E85
While in Sioux Falls, we noted that about one-third to one-half of all the gas stations have E85 fuel, which was bout fifty cents cheaper per gallon than regular gas.
So we filled up on E85 on the way home. We got the same mileage as always even though we were bucking the wind and had the air conditioner on.
I still don’t understand why there is only one station in Omaha that carries it.
LifeLight 2005
I spent the Labor Day weekend at LifeLight again. And a good time was had by all. The weather was hot, windy, and dusty. And dusty, windy and hot. Did I mention that it was dusty? Well, it was — very. Everything we brought home had at least a thin layer of dust on it — even the stuff that didn’t really do outside!
My highlights from this year’s festival:
- I was able to catch U.R for a little bit but was unable to get a CD or even find a website.
- I also caught the last song of Shawna Ray’s set and was also impressed. She was handing out samplers from Indie Heaven, which seems like a cool “let’s help out the artist” site
- My favorite concert? The O.C. Supertones. Too bad it’s their last tour. They also talked about Blood:Water Mission, which seems like an organization with a fantastic goal: clean water for those who can’t get it.
- Youth Enterprises was also there selling T-shirts. This seems like another great organization.
- I have a confession to make — I really don’t like Third Day. But they did a great thing during their concert — they wanted to have an offering for victims of Katrina and they started off by putting in $10,000! That offering went to WorldVision.
Ted Leung on Modern Attraction and Instant Messaging
I think Ted Leung has said it all about why Google Talk is important in his post Modern Attraction and Instant Messaging
To summarize: the fact that Google Talk’s client sucks/doesn’t work on Mac/doesn’t work on Linux, it’s the fact that it’s open. That I can use Gaim to talk to someone using iChat or Google’s “official” client is what is cool. And I think that it’s bad that they are the only ones that say “hey we work on other clients! as opposed to locking out other clients.
I, for one, welcome our new “do no evil” overlords
King’s Dragon
King’s Dragon is Volume 1 of the Crown of Stars series by Kate Elliott. Book 7 is due out on Feburary, so now it looks like a good time to get started with this series!
Elliott paints a world that is in parallel with one in our past — most of the world is directly from The Holy Roman Empire, with characters from the book drawn from people in that time period. The religion is close to Christianity but with some major differences. Instead of a Trinity there are two aspects to God — the Lord and the Lady. And the story of grace given by the Messiah is considered heresy, as well most performance of magic.
The greatest difference between the church in this novel and the real one is the role of women — women in Elliott’s church play a much greater role, becoming bishops, skopos (i.e. the pope). They can even be in charge of lands (and often are).
It was a nice change to read about an established church more like our own than the pagan -type religions in most fanasty series (or no religion at all in some). This was something that I could relate more to.
But was the story any good? Yes — very much. The beginning was slow, as Elliott was establishing the setting for the world but her characters are well thought out and believable. It starts with just two characters in different situations in what seems far out from the main action of the kingdom. But soon Elliott branches out and talks about more characters and you get a full scope of what is really happening in the kingdom. She handles the number of characters extremely — the pacing is tightly controlled and there is not too much switching to another character when one character is in deep trouble.
From what I can tell so far, is that in this world evil is really evil and good is very good — there doesn’t seem to be much gray area.
This seems to be the beginning of a great series. I hope that it continues to be good.
Which Harry Potter Character Are You?
I usually don’t like these, but I’ve always liked Myers-Briggs and it fasinates me that I’m still the same personality type even though I’ve changed a lot sense I first took Myers-Briggs when I was a college freshman.
