Best of Spam: The Standing Light

I've always found spam fascinating, since so much of it is utterly unbelievable. I got this one today, and just had to share it.

Dear sir/mm,
I am sending you this e-mail with greetings to you and your whole
company. My name is Mr. James I would like to make an inquiry based on your
Standing Light . I would like for you to give me the price


If you do I want you to kindly get back at me at your earliest time with
the price for the products because I need the order for these Standing Light
to be placed as soon as possible. i am Ordering to my new company in Ghana
.And also i will lie to use my credit car for the payment and i have my
freight company that will sip to me .I will look forward hearing from you as
soon as possible with the price for the Standing Light.

Thank youveymuch...
SincereYours,
Mr. James

Let's see. Quirky capitalization, a nebulous request for "products" that are sometimes called "Standing Light," and they will "lie to use [their] credit car". Not to mention a freight company that will "sip" to them, the quirky line breaks, or the peculiar valediction "SincereYours".

Seriously? People respond to this?

I'm kinda prideful

I just finished taking an in-class test. There were eight short-answer questions on the test, two questions per page.

As I got to the last page of the test, I had to look up every time someone turned their page or rustled their test; I was worried that someone would finish before me. This is a silly and prideful thought, of course, because neither my learning nor my grade in the class is affected in the least by how long I take on the test. In fact, I would have been wise to take a moment to review all my answers to make sure I hadn't made any mistakes. I would have been wise to write more slowly on those last two answers, to make sure I didn't miss any key words instead of rushing to be first.

But I wanted to be first. Somehow this makes me think that since nobody finished before me, nobody's going to do significantly better than me, and thus my grade won't suffer.

Guess what.

I was first.

Error messages that make sense

I recently upgraded my Ubuntu installation from 8.04 to the newly-released 8.10. (The Ubuntu releases are designated as Year.Month, hence this is the 2008 October release.) For some reason the login won't complete after the upgrade, so I've been doing some investigation.

I dropped to a recovery console and told it to run a few basic checks. It chewed on that for a while and then came back with this information:

Your system is up-to-date

There are no upgrades available for your system. The upgrade will now be canceled.

Do you want to start the upgrade? [yN]

Umm...

Grad school

Do you ever have one of those days where you feel like you want to talk to someone, but you have no idea who and you have no idea what you want to talk about? I'm having one of those. But Dragon Lady's not feeling well and went to bed early.

So instead, I'll blog.

I've had in my mind for a few years that I would probably enjoy being a university professor at some point. As this necessarily implies grad school, I'd assumed that I'd eventually end up doing graduate work. I hadn't really made any immediate plans, though, figuring that if it ended up being something important to me, I could always come back and do it later. There was a career fair on campus a few weeks back for technical majors, so when went around talking to potential employers, I told them I was interested in a full-time position.

A few days later, I was in my Software Engineering class when it hit me that I really wanted to be a professor. I walked up to my professor after class and told him "So... I want your job." (Yes, I really said that. Though I then clarified that I was a job like his, and not necessarily his precise job. I would like to someday teach at BYU, though.) I set up a time with my professor to talk about the options, and after an hour-and-a-half worth of discussion, I was feeling pretty good about graduate school.

Of course, I believe in keeping my options open as well, so I'd been interviewing with a few companies as well, just in case. A couple weeks after I'd talked to my professor, I got a job offer from Amazon.com.

A really, really attractive offer.

I'd decided on grad school at that time, but they offered me about 30% more in salary than what I'd been planning on turning down. Plus a signing bonus, and some other great benefits. I hadn't planned on having to turn down such an offer. It really makes you evaluate your priorities when you realize that you could take a job right now for which the starting pay is more than what you plan on making after 5-6 years of graduate school.

It makes you think a lot.

One of the things my professor had said during our discussion was that the Lord often has an opinion on life-altering decisions such as these, and after all the planning and evaluation we can do, it ultimately comes down to the Spirit. While he personally recommended graduate school, he took care to point out that if the Spirit says otherwise, you should always follow the Spirit.

Good advice.

As you might expect, I've been praying about this a lot. If I do jump straight into grad school, we'd likely be staying here in Provo. While I'd like to do a internship this summer to help pay for grad school, circumstances are such that we'd really like to stay here in Provo this summer if we're not moving permanently. Thus, I couldn't do an internship with Amazon either. (They've already informed me that I could convert the full-time offer to an internship offer if I so desired.) This means that if I do grad school, I'll need to find work for next summer. So it's a complex issue, and in a lot of ways it makes sense to just take the job.

After praying about it for a while, though, I really feel like grad school is where I need to be. So despite the attractiveness of the Amazon offer, I've turned it down. We'll continue to live like paupers, but that's what feels right, so that's what we'll do.

Sometimes trusting in the Lord is a little scary, even when you know it's right.

A complaint, with gratitude

Our culture has a wonderful tradition at marriages in which many well-wishers bring gifts to the wedding reception. These gifts are especially appropriate as they often come from those who are more established in life, and for whom a moderate gift will not represent a significant hardship. Likewise, the recipients of these gifts are generally quite grateful for these gifts, since newlyweds are often working with an extremely small budget and wouldn't otherwise have the means to furnish a home. I'm aware of some young couples who have received gifts from over 250 people. These gifts, while usually only a small sacrifice for any individual giver, represent a great blessing in the life of the recipient.

Our culture also has a tradition that when a gift is received, it is polite to send a card thanking the giver for the gift. Furthermore, many would consider it rude to not send such a card. After all, having received such a gift, could one not do the basic courtesy of acknowledging the gift? Isn't this what the Parable of the Ten Lepers teaches us: that we should seek to thank those who bless us with gifts?

There's a problem here, though. A single young couple having received 250 gifts will now have to write 250 thank-you cards. Generally, these cards are to be hand-written and individually addressed. Writing a personal thank-you card takes time, and is made even more difficult by the fact that the young couple often does not even know the person who gave the gift. (Friends of parents, etc.)

But this time is something that couples often don't have! I'll be honest: I'm busy with homework, organizing a house, taking care of a wife, fixing the car, working, other responsibilities (The Board, for example), etc. I could handle writing one or two gift cards, but while each person who gave us a gift only had to take a short amount of time to select a gift, we have to do all of that times hundreds.

Let's take a look at current trends in computing. These days, most CPUs have multiple cores; they can essentially do two things at once. It's not at all uncommon to have 4 or 8 cores in your home desktop anymore; as a result, programmers have to learn to write programs in parallel. They break a problem down into many sub-problems so that each core can work on it individually. Then all sub-problems are combined into a single problem. This many-to-one pattern works well because the bulk of the work is done in parallel, and in the end there's only a small amount of work to combine the results.

Many-to-one is what we see when all our friends went out and bought us gifts. We genuinely appreciate it, and our lives are much better now because of it.

But on the other hand, one-to-many doesn't work so well. This is seen in computing when one processor tries to solve many problems at once. Have you ever tried to run 30 programs at once on your computer? It doesn't work so well, because the computer gets so bogged down trying to keep track of where everyone's at that it can't get as much of the real work done.

One-to-many is also what we see when a single young couple is asked to send thank-you notes to each person who gave them a gift. Not only do we have to write the notes, we also have to make sure that notes get matched up with envelopes, we have to track down addresses for people we've never heard of, we have to look up what each person gave us, etc. There's a whole lot of overhead that's going on that's separate from the actual expression of thanks.

It's just a huge mess, and really, for not a whole lot. Most people who receive these thank-you cards will briefly read them, smile, realize that the card doesn't really mean a whole lot (since we didn't have time to intensively personalize each one) and throw it away. It just seems like a waste to me. Can't we just let people feel good for having given a gift, without the expectation that every gift will be acknowledged with a hand-written, personalized expression of heartfelt gratitude?

Now, let me be clear. I am grateful for these gifts and the thoughtfulness and generosity behind each one. I am appreciative of the sacrifices that these people made. I'm not trying to say that we somehow deserve all these gifts without any obligation to feel grateful. We are grateful.

But really, would it be so bad to just make a mail-merge somewhat-generic thank-you card and send them all out that way? Or even just an e-mail? I mean, really, if we're just trying to get the message across that we're grateful, why all the other mess. If we'd only received five gifts, I'd happily write cards to express my gratitude. In that case, I could actually take time to write something meaningful. But as we've been writing our thank-you cards, I've found that I usually end up saying the same thing on each one, with little variation. The card isn't meaningful, and it's not because I don't want it to be. I just can't take the time to make each one meaningful; I'm busy trying to keep my head above water. Remember how the young couple is usually not as well established in life? Why then are we putting a huge burden upon them?

So anyway. That's my complaint. I think that the social expectation that every wedding gift must be individually acknowledged with a thank-you card is burdensome and doesn't really do anyone much good.

Well, except for the card-makers and the postal service. I'm sure they love the status quo.

The end.

Feel free to add comments about how ungrateful I am, etc. I'm just frustrated at the daunting task that still remains.

In good news...

In good news... the peeling just started. Like, just 3 minutes ago.

That means I'm done itching. Hopefully, only the worst part (right under my sternum) will actually peel, but either way, the worst is over.

[relieved sigh]

How to go insane

Last weekend Dragon Lady and I went to Seven Peaks with some of her good friends. I don't know why, but I've always had a slight "macho" complex when it comes to sunscreen; I delude myself that I'll just get a nice tan despite my pasty-white hasn't-seen-the-sun-in-a-year skin. In case you were wondering, it's not true. I got burnt like a redneck piece of toast.

Having a sunburn is never fun, but the first couple days were at least bearable. I mean, it hurt when I slid my arm into my backpack, and my shoulders protested whenever I reached for a glass from the cupboard, but it was bearable as long as I was careful with it. On Monday night, though, as I was just about to go to bed, things got a whole lot worse.

It started with a sharp itch in my shoulder.  Since scratching a sunburn isn't a whole lot of fun, I left it alone, hoping it would go away.  It didn't.  It spread down my upper arm and started crawling down my chest.  I decided that it was definitely time to go to bed, before things got any worse.  I put some aloe vera on, hoping it would help the burn stop itching, and crawled into bed.

Getting into bed didn't really help anything, though.  The sheets of my bed were just scratchy enough to aggravate the rest of me, and before long my entire upper body was itching.  And this wasn't just a light itch; this was a jaw-clenching, teeth-grinding, back-arching kind of itch.  I tried to lie still, since any movement started a new fire on my skin, but even breathing was too much.  After about 20 minutes of agony, I jumped into the shower, hoping that water might calm the itch.  It calmed it a little, but not enough for me to be anywhere near comfortable.  At about 1:00 AM I decided that I couldn't justify staying up that late anymore, even if I did itch like crazy, so I got out.

The problem with taking a shower while you're sunburned is that you have to use a towel afterward to dry off.  And hotel towels, being washed and rewashed, are not known for their softness.  Within 30 seconds of getting out of the shower, I itched worse than ever.  I was pacing back and forth in my hotel room, trying to hold in a scream as there was simply nothing I could do beyond praying for relief.  (Which I did, don't worry.)  I finally got back in bed, (since pacing wasn't doing any good,) and steeled myself to bear the awful burning.  I tried to focus my attention on some non-itching area of my body (my big toe), but it didn't help much.  I was burning, itching, dying for relief.  If you've read Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn, you'll understand what I mean when I say that I felt about like Bella did during a certain rather-painful event in the middle of the book.

I nearly went insane.  I would have given a lot to be able to get out of my head for a while.  It was just that excruciating.  I told Dragon Lady I'd been itching, and she told me that it was good.  That it meant I was healing.

"Good."

Maybe it was healing, but you'd think my body could come up with a less-agonizing method of repairing skin damage.  Having healed skin wouldn't have helped much if I'd gone insane and jumped out the window.  And really, it wasn't that far off.

Moral of the story: Use sunscreen.  Really.

URU is coming back!

Most of my readers probably know that I'm a big fan of the Myst series. There was a time when I lived and breathed the game. I was in a Myst fan chatroom when my parent's house caught fire. There were times when I considered attending a Myst fan convention. (Heck, there are still moments when I consider it, if I'm honest with myself.) Dragon Lady and I played Myst 3 together for quite a while back when we were first dating. It's one of those things that I grew up with, and it will be forever a part of me.

Due to my mission and such, I have never played Myst V (the last in the series), nor URU (the online multiplayer game based in the Myst universe). I'm working on Myst IV right now, and plan to play Myst V once I have a computer that will handle the graphics decently. I was quite disappointed, though, when URU was cancelled in 2004 for business reasons. I felt like I'd never quite be able to finish the series; there was some part of this obsession of mine that would never be fulfilled.

URU came back in late 2006 on GameTap, but was then cancelled again earlier this year. Naturally, all this back-and-forth availability has been rough on Cyan Worlds, Inc (the developer of the game), and there was a time in September 2005 when they actually laid off all but two of their employees before promptly re-hiring them when a deal was worked out with a third party. Even now, though, they seem to be limping by, despite creating the number-one-selling PC game from 1993 to 2002. When URU was cancelled this last time, it seemed like my hopes were lost.

So you can understand my excitement when I ran across news that GameTap and Cyan had worked out an agreement under which the license would return to Cyan. They didn't release all the details, but it sounds like neither GameTap nor Cyan was making money in the current state, so they figured it didn't hurt to let Cyan try at it. That's my understanding, anyway. The new agreement is really for the fans; Cyan is planning to only charge enough to maintain operation; they're not looking for profit right now. Content creation will be opened up to fans as well, so Cyan is essentially creating a quasi-open-source MMORPG to be run at cost only. Naturally, if it takes off, we can expect prices to rise, but I'm perfectly fine with that; anything that helps Cyan get into the black is good in my book.

So. If any of you have any interest in the Myst series, I encourage you to keep an eye on it. It's exciting for me, and hopefully by the time they get it up and running, I'll have a computer with a better graphics card than an integrated chip on my motherboard.

This is so cool. :)

Ridiculously pleased

I'm a nerd.

I know it. You don't need to tell me so. In fact, I kinda get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

Anyway.

I was sitting at my job, and I heard another one of the students mention that he was about to go home to play Riven. I immediately perked up, as Riven is the sequel to Myst, and as dedicated readers know, I love the Myst series.

Naturally, I asked him how far along he was. He told me he was stuck at a particular part, and was actually planning on looking it up online. He felt he had the correct solution, and it just wasn't working. I'm not a big fan of using online help sites for puzzle games like Riven, since you tend to see more than you were looking for, so I offered to give him a hint or two. We talked, and he was able to figure out what he was doing wrong. Hooray. I asked if he'd played Exile (Myst III), which he hadn't, so I told him to look forward to it. A few minutes of conversation later, he was gone.

I then elated for the next 5 minutes that I'd talked to someone about Myst.

[elates]

...

Yes, I know it.

I'm a nerd.


Did anyone notice the slightly chiasmic structure of this post? I did!

Magic Numbers

In programming circles, there's an evil phenomenon known as "magic numbers". This describes the practice of using a number in the program's code whose meaning might not be clear to others. For example, if I wrote:

x = t/(60 * 1440);

you might not be sure what the code did. On the other hand, if I wrote:

SECONDS_PER_MINUTE = 60;
MINUTES_PER_DAY = 1440;
x = t/(SECONDS_PER_MINUTE * MINUTES_PER_DAY);

it's easy(er) to see that I'm calculating days from seconds. 60 and 1440 were magic numbers that hid the meaning of the code. An additional benefit of programming with named constants (like those found in the second example) is that if for some reason I need to change one of the constants, I only need to change it in one place. So, for example, if by divine decree all minutes are now 61 seconds long (maybe the earth is slowing?) I only need to change it in one place and all my calculations are updated. Nice.

The other day, though, I found a whole new meaning to the phrase "Magic Number" in a computer sense. I use Adium as my instant messaging client. It's an OS X-only program which allows me to talk to users on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Jabber, Bonjour, Google Talk, (etc. etc. etc.) all in the same program. Adium has an emoticon replacement feature, fairly common to such clients that turns :) into an actual smiley. Of course, it doesn't just cover your generic smiley face; it has hundreds of smileys available through various arcane and unexpected character sequences. Occasionally I'll run across one unintentionally, but looking back, I can usually see how the text might be construed as a face of some sort.

I was chatting with Dragon Lady the other day, and she was telling me about some problems she was having at work. She was running a query on a database and getting inconsistent results. She then told me this:

How many records???

I clicked on the smiley to see the underlying text. This is what I found:


Oh. 1414. I see.

If that's not a "magic number", I don't know what is.

P.S. Okay, okay. It's a lame analogy. I know. But it's still what I thought of when I saw it. And if any of you Adium users are curious and want to verify it, just make sure you're using the "Default" emoticon set. I understand that this will be fixed in the 1.3 release, so you have only a short time to enjoy your magic-number-ness. In the meantime, if anyone knows how to get "sarcastic" from 1414, please let me know.

Why I Love Norberta

Well, I got engaged recently, so I figured I should probably post something on here about it. I mean, it's a significant life event, right? Probably blog-worthy, I suppose. The problem with trying to summarize your fiancée in a blog post is that you've spent so long growing to love her that anything written seems shallow and inadequate. So, with apologies in advance for the inherent failings, here's why I love "Norberta."

(Oh, and if you're already groaning from sappiness and such, please feel free to skip this one.)

I first began to be attracted to Norberta as I read her blog entries during her time at the Jerusalem Center. I first read them just out of curiosity, but I was increasingly impressed by the spiritual applications to her own life that she made while visiting the various sites. She didn’t just talk about how she liked visiting the Garden Tomb, or how she felt for the people in a land torn by conflict; she wrote about what it meant to her and what she could change in her own life because of it. She wrote about her growing love for the hymns of the Church, for the city of Jerusalem, and for the people she met there. I especially remember being very impressed by her love for the Gospel and her caring attitude toward those around her.

Norberta is always striving to become a better person. She’s got a list of things she doesn’t like, but instead of staying away from them, she works on learning to like them. She makes active decisions about the kind of person she wants to be, and then she works toward becoming that person. She makes delicious meals all the time, and is constantly trying out new recipes to become even better. She’s always watching out for me, and has taken care of me when I was sick or needing help on numerous occasions. She reads books for the joy of reading, she quilts for the joy of quilting, and she gardens for the joy of gardening. As far as the “domestic housewife skills” category goes, she’s got it well covered.

More than all that, though, I love the way that Norberta and I can communicate with each other. All those things that you just don’t know quite how to describe, we understand implicitly. There have been so many times when I wanted to say something but didn’t even know how to start. Before I even said a word, she filled in all the words I was struggling to find. I don’t think a week goes by when we don’t tell the other to “stop reading my mind!” We make the same side comments, we think the same thoughts, and we even try to tell the same jokes at the same time. (It doesn’t work so well, as we end up laughing at each other before the joke ever gets told.)

I love that I never have to wonder about Norberta’s priorities. She loves the Lord and actively seeks to grow spiritually and draw closer to her Father in Heaven. She recognizes the great calling and responsibility that is motherhood, and desires to be a full-time mom. Her heart is set on the things of the Spirit, and nothing comes before that. She’s served as Relief Society President in our ward for the last year, and though it’s been difficult for her on a number of occasions, I’ve never heard her wish she didn’t have that responsibility. She’s been called to serve the Lord and so she does. It’s as simple as that.

I could go on for a while about the many ways that Norberta and I are similar. We met with our bishop the other day, and he reminded us that our children will be “as different from each other as the two of you are.” We turned to each other and laughed, because if that’s true, we might as well get a cookie-cutter mold for people. We joke that we’re really the same person, just inhabiting two bodies. Everything just feels right. Everything feels like it’s meant to be. I honestly love her, and couldn't be happier.

The problem with watermelon

Watermelon is, without a doubt, one of my favorite fruits. It just doesn't keep very well once you've cut it up.

It kinda gets rubbery and loses most of its flavor.

Sad.

Getting stuck in the past

I know it's been a while since I've blogged; I'm sorry everyone. I've been busy with life, and every time I think of something I want to blog about, I'm either too sleepy or to busy to do it. But I've decided I need to make time for it. See, the problem with starting to blog again after so long going missing is that I don't know what to write about. I think this will be a scatter-shot post, covering whatever happens to come to my mind. So here we go.

I'm retaking a class during Spring term. I took this class last semester, but about halfway through the class, I realized that the design of my project was horribly putrid. (Actually, more like glaringly absent, but it all works out to be the same.) In order to finish the project for the class, I would have essentially had to tear everything down and start again from the beginning. I didn't think I'd have time to do that and keep up with all my other classes, so I just let it go. It's not my favorite thing in the world to willingly fail a class, but I think it was the right choice. This semester, I connect with the professor a lot better and I feel like I understand the material better.

I've been thinking about it, though, about the problems with my project's design last semester. It wasn't that I made bad mistakes at the beginning; I just didn't plan ahead. I wasn't aware of where the project was going, and so I made some choices that limited my options in the future. Every change I tried to make just tied me in more knots, and it ended up not working out at all. You could apply this to lots of things; I could make up any number of "life lessons" about how it's important to make wise decisions and all that, but I won't. Just make good decisions, okay, and let's get on with my post.

No, my thoughts were actually turned to a more... inflammatory subject. I've mentioned a few times that I'm a very happy user of Apple's OS X. I'm not one that will claim that OS X is infallible or that it does everything perfect; it doesn't. Windows does some things very well, as does Linux. But I think there's an important difference. In early 2001, Apple came out with the OS X line, which replaced the OS 9 line. It was based on an entirely new architecture, and was essentially an entirely new operating System. This wasn't just Windows 95 to Windows 98; this was Windows 3.1 to Windows XP. OS X initially came with an emulated environment in which you could still run most of your OS 9 software, but there was no illusion of long-term support. The design decisions made back in the early days of the classic OS were not holding back the new operating system.

Today, Windows still attempts to provide support for running Windows 95 programs. (Don't believe me? Right-click on an executable file in Windows XP, go to Properties, and find the Compatibility tab. There it is, the option to run in "Windows 95 Compatibility Mode." I think Vista has something similar, but I don't have as much experience with that system, so I'm not sure.) The ability to run Windows 95 programs means that somewhere, the "Windows 95 way" of doing things is still sitting inside the Windows code base. Microsoft might choose to create a new, better designed programmer's interface somewhere along the way, but they still have the old stuff in there. Any bugs that need to be fixed have to be made in two separate places, and it's up to the programmer to know that. The number of potential pathways through the code to get to one goal increase exponentially as the number of supported previous systems increases, so before long you've got a mess of code that nobody can fully understand.

Now don't get me wrong; Microsoft has done a marvelous job of making this all work. It's pretty impressive that you can still run most of those old games on modern systems. It's a programming feat of monumental proportions that it works as well as it does. It's a bonus in the business world; many corporations have in-house software that's not necessarily upgraded every time a new operating system comes out, so backwards compatibility is a benefit there. But all the energy that Microsoft is putting into maintaining their backwards compatibility, Apple is putting that same energy into innovating and creating a better system in the future. The standard on OS X is that your program will probably work for two revisions past the current one, (about the same functional change as from XP to Vista,) but don't expect your program to work past that point. It's just expected that you'll upgrade to a newer, more useful tool as time goes on.

Of course, some people won't like this. They like their old system, and they want to keep it the way it is. That's fine, I suppose; they don't have to buy the new operating system. But the real moral of this story is that there's a choice you have to make at some point, a choice to leave the past behind you and dive ahead forward, unfettered by past mistakes. This is where the application to real life comes in. We all have a past behind us. We all have things that we'd love to change about that past; mistakes that we made, or things we could have done better, or things that happened to us that we wish could have been different. Sometimes we make decisions that may be fine at our current stage of progress, but as we learn and develop more, we find a much better way.

When those moments come, when we realize that our future can be better only if our past is left behind, take the plunge. I'm not saying we need to forget the past. There are things we can only learn as we look backwards to see where we've been. But we cannot let those things hinder us, hold us back. Whether it's an old relationship, a bad habit, or an unfortunate incident, there comes a time when you just have to let it go. It works out so much better that way.

See, I told you I was going to ramble.

Disgust

It's been nearly a month since I last posted on my blog.  There have been a number of times when I've thought to myself, "You know, I should really blog about this."  But for whatever reason, I haven't done it.  I completed Super Mario 3 on the original NES for the first time a few weeks ago.  That was pretty cool.  I got accepted as a developer in the Google Summer of Code program today.  That was exciting.  Finals are going pretty well, I've got a wonderful girlfriend, and I got a flat tire.  I could have blogged about all of these things, but nothing ever inspired me to stay up past 2:00 AM to write a blog post.  My sleep was more valuable to me.

But now, I must write.  I read today in a Deseret News article that a Texas judge has approached local LDS officials to see if they would be willing to supervise prayers of those FLDS members who are being held by Texas police.  Attorneys for the state say they are concerned that the FLDS children may be coached by adults in how to respond to investigators.

Since when is the right to personal prayer no longer protected by the Constitution?  Since when does our government have the right to tell someone that they cannot pray without supervision?  Since when did our vaunted separation of church and state become no more than a phrase to be discarded.  Since when are we allowed to treat those of "different" faiths with such blatant disrespect?

There are allegations of child abuse.  I understand that.  And they're probably even true.  But when we declared that no one "shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law", when we declared that Congress would "make no law respecting an establishment of religion", when we declared that "the right of people to be secure in their persons, homes, papers, and effects..."; when we declared all these things, did we not recognize that a compromise was being made?  The government surrenders certain rights which might otherwise enhance the enforcement of law because we agreed that there are certain rights which are more important than the enforcement of law.

And now we're throwing that out the window.

I've watched the news about the FLDS raids with ambivalence.  Insofar as there are young children being forced to marry and have sex with older men against their will, I agree that something should be done.  But when did this equate to pulling nursing babies from their mothers' breasts?  When did prayer become a borderline-illegal activity that must be closely supervised?  When did we stop caring about the rights of our fellow countrymen simply because they believe differently than we do?

We as LDS people look back at the Missourians of the 1840s with disgust.  We marvel that someone could actually sign an "Extermination Order" proclaiming that all people of a certain faith are to be driven from the state or, if necessary, exterminated.  We wince at President Martin Van Buren's declaration "Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you."  We look back and think that surely, somehow, someone should have had the courage to stand up for a people very different from themselves.  A people who practiced polygamy, who followed a single controversial leader, and who had their own book of scripture.  Someone surely should have had the courage to stand up for the oppressed, the down-trodden, and the violated.

Why do we not do so now?  I do not defend the alleged child abuse; if there is compelling evidence, it should be investigated and presented.  But I do defend the right to prayer without special supervision.  I do defend the rights of young children to be raised by their own mothers.  I do believe that FLDS mothers and fathers deserve the right to raise their children free of broad-handed interference by an impersonal government.  There are loving fathers and mothers among them who genuinely care for their children.  There are families being broken apart by this investigation.  There are rights being violated here.

If we stand by idly while this happens, what's to stop the same thing from happening to Islamic communities on the charge that a terrorist network exists somewhere among them?  What's to stop the same thing from happening to an LDS stake or ward when a terrorist is discovered to have LDS roots?

Daniel went to the Lion's Den rather than give up his right to pray to God.  Now we're threatening the same to these people.

I am disgusted.

Losing all music cred

It was announced today that this year's Stadium of Fire will headline Miley Cyrus (a.k.a. Hannah Montana), and will also feature a performance from the Blue Man Group.  

Mock me if you will; I'm excited.  I've wanted to see the Blue Man Group for a long time, and Hannah Montana is actually among the more enjoyable of the Disney pop star group of artists.

I'm pretty sure I'll be shunned for posting this for at least two weeks.

Daydreams

In EXSC 125 (Flexibility), we spend the last 10-15 minutes of class taking a nap, known as "relaxing." As I lay there, I began to slip into that semi-lucid state where I'll still respond to external stimuli, but I'm also partly dreaming. Just as I was about to slip into sleep, I had such an odd daydream that it woke me straight up.

I was driving south on I-15 past Thanksgiving point when I looked to my right and saw a shopping cart merging on to the freeway. A shopping cart with flashing sirens and a police decal on the side.

Weird.  So weird.

When you lose something you can't replace

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

-Coldplay, Fix You

I have to do something very hard today. I have to let go.

Almost exactly two years ago, I met Elizabeth in a Biology class. We became friends, she invited me to the Heritage Halls invitational dance, and before long, we were dating. She made me laugh and never let me stop smiling. She made dinner so we could have picnics out on the grass. We did homework together, watched movies together, played together, talked together, and just had a wonderful time. She really did make me feel loved.

Elizabeth was my first serious girlfriend. We'd only been dating about six weeks when school ended. We were both leaving Utah for the summer, and as much as I cared about her and enjoyed being around her, I really wasn't sure I was ready to commit to not dating anyone else all summer long. Maybe it was just a fear of commitment, or maybe it was an issue in our relationship. I don't really know; I just know that I felt I needed to call things off.

It only took a couple weeks for me to realize that I missed her more than I could have imagined. I wrote her an e-mail at least once a week, and tried to let her know just how much I missed her. She really did have my heart; a number of perfectly wonderful girls in my singles ward that summer will testify of it. I just couldn't let go of her.

When school started up again, I did everything I could to get another chance with her. She'd been hurt by the way things ended, and had her reasons not to trust me. After months of trying, I finally got a single date out of it. It went better than I could have possibly hoped... or so I thought. Apparently she felt uncomfortable. We kept in touch, and remained friends to some extent, but there was always a distance between us. It was hard, because I really did care about her.

I tried to move on, tried to focus on meeting new people. I went on lots of dates and tried to move on. I actually seriously dated two Board Writers before the end of last school year: Krebscout and Lavish. (You'll note that both are now married.) Every time things didn't work out, though, I kept coming back to Elizabeth. She was reluctant to trust me with her feelings, but I just couldn't give up. I couldn't let go when there was still a chance. I felt like my life was orbiting hers like the Earth orbits the Sun; even when we're not close, her pull is still there. I still feel that way, to be honest.

She left the country on a study abroad last summer, and my work situation was such that I had a lot of time to talk online. Rumor has it that my online flirting skills have vastly improved in the past few years, and I certainly had time to practice. By the time the summer was over, Elizabeth seemed very willing to give me another chance.

But there was a problem; I'd actually been flirting with two overseas girls over the summer, not expecting either one to go nearly as well as it did. The other returned home a few weeks before Elizabeth did, and things progressed so surprisingly quickly that by the time Elizabeth was back in town, I was no longer available.

I'll spare everyone the details here; most of my friends already know the details, and I see no reason to overwrite everything. Suffice it to say that over the next few months, it seemed that the only thing keeping Elizabeth and I apart was timing. When she wanted to date me, I was dating someone else. When I was available, she was tired of waiting around for me and had moved on. Just days after I started dating someone again, she showed up having changed her mind. It just went on and on, wreaking havoc in all my other relationships, and just making things difficult for everyone involved. I felt like we were on an emotional see-saw; whenever one end went up, the other end went down. We never met halfway.

Over Christmas break, I decided that I needed to work things out once and for all. I decided to hold off on dating anyone else, to give the timing a chance to work out such that we could give it a chance. If things weren't going to work out between us, I wanted it to be over something more than timing. I needed to know if something could really happen between us.

Life would be so much easier if I wrote the script for everyone. Just when I'd decided to be patient with her, to give things time to work out, she started dating another guy. That wasn't in the plan. Not at all. I grappled with my options, and in the end decided that I still needed to know. If I gave up and things didn't work out with this new guy, I'd be back in the same boat I've been sailing for 18 months. I had to give it a chance.

Things didn't go very well, to be honest. She started cutting me off, avoiding me whenever she could. Whereas before we'd talked fairly often online, I haven't heard an online word from her in two months now. Our occasional on-campus crossings became less and less friendly exchanges and more and more obligatory hellos. The smile she used to have when we saw each other disappeared. Just a few days ago, I got a scowl and not much more. It hurt. It hurt a lot. Through it all, I've considered her my friend, and if I'd continued hoping to have a chance to date her, I was very careful to not be stalkery or intrusive. I tried to make it very clear that if she wanted me to go away, all she need do was tell me so. I might have been hurt, but the hurt of rejection fades quickly. The hurt of lost friendship lasts much longer. I never heard a word from her. I might have been pursuing a brick wall for all the response I got from her. And that hurt. It made me feel like she didn't consider me a friend. Or worse, that she didn't feel like I deserved her friendship. It's been hurting for weeks now, and it's not getting any better.

And that brings me to today. Today I found out that yesterday she got engaged. I'm happy for her, or at least, I'm really trying to be. I miss her; there's no question about that. But more than the lost dating possibilities, the real pain I feel today is the pain of a lost friendship. I never got to tell her goodbye. I never got to tell her that I'm willing to let go of her if she's really happy in this relationship. I never got to hear about her excitement over it, or to let go gracefully. I get no resolution. I was just cut off. And that hurts.

But I have to let go. I've never been very good at letting go, and this is going to be far harder for me than it ever has before. But I have to do it.

Elizabeth, if you ever read this... I truly do wish you the best. I want you to be happy, and since this is what you've chosen, I'll fade away. I wish you the greatest of happiness, and the best of all your dreams. I know everyone who reads this will only see the facts, and won't be able to understand the depth of emotion I'm dealing with here. By the books, it should be easy to let go of you, but it's not. It's not. I'll do it, though. If you ever find the desire to talk to an old friend, to smile over old times, I'll be here. You know how to contact me. But I'm letting go.

I'm letting go of you forever.

Fresh Aire

I came home from school today and pulled out my Fresh Aire piano music and played through the entire book. Those of you unfamiliar with the Fresh Aire series might recognize composer Chip Davis's band: Mannheim Steamroller. Davis was one of the pioneers of the neo-classical New Age sound, combining jazz chords, punk rhythms, and modern electronic instrumentation with classical structure and professionalism. Fresh Aire was one of those contemporary collections of music I grew up playing, and playing it now always takes me back. I feel refreshed.

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering about my previous posts:

• I didn't get the job at Microsoft. It was a fun vacation, and I really enjoyed the area, but the position just didn't seem like a good fit for me. I'm interested in Software Development, and they wanted me in testing. Oh well.
  
• The Guitar Hero tournament was kinda lame. Most of the people there were excellent players, and those running the show had the first round run on "Medium" difficulty. Given the group that showed up, it was a bit like asking a bunch of Math graduate students to do 7th grade Algebra. As a result, the first round was less about skill and more about being lucky and not making a mistake in the middle of a streak. [shrug] Such is life. I'm not too torn up about it.
  

Real Programmers

XKCD rules.

All you non-nerd types can just ignore this one.

Reminder: Guitar Hero

Just a reminder that today's the Guitar Hero competition.  If you're hoping to have a chance at figuring out the secret identity of one of the Board Writers (or if you already know who I am and just want to come because it's fun,) be at the Wilk Terrace at 7:00 tonight.

I'll try to be sufficiently guitar-heroic, just in case anyone shows up late.

Seattle, part 1

I'm currently in Bellevue, WA, a suburb of Seattle.  Tomorrow I'll be interviewing with Microsoft for a summer internship.  I've wanted to do an internship with a major software company for a few years now, so I'm excited.  And let me tell you what, they're treating me well.  They flew me up here, they've provided a rental car, (a Chevy Malibu, if you're curious,) they're paying for my rather spacious hotel room, they're paying for all my meals, and they're letting me stay an extra day to get to know the area.  I haven't even gotten to the free drinks yet, and I'm already feeling like a million bucks.  The girl down in the hotel gift shop even opened up after hours just to let me buy some toothpaste after the TSA so graciously confiscated mine.  (Granted, that wasn't really Microsoft's doing, but I'm still feeling great.)

Speaking of the TSA, I've made a discovery today.  All of my jeans have been mysteriously developing holes in the right knee, so my parents bought me a couple pairs of jeans not too long ago.  Sometime in the last couple years they've started sewing RFID tags right into the clothing, and on my jeans they're inside the right leg seam.  The tag is flexible enough that after putting the pants through the wash, I didn't even notice it for a few days.  I cut one of these tags off the other day, but apparently that was on another set of jeans.  So today when I went through the metal detector in the SLC airport, I was setting off the metal detector despite my empty pockets, shoeless feet, beltless waist, and watchless wrist.  I even had some metal fillings replaced with porcelain ones today.  I was as metal-free as I know how to be.

Blasted jeans.

Guitar Heroism

BYU's Student Activities Board is hosting a Guitar Hero competition on January 23, 7:00 PM in the Wilk Terrace.  It's free.

I'm participating.  You should all come.

It'll be fun.  And really, I might have a decent shot at it.  I'm certainly not the most heroic guitarist at BYU, but I might be among the top that enter the competition.  Either way, it will be fun.  So you're all welcome to come, even if you won't actually know which one I am.  I'll appreciate it anyway.

Lavish's Wedding Reception

I went to Lavish's wedding reception tonight.  I haven't seen her much since she got engaged, so it was fun to be there.  A few thoughts:

Lavish and I dated for a number of months, so it was an odd feeling being at her wedding reception.  As her dad said "this could have been you, you know."  And though it sounds a litltle awkward in that context, it's true.  At one point, I thought things might end up that way.  But they didn't, and I think her Mitch is so much better for her than I could ever have been.  I'm really happy for both of them, and it was genuinely just good to be there and see her at such a happy time.  

They had a live band at the reception to provide the music.  It's odd; in at least half of wedding receptions I've attended, I provided the music.  The other half have generally either had some other live pianist or used CDs, so I'm not used to having a live band there.  That was kinda cool, I guess, though I still think I want a live pianist at mine.

I stuck around for a while, and just before I had to leave they had the "Daddy-daughter" dance in which Lavish danced with her dad.  I'm not sure how, but even though it seems to be the standard thing to do at a wedding reception in the movies, somehow I've never seen it done in real life.  It was touching; her dad started crying about halfway through.  I think I gained a little insight into the feelings of a father for his daughter in that moment.  Something about the way he held her just spoke to me.  I guess I hope to have a daughter someday that I love so much that it hurts to let her go like that.

Anyway, Lavish, congratulations.  You're the most blestest one of all, today.  Thanks for everything.

All better

For those of you intensely following my recent insanity, (all 1 of you,) I'm happy to report that I'm feeling much better.  No more depressed or frustrated or confused.  I still don't know everything that's going on, but a talk with my parents helped out a ton.  It's funny how people who have actually managed to get married occasionally know something about dating.

Of course, I've decided to throw rationality out the window for now, but at least I'm not continually feeling like I've stabbed in the heart.  I think a little irrationality is a minimal price to pay for that.

Confused, an update

Okay.  Just disappointed and frustrated.  Not angry or anything like that.  But disappointed and frustrated to a rather large degree.

Confusion

Something happened tonight. I can't decide whether to be hurt, indifferent, congratulatory, offended, displeased, annoyed, or just not worry about it. I may have more thoughts tomorrow. In the meantime, I don't want to make a fool of myself by posting something that may not reflect how I feel later.

I found it quite appropriate, though, that when I sat down to my computer, my iTunes was on Vivir Sin Aire, by the Mexican band Maná.

Como quisiera poder vivir sin aire
Como quisiera poder vivir sin agua
Me encantaría quererte un poco menos
Como quisiera poder vivir sin ti
Pero no puedo, siento que muero
Me estoy ahogando sin tu amor
Como quisiera poder vivir sin aire
Como quisiera calmar mi aflicción
Como quisiera poder vivir sin agua
Me encantaría robar tu corazón
Como pudiera un pez nadar sin agua
Como pudiera un ave volar sin alas
Como pudiera la flor crecer sin tierra
Como quisiera poder vivir sin ti
Pero no puedo, siento que muero
Me estoy ahogando sin tu amor
Como quisiera poder vivir sin aire
Como quisiera calmar mi aflicción
Como quisiera poder vivir sin agua
Me encantaría robar tu corazón
Como quisiera lanzarte al olvido
Como quisiera guardarte en un cajón
Como quisiera borrarte de un soplido
Me encantaría matar esta canción

Sorry for all those of you who don't speak Spanish, but that's how I'm feeling right now.

Game of the Week: Picross 2

This week's online game:

Picross 2

This very addictive online game features Sudoku-like logic as you form pixelated pictures from a series of numbers.  Be warned, you may not be able to stop.  I've already created 7 addicts in the last week.  I figured I might as well share with the rest of you.

Enjoy!

Note: I probably won't actually post a game every week, notwithstanding this post's title.

Hugs

I've got a question for you female readers out there.  I've been told by a few different girls that I give good hugs.  I have no idea what this actually means.

Any insight, ladies?