ManoSinistra

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

That quote from Shakespeare's Henry V seems somewhat appropriate as I head back to school for another semester. This semester, I'm adding one more credit, 5 more hours of music practice per week, plus I'll be singing in two choir groups instead of one. In spite of the busier schedule, I'm comforted by two things. First, I'm told that the second semester seems to go by quicker than the first (not sure how that works . . . we don't have any spring break). Also, the busier you are, the quicker the time will fly. Another thing to be thankful for is that I have passed the hardest English course in the undergraduate English program which means I won't have to write 6 more theme papers this semester (what a relief).

Well, I've got more packing to do yet before I leave, so I'd better scoot. I also want to go to bed a little early since we'll be leaving bright and early. I'll try not to abandon this blog completely during the semester, but I know I won't be able to update it much, if at all.

Good luck to all the current students at BJUBloggers. ManoSinistra signing off . . .

Tonight I added a few things to my blog. First, and most noticeable is the authentication image (captcha) you must "decipher" to post a comment. I've been having some spam problems recently although it doesn't really show to you. Fortunately I was able to block the spammer's IP (see previous post).

Also, I've been having some fun with a new piece of Open Source software called the Blender. It's a pretty sweet 3D image rendering program that can create graphics equivalent to the characters in your favorite Pixar movie. I finished my first big Blender project yesterday after reading some tutorials they have set up on wikibooks.com. It's sitting in the "Blender Renders" album accessible to you from the left panel. If you think it's cool, let me know. I'm working on another one and I hope to have that done before going back to school next week - *shudder*.

G'nite folks.

The official Google Blog recently released the 2005 Zeitgeist - a compilation of the major search terms queried this year on Google. Also, the stats show how certain search terms skyrocked when world events happened.

This is a post from last year that I copied from my old blog at blogspot.com.

That's interesting
. . . very interesting . . . so interesting in fact that my city has
been noted as having the 2nd most unusual New Year's Tradition.
What is it, you may ask? Well, NY drops a ball, Lancaster and York drop
roses - everybody drops something! But my city has the second most
unusual drop in the country - Bologna! That's right, bologna! If
there's one thing that Lebanon is famous for, it's bologna; not just
any old bologna, a 7' long Lebanon Bologna! Good stuff, that.

Who
had the 1st most unusual, you may ask? Lebanon was outdone only by
another county in Pennsylvania (name, i forget) that drops a stuffed
goat! Now that is a bunch of bologna.

I really think it's time to bug the administrator of my blog site for a capcha. I have already received about 60 spam posts from the same person, with different post names and IP #'s, yet posting the same stuff. It's not particularly vulgar, but who wants links to poker sites all over their page?

Not me.

Christmas Bells
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The Carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!’

Merry Christmas to all the folks at BJUBloggers.com and to my sister who is spending Christmas far away from home on a missions trip to Costa Rica.

Spammers get nowhere! Just so you know, spamming my blog benefits you zippo. First of all, if you post spam, I'll delete it so fast your head will spin and then I'll block your IP if necessary. Second, if you're doing that just to boost your Google ratings, forget it - Google has a brain, it's not stupid (but I dare say you are).

Well, that didn't take as long as I suspected. I got my new layout basically done. If it looks a little bit repulsive right now, well just hang on and give me another day or two to fix up my CSS.

This is a nice little template I got from oswd.org. It's called "2nd encounter." I liked it, so I tried my luck at Smarty code and converted it into a LifeType template. You can comment and let me know what you think of it. I'm liking this better already. The old one used tables and ugly stuff like that. This design is big on CSS.

[EDIT]

I've noticed that I've received some traffic from search engines from people searching for a lifetype template. If you really like this one, post here and I can try to zip it up for you.

For a while I hopped around from template to template for this blog. Y'know. . . I don't really like any of them. I did do some fixing up on this one, but it just doesn't cut it. So, after reading up on some of the LifeType documentation, I think I'll make my own template. As they say, "If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself."

My brother
and I went back to work at our jobs in the office for the first time
since the summer. We hitched a ride with a neighbor of ours, Steve, who
works at the same place (he's actually the business manager). One of
the things that changed while we were away was that Steve was given
company vehicle since he also functions as a part-time salesman. In
past experiences driving with him to work, I have known him to
regularly drive 15-20 mph over the limit and pass cars right and left
(not because he's "rebellious" and loves to break rules and such, but
probably because he doesn't notice it . . . and that's just the way
some people are). But this morning, I noticed that he was driving much
more reasonably. Later he brought up, "Yeah, now that I have this
company logo on the side of my truck, I've had to watch that I don't go
blowing past anybody on the road." Apparantly, all three of us had the
same Bible application in mind . . .

We are representatives on
this earth for the Lord. In the same way that we shouldn't speed while
in a company vehicle, we shouldn't dissuade anybody from our Lord by
means of our actions.

Well, there's a sermon illustration for somebody to use. Enjoy.