Blog of Josh Hall

I like showers.  I like gadgets.  Put them together, and you have an extreme shower.  It’s probably a little spacey for me honestly, maybe i’d just put it in the guest bathroom.

http://www.aquapeutics.com/test/u6810b.html

"Don’t mistake kindness for weakness."

– Albert Collins

In a world where everything is consumer driven and made for a 24/7 commercial world, we’ve seen on demand movie rentals, personal television recorders, skipping commercials, and even regular content available for free on the internet.  We’re perpetually tailoring services to meet the demand of a growing need for customization.

Recently, a bunch of my friends and I had a tough time scheduling a movie outing with everyone’s schedules.  This has to be a common occurence.  I wouldn’t be suprised if we saw theatres offer smaller, private theaters, that let you select the movie and even the starting time.  Replace the huge 280 seat theatres with 7 40 people theatres, and as soon as it fills up to a profitable margin, let them start their movie whenever they want to.

As home theatres get cheaper, and the availability of new releases gets delivered to the home sooner, I am predicting we’ll see the disappearance of the movie theatre completely, and just like televisions became common place, so will a more developed movie experience.

Last night I had a dream i was asked to speak infront of my old college ministry group, Cornerstone.  I have no idea why they chose me, but it was my present day self talking to what I would assume to be current students.  I got up and was so energetic and excited to talk to everyone.  I started out about how grateful I was to have been involved in Cornerstone.  Then I had note cards passed out so everyone could write their majors on them and give them to me.  I told them that if they didn’t know their majors, to make something up, or just put "life" on it, because we are all getting lessons in life, especially at college.

I went on to relate everyone’s majors to the theme of "K.I.S.S." or keeping it simple.  I asked who went to Sunday school when they were kids and remembered the stories there.  That serves as an example of how simple the Bible can be.  How simple it could be to understand God’s love and intent for all of us.  Then I started saying that as we grow older, we complicate our lives, but there is scripture to guide us even in our complicated lives.  We again can understand God’s love for us in our complicated worlds.  I was tying it all into God’s love being timeless since we saw it when we were young and see it as we get old.  It’s omnipresent because in everything we do, in all of our majors in school, we can apply God’s love.  I wrapped up by saying it’s just that simple.  As humans, we try to complicate things.  As our understanding grows, things become more complex.

I don’t know if there’s any practicality in that as a sermon or what, but I just thought it was neat to speak to everyone in my dream and in an impromptu manner.

With every week that goes by, I get so excited to see what Pittsburgh is going to look like in 2 years, or in 5 years, or even in 10 years.  There’s just so much going on, and I love to think about where my house is situated in all of it.

Point Park University is now the second largest realestate holder in the city, right after the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.  There have been tons of performance arts graduates that have gone on to Hollywood.  They most recently purchased the Honus Wagner sports store to keep in line with their plans to bring down the playhouse from Forbes Avenue in Oakland to their downtown campus.  They have so much going on at that school.  They’re converting the YMCA to a student center, they’re planning on building a new sports arena, and multiple theatres for shows.  What a site downtown will be when it’s tied all together with the market square development.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09041/948106-53.stm

I had mentioned the New Granada renovation plan in a previous post.  Shortly after that, they had 2 huge dumpsters lined up outside, lighting wired up inside, and they’re gutting the place pretty good it seems.  One night they had left the lights on, and I could see inside the large room just enough to be excited about one day being able to go in there.  They’ve also lined up all the financing they’ll need for the Kuhn’s super market too.  I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some movement on that land in the next month or so.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09041/948030-52.stm

Another project recently in the news was the Forbes and Fifth Avenue corridor that connects downtown and Oakland.  The new Consol Energy Arena is showing a lot of progress.  They have about 1/4 of the steel frames in place, and sections for the seating can be seen as well as the tubing for the glass framework side.  here’s a webcam link:  http://penguins.nhl.com/ext/html/webcam4.html   A local family owns a lot of property all around the area, and have been making waves since they’re just using it for parking lots.  they seem to be cooperating now, but they apparently have a history with the mob… http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09032/946197-52.stm 

how long has voicemail been around?  You think we know how to leave messages by now?  I’m on and off conference calls all day, and I waste a lot of time listening and waiting for prompts.  I wish there were options to adjust to avoid the messages.  There is this one that reads out the whole message of waiting for the prompt, then say your name, then press the pound sign.  It doesn’t even matter what you say there, but you have to wait for the whole thing before you can press # to skip it.  Ridiculous.  I want my time back.