I spent a good part of the night catching up on some of my favorite blogs. It seems like blogging is tailing off in most places but these are blogs that I still go to on almost a daily basis and at least skim the conversations.
First, Hugo Schwyzer’s blog is easily one of the best blogs out there. Hugo is a great writer and thinker and addresses complex issues from a very unique perspective. There is always something thought provoking there. For example:
American middle-class male adolescence has turned into a quarter-century project; far too many twenty-something lads are far too hooked on pot, porn, and Playstation to even consider making commitments.
Living on both ends is a great blog from a friend from my past that I have not seen in many years. Part of my love for this blog is purely sentimental as I have great memories of the time of my life when the author and I were part of the same church community. She has a great approach to life that is open to seek what God is doing “behind the (seemingly ordinary) scenes” of our lives. It is a centering place on the web for me and even though she is not fully aware, this blog helps keep me grounded in many ways.
Finally, while skimming the RSS reader I found this interesting blurb pointing to a recent conversation about one of my favorite topics, Church growth. This topic is on my mind a lot at the moment because of some things going on in my part of the world (more on that later). This particular post asks “Are all healthy churches growing?” I was actually going to write about this a few days ago but I got too busy. Now I think I will wait to post my thoughts on that question until after Sunday when I go to play bass at my old church. But I am curious to know what anyone else thinks about that question.
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There is a lot of good ecclesial dreamer fodder in this great book from John Gierach:
Fishing Bamboo
My brother gave it to me for my birthday along with a handmade, bamboo fly rod. It certainly has me thinking–and actually writing a ton. Most of it will not make it to the blog as it is too lengthy but I hope to share it another way soon…
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I have been enjoying recording my old albums and cassettes to my computer and listening to some music I have not heard in a very, very long time. I finished two Max Webster albums tonight (but I may have to redo one of them). I have a lot of great memories listening to Max Webster but listening to it makes me feel OLD.
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I am in the process of migrating and upgrading three WordPress blogs. Things could be rocky here over the next few days…
Backups are done.
Now I am converting my manual installs to simplescript installs.
Then, will upgrade everything to the newest version and restore some files from my backups.
wish me well.
***UPDATE***
The convert of my two manual installs and one Fantastico install to the new Simple Script installs went fine.
There are still a few minor glitches with the upgrade process but I am not too worried about those. I will leave everything as is for now and research the upgrade process with Simple Script. All things being considered that was an easy migration (knocking on wood) and now all my wordpress stuff is converted to Simple Script installs. I suspect that soon this will make managing these sites much easier than it was in the past.
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 The last month or so has been crazy. Stress at work. Car problems. Health issues. Kids sports schedules. A few weddings.
Finally, things are starting to get back to normal. I like it.
To get things rolling here again I thought I would invite anyone who is interested to join me on a quest on Tuesday. The folks at Alternative Search Engine are inviting everyone to consider living without one of the major search engines for one day and then record their experiences. Get more info here.
I am going to try Quintura.
Also, for those interested Zooomr is now up and running. Still working a few bugs out but I like it. Find my pics here.
Some ecclesial dreamer thoughts will be coming soon.
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The upgrade process for WordPress is awesome. This site is now powered by 2.1.3.
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With much help from several people I think I have found the source of all my problems with apostrophes and sql errors. The problem seems to be the Scripturizer 1.5 plugin that I was using. I have disabled the plugin for now. If anyone knows of a good plugin that does what Scripturizer does and works with WordPress 2.1.2, let me know.
****Update****
The very generous person behind Scripturizer sent me the link to the new beta version that seems to have cleared everything up. I am actually 100% working in WordPress 2.1.2 now. If you use Scripturizer, get this new version here:
scripturizer.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/scripturizer-17-beta/
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I am having problems with my blog whenever I type an apostrophe. This generates a SQL syntax error. So far I have not been able to fix it. So I cannot type contractions or use possesives in my posts. I never really noticed how much I use apostrophes until I started getting these errors. It is hard to write without words like can’t, don’t, or using possesive descriptions like John’s or Mary’s.
The post, obiously, will publish but not without generating several errors. If there is anyone who uses WordPress 2.1.1 and has had a similar issue I would love to hear how you resolved it.
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I just upgraded to the latest WordPress (a new update is out) and I am testing things out. Fingers are crossed…
So far so good. Perhaps this update fixed some of my lingering issues. If anyone notices any weird errors on their end please kindly leave a comment.
One more test… Genesis 1:1 John 1:1
The final test… I am posting this from my Linux box and everything seems to be functioning perfectly. In addition to upgrading to WordPress 2.1.1 I have also updated the WP-Amazon plugin. This plugin is much improved.
So, I can honestly say that if you are interested in upgrading to the new WordPress 2.1.1 I highly recommend it. All systems are go.
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another test post. trying to see if some of my plugin’s are causing some of the problems.
“the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” The lazy dog didn’t like it.
Testing testing testing.
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