cozart.org

Ok, so as you can tell the website is back up and running. After waiting for days on namesecure to contact me, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Upon Aaron’s suggestion, I hooked up with everydns.net to use them as a slave to my current DNS servers. After adding the new DNS servers, which remember are just slaves to my DNS servers, it worked! Now why wouldn’t namesecure use my master server but would use a slave? Who knows…

Both the site and my email should be working again, and hopefully we can keep it this way.

And if anyone is wondering, it takes forever to update the IOS on cisco devices. Surely there is a better way!!!

If you have made it here, then either the DNS for cozart.org has been corrected, or you are using the one DNS server(s) — its a master slave thing — that has the correct entry, which I really doubt. Anyways, namesecure has been really slow in resolving my problems, much to my dismay.

Now to catch you up on some recent happenings in my life:

• I have realized that the state of texas is not the most discerning of employees. I can’t say much more than that, but its a wonder that anything gets done at the state level. No telling how bad it is at the federal level.
• Lori started medical school this week. Well, orientation for medical school to be exact, but she already has homework, so I will count it as the first week. It hasn’t really hit me yet that she is that far away. I guess it was kind of dulled by the fact that she was at Pine Cove for the first half of the summer, but its still not cool. That being said, inside tracks on good paying jobs in Fort Worth are welcome.
• Duane, Darci’s husband, has been having some lung problems lately and they had to run some blood work on him. Remember him in your prayers. Hopefully it won’t be anything too serious.
• Ok, so last night I was ready for some major rain here. The cold front was setup perfect to drop down from the Permian Basin and bring with it some nice rain totals. What did we get out of it? Just some cool weather! Not that I am complaining, but I’d much rather have the heat with some rain. Hopefully we can get some in the latter part of the week as the weather guy is promising…
• 7 times. Enough said.
• Finally, to finish off with a quote from Charles H. Spurgeon from his Morning and Evening devotional:

  'Here's pardon for transgressions past,
It matters not how black their cast;
And, O my soul, with wonder view,
For sins to come here's pardon too.'

I guess you might have to read the devotion for this evening to know what it means, but it was definitely an inspiration.

Oh, and if you have tried to send me emails within the past week and have gotten them returned, I will let you know when to send them again. In the meantime, if you need to contact me, use slade dot cozart at gmail d0t com.

I did it! I finished a complete book! If you remember from a previous post that I have just been starting books lately and not finishing them, I made a resolution to correct this. So last night I sat down and finished up the last 47 pages of Exodus. I must say that it was worth it.

The author presents first a look at Episcopalians, dedicating one chapter to the more liberal views of mainline Episcopalian churches, then using the second chapter to discuss what the titles “The Departing Episcopalians.” These are members of the Episcopalian church that are leaving the Episcopal Church USA for the more conservative Anglican Communion. Using interviews with priests/bishops from both sides, the author gives the reader first-hand accounts of both sides.

It was the next three chapters that really spurred me on to read this book: The Roman Catholics, The Orthodox Church, and the Southern Baptists. While I may not agree with all the Catholics or Orthodox believers theologically believe or practice, it was somewhat encouraging to read of their commitment to the traditional teachings of the church. As for the chapter on Southern Baptists, the author showed how a group of conservative believers, through the grace of God, brought their denomination from the brink of liberalism back to its traditional beliefs, summarized best by saying that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. I guess I should note that I have a soft spot in my heart for the Southern Baptist denomination as I was brought up in an SBC church, and have lately become somewhat of an Albert Mohler fan. (As if you couldn’t tell from previous posts)

Overall, I’d probably suggest this book to most people I know. It is definitely not a book on theology, but it does present some of the core beliefs of each of the denominations. It was a definite encouragement to see that believers are seeing that they are not being fed by these conforming churches, but instead God is drawing them to churches that remain focused on Him and his Word.

If you have any suggestions for books I should read in the future, definitely leave me some comments. Next up: 9 Marks of a Healthy Church

Onto more personal things:

1. Personally, I think that xanga needs some work. I go from a wordpress site to an xanga site and am disappointed everytime. I understand that not everyone has their own domain, but they should. Or does someone offer wordpress hosting? Thats a thought…

2. Hotlinkers beware! I’ve noticed that a number of people have been hotlinking to my lightning image. While it is flattering that they are using the image that I took, hotlinkers suck. So sometime soon, be prepared for that image to be changed…

3. Did anyone notice how bad the html is on the pages above? See what I mean about xanga… Note: Not all xanga users destroy html like this, so don’t think that I am attacking all users of xanga…

4. Donations for a late birthday present to me are now being taken! Paypal welcome. Contact me at slade at cozart d0t org for more information.

5. Comments are welcome…so DO IT!

BK has pulled through for me again! He got wp-scrobbler working and shared the knowledge with me. Come to find out, phpwebhosting has the php option allow_url_fopen disabled by default. Luckily, they allow users to change the setting on a per-site basis. So now you can see what I’m lisening to!

Exciting stuff, eh?

So, if you can’t tell, work has been really busy lately. As soon as Kevin left, we signed those four new contracts I mentioned, and before you know it, our floor is full of new servers. And with new servers, that means new cables. Oh the joy. I spent most of this afternoon pulling cables under the floor, over cable trays, and in the worst cable-management racks ever. Joe, your company makes horrible racks.

BK mentioned the wiki that we have been working on at work. I had set it up a while back, but never got into adding documentation to it until recently. I must say, its some pretty awesome stuff. While it may not be as fancy as some other content management systems, its definitely my favorite. Just the fact that you can track specific changes that are made to documents, and not just when someone changes it is enough to convince me.

Looks like Rachael moved her blog and is definitely going to China. Keep her in your prayers as she enters this world that the Lord has obviously called her to.

Oh, and cousins in London, I resent the fact that you have not mentioned my blog on your website. Something better change quick, or you are going to lose an avid reader of your adventures. And if I get Matt’s name at Christmas, it won’t be pretty.

So Lori and I went to see Mr. and Mrs. Smith tonite, and for what its worth, it was a decent movie. Sure, it had the expected storyline: Man meets woman. Man marries woman. Man and woman hide secret lives from each other. They find out about the double lives. Man tries to kill woman. Woman kicks man in the gonads. Man and wife team up to kill bad guys.

I guess it was somewhat better than I expected, so go check it out at the matinee.

Its back to Lonelyville for me; Lori leaves for Fort Worth tomorrow, and then Washington State on Friday. PB&J sandwiches here I come! Actually, it will give me a chance to get back on my bike, but I’d much rather not get to ride and have her here than the other way around. (Lori you better be reading this!)

Lance is in the lead in le Tour, as I’m sure you all know. I watched part of stage 10 last night on the television, and man, those guys are insane athletes. I don’t think people really understand how hard it has to be riding up those inclines. Heck, I have a hard enough time with the ‘hills’ we have around here. Watching those guys go makes me want to go ride, or at least perform some form of physical exercise. They burn more calories in a day than I do in a week.

So my dad’s birthday was this past weekend. I feel horrible because I didn’t get a chance to call him on his big day, nor did I get to goto his birthday dinner. Hopefully someone took pictures of it, and if so, I’ll try to get them posted. Its funny how you don’t think about how great parents can be growing up, all you can see is how much they ‘hold you back’. Dad, if you ever read this, thank you so much for all that you did for me. Sure, working on the farm had its bad moments, but I catch myself missing it on the rough days at work. And mom, you’re not too bad yourself.

So its just past the first of the month, and time yet again for another update!

Just got back from Fort Worth, moving Lori into her new apartment. Note to self: Hire movers next time. Its not that it was that heavy, or that there was that much stuff, it was just so blazing HOT! I haven’t sweated that much since working on the farm, and thats been years! It wasn’t all bad though. We got to hang out with Josh on Friday night, and then the Daltons on Saturday night. Downtown Fort Worth is definitely a step up from downtown San Angelo.

For anyone that knows them, Matt and Bree are safe after the London bombings this past week. Matt has a nice post up about what all happened, from a personal perspective. In case you are wondering, yes he was a collegiate politician, and for a farmer, he writes perdy.

Work is steadily getting busier. We signed something like four new contracts last week, and by Tuesday, many new pieces of equipment had started arriving. With Kevin gone, this can only mean lots more work for Roger and I in the weeks to come.

I sorta found an old high school friend the other day. More specifically, I found her blog. Thats three Klondike graduates from the Class of ‘99 with a blog. (Myself included) It was encouraging to read about what her future plans could include and what God has been showing her through his Word.

Oh, and for anyone that happens to read this blog and is using the wp-scrobbler plugin for wordpress, please shoot me an email or leave a comment. As you can tell from the music section on the side of the page, I don’t have it working yet. After getting a CS degree and years of php programming you would think that I could fix it. So much for that piece of paper…