| An Amazing Weekend |
|
|
| 11:47pm 30/01/2006 |
| |
mood:  thrilled
|
Well.
This weekend was pretty interesting. On Friday, I found out about two things I really, really wanted: a soft top on Craig's List for $150. They're usually $300 minimum, $1000 new; it's that cheap because it was sans side windows and door equipment, which I randomly have: came with my car. It's black, which matches my current top and the soft gear I already have. Also, a 53" projection television (a Sony VisionScope XBR) for free, but with horizontal sync issues, from gb-reuse.
To make a long story short (because I'm tired, mostly) they were both taken when I got to 'em, but within 24 hours each of their takers decided to let them go, and I was next in line. I head to see the soft top probably this weekend, and the TV is now in my attic, FIXED. I got it to the attic, and it just worked. Was it jolted into working on the way up the stairs, like I'd been praying it would? Seems to have been. I've prayed for gear that just started working again on the spot, without so much as a power cycle, so I suppose I shouldn't be all that surprised. Either way, this weekend was a huge material blessings weekend, and I'm uuber-thankful.
Oh, and Jack's passenger seat? The one that wouldn't come up over the dash for whatever reason for about a year? FIXED. I just pulled it up to let somebody in last night, and it pulled all the way. Tested it twice to be sure. It was supposed to cost $300 - $400 to fix. |
|
| |
|
Read 2 - Post |
| |
| F Minus |
|
|
| 12:10am 30/12/2005 |
| |
I think I saw this on my friend Maggie's Xanga (wwcutie), but Kathleen might've told me about it. Anyway, check out F Minus (the link is to a particular comic, but just about all of them are worth a view). |
|
| |
|
Read 5 - Post |
| |
| Chicago |
|
|
| 01:04am 03/10/2005 |
| |
Today I...
... flew to Chicago (I have 5 days of classes on a product called PeopleSoft.
... had trouble getting my ticket, and then once I boarded I was asked by the stewardess if I was armed. They wouldn't take off until I explained that the John D. Robinson who's on the no-fly list is definitely not me, and that I had no firearms or other weapons on my person. (Hint: always register and have your credit cards list your full name.)
... had a great conversation on the flight with the Linux geek I sat next to and the Armenian studies graduate student across the aisle.
... had my suitcase, originally my grandfather's and bought four years before I was born, bust a seam wide while in the care of the baggage handlers. (No other damage or loss, fortunately. The moral? Keep buying American Tourister. One every thirty years ain't bad.)
... finally drove a Chevy Cobalt, "one of the great new cars for 2005," as their billboards unimpressively announce. (How many great new cars for 2005 were there? The Cobalt was just one of them, not even notably better than the rest?) (The Cobalt is actually a decent ride, and easy on the gas, which is why I picked it.)
... walked around downtown Chicago for four straight hours.
... ate a genuine Chicago hotdog (which really aren't that great, at least to these tastebuds).
... visited the Navy Pier.
... watched a strong lighting storm over the lake.
... was accosted by no fewer than seven homeless people asking for change.
... passed by the yaght mooring areas, which (in the places where there are no docks) sound like a huge collection of wind chimes at night.
... visited the Green Mill Jazz Bar, the birthplace of Slam Poetry, and watched a Slam competition hosted by the guy who originally thought it up (Marc Smith). (Also happened to sit down at the bar next to the wife of the featured act this evening, and thus ended up at a booth in the middle of the floor in front of the stage.)
... was propositioned by a whore. |
|
| |
|
Read 4 - Post |
| |
| Musings for an Early Night |
|
|
| 09:54pm 18/08/2005 |
| |
Do I really want to live by myself, or am I asking that living situation to provide something it can't, namely a sense of self-determination?
Do I love people? I know I love some people, some times, but people I don't know? People who hurt me or annoy me? Do I really love the way I say I do as a follower of Christ?
Do I know myself (well enough)?
Can I make important decisions about my future path and ministry if I think the answers to the previous two questions are likely "no" or at least "not enough"?
Could stepping into a ministry prone to failure for want of those unanswered questions lead me to their answers and perhaps even their resolutions?
Would I step into such a ministry for fear of being left behind or passed over, instead of for a true calling?
If I look at the cloudscape where the moon is just hiding behind the precipice of a huge hole in the night sky, lighting it up in colors I've never seen or heard of before, and I realize that I know no one who would feel the same way as I do as I look at it (but I did once) am I alone?
If I pose these questions in a public forum and find that I'm afraid or ashamed to be expressing these things, how long must it have been since I was truly transparent with anyone, including myself? |
|
| |
|
Read 6 - Post |
| |
| ... but don't you ever think, "what if ...?" |
|
|
| 03:24am 31/07/2005 |
| |
Tonight, I was riding back from Northboro with my friends Kristin and Lara. We had just turned off of 90 at the Brighton tolls when it started raining. I had left my Jeep with the top and doors off at her house, so I fired off a quick prayer: "Jesus, please make it stop raining, and don't let Jack be too wet." "I agree, Jesus," echoed Kristin, and then Lara. The second Lara finished speaking, the rain stopped. When I got to Jack, his seats and everything inside were completely dry. |
|
| |
|
Read 1 - Post |
| |
| Why I Shop At Whole Foods |
|
|
| 04:36pm 23/07/2005 |
| |
Somehow, the chicken I bought didn't make it to my house today. I know I paid for it; it's on the receipt. When I got home, it wasn't there, and since I put the bags into the cart myself, I figured I left it on the belt. I went to customer service to see if anybody had noticed a lonely package of chicken, but nobody had. The guy helping me just had me go pick another package out (could've been twice the size, for all he knew). He didn't ask for a receipt or anything, and assuming that another customer had walked off with my chicken, apologized to me for the situation. |
|
| |
|
Read 2 - Post |
| |
| The Confluence of Many Things |
|
|
| 05:34pm 28/05/2005 |
| |
A lot has happened in the last few weeks.
For starters, I'm done with "official" ministry for awhile. It's very likely that I'll join the Sunday morning prayer team at church, but past that I won't be doing anything. I've ended the small group I was leading, and left River leadership (though not the community). I felt led by the Lord to do this last year, but for various reasons I felt like I couldn't. Now, burned out and unsure of who I am or what I want, I wish I'd listened to Him.
Speaking of the questions "Who are you?" and "What do you want?", my exercise routine has been working out well for a few months now, thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) stillking's generous lending of the Babylon 5 series and a Nordic Track I got from gb-reuse. In looking for a suitable link for the explanation of those two questions, I found this Evolution of the Joke page from the B5 universe. Good, solid reading. The Nordic Track's flywheel has started slipping if I push it at the highest tension, though, meaning I'm getting less of a workout than I'd prefer. Please let me know if you have any thoughts on how to fix that.
Probably the most significant news of late: Beckie and I broke up. I've actually put off journalling at all for a bit because I knew I couldn't really post without mentioning it, and I didn't know what to say. Ending a relationship like that one (my longest, at 14 months) is too significant to give a passing mention, but too personal in some ways to post about at length. Since just about everybody reading this knows already, I guess I'll just answer the usual questions; I've accepted that I can't do it justice one way or another: it was mutual, we're still friends (for real), it did hurt, and my life since has been ok, but really empty.
I've begun working more on my network at home again. Thanks to csinsi's gift of a broken (now repaired, but battery-dead) laptop and Microcenter's clearance rack, I have a laptop that's going to make a perfect audio/video jukebox with MythTV. It's more than halfway finished now.
The last item of note is that I've switched to the Dark Side. I appreciate zeronine's heroic efforts in attempting to convert me; they have finally paid off. The real final straw was that a crash (due to a buggy ndiswrappers implementation) left me unable to recover my Gnome session adequately; something wrong with Sawfish, and I refuse to use Metacity. Since Gnome dropped Sawfish, updates are hard to come by in the Gentoo world, and the recompile was difficult. I finally decided I just wouldn't fix it. Now, I have a desktop environment that is functional, configurable, and damn slick. It's actually the natural progression from Gnome 1.0, in my mind, given all the dumbing down they did in 2.0. I'm certainly not used to it yet (this is as of this afternoon), but I like it very much already.
I'll be heading to New Orleans this Tuesday morning for the Red Hat Summit. Sadly, Wil Wheaton, who was originally slated to speak about iGrep, won't be there. I was looking forward to meeting him, but there isn't much you can do with mono, I guess. I'll be staying through Sunday afternoon. The difference in plane fare is $2, which I'm pretty happy about. Should be a pretty cheap extension (even with the extra hotel costs) to an already-great business trip.
My friend Alex T. MacMillan is in the area for the weekend, which has been fun. He brought Shaolin Soccer with him, and we watched it this morning until about 4:00. I'd definitely recommend it. Alex is going back to San Francisco on Tuesday, though his flight is much later than mine.
Even though this has arguably been the most change-ridden period in my last year, I have very little doubt that each of these decisions was the right one to make. Though lately I often feel like I don't have an anchor or foundation, I guess I don't find that surprising. The point of most of these changes is to provide the space and environment to build a better foundation, and that can't be done without allowing the old, cracked one (in this case, an over-focus on duty and obligation at the expense of self) to fall. Better to do that, even though it's scary, than to leave the old foundation and crush it with what is built later. |
|
| |
|
Read 7 - Post |
| |
| Site Update |
|
|
| 12:00pm 23/04/2005 |
| |
I've updated my web site. Just about the only thing I haven't changed is the poetry page, this time. The largest change is to the Author page, which I completely rewrote. I guess I don't consider it complete, but I don't know when I'm going to be able to work on it next. So for now, there it is. |
|
| |
|
Post |
| |
| Almost a year's silence... |
|
|
| 10:19pm 04/04/2005 |
| |
... but I just had to post that I got my promotion today. I'm more than a little happy about that. I get to add "Senior" to the beginning of my job title (actually to the end, with a comma before it), and not much else (aside from my salary ;) changes.
Other news includes a ton of new poems (since last post, at least ;), including two I just discovered I'd written up but failed to ever link to on my site. They're linked off the main page as of tonight, at aravir.net, which is always updated with my newest poetry.
Also, next Thursday, I'm going to be reading The Swordsman at the River open mic night. I can't promise it'll be anything special, but I guess you never know. It's a really important piece to me (look, I sound like an artist!), so maybe I can deliver it with the feeling and inflection it deserves.
That's it for now. |
|
| |
|
Read 4 - Post |
| |
| My week to date |
|
|
| 09:30am 13/05/2004 |
| |
- Monday: Beckie left in the morning. Got into a car crash in the evening. No injuries on either side. Positive experience overall; now I know how I handle sudden, unexpected crashes and the like. Managed to drive damaged car home. (Description of that incredible evening when I feel like it.)
- Tuesday: Contested a parking ticket and lost; got it reduced from $25 to $5, but I no longer have a place to park. Must resort to meter parking after 6:00pm and moving before 8:00am Sunday - Friday nights until I leave Brookline or find another (probably expensive, but maybe not) alternative. Made appointment with Met Life Home & Auto damage assessors.
- Wednesday: Visited assessors and body shop. Found that I didn't have rental coverage on my insurance (changed that, but too late to make a difference). Will be charged $535 deductible and depreciation, plus rentals the days my car is in the shop. Given the 2 - 3 week estimate, this will likely be hundreds of dollars (although it may not).
- Thursday: Woke up to a very touching E-card announcing Beckie and my two-month anniversary. Visited my new rental car parked 15 minutes away from my house to find that it has been towed. I will have to find my way across town to a lot in Brighton, and pay $95 to get it back (plus a $25 ticket, and $7 cab fare). My sandal broke on the way back to the house. I realized on that same walk that this whole crash (with one other event recently) has almost wiped out my entire savings, which was the largest amount I had saved in my life. I found out upon returning to the house that a very special, one-time Vineyard event I'd been looking forward to for months before they even announced it happened Monday night, not this upcoming Saturday like I thought. Even with everything that happened, I still could've made it if I'd known.
When I spent time with God this morning, I decided on the book of Job. I've got nothing on him, but he handles his situation well (at least at first) and responds in a very human way. So I figured I should see how that went, since it's been some time since I last looked at it.
I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. Job 10:1b,c
After having read the first few chapters of Job, my situation has been put in a much better perspective. One thing I love about Job is that he isn't afraid to complain to God about his situation. He's hurt by what happened, and he doesn't stand up and say, "Look at me! I believe in God, so everything's ok!" He's honest.
Until this morning, I was able to trust God and pretty much let all of this slide. I started to get depressed about the rental, because it's going to be so expensive and I thought I had coverage for it, but even that I got over fairly quickly. This towing thing just pulled the whole curse of this week into a new day, though, and that just sucks. It felt at first like I tripped and was lying on the ground, recovering my breath, and somebody walked along and decided to kick me in the stomach just for good measure. When this many things go wrong in a week, you start to think maybe someone or something intelligent is actually trying to make things go badly for you.
Though He slay me, I will hope in Him; yet I will argue my ways to His face. Job 13:15
I can't say as much as Job can, honestly. I can't argue my ways to God's face. When I was walking home, I thought to God, "What did I do to deserve this, anyway?" Immediately I thought of a flood of things. God doesn't give us what we deserve in this life, and the Bible makes it clear that, at least on its terms, I know God isn't punishing me. But if He were, it would be just.
At this point in my study, I'm starting to feel like I've been whining. None of these things is a huge deal, but my reactions do reveal some things. I feel insecure because my financial stability has been touched. I believe that I have the right (or at least the capacity) to dictate how my day should go, and how I should spend my time (working instead of visiting the tow lot and taking B-time). Neither of these things is true of any man, yet I become angry when I realize it yet again. I guess sometimes I'm just a slow learner.
The conclusion of the matter for me (at least for now, since I still need to get to work today) is this: I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. When God answers Job, He doesn't explain why everything happened. Job never finds out about Satan's accusation. He just shows Job exactly who He is, and lets Job deal with the ramifications. Job sees God's greatness and repents of saying that he was treated unfairly, not because he can see why it happened, but because he knows in the face of all God is that it must be so.
I know this will all turn out ok. I feel a little ashamed now of even bringing it to this public forum and making such a big deal of it. But I'm human; I guess I need the process. "This too shall pass," but not because that's how things work. It isn't. Sometimes "this" kills you. I know everything will be good again because I know God, and I know what He's like. |
|
| |
|
Read 1 - Post |
| |
| Amusing snippet from 3AM conversation |
|
|
| 03:20am 30/04/2004 |
| |
mood: amused
|
(03:09:12) Alex T. McMillan: oh, but mysticism is very pratical
(03:09:14) Alex T. McMillan: practical, even
(03:09:54) strider corinth: Oh, I agree.
(03:10:06) strider corinth: It's only abstract in that it's difficult to describe to those without similar experiences.
(03:10:41) Alex T. McMillan: that's good
(03:11:02) Alex T. McMillan: but, you know
(03:11:08) Alex T. McMillan: I'm not levitating or anything *yet*
(03:11:15) strider corinth: Heh. Well, me neither. =)
(03:11:22) Alex T. McMillan: but someday
(03:11:54) strider corinth: What do you feel that would do for you?
(03:11:58) Alex T. McMillan: one of the best ways to connect with people about God is to blow their minds by talking about some of the stuff saints have pulled
(03:12:04) Alex T. McMillan: well, I feel it would be really awesome
(03:12:15) strider corinth: I don't disagree, but in what way?
(03:12:39) Alex T. McMillan: in the totally rocking kind of way
(03:12:54) strider corinth: Heh.
(03:13:05) Alex T. McMillan: if you're asking what purpose it serves, it serves the purpose of being totally rocking.
(03:13:11) strider corinth: Hah. Gotcha.
(03:13:17) strider corinth: You should totally write a book of theology.
(03:13:21) Alex T. McMillan: and trust me, JC is in this business |
|
| |
|
Post |
| |
| Insomnia... |
|
|
| 02:59am 30/04/2004 |
| |
mood:  blah
|
... is for the birds. Except it's not, because I'm pretty sure they're all asleep. I've been up since about 1:00, and I'm showing no really encouraging signs of getting tired. I wish at this stage I had some work to do so I could rationally leave early tomorrow. Instead, I'll keep talking on IM with Alex T. McMillan until I feel ready to return to the sack.
Nonetheless, I wish I would just fall asleep. |
|
| |
|
Post |
| |
| A Geek's Dream |
|
|
| 06:58am 20/04/2004 |
| |
Ok. so this might not be as weird as the rest I've had lately. I had a dream last night in which Justin, Leander, Berg and I were in somebody's apartment (John Brooks'?) at a sort of party. Justin was back in the computer workshop he happened to have there. One of his computers had recently had a card stolen out of it, an older card which provided video (but only blue, 'cause it was for emergencies and ran low-power) and DIESEL POWER. You would fill a small tank on this ISA card and it would power your machine for a period of time. |
|
| |
|
Read 2 - Post |
| |
| All-Star Dream Movie |
|
|
| 08:24am 13/04/2004 |
| |
Dustin Hoffman was a timid man who was for some reason at the mercy of Meg Ryan. She was his teacher, or boss, or something, and apparently rather cruel. She tells him at the very beginning of the sequence (it was actually a voice over of the last part of the previous dream, a picture of a french class' blackboard in a hallway, stating that everybody's work on The Princess Bride was so bad that the teacher will allow them all to drop one report grade that semester, and this can be it if they'd like) that he should take some initiative in his life.
The very next scene is her being arraigned. The whole court proceding, she is being called "Queen" something or other. The judge reads the charges, which included "being a bully". Dustin is resolute, smug, and happy for the first time in his life in the witness' stand, and Queen Latifah is the prosecuting attorney. As Ryan is convicted, she isn't upset; she looks proud of Hoffman. The closing scene is Queen Latifah sitting in a chair with presents all around her, as well as a bouquet of flowers. "Mark my words," she says in a Jamaican accent, "this isn't the last we've heard from Queen <name I can't remember>." |
|
| |
|
Post |
| |
| Dropping like flies... |
|
|
| 02:15pm 07/04/2004 |
| |
I have a lot of weddings to go to this summer. I figured I'd make a list:
| Couple | In Wedding | This summer |
|---|
| Penny/Gabe | x | x |
| Andrew/Alissa | x | x |
| Doug/Julia | x | x |
| Rodd/Lindsay | | x |
| Steve/Rebekah | | x |
| Christina/Pat | x | ? |
| Sarah/Brian(?) | | x |
| Leander/Kristy | x | |
Please tell me if I missed any, and please forgive me; I think you can see why I might. |
|
| |
|
Read 9 - Post |
| |
|
|
|
tired