The Zone

Ever find yourself in the zone? I’m currently living squarely in the middle of the zone.

For me, the zone represents those times in life when you’re hitting on all cylinders. Unfortunately, more rare than frequent, life in the zone means going from one thing to another and never dipping in your enthusiasm or your interest in what you’re involved in.

Case in point. I spent most of this week in Dallas at the Christian Leadership Alliance annual conference. I went to take part in the IT Summit. Now, there aren’t many Mac guys in the CLA’s IT community – so the thought of being there (other than getting to spend some time with my friend Mark) had not enthralled me.

But I loved it – learning about areas of IT that I had not been exposed to.

Here are three things on the horizon that are good – almost spooky good (you’ll see what I mean):

1) Voiceless Cellphone Technology – in short, the brain waves that control speech are identical from person to person. So Texas Instruments is developing a cell phone that reads the brain waves, translates them into speech. You don’t even have to talk.

2) Duke University Brainwave Tracking – Duke has mapped even more brainwaves – they are developing the first video game that is played brainwave against brainwave. So the children of the next generation won’t even exercise their thumbs. (Not good – sorry!)

3) All of the new digital cable converters have RFID readers installed. RFID is the next generation of the barcode (radio frequency ID). So, if you buy crackers, the RFID reader will detect that in your house, and then you may get a cracker commercial. If your neighbor doesn’t buy crackers but buys cookies, he/she gets the cookie commercials.

I think these are all good – but I’m not sure ?!??

The Road

OK, so when is good not good?

A couple of months back, Aprill read a book called “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy. She went on and on about it – asking everyone she met (and I would guess some total strangers) if they had read it. I can picture her standing in line at the grocery store tapping the person in front of her on the shoulder and saying, “don’t buy that Redbook – you want a really good book, read “The Road”…)

I was intrigued, but at the time, I was eyebrow deep into “Pillars of the Earth” – my favorite book of all time. So I couldn’t begin to think about starting something else.

Then, it was done and I was still in the reading mood. So I hopped onto “The Road.” Awesome. So when is good not so good? This is a good book – but it is by no means a happy book. I do highly recommend it. But be prepared – it’s one you won’t be able to put down.

(And by the way – I read it cover to cover in about 4 hours – and I’m a notoriously slow reader.)

Sprung.

I love the days when spring fully grabs hold and takes control over winter. Even though we have a couple of 30 degree nights in the 5-day forecast, spring is now in charge.

Last night, Aprill and I sat on the patio until 11:30. It was one of those great spring nights. Warm – over 70 degrees. No bugs – too early for them. Well, no bugs except for one crazy jarfly that started singing (and may I add LOUDLY) in the big oak tree in our backyard and one lightning bug. But no mosquitoes. They’re coming – make no mistake. But not yet.

The sky was cloudy but bright, and you could look through the silhouettes of the trees and see them at about 50% summer canopy. Henry was chasing shadows in the porchlight. (So I guess there was at least one other bug – a moth). The traffic was buzzing on Sharon Amity. I ate a big hunk of cheese, drank a glass of wine and had a nice, long conversation with my lovely wife. As my favorite writer, Bill Bryson wrote, “I found myself enjoying it immensely.”

Warm spring nights are really good.

I’m Back!

Well, it’s been a little while since I’ve written. I’ll tell you why in a minute.

But there have been LOTS of good things since my last post. The Tennessee Vols didn’t win the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. But the Tennessee Lady Vols won the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Again. 8th time. Do you ever think Pat Summit (who has coached all 8 of them) ever holds that trophy over her head and thinks, “these things are starting to pile up?”

Davidson College made a run to the Elite 8 of the tournament. You didn’t even have to be a sports fan at all to enjoy watching those Davids slay Goliath after Goliath as they completed their bracket. They lost by one point before they would have made it to the Final Four. (And the way North Carolina played Kansas, Davidson could have possibly made the championship game). But it was good to see them do well.

Spring has fully sprung. The Masters is this weekend, and I think that’s the official start of spring.

We’ve had four house guests. Alan White (my college roommate) and his son Drew were in town for a Soapbox Derby race. “Deuce” (as Drew is now known) has a long history of finishing second. He finished second – but they had a great time and we had an awesome visit.

Lisa Davidson, one of Aprill’s BFFs, was in town for a conference and stayed with us for several nights. We usually stay with Lisa when we travel back to McMinnville – so not only was it good to have her and catch up, it was nice to be able to return all the favors.

Then, this week, Piccadilly was in the house. Piccadilly is an English Setter who once was our dog. If you know us well, you probably wonder how we could ever give a dog away. Well, it’s too long a story for one blog. But if you want to know, just ask me sometime and I’ll tell you. It was awesome having my little girl dog back even for a week.

I’m reading Pillars of the Earth again, and am almost finished. Everyone knows I’m not a really fast reader, and Pillars is an epic. Big, long, detailed. But I love it. It’s my favorite book of all time hands down, and if you haven’t read it, you really should. It’s by Ken Follett. Incredible story.

The main reason I haven’t been writing can be found at www.churchatcharlotte.org. For the past month or so, we’ve been working on rebranding our church. Branding a church? Well, yes. Churches have brands just like other organizations or businesses. Granted, for most churches, their name is their brand. But when I was asked to be communications director of our church, having been in branding for the 24 years prior, I didn’t want us to just be Church at Charlotte.

It has been a massive undertaking. But phase one is done. It’s very exciting. My personal objective was to create the best church website on the www. I’ll let you be the judge.