June 30, 2008

Christian Agnosticism

I know. It's been ages. Allow me to update you all on the condition of my life.

I've finished my first summer course, in sociology of religion (a fantastic course, thanks Dr. Thobaben!), and have moved onto Old Testament over the internet. It's been an interesting ride so far, in the sense that I'd rather be doing a whole lot else but since I have to take it, it's proved modestly thought-provoking. It's also where the majority of my energy writing has gone, since it's an online class and there are discussion threads to be written.

But the biggest trouble has been my laptop. I made the mistake of not buying a Dell the last time and instead invested in an HP Tablet Laptop that, though the battery life is not nearly what I want, does some pretty cool things. However, a week and a half ago, my lappy decided to crash and not allow itself to power up. It's bad enough that the screen won't even turn on before the power fails. I panicked, because I hadn't backed up my hard drive since March, and I didn't think I'd be able to save my data. Fortunately, the HP help guy was actually pretty helpful and suggested I buy this little gizmo to turn the lappy's hard drive into a jump drive.

By God's grace alone, the data was all still there and I copied it over to my backup drive.

The lappy is now in California undergoing testing. In the meantime, I still have a laptop to use, but it's the very first laptop I ever got, and it's very,

very

slow.

It's been a humbling experience for the past week and a half. I used to think that the internet was slow because of the internet. Now I know it was just as much the laptop's fault. I can't multitask anymore because it can't handle more than one, maybe two programs open at once (my HP's duo core processor can handle up to six). So I'm in the slow lane for a few weeks, but I'm chugging along. But that's why I haven't written anything for my blog. That is about to change.

A few months ago I decided to change the "religion" label on my facebook account from "Follower of the Way" to "Christian Agnostic." It garnered a lot of questions, which I can't say surprised me much (that was the idea), but still, I think it's a concept worth exploring. Over the next however many posts I'm going to explore the idea of Christian Agnosticism, what it means, why I use the term, and perhaps tell a story about Ruffle the Potato Chip if I finish it in time (I'll explain when I get to it).

In the meantime, today was my daughter Rori's first birthday! Last night we took her out to Olive Garden where she had her first Ice Cream Sundae. It was fantastic. But I leave you with a picture of her (which is a link to other pictures, just click on it) for your enjoyment. Thanks for your patience!


June 16, 2008

Rori's Birthday

Ah, birthdays ... we celebrated Rori's a little early so that Kelly and Shannon could partake with us before they left for the Southwest. Cake was involved, as was a balloon, root beer, and an unfortunate incident with a candle. But she looked really cute in that dress ...




More photos on Flickr.