My newest blogging adventure.

I'm not sure how many of you know this, but I keep a blog which I randomly post to in which I explore different "deeper" thoughts which come to me either through school, church, or life in general. I've recently started a series exploring theodicy, which is an attempt to reconcile the reality of evil with the existence of a (good) God. I would love comments and responses to help me know anything specific to address as I explore this issue.  Here are links to the first and second post!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Flock is pretty darn cool!

okay, I downloaded/installed the Flock browser today. Pretty darn cool, I must admit. It's built off Mozilla Firefox and focused (it seems) more on networking. So far, pretty cool. I wrote this up in it's blog posting function....we'll see how well it works!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

the beginning trials of a new dad, 2nd time over

yeah, so I'm pretty pumped about having had my second son yesterday. Awesome stuff. My wife went "all natural", which translates into no drugs and lots of pain for her. Me? The worst I got was on the last two pushes when she snagged my hand just right to squeeze my wedding ring between my middle finger and pinky. My ring finger was fine, but I was praying super hard that Benjamin came soon, because I was sure my ring was cutting through my fingers all the way to the bone. And she was gripping my hand so tightly (and rightly so, might I add - she was pushing at the time!) that I couldn't work my other hand in to take its place. Well, Benjamin was born and I quickly (almost) forgot about the pain in my hand.

In the afternoon my parents brough Keaton (my firstborn) over to see his momma and his new little brother. Of course, as soon as he saw Benjamin, he pointed and said, "Kitty." Then he proceeded to find everything in the hospital room that he wasn't supposed to play with and try to get at it. That's my boy!!!

My brilliant plan was to let him see mommy (more importantly, for mommy to see him!), and then take him home, grab dinner on the way, play with him a bit at home, and then get him to bed so he didn't have someone he wasn't used to putting him down. Lucky for Terra and I, Benjamin was born on the move-in weekend for the UNC campus, where the UNC hospital is. It took me a good half-hour to get off campus, and then the two primary interstates upon which I have to drive home were back up because of traffic (I was trying to go home at 5pm - again, brilliant plan!) and a couple of little wrecks. All in all, a drive which could take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour took almost two hours. Keaton was going nuts by the time we got home. I did (rather wisely, I might humbly add) stop and grab dinner as soon as I could, so he spent most of the trip munching on chicken nuggets and fries.

In the end, he stayed up an hour later. But I will admit, if these are the depth of my trials as a new dad (which I very much doubt), I am perfectly happy to endure. God has blessed us with two healthy, energetic young sons, and I am so privileged to be their father.

I'm a dad!!! Again!!!

yep, that's right. Benjamin Cai Jones was born this morning at 3:25 am, weighing in at 8 lbs, 5 oz, and measuring at 21.25" long. I told my wife I would let her post the first pics...so be checking our family blog (Jones Journey - in the column on the right).

And don't sweat, I'll post some more pics as well!!!

Greasemonkey fun...

Yeah, I know Pendergrass sent out an email about this about a year ago...but I'm just now getting into these little scripts. I thought I'd share what I'm trying out, so others can know what's available, and so I'll have a record somewhere of what I did try and what did or didn't work. These are little scripts you can install (after installing the Greasemonkey add-on to Firefox) and which can add extra stuff to specific websites or how your browser works in general.

After trying some stuff, I got an error message in gmail which pointed me to this collection of scripts bundled together as an add-on. It's called Better Gmail 2. So far, this seems to be a pretty decent addition to my gmail experience. I'll let ya know of any problems I have!

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okay, after trying Better Gmail 2 - I love it! To adjust what is enabled, go to where you manage your firefox add-ons and go to Better Gmail 2 preferences. Under the skins tab, you have to try out the "Gmail Redesigned". I think it looks completely awesome!

And I also have added a regular greasemonkey script for adding RSS feeds directly to google reader from your browser, and I found it in this list - but note that all the gmail scripts in this list are old, and Better Gmail 2 does them all and more!