Seems like every time I read about someone doing a Wordpress upgrade, it’s never a good experience. Perhaps that’s because nobody posts about upgrades that go smooth. Well, that’s what happened for me. I’d never upgraded, and decided to do so recently. It went fine, with the only issue being that a plugin or two no longer worked.

I’d been wanting to change templates anyway and add/modify/remove various plugins, so I decided to just keep this site down for a while until I found something new and modified it to my liking. It’s not the ideal, and it’s not even significantly different from my last one (I had to stay with 3-columns), but it will do. If I really had the time, I’d like to create one from scratch, but I don’t have the time and am probably not creative enough to do so anyway. So, this is what it will be for a while. I’m still making a few changes here and there, including still evaluating some plugins and doing something about the image at the top (either replacing it or removing it), but it’s in decent enough shape to open back up, so to speak.

School started back up for my daughter last Wednesday. She’s now in third grade, which just doesn’t seem possible. Resuming our school schedule means a number of things for our family, but the most unfortunate for me is rising early again. I’ve enjoyed sleeping in as much as an extra hour some days and going in to work a little later. No more, as I drive my daughter each morning. This morning was the first Monday, and it actually went better than I thought. Although, I didn’t sleep well last night and I started feeling the effects mid-afternoon.

That reminds me: an update on my summer reading - I’ve done a miserable job. I posted a few months ago regarding the books I hoped to read over the summer. Unfortunately, work has picked up for me significantly during the last few months as I began working on a couple of big projects, and so extra hours and just general mental fatigue curbed my desire to read as often. Of the nine books I had on the list, I’ve only finished three of them, and those were the ones I was partially through at the time I posted. I did, however, read one additional book (Hemant Mehta’s I Sold My Soul On eBay : Viewing Faith through an Atheist’s Eyes), and plan to comment on that in the near future. The lack of time has also contributed to less frequent posting here, and that will likely be the norm at least until the end of the year.

Instead of reading, I’ve been finding myself more inclined to watch a little television when I have a few minutes at home. I have been digging the USA Network this summer. The new episodes of Monk have been entertaining as usual, but as much as I love the show, I feel it has probably run it’s course. I still like watching it, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much more they can do. I’ve also enjoyed watching the second season of Psych as well, which airs after Monk on Fridays. I didn’t watch much of it last year, but have really loved it this year. I’ll have to check out season one. And, of course, as I mentioned before, I really like Jeffrey Donovan’s new series, Burn Notice. Apparently, it’s been renewed for a second season, so I was glad to see that.

These days I’m also spending some time learning new music as well. My wife and I began singing with our church’s worship team the past two weeks. We had done so for a number of years at previous churches, but it was Fall 2004 when I last sang with our worship team in Huntsville. I decided to take a break for a while, and then not long after that I started looking for a job and ended up back here in Arkansas and at an instrumental church. So, I have really enjoyed the acappella worship team experience again, after having a three year break.

And, speaking of music, I’m ecstatic that the new Josh Ritter disc - The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter - is due out tomorrow. Get it.