David Ancell / Thursday, October 28, 2010 / Comments(0)
The next episode of the podcast is available: Download it here
In this episode . . .
Last weekend, my wife and I made a day-long pilgrimage to a couple of monasteries:
Our Lady of the Angels Monastery
Also, with Advent approaching, take note of a certain disclaimer in your missalettes and hymnals, if your parish uses the annual editions. The companies are trying to tell you it’s illegal and immoral to use them next year. Check out this article on the same subject from last year.
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Sunday, October 10, 2010 / Comments(0)
The first podcast is finally here! I’m just introducing the podcast and then giving a little tech talk on the end.
If you want to subscribe, you can use either the RSS feed or the iTunes link.
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Wednesday, October 06, 2010 / Comments(0)
Recently, I got an e-mail advertisement about a study on Scripture taking place at a parish in North Carolina where we used to live. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. It said in the description that modern scholars seek to distinguish religious truth from historical or scientific truth. After spending a lot of time in Memphis hanging around orthodox Catholics who used good study materials, I really thought that this kind of thinking was passe. Then again, this particular parish had a way of bursting my bubble which ultimately resulted in my refusing to go back.
If, for example, the resurrection of Our Lord isn’t historically true, then there is no need to believe in him. In fact, there’s really not much point in studying Scripture. While it’s true that there are truths that can be known in different ways, there isn’t a contradiction between them. Something is either true or not, and what’s true is true.
David Ancell / Wednesday, October 06, 2010 / Comments(0)
So far, I’m two and a half weeks in to the new job and really glad to be there. I knew a number of people there before I started, so I’m not a complete stranger. Now that I’m on day shift, I’m awake enough that I can get something out of listening to podcasts, so I’ve been doing that during my commute. Nashville traffic is very unpredictable, so the length of a podcast is ideal for keeping me informed and entertained.
Speaking of podcasts, this brings me to what I really want to blog about. I have decided to try to podcast again. It will be a work in progress, and I don’t know how often I’ll post episodes. I picked out music beds. Soon, I hope to start recording. The episodes will be posted within this blog as their own category. Some RSS software will generate a feed in case someone wants to download this from podcast software. This should be fun!
Category: News on My Life
David Ancell / Saturday, September 18, 2010 / Comments(0)
It seems I have fallen behind on blogging again. It has been really busy. I’ve been pretty tired during several weeks of night shift, but fortunately, it’s all over now. My wife and I moved to Nashville two days ago. I will be starting a new job on Monday that will be regular daytime hours. Meanwhile, much has happened that I could blog about. We just began our church search officially tonight. We are actually going to another church tomorrow to check it out.
Category: News on My Life
David Ancell / Wednesday, July 07, 2010 / Comments(0)
The Curt Jester Jeff Miller, on his Twitter feed (which I retweeted), linked this heavily-commented blog post from First Things. For some reason, this has been a favorite topic for me. I let it go for a while until I moved to North Carolina, where the music I heard brought it all back to me again. It was the inspiration for my post back in March on what makes a good hymn for Mass. Anyway, I agree with some of the post, but not all of it.
I’ve never heard Sons of God, Hear His Holy Word. For some reason, I don’t mind Sing a New Song at all, and, while I don’t care for On Eagle’s Wings or We Remember one bit, I know of far worse things that we could be singing. They actually left out several worse one like Ashes, which I believe should be number one because it is outright heresy.
Then again, maybe Sing a New Church deserves the top spot. I can’t think of any reason other than someone’s agenda that would prompt the use of that hymn. I didn’t even know that there was really a hymn with that name until I moved to North Carolina. I went to a vigil Mass, still very cranky from having worked night shift, and this was the gathering song . . . oh, excuse me, opening hymn. You can imagine how cranky I was during Mass.
Let’s not forget the self-congratulatory Anthem where we sing about being called and chosen to a tune similar to “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain When She Comes.” How many people reading this have heard of the song Jerusalem, My Destiny? It was sung several times during Lent, and I had no idea what we were singing.
One string that goes through most bad hymns is that they are too complicated for congregational singing and too high pitched for someone like me who can’t register on the treble clef. If this isn’t dealt with, you can just forget about active participation in the singing of the hymns. Fortunately, there are better hymns that have literally been available for centuries.
Category: Liturgy
David Ancell / Sunday, July 04, 2010 / Comments(0)
I just have to post because I’m finding some humor in the fact that my post that says I will delete any spam comments is getting spam comments. Of course, they are being thrown in the spam bucket and later deleted.
Category: Technology
David Ancell / Wednesday, June 23, 2010 / Comments(0)
I posted my review of the Droid here a couple of months ago, and now my use of the Droid has expanded a lot. I’m actually amazed at what I have found for the Android operating system and what has been made available in the last couple of months. Android is becoming a formidable competitor to the iPhone. I’m not so much interested in it being an iPhone killer as I am having the competition help each other to be better.
I’ve gotten into the world of streaming audio with Pandora. Unfortunately, it’s a battery hog that I can’t use for long without plugging in the phone. Still, it works great over 3G. Just recently, there has been an application for Sirius/XM Radio. Now, I have my EWTN radio on the go! If you are an XM subscriber, you’ll need to look on the Sirius XM site to get the app. It will work for XM just as well as I no longer have my Sirius subscription. I had been waiting for this app for as long as I’ve had my phone, especially since there has been an iPhone app available for some time.
On another note, one of my concerns about switching to Android is that my pharmacist references wouldn’t be available. Thankfully, this wasn’t an issue. You can get ePocrates from the Android market, but it is in beta and isn’t receiving clinical updates according to the company. The folks at Lexi were nice enough to move my subscription from a Palm version to the Android version without charging me. They didn’t have the Lexi Calc clinical calculations at first, but they have since added them.
Now, the only thing that is missing is a program like Pocket Quicken. As I blogged earlier, Intuit, in what has to be my least favorite business decision of 2010, discontinued it. No, the handheld version of Mint is not an acceptable substitute. I want something I can update and reconcile with bank records. I have yet to see an equivalent competitor to Quicken produce an Android version either.
Android is growing by leaps and bounds, and I am ready to see what comes next.
Category: Uncategorized
David Ancell / Tuesday, June 22, 2010 / Comments(0)
For some reason, I’ve been wanting to try Twitter for some time. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to do with it, but I seem to have long been known to try something first and then find a use for it later. I am finding that this might be an easy way to send out my blog posts as well as other article I like. I haven’t yet decided if I want to let it update my Facebook status as there are some things that I may tweet that I don’t really want as a status. I’ll probably mix in a few things about what I’m doing in between. I’ll post more about how I like it once I have played with it more. One thing I notice is that it seems to be down a lot. Hopefully, that’s just a temporary issue.
Category: Technology
David Ancell / Monday, June 21, 2010 / Comments(0)
My wife and I would see the large statue of Jesus known as “Touchdown Jesus” when we drove between Dayton and Cincinnati. Sad to say, it was struck by lightning and burned. Here’s another article. I hope they rebuild it because I liked seeing it on the road side.
Just before our first date, my wife sent me this picture showing the statue being just right to be part of the Ohio State cheer. I must admit I missed it the first time I drove through. Oh well, I saw it later.
Category: Uncategorized