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John's comments from life.

Another trip to Oregon

Wednesday, August 30, 2006 0 Comments

Yeah, another road trip. This time Barney and I went to see his dad, to deliver a wood stove, work on plans for the addition for the house, as well as trim some trees. We took Barney’s mini-van and Russ’ trailer for the stove. The drive over was fine, a stop at Multnomah Falls was in order, and we climbed to the top again. It’s about 600’ climb to the top, a mile long.
We arrived at the house by 5:00, and trimmed 3 trees today. Frank bought home some Chinese food for supper and watched a movie - Foxfire w/ Clint Eastwood. The movie was made it ‘82, and boy, what a cheezy effects they had back then.
Plan is to go back home on Sunday - we’ll see.


Just a long week.

Sunday, August 27, 2006 0 Comments

Some may say that no news is good news. I say that no news is busy times. See, it’s been a lot of long hours in the office, working first on the Interactive DVD, but then switched to The Lamb PowerPoint presentation. DC started this a while back, and is now in Seminary, and I’ve been slated to finish it off. Not a small project either - but it’s taking shape. One turn of events that happened today is to basically scrap trying to put audio on the PowerPoint (PPT) and just do a DVD instead (which was the plan after the PPT and audio was finished.) Working with PowerPoint to me is like living in a mud house for you. There’s a lot it can do, but it’s not a precise program—guess and by golly are the rules as far as I’m concerned. Case in point -  I timed the program to the audio precisely, and when I played it back it was off quite a bit. But no worries, the DVD gives me much more flexibility and control to produce something that will be so much better.


Office Work - Closed Captioning, Phones and photos

Tuesday, August 22, 2006 0 Comments

In the office all day today. Worked on the Interactive Book Closed Captioning - up to Chapter 9, Section 2. Today was my day on phones as well, but it wasn’t too busy that way.
After supper I took product photos for Russ - for the PI website. Little stuff - rings, bracelets, and pendants.
Over lunch (which turned into a couple-three hours) I went house shopping. Barney went with, as he saw some housing that he though for sure would be cheap enough for me to get into. It was a pre-fab neighborhood, and when I called a realtor, they were asking for $145,000 for a used place, with no garage even. Well, that’s out for me!
We stopped at another place, and it was 1,300 square feet, no basement (I think), new, $165k.
I had the bright idea of stopping at Habitat for Humanity to see if they had some possible solutions for me. I can build it, but just needing help w/ the finance part. But they aren’t accepting any applications right now, and if they were, it’s a 2 year process to boot.
Not sure which direction to turn just yet… so for the time being I’ll stay w/ the Legers!


Church and Chillin'

Monday, August 21, 2006 0 Comments

Today was the last day for meeting at the local school for church. The new building is just about ready, and we are planning on meeting in there next Sunday, which will be nice. Phil brought another mixer today, so it was a little interesting in getting the sound set up (every board is different, though similar. Last week was a different arrangement, as was the previous week!) But all in all, it went well. Folks said it sounded ok, so I’m glad it worked out ok. Just so you know, we only had 7 channels - #3 didn’t work so we cut TJ’s mic. Debbie was on vocals / lead guitar, TJ played classic guitar, Phil - vocal and drums, Chandra and Monica on vocals. Rick just had to pull a vocal to use for the message - the last half of Acts 5.
After church, I came home for a nap, read, supper and watched Left Behind I with the fam. Worked a little on tweaking the website after that - getting the previous / next article links to come up on the top of each individual article page.


Saturday - back to the grind.

Sunday, August 20, 2006 0 Comments

Still rather tired from the trip yesterday, but still had enough energy to get in and start up on the Closed Captioning on the new video. Problem is, this type of work is the hardest type to do when you are tired! But managed to pull of 3-4 chapters (not sure where I started.)
Went to Barney’s tonight to chill. There’s talk again of helping him put an addition on the house - but nothing set in concrete just yet. It’ll be a nice break from the office if it comes to be.


Road Trip -- Denver, CO to CDA, ID

Friday, August 18, 2006 0 Comments

Today was just a long day. Left Berthoud at around 5:20, drove to the Denver Airport to pick up Tom, Mica and Titus. At the airport, I waited about 20 min for them to show up (which was good, as I had to get my bike out of the back seat, and on the bike rack on the back, among other things!)
Well, we drove (I did the driving) for about 16 hours after that, arriving home at 10:30. Yeah, it was a long day.


At my brother's.

Thursday, August 17, 2006 0 Comments

Oh, we got up and went to Johnson’s Corner (world-famous truck-stop) for breakfast. Filled us up good, so it did. I split a cinnamon roll w/ Mathias, as Russ and Anna split one too.
I took a look at Matt and Anna’s mission trip to Mexico - as well as some of Anna’s photography from a class in school. They were pretty good if I say so myself!
Back home, we decided to go fly a bit, so Russ and I took the Porsche over. We flew over Berthoud, then did a touch-and-go at Greeley. Total flight time was around an hour.


Arches National Park - then Drive to Berthoud

Wednesday, August 16, 2006 0 Comments

I was toying with the idea of getting up real early and catching the sunrise at the delicate arch this morning, so much so that I didn’t make it in time! And the best thing to do would be (in my opinion) to find an arch that would work well with the sunrise. And I’m thinking that it might have worked ok, though it’ll be a while before I can verify.
After that arch (it’s a mile+ hike in to get up close) I drove to Burger King for a quick breakfast, then over to the Devil’s Garden. Not sure why he gets credit for so many places on earth, but that’s what ‘they’ call it. Spent most of the rest of the day here, hiking oh, about another 8 miles. Bring more water! I didn’t, but managed to make it out ok. There’s more than arches out here, which the photos will testify.
I wanted to leave the park by 2:00 to make it to my brother’s place in good time, but ended up being around 3:00. Then, stopped in to see some dinosaur tracks along the way, which was pretty cool (about 20 miles up from the park.)
I guess the thing that impressed me the most about this park, is that these sandstone ‘mountains’ are on top up here - about 5,000 feet. Yet, they are built from water, and carved by water. Do the math - something had to have happen that created such structures.
Take some time to look at the park from the air - here’s a link of the Delicate Arch via maps.google.com.
From then on it was driving time. I-70, going into Denver (from UT) is probably my favorite stretch of road. This was my 2nd time though this part, and this time was just a neat trip.


Drove from Pocatello, to Arches National Park

Wednesday, August 16, 2006 1 Comment

Good drive today - and because of a phone call from Tom saying “Don’t go to the Dinosaur National Park,” I headed down to the Arches National Park. This was a good call, because I needed all the time I could in ANP.
Not really sure where to go, I went to the Delicate Arch (view area - I didn’t hike up this time.) Then stopped at the Windows arches. Here, I got caught in a decent thunderstorm. I’m thankful I had my Gore-Tex rain coat with me, and that my camera bag has a cover for it. Later in the hotel, I was watching the weather, and looks like the ‘red’ part of the storm went right over. Thankful for answered prayer - I didn’t get hit this time by lightning.
Spent the night in Motel 6, and was able to upload images of the day. I did stay at Moab, which was 2x as expensive as Green River, but I thought it was ok as the other one was 100 miles out of the way. I didn’t want to give up 2 hours traveling either…


Bike Ride - office and weight

Saturday, August 12, 2006 0 Comments

Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. It was 4:45—too early for much of anything, except to hitch a ride to the bottom of the top of Lookout Pass. Here is the trailhead for a nice bike ride. See, Tom was driving out, picking up Titus and then coming back 2.5 hour later. So, he dropps Barney, Luke and I at the trailhead (well, Barney and Luke at the top of Lookout pass, where they rode down to where I was on the interstate, and freezing cold I might add) then goes to pick up Titus (and Rachel) then on his way back picks the 3 of us up to come home. Much the same route as what we did last Saturday, but a little different.
So, that’s what we did. The attached photo is the route - (coming Sunday afternoon) - 33.7 miles, 2:13 hr, average speed - 15 mph (there was some waiting time, etc. in there…)
Then to the office, where I was till supper (steak for Titus) then helped Barney move the weight machine into the office.


Friday's office work

Friday, August 11, 2006 0 Comments

Spent the day in the office today. Much of the day was getting the “pack and stack” area re-organized (this is where we pack and stack our DVD’s, audio books, and anything else that needs assembly.) When it was all said and done, there was enough room for the printer from Rachel’s office, as well as the weight machine from the PI office.


Office Racks

Friday, August 11, 2006 0 Comments

Was able to get the book I’ve been working on (The Stranger with the DVD segments marked in it) printed and coil bound today. That was fun. Now comes the hard part - putting the DVD together. There’s 123 sections that comprise the DVD, and it’s not hard just tedious. There’s 15 chapters, that means at least 15 menus, and links going everywhere, and I want to do Subtitles (so it’s easier to translate) which adds another dimension yet. But it’s coming.
Spent a good part of the day re-organizing the warehouse. Tom and I set the shelves up, and then I started pulling pallets around and throwing boxes. It’s cleaning up well, but—you guessed it—it’s not finished.
Tonight, I started in on the Closed Captioning for the Interactive DVD, but then got side-tracked to moving the prop / CD Insert stuff around.
Barney and Jim got EFI running tonight - the new site, that is.


You guessed it - another day on the computer. Oh, and racks.

Thursday, August 10, 2006 0 Comments

Today was launch day for the changes I’ve been working on with the website. Things went very well. There was a ton of changes after the switch, but that was mainly because I overlooked several files (RealPlayer audio files.) But that wasn’t too bad. Very thankful that things are still working! Some new pages I put are the French Audio Preview, and put links to the mp3 files for the English Lamb. I didn’t do any design work, just basically got the information available. Jim’s the design man working on the new site, and this will work till then.
This morning Tom and I drove down to purchase some more shelving units. The fellow we went to see wasn’t there, so we picked up what we wanted and headed home. Before we got there, he called, and Tom went back with the check (which was the plan—we talked w/ his wife when we were there.) Tom, though, came home with another truckload! Ryan cleaned them up for us and we’ll get them set up sometime soon I reckon.


Web work at the office -and- Spear

Tuesday, August 08, 2006 0 Comments

Today was a coninuation of yesterday. Worked all day on the web store - and making little changes around (like moving the audio, video, and large PDF files to av.goodseed.com so we don’t have to back all that data up every day.) Made a lot of progress on it, just that it’s not finished yet!
Tonight we watched The End of the Spear. I know it’s easy to be critical of things, but I was dissapointed when it was all said and done. I understand the movie was designed to ‘stimulate conversation,’ but I think it missed even that.


Web store -- office work

Tuesday, August 08, 2006 0 Comments

Just spend the day tied to my chair and worked on converting the goodseed.com webstore. What I’m doing is changing the location of the store (and henceforth all the links there in needs to be updated) so that we can easily duplcate this into 4 more stores. So my job is to basically re-link every link in the goodseed website (not really,  but sure seems that way.) Made good progress on it today, and hopefully we’ll be able to actually move to this site tomorrow.
After supper came back and worked on the book for the interactive Stranger. Started at chapter six, and went up through chapter 10 on the book part. The video was finished last Friday (I really thought that I typed something then, but - if I did, it didn’t make it here.) And if this write-up doesn’t flow very well, it’s because of the same reason why I’m going home right now.


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