Stranger in a Strange Land » design

Helping the homeless stay warm

Jonathan D. Blundell — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:01:27 +0000

HT to Kevin Hendricks for keeping me up to date on many homeless issues and causes for celebration… like this one ::

In 2007, TAXI celebrated 15 years of success. To mark the occasion, they wanted a big idea, one that would give back to the community. The brief was sent out, and executive creative director, Steve Mykolyn, came back with The 15 Below Project. Its first initiative – a jacket for the homeless.

The jacket would be breathable, waterproof, lightweight, and the lining would be made up of pockets throughout. And these pockets would be able to be stuffed with newspaper to provide adjustable levels of insulation from the cold. “We’ve survived 15 years, now we’re going to help others survive the night,” said Mykolyn, who enlisted long-time friend and designer, Lida Baday, to create the jacket.

Adding weight to the 15-year theme, as well as lending the project a name, is the Cold Weather Alert many cities issue when the temperature drops to -15ºC.

“It’s a lifeline for people without homes. They’re a pretty low-cost, immediate way to address a huge issue,” said Paul Lavoie, co-founder, chairman, and chief creative officer of TAXI. “Our approach to solving problems – of any sort – has always been to question convention. This won’t eliminate homelessness, but it can make a lot of people more comfortable.”

On behalf of clients and staff, 3,000 15 Below jackets will be donated to people living on the streets throughout Canada and the U.S.

In case you missed it - this new jacket is covered with pockets that make it possible to stuff the jacket full of newspaper, keeping the wearer warm in temperatures lower than 15-degrees. While it doesn’t end homelessness, it sure makes things a lot more bearable for those living on the streets during the frigid winters. The coat also can double as a backpack, a pillow or a raincoat.

Very cool. Love it!

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A prayer of benediction

Jonathan D. Blundell — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:58:28 +0000

HT Paul Soupiset

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Editing for time

Jonathan D. Blundell — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:30:02 +0000

You know, I really hate editing — especially when it relates to someone else’s work.

Each week Thomas and I do our podcast and I always make a point to never shorten or cut the interviews we do with folks. After all, our goal is to share their story with folks and hopefully they’re something the listeners walk away from and talk about with their friends.

Along with the interviews, Thomas and I normally chat about the interviews/stories at the end of the show. I always enjoy the chats and wish time permitted us to really delve into these stories like we might do if we were sitting in a living room together. I think almost all of our podcasts could lead to a discussion that lasts over several hours.

However, due to the space-time-continuum, bandwidth and our listeners available time, I do my best to be sure our podcasts only last an hour in length. Which means that if we do a 30 min interview we have roughly 22-25 minutes to introduce the show and then to discuss the interview at the end (our musical clips take up 5-8 minutes usually). If we do a 45 min interview we end up with maybe 10 minutes to do all that.

Here in lies my frustration. I have trouble picking which part of the discussion might be more beneficial than others. If we really are “Free Range Christians” or “Open Source Christians” I hate the idea that I might be limiting the discussion when I go back and edit our discussions.

There are so many great points that Thomas brings up but I end up having to cut much of our discussion due to the “self-imposed time crunch.”

I also run into similar issues when leading a community group.

Everyone has a story to share. And I love hearing those stories. I love people sharing their stories (hence the podcast). Many people have examples in their life that relate to the discussion — but I also have to consider the time constraints other people in the group may have. That time constraint comes into greater play if its an early morning and people have to head to work — or a week night when folks have to head home so they can get to bed.

So what to do? I dunno. But I do hate editing — and thought you should know.

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old school web design

Jonathan D. Blundell — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:03:00 +0000

Found some old school web designs I’ve done over the years via web.archive.org.

Eeeek.

Hey - don’t hate!

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Texas oilman looks to wind and natural gas

Jonathan D. Blundell — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:36:37 +0000

Texas oilman T.Boone Pickens is pushing wind and natural gas these days. As some have suggested, the former billionaire oilman has had a “come-to-Jesus moment” and realizes the problems with American spending $700 billion on oil each year.

He’s got a number of videos on YouTube now along with a fancy new website explaining his plan. Makes since to me, but I haven’t explored everything about it.

Here’s his TV commercial ::

And an explanation of his plan ::

He mentions that his plan will take less than 10 years to achieve but will take the right leader to get the job done. Wonder who he thinks that should/would be.

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testing WPhone

Jonathan D. Blundell — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:08:01 +0000

Just installed the WPhone plugin for my blog. Its made to make updating/administrating my blog easier from my cell phone (Blackberry 8310). Looks and works better than the default admin on a cellphone. Still wish there was a Blackberry ap for Wordpress like there is for iPhone. Oh well.

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My Bucket List

Jonathan D. Blundell — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:45:33 +0000

Friday night Laurie and turned off the Olympic opening ceremonies (yes I know a cardinal sin) and watched the Bucket List. I loved it. She wasn’t as impressed.

The idea behind the movie is two men are dying of cancer and are only expected to have six months to live, so they make a list of all the things they want to do before they “kick the bucket.”

The movie reminded me of the “life goal list” Mark Batterson challenges folks to create in his first book, “In a Pit With a Lion On a Snowy Day.” Basically a list of 100 things that you want to do/accomplish before your life is over.

Been thinking through some of my goals (especially realizing that I only a little more than have 4 full months left to complete my goals for 2008). Looks like I’ve blown one of them already - the take a photo each day of me in 2008. I think I lost focus/motivation after folks said they were getting bored with my photo selection in mid-April. Hopefully I’ll pick it back up next year - but maybe just take a photo a day - rather than a photo of me each day.

So far I did finish rebuilding a new encounter website as well as rebuilding the CasadeBlundell.com website (with a lot of great help and insight from my life).

I think I’ll easily meet my reading goal for the year. I’ve completed 10, almost finished with #11 and just received #12 and have #13-15 currently being shipped from Amazon.com.

My last goals that I’m still worried about/shooting for are:

Finish losing weight. My goal weight is 205. I’ve got about 20 more lbs to go.
See 8 new community groups started at encounter.
Get 4 new people on the sound or media shout rotation at encounter.

So… all that said - what about my Bucket List? Well, I’m still thinking it though. I’ll give you one of them though… bungee jumping.

Now how about you? What’s on your Bucket List?

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Random web stats for the day

Jonathan D. Blundell — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:19:01 +0000

I always have fun with web stats. Google Analytics is probably my favorite stats tracker. We have AWstats on our server - but it doesn’t do near as good of a job tracking Wordpress posts.

But for those of you who are interested… here’s our the top posts/pages that were viewed from July 6 - July 11 (for the entire casadeblundell.com domain).

Justin Farmer to leave WFAA (written Jan 8, 2008)
Newt Gingrich on InTouch (written July 9, 2008)
Ellis County churches (and beyond) (written March 12, 2006 - updated since)
SSL links

275 of the visits came from the United States with 148 visits coming from Texas and 42 of those coming from Irving and 6 coming from Sulphur Springs.

58% of you use Internet Explorer (booo!) and 33% of you use Firefox (yeah!).

Only 10 of the visits were from dial-up or slower connections (possibly cellphone use).

There were a couple unique keywords used to find our domain through search engines… including cynthia izzzzzaaaaaguuuuuuuiiiiiiireeeeeeeeee and enormous butt (which brought 6 visitors apparently to a picture by brandi).

So there you have it. Random stats for the day. Hope you enjoyed it.
Now I think I’ll go check out the stats for encounter.

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I guess he just needed a bigger canvas

Jonathan D. Blundell — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:28:10 +0000

This is amazing wall art animation! Done by Blu….

Check out some of Blu’s other wall art:

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Using kids as buzz marketers

Jonathan D. Blundell — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:05:56 +0000

Corporate Babysitter shares a portion of a BBC documentary, “The Search for Cool” that shows “cool kids” as young as six being targeted to market toys and gadgets to their friends - specifically the Nintendo DS.

A few telling quotes:

“The street teams consist of ‘cool kids’.. who will represent the brands in a very vocal way to their friends.”

“Obviously children are the best way to promote something.”

“Schools have let them do assemblies on the products… PowerPoints… anything we can get away with.”

“It’s a feeling of belonging… like an elite community.”

Watch the video. Does this drive anyone else batty? I know folks use bloggers and podcasters this way…. maybe its a double standard, but using six year old kids to market products to their friends leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

HT to Corporate Babysitter.

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Stranger in a Strange Land » design

Helping the homeless stay warm

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A prayer of benediction

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Editing for time

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old school web design

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Texas oilman looks to wind and natural gas

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testing WPhone

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My Bucket List

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Random web stats for the day

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I guess he just needed a bigger canvas

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Using kids as buzz marketers

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