Miscellaneous
Safety Tips for Halloween
10/31/2008 18:19
With Halloween upon us, it is worthwhile to remember a few helpful hints to keep this season healthy, happy and safe!
- When it appears that you have killed the monster, NEVER check to see if it’s really dead!
- Never read a book of demon summoning aloud, even as a joke.
- Do not search the basement, especially if the power has gone out.
- If your children speak to you in Latin or any other language which they should not know, get the h3ll out! This also applies to kids who speak with someone else’s voice.
- When you have the benefit of numbers, NEVER pair off and go alone.
- As a general rule, don’t solve puzzles that open portals to H3ll.
- Never stand in, on, or above a grave, tomb, or crypt. This rule applies to any other house of the dead as well.
- If appliances start operating by themselves, do not check for short circuits, just get the h3ll out!
- If you’re searching for something that caused a loud noise, only to find out that it’s just the cat, get the h3ll out!
- Do not take ANYTHING from the dead.
- If you find a town which looks deserted, there’s probably a good reason for it. Don’t stop and look around.
- Don’t fool with recombinant DNA technology unless you’re sure you know what you’re doing.
- If you’re running from a monster, expect to trip or fall down at least twice. Also note that, despite the fact that you are running and the monster is merely shambling along, it’s still moving fast enough to catch up with you.
- If your companion suddenly begins to exhibit uncharacteristic behavior, such as hissing, fascination for blood, glowing eyes, increased hairiness, and so on, kill them immediately. If will save you a lot of grief in the long run.
- Stay away from certain geographical locations, some of which are listed here: Amityville, Elm Street, Transylvania, or anywhere in Texas that chainsaws are sold.
- If your car runs out of gas at night on a lonely road, do not go to the nearby deserted-looking house to phone for help. If you think that it is strange you ran out of gas, because you thought you had almost a full tank, shoot yourself instead. You are going to die anyway, and most likely be eaten.
- If you find that your house is built upon a cemetery, now is the time to move in with the in-laws. This also applies to houses that had previous inhabitants that went mad or died in some horrible fashion.
- When investigating a noise downstairs in an old house, carry a flashlight, not a candle.
- Beware of strangers bearing tools. For example: chainsaws, staple guns, hedge trimmers, electric carving knives, combines, lawnmowers, butane torches, soldering irons or any devices made from deceased companions.
- And last but not least - Never go looking for witches in the Maryland countryside.
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Philosophical Football II
10/24/2008 11:27
Notice: some videos advertised after viewing the one below may contain profanity.
Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life
Thanks to Mark Strobel for sending me the link.
See also the previous installment.
Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life
Thanks to Mark Strobel for sending me the link.
See also the previous installment.
Philosophical Fußball
10/17/2008 19:04
I’ve got to remember to use this next time I teach Philosophy & Christian Thought at IWU.
Update: In the comments, Iyov pointed out that there is an entire Wikipedia article on this clip.
When Pumpkins Drink Too Much
10/04/2008 16:48
This Lamp Will Be Down on Wednesday
07/08/2008 19:34
I’m not too thrilled about .Me instead of .Mac by the way. Apple says that both will still work, so I’m not changing my email or web address just yet, but I have to wonder if two or three years down the road they might announce that all mac.com addresses will be no more.
I’ve thought about moving This Lamp to its own dedicated server space with a real thislamp.com address (right now, it only forwards to what you see in your URL line above), but that would also entail a lot of resetting internal links, so right now, I’m undecided.
Regardless, if you drop by on Wednesday and don’t find This Lamp, don’t panic, it should be back within a few hours.
Worthy of Note 01/30/2008
01/30/2008 01:11
Says Iyov:
So, with all that extra page space, there is plenty of room for making ample annotations. The paper is significantly thicker than typical Bible paper, so there is much less bleed through from a pen. And, I can add extra paper anytime one wants (in the fashion of Jonathan Edwards' Blank Bible). If I make a mistake, I can always remove the page and replace it with a photocopy from my bound edition of the NOAB. If I want to slip in an entire article, or a copy of a page in original languages -- there is no problem. It seems to me that this is the ultimate in flexibility.
I'm glad to see this finally released, although I doubt I'll personally buy one. Regardless, I've got a number of larger blog projects I'm working on, one of which is an update to last year's survey of wide-margin Bibles. I'm glad that I'll be able to include an entry for the NRSV this year.
But we find ourselves at a point in history when we've never had so many choices, and yet the options are mostly arrayed along a horizontal spectrum -- a thousand different flavors of the same basic thing. I'd like to see more vertical choices, and that might require a shift in perspective. Instead of speaking to end-users as consumers, we might have to start thinking of them as readers.
What is most significant in the post is Bertrand's five-point "Starting Points for Marketing High-End Bible Editions." I can only hope that publishers will pay attention.
My esteem for White dropped significantly a few years ago due to the way he handled a theological disagreement with another individual whom I respect very much. I felt his approach to the issue was uncharitable, far too public, and lacking in the kind of collegiality that should characterize Christian scholarship. Nevertheless, White is usually in natural form when he is engaged in formal debate. However, I often believe that White is rarely pitted in his debates against opponents who are equally skilled. At the very least, Ehrman should provide a worthy opponent to White and this is a subject in which both are well-versed.
Christianity Today has released its list of the "10 Most Redeeming Films of 2007." Some entries on the list may surprise you, but it's a very good list. I remember when we used to do more movie reviews and discussion around here.
Finally, in the I JUST DON'T GET IT DEPARTMENT: 2008 marks the 30th anniversary of the New International Version of the Bible. I've seen references on two other blogs (see here and here; oh, and also here) that Zondervan is planning a special wide-margin, high-end leather edition of the NIV Study Bible as one of the many ways that the NIV's 30th anniversary will be celebrated.
This is in spite of the fact that so many of us have asked for one decent wide-margin edition of the TNIV (the so-called TNIV Square Bible is flawed in three areas: (1) it's paper is too thin for annotations because it is a thinline, (2) the user doesn't have wide margin access to the inner column of text, and (3) the binding is subpar). If the TNIV is truly an improvement to the NIV (which I honestly believe it is), then why does Zondervan (and IBS, Cambridge, and Hodder) keep pushing the NIV and publishing new editions? If in ten years the TNIV turns out to be an also-ran translation, it will only be because publishers didn't know how to fully transition away from the NIV.
My suggestion for celebrating the NIV's 30 year anniversary? Retire it. (My apologies to everyone I just offended, including my friends at Zondervan.)
I would like to find simply ONE decent wide-margin, high quality (see Bertrand's post above for the meaning of high-quality) Bible in a contemporary 21st century translation (HCSB, NLTse, TNIV, or NET). I'm still writing down notes in my wide margin NASB95, but the first translation of those I've listed that is released in a single-column, non-thinline, wide-margin edition, I will make my primary translation for preaching and teaching for the next decade. You heard it here first.
"Be Kind" -- Says Who?
01/24/2008 10:37
This past week, one of my students turned in an opinion paper that had what I felt was a very thought provoking quotation: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." The student attributed this saying to Plato in her paper, and in fact, I ran a Google search for the quotation along with the name Plato and found other references to it. I noted, however, that none of the attributions of the saying also included the source.
The more I thought about this quotation, the more I liked it. It communicates the need for empathy. It is in keeping with Jesus' so-called "golden rule" (“Treat others in the same way that you would want them to treat you” [Luke 6:31 NET]), which is the overriding ethic I seek to live by.
I liked the saying so much, I added it to the top of my blog, and it may still be there if you are reading this in the week I am writing it.
Then today, I got an email from a person who had found my site through Google. She corrected the saying I had at the top of my blog, suggesting instead that it came from Philo. So I ran a Google search with the saying, plus the name Philo, and sure enough, I found the quotation attributed to Philo as well. Again, however, no source was mentioned.
So remembering that I had the works of Philo in Accordance in both Greek and English, I ran a search simply for "Be kind" in the English module. No such luck. Then I ran the same search through every Accordance module I own--multitudes of reference works, hundreds of journals, extra-biblical texts such as the Pseudepigrapha, apocryphal Gospels, Jewish writings, the Church Fathers--easily over a million pages, I would guess.
[Unrelated to this quotation, I found another interesting saying from Pseudo-Chrysostom, quoted by Aquinas: "If God be kind, should His Priest be harsh?"]
Still no definitive source, but now the situation got murkier. One particular Accordance module, The Complete Gathered Gold (a collection of quotations) attributes the saying to two other individuals: Ian MacLaren and Harry Thompson! I'm not sure who either of these individuals are. No source was listed for either attribution.
So, it's a mystery at this point. Does anyone know the actual source for this saying? If you do, please leave the answer in the comments so that I can correct the heading at the top of my website!
The more I thought about this quotation, the more I liked it. It communicates the need for empathy. It is in keeping with Jesus' so-called "golden rule" (“Treat others in the same way that you would want them to treat you” [Luke 6:31 NET]), which is the overriding ethic I seek to live by.
I liked the saying so much, I added it to the top of my blog, and it may still be there if you are reading this in the week I am writing it.
Then today, I got an email from a person who had found my site through Google. She corrected the saying I had at the top of my blog, suggesting instead that it came from Philo. So I ran a Google search with the saying, plus the name Philo, and sure enough, I found the quotation attributed to Philo as well. Again, however, no source was mentioned.
So remembering that I had the works of Philo in Accordance in both Greek and English, I ran a search simply for "Be kind" in the English module. No such luck. Then I ran the same search through every Accordance module I own--multitudes of reference works, hundreds of journals, extra-biblical texts such as the Pseudepigrapha, apocryphal Gospels, Jewish writings, the Church Fathers--easily over a million pages, I would guess.
[Unrelated to this quotation, I found another interesting saying from Pseudo-Chrysostom, quoted by Aquinas: "If God be kind, should His Priest be harsh?"]
Still no definitive source, but now the situation got murkier. One particular Accordance module, The Complete Gathered Gold (a collection of quotations) attributes the saying to two other individuals: Ian MacLaren and Harry Thompson! I'm not sure who either of these individuals are. No source was listed for either attribution.
So, it's a mystery at this point. Does anyone know the actual source for this saying? If you do, please leave the answer in the comments so that I can correct the heading at the top of my website!
Ethical Philosophy Selector
12/17/2007 10:41
Since everyone else is doing it, I thought I'd take the quiz, too. According to the site, this quiz "orders the philosophers/philosophies according to their compatibility with your expressed opinions on ethics." I think this would be a good quiz to give to my students when I occasionally teach Philosophy and Christian Thought at IWU. In fact, I imagine it would be interesting to have them take the quiz at both the beginning and end of the course.
Here are my results:
Interesting results. I would have never thought I'd agree with Augustine 100%, although I do like some of his thought. Interesting also that Aquinas came in second place.
Feel free to take the quiz yourself and leave your results in the comments.
HT: Iyov, Peter Kirk.
Here are my results:
Interesting results. I would have never thought I'd agree with Augustine 100%, although I do like some of his thought. Interesting also that Aquinas came in second place.
Feel free to take the quiz yourself and leave your results in the comments.
HT: Iyov, Peter Kirk.
Is This Unreasonable?
10/31/2007 20:28
Context: Kathy and I spent the first two decades of our lives (and a little more) living in the deep south where people play a real sport called football. Now we live in Kentucky (which is practically Yankee territory) and where they are fond of basketball.
So this is the email I sent to local ABC television affiliate WHAS11 tonight:
Hey, I really like that new show Pushing Daisies, but you're showing a basketball game (which no one is really interested in) instead. Will Pushing Daisies be aired at a later time? Is this going to become a regular occurrence every time there's a basketball game? Can you show the basketball game at a later time instead?
Yes, I really sent that.
So this is the email I sent to local ABC television affiliate WHAS11 tonight:
Hey, I really like that new show Pushing Daisies, but you're showing a basketball game (which no one is really interested in) instead. Will Pushing Daisies be aired at a later time? Is this going to become a regular occurrence every time there's a basketball game? Can you show the basketball game at a later time instead?
Yes, I really sent that.
This Lamp Café Press Store Now Open for Business
09/20/2007 10:32
I've set up a Café Press Store for apparel and such related to This Lamp. You can find it at https://www.cafepress.com/thislamp. The first offerings made available relate strictly to the website itself, including the lamp & library logo:
In all there are over 50 items already available with the This Lamp log including mugs, book backs, and all manner of apparel for men, women, children, toddlers and even your pet.
The logo items are just the beginning. Part of my desire with the Café Press Store is to create really cool items related to biblical history, language and more--the kind of stuff I'd like to wear myself, but never see anywhere else. Later this afternoon, or tomorrow at the latest, I'm going to offer the first real project at the store, which I think many of you are going to get a kick out of.
Am I making a profit? Yes, but very little. I placed what I felt was a very modest markup on the items, and then I went back and made it even more modest. Although I think I have some good ideas, you never really know until you throw it out there. My hope is that the offerings I'm going to make in the future might get popular enough that it could provide a little bit of suplemental income--especially as we're gearing up to make a trip to China next year for our adoption.
You're not going to ever see anything like random Google ads are anything on This Lamp. Yes, there may be items such as these from Café Press and sometimes from Amazon, but these are extremely specific, and will always be something--as in the case of the above items--that I would use or wear myself. And I will.
So stay tuned, and check the store often. There's now a link in the menu at the top left. And if you have any ideas, feel free to send them along.
In all there are over 50 items already available with the This Lamp log including mugs, book backs, and all manner of apparel for men, women, children, toddlers and even your pet.
The logo items are just the beginning. Part of my desire with the Café Press Store is to create really cool items related to biblical history, language and more--the kind of stuff I'd like to wear myself, but never see anywhere else. Later this afternoon, or tomorrow at the latest, I'm going to offer the first real project at the store, which I think many of you are going to get a kick out of.
Am I making a profit? Yes, but very little. I placed what I felt was a very modest markup on the items, and then I went back and made it even more modest. Although I think I have some good ideas, you never really know until you throw it out there. My hope is that the offerings I'm going to make in the future might get popular enough that it could provide a little bit of suplemental income--especially as we're gearing up to make a trip to China next year for our adoption.
You're not going to ever see anything like random Google ads are anything on This Lamp. Yes, there may be items such as these from Café Press and sometimes from Amazon, but these are extremely specific, and will always be something--as in the case of the above items--that I would use or wear myself. And I will.
So stay tuned, and check the store often. There's now a link in the menu at the top left. And if you have any ideas, feel free to send them along.
Site Index Back Up
05/29/2007 23:04
As you can see by the menu, the Site Index to This Lamp is back up. I had to take it down while I was using alpha & beta versions of RapidWeaver 3.6, but now everything is out of beta and the SiteMap module from Loghound has been updated as well.
Bible Memory Pays Off: Crook Gets Out of Jail Free
04/27/2007 09:49
Ohio Credit-Card Defendant Released on Bond After Reciting 23rd Psalm
Thursday, April 26, 2007
CINCINNATI — A man arrested Wednesday in Cincinnati got a break from a judge after passing a Bible quiz.
Eric Hine allegedly used a stolen credit card to try to buy things at a drugstore, authorities said.
When he appeared in court Wednesday morning to face a charge of receiving stolen property, his attorney described Hine as a church-goer in hopes that the judge would set a low bond.
Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge John Burlew was skeptical and asked Hine to recite the 23rd Psalm.
Hine did: all six verses. Some in the courtroom applauded.
Burlew was satisfied and released Hine on a $10,000 appearance bond, meaning he'll have to pay that amount if he doesn't show up for his next court date.
Of course, this should be even greater incentive to all those AWANA kids to memorize their verses.
Forced Chinese Abortions Back on the Rise
04/24/2007 21:51
Morning Edition, April 23, 2007 · During the past week, dozens of women in southwest China have been forced to have abortions even as late as nine months into the pregnancy, according to evidence uncovered by NPR.
China's strict family planning laws permit urban married couples to have only one child each, but in some of the recent cases — in Guangxi Province — women say they were forced to abort what would have been their first child because they were unmarried. The forced abortions are all the more shocking because family planning laws have generally been relaxed in China, with many families having two children.
Liang Yage and his wife Wei Linrong had one child and believed that — like many other couples — they could pay a fine and keep their second baby. Wei was 7 months pregnant when 10 family planning officials visited her at home on April 16.
Liang describes how they told her that she would have to have an abortion, "You don't have any more room for maneuver," he says they told her. "If you don't go [to the hospital], we'll carry you." The couple was then driven to Youjiang district maternity hospital in Baise city.
"I was scared," Wei told NPR. "The hospital was full of women who'd been brought in forcibly. There wasn't a single spare bed. The family planning people said forced abortions and forced sterilizations were both being carried out. We saw women being pulled in one by one."
Read the full story here. It only gets worse.
There's great irony to this story. Kathy and I sent our adoption dossier to China earlier this year. Sometime over the next two or three weeks, all of our information will have been translated and logged into the Chinese adoption database. Then we will wait somewhere close to a year and a half (the current average is 17 mos.) to receive our daughter because the demand for Chinese adoption is so very great.
Where Did I Hear This Joke?
04/19/2007 00:07
Headlines of the Day
03/13/2007 21:07
You just can't make this stuff up.
From www.knoe.com:
FYI: "Twin Cities" refers to Monroe and West Monroe, Louisiana.
From www.knoe.com:
FYI: "Twin Cities" refers to Monroe and West Monroe, Louisiana.
New Look
03/02/2007 15:05
Incidentally, for those of you who are curious about such things, I edit this website using RapidWeaver, and this particular theme is called "My Desktop," which I obtained from Multithemes.
UPDATE 3/3: Based on comments, I've widened the main body. I've also tried to streamline subpages. The Multithemes came with .png objects that could be dropped into place. It's nifty to have that ability, but the stuff scattered around the borders may be a bit much. I'll see if it grows on me.
UPDATE 3/5: Okay, I've removed the .png objects and tried to do some basic cleanup. If everything looks okay after this next publish (which means you're reading this), I'll leave it alone at least for a while. I still may move the site to iWeb if the forthcoming v. 2.0 does everything I want it to do.
Quote for the Day #10: Peaceful Living
12/13/2006 15:46
There are three sights which warm my heart
and are beautiful in the eyes of the Lord and of men:
concord among brothers,
amity among neighbours,
and a man and wife who are inseparable.
(Ecclesiasticus 25:1, REB)
[ἐν τρισὶν ὡραΐσθην καὶ ἀνέστην ὡραία ἔναντι κυρίου καὶ ἀνθρώπων ὁμόνοια ἀδελφῶν καὶ φιλία τῶν πλησίον καὶ γυνὴ καὶ ἀνὴρ ἑαυτοῖς συμπεριφερόμενοι]
Just to Spoil It All for Us
12/05/2006 02:28
You have probably seen this, but it was emailed again to me last week so I am posting it here:
No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children he has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh, and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the Earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75½ million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.
The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN times their normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload — not even counting the weight of the sleigh—to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison—this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
This analysis can be traced back as far as 1990, and has been attributed to a lot of different people. It's found all over the web, with many different "original" authors claiming it as their own. It awaits the writing of a better conclusion, however, since we all know that Santa Claus is not only very much alive, but does, in fact, accomplish everything set out above.
The Science of Santa Claus
No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children he has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh, and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the Earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75½ million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.
The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN times their normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload — not even counting the weight of the sleigh—to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison—this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
This analysis can be traced back as far as 1990, and has been attributed to a lot of different people. It's found all over the web, with many different "original" authors claiming it as their own. It awaits the writing of a better conclusion, however, since we all know that Santa Claus is not only very much alive, but does, in fact, accomplish everything set out above.
Updates for Reformation Day, 2006
10/31/2006 10:15
Please continue to pray for Andrew Wells. Prayers have certainly helped him because everything we were originally praying against has now passed. However, after very positive results last Thursday where he was awake and talking, and off the ventilator, he is now back in ICU. Andrew has been diagnosed with obliterative bronchiolitis as a complication of the graft vs. host disease that was in his lungs. He is back on the vent and under medical sedation. His condition is very severe and he needs your prayers. Andrew's wife, Leila, is posting updates on his blog when she's able at the Andrew Wells Report.
As an Amazon.com Associate, I made $33.49 in referrals last quarter. My thanks go to all of you who made purchases through my online store or through one of the links on my blog. Amazon has reserved a gift certificate for me in the above amount which I will save for specific use toward my degree. Inevitably I regularly come across this or that book that is difficult to find, but I often can get it through the used book sellers on Amazon. So thanks again to all of you.
A few weeks back I wrote about a former student of mine, Josh Clark, who had worked up a scheme to get his own Mac by asking folks to donate $1 through PayPal. Although he raised about $67 this way, the funds eventually stopped coming in. Then he found another scheme that just happened to work. He researched the companies that offer free computers once you sign up for so many offers. He followed one of them through to the end and now he actually has a MacBook Pro which after all was said and done cost him about $30! Read his story at "How I Got a Mac for Next to Nothing."
Finally, the next installment on my favorite Bible translations (#8, the GNT) was halfway finished at the end of last week, but I'm neck-high grading papers for both IWU and SBTS and have had to make those a priority over everything else. Hopefully, I'll have that posted by the end of this week, so stay tuned.
And Happy Reformation Day!
As an Amazon.com Associate, I made $33.49 in referrals last quarter. My thanks go to all of you who made purchases through my online store or through one of the links on my blog. Amazon has reserved a gift certificate for me in the above amount which I will save for specific use toward my degree. Inevitably I regularly come across this or that book that is difficult to find, but I often can get it through the used book sellers on Amazon. So thanks again to all of you.
A few weeks back I wrote about a former student of mine, Josh Clark, who had worked up a scheme to get his own Mac by asking folks to donate $1 through PayPal. Although he raised about $67 this way, the funds eventually stopped coming in. Then he found another scheme that just happened to work. He researched the companies that offer free computers once you sign up for so many offers. He followed one of them through to the end and now he actually has a MacBook Pro which after all was said and done cost him about $30! Read his story at "How I Got a Mac for Next to Nothing."
Finally, the next installment on my favorite Bible translations (#8, the GNT) was halfway finished at the end of last week, but I'm neck-high grading papers for both IWU and SBTS and have had to make those a priority over everything else. Hopefully, I'll have that posted by the end of this week, so stay tuned.
And Happy Reformation Day!
Fly Guy
10/04/2006 12:20
Ever dream at night that you can fly? Click on the image below to relive the experience.
"Singular They" Sighting #1
09/06/2006 10:49
The "singular they" is everywhere. And I predict that within ten to twenty years (if not sooner), it will be acceptable in most grammar books. I'm not going to make a frequent examples of these posts (because they're too many of them), but I will display prominent ones now and then.
I'm slowly getting used to the "singular they." It's already a standard in spoken dialogue, and it's here to stay--like it or not.
This example comes from Amazon.com where I was leaving feedback for a used book transaction. Notice the third question.
I'm slowly getting used to the "singular they." It's already a standard in spoken dialogue, and it's here to stay--like it or not.
This example comes from Amazon.com where I was leaving feedback for a used book transaction. Notice the third question.
The Sum of Human Knowledge*
08/07/2006 09:42
In response to my blog entry last week, "Why Britannica Trumps Wikipedia (Thank-You, Stephen Colbert)", David Ker over at Lingamish countered with an entry of his own, "A New Kind of Mind." Essentially, David sees my preference for a peer-reviewed encyclopedia like Britannica with articles written by experts in the field over the open and democratic editorial policies of the Wikipedia as "old school"; and he sees the Britannica as a dinosaur of a generation past.
Well, he didn't quite put it in those terms, but that's the feeling I got from him in our friendly little debate
Be sure to read David's entire blog entry, but here are a few main points:
That last line was quite a cheap shot, don't you think?
Anyway, taking the high road, I ignored the ad-biblionem attack, and gently responded with these words in the comments:
Then in a counter-point to my counterpoint to his blog entry which was a counter-point to my blog entry, David wrote the following:
My response: Point #1. It's not merely the "concept of an 'expert' being a safe-guard against falsehood," but rather an expert who is peer-reviewed by other experts (i. e., Britannica's editorial board). Granted, any such individual or group can have agendas or political biases, but at least I know my source since the larger and more significant articles in Britannica are signed. Yes, it certainly is an authority question, because if I read something on the Wikipedia, I have to ask, "Says who?"
Point #2. Britannica editions are actually becoming updated more quickly. For the print edition, a new 16th edition was recently released, plus they release updates annually in their Book of the Year 20XX. And as for the online edition, they update the content daily (okay, I'll admit that I learned this last fact from the "Encyclopedia Britannica" entry on the Wikipedia. So?).
And, David, your last sentence: "...hyperediting at Wikipedia seems fraught with danger." That's entirely my point--couldn't have said it better myself. The problem with the Wikipedia as a consistently serious source of factual information is that the content is--or can be--a moving target.
So, finally, in the spirit of solidarity for Britannica fans and Wiki-skeptics everywhere, I have created a brand new Britannica-linked web badge that will permanently stay in my sidebar. The Britannica button shows my support for the time-honored encyclopedia set (but doesn't necessarily mean I'll start to link to articles on the online edition since you have to pay for that, and I doubt that many of you have a subscription).
And David, just remember that every time someone reads your anti-Britannica blog and decides to forego a purchase of the print set in favor of a relativistic, knowledge-and-truth-democratized online source, well... that's 32 extra days in purgatory for you after you die (one day per each volume in the current set).
*The phrase "Sum of Human Knowledge" comes from a 1913 advertisement for the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Well, he didn't quite put it in those terms, but that's the feeling I got from him in our friendly little debate
Be sure to read David's entire blog entry, but here are a few main points:
The bigger picture here is globalization and democratization of knowledge. Wiki knowledge fits within the framework of a new way of organizing knowledge in the modern world. The era of printed collections of information gathered by an elite group of experts is slowly coming to an end.
I see googlization as a positive trend but it brings with it a big change in how we access information. I remember writing a paper on the subject of royalty in the history plays of Shakespeare. In order to find the quotes I needed I had to actually... gasp... read the plays! Over and over again. Can you imagine! What would you do today if you were writing such a paper? You'd google the topic of course! You'd start googling combinations of keywords until you were pointed to an online information source that perhaps allowed you to search Shakespeare's plays. In the process you'd probably come across other writers who had tackled the subject and use them in your bibliography.
So, Rick, I respect your concerns. We're all concerned about Wikipedia being abused for political and ideological reasons. But frankly, Encyclopedia Britannica has its own political and ideological aims as well. The difference is that with Wikipedia you have a collective mind composed of hundreds of editors "mediating truth" rather than some ivory tower cabal working at EB. Rather than shooting down Wikipedia, I think the real discussion we need to have is how can trusted sources of information like Encyclopedia Britannica embrace Wiki forms of information gathering and disseminating in order to stay dynamic.
Wikipedia is a new kind of encyclopedia for a new kind of mind. The global citizen is going to need global information and it is unlikely that this knowledge is going to carry the name of an 18th century colonializer.
That last line was quite a cheap shot, don't you think?
Anyway, taking the high road, I ignored the ad-biblionem attack, and gently responded with these words in the comments:
No, I don't want Britannica updated by Wikipedia's methods.
Here's the deal...I'm not completely against the Wikipedia. I use it regularly and have quite a few links to it on my blog. I created a link to it in the blog I wrote today.
But I have trouble being confident in the Wikipedia for any kind of serious investigation of a subject. I might go there, but I don't know who wrote the information and I don't know how accurate the information is. At least with Britannica, I can at least know it was written by an expert in the area. Granted, "experts" can have bias, too, but at least the information in Britannica is not a moving target.
As for research as in regard to my students, the real problem is that the average student--high school, college, and even higher--does not adequately know how to discern good sources from bad sources.
I've watched as students run searches in Google and immediately run to the top selections regardless of whether they are actual good sources or not.
I'm not afraid of the democratization of knowledge, but more of the democratization of truth. That's what Colbert was driving at. If enough people think it's true, it becomes fact. And unfortunately, too many people don't know the difference.
Then in a counter-point to my counterpoint to his blog entry which was a counter-point to my blog entry, David wrote the following:
1. Determining truth. You see the concept of an "expert" being a safe-guard against falsehood, while I see the concept of "democratic editing" being that safe-guard. Maybe another way of looking at this is that it is an authority question.
2. Old vs. new media. Wikipedia and EB represent two very different forms of publishing. It seems to me that the rate of information growth and change in this century makes the thought of waiting 20 years to get an update unthinkable. At the same time, hyper-editing at Wikipedia seems fraught with danger.
My response: Point #1. It's not merely the "concept of an 'expert' being a safe-guard against falsehood," but rather an expert who is peer-reviewed by other experts (i. e., Britannica's editorial board). Granted, any such individual or group can have agendas or political biases, but at least I know my source since the larger and more significant articles in Britannica are signed. Yes, it certainly is an authority question, because if I read something on the Wikipedia, I have to ask, "Says who?"
Point #2. Britannica editions are actually becoming updated more quickly. For the print edition, a new 16th edition was recently released, plus they release updates annually in their Book of the Year 20XX. And as for the online edition, they update the content daily (okay, I'll admit that I learned this last fact from the "Encyclopedia Britannica" entry on the Wikipedia. So?).
And, David, your last sentence: "...hyperediting at Wikipedia seems fraught with danger." That's entirely my point--couldn't have said it better myself. The problem with the Wikipedia as a consistently serious source of factual information is that the content is--or can be--a moving target.
And David, just remember that every time someone reads your anti-Britannica blog and decides to forego a purchase of the print set in favor of a relativistic, knowledge-and-truth-democratized online source, well... that's 32 extra days in purgatory for you after you die (one day per each volume in the current set).
*The phrase "Sum of Human Knowledge" comes from a 1913 advertisement for the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Image Source: Wikipedia
Monster Agendas
07/26/2006 14:26
I'm too busy today to blog anything myself, but two posts have caught my eye and I'll pass them on to you.
First, over at the Better Bibles Blog, Peter Kirk has accused the TNIV translators of having a complementarian agenda. Yes, you heard that right--a complementarian agenda. Usually, the TNIV translators are accused of having an egalitarian agenda, so Peter's post is highly ironic. I personally don't think it has either agenda, although complementarians and egalitarians are both represented on the thoroughly evangelical translation committee.
Second, my old friend (and church planter) Bill Craig has written a very moving blog entry entitled "Monster House." Here he describes the living conditions and encounters with neighbors that he and his wife Jill experienced during their first church plant out of seminary. Here's an excerpt, but be sure to read the whole entry:
First, over at the Better Bibles Blog, Peter Kirk has accused the TNIV translators of having a complementarian agenda. Yes, you heard that right--a complementarian agenda. Usually, the TNIV translators are accused of having an egalitarian agenda, so Peter's post is highly ironic. I personally don't think it has either agenda, although complementarians and egalitarians are both represented on the thoroughly evangelical translation committee.
Second, my old friend (and church planter) Bill Craig has written a very moving blog entry entitled "Monster House." Here he describes the living conditions and encounters with neighbors that he and his wife Jill experienced during their first church plant out of seminary. Here's an excerpt, but be sure to read the whole entry:
The upstairs shower was about to drop through the ceiling any minute. You could see the center part of the ceiling dropping with the outline of the shower in the upstairs bathroom. My biggest nightmare was that a large, naked, angry, tattooed, drinking and swearing mother would drop through while I was eating my breakfast and doing my devotionals and I’d lose my appetite for the rest of my life. But maybe it was a selfish hope, because maybe then we could have the little children and show them the love of Christ they didn’t know.
A Spiritual Gift of Contrarianism
07/14/2006 09:46
With all seriousness, she said, "They said that we should take roles that relate to our strengths. I believe one of my strengths is to play devil's advocate."
"I bet they don't fully appreciate such talent in your meetings," I responded with slight sarcasm.
With mock protest she replied, "It's like a gift of discernment, I think."
"More likely, a gift of contrarianism" I said smiling.
"I bet they don't fully appreciate such talent in your meetings," I responded with slight sarcasm.
With mock protest she replied, "It's like a gift of discernment, I think."
"More likely, a gift of contrarianism" I said smiling.
Pardon the New Look (It's Not Permanent)
06/02/2006 11:40
One good thing though is that I finally have true permalinks. I've been inserting them manually since November for folks who occasionally might want to link to a blog. I think the old links will still work, but I'll also gradually be removing my old permalinks. Look for the new ones at the top of the post.
I've also had to consolidate my menu structure because this template only supports menus on top (yuck) and then only one row. Everything's still here. You might just have to look around.
As soon as my former template is updated or if the RapidWeaver folks release some different templates, I'll change again.
Freudian Haplography?
05/23/2006 11:50
A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand. He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up. In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.
The head monk, says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son." So, he goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years.
Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot. So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing, "We missed the "R," we missed the "R." His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably.
The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?"
With a choking voice, the old abbot replies, "The word was celebrate."
The head monk, says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son." So, he goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years.
Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot. So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing, "We missed the "R," we missed the "R." His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably.
The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?"
With a choking voice, the old abbot replies, "The word was celebrate."
10 Tips for College (and the Rest of Life)
05/18/2006 22:47
Friday night (May 19), I've been asked to speak at the Whitefield Academy Senior Banquet. I was chaplain and taught Bible at Whitefield from 2000 to 2005. The students I will be speaking to were in my classes from their freshmen to their junior years. [Irrelevant point of interest: If you go to the Whitefield website, there's a flash slideshow of photos on the main page. In one of the pictures, you can still see me in graduation ceremony regalia talking to two graduates. That picture was taken around 2001, I believe.]
Here's my outline:
"10 Tips for College (and the Rest of Life)"
Supporting Text: Psalm 121
1. Guard your heart (Prov 4:23).
2. Get involved in campus life (and community/neighborhood/church life).
3. Don’t get in debt.
4. Plan for the future, but don’t miss the NOW while getting there.
5. Do all things with excellence (but excellence does not mean perfection).
6. Make time for play.
7. Never stop learning.
8. Think globally in your career.
9. Think globally in your faith.
10. Know the difference between career and calling.
Here's my outline:
"10 Tips for College (and the Rest of Life)"
Supporting Text: Psalm 121
1. Guard your heart (Prov 4:23).
2. Get involved in campus life (and community/neighborhood/church life).
3. Don’t get in debt.
4. Plan for the future, but don’t miss the NOW while getting there.
5. Do all things with excellence (but excellence does not mean perfection).
6. Make time for play.
7. Never stop learning.
8. Think globally in your career.
9. Think globally in your faith.
10. Know the difference between career and calling.
Quote for the Day #7: A Man's Best Friend
04/24/2006 22:18
Quote for the Day #6: Pseudo-Phocylides
03/29/2006 16:39
Below is part of the text we read for NT Colloquium today:
Do not hide a different thought in your heart while uttering another.
Change not yourself according to the spot, like a polyp that clings to the rock.
Be sincere to all, speak what is from your soul.
Whoever wrongs willfully is a bad man; but if he does so under compulsion,
I shall not pass sentence, for it is each man's intention that is examined.
Do not pride yourself on wisdom nor on strength nor on riches.
The only God is wise and mighty and at the same time rich in blessings.
Do not afflict your heart with bygone evils;
for what has been done can no more be undone.
--The Sentences of Pseudo-Phcylides, lines 48-56, written perhaps somewhere between 30 BC and AD 40.
Do not hide a different thought in your heart while uttering another.
Change not yourself according to the spot, like a polyp that clings to the rock.
Be sincere to all, speak what is from your soul.
Whoever wrongs willfully is a bad man; but if he does so under compulsion,
I shall not pass sentence, for it is each man's intention that is examined.
Do not pride yourself on wisdom nor on strength nor on riches.
The only God is wise and mighty and at the same time rich in blessings.
Do not afflict your heart with bygone evils;
for what has been done can no more be undone.
--The Sentences of Pseudo-Phcylides, lines 48-56, written perhaps somewhere between 30 BC and AD 40.
Dog Haiku
03/29/2006 00:30
These haikus will only mean something to you if you own and/or like dogs. Otherwise, please move along...
I love my master;
Thus I perfume myself with
This long-rotten squirrel.
I lie belly-up
In the sunshine, happier than
You ever will be
Today I sniffed
Many dog butts--I celebrate
By kissing your face.
I sound the alarm!
Paperboy--come to kill us all--
Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!
I sound the alarm!
Mailman Fiend--come to kill us all--
Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!
I sound the alarm!
Meter reader--come to kill all--
Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!
I sound the alarm!
Garbage man-come to kill us all--
Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!
I sound the alarm!
Neighbor's cat--come to kill us all!
Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!
I lift my leg and
Wiz on each bush. Hello, Spot -
Sniff this and weep
My human is home!
I am so ecstatic I have
Made a puddle
Sleeping here, my chin
On your foot -- no greater bliss -- well,
Maybe catching cats
Look in my eyes and
Deny it. No human could
Love you as much I do
The cat is not all
Bad--she fills the litter box
With Tootsie Rolls
Dig under fence--why?
Because it's there. Because it's
There. Because it's there.
I am your best friend,
Now, always, and especially
When you are eating.
At Last: A Forthright Panhandler
01/30/2006 22:44
I love this picture that I took at the Cornerstone Music Festival five or so years ago. I thought I had lost it, but when I recently upgraded to iPhoto 6, the software scanned my directories and "found" about 150 recovered photos, including this one.
This picture was taken about midway through the week. These boys had spent all their money on no telling what, and were asking folks who walked by for their pocket change. I laughed at the candid message on the sign: "Will Do Nothing for Food or Money" and then in smaller print, "Don't give crackers!" Evidently someone had tried. When I walked by, they already had quite a bit of change in their cup. Honesty about their willingness to do nothing was paying off.
I asked if I could take their picture. They said I could for 50¢.
Two Ways to Subscribe to This Blog
01/25/2006 10:33
Since the start of this blog, I've sent out little email updates to friends and family once every week or two that lists new entries. I'm no longer doing that--at least not in the same way as in the past.
You do have the option of subscribing to this blog, though. One easy way is to simply subscribe to the RSS feed. If you don't know how or don't want to do that, an even easier option is to enter your email address in the "NotifyList" form in the sidebar on the left. Once every week or so, I'll send out an update, but now the choice is in your hands and open to anyone reading this blog. You will NOT receive an alert with each new blog entry, but once every one to week at most.
A surprising number of people have already subscribed since I added the form a couple of days ago. You can also subscribe right here in this blog entry:
You do have the option of subscribing to this blog, though. One easy way is to simply subscribe to the RSS feed. If you don't know how or don't want to do that, an even easier option is to enter your email address in the "NotifyList" form in the sidebar on the left. Once every week or so, I'll send out an update, but now the choice is in your hands and open to anyone reading this blog. You will NOT receive an alert with each new blog entry, but once every one to week at most.
A surprising number of people have already subscribed since I added the form a couple of days ago. You can also subscribe right here in this blog entry:
Promoting "Spiritual Death"?!
01/06/2006 19:57
I came across this at Travis Kerns' blog, and although I usually avoid seminary-related postings, I just couldn't pass this one up.
Over on the Baptistlife.com website, which purports to be "an online gathering place for Baptists," there's a link for seminaries. On that page a list of primarily CBF-affiliated Baptist seminaries are highlighted with the six SBC seminaries conveniently relegated to the bottom of the page.
In some very ironic mis-wording, perhaps some kind of bizarre Freudian slip, the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky is said to provide "theological education 'committed to spiritual death, intellectual honesty and moral integrity.'"
Spiritual death?! Committed to spiritual death? What would that mean? What would classes promoting spiritual death look like?
See the ad for yourself on the seminaries page, but do it quick before it's corrected. I mean... I assume it's a mistake.
UPDATE: The more I thought about this "typo," the more I was curious about it. So I went to BSK's website and tracked down the original quotation. On their About Us: MIssion page, they describe themselves as "committed to spiritual depth... ." Now that's just one letter off, but one letter sure makes a heckuva difference. Not to mention the fact that the letters A and P are on opposite sides of the keyboard.
UPDATE II: In the spirit of the Golden Rule (Luke 6:31), I thought it only proper to alert someone to this mistake. So I sent emails over the weekend to both the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky and Bruce Gourley who runs Baptistlife.com. The error has now been corrected.
Over on the Baptistlife.com website, which purports to be "an online gathering place for Baptists," there's a link for seminaries. On that page a list of primarily CBF-affiliated Baptist seminaries are highlighted with the six SBC seminaries conveniently relegated to the bottom of the page.
In some very ironic mis-wording, perhaps some kind of bizarre Freudian slip, the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky is said to provide "theological education 'committed to spiritual death, intellectual honesty and moral integrity.'"
Spiritual death?! Committed to spiritual death? What would that mean? What would classes promoting spiritual death look like?
See the ad for yourself on the seminaries page, but do it quick before it's corrected. I mean... I assume it's a mistake.
UPDATE: The more I thought about this "typo," the more I was curious about it. So I went to BSK's website and tracked down the original quotation. On their About Us: MIssion page, they describe themselves as "committed to spiritual depth... ." Now that's just one letter off, but one letter sure makes a heckuva difference. Not to mention the fact that the letters A and P are on opposite sides of the keyboard.
UPDATE II: In the spirit of the Golden Rule (Luke 6:31), I thought it only proper to alert someone to this mistake. So I sent emails over the weekend to both the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky and Bruce Gourley who runs Baptistlife.com. The error has now been corrected.
The Swing
12/22/2005 10:12
By Kathy Mansfield
On an old porch swing
Your arms first held me;
I knew right then and there
Our love was meant to be.
On a new porch swing
Built by your own hands,
We gazed at our new house
And knew we had great plans.
On that same porch swing
Just the other day,
I looked back on our life
And love that’s here to stay.
You can email Kathy at akmansfield@mac.com.
Your arms first held me;
I knew right then and there
Our love was meant to be.
On a new porch swing
Built by your own hands,
We gazed at our new house
And knew we had great plans.
On that same porch swing
Just the other day,
I looked back on our life
And love that’s here to stay.
You can email Kathy at akmansfield@mac.com.
Life's Scars
12/22/2005 09:59
by Kathy Mansfield
If ever someone has been broken and fixed
I think it would be I.
And lo, and behold, I figured out
The answer to my “Why?”
Sometimes God must let us fall
And feel Life’s harshest wrath,
Only then can we arise
To walk straighter on His path.
To others I might seem to be
Someone whose life is marred,
But God sees me as clean and new,
Not as someone scarred.
You can email Kathy at akmansfield@mac.com.
If ever someone has been broken and fixed
I think it would be I.
And lo, and behold, I figured out
The answer to my “Why?”
Sometimes God must let us fall
And feel Life’s harshest wrath,
Only then can we arise
To walk straighter on His path.
To others I might seem to be
Someone whose life is marred,
But God sees me as clean and new,
Not as someone scarred.
You can email Kathy at akmansfield@mac.com.
Christmas Traditions
12/18/2005 15:50
2. Gift Giving, as a part of the Christmas tradition, stems from an ancient Roman custom called Strenae, where the Roman citizens would give "good luck" gifts of fruit, pastries, or gold to their friends on New Years Day. In England the tradition later survived as what was called "Boxing Day." On Dec. 26 the priests used to open the alms-boxes and distribute the contents among the poor in the parish. Later, it became customary to give Christmas "boxes" to the servants and public workers.
4. Stockings were actually shoes filled with straw and carrots and left by children for the horse of Saint Nicholas and placed in front of the fireplace. This practice, beginning around 1100 A.D., assumed that the straw and carrots would be replaced by gifts and within a few decades evolved into the hanging of stockings from the mantle of the fireplace.
5. The Mistletoe was, like many of the evergreens, brought inside during the winter months to serve as a reminder that Spring would come, and was said to have such a spiritual influence that if two enemies met under a branch of the mistletoe they would drop their weapons and embrace. This old belief may have been the origin of the modern custom of kissing under the mistletoe.
6. The Christmas Wreath symbolized the strength of life overcoming the forces of winter. Christians extended this to represent the eternal, unending life promised through Jesus.
7. Holly, with its prickly leaves and wild berries, was adopted by Christians to stand for the crown of thorns and drops of blood worn by Jesus at His crucifixion.
8. Poinsettias, a newer tradition developed by a U.S. minister to Mexico in the 1800's, were symbolized by their green and red Christmas colors. The green represented the continuance of life and the red stood for the blood of Christ.
9. Caroling is said to have begun around 1818 by Josef Mohr, the parish priest of Oberndorf. It is said that on Christmas Eve Father Mohr wrote the three stanzas of "Silent Night" as a surprise for his parishioners because he felt they would be disappointed when they learned that the parish organ had broken down. Earlier in the day he had blessed a newborn baby and it is likely that the first stanza was inspired by this event. In order to have some music for his poem he rushed over to his friend Franz Gruber, a teacher and church organist. Within a few hours the melody was completed and at midnight mass that evening the two men sang the masterpiece for the first time.
Source: Unsecured. This information was distributed via a handout in my Sunday School class this morning. If you know a definite source for any of this information, let me know and I will post it here.
Eight Maniacal Thoughts toward Bob the Builder
12/11/2005 14:14
Guest blog from the mind of Andrew Wells
Things That I Desperately Wish Would Happen While Having to Watch Bob the Builder with my son:
8. That the other machines would stage an intervention for Lofty the Crane concerning his self-esteem issues.
7. That Dizzy the Cement Mixer would start taking A.D.D. medication.
6. That the ATF would bust Farmer Pickles for moonshining, since there is no way he can make money giving away eggs.
5. That Mr. Bentley the building inspector would inform Bob that, due to federal regulations, Bob can’t build it.
4. That the town that Bob and company live in would run out of money and therefore be unable to give Bob so many contracts.
3. That Wendy would whistleblow on Bob about his use of shoddy materials and cheap labor.
2. That Rolly the Steamroller would flatten Spud into a bunch of mashed potatoes.
1. That the DVD would spontaneously combust.
Andrew Wells can be contacted at awusceng@yahoo.com.
Things That I Desperately Wish Would Happen While Having to Watch Bob the Builder with my son:
7. That Dizzy the Cement Mixer would start taking A.D.D. medication.
6. That the ATF would bust Farmer Pickles for moonshining, since there is no way he can make money giving away eggs.
5. That Mr. Bentley the building inspector would inform Bob that, due to federal regulations, Bob can’t build it.
4. That the town that Bob and company live in would run out of money and therefore be unable to give Bob so many contracts.
3. That Wendy would whistleblow on Bob about his use of shoddy materials and cheap labor.
2. That Rolly the Steamroller would flatten Spud into a bunch of mashed potatoes.
1. That the DVD would spontaneously combust.
Andrew Wells can be contacted at awusceng@yahoo.com.
The Blog at Two Years: A Look Back
12/02/2005 15:53
If you look back on my entry on this day last year ("The Blog at One Year"), you'll see I noted that I had written 55 blogs that first year which met my goal (at least based on averages) to write one blog per week. Well, how did I compare with number of blogs in the second year? Drum roll please... This is the 177th blog I've written which means that I wrote 122 entries in year two, more than twice the number of my first year. Lately, I've been creating one or more posts everyday, but I don't ever anticipate writing the kind of blog that has multiple entries added all day long. I don't have anything against that kind of blog; I just don't have that kind of time! But who knows. If I wrote 55 entries the first year, and 122 the second year, who knows... maybe I'll write 250 the third year.
Also, in the past couple of weeks, I reached the 10,000th mark in hits which seems to be the unofficial mark that a blog is really starting to get read. However, truth be told, it hit that mark sometime back. I actually didn't add a counter to the blog until about 10 months into the first year. I literally had no clue at the time how many hits I already had received. But since I could set the counter at a starting point, I pulled a number totally out of the air and set it at 769 hits. Based on the rate it began to rise, I would guess that I should have set it a few thousand hits higher. Regardless, the blog has been getting a bit more attention lately as it has gained a wider audience. In the early days, and for perhaps more than its first year of existence, my blog was read primarily by family and friends. Lately I've received a number of emails from people all over the globe who have found it through other means as I've tried to take it to a wider audience.
Another new feature in the last few months was the addition of guest blogs from some of my friends. I like this idea because not only does it increase the aspect of variety in my blog, but it also gives others to test the waters of writing a blog of their own.
In the last few weeks, I took the tagline and made it the main line switching from "Rick's Blog" to "This Lamp" which I believe gives my blog a bit more distinction. I was pleased that the domain name THISLAMP.COM was not yet taken, so now that is the fastest way to find this page. Another change came last month as I completely switched software and combined my blog with other pages of my website using the highly recommended software, RapidWeaver.
Writing is, without doubt, a creative outlet for me, and I hope you get at least some percentage of the pleasure reading it that I do writing it. Thanks for coming here, and thanks for contributing through guest blogs, or in the comments, or through private emails.
Keep watching this space...
Sadly, the Monster Wasn't Real
12/01/2005 19:57
A project that Kathy is doing with some of her students at school brought back memories of one of those "loss of innocence" events in my life. I was in the second or third grade, and I guess I should have known better, but I had seen that comic book ad a hundred times that offered a life-size Frankenstein monster. "Seven feet tall", it said! I had read and reread the description in the ad:
Just imagine your friends shock when they walk into your room and see the "Monster" reaching out--bigger than life--Frankenstein, the original man-made monster, that creation of evil genius that terrorized the world. A giant 7 feet tall, his eyes glow eerily as his hand reaches out--as aweful [sic] and sinister as the wildest nightmare. Yes--Frankenstein is 7 feet tall, in authentic colors on durable polyethylene, and so lifelike you'll probably find yourself talking to him. Won't you be surprised if he answers? Comes complete with eyes that glow even in the pitch dark for a special chilling thrill."
I sat there reading that ad over and over, like Calvin in a Bill Waterson comic strip, fantasizing about the havoc I would wreak with a 7-foot monster under my control. It was only $1 (plus 35¢ shipping). How could they possibly sell a monster so cheap? Maybe they couldn't control him and they needed to offload him on anyone willing to take him. I pondered this for weeks, months. Finally, I decided to do it. I got $4 a month for allowance (even in the seventies this really wasn't enough, Mom, but I'm not resentful...). So with some help obtaining a money order, I sent off for my very own monster.
After a few days, I was camped out near the mailbox at the time when the mailman was supposed to arrive each day. I wondered if the monster--who was seven feet tall according to the ad--would come in an unimaginably huge box. Or would a special armored truck arrive with armed guards who would unload a large cage draped in black cloth concealing my own pet monster?
Days turned into weeks, and eventually I stopped waiting for the mailman quite so often. About the point I almost forgot about my order, Mom announced, "Oh you got a package."
"WHERE? WHERE IS IT?" I raced to the kitchen where she indicated all the mail was, looking for a large box or a cage draped in black. Instead, I saw a rather ordinary looking 8 1/2 x 11 envelope. I opened it to reveal a folded plastic--plastic as in something almost like plastic wrap--POSTER. A poster? The ad said he was "reaching out." Well, he was...but in a two-dimensional sense. The glowing eyes? Glow-in-the-dark dot-like stickers that I had to stick on the monster myself. Authentic colors? Well, the ad in the comic book had better colors. Mine was a green tinted, black and white, Lon Cheney-ish Frankenstein monster on plastic. And as long as it hung on the back of my bedroom door (the only place my mother would let me hang it) it never lost the wrinkles from being shipped in the envelope. This monster would not terrorize the world. And he certainly wouldn't talk back to me.
The monster hung on my door for a few months. I don't really remembered what happened to it in the end. I don't remember getting rid of it. But I do remember looking upon it with scorn, knowing I'd been suckered. I'd lay awake at night in the dark, seeing only those two stupid glow-in-the-dark eyes looking at me. Laughing at me. Did he speak? Well, maybe only to say, "Hey? What'd you expect for a buck, kid?"
I know what you're thinking. You're asking, "Well what kind of stupid child were you?" Yeah, I know. But look at that ad. They're advertising in comic books, read by kids with already over-active imaginations. I was a child! I believed in flying reindeer and that unknown phenomena could be explained by "magic." I read books where animals wore clothing and talked to one another. So did you. That ad was designed to be misleading to a child with any kind of imagination. Yes, I know the ad states explicitly that the monster is ON "durable polyethylene. But I didn't know what polyethylene was. I don't think I'd know what it was now had I not bought a Frankenstein monster on the stuff when I was seven-years-old.
You'd think that I would have lost all innocence with that experience--that I would have learned more about the ways of the world and faced the rest of my life with the outlook of a hardened cynic. But no. Children are resilient. Before I would lose my naivete, I would first have to order that 100 piece toy soldier set that came in its very own FOOT LOCKER! For only $1.25!!
Eight Rules for Good Writing from C. S. Lewis on His 107th Birthday
11/29/2005 01:59
1. Turn off the radio [and television].
2. Read good books and avoid most magazines.
3. Write with the ear, not the eye. Make every sentence sound good.
4. Write only about things that interest you. If you have no interests, you won't ever be a writer.
5. Be clear. Remember that readers can't know your mind. Don't forget to tell them exactly what they need to know to understand you.
6. Save odds and ends of writing attempts, because you may be able to use them later.
7. You need a well-trained sense of word-rhythm, and the noise of a typewriter will interfere.
8. Know the meaning of every word you use.
Source: C. S. Lewis. Collected Letters. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966, 291-292. Quoted in Kathryn Lindskoog, Creative Writing for People Who Can't Not Write. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1989, 253.
By the way, I would only take issue with the second half of #7. C. S. Lewis was an advocate of writing manuscripts out by longhand before ever typing them on a typewriter. For those of you who even remember typewriters (!), Lewis isn't talking about the IBM Selectrics like I used in my 10th grade typing class in 1983. Rather he is referring to the old manual typewriters that moved a lever that struck the page when you pressed a key and thus created a rhythm of its own that would be distracting from the rhythm of the words you want to write as Lewis describes.
In my opinion, most modern computer keyboards are so quiet that it's acceptable to write in front of the screen. However, to her credit, Kathy still writes everything out by longhand first (on yellow legal pads) and then transcribes and edits on the computer.
Lewis was born on this day in 1898. Too bad we can't send him a birthday card. Do the next best thing and send Perry Bramlett, founder of C. S. Lewis for the Local Church an email wishing him a "Happy C. S. Lewis Day."
Holidays Back Home
11/28/2005 02:49
by Kathy Mansfield
It’s holidays back home,
Where time stands pretty darn still,
It’s holidays back home,
Where I go back to what is real.
When we get there Mom will say I’ve gained a little weight,
But, bless my soul she’ll pile her cooking high upon my plate.
Dad will ask the umpteenth time, “When ya’ll gonna have kids?”
By the time the sun goes down, he’ll be snoring behind closed lids.
On the roads you’ll surely see gun racks on every truck,
The daily news is filled with pics of “first-kill bucks.”
Screen doors slam and cowbells ring as day turns into dusk,
Mom hollers for some help with peas to shell and corn to husk.
Cotton bales are piled up high and catfish fill the ponds,
Our family spends the afternoon picking up pecans.
After supper we take a walk and slap mosquitoes from our arms,
We watch the lights go out down the road at the neighbors’ farms.
No matter where life takes me, no matter the heights I climb,
Back home is where I go when I need a quieter time.
It’s holidays back home
Where time stands pretty darn still,
It’s holidays back home
Where I go back to what is real.
© 2005, Kathy Mansfield
It’s holidays back home,
Where time stands pretty darn still,
It’s holidays back home,
Where I go back to what is real.
When we get there Mom will say I’ve gained a little weight,
But, bless my soul she’ll pile her cooking high upon my plate.
Dad will ask the umpteenth time, “When ya’ll gonna have kids?”
By the time the sun goes down, he’ll be snoring behind closed lids.
On the roads you’ll surely see gun racks on every truck,
The daily news is filled with pics of “first-kill bucks.”
Screen doors slam and cowbells ring as day turns into dusk,
Mom hollers for some help with peas to shell and corn to husk.
Cotton bales are piled up high and catfish fill the ponds,
Our family spends the afternoon picking up pecans.
After supper we take a walk and slap mosquitoes from our arms,
We watch the lights go out down the road at the neighbors’ farms.
No matter where life takes me, no matter the heights I climb,
Back home is where I go when I need a quieter time.
It’s holidays back home
Where time stands pretty darn still,
It’s holidays back home
Where I go back to what is real.
© 2005, Kathy Mansfield
Quote for the Day #5
11/28/2005 02:10
Source: my mother, who claims she was going for informational purposes. In honor of this profound statement, Kathy has written a poem:
I got lost on the way to the Alzheimer’s Home . . .
Despite a map, I started to roam.
I know there was a reason I was headed this way,
But, for the life of me, I just can’t say!
Questions? Thoughts? Comments? Rebuttals?
11/27/2005 00:38
3 Simple Rules for Posting Comments
I think it may be helpful to suggest a few simple policies for posting comments.
1. BE COURTEOUS.
If everyone will follow this simple rule, the other two will take care of themselves. You don't have to share my point of view. Debate can be fun. But politeness is a characteristic of civilized behavior. TRUE tolerance is the ability to disagree without going to war.
2. DON'T MAKE IT PERSONAL.
Name-calling and impolite labeling are unnecessary. Further, besides being discourteous, name-calling displays one's inability to adequately articulate a point of view.
3. KEEP IT CLEAN.
A wide variety of people read this blog--people of all ages. My MOM reads this blog! Please keep your comments rated G to PG.
Haloscan is set to alert me to any new comments, so I read them all. I value your opinions. Please respect these guidelines.
Thanks!
1. BE COURTEOUS.
If everyone will follow this simple rule, the other two will take care of themselves. You don't have to share my point of view. Debate can be fun. But politeness is a characteristic of civilized behavior. TRUE tolerance is the ability to disagree without going to war.
2. DON'T MAKE IT PERSONAL.
Name-calling and impolite labeling are unnecessary. Further, besides being discourteous, name-calling displays one's inability to adequately articulate a point of view.
3. KEEP IT CLEAN.
A wide variety of people read this blog--people of all ages. My MOM reads this blog! Please keep your comments rated G to PG.
Haloscan is set to alert me to any new comments, so I read them all. I value your opinions. Please respect these guidelines.
Thanks!
FPUforLife
11/26/2005 09:09
Also, on his site, you'll find a really nice selection of family photos, original recordings, and worship videos that he arranged and directed. His site is really worth a look, and one that you'll probably spend a good bit of time exploring and coming back to on a regular basis.
"The Power of the Dog" by Rudyard Kipling
11/26/2005 01:10
I saw this poem referenced on an email list to which I subscribe, and it piqued my interest enough to look it up. I thought Kipling's poem profound enough to make it worth repeating here.
THE POWER OF THE DOG
by Rudyard Kipling
THERE is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie--
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.
When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find--it’s your own affair--
But . . . you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear.
When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!).
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone--wherever it goes--for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.
We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we’ve kept 'em, the more do we grieve.
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long--
So why in--Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?
Perhaps the dilemma in Kipling's poem is best answered by Tennyson who said, "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
By the way, before any of you ask... Bessie, who is now seven, is doing fine as you can see below...
THE POWER OF THE DOG
by Rudyard Kipling
THERE is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie--
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.
When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find--it’s your own affair--
But . . . you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear.
When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!).
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone--wherever it goes--for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.
We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we’ve kept 'em, the more do we grieve.
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long--
So why in--Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?
Perhaps the dilemma in Kipling's poem is best answered by Tennyson who said, "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
By the way, before any of you ask... Bessie, who is now seven, is doing fine as you can see below...
"Contact Me" Page Not Working
11/22/2005 12:56
And in fact, it never worked...
I've discovered that the "Contact Me" page I had on my site was not working. This had something to do with php and .Mac hosting. But regardless, if you sent me a message from that form over the past few days and wondered why I was so rude as not to reply--well, that's why. I never got it. The "Contact Me" link at the bottom of every page DOES work, though, so if you sent a message earlier through the form, would you please be so kind as to send it again, directly to my email address: RMansfield@mac.com.
Quote for the Day #4
11/15/2005 15:34
People are still passionate;
they are passionate about trivia.
Heard on today's Dennis Prager radio show in the context of the loss of soul in our culture.
they are passionate about trivia.
Heard on today's Dennis Prager radio show in the context of the loss of soul in our culture.
Quote for the Day #3
11/13/2005 22:49
I was chatting with a former student of mine whom I taught at Whitefield Academy, and he was telling me about his part time job. His evaluation of things was just too good not to post here:
"Yeah...I'm learning people skills and that's definitely needed in life because people are everywhere."
This is true...
"Yeah...I'm learning people skills and that's definitely needed in life because people are everywhere."
This is true...
Welcome to the New Site
11/12/2005 04:53
I've spent the last two days completely transferring everything from my blog and main website to what you see here. The advantage of this arrangement is that everything is together: blog, photos, file downloads, etc. Since more people go to my blog than any other part of my site, it now resides on the main page.
Feel free to explore around. Anything that was available before, should still be here. Note that older blog entries are archived. You can search for them by hitting the subject link or the date link in the column on the left. I've done my best to try to make sure that links are working, but if you find something specific that is broken, let me know.
You can get here simply by pointing your browser to http://thislamp.com. The old blogs are still mirrored where they were to begin with for the sake of certain permalinks that pointed to them elsewhere on the net. But new entries will be added here from now on, not there.
Unfortunately, in copying the blog entries to the new software, I was not able to retain the old comments. However, I am still using my same Haloscan account, so therefore, the old comments are still contained in the Comments Feed. By the way, if you are tracking this blog by RSS, you will also need to take note of the new feed for this site.
By the way, the new site is completely done with RapidWeaver, which I highly recommend. Over the past few years, I've created sites in a number of applications, including PageMill, FrontPage, GoLive, and DreamWeaver. For the past two or three years, I had been using Apple's .Mac Homepage templates for my website and iBlog for my blogs. But I had to link these two to each other. Further, although I had been using the .Mac Homepage templates for ease of use, I was frustrated over lack of control. RapidWeaver creates the perfect balance. I have to do very little HTML coding, and the site has a consistent, professional look. RapidWeaver is not perfect yet, and I have already left a number of suggestions in their forums. But I believe that it is just about the best tool I've ever seen for what it does.
Please give me your feedback, and enjoy the site.
Feel free to explore around. Anything that was available before, should still be here. Note that older blog entries are archived. You can search for them by hitting the subject link or the date link in the column on the left. I've done my best to try to make sure that links are working, but if you find something specific that is broken, let me know.
You can get here simply by pointing your browser to http://thislamp.com. The old blogs are still mirrored where they were to begin with for the sake of certain permalinks that pointed to them elsewhere on the net. But new entries will be added here from now on, not there.
Unfortunately, in copying the blog entries to the new software, I was not able to retain the old comments. However, I am still using my same Haloscan account, so therefore, the old comments are still contained in the Comments Feed. By the way, if you are tracking this blog by RSS, you will also need to take note of the new feed for this site.
By the way, the new site is completely done with RapidWeaver, which I highly recommend. Over the past few years, I've created sites in a number of applications, including PageMill, FrontPage, GoLive, and DreamWeaver. For the past two or three years, I had been using Apple's .Mac Homepage templates for my website and iBlog for my blogs. But I had to link these two to each other. Further, although I had been using the .Mac Homepage templates for ease of use, I was frustrated over lack of control. RapidWeaver creates the perfect balance. I have to do very little HTML coding, and the site has a consistent, professional look. RapidWeaver is not perfect yet, and I have already left a number of suggestions in their forums. But I believe that it is just about the best tool I've ever seen for what it does.
Please give me your feedback, and enjoy the site.
Registered: THISLAMP.COM
11/07/2005 16:56
Adjust your bookmarks...
Over the weekend, I registered the domain name THISLAMP.COM which will now take you directly to this blog. I am phasing out the use of ricksblog.net .
What's the story behind the name? Well, two years ago when I started this blog, I was curious as to what I would cover. So I brainstormed a list that consisted basically of things I was interested in: religion, technology, movies, books, and politics. I thought to myself that this seemed like a long list, and without thinking too much about it, I added the words, "and this lamp, and that's all I need." Of course that's a line from the Steve Martin movie, The Jerk , but hardly anyone has ever gotten this reference.
When I first started the blog, I simply called it "Rick's Blog." I even registered ricksblog.net. However, every Rick and his brother has a blog called Rick's Blog. So eventually, I shifted "This Lamp (and that's all I need...) to the beginning of the banner rather than at the end, and started calling the blog "This Lamp."
That's where we are, and I plan to leave it like that. Ricksblog.net will remain active for the next year or so (although I'm going to direct it to a transitionary page), but then I will auction it off on eBay or somewhere. Somebody ought to have use for ricksblog.net, don't you think? It's a pretty catchy domain name, I think.
"This Lamp" was originally just a catchy tagline, but now it's the title. I'd like to think that's it now carries more meaning than merely a line from a movie.
Jesus said, "None of you lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead you put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light" (Luke 11:33, TNIV). Perhaps this blog can be a lamp now and then to folks who find themselves in the dark.
Quote for the Day #2
10/14/2005 13:59
Thoughts on Response Time Anger
09/03/2005 00:13
There is a lot of anger around this situation both in the hurricane stricken areas and from those who are observing it. On one hand, this event is unprecedented in American history. Plus in the case of New Orleans, proper, the storm hit on Monday, but the city didn't completely flood until Tuesday, drawing out the catastrophe itself and hampering initial rescue efforts. Were we ready for something like this? Evidently not. Even President Bush has acknowledged that the response time has been inadequate . And on the other hand, I don't doubt that if I were stranded in New Orleans, I would be quite angry myself at this point. One thing I've noticed in watching some of the reporters on site is that even they are extremely emotional about the situation. It's understandable.
Contrary to the claims made by some politicians and others, I have trouble believing that the slow response is racially motivated. Rather, I think we may have too much bureaucracy in the way we respond to crises on this scale. Every metropolitan area ought to put into place a response plan for responding to disaster situations, whether natural or manmade, including how to coordinate with federal agencies.
Finally, I don't understand the claim that the term "refugee" is racist--especially since it has been applied to blacks and whites alike. A refugee is someone seeking refuge, safety from a crisis situation. The Oxford American Dictionary defines a refugee as "a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster." In this case, you could consider the people displaced by Hurricane Katrina as domestic refugees. What's wrong with that? What's racist about it? Does anyone have a better term?
Let's cut out the rhetoric and focus on helping those who need help.
Contrary to the claims made by some politicians and others, I have trouble believing that the slow response is racially motivated. Rather, I think we may have too much bureaucracy in the way we respond to crises on this scale. Every metropolitan area ought to put into place a response plan for responding to disaster situations, whether natural or manmade, including how to coordinate with federal agencies.
Finally, I don't understand the claim that the term "refugee" is racist--especially since it has been applied to blacks and whites alike. A refugee is someone seeking refuge, safety from a crisis situation. The Oxford American Dictionary defines a refugee as "a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster." In this case, you could consider the people displaced by Hurricane Katrina as domestic refugees. What's wrong with that? What's racist about it? Does anyone have a better term?
Let's cut out the rhetoric and focus on helping those who need help.
The Best Source for News on New Orleans
09/02/2005 16:56
Above: New Orleans, Friday, September 2
The best place for up-to-date news on New Orleans seems to be found at http://www.nola.com which is a combination of AP stories and reports from the New Orleans Times-Picayune , which in spite of seemingly impossible obstacles is still in operation.
Above: Lee Bemboom struggles to carry her 11-month-old as she searches for help outside the Convention Center. Melissa Phillip/Associated Press
Also, you may have heard it on the news yesterday, but if you want to hear the interview with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, click on this link . Warning: In the midst of giving a very impassioned plea, Mayor Nagin uses some very strong language. In light of the circumstances, I certainly don't hold that against him, but I'm warning you in case you have young children around.
Voices from the Whirlwind
09/01/2005 22:21
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said... (Job 38:1, NASB)
The good news is that I have heard from two of the four friends who lived in New Orleans or the surrounding area. They are safe and for that we rejoice.
My lifelong friend Bryant Shaver gave me permission to quote him here. Bryant and I have known each other since we were in kindergarten. We went through grade school, college and even seminary together. Most recently Bryant has been pursuing a doctorate in American History from University of New Orleans. Today, I got this email from him:
I am safe and sound in Ruston. We are waiting for the green light to re-enter the city in order to see the damage. They will allow us in to gather possessions but then we have to leave for at least one month. As for school, I don't know what will happen. Unfortunately, it looks as though I will lose a semester and not graduate as planned in the spring. That will really mess up PhD plans. The good news, however, is that the sun is shining and life continues.
Bryant's attitude shines through in the midst of difficult circumstances.
Then earlier today, I checked the website for New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary , and I saw this reflection on the timing of recent events:
In spite of our present circumstances we are still seeing the evidence of God's mercy. New Orleans did not get a direct hit from the storm. The levee did not break until the storm passed and rescuers could get out to help. Those evidences of mercy are but illustrations of the grace that will sustain us all the way through this challenge.
I had not thought of this. If the levees in New Orleans had broken at the same time as as the hurricane hit, loss would be even greater, especially in regard to human life. Fortunately, the levees broke after the worst of the storm passed. We don't always know why certain things happen, but we can still find God's grace when we look for it.
The good news is that I have heard from two of the four friends who lived in New Orleans or the surrounding area. They are safe and for that we rejoice.
My lifelong friend Bryant Shaver gave me permission to quote him here. Bryant and I have known each other since we were in kindergarten. We went through grade school, college and even seminary together. Most recently Bryant has been pursuing a doctorate in American History from University of New Orleans. Today, I got this email from him:
I am safe and sound in Ruston. We are waiting for the green light to re-enter the city in order to see the damage. They will allow us in to gather possessions but then we have to leave for at least one month. As for school, I don't know what will happen. Unfortunately, it looks as though I will lose a semester and not graduate as planned in the spring. That will really mess up PhD plans. The good news, however, is that the sun is shining and life continues.
Bryant's attitude shines through in the midst of difficult circumstances.
Then earlier today, I checked the website for New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary , and I saw this reflection on the timing of recent events:
In spite of our present circumstances we are still seeing the evidence of God's mercy. New Orleans did not get a direct hit from the storm. The levee did not break until the storm passed and rescuers could get out to help. Those evidences of mercy are but illustrations of the grace that will sustain us all the way through this challenge.
I had not thought of this. If the levees in New Orleans had broken at the same time as as the hurricane hit, loss would be even greater, especially in regard to human life. Fortunately, the levees broke after the worst of the storm passed. We don't always know why certain things happen, but we can still find God's grace when we look for it.
Katrina: (Day 3) Aftermath
08/31/2005 08:22
KATRINA: DAY 3 (AFTERMATH)
Above: New Orleans on Tuesday
As the remnants of Katrina hit the Ohio Valley yesterday, it rained all day. I thought to myself more than once that it felt like Louisiana rain. In Louisiana, it can rain all day or continuously for days at a time. It rarely rains for very long here in Kentucky--at least not by comparison. But with all the rain yesterday and the high winds that soaked my pants even while I was carrying an umbrella, I didn't complain. I had a dry library in which to go study and a home that protected my "stuff" from all the elements. Even with a flood watch in the area, I had no real reason for concern.
Not so in towns and cities along the gulf where Katrina waged her destruction. From this point on people who live(d) in places like New Orleans and Biloxi and Gulfport will mark their mental calendars with BK and AK: before Katrina and after Katrina. August 29, 2005 is the day they will never forget. New Orleans and these other cities, even after being rebuilt, will never be the same.
I woke up this morning and began scanning news reports on the internet for anything new, but there's not much new from last night. Once the sun set, most of the rescue efforts were called off. There's no electricity, no light. You can't see to save people. Yesterday, reports tell us that over 3,000 people were saved from rooftops, many of whom had to hack their way out of attics.
Originally it was thought that the Big Easy was spared, but then the levee system in New Orleans failed and the city as of yesterday was 80% under water. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not worse by this morning, maybe almost 100%. The governor has ordered the evacuation of the city, and that includes the approximate 15,000 who sought refuge in the Superbowl. But where will they go? All the people who were able to flee the city and booked rooms in hotels further north--what do they do now? My mother says that every hotel room in Ruston, Louisiana where she lives is taken. But how long can you stay in a hotel? And what happens when the money runs out, but there's no more paychecks coming because the city where you worked and lived is no longer there and therefore you are unemployed by default? Plus, there's no longer an electric system. Currently there is no easy access to clean water, let alone a food supply. This is going to be a process, a long process.
And that also includes towns like Helen, Georgia which was known as a quaint little vacation getaway. Tornados spawned by Katrina destroyed it. It's gone.
In New Orleans they say that it will take a month to pump the water out, and they are projecting two months before schools are open. I think that's overly optimistic. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I don't know if I would count on any classes for the public schools, the universities such as Tulane and UNO or even the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary for the rest of the semester. People's lives are going to be forever changed because of this.
I also heard yesterday that there will be more water to come. As Katrina dumped all her rain on us in the Ohio Valley yesterday, that water will run into the Ohio River. The Ohio River will take it to the Mississippi River which will in turn carry it back to the deluged gulf cities.
On a personal note, I have two first cousins directly affected by the hurricane. One lives in Gulfport and the other lives lives just west of New Orleans. They are both safe and sound, but as of this writing have no idea what they will go back to or yet, when they can go back. I also have four friends from college who live in the area, three in New Orleans and one in southeast Louisiana. You can't even call cell phones because the numbers are routed through the devastated area and calls just can't get through. I sent emails to all four of them, but that assumes they could be somewhere that emails could reach them.
In the meantime we continue to pray, trusting in the God who is aware of even the sparrow that falls to the ground (Matt 2:29) and counts his children of even much more value. And although many churches will take offerings for aid this coming Sunday, you can also send funds directly to a number of relief agencies that are already being mobilized such as the Disaster Relief Branch of the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board .
Above: New Orleans on Tuesday
As the remnants of Katrina hit the Ohio Valley yesterday, it rained all day. I thought to myself more than once that it felt like Louisiana rain. In Louisiana, it can rain all day or continuously for days at a time. It rarely rains for very long here in Kentucky--at least not by comparison. But with all the rain yesterday and the high winds that soaked my pants even while I was carrying an umbrella, I didn't complain. I had a dry library in which to go study and a home that protected my "stuff" from all the elements. Even with a flood watch in the area, I had no real reason for concern.
Not so in towns and cities along the gulf where Katrina waged her destruction. From this point on people who live(d) in places like New Orleans and Biloxi and Gulfport will mark their mental calendars with BK and AK: before Katrina and after Katrina. August 29, 2005 is the day they will never forget. New Orleans and these other cities, even after being rebuilt, will never be the same.
I woke up this morning and began scanning news reports on the internet for anything new, but there's not much new from last night. Once the sun set, most of the rescue efforts were called off. There's no electricity, no light. You can't see to save people. Yesterday, reports tell us that over 3,000 people were saved from rooftops, many of whom had to hack their way out of attics.
Originally it was thought that the Big Easy was spared, but then the levee system in New Orleans failed and the city as of yesterday was 80% under water. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not worse by this morning, maybe almost 100%. The governor has ordered the evacuation of the city, and that includes the approximate 15,000 who sought refuge in the Superbowl. But where will they go? All the people who were able to flee the city and booked rooms in hotels further north--what do they do now? My mother says that every hotel room in Ruston, Louisiana where she lives is taken. But how long can you stay in a hotel? And what happens when the money runs out, but there's no more paychecks coming because the city where you worked and lived is no longer there and therefore you are unemployed by default? Plus, there's no longer an electric system. Currently there is no easy access to clean water, let alone a food supply. This is going to be a process, a long process.
And that also includes towns like Helen, Georgia which was known as a quaint little vacation getaway. Tornados spawned by Katrina destroyed it. It's gone.
In New Orleans they say that it will take a month to pump the water out, and they are projecting two months before schools are open. I think that's overly optimistic. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I don't know if I would count on any classes for the public schools, the universities such as Tulane and UNO or even the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary for the rest of the semester. People's lives are going to be forever changed because of this.
I also heard yesterday that there will be more water to come. As Katrina dumped all her rain on us in the Ohio Valley yesterday, that water will run into the Ohio River. The Ohio River will take it to the Mississippi River which will in turn carry it back to the deluged gulf cities.
On a personal note, I have two first cousins directly affected by the hurricane. One lives in Gulfport and the other lives lives just west of New Orleans. They are both safe and sound, but as of this writing have no idea what they will go back to or yet, when they can go back. I also have four friends from college who live in the area, three in New Orleans and one in southeast Louisiana. You can't even call cell phones because the numbers are routed through the devastated area and calls just can't get through. I sent emails to all four of them, but that assumes they could be somewhere that emails could reach them.
In the meantime we continue to pray, trusting in the God who is aware of even the sparrow that falls to the ground (Matt 2:29) and counts his children of even much more value. And although many churches will take offerings for aid this coming Sunday, you can also send funds directly to a number of relief agencies that are already being mobilized such as the Disaster Relief Branch of the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board .
Support for Andrew & Leila Wells
05/29/2005 16:08
I first met Andrew and Leila Wells after a Springdale Church service in 1996. They were both students at the time at the University of Louisville. Kathy and I got to know them better over the years, and we now consider them lifelong friends. In the summer of 2004, Andrew and Leila moved to Columbia, South Carolina so that Leila could pursue a doctorate from the University of South Carolina. Their son, Mason, was born shortly before they left Louisville; he is now 11 months old. They settled into Lexington/Columbia area where Leila started her studies and Andrew found a job. Mason was happy and growing and they were looking for a church in the area.
Then, on March 8, 2005, Andrew was diagnosed with Acute Myelocytic Leukemia, a form of cancer that produces dangerously high white blood cell counts. When diagnosed, Andrew's count was over 200,000--twenty times that of a normal person. He was immediately placed in the hospital where he went through six weeks of induction chemotherapy to achieve a temporary remission, and has had another round since being released from the hospital. Currently he is waiting to have a bone marrow transplant which he hopes to receive sometime this summer at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
Andrew's physical health is the primary concern, and he needs our prayer as his doctors work to make him well. However, a second concern right now is the financial stability of the Wells family. Upon learning the further treatment Andrew would undergo, the company he was working for placed him on medical discharge in hopes that he would be eligible for state benefits. Unfortunately, he cannot apply for the particular benefits specified because at the moment there is no way he can actively hold down even part-time employment which would be required. He will not be released by his doctor to return to work until at least October.
Further, because his immune system is weakened from the chemotherapy, the Wells cannot keep Mason in daycare on the chance that he would bring home an illness. Therefore, Leila has had to postpone classes as well as work at the university. Although they have some support from family, they find themselves in grave financial jeopardy as they are not receiving enough income to meet their basic needs, let alone the mounting medical bills. Although they were in the process of looking for a church home, they had not yet found one when Andrew was diagnosed with the cancer.
Throughout the last few weeks, I have talked with Andrew a number of times, and I have often found him to be surprisingly upbeat. He recently wrote me saying, "God has been very good to us throughout this trial. He knew us as we were being formed in our mothers' wombs, and he knows us today--all our needs, hopes and desires. We are trusting Him on a completely new level these days. Now we see more clearly what it means for us to look only to the Lord for our needs. When the systems and strategies of men have been exhausted, God is just beginning to show us his provision and plan for our path to come. As we walk through this trial, we ask that you would pray for us, that God would show His favor."
On Sunday, June 5, Springdale Community Church in Louisville, Kentucky will take up an offering for Andrew. Let me encourage you to be a part of that offering. Please consider sending any amount that you can manage to
Springdale Church
4601 Springdale Road
Louisville, KY 40241
Designate on your check that it's to go to the offering for Andrew Wells. If you can't send a check right now, send it when you can and it will be forwarded to the Wells. If you would like to send something directly to them--financial help, Wal-Mart gift cards, or just a word of encouragement--you can contact them at the address below:
Andrew, Leila, and Mason Wells
226 Corley Woods Drive
Lexington, SC 29072
You can email Andrew at arwell012002@yahoo.com and Leila at leilawells@yahoo.com . As far as I know, little Mason doesn't have an email account yet!
Please be praying for the Wells family. And if you can offer any assistance now or in the days to come, please do so.
Quote for the Day
05/28/2005 11:50
Main Website Redesign
04/08/2005 13:09
If you haven't looked at the rest of my website ever before or at least in a while, you may want to check it out. During a bout of insomnia, I have restructured it and modified the look of some of the pages. Photo albums now have a section all to their own, and Kathy and I posted some new pictures from her surprise birthday party.
Autotalk
03/25/2005 22:51
Now I have a word to describe the phenomenon...
Kathy and I stopped at the Springhurst Starbucks before the Good Friday service at church tonight. After taking our order, the barista hesitated at the register. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to key in before I ring you up," she said.
At that point, the other girl behind the counter who had been engrossed in conversation with another customer, said, "Sorry. I'll do it. Look at me--I was on autotalk."
Autotalk? 4000 evenings after work flashed through my mind, including the ride from home to town tonight. I looked at Kathy and then back at the second barista. "Autotalk?" I repeated the word questioningly. "Is that what you call it?" She giggled an affirmation.
With a light bulb hovering over my head, I looked back at Kathy and said, "You were in autotalk mode all the way here." Kathy's eyes grew wide, her mouth opened, and then she said nothing. Her mouth closed, lips pursed. She was silent.
She knows. She knows that now I have a word for the phenomenon.
Autotalk.
At that point, the other girl behind the counter who had been engrossed in conversation with another customer, said, "Sorry. I'll do it. Look at me--I was on autotalk."
Autotalk? 4000 evenings after work flashed through my mind, including the ride from home to town tonight. I looked at Kathy and then back at the second barista. "Autotalk?" I repeated the word questioningly. "Is that what you call it?" She giggled an affirmation.
With a light bulb hovering over my head, I looked back at Kathy and said, "You were in autotalk mode all the way here." Kathy's eyes grew wide, her mouth opened, and then she said nothing. Her mouth closed, lips pursed. She was silent.
She knows. She knows that now I have a word for the phenomenon.
Autotalk.
The Blog at One Year
12/06/2004 09:21
A retrospect...
ABOVE: Surely if Desiderius Erasmus (1466 - 1536) were alive today, he would be a blogger...
Blogs are huge.
And yet, a lot of people don't know what a blog is. The spell-checker in my blogging software (iBlog) still puts a red underline under the word "blog" to indicate that it may be a misspelled word. Funny.
After a year, I still get an email occasionally from one of you (in fact, I got one last week--you know who you are) asking exactly what a blog is. Rather than retype my answer over and over, I always point folks to the second blog I penned shortly after I started this thing: "Question: What Is a Blog ?"
Well, if you had to ask, don't feel bad, the folks at Merriam-Webster (the only true inheritors of Noah Webster's dictionary ) report that it was the most frequently looked-up word on their website for 2004. "Blog" outranked other lookups including words such as "incumbent," "cicada," "partisan," and "sovereignty."
Some have called bloggers "citizen journalists. They are credited with being the first to call into question Dan Rather's story about George Bush's National Guard service. In spite of some of the junk found in blogs, sometimes they are now the first source of breaking news.
Some people even lost their jobs over writing blogs last year. See "Blogs May Be a Wealth Hazard" from Wired.com
I started "Ricks' Blog a little over a year ago--December 2, 2003 after two separate individuals suggested I do so. Mid-November last year, one of you (you, too, know who you are) emailed me a short little message out of the blue: "You should start your very own Blog. You could review movies, technology and pop culture." Well, that got me thinking about it, and that very quote led to the name of my blog which is admittedly kinda long. When I sat back and looked at it on the internet for the first time, I thought to myself that I may be trying to cover too much: "RICK'S BLOG: Religion, Technology, Books, Movies & Politics". But if it was already long, it couldn't hurt to make it a little bit longer, so I added a line from Steve Martin's movie The Jerk : "And this lamp...and that's all I need... ."
Here are some highlights in the brief timeline of Rick's Blog:
12/2/2003 - Rick's Blog begins !
1/6/2004 - My death of PageMaker story gets picked up my MacSurfer . Too bad I didn't have the counter going then. I probably got a kabillion hits. You can still find the page by clicking on MacSurfer in the first sentence, and then searching for PageMaker. However, the link is broken because I have restructured the way my blog sits on my website since then.
1/25/2004 - My tirade against people leaving shopping carts in the parking lot gets a huge amount of attention, especially from MOTHERS. I follow-up two days later with a column entitled "Walking a Mile in Another Woman's Shoes ."
2/26/2004 - In true blogger fashion, I went to see Passion of the Christ and posted my review immediately afterwards. Quite a number of you told me that you read my review before you saw the movie. And some said that it was the review itself that made you decide to see the movie.
2/272004 - 5/28/2004 - The blog goes on hiatus after only 12 entries as I push aside anything extra in my world. Kathy and I got remarried on March 26 and I spend the next few weeks getting reacquainted to the things in life that really matter.
6/8/2004 - In an attempt at Mo-blogging (don't ask), I lose all my blogs on the software end of things. I have to manually recreate every blog by copying and pasting from my website. I take the time to do some major behind-the-scenes restructuring.
9/28/2004 - I added HaloScan comments and a counter to the site. The comments allow you to leave feedback beyond just emailing me. It's fun. I feel like we have a bit of community here when the discussion starts to build. Also, when I added the counter, my pride wouldn't let me set it at zero. So I guessed and started it at 700 hits. However, I must've drastically undershot because we've more than doubled that number in a little over two months. Oh well. Plus, who knows what it would have been if we could have counted the kabillion or so hits from the MacSurfer link.
11/3/2004 - I purchased the domain http://ricksblog.net and use it as a redirect to my blog. That's much easier to remember than ../../B992311189/index.html.
And now, here we are at one year! I had three goals for the blog when I started it. Two were stated and one was not.
First, I didn't want the blog to become something of a drudgery. I am glad to report, though, that it never has been. I just don't have enough time to write! However, I have enough ideas in my head that I think I could write multiple blog entries everyday!
Second, I didn't want the blog to become a diary. I didn't want this to become too personal because, realistically, who cares? However, I think I've been successful creating a healthy balance by only getting personal when it's appropriate--like the Thanksgiving Day entry.
Third--and this is the goal that I had made only to myself--I wanted to be able to write a minimum of one blog per week. Considering that there are 55 blogs written in the first year, I guess I reached that goal--if you go by averages. However, I've usually found that I go in spurts. I have a slightly different goal for the second year of my blog. I'll let you know in next year's retrospect.
You may or may not have noticed that in the full title of my blog, I include the word "books." But until last week, there wasn't even a category for books. This has been difficult for me. I am constantly reading and I always have books with me. But admittedly, I realize that a lot of what I read other folks may not be overly interested in, and I have wanted to keep these entries aimed pretty much at a general audience. However, I am going to make a concerted effort to change that. I am going to post more about books in the next year, and I would invite you to do the same. Maybe occasionally, you may want to tell others about a good book you've read. Feel free to submit a guest blog review of something you've read recently. I've already asked one of you (and you certainly know who you are) to write a guest review of U2's new CD, "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb." If you don't turn that into me soon, I'll just have to include an entry that says "_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ never turned in his U2 review."
Thanks for all your help and suggestions. Feel free to join in the conversation in the comments section anytime you want.
In the meantime, keep reading...
ABOVE: Surely if Desiderius Erasmus (1466 - 1536) were alive today, he would be a blogger...
Blogs are huge.
And yet, a lot of people don't know what a blog is. The spell-checker in my blogging software (iBlog) still puts a red underline under the word "blog" to indicate that it may be a misspelled word. Funny.
After a year, I still get an email occasionally from one of you (in fact, I got one last week--you know who you are) asking exactly what a blog is. Rather than retype my answer over and over, I always point folks to the second blog I penned shortly after I started this thing: "Question: What Is a Blog ?"
Well, if you had to ask, don't feel bad, the folks at Merriam-Webster (the only true inheritors of Noah Webster's dictionary ) report that it was the most frequently looked-up word on their website for 2004. "Blog" outranked other lookups including words such as "incumbent," "cicada," "partisan," and "sovereignty."
Some have called bloggers "citizen journalists. They are credited with being the first to call into question Dan Rather's story about George Bush's National Guard service. In spite of some of the junk found in blogs, sometimes they are now the first source of breaking news.
Some people even lost their jobs over writing blogs last year. See "Blogs May Be a Wealth Hazard" from Wired.com
I started "Ricks' Blog a little over a year ago--December 2, 2003 after two separate individuals suggested I do so. Mid-November last year, one of you (you, too, know who you are) emailed me a short little message out of the blue: "You should start your very own Blog. You could review movies, technology and pop culture." Well, that got me thinking about it, and that very quote led to the name of my blog which is admittedly kinda long. When I sat back and looked at it on the internet for the first time, I thought to myself that I may be trying to cover too much: "RICK'S BLOG: Religion, Technology, Books, Movies & Politics". But if it was already long, it couldn't hurt to make it a little bit longer, so I added a line from Steve Martin's movie The Jerk : "And this lamp...and that's all I need... ."
Here are some highlights in the brief timeline of Rick's Blog:
12/2/2003 - Rick's Blog begins !
1/6/2004 - My death of PageMaker story gets picked up my MacSurfer . Too bad I didn't have the counter going then. I probably got a kabillion hits. You can still find the page by clicking on MacSurfer in the first sentence, and then searching for PageMaker. However, the link is broken because I have restructured the way my blog sits on my website since then.
1/25/2004 - My tirade against people leaving shopping carts in the parking lot gets a huge amount of attention, especially from MOTHERS. I follow-up two days later with a column entitled "Walking a Mile in Another Woman's Shoes ."
2/26/2004 - In true blogger fashion, I went to see Passion of the Christ and posted my review immediately afterwards. Quite a number of you told me that you read my review before you saw the movie. And some said that it was the review itself that made you decide to see the movie.
2/272004 - 5/28/2004 - The blog goes on hiatus after only 12 entries as I push aside anything extra in my world. Kathy and I got remarried on March 26 and I spend the next few weeks getting reacquainted to the things in life that really matter.
6/8/2004 - In an attempt at Mo-blogging (don't ask), I lose all my blogs on the software end of things. I have to manually recreate every blog by copying and pasting from my website. I take the time to do some major behind-the-scenes restructuring.
9/28/2004 - I added HaloScan comments and a counter to the site. The comments allow you to leave feedback beyond just emailing me. It's fun. I feel like we have a bit of community here when the discussion starts to build. Also, when I added the counter, my pride wouldn't let me set it at zero. So I guessed and started it at 700 hits. However, I must've drastically undershot because we've more than doubled that number in a little over two months. Oh well. Plus, who knows what it would have been if we could have counted the kabillion or so hits from the MacSurfer link.
11/3/2004 - I purchased the domain http://ricksblog.net and use it as a redirect to my blog. That's much easier to remember than ../../B992311189/index.html.
And now, here we are at one year! I had three goals for the blog when I started it. Two were stated and one was not.
First, I didn't want the blog to become something of a drudgery. I am glad to report, though, that it never has been. I just don't have enough time to write! However, I have enough ideas in my head that I think I could write multiple blog entries everyday!
Second, I didn't want the blog to become a diary. I didn't want this to become too personal because, realistically, who cares? However, I think I've been successful creating a healthy balance by only getting personal when it's appropriate--like the Thanksgiving Day entry.
Third--and this is the goal that I had made only to myself--I wanted to be able to write a minimum of one blog per week. Considering that there are 55 blogs written in the first year, I guess I reached that goal--if you go by averages. However, I've usually found that I go in spurts. I have a slightly different goal for the second year of my blog. I'll let you know in next year's retrospect.
You may or may not have noticed that in the full title of my blog, I include the word "books." But until last week, there wasn't even a category for books. This has been difficult for me. I am constantly reading and I always have books with me. But admittedly, I realize that a lot of what I read other folks may not be overly interested in, and I have wanted to keep these entries aimed pretty much at a general audience. However, I am going to make a concerted effort to change that. I am going to post more about books in the next year, and I would invite you to do the same. Maybe occasionally, you may want to tell others about a good book you've read. Feel free to submit a guest blog review of something you've read recently. I've already asked one of you (and you certainly know who you are) to write a guest review of U2's new CD, "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb." If you don't turn that into me soon, I'll just have to include an entry that says "_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ never turned in his U2 review."
Thanks for all your help and suggestions. Feel free to join in the conversation in the comments section anytime you want.
In the meantime, keep reading...
New Blog Feature: A Direct Path
11/04/2004 14:24
I know that sometimes getting to this blog can be tricky if you don't have a link. So, now there is a direct path: http://www.ricksblog.net which will forward you to my blog.
Dave Ramsey Segment on 60 Minutes
11/03/2004 21:32
This Sunday, November 7, 60 Minutes will air a story they have done on Dave Ramsey and his Financial Peace movement (can I call it a movement?).
As far as I know, this is an entirely positive segment. But with 60 Minutes--who knows? Maybe they've dug up forged documents that Ramsey didn't show up for his radio show last year or something like that.
No, I'm assuming it should be a good piece since Ramsey has emailed folks on his mailing list encouraging them to watch. When he was in Louisville back in the Spring to do his Total Money Makeover seminar, CBS came to film his presentation. I assume that some of the seminar clips that will be shown Sunday night come from the Palace Theater, a Louisville landmark.
If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may remember my own story, "Searching for Financial Peace," regarding the way Ramsey's principles changed the lives of Kathy and me. After seven months of faithfully following the program, we never run out of money at the end of the month because we budget everything. We have paid off a HUGE amount on outstanding bills (ask me in private and I'll tell you, but it will blow you away). And our giving is way up from what it was before. His principles work. I can't encourage you enough to read one of his books or if possible take the 13-week seminar .
60 Minutes will air Sunday night, November7, on CBS at 7PM EST/6 PM CST.
New Nickel
10/28/2004 14:38
Okay, how did I miss this?
Am I the only one who didn't know there was a new back on the nickel? I was making an illustration to my students today using the change in my pocket, and I said, "Look at that--I have a foreign coin in my pocket." Then I realized that it was actually a new design on the back of the nickel.
I read and watch the news just about everyday. How did I miss this? Half of my sophomores didn't know anything about it either, but that really doesn't comfort me that much.
Evidently, there are new designs for the front and the back for next year according to the US Mint website . Isn't this a big deal? I think this is the first time the nickel has been changed in my entire life.
Am I the only one who didn't know there was a new back on the nickel? I was making an illustration to my students today using the change in my pocket, and I said, "Look at that--I have a foreign coin in my pocket." Then I realized that it was actually a new design on the back of the nickel.
I read and watch the news just about everyday. How did I miss this? Half of my sophomores didn't know anything about it either, but that really doesn't comfort me that much.
Evidently, there are new designs for the front and the back for next year according to the US Mint website . Isn't this a big deal? I think this is the first time the nickel has been changed in my entire life.
The Dumbest Knock-Knock Joke I've Ever Heard
10/17/2004 16:40
New Blog Feature
09/28/2004 23:19
Here's your chance to put in your 2¢
I have added the ability for YOU to add comments to my blog. Much thanks to the fine folks at HaloScan for this free feature. What this means for you is that if you have questions, thoughts, comments, or rebuttals regarding one of my posts, you now have the ability to make your voice heard to the world!
Of course I reserve the right to censor any inappropriate comments, but none of you would do that, I'm sure.
So...if you want to sound off on any of my blogs, merely click on the link that says comments. This will take you to a form that allows you to add your thoughts and opinions. I would ask that you leave your real name at the very least. Anonymous posting is so cowardly...
I am going to test the system by creating a test comment.
Look for a new blog entry in the coming days.
I have added the ability for YOU to add comments to my blog. Much thanks to the fine folks at HaloScan for this free feature. What this means for you is that if you have questions, thoughts, comments, or rebuttals regarding one of my posts, you now have the ability to make your voice heard to the world!
Of course I reserve the right to censor any inappropriate comments, but none of you would do that, I'm sure.
So...if you want to sound off on any of my blogs, merely click on the link that says comments. This will take you to a form that allows you to add your thoughts and opinions. I would ask that you leave your real name at the very least. Anonymous posting is so cowardly...
I am going to test the system by creating a test comment.
Look for a new blog entry in the coming days.
The Blog Is Back
05/28/2004 16:01
Gimme a break... I got married...
By the way, in case you missed it, the pictures are online on my webpage .
By the way, in case you missed it, the pictures are online on my webpage .
Miniblog/Random Thought, #1
01/26/2004 15:53
Question: What Is a Blog?
12/04/2003 15:36
Here is a response to a question some of you have asked me.
A number of you have emailed me asking exactly what a blog is. Here is a modified copy and paste of one of the answers I sent last night.
"Blog" is a contraction/abbrieviation of sorts for "weblog." BLOG = weBLOG...get it?
There are thousands of weblogs on the internet (simply do a Google search for "blog" to see for yourself. Most blogs run daily at least until the writer get bored of it, busy, or run out of material for something everyday (see, this is why I decided not to do one everyday in the first place).
I've read numerous blogs from those that are glorified diaries to some that are really sharp commentary and opinion pieces. I hope to aim toward the latter because, frankly I feel like the diary stuff is kinda boring.
Hey, I got to use "kinda" again.
A number of you have emailed me asking exactly what a blog is. Here is a modified copy and paste of one of the answers I sent last night.
"Blog" is a contraction/abbrieviation of sorts for "weblog." BLOG = weBLOG...get it?
There are thousands of weblogs on the internet (simply do a Google search for "blog" to see for yourself. Most blogs run daily at least until the writer get bored of it, busy, or run out of material for something everyday (see, this is why I decided not to do one everyday in the first place).
I've read numerous blogs from those that are glorified diaries to some that are really sharp commentary and opinion pieces. I hope to aim toward the latter because, frankly I feel like the diary stuff is kinda boring.
Hey, I got to use "kinda" again.