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
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