Christian mysticism

I was talking to my friend Scott on the phone the other day and I mentioned some books I thought he might like reading. Figured I’d archive the list here for easy reference. This is definitely not a comprehensive list, just a list of books that have been helpful to me. There’s another list of books that I’d like to read, but that’s another post…

There are so many others I’d like to list, but some are hard to find. Maybe another list another day…

Neglect

Man, I have been neglectful (is that a word?) over here. Slacker Manager has been sucking in all my attention lately. Speaking of which, it’s going pretty well. Thanks for asking. I’m getting about 300 visitors per day and nearly double that in page views. And, as of a moment ago, 75 people were subscribed to the RSS feed. I don’t know 75 people. That’s kinda freaky. Makes me wonder what the second month will be like.

Serve day

I did a different kind of work today. Today was ‘Serve Day’ at the university. That means that everyone, and I mean everyone, goes out into the local community and does manual labor. All kinds of stuff–painting, yard work, ditch digging, roofing, building stuff, etc… It’s a really big deal, since the school shuts down for a day to do this. The planning is a big deal too. This year there were close to 100 groups going out into the community. Each group numbers between a dozen to upwards of 50 people. My group was one of the bigger ones. We went up to our church (I put in a special request to get assigned there) and did all the stuff I mentioned before. I mainly did exterior painting, though I also did some weedeater work, some sweeping, and some asphalt repair. I’m pretty tired now, and I guess all the students I worked with are too. I’ll try to get some pictures up another day.

Other groups were assigned to retirement homes, daycare places, individual homes, other churches, various parks around town, etc.

On another, unrelated note, I think I’ll be ditching the Link Harvest pretty soon. I’ll still collect links and I’ll still post them on the sidebar, but I just won’t host the Harvest on pintglass.org anymore. I’ll be moving my posting over to del.icio.us and the sidebar will stay populated from that RSS feed. I’ve subscribed to the ‘most popular’ del.icio.us RSS feed for a while now, and I really like the interconnectedness of the site (especially this hack). I also like that when/if pintglass.org goes down again, I’ll still have the Link Harvest. ‘Course, if del.icio.us goes down, I’m outta luck. I’ll risk it.

Pictures and writing

So, it looks like I’m number one. At least for now. That’s some slight consolation for the server going down and making the Link Harvest lose it’s Google ranking. Anyway, I guess that means that the two proposals in front of mine were asked to write them, leaving me with the first spot. That’s kinda cool, but I was really looking forward to lapping the #2 guy–I just needed two more votes! On the scary side, this means that I might actually have to write that thing…

Now about pictures. There are some newbies in Sadie’s album, so if you’re fond of her you might have a look. As I’m writing this, I’m waiting for some new pics of Tru to upload to his album, so have a look there too.

Sorry for the quick posting. I’ve got lots to write about, but I’m kinda burned out on webby stuff right now.

Slacker @ Work

I really like Seth Godin’s new “ChangeThis” website. It’s a compelling idea–basically, people write “manifestos” of ideas that they think are important. The site is getting lots of attention since it’s launch last week. The first manifestos that were featured on the site were solicited by Seth and his team. Most of the writers are known in their fields and the content of the manifestos is diverse and interesting.

The site contains two parts. The first part is all the manifestos that have been written so far. The second part is the manifestos that are proposed. The proposed manifestos are just ideas that people have. The quality of these ideas is measured by how often the ideas are emailed around, and how many votes they get. Ideas are reviewed by an editorial board before being
approved for the website. Then, I guess, the ideas that generate the greatest interest become more fleshed out manifestos by their authors.

So I submitted an idea that I’ve written about before–the “slacker @ work” book idea. I figured that if the idea actually made it to the website, I could get a sense of how interesting the idea is to other people. If it’s of sufficient interest, I’ll write both the manifesto for the site
and, later, the actual book. But writing the manifesto would be a good impetus to writing the book.

Well, I found out today that my proposal was accepted to the site. You can view it (and vote for it and email it!) here. The ChangeThis website doesn’t have a place for comments, but if you have any thoughts regarding the proposed manifesto, I’d love to hear them. Just drop your comments into this post…

Writing books

I wanna write some books. I’m going to start by writing about what I want to write about. Makes sense, eh? Some of this is pretty vague in my head and it’ll probably sound more vague here, but here we go…

First, something along the lines of “A slacker’s guide to the workplace” or “A slacker’s guide to staying employed.” It’d basically be a tongue-in-cheek guide on how to be a good employee. I entertain ideas of a “slacker’s guide” series…guide to being a manager, etc… I’ve actually written about a chapter and a half on this one. I had two big goals this year: launch finaidpro.com and write this book. The website is up, but at the pace I’m writing, I’m not too optimistic about finishing the book.

Next, a book about “conscious living.” Writing this book would be an education unto itself. I’d want to cover lots of ground with this one–decision making; financial awareness; spiritual awareness; environmental awareness; values awareness; etc. I’ve got an outline mostly finished, but each section would take a l-o-n-g time to research and write about, to say nothing of tying it all together.

The last one might actually be the easiest one to write. I’d like to write a book about being a dad. Particularly about being a dad to a kid like Tru–adopted from Korea. Having lived and worked in Korea, Amy and I have a unique perspective on raising a child of Korean heritage. Beyond that, I’d just like to write about what I’ve learned as a parent, the ways that my love for Truman is manifested (and vice versa, as I observe it) and how I hope to continue learning and growing as a dad.

Ok, now you know. So don’t be surprised when I start begging you to buy my books…