Anyone visiting my site can see that I don’t get much of a chance to write or keep up with my blog. I stay very busy between working at Stay In Touch, Inc. and Jailbreak Creative. However, after being introduced to Expression Engine while working with Aaron Mills of Jailbreak Creative, I decided I had to write a personal entry about this amazing CMS.

Because of my limited time, I won’t be able to share all of my thoughts on this subject in one post. However, I will give an introduction for this post, and then go into more details in a follow-up post.

My time with Wordpress

About 3 years ago, I really started getting into Wordpress while working for Site Builder Corporation. We started using WP for a lot of clients because it had grown into a great CMS that our clients could use. So over these last few years I’ve really invested a good deal of time in learning how to use Wordpress. All of the freelance websites I’ve built are based on Wordpress.

Wordpress is certainly one of the most popular blogging/CMS systems available, and for good reason. It boasts TONS of plugins that can extend the software, it has a lot of really nice Wordpress themes that are free or cheap to purchase, and it gets a lot of “Google Juice”.

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Watch this video on the Social Media Revolution. Very interesting information here:

Let me know your thoughts on it.

Enjoy!

~ Chad Boswell

Thanks need to go to Andy Sowards who posted this on his blog… This is an awesome video and I could only wish to have this guy’s skills in Illustrator. The music in the video is from Portishead. The song is called We Carry On from their album Third.

Well I’m finally going to get a 9 day vacation and so I’ve decided to take my family to the beach! While I’m there I plan on finishing up the video section of this site, along with starting some new features here including what I will call Tuesday Tips. These tips will be geared towards designers and coders but anyone is welcome to read and comment on them. I hope that they will provide a few shortcuts to workflow, and provide information that is beneficial. I’m looking forward to it!

As the world mourns the passing of Michael Jackson the “King of Pop”, I find myself also saddened by the news of the heart attack that took his life.

I was never a huge Jackson fan but I always liked the music that he produced. As a young boy I use to enjoy his songs on the radio and MTV, and as with everyone else, I loved the Thriller video.

Michael Jackson’s death has really caused me to reflect on the mortality of man. Even though I knew that he would eventually die one day, the reality of that really sunk in today as I heard the news. As humans we tend to think somehow we are not going to die. Yet reality kicks in and we realized that at any moment we could be on our way into eternity. The statistics are always the same… 10 out of 10 people die.

The bible says that everyone who dies will face Jesus Christ, The King of Kings. 1 Corinthians 2:10 says: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” The bible also says that man is destined to die once, and then face judgment (Hebrews 9:27).

So as I’ve pondered these things I decided to do some research on Michal Jackson’s religious viewpoints. I came across a disturbing article about Michael Jackson with this headline:

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The following YouTube video really gripped me. I’d never heard of this guy before but I was listening to John Piper and one of the related videos said Paul Washer Preaching to Reformed Rappers and since I like most Christian Hip Hop, I was enticed to click the link. I’m glad I did. This man is preaching something so lost in the modern day church. I hope you’ll take the time to watch this video. Its 54:44 in length:

Last night was the big Relay For Life 2009 Celebration where over 150 teams walked from 7 PM Friday evening until 9 AM Saturday morning. We had a great turnout with over 4,000 people in attendance.

Our team had a birthday campsite theme and we sold plain cupcakes for $0.50 and supplied a self service table where people could put their own icing and sprinkles on them. We also had birthday bags for adults and children.

Our team faithfully had at least one member on the track walking the entire time. I’m very proud of the people (including my wife) who stuck with it all through the night.

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Currently I’m going back through Half-Life Episode 2 to get all the achievements. I got most of them the first time I went through a few weeks ago. But there are 2 achievements that are really difficult and very annoying that I’m trying to get.

The most tedious achievement is to take a small garden gnome from the beginning of the game and carry it and put it into a rocket towards the end of the game that will launch into outer space. I’ve found this to be very difficult to keep up with. I constantly have to keep up with the gnome, all while fighting off enemies. If I don’t have the gnome in my possession and I hit a loading area, I end up losing it and having to go back to a previous save to regain the gnome. So why do I go through all this pain? I think that there is something about completely mastering this game that has compelled me to take on the painful task of transporting the gnome.

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Tonight I finished Half-Life 2: Episode 2. I’d say that this episode is the most creative thus far. Its also the most infuriating episode and challenges the player’s reflexes and skill level. Its like the game assumes you’ve played the other games in the series and thrusts you into the action from the get go.

I really liked the new enemies in this episode. The Hunters (pictured to the left) are almost like mini-bosses and can be real beasts to take down. When there is a pack of them, it gets real hard to stay alive and dodge their attacks. The final battle, where I am suppose to defend our rebel base and missle silo from Striders proved to be most challenging. Each Strider had at least one Hunter that had to be taken down before I could get a clear shot at the Strider. By the end of the fight I was up against six Hunters and two Striders at one time. I died or failed my mission at least 15 – 20 times before defeating all the enemies.

Anyhow, I’ve really enjoyed going back through the Half-Life 2 series over the past few months.  I’m very excited to find out what happens in the final installment to the series.  Its probably going to be some time in 2010 before Valve gets Episode 3 done but I’m sure it will be worth the wait.

I’m very proud of my son Joshua, who made the paper today! He made front page of the Lifestyle section. Here is a link for anyone interested in reading about him:

Lynchburg News & Advance Article »

Even though not many people showed up to his birthday party, I’m glad that something good came out of it. I hope a lot of people decide to donate after reading this article.

Joshua, I’m proud of you buddy!