Just The Begin Ning

No the title is not a mistake. Its simply a clever play on words about the new website that I recently discovered and have been playing around with.  For the last few months I’ve been thinking of a better way to connect family members other than email. It just becomes a long thread of replies that gets messy and is easy to lost in the clutter a few weeks later.  So I came across this website that actually lets you build your own social networking website.

Ning.com

The benefit to using this over the traditional Facebook or Myspace is that this online “community” can be customized with different features, and its limited only to the users that we invite.  It has all the same features like posting photos, writing on a person’s profile wall, setting up events, etc.  I really think that this customized feel will make family members feel more comfortable than they might on a traditional large scale social networking site.

I sent out an invite to most of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. So far only the cousins have signed up (the more tech savvy generation), so hopefully the Baby Boomer generation will get the hang of things soon. Once it gets off the ground, it should be fun! So in a sense, its “just the beginning”.

Here’s a screenshot so far:

Nothing's Gonna Change My World

For the last few years I have been downloading the discography of classic artists and learning their songs. I did this a few years ago with Led Zeppelin and more recently I've been into a lot of Beatles. This stuff just blows contemporary music out of the water! So groundbreaking and so much more creative than the American Idol style garbage that's flooding the airwaves.

Enough of my pop music bashing...

As a guitar player I really appreciate a lot of the music itself outside of the vocals, effects, etc. One such song caught my attention because of its simple yet beautiful sounding guitar:

Across The Universe

This song was originally written by John Lennon in 1968 and was included on their final studio album Let it Be. It was also included on the Let It Be... Naked album in 2003 which featured a more "stripped down" version. I'm not really a huge fan of the chorus phrase "Jai guru deva om" (which is roughly translated to "hail to the divine guru"), but I've fallen in love with the actual music of the song itself.

So last night I busted out the ol' six string, checked out a few guitar tab websites, and learned most of the song. I eventually plan to use it to serenade women and have them fall deeply in love with me...

Priorities Straight

For the last month I've been thinking about my housing situation. Its only meant to be temporary but its been nice saving so much money.

All this got me thinking about how much money i threw away last year in rent money - even cheaper rent is still throwing it away. This got me real interested in buying a condo, townhouse, or small house in a year or so. To start my research before such a huge financial move, I figured I would grab a "buying your first home" book at Barnes and Noble. Sorting through the multiple materials they had on the topic got me questioning all sorts of things - if its even possible with my income. Trying to decide where your money is going can stressful!

I finally walked around the corner and found I was in the Christian Inspiration section ad found a collection of writings from one of my favorite authors C.S. Lewis.

So instead of grabbing a book on finance, I figured I should probably get my heart in the right place first - finance can wait i suppose.

Hiding Behind Humor

I was thinking about this on my way to work while reflecting on the whole New Years resolution thing.  I think one of my greatest strengths is also one of my greatest weeknesses:

laughter

I love to make people feel comfortable and to lighten the mood with humor.  Sometimes I make aweful pun jokes that people role their eyes to - like when my wallet fell out on the beach and I told my friends I had found a "sand dollar" (one of my worst).  But sometimes (I've yet to figure out the formula) I get on a role and say some down-right  funny stuff.  I realize that I'm not being humble at all - but its the truth.

However, I have also come to realize that many times I tend to use humor to avoid serious moods or conversations.  The phrase "hiding behind humor" has kept popping into my mind.  The easy thing to do is crack a joke, but some things really deserve serious treatment and I'm too shy/uncomfortable addressing them.  This is on my list of things to work on for 2009.

Oh and I'm sure this girl may be annoying in person but I feel she captured the essence of "laughter".