travis

I'm only posting today to get off of philmjmills' slacker report. So yeah, here's a lot of silly quiz things. This should keep me off your report for awhile or something. Are you happy now? Have fun scrolling!

You Are 68% Non Conformist

You are a pretty serious non conformist. You live a life hardly anyone understands. And while some may call you a freak, you're happy with who you are.

Are You a Nonconformist?

You Are an Excellent Cook

You're a top cook, but you weren't born that way. It's taken a lot of practice, a lot of experimenting, and a lot of learning. It's likely that you have what it takes to be a top chef, should you have the desire...

You Communicate With Your Body

This isn't as bad as it sounds, it just means that you're a "touchy-feely" person. You need a lot of affection in your life. And for you, this means both giving and receiving little touches. Warm hearted, you bond with people easily. In fact, you often feel a little sad when you're not in the company of others. A little moody, you tend to be controlled by your emotions. But a bit hug always comforts you!

You Are 69% Creative

You are beyond creative. You are a true artist - even if it's not in the conventional sense of the word. You love creating for its own sake, and you find yourself quite inspired at times.

Your Personality Cluster is Introverted Feeling

You are: Tolerant, flexible, and open to new ideas. A stickler for integrity and authenticity. Passionate about causes, beliefs, or politics. Likely to have many "best friends" from many walks of life

Who Should Paint You: Alfred Gockel

All American yet funky, you inspire an artist's imagination And while not everyone will understand your portrait, you will!

You Passed 8th Grade US History

Congratulations, you got 8/8 correct!

Your Animal Personality

Your Power Animal: Deer Animal You Were in a Past Life: Panda You are a fun-seeker - an adventurous, risk-taker. While you are spontaneous, you are not very rational.

You Are Totally Like Your Mom

You and your mom are practically clones. You think alike, and you even seem to read each other's minds. You're definitely you're mother's child... and that's just fine with you.

You Are a Kinetic Learner

You learn best by doing, and you have a talent for complicated, physical tasks. You excel at athletics, drama, and fixing things. You would be an excellent Olympic athlete - or a Broadway star!

You Should Rule Mercury

Close to sun, Mercury has very long days - and is rarely visible to the rest of the solar system. You are perfect to rule Mercury, because you live for the present - and can truly enjoy a day that goes on forever. Like Mercury, you are quick and elusive. Your wit is outstanding, and you can win any verbal sparring match. Some people see you as superficial, but in truth, you just play many roles and have many interests. A great manipulator, you usually get what you want from people. And they're happy to give it to you.

What Your Sleeping Position Says

You are calm and rational. You are also giving and kind - a great friend. You are easy going and trusting. However, you are too sensible to fall for mind games.

Your Mind is 35% Cluttered

Your mind is very free. You've liberated yourself from most worries and problems. And even if something does start to clutter your mind, you're easily able to let it go.

Your Vote Score: 85% Republican, 15% Democrat

You fit well with the Republican party, and you should almost definitely vote Republican this election. In fact, you're so strongly Republican, a political career (or at least some activism )may be in your future.

Your Hidden Talent

You have the power to persuade and influence others. You're the type of person who can turn a whole room around. The potential for great leadership is there, as long as you don't abuse it. Always remember, you have a lot more power over people than you might think!

Your Famous Last Words Will Be:

"So, you're a cannibal."

You Are 4: The Individualist

You are sensitive and intuitive, with others and yourself. You are creative and dreamy... plus dramatic and unpredictable. You're emotionally honest, real, and easily hurt. Totally expressive, others always know exactly how you feel. At Your Best: You are inspired, artistic, and introspective. You know what you're thinking, and you can communicate it well. At Your Worst: You are melancholy, alienated, and withdrawn. Your Fixation: Envy Your Primary Fear: To have no identity Your Primary Desire: To find yourself Other Number 4's: Alanis Morisette, Johnny Depp, J.D. Salinger, Jim Morrison, and Anne Rice.

You Are a Boston Terrier Puppy

Aggressive, wild, and rambunctious. Deep down, you're just a cuddle monster.

I realized recently that when typing I only use the shift key on the left side of the keyboard, and never the one on the right.  Technically you're supposed to use the shift key that is opposite of the key you're striking.   I slide the whole left hand over to do caps on the left side, so while I type the letter with another finger on my left hand, my left pinky is holding down the shift key.  Regardless of caps, I always type Z with my left hand ring finger, X with the middle, and C & V with the pointer.  A lowercase "a" is typed with my left pinky, but when I capitalize it, I switch to my ring finger.

Phil Mills does the same thing.  When asked, Ryan Blume and Jared Campbell admitted to the same thing.  Josh Hand has much better habits and uses both shift keys correctly, although he admitted that he hits "B" with his right hand.

I also only hit the spacebar with my right thumb.  Never the left.  It's got a nice shiny spot on it where my thumb hits.  And since my left hand pinky holds the shift key down, the exclamation point gets hit with the middle finger on my left hand.  Ryan and Jared confirmed that they do both of these as well. 

Backspace seems to differ though, I hit that key with my middle finger, whereas Ryan and Jared use their ring fingers.  I also have the bad habit of hitting "P" with the ring finger on my right hand.  After all this analysis, my typing method seemed much less efficient to me, so I decided to take an online typing speed test - and consistently scored around 90wpm - so I guess I've adapted well to my "bad" habits.  I think I'll keep them.

brat

my wife, about to say something brilliant.

brr

This is what I do when I'm snowed in - I take hundreds of pictures of a squirrel until I get a picture I really like. His name is Bruce, he's fat, and he runs around my backyard all day.

This is a photo I took while out among the falling leaves. Fall is my favorite time of the year. That is all.

Sarah and I closed on our new house August 11th, and began demolition and cleaning the next day - with the help of a bunch of our friends, we've made a ton of progress so far!

Check it out.

fragile
Originally uploaded by swambo.

I was up at my parents place in Evergreen a few weekends ago to help them clean out their garage. It rained and was foggy the entire time - being up on the mountain in the fog felt sort of dream-like, especially since a herd of elk were roaming around appearing and disappearing in the fog. I risked getting my camera wet and took a few pictures in the rain - this is one of those. I loved how the water droplets weighed down the fragile petals.

magnum!
Originally uploaded by swambo.

This would be my good friend Kristian. He's one of my favorite people. That is all.

feathers
Originally uploaded by swambo.

Another picture from the zoo trip - this one is a closeup of a flamingo.

loud monkey
Originally uploaded by swambo.

We had a great time at the zoo this week with Sarah's parents and Annie and Aaron. I took this picture of this monkey yelling at Aaron. I don't know what Aaron did to make it so mad, but it sure didn't like him.

This is a 30 second exposure I took on Tuesday night up at Horsetooth Reservoir with Fort Collins in the background. Kristian Fitzgerald and I took a bunch of long exposures and froze a lot. Oh, and we almost got run over by a crazy night bicycle guy that wasn't watching where he was going.

Sarah and I spent the weekend in downtown Denver for our wedding anniversary, thanks to Mark Johnson giving us a super sweet discount at the hotel he works at. From our room's balcony, I took this picture of the city at night. Saturday and Sunday were absolutely freezing, but we walked everywhere we went anyway - with a Starbucks every block or so, it's really easy to stay warm! It was a great weekend. We went to the home and garden show at the convention center, saw some cool art (and some not so cool art) at the contemporary art museum, ate at the Melting Pot and the Old Spaghetti Factory (where we had terrible service, but were able to laugh about it), watched the Pink Panther movie on 16th street, watched an educational film at the Imax, and visited my old place of work, the capital building.

Joining the bandwagon . . . the two question enneagram test. ( Read more... )

I took this long exposure photo of myself last night while walking through Edora park . . . I look rather ghostly.

Check out this photo I took of Josh Hand last weekend. We were taking pictures around this old barn, and Josh ventured up into the attic, where he kicked some dust around so the light streaming in could be visible. Then he hid in the corner.

I took this picture this morning with Sarah's and my new camera. Someone coming down the Spring Creek Trail scared the duck out of the creek and I frantically snapped 18 quick pictures trying to get at least one. I did. I'm a big fan of the camera's auto-focus function!

I've started a flickr photo site, if you click on the duck, you can see the rest of the pictures I've taken. I'll be updating frequently.

Flying Duck
Originally uploaded by swambo.

RockWorship.com is now up and running!



The site is intended to be a resource and discussion site for worship leaders both in the Great Commission Association of churches and the church at large. Hopefully it will help enable other worship leaders to get out of the isolated world that the worship leader job often is.

Matt Heerema and I have been working together with this concept for the past several months. He's a genius at web development - all I had to do was give him a few graphics and write some content. We're working with other worship leaders around the country on creating more content and getting dialogue going. Feel free to browse the site, make comments in the forum, etc etc. If you really care about worshipping God with music and have something to contribute, I can get you set up as a contributor.

Hit random on iTunes and print the first 20 songs without editing out anything embarrasing . . . this is random out of 8070 songs:

1. "I Will Play My Game Beneath The Spin Light" - Brand New
2. "Born too Slow" - The Crystal Method
3. "The Handshake" - Bad Religion
4. "The Trick Is To Keep Breathing" - Garbage
5. "The Background" - Third Eye Blind
6. "All I Want" - Toad The Wet Sprocket
7. "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" - Third Day
8. "You Don't Count The Cost" - Billy Dean
9. "Amazed" - Jared Anderson
10. "Silver and Cold" - AFI
11. "Beautiful Girl" - INXS
12. "Open Up the Gates" - Planetshakers
13. "Questions" - Home Town Hero
14. "He's Alive" - Don Francisco
15. "Lover I Don't Have To Love" - Bright Eyes
16. "Dancing With Orphans" - Danny Oertli
17. "For What Its Worth" - Buffalo Springfield
18. "Stay Up" - Pillar
19. "I Fear You" - Jeff Deyo
20. "I Can't" - Radiohead

This makes me look like I'm soooo last year . . .

Ok Ben and Matt, I'm choosing my favorite band from waaay back in high school, NOFX.

1. Are you male or female? I'm Telling Tim
2. Describe yourself: It's My Job To Keep Punk Rock Elite
3. How do some people feel about you: All His Suits Are Torn
4. How do you feel about yourself: And Now For Something Completely Similar
5. How do you feel about ex boyfriends/girlfriends: Thank God It's Monday
6. Describe current boyfriend/girlfriend/crush: Falling In Love
7. Describe where you want to be: The Cause
8. Describe how you live: Flossing A Dead Horse
9. Describe how you love: Bottles To The Ground
10. What would you ask for if you had just one wish: Bob
11. Share a few words of Wisdom: Mean People Suck
12. Now say goodbye: Dinosaurs Will Die

We just got back from a week in Iowa with my wife's family. I decided to use my new camera phone to document much of the trip.
( click here for more . . . )