Mental Meanderings
Oct. 5th, 2007
07:51 pm - Nifty Meme
Comment on this post and I will pick seven of your interests. You then write about them in your journal and re-post.![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
eeknight has asked for:
contemplation
While many of the ideas that I have probably come from other people I like to think that contemplation on these ideas improves my understanding of myself. The idea of not taking things at face value, and not allowing holes to exist in an idea appeals to me because of my love of argument as well as what I see as an honest desire to have the 'right' answer. The good and the bad of this is that there is seldom a 'right' answer for the great questions in life The good being that the more you dwell on anything, be it why you love someone, or why sports doesn't appeal to you, the better you get to know yourself; both your faults and your virtues. Any self knowledge, in my opinion, is a good thing. I'm a fan of contemplation of the external being another pathway to your own soul as well as teaching you to embrace and understand what is external to you.
daggers
I like guns. They have an amazing amount of workmanship and are very interesting tools. Simplicity and complexity melded together and they make an interesting symbol of humanity, which I think tells much about our species. Weapons, in general, always have a story to tell about their maker and their employer. Guns tend to have a beauty that stems from ingenuity and uniformity and are designed to disconnect a person from their target and to be quickly fixed. Its a weapon from afar, a 'thinking' person's weapon. Don't misunderstand me, shooters are not necessarily thinkers, but they aren't required to meet the same conditions as someone employing a dagger...
On the other hand, daggers and knives (I don't draw much of a distinction), have a different story to tell. A person who's made a real dagger, has literally worked their sweat into it, has made a piece of art. There are not measurement guidelines, its not a wholly scientific undertaking. Its a shaping, a creation by feel rather than thought. Like a gun, it is a tool. Unlike a gun, it requires an emotional connection with the wielder. Both weapons require a connection, and both can be used as an extension of the body, but a dagger must be one with the one using it. You have to feel the resistance when you use it, you have to smell the scent of what you are affecting with your tool. To really use it as it was meant to be used you have to really mean it. Someone using a dagger is far more terrifying than someone using a gun, because they have committed themselves to their cause. And what's more, they are more than likely going to bleed in pursuit of that cause. Its a different brand of courage to use a knife correctly than to use a firearm.
There's also the utility aspect of a dagger, but I think when I picked the interest I was thinking of the commitment and resolve required by a dagger as a weapon.
graveyards
Peace is a difficult thing to achieve in this life. There's always stress, worry, and things intruding. But in a graveyard all of this becomes muted. They are fantastic places for contemplation, both on one's life and where it is going, or where you have come from. Its a place to attempt some empathy with the 'energy' around you. It sounds spiritual, I'm sure, but all places have a certain feel to them. Graveyards feel peaceful, and accepting. They are places to feel alive, and places to learn to appreciate life, and perhaps to fear death a little less.
perception
From Terry Goodkind: "Perception is everything". I have a love/hate relationship with perception. I love the fact that you can analyze your perceptions to learn more about yourself, and that controlling perception is a form of power. I hate the fact that perception is not always controllable and can so easily be wrong. People make many, many judgments based on their perception, and it can be quite problematic. I had numerous piercings until recently and they are a fantastic example of both of how you can affect other's emotions and also how people make assumptions about you. The emotions you arouse are a way to understand the people you are interacting with. If someone gets pissed I could usually assume, safely, that there were lots of other aspects of myself that would piss them off. At the same time, my piercings meant that people made assumptions about my abilities. I must be stupid, violent, or mentally disturbed to have things jammed through my body. In the end, perception is all about assumptions, both mine and those around me, and the fact that there's a hell of a lot of information woven within them.
quotes
Hah, I'm going to try to be short on this one but no promises. Quickest answer is to refer back to contemplation. Quotes are a seed for a thought, a retarded form of artistry. Like a real artist that is inspired by the shadows on a building, or the splash of color in what they're seeing give them a seed that leads to a masterpiece, I like to think that quotes can lead me to my own thoughts, my own impressions, and my own beliefs. They may have started as someone else's words, but I can make them my own and part of myself. They can always lead to more questions and hopefully more answers.
shadows
I was trying to resist using a quote here, but this is what jumped into my head here:
-- Magic: The Gathering card
Light can be damaging, light can be evil. I think shadows are just as misunderstood. Amazing thoughts can stem from being surrounded in darkness. Shadows can emphasize things that would otherwise be hidden by the light. They create their own beauty in what is hidden, in what shies away from the light. Its kind of an extension of that idea that there's always more to learn.
wicca
I think Wicca is a fascinating religion. Much more spiritual and in tune with the world. Most religions seem to center more on what needs to be changed and things that are wrong with world. Wicca seems more balanced and more of an accepting religion. It doesn't relegate this life, or this world to a thing but is actually a living thing with a soul ( from what I understand its actually just an extension of the Goddess). I don't study Wicca intensely or follow it, but its ideas do appeal to me more than most religions I know of.
Aug. 29th, 2007
09:09 pm - In Search of Perfection?
Yeah, its been a year. I am well, Melissa is well, work is going well. Everything is well. That's about all the update I'm up for as far as my life. Call, e-mail, comment if you want more :).
"People don't like us, my dear. The idea of someone who can play with their emotions, who can 'mystically' get them to do certain things, makes them uncomfortable. What they do not realize -- and what you must realize -- is that manipulating others is something that all people do. In fact, manipulation is at the core of our social interactions."
He settled back, raising his dueling cane and gesturing with it slightly as he spoke. "Think about it. What is a man doing when he seeks the affection of a young lady? Why, he is trying to manipulate her to regard him favorably. What happens when old two friends sit down for a drink? They tell stories trying to impress each other. Life as a human being is about posturing and influence. This isn't a bad thing -- in fact, we depend upon it. These interactions teach us how to respond to others."
- Brandon Sanderson
- Mistborn: The Final Empire
First thought? If manipulation is part of social interaction, then everytime you interact with people you are practicing empathy. Manipulation, as I may have stated before, is all about empathy. You can only influence someone by understanding a part of them. You cannot come up with a powerful argument, a meaningful sentence, unless you appeal to something inside them. You cannot be important to someone unless you have touched them, and by touching them you have manipulated them. You have influenced their thoughts, you have directed them in a direction, you have applied a new filter to the way they view the world.
Considering this I have to ask myself why I so seldom interact with people now. Going out to lunch with friends, conversations with friends. They have almost become a trial rather than an enjoyment. It wasn't always this way, indeed in college I frequently interacted with friends, acquantances, and new people. I enjoyed it, it broadened my world, it was a form of learning in that I was being exposed to people other than myself. To borrow my earlier phrase, it was a way to gain new filters for my view of the world.
But now, that doesn't appeal as much. My immediate cynicism wants to say "Oh, you're just bored with people, they're all the same. You've already seen these opinions and either embraced them or discarded them. What more do they have to teach you?" In an attempt to move past that knee-jerk reaction I wanted to explore some other possibilities.
The first is the now year and a half old idea of mine: I need to discover more about myself before I can truly evaluate what others in the world are trying to teach me. I'm still shaky on my feet, and being a 'professional' still hasn't totally sunk in. My arrogance, while it is beginning to reappear as I gain confidence in my skills, has taken a serious beating. How can it not when I'm surrounded by people who understand more about the job than I? Who have more experience than I? I've determined that one of the best things about the process of growing up is that everybody starts on even footing. Nobody in my 2nd grade class knew how to write cursive, and we all learned together. So I got to compare myself to others, I got to gauge my abilities and determine my own worth in regards that particular skill. I wasn't the best, I wasn't the worst. I was in the middle, perhaps slightly above the norm. That was good enough for me, that made me feel worthwhile. Now, pretty much everyone has a headstart on me, and catch-up is not my favorite game. So I get pissed, or I get apathetic, or go berserk with trying to get up to par with everyone. NO matter which path I decide to take for the day, it can be utterly exhausting.
So, I've slowly been developing a new paradigm: Enjoy work, enjoy life, and don't stress the fact that I'm not in the middle of the pack...yeah, that ended up being an update of me rather than my ideas from the quote. Moving on...
One idea of perfection is when nothing else can be added. The Everything, the Zero Summer. Building from that, social interaction is a requirement. I maintain, despite my cynicism, that everyone has something to offer. Each person can add to myself, to my thoughts and ideas, to my views on the world. They can expand the world. So, to stretch the idea a little bit: Social interaction requires manipulation, which is only possible through manipulation. If one assumes that social interaction leads to learning from everyone you interact with then one can be said to be on the path to The Everything, to capital-p Perfection. Thus, the art of manipulation is, in truth, a pursuit of perfection.
Heh, didn't see that coming.
![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/goth_boy/working.gif){kind=small}
artisticAug. 25th, 2006
Jun. 22nd, 2006
07:08 pm - QotD
This is the awe-inspiring universe of magic: There are no atoms, only waves and motions all around. Here, you discard all belief in barriers to understanding. You put aside understanding itself. This universe cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed perceptions. It is the ultimate void where no preordained screens occur upon which forms may be projected. You have only one awareness here - the screen of the magi: Imagination! Here, you learn what it is to be human. You are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems, an organizer of chaos.
-- Frank Herbert
- The Atreides Manifesto, Dune
Jun. 19th, 2006
07:28 pm - QoTD
Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.
-- Rene Descartes
Jun. 18th, 2006
12:56 pm - Elegance, 'cept not....
I am a design chauvinist. I believe that good design is magical and not to be lightly tinkered with. The difference between a great design and a lousy one is in the meshing of the thousand details that either fit or don't, and the spirit of the passionate intellect that has tied them together, or tried. That's why programming-- or buying software-- on the basis of "lists of features" is a doomed and misguided effort. The features can be thrown together, as in a garbage can, or carefully laid together and interwoven in elegant unification, as in APL, or the Forth language, or the game of chess.
--Ted Nelson
I feel like I have so little I want to write about. I just don't seemed to get pinged as much as I used to. Perhaps the difference is simply that I'm constantly trying to learn how to do what I'm doing as opposed to already knowing my place. There's a certain comfort in being smack dab in the middle of normality and customary actions. In the 'college' stage of my life I'd already found that little niche so I could walk around in sort of a daze. My days were spent reading and tossing thoughts around in my head that had little to do with where I was and what I was supposed to be doing. It’s an easy life in the sense that you already know it was just a required step on my journey, and I enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed learning and interacting with my fellow students (mostly), and I enjoyed being able to take it easy. I guess part of my problem was that I'd grown complacent.
So now here I sit much less complacent, completely out of my depth as a 'professional in the real world.' I've gotten forgotten what that felt like, to really not know what's coming next or where I'm going. Point is, I have a tendency to write less when I'm on less steady footing. When I feel like I'm rooted to where I'm standing, when I feel much more confident about my positions I have a tendency to put them out there more. One has managed to lose a fair amount of confidence since graduating college, mostly 'cause the majority of my life has changed drastically in the last 6 months. Like a prisoner who's suddenly released back into the daylight, part of me really wants to turn around and run back into the comfort of my college life. Another part of me just wants to pull everything in around me and start working out where I stand in this new life before I start offering anything. Eh, I don't know.
The quote above doesn't fit perfectly with what I was wanting to write about, but it fits closely enough I suppose. I've always been fascinated with magic, the unexplained, things that just fall together without being forced. I love the idea of calling it an Art, because that's what I think about with Art. Something so elegant that you can't understand it. Perhaps it works, in part, because of the passion put into it. Some of my favorite characters from fiction are like that. Raistlin, who was so passionate about his Art that he sacrificed his health and ability to blend in with humanity. Belgarath who's faith gave him the ability to work his magic for thousands of years against all the heartache he faced. Its just awe-inspiring and chilling to be so much a part of something, to have so much passion infused with that part of your life, that everything that comes out is elegant.
Passion, faith, elegance, confidence...these are some of the words that make me stop and think when I read them, or think them, or hear them. I love how much complexity can be included in a single word, how it can speak volumes. T. S. Eliot mentions that words crack and crumble, essentially that they aren't sufficient to communicate everything that we experience. To me, when words are failing like that, when I can't breathe because I'm trying too hard to push my feelings at whoever I'm trying to communicate with that I just fuck it all up. That's where some of these words come into play. The powerful words that are impossible to explain, but you use them anyways in hopes that they know what you mean when you say elegant, or passionate.
For me it’s always a two-edged sword to communicate. More now than ever. Sometimes the words just click and you can feel your own thoughts being verbalized as best as you can, and it’s a weight of your mind. You know you've said it as well as you can, but it almost always falls on deaf ears. That's the other edge, the let down, the realization that you can't really explain what you're thinking or feeling. No matter how much you might know, how much you might understand, the communication never works as well as you would like, so I guess I've kinda managed to convince myself that what I wanted to talk about isn't really something I'm up for communicating.
At any rate, when I finished something in my mind, whether its a thought, or a design, or a system, or an understanding I always ask myself 'Is it elegant?'...usually, it ain't.
May. 12th, 2006
11:21 pm - My library?
A man's library is a sort of harem.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life, 1860
So Melissa was gone all week (she's coming back tomorrow), and I occupied last weekend with book-organizing. I had to travel to four wal-marts to finally find the 5th bookshelf, but I found it. Then, of course, I counted them. 'cause I'm a geek. ~850 was the final tally.
Just a couple thoughts on the quote...harems were considered a treasure, and that's the way I look at my books. I don't have very many rare one's, but I have some that are very important to me. If you were to study the condition of my books you would probably notice that many of them are being held together by tape. Eventually, if you flip through the book enough the edges of the covers start to wear away and you have to tape them to keep from tearing the front and back cover off. Wiccans (and a couple other's I think) believe in talismans. Things that you've imbued with part of yourself, that have actually been contaminated with your essence because they've been handled so much and have poured passion into. I've got books on my shelves that have made me cry, think, hate, and love. The good one's manage more than one of those at a time. So, books are one of my greatest treasures. The computer, a car, these material things don't really have that much of a hold on me. I'd be inconvenienced without them, but I wouldn't hurt to lose them nearly as much as the loss of my books.
Friends and family have asked my why I tote them around, why I won't sell them. God knows it would make moving easier the next time I do it (the majority of my possessions are books), but I refuse to even consider it. I remember when I was much younger, and 5 dollars was about my monthly income, that I would trade books in so I could get new ones. One of my happiest moments was when I realized that I didn't have to sell books back to read some more. Its like saying goodbye to a friend.
And, like friends, some times you yearn to see them again. On my shelves I have maybe 6 or 7 different books that I own more than one copy of. Usually because the original copy was in another state. I felt the urge to reacquaint myself with an old friend, so I went and bough them again. It's money well spent, and I never regret the purchase.
Last little parallel between a harem and a library, is the idea of passion. Not necessarily the passion for power or lust (the type of passion I associate with a harem), but the passion of emotions that are earth-shattering. Like a deep conversation with a friend, you always remember how you felt. You can visit and revisit the conversation and feel again the tug of a good story on your heart. All in all, I s'pose I'm quite taken with my meager little library.
Anyways, that's all I got.
May. 11th, 2006
09:31 pm - Samurai Song
When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I
Had no supper my eyes dined.
When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.
when I had no father I made
Care my father. when I had no
Mother I embraced order.
When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. when I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.
When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.
when I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.
Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.
- Robert Pinsky
Apr. 14th, 2006
09:56 pm - Sad thing is I'm sober as I spout this incomprehensible balderdash?
Couple days ago I had a meeting with a coworker and the room we met in had blackboards on three sides of the room. I immediately felt comfortable in the room and was staring around at them with my mouth gaping. See, all three boards were covered in boxes and had lines connecting them. I just thought it was one of the coolest things I'd seen at my job. Silly, I will agree, but it got me thinking about what the hell was wrong with me.
Came to the conclusion that I'm just fucking weird, but I'm hoping to expand on that a bit. I love the fact that the world isn't black and white. Complete order and definition in the world would just be utterly boring. Yet at the same time there's something very appealing about a well-ordered process, and the more complicated it is the better.
In general when someone asks you a question the answer isn't going to be definitive...let me rephrase that. To me most of the questions don't have definitive answers. Life is, in one aspect, an attempt to find some sort of order within the chaos.
I just started my 'career', so I'm constantly questioning if I made the right choice. I've mentioned before, and still believe, that I will fucking walk if I"m not happy where I am. Bottom line, not going to quibble, or what have you. I'm living way more comfortably than I ever was in college but there's still things I can do without. Thankfully my biggest hobby is still relatively inexpensive: reading. Anyways, since I'm questioning my career, which I'm very happy in at the moment, I ask myself if I"m still going to be as happy with the job in ten years, or five years, or a year. I want to know, well ahead of time, if this is something that I can be satisfied doing for a long time.
Now, obviously, this would be one of those questions that I can't really answer, and its not like I"m going to walk away from a job that I"m extremely happy with because I might end up being unhappy with it. I do however, wonder what the hell is wrong with me sometimes. Many of the people I work with do this because its their job. Its just work for them, not something they truly enjoy doing. And, lets face it, how screwed up you gotta be to enjoy writing computer programs? True, I just started my job a couple months ago and I'm still learning as much as I'm working, but I don't really see my self getting bored and bitter with my job. So, why not? What part of me got so twisted in my life that I enjoy sitting on my ass, typing at a computer, making computer programs?
Well, that's where the the whole order/chaos thing, where my mention of the blackboards, and my over all weirdness come into play. I absolutely adore order. I much prefer acting logically to acting emotionally. I enjoy finding order in the chaos, and I enjoy being able to add to that order. Thankfully its never going to get totally ordered (boring, remember?), but its nice to be able to try.
To parallel this is the idea of systems. There is an input and an eventual output, but the cool thing is what happens when you start considering real systems. Rather than one input there may be 30, and with those thirty inputs there may be 100 outputs. It may take hours for this information to be completely processed, and the end result may not look anything like what came in. But if you could somehow follows these inputs they would do the same thing everytime they went in. The more I learn about the systems I'm working in the, the more I realize I don't know much about what is actually happening. Not because I'm incapable of understanding, but because its so big.
And its all been consciously designed. The idea of a consciously designed system that can't be fully comprehended really appeals to me. Chaos can't be comprehended, that's one of the things that makes it so nifty. But orderly things are usually so small that they can be. The rules of a basketball game, how a little "Hello World" program works, or the electoral college. They may be baffling at first, but if you sit down for a couple hours you're usually able to figure out all the rules.
But a system that you need weeks, or months, or years to figure out totally? That's just fucking cool. And the system is always growing. So few things are growing after a certain point, either due to complexity or an attempt to keep it simple. I like the fact that systems can be simply designed, but by virtue of what they are, continue to grow in complexity. It continues to find new veins of chaos to make orderly, or easier to understand. If you were to sit in a very big room, with lots of blackboards and draw out everything that a big system does (like the room I walked into), you could spends years of your life mapping it all, and it would continue to grow as you mapped it. You'd have to get more blackboards, or write smaller, or some shit.
I go through pages of notes just trying to understand where I can start work on a new program because it can have so many prerequisites and programs following behind it. There is the large beauty of a massive system that almost resembles chaos because its so complex, and then there's the beauty of a smaller piece. As you wrap your head around one small piece, and understand it sufficiently, you can added to that small piece, adding (hopefully with some elegance) usefulness and order. While only understanding a small piece of something, you can make it greater and give it more purpose.
I've found myself drawn to the idea of smaller pieces within things, but in this case with an understanding of the parts that make up something you can begin to understand the whole. You can't begin your understanding of the human psyche with a study of neutrons, because eventually the knowledge breaks down. Emotion, chaos, randomness, enters the mix. You can't understand exactly why someone lost the super bowl because you don't have a perfect understanding of the people playing in the game.
The human element always enters into it, but the human element that designed a system was constrained by certain rules. Because you know those rules you can begin to understand what the human mind was thinking when it designed a program, or programs. Its almost a type of empathy, though it is constrained tightly. To ask yourself, 'why did they put that logic there?', can lead you to an understanding of a person that is seldom reached. The human mind is usually not understood by the person driving it, let alone those around. But, with programming, the mind is being put into a container and used for a specific purpose. By operating within the rules, by eliminating the possibilities and choices, you make it easier for one person to understand the actions of another person.
I enjoy the fact that parts of my life lack many different choices. I would go insane without choices, but at the same time its nice to take a break and follow the river because its taking you where you want to go.
So, though I've made little sense, what I'm trying to say is this. One aspect of programming is that the choices are easy to make. Boiled down small enough there is actually a right answer, an elegant answer, and that's so often not the case. There is beauty in chaos, but an elegantly ordered solution is an entirely different type of beauty, and much more rarely seen.
Apr. 9th, 2006
01:33 pm - Recent Book Quotes?
Haven't been writing much here 'cause I've been reading. I mark pages sometimes with things that I like for one reason or another. Don't necessarily agree with all of them, but they at least make me stop and think. No gurantees they'll make any sense if you haven't read the book either. I'd suggest reading any of them. So, in no particular order:
( The quotes! )
Mar. 31st, 2006
Mar. 4th, 2006
10:02 pm - QotN
The casual phrase dropped by a friend in conversation, the paragraph in a book, the incident observed by the roadside, has some special quality, and is accorded a special welcome. But, having been welcomed, it is forgotten, or at least ignored. It sinks into the horrid depths of my subconscious like a waterlogged timber into the slime at the bottom of a harbor, where it lies alongside others which have preceded it. Then, periodically -- but by no means systematically -- it is hauled up for examination along with its fellows, and , sooner or later, some timber is found with barnacles growing on it. Some morning when I am shaving, some evening when I am wondering whether my dinner calls for white wine or red, the original idea reappears in my mind, and it has grown. Nearly always it has something to with what eventually will be the mid-point of a novel or a short story, and sometimes the growth is towards the end and sometimes towards the beginning. The casualty rate is high -- some timbers grow no barnacles at all -- but enough of them have progressed to keep me actively employed for more than forty years."
-- C. S. Forester
-The Hornblower Companion
Feb. 12th, 2006
09:34 pm - Incomplete thoughts on programming?
It took me about three weeks to train for my job. I've finished that now, and actually have one program installed on the mainframe with a double handful waiting until its not the end of a period. Its going quite well, and I noticed something when I finally stopped training and started programming...
I'm a computer geek. Now, anyone that knows me knows what I'm talking about. I don't know that much, compared to many, and I'm no whiz kid at computer things in general, but I can program. I can't write, I can't make music, I can't paint, or draw, or act. I've always envied people that have the ability to create. I even envy politicians with their ability to create an image and create empathy, strong emotion, what-have-you. I don't usually like them, but I envy them.
So, 4.5 years ago I started college. I went into MIS because the only thing I knew about myself was that I liked computers, and that I didn't like math. Basically my two options with computers was Business (MIS), or Computer Science. Obviously I went with the one that had less programming, and thus less math. Notice I thought they were interchangeable? In my ignorance I believed that programming was all about math. Its not, its about logic, but those were the same thing to me a couple years ago.
So, 2 years ago I had my first programming class, COBOL. It was required, it was dreaded by just about everyone, including myself. My first assignment was to copy down down a very basic program and change the details so that it was my program instead of the dude that wrote the textbook (people who can write programming textbooks terrify me). I found myself getting mildly interested in it, and I blasted it out an hour before class.
Fast forward to the end of the semester and I'm not only enjoying this class, I've only missed it once (beyond rare for me), and I'm helping lots of people. We'd all go sit in the computer lab and stare at that black screen with white text for hours, but I'd be talking to other people in the class that needed help almost as much as staring. It was my first experience at understanding something well enough to nudge someone else's understanding along, and I loved it. I think I finished that class with something like a 97% overall grade, and I was actually proud of it.
My next class was Visual Basic .NET. An entirely different experience, but one I enjoyed just as much. COBOL was the beginning for me, but I got to create real programs in VB. Things that I could actually apply to the real world, rather than a small little flat-file processing program. At the same time I was learning ASP, a webpage programming language. I'd been asked to write 1/2 a webpage suite used in the accreditation of the university I was at. I'd been hand-picked by my COBOL professor. I wasn't the best in that class, I've never been the best in anything I've tried to do (thank god), but for some reason he chose me. Someday I'll get up the courage to ask him why. By the time I graduated I'd learned COBOL, VB .NET, ASP, ASP .NET, Javascript, and a smattering of Coldfusion. I'd don't say this to gloat, I say this to impart just how much I love this stuff.
I'm good at programming. Its one of the few things I understand enough to teach (and I"m usually not satisfied until I understand WHy something works). Coding is one of the few things that my apathy and laziness don't really affect. The sound of a keyboard being clicked quickly can send shivers down my spine when I know its a program being created.
The act of creation has always been something holy to me, something untouchable, a step away from mortality. I've always envied those that can do it, and I was lucky enough to finally find my own path to creation. Moral of the story? I really like my job.
ps.. I have a new cellphone and a new number. If you'd like the new number...and I know you and like you, send me an e-mail.
Jan. 17th, 2006
06:33 pm - Not much to tell?
*sigh* Where in the bloody hell do I start?
I think the last thing I put up here was an announcement that I graduated, and before that it was the Day from Hell. I would like to point out I was well dressed for my little hand basket ride, but it still wasn't fun.
In the last month I've been to South Carolina to find an apartment, graduated in Tennessee, drove to Michigan for XMas, drove to New Jersey to see my lovely girlfriend and celebrate New Year's by dozing in front of the TV (highly recommended), then back to Cookeville to pick up boxes of shit friends' apartment (thanks guys), then to Culleoka, TN where all my shit had been amassed. Don't worry, you haven't heard of the town, its not important anyways. From Culleoka my dad and I drove back to South Carolina to move into the aforementioned apartment that I found a couple weeks before. That was January 6 for anyone who wants some perspective. I started work that Monday (9th), and have been working 8 - 5 every weekday since. I'm not going to say where I work 'cause I'm stupid paranoid about the shit that can go down when LJ and "the job" mix. I will however say its located in Northwestern South Carolina. Melissa is moving down the Friday after this one, and I think that about sums up why I haven't written a damn thing. I've been reading, mostly, but I don't think I've responded to much. Now that I have my little introductory paragraph, let's get started...
( Cut cause...damn )
Jan. 5th, 2006
08:51 pm - its a stretch, buts let pretend I"m not here.
Moving to SC tomorrow, starting work Monday, getting internet Saturday after this one (hopefully), so I'm still not here, just like the last month or so, I'm coming back soon, one hopes. Yeah, just pretend all this is grammatically correct :P
Dec. 17th, 2005
03:54 pm
I hope you become comfortable with the use of logic without being deceived into concluding that logic will inevitably lead you to the correct conclusion.
-- Neil Armstrong (1930 - ), USC 2005 graduation
-----
I have graduated with a degree in Management of Information Systems...and there were no quotables in the boring ass speeches.
Nov. 30th, 2005
07:22 pm - in the last 24 hours....
- 5 "official" interviews
- 3 dining/interview combos
- 1 "unofficial" interview
- 1 "spontaneous" interview
- 9.5 hours of driving
*dies*
Nov. 26th, 2005
01:22 pm - SotD
The Beatles
I'm Only Sleeping
When I wake up early in the morning
Lift my head, I'm still yawning
When I'm in the middle of a dream
Stay in bed, float up stream (Float up stream)
Please, don't wake me, no, don't shake me
Leave me where I am, I'm only sleeping
Everybody seems to think I'm lazy
I don't mind, I think they're crazzy
Running everywhere at such a speed
Till they find there's no need (There's no need)
Please, don't spoil my day, I'm miles away
And after all I'm only sleeping
Keeping an eye on the world going by my window
Taking my time
Lying there and staring at the ceiling
Waiting for a sleepy feeling...
Please, don't spoil my day, I'm miles away
And after all I'm only sleeping
Ooh yeah
Keeping an eye on the world going by my window
Taking my time
When I wake up early in the morning
Lift my head, I'm still yawning
When I'm in the middle of a dream
Stay in bed, float up stream (Float up stream)
Please, don't wake me, no, don't shake me
Leave me where I am, I'm only sleeping
Nov. 21st, 2005
07:20 pm - QotD
Manufacturing is making stuff; service is making stuff that won't hurt you when you drop it on your foot; and E-Ops is using the Internet to coordinate the making of any kind of stuff.
-- Chase - Jacobs - Aquilano
- Operations Management for Competitive Advantage
...I'm in college getting my edu-mu-cation. :)
Nov. 18th, 2005
07:15 pm - A thought, and a thanks?
I really feel like I don't write enough in this journal. It pisses me off because I'm not entirely sure why. Part of, I think, is because I've become disillusioned with journaling and the lack of passion I put into my posts now. Regardless, you may start seeing less baked posts than usual (nothing I post is fully baked).
Anyways, this particular thought process was prompted by anonymous reply to a comment of mine on someone else's journal. It pissed me off for about 5 seconds, and then I just laughed at both the anonymous person's, and my own, idiocy.
( I re-read a Sociologist, and I'm not saying anything new. )
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cheerfulNov. 16th, 2005
02:52 pm - Ranting...
This is a rant. Plain and simple. If I didn't write this I probably would have been in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Its not bashing religion, its bashing how that religion is mis-used.
"That's just walking by fear, not by faith."
Alright, so maybe I'm eavesdropping. Either way, here we go. I've been sitting here in the "University Center" for about 5 minutes reading a book (The Soulforge). I do this whenever I’m not in class or working and I have a couple minutes. I grab a bag of chips for lunch and sit and read whatever book I've brought with me for the day. Today is too cold to sit outside, so I'm sitting inside and getting to listen to these two guys sit here and discuss a relationship.
It took me about three minutes to finally realize why this one guy was sitting here listening, with rapt attention, to a guy that's slightly older than him. This is a discussion, I've come to realize, it’s like a teaching session. The one guy doesn't talk; the other guy just continues to "preach." At first I was thinking that the one guy was insanely arrogant, to see here and tell him, literally, what he should be doing. There's no "I think", this is a "This is what you're going to do" discussion.
The discussion is apparently about the relationship that this guy is in. From what I've gathered the guy is happy with his relationship. Futhermore, the guy that's preaching is telling him to dump her. Oh, it’s coated in a little bit of honey, but that's what he's telling her.
Part of me thinks I shouldn't be eavesdropping, but the another part says that they're sitting here in a public place and I noticed that one guy was basically commanding another guy. I don't notice much when I'm reading, but this kinda grabbed my attention. Here's these two guys, one just nodding like an idiot (for about 15 minutes now), while the other gives him commands and goes to lengths to explain his reasoning.
So, what might give this one individual so much power over another? What would make a person sit there and listen raptly as he is basically given commands by someone else? Well, religion.
It boggles the mind. Religion is a great thing in a lot of ways. It gives people a community, the intention is to make society and the world better. Christianity (I’m assuming that's their religion), teaches love and forgiveness. On paper religion is an absolutely wonderful thing.
So here's an example of what religion can become when it comes off the paper. This guy has, from my very limited POV, basically convinced another person to leave his girlfriend. From what I can tell there's two reasons for this A) She's going to be living in Montana right now and B)the guy is a freshman in college. So on this very tenuous ground this guy is most likely going to leave his girlfriend, at the least he's very seriously considering this action. I'm not a wonderful judge of character, hell I'm pretty dense, but I recognize someone who's taking every word they hear to heart.
Now I'm going to relate it back to myself, because that's really why I’m writing. If I were being talked to in the way that I just listened too, I would be being restrained right now. Melissa, my friends, my parents, nobody commands me to do things, not like that. You can suggest to your heart's content, you can justify everything you say. I'm not so arrogant as to remain unconvinced out of spite. But you don't talk to me like I'm 5 years old and unable to think for myself.
This is exactly what I just saw. One person command, the other sat there and listened like a meek dog. Basically because this person was obviously perceived as being wiser in "the ways of Christ."
What.
Fucking.
Tripe.
There are millions of people out there that are smarter and wiser than I. But I don't understand how anyone can speak to another human being like that. It goes beyond disrespect and falls somewhere in the range of a total misunderstanding of humanity in general. I just witnessed one of the most ignorant actions in my entire life experience, and it was done under the auspices of a religion.
I can't decide if I'm more furious about the distortion of Christ's teachings, or the sheer ignorance and disrespect that a human being just willingly received from someone they apparently asked for help from.
Nov. 15th, 2005
10:42 pm - QotD
The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. And then you die. What's that? A bonus? I think the life-cycle is all backwards. You should die first and get it all over with. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young. You get a gold watch. You go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol and party. You get ready for high school. You go to grade school and become a kid. You play. You have no responsibilities. You become a little baby & go back into the womb. You spend your last nine months floating... Then, you finish off as an orgasm. I like it.
-- Andy Rooney
Nov. 14th, 2005
08:17 pm - QotD
Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets and then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.
--Unknown, Marin County newspaper's TV listing for "The Wizard of Oz"
Nov. 11th, 2005
01:20 pm - QotD, even if it doesn't accompany writing.
I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.
-- Joan Didion
Nov. 10th, 2005
05:44 pm - w00t
Got the second interview *crosses fingers*
None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
Ferdinand Foch (1851 - 1929)
04:06 pm - QotD
"Right is what all this is about," Roland said. "but if you look too long at the small rights, Jake-- the ones that lie close at hand-- it's easy to lose sight of the big ones that stand farther off. Things are out of joint-- going wrong and getting worse. We see it all around us, but the answers are still ahead. While we were helping the twenty or thirty people left in River Crossing, twenty or thirty thousand more might be suffering or dying somewhere else. And if there is any place in the universe where these things can be set right, it's at the Dark Tower."
--Stephen King
-The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower III)
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aggravatedNov. 9th, 2005
Nov. 7th, 2005
07:34 pm
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.
--Charles W. Eliot (1834 - 1926), The Happy Life, 1896
So I'm reading The Wastelands by Stephen King at the moment. I don't have a quote to toss out, because there hasn't been anything that's really given me a chill when I read it. Whenever I put those random quotes up from a book, something that doesn't make much sense unless you've read the book, its a fair bet I did it because it gave me chills. Touched a part of my emotions a bit deeper than the norm.
Anyways. King's Dark Tower series. I got through the third book, the one I'm on now, when I was about 12, I think. At that point I was reading King 'cause I hadn't realized there were things out there I'd enjoy much more. Hey, I was 12, cut me some slack! I've never really liked King's writing and I'm not sure why. He doesn't make me sleepy or piss me off like Anne Rice does, but he doesn't make me put everything off to read his stories. There's only a handful of authors that do that though. I won't name names, though, they might read this and get cocky ;).
So, I'm just kinda lukewarm about King's writing. But the ideas behind King's writing is fantastic usually. The idea of The Stand , or Pet Sematary, and most especially the Dark Tower are just amazing. Its like the more you read the more you think you could just sit in a dark room and mull over the ideas and learn something extremely important. King is entertaining because the more I read of him the more I think my mind is figuring things out without actually letting me know about it.
In comparison to this there are the stories that I blast through. I mean, I'll sit down and read an entire novel in a day because I just have to know what happens. Rather than the ideas that drive the novel (though those are there), its the characters themselves that I want to know about. I want to know if they're going to manage to stave off insanity long enough, or get back to relative safety with their cargo, or finally defeat that evil scary sonufabitch that seems to have everything go his way. Or maybe I'm rooting for the evil, scary, arrogant, power-hungry sonufabitch. It takes all forms.
So I've got books that I just kinda plod through because the underlying ideas are what entertain me while I sit there and mull over them. Then there's the books that I'm completely immersed in, where I can just imagine the world around me.
what else, what else. There's books I read just because I've invested too much time to not know what happens, even though I really don't care at this point. Books I read because "they" make me ;), books I read because they're supposed to be important (actually, scratch that, I'm too damn stubborn to actually read it "just because"), and there's books that I've got sitting on my shelf 'cause I figure eventually there will be a large enough spark of interest for me to put down what I'm reading and dive into this new thing that I know I'll find interesting, but I'm too lazy too give it a chance.
The bottom line here is that I enjoy reading in various shapes and forms. I've never really verbalized it before, so this oughta be a start. Also, I'm going to have to figure out how to move the ~500 books I've accumulated in my short life. Interestingly enough, its really the only thing I own or am proud of owning. I have a computer, some clothes, odds and ends, and everything else is books. Its gotta be around 90% of my physical belongings...got any suggestions for how the hell I get them to wherever I go when I graduate in...count em...SIX WEEKS!
Yeah, I'll write something about that when it finally sinks it that I've actually been here for 4.5 years instead of a handful of months, and that I'm finally getting the hell out of here.
06:59 pm
I'm not sure if its a good thing or a bad thing that this doesn't apply to me...
Computer games make people cry
Just for the record I do cry for certain TV shows, movies, books, and the occasional song, so I'm not a totally cold bastard.
Nov. 4th, 2005
12:32 pm - Normally don't do these, but this seemed interesting.
I stole this from thejeremy1 .
Do it for me!
If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don't speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want, either good or bad. I promise not to come after you with a deposit slip and papercut your ass!
When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people remember about you.
Oct. 29th, 2005
10:56 pm - Qotd
Yes, another quote. I spent all day shopping, yes shopping. Eventually this should lead to pictures of all my interview-clothing goodness, but for now, just a quote.
The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.
-- Philip K. Dick
Oct. 28th, 2005
Oct. 27th, 2005
10:12 pm - Qotn
To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be.
-- Anna Louise Strong
Oct. 25th, 2005
11:05 am - Qotd
My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.
-- Vladimir Nabokov (1899 - 1977)
Oct. 24th, 2005
04:39 pm - QotD
...reality doesn't invariably shatter a young man's dreams. Not immediately, at any rate.
-- The Lions of Al-Rassan, by Guy Gavriel Kay
Oct. 23rd, 2005
06:36 pm - prolly not important...
"What'd you do last night, Yiari?"
"I designed a nuclear weapon the size of a pen!"
"Oh?"
( Meet Yiari, if you'd like )
Oct. 19th, 2005
04:21 pm
On the upside, I'm way far away from fundamentalist. On the downside this pretty much tells me nothing. ;)
You fit in with: Spiritualism Your ideals are mostly spiritual, but in an individualistic way. While spirituality is very important in your life, organized religion itself may not be for you. It is best for you to seek these things on your own terms. 80% spiritual. 80% reason-oriented. |
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Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com |
Oct. 17th, 2005
12:40 am - flaming monkey poo...
"Christ, Dresden! You almost got me killed!"
"Don't be a baby. You're fine."
Thomas frowned at me. "You at least could have told me!"
"I did tell you," I said. "I told you at Mac's that I'd give you a ride home, but that I had to run an errand first."
Thomas scowled. "An errand is getting a tank of gas or picking up a carton of milk or something. It is not getting chased by flying purple pyromaniac gorillas hurling incendiary poo."
--Blood Rites by Jim Butcher, Book six of the Dresden Files
Now really people, can you honestly say you don't wanna read this guy now?
Oct. 9th, 2005
07:20 pm - This is all I did today...
I figure I mention Melissa a fair amount, so here's a background I Photoshop-ed today.
( Read more... )
Oct. 8th, 2005
Oct. 6th, 2005
10:03 am - QotD
I rest my ankle boyishly on one knee - exactly the way my mother taught me not to - and ease the book onto my lap. I drop my eyes, and already I am resting; my hard-bitten fingers turn the pages, turning and smoothing until I find my place. Then, quietly, I go in. I pay attention, but I don't have to speak. This is like meditation: disappearing and being all here.
-- Cathleen Medwick
Oct. 1st, 2005
09:16 pm - QotD
Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try.
-- Peggy Noonan
Sep. 30th, 2005
08:42 am
'Whom are you?' he asked, for he had attended business college.
--George Ade (1866 - 1944), "The Steel Box", 1898
I'm a young guy. Still in college, not really experienced with life. Haven't really had much thrown at me, ya know? Thus I'm sitting here in college, learning all about life and how to be a businessman. *rolls eyes* What an absurdity. Now I dont' have huge connections in the business world, but one of the things I've noticed is that it doesn't matter how much you learn, or how well you do in school. When it comes to success at a job its about being able to learn and realizing you don't know a goddamn thing when you graduate. I've heard, more than once, that when you graduate college its when your education really starts.
Taking this into account, what the fuck is up with these classes I've been taking. The teachers take these things seriously, and sometimes they honestly believe that what they're teaching is important. That's fine, they are at least exposing to things and helping us along in our ability to learn. That's why I think I'm here. Not to learn what I need to know, but to learn how to take something and learn it. I"m learning how to learn ;).
But these damn textbooks! *sigh* I've been studying for "Business Strategy"...'cause, you know, all Business are run exactly the same and the way to succeed is exactly the same. Right.
The utter arrogance of these authors is staggering. Its not "this way usually works," or "most people do something like this." Its "THIS IS HOW ITS DONE." *twitch* Cause something as massive and complicated as business can be boiled down to a couple fucking caveats. Ya know, like life, everyone should live it the same, act the same way, and everything will work out. There's only one way to succeed as a business, and there's only one way to succeed in life. Simple.
*mutters and walks away*
Sep. 20th, 2005
04:36 pm
Nothing like a delivery from Barnes n Noble to make a shitty day seem a little bit better.
chipperSep. 11th, 2005
01:41 am - good dreams?
"my only good dreams are of you"
--Soul Skin (band I heard tonight)
I didn't start remembering my dreams until about two years and a half years ago. It was rather nice. I never woke up sweating and shaking from a nightmare, and I never woke up depressed because I'd watch something spiral out of control around me. Mostly I don't remember these dreams for long, mostly they drift away pretty quickly. I've had some that stuck with me long enough to make sleep difficult for a couple hours, but I've even forgotten those now. I could write a damn novel on my first dream that I remember, though. And I still don't like to think about it, I was scared to go to sleep for about a week after that dream.
Anyways, that's not what I wanna babble about. What I wanna babble about are the good dreams. The ones that make me wake up and smile, make me feel at peace, and just make the day start off real nice. Those would be the ones about Melissa, thus my lyrical quote.
Now I've said before that I don't want to wax poetic and get extremely sappy about her, but I still feel the need to write about the high point of my night. When I caught what the guy was singing (part of the chorus), it brought back all the mornings I'd woke up happy. I don't remember the dreams so much as the way they made me feel: content. Like I was finally getting something right. So, I just sat there listening to the song and basked in the fact that I for once felt confident in myself and a facet of my life.
Alright, I'm done for now.
01:23 am - you know why I like this place?
"I like this bar because you can smell the beer that's soaked into the floor."
I think I can count the number of times I've went to a "bar" on one hand. I wouldn't count this as one, but apparently once the band stops playing and the food stops getting served this place becomes one. At any rate, it was nice to run into a friend there since he'll be back in Australia come the beginning of the week.
Some pagans (and perhaps others) believe that objects can hold some of the "aura" or pieces of the people that they are associated with. Talismans, if you will. A treasured piece of jewelry, a treasured book, a stuffed animal or blanket that you've had your entire life. These things have power, and some believe by coming in contact with these things you're coming in contact with the person that they are connecting to.
As soon as my friend mentioned why he liked the bar/restaurant we were at I realized that this was a prime example of something that belongs to a group. Not drunkards or sots, not the stereotypical "desperate people" that can be associated with bars. Not really any type of stereotype. Instead I'm talking about people that go to bars simple for the socializing and the raw emotion that can be present at such a place. I'm hardly an expert, but lets consider some of the things that come about at a bar. People listen to music and it opens them to the people singing to them. People can begin to fall in love, people can find someone they're willing to share a single night with, people get in fights, people make new friends, people drown their sorrows and celebrate their victories. Can you imagine what an older bar has seen? The tears, liquor, blood and openness that comes from groups of people sitting around drinking, smoking, and socializing.
For the most part its not my scene. I'm too guarded, too jaded about people, and too quick to dislike people who are obviously drunk, but all the same its there to be seen. I think I see a little bit more what appeals to people about going to a bar. All of the surface things have to be some of the reasons, but I think its more than that.
Alcohol lowers inhibitions. Whenever I hear that statement I kinda close myself off a little bit. "Bad things" happen from such lowering. Children and wives get beat, marriages break up, people lose parts of their soul to a beast. Yet I drink. In part to prove to myself that I won't be beaten by the beast, but now I think its more than that. And I think its more than that for the majority of people. Its more than addiction, more than a temporary respite, or a quick dive into a false happiness.
Its about being open. Its about letting the beer spill on the floor, and letting that place soak up a part of what you have to offer to the place. Letting people see parts of you that aren't always apparent, perhaps even parts of yourself that you haven't seen. We, people, began as tribes, totally dependent and devoted to those around us that kept us alive while we kept them alive. We've drifted far from this I think. To the point where we build walls to keep out all but those closest to us, and even those confidantes don't see all of us. This, perhaps, is a way to tap into that again. To surround ourselves with people who are, for the moment, on the same road that we're on. To walk the path together with people we don't even know. To allow strangers to be part of our journey through life.
Just so we're clear, I've had 3 beers in the last...4.5 hours, those of you that know me will realize I'm dead sober. The rest will just have to take my word for it ;). I'm not trying to romanticize drinking. I'm not trying to say there's nothing ugly that comes from it, but what I am trying to do is figure out a little bit more about the beauty that one can find in the oddest places. Nothing more, nothing less, just searching for some beauty.
Sep. 8th, 2005
12:46 pm - a proggy?
I've been working on a little program for the last couple months. A couple of you have seen it. Anyways, here's the first version I'm willing to let people play with. I'm curious to know what type of modifications I should make to it, as well as any problems that might crop up. Just unzip and keep everything in one folder and it should run fine. If you want to access the database directly its also in the folder.
XQuotes.zip
You may also need this: .NET Framework 1.1
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