Review: The Inventor and The Tycoon

My review of Edward Ball's latest work, The Inventor and the Tycoon, was one of the earliest reviews to be published on this new duo-biography - of Edward Muybridge and Leland Stanford. Muybridge was the inventor of stop-action photography and, later, motion pictures. Stanford - he of Stanford University...

500th Follower

Just this afternoon I welcomed my 500th follower on Twitter. See my Twitter page here. My most recent tweet was about my first book review at True West magazine, as their new Book Editor. To see that article, go here. I wrote about Larry McMurtry's latest effort, a biography of Gen. George A....

Oil vs. Gas: A Supply-And-Demand Paradox

When it comes to two different fossil fuels - oil and natural gas - is it accurate for us here in the United States to think that each fuel is equally impacted, at least in regards to market price and market stability, when ever-greater reserves of each are tapped by our country's oil and gas exploration...

Too Cool! Swamp Cooler on a Slugbug

Tonight as Kit and I arrived at the parking lot of Hastings bookstore, we found ourselves beside a Volkswagen Beetle with an unusual-looking drum attached to the vehicle outside the passenger-side window. It was connected to a luggage rack that was itself rather different-looking. But the cylinder itself was...

Make My Day

If I were to say that I've been Eastwooding longer than Clint Eastwood has been Eastwooding, well, I'm sure that would cause people to think to themselves, hey, this dude is cooler than Eastwood. Now, I'm not exactly saying that I've been Eastwooding longer than Clint has, because I'm still trying to decide...

“Reportedly”? Does the word “reportedly” belong in reportage?

I'm dashing this off on a Tuesday evening, and I just saw this sentence in a story on foxnews.com: "Some 20 to 25 'Tonight Show' staffers were laid off Friday and Leno took a sizable pay cut to reportedly to [sic] spare additional job cuts. Producers were also reportedly given the option to take pay cuts or...

CofC Members: What Do You Think?

Recently, Wineskins Magazine ran my book review of Why We Left, an examination of the reasons why people have left or are leaving the Church of Christ. I found author Flavil Yeakley's analysis to be astute. It has become common knowledge that the Church of Christ continues to lose membership at an rapid...

Horse Trading and the Way of the World

"I wouldn't take nothin' in the world for the experience I got tradin' horses." - Hob Duvall That wonderful series of books - the Foxfire books, which recount "affairs of plain living" as lived by the backwoods people of Appalachia - are full of not just oldtimer's skills but wonderful insights into life...

Google Eyes Small Business Needs

This is a bit different, as far as topics go, for this site, but my brainy partner Kit, who operates the online marketing firm Jemully Media, has turned up another good piece on Google and its latest move within the small business sector. This one has application for, well, 95 percent (!) of all businesses,...

I’m Freakin’ Out! Or SOMEone is, at any rate!

Freaking out! There's no other way to say it. And if you want to see why, just go to this blogpost by my bride and she'll give you the lowdown. You'll find an amusing tale and also a reason to get all Googly-eyed. That's it! One of my shortest posts...

New Milestone for this Website

Just noticed from my site metrics that this website should surpass the 25,000 mark for total pageviews – an event that should happen sometime Wednesday, March 27. For a site that is devoted almost exclusively to one individual’s opinions, assertions, rants, jibes, buffooneries, and ramblings, and...

Glimpse into the Future

Last night, as Kit and I watched an episode of the original Star Trek, we encountered this scene of Doctor McCoy handing Spock what I would have to describe as a computer diskette (as Nurse Chapel, on the left, looks on). We'd been seeing this sort of thing in other episodes - the use of diskettes. The...

Brother, Have You Heard? A case of me telling you and you telling me what we each need to hear in the Age of Advocacy.

Advocacy is all about getting someone else to do it. We live in the age of advocacy. I was going through the drive-through lane at a major-chain fast food restaurant recently, and as I reached the window and handed over my debit card, the employee asked me, “Would you like to put a dollar on your balance...

What Does It Mean to “Take the Lord’s Name in Vain”?

Of all of God’s commandments, the one that—my guess here—gets broken more often, and more unconcernedly or unknowingly, than any other is the Third Commandment. That God-given edict, found in Exodus 20:7, goes as follows: "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain; for the LORD will not...

The Truth Always Divides

We live in an age when Bible doctrine has been all but chased from the assembly. Doctrine is out and ecumenism is in. The de-denominationalism of Christianity is in full bloom. That’s the effect of the world, which is a PC place, on the church. But things don’t have to be that way. It’s often said that...