I spent a couple of hours arranging my upcoming book and, so far, it looks like I’ll have a 175-200 page general Introduction to the Baha’i Faith for Christian Readers. Actually, I’ll try to make it accessible to any reader, but it will be written from my perspective as an Evangelical Christian — I’ll be presenting the material in a semi-autobiographical fashion. There are a couple of reasons for this approach, but the most practical consideration for presenting this material to someone new to the Baha’i Faith is where we find ourselves in history — we are entering in on the “ground floor” of Baha’i history and development as a distinct religion.… Read the rest
Many men wish their handwriting was better and I’m one of them. This primer, How to Improve Penmanship, at The Art of Manliness, “will teach you everything you need to know about improving your cursive penmanship.” At least, that’s their claim. I have this notion that by training my mind, eyes, and hands to improve my penmanship, other skills I’m cultivating will follow. There are indications that writing by hand improves your cognitive abilities, but I’m hoping my art and creative writing will also benefit. We shall see. One specific writing skill I would like to acquire is the draftsman or architectural style of writing.… Read the rest
I have to concur with the writer, that “racking up mile after mile is difficult, mind-expanding, and hypnotic—just like putting words down on a page.” But, it’s also energizing and freeing to be out on the road, around town or through the woods, working out ideas and problems, step by step, mile by mile.
… Read the restFreedom, consciousness, and wildness: Running offers writers escape with purpose. When confronted with “structural problems” in her writing as the result of a “long, snarled, frustrating and sometimes despairing morning of work,” Joyce Carol Oates would ease her writing blocks with afternoon runs. For Oates and many other writers, running is process and proves especially useful for the type of cloistered, intensive work they do.
Why do I blog? There are a number of reasons, I suppose. 
I came across a quote which answers that question and may give you some insight into why I do whatever I do:
… Read the restOur calling is to enjoy God as well as glorify Him. Real fulfillment relates to the purpose for which we were made, to be in reference to God, to be in personal relationship with Him, to be fulfilled by Him, and thus to have an affirmation of life. Christianity should never give any onlooker the right to conclude that Christianity believes in the negation of life. Christianity is able to make a real affirmation because we affirm that it is possible to be in personal relationship to the personal God who is there and who is the final environment of all He created.
This was something I posted back in 2005 and I thought it might be worthwhile to look back to where we’ve been and see how far we’ve come.
… Read the restIt has long been a dream of mine to redecorate our home in a modern theme, but it looks like that will have to wait for another 5-10 years. In the interim, we have decided upon a retro look and have been scouring thrift stores, garage sales and eBay for furniture and accessories from the same era as the ribbon-cutting on our home, i.e. 1961.
Today, Denise, and I were leaving a disappointing garage sale, when we happened upon a young gentleman (who happpened to be from New Zealand), standing in the driveway of his new home, next to this sectional.
I just upgraded to WordPress 2.5 and it was deceptively simple. Now, I can use the Visual Rich Editor, which was not supported in earlier versions of Safari and WordPress! I actually liked coding the posts manually, but truth be told… I’m kinda sloppy and I’d have to go back and edit my posts about a million times.
Second, I can try out the latest plugins, including Akismet. That should save me even more time, not having to deal with SPAM.
Finally, I like the new look and feel… it’s almost like beginning all over again. So far, I highly recommend WordPress 2.5.… Read the rest
Now, here’s a blog I get. Jonah travels the length and breadth of America, sampling the fare from taquerias of all sizes, posting his reviews on the Burrito Blog. As of this writing, he hasn’t sampled the best yet, which can only be found at El Tepeyac. ¿Es verdad, mi familia?
Now, if you’re ever in the Los Angeles area, you want to head over to East LA and find 812 N Evergreen Ave., between Brooklyn and Wabash. El Tepayac is across the street from a large Catholic church, in a neutral zone, and there’s usually a real long line outside.… Read the rest
I think this is a first for me… I’m blogging while watching a film — Schindler’s List. I’ve already seen it once, but that was years ago. Anyway, I was thinking about getting iListen for dictation and transcription. I do most of my best thinking in the morning, while I’m commuting and doing production/deadline work. I’ve tried a cassette dictation machine ten years ago, but that just didn’t work. I started looking into iListen to use with my computer at home, comparing it to other dictation/transcription software and hardware solutions. Then, it occurred to me… I have a video iPod.… Read the rest
Young People Flock To Second-Tier Sites Amid Shifting Tastes
This is welcome news, as far as I’m concerned. I just signed up on Facebook and the interface was noticeably less cluttered and usable. I’m not a huge fan of these new-fangled social networking sites, but from a design perspective things are starting to look up. As I pointed out when Ditty Talk rolled out, the MySpace design is just plain ugly and whenever someone adds a photo or video to their page, it gets pushed all out of shape and the user ends up scrolling in all directions.
These new contenders have some neat features that MySpace lacks:
Among the new social-networking sites is one called XuQa.com,… Read the rest
This weekend, I’m cleaning up all of my eMail SPAM and webforms on my sites. So far, success! The highlight is this anti-SPAM plugin for WordPress that really works. It’s called Did You Pass Math? and requires the commenter to solve a simple arithmetic problem before the comment is submitted. Fortunately, robots aren’t smart enough to know that 2 + 2 equals 4… yet.
Next, I’ll be checking out some spell checkers… The last one I tried didn’t work.… Read the rest
Back in February of this year, I began this blog in a fit of pragmatism. With youthful exuberence I set out to set the blogging world on fire about a year ago:
That brings me to this blog. It was supposed to be designed in WordPress and I intended to learn PHP/MySQL to exercise full control. But, I found that I am not prepared for that level of commitment yet. The dream of designing and implementing a beautiful, functional blog continues to live on and it will be realized, as time permits. But, I cannot bear to put off blogging and publishing a moment longer.… Read the rest
I just got home and my head feels pressurized… like it’s about to explode. So, I don’t have anything too profound except that in my meanderings this morning when my head felt like it was imploding, I came across these funny jpegs. The first one was found at Nacional sos el Decano del Futbol Uruguayo, which appears to be some sort of soccer fansite. The Salisbury’s always felt a certain kinship with the Simpson’s… perhaps that was all in my head.
Next, I found this jpeg titled “We found Nemo!” at Middle Age Madness. It made me hungry… a Philadelphia Roll, perhaps?… Read the rest
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