I’m guessing you’ve probably read my previous post, here, where I asked people to post replies to the question “Can you give 10 examples of how you’d protect a light switch?” Well, after considering some of these comments these are the best ones;
Well, unfortunately in 10 days only two people left there thoughts, so unless more people leave their thoughts I’m calling it a draw between Rich and Ben.
Ben’s suggestion was “24 hour prayer coverage to protect the light switch from spiritual attack.”
While, Rich suggested “10 elite guards armed with lightsabers.”
Both are good, but I’d hoped for some more unique ideas. So please get back to the original post http://www.allthesethingsivedone.com/2008/04/15/interview/and give your most random comments!
Yes, this is a hugely geeky post! But sometimes I’m allowed. I have to give a big shout out to Adrian Oliver, who pointed this in my direction from this feed here (please note:it links to a video that’s 20Mb)
Johnny Chung Lee’s concept is great, turn your £30 Nintendo Wiimote into part of an interactive white board. The concept isn’t quite as easy as the video makes out, though I’ve been assured by Adrian that;
I have tried and I got it working
Personally I need a little more instruction. So if like me you need a little more help head to Johnny’s Wii Projects site here where you’ll find the software and also WiiLi.org where you’ll be guided through pairing your Wiimote with your computer.
I think I may try soon, it gives another great reason to buy a 3rd Wiimote, not sure I can justify the projector though….
As you may have read from this post here I came home from Skegness via London to go for an interview at Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB). Here are my thoughts and a kind of prayer request;
My interview had been arranged while I was at Spring Harvest, I’d originally put my CV in but not expected to hear anything. So, was a little shocked when I got a call in the first place with the final details been confirmed while I was away.
For, those of you who don’t know HTB is a large (2000 congregation) Church in central London with a sister church St. Paul’s in Onslow Square and I’d applied for a job in the Technology department. So no surprises there.
When I got there I found out that one interview was actually two. Round 1 was with the head of the technology department, and was exactly as I expected it, apart from the slightly more random question “Can you give ten examples of ways you’d protect a light switch?” Most creative answer to this in the comments will get a mention in a future post!
Round 2 was with someone from HR (Human Resources) and was a lot more random. Yes! That is possible. It seems that it’s very easy to be typecast in your own Church, but HTB were seeing me with fresh eyes. So things got quite random. I foolishly mentioned that I’m a TEFL teacher who enjoys youth work and, occasionally, preaching. And was asked “Have you thought about ordination?” Again, not perhaps something you expect at an interview.
So, where do things go from here? Well there is a a third round, that as I type now, I haven’t heard if I’m through to that. If I should get it, would I take it? Well, that entirely depends. It would be an amazing opportunity but in my heart I know there is much more I could do at Arun. This however could be a call, that perhaps I’m trying to ignore, from God. And perhaps I should be obedient to that.
So, there’s the update.
In the last week I’ve spent the best part of 12 hours on trains (click here and you’ll understand more) which has given me an enormous amount of time to think, and watch Bill Bailey!
So, what have I been thinking about? Well, moving. And by saying that, I don’t necessarily mean spending 12 hours thinking that I should take more train journeys. Instead I’ve been thinking about the future. Some of you may know that before I went away I’d had a phone call from HTB in London, this managed to totally wrong foot me and left me slightly freaked out. Well, in Skegness a received a second phone confirming my interview for 10 April at 14:30.
It’s now a few days later and the interview has come and gone, I honestly don’t know if I’m through to the next round and I’m still thinking and dreaming and praying that actually it’s God will that’s done and not mine.
I will post more about the interview at a suitable time, though I’m aiming to send out an email soon.
Regular readers here will know that I’ve been away at Spring Harvest in Skegness. So, I thought I’d post some thoughts on the week.
I was again working with the 5 - 7 team, Powerpack, and it was nice to see some familiar faces. Again I was in the Blue team though I can’t give the weeks results but more on that later! Along with Praise all Powerpackers get shown dramas in the the “Story Machine” slot. My favorite part of the day has to be small group and activity time. Four activities are done during the course of the week (Bob the Builder, Games, Craft/Indoor Play and Dance) and I’m very happy to say I managed to avoid dance.
Of course the real beauty of being on the 5 - 7 team is that you get some you time as there are no evening meetings. So in the evenings I’ve been splitting myself (though not literally) between The Big Top, where Sue Rinaldi was leading, and The Alternative Celebration, where Stuart Barbour and Psalm Drumming Friends were leading. Although the styles were different both were fantastic in leading us into the presence of God. I must admit I had a slight preference for the style of the Psalm Drummers.
One of the big features of Spring Harvest is the evening entertainment. And somehow I ended up on stage with comedian and entertainer Joe Fisher helping with with a feature called “Name That Kendrick”. It was very amusing, especially the worship leader who couldn’t recognise “I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever” and it wasn’t Martin Smith, maybe we could re-create it at Arun!
If you’ve been following this blog you’ll know that I spent yesterday traveling up England to Skegness ready for Spring Harvest.
I thought I’d share with you a little bit of information on the journey. I arrived at Worthing station in plenty of time for my train, and as you’d expect didn’t miss it. It was nice and comfortable and despite me worrying I arrived at Victoria on time. 50 minutes to get across London. The Victoria line was totally packed, but compared to what would come later it was a breeze!
The 5 stop journey took a little over 15 minutes and before long I was at Kings Cross, along with ALL the football supporters heading to Wembley. But I got to the main part of the station and waited. After a further 15 minutes the train was called and the fight began….a 4 coach long train and many many people. Result I stood up from Kings Cross to Grantham.
A quick change at Grantham to a train with 2 coaches and even more people to fit on it awaited us. This was not looking good. More standing. This time from Grantham to Boston and a total of about 3 hours. Only at Boston, and the smallest train of them all did I get a seat again, which is pretty crazy.
Things didn’t get much easier once I arrived at the Spring Harvest Site, because of a problem at home my parents couldn’t make it, though instead of managing to cancel my parents places, they managed to cancel mine and my mums. It took the best part of an hour to sort, and never have I ever been quite so glad to see a Spring Harvest tea.
Yes, it’s going to get geeky in here. Whilst I’m on a train (half way between London Kings Cross and Grantham) making my way to Spring Harvest I thought I’d let you in on a few of the technical details of the website and podcast as well as behind the scenes.
Webhosting; I host with an American company called Dreamhost. They offer the most bang for the buck. 500Gb space, 2Tb transfer and free .com domain.
Blogging: I’ve got WordPress 2.3 installed and customised it with the K2 theme and the True Blue style.
Podcast: The podcast is written in iTunes friendly XML code using Adobe Dreamweaver.
Audio Editing: Primarily everything is edited in a program called Audacity. It’s free and does a great job. I also use this for the Arun Community Church family of Podcasts. Should it be required I also use Apple Logic to bring a little extra polish.
Video Editing: A bit of a tricky one this! I import raw footage using Apple iMovie ‘08 and then bounce it over to iMovie HD (’06) for editing, and if required, dubbing.
Audio Codec: In order to maximise compatibility I bounce everything out in mp3 format. In stereo this is at 128kb/s while mono ones are at 64kb/s.
Video Codec: As I’m only really targeting Apple users with the video side of things I’ve opted for two different options both rely on the H.264 video codec and AAC audio one. Apple TV users are given a 960 x 540 image (that roughly equates to 720p HD) with an overall bit rate of 3,865kb/s. While iPod users are offered a 640 x 360 image with a much more bandwidth friendly 1,613kb/s.
Last Tuesday, April 2, I had some time between dropping Rosie off for work and getting to Wickbourne to setup for Dr. Meric , who had come to speak about the environment, and can be heard if you’re interested on both the “Arun Community Church: Special Events” and also, with permission, here on “AllTheseThingsIveDone.com“. Anyway, I’ve gone off on one.
I chose to sit on the beach for a little while and then to drive to Littlehampton’s swimming centre and walk back to the East Beach Cafe. It was great just being out in the Spring Sun. I slowly wandered between the two taking some pictures and just enjoying the lighter evening.
On the way back I saw a few of the young people from Ignite and to my surprise they recognised me. A say to my surprise as I’m not one of the popular leaders. I’m not like Nick and Jim who constantly amuse the boys. And I’m not like Jon who has enough charisma for two people (probably Americans at that!). Nor am I really like Rosie who will talk with the girls for hours about there problems.
All I do is turn up every week and plod along, occaisionally sharing my passions in the “God Slot”. Maybe this is it: Young People of today want consistency, to know that the same leaders that turned up last week will turn up this week, and next week.
Mr. Jolly has happily been tagging and sharing posts by fellow youth blogger Tim Abbott, which in turn he’s found online and I thought I’d round them up and share them on again.
The first is from this site which shows, again, the visible impact of “photoshopping” and re-touching photos. It’s an amazing use of flash to reveal a disturbing secret.
The second is this article from the Times Online, which reports on “Generation YouTube’s” new sexual freedom. This, as far as I can see, could present a major problem for all youth workers in how we deal with these issues.
H/T Jon Jolly & Tim Abbott
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