Blog
The Problem of the Imperfect Church
Based on a recent discussion, I have been contemplating the problem of fellowship in the church, given that we don’t all agree on doctrinal or behavioral issues. There is a tacit tendency to fellowship those whom we agree with on important doctrinal or behavioral issues, but this raises the issue – what is important? Practically speaking, most mainstream protestant churches appear to fellowship other mainstream protestant churches, at least in terms of recognizing each other’s communions as valid, and accepting...
read moreThe Lemonade Stand Problem
Dealing with Small Business Situations that Get Complicated Because You’re Too Big and Too Small at the Same Time. This is a rough draft describing an issue that has come up a few times in my consulting practice at Nectar Bridge. Country Time Lemonade made the USA Today this summer with an offer to pay fines for kids running lemonade stands. In the manner of HOA presidents and other kill-joys everywhere, it seems that “unlicensed” (in quotes because, by definition, lemonade stands are unlicensed, ad-hoc efforts) lemonade...
read moreThe Free Consulting Problem, Part II
In a previous post I left an issue hanging, and true to form left it hanging about a month (maybe more).* I meant to just hyperlink it, but WP does this trick now where you get a whole block preview of it, like this: The Free Consulting Problem And to quote myself on that issue to save you from going back and reading it (although you really ought to, it’s pretty good), I said: I’ll give you my thoughts on how the proposal should promise resolution and define the methods, NOT be a fleshed-out plan. G. Smith, consultant So...
read morePlaying with Premiere Pro
Wow this is terrible and will come back to haunt me. (Open up full post to see terrible video quality) I well remember when a guy I was working with started talking about doing promotional videos with his cell phone and wound up with thousands of dollars of cameras, tripods, lights, microphones, lenses… I’m trying to avoid doing that. I have, however, decided I needed to be doing videos to promote Nectar Bridge, and also recently had to update my Adobe subscription to include Premiere Pro. I already owned a decent video camera (a...
read moreAdobe Cloud-y
I was recently pushed into upgrading from the Adobe Photographer Cloud (not sure what it’s officially called, but it’s about $10 a month and only gives you PS and Lightroom) to the full-blown Creative Cloud. It’s been fun trying to learn a bunch of new tools and directly manipulate files that throughout a career incidental to design work I’ve had to have others work on. I hope to be able to unsubscribe from Canva and was able to avoid subscribing to docusign because of using InDesign and Adobe PDF / Document Cloud to...
read moreThe Free Consulting Problem
Ironically*, I hope to provide consulting to a consultant soon about a pricing issue. I recently also talked with a friend about a business practice that in my opinion was costing them money with little effect. After discussing it about an hour, initially with an eye toward improving the process, my sage advice could be summarized as “eh, I think I’d stop doing that if I were you.” And in so doing I committed the cardinal sin of consulting, which is to give away your work for free. But naturally I think it’s more...
read moreOh hail
This is fairly unprecedented – my two-car garage has two of my cars in it. I pride myself on keeping the garage reasonably neat – it’s not the suburban clutter-fest some engage in – but even if emptied out entirely a “two-car garage” holds two mid-sized sedans more or less the same way a glove holds 4 fingers and a thumb. And it’s all because the forecasts call for hail today. We’ll see. Hail is kind of like tornados. You may get nothing, your neighbor two blocks away may get...
read moreGuess that Coworking space
Names and locations redacted to protect the innocent. I was in another city yesterday, scouting a place to hold a meetup. Coworking space number 1: Delightfully pretentious little coffee shop with coworking space adjacent. Craft beer is also served. Seems to have a little Reformed Christian vibe going, because those Christians can drink beer with the window shades up, but unfortunately doesn’t seem to have a single room/meeting space that could hold 10 people without some of them having to sit in a hammock or something. I walked upstairs to...
read moreiPhone 6S+ – Two Months Later
About two months after getting a new iPhone 6S+, I’ve racked up the following experiences: I am indeed using it more as a mini-tablet. Once the new “wore off,” I have reverted to using the iPad whenever possible, but if I don’t have my iPad with me, I will happily browse Facebook, Tumblr, or other time-wasting sites (or even get work done) with more ease. There is a standard vs. zoomed mode under settings>Display & Brightness>Display Zoom. The options are (naturally) standard and zoomed. The difference is not...
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