andrew dodson

Got together tonight with some friends and Julie for some Rock Band 2 action.  A few camera phone shots of the evening:

Last night, I came across Last.fm, a music site dedicated to keeping track of your listening trends and recommending music to the user, based on what they listen to.  It will sync up with iTunes or any other media player to get information on your listening habits.

I was directed to the site after checking out Feltron’s 2008 Annual Report.  This guy keeps track of everything he does in a year’s time.  And I mean everything (check out the report).  It’s pretty fascinating how much data he collects on himself.  In his music section, I noticed he used Last.fm to keep track of everything.

I’ve always thought it’d be cool to know how much music I listen to, which artists I listen to the most, which albums, which songs – all of that.  Until now, all I could rely on was iTunes’ play count for each track.  The Feltron report has inspired me to keep track of what I do each day, what foods I eat, movies I watch, places I go and more.  I caught an interview with him a few weeks ago (via Boagworld) and he just takes 5-10 minutes each day to jot down what he’s done.  I doubt I’ll get anywhere near as ellaborate as him by making a fancy report, but it might make for a fun blog post at the end of the year.

Kige Ramsey shows how (not) to shoot a free throw.  I truly love this guy’s videos.  Keep ‘em comin’ Kige!

(ht: Kentucky Sports Radio)

• I’m on day #13 of the Horner Bible reading plan and I’ve really, really enjoyed it.  It takes me around 30-45 minutes each day, and I’ve only missed one day so far.  The only change I’ve made is that I’ve switched to using the New Living Translation instead of the ESV.  I love the ESV, but when I am reading large portions of the Bible, I find the NLT gives me a much better understanding of what is happening in certain passages.  It’s just easier to read – from my perspective.  I’ve been using my NLT Life Application Study Bible, with helpful study notes as to why stories like Joshua’s battles are important to my Christian walk.
• Jobs continue to come in for BADmedia, which leaves me pretty amazed at what God does to show his faithfulness.  Over a month ago, I was pretty unsure if BADmedia could really be a full time job, and for the time being, it most certainly is a full time job.  I have plenty to keep me busy for the next month (or two!), with plenty of other job prospects on the table.
• Praise God for Bert and Michelle as their adoption process moves along!  Also, for my friends Tim and Cari who have also heard good news lately.
• UK played decent last night at Vandy, but just couldn’t pull it out.  Free throws, rebounding and some not-so-smart play on defense doomed the Cats in the second half.  Patterson will be back for the Tennessee game, so hopefully we can get back on track and finish the season strong.  We need to do just that to improve our chances of making the NCAA tournament with an at-large bid.  Or, we’ll just have to win the SEC tournament and get an automatic bid.  I’ll take either.
• I’m thinking about writing a Cincinnati Reds season preview post, now that Spring Training is underway.  My thesis is this:  The Reds are in for a long season, much like last season.  The starting rotation will be just fine, but there just isn’t enough offense in the lineup to win a lot of games.  I expect them to once again hover around .500 all year and to not even contend from day one of the season.  They just didn’t make good enough off-season moves to improve last year’s mediocre offense.  Hopefully, I’ll be wrong.

Two days ago on Facebook, I came across a new-to-me Bible reading plan.  It was created by Grant Horner, a professor at Master’s College (where John MacArthur is president).  The main gist of the plan is that you read one chapter from ten different books of the Bible every day.  In his description, he says it may take an hour a day, but I’ve done it in less than 40 minutes each of the last two days, and I’m not the fastest of readers in the world.

What I like about the plan is that it gives you such a broad view of Scripture all at once.  Right now – to start – I’m in Genesis, Joshua, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Matthew, Acts, Romans and 1 Thessalonians.  The next thing that I like about the plan is that it’s not dependent upon reading the Bible in a certain amount of time (one year, six months, etc.).  If I want, I can double up and read two chapters per day.  If I miss a day, I don’t have to catch back up.  It’s a read-at-your-own-pace kind of a plan.

The tricky part of the plan, for me, so far has been using one specific Bible.  I’m the guy with thirty different Bibles, so when I read Prof. Horner’s suggestion to use the same Bible, I spent a decent amount of time weighing my options.  In the end, I’ve decided to use my ESV Journaling Bible.  It’s fairly small, so it’s easy to tote around.  It’s hardback, so it should hold up well to repeated use.  And, it’s meant to be written in, so I can highlight passages and take notes in the margins (and no, I’m not hard core about not writing in Bibles, I just don’t like writing in the ones I own – I keep a notebook/journal instead).

Time will tell if I actually stick to this plan, but it’s actually motivated me a lot the last few days.  Check out the link below for full details.

> Horner Bible Reading Plan

Yesterday (February 1st) marked one year of living downtown.  This time last year, I was settled into a mostly empty apartment on the St. Clair Mall.  After about a month, I finally had any of the furniture I might need.

One of the more memorable parts of getting furniture involved my couch.  I spent a Saturday with my parents in Lexington, shopping at various discount furniture stores to find the perfect couch for my budget.  I found the one I wanted and we packed it onto dad’s truck and came back to Frankfort.  After getting the couch into the building, we found that it wouldn’t fit in the elevator.  Then, it wouldn’t fit in the stairwell either.  It was wrapped in bubble wrap, cardboard and other packaging, but we didn’t want to take any of it off, for fear that the furniture store wouldn’t take it back.  We (my dad and I) finally came to the conclusion that we simply couldn’t get the couch up to my apartment.

It was a learning lesson.  The fine print of the furniture store receipt said “no returns or refunds.”  I ended up buying a love seat at a store in Frankfort.  The original store was able to give me a store credit, so I purchased a recliner with my credit, and later returned to buy a night stand for my bedroom.

My apartment is all the space I need (for now).  It’s an older building and it could use some work, for sure.  There are occasional louder-than-normal vocal noises for neighbors (arguments with significant others, mostly).  The elevator is a bit scary at times.  The fire alarms tend to go off, randomly, in the middle of the night.  I sometimes have to park a few blocks away because of lack of parking around my building.  Despite all of this, I’ve really enjoyed living downtown.

I can walk around the corner to a coffee shop.  In the summer, I can walk to concerts on the old Capital lawn, or take walks around downtown.  I can walk to local restaurants (one of my favorites, Gibby’s, in particular).  I can watch the Expo fireworks from my apartment.  All in all, I wouldn’t live anywhere else right now.