1. You have ever written yourself a reminder (on paper) to blog
2. You have ever used XFN to describe your relationship to another person
3. You have ever pulled up Flickr.com during a party
4. Your house/apartment contains more than 1.0 computers per person
5. You have ever attempted to right-click with the TV remote
6. You write in Graffiti even when using a pen and paper
   
7. When you use the phrase “4th generation,” you’re referring to an iPod, not great-grandchildren
8. You are over 21, and you can txt without looking (this is normal for minors)
9. You have ever rejoiced in the fact that something is “Ajaxed”
10. You have ever mentioned to a friend that you wish RSS was more widely supported

Previously: Top 10 Signs You May Be A Hipster

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has produced two 60-second commercials portraying carbon dioxide in a positive light: “They call it pollution. We call it life.” (press release)

Gasp! (or rather, exhale, because that releases CO2, which is good) Some politicians want to restrict our way of life by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide our country produces? Oh, the horrors. This guy has a pointed (if low-fi) riposte.

I suppose some explanation is in order. I have not been very active here, and my posting has been mostly fluff such as YouTube videos and links to actual thinking done by other people. Sadly, this reflects the state of my soul at the moment, so I thought I’d procrastinate from my work a bit more and explain why.

We are nearing the end of our M.Ed. program at Seattle U, which includes second-level professional teacher certification. Next year, I will not be teaching, but will be in the Danforth Program for Educational Leadership at the University of Washington. Danforth is, as far as I know, the most prestigious school administration program in the region, which is why I chose it. I am hoping it will be more rigorous than Seattle U has proved to be.

Yes, I am entering administration and leaving the classroom. My reasons are many, but all center around the desire to do more than I can do in the classroom. That is not to say I am the best teacher I could possibly be (far from it), but I am more interested in administration, as I think it will use my skills more fully. I believe I will, at my peak, be a better administrator than teacher.

I will probably not be working next year, so I can spend my full time on my internship experiences. I need a thousand hours (which comes out to 5.55 hours per day for the entire 180-day school year), so it would be virtually impossible to teach and do the internship simultaneously. I’m fairly confident that we can swing this financially with a home equity loan, but if you’d like to loan me $30K at a good rate, let me know.

The past six months or so have been a blur. We (Amy and I) are taking seven hours of graduate credit, which is a lot when holding down a full-time teaching job. We have become used to being perpetually busy, and I have not done a good job of making time for God amidst this busyness.

It is not foreseeable that I will, as an administrator, become less busy than I presently am. In fact, I expect to become more busy. My hope, though, is that the work in which I am engaged will be more suited to my strengths, and thus will be satisfying and energizing rather than draining.

Spiritually, my hope remains that a “new monasticism” approach to faith will fully move in to replace the evangelical subculture from which we have departed. That will take time, commitment, and community. This reminds me of the importance of being with spiritual friends. Guys, I’m sorry I haven’t made more time for you.

I would appreciate your prayers for guidance in the coming months, as my work situation enters limbo and I look for internship sites. I will also be a part of a cohort of Danforth students, who will become a significant part of my life over the next year. I need to be strong. I need to focus on what really matters. I need to turn to God.

That is all.

Gary Wills has a lucid and stinging op-ed piece on Jesus and politics in the NY Times (free reg required; here are some bug-me-nots)

Some may think that removing Jesus from politics would mean removing morality from politics. They think we would all be better off if we took up the slogan “What would Jesus do?”

That is not a question his disciples ask in the Gospels. They never knew what Jesus was going to do next. He could round on Peter and call him “Satan.” He could refuse to receive his mother when she asked to see him. He might tell his followers that they are unworthy of him if they do not hate their mother and their father. He might kill pigs by the hundreds. He might whip people out of church precincts.

The Jesus of the Gospels is not a great ethical teacher like Socrates, our leading humanitarian. He is an apocalyptic figure who steps outside the boundaries of normal morality to signal that the Father’s judgment is breaking into history. His miracles were not acts of charity but eschatological signs — accepting the unclean, promising heavenly rewards, making last things first. read on

Via Karen Ward

It was the summer of 1995, and I was on the University of Houston campus for Impact Houston Work Camp. We were there to paint houses in Third Ward, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

We were staying in the tower dorms, and for some reason they let us use the computer lab. I went to Yahoo.com, the only website I had heard of back in those days.

Somehow I ended up on TwinkiesProject.com, a website made by Rice University students to celebrate procrastination during finals week by experimenting with Twinkies. As the site explains, “T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. stands for Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes In Extreme Situations.” Yes indeed. They burn, microwave, drop, smash, and do just about everything imaginable to a Twinkie in the name of science.

This was the first website I ever really visited, if you don’t count Yahoo! (which I used as a search engine/directory and not for its own content, so I’m not counting it). It was nearly 11 years ago, and boy does it bring back memories. Today I found it again when visiting some blogs I saw in my referrer stats. I’m glad the T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project is still amusing internet users with too much time on their hands, including procrastinators like me :).

Man, this Harding admissions video brings back memories:

Among those making an appearance:

• Greg Kendall-Ball
• Ken Neller
• Jimmie Douglass (pictured in the screenshot above)
• Jason Ashlock
• Monte Cox
• Daisha Stockstill
• Lots of people whom I recognize, but whose names I do not remember

“The best friend you’ll find at Harding is Jesus Christ.”

Who do you see?

Via Mark Elrod

If you don’t have a domain name, you probably will before too long. Once you purchase your domain name, you can’t change it, so it’s important to choose wisely.

Some tips for choosing a good domain name:

• Get yourname.com. You are likely to want it some day even if you can’t think of a use for it yet, and you wouldn’t want someone else with the same name to get it.
• Pick a good top-level domain (extension). I rank the popular TLDs in the following order:
  .com > .org > .net > Country Code > weird things like .biz, .tv, .pro, etc. > .info
  I don’t recommend the weird TLDs because they aren’t widely recognized as domain names. It’s become popular to use periods to separate words in print media, so weddingphotography.pro may not look like a URL to some people.
• Go for a normal TLD. The country-code TLDs tend to be four to ten times more expensive to register, and the weird TLDs (like .info and .biz) tend to be the province of spammers. The .info domains are the worst, because they were free for a while, so 90% of them are spam.
• The name should be clearly understood when spoken. If you have to explain the spelling, the placement of hyphens, or other weirdness, you’re not going to be happy with the domain.
• CamelCaps can be helpful for separating the words in multi-word domains, but make sure the domain looks OK without them. ExpertsExchange.com looked good, until people typed it without the caps: expertsexchange.com. Oops.
• Avoid possessive names, because you can’t use apostrophes, and novice internet users may not understand this. JoesCatering.com may sound good, but if someone types Joe’sCatering.com, they won’t get to your site.
• String together three or four relevant, easily understood words. CrankyPoliticalPundit.com is easy to remember and likely to be available.
• Coin a word. Neologisms are always available (e.g. WebbleYou, Zimbra, Orkut, etc.)
• Don’t get sued. Avoid using copyrighted names, even if it’s clear that you aren’t trying to infringe on a trademark. Ultimately, you’d probably win in court, but most people can’t afford the legal expenses and will end up capitulating to threats from company lawyers.

Feel free to add your tips in the comments.

dunlap31 says:

The Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Rainier, Oregon was imploded by engineers from Controlled Demolition, Inc. I joined several friends on a bluff across the mighty Columbia River in Washington State.

Enjoy: