Bing Maps

I have been using this tool for a while and it is absolutely amazing.  When I've recently asked a few people (even one of my techie friends) if they knew about it, they said no.  Bing Maps is a lot like the more popular Google Maps, with one exception--Bird's Eye view.

I use this tool all the time to look at real estate especially.  It's a great way to see what the whole neighborhood is like.  Go to Bing Maps, enter an address, switch to bird's eye view and then zoom in. The view defaults to "Road".  That's where you'll change it.  Once you're there, you can rotate it and see a view from each cardinal direction.  It doesn't have bird's eye for everywhere, i.e. Wabash, IN. But if you live in a metropolitan area, you're probably covered.  Next time you want to see where something's at in detail, give it a try.

New Labels

I was talking with Teresa the other night at church about blogging.  I brought up labels and how I felt that I don't do a good job with this.  The label that I think would be most helpful are ones for each kid.  So if you wanted to see all the posts mainly about Benjamin, you could click on the label and there you go.  Or if you wanted to see what I've written lately about Lucy, click the label and wallah!  The only problem that I had with this was one of comparison.  What if I had 50 posts about Caleb and only 49 about Ben?  Would I feel pressure to keep them equal?

Well I've decided to do it.  So you can look on the label cloud (Recurring Themes) to the right and see all of the kids names.  You can also see who has the most.  Ben of course has the most.  He's the oldest and has been with us the longest.  I think it will be a fun way though for me to continue to organize the blog this way.  Any other suggestions for blog maintenance.

I Love Introverts

I love introverts.  My dad was one for sure.  My sister and brother are introverts.  I married one.  I am raising at least a couple.  (Molly spent two hours in her room by herself yesterday just playing and reading books.)  Amanda's whole family (almost) are introverts.  In our first few years of dating and marriage the difference in our communication styles, ways of processing and desires for interaction were real points of conflict.  Since then, Amanda and I have both grown to value the assets in the others personality.  I wish at times that I could be okay with just being by myself.  I have learned to do a little more internal processing before I simply spew out my thoughts.  And Amanda has grown to see the importance of community and desires open communication.

All that as an introduction.  Yesterday I came across a new blog entitled Introverts Corner.  This isn't just the ramblings of some random introvert.  It is part of the Psychology Today website.  There are some interesting articles.  The one that caught Amanda's eye and the one we talked about last night was An Interview with Adam McHugh, author of Introverts in the Church.  It's about a book that Adam McHugh has written about how the evangelical church is geared toward extroverts. 

Churches sometimes unintentionally equate faithfulness with extroversion; we draw up a composite sketch of the "ideal" Christian--gregarious, with an overt passion and enthusiasm, eager to participate in a wide variety of activities, shares their faith with strangers regularly, assumes leadership positions quickly, opens up their home to others often--and this ideal person starts sounding suspiciously like an extrovert.

If you're an introvert or someone who loves one, it's definitely worth checking out.  Adam McHugh has a whole blog just about the introverted church here.  It really is interesting to think about this slant in the church.  I remember the comment of a Bible professor after I complimented him on his sermon at church.  He said, "It's not my favorite thing to do.  Mostly I just like to hole up with my books."  I am so glad that there are people like him who want to "hole up with his books."  This must of been the feeling of people like Paul, Luther, Calvin, Lewis and many other scholars and pastors on whom we lean so heavily.  Let's celebrate introversion!  Let's celebrate by nodding our heads quickly, averting our eyes, and retreating to our rooms to write complimentary notes.

Star Wars in Concert

One of the greatest sagas of all time. Some of the best movie music ever. A full symphony orchestra. One of the largest touring screens. STAR WARS in Concert!

Unfortunately it is not coming to Minneapolis. Maybe they'll extend the tour and the boys and I could check this out. Watch the video below to whet your appetite.

Gammons Wordle

Jamsco encouraged us to make a family wordle. This was more fun than I thought it would be. What do you think? If you know us well, what words were you surprised about or what words did we miss? Give it a shot. You can make your own at wordle.net. If you do one, check out Jamsco's tips. See the comments for the list of words that we used.



Image used with permission from http://www.wordle.net/.

Are you a father or do you know one?

If you are either a father, would like to be, or know one, you need to check out a new blog, Responsible Father. It is by a brother from church. I read his current blog The Responsible Puppet. His new blog is about fatherhood. He has seven kids ages 12 to under one. They have adopted their last two children. They are a very neat family and I am really looking forward to read what he has to say. I'll add it to my blog roll on the right so you can follow along.

One of the funnier things I've seen in a while

I read some tech blogs in the morning and one of them recently featured Improv Everywhere. They are a group in New York that does pranks in public. My favorite one is where they have hundreds of people freeze at the exact same moment in Grand Central Station and stay frozen for five minutes.


They do all of these things just to make people smile and laugh. Here's another one. They had a bunch of people dress up in blue polo shirts and khaki pants and go into a Best Buy in NYC. When asked what they were doing, they all replied, "Just waiting for my friend." As you can see in the video, the Best Buy employees got a little worked up and called the police. The police had to explain to the security that it is not against the law to wear a blue polo and khaki pants in Best Buy. Hilarious.


You can see more of their "missions" here.

Why I'm Tweeting

I have been doing Facebook and Twitter for work for the past few months. I have accounts that are used to keep prospective and current students up-to-date about what's going on at the college. Yesterday I started my own Twitter account. Here's why.

• There were people that I wanted to follow that I couldn't do with my work account. @JohnPiper, @garciasn, @jgammons, @DoddsRootBeer
• Twitter is a text based way to social network. One of the things that I hate about Facebook is when I'm using it for work and I come across photos of students that I wish I hadn't seen.
• It has been good to get to know people better through their blogs. I think this will be a further way to do that.

So follow me on Twitter. @towngie

If you don't want to do Twitter or if you just want to see a little bit of what it's like, check out the Twitter widget over on the right side of the blog.

Fighter Verses and a growing community

Each week our church memorizes a passage of the Bible. Our church calls them "Fighter Verses." I have written about our families desire to hide God's word in our hearts before. At times this has been easier than at others. One thing that I am very excited about is the songs that have been written for some of this year's fighter verses. They are written by Scott Jamison, incidentally one of Ben's teachers on Wednesday night and the writer of one of the blogs I read daily. One of the performers on the songs, Tom Dodd, leads our small group. His wife Abigail writes another blog that I read. I am excited about this music and how it has already allowed me to put this week's verse in my heart (track 4 below).

I Timothy 4:12 "Do not let anyone despise you for your youth but set the believers an example in conduct, in speech, in love, in purity." (I wrote that from memory, so I may have jacked some of it up.)

I am also excited about the community that we are developing over the Internet. This is definitely one case where my getting to know people in the virtual world has helped me get to know them in the real world. Check out the blogs that we enjoy above and listen to the music below and maybe even join us in memorizing these scriptures.

Memorize Hymns with Covenant Life Church

What a great idea! For the next ten months, Covenant Life Church, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is going to be memorizing ten great hymns of the faith. From their website, they explain the reason for doing this.

"We’re doing this project because we want to benefit not only from the songs written in our lifetime, but also from hymns that have served the people of God for generations and will endure long after we’re gone. They are time-tested and true. They speak to every circumstance of life and point us to the wisdom, love and power of our gracious God and Savior."

• Amazing Grace
• Before the Throne
• Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
• Be Thou My Vision
• And Can It Be
• Crown Him with Many Crowns
• A Mighty Fortress
• Be Still My Soul
• How Firm a Foundation
• Great is Thy Faithfulness

The best part is that you can join them. They have put up an album of these hymns on Noisetrade.com (a site I've mentioned before.) I'm listening to it now and the arrangements are new but not annoying. The list is pretty traditional. You might not know "Before The Throne". It is one that our church does quite a bit though and it is a great one. Click on the link below and it will take you to the download. Tell 5 friends or just pay what you want. Feel free to use my e-mail addresses.

Minnesota Election Results

Check back here throughout the evening for your Minnesota election results.

NoiseTrade

Fair trade music? That is what these artists are purporting. If you go to NoiseTrade.com, you can see a list of artists that are "giving" away their music. You can download the music by either sending a message about the music to 5 e-mail addresses or by paying any price you want. I have downloaded three albums (Sorry to those who have gotten the e-mails.) There doesn't seem to be any catch.

The group of artists is headed by by Derek Webb, formerly of Caedmon's Call. He has given away his music before in other formats. I am not a huge fan of his music but I love his philosophy of art and music. The one album that I have really enjoyed from NoiseTrade is Kate York's Sadly Love. I had heard some of her music before and enjoyed it. You should definitely give it a try. Listen below.

My Kaboodle update

I just learned from a comment on my previous post about Kaboodle that you can now put things from other websites on your Amazon.com list. So, I have canceled my Kaboodle account and gotten back on the Amazon train. I did also set it up so that it doesn't ruin any surpises. It won't tell me what has been purchased three weeks before my birthday or anything in the month of December. Amanda told me that it was obnoxious to put your wish list on your blog. I hope that's not how it comes off.

My Kaboodle

I have always been disappointed in Amazon's wish list capabilities. I actually am getting to be disappointed in Amazon in general. It is great for books, but when you want to purchase other things, it is cumbersome. It would be better to just go to the source for the other items. To that end I started a couple of Kaboodle wish lists today (one for me and one for gift ideas for the fam.) I know, I know, none of you are sitting at home wondering what you could buy for me. But we do have some birthdays and holidays coming up in the next few months. I thought this would be a good way to spread the word. The great thing about it is that I can direct you right to the website that you would want to buy from. You can also just use it a resource to see the kinds of things that we're all into right now.

I've also put a slide show of both of the list on the right hand side of the blog. Check 'em out.

Our new banner

I decided to change the look of our blog again last week. As you may or may not know, 2ABC2M is short for Andy, Amanda, Benjamin, Caleb, Matthew and Molly. In thinking about some new ideas, I remembered an article that I read about spelling with flickr photos. It is a really cool site. You should check it out. One of the great things about it is how random it is. You can also swap out letters that you don't like.

Embed music on your blog

I was reading an article today about the Top 10 Hottest Music Sites and the mention the site imeem. They said that you could embed music into your blog posts. This is something that I've wanted to do for a long time. I have written about artists and wanted to give people a taste of their music. Now I think I'll be able to do this.

I have written about Kathleen Edwards before here. Here's a song off of her latest album Asking for Flowers. Enjoy!

Welcome back!

Welcome back the Falders to the blogosphere. Approximately a year ago Tricia was keeping a very interesting and regular blog. Then due to personal reasons (That's the reason celebrities give for quitting something. I think she just got to busy.) she quit posting and shut down the blog. This morning I received an e-mail that said they are BACK IN BUSINESS! The Falders have now gotten top billing on my friends list (on the right) and on my Netvibes page (my RSS reader). Check out their blog here.

Gregg rocks LazyLightning.org

Last week Bill and I were chatting and he said that he was looking into getting a new banner image for his site. He didn't really know where to start though. I told him that I would ask Gregg (who did my banner) and see if he would be willing/available. Sure enough, Gregg and Bill chatted and I think they came up with a real humdinger. You can see the whole redesign of Bill's site here.

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Now playing: Kathleen Edwards - The Cheapest Key
via FoxyTunes

Added a little music

Taking some cues from Traci McKee, I added a little music to my blog. I did it through playlist.com, if you're interested. The playlist is at the bottom of my page if you want to see it or turn it off. If it gives any of you problems, send me an e-mail or leave a comment.

What Andy reads

I have written about Netvibes before. I use it to check all of the blogs that I read, catch up on news and even watch job postings. This was a page that only I could see through a log-in. Now, Netvibes has allowed me to make a public page. So, if you read a lot of the blogs that I read or if you are looking for some good news, you can start at my Netvibes Universe page. I've entitled it "What Andy reads". I've divided it into "Start Here", things about our family; "Everyday Blogs", blogs that I read everyday; "News", obvious; and "Music", some mp3 blogs that I read and get music from. Make it a bookmark and check it when you want to see what Gregg is writing about or what Pastor John's blog says today. Better yet, make it your homepage and start off here every day. If you have any suggestions for feeds that I should add, leave them in the comments. I'd love to see what you are reading.

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Now playing: Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - How Long Do I Have To Wait? (Live Session Version)
via FoxyTunes