andrew dodson

This month, Christian Audio has selected John Piper’s Desiring God as their free audio book of the month.  It is one of my favorite books, so I’ve already downloaded my copy.  I would highly recommend you do the same!

As a side note, you can also read the book for free through Desiring God’s website.

Ok. Let’s try this again. I haven’t blogged in quite a while, but I have plenty to blog about.

First, I’m engaged! Julie said yes to my proposal last Saturday at Evan’s Orchard in Georgetown. We will tie the knot on New Year’s Eve.

I finally caved to pressure and joined the cult of iPhone owners. My Verizon contract ended, so it was a good time to jump over to AT&T. So far, I’m loving the iPhone. I’m typing this post using the WordPress app.

More to come in the next day or two.

Happy Birthday, America! Somehow, I’m missing out on the party. Both my girlfriend and brother are in Washington, D.C. today. Jason is with his girlfriend, and Julie is with people from her church. Had I thought about it sooner, I should’ve made plans to be there too. Instead, I’ll do some random blogging.

• I absolutely love my new Flip UltraHD.  For the price, I don’t think you can find anything better in the world of video cameras.  It’s small (fits in your pocket), takes 720p HD video, records digitally (no tapes), does great in low light and is super easy to use.  My only complaints are:  the zoom isn’t the greatest, and you can only use battery power (no AC adapter).  Julie took it with her to Ireland and got some great videos.  Here’s one of my favorites, of a great street band in Dublin (note: video embedded in HD.  If it is loading slow, press pause after pressing play and let the rest of the video load before playing.):

• It’s almost the All-Star break and currently, the Reds are only three games back in the central division.  They haven’t been playing very well over the last few weeks, but fortunately, neither has the rest of the division.  It hasn’t been too out-of-the-norm for the Reds to stay in contention until around August and then fade as the season comes to a close.  Here’s to hoping they can get hot after the All-Star break and actually contend this year.
• eMusic just rolled out a huge addition to their catalog.  If you’re not a subscriber, it might be time to look into it.  They just added a bunch of big name artists, and they’re still cheaper than iTunes.

Several days ago, while reading my ESV Study Bible, I accidentally bumped a glass of V8 Fusion (Acai Mixed Berry) sitting next to my Bible.  The drink didn’t spill, but the bump caused some of the drink to splash out onto the page of my Bible.  2 Peter 3 to be exact.

I quickly went to the kitchen to get a paper towel.  I placed the towel on the page, and it soaked up the liquid pretty quickly.  Bounty really is the “quicker picker-upper.”

I dreaded the possibility that the drink could’ve soaked through several pages.  I made sure to soak up both sides of the page with the paper towel and just left the Bible open to those pages for the next several minutes.  To my surprise, once it all dried, there was only a barely noticeable spot on the page, and no other pages were affected.

So, thanks Crossway and Bounty.  Crossway has used quality paper in the ESV Study Bible and Bounty lived up to its advertised slogan.

Don’t worry, Tim.  We’ve all been there.  Not long ago, back in 2004, I was a pro-Windows, pro-PC guy.  I didn’t see what the fuss about Apple was all about.  PCs were cheaper and usually had more bells and whistles than Macs.  In the MP3 player world, I had a Creative Nomad that was 20GB and worked perfectly – even looked a lot like an iPod.  Then, I started working at CLS – an all-Mac facility – and started seeing what the fuss was all about.

Today’s post over at Challies talks about the process a lot of PC users go through in their switch to Apple.  Along the way, he talks about people like me:

What I’ve come to realize is that I don’t dislike Apple computers. No, I just dislike the people who use them! I’ll grant that there are some exceptions, some people who are humble Mac users. But far too often I’ve come across these Mac apologists, the kind who feel the need to disparage all things Microsoft and to boast in their own superiority. They are the ones who make you feel like you’re missing out, like you’d be so much better and more popular if you’d just become part of the in-crowd.

Plain and simple – everyone should use a Mac. They just make life much easier.

My iPology :: technology :: A Reformed, Christian Blog.

Merry Christmas everyone! I’m heading to Maysville this afternoon for Christmas with my mom’s family. I’ll be back home tonight, then Christmas at home with mom, dad and Jason tomorrow. Friday and Saturday, I’ll be in Ashland with Julie’s family. Should be a good few days of rest and enjoying family and friends.

Here’s a few random blogging items:

• I’ve added a new plugin to the blog that lets you share posts on different social networks.  Not that my posts are all that important, but just in case you want to share them, now you have the option.
• The New York Yankees are evidence of the problem with professional sports.  In the past few weeks, they have dumped $452 million into three players.  This is on top of their new $1.6 billion stadium.
• I picked up Rush’s Snakes and Arrows DVD last night.  It’s the first Rush DVD I’ve purchased, and so far, I really like it!  Neil Peart is an amazing drummer.  I was lucky to see them in Columbus several years ago.  I also found Alex Lifeson’s Barbie doll groupies pretty humorous.

Finally, let’s not forget:

Luke 1:68-79 Listen

68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has visited and redeemed his people
69 and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David,
70 as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
71 that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us;
72 to show the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
73 the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
74 that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Tomorrow, the ESV Study Bible will be released.  At long last.  There’s been a whole lot of hype and advertising leading up to its release.  Crossway has also generously given out samples from the book, promo videos and more.  I was able to hold and browse through an advanced copy at the Resurgence Conference. 

I decided against pre-ordering a copy.  I’m particular about my Bibles, so I’d rather walk into a store and touch and feel all of the different bindings and decide from there which one I like best.  Of course, the rather expensive calfskin edition is probably the nicest.  But, I’m not quite sure I want to drop $175 for it.  Okay, I’m positive I don’t want to spend $175 on that edition.  So, I’ll stick with the leather or trutone edition.

I’m looking for a PC – as in, a Windows computer. It doesn’t have to be fancy AT ALL. Basically, I only need it so that I can view my websites through Internet Explorer and other Windows internet browsers. This would be very helpful when designing my websites.

I’m not going to be picky, but if it were a laptop, that would be great. Only reason is, I really don’t have room in my apartment for a desktop, monitor, keyboard, mouse…. all that. A laptop doesn’t take up much space.

Ideally, I’m looking for someone that wants to give away an old laptop or PC. As mentioned, it doesn’t have to be anything terribly nice. If anyone out there has one they’d like to get rid of (even if you’d rather sell it), let me know. You can email me.

As I’ve started to do more work through BADmedia, I’ve started eating through my cell phone’s monthly anytime minutes. I’m a Verizon carrier (one of the few and proud in Frankfort), and I love them. I don’t quite understand most of Frankfort’s love for Sprint. For iPhone carriers, I can understand the need for AT&T (plus, my dad works for them, so I don’t guess I can bash them too much).

I carried Sprint for a while and hated it. Dropped calls all the time. Bad service in some areas of Kentucky. I’ve never used AT&T/Cingular/whatever-they’re-calling-themselves-these-days, so I can’t speak for them. Anyway, I digress…

I just changed plans in a matter of five minutes. I doubled my anytime minutes, now have unlimited text messaging and it’s not going to cost one red penny more. In fact, because of the texting plan, it will likely be cheaper each month.

(By the way… and for the record…. in the span of about five years of carrying a Verizon phone, I can only recall a dropped call being my phone’s fault a couple of times. Their service is rock solid.)

This is why I carry Verizon.