Get back up.

We lose our way, we get back up again…
— tobyMac (new single “Get Back Up”)

I had a bit of a revelation last night while going through my almost-nightly “OMG praise God for bringing an end to this day” detox session.

Actually, let me backpedal a bit. Hi! Been a while since I really posted anything of substance, hasn’t it? I think after I came to the decision that Jenn and I will start a new blog together after we get married, I lost a lot of interest in keeping this one updated. Is that going to change? Prob’ly not. But this really is something weighing heavy on my heart, so we’re gonna pretend for today.

Okay, fast forward to the past couplethree weeks. Long story short, a whole lot of crap has happened to me recently. Just within the past two weeks or so:

* My laptop was stolen out of my bag at work.

* My iPhone was completely erased while trying to sync it with the “loner” netbook that my mother has been gracious enough to share with me.

* I did something to my right shoulder back on Jan. 31st that has resulted in very annoying and persistent pain going from my shoulder blade down to my elbow ever since then.

* I dropped my iPhone and broke yet another case.

* Got a pretty yucky sinus infection last week that resulted in me missing half a day of work and two nights of school.

* The back door on the driver’s side of my car would not close securely yesterday, resulting in me having to find a ride to work and being thirty minutes late.

The grand prize of this whole mess is me being within a hairsbreadth of finding the nearest cave and hiding in it until the Rapture. Until last night. Like I said before, I had a bit of a revelation. This is prob’ly something that would’ve come to other folks I know in a more timely fashion, but heck, I’m just glad it finally dawned on me.

In this day and age, what do you think when someone says, “The devil is at work here?” For me, personally, that reminds me of when I had Dr. Allan Saxe for Texas Government a couple years back. He had a habit of mouthing off some hilarious-yet-terribly demeaning jokes that were guaranteed to offend every culture/gender/species in attendance at least once every evening. After he would blurt out such a joke, he would clap his hand over his mouth, then comically say, “I am so sorry. The DEVIL made me do it!”

I think this is a pretty dang good example of how people look at the devil’s influence these days. It’s hilarious. It’s not real. People have control over their own destinies, and there’s no sulfur-sucking freakshow doing this stuff to me, right?

Not necessarily.

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
— 1 Peter 5:8

So, is the devil at work in my life right now? Could be. It’s possible he’s trying to distract me from the most important things right now: God, Jenn, and school. He’s using what I like to call R&D. Not research and development, not raspberries and donuts (though that would probably work just as well as everything else he’s been doing to distract me), but Ruses and Deceptions. Stuff keeps getting thrown at me to distract me from focusing on getting stuff done for school, plus it’s distracting me from continuing to nurture my relationship with Jenn as we prepare to get married. Not to mention the fact that my laptop got stolen from me shortly after I just started doing some serious graphics work for my church.

What if it’s the other way around, though? What if God is T&B‘ing me? Okay, sorry, too many letters&letters. Testing and Blessing me.

The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.
— Deuteronomy 13:3b

We know God tests us. It’s part of the whole deal. So it’s totally possible that this is just another test of faith by Him.

But at the same time, I can also see some of this stuff as a real blessing. Well, two things mainly. I mean, breaking my iPhone case was somewhat of a blessing, because it resulted in me getting an even sweeter case for about half the price of the last one. But anyway, the two things I think of as a blessing in disguise were probably the two worst things on that list up there: My laptop getting stolen and my iPhone getting wiped.

A little over three years ago, when I first started dating Jenn, I was on the tail end of a serious addiction to World of Warcraft. I realized shortly into our relationship how much of a detriment that addiction was to our quality time together, so I closed my account and I haven’t been back since. I thank God every day for that, because it was His way of intervening before I became a hardcore gamer and wasted my life away in that crappy old apartment, eating Jack in the Box tacos every night and playing WoW.

But then my laptop was stolen, and being without it has made me realized that said addiction wasn’t quite out of my life. For a short while after the incident, I was suffering from (and I apologize, because I know this sounds a tad melodramatic) my own personal equivalent to phantom limb syndrome. Over the past four or five years, I had turned that laptop into another appendage. If I needed anything, I knew that my laptop could help me. And so when my laptop was stolen, well, you can guess how I reacted. Devastated, completely and utterly. I was seriously depressed, like I had no idea how I was going to do just about anything in life without that laptop.

Then my iPhone did it’s thing, and that just made me feel crappier. What the heck was going on with my stuff!? I was getting pissed. My usual methods of communicating and general “doing stuff” were rebelling on me. How am I going to function without a working iPhone and a laptop that’s been taken from me?

Then, after the 800th time that thought crossed my mind, I finally realized just how absurd it was.

How am I going to function without Facebook? Twitter? Photoshop? Office?

See where I’m going with this?

The devil may be taking advantage of the situation by trying to distract me by worrying about all this stuff. But GOD is waking me up from this technologically-induced state of dependency. Through the theft of my laptop, He’s giving me an NCIS-caliber smack on the backside of the head and going, “HEY. Quit it.”

I don’t NEED this stuff. It’s nice to have, yes. But if it’s gone, then it’s gone. There is absolutely no reason for me to get so sad about not being able to get online. My laptop was not another arm, it was just a tool. A tool that I had a bad habit of getting too absorbed in using. And I needed to learn my lesson about getting too far into it.

So, where do I go from here? Do I shun technology? Do I sell my iPhone?

Pff, no. 🙂 I need to remember that the key is to not let myself get absorbed. I’m not missing out on anything epic if I don’t login to Facebook whenever I have down time. I don’t need to tweet every other thought I think or action I… act.

Granted, losing my Photoshop sucks, because I was just getting started on doing some fun stuff for my church. But it’s okay, because I know I’ll still be able to help whenever I can.

As I look back on all this now that I’ve typed it out… man, it looks really silly. In the grand scheme of things, of all the terrible stuff going on in this world, my biggest problem right now is getting over losing a computer. But hey, the little victories in life at just as nice, right? A win is a win, and anything that helps me clear out the clutter, get closer to God, and focus on what’s REALLY important in my life (ie. marrying the girl of my dreams) is a tremendous victory, as far as I’m concerned.

All I have to remember is that it’s just stuff. This stuff, I can live without. This stuff, I can lose without breaking my heart. Being without this stuff will not keep my life from going on. Stuff, I don’t need.

What I do need is my Lord. What I do need is my beautiful fiancée. What I do need is to finish school so I can make a better future for my wife and me.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.

Frahdy, what are you doing to me?

Srsly dood, shouldn’t be this busy today. I’ve had to work on at least seven laptops this morning. Three had to be reimaged, one had a broken keyboard, and one had a dead motherboard. Those last two I couldn’t fix, so I have to get the tech specialist to come out here and fix ’em for me. Guh.

Anyway, things have calmed down a little now, so I’m enjoying a nice sit. Yay sitting.

Hah, check out this picture. Doesn’t it look like I have long black hair in it?

Isn’t that funny? It’s just a pillow, but I look, like, Greek or something. LOL

Have a great weekend, friends!

iPSotD:

Good grief.

*hooeeerrkk*

From Engadget…

Confirming our belief that Japan is at once among the coolest and craziest places on this planet we all call home is Burger King’s exclusive Windows 7 Whopper. Seven stacked beef patties extend your usual Whopper to over five inches in height and the whole thing costs an appropriate ¥777 (or $8.55). It’ll be available for one week only — or seven days, get it? Join us past the break to see the full towering size of this meaty monstrosity.

[…]

Andy Yang, our Engadget Chinese editor, has read the smallprint and noted that in fact only the first 30 customers each day will get the Win 7 Whopper at ¥777, with the rest shelling out a cool ¥1,450 ($17.10) for the privilege. Way to break with the number 7 theme, guys.

Seriously, even I have my limits. That’s just wrong on so many levels.

Oh, that Captain Kidd.

Ever heard about William Kidd? He was such a dingbat. Dude was contracted to go hunt pirates in the Indian Ocean, ended up doing some pirating himself, let himself get busted, and was hanged. They even left his body hanging out over the harbor as a reminder to other pirates. There’s a theory that he kinda got screwed by the system and was set up, but I’m not really sure about that. He shouldn’t have raided a Mughal ship (the Mughals were buddies with the East India Company) if he was really sailing for the glory of England. Dummy.

Okay, sorry about that. We watched a DVD about Kidd in Pirates of the Caribbean last night. It was entertaining, but Kidd’s stupidity just cracks me up. Also, the narrator pronounced things funny. Madagassker.

Also, last night was the second night of informative speeches in my Business Communications class. Since I got mine out of the way the first night, I now have to sit through three more nights of speeches. No big deal though, most of them are pretty cool. Though last night, even though the teacher told them not to, they were all bringing in their Powerpoints in .pptx format, not .ppt. For some reason, he won’t download the Microsoft Compatibility Pack to his laptop, so they couldn’t use his with the projector for their presentations. Well, guess who had the laptop that COULD do this?

/me raises hand

So I volunteered my laptop for the majority of the class. It was certainly no big deal, I was happy to help. And everyone loved my wallpaper when it popped up on the screen:

Tonight’s Bible Study at Laura’s, and I’m trying to decide if I want to skip class and get there on time, or rush out after class and get there late. Not sure yet, prob’ly won’t decide until the last minute. Heh.

Tech life. Word.

Today’s been… I dunno, irritating? I had to go outside to one of the temporary buildings and pull a computer to reimage it, because it was loaded down with a lovely virus. And of course, by the time I got out there, the cold front had blown through. So I had to walk through the chilly mist with a CPU tucked under my arm, which is fun like you’ve never experienced. I’m exaggerating a little, it wasn’t THAT bad. I actually appreciated the cold after the horrid mugginess I had to walk through at UTA yesterday afternoon. Seriously, I thought it was July again. Yuck.

Anyway, really, the walk outside wasn’t too bad this morning. But on the flip side, dealing with a certain coworker has been pretty rough today. I’m certainly not going to name any names, because I have no desire to spread the hate. But I’ve been really disappointed in how unprofessional they were when complaining about the fact that the teacher computer in the lab crashed this morning. The complaining was… prolonged, I guess you could say. Totally unnecessary. Of course, as soon as I start doing something about it, I’m BFF again. Ridiculous stuff.

BUT, I’m not gonna let it get me down. Still not a horrible day, all things considered. Yesterday was pretty silly. The students were released early, so they could go take the PSAT. The teachers used my labs for training all afternoon, Science in one, English in another, Math in another, etc.. Anyway, long story short, I had two printers glitch out at the same, on opposite ends of the building. Yay! It was really pretty funny the way it happened, and it all worked out in the end. The teachers and AP’s were really patient about all the issues that flared up, and we were all kinda having fun with it, so that made life a little easier while dealing with the crappy old printers. This one printer I have here in my “home” lab has been giving me a “service software error” lately. But every time I turn in a district help ticket and James comes out to look at it, the error message goes away. When James was leaving yesterday, I told him I’d call him once he stepped out the front door of the school and the error message popped up again. HAH. Of course, now that it’s figured out that I know what it’s up to, it’s not doing that anymore. It’s just sitting there. Watching me. Waiting…. waiting…….

Anyway…

Check it out! Ignore the lousy drawing on the right side of the box there. Didn’t work out like I wanted it to. But anyway, this is my first shipment out of the toys I’m selling! And so far it’s the only batch I’ve sold. So if anyone’s still interested, please go check out what I’m offering! We can certainly negotiate the price a little, if you want to. Just let me know.

iPSotD:

Mother-daughter talk.

Mos Eisley, here we come!

Click to embiggen.

This is SO freakin’ sweet! Check out the Eigenharp…

Demo video on BBC.

Basically, it’s the most customizable electronic instrument ever made. Part electric guitar, part synthesizer, part woodwind, part percussion. The possibilities are endless! I so wish I could get one of these. Hey, it’s a bargain at £3950.00. LOL!

Can you imagine my little brother (Mark) with one of these? They’d have him on stage in a heartbeat. Amazing stuff. I will never ever get tired of the classics when it comes to musical instruments (especially my cello), but this is definitely part of the future of musical instruments. So awesome!

Yesssss.

I totally forgot that we have early dismissal today. Well, the kids do, at least. Plus, they have a four day weekend, so it should be nice and quiet starting around lunch time today!

I’m going to take Monday off to go with Jenn up to Southlake, so we can get started on our wedding gift registries. Very excited about that! We’re planning on going to Crate & Barrel, Macy’s, Target, and Home Depot for sure. I think there were one or two other places she wanted to go to, as well. Should be a very fun day for us, especially since we’ll get to go hang out at Southlake Town Square in the middle of the day, when (hopefully) it won’t be as busy as it is on the weekends.

I keep telling Jenn that one of the main things I’m excited about registering for is a really nice set of knives. I’m hoping we can find a really sweet set at Crate & Barrel. I dunno, something about having an awesome set of knives just makes me wanna cook more. LOL Of course, that’s not the only thing I’m excited about, but I definitely can’t wait to see what they’ve got there. Just going to Crate & Barrel and looking at all the cool stuff is fun in itself. Haha

So WordPress is going crazy for this new website called PicApp. It’s a great resource for high quality stock images. I found this really awesome picture of a cellist from 1850:

[picapp src=”7/c/3/1/Cellist_fe6e.jpg?adImageId=4877948&imageId=3345259″ width=”467″ height=”594″ /]

Pretty cool/creepy, huh? I also found this picture of Big Bird:

[picapp src=”d/0/7/4/f6.JPG?adImageId=4877977&imageId=2319203″ width=”380″ height=”556″ /]

I don’t know why.

Anyway, cool site. Bookmark’d fo sho.

Speaking of cool webstuff, heard about Photosketch yet? It’s this new program that makes it possible for pretty much anyone who can draw a stick figure to use Photoshop. Basically, you sketch out what you want. Like, you want a picture of a caveman riding a rocket in outer space while shooting alligators at a bearshark.

So you sketch a stick figure riding a basic sketch of a rocket, draw some stick alligators or whatever, then label everything in the picture. Photosketch then takes over and puts everything in its place for you. Ta-da, fancy Photoshoppage. Sounds sweet, doesn’t it? I can’t wait to check it out.

Oh, I finally heard from my advisor! We’re working out my scheduling concerns. It looks like there’s an English 3300 class that I can take for my Humanities minor, because it’s a Philosophy and Literature class. Ugh, just saying the name of the class puts me to sleep. I’m gonna have to work really hard to get through that one. On the bright side, it also looks like I can take another English 3300 class as an elective. Why is it the bright side, you may ask? It’s a class about Science Fiction literature, friend. OH YES. That’s gonna rock. Between that and whatever History classes I sign up for, that should make up for having to deal with the PhilLit class. Should be a fun final semester for yours truly. 🙂

Oooh, I like the sound of that. “Final semester.” I can taste it already, friend.

iPSotD:

I clean up nice. Haha

New Office

Well, to make a big dumb story short, I’ve been asked to move my “office” into one of my computer labs. So it’s kinda like getting my own classroom/office, which is pretty sweet. Of course, I have much more than this lab to take care of, but it’s still kinda fun. 🙂

On the down side, I had to say goodbye to my iMac. It’s needed elsewhere, so I’m stuck using my decent work-issue laptop and the crappy desktop machine here on my desk. Which, in turn, means no more Photo Booth Shot of the Day. 😦

BUT, I’m trying something new. Gonna see how the iPhone Shot of the Day plays out. It won’t be a picture of me every day anymore (though this one is). I’m gonna try and mix it up a little and get creative within the constraints of the iPhone’s camera. It’s actually a pretty decent lens, so we’ll see what I can cook up.

Anyway, yesterday was the first day of school here at work AND at UTA. First day at work went pretty darn well, no hiccups at all. Been a little busier today, but it’s still going swimmingly.

First day at UTA was AWESOME. I had my Business & Professional Communications class (which hereafter shall be simply known as “Speech”) first, and it looks to be a lot of fun. My teacher… I swear, if Sean Connery had an American twin brother, this guy would SO be him. The look, the mannerisms, the voice, the eyebrow raise. TOTALLY SEAN CONNERY. It’s so funny! Makes me look forward to this class even more.

After that, I had my Pirates of the Caribbean class with Doc Sullivan, which so far looks like it will totally justify the excitement that’s been building in me since I first registered for the class earlier this year. Sullivan remembered me from his Colonial America class last Fall, and he is REALLY excited to be teaching this after taking a year off. He’s totally in his element, and I’m pumped about all the stuff I have to do for this class. Arrrr!

iPhone Shot of the Day:

Hai.

Twitterfail.

Twitter really needs to work on their filters. I got 25 of these stupid bots last night:

For those of you who don’t understand, this is basically one jerk trying to spam Twitter members in an effort to either get personal info from people, or to get them to go to his (probably dirty) website. Any well-run social networking website should have filters in place to prevent this kind of crap from happening. I remember having to deal with this on MySpace a few years back. I would literally get 20 of these bots a day sending me friend requests. It’s so disgusting, and such a waste of time and effort.

Twitter, the Big C is calling you out. Get with the freakin’ program.

Anyway, other than that, it’s been a nice morning so far. Went and took a look at all my labs for the first time since the end of last school year, and everything’s looking great. I’ve got six mobile labs plugged in and charging, because I have to update the antivirus software on them. That’ll take some time, but at least it gives me something to do! Also, Jenn just texted me to let me know that she’ll be able to get away for lunch today, so we can meet and get some grub together. Yay! 🙂 Love me a lunch date, I tell you what. Might see if she wants to go to Taco Bueno, so I can get some fajita tacos there. Them’s good eatin’.

Or maybe even Fuzzy’s Tacos! OOOO SNAP, that would be so awesome! Have you ever had Fuzzy’s Tacos? Oh my gosh, best tacos EVAR. It’s in downtown Arlington on Abram, real close to the central library. Very fun place, and the food is absolutely phenomenal.

I got your taco!

Dangit, now I’m hungry. It’s only 9:00!? Awww, crap!

Photo Booth Shot of the Day:

Eeeeviiiiilllll!!!!!!!!

An update just for you, Kilo.

Man, what a summer this is shaping up to be. Classes have been kicking my butt, and I am beyond ready to be done with school. Summer I at UTA was pretty rough, but I think I emerged unscathed. Summer II is shaping up to be pretty cool, with my Political Parties and Images of the American West classes. TCC is kinda the exact opposite, though. Summer I was a lot of fun thanks to the people and the teacher in my Spanish III class. But now Summer II kinda sucks, because Spanish IV and Intro to Architecture just aren’t tickling my fancy so much. BUT, I’ll get through it. Have to.

Jenn and I (with Misty) took our annual trip down to Galveston this past weekend. Despite what some people said about the devastation caused by Hurricane Ike, it actually looked really great down there. True, there was a field full of destroyed boats right as you crossed the bridge onto the island. And true, there’s a huge gaping hole in the side of the Flagship Hotel on the Seawall, along with the entry ramp being completely washed away. But aside from all that and some minor cosmetic damage to various stores, it really wasn’t that bad at all. Stewart Beach was in better shape than it’s ever been. This is the first year we’ve been able to go there and not have to deal with massive amounts of washed-up seaweed. It was clean and beautiful. We were able to get out there on the beach two days in a row this year, and I’m paying for it right now. I look like the Leper of UTA or something here.

Oh, there was one MAJOR downer about the trip. A good chunk of the Strand is still closed due to damages, namely LaKing’s Confectionary, which is (or was) one of the greatest ice cream and candy shops to ever exist in the history of the universe. It was completely shut down, and that made Jenn and I really sad. 😦 But we made up for it by having a blast on the beach, and checking out some amazing restaurants that we’ve never been to before, so it was okay.

Speaking of the restaurants, O.M.G.. Fish Tales, Miller’s Landing, and Salsa’s. DO NOT go to Galveston without eating at these three places. Wonderful stuff, friend. Life-changing.

Oh, and then there was Buc-ee’s, the greatest travel stop EVAR. If you ever run across one in your Texas travels, you absolutely must stop there. You’ll love it, I guarantee. I can’t even put into words the awesomeness of Buc-ee’s. Lemme put it this way… do you like jerky? Ever wished you could order just about any kind/flavor of jerky imaginable, fresh from the deli? Yeah, go to Buc-ee’s. And don’t forget to get some Frostie’s Root Beer. It’s on tap there. OH YEAH.

So yeah, all in all and excellent weekend.

In other news, I’m geeking out like a… geek… about Green Lantern right now. Variety is reporting that Ryan Reynolds has been cast as Hal Jordan for the new Green Lantern movie coming out in a year or two. To me, Ryan Reynolds is one of those awesome actors who tends to get stuck in crappy movies, ie. Wolverine and Blade: Trinity. But the man can act, and I think he can totally pull off Hal Jordan. Can’t wait. On top of that, I just preordered “Green Lantern: First Flight” on DVD, and I get to go pick up my copy of Blackest Night #1 tomorrow from Lone Star Comics. Freakin’ awesome! 🙂

Guess I’ll wrap this up by telling you something that most of y’all already know, and has been a long time coming: I finally got an iPhone! Yay!