Yesterday, the one who rents us office space surprised us with the news that the rent is going up over 200% on April 1st (and I doubt she was playing any jokes). Today, I worked with a few others to pack up and move the office to its new, smaller-but-nicer (and cheaper) home. Tomorrow, I plan to leave for a nine-day trip to another region. Just crazy.
Missed Easter
27 March 2008 By Leave a Comment
I did not post about Easter because it has not come yet; on the Russian calendar, Easter is on April 27th.
Much Less Punch
24 March 2008 By 2 Comments
A few weeks ago, when I took the picture below, I thought the dollar-ruble exchange rate had hit rock bottom. Now that rate does not look so bad. When I arrived here in 2001, the exchange rate was 30r-$1 and the average rent in the city where we lived was 1500 rubles a month! My, how times have changed.
Pulling Hannah’s Ears
21 March 2008 By Leave a Comment
On one’s birthday, if he is fortunate enough to be in Russia on that day, he might expect to have his ears pulled once for each year of his life. I need to go pull Hannah’s ears THREE times.
Alas, Remont
18 March 2008 By 3 Comments
Remont (ремонт) is the Russian word for renovation or repair. Remont has two classes: major (or capital: капитальный) and routine (текущий). Removing or adding walls, installing new floors, etc., is capital remont, whereas routine remont can be changing the wallpaper or giving a door a fresh coat of paint. Since we only rent, we never engage in the former, and for reasons less than flattering to myself, we only do the latter when we absolutely have to. The cold does funny things to our walls, causing wallpaper to come loose during the more severe frosts (and sometimes even more serious catastrophes). After three winters, our kitchen wallpaper had lost all its desire to stay attached. So Maya and I spent a few evenings (while the kids slept) gluing new paper on. Here is what our Siberian kitchen looked like last week.
What a difference a little wallpaper can make.
Since we knew the the old paper had to go, Maya turned David and Hannah loose with markers and paint to artistically express themselves on the walls a few days before we started the project. Not Picasso, but not bad work.
Just in case you are wondering, here is what they really look like.
Tim Keller at University of California, Berkeley
17 March 2008 By Leave a Comment
Here is a lecture that, for most people (Christian and otherwise), would be quite worthwhile to watch.
(HT: Justin Taylor)
Tools of the Trade, Going Green
15 March 2008 By 2 Comments
I have long been enthusiastic about electronic tools that make work easier, faster, and more effective. Of course, some advancements bring these benefits only in degree. Until recently, most of us have had to adopt a hybrid approach, mixing old technology, such as pen, paper, books and files, with new but proven devices, like word processors.
But these days, I use very little paper, and brandish my pen only rarely. For example, just this morning, over coffee, I finished critiquing a 20-page article on Open Theism that a professor emailed to me last week as a PDF (great Saturday-morning fun). I imported the file into Microsoft OneNote, and added my notes alongside each paragraph. Then I researched the points of theology presented by the author and collected sources for my critique using a digital library system published by Logos Research Systems. I combed through hundreds of academic journals and other theological reference books, categorized dozens of articles by relevance and importance, and then analyzed the most pertinent ones. All the while, I collected quotations and references for my critique, cutting and pasting them into notes beside the article in OneNote, complete with ready-made Turabian-style footnotes. With my notes so tightly organized, writing the final 10-page product in Microsoft Word was a breeze.
After I finished the review, I opened another OneNote notebook and other Logos books and finished up a lesson that I plan to teach tomorrow night. If I had the time, caffeine and motivation, I could open another digital notebook to work on Russian participles or continue to plan for an upcoming linguistic survey to a nearby region, or work on a summer conference that I am helping to organize – but enough is enough, I should get on with Saturday.
My favorite and most used paper-eliminating electronic tools, which I use almost daily for research, lesson prep, communication, scheduling, etc., are: Logos, Microsoft Outlook, Word, OneNote and Mozilla Firefox. Logos is the premier digital library platform for those who want or need to go completely (or near completely) digital. I can literally carry a 1,700-volume library wherever I need to go. It also features some of the most advanced tools for exegetical work. Most everyone knows that Microsoft Outlook handles everything from scheduling to email; and there is probably no need to mention the many benefits of Microsoft Word. In OneNote, I have discovered a great tool that allows me to organize several different kinds of data into a search-able and highly usable file system. And Firefox is simply the best browser out there.
The hybrid approach is no more. I am going green, uh, digital.
Just a Photo
14 March 2008 By 3 Comments
Yah, yah,… the blog is getting a little dry. I have been lacking inspiration for extra-curricular things like blogging. Maybe next week. For now, here is a photo to keep Timothy’s grandparents happy. 
An Eternal Sin
11 March 2008 By Leave a Comment
Since we are working through Mark verse by verse in the inductive group (the mid-week meeting for those in the family), we are forced to deal with each passage, even the difficult ones. Tonight, we studied Mark 3.28-30 concerning the unpardonable, or eternal, sin. The discussion was quit lively. I more or less agree with Grudem’s position:
[Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 508.]
The Irony of God’s Way
8 March 2008 By Leave a Comment
Irony and disproportion are all God’s way. He keeps us off balance with his unpredictable connections. We think we know how to do something big, and God makes it small. We think that all we have is weak and small, and God makes it big. Barren Sarah gives birth to the child of promise. Gideon’s 300 men defeat 100,000 Midianites. A slingshot in the hand of a shepherd boy brings the giant down. A virgin bears the Son of God. A boy’s five loaves feed thousands. A breach of justice, groveling political expediency, and criminal torture on a gruesome cross become the foundation of the salvation of the world.
- John Piper, The Hidden Smile of God, p. 19
Does it Matter?
6 March 2008 By Leave a Comment
At the dinner table yesterday, I walked David through a basic science lesson concerning matter. Though we touched on its different states (the simple ones; he did not seem interested in plasma, etc.), we spent most of the time discussing what matter is. After a while, David asked, “What about other things… things that don’t matter?”
Good question.
Home Again
3 March 2008 By 1 Comment
After a long train ride – longer than the one to Moscow – we arrived home late yesterday. We are truly happy to be back, and thankful for the many blessings that God brought about through this trip.
Now to round up that huge pile of documents…
