…for the Covenant Eyes blog. For anyone wondering, this blog post subtly summarizes 2011 for me.

I’ve actually done quite a bit of writing over the last year, mostly for work. Since this website was at one point supposed to be a portfolio, I figure I’ll cross-post some of the pieces I’ve written for anyone who’s interested.

So! Since it went live on Monday, here are my thoughts on singleness via my workplace.

4 Reasons Accountability is Critical for Singles

“It is not good for man to be alone.”

If you’re at all familiar with this verse, you’re probably used to hearing it in the context of marriage. Perhaps you’ve heard it in a sermon or during a wedding ceremony.

And if you’re living in prolonged singleness, perhaps every time you hear it, you feel somewhat less-than-sufficient for not having somebody. Or maybe the opposite is true, and you have a sense of smug superiority, and you think to yourself, “Relationships are for other people. Me? I can do it all on my own.”

But this verse is about more than marriage. Nobody, not even those who choose singleness, is ever called to do life alone. Jesus always sent the disciples out in pairs, and Paul always traveled with companions. Or consider James 5:16, which says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.”

In reality, we singles need to stick together. Those of us who live alone are especially vulnerable to temptation simply because there’s nobody there to walk in on us. So whether our temptations are to watch pornography or to waste our lives on TV or video games or to wallow in bitterness over our lack of relationships, accountability is critical for us to continue growing in Christ.

Read the rest…

personal, religion, singleness, site christianity, linkedin, personal stories, religion, weight, work, writing

So. First blog post in over a year. Better make it a good one, eh?

One of my workplace’s traditions is a Christmas decorating contest. We’re encouraged to go all out on decorations, and one day at lunch the executive team will wander through the office, freely accepting bribes. The winners receive things like free bagels for the department.

Here’s the thing about our Marketing department. We are a busy, jaded bunch who manage to squeeze in more stuff than we can probably technically handle. We’ve had a surprising number of bonding experiences and enjoy each other a lot, but we also don’t really know how to justify “fun” (e.g. “decorating”) when we really have about 20 things to do within the next 5 hours. Last year we pulled together a last-second haphazard Star Wars Christmas theme (complete with a tree topped with a cutout of the Death Star), but our judges being the wrong kind of nerds, we (deservedly) did not even remotely place. Last year’s winners were our Customer Service Representatives (they completely wrapped their desks or something); our User Experience department for creating an interactive event focused on the execs’ experience; and the Developers, for going with a “We’re Developers” theme and doing things like a Christmas tree made out of Mountain Dew cans.

So how would a marketing department compete with that? Read more…

fun, shenanigans humor, personal stories, work

Context, first: I work for Covenant Eyes in the marketing department. Our big product, for the unaware, is accountability software…basically, once a week, a self-selected accountability partner gets an e-mail with a report on your Internet activity. Originally, this was about calling out pornography, but we’ve been pushing to expand it to Internet dangers in general (i.e. bad use of time, bad interactions online, and bad content). The main goal of this is that you and your partner are supposed to talk about what you’ve been doing online. This is particularly useful for parents, especially of older kids, since it means that the kids can go and do their thing online but the parent can monitor it and engage in discussions about it.

So this post by danah boyd popped up in my RSS feed. Go read it – it’s short – but the gist is that a girl who is forbidden from using Facebook by her parents but uses it anyway has a therapist who (a) lets her use Facebook at her office and (b) actually talks about what she’s doing online. Read more…

society linkedin, social commentary, work

I have to admit, I kind of feel bad for akoimeexx. He’s had a rough week. Like, seriously rough. Like, caught himself on fire and got chased by killer bees rough. Like, that wasn’t a hyperbolic statement rough. These things literally happened to him.

And having coworkers like me and Alaina, whose souls have been revealed to be the color of “dark, dark evil,” is never easy.

Alaina has, of course, written up a full report of our shenanigans. In brief, it involves erasing his penguin artwork and stabbing things with a vampire spork.

Again, I kind of feel bad for him. I know what it’s like to be the office scapegoat. (I’m actually surprised I haven’t fallen into that role…yet). And really, I should probably try to minimize the torment of the guy who’s doing much of the coding for the new website at work.

If only he wouldn’t make himself such a darn easy target…

fun humor, personal stories, work

On Friday, our UX Lead having been out sick for three days straight and us being, well, bored and left to our own devices over lunch, Alaina and I decided to kidnap his coffee mug and take pictures of it in random locations throughout the building. These were e-mailed to him sporadically throughout the afternoon. (I will admit a bit of disappointment that his only reaction thus far has been a brief e-mail saying “Funny. Have a great weekend!” I fully expect revenge when he returns, though.)

Alaina wrote up a full post about it (warning: contains me), so I’ll just direct you there for pictures. I would, however, like to add my own little postscript to the adventure.

1. You know you have a good job when your shenanigans are executively sanctioned. Our VP wandered through while Alaina and I were in the conceptual stage and gave approval to it. He even offered use of his iPhone to take photos if we needed it.
2. Our bathrooms are scary, scary places and would be fascinating case studies of material rhetoric. The picture with the cherubs was taken in the ladies’ room. Put it this way: the cherub is but one example of the accoutrements. Flowers and statuettes everywhere. Definitely not my tastes. Though the awesome thing is, in showing these photos to a few people around the office, I learned that the men’s room is decorated like a hunting outpost (camouflage and all). Personally, I’d rather have the camo. But at least we now know where to go for weapons when the zombies attack.

I love my job.

fun humor, personal stories, work

It’s been a while since I did an image dump:

The Fill the Bus project is being run by the Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement. We needed a very fast turnaround for this. I think it took me about 20 minutes total to create this image in Illustrator.

Interestingly enough, the font (Ravie) was a random pick. I wanted a font that would be fun and bouncy and chose it because it sounded like it might fit. Normally I’m pretty obsessive about font selection, but this time the first try actually worked well. I love it when things work out in my favor.

image dump design, drawing, fonts, photodump, work

It occurs to me that I should probably mention that I was interviewed for Beyond Words, a blog for professional writers, editors, and designers. The interview went up about a week ago. Featured in this interview: a really goofy picture of me eating sushi.

rhetoric me, work