01.26.06

Blog of Bob

Posted in friends and family at 4:34 pm by spryken

Bob has moved back to WordPress. Bob has always seemed to jump around for hosting and solutions. But he always seems to end up back with the best. It was by his suggestion that I settled on WordPress. I have, however, decided to use w.bloggar instead of BlogJet for my blogging client. This was largely a matter of finances.
And where as Bob is using WebHost4Life, I am staying with ICDSoft.com. It is a personal preference. I know Bob does work in ASP.NET and .Net in general. While I do more with PHP. ICDSoft has provided everything I need for small scale projects.

Shameless advertivisement follows:

I am an Affiliate and Reseller for ICDSoft.com. They have great deals. For more information contact me.

Welcome back Bob!
I can’t say I followed all of your advise, but at least I listen!!

Testing

Posted in Blogs at 4:29 pm by spryken

This is just a test post. It appears Permalinks has stopped working

Ok that worked, let’s try the family and friends category

Ok, here is what happened.  Trying to get a trackback to Bob, I deleted a post and recreated it.  Same Title, so Same Post Slug and same Permalink.  The post went away, but somewhere WordPress is keeping track of it.  I haven’t figured out where yet.  But, change the Post Slug, and so the Permalink and behold it works.  No more 404 from the Permalink

01.20.06

Sudoku

Posted in addictions, comics, games at 11:38 am by spryken

Unless you have many hours to burn, avoid this game at all costs!!

Sudoku is a crossword style puzzle. Meaning that is played on a grid like a crossword. There are no words involved, just numbers. But don’t worry, no math either. I won’t go into explaining the rules here, check out the website.

My rant is on the amount of time I spend on the game. I started playing online last year at DailyInk.com (no affiliation). I started playing print versions in the newspaper last Thanksgiving. The difference is the online version is computer generated (a Java Applet) and is not necessarily a “logical” game. That is, there may be more than 1 correct solution and you reach a point where you have to guess. The print versions are “logical”. There is only 1 correct solution and you should never have to guess. I would suggest the print version for that reason.

I have spent hours working the puzzles. The ones I really like are hard - extremely. Sometimes I like the easy ones, but I really like the ones that take a long time to solve. Of course, as you work you learn more and better strategies and so your working time decreases.

Sudoku has all the traits for a great individual game. It is simple to learn, challenging enough to keep you interested and addictive. As if I have time for that…. That’s why I refuse to buy computer games. I know that I will burn away productive hours sitting in front of the computer……..wait a minute…..that’s what I’m doing now…….

Oh well, there are worse addictions than Sudoku and blogging……… ;)

01.15.06

Geocahcing

Posted in games at 11:51 pm by spryken

I got a GPSReceiver(GPSr) for Christmas. I now participate in a game that is world wide. Geocaching.

Geocaching is a modern day treasure hunt. Remember how as kids, we would hide or bury a treasure. Then we would make treasure maps to give to friends. Sometimes the maps would lead to more clues instead of the actual treasure. Geocaching is very similar, except you give the treasure hunters the longitude and latitude of the treasure or next set of coordinates. The hunters would then use a GPSr to find it. Of course GPSrs are only accurate to within 10-20 feet, so some hunting is still required. Also the treasure hiders will work very hard at making the treasure cache inconspicuous. I am a newbie at geocaching, but I have been right on top of a cache and not found it for about an hour.

What is in the treasure cache to make a grown man hunt for an hour? Nothing. Usually the cache is just some inexpensive toys that the kids can swap. The idea is you take something and leave something. You usually sign a log book to let the hider know you were there. The thrill is in the hunt and in the days outing. Caches can be in parks, utility easements or in urban areas. They can be quite small or rather large. The excitement is the hunt. Why climb the mountain? Because it is there!!!

The most interesting cache I have found to date (not that I have found many) was a themed cache. International cash cache. The idea was to place some foriegn currency in and get some out. Just looking at the different types of currency was fasinating.

Geocaching……….Modern day treasure hunts. What fun!!!

01.13.06

If you can’t believe the Bible…

Posted in Religion at 4:09 pm by spryken

I was not going to tackle “Inerrancy”. NO WAY, NO HOW!!!!

My friend Bob had asked about a church he was visiting. It seems they used the word “inerrancy” and he wondered what it meant. I shared that it was the belief that the Bible is the literal word of God, without error. I didn’t want to get into the deeper theological discussion of whose translation was THE INERRANT translation. This is just too hot of a topic. It incites strong passions on both sides of the argument.

Yesterday, as I was posting You’re Baptist, aren’t you, I resolved that I would not address Inerrancy in my blog. Then the Raleigh News and Observer published
If you can’t believe the Bible…. I couldn’t believe it. Here was the topic I didn’t want to address.

Oh well. It is not that I am ashamed of my beliefs. It is just that I dislike arguing with people that are so convinced they are correct that they have turned off their reasoning.

When I was in Seminary, I studied the Biblical Greek and Hebrew. There were so many different manuscripts that had slight differences. The issue of inerrancy seemed silly. I mean really, I can possibly agree that the original texts were the “Literal Word of God” and so inerrant. But, after so many copies and translations and with the differences in the manuscripts we do have, I have to say that what we have as the Bible cannot be the “Literal Word of God”.

However, I have to disagree with Dr. Ehrman. I still believe the Bible is the Inspired Word of God. I believe God has spoken to man and has left us His teachings. But I also believe that as God has always worked through mankind, he has allowed His Word to come through mankind. When I study the Bible, I always try to look at more than one translation. I also try to consider the agenda of the translators. I don’t mean that translators consciously attempted to intrepret the scripture for their own ends, but every one approachs all tasks with their own filters. Our life experiences change the way we see the world.

Some Christians seem to need to have someone else take responsibility for what they believe. They want to know what is right and what is wrong. And they want it absolute. I’m afraid that we live in the real world. There are very few absolutes. The true Christian life is lived in the struggle of here and now. We are called to be Christ to others in this life. That means tackling problems that did not exist when He walked the earth as a man.

There are no easy answers. Inerrant, I don’t think so; Inspired, yes.

« Previous entries