3

life Fantastic – Man Man – http://manmanbandband.com/
‘Catchy songs with an off kilter edge musically’

2

Ask Me This – Alcoholic Faith Mission – http://alcoholicfaithmission.com/
‘gorgous music, with a fragility and power to it’

1

Circuital – My Morning Jacket – http://www.mymorningjacket.com/
‘great album, rock music as it should be’

nice

Q. Does Gods Judgment include dreams (andor) Nightmares?

In fact failure is to be avoided and thrown away as worthless. In the second session of the course I was on, (a different leader,) every example used, esteemed and praised was one of external success. I wonder if you get more press coverage if you are a celebrity who has a high profile success of if you have a high profile failure. I think you get more for failure, but that just reinforces the position of failure being bad.

I just don’t know where this leaves us.
I fail
I struggle with feeling that those failures are negative.
sometimes they are, sometimes, though.

I think my life is/can/will be positive. I think I have changed and learned and grown through those failures. I also choose to think any success I am perceived to have is down to those failures. (Unlike mr Jordan in the advert above not sure I have had the same level of career he has had!)

I think the concept of confession has a lot going for it in terms of disabling this failure is bad position. where grace, love and forgiveness are present and available for all. Where failures like myself can be rested and cared for.

Within the act of confession is rest renewing, a casting off of that you are carrying. The verbalisation of a failure has a big effect on the spirit. Perhaps thats why so many public speakers start off with a story which could be perceived as a confession. (A joke which self denigrates.)

Wonder what an ethic of failure would look like.
I wonder what a theology of failure could work up as…

“Happiness so hard to come by
So good while it lasts
Some people say
That it ain’t worth pursuing
Cos’ it’s always moving too fast

Still I wonder
What could it be
And I wonder
What does it mean
Cos’ I’m so in love with you
If this ain’t happiness baby it’ll do
Let’s call it happiness
Yes

Happiness so hard to deal with
When there is sadness in your eyes
As you come through the door
It may leap out of the darkness
It’s always yelling “Surprise!”

So I wonder
What does it mean
And I wonder
Why me
Cos I’m so in love with you
If this ain’t happiness baby it’ll do
Let’s call it happiness
Yes

Oh there’s no denying
It’s one of those things
That money can’t buy
But still we try

May we all mop up
And our cup runneth over
May we all have
More than enough of
Happiness
Happiness

Cos I’m so in love with you
If this ain’t happiness baby it’ll do
Let’s call it happiness
Yes”

Happiness, by ron sexsmith.

The snow is deep and crisp.
when it melts, I worry about the floads.

Today was a snow day (no School or nursery) and I had fun with the children.

We played at home and went to the Lanark Loch to feed the swans.
The snow was deep and crunched under our feet.
The Loch was quite busy for a Thursday in December.
We took bread and decided to feed the ducks and the swans.

There was a broken piece of ice where the duck and swans were.
We parked and my son got out the car.
I handed him two bread bags with a couple of slice in each.
As I put together the push chair for the the girl.

“Look at the swan.”
I looked up as I put together the extremely well designed dutch pram.
A swan had wandered up the car and was marking his territory around our car.
I put the children around the other side of the car.
A second swan came round in a flanking manouvre.

Buy the time the girl was in the chair we had four swans chasing us across the car park.
I asked the boy for the bags of bread and put them in my jacket.
With the disappearance of the branded bags the swans backed off and lost interest in us.

We wandered the edge of the loch we saw swans dominating the space and walking around on the pathway.
We stopped about 10 meters away and started to throw some of the bread.
The swans took their time getting to us, but the ducks quickly realised and came in numbers.
Every time a swan got to close on land we walked on 20-30metres.

Until after 3-4stops we got rid of the branded bags.
the ducks wandered off and swans decided to stop following us after a while.

We wandered in the snow, free from the chains of swan consumerism.
Enjoying a snow day.

sorry, too funny.
from The Ship of Fools, Gadgets for God, Picnic with the Pontiff Special

I have been busy, quite busy.

Trips include
holiday
greenbelt

Special things include,
my sons 5th birthday party,
10th wedding anniversary
my son starting school,

things i have started included -
reading a book a month
Joining the schools parent council
parent & baby swimming class
a diet(!) no seriously it is needed

things i have enjoyed
being at home
Seeing “We See Lights” live – my friend told me they had a problem that they always sounded slightly out of tune. I think that just adds to the edginess of the performance.
the album “Romance is Boring” by los campesinos!

things i am thinking about
babysitting.
stopping.
the pope.
the importance of legacy vs now.
self confidence vs public reassurance.

new cool things
Knitting for Glory
Catching up with friends

more later.

row one

Notes – probably the simplest notes taking system, interfaces well with the e-mail programme.
Oblique Strategies – Oblique strategies is a pack of cards which provide alternative ways forward. Developed in 1975, Peter Schmidt and Brian Eno created the original pack of Oblique Strategies cards, through thinking about approaches to their own work as artist and musician. This app has all 5 editions of the cards contained and if a fun way to consider ways forward, especially in uncreative meetings!

The Oblique Strategies evolved from me being in a number of working situations when the panic of the situation – particularly in studios – tended to make me quickly forget that there were others ways of working and that there were tangential ways of attacking problems that were in many senses more interesting than the direct head-on approach. If you’re in a panic, you tend to take the head-on approach because it seems to be the one that’s going to yield the best results Of course, that often isn’t the case – it’s just the most obvious and – apparently – reliable method. The function of the Oblique Strategies was, initially, to serve as a series of prompts which said, “Don’t forget that you could adopt *this* attitude,” or “Don’t forget you could adopt *that* attitude.”

Bryan Eno interview extract here.

Calculator – It is good. Make sure you turn landscape though to get the full scientific calculator.
FiRe Field Recorder – brilliant tool. it turns the iPhone into a quality portable recording unit. from Audiofile engineering. it is a great tool. it gives you a live audio waveform as it records and the in build soundcloud support makes getting recordings onto the net extremely easy. (can you tell i am a fan?)

row two

Cooliris – a solid single function app. It searches for a term or a name on the internet, and displays all the photo’s/images it can find in a big wall style.
Opera Mini – a great browser for the internet, although it handles some things strangely, but a quick browser. works very well with my webmail for work.
WiFiFoFum – wanna find the details of the wifi available in your area? this hdoes it give you in depth details, and has a kinda radar finder screen which is v.cool
Pachube Datalogger – easy app to use. but very important. The datalogger loggs any data you give it in any categories you set up, cups of coffee, miles travelled, expenses spent. simple interface and also integrates effortlessly with the pachube website where you can gather and display the data in various interesting ways!

row three

Air Sharing – Brilliant little app from avatron. It turns you phone into a wireless hard disk, allowing you to drag any file to your iphone, and read it, on the move. It doesn’t offer version monitoring like drop box. But unlike dropbox has no size limits, also unlike dropbox, it puts the actual file on the phones memory. This small app allows you to take any document and put it on your phone from any computer. Brilliant and very handy Indeed.
Dropbox – Brilliant wee app similar to the one above with with one difference. The Dropbox system updates version in all your dropbox’s. First download the dropbox program to your desktop at home, your work computer, wherever you use a computer and need access to one file. Dropbox takes the file you drop into it, loads it to an internet server, from there it distributes the file into all your dropboxes. ensuring you always have the current version in every location. Brilliant!
Insurrection – Pete Rollins app, contains some of his parables. Constantly challenges and gets me thinking.
PS Mobile – The App version of Photoshop. I haven’t played with it enough to work out if I will keep it in the work section or not.