At Home On Piety Hill

Emma just completed her first semester at Sacramento State University with a Big Four Point Oh! She’s pursuing a degree in design — leaning toward architecture. This was confirmed to Emma on her latest visit to Chicago, the birthplace of the modern skyscraper, as well as home to the Prairie School and Frank Lloyd Wright. 

Emma’s strength, I think, is in photography. She has always had a good eye for an interesting composition and Photoshop is the logical extension for the skills she learned in the dark room years ago. Here we see two Photoshop projects and the final example is a graphic design assignment using Adobe InDesign. I really like that application for page layout, but I think Emma found it a bit overwhelming. However, she never used Quark, so she probably cannot appreciate the advantages InDesign brings to print.

I really think she’s on her way and will probably find a career in a design related field. And, that makes me happy.

Why is Phil Keaggy one of my favorite guitarists? Here are four reasons, spanning nearly forty years from his days with Glass Harp (and a really cool macramé vest), through his “Alan Holdsworth period,” into the “Windham Hill era” and on to the present. Now, the second video is fairly long, but please be patient… Phil will turn himself and one guitar into an entire band by the time he’s finished with an incredible run. I hope you enjoy….

J.I. Packer is a true gentleman. He read my biography of Richard Baxter and sent a copy of his book, A Grief Sanctified, along with a note. This is the second time I’ve received a personal communication from the world-class theologian and author of the classic, Knowing God.

I’ve learned something through all my research adventures over the years. The great ones are always generous with their time, their writings and their knowledge. I’ve received personal correspondence from F.F. Bruce, Leon Morris, Geoffrey Bromiley, Alex Strauch, James Boice, John MacArthur and more. Some have sent me long detailed discussions of topics I’ve raised, while others have sent me books!

By the way, Dr. Packer said that I profiled Baxter “very, very well.” How kind he is. 

Well, I’ve been busy lately but I should have some time to get some posts out there. Let’s start out with this complaint. We haven’t had a good speaker in the Whitehouse since Bill Clinton left office and, unlike the masses, I didn’t find him that compelling. But, he had an easy style, made me feel comfortable and did a good job of articulating his plans or policies, even when he was lying.

George Bush sounds like a high school public speaking student, which is strange because he’s really a good speaker in small, informal situations. I liked him a lot more in press conferences than in his formal speeches. 

John McCain can say less with far more words than anyone I know of. He is interminably boring. When you add his peevish, smart-aleky inflections we have the recipe for a demogogic train wreck. Please, no…

Then, we have Barak Obama, the star of the 2004 Democrat Convention. Well, he certainly can give a good stump speech or address. But, catch him without a manuscript or teleprompter and Barak is absolutely dreadful… worse that any of the aforementioned. If, um, he’s elected, ummmm… uh, I , uh, think I will, ummm, uh… well, uh, I’ll just have to…. have to, well, I think I will, um, just have to, avoid… um, avoid any of his, okay, well I’ll have to, um, not watch his press, uh, those press conferences he…. um, he will be giving from the, uh, well, from the rose garden. 

For an excellent write up and more, check out FIAIS!

Well, it’s official! Camille is pregnant, Sean is glowing and the Bailey and Salisbury families, here and across The Pond, are very excited. 

I just upgraded to WordPress 2.5 and it was deceptively simple. Now, I can use the Visual Rich Editor, which was not supported in earlier versions of Safari and WordPress! I actually liked coding the posts manually, but truth be told… I’m kinda sloppy and I’d have to go back and edit my posts about a million times.

Second, I can try out the latest plugins, including Akismet. That should save me even more time, not having to deal with SPAM.

Finally, I like the new look and feel… it’s almost like beginning all over again. So far, I highly recommend WordPress 2.5. Now, I just need to determine if my old WordPress spell check is finally working or if this is the Safari spell checker… yup, it’s Safari. What a great time to be alive!