Category Archives: Personal

Busy Marking…

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OK, that’s irritating. I am in the middle of marking and decided to write a quick post to update everyone on some posts I am working on connected with the exile workshop at the University of Alberta last week, the book of Job, and the state of evangelical biblical scholarship (e.g., the Enns controversy and Kenton Sparks’ new book). I go to publish the post and there is a database error of some sort and I loose it. Blah!

At any rate, my original post was far more polished than this one! Now, back to marking papers…


A Major Pet Peeve: Writing in Library Books

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I really really hate it when I take out a library book only to find that some doorknob has written in it — I don’t care if it is just neat little underlines or asterisks in the margin or dumb comments. I also don’t care if you intend to erase your pencil marks when you are done — it still damages the book. If you want to fold, spindle, or mutilate a book, then buy it yourself!

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If you write in library books considered yourself on notice! And stop it!

(And for what it is worth, I personally only make very minor marks in pencil in my own books)


Back from the Depths

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OK, I know I keep saying I will get back to regular blogging. This time I (hopefully) mean it!

I have been swamped with the beginning of the semester things like writing syllabi, updating course webpages, and — perhaps the most time consuming — converting my PowerPoint lecture slides to Keynote (which, btw, I quite like). Of course, it is never as simple as just converting my slides; I must edit and update them as well, which takes even more time!

I am teaching a fairly heavy load this fall, including OT Literature, Introduction to Hermeneutics and Method, Religion and Popular Culture, and Reading the Historical Books (Chronicles). I quite enjoy teaching all of these courses, but they will certainly keep me busy. The payoff for such a busy fall semester is a very light winter semester (only 1.5 courses — yippee!).

(I have also been having some minor health issues, which are more annoying than anything else.)

So, hopefully this fall you can expect posts relating to my courses as well as sundry other topics relating to the Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint, and — of course — the World Cup of Rugby.

Cheers!


MP3 Players – SanDisk versus iPod

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OK, I recognize this has nothing to do with biblical studies or biblical Hebrew, but it does fit in the category of something that interests me! I am in the market for a MP3 player for my daughter. I am looking for a flash memory player, either 2 GB or perhaps 4 GB. After some on-line and in-store research, I have narrowed it down to two players: The iPod Nano or the SanDisk Sansa. I know the iPod is the cool one that all the cool kids have, and I know the iPods are the leading brand, but I can get her a 4 GB SanDisk for about the same price as a 2 GB iPod — and the SanDisk also has FM radio and video capability, among other things.

So my questions to my readers are:

  • Is the iPod Nano really worth it? Or is it status and hype?
  • Does anyone have a SanDisk Sansa and can vouch for it?