10 Months? Seriously?
June 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

10 Months? Seriously?

Back to the Future

Image via Wikipedia

Today, my little girl, O, is 10 months old. These past months have flown by. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was like Einstein, Doc Brown‘s dog who was the first time traveler into the future in Back To The Future who went a minute into the future without any idea time had passed for everyone else. 

We sat for family pictures as part of our parish’s photo directory and today, our copies arrived in the mail. Looking at her in the picture, it seems impossible to remember a time before she was born while it seems impossible to believe that she’s graced us (outside the womb) for 10 months now.

You should see these pictures though. She’s a child who laughs and smiles all of time. All of the time, except if there is a camera nearby. The little one is slack-jawed in any picture with all of three of together. I love her, but man, she doesn’t understand she should smile when sitting for a picture.

She is finally sleeping through the night. She can’t stay awake past 6 p.m., sometimes earlier. However, she’s been slowly waking up earlier and earlier, now creeping closer to 4 a.m. ::sigh::

Even with that, her separation anxiety anytime V is in the room and not holding her, and all of her other quarks, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Filed Under: Daddy's Corner
Why Do I Blog?
June 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Why Do I Blog?

The Letter Writer

Image by rita banerji via Flickr

Over on Michael Hyatt‘s blog, he discusses the reason he blogs, the mental games he plays about the practice, what it means when readership fails to grow.

Why do I blog?

I like to tell stories. I like to share information. I like to be connected and I like people to want to be connected to me. I believe I have an insight (on at least some issues) that could be useful or beneficial to someone else out there in the world.

Why don’t I blog?

If you’ve been a reader for a long time [read: since the beginning of the blog via CMS in 2002 or when I was still hand-writing all of my HTML back in 1997], you’ll know that I had a great period of writing a great amount of content. I would write short posts, long posts, rants and reflections. I would write about the Church, school, politics, TV, news, anything and everything. I didn’t really worry about what people would think when they read the post; although, by nature, I’m not a person whose unfiltered thoughts would offend a great deal of people.

I stopped blogging, I believe, because I became afraid to say the wrong thing. I did not want to give anyone the wrong idea about anything. I did not want my position as a campus minister negatively influence someone if I wrote something challenging, something showing weakness, something “pissy”. Now that I’m in sales, same thing again. I don’t want to offend a client, or potential client, by being myself.

That’s no way to govern a blog. Yes, a blog should appeal to the reader but the writer cannot appease anyone and everyone.

I am currently in a leadership showcase program presented by SOS Leadership looking specifically at goal-setting. As part of this week’s exercise, I decided that I truly enjoyed blogging (when I actually did it well) and that I was a happier person when I was able to crystallize my thought via this process. Therefore, I shall blog once again.

I’ll still look at my stats, investigate what search terms brought people to the site and whatnot, but for a blog to be successful, well-read, enjoyable for author and reader, the author must be free to write about what is on his mind and not filter out every topic out of fear of the reader or the reader’s reaction.
Filed Under: Reflections
MT vs WP?
June 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

MT vs WP?

 

photocredit: flickr/whiteafrican

Movable Type or WordPress?

I’ve been using MT forever, it seems. Since v. 2.5 (now on MT5.02). Overall, I’ve loved it. I like that I can manage all of our blogs (mine, V’s, the family site, Catholic Thinker) plus a non-blog site (kraft.im, that, ideally, will expand in time).

Lately, I’ve been less than impressed with plugins. Seems like after MT 3, people have been jumping off the bandwagon. Many plugins in the directory are for MT 3. Some have been made in the MT 4 era. Few seem to have been updated for MT 5.

Themes/styles are another. I’m not very graphically talented, so I want a basic template that looks good and I’m comfortable tweaking it from there. It has been increasingly more difficult to find good themes for MT.

I’ve started playing on WordPress,com with a blog. I’ve jumped over to adding WP to my site and running a beta blog on it. I’m impressed with the ease of adding templates (enter your FTP password and it’s done). Same for plugins.

I won’t drop MT cold-turkey. I think my wife is happy with it for her and the family’s blog. The kraft.im site makes me sense to me (at the moment) to run via MT, although I’d want to figure out a way to have my blog entries filter to the home page (done automatically now via MT’s website-over-blog structure).

The commenting system differences seem not to matter. If someone is going to comment on my work, Facebook seem to be the way to go.

Any thoughts out there?

Filed Under: Site Info
Seeking Prayer
June 3, 2010 By

Seeking Prayer

A man praying at a Japanese Shintō shrine.

Image via Wikipedia

O God,

You are beyond my understanding. Your ways are known to you alone. Your ways are good and amazing. The gifts and blessings you have bestowed upon me are more than I could ask for, more than I deserve. Thank you.
Fr. Louis once prayed hoping that the desire to please you does, in fact, please you. I pray that his words were inspired. I beg of your forgiveness and mercy. I am weak, incompetent, incapable without you. When my spirit is willing, my strength is your strength. My abilities are from you. 
Prayer isn’t easy. Prayer is hard. I know that there’s no right or wrong way to pray if prayer comes from a sincere heart, but nevertheless, I struggle to find the right words, the right way to convey what I wish to share in our relationship; although, you already know and understand it better than I do. 
I pray through Jesus Christ who is one God together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Filed Under: Reflections
Experiments in the Urban Life
June 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Experiments in the Urban Life

Version of Image:Old_map-Austin-1873.jpg with ...

Image via Wikipedia

V and I have been looking for homes. We consider ourselves urbanites; we are not interested in the suburbs. Moving out to Round Rock or Cedar Park or even a far-off area of Austin (like Circle C) just does not appeal to us. We like being able to walk to everything. We like being able to only be a car for a few minutes, avoid the highway and be almost anywhere we want to be.

In looking for places, we have stayed close to where we are now. Not only have we basically stuck to 78704, we stuck to the general area of South Congress/Oltorf to South Congress/South 1st. Being able to walk to all of the shops on either street is really appealing. Homes further south in 78704 we’re appealing because we had to walk more than a half-mile to get to anything, much less a variety of places. We put an offer in for a house a mere block away from St. Ignatius. We lost it.

The problem is home prices. It’s expensive to get anything in 78704 and for the prices we’re looking at, the house won’t be fancy. (Of course, we don’t need fancy, but whatever we could get would be pretty bare-bones). We saw a couple of fine houses. We would have been happy there. They completely lacked any character, but the location makes up for it, right?

We weren’t too sure either.

With some sadness, we broaden the search. For the first time, we didn’t limit our search to 78704. There are some amazing homes within central Austin. There are homes in East Austin that are simply great. Near Lamar and 2222 are some great finds too. V and I had use my favorite Zip Code Map a few times. We knew the 7870x and the 7874x zip codes. I knew the 7871x codes were PO Boxes (mostly). 7872x? 7875x? No idea.

We finally found a home in 78723 that we liked, made an offer and it was accepted. We’ll close at the end of the month. This house is in an area that is supposed to be very walkable. Parks are close. Running trails are close. Retail is close. Over the next few months, we’ll begin experimenting in this new urban reality (for us). Finding new hole-in-the-wall dining experiences, learning new shortcuts. We’ll miss 78704 quite a bit, but times (and needs) change.

78723: More than a Zip Code, It’s ?

Filed Under: Austin
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