The Future of Video Games... and possibly reality...

If you grew up with virtual graphics and interactions that looked just as real as the real world, would you be able to differentiate which world you were in?

This is a real question for kids growing up today. It is some ways is an old question. Decartes dealt with a derivative of this question in his paper world exploration. He was concerned about whether God was good, or an evil Genius manipulating us to our own detriment. He wondered if God could make an entire world out of paper that was so convincing that people would not know.

Perhaps if he was writing today, Decartes Evil Genius would us pixels instead of paper.

The question does provoke thought. In a world where video games are so "real" and even evoke feeling and emotion...

is it possible that the virtual world begins to feel more 'real' and 'significant' to people than the actual real world?

David Perry made an awesome presentation about this at TEDS... check it out

Where is Matt? Where he is he is dancing...

I found this video a little late... apparently it has been around since 2005 or so... but Matt... the squirrel salutes you... #1 for coming up with a great way to travel the world... and #2... for getting someone else to sponsor it...


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Cohen... the newest edition to the Squirrel Family

Cohen is fast approaching his third week of life...

Very cool presentation..

I was super impressed by how this presentation was put together...



What do you think of the Video style?

What do you think about the content?

Knowledge vs. Connection

A few months ago I was headed to Bozeman Montana for a weekend of white water rafting with some friends. On the way out, all the way to wyoming already we called ahead to check on the conditions, but what we heard was anything but good news. It was snowing and raining, and the river was nearly impassable (later we read in the news about a group who died trying to take on the rafting there that weekend!!!)

We had lots of knowledge about what and where we were going to do, but the conditions changed and all of that knowledge would not have done us any good....

Except that I also had my iPhone, and my laptop... So in Wyoming at some random gas station which happened to have free wifi I put my iPhone and Computer to great us... My hard drive had zero info about rafting in it, but once it was connected to the internet, it quickly was able to find great information about rafting 8 hours south of Bozeman, in Colorado's Brown Canyon. What it failed to "know" it was quickly able to learn once it was connected...

Here is my point... while often the church is very busy teaching people about God, and filling up sunday school classes to teach people about God... really all of that knowledge is not as helpful as a real connection to God.

We need to know truth about God, but that truth can become empty facts if we miss the key point. God wants us to know him, not just about him.

In life, this makes all the difference... a real connection to God allows us to always be able to find, through our constant connection with him, all that we need for life and God-like-ness. On the other hands, facts, without connection, can often lead us to an empty God-Box which fails to measure up to the complexity and richness of life...

I think I am really guilty of focusing to much on the facts and missing the connection God is really inviting me to... how about you?

Capacity.

According to the "all-knowing" wikipedia, "Capacity is the ability to hold, receive or absorb, or a measure thereof." It seems also fitting to apply to it a persons ability to deal with life (work, struggle, family, relationships, pain, etc.) I have many times contemplated my own capacity... How much life, can I handle... at what point would I feel like I was trying to live beyond my human frame.

A few random thoughts about capacity:

1. It is one of the tenants of humanity... we have a fixed ability which can only be multiplied, leveraged, and maximized to a fixed point. Different people having seemingly endless capacities, but this is really an illusion of comparison... they may have a higher capacity than some, but are not unlimited.

2. One of the chief differentiators about God's nature, is that he is without a limit in capacity. His limitless nature (power, wisdom, love, ability, holiness) is what makes him of a totally different kind than humans... In this way, we cannot truly understand even the concept of God... he is not a SUPER being who has a SUPER capacity in regard to strength or Power... he is an unlimited being who has limitless power and ability.

3. God understands human limits because he created them. We are dust he shaped with the ability to experience life, but only the life apportioned to us from Heaven. Even a concept like the Sabbath is a reflection of this... God made it for man, to ensure we did not exceed our capacity, and forget about him in the process. The title also helps us to reflect that we have limited resources which cannot sustain us. Giving back a portion of them allows us to remember that ultimately God's limitless resources are our true source of life.

4. I have a capacity which I cannot exceed no matter how hard I try. About economic capacity, Wikipedia makes a further point:

Capacity (economics), the point of production at which a firm or industry's average (or "per-unit") costs begin to rise, usually because some factor is fixed (often capital or land).

This is true with all who approach their max capacity. The close we get to our limit, it seems that out effectiveness begins to wane. Richard Swenson talks about this in his book Margins. His idea is that we need margins on our page, so that if life does not go exactly the way that we plan, that we have a little extra space to adjust. A no brainer, that I am sadly unable to apply in my life.

5. I have struggled with eyes that are bigger than my capacity all of my life. I am fascinated by too many things, and usually can figure out how to do almost anything to some degree. This has regularly led me to pursue more tasks and things, than I could maintain without starting to resent things like sleep and downtime. Through my life, I have generally been able to learn to leverage my skills and ambition in a way that leveraged my capacity enough to "up my game" when required. I have learned that my capacity is greater than I imagined, and rather than using my extra to create margin, have quite often filled it with more tasks, relationships, and other things which require maintenance.

6. As a high capacity person, people are always looking for you... they recognize your capacity, and want you to apply it to their tasks... It goes without saying that this adds to the capacity conundrum.

7. I have recently related my struggles with capacity to compound interest on a credit card. If you are not careful with your plastic, you may 'Discover' that you have spent so much money that your payments do not even cover the interest on what you owe... That even as you make payments on your credit, interest is accumulating against you that is being added to the principle of what you owe... You are on the wrong side of the exponential curve. Capacity too, when exceeded, can create an to-do list that doesn't reduce your load at all, but mere pays some interest as the load continues to increase.


I think I have been dwelling on this a lot recently because of three things in my life. I just bought a new house; Emily and I are having a baby crazy soon; my summer working at Elmbrook has been both Crazy awesome and Crazy busy.

By all trustworthy reckonings a Baby will change everything... so I am left wondering where I will find the capacity... I know I don't have any more as a human, which means the Baby will require me to transfer capacity from somewhere else. Perhaps I will be able to find great efficiency somewhere, but more likely I just need to make better decisions, and become more focused on few things.

Limiting decisions are always the hardest, but usually the most important that we make.

Presentation Series: Things we can learn from great comedians...

Saw this on Presentation Zen, as cool website on making good presentations... It makes some really true points. I think I am going to have to check out the documentary.

My experience is that it never does get easier to make a great presentation. My opinion is that the better you get, the harder it is to wing it...

Quotes & Lessons from "Comedian"

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: comedy garr)

Brooklife: The Murder and Betrayal of Uriah the Hittite.. otherwise known as the Affair of David and Bathsheba

Ok... so my message at Brooklife Church this weekend went pretty well.

If you are interested you can hear it in streaming audio here:

or download it from iTunes here:


This message is drawn from 2nd Sam 11-12, and takes a look at some lessons we learn from David's sin with Bathsheba.

Many people have preached good messages about it, but I really focused on one aspect of the text... David's handling of his own sinful behavior verse the way he responds to the sinful behavior of the "rich man" in the prophet Nathan's story...

The main point that I was trying to make is that when we sin we usually try to cover it up, compare it away (compared to so in so... its not so bad), minimize it (say it in a way that makes it sound not bad at all), claim grace (God loves me and will forgive me anyway), and make it all about me (No one else was hurt by this... it was just my little sin...). However, when we find someone else in a sin, our actions are totally different.

We tend to uncover it (publicize all the details, and look for more), compare (I would never.... like the did), Exaggerate it (Make it sound as bad as possible, even worse than it really it), Claim Judgement (Skip the grace... we want them to be punished and get what they deserve..), and finally make it all about me...(their sin is so huge it effects the entire world... and especially me...).

The Murder and betrayal of Uriah the Hittite...

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: brooklife)

Brooklife: Preaching this weekend.

Jason Webb talked me into preaching at Brooklife Church this weekend.

My topic: 2 Samuel 11 - 12. David and Bathsheba...

I have some good thoughts on it, but still am struggling to find a way to make it all work that doesn't get loaded down with details or just repeat a story that most everyone already knows...

Here are some questions I am trying to work through... if you have a few minutes, read the passage yourself and tell me what you think...

1. Do you think people are more lenient with their own sinful patterns than those of others?
2. Are Christians overly prone to write off others in Judgement?
3. Do you see people as less valuable because of their sinfulness?
4. Why is it easier to be offended at the sins of others, or to really deal with my own sin and temptation?
5. In what areas of my life and I:
“on the roof”;
“attempting a coverup”;
“killing another”;
“pretending it never happened”
6. Why do we tend to judge the actions of others, but justify our own actions? How do we stop doing both?

7. How do we learn to flee temptation without living in constant fear of our sin nature.

Brandon's Crazy Summer...

Ok... so what is keeping me from blogging regularly right now is my life....

I was working non-stop on projects, camps and trips until July 12th when I returned from mexico...

During that period of time, I bought a new house and sold my current one...

This buying and selling process has been greatly complicated because someone managed to open a Qwest account in Minnesota in my name. My mysterious doppelgänger has run up almost a $900 bill... which of course happened to turn up on my otherwise perfect credit score in the only 3 month period in the last, or next 10 years that it actually matters...

I have been on hold with multiple companies, collection agencies, and credit reporting companies enough that I now have all of their Musak, menu option, and infomercials memorized... it is the stuff of nightmares...

But... it seems like the house buying and selling is going to happen... We move into our new palace in Waukesha next saturday...

I have lots to write about from things I learned and have thought about this summer... hopefully I will be up and running again soon...

TECATE, MEXICO 2008

I am in Tecate Mexico right now. I am leading a team of around 75 people included middle school students and adult leaders who are here to build each of 5 impoverished families a house. I love this trip and have been having a great time taking pictures and video of students and helping out wherever I can.

My favorite part of trips like this is getting to know the people who live here. It is so cool to learn about their lives and realize that all people everywhere bear God's image whether they are poor or rich, mexican, american, or anything else.


I have taken almost 2000 pictures of the trip... check them out here if you want:

Mistaken Identity

One day a few years ago there was a knock at my door. When I opened it, a police officer with a gun and mace, and a big night stick was standing their asking to talk to me... He was looking for Brandon, possibly to arrest him for assault. Emily looked at me quite confused... why was her pastor husband being investigated for assaulting another man. As it turned out, I was not the Brandon that he was looking for. Another member of my soccer team had punched someone from another team during a game and knocked out one of his teeth. The officer was looking for the other brandon, but mistakenly came to my house instead... Mistaken identity is a big problem and can really get you in trouble... In the same way, many people who are looking for God, mistakenly thing that all people who are called Christian’s are acting on his behalf. The bear his name “CHRISTian”... so they must be acting in the way that he wants them too... like the pop-star who thanks Jesus for giving his album, full of songs about sex, murder, drugs and gangs, a grammy, many Christians need to think about whether it really is God who they are serving with their lives... The way they live is really given people of case of mistaken identity about God....

Crazy Times!!!

Right now I am heading into the busiest part of the summer...

This week and next week I am making the final preparations and shooting a feature length movie cast by middle school students.

Then I am officiating the wedding of a friend

Then I have summer camp...

Then 10 days later I leave for Mexico to build houses...


CRAZY!!!


SO... please don't expect too much this week... (not that the last month has been overly rich with posts :)

But next week I hope to blog from the movie shoot, then from Invasion, our summer camp, and then finally from Mexico again like I did last year...

Thanks for reading the blog!

White Water Rafting update: BROWN CANYON COLORADO

SO... about white water rafting in Montana... yeah... not so much... we arrived early in the morning at Mt. Rushmore to have breakfast, but it was entirely covered in fog... and the weather only got worse... so we were forced to abandon our trip to Montana... The guide for our raft trip called and told us it would be unsafe at the current water levels (by the way... there was a story today of a raft full of people who died rafting in montana over the weekend!) and that they had 8 inches of fresh snow on the ground to boot...

After some soul searching... and some free wifi access at a gas station, Tom (our fearless trip leader) and I had found and secured a new rafting location...

the good news...

it was 9 hours south of where we were currently parked thus warmer...

the bad news: it was nine hours south from our current location... which meant another 9 hours in a van we had already occupied for 20 hours at this point. Since it was this or turn back... drive some more we did...

We finally arrived at our new destination where we found a hotel and rafted the arkansas river. We did one cold day of rafting through Brown canyon... and then a gorgeous day in the Royal Gorge. The highlight was in the royal gorge: We were dominating some class 4-5 rapids at the bottom of a 1300 ft canyon, right under the world's largest suspension bridge, when a passenger train stopped to take a look and then a helicopter flew through right over our heads... all that was missing was a hot air balloon and life would have pretty much been complete....

One final adventure was the way home... at 4:30 or so in the AM, while I was driving the graveyard shift through Iowa a bunch of deer were hanging out in the middle of the road... luckily I avoided hitting them... but apparently they were quite offended that I didnt say hi, so one of the deer decided to jump into the side of Mike's van while we were going 75 MPH... no real damage though...

White Water Rafting....

Hey I am taking a little road trip to Bozeman Montana to go white water rafting... I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am to be away from the office for a few days...

Plus, last I heard, the snow melt is making for some awesome rapids... !!!

Are you Rich or Poor? The answer may surprise you...

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This presentation is based on Data from 2005... it needs to be updated and the sources need to be cited. I will hopefully put up an updated version soon.

Tegan and Sara @ the Pabst

Last night I rocked out at the Pabst along with Tegan and Sara and my friends Bethany, Jo, LT, TT, Molly, and of course Emily. It was really great fun.

I have been a fan of Tegan and Sara ever since Bethany introduced me to the song "I wouldn't like me" about 9 months ago. Since then, I have loved their latest album, as well as catching up on their older stuff.

I got to see them in Chicago in november, and it was fantastic. Their records, although they are awesome too, do not truly tell the story of what an incredible rock band they are...

@ the Pabst, they were also amazing... The best moment of the concert was when Tegan forgot the lines to one of her songs and Sara tried to help her out with it. For like five minutes they kept trying to get it right, and it got more and more funny as they did.

If you haven't checked out T & S yet, you can get their stuff on itunes, or watch a fantastic acoustic set and interview here


(Hey Tegan and Sara's Mom... they were awesome in chicago and milwaukee!)

The Blues have it...

Too Busy...

I think that I know that I am too busy

...when I realize that I am eating entire meals in 2 minutes...

...when I start to be annoyed by routine tasks like brushing my teeth...

...when I find myself driving like I could win a NASCAR race every time I am in my car...

...when I am late to every meeting in my day because I squeezed 10 hours worth of meetings into 6

...when I go to bed late and wake up early to work every day....

...when I forget to even think about weekend plans...

...when my blogs feels like a burden and not an outlet...

... when I lose interest in being creative because it would be too much work...


My pace is so accelerated right now that, even when I could slow down, I am not sure how... Uh... so maybe I am too busy... or maybe I could do just one more thing....

What is your sign of living to fast?

Presentation Series: The New Powerpoint Presentation

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This presentation is from Garr Reynolds of presentation zen, and it is full of good technique. I am posting it here both to remind me of some of his techniques, and to remind to to figure out how he posted this online so I can put some of mine up too...

What do you like in his presentation?