Category: general news

  • great new story on the Cragun family blog

    For those who don’t know, my family has a blog for sharing funny stories. I don’t hear funny stories from my family very often anymore (unfortunately), but whenever I do, I post them over there. My sister just sent me a good one. You should check it out. —————- Now playing: Nina Gerber – Back…

  • McCain visits University of Tampa

    I just finished my morning class on Friday and was responding to email when I heard that John McCain was visiting the university at noon. I called Debi, who doesn’t have classes on Fridays, and asked her if she wanted to see him. Regular readers will know we don’t generally lean Republican, but we are…

  • Reason’s Greetings!

    We usually try to put together a nifty little year in review holiday letter for friends and family. If you read this you probably got a copy in your email. If not, let me know and I’ll add you to my email list.

  • not much going on

    I haven’t posted anything in about a month as all we’ve really been doing is working. Honestly, I never believed working as a college professor was as time consuming as it is. I’ve been putting in easily 60 to 80 hour weeks and I still don’t feel like I’m keeping up. I’m just hoping things…

  • conference entertainment

    I spent the past weekend participating in an academic conference I regularly attend (Society for the Scientific Study of Religion). I have a number of friends and colleagues who attend and we had a good time together. But I have to tell about one session at the conference. The conference organizer – who did a…

  • Portland trip

    We spent the weekend in Portland, OR, attending a conference called: Challenging Assumptions: Religious Faith, Genetic Science, and Human Dignity. It was an intriguing conference. There were probably 50 to 75 people who attended at some point. This was both nice and awkward. It was nice because we couldn’t help but get a chance to…

  • in case you missed it on SNL

    The staff of SNL couldn’t let Mahmoud Ahmadinejad get away with homosexuality denying: —————- Now playing: Jon Hendricks – Jive Samba via FoxyTunes

  • birding and blogging

    Debi and I had our first birding outing last Sunday. A couple of professors at UT we’ve gotten to know are big into birding and took us out bright and early Sunday morning to get a taste for it. We went out to Brooker Creek Preserve and spent a couple hours peering through binoculars looking…

  • something you never thought you’d hear from us 😉

    Debi and I went to a professional football game yesterday – Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. New Orleans Saints. In fact, we even had $250/seat tickets for club seating. Here are a couple pics (from my crappy cellphone camera) as evidence: Here’s Debi at the game: Here’s a shot of the famed pirate ship: And here’s…

  • vegetarianism and the environment?

    Here’s an interesting news item I rediscovered in the NYtimes today: raising animals for meat releases more CO2 into the atmosphere than does the entire travel industry combined. This is based on research conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. I’m sure some of my regular readers will take issue with…