Nate News

Analyze a Friend's Photo Collage to Discover Your Friendship Tier

Sun, 20 May 2012 16:58:00 -0500

“Street Paper takes the viewer inside the lives of...

Mon, 07 May 2012 22:06:20 -0500

“Street Paper takes the viewer inside the lives of Nashville’s homeless population through street newspaper, The Contributor. This documentary offers a unique look into the lives of the founders, vendors and writers as the newspaper experiences exponential growth during September 2010.”

christyfrink:

Caught this film this weekend at the Nashville Festival. Awesome, awesome, awesome. See it if you get the chance.

My Video Game Intervention

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 22:47:00 -0500

Look, here’s the the great hall I’ve been building.

Saturday night I visited the nether to gather glowstone for my new chandeliers. I sheered over a hundred blocks of sheep wool to build the white rug in the center there. I intended to stop playing at 11 but I didn’t.

I played Minecraft till 4 in the morning.

If you know me well, this isn’t a big surprise. For the last several months I’ve been playing Minecraft at least 10 hours a week.

When I finally got to bed Saturday night, I realized I would need to sleep through an event I had on my calendar for the next day. Write Fiction.

I forfeited my opportunity to rise early and get started.

Now, improper use doesn’t discount proper use. All I can tell you is I’ve been doing it wrong. What I’ve lost during these hours is greater than what I’ve gained.

When I play Minecraft: I’m given a canvas to create and a powerful dose of escapism that’s relaxing after a long day. When I play too much: my relationships with friends grow stale, I read less and I write less.

My creative goal is to finish the fiction story I started in college. The quicker I learn discipline, the faster I’ll finish my project. In my current station, discipline means more sleep and less Minecraft.

I would not be happy if a video game kept me from my creative goals, so I’m going to try something out. I’m now keeping track of how many hours I write a week. For each hour I sit down to write fiction, I’ll allow myself an hour in Minecraft the next week. We’ll see if that keeps things in check.

Creativity is a type of work. The more I invest, the more I reap. I know boundaries create freedom, but I’ve once again become lazy to this truth. This is my reminder to myself. No doubt I’ll need to hear it again.

It’s time to pull closer to the pain of leaving something behind. With luck the sacrifice will inch something distant just a bit closer.

I’ve been creating my world in the wrong place.

7 Observations on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [Guest Post]

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:33:00 -0600

By Jonathan Baker

My brother wrote this on Facebook and I felt compelled to share. Happy Friday!

Musings from watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the original series):

Apparently the word “mondo” used to be cool.
I have no idea why Shredder and Krang work together. They hate each other, and don’t seem to need each other.
Shredder seems to think the only thing standing between him and world domination is 4 teenage turtles. I think he overestimates his abilities.
You know the episode is about to end when everyone starts eating pizza.
Bebop and Rocksteady both wear turtle shells on their uniforms. Is that to signify how many turtles they’ve killed?
I’ve yet to meet a reporter who wears the same jumpsuit to work everyday.
I am a dork.

Jonathan Baker

Today’s guest blogger is my brother. I agree he is a dork. Apparently he’s been watching TMNT lately. Among other things, he’s good at online marketing and started a brewing venture with his friends in Atlanta called Monday Night Brewing.

"After 541 Years in Nashville" (Letter Art Project)

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 09:13:36 -0600

Here’s the result of my Nashville Letter Art Project: “After 541 Years in Nashville.”

I asked folks to send me letters and answer the following question.After so many years in Nashville, what did you learn?

I added up the collective experience you mailed in and it came out to 541 years. I’ve been fascinated how letter writing contrasts usual writing on the web. Letters are one-to-one, intimate and powerful. I wanted to tap into this depth.

I was thinking I’d make a poster, but I wanted all the letters to be easily read in narrative form. All images are Share Alike if you want to use any for your own project. Thanks everyone for the letters!

Check it out.

Dear Nashville, write me letters so I can make you some sweet art?

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 08:42:00 -0500

I dreamed up this Nashville lettering-writing art project and now I need your help!

Coud you write me a letter? I’ll write you back in the form of digital art you can print out and hang on that blank wall in your bathroom. The prompt is:

After [number] years in Nashville, I learned _______.

The above image is a quick example of how I’ll build the art. I’ll add up the years from your sentences to name the work. So it might be called “After 324 Years in Nashville” if y’all decide this work needs some love.

I’ve been thinking of ways to encourage a deeper level of dialogue on the Internet. In the world of sharing for hundreds or thousands at the speed of a tweet, sometimes depth gets lost.

I wanted to engage in something personal, direct and rare: like letter writing.

Letter writing is the new jam like vinyl. Turn off Facebook for the night, light a candle and feel the creative freedom. When you write in a new way, you’ll learn new things about yourself.

You don’t need to currently live in Nashville, as long as you’ve spent at least a year here. Just tell me something that’s true to you. Write as many of the sentence prompts as you’d like.

It can be personal, dark, funny, general or about whatever you’d like. Below are all the details you need. If you have a question, post it in the comments.

Please and Thank You!

How to Participate

1. Write me a letter!

Please send me a stamped letter by Friday 9/30 to participate.

Include one or more sentences in this format:

After NUMBER year(s) in Nashville, I learned _______ .
Write in your own handwriting on white, line-free paper.
Sign your name only as you’d like it to appear publicly.
Send your letter to:

Nate Baker
1414 17th Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37212

2. Tell others so the art is super sweet.

Please consider re-posting this on your blog and/or sharing this on facebook/twitter/diaspora/qwikster so I have a decent stack of letters, and therefore a sweet looking piece of artwork to share back with y’all. Something like…

RT @nathanTbaker: Dear Nashville, write me letters so I can make you some sweet art? http://natene.ws/letter-art

3. Get digital art.

I’ll license the work under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. It’ll likely be a poster-sized pdf you can print out.

UPDATE: Here’s the result of my Nashville Letter Art Project: “After 541 Years in Nashville”

Should I join Google+?

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:08:00 -0500

The new social networking site from Google, Google+, promotes segmenting shares and potentially lowers your reach to smaller audiences, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It all depends on your goal.

On Facebook or Twitter, most people share to all their friends or even the world. It all depends how you use the tool, but as a general rule, Facebook Lists are inferior to Google+ Circles as far as the functionality of sharing to specific groups.

Google+ as a medium can encourage intimacy and depth by restricting reach. What is your goal of being on a social network? If you don’t have a goal, then don’t join. If you can pinpoint a goal, join and try it out.

If your goal is to share a message with as many people as possible, the answer is easy. Join Google+ and all major networks that allow you to broadcast your message.

Do you want to keep up with your family and friends? Then see where your friends are and try out a place with the best features. That may be Facebook for now (unless you invite all your close friends to Google+). Wink.

What’s my goal? I want to explore online connections with fewer amounts of friends in a deeper, more contextually way that throwing my random thoughts out to the masses. I see a trend towards over sharing and we’re loosing the power that comes from a private one-on-one connection. A letter. A circle of 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1.

That’s why I’m still on Google+. The reason may change of course as it often will, but that’s my current goal.

Weekstart comes after the Weekend

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 09:16:00 -0500

I’ve been playing with the idea of “Weekstart.”

Just as the weekend is the last two days of the week, weekstart is the first two: Monday and Tuesday. During the weekstart I block out any commitments after work for both Monday and Tuesday night.

See, I’ve been asking too much of my weekends. During the week I find peace in knowing I have time over the weekend to do item A, and then I add item B, then item C and D and E…

When the weekend rolls around, my expectations are that I can draw energy from alone time, spend tons of time with friends, exercise, catch up on sleep, go to church, work on chores, work on creative pursuits and catch up on email all in the same weekend.

Although this is all possible to do in one weekend, when I place unreasonable expectations on any chunk of time, my energy is divided and I’m left defeated and wanting by Monday morning.

It’s time for me to set manageable expectations for my weekends. Since a majority of my friends are available on weekends, it makes sense to make people a priority then.

So when do I expect to do the rest of the things that are itching the inside of my head? To answer this question, I created Weekstart.

If someone wants to watch a movie while I’m doing laundry over the weekend, I can watch a movie and still know my laundry will get done during my upcoming weekstart.

If someone wants to watch a movie on Monday night during the weekstart while I’m doing laundry, I can set expectations and already feel tied to my friends after fully engaging over the weekend.

During Weekstart I can work on the most pressing things I need to do to stay zen for the upcoming week whether it’s…

laundry
my weekly beard trim
prayer
planning my week
kicking off the week with great sleeping patterns
remembering who I am
grocery shopping
cleaning my room
walking
my inbox
knocking out a project
drawing energy from being alone

Productivity writer David Allen recommends a time for upper-level planning tasks in what he calls a “Weekly Review.” I was a fool for thinking I could just add this as another task for my already booked weekends.

Setting expectations for my time doesn’t need a fancy name of course—it’s just more fun. I’m finding anything that’s a priority needs a home.

Creative Date Ideas #1: The "Gift Card Date"

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:17:03 -0500

Find all the gift cards lying in your purse or stacked in the back of your wallet. Combine them and choose your adventure. It’s inexpensive, and the restrictions create a game-like challenge.

Are you going to buy a game or movie at Target, or do you need to save the Target card for food since that would leave you with only Starbucks muffins for dinner? Or… do you really like muffins? (Not recommended for a first date of course.)

—Got to go. Off to see what the girl found in her purse!

Is your writing more original if you read others less?

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 09:01:00 -0500

A few of my friends have said not reading others makes his or her writing more original. They’re not copying anyone so his or her work is original, yeah?

Bollocks.

Reading widely makes you a more original writer. Let’s start with what makes one a competent writer. Professional writers speak in a unified voice when they say you become a better writer by writing and reading more.

Stephen King in “On Writing” writes “if you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

Reading is a necessity. Yes you could be highly influenced by what you read, but this too is necessity. In the longterm, reading widely makes you more original. Reading a lot “offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn’t, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page.”

The idea of originality is tied to context. Something isn’t original unless it’s different from what’s been done before. You need to know what’s been done before, before you can be deviant.

Warren Ellis in “Do Anything: Thoughts on Comics and Things” describes collective creativity in terms of an ideascape, or where all creative thoughts live. He argues the more you hang out in this creative space, the more likely you can see what is left to be done.

It’s this “place where everything connects to the same central ocean. Where we all share the same strange air. Where unthinkable complexity becomes visible, speakable, drawable. Where we can see the paths through the jungle that others have trod, and can see where they’ve crossed, and can see what foliage has not yet been trailbroken.”

You’ve got to first explore to see what is left to be explored. You need to read widely if you expect your words to be original.

All artists are apprentices to those before them. Kirby Ferguson in “Everything is a Remix” quotes Henry Ford on the idea that inspiration is a culmination of all men’s work.

I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense.

So, if you’re an aspiring writer and you think reading other works is going to make you less original, I can think of one way you could create a completely original work based on this logic.

Find a newborn.
Dump them in a cave to be raised by wolves without human interaction.
Hope they create language, the tools to transfer language and then a story.

If you’re still alive by that time, you’ll have a completely original story—well if there’s something about your kid’s cave painting that hasn’t been done before.

Let's play irl Four Square on a ship

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 08:00:06 -0500

See this pirate ship thing in Centennial Park? Take a look from the top.

It’s perfect for Four Square—not the social network. NERD. Put that phone in your pocket. It’s time to mingle and sweat in a competitive setting. I’m talking about some In Real Life (irl) Four Square. I’ll bring the chalk and a ball that bounces. You in?

Wednesday’s a great day, as once it gets dark you can walk over to Movies in the Park if you want some more adventure. Here’s how to find the ship in Centennial Park. Meet you at 6 p.m.

RSVP for a good time and if you want to work on your fear of moderately high things.

Road Trip Discussion Topics

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 12:51:00 -0500

How would modern architecture change if dinosaurs still roamed the earth?
How would those in your car rise to political power during a zombie uprising and instate a philosopher king among you?
How long would it take the members of your car to find a Con Man you don’t know, then con him?
If the members in your car immediately quit their jobs and pooled $15,000, how would you start a profitable business in a month with your combined talents?

What would you add to this list?

Homebrewed Recipes for Monday Night Brewing

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 02:08:00 -0500

My brother and his partners are launching a new line of beer in Atlanta called Monday Night Brewing. I’ve seen him work on this for years. It’s quite, quite exciting.

The recipes have been finalized, and I recently was able to secure a few beers before they’re available to the public—whatever, jealous much? All you need is a brother who brews beer like it’s his business.

They’re leading with some incredibly tasty stuff. You can’t just taste it the first time with a bowl of mac-n-cheese. This is craft beer. Get your fancy forks out. Colby and I decided new beer deserves new food. We invited some homebrewing friends over to experiment on. Colby came up with the following recipes…

Drafty Kilt Onion Rings paired with Drafty Kilt Scotch Ale

We discovered Monday Night Brewing’s Drafty Kilt Scotch Ale tastes amazing with some onion rings. We of course had to use Drafty Kilt to flavor the onion ring bater and dipping sauce. This was the right decision.

For the pizza, we infused Monday Night Brewing Eye Patch Ale directly into the crust. I almost called it a day and carried that dough into a romantic setting, but we had plans.

In true Scotch-style, we heartied up the dish with meat. We had some excess Jalapeño Bacon Explosion on hand. Now the Eye Patch Ale is “a unique take on the American IPA – sweet caramel, citrusy flowers and swashbuckling adventure abound with every pint.” Good thing too, as it was an incredibly refreshing counterpoint to a dish involving a bacon-wrapped log of pork. Pirate-up and give what we call Bacon Beer Pizza a shot.

Use your favorite homebrew or craft beer till you can taste the real stuff down in Atlanta.

Bacon Beer Pizza paired with Eye Patch Ale

You can follow the last and first leg of the race for my brother’s brewing adventures at MondayNightBrewing.com and on twitter. Did I mention I’m really excited!? Who wants to plan a road trip to Atlanta?

Domesticating Dinosaurs For Farm Life: The Hypothetical Beginner's Guide

Thu, 19 May 2011 23:49:00 -0500

I had a question. In a hypothetical world in which dinosaurs and humans were alive during the same time, which dinosaurs would be good candidates for domestication? Luckily, I knew who to ask.

Meet Dinosaur Enthusiast David Chaniott

Since a young age, David Chaniott has been intrigued by dinosaurs. In fact, at age 13, a homeschooling group asked David to teach a middle school class on the topic. David owns hundreds of books on dinosaurs and has spent more than 5,000 hours reading up on the topic. David’s perspective on dinosaurs is most influenced by the work of paleontologist Robert T. Bakker and recently David has enjoyed following the work of paleontologist Paul Sereno.

In 2005, David graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Wright State University. This Fall David will be travelling Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary to study. David regularly modifies his travel routes to incorporate visits to dinosaurs attractions, so if you know something on the way to Boston, be sure to let him know.

The Interview

I caught up with my friend and dinosaur enthusiast David Chaniott for an interview. His answers are a number of things: a great mental exercise, an engaging screenplay or book premise, and a focus group highlighting areas of agricultural science to be studied if dinosaurs or other large beasts emerge in modern society.

Hey, why not start early?

Nate News: Which dinosaurs would be most easiest to domesticate or train? If you had master dinosaur domestication skills, what would be the functions of your dinosaurs?

David Chaniott: Well Nate, that’s a very good question. Since dinosaurs have been extinct for 65 million years, even I can’t say which would be an easy dinosaur to domesticate. But let’s suppose that I did have a dinosaur farm.

I’ll talk about a few dinosaurs and how they might fill the roles of animals today on a modern farm.

First, I’ll say this. We know dinosaurs are very closely related to birds. So, maybe it’s safe to say a domestic dinosaur would be a lot like a domestic bird—a chicken or a duck perhaps.

On farms today, chickens are valued for their eggs. If I were to select a dinosaur to egg, I would try the Coelophysis. She is a bit larger than a chicken so maybe we’ll have some bigger eggs. The Coelophysis has some cousins too that might be good for laying eggs as well—Podokesauras, Megapnosaurus, and Rioarribasaurus. On January 22, 1998, Coelophysis became the second dinosaur to go into space when the Endeavor took a skull to Mir for experiments.

Farms also have animals that are raised for food, like pigs and cows. A dinosaur that I would raise for food would have to be docile and good enough sized for me to get some good meat off it.

“Of course, since dinosaurs aren’t mammals, you could never milk one. Sorry, no dinosaur dairy farms.”

-David Chaniot

Nate News: I just wanted to jump in and say this is awesome. Please continue.

At first I thought about Therizinosaurus. The reason is that he does not eat plants. Some scientists believe he was an insectivore. So, you could raise Therizinosaurus on your farm without growing a large pasture. Instead, you could keep an insect colony, grasshoppers or ants, and feed him from that. However, there’s a problem. This dinosaur has one of the largest claws in the animal kingdom. He probably used this to open termite and ant nests for food. I would worry about keeping a herd of dinosaurs with a 3-foot-long claw on each hand.

Let’s try to find something a bit safer.

One, good option is the Sinornithomimus. He is a herding dinosaur from China. These guys were about 7 feet long. But they were lightly built. We won’t get much food from one of these guys. It will be more like raising turkey’s than pigs or cows, which is okay.

Minmi is a dinosaur from Australia who fits our pig ticket. He’s about ten feet long and heavily built. Unlike a lot of plant eating dinosaurs, Minmi probably didn’t use gastroliths—small swallowed stones—to grind its food inside its stomach. Instead, it seems that, like us, Minmi chewed its food well and then swallowed it. How polite. A good thing about using Minmi for food is that his skin has bony, armored plates. You could make a lot of things out of a Minmi hide, like armored purses or knobby drum skins.

Of course, a lot of people, like our friend Elissa Rainer don’t like to eat pork for religious or dietary reasons. These people wouldn’t be satisfied with a Minmi chop. Let’s think of a good dinosaur to get some tasty rare steaks or burgers off of.

Ok. I’ve got one. The Camptosaurus. This guy sounds delicious. He is described as a bulky or heavily built grazing dinosaur. The best thing about Camptosaurus is that he’s a good bit larger than a cow—20-25 feet long. So, you would not have to raise as many to get enough food. You would need some heavy equipment to work with them though. Of course, since dinosaurs aren’t mammals, you could never milk one. Sorry, no dinosaur dairy farms.

Since we’ll be using a lot of heavy equipment to raise Camptosaurus, we’re going need someone to help us pull all of it around, and maybe also help till the earth for our Mesozoic Era crops. This was an easy one to pick out.

Nate News: Omg, yes.

A lot of people have heard about the Ankylosaurus. He is a strong, stout dinosaur. He is well known for the bony, armored plates and spines that cover the upper portion of his body and tail. In fact, Ankylosaurus is related to one of our other farm dinosaurs, Minmi. The problem is the Ankylosaurus has a formidable weapon.

The tail of an Ankylosaurus has bony plates which have fused together to form a club. The last 7 vertebrae in the tail are all joined together and do not bend and the tail is strengthened with ossified, bony tendons. If we had these on our farm we would always be at risk of serious injury.

But Ankylosaurus has some cousins which do not have the dangerous tail clubs. Panopolus and Edmontonia both would be fantastic dinosaurs of burden. Their wide, armored back would be easy to load up with all our farm supplies or we could make tow harnesses that latch onto the sharp spines that protrude from their shoulders. Of course, we’d want to fashion some Minmi-hide covers to protect ourselves from the spines.

Nate News: The Ankylosaurus would double as good guard dog, yes?

You know Nate, I don’t think the Ankylosaurus would be a good guard. He’s got short legs and not likely to be very fast at all. Also, he’s 30 feet long. I’m going to think of a good, modest sized, quick, territorial and aggressive dinosaur to keep us safe from intruders and predators.

“I want to throw a saddle on [a ceratopsian] and gallop around. No impracticality can make me abandon the idea.”

-David Chaniot

Nate News: Oh course, yes, yes. But do you think a “quick, territorial and aggressive dinosaur” could be tamed for security or would it be too much of a liability? I’m wanting future babies to be able to snuggle up with the guard dinosaur without fear of any incidents.

Well, keep in mind, all domestic dogs, were originally predatory wolves. You wouldn’t want your children snuggling up next to a wolf, but a good dog is quite safe. We’re domesticating them, not capturing and training them. So, I think we could breed a docile, a trainable guard dinosaur.

Ok, I’ve thought about and I have two answers for this one. The first is Troodon. He’s the got on the of the biggest brains of all dinosaurs and he’s an aggressive predator. I have high hopes that with breeding for temperament, Troodon could become a valuable farm help, for gaurding, herding and companionship.

The downside of the Troodon is his size. He is about the size of a big dog, which is great for keeping intruders away from the farm, but maybe not so great when you want him to herd a 25-foot Camptosaurus. Also, if our farm attracts any of the larger dinosaur predators, we want a gaurd with a little more fear factor.

For a bit more braun, we turn to Stygimoloch. His name means “Horned Devil from the River of Death.” Stygimoloch is a member of what is commonly known as the Bone Headed Dinosaur family. It’s descriptive, not insulting. Their heads are covered in a thick, bone dome. But the Stygimoloch brings a little more to the party. In addition to his bone dome, his head is ringed with a circle of sharp horns. You really have to see this to believe it.

The last dinosaur I want to talk about is the Achelousaurus. This guy is related to the well known Triceratops or Torosaurus. He wears a large frill around his neck and has horns and knobs on his face for display or to fight his enemies. I’ll admit, this guy is here as a bit of a vanity project for me, but I really like the idea of breaking ceratopsians and riding them around. A lot of them are a bit too large, and maybe their temperment is terrible for a mount. They have lots of horns and spikes that point back over their head towards the rider too. All the same, I want to throw a saddle on one and gallop around. No impracticality can make me abandon the idea.

So, there you have it, a good catalog of dinosaurs which are good candidates for domestication for human consumption and production. I hope you enjoyed reading it. Do you have any more questions?

Nate News: I have a slightly hypothetical follow-up question. I’m wondering how many generations we would need to breed Troodons or Stygimolochs before it’s safe to let children of our community or smaller pets nuzzle up against them without supervision? For instance, say I needed to take a day journey too dangerous for a 5-year-old. Due to shifts in the animal kingdom hierarchy, there of course would be many dangers on the trail. Could I leave a child alone with Stewart the Stygimoloch if he’s the first of his bloodline to be domesticated or would a child be safer in a Minmi-hide baby backpack?

Nate, I would not trust a child with the first generation. It would be several generations for sure before we considered it. There’s really no way to predict it. But, as with all pets, you should never trust an animal with your children implicitly. Even pet cats today can be dangerous to children. We’re always going to have to supervise our children and dinosaurs closely.

Nate News: David, thanks for your expert analysis. I hope you’ll allow me to open up our discussion to related opinions and questions so the discussion can continue.

Have a question for David?

Feel free to weight in. For instance would larger animals really be a benefit in the age of modern meat farming techniques? How much space is needed for a grass-fed dinosaur? Would parts of certain dinosaurs would become a delicacy?

If you have questions for David related to the concept of domesticating dinosaurs, please leave your question in a form of a comment below.

Credits: Main “American Goth Dino” illustration by Nathan T. Baker, Ankylosaurus creative commons by Katherine Kirkland, Minmi creative commons by London Looks, Troodon by Jeffrey L. Cohen, Camptosaurus creative commons by Kim Scarborough, Stygimoloch creative commons by Jason Adams.

Nashville's Belmont University: A Review for Prospective Students

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 19:31:00 -0500

I get emails from parents of prospective Belmont University students fairly regularly. I thought I’d move the conversation online so there’s a place for the conversation to grow.

First, some context…

My Bias: I blow a kiss every time I drive by Belmont since I enjoyed it so much. Be warned my sentiment is overall positive. Some of my peers have other positions. It was a good fit for me, although one factor for my bias is I didn’t pay full price. For instance, I was an in-state student and eligible for a Hope Scholarship so my overall expectations were lower. With this in mind, I don’t have much stake in not being honest about my feelings on Belmont. Here’s one opinion. Seek others.

Some other viewpoints to get you started:

Critical Facebook group
Belmont-related posts from popular blog, Nashvillest
Filter to some of the positive and negative reviews on studentreviews.com
Belmont Fall Follies comedy troupe videos have a lot of truth in them.
Journalism students’ The Week At Belmont news videos

Grapevine Concerns: The most common concerns from Belmont students I’ve heard are that Bob “The Builder” Fisher has been growing the school too quickly, issues surrounding the Lisa Howe Controversy, parking and that it’s not worth the money.

Belmont in the News: Within the last year, Belmont has most notably gotten national media attention “when women’s soccer coach Lisa Howe allegedly lost her job at the university because she is a lesbian” and for their men’s basketball NCAA appearance.

Interview

Below is an email conversation from a parent of a prospective Belmont student from 9/2010. It’s edited for length.

I have copied my son who is a Senior on this email. I, too, graduated in Journalism from university so I’m interested what you’re doing now that you’ve graduated.

I never changed my major although it’s quite common to change your major a few times. I studied journalism, but I work in an Internet Technology company now, Sitemason [Now I work at Raven Internet Marketing Tools]. I designed websites on the side and my current job is more related to the business I started while at Belmont. Belmont has a great entrepreneur program that supported me. For instance, they have a few shared community work spaces or hatcheries where you can get a key and work at a computer, in a quiet space, with a printer, etc.

The journalism degree has helped me with the small amount of marketing I do at my current job and has given me a foundation to go into marketing if I’d like. So even though I’m not in the same field as my major, I’m more attractive to potential employers. I’ve become a better writer because of my major as well, which has helped with my long term goal of becoming a fiction author.

More about me: http://nathanbaker.com

I’m sure my son will have other questions for you regarding Belmont but I’ll start with a few:

What’s the best characteristic, from a student’s perspective, about Belmont?

It was a very creative school. Since half the students are music or music business majors, there is a whole lot of creative energy which I live for. It’s the type of energy you may feel if you have ever gone to a school specializing in the arts. If you want to get involved in a video project or find people to play music with, it’s there.

How would you describe campus life at Belmont? Does the campus feel small and local or cosmopolitan or something other than that?

It’s a small-town, comfortable, small, rural feeling campus. It’s pretty close to things though so it’s not constricting. Nashville has a fantastic park system so there are always places to find open space. You usually run into a lot of your friends by just walking campus.

Did you participate in any international studies while attending Belmont? If so, can you elaborate on your experience with that?

Not studies, but I did lead a mission trip to Mexico one summer and also went to Honduras for a journalism trip another summer. The international offerings are pretty standard for any established university.

Since Belmont is pretty entrenched in music they have campuses on the West and East coast music scenes as well.

Did you know anyone in the Music/Music Industries area of study and/or do you know much about Belmont’s music as an area of study?

Yes. My roommate of two years studied music business. It took him a while but he’s now working at a music artist management company. I have a lot of friends in the music industry. It’s hard work because of the competition, but Nashville will sharpen you because there is so much talent here.

My dad could connect you to a cousin who graduated from Belmont that is more entrenched in the music scene if you have more specific music questions.

Thanks, Nate. Hope you’re doing well in this tough economy.

Yes! Blessed to be doing well for a 25-year-old and blessed to be doing so well compared to the average global citizen.

Let me know what questions you have or if I can connect you with anyone at Belmont. Feel free to ask harder questions too.

Being a Baptist College, how prevalent is “Christian Atmosphere” at Belmont? (not in terms of whether or not good people attend, but formalization of religion and openness to alternative views).

Is the approach laid back or more fundamentalist?

Belmont used to be a Baptist school, but it’s now no longer affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention:

They still market themselves as Christian though:

“Belmont University is a student-centered Christian community providing an academically challenging education that empowers men and women of diverse backgrounds to engage and transform the world with disciplined intelligence, compassion, courage and faith.”

It’s fairly laid back. The religious requirements when I went were:

1. A portion of convocation are faith develop sessions.

2. Two religious classes were required. eg. new and old testament or new and old together plus a Jesus and film class.

Chapel or church wasn’t mandatory.

[Oh if you go to Belmont and you’re into Jesus, check out Belmont RUF. Great teaching and community.]

Are there any unique campus restrictions like dorm curfews or alcohol bans?

In dorms you have to sign in people of the opposite sex. In on campus apartments people just don’t sign in. Officially the campus is a dry campus and there are checks once or twice a semester, but there are ways to get around this.

Also, where did your roommate intern and then where did he get a job?

I forget the name of his company actually and where he interned.

If a stranger visited the campus would you even recognize it as a Baptist College or would it seem pretty much like any other college campus?

It would seem like a normal campus.

The Conversation

Current Belmont Students: Feel free to weight in with how things are changing and if something I said doesn’t ring true for you. A lot changes in four years. Leave a comment.

Prospective Students & Parents: Feel free to ask me additional questions in the comments or email me directly if you don’t mind me adding your question to this post.

Photos from my Belmont Flickr Photo Set.

It took a robbery for me to meet my neighbor

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:07:00 -0600

My house was robbed over Thanksgiving. They caught the alleged robber, so this morning I’m going to court to testify.

Here’s an edited excerpt of what I wrote some friends after I was robbed:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today I’m thankful I finally met my first neighbor, Willy.
That I get to spend time with my family.
That I don’t have to work till Monday.
That I’m not defined by the things I own.

So I got robbed last night. Someone broke into my bedroom window. It was surreal walking into my room and realizing the curtains were moving in the wind.

Why are my curtains moving > How can wind get into my room > Why is my window open > oh…. it’s broken. Someone was here. Where I sleep.

My phone’s battery was low so I plugged it into my running car. I knew I would need to continue to contact folks.

While my family ate Thanksgiving lunch, I boarded up my bedroom window, moved some expensive stuff into my car and worked with an investigator who dusted for prints.

When It was time to go, I turned my car key a full turn and it wouldn’t start. I left my car running too long.

I went across the street and asked a neighbor to help me jump the car. William was the first neighbor I had more than a 5 minute conversation with in my neighborhood. He got my car running.

We need to have you guys over sometime, I said.
Yeah that’d be great, he said.
Again, thanks so much—was it William, I said.
My friends call me Willy, he said.

I’m really glad I met Willy. There will always be idiots, like people who don’t wear gloves while robbing homes. But there are people willing to help their neighbors too. Sometimes it just takes a bit of a crisis to get people working towards something.

Wherever I live, it will always be my home and my neighborhood. Idiots will sometimes brush by our bedroom windows, yet, Willy and I aren’t going to let this stop us from working to create something beautiful in our community. Hell no.

Hell no.

Saturday's City Crossword prizes include a print of "Boot Country" by Brad Blackman

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 09:53:27 -0600

Saturday's City Crossword prizes include a print of "Boot Country" by Brad Blackman

Fight Up

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 19:52:00 -0600

Take fighting.

To become a better fighter, you fight. Then you become stronger. If your enemies are stronger, you don’t challenge them at the start. You train.

To safely get better at fighting you train with a friend. You regularly fight someone who (1) is more powerful and wise and (2) doesn’t want to kill you.

You get better at fighting by fighting up. This concept applies to a whole lot.

Take my mom.

She has a trained eye for when I’m well. She also knows more than me about wellness and nutrition.

Once I visited her and we talked in her kitchen. The conversation went something like this:

“You look tired. Are you tired?” mom said.

“Yeah, I’m tired.” I said.

“Have you been sleeping and eating well?” mom said.

“Nope.” I said.

We looked at each other. I wasn’t going to lie by saying I’d change. She knew I was hearing truth. It was now in my court.

“Good talk.” I said.

I was done looking into my flaws in that moment, but the tension led to my decision of eating healthier and sleeping more regularly the next week. That week I could feel the difference in my steps.

Now take God.

He is an expert in all. His characteristics define the edges of the spectrum.

When we fight God we always lose.

We don’t fight to change God. We fight to change ourselves. He’s more powerful, but he wants what is best for us. When you are furious, when you are stressed, when you are confused, when you are racked to the point of physical violence: the place that’s always safe to fight is before God.

Thanks, Sitemason

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 10:07:00 -0600

After three great years, today is my last day at Sitemason. Next week I’ll be working alongside the team at Raven Internet Marketing Tools.

A Word About Sitemason

(Here I am with Team Sitemason wearing a fake bowtie. I’ve grown a lot as a person since this photo was taken.)

It’s not fully accurate to say I’ve worked with Sitemason for three years.

In high school I interned at Sitemason. Each week over pizza, we’d ask leaders at Sitemason and Centresource about the Internet.

This was one of the places I developed a love for the fast-moving and hidden parts of the web. Sitemason’s roots run deep in this emerging tech town. In fact, they brought the Internet here.

Now they’re leading the charge in content management for the mobile web.

At Belmont University, I ran a web design business. I was a one-man shop and had strengths in design and project management. I needed a technical partner. I began to partner with Sitemason as they do with so many web and marketing firms today. I recommend you partner with them as a partner or client if you have the chance as well.

After partnering with them, I jumped at the chance to join their team. I worked for them part-time till I graduated and then I became a full-time team member.

Only till I joined Sitemason did I have a place to to sit across from fellow entrepreneurs and daily start things under the same banner.

I’m incredibly grateful for, among many things, one of the greatest lessons Sitemason taught me: Develop trust among your team and the job gets done sooner.

Next Steps

This week I’m technically unemployed, hanging out in a cabin, and doing some writing. My goal is to reboot and be bushy-tailed and ready for what’s next.

For the better part of my mornings it’ll be my routine to create worlds and wield just enough power to dictate my character’s next steps.

By next week, I’ll be fully ready some next steps of my own as a user support specialist at Raven. See everyone next week!

My 2011 goals

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 15:19:00 -0600

Become a motorcycle owner again.
Shave with a straight razor.
Clean my room.