Echo Zoe is the blog and podcast of Andy Olson (me) of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I am married to my beautiful wife Jessica, and we have two young boys. As of this writing (January 2011), we are also expecting a third child sometime in August. I've lived in Minnesota all my life, having left only to study Architecture at North Dakota State University in Fargo (so close to Minnesota I could smell the sugar beet plants across the river in the spring). After working five jobs in Architecture in just eight years, I decided to leave Architecture. At this time I am a stay-at-home dad, but I hope to find something that is stable, pays well enough to allow my wife to (at least) reduce her work load, and that I enjoy.
Echo Zoe began as a personal blog back in October of 2003, as an experiment. I had taken on the challenge of installing Linux (Debian Woody for the tech-savvy), as well as various software packages. I got apache (a web server package)running, and got a dyndns address to constantly point to my home IP address. I tried once to install Movable Type with no success. The second time I tried, I got it working and have been blogging ever since. I struggled at first to come up with a name for this blog, having originally named it “Vapid Vitalityâ€. I soon changed it to εχω ζωη (or Echo Zoe in English). The name came from some introductory study that I did in New Testament Greek. I should mention here that I am aware that it is incorrect Greek, and should be rendered εχω ζωην (Echo Zoen). I didn’t learn this until long after it was too late to change it – the urls were in place and links were coming in from many different places.
For more than four years, Echo Zoe was just a personal blog. I wrote about all sorts of topics, from Christian theology to politics, as well as technology and job experiences. The site changed remarkably when I began doing the podcast in May of 2008. From that point forward, the focus has been almost solely Christian theology, and related topics. In fact, in late 2010, I set up a new website and began moving non-theological content to that site. If you care to see what Echo Zoe once was, check out Just a Vapor. That site contains the old posts that once lived here at Echo Zoe, and is the new home of my posts on anything that is not directly theological, including my political views and techology.
I've always believed that the best way to learn is to share what you learn with others. Echo Zoe has long been a vehicle for me to do that. As I've learned more about theology, I've posted or podcasted what I've learned right here. If you look carefully enough between this site and Just a Vapor, you'll see that growth, and also see that I've become much more Reformed in my Christian views over time. Echo Zoe is very much a Reformed website.
Echo Zoe has also always been a hobby. I do everything in my free time, and receive no compensation for what I do. The focus since May, 2008 has been the podcast, and that will likely continue for the foreseeable future. The primary audience for the blog and the podcast is my family, as I build up a library of materials that I can use to teach my children as they grow. I pray that others will find it edifying as well!
Last Updated: January 26, 2011