21 Days from the time of this post, I shall be on the first of three planes to take me to the Bring Me Hope camp. (In case you can't tell, I'm excited) With the time change, it'll take 32.5 hours for the first two planes.
I woke up at 5:30 this morning to a dream about getting on the plane.
Anyway, I've got a job interview on Tuesday. Hooray for chances to work!
Yeah, short post. Whatever.
29 June 2012
12 June 2012
Response
Okay, this is going to be mostly in response to recent comments from my uncle on this post, this post, and this post. But first, I'm going to apologize for not posting for a long time. My computer died on me, and so I have to hit up libraries to get online--or use my iPod, where typing is all kinds of fun.
Anyway, on to the response. Firstly, the main reason I post on this blog is so I can sleep at night. If I don't get thoughts down in some form, my brain gets locked on them, and I can't get to sleep. The secondary reason is to let my friends know what I'm up to. So the primary and secondary audiences are mostly--if not all--Christians. So, people who would agree with that kind of thing--just like anywhere else on the internet that uses first person pronouns--and therefore, it's going to look wrong to people who disagree.
Now as to the specific posts. The first thing I'm going to address is from the second linked post--where he wonders what the "impossible that had to happen" was. At this point, I wasn't aware of the possibility of a chiral anomaly. The impossible was the breaking of the conservation of baryon number. Now as near as I can tell from that (and I will admit that that dense wall of quantum mechanics-speak is unintelligible to me and makes my head hurt, so I may be wrong) we don't have evidence showing that that has happened (other than the fact that we exist) so they're only hypotheses--again, unless I'm reading that wrong. And if I'm wrong, I won't say the old "it's only a theory," because I think that people who say that should be dragged to a dictionary, be forced to read the scientific definition of "theory" out loud, then smacked across the face with the dictionary. Like I said, I might be wrong, and if I am, then I'm wrong. I am human, after all.
As to the "argument from ignorance" complaints.... Yes. Exactly. I made logical fallacies. I didn't actually prove the existence of God. I am of the opinion that God cannot be proven or disproven logically--if He could, the debate would have been over long ago. Unfortunately, it may appear that I was trying to prove His existence. The main reason for those posts is that I get frustrated when atheists go in and point out internal inconsistencies in the Bible, and acting as if science has all the answers. There are still holes in science--and in my opinion, there always will be, but that's just my opinion. Now, my belief is that the inconsistencies in the Bible are due to human error--a common factor no matter what field you look at.
As to whether or not scientists should give up because I don't think they'll figure everything out, of course they shouldn't. They should continue trying to increase our knowledge of the universe. And yes, for the most part, the holes have been getting smaller, but we've also found new ones--quantum mechanics vs. classical physics, for example. It's my belief that as they find answers to the current issues, they will find new holes in understanding, so that no matter how long our species survives, we will never have a complete understanding of things in science--only my opinion. Should that be taught in schools? Only the part that there are currently gaps in our understanding--God should only be mentioned in religious studies or biblical studies courses, since it's not science--at most. Show the gaps, talk about experiments that are attempting to close them, that's it.
Anyway, I'm bored with this, and I'm hungry, so I'm going to close this out and head home.
Anyway, on to the response. Firstly, the main reason I post on this blog is so I can sleep at night. If I don't get thoughts down in some form, my brain gets locked on them, and I can't get to sleep. The secondary reason is to let my friends know what I'm up to. So the primary and secondary audiences are mostly--if not all--Christians. So, people who would agree with that kind of thing--just like anywhere else on the internet that uses first person pronouns--and therefore, it's going to look wrong to people who disagree.
Now as to the specific posts. The first thing I'm going to address is from the second linked post--where he wonders what the "impossible that had to happen" was. At this point, I wasn't aware of the possibility of a chiral anomaly. The impossible was the breaking of the conservation of baryon number. Now as near as I can tell from that (and I will admit that that dense wall of quantum mechanics-speak is unintelligible to me and makes my head hurt, so I may be wrong) we don't have evidence showing that that has happened (other than the fact that we exist) so they're only hypotheses--again, unless I'm reading that wrong. And if I'm wrong, I won't say the old "it's only a theory," because I think that people who say that should be dragged to a dictionary, be forced to read the scientific definition of "theory" out loud, then smacked across the face with the dictionary. Like I said, I might be wrong, and if I am, then I'm wrong. I am human, after all.
As to the "argument from ignorance" complaints.... Yes. Exactly. I made logical fallacies. I didn't actually prove the existence of God. I am of the opinion that God cannot be proven or disproven logically--if He could, the debate would have been over long ago. Unfortunately, it may appear that I was trying to prove His existence. The main reason for those posts is that I get frustrated when atheists go in and point out internal inconsistencies in the Bible, and acting as if science has all the answers. There are still holes in science--and in my opinion, there always will be, but that's just my opinion. Now, my belief is that the inconsistencies in the Bible are due to human error--a common factor no matter what field you look at.
As to whether or not scientists should give up because I don't think they'll figure everything out, of course they shouldn't. They should continue trying to increase our knowledge of the universe. And yes, for the most part, the holes have been getting smaller, but we've also found new ones--quantum mechanics vs. classical physics, for example. It's my belief that as they find answers to the current issues, they will find new holes in understanding, so that no matter how long our species survives, we will never have a complete understanding of things in science--only my opinion. Should that be taught in schools? Only the part that there are currently gaps in our understanding--God should only be mentioned in religious studies or biblical studies courses, since it's not science--at most. Show the gaps, talk about experiments that are attempting to close them, that's it.
Anyway, I'm bored with this, and I'm hungry, so I'm going to close this out and head home.
10 May 2012
Nerding out
This morning, I had some nerdiness busting out. I was thinking, and I figured out a way to determine how many decimal places come from a fraction. The first step is to reduce it to the simplest form--1/2 instead of 4/8 or 5/6 instead of 25/30. Then you can ignore the numerator. The denominator is all that matters. The next step is to attempt to reduce the denominator to the form (2x)(5y) where x and y are whole, non-negative numbers (0, 1, 2, etc.). If the denominator can't be reduced to this form, the decimal version goes on infinitely. If it can be reduced to this form, compare x and y. The higher of the two numbers is how many decimal places your answer will have. For example, a denominator of 40 would reduce to (2351), giving 3 as the higher of x and y. This is how many decimal places will always be in a number with 40 as the denominator (unless it can be reduced to a smaller denominator). This stems from the fact that decimals come from exact powers of 10, which can be written as (2x5x) and anything with those numbers the same (or lower) fits evenly.
Now is there a way to figure out what denominator(s) you should pick to have a decimal that is a certain length? Yes. Let's imagine that you are a math teacher, and you want a problem to have a decimal with 3 places. So you take your (2x)(5y) form and set x or y equal to 3. With x, that gives 23. Then vary y from 0 to 3, giving you (23)(50)=8, (23)(51)=40, (23)(52)=200, and (23)(53)=1000. Then starting from this last, vary x down to 0 to get (22)(53)=500, (21)(53)=250, and (20)(55)=125. Then you can always multiply the numerator and denominators by whatever number you want to make the problem seem harder. Just be careful to not make it possible to reduce the fraction further than you wanted.
I ran through all of this in about 15 minutes this morning--for no real purpose. Yeah, I'm a nerd. And proud of it.
Now is there a way to figure out what denominator(s) you should pick to have a decimal that is a certain length? Yes. Let's imagine that you are a math teacher, and you want a problem to have a decimal with 3 places. So you take your (2x)(5y) form and set x or y equal to 3. With x, that gives 23. Then vary y from 0 to 3, giving you (23)(50)=8, (23)(51)=40, (23)(52)=200, and (23)(53)=1000. Then starting from this last, vary x down to 0 to get (22)(53)=500, (21)(53)=250, and (20)(55)=125. Then you can always multiply the numerator and denominators by whatever number you want to make the problem seem harder. Just be careful to not make it possible to reduce the fraction further than you wanted.
I ran through all of this in about 15 minutes this morning--for no real purpose. Yeah, I'm a nerd. And proud of it.
30 April 2012
Support
Well, I'm sending out the first round of letters here in a few minutes. I've got a bunch stuffed and addressed, I just need to get to a post office, which is going to happen as soon as I finish typing this post. So yay! Some of you will be receiving an envelope with my poor handwriting in your mailboxes within the next couple of days! Then you will have a chance to send me money! Hooray for everything! I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M SHOUTING!
Um, yeah. Sorry about the excitement. I'm tired. Bye.
Um, yeah. Sorry about the excitement. I'm tired. Bye.
24 April 2012
Letters
Today, I bought envelopes. Lots of envelopes. I still need to actually write my support letter, but I should have more than enough envelopes to send it out. I have to start getting going on things for this trip. They're recommending that I have 2/3 of the money raised by June 1--and that's about $2,000. It feels like there's so much to do to go on this trip. And school's wrapping up. And I need to start looking for a job. And I need to sleep occasionally or I get really paranoid.
Anyway, if you're not sure if I've got you on my list of people to send a letter to--or you want to make sure I have an address--and you want to be on the list, feel free to shoot me a text/email/fb message/whatever and let me know.
Anyway, I should go now. I've procrastinated from studying long enough, and I've got a test this evening.
Anyway, if you're not sure if I've got you on my list of people to send a letter to--or you want to make sure I have an address--and you want to be on the list, feel free to shoot me a text/email/fb message/whatever and let me know.
Anyway, I should go now. I've procrastinated from studying long enough, and I've got a test this evening.
18 April 2012
I'm gonna go over here now
So, I probably worried some people with that post earlier today. To be honest, I worried myself. I did end up skipping Spanish, since I couldn't make myself stop crying for more than a couple minutes at a time.
Well, after some time to think (and talking with a third person and texting a fourth), I think I've got a plan. I'm going to drop out of college. After this semester, whether it ends well or not, I'm going to take a break from college. It's just not working. It's adding stress and debt to my life, I'm not making any real progress toward a degree, and I seem to be moving away from God during the stressful moments. So college seems to be just about the worst place for me to be right now.
So the new plan is to get a job, and stay working until......well, I don't know what would come next. Until plans change, I guess. I might go back to school eventually, I might not.
So yeah....if you're still worried about me, I don't know what else to say--partially because I can't help much more than I have, and partially because I can't seem to successfully type the word "say" in one try right now, because I'm worn out. Going through depression is just exhausting.
Me go bed now. Maybe write again after sleep. Me not think so though.
Well, after some time to think (and talking with a third person and texting a fourth), I think I've got a plan. I'm going to drop out of college. After this semester, whether it ends well or not, I'm going to take a break from college. It's just not working. It's adding stress and debt to my life, I'm not making any real progress toward a degree, and I seem to be moving away from God during the stressful moments. So college seems to be just about the worst place for me to be right now.
So the new plan is to get a job, and stay working until......well, I don't know what would come next. Until plans change, I guess. I might go back to school eventually, I might not.
So yeah....if you're still worried about me, I don't know what else to say--partially because I can't help much more than I have, and partially because I can't seem to successfully type the word "say" in one try right now, because I'm worn out. Going through depression is just exhausting.
Me go bed now. Maybe write again after sleep. Me not think so though.
What am I doing here?
Last night, I had my second panic attack in as many weeks. Last Tuesday, it was just a general stressing-myself-to-illness type deal. Last night was more specific.
Last night, Mark talked about the myth of "God called me to ______". He was saying that as long as you follow within God's commands, God will bless you, so you should work within the gifts He has given you. On the way home, I got into a conversation about relationships, and when asked where I was, all I could say was that "I don't think I'm in the right place to pursue anyone right now. I don't have my crap together." I didn't really think about it at the time I said it, but a little while after, I was thinking "How do I get my crap together?" That's when it hit. I'm probably going to fail out of college. Again.
I think I realized what my problem is. I want to go to school/work and work hard there, then go home and BE HOME. I hate bringing work home with me, and I can't seem to force myself to work on that stuff at home. Then I thought, "If you can't bring schoolwork home with you now, what's going to change if and when you become a teacher? Do you think you'll suddenly be able to bring work home then?" Then I started wondering what I am going to do if I'm not in school. I'll have to get a job, and somewhere where they won't look at a person who's never had a job that lasted more than a couple months, and flunked out of college twice as someone they would never hire.
Since getting home last night, I've broken down crying in front of two people (one while sitting down to write this post) and been at least on the verge of crying all the time I've been awake. I don't know where my life is going, I'm not sure where I want it to go, and I don't know what I need to do to go from point A to point B.
I don't think I'm going to Spanish today. I think I've had enough of crying in front of people for one day.
Last night, Mark talked about the myth of "God called me to ______". He was saying that as long as you follow within God's commands, God will bless you, so you should work within the gifts He has given you. On the way home, I got into a conversation about relationships, and when asked where I was, all I could say was that "I don't think I'm in the right place to pursue anyone right now. I don't have my crap together." I didn't really think about it at the time I said it, but a little while after, I was thinking "How do I get my crap together?" That's when it hit. I'm probably going to fail out of college. Again.
I think I realized what my problem is. I want to go to school/work and work hard there, then go home and BE HOME. I hate bringing work home with me, and I can't seem to force myself to work on that stuff at home. Then I thought, "If you can't bring schoolwork home with you now, what's going to change if and when you become a teacher? Do you think you'll suddenly be able to bring work home then?" Then I started wondering what I am going to do if I'm not in school. I'll have to get a job, and somewhere where they won't look at a person who's never had a job that lasted more than a couple months, and flunked out of college twice as someone they would never hire.
Since getting home last night, I've broken down crying in front of two people (one while sitting down to write this post) and been at least on the verge of crying all the time I've been awake. I don't know where my life is going, I'm not sure where I want it to go, and I don't know what I need to do to go from point A to point B.
I don't think I'm going to Spanish today. I think I've had enough of crying in front of people for one day.
09 April 2012
Easter Weekend
I pooped a lot over Easter weekend. Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's talk about real stuff.
It was a long weekend. I woke up Saturday at around 7 or 7:30 (after deciding to sleep in) and proceeded to waste most of the day. Setup and practice for Sunday morning was scheduled for 5:00, and I didn't want to ask anyone for a ride, so I started walking at around a quarter to 4. After a more-involved-than-usual setup, it was time to start practicing the drama (though only after finding out that two lights were burned out, and one channel on one of the control boxes was faulty). Near the beginning, the practice was a little rough, but it got better as the evening went on. We wrapped up at around 10, needing to be back at 7 for worship practice--and the techies planned to be there earlier than that.
After getting a ride home, I had a snack, read a little, and went to bed. I checked to make sure my alarm was set, and then my iPod (which I use as an alarm clock) decided to delete all of my alarms, so I spent a couple minutes resetting all of them (9 in total). So, at about 11, I started to try to sleep. I couldn't. I'm not sure how much sleep I got, because I remember looking at the clock at 12:55 and thinking, "If I can't get to sleep in the next half hour, I'll just get up. 3 hours of sleep is worse than no sleep." I don't remember looking at the clock after that, until I woke up at 4, at which point I thought, "Well, I got 2 hours, and I've still got half an hour before my alarm. That'll have to do." I don't know if my math was just bad because I was tired, or I've since forgotten looking at the clock at a later point, but these two thoughts conflict. I went back to sleep at that point.
When my alarm went off, I had one thought. "Cold." I got up, got ready to leave, and left at a quarter after 5, knowing that my best chance to stay awake during the service was to walk to church. After getting across the Kum & Go parking lot, I turned around to get my jacket, because "I can ignore tiredness or cold, but not both."
I arrived first, and turned everything on. Worship team practice was fairly normal, then the drama people came back for their final run-throughs. During that, we found out that the cord that takes audio from the computer to the sound board was bad--a whipping sound in the video for the drama sounded like bubbles bursting underwater--so we switched out for a more complicated cord system. (This will become more important soon) After switching, the audio from the computer was more clear than it had been for any of Saturday's or Sunday's practices.
Practice finished around 10, so we opened the doors, and had the computer playing ambient music. While I was mingling, the music turned to crackling. I rushed over, joining the sound guy at the board. A mild panic ensued among the techies until the sound guy found out that one of the connections between cords wasn't pushed in all the way, and the crisis was averted.
Then during the opening worship, all sound suddenly cut off. The song became an acoustic song in the middle--which did not seem to bother the congregation much. The sound guy and drummer stopped to figure out what was wrong. During meet and greet, the light guy and I went up to see what the problem was. Before announcements, we had figured out that we had blown a fuse. The pastor doing announcements even said that he was going to stall until the tech guys could get the problem solved--as part of his announcements. The problem was fixed, and when he turned on his mike and his voice came out of the speakers, a round of applause came from the crowd. The drama went off without a hitch--other than one point where a line was forgotten, but he covered nicely.
On the way home, the exhaustion finally hit. I probably should have napped at some point yesterday, but I never did--even when my vision started to go wonky a couple times, and I had trouble typing. I don't think I'm fully recovered, even after a full night's sleep, because my left eye keeps twitching. Hopefully that goes away by tomorrow.
It was a long weekend. I woke up Saturday at around 7 or 7:30 (after deciding to sleep in) and proceeded to waste most of the day. Setup and practice for Sunday morning was scheduled for 5:00, and I didn't want to ask anyone for a ride, so I started walking at around a quarter to 4. After a more-involved-than-usual setup, it was time to start practicing the drama (though only after finding out that two lights were burned out, and one channel on one of the control boxes was faulty). Near the beginning, the practice was a little rough, but it got better as the evening went on. We wrapped up at around 10, needing to be back at 7 for worship practice--and the techies planned to be there earlier than that.
After getting a ride home, I had a snack, read a little, and went to bed. I checked to make sure my alarm was set, and then my iPod (which I use as an alarm clock) decided to delete all of my alarms, so I spent a couple minutes resetting all of them (9 in total). So, at about 11, I started to try to sleep. I couldn't. I'm not sure how much sleep I got, because I remember looking at the clock at 12:55 and thinking, "If I can't get to sleep in the next half hour, I'll just get up. 3 hours of sleep is worse than no sleep." I don't remember looking at the clock after that, until I woke up at 4, at which point I thought, "Well, I got 2 hours, and I've still got half an hour before my alarm. That'll have to do." I don't know if my math was just bad because I was tired, or I've since forgotten looking at the clock at a later point, but these two thoughts conflict. I went back to sleep at that point.
When my alarm went off, I had one thought. "Cold." I got up, got ready to leave, and left at a quarter after 5, knowing that my best chance to stay awake during the service was to walk to church. After getting across the Kum & Go parking lot, I turned around to get my jacket, because "I can ignore tiredness or cold, but not both."
I arrived first, and turned everything on. Worship team practice was fairly normal, then the drama people came back for their final run-throughs. During that, we found out that the cord that takes audio from the computer to the sound board was bad--a whipping sound in the video for the drama sounded like bubbles bursting underwater--so we switched out for a more complicated cord system. (This will become more important soon) After switching, the audio from the computer was more clear than it had been for any of Saturday's or Sunday's practices.
Practice finished around 10, so we opened the doors, and had the computer playing ambient music. While I was mingling, the music turned to crackling. I rushed over, joining the sound guy at the board. A mild panic ensued among the techies until the sound guy found out that one of the connections between cords wasn't pushed in all the way, and the crisis was averted.
Then during the opening worship, all sound suddenly cut off. The song became an acoustic song in the middle--which did not seem to bother the congregation much. The sound guy and drummer stopped to figure out what was wrong. During meet and greet, the light guy and I went up to see what the problem was. Before announcements, we had figured out that we had blown a fuse. The pastor doing announcements even said that he was going to stall until the tech guys could get the problem solved--as part of his announcements. The problem was fixed, and when he turned on his mike and his voice came out of the speakers, a round of applause came from the crowd. The drama went off without a hitch--other than one point where a line was forgotten, but he covered nicely.
On the way home, the exhaustion finally hit. I probably should have napped at some point yesterday, but I never did--even when my vision started to go wonky a couple times, and I had trouble typing. I don't think I'm fully recovered, even after a full night's sleep, because my left eye keeps twitching. Hopefully that goes away by tomorrow.
02 April 2012
March Madness
So, ESPN was running a Bracket Challenge, with a $10,000 Best Buy gift card at stake. To win, all one had to do was fill out a bracket, then be in the top 1% of entrants. They would then take all these entries into a random drawing, and the one picked gets the prize.
Well, the drawing is on Wednesday. And with Kentucky's win tonight, I am in the 1%. I started poorly, but I finished strong, beating out around 7 million other brackets. I doubt I'll be the lucky one chosen, but as JP (the little kid from Angels in the Outfield) always said: "It could happen."
Well, the drawing is on Wednesday. And with Kentucky's win tonight, I am in the 1%. I started poorly, but I finished strong, beating out around 7 million other brackets. I doubt I'll be the lucky one chosen, but as JP (the little kid from Angels in the Outfield) always said: "It could happen."
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