The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skeptics
By Timothy Keller
(New York Times Bestseller)
(But honestly, what book nowadays ISN'T a NYT bestseller??? I think you have write in excess of 23 pages, and you make it on the list. I'm pretty sure a few crossword puzzles have even been on the list too...)
This is my newest book. My parents sent some stuff for me with the group from my church that is here this week, and among other things, I got this book. My dad, being a philosophy and religious studies professor, is kinda up on all the books and stuff. It’s ridiculous how much reading he does. So he sent me this book. Normally I don’t have loads of time to just chilax and read, but I’ve been sick all week, so I’ve been reading it. I’m 35 pages into it (not including the 25 page “introduction.” Hahaha…introduction, my foot.) Yeah, I’m not “far into it” or anything (it’s 300 pages), but it’s already a very interesting read. I can tell I’ll love this. It’s right up my alley. I’ve been hoping someone more famous than me would put this stuff into book form. Ok!
I was reading it this afternoon, and it really got me heated haha, just thinking, and thinking more, like I always do. And I have to write it out before I forget. When I have something to say, I have to put it somewhere. Before I go over what I read this afternoon, I should explain one thing: the title, “The Reason for God.” I haven’t finished the book, and I’m not the author, but for me personally, I….don’t really believe that there is a way to prove that God exists. Now don’t yell at me just yet, let me finish. I know in my heart, in my mind, in my entire being, without a doubt (and sometimes with a doubt) that God exists. My God exists. Our God exists. But at the same time, I don’t believe I can prove that to someone who is not me, or not a Christian, or whatever. I have my reasons, from the last 20 years of my life, and I can share my experiences of witnessing God in this and that, but I can’t physically prove it, I can’t scientifically prove it, and I don’t believe that anyone can. Why?? Because if God can be proven, then you’ve just eliminated the need for faith. For belief. For your heart. God’s in the game for your heart, and where it’s at. And if your heart’s only in it because it was somehow proven to you, it’s not for God. It’s wasn’t a choice. Well, maybe it was a choice, but it wasn’t one you made for yourself. If God came down and sat in front of you at dinner this evening, said hi, and left, would you believe he exists?? Yes, of course. But for the wrong reasons. Which is why I believe God hasn’t done that, and probably won’t (and probably because he doesn’t like the smell of Top Ramen.) If God did that, you’d believe he exists because you freaking saw him. But your heart is not in it anymore than it was before you started heating up the noodles. In a way, you didn’t really choose to believe he exists, you had to believe it because you saw him, and just like in the movies, if you see it, it must be true. God is a personal God, he reveals himself to each of us in his own special way, whatever is according to his will, which we don’t know. But I can make a pretty good guess it doesn’t involve nasty noodles. If God shows up and makes a special guest appearance on America’s Got Talent, and does some gravity-defying, awe-inspiring, noodle-frying trick, everyone who goes home that night is not really believing out of faith, they’re believing out of…I don’t know what it’s called. They’re believing because they have to now that they saw him. But again, their heart is still in the slow lane, on the back burner, picking up the slack, on the short bus, playing catch up, asking for directions at the local gas station (only applicable to women hearts), whatever you want to call it.
If God only wanted us to believe that he exists, he would have made it that way from the beginning. He can do whatever he wants. But think about that statement. It means two things. He can do whatever he wants. Not: “Oh, I want some gummy worms…and here they are! And my chocolate shake?? Ahhh, there it is. Thank you, all powerful mind of mine. I’m happy I upgraded myself to the all powerfulness, cause that would have sucked to have to get up and find them. Think that Satan tried to charge me double for that! Absurd.”
No, it’s not like that. He is able to do all things, which ALSO means he is ABLE to NOT do all things. Essentially, just because he is able to do all things doesn’t mean he will do all things. He could’ve created us and been like, “BAM! I’m God, believe in me, ok, see you when you die.” When I was a kid, like…7th grade I think, there was this fad going around. Not a huge fad overall, but within my group of friends, it was huge. They were called, Rumble Robots. They were these miniature robot vehicle things, like the size of your foot or so (not very small, really), and they had four wheels, two arms, a laser beam, and a slot in the back of their head where you could swipe cards (like ATM, but only more fun when you’re 12, mostly because you don’t need a job to swipe a card through their skull). And you get together with your friends, and drive these Rumble Robots around, beating the crap out of these other robots. You had like 5 lights on the front of your robot, each one a life. If you got hit with a laser, you lost a light. If someone punched you, you lost a light. And the cards would upgrade your robot, It could drive faster, punch harder, more damaging lasers, all that stuff. They were the coolest. And they lasted for a good 6 or 7 months before we remembered that we were supposed to be in 7th grade. But it was a blast while it lasted. But what were they??? Robots. Every integrated-circuit worth. Not a single thing they did was their own choice, cause I held the controller in my hand, and I told it what to do, and they did it, without a second thought, without a single question asked. And God, being the loving God that he is, was very specific to NOT create the world like this. He created us in his image, and proceeded to give us, even though it would eventually hurt him like nothing else could, free will.
Free Will
So I read chapter 2 this afternoon (which is right after chapter 1, and chapters 1 through 37 of the “introduction”) and it starts out like such:
(Page 22)
How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?
“I just don’t believe the God of Christianity exists,” said Hillary, an undergrad English major. “God allows terrible suffering in the world. So he might be either all-powerful but not good enough to end evil and suffering, or else he might be all-good but not powerful enough to end evil and suffering. Either way the all-good, all-powerful God of the Bible couldn’t exist.”
“This is a philosophical issue to me,” added Rob, Hillary’s boyfriend. “This is personal. I won’t believe in a God who allows suffering, even if he, she, or it exists. Maybe God exists. Maybe not. But if he does, he can’t be trusted.”
I finished reading that opening bit, and just kinda froze for awhile, and thought about it way, way, waaaaaaaay too long.
Basically, what they’re saying is…they’d like all life to be like growing up at Granny Bertha’s house when they were 4. Go picking wildflowers (not having to worry about bees), running through the corn rows (without so much as a thought of the paper cuts you could get), and slicing big, juicy watermelon (without having to pick out those annoying seeds), then cooking a nice pot of tea on the wood fireplace (doesn’t matter that it’s raging hot). How would you learn to be careful when out picking flowers if you had not yet had a time when you encountered a bee, or you witnessed another having an encounter with a bee (and pointed and laughed)? How would you be cautious in the corn rows if you had not first learned what it’s like to NOT be cautious in the corn rows? How would you know how amazing seedless watermelon is if you had not already had your day ruined by seed-filled watermelon? How, oh how, will you ever learn to not touch the hot stove if you hadn’t already spent a week with your finger in a cup of cold water?? And how, may I ask, will you be able to appreciate the grand perfectness of Heaven if all your life, you lived in a suffer-free, anti-pain world?? If our world was suffer-free, like so many people want (like “world peace”), what would be the advantage of getting a ticket on the J-Train to Heaven?? What would be the perk of placing your faith in God?? If we’re already living suffer-free, why leave? So we can wake up in Heaven the next morning and it be just another day?? No, Heaven is special, it’s our eternal home, with an almighty God. Heaven is already at peace. Earth is not. Earthly Peace (or World Peace) will be here soon, it’s called the Second Coming. But before then, not a chance, because of one thing: Free will.
There is suffering on this earth because,
1) “We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” for starters,
2) God made it clear that when he created us, we had free will. Free will to believe in him, and free will to NOT believe in him. That way, when we make the choice to believe, it’s our choice, from the heart, and God gets our heart also.
3) And lastly, it didn’t have to be this way. God had his perfect world going for him before any of us came along. I’m sure he wasn’t going around bragging about it, but he was quite literally the center of the universe (Man, if I was God, I would make that my Facebook status. Probably explains why I’m not God).
God didn’t need to create us. But he desired a relationship with those that would worship him (really, who wouldn’t??) and those that would give him their hearts, all of their own accord, and seek him, in all his wisdom and might, with all their heart, soul, mind and strength.
But to do all that, he needed to first give us free will. Because if he didn’t, we’d be worshipping him because we had to, not cause we wanted to, which is not what God desires of us. There is suffering in this world, and lots of it, and, to put it nicely…in a way, it’s good for us. After you got stung by the bee while prancing through the wildflowers, did you learn to be careful?? Did you ever touch a hot stove again after scorching your hand the first time? You’re not going to learn how hot it is by sitting on the chair next to it and having your mom tell you all about it. I remember the first time my little brother touched our fire…my mom made him. He’s got to learn eventually. That’s a good lesson. Yeah, he suffered, for sure, but there was more gain than pain there. Suffering is all around us. Some guy decides to get drunk, gets in his car, crashes, and kills a family. Are you going to blame God for that?? Or the man?? Yes, God is all-powerful. He is able to fix this horrid situation, but he is also able NOT to fix this situation. And what about the guy?? He is no different? There are countless other series’ of actions he could have taken to make the outcome way different. But he has free will. And he used it poorly. So you think he’ll drive drunk again (sadly, nowadays, it could be both yes, or no).
A guy leaves his wife for another woman, and the wife hires an assassin to kill him. God wasn’t a huge player in that decision, was he? How can you blame God for allowing that suffering? It was free will from both parties, free will given by God, to be used as free will was intended: freely.
A boy jumps in the swimming pool, and drowns. It was his right to jump in, but at the same time, it was his right not to jump in. His family is suffering, but they’re learning from it. Isn’t that a saying or something? We learn from our sufferings? There is suffering in this world because we have the right to make suffering in this world. We also have to right to NOT make suffering in this world, but sadly, it’s the former that usually shines brightest. It’s astounding to me that people will base their belief in whether God exists or not by whether or not there is suffering in this world. Can you imagine what this world would be like if there wasn’t any suffering?? You can’t?? Go watch WALL-E, and you’ll see what we would become. Suffering is what makes us, it molds us, and truthfully, I like it better this way. It makes us appreciate what we have more, and it makes us appreciate what we will have, even more. I can’t imagine living in a suffer-free world, and then dying, and going to God and being like, “Hey, do I HAVE to go to Heaven? It’s not really any different…and down there the In-N-Out fries are fat-free.” If you claim there is no God because there is still suffering in this world…you’re fighting the wrong battle. There is suffering in this world BECAUSE there is a God. Because there is a loving God. Because he’s such a loving God that he chose to give us free will, instead of lay here in robotic chairs drinking slurpees all day long, taking orders from him. Excuse me, but I’ll take a second order on the suffering instead. It takes our suffering for us to realize how much better God is, how much better life is with him, and how much better life will be with him for eternity.
Who ever said suffering is always a bad thing?!?!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Summer Highlights
Well, good evening peeps! I'm officially attempting to return to the blogging world, in an attempt to keep peeps updated on what's going on with me, share stories, put them on the Internet so I never forget them, and can read them when I'm 80 and explaining to to my grand kids what a "keyboard" was and what it was like to "plug-in" a cable.
"But grandpa, tell us the story of the mouse as well, we love that one! It's so weeeeeird."
"Well, kids, most things that came from the creator of Macs were very weird...oh, Macs, those were those computers that you saw at the Computer History Museum this yesterday, yeah, the dusty ones. Ancient things, never worth a penny. That's why they're nonexistent now."
What now, Mac fanboys! Bring it!
Ok, just kidding...I couldn't help myself. Plus, we all know it's true.
What a great way to get back in the spirit of blogging. Goooodness. No one's ever going to read this ever again.
Well, where to start now. What a train wreck of a start. Actually, no it was an epic success. But I can't just flow right into something else very smoothly. So here goes.
I'm back in Mexico! Woot woot! So I went home for a month and a half this summer, just to chilax, work a bit here and there, see Harry Potter, go to CreationFest and to head to the Grand Tetons for a family reunion with mi familia. Since la familia de mi padre lives in SoCal, I just rode back with them from Wyoming to LA, then took the train to San Diego, and got a ride down here to the mission. It went so smoothly, I was very grateful for that. Getting from Seattle to the Grand Tetons to LA to San Diego to Ensenada to Vicente Guerrero for $30 is a steal, let me tell you. I was able to spend a good amount of time with my cousins, who I love. We've always been on opposite ends of the country (north-south), but since I've been down here this past year, and again this year, I've been able to see them a lot and really get to know them better. Not just as cousins, but as really good friends. I miss them. Hopefully I'll be able to see them soon. And my aunt and uncle are amazing, totally just let me stay with them whenever, for however long I need. Amazing family.
But! The day before I left fro Washington, I was able to take the kids in House 7 (the older boys here...my boys) out to a day at the pools! And when I say "I was able to" what I really mean is my lovely friends and family were able to send the money down, and I passed it on to the house parents to have a special day with the entire house. During the spring, Geovani (one of my best friends here, lives in House 7) had talked to me about going to the pools one weekend. But then I never heard anything about it afterwards. Time went on, and I had forgotten about it. Then, out of nowhere, my friend Brandon offered to send me his tithing money, but not for my use, but to use how I wanted (and given the circumstances, it was a true blessing and proof that he is like the nicest guy alive on this earth). I had recently been up in Cali with my brother and our relatives up there. My uncle had also given me some money to use how I wished down here. And so I had this money...and I remembered that one time Geovani asked me to go to the pools with them, and wondered what happened with that idea.
So I asked him about it and he said that they didn't have enough money to do it. And so I showed him the offerings that were given by Brandon and my uncle Eric. And his eyes lit up, and we were like, "Now we can go to the pools!"
We started planning a big day, filled with fun and excitement. I was going to leave on Wednesday, so we planned it for Tuesday afternoon, after morning work hours. Our started with going to the pools, then coming home and ordering delivery pizza and soda, and I'd bring my laptop over with the projector and speakers and we'd have a movie night and a sleepover. They would just let me sleep in their house with them. They're lovely people. Then we'd wake up and have breakfast and go to Sala.
And it all went as planned, without a hitch. We all had a lovely time at the pools, played some soccer (duh), ate lunch their, and just relaxed for awhile. I have a good amount of video from this amazing occasion, and I am planning on making it into a video, in honor of Brandon and my uncle Eric, for making this whole thing possible. then we came home and ordered a couple pizzas (and yes, a "couple" pizzas is enough for 15 teenage guys, because, you should know that the Mexican extra grande really is what it says. It's this massive, I could comfortably fit like four of my laptops in it. Since I also do the garbage run here, I always know when people had pizza, cause not only do I find the boxes in the garbage cans, I can't get them out. They're so large they get stuck in the huge garbage cans. You have to fold them like 18 times just to fit them in. Anywhoozle...then we rearranged their living room to accommodate for all of us watching a couple movies together. Just a flawless day. All the kids had a blast, as you will be able to tell from the video. Hahaha...oh man, the pools were great. They were over the moon about being there all afternoon.
And that is what went on this summer. I left the next day...and it's all Washington from there on. I'll save that for another post. Kinda move on chronologically, until we get to the present. I have this big list next to me of things to put up here on my blog...but I have breakfast dish duty tomorrow (ugh), so I gotta hit the hay now. Did I get lucky or what, two weeks ago, I had breakfast dishes. Then this past week, Kevin asked me if I'd do his dinner dishes for him, and he'd pay me $10 for the whole week. And, since I haven't had a single peso in the past three weeks, I agreed. Apparently my money got stolen by the office in San Clemente. They thought it was for them, and cashed the check...who knows why, it freaking says my name on it! I love being without money, it's been great. Actually, in all seriousness, it's been a real learning process, cause I've really had to rely on God's blessing, and it's been amazing to see all the food that's found its way into my trailer despite not being able to buy any. All the random places it's come from, it's just been cool to see God helping me out like this, and well...I hope my money that the San Clemente office stole was put to good use hahahaha. Gaaaaaaah.
Whatever. I'm so over it.
I'll be working on writing up this list of stuff I have right here this next week and weekend. I'm not going away.
P.S. Again, an extra huge thanks to Brandon and uncle Eric for providing the funds to make that day possible, and just really let the kids go out and have a blast! Thanks again! There's a pool party waiting for you in Heaven, I'm sure.
Let it all out, get it all out, rip it out, remove it,
Don't be alarmed when the wound begins to bleed.
We're so scared to find out, what this life's all about, so scared we're going to lose it,
Not knowing all along, that's exactly what we need.
You said I know that this will hurt,
But if I don't break your heart, and things will just get worse.
When the burden seems to much to bear,
Remember, the end will justify the pain it took to get us there.
And I'll let it be known, times I have shown, signs of all my weakness, but somewhere in me, There is strength.
You promised me, that you believe, in time I will defeat this, cause somewhere in me,
There is strength.
And today I'll trust you with the confidence of a man who's never known defeat, but I'll try my Best to just forget that that man isn't me.
But tomorrow, upon hearing what I did, I will stare at you in disbelief.
Oh, inconsistent me, crying out for consistency
Reach out to me, make my heart brand new, every beat will be for You. And You know,
You know you touched my life, when You touched my heavy heart and made it light.
Let It All Out
Relient K
"But grandpa, tell us the story of the mouse as well, we love that one! It's so weeeeeird."
"Well, kids, most things that came from the creator of Macs were very weird...oh, Macs, those were those computers that you saw at the Computer History Museum this yesterday, yeah, the dusty ones. Ancient things, never worth a penny. That's why they're nonexistent now."
What now, Mac fanboys! Bring it!
Ok, just kidding...I couldn't help myself. Plus, we all know it's true.
What a great way to get back in the spirit of blogging. Goooodness. No one's ever going to read this ever again.
Well, where to start now. What a train wreck of a start. Actually, no it was an epic success. But I can't just flow right into something else very smoothly. So here goes.
I'm back in Mexico! Woot woot! So I went home for a month and a half this summer, just to chilax, work a bit here and there, see Harry Potter, go to CreationFest and to head to the Grand Tetons for a family reunion with mi familia. Since la familia de mi padre lives in SoCal, I just rode back with them from Wyoming to LA, then took the train to San Diego, and got a ride down here to the mission. It went so smoothly, I was very grateful for that. Getting from Seattle to the Grand Tetons to LA to San Diego to Ensenada to Vicente Guerrero for $30 is a steal, let me tell you. I was able to spend a good amount of time with my cousins, who I love. We've always been on opposite ends of the country (north-south), but since I've been down here this past year, and again this year, I've been able to see them a lot and really get to know them better. Not just as cousins, but as really good friends. I miss them. Hopefully I'll be able to see them soon. And my aunt and uncle are amazing, totally just let me stay with them whenever, for however long I need. Amazing family.
But! The day before I left fro Washington, I was able to take the kids in House 7 (the older boys here...my boys) out to a day at the pools! And when I say "I was able to" what I really mean is my lovely friends and family were able to send the money down, and I passed it on to the house parents to have a special day with the entire house. During the spring, Geovani (one of my best friends here, lives in House 7) had talked to me about going to the pools one weekend. But then I never heard anything about it afterwards. Time went on, and I had forgotten about it. Then, out of nowhere, my friend Brandon offered to send me his tithing money, but not for my use, but to use how I wanted (and given the circumstances, it was a true blessing and proof that he is like the nicest guy alive on this earth). I had recently been up in Cali with my brother and our relatives up there. My uncle had also given me some money to use how I wished down here. And so I had this money...and I remembered that one time Geovani asked me to go to the pools with them, and wondered what happened with that idea.
So I asked him about it and he said that they didn't have enough money to do it. And so I showed him the offerings that were given by Brandon and my uncle Eric. And his eyes lit up, and we were like, "Now we can go to the pools!"
We started planning a big day, filled with fun and excitement. I was going to leave on Wednesday, so we planned it for Tuesday afternoon, after morning work hours. Our started with going to the pools, then coming home and ordering delivery pizza and soda, and I'd bring my laptop over with the projector and speakers and we'd have a movie night and a sleepover. They would just let me sleep in their house with them. They're lovely people. Then we'd wake up and have breakfast and go to Sala.
And it all went as planned, without a hitch. We all had a lovely time at the pools, played some soccer (duh), ate lunch their, and just relaxed for awhile. I have a good amount of video from this amazing occasion, and I am planning on making it into a video, in honor of Brandon and my uncle Eric, for making this whole thing possible. then we came home and ordered a couple pizzas (and yes, a "couple" pizzas is enough for 15 teenage guys, because, you should know that the Mexican extra grande really is what it says. It's this massive, I could comfortably fit like four of my laptops in it. Since I also do the garbage run here, I always know when people had pizza, cause not only do I find the boxes in the garbage cans, I can't get them out. They're so large they get stuck in the huge garbage cans. You have to fold them like 18 times just to fit them in. Anywhoozle...then we rearranged their living room to accommodate for all of us watching a couple movies together. Just a flawless day. All the kids had a blast, as you will be able to tell from the video. Hahaha...oh man, the pools were great. They were over the moon about being there all afternoon.
And that is what went on this summer. I left the next day...and it's all Washington from there on. I'll save that for another post. Kinda move on chronologically, until we get to the present. I have this big list next to me of things to put up here on my blog...but I have breakfast dish duty tomorrow (ugh), so I gotta hit the hay now. Did I get lucky or what, two weeks ago, I had breakfast dishes. Then this past week, Kevin asked me if I'd do his dinner dishes for him, and he'd pay me $10 for the whole week. And, since I haven't had a single peso in the past three weeks, I agreed. Apparently my money got stolen by the office in San Clemente. They thought it was for them, and cashed the check...who knows why, it freaking says my name on it! I love being without money, it's been great. Actually, in all seriousness, it's been a real learning process, cause I've really had to rely on God's blessing, and it's been amazing to see all the food that's found its way into my trailer despite not being able to buy any. All the random places it's come from, it's just been cool to see God helping me out like this, and well...I hope my money that the San Clemente office stole was put to good use hahahaha. Gaaaaaaah.
Whatever. I'm so over it.
I'll be working on writing up this list of stuff I have right here this next week and weekend. I'm not going away.
P.S. Again, an extra huge thanks to Brandon and uncle Eric for providing the funds to make that day possible, and just really let the kids go out and have a blast! Thanks again! There's a pool party waiting for you in Heaven, I'm sure.
Let it all out, get it all out, rip it out, remove it,
Don't be alarmed when the wound begins to bleed.
We're so scared to find out, what this life's all about, so scared we're going to lose it,
Not knowing all along, that's exactly what we need.
You said I know that this will hurt,
But if I don't break your heart, and things will just get worse.
When the burden seems to much to bear,
Remember, the end will justify the pain it took to get us there.
And I'll let it be known, times I have shown, signs of all my weakness, but somewhere in me, There is strength.
You promised me, that you believe, in time I will defeat this, cause somewhere in me,
There is strength.
And today I'll trust you with the confidence of a man who's never known defeat, but I'll try my Best to just forget that that man isn't me.
But tomorrow, upon hearing what I did, I will stare at you in disbelief.
Oh, inconsistent me, crying out for consistency
Reach out to me, make my heart brand new, every beat will be for You. And You know,
You know you touched my life, when You touched my heavy heart and made it light.
Let It All Out
Relient K
Sunday, May 17, 2009
BEDAITMOM
Yes yes, I can see it now:
"You didn't finish BEDA! You were so closed but then you FAILED!"
"You haven't posted anything in three weeks!!"
Yes, it's true, BEDA kicked my bed towards the end of the month. I had a big trip to go on, and blogging got pushed right to the back burner. I went to Tijuana the last week of April, and the first week of May. So, to finish up BEDAITMOM (Blog Every Day April In The Month Of May), I'm just going to give one big wrap up of our time in Tijuana and the following days/week.
So on Sunday, Kevin and I loaded (and I mean loaded) up a mission van, and headed out for Tijuana. A little back story, FFHM owns/runs a college dorm-type house, called the TJ House. It's not necessarily a dorm, but a place for kids to stay in TJ while going to college at the nearby universities. Kids who grow up at the mission here are given the chance to go to college tuition free, as long as they stay at the TJ House. Staying at the TJ House is also free. Right now, I believe there are something like 13 kids there, and 13 college-age kids need computers to do their homework. So that's where we came in.
We loaded our van with anything and everything we could think of...coming back to Vicente Guerrero to get a piece of hardware was not an option. Even if we didn't need it, we brought it. And yes, we came back with a lot of it, but it was still nice to have with us cause a lot of it did come in handy. We took monitors, computers, loads of RAM, a million old hard drives, optical drives, cables up the yin yang, and other miscellaneous items for building a server and re-building computers.
We got there late Sunday night after making a stop in Ensenada for a lunch. We listened to Jim Gaffigan and Brian Regan all the way up, and I'm surprised I didn't get in an accident from laughing so hard. Geniuses I tell you, geniuses!
Monday morning...our alarm did not go off, and we woke up at 1pm. Great way to start off a work week. Also, great way to show the TJ House parents that we're serious about our job and getting their computers done. We got up and ate, set up a new internet router so we cold have the Internet in our room so as to build the computers faster. My job was to build 6 computers from the ground up.
First, we gathered all the computers that still worked and would continue to work for years (hopefully), set them up in our room, and took them apart. I checked their specs - RAM, processor, hard drive, optical drives, and network cards - and replaced anything that needed changed, mainly just RAM and hard drives. Hardware-speaking, it was simple, just putting it all in, that's the easy part. It's getting to software to run with the operating system that is the real trick. It gets really difficult
when you're running 5 or 6 year old computers, where almost every part in them was originally in another machine. It's like dumpster-diving gone geeky. Anywhoozle, so the three largest time-stealers were:
1) Windows Update. All the computers were running XP, and when you're installing a 7 year old operating system as new, there are like million updates. Or, more like between 40 and 45, depending on the system. It was usually a mid-300 MB download process for most of the computers, and when you've got 5 computers running that on an already slow connection...that takes FOREVER! It did give us a little break, having to wait for that. Got to know the kids there, played some basketball, and of course, soccer as well.
Actually, the first night, three of the kids asked me if I wanted to go play soccer at the college with them. I was in immediately. We ended up not being able to play cause the field was already taken by other teams, but it was a blast to watch. And walking around Tijuana was just beautiful - at least that part of Tijuana. Great area of town.
And, continuing on...
2) The second time-consumer was getting all the drivers for the all the different hardware types we were running in each machine. Each little thing needs its own driver to talk to the operating system with, and starting from a fresh copy of XP, we had a lot of drivers to get. Thankfully, Kevin uses this wonderful site called DriverAgent (I don't mean to plug it...but it seriously is a life saver every day down here. It scans your computer via the browser, and in a matter of just a few seconds, tells you all the drivers you're missing, and gives you the file to update them. Amazing stuff.) So, that too had a long download time, and then installing the drivers and making sure they worked correctly. That site saved our lives.
And 3) User variations. There are 18 people living in that house: 2 house parents, their two kids (amazing boys), the cook (even more amazing! She whipped us up an entire plateful of the best quesadillas ever on her way out the door), and then the 13 kids. 18 people. 18 accounts. 18 passwords. On 6 separate computers. And then, inside EACH of the 18 user on EACH of the 6 computers, we had to connect them to 3 network drives, 3 network printers, get both Firefox and IE8 up and running, all the Office programs, 3 different messengers, and loads of other little things. And even all that doesn't include the 12 programs that we install right after the updates. Order of install: Operating system, Windows updates, DriverAgent, list of programs for ALL users (Firefox, VNC, Nero, DaemonTools, WinRAR, VLC, you name it), then all the users are created, next their passwords, THEN all the individual user configurations like printers and drives and stuff. The real reason for this is because of a little program we use: DeepFreeze. DeepFreeze is well...mostly self-explanatory. We build the system from the ground up, set all the users and their programs just how they need (or just how we want, depending on who it is haha), essentially get the computer to the point where there is nothing else to do. No pop ups when you open a program, when you log on, and no Windows notifications, just a simple, perfect computer. Then, we freeze it. After it's frozen, nothing can be changed. When the computer shuts down, it deletes any changes made during use. It shuts down after half an hour of inactivity. Reboots fresh as new every time. That way, no viruses, no spyware, no goofy hackers messing with the system, it's just clean, clean, clean. All the registry files created during use, I don't know, anything you do almost always creates random files here and there, log files, that kind of thing. It just gets rid of all that and keeps the system how it should be. The reason we had to get it all right the first time is because once you freeze them, it's not fun a fun process having to unfreeze them to change little things.
Now, you may be wondering, what's the point of having a computer if it's just going to delete everything you do when you sign off??? That's a valid question. I have a valid answer, in the form of...network drives. One of those time-hogging tasks was connecting each user to their own specific network drives. A network drive exists on a server, hosting the network and acts as the portal for the Internet that each computer runs. When you do something, find something, create something, and want to save it, you save it to the network drive on the server, that way when the computer restarts, it wipes the cache, you get on the next time and your file is waiting for you on the server. It's that simple. So now, any one of the 18 kids there can use any of the 6 different computers, cause they're all identical and any file of theirs that they want, they can get by grabbing it off the server. It doesn't matter if someone is using a computer you used last time to do homework, cause you can get on the one next to them and have the same access to the same files. Kevin worked wonders with that.
Now, you may be asking, well, what the heck, where did that fancy server come from??? That is all thanks to Kevin. The mastermind. He started building a brand new server from the scratch on Monday...then Wednesday discovered he did something wrong and had to start all over again. By the next Tuesday night, he had the server up and running, coded it from nothing to awesomeness. And not just the server for the internet, he also had all the 18 separate network drives, an Internet log-in service for each user, and a timed-use program for the Internet. I didn't understand the half of it, but I do know it was incredible. The guy blows my mind. Servers are not things you build on your lunch break. No, no, you take a lunch break from building a server. In fact, you take many. And if you work with us, you take many, many, many, food breaks. We like food a lot. And working within inches of the pantry was not a particularly grand idea, but telling us to eat whatever was also not well-thought out. I'm sure they're wondering what happened to the three boxes of doughnuts Sean brought down.
So.................yeah. Wow. That was a ton of tech talk. And to finish off the tech talk, in a nice nerdy fashion, we worked nights, rather than days. Got up late, stayed up late, to the likes of 5am, 6am. And all was still, not a sound in the house...not even a mouse...besides the jaws of and Kevin and Tobin....
Also made great friends with a lot of the kids at the TJ House, love em all. Israel is one of the sons of the house parents, and he's seriously like the cutest little boy you'll ever see. I have a picture of him below. I think he's like 11 or 12 or something. But seriously, just listening to him talk makes me want to hug him forever. Cutest voice, totally soccer baller (I predict pro by 19, or less), and yeah, just is hilarious. All you have to do is stare at him for a few seconds, and he'll give you a big smile. I do that to other kids, and their parents want me removed.
The day after we got there was that fateful day where that wretched "swine flu" went public. I feel terrible just acknowledging it, saying it's name. Anyone who's anyone knows it never existed. Mexico's entire economy was sent to the ground because of this "swine flu" thing, even though I have yet to see it. The resorts of Mexico, you know, the big names, Cabo, Mazatlan, those people, had empty hotel after empty hotel after empty casino and so on. Thousands upon thousands of people out of jobs. All because somebody decided to put a fancy new name on some non-existent disease. Does anyone know the total number of deaths caused by "swine flu"? Anyone? I for sure don't, but I do know it was veeeeery few. Not to take away from the families of those people or anything, but the common cold kills more than 36,000 people a year...and we brush that aside, hence the name. Duh! But no, new name disease on the block, better freak out! The chances of even contracting swine flu by coming in contact with someone who already had it was something like less than 1in 10, AND after that, the odds that it would kill you were astronomical. It was crazy. All the while, Egypt proceeded to kill ALL 300,000 of it's pig poulation. yes, that was the correct number of 0s. 300,000. Can you imagine how much bacon we just lost??? That's despicable! Essentially, if you haven't gotten my point of how I feel about this, here it is, all summed up in one website:
www.DoIHaveSwineFlu.org
That's that. Anywho, where I was going with that was that Monday morning, the Mexican government (and by government, I mean president) canceled school all across the country. For something like a week and a half, two weeks. It was crazy. So, the kids at the TJ House were off school the entire time we were there. It was wonderful! But also not so much, because a lot of the kids went back home because they were off school. Thankfully, a small group stayed behind, remained at the TJ House for their time off, and we all had a blast. Couldn't have asked for a better group of kids to hang out with for a week.
Manuel is my basketball partner, I think he was 21 or something. We had a lot of long range competitions. He's got the strangest shooting technique, but hey, he made a lot of shots. Whatever works for him! He was really cool. He didn't know a spot of English, I was low on my Spanish, so we got along great.
Ezekiel, I didn't get to know too well. We went to church together on Sunday morning, sat down in front-ish. He was really cool. Spoke english pretty well, but he was quite funny.
Jorge is the resident geek/hacker...but hacker in the good way. There is one computer science major there in the bad-hacker category, but Jorge is not him. Jorge is this amazing 22 year old geek who hacks just for the fun of it. He'll get through Kevin's system and just look around and not do anything. The other hacker will get in the system and reset the router, provide wireless for the rest of the students, log messenger conversations, and change all sorts of stuff. But not Jorge. He would hang out with us while we worked and talk, trying to get any sort of info out of us so he could hack it when we left. Who knows if he's succeeded yet, but no worries, he won't do anything. Just a great guy. Loved him. And he spoke English fluently, so it was wonderful. Deborah, Jorge, and I are going to be buddy buddies this summer on college break.
And then there are Isabriana and Angelina, two of the older students. I didn't really get to know them that well, but we had some good laughs. That's the best part...just cause you can't communicate ALL that well, you can still laugh and have an amazing time. And we sure did. Walked to globos, got tacos (which I will never forgot, because ever since that day, they've made fun of me for one thing...pronouncing a Spanish word correctly! Why?? Why do I deserve that?? Come on!
And lastly, but not least, my CSI/basketball/Phineas&Ferb/Wendy Wu/whistling buddy, Anali. I got to know her the best because well, she had perfect English and likes to whistle. And if you don't know me, whistling is my second life...well, maybe third, after juggling. Anywho, yeah, we had some good whistling concerts going. Watched plenty of CSI and Phineas and Ferb, great shows. The latter, more so than the former. Gotta love the Disney kid's shows. Anywho, yeah, we're great friends now. She's great, has a good sense of English humor.
In other news, I had ordered a video camera a couple weeks ago and was waiting the arrival of it on the truck. the thing is, the truck drives from San Clemente, CA, to Tijuana every day. It brings down donations and mail and stuff, loads it in the truck at the TJ House, then every Friday, heads down to the orphanage. My camera was scheduled to come while we were up there, and I'm buddy buddy with Sean the Truck Driver, so he called me and told me he had my package at the warehouse in San Clemente, unpacked it, and stuck it in his back pack so it would go to me, and not be put on the truck headed for the mission. I did in fact get it, and it's wonderful. I'm just learning the art of video editing now. I've got a few different programs, still figuring out which one I like best, which one goes best with the camera, which resolution to film in, and which resolution to render and export the film in. It's a lot more work than I thought...goodness.
And, lastly for tonight, a story from my inbox. Thursday morning, I got this email from a Senior Print Project Manager for Honda Motorcycles...a wonderful guy named Steve. I had no clue who he was, I just knew he was well...important is what it seemed like. Lives in LA, and is a hardcore off-road dirt-biker. Probably other things too, but he sent me a link with some pics, looked like a total blast. Anywhoozle, he sent me a message saying that he read my blog (NO WAY?!?!?! People read my blog!!) and that he was looking for a local restaurant (and a very good one at that). He's a Christian, and just a really cool guy (as far as knowing people through 10 emails goes). Said we'd go get tacos when he was here, which is amazing, cause I DON'T HAVE ANYONE TO GO WITH!! Everyone left. I'm the only one under like 25 or something. I don't know. Speaking of everyone leaving, I just thought of another story.
Last night, Kevin, Heidi, and I went over to Andrea's and Ricardo's for a Settlers of Catan board game party...which ended up being a 5 hour game. We got back around midnight, and we parked the single's car where it always goes - as far away from my trailer as possible. So, naturally, to get to my trailer, I walk by a ton of trailers. I was in need of a fork to eat my Top Ramen with, so I thought of a great plan. My friend Kelcie just left a couple weeks ago, so as I walked by her trailer, I decided I would just jack on of her forks since she was gone now. I opened the door (not so quietly, especially for midnight) and walked in. Heidi started yelling at me, "Tobin, what are you doing!? Someone lives there!" I, in the know of course, politely tell her that it's empty, cause Kelcie left. And then Kevin joins Heidi...so I stop and walk out and they inform me that someone had just moved in that afternoon, someone named Candis. Oooooops. And, even better, I was on Gmail today, and this message from Kevin pops up: "...So, you really freaked out Candis last night."
Hahahaha...oh man, she is going to hate my guts for a long time. Someone barging in on her while she's sleeping at midnight. Heck, if someone did that to me I'd...wait...well, that can't happen, cause I have yet to be asleep before midnight. BUT! This morning, Fernando and the House 6 parents' kid randomly came up in the computer room and woke me up at 11:30. On a Saturday. Really??? Uuuuuugh. So I mumbled and grumbled at them and pretended I was sleeping still until they left. They asked me about my computer sitting below me, about my shoes, clearly confused about how I was feeling about talking at this moment.
And, well, I think that is just about it for now. I'm still working on the whole video side of things. I've got footage - some good, some not - it's just the editing is quite the process. No promises of when, but I'm still working on it. Any recommendations for anything? Want to see anything about life here at the mission? Tacos? Church? Sala? Meals? My house? Garbage run? I don't know, any suggestions? Now's the time!
Speaking of time, it's time for bed.
Goodnight to all, and to all a buenas noches (doesn't quite have the same ring to it).
My cute little buddy, Israel.
No explanation needed. Oh, the wonders Digg discovers.
"You didn't finish BEDA! You were so closed but then you FAILED!"
"You haven't posted anything in three weeks!!"
Yes, it's true, BEDA kicked my bed towards the end of the month. I had a big trip to go on, and blogging got pushed right to the back burner. I went to Tijuana the last week of April, and the first week of May. So, to finish up BEDAITMOM (Blog Every Day April In The Month Of May), I'm just going to give one big wrap up of our time in Tijuana and the following days/week.
So on Sunday, Kevin and I loaded (and I mean loaded) up a mission van, and headed out for Tijuana. A little back story, FFHM owns/runs a college dorm-type house, called the TJ House. It's not necessarily a dorm, but a place for kids to stay in TJ while going to college at the nearby universities. Kids who grow up at the mission here are given the chance to go to college tuition free, as long as they stay at the TJ House. Staying at the TJ House is also free. Right now, I believe there are something like 13 kids there, and 13 college-age kids need computers to do their homework. So that's where we came in.
We loaded our van with anything and everything we could think of...coming back to Vicente Guerrero to get a piece of hardware was not an option. Even if we didn't need it, we brought it. And yes, we came back with a lot of it, but it was still nice to have with us cause a lot of it did come in handy. We took monitors, computers, loads of RAM, a million old hard drives, optical drives, cables up the yin yang, and other miscellaneous items for building a server and re-building computers.
We got there late Sunday night after making a stop in Ensenada for a lunch. We listened to Jim Gaffigan and Brian Regan all the way up, and I'm surprised I didn't get in an accident from laughing so hard. Geniuses I tell you, geniuses!
Monday morning...our alarm did not go off, and we woke up at 1pm. Great way to start off a work week. Also, great way to show the TJ House parents that we're serious about our job and getting their computers done. We got up and ate, set up a new internet router so we cold have the Internet in our room so as to build the computers faster. My job was to build 6 computers from the ground up.
First, we gathered all the computers that still worked and would continue to work for years (hopefully), set them up in our room, and took them apart. I checked their specs - RAM, processor, hard drive, optical drives, and network cards - and replaced anything that needed changed, mainly just RAM and hard drives. Hardware-speaking, it was simple, just putting it all in, that's the easy part. It's getting to software to run with the operating system that is the real trick. It gets really difficult
when you're running 5 or 6 year old computers, where almost every part in them was originally in another machine. It's like dumpster-diving gone geeky. Anywhoozle, so the three largest time-stealers were:
1) Windows Update. All the computers were running XP, and when you're installing a 7 year old operating system as new, there are like million updates. Or, more like between 40 and 45, depending on the system. It was usually a mid-300 MB download process for most of the computers, and when you've got 5 computers running that on an already slow connection...that takes FOREVER! It did give us a little break, having to wait for that. Got to know the kids there, played some basketball, and of course, soccer as well.
Actually, the first night, three of the kids asked me if I wanted to go play soccer at the college with them. I was in immediately. We ended up not being able to play cause the field was already taken by other teams, but it was a blast to watch. And walking around Tijuana was just beautiful - at least that part of Tijuana. Great area of town.
And, continuing on...
2) The second time-consumer was getting all the drivers for the all the different hardware types we were running in each machine. Each little thing needs its own driver to talk to the operating system with, and starting from a fresh copy of XP, we had a lot of drivers to get. Thankfully, Kevin uses this wonderful site called DriverAgent (I don't mean to plug it...but it seriously is a life saver every day down here. It scans your computer via the browser, and in a matter of just a few seconds, tells you all the drivers you're missing, and gives you the file to update them. Amazing stuff.) So, that too had a long download time, and then installing the drivers and making sure they worked correctly. That site saved our lives.
And 3) User variations. There are 18 people living in that house: 2 house parents, their two kids (amazing boys), the cook (even more amazing! She whipped us up an entire plateful of the best quesadillas ever on her way out the door), and then the 13 kids. 18 people. 18 accounts. 18 passwords. On 6 separate computers. And then, inside EACH of the 18 user on EACH of the 6 computers, we had to connect them to 3 network drives, 3 network printers, get both Firefox and IE8 up and running, all the Office programs, 3 different messengers, and loads of other little things. And even all that doesn't include the 12 programs that we install right after the updates. Order of install: Operating system, Windows updates, DriverAgent, list of programs for ALL users (Firefox, VNC, Nero, DaemonTools, WinRAR, VLC, you name it), then all the users are created, next their passwords, THEN all the individual user configurations like printers and drives and stuff. The real reason for this is because of a little program we use: DeepFreeze. DeepFreeze is well...mostly self-explanatory. We build the system from the ground up, set all the users and their programs just how they need (or just how we want, depending on who it is haha), essentially get the computer to the point where there is nothing else to do. No pop ups when you open a program, when you log on, and no Windows notifications, just a simple, perfect computer. Then, we freeze it. After it's frozen, nothing can be changed. When the computer shuts down, it deletes any changes made during use. It shuts down after half an hour of inactivity. Reboots fresh as new every time. That way, no viruses, no spyware, no goofy hackers messing with the system, it's just clean, clean, clean. All the registry files created during use, I don't know, anything you do almost always creates random files here and there, log files, that kind of thing. It just gets rid of all that and keeps the system how it should be. The reason we had to get it all right the first time is because once you freeze them, it's not fun a fun process having to unfreeze them to change little things.
Now, you may be wondering, what's the point of having a computer if it's just going to delete everything you do when you sign off??? That's a valid question. I have a valid answer, in the form of...network drives. One of those time-hogging tasks was connecting each user to their own specific network drives. A network drive exists on a server, hosting the network and acts as the portal for the Internet that each computer runs. When you do something, find something, create something, and want to save it, you save it to the network drive on the server, that way when the computer restarts, it wipes the cache, you get on the next time and your file is waiting for you on the server. It's that simple. So now, any one of the 18 kids there can use any of the 6 different computers, cause they're all identical and any file of theirs that they want, they can get by grabbing it off the server. It doesn't matter if someone is using a computer you used last time to do homework, cause you can get on the one next to them and have the same access to the same files. Kevin worked wonders with that.
Now, you may be asking, well, what the heck, where did that fancy server come from??? That is all thanks to Kevin. The mastermind. He started building a brand new server from the scratch on Monday...then Wednesday discovered he did something wrong and had to start all over again. By the next Tuesday night, he had the server up and running, coded it from nothing to awesomeness. And not just the server for the internet, he also had all the 18 separate network drives, an Internet log-in service for each user, and a timed-use program for the Internet. I didn't understand the half of it, but I do know it was incredible. The guy blows my mind. Servers are not things you build on your lunch break. No, no, you take a lunch break from building a server. In fact, you take many. And if you work with us, you take many, many, many, food breaks. We like food a lot. And working within inches of the pantry was not a particularly grand idea, but telling us to eat whatever was also not well-thought out. I'm sure they're wondering what happened to the three boxes of doughnuts Sean brought down.
So.................yeah. Wow. That was a ton of tech talk. And to finish off the tech talk, in a nice nerdy fashion, we worked nights, rather than days. Got up late, stayed up late, to the likes of 5am, 6am. And all was still, not a sound in the house...not even a mouse...besides the jaws of and Kevin and Tobin....
Also made great friends with a lot of the kids at the TJ House, love em all. Israel is one of the sons of the house parents, and he's seriously like the cutest little boy you'll ever see. I have a picture of him below. I think he's like 11 or 12 or something. But seriously, just listening to him talk makes me want to hug him forever. Cutest voice, totally soccer baller (I predict pro by 19, or less), and yeah, just is hilarious. All you have to do is stare at him for a few seconds, and he'll give you a big smile. I do that to other kids, and their parents want me removed.
The day after we got there was that fateful day where that wretched "swine flu" went public. I feel terrible just acknowledging it, saying it's name. Anyone who's anyone knows it never existed. Mexico's entire economy was sent to the ground because of this "swine flu" thing, even though I have yet to see it. The resorts of Mexico, you know, the big names, Cabo, Mazatlan, those people, had empty hotel after empty hotel after empty casino and so on. Thousands upon thousands of people out of jobs. All because somebody decided to put a fancy new name on some non-existent disease. Does anyone know the total number of deaths caused by "swine flu"? Anyone? I for sure don't, but I do know it was veeeeery few. Not to take away from the families of those people or anything, but the common cold kills more than 36,000 people a year...and we brush that aside, hence the name. Duh! But no, new name disease on the block, better freak out! The chances of even contracting swine flu by coming in contact with someone who already had it was something like less than 1in 10, AND after that, the odds that it would kill you were astronomical. It was crazy. All the while, Egypt proceeded to kill ALL 300,000 of it's pig poulation. yes, that was the correct number of 0s. 300,000. Can you imagine how much bacon we just lost??? That's despicable! Essentially, if you haven't gotten my point of how I feel about this, here it is, all summed up in one website:
www.DoIHaveSwineFlu.org
That's that. Anywho, where I was going with that was that Monday morning, the Mexican government (and by government, I mean president) canceled school all across the country. For something like a week and a half, two weeks. It was crazy. So, the kids at the TJ House were off school the entire time we were there. It was wonderful! But also not so much, because a lot of the kids went back home because they were off school. Thankfully, a small group stayed behind, remained at the TJ House for their time off, and we all had a blast. Couldn't have asked for a better group of kids to hang out with for a week.
Manuel is my basketball partner, I think he was 21 or something. We had a lot of long range competitions. He's got the strangest shooting technique, but hey, he made a lot of shots. Whatever works for him! He was really cool. He didn't know a spot of English, I was low on my Spanish, so we got along great.
Ezekiel, I didn't get to know too well. We went to church together on Sunday morning, sat down in front-ish. He was really cool. Spoke english pretty well, but he was quite funny.
Jorge is the resident geek/hacker...but hacker in the good way. There is one computer science major there in the bad-hacker category, but Jorge is not him. Jorge is this amazing 22 year old geek who hacks just for the fun of it. He'll get through Kevin's system and just look around and not do anything. The other hacker will get in the system and reset the router, provide wireless for the rest of the students, log messenger conversations, and change all sorts of stuff. But not Jorge. He would hang out with us while we worked and talk, trying to get any sort of info out of us so he could hack it when we left. Who knows if he's succeeded yet, but no worries, he won't do anything. Just a great guy. Loved him. And he spoke English fluently, so it was wonderful. Deborah, Jorge, and I are going to be buddy buddies this summer on college break.
And then there are Isabriana and Angelina, two of the older students. I didn't really get to know them that well, but we had some good laughs. That's the best part...just cause you can't communicate ALL that well, you can still laugh and have an amazing time. And we sure did. Walked to globos, got tacos (which I will never forgot, because ever since that day, they've made fun of me for one thing...pronouncing a Spanish word correctly! Why?? Why do I deserve that?? Come on!
And lastly, but not least, my CSI/basketball/Phineas&Ferb/Wendy Wu/whistling buddy, Anali. I got to know her the best because well, she had perfect English and likes to whistle. And if you don't know me, whistling is my second life...well, maybe third, after juggling. Anywho, yeah, we had some good whistling concerts going. Watched plenty of CSI and Phineas and Ferb, great shows. The latter, more so than the former. Gotta love the Disney kid's shows. Anywho, yeah, we're great friends now. She's great, has a good sense of English humor.
In other news, I had ordered a video camera a couple weeks ago and was waiting the arrival of it on the truck. the thing is, the truck drives from San Clemente, CA, to Tijuana every day. It brings down donations and mail and stuff, loads it in the truck at the TJ House, then every Friday, heads down to the orphanage. My camera was scheduled to come while we were up there, and I'm buddy buddy with Sean the Truck Driver, so he called me and told me he had my package at the warehouse in San Clemente, unpacked it, and stuck it in his back pack so it would go to me, and not be put on the truck headed for the mission. I did in fact get it, and it's wonderful. I'm just learning the art of video editing now. I've got a few different programs, still figuring out which one I like best, which one goes best with the camera, which resolution to film in, and which resolution to render and export the film in. It's a lot more work than I thought...goodness.
And, lastly for tonight, a story from my inbox. Thursday morning, I got this email from a Senior Print Project Manager for Honda Motorcycles...a wonderful guy named Steve. I had no clue who he was, I just knew he was well...important is what it seemed like. Lives in LA, and is a hardcore off-road dirt-biker. Probably other things too, but he sent me a link with some pics, looked like a total blast. Anywhoozle, he sent me a message saying that he read my blog (NO WAY?!?!?! People read my blog!!) and that he was looking for a local restaurant (and a very good one at that). He's a Christian, and just a really cool guy (as far as knowing people through 10 emails goes). Said we'd go get tacos when he was here, which is amazing, cause I DON'T HAVE ANYONE TO GO WITH!! Everyone left. I'm the only one under like 25 or something. I don't know. Speaking of everyone leaving, I just thought of another story.
Last night, Kevin, Heidi, and I went over to Andrea's and Ricardo's for a Settlers of Catan board game party...which ended up being a 5 hour game. We got back around midnight, and we parked the single's car where it always goes - as far away from my trailer as possible. So, naturally, to get to my trailer, I walk by a ton of trailers. I was in need of a fork to eat my Top Ramen with, so I thought of a great plan. My friend Kelcie just left a couple weeks ago, so as I walked by her trailer, I decided I would just jack on of her forks since she was gone now. I opened the door (not so quietly, especially for midnight) and walked in. Heidi started yelling at me, "Tobin, what are you doing!? Someone lives there!" I, in the know of course, politely tell her that it's empty, cause Kelcie left. And then Kevin joins Heidi...so I stop and walk out and they inform me that someone had just moved in that afternoon, someone named Candis. Oooooops. And, even better, I was on Gmail today, and this message from Kevin pops up: "...So, you really freaked out Candis last night."
Hahahaha...oh man, she is going to hate my guts for a long time. Someone barging in on her while she's sleeping at midnight. Heck, if someone did that to me I'd...wait...well, that can't happen, cause I have yet to be asleep before midnight. BUT! This morning, Fernando and the House 6 parents' kid randomly came up in the computer room and woke me up at 11:30. On a Saturday. Really??? Uuuuuugh. So I mumbled and grumbled at them and pretended I was sleeping still until they left. They asked me about my computer sitting below me, about my shoes, clearly confused about how I was feeling about talking at this moment.
And, well, I think that is just about it for now. I'm still working on the whole video side of things. I've got footage - some good, some not - it's just the editing is quite the process. No promises of when, but I'm still working on it. Any recommendations for anything? Want to see anything about life here at the mission? Tacos? Church? Sala? Meals? My house? Garbage run? I don't know, any suggestions? Now's the time!
Speaking of time, it's time for bed.
Goodnight to all, and to all a buenas noches (doesn't quite have the same ring to it).
My cute little buddy, Israel.
No explanation needed. Oh, the wonders Digg discovers.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
BEDA - April 23rd
Since today, Thursday, is one of those days where I don't have a single thing to say, I'll share this YouTube video with you. Yes, I know, it's YouTube, blah, blah, blah. But this one is rather intriguing. More so than the rest of YT's greatest hits.
First things, first. Yes, the song, in itself, is not my type of music. Far from it. Actually, I don't really like the song at all. But, as you watch it, you'll know it's not really about how good the music is. It's about how the music was written.
Ever heard of the Fibonacci Sequence?? It's a mathematical term, describing the sequence of a certain set of numbers. It's hard to explain, so I'll let the video do the talking.
Yes, it's a long video...but you'll soon realize that's intentional...and really, within the first minute, I was hooked. You'll enjoy it. Just stick it out, and learn a little something. As opposed to all other days....
First things, first. Yes, the song, in itself, is not my type of music. Far from it. Actually, I don't really like the song at all. But, as you watch it, you'll know it's not really about how good the music is. It's about how the music was written.
Ever heard of the Fibonacci Sequence?? It's a mathematical term, describing the sequence of a certain set of numbers. It's hard to explain, so I'll let the video do the talking.
Yes, it's a long video...but you'll soon realize that's intentional...and really, within the first minute, I was hooked. You'll enjoy it. Just stick it out, and learn a little something. As opposed to all other days....
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
BEDA - April 22nd
One thing about playing soccer in Mexico is...you have two explanations to choose from. And only two. And it has to be one of them.
1) They ask you to play with them because they think you're good, see some hope in you, and think you're on the way to playing soccer like a Mexican.
2) They ask you to play with them because they see that you're no good, play like an American, and they only want you to play so they can display just how much better they are, have someone on the other team they can demolish with their eyes closed, and know that you will just be fun to have around, cause they can do whatever and not have to worry about what you're doing and where you are. You're American. You don't play soccer. Especially like a Mexican.
Hello Wednesday: Day of getting pwned by Mexicans. Even the old ones. But only in the second half. The first half, we held our own quite well.
So, after work every Mon/Tue/Thurs/Fri, the Casa 7 boys, some college-aged kids from town, and I play soccer for a few hours. Whether it's on the grass or the basketball court depends on the weather, who is there, where the goals were left from the previous day, and what mood we're in. Grass is more slow paced but a lot more running. A trot. Concrete is uber-fast paced, but less running. A sprint.
Last night, after soccer, two of the college kids came up to me and asked me if I wanted to play soccer with them at this big get-together in Las Cardenas (half an hour south) after church tomorrow night. Heck freaking yes. I was in immediately...and slightly flattered they'd even asked me to play with them, considering how I usually play around them. Anywho, so they said to meet them at Globitos (the mom and pop store down the street), and we'd drive down together. Also included was this little disclaimer: "We don't know if you're even allowed to play cause...well, you don't really look like us at all, but if they ask, just say you're Canadian. We don't want any fights breaking out." Hahaha...that's reassuring. Makes me want to go soooo bad! No, really, I still really wanted to go. My chance to show that not all Americans don't love soccer as much as them.
My neighbor, Edgardo, ended up coming as well, so that was awesome. Sadly, he won't be my neighbor anymore cause he's getting married on Saturday. Sad life. For me, not him. I'll miss him. He was great. But anywho, back to soccer. So my neighbor, the two guy guys who originally asked me, and one other guy (who we picked up on the way) headed out for Las Cardenas.
When we arrived, I noticed that the Mexicans have a very unique, clever way of playing soccer. Fast paced, small teams, high scoring. They take a normal soccer field (normal being dirt), split it in half (where the center line is), and put the goals on the sides of the field (where the teams usually sit). So you've now got two separate fields, with goals on the sides, and a shorter, but still wide, field. It's almost the perfect little field. Throw in some grass, maybe some line judges, and a couple real goals, and you've got yourself the perfect field. But then again...I'm getting more used to the dirt (and I happen to like more than our Pothole-ville, which happens to be adjacent to Break-Your-Ankleton. Yeah...as much as I like our "grass" field, it really screws with your footwork and the general flow of the game. Dirt it is. Nice, flat, fast-paced dirt. 'Twas a blast.
We started off great, went down 1-nil. Then quickly came back and tied at 1 all. Then we scored again, up 2-1. They came back with the equalizer shortly after. 2 all. We scored yet again, which they followed up again soon after. That was the first half. Second half, again, started off on the right foot...then they scored. And again. And again. 6-3. We got worked in the second half. They worked us harder than Donald Trump works his hair every morning...EVEN on those occasional bad hair days. Or, in his case, every day.
Overall, the whole thing was a learning process. Experiencing playing with college kids and older men, instead of my usual Jr. high/high school friends. It's good to get out a little and play with men who will seriously push you around, and bruise you, and create ball imprints on your thighs. That's always fun. Battle wounds. Like I need anymore of those...
In other news, I have come to believe that though this billboard statement made be statistically true, at least the first one, the second one is not quite so true. There are definitely other ways besides the American way...just depends on what you're going for. I'm led to believe, at least for me, a more fulfilling lifestyle is lived outside those 50 grand states of ours. And for the time being, I'm finding that right here.
1) They ask you to play with them because they think you're good, see some hope in you, and think you're on the way to playing soccer like a Mexican.
2) They ask you to play with them because they see that you're no good, play like an American, and they only want you to play so they can display just how much better they are, have someone on the other team they can demolish with their eyes closed, and know that you will just be fun to have around, cause they can do whatever and not have to worry about what you're doing and where you are. You're American. You don't play soccer. Especially like a Mexican.
Hello Wednesday: Day of getting pwned by Mexicans. Even the old ones. But only in the second half. The first half, we held our own quite well.
So, after work every Mon/Tue/Thurs/Fri, the Casa 7 boys, some college-aged kids from town, and I play soccer for a few hours. Whether it's on the grass or the basketball court depends on the weather, who is there, where the goals were left from the previous day, and what mood we're in. Grass is more slow paced but a lot more running. A trot. Concrete is uber-fast paced, but less running. A sprint.
Last night, after soccer, two of the college kids came up to me and asked me if I wanted to play soccer with them at this big get-together in Las Cardenas (half an hour south) after church tomorrow night. Heck freaking yes. I was in immediately...and slightly flattered they'd even asked me to play with them, considering how I usually play around them. Anywho, so they said to meet them at Globitos (the mom and pop store down the street), and we'd drive down together. Also included was this little disclaimer: "We don't know if you're even allowed to play cause...well, you don't really look like us at all, but if they ask, just say you're Canadian. We don't want any fights breaking out." Hahaha...that's reassuring. Makes me want to go soooo bad! No, really, I still really wanted to go. My chance to show that not all Americans don't love soccer as much as them.
My neighbor, Edgardo, ended up coming as well, so that was awesome. Sadly, he won't be my neighbor anymore cause he's getting married on Saturday. Sad life. For me, not him. I'll miss him. He was great. But anywho, back to soccer. So my neighbor, the two guy guys who originally asked me, and one other guy (who we picked up on the way) headed out for Las Cardenas.
When we arrived, I noticed that the Mexicans have a very unique, clever way of playing soccer. Fast paced, small teams, high scoring. They take a normal soccer field (normal being dirt), split it in half (where the center line is), and put the goals on the sides of the field (where the teams usually sit). So you've now got two separate fields, with goals on the sides, and a shorter, but still wide, field. It's almost the perfect little field. Throw in some grass, maybe some line judges, and a couple real goals, and you've got yourself the perfect field. But then again...I'm getting more used to the dirt (and I happen to like more than our Pothole-ville, which happens to be adjacent to Break-Your-Ankleton. Yeah...as much as I like our "grass" field, it really screws with your footwork and the general flow of the game. Dirt it is. Nice, flat, fast-paced dirt. 'Twas a blast.
We started off great, went down 1-nil. Then quickly came back and tied at 1 all. Then we scored again, up 2-1. They came back with the equalizer shortly after. 2 all. We scored yet again, which they followed up again soon after. That was the first half. Second half, again, started off on the right foot...then they scored. And again. And again. 6-3. We got worked in the second half. They worked us harder than Donald Trump works his hair every morning...EVEN on those occasional bad hair days. Or, in his case, every day.
Overall, the whole thing was a learning process. Experiencing playing with college kids and older men, instead of my usual Jr. high/high school friends. It's good to get out a little and play with men who will seriously push you around, and bruise you, and create ball imprints on your thighs. That's always fun. Battle wounds. Like I need anymore of those...
In other news, I have come to believe that though this billboard statement made be statistically true, at least the first one, the second one is not quite so true. There are definitely other ways besides the American way...just depends on what you're going for. I'm led to believe, at least for me, a more fulfilling lifestyle is lived outside those 50 grand states of ours. And for the time being, I'm finding that right here.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
BEDA - April 21st
Yesterday, walllofweird posted a video about typing your name into Urban Dictionary and seeing what you come up as. So I thought I'd give it a try, cause Urban dictionary is quite entertaining.
Tobin
1) A cool and talented person.
2) An extremely slow person. Describes someone who does something clueless or irrational, especially of high school age. (origin: Tobin Learning Center for mentally deficient students)
3) To be lazy, slow, sometimes anti-social, or not wanting to do anything but sleep, eat, and drink.
4) To have your face rubbed by a fat guy's bum hole.
To be honest...oddly enough, Deborah, this is one of those times where I wish I was a 1. Heck, the higher I go, the suckier my life gets. I'd much rather be doing the 4 than getting the 4.
I'm just going to have to gain some weight. And a lot of it.
I stood on a scale today for the first time in 6 months. 160 baby. I want the days of 130 back....waaaaahhhhh
Tobin
1) A cool and talented person.
2) An extremely slow person. Describes someone who does something clueless or irrational, especially of high school age. (origin: Tobin Learning Center for mentally deficient students)
3) To be lazy, slow, sometimes anti-social, or not wanting to do anything but sleep, eat, and drink.
4) To have your face rubbed by a fat guy's bum hole.
To be honest...oddly enough, Deborah, this is one of those times where I wish I was a 1. Heck, the higher I go, the suckier my life gets. I'd much rather be doing the 4 than getting the 4.
I'm just going to have to gain some weight. And a lot of it.
I stood on a scale today for the first time in 6 months. 160 baby. I want the days of 130 back....waaaaahhhhh
Monday, April 20, 2009
BEDA - April 20th
Good day to you, Monday, nice to see you.
This morning, the garbage run was actually quite a blast, cause Jorge got out of bed this morning and came with me. I love that kid, he cracks me up. His theory, for me at least, is that I actually don't understand, nor speak, any Spanish. So when he talks to me, he mixes around using Spanish words and English words, together in the same sentence. And on top of that, he won't conjugate any of the Spanish verbs into their correct conjugation. He'll just use the infinitive form of each verb. Like, when talking to me, instead of saying estas, he'll just use estar for everything. And to be honest, I can understand a lot of Spanish, and him doing that only makes it harder for me to understand. I've got to pick out which words are English, which are Spanish, and change the conjugations in my head of the words he's using, back into their infinitive version for it to make sense. It's all just a big hassle, but it's fine I guess, cause it really makes for an amusing sounding sentence. IN other garbage run news, it was 90 degrees when we did it, and yes, I stuck to my seat over and over and over again. It was nasty. Then my back would start sticking, and I couldn't get out. Just a lovely day altogether. Sooooooo bloody hot though. Man.
But, since it was so nice and warm, after work, we got to play soccer on the real field, instead of the concrete. We had a blast out there. I scored two goals, one of which made Salvador slip and fall in the mud. That was my personal favorite. We haven't played out in the real field since like...Oh... I don't know, before Christmas? I think? Something like that. The grass is always fun to play in...except for when they forget to cut it. It was really long grass, made it quite hard do dribble through, but whatever, it's grass, and that was exciting. Yeah, that was really all that happened on Monday. Well...anything of importance, or worth telling. Unless you want to hear about my.
P.S. I'm loving the VEDA part of this, cause some people are so amazing at making vlogs everyday, or are just so amazing in general that they should be making vlogs everyday no matter what month it is. Particularly, nerimon and walllofwierd.
They're the best of the best.
Congratulations to @imgonnabeatree for 4/20! You're ridiculous.
<3
This morning, the garbage run was actually quite a blast, cause Jorge got out of bed this morning and came with me. I love that kid, he cracks me up. His theory, for me at least, is that I actually don't understand, nor speak, any Spanish. So when he talks to me, he mixes around using Spanish words and English words, together in the same sentence. And on top of that, he won't conjugate any of the Spanish verbs into their correct conjugation. He'll just use the infinitive form of each verb. Like, when talking to me, instead of saying estas, he'll just use estar for everything. And to be honest, I can understand a lot of Spanish, and him doing that only makes it harder for me to understand. I've got to pick out which words are English, which are Spanish, and change the conjugations in my head of the words he's using, back into their infinitive version for it to make sense. It's all just a big hassle, but it's fine I guess, cause it really makes for an amusing sounding sentence. IN other garbage run news, it was 90 degrees when we did it, and yes, I stuck to my seat over and over and over again. It was nasty. Then my back would start sticking, and I couldn't get out. Just a lovely day altogether. Sooooooo bloody hot though. Man.
But, since it was so nice and warm, after work, we got to play soccer on the real field, instead of the concrete. We had a blast out there. I scored two goals, one of which made Salvador slip and fall in the mud. That was my personal favorite. We haven't played out in the real field since like...Oh... I don't know, before Christmas? I think? Something like that. The grass is always fun to play in...except for when they forget to cut it. It was really long grass, made it quite hard do dribble through, but whatever, it's grass, and that was exciting. Yeah, that was really all that happened on Monday. Well...anything of importance, or worth telling. Unless you want to hear about my.
P.S. I'm loving the VEDA part of this, cause some people are so amazing at making vlogs everyday, or are just so amazing in general that they should be making vlogs everyday no matter what month it is. Particularly, nerimon and walllofwierd.
They're the best of the best.
Congratulations to @imgonnabeatree for 4/20! You're ridiculous.
<3
Sunday, April 19, 2009
BEDA - April 19th
Today was hooooooooooottttttt. I woke up late...again...like 1-ish. Didn't go outside or even see a ray of sunlight till about 5. I stepped out the door and bam...it was still uber hot. I couldn't believe just how hot it was though, seriously...I walked to my trailer, and it was sooooooooooo hot in there. Then Kelcie came over and we just hung out and talked for awhile. Totally unmotivated to anything whatsoever, least of which would be get up and walk all the way to church. What a chore that turns out to be when it's this hot.
Really...the only news I have for today is something I just thought was funny from yesterday. Cultural thing...growing up at the mission thing...being young thing...I'm not sure. But yesterday, I was walking over to the soccer field, and this girl from Casa 6 stopped and reminded me that I was supposed to show her my family photos. so i stopped, turned around, and retrieved my pictures and computer so I could show her what I had. Not a whole lot of pictures, just a couple of my brothers, and some of my friends. After we'd gone through them all, she explained that "she wanted to ask me something, but didn't know how."
So she's start..."I was wondering, and only if you want to..." and then she start nervously laughing, and stop. And then say she's really nervous. And not finish the question. And then start up again, and then not finish. Again. "I'm too nervous," she'd say. And then I started getting nervous! What could possibly be so big that she was getting nervous just by starting to talk about it?? And she hadn't even gotten to the point yet! So I waited...and waited...and she can jumping back and forth between about to say something, and too nervous to say anything more. Finally...she made me hold up my computer in between us so I couldn't see her while she asked it (finally). Eventually, she said, "I was wondering, and ONLY if you want to, and ONLY if you're fine with it, but it's fine of you don't want to, but I was wondering if you would give me your email address."
I was like....phew!! I thought she'd lit my trailer on fire, or was asking to marry my brother (who she's in love with). Something extreme. But nope...my email. I twas so strange to me to see someone struggle that hard to ask for an email address. I could see if it was like a social security number. Maybe a personal phone number that only the president used. But that struck me as intriguing. At how mainstream and global email is to me, where I readily post my email address on the Internet (look to your right) without a second thought. And down here...it's still a big deal (at least at the mission), cause Internet here at the mission is relatively new, within the past few years at least. Anywho...it was just so funny watching her build it up to that. An email address. I told her, well, I have like 4, which one do you want? That's how bad it's getting haha. Whatevers...I don't really know where I'm going with this. i just thought it was hilarious. And I definitely had a laugh over it. And maybe I'm just looking for anything to blog about. Probably. Sounds like a plan. but TJ next week. that should be a fun-filled week, with video cameras, video updates, and too much time reformatting and fixing computers.
Can't wait!!
Really...the only news I have for today is something I just thought was funny from yesterday. Cultural thing...growing up at the mission thing...being young thing...I'm not sure. But yesterday, I was walking over to the soccer field, and this girl from Casa 6 stopped and reminded me that I was supposed to show her my family photos. so i stopped, turned around, and retrieved my pictures and computer so I could show her what I had. Not a whole lot of pictures, just a couple of my brothers, and some of my friends. After we'd gone through them all, she explained that "she wanted to ask me something, but didn't know how."
So she's start..."I was wondering, and only if you want to..." and then she start nervously laughing, and stop. And then say she's really nervous. And not finish the question. And then start up again, and then not finish. Again. "I'm too nervous," she'd say. And then I started getting nervous! What could possibly be so big that she was getting nervous just by starting to talk about it?? And she hadn't even gotten to the point yet! So I waited...and waited...and she can jumping back and forth between about to say something, and too nervous to say anything more. Finally...she made me hold up my computer in between us so I couldn't see her while she asked it (finally). Eventually, she said, "I was wondering, and ONLY if you want to, and ONLY if you're fine with it, but it's fine of you don't want to, but I was wondering if you would give me your email address."
I was like....phew!! I thought she'd lit my trailer on fire, or was asking to marry my brother (who she's in love with). Something extreme. But nope...my email. I twas so strange to me to see someone struggle that hard to ask for an email address. I could see if it was like a social security number. Maybe a personal phone number that only the president used. But that struck me as intriguing. At how mainstream and global email is to me, where I readily post my email address on the Internet (look to your right) without a second thought. And down here...it's still a big deal (at least at the mission), cause Internet here at the mission is relatively new, within the past few years at least. Anywho...it was just so funny watching her build it up to that. An email address. I told her, well, I have like 4, which one do you want? That's how bad it's getting haha. Whatevers...I don't really know where I'm going with this. i just thought it was hilarious. And I definitely had a laugh over it. And maybe I'm just looking for anything to blog about. Probably. Sounds like a plan. but TJ next week. that should be a fun-filled week, with video cameras, video updates, and too much time reformatting and fixing computers.
Can't wait!!
Saturday, April 18, 2009
BEDA - April 18th
Today, I got up at 2pm...and I have a perfectly good reason for that. So now bashing it. Yesterday, after the soccer tournament, we went to get food, and I'm not sure what the exact time was, but I would say somewhere around 6 or 6:30. It was still plenty light out, and it was still hot. SO I'm going to go with somewhere right around 6-ish. The drive from Ensenada back to Vicente Guerrero is somewhere between a 2 to 2.5 hours drive. Not any more. So let's do the math, shall we??
Estimated Departure time: 6:30
Estimated Trip Duration: 2.5 hours
Estimated Time Arrival: 9:00 PM
Actual Time Arrival: 12:15 AM
Actual Time Arrival Repeated: 12:15 AM WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?!?!?!?!?!?! WHY SO LATE?!?!?!
I'll tell you. First, between Ensenada and Vicente Guerrero, there is this huge mountain range. Which essentially is...in the middle of nowhere. Every once in awhile, you'll see a little village, and occasionally, a bigger town. But up in the mountain part of the 2 hour drive, there's generally nothing. And guess what happened when we were on that part of the road? We broke down. Our big yellow bus full of kids broke down. It was great, stuck on the side of the road, in the pitch blackness of night. All the little younglings (younger than you, Karissa) were utterly freaking out. i was trying to sleep on the way home, so I was comfortably in my seat, and every 20 seconds, a new little kid would come bang on me and try to get me to help fix the bus. Like I know anything about fixing a bus. All the other kids were out on the road trying to wave cars down (which proved highly unsuccessful, considering that after about an hour, not a single car stopped). It was quite amusing though, watching the difference in reactions from the older kids to the younger ones. The older ones were having a blast with it, standing out by the road trying to wave down semis easily going 80 MPH. The bus would shake every time one went by. Who knows why, but for some reason, a little after we'd been sitting there for an hour, a police car drove by, turned around, and talked with our driver for awhile. Of course, in epic Mexican style, all 20 of us kids outside get the policeman in the passenger seat to get out and pose for a picture with everyone in front of his flashing vehicle. To say the least, he did not look excited at all. Apparently that's not part of their job description here. Whatevs. He liked it. Now he's famous. So that policeman called a mechanic and left, so we waited for awhile longer to wait for the mechanic to get there. Finally, he showed up, did a little tinkering with who knows what. It started up, and we followed him back to his shop. Once there, we waited awhile longer while he did what mechanics do best. We got back on the road, and fro there on, stopped every 20 minutes or so. I still have yet to figure out why. We just pulled over for a few minutes, and then started driving again.
Come 12:15 AM we finally parked back at the mission. I don't know where all the time went...but it was a freakishly long drive. And I was sunburned. And tired. And sore. Aaaaand I got a huge cramp right at the end of our last game. It was not pleasant. Iw as so ready to be home. It was just great.
Great day in Ensenada, but I was happy to be home.
Estimated Departure time: 6:30
Estimated Trip Duration: 2.5 hours
Estimated Time Arrival: 9:00 PM
Actual Time Arrival: 12:15 AM
Actual Time Arrival Repeated: 12:15 AM WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?!?!?!?!?!?! WHY SO LATE?!?!?!
I'll tell you. First, between Ensenada and Vicente Guerrero, there is this huge mountain range. Which essentially is...in the middle of nowhere. Every once in awhile, you'll see a little village, and occasionally, a bigger town. But up in the mountain part of the 2 hour drive, there's generally nothing. And guess what happened when we were on that part of the road? We broke down. Our big yellow bus full of kids broke down. It was great, stuck on the side of the road, in the pitch blackness of night. All the little younglings (younger than you, Karissa) were utterly freaking out. i was trying to sleep on the way home, so I was comfortably in my seat, and every 20 seconds, a new little kid would come bang on me and try to get me to help fix the bus. Like I know anything about fixing a bus. All the other kids were out on the road trying to wave cars down (which proved highly unsuccessful, considering that after about an hour, not a single car stopped). It was quite amusing though, watching the difference in reactions from the older kids to the younger ones. The older ones were having a blast with it, standing out by the road trying to wave down semis easily going 80 MPH. The bus would shake every time one went by. Who knows why, but for some reason, a little after we'd been sitting there for an hour, a police car drove by, turned around, and talked with our driver for awhile. Of course, in epic Mexican style, all 20 of us kids outside get the policeman in the passenger seat to get out and pose for a picture with everyone in front of his flashing vehicle. To say the least, he did not look excited at all. Apparently that's not part of their job description here. Whatevs. He liked it. Now he's famous. So that policeman called a mechanic and left, so we waited for awhile longer to wait for the mechanic to get there. Finally, he showed up, did a little tinkering with who knows what. It started up, and we followed him back to his shop. Once there, we waited awhile longer while he did what mechanics do best. We got back on the road, and fro there on, stopped every 20 minutes or so. I still have yet to figure out why. We just pulled over for a few minutes, and then started driving again.
Come 12:15 AM we finally parked back at the mission. I don't know where all the time went...but it was a freakishly long drive. And I was sunburned. And tired. And sore. Aaaaand I got a huge cramp right at the end of our last game. It was not pleasant. Iw as so ready to be home. It was just great.
Great day in Ensenada, but I was happy to be home.
Friday, April 17, 2009
BEDA - April 17th
So today was our big soccer tournament in Ensenada. And boy, what a tournament it was. OK, well, to start off with this update of the tourny, I'm going to give you a backstory, cause well, it demands a backstory. So here goes:
First things first, my first real trip to Mexico was four years ago ("real" meaning I came once with my grandparents when I was 5 for vacation...hardly remember much of it. And also, Mexico for vacation is exponentially different than Mexico for missions trips, which is also exponentially different than Mexico for living.) So, four years ago, I went to Mexico with all my home schooled friends (Eli, Wes, Colby, Brandon) and a group of about 30 or so. We went to this little orphanage north of Ensenada called Miracle Ranch, up in the mountains, and yeah, just really small. Like 30-40 kids I'd say. They get groups there during the summer, and before I was old enough, our church's high school youth would send a group down there during the summer. My oldest brother actually spent a couple months there after he graduated.
Anyways, so we were there for a week, and it was just such an amazing week. They were addicted to soccer, and they were the first real representation of what I've just known for years, and most people do: "Mexicans are just amazing soccer players from the day they're born." I just had that mindset, they're good, I'm not. They're Mexican, I'm American. I really looked up to them. And the kids just really impacted me. I loved them. I got to know this kid named Alberto really well, and he was the king soccer player of the orphanage. We were great friends, and when it came time for us to leave, I was so sad. I was going to miss this kid, and everyone else. And they were happy, despite their living conditions. I was hardly happy in my living conditions, and I had so much. It was ridiculous.
Anywho, so we left, and I went back pretty changed. Couldn't wait for the next summer, when we planned on going back again. Fast forward. The next summer, we get there, and I'm so excited to see Alberto again, I basically run in there, cruise around everyone looking all over for him. No where to be seen. Turns out, he got sent away, to an all-boys orphanage in Tijuana (I was told it had to do with him bringing back pornographic material from school and showing it to the young ones). I was sooooooo upset. But I got over it. All the other kids were still there, and I got to know them really well. A lot of them. They were all just so amazing. We played soccer together ALL THE TIME! These two kids, brothers, played with me every second they could. They were small, like 12 or 13, but they were so good. When I had to leave at the end of the week, obviously, it was heart-breaking. Thinking I'd see them again though, next summer, made it seem a little better. I still didn't want to leave. Those kids really have an impact on anyone who goes in there. But, as fate would have it, sometime after we left, the head guy at the orphanage got involved in some sort of embezzlement or something. He needed money to change the title of the mission, and he got it, but didn't use it on that. So he asked again and didn't use it on that again, and yeah. Big scandal of sorts. I don't really know what went down, that's all just stuff I've heard since it happened. So we didn't go back. Eli's mom, Carol (the leader of our mission groups), didn't want to be involved with that sort of thing, and we didn't feel it be right to go work at an orphanage who's leaders were getting into this kind of stuff. I don't know what it all turned out to be, but we didn't go back. And to this day, still haven't. Also, to get to where I am now, in Vicente Guerrero, you have to drive by Miracle Ranch. It's about half an hour of the highway I take to get here, but I still haven't been able to head out there. After that scandal, it's just kinda had a bad feel about it. But those kids...still loved them to death. They were stuck in my mind forever, as being the first Mexicans I'd met, loved, and missed. When I thought of stylish, mind-blowing Mexican soccer, I thought of them. They were anything and everything I knew of "Mexico." You can understand then how upset I was that I wouldn't be going back there again.
Two Decembers ago, I came here (where I am now, FFHM...three hours south), drove by Miracle Ranch, and fell in love with this place...not so much because of the kids this time, but that's changed now. They're most of the reason I'm staying now. Anywho, so I kinda accepted the fact I'd never see my Miracle Ranch buddies again, and that these kids here are my new Mexican friends, and well, living with them for so long, they've kinda become my Mexicans haha. Before, when I thought of anything Mexican, I immediately thought of them, the Miracle Ranchers. Now it's these people here. But not like it's a bad thing, I've just spent so much more time here. That's why.
Zoom forward to yesterday. The child services/orphanage department of the Mexican government put together this big soccer tournament for all the orphanages in the surrounding areas of Ensensada. We're over two hours away, so you can imagine that can include a lot of orphanages. Before going, I didn't even know what it was I was participating in. All I was told is that there was a soccer tournament on Friday, wanna come? Of course. All I needed to hear was "soccer" and I was in. I just thought it was some random tournament for anyone invited. Not so. We got there, and they told me it was just for orphanage kids and stuff. Orphanage tournament. And boy, there were TONS of kids there. A good 150-200. And, since I didn't know that this was just for orphanages, the fact that Miracle Ranch kids would be there never even so much as hinted at crossing my mind. Also, after being here in Vicente Guerrero so long...sadly, those kids had started to fade from my mind, being replaced by the kids here. I'd figured I'd never seen them again, so I guess I let them fade. But as we were standing in line at the beginning of the tournament, they announced all the teams that were present. I don't know what I heard, maybe my hearing is screwed up, maybe the sound waves were messed up at the position I was standing, or, maybe God made me hear it. I don't know, but somehow, I thought I heard the announcer say Miracle Ranch. And I started freaking out. The thought that they were here first crossed my mind. Orphanages. Soccer. Ensenada. It all made sense. They COULD be here. But I didn't want to just get my hopes up. I immediately went around to all my friends, Spanish speakers, to ask them what he just said. Did he say Miracle Ranch? What did he say a minute ago? Everyone I asked said no. No, he didn't say that. Then what did he say? I don't know. No one knew what he said. But now the thought that they might be here started boiling around in my mind. Could this be true? I started looking around at everyone. I didn't recognize anyone. Also, they'd be three years older, who know what they look like now. The day went on.
We sat around for awhile, watching soccer, waiting for our first game. We were sitting on the stands, watching the game right before ours, and this group of kids came over and waited with us. And I'm watching them, still on the lookout for a familiar face...and I spotted a kid that maybe could be someone I know. Looked familiar enough, even if I had taken into account the fact they'd be three years older. Then again, most Mexicans look alike as it is, trying to imagine how one would look after three years is a little difficult. But I had my eyes on him, watching him all over the place. The leader guy with their group came walking in front of us, and on his way back, I told one of the guys with us to ask him which orphanage he was from. He said Casa de Paz. House of Peace. And that made me sad, not peaceful. I was so set on that kid being from Miracle Ranch. Deep down, I was still kinda set on him being the kid I was looking for, from the orphanage I was looking for, anything. Maybe he got sent away like Alberto, and was now living at Casa de Paz. Maybe...I don't know, anything. I was just thinking up ways that explained how he could be from Miracle Ranch, how I knew him, how I had played soccer with him, how I'd loved him, and how I'd missed him. I watched him as he went back to his group of kids, and I saw this other kid who looked vaguely familiar. Could it be? Still no assurance. And then I saw this kid who finalized it for me. He hadn't changed a bit. Looked exactly the same. I knew it was him. His name was Brandon. And I knew that because at one of the meals three years ago at Miracle Ranch, he had got down on his knees and imitated my friend Colby proposing to one of the girls there. It was the funniest thing. We were talking about it for ages. And when I saw him there at the soccer game, I knew it was him the instant I saw him. I walked over to the group standing there, and asked the leader if he spoke English. He said yes, and I go, "Is this kid's name Brandon?"
.....
"Yes."
And I asked if they were from Miracle Ranch. He said yes. But they'd changed their name to Casa de Paz. It all made sense now. And I pointed out everyone who looked familiar to me, kept seeing more and more now that I knew they were there and he confirmed them all, then told me everyone else that was from there. It was...difficult. My heart was melting. I was shaking. He was just like...who are you, creepo, and why do you know my kids? Not quite, but I'm sure he was thinking it. So I told him my story and how I knew these kids. And he seemed thoroughly unimpressed. Didn't really have anything to say, or ask. Obviously this wasn't as big a deal to him as it was to me. Our conversation ended, and I went back and explained to my group. They were amazed. More so than their group leader guy at least. And guess what?? Who were we poised up against to play first? My Miracle Ranch buddies (we won). After that, one of the kids yelled my name, and came and talked to me for awhile. He spoke English really well, and went through a bunch of names and asked if I remembered them. Esmeralda? Yep. Omar? Yep. And....Alberto...(awwwww). YEP! And yeah, I told him I remembered him, and he said he remembered me as well. It was amazing. Totally unexpected.
I didn't go there with the slightest hint I'd see them. I went to play soccer with my FFHM buddies. But seeing Miracle Ranch there really, basically, made my year. Or, really, made my last three years.
As for the rest of the tournament, we ended up tying for first. But at the same time...placing second. In soccer, points are allotted like so: 3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, 0 points for a loss. Team with the most points at the end wins. We won 3 games, and tied one, giving us 10 points. Turns out, another team ended up with 10 points as well, making the tie for first place. So, when that happens, you go to goal differentials. You're tied on the points scale, so now you duke it out over goals scored. Whoever scored more goals vs. goals scored on them, takes the crown. The other team had a better goal differential - scored more goals/had less goals scored on them. So they took first place. We argued and argued with them to let us play a tiebreaker with them (essentially stopping at our 10-points-a-piece tie, and not go to goal differential. So, saying we're tied at 10 points, and playing a tiebreaking game to decide the winner, instead of the goals). But they wouldn't have any of it. They just wanted to take their crown and leave. Whatever...we were first in our hearts hahaha. Is that a saying? I don't think so. But I just made it one. Is that selfish? Yeah, probably.
Anywhoozles.
That is just about it...I have some pictures of the tournament though, courtesy of Deborah. Thanks a ton! And thanks for coming to watch, and dealing with weirdo fans/moms!
Schoolin' him in his backyard.
My little Oscar.
Juancita and Chew-Chew
I taught them our Summer Breeze game called Stand In A Circle And Try To Get The Ball In The Garbage Can While Juggling With Only Two Touches. I'm pretty proud of that name.
Our team awaiting a kickoff.
Discussing intense strategies of how we can demolish our enemies. After much debate, we decided it would be best to do that by scoring lots of goals. And we did.
My Miracle Ranch buddies and me. And Giovani (orange).
More Miracle Ranch buddies.
Teaching Jorge my game.
First things first, my first real trip to Mexico was four years ago ("real" meaning I came once with my grandparents when I was 5 for vacation...hardly remember much of it. And also, Mexico for vacation is exponentially different than Mexico for missions trips, which is also exponentially different than Mexico for living.) So, four years ago, I went to Mexico with all my home schooled friends (Eli, Wes, Colby, Brandon) and a group of about 30 or so. We went to this little orphanage north of Ensenada called Miracle Ranch, up in the mountains, and yeah, just really small. Like 30-40 kids I'd say. They get groups there during the summer, and before I was old enough, our church's high school youth would send a group down there during the summer. My oldest brother actually spent a couple months there after he graduated.
Anyways, so we were there for a week, and it was just such an amazing week. They were addicted to soccer, and they were the first real representation of what I've just known for years, and most people do: "Mexicans are just amazing soccer players from the day they're born." I just had that mindset, they're good, I'm not. They're Mexican, I'm American. I really looked up to them. And the kids just really impacted me. I loved them. I got to know this kid named Alberto really well, and he was the king soccer player of the orphanage. We were great friends, and when it came time for us to leave, I was so sad. I was going to miss this kid, and everyone else. And they were happy, despite their living conditions. I was hardly happy in my living conditions, and I had so much. It was ridiculous.
Anywho, so we left, and I went back pretty changed. Couldn't wait for the next summer, when we planned on going back again. Fast forward. The next summer, we get there, and I'm so excited to see Alberto again, I basically run in there, cruise around everyone looking all over for him. No where to be seen. Turns out, he got sent away, to an all-boys orphanage in Tijuana (I was told it had to do with him bringing back pornographic material from school and showing it to the young ones). I was sooooooo upset. But I got over it. All the other kids were still there, and I got to know them really well. A lot of them. They were all just so amazing. We played soccer together ALL THE TIME! These two kids, brothers, played with me every second they could. They were small, like 12 or 13, but they were so good. When I had to leave at the end of the week, obviously, it was heart-breaking. Thinking I'd see them again though, next summer, made it seem a little better. I still didn't want to leave. Those kids really have an impact on anyone who goes in there. But, as fate would have it, sometime after we left, the head guy at the orphanage got involved in some sort of embezzlement or something. He needed money to change the title of the mission, and he got it, but didn't use it on that. So he asked again and didn't use it on that again, and yeah. Big scandal of sorts. I don't really know what went down, that's all just stuff I've heard since it happened. So we didn't go back. Eli's mom, Carol (the leader of our mission groups), didn't want to be involved with that sort of thing, and we didn't feel it be right to go work at an orphanage who's leaders were getting into this kind of stuff. I don't know what it all turned out to be, but we didn't go back. And to this day, still haven't. Also, to get to where I am now, in Vicente Guerrero, you have to drive by Miracle Ranch. It's about half an hour of the highway I take to get here, but I still haven't been able to head out there. After that scandal, it's just kinda had a bad feel about it. But those kids...still loved them to death. They were stuck in my mind forever, as being the first Mexicans I'd met, loved, and missed. When I thought of stylish, mind-blowing Mexican soccer, I thought of them. They were anything and everything I knew of "Mexico." You can understand then how upset I was that I wouldn't be going back there again.
Two Decembers ago, I came here (where I am now, FFHM...three hours south), drove by Miracle Ranch, and fell in love with this place...not so much because of the kids this time, but that's changed now. They're most of the reason I'm staying now. Anywho, so I kinda accepted the fact I'd never see my Miracle Ranch buddies again, and that these kids here are my new Mexican friends, and well, living with them for so long, they've kinda become my Mexicans haha. Before, when I thought of anything Mexican, I immediately thought of them, the Miracle Ranchers. Now it's these people here. But not like it's a bad thing, I've just spent so much more time here. That's why.
Zoom forward to yesterday. The child services/orphanage department of the Mexican government put together this big soccer tournament for all the orphanages in the surrounding areas of Ensensada. We're over two hours away, so you can imagine that can include a lot of orphanages. Before going, I didn't even know what it was I was participating in. All I was told is that there was a soccer tournament on Friday, wanna come? Of course. All I needed to hear was "soccer" and I was in. I just thought it was some random tournament for anyone invited. Not so. We got there, and they told me it was just for orphanage kids and stuff. Orphanage tournament. And boy, there were TONS of kids there. A good 150-200. And, since I didn't know that this was just for orphanages, the fact that Miracle Ranch kids would be there never even so much as hinted at crossing my mind. Also, after being here in Vicente Guerrero so long...sadly, those kids had started to fade from my mind, being replaced by the kids here. I'd figured I'd never seen them again, so I guess I let them fade. But as we were standing in line at the beginning of the tournament, they announced all the teams that were present. I don't know what I heard, maybe my hearing is screwed up, maybe the sound waves were messed up at the position I was standing, or, maybe God made me hear it. I don't know, but somehow, I thought I heard the announcer say Miracle Ranch. And I started freaking out. The thought that they were here first crossed my mind. Orphanages. Soccer. Ensenada. It all made sense. They COULD be here. But I didn't want to just get my hopes up. I immediately went around to all my friends, Spanish speakers, to ask them what he just said. Did he say Miracle Ranch? What did he say a minute ago? Everyone I asked said no. No, he didn't say that. Then what did he say? I don't know. No one knew what he said. But now the thought that they might be here started boiling around in my mind. Could this be true? I started looking around at everyone. I didn't recognize anyone. Also, they'd be three years older, who know what they look like now. The day went on.
We sat around for awhile, watching soccer, waiting for our first game. We were sitting on the stands, watching the game right before ours, and this group of kids came over and waited with us. And I'm watching them, still on the lookout for a familiar face...and I spotted a kid that maybe could be someone I know. Looked familiar enough, even if I had taken into account the fact they'd be three years older. Then again, most Mexicans look alike as it is, trying to imagine how one would look after three years is a little difficult. But I had my eyes on him, watching him all over the place. The leader guy with their group came walking in front of us, and on his way back, I told one of the guys with us to ask him which orphanage he was from. He said Casa de Paz. House of Peace. And that made me sad, not peaceful. I was so set on that kid being from Miracle Ranch. Deep down, I was still kinda set on him being the kid I was looking for, from the orphanage I was looking for, anything. Maybe he got sent away like Alberto, and was now living at Casa de Paz. Maybe...I don't know, anything. I was just thinking up ways that explained how he could be from Miracle Ranch, how I knew him, how I had played soccer with him, how I'd loved him, and how I'd missed him. I watched him as he went back to his group of kids, and I saw this other kid who looked vaguely familiar. Could it be? Still no assurance. And then I saw this kid who finalized it for me. He hadn't changed a bit. Looked exactly the same. I knew it was him. His name was Brandon. And I knew that because at one of the meals three years ago at Miracle Ranch, he had got down on his knees and imitated my friend Colby proposing to one of the girls there. It was the funniest thing. We were talking about it for ages. And when I saw him there at the soccer game, I knew it was him the instant I saw him. I walked over to the group standing there, and asked the leader if he spoke English. He said yes, and I go, "Is this kid's name Brandon?"
.....
"Yes."
And I asked if they were from Miracle Ranch. He said yes. But they'd changed their name to Casa de Paz. It all made sense now. And I pointed out everyone who looked familiar to me, kept seeing more and more now that I knew they were there and he confirmed them all, then told me everyone else that was from there. It was...difficult. My heart was melting. I was shaking. He was just like...who are you, creepo, and why do you know my kids? Not quite, but I'm sure he was thinking it. So I told him my story and how I knew these kids. And he seemed thoroughly unimpressed. Didn't really have anything to say, or ask. Obviously this wasn't as big a deal to him as it was to me. Our conversation ended, and I went back and explained to my group. They were amazed. More so than their group leader guy at least. And guess what?? Who were we poised up against to play first? My Miracle Ranch buddies (we won). After that, one of the kids yelled my name, and came and talked to me for awhile. He spoke English really well, and went through a bunch of names and asked if I remembered them. Esmeralda? Yep. Omar? Yep. And....Alberto...(awwwww). YEP! And yeah, I told him I remembered him, and he said he remembered me as well. It was amazing. Totally unexpected.
I didn't go there with the slightest hint I'd see them. I went to play soccer with my FFHM buddies. But seeing Miracle Ranch there really, basically, made my year. Or, really, made my last three years.
As for the rest of the tournament, we ended up tying for first. But at the same time...placing second. In soccer, points are allotted like so: 3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, 0 points for a loss. Team with the most points at the end wins. We won 3 games, and tied one, giving us 10 points. Turns out, another team ended up with 10 points as well, making the tie for first place. So, when that happens, you go to goal differentials. You're tied on the points scale, so now you duke it out over goals scored. Whoever scored more goals vs. goals scored on them, takes the crown. The other team had a better goal differential - scored more goals/had less goals scored on them. So they took first place. We argued and argued with them to let us play a tiebreaker with them (essentially stopping at our 10-points-a-piece tie, and not go to goal differential. So, saying we're tied at 10 points, and playing a tiebreaking game to decide the winner, instead of the goals). But they wouldn't have any of it. They just wanted to take their crown and leave. Whatever...we were first in our hearts hahaha. Is that a saying? I don't think so. But I just made it one. Is that selfish? Yeah, probably.
Anywhoozles.
That is just about it...I have some pictures of the tournament though, courtesy of Deborah. Thanks a ton! And thanks for coming to watch, and dealing with weirdo fans/moms!
Schoolin' him in his backyard.
My little Oscar.
Juancita and Chew-Chew
I taught them our Summer Breeze game called Stand In A Circle And Try To Get The Ball In The Garbage Can While Juggling With Only Two Touches. I'm pretty proud of that name.
Our team awaiting a kickoff.
Discussing intense strategies of how we can demolish our enemies. After much debate, we decided it would be best to do that by scoring lots of goals. And we did.
My Miracle Ranch buddies and me. And Giovani (orange).
More Miracle Ranch buddies.
Teaching Jorge my game.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
BEDA - April 16th
Ahhh, hello Thursday.
Quite a relaxing day overall.
Kevin got back late last night, so we weren't really in the mood for jumping right back into the everyday work schedule. I worked for awhile on cleaning up my hard drive. I'm still running Windows 7 Ultimate on Kevin's 160 GB hard drive, while my 250GB drive sits unused...oh, poor Vista. But, I've had Kevin's drive too long, I'm running dangerously low on drive space, and I'll be getting my camera this week (and HD video takes up quite a bit of hard drive space). I spent most of the morning cleaning it, got all my files/videos/pictures off it, and now it's ready for formatting. Then, I have to Ghost my current drive (Ghosting is basically taking the exact configuration of my hard drive, copying it, and then putting it on a new hard drive). In short, taking everything I have on Kevin's drive and putting it on my drive, so I can give his drive back to him. Pretty extreme process though...cause last time I checked, copying 158GB of data takes a LONG TIME! I don't look forward to that. but it must be done. And I've heard rumors of Ghost corrupting the files, which makes me uncomfortable. I have a very VERY customized computer, I'm scared it won't turn out exactly the way I have it now. Scary stuff. Also kinda wrong that that's the most worrying thing of my week haha. Uh oh. Well, I guess that will be the end of my hard drive update. Save all you non-nerds from leaving right away.
The rest of the day, Kevin and I discussed everything from old school PC games to...new school PC games. Our conclusions? SimCity 2000. Most epic old school game. And then I really missed paying that, cause that was like THE GAME of my generation. I remember the day my dad brought that home for us. Totally surprised us. What was that, like 1997? 1998? We were addicted. that game was a revelation. There was nothing else like it at the time, so futuristic. I miss the days of 50 MB games that loaded in a minute and didn't require CD keys and serial numbers. You just loaded the CD, clicked install, and it did as it was told. You were playing in a matter of a couple minutes. Now you've got 4, 5, even 8 GB games that take hours to load, require four CD keys, and then once it starts installing, it lets you know that you need a new computer to run the game. Ahhh, thanks hi-tech.
So later that night, I (quickly) downloaded and installed SimCity 2000. I swore to myself that I'd write my blog and play the piano before I started playing the game. I went back to my trailer to eat first...then...played SimCity for four hours. So much for the blog and piano idea. Once I started playing, I couldn't stop. Oh how I missed that game. It's so simple and sleek. The most important thing though is that even to this day, it's still an amazing game. In the midst of Crysis and Half Life and Portal and Battlefield, SimCity 2000 is still owning. Not to mention Total Annihilation. Still, as always, my all-time most favorite game. I remember the day my cousin showed that to me at his house. He was working for Cavedog at the time (the company producing that game), and was discussing the system requirements for the game. From what it looked like, our current computer couldn't handle the game. Which made me sad. And my cousin convinced my dad that it wasn't deadly and violent, cause it's just robots blowing up robots. Nothing else. And man, watching him play that game made me want it so bad. Back in when it was first released, it was the 1997 Game of the Year (whoever gave it that is smart). That Christmas, my cousin surprised us with a big box under our tree. What was it? Total Annihilation? Almost. It was total Annihilation AND not one, but two expansion packs. We played that for years. Even up through high school, we'd still pull it out every once in awhile and go through little spurts of Total Annihilation. So, of course, I'm downloading that right now. I need a fix of Total Annihilation. It's been awhile.
To end my Thursday, I played soccer for quite awhile, cause tomorrow, I am going up to Ensenada to play in a soccer tournament. Should be a blast. Soccer always is. And with Mexicans? No doubt. Hopefully we'll come back with a trophy.
It's time to go eat now though, so I'll leave you with this uber nerdy, slightly PC game-saturated update. Until tomorrow!
Thobinator
Quite a relaxing day overall.
Kevin got back late last night, so we weren't really in the mood for jumping right back into the everyday work schedule. I worked for awhile on cleaning up my hard drive. I'm still running Windows 7 Ultimate on Kevin's 160 GB hard drive, while my 250GB drive sits unused...oh, poor Vista. But, I've had Kevin's drive too long, I'm running dangerously low on drive space, and I'll be getting my camera this week (and HD video takes up quite a bit of hard drive space). I spent most of the morning cleaning it, got all my files/videos/pictures off it, and now it's ready for formatting. Then, I have to Ghost my current drive (Ghosting is basically taking the exact configuration of my hard drive, copying it, and then putting it on a new hard drive). In short, taking everything I have on Kevin's drive and putting it on my drive, so I can give his drive back to him. Pretty extreme process though...cause last time I checked, copying 158GB of data takes a LONG TIME! I don't look forward to that. but it must be done. And I've heard rumors of Ghost corrupting the files, which makes me uncomfortable. I have a very VERY customized computer, I'm scared it won't turn out exactly the way I have it now. Scary stuff. Also kinda wrong that that's the most worrying thing of my week haha. Uh oh. Well, I guess that will be the end of my hard drive update. Save all you non-nerds from leaving right away.
The rest of the day, Kevin and I discussed everything from old school PC games to...new school PC games. Our conclusions? SimCity 2000. Most epic old school game. And then I really missed paying that, cause that was like THE GAME of my generation. I remember the day my dad brought that home for us. Totally surprised us. What was that, like 1997? 1998? We were addicted. that game was a revelation. There was nothing else like it at the time, so futuristic. I miss the days of 50 MB games that loaded in a minute and didn't require CD keys and serial numbers. You just loaded the CD, clicked install, and it did as it was told. You were playing in a matter of a couple minutes. Now you've got 4, 5, even 8 GB games that take hours to load, require four CD keys, and then once it starts installing, it lets you know that you need a new computer to run the game. Ahhh, thanks hi-tech.
So later that night, I (quickly) downloaded and installed SimCity 2000. I swore to myself that I'd write my blog and play the piano before I started playing the game. I went back to my trailer to eat first...then...played SimCity for four hours. So much for the blog and piano idea. Once I started playing, I couldn't stop. Oh how I missed that game. It's so simple and sleek. The most important thing though is that even to this day, it's still an amazing game. In the midst of Crysis and Half Life and Portal and Battlefield, SimCity 2000 is still owning. Not to mention Total Annihilation. Still, as always, my all-time most favorite game. I remember the day my cousin showed that to me at his house. He was working for Cavedog at the time (the company producing that game), and was discussing the system requirements for the game. From what it looked like, our current computer couldn't handle the game. Which made me sad. And my cousin convinced my dad that it wasn't deadly and violent, cause it's just robots blowing up robots. Nothing else. And man, watching him play that game made me want it so bad. Back in when it was first released, it was the 1997 Game of the Year (whoever gave it that is smart). That Christmas, my cousin surprised us with a big box under our tree. What was it? Total Annihilation? Almost. It was total Annihilation AND not one, but two expansion packs. We played that for years. Even up through high school, we'd still pull it out every once in awhile and go through little spurts of Total Annihilation. So, of course, I'm downloading that right now. I need a fix of Total Annihilation. It's been awhile.
To end my Thursday, I played soccer for quite awhile, cause tomorrow, I am going up to Ensenada to play in a soccer tournament. Should be a blast. Soccer always is. And with Mexicans? No doubt. Hopefully we'll come back with a trophy.
It's time to go eat now though, so I'll leave you with this uber nerdy, slightly PC game-saturated update. Until tomorrow!
Thobinator
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
BEDA - April 15th
Basically....this is going to be uber darn short.
Today's exciting event was the garbage run. And getting stuck there. First, the House 7 boys have school off this week, so 4 of them came with me. Obviously, a blast. We can see the dump from the mission actually, up on the hill behind us, and all morning, smoke was just billowing out of it like I've never seen. When we got there, they had us drive to the top of the dump...right through the smoke, and right TOWARDS the smoke. Couldn't see a bloody thing going through it. Once we got up there, I backed into position where the guy told me to go, and we all got out to start unloading our garbage.
Then, just like in the movies, this other guy who works there comes out of nowhere, walking through the smoke in some epically dramatic entrance. Walking out of the flames. It was quite cool. But it didn't stay quite cool, cause he was the one that came and told us that we couldn't dump there and that we needed to go back down the hill clear to the other side of the dump. Yeah, whatever, not that far. Except, very far when you've got a huge plume of smoke in your way. We tried for like 20 minutes, there was no way we were getting through. I made a couple attempts, nothing. Couldn't see a foot in front of me. And to add to that, the truck would quickly fill up with un-breathable smoke. Not normal fire smoke. This was a month's worth of trash from an entire city they were burning. Who knows what could've gone in there. Heck, we could've been breathing in a former body, no one knows. That's kind of a nasty thought though..I hope that's not true.
So...we waited...and waited...and waited. Eventually the wind blew the smoke to one side for no more than a couple seconds, giving us enough time to see where the road was, and the truck waiting in front of us gunned it. I had to follow them within a foot or so the whole way down just to see his tail lights. I was hoping he knew where the rest of the road went, cause I couldn't see a darned thing, let alone his own truck. It was pretty epic indeed. Can't say I've seen that amount of concentrated smoke in quite awhile. Maybe 9/11? That might have been the last time...I don't know. It was bad though.
The waiting at the dump was fine though, having the House 7 boys there was well worth it..so entertaining. As always.
Lastly, I've picked out my camera, just need to give my parentals the OK, and it'll be ordered. Hopefully get it before I leave for Tijuana. I really want some awesome footage of Tijuana. To be perfectly honest, I don't think many people are getting any footage of Tijuana these days, what with random beheadings and bodies in barrels of acid. But man, I'd be the star of YouTube if I got some of that on camera.
Not that I'd feel like a total jerk for filming that and putting it on the Internet though...
To end with my Internet findings of the day, here is one witty picture, and one mind-blowing picture, which may just give you a whole new perspective on your life.
Today's exciting event was the garbage run. And getting stuck there. First, the House 7 boys have school off this week, so 4 of them came with me. Obviously, a blast. We can see the dump from the mission actually, up on the hill behind us, and all morning, smoke was just billowing out of it like I've never seen. When we got there, they had us drive to the top of the dump...right through the smoke, and right TOWARDS the smoke. Couldn't see a bloody thing going through it. Once we got up there, I backed into position where the guy told me to go, and we all got out to start unloading our garbage.
Then, just like in the movies, this other guy who works there comes out of nowhere, walking through the smoke in some epically dramatic entrance. Walking out of the flames. It was quite cool. But it didn't stay quite cool, cause he was the one that came and told us that we couldn't dump there and that we needed to go back down the hill clear to the other side of the dump. Yeah, whatever, not that far. Except, very far when you've got a huge plume of smoke in your way. We tried for like 20 minutes, there was no way we were getting through. I made a couple attempts, nothing. Couldn't see a foot in front of me. And to add to that, the truck would quickly fill up with un-breathable smoke. Not normal fire smoke. This was a month's worth of trash from an entire city they were burning. Who knows what could've gone in there. Heck, we could've been breathing in a former body, no one knows. That's kind of a nasty thought though..I hope that's not true.
So...we waited...and waited...and waited. Eventually the wind blew the smoke to one side for no more than a couple seconds, giving us enough time to see where the road was, and the truck waiting in front of us gunned it. I had to follow them within a foot or so the whole way down just to see his tail lights. I was hoping he knew where the rest of the road went, cause I couldn't see a darned thing, let alone his own truck. It was pretty epic indeed. Can't say I've seen that amount of concentrated smoke in quite awhile. Maybe 9/11? That might have been the last time...I don't know. It was bad though.
The waiting at the dump was fine though, having the House 7 boys there was well worth it..so entertaining. As always.
Lastly, I've picked out my camera, just need to give my parentals the OK, and it'll be ordered. Hopefully get it before I leave for Tijuana. I really want some awesome footage of Tijuana. To be perfectly honest, I don't think many people are getting any footage of Tijuana these days, what with random beheadings and bodies in barrels of acid. But man, I'd be the star of YouTube if I got some of that on camera.
Not that I'd feel like a total jerk for filming that and putting it on the Internet though...
To end with my Internet findings of the day, here is one witty picture, and one mind-blowing picture, which may just give you a whole new perspective on your life.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
BEDA - April 14th
Today was a fairly relaxing day. Kevin is still In Tijuana, doing what he does best to those computers up there, preparing for our week of working at the TJ House. I spent the day finishing up the necessary cleaning in our new room. Now we have room to build our computer/soldering work bench, and also the server room. It's actually a fairly large project, which is going to include building four new walls, putting in two windows, a fan on the ceiling of the server room, and other little doo-dahs, little finishing touches that will make it homey. Like...say, the two full size couches. Or, maybe the projector. I mean...umm, tables, tool racks, storage shelves, and other work related things. That's all we have in there, I promise. Work stuff.
Anywho...tomorrow night, Blair, Kelcie, and I went for tacos and good ole Smokey's (yes, that says tomorrow night, that's not a typo. And if that makes sense to you, then you are very precise and observant). And Blair said something about this Mexican guy that he and Warehouse Dave ran into a couple times at the local taco stands., and how he'd be asking them for a taco or two. That part is not necessary to my story. It just made me remember something I had planned on writing up on here, cause I thought it was interesting.
So, this specific guy, is one of those people most would consider a "social outcast" or whatever that has come to mean these days. I first saw this guy in church (ironically enough) as walked by me down the aisle, stopped, turned around, and casually walked back. On his way back, I got a glimpse of him. He had the body of a small teenager. Skinny, short legs, small chest, just a small body over all. He even had that teenager walk down. But as I followed his body up from his feet (I scan people starting at their feet...cause, I don't know about you, but I remember people by their shoes. Not their faces, or clothes. Shoes.) I noticed that he had the face of a rather elderly man. 60s? 70s? I'm not sure. But it didn't match his body. At all. Which is funny, after saying I don't remember people by their faces really but by their shoes. This guy was definitely an exception to that rule (although, I do in fact, remember was wearing brown baggy pants, skater shoes, and a beanie). I have this guys face engraved in my mind for quite awhile. Just that one in a lifetime you don't ever forget.
Anywhoozles...then my natural brain cycles started, the ones that just go without me saying so. I thought, "Awww, poor guy. His life must be so hard just to simply BE like that. I can't even imagine. Does he have friends? Where is his family? Exactly how old is he? Is his age the age of how his body looks? Or how his face looks? How has he made it this far in life (however far that might be), when so much in this life is based off looks and initial appearance. What are the chances that people are just going to walk up to him and simply ask how he is? What are the odds people will go out of their way to get to know him, or even acknowledge he exists? Being a "social outcast," aren't most people going to initially see him and be afraid of approaching him?" And then I noticed I was doing just that...I was totally judging him on his initial appearance, of how he looked to me. I was just as guilty as anyone else who'd ever come in contact with him. I was doing what I, myself, was questioning.
But it kept on going...
I continued thinking, "Wow, I'm so glad I'm not him. I don't know if I could live like that. Thank you God, for making me who I am. I am so thankful for the life I have." It's like one of those things where North Americans go on a missions trip to, say, Mexico, and feel so blessed, and go home and are so thankful for everything they have, because they personally witnessed the conditions others are living in at that very moment. It's kinda the same thing with this man I saw in church. I was so thankful that God showed this man to me, cause it really made me realize the blessings that I have, if only physical blessings. Even though to most of the world, we call it normal. But to this guy, all us "normal" people are so blessed. We don't have to worry about something as basic as looking normal on an everyday basis (unless you look like Ron Weasley...then life is really tough). We get up and walk out the door every morning, without so much as a thought of, "I wonder if people are going to point and stare today?" That's just not in us. Sometimes, it's actually just the opposite. "I wonder people are going to point and stare at this brand new jacket I got, or new shiny shoes, or, heck, and fancy dancy soccer ball? Look at how special it looks on me. I hope people notice." Whereas this guy's probably hoping people skip right over him, and don't take a second glance. Which, really is a low point. If you're going through your day HOPING and PRAYING that not a single person notices you, something is either wrong you, or something is wrong with the way society treats/acts towards you. I claim that it's the latter. This guy, for one is still a guy, and God still created him just as he is. Heck, maybe the point of his life is to help the rest of us with "normal" lives realize what we have, and to not take advantage of it. It's not my place to say, that's up to God. Maybe he's happy with the way he is, which would be the coolest thing in the world. I don't know what's going through his mind, nor will I ever. But I couldn't help thinking about him, and just thanking God for using him to help me realize how blessed I am.
It's like our Day Home here at the mission. Our day home has like 18 or so disabled kids in it. They come here every week day; picked up at home in the morning, they're here throughout the day, then they're brought home at 3:30. It's like they're just another example of this: God using others to show us how blessed we are.
And then I got to thinking.
What if...?? What if...we were being used by God to show others how blessed they were? What if us "normal" people were here for the purpose of showing others just how fortunate they are? What if I was one of God's examples that other people saw and went, "Wow, I'm glad I'm like me and not him. I have a blessed life." How would that make me feel? I'm pretty darn sure that would make me feel vastly inferior. but who am I to say that I'm not? I see other people and realize the blessings I have, why can't others look at me and see how blessed they are? We all here for the purpose of spreading God's glory, what if I'm part of that to show the blessings God's given to others?
Would I act differently if I knew someone was watching me because they were coming to the realization of their blessings? I'm sure I would. If I was the guy walking down the aisle at church, and I stopped, turned around, and stared myself in the eye (which would be creepy in itself), what would I see? Would I see myself sitting in that chair thinking I have life figured out, and then watch as I glanced down at the shoes and slowly progressed up my body? When I saw my face, what would my reaction be? I bet, if anything, I'd notice a change in facial expression as I saw my face on that body.
All I'm wondering is, every single one of us goes through our everyday lives, witnessing and seeing people who, to us, seem like God revealed them to us for the purpose showing himself to us. By using them, we see God, and all that he's done for us. But do we ever think that we can actually be one of those people? Being God's servant, unknowingly? Of course, we're always supposed to be being his servant, but maybe we're not consciously thinking of it. I'm not.
But maybe I will now that I know there is a good possibility someone is watching me, looking at my shoes, and glancing up to see not me, but God, and the blessings he's bestowed upon them in their "abnormal" lives.
Anywho...tomorrow night, Blair, Kelcie, and I went for tacos and good ole Smokey's (yes, that says tomorrow night, that's not a typo. And if that makes sense to you, then you are very precise and observant). And Blair said something about this Mexican guy that he and Warehouse Dave ran into a couple times at the local taco stands., and how he'd be asking them for a taco or two. That part is not necessary to my story. It just made me remember something I had planned on writing up on here, cause I thought it was interesting.
So, this specific guy, is one of those people most would consider a "social outcast" or whatever that has come to mean these days. I first saw this guy in church (ironically enough) as walked by me down the aisle, stopped, turned around, and casually walked back. On his way back, I got a glimpse of him. He had the body of a small teenager. Skinny, short legs, small chest, just a small body over all. He even had that teenager walk down. But as I followed his body up from his feet (I scan people starting at their feet...cause, I don't know about you, but I remember people by their shoes. Not their faces, or clothes. Shoes.) I noticed that he had the face of a rather elderly man. 60s? 70s? I'm not sure. But it didn't match his body. At all. Which is funny, after saying I don't remember people by their faces really but by their shoes. This guy was definitely an exception to that rule (although, I do in fact, remember was wearing brown baggy pants, skater shoes, and a beanie). I have this guys face engraved in my mind for quite awhile. Just that one in a lifetime you don't ever forget.
Anywhoozles...then my natural brain cycles started, the ones that just go without me saying so. I thought, "Awww, poor guy. His life must be so hard just to simply BE like that. I can't even imagine. Does he have friends? Where is his family? Exactly how old is he? Is his age the age of how his body looks? Or how his face looks? How has he made it this far in life (however far that might be), when so much in this life is based off looks and initial appearance. What are the chances that people are just going to walk up to him and simply ask how he is? What are the odds people will go out of their way to get to know him, or even acknowledge he exists? Being a "social outcast," aren't most people going to initially see him and be afraid of approaching him?" And then I noticed I was doing just that...I was totally judging him on his initial appearance, of how he looked to me. I was just as guilty as anyone else who'd ever come in contact with him. I was doing what I, myself, was questioning.
But it kept on going...
I continued thinking, "Wow, I'm so glad I'm not him. I don't know if I could live like that. Thank you God, for making me who I am. I am so thankful for the life I have." It's like one of those things where North Americans go on a missions trip to, say, Mexico, and feel so blessed, and go home and are so thankful for everything they have, because they personally witnessed the conditions others are living in at that very moment. It's kinda the same thing with this man I saw in church. I was so thankful that God showed this man to me, cause it really made me realize the blessings that I have, if only physical blessings. Even though to most of the world, we call it normal. But to this guy, all us "normal" people are so blessed. We don't have to worry about something as basic as looking normal on an everyday basis (unless you look like Ron Weasley...then life is really tough). We get up and walk out the door every morning, without so much as a thought of, "I wonder if people are going to point and stare today?" That's just not in us. Sometimes, it's actually just the opposite. "I wonder people are going to point and stare at this brand new jacket I got, or new shiny shoes, or, heck, and fancy dancy soccer ball? Look at how special it looks on me. I hope people notice." Whereas this guy's probably hoping people skip right over him, and don't take a second glance. Which, really is a low point. If you're going through your day HOPING and PRAYING that not a single person notices you, something is either wrong you, or something is wrong with the way society treats/acts towards you. I claim that it's the latter. This guy, for one is still a guy, and God still created him just as he is. Heck, maybe the point of his life is to help the rest of us with "normal" lives realize what we have, and to not take advantage of it. It's not my place to say, that's up to God. Maybe he's happy with the way he is, which would be the coolest thing in the world. I don't know what's going through his mind, nor will I ever. But I couldn't help thinking about him, and just thanking God for using him to help me realize how blessed I am.
It's like our Day Home here at the mission. Our day home has like 18 or so disabled kids in it. They come here every week day; picked up at home in the morning, they're here throughout the day, then they're brought home at 3:30. It's like they're just another example of this: God using others to show us how blessed we are.
And then I got to thinking.
What if...?? What if...we were being used by God to show others how blessed they were? What if us "normal" people were here for the purpose of showing others just how fortunate they are? What if I was one of God's examples that other people saw and went, "Wow, I'm glad I'm like me and not him. I have a blessed life." How would that make me feel? I'm pretty darn sure that would make me feel vastly inferior. but who am I to say that I'm not? I see other people and realize the blessings I have, why can't others look at me and see how blessed they are? We all here for the purpose of spreading God's glory, what if I'm part of that to show the blessings God's given to others?
Would I act differently if I knew someone was watching me because they were coming to the realization of their blessings? I'm sure I would. If I was the guy walking down the aisle at church, and I stopped, turned around, and stared myself in the eye (which would be creepy in itself), what would I see? Would I see myself sitting in that chair thinking I have life figured out, and then watch as I glanced down at the shoes and slowly progressed up my body? When I saw my face, what would my reaction be? I bet, if anything, I'd notice a change in facial expression as I saw my face on that body.
All I'm wondering is, every single one of us goes through our everyday lives, witnessing and seeing people who, to us, seem like God revealed them to us for the purpose showing himself to us. By using them, we see God, and all that he's done for us. But do we ever think that we can actually be one of those people? Being God's servant, unknowingly? Of course, we're always supposed to be being his servant, but maybe we're not consciously thinking of it. I'm not.
But maybe I will now that I know there is a good possibility someone is watching me, looking at my shoes, and glancing up to see not me, but God, and the blessings he's bestowed upon them in their "abnormal" lives.
Monday, April 13, 2009
BEDA - April 13th
Today, Kevin, my supervisor left for Tijuana. The mission has a "house" there, called the TJ House (Tijuana House), and kids from the orphanage here can go there and attend college in Tijuana. He went up to stay there for three days and check out the computer situation. Then, he's going to come back here on Wednesday and assess what we need to do there, and on the 26th, we're both heading up and staying at the TJ House for a week to do a big renovation project on their computers. Yes, I am fully aware that in 2008, 6000 people were killed in Tijuana alone. But what most people don't know, and that the media don't tell them, is that the vast majority of those deaths have been gang and drug related deaths, hence the "drug war." They're not going after tourists...although, I guess after being here this long, I can hardly call myself a tourist...but they don't know any better by looking at me. Anywho, tourists are at far less risk than citizens, cause well, we're not exactly participating in their drug war, are we? Not so much..unless you still don't know about my side business. In that case, I guess I am at risk. Hmmm...maybe I shouldn't go. No, just kidding. I know there are some of you who will actually believe me if I said that...so no, not true. But anywho, I'm hoping to have my video camera by then...(but probably won't), so I'll try and get some footage if I can. Anywho, I'm pretty excited to go...I haven't been to the TJ House yet, and I hear it's pretty cool. And recently the family living there moved out, and Jorge and Gina (who used to work here) moved up there to take their place. And they're uber cool, as well as their two sons, so I'm looking forward to it. Deborah said there are between 10-20 college age kids staying their at any given time, so what's not to like. So many kids my age. And finally some guys to hang out with! (Hahahah...just kidding Kelcie/Deborah. You know you'd go crazy if you didn't have another girl for 6 months)
Anywho, yep, that's my plan in a couple weeks. This Friday (the 17th), I'm leaving at 6am to go play in a soccer tournament in Ensenada with the House 7 boys and some of our friends from town. I hope we get back in time to get the Friday blog in. I know I'll have lots to say. We're playing in a stadium with grass and everything. Haven't done that since high school, back in the days when we were really good (0-14-2). good thing I brought my cleats though, I'll finally get to really use them for realsies.
Ok, so Saturday, I donwloaded an episode of How Stuff Works, the Discovery channel show that well...explains how things work. This particular episode was was highlighting anatomical models, tortilla chips, spark plugs, jukeboxes. I watched it Sunday afternoon, with a special interest int eh tortilla chips and jukeboxes. Tortilla chips just seemed interesting cause it's food we eat, and it's mass produced on a ridiculous, and they still seem to get every chip perfect (and every bag half filled). I think they must have all their scales programmed wrong or something. "Hey, I know it says "There's a crunch in every bag" on the front, but it really only means "There's half as much crunch as there appears to be," so set this scale to stop filling the bag at "angry customer" instead of "satisfied and returning customer."
That wasn't even the issue though. the tortilla chip segment was actually quite interesting. Learned lots. It's the jukebox I had a huge problem with. In the pre-show example, that little 10 second clip showing what they were looking at in this episode, it showed this wicked sweet mechanical arm going around grabbing CDs and neatly placing them in the optical drive to be read and played. I was getting all pumped up about seeing how this machine works, picking out the user-selected song from it's library of hundred's of CDs, and playing it within like 10 seconds or whatever. That's cool right? Apparently not to the Discovery Channel. It started out like this:
1. Queue the replay of said 10 second clip featuring the CD-based jukebox.
2. Play said clip with voice overlay saying, "this is how jukeboxes used to be."
3. Change clips, and say, "but this is how they work nowadays, in more modern times. We don't have time on this show to explain things that went out of style last week."
4. Start playing video about modern jukeboxes...which, surprise surprise, run on MP3s.
5. This 10 minute clip (yes, they managed to get 10 full minutes of footage out of building a MP3 jukebox) consisted of about 10 modular parts, and lots of screws.
6. Ever want to build your own jukebox? Easy. Just follow the Discovery Channel's example, like this:
7. Start off by making the glass faceplate with that spare window you have sitting out back. And while you're back there, take that pinball machine apart and use that cardboard/plastic as the border to go around your glass window. Screw those together.
8. That old refrigerator that you don't use anymore can be used to house all the components, and you can cut a hole in the top part of it where you'll insert your screen and faceplate. Screw your faceplate into the square hole you cut.
9. Clean out your fridge. If necessary, leave it open for 10 or more days to get that oyster smell out of it. After 12 days, give up. It's not going anywhere. And you knew that.
10. Grab the computer your brother-in-law picked up for you at the dump and use that as your server to hold all your MP3 files. Screw that in on the bottom of your fridge.
11. Those speakers in your living room that your wife specifically said you didn't need and shouldn't buy will work perfectly for audio output. Place them standing upright next to the screen. Screw them in.
12. You're also going to need that old power supply that you stole from office computer right before your boss declared a company-wide computer upgrade. Screw that in.
13. That transformer that you never noticed sitting in your garage when you bought the house from the previous owner is a perfect match for the job. Hook that up between the computer and the power supply, and connect all necessary cables. We know you have them. Finally, screw that in.
14. Do you remember awhile back when you went to borrow a few eggs from your neighbor (after preparing everything for omelets, only to realize you don't have any eggs), discovered he wasn't home, and walked out with his audio mixer from his recording studio? Yes, you told him you didn't have it, and didn't seen anyone go in his house that day, but for the purposes here, there's nothing better. This project calls for that audio mixer, and it can go right beside the power supply. Connect to transformer and computer, again, with the necessary cables we know you've been stocking up. Lastly, screw that in.
15. The brand new router your bought for your son and his family...well, yep, you guessed it, son never saw it, son never got it. Son never knew it, son won't use it. Jukebox....or son.....JUKEBOX! Install that near the top, as to get better reception, and hey, guess what??? Screw that in!!
16. The only other thing we need is a cash machine/bill reader/change machine. Hmmm. Wait! Good thing you saved all those parts from your days of working as a Coke vending-machine repairer. Oh, the days of college. Get that old cash reader out of that machine you have in your garage and install that in the ice dispenser of your fridge. And no, you want your bills whole, not crushed. And you guessed it, SCREW THAT IN!
17. Now, obviously, the only step left is to plug it in. Of course, no worries there, cause if you followed our directions, it will work flawlessly, not a single error. No setup required. Just plug it in, and you've got your jukebox. Start making money!!
This entire episode just made me angry! First, they fool you into thinking you're going to see how these sweet jukeboxes worked back in the 70s and 80s, or, maybe if you're lucky, get to see a CD-based one in action. Nope, on the contrary, for ten whole minutes, you watch this guy grab modular piece after modular piece and screw it in, screw it in, screw it in. The narrator said "screw that in" at least 12 different times. Good thing my knowledge of screwing things in increased so much after watching that, or I'd NEVER be able to build my own jukebox. It wasn't the special power supply, the transformer, the audio mixer, OR the router I was worried about getting and hooking up correctly. It was the screws. Just think of the consequences if I hadn't had a screwdriver nearby!!!!
What a crisis.
Thanks, Discovery, for enlightening me in the ways of screwing in pre-manufactured parts. Now I can practically build a jukebox with my eyes closed! What would I have done without you??
Good thing I already know how to build wireless routers at the 54GHz wavelength, write software to properly run my MP3 server, code my laser-scanning cash reader to accept real money and spit out fake money (or anything with so much as a minute nano-crease on it...and just for kicks, randomly spit out perfectly good money just to piss customers off. And by customers, I mean my wife and kids, and increasingly, myself), solder my own power supply together, and correctly hook it up to the transformer I threw together on my way home from work that effectively distributes the power evenly amongst all the components.
You're a lifesaver, Discovery.
Thanks again!
Yours sincerely,
Screwed Yet Again
Anywho, yep, that's my plan in a couple weeks. This Friday (the 17th), I'm leaving at 6am to go play in a soccer tournament in Ensenada with the House 7 boys and some of our friends from town. I hope we get back in time to get the Friday blog in. I know I'll have lots to say. We're playing in a stadium with grass and everything. Haven't done that since high school, back in the days when we were really good (0-14-2). good thing I brought my cleats though, I'll finally get to really use them for realsies.
Ok, so Saturday, I donwloaded an episode of How Stuff Works, the Discovery channel show that well...explains how things work. This particular episode was was highlighting anatomical models, tortilla chips, spark plugs, jukeboxes. I watched it Sunday afternoon, with a special interest int eh tortilla chips and jukeboxes. Tortilla chips just seemed interesting cause it's food we eat, and it's mass produced on a ridiculous, and they still seem to get every chip perfect (and every bag half filled). I think they must have all their scales programmed wrong or something. "Hey, I know it says "There's a crunch in every bag" on the front, but it really only means "There's half as much crunch as there appears to be," so set this scale to stop filling the bag at "angry customer" instead of "satisfied and returning customer."
That wasn't even the issue though. the tortilla chip segment was actually quite interesting. Learned lots. It's the jukebox I had a huge problem with. In the pre-show example, that little 10 second clip showing what they were looking at in this episode, it showed this wicked sweet mechanical arm going around grabbing CDs and neatly placing them in the optical drive to be read and played. I was getting all pumped up about seeing how this machine works, picking out the user-selected song from it's library of hundred's of CDs, and playing it within like 10 seconds or whatever. That's cool right? Apparently not to the Discovery Channel. It started out like this:
1. Queue the replay of said 10 second clip featuring the CD-based jukebox.
2. Play said clip with voice overlay saying, "this is how jukeboxes used to be."
3. Change clips, and say, "but this is how they work nowadays, in more modern times. We don't have time on this show to explain things that went out of style last week."
4. Start playing video about modern jukeboxes...which, surprise surprise, run on MP3s.
5. This 10 minute clip (yes, they managed to get 10 full minutes of footage out of building a MP3 jukebox) consisted of about 10 modular parts, and lots of screws.
6. Ever want to build your own jukebox? Easy. Just follow the Discovery Channel's example, like this:
7. Start off by making the glass faceplate with that spare window you have sitting out back. And while you're back there, take that pinball machine apart and use that cardboard/plastic as the border to go around your glass window. Screw those together.
8. That old refrigerator that you don't use anymore can be used to house all the components, and you can cut a hole in the top part of it where you'll insert your screen and faceplate. Screw your faceplate into the square hole you cut.
9. Clean out your fridge. If necessary, leave it open for 10 or more days to get that oyster smell out of it. After 12 days, give up. It's not going anywhere. And you knew that.
10. Grab the computer your brother-in-law picked up for you at the dump and use that as your server to hold all your MP3 files. Screw that in on the bottom of your fridge.
11. Those speakers in your living room that your wife specifically said you didn't need and shouldn't buy will work perfectly for audio output. Place them standing upright next to the screen. Screw them in.
12. You're also going to need that old power supply that you stole from office computer right before your boss declared a company-wide computer upgrade. Screw that in.
13. That transformer that you never noticed sitting in your garage when you bought the house from the previous owner is a perfect match for the job. Hook that up between the computer and the power supply, and connect all necessary cables. We know you have them. Finally, screw that in.
14. Do you remember awhile back when you went to borrow a few eggs from your neighbor (after preparing everything for omelets, only to realize you don't have any eggs), discovered he wasn't home, and walked out with his audio mixer from his recording studio? Yes, you told him you didn't have it, and didn't seen anyone go in his house that day, but for the purposes here, there's nothing better. This project calls for that audio mixer, and it can go right beside the power supply. Connect to transformer and computer, again, with the necessary cables we know you've been stocking up. Lastly, screw that in.
15. The brand new router your bought for your son and his family...well, yep, you guessed it, son never saw it, son never got it. Son never knew it, son won't use it. Jukebox....or son.....JUKEBOX! Install that near the top, as to get better reception, and hey, guess what??? Screw that in!!
16. The only other thing we need is a cash machine/bill reader/change machine. Hmmm. Wait! Good thing you saved all those parts from your days of working as a Coke vending-machine repairer. Oh, the days of college. Get that old cash reader out of that machine you have in your garage and install that in the ice dispenser of your fridge. And no, you want your bills whole, not crushed. And you guessed it, SCREW THAT IN!
17. Now, obviously, the only step left is to plug it in. Of course, no worries there, cause if you followed our directions, it will work flawlessly, not a single error. No setup required. Just plug it in, and you've got your jukebox. Start making money!!
This entire episode just made me angry! First, they fool you into thinking you're going to see how these sweet jukeboxes worked back in the 70s and 80s, or, maybe if you're lucky, get to see a CD-based one in action. Nope, on the contrary, for ten whole minutes, you watch this guy grab modular piece after modular piece and screw it in, screw it in, screw it in. The narrator said "screw that in" at least 12 different times. Good thing my knowledge of screwing things in increased so much after watching that, or I'd NEVER be able to build my own jukebox. It wasn't the special power supply, the transformer, the audio mixer, OR the router I was worried about getting and hooking up correctly. It was the screws. Just think of the consequences if I hadn't had a screwdriver nearby!!!!
What a crisis.
Thanks, Discovery, for enlightening me in the ways of screwing in pre-manufactured parts. Now I can practically build a jukebox with my eyes closed! What would I have done without you??
Good thing I already know how to build wireless routers at the 54GHz wavelength, write software to properly run my MP3 server, code my laser-scanning cash reader to accept real money and spit out fake money (or anything with so much as a minute nano-crease on it...and just for kicks, randomly spit out perfectly good money just to piss customers off. And by customers, I mean my wife and kids, and increasingly, myself), solder my own power supply together, and correctly hook it up to the transformer I threw together on my way home from work that effectively distributes the power evenly amongst all the components.
You're a lifesaver, Discovery.
Thanks again!
Yours sincerely,
Screwed Yet Again
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