Blake Thompson daht NetI'm just saying….

I’ve now been working here with The Orchard in Oxford for two years. And in those two years we’ve never had our own space. We started out meeting at The Powerhouse which is the Community Arts Council building. The building is used. A lot….A WHOLE lot. So it’s not uncommon for us to show up early on a Sunday morning to set up for church and there was HUUUUGE party the night before, or wedding reception, or gala, or “She got a donk” contest (whatever that is) with some crazy DJ and all of the stuff from the night before is still up. Or a play is set up for a few weeks for rehearsal and performance, and we’re have to work around each other.

Last May we moved into one of the local movie theaters to have church. We got in early on Sunday morning, set up, and then took everything down before the Sunday matinees started. But in September the theater closed down. Oxford wasn’t big enough to support two movie theaters it seemed. So we returned to The Powerhouse. And I’ll say up front that the folks with the Arts Council/Powerhouse have been very gracious.

BUT…we’ve found our own place. We don’t “own” it, but we have a two year lease. And we’re tearing out walls and building walls. Ripping out old carpet. Painting things afresh. Making it “ours”. Etc. The building has been a number of things. A night club. A restaurant. And most recently…a funeral home. But our goal is to make it as “un-funeral homey” as possible.

But we look forward to the stability having our that having own place will provide us as a church. And we look forward to being able to use the building as a way to impact the local community for Christ in ways that extend far beyond just a weekly church service.

But below is a video from one of our workdays. We’ve had a few since, and it is already looking way different.

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I guess that’s part of being in a town centered around a university. But things ebb and flow here. But I have to admin I like the changing of the seasons. And in some ways it’s almost a changing of the cultures. The city has approx 20k folks, but then you have about 16k college students that come in and out of the city it makes a difference. Plus there’s another 50 or so thousand that like to come to football games, it makes Oxford interesting.

But school started back for Ole Miss this week. And that means that parking places on The Square are now at a premium again. Restaurants are crowded. And coffee shops are lively. Right now I’m sitting in High Point Coffee (drinking a Vitamin Water (coffee…blech)) and I see quite a group of varied people.

• A table with five middle eastern women and their baby.
• A table with a 60ish year old man in a three piece suit reading the paper.
• A few tables of college girls looking over notebooks
• A dad and son have been waiting on their daughter/sis to get here. She just did.
• Various guys and ladies hunkered over their laptops.
• People come in with strollers to greet people, grab a cup of something, and then leave again.
• Books are being read.
• Scones are being ordered.
• The grinder is grinding constantly.
• Someone is wearing a coat and a toboggan on their head even though it is 64 degrees
• And over the sound system I have heard Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, Madonna, Michael Jackson, and other poppy songs from about 10 years ago. I don’t know who’s working today, but their style of music is different from what it usually is.

But it’s good to be back, experiencing the busyness. Soon baseball will start up and crowds will return. And the Rebel Baseball team will probably under achieve once again (hope so!) But it feels good. Maybe it just feels good because I can wear short sleeves right now, but it was about 14 degrees less than two weeks ago!

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Looking back on the archives I brought over I realize there were times when I would post quite often. And it’d be about pretty much whatever. I didn’t have to have anything big or grand to post about. Maybe it was about being in downtown Jackson and my brakes not working. Maybe it was an old Friday’s Feast. Maybe it was just about my sleep habits.  But what ever it was, I just posted.

But somewhere along the way I started almost worrying about what I’d write. Would it be interesting? Would anyone care? Would it get a comment? So I’d get stuck in over analyzing things and try to think of the right thing to write about or say. And that would basically freeze me into inactivity. And I’d not post. And then since it had been a while since my last post, I thought I needed a “really good one” for my come back. So then I’d over analyze the next “really good” post. And then I’d still just think, “I should write something tomorrow…”

So no promises, but I intend just to write. And if no one reads it, well, so what? It should be fun, right? I mean, sure, still put some thought and effort into things. Each post shouldn’t just be a stream of conscious. But it doesn’t have to be the next award winning writing either.

I remember when I posted my first real post I ended with these words:

What sort of voice will the blog have? Will it focus on specific things, or anything goes? How personal will it be? Well, it’s still little more than an embryo…so it has lots of growing and maturing to do before it develops a recognizable personality. I hope you hang around with me to see how things go.

And while I know it’s no longer an embryo, I think maybe my blog is going through puberty. It’s experiencing some changes. And is trying to figure out it’s place. There was a time when I thought I’d blog mainly about MSU sports, or Christian culture, or what happened to me and my family today, or what tech stuff I wish I could own or whatever else. But instead of trying to find a niche and impress anyone in particular, I think I’m just going to write what’s on my mind. We’ll see how it goes.

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There was a time I’d never heard of the word “blog”. That time ended back in 2002 when I came across this thread at Site Point Forums. Hmm, an online journal of sorts. So I tried out Blogger.com that people were recommending. I posted a few times, but it didn’t stick. And I wanted my own domain name.

So I bought statedog.com. It was name I started using in ESPN’s College Basketball Chat back in 1996 when Miss State went to the Final Four. Then I started using it on message boards. So it seemed like a good fit. I didn’t know what script to use, but I went with MovableType. It seemed like the stud at the time. I read some other blogs by now that were using MovableType. And it was free. But a bugger to install (it was Perl based back then.)

But to shorten the story, I set up a blog StateDOG.com using MovableType. I ended up running into some issues with MT. And tons of spam too. I converted to a new script called WordPress and loved it. But for a few various reasons I ended up stopping blogging. But I still had the itch. I picked it back up at ASmallTwist.com. I was able to acquire my own name as a .net so figured I must use it. So BlakeThompson.net started up as my blog. Lots of bouncing around for all my blogging, right? There were probably about five or six hosts too.

But this past week I was able to get everything together. I combined all my old blogs with my current blog. It took a few days of mistakes, broken databases, import issues, and upgrades, but I was able to finally get all the old stuff, ever way back to my first post on my own domain, here in the archives. Sadly the comments didn’t make the trip from 2003 to 2010. But I got the meat of the old blog. There are probably some broken links here and there. I know there are some missing pictures. And a lot of what used to be linked to might not even be in existence these days (blogs come and go, you know).

But sit back and look through some of the history. I know there have been some starts and stops. But my intent is to be here to stay. And I’d like for you to be here with me. So, is anyone still reading this thing?

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…it’s a new life…for me!

That is a quote from a Nina Simone song. I think I first heard it in a movie, but I’ve heard it now and then since. But it’s a pretty cool song. But the phrase repeated often is, “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me. And I’m feeling good.”

As we move into 2010 (do you say twenty-ten or two-thousand-ten?) I think there’s reason to be feeling good. I know everyone looks towards the new year as a time to make resolutions and changes and drop big mile markers on their life’s roadmap. I’ve never been big on resolutions. But maybe I can list out some intentions. Maybe that’s a softer way of saying things. But if I’m honest I do realize changes I need and/or want to make in my life.  So here they are, in no particular order:

• Read more. Now it starts with me being in The Word more. I really have no excuse. And You Version now has over 20 reading plans that I can download and print, read online, or read right on the iPhone. No excuse, right? But I know it should be my base in life. But I also want to read to my kids more; both the Bible and other stuff. Addie is a voracious reader on her own, but she really likes for me to read with her too. Ella is still putting together how to read, but has grown in her interest lately. And little Rowan, not yet 2, will go get a book and crawl up on the couch and call you over to him. So all of our kids like books.
• But I want to read for fun too. Good fiction books can really carry me away sometimes. But not only fiction but non fiction too. I want to learn more though books, and from that learning put that knowledge into life experiences.
• I intend to blog more. I always miss blogging. And I’ve not done it much at all lately. But I always mean too. And then I’ll go back and read some of my older stuff and really get the big again. Especially if I go back a few years. I need to figure out how to get my way older stuff imported into here. I think I have to juggle some old mysql databases and all. We’ll see. But in blogging more also comes more interactions with other blogs.
• I want to take more pictures. Whenever we look back at old pictures we always wish we had taken more pictures more often. I got a nice camera a year or so ago, but I’ve been hamstrung with out getting a good lens to go with it. Time to eliminate that excuse.
• I intend to eat cleaner. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I think I’ve probably got enough toxicity in my body right now that eating “clean” would benefit me in a whole host of ways.
• With eating better also comes exercise. I don’t want to try to be on any magazine cover. But to gain some cardiovascular endurance, a little muscle, and a lot of flexibility is where I want to go. I’ve got three small kids. I want to be around for their kids…and not just watch them from the recliner either. Without a doubt I need to work on core strength and flexibility.
• See growth and depth occur in the body of The Orchard. It’s been a great two years, but I think now that we’ve found a place (building) to call our own, we’re about to see lots of potential become realized. It’s going to take work and effort and prayer. But it’s exciting.
• Serve more. We’ve talked about it as a family, but we want to teach our kids what it means to serve and give of ourselves.  There are many opportunities around Oxford for serving too.
• Put some work into MissSportsTalk.com. It’s a good site, but it has lots of potential to be a great site. I’ve even considered starting up a podcast for it. I think there are plenty of people who would be willing to help out. And there’s a base of people already there who would listen I think. But articles and interviews for the site as well.
• Have real conversations with more people. Reconnect with old friends. But use the phone or the email or the coffee shop or whatever to connect with more people.
• Take my wife on a vacation: just the two of us.
• Take my kids on dates, just one of them and me, from time to time.

So there’s a quick mind dump. I know I wasn’t very specific with some of them. Instead of “exercise more” I could have said, “Run a half marathon in 2010″, but I didn’t.  Like I said, these are just some intentions. But hopefully they become reality.

But either way, it’s a new dawn…it’s a new day…it’s a new life for me.

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