andrew dodson

I’ve spent the last couple of days revamping a few things on The Point’s media site.  I’ve restructured the sermon archive to enable people to browse sermons by date, scripture and (soon enough) series.  I’ve also started a Flickr account, and revised to photos page to include links to gallery slideshows.

Next on the list, I want to tackle a better way for people to browse our bible studies.  Most likely, I’ll just create a separate page for each bible study.

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I’ve had a productive and yet restful weekend.  Friday evening, I spent time setting up my home electronic drums (a hodgepodge of different pads & hardware).  My new Alesis Trigger came in, so I wanted to get started using it with the included BFD software.  It came with BFD Lite, but it is a really cool piece of software.  I’m planning to upgrade to the full version to get access to more higher-quality sounds.

Saturday, I sat in disappointment as the ‘Cats dropped a game to Louisville.  This team is going to set new lows for the program.  Don’t believe me?  Read this.

Saturday evening, the Josh Martin Band had a belated Christmas get-together, sans Doug (who had a family get-together of his own).  We had a good dinner and enjoyed each other’s company - without playing music - for a change.  It’s rare that we’re all together to hang out when we’re not playing music.  We did, however, have a “band meeting” to discuss some plans for 2008.  Perhaps the biggest news is that we might be adding a new member to the group, along with recording our next studio project.

Today was a great day at The Point.  Please go listen to the sermon if you get a chance.  Good stuff.  This afternoon, I spent some quality time on the media site, revamping the structure of the sermons page.  My humble attempt to mimic Desiring God’s sermon resource library.

Random Link:

• Slate has a good article on Joel Osteen.  My favorite quote from Joel - “I’m not called to explain every minute facet of Scripture or to expound on deep theological doctrines or disputes that don’t touch where people live.  My gift is to encourage, to challenge, and to inspire.”  Get out of the pulpit then!

It’s almost that time of year!  The time of year I look forward to the most - The CLS shut down.  Judging by the fact that I’m blogging about it two weeks ahead of time, can you tell I’m looking forward to it?

The shut down is one of my favorite perks at CLS.  This year, because of the way Christmas and New Year’s fall, it’s a little longer than usual.  Instead of a week off, we’ll actually get seven work days off, and in total, I won’t have to work for eleven days (including two weekends).  Last year, I spent three days of my vacation sick and laid up in bed.  Hopefully, I can avoid that this year.

The only plans I have as of right now:

• I have a live recording on the December 30th.  Setup will be on the 28th.
• Family Christmas gathering on the 29th.
• Revamp a few things on The Point’s media site.
• Complete work on a new website for BADmedia.
• Read a book (or two?).

Most of my plans could be null and void if something else I’m working on pans out.  I can’t spare any details right now, but I might know something more by the end of this week.  Stay tuned!

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I’ve been doing a little “blog cleaning” tonight (”house cleaning” in the real world).  As you can see, I’m using a new theme.  It’s a combination of a theme authored by someone else and a little of my own creation mixed in.  The picture is of downtown Minneapolis, taken by yours truly.  This is pretty simplistic, so I may tweak it a bit more.  Then again, simple is good.  We’ll see.

The focus of this site is going to shift slightly.  From now on, it will be an entirely personal site.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll be transitioning any and all BADmedia info over to a new site dedicated to BADmedia.  I’ll be launching the BADmedia site soon.

If any of you out there are referencing my site from “www.brianandrewdodson.com/blog,” please update your bookmarks to reference “www.brianandrewdodson.com” instead.  The “/blog” part is getting deleted soon.  This will also affect any RSS feeds that reference “/blog.”

Thanks to Wordpress, I’ve imported all of my posts from the “/blog” setup to this one in the root directory.  It took all of about five minutes.  Yet another glorious part of using Wordpress.

Back to your regularly scheduled blog reading.

After taking a break from adding any new clients to my portfolio for BADmedia, I’m opening up the doors again.  I’ve been thinking of ways to supplement my income.  I’m still tossing around the idea of doing some part-time work, but I think the most effective use of my time would be taking on more website clients.  My goal is to add one website client per month for a year.

If you, or anyone you know would like a website, please contact me.  If you’d like more information about my prices, and to see some of the work I’ve done, visit the BADmedia web design page.

I’ve redesigned The Point’s media site.  Just a slight change from the old design.  I’d been wanting to clean some things up and finally got around to it.  Go check it out!

New Andy McKee Album

I just picked up guitarist extraordinaire  Andy McKee’s latest album, The Gates of Gnomeria.  It’s his third album, and is just as good as its previous counterparts.  If you’ve never heard him, I strongly suggest checking him out.  He also has several videos available through YouTube.

New JMB Website

I’ve redesigned the JMB website.  I was able to use the same picture that is on the back of our DVD cover.  The photo was taken by the awesome Kari McGrath.  I’m working to add the DVD to our online store, as well as more audio clips to the media page.

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Now playing: Andy McKee - I’ll Be Over You
via FoxyTunes

After a weekend break, I have some catching up to do….

• My apologies to Rich Brooks.  A couple of years ago, I was wondering why UK would ever hire a retired coach and expect to build a program.  Seems he’s done quite a good job over the last two seasons.  Sitting at 4-0 and looking at the rest of the schedule, I think UK is capable of a 10-2 record, but that’s awfully optimistic.  The thing is, it’s hard to tell just how good they are.  We’ve beaten two ranked teams in consecutive weeks.  At this point, the sky’s the limit.  With Notre Dame sitting at 0-4 for the first time in history, it would seem the college football world is off its axis.  Why not dream about a 10-2 season for the Cats?
• The Bengals played much better against the Seahawks than I expected.  They still couldn’t pull it out, but I had expected a loss anyway.  Granted, it would’ve redeemed their loss against the Browns last week, but I still think they have a decent shot at my prediction of 11-5.  I don’t expect them to beat the Patriots next week, but after that, the schedule softens a bit.
• The Josh Martin Band DVD is finally available!  I watched bits and pieces Saturday night, and watched it in its entirety yesterday.  I’m very pleased with how it turned out.  I still think it’s the best mix I’ve done to date, and Bert did a great job editing the video to get the best camera angles of each shot.  Bert also did a wonderful job on the artwork.  Thanks to Kari McGrath for some great photos to work with!  The DVDs are $15 and you get a copy of the audio CD as well.  I’m planning a fairly large update and/or redesign of the JMB website, so it will be available at our online store very soon.
• The hybrid drumset has performed admirably over the last two weekends.  I think it’s fairly close to being the perfect drumset for all occasions and playing situations.
• My new Motorola Q is pretty cool.  I’m really glad I didn’t spend a lot more money on a new Treo because it seems the Q can do everything the Treo can do.  I had to purchase a special program to get the phone to sync with my Mac computer, but that has made it very easy to keep track of contacts, calendar dates, etc.  I’ve yet to drop a call since switching back to Verizon, and the reception on my calls has been very clear.

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I’ve been busy updating my Flickr site the past several days.  You can keep up with any new photos I’ve posted by clicking on the “My Photos” badge to the right.  The main thing I need to do is get them organized on my computer.  I’m using iPhoto to help me with this, and both Flickr & Facebook offer some very-easy-to-use plugins for iPhoto that make uploading them a breeze.

As you can also tell, I’ve switched the look of the site again.  I came across this theme on the Wordpress Theme Viewer and decided to give it a shot.  The only thing I plan on doing is creating a custom header and changing the pictures that are used with the theme - I did not take them.

I also installed a plugin that shows what song(s) I have playing on my computer at the time of the post.  Kinda neat, mostly unimportant.

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Now playing: Blue Merle - Burning In The Sun
via FoxyTunes

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Now playing: Blue Merle - Bittersweet Memory
via FoxyTunes

I’m planning on posting a couple of extensive posts soon (more theological in nature), but for now, we’ll have to settle for some more random blogging:

• That bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis?  Yeah, Josh and I drove across that bridge last fall when we went to the Desiring God conference.  For some first-hand coverage of the situation, visit Desiring God.
• I’m halfway through Chasing Daylight (woo hoo!).  The posts mentioned above will deal with my reading of this book.  Look for them this weekend, or early next week.
• I’m excited about the previously mentioned internet ideas that CLS is pursuing.  I will likely share more about these this weekend, as well.  I didn’t come up with the ideas, but there is one in particular that I have done the majority of the work for so far, so I’m particularly interested in the result of that idea.
• The JMB DVD is nearing completion!  We will preview the DVD this weekend and see how it’s coming along.  Bert has been hard at work mixing the camera angles together for your viewing enjoyment.  We should have it completed in the very near future - just in time for our slate of fall concerts that are coming up soon.
• I’m buying a new ride cymbal tomorrow - a 20″ Sabian HHX Manhattan ride.  I’ve had my eye on it for quite some time and found a person getting rid of one in Lexington.  He’s going to be in Frankfort tomorrow, so I’ve made arrangements to meet up with him and do business.  You can hardly find them used on eBay, which is one reason it’s taken me a while to get one.  New, they go for $350.  Yeah - not gonna shell out that much for a cymbal that I don’t “need.”  But, I’m getting it at a great price and it will satisfy my desire for a jazz sounding drum set.  It’s designed to sound like the popular rides from back in the day when jazz ruled the music world.
• Speaking of money, I paid off my biggest interest-bearing debt today!  I’d originally planned on paying it off over the next two months, but I was itching to pay it off.  So, I took some money out of savings and paid the sucker off.

This post may break my personal record for most categories used.  Stay tuned for more this weekend…