Saturday surprises: Jeff Shinabarger blog + more

Weekends are typically lower traffic for most websites. This suggests that there’s an awful lot of web surfing and internet use during work / business hours. Some of that may be legitimate research and work-related stuff. Some of it not so much. In an open-source collaborative world, the lines between work and play, business and personal, are blurring. For the next gen, it’s bordering on ridiculous if an employee is told that “you’re not paid to Twitter” or “you’re not paid to blog.” Not all twittering and/or blogging is good for business. But, twitter can be used in a way that better connects a business (or organization) to its audience and potential audience (aka customers, constituents, members). For the record, I don’t blog here during my work hours, and I keep 99% of my twittering during work hours work-related. (I say that because my Mom and my managers read my blog.)

Saturdays are now a new rhythm for me: a mix of home-related errands, father-and-son day, and/or chatting on the phone via free weekend minutes.

Today I’m starting something new I’ll call Saturday surprises. I’ll do a top-of-mind brain-dump of what’s surprised me during this (past) week. Saturday surprises will be a live post, not a post that was created days in advance and made to go live in the future. Caveat: I may not blog every Saturday or only surprises specifically from this week.

• Jeff Shinabarger is blogging up a storm! Having blogged for just a few months, Jeff blogs almost every day (more frequently than me) and blogs with great reflections and observations about the global village we live in, with a smattering of the intersection between faith and life. He’s a networker par excellant who lives in Atlanta, showed wonderful hospitality to my family last summer during our cross-country drive, and was one of the co-founders of Catalyst and Q. Riding in his Prius (my first time) almost won us over to buying one. Almost. Best surprise post this week: NEED magazine – stories of people helping people.
• Contrast that with Christian subculturing and ghettoing: A Gym Designed to Cater to Christians in the New York Times. I think it was Jesus who told his disciples to be salt and light in the world, and not to hide the light under a bushel.
• The world of parody now includes Asian Americans! The Holy Observer, Asian American Pastor Speaks Only English: Chicago native of Korean descent also knows no martial arts pokes fun at ethnic racial stereotypes and NextGenerAsianChurch discusses this article with nervous laughter
• Audios and sermons from the sold-out NYC Dwell Conference 2008 now online. Photos too. Aside: I’ve been collecting and archiving everything I find about Tim Keller in my Google Notebook – Tim Keller. That’s everything said by Keller and about Keller.
• Looks like the majority of my blog readers (those who responded to the poll, anyways) are okay with my current level of disclosure.
• Hopped on 2 earlier flights via standby, both to/from DFW. On the outbound from SNA, wife dropped me off 90 mins before departure. I went thru security. Walked to Gate 14 where an earlier flight was 14 minutes before departure. Asked if they could get me in via standby. They could & they did. Sweet! Curb drop-off to gate and take-off. No standing or sitting around. On the return from DFW, I was added to standby list of an earlier flight. Grabbed an iced venti Starbucks DoubleShot (which has 6 shots!). Got on this earlier flight with a seat in the exit row. Double sweet!
• I have something in common with Mark Driscoll: my kid and 1 of his kid both like having a “pajama day”, where the kid stays home all day in jammies