joel's thoughts

YouTube is just too fun. Here are two videos I came across today, courtesy of Technorati.

The first is “Amateur – Lasse Gjertsen”, in which a talented artist performs a song for drum and piano. Only his talent isn’t in playing either drum or piano, but in video editing. 🙂 Take a look…

What do you get when you combine a truckload (literally) of cornstarch, combine it with water in a cement mixer, and dump the results in a small pool? Quite a bit of non-Newtonian fluid, A.K.A an awful lot of fun:

The UK Telegraph has quite an interesting article poking some serious holes in the whole global-warming-catastrophe theory. It’s a little thick in places but overall well worth the read, and there’s an accompanying PDF with graphs and data and such. The elevator speech version is that UN climatologists accidentally (or purposely?) screwed up the data models between the ’96 report and the ’01 report, they didn’t bother issuing apologies or corrections when the errors came to light, the seas aren’t rising more than whatever normal is, and…well, there were Vikings farming in Greenland in the Middle Ages, for cryin’ out loud! Who knew?

Anyway, I’m sure there are valid and insightful responses out there to this guy’s position (at least I hope so — this can’t be all political, can it?), but this at least shows me that this issue isn’t nearly as cut-and-dried as some would have us believe.

Owlhaven shares a nerve-wracking experience she had in preparation for her fourth adoption homestudy.

We had heard all the stories of folks going into mad cleaning frenzies in preparation for the homestudy. But we also heard/read some folks advising that the homestudy isn’t really about how clean or orderly your house was, and we decided to take that to heart. As I recall we probably did the basics — vaccuum, give the bathrooms a once-over, etc., but there were still toys all over the floors, piles of mail and papers on the table, etc. It’s not that we like having stuff all over the place, it’s just that it never seems to fully go away for very long. 😛

And you know what? It was fine. I even brought it up to the social worker in one of the interviews. I gestured at all the stuff, mentioned deciding not to go crazy cleaning up, shrugged, and said, “This is who we are.” She said, “That’s fine; that’s not what I’m here for.” She even mentioned at one point that at home she’s all about keeping things organized and clutter-free, so I know it wasn’t that she just sympathized. 🙂 I think it was more that the important stuff was in place — the kids had proper beds and were clothed and fed, we had gates and cabinet locks where it made sense to have them, we were legally married and had sufficient income, and neither one of us has ever committed a felony. That sort of thing.

And now we have the draft homestudy ready to send back to her, and we’re ready to move on with submitting the dossier. God is good. 🙂

Melissa Faye Greene has written a fabulous article, slightly about Madonna’s adoption from Malawi, but mostly about her own Ethiopian adoptions. Well worth the read, especially the quote at the end.

Hat tip: Owlhaven

I’ve really appreciated the Dove “Real Beauty” campaign, and I think their latest video is a winner (might take a second or two to show up):

Good stuff, in an eye-opening kind of way. Hat tip to ThinkChristian.

Just came across an interesting article over at Linux for Christians about the potential place for Linux and open source software in general for churches. Worth a read, especially if you’re in a new/growing church or have anything to do with your church’s tech policy.

So I feel like the last two weeks have been an interesting intermix (collision?) between my knowledge and experience in Linux and Windows, or more generally Microsoft-based tech. I work on various projects at work based in Microsoft tech, but my strong preference for base operating system and general work environment is Linux. As such, I use Linux every day and there aren’t usually very large gaps between the times I’m working on MS-based tech projects.

Well, several months ago I had a project for work that involved storing quite a bit of somewhat sensitive data on my laptop, or at least on an external drive I kept with me. Not wanting to see myself or my company as another lost-personal-data headline, I dug a bit into how to pull off hard drive encryption in Linux. Once I got it figured out, I offered to do a presentation at my local LUG (Linux User Group), which was accepted. Meetings are only monthly and schedules didn’t work out for me to do it until the October presentation. So I knew I had some time.
Then, in the course of the project I was working on and its follow-up, which was based around some Microsoft back-office tech, I figured out a technique to make a few different pieces play well together. I was going to write up a blog post about it, but then decided to see if anyone would be interested in publishing a proper article on the topic. I asked this one site that publishes content focused on most of the related pieces if they’d be interested, and they were. Cool! So then I…uh…had to write it. I had about three weeks to get it written, so naturally I got started right away so I’d have plenty of time to develop my ideas, revise, etc.

Riiiiiiiiight. So two days before it was due found me secluded on the second floor of our townhouse typing madly (two whole days! that would have been quite progressive in college…), and even then I didn’t manage to get it in on time. But I got it in, and am now waiting to hear back from the editor. I’ll let you know when/if it’s online.

But I wasn’t out of the woods, because the LUG presentation was the very next weekend. Naturally I had started getting ideas down and organized for the presentation as soon as it was scheduled so I wouldn’t forget anything in the passing months, and wouldn’t have to re-wrap my head around the information.

…You probably see where this is going. Took a night or two off to actually get some sleep, then it was back to the grindstone. The presentation was this past Saturday morning, though, and overall I think it went pretty well. In hindsight I wish I had actually stepped through setting up loop-AES on a small external drive rather than just talking about it (I even had an available one in my bag!), but as it was I took over an hour between my material and questions.

And now? Now Andi’s glad to have her husband back. 🙂

Yep, still here. I know I haven’t posted in a few days, but…what’s that? More? Oh, I suppose it has been a few weeks, maybe even a month or two. I’m sorry, what? Longer than that?

Oh, alright. Truth be told it’s been a little over a year, but we’ve been a little busy. You can see one reason here: This picture was taken in May. Charis, the little cherub in the middle, made her entrance near the end of October, and has been a tremendous blessing ever since. Her two sisters adore her, though at times they need to be reminded how to play with her safely :).

Then sometime in the spring (don’t remember when exactly, off the top of my head) I went over to Croatia to pick up this little guy and bring him back here for medical assistance.

And now?

Well, we’re now in the process of attempting to adopt not one but two babies from Ethiopia (“babies” meaning under 3). We’re near the end of our homestudy, and anticipate being able to travel sometime in the first half of next year. God has been and continues to be faithful through the process; right now the biggest thing we’re trusting him with is the financial side. It costs an awful lot of money to adopt internationally.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll post more on that, and many other things, as time goes on. For now I’ll content myself knowing that I’ve finally gotten my lazy bum back on here. 🙂

No, not the Tony Soprano way. The Washington Post reports on an interesting and promising way to let emergency workers know who in your cell phone contact list they should call if something happens to you — simply add ICE (In Case of Emergency) to the person’s name in the list. Not foolproof, or reliable, but it’s apparently getting a lot of attention as a quick-and-easy way to maybe help a paramedic figure out more quickly who they need to contact (especially if you’re in the majority of people who don’t bother carrying around emergency contact info).

Just read Dr. Bob’s post on faith and emotional pain. That description doesn’t even do it justice, but I can’t think properly right now in part because I’m still digesting his well-written insight and in part because I’m late leaving and really need to be getting home. But go read it for yourself, and don’t start wandering off when he starts talking about woodworking.