a drop of water

The irony today was that I needed to bring my cellphone charger and ipod charger to work, but I didn’t even consider bringing laptop charger.

On a side note here is a funny story. Here is a bird’s eye view of my aisle at work:

["][C]["]["]

[X][P][_][_]

P represents coworker. C represents co-worker. X is where I sit. So I email co-worker C asking for some help on a compile issue. He replies back: Daniel, where do you sit, I would like to see what are you doing. I reply back next to coworker P. Then I watch coworker C walk across the building to where another coworker whose name is also P sits and doesn’t find me. Then he realizes that I sit about 5 feet away from him…shrug… In hindsight I am mostly at fault, if any fault is to be assigned. The morale of the story is, never email when you can talk in person, at least with co-workers who aren’t sure of who you are.

The testimony of the true follower of Christ might well be something like this: The world’s pleasures and the world’s treasures henceforth have no appeal for me. I reckon myself crucified to the world and the world crucified to me. But the multitudes that were so dear to Christ shall not be less dear to me. If I cannot prevent their moral suicide, I shall at least baptize them with my human tears. I want no blessing that I cannot share. I seek no spirituality that I must win at the cost of forgetting that men and women are lost and without hope. If in spite of all I can do they will sin against light and bring upon themselves the displeasure of a holy God, then I must not let them go their sad way unwept. I scorn a happiness that I must purchase with ignorance. I reject a heaven that I must enter by shutting my eyes to the sufferings of my fellow men. I choose a broken heart rather than any happiness that ignores the tragedy of human life and human death. Though I, through the grace of God in Christ, no longer lie under Adam’s sin, I would still feel a bond of compassion for all of Adam’s tragic race, and I am determined that I shall go down to the grave or up into God’s heaven mourning for the lost and the perishing.

And thus and thus will I do as God enables me. Amen.

The Next Chapter After the Last, p. 36

http://lmi.gospelcom.net/

So this year was definitely a year of transition. I started the year with a unused desktop and a trusty laptop, and Jenn started with a older laptop and a newer really hot (almost overheating) laptop. It all started when my trusty laptop died :(. That was back in January; I sent it into repair and started using my old desktop. Well all of sudden it stopped working too so I borrowed Jenn’s older laptop an IBM x21. I went from 2 computers to 0 to 1 borrowed computer in a matter a week. It was sufficient but my IBM T41p didn’t came back. One month passed, then another and another. I decided, I should just bite the bullet and get a new laptop. So come school’s end, I started looking at IBM x60’s. I decided they were too expensive (high end models near 2k, low end near 1.3k) Jenn went off to Taiwan. I sold both of her laptops and got a new MacBook for her inplace. I saw a great dell deal; thought well my desktop is old and on its last legs anyways, might as well get it (1k off msrp). Now I had dual 20″ dell lcd’s. It was nice. But it did not last. Decided dual 20″ lcds was overkill when I spend all day at work, so gave one to dad for father’s day. then all of sudden, IBM t41p comes back in the mail. I’m like, what?!?! I thought you were long gone. So now i have my trusty laptop back, a powerful desktop that I use just for playing guildwars and older desktop, but still really liking the IBM x60s. I give up that dream, fix up my old desktop into a pretty nice machine and give it away to a friend. Then come August, I stumble upon a crazy deal for the highend ibm x60s (normally 2.5k) but priced down to 1.2k. Wowowowow…dream comes true. So then I had 3 computers, found a buyer for the desktop; that was going for sure; no need for that with two excellent ibm laptops. So then I talk with Peter and he gives me a guilt trip for being wasteful with 2 ibm laptops…haha…well he just confirmed what was already growing in my head, so T41p is now up for sale; beloved t41p with watersleeve case and 3m privacy filter (yes I am a thinkpad-addict). So within the week I plan to be back to 1 computer…or wait…old desktop maybe returned to me because it is breaking again…
On a second note, throughout my college years I was exposed to many laptops of different shapes and sizes. I was thinking back and tried to list the laptops that I have experience with:
Sony Vaio PCG-FX215
IBM Thinkpad T41p, X21, T40, T42p
Dell 300m, X1, 9100, XPS, 610, 710m
Apple Powerbook (12.1″, 15″), Macbook (white), MacBookPro (15″)
Tosiba with broken left arrow key.

My first laptop weighed ahout 9lbs. It had a partitioned 10gb hard drive, 128mb of ram, and the dual extended batteries let it last about 54minutes and 28seconds. Jump forward 5 years. Now my laptop weighs 3lbs, has 100gb hard drive, 1.25gb of ram, and lasts a good 8 hours. Those numbers are a factor of 3, 10, 10, 8, respectively. Let’s project to 5 years now from now. That means I will have a laptop weighting about a pound, with 1TB of hard drive space, 15gb of ram, which only needs to be charged once a week…cool…

I haven’t posted in quite a while. I suppose that is because I’ve had too much to write down, much of which was outside the normal routine. No friends group and no AACF bible study. But Miles gave a inspiring sermon about leaving behind your junk as you follow God’s will. He made four points:

• Leave behind all unbiblical and irrational thinking.
• Leave behnid your requirement for personal happiness.
• Leave behind your loyalty to man over God.
• Leave behind your pity party accessories.

I think the first one is so prevalent in my life, influences from my culture, community and sinful nature often shapes my perspective of God, when it should be the other way around, or at least more of a two-way, interactive street. The second one is tough. What is the point of life, if I let go my requirement for happiness? Jenn reminded me that it was the requirement for personal happiness, not happiness itself. It makes me think of Paul when he says he is content in all circumstances and the proverb that says, trust in the Lord (give up your requirement for personal happiness) and he will make your paths straight (God will take care of your happiness) (Proverbs 3:6) and in Romans about how God will make all things work for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28). The third point definitely hits home, becuase I want to be loyal to my work, my friends, etc, but unless that loyalty is put into a perspective of being loyal to God, it it will fail, and what kind of worker, friend, etc is that? Pity party accessories, pride issues, I just need to continue getting over myself…hah.

Some other cool stuff that has said / shared / watched:
Benson quoting Pastor Jamie: “You know how hunger is a sign of health? Spiritual hunger is a sign of spiritual health.”

John sharing an 80yr old’s wisdom: “Bloom where you are planted. Bloom where you are planted.”

John sharing an 80yr old’s wisdom: “Christians will often pray for God to take them out of circumstances, but it’s rarely about God taking you out of circumstances, but instead you trusting God to bring you through circumstances.”

Gordon Fee from How to Read the Bible for all it’s worth: (paraphrased-alot) “When we read the parable of the good samaritan, we often read it and see ourselves filling the good samaritan’s shoes, but in reality we need realize we are often just like the Priest and the Pharisee who just pass by. If we are to read this parable in modern-christian-day terms, we would replace samaritan with atheist.”

And lastly, about rats. Miles mentioned a rat in his sermon. A rat had fallen into his pool, and despite his wife rooting for its execution, Miles brought it out of the pool. It sat on the concrete for a while, probably half dead, but in half an hour it was gone. Although something might have eaten it, Miles hopes the little guy was just resting up. The same thing is with us, sometimes we are drowning in life, but then we get a second chance from God, and we need to keep on fighting and never give up.

This post will be dedicated to rchanou, for getting me through lower division ee labs, for attaching capacitors and resistors to his backpack, and for more recently causing me to think a bit. His away message this morning was simply, “reality check.” It stood out from all the other statuses, comprising random messages, drama messages, cryptic messages, coded messages, and shameless personal website promotion messages. When I inquired about his away message, he replied “Just trying to keep certain things in perspective, what I want to do in life. How long will I be at this company. Future goals. Ways to have more of an impact on the community.” Good stuff rchanou.

It’s easy for me to lose perspective and live like a college student, midterm to midterm, instead of degree to degree or destination to destination. Sometimes I feel my life mirrors an all-you-can-eat buffet: there is a lot of food, but nothing is that great, and the end result is often only realized in hindsight. When circumstances are bad, I complain, I sometimes pray, but I am slothful to act. Like work for example, I don’t care for it much, and I’ve been saying I’ll give it a year and then re-evaluate…for the last six months. It’s easy to get into a habit and not see any end in sight. Like when you walk down a beaten path, you become more and more entrenched, and before you know it, the path becomes an underground tunnel with no light. I’m pretty sure I do not want to work in this industry for an extended period of time.

The life question is interesting. I know I want to glorify God in all that I do. I want to let God’s hands work through me to help people: my family and friends and the people God brings into my life. I want to see people come to know the joy and peace and freedom in Christ, knowing Him as their savior. But how do I do that? Where is the DLDS (Development Level Design Specification) for implementing this goal/idea. I don’t know yet, heh. Maybe I should be consistently writing and editing one.

Future goals. I don’t really have too many long term goals. I suppose I would like to visit more of the world. Part of me wants a nice house, nice car, but thats just materialistic and I tell myself that stuff isn’t worth setting a goal towards. But without goals, how do you know where you are going. Without goals, from what do I draw motivation for to wake up every morning and commute to work. It’s hard to do these things with general goals. In school, people set the goals for you. All you had to do was get inline and wait prepare for your name to be called. I suppose now it’s similiar, it is just that God is calling your name and there are a whole lot more distractions.

Ways to have more impact on the community. Hah. It’s easy to block out reality. It’s easy to live in suburban America and leave relationships with your neighbors on the front lawn. It’s easy to justify staying late at work as providing for your family. It’s easy to drive past the poorer neighborhoods on the freeway and thank God for how he has blessed you, without considering that he has blessed you with resources to bless others. It’s easy to not vote, because you don’t want the blind leading the blind. It’s easy to focus on the street lights as you drive past the man on the corner holding a cardboard sign. It’s easy to think this is your life, and that you are control of your destiny, when the reality is, the only destiny you have control over is that of those around you. It’s easy to not consider future goals when you are young. But the reality is, when we are young we have the power to impact the future.

reality check.