May, 2010:

Touching History

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Last night I touched history.

I took Emily and James to Bugs Bunny at the Symphony and after the show the conductor and show’s creator, George Daugherty, invited us backstage for a few minutes. In the picture I’m holding the original Dobro slide guitar that was used in the Looney Tunes cartoons of the 30s and 40s. George even let James have a quick go at making one of the classic Looney Tunes sound effects with the guitar. (Click the photo for a much closer look.)

I wrote about the show a couple of days ago in my post Bugs Bunny at the Symphony. Last night we got to experience it … and oh what an experience.

Bugs Bunny at the Symphony has been described as a spectacular fusion of classic Warner Bros. cartoons projected on the big screen, accompanied by their original scores played live by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. It didn’t disappoint. The richness of the orchestra combined beautifully with the genious of those early cartoons. George gave the audience an entertaining thumbnail sketch of the cartoons’ history, highlighting the amazing musical talents of those who created the scores of the pieces we experienced.

We were kept entertained by the antics of the world’s most popular Looney Tunes characters including Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, and of course Bugs Bunny, featuring in classics such as What’s Opera, Doc?, The Rabbit of Seville, Long- Haired Hare, A Corny Concerto and many more favourites.

Bugs Bunny at the Symphony was performed at Burswood Theatre three times across Friday and Saturday.

Emmy Award winner George Daugherty has conducted almost every major American symphony orchestra as well as a long list of international ensembles. It was an absolute pleasure to catch up with him after the show. The invite to meet with him came after he was my special guest on 98.5 Sonshine FM several days ago. You can hear our conversation by clicking the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.

I do hope that George makes it back to Perth sometime soon.

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I am Thankful

May 29th, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

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I mentioned recently in my post The Power of Thank You that Australia’s National Day of Thanksgiving was set down for today, Saturday the 29th of May. It’s a day to say thank you to those who have made our lives and our communities better.

I wonder why you’re thankful today?

I’m incredibly thankful for my wife Pauline. She is beautiful in so many ways. Pauline is such an amazing person who constantly surprises me with her skills, her intelligence, her humour, her compassion, her patience and so much more. I can’t help but be thankful for being able to spend my life with such a wonderful partner.

I’m thankful for our children, Emily and James. Every day I see more and more of their potential unfolding. It’s such a pleasure to spend time with them and to share their life journey.

I’m very thankful for our extended family. It’s so very good to have people on both sides of our family that we know we can depend upon.

Our church family is also rock solid and dependable. I am very thankful that we have a group of people that we can depend upon in every situation. Over the past 17 months since we started attending our current church we have made many firm friendships and we continue to develop deeper relationships with people in our church community.

Turning up for work each day is an amazing privilege. I’m extremely thankful for my job. There are seasons in life, and I may not be there forever, but at the moment I’m thankful that God has placed me in such a great workplace.

I live in Australia and not just Australia but Perth, Western Australia. There’s a huge reason to be thankful.

My body may be getting older but I’m still physically active and I love the opportunity to get on my bike and hammer to work and back each day. I’m very thankful for my health.

There’s so much more to be thankful for, not the least of which is my friendship with the creator of the universe. I’m thankful that God isn’t just an out there spiritual concept or a religious idea but a real person who cares for me far more than I care for myself. I’ve seen that in tangible ways so many times over many years.

What about you? Are you able to name a few of the things in your life that cause you to be thankful? I’d love to hear about the things that create a sense of gratitude in your life. Please note a few of them in the comments section of this post or write a post for your own blog if you have one.

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Gary Coleman Dead at 42

May 29th, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

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The troubled life of child star Gary Coleman is over. Coleman suffered massive head injuries after a fall and underwent emergency surgery in a Salt Lake City hospital.

Coleman was cast in the role of Arnold Jackson on Diff’rent Strokes, portraying a child adopted by a wealthy widower. The show was broadcast from 1978 to 1986, and was a huge success.

Coleman became the most popular fixture of the show, enhanced by his character’s catchphrase “What’choo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” At the height of his fame on Diff’rent Strokes, he earned as much as $100,000 per episode. It is estimated he was left with a quarter of the original amount after paying his parents, advisers, lawyers, and taxes. He later successfully sued his parents and his ex-advisers for misappropriation of his finances. – Wikipedia

Coleman had lived in Utah since 2005. He visited Utah to star in the movie “Church Ball,” a comedy based on basketball leagues formed by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He met his wife, Shannon Price, on the movie set and they married in 2007.

In addition to continuing ill health from the kidney disease he suffered as a child, Coleman has had a string of financial and legal problems. He had at least two kidney transplants and had ongoing dialysis. In February this year, Coleman suffered a seizure on the set of “The Insider.”

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WordPress Turns Seven

May 28th, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

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In early December 2007 I moved over two thousand posts from over four years of blogging from the Blogger blogging platform to WordPress. While it was a bit of a struggle getting all the images and the Haloscan comments over it was worth the effort. Moving to WordPress was the best blogging move I’ve ever made. Blogger was a great platform to start with but WordPress has allowed me so much more flexibility.

I don’t normally write posts about the process of blogging, so you may be wondering why I’m singing the praises of WordPress today. WordPress is turning seven today.

One of the great benefits of WordPress is that it’s Open Source so it’s built by a huge community rather than a company with a small team of designers offering a product. That means that there are literally millions more themes (templates) and usable features than on any other platform.

Since our last birthday we’ve doubled theme downloads to over 10 million, and doubled plugin downloads to 60 million. Most importantly, we continued to grow the development community to 1,528 people active on Trac and 13 committers, both numbers the highest in the history of WordPress.

That’s 1,528 people pouring their hearts and souls into GPL software we all own, we all build on, we can use as we please, we can all make better. We’ve evolved from a simple script to a web platform.

I mentioned that I had a few struggles in the move from Blogger. That was really only because I was using a third party solution for comments. For most people making the switch is absolutely seamless. For the exceptions to the rule, like me, you’ll find, just as I did, that there are countless WordPress enthusiasts ready to lend a hand. In my case a guy named Justin spent a very long time making sure all my comments transferred over. He wasn’t part of WordPress, he was just a fellow blogger who was part of an extremely helpful community.

If you want to move your blogging to the next level maybe it’s time to consider joining the WordPress community. You won’t regret it.

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Breaking Doors

May 27th, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

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In a short while I’ll be changing into my cycling gear and heading out into some less than pretty weather conditions. With that being the case I thought it appropriate to revisit a post that I published a few years ago.

Kicking Down Doors

For the past couple of days I’ve battled headwinds as I’ve cycled to work. As I’ve pushed against the wind I’ve been thinking about the difficulties we face on the journey of life and how they can impact us.

I guess that a lot of the time we would prefer life to just roll along smoothly without hassles but we know that’s unlikley to happen. To be truthful, while I’d rather not battle headwinds all the time, I don’t really mind them that much. I know that when I’m pushing hard and seemingly getting nowhere that I’m building strength. I enjoy the challenge of getting to my destination knowing that I’ve perservered and I have a sense of achievement that I’d never have if it was all downhill with a tailwind.

Finding the right direction

As I was thinking about how much good the ride was doing me this morning, I started wondering about reasoning that says that we know we’re following the right direction for our life when circumstances are easy or when things ‘fall into place’. We talk about God ‘opening doors’ and ’shutting others’. Well, sometimes I think we need to discover what God wants us to do, which isn’t always an simple thing, and then go out and kick down a few of those closed doors.

I cringe when I hear people using easy circumstances as God’s stamp of approval. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that sometimes God does give us an easy passage to accomplish his purposes but if we expect that to always be the case I think we’ll be dissapointed more often than not. I do believe, and it’s been my experience, that God will sometimes open a way that previously seemed permanently shut and we need to be sensitive to that and walk through when it’s right but not just assume that if we do the right thing that life will simply fit neatly together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Of course taking the opposite view, that following the right path will always be difficult and that taking the easy way is always wrong is equally flawed.

Beware of open doors

In the end, I believe that stopping at closed doors and walking through open ones isn’t always a recipe for right living. We need to be wary of who’s hand is on those open doors.

What’s your experience been? Have you had to struggle to find the way through? Have you had to kick down a few closed doors along the way? Have you walked through an open door only to find that it’s produced more problems than it has solved? Have you also experienced those times when God has very clearly guided you through an open door?