Emma: Mom! Can you hear me? Mom!?
Danny: Are you talking to her on your phone?
Emma: No. It's soap, silly.

Today is Emma's third birthday. We had her party yesterday. The pictures are in the the gallery.

Danny
Church and State: Keep them Separated - An article I wrote for the June 2004 Adrian Christian Church newsletter.

I'm Tired of Religion - This is a message I gave to Jr. High and High School students on January 21, 2004.

LOTR, Spiritual Themes: Part I - The first of three Sunday morning messages based on the Lord of the Rings. It deals with the teaching power of stories, the gospel as a true fairy tale, and the reality of evil and good.

LOTR, Spiritual Themes: Part II - I use the One Ring to illustrate the power of temptation, and characters like Gandalf, Faramir and Galadriel show how temptation can be resisted.

LOTR, Spiritual Themes: Part III - Friendship is the theme of this message. Real friendship requires mercy and, sometimes, sacrifice.

The Bad Son: My Journey Away from the Definitive Church of Christ Doctrine - This is a paper I wrote for a class at Truman called Junior Interdisciplinary Seminar: Music in Religious Thought and Practice.

Mt. Juliet Discussion Board: Instrument thread - If you want to see me jumping feet first into a controversy, read this. It's a long, long thread, and the site admins finally locked it and deleted it. I was able to save a copy just in time.

Sara

Art Appreciation - A call for Christians to return to the fine arts as a form of expression and participation with the culture.

Christian Voters Make Tough Decisions - What criteria should Christian voters use?

Married to Reality - How viewing marriage as a spiritual discipline can help young couples succeed in their own unions.

What (Not) to Wear - A modern look at solving the age-old problem of immodesty.

Stem Cell Research: The Politics of Principle - A look at the political and moral issues surrounding stem cell research.

New Year's Drone - Sara ponders her choice of New Year's Eve activities.

I present to you, in no particular order, some of my favorite things from 2004 and their corresponding posts on my weblog.


Bloglines - I was looking for a good, free RSS reader, and I found it in Bloglines. And they just keep making it better. It's probably the site that spends the most time in my browser. I'm up to 180 feeds now, and Bloglines makes it so easy to keep up with all the websites I like to read.


Ubuntu Linux - Ubuntu fixed the major problem I had with Linux. It's hard to install new programs when you have to compile it, or you don't meet the dependancies. Ubuntu's package manager checks dependancies, then downloads the right version from the web and installs it all automatically. This makes Linux accessible for a lot more people, and it gives the user a lot of power.


Napoleon Dynamite - A very funny movie. GOSH!!


Gmail - Hotmail upped its disk quota from 2 MB to 250. Too little, too late. Gmail has 1000 MB of space, great spam filtering, and the best user interface I've ever used for email. It even made me drop Thunderbird. The web really is becoming a platform of its own.


Podcasting - Once I got iPodder, iTunes, and MortPlayer (on my Pocket PC) all working together, listening to podcasts has been great. I listen on my walk to and from work every day. The brendoman.com podcast has been a lot of fun, too.


My new job - I'm a real live IT nerd now. This job has been just right for me.


Jon Stewart - Great show. Great book. Great job of calling the media to task.


Lil' Brudder - The heart of a champion, I tell you.


Free Culture - A great book about why copyright law is broken and the corruption in Washington is making it more broken. If it continues we'll lose important parts of our culture.


Troy - His comments on my Passion of the Christ review kept us entertained for several weeks.


They Might Be Giants in Concert - That was a fun show. Their new cd is very good, too.


My trip to California - Helping Rob move back to Missouri turned into a big ordeal. But if you're going to be involved in a big ordeal, you might as well be with some good friends.


Midwest Vacation (map) - Who knew the Midwest could be so fun?


Top 5 Worst Worship songs - 210 comments and counting.


Tivo - Mmmmmmm, Tivo.


Firefox - Firebird gets its name changed. Again. Microsoft Internet Explorer continues to have security problems. The browser wars are back.


danny.brendoman.com begins - Thanks again, Brendan.


It's been a good year. I can't think of another year in my life that's had this much cool stuff. Thanks to my family and friends who have shared it all with me. Here's to another great year in aught five.

I got a couple of Best Buy gift cards for Christmas, and I think I might get this PS2 game: Katamari Damacy. I first heard about it from Luis, and it has good reviews. At under $20, it must be worth it.

I've been using Gallery for a while here, but now there's a gallery for all the the Brendoman.com authors here.

As many of you know, the high school paper in our small town of Adrian has been cancelled indefinitely. As a former high school newspaper editor, former Media Law student and journalism grad, I feel that I have a vested interest in this issue, as well as in the lives of these student writers. To these students, I would like to say this:

In high school, I wrote an article about a friend who was killed in an auto accident. I was not willing to compromise my integrity, so I wrote truthfully: the accident was caused by this young man's alcohol consumption. To make a long story even longer, the article was published by a national magazine and I finally saw my name in print. What I didn't know was that several issues of the magazine were sent to my school and distributed. My first byline brought great pride, and also a great amount of personal turmoil. For a few days, I was ostracized by many. Now, for the point of the story:

My high school English teacher, Mrs. Cackley, pulled me aside and shared some words of encouragement. To paraphrase, she said, "Sara, when you decide to write, two things will happen. One, you will open some people's eyes and provide a public service for them. Two, an even greater number of people will hate either what you wrote, you personally, or possibly both. This is a choice you must make. To write, or not to write. I think you should continue to write, and to write for the first group."

This is my challenge to you: Write. If you are truly a writer, you will never be able to keep inside the feelings you have. Writers are more observant than most; it is in their blood. Unfortunately, these observations are often seen as unwanted criticism of established ideas. Forget the people who say that. You owe it to the public, however small the appreciative portion may be, to share your unique view and style with them.

Click below to read my letter to the editor of the town newspaper

Read more »

I think I'm going to register a domain name with no-ip.com. I don't have to have a static IP address and it's only $30 a year. But I have to choose a name:

brendoman.com forums ->Vote in the poll

matt.brendoman.com - This is the announcement I was talking about. This should be a good read, so be sure and check in on it once in a while. I was going to introduce him, but his first post does a pretty good job of telling you what he's interested in and what to expect from the new weblog. Welcome, Matt!