Fallen Into Knowledge

I’m a bit late to the game, but am also a sucker for Book-related memes. Which books do I find myself constantly recommending?

Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament.
This is theology done right, in my opinion. When I want to show that biblical studies and theology can speak to each other, or when I want to show theology to be engaging I recommend this book.

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
I have found this a profoundly moving novel, and each time I read it I want to shout from the hills how great it is.

David James Duncan, The River Why
I recommend this because it is laugh-out-loud funny. Don’t read it in public unless you want people to give you more funny looks than they normally do.

Neil Postman, Conscientious Objections : Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education
If I had three wishes, I might use one of them wishing to write like Postman did. This is his best book because in it he gets to talk about all of his pet subjects in essay form.

The Saga of the Volsungs
Periodically, people ask about my studies, and every once in a while I am asked to recommend a medieval text for which to read. I always start people with the Volsunga Saga. Its a great story, everything one would hope for in a medieval adventure tale. Also, it was a primary source for Wagner’s Ring Cycle and for another guy who wrote a book about a Ring. I also might recommend the other Icelandic Sagas, or The Tain

This is a test of Journler’s post to weblog function.

If this works, then I may have found, at long last, my note-taking / digital junk drawer program.

A little background, in hopes that it does work (of course, if you can see this, it has worked). I have long wanted a note taking program on my laptop in particular. A program that was free form enough for me to draft blog posts, write out theological reflections, take notes while studying, and so plethora of other verbal activity. Of course, while the program has to be free form, it also has to make it easy to retrieve that information, and to help me make new connections between my notes: that means meta information, key words, smart folders, and searching.
Journler is doing that all, and it also claims to be able to post those thoughts directly to my blog.

Does it?

{edit} It does, mostly

I have to confess, today hasn’t gone too well. The website nightmare is yet unresolved, although it is finally coming back together. This fact might have accentuated my pleasure to see this week’s podcast of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” in iTunes, waiting to be heard.
I am a NPR junkie, in addition to being a coffe junkie and a news-in-general junkie. My habit has been exaggerated recently, now that I can subscribe to many shows in iTunes. Frankly, having a podcast of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” makes the whole podcast thing worth while. If you haven’t heard the show - go to iTunes and check it out.
I currently subscribe to these shows:

Missing from the list, because they don’t podcast: Car Talk and Prairie Home Companion

It was supposed to be so simple: update to Wordpress 2.1. I updated a couple of weeks ago - nobody even noticed. That’s a good thing.
This time. Things are broken, badly. It will be some time before they are fixed.
Unfortunately, once started, there is no going back. I was over-confident.
Is there an “undo” key I can push?

{edit, Sunday Night} This has been a nightmare. I have now completely re-installed wordpress, and am working on updating / reinstalling all of the plugins. Then on to the theme: this is only temporary.

I have to say: I will rejoice on the day when I can have blogging software that works well (and wordpress’s blogging software does) and also have a great photo gallery system.

{edit, Monday evening} Okay, framework that holds the sidebar together, and allowed for some of content - Netflix info, Twitter, del.icio.us, etc - is broken and awaiting a fix by the developer. The Gallery program I was using is also being updated, but since it is such a massive program, and not properly a part of Wordpress, I am looking for a Photo Gallery replacement. So far, I have tested a few options, and have been dissatisfied.

School is out, and as a consequence I have more time to continue working on the website: Here is an update.

The Upgrades fall into two categories: Blogging and Photo Galleries. I like having both, but I haven’t really been happy with the solutions I’ve tried in the past - that’s the main reason this site gets worked on so often.

Blogging: I am using a program called Wordpress to run the blogging portion of the new site: its free, popular, and powerful. Using this system I can update my blog (this page) from any computer, or from my phone, quickly and easily. This is something that the previous web site didn’t do well; in fact, any update to the last website took at least a half hour. Most of that time was waiting, but still quite time intensive. This works better, and as a consequence i have been posting more often.

Photo Galleries: Go ahead, click on the “gallery” tab up at the top of the page. Most of the blogging programs don’t do photo galleries well, if at all. The last website’s photo galleries looked great, but like the blogging, any change took forever. Now I am using a program called Gallery2 to run the galleries. Like Wordpress, its free and powerful. Best of all, I can upload pictures directly from the program I use to manage my photos, Aperture - or, if I’m not at my computer, I can upload from any browser. Pretty cool.
The trick has been to integrate these two separate programs into a seamless site. Getting these two programs to work together has taken the most work, but this phase is now done. Now I can turn my attention to the look of the site. These changes will be more obvious, so stay tuned…

Well, actually you don’t even have to go, you can have Stanford University come to you. Do you have iTunes? Alright, then Click Here.  That’s it.  I recommend downloading and listening to the lectures by Cornell West, Lawrence Lessig, and Richard Fox.  Have fun.

perhaps because I never make them, or because I am cynical about how short lived resolutions seem to be, I was delighted to find that I can now have a computer rendomly generate a resolution for me.

See, this way I neither have to take time making a resolution, nor will I feel badly when I fail to keep it. A win-win situation if there ever were one!

Oh, while I am posting - Watch This:
Iconwars! Its funny.
(uh, Mr. (or Ms.) Tech Support Person, I think my computer has a problem….)

Oh come on, you know you want to laugh: Overheard in New York yea, feels good don’t it? (unless you are at work, then you are feeling silly for laughing out loud when no one else is sharing the joke. So share.)