Last week saw a milestone pass in our house: AJ enjoyed his very first last day of his very first year of schooling. He has now officially "graduated" kindergarten.

We are very proud.

[Blah, blah, blah — skip Rich's philosophizing,
and go straight to the podcast!]

Never having parented before, and having no memories of Kindergarten myself (I never went, scofflaw that I am), I didn't realize there was actually liturgy for Kindergarten graduation. Maybe this is something we only do here in the Midwest. Or maybe it happens all over the world and I've been clueless for 39 years. Probably the latter.

I think milestones are important to celebrate — even if there's no real par-tay and spiked beverages involved. I mean, we really don't do these things well in

These are a few of the things I've recently found interesting, but don't have the time to properly blog on. I don't necessarily like or agree with the links here, I just think they're interesting. And just in case you do, too, enjoy.

(You can view past Del.icio.us links here or subscribe to my Del.icio.us feed here. )

Found yesterday on the AG-NEWS announcement list:

AG News wants to know if podcasts of sermons/messages by the local church is widespread.

Take the short AG News poll and let us know! Click here to begin...

I took the poll.

I listen to a lot of sermons and other spoken word content on my PocketPC. I load it up each week with chocolaty goodness and fill my mind while commuting the two hours I spend driving each day.

Here's to hoping the A/G decides to promote podcasting by the local church. Though, not every church needs to (or should) podcast, it would be good to get some of our better preachers more exposure.

Meanwhile, check out my good friend John Abela's online audio initiative for A/G preachers at:

Update: I've added Jennifer's account of AJ's first day in the comments section, for the interested.

Today we sent our little boy to school for the first time. Nobody wept. There was no gnashing of teeth, wailing, or sack-cloth and ashes. On our part, anyhow. Instead, we were excited to see AJ off to a new adventure in his life, one that promises whole new rafts of friends, future sleepovers, new books to read, realms of knowledge to acquire, and numerous — I repeat ... numerous — parent-teacher conferences down the road.

He's not angry, just surprised and squinting into the Sun. Or maybe he's just part Ferengi.

Every parent believes their child to be the brightest bulb in the firmament — with the possible exception of overachieving, insecure parents who vicariously live through their childen, ever suspecting and fearing that their child will prove to be as colossal a failure as they imagine themselves to be.

Not us. AJ is not only bright, he is certifiably bright, even if nobody believes us the first time we warn them — err — inform them. My Bride and are enomously proud of our son (when we're not enormously vexed by his impulse-control), and I've already been justifiably corrected by my son on many observations I've made. The days are few until he truly knows more about things than I do and I become the student. Nevertheless, I hope to remain in service as his father, mentor, and guide — even through High School.

After two weekend-long video-editing sessions we finally went live with the new online training course anticipating the Da Vinci Code film opening next week on the 19th. It’s called “Da Vinci Code Conversations,” and it's intended to give viewers a brief, birds-eye-view of the major contentions in Dan Brown's novel and — presumably — the film.

Not having screened the film, everybody is guessing as to how much of the book’s more controversial elements made it into the screenplay, but we’re pretty sure it will involve the major highlights of this course since the plot largely depends on it:

• Emperor Constantine was a lifelong pagan who fabricated Christ’s divinity at the Council of Nicaea in order to further his political ambition.
• Virtually everybody knew Christ was a mere mortal until Constantine cooked up this divinity myth at Nicaea.
• Christ was married to

I’m popular on the Web! Well, maybe I’m just popular on Garrick Van Buren’s website. Or, maybe I’m just popular on one podcast on one podcaster’s show coming out of a small home in Minnesota that is redolent of freshly roasted coffee.

I had the pleasure of spending over an hour on Skype with Garrick of the “First Crack Podcast,” talking about his show, podcasting, the Internet, and more. It was a great conversation, and I’m looking forward to listening to his half-hour condensation our our hour-plus conversation.

I just had to say that now, before listening to the show, because I really enjoyed the conversation, and didn’t want to sully my good feelings with that sense of “Aargh! He left out the best part!” <grin> Garrick’s a good guy, and he has an interesting show, in my opinion. I frequently enjoy the

For all who were in last week’s open house, and for those who missed it, here are the little mini-presentations I gave regarding the future of this class.

For anybody else familiar with this site, this is my “boss blog” for the folks taking the Believer’s Life Institute classes at Calvary Chapel. Feel free to listen in and enjoy. But if this bores you, sorry.

Don’t have much to say on this first post except that we’re planning to talk a lot about Heaven and Hell over the next six or seven weeks. The next class will feature a video: The Search for Heaven. Here’re my open house talks.

[audio:http://tatumweb.com/blog/wp-content/mp3/bli-hh-01a-open-house.mp3]
[audio:http://tatumweb.com/blog/wp-content/mp3/bli-hh-01b-open-house.mp3]
[audio:http://tatumweb.com/blog/wp-content/mp3/bli-hh-01c-open-house.mp3]

You can also download them here, here, and here.

[tags]BlogRodent, podcast, heaven, hell, heaven-and-hell, mp3, doctrine, theology, afterlife, death[/tags]

When you’re four years old you can’t walk away from the chocolatey goodness that is an Oreo cookie. And there’s nothing better than a crisp Oreo dunked in cold glass of pristine milk--especially when you’re only four and a half years old. Well, perhaps reading while dunking Oreos might improve the experience. And you definitely should be relaxed, perhaps even seated.

So what happens when one is simultaneously relaxing his posterior, reading a good book in the best-lit room in the house, and dunking cream-filled discs of manna? Odds are, something will fall into the porcelain catch-all which supporting that tired derierre.

Hear why AJ was found brushing his teeth after experiencing an Oreo baptism I only shudder to imagine.

[audio:http://tatumweb.com/blog/wp-content/mp3/ajs-oreo-08-28-05.mp3]

(Or download the file, here.)

[tags]BlogRodent, podcast, kids, children, oreos, weird[/tags]