Wild At Heart, A Sort Of Review

Posted on by Jordan

This is just going to be a micro-review, but I wanted to get a few thoughts down before too much slipped out of my mind.

I finished reading Wild At Heart, by John Eldredge

I really liked the book.

The first few chapters do an amazing job of putting into words things I have known to be true but couldn’t articulate.

I am trying really hard not to say too much here, because I will ether try to say what the book said and fail, or veer into impassioned rant territory and regret having published it on the internet.

Let me just say this, Eldredge does a great job of stating the problem faced by a lot of young men in the church. The first half of the book really resonated with me; leaving me wanting to run up mountains and tackle wildlife… that might be a slight overstatement, but I did come away from every chapter excited and feeling like I had really discovered something about myself and what God has for me.

The book could have been written to address conversations Heather and I had in the weeks prior to my reading the book where I was trying to express to Heather this almost despair I was feeling: That there were so few young men in the church because “the church” has nothing to offer young men.  To read that there might be a place for passion and even *gasp* aggression in a man’s pursuit of Christ was exhilarating.

And then we come to the back half of the book. I remember reading Wild At Heart when I was in college, and I know the second half of the book is why I had written it off as “not for me.”

I still come away feeling like the book cannot answer the question “Ok this is amazing, I am ready to do this! Now what?”

In my second read-through, almost ten years later I have to admit that whatever is there has to be better than not having talked about the issue at all.

I suppose the book can’t possibly say what to do next, because in talking about the wild nature of God (as often expressed in nature) formulas and step-by-step plans aren’t going to explain what is there.

And now, suddenly, I am back where I started when I picked up the book again. I cannot properly express the ideas I am trying to express, but I know there is a book that did a really good job of stating the case.

Anyway… Glad that is written down, even if it isn’t coherent to anyone else… We shall resume stories of day to day life of Heather and Jordan shortly 🙂

 

-Jordan

Bastion

Posted on by Jordan

I just finished playing through Bastion. I wasn’t exactly on the leading edge of people playing though this game, thanks to my pattern of buying most of my games when they go on sale… all the same it’s somewhat current.

Well, let me back up and give a little context to what I am thinking about.

This week I read and article (which I am unable to find now…) that was talking about how research found that spending money on an experience rather than an item tended to have a larger and more lasting impact on a persons life. The author was using that research to argue for taking classes or going on trips etc.

OK, Back to Bastion… It’s a great ride. The game play is fun, something that should not be taken for granted, but they nailed an atmosphere in ways I haven’t seen done in games for quite a while.

To start with, the game is narrated in a way that responds to events as you play. It may not sound that interesting, but the effect is satisfying. It doesn’t hurt that the narrator has a great voice for the job…

Here is a small example:

There isn’t much to the story, but I found myself always wanting to play one more level just to find out what happened next.

I shouldn’t wander too far into review territory, there are plenty of places online you can go for that kind of thing.

Having finished the game, I couldn’t help but think about the ideas from that article on how experiences stick with you and how that applied. It was an experience that grabbed me, and it felt amazing to close out the story. It would probably be wrong to reach too far ideologically while I am still so excited about the game, but it is interesting to think about what kind of returns I got from my time and money.

-Jordan

Phone Review

Posted on by Jordan

It isn’t like we haven’t done things worthy of blogging about, but I decided I wanted to write down my thoughts on the new phone while it was still kind of new.

First off, what is it: Motorola Droid 2

Touch screen, with a slide-out physical keyboard.

More raw processing power than the computer I so proudly took with me to college 10 years ago. Has more storage space too.

As a phone it works as well as any other phone I have owned.

Beyond being a phone it is little portable computer, complete with internet, GPS and a camera. This let’s it do a lot of things, that don’t seem particularly novel to me right now, but would have been mind-blowing just a few years ago.

Speaking of the GPS and camera… The camera is quite good. Not quite as responsive as my point-and-shoot, making quick snapshots impossible. On the other hand, the quality is more or less on-par, and I always have it with me. Having a camera with you is one of the first steps to actually taking pictures! The GPS is more than functional, but in most applications requires that the screen be lit at the same time you are using it. Running both the screen and the GPS eats the battery in a shockingly short amount of time. This isn’t a limitation when using the phone as an in-car navigation device, as long as I packed a charger, but it means the phone isn’t going to provide constant aid in navigating an all-day hike. To put it bluntly I would guess the phone life when displaying a map and my position is between two and three hours. I did however discover in rare applications when you don’t need the screen on and only want passive monitoring the battery life is much better! Running a tracking tool for recording bike rides only drained about 10% of the battery life in around an hour and a half.

Hmm, so I didn’t even manage to describe all the features without some editorializing… something I have been fighting every time I thought about writing this post.

The problem is, I feel like I need to be using the phone all the time to make it seem like it’s worth it. I know that isn’t really true… but it’s kind of the thought floating around behind anything else I think about the phone. I imagine that will fade, and I can already tell you it would be hard to go back to my old phone (even if it were still working properly)

TL;DR: Great phone, can’t say I *needed* it, but it’s really useful now that I have it.

-Jordan