Last year, I wrote a newsletter to friends and family concerning Halloween. For myself personally, this has always been an important oversight by the Christian populace, and consequently I felt strongly compelled to share my “unpopular” take on Halloween. This is a message every Christian and non-Christian alike needs to read before getting out the Halloween decorations.

The neighbor’s houses, Cracker Barrels, Walmarts, etc. have all donned the marks of Halloween (in the case of Cracker Barrel, since the beginning of September!) — the cobwebs, deviously smiling pumpkins, haunting black figures hanging from the tree limbs…

Halloween is the second highest grossing “holiday” in the US, second only to Christmas. I do not wish to spoil the remainder of this blog, but I find it greatly ironic that Christmas — the celebration of the Incarnation, Sacrifice, and Santification of our Dear Savior — is followed in revenue by Halloween — the celebration of all that is dead and decaying. But as I said, I would like to follow with a more informative discussion of this “holiday” we know as Halloween.

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As if 2010 was not far enough back for you, I now present a research essay from 2009 that I coauthored with my brother Joshua (so if you notice a difference in writing styles, it has nothing to do with my schizophrenia) concerning the unusual history of some common words: idea, rhetoric, tawdry, and guy.

Flippantly Invoked Vocabulary

In today’s culture, words tend to morph to the context in which they are most used. Over mere centuries, vocabularies with deep roots and connotations are reduced to flippantly invoked words. Words that once frolicked in lush definitions are steadily watered-down to common usage and association. As Salman Rushdie laments, “[n]ames, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth’s marvels, beneath the dust of habit” (Rushdie). Among such words are comprised idea, rhetoric, guy, and tawdry.

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I know I know, it’s been close to a month since I last blogged — that’s because I’ve been working and feeling hobby-lazy on the weekends, and I’m still in the middle of writing an approximately 6–8 page (single spaced!) essay, so I’m a little preoccupied…

Okay, what’s the deal with Ancestry?

First off, it’s a slick and polished gem — strike one. Second, it addresses a very common need — strike two. Finally, it is Rails 3 savvy and efficient — home run!

In all seriousness, Ancestry is perhaps one of the handiest gems I’ve used of late. Typically, setting up trees with ActiveRecord is relatively easy — but as the model logic grows, the ease of use/implementation fails. Query calls increase recursively with every layer of the tree, and scopes have to be manually called at each layer.

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LaJoie Ward and James Lex put together a nice list of 50 Dos and Don’ts for college students (primarily prospective/current freshmen) — I had some thoughts of my own on the topic, so I have compiled my little list of advice.

Although it was two years ago, I remember well the sense of insecurity that loomed in the weeks preceding my first taste of college.

Most of the anxiety died after the first couple days of class, but there was still much unfamiliarity with the system that kept my caution index high. Thanks in particular to a dear friend and a double-portion of God’s grace, I have managed to survive both my freshman and sophomore years.

So, what have I learned from these past four semesters? Arc length, line integrals (curve more like), basic quantum mechanics, why electromagnetic waves propagate at the speed of light, the role of quantized energy states and the Schrodinger equation in preventing the collapse of the atom, why the capitalistic model is efficient, how not to cite an email conversation, …

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