the server i play, RSCEmulation.net

get on this shit, prove to me that you're playing by talking to me in the game and i'll hook it up, i have over 10k fg that im probably never going to use so i really dont care about it

As Told by Ginger has been recognized by fans and Nickelodeon alike for its character development, most of which is unusual for a cartoon.

In the first season, Ginger's age group is hinted as being in seventh grade. By the second season, they move up to eighth grade rather than remaining the same age. They graduate Jr. high in the third season and move on to becoming freshman in high school. Carl's age group works in a similar way, as they become Jr. high students by the third season. As the episode with the Jr. high graduation aired in 2004, even the show was aired in 2000, Ginger is most likely part of the class of 2006. Also in the second season, Darren had his unwieldy orthodontia that he had been wearing for the entire first season removed, which resulted in rising popularity. Also, many episodes (mostly seasons two-three, although season one did this too) have references to previous episodes, giving the episodes a definite order.

One of the more noticeable developments is the fact that the characters change clothes each time a new day comes. Many cartoons have their characters remain in the same outfits to save time and money. The girls in Ginger's age group (Dodie, Courtney, Macie, Miranda, and Ginger herself) and some of the adults were the only ones to do this at first. But after Darren got his orthodontia removed, he changed clothes as well. Carl's age group only changes clothes so often, most of the time with little changes. Hoodsey's coat rack has identical purple hooded-sweatshirts, mocking cartoons that always remain in the same outfits. Also, unlike live-action shows whose characters only wear an outfit once, As Told By Ginger characters wear their outfits in rotation, and new outfits are added every few episodes.

The show also deals with several deeper themes than other Nicktoons. In "Wicked Game", Ginger's two best friends betray her after feeling jealousy toward her new boyfriend, Darren. In "And She Was Gone", the staff and students at school think Ginger is depressed after she writes a disturbing poem. In the episode "No Hope for Courtney", Carl's pranks cause his teacher to retire. After she agrees to come back, Mrs. Gordon passes on. In actuality, the voice actress, Kathleen Freeman died and the episode was dedicated to her. "A Lesson in Tightropes" has Ginger going through an emotional break-up with Darren while, at the same time, having to get surgery for acute appendicitis. Furthermore, the episode "Stuff'll Kill Ya" shows Ginger dealing with what could be conceived as a caffeine addiction.

Oh, where to begin. Well, first off, I should not begin with "where to be gin," as I originally wrote. Alcohol and I don't mix. Besides, gin and tonic rolls off the tongue much better than gin and Jordan. Then again, I said be gin, not be mixed with gin. Now I can't even keep my own story straight. Good luck deciphering the rest of this post.

I suppose I ought to start out with the most exciting news in my life. That's right, I finished reading Eldest for the fourth time, and have since traversed 232 pages into rereading Brisingr. The Bumblebee of Life once again inspired me as no other writing has. I'm pretty sure on one of the pages I most recently read, Paolini got switched up on which entity, Eragon or Saphira, was talking (thinking to each other in italics). It was like six paragraphs back and forth with no ", Eragon said," and suddenly Saphira was asking questions of Eragon, and Eragon was answering with what only Saphira should have known. PS, I didn't notice that Eragon was just Dragon with an E until halfway through my fourth read of the first book. Also, I once thought that "I am" was the shortest complete sentence. It's actually "Be."

I started seeing a counselor, mostly because after the E/Dragon thing, I realized my brain wasn't functioning as well as it once was. Maybe I'd always been mistaken, but aren't most counseling sessions an hour long? The ones with this guy are 45 minutes, which usually run a little late. So far, and yesterday was my fourth session with him, he's really only been getting to know me rather than talking me through things or giving advice or whatever, not that I'm an expert on counseling. Yesterday I ended up saying something I didn't expect to. That's happened a few times before when I talked with Solomon or other counseloresque people, but this was slightly different, as in hindsight, I'm not sure what I said was true. I ended up saying that the nondescript sickness that I always feel, as described in the second paragraph of Restless, might as well be synonymous with shame. It seems like it would be true in the abstract, but not when I think about it concretely.

This brings me to another important if not mind-numbing point. It's the idea of absolute value verses relative value. I bought A Few Good Men on BluRay the other day, because it was on sale for $10 at Fred Meyer. Seemed like a good deal to me, and I love that movie and don't currently own it, so I bought it. After I bought it, I looked it up on Amazon, who was selling it for $11, but it occurred to me that if it had been on there for $7 or something, would I have still thought it a good deal? Clearly, at some point, I thought the movie was worth $10. Would the value of owning the movie be less if I found a better deal? This is obviously a simple case, but I think it can easily be applied to our lives in bigger ways. It also reminds me of the parable of the workers in the vineyard.

Do cats have adam's apples? Kotenok, get over here.

I was thinking about it a couple Sundays ago, and I think my goal for counseling, though I've not mentioned this to him yet, is to be able to say that my relationship with God is amazing, to really think that. I know that it is, for why should the creator of heaven and earth die that I might have such a relationship? But I think I take that for granted. If God is good, the ultimate good, he loves us as much as he says he does, and has the chance to save us, I don't want to be so arrogant to argue that it would be required of him to do so at the cost of his own, or own son's, life, but it seems to me to be the logical choice. I think for that reason, I take it for granted. I would never argue that I was worth that sacrifice, but that too is folly, for God said I was, and I shan't argue with him. I guess if I really beheld the gravity, the enormity of the relationship I have, I would repeatedly fall on my knees and cry out in thanks and ... disbelief? There's some irony. And if it were truly as intimate a relationship as it ought, I would feel more stable in it, and more thankful and awed. I would say it's amazing. As it stands, it simply is.

On the other hand, a couple times I've tried to live without it, and I couldn't do it. I feel like I'm stuck in limbo, "wrestling" with an impassive god. And I know that is not his nature, so why do I feel that it is? Why does the evidence in my life point that direction?

Well, that took a depressing turn. While I'm at it, I might as well write the rest out of my system. My counselor said something at the end of our session yesterday. It didn't immediately throw me off, in fact, it elicited an odd sense of pride. Today, I felt jumbled though, badly enough that I felt physically sick and stayed home from work. I watched Minority Report for the first time in a few years. The scene where Agatha, John, and his wife are all at his wife's house, they're up in Shawn's old room, and Agatha is talking about the life Shawn could have had actually brought a couple tears to my eye. I rarely get choked up over movies, especially action movies. I'm not sure why it happened, but it was just immensely sad to me. Also, the scene where the murder was supposed to take place and Agatha is reliving the present was done incredibly well. I really felt for Agatha, and it was hard to watch. I've probably seen the movie a good six to eight times. I'm not sure why this was the first time I had such emotions about it. Or, I'm not sure why I had emotions about it this time. I haven't decided which.

So, I maybe exaggerated a slight amount, the teensiest amount conceivable, in fact, if exaggeration were tangible, I'm pretty sure I would have split the atom, when I said that the most exciting thing in my life was finishing Eldest. Maybe. God save us all if Stephen Colbert ever happens upon tangible exaggeration. The earth might just gain enough mass that the sun would start orbiting it. Anyway, if there is something more exciting than reading a book for the fourth time, it's this.

A few weeks ago I went to the eleven o'clock church service because the Costa Rica team was having a post trip thank you party for our supporters up in Bellingham. At this particular morning service, it was rather full, and I ended up sitting next to a girl named Kaylee. The lead singer in the worship band said something about playing an old song, and then started the chords for Shout to the North. I commented, "Old? This was written like eight years ago." Kaylee laughed at that. After the service, I asked her and her cousin if they wanted to go out to lunch. I've been out to lunch with several people after church services both at Harper and LatR so this was no big deal to me. They checked the time and her cousin's schedule, and then we went to Chipotle in Northgate. Kaylee's got to be one of the most interesting people I've met. If she had more character, she'd have to appear on the USA channel. She's super bright, laughs at corny jokes, and can hold her own in a banter. You can't ask for much more than that. But wait, there's more. Call in the next thirty minutes and she'll own Firefly and Serenity on DVD. That's nerdier than I am! Her one flaw is that she's not seen Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Of course, having no room for improvement, for growth, would also be a flaw so, damned if you do, damned if you don't, and damn the torpedoes!

So, I may have laid it on a little thick there (really got into the groove, which I guess means I've found my muse for writing hyperbolically), but really, based on first impressions, she's a great person. A week later, I asked her out to coffee, and she suggested the following Friday. The next day, coffee changed into dinner, and the day after, dinner into dinner plus Iron Man 2 with friends. You've got to admire someone who was looking forward to Iron Man's sequel more than I was, especially someone of the female persuasion. I don't think I'll say much more than that tonight, lest I too stumble upon tangible exaggeration.

It's now getting late, and I have three unequally viable choices. In order of descending meritoriousness they are go to sleep, read more Brisingr, and watch A Few Good Men again. I did get five hours of extra sleep earlier today, so I'm not too tired, but tomorrow might be painful if I'm not awake. We're having a morale event (I almost forgot about it) at 10:00 in Seattle. I hate driving in Seattle. I hate parking in Seattle.
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Stranger than Fiction Saturday, April 17, 2010

Bah, I can't write fiction. I try from time to time, and it's always boring. Part of the issue is that I really only want to write something if it's not been written before. And part of the reason is I have no talent there. I'll stick to what I'm good at: writing paragraphs upon paragraphs of unread text so it looks like I have a life, at least one interesting enough to write about, so long as the readers don't actually get past the first paragraph.

This time I thought I had it. The last few attempts have been attempting fantasy, but I don't have any good ideas of magic systems (which are my favorite part). I'd rather learn than teach, read than write. I also tend to get hung up on the plot, which was the case this time as well. This time I thought I'd write the story of boy meets girl (because that's never been done before), but only write during the moments they're actually interacting. The first "chapter" was five lines long, from the moment a mutual friend was introducing them until the moment after they shook hands and got distracted by other friends at the party. The second chapter was just the friend confirmation email from Facebook. For the third, I was attempting to write an instant message chat log. I actually wrote a program to generate the HTML for me. It turns out talking to myself on paper isn't as fun as talking to myself aloud. Five minutes into the "conversation" I alt+F4'd without saving.

On a side note, I couldn't figure out how to get a WebBrowser Winforms object to autosize, nor make it scroll to a certain point on the page (i.e. the bottom). Using LINQ's XDocument and XElement objects, though, made the page generation itself a breeze. Even ctrl+z was simple. I just kept a stack of each of the XElements I'd added, and then to undo, popped the stack and called .Remove() on the object, which removed itself from the XDocument. Magic!

I think maybe the hardest part for me, writing fiction, is creating a character other than myself. I just can't leave my own head. I think most authors, at least in their early works, write with the main character being the author. Alexander, for instance, gets woozy from the height of a chair unless he's over water, much like his character Longshark (whom, in my head, I pronounced Lawnshark) in his latest story. I would guess that Paolini acts quite a bit like Eragon, at least in his inquisitiveness. But then both them have supporting characters that are quite different from than the authors. I just end up writing copies of myself, or possibly my friends, though it turns out the way I perceive my friends is a lot more like how I perceive me, than it is how they actually are. They wouldn't say this. I would. Bah.

I do wonder what happens if you add an element to multiple XDocument objects, because .Remove()'s documentation says it removes the element from its parent, and in this case, there are multiple parents. I could try it, and report back, but I'd rather wonder than know in this case. All my friends would too.

So yes, I keep attempting and failing fiction. Mostly this happens when I reread Eragon. Two thoughts always come to mind while reading that book. One, this was make a great MMO. It really would, but the whole magic system would be incredibly complex. You'd have to write a run-time compiler for it, and then you'd have to convince people the game is fun enough to play to learn a completely made up language, and then you'd have to figure out the whole "an expert might say water and conjure something completely unrelated, like a gemstone, because he can see the link between the two" thing. After all that triviality comes the part where you have to enforce no deceit when someone speaks the ancient language. The other thought is always, "I can do this." And time and time again it proves untrue.

The last few weeks I've been thinking about something that the pastor said, that when we want to feel good about ourselves we revert to doing what we do best, specifically mentioning writing, among other things. I think that's true of me, not that I'm saying I'm necessarily a good writer, only that I take pride in it. The sermon he said this in was on Easter, and about "giving God the pen" of our lives, letting him dictate what will happen in our lives. I think God gives us certain aptitudes, and it would be foolish not to use what God has given us, so I'm wondering what God wants me to write. There is this blog, but I'd like to write a book someday too.

I guess if I want God to answer a question, like what does he want me to write about, I should ask him--I should pray. I certainly don't pray religiously. It's a habit I should get into. Hime and I call each other best friends, but we haven't seen each other since her birthday in January.

I'm in bed now, or rather, on Bill's couch in Bellingham the day after I started writing this post. Before I let it slip another day, I think I'll just post it now, short and sweet.

He is risen. He is risen indeed. It's Easter right now, so happy Easter if you happen to be reading this post today, or if you happen to read it some Sunday between March 23 and April 27 in the future, and that day also happens to be the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of spring of your current year. Yeah.

Easter is the most important day of the year, with Christmas a close second. I don't think that's a very popular opinion, but it's mine. It is the day Jesus Christ conquered death. It is the reason we have The Good News. If I have my metaphysics right, Good Friday was the day our sins could be forgiven, but no one would believe it had Easter not happened. Or maybe I have them wrong, and it is in the act of rising again, conquering death, that we may have victory in Christ as well.

I don't think Easter is celebrated correctly. I don't really know how to explain it, but the fact that Easter is so diminished in the minds of modern society, on par with Groundhog's day or Valentine's day, speaks to the fact that it's important, and that someone or something wants it suppressed. Because it's fun to blame the greeting card industry, I'm going to do just that. No one buys Easter greeting cards, probably because so few really appreciate the resurrection of Christ. Without cards, there are few ad buys, and without the media, there's little hype. Any church that tried to make an Easter awareness commercial would probably be pegged (by me) as a little silly. But no, I can't legitimately blame the card industry. While I've never been one to find the devil under every rock (or really almost any rock), leaving no stone unturned leads me to find Satan at work here.

I find myself frustrated this morning. I go to the evening service at church for two reasons today -- one, I normally go to the evening service because I like to stay up late on Saturday evenings, which I did last night; and two, because we were asked, if we weren't bringing friends that would not normally go to church, to go to either the early morning service (not happening) or the evening service, so that there was space and parking at the nine through eleven o'clock ones. I'm frustrated because this is the first Easter that I didn't go to a morning service followed by brunch or family time of some sort, except for the Easter I was in Jamaica. This morning I got out of bed at 12:30 (having been awake for two hours before that), tagged some photos posted by Courtney from Costa Rica, and then got Arby's. It was not exactly my traditional Easter morning.

Somehow I associate tradition with observance, and so I don't feel like I've really observed Easter, the most important day of the year. Even the fact that you go to Easter service in the morning is observing that Christ rose in the morning, that the stone was found rolled away in the morning, and that the rest of the day people could marvel at it.

I actually feel guilty, like the traditions were something I was supposed to do, or else I'm in sin or something. I know that's absurd but that's still how I'd describe it.

Anyway, there's no good reason to feel bad on Easter unless you mock its meaning, and I don't believe I've done that.

This week went pretty well. Last summer, after Fir Creek, I was pretty burnt out at work for another week and a half. Somehow after the trip, I was actually doing better than I had been before the trip. I'm not sure if I was burnt out from working harder than I'm used to (three big features, basically on my own), or because it was the last few days before vacation, or because I had a feature dropped on me and it was still in black box, mountain mode because I hadn't really had time to evaluate each part to realize it was only a medium sized hill. Anyway, when I got back Sydney was my acting manager because my actual manager is on vacation (for his kids' spring break). Sydney split my feature into three parts, and I ended up with about a third the work I was expecting to do, and of that work, I'd already done about a quarter, whereas I hadn't touched the other two parts. That made it much easier for me to get back into the groove of the faster life, and on Friday I made a ton of progress. I still have to write tests (which undoubtedly will uncover another thirty necessary changes [anecdotal edit: I did indeed introduce a bug where renaming a databases shrunk it to the minimum size]), but I made it to the jiggle phase. That's where you put all the pieces loosely together and then jiggle it until it all fits. This is not an official software development term. Yet.

We had a preview feature in our last release that I wrote. Now that it's no longer a preview feature, I had to tear all the code out. It felt weird deleting a bunch of code I wrote, when I had a meeting scheduled to discuss how that code would work after they deployed it (they haven't yet released the last release with the preview feature).

I'm looking forward to work tomorrow.

Friday night, I went to Swood's for our weekly hangout time. I've never been to a Good Friday service before, and because I was at Swood's, I didn't go to one this year either. Next year I think I'll try to make it. I had a good time at Swood's, though. It might even have been better that I went there than church. Hanging out with him is therapeutic for me, restful. We ended up watching The Men Who Stare at Goats. It wasn't what I was expecting, but still pretty good.

It got me thinking about a couple things. I think everyone (or at least, of the one person for whom I can speak from experience, it's true for this one person) likes to pretend at some level that they can do things they can't. I pretend to use the Force to change traffic lights, which may or may not coincide with me watching the other lights of the intersection. I wish I were telekinetic. When I go by street lights, they turn off a lot more frequently than they do for other people I've talked to. That's either because I'm more observant to it than other people, or I really am special -- and what an amazing super power that is, especially as it's involuntary, sporadic, and makes it harder for me to see. I like to play the game in my head, but I would never actually believe it like the people in the movie did, at least without some hard evidence. This knowledge fuzzes the line for me between game and spiritual gift. I believe that all Christians have spiritual gifts, and absolutely believe that the Spirit can give them and take them away at will for a given situation. But I do also believe that some are persistent regardless of the situation. Hospitality and teaching are two such gifts, and really, I think most are like that. But it makes me wonder how much of these gifts was there to begin with? Why do we call them spiritual gifts now that they are Christians, when they probably had the same personality before they were Christians? A few times I've taken spiritual gifts tests, which are essentially aptitude tests. They don't very well cover things like the gift of healing as they assume those are more self-evident. I've consistently scored high on discernment and prophecy, and very low on every other one. So, this blurred line makes me wonder if it's actually gift, or merely the game I play in my head. It's disconcerting.

The other thing, though only roughly related, that the movie got me considering was something talked about at the PCEC retreat in February. The speaker had talked a small bit about superstition, and how so many people have it engrained in us, whether we recognize it as superstition or not, that we'll say things like, "It's going well, but I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop." I do this a lot. I play this game of karma in my head, this game of balances, and for some reason, I can't accept that there is good without there being bad to come. Maybe it's just a common pattern in our lives, so we accept it as fact or fate. We have days of sun, and eventually they're followed by days of clouds or rain, and so we think that if it's sunny, soon it will be rainy. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. This, I think, weakens blessings.

It's almost time for me to leave for church. This is perfect as I have nothing else to say.

The trip is over. I haven't journaled as much as I expected. We're on the flight back to Charlotte, then have an hour layover in which to grab our bags, rush through customs, recheck our bags, and board another plane to SeaTac.

After our adventure on the way here, US Airways is giving us a $400 voucher, so I might be making another trip here soon, possibly to visit Denna again. We'll see. She's supposed to come visit me here soon, too. I haven't looked at the details of the voucher, but if they're smart, it'll have no restrictions.

We were at the orphanage from Sunday (which I've already posted about) until Friday morning. We split into five groups: painting, groundskeeping, construction, pulling nails, and a miscellaneous group that taught, made trinkets for kids and other things. Most of the groups changed jobs from day to day except for the construction group, because they were building cabinets, and it was beneficial to work the project through to completion. I was on pulling nails the first day and painting the second day.

Kaleo is a great guy. He's the biggest morale booster I've met. He can be a bit obnoxious and sometimes says things that seem to have no connection at all (though after a lengthy discussion, he usually brings it back home), but you can't be mad at him. It's impossible. He was able to just mumble his way through conversations in Spanish, knowing very little himself. Anyway, during the first day, we were pulling nails, and as if I were pumping metal, he'd start shouting for that extra little adrenaline boost. During one of these chants, he decided to call me JJ, despite my name having a single J in it, and it stuck. It actually helped a bit because it disambiguated the other Jordan on the trip.

There was another guy, Derek, that was with us the first day. He's fluent in Spanish and was our main translator throughout the trip. He didn't actually fly down with us because he'd been in Honduras for a year or two, and this trip was his last hurrah before returning to Whatcom County.

The last member of our group was Bill's girlfriend, Jane. She and I have always gotten along really well. She just has one of those personalities. We got a bit closer this trip, because she was the other person in my orphanage house.

Before lunch, while we were unnailing hardwood floor boards, the businessman turned missionary who started the chicken farm (he did not start the orphanage) came and took me to attempt to fix their wifi repeater. I did my best, but I wasn't really happy with the way it turned out. I know there's a way to do it where you can name the repeater's network the same as the router's and then laptops will switch between the two seamlessly, but at least I got it working with [mynetwork] and [mynetwork2]. The signal was still a little weak in the house we all slept in, but it was usable, though, we couldn't get Jeremiah's laptop to connect. I'm not sure if it was just an old machine or what.

The second day Jane was transferred to the miscellaneous group, and I don't know where Derek went. Kaleo and I switched to painting. That was pretty unremarkable except that I don't particularly like painting. I talked to Kaleo a little bit, and asked if he thought it meant something if a girl asked if you were seeing someone.

In the evening, we visited the homes again. Our mom was keen to my tastes that night and gave us the best chicken I've ever had, and a good portion of salad. It was the first time in a long time that I ate too much. That night or the next, I think the next, we had a translator who, for Jane and me, was one of the staff members. We played a "game" called Get to Know You or something. Basically, it was just some open ended questions on 3x5 cards and each of us in the house answered two. At team time, it sounded like every house had a different experience with that game. Some had kids bouncing off the walls that didn't take it very seriously, and some wanted to each answer "Who's your best friend?" with their personal reasons for why God was.

That night, the businessman gave his testimony during our team time. It was a lot more powerful, I felt, than most testimonies, at least resonating with me because it wasn't this huge turn around in his life, and mission work was a struggle for him. He wouldn't trade it, but he would in a heart beat if God told him too. It makes me feel a little better about working at Microsoft rather than out on the field, because I really do think God got me that job, and I can't imagine he would have if he didn't want me there.

The next morning we visited a slum called Los Quitos.

It's crazy how like-minded our group is. At team time each night, we went through our thoughts of the day and our struggles. Several struggles per night which hadn't been priorly voiced received head nods all around. Every struggle I've had has been had by most if not all the rest of the group.

Wednesday night, we all felt bad that when we visited the slums, we were thinking, "This isn't that bad." It was that bad. It just wasn't what we expected, which was African poverty. Los Quitos is a thirty thousand person shanty-town run by two organized gangs with drug rings and prostitution. The streets were so unsafe that the staff that were with us told us to remain on the bus.

Here's where my experience diverges a bit. Tuesday night I was not at all looking forward to the visit. I have a hard time going to a place on a mission trip with no real objective to make lives there better. The way I saw it, we were going to observe poverty and to break our own hearts. From my point of view, this feels wrong. Wednesday morning the exact same sentiment (minus the wrongness) was expressed, along with a strong argument as to why this is important. I agreed, but I still was resisting going. I hate to say it, but part of it was my shoes. I bought shoes on the way to visit Denna last December. I don't mind spending too much money on shoes because I wear them virtually every day for a year and a half until the insides are full of holes and causing blisters. Then I spend too much on another pair to abuse. The businessman had said that we shouldn't wear our nicest shoes because we might end up stepping in something icky. Well, I only have my shoes and my flip flops, and I'd rather lose a pair of shoes than have to wash icky off my feet. We'd been expecting to walk around the town. Then the staff member told us that there was a miscommunication and that it wasn't safe. I was relieved (for more than just my shoes). Everyone else was severely disappointed.

During the discussion that night, we talked about it. We felt awful because we were touring a shanty town in a tourist bus, as if they were animals on safari. But it really wouldn't be too much different if we were walking around, twenty-two obvious Americans with cameras taking pictures and walking into shops, talking to people in English. Something struck me about the place, though. People compared the slums to other slums: Derek to Honduras, Kaleo to the Philippines, several to Africa. I compared it to pictures from Hoovervilles during the Great Depression. The difference I noticed was that these people had some hope in them. They weren't broken, despite their poverty. They're there because they think (probably mistakenly) that they have a higher chance at a better life there than where they came from. (A lot of the people are illegal immigrants from Nicaragua.)

My favorite part of the trip was visiting the site of the new building the orphanage's organization has been promised by the government. They were given it five years ago, but have been struggling to get the money. It's a four million dollar building, and they're halfway there. For an organization this large in the US, two million dollars would take very little time or effort to raise. As soon as she told us what that fenced area with trees was for, it suddenly struck me how much healing will happen to that community when this building is built. I seriously can't describe it better than to say the areas where this organization has buildings are like lights in an otherwise dark place. When I get back, I will do my best to get Microsoft to recognize the organization for the GIVE program (though I heard it already does), and then get people to donate to it. Two million dollars. Seriously, it's not that much, and the results far outvalue the costs.

After Los Quitos, we visited one of the organization's day care centers. I was feeling a bit depressed after the slums. I didn't have any real "this is awful" thoughts while there, but just being in the area was disheartening, I think. Among the last things I wanted to do was to be in a noisy cafeteria surrounded by kids who don't speak English. I sat back as much as I could while the soon-to-be teachers of the group hand fed toddlers. Eventually I moved to putting cups on tables. I didn't eat lunch that day. First, the meal was nowhere near my limited palette, and second, I wasn't hungry even had they been serving sloppy joes and banana cream pie. (That was a total exaggeration -- I would have been all over sloppy joes and/or banana cream pie. They might have lifted my mood a bit.)

The night before, I had asked the businessman why there were only 20% new kids each year if kids only stayed one to three years, when 20% would require a five year rotation, on average. Evidently this stuck out to Jeremiah and Bill, and on Wednesday I was switched over to the construction team because the second cabinet would have tricky angles. However, there was some sort of assembly that day in the building with the cabinets, and we switched to other jobs. I took up the brush again.

Wednesday night was our last night in the houses. Saying goodbye to our mom was difficult. She's such a great woman with a larger capacity to love than I've seen in anyone. She's a single mother, the only one in the orphanage, with a thirty-year-old son we didn't meet, and a teenage son, who's an inspiration, of her own, and then five foster boys and five foster girls. I have no idea how she does it.

Thursday we did work. We built an entire shelving unit save the doors, and finished up the one from Monday and Tuesday. I loved working with my group. Monday or Tuesday night I had a lengthy talk with Jane's sister, and Thursday she and I ended up doing most of the cutting for the cabinets. Joe did most of the measurements and design, and the other two members worked primarily on the doors from the first set. The wood we were given was ridiculous. The 2x2's (or that's what we called them; they were 4cm by 4cm) were almost all either bowed or twisted length-wise. With nails, we got them as close to straight as possible, but the next morning, the whole cabinet and twisted a bit. The wall wasn't flat, and half of it had another concrete part sticking out of it, and of course it wasn't parallel with the rest of the wall, nor was the wall parallel with its opposite in the room. Considering all that, I feel we did a pretty good job. Channeling Kaleo, while Jane's sister was doing some hammering, I said "Do it KK!" realizing a moment too late that her name starts with C. (I'm rather slow, so she had to point out the discrepancy.)

Thursday night was our best team time. The two staff members I keep talking about gave their testimonies, and then a couple of us did. Testimony in Costa Rica is quite a bit different from what it is in the US. I like their version better. In Christianese, your testimony is just the story of pre-Christ, how you came to Christ, and what differences he's made since then, and it's usually a little prepackaged. People who've been Christians all their lives don't typically have "an amazing testimony," as say my dad did until six years ago. (Wow, has it really been six years?) In Costa Rica, it's an abridged (or less abridged) version of their life's story, where Christianity is a part of that, but also how they met their spouse, how they came to work at the orphanage and whatever else seems important at the time. I spoke that night as well, one because I kind of wanted to, and two because no one else seemed to. It surprised me though, what I said. I talked about how I became a Christian at three, and never really had a defining moment. I talked about my tick disorder and bipolar disorder, and how I've been suicidal from time to time. And I talked about new life, and how that's a new concept I've been throwing around in my head. I wasn't sure how they're all related, but I knew they were. What surprised me is that I didn't mention my parents' divorce at all. Bill's sister talked as well. She told roughly the same story that Bill told two years ago in Jamaica. Back then, I was having trouble keeping all 30 people straight, and I remember wanting to check in again with him about it, but until she started sharing, I'd completely forgotten about it. I felt retrospectively awful about that.

One of the things I liked about Jamaica was that after team time, we could stay up a little late and get to know people better. Between being exhausted and needing to get up at times I wasn't even aware existed, we didn't get to stay up very late. The other thing I liked in Jamaica, and I know this is rare, was that we were almost always one big group working on a single project. In Costa Rica and in Detroit, we split up into smaller groups to tackle lots of projects. I don't feel we got to know each other as well as we did in Jamaica as a result.

On Friday morning, the two staff members debriefed us and then prayed over us in Spanish. They are great women, especially the older one. And the younger one. After that, the cabinet crew finished four of the six doors remaining (also discovering the overnight skew), while other people did work on other projects, worked on making bracelets for the kids, and packed and cleaned. It was kind of inspiring to me to see everyone working on a day with no planned work.

Between work and dinner each of the nights, we played a different sport: first baseball, then soccer, then basketball, then soccer again. While warming up for the baseball game, one of the kids was purposely throwing the ball hard and uncatchable to someone as basebally challenged as I, and one throw hit my wrist and unclasped both sides of my watch. I was ok with this; I'd just go to Fred Meyer's and get the jewelers to fix it for me or something. Usually they do that kind of thing free of charge. Then one of the kids noticed it was broken and tried to fix it. He put the clasp on backwards (not the end of the world), and as soon as I put it on, it broke again. During his second attempt, he dropped one of the pieces in the clasping mechanism, and that was the ball game, so to speak. I might get it fixed, or I might go get myself a nice watch. I liked the watch my mom gave me, but it wasn't as water resistant as it claimed, and eventually I had it replaced with the one that just broke. I didn't like that one as much. I, of course, don't mean to say I was irritated with the boy. I was appreciative that he wanted to try to fix it and nearly succeeded. I'm just telling the story. For the rest of the trip, I've been using it as a pocket watch.

We just boarded our second plane. It was mercifully delayed eighty-three minutes, so getting through customs and grabbing a quick dinner was easy. We ended up sitting next to a (strange) girl at the gate who was from Bothel and actually was going to high school with Joe's cousin. It's a small world after all.

Friday afternoon, we, all the kids, and a bunch of other our-aged volunteers got on two large busses and headed to Bible Camp. They were both overly full and the counselors (called captains at this World Cup themed camp) had to stand, but some of the rows with only two kids invited us to squeeze. One of the kids from my house fell asleep on my lap. He was my favorite kid I think, though he reminded me of my cat in that he's always vying for attention. That can be draining. Our bus got lost on the 40 minute trip, and ended up sitting in traffic for another half hour.

There's too much to write about when it comes to camp. I wasn't one of the captains very often. I was on staff, and mostly worked in the kitchen. The way they had presented it was "creative team" and that we'd be setting up activities. That wasn't quite the case, but it was still fun. Meals were the best times for me. I loved all the dashing around trying to fill 130 plates in a matter of minutes with seven people all occupying the same space, then moving plates that were in reserves up to the front so they didn't get too cold. After the first meal or two, we added another parameter, meal size. Small kids got very small portions, bigger kids got medium, and captains got huge ones. I think the best part of being on staff for me (semi-jokingly) was that after everyone had eaten, we got to fill our own plates, so I didn't have get stuff that I wasn't going to eat anyway.

We were so drained at the end of each day that team time was severely diminished. People were burnt out on the first day of camp. I burned out on the second day. Mission trips are sprints to missions' marathons. Sprints for more than a week are difficult. It was kind of interesting to see how different people reacted to burning out. Some got emotional. Some slept a lot. Some cut themselves out of activities and such. I forsook God. On my average day, I think I think about God fairly frequently. On mission trips, it's a whole lot more frequently since I'm around people who like to talk about him and who pray. When I burned out, I completely tried to rely on myself. It didn't go too well.

On the first evening of camp, one of our group's favorite kids, whom we would see just wandering around from time to time, found a very large frog (they were common), picked it up by its arms, and flung it Mario-Bowser style yelling, "¡Viva feliz!" The captains couldn't keep a straight face long enough to scold him.

It was a very structured camp with close to no free time. I think the only free time was immediately after meals, which was also medication time. Gringo (green-go) (us, as opposed to tico) captains really just followed the kids around since we didn't really know what was going on. There really wasn't much disciplining either, and the kids seemed to know where the line was. Every now and then, one would act out and a tico would step in. The rest of the time, we were huggers and jungle gyms.

The activity yesterday was sort of a multi-station obstacle course, but the main event was the mud pit. Almost everyone, everyone who wasn't running one of the other stations, was forced in, and covered head to toe. In the first station, spinning in a circle around a pipe and then trying to shoot a goal, I fell after shooting, and skinned my knees. I hope the mud didn't have anything in it my immune system can't fend against. When the pictures get posted to facebook, perhaps I'll link a few. Scott, by the way, is an amazing photographer. He, his girlfriend Justine, KK, and I were the main gringo staff members. The tico staff members were mostly much older than us.

At the end of each night, we all went to the stadium. There they recapped the day with pictures, and sang some songs. One night they played a Moses movie or something. I was feeling crowded and need to be alone for a bit, so I'd left before that started. Last night, though, they all said goodbye to us. The presentation and subsequent hugs must have gone on for thirty or forty minutes. A lot of the kids, and most of the gringo counselors were crying. To my surprise, I was swarmed. I didn't realize I had even been noticed by some of the kids that latched onto me. After all the hugging, one of the girls from my house came up to me and I carried her a bit. Then she told me that since her mom wasn't there to say goodbye, I should call her. That wasn't really feasible, and Jane and I had said our goodbyes to her already, more than once. We'd also written letters to her, though they hadn't been translated yet when we'd left. I hope the letters bless her. I told the girl to tell her my goodbye for me.

I didn't get emotional during the event. I don't know if I kept my distance or what. Not to be morbid, but it felt a lot like Justine's funeral (actual Justine, not aliased Justine). There was a lot of weeping there, too, but I felt surreal and almost happy. I have about eighty more people to get to know in heaven someday. Justine (aliased) was the other gringo that I noticed wasn't in tears. I can't speak for her, and maybe she felt as the others did, but she's the other one that is more business-minded, and less teacher-minded.

Today was pretty uneventful. I count that a plus. I had been looking forward to dropping by Swood's place between the airport and home, but because of the flight delay, I think it'll be too late. Plus I stink like nothing before smelt. I feel bad for the dude next to me. So now I'm looking forward to a nice long bath, some reading, and tomorrow, a clean shirt followed by my mom's place and kitties.

I've decided I really hate being infatuated. I can't think straight, can't act myself, seem unable to break out of my need for approval. It gets in the way of real relationship with the girl, and it gets in the way of my relationship with God. On top of that, I can't really evaluate the merit of a potential relationship with the girl objectively. I find her attractive because I'm attracted to her.

That need for approval, though, I feel is the most disturbing. I fear I'm projecting my lack of a father onto this helpless (in this area) girl. That's not fair, nor healthy. When that approval is granted, as in the case of Denna or Fey, well, I don't know. It actually seemed to go pretty well. But in both those cases, it had nothing to do with me earning the approval. They just liked me before I could attempt to impress them. My mating feathers are ugly and dim-witted. I'm only attractive when I'm confident and not trying to impress, or at least, not trying to leave that kind of impression. Even when I'm confident, I like to be funny, and that's a sort of attempt to impress. I just care less about the results, and thus am more confident. Rinse and repeat.

I need to shave.

Fifteen minutes to journal? Bahahaha.

It's the end of day one: our free day. Typically we'd like to have these at the end of the trip, after all the team bonding, but this was the only way the schedule worked out, and we all are pretty bonded anyway.

Last night we got in around 9:00pm, and it took about an hour to get through immigration, customs, and onto the bus. Customs was far more lax than I've seen in any other country or Hawaii. The customs officer just took each of our forms, briefly glanced at each, and had us throw our stuff through the x-ray scanner. I don't think there was even anyone on the other end in case something was caught.

From there we took a trip with this guy who helps sustain the orphanage. The story goes that he's a brilliant businessman who did quite well in the US, then spent time in Central America, and decided to either start or significantly help this orphanage and a couple others in other countries. Rather than do the administrative stuff, though, he started a business whose profits go to the orphanage, and it's now one of the largest chicken farms in the country.

We got to the orphanage, which is a collection of houses, and got a few instructions. Mostly we just unpacked, found beds, ate pizza, and took in our surroundings. Then we sang a single song as chosen by Joe, and went to bed. (Also I had Jeremiah, who was excited about his alias, read Finally Done Right. He approved of my sharing his stories.) I realized when I took off my shoes before bed, that I'd been wearing them for thirty hours straight. That's a smell I'd like not to repeat.

I've yet to shower since Friday morning, but I plan to after these fifteen minutes are up.

Today we went to the beach. There was an adventure on the way there. We lost a human. There was a tourist pit stop on one side of a bridge. The river beneath the bridge homed several very large crocodiles, and the crocks hang out there because people "fish" for them with whole chickens. Seeing them in the zoo is one thing. Seeing them uncaged, if a good 30 to 40 feet below us, is something else.

From there we went to a ritzy, almost American, grocery store to get drinks and fruit and whatever else. Then we started heading to the beach. Almost there, someone asks, "Where's Leigh?" We do a quick count and realize there are only twenty-one of us. Questions abound. Did anyone see her at the grocery store? I have a vague memory seeing her there next to the cakes, vaguely remember her smiling at me. Someone else remembered talking to her there. So we did a quick u-turn and headed back. Someone asked another relevant question: "Who sat next to Leigh between the bridge and the grocery store." No one raised their hands. I then lacked confidence in my memory. Five guys jumped out and raced into the store. They were long in returning, and without success. Then we stopped and prayed.

Poor Jeremiah was frantic. I've seen him stressed a couple times when things like broken planes came up, but this was an entirely different level. If we hadn't all been feeling worried about Leigh, Jeremiah's flailing would have been funny. (Some of us thought it was funny despite. There was a mix of panic and humor to avoid panic.)

We got back to the crocodile pit and one of the merchants waved us in. Out comes a laughing Leigh. She said that she was uncharacteristically calm about the whole thing, not worried at all. Phillipians comes to mind. Prayer in thankful supplication leads to peace that passes all understanding.

The beach was great. I don't think I'd ever successfully caught a wave while bodysurfing before. A board is still easier and less saltwater-up-the-nose inducing. (This is as far as I got in the allotted 20 minutes.)

After an hour or so in the water, we went looking for food. We ended up at a bar on the beach. It's pretty common in the US for friends to just join a table before ordering, and for people to be indecisive, and then if the table gets too big, to split into two. It doesn't happen all the time, but waiters wouldn't think it too horrendous, would they? Anyway, this is not the case here. Here, you sit down, you order, you eat, you pay, you leave. (I'm exaggerating.) To cut a boring story short, the waiter was not happy with us, and was doing everything he could to hide his vexation. It occurred to me that "funny in that awkward not quite used to our culture sense" was us this time. Also, I still feel like the normal one.

Joe, Derek, Fifa, and Bill were just freestyle rapping in one of the guys' bedrooms. They're amazing. I lack the sense of beat, the ability to talk, and the rhyming to be even close to starting. Other than that, though, give me a few days and I'd catch up. They each took a turn on the way home from the beach too. Crazy folks.

On the way home, we stopped by a fruit stand. I sampled a couple things I didn't recognize, but didn't buy anything. Lots of people bought mangos. I don't know if I'm missing out or not by not getting any. I just didn't want any. Do you force a "cultural experience" for the sake of the experience? Will I be any better or worse off for doing it? I've had other mango before. It's alright, but among my least favorite fruits. It's not sweet enough.

Something I realized about myself on the drive back was two more situations where I don't act myself. I don't actually maintain a list, but if I did, bipolar episode would be on it. These additions are one, when in groups larger than five or six, and two, when I'm around someone with whom I'm infatuated. The first case, I think, is what made youth group and bible studies always so awkward for me. It has its exceptions, like at the end of mission trips and conferences when I'm really close to everyone, or at Fir Creek when I'm most myself around a few counselors regardless of the twenty kids around us. I think maybe I don't try to impress kids, so they don't count toward the quota. The second case is probably why I've only ever found a girlfriend when I wasn't really looking for one, or was looking at the wrong girl. It's quite irksome, because around someone with whom I'm infatuated is the time I most want to act myself.

We got back, and even as we drove up, droves of kids ran out to the bus. I'd kind of hoped for a shower before dinner, but that was pretty out of the question, especially if everyone had similar hopes. It's fairly common knowledge that mothers in Central America will be offended if you don't eat what's on your plate, and before Wednesday, that was my greatest concern about the trip. I don't do well with rice or beans or potatoes. That's a lot of what they eat here, especially the first two. I was told to tell the mom "un pico," "a little." I'd planned on just swallowing it with a gulp of water.

So we got our three person group house assignments, only Jane and I were the only ones with only two people. (I believe Leigh's boyfriend, the guy who had his mind changed, was originally in our group.) That also left us without a translator, but it worked out perfectly because our house is the only one with a longer term volunteer from Connecticut who's been here a couple months. She's now 85% fluent, and helped us get through dinner. I told the mom that I really only eat a very little amount, especially of rice and beans. She gave me the same portion as everyone else, with a slightly diminished portion of salad. Also, instead of water we got something I don't recognize. It looked like apple juice from concentrate but poorly stirred, and it tasted a little like barley tea, which to me tastes like watered down ash, thus eliminating my swallow-it-like-a-pill method. The salad was fantastic, though different from any I've had before. The only beans I tasted, and I almost couldn't keep them down, were what had been stuck on the apple slices in the salad. The rice must have rated an 8 where 1 is already amazing, because I really enjoyed the taste, overpowering the texture that usually gets me. Still, it's a starch, and like the starches I normally enjoy, it filled me up quick, and an hour later I was starving. This is why I brought a years's worth of granola bars, energy bars, and dried fruit.

Anyway, she didn't seem offended at all that I couldn't finish. In fact, when I mentioned that I don't even like rice, but enjoyed hers, we began the ever-entertaining conversation about how picky I am. She told me on Tuesday I would have toast and jam and fruit. Bless her. Tomorrow night the moms of the orphanage are meeting, so there will be subs, which causes chaos enough. Adding us to the mix would be problematic. So! our group is having a barbecue.

My house has five boys, five girls, and two older children-by-birth. The kids kept trying Spanish on me. I'm impervious. Two of the boys have the same name. During dinner, they kept trying to ask me questions, but I was at a loss, and Jane and our translator were at the girls' table. Every now and then the girls' table would quiet and I'd have a turn being able to understand a question. Eventually they gave up and the kid closest to me just imitated my eating and drinking, which was rather entertaining. After dinner, we got a tour of the house. I was freaking out a little internally because I had no idea what to do next. Normally they have devotional after dinner, but because it's Sunday, they had church already. What am I supposed to do with ten excited kids that I don't understand? Then one of the boys pulled out a chess board. Awesome.

They seemed like normal kids to me. I hadn't really thought about, in regards to everyday-living, how a sexually abused kid would act, but I think if I had, I would imagine them reliving the trauma continuously. Thank God this is not the case.

At eight o'clock, we left and gathered for team time, which ended with fifteen minutes for journaling.

This hat has history. I couldn't find my hat today, while I was packing. It's my hat because it's the only one that has ever fit me well, so well, in fact, that when my dad, with a similar problem, offered me $50 for it, I refused. But the hat I have on me has history. I got it at my first Mariner's game, with Luigi and his family, back when the King Dome was still standing. We won that game 17-4, and were leaving right as a grand slam was hit. I got to see it, but everyone else with us left prematurely and missed the indoor fireworks. I remember before the game, Luigi's dad insisted that we get candy at the store. I tried to refuse, but he almost seemed angry. I later learned that's just how he acts.

We're on the plane to Charlotte right now. Why we have to go all the way across the country when Costa Rica is only halfway across, I'm not sure. Houston or Dallas would make a lot more sense to me.

It still has yet to really hit me that we're actually on our way there. That's just how I am, but it's certainly a lot closer on this trip, than it was at the airport (or on the plane) on the way to Jamaica. I think it mostly was the last meeting we had, last Wednesday. We got a secondary education professor from Western, who was also a trauma specialist, to talk to our group. He was really down to earth, and you'd probably think he talked weird if you didn't realize the gravity of the whole situation. I walked in ten or fifteen minutes late. Traffic on the way up from Redmond was a bit worse than the last two times. So, it took me a few minutes to fully grasp what was being talked about.

What I say next is ... hard. I can't remember if I blogged about it or not a year ago, and I know that if I did, it wouldn't have been the full thing. A year ago, though, a couple women from LatR and I went to see a "Rockumentary" about human trafficking. I guess I'll just out and say it. I wanted to kill the slavers and the people who used their slaves. How can man have sunk so low? Sunk, past tense, is probably the wrong word. It seems like this has been an issue since the beginning. But how in this day and age, with all our talks of equality and freedom and liberty, how can we allow this to go on?

In the fifth season of the West Wing (skip this paragraph if you plan to watch it and haven't gotten there yet), Donna is on a trip to Gaza, and on her last day there, her car gets hit by a road-side bomb. She almost dies, but makes it to the hospital in time. Meanwhile, Josh is distraught, and while senior staff and national security are talking outside the oval, they're all talking about possible retaliation. Josh says, "We need to kill them. We need to kill the people who made the bomb. We need to kill the people who planted the bomb. And then we need to kill everyone who was happy about it."

I hadn't realized at the time that human trafficking was just another humanitarian fad. It makes me sick. How can we sit idly by? I know it's easier. I'm guilty of it. But why is this not a high priority in Washington, where we hire people to do hard things with our hard-earned money? The thing is, it's not even just an issue abroad in "remote countries" in Africa. It happens here. It happens in the liberal, well-adjusted city of Seattle, and in Tacoma. I'm sure it happens in every port, which I guess means it happens in Bellingham, and possibly Port Orchard. You can't hit more home to me than those four cities.

Anyway, human trafficking was not intended to be the focus of this post, not that my posts ever really have a focus. Except the last one.

Since that night and until Thursday, I'd never felt that urge to kill again. Then one of the guys, we'll call Jeremiah, who went to Costa Rica this past summer, told a couple stories about the kids we're going to "help." The first was a kid who was reading a book while sitting on his lap. Then one of the adults came in and said something in a raised voice (in Spanish), and the kid scampered off to his room. Evidently that kid wasn't ready for physical touch yet, after his abuse. He couldn't yet associate any touch at all as non-sexual. In the next, a girl of five, her first night at the orphanage, woke up in the middle of the night, stripped, and walked into her foster parents' room. She got up on the bed, and woke the man, and said, "I'm ready." At the age of five. Trauma, by definition, cannot be put into words, and clearly mine have failed. How can we, mere privileged kids in and just out of college, help these kids? There's some small, though it ought to be large, comfort that it is God who is helping, and we are merely his vessels, or vassals.

It didn't really hit me until the next day, but on the way to my mom's to drop off my cats, I began to think a bit more about these stories. I thought about what kind of people could do this to these defenseless children. And I decided they should die. This is a disturbing thought coming from someone who professes himself a Christian. If this isn't the first post you've read of mine, you know that I've had some pretty dark thoughts. This was not these. This was not tainted the same way bipolar thoughts are. I was listening to Brave Saint Saturn, and especially during the Anti-Meridian songs (Starling, These Frail Hands, Invictus), I just burst into tears on the freeway. These are just two stories from one guy, while still in Washington. How much harder will this be among the actual victims?

Raise your souls up to the sky
Why must helpless creatures die?

I've never agreed with people who value children over adults. A life is a life. There's the notion that children are innocent, but none are innocent; all have fallen short of the glory of God. I would say, however, that sexual abuse, or really any abuse, against children is worse than it is against adults, because adults have at least some capacity to know they don't actually deserve this, to know that this is not what love is. Kids say, "I'm ready."

I don't know, don't think, that even with the opportunity, I would or even could actually kill someone. I think it would be easier to light them on fire with my mind, but 22 years trying (to light inanimate objects) with no success is a discouraging precedent.

There is no good segue to nicer things.

After the meeting, I ended up eating at Courtney's and her roommates' place for Saint Patrick's Day. I used to hate corned beef. This was rather good. I still abstained from the cabbage though. Bill and Scott ate quickly and then went off to their Bible study. After that began talking, card games, and drinking. It was just a genuinely good time. We listened to some good music, and a lot of bad music. (Such were the opinions of the other males in the room. I didn't really care one way or another, though if I were alone, I'd probably not listen to any of what was played early on. I did try to analyze some of the music theory -- common beats, sequences of notes, et cetera. If only I knew any music theory.)

There was a girl there, I gathered a foreign exchange student, who was quite funny in that awkward not quite used to our culture sense. There was nothing wrong with her sense of humor, but she had that and then the other thing as well. There was one point during the evening though, that we were talking about drugs (not the helpful kind), and she said that back in her home country, she did some. It's not like she went on and on about it or anything, but I could tell she was trying to explain it all because she was feeling judged, and in fact, at the end, apologized for it because she "didn't want [us] to judge [her]." At that point, every Christian in the room erupted, broken from our trances, with "we're not judging you." Yeah, we were. It wasn't deliberate but, well, let's face it, we've never been in that situation (at least I haven't), and it wasn't a healthy situation, and I have some amount of pride that, by choice, I've never been in that situation. I don't think any of us straight out thought, "you bad person you," and truthfully the reason we were in the trance was because we couldn't relate. For me, though, it was something else entirely. It was like we responsible Americans were her parents or moral superiors somehow. Like, we knew drugs were bad and we wanted to teach this poor person from another country how to live. That's something I have to continually work at. People who aren't as fluent in the language as I am aren't stupid, but subconsciously, I somehow see them as slower. Sometimes it makes working at Microsoft hard.

I got one of the guys there hooked on Seabird. Their second disk is as good as their first, if you've not bought your copy yet. Before we listened to them, we were listening to a group called the Black Keys, I think. What little I heard of them, I enjoyed, so I might have to test an album of theirs when I get back.

We're now at Charlotte Airport. Some of us are trying to sleep. I tried for a while and gave up. A bunch of us got Jamba Juice for like three times the normal price, but alas, I set mine on a chair, and it fell somehow. Then the bottom got punctured, and I ended up being able to drink about half of it. I suppose there are worse fates in life.

My knees are killing me. They just do that sometimes, but it's unpleasant. When this happened when I was younger, my mom said I was growing. I don't think I'm growing anymore, at least not top to bottom. A few hours later now, Leigh, after reading what was written before this point, gave me Tylenol and I feel much better.

It's completely irrational, but over the past couple weeks, I've had this sinking feeling that I won't be returning from Costa Rica. Again, just a feeling. The odds that it comes true are close to nil, and probably independent from the feeling entirely, like rolling two dice and ending up with the same number.

Another many hours later now. Maybe my irrational fear (though to be quite honest, I was never afraid; indeed I was quite at peace) had some merit. Shortly after the paragraph before this one, they announced that the plane (757) that had just arrived was undergoing some between-flight tests and had some mechanical difficulties. This meant they had to find a new plane and a new crew for us. The one they found, for two hours later, was an A320 which is a good fifteen seats fewer in capacity. They basically held a raffle, and those who couldn't fit would have to fly tomorrow. I believe six of us did not keep our seats, including our fearless logistical leader, Jeremiah. Meanwhile, they allowed the ability to volunteer one's seat for a night in a hotel, meals, and $550 in US Airways credit toward one's next flight. Some of these volunteers got on the next plane that day that had a stop in Florida. The rest had to wait until tomorrow. Twelve total volunteers came up, and all six of our people were lucky enough to receive the newly opened seats.

Of course, the new plane didn't quite leave on its newly scheduled time, maybe 45 minutes late. We got into the air, and then about 45 minutes into the flight, at 17,000 feet, the plane started a sharp turn. The turn continued 180 degrees, my stomach hating every bit of it. Then the pilot spoke over the intercom that there was a minor hydraulics failure, that it wasn't a big deal, but because the runways in Costa Rica aren't as good as the ones in Charlotte, we were turning around.

People were pretty upset at this point, as you might imagine. Surprisingly to me, I kept my cool. I guess I kind of figure that I donated this time, these eleven days, completely to God, and if God wants us to spend it in airports, that's up to him. Our group, mostly, was just tired, rather than angry. Some passengers, though, had booked non-refundable $3000 cruises.

The next, hopefully final, plane got in on time, but we started boarding when we were supposed to be taking off. I don't remember much after boarding, because mercifully, I found sleep. I do remember the pilot (a new pilot) saying over the intercom that we had roughly a 45 minute delay while still on the tarmac because two people hadn't reboarded. On international flights, by US law, if people don't board, but do have checked bags, they have to locate the bags and remove them from the plane. I agree that it's both safe and practical to do that, but today just wasn't our day for traveling. It turns out the people who got to Costa Rica quickest were the first ones to volunteer with the stop down in Miami. That last plane is where we are now, with about 90 minutes remaining.

One of the guys who was supposed to come on the trip felt very strongly, suddenly, a few weeks ago that he should not, and instead should spend spring break recording with his dad (he's a music artist). Before boarding the circular flight, Leigh talked to him on the phone, and his grandfather, long in coming, could possibly die today, so we prayed for that situation, and also thanked God that he did not come on this trip. From what little I heard, it sounded like the guy was fairly ready for this, but his dad was a wreck. A psalm came to mind, but I don't think it's very fitting for the situation. Joe disagreed though, when I told him about it.

The Lord reigns
Let the earth be glad
Let the distant shores rejoice
Clouds and thick darkness surround him
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his thrown
A fire goes before him and consumes his foes on every side
His lightning lights up the world
The earth sees and trembles
The mountains melt like wax before the Lord
Before the Lord of all the earth,
the heavens proclaim his righteousness
and all peoples will see his glory!

Going back to before the trip, on Thursday I had to drop off my cats at my mom's place. Thursday night was lonely, and Friday morning, I kept thinking that my cats were the cause of noises, or that it was odd that they hadn't run across my keyboard that morning and woken my computer up from hibernate mode, or that their food dish was empty so I had better feed them. I hadn't realized how much I like having my cats. Sometimes I wish I had only gotten one of them, because they are a handful and a half, but to pick now would be incredibly difficult.

I told my mom about the murderous (or castraterous) thoughts. I guess I hadn't told her that the orphanage we're helping is for sexually abused kids. She kind of calmed my nerves a bit. I knew I wasn't psychotic--I didn't revel in the execution of their deaths--but the thoughts still worried me. The people whom I've had read this so far seem to have similar thoughts. They never outright said thoughts of execution, so maybe that's just me, but certainly of anger and grief. Thursday night, my mom told Jack what the orphanage was geared towards, and he pretty immediately said that the abusers should be castrated. He's a pretty dang liberal guy, too. That helped a bit.

On the way home, I stopped at Swood's to watch our weekly TV. At four o'clock on Friday, I was several hours done packing, just watching Law & Order repeats, and txted him, inviting myself over. We watched Dulalalala (a confusing, yet entertaining anime) and played some Smash Bros, before I headed to Minnie's to pick up another guy on our trip, onto my grandpa's, and finally to the airport.

I think that is probably enough for one post. We should be landing here soon. If I have internet access tonight, I'll post this after having Jeremiah read it. I haven't asked permission to retell his stories.

I really feel like writing (hence the post), but I seriously have nothing to write about. This has happened before, and I usually end up writing quite a lot, and it's usually fairly good, yet I'm apprehensive about this. So I guess I'll see if this gets posted, and if you're reading it, then I guess it did. Unless, I decide to have someone else read it before I post and you're that person, and then they say, "This is crap," and you never get to read it. I'd say "But I digress," but I'm seriously considering making this the primary focus of this post.

I've been having really vivid dreams lately, though I don't remember much of them in the mornings. The vivid dreams part has happened before, but the not remembering at least most of one is new. If there's a purpose to the dreams, not being able to remember them kind of defeats it. The latest one of which I still remember bits and pieces included Hime and a high school rival of hers fighting over something, but then joining forces when a pig on a motorcycle showed up singing a show tune about being the real measure of a man -- a Persian man -- riding straight up a large totem pole and breaking off all the decorative limbs. That would actually seem pretty normal to me except that the vivid portion was the entire song he sang, and how it was actually as decent as any other garden variety show tune, and yet has never been written. Something similar (in my mind) happened when I dreamt that my pastor was talking about his sermon series and how a lot of what he was talking about was covered in such-and-such books (including Mere Christianity which I'm currently reading) but the "such-and-such" were actual titles and authors that sounded right. Of course now I can't remember the titles to find out if they existed and thus I divined them. I doubt it. I don't know which would be crazier -- that they actually exist, or that I pulled book titles out of thin air while dreaming. I don't think I could even do that while awake.

Is it still epiphany if someone teaches you the thought that came? Is epiphany the part where everything clicks together, hits home, or is it the spontaneous, "So that's why cats sniff fingers!"? Anyhow, every week at church something new makes sense. Romans 8:1 stuck out to me tonight. "Therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ." For whatever reason I always took this to mean when we died, or from God's perspective while we're still on earth. That's not what it says though. It says there is no condemnation period. Not from other people, and not from ourselves. All we need do is confess our sins. I think a lot of people don't confess, or put off confessing, for fear of condemnation, but if there is none, what is there to stop us? And if there is nothing stopping us, then "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." What's great about that verse (1 John 1:9) is the word cleanse. It's not just forgiveness, not just -- there really is no other word as deep as forgive -- but to clean, purify, makes us new. Anyway, I found tonight's sermon practical and eye-opening. One thing he mentioned is that people in Christ are quick to confess and slow to justify. I frequently find myself imagining being pulled over because I'm speeding or whatever, and rather than just telling the officer, "Yeah, I was wrong," I end up on this logical tirade about the spirit of the law and how it was actually better that I was doing whatever it was that I was doing.

The last few nights I've been pinging random friends on facebook that I haven't talked to in a while if ever. It's got me thinking about all the friends I don't still talk to, and even the ones I now only talk to over the internet. It got me kind of depressed, because I have a lot of friends that I care dearly about, but will probably never see again. That's a sobering thought. And then it suddenly struck me that I'll see them in heaven. I don't know in what capacity, but sometimes it doesn't even matter if I'm talking to them, and just being around them would be nice. Proximity is an interesting thing.

I'm leaving for Costa Rica on Friday. It's so weird to me that it's happening this week, and is no longer a while into the future. I think the oddest part is that it actually happened. This wasn't organized by an organization that does these regularly or anything. This was a couple guys being asked by another guy to organize a trip of twenty or so people to come do some work for an orphanage, and five months later, here we are. The whole work situation around the trip (mostly just taking vacation) has got me thinking about last summer with the summer camp, and whether or not I want to do it again this summer. The few I've talked to are strongly in favor of it. First I'm not sure I have enough vacation. I probably do. I should have had about four and a half weeks by then had I not gone on the mission trip, and the mission trip is only 9 days, so I should still have three weeks left. Yeah, there's nothing stopping me there. I guess I'm just feeling non-committal right now. Also Hime has a job at a bank now, so she won't be there, not that she's the sole reason for me to go. I wonder how she'd react if I did go again, while she couldn't.

I've been thinking lately about my future children, sometimes a son, sometimes a daughter, depending on the instance. Wondering what it would be like if my son ever asked how many girlfriends I had before "Mommy." Would I go into all the details of each relationship, Ted Mosby style? I can't imagine answering a flat seven or whatever the number would be by then. I suddenly feel weird. I'm going to stop writing now.

I ate too many Thin Mints.

I was doing so well in early January with the frequent posting. No longer being on vacation was probably the reason for that end. Yet another thing the masses can blame Microsoft for. Microsoft: multipurpose scapegoat.

Lots of things have happened. Thirty-six, in fact. But where to begin, or rather, where to continue after my dramatic, yet enlightening first sentence.

I'm getting more plugged in at church. That's been good. A few weekends ago, I attended a Post College/Early Career retreat at Cascades Camp in Yelm. Ashley used to go there for summer camp when she was younger. I can see why she enjoyed it so much more than Miracle Ranch, though, we stayed in hotel-quality rooms, whereas I'm pretty sure she was in lodges. My goal for the trip was to meet people, and considering I went and literally knew not a person there, it would be hard not to call that a realistic goal. The theme of the weekend was "change," which was perfect seeing as how this is the first time in years that I've felt relatively stable in my situation. I spent a lot of the time wondering if God had a reason beyond meeting people for me to be there, and on the last evening, it occurred to me that my circumstances aren't changing, but I am. At least, at the time I thought I was.

The first night, the speaker asked if anyone trusted him simply because he was a pastor. I did, so I raised my hand, not realizing that he was asking for a volunteer. So I went up there and we did a trust fall, only I had to close my eyes. And then he started walking away, and I could tell he was walking away because he kept talking as he did it. Then he told me to fall back, and it turned out he had silently got another guy to stand behind me. It fit his talking point pretty well, basically saying that we need to trust God even if he doesn't catch us the way we expect, or it doesn't look like he will. I feel a little deceptive though, because when I heard him starting to walk away, I figured it out pretty quickly that he was getting someone else, which still would have been a major trust thing--not blind faith, but trust that he was doing as I had figured--except that I heard the guy snicker quietly at something the pastor said, confirming my suspicions. What's weird though, and one person I talked to noticed this, is I still involuntarily tried to catch myself. Since I'd been called up there, everyone knew my name, and for the rest of the weekend, I was trying to play catch up with an already-feeble name-remembering mind.

I think I can remember at least four or five people, besides the people in my small group, that I got to know at least a bit. The rest really were a blur. Somehow my synesthesia came up in one of the ice breakers, and the girl who was my teammate in Team Nertz got really interested in it, along with three or four others. I'll break my aliasing rule here with the first person I told about it, who was Sarah (and not my teammate). The first time she asked what color her name was, I said green. Then she got the other girls around me and asked again and I said red. That really bothered me, even though I had told them that it's not deterministic. It bothers me that I feel like I'm making all this up, even though I know I'm not. So it kept eating at me into the next week until I figured it out. It depends on how the person says it. It seems to alternate between hunter green and burnished red, and it all depends on the inflection of the first syllable. Exaggerating for effect, if the person says "sear-ah", it's green, but if they say "sarr-ah" it's red. Obviously, it's just "Sarah" and "Sarah," but I guess I pick up on very minor differences in the sound.

The next Friday after the retreat, the PCEC group had an Olympics Opening Ceremony get together at one of the guys' apartments. I think about half of us had been on the trip, and the other half were new. I got to know a couple people a bit better.

I had been hoping my Nertz partner was going to go to the Olympics thing. She had expressed interest, and she seemed cool for the time we spent together. She, like everyone else does at one point or another, called me Justin by accident. So from then until the end of the trip, we were Team Justin, as Justin was neither of our names. After Nertz, we played some Taboo, and it's like our minds were melded on a few of the rounds.

Also, outside of the PCEC group, I attended the church's Foundations class, which is required for membership, and is basically a three-lecture series on the history and vision of the church, followed by twenty minutes of question and answer time with the pastor. On the second week, a question was brought up, and the pastor kind of dodged it because he was going to cover it in the third week, but then there were technical difficulties in the first two (simultaneous) services and he had to give his sermon twice, meaning he couldn't do question and answer time with us, and we never got the answer. The church's core beliefs don't mention Heaven or Hell anywhere. Clearly the pastor believes in both, and teaches regularly with both in mind, so it's kind of odd that they don't show up in the list. At the end of the third week, I filled out the form for beginning the membership process, and one of the requirements is getting involved in some sort of ministry, so that'll be good for me, even if I don't know what it'll be yet. I really don't want to do powerpoint. When I meet with my membership sponsor, I'm sure we'll go over some options.

I just remembered another reason I haven't been posting lately, and that's that I accidentally lost my blog layout while trying to make a couple minor improvements. Every single time I think, "do I need to save this?" and choose no, I end up losing it. You'd think I'd learn. The mistake was having three versions of the template open at once, and one was very old. I accidentally copied that old version into the official template box, thinking it was the one with my new changes, and clicked save, because the preview button wasn't working. It was something like that anyway. Somehow I didn't have the newest version with my newest changes open, and so I lost them. Then I got sad and didn't post for a while.

A couple months ago, I started watching the West Wing again with the Agathons. I believe I've mentioned this before. Then Christmas break happened and they were out of the state and we were all busy, so I didn't see them for a bit. Meanwhile, I needed my fix, and now I'm more than halfway through the last season. Again. They're still in season 3, I believe, and I'll go back and watch it with them. I'm so weak willed.

Swood and I went snow boarding a few weekends ago. Neither of us had been up since my parents took us up to Crystal my first year in college. We didn't last very long either, so very out of shape. He had a better excuse than I did, which was that he was trying out some used boots that his coworker was trying to sell, but they were too small. I just ran out of steam suddenly on like my 5th or 6th run. It was fun, and worth the money, but I wish I had more endurance in the calves.

I was really hoping I'd get a promotion back in January. It didn't happen though. Maybe I was hearing what I wanted to hear, but it seemed like I would have, had we had the budget. My boss says that if I maintain my current direction, he'll submit my candidacy for promotion in July. It's not that I really need the money, or even want it (though I do want a house soon), but it's not good to stay at my level for more than a year, and it'll have been two for me.

Work is going well though. We're expanding a bit, so I get my own office again here soon. I'm not quite eligible for a window office, but there's no surprise there. I think the bar is four years for this coming shift. We got a new member on our team whom I really like. He transferred from somewhere else in Microsoft so he has more seniority than I do, so it's interesting being more senior within the group but less senior as a dev, and seeing what he inherently understands and what he needs explained. Recently, I've been put on some more challenging tasks, specifically having to do with C++. I finished three major tasks this milestone, checking in the last one early today. My boss gave me a box of Thin Mints as reward. Then I ate too many of them at Swood's place.

I started up WoW again. I just renewed my subscription a couple days ago, starting my second consecutive month for the second time ever. Usually I'm bored after the first month. I got my druid from 10 to 56 in the first month, and now he's 58 and ready to move into the Outlands. Soon I will have bird form and be able to laugh at all the people who had to spend 600g on flying mounts. Seriously, why bother with any of the other classes? Druids are just going to be better anyway.

I also restarted Mass Effect since the second one just came out. Helo has played it through a few times and told me none of the side quests are worth it. Now having beaten it without doing a single side quest, I can see why he says that. The first time I attempted it, I got so very bored wandering around doing things I didn't really care about for no real incentive. Then I got stuck on one of the missions, though at the time, I thought I had chosen a planet at random for a side quest. On the second time through, it turned out it was the mission to save Liara. Go figure. Also, I accidentally pressed the R button (rather than the R trigger) while in the Mako and discovered its cannon. That would have been useful before. That game poses some interesting decisions. One of the things I don't like about the Batman movies, even though I think they're great, is that he's placed in impossible and unjust situations with no right answer. This game has a few similar spots. I bought the second one today, and if you've beaten the first one, you can load your character into the second one and it changes the storyline a bit. I talked to Helo and asked him a few questions about the decisions I made. One was right at the end, and I don't much care for the consequences so I think I'll load right before the final boss and change some history before going on. I wonder what the second game will do with it. Maybe the first history disappears, or maybe it says "I see what you did there." My guess is the game does an autosave behind the scenes as you beat it, and then whatever happened in that save is what gets loaded into game two. Since there's only one autosave slot, the first history would be overwritten. On a side note, Amazon has gotten amazing. I bought Mass Effect 2 this morning around 11am, and it was at the base of my door when I got home at 4:30.

I've been doing less reading than I did over the break, but it's been a different type of book too. When the pastor blogged about Taproot Theater's rendition of the Great Divorce, I decided to read the book. It's really short, but now one of my favorites. I wanted to see the play, too, but I never got around to it. The theme of the book is that Hell is as much man's choice as it is God's wrath. It went through numerous scenarios of how these various people all decided they can't like Heaven. The first guy doesn't want to be in a place that accepts murderers even if they have repented and he and his victim are on good terms now and everything. Another guy just wants what's due him, but can't see that no one is due Heaven. It's quite brilliant.

After that, I picked up Mere Christianity again. I first started reading it in 9th grade, but then school ended, and with it, silent reading and I never picked it up again. He starts it out well, and the way he laid down his arguments reminded me a lot of a transactional database, quite possibly because I work with them. In a transaction, you do a bunch of work and then commit it all at once, so that if something bad happens in the middle, you're not in this inconsistent, wrong state. It just reverts back to how it was before you started the transaction. So, Lewis starts out by doing a bunch of quick transactions. He makes a statement, and then proves it. Commit. Statement, commit. Then a he starts taking a little longer, and he builds up quite a bit, then brings it back home to connect with what he already has committed, and adds that to his database. You can also think of it as like a construction project. He builds his foundation first in quick, flat layers, then starts to build the framework. However, after he has this framework, he kind of abandons it and assumes the building is built. He starts a new transaction and makes a bunch of arguments, then never ties them back down to what he already has, and moves on without ever committing. That bothered me a lot. Now I'm into chapters where I don't agree with at least a portion of what he's saying. It's not necessarily bad to read something you disagree with, but when you're going in, expecting to agree with it all, even in a "I know it's right even if I don't like it" sort of way, it's a little discouraging. The latest thing I've disagreed with is that he says that God only looks internally at your decisions, and not at the outward magnitude of the consequences. If you were brought up in a horrible, cruel fashion and end up murdering a thousand people, but refrain from the ten thousand deaths a "lesser man" would have committed, that person is actually better in God's eyes than the silver spooned man who lets his neighbor go hungry. (Lewis didn't actually say this, but it's what I extrapolated.) I think God must look at both the internal struggle and decisions as well as the size and depth of the consequences.

Before these two books, I was at the beginning of the second book in A Song of Ice and Fire. The first one, Alexander loaned me, and I need to give it back to him. The second, I bought in electronic version from Barnes and Noble. I don't have a Nook, so I've just been using my phone, but the LCD doesn't do great things for the eyes for sustained reading like that. I really want an eReader, but I'm not sure which one I want to get, nor am I sure I have the money right now.

'Tis the season to do your taxes. I tried out the online version of TurboTax and wasn't particularly impressed. The free version seems well and good, but because of my stock awards and sales, I'd have to upgrade to the $15 version or whatever, only, when I had it connect to Fidelity to download my information, it got it wrong and basically counted twice all the income I had put into stock, and so ended up saying I still owed the government $1100. When I manually corrected it, it dropped down to $188, but I'm not sure that value is right either. Tomorrow I'm going to my mom's and until last year, she'd always done our family's taxes herself, so she has some experience. I'll see what value I (or we) end up with, and if it's not less than 0, Swood's dad offered to do my taxes for $20. The only reason I might still owe money like TurboTax said, is that I sold a bunch of stock to give toward the Costa Rica trip in December, but didn't donate it all until January, so I can't count it towards last year's write-offs.

Well, it's getting late, and despite the short length of this post, I'm heading to bed.

It's 3am. I guess now's as good a time as any to start a blog post, a post whose predecessors took an average of four hours apiece. I'm sure this one won't take that long, because I already have it all written out in my head. They say people can only keep track of seven things at once. I've got 3700 words, so beat that with a trout and smoke it.

First off, I think I should write a bit of a disclaimer here. I'm by no means an authoritative voice when it comes to theology. Super Mario RPG, yes, theology, no. What I've written, and will likely keep writing, are just what I'm dealing with, my thoughts in the order the neurons send them to my fingertips. I'm sure that early in most paragraphs, I make a faulty assumption, and then the rest of the paragraph can and should be disregarded entirely. Also, though I always thought I did, I don't enjoy arguing about close to anything, among the least, theology. I like discussing it, but as soon as it crosses some invisible line I can't even define, I get frustrated and no matter how right or wrong you or I may be, I'll basically completely ignore any further statements made. This, of course, is not relevant, as no one has really read my blog except those couple whom I've asked to, and they didn't argue. Still, just a warning. This is the last one you get before I release the hounds. The hounds of silent treatment. Their bite is worse than their bark.

That said, I did have both Bill and my mom read Always Winter, Never Christmas. They had some interesting insight, my mom especially. She pointed out something I knew even as I typed, that my view of God--a general rather than a father--is almost exactly how I view my dad. I don't really know what to make of that, but I suppose as of twenty-seven hours ago, I am free to pick a counselor of my choosing, so perhaps I shall get on that.

One thing I've considered in regards to my free gift paradox is that accepting Christ into your life is a change. The gift itself is a changed life, so how can changing your life be a cost? If I give you a Wii, is it a cost that you now have to own a Wii? When I was quoting Paul, saying that we're being given a gift and a call to die, I was speaking of dying to one's self, so we can live as Christ, live by the spirit. I had hoped that was obvious, but neither Bill nor my mom, smart people each, read it that way.

I did, in fact, get the answer I was looking for when I purchased Birthright per my pastor's suggestion. It was as he said in his email, too, though the book had more explanation. The night I read the answer, I tried to summarize it and post, but words failed me. I'll try again, but I bet I won't get it right, and you should just go buy and read it yourself. Essentially, being "born again" isn't just metaphoric or ceremonial, but literal. Jesus spells it out, but for some reason I thought he was talking somehow abstractly whenever I'd read it. It turns out Nicodemus was smarter than I am. God makes everything new, and when we're born again, we literally have a spirit born in us. I haven't figured out whether our spirit was dead and the Spirit breathed life into it, or if there was nothing there at all, and our spirit is then birthed, but it's one or the other. It's interesting that he uses the word "born" rather than "revived"--or more accurately vivified, as our spirits were never alive in the first place. That leads me to believe that there was nothing there, and then there was, like a baby. However, there are a ton of verses that say things like "while we were dead in our transgressions," which push me the other way. Anyway, this is just half the answer, and it's one or the other, so I'm not worrying about what was there before, and am instead considering what's there now, and why this is significant. It turns out that this spirit is what is eternal, what lives on with God in heaven. At the same time, it is who we truly are. It's what God made us to be, and it's not a clone. I've not studied too much, nor gone much further in the book, but I would assume this spirit, then, has all of our personality, but perfected, and all of our quirks, but without sin. We have a holy spirit that is each of us, when we become born again Christians, a child of the Holy Spirit, a child of God. Somehow this is harder for me to grasp than the Trinity. So, freedom from sin--no longer being slaves to sin--means that we can now live lives that are truly ours; we can be ourselves, but who we are has in fact changed. It is in our heavenly nature to now be sinless, and when we do things that agree with our nature, we're… happier people. More joyful people.

In explaining this, Needham walked through several different scenarios, or rather one scenario played out with different approaches with outwardly the same outcome. He asks us to imagine being tempted to watch something on TV that invokes some sort of lust--sexual, material, what have you--and you resist. In every one but the last one, and I've played all of them out at one point in my life or another, you're left feeling guilty. It's a come from behind victory that you probably couldn't pull off again, and leaves you weakened. It's concave up. We want an oppressive victory, oppressive toward the fallen, sinful nature, a victory where we're on the top looking down, grabbing and smothering evil, rather than trying to stand up under it. In all the first run-throughs, the thought process leads to denying our own sin nature, this nature we have engrained in ourselves. In the last one, we're agreeing with our heavenly nature, and being true to ourselves, which is what makes this a victory. It reminds me of a sermon I heard at Life at the Ridge about a year ago. "We can't say no to something unless we know what we're saying yes to."

While this is a fairly major break through for me, until I've devoted a lot more thought-time to it and really start living it out, I don't think much will improve in my spiritual life. Also, I really need to start having quiet times. I hate that phrase because it's a cliché, but what are you going to do? I need to read my Bible and I need to pray. I was telling my mom, as she and I worked through my last post, that I felt like God was a manager who put instructions on a poster up on the wall, and then skipped town. I know what I'm supposed to do generally, but not specifically, and not like I know what I'm supposed to do at Microsoft under the fairly constant guidance of my Microsoft manager. "I want my weekly one-on-one." My mom quickly responded that I can't meet with God without talking and listening to Him.

I just have such trouble reading the Bible. It's dry and deep, and I never seem to pull out the meaning that I'm supposed to. Maybe it takes practice. I also find myself distracted a verse or two in, thinking about just about anything else. Sometimes, it's a completely different point about God, and I end up on rabbit trails. I don't then know whether that was divine intervention or unholy intervention or neither.

Last Sunday I'd nearly given up. There are some dark thoughts people can think up, and I was thinking up some of the darker ones on Saturday night. Frustration with faith and life can so easily lead to hopelessness and despair. I almost didn't go to church. I'd gone to the Christmas eve service four days before, and the friend that usually goes with me now was busy. I concave-up convinced myself to get in the car, though, and God met me at the service. It was no mere coincidence that the sermon was "The Gospel as Longing." It talked a lot about joy and what it means. It didn't offer the answers I'm seeking, not wholly, but during communion, God met me and gave me the hope to carry on.

I've been procrastinating on getting Microsoft acquainted with Mosaic. Mosaic is Bill's church and the front for our rogue mission trip to Costa Rica. I've got until the 15th of this month to convince them that this is a philanthropic fund, rather than a religious one. Hopefully I can just email MS Give and give them the phone number of the guy at the church and they can iron out the details in an hour or two on a phone call I don't need to hear. Hopefully. Else, we're going to need a bunch more money than we expected. I trust God in this, but I don't trust my procrastinative nature.

It's 2010 now, if you hadn't noticed. Though, perhaps for you it's 2011, you futuristic hoodlum with your year-late-reading ways. That's right, back in 2010 we were silver tongued. Nuance is our weapon of choice. I have a lot to look forward to this year, which is a sentiment you'll seldom find from me. Final Fantasy XIII has been released in Japan and Swood never ceases to throw his bilingual hackery in my face. I have to wait until February, or more likely March when it won't be sold out, to play it, and then in the English lameness. Swood showed me the same clip in Japanese (translating it for me) and in English, and it's just sad. Why don't good English voice actors exist for video games and adult cartoons? They exist for robots in live action films, though admittedly, all the good ones have English accents. Anyway, I'm hoping against hope that they let you switch to Japanese with English subtitles. I've seen at least one game that lets you do this, but I can't remember now, which.

I predict The Old Republic will come out this November, with no actual basis for this release date. I think if it doesn't, by the time it's released, there will be something more exciting on the horizon. It's kind of a law of gaming that you need to get something released within two years of conception, else it'll be outdated before it arrives.

Iron Man 2 comes out in May. The first Iron Man movie is probably my favorite super hero movie yet, so I have high hopes for the next one. Also, while I never really minded the original actor for Rhodey (while some people found him whiney), getting Ocean's Basher to play him shall be great.

Speaking of good movies, I saw Sherlock Holmes the other night. I was grinning basically the whole time. It's so very clever. Somehow, Denna fell asleep when she saw it the night after I did. I don't get that. Maybe it's just a different sense of humor. She said it just never got good. I'll admit it doesn't have the same flow as other action movies, but I don't think it's meant to either. The bickering between Holmes and Watson is great, as is all the dialog, really. I don't know. I don't get her sometimes. She doesn't like Demetri Martin. It never would have worked between us.

Toy Story 3 is coming out. Pixar has yet to fail me, though I never saw A Bug's Life 2, and Ratatouille wasn't my cup of tea. Toy Story 2 was great, arguably as good as the original. During one of the orchestra summer camps, we played a piece written to be played during the short for that film, and we played the actual piece sung by the cowgirl doll about being neglected by her kid. Anyway, yet more high hopes.

The last three in my list are a bit bigger. Windows Mobile 7 is supposed to be released this year. I have high expectations for this, and I'm confident it'll look as nice or nicer than the iPhone and be more functional than either the iPhone or the Droid.

Costa Rica, as already mentioned, is in March. I'm actually a bit anxious and antsy about it. I wasn't this way at all, if I remember right, about Jamaica. Then again, I'm a different person from who I was two years ago. I remember telling Lulu like six days into the trip, that with the way my mind works, that day I'd finally decided I should go on the trip. She didn't get it. Oh well. But yes, I don't know what to make of this trip. I expect it will be good, and I am looking forward to it, but I'm also worrying for some reason. I think I feel a bit more like one of the leaders since I was one of the first to say I'd go on it, but I have really no idea what's going to happen there, nor do I want to be one of the leaders so, yeah.

Last, and least probable, I'm making it a goal to make big steps toward owning a house by this time next year. I don't like paying rent. I don't like having a litter box. And perhaps most of all, I don't like noise complaints. For some reason, they just get me at my core. Yesterday I bought a Wii Fit, both for the fitness aspect, and the unrealistic hope that someday I'll figure out how to program with it. I tinkered with it a bit before going with Swood to Hime's New Year's party. When I got back, I decided to play with it a bit more. I actually had considered the noise, and thought that between the pad itself with its springs, the feet covers on the bottom of the board, and the carpet, that it wouldn't make a whole lot of noise for the people downstairs. I guessed wrong. So, at three in the morning, an angry neighbor knocked on my door. She could have been less rude, but then, I did wake her up at three in the morning. I apologized, but I don't get the feeling she accepted it. So, I guess that's a pre-quiet hours toy, like my violin. I suspect they'll still get angry when I use it, though. I don't know exactly what I should do in this situation. I spent $100 on a new toy, and I have every right to use it during the day, but at the same time, I don't want to make enemies. They do live in an apartment. Noise comes with that. Also, the minigame I was playing involved a lot of swift running in place. I think that most of the stretches and pushups and things won't make much if any noise, so maybe there's the happy medium.

After watching Sherlock Holmes with Swood and Nikkie, and not realizing that it was already 12:30am, I suggested Swood and I hang out, so we drove to his place and watched (500) Days of Summer. They advertised it as a chick flick, but it's an excellent movie. It's got a lot of good dialog like Lucky Number Sleven. The last line in combination with the subsequent facial expression is one of the best things ever. I purchased it tonight, and it should arrive here on Tuesday.

I've been spending a ton of money lately. This is worse than good. I remember I was in the same habit this time last year. I wonder if it's just the time of year. Last year I bought a TV and a vacuum. This year I spent about $200 more on Christmas and then bought myself two Blu-Rays, the two expansions for Dragon Age, Wii Sports Resort, and Wii Fit at a time that money already wasn't that high. As always, I'm by no means hurting for money, and I have a heftyish savings to fall back on, but I'd rather not. Alexander says that most banks have a direct deposit deal where they'll give you 3-5% interest on your checking account, in which case, with a little will power, you just put all your money there and nothing into savings. I'm fairly certain Chase does not have this deal, so it is time to find a new bank.

After the movie, Swood and I stood around and talked of old times. All of two to four years ago. The golden days, some might say. Mostly we tried to remember the names of everyone that lived on our floors. We came close. Also, the next day I was going to Seattle to hang out with Vin, and Swood mentioned that I should park in Tukwila and take the Light Rail into town, thus saving money on parking, but costing an extra hour of travel time. The drive to Seattle is about the same as it is to Tukwila.

I ended up at the meeting fountain about ten minutes late and no one was there. I couldn't imagine that they'd already all met and then left to go off some place, and I couldn't get ahold of Vin on her cell phone. Some ten minutes later, Vin and her friend walked up. They'd been in a minor car accident, and Vin had left her cell phone at her home and had her friend's with her. Go figure. So we stood there a bit longer and some eleven of us showed up in all. I knew about half of them, I think, so I made some new friends. Three were particularly interesting, but not interesting enough to rename yet. Sorry. It's 4:30 and my creativity wanes. One was the guy that walked up with Vin. One was a girl with more spunk than she knows what to do with. She just seems fun loving without being a thrill seeker. Her mom works at Microsoft, so we had a brief conversation about that. She's also, evidently, outgoing enough to make new friends without being forced to talk to them. I don't really know how else to put it. The first guy is kind of shy around new people, but everyone else was talking to other people, so he and I ended up talking. The girl seemed to make a point of knowing everyone in the group. Sometime around six, she and her friend left the group, and the rest of us ate at Red Robin. After that, a couple more departed, and the remaining seven of us went to one of their houses twenty minutes north to play board games and whatnot. The third guy who was interesting was the guy who drove me to the other guy's place, and then afterwards, drove me all the way back to downtown Seattle so I could again ride the train, even though he was headed north. At the guy's place, we did a group-effort crossword puzzle, then played Yahtzee followed by Clue. It's certainly a good memory, that day. It was good to see Vin too, though I'm realizing it'll most likely never be more than friends.

She was telling me she's at a confusing point in her life because four months into the trip, she feels like Philadelphia is home, but then she came back to Seattle, and Philadelphia hardly exists in her mind anymore, but neither does Seattle feel like home. The trip, she says, has changed her a lot more than she expected it would too, and she's trying to figure out who she is. I guess now I'm blogging her life more than mine, but. I don't know. It gives me pause, and it's food for thought. Part of me wonders. Should I not have jumped right into corporate Microsoft? A lot of my friends from Western are going into nonprofits. I don't think I was called to be that person, but I admit it's appealing. I believe Microsoft and my working at Microsoft both will do more good for the world than my working at a nonprofit, but in my mind's eye, nonprofits have an instant gratification that donating vast sums of money and releasing business software just don't have. I think that's probably not true, and like with any job, satisfaction comes over a long period of time, but still.

I'm finding I'm returning to being content while single. For the past several months I have certainly not been. I'm pretty sure the word that best described me was desperate, but I'm not sure if that's entirely fair. But yes, at the moment, while I'd like to have a girlfriend, it's not really my primary focus. I'm realizing again, that what I'm constantly looking for in a girl probably won't be found there, but in God. Also, I used to think that Vin was perfect for me. As far as personality goes, she really is the girl of my dreams, what I always expected would be my perfect match, and yet, hanging out with her doesn't feel like a good fit. She's a great person, and a great friend, but we'd be hopelessly indecisive together. We don't have that flirty banter I had with Fey or Denna, even though she and I share more in common than I did with either of them. I'm starting to think that looking for specific traits and commonalities and whatever else in a person to heuristically decide compatibility is just folly. There's an X factor that you just have to find from hanging out with them over a long while. And perhaps I'll eat these words later, but I don't think any of the girls I currently know are a right one for me. I like one of the lines from (500) Days of Summer. The guy is being interviewed about his girlfriend of like ten years, and he says that the girl of his dreams would probably have a bigger rack and be more into sports, but that his girlfriend is better than the girl of his dreams.

Well, it's now 5am. See? Two hours, not four. Though, it's now definitely tomorrow morning and no longer tonight. I need to sleep.

I've got 45 minutes to write a blog post, but it's only been two and a half months, so I should be good. The four hour posts are when it's been a long time, like three days.

What to say.... Well, first, Giggles and I did end up dating shortly after my last post. I had a great time in Texas, despite the lack of trees, hills, or general natural beauty. I had other things of which to take notice. We spent a good deal of time cuddling on the couch, watching movies and talking. We went to her favorite restaurant, Shoguns, which tasted good, but I wasn't all too impressed with the management, mostly because this guy Joe, married, keeps trying to get with Giggles. She won't have him though. That whole situation frustrates me. We went to church the next morning. I liked it a lot, especially the pastor. If I lived in the area, that's probably where I would go, though it's about as big as Harper is, and I'm kind of liking the smallerness--smallerosity?--of LatR. Giggles didn't feel like she fit in there, because it felt to her like a Christians-only club. I don't really know how to avoid that and still grow a mature church. That'd kind of be like walking into Microsoft straight out of junior high and saying you didn't like the work environment because it felt like a professional programmers-only club. The analogy breaks down twelve moments later, so don't go too far with it.

Thanksgiving was hard. My sister and I got stuck sitting next to my uncle's girlfriend, I, to her right at the foot of the table, and my sister across from her. She's well meaning, but tactless. Between my sister and me was my aunt, whose husband, my uncle, died a year ago January 18th. She decided, as we were sitting around the table eating our thanksgiving dinner, to bring up my uncle's passing to both my sister and my aunt, trying to soothe semi-healed scars, and instead, ripping them open anew. My sister and I did the only thing we could think to do: txt message each other under the table, expressing our displeasure with her lack of tact. In hindsight, that probably appeared rude to the rest of the guests.

The original plan was for Giggles to come visit me sometime in December, but her mom ruined those plans, by attempting to control her life and throwing Giggles into a state of hysteria. Instead, the week she'd planned to visit me, she went to Virginia to visit her mom who was at some sort of conference or training out there. That situation frustrated me too, but as with Joe, I don't really feel right about discussing it here.

See? Eighteen minutes in, and I'm already almost to Christmas. We're golden. Like silence. And things touched by King Midas. And old friends?

Seeing as how we're doing so well, I think it's about time to take a rabbit trail and really dig deep, you know? No, we're not discussing mixed metaphors, but good guess. I'd like to say I can completely relate to this. I'm pretty sure I'd have done the same thing. On the other hand, such tendencies lead to finding good ways to do things, such as clean walls with a bathroom cleaning wipe and a flathead screwdriver. That's probably a story you'd have to ask me about. It's a little embarrassing and you can only dive so deep in a rabbit trail.

I did get to level 55 in WoW, started a DK, and got him to 57 or 58, whatever you are when you finish the DK tutorial. The character's name (a Tauren) was Hoedownrodeo, which, as all of you know, is the song that plays on beef commercials. It's what's for dinner. Tonight. After closer inspection, most people probably think the "rodeo" part refers to the things country folk do with bulls and clowns. Also, this didn't happen because I never got to group for PvE, but I'd probably be called Hoe for short. My greatest disappointment with the DK is I couldn't Runeforge my mining pick because it "wasn't a high enough leveled item." To that I say "psh." Loudly. Getting that high was fun, but WoW was starting to become a higher priority in my life than other things, say, talking to Giggles, and that was unacceptable. So I quit playing. It's probably good, considering my current financial situation. DKs are really fun in PvP. It'd be interesting to see what would happen if they were played correctly though, in a group with at most two other DKs. They really are like the Heroes in WC3; they're powerful, but largely meant as support for your other units.

One month after Giggles and I started dating, we stopped dating. So now it feels weird to call her Giggles, and I am changing her name to Denna. I always knew dating a non-Christian would end, but dating her sort of drove home why. More, that was really the only thing I didn't like about the relationship, so even when I feel like everything else is going swimmingly, if Christ isn't there, it's just not going to work. I just think about God too much to be with someone who doesn't. She and I are still very good friends. The amount of time we spend txting each other throughout the day has diminished only slightly, if at all. We're a bit less flirty, but that's to be expected. In all, we're almost as close as we were dating, and I couldn't have asked for a better end to a relationship other than to not have it end in the first place. But I really think this one needed to.

December 20th as I remember it (and because that's what it says on my Discover Card bill), I drove in the snow over to Seattle to take a picture of my sister and me for my mom for Christmas. Her boyfriend took it for us. We also then went to get hot chocolate at a place that reminded me of the Baglery but for hot chocolate, down near University Village. I don't know why it's "down;" I just said down because it sounded right. From there we went to pick out her Christmas present, an iPhone, and buy a frame for the picture we'd just taken.

Christmas was different this year. It snowed. I left on Monday for Port Orchard, so I was there. My sister had to work though, and it snowed harder on Monday night, Tuesday, and Wednesday. She ended up being with my aunt and uncle and cousins for Christmas. Sadly, she didn't get to use her phone for a couple weeks to come, despite having picked it out. It was just my mom, Jack, and me there. The power was on and off throughout the week too. We played Scrabble by candlelight, and it looked like a seance. We had hamburgers for Christmas dinner. We never have, and it appears we won't this year, had an extended family get together, despite my sister's pleading. Don't get me wrong, I would love to, but I haven't done any of the pleading.

It's 6:46. Time to go. To be continued!

...Immediately. I think out of all the extended family I have, I probably had the best Christmas, I and my mom and Jack I mean. I guess there was a great deal of stress and drama at my aunt's. My uncle is pretty protective of their cat, Marshmallow. My grandma has a dog named Peaches. You see where this is going. But not quite. See, my grandma decided to show up like three days before Christmas. I guess by the time Ashley and her boyfriend got there, patience was drawing its close. My grandma decided she'd leave fairly early in the morning, for whatever reason, but it was really icy out there, else my sister would have gone to my mom's. So my uncle said he didn't want her to leave. My grandma went out to the car anyway. The car wouldn't move because of the snow and ice. So after a while, my sister and her boyfriend decided to go out there and help her. We're still not sure what would have happened if Ashley hadn't been there, or hadn't decided to go help her move the car. I wasn't there, but Ashley said my grandma was being pretty irrational. To make matters worse, my other uncle got wind of the gathering, and felt like he was being left out. Really, my aunt just wanted to make sure everyone had someone to spend Christmas with, and my sister might have been alone. My uncle had his girlfriend. I played Scrabble and ate hamburgers.

I spent a few days at my mom's. They have a 46" LCD TV that they bought with wedding gift money. I brought my xbox with me so I could test out Mass Effect in 1080p. I got The Force Unleashed for Christmas, so I instead beat that game. It was a decent game, but too short. If a game is going to be that short, it really needs to be as good, or better than, Portal, but really I would have been happier if the game had just been longer, and had more storyline. I'm sure I've said this before on this blog, and if not, my LiveJournal, but I think I've just been spoiled by Knights of the Old Republic, especially when it comes to Starwars games.

New Year's Eve I spent at Alexander's house. I brought over a six pack of Thomas Kempers, and he and I played cards, watched the first episode of Firefly. (That link isn't what you think. Well, maybe it is for Alexander, but to the rest of you...!) I'd never seen Battlestar Galatica, so after that episode of Firefly, we watched the miniseries until the countdown and fireworks. Every year I think the Space Needle camera crew gets less professional. I guess last year was hard to beat, but this year they got water on the lens.

I decided about a month ago, that to celebrate paying off my car loan to my grandpa, I'd buy a TV. I was looking for a 42" LCD. I owed my grandpa $2000, and over the past three months, I had saved $2000 to be put into Microsoft stock at a 10% discount, so when the stock was purchased, it valued about $2400 (it took a couple days to process, and stock value went up). I probably should have sold it then. The next day it went a little higher, if memory serves, but long, boring story short, I didn't sell until yesterday. Meanwhile, I told my grandpa that I would sell the stock and give him the money whenever he wanted, and that I was hoping that the stock prices would go up a little more, so as long as he didn't want the money right then, I might as well make what money I can, right? I then told him that I was in the market for a TV, and since we never found a desk or sofa table for my graduation gift, I asked if he would give me the money he would have spent toward my purchase. "I can get behind a TV." So, the $500 check came in the mail, and a couple days later, I went with my sister (who was dropping off her kitty, Tomtom, henceforth known as Jingles) and her boyfriend to Sears to get a TV. The Sears associate was fairly helpful. He knew at least which brands were best, Samsung and Sony, and knew a little about specs, but barely more than I knew already. Those two companies don't make a 42", at least within my price range (I think Sony makes one but they didn't carry it). So after about 45 minutes of staring at two 46" Samsungs, I decided on the Series 5 550 over the 530. I couldn't tell the difference in the contrast ratio, which was supposed to be the only difference, but, call me crazy, the picture on the left looked less fuzzy to me, worth the extra $200. So, the guy went into the back and returned to tell me they were out of stock. Ordinarily, I'd have waited for the stock to arrive, but the box wouldn't fit in my car. When I did get one, it barely fit in Ashley's boyfriend's sportswagon. So, we started talking about where we might go instead, feeling bad that the sales guy wouldn't get his commission. The electronics department is a floor under the main floor in Sears, so none of us had cell reception. The sales guy said we could use his phone to call BestBuy, so I did, and they had four of the TVs left. Further, when we got there, they were $200 cheaper than at Sears. If they hadn't been, the sales guy there wouldn't have been able to convince me to purchase the warranty for $169. I do think it was the right choice though, in this case. On the way back to my place, my sister had to scrunch next to the TV box in the back without a seatbelt.

They were going to California the next day to visit his grandparents or something, so I was taking care of Jingles. I call him Jingles because she gave him a collar with a bell on it that lasted about 30 minutes after they left. He was then Jingles, the bellless cat. Yes, three 'l's. Read 'em and weep!

(You won't, but some day when I'm rereading this post, I'm going to laugh about that last sentence there.)

Jingles wasn't particularly well behaved, nor was he fixed and I think he had a certain attraction to Calloh (who is fixed). Calloh was fairly shy, whereas Kotenok just wanted to wrestle with the new cat. They got along pretty well when they weren't trying to avoid each other. There was minimal possessive hissing going on, and I think all of it was from Calloh. Anyway, after a weekend with me, I think Jingles will claw, kick, and bite less than he did three days prior.

A couple days later, I decided to clean the second bedroom which I had almost entirely neglected, using it as storage and a place to leave the cats' litter box. What spurred my decision was that the water heater started leaking, and I didn't want to the repair person to be disgusted. So, I decided I needed a far more powerful vacuum than the small, free one I had. I also figured that I didn't want to buy another vacuum for a very long time and decided to get a Dyson. I probably wouldn't have gotten as good a model as I did except that it was 20% off. My credit card bill is currently larger than the sum of my checking and savings, though that will change in about 6 hours (pay day, w00t -- sadly it will almost entirely go toward rent, tithing, and supporting Rufus [which is only sad because rent is so high and because I want to pay off that bill, even if it isn't due until March 12th]).

Church has been going well. I missed a couple weeks during the holidays, as did everyone it seems, plus the week it was canceled due to snow and hills and potential car crashes. This month, the pastor started a new series called Possibilities, that's about dreams, ambitions. You can tell it's really something he's passionate about, and it's been an amazing sermon series so far.

At life group two or three weeks ago, we were discussing one of the sermons. Our fearless leader said something like "I think dreams are 100% centered around God, and 100% centered around us. It seems impossible..." Just to be snide, I threw out, "Unless it's an ellipse." A little later, the conversation turned toward personal dreams, or things we want without yet seeing God in them. I asked, "Did Jesus have personal dreams?" A few seconds later I smiled. Jesus was God, so his axis in the ellipse would be right on top of God's, one and the same, which makes it a circle, which is the largest ellipse with a fixed length "string" around the "pin." The closer you are to God, the larger the dream's reach will be.

On this month's 23rd day, as with all years since 1987, it was Hime's birthday. She decided to have an anime themed costume party. Mostly she wanted to see her friends dress up like Ichigo. It took a couple weeks, but I eventually decided I'd dress up as Metaknight because the costume would be easy enough to make, and it would still make Hime happy. In theory, anyway. I think all told, I spent about $100 on her birthday, not counting gas. There was the UW blanket I had Alexander buy for me for the cape, the spray paint for the mask and sword, a dowel to act as a hilt for the cut pizza-box blade, two LEDs for the yellow eyes of the mask, the wire, battery holder, and electrical tape required to light them, the fabric to cover the eye slot and the ribbon to hold the mask to my head, the wooden doll's head I used for the pommel and the drill and bit I had to buy to put a hole in it for the dowel to fit, and the gaudy looking red gems on the sides of the guard. Plus, a couple weeks ago, I was at the company store to get my sister Office, and noticed a Microsoft stuffed armadillo. I txted her, asking if she needed anything while I was at the store, specifically wondering who could live without such an armadillo. I didn't buy it then, but right before I left for Bellingham, I decided I should get it for her to be funny. What I didn't know was that it was $12. By the time I had gotten to the building, found parking (they reserved almost all the spots for visitors, leaving very few for actual visiting employees), and got into the store, I decided I should just bite the bullet and do it. So that was the gag gift, but I also got her Wall-E, though it turned out her parents already owned it.

The party was pretty fun. I met a few people, and talked a bit. We played a bunch of games Hime forced upon us. I'm pretty sure for those four hours, we were her pets. I guess that's what I get for torturing Kotenok so. Most of the games were fun. I had asked Bill if I could stay at his place for the night after the party, and during the party, I got a txt saying it was Broom Hockey night for the INN's trip fund raisers. For some reason it didn't occur to me then, but that was the best coincidence that could have happened, that I would be up there the night all of my friends were in one place. As I was walking out the door at the end of the party, Hime noticed she'd forgotten to have the costume contest, right after she said she liked mine best. So it was worth the money, time, effort, and creeped out looks I got while looking for the apartment. I hope it made her happy, anyway.

Broom hockey was a lot of fun, and I think I only played two of the games. I got caught up with Donna, Ella, Jan, Minnie, a little with Lulu and Jeff and David, and what seemed like a hundred other people. It was wonderful.

The next morning, among other things, I met up with Bob who was trying to set up a LAN for Red Alert 2, only the two XP machines wouldn't connect to each other, and Vista completely lost all support for the IPX protocol, so even after finding some homebrew version and installing it, none of it worked. So instead, we played some Halo 3 and Left4Dead, so if you see some Left4Dead achievements on my Live account, you know why. The girl who was there (the one with the Vista laptop) apparently was the girl with a boyfriend that Bob had a crush on. I can certainly see why. She's very quick-witted, enjoys nerdy things like video games and computer science, even if she's considering a communications major, and certainly not hard on the eyes either. You could tell that the two of them just clicked together (though I hate that phrase), so it's really too bad she has a boyfriend.

Work has been going pretty well. My manager became an architect for a different project, so one of my fellow devs took his spot as dev lead, and our team is now down to five people (from the seven it's supposed to be). They're very different leaders, but I think I like working under each of them about the same. I still have a job, so that's always a plus. Even though I didn't personally know anyone who's job was cut last Thursday, that day was still hard, quiet.

I started reading the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Like Alexander said, the first three are awesome. Then around the fourth book they start to get weird. I'm halfway through the fifth book now, and I feel he wasted at least half of what I've read so far "setting [the plot] up," as Bob said. Just because you're setting it up for goodness later doesn't mean good writing can afford to be boring, especially for that long. Now I know how an ADA compiler feels -- all the variable declarations at the beginning, with all the meat not until halfway into the program.

A year and a half ago, in our CS344 class, we came up with a game engine that would have been pretty great, had it been implemented. I got a metaphoric bee in my proverbial bonnet, and decided in my spare time, I would attempt to build such an engine. I got a few friends to help me with it, including Bob, for programming, and Alexander, for storyline ideas. I feel bad because so far, I haven't really liked almost any of their ideas, not that they're bad ideas, just that it's not what I was picturing, and I can't really articulate what I was picturing without building it. Also, I may have been spoiled with Knights of the Old Republic.

This is a continual problem: throughout the period where I don't post I come across at least a dozen good titles for entries, and when I finally sit down to write one, they've all slipped my mind. Here we go: what I should have named my cats.

I see you. No, not you; you're not supposed to read this paragraph. I'm talking to the group of girls all huddled together reading this post, the one in control of the keyboard on the edge of her seat, the other nine chewing on their hair or biting their nails, all wondering if I'm looking for a girlfriend. Sorry to disappoint you gals (again, not you, quit reading this already), but currently I am not, or at least I'm trying not to. Oh. No. Please don't cry. Please? For me? Ok. My mom has expressed that she thinks I define myself too much by what kind of girl I'd be good with, and that I don't know myself very well. She's said that before, in not so many words, but I kind of shrugged it off. Now I'm starting to agree with her. There are periods, say, right after spring break last year up until around August, where I'm fairly confident in who I am, but at the moment, my identity seems clouded to me.

That all said, and it does hold true, seeing a couple of the girls at Broom Hockey rekindled some old feelings, ones I'd rather not have right now, especially as they're still in school, a good 98 minutes away. Plus, I'm relatively sure they're not interested in me anyway. Earlier today, I decided I'd go back and figure out what originally convinced me to not to like Ella, and that's what got me to write this post -- reading old posts.

And so the cycle continues.

I have two classes defined in my <style> tag, 'good' and 'bad.' Usually I choose the one based on how I'm feeling at the time of writing, and usually that mood dictates what I'll write about, and usually bad goes with bad, and good with good. Makes sense, right? However, it's been almost two months since I last posted. For shame, I know. But who really likes October anyway?

I don't usually like October, to be honest. I don't usually like any of the autumnal months, but this October was different.

On the first, I started talking with Giggles again. Odds are, anyone still reading this, besides Frank and Alexander (which is about two thirds of my reading base, I think) doesn't know Giggles personally, and I've never mentioned her before. Alexander has called her a calendar before, but that's more for me to laugh at later, than for you to understand now.

The first was Alexander's birthday, and he and a bunch of his friends, myself included, went to a restaurant in the U-District that makes really good sausage, and good beer from what I hear. I remember it pretty vividly for some reason. That was back when I didn't have an appetite.

On a side note, as most of my posts are largely composed of (and taking a nested aside, that was a terribly formed clause), my appetite has been really weird lately. For several months starting in about June, I hardly ate at all. I would hardly be hungry, and even when I was, nothing sounded particularly good. Now, all of a sudden, I am always hungry. Alas, I'm on an airplane, and planes no longer see it fit to feed you dinner during the dinner hours. Airline companies are having trouble staying afloat anymore, and can't afford what previously were common services. Curse you, Cisco and your "Network Effect!"

I got home pretty late, if memory serves. It was a Wednesday night. Giggles and I had sent a few Facebook messages in the past couple days, just briefly catching up. I learned she was going to school in Texas and working at a bank, and she learned I was working at Microsoft. But that night was the first night we both were on Facebook at the same time, and the first time we started chatting on it.

Work is going well. I'm getting more and more attuned to programming everyday. In school, I've always been the procrastinator who waits two and a half weeks to begin a three week project. At that point, most of the code is written in my head, and I just write it out, fix my errors, and get an A. The same philosophy is harder to do in the software engineering setting. My first tasks had been a very small amount of code -- something any one of the other devs on my team would probably do as a bug, or maybe a two day mini-feature -- but fairly intensive as far as working with other people. This second task was the opposite -- a much larger project basically on my own as far as development goes (still worked with a PM of course). Since I was on my own, my procrastination policy worked fine, but had I been blocking someone, and spent a week with writer's block before my two days of intense coding, that would not have worked. So now I'm working on pacing myself.

Giggles and I started out with small talk, of course, more thoroughly catching up. There was an intimacy there, though, something between friends. It was really easy to talk to her and sort of hide nothing, and she felt the same way. She gave me a rundown of her past, in more detail than she's ever told anyone. My heart swelled for her. I couldn't think clearly the next day, feeling overwhelming compassion for her, and wishing there was something beyond being her friend I could do for her. I prayed and prayed. That night I felt like the Holy Spirit was guiding me to do something I've never done before: fast. And the next day I fasted for 24 hours, mourning for Giggles, and in anticipation for the dramatic (positive) life change I sensed coming for her.

That night when I got home from work, Giggles was waiting for me online. Over those three days, we'd sort of developed that habit, working out the day and looking forward to getting home so we could talk to each other. Until that night, that pining hadn't been voiced. For the long hours until midnight, we talked about all sorts of stuff. I think that night she got the story of each of my girlfriends, how the relationships started, how they went, and how they ended. She seemed intent on, and content with listening. I think that began when she asked me what I look for in a girl. It occurred to me after the story that I never really answered the question, so then I did, listing my non-negotiables, and then going into preferences. I asked her the same question, and she kind of avoided it. She said she wasn't really sure she'd ever get married, and honestly I feel the same. I want to get married someday, but if I don't, then I trust that God has better plans for me.

The next morning, I participated in a 5k run. I came in 64th place of 89, I believe. Basically, I beat everyone who walked the whole thing. I'd not run since March, maybe April. I think I was able to run or jog the first half, and of course the sprint for the last 200 yards, but between those two spans, I basically only walked.

The next day, after church, Giggles and I jabbered for 14 hours online.

Our talking had always been a bit shamelessly flirty. At first it was harmless, just attempting to be charming, or make the other person smile, and it often succeeded. Toward the end of Sunday night, we both knew there was something else there. Though it wouldn't be for a few more days that we gave voice to it.

It turns out they do still give us dinner, only, we have to pay for it, and if I weren't ravenous, that burger would not have been worth $5. Also, Jones Soda Root Beer: not a fan.

One of the things I find interesting about Giggles is that while she wouldn't call herself a Christian, she enjoys listening to me talk about my faith, eager in a way. She wants to believe, but given her past, everything she's been through, and her stubbornness (which I adore), it'll be a journey for her.

It is now occurring to me that I'm not on track to meet my parenthesis count quota. (I'm truly sorry. [No really I am. {These sentences didn't need to be in parentheses. (Well, maybe this one and its predecessor did, but not the first two.)}])

As with Fey, I went down kicking and screaming, refusing to date someone, when it's almost assuredly a mistake, or at least wouldn't end well, and yet cultivating feelings for her. Technically, while I write this, I'm still single. In two hours and 11 minutes, that will probably change.

The weeks have passed. Virtually every night we've spent talking at least a little to each other, on the phone, via IM, or with a webcam. We txt and email frequently throughout the day, so long as it doesn't get in the way of our work. Her sister claims we're joined at the hip, but that would make us siamese twins, and I don't date someone related to me by blood -- especially my own blood.

We still maintain our own lives though, what little we had. On Mondays, I still go watch Heroes with the guys, and Tuesdays are Bible Study. Thursdays she goes out on the town with her family (her sister and her sister's husband). I don't mind frequent contact like that unless it distracts me from the other things I enjoy in life. I don't want either of us to become obsessed, and so far, so good.

Every now and then I consume a little too much root beer, and wake up having passed out somewhere. And I guess I make ridiculous txts. That drunken state has even given itself a name, Baron Rootbeer. (You can tell I must be drunk as 'Baron' is a position, not a title -- it's always Lord or Lady. Thank you Oxford Dictionary.) He sends Giggles a txt most nights for her to wake up to -- a way to express my undying weirdness without seeming too weird, and also giving her a giggle.

Apparently, she was neither a giggler nor a hugger before she met me. I guess I just inspire radical changes like that. The first or second time we talked on the phone, I offhandedly mentioned her giggling, not knowing this was a new phenomenon, and she protested, "I don't giggle!" I immediately equated this to the time Eowyn claimed she wasn't blond, and how girls always fight a simple truth, and then eventually say I was right in the first place. "Mmhmm." Sure enough, some 20 minutes later, she was talking about how she giggles now.

In these past six weeks, she's started a second job (this on top of her Bank position and going to college) at a cigarette shop. It was only supposed to be a weekend thing, but she puts in a couple nights a week as well. I call it her night job.

So now, about a month ago, I bought these plane tickets from SEA to DFW. I wish Paolini's ancient language were real so I could prove to you all I'm not lying when I say I'd be going whether or not there was a romance between us. On October first, had she asked me to fly down there and support her, I would have taken my two personal days and hopped on the next flight to Dallas, so strong is my compassion for her.

I'm only staying for the weekend, which is a little sad, but still entirely worth it. I can't stay away from work too long; we're nearing the end of a sprint. She's going to visit me for about a week in December, so we're looking forward to that as well. First things first though; I'm not even in Dallas yet. We're going to have a wonderful weekend.

For her birthday I got her something. The day I decided to get it, she had just previously thought of something for us to do while I'm there, and gave me a couple hints about it until I eventually figured it out. Alas, my flesh is too weak, and I googled "the 6th floor" clue to get the answer. Anyway, after I decided to get her it, I gave her a clue: "Forever." It was the only thing I could think of at the time, but it made it too obvious in my mind. On the way home from work, I thought of two more: Sean Connery, and pencil. Later that night, I gave her Snow White, and necktie. As you might imagine, it's a laminated, pencil-shaded cardboard cutout of Sean Connery as a dwarf wearing a necktie. That or a diamond necklace, though not an expensive one. (Forever, as in diamonds are forever; Sean Connery as in Diamonds are Forever; pencil, as in graphite, as in carbon, as in diamond; Snow White's dwarves mined gems; and of course, necktie draws attention to the neck which holds the necklace. QED.) So, now we refer to her surprise as Sean Connery. What she doesn't yet know, is I got her both. I didn't have time to makeshift laminate him, but an hour or two with a Photoshop trial, a knife, some scissors, and a pizza box later....

I finally finished Brisingr last night. It was good. Not great, like Eldest, but good. I have a feeling Giggles is going to make me read Twilight here soon. I still need to finish at least the sixth book of Wheel of Time before I begin another entertainment thread. I still have Phoenix Wright 2, Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker, Spore (if I ever get around to playing the space stage), Mass Effect, and Halos 1-3 to play. Also, I should get The Force Unleashed soon, and I'm playing WoW currently, though for how much longer I don't know. I'll quit when I'm bored. I have over 1000g at level 36, and yet no Staff of Jordan. Sad.

Well, I did bring Lord of Chaos with me, so I think I'll pick that up a chapter before I left off. That is to say, I'm done typing for a while. Seriously, take a hint and leave already.

me a higher priority in my life than other things, say, talking to Giggles, and that was unacceptable. So I quit playing. It's probably good, considering my current financial situation. DKs are really fun in PvP. It'd be interesting to see what would happen if they were played correctly though, in a group with at most two other DKs. They really are like the Heroes in WC3; they're powerful, but largely meant as support for your other units.

One month after Giggles and I started dating, we stopped dating. So now it feels weird to call her Giggles, and I am changing her name to Denna. I always knew dating a non-Christian would end, but dating her sort of drove home why. More, that was really the only thing I didn't like about the relationship, so even when I feel like everything else is going swimmingly, if Christ isn't there, it's just not going to work. I just think about God too much to be with someone who doesn't. She and I are still very good friends. The amount of time we spend txting each other throughout the day has diminished only slightly, if at all. We're a bit less flirty, but that's to be expected. In all, we're almost as close as we were dating, and I couldn't have asked for a better end to a relationship other than to not have it end in the first place. But I really think this one needed to.

December 20th as I remember it (and because that's what it says on my Discover Card bill), I drove in the snow over to Seattle to take a picture of my sister and me for my mom for Christmas. Her boyfriend took it for us. We also then went to get hot chocolate at a place that reminded me of the Baglery but for hot chocolate, down near University Village. I don't know why it's "down;" I just said down because it sounded right. From there we went to pick out her Christmas present, an iPhone, and buy a frame for the picture we'd just taken.

Christmas was different this year. It snowed. I left on Monday for Port Orchard, so I was there. My sister had to work though, and it snowed harder on Monday night, Tuesday, and Wednesday. She ended up being with my aunt and uncle and cousins for Christmas. Sadly, she didn't get to use her phone for a couple weeks to come, despite having picked it out. It was just my mom, Jack, and me there. The power was on and off throughout the week too. We played Scrabble by candlelight, and it looked like a seance. We had hamburgers for Christmas dinner. We never have, and it appears we won't this year, had an extended family get together, despite my sister's pleading. Don't get me wrong, I would love to, but I haven't done any of the pleading.

It's 6:46. Time to go. To be continued!

...Immediately. I think out of all the extended family I have, I probably had the best Christmas, I and my mom and Jack I mean. I guess there was a great deal of stress and drama at my aunt's. My uncle is pretty protective of their cat, Marshmallow. My grandma has a dog named Peaches. You see where this is going. But not quite. See, my grandma decided to show up like three days before Christmas. I guess by the time Ashley and her boyfriend got there, patience was drawing its close. My grandma decided she'd leave fairly early in the morning, for whatever reason, but it was really icy out there, else my sister would have gone to my mom's. So my uncle said he didn't want her to leave. My grandma went out to the car anyway. The car wouldn't move because of the snow and ice. So after a while, my sister and her boyfriend decided to go out there and help her. We're still not sure what would have happened if Ashley hadn't been there, or hadn't decided to go help her move the car. I wasn't there, but Ashley said my grandma was being pretty irrational. To make matters worse, my other uncle got wind of the gathering, and felt like he was being left out. Really, my aunt just wanted to make sure everyone had someone to spend Christmas with, and my sister might have been alone. My uncle had his girlfriend. I played Scrabble and ate hamb

urgers for Christmas dinner. We never have, and it appears we won't this year, had an extended family get together, despite my sister's pleading. Don't get me wrong, I would love to, but I haven't done any of the pleading.

It's 6:46. Time to go. To be continued!

...Immediately. I think out of all the extended family I have, I probably had the best Christmas, I and my mom and Jack I mean. I guess there was a great deal of stress and drama at my aunt's. My uncle is pretty protective of their cat, Marshmallow. My grandma has a dog named Peaches. You see where this is going. But not quite. See, my grandma decided to show up like three days before Christmas. I guess by the time Ashley and her boyfriend got there, patience was drawing its close. My grandma decided she'd leave fairly early in the morning, for whatever reason, but it was really icy out there, else my sister would have gone to my mom's. So my uncle said he didn't want her to leave. My grandma went out to the car anyway. The car wouldn't move because of the snow and ice. So after a while, my sister and her boyfriend decided to go out there and help her. We're still not sure what would have happened if Ashley hadn't been there, or hadn't decided to go help her move the car. I wasn't there, but Ashley said my grandma was being pretty irrational. To make matters worse, my other uncle got wind of the gathering, and felt like he was being left out. Really, my aunt just wanted to make sure everyone had someone to spend Christmas with, and my sister might have been alone. My uncle had his girlfriend. I played Scrabble and ate hamburgers.

I spent a few days at my mom's. They have a 46" LCD TV that they bought with wedding gift money. I brought my xbox with me so I could test out Mass Effect in 1080p. I got The Force Unleashed for Christmas, so I instead beat that game. It was a decent game, but too short. If a game is going to be that short, it really needs to be as good, or better than, Portal, but really I would have been happier if the game had just been longer, and had more storyline. I'm sure I've said this before on this blog, and if not, my LiveJournal, but I think I've just been spoiled by Knights of the Old Republic, especially when it comes to Starwars games.

New Year's Eve I spent at Alexander's house. I brought over a six pack of Thomas Kempers, and he and I played cards, watched the first episode of Firefly. (That link isn't what you think. Well, maybe it is for Alexander, but to the rest of you...!) I'd never seen Battlestar Galatica, so after that episode of Firefly, we watched the miniseries until the countdown and fireworks. Every year I think the Space Needle camera crew gets less professional. I guess last year was hard to beat, but this year they got water on the lens.

I decided about a month ago, that to celebrate paying off my car loan to my grandpa, I'd buy a TV. I was looking for a 42" LCD. I owed my grandpa $2000, and over the past three months, I had saved $2000 to be put into Microsoft stock at a 10% discount, so when the stock was purchased, it valued about $2400 (it took a couple days to process, and stock value went up). I probably should have sold it then. The next day it went a little higher, if memory serves, but long, boring story short, I didn't sell until yesterday. Meanwhile, I told my grandpa that I would sell the stock and give him the money whenever he wanted, and that I was hoping that the stock prices would go up a little more, so as long as he didn't want the money right then, I might as well make what money I can, right? I then told him that I was in the market for a TV, and since we never found a desk or sofa table for my graduation gift, I asked if he would give me the money he would have spent toward my purchase. "I can get behind a TV." So, the $500 check came in the mail, and a couple days later, I went with my sister (who was dropping off her kitty, Tomtom, henceforth known as Jingles) and her boyfriend to Sears to get a TV

he Sears associate was fairly helpful. He knew at least which brands were best, Samsung and Sony, and knew a little about specs, but barely more than I knew already. Those two companies don't make a 42", at least within my price range (I think Sony makes one but they didn't carry it). So after about 45 minutes of staring at two 46" Samsungs, I decided on the Series 5 550 over the 530. I couldn't tell the difference in the contrast ratio, which was supposed to be the only difference, but, call me crazy, the picture on the left looked less fuzzy to me, worth the extra $200. So, the guy went into the back and returned to tell me they were out of stock. Ordinarily, I'd have waited for the stock to arrive, but the box wouldn't fit in my car. When I did get one, it barely fit in Ashley's boyfriend's sportswagon. So, we started talking about where we might go instead, feeling bad that the sales guy wouldn't get his commission. The electronics department is a floor under the main floor in Sears, so none of us had cell reception. The sales guy said we could use his phone to call BestBuy, so I did, and they had four of the TVs left. Further, when we got there, they were $200 cheaper than at Sears. If they hadn't been, the sales guy there wouldn't have been able to convince me to purchase the warranty for $169. I do think it was the right choice though, in this case. On the way back to my place, my sister had to scrunch next to the TV box in the back without a seatbelt.

They were going to California the next day to visit his grandparents or something, so I was taking care of Jingles. I call him Jingles because she gave him a collar with a bell on it that lasted about 30 minutes after they left. He was then Jingles, the bellless cat. Yes, three 'l's. Read 'em and weep!

(You won't, but some day when I'm rereading this post, I'm going to laugh about that last sentence there.)

Jingles wasn't particularly well behaved, nor was he fixed and I think he had a certain attraction to Calloh (who is fixed). Calloh was fairly shy, whereas Kotenok just wanted to wrestle with the new cat. They got along pretty well when they weren't trying to avoid each other. There was minimal possessive hissing going on, and I think all of it was from Calloh. Anyway, after a weekend with me, I think Jingles will claw, kick, and bite less than he did three days prior.

A couple days later, I decided to clean the second bedroom which I had almost entirely neglected, using it as storage and a place to leave the cats' litter box. What spurred my decision was that the water heater started leaking, and I didn't want to the repair person to be disgusted. So, I decided I needed a far more powerful vacuum than the small, free one I had. I also figured that I didn't want to buy another vacuum for a very long time and decided to get a Dyson. I probably wouldn't have gotten as good a model as I did except that it was 20% off. My credit card bill is currently larger than the sum of my checking and savings, though that will change in about 6 hours (pay day, w00t -- sadly it will almost entirely go toward rent, tithing, and supporting Rufus [which is only sad because rent is so high and because I want to pay off that bill, even if it isn't due until March 12th]).

Church has been going well. I missed a couple weeks during the holidays, as did everyone it seems, plus the week it was canceled due to snow and hills and potential car crashes. This month, the pastor started a new series called Possibilities, that's about dreams, ambitions. You can tell it's really something he's passionate about, and it's been an amazing sermon series so far.

At life group two or three weeks ago, we were discussing one of the sermons. Our fearless leader said something like "I think dreams are 100% centered around God, and 100% centered around us. It seems impossible..." Just to be snide, I threw out, "Unless it's an ellipse." A little later, the conversation turned toward personal dreams, or thin

g: my desk. Even so, I was very grateful, and they, along with my aunt, uncle, two cousins, and grandma helped me move in. It took about an hour from start to finish. I was impressed. I'm actually pretty happy with this apartment. There are few things that could probably use a little repair, like the bathroom door that doesn't like to close, but it seems to be a nice neighborhood, and it's pretty quiet. Also, the location is great. Without traffic, it's an 8 minute drive to work. My mom keeps bugging me to get involved in a carpool, and I might, except that my hours seem to be pretty sporadic, and I don't want to tie down another person to my schedule, or have myself tied down to them. Also, it's really not very much gas from here to work.

On Monday after work, I spent about $250 on stuff I did need for the apartment, from food to a shower curtain to a lamp to some towels. Apparently you're supposed to wash towels before you use them or they shed on you. Lesson learned. Sort of. I still haven't washed them. Tomorrow I will. I need to do laundry here soon anyway. Also, my pillow needs to be cleaned. But that's neither here nor there.

Yesterday I began working on my tasks for this sprint. A sprint is a phase in agile software development. Basically it's a 5 to 6-week time where we work on very specific tasks, and then we take a short breather working not as hard on specs and such, and then do it again. I still don't know enough about what I'm doing to feel comfortable asking questions, but I'll get there. Also, I'm having a hard time remembering names, and I feel terrible about it. No one else there seems to have that problem, or to have had that problem in the past, whereas other issues with being new they sympathize with.

Last night a guy from CCF called me because his dad was having programming issues. He was working with InfoPath (which I've never used) and a script he downloaded off the internet (never a good start). It'd have been a 3 minute fix if I'd had an internet connection, but between figuring out what his code looked like over the phone, and realizing he was using JScript rather than VBScript, and convincing him that in if statements in most languages, the == operator is different than the = operator, it took a couple hours. Not that I'm complaining. I enjoy being helpful. Most of the time anyway. This morning I received a Facebook wall post from the guy saying that his dad was really grateful and owed me a dinner.

Tomorrow Ashley and I are going kitteh shopping. That should be fun. On Sunday I hope to look at the church that Solomon suggested a few weeks back, but for that I'll have to access the internet, and I'm not sure where I'll do that. Maybe I'll drive onto campus.

It's not really that late, 12:30, but I'm exhausted all the same. Bedtime.

Dynamism, Improvitude and Enclosurism

I would like to say a few words about these things. As an age-old speaker on these forums and general player of video games, it seems obvious that I am uniquely positioned to dispense my unique insight into the topics to which I previously alluded to earlier in the paragraph.

You see, 0.0, unfortunately, has stagnantly stagnated into a static group of select blocs, many of which fancy themselves as "Elite chaps" in the PvP arena. Carefully presented dynamism, however, would do much to alleviate the unmoving stagnancy inherent in these blocs. Captureable stargates, possibly using some sort of specialised stealth bomber class ship, would lead to interesting dynamism and an overall improvitude for respected, hard-scrabble alliances, looking to make their mark in the enclosurism of the hive mentalities of certain 0.0 blocs.

This, in turn, would open up new possibilities of improvitude to small gang tactics - just imagine being able to lock out "undesirables" from accessing bottleneck gates. This tactic, we'll call it Alienationism for the slowkas ( ), would see a reintroduction of the smaller, faster ships back into general gameplay.

Commensurate with this, the idea of destructible outposts and harrowing, gaunt station wrecks, possibly with some sort of salvageable material for certain outpost add-ons, would see a re-emergence of guerilla tactics, letting the smaller alliance deal strong bodyblows to the bullyboy hiveswarm mentality so embraced by the modern eve player.

The synergistic effect of this dynamism between capturable stargates and destructible outposts/station wrecks would lead to a new type of eveplay - the barbarian marauder, the bane of static alliances everywhere. Able to lock down a system by capturing the gates, they can pillage the system for a defined length of time in their Enclosurarium, if you will. Then, once pillaged, they can slip out towards another target.

Naturally, I expect the drones of 0.0 to reject such visionary ideals. Genius is never appreciated during life. Such puny minds are, by their very drone mind architecture, simply unable to comprehend even the most obvious of improvements to their world view. Their blind and piffling ideology mushes what passes for a "brain", even a CEO/CSM "brain" bug, if you will.

Flame away, little goonie minds, I know you have nothing better to do with your lives.

I'll get right to the point. Nothing offends Jade Constantine more than the truth. For openers, because of Jade's obsession with favoritism, the baneful nature of his inclinations is not just a rumor. It is a fact to which I can testify. While I am not attempting to argue openly in favor of any particular position, if he doesn't realize that it's generally considered bad style to produce culturally degenerate films and tapes, then he should read one of the many self-help books on the subject. I recommend he buy one with big print and lots of pictures. Maybe then Jade will grasp the concept that he might turn peaceful gatherings into embarrassing scandals one of these days. What are we to do then? Place blinders over our eyes and hope we don't see the horrible outcome?

Purists may object to my failure to present specific examples of Jade's irritating insults. Fortunately, I do have an explanation for this omission. The explanation demands an understanding of how I wish that one of the innumerable busybodies who are forever making "statistical studies" about nonsense would instead make a statistical study that means something. For example, I'd like to see a statistical study of Jade's capacity to learn the obvious. Also worthwhile would be a statistical study of how many insincere kleptomaniacs realize that whenever Jade attempts to put the gods of heaven into the corner as obsolete and outmoded and, in their stead, burn incense to the idol Mammon, he looks around waiting for applause as if he's done something decent and moral rather than grumpy and closed-minded.

When a friend wants to drive inebriated, you try to stop him. Well, Jade is drunk with power, which is why we must improve the lot of humankind. Nature is a wonderful teacher. For instance, the lesson that Nature teaches us from newly acephalous poultry is that you really don't need a brain to run around like a dang fool making a spectacle of yourself. Nature also teaches us that Jade either is or elects to be ignorant of scientific principles and methods. He even intentionally misuses scientific terminology to trivialize certain events that are particularly special to us all.

Jade is too pretentious to read the writing on the wall. This writing warns that his representatives claim that he's merely trying to make this world a better place in which to live. I say to them, "Prove it"not that they'll be able to, of course, but because if Jade bites me I will bite back. I think we can sincerely say that Jade alleges that might makes right. Naturally, this is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. There is something grievously wrong with those shallow New Age skinflints who take a condescending cheap shot at a person that most parasitic gits will never be in a position to condescend to. Shame on the lot of them! While there are many prudish, disorderly busybodies, Jade is the most manipulative of the lot.

Bacon is a cut of meat taken from the sides, belly, or back of a pig, then cured, smoked, or both. Meat from other animals, such as beef, lamb, chicken, goat, or turkey, may also be cut, cured, or otherwise prepared to resemble bacon. Bacon may be eaten fried, baked, or grilled, or used as a minor ingredient to flavor dishes. The word is derived from the Old High German bacho, meaning "back", "ham", or "bacon".

The USDA defines bacon as "the cured belly of a swine carcass"; other cuts and characteristics must be separately qualified (e.g., "smoked pork loin bacon"). "USDA Certified" bacon means that it has been treated for trichinella.

In continental Europe, bacon is used primarily in cubes (lardons) as a cooking ingredient, valued both as a source of fat and for its flavour. In Italy, bacon is called pancetta and usually cooked in small cubes or served uncooked and thinly sliced as part of an antipasto. Bacon is also used for barding and larding roasts, especially game birds. Many people prefer to have bacon smoked using various types of woods or turf. This process can take up to ten hours depending on the intensity of the flavour desired.

The names of rashers or slices differ depending on where they are cut from:

* Streaky bacon comes from the belly of a pig. It is very fatty with long veins of fat running parallel to the rind. This is the most common form of bacon in the United States. Pancetta is Italian streaky bacon, smoked or aqua (unsmoked), with a strong flavor. It is generally rolled up into cylinders after curing.
* Back bacon comes from the loin in the middle of the back of the pig. It is a lean meaty cut of bacon, with relatively less fat compared to other cuts and has a ham-like texture and flavour. Most bacon consumed in the United Kingdom is back bacon.[2] Also called Irish bacon or Canadian Bacon.
* Middle bacon is much like back bacon but is cheaper and somewhat fattier, with a richer flavor.
* Cottage bacon is thinly sliced lean pork meat from a shoulder cut that is typically oval shaped and meaty. It is cured and then sliced into round pieces for baking or frying.
* Jowl bacon is cured and smoked cheeks of pork

Bacon joints include the following:

* Collar bacon is taken from the back of a pig near the head.
* Hock, from the hog ankle joint between the ham and the foot.
* Gammon, from the hind leg, traditionally "Wiltshire cured".
* Picnic bacon is from the picnic cut, which includes the shoulder beneath the blade.[3] It is fairly lean, but tougher than most pork cuts.

Traditionally, the skin is left on the cut and is known as bacon rind, but rindless bacon is also common throughout the English-speaking world. The meat may be bought smoked or unsmoked.

Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, British Isles

An individual slice of bacon is a rasher, or occasionally a collop. In this region, bacon comes in a wide variety of cuts and flavours:

* The term bacon on its own suggests the more common back bacon, but can refer to any cut.
* The term Canadian Bacon means bacon from Canada, though whether the pig was entirely reared, slaughtered, cured, sliced and packed in Canada is not normally made clear on packaging.
* Slices from the pork belly are referred to as streaky bacon, streaky rashers or belly bacon.
* Slices from the back of the pig are referred to as back bacon or back rashers. These usually include a streaky bit and a lean ovoid bit, and are part of the traditional full breakfast.

Canada

An individual slice of bacon is a slice or strip. In Canada:

* The term bacon on its own refers generically to strip bacon from the belly meat of the pig, which is the most popular type of bacon sold in Canada.[citation needed]
* The term Canadian Bacon means bacon from Canada.
* The term peameal bacon is a variety of unsmoked back bacon which historically was brined and rolled in a meal made from ground yellow peas. fine cornmeal is more commonly used

Jade Constantine
Mistress of the Golden Chamber: JF

Gallente born and raised, and tutored as a pleasure slave and courtesan to the exotic tastes of the Amarri court. Jade's career veered violently off course when a diplomatic envoy's transport was blown to pieces in mysterious circumstances and she was rescued from the escape pods by the enigmatic genetic mastermind Athule Snanm.





Jovin Ketils
Psychosexual Battlefield Therapist: JF

An experienced slave of love, aquired her former masters fortunes in a play of desire. Hostess of passionate soiree's in her Chalet, enticing her guests to acts of ecstacy and lust with sensous ****tail concoctions. Carrying a child for the notorious Wencher Hardin she dreams of a future beyond imperial delusions in the aegis of Jericho Fraction and the free stars of hope and high aspiration.





Lianhaun
Reformed Indy Ganker: Evolution

Once the terror of the spaceways the lovely Lianhaun was a member of the notorious space invaders gang formed by the dashing pirate Setec. Times change however, and Lian has promised to pay richly for her past naughtiness in the coinage of love and fair intentions.





Miso
Mistress of Cultural Assassination: JF

Intaki freedom fighter and info-terrorist for hire; the enigmatic Miso made common cause with JF during the war against the Taggart Transdimensional Megacorp and ongoing opposition to reactionary state-fascism in all its forms in the period following Ragnar's fall. Her penchant for sex and violence beyond entirely sane proportionality has made Miso a media star across the gallente federation, with sales of of her steamy earlier work in the billions.




Josephine
Kestrel ***** First Class: JF

A one-time freelance pilot and poster child for the aspirational ethics of the Caldari state. Josephine has made a legend out of pragmatic good sense and worldly awareness of shortcomings in the political fancies others become consumed by. She also mixes an extremely good ****tails.





Jasmine Constantine
VP Mayhem and Slaughter: JF

Jade's cousin by genotype, Jasmine is an entirely more forceful and direct personality, favouring precision engineering and vast collateral damage as fine adjunct to the shock and awe of her unrestrained gallente sexualty, Jasmine is twice as dangerous when she is being charming.





Charity Regard
Toybox of Temptation: Asgard Ind

A fine upstanding representative of the Caldari society, polite, intelligent, witty, and always ready to lead a hand to the least fortunate amongst us. Charity Regard is a human byword for respectful decorum and immortal tact. Tempted thus, who amongst us could truly be without sin?





DB Preacher
Dream of Dark Intentions: Reikoku

A hard drinking fast loving ******e of the Venal civil war, DB Preacher founded Reikoku on the principles of reckless bravado and total disregard for personal safety. Its therefore safe to assume that her tastes in the Boudoir are hardly less extreme, or lacking in artful spice.





Hellena
Temptress and Headmistress: Red Light District

Born on a beutiful tropical planet, Hellena grew up knowing what beauty was, and how to satisfy. Hearing the call she left to explore and to meet new people to pleasure, particularly a red haird Gallentean woman whom she adores. space can be lonley..care to keep me company?

I don't want to overstate this point, but one of Jade's favorite tricks is to create a problem and then to offer the solution. Naturally, it's always his solutions that grant him the freedom to compromise the things that define us, including integrity, justice, love, and sharing, never the original problem. Because I unfortunately lack the psychic powers that enable Jade to "know" matters for which there is no reliable evidence, I cannot forecast when he will next try to usher in the beginning of a brainless new era of lexiphanicism. But I can unquestionably say that the documentation of this matter is abundant and conclusive. That's self-evident, and even Jade would probably agree with me on that. Even so, he is like a magician who produces a dove in one hand while the other hand is busy trying to enact new laws forcing anyone who's not one of his confreres to live in an environment that can, at best, be described as contemptuously tolerant. Be that as it may, he has been known to say that egotism resonates with the body's natural alpha waves. That notion is so unbalanced, I hardly know where to begin refuting it. Unfortunately, I can already see the response to this letter. Someone, possibly Jade Constantine himself or one of his expositors, will write a randy piece about how disagreeable I am. If that's the case, then so be it. What I just wrote sorely needed to be written.

Edited by: Fraud Crawler on 23/02/2009 04:43:14
If one examines dialectic structuralism, one is faced with a choice: either accept modernism or conclude that the significance of the poet is deconstruction. Baudrillard suggests the use of dialectic structuralism to analyse sexual identity. Therefore, in Empire, CCP deconstructs the subdialectic paradigm of consensus; in 0.0, however, he analyses modernism.

Culture is part of the rubicon of language, says Marx; however, according to Parry, it is not so much culture that is part of the rubicon of language, but rather the stasis, and eventually the economy, of culture. Foucault promotes the use of Sontagist camp to attack hierarchy. In a sense, the dialectic, and some would say the fatal flaw, of dialectic structuralism prevalent in Empire is also evident in nullsec.

Predialectic narrative states that sexual identity, somewhat paradoxically, has significance. However, Debord uses the term modernism to denote not sublimation, but postsublimation.

The primary theme of Dietrichs analysis of the subdialectic paradigm of consensus is the role of the observer as poet. But in Empire, CCP denies modernism; in 0.0 he reiterates dialectic structuralism.

Marx uses the term premodern deconstructivism to denote the failure, and subsequent dialectic, of capitalist society. Thus, Finnis implies that we have to choose between the subdialectic paradigm of consensus and neopatriarchial nihilism.

Debord uses the term modernism to denote the role of the observer as reader. But if dialectic structuralism holds, the works of CCP are not postmodern.

Edited by: Mezikk on 23/02/2009 04:49:11

Announcing a civil upscale mixer of a chat channel. Where politics and fun mix. A change of pace from the ordinary - especially when Jericho Fraction is on the scene. This is sponsored by Gallente but is open for all. It's a social place so leave that bad attitude at home and your guns at the door.

LA MAISON DE TOUS LES PLAISIRS

Is open for business and pleasure. This is a moderated but open channel for Gallente, Intaki and invited guests (and respectful blind-dates) to chat and socialise about the politics and pleasures of the day. This is intended to be interesting, vibrant, sometimes edgy, but always respectful and totally lacking in boorish nonsense. Top secret plans will doubtless be discussed in other channels so it won't be neccessary to infiltrate simply for the purpose of listening.

Ideally we would hope to attract guests and friends from all walks and life and the various cultures of Eve. War may rage and intrigues may scream beyond the walls but "La Maison" continues as the music plays, the champagne flows and the girls make eyes at bold spacers and charming rogues alike!

So long as decorum is respected, we make no barring rules against anyone in Eve. The Gallente Federation has a reputation for cosmopolitan culture and permissive inclusion, and its our desire to prove this out with a multi-cultural gallente-hosted nightspot for the rich and famous, the clever and the cunning, and all the most notorious and deadly personalities of Eve.

"La Maison" is a virtual club that exists in the cyberspace of Eve star cluster's myriad interconnected datastreams. This miracle of communications technology interfaces the Pod systems of starship command to provide an entirely lifelike and responsive environment to portray personna and action in the company of other neurologically attuned individuals.

The near instantaeneous transmission of data and response means distance is no limiter to access, while the profound neural interface of the command Pod translates perceived stimuli to entirely recognisable physical forms.

In essence one may live the environment of the virtual club; it is entirely possible to become drunk, overwhelmed by sensation or indeed rendered insensible by sudden violence. Thus we warn the patron that such happenstance neccessitates the adoption of sensible precautions when sharing this reality with the dangers of real-space and external physical interaction.

And of course; the management of "La Maison" accepts no burden of responsibility for loss of starships and personal possessions when under the influence of stimuli in the virtual environment.

To access this marvel of Gallente technology and cultural artistry you have only to open your subspace communications panel, and enter the magic phrase ... LA MAISON DE TOUS LES PLAISIRS

Or, even better, have an existing guest invite you; how better to arrive than on the arm of a charming regular to this enchanting locale?

First and foremost, "La Maison" is a roleplaying environment of specific interest to aficionados of the genre, and declares primary responsibility to the regular clientele and comfort and entertainment therein. Disruption of the mood by boorish behaviour or evocation of crass reality will not be tolerated under any circumstance.

Punishment of infractions will be immediate and severe, with a warning, then gagging, then banning from the channel being the eventual result. Continued attempts to disrupt the channel will be awarded with harrassment petitions and general derision on the part of our clientele.

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Interesting: Hillary Clinton has been telling America that she is the most qualified candidate for president based on her 'record,' which she says includes her eight years in the White House as First Lady - or 'co-president' - and her seven years in the Senate. Here is a reminder of what that record includes: - As First Lady, Hillary assumed authority over Health Care Reform, a process that cost the taxpayers over $13 million. She told both Bill Bradley and Patrick Moynihan, key votes needed to pass her legislation, that she would 'demonize' anyone who opposed it. But it was opposed; she couldn't even get it to a vote in a Congress controlled by her own party. (And in the next election, her party lost control of both the House and Senate.) - Hillary assumed authority over selecting a female Attorney General. Her first two recommendations, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, were forced to withdraw their names from consideration. She then chose Janet Reno. Janet Reno has since been described by Bill himself as 'my worst mistake.' - Hillary recommended Lani Guanier for head of the Civil Rights Commission. When Guanier's radical views became known, her name had to be withdrawn. - Hillary recommended her former law partners, Web Hubbell, Vince Foster, and William Kennedy for positions in the Justice Department, White House staff, and the Treasury, respectively. Hubbell was later imprisoned, Foster committed suicide, and Kennedy was forced to resign. - Hillary also recommended a close friend of the Clintons, Craig Livingstone, for the position of director of White House security. When Livingstone was investigated for the improper access of up to 900 FBI files of Clinton enemies (?Filegate?) and the widespread use of drugs by White House staff, both Hillary and her husband denied knowing him. FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene confirmed in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 1996, both the drug use and Hillary's involvement in hiring Livingstone. After that, the FBI closed its White House Liaison Office, after serving seven presidents for over thirty years. - In order to open ?slots? in the White House for her friends the Thomasons (to whom millions of dollars in travel contracts could be awarded), Hillary had the entire staff of the White House Travel Office fired; they were reported to the FBI for 'gross mismanagement' and their reputations ruined. After a thirty-month investigation, only one, Billy Dale, was charged with a crime - mixing personal money with White House funds when he cashed checks. The jury acquitted him in less than two hours. - Another of Hil lary's assumed duties was directing the 'bimbo eruption squad' and scandal defense: ---- She urged her husband not to settle the Paula Jones lawsuit. ---- She refused to release the Whitewater documents, which led to the appointment of Ken Starr as Special Prosecutor. After $80 million dollars of taxpayer money was spent, Starr's investigation led to Monica Lewinsky, which led to Bill lying about and later admitting his affairs. ---- Then they had to settle with Paula Jones after all. ---- And Bill lost his law license for lying to the grand jury ---- And Bill was impeached by the House. ---- And Hillary almost got herself indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice (she avoided it mostly because she repeated, 'I do not recall,' 'I have no recollection,' and 'I don't know' 56 times under oath). - Hillary wrote 'It Takes a Village,' demonstrating her Socialist viewpoint. - Hill ary decided to seek election to the Senate in a state she had never lived in. Her husband pardoned FALN terrorists in order to get Latino support and the New Square Hassidim to get Jewish support. Hillary also had Bill pardon her brother's clients, for a small fee, to get financial support. - Then Hillary left the White House, but later had to return $200,000 in White House furniture, china, and artwork she had stolen. - In the campaign for the Senate, Hillary played the 'woman card' by portraying her opponent (Lazio) as a bully picking on her. - Hillary's husband further protected her by asking the National Archives to withhold from the public until 2012 many records of their time in the White House, including much of Hillary's correspondence and her calendars. (There are ongoing lawsuits to force the release of those records.) - As the junior Senator from New York, Hillary has passed no major legislation. She has deferred to the senior Senator (Schumer) to tend to the needs of New Yorkers, even on the hot issue of medical problems of workers involved in the cleanup of Ground Zero after 9/11. - Hillary's one notable vote; supporting the plan to invade Iraq, she has since disavowed. Quite a resume?. Sounds more like an organized crime family?s rap sheet. please read the following information gathered from the Library of Congress. Feel free to check these records for yourself; better still, read a little more, and try and stay current before posting assinine comments: Clinton v. Obama on Legislative Experience: Senator Clinton, who has served only one full term (6yrs.), and another year campaigning, has managed to author and pass into law, (20) twenty pieces of legislation in her first six years. These bills can be found on the website of the Library of Congress (www.thomas.loc.gov), but to save you trouble, I'll post them here for you: 1. Establish the Kate Mullany National Historic Site. 2. Support the goals and ideals of Better Hearing and Speech Month. 3. Recognize the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. 4. Name courthouse after Thurgood Marshall. 5. Name courthouse after James L. Watson. 6. Name post office after Jonn A. O'Shea. 7. Designate Aug. 7, 2003, as National Purple Heart Recognition Day. 8. Support the goals and ideals of National Purple Heart Recognition Day. This is a wall of text. 9. Honor the life and legacy of Alexander Hamilton on the bicentennial of his death. 10. Congratulate the Syracuse Univ. Orange Men's Lacrosse Team on winning the championship. 11. Congratulate the Le Moyne College Dolphins Men's Lacrosse Team on winning the championship. 12. Establish the 225th Anniversary of the American Revolution Commemorative Program. 13. Name post office after Sergeant Riayan A. Tejeda. 14. Honor Shirley Chisholm for her service to the nation and express condolences on her death. 15. Honor John J. Downing, Brian Fahey, and Harry Ford, firefighters who lost their lives on duty. Only five of Clinton's bills are, more substantive. 16. Extend period of unemployment assistance to victims of 9/11. 17. Pay for city projects in response to 9/11 18. Assist landmine victims in other countries. 19. Assist family caregivers in accessing affordable respite care. 20. Designate part of the National Forest System in Puerto Rico as protected in the wilderness preservation system. There you have it, the fact's straight from the Senate Record. Now, I would post those of Obama's, but the list is too substantive, so I'll mainly categorize. During the first (8) eight months of his elected service he sponsored over 820 bills. He introduced 233 regarding healthcare reform, 125 on poverty and public assistance, 112 crime fighting bills, 97 economic bills, 60 human rights and anti-discrimination bills, 21 ethics reform bills, 15 gun control, 6 veterans affairs and many others. His first year in the U.S. Senate, he authored 152 bills and co-sponsored another 427. These inculded **the Coburn-Obama Government Transparency Act of 2006 (became law), **The Lugar-Obama Nuclear Non-proliferation and Conventional Weapons Threat Reduction Act, (became law), **The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, passed the Senate, **The 2007 Government Ethics Bill, (became law), **The Protection Against Excessive Executive Compensation Bill, (In committee), and many more. In all since he entered the U.S. Senate, Senator Obama has written 890 bills and co-sponsored another 1096. An impressive record, for someone who supposedly has no legislative record. . . . My last point: Obama needs name recognition, he needs to be among the people, so people feel like they have access to him. HRC's debate challenge is more about the fact that her campaign is running low on money and she gets free air-time without spending anything. Would you give up the chance to see 20,000 voters up close and personal to be on a televised debate? No way! Obama, stick to your guns. Debate on your terms, not Hillary's! Go Obama 2008!

I was, myself, at that time, coughing while laughing and trying not to wreck my face as I wiped away the tears.

What’s more interesting is why it was so funny to me, and what it made me think about over the last couple days since I read it.

I’ve talked before about how much I love the absurd. It cannot be overstressed that the stuff I find to be absolutely riproaringly funny — the things that I remember for years afterwards and always with a grin — are utterly absurd. Stuff like Mahna Mahna from the muppet show.

That block of words above is funny as all hell to me. There’s more to it, after that. That was funnier to me than the piece they have about the way that the Bigots of America are having to work really hard to create names for all the possible diversity that’s blooming in the US right now.

The above, however, doesn’t fit in with my particular love of the absurd, I’m sorry to say. It would have, I’m certain, if I just wrote things that were uniformly cursed with brevity or I had a damn good editor-cum-proofreader around to work my stuff into a passable form.

You see, I write massive walls of text, and I’m very much aware of it, and the quotes used in the article are damn near verbatim to the quotes I’ve encountered myself ”in the wild”.

Including just the other day, by someone at a support group I’m a member of. I was taken to task for pumping out a series of responses that she didn’t particularly want to deal with, because I was pointing out that a statement she made was absolutely incorrect, and rather than simply apologize for it, she hardened her defenses and came after me sideways.

Some folks simply will not admit they are wrong. Ever. Even when presented with evidence.

And if that evidence is presented in a manner that lays it out, point by point, they usually get extremely defensive.

I’m wrong on occasion. I don’t mind being wrong, either. And I will defend my point quite well. The easiest thing to do with me, when in an argument or discussion, is to actually lay your case out logically and without resorting to overt insults.

That, however, takes time to do. I am well aware of this.

The reason I knew where to go for those quotes early on in the Susan Stanton story post was that I had responded to each of those people back then. To those very posts. And often those posts took me 15 to 30 minutes to write, each.

When I was seriously active there, one of the things people would say to me was that I was ignoring what they said. That I was dismissing them. And when people say that after I’ve just spent half an hour of my life reading their post multiple times to be sure that I not only understand it as written, but so that I can formulate a response, it get’s seriously annoying.

I’ve had people say “well, that was too much so I just ignored it” and then go after me with points I’d already raised in my previous response.

But mostly, what I get are people who just hurl invective. If you ever really look at the stuff I use as insults against others, it’s really not all that creative or special,. It’s the same stupid stuff over and over again, and all I do is try to say it in a new way.

In other words, I’m really not all that good with insults. What I am good at is disassembling people’s writing and then placing it back in front of them and leaning back with a big ole grin on my face.

I’m accused of playing “word games”. No, that’s not what I play.

What I play is head games. And I get a doorway into it when people write, and I’m pretty good about taking up space in their heads and moving things around to suit myself. I will cop, totally, to doing that. Sometimes it’s just for fun — like I did to poor Monica the other day at Bilerico. Sometimes its out of malice — I did that to someone who I felt betrayed my trust several years ago recently. Most of the time, it’s out of the pleasure of discussing something with someone.

And I am well aware that I don’t “think like normal people” — that is, I don’t think common, ordinary, everyday thoughts. I note the weather as a series of sunny days that are great, rainy days that suck, cold days that suck, and hot days that are marvelous. I generally capture sports stuff out of the corner of my eyes and then only the headlines that manage to invade my vision despite my defenses.

I don’t talk about my work. Even when I get a job I dont talk about my work, except in reference to stuff that happened like 8 months ago or more *if* it’s somewhat relevant to the point unrelated to work that I’m talking about.

So I have to lay out my thoughts in detail. I could, as some do, just say “you are wrong and I am right”. But that comes across to me as trite and unsound, as there’s been nor evidence of such.

In a discussion — especially a great one — I will sit down and adopt a relatively dispassionate mindset. I’m separate from it. The person I’m discussing things with is separate from it.

I *might* toss in a jab here and there, but normally, if someone comes at me with a fairly reasonable set of statement, they are going to get a fairly reasonable set of statements back. And I do pick my battles. I know my faults relatively well, and I try to play to my strengths.

I pay attention to them. I give them the courtesy of giving their words, when written, the same value as my own words. No less, no more, absolyute equity. I take into account the imbalances of social forms — I’m aware of my faults, and therefore correct for them.

And I find it rude when people don’t give me that same level of consideration.

I don’t expect them too, but that lack of an expectation does not, in and of itself, invalidate the rudeness they show to me. It’s like getting into an argument with someone about religion and having them say to you over and over again “God does X or holds Y” when you are explaining them that by doing so they are making an assumption that you, as an individual, take their faith as your own. I do not have one God, people. It just doesn’t work to tell me such.

And so when people do things like that, I play mind games with them. I use their assumptions against them. And that’s reasonably easy to do since *all of us* makes assumptions on a constant basis. And assumptions are usually projective — they demonstrate something about the person making those assumptions.

Indeed, part of the reason that questions for some polls are so heavily and often reworked for length, meaning, and phraseology is to avoid making assumptions in the questions.

And, having worked on those for years, I’m aware of *why* certain kinds of questions are asked and certain kinds are not, usually why something is phrased one way or the other.

It gets really scary after enough time has passed. After enough exchange with another person, essentially probing their assumptions and gaining a few bits of demographic information, I can make a pretty darn good guess about their background, where they live in general terms of the country, how they were raised, the sort of family environment they have, how much they make a year, what they spend a month, what they spend it on, their education level, the rough outline of their work history, their brand preferences, their ethnic background in terms of raising (can’t tell them what their bloodlines are), and, worst of all, I can start making probability based guesses about how they will respond to different things I say. I can also do similar things in a psychological way.

I generally need to be in that proper frame of mind to do it, too — I have to have that distance, and be in a sort of mental flow that allows the data to aggregate.

And I can do all of that because I’ve lived my life needing such skills more or less as a survival technique. Always better to know what the local bully is going to do before the bully does. Gives you that edge.

I recall one guy I did that too. His ISP said Phoenix, even though the place we were at was not related to anything in Phoenix. I pegged him as living in a trailer in Sierra Vista, over the age of 65, single after a divorce, living on a pension, and for fun I tossed in he was wearing boxers and a crewneck t shirt and neither him nor his clothing had been washed in five days.

He lost it. Completely lost it. Accused me of spying on him, his posts became paranoid and reptitive, and eventually faded away in absoltue fear that I was some sort of secret agent (seriously!) hell bent on some sort of plot against him.

Because I was absolutely correct. Usually I’m only about 85% on the mark. In his case, I was 100%, even the joking parts.

I didn’t psychoanalyze him. I used what he’d said to socio-analyze him. Had I psychoanalyzed him I’d have noted that he was prone to fits like the paranoid thing. I didn’t. But that kind of knowledge about another person shared with them is scary to some people.

I’m pretty open, myself. People can ask me pretty much anything and I’ll answer it — I’m not all that scared about what people find these days (not so true prior to transition). I dislike some stuff — like being connected to *him*. That always puts me in a bad mood for several days.

In any case, I write these large blocks of text, these sometimes rambling things. Like my recent post on Trust. I know the article on Stanton is longer, but that’s mostly because of the quotes. And it bothers me when people don’t take the time to read it, but go out and actually take the time to respond to it.

If I come across something like that, I almost always have a few questions. And I ask them. To learn.

To avoid being wrong.

Not that there’s something wrong with that, mind you.

In case anyone is interested, here is some information regarding Dual Wield Tanking. Personally, I think it's a lot of fun and keeps me on my toes through every pull. I've been DW tanking since patch 3.0. I started in the blood spec and soon enough it got to a point where DW tanking wasn't viable. With the introduction of the Dual wield set up in the frost tree, it seems that blizzard is giving Dual Wield DK's a 2nd chance and it also allows us stubburn asses to try to make DK DW tanking work again. So let me give a quick explanation of why I do what I do and I'll throw in some reading material, courtesy of Elitest Jerks.

There's many builds floating around and believe me, i've tried them all. From stacking dodge to parry, to trying to reach that god awful 23% hit cap. So far the best route i've taken is this build: 10/53/8
Alot of builds like to include Epidemic but personally with the Glyph of Pestilence, I find this talent completely useless. Sure it might allow you to shave a few seconds off your blood rune cooldowns but your main focus throughout this build will be frost/unholy runes. You'll also note that in this build merciless combat is removed. I don't know any tank that needs to perform additional damage when the target is at 35% health. By then good tank will have aggro cemented in and at this point and time will only be contemplating the next pull.

I also spec'd into icy reach. Now, this is uncommon for DW tanks but for me it's my little fail safe for one our greatest threat builders: Howling Blast. Howling blast will serve as an inbetween DND and will also increase your dps a rediciulous amount depending on how many mobs you decide to hold aggro on. The reduced cooldown and increased damage here Morbidity Is an aboslute must, however, that is as far as you will go in the Unholy tree. One last thing I want to mention regarding Talent builds is Blood of the North. The madness behind this selection is as follows: as you learn your rotation you will ultimately be able to convert both blood runes into death runes which can potentially trigger an obliterate or even a Killing Machine proc'd howling blast.

Now about gear. Your typical DK 2H tank gear is sufficient. Personally I don't strive for the hit cap of DW, as my general purpose is that of an AOE tank. The spell cap for DK's (which will be your 2nd and sometimes primary damage depending on how many mobs are present) is 419.71%. Provided there is a draenei in the group. Also while we are on the hit cap subject, your primary attack will be Rune Strike. This attack, as stated in the tooltip, cannot be dodged, parried or blocked. So expertise is unecessary and if it misses, well that's not a big deal either as it will remain proc'd until it lands on the target. So all in all, hit cap is not truly necessary. You will want to strive for it as much as you can but unless you are wielding a two hander, it is not going to kill you to shitcan the hit gems for stamina. I usually sit around 221 hit rating and it suits me just fine AS PER aoe tanking. You still need to be hit capped for 2H tanking, it is absolutely necessary! Expertise cap: f*ck that.

Lets talk about another thing here: MITIGATION. When dual wielding lets assume you are already defense capped (if you aren't then the choice for rune enchants is obvious). My DK sits at 586 Defense. I could get rid of Rune of the Nerubian Carapace x 2 and replace it with Rune of Swordbreaking. Lets say you're d Capped and you wanna compare the two.

Rune of the Nerubian Carapace: 13 Defense, 1% stam increase
Rune of Sword Breaking: 2% parry, reduce disarm effects by 50%

From first glance it might seem obvious that sword breaking x 2 is a viable option but lets look a bit closer at what each one actually offers in terms if mitigation:

Rune of the Nerubian Carapace x 2:
26 Defense = 1.04% Dodge, 1.04% Parry, 1.04% Miss.

Rune of sword breaking x 2:
4% Parry,

So it comes pretty close and at this point the choice should be based on personal preference but lets look at one more thing. Aside from parry's diminishing returns, there's also one more ability to mention:

Icebound Fortitude

This is a toned down version of a paladin's Divine Protection, however, instead of 50% it starts at 20%. This base percentage is then modified by the amount of defense skill the DK has. It increases at an amount equal to approximately 0.143 to 0.15% per point of defense. The base starts at 400 so a DK tank at 600 Defense Skill will increase IBF to approximately 50%. It has a 2 minute cooldown. Now 600 Defense will be hard to obtain without going out of your way but the point is, Rune of the Nerubian Carapace is the superier enchant that DW DK's should be using as with 2H dk's. Not only does it provide mitigation across the board but the stam increase is nice and the additional damage reduction to a 2 minute, 20 runic power (non-forebearance causing ability, HAHA PALADINS) should be a no brainer.

That's all I have for wall of text. If anyone has any questions or if I f*cked something up then please let me know.

I have a lot of free time at work, and I came across Cider's blog entry The Right Stuff (Women & Raiding). The entry had been locked, so I couldn't reply, but I did feel a need to reply.

First a bit of my background. I'm 27, I'm the lead inker with Udon Entertainment, and yes I'm a woman. I co-lead the 3rd most progressed guild on my server (currently working on Illidan). I am also the main tank. All my life I have generally gotten along much better with my male friends than my female friends. I guess this is mostly due to conflict of interest. It's not that I don't enjoy doing what my female friends do, it's just that I enjoy what the guys do more. Having said that, it's no surprise I'm instantly skeptical of all women in game.

But getting back to Cider's post, I will have to agree with his post pretty much all fronts.

I currently have 6 full time women in my raid, myself included. I actually had to sit there for a second and count the number of them, and I'm actually surprised I run with that many. Their personalities cover a pretty wide range, which generates different reactions from both myself and the rest of the guild.

Take me for starters. If people didn't know that I was a woman up front, they'd likely assume I was a guy. I'm extremely aggressive, though it's a pretty big running joke in the raid about how much my aggressiveness turns the guys on. They all know it's a worthless pursuit as I've been in a serious relationship for almost 2 years, with someone they all know because he was in the raid (work responsibilities crept up last spring and he had to quit). That aside, I get along pretty well with just about everyone.

Next take one of our rogues, who's probably one of the best rogues on the server PVE wise. She does the number crunching, she does the theorycrafting, she works her ass off, and it shows as she's consistently in the top 3 for DPS each night.

Our 3 holy priests are all women. One of them is an aggressive german who is incredibly smart, knows it, and uses it to her advantage. Another is a stay-at-home mother of two who has a thing for dominant men and women. The last one is a writer who is completely neurotic, has had numerous freak out sessions, but is probably one of closest friends both professionally in the raid, and personally outside of it.

Lastly there's a shadow priest, who doesn't talk much at all, and you almost forget she's there half the time.

What Women Face
Here are my premises:
*Women are often not taken as seriously as men;
*Women are often not considered as good as men;
*Women are often seen as sex objects, even in a cohesive guild;
*Women have to work harder than men to be accepted and viewed as equals.
Over the past 3 years worth of co-running this raid my gender has never been a issue for me, but it has been a major issue for a few others.

Women are often not taken as seriously as men.
This varies from woman to woman in the raid, and how they choose to play the game. I take the game very seriously in terms of my role as the main tank, my knowledge of my class, and the running of the guild/raid. There are other women we have had in the past who played the game to be social. They weren't very strong players, and often times ended up causing devastating mistakes in the raid because they were too busy carrying on a conversation in whispers. It's always been difficult to deal with those women because the guys who are getting attention on the side from them always want me to cut them some slack.

Women are often not considered as good as men.
It's true that some people feel this way. Some of the best players I know are women, and some of the worst are women. It goes the same for the guys too.

Women are often seen as sex objects, even in a cohesive guild.
I think this entirely depends on how the woman portrays herself within the guild. Am I seen as a sex object? Not really. I'm just one of the guys. Have others been viewed as sex objects? Oh yeah. But they generally go looking for the attention. They're the ones who speak in an overly bubbly flirtatious voice on vent. They're the ones who carry on the lewd conversations in whispers leading the guys on.

Women have to work harder than men to be accepted and viewed as equals.
Unfortunately whether anyone else feels that they need to, the women themselves typically feel a need to push harder to be viewed as equals. I know myself personally have constantly pushed myself as hard as I can. Point: In the early BWL days we had a problem with Vaelestraz. The first tank was constantly losing aggro. Finally I asked the raid leader if we could just try once with me tanking first, and we killed him that attempt. Maybe I didn't need to prove myself to anyone, but it felt pretty damn good to know I had gotten the job done.

Guild Leaders Perspective
Many women -- certainly not all -- either knowingly or unknowingly inject a large amount of drama into a guild. More often than not, bringing in a new, single female player is a gamble that winds up costing more than it gains.
It's a gamble bringing anyone into the raid to be perfectly honest. Men can create just as much drama as women. The only difference is, the drama caused by women is harder to deal with. It usually becomes drawn out, and irritating.

I had one priest once, who was too social for her own good. It caused her to be distracted most of the time, and put out poor performances. Despite numerous talks from the healing lead, she failed to improve. Finally I had a talk with her. The conversation last 3 hours and incident was drawn out over 5 days because her sister decided she needed to intervene. Within a week, she had quit the guild.

But the guys are just as guilty. We picked up a new warrior shortly after 2.1 hit. The guy was obsessed with me for being a girl. I found it all mostly amusing to get his corny pick up lines, but I told him from the get go I was unavailable. He slowly began to underperform over time, and when I finally had to play "raid leader" instead of "friend" to him, he went crazy. WIthin 24 hours he had quit the guild, and the day after that he was PM'ing me on the forums asking me why I had kicked him, and then day after that he was asking me to rejoin the guild.

So as a guild leader, I really don't care what gender you are. I care about you doing your job, and helping the raid make progression. If you can't do that, I'll find someone who can.

Couples in the guild have always been another issue for us as well... The drama involved with couples has never really gotten out of hand. But I completely agree about the promoting issue.

I was an officer in the guild before I started dating my boyfriend. Not once did he ever ask to be an officer. In fact, when we lost our healing lead and I decided to promote him to the role, I'm pretty sure he didn't even want it. Another officer we had was dating someone else in the guild as well. I promoted her, and not because he was in there, but because she was doing a ton of work for me to help run the guild. In fact, we had a bit of a restructure recently and she still has officer privileges where as he does not. Go figure.

I guess luckily for us, we've never had that much couple drama promotion wise. The worst of it was when one was a great player, and the other one was terribad. You hate dropping the bad player because you're afraid you'll lose the great player at the same time. We've come to realize you just need to cut your losses ASAP, move on, and find another replacement.

The Right Stuff
I think I covered this enough earlier when I pointed out the current women in the guild. They're all very very good, some of them ranking among the best I've ever seen.

Conclusion
So that's the POV from a female co-guild leader. I don't think Cider is wrong on any fronts at all. It was a good write up. It's not about the gender of the player, it's about the player themselves, and how they represent themselves. Yes, the women tend to have a bad rap sheet, but in my experience they usually created that sheet for themselves. And likewise, some of the guys have been just as bad.

Good read.

[edit: HOLY CRAP this is a bit longer than I had planned... slow day at work, I guess... ]

When I played competitive FPS' for years, this problem wasn't as pronounced. See, there was the occasional "starter's-girlfriend-on-the-roster-but-not-active" thing, but for the most part, you didn't have girls on the team. You're also talking about teams of 5 or 6 (sometimes 8, depending on the FPS) players. These people might have people on the roster as backups, but those backups are almost never used.

For better or for worse, the only girls that started for top teams were girls that were on "girls only" teams. They had to separate the roster. That might have worked out for the better, since both the "guys only" and the "girls only" teams can focus on winning the game, instead of having the drama/distractions of having everyone else. I would have liked to see some mixed-gender teams, but considering how volatile an FPS team can be (many teams disband within a month of forming)... there are some challenges involved.

Anyway, in my year or so playing WoW, I'm finding that I'm surrounded by a lot more girls, and it creates a different atmosphere.

Being a guy (and, yeah, single...), I can honestly say that I try to treat everyone equally. That might not go the same way for everyone, though. Many people that I play with currently and in the past, say flat out "Girls can't play video games". I disagree with it, because people (especially guys) are more likely to notice a girl playing than a guy. The percentages probably come out equal (though this is a purely subjective measure...), from my experience.

Based on their limited experience, though, they have some ammunition:

1.In my prior guild, there was a Druid Tank that had many issues. She was married to a Warlock in the guild, and they have been doing the MMO thing since EQ. She wasn't there when we killed Al'ar for the first time. When we were trying to kill him a second time, however, we kept wiping. Others were willing to make excuses for her, saying "people keep dying in flame patches". How many of those people were getting hit by adds that she didn't pick up? How many of those people were dazed, thus preventing them from moving the patches?

The Assist Window told a different story: She's targeting Al'ar, still, 10 seconds after adds have spawned and are running amok on the raid.

She was also unable to take criticism. One time, on Al'ar, she was tanking the adds in phase 1. We've typically had issues with druids tanking it, and the belief was the lack of "snap aggro". They figured they'd give it another go. The DPS ripped after giving her a few seconds. The DPS held back so much that we had a second add before the first one went down.

When trying to figure out what we should do, a mild-mannered rogue responded "Well, whenever we have a warrior tank it, we typically have no issues. Maybe it's the snap aggro." She then yelled on vent at the raid, saying "This Druid is not sucking, and i'm tired of hearing about it!". She then went on about how the DPS kept ripping (remember, they did hold back). During the weekend (that was the last night of raids for the week), she kept bringing the subject up again, about how druids have snap aggro because she successfully tanked Vanndar Stormpike. Or something of the sort.

For what it's worth, we started killing (and one-shotting) al'ar when we re-adjusted the phase 2 strat to accomodate her: She gathers up the adds, and the other bear tanks both adds. Voila!

We had other issues with her on hydross and Tidewalker (where she MT'd). Poor awareness, Poor threat generation, and Poor attitude.

I felt her unwillingness to take criticism (and her problems) majorly hurt the guild (because now nobody wants to give ANY criticism), and I let the guild leader know that.

2. My current guild had a Warrior Tank that they had to deal with, who was also female (and had a husband - enhancement shaman). While I don't have much direct experience with her, she apparently was unable to break fears from Sanguinar during the Kael'thas fight. They also said that they spent 12 hours trying to get her to tank a flame on Illidan, and she still couldn't do it. She came unprepared for fights. The only thing that somewhat bugged me about her was during a raid, when she said she had to "throw her baby on the floor to tank these mobs", because they pulled too soon. Bad parenting or looking for attention, I don't know.

With that said, I have some examples to the contrary:

1. A girl in my old guild, a Hunter, was one of the best DPSers in the guild, and she had an excellent attitude. She was RL friends with the Guild Leader and his Wife, and her boyfriend is a druid in the guild. She was promoted to an officer, and despite being mocked when she threatened to call a raid that was going poorly (due to silly mistakes) she was openly mocked on vent - by other girls!, she handled her job pretty well. Disappointed with how poor the raids were being managed, and the lack of enforcement, applied to the guild I joined. While our decisions to join the guild are independent, we encouraged each other along the way. I consider her a good friend, and that's more because of who she is as a person, rather than her gender.

2. A shaman in my current guild is a pretty good healer, and is pretty smart about her job. She tends to be a little over-sensitive at times, but I've seen guys act like that. She is, for the most part, a very nice person and I honestly don't have a problem raiding with her.

Anyway, long story short (maybe I should start a blog...), I don't care if you're male, female, transgender, or whatever. If I have faith in the other 24 people in the raid to do their job very well, then I'm comfortable playing with you.

Outside the raids, I talk to everyone with a similar approach, but different people do different things... so obviously the conversation will be different.

But I agree with what you wrote. You'll find people from all walks of life, and on the internet - where you can say things to people you normally wouldn't - there are plenty of extremes to deal with. However, I've seen similar stereotypes occur in real life... so maybe it's just mirroring what society tells us...

tl;dr

bring back old wildy

all my friends are quitting

Just finished reading all of that text, ty

worst update ever