Blogos

Moving!

2005-07-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

I'm moving to theaugustinian.net. Catch up with you there.

Back from Camp, Ready to Mortify

2005-06-19T23:11:00.000-07:00

Our church's Family Camp ended yesterday, and it really was a good time together. As I mentioned, Phil Johnson was the speaker, and Nova and I really enjoyed getting to know Phil and his lovely wife Darlene. We were regaled with tales of Phil's gall bladder bursting while in an airplane that was locked down due to a bomb threat, as well as Phil's Seismic Travel Curse of '97. His topic for the camp was the mortification of sin (that would make such a great name for a hardcore band), and was extremely practical and helpful, and will give me a lot to chew on for a while. You can check out all of the sermons at SermonAudio (though the first one is missing a few minutes at the start due to "technical difficulties"). They'll definately be staying in my mp3 player for a while. We also got to chat a bit about blogs and RSS, the various people that we both know (with me being a former Master's College student, there were quite a few), a little about the New Perspective on Paul, and why I still love Doug Wilson, even though sometimes I think he's whacked. It was great to finally put a face to a person that I've been reading on the Web in various places for a decade, and Phil and Darlene were truly gracious and a lot of fun to be around.

As a good Microsoftie, I tried to get Phil to switch to using Outlook, and gave him a card for a free product support incident to see if they can't address any of the lingering issues that prevent him from making the jump. But Phil is a guy that still runs Wordperfect 5.1 in a DOS window to do his text editing (no, really!), so getting him to switch software is no mean feat.

And of course, as is the goal of a Family Camp, our family had a great time, William and Kathleen ran rampant, swung, slid, rode a miniature train, and in general just had a blast, even taking into account Kathleen's little mishap that left her with a nasty looking, though superficial scratch on her cheek (Nova doesn't seem to find "Scarface" the endearing nickname that I do for some reason).

Phil Johnson is blogging (no, the other one)

2005-06-13T00:11:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I'm sure that Phil Johnson is used to having himself referred to that way. He's not the Phillip Johnson of Darwin on Trial and The Wedge of Truth, but rather the executive director of Grace To You, elder at Grace Community Church, and creator of The Spurgeon Archive, as well as one of the first and most helpful sites I ever found on the internet way back when, Phil's Bookmarks, which has afforded me hours of informative browsing, and more than a few snickers. He was one of the first Christians to figure out that we could actually do something useful with the internet, and has remained in my bookmarks for close to 10 years now.

So now he's started a blog, Pyromaniac (not the best name, but as he points out, Doug Wilson already took Blog and Mablog, and you just can't top that, so why try?). I'm looking forward to talking to him this week as he will be the speaker at our church's family camp. His topic is going to be the mortification of sin, and we all know I could use some of that. So give him a read, it promises to be some good writing and truly informative links...for instance, the woefully inaccurate Worldview Quiz. Here's how I fared:

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.

Cultural Creative

75%

Fundamentalist

69%

Romanticist

63%

Postmodernist

31%

Existentialist

25%

Idealist

19%

Modernist

Materialist

What is Your World View? (updated)
created with QuizFarm.com

I have no idea what to make of that.

George Grant gets RSS!

2005-06-09T00:02:00.000-07:00

George Grant's blog finally has an RSS feed! I have to confess I stopped actively checking it a couple months ago, not because it isn't excellent, but because I simply hardly ever remember to check any blogs that don't have an RSS feed (please, John Mark?). The feed is now safely tucked in NewsGator, awaiting the next installation of verby goodness from one of the few men in the world that can wear a bow tie without looking like a barbershop quartet escapee (well, ok, maybe he does look a little bit like one).
What is RSS, some of you may say? Well, a full explanation will have to wait, but here are a few cool things you can do with it.

Jumping In

2005-06-08T23:08:00.000-07:00

Might as well get my feet wet (I think I'm mixing my water-related metaphors) with what we "in the biz" call "user generated content". You know, the blog thing. I've been wanting to do this for a while, but I haven't, because I thought that I had nothing much to say. But then I thought, "That doesn't usually stop me from opening my mouth." So here we are. Just a little spot to ramble to my friends and family about what I'm thinking, reading, listening to, etc.
In case you aren't one of the above mentioned friends and family, and are wondering who I am and why you should care about anything I have to say, I'm afraid I can't help you much with the latter, but as to the former:

Name: Michael Kelley
Family status: Married (Nova) with children (William, nearly three, and Kathleen, barely one year old)
Job: I work at Microsoft, on the Office team, doing what I can to make sure that the world has seen the end of Clippy the paper clip.
Church: Juanita Community Church. I also preach there one Sunday evening a month, but we only post the morning sermons, which spares me a great deal of embarrassment.
Favorite Food: Kung Pao Chicken
If you were peanut butter, would you be crunchy or smooth?: Crunchy, with secret dreams of being smooth.