Monthly Archive for May, 2006

The Big Switch

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BigCat
on May 25, 2006
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Ok, so I’m going to finally give in, after the move I’m putting my money where my mouth is and going to Linux for at least the summer. No windows, no going back before I have to make sure everything works for Lauren go to school.

Who’s With me?!!?!?!

Seriously, does anyone want to try out my summer of Linux fun. I was thinking if a few people who had their interest slightly tweaked whenever they hear about a free operating system wanted to try it out, now is the time. You get an official computer geek to help you out, one who doesn’t mind reading forums, spending hours on the phone with tech support, knows lots of ways to back up your system so if it all goes to the pot we can just restore, and is not afraid of the command line.

So what do you have to loose? That’s right, NOTHING! So join me in my capitalist dance of free software, as I shake off the oppressive closed-source chains of the twin operating system monoplies.
( More serious reasons to join me )
( pitfalls of switching )
So, any advice my more linux-savy friends have would be welcomed. Also, any comments from anyone remotely interested in the idea. I’d like to hear your thoughts or reservations.

OpenOffice Missing Feature

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BigCat
on May 20, 2006
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I keep pushing Open Office because I like the idea of replaceing the nearly required MS office a lot, and I’ve found it pretty darned easy to use. Built in export to PDF function, and it can save in the ODF (open document format) which is poor people-friendly, and it can even save stuff in native MS formats.

But I had it crash while trying to use it in a meeting at work the other day, and today I found out that Impress (the equivalent to power point) doesn’t have the feature that puts the slide-show on a second monitor, which makes it unuseable at our church.

So, do I just go with powerpoint? In the short term of course. We must have projection for sermons slides. Long term, my options are wait for this often requested feature to be added, or finally take advantage of the fact that this is OPEN SOURCE software and learn how to compile the feature into the code on my own.

The second path is probably a bad waste of time. But I’m thinking if I always talk about wanting to support open source, part of that is contributing. Plus it would be a great way to finally get my feet wet with this kind of project, preparing me for some future ideas I have, and learn a lot about writing software in the process.

I’m wondering how many of my friends have tried to mess with compiling things like this from source, and contributing to open source projects. If you have ever done that hit me up with some feedback in the comments.

Also, the worship conference I went to was great. I got to pick this guy’s brain about running sound, and he is amazing. His name is Brian Ricke, and he has run sound for some huge bands, as well as mastered many people’s cd’s.

Well, enough craziness for now. I’m off to bed.

Nintendo is Good

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BigCat
on May 10, 2006
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Current Mood: (excited) excited

I believe Nintendo will rock the world of gaming with their new system coming out later this year called the “Wii” (pronounced “We”, formerly known as the Revolution).

I think people who hate video games are going to start enjoying them, and people like me who grew up playing games are going to love it as well.

If you have no idea why I think this, go to nintendo’s website and do a little reading on the new Wii, or check out gamespys coverage of Nintendo’s press conference at E3
http://gba.gamespy.com/articles/706/706232p1.html

Well, that is enough nerdery for now.

‘Cosmic’ People are Little Nuggets of Gold

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BigCat
on May 5, 2006
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‘Cosmic’ People are just Jeff’s word for prophetic people who are a little out there sometimes. My wife is one of those people, so is my best friend, so maybe I’m biased in saying that they are “Little Nuggets of Gold”, but I’m gonna say it anyway.
( Some fun stuff about Cosmic People )
In other news I took another one of those “Spiritual Gifts” tests, and it said my top 5 manifest gifts were Deliverance, Hospitality, Healing, Miracles, and Tongues (but I think the test was a little biased towards anyone who speaks in tongues, so I kinda felt like my fith one was actually Discernment). My top five latent gifts (i.e. things God put on my heart, but that I don’t do) were: Prophecy, Teaching, Sheparding, and a couple of others I can’t remember right now.

So, maybe I’m supposed to be a ‘Cosmic’ person as well. To that end, I’ve been trying to get into the idea of doing some Power Evangelism. But my biggest barrier so far, is how do I approach someone when I think God is saying something about them. Do I just walk up and say “Hi, my name is Ben, and I think God wants me to pray for you?” That would be weird, I know I wouldn’t like it if someone did that to me. I’m hoping maybe to try out something at one of our servant evangelism things before too long. I bet I can come up with something if I just decide to run with it.

Well, besides that, my birthday is tomorrow. Stop by if you can. We’ll probably go see Mission impossible around 3 or 4 in the afternoon at the Har Mar theater in roseville, and we are going to start eating White castle a little later than planned originally because I’m going to help Cristin move.

That is all.

My Birfamaday ‘06!!!!

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BigCat
on May 1, 2006
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Current Mood: (cheerful) cheerful

Yes, my birthday is rolling around again. This year, I’m going to try to keep things fairly laid back since we have less money than last year (due to our recent house purchase) and we would like to save that money for the house warming / 4th of July party we are planning on throwing later in the year.

Anyway, schedule of events goes something like this.

Saturday May 6th,
11ish in the AM, go help Cristin move out of the dorms…shouldn’t take more than an hour (she doesn’t have a lot of stuff).
12:30ish, go pick up whit castle (because it’s my birthday and I like whitecastle damnit….and no one ever wants to go there w/ me)
1ish, eat white castle at my house, and watch Harold and Kumar go to White Castle
Between when that is over and dinner time we will probably hang out for a while, and if there is a consensus on wanting to leave I MIGHT catch a later matinee of Mission Impossible 3 (can you tell I like movies)
Then around 6ish in the PM We will go to Matts Bar which is located in South Minneapolis…here is the address.
3500 Cedar Avenue South, Minneapolis MN

This is home of the ‘Jucy Lucy’ which was voted by the readers and the editors of City Pages as the Best Burger of 2006 in the Twin Cities.

Probably just stay there late if they have decent beer, and just cap things off at that. But there is a slim possibility that if I don’t like the beer we will go to the Town Hall Brewery, which is now one of my mainstay places to go.

BYOB during the day. I dont’ have a ton of money for a beer budget, so I’ll probably just pick up a few of my favorites (can anyone say Avery’s Brewery, and Samuel Smiths Brewery). The whole day is come and go as you please. Stop in whenever, leave whenever. Make a brief appearance like I did at ’s brithday party if you want…it is all the same to me.

If you have any questions, post a comment. If you want to come in the middle of the day sometime and don’t know where I am because this list is somehow confusing, call my cell at Six One Two, Six Six Nine, Five One Nine Eight.

No presents please…unless it is really good beer.