I am going to take a small break, expect no posts till next monday. Until then.

I was sitting at my computer, falling asleep, wishing I had an excuse to go home. With no such reason presenting itself, I trudged through the rest of the day. Thing was it was only Thursday and I felt horrible. Friday I called the doctor and made an appointment which gave me a reason to leave early, and after spending two and a half hours in the doctor’s office I went home. You see, I had this infection. Not a serious one but a painful one that caused these sores to pop up, and I had one on my thigh just low enough to make sitting painful and sleeping difficult. After the doctor opened the sore to let the infection out and prescribed some antibiotics and narcotics for pain, I felt better. I didn’t do a thing all weekend, or at least I tried not to do anything all weekend, but life interfered.

Friday was pretty uneventful, and Saturday started off in good form. My online study with J. went well, and I was off to a good start lollygagging the day away. I was planning on babysitting my niece and nephew that evening, so I half slept half surfed the Internet for a few hours then took a nap. My brother woke my up when he knocked on the door and notified me that they were there. I let them in and agreed to let them use my car, theirs was giving them problems and they didn’t want to break down while they were out. I had a good time playing with the kids and about 9:00pm I put them both to bed. At 10:00pm I laid down as well, and was woken by a call from my brother, ‘your car overheated and we’re stuck on the highway’. Awesome! So I borrowed my roommate’s car and off I go to rescue my poor brother and sister in law. The night was pretty hot and the humidity made things worse. I got to my brother and we looked at the car. He figured it was a hose near the heater coil; cause steam had come out of the vents inside the car when the pop had occurred. Well, nothing we could do that night, so we rolled up the windows, locked the car, and got everyone home. Bedtime came at about 1:00am. oy.

Sunday morning I called my totally cool car guy friend A. and let him know that I needed a ride to church, and could I tag along with him to his church that Sunday. After letting my church folks know that I was going to be gone, I got ready and met A. Church was great, and I was encouraged. I usually only get to see those people when my car breaks down, but since that happens about once a month I get a pretty cool snapshot view of how they are growing. After church, A. had some things to do, but wanted to look at the car later, so he took me home and later that afternoon picked me up again. We get to the car and check it out. Turns out that my brother was right, and a plastic hose, why Pontiac felt inclined to use so many plastic pieces in their cooling system is beyond me, had broken inside the heater coil. So A. and I crawled under the car and ran the hose from the engine right back into the engine, circumventing the heating unit. This allowed me to drive the car with no heater, not that I need that right now anyway. Mission accomplished, dirty and sweaty, but with car in hand, I head home after profusely acknowledging A. Awesome. Feeling a little to tired to go to church that evening, and it being a little late anyway, I retire early to bed that evening after spending a little time catching up with a friend who just got back from vacation. I love God. I rarely understand the details of His timing, but invariably I end up being blessed. I’m not stressed, just a little tired and wishing I had time to let my emotions settle on a few things. Maybe tomorrow will be a little slower…

I have finally sucumbed, and downloaded Mozilla 1.0 for testing purposes. I must say that I am pleasantly surprised by the speed at which it renders a page. It is noticeably faster than IE, and does a much better job than Opera or Netscape. Which is a little odd, considering that Mozilla and Netscape both use the same rendering engine Gecko, and look very much the same. They must use different versions of Gecko, because there are some small differences. But, as far as speed is concerned, its the fastest browser i’ve used recently. Bravo to the Mozilla team.

Paul Huse has been asking questions on his blog recently. Today he posed these questions:

1. Is the US a Christian nation?
2. Has the US ever been a Christian nation?
3. What does the phrase ‘separation of church and state’ mean to you?
4. What does religious freedom, as outlined in the Constitution/Ammendments, mean to you?

Is the United States a Christian nation? The US has never been a Christian nation, at least in the strict sense of that statement. The United States is a republican nation founded on principles that were first defined in scripture. Does that make it a Christian nation? I don’t think so. The people that are America are not mostly Christian, and the kind of society we have is most certainly not Christian in its character. What we do have, I think, is a Biblical form of government, not a theocracy by any means, but a form of government that is based on ideas and conclusions made in scripture first.

The separation of church and state is a highly misunderstood statement that can nowhere be found in our constitution or bill of rights. A statement written by Jefferson to a church, used to alleviate fears of governmental control, it has been misapplied to the point of removing all Christian influences from government. The first amendment only prohibits the establishment of a state religion, and the interference of the government in a religious activity. Our government should not so much be separated from religion as much as it should be restrained from interference.

I should have the right, as an individual, to exercise my religious beliefs in public or private, insofar as those practices do not limit or damage the freedoms of my fellow men.

Blogging on the news This British news site is running a contest to see who is teh best blogger among its readers. The prize is 1000 pounds, and of course notoriety. I think that this kind of trend is smart, considering that blogging is one of the ‘movements’ of todays web and will be around for a long time. Not to mention the potential blogs have for realizing what the net was concieved for, mainly the free distribution of knowledge.

This article on how blogs have helped those with Alzheimers, helps point out one of the key uses and benefits of keeping a blog. The reason I started mine was because I wanted a way to record what I thought and discovered, and I wanted a way to find it later. Time is a natural way of keeping track of things, and with the added ability to search archives, a blog is a fantastic resource for recording what’s important to you. The added benefits of knowing that other people read and appreciate what you write is icing on the cake. I’m glad to see that people are using technology in ways that impact their lives beyond just the ‘cool factor’. Technology has a purpose beyond just business and geekdom. Happy blogging!