I bought a new cell phone recently, which has a 3.2 megapixel camera, which in my mind is a kind of precursor to a DSLR camera that I hope to get in the near future. Yes, photography is on my mind. When I was a lad, I used to go on photo jaunts with my [...]

So, in cleaning up and organizing I discovered a forgotten file folder with some essays that I wrote for various theology courses, some photos and postcards that used to decorate a wall at a former office of mine, and a few old poems I wrote. In looking through it all, I thought, “what the heck, [...]

The seamless gray that dominates the Fresno sky this time of year has withdrawn to reveal the brilliant face of the Sun, which hopefully is a good omen for my forthcoming trip this weekend to Aptos: a little city on the coast near Santa Cruz. The last time my family and I attempted to make [...]

It’s the first day of the new year, 2010, and I am watching HGTV’s “Dream Home Giveaway” and at the back of my mind I am thinking of Arthur C. Clark’s novel 2010: Odyssey Two, which I have not read, but I remember the movie version where at the end Jupiter becomes a star, a [...]

I don’t like writing when I have to write, but when I don’t have to write writing is alright. Actually, it’s more than alright, it’s outstanding! Writing is a living tension: it is a source of pleasure, even as it is a source of pain. The pain is the looking at a blank page, which [...]

I am sitting in my office, and I hear the heater, and I feel stress: to wrap up this semester, to plan and prepare for the new history class I will be teaching, to keep up with my reading of scriptures, of trying to be a good husband, of trying to be a good dad, [...]

This is the second writing riff for my blog, and it’s funny how often my riffs become writing about writing. Perhaps funny is not the word. Rather, it’s just an observation, something I notice when I embark on this exercise, but it makes sense. Since I have to produce without stopping, I write about what [...]

In numerous instances I have sat down to write a brief post only to have it end up being more substantial and involved then I intended. For this reason I often put off writing for this blog because it is hard for me to find the time, and I have learned that I am lying [...]