As you've probably already noticed (if you're one of the three regular readers of this site), we've changed the look here at Meaningless Musings again. I may not be a regular poster, but by heck I get bored with layouts quickly. Mostly I like how little wasted space there is with this format - once you're past the top part of the page with the links the whole screen gets used for text. Obviously, a strong argument can be made that said text just turns around and wastes the space again, but at least I'm not wasting your valuable monitor resources to just create blank space.

There are also a few new links over on the right-hand side of the screen, and for your Thursday reading enjoyment I thought I'd go through 'em and give you a few details on why they're there and why you might be interested. Gripping stuff it certainly isn't, but my understanding of blogosphere etiquette is that quantity always trumps quality. So away we go, starting with the blogs -

• Untested Ideas - My little brother Joel's blog. Joel's a computer programmer in Madison, Wisconsin and his blog has the distinctive flavor of computer competence - lots of little sub-links and a clean, polished format. He assures me that's nothing to be impressed about; that he just used some bloginating software that anyone could figure out, but I remain stubbornly impressed. So there.
  
  Joel's perfected the art of writing interesting blog entries that aren't long-winded; little snippets, often no more than a sentence, that make some thought-provoking point. A remarkable feat and certainly one I've no delusions regarding my ability to duplicate. It's also certainly worth perusing the rest of his site for some of his other writings - one of which was published in the Wartburg Trumpet lo these many years ago.
  
  
• The Three-Ring Circus of E. Rod - Not that I'm in any place to criticize those who don't post regularly on their blogs, but I think it's a shame that my sister Emily seems to have moved on from a short-lived interest in the hobby. She's quite a good writer (which only makes sense - after all, both of our parents are quite good writers; she no doubt inherited it) and I, for one, quite enjoyed the window into her thoughts. Love, luck, and lollipops indeed!
  
  
• In the Hands - This site is a treasure. An absolute gold mine. If Paul's not getting a million hits a day then I'm disappointed in us as an Internet community.
  
  Paul Cantrell was a college chum of Joel's at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. The two of them and their roommate Nick (at least I'm 90% sure his name was Nick...) were the aces of the computer science department - Joel tells me that when they were all three walking together other computer science majors were required to genuflect as they passed by - and, as with Joel's, there's a very professional polish to the look of the site. The content, though, is what should draw you there.
  
  Paul's a pianist and a bit of a music philosopher and last September he started a music blog to make his work accessible to the cyberworld at large. Every Tuesday and Saturday he posts an mp3 of a piece that he's recorded - sometimes things he's written himself, sometimes a work by another composer (often Romantic-era, although there's the occasional Bach. No Mozart yet, though - sigh), sometimes just an improv that he recorded whilst creating. The recording quality is very good - here's an explanation of his approach to home recording (worth reading if you've any interest in the art) - and the music itself is breathtaking. Paul reminds me of Vladimir Horowitz, the Russian-born piano virtuoso. He doesn't quite have Horowitz's chops (or if he does he modestly declines to showcase them), but there's an understanding of the music that brings to mind Horowitz's Encores (a recording everyone, whatever their taste in music, should own at least one copy of). Paul isn't interested in just playing the notes - he's playing the music around the notes. Corny? Possibly - but take some time to listen to his stuff, and especially to the pieces he's written himself; you'll hear a level of expression and depth of interpretation you rarely hear from a piano. Paul also offers philosophical musings on the nature of music and there's a link to the music blog he writes for MPR.
  
  Every recording on his site is available for free download - pieces recorded specifically for In the Hands and live concert recordings. I've never found anything like it online. It's - I'll say it again - a gold mine, a treasure with a URL. It's apparently not paying the bills, though (recording music and offering it free to anyone interested in enjoying it must not be as lucrative as it sounds), so In the Hands recently became a user-supported project. Click the link, listen to his stuff, and give serious thought to Paypalling a buck or ten Paul's way. And if you have a website with a links section, add a link to Paul's site - even if his music isn't your cup of tea, the work he's doing deserves as much recognition as we the Internet-at-large can muster.
  
  
• What, You Too? - In the spirit of international Internet relations, I invite and encourage you to check out this blog from Germany. Jess started her blog (or "blog" auf Deutsch) as a way to regain a sense of connection to her friends and family back on this side of the Atlantic and she's taken to blogging like a fish to water (or something less cliche - I'm a little sleepy right now). What, You Too? is updated frequently - often more than once a day - and stories range from tales of her angst over a job that, shall we say, isn't ideally suited to her temperment to stories about a rice cooker that apparently doesn't make hamburgers; it's a "here's what's on my mind today" sort of blog and a very well-done one.
  
  Jess also has dived into the "find other interesting people who blog" aspect of the blogging life, and she's compiled a set of links to other interesting places the blog-reading-ly inclined might wish to visit.
  
  
• Jaunty Thoughts - Here is that rare gem - a blog written by someone who can really really write. John was my best friend through high school; together we coasted through to mediocre grades while reassuring each other that we were brilliant and spending most of our time writing and making up new silly voices (the whole story is far past the scope of this single paragraph). Now he's a professional writer (ironically in the education field) and he's been churning out prose for most of the last 30 or so years of his life. The blog is basically a "here's what's been going on recently" accounting updated about once a month and aimed mainly at John's family and friends, but he has such a wonderful knack for turns of phrase and the storytelling voice that it's a delightful read anyway. He started his blog when he put together a website to feature pictures of his (at the time unborn) son, and over the last year the blog's become less of the focus and the pictures more. They're awfully cute pictures, though - if pictures of infants are your thing be sure and stop by. Little Thomas'll be one next Friday, and there's a place on the website to send messages (birthday greetings, perhaps) to the little guy. Who will, if the movies on the website are any indication, likely reply, "boom!"
  
  My secret hope (or, more accurately, my secret-until-I-posted-it-on-the-Internet-for-anyone-to-read hope) is that now that John finds himself with less free time for blogging he'll start uploading some of his other writings (and maybe even writing new ones - ah, to read once again of Nicholas St. Paul). Until then, there's poetry, pictures, and movies in addition to the blog. *Exciting update - apparently, John actually reads this blog, for there are indeed old writings to read. Check out The Vault!
  
  
• The Daily Aneurysm - I found Jim Bartlett's site through a link on John's. This is a political website, and an extremely well-done one; Jim must put hours into researching and reading before he posts (which he does almost every day). Even if you don't agree with Jim's politics (which are strongly liberal), you should check it out - the writing is very good, the points generally well-defended and fairly presented, and there's a lot to be learned. Plus he has a pile of links (including one to me!) for those interested in finding other, similar blogs.
  
  
• heckuva far (greg's online ramblings) - Greg Nichols is one of my friend Jesse's roommates, although it seems like I should have met him long ago - he's a fellow EWALU-an (proof of how quickly camp moves on, I guess). Wonderful fellow - I generally find that entering new social territory ranks somewhere between being bitten by a puma and having teeth extracted on the things-that-are-fun spectrum, but Greg, Jesse, and their other roommate Matt have created a space that even I don't feel awkward or unwelcome in (they keep telling me to stop knocking and just come in, though. Yeah, right). I'd happily include a link to his blog just for that, but this is a really excellent blog. Greg's a very good writer and he has a tremendous gift for having his stories come to a point, so that the reader gets an equal dose of interesting story and thought-provoking point. Plus he's another computer person (studying for his PhD at Iowa in, I believe, Federation Starship Mainframes) so his site has that slick professional look that I so envy. No way to comment that I can see, though, which is a shame.
  
  I suspect that his URL is an allusion to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but that's just a suspicion.

Thus concludeth the list of blogs. Now on to the other links!

• Central Standard Time - Central Standard Time is me and Matt Hibbard, playing tuneful tunes on our guitars. This is the official group website, where one can find lyrics, ordering instructions, contact information, some pictures, a performance list, and the CST Trivia Challenge. There's also a hidden link to various other interesting content, which so far (as far as we know) no one has been able to find.
  
  
• My website - a project mostly stalled out partway through, this is my online HTML workbook. I had some online space since I get Internet access through Earthlink so I set out to put together a webpage and teach myself HTML along the way. It was partially successful - I learned a lot of HTML - but mostly all I worked on was my old blog, which I stopped adding to when I signed up on blogspot. There are a few interesting bits in the CST section (my lyrics page offers some comments and musings about some of the songs, for instance, and there's a video of Matt and I playing), but mostly it's still a work in progress that I rarely work on. Also - sort of along the same lines as my comments about Joel's and Paul's blogs - you can absolutely tell by the layout that I'm no kind of computer expert.
  
  
• VITP discussion on Consimworld - This link is mostly there for my benefit. I often visit the Victory in the Pacific (a military simulation board game about the naval battle between the US and Japan in WWII) discussion board on Consimworld (a website dedicated to various things military simulation board game-y). The URL for the VITP thingy is impossible to remember and scrolling through menus to get there is far, so when I'm at another computer and away from my bookmarks I can just type in my site's URL (much easier) and click that link.
  
  On the subject of VITP, though, there's a weekend-long tournament coming up in a couple of weeks which I'll be attending and no doubt blogging about - I always write up a report on the happenings; might as well post it here.
  
  
• Send Jason Martin-Hiner an e-mail! - My li'l Cubs fan buddy Jason Martin-Hiner enjoys getting e-mail, and here's a helpful link with which to fire some his way. As before, eventually this link will be changed so you can e-mail someone new! Exciting stuff, these Meaningless Musings.
  
  
• Andre LaFosse - Andre was a high school friend of mine who lives in L.A. now and makes his living as a guitarist. He was a phenomenal player in high school, and since then he's earned a performance degree from CalArts and spent another 12 years practicing. His chops have chops that have chops that are better at guitar than I'll ever be. It's incredible to listen to. His interest is in new ways for the electric guitar to express itself, too, and he's done some very interesting work with looping over the last several years. There are downloadable samples on his website and if you're intrigued ordering instructions, too, as well as a very interesting and well-written blog about his merry adventures in L.A. and some nifty pictures.
  
  
• The Chicago Cubs - What can I say? It's gotta be this year. Or maybe next year. Certainly not more than several years from now.
  
  
• Storyhill - These guys are my favorite band ever. Theirs was the music of my college and camp experience, the music many of my friends were married to, the music that inspired Matt and I to make music of our own. Their songs are full of evocative imagery and beautiful harmony and clever lyrics and some of the most singable tunes I've ever heard. Outstanding stuff, wonderful stuff. If they're ever in your area make sure you go see them (this site is often more up-to-date with tour schedules). Listen to some of their stuff here and then buy yourself some CDs!
  
  
• The WFWCCB - Ah, fond memories of tours and concerts and recitals and whatnot. I hope your life has included some experiences of feeling like you were part of a group that really did something well and that wanted you to be there like I had with the Wartburg band.
  
  
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy interactive text game - It's difficult to express how excited I was to find this online (thanks to Greg for providing the link. I spent many an hour playing this game on the old family Commodore 128, and never did mange to figure it out. It's a little creepy that it runs so much more smoothly now over the Internet with graphics added than it used to, but I'm not complaining.

And there you have it. My little road map to some interesting byways off of the information superhighway. Turned into a longer post than I originally intended, but that's probably good; it'll help my guilt over how long it will probably take me to post again.

To steal a sign-off from my sister - love, luck, and lollipops!

A couple of Sundays ago I went up to Waverly to watch the service of consecration (or maybe Service of Consecration; I'm not sure if it's a proper noun or not) for my friend Jess. What, you ask, is consecration? I'm not 100% sure myself (other than knowing that it's not the same as circumcision - talk about your embarrassing malapropisms), but I'll try to explain. The Service of Consecration (or maybe service of consecration) is the process by which one becomes a diaconal minister in the ELCA. "Diaconal minister," if I understand correctly, is sort of a new designation. Obviously it's closely tied to the word "deacon," but I think that deacons are generally thought of as being basically Ernest Frye (the guy Sherman Hemsley (of Lois & Clark: the New Adventures of Superman fame) played in Amen): the guy who sets up chairs and makes sure the candle wicks are trimmed and generally takes care of the church building. Diaconal ministers have a much more interesting and exciting role. The idea (indeed, from what I've learned, the catchphrase) is that they serve where the church meets the world. While a pastor is ordained into the ministry of word and sacrament and generally serves a congregation in a role that's theoretically primarily spiritual and theological, a diaconal minister is consecrated into the ministry of word and service and generally ends up working with an organization, dealing with social justice issues and bringing the work of the church outside of the sanctuary walls.

At least that's my understanding of it - a lot of which is lifted directly from the sermon preached at Jess's consecration. Here's Jess's explanation from her blog, and here's an explanation from the ELCA web page, both of which are far more informative and lucid. It's interesting stuff, I think, and I find it very exciting. To me, this is a formal statement by the ELCA that we understand that the church can't stay inside church buildings and still do the work we're called to do. A diaconal minister has to jump through basically every hoop an ordained pastor has to - these aren't lay volunteers who are just using the church to find projects to work on, they're men and women with the same level of theological training and formal church support the clergy has. I think that's downright nifty, and I'm proud to be able to name a good friend of mine among their ranks.

It was a delightful weekend, too - several people I hadn't seen for years were in town for the consecratin', the sermon was based on Micah 6:8 which is the foundation verse for one of the finer campfire songs to ever grace the woods of southeast Clayton county (I've had the tune in my head pretty much ever since), and Dr. Kleinhans got a chance to make fun of me for how long I was a student at Wartburg, which always seems to make her happy. I find that almost any event which triggers Wartburg memories ends up being a lot of fun (it's a shame admissions can't sell that - that's what you pay the extra $15,000 a year for).

On an unrelated note - I'm not sure I got the "Hey, Hi, Ho" in the title of this post in the right order. I was, alas, never a Mouseketeer. Anyone more familiar with the tune who wants to correct or affirm me feel free.