I joked with my wife the night before that I wanted to get to the AT&T store at 5am. She thought I was serious. I reminded her that we live in a relatively small city. Surely there would not be much of a line.

Our fair city is not quite as small as I thought it was. Or, as one of the AT&T reps told me a few days before, at last year’s iPhone launch, they had many people come up to our city under the same assumption that not many people would be buying one. There was a line then, and there was a line now.

Upon arriving at 7:30am, we were approximately the 51st and 52nd people in line. Three hours and 4 pounds less (it’s Texas, it was hot, and I sweat) later, we finally made it into the air-conditioned coolness of the store, only to be told it’d be a 7-10 day wait for the next shipment. At least we got on the waiting list.

To add minor insult to major sweating, upon reviewing my confirmation email from AT&T regarding my iPhone purchase, I saw that AT&T had ordered a white iPhone for me instead of the black one I’d requested. I guess I’m not cool enough for a black one. However, it was just yesterday (Tuesday), that the next stock of new iPhones came in. I decided to cave on the color point, deciding I’d rather have the phone now than white for a swap, an exchange, or the next shipment. After all, I’ll be getting a case soon. Or I’ll just spray paint it.

Upon getting the new phone, my old iPhone went to my wife. She was terribly excited to receive it, until this morning, when we couldn’t get her voicemail set up. After more than a few hours of angst and calls back and forth with “try this” or “try this” to no avail, we finally got the situation solved by setting up the voicemail via an “old-school” way - calling her number and pressing * to access her voicemail. Situation solved; she can now actually receive important calls at her work.

To make matters worse as I was trying to help my wife with her voicemail problem, my new iPhone began acting up. The proximity sensor (the thing that turns the screen off when it’s by your ear and turns the screen back on when you take it away from your ear) began acting in reverse! Do you know how difficult it is to use a touchscreen when it’s turned off? Eventually, I figured out that my old iPhone silicon case, which now housed my new iPhone, was somehow causing the problem. Removing the case removed the problem. But doesn’t that seem like a strange problem?

It’s been a technological roller-coaster ride these last few days and makes me wonder why I sometimes have to be an early-adopter. The headaches sometimes don’t seem worth it, especially when I assume certain companies (ahem, Apple) are impervious to screw-ups. As evidenced by the long lines and backed up iTunes servers on Friday, their vaulted status, in my estimation, has been taken down a notch.

I blame my genetics for the urge for tech. My grandfather bought expensive calculators and, when they were new to just about everyone, computers. As he passed away before the advent of the Internet, I have to wonder what he would even think about an iPhone.

SPRINTING THROUGH PARIS
aka the short version, at 90 seconds
(per Flickr’s time limit)

Pop Goes the Church makes the case for the wise and effective use of popular culture within a church service. Stevens does not approach the subject lightly, nor does he speak from an academic or merely hypothetical point of view. As Executive Pastor at Granger Community Church in Granger, Illinois, Stevens speaks from years of seeing his opinions put into effective practice.

Television, movies, music, the internet: these are the means of communication in the 21st century, the way in which we (especially in America) learn the greater narrative of our times. It is mass media that entertains us while simultaneously telling us who we are and what we value.

As the church has had to adjust to the printing press and every other major technological innovation of the last 2,000 years, so to must today’s church. It would seem that the church has chosen both the path of most resistance and the path of least resistance. Most traditional churches err on the side of maintaining the Christian bubble, wary of the needles of pop culture that threaten to burst what must be a fragile faith in the first place. On the other hand, hipper-than-thou churches err on the side of accommodation, sacrificing substance for style in the name of the trend, the fad, and the holy most, otherwise known as a popularity contest.

Stevens pleads the case for the wise use of the culture around us to create welcoming and familiar places of entry into a church service for those that would otherwise be disinclined to step foot into a place of worship. Citing more than a few biblical instances, including Paul’s speech at the Aeropagus regarding worship of an unknown god and Jesus’ use of stories (parables) relevant to his culture, Stevens devotes half of the book to the theoretical underpinning of his belief. Fortunately, for those that don’t know what such a church service could look like, Stevens then uses the last half of the book to give concrete examples of how such positive use of popular culture has worked in American churches.

As a seemingly lifelong church service attender, I appreciate the changes Stevens proposes. Instead of escaping the culture, boycotting the culture, or diving headlong into culture, I agree with the notion that we, as the church, should be engaged with the culture, as long as the end result is life change.

“Stay alert. This is hazardous work I’m assigning you. You’re going to be like sheep running through a wolf pack, so don’t call attention to yourselves. Be as cunning as a snake, inoffensive as a dove.” - Matthew 10:16, The Message

www.popgoesthechurch.com - the book’s site
www.leadingsmart.com - the author’s blog

My apologies for the egregious use of caps in the title, but consider me more than concerned that this was very nearly my flight! It left a week before from DFW, headed to Paris, which is exactly what we did. I just hope that the problem was fixed before our flight, or we were in fact on a different plane. Either way, there are certain news stories I wish I just had not run across.

And this is a good sign:

“Airline officials say the pilot thought the loud noises during the flight last month were due to cargo shifting, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press.”

Thus the following exchange:

“Did you hear that Bob?”
“Hear what?”
“That loud bang?”
“Naw. Probably just someone’s souvenir-stuffed luggage. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“OK. If you say so…”

I’d forgotten about this embedded slideshow feature! Click each large picture to read the captions!

Here are 62 photos for your viewing pleasure (out of the possible 1000 or more that we took).

I’m currently uploading the fifth batch of photos from our trip; we’re sitting on 2.31 GB of photos as taken by my wife with our fairly new Canon Rebel XT (which we bought specifically for this trip). I also have nearly an hour of video footage as shot by myself (via the excellent Sanyo Waterproof Xacti), which I hope to condense into a cinematic masterpiece to be known as “90 seconds in Paris.” We’ll see how that turns out. I’ll also share the best photos, or the ones that most aptly describe our time in Paris.

For now, you’ll just have to wait till next week for the further adventures of myself, the wife, and our friend in Paris.

www.thursdaynext.com

www.rickreillyonline.com