online diary for the masses

I have, on numerous occasions, been known to say a line by which I strive to live. It comes as a result of a Good upbringing in which the line was modeled for me, though it was never spoken. The line goes like this: “I don’t say things I don’t mean.” I try to apply it to every area of my speech (save perhaps the sarcastic portions), including compliments and opinions I offer, answers I give to various inquiries, and things to which I commit.

That being the case, I’m not yet willing to say that I’ll actually do any of the things on this list (for if I said I’d do it, I’d have to do it). As such, and in light of a new year’s commencement, here is a list of things I may or may not actually commit to accomplishing in 2010:

• Run – Run another marathon, only this time in a city exponentially cooler than Oklahoma City (no offense…), and in less than four hours.
• Change – Get a job that doesn’t involve wearing a pocketed vest and selling shoes to people who don’t need them.
• Persevere – Continue to ask girls out until one feels sorry enough for me to say yes.
• Invest – Make the multi-thousand dollar investment required to pursue photography as a career.
• Move – I don’t want to wake up one day and suddenly realize that I accidentally spent the last 23 years in Dallas. There’s a lot of world to see.
• Brush – Brush my teeth twice daily, and even floss from time to time.
• Earn – Earn as in, my first million. Million as in, dollars.

Looks like 2010 may or may not shape up to be a very eventful year. Stay tuned.

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Depending on when you jumped on the proverbial party bus that is online diary for the masses, it may have looked a number of different ways. Some of you, upon your first visit to these parts, were greeted by a brick wall with photoshopped spray paint welcoming you to the blog that none of your friends were talking about. Others of you found a blue floraly mix, others still a earth-toned canvassy combo, and some of you (precious souls that you are) have been around from the beginning, with the plain ol’ tan-and-brown Reese’s peanut butter theme.

As you’ve no doubt noticed by now, the layout in which you’re currently reading these words is different from any you’ve seen before (unless you’re still in your reader, in which case I need you to man up and click through). What you’re looking at is the new, simplified odfm. It includes such breathtaking features as:

• No support for Internet Explorer 6 – this may seem like a lack of a feature, but in my endless effort to get people to upgrade to more appropriate and capable web browsers, I saw it fit to cease support for the lousiest browser of them all. If you’re using IE6, you’ll still see all the content, only without the styling. Not sure if you’re using IE6 or not? Do you see a red banner at the top of the page poking fun at you? Well do yourself a favor and upgrade. Get Firefox, Chrome, Opera, or Safari. Please.
• Single column design; New “archives” page – for the sake of simplicity, I’ve tossed the sidebar which housed my links and archives, and in its place created an archives page. And until I get it looking how I want it to (which may be never) I’ll not tell you about the links page…
• Revised “about” page – It stood to reason that a new, elegant website deserved a new, elegant about page. So I gave it one.
• Classy splash page – Honestly, it might even be sexy. I was just afraid to make the word “sexy” be bold on my classy site.

And as if those weren’t enough, there are a few things that are still to come, including a bad-to-the-bone header image, and an even badder-to-the-bone photography portfolio.

So there you have it. The new odfm. I’m willing to bet your friends will continue to not talk about it, but I didn’t do this for your friends. I did it for you. I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section. The new layout has one of those too, after all.

This post very well could have been titled, “The Last in a Series of Posts Nobody Cared Much About” but that lacks the ring and uniformity of the title you see above. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m quite happy to share with you this, the final of the Photo-a-day posts.

It’s been a long and even laborious road that at times turned a hobby into a chore. But my pride saw to it that I finished up the year with 365 photos. The shots from the final ten weeks of 2009 are displayed below. The final six photos were taken with my newest camera, the one built into my fancy-pants new iPhone.

Enjoy, and thanks for bearing with me through all these generally boring posts.

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Ross King has written lots of great songs with many a hard-hitting lyric. One such lyric (while relatively mild on the hard-hitting scale) goes like this:

I’m gonna take some time today
To read a book I don’t agree with
Find out what it has to say

Just days ago I impulsively bought a book from the local Half Priced Books called How to Make Friends and Oppress People: Classic Travel Advice for the Gentleman Adventurer. Upon skimming the books contents and reading the intro at the store, I didn’t realize that it would so heartily fall into the category of “book[s] I don’t agree with.” The paragraph that most opened my eyes to the matter is quoted below.

A crisis undoubtedly obliges the traveller to act in ways that normal polite society would regard as outré in the extreme, but even if his life depends on it there are certain lines of propriety over which a traveller should never deign to step. I must remonstrate with a piece of advice given in Hardships in Travel Made Easy. The compiler of this work clearly states: ‘Shoes of European manufacture are decidedly the best; if they wear out, and none of the party are able to make others from dressed hides, sandals may be adopted.’ In a paper that I gave to the Royal Geographical Society entitled ‘The Detrimental Effect of Flimsy Footwear on the Confidence and Orientation of Travellers’, I laid down a hard and fast rule from which I refuse to be swayed — a gentleman never, ever wears sandals.

I’m going to do my best to tough out the remainder of this book, just for Ross… but it won’t be easy.

Sitting in the southbound-backseat, en route to the most anticipated event of the month (if not the year), my mind briefly went back to how I’d ended up there. The saga began over a month before the fateful night that ushered in a fourteen-day-early Christmas celebration.

My friend (and personal convert to Andrew Peterson), Mason drew my attention to Andy’s upcoming mid-December show in Cleburne, TX. It was the only Texas show scheduled during 2009’s Advent season and we hoped with much hope indeed that it would be a Behold show. You see, each December Andy P. and his beyond-talented friends selflessly take a month away from their homes and families to tour the nation telling the “true tall tale of the coming of Christ” through the music of Behold the Lamb of God.

The primary means by which Mason and I had our discussion attempting to find out whether this show was to be a Behold show was twitter. It was there that Andrew Peterson himself said something to us.

AndrewPeterson: @derrickoliver Hey fellas, All shows in December are Behold shows. Hope you guys can make it–say, are you that one guy who hugged me?

As if I was lacking motivation in any way to attend this show, that tweet pushed me clear over the edge. There was no way I’d miss the show.

I called the church at which the concert was to be held and told them of my need for 8 tickets (in accordance with my mantra that things are better when shared). My heart sunk to my large intestine as the lady on the other side of the telephone informed me that the show was sold out. And thus began my persistent-widow pursuit of acquiring tickets to a sold-out show. Within a week my passion and charm made it all the way to Cleburne (via my cellular phone) and I’d managed to get five tickets.

We pulled up to the church and handed our tickets to the ticket-taking lady, who turned out to be the lady who had been so pivotal in my attaining these tickets. I thanked her profusely and we took our seats inside the church.

As Andrew started reading from the introduction of Sally-Lloyd Jones’ The Jesus Storybook Bible, a text that I knew would usher in the organ swells and percussion that get the Behold ball rolling, I noticed that I had a smile on my face that I couldn’t remove. All the months of anticipation were going to be realized in the next forty-five minutes.

From the moment I noticed my uncontrollable the smile at the show’s outset, to Ben Shive’s striking the piano’s middle C marking the beginning of the album’s second-to-last song “Behold the Lamb of God,” I swear time froze. I was as lost in the music as I’d ever been before in my life. It was simply surreal.

I was brought back to reality when I heard Andrew seem to mess up in singing the song. The lyrics of the song are as follows:

Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away our sin,
Behold the Lamb of God, the Light and Life of men;
Behold the Lamb of God, who died and rose again,
Behold the Lamb of God who comes, to take away our sins.

Quickly I realized that he wasn’t messing up. He hadn’t forgotten the words, or had a problem with his throat. He was choked up by the weight of the words he was singing. Having written the lyrics a decade before, and having sung them countless times across 10 years of Behold tours, he is still moved by the magnitude of the message being portrayed: that God came to Earth as a baby, lived a perfect life among men, died to pay the penalty for their sins, rose and conquered Sin and Death. Andrew got choked up as did every single other person in that room. It was, and is, Beautiful.

After the show ended and everyone had dried their eyes, we waited around so I could give Andrew the hug I’d promised him on twitter. The line to meet the man was quite long, and our crew was rather hungry since we’d been forced to skip dinner to ensure making the show on time. My friends love me well and showed me the grace to hang around in that line to hug the man whose art has opened up my eyes to the Reality of the Messiah’s coming more than anyone else’s.

As we drew closer and closer to the front of the line, I handed Jon my camera to capture a photo of me and my friend Andrew. When my turn came, I shook Andy’s hand, and informed him that I was going to hug him. And hug him I did. And Jon, who has become proficient in using my camera, documented it as well as anybody could have:

So thank you Andy P. for making music that makes me cry, and faces that make me laugh. Let’s be real-life friends, ok?

It is fairly safe to say that as each Advent season rolls around, so too will another odfm post about Andrew Peterson and his magnificent album, Behold the Lamb of God. This is that post.

The fact that I’m a huge fan of Christmas music is no secret. As each Halloween passes, I’m tempted to Christmasize my iPod, but I force myself to wait until Thanksgiving (dinner, at least) is over. When I get in my car and drive back to Dallas each Thanksgiving night, Behold is always the first album I listen to. It’s become something of a tradition, one that so far only Skylar and I have shared, but a precious tradition nonetheless.

I cannot say enough about how excellent this album is. It is without question the single best Christmas album I’ve ever heard (yes, even better than Sufjan’s). It may well be the best album I’ve ever heard. In listening to it hundreds of times over the past six years, I’ve not grown tired of a single track. The way the Story of Christ’s coming is told, both musically and lyrically, has done an unrealistically good job of opening up this church boy’s eyes to the magnitude of what we celebrate each 25th of December. From the Passover to Moses to Kings and Prophets, Peterson brilliantly displays that the Story of Christmas (the anticipation execution of the Messiah’s arrival) isn’t found only in Luke 2, but across the entire Bible.

So just as the album’s opening song beckons, “Gather ’round ye children, come,” I too welcome you to come and listen. You can stream the album for free, buy the album on iTunes, or better yet, buy the 10th Anniversary 2-Disc set — including a live recording and a remastered version of the original — at the Rabbit Room.

I realize that if ever I’ve beaten a dead horse, this is it. I do this not to burden you, my precious readers, but to drive home the point that you’re doing yourselves a disservice by knowing about this album and not owning it. I care about you that much. Friends don’t let friends… well you get the idea.

If you’re one of the ten people who both read odfm and already own a copy of Behold, allow me to point you to last year’s Soundtrack for your Advent Season post for further recommendations.

A couple weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be a part of a collaboration between Park Cities Baptist Church, Cornerstone Baptist Church, and several area photographers in downtown Dallas. The purpose of the event (GiveFoto) was to allow people affiliated with Cornerstone to come and have their picture taken, developed, and handed to them all in a single sitting. For many, it was the first time they’d had their picture made. For others, it was the first time in a long time the entire family had been together in one place. The day was nothing short of special.

Cornerstone’s sanctuary was temporarily converted into a studio housing eight stations, each with lighting, backdrops, Macbooks, and two photographers. My partner for the day was the charming and talented Coby Almond. We had a great time capturing glimpses of the Life that is so very present in each of the people we shot. This post is a little heavy on the photos, but the aforementioned Life made it quite difficult to weed photos out of the mix. That said, I’ll let you get to looking at our photos.

Special thanks to Austin Mann for all his hard work in organizing this event. Great job, brother.

Wednesday night, the Granada came through with another wonderful show. Imogen Heap and her friends are so talented and creative. They made music with things most people would think to be childrens’ toys. They played a good show to a packed house (which I’ll blame for the inability to get closer photos). Enjoy.

Two things have happened in the past week that prove I’m actually taking steps towards “arriving” in adulthood.

Wednesday, at the age of 26, I bought my first suit. It received some pretty positive feedback, and I felt altogether good about the situation.

Then, on Saturday, I was fortunate to be a part of a photo shoot at Cornerstone Baptist Church in downtown Dallas in which 16 local photographers got together and shot individual and family portraits of people affiliated with the church. For many, it was the first time they’d ever had their picture made. It was a wonderful time for everyone involved (photos to come soonly, I hope).

Eight hours and several hundred people later, all the photographers were packing up and passing out their cards, an activity in which I couldn’t participate for lack of having a card to offer… which brings me to my second step towards “arriving”: designing business cards. Below are some prospects.

And there you have it. Thoughts?