Unsupervised Design

  • My brother wins an award for best gift to anyone ever.
    Back to the Future soundtrack on Vinyl

  • rip van winkle

    I have returned!

    Funny story. I was gearing up to write a number of blog entries on some deep and profound thoughts. It was going to be amazing I swear!

    Then I came home from work one day and plugged in my laptop, the power cord cut out quickly and I thought “hmm, thats funny.” Then I noticed the smoke that was rising and I got more than a little concerned. The wires in my power cord had melted through the plastic casing. The end result is that I went 2 months before getting around to ordering a new power cord for my laptop.

    I know that some of you at this moment are reflecting – possibly panicking – at the thought of being detached from your laptop for that long. I did have an iPhone and computer access at work but I must say it was definitely freeing to not have a computer at home. With a phone and work computer I never fell behind but I also didn’t get sucked into spending all my time on the computer.

    Upon getting a new power cord I plugged my laptop in, charged it and began updating all the things that needed to be updated after two months of sleeping. The funny part was that once I had a fully functioning and up to date computer again my first thought of what I should do was to close the laptop and leave it on my desk, not touching it again that day.

    It is interesting how often ’necessities’ in our lives – for functioning, for communication, etc – are not actually necessities at all. My first reflex was to suggest that I had broken an addiction except that when I started to flesh out that idea it was flawed. When breaking an addiction one tends to avoid the substance because the reintroduction of the substance causes a relapse. In the case of my computer the reintroduction of it provoked… indifference maybe? …a shift of priorities?

    So now that this has turned from just a funny story to other thoughts – what things do we have/use/do in our lives that letting go of may not be a bad thing?

  • View from one of my favorite places on earth.
    Panorama of Scott's Bay

  • Apparently there is a native population of witches that drivers must look out for at keji
    Amusing stick figure sign

  • This is the highlight of returning home
    Tak cuddled on my lap

  • Nothing like opening a fresh bottle of crunchy peanut butter!
    Unopened bottle of Kraft crunchy peanut butter

  • Creation of the day. From scratch at that.
    Stack of fresh baked banana muffins

  • My afternoon.
    Puppy!

  • the foundations of a promise

    I am a huge fan of crazy theories and doing the unexpected.

    So one day I got to thinking about promises. Those I make and that I see made. The ones that people believe are implied and those that people need outlined in every single detail.

    As I thought more about just how quick people are to promise things – I swear on my <insert important person>‘s grace, etc – and how in the long run most promises aren’t honored I realized something. What I realized was that, like a contract, a promise is generally required by party A from party B simply so that if/when party B fails to carry through with the agreement then party A will have justification for their anger/lack of forgiveness/guilt trip.

    This is of course not the general idea that people think of when considering the concept of promises. What is the big deal about this and why should this be something we are aware of? What the cultural perception of a promise is has huge ramifications on how people go about their day. If you need people to give you a promise every time you ask them to do something it reflects that you have little faith in the people you live/work with and clearly don&rsquo;t trust them overly.

    Promises are the Opposite of Trust.

    When it comes to matters of faith this becomes a big deal again. Christians everywhere look to “The Promises of God.” Of course how this effects your life comes down to your understanding of what a promise is. For example if we look at the Promise God gave to Abraham that he would father a great nation, blah blah blah, we see something that doesn’t at all reflect our cultural understanding of promises. If Abraham had our understanding of a promise I think the exchange would have gone something like:

    God: “Sacrifice the only son I just gave you”

    Abraham: “You realize you have made me a promise already, AND he is kind of neccesary for you to carry through on your word.”

    God: “I know I know, trust me I have it all under control”

    Abraham: “Really? Doesn’t seem like you really do, I am getting kind of old and I don’t see a second child coming any too soon. Just don’t forget that you promised. Or Else”

    Now this of course isn’t how it went. Instead Abraham TRUSTED God and went along with it and is later praised for his great faith.

    I would suggest that genuine promises can be fulfilled while respecting trust, but you don’t even know that it was a “promise” until you look back and reflect on it.

    I have seen too many people require promises of others instead of trusting. Too many christians judging others and requiring promises. Things likes promise rings or purity contracts are exactly the wrong thing for Churches and Christian groups to be pushing. They create environments of mistrust, judgement, and score keeping. All things that aren’t healthy or a part of showing love to someone else.

    A promise is not something to be made or requested. A promise is something that is done.

  • a matter of semantics or heretics

    Well it has been more than a month since I have written anything. While part of me feels that not much has changed in that time I also must acknowledge that it really has. I graduated and became a contributing member to society. I even received a piece of paper that says I am qualified to educate the children of tomorrow!
    So what has spurred me to take up the mantle of writing again you might ask? People I will say. It is always people. Life, the Universe, and Everything would be much simpler without them, though significantly less interesting.
    A combination of experiences have led to this entry. In no particular order there is some motivation from watching american media covering politics and throwing around the “S” word whenever the democrats do anything. Next would be conversations at my youth group last week about judging people and how we shouldn’t do it. I recently watched Religulous (sp?) and one of my favorite parts were when the host (whose name escapes me at the moment and my failure to spell the title makes it difficult to look up) asks the Christians he met how they could pass judgement on him when they weren’t supposed to. I am also currently reading a book by Larry Osborne talking about myths Christians believe that aren’t actual biblical teachings. One of which was the idea that Christians shouldn’t judge.
    The thing that really pushed me to find the time to write this is my observed reactions of fellow Nova Scotians following the election last night. For the first time in 6 years we have a majority government but this time it is the NDP (also a first). Opinions seems to be split down the conservative vs not conservative divide. The former seem to think our province has come to an end and the later are cautiously optimistic.
    This of leads me to the other place in my life where I constantly see Conservative and Liberal viewpoints butt heads, the Church. I will say that I am someone who is considered to be on the far liberal end of the spectrum (which has been said disapprovingly about me by others but I am quite content). I often find myself at odds with Christians of a conservative viewpoint on political issues because I have long felt that focussing on making laws was a waste of time and resources but could never adequately articulate my thoughts on the matter until reading Mr. Osborne’s writings on judgement. In it he covers many things but most significantly for this discussion he broaches the topics of Christians and non-Christians. Quite simply put we aren’t supposed to judge them by Christian moral standards. This doesn’t mean there is no sin in what they do. Just that it isn’t our place to make them live up to standards we have chosen to live by. Mr. Osborne suggests that by making non-Christians live according to Christian standards will just mean there will be a lot of nice people in hell someday.
    Thusly I shall simply say “Christian morality should never be made secular law just because it is christian morality. That idea has missed the point completely.” We are called to Love one another as we love ourselves and I think the church has a big problem on its hands and needs to take a long look to consider what it does and is doing.

  • Anyone care to follow down the rabbit hole?
    Photo booth software camera inception

  • all you need is love

    Tonight as I drove home in the rain I decided I would turn my radio to my default radio station, CBC Radio 1. As I tuned in I found myself listening to a program called Out Front. This show they were talking about an arranged marriage, one specifically although they did generalize a bit. The really interesting part of it was the talk about how it is surprising how genuine Love develops in these situations simply because they choose to Love one another. I have held the opinion that people choose to be in love and that it isn’t something that you “fall” into for a while now but usually just get funny looks. I am interested to hear others opinions on this.

  • conviction tension

    So I spent some more time thinking about ideas of regret today and about some of the comments that people made in response to the last blog entry I made about regret. I didn’t really come up with anything new or earth shattering but I was left thinking about the roles of conviction and regret.

    Are they both sides of the same coin separated simply by tense? Seems to me that regret is an entirely reflective and thus not a terribly productive state of mind, in the same camp as worry. Whereas conviction would be a more momentary state of mind.

    Past. Present. Future.

    Regret. Conviction. Worry?

  • working hard or hardly working?

    Seeing that it is the end of another university school year, the sixth time I have witnessed this event, thoughts and discussions have turned inevitably to employment. For me personally I have been constantly answering questions about what I want to teach, where I want to teach, or &lsquo;Why the heck did you take this degree at all!&rsquo; That last one is my own personal favorite of the bunch. Personally I love teaching and I love the teenagers that I get to work with when teaching however I am not a super big fan of the school system. Just not the kind of place I really want to spend my life.

    I personally think that loving what you do is the most important thing when it comes to a job and that money is a lesser consideration (There are people I know that will give me grief about this but I am okay with that). Having the desire to go into work and the ability to love what you are doing contribute to your mental health, your productivity at work and also your happiness outside of work. Of course I have nothing firm to back these claims up but as I like to do I will leave that up to someone else.

    I came across an interesting interview about the Love/Growth/Cash Triangle on the internet that go me thinking about this. Read it here.

  • and now for something completely different!

    Last night I was uploading some videos to youtube for just the second time ever. In the process though I was reminded of the first time I used it. That is the story I will share today.

    Last year the gentleman who is now my roommate lived up the street in another apartment. During the month of February he decided to take a vacation to California for two weeks and he needed someone to look after his plants while he was gone. Now these are no ordinary plants, in fact they all have names and personalities, and the pain from the loss of these plants could be related to the pain that any average person would feel at losing a child.

    Of course this alignment of feelings and responsibilities lead to just one thing. You can watch that below. Unfortunately this video has disappeared from youtube. Likely due to music?

  • do i regret to inform you?

    Of late I have spent a lot of time thinking about truth, honesty, lies, liars, and living in general and I have come upon a topic that I want to hear the opinions of others on.

    That topic is regret.

    What does it mean to regret something?

    What does it mean to have no regrets?

    I am left wondering if it is part of the human experience to regret in life, or that if by believing that one is living a life of no regrets are they just deluding themselves? What things do our regrets get in the way of us experiencing or doing in our lives.

    Does regret stop love?

    I look forward to the questions, answers, and reactions of those that take the time to let the idea of regret ruminate for them.

  • saving the trees with email, but what about our sanity

    Now I am probably not your typical computer user, what with having a degree in computer science and all, but I think that there is a problem that we all deal with daily that most don’t even realize is a problem. Now I have somewhere in the ball park of 3 to 15 different email addresses, at any given moment sending an email to 10 of them may end up somewhere that I check and will respond. This is absolutely out of hand! Fear not though for I retain my sanity through the simple fact that my inbox is always empty. Yes Empty. About a year ago I listened to a talk given by a gentleman named Merlin Mann called Inbox Zero (Click here to listen, or watch the video below). I really suggest listening or watching, however if you are really lazy and don’t want to the gist of the talk is that if you don’t need it DELETE it, if it can be replied to in 3 sentences then use just 3 sentences, and finally learn the joy of search.
    Watch (or listen) Away!

  • random fruit checkpoints…

    So the last time I crossed the boarder from Canada into the USA the only question that seemed to be of any importance was the question about whether our group of weary travelers were transporting the most illegal of substances…

    … Apples!…

    But not just any kind of apple, specifically Red or Green apples. As we didn&rsquo;t have any (although an hour into Maine we remembered that there were three red apples behind the driver seat) they let us through and left us wondering just what would happen if we had possessed a collection of elusive golden delicious apples.

    The point of bringing this up is mostly just to link to an awesome story of a Fruit Checkpoint and a religion founded on the principles of a fruit-bat. Click here!

  • i can’t believe i’m blogging about uranus

    So a month ago my brother and I were locked in the grips of serious discussion for several hours, without warning the conversation broke into the realm of pure absurdity. It started with a simple question about closed systems and broke into Astrology and possibilities that it could be based in something that isn&rsquo;t completely absurd. I suggested we look at the law of gravitational force that exists between two objects. So in reality the fact that planets and stars are moving in relation to us means that there is a different force being applied to us from each one. Maybe there is something to this Astrology stuff!!!

    Now in practice the fact that the strength of the force is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the objects means that the tiny force is less than trivial in the grand scheme of things and really provides no impact on the human body. Also who says gravity affects our mood. Full moons seem to have some affect on mood so I guess there could be something to it. Given that there are probably close to an infinite number of bodies in the universe that we are having some tiny interaction with we can probably use a limit of some sort to show that there may just be some impact on our outlooks and attitudes based on the position of everything in the universe.

    Some may simply dismiss this as the ranting of a mad man and I would probably encourage thinking along those lines this was in an interesting thought experiment. Also it was a dare on my brother&rsquo;s part at the end of the conversation. He insisted I write it up and post it on the internet. And it only took me almost a month to do it. I hope people fully appreciate the humor of the photo that accompanies this post, it is compliments of my friend Ross (and in turn via the internet).

    So here&rsquo;s to more frequent and less crazy posts in the future!

  • food for thought

    Over my spring break I took some time to listen to the book “The Last Lecture” which was written by Randy Pausch and is based on the lecture he gave by the same title at Carnegie Mellon University in 2007. He was diagnosed with Cancer and used the lecture as an opportunity to pass on some advice to his children (who are small now) so he can influence them when they are older. The book was great and so is the talk. It is full of sound advice and also things that seem common sense at first but often we need to hear them again. I would encourage people to pick up the book or if you have some time to check out the video of his lecture below.