Light ‘er Up!

Every year there seems to be a new one that crops up, and while I don’t know anything more about them, I think it would be awesome to bring fun into the holiday season with a spectacle like this. In my case, I’ll wait a while before I jump on this band wagon as I don’t know what I’d do with all of those lights in the off season, and plus, I wouldn’t know the first thing about coordinating such an amazing display. Wowzas!

Cina-mazing!

It has somehow turned to August, and I realize that this blog has fallen woefully out of date. Fortunately, this month has brought me renewed energy towards thinking about dreams once again. As I’ve mentioned before, some of these are must do, while others are simply ‘wow, glad it’s out there’… This one sort of falls between those two markers. I think the idea is simply amazing, and while I’ve thought of the relaxing in-home cinema, I’ve never thought to make it happen with this extravagance. Well done, Hong Kong.

Originally, I found this on http://passport.jetsetter.com; it linked out to a foreign website in Thai (according to Google Translate) so some of my renditions of text might be askew and grammatically sucky.

Here’s what their website had to say:

Cinemas VIP Medium 3 with the privacy and comfort of the audience, elegant luxury, with the ticket separately from the front entrance and lounge chairs are divided into three 3-style include:

Ultra Romance. (with curtains for The sweet and sweet is better)

Ultra Sweet. (nestling close for couples)

Ultra Paradise. (as if sitting on the beach), there is room for watching movies. This will enable you to relax with sofas, soft drinks and snacks.

http://www.majorcineplex.com/paragoncineplex/service-info.php?theatre=nokia

Pretty good idea if you ask me. Amazing movies, 3D with great digital screens. Wonderful (and comfortable) seating arrangements. Snuggling with the wife while watching a flick? How much better could it get!? Oh, yeah, that’s right, they have waitstaff. So cool.

Check out some images…

Dreams

  • I want to make a difference rather than a living.
  • I want to fulfill my wife’s every wish.
  • I want to glorify god through my serving my wife in the way that christ served the church.
  • I want to treat my wife to a first class lifestyle.
  • I want to be accused of being newlyweds on our 50th anniversary and beyond.
  • I want to be giddy in love, flirtation, and joy.
  • I want to see joy in my wife’s eyes all the time.
  • I want to help her to see joy in herself, and in the world.
  • I want to create vivid memories for my family and for others.
  • I want to treat my extended family to their wildest dreams.
  • I want to treat friends and family to multiple once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
  • I want to help others achieve their goals.
  • I want to be financially independent.
  • I want to finance worthwhile projects.
  • I want to view money as we view oxygen (= having more than enough to do anything I choose to do on a particular day).
  • I want to make decisions because they’re the right things to do rather than the fiscally appropriate choice.
  • I want to have absolute, 100% integrity.
  • I want to have supreme health and live vibrantly into old age (100+).
  • I want to blow God’s mind with how I react to challenges and opportunities.
  • I want to be available to God to be used to answer the prayers of others.
  • I want to roll over and snuggle with my wife instead of roll out to a job.
  • I want to be available to life and the experiences that are only accessible by having a schedule that only I control.
  • I want to give gifts that shock people.
  • I want to treat people better than their own family.
  • I want to have all of the toys and fun things I fancy.
  • I want to tip $100 on a cup of coffee, regularly.
  • I want to SCUBA dive over a 30’+ king crab ball.
  • I want to travel via airport roulette (randomly pick a destination and go, without bags, plans, etc.)
  • I want to create a legacy for the Bennett family.
  • I want to change the world.
  • I want to lead my family with confidence and purpose.

Now go back up to the top and replace the word, “want” with the more appropriate word, “will”.

Where is your list?
-cb

Cool Tech Toy

In time, I’d like to have a plethora of nifty gadgets around the house. I thought this was a pretty nifty idea. Sure it’s not altogether functional, but hey, it seems like it’d be a great conversational piece!

Oswald’s Insight

Just a quick post with a quote from Oswald Chambers that I found in one of my notebooks:

By prayer and determination we have to form the habit of keeping ourselves soaked in the vision God has given. The difficulty with the majority of us is that we will not seek to apprehend the vision – we get glimpses of it, and then leave it alone.

It is one of the saddest things to see men and women who have had visions of Truth, but have failed to apprehend them. It is not a question of intellectual discernment or of knowing how to present the vision to others, but of seeking to apprehend the vision so that it may apprehend us.

Soak, and soak, and soak continually in the one great Truth of which you have had a vision. Take it to bed with you. Sleep with it. Rise up in the morning with it. Continually bring your imagination into captivity to it, and slowly and surely as the months and years go by, God will make you one of his specialists in that particular Truth.

Things, But Very Slowly

I think it would be a blast to take the time and have the resources to explore the world we live in with great detail to discover those things that previously go unseen. Take, for instance, the Brainiac’s, “Things but very slowly” collection. Here’s a compilation of the types of things that would be fun to do:

Or, why not get into still-frame photography of high-speed items. Here are just a couple of cool examples:

Inspired Bicycles

Just a quick post about a fella and his bike. I came across this video while perusing a photographer’s newsletter, and he had the fortune to work with the guy on the bike (and his sponsor). First of all, I think it’s pretty cool that photography can carry me into different avenues of talent that I might not otherwise have the chance to experience. The same goes for AG of course – I was just listening to Dean talk last night about the fact that with his wealth and freedom of time, he has been able to work with several high talent groups some of which we’d be surprised at his affiliation (like Linkin Park, I believe).

At any rate, the other part of posting this video is just to highlight the amazing talent that we can hone if we work in our areas of strength and are willing to fail forward, and to try over and over again. Pretty amazing stuff.

Check it out:

TED Talks

When I think about what “exciting” things I’d like to do in my life, I think of movements that I’d like to be a part of, even if only peripherally. TED Talks are just one of these venues.

http://www.ted.com

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, but since it’s inception seems to have ballooned to all manners of topics that engage the heart as well as the scientific minded towards the improvement of the human experience. So, simply put, I want to be a part of the proceedings.

I don’t require that I contribute to the body of knowledge presented on the stage at some of the talks, but I think it would be a great experience to be able to watch along, engage in conversations geared towards the pursuit of improvement and development. I see myself as someone who can be in the room primarily driven by a state of awe and appreciation for what these great minds contribute to, and further, command my presence by knowing that I have the “horses in the barn” to put my money where my mouth (and heart is).

As I think back, I don’t know that I ever had an overarching goal of being a This or a That, but instead, I’ve had a goal to want to enable and encourage other goals had by great minds. Maybe someday my Eureka idea and pursuit will come. Until then, I want to be a silent supporter of good and meaningful causes.

Making an Impact

It’s been an interesting couple of days of learning about the one and only, Bobby McFerrin.

Everyone knows Bobby by his world-wide hit, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”, but few (myself included) know the depths of talent this gentleman happens to have.

Sunday afternoon I stumbled across a clip of Bobby captivating and educating an audience at the Wold Science Festival in 2009, during a panel entitled “Notes and Neurons”. The premise of the panel was intriguing to say the least, but in 3 minutes, Bobby had performed the following and left folks in awe at the natural progression and involvement affiliated herein:

So watch that clip, enjoy, and then realize that Bobby has some very unique perspectives towards music and his audiences. For instance, at the beginning of the panel, he treated folks to an improvisational piece in front of his live audience. “Captivating” would be the word that comes to mind:

Further, he is excited about including his audience in the musical performance as he maintains that people desperately WANT to be involved, and to contribute to a greater good. Neat perspective when considering that some of the folks who are at the top of the charts are simply looking for their next hit to carry them further into stardom.

In searching around for a few other McFerrin McNuggets (sorry for the joke) I located his bobbymcferrin.com site and further discovered that his most popular song was literally a fluke of insight at the last possible moment, and that it was never expected to be in his repertoire or on any album. Fascinatingly, it seems that he would rather “send it off to college” rather than rear it in his home and cradle it in his arms of talent (read the faq on his site about the being happy song to understand my reference better).

Finally, for those of you who might not have had much TV around the house in 1988: when Bobby & company produced the music video, I found it cool to look back and see who other than Robin Williams on screen with Bobby helping us to not worry and be happy. Take a look:

All in all, I’d say I have a deeper respect and admiration for this fellow, his joy, and his astonishing talent. Some day it would be fun to find him performing live, and to have the opportunity to experience him in his element rather than through the power of the internet.

Thanks for reading!

PS:

* The World Science Festival clips for Notes and Neurons can be found here: http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/video/notes-neurons-full (clip 1 = bobby improve intro, clip 4 = bobby pentatonic scale piece, and clip 5 = bobby and company improve encore).

* Another great experience with Bobby is here:

What fun!

Vacation Rental!

Today we met Philip, a real-estate/retail dude who was on vacation on a cruise ship to Juneau. We gave him a ride to Western Auto (of all places) to grab a pair of jeans as his only pair was in the wash (fish blood), and he had a tour in the afternoon on the icefield. In compensation for our troubles, he offered to let us stay at his rental property in Costa Rica for a week at no cost. We checked out the website today and it looks pretty awesome!

http://www.vrbo.com/14346