Big 'ol post!

This one is going everywhere so hang on for a bumpy bloggy ride.

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Books in my backpack Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith Rob Bell Wow. I'm only a few chapters into this book and I know it's already one that I'll re-read time and time again. Why Velvet Elvis? Every piece of art isn't a Picasso; some are destined for the basement to be forgotten. But that doesn't mean that people have given up on art. Creativity continues - people don't stop painting, sculpting and designing. This book asks the same about the Christian Faith - it prods us to explore it ourselves, ask questions and seek truth. Lot's of people are fine with what has been written, there is a lot of knowledge out there for us as Christians to explore in different books or by listening to different pastors and preachers. But the problem is that many times all we do is listen. We hear their interpretation of what they think the Bible means when it says something and we, the listener or reader, have a choice to nod or shake our heads at what they have just said. We have the opportunity, if we choose to take it to explore what the Bible says and form our own conclusions. If you're interested in doing something like that - I highly recommend this book. Read an excerpt at Zondervan. Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS Dan Cederholm I've gotta say - I've really become a big fan of Dan Cederholm. The guy really knows web design, and he's got a great blog on technology and life. Check it out at Simplebits.com. In this book Dan covers a variety of commonly used web design techniques and shows you how to rebuild them using web standards. I'm gonna get geeky here for a minute but bear with me. Web Standards are the recommendations for how websites and web technology should be built. Think of web standards like tires. When you go to buy new tires for your 96 Civic you drive up to Walmart and go to the tire and battery center. You walk up to the desk and the friendly sales associate lowers his comic book and greets you with a friendly-sounding "Can I help you?" You answer by telling him you believe that your vehicle needs new tires. The first thing he asks you for is your make and model of your car. Why does he ask you this? Because of standards - your Civic has 13 inch wheels so you'll need tires that fit your rims and those sweet plastic spinner hubcaps you picked up in the aisle next to the new car scent air freshener. The same applies to the web - there are certain ways that you should develop or design. But they're not rules as much as they are recommendations. This book uses XHTML as the core structural language and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) as the core presentation language. Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook Dan Cederholm Dan's first book digs deep into web standards showing the advantages of using them. I'm really kind of digging learning this stuff. CSS and XHTML are the technologies that blogs are (or at least should be) built upon. Developing web sites using this means that the site you design will look good on the majority of browsers, maintaining their placement, look and feel. Plus if built correctly, web pages will be fully indexable by the search engines which means it will be easier for people to find your site. Using web standards also makes your site accessible to people using screen readers for blindness or vision problems. This book covers a lot of commonly used practices and shows you how to build so pages look good and function properly.

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News from friends The Ostovics Big congrats to Derrak on his new job with Kensington Church in Troy, Michigan. Derrak will work as Creative Director for the Middle & High School ministry. Dude's gotta pack quick too, cause the fam has gotta be up there the first week of October. Here are some random facts about Troy, MI:

• 2005 was Troy's 50th Anniversary (the city newsletter didn't say who he married but, I'm sure she's swell.)
• You can watch the City Board and Council Meetings on Channel 10 WOW or on position 53 on Comcast Cable. VHS tapes of meetings are available by calling 248.524.1147. City Council Meetings are $15. (I'd totally just set the Tivo and watch the whole season at once. Small town politics are action-packed!)
• Need a bouquet you can eat? Just visit Edible Arrangements on W. Square Lake in the Troy Corners Shopping Center
• Visit the Beavers! Much like our fair city of Akron has done with Horses; the City of Troy has a Beaver decorating contest to benefit the Troy Historical Society, Troy Community Coalition and the Community Foundation of Troy. (I'm pretty sure those last two fall under The Department of Redundancy Department.)

So good luck Ostovics, enjoy the adventure! We'll be praying for you, your church and your ministry. Good luck and blog often! The Aufdenbergs A couple of days ago I got an e-mail from my good friend Tyson Aufdenberg. He wrote to tell me a little about what's happening on the other side of the world. You see Tyson and Caralee along with their two boys - Cole and Trace - are in Okinawa. Yeah - you know home of Mr. Miyagi, the Crane Technique and a pretty substantial amount of our military. The Aufdenbergs are serving with Cadence International, a mission agency that shares the gospel with our military by sharing their lives with them. What an awesome mission! Oh, the other reason they wrote was to show me that someone in Okinawa has my dream car - the Subaru Impreza WRC version - it's even cooler with two of my favorite little guys standing in front of it! Keep up the good work - we'll keep up the prayers!

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Music in my iPod DJ MAJ - Boogie Root So last Sunday we stopped by Berean Bookstore out in Montrose. They were having a Labor Day sale and we are part of the "reward" program which entitles us to an extra 10% discount off of any other sale so last weekend we got 30% off of the price which just happened to be a few cents cheaper than we could buy them from the iTunes music store. This CD is pretty good - DJ Maj has been around for a while and actually has another album out already. I heard of him at the Alive Music Festival when he was spinning for TobyMac - see I'm hip, I'm with it! I use cool words like "spinning" when I could say something uncool like "he was playing the records and doing that scratchy thing on them." I guess I like this album because you can't tell that it's Christian until you really listen to it. Not that there's anything wrong with being blatantly Christian. Favorite Song so far: H.A.N.D.S Chris Rice - Amusing Ahh, Chris Rice. In the world of CCM, Chris is like a really comfortable pair of jeans. I have no idea what that means. Actually I do, Chris is one of those artist that seems to get better with age. And he is aging, man. That's one thing that you don't see with the album art from iTunes. I can't actually say that this one is on my iPod yet. Kirsten has it in her car and I've yet to get it out of the changer in her trunk to rip it. (See another cool word!) This album is pretty good, a little less rambunctious than Smell the Color 9 but is definitely going to be in heavy rotation in the next few weeks. See the thing is with Chris Rice, the music isn't always the best, but the writing is generally awesome and so you end up really liking the songs because of what they say, rather than how they sound. Eventually like all of his other albums, Amusing, will find itself as an old standby for road trips and rainy afternoons. Big plus - no Cartoon song. Favorite song so far: Lemonade Jamiroquai - Dynamite If you've never listened to a Jamiroquai album you're missing out. It's not a Christian album, but it's definitely not anything that's dirty, crude or offensive. Dynamite is a mix of dance, R&B and soul. Might just be my interpretation but I think there are questions to a higher power in the song Starchild. I like Jamiroquai because you can pick up on the lyrics pretty quickly and that means you'll see me singing along in my truck. Yes - I sing quite loudly when in the safe confines of Ferguson. Favorite Song so far: (Don't) Give Hate a Chance

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Cool Web & Computer Stuff Another shout-out via weblink to Jeremy Bear for his latest comic creation "Mount Paran Christian School" You are a badd dawwg! Blogger Managed Sites I have to say that this might be cheating a bit but - using blogger as a content management system is a pretty good idea. So good, I've recommended and implemented it for a few sites. You lose a bit in terms of a custom look and feel (at least until I learn more CSS) but gain a whole lot - especially for those people who don't want to learn any HTML. The ability to easily edit any page, add new content, links, pictures and, most importantly, full indexibility (if that's a word) with search engines. Check it out in action on botzum.org and cadet-ettes.org. Speaking Geek with the ladies Kir and I joined a few couples from church for half-price appetizers and discussions of Unix, Linux, SharePoint Portal Server and web technologies. Well actually it was just for conversation and food but it turned into that. The cool part about it was I didn't start it! We went to Applebees on South Arlington road - there were four couples, so that makes eight altogether. A number that seemed to be quite daunting for the staff, we waited - taking up the entire waiting area for about 25-30 minutes. I guess that's not that bad. Anyway it was Kir & I, Zac & Hilary Derr, Brian & Megan Kunkler and John & Colleen Penn. The topic of blog's came up and we talked about writing, reading and in Brian's case - never updating them. John & Colleen took off before the air was thick with nerdspeak. Eventually we moved from talk of blogs to computers and spent a pretty fair amount of time discussing the differences between Mac's and PC's; Unix, Linux and Windows and open source software; liability and access issues. The thing that I realized after we left is that I was talking about all these things with Hilary & Megan. Kirsten was singing along with whatever was playing in the restaurant, Zac was watching ESPN or something and Brian was just listening. Turns out Megan works at a school that is a client of my day job, and Hilary is in the IT department at another school. Kirsten would say that I was in my element. Speaking geek. Talking FTP, HTML, XML, CSS, RSS heck, Hilary even threw in COBOL and Megan contributed with memories of Apple IIe. Isn't technology great!

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A few quick thoughts about being in/and enjoying... The Great Outdoors Baggo Donny and Jennifer just got a Baggo set for their backyard. It's the nicer sounding name for Cornhole. There was a big case a few years back that prevents them from using "cornhole" as a product name. You might have read something in the news about it - West Virginia Backyard Games v. Beavis & Butthead et al. Pie Irons Donny & Jennifer we're in Amish country not all that long ago and I asked them to get me a pie iron from this store down there. Last week I got to use mine for the first time late last week. Pie Irons - if you've never had a camper pie or hobo pie then you haven't lived. Basically, its two slices of bread, buttered on the outsides and the insides are filled with pie filling or other food. Close the pie iron and stick it in the hot coals of a campfire and in minutes you've got a great snack or meal. Just don't let anybody eat more than three at a time - you wouldn't want them to get sick in your tent. Crazy things can happen in the dark - one might be franticly searching for a container to catch the vomit in and accidentally grab - oh, I don't know - a strainer. That wouldn't be good - but it would make for a good story though. Hmm. Bug in my eye I got a bug in my eye the other day when I was mowing. It's not as bad as knowingly swallowing a bug, but it wasn't any fun. I went into the house to get it out and pulled my eyelid back to get it out and the thing just went deeper into my eye. It was pretty gross feeling it crawling around in my eye. The worst part is I had to kill it in my eye to get it out. Drivewaykill The other morning I was walking my dog, Shelby, and we walked past a baby rabbit that had been run over at the end of a driveway. It was kind of sad; it was a cute little bunny. There was this thick white fluffy stuff next to its body near its guts. Logic and ancient doctors would probably it was some sort of bile or a reaction of a bodily fluid with oxygen. Homer would tell me it was tasty marshmallow cream. I told Kirsten about this and when I finished telling her she thought seeing that bunny made me have some deep spiritual thought about life - nope. Unfortunately sometimes I think Simpson.

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tags technorati : Dan Cederholm, Velvet Elvis, Chris Rice, DJ Maj, Jamiroquai