iloveyoutoday

So much is going on in my life right now, I'd be remiss to not write about it.

Wedding, work, and school: that's a lot of shit.

And by "shit" I mean, "stuff going on".

I love my life and mostly all I can think about these days is that I'll be married soon and I'll have a wife and I'll be a husband and what does that mean for my life in general? What does it matter? A  L O T.

Yesterday we had our pictures taken by Lotus Photography, a fun, talented, and skilled photographer if there ever was one. I thank you for our unforgettable experience. It was a blast and an honor to be a part of your creative process.

I feel like I'm going through a sort of born-again process, not of the Christian variety, though related to it. Nothing is changing but Everything is changing. That's all. And I'm realizing it A L L THE T I M E.

Life is constantly, continuously, and continually happening. Life is all around us.

And all of Life is Love.

Peace,
mitchell

Shabbat Thoughts

The last few shifts I've worked I've read a psalm or two in my car before going in. I've been trying to get closer to God. I no longer work on the Sabbath. Eventually I hope to attend services regularly but I'm not quite ready for that. The thought of going into a synagogue terrifies me and fills me with anxiety. For now I am content to do my best to light candles every Friday night and say some Jewish blessings. The Sabbath is a weekly reminder that God's commandments are a gift. We are commanded to rest on the 7th day. Our lives are better with a Day of Rest.

What have I learned so far in my trip through Psalms? I can't quote lines but I know that God gave us commandments as a blessing and a map to life. Follow the commandments and you will have a good life. Commandments are simple life instructions. God blesses the righteous.

Whatever my troubles are, whatever's bothering me, every week I have a time set aside by God, for peace. I'm thankful for that and do my best to be deserving of the gift of the commandment of the Sabbath.

Sabbath Mind

One of my innumerable New Years resolutions is to observe the Jewish sabbath. To that end, I put in a request at work to no longer be scheduled on Friday nights or Saturday days. The GM honored my request, which I appreciate.

I'm not sure exactly how I plan on observing the sabbath. I don't plan on regularly attending services, at least not in the near future. I'm not going to go all-out and not turn on my computer or worry about things that might cause "work". What I am going to do is cultivate a more God-centered perspective on my day of rest. I'm going to refrain from thinking about my job or school. I'm going to focus on the Love of the Universe as well as the love of my life, my future wife. The sabbath is going to be about me and my betrothed, life and God.

Tires, Tebow, Jesus, and Hemingway

My Scion xA's been needing an alignment and a new tire for a few months now. The one tire was worn along its inside edge down to the threads. It was pretty bad. I amassed enough money over Thanksgiving weekend to finally afford the needed repairs. I figured it'd cost lost than $150 and it did. I wasn't sure how long it was going to take so I took a couple books with me:

I went to Vannoy's on 9th and had an excellent experience. I was immediately greeted upon exiting my car. The lady was friendly and informative. It didn't take long for one of the techs to come into the waiting area and inform me that I needed a new pad on the front driver side. I'm on a tight budget so since it wasn't of immediate importance I declined to repair it. Next time. I was afraid they'd be pushy as far as getting me to buy more tires than I came in for or to pay for miscellaneous other services I didn't know I needed. The tech only mentioned the brakes because what he was saying was true. I need front brake work. Once I said I'd pass he was courteous and back to work on the car. The alignment and tire mission took less than an hour and cost less than I'd expected. Sweet.

While waiting I first flipped through a magazine called Autoweek or something like that. Interesting. Sweet Porsche on the cover, of course. Then I turned to the books I'd brought. The New Testament was in my back pocket. I'd gotten it from a coworker over the weekend. I saw him catching a moment during the shift to glance at some lines in the prep room. I think he thought I was going to make fun of him but I asked him what it was and then told him I used to have one just like it that was green. He asked me if I wanted one because he just happened to have another in his bag. Cool, yeah, I'll take it.

The first Bible section I went to this morning while waiting for my car was Hebrews 12:12. Tim Tebow had something like that on his face when they played FSU and I was curious as to what it said.

Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;

Um. What?

I tried to find something meaningful in it and gave up. I flipped through some more sections, ones indicated in the front of the book for explaining things like love, charity, courage, trust, et al. Then I'd had enough and turned to the Hemingway book. The first thing I see there is:

On the booze boat Harry had the last sack over.
"Get me the fish knife," he said to the nigger.

DOLP!

Talk about a change in tone. It was too jolting. I only finished the chapter because it was only a page and a half. I was done with Hemingway after that. I don't mean done forever. It was just too big of a jump after piously reading scripture.

While preparing this post I realized that Tebow's face didn't say Hebrews 12:12, but Hebews 12:1-2.

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

That makes a little more sense. Keep the faith. Play hard. Jesus is Lord. Go Tebow.

Don't slaughter your finest impulses

I don't want to be one of those people who used to do a lot of things but doesn't seem to do much of anything anymore.

Things I used to do a lot but don't do anymore but would like to return to doing a lot: causing mischief, playing basketball, driving aimlessly, writing, reading, playing tennis, playing in the woods, drawing, fomenting dissent, studying anarchism, crashing my computer from messing with it, long walks...

One thing I used to do a lot but didn't for a long time which I've recently returned to my life is bike riding. Julie and I got a couple cheap Huffy cruiser bikes and while we don't ride them every day, we do ride them somewhat regularly and it always feels great.

Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty.

From Sexus by Henry Miller

GreenPunk

Julian strode through the forest as if he owned it, which is ironic because he believes no one can own the land.

a letter to my constituents

Funny how in my last post I mentioned Live search. A month and a half or so has passed since then and Live is done, stick a fork in it. 

Now, if you go to www.live.com you get bounced to Bing. WTF is Bing? It's Microsoft's latest attempt at contesting Google's dominance of web search. I've used Bing a couple times. I can't say anything bad about it, but I also can't say that there's anything special about it that gives me reason to use it over Google. Millions of people are in the habit of googling. How will Microsoft convince them to stop googling and start binging (not to be confused with bingeing).  Maybe some of them wonder if you can google on Bing. Is Bing a better googler than Google? Will Bing become a verb? How will Bing conquer the internet?

As I type this, I'm watching the national soccer teams of Spain and the USA in the first period (or half or however soccer's split up) of their match in the FIFA Confederations Cup, somewhere in South Africa. Neither team has scored yet, at 11:45 into the match. I'm not a big soccer fan but I like watching it sometimes. I'd rather watch soccer than hockey, that's for sure. It's hard not to be drawn into the crowd's enthusiasm for the game. Soccer fans are maniacs, and I mean that as a compliment. I love the intensity. It reminds me a lot of college football.

The last 3 days I had jury duty. I was grumpy at first that I'd be taking a pay cut for a couple days (I don't get paid if I'm at jury duty) but I soon got over it and started to enjoy my civic duty. I figure it'll be one of the few times in my life where I'm directly involved in a government function. Or maybe it's blown my mind and I'll go on a quest to be the next John Adams.

I will say this, I feel a little more patriotic than I did before serving in that jury. It also gave me a little more faith in my fellow Americans. And I'd say I feel a little more compassionate towards human beings in general. I'm a better person for having served in that jury. I'm glad the founders of our country laid out such an excellent system. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I think it's pretty bad-ass. My fellow jurors and I were the center of the universe there for a few. Everything hinged on what we decided. I had moments with dim recollections of Kafka and Dostoevsky. Sometimes I thought I might go insane with boredom and break out of the courthouse screaming with several sheriff's deputies sprinting after me. But mostly it was an awesome experience that improved me as a man and as a person. I'm glad I didn't labor over ways out. I'm sure I could've imagined up something to get out of jury duty, but why? WTF is wrong with people that they want to get out of it? Those people should be sent to countries that don't have trial by jury.

Storms moved through the Pensacola area yesterday. They were a welcome relief from over a week's worth of heat indexes over a hundred a couple record-setting days...

USA SCORES!!!!!!!!!!! (around 26 minutes in)

...there's nothing like waiting tables outside in over a hundred degree temps and worrying that the sweat which has built up all over your face just in the brief time since you wiped it off before walking to the table will drip off your nose and disgust the guests. That sucks. Mostly I don't mind the heat (sometimes it annoys me) but I did welcome yesterday's rain. It'd been too long and we needed a break from the heat. I'm pretty sure most of the plants liked it, too...well, except for one of my fellow juror's tomatoes. He said he was going to be having a bunch of fried green tomatoes because the rainstorms damaged a bunch of his plants. Oops. Collateral damage.

Cheers,

mitchell

Hardware Blizzard

Last night I dreamed that I was snowed in by computer parts. Peripherals, motherboards, connectors, and cables. Chipsets, jumpers, expansion cards, and power supplies. RJ-45, slave, master, and , SATA drives. A droning voice dully intoned IDE, AGP, VESA, and USB. DDR, DIMM, CRIMM, and active matrix. WTF?

There were green circuit boards all around and falling down from above. There were black memory chips endlessly slapping down on my dome. There was the smell of PCBs, electronics, and silicon dust.

Remind me not to go to bed right after computer hardware class.

Infinite Changeability

I use browser-based email applications because they look better than Apple Mail, Outlook, Eudora, and every other conventional email app that I've seen.

Customizing one's computer experience should be at least as easy and have as many options as one's MySpace page.

I'm not saying Gmail's appearance is as changeable as a MySpace profile page but with the introduction of themes, it's showing itself to be on the right path. Maybe when I check my email I like to see a little anime raccoon raking sand in its Zen garden. I can do that with Gmail, but Apple Mail has no such option, that I know of.

MAKE explains LEDs

In honor of this being the first day of classes at PJC, I'm sharing this video from MAKE:



MAKE presents: The LED from make magazine on Vimeo.

My class tonight is called Digital Fundamentals. According to the online course description, the course's "Major Learning Outcomes" are:

At the end of the course the student will be able to:
Use basic trouble-shooting equipment such as the DVM, Logic
Probe, Logic Pulsar, Current Tracer, and the Oscilloscope.
Covert from decimal to octal, hexidecimal, BCD, and Gray Codes
and vice versa.
Analyze and develop a basic understanding of the basic logic
gates circuit operations and functions.
Design basic functional logic circuits given a Boolean equation
or truth table.
Define basic terms and terminology used in logic circuit
operations.
Identify logic symbols used in logic circuit diagrams.
Analyze the operation of a logic circuit diagram.
Identify the characteristics of the major logic families.

Sounds like fun! (Seriously.) Thanks to the electronics class I took last semester, I have at least some clue about what'll be going on.

Bourbon, Usability, and Beer

If any of the 0 people that read this blog AND use Blogger are using Safari as their web browser, are you having problems cutting and pasting into the post editor? When I try to paste some copied text it appears on the same page as the editor but below it in a blank part of the page that you shouldn't be able to type on but you can when this pasting error occurs. It can't just be me. Maybe my computer's insane.

One of the many things that continues to bug me about my interaction with computers is the seeming inability of the application to get get out of the way of what I'm trying to do. For example, why am I seeing the address bar, links bar, close, minimize, maximize buttons, etc.? Or like when you're working in Word, you don't need to see any of that when you're just typing. Why don't the borders, pull-downs, and all that fade away when you don't need them? All that stuff wastes valuable screen real estate. A web browser should display the site and get out of the way. The desktop shouldn't ALWAYS show stuff that you don't care about at the time. There's probably a quarter of my screen taken up with crap I don't need most of the time. Why is it there?

election day unemployment rambling ruminations

In the midst of my current joblessness, I've been feeling a resurgence of rebelliousness. I'm being radicalized by unemployment. I can feel it happening. Of course I'm going to feel bad things towards a system that isn't currently working for me. It's the story of radicals around the world. Do you think most suicide bombers come from good economic situations?

It's a matter of national security for the US to strengthen its economy. Otherwise the likelihood of homegrown terrorism grows signficantly.

I'm suggesting that the preponderance of nontraditional work schedules is a threat to national security. Such schedules cause, continue, and exacerbate the disillusionment of workers. People with chaotic living patterns are drawn towards job with chaotic schedules ungrounded in reality. Nontraditional work schedules are bad for this country.

Everybody agrees that it's nice to have weekends and holidays off, but they're afraid to demand it. After a handful of years in the bar/restaurant industry I'm tired of working when everyone else is playing and relaxing. I got into that world because I wanted to be with people, but what it ends up doing is confining you to the shiftless, limited group of bar/restaurant people and college students and the unemployed. I mean, who else doesn't need to be up in the morning? On a Tuesday?

We've created a consumer world where we expect to be able to shop and buy things and get tech support every freakin second of the day, all week long, all year long...never stopping, never taking a break...always there.

What do we really need at all times? The cops, firefighters, EMTs, constantly aloft nuclear-armed bombers...all these things I acknowledge as needing to be at hand at all times. But is it really right to think it's OK for that cook to be grilling your steak at 10:30 PM when he should be home with his wife and kids? Is it his fault that he took the job? Or is your fault for creating the need?

Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex Works For Me

Every time a major new Ubuntu release is unleashed I download it and try it out. I've loaded Ubuntu onto an iBook G4, Toshiba Satellite, and most recently on an HP Pavilion. I would've left it on the Toshiba but I needed it to run XP and Office. The HP fell into my hands and I quickly loaded Ubuntu on it, but was frustrated but the difficulty of setting it up to use the Broadcom wireless chipset. I followed the instructions available all over the Web, but nothing seemed to work for me, and so I relegated it to the closet.

Intrepid Ibex led to the resurrection of the HP. I'd heard that Ubuntu was finally playing nice with Broadcom (or vice versa) and it's true. After installing Ubuntu 8.10 on the HP there was an icon at the top of the screen prompting me to download new drivers. I restarted the computer and the wireless card works! Finally!

I now unequivocally recommend Ubuntu to anyone looking for a free, open source alternative to Windows or Macintosh.

They think in images—prose is for them a code

My wanderings around the web which led me to this post, in reverse:

A contagious information pattern that replicates by parasitically infecting human minds and altering their behavior, causing them to propagate the pattern. An idea or information pattern is not a meme until it causes someone to replicate it, to repeat it to someone else. All transmitted knowledge is memetic.

Meme

The only ones who actually wish to share the mischievous destiny of those savage runaways or minor guerillas rather than dictate it, the only ones who can understand that cherishing & unleashing are the same act—these are mostly artists, anarchists, perverts, heretics, a band apart (as much from each other as from the world) or able to meet only as wild children might, locking gazes across a dinnertable while adults gibber from behind their masks.

WildChildren

"Rebellion to tyrants
is obedience to God."
—Thomas Jefferson

Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension

Which I got to by way of Directory > Society and Culture > Cultures and Groups > Cyberculture.

Does anyone still use Yahoo's directory search? Does anyone remember when that's basically what Yahoo looked like? Remember when it was just a college project?

Exploring Yahoo's directory provides more opportunities for random finds compared to the more common keyword searches. The directories offer you avenues of exploration you may not have thought of otherwise.

the nobility of vcr repair

I just finished up my "Intro to Computers in Technology" course.  The book we used was called Computers are Your Future.  Hell, they're already my present so that potentially ominous-sounding title strikes me as just plain silly...like something out of the 80s.  It was a good course, a nice return to the ridiculous halls of academia.

I'm currently debating between the various emphases.  The main areas I'm thinking about are consumer electronics and medical electronics.  It seems to make sense for a number of reasons to focus on medical equipment.  I know I don't want to focus on computers and/or networking equipment.  I don't want to be a computer repair guy, I know that much.  But beyond that I'm not sure yet.  I could end up repairing industrial equipment.  Who knows?  I think I'd rather do something at least somewhat noble, though...and that takes me back to medical equipment.  The decision doesn't have to be made yet, though.  Maybe "noble" means fixing your TV.  That'd be cool.

Big ups to Ben at Homebrew Junkie for his AWESOME new winemaking videos.

here we go with Linux again

I'm putzing around while kinda, sorta doing a bunch of mundane and/or domestic tasks.

The dishwasher just gone done and waits to be emptied.  The clothes washer is at work on a load of pants and shorts.  The dryer is working on undergarments and shirts.  The HP Pavilion is restarting as I type this.  If all goes well, it'll restart running Kubuntu.  I've already tried it once and failed.  After the first restart following the first install, the computer got stuck right after loading the BIOS.  It'd stop with a black screen and in white text, "No Operating System Found".  I'd call that a serious problem.

It appears that all has gone well this time.  Now there remains one more big sticking point: getting the computer to recognize its wireless hardware.  It's ridiculous that it's even a hassle.  I believe it has something to do with open source vs proprietary software, but I'm not totally sure about it.  I do know that Broadcom is a major player in mobile and wireless hardware, so it's odd that its products aren't easily supported on one of the most popular Linux distrubtions.  Anyhoo...all I have to do is connect it to the router via ethernet cable and do a little command line wizardry and the wireless will be up and running.  I had to do the same thing when I loaded Ubuntu on my iBook G4 (which I don't recommend doing unless you're a masochist or really good with computers...or both).  If your computer has a Broadcom wireless card, you can find the solution to your Linux installation woes here: How to: Broadcom wireless cards.

UPDATE:  The instructions in the above link ended up not working.  I'm working on a solution.

Hezbollah in Nikes just do it

My morning news wanderings started with the obligatory spin through the Pensacola News Journal. The only article I bothered with there had this headline: Santa Rosa takes deed to part of Tiger Point road. Don't ask me why I even cared about that one. I guess it's because a government entity is gaining ownership of a piece of land and not paying for it. I'm not saying it's bad; that's just what hit me when I read the headline.

After checking out the local scene I went over the MSNBC to see what was shakin' nationwide and around the world. Right at the top, the featured story: Hezbollah gunmen seize large sections of Beirut. I can't say my initial interest had anything to do with concern for the people living in the city or the local/international political scene in the areas there. What caught my interest was the photo alongside the lead story.

Doesn't it look like that could've been a posed shot?  Look at the guy standing up in the middle, against the wall.  He's pretty buff isn't he?  And don't they all look clean?  The one guy's clearly wearing Nikes.  Go Nike.  Just do it.  Is Hezbollah sponsored by Nike?  I like how it says HOT on the building's walls.  I'm not saying this is a posed shot.  I'm just saying it looks like one.  Not all armed insurgents/revolutionaries are dirty, poor, hiding in caves.  It's a crazy world we live in.  The picture above says to me, "Welcome to 21st Century warfare."

I noticed the pic was from Reuters so I went over there to investigate further.  There, too, the Hezbollah story was top news, though not quite as prominently featured as it was on MSNBC.  The Reuters story, Hezbollah impose control on Beirut, is more thorough than MSNBC's.  That doesn't surprise me.  It's to be expected.  They have different audiences.  Of course the images caught my interest again and I clicked into the photo slideshow related to the story.  The crazy pic from above was in there.  The first one is really cool, too.

Another thing worth noting in the pictures from the conflict is how it shows that Beirut is a modern city with modern culture.  If it can happen there...

Engadget is a whiny baby

 Engadget recently distilled a NY Times article into a blog post, Microsoft and NBC working on copyright filters for Zune?  They go through the routine of how it's bullshit that companies are trying to protect their property, as if we have an inherent right to do whatever we want with whatever we want.  I'm mostly sympathetic to such views.  I believe in freedom, and that means I believe that people/companies have the freedom to protect their shit.  It's no more "wrong" for Microsoft to want their products to protect the rights of their clients than it is for me to want to be able to watch a movie, which I copied from you (illegally), on my media player.  Companies (and a lot of people) exist so they can make money.  Giving their products away for free or sitting idly by while people just take whatever they want doesn't make any sense.  There's not a lot of proof that illegal sharing (LOL...illegal sharing...thou shalt not share) is pilfering from the coffers of the corporations and it's impossible to totally lock down your stuff but that doesn't mean that companies are evil or foolish for wanting to try to lock down their property.  It's like not bothering to put locks on your doors because there are ninjas who can pick them.  Whatever.  I lock my doors.

And then Engadget goes on to bitch about Micro$oft and AT$T working on filtering copyrighted material at the ISP level.  I just don't get why people think that companies are evil for trying to prevent them from doing shit that's illegal.  Again, I'm not against file sharing.  I'm just against the belief that for-profit entities are wrong for attempting to maximize profit.  If you have a network that you built and paid for then you'd want to do what you want with it.  Is it so wrong for there to be forces patrolling the internet in the same way there are forces patrolling our highways trying to bust people for breaking the law?  Only the staunchest anarchist would argue that there is no good reason for the existence of police.  You don't have to be for such groups.  Do what you want to do and accept the fact that your behavior brings you enemies.  Repercussions make life fun, right?

the sound of the celestial realm

Early this morning, the Colorado Rockies defeated the San Diego Padres 2 to 1 after 22 innings of play. 22 INNINGS!!! It took them over 6 hours to finish the game.

Wait a minute.

So is it a big deal because the game ran so late, 1:21 AM? Or is it a big deal because they played for over 6 hours? Both?

I'm on my feet and moving around for more than 6 hours on a regular basis. And I've been on my feet and moving around for longer than that and past 4 AM a whole bunch of times. Aren't these guys professional athletes? I guess most of them couldn't hang in the bar and restaurant industry.

Yeah, the story's good in the confines of Major League Baseball news but it's not much in the way of human performance. There is some excellent stuff here, though:

"This was a good game to get outside yourself," Hurdle said. "About the 16th inning, I said, 'Hey boys, no matter what's in front of us, there's a world of people out there who've got harder rows to hoe than we do. No matter what happens the rest of the night, have some fun with this thing.' "

Now that's something I can respect. Even if it's just a game it's still a real battle that you really want to win. Go through some tough times with a bunch of other people and you'll be bonded to them. That's something that interests me. The men on those baseball teams went through something intense and real that night, and probably some unreal stuff, too. Imagine slugging it out under all those lights in front of all those people. I bet all those guys slept well after that.

Maybe the game was a testament to man's ability to stave off boredom.

Anahata (Sanskrit: अनाहत, Anāhata) is the fourth primary chakra according to the Hindu Yogic and Tantric (Shakta) traditions.
In Sanskrit the word anahata - means unhurt, un-struck and unbeaten. Anahata Nad refers to the Vedic concept of unstruck sound, the sound of the celestial realm. [Anahata]

From serving to soldering...

Recently I registered for my first class at Pensacola Junior College in my quest to get an Associate in Applied Science degree in Electronics Engineering Technology. Talk about a career change: switching from being a restaurant/bar work to an electronics technician. Given my epicly bad academic history, it'll be interesting to see how this particular academic adventure goes. I think it'll be a good one.

The class I've registered for is called Introduction to Computers in Technology.

A first computer course, geared to providing technology students with a working knowledge of computer hardware and software related to their vocation. This course focuses on five concepts; basic keyboarding, word processing, computer hardware, operating systems, and basic computer maintenance.

I just hope the class is up to date because farther down in the description it says the student will learn to operate Windows 3.1. Windows 3.1!? That's what I had on my computer when I graduated from high school 14 years ago.

From the world of food and drinks to computers and circuit boards. Woohoo!!!