My favorite verse in the Bible is Mark 9:24, which ends with the phrase, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" That pretty well sums up my spiritual journey. This blog is for recording my thoughts, ideas, insights, struggles, battles, blessings, stumblings, hopes and victories on my road to salvation. Oh, and just random life stuff, too.
[Cross-posted from my tech blog.]
Some scenes from my past life as a software consultant. While they did not all happen in one place, and while some of it is a LITTLE exaggerated, I swear most of it is true! Or true enough. :)
[Cross-posted from my tech blog.]
Most modern browsers support user stylesheets, i.e., stylesheets that are written by the user, deployed in the browser and treated as the last part of the style "cascade." User stylesheets allow for overriding individual web sites' styles at the local level for such things as accessibility.
They also allow us to quite quickly get rid of annoying things from web sites we visit all the time, without having to install a browser extension (how do you know who wrote your ad blocking extension and what they're doing with the browser access you've granted their app?) In my case, the annoying things I wanted rid of were the sad puppy-dog-eyes faces at the top of Wikipedia pleading for more money. That campaign's been going on forever now, it seems - even public radio and TV get the point and only shake us down twice a year for a week at a time.
Anyway, I wanted rid of that annoyance, so with a bit of sleuthing I determined what tags were holding the problematic content and quickly came up with some CSS to hide it. Dropping that CSS into the user stylesheet in the right magic location immediately rid all the pages of the ad and Wiki was back to looking like its old self again.
If you have even a slightly technical bent, you can benefit from this, too. The following instructions presume Chrome as the browser, but this article tells you the locations and CSS files to use if you are using other browsers - the stylesheet file content should remain the same.
For Chrome, you need to find the Custom.css file. On Windows Vista/7/2008, it is located at the following (replace
C:\Users\
[Presumably on Windows XP it will be under C:\Documents and Settings\
For Mac OS X, it is at:
~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/User StyleSheets/
On Ubuntu Linux it is found here:
~/.config/google-chrome/Default/User StyleSheets
In all three locations you should find a file called Custom.css. Open this file for editing (Notepad is handy on Windows, otherwise use the editor of your choice). It will probably be empty. Inside the file, place the following line (letter case is important!):
#siteNotice { display: none; }Save the file. Navigate Chrome to Wikipedia and you should no longer see the
Back in 2008 I wrote a "Christian buzzword bingo" generator based on an idea of a pastor friend. Now as part of a revamping of my personal web site to be more modern and "mobile friendly" (still a work in progress), I have updated the vocabulary list, including a bunch of new terms I've learned since starting to attend MSR. It's all in good fun, although there's also a purpose, as I commented in a follow-up post:
I think as time goes on I am more and more leaning toward trying to use less and less code words. I just don't think they're necessary. For example, Jesus was able to talk about "salvation" without ever mentioning "soteriology". So I am not so sure the concepts in the Bible need 2000 years of theology to explain them - otherwise the people to whom they were originally spoken/written wouldn't have gotten them, either, eh? If one can't preach Christ crucified and have someone understand without resorting to theological language, then the messenger is wrong, not the Message. At least that's how I see it.You can play my buzzword bingo game here.
This past week has been a real roller coaster. Actually more like a luge ride, since a roller coaster goes up once in a while. On Tuesday afternoon we found out we're probably a single-income household again, on Wednesday morning at work it was unexpectedly announced that my department was "between bosses," and Wednesday afternoon the biggest (and worst) news hit - that Les has cancer in one of her kidneys. We spent the next 36 hours mulling the various "options" (if getting to decide between multiple bad choices can be considered "options"). Friday morning she called the urologist's and scheduled her nephrectomy (I didn't even know what that word was a week ago), which will be on January 3. Happy new year! The good news is the other kidney is "beautiful" (urologist's word for it), so once the cancer is out and the recovery period is over Les should be good to go...pun intended.
If bad news comes in threes then we should be done for a while (in fact more than done, considering the twins' scholastic standings right now). Which is good, we need the break. Needless to say the next month is going to be spent in anticipation, and then there's Les's recovery period of probably 5-6 weeks - luckily they can do the operation laproscopically. My honey is going through all the emotions you'd expect, which is understandable.
So far I've been much calmer. Not that I don't care - I do, obviously. But it's been almost an overload to the point of having to just say, "Here Lord, hold this for me, will ya?" And then feeling like He is. Which is good, because it lets me be stronger for Les. And I have this inner feeling of trust that it is going to all be fine.
It is hard to count blessings at a time like this, and yet I do. I am thankful her other kidney is healthy. I am thankful we live in a time and place where the modern medical miracle of surgery is even available to us. I am thankful we have insurance. I am thankful for family on both sides and friends who are completely there for us. I am thankful I have a job, and that it's full of understanding and supportive people. I am thankful it was caught in time. Most of all I am thankful for my wife and plan on spending decades more together with her.
If you pray, then prayers are appreciated.
So, that's what's up in our lives. What's up with you? Got your Christmas shopping done yet?
