...thoughts expressed here are not necessarily final.

July 11, 2005 Blogging from Terra Incognita

I will be logging the week but will not post until the weekend when I get off the road.

July 15, 2005 We are back and I am blogging.

In case you have nothing to do late tonight, you can stand in line with Harry Potter fans as the latest J.K. Rowling book will be sold at midnight at bookstores across the country. We guarantee laughter will ensue. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has an initial print run of 10.8 million copies ... I will pick up my 40 percent off copy of HP tomorrow, that will be the fun one. I won't be attending the midnight madness where six and seven year olds are reading the book unsupervised in the floor of Borders.

I went to Borders and picked up my preordered copy at 40 percent off- and it only took about fifteen minutes to get through the line. Chapter one down - who knows how many to go!

Recent finds:

http://www.angryalien.com/0604/titanicbunnies.html The Titanic in thirty seconds performed by bunnies.

http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/book/ Step by step guide to bookbinding, one of my well used skills from college.

http://www.blinkx.com/overview.php This is a piece of software that allows one to search everything - on your local drive or the WWW.

http://www.senescence.info/cells.html Hayflick's limit
In 1961, and in contradiction to what was thought at the time, Leonard Hayflick and Paul Moorhead discovered that human cells derived from embryonic tissues can only divide a finite number of times in culture (Hayflick and Moorhead, 1961).

http://eyebeam.org/production/rd_projects.php Design site with cutting edge appplications

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm?ContentID=147 Where signs and symbols live.

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~mfram/Pages/3036-sound.html Word Balloons

There can be no debate that what is most recognizably comic about modern comics is the balloon. Whether it contains speech, or thoughts, or anguished cries, or the noises of machines, the balloon is the comic icon par excellence.

http://www.batman-on-film.com/opinion_jett_batmen.html Site comparing the Batmen of the silver screen.

SpongeBob is going veggie. The Nickelodeon character will appear on packages of carrots, spinach and citrus starting next month, under licensing deals with produce companies.

We stopped by the Kentucky Folk Art Center in Morehead Kentucky on our trip. I decided that too much of it is derivative and targeted for sale now. Back twenty years ago I saw a great exhibition of it at Murray State University where I was a student. The stuff I saw at the Center was mostly done since that time and it left me cold, or worse, I was offended by the painted genetalia on several of the sculptures and I think most true folk artists would have been too!

I did enjoy listening to a couple of folk musicians- didn't catch their names though. They were speaking on preserving the heritage of music and playing old fiddle tunes. I did catch that the guitarist was from Ellis County...

Back in Pocket

We are back in pocket now. Mom does not have Internet or Cable so it has been a technology free week for the most part. That also means no communications via email which is not so cool. Lots to tell you- where shall I begin?

First the big picture- things went very well with meeting my new adviser and the program director. I am not only on track, I gained one hour (now down to 8 needed) and they are scrutinizing two other courses I had not received credit for- (1) C. S. Lewis and (2) Christianity and the Arts. I just faxed the syllabus for both courses which were theology and apologetics packed. It would be great if one more of them qualified- that would leave me with 5 hours to make up by next summer- or two courses, that is, instead of three.

I am hoping SBTS will accept the Miller Analogies Test in lieu of the GRE. I scored in the 98th percentile nationally on it in 1998 and he said the other one he accepted was an older score than that. So perhaps I will not have to prepare for and pay for taking the GRE.

Cinema Doings

Saw Batman Begins this week. Batman is cool partly because he really does not have superpowers. He's more like the Phantom or Nick Fury, or several others that come to mind. I liked everything about it- it was about the best I have ever seen of the genre, in my opinion- Earnie was impressed by it and she is not a fan of the genre. We saw it on an IMAX screen with was most excellent! I think the blindsiding abstract violence is in keeping with the more artistically enhanced violence of the more recent graphic novels rather than the biff-bam-pow violence of the comics.

Earnie is looking forward to seeing the Charlie and the Chocolate factory. We will see Must Love Dogs (Diane Lane/John Cusack sp?) this weekend (oops, it comes out July 29). We saw Fantastic Four, Batman Begins, and March of the Penguins ( Wonderful!!!!) in the past week.I was afraid FF wasgoing to be a big disappointment because of the reviews but I found it to be a fun, slightly silly (or punny?), great- with-popcorn diversion, which I needed. Much more in keeping with the Marvel style- never taking itself quite so seriously as the Dark Knight et. al. of the DC comics stable.

On the Homefront

Mom was doing great, very supportive- in a good mood, enjoying the rain and the attention and shopping. Ma Smith and Brenda Kay are coming up next week and then we will take them to KY Lake for a couple of days when Frances' family comes in on vacation. All the Grandkids want to see Ma Smith.

Book on Paul

John B. Polhill has an excellent text on Paul and His Letters Earnie used in her NT course. I am hoping to read four books a month- one on educational technology, one on faith matters, one on something fun and one that is totally other to my affinities to stretch me.

Union graduate called as pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church

7/15/05 - Steve Gaines, a 1979 Union University graduate, will be the new pastor of historic Bellevue Baptist Church in suburban Memphis, Tenn.

Reading??

I am currently reading Lewis's Letters volume 2, to think popularly- nobody did that better than Jack, IMHO.