pt 1

Going on another foodie adventure. This time to The Counter

2901 Ocean Park Blvd. Santa Monica CA 90405

It's a burger joint.

Will moblog and twitter, and will update here later.

---------
update 10:25p
WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW

Pretty much this place was one of the best burgers I've EVER had. thecounterburger.com 5 thumbs up to Jonathan Gold for the recommendation and 1200 thumbs up to the food. There were sooo many different options and choices, and since it's a "build your own" burger kind of place I'm sure the options are pretty much endless. It's reasonably priced. Around 10-15 per person, same as any sit down burger joint. I ended up with a 1/3 lb rare (which was plenty) (you can get a 2/3 lb or a 1 lb) burger with Gruyere cheese, jalapenos, sprouts, tomatoes and hard boiled eggs, with a spicy sour cream on an english muffin for a bun.

You can see my photos from the night on the moblog.

If you are anywhere near Santa Monica, do stop by.

PS my fingers still smell like cheese and burger, I kinda don't want to wash them.

the+counter food restaurants los+angeles foodie

vlog 4
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Tomorrow night I will participate in my 2nd tournament in 7 days. Yes yes, I know I still need to do a full update on dodgeball from last week. And I know I need to put up something of substance for you all to chew on. I will.

Back to the important stuff (at least for tomorrow)...TETRIS tournament.

Yes that's right, geeks/nerds + booze + tetris = w00t.

In case you are interested you can find all the details over at partyscammers.com

Or I can just tell you it starts at 9p at the vine bar 1235 Vine St.

I'll be moblogging the event as well at updating on twitter so follow me either place for updates.

Hope to see some of you there.

andrew+seely tetris tournament partyscammers partyscammers.com

New Ghetto Blog

andrew+seely ghetto+blog blog humor

vlog 3
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vlog 2
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PS
Will do a full run down about the dodgeball tourney soon. Stay tuned.

andrew+seely vlog videoblog videoblogging

Been hanging out with/watching too much web 2.0/new media peoples/sites this weekend. So for your enjoyment the 1st (of more) vlog(s).

Sorry for the quality, my camera is not with me. Quality will get better.

Enjoy.

vlog 1

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andrew+seely vlog videoblog videoblogging

This weekend I'll be participating in the 4th annual Avengers (the LA indoor football team) dodgeball tournament.

Yes you heard me right dodgeball.

I'm totally excited about this. At this point I can completely own a roomfull of middle schoolers, striking fear into their little hearts. But against other full grown adults, that is another story.

I'll try to do some live blogging from the tourney. And at the least I'll be moblogging the day as well as twittering for sure.

Remember: dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge.

from+iPhone

New Ghetto Blog

andrew+seely ghetto+blog blog humor

A few posts ago, I mentioned the fact that I started moblogging (uploading pics from camera phone to internet) and so far I have them going to TwitPic, Facebook, and Flickr.

I've now also got a new blog via blogger that is also going to house my moblogging.

Introducing

www.andrewseelymoblog.blogspot.com

Update your links and add it in.

Here is the list of places to find my moblogs
my TwitPic
my Facebook mobile
my Flickr
my moblog

andrew+seely blog moblog moblogging photo photography

pt 1

Well I did it. I made it all 8k (4.97) miles. My time wasn't as good as I had hoped for. I was shooting for 8min miles. But it looks like I did a little over those. But all in all I'm proud of myself, since I had only trained up to 4 miles, I think the last mile was stretching it a bit, I slowed down around mile 3 and had to pick it up the last mile.

In case you were wondering I'll list my playlist of songs that I ran to, just cause. It's a nice mix of slow and fast, mostly calming songs to keep my mind focused.

In order of play:
Naked As We Came - Iron & Wine
Slow Dancing in a Burning Room - John Mayer
Foundations - Kate Nash
Sodom, South Georgia - Iron & Wine
Broken - Jack Johnson
The Trapeze Swinger - Irong & Wine
Brand New Colony - The Postal Service
Hope - Jack Johnson
Portions for Foxes - Rilo Kiley

It was a good run, a good cause to support and a beautiful day outside for a run.

Might be a while before I do another race, but it's definately something that I'll be looking to do in the future. Maybe I'll be ballsy enough to do a half marathon. I will do a full marathon sometime in my life.

Gotta go take a shower and wash all the dried saltyness off of me. I'm sure and elk would love to lick me right now.

Hope you all are having a good day.

andrew+seely running 8K C.A.T.S. northridge+hospital

Dan Kimball asked a very similar question to one I want to ponder earlier on his twitter (twitter.com/dankimball)

I'm the type of person who usually doesn't like to miss out on things. Like at a movie for example. I HATE having to get up to go anywhere during the movie, even if I'm not that interested in it, something about seeing something for the first time and not wanting to miss ANYTHING. I will hold pee until I'm ready to internally bust my bladder so I don't have to come back into the theatre, only to have ask the question "what did I miss?" only to know I'm never (or at least til it comes out on DVD) going to fully know what happened, even if the person tries to explain it to me. I still have the feeling that I'm missing some huge piece of information.

And then this has flowed over into other parts of my life. I'm starting to realize this about my personality. I don't know if it's bad or good, but it's just something that I've been thinking about for a while.

Especially since I'm now an avid twitter user.

There's something about knowing what all of the people I follow are up to all the time. If I can't look at my phone when it bleeps at me to tell me there's a new text message, I'm wondering if I'm missing out on something good. Then later when I get a chance to look I see anywhere from 5-65 missed tweets. And then have to spend the time looking to see what I've missed out on. Sometimes it's nothing, but then today I did miss out on this from Kevin Rose (his twitter). Could have been fun.

I guess it all comes down to the fear that I'm missing out on things.

Is it distracting at times? Yes. Do I run the risk of missing out on what's actually happening in front of me? Yes. But it does keep me connected to people that I wouldn't normally have connections with, that I care about. It's a secondary way to keep up with friends/people that I don't get to see on a regular basis. And it's been a fun way to meet other people.

The primary question I did want to get to, was, more about personality types. Is there/Am I a type of person who is more inclined to be drawn to something like Twitter? More so than people with personalities who could care less about missing out on things?

For those users who twitter on average 30+ times a day, are we all of similar personality types? Or is there something else that makes us more inclined to use/follow a service such as Twitter?

I wonder.

What do you twitter folks think?

andrew+seely thoughts personality personality+types twitter

If you didn't know this sun I'll be doing an 8K run (translation 4.97 miles) sponsored by C.A.T.S. (Children's Assault Treatment Services) out of the Northridge Hospital.

It's a fundraiser so if you feel inclined you can make a donation here.

My goal is going to be 8min or less per mile. I'm pretty sure I can do it. If I get under 40 min then I'll be real proud of myself.

I'll let you know how it goes.

andrew+seely running 8K C.A.T.S. northridge+hospital

Really trying to think through the paradox of being content with where I am and the idea that being restless often times spurs on change and helps us move forward towards better things.

Not really sure exactly what I think about the two and am a bit tired to fully think through the ideas, but wanted to at least throw it out there and see if any of you had thoughts. I'll post a pt 2 when I have a bit more time to fully articulate what's incubating around in my head.

Do we always need to be content with where we are?

Is it normal to feel restless and wanting change?

How do the two balance themseves out?

What if we always feel there is something better to be working for?

Suggest more questions or respond to any of the above.

andrew+seely thoughts personal faith

Found this article the other day. It's kinda long, but worth the read. Especially if you work in youth ministry.

It's something that I'm hearing more and more about, but a good look at the more common occurrence of the pampering of young (think 8-14 years old) girls with salon and other beauty treatments.

Is our society on the verge of creating a generation of people who are incapable of being ok with the way god created them?

It's not just our physical appearances, but our intellects, our station in life, our emotional well being and any other facet of life.

For the sake of this blog, let's focus on the main issue of the article which is the beautification of girls who probably don't need any beauty modification.

The article goes on to tell of how salons and spas have had to create rules and regulations about their involvement in treating young girls and what they will and/or won't do to them. At one point an employee of a spa tells of an encounter with a mother who wanted to have wax applied to her daughter in places where there wasn't hair to wax. Seriously folks, there are so many problems with this picture. It's definitely one thing to go for a pedicure or maybe a facial, but to go to the extremes that some of these girls and mothers think is necessary to survive in a cultural climate is quite ridiculous, at least in my eyes. But I don't think I'm too off base here.

My favorite quote from the article is:

Without the ugly years, when do you learn to accept yourself?

I think this line speaks volumes about the natural process of growing up and learning very valuable life lessons.

I worry about students and what messages we are sending them. What our culture tells them about who they are and who they should be. I worry that they will not trust god to define them and for them to find their sense of belonging in who god has created them to be.

I hope to affirm in the guys and girls that I work with that there is so much more to who they are becoming. Awkwardness is a normal part of life. Imperfection (in everything) is perfectly ok, and in some cases definitely needed. Teenage life is in no way easy but the hope is that during it, we define ourselves and learn about who we are. I'm not naive enough to think that it was easy, and I hope I can communicate with them that it is definitely not something that I look back on as the best years of my life, but something that I now know without I would not be the person I am now. I wouldn't want to have skipped it, no matter how awkward and awful it was at times.

Let's start to create a culture that embraces our awkwardness and our imperfections. An attitude of humbleness and desire to associate with the other. Because there will always be an other. Sometimes we will be the other and sometimes it may be someone else. Isn't that what Jesus was all about? The deep understanding that even in our darkest moments of solitude we are never alone. Even in our most self-doubting moments when we feel that we've got it all wrong and no one cares about us, god does.

In many ways I think we too often use beautification and physical alteration as a cover up for what we really need to work on, which is accepting who we really are and allowing god to embrace and show off the great, detailed, careful, loving work god has put into constructing us in god's image. Which means that the things that we view as flaws are nothing more than part of a blameless and perfect god, who's image we are created in.

youth+ministry church students ministry emergent emerging+church

I had asked a few questions in the last couple of posts and didn't get quite as many responses as I'd liked to.

So I'm going to re post them here hopefully to elicit some more responses. Thanks to Jeni and Val for their contributions already.

1) I'm trying to come up with words or short phrases that describe me, for bios and such. Help me out and list a few things that describe/define me. (original post)

2) I'm looking for input/stories about volunteering in youth ministry. What have you learned? What do you wish you could do differently? What did you enjoy most about volunteering? What was the hardest part? And any other thing you can think about in relation to youth ministry and volunteering. (original post)

I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

andrew+seely questions answers

pt 1
pt 2

Here's some reflection about last wednesday and my first day back volunteering in youth ministry.

It was the greatest highlight of my week.

It was so natural to fall back into doing ministry. I connected with the kids. I played a mean game of dodgeball. I enjoyed listening to mindless teenage banter about who knows what.

I totally enjoyed starting to get to know my small group guys. I'm excited to get to know them more and help them engage with god and what god is doing in their lives.

All in all it felt like I hadn't missed a beat. I think that's a good thing.

Down deep I know ministry is my passion. I think I'm good at it and I know it brings me great joy to be doing it. A joy that has been missing for such a long while. A joy that I do not receive from my current work situation.

Even in the short time that I have been reacquainted with ministry, my thoughts and mind has re-oriented its self to once again start to see the world through ministry lenses. I process things and think theologically about the world in more of a ministry context. Hopefully this will spur me back into more posts about theology and ministry, which I have missed and long to do and many of you probably have missed as well.

I hope there will be lots more theological discussion around here in the near future.

The journey will continue. I will continue to deepen my love for students and ministry. And I will keep you updated for sure.

Thank you for your prayers and thoughts as I continue on this journey and adventure.

youth+ministry church students ministry emergent emerging+church reflection

Saw this pic on Digg.com

caption read: "is it real?"
you decide



pic ???

New Ghetto Blog

andrew+seely ghetto+blog blog humor

pt 1

Tomorrow I head back into the world of ministry.

I'm not too sure how to feel about all this. Part of me feels quite unprepared. Part of me is extremely excited, because I know this has been a part of my life that has been missing for a while. And part of me dreads having to learn new students' names and trying for the life of me to remember those names I should know.

I hope that as I venture back into the world of ministry and more specifically volunteering I have learned a few things about how to best love and communicate to students.

I know from the stint in full-time (as much as my last job was full time) ministry, how valuable spending time with students is. Even from a simple phone call to going out for a slurpee on a hot afternoon. I hope to fully participate in the ministry to these students. I hope my own questions, doubts, fears, and ignorance towards God will only aid students in understanding their faith and their understanding of God.

I hope to lead them on a journey of space, quiet, wrestling, awe, mystery, paradox and hope.

I hope to learn far more from them than I have to tell them.

There's still a lot of praying to do, still a lot of trying to figure out how I fit into the larger world of ministry and still a lot of growing and contemplating to do as I ponder the mystery of ministry.

I did have a thought today about possibly trying to get myself a seminar at the National Youth Workers Convention this fall, if Marko will have me. As I ponder what it means to be fully involved as a volunteer in a ministry.

I know many of you who read this have had some experience in ministry both as volunteers and paid staff and I would love to hear about things you've gained from ministry and things you wish you'd have done differently as I begin to think about what I could present to other youth workers. Your thoughts and comments are more than appreciated.

youth+ministry church students ministry emergent emerging+church

I'm working on my bio, for not only blogs and social networking, but also if I decide to get back into writing articles and such.

I wanted to throw it out to all of you to help me come up with 1-3 word phrases about what defines me. Stuff like "lover of ultimate frisbee", "blogger" and all those other things.

So help me out. Offer suggestions in the comments.

Thanks!!

andrew+seely bio