Old Habits Die Hard
I have been a web developer for some time now, long enough to say that web developers currently entering the job market were probably entering junior high when I began working with web technologies. So most of you are either too young or too new to the Internet to recall anything other than IE as a browser. Hey, I recall back in the day we were all excited about Cello so we could browse on our PCs instead of Unix. Then came Netscape. And I was one of those die hards that didn’t switch to IE for quite some time. But, reluctantly, towards the end of the 90s, I caved in. I have been using IE pretty exclusively ever since (gasp!).
Sure, I have copies of everything else out there. As a developer, I have to. I have to know how my stuff works in other browsers. But for quite some time, cross browser testing took a back seat to other priorities because there just was very little need. I mean, hey, when 99.9% of your users come to you in IE and the rest in various other flavors, is it cost effective to test in every browser under the sun?
And then… a quiet revolution began. Firefox. A better browser. Great features. Integrated tools. Extensible plugins and themes. AND proper CSS! Well, could there be anything better? Well, actually yes. Something better would be for people to develop sites that used valid CSS and XHTML that looked better in Firefox than IE. And for quite sometime, they didn’t.
But now, with exponentially more sites coming online thanks to the blogosphere, we have more use of CSS, and more users preferring Firefox. The quiet revolution is taking hold.
Then there was me. I knew I should make the switch. But it was so easy to keep going back to the interface I was familiar with. I kept using IE. Why? I don’t know. Just a habit.
I’m kicking the habit. It’s been tough. But I’m doing it. I’m going to stick with Firefox. And you should too. If you don’t have it, get it. It’s free. Why would you want to use anything else?
And by the way, if you aren’t familiar with some of the browsers I mentioned early on (Mosaic, Cello, Opera, etc), check out the Web History of Browsers, you might learn something. When I say to my grandchildren, “I used to browse the Internet with Cello” it will be to them the equivalent of my grandparents learning to drive in a Model T.
Jesus Freaks Volume 1
I am currently reading Jesus Freaks by dc Talk and The Voice of the Martyrs. This has truly been an inspirational book, kind of a modern day Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.
Here in the USA, being a Christian (or anything else, for that matter) is pretty easy. Sure, there are the usual things in the way - fear of what people think about us, politics as usual, debate over freedom of speech, abortion activism, and the list goes on. Now set those things out of your mind and think of this: an estimated 156,000 Christians were martyred in 1998, an estimated 164,000 will be martyred in 1999 (the publishing date of this book, so we’ll have to deal with those numbers for now). That is more martyrs in one year than all of the Roman Persecutions combined.
Think about this for a minute: You are taken away from your family and thrown in prison. Not just any prison mind you, not a “country club” atmosphere like what is provided in the “civilized” world. No. This is a prison where you might share an 8×8 cell with a dozen other inmates. Dirty, dark, cold, no room to lay down, no blankets, filth, grunge, and disease. You are taken out and beaten daily by the guards, told to renounce your faith. But still you pray for your captors and those that inflict the beatings on you. And not just when they aren’t looking, while you are in your dirty cell. You pray for them right in front of them, while they are beating you. Then, one day, they decide to stop beating you. They take you out in to the courtyard and say they’ve had enough. Renounce your faith or you will die. They put a gun to your head.
What would you do?
Would you continue to stand strong for your faith?
Would you continue to love and pray for your captors?
Since the free gift of salvation comes so easily for us in our country, it is pretty hard for us to fathom this type of scenario. But it continues all around the world today. This is an awe inspiring book, giving you a look into the lives of those that were not only martyred for their faith, but also did what Jesus asked of them right up to the end: Mat 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.
Keeping Politics Out Of It
Normally, I’m not a big fan of USA Today. But every once in a while, they have a little something that interests me. That’s the beauty of News Aggregators, by the way. You don’t have to frequent a specific site. You can get their XML feed in your aggregator. Also, Google News is great for getting through the news as well. But that is really a topic for the Web category of this blog.
Back to USA Today. They did a piece on Billy Graham that was really good. But there was one particular part of it that stood out from the rest. It was a quote about how he feels about taking political “sides”.
“If I took sides in all these different divisive areas, I would cut off a great part of the people that I really want to reach. So I’ve felt that the Lord would have me just present the Gospel” and stay out of politics
I thought about this, since lately, it has been very compelling to take a stronger stand on the political fence. We are all guilty of it: getting caught up in the political drama that has enveloped our nation for the past few years. It shows no signs of stopping. And is it really productive for us, as Christians, to wrap politics into our faith? I think that answer is a resounding NO.
Billy Graham is right. If we take sides, we are in danger of alienating some of the people we want to reach. Is that what we should be doing? Sure, in this country, we want to take a stand for what we believe. We want our elected government to reflect this belief. But when it comes right down to it, what is more important, political activisim or reaching people with the Gospel? I don’t know about you, but I’ve got to go with the latter.
Don’t those that do not agree with you on a political level still deserve to be reached with the Gospel? If we alienate them with our political views, we will never reach them. In fact, we will only serve to push them farther away from the truth.
We have a tremendous opportunity right now. The world is being made aware of Christianity like never before. From the death of a pope to the political drive of the “conservative right,” people of the world are being made aware. Let’s make sure we send the right message. Remember, as much as we love our country and our system of government that has allowed us to preach without violent repercussion, it is still a government that is of this world. We should focus on Christ’s heavenly kingdom and not this earthly one.
Jesus said in John 18:36 “My kingdom is not of this world” and he reminds us in Matthew 24:35, Mark 13:31, and Luke 21:33 “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”
Focus on what is important: working for Christ’s Kingdom.
Riverside Alpacafest Results
Well, Selene did not win a ribbon at Riverside Alpacafest. She was in a class of 10 against some pretty big farms (like Magical Farms with a total herd of 1700+ alpacas). The judge felt she was lacking in fleece density compared to the others. But I didn’t really go to win a ribbon (although it would have been nice). I went more for the experience. Selene did very well in the show ring and I was pleased with her overall. She went where I wanted her to go and she stood still when I wanted her too. So that part was a success for me. Also, I attended some very good seminars, got some good ideas, met more alpaca people, and overall got a better idea of how to participate in a show to get the most out of it.
Back to the fleece. Selene does have a very fine fleece. She is still a juvenile and this is her first shear so we will have to wait and see how she fills in. Sometimes that second year produces a thicker coat. Also, I am more interested in her genetics and will breed her to good herdsires, so what she produces in offspring is more important to me.
I saw some beautiful animals while I was there. Some heardsires with fleece so dense, you could bounce a quarter off of it, but incredibly soft when you stuck your hand inside. I spent more time this show walking around and looking at other alpacas trying to get an idea of what exactly is good conformation, good fleece (density, handle, crimp). It is one of those things where you feel like the more you learn, the less you know. But I look back on what I know a year ago and realize that I have absorbed a lot of information in this short time.
The more I spend time at these shows and around the alpacas, the more I want to stick with this. The animals are great and the people are as well. This was a great show and we will likely be back next year.
Back Online
Well, my goal of having at least one post/article per day was shot this weekend. I do not know why, but I was having trouble logging in to the WordPress admin for this site. After some research on the WordPress Codex and WordPress support, I found that I was having similar problems to what some others were having.
There were several solutions offered and I tried most (ok, all) of them. And still I could not log in. Basically, the login process would just loop me back to the login screen, even though I had the correct username/password combination (I checked in the database for this).
The eventual solution was a complete reinstall of WordPress. I followed the instruction to delete the original files rather than overwrite. This solution worked (obviously, as here I am writing again). The reinstall was the current 1.5.1 Strayhorn release.
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