Catching Up to the 21st Century

Another Catch-Up post:

• I'm catching up to the 21st century. On Sunday, I had my first Skype video chat ever. I'm doing premarital counseling for some friends who are currently in California, but coming back to Iowa for their wedding. Our first couple of "sessions" were over the phone. I must say it was much nicer having our conversation via Skype. Other than the occasional visual freeze, audio worked consistently, and we could hear each other just fine.
• Last week on 9/9/09, I watched The Nines for most of the day. The premise? What one thing would various church leaders/pastors say to other church leaders/pastors in nine minutes or less? I really enjoyed the format (and I'm not even ADD!) and some of the 9-minute speeches really challenged me, some encouraged me, and I found my faith inspired and my prayers going to another level. I missed the last couple of hours, so I hope to go back and catch some that I missed and rewatch some with my wife.
• During The Nines, they were giving away some books, curriculum, and other items during their short breaks. But the only way to have a chance at winning a giveaway was to Twitter. However, I didn't have a Twitter account. I complained via their feedback system, but heard nothing back. :o) And this isn't the only time this has happened - I've seen other giveaways that are only for people who tweet with a specific hashtag. So I've been left out of the party. Therefore, I've decided to join what I thought would be a passing fad (it may still, but it's lasted longer than I expected). I have no illusion that the masses are just waiting to know what I'm eating for snack with my boys and other such drivel, but I hope to be challenged and learn from some others in ministry as they tweet various thoughts about faith, life, and ministry. If you have any suggestions of who I should follow on Twitter, leave me a comment.
• I upgraded to Snow Leopard on both my laptop and iMac at home. Two years ago when I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard, I had very few "hiccups", which exceeded my expectations. With this upgrade, I had very high expectations, and unfortunately the upgrade hasn't been as smooth. Things don't feel that much faster, and while I save a ton of gigabytes on the iMac, I didn't see the same savings on my laptop. My printer at home no longer works. I had a half-day trying to figure out how to get email working again on my laptop (which was confusing since Apple was touting the improved Exchange support). I'm running smoothly again most places (except the printer still isn't working at home), and Snow Leopard seems like a great OS, but I was surprised at the bumps I encountered. I should have known better than to place my expectations so high, but hey - I've drunk the Kool-Aid.
• My daughter is truly in the right family. She came home and complained today about the fact that her school switched to all PCs.
• My wife is also entering the 21st century with me. She now has an iPhone 3G. And she is thinking about signing up for Facebook (but for her to find more than 5 minutes to spend at the computer might be hard to do).
• I've not read any blogs in a LONG time. But my input strength has been satisfied by the books I've been reading lately. Right now the book in my bag is Made to Stick. I've also read Love is an Orientation, Case for the Real Jesus, Living the Cross-Centered Life, and When God Writes Your Love Story in the past 2 months.
• I'm preaching October 18th. I have a VERY creative idea, but if I'm going to pull it off, I have to work on it now. I sure hope it works out! (If you want to know what the idea is, you'll just have to come to New Covenant that Sunday, or listen to it on the web the week after.)

Well, that should do it for now. Guess I should go Twitter that I posted a blog which will import into Facebook. I feel so "hip" and important all of a sudden. Or maybe that feeling is just being out of breath trying to catch up to the current century.