AntoineRJWright.com

In light of that, I had to sit back and ask myself what my reasons were for being in the Carnival of the Mobilists. Sure, I love the exposure, and it certainely is humbling to be considered worthy reading material amongst several more popular and influential bloggers and mobile workers. But I dig. I just had to dig as to why.

Part of it is the enjoyment of the show. I enjoy the idea of putting together a writing piece that is solid enough for someone else to read. Even moreso when that someone else is an industry observer, or someone who might just be starting out on understanding what mobile is. So, in effect, I like that attention.

But I also like the attention that has to be paid towards not writing the same thing. Not writing on the major news, but looking at it from a different perspective. Sure, MMM gives me an avenue at times to write and dream of what can be, but I am wary of taking them too far all at once. Here, on my personal site, I can push the envelope a lot. And even in being right or wrong, its a chance to put on display a bit of what I've learned.

Many of the regular carnies, C. Enrique Ortiz for example, has such a sold background and experience that I cannot help but to want to see what happens when my views are rubbed against his or another's. The chance in just seeing something different is just out there for the taking. If you will, I am as much a show performer as much as I am an audience member.

I'm considering throwing my hat into being a host one of these weeks. I am not even sure that I can do the Carnival of the Mobilists justice if I did. If anything, I'd at least have to make a specific site skin and let that play for a few weeks while people check in and out. But beyond that, I want to do it for more than just the exposure. I'd like to challenge convention just a bit. And in doing so set the world towards a show unbelievable.

Labels: Carnival of the Mobilists, commentary, mobility

So right now I am taking some time to catch up here and a few other places. But also making note to sleep in and get some rest. I cannot speak for some, but rest is something that I don't go away from at all.

So besides this rest, what else is going on?

What I really like about the job I have is that it is forcing me to not just do well in terms of my performance, but also in how I have expectations towards what I think I deserve in a job setting. Some days ago I noticed that a few websites that I visited were blocked. While I was initally discouraged, I know that it was well within their rights to do so. For a few sites, I ended up going to my mobile to check in from time to time. But for other things I am just settling into work. No complaints on my end, I tend to just take what I am given and roll.

Truth be told, the only reason I think I feel like this is because of the studies on grace, faith, and obedience that I've been hearing between Wellspring (Romans and Acts) and Trailblazin Ministries (James). Getting to live this out is proving to be a challenge, but something that I am not allowing myself to fall to not doing.

One of the other items that I have had on my plate is looking for a new computer. Basically, I am looking for something that would serve as a spoke to my Treo. Unfortunately, there is nothing that completly hits on that, and so I am having a hard time settling for anything else. Other things like not wanting Windows or MacOS doen't help. And Linux isn't so friendly towards my Treo (at least for what 've seen at this point).

Alls well otherwise. Else I wouldn't be at a coffeehouse (my new hangout) just taking in some rest.

Labels: commentary, community

i understand ur angst at Osteen, when does your looking at him make u peel in front of God for your ways? I cannot comment on Osteen, seriously, everytime i hear he might hav said something wrong, I dig in my own closet...i have no room to cast barbs, maybe you do; but i'd just like to know when does your pointing out of his stuff put you back on ur face about ur life...or is that not the point of your inspection of his doctrine/life

am I wrong for not sharing in this opinion/judging of him and others?

ok, he's wrong, and he's at the top...what then is supposed to be the response...tearing him down, or continuing in tilling the ground we've been given
i'd be really miffed, but i didn't make him the most popular, God did...and probably so that we could check our own hearts

...i don't get the point out of playing like the media and constantly highlighting the angst of someone when its been established...fine, he's off, if i cannot tell him directly and reconcile him to the Body then my mouth really doesnt have a place there other than to continue to teach those things that are sound...and if he and i cross paths, then address it

...am i wrong in this view?

every man has to be convinced in his heart whatever he does or say

u are...i am questioning me

When light broke, he was still sitting there. The events of last night smoldered just as much as the ashes across the street. He heard no voice, saw no child. Chris could only see the shard of clothing that the officer held in front of him and the parents of the young boy. He could only bow his head at the memory.

"You cannot just sit there. You have to get up and move on."

Chris didn't move.

"Look. I've been there. Heck, I'm still there. You don't live most of your life with someone and then just forget about them when they've gone away. You have to finish the dream."

Chris looked up at the once familiar voice.

"I had no dreams. I just wanted to be here, at the library in Lampstead. Now, it's, it's gone. There is nothing left for me."

The General sat down beside Chris and remembered his own recent sadness. The difference in age was negated by sameness in feeling.

"Look Chris. My wife died and I felt that life was over. My dream was to live out my days with her. It didn't matter what we did, or where we did it, I just wanted her company. I could hide there. I could be me there. But what I couldn't do, was finish the dream we had. For that, I needed a push, and got the biggest one when she left this world.

"I'm not saying Chris that you have to just suck it up. But, there is something that needs to come out of you that there would only be room to come out if that library was no longer a part of you. You've got to go find out what it is. If for no other reason that you need to get off of this curb and see what else life has in store for you."

"Phillip, I never thought that I would ever say this to you. But, you're wrong. There is noting left for me to dream. I just wanted to be here."

His knees cracked as they moved for the first time in hours. His body still wet from the night's rain, Chris moved to get up.

"But there is something that I wish to do. So I'll get up from here and do that. After that, who knows?"

Phillip looked at Chris with both sadness and resolve. His heart was hurting because in a kid that he used to see life, the kind of life that he saw in his wife, he now saw something dying away.

"Listen, I might not be here much longer Chris. Promise me that you'll at least consider my words. There is a dream that you have, and you need to find it and run after it. You have nothing to hold you back."

The look on Chris's face was telling enough. He was empty.

Chris helped Phillip up and the two parted. Wondering what he meant about Philip saying that he would not be here much longer, Chris looked back. He saw a statuesque man going off to his dream. For a moment, the world felt better, and then he turned towards home. Chris lived on the other side of the library. He would pass that area where the body was found.

He stepped into the grass, and felt cold. The pangs of loss were getting stronger with each step. He made his way around the side of the library that was not burned and tried to maintain his composure. He couldn't. The sight of a place he called home was too much to bear and falling to his knees Chris wept.

"Why couldn't I stay here? This is all I've wanted. Just me and the books!"

His crying attracted the attention of another familiar voice.

"Chris. Chris, why are you crying? Are you sad about the little boy? It was really sad but you could not do anything about it, right?"

Again, his head follows his ears towards the familiar voice. It was her. The woman from the outdoor store who came to the library, and she stopped to talk to Chris.

"Chris, you cannot be too hard on yourself. You've got to forgive yourself and move on."

"What do you know about me? You don't know me!"

His weeping turning into a lashed out anger, Chris quickly got up and stormed the rest of the way towards his house. He would hear no more about the library, dreams, or anything else.

She looked at him and she understood his pain. With her normal resting place now closed, her attention turned to the canoe. She would go to her parent's cabin and take a canoe ride.

"I really hope that he finds peace," she said. "Such a wonderful person should not have to have so much unresolved pain."

As she walked away, Barbra, the library manager, passed her with two other people. She turned to see Barbra and the two stop in front of the library. The conversation did not look well, and neither did the trailing shadow of Chris walking away in the distance. It seemed as if the light was going out in Lampstead.

Labels: The Librarian and the Yellow Canoe

I guess this is life's way of getting at me for all those times when I worked other jobs yet said first that I was a web designer. Or, maybe it is just me feeling convicted that I am not as good as I want to be, or sometimes need to be. It's rough in this field, and I think I make it moreso because I never am just looking to "design" information, I am looking to change lives with whatever I design.

A guy I spoke to tonite mentioned that I would be a big help to his goals if I could just look at and assess his website. Truth be told, that is a easy thing to do, and an honest one. The kicker is the being asked to do it right afterwards. Or worse, getting into thet assessment an getting so ancy that I sit down and redesign the entire thing, taking a night's worth of sleep and putting it into the screen (that's how Bible+ and a few other sites got done). I understand, this is a passion for me; its just hard to turn off. But sometimes I wish that I could give people something else other than the techie and webbie to relate to.

Its my lot, and I understand that this is the lane that I am in. I asked for it, and I was designed for this. So I know that I cannot get away from it. I just know that I don't want to be so connected to this that I am defined by it and people see nothing else except 1s and 0s, when there is a ton more behind this formatted font-face.

Labels: commentary

For the past few months, I've taken my hands (fingers) at writing a short story. Being a person who has been using a word processor for a good amount of time, I have some ebbs and flows of things that I prefer. And for the most part MS Word fits the bill quite nicely.

I've been working in Word for this story, using custom styles, document properties, and a few other things that I've customized to keep things streamlined for a future changing into another doc-type or publishing. This weekend, I just didn't want to turn on the desktop and so I opened the doc on my Treo 680 and Docs to Go 8 and went to work on it.

First thing, my table of contents didn show. This was ok, I am used to that part of Word not being supported in DTG. I find it weird that a device with the computing power of a smartphone cannot handle an embedded index, but oh well.

Because I use my own styles, I wanted to ensure that everything would stay formatted the same, I copied a few lines, added a page break and then started. Writing was fine, though I didn't know how much I had written. A zoomed-out preview view would be great (Opera Mini does it, so I know its possible). Such a view would also be great for navigating to an area of a long document.

Nevertheless, I kept writing. I wanted to get the story done and I was days behind a self-imposed deadline. I thought that it would have been great to have been able to not just save it to my card, but also to Google Docs, or some other online word proecssor. Seems like that kind of functionality to upload/download from an online word processor would be pretty neat (and yes I know you can email up, but how about down).

Well, I got to a point where I was happy with things and saved and left it alone. Later that day I decided to do some editing, and for that I wanted to get it onto the desktop. So I synced the briefcase folder to put it on the desktop and started working from there. First thing i noticed, all of my styles were stripped and redone. You see, I use custom styles in my document template, mainly for the reasons of simplified formatting and ease of taking docs into other formats (PDF, HTML). When I opened it, all of my styles were renamed to default names, fonts were changed, and the 'normal' style was just totally wrong (Times, size 10, etc.). Needless to say, I was quite disappointed. Had to copy the entire short story, all 20 pages at that point, into a new document and then reapply the styles; and add back the table of contents. Not hard but very inconvienent.

If you will, the ability is more than here to be able to make something like what I was doing this weekend very easy. Document formatting, saving, sharing, tagging etc. are all there. But part of that, a big part of that, is manufacturers taking a chance on doing things not like we've always done them. Before this episode, I was fairly confident that a device like the Foleo, given a few tweaks would work for this, but now I am not so sure. Its not the device that I no longer have confidence in, but rather the developers who should be pushing things, but short-cutting it.

I'm sure things are going to change, heck, DTG 10 might not even have this issue with a non-HotSync syncing of documents. But honestly, I'm now getting to the point where my optimism is running low.