Welcome to my new home! Please feel free to have a look around and check out the changes I’ve made to the site. Also, feel free to leave some comments with impressions about the design or anything else. Finally, sit back as I relate the answer to your deepest, most burning question: “Why does that silly Jonathan Lipps need a new blog design every few months?” Well, the short of it is, after a year and a half with Blogger, I decided that our relationship really wasn’t working out anymore. Now enter Movable Type, with whom I flirted earlier this summer in helping Jason to re-make his weblog. Since then, I’ve been dreaming of switching over myself, and have just been waiting for the perfect opportunity. ...

the past few weeks have been so indigestably full of innumerable activities, there’s no way i can relate most of what’s happened recently. but that’s ok, since neither you nor i would care to read about it anyway. the short of it is i am back at stanford amidst the busiest quarter of my career (so far). i’ve got classes more or less settled on, and enough homework to make me procrastinate. but like i said, that’s not really interesting. ...

it’s been a good summer, but it’s time for it to end. yesterday i went through with my annual ritual of going to cocoa beach alone in the morning before the start of fall quarter. the past 3 years it’s been a brief moment of peace and relaxation within which i can focus and ask for god’s blessing on the coming year. this year was no different, and i feel as prepared as ever (which, incidentally, is not very prepared) for autumn quarter. ...

oh yeah, i’m going to england for a week! see you later.

every day at work, i go into the break room, on average, three or four times. usually it’s to refill my 16-ounce styrofoam cup with the refreshing, ice cold water from the cooler. other times it might be to cook up a delicious rice bowl (“poke through plastic cover. microwave on high for 5 minutes. let stand for 1 minute. for best flavor, stir before eating”). i’ll even make the occasional cup of coffee. ...

altimar is this weekend. now, in fact. altimar. AL-tih-mar (or, optionally, AL-tuh-mar). it’s a word to strike awe into the hearts of all who hear it. it is a good word, and it betokens connotations of sun, sand, and the beauty of friendship. of course, it is a made up word (one which, however, has entered into quite common usage in some circles). some might think that it is derived from the latin/spanish “alt”, signifying height or tallness or greatness. others might think that the phoneme “mar” is likewise derived from latin/spanish, and must therefore impart information about the sea. given the fact that altimar is indeed great/awesome, and given its necessary connection to the ocean, these etymological guesses would seem to be right on. unfortunately, they are wrong. “altimar” is derived from no previously existing words and relies neither on any for its meaning. ...

[note: this text is compiled from charred fragments of the extraordinary diary of an english expatriate gentleman, monsieur roger choltham, who perished from the earth, along with his house and possessions, in 1749. his residence in the countryside near avignon caught flame in the middle of the night on july 31st and burned nearly to the ground. because of the distance at which mssr. choltham lived from the nearest villages, the tragedy was not noticed until the following day, as is chronicled in sorgues’ town log. all the people from these villages wondered at the event, just as they had always wondered what the englishman’s business was in france. none, however, felt the need to mourn choltham’s passing, for he had been somewhat of a recluse, living without matron or maid or heir in his house, which could better have been called a mansion. and besides, his french was not so good. a cursory search was made of the debris before the property was cleared and auctioned to one mssr. desruisseaux, who had always thought it a shame choltham had let the fields about his house lay fallow. choltham’s body was never found, but this is the nature of fires. as for the diary, it was burned in a very curious fashion, such that all entries before what appears to be the last, july 25th, disintegrated upon touch, but july 25th itself was preserved with little damage. it is presented here, reconstructed where necessary by myself and my colleagues at oxford. - N. Rochinauld, ed.] ...

i recently helped my friend jason give his blog a new feel. you should check it out. i also updated the sidebar. sorry, nothing else interesting is happening.

in roughly chronological order: 1. i got a new electric guitar! it’s a carlo robelli ush-500hb, and it is beautiful and cool. (and, i will be using it to play the first splendour hyaline show ever, tomorrow night!) 2. i started playing ultimate frisbee again. dav and i have been going out sunday afternoons to a place in lake nona. it’s good to run around and throw the disc, and occasionally make a spectacular play. competition is always pretty good! ...

sunday morning we woke up and got ready to go to church. aiko fukuda, sans takashi (who was gone on a business trip), took us to their church, a small but beautifull built church within walking distance. we sat through the service, not really comprehending much of anything, until an american missionary working there came over and started interpreting for us. after the message (which was surprisingly original and something i wish i remembered now…), my dad actually got up in front of the church and talked about why he was involved with wycliffe bible translators (they all knew takashi was), and how just about anybody with any skillset can take part in the work. after that we had lunch at the church, where i met several younger people, all girls, between the ages of 18-24. i answered their questions when i could understand what they were asking, and had a pretty good time. although, they all liked to giggle a lot. after that, i was invited by several people to “sports day”, which is primarily for younger kids through high-school-aged kids. since i had nothing else to do, i went with them to a gym for the afternoon, where kids of all ages were divided up into two teams, and where we played vicious rounds of volleyball, dodgeball, soccer, and aerobic dance (yeah, you should have seen that last one). ...