Paradigm shift: Marriage priorities

Happiness in marriage is not about finding a spouse who always acts the way we want them to. It is about two imperfect people trusting in a perfect God and conforming to His will and purpose for them. That's a marriage God can bless!

~ Joyce Meyer, Promises for your Everyday Life--A Daily Devotional

I've had a shift in my thinking about marriage. Four years ago, when the ink was drying on my divorce papers, I thought that irreconcilable differences could be avoided if you found the person who made you happy—Mr. or Mrs. Right. As I've been walking with Jesus, I've learned that thinking is about as far from the truth as you can get and still be alive and breathing.

Clay Space - Mr. & Mrs. Right Mugs.

Now I believe marriage hinges on the two things that Jesus said were the greatest commandments: Love God, and love people. Follow my husband as he follows God. Serve and support my husband as God makes him into the mighty man of God he's called to be. Love God, and love people.

Are you still reading?

OK, good because I wouldn't want you to take my paradigm shift to mean that I have no desire for happiness and joy and plan to be some sort of marital martyr.

The plan is that as I love God and love my husband, I'll receive love, too. I haven't experienced this in a marital context (yet!), but I can tell you this works with my daughter. I love and serve her, and she loves and serves me, and we end up unintentionally trying to outdo each other because we're both committed to loving our Lord. (She's seven and very sweet.)  I believe wholeheartedly that God's plan for marriage is the same. So I plan to make that a priority when I remarry because for me, God, love, and serving are all essential ingredients for a true happiness in marriage.

Here's a blog with a perspective on marriage that I think you should read: Marriage Isn't For You by Seth Adam Smith. Enjoy!

The similarity between cups and cameras

Cups and cameras. I don't believe I've ever used both in the same sentence, but after last night both are irrevocably linked in my mind. In Nicaragua, I served in the kitchen at Centro Escolar LifeLink washing vasos or cups. (I actually washed lots of dishes, but I'll always remember the sound of the cups hitting the bottom of the deep metal sink.) At Victory World Church, I serve on the Production Team doing graphics and sometimes (like last night) I serve on camera.

Let me back up in my story a little: One big thing I do differently post-mission trip is listen better. If you'd asked me, I would've told you I was a good listener, but in Nicaragua, I realized that I listen with about 50% of my attention. I think the other 50% was spent deciding what to say next or listing why I disagreed with what was being said. Now I do speak passable survival Spanish, but that was no match for the foreign language immersion I experienced last week. So I learned to listen. Fully engaged, 100% active listening, where I hung on every word and inflection like my life depended on it because in truth my ability to really help depended on understanding what was being said. Yes, we had translators. The LifeLink missionaries are all bilingual, but during the snack and lunch rush, I wouldn't have been useful if I needed to run out for a translator every five minutes. And I wanted to help, not be an accessory putting in time so I could say that I'd been there.

Who knew that being on camera during service basically gives you the same experience?

To me, serving with a spirit of excellence on camera at Victory comes down to listening to your director's lead. Not unlike my experience with cups in Nicaragua.

Doribel and Margarita needed cups washed at certain times and in a particular order so that there were always enough cups, bowls, and spoons for the children. (Real cups, bowls, and spoons by the way. Not the disposables we use here.) No one wants hungry children standing at the lunch counter, and let me tell you, those ladies work with a spirit of excellence and run a tight ship. Our director needs shots and all the other things camera do done at certain times and in a particular order so that we capture the service with excellence. No one wants a guest or member to miss an encounter with the Holy Spirit. And yes, God is more than able, but when I'm on graphics or camera, I don't want someone distracted from worship or the message because of me. 

So last night, I brought my new active listening skills from the LifeLink Cocina de Victoria to the Victory Norcross Campus. I wish I could tell you I didn't make any mistakes, but I can tell you that I had an amazing experience serving that cemented being a better listener as one big thing that I'll do differently going forward.

PS - The photo on the left is of me in mi cocina, and you best believe that these days not one of you can touch me when it comes to clearing out a kitchen sink! ;-)

Be blessed and thanks for reading. More soon...

Cray cray confirmation

However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” — the things God has prepared for those who love him— (1 Corinthians 2:9 NIV)

Last Saturday, I made a hard decision to follow the Holy Spirit on an important situation in my life. No, I don't audibly hear from God. What I do receive often is confirmation of things I read in scripture that I just know apply to me or confirmation of the knowing I believe I receive from the Holy Spirit about things I need to do or say. 

I got back from my life-changing mission trip to serve LifeLink International in Nicaragua fairly bursting with faith. There's truly something amazing that comes from going away and spending extended quality time with our God. (I guess like Jesus would often do.) And since there was fasting and praying about the situation last week, I know that being filled up on my mission trip definitely helped me make the decision I had to last Saturday. 

So waking up to this verse on Sunday morning was cray cray (crazy) confirmation for me because I know that out of the sacrifice I've agreed to make God is going to do wonderfully and abundantly more than I can imagine. He wants to do that for all of us. Sometimes (OK, most times!) it's just hard to release my pride and my point of view to open up to God's plans and purposes for my life because I can't readily see or even understand what's waiting over the hill. With my personality type that's KOABD, but I remind myself that I should live with a heart wide open because God has good intentions toward me and wants to bless my socks off.

I think that's a good thing, and I can't wait for more confirmation as I move forward post-mission trip. 

More Nicaragua-related posts to come soon!

Image: behance.net

Suds of solidarity

Hugs. Back rubs. Laughter. Sweets. More hugs and more laughter.

Wash. Or as Linda called it, "Busting those suds!" Rinse. Dry. Repeat.

Wednesday was filled with the rhythm of the kitchen and more bonding with Doribel, Margarita, Doris, and Christina. Linda and I were drawn even more into the amazing thing that happens when women work together toward a goal. I don't even have a word for that that thing is, but I'll definitely accept suggestions because that thing is a think of God and extremely powerful.

It produces momentum... We cleared snack cups and lunch cups and lunch dishes on a dime for all the students coming to the kitchen. 

It produces grace that covers mistakes... I wasn't run out the kitchen when I sliced the tomatoes for our team's lunch the wrong way or when I passed a tray of empty cups to be handed to the children. 

It produces love that looks out for each other... Like when Doris waggled her finger at me for hunching over the sink, and then rubbed out the soreness in my back. 

Sure, Linda and I made mistakes, but the ladies corrected us with smiles and teased us with laughter. Maybe Wednesday was even better because we went to Doribel and Margarita's church on Tuesday evening. Linda shared an amazing message about not letting doubt and discouragement keep you from your God-given purpose. Or maybe we had this experience because we're foreigners and hosts of Mike and Deborah Turner from LifeLink International. I can see why that would be the case, but I'd still love to be able to bottle the solidarity of the past four days and apply my experiences to team situations I've come across in ministry and at work. 

On Thursday, Doribel said she the others could leave but that she was going to chain Linda and I to the sink. I know they'll miss our help on Friday with the fifth member of their team, Rosa, still out. But I think they'll also miss the laughter and fun we've had, especially after we'd clear the children and our team's lunch things away and chat while resting our feet.

I know I will.

#thingsiforgot Part 1

>> How important bleach is for hygiene and disease prevention. 

>> How much fun you can have chasing small children. 

>> That the kitchen is truly the heart of any home... or school. 

>> Hugs cross language and cultural borders. 

>> High fives are universal even if you don't know what they're called in Spanish. 

>> Music is a common language.

Cray cray confirmation

Then Jesus said to the Roman officer, “Go back home. Because you believed, it has happened.” And the young servant was healed that same hour. (Matthew 8:13 NLT)

I shot up off the bed this morning after I read this verse. This is from today's Joyce Meyer's Promises for Your Everyday Life devotional, and the word struck a very strong cord for my roommate sisters. We prayed this exact scripture over one of our new friends from the Centro Escuelar LifeLink kitchen yesterday. Margarita asked for prayer for her son who is having his head examined to check for brain lesions on Friday, and Linda shared this example of healing as we laid hands on her and prayed. Jesus didn't have to be at the centurion's house to heal his servant, and we know that we didn't have to be at Margarita's home to pray for God to heal her son. Margarita's faith was warm and bright, and as we stood in a circle around her, you could feel her love for her son and her faith rising up.

Powerful. 

I'll be sharing today's verse with Margarita (using the Spanish NIV Bible on the YouVersion Holy Bible app) because I fully intend to be back in the kitchen washing dishes. We're not just an exta accessory in the kitchen, Linda and I. We're not just an extra addition because of the mission trip. We're needed because this week the lunchroom ladies are short one of their team members, and it was a wonderfully fulfilling feeling to hug and sit and chat with the ladies yesterday after serving all day in their world. They sure do love the children in the school, and serve with excellence. The lunchroom lead lady Doribel runs a very tight ship, and I enjoyed being pulled and stretched to turn the cucharros, platos, and vasos around quickly for the next set of students to be fed. This verse should be confirmation for Margarita of God's promise and intention to continue Jeffrey's healing. 

Linda and I are going in, and I know today is going to be a great day. Glori a Dios. 

---

UPDATE: I wasn't able to post this blog before we left for the LifeLink base this morning. So I wanted to tag on an update that today at the school was GREAT. Margarita, the other lunchroom ladies, and the mission staff were all encouraged by the confirmation, and we had a great time working together in the kitchen. Yesterday, the let us wash, rinse, and dry how we wanted. Today, they were comfortable enough with us to direct traffic, NAND we washed, rinsed, and dried their way. I'm pretty glad we requested to stay on kitchen duty because we've had extra time to building relationships and minister to each other by serving each other while serving the children at the school. Something special happens in those moments when you're all working hard together for a common goal. Something much more powerful than providing only money and things. Common sense, right? But it's one thing to know that and something else altogether to experience it for a full 8-hour day. The only thing I can think of that comes close is my experience with my Leadership Bay teammates.

I think I've caught on to why so many people have been telling me I'm going to come back changed.

I'll try to post a few vignettes when we get back from our second church service tonight. I'm excited because this church is where many of the lunchroom ladies and their families worship. 

Vibrant vignettes

Courage to speak

Yesterday after our vision walk and our tour of Ciudad Sandino, we visited evening service at Ministerio del Espírito Santo, in what felt like the far side of Managua. Afternoon and evening services are apparently popular because congregations meet in the cooler part of the day, but somethings are still the same. Church didn't fill up until almost the end of the second worship song. Afterward, we went straight into a time for sharing testimonies, and now I have to admit that this was my first full Pentacostal church service since I was a teenager. So I was nervous. Plus, I'd agreed to give my testimony. So I was doubly nervous. Then on the drive over I'd learned that Nicaragua is predominantly Catholic (I shouldn't have been surprised) and is vehemently against abortion. For some reason, I took that to mean people here are also vehemently against divorce. (Don't ask why. I think I was looking for any excuse to be anxious.) So I was tripley nervous. 

Thankfully, courage is faith that has said its prayers, and the notes you see in the picture translates into a testimony that I know gave glory to God and not me.

I hugged so many people, high-fived and picked up numerous children, and practiced lots of survival Spanish. We're the first LifeLink group to share communion with a church, and I experienced the amazing power of the Holy Spirit to link a church together even if all the body doesn't speak the same language. Muy bonita.

On the importance of education

This little preciosa nina lives in a one-bedroom home with her mom, dad, sister, and adorable baby brother Samuel Isaac. The home has dirt floors and has raw sewage flowing 6-10 feet from the entrance. You probably wouldn't be surprised if I told you that the dirt floor was clean and swept, and that the one-bedroom home is meticulously kept. In my previous experiences abroad and at home, poor people often have the neatest homes. Dirt, concrete, or tile--it's as clean as can be. What did surprise me though is that the number one request of the residents of Ciudad Sandino was for help educating their children. That's what Mike Turner from LifeLink said he was told at a community meeting, and that's how Centro Escuelar LifeLink was born.

Here in Nicaragua, the average highest education level completed for women is second grade and for men it's third grade. This little girl may well be already more educated than her mother because LifeLink goes up to third grade. Whether that's the case or not, I can tell you I think her parents are very proud of her education and achievements at school. This photo was in a place of honor and her mom glowed as she showed it to us. 

And my heart turned over. 

Day One down... Ready for Day Two

Quick snapshots!

Mission Trip: We're here!

We're here! Apologies, but I'm honestly too tired to blog properly, so here's the email I sent out a little earlier tonight...

I'm happy to report that my mission trip team from Victory World Church has arrived safely in Managua. We've settled in and are preparing for tomorrow (also known as getting some much needed sleep). 

I'm also happy to report that we arrived with all our luggage, including nine ministry bags. We've brought supplies such as Spanish language Bibles, arts and crafts, gifts for sponsored children, and even graduation gowns for the children who will graduate from Kindergarten on November 22. (Centro Escuela LifeLink breaks from November to February. The missionaries head home to their families and come back in January to prepare for the new school year.)

We had an interesting trip down that included plane technical difficulties, and circling Miami airspace until POTUS left in Air Force One. I definitely wish I'd been able to catch a glimpse of Air Force One out our window, but needless to say that didn't happen. Arriving at the airport here definitely reminded me of Jamaica, and I'm very excited to learn more about the work our team will be doing starting tomorrow. 

En la mañana! Dios bendiga. 

I always get what I need

Do you read a daily devotional? You should. Even if you're not a Christian, starting your day with reflection and something to grow your mind is a great idea. I've found the days when I dive into a devotional and spend time with God are much more productive and less frantic and stressful. Plus, I have more energy left at the end of the day, which is super important for us single moms.

This year, I'm reading Joyce Meyer's Promises for Everyday Life daily devotional and I always get what I need whenever I crack open (click open) my YouVersion Holy Bible app--even when I'm behind in my reading.

For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. (James 3:16 NIV)

I read that verse and immediately thought, "Yay! We're not talking to me this morning." You know that moment when you think that this devotional or message or whatever isn't for you because you've got this. Away from me, pride! That's something I'll probably dive into later, but this morning I smiled and thought OK, no envy. Check. No selfish ambition. Check. And certainly no disorder and evil practice. Whew. 

But then I read on and was reminded that for those checkmarks to remain checked, I have to remain humble above all else, and no matter what the situation. By the time I got to the prayer, I realized the devotional was talking to me this morning: As I head off on my mission trip to Life Link International in Nicaragua tomorrow, I have to stay humble so that I can keep those checkmarks checked. No envy. Someone on my team gets a gazillion hallelujahs during their testimony, while I get barely a hand clap. No selfish ambition. Someone on the team leads someone to salvation, and I don't. I'm sure that seemed as silly to you as you read that as I did to me while I typed that, but pride, envy, and selfish ambition are sneaky buggers, and I want none of them tagging along or popping up on this trip. 

So Joyce was talking to me this morning. Thanks, God!

More to pack than my suitcase

Months ago, a good friend cautioned me not to spend so much time fundraising for my mission trip that I forgot to prepare my heart. That stuck with me because I got realization that it's probably possibly to have all the money to go on a trip debt free, but still arrive in country with a bankrupt heart.

Ouch. 

I definitely don't want that to be me.

Today, I discovered Prepare My Mission, and tonight I started working through the site's "unpacking" questions about the purpose of your trip and how to stay in a place of grace no matter what situations you face on your trip. 

Here's the link. Enjoy...

http://preparemymission.com/unpacking/

Me + Nicaragua = Missionary

After rereading a few of my old blog posts, I think expressing my upcoming mission trip as an equation (Me + Nicaragua = Missionary) has really hit home to me how different my life is from the last time I posted. But seriously, more on that later...

This post is a quick overview about what's on deck for this November when I head down to Nicaragua for my first short-term mission trip. I'm excited and I'm anxious, and both emotions have mixed together and fragmented into bright pink and yellow polka dots that bubble and fizz inside me whenever I think about the trip. 

I go to Victory World Church, and we're partnering with Life Link International to help change lives in Nicaragua, where Life Link has worked throughout the past 10 years to offer medical clinics and introduce an education facility and running water. I'll post more information about the trip soon, but if you'd like to make a donation, click here for a post that explains what to do.

• Mood: filled with joy and expectancy
• Music: listening to the cars outside my office window

It's been a long time...

My last post date on this blog was more than 4 years ago.

Wow.

So much has happened in the past 4 years that I know I'll never be able to summarize everything in one blog post.

So all I'd like to say right now is I'm back. Well, not just that I'm back. I'm back, but I'm also different because the biggest change that's happened in the last 4 years is that on August 29, 2013, I made the decision to let go and give my lift to Jesus Christ, to ask Him to be my Lord and my Savior, and to accept Him as my friend.

• Mood: subdued joy
• Music: the sound of cars driving by my office window

The Sims 3 is here!

Honestly, I can't believe I forgot to ask for the day off work completely, but everything worked out well. I hoped it wouldn't be another 9pm day at work and the team came through. (Thanks to everyone on the weeklies desk for making it happen before 7pm today!) Mad dash to Game Stop, where I learned I didn't have anything more to pay on TS3. I thought I'd had foresight back in February, but it turns out that J is just a truly awesome person and had gone over there at some point and paid it off for me! Best surprise e-v-e-r because it's not my birthday or anything and I truly wasn't expecting anything like that at all.

So why am I on here blogging? Just typing a couple lines and uploading pics while I back up some files pre-install. Plus an XP sys restore checkpoint for good measure. (All manner of evil has happened to me during previous installs of various progs and games.) Anyway, here are the photos:



The Collectors' Edition box downstairs. Took this one with my phone after giving J' a massive hug.






The box nearly defeated me, but I prevailed. The plumb-bob is actually a 2GB thumb drive (which J says explains the high price of the CE)

Inside is a tips and tricks booklet, the instructions, stickers, download instructions for an exclusive Euro style car and the game DVD. Thankfully, it's ONE game disc this time around. The 4-disc installs with the base TS2 game was a nightmare.








Me, pleased as all get out! Time to grab J and get this install on the road... more later!








Want to read about the rebuild I did on the PC to prepare for TS3? Click here for all the blog entries.

Stress relief

How do you unwind after a hard day's work? Sometimes hard days aren't even defined by their length, sometimes it's simply the intensity of the day that pushes you past the point where you're normally able to absorb and deflect that stress and the tension that accumulates. On the way home today, I was driving with J and the Scubby and I gave the Altima its head, so to speak. Contrary to what you might think, it's not a matter of speeding, it's just driving as in synch with your partner as you possibly can. Still, I know other people on the road thought I was crazy because when we drive like that I maintain a distance quite close behind J's car and we switch lanes almost as if he was calling notes in my ear from his vehicle. I think I even managed to push him off his line as we turned into our subdivision, but I doubt that just as much as I'd like that to be true.

It all brought back memories of The Hill back home in Jamaica.

Anyone who really knew me while I held down my former newspaper position will know that after putting the Friday pull-out to bed on Tuesdays, I always took the long way home. Sometimes Oxford Road to Old Hope Road and up through Liguanea. Other times across Hope Road, past Kings House and by Barbican Circle, always to the foot of the west side of Jacks Hill.

For a wide variety of reasons, even if I went home now I wouldn't run that route like that again. Pity though. I've not found anything that quite matches up to that hill.

(Pictured is Max, my 240SX that made my Jamaican "deployment" livable.)

New note shows someone's not paying attention

Once again, Facebook (or friends on FB) broke the news for me that the Bank of Jamaica is issuing a new note. Forget the Nanny folks, our highest bill is now $10,000 (about USD$113 in today's dollars). I figured without a doubt that Bob Marley would grace this bill. Instead, I saw former Prime Minister Shearer.

At first I passed it off to government shortsightedness. "Long time dem a fight out di dread" and such thoughts. But then today I read a Jamaica Observer story titled "It can't be Bob" that explained the law governing whose image can appear on Jamaican currency.

But according to Tony Morrison, head of the BOJ's public relations department, the criteria for selection was made soon after the country gave up using the British pound and started printing its own money in 1969.

"Only the images of national heroes and dead prime ministers go on our money. The criteria came about soon after we started using our own money," Morrison told the Observer.

To me, this simply says that we're suffering from shortsightedness of another kind. Not baldhead vs. dread, but an apparent willingness to take a second look at laws made perhaps during the first blush of emancipation. No, I'm not saying that we should have a wholesale repeal of our Constitution or all laws, but the 1969 committee addressed whether we should have our own currency and replacing the image of the queen with our national heroes. The 21st century is a different time and place (mind you, we still have the mace in Parliament as a representation of the crown, but that's for another blog on another day).

Even if the government or BOJ didn't want to tackle the law on the books, perhaps we should instead look at expanding our list of national heroes to include not only Bob, but Miss Lou.

While perhaps not on Marley's scale, Louise Bennet-Coverly is without a doubt an icon of Jamaica, known by voice or sight by anyone from the rock. She's left a long-lasting legacy that you can see to this day at May Day celebrations and at Emancipation and Independence time. (My favorite poem is Colonization in Reverse.) As far as I'm concerned is Miss Lou why nuff people feel OK speaking patois to the point where Jamaican newspapers now leave people's quotes in the vernacular instead of dressing it up as the Queen's English. Just Google Miss Lou and she's the first hit — that's an icon by 21st century standards if you ask me.

Forget the tourism impact of making Bob Marley a national hero and placing him on a bill... We missed an almost golden opportunity for change and the Lord knows we could use something for Jamaicans to rally around to build something better for our island. Since I've lived to see the loss of the $1, $2, $5, $10 and $20 bills and the addition of the $500 and $1,000 notes and I haven't been on God's earth 3 decades, I have no doubt that I'll be here when we roll out a $10,000. I just hope that the driver isn't asleep in the wheel when we pull up to that bus stop.

"If we survive this week...

... we can survive anything," said one of my coworkers last Monday. I'm not sure he knew just how right he was. I joked that on Tuesday I was going to wear fatigues with black paint under my eyes to get into the spirit of things and by Tuesday evening, I wish I'd done just that.

Between a myriad of things at work and finishing up an outside project to meet a Friday print deadline, it was easily a week from you know where. Friday was the only day I left work before 7 p.m. and that day involved repeat trips to the printer because I had to insert "bleed" into a document on the fly (design heads will laugh, but although I knew what bleed was... I sure had never adjusted or exported a document with it before!) One night seeing me (and Moo Moo) at work until after 9 p.m. Then Tuesday night saw me up until 1:40 a.m. making sure that the outside project stayed on track because it's a group effort and I didn't want to be think weak link that prevented the whole class from graduating. Wednesday morning brought a brief respite because the group had our last session together that involved some spirited canoeing... I hit work after that and it was another 7 p.m. day. (Not to mention my shoulder felt like it'd been worked over with a 2 by 4 the next day!) Thursday saw some work group bonding at dinner time (Hub on!) and by Friday I hit the sack by 9 p.m. just exhausted.

And none of this includes any of the drama with the car that J bought in Atlanta the week before.

OK. So I've vented. But here's the amazing part. I felt wonderfully alive by the end of the week.

Working in a newsroom and on a design desk means you get to see near instant results (the group project is a map, so in a sense it's quite similar), which means screw ups can happen a lot faster and are indelible, but it's a huge rush to see what you've been busting your tail over... to be able to look and say to yourself, "I did that!" or "I was a part of that!" which is why I suppose they say hard work is good for you. It's a truly heady feeling that pushes you to work even harder (well, someone with my personality type anyway) and although there's a risk of pushing too hard and breaking down that's what your support group is for — whether work, family or good friends — with the trick being to know when to admit you need the support and accept it.

I can see where I'm starting to ramble, so I'll stop. I suppose my point is that although this week was amazingly hard. Reminiscing from the safety of my Sunday, I'm thankful I survived and I can see where it's made me a stronger person mentally and emotionally. What more can I ask for?

My own personal decadence...

I've just discovered my personal definition of decadence... A glass of Palmetto White from Seabreeze Winery and a bowl of cool, ripe, lush, blood red strawberries. The tangy sweetness of muscadine wine and the softness of the strawberries as you bite into them, no whip cream needed. After a terrifying day at work, this is simply pure bliss.

• Mood: Extremely mellow
  
• Music: Ashley Wallbridge - Spitfire

(Photo by GeekTieGuy)

Cinco de Mayo Playlist

Right now, I'm in (hopefully) the finally staging of working on a group project for a leadership class in which I'm participating. The design work on the project has been fun and a great chance to learn new skills and further develop the ones I'm using doing design at work. However, the data entry and editing portion is enough mimic slogging through knee-high mud. Thankfully, I ran across a blog update from DJ Markus Schulz with his Top 15 trance tracks for May and that's been keeping me going. Most of the tracks are on YouTube. Here's the list:

01. Elevation - Biscayne (Original Mix)
02. Estiva - Fading Freedom (Original Mix)
03. Paul Trainer - Seize the Day
04. DJ Eco - Borealis (Original Mix)
05. Tritonal feat. Cristina Soto - Crash Into Reason (Moonbeam Remix)
06. Kyau & Albert - Hooked on Infinity (Club Mix)
07. Project MC - Bromley Avenue (Original Mix)
08. Element One - South Haven
09. Ashley Wallbridge - Spitfire
10. Gui Barone - Lilith (Original Mix)
11. Michael Calderone & Christopher Reddick - Sound of Flight (Original Mix)
12. Ernesto vs. Bastian - Laserbrain (Original Mix)
13. Mark Sherry & James Allan vs. Stuart Trainer - Starglow
14. Hamilton - A Limit of Perception
15. Monogato - Zero Compromise

They're also on iTunes, but unless someone wants to buy me some form of an iPod, YouTube will have to do it for now lol

Roadblock a la Facebook

Jamaica definitely is coming fully into the Internet age. Last week when the plane hijacking went down in MoBay, I first found out about it on Facebook. Many people had comments up as their status message. There was even one yesterday about the report that Fray was disarmed by a female flight attendant (Related link: Who disarmed hijacker?).

Well, starting about the middle of last week, the GOJ budget discussion took center stage. And yesterday's Wall feeds have been interspersed with statuses, links and comments about various roadblocks protesting the gas tax increase. I figured this time around I'd capture a few of the comments because for me this is something new. Back in '99 if you weren't rich enough to have a cell phone, you just had to deal with the roadblocks as you came across them. Now with people Facebooking even from their phones, it seems to be a whole different ball game.





Of course, this can be both good and bad. Imagine if you have foreigners who don't know much about Jamaican culture on your friend list and they see this in their Wall Feed:



Although I suppose on one level, whether you know about Jamaican culture or not, we shouldn't tolerate people blocking the roads and disrupting the peace in this way — even if they can do it in an amazing 30 seconds flat. At the end of the day it's all part of what makes life on the rock unique.

Related links:
Protests bring disorder to Corporate Area and St. Catherine
Bogus police conning business to close early due to protests