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Mon - July 5, 2004

one year on-line!

Hard to believe, but today is the one-year anniversary of this website. Since many of you were not reading yet back then, I'll re-post that first entry below. Last night was also full of very LOUD fireworks, and our new 2nd story apartment in the middle of Oakland put us (I'm fairly certain) in one of the most "active" areas. Meera wouldn't come out from under the bed most of the night.

I've found it really interesting keeping this online journal. Knowing that there were people from all over the world reading about my life . . . receiving mail from strangers who just happened to stumble across the site . . . Being reconnected with old friends who had no other way to find me . . .

Sometimes I really love the internet (and sometimes I don't!) but sometimes it really makes me smile when I see how something that seems so cold and unfeeling can actually bring people together and provide space in which relationships can grow. Really cool.

Anyway, here's a little bit of history:

Posted at 11:30 AM Read More

Mon - May 31, 2004

Back on the air

I'm back! Golly, it's been like three weeks since anybody has heard from me. I've been leaving some comments in the last message I posted, so I hope everybody knows that the website was just having technical difficulties. I had to upload my entire weblog file to the folks at iblog and get them to look at it for me. And finally, it looks like we're back.

Plenty to talk about, what with school ending, my summer job starting, the fall job search in full gear, and a vacation coming up at the end of this week. And I assure you that you will hear all about it.

But not right now. Right now, I have work to do . . .

Posted at 01:04 PM Read More

Thu - April 8, 2004

Searching for Baby Jessica

Back in November, I wrote an entry about the TV docudrama on the Jessica Lynch story. In it, I recalled the other "Jessica" this country has gone ga-ga over during my short lifetime. Baby Jessica. The one who fell down the big well and was rescued on national television.

Posted at 09:56 AM Read More

Tue - March 16, 2004

big day yesterday

Yesterday (Monday) was this site's most heavily visited day yet. About 175 different page views during the day. Exciting! I'm guessing it has to do with the wedding, but I can't really be sure. I noticed that someone found my website through a Google search on the words:

Mr. Neff gay wedding

Posted at 11:12 PM Read More

Wed - January 28, 2004

my favorite entries

Wasn't going to write tonight, as I've spent a few too many hours in front of this thing already, but I'm feeling a lot of peer pressure from the other blogs I read. (They all posted a bunch of new stuff today.) Besides that, it looks like I'm going to top 100 readers today. Makes me feel a little more responsible. Okay, fifty people reading me every day is one thing. But I don't think I could take down a hundred people in a fight if I had to (super-powers notwithstanding). So I better keep writing . . .

Posted at 11:26 PM Read More

Sat - January 17, 2004

teaching across the pond

An interesting post on Neil's website, "Teacher's Tales":

Blog helps to teach Religious Eductaion

At the moment in my year ten Religious Education lessons we're are covering the topic of War and Peace in preparation for their coursework.

Yesterday in the lesson we were discussing and brainstorming ways in which war affects civilians and the moral implications of this on war. During the lesson we had reached the point where we were exploring the economic factors in the affect the lives of civillians. And to be honest it seemed to be going over their heads and they were not engaging with it.

I then thought of something i'd seen on Doug's journal where he has a escalating counter for the current cost of the war in Iraq. So I pulled out out my computer and promptly loaded the page. This visual really helped them to get to grips with the potential economic problems faced by faced by after a war.

It was really great, I look forward to seeing their answers when I take them in today.

Thanks Doug.

Posted at 11:14 PM Read More

Mon - January 12, 2004

site trouble

Still adjusting to Panther's funny ways of dealing with the iDisk. Many of you probably found the site off-line today. Apologies. It seems to be working again, but I am clueless as to why. Let's just cross our fingers and hope it doesn't happen again.

Posted at 10:21 PM Read More

Sat - January 10, 2004

reading old entries

For those of you who maybe weren't reading, back in July when I started this thing, I've changed the archive format to make it easier to read old entries.

Posted at 04:26 PM Read More

Wed - December 17, 2003

Doug's Journal Turns 200

Yesterday's entry was the 200th in this journal. Wow. That's pretty cool. And, according to the Sitemeter, we just hit our 5000th visitor last week. This is almost a really big deal. I'm imagining scads of balloons being released into the sky, champagne corks popping, a toast being raised . . .

What, Mr. Neff? Oh, no, I wasn't sleeping. I was just . . . um . . . er . . . can I go to the bathroom?

Back to reality, I guess.

Posted at 07:12 AM Read More

Fri - December 5, 2003

commenting available

I've finished configuring Haloscan for my blog comments. At the bottom of each entry, you can now post comments which will appear in a thread for everyone to see. I'll keep the Shoutbox going (comments on the right) but I think this is a really nice way for people to interact and explore specific topics.

Happy Friday!

Posted at 12:39 PM Read More

Tue - November 18, 2003

growing pains

I'm feeling the need for some evolution on this site. It's gotten pretty big, with over 160 entries now, and nearing the 4000th visitor. Still tracking the most visitors from the East Coast:

Not sure how to account for that. More than double the amount of hits from the east coast than from anywhere else. Family's back east, and I know they read every night, but I have lots of friends (and students now) here in California reading along. Maybe Mom's doing a good job of spreading the word. Thanks, Mom!

Posted at 09:17 PM Read More

what's happening at muppet labs . . . er, I mean Google Labs

I was browsing around today, and I ended up at Google Labs, their showcase for experimental new features. Some really neat stuff here. One of the things that's really cool is just called Google Glossary. Somehow, those mad scientists at Google have tamed the web and forced it to spit out useful information. You type in a word, phrase, or acronym, and Google Glossary only returns definitions. Amazing!

Posted at 07:48 PM Read More

Tue - October 28, 2003

a reader from portland

One of these days I'm going to put together a world map and start tracking where all of my blog-reading pals come from. This came in today from Portland, Oregon:

Hi Doug,
My name is Bert and I live in Portland, OR. First of all, I just wanted to say you have a great website and I've enjoyed browsing it the last few minutes. I am actually starting work on my own weblog (haven't published it yet) and just wondered if you had any recommendations in terms of books or any other reference material you use. I am using iBlog thus far as it's free on .Mac. I'm also wondering how you've changed the template look and added your own touch. Finally, great post on Blood Donation and gay's. I have always felt the same, being gay myself and a healthcare professional. Anyway.....

Happy Halloween!

Bert L.

Posted at 10:56 PM Read More

Mon - October 20, 2003

Another chapter in the dsl saga

Well, my DSL technician came out today for one (hopefully) final installation trouble ticket. He was from Covad, and he was really great. Earthlink (my ISP) told me that it sounded like my DSL line would need to be hard-wired directly from the junction box under the house to the jack in my wall. Something about the house's phone wiring was causing too many problems with the signal.

"No problem," they said. "We'll send an engineer out to do it for you."

Posted at 10:24 PM Read More

Tue - October 14, 2003

thanks to michael

I've been trying to put that little photo (upper right-hand corner) up on the site for weeks and weeks. Every time I tried, though, I ended up with a small question mark on the screen instead. (Some of you may have even seen it.) So, a HUGE thank you goes out to Michael Stevens for helping me figure it out. Thanks, Michael! He is a librarian in South Bend, Indiana and he also teaches internet reference searching and HTML. (That's the language that all of this stuff is built on, Mom.)

Posted at 11:54 PM Read More

Wed - September 24, 2003

Some new additions to the site

A few interesting things have happened in the last week:

1.) This journal was read by the 1,000th person (or 1,000th time, depending on how you look at it). Yay!!!! If I knew exactly who it was that made the milestone click, I would award some kind of prize. A million dollars or something. But there's really no way to know . . .

Posted at 04:21 PM Read More

Fri - August 29, 2003

losing faith

Posts have been a little erratic lately. Sorry about that. DSL trouble still.

I remember a time when all of my technology just, well . . . worked. Not today. Today, I have more of it, yes, but less of it works. Today I have stuff that they used on Star Trek back then. Today, I have more computing power in my Palm Pilot than was used to put Neil Armstrong on the moon. Today, we're not sending bytes over the phone line like we did back then (when pages would load one letter at a time), we're sending information by the megabit.

Posted at 12:14 PM Read More

Fri - August 22, 2003

Time-and-Tide.com

Don't forget, everybody.

Posted at 01:52 PM Read More

Wed - August 20, 2003

new domain name

It's official. The new name for this site is:

http://www.Time-and-Tide.com

Posted at 12:18 PM Read More

Mon - August 18, 2003

the world gets smaller and our little community gets bigger!

This from someone who also read Black Sunday:

WOW, that brought back memories.
What a book! I remember reading it when I was (younger)...
Hope your teaching continues to give you joy.

Bye Mr Neff!

Chris Phillips

Posted at 09:54 PM Read More

Tue - August 5, 2003

Statistics for this Site

I really find it fascinating to read the statistics for this site. Over on the right side of your screen, you can click on the "site meter" icon and see the statistics page for your self. It looks like this:

Posted at 10:38 PM Read More

Fri - August 1, 2003

how to read old journal entries

Mom said she was having trouble finding old journal entries, so I thought I would take some time (while waiting for John and Leigh Ann to drag their lazy butts into the shower) to explain some of the ways to move around in this journal.

DOUG'S EASY-TO-UNDERSTAND JOURNAL NAVIGATION INSTRUCTIONS

Posted at 09:52 AM Read More

getBlogName(); > getCategoryName("C524296894");