June 24, 2009

It’s Not Too Late

Picture 6I just passed out fliers to our neighborhood for our third annual 4th of July Neighborhood BBQ. Three years ago I organized this for the first time. It felt really weird for a couple of reasons:

  • We are the youngest couple on the block and for some reason older people are inherently intimidating
  • We had just moved on to the block. I guess I thought that for some reason people would be asking “Who does this young upstart think he really is messing with our traditions…etc”
  • Some of my neighbors appear cranky
  • I didn’t really know any of our neighbors

After two years I have observed the following:

  • People really look forward to and appreciate it
  • It is the primary, and in some ways sole, time that all of our neighbors come to one place for one event for the entire year
  • The first year I did it one of the men that had lived in the neighborhood for more than 30 years came to me with a tear in his eye and said this is the first time that he’d ever seen this many neighbors together.
  • I know my neighbors better, they know each other better, and our neighborhood  is one step closer to resembling that of Mr. Rogers.

So, If you are around on the 4th, and feel like taking on a little project, plan an event. Just go for it. 4th of July is a great excuse but there are many others.  While no one can diminsh the importance of supporting global issues such as cancer, AIDS, and slavery, it may be that our first step in reaching out begins with those that are next door.

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June 13, 2009

We Rate this Summer’s Hottest Nine Movies

It’s been about a while since I’ve posted so I decided so I decided to provide you with a special update about this summers hottest number. Below are my reviews of the ninest movies of this summer. Since I haven’t seen any of them I am simply going to rate them based upon their use of this hip number.

We will start off with Peter Jackons Ultra 9 movie:title_district9august14

Don’t be confused by an Acadamey Award winning director. Without even having to look beyond the title you will notice that there is a 8:1 ratio of non-number 9 characters to number nine characters. Seriously, with a title like this how nine can a movie be? We would suggest waiting for this one to come out in DVD and maybe check it out as a rental where hopefully it will be 99¢ !

Next up we have Nicole Kidman who, lets face it, has nothing nine about her, starring in this movie:nine_l200905131553

This title is slightly deceptive. Although titled “NINE” you may have noticed that there are not actually any “9″s in the title. Very typical of a “romantic musical”, in this age. Well “NINE”, our staff has rated you an “EIGHT”!

Taking it up a notch is the movie:999_l200905071342Not to be outdone they have included this summers HOTTEST number not once, not twice, but THREE times, which itself is the sqaure root of 9! Three squared thumbs up for this stop motion 9-based blockbuster.

And finally, leave it up to Director Tim Burton to use his slightly deranged artistic nineness to come out with what is sure to be the ninest movie of them all…9_left

The title alone reveals how nine this movie is. With 100% of the characters, in the title,  being the number “9″ there is no room for “.”, “$”, or even letters!

But wait! Not only that…check out the release date.

dateTim Burton is not messing around.

Looks like we’re going to have a busy summer. Sometimes getting to the square root of 81 isn’t easy. But hopefully, this guide will help guide you though the hottest summer that root has ever seen!

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June 2, 2009

Solving Communication Problems one Google Group at a time

UPDATE:

To Whom It May Concern,

I regret to inform you that google groups suck. They have universally been a headache and over-all declined my quality of life and the people who have been in groups with me. BenCrawfordLIFE.com would like to formally apologize for any influence that we have had in promoting or encouraging googlegroup involvement. Unfortunatley, we have not found any viable alternatives for productive online multiway conversations….BUT WAIT! This just in…Google Wave (a new service that melds e-mail, instant messaging, online forums, and wikis into a grand messaging service).

Looks like it’s going to be a while until it is released, so until then, the majority of the productivity that cannot be accomplished by “liking” friends status updates will simply have to be halted. This could really be it though.

Once again, I apologize for any misdirection you have received from this site. Here at BenCrawfordLIFE.com hope to remain on the cutting edge of technology and culture and are not afraid to admit when we are wrong if it means keeping the trust of our avid readers

Ben.

ps See you in 6 months when I write a post about how terrible google wave is.

learn more here:

Originally posted on 9/13/09

Fact: Most conversations happen in a virtual arena (cell phones, email)

Fact: These conversations are extremely difficult and limited when you have 3 or more people.

Fact: I will buy lunch for anyone that comes up with an alternate idea that is more productive and efficient than the one I will present here.

Keep reading →

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May 20, 2009

Speaking to 5th Graders about Casinos and Gambling

Many of you have heard this story, but about 2 weeks ago I went into my old 5th grade teachers (who I found on facebook) classroom and talked to her kids about casinos, gambling, and card counting.DSCN1808 I actually put quite a bit of work into preparing for the little presentation and decided to record a little voice over of the keynote multimedia presentation that I used. I only included about 75% of it. The original presentation was an hour long and there were a lot of questions. DSCN1809It’s amazing how smart the kids were and the whole thing was pretty interactive. So for those that want to learn about the math behind the machine, look no further…. Here is the boiled down version and will only kill about 20 minutes.

One of the other reasons why I made this video was just to get some practice with screen capturing software. It’s tricky stuff. If I don’t make eye contact, don’t take it personally. I kept on forgetting that I was supposed to be staring at the little 1/32″ dark circle that represents the gateway into each of your web surfing souls on the top of my laptop. I’ll get better at it. I promise.

Since writing this post and making these videos Mrs Draper called me and told me that the kids had turned in assignments that highlight what they learned. Here are some snippets. From what I can gather, they were instructed to create a conversation between two people.

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Hannah understands the nature of gambling more than most adults I know.

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I love the “LOL! :P ” at the end.

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I hate to butt into this fine conversation boys and girls but technically Ben never said that you get “cheated” if you “roulette” and he never used “roulette” as a verb.

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Yeah? Well you try speaking to a group of 5th graders about gambling from the perspective of a professional card counter while trying to stay out of trouble from parents AND make it exciting!

I wasn’t going to post it, but this is the picture that I put on the tail in the conversation for the kids on the powerpoint. Almost all of them reference it on their assignment. Most of them went nuts when they saw it and for most of them, I think it’s the only thing that they remember. They are vaious disguises I have used in casinos in recent years. Picture 1And no Lauren, the beard is NOT fake.

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May 14, 2009

Fire Roasted Beef Brisket

Two days ago I had a pretty awesome idea for a recipe and wanted to share it with you. I know this isn’t a cooking blog, but hey, it’s a part of my life.  I remember going to this friends house about 5 years ago and hearing how he cooked this flank steak by burying it with coals under the sand overnight. Anyways, it was awesome so I decided to try my own variation. After searching all of the internet for recipes and not finding anything I realized I would have to improvise.

  1. I bought a $30 piece of beef brisket. This may not seem like a lot to you but I almost never buy meat and $30 is a lot for me. It was almost 7 lbs and came with a fancy steak rub that can be seen on the right hand side.

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2. I marinated it for about 6 hours in fresh squeezed lime juice (4 limes) and 10 cloves of garlic. Flip every hour.

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3. I wrapped it tightly with all of the juices and marinade in about 8 layers of tin foil.

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4. I prepared a fire and burned it down to white coals. I used a fire pit but in hindsight you may want to use a hole in the dirt/sand or something that restricts the airflow a little more. I would wait until the flame completely dies out, but as you can see from the picture, I cheated a little.

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5. I put 2 large pieces of wood over the piece of meat so that it would cook over night.  At this point it was about 8:30 pm and the meal was about 21 hours away. This would give the meat plenty of time to cook and should be really tender.

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6. After a while I noticed that the coals were pretty hot so I buried the whole mess in fresh grass clippings. Pack them in around the edges, restricting the airflow.

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7. At this point, this picture shows my general expectation for the likely hood of this experiment actually turning out.  I figured there were one of two options. The first is that the piece of meat would turn out awesome. The second, which I gave about a 25% chance, is that it would be charred and dried on the outside.  Nothing prepared me for what I would find in the morning when I woke up.

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8. I slept in a little bit but decided to check the fire at 9:30 am to see if the fire needed any more wood or grass. When I opened up the fire this is what I found.

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9. That’s it. 2 scraps of tin foil. The fire had completely incinerated my entire $30 investment.  It was an entirely unanticipated outcome that can only be wielded when cooking with stumps, grass clippins and 2000 degree Fahrenheit.

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10. It turned out ok though, because the 20 people that were coming to my house for dinner were not arriving for another 8 hours so I had plenty of time to thaw out frozen chow mein noodles.To my credit, a couple of people commented on how good the recipe probably would have been, had it turned out.

As for me, I’m still not going back to Betty Crocker.

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May 9, 2009

Now that we all agree that religion is a big problem…

I recently stumbled across this video on my friend Mike’s blog. I pushed play and then said “oh crap” when I realized it was like 9 hours long. But I was just surfing the web and doing some email while it was playing on in the background. Before I knew it I was pretty engrossed and by the end I would say that it was probably the most interesting speech/dialogue/presentation that I have seen or heard in years.

I would label the content as Why people can not deny exclusive claims to truth and why Christians are to blame. I think the most interesting is the part of why Christians are to blame.

I don’t want to take the time to post my thoughts here but I do want to share it with you here. The talk itself is about 40 minutes long and then it goes to Q & A. I have not listened to the Q & A.  I would suggest playing it in the background and then going about your business.

If you absolutely do not have the time, here are my highlights. (With youtube now you can drag the playbar to wherever you want even before it loads!!)

4:15 - Beginning

8:10 – 9:38 “Now that we all agree that religion is a big problem”

30:55 – 33:24 “What you need, is people with an exclusive truth claim that humbles them”

37:46  -  40:40 The Moral Performance Narrative vs. The Grace Narrative

40:40 -  43:00 You know what the problem with the world is?…..Fundamentalists!

43:40 – END

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May 6, 2009

Another Business?!?

This is a business idea that I’ve been partnering with Jeremy Pryor, Jon Collins, and Stephen Mowry on. I’m pretty excited about it even though none of us know which way it’s heading. The business is built around creating and organizing a collection of “epipheos”. To learn what an epipheo is…just watch the video.

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May 5, 2009

How Casinos Work

I made a keynote presentation for a group of 5th graders that I spoke to about casinos, gambling and card counting last Friday. This is the vid after I added some music and sound fx.

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April 21, 2009

It’s All About Jesus*

This last Easter I went to a church service  and read their literature, which stated:picture-4Now very quickly, I want to say that with particulars of this church are irrelevant and I will go ahead and say that I don’t disagree that it is “all about Jesus.” But here are some things I have been pondering.

  • If it really is all about Jesus, why did Jesus himself say: “the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing“. Should we also be concerned with what the “Father is doing.” Maybe Jesus is the model for this?
  • How come we never hear “It’s all about the Father“?
  • For a period of 3 years Jesus walked with his disciples. If it was really all about him, why did he say that it was actually to their “advantage” that he leave? In another version he states that it is actually “better for (them) that he (left)” because it would introduce the power of the Holy Spirit. Are we to take this literally?
  • Why don’t we say “It’s all about the Holy Spirit“? Why are churches that say that full of nuts?

I think I understand what people mean when they say “It’s all about Jesus”. In fact the after text clarifies: “it’s not about politics or power, trends or tolerance” the list can go on. The person hood of God needs to remain central.

From my own story, I feel like I need to repent for taking this too far. For me Jesus was much more graspable and making it all about Him, was as much about centralizing Him as it was de-centralizng the role of the Holy Spirit or even God the Father. At it’s core, I feel like my life and the Church is “all about Jesus”. BUT, I no longer feel at liberty to stop there. It is also all about the Father. AND It is also all about the Holy Spirit. Now I need to work on what it means to actually believe that, and not just say it.

Anyone else have a similar experience?

Do you think that there is any danger on labeling the church or christianity as “all about Jesus”?

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April 16, 2009

The 12 Traditions and Church Structure

makutiframeAlmost everyone has heard of the 12 steps. A little lesser known are the 12 traditions. These were designed to preserve the integrity of the meetings and the purpose that they uphold. While the 12 steps focus merely on the content the 12 traditions focus on the structure. I recently read them and asked this question: What would it look like if the church applied the 12 traditions to their model?

Here are a few examples. I replaced CHURCH for A.A. (alcoholics anonymous).

  • Our common welfare should come first; personal growth depends upon CHURCH unity.
  • For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
  • A CHURCH ought never endorse, finance or lend the CHURCH name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
  • CHURCH should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
  • CHURCH, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
  • Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

Even after writing this, a part of me cringes at the first reactions of myself and possible others. “Remain nonprofessional”! “Never be organized?” That sounds like chaos. EDIT: The most fascinating thing to me about these principles is that A.A. does not think that any of these structures are evil. The biggest danger is that they are distracting (from their mission.) In fact it would seem that distractions are far more dangerous than overt conflict based upon the protections they have put in place.

I have asked myself these two questions:

  1. What is the purpose for each of these traditions within A.A.?
  2. EDIT: If A.A. Considers these things distractions, how is that the Church is not distracted? Or is it?

Would these things destroy the church, explode the church? What do you think?

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