kinnon.tv

Keeping Cool

Toronto issued an Extreme Heat Alert today - and tomorrow will be even hotter. With the humidex, temps will be well over 100ºF, possibly over 110ºF. There's no air-conditioning at the cottage. The usual breeze off the lake provides us with reasonable temperatures for sleeping. I'm not sure if that will be the case tonight.

I spent about 90 minutes this evening chatting with a neighbour while standing in the lake. For the next two hours I let the drying clothes cool me. But now the heat is beginning to oppress once again. I'm not complaining. In a couple of months, it will begin to get significantly cooler - and I will long for these hot July/August nights.

Excuse me while I wander back down to the lake.

Technorati Tags: Heat Wave, Lake Simcoe, Toronto, weather

Kayak Revolution

My back is a little sore this morning. It would seem that my attempt at exercise yesterday was a little too exuberant.

Imbi and I decided to kayak around a chunk of our island. The lake was relatively calm, save for the wake caused by idiots in their cigarette boats who thought it fun to zoom around the island - burning fuel at a rate of around 2 miles per gallon. But their long-term madness only momentarily disturbed our pleasure.

There's a revolution happening on the water. Personally-powered boats are surging in sales, as boomers and their children get out of their power boats and get a lot closer to the water - and kayaks lead the surge. At one point yesterday morning, there were six kayaks within a hundred feet of each other. And the two-person kayak in that traffic jam, even carried a puppy.

We bought The Tomato and the The Banana at the end of the season last year from the Muskoka Paddle Shack - a new business with one location. This year they have three locations. I may just drop into their Toronto location today as I'm in town doing business. A friend showed me new paddles that will increase the speed of our kayak...if my back can take it.

Technorati Tags: boat, kayak, Lake Simcoe, Paddle Shack, personal watercraft, Snake Island

Friends @ the Lake

Brad and Roxi Bergfalk (Brad of NakedReligion fame and fortune) are here with their boys, Lars and Brandon, visiting with us and talking about Kenya. The Bergfalks are about to embarque on a four month teaching adventure @ Daystar in Nairobi. (Brad is on sabbatical from his church until December.) We met Brad and Roxi in 2002 when we had our entire family in Kenya with us and Brad was teaching out at Daystar's Athi River campus.

They arrived last night and we've been talking up a storm. We love having friends here - and in spite of last night's heavy rains - we are having a blast. (It helped that Brad brought a wonderful adult libation with him. One has to love the drinks made by the folks who brought us curling and golf.)

We are off to what we call Sandy Beach here on Snake Island. Hope you are all having a wonderful day.

Tags: nakedreligion, brad bergfalk, Daystar, Kenya, Nairobi

Al Roxburgh - Book Marketing Video - The Sky is Falling

Here's the video - hosted @ YouTube. I'm not really happy with the encoding from YouTube - but, hey, it's free. I mentioned I was doing this video back here when I discussed book marketing. UPDATE: Note that the video is now embedded on the Sky is Falling website.

Technorati Tags: Alan Roxburgh, Allelon, book marketing, The Sky is Falling!?!, YouTube

There's a Thread Here

Michael Spencer on American Idolatry: Success
Out of Ur, Leadership Journal: How Consumerism Undermines Our Faith
Mike Todd quotes AW Tozer, Striped Candy (via Jordon Cooper, who highlights Tozer's line "entertainment for the retarded saints")
Brad Bergfalk on the Cultural Captivity of the Church (Brad + family will be at the Kinnon summer place in two days. We will blog the event.)
Dan Edelen on Barna's Spiritainment - (reminds me of one "church" leader who called his service style Spirit Contemporary - now, what was Napoleon Dynamite's favorite epithet.) And Edelen quotes from the same Tozer essay as Todd.
And finally, Bob Hyatt on Church Shopping, the website (no really, there's a website where churches can pay to market themselves to church hoppers church shoppers.)

Now, I don't care about light shows, or revolving stages, or people singing bad Eagles ripoffs and calling it "worship". All I ask is that I can get a nice dark roast served to me in the pews. Is THAT too much to ask?

UPDATE: Bob points out this essay of his from 2004, in the comments. Oddly enough, 'twas the first thing I ever read of Bob's. 'Tis worth the read.

   

Tags: iMonk, Out of Ur, Mike Todd, Jordon Cooper, Brad Bergfalk, Dan Edelen, Spiritainment

Hot Seat

Death of a Muskoka / Adirondack chair. (The appellation depends on where you're from. Canadians call them Muskoka chairs, and yes, there was an attempt at a pun in the previous sentence.)
I've been working and playing at the summer place. Have thought about blogging a few times...

Tags: photo, cottage, muskoka chair, adirondack chair, fire

Editing...

...my little brains out. I'm up to my ears in work (but I'm not complaining) and have had little time to blog. I've set up an HD edit suite at the summer place - in addition to the boys' recording studio, which Imbi and Rylan set up.

It's technology central here on the island - a rustic location with bleeding edge tools. I'm even stealing computing time on Rylan's new MacBook. The Core Duo truly smokes! And I've got Rylan producing music tracks for some of my project work on Liam's and his Nuendo/Reason/Soundscape Mixtreme system - which runs on a PC.

I'll attempt to have some interesting things up over the next 48 hours. Please stay tuned.

Tags: Nuendo, MacBook, Core Duo, Soundscape, Mixtreme, HD editing, Rylan

A MacBook Joins the Family

Rylan went to the beautiful Yorkdale Apple Store with his brother, Liam and purchased a MacBook this evening - using his newly acquired University of Toronto student card to get the Educational Discount. He's a happy camper. He spent his hard earned dollars (if you consider driving a water taxi for a marina, hard work) on the 2Ghz White model with the 80GB HD and 1GB of RAM. "Smokin'" as one Mask wearing fellow might say!

The original plan had been for me to give Ry my 15" Aluminum and I would trade up to a MacBook Pro. But my 15" is acting much too strange to give to anyone (it's once again only recognizing one memory slot and Firewire no longer works on it) - but fortunately I have five months of warranty still left. Best to let Ry go with a new unit. My plan is to add a new desktop Mac with a Core Duo when they are launched - and I'll keep this old 15" going for as long as it will go - as my mobile computer. I've used it as my main computer for almost three years. And, hey, the backlit keys are still pretty cool.

So there are now four Mac Laptops in the Kinnon household. The Titanium G4/400 that Imbi uses (and has never given us any trouble), my 1.25Ghz PB 15", Liam's beautiful 12" 1.5 Ghz PowerBook (still my all time favourite PB) and the new MacBook. Add to that a G4/800 desktop, five different iPod variations (including the Nano that was part of the educational deal that Ry got) and a 9500 with G4 upgrade in it - and we have a host of Apple products in this house. (Yet the boys run Nuendo and Soundscape on a PC. Go figure.)

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPod, MacBook, PowerBook G4

Up to My Eyeballs...

...in sorting through documents for certain legal minds. I look forward to the day when I can tell you the whole story. 'Tis a good one. For some people, anyway.

Technorati Tags: documents, legal minds, Centre City, the whole story

Hotter Than A Match Head

I'm back in Toronto. It's 6:30 PM and the temperature is 91ºF - but feels like 97ºF with the humidity. It's dropped somewhat since earlier today.

Where I'm staying has only one sad, struggling AC unit. I've got a fan aimed at me. Can't wait to head back up to the cottage tomorrow to work from there. I CAN'T TAKE THIS HEAT. Good grief. This IS Canada after all. You know. The Great White North!

(Post Title is a reference to the Lovin' Spoonful's Summer in the City.)

UPDATE: Hallelujah, it's 11 PM and temps are down to 70ºF. Great sleeping weather.

Technorati Tags: Heat Wave, Toronto