New blog software

My old blogging software is slowly dying. I'm trying out a new one, so all forthcoming posts will be at http://www.thefondrens.com/wes.

Thanks.

Aug 07, 2008 - 15:21 | Wes | General | No comments yet | Permalink

I think I'll wait until later

You may know that last week there was a shooting in a church in Tennessee. We saw the church sign below this afternoon which is probably unfortunate timing.

Aug 02, 2008 - 20:06 | Wes | General | No comments yet | Permalink

Funny image from the Woot-Off

Jul 30, 2008 - 21:45 | Wes | General | 2 comments | Permalink

The Secret of My Success

Several of you have asked about how my interview went last week. This post is so I can just email the link to those that asked. I appreciate you letting me share my delightful experience with you.

(more)

Jul 23, 2008 - 10:45 | Wes | General | 3 comments | Permalink

Party favorites

Well, if you think about what the food is called, I guess this kind of makes sense.

Jul 22, 2008 - 13:40 | Wes | General | 1 comment | Permalink

Our loss, his gain

Tonight my grandfather died. Those of you that know me well know that he was one of my closest friends. He died, as a believer, surrounded by a crowd of family at the ripe old age of 90. What a great way to go.

Thanks be to God for his lavish generosity in giving us so many years with my grandfather. And thanks to all of you that asked me regularly how he was doing. I will miss him.

Jul 11, 2008 - 23:33 | Wes | General | 3 comments | Permalink

B.O.C. fun

I love Woot. My bag of crap arrived today. Yeeeeehaaaa!

It was totally worth $8. (more)

Jul 03, 2008 - 14:20 | Wes | General | 2 comments | Permalink

Stewards of Creation

Thanks to Robert for sending me this link. It's a story about a church in Birmingham that helped clean up a river, which is a good example of what my previous post was about.

Jun 29, 2008 - 07:26 | Wes | General | 2 comments | Permalink

Good news in the news

I complain about news articles a lot, but aspects of this one make me happy.

Two-thirds care for environment because it's God's creation

From Christians in Hawaii to Buddhists in Connecticut, and from Jews in New York to Muslims in Wisconsin, people of all walks of faith are finding a myriad of ways to care for the environment, according to a first-of-it-kind report from the Sierra Club.

According to the report, “Faith in Action: Communities of Faith Bring Hope for the Planet” 67% of Americans said they care about the environment because it is God's creation.

Highlighting faith-based environmental initiatives in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, the report praises the “breadth, depth and diversity of spiritually motivated grassroots efforts to protect the planet.”

The 36-page report highlights different programs, from Episcopalians working to restrict oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to a large-scale recycling program at a Southern Baptist megachurch near Orlando

The report said faith communities are leading a new eco-conscious wave that is rolling across the nation, “greening” all areas of religious and secular life. Reducing their carbon emissions, protecting endangered species and launching energy awareness campaigns are just some of the efforts being made.

The report is the latest indicator of a fledgling alliance between environmental groups and religious institutions, even as some conservative religious groups remain skeptical about the causes and concerns over climate change.

“Lasting social change rarely takes place without the active engagement of communities of faith,” the report said.

Jun 28, 2008 - 13:36 | Wes | General | No comments yet | Permalink

Probably more info than you wanted about television

Brian's post today about Tivo's remote and interface evolution were interesting to me. Ironically, I was just teaching about Tivo in class today. Here are a few details that might be interesting.

-The act of recording something to watch later is called “time shifting”.

-Time shifting is a big problem for advertisers (and indirectly networks) as you can imagine; people skip commercials.

-Researchers have found that people are less likely to time shift competitions and reality shows. Viewers don't mind shifting scripted shows. Take a look at last week's Nielsen's top ten most viewed shows. Notice only 40% are unscripted. That's a major changed from years past.

1 NBA FINALS ON ABC-GM 6(S)
2 AMERICA'S GOT TALENT
3 60 MINUTES
4 TWO AND A HALF MEN
5 CSI: MIAMI
6 CSI: NY
7 DATELINE SUN 9PM
8 DEAL OR NO DEAL 6/17(S)
9 HOUSE-MON 9P
10 MILLION DOLLAR PASSWORD
10 SO YOU THINK CAN DANCE-WED

-Tivo and similar services harvest all recording and viewing patterns for every user. Eventually, most intend to sell this highly valuable information to networks and advertisers. The viewer's behavior data is actually property of the company and not the viewer.

-Both Google and Yahoo! have made aggressive efforts to purchase Tivo because they want access to the harvested data.

-Time shifting rocks.

Jun 25, 2008 - 15:24 | Wes | General | No comments yet | Permalink

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