Blog Updates

I've made the move to Google's new Blogger Beta, so what you'll notice is the new labels. Each post I write can be assigned labels, which you can think of a way of tagging all my posts.

So for example my previous post was tagged: article, chinese and culture. By clicking on any of labels you can see all my other posts with similar tags.

I plan to be blogging more these days, for whatever reason the juice is simply flowing. I'm not really a fan of my current colors/layout however, expect a makeover coming soon! I'm an obsessive compulsive minimalistic. Flickr has a photo group of neat web designs, hoping to draw some inspiration from there. Cheers!

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The Unnecessary Webpage

For awhile I had messed around with making a personal webpage (ThinkTankProject.com, and currently allantan.net) but with the advent of the blog, its become practically useless. There's simply so much cool stuff out there. Here's a breakdown of my current setup:

At the base of it all I use Google's Blogger.com to host my blog (which allows anonymous commenting, and you don't need a blogger.com account to come see unlike services like facebook, hi5, etc). There's tons of templates to choose from, and with a little HTML I customize colors, layout, and add my own thingies ^_^. Made the move from Xanga to Blogger about a year ago and its been great.

Then I add on a few free services (all of you can see I've integrated into my blog along the right hand side):

Del.icio.us provides a way for me to share all my links out there. You'll see my tags under "my del.icio.us tags". So i.e. you can see my saved links related to literature by clicking the corresponding tag. It's a great service to share the most popular links out there. If I had to name one site that's revolutionized my surfing, this is it. When first looking for sites to help learn Cantonese, all I had to do was go to http://del.icio.us/popular/cantonese and I was able to benefit from all the best sites that others had found. A must-join site for the web savvy (in my humble opinion).

Flickr.com to host my pictures and give me a snazzy flash badge showing a random selection of my latest pictures. Again no membership required to see the pics, and has a nifty, ajax-powered interface. Other good alternative services include yahoo photos, fotki.com, etc.

LibraryThing is a new social book management site. You create an account and enter books you have, or want, and it organizes them all into a shelf for you. Searchs Amazon and other major libraries for book info. So as you can see on the side, I chose to have a badge that shows 3 random books off my librarything shelf. This site also has all the social networking niceties - tagging, ability to see other users that have books in common, ratings, etc.

StatCounter.com offers a no frills simple web counter. Can be set to visible or invisible.

As for me, I may finally give up on working on my own private website. I still am looking for a way to somehow have "articles", which are clearly differentiated from blog posts, and then have them tagged, organized, and linked on the side as well. Something tells me I could somehow superimpose another blogger.com page with its dedicated del.icio.us account to achieve this.. hmm.. *trails off*

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Moved!

Howdy all. Well my blog was formerly at xanga.com (www.xanga.com/mr_allantan) but I've decided to move to blogger.com. Now note the easier address, any of you can post comments to my posts.

Sorry to all those who have emailed me! I haven't been good in my correspondence... I hope to improve!

It's been quite awhile since I've updated on what's been new. My time here at Schloss Mittersill (www.schlossmittersill.org) has been amazing! To be honest, its not for certain yet but I'm seriously thinking about coming back. To be more accurate - I would LIKE to come back. About 3 weeks ago one of the staff here approached me about returning for a longer term to serve here in some computer/sound technical support capacity. So although I'd l Ike to come back, I'm seeking God's guidance and advice on the possibility. Right now I would consider:
1. I'd come home for sure still sometime in September (flying to Ottawa on Sept 9, planning to visit friends/sisters in Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto). I'd probably be back in Wininpeg late September.
2. I'd stay home for at least a couple months. I'd want to save up some money, and raise funds, and just have a chance to be home again. If I did return to the Schloss I don't see it happening before early November.
3. If things could work out ideally, I'd come back here and stay still around at least summer. Perhaps if Jen (my sister) still comes to World Cup 2006 in Germany, I could meet up with her, and also have her visit the castle and attend the super cool Arts Conference here at the Schloss.
4. In terms of what I'd do here, I'd like to do the computer/technical stuff, be involved with worship, and hopefully be part time student perhaps? I'd love to have a chance to study some theology or just increase my biblical knowledge. The worship leader here is an amazing jazz pianist with a passion for understanding the theology of worship and everything. So I'd definitely want to spend time with that dude if I come back.

You might ask: 'Why do you want to come back?' which is a pretty complicated question actually. My short answer would be that ít's been such an amazing positive, challenging and growing experience that I want more of it. I think I could get so much more out time spent here that I feel as if I have to explore and find out. Mind you I'm still quite openminded and haven't made a solid commitment yet.

Hm what else has been going on.. life's been exciting here! Hm so many stories... there was a crazy flood here in the town of Mittersill. Short version of the story - was in someone's basement, water started flooding the windows like crazy, stranded in the house, rescued by raft by authorities the next day, hilarious pictures of us in the newspaper the day later.. lol). Also did my first 2 day hike, and went to my first 3000+ meter mountain at the same time. Eh those are just neat experiences tho - my time here has been so much more than just those sorts of things. Hard to explain - I don't think I've fully understood what this time has meant for me. All I can seem to say for sure is that this time has been very good for me.. I feel generally a healthier, wholler (err I mean "more whole") person. It's been good. Oh I've also been falling in love with classical piano again.

Yeah... I miss all of you tho, hope to see you all soon. Drop me a line and let me know how you're doing!

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