Ok hold it don’t freak out! He’s not “really” dead but he died in my dream! Isn’t it odd how we dream? What’s with all those crazy things that happen throughout our day that oddly enough come back in the weirdest ways in our dreams? Well last night was most certainly one of those nights where your dream is far-out and hilarious!

It was my third year working at the nuclear power station and I was slotted to give a tour of our facility and reactor. It was late afternoon when our guest arrive – whom else other than Morgan Freeman of course. (I’m guessing he’s in my dream due to the fact that Jess and I watched a MythBusters episode recently that busted the myth that you can blow up a forty foot mutant shark with a harpoon gun and some ground up road flairs. In Deep Blue Sea, Samuel L Jackson gets chomped by a shark rather unexpectedly but for some reason I often confuse Morgan and Samuel.)

Morgan arrived right on time to check through security where they confiscated his digital camera. This wasn’t the best start to the day because this made him pretty mad – I think he was just planning on selling the photos to grandma or something – mostly harmless.

After a long walk from the front gate across the prison like cement compound we arrived at the outer wall of reactor number one. The armed guards scanned my ID card, I place my eye up to the scanner, and ‘boop’ the door unlocked with a hiss. The wine of robotic servos opened the heavy metal door to the outer room of the reactor, which also looked much like a bank vault door. The receptionist handed us Duck Tape and HAZMAT suits. Don’t ask me why there was a receptionist…. We Duck Taped on our HAZMAT suits and rubber gloves but for some reason Morgan was embarrassed to put on a goofy white wrinkly onesy with little green booties and refused. We figured the reactor is pretty harmless as long as you don’t touch anything or breathe so we let him go in jeans and a t-shirt. (I think the part of the dream comes from watching World’s Toughest Fixes on the National Geographic Channel they got into a nuclear power plant to fix a turbine. Cool show by the way…)

Now passing through the huge thick inner reactor doors covered in radioactive stickers and red flashing lights surrounding the door frame. The first thing you see inside is a metal catwalk that spans across a vast cement pit filled with all sorts of fascinating robotic machinery. At the bottom of the pit is a deep pool of water submerged in the water are thousands of fuel rods clearly causing the water to bubble like soda does on the side of your glass as a reaction is taking place. During our tour Morgan began to narrate everything I was thinking even though I was giving the tour… For some reason I told Morgan (him speaking) that even if a penny dropped into the water and disturbed it everything would boil over and the reactor would erupt like a nuke. I continued explaining the process of fusion and how the reaction heats water that then creates steam to power a turbine that rotates a generator etc etc etc….. (I’m pretty sure none of this “nuclear eruption junk” is true but in a recent episode of MythBusters we watched [we watch a lot of MythBusters if you couldn’t already tell] Grant, Tory, and Kari toss 3 different kinds Alkali Metals into water to see if they could blow up a bathtub with the same amount of force as a grenade – quite an enjoyable episode I might add.)

In intervals on either side of the catwalk were huge metal spheres that functioned like a Tesla Coil. Every thirty seconds or so a massive bolt of lightning would snap across the catwalk between the metal spheres and an odor of Ozone would be in the air. Each time I gave this tour I had to make sure that we passed by those spheres while they were charging before the next lightning strike. But this time, as we passed through the spheres, a bolt of lightning struck across one of the coils in the distance at the end of the catwalk. It happened way ahead of schedule, some sort of rogue zap I guess. In an instant, the remaining generators started snapping towards us in a series getting closer and closer rapidly headed toward the one we were standing directly between. The warning alarms began to sound and I took off running down the catwalk. Everything went into slow motion and the sound of our boots against the metal catwalk is all I could hear. In an instant a “vvvvuuuzzzzwwwarrrppp!” of lighting struck and I turned to see Morgan get electrified with so much energy that it collapsed the catwalk beneath his feet, sending Morgan and a tangle of twisted metal into the reactor pool. The pool instantly boiled (like on MythBusters with the Alkali Metals) sending radiation throughout the facility in white cloud of gas. I was contaminated but managed to escape before the fire doors slammed the reactor closed.

Outside now nighttime and in the care of emergency personnel, I was quickly washed down to remove any contamination on my body. The only thing I really remember is a gurney and the flash of fire engine lights. For some reason they put me into a big inflatable bubble while we waited for the proper decontamination team to arrive, which was taking stinkin’ forever. It was weird though, I was strangely not sick or feeling any side effects from the radiation yet, but I knew it would happen if I wasn’t helped soon. (It’s likely this part comes from a recent episode of 24 where one of the Terrorist’s sons is exposed to high amounts of radiation.)

The worst part of the dream came next…. my alarm went off and I woke up! Dag nabbit! I’ll never know if I survived! At least I’ve never actually died in a dream – is that even possible?

Oh well, sorry for the anticlimactic ending, I was kinda bummed too, but stay tuned for my next exciting and usually abstract dream.

Here’s a few thing I love about Project Bubble. For a start, it’s completely free. Secondly, there isn’t any mention of gantt charts or things that freelancers don’t need for their day to day business. Thirdly, the user interface has been designed to be really easy to use, and simple.

Users of Bubble will find that creating projects, sharing tasks and sending invoices is a total breeze. Project management can actually be fun!

Bubble has SSL encryption for security, a community that is growing really quickly (with a special group for those that contribute), and a development team who releases updates almost daily – this I particularly love!

Pricing is based around whatever the user feels like paying, and is completely free for non-commercial use.

Freelancers can’t miss out on at least hearing about Bubble so they can check it out and draw their own conclusions. It’s worth a look!

www.projectbubble.com

Finally the day has come where you can connect add facebook chat to iChat on your mac and it’s simple too!

Directions:

1. Go to the iChat menu and select “Preferences.”
2. Click “Accounts,” then click the “+” at the bottom.
3. Select “Jabber” from the pull-down menu, then enter the following info:
Screen Name: yourusername@chat.facebook.com
Password:
4. Click the arrow next to “Server Options” and enter the following info:
Server: chat.facebook.com
Port: 5222
(Uncheck the box labeled “Use SSL”)

I donated this site to support some of my close friends going on this trip. Modified stock design with full content management system.

About the Organization:

WHAT: In wanting to work with Mosaic’s international projects, we plan to partner with Partners: Relief and Development in order to serve them and the Burmese refugees they care for in orphanages in the city of Chiang Mai. We would also like to conclude the trip with working with another organization, Asian Alliance Interntational, which has many of the same areas of need as Partners.

WHO: A team of excited volunteers have come together with a diversity of expertise, all which center around teaching and enhancing Trauma care.

WHERE: Primarily working with Partners in Chiang Mai Thailand.

WHEN: Our total trip would ideally run from June 24th-July 7th.

You can help!

Please consider giving to help them raise the funds they need. Donate Now….

Check out the site!

www.thailandbeyondus.com

Question

by Nathan Jeffers

“My website (which runs on Wordpress) has been running really slow lately. I’m wondering if there’s something I can do to fix that. It’s on a server with a couple other websites and I have 14 plugins active. I didn’t know if I should move to my own server or if there’s an easier way to speed things up.”

Answer

Moving to your own better quality hosting is always a way to speed up performance but most likely the cause of your site running slow is the number of PHP calls happening on a given page. For example, if your blog’s home page loads your 10 latest blog posts – that’s 10 times the server has to make a call for data, not to mention your menu items and sidebar items. You could quickly have 30+ calls on a single page.

Another thing to think about is the number and size of the images your site is loading. Most of the time images are one the biggest causes of a site acting sluggish. If you upload full-size images then resize them in your code you’re definitely going to bog down the site. A general rule of thumb is only upload images at the size they should be displaying on a page – so just resize them first on your local computer before uploading them to your site.

A quick solution could also be installing a cache plugin for Wordpress that will cache your images and/or pages on the server so that the server doesn’t need to run the PHP or call images each time someone loads a page. This could also protect you if your site gets on Digg.

Here are a few cache plugins that might be of interest but I’m not exactly sure which one to recommend as my site doesn’t currently have any caching plugins installed. Though, I probably won’t hesitate to install one in the future if I ever run into my site bogging down. Generally just make sure the plugin seems trustworthy and has a good rating before installing it.

Another note on caching…. If you do decide to install a cache plugin and need to make a change to an existing cached page, you may not be able to see the changes live on your site for 24hours or until the server caches the page again. It’d be cool if you could find one that does not cache pages for the admin. I’m not sure if any of the caching plugins do this though. If you find one with this feature please let me know.

Anyone else know of other good solutions?

In the months leading up to this momentous day, most of us catch a few sneak peeks of the Doritos commercials on the web or maybe the new Budweiser spots – still there’s just nothing like kicking back on the couch with some hot wings, chips, and an ice cold soda. It’s about enjoying great friends and the commercial event of the year.

In our house, the room is usually crackling with talking, laughter, screaming, and the crunch of junk food during the game; but after every 4th down a hush grips the room while all focus on the 47 inches of glowing digital glory. “It’s time for the commercials!” someone undoubtedly yells – making sure that all non-essential sounds are mute.

Since this year’s ads were fantastic as expected and because I love getting to be apart of the film making community, I thought I’d give a quick rundown of my top 10 favorite ads this year, plus a few extras I enjoyed!

Show the list…

Ignite is a training event held at Biola University — a day designed to encourage and mobilize student ministry teams to begin their school year of ministry well.

You’ll notice a cool hue to the video giving it a bit of a retro feel. I shot it on the Canon 5D MK II with a 50mm f/1.2 L lens. I shot and edited this video while working for Biola University.

Hey folks… I was thinking about how many of my friends ask me tech questions and how much I enjoy helping them figure out the answer to those question… I love it!

In light of that, I decided to make a place to gather those questions and what better place than right here on my blog!? I was even thinking it would be cool to answer some of the best questions I receive each week in a blog post – so if your question is really cool it might end up on the blog!

Now I know you’ve got a nagging tech question on your mind you’ve always wanted to ask…

“How do I _____?” , “What’s a cool solution for ______?” , “Do you know a good way to ____?” – just click the link below and fill out the quick questionnaire and “woosh” the question will be in my inbox.

Submit a Cool Tech Question

Or you can just leave a comment below…..

I often get asked how I keep all of my projects backed up…

They always say, “Your not backed up till you have multiple copies in multiple locations.”

For the past two years I have accumulated more than 3 Terabytes of data from video projects, websites, and graphics I have done for my clients. All of that data has been stored on a local Drobo which lived on my desk connected to my iMac. The Drobo is built to create its own redundancy so that I would never loose data but this solution isn’t enough. If someone broke into my home and stole my equipment or a fire destroyed our home, years of work and all of my client’s data would be lost. I had to come up with a true backup solution because the mere thought of loosing that much work and that much information worried me.

My first idea was to use services like backblaze.com, mossy.com, or carbonite.com – each offer online backup solutions. I tried each of theses services on their unlimited data plans and began the process of sending 3 Terabytes of data to their data centers. I lost my patience when after 2 months of nearly constant backup I had not yet fully backed up my 3 Terabytes of data to their data center. If it took this long to run the initial backup, I knew when I added another 1GB video it would take too long to backup to any of those online services. What if I ever lost my local Drobo? It would take too much time to recover my data from these online backup services as well. Clearly this was not the right solution for me.

What I needed was a way to seed another identical Drobo with everything I currently have, then move that Drobo to another location. The problem was how to access the other Drobo remotely…? I didn’t want to have to purchase another computer or setup some kind of complicated VPN connection. That’s when I discovered the Pogoplug. The Pogoplug is an ingenious device that lets you access and share the contents of your external hard drives through the internet. HOLY SMOKES!

The Solution…

I purchased an additional Drobo (Drobo2) and filled it with 4 1TB hard drives (identical to the Drobo I already had).

Next I connected both Drobos to my local iMac and copied all of the data from my existing Drobo (Drobo1) to my new Drobo (Drobo2) thus giving me 2 Drobos with identical data on each.

I purchased 1 Pogoplug $120

I left Drobo1 connected to my iMac on my home network.

I connected Drobo2 to a Pogoplug at a friend’s house.

I installed the Pogoplug Drive Application http://pogoplug.com/downloads/ on my Mac so that any drives attached to my Pogoplug would show up on my machine as if they were locally mounted hard drives.

I purchased and installed ChronoSync $40 http://www.econtechnologies.com/pages/cs/chrono_overview.html

I setup ChronoSync so that Both target drives (Drobo1 and Drobo2) will be monitored for changes. Any changes detected will be copied to the opposite target drive. Basically, if I change, add, or delete a file on my Drobo1 the same file will be changed, added, or deleted from Drobo2 and vise versa. FYI: ChronoSync is the only application that I could find for Mac that would allow me to use the Pogoplug drives as targets.

I have to brag about the Pogoplug a little here… The Pogoplug not only gives me a way to access my files remotely but it allows me to access those files from any computer in the world using the web interface. Additionally there are sharing features so I can share a file on Drobo2 to anyone in the world via, Twitter, Facebook, direct link, etc…!

The Hardware List:
1x iMac 27″
2x Drobos
1x Pogoplug
1x Licensed Copy of ChronoSync

Backup that I don’t have to worry about PRICELESS!

Sooo… How do you stay backed up?

The Freebies

Firefox – web browser of choice as a web designer.

Skype – the perfect solution for communication at home and abroad. Also great for training and teaching because of the screen share feature.

Xmarks – Syncs my bookmarks between all of my macs and all of my browsers – it event makes them available on the web. Syncs passwords too!

VLC – Play anything video player.

TweekDeck – My new favorite desktop client for Twitter and Facebook.

Logmein – Remote desktop to my mac from anywhere on the planet.

Switch – Allows me to convert audio files to different types fast.

Skitch – Quick way to share a screenshot, idea, or graphic with the web.

Renamer4Mac – Fast way to rename tons of files at once. I usually use it for renaming photos.

Vimeo Uploader – Fast way to get new videos up on vimeo.

Dropbox – Gives me 2GB of online storage that syncs automatically with all of my macs local and web.

iStat Menus – Gives me a quick look at what my computer is doing and why it’s taking so long!!!

Caffiene – Keeps my computer from sleeping by clicking 1 quick button in my menu bar. Great for rendering video.

Pogoplug Drive – Combined with their pogoplug hardware I can access my Hard Drive from anywhere.

This stuff costs $$

Coda – My favorite HTML CSS editor and FTP too.

iShowU – The best app I know for doing screencasts.

Stomp – Quick tool for preparing video and screencasts for the web.

AppZapper – the uninstaller Apple forgot.

1 Password – password repository that I sync between Macs using dropbox.

Toast – Favored DVD CD burning software.

Mailplane – Multiple gmail accounts in a desktop application. True gmail on your desktop.

Final Cut Studio – Video editing software, motion graphics, audio editing, and more…

Adobe Master Collection – Photo and graphic design software.

iWork – Word processing and document creation for a fraction of the price of Word and highly functional.

Non-essential but cool (some free some $$)

Onyx – All the customization features for you mac that Apple forgot to give you access to. (Be careful with this one…)

Cyberduck – gosh darn best FTP app I know of.

MPEG Streamclip – faster way to convert video free.

Photo Drop – super fast way to batch convert photos (makes cool droplets)

Handbrake – rips any DVD into iTunes.

Meta X – allows me to apply iTunes naming, image, data, etc to the video I rip using handbrake.

DVDxDV – rip/convert the DVD video back into any Quicktime video format.

Audio Hijack Pro – Allows me to rip or mute any audio from any source including applications on my mac.

Picasa – Simple yet fast way to manage, organize, and share my photos.

So what apps do you use?

Some people might say that I am a camp junkie and that might be true…. let me explain. Basically I grew up at camp – and I mean for real! I spent my elementary school, Jr High, and High School years with my family on year-round staff at Hume Lake Christian Camps. That’s where I met my best friend and gorgeous wife Jess, where I learned to snowboard, where I learned to play guitar, and where I learned all of the web-tech-video-geeky-ness. I love camp! And Hume is where I also met one of my best friends Kyle White.

Kyle currently runs the video department at Hume’s rival camp, Forest Home. Naturally, since Kyle and I are such good friends, he asked if I’d be up for editing 4 of the 2010 Promos for Forest Home. —– I said yes!

Custom design with content management.

Picket Fences has been a rock solid client since the very beginning of my web design days. I’m talking since the days when Geocities rocked my socks off – back when bubble buttons were cool and html was a nerdy thing to do… not to mention CSS what’s that?. This site is the 5th redesign on their look since I’ve been working with them.

www.picketfenceshc.com

“What the crazy just happened!?”
Ah… The scrollbar appeared and bumped my page over….

How to fix it? = Always show the scrollbar

In your CSS just add this line:

html            { overflow:-moz-scrollbars-vertical; overflow-y: scroll; }

Presto your scrollbar problems have been solved!

I did this website while working for Biola University as Biola Youth’s web designer / videographer. Come Away is a youth pastor and spouse weekend getaway giving you a chance to relax and reconnect with God and each other. It is a special time to recharge your batteries, rekindle your most important relationships, and be encouraged in your ministries.

Fully custom CSS design built on the University’s database.

Christmas is a season that comes and goes every, yes I know your thinking – “yeah yeah yet another Christmas video”… but hear me out on this one.

How often do we stop and think about how crazy it is that a story, as incredible as this, could really happen?

I know this might sound a little cliche at first, but just think… The chances of one man fulfilling the number of prophesies that He fulfilled is incredible. Now take a moment to think about the odds of you finding this video and sitting down right now to watch it. What are the odds that this moment is not just a coincidence? What are the odds that there might be a greater reason for you watching this video right now? Maybe you’ve forgotten what Christmas is, what Christ accomplished, and most of all what He did for you on the cross… think….

This video was a contracted project I did for Rock Harbor Church in Costa Mesa, CA. This one was on a very tight deadline but I had a blast working with my good friend CJ Casciotta and the Rock Harbor team! I totally look forward to the next project!

How to manage your small business expenses and income automatically with 3 useful web applications for under $20! Believe my I’m no accountant. But for the first time ever I actually have my bookkeeping and accounting on autopilot. When tax time comes I’m ready!

Freshbooks – is the tool I use to manage my estimates, invoices, time tracking, and billings.

Outright – is the incredible app I use to combine my income and expenses to give me a live overview of my profits, losses, taxes owed, and more. Outright is the automatic accountant.

Shoeboxed – the repository for all of my expense receipts. The best part is I do no sorting their service does all of the sorting and input for me. All I do is take a photo of the receipt with my iPhone.

Two quick ways to convert audio files to a different format.

Using iTunes

1. Add your audio file to iTunes
2. Go to the iTunes preferences
3. Under the General tab click “Import Settings”
4. Change setting to desired format
5. Close preference pane
6. Right click the audio file in your iTunes library that you want to convert
7. Click “Create [mp3] Version”
8. Presto you have your file!
9. Now right click the new file and choose “Show in Finder”
10. You’re awesome!

Using Switch

1. Download Switch for Mac (The Free Trial Version is just fine)
2. Install on your computer
3. Drag and drop your audio files on the application
4. Choose conversion settings
5. Click CONVERT!
6. You’re awesome!

After a recent discovery of a great iPhone and Mac desktop app called Echofon I knew that the iphone app would push a notification to my wife’s iPhone and she’d be notified just like sending a text message – without the terrible text messaging fees, and she could just check it when she was free.

Some of the coolest features include:

1. iPhone and Desktop App Sync
2. iPhone push notifications

Now that we’ve started using Twitter as our primary text messaging tool I think I’ll downgrade the texting plan that we are currently on!

What do you think about using Twitter vs. using Texting? Is there a future for this do you think?

Check out Echofon!

A multi-part project for Biola University which included a website and a promo video!

The video is loaded with Motion Graphics created using After Effects and some great tools from the guys at videocopilot.net I aimed to have an urban feel in the video that matched the initial artwork created by Chris Petniak over at thrivestudios.com

The website turnyourcampus.com also needed to fit right in with the artwork but also needed online registration.

Turn Your Campus is a one day training event held at Biola University in January. Student leaders will participate in training, workshops, and fellowship designed to better equip them to minister to their schools.

2008 Promo Video

Demo Page

Download Source

HTML Code:

<div class="clearbutton">
<a class="GlobalOrangeButton" href="http://yoursite.com"><span>So Neat!</span></a>
</div>

CSS Code:

/* GLOBAL ORANGE BUTTON *****************************/
a.GlobalOrangeButton span {
background: transparent url('images/button_left_orange.png') no-repeat 0 0;
display: block;
line-height: 22px;
padding: 7px 0 5px 18px;
color: #fff;
}
a.GlobalOrangeButton {
background: transparent url('images/button_right_orange.png') no-repeat top right;
display: block;
float: left;
height: 34px;
margin-right: 6px;
padding-right: 20px;
text-decoration: none;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size:12px;
font-weight:bold;
}
a.GlobalOrangeButton:hover span {
background-position: 0 -34px; color: #fff;
}
a.GlobalOrangeButton:hover {
background-position: right -34px;
}

I had a blast working with Capistrano Valley Christian Schools. This video was created to raise support for their Financial Assistance program. As a result of this video they raised $300,000 to further provide financial assistance to their families. What a cool way to change lives!

This year Biola Youth Theatre (BYT) celebrates it’s 13th year of wonderful musical theatre! On November 20, 2009, hundreds gathered together to celebrate Biola Youth Theatre becoming a teenager. 22 alumni, who returned to their BYT “roots,” joined 39 current BYT students to perform some of the most memorable songs from past productions on a stage clad with an assortment of props from all the timeless shows of the past 13 years.

As a regular visitor to Disneyland I was inspired to model this video’s theme after the wonderful film 50 Magical Years of Disney.

Custom design built on Wordpress.

Reactivate Ministries is the youth outreach ministry of Aaron Chidester. Aaron has a passion to reach youth with the gospel and to equip churches to more effectively impact the youth generation. Reactivate consists of Aaron’s speaking minstry, mentoring youth, consulting with churches, and providing resources to churches and families.

www.reactivateministries.com

I did this website while working for Biola University as Biola Youth’s web designer / videographer. Turn Your Campus is a one day training event held at Biola University in January. Student leaders will participate in training, workshops, and fellowship designed to better equip them to minister to their schools.

Fully custom CSS design built on the University’s database.

Al was born May 19th, 1915 in Amisk, Alberta Canada. He was the fourteenth of fifteen children for Christian and Karen Setter who immigrated from Norway at the turn of the century to homestead land in northern Alberta. Al received an eight grade education before going to work at a neighbor’s farm. He met and married Evelyn Holte in 1941, worked on the grain elevators of Alberta Wheat Pool, and had two children Sharon and Lyle. After moving to Bowness outside of Calgary they added Laurie and Ron (my dad) to the family. Al worked construction and he and his brothers competed in the Canadian sport of Curling. When the family moved to Balzac to purchase another farm he added raising wheat and pigs to his already busy life.

With the promise of better work, Al moved his family to Phoenix, AZ in 1960 and was employed by Del Web building homes in the blazing heat of the Arizona desert. Many times his lunch pale came home with the sandwich untouched but the five gallon jug of water, and of course the cookies or sweets gone.

When Alfred and Evelyn divorced Al moved to Hood River, Oregon and took up farming once again on his daughter Sharon’s land. He worked construction as well and was involved in building the fish ladders and visitors center at Bonneville Dam and Locks on the Columbia river. Al retired from pounding nails at age 65 and became a custodian a Parkdale elementary where he worked another seven years before settling down as a full-time handy man and fisherman. When not playing Cribbage or checking out a local garage sale, he and long time friend Dorothy Glover spent many days pulling Salmon and Steelhead out of the waters of the Cascade Locks and the Hood River. His smoked Salmon was always a coveted treat!

Al moved into Berry Park (retirement home) in 2004 and spent his last years playing cards and pool, going to church, and enjoying the company of the wonderful residents there. He left this earth on September 29, 2009 in his daughter’s home, well loved and in peace.

My grandpa was truly a magnificent man who lead by example. We will certainly miss his quiet ways and quick wit but long remember his dancing feet, his unending work ethic, his love for fishing, Norwegian food, and oh yes – Polka music!

-Written by Laurie Kuykendall (my Aunt)

Another awesome video with the guys from conversantlife.com! With Heaven and Earth Phil takes a new approach with this albums music, experimenting with musical styles that touch on hip-hop/synths and stretch toward powerful melodic strings that were recorded at the famous Abbey Road Studios. Together they create an album that musically flows though an over arching theme of Heaven and the human heart’s longing to be there walking with God.

Phil imagines Adam’s perspective after he is thrown out of the Garden of Eden and explores the idea that God originally created us to be with Him without any barriers. It was intended for us to have complete and direct contact with the Lord. What would it be like to actually hold God’s hand and hear God’s voice? Phil’s heart and passion for the church and for others to seek a relationship with Christ truly pours out in this album.

During the short time we spent with Phil in the studio, he shared his passion to see the church take hold of its true potential. Through his music Phil simply hopes to create a moment where people can connect and draw closer to God while hoping to ultimately make eternal change with his music!

I find myself running all over the place with my video camera getting to shoot all kinds of fun projects… but every time I get a call from the the guys a conversantlife.com I get particularly excited!

We were set to meet up with Donald Miller to shoot an interview about his latest book, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” at Mariner’s Church in Irvine, CA. Unfortunately when arrived, we found out that we couldn’t do any filming (other circumstances), so we just winged it and rocked a sweet audio podcast instead! Check it out below…

Donald Miller visits ConversantLife | podcast from ConversantLife on Vimeo.

Check out some of Donald’s other books… “Blue Like Jazz”, “To Own A Dragon”, “Searching For God Knows What”, and “Through Painted Deserts”. DonMillerIs.com.

To those of you that are nerds out there…. of course the RED camera is my dream rig but this comes in 2nd place when it comes to affordability and SICK-NASTY-AWESOME! I’m going to be setting up a video rig just like this soon! The setup includes the following:

1. Canon 5D Mark II or Canon 7D
2. RedRockMicro Cinema Setup
3. Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L II
4. Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L
5. Sick Wireless Audio Package

“Making your media flourish” – at Media Sprout I hope to plant a seed with every project. A seed is the beginning – Once a seed sprouts it grows, and once it grows it begins to spread into something beyond itself. I hope to enable you to plant the seed of your ministry, non-profit, or small business through the use of the web and video, so that it can flourish.

Beyond just giving you a web or video presence I aspire to use my experience in media, through this blog, to share useful tips and tricks related to video, web design, photography, and any other tech stuff I find interesting. I hope that my blog can be a resource, not only for the web or video guy, but for anyone who loves technology and wants to learn more.

Feel free to browse around, add my RSS feed to your feed reader, and follow me on twitter so you can keep up on anything new that posts to the site.

I hope to post tutorial videos about all kinds of web, video, and computer tips. You’ll see my upcoming projects here too!

Ok, it’s now 2am and I need to go to bed… whew…

Honestly, I’ve been avoiding it for so long but finally decided it was time to crack down, learn how to code a custom WordPress themes and join the WordPress bandwagon – not because WordPress was so popular but more because of how versatile it truly is! I was pretty skeptical at first but now I’m a total Wordpress evangelist! Major props goes out to Chris Coyier at css-tricks.com for his incredible screencasts!

Some of my favorite things about WordPress include:

1. Simple UI
2. A great way to manage a grip of content and publish easily!
3. The fact that I can write several posts today and have them publish over the course of a few days!
4. Plug-ins for everything!

If you are thinking about making starting a blog/website it’s really not that hard with Wordpress! You can download tons of awesome themes from sites like themeforest.com or I could design a fully custom one for you!

Now at work, I settled in to rock some awesome web stuff for Biola Youth. Matt, my coworker and close friend cracked jokes with me as usual… it was looking to be a great and mostly normal Friday.

I had just finished some web updates and made some phone calls to the camera rental company when my iPhone rang. As usual, I looked at the caller ID, this time to see it was my wife. I knew she was at work and she normally doesn’t call me from work, it’s normally just a text…. so I answered and immediately knew something was wrong. Why? Jess was quiet… too quiet… which could only mean one thing – something was wrong. It’s interesting how we learn these little things about our spouse – I know if Jess is quiet, something’s definitely wrong.

We had talked a few weeks prior about the financial status of the company she works for, the outcome wasn’t too good, but we never thought that it would be quite this fast. We sort of saw it coming…. and amidst the inevitable sense of, “bummer” we knew God’s timing here must be of some significance.

I decided to send out a brief email asking for prayer from some of our closest friends and family:

“We are seeking your prayers that:

1. the next job would take Jess where God would desire

2. that a new job would specifically fit her gifting in creative arts and administration

3. she would be able to find another job quickly

4. that her previous company would find blessing financially and know the Lord better through this situation

5. that we would be able to pay the bills…. we know that the Lord will provide as we seek and follow him.”

Ten minutes didn’t go by after clicking send, when several emails came back to my inbox; and that’s when I saw what God was doing. He was showing us his hand of provision and love through our friends. All in the course of four hours, I realized, like I had never before in my life, how incredibly blessed I am to have our amazing friends and family. We are so blessed and are incredibly humbled by their generosity and encouragement.

Jess’ job status is still pending and we know that God’s hand is in this situation. Maybe he is going to teach us something else that is yet to be seen, but we are thankful for what we do have and for our friends and family!

Thanks to all for your prayers and support!

I created this is the website a good friend of mine Buddy Bernor and his band named “Autumn Eyes”. They really have a unique sound with guitar, strings, and a djimbe. Their site is connected into their tumblr blog and facebook.

Fully custom flash design built on the powerful ShowitSites platform.

autumneyes.media-sprout.net

I did this website while working for Biola University as Biola Youth’s web designer / videographer. Ignite is a training event held at Biola University–a day designed to encourage and mobilize student ministry teams to begin their school year of ministry well.

Fully custom CSS design built on the University’s database.

Custom design with content management.

Surf Art sells art from some of the most famous surf artists including the infamous Greg Noll – pioneer big-wave surfer.

www.surf-art.com

Written by Jeff & Erin Youngren

Brandon read his plane ticket again and sighed. He had just been moved from First Class – from what was supposed to be the best flight of his life. He looked up and double checked that he really did have to sit next to her. Instead of fine meals, a full bed, and a personal TV, he would spend the next nine hours in complete awkwardness next to a girl he barely knew.

Their childhood years consisted of summer swims in the lake, biking along dirt roads, and running through the forests around Hume Lake, but that’s where the similarities end between Brandon and Jessica’s formative years. Although they both grew up as staff kids at Hume Lake Christian Camps, buried deep in Kings Canyon National Park, miles away from towns, cities, cell phones, and internet, they grew up in very different places. Jessica wore makeup. Brandon wore army jackets. Jessica liked dresses. Brandon liked running through the mud. Jessica laughed with her girlfriends while Brandon jumped ditches on his bike with his broken remote control car dragging behind…

Brandon sighed again, took his seat, and quickly popped in his iPod ear buds. *Plock* Jessica smiled back at him, his ear bud in her hand.

“Hi, I’m Jessica.”

To this day, Brandon will tell this story of how he met his soulmate with laughter, tears, and amazement, because what was supposed to be the best flight of his life, really actually was.

Although they grew up in such different ways, it was only a matter of time before these two fell in love. They are perfect for each other in every conceivable way – even their differences are perfect!

Custom design with content management

ActiveGear provides uniforms, warmups, equipment, and promotional products to countless teams and businesses throughout the United States.

www.activegearunlimited.com

Adding Text and Images

Blogs and Tags

Using the Image Editor

Slideshow and Photo Gallery

Yet another Conversantlife.com project that I had a blast being apart of! Shot an interview with Jon Foreman of Switchfoot live about his Fast for Darfur. Check out the web stream from the live event below.

I did this website while working for Biola University as Biola Youth’s web designer / videographer.

Biola Youth offers innovative academic, artistic, and ministry programs and activities for families and churches in Southern California and online worldwide.

youth.biola.edu

This is is a fully custom design integrated with Biola University’s database system.

Biola Youth Theatre’s mission is to provide the La Mirada and surrounding Southern California communities with a quality theatre program that incorporates solid theatre training with spiritual principles and truths, led by highly skilled and dedicated professionals in a caring and nurturing environment for children and youth.

youth.biola.edu/theatre/

This is is a fully custom design integrated with Biola University’s database system.

I did this website while working for Biola University as Biola Youth’s web designer / videographer.

Biola Youth Ministry Outreach partners with churches to maximize the effectiveness and reach of local youth ministries, helping teens find and grow in authentic Christian faith. They offer the experience, support and resources of Biola University to the local church, community, teens and families.

youth.biola.edu/ministry/

I created this is the website just after I got engaged to my now most beautiful wife and best friend Jess. The site was to show people our engagement photos, allow them to RSVP for our wedding, and visit our registry! My good buddy Kyle White did all of the photography.

Fully custom flash design built on the powerful ShowitSites platform.

brandonjessica.media-sprout.net

Custom design with content management

Pepe provides sound design, live sound, installation, recording, and anything else SOUND for Europe.

www.pepesound.org

Better Productions was my company before Media Sprout this is the design for the company site before I changed my name to Media Sprout. I kept the site up so you can see it as a portfolio piece but please ignore the information on it – most is outdated….

Fully custom flash design built on the powerful ShowitSites platform.

betterproductions.media-sprout.net

I donated this website to support the efforts of my friend Timon Jaehnert and his blog idea.

Fully custom CSS design built on the Blogger Platform.

Sites No Longer Online

This website was fully custom design for a San Diego based Hula school.

Site No Longer Online

Custom design and content management.

Especially Created Cakes creates delicious and beautiful hand crafted cakes, truffles, and apples for any occasion.

www.especiallycreatedcakes.com