<--- Cleans off dust from blog... "Cough Cough" Well hey howdy hey, it's the New Year! Sorry I've been silent for so long, but let me just start off by saying that I have a few things in the works that should start up this week or next that I think you may enjoy. <smirk> 
   And in saying that, let me get straight to the point. Have you ever become excited to do something (resolutions come to mind), but then let the process overrun your enthusiasm? Technology does that to me too often and it happened again last night. I was going to start a little private journal for myself and then proceeded to spend the next 2 hours trying to find an app that served my purposes! (I mean, REALLY?!? a simple notebook style app that lets me add a bunch of photos on a page, resize them, and type my text in on the page without having the most convoluted UI ever created by man, that will also save to the cloud? Is that too much to ask in this day and age? {side note: finally settled on SpringPad})
   Certainly, looking around to find the right process will save a bunch of time and frustration over the long haul. But this search for a process shouldn't become some monster of a thing that overpowers the actual task we have in mind. Technology and the internet comes with that allure built in: that there is something else out there, something better, something more effective, something that will fit our needs perfectly; if only we can find it: the perfect website/app/program- surely it must be out there. 
   Now, for us spiritually minded out there, we could totally leap into "The One who is the perfect fit for what you are searching for", but let's not over-spiritualize everything and try to stay on track, shall we?
   What I would like to emphasize is though deciding on a process should have a certain level of priority, it shouldn't supersede the priority of the actual outcome in mind. Have an honest look at what you are trying to accomplish and recognize how important having "just the right way of doing it" is really going to matter. In some instances, yes... it must be done in a precise way, but don't be tricked by past failures. "Oh, I tried it this way last time and didn't follow through so I better look for some other way of doing it." We need to be honest with ourselves, and try to figure out if it was a problem with the process, or really was it a problem with our perseverance {all you spiritually minded can add another sermon on persevering here}. 
   Certainly take the time, find the technology that will end up somewhere on the scale between "that'll work" and "that's the best thing since sliced bread!" Just set a certain amount of time in your mind and stop once you've spent that time. THEN proceed to get done whatever it is you set out to accomplish in the first place! {Ironically enough, after typing this I thought of another better option to my little private picture type of journal that I am already using, Pinterest. ***facepalm}
   And as a post-script: maybe, just maybe, that piece of technology... has nothing to do with a computer or smart phone at all! Now, I can hear some of you already, "Blasphemy!" I know, I know. You spent sooo much for your device, it's the newest thing, yadda yadda yadda. Sometimes, nothing beats the simplicity of a piece of paper and a pen. Just Sayin'
   And now, a quick note for what I am kicking around in my head. I think I might turn this into a Vlog instead! For those who don't know the difference between a blog and a vlog... the v stands for video. I know I may not be the prettiest face on the internet, but I think twice a week for a few minutes may not crack your screens too badly. We'll see how it goes. Be looking for it here, and on YouTube. 

Hello from day #5 of 1.H.O.T. I hope your fourth of July was fun. My family and I got together with some friends for a bar-b-que. We had way more food than we should have eaten and I enjoyed every minute of it, especially the Oreo Mint Ice Cream my son made!
   On the technological front, two times during our evening, I found myself feeling a little odd due to my little experiment in cutting back the social media. At one point during the night, I got to texting a friend and recognized how out of place it was in the midst of the great time I was having with my friends there in the backyard. The other was when I noticed that my phone was eerily just sitting in my pocket and I had no need to be checking it every several minutes. Cutting the phone notifications has been a huge step in getting back in touch with the people that I am spending time with in person (read my second entry below). 
   But something else that has really helped tremendously, has been "Unfriending" people from Facebook. During my week of preparation, I cut my list in half (over 150 people) and my goal is to be well under 150. I know, I know. I can almost hear the cries now... "Don't unfriend me!" "Why would you EVER DO THAT?!?" Well, I can honestly say, after cutting all those people and having about 60 or so more that I am considering, my Facebook has become a joy again and not a burden. Like in olden times, it is something I can check really quick, instead of feeling stuck at cycling through my "News" Feed for 30 or more minutes.
   You can't tell me that there is something appealing of being in and out of Facebook in under 3 minutes, even with commenting on friends' stuff. That's right. Under 3 minutes from the newest posting to where I left off the last time I checked.
   Or maybe your comment would be something more like, "I don't know that I would be able to delete anyone." You probably have more than you realize when you add up the personalities that you really aren't friends with, that person you randomly added as a friend because of some event, and that person who only posts to FB once a month other than their game requests (which happens more often than you might realize). Also, I have found that I had many husband and wife teams, both as friends, either both posting the same stuff or one always posts while the other one rarely does. Choose one. Delete the other. It's ok... they will both still like being your IN REAL LIFE friend (probably).
   FB doesn't make deleting bunches of people easy either. You actually have to find each person one by one and delete them. You can do this via the News Feed when they randomly come up, but if you are going to be serious about doing a purge of over a hundred people, let me make a suggestion. Make a new list of friends called something like "delete." Then you can add friends into that list super quickly. From there you can look at your "delete" news feed only and then delete people from there a little faster. Give yourself some time to get this accomplished. To delete my 162 people, it took me more than 30 minutes to make the list and delete them at a pretty good clip. Once you've got your list cut in half, try going through your newly cleaned up friends list again and put another 1/3 of your remaining friends in the "delete" list for consideration for a few weeks. You might be surprised at how your attitude changes as you get the delete snowball rolling. People who made the cut the first round, might seem like legitimate candidates for getting cut the second time around.
   Since the big purge during my week of preparation, I have come to find out about "Hiding" a person from your news feed. This feature hides that person's posts without the social stigma of you unfriending them and they will never know they are hidden from your news feed. It allows you to honestly say, "No, I didn't see that picture you posted," because we all acknowledge, though we may not understand, that dynamic of FB- Once you get over 100 friends or so, you simply don't get every post from everyone. The hidden FB gremlins do some new math and try to predict whose posts you want to see instead of giving it all to you. I considered doing this for the 60 or so folks who are in my "second cut" consideration list. After thinking on this for about two weeks, I think I have formed my opinion about "Hiding" people. To me, I find this "Hiding" as a case of "Let your yes be yes and your no be no," (Matt 5:36-37) and a matter of honesty. I don't really understand the whole, "I would rather tell a small white lie to someone, than hurt their feelings" attitude, especially over something as trivial as FB. I would rather be able to confidently say that I am starting to reserve FB for my closest friends and family. Most people seem to be okay with this and it isn't as big of a deal as you might think. And you know what... now those people that I unfriended and I have something to talk about over coffee or dinner and make it a priority to catch up with one another. And that's not "Unfriendly" at all.   ;-)

So today was the first day of my new regimen of only having 1 Hour Of Technology a day (watching movies and e-reading excluded). Things went well, but only because I had made the proper preparations last week.
Yes, it took an several hours over the span of several days to be able to get to the point that I wouldn't be disturbed by my technology every 15 minutes. There were several things that I did that I will elaborate on throughout this week, and it wasn't long before I was seeing some real breakthroughs. 
The first, and probably most significant, that I would like to share with you today is getting a grip on your cell phone. Thanks to the way of things, most of us have smart phones now-a-days (with "dumb" phones being difficult to find). And though this is good for those who need to get our emails, quickly we start downloading apps, games, receiving notifications of status updates, and before you know it- it is hard not to go half an hour without looking at your phone.
Don't get me wrong... it certainly is nice to have something to do while you are waiting for your friend to come along and join you for coffee, or to check up on things while you are waiting as the 10th person in line at that store- you know the one. It has 25 checkout isles and only 5 that are open. Yeah, that one. But in all reality, things can get out of hand real quick. You go from checking whatever it is that the phone notified you about, to the next thing you know... you are taking a photo and posting it to Facebook with a silly comment while you are going down the highway (let's not mention how fast) in the rain {**meekly raise my own hand- guilty as charged}.
So here was the first, and most dramatic change I made last week (and the ramifications were tremendous)- I turned off ALL the notifications being displayed on my phone with the exception of phone calls and texts. No more "pushing" statuses and tweets. No more email chimes. No more being constantly in a digital loop and slave to my technology. Now that I am not getting every last thing pushed in front of my face, when I talk with people, I get a truly rich experience of hearing and seeing it from the source and not some 3 inch screen. 
The only thing that I have needed to be disciplined enough not to do, is constantly check these things manually on my own. But with having times I know I will be in front of a computer tends to help me shy away from pulling my phone out of my pocket every 15 minutes.
Let me challenge you: Don't let your phone get away with cyber bullying. Try it for a week and see how different your day becomes. Turn off ALL your phone notifications except your calls and texts. 

Lately, I have been recognizing the need to slow down my daily input from digital devices. I know that might seem weird starting a blog this way, but reality is, I spend way too much time not accomplishing anything except wearing out the track pad on my laptop. Hour after hour each week with nothing to show for it. I had a reality check the other day about my computer use:

Facebook- Let's face it, I don't know you any better because of it or that picture of your dinner from last night. (I am totally guilty of this kind of thing)
Twitter- There are only so many inspirational/motivational quotes that one person can consume in one day (and to be honest, I remember exactly 0% of them). 
Then there is Pinterest, Email, Blogs, etc. And my problem isn't relegated to my laptop. My tablet makes things even more accessible, and more over, my phone keeps me constantly in the loop.
Worse yet, one afternoon I looked up from my digital device only to see the rest of my sweet family also ensconsed in some form of digital entertainment, basking in the glow of their own LCD screens. As a husband, father, and head of my household, I knew it was time to act. I don't often issue decrees here at home, and often we joke about when I put my foot down about an issue, but it has become apparent that it is time for "my foot to speak."
From July 1 through December 31, we as a family, wil be spending only 2 half hour shifts in front of digital devices per day for personal use. I hope that this will help us to focus our attention to actually developing friendships instead of only interacting via the internet. It will also help me prioritize how I will spend my down time- being an active participant rather than a passive observer in life.
If you are looking to free yourself and/or your time, I will be blogging about how I am going about this and the results (positive and negative) that I experience over the next 6 months.

Ephesians 5:15-16 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.