April 13th Miscellany

Miscellaneous thoughts I’m having today and news:

1. I have another blog (on which I infrequently post these days) that talks a little about the other professional aspect of my life, programming. Yes, I am a geek twice over. I went to the launch for Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008. Pretty okay event, but it was no Tech Ed. But I got some free software and swag...
2. For those interested in learning Greek via Athenaze, there is an online class for learning via Athenaze here: http://www.biblicalgreek.org/. I don’t really know anything about it so I’m not vouching for it. Just thought I would point it out. If you do try it, either blog about it (and let me know) or just let me know and I’ll make a note of it.
3. Whoever is at ip address 206.53.55.5 is really annoying. This person (or, more likely, automated bot) always hits my site about 10 times a day, always in clumps of two with hits bout 7-10 seconds apart, and only visits one page, a blog post from last November about a synoptic gospels book. It’s not even that awesome of a post, but this constant hitting of the page throws my page view counts off. As it is those hits make that my sixth most popular post. Take those out and its a the bottom of the list. Annoying.
4. And speaking of annoying things, I did my taxes today. One day early! I itemized my deductions and counted up all of the sales tax on receipts I had kept. That was very annoying. But, it will get me back more cash for books. Anything for books. And no, I don’t follow Jim’s advice.
5. The problem with some series is that they take a ton of work, like this new one I just took on. I’m working through the Apostolic Fathers and working out how authority worked for them. Here is my latest, and first real, post on the epistle to Diognetus. Well, I am actually still working on 1 Clement. Now that overtime at work is over I have time to work on it again. But it is very time consuming. The author’s use of Scripture is extensive, so there is a ton of data, but that’s better than no data at all. I’m not complaining. Just thought I would let you know that it is coming.

Off to my reading chair...

[Update: 4/14/2008 - 12:04 AM]: Oops, forgot a couple things that I meant to put in before I clicked the "Post" button.

1. I’ve made a little more progress in my reading of the Protoevangelium of James, but just one chapter. I did, however, reread the first six chapters on the train to the launch event I mentioned above. It’s a lot faster after your first time through the text, especially if you’ve taken the time to jot down the vocab you don’t know, which I have.
2. I checked out a great book from the DTS library on the Gospel of Mary. It’s called "The Gospel of Mary" and is written by Christopher Tuckett. It’s a great book. Amazon has it for a meager $120. I was hoping Eisenbrauns would come to my rescue, as they did for me with Lampe, but it doesn’t look like they have it. James, can you hear my damsel-in-distress-like cry for help? And why would Oxford charge that much for such a small book (yes, I blame them, not Amazon)? Very frustrating...
3. I recently redesigned my sidebar for the blog. I think it looks cooler now.

Hopefully I didn’t forget anything else...

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