Saw this on Digg this morning: Official Seal Generator
They were offline earlier, but the guy scrambled and put up a mirror.
Appreciate his work, and make your own seal.
The text on the seal says “Random Commands – Geek Gentrified” (which was somewhat stole from Discoshaman at Le Sabot Post Moderne who has been hard at work gentrifying the Christian Ghetto…)
From Instapundit comes this article on the emmergence of Compact Flourcent Lighbulbs (CFLs):
excerpt:
Diane Lindsley, the hardware buyer who decides what goes in the lightbulb aisles at Wal-Mart, thinks 100 million swirls is perfectly reasonable. “Yes,” she says, “it’s rational, I think.” Before she started buying bulbs for Wal-Mart just three years ago, Lindsley didn’t even know what CFLs were. Now she pauses in a way that suggests the kind of determination Wal-Mart can bring to bear when its buyers decide they are going to sell Americans something. “We have plans in place to where it may not take that long.”
Which presents a daunting challenge: Wal-Mart’s push into swirls won’t just help consumers and the environment; it will shatter a business–its own lightbulb business, and that of every lightbulb manufacturer. Because swirls last so long, every one that’s sold represents the loss of 6 or 8 or 10 incandescent bulb sales. Swirls will remake the lightbulb industry–dominated by familiar names GE, Philips, Sylvania–the way digital-music downloads have remade selling albums on CD, the way digital cameras revolutionized selling film and envelopes of snapshots. CFLs are a classic example of creative destruction.
I’ve installed a few CFL’s in the past few months in closets and bathrooms to replace bulbs that always burned out quickly. I may expand the list to a few more places around the house.
Bully for Wal-mart though, being environmentally conscious and all that…
Click the image to go to the Online Version of Christianity Today.
hat tip: The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University
Any comments? Bueller?
First off the stack is the NET Bible plugin. This will allow me to type John 3:16 and WP will automagically translate that to a link that point to the NET bible at bible.org. So I can type some things and then randomly comment that this applies to Numbers 10:20 and be on my way without having to make a long drawn out process of going to the site, making the search, copying the link, and then making the link in my post. So… let’s see if it woiks!
Next, the Page Links To plugin is a simple thing, but makes it easy to create ‘links to’ other areas of your websites, and have them appear on the WordPress page list, so that it looks nice. I needed it to better incorporate my Flickr Photo Gallery into the pages of this site. I found the tip at the Glued Ideas Support Forum, which incidentally has created this great theme.
Also installed Ultimate Tag Warrior because I loves me some tags. Tags are a great way to interconnect your various posts by applying your own ‘tag’ to each post. Then look and see how they interconnect by looking at a tag cloud. I’ve got none of that working at the moment, but UTW seems to have all the options I’d need to get a good tags folksnomy working lickity-split.
Finally, I’ve installed EditNPlace. This allows the quick update/edit of a post from the main page without having to go back to the backend, and then to the manage tab, then find the post. I can quickly (through the magic of AJAX) click and edit the raw text of the entry and then save it. Good for catching typos, or adjusting the layout real quick, etc… Had something like it for comments on Misplaced Keys, which was handy too.
That does it for this episode of What Plugin have you done for me lately…
not only is the DAWG down for the count…
Angie habs ub coud, adn feels tehwibbl.
Mikey has an ear that is growing faster than the rest of him… or he has some kind of infection, gonna see the ped this afternoon to determine which.
Lauren had a rash on her back last night.
Brenna has an abcess in her mouth, and can’t hardly eat anything without jamming something in and screaming in pain.
Danny’s legs hurt (growing pains I think.. that and the dood runs like 40 miles a day, and bikes 500 with his pals in the ‘hood.
But.. me.. I have my new bipap and I’m just fine…
One of the things about blogging that I enjoy is the addition of a blogroll. One of the things I *don’t* like about blogs is exceedlingly huge and log blogrolls. (Also the technical aspects of using blogrolling.com or other service to host your blogroll, and the hit your site takes when that service goes down) At Misplaced Keys I had moved to my own blogrolling system, using Yoshi’s Link List Module for Expression Engine. It worked great, and allowed me to page through my blogroll in a nice consise way.
The problem was, that I didn’t, and have lost touch with a lot of my favorite blogs that I used to read semi-regularly, and replaced that variety with a list of daily reads, that largely regurgiate the same topics in different ways. So it is quite nice that since I’ve switch over and imported my LONG list to find some unread treasures along the way. (Along with quite a few dead and duplicate links that need to be trimmed…)
This morning I re-found The Irvins which is the blog of Tim Irvins who writes on quite a few topics, and whose grasp of Grace always inspires me. I read this post on The Altar Call that just seems to make sense, and recall that many of the people sitting in pews are opposed to the scandal of grace. Read more of Tim’s stuff, and I think you’ll agree, he has his head on straight.
Peace.
With new shows starting to pop up onto the television screen, I’ve been perusing the fall schedule.
Just browsing, since it doesn’t really kick off for good until well into September, there are a couple of old-standby that kick off next week. House and nip/tuck.
Sunday looks like it will be less ‘must see’, but with The Amazing Race opposite Extreme Home Makeover, TAR might be in the 9 o’clock slot, since Grey’s Anatomy has moved to Thursday. I lost a bit of that ‘desparate’ feeling last season, but will give it another shot. But if it withers more, then it looks more like Sunday Night Football will be the place to be. 😀
Monday night is a bit open with the lack of Primetime Football (well at least not on ABC) we’ll have to go to the dramas. Missed the Vanished premiere last week, but *yawn* .. sorry.. lost my train of thought there. The two known qualities are vying for my attention at 9pm (What About Brian and CSI:Miami – I give the nod to WAB… but I still have a warm place in my heart for Horatio…) New shows that might crack my attention barrier, Heros on NBC at 9 (if for nothing else to not watch Bachelor: Rome, sorry.. but Jen shefted me on that franchise…) looks like it might be worth the time. Deal or No Deal is great pop-corn television (it keeps you busy, but isn’t very filling), and will get the early nod, if I can’t tune to ESPN.
Tuesday looks dry, but House starts next week at 8pm. After that we’ll have to search for distraction, ABC has some sitcoms, I always hear the Veronica Mars buzz… Boston Legal, I enjoy, but eh.. sometimes the whole liberal slant of the show (with Denny Crane filling the conservative buffoon role) just irritates me.
Wednesday. The DVR gets a workout early, since we don’t get back home from church until almost 8pm. Jericho looks cool, I mean nuclear explosions, whats not to like?? Lost starts conspiring at 8pm, with a whole bunch of new loose ends to start gathering up. The Biggest Loser will be on the backup DVR for that slot, I’m certain, and The Nine (post Lost show) might make the radar screen.
Thursday gets busy… (note to self, change men’s night…) Survivor on at 7pm. Grey’s Anatomy, CSI and The OC all at 8pm (counts fingers… one will have to be downloaded, I’m thinking either CSI or The OC, I need another DVR!!!) Six Degrees (the new Abrams drama) starts at 9pm, and will get my attention early.
Friday might give Men in Trees a gander, woman stuck in man-filled Alaska, sounds somewhat interesting. Saturday is DEAD to me. (Oh why can’t some dude realize that some Thursday shows could make it on a Friday night or a Saturday night…)
I’m sure the SweetBippy will write on this, but I wanted to get my two-bits in…
Yesterday we sent Sadie (our beagle) off to the vet for a teeth cleaning. For some reason, it is a procedure that required anathestsia and so Sadie would be at the vet’s all day recovering from the procedure. About 5pm I head on down to the vet’s to pick her up, and she comes out walking a bit slower than normal. Not really surprising, being under the sleeping gas does stuff to a bod. I sign her out and take her home.
Reading through the paperwork accompanying her home, I see that while they had the opportunity, the vet decided to give her every vaccine known to man, and check out her #2 hole for ring-worm. The poor dog, is really hurting. She yelps at a small touch in the wrong spot, and is happiest just lying there, softly shivering and whimpering. Last night Angie and I were sitting on the couch watching ‘Celebrity Duets‘Â (*clap* WOO!) and Sadie got up, and turned around and stood, and just lowered her jaw to her bed… just to support it. Entirely pitiful.
We took her back to the vet today, kinda like.. you broke our dog, please fix it… I hope that in fixing it, they don’t realize they may have missed a vaccine or twelve, or decide that some kind of exploratory surgery is necessary. *fume*
Garrick wrote a nice post on favoritism at Ministry Matters.
I wrote up a small comment, but after it got past a couple of paragraphs, I decided to blog on the topic as well.
I had said: Favoritism is sometimes in the eye of the beholder, but sometimes it is so blatant that it causes pain, uncertainty and doubt on the person who thinks they have become victim to favoritism.
I remember being faced with that in youth sports, first in ‘all-star’ selection in little league, then later when I played on the Varsity Baseball team, and realized that I couldn’t break into the starting line-up based solely on skill, but because my family didn’t contribute to the boosters at a high-enough level.
Such things still happen in church, because we are human. Flipping through the channels last night I caught a bit of the movie ‘Drumline‘. The Band Director Dr. Lee is talking with the leader of the drumline, and the conversation goes something like this:
Dr Lee: Do you remember why I made you section leader?
Sean: You said, it seemed that I liked the sound of the line above the sound of my own drum.
Dr. Lee: I’m not sure what happened, it might have something to do with Devon, or maybe something else, but it seems you’ve lost sight of this *pause* Which is okay, because at some points, we all lose our way. But if you don’t get past this, and start to go back to what made you section leader, you won’t be able to lead anything, not even this little drumline.
I found that poignant, because the character of Devon had to do a lot of learning too, but the plot of the movie focused on the relationship between the selfless leader, and the talentedly brash follower. Leading isn’t a skill, leadership doesn’t fall on the person that can do it the best. Leading is the art of getting people to do something that often they’d rather not do. But Dr. Lee is right, if a leader shows favoritism, then that directly effects their ability to lead. It subverts their efforts to bring together a team. The best leaders, at times, are also alone. Which seems contradictory, but it isn’t. If we find ourselves guilty of favoritism, it is best to come clean, and apologize, commit to being more fair. (even if the reality is unfairness for all)
What about the other end, what do we do when we are the target of favoritism? I think the best path, is to do our best in the role we are in.
Back in High School, I tried out for the varsity baseball team, for the winter I practiced and practiced baseball. I got into shape, threw and fielded, swung the bat, went to a skills camp. When tryouts came, I played hard, and made the team. I was thrilled with being able to call myself a varsity player, to be able to play the game of baseball at a high level. My weakness was that I could play many different positions, so I never really hit one hard, and I wasn’t fast enough to play outfield well. The problem was the infield lineup was set, the firstbase position had a decent player that could hit for power (I was a slapshot, get on base hitter), secondbase was filled by a good player (that also happened to be the son of the JV coach), shortstop was filled by another great player that also was the star point guard in basketball. Thirdbase, a hard charging scrappy player that was always practicing. The chink in the armor was the firstbase position. He could hit for power (linebacker in football, and we are a football school) but was a lazy practicer. I saw that as my opportunity, but couldn’t dislodge the static lineup. I sat on the bench through pre-season, games that didn’t matter, and the whole season, finally getting a start in the final game, when all the seniors started. I had all of three at-bats all season. We had a losing season, and the first baseman had a horrible time all season long (as I remember it) I even asked the coach to be ‘sent down’ to JV just to get to play, but that wasn’t an option my senior year. The year in my heart was a dissappointment.
However, my peers didn’t see it that way. There is an award given out by the players each year, Mr. Hustle. I voted for the starting third baseman, but the majority of my peers, put my name on the line. So if you stroll through the awards gallery at my high school and look a the Baseball awards, and Mr. Hustle for 1986 will show Jon Stueve (hey, they even spelled it right… :)) ( I also got the lion’s share of basball pictures in the yearbook that year… ha ha neener neener…) So sometimes taking your role, even in the face of favoritism, and doing the best you can, can end up with good results. (even an object lesson to share in a blog. :D)
via: