The Naked Green

My A printer just turned 300,000 impressions old! Pretty impressive, huh? Right now it’s at 300,146. This milestone is a great precursor to my own birthday.

Speaking of which, my Mother-in-law just told me I could pick my birthday present from the internet! That’s style! My own parents already gave me my present too: some money for the REI garage sale! Jamie still has some things hidden up her sleeve (or somewhere) that should hit the spot for birthday enjoyment!

Yesterday’s post may bring up the question of why I would even be interested in an OS designed for Windows^® users. The answer is that I am a Windows user. “But why?” those anti MS zealots cry. Here is (part of) the history:

Our family’s first computer was a Commodore 64 and I learned enough to run a few games which was all we had on it anyway. I don’t even remember how to run it, but a friend actually has a working unit at his home. The IBM^® compatibles came to the scene and we mostly avoided computers for a while preferring the good ol’ books and outdoors for entertainment. We even did our homework with pencils.

I think it was junior high that I got more interested in computing. I was a DOS man, as most were, and could get around quite well. I played around with batch programming and became fairly proficient in Q-Basic building games and “screen-savers”. I put together a computer for myself out of a warehouse full of old ones at my Dad’s work and paid $50.00 for it. It was a 286 with 256k of RAM and a 20 MB hard drive. It even had a low density 3.5 inch floppy drive (if you have no clue what that is, don’t worry, you’ll probably never see one.) along with the 5.25 inch drive. In high school, between bouts of excessive drug use, I became interested in programming with C, though it was short lived. It was around then that I borrowed a dial-up connection from a friend and got lost in the world of online chat for a while.

[This paragraph belongs somewhere in the middle of the former as far as time is concerned] I was an adamant opponent to the Macintosh^® computer. A graphical UI? Bleh, who needs it? At this point, my only contact with a Mac was at school (enough said). When Windows came along, I disliked it even more as the cheap imitation of the Mac it was. At least I could still run Windows only when needed as a DOS shell, but that quickly changed.

So what happened? Why didn’t I revolt? I don’t know, I was young and ignorant I guess. The OS I knew was changing…fading away and I went with the flow. I never had money for my own computer and didn’t know enough about any other OS. I didn’t hear of Linux for many more years. DOS was not powerful enough any more and the GUI was an easy way to accomplish tasks and to play those increasingly complex games.

The first “real” computer I bought (after the 286, which I still have even after trading it for a backpack) was an iBook^® running OSX. I took the step to a better OS, but realized that I didn’t have the time to learn it. I was working on learning basic web design and with the loads of information to retain just in that field, I didn’t want something that I wasn’t comfortable with. [hanging head] Let’s face it, I’m a DOS man…all washed up. I sold it (made some money too) and eventually bought the laptop I have now.

I bide my time now…watching, waiting and dabbling. Soon, very soon I may be able to leave the OS considered to be so evil for a Linux flavor. I guess I’m getting old, but I don’t want to just rush into headaches. I’m working on my OS Mobile Home slowly and will have more options then. I want to stay open to “better change” while still making sure to manage my time well.

Not much in the way of history, due to my mixed up memory, but there you have it. Something.

The past several days have been thick with heavy dreams, remnants of illness, lack of sleep, shopping and work. I used my “floating holiday” on Thursday to be unrelaxed and unproductive (a bad combination). Friday was full of working on our car, hanging out with my brother on his birthday and a party with some church friends. The kind of party full of fun games that give you the feeling of estrogen overdose, so I had to play some chess.

The four hours of sleep I had on New Year’s morning seemed great until I had to pull myself out of bed to head off to the REI garage sale. (more…)

I have been fighting a bug of some sort and yesterday afternoon I was feeling horrible. I went home and crashed, but was in pain all over and having dreams about web design, Christmas lights and our apartment. I finally got up, took some pills and sat with Jamie.

For some reason, when I went back to bed all drugged up, I couldn’t sleep. I just laid there reflecting on my past. It’s hard to imagine that it was really me in all those memories. I was thinking of all the people that I know that died (not too many, thankfully). Death always hits me in a strange way. It seems surreal and I can’t seem to get a grasp on it. It’s sad, but I can’t quite mourn right, it seems.

I’m scared of dying. I’m most scared of the idea of spending eternity without God. I’m scared of the idea of having no eternity, though I don’t believe it. I’m even scared of the idea of spending eternity with Jesus Christ, my God. I’m scared of the unknown and it’s really a lack of trust. I can’t imagine something different (even if similar) to this world that I know. I don’t like the suffering that I experience and that which goes on around me, but it’s what I know. I remember a time when I wasn’t afraid of dying, but I was probably too numbed by other things or hadn’t really thought about it.

Jesus, I feel like I shouldn’t be afraid of being with you. I believe in you and that you are a good God. Please help me in my unbelief! May it not be that I disappear with nothing to show. May I be the part of your body I was designed to be that your will may be done.

Mr. Grinch (aka Mr. Green) has been playing Santa this year and he’s not sure he wants the job. It was fine to get excited about Christmas a bit and a bigger heart is a nice thing once you get used to the added noise, but carrying all those presents…and what they didn’t show you in the cartoon was all the shopping he did.

He had to drive all the way down to the town on the other side of the hill. There he dealt with the frustrated, biting, kicking, screaming inhabitants and had to jump in the fray with teeth bared. Of course, with all the presents Mr. Grinch bought, he ended up making the whole town angry with him. If all that wasn’t enough, he had to deal with the local WeOwnEverything-Mart where they had that special present Mr. Grinch had been eyeing for Cindy Lou Who. After checking all over town and getting some angry glares, he decided that the one at WeOwnEverything-Mart was for him, but they didn’t have it in stock. Nay, they didn’t even carry it any more, but left the sale sign up as a beacon for unsuspecting souls to be twisted into the agony and frustration. Yes, that same sort of feeling that made Mr. Grinch’s face as twisted as it is.

Fortunately, Mr. Grinch is a resilient and resourceful one. He was initially surprised at the amount of violence necessary to love a town of people, but once he caught on, he played the game well. He was probably even good at it due to his checkered past. He did not give up on his special little Cindy Lou Who, but pressed on with vigor, trying to maintain that cool demeanor that can ice over evil sales people and keep the poor overworked sleigh dog at an even pace. He drove all over that town and found what he sought at the Circus Center.

Mr. Grinch realized how much he loved Cindy Lou Who (aka Mrs. Green) as he drove all the way to Whoville and snuck in the front door to her house. He carefully laid her presents under the tree and knew that the work was well worth the love he showed with that specially wrapped gift.

This weekend was an interesting one as Christmas is approaching. Jamie and I spent most of Saturday at the mall shopping for clothes. Yeah, you can just say I was tired and had a nice headache working on my sanity by the time we headed out for dinner. Eating at a small Mexican restaurant was a nice change to the busy schedule, but didn’t quite alleviate my headache. Reaching home just meant more work waiting: wrapping presents. I’m still looking forward to Christmas a bit, but I’ll be happy when the preparations are over.

Thankfully Sunday, after church, we had a nice three hour nap and then I lazily helped Jamie with her crafts. I did get a little work on the church website in before we bedded down again to watch a movie: Benny and Joon.

The weekend went by fast and was hot and cold…or cot and gold (full of spending and napping).

I’ll tell you, comedy and food is a winning combination that cure mild and even severe sourness of attitude. Last night, we went to Jamie’s company (my former company where I met my current wife) Christmas Banquet. I was not feeling well and was in a brooding mood, but surprisingly enough, some zealous small-talkers broke me out of it some. The food, when we got to it helped a lot as usual (food and its social implications deserves an article of its own) and prepared me for the festivity.

I wasn’t quite prepared to laugh as much as I did, though. I was looking forward to “the comedian”, but usually stand-up comedians have a “stale taste” or a “twisted smile” sort of effect on me. This guy, Bob Stromberg, had quite a different effect. He was stand-up alright, but was remarkably refreshing in his presentation. I never knew group whistling could be so fun and hilarious (you try to laugh and whistle). His whole demeanor reminded me of a personal favorite, George Gobel and his stories were hilarious as well. It was more about the way he did things which I guess is usual in comedy. To try to explain now how hard I laughed over his shadow-puppet show would probably be pointless as you sit there and ask yourself, “Shadow-puppets, how corny is that?” It was too short of a show but excellent and he brought Jesus into the picture in a clear way without even needing to transition from comedy. That reverential, and serious comedy is certainly impressive in my book (which I don’t have yet, but I did buy two of his). He is a funny guy, I mean…just look at him.

Needless to say, we had a great evening.

I bought a PayDay instead of a Twix bar today. It was a good choice. I can feel the newness of today…or maybe I’m just going off the deep end from my last post.

This blog has taken on a rather serious note lately. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but what happened to ranting just to express myself? I think I’ve been reading too many news blogs or something. Everything has to be well written and documented. What I have been writing lately is certainly my style, but I don’t want to perfect myself out of writing. What kind of personal log would this be if I didn’t allow myself to rant from time to time. Rants about subjects no one may find interesting or even (heaven forbid), with no point or underlying theme whatever.

This is where I could restate this blog’s purpose or write a mission statement if this post was actually a serious one. I want to maintain the freedom I began with to talk about what I want with no fear of the ambiguous crowd because then, they didn’t exist. Now, I’m still almost completely lost in the swell of bloggers and the wider web world. I have gained a bigger perspective of the blogosphere as it were by reading other people’s blogs regularly. I don’t regret this “bigger picture” just as I certainly don’t regret traveling, but it has caused me, in perhaps a small way to go into my shell.

You see, I’m the kid in school that was never popular. I was mildly nerdy (still am) in a day where it was bad. Yet, I didn’t get picked on that much. I hung out with those who got picked on, but I somehow stayed out of the radar. Now that I think about it, that may be a lie I made up for myself. (more…)

I went to Phil’s house earlier to build Jamie a customized folding table for our small living/kitchen/dining room. We used birch plywood, rounded the edges and put on a clear finish. The “borrowed” folding legs off an old table at church, which were silver, ended up working quite well with the industrial sort of look we have going on.

Jamie cooked up a great dinner of buffalo burgers, pineapple salsa for the chips and a chocolate raspberry cake! We invited Phil, his wife Melissa and son Josiah over to try out the food and table. We enjoyed great conversation while Josiah ran around terrorizing our cat, Caviar. We can finally entertain people at our house without having to resort to pizza on the couch (not that that’s always a bad thing).

Now I’m sitting at the table keeping Jamie company as I work some more on the church website (not ready to be linked to yet). She is working on her crafts excited to have a table to work on. Ah, the simple joys of life!