Loud Loft

Thanks for dropping by . . .

So there is this little "counter" widget that sits on this blog. You can see over in the far right hand column. It's called SiteMeter and there is a number just below it which shows how many times the blog has been visited. But what it also does is allow me to log on to a website that shows the location of the person who visitied (never more than the city and state of the ISP of the server it came thru), the time, how many pages were visited, how long the person stayed and other more technical info.

I know from the location when my niece drops by, when my friend David peeks in and I've been able to identify just a few other folks.  I think I know when my friend in Corinth TX and a co-worker or two in Denton TX show up. But there's somebody from Hermitage TN who comes by and somebody from Lake Mary FL  who regulary come by. Hey, don't be shy - leave a comment or send me an email :)

What's also neat is that, if it was a google search or from a link on another blog, it shows the referring page - so "HI" to the folks who come by from Real Live Preacher.

When I added the post about my Moto Guzzi Griso and the walk around video of it with the engine running the number of foreign hits jumped way up. It's always interesting to think that somebody in Italy, or Germany or Australia is looking at my blog and seeing my picture or the video of my motorcycle sitting in the driving with the engine running. So if you're here because of a mutal admiration for limited edition Italian motorcycles - Ciao dal Texas!!

Updated Reading List

Just finished adding an updated reading list. I haven't finished all of them yet but I'm working on it. I did pick up The Reason for God and read it thru on vacation this week. It's pretty good but also requires at least one more reading to soak it all up.

My brother in law and two of his kids joined Lisa and I at the condo for the week and all three of them were reading it thru as a family . . . which is pretty amazing given the content and that the kids are just 18 (not that there is anything wrong with that).

It says a lot about all three of them really . . .

Anyway - The Dan Kimball book is a good read for me right now as I consider how to contribute to the ever evolving worship planning process at IBC. I "think" I read this when it came out but I was not as interested in the topic as I am now :)

Everything is Miscellaneous is a must read for anyone who plays or works amongst the digerati - and really who doesn't these days.

Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture is a good book but is suffers from the trait of the author shouting so loud that you can't always hear what he's saying. I've no problem with politically charged rhetoric - hey I was the kid campaigning for McGovern, going door to door for Greenpeace and Amnesty International and advocating stirring the pot whenever possible. What I learned from all that was that hard core, conservative, right wingers didn't have a monopoly on using stereotypes and labels to denigrate entire classes without regard to the individual.

Anyway - amongst the shouting the author makes some excellent points and it's well worth the read.

I also revisited Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell again . . . what a great book. Run don't walk to the nearest copy and either read it for the first time or pick it up and give it a whirl again.