(this is) durkin.org

Good news, grandmother went through surgery and seems to be recovering quite nicely. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.

Now, its out-of-town time for John. One of my co-workers is expecting twins any day now, so I offered to cover this trip for him. I think I will have access from my hotel, so look for more complete postings later… Or, if I can’t get online, I’ll install and try Dreamweaver, which I have been told is the coolest (for those of us who cannot dream in code yet).

Reading GGWOO today and yesterday, and an essay on Powazek on blogging, journaling, this online-window-into-my-world begs – what’s the point? The purpose of this space? Thoughts?

More on this later. For now, we’ll just call it a work in progress.

News Flash:
My grandmother is currently (as in right now, Friday, October 13, 2000, 4:17PM CST) undergoing open-heart surgery.

Light a candle, say a prayer.

Contest Update:
Well…it pains me to admit this, but I didn’t win a TiVo… It wouldn’t be so bad except that I get paid to write well, and I couldn’t win this stupid contest. Oh well, I have until the 31st to try again.

Big weekend plans here:
Tomorrow, my wife and I will be at Metropolitan Gardens, a housing development in Birmingham, for a service project for her organization. That should take just about all day. Then, we’ll catch the rest of the Auburn game (gulp – vs. Florida), and have a nice quiet dinner.

Sunday, I have a soccer game, and that should just about take me out of it until Monday.

Talk to you then.

I haven’t followed the Dr. Laura controversy very much, but this still made me laugh.

Funny or not, the letter is quite on target, for while I certainly respect the manner in which others choose to worship (or not), and how they choose to interpret the Bible if they are so inclined; I start having trouble when they use a literal interpretation to tell me how the world should turn. The phrase “It says so in the bible…” makes me cringe in a real kneee-jerk kinda way.

So, one afternoon, I sat down and read Leviticus. All of it. And I have only one thing to say to people who expect it (the Bible in general, that book in particular) to be taken literally (in this, or any, day and age): Huh?

Go on, read it yourself, and then tell me what you think.

Liquor Treat planning party/meeting tonite! (Liquor Treat is kind of like a progressive dinner party, expect you have to come in costume, and you drink instead of eat. Each house features a different drink.) It is a several-years-old tradition that MR and I are proud to participate in – details to follow.

Strange that fathers and sons are so bad at talking to one another. (Trite as it is, I can’t get thatCat Stevens song out of my head.) I had a late night with a friend last night talking about this sort of thing. Not in a whining kinda “He-never-told-me-he-loved-me” vein, just in a “We have trouble communicating” vein.

There is a great scene in City Slickers, when Daniel Stern’s character talks about why he loves baseball: it gave he and his father a language, a pathway for talking. When he and his father were having a tough time, and couldn’t be in a room together without screaming, they could always watch a baseball game.

Personally, I can’t stand baseball, but I can appreciate the sentiment.

I had a story to tell about perceptions and how we often miss them… but I’ve thought on it too long now and I’m sick of it. Maybe later.

I entered the TiVo contest today. Everyone else is winning, why shouldn’t I?

Perhaps that lost mission is to try to understand/
The world’s tangled and hieroglyphic beauty.
-Robert Penn Warren