WolframTones: An Experiment in a New Kind of Music

Here is my tone: My Tone

Galveston, September 1900

I read this book two years ago and could not put it down. It is the horrifying story of how a hurricane wiped out Galveston, Texas at the turn of the last century. Let's pray that this week turns out much better.

Smokey Amp

Apparently these have been around since the 80's, but I had never heard of nor seen one until yesterday when I was jamming with a guy who pulled out of his shirt pocket what I thought was a pack of Marlboros, but turned out to be a guitar amplifier. Santa, if you are reading this, It must be a Camel ...

Clinton Legacy: Half of All Teens Have Had Oral Sex

Seminary Review

Hopefully, this will be a real review, not just a cursory glance where the rector is given a heads up beforehand to clean the place up for a few hours while reviewers are present.

Flash! Bush is Human

Slow news day, eh?

Monk Rock

It all began innocently enough with my brother, Terry. I was helping him get our old country rock band, Mason Proffit, back together.

...

Soon “Monk Rock” was born. The title itself is meant to be whimsical, half joking, but also not without some seriousness. We used the very best players, and recorded it well ... But it is a still a bit of a joke for a middle aged founder and family member of an integrated monastery to do a project like this. Be that as it may, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would be happy to do another if people seem to like it. I hope that you do.

I'm not the biggest fan of CCM, but I have enjoyed John Michael Talbot in the past. Actually, I'm more interested in checking out the new compilation CD from his old band, Mason Proffit.

Mystery Bulge in Oregon Still Growing

BEND, Ore. (AP) -- A recent survey of a bulge that covers about 100 square miles near the South Sister indicates the area is still growing, suggesting it could be another volcano in the making or a major shift of molten rock under the center of the Cascade Range.

Recent eruptions at nearby Mount St. Helens in Washington state have rekindled interest in the annual Sisters survey and its findings.

Oregon has four of the 18 most active volcanoes in the nation -- Mount Hood, Crater Lake, Newberry and South Sister. A recent U.S. Geological Survey report said monitoring is inadequate at all of them, with only basic monitoring at about half of the active volcanoes.

Does anyone else see some myserious sign in the "coincidence" that Mark Shea started blogging again and that volcanoes in the north west started acting up at around the same time?

Pope Blesses Statue of Opus Dei Founder

"May all those who stop to contemplate the statue be encouraged to live their daily work in the spirit of Christ and in ardent love for the work of redemption," said Benedict, who stopped to bless the statue at the end of his general audience before returning to Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence in the Alban hills outside Rome.

Blah, blah, blog

Call it the summer blahs, doldrums, laziness, or whatever. This blog was on hiatus intentionally, accidentally, or something in between.

I started this blog because I'm opinionated and wanted an outlet. Also, I thought it would be a good chance to sharpen the writing saw. Like playing the guitar, coding software, or anything else, regular practice is not only the only way to improve, but also the only way to keep from spiraling down. The spiritual life, not surprisingly, also follows this law of entropy -- things start to fall apart unless we are struggling to get a leg up.

I've been a resident of cyberspace for quite some time now. My internet journeys started circa 1990. Back then it was only email, ftp, telnet, etc. I remember downloading and compiling the source code for Mosaic, the precursor to Netscape Navigator. You do remember Netscape, don't you? My co-workers and I would run to each other's office to tell one another about the discovery of some new web site. There weren't that many at the beginning. Then came Netscape, AOL, etc

Before the web really began booming I'd make postings to Usenet and email lists. I'm still on a private catholic mailing list (hello CFers) that I've been on since the early nineties.

A lot of early web pages back then were personal pages for people and some had opinions, but they were not really updated regularly. Probably the first Catholic blogs that I came across were Radio Free Topeka and the Aquinas Cafe. RFT went off the air a number of years ago.

Aquinas Cafe is still around (although the most current post is from May), but now merely a shade of its past glory when it was still on PHP Nuke rather than Blogger. I really miss Al Kerry's Stones comic strip.

Anyway, two weeks ago I ran into Cacciaguida and started thinking about blogging again.