If you haven’t heard the news yet, the iPhone 4 will be available on Verizon beginning of next month! This was announced at a Verizon event this morning - and I think it’s great. I’m not excited necessarily because I’m saying Verizon is the best at everything, I think it’s just great to have the competition of multiple carriers having the iPhone, seems a little less Monopoly-ish to me. Here’s a few thoughts of mine from the announcement… I currently have the iPhone 4 on AT&T. I signed a 2 yr contract and there are early termination fees. Fees that you better understand AT&T will not look the other way on. With this fact, I don’t see a switch to Verizon in my near future. I think it will be interesting to see if AT&T gets any better when many people will surely switch. I’ll wait until my contract is over with AT&T, then see how Verizon has handled the influx of traffic and make a decision then. I am excited about this for people like my parents, who aren’t going to leave Verizon, because back in the day they got their whole family on Verizon for free calling to each other - I’ll be pushing them to get an iPhone again - no excuses now! I think it’s interesting, and smart that Verizon is giving current customers first dibs on the iPhone. In other words, sorry to all you AT&T suckers, you’re gonna have to get in line behind the loyal customers. haha Great!

If you haven’t heard the news yet, the iPhone 4 will be available on Verizon beginning of next month! This was announced at a Verizon event this morning - and I think it’s great. I’m not excited necessarily because I’m saying Verizon is the best at everything, I think it’s just great to have the competition of multiple carriers having the iPhone, seems a little less Monopoly-ish to me. Here’s a few thoughts of mine from the announcement…

  • I currently have the iPhone 4 on AT&T. I signed a 2 yr contract and there are early termination fees. Fees that you better understand AT&T will not look the other way on. With this fact, I don’t see a switch to Verizon in my near future.
  • I think it will be interesting to see if AT&T gets any better when many people will surely switch.
  • I’ll wait until my contract is over with AT&T, then see how Verizon has handled the influx of traffic and make a decision then.
  • I am excited about this for people like my parents, who aren’t going to leave Verizon, because back in the day they got their whole family on Verizon for free calling to each other - I’ll be pushing them to get an iPhone again - no excuses now!
  • I think it’s interesting, and smart that Verizon is giving current customers first dibs on the iPhone. In other words, sorry to all you AT&T suckers, you’re gonna have to get in line behind the loyal customers. haha Great!

Do you want to see Detroit get better?

I’ll write more about this later, but I couldn’t resist at least letting you all know about this awesome site. It’s Detroit2020.com and the main point of it is to look at how we can make Detroit a better city in the year 2020. In order to make it better then, we have to think about it now. This site, put on by Channel 7 WXYZ is awesome - they are taking a positive stand on improving the city. It really is a great place to be. Will we choose to do the work to improve it or let it fall apart naturally? I hope we all choose to improve it!

Creative Arts Team

Creative Arts team - you’ve heard that term thrown around, especially in churches these days, right? Why that name? Isn’t it repetitive anyways? Can you have art without it being creative? Also, don’t you think all people have creativity built into them by God? I do. Hmmm… What’s a better name for that type of team?

Tracking Goals To Succeed in 2011

Yesterday I wrote a tweet, trying to be funny about the revolutionary idea I had…

Obviously it really isn’t revolutionary, but it was just so funny to me that it popped into my head like a revolutionary idea. Why hadn’t I thought about it before? Regardless of why, I’m doing it now. I’ve made a list of some of my top goals, figured out what “success” looks like and will now know whether I’m succeeding or not. Here’s what it looks like…

Here’s how the columns go for me…

-Exercise (1 hr - 3 times/ week)

-Devotions (30 mins - 7 times/ week)

-Blogging (5 posts/ week)

-Homemade Meals (Lunch/Dinner - 12/ week)

-College (Attend Every Class - Yes or No)

-Every Expense Recorded in Budget (Yes or No)

-Success this week? (Yes or No)

This way - I’ll know how I’m doing all the time. I think it’s going to help! I’ll let you know after a little while!

I found this video very interesting, to hear some thoughts from Carlos Whittaker all at one time. Gave me more of a complete picture of what he’s thinking and really caused me to think. That’s a good thing. Hope it does the same for you!

Last night I tweeted this picture and thought some people may like to know what software I was using. I was actually working with a friend on a high school play’s set design, which is fun! The software we were using is Google’s Sketch Up. I’ve used some pretty nice, expensive CAD software and Sketch Up isn’t that…but that’s a lot of good news for most people. Sketch Up is pretty intuitive and if you want, you can push it to do some pretty cool things. And best of all… it’s free! You can’t beat that. I’d encourage you to download it the next time you need to share a design with someone and see what you think!

Last night I tweeted this picture and thought some people may like to know what software I was using. I was actually working with a friend on a high school play’s set design, which is fun! The software we were using is Google’s Sketch Up. I’ve used some pretty nice, expensive CAD software and Sketch Up isn’t that…but that’s a lot of good news for most people. Sketch Up is pretty intuitive and if you want, you can push it to do some pretty cool things. And best of all… it’s free! You can’t beat that. I’d encourage you to download it the next time you need to share a design with someone and see what you think!

A lesson on clearing clutter from Carlos Whittaker.

A few days ago, I was catching up on some of my favorite blogs and read Carlos Whittaker’s post called Ragamuffin Digital Toolbox 2010. It’s a great post where he goes through and explains some of the tools he uses the most to get stuff done from hardware to software to iPhone apps, etc. It’s a great post - you should check it out! Although it was all good stuff, there was one thing that really stuck out to me - something he didn’t even write anything about. You see, down a little ways into the post he starts talking about the iPhone apps he uses and he shows a picture of his home screen and then another picture of a folder expanded. It was the home screen picture that grabbed my attention. Here’s what he showed…

 

Obviously first off, he’s got an adorable picture of his two daughters - but wait - you can see them - they’re actually like the focus of the screen. And whoa, he’s only got one folder on his dock and that’s it. Nothing else on his home page. Hmmm, that got me thinking - if I put a picture on my home screen, it would be hard to tell what it was because my screen was full of apps, like most are. But Carlos has done something amazing here. He has visually de-cluttered his iPhone. I think this is amazing. Maybe you think I’m crazy for thinking so much about this, but let me explain a little more.

Here’s the thing, I consume tons of information. I love it and I have great ways all around me to consume this information. I think it’s a blessing, it makes it so much easier to be inspired, to learn, research, etc. Cool. But there’s a downside to all of this consumption - it can get overwhelming. It’s easy to live my life where I am constantly being bombarded with information, never allowing my brain to calm down and just be still. I think the fact that I never let my brain just chill is a problem. It causes me to be too connected and pushes other things away that I should be doing. This is why I love Carlos’ picture, it doesn’t bombard you with information. It allows him to chill out, see his awesome picture and get to the apps he uses most, but even that is contained. It’s peaceful.

So, I took his idea and made it happen on my phone…

I’ve had it like this for about a week, and let me tell you, it makes a difference. I can go look at things when I choose to, instead of them constantly pushing for my attention. Just another little thing that I think will help make this new year better! Let me know if you do something like this, or something better, I’d love to hear it!

Passion 2011 Live Stream »

Check out the live stream when you have a minute. Such an awesome thing that they are making this available to everyone for free. I encourage you to sit down, get rid of the distractions and listen to a session - God’s been working in me big time through these - I hope you allow Him to do the same in you.