I love eccentric cover songs and what better way to start a series of these than with Enter Sandman by Metallica played on a banjo?

Sitting here in lovely Dodgeville, WI with the temperature at 2 degrees Fahrenheit and a windchill of -10 degrees Fahrenheit, what else could my thoughts turn to than global warming? As I am sure is true of many of us in the Upper Midwest, I am quite keen on the idea of global warming. I want some global warming. The problem is that I'm not seeing any. None, nada, zip.

And it would seem that I am not imagining this lack of blazingly warm temperatures. Here are a few headlines that I saw linked from the Drudge Report today and an extra one for good measure.

Global Sea Ice Breaks Record High For The Day

I have always loved books, so the thought of writing one (or more) has never really been far from my mind. I have been fortunate to have been on the side-lines of the publishing business for a few books, so that whet my appetite even more. I have been a pre-press technical reviewer for a handful of technical programming books from publishers that there's a good chance you've heard of. I have also been a book reviewer for the Slashdot website, where you can find at least two dozen reviews written by yours truly. These activities were a source of encouragement to learn more about books.

##Fiction Or Non-Fiction?

I suspect that fiction is the hardest kind of book to write because you not only need to know how to write, but you also need an imagination that will provide you with what to write. As a computer programmer, my imagination is pretty limited, so that leaves non-fiction. Then there is the choice of topic. As a computer programmer and a pastor, I could write about a number of geeky or theological areas. In the end, for my first book, I went with theology and Apostolic Baptism was the result.

I mentioned recently that I was back working in corporate America, earning my living as a Java programmer. Part of the experience of returning is seeing what has changed and what hasn't. Today's topic is one of the unchanged things.

We have some fairly simple hand-washing guidelines in our home. You wash your hands after using the bathroom, before preparing food, before eating and anytime they get genuinely dirty for some other reason. Not too draconian. I think this shows I'm not some kind of helicopter parent who rushes in with the medicated wipes every few minutes.

It still amazes me that grown men can use the bathroom and then not wash their hands! (I don't use the ladies bathroom, so I have no data on how that demographic behave in the same circumstance.) Now, I'm not for paranoid levels of hand washing, but I am in favor of some, especially when you are interacting with so many co-workers.

After a financial challenge at the church this summer, I am now back to work. No details, sorry. There are some parts of pastoring that are not unlike the making of sausage or the passing of laws, in that you really don't want to watch what happens during the process.

The good folks at TeamSoft, Inc., here in the Madison area, found me a programming contract and I am now gainfully employed and have been for coming up on three months now. This is my third contract through TeamSoft and I continue to be very happy with them as a contracting agency. It doesn't hurt that they found me a programming opportunity even after I'd not written a line of Java code for exactly two years! That was impressive. The client, who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, is actually one that I have worked at before. The Java programming community in this area is very small. There is a non-trivial chance that you'll either go back to a place or that you will work with former co-workers.

Converting back to being bi-vocational has been challenging. Especially doing so in the fourth quarter of the year when everything gets crazy busy in life, school and church. Sleep and family time have been the worst casualties. I typically leave a little after 6:00am and return by about 5:30pm, later if there are errands assigned to me by The Queen Of All She Surveys. Getting up early has never been my strong suite, so I'm really not on speaking terms with my alarm clock right now.