I suppose you could call this “the actual blog section” of my blog-like website. Random quotes, random thoughts, and other items of exceeding randomness shall be posted herein for the enjoyment of all who happen upon this relatively obscure corner in cyberspace.
The most wonderful time of the year?
Christmas, the largest commercial enterprize in the western hemisphere. What’s the point? There’s more money spent on advertising, salespeople, inventory, and looking one’s best during the 4th quarter of the year to match the other 3 quarters all combined. I work in retail sales, I’m all for a huge 4th quarter, means small bonuses for me and less stress on my manager because the business is doing well. The question is why does this all revolve around December 25th? Is it that we northerners need a massive holiday in order not to commit mass suicide during the cold winter months, or that it happens to be a convenient time of year after summer vacations and before the new year begins? Who knows.
I find myself, being immersed in the retail industry, having more and more difficulty remembering the true reason that I believe we celebrate Christmas. The story that indeed most of us are familiar with, written 2000-odd years ago about a little baby, born of a 14-15ish year old virgin girl in a cave near a town no bigger than my own hometown. A boy who grew up the son of a woodworker, “became a philosopher” in his early years, and indeed claimed to be the Son of Yahweh. A man who was killed by crucifixion at the age of 33 for this claim to be God, and who millions believe was dead for three days before spontaneously and of ~his own~ power he returned to life again. Thats the original reason behind the celebration, though we celebrate it on a semi-arbitrary day» .
In the midst of the chaos, and contrary to the popular belief, the first Christmas was likely a bit chaotic – a silent night it was definitely not, at least not initially. A woman in labor is not inclined to peace and serenity to say the least. Combine this with a frustrating search through an overloaded city full of impatient people who are, of all things, paying their taxes. How do you feel around tax time? Pissed off might be a good description. Sohck, everybody in town is pissed, your girlfriend is pregnant with someone elses baby, and in labor, and you can’t find a private freaking room, much less a hospital to have her baby in. Silent night? yeah NO.
Through it all, the God of the universe is in absolute control, even letting the ‘angels’ hold an open-air concert on a nearby hillside. (can we say impressive choir? oh I really hope there was a concert orchestra as well.) Christmas is chaotic, ’s just the nature of the season. In the midst of the chaos, find some time to sit down, without any background distractions or other noise, and just think about what and why we celebrate.
Merry Christ-mas.
Most scholars place the actual birth of Jesus some time around April in the spring of the yearPowered by Hackadelic Sliding Notes 1.6.4
Happy Thanksgiving 2009
Podcast: Play in new window
A few thoughts to ponder on this Thanksgiving Day. Remember that WHO you are thankful for is always more important that WHAT things you are thankful for.
. Why? Because I can!Men’s Retreat 2009
Relocating Ammunition
I’ve been busy lately! it goes something like this: Work, eat, sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat! So it was nice to jump in the car and get away this last weekend. My brother, father, and a friend all smashed our junque into the oldsmobox and drove up to Trout Lake Camp where we engaged in manly activities such as eating, sleeping… ok wait a sec, we did other things too. I was coerced into jumping off of a perfectly good 40+foot tall tower into free space, suspended only by a thin metalic cable and a piece of rope… w00t for the zipline!! We did some artwork on the baseball diamond with a pair of remote controlled cars, which consisted mainly of pretty circles of differing sizes. All of us also engaged in relocating over 400 shells worth of ammunition, muwahahahaha!
Ok, so we also did some serious things too, God was there; Though I can’t speak for the others with me, I can say that He convicted me of many failures. I’m beginning to learn the true meaning of “walking by faith,” which naturally is something I thought I already knew, but I have a looooong ways to go.
Technical Illiteracy
It runs rampant in our society, the inability to understand the simplist concepts about how electricity works. The science classes I took growing up, and even through high school were a complete joke when it came to the “electricity” unit. They focused completely on the concept of ’static’ electricity, and taught us nothing about how the little electrons flowing around actually get things done. You never would’ve guessed that the computer I used in class that day ran on the same sort of energy as the van-de-graff generator, except in a controlled and continuous form at a constant voltage and (relativley constant) current level. PUHLEEEEEEEZ, I’m sick of stupid people. Not just those who don’t happen to understand complex concepts, but just the number of average folks who I come across that know absolutely nothing.
If I take the argument one step further, I believe that in our high school level computer courses (y’know that typing class that you sluffed off in and still got an A?) we ABSOULTELY MUST be teaching what goes on inside one of these magical little boxes. Every student who is allowed to graduate high school should know at least how to build a desktop computer from readily available parts. For thsoe who want to get ambitions, they can dive into the portable stuff, cellphones, laptops, ipods and the like after high school. Building a computer is so simple, ‘if da plug fits, den dat must be whar it goes’ logic ~almost~ works!
Data (and signal) flow theory should be second-nature to these kids, I mean seriously, it is such a part of every day life, it HAS to be understood. <rant> I can’t see how anyone could get through their day not knowing how to plug in a VCR to a T.V., and yet I spent a half an hour on the phone the other day explaining that no, when you shut the T.V. off, you won’t lose all your pre-programmed recordings on your VCR… the two have nothing to do with each other….. OH MY GOD SHOOT YOURSELF PLEASE!!! do us all a favor if you can’t figure that out! </rant>
Anyway, you get the idea. Concepts that every kid could probably understand and would enjoy learning if they were taught with some pizzaz (have a “Let’s take apart the teacher’s computer day” – and I mean the one the teacher uses EVERY DAY for class, now that would be cool!)
And the wind blows…
’s one of those things, you may never know for what reason you were put in a certain situation, but God does. In 2 weeks I have both realized the full meaning of what a military commitment can do to a relationship, and been relieved of that meaning. Needless to say this cryptic message doesn’t really help anyone but me, but that’s ok. I am now searching once again for the next step in life.
Optimism?
An optimist is in for a lifetime of disappointments when the world they see through rose colored glasses doesn’t meet up with their expectations. On the other hand, a pessimist is in for a lifetime of surprises because the world really isn’t as bad as they think.
Now my question to you: Did a pessimist or an optimist write this statement?
Radioshack: You have questions, we have…
Since completing my college education in May of this year I have: Landed a part-time job at Radioshack, actually received my diploma (with signatures, w00t!), investigated the possibilities of jobs involving world travel, and learned to waste less time with online activities such as blogging and facebook.
Overall Radioshack is a pretty good place to work. Its air-conditioned, and doesn’t smell of greasy burgers 24/7! I’m getting to know my co-workers and learning the massive Radioshack systems. We aren’t expected to know all the answers, but we are expected to know where to find them. Thus their training program involves lots and lots of procedures and introductions to various resources that we have. Without disclosing too much information though, I must say that Radioshack’s biggest ticket item is still the cellphones. “Radioshack, you have questions, we have cellphones!” is more true than I’d like to believe. Still, none of the sales associates in our store are super-overly pushy in that respect.
Anyway thus far I’m enjoying it 
Added 2/21/2010:
Here’s a thought for you. Radioshack offers their primary product – contract cell phones, at lower prices than any of their competitors because there’s no mail in rebate. RS does all their rebates instantly at the register. RS sells many phones for ‘free’ so long as you’re willing to sign the line. The problem this causes: I would be willing to bet that RS is responsible for the highest number of non-performing phone contracts because this form of marketing is attracting all the folks who really don’t have any money, but are enthused about getting something for ‘nothing.’ RS is therefore responsible for ruining thousands of people’s credit scores and causing massive profit losses to the carriers they support, just for offering ’something’ for ‘nothing.’
A thing I learned a few years ago: if you work for or with someone who has no money (whether by unfortunate circumstances or mindset), you will not benefit or garner much profit from them. If you work for and around rich people who understand how to make money work for them, actually have money, you can make a lot of good money. Must you also work harder than the folks who have money in order to catch up to them? Absolutely, but nobody said hard work was a bad thing.
Byron Watts: Spat in the face of a dying God
I have spat in the face of a man being crucified, laughed at his pain, broken the heart of an infinite lover. Over and over again I have, in secret, torn open the wounds of the person I publicly proclaim to love. The everlasting infinite God of the universe has every right to burn me in hell forever.
Instead, he took the very act of spitting in his face, upon himself, the very son that was killed did absolutely nothing wrong. God sees his son as he is, perfect. That perfection is the lens through which he sees me, and I certainly don’t deserve it.
God, dead? I should think not. For the rest of the story read John 20 and following .
Each day has enough trouble of its own
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
–Matthew 6:25-33
One of the lessons that has been hardest for me to learn in life is how to not worry about something or someone. It takes a lot to get me worked up, but the worry-cycle gets me every time. I pretend to give some concern over to God to deal with, but then I keep right on thinking about it, turning it over in my mind. My be-prepared mentality automatically takes it to the worst-possible-case scenario, while the logical half of my brain says it could never possibly be that bad… (yes my brain fights with itself, I suspect yours does too on occasion.) God really is in control, I believe that strongly enough to trust my life to his control. Its other people’s lives, the choices they make and the circumstances around them that get me worried; and their life isn’t even my problem! 
Bah will I ever learn?
Spam
I just implemented a new spam policy. One spam comment and your external IP address will be permanently banned from accessing my site. This is to prevent unnecessary server load processing useless comments, and because I find the practice of spamming to be detestable. I know that most spam is sent unintentionally by trojans and other malware on some poor unsuspecting person’s computer, so a strategy for handling mistaken bans will be implemented soon.
Will you love Jesus more?
I feel quite sure if I did my best
I could maybe impress you
With tender words and a harmony
A clever rhyme or two
But if all I’ve done in the time we’ve shared
Is turn your eyes on me
Then I’ve failed at what I’ve been called to do
There’s someone else I want you to see
[CHORUS]
Will you love Jesus more
When we go our different ways
When this moment is a memory
Will you remember His face
Will you look back and realize
You sensed His love more than you did before
I’d pray for nothing less
Than for you to love Jesus more
I’d like to keep these memories
In frames of gold and silver
And reminisce a year from now
About the smiles we’ve shared
But above all else I hope you will come
To know the Father’s love
When you see the Lord face to face
You’ll hear Him say “well done”
[CHORUS]
Will you love Jesus more
When we go our different ways
When this moment is a memory
Will you remember His face
Will you look back and realize
You sensed His love more than you did before
I’d pray for nothing less
Than for you to love Jesus more
I’d pray for nothing less
Than for you to love Jesus more
-Phillips Craig and Dean
I love this song, its a great reminder what my real place is in life.
Regarding Emotions
Yep, a guy is writing about emotions. This is rather strange for me as ‘emotions’ tend to be a relatively uncharted territory for most guys, at least on the surface. Emotions and I have a love-hate relationship. I’m a rather staunch Scandinavian, brought up in a small town, went to a large, midwestern, plastic-steepled church. As a guy, I try not to show too much emotion, and I certainly don’t know how to deal with deep emotion shown by others very well. If you remember the Star-Trek series, I consider myself to be very much like a Vulcan (aside from wearing a bluetooth headset which earned me the nickname Spock). Vulcans are trained as they grow up to suppress their emotions and rely solely on logical thought. This isn’t because their emotions are invalid, but because they run so deep that if their emotions were allowed to show, there would be far too many homicides. Same idea, the emotions I have, I’m not always sure how to express, so the only option is to ignore them and make them invisible, even to myself. Were it not for that, I and many of those around me would probably be dead. The problem I’ve discovered with ’stuffing’ my emotions is that it only adds time to the fuse, which is still connected to an atomic bomb. It doesn’t disarm the bomb, just makes the ticking go on longer. So now I get to continue the learning process of how to deal with emotional expression.
In almost every case, when I’ve made a decision based solely on emotion, it was rash and ended badly. On the other hand when I’ve made decisions based solely on logical thought, I’ve often skipped out on activities or social interaction as a result. Part of the growing-up process I think is learning to manage the delicate balance between emotions and logic/reason. Maturity is the point where you can handle these two on a regular basis.
Expectations and Results
The educational system in the U.S. has some major flaws, one of which is ever decreasing expectations. The “no child left behind” business does, in reality, disadvantage every child equally. I can’t speak for all people, but it has been my experience that, from those who ~can~ perform, which is most children: when much is demanded, much higher performance is displayed. Some people ~DO~ have legitimate learning disabilities and should obviously receive the special attention that they need to succeed, that’s fine! Even in helping these children out, expectations should be high for what they are capable of, thus their performance will be as high as it can be. Let me give you a couple of specific examples from my own education.
I have known far too many “special-ed” kids who take advantage of their situation for the purpose of being lazy, I mean it really happens! The law almost protects them from doing anything they don’t want to do, which is sad. “A.D.D. is the greatest thing ever invented, I can ask for an extension and they HAVE to give it to me by law!” said one friend of mine, who shall remain unnamed.
On average, the classes that didn’t require very much of me, got much less attention, and a whole lot more “I don’t care.” My last semester in college I had one class that was just a bear, Communication Research Methods. Required a buttload of work from everyone in the class, but on my big final project I passed with flying colors. Compare that to Group Communication, wherein I did the minimum work required, missed a large part of the emphasis of the class due to scheduling conflicts, and whipped out the final paper in an afternoon/evening. In that class I’m sure I didn’t do as well, just because the level of expectations was so low that I didn’t pay attention to it.
I’m NOT a fan of overloading students, which leads to depression, excessive anxiety, and suicide when students don’t feel they can measure up. All I’m saying is that if you don’t expect anything, you’ll get nothing.
Quotes!
It is my experience that not even women know what women want, but they do know that you’re a failure of a man for not giving it to them.
At the dinner table, Uncle: “So I work down at the zoo now”
Me: “On which side of the fence?”
Speakest thou unto me thine secrets oh swine computer of mine -me
Alas, my Google-fu is not strong enough to discern the will of God… bummer
Folks discussing emergency uses for a cellphone:
“You can throw a NiCad battery pack into a microwave oven and, most of the time, you’d get a fairly energetic explosion (given the relatively small size of the battery pack). Also, Cadmium is highly toxic.”
–I suspect you can do the same with a LiIon battery, and Lithium is also highly toxic, yay for microwaving our cellphones!
Proper volume:
-when you get a tan from your speakers.
-when the optimum listening location is 2 miles away in a concrete bunker…
-Blastisimo!
-Will modulate a CRT computer screen to the beat of the music ::snicker:: how would I know?? umm, well my screen is currently being modulated…
-that sound level which causes shell-shock.
Me commenting about an assignment: “Nerg nergety nerg nerg nerg NERG!”
CJ: “On a Nergstick”
Me: “WTH is a nergstick?”
Evolution: “Nothing exploded, therefore something.”
“The harder we try to be special, unique and different, the more we realize that we’re all exactly the same.”
“The only thing as bad as watching someone who’s dieing, is holding someone in your arms who wants to die.” -me
“What does not kill us
only makes us stranger.”
me commenting on a screamo song, in a very matter-of-fact manner, which caused everyone in the room to think i was absolutely dead serious: “You know they used a new recording method on that record? They got the turntable spinning, puked on it, and called it an album.”
You could listen to hardcore music, or simply use a small sledgehammer to pulverize your head.
My (somewhat odd) sister: “suck a candle!. .er i mean. . .lol!!!”
Byron <- ::holds up a computer part whilst peering over the carcass of a recently deceased laptop undergoing a surgical operation:: “this goes somewhere…” After CJ and Dave stopped rolling on the floor I realized I was holding the keyboard.. not exactly an obscure part
“Any problem on earth can be solved, with the careful application of high explosives. The trick is not to be around when they go off”
Some people never go crazy.
What truly horrible lives they must lead.
Hogan’s heroes: “I will see to it that you have a fair trial, after which you will be shot.”
Hogan “well let’s get going and start repairing”
Newkirk “everything’s fixed sir”
H: “well then break something, we’ve got 4 hours to kill.”
roomie Dave: “Ahh the joys of stupidity incarnate!”
Some stupid British TV show: ::mixes a drink:: “here, this should blow the head off a donkey, it might just get through to you.”
Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
it seems that my brother enjoyed the “aftermath” of my cooking, and stated so as such.
This seemed extraordinarily hilarious at about midnight, I was laying in my bunk, about ready to fall asleep. The conversation between my roomies was in regards to our current organizational state. I said very dryly, “I think I might have to get CJ a hydraulic sh*t compressor for Christmas.”
—-
background: my younger brother and I are bored, driving around town with nothing to do after partially demolishing a house (refurb project). The largest playground area in town is nearby and it also offers lots of wide open space and most of the time hundreds of small children.
Me: “hey we could go to the park and play with my toys (diabolos – spinning tops) except I forgot my bag at home”
Brother: “we have a slehhhhdge hammer”
—–
background: viewing the set up for this year’s fireworks display.
The guy giving us the tour: “The entire grand finale is triggered by a single fuse which we light with this wire here.” ::points at the wire::, “If you remove the time delays one can fire the entire 2100 shell grand finale in 5 seconds.”
Bro: anybody got a 9-volt?
(I did.. but we didn’t use it)
—–
Birthdays are good for you – the more you have the longer you live.
I drive waaaay too fast to worry about cholesterol.
“The neat subjective things about these U47s (a model of microphone for those of you who don’t speak geekanese) is that they go off like a Howitzer. I mean, we are talking about serious pressure-gradient proximity effect here”
Referring to a recently deceased mic preamp that died a slow and painful death: “yeah it sucked before it blew”
CJ: “I have too much crap to read… you could turn that into a business you know, like fortune telling. Crap reading!”
“There’s plenty of room on earth for all God’s creatures… right next to the mashed potatoes”
“Sanity calms, but madness is interesting.”
CJ: “and now we take a break from our regularly scheduled procrastination to do homework that should’ve been done a while ago”
Abbot: “You ever go to school, stupid?”
Costello: “Yeah, and I came out the same way.”
Term for someone who can do both sound and lighting: “Bitechtuality”
CJ – ::stares blankly at the microwave for a good 15 seconds:: “there’s no pizza button…”
“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”
“Never face facts; if you do, you’ll never get up in the morning.”
Some sounds can be fixed with Parametric Equalizer, for others you need a Equametric Paralyzer
Stargate SG1 “I do not understand why everything in this script must inevitably explode.”
Our dorm: “Bad pun… umm… Bad pun…”
Random Musings 2-19-09. Subject: music
Podcast: Play in new window
Was doing a bit of investigative research into one of my tools the other day, and came up with this podcasty thing
On another note:
I was playing a few pieces of SCHWEET rock music earlier this week, making quite a ruckus as I recall. I play a mean cd player… poor poor neighbors. Anyway I was musing about the incredible level of musical energy one can create by going into half-time as opposed to doing the usual high-energy thing of playing “louder and faster.” I’ve played a very few pieces in symphonic band that do this. It allows the flow of the music to become much smoother and “bigger” while at the same time becoming less-complex to the ear, so that one can truly appreciate the grandeur of what they’re hearing.
As a sound-guy I really love this style because it allows me to reach for the reverbs and my all-time favorite ballad effect: the delays. If applied properly, it’s not obvious what I’m doing, except that to your average listener it sounds ‘better’ for some reason.
iWeb?
So what have I been up to lately? Designed a few graphics, read textbooks, put together a radio spot, read more text books, and finally I’ve been updating this silly website. I have a tendency to get caught up in the technical aspect of things and miss the content side.
My latest idea involved combining the power of flash animation, Photoshop, Youtube (video content), and Dreamweaver into a unified, web based WYSIWYG web-editor with an intuitive interface that your average semi-geek can figure out. “A good webpage looks like a picture” – and it would be neat to edit it like one. The catch of course is making sure the software spits out clean, valid code and not the awful Microsoft Frontpage-esque stuff we’ve seen in the past. I’m thinking an iTunes type business model, where some content is free, such as “Ye-Olde-Webpage-Template” but programming geniuses design and develop graphic/flash elements, perhaps to custom orders, and they become available on the [insert product name here, iWeb?] store for drag-and-drop integration with your website. I’m not a programmer, but if you are – use that little “wall” widget on the right and let me know what you think!
