ACU makes news...

Texas University Giving Freshmen iPhones and iPod Touches

Unbelievable. Apparently, now ACUers can worship God and Steve Jobs. And what more could an incoming freshman want? Ha ha...

For those of you out of the loop, I attended Abilene Christian University, a fairly small school in west Texas that is now giving away an iPhone to every incoming freshman. While I'm sure this is built into tuition cost, I kinda think it's cool. I know the idea isn't new (Duke's been doing this with iPods) but the product is. And I think there are more educational applications with the iPhone than with an iPod. Although, I imagine there will be more distractions as well. Can you imagine everyone with an iPhone at chapel? Utter disarray.

Anyway, props to ACU for implementing what I think could be a really neat idea. I just hope they realize all the implications for the campus.

Hmmm... wonder if I can get one retroactively?

I'll have to pray about it.

bowling league, here I come

Over the weekend I BOWLED A 132!!!!! Holy cow! Maybe breaking my wrist actually made my bowling skills improve. Maybe it's sorta like Peter Parker getting bit by a spider and becoming Spiderman. Who knows, I could be the next __________ (insert name of famous bowler here... I don't know any)

Hmm... another thought... maybe all of my Wii bowling is paying off.

P.S. For you anonymous readers (if I have any), I'm very well aware that a 132 is not exactly phenomenal in the whole scheme of things. It is, however, pretty darn good for me. If you've ever bowled with me before, you know what I'm talking about.

P.P.S. For inquiring minds, NO there were no bumpers.

an observation

Tonight I realized I am getting old.

I consciously planned my grocery store trip around watching Jeopardy.

2008 Books I've Read

So, inspired by my fellow blogger/friend John, I've decided to keep a list in 2008 of all the books I read. AND include a rating of each book on a scale of 1 to 10, just to clue you in on what I thought about it. I'll be updating this regularly. (John, I'm totally pirating your idea. Hope you don't mind.)

43.The Shack - 6.5/10

42.In Her Shoes - 8/10

41.Love the One You're With - Emily Giffin 8.5/10

40.Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult 9/10

39.Election - Tom Perrotta 8.5/10

38.Through Painted Deserts - Donald Miller 7.5/10

37.Captain Alatriste - Arturo Perez-Riverte 7/10

36.The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald 9/10

35.The Green Mile - Stephen King 8.5/10

34.False Impression - Jeffrey Archer 7/10

33.Empire Falls - Richard Russo 8/10

32.The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch 9/10

31.The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran 8/10

30.The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy 9/10

29.Little Children - Tom Perrotta 8/10

28. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving 10/10

27. Dry Ice - Stephen White 7/10

26. The Know-It-All - A.J. Jacobs 8.5/10

25. Good Poems - edited by Garrison Keillor 9.5/10

24. Skinny Legs and All - Tom Robbins 6/10

23. The Appeal - John Grisham 7/10

22. Sideways - Rex Pickett 4/10

21. Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller 9/10

20. The Abstinence Teacher - Tom Perrotta 8/10

19. The Twits - Roald Dahl 10/10

18. The Nasty Bits - Anthony Bourdain 7/10

17. Cherry - Mary Karr 8/10

16. On the Road - Jack Kerouac 7/10

15. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel García Márquez 9/10

14. Gilead - Marilynne Robinson 8.5/10

13. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs 7.5/10

12. The Liar's Club - Mary Karr 9/10

11. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini 8/10

10. Coal Run - Tawni O'Dell 6/10

9. Must Love Dogs - Claire Cook 8/10

8. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen 8/10

7. For Men Only - Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn 9/10

6. Back Roads - Tawni O'Dell 6.5/10

5. For Women Only - Shaunti Feldhahn 9/10

4. Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer 8.5/10

3. The Tender Bar - J.R. Moehringer 9.5/10

2. Tara Road - Maeve Binchy 7/10

1. Crossing California - Adam Langer 8/10

Texas sunrise

Texas sunrise
Originally uploaded by emster214

Student of Clouds
by Billy Collins

The emotion is to be found in the clouds,
not in the green solids of the sloping hills
or even in the gray signatures of rivers,
according to Constable, who was a student of clouds
and filled shelves of sketchbooks with their motion,
their lofty gesturing and sudden implication of weather.

Outdoors, he must have looked up thousands of times,
his pencil trying to keep pace with their high voyaging
and the silent commotion of their eddying and flow.
Clouds would move beyond the outlines he would draw
as they moved within themselves, tumbling into their centers
and swirling off at the burning edges in vapors
to dissipate into the universal blue of the sky.

In photographs we can stop all this movement now
long enough to tag them with their Latin names.
Cirrus, nimbus, stratocumulus-
dizzying, romantic, authoritarian-
they bear their titles over te schoolhouses below
where their shapes and meaning are memorized.

High on the soft blue canvases of Constable
they are stuck in pigment, but his clouds appear
to be moving still in the wind of his brush,
inching out of England and the nineteenth century
and sailing over these meadows where I am walking,
bareheaded beneath this cupola of motion,
my thoughts arranged like paint on a high blue ceiling.