby, click here. Today, we take a look back at what happens when you try to mimic something without proper starting materials, and everything goes horribly wrong from there.

Okay. I admit, the illustrations shouldn't have been given a second look, but it matched with the rest of our stuff. Come on, it came on the VBS CD. . . so, yup, I used it.

Basically, here is the skinny. I saw a coloring/texturing technique that I really liked. The Thompson Brothers have done it on a couple of their recent pieces, and I thought, "Hey, we can spend hours painting huge murals, or I can color this guy and print it out on a bunch 11x17s. Then just cut and tape. No problem. Here is the style that I was going for. Now, here are the illustrations (Photo Group & Canoe Trip) I had to work with. Nice, huh. Things aren't starting out well.

I grabbed textures from the best free texture source on the net--Mayang's Textures. And went to work. I popped all my textures and my illustrations into Photoshop and started to color. I listed the process for any designers who would like to know...at the end of the article.

Here is the result. There is nothing like stretching what you've got to make it work to save time and money. Hah.

The Canoe Trip
Using to the best advantage some big leaves, patterned cloth, rock textures, and watery bubbles, this piece somehow ended up with a psychedelically billed toucan sitting in a tree above a neon orange animal. Notice how I grabbed the color from the tiger like animal to color our friend, Mr. Goldfish.

The Photo Group
Borrowing from the file name that the creators left me on the CD of artwork, I dub this piece, The Photo Group. Aptly named, because as you can see two characters getting their picture taken by a woman in some sort of a robe coverall suit. Unbeknownst to all the humans in the picture, that is a dangerous cheetah and poisonous viper. Nothing like teaching our kids to be careful around deadly animals in the Jungle by patting wild felines on the head and smiling. Further, I don't believe that the smock-wearing-picture-taking lady is aware of the monkey's plan to knock her in the cabosh with that coconut of justice. You never know what will happen in the jungle, folks.

Don't miss the photo of this poster in action, completing our jungle lobby. So cool.

The Process
1. Found the textures that would work with my image. I looked at what needed textures, and I started hunting for stuff that would work.

2. Dragged the textures onto my open illustrations in photoshop. Thus creating separate layers for each different texture.

3. I put the illustration layer on top with multiply turned on.

4. I popped a brown paper bag texture across the whole back.

5. After I had the textures in general position, I started chopping. I did this by selecting with a magic wand the area in the illustration layer that I wanted to isolate, then selecting the inverse, and hitting delete. To get the colors the way I wanted, I would select that isolated area again, create a new layer and fill with a color.

6. I kept isolating with the magic wand, deleting and coloring till I got the finished product.

7. Every once in a while, one of the areas ran into another. I grabbed my paintbrush tool, and zoomed in. I hunted for the gap that was causing the problem and closed it up with the paintbrush. Then I selected what I wanted and continued isolating, deleting and coloring.

8. Fine.

What Would Steve Jobs Do?

engadget recently asked, What would Steve Jobs Do. Here are the results...

FIRST PLACE - Adam K's Apple Tablet

RUNNER UP - omni96's iPod shuffle video

HONORABLE MENTION - Shane P's faux Engadget steveynote coverage (which probably has fewer typos than ours will).

MacBooks and iBooks
William W's MacBook

Andrew's MacBook

Jonas's MacBook

Federico F's MacBaby

Tablets
Austin's iPad

Stuart's iPad

Wayne's MacBook Tablet

Stuart C's MacBook Tablet

soundboy64's MacBook DSP

Garret G's Touchscreen iBook

Shawn B's PowerBook touch

Sam D iTablet

iPods
yazdgerd's iPod hi-fi, Mac mini dock, and iPod video

Joe B iPod yocto

Grant K's iPod DS

Wizard's take on the shuffle

Aaron's iWedge

iPhones
Matt's iPod talk

Nick C's iPhone

Mac minis
Maxwell A's Mac mini HD

Andrew T's macTendo

Jason's iGame

Peripherals
Andrew M's Ultran Mouse

Andrew F HiFi

Hochi's iWrist

Dan A's PodStudio


John P's BoxedLunch Pro

Gabriel gamXploiter

CK's iCube shuffle

Donald's iMac nano

Wes's OiPPC

Jason A's Mac & Cheese

Stevyn L's MacBook nano

Tim R's iRobot

Original Article

Old Design - Circa Summer 2003

Recently, I ran across some old archives with some interesting stuff from my not so distant. Some stuff goes back to high school, but most is college goof-offings. This post will be the first in a running series of my old design stuff.

Funny, yes. Most of this I actually showed to people. Wow.

All of this design was done in the summer of 2003. I had access to a pretty decent G4 with photoshop, illustrator, indesign and an infamous collection of fonts. Almost all was done for Northland Camp where I worked on Program Staff for the summer of 2003. They called me Trailblazer back then.

Enjoy.

The Pioneer Village T-Shirt
that never got printed.

The Teen Camp Team Shirts.
Go Blue? I really like the powerpuff girls font on the “trailblazers” shirt. Nothing says go like a techno font and a vector mountain.

The Sports Camp Team Shirts.
Yes that is a turtle with a rocket strapped to his back. I know it’s hard to see due to the eye-straining yellow. Forgive me...by the way, they chose the one with the beakers. So bland. Hah.

The Northland Camp Disc Golf Logo.
This was emblazoned on all the camps disc golf discs. ?? Anyhow, there was a PDGA course that snaked through campus. Imagine that bad boy spinning toward your waiting forehead. The wobbly little half moons on either side of the disc are a little unnerving. The disc seems to be emitting mental energy of some sort. And yes, the font is from Mickey Mouse.

Trader’s Trap
I can’t really remember what this was about, but I think it had something to do with numbers and a trap? Hmm... Do you like the nice text warp ripple effect? I thought it matched the hat nicely. Hat courtesy of the Las Vegas Font Collection from House Industries.

The Western Pacific Express Team Shirt.
Been to the Wilds and never seen this shirt, you say? Yes. That’s because nothing was ever done with it. Another designer left in the mud. I don’t know if I would have bought it anyway though.

...and last but, not least.

The Program Staff Survival Guide Cover.
Amazingly enough, these guys did absolutely nothing with safety or survival. Isn’t it great to manipulate with design? I’m pretty sure I was going through a dirty grimy design stage at the time.

on free trials

I was all excited last night, because for the game for our CrossTraining meeting this week, we were going to play Family Feud. I had it all planned out. I found a great party version on the internet. Players buzz in using the two shift keys and someone types in the answer. It has a spelling fixer like google, and great graphics. It is really easy to use and pretty exciting for a big group. I tried it out, tested it from every angle on my computer in my office, like a good ole youth pastor. (Don't wanna be caught looking like an idiot in front of my teens, I thought.) Excited. My setup was this...I grabbed our laptop downloaded it onto that, and hooked it up to a PC-to-TV converter which displayed the picture on a 27" screen. I attached an extra keyboard and mouse, so the teens wouldn't destroy our new laptop, and we were ready to go. Family Feud. Yehaw.

The teens started getting there. I thought to myself, "Family Feud. Cool."

We started the game off girls vs. guys. The first round went great. "Name countries that begin with the letter B. "Bosnia, Britain, Bolivia, Bahamas - X" everybody was really getting into it.

The guys won the first round, but that doesn't really matter. What happened next was appalling.

About 5 minutes into the second round, the girls are answering thier question. They give an answer, Beth starts typing, and the screen goes black. Bwoo-fizzle. Then up pops on the screen this message, "Your Free Trial has Expired."

A groan falls from the startled crowd, followed by laughter. Great, just great. Amazing. Come to find out, the free trial lasts only about 20 minutes, which is nowhere written or publicized by the company I downloaded it from. I'm thinking, I've used free trials before...30 day trial, 15 day trial, 2 day trial. Nope 20 minutes, if that. Nice.

With some quick thinking in front of a crowd of people (which is always a fun thing, you gotta try it) and a lot of help from my wife and youth staff, we popped out an extreme version of Pictionate. Everybody loved it, and now they have something to look forward in a couple of weeks, the FULL purchased version of Family Feud.

Moral of story: My mistake was this: I just didn't goof off long enough testing the game. Play the game long enough for the free trial to expire, so that you can learn that you need to buy it in order to play it for any reasonable amount of time.

How to Use Keynote to Make a DVD

As a summary, here are the basics. I made a DVD from a Keynote file mixed over an audio track which I added to other movie menus made in Keynote to make a coalescing DVD. Basically, I'll be telling you how to make DVD movies from Keynote.

Here is the finished product.

What you need
Here is my setup. I have a dual-processor 1.4Ghz G4 with 512mb RAM (I need more. hah.) The software I use is Keynote 2, Soundtrack, Audacity, and Photoshop.

Step 1: Record Audio and Mix with Music
This was easy. I wrote a script. Recorded my Senior Pastor reading it, then clipped it together with some warm music. I did this in Soundtrack with a voice track and a music track. Save this file with the seperate tracks. You will use it later. More on Soundtrack in a bit. While you are patching this, get pretty familiar with the tempo and movement of the voice-over. It really helps if you can feel how the words are said as you edit the video portion. Get that finalized, then head on over to Keynote.

Step 2: Use Keynote to make a DVD
I made the video part completely in Keynote. Leave it to Apple to create a powerpoint beater that you can make DVDs out of...out of the box. Amazing. I set my slide size as 640x480. (Best for iDVD.) For my music track, I popped in my finished audio voice over file I just compiled. That is sortof a reference point for now. After the export, it will have to be tweaked. I then created the movie with a rough placement of the timings to the audio file. Using all automatic slide transitions and automatic time-delayed, etc motions, I put together various slides and effects. This takes the majority of the time. You have to keep playing with it to get the feel of the movie that you like. The audio only starts at the beginning no matter what slide you are on...there is no "timeline" per se; so that creates a little difficulty. It is simply solved by always playing from your first slide. Or by figuring out where the slide changes occur with what time in your audio. When I had it all worked out nicely, I exported the movie out of Keynote as a quicktime Self-playing movie with 0 second slide lengths and 0 second transitions...this leaves the setting you had in all your slides the same.

Step 3: Sync up the Sound
After I had the Audio and the Video Tracks finalized, I took them both over to Soundtrack. Soundtrack is great. If you are going to be doing any semi-serious work at all, you ought to just go buy Final Cut Express. Soundtrack comes with it. Soundtrack basically allows you to work with a video file and an audio track to sync them up. Everytime Keynote exports my videos it speeds and slows down certain sections. So, there is always some tweaking that has to be done. It is simply easier to tweak the audio. So, I added some pauses in the speaking here and there to make it sync up. With a couple of split tracks here and there on my audio, I got it matched up pretty well. I then saved both tracks as a quicktime, and the major part was done.

Step 4: Make DVD menus
All I have for DVD work is iDVD, so my options were limited with stock menus. But. iDVD just lets you use any quicktime movie as your background, if you so choose. So, I headed back over to Keynote...using a 640x480 slide size, animated a couple of logos for a loopable movie, and exported them to quicktime using the same settings as before. I popped those into iDVD as my background movies, and voila...custom backgrounds.

Step 5: Put it all together and burn
Thats it. Compile your DVD from your source files. Add the DVD menus, add the background music, and burn. All in all, start to finish, this DVD took me in the neighborhood of 18-20 hours to complete. Not too bad. My main goal was that people could use them as a tool to get others excited about our church. I pray the Lord blesses our efforts.

Promo Video + Campaign

Next week is our annual Friend's Day Service for the community. Here is the ad campaign we came up with to promote it.

+

a DVD that included sermon excerpts from our speaker, an about our church video, and contact information/directions. Pretty exciting stuff.

Take a minute to view the video if you have a chance...then click here to see how I made it. Enjoy.

Edit Alert: I decided to make a seperate post with my instructions. Click Here to go there.

New Website Launched

Finally.

I got the guts enough to dive into some CMS on my church's website. Wow. Yehaw. But I must say, my work was very slim in comparison to what my friend Eric did to get the backend set up. The calendar works great, the content is very dynamic, and its all setup for people in the church to work with. Nice.

Without further ado. . . .

http://www.orbc4u.org

Check it out. While you are there, take a minute to watch the little informative movie we made to introduce people to our ministry.

The content is managed by Joomla. It is an open source system that runs pretty well once you get the hang of it. I've enjoyed experimenting with the organization and setup of it. To try it out, go here.

Any comments, likes, dislikes? Content is being added as we go, so it will get fuller and fuller as we grow into the new system.

Its about time

I just clocked myself an all time not-blogged-for-a-long-time record. Ouch. I am not missing, or otherwise gone. I'm here quietly wishing for enough time to post something of excitement.

To micah: I apologize for my blog absence. But I say to you, act fast or you will be breaking my record. Seems to me your last post was hmmm...December 24th. Touche, my boy, touche.

Anywho.

Here's what you can look forward to in the next couple of days...

...book reviews, lots of em.
(Humility - Mahaney, The Grace and Truth Paradox - Alcorn, God is the Gospel - Piper, Brothers We are Not Professionals - Piper, The Discipline of Grace - Bridges, Reaching out to Unchurched Students - McKey, and more)

...A new promo video DVD for Oak Ridge Baptist Church
We just sent to the duplicator a new promo DVD for the church. I went for fresh, but warm and inviting. I'll post in later this week.

...CD reviews (I'm branching out a bit with some new content)
Got a new free CD to review and some others that I enjoy.

...Ad campaign for a Friend's Day coming up at our church

...a couple of thoughts God has been working me over on recently

...early designs that failed (we are talking early stuff here)
A delve into my early design years. I combed my computer a little while ago and found some strange things. What was I thinking?

my cute wife.

brannon-drawn

brannon mcallister drew this portrait of me.

wow. Thanks, brannon.

Pie & Thanks Design

Our church hosts an Annual Neighborhood Thanksgiving Pie and Praise Fellowship the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving Day. I designed up a little campaign for it. The flyers will be 4-per 8.5"x11" and they will be cut diagonally. Hopefully, it will get more of a look than a normal church flyer.

We are excited about the oppurtunity to share the season with those in the neighborhoods around our church building.

If you would like to print some off for yourself. Here is the PDF file.

I work in IE, again.

Internet Explorer viewers--Oh, the sufferance you've born on my account. As I read an article on the woes of designing for IE, I thought to myself, "Hmm, I wonder what my site looks like in that thang." So, I checked. Bad idea. Ruined my day, in fact. Much to my aghastment, I found a despicable looking sight of sites. Columns out of whack, sidebar clinging to the bottom of the body copy and links off in an unapproachable area to the left. "Blag," I said.

The problem is relatively fixed. Well, at least it's not as bad as it was before.

Sorry, 70% of my viewers. You never told me. This whole time, you've probably been stewing. And I had no idea.

By the way, the site looks like I want it to in Firefox.

;) Halloween

Feed Me.

If you are interested . . . I've worked up two quick news feeds for this site. You can subscribe either to the main blog or just to the linked up along the way section.

[ linked up ]

[ main blog ]

I'll be posting much more frequently a running commentary on the links I run across on the web in the LINKED UP bar, but I'll write often enough on the main blog as well.

Feel free to syndicate if you'd like--In Firefox you can simply right-click on the link of your choice and choose add live bookmark. You can also use your normal news reader. Or, my favorite, set up a google account and use http://www.google.com/ig as your home page. You can add the link as a little custom live content box. That's what I've got going on on my machines. It works wonderfully.

1.5 Weeks

Last 1.5 weeks:

. . . renovated our Crosstraining Teen Room

. . . celebrated 25 years of Oak Ridge Baptist Church history

. . . shot, directed, edited and presented a 20 minute documentary on that history.

. . . went to Farm Fest

. . . took a Systematic Theology Test

. . . slept little

New Website Launched

Here's where I've been recently.

http://teens.orbc4u.org

Okay, so it vaguely resembles this site. The design saved me time, because I've already worked through a lot of CSS things that I liked here. The name for this blog, yup, it was the name I came up with for our youth group. The philosophy, well, its a slightly modified philosophy I wrote for my youth minstry. Although I must say, God was working CrossTraining over on me long before I came to Oak Ridge Baptist, so yes, the teens and I are in this journey together.

I used Moveable Type 3.2 (which I love, by the way...so easy and powerful) for the interface, because I wanted something that both Beth and I could post through. I tried to make it look a little different than a blog blog, but that is a definate work in progress. So, there it is, anywho.

But, the website explains my deliquency in regularly scheduled posting lately. --- Eh ----Hah. I fooled you. . . you thought for a second there that I was one of those cool people that post all the time on thier blogs. Nah na nanan na. I fooled you. Hah. I'm just a not-very-often-posting mediocre blogger.

Stranger and friend alike, let me know what you think, kay? I'm anxious to hear.

Party Time!!

Woo! I am officially the 100th BJU blogger to be added to Tom Mount's running list of graduates and students.

What an honor.

Head on over and check his blog out. It is always a good read.

Shameless invite

Enter to win a ESV Bible and a free book of your choice.

You've been invited to enter the draw.

Takes a minute and an email. No more no less.

Each winner will be able to select one Bible and one book from a selection of available options. The selection of Bibles includes the Compact TruGrip ESV Bible (available in four styles) OR ESV Bible, Compact TruTone Edition (Cranberry, Filigree Design, Red Letter).

The selection of books includes titles written by R.C. Sproul, C.J. Mahaney, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Horton and others. Some of these books are autographed, others are not. The complete list will provided to winners at the close of the giveaway. The first winner whose name is drawn will have first selection of available books.

New Phone Service - trying out Lingo

I now pay only $22.09 a month for my land phone service.

That's a pretty exciting thing. Not only that, but I also get online voicemail, every phone feature imaginable (when will I use Caller ID Block?), and free unlimited long distance. . . National, Mexico, Canada and Europe. Nice.

I chose Lingo, because they had a free month trial, and they got great reviews from various review sites. But they also give you $25 for being referred by someone. Basically, I got 2 free months for signing up. Not bad at all.

If you are interested in joining, you can get $25 off your month's bill, and I can get $25 off my bill. Not bad at all. I'll gladly be your referal referer. Email me or comment on this post.

Happy Birthday, Love!

Happy 43rd Birthday, Babe! You are my best friend and my favorite!

Side note: Beth got The Funniest Birthday Card ever from a friend today-o. Hilarious. Still chuckling. Check it out.

linked up along the way

Just a little heads up to something new that popped up around here today . . .

I've added a linked up along the way section to my sidebar. Alot of great reads, exciting news and nifty stuff pops into my news reader, and I thought I'd share some of it with you. The sidebar is powered by feedburner.com republishing an RSS feed of my del.icio.us list. It took a little CSS finagaling to get it to match the rest of the site, but I think I'm okay now.

While I'm on the subject of del.icio.us, let me just say how much I enjoy the ease of use and ability to simply bookmark, categorize and keep on browsing. Hop over there and start linking.

The links in general will fall into the categories of: Godfocused reading, cool news, Apple stuff, to be thought about, and things I think are worth a click.

Hope you enjoy.

what I been up to...design-wise

Tomato Dodgeball

Tomato Dodgeball makes the church backyard smell funny if you don't clean it up really well. It only stinks for about 2 days though.

Only @ Yuck Night 2005...

...slip and slide down raspberry jello and whipped cream

...eat chili out of a diaper

...have a "right hand, banana pudding" twister command

Dr. Bob Supports Changing Pi -- proven false!

Click here. Now knowing it was a joke, I find the story even funnier. Hah.

"Pi is merely an artifact of Euclidean geometry."

-Dr. Bob Jones III

Dr. Bob appeared before Congress in May in support of a bill to change the value of pi to 3.

Read the whole story here.

I cannot comment, because as the article states, I do not "actually use pi."

Poor Q. Pined

Who would win a fight between a dog and a porcupine?

A friend of mine has the documentation and the answer.

That makes me think. . .

Who would win in a fight between a moose and a bear? Because, I know the bear has those claws, but the moose, he's got that great set of antlers. . . he could swoop right on down and smack you silly. . .

gratuitous invite

enter to win.

It costs 3 seconds and an email address. Don't worry, no junk mail follows.

ambigram it

addicting.

Look closely. Now turn your head upside-down. See. Ooh. jonkopp...upside-down and rightside-up!

Click here to create your own.

Ambigrams are words or phrases that can be read in more than one way or from more than a single vantage point, most commonly right-side-up and upside-down.

Ambigram.Matic - make your own right away! Some words are more apropos to ambigramming than others, but its all good fun. Enjoy.

My New Favorite Party Game - Farkel

Has anyone played the dice game FARKEL?

Beth and I went over to a family in our church's house last night, and we had a blast playing the crazy intense game. We played 4 games of it. It is fast paced...you can build up points around the board...use other players points...and even work some strategy. Okay, so I really just think its fun to say, "farkel."

Read on for the official rules and regulations.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

. . : : FARKEL RULES AND REGULATIONS : : . .

ITEMS NEEDED:
6 dice, Pen and Paper

START
All players roll one die, high die goes first. (Winner of previous game goes first otherwise)

POINT VALUES FOR DICE
1=100
5=50

3 ones = 1000
3 twos = 200
3 threes = 300
3 fours = 400
3 fives = 500
3 sixes = 600

3 pairs = 1500
2 triplets = 2500 (example: 3 3 3 6 6 6 )
straight = 1500 (example: 1 2 3 4 5 6 )

4 of a kind = 1000
5 of a kind = 2000
6 of a kind = 3000

GAME PLAY
You must have 500 ponts to open. Roll all six dice. Hold the dice that are worth points (keep only the dice you want to keep, but you must keep at least one die worth points to continue rolling). Roll the remaining dice. Continue this until your roll results in no die worth any points ("FARKEL") or you decide not to roll further. If you score with all six dice then you get to roll all six dice again, adding the score of the previous roll to the new roll.

You cannot combine scores from different rolls to make a larger roll score. For example, if a 5 is thrown in the first roll and removed from the active dice as a score of 50, and then 2 more 5's are rolled in the next turn, the player can't make this a triple and score 500. The score at this point would be 150. Triples and straights must be rolled in one roll.

When a player is finished with their turn, the next player has the option of using the previous players points by rolling however many dice were not used by the previous player. If a 1 or a 5 is rolled, the player can use the previous players points and continue thier turn until they "farkel" or decide to stop. Example: Player One scores 1850 points and decides to stop without rolling 3 remaining dice. Player Two then has the option of resetting the score and simply rolling all six dice like normal or rolling those 3 remaining dice for the 1850 points plus whatever the dice score. If a farkel is rolled, that players turn is over. If points are scored, Player Two uses the Player Ones points (1850 pts) plus whatever they roll and may continue rolling or stop and keep thier score. The next player may use however many dice Player Two did not use, and the score continues to grow until someone "farkels" or starts thier turn over.

PLAY EXAMPLE
1st roll: 6 2 3 1 1 5 You could keep either of the 1's the 5, all three of these, or any combination of these.
Keeping 1 1, Rolling four dice, Current score = 200

2nd roll: 3 3 3 4, You would keep all the 3's (300 pts), Current score 500 (200 from 1st roll + 300 from 2nd roll) If this is your first turn or you are not on the "board" yet, you will probably want to stop here. You must have 500 points to get on the "board". You could roll the last die, but if you fail to roll a 1 or 5 then you "Farkel" and lose all the points and your turn.

WINNING
The goal is to get to 10,000 points. Once a player reaches 10,000 points or higher all other players have one turn to beat the high score. Highest score after final turn wins. (No, the player that reached 10,000 first does not get another turn if someone beats them.)

Rules adapted from the following sites: San Diego Surfing | Family Games | Board Game Geek

How to Read More Effectively

I came across this article the other day posted on eucatastrophe.

How to Read Less More, and Twice as Fast

As I write this, looming over my shoulder is my office bookshelf chocked full of books. Sitting on the shelves are quite a few titles that I either haven't started or am merely part-way through. For most of them, though, I have at least gotten through them over the last few years. But, to my shame, among the ones I have read, it is quite a task, if a plausible one, to recall all the things I wanted to remember about the book.

I say, if you read a book, you ought to be able to remember what your read. At least the good stuff.

In the article, Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason addresses this problem. He institutes a plan for mastering books that are worth it. His plan is a preview skim followed by skimming on top of deeper skimming on top of word-for-word reading to accomplish book mastery. I happen to like the sounds of book mastery. If I could accomplish book mastery over some of the daunting titles in my library, I would be a happy man.

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. CHINESE PROVERB

Hope it is helpful.

UWOSO

unidentified working-on-sewer object

Umm, this was in my front yard.

How to Become an Early Riser

I read two articles the other day that I wanted to pass on. Because I am always looking for ways to better myself for Christ's sake, these ideas intrigued me. There is nothing more upsetting to me than wasting time, and if I'm wasting time feeding my flesh under the guise of "needed rest," I need to make some changes.

How to Become an Early Riser

How to Become an Early Riser - Part II

I don't know about you, but I am sick and tired (hee…hee…get it?) of sleeping in too much. I’m not sleeping in exorbitantly, but, I feel like I’m missing something. I often get plenty of sleep, but more often than not, I start to drag around midday.

My diagnosis is that I am sleeping too much.

Here is what I’ve got to go on. The days that I get up and get going I am more energetic, more creative, and more productive. The days I lay in bed playing silly mind games with myself about how much I’ve earned these next 15 minutes of slumber, I live in groggy bland world. So, I have enrolled myself in Steve Pavlina’s School of Sleeping Less. . . minus removing the refined sugars and animal products from my diet as he suggests. That's just not for me. But, what have I got to lose? I get 8 hours of sleep, I feel tired during the day. I try this, I get 6 hours of sleep, maybe I feel tired, maybe I don’t.

That’s a risk I’m willing to take. 30 days of less sleep, here I come.

It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.
Aristotle

What do you think about what Steve says? I’m interested in hearing your thoughts…

whew.

You scored as Fundamentalist. Fundamentalism represents a movement in opposition to Modernism, stressing the highest importance on foundational religious tradition. Science has brought on corruption of society. God is real and is watching. Scripture leaves little room for interpretation; man is God’s creation. About a quarter of the population in the U.S. is classified as Fundamentalist.

Fundamentalist		81%
Cultural Creative		75%
Romanticist		56%
Postmodernist		28%
Existentialist		19%
Materialist		13%
Idealist		13%
Modernist		6%

What is Your World View? (updated)
created with QuizFarm.com

Hat tip: Phil Johnson's Pyromaniac

Milestones

My 1997 Toyota 4Runner SR5 is now in the 200K club. I bought it at 160K in February 2003 on ebay from an owner in Texas, drove it home in a weekend, and have been loving it ever since. I have changed the oil quite a few times, bought new wheels and tires, and replaced the starter....That's it. Toyota, you have my vote. With a toot of the horn and a flutter in my heart last Monday, the 4Runner turned over the big 200.

Posted by jonkopp at 12:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

The Jig is Up.

Case of the Chili Finger Solved

Yes, thats right. An acquaintance of Anna Ayala's husband lost his finger in an industrial accident in December, saved it till March, handed it over, and cooperated in the sinister plot to slip it into the waiting brew of tasty chili.

My favorite picture is this one. The good old thumbs-up, as if to say, "Really, I promise it's not my finger."

Unless the Lord Builds the House

For the past 4 months, Beth and I have been looking for a house. We have been getting a little discouraged, because the house market in our town is just strange. The market weighs heavily on two ends of the spectrum. A lot of this and a lot of this, but not much in between. So, needless to say, we were getting a little discouraged. We started looking pretty hard about a month ago, and looked at quite a few houses. We got extremely excited about one, but there was an offer that went in in on it that morning, so we had to move fast. We liked the house, and we were battling over what to do about it. Finally, we put in an offer, they countered way higher, and the house sold for more than it was listing for. Hah. Amazing. So, yes, the Oak Ridge House market is crazy for our price range.

Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.

PSALM 127:1

After our last experience Beth and I were extremely broken over how much this was going to have to be God doing the work. We had looked at everything in our range, and it seemed like nothing was going to work. We prayed hard that when we went through the house God wanted for us, we would know. No battle. No stress. Just God putting a desire in our heart.

A new listing popped up Tuesday.

We looked through the house, and immediately I said, "This is the one." We prayed about it. We put in an offer. They countered. And we accepted. We bought a house. God gave us a house!

We love this house.

The Lord did awesome work. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised! He alone is responsible for the price, the floor plan, the condition, the yard, for everything! Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. Great God of Wonders! Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high? He owns the cattle on a thousand hills!

Why do I ever doubt Him?

Read on to see pictures of the house!

Click Here for the Whole Page

Freedom is over.

Today I am enrolling myself in online seminary-level training.

Courtesy of Biblical Training, I plan to work my way through some core courses to better equip myself for whatever God brings my way.

Currently I am sitting at my desk listening as Dr. Douglas Stuart introduces Old Testament Survey. The outlines are transcribed, and you can follow along with the streaming audio. It seems like a pretty good setup. The content looks good so far. I may end up picking and choosing classes, but hey, its free. I'm not going to be too picky.

By the way, take a minute and check out what the site has to offer. They have a bunch of different tracks, from lay classes and Biblical Institute Training, to full-level seminary instruction.

Piper teaches Pastoral Theology in one of the segments.

Weird Street

They come in threes.

1. Read this story. Now realize, that I live within 50 yards of that house.

2. A few nights ago, I heard a scary noise in my backyard.

3. Now this . . .

"Is your house on fire?" our church treasurer asked.

Beth and I were working in the office at church Saturday afternoon, and Mr. H startled us with a pretty uncommon question. He passes by our house on his way to our church, and because of fire trucks and ambulances in front of our house, he had to take a different route.

"I don't think so," I joked.

It's not everyday that someone asks if your house is on fire, so we hurried and finished off our stuff to check out what was happening on our street. There were some police cars blocking the road about 200 yards from our house, so we explained the situation to the officer, and he let us pass through. The first thing we were glad to see was that there were no flames anywhere near our house. But, there were the fire trucks and police cars. One glance to the left, and we discovered the commotion. Buried in a grove of bushes and trees was a mangled Saturn. A large tow-truck was winching it out of the ditch, and all our neighbors were watching the show. We met some of them for the first time. A regular block party. The driver was not in the car. We found out later that he had escaped from the car which burst into flames right after the collision. He had been taken away in an ambulance before we got there--no injuries, just wanted to check him out.

“This is quite the neighborhood. We got the dead guy over there, we got the burning car over here…whats next?” my neighbor asked.

We found out from talking to our neighbors that a teenager, who we think Beth knows from the High School, was flying down our 25-mph road. I say flying, because as you can see from the pictures, he traveled out of control for quite a while before his car finally came to rest across the street from our house. One neighbor who was working in his yard when it happened said the car was traveling around 90mph when it left the road. Amazing. I offer you my humble assessment of the situation. Please feel free to call me Sherlock Holmes after reading the following case: the driver missed the curve in front of my house, ran off the road in my yard, overcompensated for the turn, crossed over the street, skidded through two yards, sheared a 6” diameter tree off, and landed in a heap in our neighbors front yard.

The tow truck after much strain and nearly flipping twice managed to roll the mangled beast up the hill to his waiting truck. I managed to snap a few shots of the evidence. As I was surveying the damage to my neighbor’s yard, I spotted something that caught my eye. It was the shiny plastic oval from what appeared to be a Saturn rear-view mirror. I looked around some more and to my glee I discovered the rest of the rear-view mirror assembly. I fulfilled my civil duty by handing my find over to the good men in the red tow truck. Job well done.

Nothing like a strange situation to add some excitement to a Saturday afternoon. We met some neighbors, got a story to tell, and found a rear-view mirror. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What a day.

Spotlights and Tigers and Apple, oh my!!

Uhm. This all sounds really really cool. The future of the new spotlight and Mac OSX. Rumor? Maybe, but who cares. It sounds really cool.

Click here: The future of Spotlight and OS X

PS . . . Its coming out soon.

randomly favorite iphoto pic picks

Here are my three randomly favorite pictures of the minute from my iphoto gallery. Favorite for the following reasons: strapping young boys, perfect, and lovin' life. You guess where they fit . . .

designs for the poor

Here is what I've been up to recently . . . design-wise, that is.

	TEAM MINISTRY This last week, I designed a logo for our church' outreach ministry, T.E.A.M., together everyone attempting ministry. I brainstormed for concepts, and came up with this design that incorporates the ideas of total involvement (upper and lower case letters,) movement (circular arrow surrounding the design,) sending (arrows going out from the t and m,) and unity (all tied together by a circle.) Posters were hung up all over the building, and a powerpoint presentation was shown to promote the ministry kickoff for Sunday night, April 10.	TEAM meets every Sunday night after the evening service. We strive to finish the service by 7:00pm, to allow light and time for people to go out. Booths are set up at various exits around the building, and families are equipped with a new birth basket to deliver to a new mom, a followup contact from a recent service to meet, a neighborhood watch friend to visit, or an inhome member to deliver service tapes to and encourage. For our spring kickoff, we had 57% of our attendance that night make a visit.
ACADEMY T-SHIRT This week, I put together a t-shirt design for my brother Josh's student body volleyball tournament at Bob Jones Academy. 16 teams will compete in a fundraiser tournament on Saturday, April 23. The shirts will go to the winning team. Quick design, crazy fun. I love designing t-shirts.	Not many guidelines were given, so I went for an edgy look. I wanted it to appear old and used, yet exciting. The final product will be screen printed on a long-sleeve white t-shirt.

New Website - Cola Wars Teen Outreach

I put together a little mini-site for the teen program during our Pettit Evangelistic Crusade coming up next week.

Check it out here: Cola Wars Main Page

The site is definately what I would call a quickie. I wanted to drive some potential questions to a website, so I put one up right quick.

Posters all over town go up tomorrow. We are praying fervently for God to do something special.

This stinks.

Newsday.com: Smelly Readers Banned From Calif. Library

I always liked the smell of the library.

Feeling a little Bogart

A perfect dinner at home with my wonderful wife, followed by a night on the town -- 1940s style.

C A S A B L A N C A

A showing of Casablanca on the silver screen at the newly (just finished in January) restored classic Tennessee Theatre.

BACK IN TIME

The night was absolutely amazing. From the minute we walked in to the lavish lobby, we were blown away with the granduer of the place. We were greeted with Huge ceilings, massive chandeliers and a balcony draped with velvet curtains. Gorgeously rich golds, reds and greens were everwhere. The decor was a perfect blend of Southern roots and European flair. Every detail looked just right--from the inlays on the aisle seats all the way to the patterns of fabric. It was absolutely breath-taking.

THE SHOW

We sat down to enjoy the show, and it started with a huge organ being raised out of the orchestra pit. A jovial old man played a few themes from the movie and then disappeared from whence he came. The curtain went up, and we were treated to some classic three stooges to open up. I can't believe people went to watch that stuff. Hah.

I had never seen Casablanca. I loved it. As we sat in the theatre, I looked around and had to do a double take. More than once I found myself feeling like I was there for opening night of the film . . . smack in the middle of the 1940s. The scratchy film, old-time building, and even the heads of the people all around us made me feel perfectly nostalgic. Wow. The building was that amazing. It took us back in time, and it was a phenomanal trip.

THE PLACE

The Tennessee Theatre is one of the few great movie palaces from the Roaring Twenties still in operation. Opening its doors on October 1, 1928, the Tennessee made kings and queens of all who entered its lavish interior. After all, the idea of the movie palace was to create a fantasy land, a place where people could go to forget the outside world and its troubles -- at least while they were inside the castle on Gay Street.

Chicago architects Graven & Mayger brought to the Tennessee Theatre a Spanish-Moorish style interior, although the design incorporates elements from all parts of the world: Czechoslovakian crystals in the French-style chandeliers, Italian terrazzo flooring in the Grand Lobby, and Oriental influences in the carpet and drapery patterns. The Tennessee Theatre was one of the first public places in Knoxville to have air-conditioning. When the first patrons stepped into the cooled building to see their favorite stars on the silver screen, they paid only 40 cents for matinees and 60 cents for evening shows (children paid only 10 and 15 cents)! Taken from Tennessee Theatre History

TV spot

Hah. Just kidding. No TV advertising going on here. Just a video invitation on a CD.

The Evangelistic Crusade Video | 15mb total...so if you're on dialup. . . it might not be worth downloading.

I wanted to post a copy of the video I just finished. We are putting together an enhanced CD invitation for the Steve Pettit Evangliestic Crusade Meetings. (An enhanced CD is a CD that has both audio and data on it.) The actual size of the video file on the CD is larger...about 2x as big, and the audio is better quality, but you get the idea from this one. The video is 5:17 long. As with the audio track, we were hoping to give people an accurate representation of what our church is like, and what it will be like during the meetings.

Let me know what you think. I'd like some feedback.

This post goes along with the radio spot post that I wrote earlier this week. Go there to check out an MP3 of the audio track on the CD invitation.

I think the hour log on this project is right around 40--maybe 45. I'm not sure. Not too bad. I've enjoyed it...although most of my time spent on it has been after I get home from the office. To which I say, "Sorry, Beth."

Design files coming later tonight. "Ooh...ooh...I can't wait," you say sarcastically.

Radio Spot

I've been working on a special CD invitation for the Pettit revival coming to our church March 13-18. I tried to give an accurate picture of our church, what the meetings will be like, and what Steve Pettit is like.

Click here to download the [high quality] MP3.

Click here to download the [low quality] MP3.

Give me your comments...

I'm sending this off to a duplicator on Monday. we are running 300. The CD face will have info about the meetings, and I'm including a flash presentation on the CD for computers with the MP3 as the audio track, and some images fading in and out as the video track.

What do you think?

Happenins.02

Too busy. Hah.

Beth and I have been up to a little more than normal recently. Summarized, our lives the last few weeks have been, constructive, exciting, mechanical, and even a bit hilarious at times.

For starters, the biggest happenin was the wood floor on our platform at church. We expanded what we previously had by about 300%. So nice. We put in a Bruce Nail Down System from Home Depot. After a bit of training from a flooring expert?...professional floorer?...floorman?...okay, so I'm not sure what you call him, but anyway, after the instruction from a guy who knows floors, I was off. I floored probably about 50% of it. It was actually pretty fun. We used air tools, and got the whole job from start to finish done in a bagillion hours...okay maybe not that long, but it seems that way when most of the work is done from 5pm on. Beth did a ton. She painted the entire front of the auditorium...one bystander said of her work, "I can't tell where you started or where you finished." Great job, Bethy! Beth also fixed dinner for the work crews 4 nights. Perfect. The whole stage is great. New floors, an updated look, and even new stage chairs for the orchestra and choir. the acoustics in the room tripled, and the aesthetics definitely improved.

The 4runner didn't start the other day. It kinda just made a click noise. Click. click. Click. Click. Wouldn't start. So, I promptly went to Auto Zone, bought the part and took it home. Toyota did not design the access to the starter with me and my big hands in mind. I had a section of a little more than 2" to torque my wrench...not always the most prone to unscrewing a bolt. Anyhow, it took a little time, but its fixed now, and the 4runner is back in bidness.

We just had the Portland Studios Company in our house this Monday. They were on their way to the CBA convention in Nashville, and stopped in to spend the night with us on the way. We laughed and worked pretty hard. They were burning DVD presentations all night long, and we enjoyed the time together. They were planning to pitch a few books to some potential publishers. Nice stuff.

I've been working on a CD invitation for the Pettit revival coming up in March. I uploaded it as an MP3 here. Check it out...give me your thoughts. We are hoping to use those as a introduction for the week.

That's about it. Praise the Lord for His grace and provision.

Ski Trip

SKI TRIP - Ski Beech Mountain - 01.24.05 - 5.00am - 10.00pm

What a great day! We had a wonderful time on the slopes. They had 4-6" of fresh snow, and they turned off the blowers at noon. Perfect! Not too crowdy and not too cold! The weather was perfect 30s and nice and sunny.

Everybody did great, even the first-timers. It was a super day.

Resolved

95% of us have never written down our goals in life.
Of the 5% who have written them down, 95% have achieved their goals.

Yale Research found that 3% of the 1953 graduating class had written down goals for themselves. By 1975, the continued research found that the 3% who had written their goals, accomplished more than the 97% who had not put together.

"Sad is the day for any man when he becomes absolutely satisfied with the life he is living, the thoughts he is thinking, and the deeds he is doing."

PHILLIP BROOKS

I don't really like the term "New Year's Resolutions," it normally connotates someone who wants to lose weight, but doesn't really want to change the way they are living. I should call these rather goals that I feel very strongly about achieving. Therefore, because I want to strive to achieve more in my life for my Savior, because I want to go out of my comfort zone that I might depend on my God of all comfort, because I want to aim high enough so that God has to work through me in order to hit the mark, because I want to do all I can to make the Cross more known, and because I want God alone to get the glory in my life, I prayerfully commit these few small things to my all-sufficient God.

This is my first time doing this, and I pray that at the end of 2005, I can look back and see where, how and to the amazing extent that God is going to stretch me to be able to accomplish these things. I submit to His leading in and out of these ideals. I simply know that I need guidance as I aim to glorify my Savior. I feel deeply for these things. They are important to me, and I pray for my God to do exceedingly abundantly above all I can ask or think in these things.

RESOLVED FOR ME

I am resolved in 2005, to passionately commune with God every day in Bible saturation, gospel giving, faithful obedience and consistent prayer, striving for a deeper walk with my Father.

I am resolved in 2005, to better myself through improving the following areas: reading (30 books this year, 10 I want to read, 10 I need to read, and 10 I'm asked to read) writing (improve style and speed through this blog and other venues,) speaking (preaching and worship service,) academic pursuit (taking correspondence courses & class work toward a Masters Degree-Monday night Masters or other,) music (guitar improvement, vocal, choral, and piano,) discipline (physical exercise three times a week, organization of my time, skills, and work and eating habits-cutting junk and other energy killers out of my diet,) loving (my wife first-I have a separate set of resolutions for this, my teens and church second, and the lost,) giving (sacrificially as the Lord leads-more than what I already am,) and discipling (prayerfully, ten teen guys this year.)

I am resolved in 2005, to make new and cultivate old friendships with teenagers (my church, the Oak Ridge High School soccer team, and FCA), men in my church (Young Couples SS Class, Teen Parents, and Senior Tour), and unbelievers (contacts I have already made, and those the Lord will bring across my path) that I do not yet know.

RESOLVED FOR MY BRIDE

I am resolved to love, lead, honor, cherish, build up, present pure, and support you in a way that glorifies God in the greatest way, being wholly faithful to you.

I am resolved to provide for and love our honorable pursuits of wasting time together, hanging out, playing games, dating, chatting, and sailing together for the rest of our lives.

I am resolved to spiritually create an example and environment that you can look to and thrive in--consitently prodding you onward in achieving all that you can for your Lord.

I am resolved to be your one woman man, loving you with a love of choice that is not founded on how I feel, but upon who you are, and what I promised you and my God.

Happenins

A music conference, a ski trip to a golf course, and a little Catan.

A chronicle of the last couple days in the life of Beth and Jon.

MUSIC CONFERENCE

Friday afternoon, we got back in from our first music conference. The Wilds hosted it, and it was great. We loved the sessions, most of the people were great, and the music was incredible. I went to the conducting track. Jerry Maxwell, the music pastor at Calvary Bible Church in Columbus, OH taught 3 hours on choral techniques. I learned a ton about organization, dynamics, gestures, patterns, and teaching techniques. I took 2 pages of notes just on a choir rehearsal he directed. There is so much to learn about music. I feel a lot more like a youth pastor who does music than anything else, so this stuff was just great.

Beth went with the hymnplaying track. Faye Lopez taught her sections, and she brought home some tips on modulation, chord progression, and theory. She tried some of the new stuff out on Sunday night, and it sounded great. The Lord has really given grace in Beth's playing. She has been doing amazing.

One of the great things about the conference was the reading sessions. They hand you a stack of free music to read through. Our stack ended up being about 2 feet high by the end of the week. Great stuff for solos and duets. We are stocked up.

All in all, we had a blast. Some friends were there, but we mostly enjoyed the time together.

GOLF

Our youth group ski trip was scheduled for Yesterday, January 10th. We were planning to head to the snowy peaks of Ski Beech Mountain in Banner Elk, NC. Hah. As you guessed it, the non-winterlike conditions left the slopes looking more like a golf course than the winter wonderland we were hoping for. We rescheduled the trip for January 24th. From what the forecast says, new snow should be moving in the end of this week and through next. That should be great. The challenge went out Sunday. Anyone who can beat Pastor Jon down the mountain gets a free lunch. Anybody wanna join us ladies ski for free on Mondays!

CATAN

Beth and I found a version of Catan to play 2-players. Its awesome. We have played a couple games and so far, I think I'm in the lead. If you haven't played yet, you need to check out this post, and get in on one of the best games I've played.

Thats about it. See yah.

Who is the CrossTrainee?

named: Jonathan William Kopp

espoused: Elizabeth Ann

occupation: Youth.Music Pastor

location: Oak Ridge, TN (suburb of Knoxville)

church: Oak Ridge Baptist Church

random fact: The atomic bomb was engineered in my town.

drinks: Mountain Dew, Black Coffee, Sweet Tea

reads: j. Piper, c.j. Mahaney, j. Harris, a.w. Tozier, j. Macarthur, d.a. Carson, d. bertolini, c.s. lewis, j.r.r. tolkien, c.h. spurgeon, drudgereport.com, finance books (in order of importance)

loves: Christ, wife, family, job.teens.music, skiing, guitar, hymns, reading, a good quote, the swing, puleos grill, the soup kitchen, ebay, apple, settlers of catan, a good story (in order of importance)

random fact: Yes, the Oak Ridge Boys are from my town.

life-changers: Oak Ridge Baptist Chuch, Pioneer Village, Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper. The Cross-Centered Life, C.J. Mahaney. The Cross and Christian Ministry, D.A. Carson. The Book on Leadership, John Macarthur. More Like the Master, Randy Jaeggli. Back to the Heart of Youth Work, Dewey Bertolini.

most open on browser: www.drudgereport.com

when bored: reading, ebaying.

random fact: broccoli is amazing.