Rob Williams - Orangejack

I can now update it. Probably won't change much for a while.



create your own personalized map of the USA
or write about it on the open travel guide



create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide



create your own personalized map of Canada
or write about it on the open travel guide




create your personalized map of europe
or write about it on the open travel guide

We took off this morning from Fort Collins, Colorado and are now in Wichita, Kansas (I can never spell Wichita correctly). I thought I'd post some lessons I've learned on this trip:

• If you think you have to go to the bathroom, think you might need to go soon, or think you will at some future point in your life and you see a bathroom, STOP! I learned the hard way.
• The first lesson can be applied to gasoline. Thankfully I applied the first lesson to this one and we were fine.
• Giving 75 cents worth of change in mostly dimes, nickels, and pennies to a toll booth lady can get you in trouble. I thought money was money. She thought I was being "cute". We had nothing else.
• Even on a goofy diet, you can still find things to eat.
• You can talk to God from any state, but He doesn't seem to talk back when in Kansas.
• Speaking of God and Kansas, a friend told me Kansas was "Godless". I disagree. I think He just forgot to decorate it much.
• Speaking of decorating the states, there was a lot of cool country-side to see. Lots of shapes from rolling hills, sharp edges, and flat.
• There's something kind of sad seeing the great Rocky Mountains fade to nothing in your rear-view mirror.
• Because of a wrong turn, we saw a great sunset over the Wichita skyline. Not bad.
• There's a lot of country music on the stations out here

We take off for Memphis tomorrow with a short stop in Little Rock.

Continuing with my new tradition of a featured photo I've taken, I present this one today. (click on the image to read a description and larger image)

Radish

Don't you hate those posts that say "sorry I haven't written in a while".

I'm not going to do that.

Go here to read what's been going on with us...

Hey my sister...it's almost not your birthday anymore but I wanted to make sure there was a public acknowledgement of your day!

Congrats on another year. Hopefully we can see you soon.

We're staying in an apartment this month. We're upstairs with one other apartment. We're the first door up the stairs.

Tonight our neighbors beside us had a party. They were cooking outside on the ground floor and moving up and down the stairs.

Two people came into our apartment tonight accidentally.

One of them came in twice.

We greeted them each time with "Hello!"

They were embarrassed.

We should lock our door.

But it was funny.

So fess up. How many of the biggest movie bombs have you seen? Are you shocked that any of them are on there? (BTW: looks like Pluto Nash maybe the worst of all-time).

I've seen:

• Around the World in 80 Days
• The Cat in the Hat
• Howard the Duck
• Lost in Space
• Speed 2: Cruise Control
• Welcome to Mooseport

Most of those weren't bad.

Fanblogs.com: Fun with ACC Mascots

Google steped it up again...and I like it!

I was wondering...what are some of the best mobile-enabled web sites?

Today at our US Staff Confernece for Campus Crusade, we recited the Apostle's Creed. We were then encouraged to pray through it. Here was my prayer:

Well, here goes...I really do believe in God. You're the Father Almighty. Maker of Heaven and Earth. You know, that's really easy to pray. Just acknoledging who You are. I do believe You're Almighty and created everything.

And I believe in Jesus Christ. Yes, God's only Son, our Lord. My Lord. Wait. What does 'my Lord' really mean? That's out of date language. But I guess if He's Lord, then that makes me a servant. A servant of Jesus? Oh yeah.

I'm a lousy servant. He is a gracious Lord.

That's as far as I could get. I couldn't even get past 'our Lord'.

For some reason I am not surprised at all when I read that a "drug tunnel" was busted on the US-Canada border near Vancouver.

Notice the Canadians were from Surry...right where we lived.

CNN.com - Drug tunnel found under Canada border

Federal agents have closed down the first known smuggling tunnel under the U.S.-Canada border and arrested on drug charges the three Canadians who allegedly built it, law enforcement authorities said Thursday.

The three men from Surrey, British Columbia, were taken into custody Wednesday night as they emerged on the U.S. side of the tunnel they had built during the past year, according to Drug Enforcement Administration officials.

Continuing with my new tradition of a featured photo I've taken, I present this one today. (click on the image to read a description and larger image)

No Fire

I mean no disrespect.

I saw a blind man coming out of the grocery store today by himself with a couple of bags of food. I wondered how he knew what to buy. I don't recall any Braille on the products I purchase or Braille in the aisles.

Maybe someone helped him. Someone who didn't come with him. Or at least leave with him. I wonder if it was an employee who helped him.

Or maybe he has just learned how to cope. Maybe he's not letting life slow him down.

But I still wonder how a blind man shops.

I mean no disrespect.

When I walk past someone who is trying to ignore me, I often say "hi".

Sometimes they have this confused but forced fake smile and say "hi" back.

Sometimes I wonder if they are like me...in their own world wanting to be left alone.

Other times I just laugh.

Whoa! They say we're going to hit 100 today.

I know, it's low humidity, dry, blah blah blah. Yeah yeah.

You know what? Hot is hot...and I just want to be inside. And by the way, although this is "dry heat", do you know what my oven uses to cook things? Dry heat.

Hot is hot.

UPDATE: Right now it's 104. 9% humidity so it feels like 108.

This isn't encouraging.

Looks like Macromedia might make a Blog tool. That would be cool if they had an extension on Dreamweaver or something for blogs.

But they would need to allow us to be able to do everything online. That's one beauty (and drawback) of tools like Blogger. You need to be online to do it which means you can be anywhere...but also means you need to find an internet connection.

My advice to Macromedia: Bring it!

In celebration of the first moon landing on this day in '69, Google has done it again. They now offer Google Moon - Lunar Landing Sites. Pretty cool. Read more about it on the Google Blog.

And while you're at it, why not decide for yourself if all this is moon landing stuff is a hoax.

Which is cooler: to be blogged or be written up by CNN?

Well my friends and co-workers, the Leppard family, are getting both right now!

Doug is a co-worker in the office, though I'm working with his wife Becky here in Colorado. One of the daughters, Amanda, worked for us before we came out here. She always called Patricia and I "my bosses". I never really got used to it, but it was fun.

It's fun being in Fort Collins. Home to Colorado State University...and these Rams, according to Outside Magazine (Aug 05 ed), are living in one of the 10 best US cities! I can see why. Even today we took a short drive up into the mountains and was back by lunch.

Beautiful.

Oh! And speaking of movies, what is also a lot of fun is something Patricia blogged about already: Drive-In Movies. The Fort Collins Coloradoan today ran a good article on the theater that is 5 minutes from our apartment. Called the Holiday Twin Drive-In, they run a double feature every night on two screens. We've been twice and seen 3 movies: War of the Worlds, Fantastic Four, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

What's really cool is if you're bored with the movie, just watch the shooting stars, stare at the Big Dipper, or watch the moon set over the mountains.

Here's a pretty cool site called The Movie Blog.

I know because Grant told me so.

Today is our 9-year CCCI Anniversary.

Continuing with my new tradition of a featured photo I've taken, I present this one today. (click on the image to read a description and larger image)

Croakin' Croton

There's not a lot for me to share here right now. This is not the time or the place for me to express what's really on my mind.

But tonight the sunset was beautiful.

I just wanted to share that because sometimes...
sometimes we just need to take a look at the sunset.

And sometimes,
just sometimes,
a beautiful sunset,
even for a brief moment,
can help.

Tropical Storm EMILY

Interesting stats from Micro Persuasion: Blogs in the Eye of the Beholder. People were interviewed and asked if they understood subscribing, RSS, and blogs. Most had no clue.

This is one reason we're calling our ministry updates just that and not a blog. Though we want to educate that it's a blog, that's not the foot we want to lead with.

Tropical Storm Emily is the first storm of the season for us Orlando-ians to pay real attention to.

Sometimes I don't like being responsible.

This morning a friend called to see if I wanted to go white water rafting this afternoon. They had 8 guys paid for but one backed out at the last minute. I could go for free.

I could have been here doing this. Instead, I'm being responsible.

Is this what God meant when He told Adam that work would be cursed?

Jason (aka: The Regulator) has completed a great series on the 240-year history of Greenville, SC, my home town.

Well, actually if Greenville is big enough to have suburbs then I'm from the little but growing town of Simpsonville.

Take some time to check out his series. Even if you don't care much about Greenville, you might find some of the history interesting.

Just posting this to encourage my British friends. Took this photo back in 2003.

This is really cool. Vinyl bowls made from old LPs.

For you kids at home, it was a black "CD" that was 12 inches wide and black. You could have music on both sides and you needed a record player to listen to the music. Ask you dad.

I know because the design blog told me so.

Very cool. All Div 1-A shcools.

I know becuase Kevin told me so.

There's obviously been a lot of action in the blogsphere about the London bombings this week.

But I wanted to point you to two places in particular.

Adrian Warnock is a pastor in the UK and is keeping tabs on it.

The Ask Jeeves blog shows a very interesting way of how blogs can be used to publicly connect others in a time of need. Post #1 and Post #2.

Is Blogger experimenting with allowing us to podcast? I have a few blogs with them and I noticed today on one of them a new icon was present that allowed me to upload a file to my post. But it's not on all of my blogs.

C'mon Blogger, you can do it!

BTW, I noticed Blogger also updated their dashboard so that it's now back up to date with how many posts you have for each blog. This one is up to 813.

Keep up the good work, Blogger! Now let us add categories!

I've discovered a cool, new trick for finding places online. I've known about both Google Local and Yahoo! Local, and I've know about Google Maps.

But there's a cool feature on Google Maps that I use all the time now. If you go there, you can not only get a map or directions (which are typically really good), you can also do a local search from there and it'll place all the results on the map.

Now, I know Local Google uses the map feature also, but it's slightly different.

For instance, I'm at a local coffee shop with wireless because I looked it up in Google Maps. I have found out though that it's not fully updated, but it's a start.

Here's a funny list of the Top 13 Most Overrated Songs.

I know becuase Andrew told me so.

I went to the pool this morning and swam a kilometer. For all you non-metric people out there, that's 1000 meters.

I also carried 11 boxes at 30 pounds each up a flight of stairs. For all you non-English people out there, that's a lot.

Continuing with my new tradition of a featured photo I've taken, I present this one today. (click on the image to read a description and larger image)

Lemon Lime

Suspected Kidnapper in Idaho Kept Blog

God has shown me the right choice, but my demons have me tied to a spit and the fire has already been lit

Dang. They popped London and killed at least 40. A subset of al-Qaida is apparently saying they did it:

A group calling itself "The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe" posted a claim of responsibility for Thursday's blasts in London, saying they were in retaliation for Britain's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pray for the Brits.

UPDATE: MicroPersuasion is linking to several blogs from London and photos on Flickr from today.

Gizmo is the hot little program that is trying to out-Skype Skype. I'm not sure what the advantage is, though some tell me Gizmo is open source. Guess that's good for someone, but I'm not sure I care.

I haven't downloaded it yet...but willing to check it out. Here's a short review/comparison of Skype and Gizmo.

I know because Steve told me so.

Today George W. Bush turns 59. Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Today Keith Seabourn turns 54. Happy Birthday, Mr. CTO.

Today Orangjack Blog turns 1. Happy Blogiversary to me!


It all began with Red Trucks.

This question has been wandering around in my mind for a long time and so I'm letting it out. I'm ignorant of this matter and I freely admit that. I don't know why this has been roaming in my mind for a while. I have strange things in there. Letting them out sometime is dangerous. This time I think it's fairly platonic.

When someone composes a contemporary musical score in the tradition of the classical music such as Mozart, et al, is it properly called "Classical Music"?

Say for example when John Williams composes a score for a new movie, is it classical? How do you categorize it? The word "classic" usually refers to something old, not new. Retro is usually something new that has the old feel to it.

I've just noticed that classical music (or whatever it's properly called) is so complex. I don't listen to it a lot, but when I do, it's really amazing. Today's pop music is short. The writer typically composes about 30-60 seconds of music then repeats. Classical writers compose music that lasts for minutes without repeating.

It's not always my cup of tea, but I do enjoy it on occasion.

Rick posts one of those funny emails that gets forwarded around a gizzilion times, but I have to admit, this one is funny.

It's All A Matter of Perspective

This is not the kind of inner-office email you want to receive when working in Orlando:

We are currently experiencing power issues which in turn are affecting the air conditioning...[we] are waiting for a crew to arrive to help us resolve this issue.

Today, more than other day's, I'm very happy to be temporarily in Colorado.

Do you hunt and peck? Are you a bird-typer. What's your WPM?

I don't hunt and peck anymore. In High School I took a typing course and I can't remember what my WPM count is anymore and I'm too embarrassed to find out.

But, if you want to learn to type better, check out this free online typing course. It looks promising.

I know because Amit told me so.

I wonder what would it be like to go to church and feel like I'm really a part of a community.

I've never felt that in church. Every time I go I feel I'm sitting by myself. My wife is with me. We're alone. We know people in the room. There's a friend. Over there is another. Hey look, another friend is three rows back and on the aisle.

But look over there. There's someone I know by name. I couldn't call them a friend though. There's another. And another. I know that face, but can't remember the name.

I wonder why that couple over there never speaks to us anymore. It's not like we don't know them -- and they know us. It feels too weird now to talk to them. I feel like we'd have to re-introduce ourselves to them. But we do know them.

Same with that couple there.

Why has this gone on so long? Why does this take place in every church I've been to in my life? Except when I was younger. That's when I sat with the other kids in the back row of the balcony. Or with the guys from school in the front-third set of pews on the right.

But that wasn't community, was it? Those were just friends hanging out because we had to be there...or we chose to be there...or we wanted to show others we were there.

I know Mayberry is make-believe. I wish it weren't. I love how they got all dressed up even on the hot days, sat in old pews, sang hymns together, and actually looked like they liked each other. They knew each other. After the service was over they all talked to each other because they loved each other. They would rather be hot wearing suits in order to be with God and friends than to be cool in pique and feel alone.

Mayberry's church was a real community.

And maybe that's just the way it is. Maybe church and real community is a fiction. Maybe it's achievable. Maybe it exists outside the walls I've been inside.

Yet I still wonder what it would be like to go to a church and feel like I'm really a part of a community.

In the US, we celebrate our independence on July 4.

It means we have the freedom to do crazy things like this.

God Bless the USA!

Continuing with my new tradition of a featured photo I've taken, I present this one today. (click on the image to read a description and larger image)

Keep Right