Kyle Mitchell

Mosaic Website!!!

After almost a year of waiting, our website is finally LIVE!!  I'm excited that Mosaic finally has a spot on the world wide web.  It took a while to get the original graphic, then get flash implemented, then get the content on the pages, then get it all live, but that's all history at this point.  Go check it out and tell me what you think!!  All opinions welcome!!

It's a simple site, and just gives some info about who we are and what we are about.  As time goes on, we'll add some more to things.   We hope to add authentic pics of us as well as information about upcoming events.  We also want to add our stories, so check back from time to time as we begin to share our lives with one another.  God takes our broken lives and recreates something amazing that brings him honor and glory.  Our lives are all about HIM!!

www.brokenbeauty.net 

R.I.P.

For the first time in my mac living life, my mac had a problem that (to the best of my knowledge) I didn't create.  My HD crashed.  Yep...just died.  No warning.  No good-bye.  Just took all my data and shut down.  Since I now live 30 minutes from an Apple store, I just drove to Northpark and spoke with the ever friendly and extremely helpful Apple hosts!  They quickly hooked it up to all the gizmo's and confirmed it was DOA!  They referred me to a GREAT company, Taylormark, across the Highway and they had me back up and running in one day.  All it took was an open credit limit on my credit card.  Their rates were actually affordable and service was amazing!!!  If you're in the Dallas area and use a Mac, I'd highly recommend these guys.  Their next step is to take the DOA HD and see if they can get my stuff off of it.  I'll know something next Monday. 

I also have to give kudos to the Apple staff.  I walked in, with no reservation...not a recommended path, but since I've never had a problem that Pete Bishop couldn't fix, I'd never needed an actual visit.  They told me the next appointment was 5 hours later, but it always helps to have 4 Mitchell children accompany you into the store, with one wearing his Indian outfit from pre-school.  I'm not sure if they had compassion on me because I was a dad with four kids or the quickly assessed the damage that could be created by 8 hands on all that technology, and I told them I'd just hang out, since I had driven all the way in to town.  They worked me in, in less than 20 minutes, no doubt!   The kids were kinda bummed it happened so quickly because they each had found a Mac that had kids games on it and had set up shop!!  They had a ton of fun and loved all the games they got to play.  So we'll have to go back!  Overall, given the frustration of computer problems, the experience actually left me smiling.  Not a typical response to computer problems.  Another reason I'm glad Pete forced me into the Mac family!!!

eBeliever

Today at a Staff meeting I sat in on the new roll out for FBC's website.  It looks like we'll be shooting for a summer launch date and things are rolling along well.  It was a "small world" moment when the guy from the web-design company walked in.  Jim Billman was an old friend that I went to Baylor with back in the day.  We were both on the Freshman Council leadership team for the Baptist Student Ministry.  He's now got a web-design business that helps churches create custom websites and then teaches the church how to administrate these sites.  Today was our first "lesson".  It was a fun meeting as the personalities of the ministry staff emerged.  This was my first time to be in the room with all the staff and I must say it was extremely entertaining as they each added their humor to our tech discussion.

I was surrounded by Dell's however and I was the only one that knew what "Firefox" was (thanks Brian)! 

My first video

Ok...it's really just an edited clip from Spider-man, but I created 4 clips for the "Gospel according to Spider-man" for this Wednesday nights "FOCUS goes to Hollywood".  For all the Wednesday nights in May we'll be focusing on different Movies that help to illustrate the Christian life.  We're kickin' it off with Spider-man and then taking a group to Spider-man 3 this Sunday.  It should be a great experience.

I used Pinnacle which is what the church uses for its media production.  I have a lot to learn, but it was nice to start on something easy and put some transitions at the beginning and end and then cut and splice.  Nothing too fancy, but the clips will serve as a great illustration to the student ministries purpose statement words of Connect, Grow, and Serve.

I have to say a special thanks to my new friend, Tim Hale for showing me the ropes with all the tech stuff.  I'm sure I tried his patience because I know it takes 5-10x's longer to show someone than to just do it yourself.

CyberPolice Patrol

My wife, two days ago, began her first MySpace page, and the addiction has set in.  She has already created one of the most creative uses of the space to share her faith and her personality.  When I came home yesterday, she exclaimed "It's like scrapbooking...but for cyberspace."  I was glad it was "free" except for the now 3,000 hours she's been logged in. 

This morning I asked her what time she came to bed and she was up until 2:30 AM in her new role as the CyberPolice Patrol.  She was searching for friends from her University and found many "inapporpriate" sites and began "flagging" them for removal.  Her new motto "Purifying cyberspace...one page at a time". 

Technology thwarts me again

The post for my day's events has been forever lost in cyberland.  After posting all the days events for the 3rd day in a row, I was going to finish the final comments when I got home, but firefox had other plans.  It decided to freeze up and so I couldn't get to my TypePad page.  I could see all my comments, but couldn't edit, save, or unfreeze.  My only option was "Force Quit".  So for all of those hanging on the edge of their seat waiting to see today's events...you'll have to wait until I can "recreate" it all...and it's never as funny the second time around. 

Particular apologies to Matt Armentrout who was waiting to get mentioned in the blog because he knew we had a meeting today.