Well, not quite; there are a few sites that don't yet work. But I switched to FireFox this week. So far, so good. I'm a happy camper.

The funny thing is that Kim and I own a little Microsoft stock. How many of a company's stockholders still root for open-source products that threaten their income? Take it away, Linux/OpenOffice/Mozilla....

10:52 (file under /topics/general)

This has to be the worst possible way to run a blog! One post in two months?

Yes, I'm well out of the habit. At the same time, I keep hearing from occasional readers that they appreciate this blog and my site in general, that it's needed, and that I should continue it. I appreciate those comments, and they are sure to keep me going, if pretty irregularly.

I have been directing my writing energy to a book on the Lord's Prayer and my reading energy to course texts. That doesn't leave much extra for a blog. Against all past precedence, I am actually making headway on the book even while the semester is in progress. That will almost certainly end once student papers start coming in, so I am trying desperately to finish a chapter while I still can.

Still, I received a provocative e-mail recently; when I responded to it, my answer was basically a theological FAQ. If you're interested on whether Christianity is a cop-out, here are my $.02. And if you are truly interested, then read the book to which I appeal at the end.

09:15 (file under /topics/general)

Just turned in my grades for the semester at Westmont – three hours before the deadline. A new record!

If time permits in the next few days, I'll end the year with reading recommendations from some of the terrific texts we read this semester in my classes.

If I don't manage even that, then everyone have a Happy Holiday Merry Christmas. And students, watch this space for news that next semester's syllabi have been posted.

13:18 (file under /topics/general)

Since switching from Blogger to Blosxom, I have offered Clutter in an RSS feed. I didn't bother to link to it, though. Now that I have found out some readers are using it (a good idea, since I post so rarely), I am including a link on the right, as well as here.

No campaign reaction? Nah. Maybe some comments on the coverage someday. For now, just a word of heartfelt thanks to those of you who conveyed some extraordinarily kind messages to me over the past week – from the political left, center, and right. I have seen very little like your words out on the Internet. You folks are the salt of the earth.

Shabbat shalom.

16:56 (file under /topics/general)

While some people are watching the presidential debate, and while the rest of my family is at back-to-school night, I will be starting a course with Fuller Theological Seminary's Santa Barbara extension on patristic theology.

I have also begun teaching a series on the pastoral letters (1/2 Timothy and Titus) at my local church for the college group. This Sunday we cover the dreaded 1 Timothy 2.

The combination of teaching commitments represents something of a realization of a dream: to train pastors, raise students, and teach a church. Theology belongs in every one of these places (and more). In fact, theology that excludes any one of them is in danger of distorting itself into something less than it should be. A theological career that includes all of them is healthily balanced. On top of my typical teaching load, these other courses make for an awfully busy but uniquely rewarding fall semester.

09:17 (file under /topics/general)

Is it just me, or is this year's Olympics coverage actually decent?

15:43 (file under /topics/general)

It has just been way too long since I have updated my links. I have pared down and added both on my blogroll and my links page.

I don't have one of those super-blogrolls that some people do, and I don't think I ever will. But at least it's no longer out of date.

By the way, per yesterday's post I am looking for thoughtful and consistently self-critical conservatives – think Mickey Kaus or Jill Stewart but on the right. If you know of any, please feel free to let me know. I would appreciate it.

13:10 (file under /topics/general)

I took this test to gauge how "red state" or "blue state" my mentality is. This is what happens when one doesn't know much about either culture:

Do I contain multitudes, or am I just colorless? No need to answer....

11:58 (file under /topics/general)

So after converting my whole site to GoLive, I discovered that the software is so buggy on my machine that I couldn't type a paragraph without crashing the application and losing my work.

After the usual diagnostics, I am back on an updated version of DreamWeaver that supports WebDAV.

Of course now I have to convert my site back again so the template dependencies are fixed. Joy!

Still beats packing up a house, though.

14:10 (file under /topics/general)

A while ago I discovered that my Bravenet site counter was sending pop-up windows to browsers. I don't know when the company started doing that, or if it did it all along, but I apologize to you all for the treatment. I have changed to StatCounter, which treats its users better, and which looks better on the site as well.

I am also completing a laborious migration from DreamWeaver to GoLive. Without it I could not really have maintained the site.

From Blogger to Blosxom, from Bravenet to StatCounter, and from DreamWeaver to GoLive – all so the site looks and works about like it did a year ago. Just how I wanted to spend my summer.

But it sure beats moving!

14:34 (file under /topics/general)

I give up.

On Blogger, that is – not blogging (not quite yet, anyway).

New hardware and software here at Westmont has made it impossible to use Blogger any more. I tried to post something a month ago and never succeeded. Since then, this blog has been on even more of a hiatus than I intended to take.

So I have moved to Blosxom, which allows me complete control over the setup. It's a bit more of a headache, but at least I can post. Expect some hiccups with the new setup. Old and new permalinks will continue to work, but the format may change a bit in the next few days.

I have made a slight but unavoidable change to the address of this page. The old page will redirect here. Feel free to adjust your bookmarks, or not.

Welcome back, everyone (who's left). I intend to keep the blog alive, but post lightly from here on.

16:09 (file under /topics/general)