I worked the entire summer, which was great for many reasons.  This year was quite possibly the best summer I have had working over there.  I worked in one spot the entire time, where there were a few mix-ups of staff, so I was able to actually do things that mattered.

A little over a year ago, I started talking to Katharine.  On August 13th we went to a movie, and we’ve met up a few more times over the last two weeks.  We went to the lake this past Saturday and watched a movie — pretty much just made a whole day of getting to better know each other.

That’s all I have for now!

Exploring Global Warming and the Lesser Known Theories

Global warming, the name of the phenomenon believed to be causing the Earth’s temperatures to increase over the past fifty years, has led many scientists to attempt to persuade much of Earth’s inhabitants to lay off fuels that are believed to be the cause of such warming. As of now, there are no scientists who deny the fact that global warming is occurring; however, there are some scientists who do not accept the varying theories of what is actually causing global warming (“Global warming”). Other than just effecting temperature averages on the Earth, scientists believe that global warming could also negatively bring about climatic changes, such as floods and hurricanes (“Global warming”). Humans may have an affect on the total outcome of global warming; however, the scientists who reject these views have “seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse” (Lindzen).

Christian Morals in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Tempest

There are many different morals and themes in the Middle English Arthurian romance of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the more modern play by William Shakespeare, The Tempest. While each story has nothing, dealing with the plot, in common, there are a few similarities between how each handles certain themes, namely forgiveness. Being as each poem was written in another period in time from the other, and the fact that there is only one source for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Gawain 201), it is sufficient to say that Shakespeare probably did not receive any literary ideas from it when writing The Tempest. Furthermore, The Tempest is not considered by most to be a Christian play, and strictly it isn’t. It was written during a time when Christianity heavily influenced European society, however. On the other hand, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is considered to be a Christian poem, or it was at the least heavily influenced by Christianity. Some of the Christian symbolism is unclear in a first reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, while being exceptionally well hidden in The Tempest. The theme which dominates each text is that of forgiveness and the recourse thereof, this being the main Christian moral. While not being specific in the use of Christian concepts and ideas, each use extensive symbolism and allegory to derive the concepts and ideas of Christianity.

So there they are …

Registration for spring semester starts Tuesday.  I called to see how I could change my major, and I’ve got to fill out a form.  Right now I’m thinking about changing it to Information Systems.  It’s sounds more like what I’m interested in.  I don’t care for this math major I have now.  I’ll update on how that goes later …

After the major change, I’ll need to see a new advisor and figure out the classes I need to take next semester.

I’ve thought about many things lately.  And learned a bit too.  Or I am learning …

All this stuff I’m doing in school seems down right senseless and useless.  That’s probably one of the things I’m learning thought.  I love all my classes (minus the computer one; math goes by so quick it frustrates me to want to give up).  The literature class is interesting with all the history.  I’ll be thoroughly surprised if I ever need the Shakespeare and Chaucer, though.  Biology is so-so.  All it is is note taking.  I can’t hardly read the instructors cursive though.  Biology lab is all right.  I think I have the smallest group with only one other person.  Sometimes we have to combine, and some of the others we combine with are lazy in answering the questions.  It bugs me.  More work for us later.  The computer one is ultra-boredom.  The way I’ve heard others talk about the class, they aren’t doing good — makes me feel bad (as I don’t even listen to lectures or read anything and get good test-grades).  I guess that’s how people who excel in literature feel when I get the low grade.  Maybe.  Math is just frustrating.

Last Wednesday, Tim got a new server.  Not much downtime.  It was better than the previous server moves.  This site’s speed is so much better than it used to be.

I guess that’s my update for now … I want to post about other things, but I’ve not come to full understanding of them yet.

Why is it that you go to school for half of your life, then you go back to school (college) for another half of your life to learn about crap you could really care less about?  On top of that, half of it is useless, time consuming items that could be well spent doing something else.  This is just part of the confusions and frustrations I’ve been dealing with the past few days.

Over the past several years, I’ve been pretty good at computers.  They come naturally to me.  I’m not good with all aspects of computing, of course, but I can manage to do just about what basic book sense professionals can do (only in about one-fifth of the amount of time it’d take them to run through their book-sense procedures).  I’m just stating the facts of life and how I’ve seen it played out at work and other jobs I’ve done online and such.  If I can’t figure something out I’ll spend literally hours trying to figure it out.  Normally I’ll either do exactly what I wanted to do, or make a work around that would do what I wanted it to do (such as with things I don’t know much about: databases and *nix-based operating systems).

Anyway, I say all that because I’m downright bored with college.  All I’m learning about is how to write a several page essay paper on something I could care less about reading, much less responding to or do research and then respond to an essay.  However, with that said, I do like reading and writing.  I don’t even mind the occasional two-page analytical essay about something I read.  What I do not like is writing several of them per class, not having a clear example of how to write it (to that instructors specifications), and ones requiring me to write pages and pages on end about something that could have been expressed in one to two pages — tops.

Next is math.  I love math.  The thing I don’t like about it is learning the specific formulas and then being taught something in 45 minutes, which should have taken at least 3 hours to discuss.  I don’t learn by watching and doing later.  I learn by watching, trying to do it in class, and then seeing where I screwed up, so I can go back and make the needed corrections.

Technically, the only way I know I may be able to get an okay job is to put up with this nonsense for another few years.  I’m not sure that I’ll get a good job then though.  I’ve seriously been considering going through the process of changing my major here lately too.  I like programming, but I like doing it alone (in other words, I hate looking at others code and hacking it).  I like server and database administration.  I like web-based computing (as that’s really what all of my experience thus far has been in).

The dream I have with a career involves a little bit of computers and a little bit of church.  I want to be involved in the church someway.  I also want to be involved in this community in someway.  I wish something could come up where I could work around here — contract — with various computer needs of local area businesses.  There must be someone that needs some help, somehow.  I really don’t know how to do that though.  Advertising is not my speciality.  Not in the least.

It often seems that the hope I have for that is just utterly hopeless.  I’m not sure anyone really thinks it can happen.  It might be true.  I’m trying to trust God.  I’m just worried about not passing my core classes …

… and that’s rarely ever a joyful place to be.

Someone hit my car yesterday.  I’ll have to take it to a body show.  It was at the dangerous intersection of Taylor Road and the I-85-west off ramp.  We were both okay.  I just want to get my car fixed.  I don’t like having anything wrong with it.

Prayer in the Darkness is tomorrow night at 10.  I hope people come.  Something I’ve had to learn is that there may not be a lot of people, but never to be discouraged.  It’s easy to get discouraged, though.

This past week has been busy with the release of a new version of E-Blah.  It’s been a little bit of a pain this time, as there were several problems at the start.  I’ve fixed just about all of them right away, though.  I just didn’t have enough people to beta test before release.

I’ve really been enjoying my Urge music subscription.  I’ve found so many new CD’s and artists that I would have otherwise never listened to.  Ten dollars a month may seem like a lot, but when compared with buying several CD’s every month that costs the same amount, it’s well worth it.  Currently I’ve been enjoying Jessie Daniels, Decypher Down, and Fireflight, among others.  One of my favorite songs right now has to be ”You Decide” by Fireflight.  The music video made me fall in love with it all over again.

Someone told me not so long ago that one of the reasons why it’s good to get out of Tallassee sometimes, is to see joy.  I guess I wasn’t so sure what was meant by that … until this week.  Maybe I wasn’t paying attention.  Maybe I was overlooking it.  I’m not really sure, but I’m beginning to see that what this person said was true.  Maybe everyone’s just hopeless (or feels that way, I should say).  I went to several places in Tallassee this week and the people were just so down.  I went to Wal-Mart today, for instances, and the lady checking me out literally looked like a zombie.  I’m not sure what needs to be prayed for first — things broken (such as drugs and religion) or fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, etc).

Something I have been learning recently is attitude and how I look at things.  When I first walked into English class (late, I might add) and realized it was British Literature, I could have turned off and just said I’m going to hate this, or I could go in with the mind set that it’s going to be interesting.  So far it has been interesting.  It’s attitude though.  I wonder if I just have a bad attitude about a lot of things, so that’s something I’m going to try to work on getting out of. I don’t want to make pre-judgements about anything — people, things, places, ideas, etc.

I got a cell phone yesterday.  One step closer, I 'spose.

I start work on Monday, 15 May.  Ah, I can't wait to hear all those wonderful discussions like I did last year.  Those always gave me something to write about.  They did last year anyway.  Hopefully I'll tag along more this year.

I've got to go to the church tomorrow and … do something?  I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do just yet.  We laid carpet yesterday and put an air vent in the nursery today (ok, I watched more).  I'm technical.

Next week marks the last days of the Spring semester.  One year of college is gone.  It went by incredibly fast.  I think this was just a breeze year.  Next year just looks hard, maybe it won't be.

I went to the commissarry yesterday and helped pick out groceries.  It's not too bad, because I get to pick what I like.

I found this really good quote tonight:

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket–safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. – C.S. Lewis

"Destruction is certain for those who say that evil is good and good is evil; that dark is light and light is dark…" - Isaiah 5:20 (NIV)

I added the last quote 'cause I like it.  I heard it on the radio on Wednesday and really liked it.  The sad part is this: if we're making evil moral and moral evil, there's coming destruction because we're doing exactly what this verse says.  Ah, we've got to get back to holiness.  Psalm 93:5 says, "your statutes stand firm; holiness adorns your house for endless days, O LORD." (NIV)  We've got to "worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness" (Psalm 96:9 NIV).  We've got to understand what Isaiah spoke:

And a main road will go through that once deserted land. It will be named the Highway of Holiness. Evil-hearted people will never travel on it. It will be only for those who walk in God's ways; fools will never walk there. Lions will not lurk along its course, and there will be no other dangers. Only the redeemed will follow it. – Isaiah 35:8-9 (NLT, emphasis added)

We've got to get on that Highway of Holiness. All other ways are traveled in vain. This doesn't mean that roads already traveled that are void of God are sometimes used by God for something good though …

I went to the Tallassee Spring Show last night.  It was about as good as watching a 3 star made for TV movie.  Not bad, but not great either.  I think the best one I went to was about two years ago.  Too many slow songs about how they gotta have a girl or guy (very little change there too).  Typical, though.

In the meantime, I’ve been learning a new language — C#.  I’m learning the very basic concepts of everything.  I may need to get a book so I can actually create a good piece of software.  I’m using the .NET Framework (Microsoft is releasing Visual Studio Express free of charge — forever — now).  It’s different.  I’m following a video tutorial from the Microsoft website.  It’s helping me to learn the interface a little while I go.

School is going just great.  I’ve got the majority of my essays either completed or near completion.  I’ve got one more two page essay to write and I’ll be done with all my essays (minus the final essays).  I need to finish one more lab in the computer class (I don’t have Microsoft Access here, so I have to use it there).  I have one more assignment for the Economics class.  Other than that, I’m done I believe.  The computer essay was easier than I thought.

I shot my rocket twice today.  We was afraid the wind was going to knock it off onto a roof.  It did fine though, the wind wasn’t too bad.  I’ve got three more rocket engines, they should be pretty fun to shoot on another day.

I hate bugs.  There’s some sort of jumping insect wandering around my room (it looks so much like a mix between a spider and a grasshopper, but I don’t think it is one).  I’ve killed several of them this year already.  This is the only one that’s jumped away though.  Earlier tonight I killed another 1-2 inch spider.  He was crawling on the wall.  Was.

I’ve not listened to as much ChristianRock.net here lately (been listening to the Night Watch or some other worship station).  I’ve heard a new artist on ChristianRock.net the other day though, called “Red”.  The song, “Breath Into Me” is a very good.  Check them out.

I guess that’s enough over viewing for tonight.

The computer operating system world is massive with hundreds of flavors, yet small at the same time with only three popular – or at least recognizable – systems: Linux, Windows, and Mac OS (mainly X today). While there are many different types of operating systems, they are all used – often times at least two operating systems are interacting with users each day, much of the time behind the scene. There are two major client-focused operating systems: Windows and MacOS.

Also note, I'm somewhat biased towards Windows and Linux as those are the two operating systems I use.

Click here to read a "Brief Overview of Operating Systems".

On another point, I’ve found that I can understand why the statistics for people coming out of college whom are Christians are less than those who do not attend college. Anyone taking what the professors say at face value are ignorant. No one should do that. There’s a lot of debate about what this and that 5,000 years ago really meant. It’s not proven fact — it’s speculation. The History Channel generally tries to make this assumption. Text books, some do and some do not. Sometimes I seriously wonder if they’re trying to brainwash and make people believe everything they say to be history. Parts are great and interesting. Roman history is great — there’s tons of laws and text to actually back things up there. Pots and picture text in these other civilizations — that’s not really a lot to go by (no matter how educated you are).

There is so much history in the Bible it’s incredible. What I don’t get is why we didn’t go over the laws for the Israelites in my history class. What other civilization had so much history and laws (not to count that it’s been the most widespread history book — not including the other great lessons — of all time).

Moving on into Creation discussion …

There’s one question about the creation account that I’ve came up with (that would explain an “old” Earth), when God created the Earth, did he create it and then just let it sit for a while? Why I say that is because,

IN THE beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and an empty waste, and darkness was upon the face of the very great deep.

Genisis 1:1-2 (Amplified Translation with emphisis added)

When was the beginning? Did day one start there, or did it start when God created light? Other planents are void and formless (Mars, Saturn, etc). I’m aware that this really doesn’t matter, but I think it’s interesting. Thinking a little deeper on this … if there was no light, then there would be nothing seperating night and day so therefore there would technically be no night or day and so when the light was created, would that begin the first actual day? God could have created entire galaxies (and even put the stars in place), accounting for the time it would take for light to reach the Earth (this was an interesting question posed by a friend). Light speed could have been sped up. The speed of light could be diffrent then and now, or there could be holes in space, among countless other possibilities. Light could have been created thousands of years after the Earth was created (I honestly don’t buy any “million year” theories).

The entire debate and discussion on this could be very interesting. I found an interesting quote today, “saying life came from evolution is like saying a library was made by someone spilling a bottle of ink” (Annale Fleisher, high school student). Also, if evolution took place, why aren’t other planents still “evolving”? There would be “evolving” on them too because organisms would “adapt” to their enviorments. So far, there’s not been anything found on the other planents. For the most part, scientists still seem to be looking for water and oxygen — even though it works on Earth, why would it have to work on other planents? Didn’t we evolve and adapte to use oxygen and water (evolution supporters thinking, that is)? And if there was a “big bang”, where did the bang come from? There would have to be some sort of origin. You can’t get something out of nothing (that’s why 4 times 0 equals zero).

I jumped to a few topics tonight, but purhaps I’ve got some people thinking. Creation happened. There’s evidence there. I personally believe the world was created in a 6 day period (+1 day of rest), just as God said it was (literal translation). There’s some thought provoking questions that can be arived from the first few sentences of Genisis though. Also, I don’t dislike my professors, I just dislike the work they give. Most of them have great personalities, and I like them all okay (some more than others, of course). Are essays really that important? I can freelance just fine … I think … why don’t they just ask me to do that?

School is actually kind of lame (and getting lamer by the day).  Essays, I’m okay with — as long as it’s not about literature.  That’s some of the lamest stuff I’ve ever heard of.  Just something I’ll have to try to manage to get through.  I’ve always been a B student in English, but this class may push me to a C.  Hopefully not, but I don’t know.  The two classes I enjoy are on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s, which is Economics and “the computer class” (that’s boring as I know most of it, it’s in front of a computer though … so, not all bad, GMail with GTalk is great for that class).

E-Blah has been going pretty good the past month.  I’ve started working on version 9.75 (don’t ever ask me how I’ve numbered E-Blah, as I still don’t know).  There’s a lot of new things that I’ve implemented just over the past six months that from version 9.2 to 9.75 makes it feel almost like a brand new system.  I just enjoy seeing people get it and see that what they’ve wanted all this time is finally there.  The moderator team there has been pretty stable as well, those are some of the best support guys any company could ever have (anyone who’s got support from them can atest to it).

MinistryTalk.com lately all I’ve been working on with MinistryTalk.com is the Church Broadcast (or “sermon”) section.  I’ve added several new features with a few more planned in the next few days.  I’m actually hoping that we can expand and grow and offer a few more services for churches and other Christians “areas of interest” (whatever that’s supposed to mean).  Either way, hopefully Tim and I can get something going that pumps it up from being “just a sermon site”.  Ah, and I’m hoping to allow a few more churches to join in the next few days (with the approval of the server admin — Tim).

Church is going great.  More and more things are coming in and it’s just awesome.  The projector is now working, which is what I like to do.  I’ve been spending several hours lately trying to find some things to make things better software wise.  Overflow (band is coming from Wetumpka) is Saturday and prayer walk is Sunday at 10am.  The sad thing is, I’ll have to cut both events short as my sister is in the city wide pagent and on Sunday morning my other church is going to need me (my mom said).  I’ll probably get to stay at Overflow for an hour or two, and then I’ll probably get to go to the first 45 minutes of the prayer walk … at least I’m hoping.  Now I just need to figure out which one I’m more ready to go to (hmmm) …

There’s other things I could talk about, but none of it’s that important.  I’ve not been as focused on many other things here lately.  I guess something that does deserve mention, I’ve gotton back into playing Enemy Territory (the free multiplayer FPS World War II game).  Now it’s an “older” game, so I can max out all the settings with my computer and it has no slow downs.  There’s still hundreds of users playing the game too, that’s what makes it all the more great (and it’s free).  That and Age of Empires III are the only games I have installed (I believe).  Both are relatively clean games, so that’s a plus with me now (actually, I wouldn’t mind burning a few of my old games).

With the Bible on Radio podcasts, I’ve been going through the book of Numbers.  I’ve really enjoyed a lot of it (minus the parts I skip — the census numbers, for instance).  There’s a lot of good teaching in Numbers though.  A lot of good discussion topics too!

I’m going to start building people up and encouraging them more.  I think sometimes we can have friends that are really close, but yet we also pull them down sometimes by joking with them (when it may be something they can’t handle).  A good example is, for instance, joking with a friend about their weight.  The person could be skinny as a stick (and even if they aren’t), but saying they “really big” may not exactly be helping them.  I think it’s based on the person though, too.  Some people take things in stride, while some people wallow in them and believe everything and take it to heart.  Other times, I think that some of the words are friends say are taken the wrong way (especially if that person is going through depression or feeling worthless).  Point being, we should all be encouragers.

The media affects our daily lives in numerous ways – from television to radio to print. Sometimes these media avenues persuade our opinions on certain issues – such as abortion, homosexuality, racism, and political. Numerous times throughout history the media has downplayed bias, which simply means prejudiced*.

Media bias dates back to the early days of the newspaper and continues to this present day*. There are many examples throughout history showing biased media. Benjamin Franklin wrote a great example of early media bias in 1728 when he wrote an article in favor of printing paper money. Franklin did not specify he would be one of the beneficiaries, in terms of business, in printing the money*. Sometimes such bias pushed the political leaders of the time to limit the freedom of press, as did Abraham Lincoln when he ordered many newspapers, in favor of the South during the American Civil War era, to shutdown operation*. There are countless times in history where the media has been bias towards one particular point of view.

Click here to download the PDF version of this document (rough draft). I’d love to see some comments on what others think about this! Documented areas in the excerpt was indicated with an asterisk (*).

I decided to go back and redo my corrections, so here is the final version (there may be some I overlooked, though): Media Bias and How it Affects Us (Final).

Next class was English. We did very little in the class, it was actually pretty good. I had to write an essay (which I believe I did sorely on). I’m good at writing on the computer where I can just … type — like I’m doing now. But sitting there putting my thoughts out with pen and paper, it’s both slower and I find it more difficult to do. I wrote about Desperation. I thought it was somewhat decent, although I put my heart into the posts here … what I wrote there was just mind to paper. I hate reading mind to paper. Very boring stuff. Maybe someone will see something out of it and all though. We’ll just see.

Now … tomorrow is two new classes. First is math, second is government. I like both of them, but really I don’t know how it’ll be in class. That’s a post to be saved for tomorrow.

Ah, a lot has seemed to have happened since my last post. Anywho … thanks to everyone who reads my blog, I don’t normally address the reader, but thanks. If you’re a reader and ever find an entry you want to comment on, feel free! I love comments about the entries. Now I’m off …..