Microsoft's New Logo compared with my work 9 years ago

Couldn't help but notice that the newly unveiled Microsoft logo looks eerily familiar....

Below is their new corporate crest, released on Thursday, August 23, 2012:

Compare that with the logo I designed for WV UPCI's official site and departments circa 2003, about 9 years ago:

The all-caps (seen in both my old design as well as theirs of the same time period) were still in use at the time, and M$ should well have shed that by now (as I did with the new look released for WV UPCI about two years ago, seen below). Other than that, their new digs look amazingly similar to my old design work. I'm chalking it up to simply being years ahead of my time (smile). I am available for freelance work, by the way. PS: I owe a debt of gratitude to Paul Pavolni of Voppa.com. He has influenced me, design-wise. Thanks, friend.

Zach Sandy: killed by lightning; now alive and well!

Press release: July 13, 2012

For immediate release.

See more at mycac.net/zach/

Parkersburg, WV - On Wednesday, July 11, 2012, 18-year-old Zachary Sandy was struck by lightning and was without pulse or breath for somewhere between 20 to 40 minutes.

The lightning strike happened on a baseball field in Parkersburg, WV that was being used by a church-sponsored youth camp. Several others who were on the ballfield were also knocked down by the lightning, but other than Sandy, none was seriously injured. The blast literally shook the ground. Pastor Tisdale, local to the area, was among those knocked down. His wife was also impacted by the blast. Their son, a young preacher named Caleb Tisdale, was taken to his knees by the strike. Along with others, the young Tisdale, who knows CPR, rushed to Zach, who was laid out and stiff as a board. Tisdale said that smoke was literally coming from Sandy's mouth and body; an image he said he will never forget. Sandy's shirt showed burn marks and smelled like it had come from a furnace. The lightning had blown holes in the young man's tennis shoes as the electricity exited his body. The hair on the back of his head was singed and burned where the lightning entered his body. He had broad, red, track marks and second-degree burns caused by the lightning having traveled through his body. His cell phone was fried, its screen shattered, a cover blown off, and some buttons partially melted. Immediately both prayer and CPR were implemented.

Sandy was not breathing, and he had no pulse. Tisdale performed CPR on his friend until being relieved by paramedics, who arrived about 15 minutes later. It was not until sometime after Sandy was loaded into the ambulance and was on his way to Camden-Clark Memorial Hospital in Parkersburg that he finally displayed a faint pulse. By the time he arrived there, he had been intubated (put on a breathing machine). He had a stable heart rate. There was talk of airlifting him to either WVU Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, WV or the West Penn Hospital Burn Center in Pittsburgh, PA. However, a helicopter could not be procured at the time. So, he was taken by ground to Morgantown. There a crowd of family, church members, and other friends had gathered, and an impromptu prayer meeting was held. Sandy was flown from there to West Penn Hospital Burn Center.

Within hours, prayer support had been registered from over 30 states and two foreign countries. The very next day, the tube and breathing machine were removed, and Sandy spoke, drank, ate, and walked. The following day, doctors reported that all neurological tests had come back normal, and that as soon as Sandy's muscle enzymes returned to normal, he could be discharged and sent home. Both family, church, and friends agree that there is no other explanation but a miracle. At the Christian Apostolic Church in Clarksburg, WV, Sandy's pastor, Rev. Doug Joseph, stated, "Thus far, each and every prayer has been answered. At first we were cautioned that he might suffer brain damage from being under CPR for so long without a pulse. Everyone prayed and the Lord answered. Then we were cautioned that his kidneys might not work properly or that other internal organs could be damaged. Again the Lord heard prayers. We were warned that burns caused by lightning strikes almost always grow worse over time before they get better. His burns did the exact opposite. We're all elated and thankful for the great touch of God bestowed on this precious young man."

Details are available at: mycac.net/zach/

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For more info, contact:

Pastor Doug Joseph
Christian Apostolic Church (UPCI)
334 Glen Falls Rd
Clarksburg, WV 26301
(304) 624-4459

Note: Photos, updates, links, etc are at mycac.net/zach/

Forever Fighting Bad Guys (or Eternity with the Good Guys)

Our most beloved stories focus on times of crisis. Humans may say and think that we long for peace, but as a species we secretly think such times would be too boring. We are drawn to drama, to the aid of the underdog. Something deep inside elicits exciting existence -- times of horror haunting us, of evil evolving in our midst, and of crisis crushing us unless we can vanquish the demons and go from victims to victors. Even if we don't truly long for terrible times, we at least crave stories of such.

This is perhaps why some scoff at the Bible's promise of eternal life. Some supposedly wizened teachers' words betray an obtuse opinion that God never made any cosmoses prior to our own, and that He likewise must never have done any other creating after leaving off constructing our cosmos -- except, they happily confess, His maintenance of a boring, fabled home of harp-strumming angels floating on cumulus clouds. How boring.

Yet the Holy Scriptures paint a different picture: war in the heavens, fought amongst angelic species predating us, and who (like humans) have broad capacity for choice, even to rebel against God. The precocious prospect of counting epochs like days and millennia like hours, as we develop continually through aiding young, unique, future species, is enthralling to this whispering warrior, who is quite certain that Eternity with the Good Guys will be far more exciting than even our grandest imagination can grasp.

One academic type has argued that it is proof of our evolution that we have grown from caring about family to village, from village to caring about state, and from state to feeling patriotic about nation. He argued that the next step in our evolution is to care about our global populace. Listen: It is neither evolution nor good when the expediency of the masses overrules the conviction of conscience of the individual or minority. Finally, in the end, it will be maturity, not evolution, that truly takes us even further than caring about all humans globally, onward to caring for new species God has not even created yet. There will be battles against evil. Wars against tyrants. Excitement. Crisis. Are you up for it?