Category: reflections

My blog layout/design

Boy, I’m having the toughest of time figuring out how to redesign/layout my blog.

I’ve been toying with a number of ideas over the last few months and still haven’t found anything that I really like.

mimbo3

I keep leaning towards something like a magazine layout where the page is layed out more online magazine/newspaper style (something like the Mimbo theme) but I’m realizing that with 4000+ posts on my blog (with many of them posted under numerous categories) it’s going to be hard to get everything looking right.

I think a magazine style blog goes well with the Kingdom Journalist title I’ve borrowed and adopted from Steve Knight — but I’m still working through how that might look on a blog.

vintage

I’ve also looked at some fun ones like Vintage and Blues from Smashing Magazine but I quickly realized I’d need to do a lot of customization on my individual posts to get them to show up right. They’re both still on the drawing board though and I go back to them from time to time and piddle with them as well.

something

I’ve also thought about bringing the something beautiful theme over to my blog as well. But the way its been setup (before I added a few tweeks to it this weekend) was it only shows the two latest posts on the front page. That’s fine – except some days I tend to write numerous posts.

And to top it all off, I’m still thinking through what all I want this blog to be. Should this blog be an aggregator of all things Jonathan Blundell (think Facebook News Feed or Friendfeed – or the My Life in RSS feed).

Those closest to me say they really want more “reflective” posts where I talk about me, what I’m doing, what I’ve been up to etc. They’re not typically big fans of the “faith” or “political” or “I like this video” posts.

I guess to me I write those posts, because they’re a reflection of who I am. That’s part of who I am. But don’t worry, I see their (your) point as well.

Perhaps rather than trying to share videos, links and the like on my blog – I can just relegate those to the sites I share them on in the first place – like delicious, Google Reader, YouTube, Vimeo and the like – or just let everyone who wants to see these random things subscribe to my FriendFeed?

So, many questions, many ideas – just not one particular one really standing out to me.

What say you?

Oh, and by the way… I purchased jdblundell.com with some birthday money money from a bit of freelance work. So that might be another option for future use. Currently it’ll point you to this blog – but in the future I may decide on some other use for it.

January Happenings

I started off this year wanting to follow Brandi’s monthly list of great things that happen throughout the month. Well, January came and went and I didn’t get anything posted. February has not come and gone as well and now its March.

I’ll see if what I can recall from my Flickr 365 stream and hopefully keep better track of things in March.

So here’s a list of things I did/learned/thought about each day of the month.

Jan
1. New Years – we celebrated Dan and Bob’s birthday at our house
2. We watched Hancock tonight. Good fun Will Smith movie.
3. Trans Siberian Orchestra! And dinner with Jed and Jen and then gelato from Patrizios.
4. Sunday afternoon nap!
5. It was 30 degrees outside, but I was reminded I had a nice home to keep me warm.
6. Started Tubby Tuesday – need to be better keeping up.
7. Learned that I have what it takes to be the GOP National Convention Chair.
8. Published a new podcast interview with Steve Knight.
9. Ikea!
10. Took down the Christmas lights and took some “stuff” to the thrift store and dump.
11. encounter challenge to walk by faith – and face the giants in our lives :: fully surrender, intentional relationships, caring for others, personal responsibility, leadership
12. I am not for sale. You are not for sale. No one should be for sale.
13. Tubby Tuesday – down 3.8lbs since the last week.
14. Apparently the 14th was a pretty uneventful day.
15. I realized I’m no good at jumping rope.
16. We had Kara and Tim over for dinner for Cafe de Blundell.
17. God’s grace is beyond our imagination.
18. For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard… (Matt 20:1)
19. MLK Jr Day – U2’s Get On Your Boots was released today.
20. Barack Obama sworn in as our 44th President!
21. Swam 400 yards in the (heated) pool. Wore me out!
22. “a fairly uneventful day today. a meeting in the morning at work, an hour or so at the gym riding a bike, weights and a .5 mile around the track.”
23. Winter allergies – YUCK!
24. Reflecting on Ephesians 2:14-18, “may we overcome. may we tear down walls we’ve built in the past and build bridges towards a New Humanity instead.”
25. We celebrated my grandmother’s 90th birthday today! And found out my cousin Brian and his wife Amanda are having a baby! (I’m betting it will be a girl).
26. Laurie made her magical strawberry cake cookies!
27. Tubby Tuesday – I gained 2.8 lbs over the week! GRIPES!
28. Ice day! No work!
29. I was Mr Grumpy Pants on the 29th. Didn’t get my way and couldn’t figure out why it bothered me so much.
30. A fairly uneventful day – frost on the truck on my way to work.
31. African American Read-In at the Majestic Theatre.

Leaders – are your followers stuck?

Sent this out to our community group leaders today. Wanted to share and get feedback here as well.

As a leader, are your group members stuck?

Are they stuck thinking they need you for the group to grow, mature, to meet?

Are they dependent upon you for their faith and their walk with God?

I heard a great quote this week from Peter Rollins.

He was asked about being a leader and he said, “The role of the leader is to shun that title. Just like the role of a priest is to shun the title so that all believers will take up the priesthood of the believers.”

If we’re not preparing people, who will lead when you’re gone?

Thoughts? Questions? Ideas?

U2’s ‘White as Snow’

shirt-lamb-large

While some have told me they’re not digging U2’s new album, I’m loving it more and more as I listen to it.

Did a little research on the somber track “White as Snow,” of which I originally said, “The opening guitar, bass and vocals immediately remind me of Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson (U2’s worked with and written songs for both musicians in the past). Yet the melody reminds me of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” It will be interesting to see if Bono blends the songs in concert.”

Turns out, according to the Guardian, the melody is intentionally that of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”

“There are a couple of songs from the point of view of an active soldier in Afghanistan,” Bono told me back in June 2008, at the group’s Hanover Quay studio in Dublin, during a break in recording, “and one of them, White As Snow, lasts the length of time it takes him to die”….

The song’s melody is based on an old hymn, Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel, that, according to The Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, was composed by “an unknown author, circa 1100″…

The idea of a song based on the dying thoughts of a soldier initially came to Bono after he read William Golding’s ambitious novel, Pincher Martin, which is told from the point of view of a British sailor who appears to have survived the torpedoing of his ship. As he approaches death, his thoughts roam back over his life, and the moral choices he made or avoided.

While the dying soldier isn’t quite what I had in mind when listening to it – it does add a whole new dimension to the lyrics and the song… another reason I keep digging U2.

And here are the some of the lyrics I was originally looking for, before my pleasant sidetrack…

Who can forgive forgiveness where forgiveness is not
Only the lamb as white as snow…

Now this dry ground, it bears no fruit at all
Only poppies laugh under the crescent moon
The road refuses strangers
The land, the seeds we sow
Where might we find the lamb as white as snow

As boys we would go hunting in the woods
To sleep the night shooting out the stars
Now the wolves are every passing stranger
Every face we cannot know
If only a heart could be as white as snow
If only a heart could be as white as snow

BTW – I think I’m gonna buy the Vinyl LP next week when it’s released and maybe the Digi-Pack. What about you?

numerous birthday wishes

facebook birthday wishes

facebook birthday wishes
Originally uploaded by Jonathan D. Blundell


I have some great friends and family!

60+ birthday wishes on facebook, countless more on twitter and text messaging and emails and phone calls…

Thanks everyone for taking a moment to send your birthday wishes! And thanks for being great friends!