Month: September 2005

The shirt off my back.

Yesterday, a cold front settled across Texas. Unlike more tolerable climates, a cold front here means that it dropped into the 70s. There is now hope for the masses who come innocently looking for a Kayla photo and are subjected to the spectacle of my shyly clad body.

What you can’t see from so far away is just how hot it has been here. Until yesterday, it was in the 90’s, and frequently above 100, every single day. The weather people say this was the hottest September on record. I’ll take their word for it. We’ve survived by setting the thermostat down to 81°F, and wearing very little.

This has practical consequences, like fewer publishable photos. Another is that our electricity bill for the last month was “only” $280. While that is a 700% increase over our summer electric bill in Michigan, it would have been more if we cooled down to a pleasant 78°. This is (tongue in cheek) offset by doing less laundry. I talked to a couple home efficiency experts here and have been told that is normal and it will decrease significantly when winter finally arrives.

A few of you asked about Kayla’s exercise plan. She was a bit jealous that I would go to a gym to work out instead of spending every possible minute with her. We struck a compromise that lets me go to the gym on school mornings (Tu,Th) while she is still sleeping. Every other day we stretch together.

Computers and Memory

You’ll seldom find an old-timer in the computer industry with a computer wanting for memory. However, that’s exactly the predicament I’m in. Allow me to explain, and then offer a quick lesson to the less computer savvy. Until yesterday my PowerBook had 1GB of RAM, and life was good. A friend need to run Windows on her iBook for a class she’s taking. I installed Virtual PC and Windows 98 but she had only 256MB of RAM. That is adequate for running Mac OS X, but not a “heavy” application like Virtual PC. After Virtual PC drug her her iBook to it’s knees, I pulled a 512MB chip out of my PowerBook and installed it in her iBook. Voila, one problem solved.

Today, while using my PowerBook, it was quite sluggish when working in iPhoto. A simple operation that should take 10 seconds would take two minutes. Since Greek has my brain running on overload, it took a while before I remembered that I only have 512MB of RAM now. The major clue was that my hard drive was very busy during that “long pause.” That’s a symptom of “swapping” and a huge clue that you need more RAM. With 2,900 photos in my library, 512MB of RAM is inadequate for the task.

When a computer runs out of memory, it starts using hard drive space as “virtual memory.” This is called swapping. It’s a reasonable solution, but hard drive space is at a few orders of magnitude slower than RAM. The only way to get the best performance from your computer is to make sure you have enough memory that it never swaps. For a few people, 512MB is sufficient. For anyone that uses the media features on a modern OS (Mac OS X, Windows XP), you need at least 768MB.

So, I ordered myself a 1GB module. When it arrives, my PowerBook will be back to it’s speedy little self. For reference, the Apple Store wants $500 for a 1GB memory module. I paid $130. I also purchased four extra 512MB laptop SO-DIMMS for $50 each. If you have an Apple laptop that’s running short on memory, come see me and I’ll even install the RAM for you.

Theology, and a Kayla Photo

Learning is a lot of work. I spend a little time with my girls, a lot of time with Greek, and what’s left gets spread around to everything else.

Becoming a “theologian” wasn’t near the top of my list of reasons to come to Dallas Theological Seminary. In fact, it wasn’t even on the list. Like many other students, I’m here because many leaders that I admire came here. I came to learn what they learned. We came to learn how to effectively meet the needs of others. The first thing I’ve learned is that to some degree, I am a theologian and so are you.

Theology is not what I so adamantly opposed. Theology is simply thinking about, or studying God. I’ve been a theologian (albeit amateur) for many years. Even the agnostic who questions God or the atheist who denies Him is practicing theology. So, it’s not theology I was opposed to, it was bad theology. So, what is bad theology?

If you are even slightly interested in what theology is, I highly recommend a very easily read book: Who Needs Theology by Stanley Grenz & Roger Olson. It explains what theology is all about and outlines the degrees of theology which range from “don’t confuse me with the facts; my mind is made up” to “I will believe only what I understand.” Obviously, good theology is neither of those extremes. Theology is not (yet) what I expected, it’s better.