Name:Jeremy Country:United States State:Illinois Metro:Bloomington-Normal Birthday:4/16/1983 Gender:Male
Interests:
Computers - primarily programming, gaming, and messing things up
Christian music - especially Metal and techno/industrial
Math; really, just up though calculus - past that gets a little nuts
Aviation
Movies
Expertise:
Programming
Math
Gaming
Breaking stuff
Chewing pens
Goofing around
Playing pool (if you have a REALLY loose definition of expertise)
Rambling
Writing a really long expertise section that no one will really care about because the blogging itself will be much more interesting and the expertise section breaks down into a long and not very funny joke that really shows just how nerdy I am (not that it's a bad thing - really, callling somebody a nerd isn't much of an insult anymore. I'm an applied computer science major at ISU, and all of us wear the term "nerd" as a badge)
Hey everybody - quick note, Craig (the guy leading the BCM Bible study) is asking for feedback on a website the BCM group is doing; you can check it out here: http://www.trans4mations.org/. Not much else going on here at the moment. Splinter Cell is awesome.
Wow - it's been almost a year since my last post. Well, for all those who have been eagerly awaiting my next post (which is probably no one), here it is. I just started going through the Experiencing God course with the BCM. I've done the course once, but it was a long time ago (in High School). I've seen a variety of Bible study materials and other things of that sort that I've gotten virtually nothing out of (God speaks to each one of us differently, so that's not to knock other Bible study materials), but even just in the first week I'm remembering why I got so much out of Experiencing God the first time I took it. One of the big take-aways I had from the first time I took it was that you can never be afraid of struggling through difficult issues. God will always drive to the thing that we will not let him have, and I often don't even know where I'm holding on to what I should be giving up. Part of trusting God means that you trust that God asks you to give things up for your own good, and also that if he asked for it, he intends to give you whatever willpower, insight, or perspective that you need to give it up. I hadn't realized it before, but I was afraid before to ask for God's will in my life because I was afraid I wouldn't surrender to Him - but I've discovered that eventually, if I honestly seek, I will.
So, this time through, so far something that's jumped out at me is that "Spiritual truth is not discovered - it is revealed". I often forget that; many times I try to "figure out" God. Lately, I think he's been saying to trust him to reveal what I need instead of trusting in myself to figure things out. Almost every time I've heard something from God before, it hasn't been because I thought it through and came to a conclusion - it has always been something more or less illogical. And I find that I usually look back and can make more sense of things than I could going through it. I think that's one of the many small proofs God gives us that He's at work - if it had been me, it would have made sense to me the whole time.
OK, now for something completely and totally different:
I meant to post that to my Xanga months ago, but never got around to it.
Hey y'all - I figure it's about time for me to post again. This is going to be a long one, so I figured I'd put bold headings on each part so you can skip stuff you don't care about (I'd advise just reading the "Spiritually Significant Stuff" part if you don't want to sit and read the whole thing).
How I'm doing
A couple of you posted and asked me how I'm doin' - I'd have to say the best way to categorize that would be pretty good . I'm enjoying my new job - I recently got promoted from a customer service rep to a planner, which basically means I make people's schedules. I'm really glad to be off the phones, although I am a bit worried. I realize that God had me doing that job for several reasons, many of which involved me learning how to interact with people. I know that there are a few things I was supposed to have learned that I didn't - particularly how to not take things personally. The thing that worries me about that is, if God moved me away from that job and I didn't learn a few lessons, I'm sure I'll still have to learn them. Hopefully, whatever God uses to teach me to deal with people better won't be too painful...
I'm also still waiting on U of I and UTD (University of Texas at Dallas) to see if and where I'm going to grad school. I'm not sure when I know, but I'll be glad when I do one way or another.
Spiritually Significant Stuff
Our last Sunday School lesson was about salvation - definitely a worthy topic of discussion even for mature Christians. One thing I thought about later that I didn't bring up at the time was examples of people recorded in the Bible who became believers. In particular, the thief on the cross stands out as an example we can learn a great deal from. One of the topics we discussed specifically yesterday was the difference between "believe in" in John 3:16 and "believe" in James 2:19. The thief on the cross obviously had no trouble with the idea that Jesus is a real person. He also apparently believed that Jesus is Immanuel (God with us). However, he did more than that - he put his trust in Jesus. I point this out because the thief did not have to do anything to earn his salvation, nor was there any elaborate process involved - I think this story provides us with a wonderful picture of what it takes to be saved. "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" - Luke 23:42. When we read verses about what it takes to be saved, we realize that in just that one sentence, the thief demonstrated many things:
1. He realized that he could not achieve salvation on his own power (perhaps verse 41 would also help support that).
2. He put his trust in Jesus for his salvation
3. He verbalized his belief
I could go on, but the point is, the various pictures of salvation seen throughout the New Testament are seen here. I should also point out that although the thief did not necessarily mention repentance in what he said here, it was certainly implied in the passage - he was facing the end and knew that he had sinned. Anyway, I just thought it was worth thinking about that.
I also wanted to point out something that Kirstie had mentioned yesterday - we still continue to do what we did when we first believed. Admitting that I cannot earn what I seek and putting my trust in Jesus is still necessary, and it's really not any different now than when I first put my faith in Him.
Computer Stuff (not too geeky)
OK, so I'm going to totally shift gears now. Well, maybe shift gears isn't the right term for it - I'm going to jam into another gear without using a clutch. I thought maybe it would be good to share my recent experience regarding web browsers - specifically Internet Explorer 7. First of all, I think most people are using Internet Explorer 6 right now. If you use Microsoft or Windows update, there's a good chance it upgraded you to 7, but otherwise, you're probably using 6 (if you're using Internet Explorer instead of something else completely). From here on out, I'm going to abbreviate Internet Explorer IE. First of all, I feel the need to warn people that IE 6 has some pretty significant security vulnerabilities. If you order things online, I would definitely urge you to use a different browser - there is often a possibility that someone can get your credit card information if your transmitting it over the Internet with IE 6. There are a variety of other issues, but it's sufficient to say that IE 6 is not an ideal browser. So, if you want to upgrade, you have a choice - you can either get IE 7 using Windows update (assuming you're using Windows XP SP2), or you can go with another browser like Firefox.
Let's say you either chose to upgrade to IE 7, or Windows Update put it on your computer for you. You may at first be a bit lost - IE 7 looks quite a bit different than 6. Personally, I don't like most of the cosmetic changes, but that's a matter of taste. The first thing I noticed when I started using it was the lack of a file menu - that's easy enough to get back by right-clicking someplace on the top and clicking on "Menu Bar". It'll be below the address bar, and unfortunately you can't change that (at least, not anyway that I know). You will also notice that all of the buttons have been moved. Back and Forward are now to the left of the address bar, refresh is to the right of the address bar, and home is on the tab bar. Again, as much as you might want to, you can't move the buttons. OK, so far it's different, but not too bad. The next thing you might notice is that the text in the browser always looks a bit bold (by default). That's because the "clear type" setting is enabled. I think recently, Microsoft made it so that new installs of IE 7 give you an options page the first time you start the browser - if it asks, you probably want clear type to be off. If you've already got IE 7 up and need to turn clear type off, you can do that by going to "Tools", then "Internet Options", then "Advanced", and then turn off "Always use ClearType for HTML" (it's under the Multimedia section). That should help a bit.
Let's say you just found IE 7 to be a pain, or you have IE 6 and want to go to something different. There are a variety of free web browsers available today (notably Firefox, Opera, and Netscape), but I'm going to concentrate on the one I use - Firefox. Getting Firefox is simple - you can just go to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/, download it, and install it. The nice thing is that if you don't like it, you can go back to using IE easily - installing Firefox doesn't uninstall IE. You will probably notice that Firefox looks a lot like IE 6, so most people should feel at home with it. The only problem I can think of that some people have had is that favorites are called bookmarks in Firefox. You may on occasion go to a website that looks weird in Firefox, in which case you might need to open it in IE. A few things of note about Firefox - it is a bit more secure than IE (6 or 7), and it tends to download pages a bit faster. If you feel adventurous and want to try another one Opera is also a pretty good browser - it looks weird at first, but it has quite a few good features.
More Computer Stuff (really geeky)
I also just thought I'd mention that a lot of my time recently has been spent upgrading my computer. I just upgraded to a 64-bit system, and I thought if there were any other folks out there building their own computers, you might be interested to know how my experience went. The parts I got were:
At first, I bought the motherboard, vid card, and processor without thinking that I would need to buy new memory - that probably seems like a d'uh to many people, but DDR 400 memory doesn't work on a 64-bit system - you need DDR2 memory (mine's DDR2 800). I'd buy parts from any of those manufacturers again. I took a chance on the motherboard - I'd never heard of EPoX, but it's a good board. I've always used AMD processors, and this one's just as good as the last one. This is the first XFX vid card I've owned, but it's good so far. My last vid card was an eVGA 6800GT, and it was terribly unstable, so I'm not inclined to buy from eVGA again, but it might have been just because it was AGP - 6600 was the highest model commonly manufactured for AGP slots. I don't even look at other manufacturers besides Corsair for RAM anymore - it works extremely well. Just thought I'd throw all that information out there on the off chance someone needed or wanted to know about it.
Man, that was a really long post - if you've read this far, I'm impressed.
You see me mowin' my front lawn
I know they're all thinkin' I'm so
White and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Can't you see I'm white and nerdy
Look at me I'm white and nerdy
I wanna roll with the gangstas
But so far they all think I'm too
White and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
I'm just too white and nerdy
Really, really white and nerdy
First in my class here at MIT
Got skills, I'm a champion at D&D
M.C. Escher, that's my favorite M.C.
Keep you're 40, I'll just have an Earl Grey tea
My rims never spin, to the contrary
You'll find that they're quite stationary
All of my action figures are cherry
Stephen Hawking's in my library
My MySpace page is all totally pimped out
Got people beggin' for my top eight spaces
Yo, I know pi to a thousand places
Ain't got no grills but I still wear braces
I order all of my sandwiches with mayonnaise
I'm a wiz at Minesweeper, I could play for days
Once you've see my sweet moves, you're gonna stay amazed
My fingers movin' so fast I'll set the place ablaze
There's no killer app I haven't run (run)
At Pascal, well I'm number one (one)
Do vector calculus just for fun
I ain't got a gat, but I got a soldering gun (what?)
Happy Days is my favorite theme song
I could sure kick your butt in a game of ping pong
I'll ace any trivia quiz you bring on
I'm fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon
Here's the part I sing on...
You see me roll on my Segway
I know in my heart they think I'm
White and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Can't you see I'm white and nerdy
Look at me I'm white and nerdy
I'd like to roll with the gangstas
Although it's apparent I'm too
White and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
I'm just too white and nerdy
How'd I get so white and nerdy
I been browsin', inspectin' X-Men comics
You know I collect 'em
The pens in my pocket, I must protect them
My ergonomic keyboard never leaves me bored
Shoppin' online for deals on some writable media
I edit Wikipedia
I memorized Holy Grail really well
I can recite it right now and have you R-O-T-F-L-O-L
I got a business doing websites (websites)
When my friends need some code, who do they call?
I do HTML for 'em all
Even made a homepage for my dog, yo
I got myself a fanny pack
They were havin' a sale down at The Gap
Spend my nights with a role of bubble wrap
Pop, pop - hope no one sees me gettin' freaky
I'm nerdy in the extreme
Whiter than sour cream
I was in AV club and glee club
And even the chess team
Only question I ever thought was hard
Was "Do I like Kirk or do I like Picard?"
Spend every weekend at the Renaissance Faire
Got my name on my underwear
They see me strollin', they're laughin'
And rollin' their eyes cause I'm so
White and nerdy
Just because I'm white and nerdy
Just because I'm white and nerdy
All because I'm white and nerdy
Holy cow, I'm white and nerdy
I wanna bowl with the gangstas
But oh well, it's obvious I'm
White and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
I'm just too white and nerdy
Look at me I'm white and nerdy
Hey everyone. I'm still alive - just haven't posted in a
while. I decided to take Sarah's advice (from like, six months ago) and change
my profile pic. Props to Kirstie for taking the picture, and Nathan for the
hat.
John Mark from the BS directed me to a pretty cool video online - if this
works, y'all can check it out from here:
Speaking of the BS, I was trying to tell Kirstie and the other folks there
about something I've picked up from the book of Ecclesiastes, but I didn't
express myself very well. So, I'll try it again here! We've been studying
Ecclesiastes in another Bible Study, and at first, I'm not sure I really got
what God was trying to tell me in the first two chapters. However, earlier in
the week, I started thinking about how fragile we are as humans. It is entirely
possible that I could die at any time. As I started to think about that, I
asked myself if I were to die today, what would I regret about my life up to
this point? I think that the book of Ecclesiastes can provide us with some
insight on this question. The first two chapters talk about things that are
meaningless. I'll just give you the paragraph headings from the NIV -
Everything is Meaningless, Wisdom is Meaningless, Pleasures are Meaningless,
Wisdom and Folly are Meaningless, and Toil is Meaningless. Pretty interesting
list, huh? As I was thinking about it, I realized that these are things that I
have sought in my life instead of God. Everyone wants their life to have
meaning, but a life built on a foundation pleasure, toil, or even wisdom is
meaningless. Only the life built on the Rock of Jesus Christ is meaningful. I
guess this probably impacted me just because lately, it seems that although I
seek God, there are other things that get in the way. Again, I think that at
the end of my life, I would regret it more if I were pursuing other things over
God than I would regret the times I've messed up and sinned in other ways.
. I'm enjoying my new job - I recently got promoted from a customer service rep to a planner, which basically means I make people's schedules. I'm really glad to be off the phones, although I am a bit worried. I realize that God had me doing that job for several reasons, many of which involved me learning how to interact with people. I know that there are a few things I was supposed to have learned that I didn't - particularly how to not take things personally. The thing that worries me about that is, if God moved me away from that job and I didn't learn a few lessons, I'm sure I'll still have to learn them. Hopefully, whatever God uses to teach me to deal with people better won't be too painful...