No longer living here...

I have decided to move this blog under the banner of All About Chris Lowry, my personal website over at http://allaboutchris.co.uk. So now, check out the amazing All About Chris - The Blog, over at http://blog.allaboutchris.co.uk. I'll probably do a new style sheet at some point, but until then, the excellent Mystique theme should hold it.

Any new updates (of which there will be many!) are all over there now. So what are you waiting for...

Becoming beguiled.

I just spent 20 minutes trying to get a div to display pixel perfect on a website.

So simple, yet so pleasing (and frustrating). So I thought I would look for the right word to express it. I got it down to a runners up list of three:

Absorb: to involve the full attention of; to engross or engage wholly:so absorbed in a book that he did not hear the bell.
Captivate: to attract and hold the attention or interest of; to capture; subjugate.
Enthrall: to captivate or charm; to put or hold in slavery;

But my final selection is...

Got a little bit i love typography on you there. (Since you asked, the fonts used are MEgalopolis Extra and Cambria, all put together in Fireworks). Feel free to check out the hi res version on my flickr page, and remember to allow your interests to beguile you!

Just leave you with a link to a twitter friend of mine, Scott Williams. He is a pastor over in Northwest Oklahoma, and he is big on integrity, a shared interest. Check out his excellent blog over at http://bigisthenewsmall.com, which is just starting to feature guest bloggers on Fridays. Ah, I can but dream...

Peace,
x

Spicy Sweet Potato and Parsnip Soup

I decided to do a little Delia, and give you a recipe for an extremely tasty soup. I warn you I'm not big on exact quantities, I'm from the "chuck it in and stir" school.

This will make one big batch that will serve about 8 people, or more.

You will need:

• Parsnips - I used 3 big ones.
• Sweet Potatoes - I used 2 big ones.
• Some carrots, or potatoes, to add a bit of body, not affect the flavour and still be cheap - I used 5 carrots.
• Onions - I used 2 big ones.
  
• Vegetable stock cubes.
• Gravy granules.
• Mixed Herbs - 1 table spoon.
  
• Cumin - 2 table spoons.
  
• Coriander - 2 table spoons.
  
• Chilli Powder - 1 table spoon.
• Few cloves of garlic.
  
• A load of butter.
  

The recipe:

1. Get a big pan, with a lid, on a low heat. Chuck all the butter in.
   
2. Peel the sweet potatoes, the parsnips and the carrot/potatoes. Chop them, the onions and the garlic into smallish bits.
3. Put all the chopped veg into the pan. Stir it occasionally, replacing the lid between stirs, and just let it "sweat" in the butter for ten minutes. You aren't trying to cook it, just make the vegetables sweat. My mum taught me this, and it's golden - makes everything taste better. 
4. You should also add all your herbs and spices at this point. Careful with the chilli powder - I use mild chilli powder, and more of it, because I love the taste of chillies, but don't necessary need the burn.
   
5. Whilst that's going, prepare about 2 litres of stock. Chuck loads of stock cubes in, and a good load of gravy, leaving you a slightly thickened brown juice.
6. After 10 minutes, pour the stock into the pan, and bring the mixture up to boiling point, stirring it frequently. 
7. Once its reached boiling point, you can turn the heat down a bit, and just cook it for about 10 minutes, stirring it well.
8. Using a hand blender (if you like smooth soup), blend it now, or just leave it lumpy.
9. If the soup is too thick for you, or you want it to go further, add more stock.
   

Serve with bread. You can butter the bread if you want. The best option is probably rolls, warmed up in the oven.

Enjoy!

A Bad Dog...

My wife just sent me this message about discovering the dogs had been through the Christmas presents under the tree. I thought it was amusing enough to share.

"I heard something move downstairs. Thinking it might be the postman, I went downstairs (knowing I hadn't heard the gate), but instead I found Pudding acting very mysteriously, Heze looking away from me, and a box that had been moved and a licked truffle on the floor (I had to check it wasnt a small poo)."

Social Media... the down sides?

The biggest problem I have with social media, by which I mean twitter, facebook, digg and the like, is that it doesn't adhere to a law of nature; that in life, there is a trade off between quality and quantity.
 
Take Terry Pratchett. To be fair, his illness makes him less able to be active, but still, I try to read his blog, follow his tweets, but he makes little impact. Yet, his books are some of the best. Or another author, James Herriot is dead! This makes it difficult for him to update his twitter account. And in this, has less value. Is this right?

Secondly, surely the point of "social" media is relationships? Does Steven Fry feel he has a relationship with the 54,284 people he follows? A quick look at his feed would see that it is perhaps suffocated by a majority of non relational posts. Does social media put us into a false sense of relationship? I have over 600 friends on facebook; many of whom did not get invited to my wedding. Because I don't know them.

Thirdly, social media is daunting. Incredibly so. Let alone marvelling at the glory of God's creation, just try following 500 people on twitter, and you can be overwhelmed with a tiny percentage of the creative power of just a sample of the world! How many articles are there of the 108 best articles, 80 best accounts, best 1000 logos, etc.

My worry is that this is making me appreciate text less. I will happily read a newspaper article about the changing etiqette within muslim schools in indonesia, yet I am less inclined to read a really well written music review about a band that may well interest me, online. Yes, that's a personal behaviour, but also a factor of the overwhelming availability of text, photos, music, video and other stuff.

Anyway, I'll leave it with that, and a link to visit - My friend Rich Wells (who I 'know' mostly through social media hehe) is creating a wonderful series of illustrations. Check them out at http://richwells.posterous.com!

xC

Complaints and completions

So, what have I been upto recently? I'm in the process of making a new font, called "Chirpy", coming soon. You can visit my new sites, built with the awesome Maft, as part of our web design company Salt and Light Solutions. They are:

• JirehDecor.co.za - a home decor website, based in South Africa. One half built from scratch, with a Colorbox separating the two halves, and an OpenCart powered store, with advanced templating from Maft, and image replacement from the awesome Cufon - check the changelog page, I get a mention!
  
• Senior Volunteers Network - over at svnet.org, this is a Christian volunteering organisation for retired teachers. Built open the excellent WordPress, with the less excellent templating system, it has been a pleasure to work with these guys.

Aside from this, I'm going through some issues at med school, with my last meeting stating that they think I have a behavioural disorder, possibly on the Autism spectrum. So I did the (fairly) official Autism Spectrum Quotient test. Its out of 50. An autistic person would get above 32 (80% sensitivity). A normal person would get 16. I got 13. Not sure if I agree with the diagnosis so far then...

My greatest complaint triumph also occurred today. Thanks to my dad, I'm a great writer of complaint letters. We had a shoddy installation experience with Northern Gas - don't use them. Despite photographic evidence, and written proof that their installers had lied, they spent 17 months ignoring my complaints, refusing to accept liability, and not honouring our five year guarantee. And then, today, I recieved this letter. Feels good.

Finally, my lovely wife bought me a ridiculously large headed (but quite cute) dog to sit on my computer. Ah, bless.

My first psalm

And here we have my first ever psalm. I found this very helpful to write. I hope it blesses you as it has me.

^{A psalm of praise
1}Praise God!
²Hold your circumstances up to Him, trust in His purpose for you, and use His grace to surrender your life to Him.
³When times are hard, when people, situations and emotions are overwhelming you, Praise God!
⁴When times are good, when happiness, wealth and community surround you, Praise God!
⁵When you don't know what to do...
⁶lift up your arms,
⁷lift up your voice,
⁸lift up your heart,
⁹Praise the Lord!