Is it just me or is a passing year sort of depressing. When I look back on 2007 I feel sad it is over. I had a good year. It was a rough year at times, but also a defining year for me. I took a new job, the first time I changed employment in 15 years. I started exercising more. I’m less than a year away from my 10th anniversary. I have a daughter in first grade who is a whiz that constantly amazes me. I have another one who should be in school because she is so smart, but missed the cutoff date.<!—break -->

I’ve been studying Revelation. Wow, what a book. I’m now reading Robin Lane Fox’s Pagans and Christians to understand the beliefs of the time to have a better understanding of the world of John of Patmos. An awesome book that really paints the picture of the Roman empire and the growing church in that cultural framework.

I’ve started reading about the though of the Puritan sages, too. I think there is a lot we have lost that was envisioned by those early American saints. As I study them, I think my resolution for 2008 will be to live simply, and be happy with what I have. I want to infuse myself with spirituality in the way they did. I found this to be a good book to meditate upon The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions

I received many technological epiphanies this past year. Javascript has become such a mature language. I remember when it was thought to be a toy language that could just make some rollovers and form validation easier. Now there are full fledged javascript libs that treat the language as a full featured object oriented language. And ajax and dom scripting have given browser based apps a renaissance.

Apple is once again a major player in the technological landscape, and thanks to the iPhone my 401(k) eeked out wonderfully this past year. The macintosh OS X continues to be the wonderful operating system it showed signs of becoming when it first came out. I can’t imagine life without it. And the developer community springing up around it is great.

It looks like java is on the horizon for me. As the University of Akron is moving into a content management system dotcms that is java based. I’ve found java to be a ball of yarn that you start to unravel and find it is all knotted up with hundreds of libraries that you have to make your way through to be able to utilize it.

Life in Northeast Ohio has been interesting. It really is a great place to live. We have fairly predictable weather, the population isn't growing at a staggering rate, we have nice museums, nature trails, gardens and libraries. We have decent sports. I say decent because the Indians and Cavs made the playoffs. The Browns are dependent on the Indianapolis Colts for a playoff spot. Go Manning.

The Cleveland Museum of Art has remarkably rebuilt itself and managed to deliver some powerhouse shows all the while it was in reconstruction. I saw the wonderful show Barcelona about the artists of that region during the early 20th century. I thought they outdid themselves, but then they followed that show up with Money in Normandy.

If you’ve found your way to my website unexpectedly through some search or link, thanks for visiting. I hope you will come back. It’s a site about all kinds of things that interest me. I’m very interested in history. Being a Christian, I know the power of the word. We are a people who celebrate the word on the page. I am also interested in media and the transmission of ideas. I studied art, so I am also interested in design and presentation. I’ve been developing this site utilizing different technologies, and as I make code discoveries I often share them here. So you may find something interesting to read here, or something useful to incorporate into your code. Anonymous comments are welcome. Drop me a line. Let’s make 2008 even better than this closing year of 2007.