Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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On viruses and great support

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A little while ago, I got a tweet in response to one of my posts, letting me know that a reader’s protection software identified Attempts at Honesty as being infected with a virus. In checking on this, it was found to be true.

Thanks to the excellent support of Nate at Davis Services Group, we are back to a virus free status. The one piece of this that I can explain is that Nate switched to a different virus protection plugin. There are other things that he told me he did, that I don’t really understand so I won’t bother attempting to do so.

So, please accept my apology for any disruption that this caused you.

Summer is over already?

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Labor DayTraditionally, in the USA, Labor Day (the first Monday in September) marks the end of the summer vacation season. It is also the time when students go back to school and in this blogger get back to blogging.

We marked some significant events this summer.

We gained two sons-in-law this summer. In August, we had the privilege of seeing our two older daughters married to fine young men. Being of the male persuasion, I was less than enthusiastic about all the details leading up to the weddings (and requisite drama), but the weddings were wonderful events and I am happy for the new couples.

We also dropped our youngest daughter off for her first year of university study. It has been interesting to watch as she works through the process of discovering how her talents and desires relate to career choices (and selection of a major field of study).

We were able to tack on a few vacation days before and after the drop off, so we spent some time with our daughter and spend a few days decompressing after the very busy weeks that had just taken place.

So now I happily return to blogging. Hopefully, I am refreshed and ready for what God brings to us as we enter a new phase in life as empty nesters. It is still my plan to produce 2 or 3 posts per week which are designed to encourage you, the readers, to begin or deepen your relationship with God.

I hope you also had a great summer. Feel free to share some highlights from your summer in the comment section below. I’d love to hear about what is going on in your lives.

Have a great summer

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Have a great summer
Copyright: mearicon / 123RF Stock Photo

I started blogging in April of 2010. Over 600 posts have been published since the inception of Attempts at Honesty. Through the years, y’all have given me much encouragement to keep at it, encouragement for which I am grateful.

It is my intention to keep going, but circumstances are pushing me to take a break.

Between my day job, family obligations and ministry opportunities, it is shaping up to be a very busy summer. In thinking and praying about this, I have come to the conclusion that it is time to take a break from Attempts at Honesty. There is some hesitation on my part about doing this since blogging has become such an integral part of my life. But I am convinced that taking a break is the best thing to do right now.

Therefore, this will be my last post until September. Call it a vacation, call it a sabbatical, call it whatever you will, I will be taking a break.

I will maintain the functionality of the blog and respond to comments but I do not intend to write any new posts until September. If you follow me on Twitter, you will continue to get “from the archives” tweets.

One of the thoughts behind this is that I can spend time reading and studying without feeling the need to be writing a blog post. This will free me up to absorb, reflect and recharge. On the plus side, I will be gathering ideas for posts once I resume blogging in the fall.

So, there is nothing left for me to do but to wish you a great summer.

Let’s get back together in September.

I would be open to publishing guest posts while I am “away.” If you are interested in writing for Attempts at Honesty, please see the guest post guidelines.

Tinkering with Attempts at Honesty

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TinkeringIn an effort toward continuous improvement, I am constantly tinkering with the structure of Attempts at Honesty. Specifically, I want to make it easier for people to comment on posts. Over the years I have tried a variety of comment plugins. Disqus, Livefyre and Jetpack were some of the plugins that I have tried but they all felt short in one or both of two of these two ways:

  1. They slowed down the site. No-one wants to sit and watch a spinning icon waiting for the page to load.
  2. They made it more difficult to add a comment. Both Lifefyre and Disqus push you to obtain credentials in their proprietary systems.

As a result, I have gone back to the native WordPress comment system.

Not long ago, I found two new plugins that enhance the native WordPress system and add a couple of cool features. The plugins are called wpDiscuz and Super Socializer.

If you scroll down to the comment section below this post, you will see that you can log in using your Facebook, Twitter or Google+ ID. Or, you can simply add your name and email address and not log in. This simplifies the process of adding a comment.

In addition, if you like you can click on the “Facebook Comments” link and simultaneously add your comment to Attempts at Honesty and post it to your Facebook Page.

My point is not to bore you with the mechanics of how the blog is put together, but to point out that you have the opportunity to add your thoughts to what is presented in each post.

I hope that you find it easy to do so and I am excited to hear from you.

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