My Other Blogs

This week one of my regular readers emailed me surprised that I had other blogs.  I was sort of amused because when someone posts a comment on my blog (which isn’t “anonymous”) I always first look at their profile and their blogs (if any).  I’ve always been interested in the worldview of those who follow me, and because of this I’ve found many blogs to follow!

So this post is just to let everyone know what my other blogs are, even though a couple of them are mentioned on the right side of this blog, with links to them.

The Watchman’s Bagpipes is my first blog, and it was started in the fall of 2007 with the help of a pastor who said I needed a blog for my apologetics ministry.  I started another blog a year later because I wanted to expose all the weird stuff in the news; it was titled Sanity In An Upside-Down World.  It was taking too much of my time so I deleted it after a couple years.

For the first year of TWB, my wife was a contributor with articles of encouragement and such directed at women.  After a while we decided the theme of her posts and the theme of the blog were too different and she started her own blog, transferring all her previous articles to that one.  Some of my followers already know about her blog, but for those who don’t, it is Encouragements From the Piper’s Wife.   Jill leads a weekly ladies’ Bible study as well as having a weekly ministry to elderly women.

We have a hobby of photographing old 1-room schools, which we began in the spring of 2003.  In 2010 my brother gave me the idea to make a blog posting our photos.  Originally it was one blog with Iowa and other states, label-sorted by states.  However, since we live in Iowa our collection of Iowa schools became 10 times that of other states so I split them off.  Our Iowa school collection is at Iowa One Room Schools and they are sorted by county.   Schools in other states are at Old One Room Schools, and sorted by state.  We discovered that some country schools were 2-room, and even 4-room, so we’ve added those without changing the blog titles.  (The reason for the hobby is noted at the top of each blog.)

In January 2014 I decided I needed a worldview blog where all I do is post quotations from conservative or Christian sources.  I try to post a quote daily but have missed some days.  I get the quotes from many of the books in my library, from other blogs, from articles, etc.  This blog is titled The Thought-Provoker.  The idea, of course, is to make people think about their worldview.  There have been occasions when I post the same quote on TWB.

One of the things I use my blog for is cutting and pasting in other writings so as to save time.  I do a lot of email correspondence with people around the world who have found my blog, and a lot of times I deal with Mormons.  Some of the Mormons also were contacts in our street ministry we had for 12 years.  Well, the problem with trying to find a topic I needed on TWB is that all the articles about Mormonism were under the label “Latter-day Saints” — and there were well over 100 articles with that label so it took a lot of searching.  So in October 2014 I decided to make a separate blog regarding Mormon teachings, etc, and then post the articles by topic. All articles about the LDS were transferred to this blog (sometimes I left a copy on TWB).  This blog has been very useful for me, and it is titled The Anti-Mormon Blog.  I don’t post as often there, and I’ve gotten very few comments so far.  It gets a bit of traffic, but nothing like TWB.  I’ve been able to just link to it for many conversations I’ve had via email or Facebook.

My newest blog is A Reference Blog, and this was started a year ago.  I started it for the simple reason that every time I’ve had a computer crash I lose all my favorite links.  My first idea was to paste every link into a document and have it saved with other documents, all of which are automatically backed up.  Well, I didn’t have access to that document with any other computer, whether it was my lap-top or a friend’s computer, so I figured I’d make a blog with posts of links of topics I wanted to have reference to.  In some communications I’ve pointed to a particular post and the individual really liked it.  These posts take a long time to build, so are only done infrequently as the opportunity arises, which is why there are only 30 posts so far.  My last one is in reference to aircraft — I do a lot of historical research on aircraft I’ve photographed and I am an administrator for a site where “dossiers” on aircraft are posted, and I do a lot of research to build those dossiers (I only get about 4-5 hrs a month time to do this).  Anyway, I’ve done one other aviation post, but most are dealing with theology and social issues.  Take a gander at that blog sometime; you might find it of use.

I’m hoping to some day start another one about the National Road; the first federally-funded highway, which we’ve toured a few times.

So there you have my blog collection. 

Another link people may find interesting is my Flickr page.  In dealing with a lot of aviation  friends I would often talk about my favorite museum:  The National Museum of the United States Air Force.  This is the largest and most visited military museum in the world.  It was suggested to me that I do a Flickr album, so I took the suggestion and almost all the photos I've taken there over the years are in this album, so those looking at it get a virtual tour.  

For aviation enthusiasts, I also have a gallery of aircraft I've photographed.