CowPi Journal

Here is a short list of fun things to enrich your weblog experience. BlogShares—“a fantasy stock market for weblogs. Players get to invest a fictional $500, and blogs are valued by inbound links.” (Be warned, this will take away some of your time for writing.) the blogger code—an obscure code that describes a weblog. To […]

Hoping to catch Saddam Hussein, the war started on March 19 (about 8 pm EST) with a preemptive air attack on a single leadership site. Ground troops started crossing the border the next night, and the air attack started the following night. Now, the Coalition forces have complete control of the newly renamed Baghdad International Airport. Coalition […]

With Spring in the air and Easter just around the corner, I found some fantastic images of flowers. Katinka Matson has managed to produce some of the most striking digital images of flowers. The colors and the composition just leap out at you. And here is the catch, she does not use a camera! She […]

I was following this person driving a brand-new BMW this morning and began to think about how far technology has progressed. The automobile has come a long way since Ford’s Model T. Cars have an amazing amount of the electronic and electric-powered devices built into them these days to enhance our driving experience. These devices […]

Last night, the Oklahoma City Board of Education laid off 380 certified teachers. (Actually, “laid off” is not the proper term. These teachers will not have their contracts renewed for next year.) Two suburban districts let go of 100-120 certified positions each. A nearby rural school district let go of 30 positions, or one-third of […]

Crowds of Baghdad citizens cheering on the morning news reminded me of the scene in the movie Wizard of Oz where the Munchkins were cheering and singing “Ding-dong, the witch is dead!” Is the wicked witch of the East really dead? Did the house (or restaurant/bunker) fall on him? No one on earth knows yet. […]

Besides teaching, one of my other responsibilities of working in a small, Catholic high school is to drive a school bus in the morning. It is not the same as driving a bus for a public school where you follow an actual route and make a dozen or more stops. My route is simple. I […]

Our campus minister is leaving. Melodie will be sorely missed. Part of it is a budget crunch like all schools in this economy, but also it is an opportunity for her to minister to younger students at a nearby parish school. Her absence leaves a hole in many of our school programs, but especially in […]

Earlier in the week, I noticed in one of the news reports a scene of Iraqi people cheering the arrival of Coalition forces. About 10% of the crowd was holding and waving palms around in the air. I was reminded of the scene in Mark 11:1-10 where Jesus enters Jerusalem on a colt. I am […]

This is going to be a very special Holy Week for me. At the end of it, I will be baptized, confirmed into the Catholic church, and partake of the Eucharist. Yahoo! To start the week off, Father Ken asked my family to be the Seder Supper family for today, Palm Sunday. We got to […]

Yesterday, seven American POW’s where found near Tikrit. Ya-hoo! All of the Coalition POW’s have been accounted for; but, there are still five MIA’s. I pray that they are still alive and will be found.

Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from our human condition which is opposed to everything infinite. — Primo Levi

I was reading at Disputations a discussion about Jesus’ words on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34) The traditional explanation is that He said this in reference to, or in fulfillment to scripture, namely Psalm 22. I posted a comment on his weblog: Has anybody ever thought that maybe […]

This song by Switchfoot, “I Dare You to Move”, seems to apply to baptism. Listen to a clip of this song. Welcome to the planet Welcome to existence Everyone’s here     Everyone’s here Everybody’s watching you now Everybody waits for you now What happens next     What happens next (chorus) I dare you […]

We remember the 168 victims (149 adults and 19 children), the survivors, and their families of the Oklahoma City Bombing at 9:02 am on April 19, 1995. Our prayers go out for you. If you are ever passing through town, please stop and visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial. It will be worth your time. […]

Thank you for being there…

I thought I better document some of the things I have done to tweak MovableType for my weblog/journal. Let’s start with the archives.

Have you ever been cutting something in the kitchen and accidently cut yourself? In that instant, time seems to stop, and you can see the razor edge of the knife blade slice into the skin of your finger. And in that same instant, a non-verbal part of your brain thinks, “Oh man! This is going […]

Fifty years ago today, James Watson and Francis Crick published their Nobel prize winning discovery in Nature describing the geometric shape of the DNA molecule. Mathematician Keith Devlin said, “Their discovery opened the door to a new understanding of life in general and genetics in particular, setting humanity on a path that in many quite […]

Are you against hate and discrimination? Wear a paperclip this week! This week is the national week for the Days of Remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust. Also, a grass roots campaign started by Sharyn Markus at Mountain Ridge Middle School in Colorado has extended the idea to include the Days of Equality and […]

Thanks be to God—all of the POW’s and MIA’s from Operation Iraqi Freedom have been accounted. As for the POW/MIA’s from the Vietnam and Korean Wars, a prayer goes out to those soldiers and their families. You have not been forgotten.