Chumdinger

Last week I was reading Justin Wise’s blog on “Why a Four-Day Work Week Will Be the Norm”. He referred to Time Magazine’s article on how the state of Utah implemented it and is saving money and winning over people.

While I don’t work in Utah, I love having a 4-day work week. The transition happened a month ago after trading my Sunday duties at the 901 for some creative contribution to the college group. Instead of Sunday through Thursday, it’s now Monday through Thursday.

Monday 8hrs, Tuesday 14hrs, Wednesday 8hrs, Thursday 8hrs, 3 day weekend.

It helps that Foundry, our young adults service, meets mid-week and that all of my face-to-face meetings are packed into Tuesdays & Thursdays. And having that extra day actually makes me eager to get back into the office the following Monday.

But really in this age of connectedness, work emails on the iPhone, Twitter updates, and Facebook messages, are we really taking those days off?

Each year my roommates & I host the “Friendsgiving” feast at our house. A big pot luck meal where we invite all of our friends & neighbors. Or as one of our friends jokingly calls it “A soup-kitchen for yuppies…”

It’s gotten bigger every year and this time we’re expecting around 150 peeps. We’re making two 22 lb. turkeys. Six other friends are also making turkeys and bringing them over later.

The best way to make a turkey? The short explanation – Make a brine bath and then cook the bird upside-down for the first 2 hours. The long explanation – Here’s a photo gallery explaining the steps:

Making a Tasty Turkey

Hey all, I’ve redesigned the blog and moved it here. I took an existing template and played around with css and the design elements.

The old one:

http://chumdinger.wordpress.com/

Thoughts or suggestions?

Time to start writing again.

What a crazy week. Lets see if I can recap:

Sunday: Helped coordinate the 901 service at Bel Air Pres, Lunch, an afternoon at the pool, and dinner with friends in Eagle Rock. Funny how it takes 7 freeways to get home- 2 south to 5 south to 110 south to 10 west, to 405 south to 90 west to pch.

Monday: I played a little Monday Night poker with the guys. 2 tables, finished 5th.

Tuesday: Staff reductions at Bel Air Pres. 25% of the staff affected with either job loss or a cut in hours. It was a crazy day- a mix of being sad for those affected, a little frustrated by a lack of communication, and relief that I still get to work in full time ministry.

Wednesday: Worked late cause I was taking Thursday off.

Thursday: Urban Hike. 3 of us hiked 16 miles from downtown Los Angeles to the Santa Monica Pier. Yeah, it was a crazy adventure through MacArthur Park, Korea Town, Mid-Wilshire, Miracle Mile, Beverly Hills, Century City, Westwood, West LA, and Santa Monica.

Friday: Body is hurting. Stayed in and was glad to not do too much of anything.

Saturday: Cleaned house and had a surprise party here for a friend. He was truly surprised.

James has been working with these women in Uganda for a while now. Check out the Acholi Beads blog: acholibeads.com/blog

Research among displaced Acholi people has shown that a woman who makes a good living spreads that benefit to about 20 people around her – she feeds her children and sends them to school; she cares for her nieces, nephews and grandchildren; she helps her brothers, sisters and parents meet their financial needs. So each time we partner with a new woman, we know 20 lives are improved.

Had a great time this weekend in Big Bear with friends. It was good to get away from Los Angeles.

And then got home to find someone had backed up into my car that parked on the street in front of the house…

I’m glad he left a note and will be taking care of the repairs. There are still good people in LA.

We got a little write-up from Matt Singley who blogs on the world of social media. While Marc & Pearl is not quite social media like Facebook, Twitter, or Brightkite, one could say that the jewelry is “social” and the designs are physically “media”.

And we are closing our doors due to the struggling economy like some other tech companies, so there’s more that’s in common than not.

Matt talk’s about our final 75%-80% off jewelry clearance so check it out and pass along the word.

Hey all, sorry I haven’t posted a blog in a while. With the new job and the new house, things are pretty hectic right now. I’m gonna take a break from writing for a little while longer.

But here’s a question for you to think about…

Take a look at Acholi Beads, a socially proactive business started by an old friend. James Pearson took his experience from working with Invisible Children and living in Uganda for 2 years to help Ugandan refugees affected by war and injustice. James is there in right now for two more weeks, and it’s picking up momentum and creating awareness.

For the last 21 years Africa’s longest running war has ravaged the northern regions of Uganda, home to the Acholi people. Over 2 million people fled their homes to seek safety. Some made it as far as Uganda’s capital city, Kampala, where they could only find refuge in a hillside slum, now called Acholi Quarters.

Acholi Beads are made by these refugees living in the Acholi Quarters slum. As they struggle to rebuild their lives, the sale of Acholi Beads provides a vital income and helps share their story with the world.

Acholi Beads is a socially proactive business. As we grow we hope to hire more displaced people to make these beads, and to offer them training in how to best use their incomes.

Oh, what an eventful day. For downtown El Segundo anyway. I’m going to miss this place when we leave.

See, we share our ground floor office space with online ad agency Gigya. And downtown El Segundo is a nice slice of small town America. Very quaint. Not much happens here. 

Today we had a fairly normal middle-aged lady come into the office.

There’s a shattered beer bottle on the sidewalk near your front door.

Yup,  its a shattered beer bottle alright. She doesn’t ask for a broom or even request that one of us could take a broom out there to clean it up.

Her intention was to warn us. See, she didn’t want us to “get in trouble” in case the cops come to question us. Why would the police come you may ask? Cause she had just been to the police station across the street the report said “crime”. Morgan thanks her for the heads up and she walks back outside to wait for them to show up.

It wasn’t any of us. We surmised that if the police did come in to talk to us, we could prove our innocence by letting them take our fingerprints and compare them to any prints found on the broken pieces of glass outside. 

We noticed that she started directing pedestrians around the “crime scene” and I really do think she was being sincere about it all. She was just looking after the well being of her beloved town. 

After about 10 minutes, the police still haven’t showed up. She comes back into the office to tell us she doesn’t want to wait anymore and that she’s gonna go home and take a nap. Morgan responds with something like…

No problem, we’ll wait for them and let them know you left.

Another half hour goes by and we all think the police aren’t ever going to show up today. And they don’t— we got away with that one

Yes, this was the drama in downtown El Segundo today. I really do love this place.