Soooo I’m going to transition this site into less of a blog and more of a repository. Rather than post smaller pieces regularly, I’ll add some significant pieces I’ve worked on a couple times a year and I’ll keep the contact info current if anyone needs to find me online (it’s not the hard… really).

Goodbye and Hello.

The best part is, that’s exactly how I eat cheeseburgers at home. I hate ketchup on a burger (although I do like tomatoes) and I keep “spicy mustard” (actually whole grain dijon mustard) in my fridge all the time.

Also, that reminds me, we need another burger-off this summer.

App Store
Evernote: simply awesome and the new 2.0 is so much faster

Last.fm: still on the list for now but if the CDN pay plan comes in this is off the list

Skype: VoIP on the iPhone. Nuff said. Although you’ll need to set up an American account to get it and the call quality has been inconsistent for me so far.

WordPress: using it now to write this post. Obviously only useful if you have a wordpress powered site.

Twitterfon: best free twitter app.

Facebook: they’ve done a good job making it more stable and useful although access to events and phone book would be helpful.

Web Apps
Google Reader: perfect. Star, share, comment, catalogue all from the iPhone.

Buxfer: got me to move my personal finances into the cloud.

Wikipedia: there are a couple store apps available but honestly the official mobile portal through safari is great enough.

Jailbroken Apps
PDANet: 3G tethered modem. Awesome

Clippy: cut and paste ahead of the 3.0 update.

SBSettings: quick access to settings without having to leave apps.

Honourable Mentions
Urbanspoon
Movies by Flixster
All Recipes

Sure I own the original but this is Pearl Jam. My favorite band. So despite the fact that I abondoned physical CDs in favor of digital distribution years ago I went off to Best Buy to pick up a copy.

$43.99

Are you kidding me?

Sure it’s two CDs and a 6 song DVD but come on, 40+ dollars for songs I already own? Not to mention the $21 I paid for the same songs on RockBand yesterday.

You’re killing me guys.

Maybe I’ve been conditioned by the internets but that seems a little exorbinant.

Post Script:
I found and bought the album for $30 online.

pps:
Posted from my iPhone forgiv the spelling (see what I did there)

The sexy part, the part I’m personally really looking forward to most, is having Dr Lamoureux down to talk about Jesus + Evolution this Sunday night because I really feel there are far too many people who see science and evolution as some kind of barrier to exploring the Jesus story. For those of us that not only accept, but are fascinated by, and find beauty in, a concept like evolution, I think it’s important to acknowledge that this doesn’t have to be a barrier to spirituality. I may write some more thoughts about this later but the ability to move past the argument and past sound bites is, in my opinion, the more important concept for us to understand as a community, because the skill with which we do that will determine our ability to engage in meaningful dialogue regardless of where we personally stand on the “issues”. Without that we run the risk, in a very real way, of missing the point.

If you didn’t get a chance to be with us last week, listen to the audio catch up or subscribe to the podcast through iTunes

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Anyway, my Top Ten

1 Ryan Adams
2 Pearl Jam
3 Linkin Park
4 Fiona Apple
5 U2
6 Switchfoot
7 Oasis
8 Tegan and Sara
9 Dashboard Confessional
10 Weezer

No mention of Death Cab, Band of Horses or TV on the Radio… all of which I would put ahead of numbers 3 through 10 today.

This is not a post about configuring my email settings although I have done some of that of late as well. No, this is really about how my iPhone cured not just my blackberry addiction but the underlying email addiction that was fueling my gadget fetish. I know there are a lot of Apple evangelists out there who will waste no time telling about how the iPhone is the greatest phone ever created, that Mac OSX can solve world hunger and that the new unibody MacBook Pros were really the secret force behind propelling Barrack Obama to the fore of the world stage but… that’s not really my point either. (although I do love my iPhone)

First. Recognizing the limitations of device and user
In truth my cell phone switch was simply a catalyst that forced me to think about email different(ly). In the past I loved my Blackberry for its always-on, 24-7, instant email capability. It made me feel productive, it made me feel connected and probably more importantly it made me feel important. The problem was I wasn’t any of those things. My wife thinks I’m important o don’t feel too bad for me.

See I loved getting an email at any time of day, no matter what I was doing but it wasn’t helping me get anything done. Even if it takes only 10 seconds to read an email it takes 1 to 2 minutes to refocus on a particular task. We talk about multi-tasking all the time but the truth is we can’t do it. Humans that is. We don’t multi-task we just get better at switching between tasks and instant email means you are just constantly switching tasks with all of the inherent re-engagement delay that comes along with it.

Now this is where the iPhone comes in. This summer I lost my blackberry. Sad day. The iPhone has just come out. It was sexy. It was shiny and it was made my Steve Jobs, with his bare hands, in a sweatshop in China… mine even seems like his magically sweaty hands.

Anyway, the iPhone doesn’t do instant email unless you pay for mobile me (or use Yahoo mail, but seriously who does that?) You can set it to check for new mail as frequently as every 5 minutes. Problem is the battery in the device is not nearly as functional as it is… did I mention sexy yet? So 5 minute intervals meant I could barely make it through a day without a dead phone. That was no good.

Instead I had to dial it back to checking every hour. It was painful.

Until I realized how much easier my Thursdays were. Instead of being interrupted every 5 minutes by a random email as I wrote. I would take a break once an hour and read my mail. My focus was better, my writing was better, and I just felt a lot less pressed for time at the end of the day because I had actually accomplished more.

The limitations of my iPhone had actually improved my work habits. I’ve considered sending an email to Apple but I doubt they’ll use my story in an advertisement anytime soon since it’s predicated on either what the phone won’t do or doesn’t do well.

Second. Maximize the potential
The one big problem I had with my blackberry was the fact that I did not have a Blackberry Enterprise Server behind me. The church I work isn’t big enough for that kind of software investment to make any kind of sense at all. So with BES it means your blackberry can read and send email but it doesn’t actually interact with your server. So… any email you read or write on the device is self contained on the device. None of that information goes back to the server. So if you read 50 emails on your device all 50 will be waiting in your inbox when you return to your computer. Also you’ll have no record of any emails you sent while mobile.

There are ways around that. You can be bcc yourself on emails and then filter them in Outlook… yadda yadda yadda… or you can invest a big chunk of cash in BES

Part of switching over to my iPhone was witching all of my email over to Google. IF there is any corporation that owns a larger part of my day than Apple it’s Google. We now use Google Apps to run all of our email and though that is a separate conversation, it’s also very cool.

Anyway, part of that switch meant that I could log into my email with my phone using IMAP instead of POP3. That means any changes on one device are transferred back to the server. File an email on the phone; it’s done when you get back to the computer. Read it on the computer, it’s read on the device. Fantastic. (yes you can set up Gmail using IMAP on your blackberry now)

That kind of synchronicity (to steal from the Police) in just 6 months has become absolutely invaluable to me.

Third. Personal Systems
The last piece of my email revolution was implementing a modified GTD system within Gmail. One of the best parts of Gmail is the use of labels instead of folders. You can use them exactly like a folder if you’re comfortable with that pattern but if you can make the mental shift all kinds of new email labeling possibilities open up to you. Sounds exciting doesn’t it. The big difference is you can apply multiple labels to one email. In a folder system you have to make multiple copies if you want them in multiple folders.

What I’ve implemented is two sets of labels (all accessible from my iPhone BTW). The first is three labels for tasks. Action, Waiting and Someday. Action is something I need to do. Waiting is something I am involved with but can’t act on until someone else acts first. Someday is stuff I would like to do but isn’t pressing. The second set of labels are contexts. Office, Online and Phone. Office means I can only do this if I’m at the office. Office and online I will leave to your imagination.

Every email that comes in get read and then either archived (with Gmail nothing need ever be deleted) or if I need to deal with it, labeled with a task and context designation.

On top of that Gmail lets you use an infinite number of alias addresses in the format youname+anythingyouwnt@gmail.com. So I’ve set up all of my task designations as contacts in my address book. Instead of keeping a separate task manager I just email myname+action@gmail.com for anything I want added to my task list.

All this means I truly have one inbox. For everything. Gmail is it. Period.

Using Dial2Do.com I can even call and dictate a task item to myself that gets email to my action list when I can’t type it out.

Between these three things, recognizing the limitations of my device and myself, maximizing the potential of the services I’m already using and developing my own personal system for detail management, I’ve actually significantly decreased the amount of time I spend dealing with email, the frustrations I’ve had with it, and my bizarre fixation on it. At the same time I’ve increased my productivity and actually made email useful all over again.

And the starting point for our exploration of this concept is in the words of Paul, one of the great thinkers and theologians of the early Christian movement. Philippians 2 is one of the great passages of the early Christian tradition. Most scholars think this may actually have been an early hymn or catechism of the fledgling faith.

In it Paul writes (or recites)

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death —
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Phil 2:6-11

What strikes me about this, in the context of this conversation, is the phrase, “obedient to death”. The word rendered “to” in this English translation is the Greek word, “mekh’-ree” and means, “as far as” or “until”. So perhaps the original Greek phrase is perhaps better rendered as, “obedient as far as death” or, “obedient even unto death”. What catches my attention here is the idea that Jesus death was not a singular choice made in a contextual vacuum. It was the result of making the right choice, and then the next right choice. He was obedient not just to die but to do the right thing all the way along even when it led to his death. Sometimes we take the posture that Jesus life was almost solely about his willingness to die. His teachings were nice, his wisdom helpful but in the end the meaning of his life was wrapped in its last moments. There is this idea that everything else in Jesus’ life was at best a precursor to the main event. Paul, here, gives us a slightly different picture with the simple idea that Jesus was obedient all the way to death. The reminder being, that the importance of Jesus’ death can’t be separated off from the rest of his life because it was the consequence of living the life God called him to. A life which begins and ends, not just with a personal decision made in a vacuum, but with the social and societal contexts and implications of all the choices and decisions he made.

And this is the first lens through which I think we need to understand the meaning of Jesus death, as a radical challenge to the status quo and a call toward the salvation of ourselves not simply as individuals but also as community.

Social Challenge
We know of at least ten major Messiah movements in the 100 years on either side of Jesus. Ten men with major followings that rose up and challenged the Roman Empire’s hold on the world. Every one of them, without exception, faced down the same end-game, execution as an enemy of the state. Only one of those Messiahs do any of us really know much about. Jesus. So what’s the difference between his movement and the others? One of the most common answers has to do with resurrection, which no doubt is a compelling reason if you buy it. However, I think there is an element within the story that we often overlook as part of the meaning behind his death. That is, the radical challenge Jesus poses to the metanarratives of society.

All of these other messiah movements rose up violently against a regime that was ruthlessly violent and cruel itself and in their violent opposition, every one of them was met with an even greater demonstration of violence. So how did the people respond? They went back to their homes disappointed and discouraged where they waited for the next challenger to rise up and oppose Rome. Nothing changed in the wake of their movement. When these leaders rose up and said the Roman Empire is corrupt and violent, challenged the empire at their own game and were defeated all that their effort and unfortunately their deaths did, was reinforce the matenarative that defined life in the first century, and in point of fact, today. That might makes right, the powerful choose, and that opposition to the status-quo is futile.

Now comes Jesus. He rises up as a Messiah figure with a mass of followers and he finds himself in opposition to the Roman Empire. Everyone is waiting for him to make his move, to rally his followers and take on the corruption and greed of Rome. In fact you can see the itchy trigger fingers in the garden of Gethsemene. When the Romans come to arrest Jesus, Peter pulls out a sword to fight back, he actually chops off a soldiers ear and is ready to go to war, perhaps even die. But Jesus says, “No. Put your sword away.” He even pauses to heal the soldier and then allows them to take him away. Jesus is pushed into the same position of opposition to Rome and is expected to act in the same way as every other Messiah. Eventually he is even executed in the same way as every other revolutionary. But this time something is different. This time, as another revolutionary, another Messiah is executed, people begin to see a different story play out. When someone rose up against Rome with a sword and was put down with that same sword everyone was disappointed but not necessarily surprised. It was the way of the world. It fit in, sad as it may be, with the narratives that defined the way the world worked for them.

This time things were different. This man had refused to fight back. He refused to battle violence with violence. He refused to fight oppression with oppression, fire with fire or evil with more evil. And all of a sudden people’s eyes were opened to something new. All of a sudden in his death Jesus had called into question the veracity of an entire worldview, an entire metanarrative about how the world should work. The story that told us the only way you will ever get what you want or need, is at the expense of someone else. In one act of passive resistance the inhumanity, not just of Rome, but of war and violence and oppression were made visible to everyone simply because Jesus refused to fall into the expected paradigms of what a leader and revolutionary was about.

Paradoxically, for those of us still, inscribed in the language of power and control, it was in his death that Jesus changes the game. It was in being crushed that he called not just the instance but the very systems of oppression in question.

Try a thought experiment here with me. It was six years ago now the US army went in to Iraq to free them from a ruthless dictator. (There may have been other reasons, but let’s focus on this hypothetical one for now) They did this by coming in with guns and tanks and missiles and, for lack of a more eloquent metaphor, blowing away the bad guys. To date over 5000 Americans have given their lives to see that happen. Estimates put the number at well over 50 000 Iraqis that have died for the cause.

Now imagine the contrast in the example of Christ. Imagine if the US Army said there is something terrible happening in Iraq. A ruthless and violent leader is murdering and torturing his people. We have to do something about this. Now imagine the US Army flew their men in, marched themselves to the prisons of Iraq, laid down their guns and placed themselves, literally between the evil and the innocent. Not to fight for them, but to take their place. How long would it have taken before the world responded to the injustice of what would follow?

Christ’s death is a statement to us about the redemptive power of peaceful resistance. It is a call to re-imagine the worldviews that tell us what is power and what its use looks like. Christ reminds us that we can’t simply stand by to the inhumanity of oppression but that battling evil with more evil is not the way of God. Instead Jesus death becomes the rallying call for us to challenge the status quo in new ways and his death becomes the signal that tomorrow does not need to be a continuation of today.

Brian Walsh and his Sylvia Keesmaat write in their book Colossians Remixed that,

The language of inevitability is the language of empire. Whenever we hear “we have no choice” our ears should perk up. It is precisely the strategy of the empire to take our imagination captive so that we think we have no choice. When a certain lifestyle seems inescapable, you need to realize that you are imprisoned.

Philip Yancey frames it this way in his book, the Jesus I never knew,

The beautiful have always enjoyed rewards beyond the reach of the ugly, the strong have always dominated the weak, a small number of rich have always lived at the expense of the poor. Against that reality, God’s kingdom flies a flag of divine opposition.

In the act of his death Jesus shows us a new way to live, not simply as individuals, but as entire bodies of people. That the way in which we interact has been turned upside down by sin and corrupted by narratives of power. His death becomes on this view a clarion call to step outside the false dichotomy of power or subservience and demonstrates for us a new way forward, a new a way to affect change as we participate in the creation of the kingdom of God.

This is the salvation of God. He saves us from a limited worldview obsessed with unhealthy relationships to power, coercion and control.

That is all.

It has consumed far too much of my time, energy and emotion. Only 5 weeks till I get my life back.

Picked the game up today (using my PC Points no less) and was pleasantly surprised to see that in addition to existing download content the game lets oyu export your Rock Band one games from the original disc to play in the new game.

Now sure they charged me 400 MS Points (about $5 in real money) to play songs I had already purchased (although I’m sure I could sell of the first disc for more than that now if I wanted to) but I thought it was a pretty cool nod to existing customers that you rarely see in games.

Happy.

Anyway, all of this Google love that has been happening in my life has reminded me about my GoogleReader account that has been dormant low these many months. I have been reconnected to the joy of RSS feeds. Through Google Reader I can access my subscriptions (in a very nice mobile version) through my iPhone, star articles for reading later on the (bigger) screen, share them on the front page of this blog and generally keep tabs on anything I want (primarily the USAmerican election) from where ever I happen to be.

Oh convergence you really are my friend.

Seriously, check these videos shot on the D90. Now granted the lenses they used are worth, in most cases, at least as much as the body itself but when have you ever seen that kind of depth of field control, or wide angle shots on a consumer level video camera… I’ll tell you when… never, that’s when.

There may be some real potential here in this gimmick.