Six27

Wind me up

Wind me up
Put me down
Start me off and watch me go
I'll be running circles around you sooner than you know.
–The Caesars, "Jerk it Out"

This Christmas season, one movie will stand above all the rest.

From the producers who brought you Cat in Bag: The Movie and This Website comes an all-new 13 second adventure. Will the villainous twine ever be apprehended? Will Aesop emerge victorious? Will the room ever stop spinning? Find out in the new Six27 Cinema production of "Wind Me Up," starring Aesop the cat.

Click here to watch Wind Me Up.

(Runtime: 0:13 minutes. Requires QuickTime. Download size: 0.8 megabytes.)

Siesta

Admit it; you wish your life was this rough. (See the whole gallery.)

Moths are tasty

Meow. Last night as Beth and Christian were getting ready for bed, a huge miller moth flew upstairs and perched itself at the top of the bedroom doorpost. As I enjoy chasing insects, I sat at the bottom of the doorpost and meowed at the moth, with my tail swishing about dramatically. Meow. I lept up to try to get the moth several times, but I couldn't jump quite that high (although I can jump very high). Christian shooed the moth down from the doorpost, and it flew into the hallway. Meow. I waited for the moth to keep flying, and when it flew low enough, I jumped up, caught it with my paws in midair, knocked it to the ground, chased it downstairs, and then ate it. Moths are tasty. Meow.

So... hungry...

Meow. We are sooooo hungry. Christian, who is very mean, put us on a diet today. He said it's because Athena is a few pounds overweight (editor's note: more than a "few" pounds). It feels like we haven't eaten since... well... three hours ago, but our food dish isn't out anymore and we're very concerned that we might not eat again ever! Perhaps if we eat all the plants in the house and knock enough things off the counter, Beth and Christian will notice how incredibly hungry we are. Meow. Now I, Athena, am going to curl up in Christian's lap and purr and meow, and he'll think, "Oh, you're too cute to put on a diet, pudgy one. I'll let you eat forever." But just in case that doesn't work, please tell Beth and Christian to feed us soon. If we have to go until tomorrow without eating... we might not make it! Meow!

Cat in bag

Meow. We are pleased to present you a short film starring me, Aesop, the kitty, as I get stuck in a paper bag and roll around the floor trying to get out. Grab a bag of popcorn and enjoy the show! Meow.

Click here to watch Cat in Bag: The Movie.

(Runtime: 0:56 minutes. Requires QuickTime. Download size: 1.3 megabytes.)

Migration

Sometime during the weekend, this website will go down. When it comes back up, it will be back. How's that for a promise?

In case you're keeping score...

...that's two riders kicked out of the Tour for doping or doping allegations. Two European riders, I might add. Of course, Floyd was quick to point out that the French-run (e.g. incompetent) LNDD screwed up by releasing Vinokourov's results the same way that they did to Floyd.

So, to revisit an earlier point: Europeans are, on a whole, far too proud of their sport to admit that it is seriously, deeply in trouble. What to do? Start here: A one-strike-and-you're-out policy on missing doping tests, samples given to multiple laboratories from multiple countries, and most importantly, no more tests from LNDD, which continues to be hostile to all non-French riders.

Oh, and number of Americans or Team Discovery riders accused of doping? Zero. (Just in case you were wondering.)

What a great summer

I've decided that some regret about the passing of summer is inevitable for me. This has been, upon survey, a great summer so far. We've been "busy," but always doing fun stuff. Yesterday we went to the zoo and to Beth's parents' house for an outdoor barbecue. Friday night was a Whitecaps game. Thursday night we stayed in with a sick cat, but Tuesday had been a softball game and Monday was dinner with Julie and Pete.

And that's pretty much how every week has been. We haven't been home much because we've been doing stuff. Even so, I look at the calendar and think, "July 22? Where did summer go?! Hurry, pack in more activities!"

The urgency is somewhat mandated by West Michigan climate. These three months of summer are precious to me, because the other nine months can unbearably long and cold. But in the summer time, it's warm and sunny for almost three straight months.

I still have lots of bike riding to do, recipes to cook, and sights to see. We recently decided that before we leave Grand Rapids, we want to have done all the major activities and seen all the major sights there are to see here in GR. So we've compiled a list and are slowly working our way down it. Maybe I'll write about that later. For now, happy summer!

Another thing I miss about Denver

A sample listing of upcoming artists playing at Red Rocks: BT, Bob Dylan, Daft Punk, The Beastie Boys, The Killers, Underworld, The Smashing Pumpkins. And that's just Red Rocks. Groups like that (especially the electronic acts) just don't swing through Grand Rapids much. Or... ever. *sigh*

This and that

We had dinner with Jeremy and Amanda at Boatwerks in Holland last night. It was good to have dinner with friends and catch up on what's new in each other's lives. I was hoping that we'd pack a picnic for dinner and walk around downtown taking pictures and experimenting with the new camera, but it's been raining since I got up, and only 62°F to boot (July?).

I should mention in passing that I [technically] have a new job, but not really. Last month, our organization (A) merged with another organization (B). That organization (B) provided IT support to a third company (C). Due to state regulations in the long-term care industry, only employees of B can provide support to C, and since the primary IT guy left B, they needed somebody in IT to support C. So the only difference in my new job is that my paycheck comes from B instead of A (even though, post-merger, we're the same legal entity) and I got a decent raise. It's the same job I've been doing, I have the same desk, do the same work, report to the same boss, and do everything else the same. The only difference is that I occasionally have to support C. Seem confusing? It is to us too. But the extra money was too good to turn down.

I was going to post longer about this, but were you aware that the Tour de France is going on? I really wasn't either. My interest in it, and that of many other Americans, has basically evaporated. Every time an American rider wins (11 of the past 21 tour winners have been American) the allegations of doping and cheating come fast and furious. Between the absurd way that the UCI is handling the Floyd Landis affair and the disgusting nationalism of Europeans, particularly the French, there's no way that I can see where the Tour is going anywhere but down a long spiral.

In a sentence, Europeans (especially the French) can't bear to see Americans consistently beating them at "their" sport, and so rather than admit defeat, they go and fabricate elaborate conspiracy theories about how American riders are using secret, unknown doping techniques to gain a competitive. Or maybe we just train better. Oh, and Europeans? Free clue about the whole doping problem: Your riders are the ones who keep getting caught.

Speaking of doping, I have to wonder why major league pitchers don't all agree to a) try to hit Barry Bonds as hard as they can with a fastball, thereby disabling him, or b) only ever walk him from here to eternity. What a cheat. At least there's still minor league baseball. We bought a 10-game ticket package for the Whitecaps this year; on Thursday, despite rain and cold temperatures, the Whitecaps eeked out a 12th-inning win after opening with back-to-back homers in the first.

When you sleep with wolves...

Our organization recently got notified that Microsoft was tightening up its licensing requirements for "charities," and that we no longer qualify for the substantial discount, despite being a 501(c)(3). As a result, our software licenses costs for Microsoft products will be increased six-fold.

There are so many reasons I hate Microsoft. They produce the worst software of any major company. None of their software works properly, ever. There isn't a single Microsoft product on the market that doesn't completely suck across the board. Their software engineers are incompetant, their marketing department is ridiculous, on and on and on. Here's just one more reason to hate the worst company in the world: screwing over other companies that are trying to do good work.

Microsoft, from me to you: Go straight to hell.

But I've seen it all in a small town

Caller with a hot tip for the newsroom: I just wanted to call and let you guys know, there's a woman out here who is trimming a tree, and she's wearing a dress!

Reporter who answered the phone: ...

Caller: I just thought it might make for a fun photo or something.

Synod 2007

I finally got around to reading the July 2007 issue of The Banner about all the changes from Synod 2007. Three thoughts:

The fuss over women being full leaders in the church will seem as anachronistic in a decade or three as prohibitions against car washing on Sundays seems today. Thank goodness it's [mostly] settled now.
The hit-miss ratio of synod was pretty even. The decisions on women, minorities, SMCC, and ESV acceptance were all wins. Trashing the minority report on Third Wave Pentecostalism, as well as listening to any report with the venomous title 'Migrant Workers and the Nature of Sin,' were awful blunders. Revising the hymnal and revising the church order are likely to become albatrosses to future synods.
The conservative/historical denominations are becoming deeply marginalized, both at the synodical level and in The Banner's coverage of the same. It's not at all clear that anybody under the age of 40 is truly listening to and empathizing with anybody over the age of 70. A lack of historical awareness is a serious, threatening problem.

Somebody is bound to point out that items one and three contradict each other. So goes the CRC in 2007.

crickets chirping

It's been awfully quiet around here, except for that noisy 'Imminent redesign coming!' banner on the front page. What's up with that, anyway? I want to gut the site and rework it. I've wanted to for, oh, I don't know, two years or so. But who wants to do that when it's sunny and beautiful outside?

So here's some of not-much-important-at-all. We had some money from my graduation, odd jobs worked, etc. We put most into savings, but picked up two treats that I/we wouldn't have otherwise put money towards. We bought a digital SLR camera; a Nikon D40. This camera, and the accompanying Nikon 18-200mm zoom lens, take beautiful pictures. Some are making their way to our Flickr site. I'd forgotten how much fun SLRs are.

We also bought a Nintendo Wii. I hadn't played any video games aside from Mario Kart 64 in probably several years, but man oh man, the Wii sure is fun. It's especially fun with groups of people. We had a Wii Sports tournament at our house with a group of friends who came over for my birthday; great fun for a whole group. The Wii is fun in a way most video games never are: it's social. No wonder Nintendo is outselling the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 combined.

Mostly, we've been enjoying summer. It's been surprisingly busy, but busy in the good way that we're doing lots of fun stuff. Who can argue when "busy" means "barbecues, games, vacations, and baseball games"?

Anticipating June 29th

Apple annouced today (via television commercial on CBS) that the iPhone is coming out on Friday, June 29th. They have new TV ads that show off some of its compelling features. John Gruber at Daring Fireball sums the ads up well:

These are great ads — music, photos, video, flick-to-scroll, Google Maps integration, and, of course, answering and initiating phone calls. It all looks simple, obvious, and very fun. No other cell phone is advertised by showing off the user interface.
These ads are low on hype and high on showing how the iPhone actually works, and they clearly focus on reasons why you might want one. They make me think the iPhone is going to be the next Wii — they’re going to sell them as fast as they can make them for months to come.

See also the story in today's New York Times. It's not as if Apple isn't already awash in cash, but the iPhone is destined to be yet another printing press for cash in Cupertino. Suddenly Morgan Stanley's target price of $150 for AAPL doesn't seem so crazy. I'm really wishing I'd bought in when it was still around $95 a few months back.

My wife loves me

Beth was in Chicago this weekend for a friend's bachelorette party. Upon returning home last night, she handed me a bag from Chipotle, which we don't have here in Grand Rapids, containing a foil-wrapped steak fajita burrito with chile corn salsa, sour cream, and cheese — my favorite food, exactly the way I like it. She loves me! (And I love her!)

Driving a Prius, nine months later

The cost of gas is higher than ever. Not that we'd really notice.

We've owned our 2006 Barcelona Red Toyota Prius for almost nine months. It's hard not to feel smug about gas prices when you're driving the most fuel-efficient car on the market. Because we [still] get a lot of questions about the car, here are my thoughts a few months "down the road"...

Fuel economy: The first question everybody asks is, "What kind of mileage do you get with that thing?" What we don't get is the dubiously-calculated 60 MPG EPA estimate; almost no Prius owners do. What we do get is a consistent 48 MPG in warm weather (as with all cars, fuel economy goes down with temperature). With Beth's 70+ mile daily commute, that adds up to thousands of dollars in savings on fuel every year.

Hybrid confusion: The next most common question is, "Do you have to plug it in?" There are apparently a lot of misconceptions about what a hybrid is. A hybrid vehicle isn't an electric vehicle; it's a vehicle. You drive and maintain it the same as any other car; you just get much better fuel economy.

Our friend Jon had a smart observation about why the Prius and other hybrids have been so successful while other electric vehicles have failed: If you took somebody from the 1960s or 1970s who'd never heard of hybrids and put them in the driver's seat of one, they would be able to drive the car without needing to learn or know anything different.

We also frequently hear, "So can it go at highway speeds?" or "Can it go fast?" The answer is again, yes, it accelerates the same as any other vehicle. I don't remember what the zero-to-sixty time is for the Prius, but it accelerates like a fairly peppy four-cylinder. It's not a V6, but it's no slowpoke, either.

Digital interior: Although the actual act of driving the Prius isn't really that different from other cars, sitting inside one feels like stepping five years into the future. The Prius is nearly all-digital inside. It has an 8-inch touch screen in the center console that controls most of the interior features, including climate and sound. Upon getting in, many people ask, "Is that a DVD player?" Many of the same controls are also accessible from buttons on the steering wheel. It's rare that you need to take your hands off the wheel while driving — a great feature.

Our Prius also has a backup camera (an option). Besides the hybrid technology itself, this is probably the biggest "wow" factor. Put the car into reverse and the console screen switches to a video feed from a camera mounted in the rear of a car. The backup camera makes parallel parking a breeze, even for people like me who aren't that good at it.

Comfort and feel: Another reason to love this car is that it handles beautifully, rides quietly, and is comfortable inside. The Prius is rated as a mid-size car; there's lots of room inside. It seats four comfortably and five without much shoving. It's very well insulated, meaning that road noise is kept fairly quiet. Of course, the car itself is almost completely silent when in electric mode, and still very quiet when running the gas engine.

...

Overall, we love the car. It's been a great-looking, great-driving, fun vehicle to own. As Beth said in her original post, we didn't think we'd be driving a new car this soon, but nine months later, it's good to be driving a Prius.

More letters and a full heart

After four years of work, I can now add two new letters to the end of my name: M.A.

I graduated from Calvin Theological Seminary today with a Master of Arts in Educational Ministry. It's a great feeling to be done.

It was a great day, and my heart is full. My parents and Beth's grandmother came in from out of town to see me graduate. Friends came to watch the process. Beth's parents and sister came. We spent time with the family, spent time walking around our neighborhood, ate an amazing dinner at The 1913 Room, and had a great time. It is humbling to hear family, friends, and professors heap compliments on you. While I'm honored and grateful, I feel overwhelmed by the generosity in all their remarks.

It was a beautiful, sunny, and warm day. I was just a perfect day. I wish this day could last much longer, because it's the sort of wonderful day that you only dream of having.

Ultimately, though, all praise is due to my friends and family for sticking by me and supporting me, and most of all, all glory goes to God. Thank you.

Pomp and circumstance

Christian is graduating today!
In a few hours, he will officially have his Master of Arts degree from the seminary, and with an awesome GPA on top of everything. His parents are in town; I've got the camera ready. The past four years have been working up to this day.
We're pretty excited. And I'm pretty proud.

When all is said and done

I handed in the last of my work at CTS this morning. I'm done!

Graduation is tomorrow at 11:00a in the Calvin College Fine Arts Center (info here). If you are in the area and would like to come, please do! Tickets aren't required, as the graduating class is small (65 across all seven degrees).

Having an office

There have been times when working full time while going to school has been a drag, such when everybody wants to go out late on a school night but I have to be in the office at 8:00a the following morning. But yesterday morning, while finishing my thesis (done!) I needed a quiet place to sit, lay out some books, and write for a few hours. My options were:

A tiny 2-foot by 1-foot desk carrel in a dark corner of the occasionally-odd-smelling fourth floor of the library, or
My office at work, where I have a massive and clean desk, bright lighting, a huge 20-inch LCD monitor, an impossibly-comfortable Aeron chair, fresh coffee and breakfast, and on Friday mornings, almost complete silence.

Sometimes working while going to school has been a drag. But other times, the benefits are worth their weight in gold.

Finales

My last class is over, my thesis is nearing completion, and I'm putting the finishing touches on the final issue of Kerux.

On the topic of that publication, we met as a staff one last time this past week, and I marveled that 10 people had stuck with me all year. For my own part, I felt that my administration of the publication was rather ham-handed. But the staff was gracious enough to even congratulate me and make little to do of my many shortcomings and extended absenses of publication. Contrary to what some people will tell you, charity runs deep in the Dutch blood.

The final issue is both critical and reflective; hopefully it will be read for what it is. I am glad to have been a part of it.

Last day of classes

Today is my last class ever at Calvin Theological Seminary; fittingly, it's a pastoral care class. The sky is warm but a bit gray and rainy, as if to say, "It is a bittersweet finale." Truth be told, while I'm excited to be done, I know that a part of me will really miss sitting in those classrooms and listening to the professors.

Data on religion and churches

Somehow in the research for my thesis, I'd missed (until tonight) the Association of Religion Data Archives, a massive repository of all sorts of statistical data about churches, church attendance, and faith issues.

For instance, did you know there were over 11 million more church attenders in the year 2000 than in 1990? Or that there are over 900 congregations in the greater Grand Rapids metro area? Cheers to Penn State, the Lilly Endowment, and the John Templeton Foundation for making this resource available.

The bittersweet taste of the last uphill lap

While I'm very grateful to have the oral comp exam done, it is but a small piece of the work I have left. I have fewer than three weeks of school left (and only 8 days of classes), yet I have a great deal of work still to submit and plenty of material to write. The poor, neglected Kerux has suffered so badly this quarter that it really breaks my heart. So much work went into it, and so much has fallen away, and the blame is all of my shoulders. But school must come first.

Already I have begun to look around and realize how quickly these last days are going. Classrooms I will never sit in again, professors I won't have the privilege of listening to, and students I won't the privilege of spending time with. I am very glad to be finishing, but like all such accomplishments, it is a bittersweet parting.

Pray for me that I would have the endurance to finish well and to delight in the last few days of school. Soli Deo gloria.

Coda

Every once in a while a product comes along that totally revolutionizes its industry. In web design software, that product came today in the form of Panic's new application Coda. After playing with it for all of 3 minutes, it was immediately clear that this is the only program I will build websites in from now on. It brings everything web designers need into one voluptuous package. It is a work of art, plain and simple.

If you're got a Mac, run, don't walk, to Panic's website. If you've got a PC, this program alone is worth buying a Mac for.

Now that that's over with...

Now that the oral comp is over with, I'm spending a lot less time anxiously looking at the calendar waiting for graduation day to come. Granted, it's only been two days, but my day-to-day life already feels a lot less anxious.

It helps, of course, that the weather has been absolutely beautiful here. It was in the mid-70s yesterday and the mid-80s today. Beth is down in North Carolina covering the culinary team, so I've been back here passing the time by drinking lemonade, watching a few movies (Daniel Craig is a great Bond), cleaning, spending time with friends, and going to a Whitecaps game. It may sound uneventful, but a weekend of thinking about not school has been well received.

So, regarding school, what's still left? A thesis, a Bible knowledge exam, and finishing out classes. Not too bad. The thesis is significant in its own right, but it's just overwhelming from the perspective of writing, which never bothers me.

I wish that all Sunday nights could be like tonight: warm, quiet, and wonderful. I think I'll go have some more lemonade.

WOOHOO!

WOOHOO!

I passed! I passed the oral comp exam! I can graduate! Woohoo!!

Thirty days

Thirty days until graduation. Oral comp tomorrow. Just thirty more days...

These long days

These long days, I have one month and two days left. The second take for my oral comp exam is on Friday. I've never read the Bible so much before in my life. Unlike the first time, where I felt nervous but collected, I'm nothing short of terrified this time. I have nightmares of being asked questions and having no answers. The committee, though differently staffed, is still made up of professors who I largely haven't had any contact with; that's out of two dozen professors, mind you.

These long days, school is all I can think about. After the exam I have other things I've neglected, such as Kerux. And I realized last night that I'm frightfully behind on personal correspondence, some of which has gone unanswered for months. I may not recover from this deficit until graduation, so I ask your forgiveness in advance.

These long days, the sky stays partially lit until 9:00. The air is gradually warming, and the geese are returning. I played softball and dreamed of ice cream with friends. How frightfully thankful we must be to delight in the fantasies of soft grass and vanilla creme amidst the sordid screams from yesterday's news.

These long days, "the whole creation has been groaning."

What a bust

My jury trial was scheduled for today. Arrived at the courthouse at 8:30 (yay for sleeping in and not having to drive 45 minutes!), was ushered into the jury room, got a little tour...
(Aside: Boy do I feel bad for jurors whose trials last for weeks...that is a SMALL room with hardly anything in it...)

Then we sat. And sat. And chatted. And waited.

Finally the bailiff comes in. You can take off your jury badges, she announces; the defendant didn't show up. You're off the hook.

Wow, what an idiot. So now there's a warrant out for his arrest, higher bail, etc. etc.... I'm a-thinkin' this guy will deserve what's coming to him.

I'm disappointed, because I really was interested to see how everything goes in the courtroom, and to be a part of the justice system. It sounds like it would have been a really interesting trial, too...there were like 20 cops for witnesses - one of them got a medal for saving the assault victim's life and everything. But now, some other jury will have to hear all the sordid details.

The upside: Hello, day off!

One of these is not like the others

An empty bottle of Mike's, a scratched-up BlackBerry, and an Old Testament book; that's what's on my desk right now.

On one hand, a reminder that summer was briefly here before the current winter redux took hold. On another hand, a reminder that I'm on call and tethered by phone to work. On the third hand, one of the final pieces to an education whose final weeks are stretching to near endlessness.

Last week was a spring break week at the school, which opened up enough time to launch into the overdue task of handing out 60 brand new laptops to clinical people. To the question from classmates, "How was your spring break?" I offered, "Uhh..." A shiny new laptop is as unremarkable as an empty bottle when you've handled enough of them, just as bank tellers must find stacks of $100s unremarkable after a day or two.

Surprisingly, nobody has called the BlackBerry all week. I could use it as a coaster, but I worry that my glass might tip over. BlackBerries addicts must be the most banal people in the world; the damn things do nothing but buzz and chirp a Morse code melody of annoyance. That $200 would buy a lot of malt liquor lemonade.

The book is wholly different from the annoyance and the 10-cent refundable bottle. The title says "Introduction" (it's a survey book) but its employment is for a capstone. It's only a month and eight days until the stone is capped, and I think about that almost every day; what started as a journey has become a dutiful march to the finish line. Which makes it sound worse that it is. Somebody recently asked, "Are you glad you went?" and after a moment I said yes. I am glad, no matter how much the process has occasionally resembled corporal or capital punishments.

The book lives on; it has a permanance that's lacking in the others. The bottle is already empty, and the 60 laptops will be in a landfill in three years' time. Although I have no answer for the perennial question of what's next, at least the material from the book and the school have an imagination that goes beyond themselves. Imagination for the bottle ends at the bottom; the BlackBerry never had one to begin with. The book and the school keep adventuring throughout all life, annotated by experiences and punctuated by decisions.

I can think of a hundred ways the book — and the education — could have been better, but the competitors next to it don't hold a candle. The times I'd forgotten that — the times I'd doubted it... I'd forgotten what else was on the table.

Memo to aspiring musicians

Attention all would-be singers, songwriters or musicians in general:
Effective immediately, there will be a moratorium on songs or albums featuring the following topical themes, for reasons of over-saturation already in the market.

1. Gravity
(See as examples "Gravity" by John Mayer, "Oh! Gravity" by Switchfoot, and "Gravity" by Embrace. See also the albums "Gravity" by Our Lady Peace, and "Oh! Gravity" by Switchfoot.)

2. Breathing
(See as examples "Breathe" by Collective Soul, "Breathe In" by Frou Frou, "Breathe" by Michelle Branch, and "Breathe" and "Breathe (Benediction)" by Newsboys.)

3. Time
(See as examples "Falling For the First Time" and "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" by Barenaked Ladies, "If I Could Turn Back Time" by Cher, "Wasting My Time" by Default, "Do You Have a Little Time" by Dido, "In Good Time" by Domestic Problems, "Summertime" by Hello Dave, "Time" by Hootie and the Blowfish, "Perfect Time of Day" by Howie Day, "Feel Good Time" by Pink, "Bigtime" by The Soundtrack of Our Lives, "In the Meantime" by Spacehog, and "How Many Times" by Zack Hexum. See also the albums "Our Time in Eden" by 10,000 Maniacs and "Time to Say Goodbye" by Sarah Brightman.)

4. Sight
(See as examples "See You When You're 40" and "See the Sun" by Dido, "Suddenly I See" by KT Tunstall, "I Didn't See You Standing There" by The Nadas, "I've Got To See You Again" by Norah Jones, and "If You Could Only See" by Tonic.)

And that's just from my personal music collection.
It's time for a fresh wave of musical creativity. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

April first

Every other day of the year, I eschew a hermeneutic of suspicion, which is still the en vogue hermeneutic in so many academic circles. (This is one of the chief reasons William Lane Craig cites in his assertion that the distinction between modernity and postmodernity is invalid.) On April first, though, it's best to assume that everything you read is wrong.

Because Florida is so 1997

Since when did spring break become a time for teens to make huge, elaborate trips to exotic locations?

We've had a few high school interns at work over the year. For this year's spring break, one is going to St. Maarten and one is going to Jamaica. The third is mad because she's "only" going to Florida. Because - apparently - the majority of her classmates are traveling to similar exotic destinations.

"Only?" Only? Are kids today so coddled that traveling to tropical locations is expected, rather than something special? Visiting destinations like St. Maarten and Jamaica should be a significant, unique thing, a privilege - something that people only get to experience for a honeymoon or special trip or something. Save something for when they're adults! Not to mention, no one's going to want to hang around Jamaica when it's overrun with horny teenagers.

When I was in high school, the big thing to do for spring break was to go down to Florida or Gulf Shores with your family for the week. If you were lucky (depending on how important it was to be accepted by the popular kids). I can't think of anyone I knew that traveled out of the country.
And...somehow this has turned into a "when I was your age" rant. Good grief, I'm not that old.

One more thing: One of our interns left for spring break on Wednesday evening. High school spring breaks don't start until next Monday. And she's not returning until the Tuesday following that week. That's right. She's missing four full days of school ON TOP OF the regularly-scheduled spring break. And people wonder why kids these days don't have respect for authority. It's because parents are teaching them that you don't have to do what people or school schedules say IF YOU DON'T WANT TO.

Class of 2020

Seen on a sign outside an elementary school today: "Welcome class of 2020! Come in to register for kindergarten."

Bits 'n pieces

Today, during my water aerobics class at the Y, I watched a woman in the upper balcony, doing a full Tai Chi routine all by herself. It was one of the most beautiful things I've seen recently. I wish I could be that graceful.

April is going to be crazy. Some of that is due to Part II of my jury duty commitment. Against the odds, I was actually selected for a trial! Of the 25 cases on the schedule for that day, 24 of them settled out of court; of the 40 or so potential jurors that day, somehow I made it on the one remaining case. I'll be juror #7 for an aggravated assault case starting in mid-April. What I've seen already has been fascinating; I can't wait to actually be a part of a real trial. The judge said the case should take only one or two days at the most...

...Which is good, because later that week I'll be en route to Charlotte, North Carolina! Yes, it's for work technically (national student culinary competition), but due to the competition schedule and my flight itinerary, I'm going to have plenty of free time to do fun stuff. Now I just have to see what there is to do around Charlotte! Oh, and of course - it being a culinary competition - I'll likely eat very well.

Yes, spring on the education beat can be hectic, but you can't beat a free trip to North Carolina. At least I can't complain of being bored!

A summer menu for March

The temperature got up to 79°F in Grand Rapids today. A fine day that ended with a fire red sunset in the partly cloudly western sky. The menu, as suggested by Beth, was grilled hot dogs with spicy mustard, chipotle chili chedder cheese, and olive oil-simmered onions, with a side of grill-roasted corn-on-the-cob and a salad. Ice cream and sherbet still to come.

Honk (loudly) if you demand satisfaction

Our choir practice at school this morning turned into a competition. You see, the chapel where we practice sits right next to the seminary pond, where migrating Canadian geese like to park for a while.

Either the geese didn't care for our singing, or they thought we were out of tune, because they started honking loudly halfway through the practice and never let up. As a fellow tenor remarked of their incessant noise, "We're not on the same pitch."

Anticipation

Two months until graduation. Three weeks until opening day. Thunderstorms, open windows, and warmer temperatures. For a brief moment, coming days look benevolent; the creation, inviting. A glass of lemonade?

The downward spiral

I'll be brief. The committee said I should take the exam again in April, meaning I didn't pass. They said that if they were to grade it (it's pass/fail) they would have given it a C, and they're looking for a B- or better. Mostly, it didn't go at all the way I was told it would. I have no other information than that to share right now.

Down to the wire

In less than 24 hours, I'll take my oral comprehensive exam at CTS. The oral comp exam is an hour-long exam (they call it a 'conversation') by a panel of four professors, covering any and all topics learned while in school. In a way, it's a final exam for which the subject material is every class you've ever taken. As a requirement for graduation, it's a big deal.

I've been studying and studying, reading Scripture, going over notes. At times I feel very prepared, while at other times I'm totally convinced I'm going to crumble. The committee of professors tells the student 15 to 30 minutes after the exam whether or not we've sustained it. If you get invited back into the room, you passed; if the professor chairing the committees invites you back to his/her office, you didn't.

One way or another, I'll know in less than 24 hours...

George Will on literary theory and historical amnesia

When our copy of Newsweek arrives, the first thing I do every other week is flip to the back to read George Will's column. Will is old-style conservative — you may have read about them in books or museums — who still believes in such things as fiscal and legislative frugality; in other words, conservativism. (Some people have begun ridiculously referring to such things as "libertarianism," a word that appears in no history text I've run across.)

Will's latest column about Longfellow, literary theory, and historical amnesia is worth quoting in block:

Yeats ascribed Longfellow's popularity to his accessibility—"he tells his story or idea so that one needs nothing but his verses to understand it." This angers today's academic clerisy. What use is it to readers who need no intermediary between them and the author? And what use is Longfellow to academics who "interrogate" authors' "texts" to illuminate the authors' psyches, ideologies and social situations— the "power relations" of patriarchy, racism, imperialism, etc.? This reduction of the study of literature to sociology, and of sociology to ideological assertion, demotes literature to mere raw material for literary theory, making today's professoriate, rather than yesterday's writers, the center of attention.

Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts, has written that "Longfellow's vast influence on American culture paradoxically makes him both central and invisible." The melancholy fact that the 200th birthday of the poet who toiled to create the nation's memory passed largely unremarked is redundant evidence of how susceptible this forward-leaning democracy is to historical amnesia.

It's too bad we don't have more conservatives like George Will, instead of the "conservatives" we're stuck with today.

Juxtaposition

I drove home watching a burning orange sun ignite the evening sky. On the radio, Accadia's Into the Dawn was playing.

Civic duty, or permission to sleep more? You decide.

I have been summoned for jury duty for the first time ever. My summons date is in a few weeks. I've heard other people say that when they got a summons, there was a number they had to call the night before to see if they even needed to come in - not me. My letter is pretty much like an order: Be there at this time, and be prompt. Oh, and thanks for being a good citizen, and all that jazz.

I don't really mind, though; in fact, I'm kind of excited. I have always been intrigued with the jury duty process. I'm very interested to see how everything is run and quite curious to see what questions potential jurors get asked...if it makes it that far for me. Those who have "been there, done that" say it probably won't...

I am kind of even hoping that I get selected for a jury, or at least get called back for more than one day. Why? For one thing, it's in Grand Rapids. No 45 minute commute! Plus, I don't have to be there until 9 a.m. Yay for three more hours of sleep!! (THAT is the big one, of course.)

As luck would have it, though, I can't even manage to get out of the drive for even one day. The date of my summons is the exact same date as the Tri-Cities spelling bee...the one my paper sponsors...the one that, as education reporter, I must be at...so I'm going to have to drive out to work that night regardless of jury duty status. Curses!

Don't get me wrong, I still love my job...but the drive, particularly in the morning, is beginning to wear on me right now - especially with the terrible winter weather we've been having recently. I hate starting the day all nervous and tense. Last year at this time, we went on vacation for a week - and that must have made the difference. This year, I'm getting much more irritable about the drive.

So yeah, bring on the court cases! I know I'd be an excellent juror, Your Honor...

Top 10 Rock Albums of the 90s

During one of our frequent discussion about music, Pete Tabberer and I decided to try and compile a list of the top 10 most influential and/or popular rock albums of the 90s. Subsequently, I've mentioned this list to a number of people, and everybody has a slightly different opinion of what should be on the list. Here's what we came up with (not in order):

Nirvana — Nevermind
Pearl Jam — Ten
Green Day — Dookie
Weezer — Weezer
Live — Throwing Copper
Alice in Chains — Dirt
Smashing Pumpkins — Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Metallica — Metallica
Collective Soul — Collective Soul
Beck — Odelay

Some nominations on this list are pretty obvious. I haven't talked to anybody yet who hasn't nominated Nevermind, Ten, Dookie, and Weezer. Most people seem to agree on Metallica and Throwing Copper. A few people have suggested Alice in Chain's Jar of Flies over Dirt, or have suggested Collective Soul's Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid in place of the self-titled album.

The most contentious entry thus far has been Mellon Collie; many Pumpkins fans have argued that Siamese Dream was a better album; however, the majority of people have agreed that in terms of overall influence, Mellon Collie was what really propelled the Smashing Pumpkins to so much success.

Finally, Odelay occupies the most argued-over spot. I nominated Odelay because its influence in many other genres of music in addition to rock is very substantial. Pete nominated the Red Hot Chili Pepper's Blood Sugar Sex Magik, which I can maybe agree should be #10 instead. Pete also nominated R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People, and I have to agree with him again that a top-of-the-90s list without R.E.M. seems incomplete. It's also interesting to note the absence of U2; while I'm definitely a fan of U2, their only possible 90s nomination is Achtung Baby, but it really isn't at the same level as the other albums, we decided (sorry Jules).

As many people have noted, there are many other worthy nominations that didn't make the cut. Some nominations: Radiohead (OK Computer), The Offspring (Smash), Nine Inch Nails (The Downward Spiral), Counting Crows (August and Everything After), etc. There are many other potential nominees too: Stone Temple Pilots, Alanis Morissette, Oasis, Sublime, Jane's Addiction, Soundgarden, No Doubt, Rage Against the Machine, Dave Matthews Band, Hootie and the Blowfish, etc. And obviously, this list doesn't include very worthy nominations from other genres; we restricted it to rock/alt-rock only.

What are your thoughts?

Bad forecasting or a cruel joke?

Last weekend, the forecast for this coming weekend called for the weather to be sunny and warmer, with a possible high of 50˚F on Sunday. After weeks of relentless snow and a 17-day streak of temperatures that didn't climb above 20˚F, it sounded like a wonderful hint of pre-Spring amnesty. Now, however, the revised forecast calls for freezing temperatures and as much as 12 inches of snow. How do you go from 50˚F to 12 inches of snow — bad forecasting or a cruel joke?

What break?

School ended for the quarter break yesterday. Last night we went to a concert; tomorrow we're going to another. Tonight we went to a Griffins game. Friday is a meetup with roommates from college. Classes start back up on Monday.

The Complete Works of Jonathan Edwards

I received the following news snippet in my e-mail this morning. Great news for all fans of Jonathan Edwards:

The Jonathan Edwards Center (JEC) at Yale University has been working to publish the complete works of Jonathan Edwards, considered by many to be America's greatest theologian. Edwards was vastly prolific; he wrote over 100,000 handwritten pages in his lifetime. While Yale University Press has published about half of Edwards' theological corpus, the only place in the world to access the complete works of Edwards will be the JEC website. This is a free online scholarly database which is fully searchable by chronology, theme, keyword, or Scripture. While not all of Edwards' writings are currently online, we will be gradually adding to the website over the next few years until it is complete. The JEC website is now accessible by going to the following link:

http://edwards.yale.edu/

We, as the JEC, are trying to make sure that Edwards' legacy lives on, and that people have free and full access to the writings of such an important thinker. The website resources exist both for academic and pastoral purposes, or for any casual reader.

And best of all, you can order a limited-edition "Jonathan Edwards is my Homeboy" t-shirt from the Edwards Center. And speaking of Jonathan Edwards, if you haven't yet read George Marsden's excellent biography Jonathan Edwards: A Life, I recommend it as a fine introduction to an equally fine theologian.

Whitecaps 2007 schedule

The West Michigan Whitecaps, our hometown baseball team and the 2006 Midwest League champions, are playing their home opener at Fifth Third ballpark in a little under two months. It's nice to think about baseball games in the warm summer sun when it's 23°F and snowing outside.

I created a downloadable iCal calendar of the Whitecaps' 2007 season for importing into iCal, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Outlook, etc. If any Whitecaps fans want to import the Whitechaps schedule into their calendars, smartphones, etc., just grab the file.

Kerux: Redux

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that one of my goals for the year was to "get back into good web design." I also mentioned back when I announced the start of my involvement in Kerux that the design of that site — which I'd literally whipped up in two hours one morning — was "aesthetically uninteresting to me." Despite that disinterest, I hadn't gotten around to reworking it as promised.

However, being cooped up for the weekend gave me the time and ambition I needed to tackle the project. Thus, I am pleased to unveil the new Kerux site.

The new design, which has certain unintended similarities to this site, is part blog, part The Morning News, and part me. It was actually a design I'd begun over the summer and scrapped as unworkable. I came back across it while cleaning up some old files, and decided it was a good fit. A few hours of coding and converting later, the site as you see it was in hand.

While I'm at it, let me mention that we've run some great content so far this year, including interviews with a smorgasbord of notable people. If I may toot my own horn, I'm particularly fond of this piece I wrote about the funeral of Gerald R. Ford. Overall, for a school of barely 300 students, I think we're putting out a good product.

Let me know what you think about the new site design by leaving a comment, won't you?

Blizzard

We've got at least a foot of snow on the ground here, and it's a toasty 7°F outside thanks to an arctic front. Our furnace has been running nearly nonstop to keep up, and our view from the window in the upstairs study is a prison bar series of icicles. Of course, the cat still thinks she wants to go out.

Where were we last February? Oh, that's right; Hawai'i. *sigh*

It's a good day for that hot chocolate, at least.

Haircuts in the 70s

I can't begin to tell you how much I love this video of Peter Bordovsky and Sean Stevens, the two people responsible for the viral marketing "bomb scare" in Boston, giving a "press conference" about what happened. Bordovsky began:

"What we really want to talk about today... it's kind of important to some people. It's haircuts in the 70s. We really want to discuss the style of them."

And, true to form, the two began talking about haircuts in the 70s - afros, dreadlocks, and others - and refused to questions from reporters about any other topic. And to think, MSNBC broke into its normal programming to cover it.

While some of the reporters accused the two of "not taking it seriously," it's perfectly obvious to anybody with a pulse and a clue that they were taking it exactly as seriously as was called for. Which is to say, not at all. Their "press conference" wonderfully highlights the absurdity of shutting down a city over cartoon lightboxes, and how ridiculously paranoid some people (especially in government) have become post-9/11.

The media played right into their hands, and only after it became clear that Bordovsky and Stevens were hacking them on national TV did the reporters fuss and spit about how they "weren't taking it seriously." Stevens scolded them in response to that accusation and said, "We're taking this very seriously." As John Lennon wrote in Working Class Hero, "They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool."

MSNBC broke into a story about Al Franken running for Senate to cover it; Franken will undoubtedly be gushing with pride to know his story was interrupted for this. I didn't watch the Daily Show or Colbert Report last night, but I can only imagine the fun that Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert had or will have with this one.

Of course, some people still don't get it. Boston's clueless mayor Thomas Menino said:

"It is outrageous, in a post 9/11 world, that a company would use this type of marketing scheme. I am prepared to take any and all legal action against Turner Broadcasting and its affiliates for any and all expenses incurred during the response to today's incidents."

How do you respond to such obvious stupidity, except to say, "We really want to talk about ... haircuts in the 70s"?

Good finds in the food aisle

We've run across three nice products in the food aisle in the past two days:

Williams-Sonoma Peppermint Hot Chocolate: I found this at the mall last night while Beth was in a different store. Shaved chocolate with peppermint infusion that you melt in steaming milk (because, as I keep telling people, real hot chocolate is never made with water). Not worth the original $19.50 asking price, but a delicious way to warm up on a snowy winter day like today at the $8.99 clearance price.
Bigelow Vanilla Chai tea: This one was spotted and served to us at church this morning. If hot chocolate isn't your thing, here's a simple chai tea that's quite delicious. Americans should have an afternoon tea time.
Classic Hearth Italian herb bread mix: I haven't had a lot of luck making good-looking and good-tasting bread in our bread machine, but this mix came out looking as perfect as a loaf you'd get at a bakery. We still have a Hawaiian Sweet Bread mix to try, too. One box makes one loaf.

Got a good recipe or food product to recommend? Leave a comment!

Resolutions for 2006

Most people write these at the beginning of January, but when a presidential funeral and burial take place literally down the street from your house, I think you can be excused for being tardy. Here are my resolutions for 2007, which I have put no thought into prior to writing this:

Find some new music: I've been in a musical rut for a while, save for starting to listen to Switchfoot. Beth got me a 60GB iPod for Christmas to replace the nice one that got stolen from my car, and I've got plenty of space still to fill. I keep hearing people talk up "indie" music, but every time I listen to some of it I end up running away with my fingers deep in my ears. I wish more people like Jon Hicks would list favorite songs. Of course, Jon is British.
Get back into [good] web design: I have a strange metric for productivity: whether or not I produce any good designs. 2006 was bone dry; not a single decent design, despite hours of attempts. Most of the effort was wrestling with weblog engines, not creating actual designs. Unfortunately, I'll need to finally buy a copy of Photoshop.
Ride the bike more: Aside from riding to and from work a few times in the summer, I hardly touched my bike at all in 2006. I love riding; not because I'm good at it, but because it's fun. Curse that Jonathan Owens for moving to Utah.
Paint two rooms in the house and find a good desk: We've had cans of paint in really great colors sitting in the basement for almost two years. We painted one room in 2006, and that was literally at 9 p.m. on a weekday on an impulse. Thinking back, that was a really fun night, even though we turned around to find a trail of purple pawprints on the floor. Meanwhile, my current desk is basically three pieces of pressboard bolted together; I'd love to find a good desk to fit in a freshly-painted study room.
Write something that's maybe publishable: I'm really thinking book publishable, but I'd settle for a nice magazine or newspaper too. Not that I expect to actually get published, but to at least write something that I feel could be. 2006's goal was to do a CTS student pub; I did it, but it's made me realize that I want something more. The problem? 20-somethings who think they're brilliant writers: dime a dozen.
Cook lots of new recipes: This one totally requires waiting for summer, because I'm just not in nearly as culinary a mood in winter. I've got books and magazine full of great recipes that I want to try. And since we live up the street from Art of the Table and since there's a new spice store in Gaslight Village, there's no excuse not to.
Have an amazing summer day on June 21: For years, years, I keep saying that I'm going to do something great on June 21st, the first day of summer and the longest [daylight] day of the year. I'm going to do it this year, and it's going to involve a barbecue, summer drinks, laughing with friends, and staying outside until the sun sets. Hopefully the weather will comply.

In case you're wondering, graduating from grad school and deciding what to do next are on the list too, but I shouldn't have to mention them, because they're assumed. And actually, if not for school and the student pub, I'd have enough time to start on the list right now. Graduation is May 19; the list may have to wait until then!

Lotus Notes icon touch-up

In the world of corporate software, some of us are stuck using a miserable e-mail and calendaring system called Lotus Notes. If you've never used Lotus Notes, be thankful.

If you do have to suffer with Lotus Notes, you might have noticed that the icons for it are strange. In Windows, the icon is flat and ugly — not nice and 3D like the Mac OS version (pictured to the right). The icon for the Mac OS version, while nice, is huge and looks out of place in the dock. So I created replacement icons for both Mac OS X and Windows (including Vista).

Download the Windows icon file
Download the Mac OS icon file

For the Mac, right-click the Notes package, choose "Show Package Contents," and put the file called appicon.icns in the Contents -> Resources folder. For Windows, save the icon file somewhere on your computer, right-click the Notes icon, go to Properties, choose "Change Icon" and find where you saved the notes.ico file.

Quality

At a recent speech, Bill Gates said of the upcoming Windows Vista, "it's the highest quality we've ever done."
That really says it all, doesn't it?

Farewell to a president

I can't claim to have any firsthand knowledge of Gerald R. Ford's time as a U.S. Representative, or of his service as our nation's 38th president. He had left the White House well before I was born. However, since his death a little more than a week ago, I've come to learn plenty about the unassuming man from Grand Rapids. I'm also of the belief that we've lost a great leader, one whose example future leaders would do well to follow, regardless of political party.

Many years ago, Ford and his wife, Betty, drafted funeral plans which included them being laid to rest permanently in Grand Rapids. On Christmas Eve, Christian and I passed by that fenced-off burial area while walking downtown, speaking in hypotheticals about what would happen if the former president died. Two days later, it was a reality.

While the rest of the nation mourned, we in west Michigan held back, waiting for our turn in the national spotlight. On Tuesday, as Ford's body arrived "home" for the last time, the city sprang to life, filling with Secret Service agents, thousands of mourners and the extended Ford family.

The media also descended upon our city, and that's where I come in. Thanks to my current position, I was fortunate enough to be able to be at the center of everything that was happening - sometimes literally - documenting history as the nation watched. At times, I felt inadequate to be put in such a position, to have such close access, with my limited knowledge of the Ford administration. But mostly, I just stood back and let the pomp and circumstance unfold, knowing this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. From the 57,000+ mourners who waited several hours in the cold to view the casket, to the stately military ceremonies at each arrival and departure of the casket, to the 21-gun salute prior to the burial, the two days really were indescribable (which, in my profession, is not such a good thing!). I am so humbled to have been a part of it.

You can find more of my photos of the days' events here.

Christmas and such

Merry Christmas! We had a great time with each other and with family. We spent a lot of the weekend with Beth's family between celebrating Rebecca's birthday on Saturday, Christmas Eve lunch on Sunday, and Christmas Day. Beth and I took a walk through downtown on Sunday evening and rode a horse-drawn carriage around the city. Great times!

Hope your Christmas was awesome too. If we didn't get a Christmas card to you, here is the picture. Speaking of Christmas and family, we'll be in Denver visiting my side of the family from the 28th to New Year's Day. If you're from Colorado and you'll be in town, drop us a line! I'd love to see you, regardless of how long it's been.

Snow days

It's late Thursday evening here in Grand Rapids, but according to the local weatherman's weblog we've got a long night ahead of us. The current prediction is 10 inches of snow (keeping in mind that it was 60°F yesterday) and icy conditions.

Since we haven't had any snow accumulations yet, I'm interested to see what happens. In general, I dislike cold weather and snow, but if it has to snow, it should be a big snow; 10 inches seems pretty big.

Of course, it need not be said that large snowstorms aren't nearly as exciting when you're grown up as when you're young. Growing up, every big snowstorm was seeded with the possibility that school might be cancelled the next day. "Snow days," my mom and I called them (she, being a teacher, got just as excited about the snow as I did). Far too often, the city snow plows (towering steel villains that they are) would clear the roads to the point where the roads were passable, and school went on as usual. But as the snowflakes started to fall, there was always the possibility that a wonderful, school-free day was ahead.

When you grow up, the magic of "snow days" begins to melt away. Employers, for instance, are far less willing to cancel work for snow, and when if they do, it's usually on your dollar. But even if you can wiggle out of work (or school), there's the anxiety about making sure the pipes in your basement don't burst, worrying how much electricity or gas the extra heating is costing, and so forth.

Snow days should be about time off and time to have fun. If we do get 10 inches of snow tonight, I'm building a snow fort.

Church shopping — a topic worth writing about

Part of my coursework for the past few months has involved a capstone course in which we select a topic for our master's thesis. I was going to write about the use of technology in the church (something I wrote about earlier here) when I stumbled across a far more compelling topic: "church shopping."

Church shopping is the process that people go through to find a church they will attend. For some people this is easy: they go to the church down the street or the church their family has always gone to. But for many more people, especially new Christians, the process of searching for and choosing a church is an arduous ordeal. But what's worse, I've discovered, is that there is virtually no published material on the process of searching for and choosing a church.

Why is there so little material about this? In Grand Rapids alone, there are 700+ churches to choose from; how do we expect people to just "arrive" at the right church?

One answer, of course, is that "the Holy Spirit will lead them." Perhaps my Reformed scholastic pedigree is showing here, but I'm deeply suspicious of that answer; even if it is right, theologically speaking, it is not right in the moral sense that we can therefore abandon church shoppers to fend for themselves. Another answer — equally as contemptible — is that we ought not intrude on people's personal search for a church with our own theological and ecumenical biases. But if we don't provide them any help and information, how can they make an informed decision?

With these questions (and many, many others) collecting in my mind, I'm beginning work on my master's thesis, in which I will evaluate the current "church shopping" material that is available and make some suggestions about where this material is sufficient, and where it is deficient. I think it is a topic worth writing about.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls," Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-29.

Bringing this peace to people who are searching for a church is a task that we must take seriously.

So many clothes, so little time

Does it make me a total nerd if, when a sixth-grader compliments my pants, it totally makes my day? Because that happened today (and they weren't even any sort of unique pants!) and the girl was so sweet about it.
But oh, it made me feel old for a split second, too. Because as she stood there in her comfy jeans and hooded sweatshirt, complimenting my dress pants and work attire, I was thinking that it must be nice to wear whatever you felt like wearing, any day of the week.

Wha...?

Walt Mossberg writing in the Wall Street Journal about Microsoft's new iPod/iTunes competitor called "Zune:"

To buy even a single 99-cent song from the Zune store, you have to purchase blocks of "points" from Microsoft, in increments of at least $5. You can't just click and have the 99 cents deducted from a credit card, as you can with iTunes. You must first add points to your account, then buy songs with these points. [...] And the point system is deceptive. Songs are priced at 79 points, which some people might think means 79 cents. But 79 points actually cost 99 cents.

*speechless*

(Someone off in the background): "Hey Christian, what's wrong? Dumb got your tongue?"

tap tap Is this thing on?

It's amusing to find that in a Christianity Today article about the "resurgence" of Reformed theology and Calvinism, neither Calvin College nor Calvin Theological Seminary are mentioned once. 130 years wasted! Were we not loud enough?

Shake me out to the ballgame?

People here in Michigan are pulling their hair out in excitement over the Detroit Tigers advancing to the World Series. To be fair, Magglio Ordóñez's 2-outs-bottom-of-the-9th-tied-game homer is the stuff that baseball legends are made of. That was a great homer.

But there's a point at which Major League baseball underwhelms me. I love baseball games; I enjoy sitting in the outfield bleachers at Coors Field in Denver and watching the home runs balls come soaring in the stands. Beth and I went to probably two dozen games for our hometown West Michigan Whitecaps (who are the 2006 Midwest League Champions!), and my only regret about it is that we didn't go to even more games.

Although I'm not a Tigers fan (I'm also not not a Tigers fan), I would love to go see a World Series game. But tickets went on sale today and within an hour were completely sold out. Even those people lucky enough to get a ticket paid over $200 for a pair, according to the local news.

Contrary to concessioners' ideas, baseball games aren't about spending money. I love Coors Field in Denver because you can still buy game day tickets in the Rockpile section for $1. While Whitecaps tickets went up in price this year, the two of us can get two lawn seat tickets for $8.

Our friend Jonathan left Grand Rapids at the beginning of the year to take a job with the Norfolk Tides (AAA). Jonathan said that the reason he wanted to work with a minor league baseball team was because of the atmosphere: it's not commercialized, and it's not over-hyped. It's just families and friends going to a ballpark to cheer on the home team.

Jonathan is right. There's something in the small-world spirit of minor league baseball that's more true to the sport than what you can find in the majors. Going to the World Series would be fun, but $200 fun? Probably not. For that price, we could get a season ticket to the Whitecaps; that's over 60 great games, all summer long.

Take me out to the ballgame? Sure. But please don't take my wallet in the process.

Tired

So, last week was National Newspaper Week. That fact ordinarily would have prompted me to encourage everyone to subscribe to their local newspaper and appreciate those who deliver the local news.
However, I spent the last two weeks working 108.5 hours.
Hopefully the appreciation will make a belated stop at my desk. Because I'm plumb worn out.

From my bookshelf: two vital primary sources

In light of North Korea's nuclear weapons test, which should (I think) be of grave concern to all people, there are two primary sources that must be read/watched to properly understand the enormous stakes at play. They are:

The Fog of War: Errol Morris's Academy Award-winning documentary on the life of Robert McNamara, as told in the first person by McNamara himself. McNamara is one of the few people still alive who had a role in the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis. His most poignant lesson: "The indefinite combinations of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations."
Thirteen Days: Robert Kennedy's first-hand account (written just before his death) about the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis, including a critique of how JFK handled the situation. The Cuban Missile Crisis represents the closest the world has ever come to a full-out nuclear exchange; Kennedy's first-person narrative of the events is a textbook on nuclear conflict and how to avoid it.

It's unfortunate that the lessons these two primary sources teach — lessons that were learned as millions of lives hung in the balance — haven't been learned, or are being ignored, by many current world leaders. To all our peril.

My very own street

Adam, on one of his many excursions through the wilderness of Alaska, found a street named after me.

Now, some of you might protest and suggest that the street is named after some famous bell (the ringing kind) that began with a C, or that there's another "C BELL" that the street is named after. As I've previously mentioned, there are indeed other Christian Bells in the world.

But clearly, dear reader, the only Christian Bell worth naming a street in Podunk, Alaska after is yours truly.

Now, what will it take for them to rename Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C.? I should write to my elected representatives...

Kerux

After weeks of planning and meetings, I am pleased to announce the availability of my next publication: Kerux.

As I mentioned back in May, I'll be the Editor in Chief for Kerux this year. Kerux is the student publication of Calvin Theological Seminary. For the past 40 years, Kerux has been published in newsletter format and distributed around the seminary campus. However, with limited funding, the opportunity to put out a beautiful and well-designed publication would nearly impossible. Therefore, Kerux is now published online every Friday.

For our first issue, the biggest story was the departure of Ruth Tucker from the seminary and the firestorm of discussion that has resulted from it. It's been a difficult story to cover, because there's a huge imbalance in voice due to the fact that Tucker is willing to speak on the record extensively, and CTS faculty and administrators aren't. (The distinction between faculty and administrators at CTS is somewhat moot; the handful of "administrators" are actually faculty members whose primary role happens to be administrative functions rather than teaching.) Even so, I think the story came out well.

The website itself, which I have designed and redesigned and redesigned again still leaves much to be desired. The design as you see it now is actually none of the original six or seven designs I did over the summer; I actually whipped this design up in about an hour and a half yesterday morning, because of some structural changes. The current design works, and has actually gotten some positive feedback from people, but is aesthetically uninteresting to me, so it will be reworked.

So go spread the word: you can read Kerux online every Friday!

You see, officer, I couldn't help it...it was the color of my car...

There are studies out there (I don't know where...but they're out there, and widely available...I don't feel like doing the research right now) that say police officers are more likely to pull over red cars for speeding and other traffic violations. It's something about the color red being a more excitable color and evoking more feelings of speed, edginess, danger, breaking the law...things like that.

Well, I didn't think much about it, but then I had to go to the county courthouse today to look up some records. That's when I noticed that a very large percentage of the cars in the parking lot at that particular time were red. It was seriously eerie.

So it looks like I'll need to spend a bit more time looking in my rear-view mirror. Too bad my radar detector was stolen.

Seven winters down, one to go...

Yesterday was the first official day of autumn, but it's already been turning to autumn here in West Michigan for several weeks. Leaves are changing color and temperatures are dropping. We had our first frost warning last week.

I'm one of those people for whom the changing of seasons and weather substantially affects my overall mood. I love sunshine, warm weather, and green leaves on trees. Growing up in Colorado, the sunshine is especially important to me; it's sunny for an average of 300 days a year there. Compare that to West Michigan, where we can go for several weeks or even months during winter without seeing the sun.

But it's not just the weather, it's the whole freedom that summer brings. Being able to wear whatever clothing you want, getting to have all the windows in the house open to smell the fresh air and hear what's going on in the world outside. I feel claustrophobic in winter, constantly being shut up inside a sealed building. Who enjoys that?

This is a long way of explaining to family and friends why I can't live in West Michigan all my life. I've lived here for seven years now, and there are a lot of things that I really like about living here. But when it comes right down to it, the long and dark winters are simply too long and too dark to make me want to stay here long-term.

It was never our intention to be in West Michigan for this long; we thought we would be moving after we got married. Three years later we're still around. But when I look outside at the cold and gray sky on a September morning, I remember why I thought about moving in the first place.

New car smell? Yes, please.

As I told Christian, I thought I would be 50 before I/we owned a genuinely "brand-new" car. But when the right opportunity presents itself, you might as well research the possibilities. And suddenly, here we are!

Unfortunately, this meant that we had to part with the Saturn - Christian's car that famously drove us on our first date.

That was a good, reliable (for the most part) car. I'll miss its quirks and the sound it made coming down the driveway.

But now I have a car with a push-button start and potentially up to 60 miles per gallon, and Christian has a car with a sunroof and air conditioning! Everybody wins!

Seriously, it's surreal. I think I experienced buyer's remorse the minute I parked it at our house. But it's all pretty darn fun, too. And I'm a sucker for that new car smell.

(See all 21 pictures in the photoset in our Flickr gallery.)

A thousand words

Mr. Pierogi. Mr. Pierogi making a corna. Stanley and a trophy. Miss Chicken. Walgreens anticipation. Tie-dye grandma. These are just a few of the thousand words Erin's Pierogifest pictures evoke. You must go have a look.

Five years ago

I had turned 21 less than a week prior. I was starting my junior year of college. I had a morning gym class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and although that was my only class on those days, the class schedule made me angry because it began at 8:35 a.m. and I couldn't sleep in on what would otherwise be my day off.

I dragged myself out of bed on that too-bright sunny morning, with just in time to throw on an old, blue, USA t-shirt and pants before leaving for class. There was no point in taking a shower if I was just going to get all sweaty again in 20 minutes.

My class, a semester full of learning about children's gym games, began right on time. For an hour, we played with hula hoops and brightly-colored parachutes, holed up in our own, fun little world in the Fieldhouse while those now too-familiar scenes began playing out on televisions across the nation.

Even after class, as I walked back to the campus apartments - on the complete opposite side of the the campus and across the Beltline - everything was fine in my oblivious mind. If people I passed on the paths looked stunned or worried, I didn't notice it.

It wasn't until I encountered Jeremy outside our apartment building that I knew anything was wrong. He said something about planes and New York. I went straight to Christian's apartment instead of my own and joined the residents of Delta Six in front of their TV. A tower had collapsed. Another was on fire. The Pentagon was collapsing. So was my ability to form complete sentences.

Within ten minutes of gluing my eyes to the television, the second tower was reduced to rubble. I resigned myself to a day stuck in front of the TV. At the same time, a small part of my brain worried that I wouldn't be able to take a shower that day, and that I'd stink. It's incredibly odd what sort of things your mind will fixate on when real life becomes more than you can comprehend.

***

Today...

It was odd to be somewhat suspended in between producing media to impact others on this day, and being impacted by the reports and images that I had access to.

Looking at the images on the AP wire, there's no way that any newspaper could have covered the scope and magnitude of the memorials and suffering that occurred today. I myself was probably the most moved by CNN's access to their broadcasts that aired five years ago. It was rather surreal to watch the exact same images that I had been watching as the realization of the attacks slowly dawned on me. It brought me back, better than memory alone, to that day in Delta Six, in my blue USA t-shirt.

At the same time, I interviewed a middle school teacher today about what her class of seventh-graders was doing to mark the day. These twelve-year-olds were just starting the second grade on this day five years ago. The teacher said her goal was to do something especially memorable and patriotic with this class, because they are probably the last seventh-grade class she'll have that actually remembers that day. Even with this class, she said, the memories are fuzzy for some of them. From now on, September 11 will become just another entry in the history books for these children.

It's so strange to know exactly what, from now on, will be known as the "Kennedy assassination moment" of my generation.

Chipotle

Nathan Bierma happened to mention one of my favorite things in the whole world: Chipotle.

My brother Gary got me hooked on Chipotle, for which I am forever in his debt. A Chipotle fajita burrito with corn salsa, sour cream, and cheese is a slice, or rather a foil-wrapped pound-and-a-half burrito, of heaven. I'm salivating just thinking about it.

It so happens that the original Chipotle (store #1) on Evans Avenue in Denver is just up the street from where I went to high school, so every Friday for off-campus lunch I'd be biting into a delicious fajita burrito. (It so happens that directly across the street from Chipotle #1 is a Tokyo Joe's, a small Denver-only fast-food Japanese restaurant that is hands-down the best fast-food Asian you can get.)

Unfortunately, far too many of my West Michigan friends (including Beth) have never eaten at Chipotle, because as Nathan mournfully notes, there are no Chipotles in Western Michigan. Worse yet, a few of them have even said after hearing Chipotle described, "Oh, that sounds like Qdoba!"

No. No no. No no no no no no no no no. Qdoba is a fine restaurant, and I do eat there occasionally, but it's no Chipotle. There is no comparison. My Qdoba burritos tend to fall apart halfway through the meal. A Chipotle burrito never falls apart; in fact, if you're having a bad day, it holds you together. Add to that that Chipotle's ingredients are fresher and taste better, and that Chipotle did it first (both restaurants began in Colorado, as all good things do).

Now if only there were a Chipotle in Grand Rapids, life would be complete.

Happy Birthday to Beth!

A person can't be an award-winning journalist and runway-worthy debutante without putting on a party hat once in a while.

If you see this beautiful woman walking around today, be sure to tell her happy birthday!

(Apologies to Beth for the bad Photoshopping and clip art.)

Labor Day

Total number of campers and/or vehicles pulling campers/boats seen on the highway this afternoon during my drive home: 55.
(There were probably more, but the other side of the highway wasn't always visible from my lanes.)
So begins the official exodus of summer. When I return to work on Tuesday, the town that has been bustling for the past three months will be, no doubt, remarkably quieter. It should be an interesting contrast, considering I used to only know this down during its busy months.
But first: a long weekend. The calm before the storm that will be the first week of school. A welcome holiday. And so, welcome, September.

Building rdesktop 1.5.0 with dual-monitor support for Mac OS X

Over the past year I've written about and updated how to setup rdesktop on Mac OS X for doing Remote Desktop Connection (or RDP) connections. Previously that involved installing MacPorts (formerely DarwinPorts), for which I maintain the rdesktop port. But now it's even easier.

Dual-monitor support: First, rdesktop 1.5.0 has been released; a list of changes from 1.4.1 to 1.5.0 is available on the rdesktop-announce mailing list. Although 1.5.0 includes many bug fixes, a long-standing bug that causes rdesktop to span both displays on a dual-monitor setup (instead of being constrained to one screen) has not been fixed. Fortunately, independent developer Andrew Joyce sent a patch to the rdesktop-devel mailing list that fixes this bug by changing the way that rdesktop determines X11's screen dimensions.

Building on a Mac: So how do you get this to build on your Mac? Simple: I've cooked up a tiny bash script (invoke it with sudo) that will do all the downloading and building for you:

#!/bin/bash # Make sure that the script is invoked through sudo if [ `id -u` != "0" ]; then echo "This script must be invoked through sudo." exit 1 fi # Move the Xinerama libraries to a place where the configure script can find them cp /usr/X11R6/include/X11/extensions/Xinerama.h /usr/include cp /usr/X11R6/lib/libXinerama.* /usr/lib # Grab rdesktop and unpack it curl http://osdn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/rdesktop/rdesktop-1.5.0.tar.gz > rdesktop-1.5.0.tar.gz tar xfz rdesktop-1.5.0.tar.gz # Patch the source code curl http://six27.com/files/dual-monitor-fix.patch > rdesktop-1.5.0/dual-monitor-fix.patch cd rdesktop-1.5.0 patch -p0 < dual-monitor-fix.patch # Build rdesktop ./bootstrap && ./configure --prefix=/usr && make && make install

This script does not require MacPorts to be installed, although it does still require you to have Xcode or a suitable C compiler to do the actual build. The resulting rdesktop binary will be put in /usr/bin.

If you want to follow my earlier suggestions for setting up rdesktop for Mac OS X, run this script next:

#!/bin/bash # Don't have X11 prompt to quit defaults write com.apple.x11 "no_quit_alert" true # Re-map Windows alt keys to the alt/option key echo 'clear Mod1 keycode 66 = Alt_L keycode 69 = Alt_R add Mod1 = Alt_L add Mod1 = Alt_R' >> ~/.xmodmap # An .xinitrc that automatically starts rdesktop on X11 launch echo '#!/bin/sh xmodmap ~/.xmodmap /usr/bin/rdesktop -f -u "USERNAME" -p "PASSWORD" -a 24 SERVERNAME' > ~/.xinitrc

Be sure to change USERNAME, PASSWORD, and SERVERNAME as appropriate for your setup. When you're done, simple start X11 and rdesktop will automatically start up in full screen mode on only one of your monitors.

Speaking of Andrew's dual-monitor patch, there's been no comment from the developers acknowledging the patch or commenting on whether it might ever make it into the main rdesktop code. If you'd like to see it committed to the project, hop on the rdesktop-devel mailing list and let the developers know.

It's 58 degrees right now, and I'm cold.

It's pretty much the last day of August. What? How did that happen? This weekend is the long Labor Day holiday, with the bridge walk and all that jazz. What did I do this summer? At this precise moment, I'm not entirely sure. But lately I've been cold in the mornings, after sleeping with the windows open, and it's awfully dark when I leave the house at 6:20 a.m. That's not summer behavior.

As usual, at this time of year I'm lamenting things that I never got to do during the summer...usually due to my own dumb fault. But for some reason, September has crept up on me unusually fast this year, and I've been left feeling a little lost. At least I know that my reporting beat will soon be returning to "normal"...as normal as things can ever be at a newspaper.

Oh, but I'll turn 26 on the day that every single student in our coverage area heads back to school for the fall. And there's a board meeting that night, meaning I'll likely be stuck out there for the. entire. day.
*sigh* Happy birthday to me.

An obituary for the semantic web

Too often in web design forums, I hear statements like this: "Elements grouped with <div> have no semantic value unless they're assigned to a class or ID." The idea behind "semantic coding" (e.g. using HTML tags whose elemental purpose corresponds at least tangentially with its associated content) is that your document will be more understandable and more parseable because you've identified [some] special elements in the document and highlighted them as such.

This is nonsense. To be perfectly clear: HTML elements have no semantic value. Period.

"But that's what markup is all about!" I can hear someone saying. In a perfect world that might be true. In the real and often ugly world of web design, it couldn't be more wrong. Saying that HTML tags have "semantic value" assumes two things:

The "semantic value" of a tag is consistent in usage across the board in all cases where it is used by web designers; ergo, an <address> tag is always used for a physical, postal address, never anything else.
The "semantic value" of a tag is consistent, and consistently used, across all rendering/user agents; ergo, an <address> tag is always treated specially in such a way that it matters that you marked up your postal address with <address> instead of just sticking it in a <p>. This is a very important and often overlooked point.

Regarding the first point that a tag's semantic value must be universal: Markup is suggestive, not absolute. I can't shout this loudly enough. A tag's "semantic value" is only true and complete if it is universally true and complete. Almost everybody uses <address> to signify a block of text as a postal address; but what if you choose to mark up an e-mail address with <address>? (Not at all unreasonable, I might add.) By the conventional wisdom, your markup is "semantically invalid," or so the hallowed old men of web design will gravely tell you.

In changing the purpose of the markup, what you've done is not marked up your document "invalidly," you've marked up your document differently. This is another way of saying you have redefined how the tag can be applied in your document, albeit rather subjectively. But document markup has never been an objectively-guided process. You might call this variant use of a tag "non-standard," but that's a pejorative misinterpretation. Again: markup is suggestive, not absolute. The W3C may publish guidelines that describe a tag's intended purpose, but as anybody who's written much HTML can tell you, the lines of demarcation for when and where a tag should and shouldn't be used are ultimately left to the discretion of the document's author.

Think of the problem of suggestive semantic meaning this way: If I inform you that a person's demeanor is "gay," you will probably interpret that to mean their demeanor was flamboyant or effeminate. But what is there (aside from context, which in an excerpt isn't available anyway) to inform you with certainty that I didn't mean lighthearted and happy, using the word "gay" in its older and deprecated sense?

(If you're still convinced that a tag has inherent and objective semantic value regardless of its use, have a chat with your neighborhood linguist or translator about the problems of "inherent" and "objective" meaning in words. My favorite author, C. S. Lewis, talked at some length about this, particularly in his essays on literature and translation and in the first chapter of The Abolition of Man.)

Regarding the second point that rendering/user agent must render a semantic tag consistently, and must render it at all: If different rendering/user agents interpret a tag differently, as they often do, there's little sense in talking about a tag's "semantic value," because all you're really talking about is a tag's semantic value with respect to a particular rendering/user agent. The tag in a different environment may be (and again, frequently is) treated differently.

Even more important, however, is the simple notion that a rendering/user agent actually do something with your markup that acknowledges the fact that a portion of the document is, indeed, marked up. If a rendering/user agent does nothing with the markup, the markup is useless and invalid, and we might as well go further to say that it is even harmful (since the superfluous markup adds a modicum of weight to page load time). This doesn't require a stretch of the imagination: precious few web browsers do anything worthwhile with tags like <address>. Those tags merely signify to a human reading the markup, "Hey, this part is a postal address, not regular text." You can fairly (and rightly) argue that rendering/user agents should do something useful with every bit of markup, and I would agree; but the real world situation is that they don't. Thus, while you can be "semantically correct" and wrap all your postal addresses in <address>, in the end it's just extra markup flapping in the wind.

At some point, all the web designers who have been immersed in the Bab'il-esque construction of the semantic coding paradigm are likely to become infuriated that this paradigm lacks any real-world substance. However, those web designers are invited to direct their wrath at a seemingly innocuous target: Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). By its very nature, CSS neuters HTML tags of any semantic value they might have had, because it demonstrates what should have long been obvious to all markup authors: markup is only as meaningful as the presentational layer allows it to be. In the case of CSS's highly flexible and powerful architecture, the presentational layer is essentially a blank slate. Sure, a <p> tag usually means paragraph, but inject enough CSS into it, and you can make a <p> behave like an <img>, and an <img> behave like a UL. Gene Hackman said in the movie Crimson Tide, "If you stick a caddle prod up its ass, you can get a horse to deal cards." So too with HTML and CSS.

Case in point: Many web designers (including myself) make use of what I like to call "nuclear" CSS declarations at the beginning of their stylesheets. Nuclear CSS declarations are snippets like: * { margin: 0; padding: 0; }, which utterly destroy any pre-defined rendering/user agent spacing on all HTML elements, subsuming total control of margin and padding layout to the document author. What does this have to do with semantic coding? If your stylesheet begins with a powerful enough nuclear CSS declaration, every single HTML element can basically be made into a vanilla block-level page element — even "special" tags like <body> and <head>. Special, semantic markup? Not as far as your audience is going to see.

If you're still not convinced of the "semantic coding" is akin to the Emperor's New Clothes, you're invited to comment on why the W3C is simultaneously adding to the pool of semantic tags in the XHTML 2.0 draft proposal with new tags like <menu> while at the same time subtracting from that pool by deprecating tags like <img> and <applet> in favor of the more general <object> tag. If semantic coding is so important, shouldn't the W3C be adding to the pool of available tags, not subtracting from them?

Of course, as anybody who has tried to follow semantic HTML coding guidelines dilligently will tell you, the practice eventually ends up producing one of two by-products: a) the insanity of the designer or b) an XML page with XSLT transformations. Since there can't be enough W3C-defined semantic tags to cover everything you might mark up, you end up creating your own markup, a la XML. But even if you give up on HTML and opt for pure XML, remember that the validity of your personally-crafted semantic tags is still ultimately up to the presentational layer, which you don't even have final control over.

So in closing this entry, I want to plead with web designers across the world for a new sanity: Please stop talking about the semantic web. It never existed; it was and is the product of folklore.

Having dispatched the giant, you may now assume your place in the masquerade of CSS, whose delicious deceptions let any tag behave however it wants. Or you could write XML. Or change careers.

Driving woes

Sometimes I arrive at work or I make it home and I marvel at the fact that I've been making this crazy, 34-miles-one-way commute for almost nine months and have yet to be involved in any serious driving incidents. Why, just today I witnessed - or nearly missed - a truck suddenly veering across four lanes of traffic to an exit lane, another truck hitting a bird, a broken-down semi in two lanes on the highway, a near head-on collision when a stupid driver tried to pass a slow car, and a stalled van that I almost rear-ended because the traffic blocking it from my view suddenly cleared. Not to mention that the drive that normally takes 40 to 50 minutes to get home took an hour and 20 minutes today, due to insane construction and idiot drivers that don't know the meaning of "yield." (For the record, "yield" means that you wait for an appropriate opening in the line of traffic before easing your car in, instead of simply barreling into traffic and assuming that other cars will let you in!)

But then I got home, and Season Two, Disc One of Scrubs was waiting for us in the mailbox, and I remembered that we have some amazing leftover wine in the refrigerator, and all was well again!

Now, if only we could figure out exactly what vehicle I'll be using to drive those 68 miles in the future...I'd be pretty happy.

Two years

As of today, I've been with my current employer for two years. Kind of echoing what Beth said, I feel that I've got a good place here. Like any job, there are annoyances, but on the whole, my employer has been very good to me (us), and I've gotten to do a lot of cool work that I wouldn't have elsewhere. We may not get paid inline with the industry average, but I genuinely enjoy coming into work every day; that in and of itself is worth a lot. As a capstone, this was on my desk today:

It wasn't directly from the company, but I like to think of it as an anniverary present nonetheless. Here's to two years.