it coulda been worse...

Remember the blog post from a while back where I put up pictures of a supposedly "undiscovered" Indian tribe located near the border of Brazil and Peru?

Remember how disappointed I said I was going to be if it turned out to be a hoax?

Well, according to this story part of it was a hoax. The tribe has actually been known about for a long time - but until this fly over there had been no previous contact with them. The photographer took the picture and fudged the details of the story to try and make a point about the logging industry.

So, I'm disappointed that they weren't newly discovered, but happy, at least, that the photos weren't staged or part of a new Jack Black movie or something.

For your viewing pleasure

Next Gathering?

I'm not sure if Lexington has these types of crosswalk countdowns yet, but I'm thinking it might be fun to do a local version of this stunt! A video for the ages of us counting down at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon in downtown Lexington! Celebrating like mad and having everyone around us bewildered with excitement and curiosity! Who's in?!?!


Crosswalk Countdown - GuerilLA from Kelly Herrington on Vimeo.

Looking for a Cheap Date?

And maybe an easy way to start building community? Be sure to check out the upcoming "Parking Lot Party" at St. A's on June 20th! Details below and no registration required!

Parking Lot PartyFriday, Jun 20, 2008
Crossroads Parking Lot
7:30 pm
Bring your friends and neighbors to the Crossroads Parking Lot for our 2nd Annual Parking Lot Party! We will feature

1. Live DJ
2. Make your own Sundae
3. Sidewalk Chalk Contest
4. Bike Coral
5. Tricycle Races
6. “Drive-In” Movie

Bring your bikes, blankets and lawn chairs! No need to register, just come on over! Rain or Shine!

Free!
For More information, contact Jason Koerner at (859) 263-4633 ext 240

Manipulating Motivation

I receive a weekly sales motivational e-letter and found this week's to be particularly interesting. Being that sales is only a portion of my job, I try to transfer the bigger picture message from these e-letters to multiple areas of my life including business and personal. Check out the meat of this weeks message:

"In 1939, Napoleon Hill wrote many of his success principles in one immortal book, Think and Grow Rich. One of the principles is, “Do more than is expected of you.”
Amazing how old truths are still so valid.

Before Hill, around the turn of the last century (1900), Elbert Hubbard wrote an essay called “Message to Garcia.” It’s about a military officer named Rowan that was given an important message and told to deliver it to a guy named Garcia. Rowan -- without a moment of hesitation, without a “where” or “why” question -- started on the mission and ultimately delivered the message.

In his essay, Hubbard went on to chastise people for not delivering their message, and challenges each reader to take on the same blind “do it or perish” status."

Keep in mind this quote is used in the context of motivating sales reps. But it got me thinking about being directed on what messages I deliver. More than that, what's my direction on delivering God's message?

We understand called to deliver His message of eternal salvation and forgiveness in exchange for simply accepting His love. The hook for me was thinking, what if God had delivered His desire for us to spread His message with a "do it or perish" attitude? Quite a different spin on Christianity I'd say!

But God chose to provide us with free will and the ability to choose. For many, having the option is our downfall. For others, it's even more energizing to accept God's love and gift of eternal life.

Step back for a moment and think about your approach to free will. What would your life be like if your personal commitment to sharing the glory of God were more along the lines of Hubbard's encouragement? If every day you prioritized above all else, your desire to live like Jesus, spread His word when presented the opportunity and refused to succumb to compartmentalizing this responsibility behind or equal to your daily responsibilities.

Man oh man, I've got work to do... :)

Living Large with the Legends

Last Saturday night the Young Adults Gatherings spent an evening eating heavily and watching the Legends (lose) and some great fireworks after the game. It was a bit steamy but settled into a very nice evening. Despite the loss, it was a fun evening that included eats (burgers, dogs, beans and sweet tea!) baseball and some pretty cool fireworks considering it was just another June Saturday night.

As for the Young Adults Gathering, don't let the name fool you. If you're anywhere in the 22 - 102 range, then come on out to our next event. We'll be participating in the church wide cookout/field day in July but then in August we'll be sponsoring the first ever St. Awesome's Amazing Race! It should be a lot of fun so look for signups near the end of June. And if that doesn't get you interested, don't forget we'll be hosting another games and karaoke night later this fall.

The CCC Young Adults Gatherings are meant to be a place to have a good time, meet some new people and start building new relationships without the pressure and awkwardness that sometimes gets in the way. We'd love to see you soon so check back on this blog regularly or check out the Crossroads site for upcoming events!

Here are some pics from the Legends game. Note the Ford sign in the outfield. We actually saw a homerun hit that sign on the fly!

I love friends...

Sometimes they give you the best giggle of the day without any fair warning. A close friend of ours baked a cake today and ran out of icing. So she simply named it a "hospital gown" cake an served it up anyway. :)

Twitter Sunday

Following on the heels of this week's digital-relationship heavy service and the previous blog post and the video explaining Twittering, I give you: Twitter Sunday!

A church in Michigan recently had a service where they let the folks in their congregation with Twitter accounts post reactions and comments during the service to their side screens. Here's a link where one of the church leaders discusses the experience. It's a little long, but an interesting look at an interesting idea. As can be expected, some people loved it and some people hated it. The positive side for many seemed to be that it made them feel like a part of the service.

the internet in plain english

Everybody see the video this weekend explaining social networking sites?

Well it was created by a company called Commoncraft and they have a series of videos explaining different web utilities.

Here's one explaining RSS feeds. If you have a lot of internet sites that you read on a weekly basis, RSS feeds are a godsend:


Ever wonder what the idea behind sites like Wikipedia is? Here's a video explaining wikis:


Here's one explaining Twitter - a service that Glen referred to this weekend:

If you decide to Twitter, let me know at patchdrury at gmail dot com. I and several other folks from Crossroads are already on Twitter.

And finally, here's the one from this weekend about social networking in case you wanted to watch it again:


There are a few more on the Commoncraft website if you're interested.

They'll have a McDonald's soon...

Some of you might have seen this posted around the net last week. I'm putting it here because it's so incredible and seems like something that couldn't be real in the 21st century.

These are pictures of a heretofore uncontacted Amazon Indian tribe located near the border of Brazil and Peru:





You've seen this kind of thing in movies so much that it almost seems like a cliche - primitive villagers shooting arrows at the strange metal bird. Although, that might just be me projecting cultural superiority and a Hollywood plot onto some pictures. For all I know the guy in the airplane sold the villagers bad iPhones and now he's making a break for it.

Assuming that's not the case it's cool to think that despite how small technology has made our world, there are still bits of it that civilization hasn't yet crept into.

If I find out this was staged or is a movie promotion in a few months, I'm going to be really disappointed.