An interesting thought from class today.
Consider the following interaction:
Child: "Daddy, I don't ever want to be hungry."
Father: "Fine, no dinner for you this evening."
I'm sure this idea would cause any normal person to recoil in disgust. Why is it then that so many people refuse to serve the Lord with an excuse like the following one?
"I won't serve the Lord because I know he'll send me to Africa and I can't stand bugs."
To think that God, who is our Father, delights in causing His children grief is to have a very wrong view of God indeed.
Today marks the anniversary of the day that I took one of the bigger risks in my young life. A year ago, I expressed my desire to build a special relationship with Mandy. Those of you who know me well are aware of the monstrosity of that step. Much to my delight, she accepted the challenge. The Lord has indeed blessed me in the past year with a friendship that has taught me much about true, self-sacrificial love. He's also given me a fiancee along the way and the anticipation of a marriage in July. I can't wait to see what He's got in store for us this year.
We had breakfast together this morning and then went downtown to Rocks and Ropes for some climbing fun. I realized again how quickly one can lose any muscle strength. I haven't been climbing in almost 5 months and it showed. The little kids celebrating birthdays were out-climbing me, and I routinely finished 5.10 routes! Must get back into it. Must!
We went to the Melting Pot for dinner tonight. If you're looking for a really singular dining experience, go there. I never realized fondue could be that cool and that good. We gorged ourselves on such culinary delights as filet mignon and tiger shrimp. It was awesome! Oh...another interesting thing. It was the first two and a half hour meal I've ever had that seemed like 45 minutes. We had a great time. Many thanks go to Mandy's play cast for the gift card! It was much appreciated.
Ok. CSS kicks for a quick redesign, but when you've got a hankering to do something different with your weblog you've got to use extreme measures. This is by far one of the coolest uses of Flash that I've ever seen. Oh, by the way, the site uses Moveable Type. And...it's "googleable" (or so the creator claims). Nice.
In other news, I had a job interview on Monday with an awesome company in Columbia, SC. Please be praying that the Lord will continue to direct in my life. I'd be thrilled out of my brain to be able to work with them.
For those of you with even a passing interest in Greek/Roman mythology, I found a cool site this morning that you might enjoy. Not only does it have a pretty good encyclopedia of the characters found in Greek and Roman stories, but it's got games and stories too. I would suggest a broadband connection as some of the resources are pretty big.
Yes, David, you can find out who Charybdis is too.
Kammer, let me know what you think of the Flash.
While on the subject of designing/redesigning, I suppose these links via scriptygoddess might come in handy. One is a pretty simple explanation of MT's template system. I didn't read it thoroughly, but it might be good for some basic instruction. The other is a site featuring some prebuilt stylesheets for MT. Some of them are pretty nice.
I was also checking out some of the winners for the 2004 bloggie awards. I noticed that they axed the "Best Weblog Webring" category. Bummer! We might have been able to go somewhere with that one. Moveable Type won for being the best software for weblogs. Cool!
Well...after a long and arduous process, the first stage of the vortex design has been deployed. I hope you find it pleasing to the eye. I'll see what I can do about the archives page in the near future. The design's implemented completely in CSS. It appears to validate for both XHTML and CSS.
I would recommend using a Gecko-based browser for right now. There are some small issues with IE that I'm trying to iron out. As far as I know, it's just pixel level stuff, but if the site fails catastrophically in your browser, comment on it and let me know. Please note that I'm not going to make render problems in 3rd and 4th generation browsers (except IE5/Mac) a priority, but let me know anyway so I can put it on the list.
In the past couple of days, I've been struck with the beauty of Spring. Here's why.
On MWF, I have a class at 9 o'clock in the morning. Counseling Techniques. Great class. I recommend it for everyone. It really makes one think about his spiritual life in a new and different light (at least it has for me). Anyway, on Wednesday, I was crossing the Bridge of Nations and found myself engulfed in a shower - of flower blossoms. The trees around the bridge have bloomed.
I was meditating on the emergence of flowers and many different thoughts come to mind. There is wonder at the infinite creativity of the God that I serve. This creativity is so aptly demonstrated in the delicate petals of a wind-driven flower or the far-flung galaxies in a seemingly dark area of space. There is joy in the return of the exuberant color of the flowers and cool shade of the trees which herald the coming of Summer. There is the more metaphysical comparison to my own life and the expectation and excitement surrounding my wedding. There is one thought that seems to overpower the others though, and it's not completely connected. It's important though.
That is the maturation process that a tree experiences and it's applications to our own lives. I think of the verses in Psalm 1 that speak of the tree, and I look at myself with an introspective eye. Am I walking in the counsel of the ungodly? Am I standing in the way of sinners? Am I sitting in the seat of the scornful? Is my delight in the Law of the Lord? The tree that is planted by the rivers of water will bring forth fruit, its leaf will not wither, and it will grow and thrive. Am I drinking of the Living Water? Are you?
I was nosing about the web this morning and ran across a couple of cool things that I thought were enjoyable or exciting.
Those who are in the web design field are very aware of the very real problems with the IE family of browsers. These problems include, but are not limited to, serious rendering bugs with CSS, poor implementation or just plain buggy Javascript support (particularly with the DOM), and failure to render content served with a content-type of application/xhtml+xml. Well, there's a guy named Dean Edwards who has come up with something clever. It's a behavior driven piece of code that implements lots of different stuff. Check it out when you get a chance.
The second thing is more for the artsy people, though probably only a small subset of artsy people will be interested. It's a javascript ray-tracer. I don't really understand too much about 3-d art or rendering, but the concept was kinda cool.
Enjoy!
A just-released article at A List Apart is a must read for web designers who are interested in standards-compliant design and markup. David Shea is awesome! Check it out when you get a chance.
For those of you with a spare moment on your hands, check out the Touchgraph GoogleBrowser. It runs Google 'related' queries and displays the results in real-time. Pretty cool stuff, huh?
I would warn those of you with slower machines. This thing spawns a java window that has a lot going on. If you push it too far, your machine will begin to writhe in agony. Push a little harder and it will give up the ghost.
Alas, bensfriends doesn't have anything in google's related database. It was interesting to see what BJ's site was 'related' to, though.
In the last couple of days, the Lord has decided that I need yet another lesson. I suppose the fact that even the mention of the term in reference to a situation in life is liable to cause a storm within. I don't want to be patient. I don't want to sit in the dark about the future. I want to have everything for the next 20 years planned out. I want, I want, I want...
I'm so thankful that the Holy Spirit works in our hearts to convict us of sin. It didn't take too long this time to realize that the root of impatience, in this case (and probably all recorded cases), is selfishness. I find it interesting how that sin lies at the bottom of so many difficulties and problems in life. While contemplating this problem, the Lord brought two psalms to my mind - Psalm 51 and Psalm 34. Check them out sometime. I'll include some of the pieces that really spoke to me below.
Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.
-- Psalm 51:2, 3, 7-13
O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together. I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. O fear the LORD, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him.
The LORD redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.
-- Psalm 34:3-4, 8-9, 22
I have a strange habit. I know that may be a shocking revelation to some people, but I do. I like to read bumper stickers while driving. Usually that's not a hard occupation, but sometimes I find myself tailgating just so I can read the sticker on the car in front of me, which I'm sure is driven by an increasingly nervous or angry (or both) person.
Anyway, I noted a rather funny one this morning. Since it was a morning of bizarre moods, it'll probably only be funny to me, but I'll share anyway.
Save the drama for yo mama
I must admit after reading that I could only think of Kammer and his impressions - in particular, "Tie it!" If you haven't been acquainted with that one, I'm sure he'll be happy to share at some point.