Did I Mention How Much I Like Amazon.com?

17 Thursday Jan 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Uncategorized

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I mentioned in a previous post how much I like Amazon.com. Well, I just noticed another thing I love about amazon, but forgot to mention. Yesterday I wrote a brief post about Dan Kimball’s book They Like Jesus But Not the Church. In that post I mentioned that I noticed some connections between They Like Jesus and UnChristian by Kinnaman and Lyons. To be honest, I was thinking to myself as I wrote it, this is pretty perceptive… way to make these astute observations (patting myself on the back as I think this)…

But this morning I brought amazon up on a tab, and noticed that They Like Jesus is the most recent book I have viewed. It said “What do customers buy after viewing this item?” 68% buy They Like Jesus But Not the Church, 16% buy UnChristian, and 6% buy Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren. I love the way amazon is constantly connecting you to other books that are out there. And it just so happens to be genius on their part because it means they are constantly encouraging (tempting?) you to buy more books! (By the way, this also was a humbling experience because it thoroughly demonstrates that connecting They Like Jesus with UnChristian is an obvious connection that many people are making. So, sorry for my banal observations yesterday…)

Why I Love Amazon

12 Saturday Jan 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Uncategorized

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amazon.com

I love amazon.com. I know I am a pawn in their evil consumerist schemes, but I find myself using amazon.com more and more. Here are some of the things I like about amazon.com.

Great prices on new books and if you spend more than $25 the shipping is free.
Excellent inventory and a centralized place to find books to link to in blog posts.
The way that you can use it as a research tool for books in an area. When you look up one book that you know is a good example of what is out there on a certain topic, amazon will list several other books that are related. Of course they do this in the hopes that you will buy even more books, and I sometimes do! But I have found it to be a very helpful way to get quick general surveys of the literature available on a certain topic.
The ability to create a wish list to keep track of books that I want to read in the future. You can rank each book based on the priority level that you want to read it. The rationale for this is similar to the rationale for using del.icio.us, because you can have access to it anywhere you can get on a computer. Plus, other people can find your amazon wish list and buy stuff for you. If you want to see an example of a wish list, or keep up with the books that I am interesting in reading at some point you can check out my amazon wish list here.

What about you? Are there any other uses that you have found for amazon.com or sites like it?

Full disclosure: Amazon.com did not pay me any money to write this post. (But if anyone from amazon.com out there wants to send me a gift card, I would definitely be open to that!)

First 5 Books of 2008

04 Friday Jan 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Uncategorized

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2008, Books to Read, First 5 Books of 2008

I have already shared my Top 5 Books of 2007. Here are the 5 books I am most looking forward to reading in 2008:

And it just so happens that I got all five of these books for Christmas! Lucky me.

If you are interested you can find a list of books that I don’t have that I am hoping to read eventually here.

What books are you really looking forward to reading?

Top 5 Books of 2007

03 Thursday Jan 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Uncategorized

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I know I am a bit late for 2007 year in review reflections. However, I need to do something to get my mind of the embarrassment that OU suffered in its blowout loss to West Virginia last night. (Seriously, what was that onside kick in the 3rd quarter about?) So, I am focusing on something pleasant this morning, the five best books I read in 2007. Here they are:

What were the 5 best books you read in 2007?

Back into the Swing of Things

01 Tuesday Jan 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Uncategorized

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I had a great Christmas and was blessed to get to spend time with both sides of my family. It was also a bit tiring as we were on the go quite a bit. I started to post some of my thoughts about 2008, but for some reason my editor keeps removing all of the indents and line spaces that are normally automatic. I was starting to get very frustrated. So, I am changing pace and will just say that I am looking forward – after a nice break – to getting back into the swing of things.

I will try again tomorrow, and hope that the blogging gremlins have gone away. Hope your 2008 is off to a great start!

The True Meaning of Christmas – According to Linus

24 Monday Dec 2007

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Charlie Brown, Christmas, Linus, true meaning of Christmas

I wanted to share with you my favorite sound bite about the true meaning of Christmas. Sometimes you just can’t say it any better than Linus, especially when he is just citing Scripture! I seriously love this clip.

I hope you will watch it with my best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.

Performance Enhancing Feeds

21 Friday Dec 2007

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Del.icio.us, Digg, feeds, Stumbleupon

With all the talk lately about performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) in baseball, I got to thinking: What can I do to give my blog a competitive edge? That’s when I saw wordpress’s announcement – Enhanced Feeds liven up your feed. I learned that you can now digg my posts, you can stumble upon them, or you can simply recognize how deli.icio.us they are! This also brought back to my mind a post I had skimmed about how one blogger started getting tons of traffic simply by being stumbled upon.

In the interest of fully disclosure, I am not really sure yet that I really understand what any of this means, but all the cool blogs have them. I guess that kind of goes back to the steroids mentality, if everybody else is doing it… You should check out digg it, stumbleupon, and del.icio.us. Digg is “a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web.” StubleUpon “discovers web sites based on your own interests, learns what you like and brings you more.” Del.icio.us is “a social bookmarks manager.” Based on my very limited experience stumble is pretty fun if you just have time to kill and are wanting to browse random but interesting sites. Del.icio.us is actually the one I think has the most potential benefit for me to personally use. Digg and Stumble seem more like ways that you can bring traffic to my blog by clicking on them. So, by all means digg, stumle, and del.icio.us this post. Who knows, maybe it will be the most popular post I have ever written…

Are any of you familiar with these? If you use them, which do you particularly like and how do they help you?

(Oh, and in case you missed the sarcasm, let me explicitly state that I in no way support the steroids culture of baseball. And for the record, my blog is clean and has never failed a performance enhancing feed test.)

Astros Trade 5 for Miguel Tejada

12 Wednesday Dec 2007

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Uncategorized

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Astros, baseball, MLB, Tejada

You may not have figured this out yet, but I am a huge Houston Astros fan. Last season was a very painful one, other than the thrill of watching Craig Biggio pad his Hall of Fame resume. (I got to see him play one last time in Houston, which was a blast.)Today the Houston Astros made a huge trade for Miguel Tejada. Here is the trade. The Astros get Miguel Tejada. The Orioles get: Luke Scott, Troy Patton, Matt Albers, Dennis Sarfate, and Mike Costanzo. I have to say I really don’t know what to make of this trade. It seemed obvious that we were going to trade Luke Scott, but I am very surprised that Patton was a part of the deal, since we are a) desperate for pitching and b) he seemed to be the consensus best pitching prospect in our system.It is also somewhat shocking to me to notice how dramatically different our lineup will be from last year. So far, 2 (yes TWO) of last year’s starting 8 offensive players will be starting on opening day, and one of them was making his first start as a Houston Astro (they are Lance Berkman and Carlos Lee). I guess now that Biggio and Bagwell are gone it is starting to sink in more that the Astros really are like any other team, with a constantly changing lineup.I have no idea what people will say about this trade in two years after Tejada has played as an Astro, and is a free agent again. If he produces and helps the Astros contend again, it could be seen as a huge success. If he is mediocre and some of those prospects pan out, I think there is the potential that this could go down as one of the worst trades in baseball history. Not saying that it will, just that it could. Here is one interesting, and funny, take on this trade.Here’s hoping that it works out great for my Astros!

Saint Paul Announces D.Min. track in Wesleyan Spirituality

11 Tuesday Dec 2007

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Uncategorized

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Saint Paul School of Theology has recently announced a D.Min. track that will start in January of 2009 in Wesleyan Spirituality, Leadership, and Church Renewal. I was excited to see that Dr. Henry H. Knight III will be one of the lead faculty for the track. Knight has authored two excellent books that are directly related to this track: Eight Life-Enriching Practices of United Methodists and Transforming Evangelism: The Wesleyan Way of Sharing Faith (with F. Douglas Powe, Jr.).

The description of the program looks very good. You can check out the full program flyer here.

I am excited to see Saint Paul doing something like this.

Have any of you heard any more about this program?

Does My Blog Have the Flu? Please help!

11 Tuesday Dec 2007

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Uncategorized

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I am in over my head. I try not to focus on stats and traffic too much or for the wrong reasons. But, it bothers me when it seems like something could be wrong that is affecting my blog’s ability to communicate effectively. I have wondered for more than a month if something is not right. My subscription rate on feedburner is very low, and when it goes up it usually drops back down again quickly within 24 hours. My info on technorati is often messed up too. I just checked my blog on technorati and my authority had gone down, the latest posts category was not in chronological order, and often the most recent incoming links come and go (i.e. sometimes they are there, sometimes they are not). I have a feeling something is not right with my feed, but I have no idea what it would be or how I would fix it if it were…

Please help! For those of you who are much more tech-savvy than I am, if you have any advice, suggestions, anything… I would appreciate it. Or, if in looking at my blog, you determine that everything is working exactly as it should and I am just not getting very much traffic, at least then I can shake this feeling that something is wrong.

Thanks for your help.