Musings

Time Bandits (Part 2)

2011-02-17T11:15:00.003-05:00

An explosion rocked the ship, nearly throwing Jel out of the pilot's chair. At first he thought a laser blast had finally punched through the shields and impacted the hull, but then he noticed the frigates on the radar falling quickly behind.

Good, he thought, the time warp was successful. He spun the ship around and brought it to a stop, facing the three frigates. The sight that greeted him would have been very strange if he hadn't seen it before. Everything seemed to be frozen. The ships all had their thrusters burning brightly behind them, but they weren't moving, at least, as far as a human eye could tell. No less than a dozen bright spears of light were pointed at a single location, the exact spot Jel's craft had been a few moments ago. If he had watched closely, he might have seen the beams slowly inching forward, but he didn't waste time watching the familiar scene. Instead, he tried to raise Tisha on the intercom.

“Tish, are you there? Tish, you okay?” No answer. “Come on Tisha, answer me! Tish!” Fear shot through him. What if she was caught in that explosion? What if– He jumped out of his seat and dashed through the ship's corridors. He was almost to the hold where she had been working when he saw her stumbling toward him. She looked dazed, and there was blood on her forehead and in her hair. He ran to her and helped her stay on her feet.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I'm fine, I'm fine. Let me go, I can stand on my own.” He let her go, but concern etched his face.

“What happened back here?”

“I'm not sure exactly,” she replied, her brows scrunching in thought. “I had left the hold and sealed it shut, like you told me to, when an explosion knocked me off my feet. I guess that's how I got this,” she said, tenderly touching her forehead. “The next thing I remember is hearing you calling my name. I tried to answer, but it seems the blast knocked out the nearby comm controls.”

“Well, at least you're not hurt more. And I hope the Siphon is okay.” A look of terror leapt into Tisha's eyes. She ran back to the hold the Siphon was in and pounded on the door controls when they didn't respond. Jel ran up to her and grabbed her arm before she hurt herself. “Tish! Stop! The controls are broken. I'm going to get a crowbar, I'll be right back.” She whirled and ran down the hall to the nearby supply room. Jel decided it was better if he just stayed put. She came back shortly with a crowbar. She managed to get it wedged into the edge of the door, and with Jel's help, got the door opened enough to slide inside. The sight of the blackened wreckage of the Siphon brought her to her knees in tears.

“It's gone! Dad... Dad, I'm sorry... I tried to keep it safe... I failed you...” Jel stood outside and watched for a few moments. He thought about trying to comfort her, but he knew she wouldn't want that. It was hardest to just leave her, but he knew that was the best thing he could do for her. So he went back to the cockpit, punched in their destination, and initiated the phase jump. Everything outside wavered and vanished. Nothing but blackness could be seen outside. Only by looking at the readings on the computer screen could he tell that they were flying at enormous speed through phase space. With nothing else to do until they arrived at their destination, he put his feet up on the console and tried to relax, which was impossible with worries about Tisha flying through his mind.

God, he prayed, You know what she's going through a lot more than I do. Comfort her with Your love. And thanks for keeping us safe. Many times it was hard to see God at work in the universe, but Jel never stopped believing in Him. He was out there somewhere, even if He seemed far away.

To Be Continued...

Truth and Lies

2011-02-11T20:01:00.005-05:00

If you want to see lies and deceit, just watch some commercials. It seems like our economy thrives on lying and cheating and taking advantage of people. But I won't rant about the depravity of advertising. Instead, there is another who thrives on lies and deceit: the devil. He spreads his poison all over the world, dripping it into the minds of everyone. Why are lies the devil's weapon of choice? Are they really that harmful? I don't know about you, but one glance at my own life gives me the answer. "You aren't strong enough." "You aren't smart enough." "You're ugly, no one would ever like you." "You one really cares about you." "You are the only one who struggles with that problem." And on and on and on.
I could spend all day writing down the lies that the devil pounds us with on a daily basis. And what happens when we believe them? Our view of reality is distorted into something false. We don't see things as they truly are. Before long, we begin to tell ourselves the lies, because we have accepted them as truth. And when we believe the lies, we are crippled. Even worse, we may end up doing the devil's work: hurting others, hurting ourselves, not helping, not loving, etc.
I have believed a lot of lies in my life, and I have no doubt I still believe many more I have yet to discover, or have yet to let God take care of. I've believed I couldn't do a countless number of things. I've believed if I didn't do well in school my parents would be disappointed and wouldn't like me anymore. I've believed I was an ugly, worthless piece of crud.
How do we stop believing lies? Truth. Truth destroys lies, just like light destroys darkness. The truth is, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength." (Philippians 4:13 NIV). The truth is, my parents will love me no matter what I do. The truth is, "God doesn't make junk" (The Skit Guys).
God's Word, the Bible, is The Truth. By knowing the truth, it is much harder to be deceived. There are some things I've learned over the past few years which I can always hold onto as true. Here are some of them. God is GOOD, all the time. God loves me UNCONDITIONALLY. God is IN CONTROL of my life. Of course, I don't always live like I believe these, but when I start to doubt and get afraid of life and all its troubles, I remember these truths, and know that everything will be fine.
Now, I don't have an awesome way to wrap this up, this has all just flowed out of me, and hopefully it made some sense. I think the most important thing for you to take away from this is: you believe lies about yourself. We all do. Find out what those lies are, and find out the truth. The truth will set you free. God bless you.

Time Bandits (Part 1)

2011-02-10T15:06:00.008-05:00

The console lit up like a Christmas tree and a warning siren blared. Jel nearly fell out of his chair with surprise. Recovering his wits, he realized that sound could only mean one thing: another ship had dropped out of phase space right near his. He pulled up the scanner on the screen. Three small ships were headed his way. The computer found them in the ship database and popped up their info. Jel's stomach dropped into his toes.

“Nilites,” he spat. Hitting the intercom button, he spoke into the mic. “Tish, we got company. Nilite police. Three Liton-class frigates, closing fast. How's it going back there?” A woman's voice came through the speaker.

“Not done yet. The Temporal Siphon still needs a few more minutes. Can you hold them off for three minutes?”

“I'll see what I can do. Hurry it up.” He flipped a switch and the engines roared to life. The three ships had spread out, moving to surround him. One of the ships hailed him. He responded, hoping to give Tisha more time. “What can I do for you?” he asked, already knowing what the reply would be.

“Our sensors have detected a time distortion coming from this location,” replied a deep, no-nonsense voice. “Please shut down your engines and prepare to be boarded. Any act of aggresion will be met in kind.”

“Um, I don't know what this time distortion thingy is, but I'm sure I don't have any of them on my ship.”

“Then you have nothing to fear. Shut down your engines immediately.”

“Ok, ok, gimme a sec to find the switch. It's my first time flying this type of ship. The controls seem to be all mixed up, you know what I mean? Heh, heh,” he chuckled. The officer did not laugh. Jel made a show of searching for the engine power switch, hemming and hawing, while his mind frantically scrambled for more options. When he thought he had stretched their patience long enough, he said, “Aha! This must be it.” He flipped the switch, killing the comm connection. He immediately launched his ship forward, straight at the frigate positioned directly in front of him. He closed the distance quickly. When he could just make out the frantic looks on the faces of the pilots, he veered to the right, just barely avoiding a collision.

“Heh, that will give them something to think about,” he smiled. His celebration was cut short by an angry woman shouting over the intercom.

“J you idiot! Next time warn me before you let a drunken monkey fly my ship!”

“Your ship? Last I checked it was my wallet that got lighter when we acquired this little baby!” he yelled back.

“We can argue that later. I need thirty seconds more!”

“Come on, we have to warp now! In a few moments we'll be nothing but scrap metal!” As if to emphasize his point, at that moment the ship shuddered under a rapid serious of collisions. He didn't need the computer to tell him they were being shot at.

“Don't warp! This machine is unstable as is, I don't want to find out what a time warp will do to it!”

“Then shut it down! This craft is agile, but I can't dodge everything, and the shields are almost gone!”

“I can't shut it down til its finished! You know that!” Warning lights flashed everywhere. Shields were gone. Jel knew the next hit would turn them into space junk. He made up his mind.

“Get out of that hold and seal it! I'm warping!” Before Tisha could argue back, he initiated the time warp.

To Be Continued...

Doodle

2011-02-07T12:03:00.003-05:00

A little comic I made in class one day.

Windows 7

2009-12-04T20:23:00.003-05:00

About a month ago I upgraded from Vista to Windows 7. Now, before I go into what I think of Windows 7, I should mention two things so you know where I'm coming from. First, I really enjoyed Vista, and I wasn't plagued with problems as it seems a lot of people have been. I don't know if I just got lucky, or if most people are just a bunch of babies who whine all the time, but either way, I was generally happy with Vista. Second, I did not pay for Windows 7. I got a new laptop at the beginning of this school year, and it came with a coupon for a free copy of Windows 7 when it came out. Okay, now time for my thoughts on it.

One of my favorite changes in 7 is the new taskbar. Since the taskbar has been basically the same for many many years, at least since Windows 3.1, it's nice to see them finally update it. Basically, the long, text buttons have been replaced by icons similar to shortcuts on your desktop (except without the text). This is the obvious difference, and is very nice because it frees up much more room on your taskbar. This is particularly important because of the next new feature: you can pin programs to the taskbar. This means that a pinned program's icon will stay on the taskbar even when it isn't open. If the program isn't open, clicking the icon will, of course, open it. If it is already open, clicking the icon will bring that window to the front, just like on the old taskbar. And don't worry, it is easy to tell which programs you have open, because when they are open, the background behind them changes (and how it looks varies from program to program, in a very asthetically pleasing way, but that is just an added bonus). I love this feature, because now I can just pin the programs I use most onto the taskbar, making it easier to access them. There are other nice features about the new taskbar, like being able to easily rearrange the icons on it, whether pinned or not, and recent popup menus, but I won't go into all of them. Suffice it to say, the new taskbar rocks.

There are two other new features that I find particularly nice. These are called Snap and Peek. Snap is where you can snap a window to the left or right side of the screen. Doing this will make it resize to fill up the left or right half of the screen. This is very handy when viewing two windows at once, which I do a lot. Also, it is very easy to do this. All you do is drag the window to the left or right until the cursor is touching the edge of the screen, and then release. You can also drag it to the top of the screen to maximize it, but this isn't all that useful since there has been a button to do this on all windows for a very long time. Peek is not quite as useful in my opinion, but it can be nice. Imagine that you have many windows open, of all different sizes and located all over your screen. Now, with Peek, if you hover your cursor over the icon of an open window (on the taskbar), all the other windows will disappear, leaving only the outlines of them behind, and you will be able to see the window of the icon you are hovering over. I imagine that I will use this more often as I get used to it, (and as I remember that it exists more) but either way, its kinda cool. There is also something called Shake, but I haven't found it useful at all and I don't really like it. Basically, you click on a window, shake it (move your mouse back and forth rapidly a few times) and all other open windows will minimize.

There is one more feature that I really like. Vista brought about the days of UAC, which, if you have ever used Vista, is the thing that makes the screen darken and asks you if you really want to do what you just told it to do. If you haven't used Vista, just think of it as something that triple checks if you want to do anything (that is an exaggeration, but you get the idea). This feature makes things a little more secure, because it helps prevent programs from making changes to important stuff without your permission, like if you have some kind of virus or spyware/shareware, etc, but it does get annoying when it asks if you really want to delete a shortcut from the Start Menu. In Vista, this was either on or off, but in 7, you have some control over what exactly it asks for confirmation on. This allows you to keep the extra security without being asked five times if you really want to do what you just said to do.

Overall, I really like Windows 7. It has some nice new features that make things a little easier and faster. It also works with most of my programs (I even have a Windows 95 game running on it, though it doesn't run perfectly). At the same time, I don't think these flashy new features make it worth the $100+ price tag. It seems to me to be just a nice upgrade of vista. If I had not gotten it for free, I wouldn't have gotten it. My advice to anyone considering buying it is this: don't buy it to upgrade a computer you already have, but if you are looking at buying a new computer, make sure it comes with Windows 7. I hope you found this helpful.

What Are You Focused On?

2009-10-22T11:53:00.003-04:00

About thirty minutes ago I was walking back to my dorm after talking to one of my professors. As I was walking down some stairs, I was thinking about something I wanted to do. I had to step around a woman sitting in the middle of the stairs. I was really focused on what I wanted to do and--wait, a woman was sitting in the middle of the stairs. That was about how it was for me. I didn't even give her a second thought until someone going up the stairs asked her if she was okay. And then it hit me--she must have fallen while going down the stairs. Granted, she said she was okay and she didn't need any help, but still, I didn't even notice her. I was so focused on myself that I didn't notice a woman who had fallen on the stairs. I guess this made me realize that it is easy to be so focused on your own wants and desires that you miss the opportunities that God provides for you to make a difference in people's lives. Needless to say, I will be paying more attention to the people around me from now on.

Right Place, Wrong Time

2009-10-08T16:12:00.008-04:00

Or should it be wrong place, right time? Actually, either one would work in this case. Two weeks ago I had a rather interesting experience. It was a little before 10 o'clock in the morning, which was when my first class started that day. I strolled into the lecture hall and sat down. I took out my notes and my pen and got ready for class to start. Nothing weird about that. A woman walked in and said "Good morning!" (quite a few of the professors say that at the beginning of class). Most of us said good morning in reply, but there was something wrong. The woman who had just greeted us wasn't my professor. That made me wonder if I had somehow ended up in the wrong class, but I thought it through and was sure that I was in the right place. So I figured she must be taking my professor's place for the day.

I decided to wait a few moments and see if she would teach the right subject, and sure enough, she did. That confirmed to me that I was in the right class. Everything seemed right, everything lined up--except for a comment one of the guys in the class made. He told the woman that her hair looked like she had actually washed it today, implying that this was not the first time he had seen her. That comment continued to bug me in the back of my mind as I took notes on the lecture. About 35 minutes into the class, I suddenly felt my stomach drop. It had dropped because I suddenly realized that I really wasn't in the right class. It was the correct subject, the correct lesson, the correct place--but it was the wrong time. The time I had that class was 2:30 in the afternoon. I was in the right place, but at the wrong time.

As I said at the beginning, it could also be wrong place, right time. This is true because I did have a class at 10:00, just not that class. So, I ended up standing up in the middle of class and walking out, which, believe you me, makes one feel very conspicuous. I then had to walk into my other class 40 minutes late. Overall, it was a rather stressful 40 minutes or so. And I am actually glad it happened that day and not the next day I had those two classes, because the next day was when I had tests in both of those classes. Needless to say, being late would have been really bad.

Google Does Math!

2009-09-28T19:53:00.004-04:00

I don't remember how I found this out, but sometime last week I stumbled upon the fact that Google does math! I have not tested it thoroughly, I only fiddled with it for 5-10 minutes, but it seems that this only works if you type the math problem in the little search box in the upper-right corner of your browser (and of course you must have Google selected as the search engine). I guess this is best explained using an example. If you type in "2 + 2" (without the quotes), it will pop up with suggestions, like normal, but the first suggestion will be "= 4". You could also write it as "2 plus 2". You cannot, however, write out the numbers in word form, like "two plus two". Only numbers work. This works with subtraction, multiplication ( * ), and division ( / ) too. It even works with exponents ( ^ ) and roots (the symbol for roots would be ^ as well, except you would use fraction powers. square root of 4 would be 4^(1/2) ). All these work in word form as well. It also does sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, arcsine, etc. I have not found a way to make it do derivatives and integrals, so I don't think those work.
Anyway, this has made me wonder why Google decided to add a calculator to their search engine. What is the point? Maybe just because they could. Maybe to bug the people who figure it out, like me.
Since this post is about Google, I feel obligated to talk about googol. A googol is an actual number, 10 raised to the 100th power. That is, a one with one hundred zeros after it:

100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

A googolplex is even bigger. It is a one with one googol of zeros after it. I can't even imagine trying to write that out. So, I don't know if Google got its name from the googol, but it probably did, since Google searches googols of websites to find the ones you want.

A Long Silence

2009-09-22T16:27:00.001-04:00

Well, it's been a very long time since my last blog post. I have no good excuse for not writing, except that I got lazy and life got busy and I just forgot about it. But as you can see, I remembered my blog today, and I decided to post again. My goal is to start writing new posts fairly regularly, but we'll see what happens. Anyway, time to get to the topic of this post: people. Specifically, people at the college I attend, but I think this can apply to the general public of the United States.
About a week ago, I was walking across campus to my dorm, having just finished my last class of the day. As I walked, I observed all the students whom I passed. I began to see them differently, not just seeing their outward appearance, but seeing the emotions that were likely hidden underneath. What I saw was a lot of lonely and hurting people. I immediately thought of the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby, which talks about "all the lonely people". And I thought about how what everyone is looking for is God, even though they don't know it. They are lonely and hurting because they continue to try to find meaning in the things this world has to offer. I've tried that too, and I realized that the world will always leave you thirsting for more. Only God can quench your thirst. Though, after you get a taste for God, you end up needing more and more of Him, which is a good thing.
So, something I challenge myself, and anyone who reads this, to do, is to be brave and smile at people as you pass them in life. Make eye contact, show them that someone notices them. Also, if you see someone who seems in need, in any aspect, don't just pass them by, help them. We are so consumed with ourselves in the US, and all that does is hurt everyone in the long run. I think it's time to change what it means to be a typical American. Just a smile can go a long way.

p.s.

This whole thing has inspired a short story, which I hope to have done by the end of October, if not sooner. When it is done, I'll probably post at least part of it here.

Worship

2008-12-07T17:46:00.003-05:00

Today at church, during worship, a precious little girl was dancing in the front. Her movements were clumsy, and the world would not call her dancing beautiful by any stretch of the imagination, but I couldn't help but think about how proud of her I would feel if she were my daughter. I would think her dancing was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And that made me think of how our Father in Heaven must feel when we dance for Him, or worship Him in some other way, without worrying about what others think. Keeping that in mind, picture this: it is Sunday morning and you are at church. Everyone is in their seats, ready for worship to start. As the music starts, something weird happens. Everyone worships without any care or concern for what others may think of them. They are totally focused on God. What do you think that would look like? I imagine it would look pretty strange to the average churchgoer. I imagine there would be people dancing, singing, shouting, lying on the floor, crying, kneeling, sitting, jumping, and running. And I bet there would be other forms of worship that none of us can imagine. I think that would be amazing to see and be a part of. I know that I still don't worship without caring what others think. I've come a long long way from sitting in my chair and not even singing, but I've still got a ways to go. If I worshiped without concern, I would be dancing most of the time. I might also kneel, sit, or lie on the ground, depending on what God was doing and saying to me at the time. I was discussing this with my mom after church today, and she had a good name for what it would be like if everyone worshiped God like this: Heaven. I'm hoping I don't have to wait until Heaven to see this. Someday, you may see me dancing for my Love, for my Daddy, for my God. When you do, remember this post, remember that your Daddy wants to see how much you love Him, and try worshiping God as if no one else was around to see you.

Make A Good Choice

2008-11-19T17:04:00.004-05:00

If you are like most people, you struggle with not sinning, and with being disciplined about doing the things you should, even when you don't feel like it. And if you are like me, then you always try to change by doing things like saying you will start reading your Bible for twenty minutes five days every week, or saying you won't cuss for the next four weeks. This usually goes good for the first few days, and maybe even the first week. But then you have a moment of weakness, and only read your Bible four days one week, and accidently let a cuss word slip out. After that you feel bad and feel like it isn't worth it and start to have more times of weakness, and before you know it you are back to the way you used to be, except now you feel like a failure. I've gone through this cycle many times with both sins and disciplines, so I know from experience that the only result is hating yourself more and more. So what can you do differently? Make a good choice. This may sound like the same thing you have been trying to do, but let me explain it first. Instead of making a schedule of when you can and/or can't do certain things, just take each moment as it comes, one at a time. For example, if you stub your toe and the pain makes you want to cuss, stop and think about what the better choice would be. Then decide not to cuss. Tada! You just cussed one less time than you would have normally. The same goes for the Bible reading example. If you are about to watch tv in the evening, stop for a moment and decide to read your Bible before you watch tv. Even if you only read it for a few minutes, you still read it more than you would have normally. So how does this help you get into good habits? As you continue to make a good choice here and a good choice there, you will slowly make good choices more often, until you make good choices more often than bad ones. Now, of course it is still a lot of hard work and it takes a lot of discipline, but this way you will be able to gradually build up your discipline instead of jumping right into it, and you won't feel horrible every time you mess up. God bless you all, and I pray that you will have new success in your struggle to lead disciplined, Godly lives.

The Urge To Organize

2008-11-10T15:12:00.004-05:00

Have you ever had an urge to sort through all the clutter that fills your living space? I know I have. I feel that way today. And I've realized something about this urge. It's not random. It's the result of something. The result of my need to control my life. And the reason it shows up at certain times is because those are the times when I feel like my life is getting out of control and chaotic. So I guess organizing my papers and deleting useless files on my computer is just a way to feel a false sense of control, when in reality, I can't control my life. Only God has control over my life. I'm trying to rely on Him, but it's not easy, even though I know I can't really do anything. It's kind of like the zipline at River Valley Ranch. Everyone who rides it is attached to the cable with a harness and tether, so they don't have to hold on to anything in order to not fall. But almost everyone holds onto the tether anyway. I'm glad God is continuing to work in me, helping me to trust Him more and more.

Faith

2008-11-02T20:46:00.002-05:00

What does it mean to have faith? Does it mean that you have to believe and feel that something will happen? Or is it something else? I used to think that if you didn't feel like you had enough faith for something to happen, then God might not do it for you. But then I realized that how you feel does not decide how much faith you have. If you simply step out and take a chance, then you are proving that you do have faith, even if you had felt like you had very little faith. Realizing this has help me a lot in my walk with God, and in everyday life.

Objects Are More Valuable Than People

2008-10-25T18:51:00.004-04:00

If you read the title of this post and thought "What is he talking about? People are far more valuable than objects", then you should read this post. You probably truly believe you value people over objects, but I would guess that you are mistaken. I used to think I valued people over objects too, but I now know I was wrong. I have a question for you: have you ever yelled at someone or gotten angry at them because they accidentally damaged something of yours? If so, and I believe most people have done this at some point, you have put an object above a person. Think about this the next time your friend drops your mp3 player in the toilet, or spills coffee on your laptop. Remember that your tongue is a very powerful tool, and it can easily be used to harm someone. The well-being of a person is far more important than the well-being of an object.

Welcome

2008-10-25T18:36:00.000-04:00

Hello, and welcome to my blog. This blog is basically going to be a place for me to share what is on my mind at the time I write each post. At the moment, I don't have any plan for the direction this blog will take, I'm just going to write things as they come to me and see where it goes from there. My main goal is that the things I say on here will benefit someone in some way. Thank you for visiting my blog, and please check back soon to check for new posts.