Ready for the Weekend

Imagine how weird things would be if we lived our real lives the way we live our online lives. This guy is taking facebook and twitter to the real world; seeking as many friends as he can get, following them, asking them to comment on photos, liking things, etc.

um... AWESOME!

I've spent the last few minutes reading emails, reading tweets, catching up on some blogs, and writing this post.

Why is this noteworthy?

I DID IT ALL FROM MY VERY OWN INTERNET CONNECTION IN THE COMFORT OF MY VERY OWN COUCH IN MY VERY OWN LIVING ROOM WHILE WATCHING MY VERY OWN TV!!!!!

Hey mom... guess who's probably going to skype you in a few minutes...

TWEET TWEET TWEET

I'm pretty sure that most of you are not active twitter users, but I wanted to let you in on my three favorite tweeters (people who tweet... I assume they're called tweeters). They are, in no particular order:

@Bathroom_Reader -- the official tweets from the folks who write the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader books. There's no easier way to be informed of interesting (though admittedly largely pointless) trivia than following them on twitter. Some of their recent tweets:

"Washington, D.C., has one lawyer for every 19 residents."

"A coffee tree yields only about a pound of coffee each year."

"Frightening fact: Phobatrivaphobia is a fear of trivia about phobias."

(Regarding that last one, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the Lang family suffers from Phobatrivaphobia. They seem to be afraid of most everything that doesn't make sense! Oh, SNAP!)

@prodigaljohn -- John Acuff, author of the Stuff Christians Like blog that inspired the book Stuff Christians Like (being released, like, now, I think). He's really, really funny. A few of his tweets:

"When I hear QT gas station ads that offer food made 'fresh in QT kitchens,' my stomach says 'Don't even think about it'"

"Someone on Amazon is selling used SCL book for $17. New is $9. It's less of a book & more of an investment opportunity http://bit.ly/bJ8vIu"

"My wife is out of town. Under my watch, my 6yr old may or may not have colored part of the 4yr old's hair pink."

@JohnPiper -- John Piper. He's a very influential pastor and author, and his tweets are jam-packed with fantastic biblical reflection. Even if you've been a Christian for years, or you're a pastor, or you've been to seminary, there's good stuff to be had with Dr. Piper's tweets. Here are a few:

"The most prostitued kiss ever. "The one I kiss is the man; seize him" (Matthew 26: 48)"

"In order to spend an hour in prayer asking God to do things in the world, you need an hour's worth of longings for the world."

"Where can I safely pour out my heart: “Pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” (Psalms 62:8)."

There you have it. Probably my three favorite twitterers. Tweeters. People who tweet on twitter.

Skypers

If anyone out there uses Skype at all, you should add me to your contacts (jakerohde), or let me know what your Skype name is so I can add you to mine. I'm not on often, but it'd be nice to be able to converse with you periodically so we can still be friends.

Mom and dad, how come you haven't been on since February? Joel and Pam, do you Skype? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

connecting

If anyone's interested, you can now find me at facebook.com/jakerohde.

Also, twitter.com/jakerohdingo.

Also, right here.

facebook usernames

Facebook is going to allow users to create usernames so that you can have an easier individual URL for your profile. In other words, if my username was jakerohde then my profile could be found at something like facebook.com/jakerohde. That service starts tonight at 12:01 a.m. eastern time... and usernames are available on a first come first served basis. So if there's a facebook username you're dying for, you might need to stay up a little later.

Tweetin'

I mentioned that I'm on Twitter now in a post a while back. I'm starting to pick it up a bit and see if I can figure out its positives and negatives. If you're interested, you can find me at twitter.com/valleyranch84. Also, I added a little Twitter widget to the right on this blog so you can check out my updates right here on my blog.

Is Ecclesiologist a word? Cuz I think I want to be one when I grow up

My semester's over, by the way.

On Friday afternoon I realized that my little final assignment for my last class that was due on Saturday night was actually a very BIG final assignment, and it was due on Friday night. I freaked out for a few minutes. The I did my assignment in an hour or two (it should have taken me about 12-15 hours) and turned it in. It won't get that good of a grade.

But I'm done now.

So, for a little while now I've been in the process of discovering what I think might be a fairly major passion of mine. But it's hard to describe. I really like the idea of helping churches to improve as communities of people who obey the Word and follow Christ. I feel like "church consulting" is kind of what I'm trying to describe, but I think that phrase seems very much like a secular businessperson trying to turn churches into profitable business that can simply grow attendance and bring in money -- and that's NOT what I'm talking about. I'm talking about learning as best as I can how churches can be most effective for the Kingdom of God, and then helping them to learn and implement ideas that come from it.

More recently, I've become extremely interested in the use of web-based technology as a part of the mission of the church. It was sparked when I came to the conclusion that my church's website could probably be much more user-friendly, and could include much more content and have a better layout. I just don't think that it's being used that much for anything right now, and that could change quite a bit. The use of facebook, twitter, blogs, and other programs on church websites obviously have both positives and negatives, but I've been learning an awful lot about those pros and cons, and if you avoid the cons and stick to the pros I think they can really be integrated into the mission of the church.

So if I designed my own job (which, while somewhat farfetched, isn't completely pie-in-the-sky, given the fact that 10 years ago facebook didn't exist, and 10 years before that the internet didn't... so the job I end up having someday might not even exist yet) it would be some kind of blending of the two exciting things I wrote about above. Using the internet and its tools to assist churches in growing into biblically-based Christ-following communities. So there you go.

On a sidenote, I've also recently discovered something called Google Analytics. Using this tool you can embed an html code into your website and track how people are using your site and where they're coming from. It'll track number of visits, number of new visitors, where your visitors have linked from, how long they tend to stay on your site, which pages of your site they view the most and the longest, where in the world (geographically) your visitors are, and much more. I've only begun to realize the niftiness of Analytics. I'm using it to track info right here on my blog, but a little unpopular blog that's read exclusively by close friends and family isn't the ideal site to use with Analytics. A church website, which has multiple pages and a lot more traffic, would be ideal (in my opinion). Anyway, it's cool. Ask me about it, if you're interested in learning more!

Now you can see what life's really like for me

My sister-in-law, Pam, blogged about a month ago in a twittery kind of way. Each half hour she posted what she was doing. The only rule about blogging this way: No cheating. Since she encouraged others to try the same thing, I decided to take her up on it. So here's my day. Boring moments and all.

6:30 Waking up

7:00 Reading about the possibility of a Super Bowl being played in London in the not-so-distant future (if you ask me, it's one of the dumbest ideas anyone in the NFL has ever had)

7:30 On a morning walk with Elizabeth

8:00 Watching the morning news

8:30 Cutting cheese for my breakfast bagel

9:00 Discussing an "Obama" bumper sticker with Elizabeth on our drive to school/work

9:30 At work: helping take down our church's Easter cross that's been hanging from the ceiling for a month

10:00 At work: addressing postcards for a youth group mailing

10:30 No joke -- sitting on the toilet playing Sudoku on my iPod touch

11:00 At work: stuffing envelopes for another mailing

11:30 Talking with co-workers about the new Star Trek movie coming out tonight

12:00 Addressing more postcards for yet another mailing (I promise I do more at work than mail things, use the bathroom, and chat with co-workers, but I'm not allowed to cheat and apparently the mailing stuff today all happened right around half-hour marks)

12:30 Checking out the book sale at the Denver Seminary Library

1:00 At Lowe's looking at cheap charcoal grills I could afford so we can have brats and make my wife really happy. No luck (about the grills -- but my wife's plenty happy)

1:30 Eating some lunch; watching CSI: New York

2:00 Messing around on iTunes

2:30 Messing around on Garage Band (a program that lets you create songs, jingles, and podcasts)

3:00 Looking up Hobby Lobby locations

3:30 Desperately trying to make my car start

4:00 Is there anyone on the planet who can fix our car tonight?

4:30 Waiting for the tow-truck guy

5:00 Still waiting for the tow-truck guy

5:30 It's not the starter! It's just the battery (according to the tow-truck guy). Now we're just waiting for the battery seller/installer guy

6:00 The old battery's really in there. Battery seller/installer guy is having a tough time getting it out.

6:30 Car stuff's over and taken care of! Heating up some leftovers for supper.

7:00 Getting ready to go to the store

7:30 In-between stores on our mini shopping trip

8:00 Settling in for "The Office"

8:30 My watch must be fast. "The Office" isn't quite over yet.

9:00 Blogging about what I did every half-hour today.

Tweet tweet

I twitter. I mean, I don't really twitter often. I should say I have a twitter account. And I occasionally post "tweets" on it (though it'd be funnier if they were called "twits").

I haven't really got the twitter bug, though. I mean, I don't really understand how exciting and fun it is. Maybe I just don't have enough random things to say throughout the day. Maybe if I were a really funny person, or if I had a really interesting day-to-day life then I'd understand how amazingly fun twitter is. Instead I have to manufacture things to say. Every couple of days or so I try to think up something to post. Which is really pretty stupid. And when you sign up for Twitter, it gives you the option of having Twitter send you a text message if you haven't posted anything in 24 hours. In other words, if you go a full day without informing the world what you're up to, they'll gently nudge you with a text message that apparently says something like, "Hey, moron, you signed up for this thing where you're supposed to keep the world in the loop with what's going on in your life. It's been 24 hours since you informed us. Have you fallen off the grid? Are you in the hospital or something? What in the world is keeping you from tweeting?"

Anywho... maybe someday I'll get the hype.