A very happy birthday!

Is there anything more contagious than laughing (the common cold notwithstanding)? Over the Labor Day weekend, Liss and I went down to Jackson to hang out with family and go to Grandpa Harold's birthday party (G'pa Harold is my step-mom's dad, but he has always treated Liss and I like we have been in the family since we were born). I think the photos below may tell more about how much fun we had than I could possibly write.

I hope you smile :)

Wow that's a lot of white people

I'm watching the Republican National Convention, and it's frighteningly caucasian. Of course, you would expect that the vast majority of the delegates attending the RNC to be white folks, but I have seen very few non-white people.

I know that's a petty complaint, and it's certainly no reason to support or not support a political party (or is it?). However, considering how every single speaker, every single video, every single angle, every single breath is weighed, measured and produced it's shocking to see such a grossly unrepresentative crowd. Are the Republicans afraid to let minorities into their power structure? I doubt it, but you sure wouldn't know it by watching the convention coverage tonight.

Oh well, that's enough of politics...

Alabama 34 - Clemson 10

First of all, thank goodness football season is here.

Second of all, thank goodness I have a wife who is as crazy as I am about wanting to watch every single snap of every possible game.

Third of all, are you kidding me?? Bama made it look like they were playing the Tuscaloosa High School JV team when they took Clemson to the woodshed outback of the Georgia Dome. Full disclosure here: Liss and I were discreetly keeping tabs on the score while at Grandpa Harold's 80th birthday party, so we missed most of the first half. However, the part of the game I saw was unbelievable. Who took my beloved Crimson Tide that regularly blows first half leads and replaced them with this freak of a machine that completely dismantled the three-headed Clemson offensive attack?

The expectations are through the roof for me now. I mean, Clemson was supposedly the 9th best team in the country (according to the Associated Press), and Alabama beat them by 24 points. We'll find out more about Alabama when they face Georgia in Athens a few weeks from now, but the Clemson game leaves me feeling like there just might be a chance...

Roll Tide!

The Hope of Art

This is probably as philosophical as my blog will ever get. As you read in my last post, Liss and I attended the Echo Church Media Conference from Thursday-Saturday, and we had a great time.

Being able to exhibit for SPEAK! was great, but if you want to read about that, you can go to http://www.speakcreative.com/news. Because I was exhibiting at the conference, I was able to attend all of the keynote sessions (the exhibit halls were deserted during this time), and I came away from the collective experience understanding that there truly are people in the church who are passionate about bringing the Gospel to the masses, specifically using media. No, it wasn't the cheesy GodTube presentation of media. The entire conference focused on helping Christians make excellent media, whether it was specifically Christian media or not. 

Some of the videos that were presented were absolutely spectacular. Skills that, in all honesty, I didn't think the Christian community possessed were on display, and it was incredible. Once again, my skepticism in the creativity of God was swept aside in an instant. As I was reminded many times throughout the keynote presentations, the Church used to be a bastion - in fact THE bastion - of creativity. Consider the beauty of stained-glass windows, the awe-inspiring works of the Renaissance that present the Gospel and the sheer volume of architectural advances brought on by the building of cathedrals. I don't know exactly when we began to drift away from highly valuing art - perhaps it was a natural response of the Reformation, perhaps the Puritans who settled in America never really allowed it to flourish like it might have on the Continent, maybe we just wanted to spend some time away from art.

Whatever reason for our long divorce with art, I pray and, if it were possible to create change just by force of will, hope that the divorce is coming to a close. Seeing some of the art that came out of the Echo Conference, I certainly believe the quality of work is excellent and inspiring. As our new Michelangelos and Titians emerge, surely not everyone will love their work. However, it is my fervent hope that the church would view their work and see opportunities to improve and diversify the media that filters into the world - always, above all, striving for excellence.

I've rambled on for a while, so I'll go. The next time you feel urged to pick up a brush, a camera, a typewriter (or laptop), a guitar or any other instrument to create art - think on how you can do it more excellently than before. After all, as DaVinci modeled, you can be good at more than just what you originally planned on doing in life. 

With that parting thought, I'll leave. I'll also probably come back and butcher this post because I've changed my mind or otherwise become embarrassed for thinking I've thought more deeply on this subject than anyone else...

Generic profound blog title goes here

Ok, so Liss and I are up for a "late night" tonight (it's still only about 10:30) while we're finishing up some laundry before we leave for Dallas tomorrow. We're going to the Echo Conference (http://www.echoconference.com) being hosted by Watermark Community Church, and it's probably the conference that I've been most excited about going to.

Of course, I'll be working the conference for SPEAK!, as I show of SiteWrench 4.0 (it's awesome) and some of our other services, but because Liss will be headed to Dallas with me, I'm really looking forward to just getting to hang out with the wife for a couple of days. I'm also hoping she makes lots of friends at the conference break-out sessions, so she can tell them how awesome her husband and SPEAK! are (I hope I'm awesomer than SPEAK!, but I don't know... and yes, I know awesomer isn't a word... yet).

Anyway - watching the Olympics while the laundry is drying, and I'm slightly concerned for NBC next week when Michael Phelps is finished with all of his swimming. I mean, I'm the first to admit that his story is by far the most compelling athletic story coming out of the 29th Olympiad, but I don't think NBC will be able to stretch the Phelps storyline throughout the duration of the Olympics. Maybe they'll just follow him around as he trades pins with other athletes. No doubt if pin trading were an Olympic sport, he'd take gold in that as well...

I'm watching the women's relay right now and just realized that the Olympic pool has LIFEGUARDS! Seriously?! Maybe it's just a cushy appointed job that I can get hooked up with through the IOC. You know the lifeguards are bored out of their minds...

I wish I had something profound to say about the absurdities of a world that has the most developed athletes than ever before in its history being coddled by lifeguards, but I'm struggling as I start thinking about going to bed...

Good night all! Headed to the big D tomorrow!

Good weekend

So this weekend was pretty kick-butt. Liss and I had (as always) our date night Friday night. Nothing fancy.. we ate at Qdoba and hung out at Barnes & Noble to catch up on some reading. It was a really nice night of just getting to slow down and spend some time with each other.

Saturday we met our small group (I love those guys!) downtown to see Get Smart, eat at the Flying Fish and Cheesecake Corner and generally have a good time. Get Smart was quite funny (Steve Carell made it awesome, especially when waxing lyric about Chuck Norris), but I'm pretty sure the rest of the group got their chuckles from watching me laugh so much... Oh well. The Flying Fish was quite good (the crawfish po'boy had enough heat to get my nose running, always a good sign for me), and if you haven't been to the Cheesecake Corner, you're really missing out.

Anyway.. much to the chagrin of the rest of the group, I took along my trusty D70S to document the whole outing. I've posted some good ones below. If you're friends with Liss on Facebook, be sure to check out some more. If you'd like 5x7s or 8x10s of any of these photos, you can mail a check to Matt Roberts in the amount of $1,000.00. Bulk discounts are, of course, available. I hope you enjoy the photos... I'll try to be better about getting some other stuff up soon!

eh...Hello! Cruising sure was fun.

Alright, so...yeah... I didn't post at all in May (as if Liss isn't the only one who reads this blog on any kind of a regular basis). I blame it on the cruise.

Seven days of total awesomeness. The bluest, most perfect water you've ever seen in your life surrounds you night and day. We had perfect weather, and our ports of call (the Bahamas, St. Thomas and St. Maarten) were incredibly fun (as always). 

The Bahamas:

The last time Liss and I were in the Bahamas, it was the first day of our honeymoon. Needless to say, we didn't do a whole lot of exploring.... yeah... Anyway! We took the time to actually walk around Nassau, and I'm so glad we did! I took my camera (Nikon D70S), and I got some photos that I'm pretty excited about (we're getting the one below framed to put in the kitchen).

St. Thomas:

This is by far mine and Liss' favorite port of call so far. From the port, there's about a mile and a half walk to the downtown area. Of course, the main streets are tourist havens, full of shops that have been setup specifically for cruisers, but if you walk from the water-side street to the alleys that run perpendicular, you'll find some great shops with everything from handblown glass jewelry to Belgian chocolates to pirate and colonial artifacts. OK, I know that last one sounds lame, but seriously - ever seen a real pirate sword? Heck, if you've got a few grand to plunk down, you can buy the sucker.

Once we'd gotten our fill of shopping and walking around downtown, we walked back towards the port and got on the St. Thomas SkyRide. After a 5-10 minute gondola ride up to the top of the mountain range (well.. that's probably an exaggeration) that splits the island in two, we got an awesome view, lunch and adult beverage. When we retire, we'll retire to St. Thomas.

St Maarten:

The cool thing about St. Maarten is that it's split between two separate countries - France and the Netherlands. We disembarked on the Dutch side and caught a cab over to the French side. While we were there, we did some open-market shopping and picked up some really tasty crepes with Nutella (that stuff rocks, by the way).

Back on the Dutch side, we avoided most of the touristy stuff and parked it on the beach for several hours. I kicked back with a book under the umbrella, and Liss laid out. It was gloriously lazy and relaxing. Before we caught the taxi back over to the ship, we picked up some ice cream at this great little creamery that's along the beach front (Liss and I first saw it the last time we were in St. Maarten).

So yeah... that's about it. Well except for a gluttonous amount of food, Vegas-style shows and a lot of hanging out in the pools and on the water slide, amongst other things (all on the ship). Good times were had by all!