Name: Jim Wideman

Location: Murfreesboro, TN

Website/Blog: www.jimwideman.com

Claim to fame: (from Jim’s website)

Jim Wideman is an internationally recognized voice in children’s and family ministry. He is a much
sought after speaker, teacher, author, personal leadership coach, and ministry consultant who has over 30 years experience in helping churches thrive.

Having served in 5 dynamic churches Jim understands what it takes to grow exciting, relevant ministries to people of all ages. For 17 years Jim led one of America’s largest local church children’s ministries in Tulsa, OK. Jim has also held various other positions in addition to children ministry throughout his career giving him a background in almost every area of the local church and Christian school. Jim currently serves as Associate Pastor at World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, TN where he oversees the next generation and family ministries.

In addition to working in a local church Jim has successfully trained hundreds of thousands of
Children’s ministry leaders from all denominations and sizes of congregations in conferences and
seminars around the world. Jim is considered an innovator, pioneer and father in the modern children’s ministry movement. He also currently serves as president of “The American Children’s Ministry Association,” as well as president of Jim Wideman Ministries and is one of the executive editors of K! Magazine. The International Network of Children’s Pastors awarded Jim the “Excellence in Ministry Award” in 1989 for his outstanding work in Children’s Ministry, and Children’s Ministry Magazine in 2001 honored him as one of ten “Pioneers Of the Decade” in children’s ministry.

Why We Care:

Jim has been a voice in Children’s Ministry for more years than I’ve been alive.  Jim has seen multiple shifts in the way ministering to kids is done… I want to hear from a guy who has a 30,000 ft view and where he thinks the church and family ministry is heading over the next ten years.

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Would Jim be on your list?  Have you shared a cup of coffee w/ him?  Can you hook us up?
Share your thoughts in the comment section!

GnuVince just showed me the new Perl 6 logo. The butterfly Camelia:

Clearly, it looks more like a logo for some kind of association for preschoolers or for a day-care center than a logo for a programming language. It’s repulsively cute. Seeying that, I joked with GnuVince that’d I rather have a logo that felt more like the hybrid, duct-taped, patchwork Perl actually is, so I drew the hippocamptopus:

My friend systemfault took the drawing of the cussing hippocamptopus and made a O’REILLY parody of it:

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Yes, yes, I know, it’s been done before:

Simple lines make the best statement.

Not quite porn but maybe soft porn, the kind you see on late night cable…

We just started our Twitter account. Woot! Follow us @NapkinPorn for updates on……… well, when we update this blog I guess. That’s the ticket!

Look at that fold and the way her fingers gently press the blushing tip. Droool…

Tits aka Boobies

Drawn at our kitchen table with a generic “Paper Mate” permanent marker by yours truly.

Pintsize Pointillism

Drawn by my roommate with a “marks-a-lot” marker, our first image upload makes a real splooge.

… that Zane can so much enjoy such a low cost toy!

Still revising demo … hope to have part six up in the next day or two!

Ok, finally I got started on this rather ambitious project. It’s actually quite a bumpy start. You know to start the verrine project the first I thought I should find is obviously the verrines. By the way for you who don’t know – verrines are type of dishes that is served in small glasses. It is derived from the french word “verre” which means “glass”. Quite popular now especially in the restaurants that serve modern western dishes.

Anyway, so I began the quest to find the verrines by visiting the major store like David Jones, Myers – and I found nothing. Then I tried the popular kitchenware warehouse Victoria Basement – and I found nothing. Ebay – nothing! Then I google “verrine buy” and finally I found several website that sell different set of small glasses. Most of them are french or british website. “Yay!” I thought, happily add the items to the shopping cart and proceed to check out – and guess what – they don’t deliver to Australia! It happens that all website that I found either only deliver locally or don’t deliver to Australia. They say its our Custom, they are too strict. Great, big speed hump before I even get started.

So you all have to excuse me that this first verrine project is not really made in a verrine. I just use whatever glass I have that I think is reasonable. So here we go.

Niçoise crumble with goat cheese cream

Food Creation/Preparation

This is also the first food shot that I have to make from scratch. Well when I say “I have to make from scratch” I usually mean “I read the recipe about 5 times and attempted to make it myself but then I make a big mess in my kitchen and my wife jump in and take it over from there – meanwhile I start setting up my camera”. I still find it fun tough, not sure what my wife think.

As the title implied, this verrine starts with a ratatouille as the base, followed by a think layer of goat cheese cream, then another layer of Nicoise crumble on the top. One tip that I can give here is that when putting food into a clear kitchenware such as a glass for photography purpose, let the food cool to room temperature before putting them in. Otherwise the inner side of the glass will become foggy and you can’t see clearly through the glass. Unless of course that’s the effect that you want.

In the first attempt, the second layer (the cream cheese layer) quickly sip through the base layer because the base is not dense enough. The result is that there is no clear and clean separation between the base and the second layer. So we have to start over. This time we really compact the base layer until it’s really dense before pouring the second layer. This time it works ok, although I still think if you want a cleaner separation you need another technique. One technique that I can think of is to pour a liquid jelly on top of the base layer and let the jelly set. This will then became a rather solid base for the second layer to sit on. Other trick may be to spray glycerin on top the first layer. I’ll give it a go next time.

Second layer is not as difficult but you really need to be careful so that the cream doesn’t touch the area of the glass that you don’t want to (such as the tip). It’s really difficult to clean, you can’t really use napkin to wipe it off because it’s greasy (well, cmon, it’s cream!) We use Windex to clean the glass – and gloriously render to batch inedible.

The Shooting

As usual, it takes probably good half an hour to come up with a composition that I like. I decide to do a low key shot this time since all my previous food shot is rather high key. I also got this nice table mat as a base to cover off my blindingly white kitchen bench. Shooting a low key shot on a reflective white surface is rather challenging.

I positioned the softbox rather high, 11 o’clock direction and a big reflector on the approx 2 o’clock direction to lighten up the crumble on the top. The most challenging part of this shot for me is to reduce the reflection on the glass surface. As I mentioned before the kitchen bench is white, so you can see it pretty clear on the glass surface. Now I don’t have a big black cloth so 3 of my black T-shirt need quite a bit of washing after I sacrifice them to be used to cover my kitchen bench. Even after that you can still see some reflection from the stuff that I can’t cover (such as the white plate etc). Now if you know how to get rid of the reflection completely in this kind of setup would you pleeaaaasseeeee let me know. I still can’t figure it out.

I use my usual 100mm macro, and set the f-stop to 3.5 so I can get a nice blur on the book on the background. In case you haven’t noticed, that’s the book that contain all the recipe for this project.

What’s next

I’m thinking to alternate between savoury and sweets so next one will most likely be a sweet verrine. I hope I have the proper verrine glass by then. If you know where I can buy them AND deliver them to Australia, please please please let me know

A Tumbler in Search of a Drink (294/365 10-21-09)

Originally uploaded by CarusoPhoto

The afternoon light streaming in from the window transformed this scene completely. One minute it was just a glass. The next minute it came alive.

As Children’s Ministry leaders, we have a strong heritage of Christ-followers who were not afraid to rock the boat.  We have a cloud of witnesses who came before us, calling the church to take ministering to children seriously.  The church has followed the call to minister to its next generation of leaders and innovators – we’ve created mission organizations that focus on children, we’ve developed strategies that equip parents to pass on of their faith, we’ve invented resources and magazines to empower and lead those called to children’s ministry and we’ve made strong progress in gathering together as a group of leaders focused on The Kingdom rather than our own castles of ministry.

Though innovation runs deep in our family history, it is easy for some of us to become stagnant. Many of us will be taking a look (if we haven’t already) at our strategic plans for 2010… and very few of us will be trying something totally new.  I’ll be honest, I’m speaking to the mirror on this one.

When was the last time your ministry team invented something?  When was the last time you sat down with a blank piece of paper and decided to dream big?

For some of us, myself included, we need a catalyst to initiate change.  We need others to rally alongside us to seek out innovation together.

This year, try something new.
Write your best idea on a napkin, and meet me in Las Vegas this February.

Hundreds of Children’s Ministry leaders from around the country will descend on Nevada to ask the right questions and listen to the new things God might be calling us to.

Justyn Smith, Children’s Pastor and one of the hosts for Napkin has this to say about the event…

“I’m extremely excited to announce the creation of a national children’s pastors and leaders conference called ‘Napkin Conference’. Everybody doodles and writes their ideas on napkins. Napkins are a dreamers best friend. What’s going to set this conference apart from every other conference you ask? Napkin Conference is not just a conference–it’s a giant brainstorming session with some of the world’s greatest children’s pastors and leaders. Not only is there going to be leadership principles, but there is going to be idea sessions with practical application from real children’s pastors in the trenches–just like you. Oh, since we’re in Las Vegas–the entertainment capital of the world–your registration gets you a free Las Vegas show on the famous Las Vegas Strip! Join incredible children’s leaders like Jim Wideman, Justyn Smith, Hillsong’s David Wakerley, Byron Ragains, Lifechurch.tv’s Allyson Evans and more! For more information visit www.napkinconference.com. Can’t wait to see you in Vegas!”

This is not a mega conference.  You will have time and opportunities to have real discussions with real leaders who’ve been in your shoes and who share your hopes and dreams.

If you haven’t signed up, do so today.  Watch this video.  See you in Vegas.

best napkin ever

(image by: vivien chin)

BrightSight Group speaker and author, Carmine Gallo weighs in on…BrightSight Group speaker and author, Dan Roam. From the article awarding America’s Health Care Napkins as “Worlds Best Presentation of 2009. ” In the article Dan tells Carmine, “I learned long ago that when helping executives clarify their ideas, nothing is more powerful than a simple hand-drawn sketch. The less polished, the better; the more “human,” the better,” Roam told me. “Three quarters of the neurons in our brain that process incoming sensory information are focused on vision. While most people in business think they can’t draw (they can) or that they’re ‘not visual’ (they are), we can all get infinitely better at discovering, developing, and sharing new ideas” by taking advantage of our innate visual thinking system.

Dan is the author of The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures

Carmine is the author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

When is this ever an acceptable form of etiquette? If this restaurant thought you would get your clothes dirty during the dining experience they would have provided a bib. Since you aren’t a baby and one wasn’t provided for you then it belongs on your lap. This particular establishment even has the waiter put your napkin on your lap for you, so why would you pick it up and tuck it into your collar? I hope one of those friends told you how silly you look because our whole table got a chuckle.

This was sent to me in an email, it is a wonderful read & very inspiring

You can use this easy method to decorate just about anything.

My Mum’s friend decorated a small wooden box from a hobby shop and an instant coffee glass.

All you need is the upper ply of a nice napkin (if you don’t want to cover the whole object you can cut out the design in advance using short, sharp scissors). Dot a couple of drops of glue on to the item to be decorated and place the napkin on the item. Using a soft paint brush, paint applique glue over the napkin. Start from the center and work your way out to the outer edges. Try to work smooth and avoid ripping the napkin.
Let dry.

Stunning Beauty! And so much fun!

I love it!

Hmmmm, my plain white flower pots can start looking forward to a very bright future!

I’m just having a bit of fun with the birthday cake that my wife got from her birthday. I think it’s some kind of rum cake with a sliced pineapple in the middle and a slice of straweberry on top.  The cake is really soaked into the rum and taste really juicy. 

Pineapple birthday cake

As usual, before my wife and I begin gobbling up the cake I decided to take some shots of it. The cake is covered with sweeten rum that make it very reflective, so I decided put a big light over to make a strong highlight on the side of the cake.

As you can see from the strong highlight on the side of the cake, the light is positioned very close to the cake. I also play around with a mirror to create the strong highlight on the strawberry.

Did you see the black band in the background? That’s an accident I forgot to put a white backdrop at the back, but I thought it turns out quite interesting, what do you think?

To continue the fine post-it design we’d produced in Tacuba several days before we decided that we should naturally meet here again to progress the invader outfit forward. So over several more beers, some fine mexican street food and the aid of a cut out of a person we produced a scale model from something close to hand, a napkin. No-expense spared here…

Looks like we're going dressed in giant napkins then...

Seeing the design on a person was exciting. It was big. It was feeling that little bit more real. We actually had a plan. So after the ‘WOOOAHHH yeahs’ and the ‘this will be awesome’ banter we got down to the important stuff. How the hell do we actually make this thing. What the hell do we make it out of. And how can we make sure it doesn’t look shit…

How about snack food bags came with a small napkin to wipe hands after eating? The napkin or hand cleanser can be wrapped inside the bag or attached in the outside

http://thinkaloo.com