Beholding the Beauty

I know, it's not even Christmas! But here's my wish list for FileMaker Santa to consider for inclusion in future versions(s). (Hopefully sooner rather than later.) It's a long list, so bear with me. Feel free to leave comments, but know that I moderate my comments, so don't be surprised (or offended, please) if yours doesn't show up immediately (or at all). NOTE: If you are not a FileMaker developer, this list will not mean anything to you, so you can feel free to skip this post. Don't worry: I'm not offended. :) Formatting Enhancements Conditional Formatting of Number/Date/Time/Container types. (currently only supports conditional formatting of Text) Conditional Formatting of Line/Fill Patterns. Conditional Formatting of object's existence . (i.e. whether it even displays) Ability to specify Alpha channel (transparency/opacity) for all Fills & Colors (RGBA instead of RGB). Developer Features Manage Scripts Script Numbers Quick Find: search insid

Has it been a whole week already? Wow. Anyway. Here's a random update on my life: I can't see more than a couple of days ahead of me (and my "seeing" of those is pure conjecture ), but Jesus is with me, and I'm enjoying walking with Him day-by-day . I went ahead and ordered Atlas Shrugged. I got it yesterday, and will be reading it (or at least starting to) over the weekend. I'm starting to dabble in LISP . Learning Arabic -- slowly! Discovered Kubuntu 9.04 and Intel embedded graphics cards get along fine: until you try to do Dual Screens, in which case the KDE GUI for Screen management has a huge bug in it -- it doesn't display the "Position" properties of a piece of hardware unless that hardware is not available/disabled/otherwise grayed out, at which condition it's useless anyway. :( Apparently this bug has been in it for a couple of revisions now, and, while it's been assigned for handling, I'm not holding my breath. Came u

I just read this excellent essay: http://www.sharperiron.org/heart-of-collective-king

I think it's funny that some churches can genuinely detest the idea of Creeds and Confessions -- and then turn around and have a "Statement of Faith," "Our Distinctives," or "We Believe" page on their church website. I think it's even funnier that these churches frequently hold attestation (read: Confession) of agreement with their "Statement of Faith" (or other similar) document as a condition of membership. To each his own, I guess. Praise the Lord for the Priesthood of the Individual Believer. *walks away chuckling*

I usually don't like Mondays (who does?). But today, I'm actually glad, because it seems that I'm back in the swing of things. You see, this weekend was particularly bad. We had a great day at church...that wasn't it. But it was still not a great weekend for me. I had a low-level headache all weekend, and couldn't focus to save my life. I basically felt like crawling in a hole somewhere and staying there until I felt better. Problem is, Sunday for me is not a day I can crawl in a hole. :( Oh, well. Anyway, I seem to be over whatever it was, and I'm actually looking forward to the week. :)

I hate mornings. Perhaps this is a leftover from my childhood, and I will grow out of it eventually. Perhaps it's hereditary (my father is also not a "morning person", although he bears up under the necessity of early rising much better and more consistently than I). Or perhaps I'm just, at some level lazy. I don't know. Either way, I hate mornings. Indeed, my worst time of day is the moment I have to arise -- not simply to awake (that is fine, as long as I can just lie in bed and "veg"), but the moment that I must actually haul my carcass out of bed. Now, that doesn't mean I don't do it. It just means that I dread doing it, and would gladly skip mornings if I could. So, you can imagine my horror when, after having worked until 4:00 a.m. and gotten to sleep at 5:00 a.m. (today), the client for whom I was working calls my cell phone with the *ahem* wonderful news that something else was broken, and that I had to fix it immediately because t

Raking is easy, but all you get is leaves. Digging is hard, but you might find gold. John Piper

So why am I starting a blog? I'm not really. More like I'm moving my blog from FaceBook Notes to here. I've been posting random thoughts and essays on my FaceBook Notes. However, two things occurred to me that warranted giving that up and starting here: 1. Only FaceBook users can read FaceBook Notes from my Profile. However, I have some non-FaceBook friends (Hi Mom! *wave* ) who would like to be able to read my writings also. Basically, I'm broadening my potential readership base. 2. What I was doing over at FaceBook was not just making Notes. I was, functionally, blogging. So why not use the right tool for the job? Thus this blog. When I signed up, they asked me what I wanted to call my blog. I thought about it for a while, and I came up with "Beholding the Beauty" because that is one of my goals for each day, and the only -- to live life beholding the beauty of the LORD working in and through and around me. (From Psalm 24:7)