Author Archives: brad

Just read Amy’s post on Switchfoot and FFH: are Walt and I the only people left on earth who don’t like Switchfoot? oh, they just grate on me…. like Jeremy Deibler of FFH… but apparently all the mu-ivcf clan just think they’re the bee’s knees. I do not understand.

I was going to leave a comment, but I’m too lazy to sign up with Xanga, so I’ll just comment here.

I couldn’t name a Switchfoot song to save my life. Somebody lent me a tape of theirs several years ago. I gave it a cursory listen and promptly forgot about it. I think I gave it back to the lender later. I hope so, because that was several moves ago, and if not, it’s long gone.

And FFH? Well, suffice to say that I have some issues with FFH. I have some tangential connections to them and have been familiar with them personally and with their work for quite some time. I’ll only say, however, that they are not, and I say this emphatically, the bee’s knees. I wouldn’t rate them anywhere above the bee’s ankles.

No, in fact, I don’t listen to much Christian music. Most of it is either too musically bland or too lyrically vapid (if well-intentioned). My current favorite Christian act is probably Rock’n’Roll Worship Circus. Their passion and their energy are inspiring, especially live, and their music is right up my alley. I’ve always been a big Jars of Clay fan, and I still appreciate their music. Most of my favorite Christian bands are no longer together: Jawbone Hill, rainchildren, Dime Store Prophets, Black-Eyed Sceva (who later became Model Engine), Dryve, and some others, especially Anonymous Joe. Oh, and of course, like any well-behaved Christian guitarist, I believe that Phil Keaggy actually is the bee’s knees. I can listen to Third Day and Caedmon’s Call, as well, but I wouldn’t rate them among my favorites. I do like Delirious. Oh, I almost forgot Chris Tomlin. He’s quite good. I also like the worship music being put out by Vineyard and by Saddleback Church.

Ahhh, the MU–IVCF clan. Boy, that takes me back. Back to when Bill and I used to heckle whoever was doing announcements by doing our Beavis and Butthead impersonations just loud enough to be distracting. Heh heh, that was cool. But, boy it annoyed the crap out of anybody trying to do announcements, because we always sat right up front.

Here are some free, legal MP3s from Go-Kart Records. I’m not too much into punk, but it makes great background music for playing Tony Hawk.

They’re even properly tagged and everything.

According to this quiz, sovaldi I am a Musical Thinker.

Musical Thinkers:
– Tend to think in sounds, purchase and may also think in rhythms and melodies
– Are sensitive to the sounds and rhythms of words as well as their meanings
– Feel a strong connection between music and emotions

Other Musical Thinkers include
Mozart, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix

Careers which suit Musical Thinkers include
Musician, Music teacher, Sound engineer, Recording technician

Who am I to argue?

Note, however, that “Assistant Director of Technology” is not in the list of careers that suit me. Hmmm…

Bill’s sister Amy is blogging now. Her latest missive on love and romance provides this insight: Never, ever EVER start dating someone in the spring. When the birds start to sing, and it starts to get warm, and people start sunbathing, it seems that everyone’s thoughts turn towards love. Even the ducks. and suddenly you find yourself entranced by someone who had merely been annoying previously. Don’t crack! It’s just the weather!

Interesting observation. I’m happy to report that Jen I and started dating in February (of 1991). So I guess winter time was a great time to start a relationship, because we’re still going strong.

(By the way, you haven’t lived until you’ve met the Fenstermaker clan. Seriously.)

From Wired: A pioneering elementary school district outside Chicago has been sued for installing a wireless computer network by parents worried that exposure to the network’s radio waves could harm their children. Oh, puke. Give me a break. You don’t provide the tools, people complain. You provide the tools, people complain. Besides, I’ve had a wireless network in my house for almost two years, and I’m fine, except for the stutter I’ve developed. And sudden, uncontrolled urination.

And from Yahoo! News comes this gem. A student shared his inhaler with his girlfriend, who was having an asthma attack and had forgotten her own inhaler. He helped her. Let me repeat that: he helped her. What’s his reward? A three day suspension. Oh, yeah, and possible expulsion. Oh yeah, and he was arrested. Arrested! Why? Zero-tolerance policy. The school nurse reported the student to the campus police for violating the drug policy. The school principal said he couldn’t do anything about it since Kivi not only broke school rules, but also allegedly violated state law. Bull. The school principal could take a stand for common sense and say, “You know what? Nothing bad has happened here. No one was hurt, no one really did anything wrong. Let’s just forget about it.” Nope, instead he says there’s nothing he can do.

OK, enough about American schools, how about Australia? Well, it seems as though a five-year-old Territory girl shocked teachers when she showed her class how to make a bong out of a Coke bottle during a “show and tell” session. Yep, 5 years old. And not only does she know how to make a bong, not only does she do it, she does it for show and tell, so all the kiddies can learn!

According to this highly scientific quiz (no doubt administered and scored by a real scientician), I am a Non-Potty Mouth.

And just to be proactive to comments: Yes, I have been known cuss. Yes, at one time in the not-very-recent-past I would have scored quite high on this quiz. But I’ve cleaned up my language considerably. I still cling to the word CRAP though. I find it to be wonderfully expressive.

I will also admit that there have recently been times that I desparately wanted to swear. Fortunately, or unfortunately, my good friend Mike sensed my need and provided a stream of profanity by proxy.

Well, a trend in Mac circles right now seems to be sharing what’s on your dock. Not that anybody cares, but here’s mine.

It’s situated on the bottom, where it rightfully belongs. I’m constantly amazed at how many people, my wife included, pin the dock to the left or right. I told Jen I can’t believe I’m married to a dock-on-the-right woman. She said it’s only because AppleWorks doesn’t respect the dock. OK, I can live with that.

I have magnification turned on. Sometimes it annoys me, and sometimes it causes me to click on the wrong icon, but it’s just do danged cool. And I don’t have the dock hidden; only Luddites do that.

Onto the goodies. Starting from the left: Finder, Safari, Mail, Address Book, iCal, QuickMail Pro (blech – only use it for school, and only because I have to; I am actively looking for ways to put a bullet through its head), REALbasic 5.2.1 (latest release version), REALbasic 5.5a6 (latest pre-release version with shiny, new DB), Word X, PowerPoint X, AppleWorks 6 (still my preferred word processor), BBEdit Lite 6.1, SubEthaEdit (the text processor formerly known as Hydra), GoLive 6, Photoshop 7, ImageReady 7, Terminal, iPhoto 2, iTunes 4, QuickTime Player, Preview, StuffIt Expander, Frequency, NetNewsWire Lite, iChat AV, Apple’s X11, and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3. Then the little divider. On the right, starting from the little divider, we have a custom FileMaker database I wrote for managing worship services at my church (makes it really easy to generate CCLI reports), Downloads folder, Projects folder, Games folder, and Trash.

So, what’s missing from my Dock? Excel, for one. I don’t use it that much. FileMaker used to have a prominent place on the dock, but I’ve been working hard on making it obsolete for myself. No room for Internet Explorer, either, although up until very recently, I still had Camino and Mozilla on the Dock. But they just can’t compete with Safari. For these less frequently used apps, I use Ranchero’s great TigerLaunch.

I can’t believe I didn’t hear a single joke about a Total Recall today. I’m extremely disappointed.

On the bright side, Frequency 1.2b7 is out. Feel free to download and test it if you want to check out the new features in 1.2, such as Radio support, Movable Type support (both with categories), way improved post editing, faster HTML previewing, and more flexible setup. The beta expires on October 15.

So you wanna fake being an indie rock expert? Here’s your chance. So start somewhere safe: Sonic Youth . You cannot go wrong if you like Sonic Youth. Everybody in indie rock likes Sonic Youth, and those who don’t are afraid to admit it. So you can talk all night long about what a genius frontman-guitarist Thurston Moore is, and nobody will ever think you are an idiot or don’t know what you are talking about.

Interrogating the bird: A man claims a woman wrongly adopted his lost parrot — and he can prove it if given a chance to question the bird in court.

Meteorite smashes through roof: I’ve been very disorientated by the whole thing, especially when I consider what a narrow escape we all had and what could have happened.

Joy After Sun: Windows isn’t well architected. There’s a simple way to find out if an operating system has been well designed. When you get an error message, go to the help system and look up the exact words in that message to see if there was enough of a concept of an architecture that they have a consistent vocabulary to talk about what’s broken… All you have to do is try it on a Mac and on a PC to see the difference. Apple took the time to come up with a concise vocabulary, but in Windows the designers of the help system used different terminology from the programmers. That reflects a lack of design discipline, which means that as the system grows, so does the ambiguity of the software itself. Well, no arguments here.

Aaahh, nothing like a good animal-rights-liberation-goes-bad story: minks are apparently cannibals.

Man, I’m tired.

Grace and I spent the day together today; mostly just the two of us. Jen had a lot of children’s curriculum to write for 40 Days of Purpose, and she needed some uninterrupted time to do it.

This morning Grace wanted to do nothing but play on the Playhouse Disney website. OK, I thought, that’ll last about ten minutes. I figured I’d check my email and she’d be done. She went for hours. It was really kinda sad and weird: Jen was at her PowerBook, I was ay my PowerBook, and Grace was at the XP laptop. We’re a family of nerds.

After lunch, the rain seemed to have ceased, so Grace and I headed to Long’s Park to feed moldy pitas to nasty ducks. Good times. We made the mistake of walking out onto a very tiny dock-like structure. We were immediately surrounded by ill-intentioned waterfowl.

And check out the beak on this guy:

After escaping their clutches, we were headed to the playground. And then the rains came. Grace decided she’d rather skip the playground and not get wet. Good choice. We headed to Stauffer’s to pick up something for dinner (for the cupboard was bare).

While we were at Stauffer’s, we decided to go through the Hay Maze a few times:

Then dinner, devotions, prayer, and sleep.

I love these days with Grace. I can’t believe she’ll be going to Kindergarten next year. And after that… I can’t even think about it. I’m just trying to hold on while I can, because I know that someday she’ll be gone in what seemed like the blink of an eye.