my life as blogged in Art 250

Got a call from Stephen last night, he was in the hospital up in Birmingham. He said that his one of his kidneys had failed. I was pretty much caugh off gaurd by that one. He said that the doctors think that it may have been something caused by the medicine that he took for his knee the day or so before but they arent sure. He said that the doctors think that his kidney will start functioning again sometime soon. He didnt know if he was going to be home today or not. Im going to try to give him a call later and if he isnt at home go visit the hospital. I hope that he gets to come home and that all this isnt too serious. I guess its always kind of serious when part of you body decides it wont function anymore, but what kind of doctor am I?
I also had to write some guy up last night for visitation violation. It always sucks having to be the authority but this guy had such a bad attitude, oh well such is the state of people today.

Kinda tired today. Went back to my room right after work and just laid down....woke up like 4 min ago when Dr. Coefield called me and asked me about re working that DVD project. Guess Ill go and work on that sometime today. Dont mind too much though cause Im learning a new software and thats always good.

Last thursday night had to go to the hospital. I really havent been sick in several years. I didnt really stay down too long either. I was back about doing things on saturday but it made me pretty weak. I ate my first "full" meal since wednesday just a little while ago, hope it agrees with me. The virus or whatever it was kinda confined me to my room, that combined wiht not being able to eat gave me lots of time to get some work done. Really didnt do a whole lot other than the car commercial that is due in my tv class tomorrow. I did get to work more on the real world project that Ive been working on...hope to have it done by next monday. Then I can move on to the next video project...not sure what that will be though, should have the spy cam so Im sure I can come up with something there. Also hope to finish up the coloring book project and have it printed out here pretty soon. Still trying to figure out what to do with my life...particularly if Im going to graduate in May or not.

Got my second print dont last night...the Osama one. I think it turned out pretty well. Matt suggested that I keep printing a lot of them and try to get some gallery space somewhere to display them along with the coloring book. Im gonna try. Played football last night...not with Double Clutch though. Brian came over and asked me to play with them because they only had a 6 guys and we had well over 10. I played with Old Men and beat the best team in the A league, mercy ruled them. The game was alomst called before halftime because of the mrecy rule but we couldnt convert the extrapoint on the last touchdown....oh well even in victory, just a game, it wont matter a day or so from now.

This weekend went by pretty fast. Didnt really feel like I had a weekend. I went the the men's retreat friday night and was there until about 6 saturday night. It was actually really good. Heard a lot of good talks and hope to begin applying the stuff that I heard. I need to go back over a lot of the material because I kind of lost a lot of it during the last part of the weekend.
I went and helped out with the 2880 DVD contest. When I got there they had already written, cast, and shot the entire film as well as a ton of supplementary stuff. I edited the main movie, I think that it turned out pretty well. The story was kind of stupid, but that was because we had to work with what they gave us. Mike McClanahan was there editing supplementary stuff which was awesome...he did a great job and also it freed me up to spend more time on the real thing. It was fun...long...but I think worth it.

I tried to blog before class but then Kat came over and showed me some big magazine on fasion and stuff like that...some of the images were kind of disturbing it was really nice of her to show me though. She is quite intellegent actually I think though sometimes she has a tough time articulating stuff. I didnt get as much done on my Real World project as I had hoped. I need some kind of system to edit it with. There is a lot of negativity in there and I just dont know how to manage all of it, how to arrange it I suppose. I tried bidding on a spy camera on ebay last night and ended up getting outbid at the last second by some other guy...made him pay an extra 10 bucks for it though. I would like to use one of those to go into places like Mc Donalds and stuff like that. Dont know if that will work or what the punishment would be if I got caught...who knows.
I learned some cool stuff about flash in class today...think I'll be applying that to video sometime soon. Ill also learn more how to use DVD studio 2 this weekend. I still am not excited about working on that 2880 project, but I suppose it will be alright. All it is is one big advertisement for Pioneer. Oh well, thats America for you.

I can walk down stairs again. I hurt my knee on monday night playing football. We ended up losing the game, oh well...dosent really matter too much. I sure hope that I get done with some stuff pretty soon, Ive been working non stop on this coloring book that Im supposed to print out tomorrow. As soon as I get that done then I can finish all the other 15 assignments that Im juggling right now. I have to get this video that Im working on done really soon too. I think that it will be a nice project once I can acutally focus on it. I also need to get my ideas together for the rest of the semester in all my classes. Oh well I guess it will either all fall into place or Ill just not get real great grades in something. Whatever the case Im doing what I can.

Went to the life raft debate. It was kinda cool. Matt got second which was pretty nice, I think that people still didnt really see the value of art. I think that for the most part that people just think that art is painting and stuff like that, stuff that resides in the galleries of the world, but its not its more a way of thinking critically about the world and making stuff that comments on it. I hate that people for the most part dont see that. Oh well...just a game. I think Ive said that the liferaft dbate is just a big game of intramurals for professors to challenge one another in. I guess we all think we have something to prove. I was listning to talk radio today for a little bit and there was a guy talking about mega churches. I wanted to call in and give my 2 cents but he never gave a phone number for me to try. What I would have said is that the very idea of mega churches and the, though not really well thought out usually, theology behind them is terribly unbiblical and honestly just plain dumb. These churches build activity centers, weight rooms, sometimes even coffee shops, have "block parties", and stuff all in the name of reaching the lost world. But the thing is that thats not what scripture says at all. Scripture says "Go make disciples... they will know that you're my disciples by the love you have..." stuff like that. Scripture doesnt call for Christians to seperate themselves from the world behind these thick walls of mega church monuments it tells Christians to be in the world be a part of the culture how will people see the love that Christ talked about that causes people to know if that love isnt displayed tangibly in culture. By building these mega churches fully equipped with their work out facilities and cafe's the church is effectivly removing "Christians" from the culture in which they by the call of scripture should be living in enjoying and impacting. The fact is that we live in a broken world and according to scripture truth is the only thing that will fix that brokenness. Christ said "know the truth and the truth shall set you free...he also said "I am the way, the truth, and the life." If "Christians" believe that then why would they hide behind thier fortresses of the church and keep hope away from the broken world in which we all live. The fact is that for these mega church goers its just easier to hide and seek shelter in their sanctuaries than to face the society around them. They must not believe the truth that they say they do, that Christ does offer hope to people....if they believed it they would be about taking that truth to people not building programs that tell people to come to them. Christ met people where they were and thats what followers of Christ are called to do, not build gigantic advertisements to themselves in hopes that people will by default show up. There has to be a distinct shift in the way that people think. I wish I could have said all that stuff to the people listening not because I want to make a high minded point or even make people feel dumb by pointing out their flaws but I really want to see a change. Rather than building these fortresses, why not go out into culture...go work out with people you dont go to church with build relationships there, begin to love people...stop being so damn selfish. Dont throw block parties under the guise of the church to attract young people...go to the block parties where people already are and build relationships with people and really begin to love them, make friends and share your thoughts and your life with your friends.
I guess I should stop...or Ill never print my stuff.

Last night we did our third or fourth show this semester. I think it was one of the funnest. Matt came on and plugged art and the life raft debate. I actually heard quite a few people saying that they are going to come and they are looking forward to hearing what Matt has to say. Shoule be interesting. I think that Im realizing now that for the best part of the semester Ive had a pretty bad attitude about most things. Now that I realize it I think that Im going to make some changes in the way Ive approached some of my classes and try to have a better attitude. I think also that Im going to try to help out with the 48 hours project and I think if I set my mind to it I can place us in the top three. We'll see.

Here in the lab about to get started on my hot or not project. There are a ton of people in here all trying to get their stuff saved and printed for the class thats in here before us. This weekend I had a ton of stuff to do. I wrote a paper, got books on the war in Iraq and on september 11th for my coloring book project. They cost me $75 so I plan on returning them after I get all of the scans that I need. I got pretty depressed while looking through so many different pictures of dead people and people who are hurting, both physically and emotionally. There is so much injustice in the world and there are absolutly no easy answers. It just seems like a big vicious circle. The US got attacked by people looking around and being frustrated with the injustice that they saw. The US retalliated because of that injustice...it just goes on and on. Its enough to depress a guy.

Running a bit late today. Seems like that is going to be the theme of the semester for me. I got to listen to a great conversation at lunch/breakfast today. A friend of mine was talking to a girl at lunch about faith and things like that. It was cool because I have been wanting to talk to him about it myself, but really havent gotten the opportunity. Now he is going to come to Church this sunday and I hope to get to talk to him more after that. I am still getting the investigative study together so possibly he can come to that if he is interested. Its just neat to see that eventhough I havent tried to talk with him or anything like that, that the interest is still there and that he is wanting to know and understand truth. Im excited to see what pans out with all of it.
Also I got a good idea for my next project in 250. Im going to use some images that I get from people from dating chat rooms, along with scanned images of women from advertizements and TV and stuff like that and mix them with an image of myself then put it on Hotornot.com and let it get rated.

The show went pretty good last night. We never really had a dry moment where no one was talking. I think that I talked a little too much though. Gene sat in for Allen, that was pretty fun, and Victoria sat in for Kavon. Allen and Kavon were in Atlanta at the DarkestHour show. I wish I could have seen that but, oh well. I think Im starting to get a little more motivation to work on stuff now. Ive been looking at some good stuff both in books and on the net, also have seen some folks in class making good stuff. The thing is that Ive seen a lot of bad stuff right there along with the good and I think that the bad stuff is more motivating for me because I really think that I could do better. I dont think that that is arrogance speaking as much as a desire to make good stuff and to just get better stuff out there for people to see. If all people see is crap then that will automatically lessen their opinion of stuff that they havent seen yet and there is a ton of good stuff that deserves to be recognized and not brought down by the overwhelming amount of bad stuff out there.