Showing posts with label Uncatagorized. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Uncatagorized. Show all posts
August 15, 2010
I'll be back soon.
It's been a long hiatus with the summer travel. Now life is in an uproar because, in addition to the usual beginning of the semester stress, we need to move to a new place. Soon I hope to get back to contributing substance to my blogs but it won't be for a while. Stay tuned. You might even hear about some of the opportunities we checked into this past summer.
January 8, 2010
June 12, 2008
Blog Reading
There are a couple of people from our last VTF team who blog and I have some friends elsewhere who occasionally post to blogs. Problem is, I never remembered to check them regularly.
Then I found Google Reader, which checks their updates and puts them all in one place. Very cool. Now I can stay up to date.
But I also had to remember to check Google Reader regularly to see if they had posted anything new.
Then I found Google Reader Watcher, which is an add-on to my Firefox browser (which I switched to mostly because of the Adblock Plus add-on that blocks banner ads and lets my slow internet work a little more quickly). This little add-on puts a small icon on the lower corner of my browser that tells me whether my Google Reader has any unread postings waiting for me.
Very cool! Now I can stay up to date with everyone. Maybe even ScribeFire will help me keep my postings up to date. We'll see.
You may already know all this, but I've been behind the curve on this blogging stuff.
Then I found Google Reader, which checks their updates and puts them all in one place. Very cool. Now I can stay up to date.
But I also had to remember to check Google Reader regularly to see if they had posted anything new.
Then I found Google Reader Watcher, which is an add-on to my Firefox browser (which I switched to mostly because of the Adblock Plus add-on that blocks banner ads and lets my slow internet work a little more quickly). This little add-on puts a small icon on the lower corner of my browser that tells me whether my Google Reader has any unread postings waiting for me.
Very cool! Now I can stay up to date with everyone. Maybe even ScribeFire will help me keep my postings up to date. We'll see.
You may already know all this, but I've been behind the curve on this blogging stuff.
Amazing Speed
Internet: We've been in Orlando for about a week now and I've been newly amazed at the speed of US internet access - a 53 minute "Car Talk" podcast that would have taken at least 10 minutes to download on SE Asian "ADSL" took about 90 seconds!
Summer Break: It's scary how fast this is going by already.
Cars: They really can go faster than 50 km/hr!
Summer Break: It's scary how fast this is going by already.
Cars: They really can go faster than 50 km/hr!
May 14, 2008
The Earthquake
You know that feeling you get when you lay down at night after having been out in a canoe all day? That feeling that you're still bobbing around on the water?
About 3 o'clock on Monday afternoon I felt that kind of thing, but like I was bobbing forward and back. "That was weird," I thought. Then I heard about the devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province, China.
Although word at this point is that all of our organization's teachers in China are OK (we didn't have any in the immediate area of the quake), thousands of Chinese aren't so fortunate. Please keep them in your thoughts!
Remember too, the people of Myanmar who are being victimized twice -- once by the cyclone and again by those who are preventing aid from reaching them. Twelve days after more than 62,000 people were killed by the storm, bodies remain unburied and food and drinking water are scarce. Today the EU's humanitarian aid commissioner said that, because the rice stocks in the country's main farming area have been destroyed, there is a risk of famine.
About 3 o'clock on Monday afternoon I felt that kind of thing, but like I was bobbing forward and back. "That was weird," I thought. Then I heard about the devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province, China.
Although word at this point is that all of our organization's teachers in China are OK (we didn't have any in the immediate area of the quake), thousands of Chinese aren't so fortunate. Please keep them in your thoughts!
Remember too, the people of Myanmar who are being victimized twice -- once by the cyclone and again by those who are preventing aid from reaching them. Twelve days after more than 62,000 people were killed by the storm, bodies remain unburied and food and drinking water are scarce. Today the EU's humanitarian aid commissioner said that, because the rice stocks in the country's main farming area have been destroyed, there is a risk of famine.
May 8, 2008
Best Book This Year
I saw the ads for Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller when it first came out about 5 years ago but I had a lot of other books on my reading list back then so I never really tracked it down. This year I finally got around to reading it when I borrowed it from my friend, Melia. She's been the source of a lot of my good reading material this year, including her blog.
To be honest, Miller's writing style is not my favorite, but the value is in the way he presents his beliefs as something that makes sense even in the western postmodern world. In fact, I thought it was kind of like a combination of C. S. Lewis's little apologetic book that came out of his radio broadcasts and Rick Warren's how-to book, all translated into postmodern language.
Miller does seem to have the "love everybody and it'll all turn out OK" mentality that many writers and speakers subscribe to these days. I can't imagine how they can reconcile that with the bulk of ancient writings (old or new parts) that include discipline and expectations as well as love. It's a good push of the pendulum, but it's unbalanced and unworkable by itself.
Still, it's the best book I've read so far this year and it's a good bridge for us old "moderns" into the postmodern scene (or I guess you could say, "pms."). I've not had time to list it on my favorites on this page -- we're in the middle of giving and grading finals -- but you can search Amazon below and find it.
To be honest, Miller's writing style is not my favorite, but the value is in the way he presents his beliefs as something that makes sense even in the western postmodern world. In fact, I thought it was kind of like a combination of C. S. Lewis's little apologetic book that came out of his radio broadcasts and Rick Warren's how-to book, all translated into postmodern language.
Miller does seem to have the "love everybody and it'll all turn out OK" mentality that many writers and speakers subscribe to these days. I can't imagine how they can reconcile that with the bulk of ancient writings (old or new parts) that include discipline and expectations as well as love. It's a good push of the pendulum, but it's unbalanced and unworkable by itself.
Still, it's the best book I've read so far this year and it's a good bridge for us old "moderns" into the postmodern scene (or I guess you could say, "pms."). I've not had time to list it on my favorites on this page -- we're in the middle of giving and grading finals -- but you can search Amazon below and find it.
December 16, 2007
Environmental Irony
Been reading news articles lately on pollution in Asia. It's pretty discouraging. Being "green" is often a privilege of the better-off (ever price a Prius?) and developing countries sometimes take the same attitude. Their focus is on economic development, not so much environmental impact. The irony of the news lately is that the businesses, specifically fish farming, are creating problems that are hurting the businesses.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/world/asia/15fish.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all)
(http://vietnamnews.vnanet.vn/showarticle.php?num=01ENV111207)
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/world/asia/15fish.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all)
(http://vietnamnews.vnanet.vn/showarticle.php?num=01ENV111207)
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