Our Blog

We have new photos!

2007-10-25T19:33:00.000-05:00

We've had a request for pictures of Jake's "white boy fro" and we were thinking..."why don't we just post some of our favorite pictures, random though they may be?" So we did. Go check 'em out on our Photos page.

New iMac! Yay!

2007-10-25T06:23:00.000-05:00

So, yesterday was a big day in the Bondurant household. Our new Mac came in! We knew that the iMac was going to look cool in our living room but we had no idea just how cool it was really going to look. As we were unpacking it, we began to see just how awesome it really is. I guess its one of those things you just have to see to understand. :) Anyways here are some of the photos from the unveiling (click on them to see them bigger). Also, Leopard is on its way! I should have it tomorrow! There will be some pics of that coming as well.

Our New Cousin

2007-10-15T14:49:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we got to visit Diana's cousin Kevin and his wife Jenni in Slidell, along with their 4-year-old son, Colin, and the newest addition, Callie. Callie Marie Havard was born on Wednesday, October 10, and she is so precious! Callie stayed in Diana's arms asleep most of the time we were there. Or at least until she got hungry! I could not believe she was able to sleep through the noise of everything else that was going on in the room, but she was so peaceful the whole time.

On a side note, I cannot wait till we get a new computer. It is tough trying to update our site right now from the macbook!

Church Hunting

2007-10-08T11:17:00.000-05:00

We moved to New Orleans on July 9, 2007. For about the next 7 or 8 weeks, we drove back and forth to Brewton, AL to continue working at Alco Baptist Church. Since finishing our work there, we have embarked on the journey of trying to find a church home here in New Orleans. Neither of us have ever really had to do this before, so it's been a new experience for us. It's been a lot harder that we thought it would be. The part that's been really hard is not feeling like we have a place where we belong. Somewhere we can get involved and build relationships. We've now visited a total of 4 churches, and I think we may have found where God wants us to be, but I can safely say that this has been a learning process more than anything else.

First of all, if you're searching for the perfect church, you're never going to find a church home. It doesn't exist.

Second, there is a difference between a standard "We're glad to have you this morning" and one that's really sincere. They're not that hard to distinguish. Then of course there's the "We're glad to have you this morning and we'd love for you to come to lunch with us today." Not heard very often, but very effective at letting someone know you really care about them. I think I'll come away from this experience knowing a little bit more about how I should approach new people who visit my church. I'll know a little better how to make them realize that we really do care about them, and we want them to be a part of our church.

Third, there are obvious things such as essential doctrines that cannot be compromised. But beyond that, the details about how they organize their services, what kind of worship leader or pastor they have, and lots of other little things are just that....little things. We've been drawn to a particular church because of the sincerity of the people there. The pastor, the worship leader, the congregation are all there because they have been saved by a gracious God, they want to worship that God, and they want to draw others into the worship of that God. When you're in a church like that, the details don't really matter anymore.

We're still praying about where God wants us to worship and serve while we're here in New Orleans, but I have a feeling we may have finally found the place.

Gateway Computers

2007-09-28T06:31:00.000-05:00

So, I think I remember someone saying that "imitation is the highest form of flattery" or something like that. Well, recently Gateway computers has put out a new computer. I think it is officially called "One" or something stupid like that. Basically it's a crappy look-alike of a Mac. It's bad when you can't even make a good copy of something. Gateway even goes as far to make a remote for it. Sounds familiar... I love the fact they come across with this as if it's a new concept. (Read their design philosophy, its a joke.) Anyways, I just thought it was good to inform ya'll of this new concept of "ONE". Be prepared if you go to their website...it will take forever to load. They forgot the "never create an entire website using Flash" rule. If My Coke Rewards and Gateway would learn this, the world would be a better place.

I Love Apple Care Warranty!

2007-09-24T21:19:00.000-05:00

As many of you know, almost a year a go we had our ibook stolen off a DHL truck and since we had the apple care warranty they replaced it with what was selling currently in their store. That happen to be a huge upgrade for us. We went from the old ibook G4 to the newer macbook with the intel processor. So we were obviously ok with our ibook getting stolen. Well, now our macbook is starting to break. As you can see in the pictures below it is a very weird break. When I was talking on the phone with someone from Apple they said that this has been a problem with some of the macbooks. How in the world does a plastic case come apart like this? I have no clue. Has anyone else experienced a problem like this?

On a side note we hope our macbook does not get stolen this time, but if it does we getting another upgrade!!

Pazzo for Gelato

2007-09-19T14:35:00.000-05:00

It's taken me a few days to get around to writing this, but it definitely needs to be written. Friday night Jake and I experienced one of God's great gifts to mankind--gelato. No, not Jello...Gelato. It's a beautiful thing. I don't really know how I've made it this far in my life without ever having any. Gelato (for those of you who don't know...like me about a week ago) is Italian ice cream. And before you go thinking that ice cream is ice cream, let me just tell you...it's not. At least not if you're talking about gelato. We went to the Gelato Pazzo Caffe, because it's supposed to be the best. It definitely has my vote. And I haven't even tried any of the other places in town. It was just that good. Gelato is much creamier and richer than ice cream. Ice cream is a weakness of mine, so I've had just about every brand and type of ice cream there is, and hands down, gelato from the Gelato Pazza Caffe wins. Ah...I can almost taste it now... I think I know where I'm going tonight...

Testing Qumana

2007-09-13T10:21:00.000-05:00

I am testing a program called Qumana. It is a blog editor that will allow us to edit when away from our main computer. We can already email post in but when we email we cannot post pics of anything so maybe this will be another solution.

Friends...REAL Friends

2007-09-05T14:06:00.001-05:00

There's nothing like a true friend. Most of my closest friends (aside from my husband, who is in fact my BEST friend) were made in college. There are about 4 girls that I feel certain I will be friends with for my entire life. I got to talk to one of them last night, and it was so good. All 4 of these girls live a pretty good distance away from me. I don't get to see them nearly as often as I'd like, and I don't call them nearly as often as I should. But when we do talk, it's like we haven't missed a beat. We're still just as close as we were when we lived together, or just down the hall, or whatever the case may have been. I am confident, that my conversation last night was ordained by God. It's strange how I can go six months not talking to someone, then I call her and we have an hour long discussion about some of the intimate details of our spiritual lives. It felt like 5 minutes. I could've talked all night. Through what she had to say, and what she brought out of me, I've realized that I'm not as close to God as I'm supposed to be, and that's okay...as long as I am ever pursuing. We're never going to be as close as we're supposed to be until we stand in His presence. The Christian life is about the pursuit, or constant growth if you prefer. As long as we are ever moving closer, and never reach a stand still, we're in His will. We don't all move at the same pace, and even throughout our individual lives there will be times of sprinting and times of steadily stepping forward little by little. It's just important to keep stepping. I don't know if any of that makes sense, but it helped me. God used my friend to help me. We need friends, and not just friends to eat with and go out with. We need friends who will cause us to look inside of ourselves and see where we are and where we need to be going. We need friends to spur us on toward love and good deeds. I'm convinced that friendships like that cannot be forced...they are gifts from God. God places people in our lives that sometimes are nothing like what we would expect our close friends to be. All four of the girls I have mentioned are completely different than each other, and completely different than me, but they are the ones I feel most comfortable being myself with. And that is a precious, precious gift.

I knew there was a reason I got a Math degree...

2007-09-03T21:52:00.000-05:00

Jennie came to New Orleans this weekend to visit us (and Nikki, I guess :-) ), and she has been talking non-stop about getting PJ's coffee. Apparently Starbucks wouldn't cut it...nothing but PJ's. Well, the first one we went to was closed for Labor Day. So we went to another one, and Jennie had offered to buy. We walk in and there are 3 or 4 girls huddled over the counter obviously trying to figure something out. One of them throws up her hands and says, "I have no idea. I just can't figure it out." They turn to us and just kind of jokingly say, "Are any of you good at math?" I didn't say anything, but Jennie and Jake just start laughing. I don't remember if it was Jennie or Jake, but one of them volunteered me to help. The girl said she'd give me a free coffee if I could help. So I go over and show her how to do the problem she was stuck on. It was all kind of weird. Anyway, in the meantime, the other girl had taken our orders and was fixing our coffee. So we finished up our little math lesson for the night, and Jennie got ready to pay for her and Jake's coffees. The girl told us they were all on the house and thanked us for the help. We walked out trying to figure out what had just happened and holding in the laughter. It was so random. Never in my life did I think I'd trade Math for coffee.

Diana's Birthday

2007-08-28T22:12:00.000-05:00

So last week was Diana's birthday and I decided to get her what she has been wanting for some time now, although she would not really ask for it. I got her a digital piano. This is not just your average "keyboard." With 88 graded-hammer-action keys, it feels and sounds just like a grand piano. I got a really good deal on it on ebay. ( I love ebay) It's the top of the DGX line of Yamaha pianos--the DGX-620. Well anyways, the piano came in today and she has been playing it non-stop. I thought I would post a couple of pictures of her new toy, so here you go.

Finally...

2007-08-24T11:34:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time coming, but it's finally here. Jake is a website designer. Officially. Complete with his own business name AND...website. www.bondurantproductions.com Why "productions," you ask? Well, seeing that we like to dabble in all sorts of creative and digital arts, we figured we'd leave the door open to possibly expanding our services in the future to include who knows what. But for now, it's just web design. Jake's done a lot of research on prices for web design services, and I can tell you, what he's charging is far below a lot of what's out there. So if you know somebody who needs a website, send 'em our way!

Widget

2007-08-08T13:00:00.000-05:00

We know that a whole slew of you guys (at least 2) use our widget to keep up to date with us, but it is currently down. Since I did the site update to Rapidweaver the RSS feed changed. I will not be able to redo the widget for a while because I was using Dashcode in its beta form and now Dashcode has expired. Sorry for the inconvenience. Please continue to be patient while we go through some updates.

Road work...next 10 miles

2007-08-07T20:10:00.000-05:00

So when we started on this website journey (and that's what it's been...a journey), it was partially just for fun and partially because Jake wanted to learn how to design websites. We started with a little program called RapidWeaver, which is extremely user friendly, but not very customizable. We then upgraded to Adobe's Dreamweaver which is not nearly as user friendly, but you can make a website do whatever you want it to do in Dreamweaver. Jake has spent the last few months learning and playing with Dreamweaver, and that's what our site has been designed in for a while now. But we (more I than he) have really missed the simplicity of working with RapidWeaver. So Jake is now in the process of switching back to RapidWeaver, but using DreamWeaver for the actual designing and editing of code (that way he can do all that stuff, and I can just do the fun, easy part). I know, it confuses me, too. The point of all this is that our site is once again in a transitional or "construction" stage (you know once construction starts it will NEVER end...just drive around New Orleans for a while...or I-10 in Pensacola for that matter). So if you try to click a link, and something weird happens, or nothing at all happens, use the link at the bottom of the page to email Jake and let him know. Thanks for the help. :-)

New Orleans Photos

2007-07-18T10:16:00.000-05:00

Due to the massive amounts of email we get from fans all over the world who all say “your website is AWESOME, and we LOVE just looking at your engagement and wedding photos over and over again, but we’d like to see even more pictures of the two coolest people on earth,” we are going to be starting a “New Orleans” photo album. We’ve put a couple of pics in there for now (including the parking ticket mug shots), but check back regularly because we’ll be adding more to it. Click

HERE

to go to our photos page right now!

Parallel Parking

2007-07-18T10:15:00.000-05:00

Ok, so here’s a story…we’ve been here a week and a half, and we just couldn’t resist it anymore. The beignet’s were beckoning. So we make our way downtown tonight. Aside from the fact that it was crawling with groups of teenagers wearing matching Christian t-shirts who I assume are here on mission trips, it wasn’t too crowded. Or at least it didn’t seem that way till we started looking for a place to park. Jake finally found a place on a side street just a block down from the Cafe Du Monde. There were a couple of obscure signs hanging from posts that looked like they had been run into more than once…something about street cleaning and freight loading? Anyway, they didn’t seem to be clearly marking any particular place, so they made me a little nervous about whether or not we should be parking there. But we did. Anyway, we make our way to the Cafe, enjoy our beignets, and then due to the fact that it looked like we were about to have a typhoon, we headed back to the car. I kept thinking, “gosh, I hope they didn’t tow the car.” They didn’t. But somebody did decide to park a massive SUV in the space in front of us that probably wasn’t even big enough for a yugo. With a little help from Jake out on the sidewalk I was able to wiggle the car out, and we headed home. Somewhere along Gentilly Blvd. I noticed something flapping under the windshield wiper. And unfortunately it was not one of those flyers for the local furniture store that’s going out of business…again. Yep, we got a parking ticket. $20.00 that I would really rather not pay to the City of New Orleans. I’ve never gotten a parking ticket before. I don’t think they do that in Flomaton. *sigh* At least we can pay it online. So there you go. I just hope that SUV got a ticket, too…

Diana's First Blog

2007-06-12T10:05:00.000-05:00

Okay, so Jake has been teaching me a little about Dreamweaver. It’s about 87 times more complicated than Rapidweaver, but you can also do a lot more with it. Together we’ve assembled the

links

page, created some

photo slideshows

, and updated the

audio

feed. You should really check out all the new stuff. I’m especially fond of the photos page. It’s really cool.
Keep in mind that we are still not completely finished. But we accomplished a lot today that we’ve been sort of putting off for a while. Keep checking back every so often to see what other new exciting things might be happening in the wonderful world of jakeanddiana.com.
Also, for you Mac users out there, don’t forget about our widget…not to be confused with gadgets…*eyes rolling*…its a really fun way to keep up with when we have new stuff on our site. You can download it by clicking the icon in the sidebar.
The End.

Check This out

2007-06-12T10:03:00.000-05:00

Apple released Safari for the PC! So, now the very best web browser, once available only to Mac users, is now available for you unlucky souls using PCs. Safari 3 is still a beta version for now, but since I have been using it on the Windows side of my macbook I have had no problems. So give it a shot!

  Click here to download Safari.
 

To Get Rid of the IE Sucks Blog

2007-05-19T10:08:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I’m sick of the “IE sucks” blog that has way too many pictures and makes the page take

for-ev-er

to load. Since this page displays only the three most recent blogs, all I have to do is create a new one and bump that old one off. And that’s basically my only purpose with this particular blog. Ahh, mission accomplished.

IE Sucks!

2007-05-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

Since I have started designing websites, I have found that Internet Explorer 6 is the death of all things cool on the internet. Everything on our website will look cool on the mac browser, Safari, (of course) and on the PC things will look cool in Firefox, but not in IE 6. So, to get it working I have to go back and tinker with the html and stuff to modify the website so that it will show up correctly. It’s sort of a trial and error process, so I have to keep checking to see what the site looks like in IE 6. Well, this wouldn’t be too bad, except we don’t own a PC, and I often don’t find out how bad it looks until the site has been up for a while. Since we have a Macbook with an intel chip I can now boot into XP and check out our site that way, but that can be annoying since I do all of the web designing on the iMac (Power PC). I set out on a journey to see if I could run IE 6 on my iMac and I found this program called Q that would let me boot XP on my Power PC iMac. After about a 5 hour install process I found that Q was not going to work. It ran incredibly slow! I took some screen shots of the program running XP just to prove that it was possible. Now have to set back out on another web journey to see if there is any other way to run IE 6 on my mac. If any of you guys have any suggestions let me know!  Notice running 1GB Ram and still slow.
 
 What the screen looked like most of the time.
 Look! Our website!
 100% CPU usage the whole time!

Yeah...

2007-05-15T09:45:00.000-05:00

So I have just deleted all of our posts. I hate computers!