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Monday, January 8th, 2007
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9:16 am
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So another Christmas has come and gone. Ye gads, they go by quickly. School starts again in two days. Sucks. Details on my Christmas below, but first, updates on the last semester.
So I finished up the last semester with all A's except for one class, where I got a B-. This would be the evil, possessed-of-Satan Electromagnetics class. I am so glad to be out of that.
So every Christmas, my family goes to Tennessee to spend it with my Dad's folks and his sister's family, too. This Christmas, we didn't head up until Christmas Eve, which was a first. We typically head up at least a day before that. The roads were nice and clear, which was an obvious plus. We still had the typical Christmas Eve get-together, though, where our extended family also comes. This year we had my Dad's Dad's stepmother there with us, too. His biological mother passed on a few decades ago, and his biological father passed away a little over a decade ago, so she's the only great grandmother I've ever known. Christmas day, she and my grandma's oldest sister, whose husband passed away a few years ago, stayed with us and celebrated Christmas with us. It was a good time, and we spent the next week spending time with her and my grandmother, including taking a trip to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, TN. We even spent the night at my great aunt's log cabin, which she and her departed husband built together years ago. It was pretty darn cool.
So this coming semester ought to be interesting. 13 hours. Two grad courses. Two 400-level courses. I gotta go buy books today, too. Bleh. Wish me luck!
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| Monday, December 11th, 2006
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12:48 pm - Update Time
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So I'm at work again. It seems this is most often where I update this journal. Could have something to do with the fact that I feel I have extra time, here. Sitting in front of a desk does tend to make one a bit stir-crazy. Of course, as I sit here, I can't help but wish school was over. This week is exam week. Bleh.
Speaking of school... I suppose I've done okay this semester, but for some reason it still feels like something of a wash. I've gotten A's (whether - or +) on everything in Philosophy and History, from papers to tests. In Embedded systems, I've gotten pretty solid B's, so that's about the grade I expect. Verilog has been pretty good. I've gotten A's on most everything except a homework or two and then Exam 2, which was an odd case. That sucked because I got all the hard problems on the test right but goofed up on an easy problem. The teacher wanted us to correct some errant code, but he didn't really tell us whether or not he wanted us to preserve the functionality the code seemed to be aiming for. So I tried to correct what I thought was wrong with the code and ended up writing the errors right back into the code in my solutions. Yay. Those problems didn't play well with my brain. Anyway...
The one class that has been sucking consistently is Electromagnetics. To top things off, the T/A LOST my last homework. I know I turned it in, and I've got a friend who will testify on my behalf. Still, that was not what I needed. I'm gonna have to put in some extra work on that to make sure I do well on the final. Otherwise, I may end up with a C in that class, which would not make me a happy student.
In other news, I need to email two professors and bug them to get in recommendations for me to NCSU's graduate school. I want to do the whole Accelerated Masters thingy, but you've got to have three letters of recommendation and a letter of purpose. The letter of purpose doesn't have to be anything special apparently, and I definitely have the GPA to get in. It's just a matter of jumping through the right proverbial hoops.
In other news, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) smilidon got me a CD for Christmas. :) It's Nevarakka's latest album Soft. Good album. I'm a fan of synthpop, so this makes me happy. *nods* Thanks, bud! Now I just need to figure out what to get him...
current music: Nevarakka - Meant to Last
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| Sunday, October 22nd, 2006
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2:04 pm - Updatey journaley thingy
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So this coming school week will be week 10. Crazy, man. I'm looking forward to the end of the semester already. While the income's nice, working and schooling at the same time just piles on the stress. It doesn't help that the teacher in one of my classes doesn't do a very good job of teaching, so lately I've been sitting in the class and just sort of staring blankly. This isn't good when it's a) A required class and B) the 10th week of school. I need to sit down for a date with my textbook, but I'm sorta pressed for time overall. At least my other classes are going well. There always seems to be one bad apple in the barrel.
Speaking of classes, I plan to enroll in my university's Accelerated Masters program. It's a nifty little program where you begin taking grad classes while you're still an undergrad. The grad courses you take are double-counted, then, towards both your undergraduate degree and a Masters degree so that you only have to take one additional year of courses after you graduate with the undergrad degree. The trick, of course, is that you have to go through a lengthy process of applying to the grad school. I thought I could register for courses and then apply. Nope. I have to apply and then register for courses. So I can sign up for the few undergrad courses I need, but the graduate courses I can't register for just yet. This is bad because my registration window opened this past Thurdsday (the 19th). So I just hope the grad courses don't all fill up before I get my foot in the door, as it were.
Y'know, trying to figure out what to specialize in is hard. In the Computer Engineering major, there are quite a few undergraduate specializations. Then you've also got graduate plans of work to figure in. It's a little like trying to figure out what to be when you grow up a second time around. I picked Computer Engineering, okay, but what do I do now that I'm studying Computer Engineering? I need to meet with a few professors and find out what the job market's like for certain specializations. My interests thus far have been linear systems with signal processing, transistor physics, Verilog, and I generally love programming. Really, this positions me almost perfectly to pursue Digital VLSI, short for Very Large Scale Integration. Essentially, I'd be studying how to design microchips. It uses knowledge of digital logic and today you write code that is compiled into hardware. It's neat stuff. We did a lab this past Friday and I got to work with this nifty FPGA board with all these flashing lights and such. Yes, I'm still a boy at heart, and I love things that blink, blip, and whir. :P And for those of you who are wondering, FPGA stands for Field Programmable Gate Array. Essentially, it's a chip that can rewire itself to mimic any chip you want it to. Pretty neat stuff, really.
So yeah. What to specialize in...
current mood:  sleepy
current music: None at the moment
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| Thursday, September 21st, 2006
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1:16 pm - Long time, no update
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I blame school for the lag in updating. My own laziness was a contributor too, of course.
So I am back in school, and I'm taking 16 hours while trying to work about 18 hours a week. The real surprise is that, so far, it's been quite doable. I'm working for IBM still, so I work remotely from my university's campus two hours each on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Then I have some time to work on IBM's campus on Tuesday and Thursday. All in all, it's not too hard to get in the 18 hours and still have time to get my homework and such done. I'm busy, yes, but it's more than liveable.
In other news, I got to go visit some cousins up in Iowa this past August. I almost never get to see them, so it was an enjoyable couple of days. It was just my mother and I so I was able to get my cousins to myself quite frequently. I have a sister and I did miss having her around, but when it's just one of us, it does make hanging with the cousins easier. Hopefully my sister'll be able to make it up next time, despite.
Speaking of said trip to Iowa, I started getting sick while there and I've been coughing and snotting ever since. So I've been kinda blah for going on a month, and when I breathe in, I can occasionally literally hear myself wheeze from the junk in my lungs. Fun times. The thing that really sucks it that every time I go to the Student Health Center on my university's campus, it clears up just for the visit, then comes back after. It makes me feel quite the hypochondriac. It also doesn't help that, since my mom and sis have a history of asthma, the doc always asks me repeatedly, "Are you sure you don't have asthma?" Yes, I'm sure! Coughing and snotting are not asthmatic symptoms! At least I haven't yet been asked if I'm pregnant. I really need to find a doctor's office off-campus that's worth a plug-nickel.
Meanwhile, I have three tests and three papers all due next school week. Wish me luck, sanity, and good grades!
current mood: tired
current music: Angels and Airwaves - Good Day
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| Friday, July 28th, 2006
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10:01 am - I'm off to see the Wizard..! Okay, not quite.
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This weekend my parents and I are heading to Tennessee to see my Dad's parents. We've not seen them since March, so we're making a trip up there to see them before Christmas time. We're also gonna celebrate my birthday while we're there and, I'm hoping, my Mom's birthday, too. I still need to figure out what to get her. Maybe a Best Buy gift card...
Well, one of the instructors at Winterpast Wado-Ryu has officially said good-bye to head to college in Connecticut, where he intends to major in Martial Arts. The man is 19 years old and probably one of the most physically fit individuals I've ever met. You can check out some videos of him doing his stuff at his YouTube profile. He said he was going to delete all his videos in prep for posting a new one, so I don't know what will be up when you read this. No promises! His name's Chris, though, and he's one of the cooler guys I've had the privilege of knowing, and training under him was a treat. Chris, you will be missed at Winterpast.
For now we're on a two-week break from karate classes until classes at NC State University resume. Because most of the students at Winterpast are also students at NCSU, and because Wayne (the headmaster and founder of Winterpast) is a tenured PE professor a NCSU, the Winterpast school schedule tracks closely with that of NCSU. Ironically, because of this I assumed that classes for the fall semester would not start until NCSU classes did on August 23rd. I was wrooong. Classes actually start at the dojo about a week before, on the 17th. Unfortunately, I planned a trip to Iowa to visit some relatives on those days before classes begin, so I won't be there for the first class. This especially sucks because myself and two other students are being moved up to a more advanced class where Wayne hopes we'll be more challenged.
That's kind of an interesting story, actually. A month or so ago Sensei Pollard called myself and two other students up and asked us our opinions of our training. I don't remember the general responses, but he had basically pulled us aside to say that he wanted to move us up to a more advanced class to keep us challenged. Our belt system goes White, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Green, Brown, High Brown, Black. Myself and the two other students are currently wearing our yellow belts and we know two kata. The class we're being moved into have their blue belts and know five kata. Needless to say, we'll have some catching up to do. However, Wayne expressed his opinion that, if we really work on it, we could be wearing our blue belts by Christmas. So now we just have to commit to getting there. I hope to have a bit more time to spent in the gym this coming fall semester so I can get in better shape than I am now.
Speaking of shape, I find it funny that I know I'm thinner, yet my weight continues to hold in the high 190's. The only thing I can figure is that I'm gaining muscle. That's the one thing I hate about scales: they don't accurately tell you your body fat percentage. Sure, there are scales that can do it, but they'd be basing it upon a standard body size that might not match my own. So all I can do is say, "I'm thinner."
I think that's all for now. Have a good weekend, all!
current mood:  optimistic
current music: The Echoing Green - Story of Our Lives
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| Wednesday, July 26th, 2006
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11:51 am - Bored-casting to you from RTP. Again.
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So once again I sit here at work, working on code. It gets boring, but deadlines remain where they are, and so I continue to code on. Exciting, no?
On the upside, today is my birthday. That makes me a "hefty" 22. I don't feel older than I did at 21, even though that age number thingy has gone up by one. I'm sure this'll change when I reach 30 and certainly when I reach 40. Thankfully those are both still quite a few years away. The time will go FAST, though. Interesting how I'm already beginning to ponder my mortality at 22. I'm also hoping I can get in good shape before it's really too late to do anything about it! Which brings me to my next topic...
I have this feeling we're gonna be worked to death in karate class tonight. For those of you who don't know, I'm taking Wado-Ryu karate at the private Winterpast dojo in Hillsborough, NC. I'm currently a yellow belt, so I have a ways still to go (understatement, yes). Typically the instructor works us hard before a break. This week is the last week before we take a two-week break before the start of the fall school term. So if our usual instructor is back, I'll probably finish the class trembling from the exertion. That's happened quite a few times, and would likely explain why I'm considerably thinner compared to when I first started at the dojo.
Here at work I am gonna get to play with Macromedia Flash, at least. I've got to design a file upload application for this project, and Flash seems to be the best option at the moment. Here's hoping I manage to get all this stuff done on time!
current mood: lethargic
current music: Caleb Carruth - Loving Loss
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| Thursday, July 20th, 2006
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11:49 am - Tasty BBQ Spam!
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So I collect "Nigerian Royalty" spam. For anyone who's not seen the Red vs Blue video that includes the topic of spam, you owe it to yourselves to give it a look-see.
Nigerian Royalty spam is spam wherein the author purports to be royalty, or to be related to or employed by royalty, in the country of Nigeria. They also claim to have a large sum of money that they need help moving around, and they either want your address and personal information, or else a "down payment" as an "assurance" of your good will. Of course, not every spam message of this flavor actually deals with Nigeria. I've gotten letters from someone supposedly based in London. However, they are all bred from the same stock, and all of them want money or information.
So last night I received a Nigerian Royalty spam message I absolutely had to share. Apparently I won a lottery executed by, get this, the "OFFICE OF THE BBQ NIGERIA". Yes. I won a BBQ lottery. I have pasted the text of the message below for your reading enjoyment. Welcome to the new low of template spam, wherein you can usually tell what's been subbed-in because it's in uppercase.
Sender: BBQ Coordinator [qbbcoordinator@gmail.com]
Subject: Winning Notification
Message Text:
OFFICE OF THE BBQ NIGERIA
AWARDING & PROMO INTERNET DRAW
POSTFACH
4002 BASEL
REF NUMBER: CSL/74/368/06
BATCH NUMBER: CS-121-LT-8-12-06
Dear Winner,
We are please to inform you that as result of our BBQ AWARDING & PROMO DRAWS held on 17th of July 2006. Your e-mail address was consequently won in the 2nd category and you have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay out of 250,000. (TWO HUNDRED AND FIFY THOUSAND USD)
Note that all participants in this lottery program have been selected randomly through a computer ballot system drawn from over 20,000 companies and 30,000,000 individual email addresses from all search engines and web sites. This promotional program takes place every year, and is promoted and sponsored by THE BBQ NIGERIA. For security purpose and clarity, we advise that you keep your winning information confidential until your claims have been processed and your CHEQUE sent to you. Please note, in order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications, remember to quote your reference number and batch numbers in all correspondence. Furthermore, should there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible. For your claims please contact our payment agent Mr. Charles Smith with your details as required below via email: bbqnigerianpmt@katamail.com
1.REF NUMBER:
2.BATCH NUMBER:
3.First Name;
4.Last Name;
5.your full home / office address;
6.Tawn/City
7.Post Code;
8.Country;
9.Occupation
10.Direct telephone/fax numbers;
11.Date of birth;
12.Winning Email address;
13.marital statues;
I.......................... Hereby declare that the above information's are true and binding on me. If at any time it is discovered that I have given false information, I will forfeit my rights to my winning......................
Sign/Date
Contact: Mr. James Abi
Email: bbqnigerianpmt@katamail.com
Tel: +2348052938620
NOTE: YOU ARE AUTOMATICALLY DISQUALIFIED IF YOU ARE BELOW 18 YEARS OF AGE.
Sincerely yours,
MRS. Elizabeth Etu
(BBQ DRAW COORDINATOR)
Winning Notification
So spam continues because people still fall for it? I weep for humanity.
current mood: amused
current music: None
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| Wednesday, July 19th, 2006
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12:49 pm - Coming to you live from IBM's RTP campus
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So it's been about 11 months since I last posted a REAL journal entry. I figured it was time for some updates.
The co-op here at IBM continues to go pretty well, though there comes a time in the life of any large project where all is drudgery. The planning is done, you know what you're after, and all that's left is to sit and code, code, code. This has been the case with every programming project I've ever undertaken, inside or outside the corporate world. On the upside, this particular project ought to earn me quite a bit of visibility within IBM. I suppose the jury's out on whether that is a blessing or curse, since visibility also means lots of comments and bugfixes. I'll find out the extent of the damage once it's complete and publicly available. The downside is that I've got little more than a month to get it to a functional state.
That's another gripe of mine. Web development. There comes a time in the life of any web project where all is not just drudgery, but every page you code begins to look and feel the same. I find myself copying and pasting whole pages and then modifying the code to do what I want. True, I could try to compile all this into a massive script and use conditions to switch to the right spot, but that would be a PAIN to debug. I'd rather have a large number of files with fewer lines of code than vice versa. I could also try to use Javascript to make things a bit more dynamic, but that takes time and a lot of it, at that.
Karate continues to be an immense source of fun and, most rewardingly at my current level, weight loss! I'm down to the 190's, now, and I can now fit a 34"-waist pair of jeans, where before I was confined to the world of the 38" waist. I'm currently a yellow belt working my way up to orange. The headmaster of the dojo I attend recently pulled myself and two other karateka's aside and told us he wanted to move us up to a slightly more advanced class to challenge us. He also told us that, if we worked hard, we could very well have our blue belts by Christmas. Given that blue is the 5th belt in the system, that's not bad. Our ranks go White, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Green, Brown, High Brown, Black. Making it to blue by Christmas after starting karate in August 2005 would not be bad at all. Especially since the headmaster likes to make sure we're doing it all right. Our school is not a belt factory. In its six years of operation, only six individuals have attained the level of black belt. The school, a private invitation-only dojo, currently has around 70 students.
One of the things I hope to gain from karate is control of fear. When I step out on the floor to spar, I get nervous. I don't think of the many ways I could get hurt, but for some reason I find myself afraid. I hate that. Hopefully, over the couple of years of future training at the school, I will begin to master that fear, because I find that particular fear rising all to frequently in my dealings with people. Why am I afraid of PEOPLE? They can do no more than kill me. Still, that fear makes little sense in the light of a Greater Power.
I get to take a trip to Iowa this coming August with my mom, too. This oughta be good, since I haven't seen my family in Iowa in a couple of years. All the male cousins in my extended family live in Iowa. The only cousins that live nearby are teenage girls and, while I have nothing against teenage girls in general, they are still teenagers. 'Nuf said. My cousins up in Iowa, meanwhile, are more like me, so I look forward to this trip.
School is coming! While the co-op with IBM over the past two years has been great, I look forward to returning to school for the home stretch. I've got probably 6 semesters of schooling left, but that will include graduation with a Masters degree in Computer Engineering, in addition to a BS in Computer Engineering, a BS in Electrical Engineering, and a minor in Computer Science. Considering that I started in the fall of 2002, this is actually a pretty good deal for six years (estimated graduation date of May 2009). I'm also going to be working part-time for IBM this fall. We'll see how that works out. With 16 hours of classes, karate, continued participation in Grace Church, and 15-20 hours of work a week, I might very well be dead by December. On the other hand, it might very well be one of my best semesters yet.
I think that's all for now. I shall have to continue posting as more comes to mind. But those are the latest updates!
current mood: tired
current music: Pristina - Skies
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| Tuesday, July 18th, 2006
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10:48 pm - First Post in a Year
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And so my first post in nearly a year shall be a quiz I linked to from smilidon's journal.
| You scored as Beta Wolf. You are a BETA WOLF. You are second in command. You like to challenge the alpha wolf, but tend to back off or be put in your place when it comes to fighting. You are fairly strong and appear to be smarter than others.
Beta Wolf | | 50% | Omega Wolf | | 42% | Alpha Wolf | | 33% | Gamma Wolf | | 25% | </td>
Where do you rank in the Wolf Pack?
created with QuizFarm.com |
current mood: amused
current music: The Goo Goo Dolls - Without You Here
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| Wednesday, August 31st, 2005
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9:54 am - Coming to you live from MicroElectronics class!
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It's been too long since I've updated this journal. I don't have that many readers, but here's hoping this gets read nonetheless.
Many many things have happened since June. First off, my co-op at IBM ended. The last few weeks were a sort of frantic rush to the finish that left me looking forward to my return to school. The documentation was what suffered, unfortunately, but I'm very proud of how the Survey Tool project I was working on turned out. It was a far cry from the project they gave me to modify when I came in. Here's hoping it gets lots of use and works well for them. If not, I'll have a few bugs to fix when I return in the spring. :)
On August 17th, returned to school I did. I lived in Cary, NC the whole summer whilst co-opping in Research Triangle Park outside of Durham, so I didn't have any moving to do, thankfully. I did help others move in that previous Saturday, which was a good experience. After that it was straight to home to get a few things for the coming school year. That was the weekend of August... 14th, I think it was.
I must be crazy. 18 hours of senior-level courses gets rough rather quickly. I'm taking technical writing, Microelectronics, linear systems, software engineering, and Karate. Karate is cool, at least, and I'm actually enjoying linear systems. All in all, this semester could be very interesting. And I say this after only my second week in! Oi...
current mood:  pessimistic
current music: Matt Redman - Here is Love
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| Thursday, June 16th, 2005
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9:41 am - Father's day is coming up...
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Well, Father's Day is this Sunday. I'm not real sure what to get my Dad. He's kinda hard to shop for, no matter the occasion. I know he'll be happy just to have me home for the weekend, but saying 'I'm your father's day gift!' just somehow seems like the answer of a lazy man. That is, unless it's dressed up, of course. Popping out of a cake might be a bit much, though.
I'm on the worship team at Grace church still, and our numbers are waaay down since the school year's out. I volunteered to do the devotional at next Wednesday's practice, so I need to start getting that together...
Yeah, I don't really have much for this update. That, and I only got five hours of sleep last night. By choice, I might add. I'm crazy. Yup.
current mood: tired
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| Tuesday, June 14th, 2005
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8:16 am - Time for another update!
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Again, my laziness in updating this thing proves unfettered, so once again I find myself taking a few minutes during work to update all the readers I don't have on what I've been doing.
I'm still at IBM at the moment, still on my co-op. I'm very much enjoying coming to work and then going home with no homework to pursue me. The pay's nice, too. I'm still working on a project that I was assigned to my first week here. It needed a lot of modification when I got it, and I made the changes, which took me quite some time. I'd try to list the changes, but the project is IBM Confidential (not because it's top secret, but simply because it's company property); that, and the changes needed were summarized in a document affectionately known as 'the kitchen sink'. Well, my team lead and I sat down a few weeks ago and decided that the tool needed to be taken from version 2.2, to which I'd just gotten it, to version 3.0. The reason is that I'd pretty much been hacking the tool to get the new features on, so we decided to go with a bit more fresh start and get it up to date so adding new features wouldn't mean hacking it quite so much. The benefit is that I also get to implement a much nicer interface with a black and blue theme more reminiscent of IBM's colors. The former look was a gaudy pink monstrosity.
In the interim, between the decision to move to version 3.0 and today's date, my family took a vacation to San Francisco and Yosemite in the coastal state of California. Wow. Awesome vacation.
We spent the first day walking around Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. We even walked down through the Golden Gate Recreational Area and saw the Golden Gate Bridge from a distance, and all this after a big lunch at Joe's Crab Shack. I can now officially say that I have eaten at Joe's. :P
The next day we picked up an RV and headed off to Yosemite. I don't have many pictures up at the moment, but here's a sample of what we saw.
A Part of the Valley Floor
Yosemite Falls
After Yosemite, we left the park and went to an old rail-town and took a pleasant little ride behind a steam locomotive, then it was off to Calaveras Big Trees State parks to see the Sierra Redwoods, which are better known as Giant Sequoias (little known fact: They're named after a Cherokee Indian chief because of their red bark. Yes, it's racist :P). BIG TREES. Here's a sample of what I'm talking about. They don't look all that big in the photo, right? Well, now, look to the bottom right of the tree in the center. See that gray speck? That's my Dad, who is, I might add, nearly 6 feet tall. Like I said, BIG TREES.
After Calaveras, we went back to San Francisco and saw some more of the sights, including the famous Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, which was closed in 1963 due to age and the prohibitive costs of operation. It was a pretty amazing place. Also a little known fact, but it is from Alcatraz that prisons got the slang name "the slammer". Why? Alcatraz has entire blocks of cells that can be opened and closed all at once a level at time (there were three levels to each block). When they all shut at once, it's quite the racket. Made me glad I wasn't on the other side of one of them as an inmate.
Now for the bad news. Our first full day back, my dad was informed that he'd been terminated from his job. It wasn't due to any failings in his performance. Far from it. Rather, the division of RJ Reynolds Packaging that my dad was employed in was bought out by another company and the new owners instituted some cutbacks. My dad was a victim. So, for the moment, my dad's without a job. For those of you who pray, be praying for my family. My mom's currently working, so we're not completely without income, but my mom's job's not real secure at the moment either because the funding for the medical research program she's a part of appears to be drying up without renewal. So, come this fall when I'm supposed to go back to classes at NCSU, things could get interesting. We'll be alright, of that I have no doubt. We'll see how things turn out.
On an unrelated side note, we were having home network troubles at my house on Sunday and I could not, for the life of me, stay connected to the role play servers I like to chat on. So what did I do? I asked the owners of the role play, who live in the same city, if I could come over to their place and use their connection. They agreed, so over I went. That's when you know you're addicted to role-play: When you invite yourself over to someone's home to use their internet connection. Still, I got my RP fix, and didn't get to bed 'til almost 3 AM, to boot. Getting up at 8 that same morning was fun.
So that's the update for now. Long time in coming, but hopefully worth it.
current mood:  content
current music: Andy Hunter - Wonderful
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| Thursday, April 28th, 2005
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8:41 am - Update again!
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I really need to update this thing more frequently, eh?
Things've been going well as of late. I went out on campus yesterday with Berk again and we got to share the gospel with a guy nicknamed Bobby. I didn't catch his real name, though I know it began with an 'S'. He gave it to us, but didn't really speak it real clearly. Ah well... Anyway, we shared the gospel with him and he wanted to pray to receive Christ at the end, but he had a speech class to get to that kinda cut things short. So we left him with the bridge diagram (a diagram which basically summarizes the Bible: God's attempt to reach man), swapped email addresses, and then Berk and I prayed for him as he went to class. I really really hope he gets back in touch with us, or else prays to receive Christ on his own.
On that note, I've been getting back into reading the Word lately. Did I mention the Bible has some really heavy stuff in it? For instance...
12 But man, despite his riches, does not endure;
he is like the beasts that perish.
13 This is the fate of those who trust in themselves,
and of their followers, who approve their sayings.
14 Like sheep they are destined for the grave,
and death will feed on them.
The upright will rule over them in the morning;
their forms will decay in the grave,
far from their princely mansions.
If that isn't heavy, I don't know what is. Psalms 49:12-14, that is. Psalms really has some pretty cool stuff in it. "In the roar of your waterfalls..."
Anyway, I'm supposed to be going to work right about now, so I'd better git.
current mood: content
current music: Jimmy Eat World - "23"
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| Monday, April 18th, 2005
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10:39 am - Update time
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While I doubt many, if anyone, will read this journal, I continue to post. Perhaps I should question my intelligence, or perhaps I should just ignore the silence and continue on anyway.
I went to an emerging leaders' retreat this past weekend with my church. Good times, that. It was held at Camp Chestnut Ridge in Efland, North Carolina and we had about 40 people there staying in one lodge and one (poorly heated) cabin. It was just a night and next-morning kinda thing, but it was still really good. The point was made that Satan doesn't tremble when pastors and such are filled with the Spirit. He trembles when ordinary people are filled with the Spirit. The church as a whole needs to get there. We really do.
Yesterday I heard some disturbing statistics that less than 14% of confessing Christians actually hold a Biblical worldview. The figure is some 13% for non-denominational Protestant churches and the figure goes downhill from there, with something like a mere 9% for mainline denomations. No wonder the church is adrift in this world! Many of our own number fail to believe or even read the book upon which our faith is based!
I've found it to be a certain fact, too, that temptation always comes strongest after an experience that draws you closer to God. After this weekend, I was further tempted in some of my weaker areas and, what do you know, I fell. Predictable, aren't I? The worst part being that it was willingly. It was almost ironic. I had people asking me to go out to lunch with them after church. It was a chance to hang out with the people from my church and get to know them better. I'm all about unity in the body because it's necessary for growth for the individual members of the body. However, I turned down the invitations, ate by myself, and went home because I'd planned on RPing with a friend and I'd told him I'd be around. Then, of course, once he and I start role playing, his connection dies, so I didn't even get to do that. The end result, of course, is that I completely goofed up in that regard. I shoulda gone out to eat with some of my church buddies. As it was, I ended up working on a friend's website for him, which isn't altogether bad, but I woulda preferred some form of socialization. At least worship went pretty well that morning.
That's another topic entirely: worship. Jess, the leader of worship team 1, the team I'm in, is getting married later this summer. This means that there's a distinct possibility I may be filling his shoes. Now, my Dad's a woship leader, so I've seen what leading a team's like up close for a number of years. However, there are several things to overcome when leading a band. The first is that I don't know many of the songs the Grace Church worship teams have under their belt, so I'm a student much of the time. There's also the fact that leading a worship team is never a really stable thing, as I found out this past Saturday when Jess, our team's leader, couldn't be there. I wasn't officially dubbed leader or anything; but, as a team, we just kinda seemed to stumble uncertainly through practice. Things still turned out alright the next Sunday morning, but I wish practice had been a bit smoother. It had to be a God thing, because we were a mess at practice. Thankfully, worship's less about the music and more about simply singing back to God. We just lead the congregation. If leading a team is where God wants me, I'll make myself available. But I'll need help from the fellow members of the band and such, which is just as well, since it's a team. Humility is key, y'know?
Anyway, that's where I am. I missed reading the Bible Wednesday through Saturday, which kidna sucks. I really need to make sure I do that, since there's really no way to grow if I don't spend time reading the Bible and praying. I need to find an accountability partner to keep tabs on me. I'll have to ask around at church and my Campus Crusade Bible study group...
As for work, I keep getting pulled off the project I've been on since starting here in early January to do these little side tasks. It's becoming frustrating that I seemingly won't get the chance to simply finish what I've started. Here's hoping I do... So yeah, I'm kinda 'blah' overall at the moment.
current mood: apathetic
current music: Relient K - I So Hate Consequences
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| Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005
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3:53 pm - Good times
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I've actually been getting in to work early this week. It's been nice to leave at a time earlier than 6 PM EST. Try 4.
On a grand upside, the first real run of the project I've been working on at work went quite well yesterday. I'm just wrapping the project up now and working on documentation. Tomorrow will make five weeks I've been working on it. Not bad, if I do say so myself. It was really good to see my manager and team lead satisfied with my work. A lot of times you don't get good feedback on your work, so that kinda visible response was pleasant, indeed.
What's coming up this week? Well, for starters there's supposed to be a worship session this coming Friday for Good Friday that my team is supposed to play for, but the leader for my team is gonna be outta town, so I'm not sure what the plan is. *crosses fingers*
I'm also going home to see my family and hear a guy named Neil Silverburg speak at our church. He's a Messianic Jew, which means he's a Christian Jew, and he's not only an excellent speaker, but there's just a feeling of excitement around him. I'm really forward to seeing him again, since it's been several years.
Anyway, that's the latest and greatest. Have a good one, yo.
current mood: chipper
current music: Caleb Carruth - Darkness Falls
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| Thursday, March 10th, 2005
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10:09 pm - Comin' atcha
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It's interesting the things that come your way whether you're really ready or not.
My pastor here in Raleigh sat me down last Thursday and asked me how I felt about leading a Bible study or going further with the worship team. I must admit that I don't feel real prepared to do either; especially the Bible study. I need to pray and read the Word more than I do for the Bible study. As for the worship team, I suppose one could say I'm "qualified". I've been a part of the worship team back home for a while and my Dad leads worship for my church, so I've had a sort of 'inside view' for years. Then again, it's not really about aptitude, as my boss at work taught me. It's about attitude. Do I have the kind of heart that God can use? That's the question. I hope so, but I need to stay humble and just keep myself available. I want to be where He wants me.
Turning to more mundane matters, my boss and team lead want me to run the programming project I've been working on for the last three and a half weeks through its paces tomorrow. Here's hoping it works for them... *crosses fingers* I'll have tomorrow to fix any minor issues, but no time for anything major.
I also got myself a new computer monitor, a 20" Dell flat panel. Tis muy nice, indeed. It's the Dell 2001FP, for the curious.
I also got to go see my sister in a play last weekend. The play was called Anything Goes, and it was my sister's most prominent role to date. She did great and the play was hilarious. She's planning to stay home for a year before college, but I hope she keeps up the activities. She is planning to help lead a group local to Winston-Salem called "Worth the Wait". They go around to various schools and basically teach abstinence. It ought to be a good experience for her, all in all, since leadership is a good quality to have in the workplace.
That's all for now!
current mood:  contemplative
current music: Steven Curtis Chapman - All Things New
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| Wednesday, February 23rd, 2005
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11:55 pm - Here goes nothing....
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Well, here's my first ever entry on LiveJournal. As such, I'm not quite sure what to write. I'm quite new to web-blogging, although certainly not new to the web.
So perhaps something about me?
Well, I'm currently 20 years of age and a college student at North Carolina State University. Good school, that. I enjoy technology, computers, video games, music, playing guitar... Pretty much the usual set of hobbies for a student double majoring in computer science and computer engineering: a future professional geek.
I'm a Christian, as well. While this "confession" is likely to earn both ire and praise from parties that may drop by, it is, nonetheless, the case. I've been one for some 15 years. My home church is Crossfire Church back in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I've been attending that church since about 1989 and I love it.
I currently find myself co-opping at IBM, which is the reason I've taken the time to create this LiveJournal account: so I can embed it in the personal web page I'm making with the skills I've learned while working for Big Blue. So far the job's going well, though the security standards are certainly higher than what I'm used to.
Anyway, that's all for now.
current mood: satisfied
current music: BT - Tripping the Light Fantastic
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