As you've probably noticed, this site looks exactly the same. Of course, if you're one of those hoighty-toighty RSS feeders, you can't tell, but rest assured, if you visited the site yesterday and then again today, you'd not notice a difference. That took a lot of work, let me tell you. I was thinking about adding digg, and if digg is successful, possibly ads to my blog. See if I can't make a little money off this wailing wall of words. But first things first: how hard is it to add digg to each post? Turns out it's five lines of code, but, for lack of motivation, I hadn't changed my layout to use the new Blogger API, and digg, at least the code I found, requires use of one of the new features. So, it took me about four hours, but I finally got everything back to the way it was from one of the other sample layouts blogger offers. There is one major difference besides the added digg, and that's that comments are now only displayed on the item pages themselves, which is irritating. Since I hardly ever get comments, to my displeasure, I always liked having them right on the main page. Therefore, I have amounted more evidence that Google is evil.

It appears I've evaded the important topics for two nights, and now, this third night, there's no avoiding them. I've run out of all the other padding. I suppose I could make up an entire boring scenario that has nothing to do with anything and contradicts any number of statements previously written while I wait for good ideas to pool, but then you'd be as frustrated with me as I am with Bleach.

Pandora truncates "Casting Crowns (Holiday)" to "Casting Crow...". My mind extended it to "Casting Crows" and I immediately pictured throwing birds like paper airplanes. And then I saw "Casting Crow" and imagined a sorcerous raven complete with robe and pointy hat.

Oooh! I've thought of two. Take that, actual content! First, my thermostats are all messed up. It's either like 65 degrees or 80 degrees with nothing in the middle. It's rather frustrating. I don't mind the heat, though it keeps guests away and I have to water my cats more often, but I do mind the doubled electricity bill.

Second, during the Microsoft GIVE campaign this year, we were trying to come up with a theme for our group's code names. A lot of people had ideas (I was not among them), and most of them sucked. So, the last day of the campaign, October 30th, we had a contest, and whichever faction donated the most money that day got to choose the theme for future code names. It quickly became a bidding war, and in the end, our small group donated just under $15k, and Microsoft matched all of that. All in a day's work when there are generous people competing over something relatively small. I am proud to be a Microsoft employee, and even more so to be on the SQL Azure team.

As I said in part one of this chain of posts setting the record, the gold standard, if you will, of blogged days in a row, Heaven has been pushed down on the stack of books I'm reading. The top of the stack is a book called Birthright by David Needham. One Sunday after the church service, I went up and talked to the pastor again. He gave me his email address and apologized for not responding to my facebook message. Liked I'd suspected, it just got misplaced somehow. So, I re-emailed him that one question, and three others. He answered the first one by recommending that I read Birthright.

It's amazing how well the prologue of that book fits my experience. Basically he'd lived his spiritual life academically, but didn't really have the joy that seems so abundant in other Christians. So one day in college, he skipped all of his classes, and went out into the wilderness to pray all day. And nothing happened. I've not done that exact same thing, but I can easily imagine a similar situation. I recognize his frustration, and so I got my hopes up.

Chapters one and two were alright, if a little depressing. They covered what it means to be human (versus being an animal) and the nature of the Fall. When I read, I take each bit of information and reevaluate it against what I already know, think, or have learned. With information on a new topic, or fiction, when the world is relatively simple and new, reading is a lot quicker (though still tedious). When it comes to reading about Christianity, it's very slow going, because there's a lot to process. And on top of that, it might pique some dark spot in my knowledge, and cause me to stop and run down a rabbit trail, usually resulting in a question, and ten minutes later, having to reread the paragraph that caused the interruption.

Processing and reevaluating also means, "suppose this is true; now what are its implications?" So then those implications also need to processed and reevaluated. I'm a fan of the depth first traversal, though I frequently experience stack overflow. I just don't have enough heap memory for a breadth first traversal. Ok, that's enough computer science for now. Anyway, I suggest this method of reading when it comes to important topics, and do not when it comes to finishing reading a book before the quiz tomorrow in CP English, because you'll never finish in time.

A bunch of things in chapters one and two didn't feel quite right. They didn't fit into my already-dug "trenches," as the book describes it. For reading it, I've found I had to think of it as completely hypothetical, then evaluate it as a whole when I'm done, to replace whatever trenches I already have if it turns out his thoughts are more right than what I already have, else I'm going to end up chiseling the walls with a butter knife, and that's just not structurally sound.

Chapter three was pivotal. He reiterated what he'd said in the prologue, again bolstering my hope for some crucial secret I'd never been taught, nor figured out on my own.

Actually, the first portion of chapter three was really interesting. He said something that makes complete sense to me (no chiseling required) that I'd never thought of before. He describes salvation as a "screen" (and uses quotes every single time he mentions it as if we'd forgotten in the last two sentences what he was talking about), and when we accept Jesus' gift, death, and forgiveness, God no longer sees us, but sees a screen, displaying Jesus. God sees Jesus' righteousness rather than our sinful nature. Essentially, we're not seen at all. This leads me to ask a question. Didn't Jesus take all of our sin? Doesn't that make him sinful and us holy in the eyes of God? So wouldn't that make that screen of his a sinful one? I think the answer is no, because Jesus was God and so when he descended to hell, he was able to atone for the sins there, and now is holy again. As for seeing us as holy, I think that's what he means by the screen in the first place. Maybe it's more like a super powerful sin vacuum cleaner that pulls the stains off us as soon as we put them there before God gets a chance to see them. Anyway, this is all a little trivial in comparison to the point he was making, and the point I said makes complete sense to me, that the screen is a completely external process. When we accept Christ into our lives, there is no immediate internal change. We are seen as holy, but are still of the flesh, still fallen.

Then he went onto two internal changes that do happen. The second one becomes the primary focus of the book thereafter (I've not read that far yet), but the first one, while seemingly small, is a bridge to the second. This first internal change is this: that we are no longer enemies of God. God is now a father with open arms, and we love him for that. Alas, this is where my hopes crumbled, because that's not my experience. I love God because he is holy and good, and I love good things. But I've never really felt like he was proud of me, or that he cared at an intimate level. He's like a war general that cares about his troops three levels below him, and wants none of them to die. He makes his orders and brilliant stratagems to that affect, and if given the chance to save those soldiers' lives by dying himself, would do it in a heartbeat. But that's not a personal love. That's not the love of a father, and not what Needham describes.

When he was going over this, like many times before, I tried to imagine God as a man with open arms. An overwhelming image appeared in my mind's eye. It was an irrepressible darkness deserving the fear of the Lord. I don't know what to make of that. Something happened, then, a few minutes after I let the image slip. I tried again, and this time (and every time since) it was a blurry image of a figure with open arms, with white-blue light surrounding him. But it was entirely foreign, and not of love, at least that I could recognize. Embracing this figure would be like clasping your hands, then shifting the top hand down one finger. I don't know what to make of that either.

Anyway, I'll keep reading, but once again I've gotten my hopes up and then they were dropped and broken.

Now I've arrived at an age-old philosophical debate, and this one has a known right answer if you're a Christian. I'm just not sure I've seen evidence of this right answer. In fact, this answer caused the reformation and split the church off from Catholicism. Is salvation a free gift? I know that it is not earned. There are any number of arguments against that train of thought. What merit could man possibly bring forth to earn salvation? Further, if he could, potentially, what need of salvation would he have? So, the answer is a resounding 'yes,' salvation is absolutely a free gift.

There's an old word play. Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. Grace is getting what you don't deserve. It is "by grace you have been saved through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9) There's a bit there: "through faith." That faith has to come from somewhere, doesn't it? Is it still a gift if we're required to supply this faith ourselves? This presents a chemical simile. What if faith is like a catalyst. It's not used up, not exchanged, in the process, but still required for the reaction of salvation to occur? Another thought comes to mind. What is faith? Maybe we do have to supply it, but what if it occurs naturally from simply wanting the gift in the first place? I've heard two definitions of faith. One, that faith is "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see," (Hebrews 11:1) and two, that faith is the substance of things hoped for. Those might actually be two ways of saying the same thing. If we take this second definition, then hoping for salvation, and acting on this hope by naming ourselves Christians, produces faith in and of itself. This is what "accepting the gift of salvation" is, so faith isn't irrelevant, but it's not an issue, I don't think.

This topic brushes on the 'how' of being saved. There's a lot of theological debate on this one too. Romans 10:9-10 puts it simply.

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

Justified was a word that Needham talked a lot about in the first half of chapter 3, what spawned his screen idea. I suppose it's ironic, then, that the believing in your heart is what produces the external effects, and confessing with your mouth spurs the internal changes.

It just seems like, though, that with salvation, always comes the need to change our lives. My friend David put it this way, "I usually side on the 'salvation is a gift from God, but that gift should be reason enough to be life-changing' side." However, John (the apostle) goes so far to say to cease sinning. It's a do, not a should. (He doesn't mean completely, I don't think, as that's impossible in our fleshy bodies, but perhaps to get out of the mindset of it's okay.) Paul makes a similar point in Romans 6.

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

See, now I'm confused. We were given this gift in order that we might die? We're now losing our lives for a "free gift." Even Jesus turned people away for various reasons. What about the man in Luke 9 who is hyped up about miracles, but Jesus knows there's more hardship than glamor? What about the wealthy man in Mark 10, when Jesus tells him to give away all his possessions if he wants to follow him? At this point, I believe we're in a paradox. I'm okay with paradoxes. If we're going to argue that it's a completely free gift, and that this isn't a paradox, then God needs to do all the changing of our lives himself. All of it. In my experience, he doesn't. It probably contradicts free will, which he has promised us. The number of times I've prayed for change in my life above and beyond myself -- a total makeover of my life without letting me get involved. It's never happened. The only option left to me is that this is a paradox. What gets me is that we continue to preach that this is a free gift, and it is, and we preach that we need to quit sinning, change our lives, kill our lives, and we never want to point out that these appear to contradict themselves. The sermon on Sunday, for example, was on "the gospel as gift," in a five-week series titled "the gospel as ...". He spent the whole sermon arguing that it is a free gift, much like I just did but with different verses. And in the last five minutes switched to "now what can you give?" Wait, what?

I was going to write a bit about God's love. I'm not sure that I have much to write, though. Wait, that sounds bad. There was a "sermon" given in Bellingham on God's love. It wasn't a sermon, though. That church does things differently (not wrong), and some weeks they have more of a discussion or forum, rather than a formal sermon. (Other weeks they have service projects rather than meeting at the church at all. It's actually a really cool idea. It's not my thing, but it's a really cool idea. I wouldn't mind doing the service projects, but I get the most out of a good speaker and a good worship session. That and service are what build me up the most, and I see church as the place to go to be built up. Really, I think, glorifying God should be what the rest of the week is about, but perhaps that's a different blog post.) Anyway, the pastor got up and said that he could talk for thirteen hours on the topic of God's love, and then he sat down and had everyone else talk. I've just never heard a satisfying sermon on God's love. I'm not certain I've heard any sermons on the topic specifically. It's a rather large topic. I'm not sure what you'd talk about specifically, aside from John 3:16. I find it frustrating. I don't even know what I want in order to be satisfied. Like pornography, I know it when I see it. I say I want something concrete, but what's more concrete than God sending his only Son to die in our place? I say I want something I can directly apply to my life as an action, but any time someone has taken me up on that challenge, I'm not satisfied with their answers (or they give my favorite answer: just give it to Jesus). One time I was told to journal....

I was talking to Courtney last night about Birthright and about my lack of joy. Defining joy has always been a challenge too. It's obviously different from happiness. We're expected to have lasting joy. Happiness is by nature fleeting and circumstantial. I guess that means that joy is not circumstantial, and so must then be based on something permanent, maybe knowledge? I would say faith or hope, but I find both of those fleeting -- hope more than faith. After all, hope crashes and burns due to circumstances, like getting to page 61 in a book. Do joy and disappointment, then, not contradict each other? I go round and round in circles. I get frustrated trying to define joy, trying to decide whether I have it or not. And then I remember it's moot. Whether or not I'm missing joy, I know I am missing something. I feel like Anakin feeling he's being denied some knowledge of the force. So I feel really whiny, and a little bit paranoid. But if this is it, I'm not satisfied, and I refuse to believe that an infinite God is not satisfying.

One thing that always comes to mind is the excitement I see in other Christians. I think I touched on this when I was still hanging out with Paul. (I need to call him again, and grab coffee or something.) They're just so happy about what Jesus has done in their lives. Why am I not? Am I merely ungrateful? If I am, can I change? If I can, is that not just forcing my own happiness? Think happy thoughts! I guess I've been excited once or twice, like after Challenge a few years back. Maybe I just notice when Christians are excited, and I don't notice when that excitement fades or falters.

I know for one thing that I don't feel forgiven. I know that I am as take it at your word knowledge. Isn't that rather core? I don't doubt my salvation, and I don't doubt that I'm forgiven, but why do I still feel guilty all the time? Why can't I forgive myself for things? I would think that if I truly realized the enormity of my situation, my grievances and the mercy and grace given instead of justice -- if I took that all into perfect perspective, maybe I'd be touched deeper down. But I'm pretty thick. It takes a lot to shake me. How can I not take something for granted when I already do? I can think about the cross and the sacrifice, but then I just feel guilty again, which is the cause of this issue in the first place, right?

Like I was saying, I was talking to Courtney. She and I had a rather blunt conversation with straight forward questions. I'm still trying to decide whether it was refreshing or awkward, but whatever. She asked me if I see God's love in my life. And I don't, at least not in the moment. I see God's influence in my past, the brilliance of the General's orders after the battle is over. The biggest example of this is my not getting into Harvey Mudd, and being forced to go to Western, where I roomed with Swood and got involved in CCF and the INN, and ultimately landed my dream job at Microsoft. Had I gotten into Harvey Mudd, I wouldn't have been near my family during the divorce, and I would have taken four years instead of three to graduate. I would have been looking for a job right in the midst of the recession.

She gave me a few examples of how she sees God in her life. Part of it seems to be an assuredness that whatever happens, God is in control. That's probably another thing I take for granted. Other things are like her "wonderful family." To be blunt, I don't have a wonderful family. I love my mom and sister dearly, but we are really broken and dysfunctional. Or she's thankful that she gets to go to college. I'm thankful for the experience -- in hindsight -- but it really was expected of me. It was a stressor, even if it was something I wanted to do, and something during which I was relatively carefree. Maybe this is a bad example, but imagine you're a prince. You want to be king, because you'd be a good king, but you are going to be king, and there's nothing you can do about it. Since the age of five, I was going to college. It was hard for me to count that a blessing, in fact, I never really even considered it.

So is this what joy is? Being content with what you have, and the knowledge that you'll be taken care of one way or another, even if not in this life? That raises an interesting question -- why bother feeling that you'll be taken care of in this life, if you don't know that for sure? This is morbid, and I don't know exactly why I just thought of it, but one time I was feeling especially suicidal, and my dad got fed up and told me that if I tried to commit suicide and it wasn't God's will for me to die yet, then I wouldn't. Later I was replaying that conversation in my head, and I really wish I had responded, "So how about we try it out, and if I die, it's what God wanted."

The last thing Courtney suggested was writing down five blessings. Blessings are tricky. At face value, they're things you're glad about, right? So if I roll a Yahtzee, is that a blessing? I don't think so. So then they're probably deeper than that. They're things, though. They're not necessarily material, but they're still temporary. The people Jesus healed still died eventually. How good an idea is it to get attached to a something you'll lose? Are thankfulness and attachment the same thing? God gives, and God takes away. I'm afraid to be thankful of things, I think. Yet, there are things I'm thankful for. Swood is the first that comes to mind, followed quickly by the rest of my close friends. He's probably first because I see him on a regular basis, and he's the least likely to leave.

I run into this issue a lot. I'll be working on something or thinking about something, and I'll think about praying for or about it. Sometimes I don't want to, either because I want to do it under my own esteem, feeling I'm more than capable of doing this mundane task I do all the time, or because it's something I don't really worry about (like a plane crashing or something completely random like my sister getting small pox [just made that one up]). But now I feel like if I don't pray about, and then something goes wrong, it was my fault, or even that if I don't pray about it, something will go wrong, despite a complete lack of evidence for this. Should I then pray about every little thing? The Bible does say to pray without ceasing, but I've always been taught that means to live your life as a prayer. Also, I kind of figure that if God is listening in on my thoughts, and I've now devoted twenty-five paragraphs to God, along with all the thought that went into them while writing, as well as the two months since the last post when I was actually doing all this thinking, is that not prayer? Is thinking about God fundamentally different from thinking to God? I'm not sure I've ever read in the Bible that praying in your head "counts." Every time I've read about someone praying, it was aloud. Unless I'm in a group of people, I never pray aloud. God's omniscient, so this shouldn't be an issue. But at the same time, prayers said aloud are typically more focused and less prone to tangent than thought is. Does that make them more powerful? Have I just reduced prayer to magic, if heartfelt, words?

I believe that is enough pondering for one post. It's late again, and I'm driving home tomorrow morning. I haven't seen Luigi in maybe over a year, and I am looking forward to it.

Oh man you guys! I wrote this four thousand word blog post in between this one and the one from last night, and you will never read it! And before you go on some high horsed tirade, let me remind you I still have eight days to write as poorly as I like!

My synesthesia has been acting up more than normal. I've been tasting things that don't have tastes. It's a little weird. You've probably experienced a little bit yourself. You know how sometimes things taste like they smell? This is like that except that this song tastes like it sounds. It doesn't happen with every sound or even every song. Pandora has played a lot of Sixpence None the Richer songs, though, and something about her voice just tastes very strong, and very good. I'm getting addicted, and bought their Christmas album. You should too.

Ordinarily I don't like when people sing a classic differently, but I kind of like how they tweaked the lyrics of Angels We Have Heard On High. Their rendition of O Come, O Come Emmanuel is the best thing I've listened to since before Jars of Clay's Good Monsters album. She (Leigh Nash) does an interesting thing and plays with the end of the chorus the first time she sings it, then sings it normal the second time. I like that she doesn't "act" like this is how everyone should sing it. She just feels like singing it differently, but also likes the original. My approval says a lot as she's tinkering with my favorite Christmas song, and I think my record as a traditionalist is rather clear.

When did I become a music critic? Soon I'll have to write a webcomic, get some bird tattoos, and stay up past 5am each morning twittering that I'm sorry the comic's so late, as if I owe it to you. Imagine if I had to write a blog post every night for a living. The post-quality would drop dramatically I think. I'm not sure I could garner thirty-six events a day anyway.

I've been waking up exhausted lately, too. I don't know if I just have unrealistic expectations for sleep, or if it's not normal to always be this tired. I know I used to always be this way. But without me noticing when it began and when it stopped, for a brief period, I had energy. Maybe it's seasonal? Maybe I have more energy when the sun is out. I know I love just taking the sun in when I can. For some reason I don't do it every chance I get, and will in fact, spend a lot of free summer days indoors, slaving over a blog post. Or watching The West Wing. Whichever.

It could just be my dreams. They're becoming more intense, lately. I wonder if that's connected to the synesthesia. Maybe my brain is just getting more warped all around. I took a nap today, and dreamt that Conan O'Brian hired Salvatore Maroni (the mobster whose legs are broken when Batman interrogates him about the Joker) to extort us for the firewood stacked at my mom's house. We gave him the wood, but then rebelled, and in the process, one of my coworkers was shot. Then a friend of mine helped carry him into the Batmobile and we "drove" to the hospital with little care for what carnage we caused to surrounding traffic. I woke up stressed because we weren't sure he was going to make it. He lost a lot of blood at the scene.

So now I've covered my tastes in music, odd brain conditions the majority of people can't relate to, and dreams. What other pearls of great writing do I have for you? Read on, my friend.

Movies! My dad saw the Matrix a couple years after it came out, and of course it had amazing reviews. So when he saw it, he had impossible expectations, and didn't really enjoy it. To be fair, I'm not sure it was really his kind of movie in the first place. Something similar happened with Donnie Darko for me. Everyone said I would love this movie. It was okay. The dialog wasn't anything special. The plot was fine, and there really weren't any time-travel issues. It was almost completely well thought-out. Does everyone else realize that his sister dies? He saves his mom, but his teacher and sister still board that plane that loses its engine to go back in time and kill Donnie.

On the flight home, the movie shown was The Time Traveler's Wife. I enjoyed it, but despite it's time traveling, it wasn't really my kind of movie. I like happy endings, I guess. I can appreciate tragedies (this one was mixed comedy and tragedy), but I don't necessarily like to watch them. There were a couple time related plot holes I noticed. He has the most gray hair at his wedding day, more gray than he has when he dies. The second one is even more minor. When he first talks to his daughter, she's ten and says it's been five years since she last saw him, but in the last scene, she's nine and he visits. It's obvious the writer meant that it's been five years since he died but I'm a nitpicker. I pick at nits.

SQL Azure had a successful release at PDC '09 in November, alongside the rest of the Windows Azure Platform. It's still crazy to me that we made a very stable V1 quality product in such a short time. Microsoft truly does employ some of the best minds on earth. My group's project is largely finished. There's always maintenance, but the majority of the work is shifting down toward SQL Server functionality rather than work in allowing users to connect (clearly they can already do that quite well). This means pulling out the C++ hammer after two years of it collecting dust. C# might just be the best language ever written. Certainly SQL Server has to be more performant than managed code allows, but for most of your average programs, C# is more than fast enough, and the ease of programming more than makes up for the small bit of performance gain you'd probably never use were you to use C++. C++ is indeed a powerful language, but it gets so complex if you want it to be as performant as SQL Server or any other operating system like software. Just what little I've seen since I've been moved to that code base has been crazy brilliant code. There are brilliant things I never would have considered doing that are difficult to read, but can't be refactored because they're so much faster, and "simpler" to a computer. I wish I could explain a couple, but of course I'm NDA'd. Also, I suppose you wouldn't care much anyway, seeing as how you're probably a banker.

The biggest time suck for me lately has been Dragon Age: Origins. That is a great game. I don't think I like it more than KotOR, but it's certainly close. KotOR is a little more light-hearted and it's Star Wars. Dragon Age takes about 50 or 60 hours to beat. I started three games before I finally actually went about beating it. The first two I made mistakes in choosing abilities, and got stuck trying to beat enemies on easy. I, I don't like to talk about it. But, I did get a good feel for the game and earned myself a little foresight to make precognitive decisions. I don't care that some people would call this cheating. Cheating is using the console to add abilities and health and kill everyone on the screen. Mage is by far the most power class, especially on easy when there's no friendly fire. That was the class I chose for the third game. The ending is tricky. They give you an option that is inherently evil with no evil consequences. It makes you think, I suppose. My justice sense is just falling flat on its face, and that bothers me a bit.

Within those three games, I completed both the female romances. I didn't go for the elf, no matter what Penny Arcade says. So, when I finished the game, I wanted to play again, this time on normal difficulty and as a different class. I figured there was no new story line to gain from being male again and started a female character. You can tell the game was written by guys, because there are few options you can choose that I don't think many women would think to say.

Well, night two ends here. I still have a few more topics on which to write, but they will have to wait, as it's 3am now.

I do believe it is time again to write. This shall be a post without commas.

I'm not sure I could even bring myself to post such an atrocity even if I wanted to. Ew. I mean really. Ew.

This is attempt number two. It's bad writing to mention mundane things like that, though. Who of you really cares that I started writing a post earlier, and now, since it was lame writing and half finished, will be discarded? Therefore I resolve in the new year to not mention writing you shall never see. A bold gesture, to be certain. How many of you would state such on a public blog? Never mind that you don't have a public blog, and even if you did, you'd probably not have this particular writing impediment in the first place. The answer remains probably none of you!

There is a lot to cover from the last two months, and doubtless, I've forgotten most of what I wish to convey. This has indeed been a thought-filled blogless span.

Pandora is playing in the background. It's been a long time since I've really listened to music anywhere but the car. In junior high and high school, I listened to music almost constantly when on my computer. In college, I didn't like wearing headphones and Swood and I didn't often play music when the other was in the room, which was most of the time. After I got out of the habit, it somehow became distracting.

Recently, I've tried to branch out in my musical selection, inspired by several influences, but primarily Vin, I think. I figured Pandora would be the best way to find stuff similar to what I already like. What I like is becoming an ever-shrinking subset of what I have. There's some music that I'll always love, because it is genuinely good, even timeless, like Rich Mullins. His music doesn't sound like the 90s like Michael W. Smith's 90s stuff does. I'll always have a soft spot for Christian classic rock and roll, too, like early Phillips, Craig, and Dean. But a lot of what I have, or used to love, just sounds immature to me now. I don't really like songs "for the lyrics" like I used to.

Ok, seriously Pandora? This is the eighth time you've played What Child Is This today. I don't care that they're all different artists. Special case this as Christmas music and realize songs with the same name are the same songs. End rant.

Anyway, the day after Thanksgiving, I visited Alexander, and before I headed back up to Redmond, I downloaded the Pandora app for my phone. The first channel I tried was "Seabird." It did a good job giving me what I like, I'll admit. Most of it was The Fray and Seabird, with one or two from Jars of Clay. This, however, is not what I was looking for. I wanted to branch out -- not hear music I already knew I liked. I remember when Pandora first came out. I had the opposite problem. It didn't distinguish Christian from mainstream music, and it couldn't figure out that I was looking for contemporary Christian. Now I can't avoid it. It did better when I entered "Work by Jars of Clay" rather than just "Jars of Clay," since Work isn't one of those songs they play on Spirit1053. By the way, that album is still one of my favorites, especially Work and All My Tears. Should anyone reading this live to attend my eventual funeral, I want All My Tears played there. So weep not, for me my friend when my time below does end for my life belongs to him who will raise the dead again. After some wikipedia queries, it appears the song was originally written by Emmylou Harris. The Jars of Clay cover is better. So, yeah.

Vin, as I've not talked about her here before, is a girl from CCF I always deeply admired. She and I ever only talked briefly when we did at all. But I could always tell she was consistently genuine in her life. And she loves and cares about people. That much is evident even from a distance. I wrote this description in post attempt one: There was a girl I've thought was absolutely beautiful since I met her. She's meek and funny and smart and a good writer. She's got cuteness all over. I knew her from CCF, and she was one of the people who hung out all the time with the group of people who hung out all the time, and I never really got involved with that group. I still can't decide whether I regret that apathy or not, but there's not a whole lot of use in regret in this case. One day in May or June, I got a facebook broadcast mission trip support letter from her, and so we got to talking. It turned out we had quite a bit in common, from upbringing and family life, to comedic snobstitude. It turns out she and I have a lot in common as far as pasts go, among other things. We share a similar sense of humor--Demetri Martin, South Park, Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and a mutual hit-and-miss feeling for Family Guy--as well as snobbiness about writing and music. At first, in July, I honestly did just want to be friends, but soon I had a crush on her. I swore to myself and friends that this girl was different, and I still believe she is as a person, but perhaps not as a crush. It was humbling, after she left on her mission trip, to realize how blinded by infatuation I can still get. Don't get me wrong, she's a wonderful girl, and any guy, myself included, would be lucky to have her someday, but at the moment, that's not feasible, and I don't have those kind of feelings for her. I should quit here. This is spiraling in and downward, not up, up and away to the next paragraph.

A month or two ago, my mom's cousin emailed me requesting a locally produced CD. Apparently he likes to listen to a Seattle radio station when he visits, and it produces a CD each year with the best songs it played. It's only sold at Starbucks in the area, so he asked me to get it and send it to him. I bought it within a few days, but it took me until this past Saturday to finally get it mailed. I don't know why. I just couldn't. There are some things I just can't do. It was the same feeling I got when I needed to apply for scholarships, and I just couldn't make myself do it. It's not like I didn't want to get the money, or that they were particularly challenging, but I couldn't bring myself to sit down and do it. I was afraid to, for some reason. I hate that about me.

My mom gave me my favorite chair that we'd had my whole life for my birthday a year and a half ago. The cats over the years had destroyed the back, so we picked out fabric and she recovered it. Since she was working on her masters and getting married and her normal level of school work, not to mention getting the house ready to sell and dealing with the divorce, it took a year for that covering job to be completed, and I got my chair the day I began working at Fir Creek back in July. All of this should be old news to you loyal readers, who I'm sure have read and reread each of these entries at least once per entry after it, just to make sure you don't miss any of the key plot. Anyway, my cats have destroyed the back of this chair to a far worse state than the original covering. They've pulled the back halfway off, and frayed the edges of it so it can't be tacked back together. I finally figured out a stopgap, and put my white board right behind my chair and held up by the bookcase behind it, which makes the bottom half of my bookcase nearly inaccessible, but I didn't use that half often anyway. This paragraph is only relevant because right now, I'm using that whiteboard as a desk across my tub. It was tricky to figure out how to keep it from slipping off the thin lip on the walled side of the tub, but pushing a chair up against the overhanging edge seems to do the trick.

None of this, however, is really that relevant to these past couple months. I don't know why I'm stalling.

Denna and I have always been flirty, even since we broke up over a year ago. It's just fun, and harmless, and relaxing. I was having a particularly rough November, and one night it came up that I hadn't seen Donnie Darko. That night I was also feeling particularly out of touch, literally, and Denna suggested I should fly to Texas and promised me a movie, popcorn, and a cuddle buddy. That sounded like a good idea, and I hadn't seen her in six months, which is a shame considering we talk almost every day, even if only to say hi.

Meanwhile, Bill began organizing a trip to Costa Rica and invited me on it, as well as to finance a large portion of it. When he and I went to Jamaica, I had been offered my job at Microsoft the day we flew out. I was super excited, and hoped to live on $35 grand a year, giving most of the rest away, so he was holding me accountable to that. It turns out that $35k was an unrealistic goal, but I still do have the ability to give significantly, so I am glad he asked me. On top of that, Microsoft will match whatever I give toward the trip, so it's super-effective!

I pledged to give a significant amount toward the trip, but the exact figure was still up in the air. Also, I was wavering on whether I wanted to go on the trip or not. I did, but I didn't, but I did. It really depended on my mood, and my mood fluctuates irrationally since my pills don't work anymore. In fact, I ran out of pills, easing myself off them as I was told I could. Part of the thing that kept me from going was whether I could actually afford to. And I was worried that if I went to Texas, I couldn't afford to give as much toward the trip. But I really wanted to go to Texas. And if I couldn't afford to fly to Texas, what business do I have donating ten times that much toward the trip? One night, I just said screw it, and bought the tickets. Bing Travel is amazingly accurate at predicting plane ticket prices. The first night, it recommended buying then because prices would rise $50+. I thought that meant like within the next week. The next day they were up $52. The new prediction was +$100, so I bought then and there. After that, I felt completely free to go on the Costa Rica trip.

The longer it's been since I posted last, the more I've come to think I was wrong about Heaven. I read the first two chapters of that book I mentioned. I'll finish it, but I've got a couple others on the stack that I'm now in the middle of. For one, my, and I'll wager your, image of heaven is greatly contorted. It's not at all harps, halos, and clouds. It's supposed to be earth as it was meant to be, what God originally envisioned before the fall. There will be perfect justice with no sin and thus no wrath. People reap exactly what they sow. Everything bad about this earth will be fixed -- not gone, instead made new, made perfect. This is good news and something to look forward to, and something to live for now. I misrepresented what the pastor meant when he said, "No one runs a marathon for the shirt." As often happens when a new, big idea breaks into my head, I get a little obsessed and ask a lot of questions. For instance, Jesus says in Matthew that there is no marriage in heaven (besides that of the church to Christ). If heaven is earth as it was meant to be, does that mean that marriage was sort of a patch to keep us safe in this fallen world? There were animals in the Garden of Eden. It follows then that there will be animals in heaven. Will our pets from this earth be there? I'd always assumed no. Now I wonder.

When I purchased my tickets, I picked them as close to the front of the plane as possible, even though that put me in a middle seat each way. I've found that one of the things I hate most about flying is waiting to get off the plane. I think this hatred stems from many years of traveling with kids, and out of courtesy, waiting for everyone without kids to get off first. When I travel, if I can avoid it, I don't check any bags, so it actually does help me to get off the plane quicker, since I don't have to wait for baggage claim, like everyone else, otherwise I probably wouldn't care.

Something went wrong when I booked, though. I got a couple emails about it, saying I needed to call them or look online. I did both. On the phone, I couldn't get ahold of a person, but the recording said my tickets were fine. I got another email, and checked online this time, and the status was booked and purchased, so I assumed there was a bug elsewhere.

On Friday, I got to the airport, and the self checkout said there was an error, so I stood in the one-person line at the full service desk. I guess I didn't write my address correctly for my credit card, or something, so he set me up, and I ended up second or third row from the front on the aisle, so that was awesome. Until I realized that it cost me $30 for service at the airport. Nickel and diming you, I tell ya. I discovered another peeve, or rather rediscovered, because I know I blogged about this after or during my Australia trip, centered around planes, and that's that people disobey the people who tell you when to board. "Now boarding group one." Ah yes, I'm in group six. That must mean me. My justice sense (for which I really need a good made up word, possibly a port manteau -- yes, I'm officially accepting ideas in the comments section) alone is enough to increase my blood pressure a little, but the real issue, I found this trip, is that the overhead carryon space gets taken up by people who cheat, and then I have to put my bag further back, which means now after the plane lands, I have to get back, and then back forward, which probably costs me more time in the long run, than just choosing a seat further back.

I needed the trip, itself, even if it wasn't that great. Had I not gone, I probably would have driven myself a little crazy. I'd also have had a lot harder time agreeing to go to Costa Rica. Denna and her roommate Cindy, both, were not in the happiest places in life, and there's not really a lot anyone can do about that. Denna's ex-boyfriend who proposed to her at one point had just died in the Iraq War. Anyway, when she had promised a movie, popcorn, and a cuddle buddy, that's about what I expected, and it didn't happen. We're not as flirty in person as we are over SMS, for one.

We toured the Bodies Exhibit on Saturday. That was difficult. The first thing they show you is a knee with bone cancer. Why that? I do fine with bones and muscles, but split a bone or brain and I get a little queazy. Even the word "marrow" makes my skin crawl. Oddly, the one part I did enjoy, was the fetus section. It was the one part that seemed to celebrate life. The rest seemed to me to be macabre.

On the trip home, the self check-in did work, but there was a big button for changing my seat, so I pushed it, just to see if there were any better. There was one, two rows back from where I'd originally chosen, that was in an aisle. I figured the tradeoff was worth it. The plane was late, and then I boarded when I was supposed to, when groups five and six were called together (I was group five). I got to my seat, and a woman approached me, asking if I was perchance traveling alone. I said I was, and she asked if she could have my seat, since otherwise she couldn't sit next to her husband. I caved, and ended up nine rows further back with a window seat. For a while it looked like I'd have a seat between the aisle guy and me, but the last person to seat herself sat between us. There's an empty seat immediately behind her, but she's sitting next to her husband, so it's not like I can blame her. It took me a good twenty minutes to depart the plane, compared to what should have been five to ten minutes in the seat I booked. The moral of the story is nice guys finish last.

I talked to my dad for the first time in well over a year sometime in October. He facebook stalked me and wrote me a message, which I'm sure he felt heartfelt. I could still see the underlying manipulation, and his ever-selfish attitude, evidencing that he has not changed, so I wrote him a terse response. Within a few hours, I had a second message on the thread. If you give a mouse a cookie. I didn't give him milk.

There's a new story that I've told probably fifty times now, because I was so excited. I went into the Company Store for a couple copies of Windows 7. I was a few moments too late, as the guy in front of me got the last copy of Professional, so I just sucked it up and spent the extra $10 for Ultimate. I stood in line, head down as I wrote my employee ID on each of the boxes. A femme called me to the counter, and I passed the two boxes over to her. When I looked up I was stunned. Like, I can't explain it other than that one if summed up all the other cute things on the earth, kittens and baby seals and everything, she'd still be a little cuter. We shared a little small talk. She asked if I was doing anything fun that evening, and I told her I was going down to Swood's like every Friday night. I asked her the same, and she frowned and said she had to work, but that her sister was in town for the weekend, so she was looking forward to that. I left the store and immediately texted Denna and Athena about the development.

I started heading south, and hit heavier traffic than I've been in there. Traffic began a mile or two before the I-405 exit, and then was solid until exit 7 or so. I was in it for about an hour, the whole while thinking, "I should turn around and go get her number." I'd never been so close to doing it either. Usually those thoughts are just a silly fantasy, but this night they were urges. Eventually I decided by the time I got back, the store would be closed anyway. Or if it weren't, what was I going to do? Wait around until it wasn't busy, or until it closed and run after her or something? I looked at the receipt because sometimes those have a name on them. All it said was "cashier 10 register 3." I got to Swood's apartment's parking lot, and sat there for a few minutes, deciding what to do. I pulled out my phone and looked up the number of the company store. Then I spent another five minutes with my finger hovering over the call button, having to press around it so the phone wouldn't enter sleep mode. I finally decided I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and without thinking, sent the call. An older woman picked up, and I told her I was trying to get ahold of the cashier I had that night, and wondered if she knew who "cashier 10" was. She asked me if I knew the person's name because the numbers aren't bound. I said I didn't, so she asked at what time, and I told her 6:00. Twenty seconds later, a giggling girl picked up the phone. I fumbled some words out including "I can't believe I'm doing this" and asked for her name and number. She hesitated and asked for my name, which I gave. I told her I understood if she didn't want to give me it, then she paused and said "sure why not?" I wrote it down, and then asked again for her name. Then we hung up (or so I assume; I don't really remember much more of that night except that I couldn't eat).

Saturday began, and I called her around 1:30, expecting her to pick up and say she was with her sister, and then to get a better time to call. I got the generic Verizon voicemail message. I left my number and told her I'd like to grab coffee with her sometime. I started to get a little anxious, but not overly so, about whether she gave me her real number or not. On Sunday, she texted me. She apologized for not getting back to me the day prior--her sister was in town so they were hanging out--then asked how old I was. I was relieved three ways at once. First, that meant I didn't get the number wrong nor did she give me a fake one. Second, she was indeed my cashier, unless two cashiers had their sisters in town on the same weekend and were excited enough to mention it to perfect strangers. Third, I couldn't tell for sure how old she was when I saw her. To tell the truth, I couldn't remember what she looked like. I remember how I felt when I saw her, but I don't remember almost any features. I remember thinking she looked between 18 and 21, but I couldn't be sure. Besides, I'm really bad at guessing people's ages. Since she asked me, I could ask her. I told her how old I was, having briefly considered the "I'm 35, happily married with 2.5 kids" response, and quickly discarding it. She told me she was 21, which is perfect. So then we set up coffee for the following Saturday at 10:00.

I was good and didn't contact her at all for the whole week. Saturday morning, I got there at 9:50. I sat there for a while. Eventually I texted her, describing my attire, in case she saw me and I didn't recognize her. Around 10:15, I walked out of Starbucks and called her, getting her voicemail. At 10:30, one of the Starbucks workers asked if I was waiting for someone. I told her that I was, but that I was beginning to suspect I was being stood up, so I purchased my hot chocolate then. At 10:40, she texted me, saying she was really sorry, that she had been sick all week and had just gotten out of the doctor's office. She'd meant to call me the night prior to cancel, but was so exhausted that she fell asleep. I asked if she wanted to reschedule, and she said yes and that she'd contact me the next day to tell me how she was feeling. We had a short, playful conversation after that, and then said goodbye.

Sunday came and went, and she didn't text me. Thursday came, and I decided that it was time to throw in the towel, sending her a rather epic text message, which left the possibility of a future date open, should she ever change her mind.

I'd been a bit excited because, had it worked out, this would have been the first girl I'd dated within 2 years and 20 miles of me since my first girlfriend. But it didn't work out. Now a month later, my PM, against my expressed wishes, went to the company store and asked about her. They told him that the day before had been her last day and she had moved back to Utah for school at BYU. He told me this a few days later, and I texted her again (breaking my vow of silence) to confirm this story (he might pull this as a prank), which she did. She's rather witty, which makes this one potential relationship loss sting a little more than normal. I like when people pick up on something and run with it. Sure, she could be a friend who was witty, and that'd be fun, but it'd also be hard and edged with a tinge of regret.

This past weekend, Fircreek had a reunion Christmas party, and a bunch of us met at Bubba's house. It was good for the most part, but I'm still forming thoughts on it. Relationships were strained, or so I understand, by the end of the summer, and people from all factions were present. I may have been a little short with one of the guys, when he tried to belittle SQL Azure and asked, "One gig? Why wouldn't you just get a flash drive?"

After the party, I drove Mangofiki home, and then headed to Bill's. He was up with his girlfriend in his room discussing a book, but I hung out with a couple of his housemates and Courtney. Poor Courtney had a computer virus and was running XP Media Center 2005. I tried everything I could think of, including bittorrenting the Windows ISO (which she had rights to and a CD key), but the version I downloaded was SP2 rather than the original 2005 version or something, and the key didn't work. On top of that, the virus was still there, despite overwriting all the Windows files. The whole night, I was on a roll with over-the-top sexist comments. I'm pretty sure Courtney would have punched me a few times, were I not working diligently toward her computer's recovery. The guy between us got punched for nodding at one of my comments. Alas, I didn't succeed at getting the machine working, but at least she can log on now. Courtney is going on the Costa Rica trip with us, so I'm sure I'll get to know her much better in the months to come.

That's not nearly half of what I have to write, but it's what's getting posted tonight. Maybe I'll write more later this week, or maybe you'll have to wait until January or February. Sucks to be you.