Laura's Thoughts

Memorizing God's Word (in slightly larger chunks)

2006-04-11T17:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.fbcdurham.org/writings/Scripmem.htm

The Church vs the World

2006-04-10T14:27:00.000-07:00

My friend Ian posted a link to this article by John Fischer entitled The Separation of Church and Hate, and it's such excellent food for thought I had to post it here as well.

Seeing a bumperstick begging Christians to "seperate church & hate" prompted the author to question what gives the world such a view of Christianity that we're so often identified with hate, when Christ said the world is to know we're His followers by our love. My first reaction to this was to take up my defense that the church is under seige by the enemy's forces and must stand up against the influences of the world. But while this has its share of truth, it is most essential to humbly consider how I've contributed to this problem.

Fischer lists five reasons why the church has such a reputation:
1) We have been more focused on sin than the sinner.

2) We have been more concerned with creating a safe society than with making a positive impact on culture.

3) We have bought into the notion that we could effect a change upon society through politics.

4) We have opted for morality over the gospel.

5) We have become the self-appointed last line of defense that God doesn’t need and never asked for.

His article goes into much greater detail on each of these points, but I just wanted to point out a couple that struck me the hardest.

First is the idea that we are God's last defense in America. We've all seen the emails and campaigns for keeping God in the Pledge, Christ in Christmas, and the Commandments in the Courtrooms, and I know I for one have participated in my share of boycotts and signed a number of petitions. But I have to admit that none of these things ensure our fellow Americans will come to know the joy of a relationship with their Creator. And while I do think we have some responsibility as American citizens to let our desires be known, when our neighbors feel the need to defend themselves against the Christian Right, it only adds more barriers preventing them from seeing the glory of God in our lives.

[to be continued...]

Microsoft One-ups Google Maps

2006-03-01T17:48:00.000-08:00

Ok, this is just cool (and no downloads required): http://preview.local.live.com/

Basically, the bottom-half of the page shows your typical overhead map view with street names and/or aerial photos, but it's got a little blue car image overlayed on the map. The top half of the screen shows what you'd be seeing if you were sitting in that car, with front and side views. You can "drive" the car around the map using the arrow keys or your mouse, and if you hold down an arrow key, it does a pretty good job of staying on the streets.

As usual, in the preview version the images are limited to the Seattle area (and apparently SF, been having too much fun in Seattle to try that one though.)

Campaign Spending and Chewing Gum

2006-02-23T16:48:00.000-08:00

Fun fact of the day - Did you know that in an election year (think presidency, House & Senate) politicians spend a combined $1 billion on campaigning?

Did you know this is also the amount Americans spend in the same time period on chewing gum? (Levitt, Freakonomics, p12).

Johari Window

2006-02-23T09:11:00.000-08:00

Ran across this on a friend of a friend's (now where is that apostrophe supposed to go...) blog.

It's a method I've never seen before for mapping personality awareness, and since my narcisstic self is always curious how the views of others compare with my own self-perception, couldn't resist blogging it. :) Basically, you click this link and select a coupla words from a list you think describe me. And what do you get out of it? Um... the blocks change colors when you click on them. Really, it can be quite entertaining. ;) Ok, back to work now...

Supreme Court Weighing in on Partial-Birth Abortion Laws

2006-02-22T10:41:00.000-08:00

Warning - I freely admit to being an avid pro-lifer and view abortion as the rather gruesome murder of an innocent child, who's life deserves as much consideration as the mother who conceived him or her. That said...

In November of 2003, Bush signed into law the ban on partial-birth abortions. Six months later, a California federal district judge struck it down in Planned Parenthood v. Ashcroft and a NY judge did the same in National Abortion Federation v. Ashcroft. Both judges argue the law is unconstituitionl as it includes no exceptions for the benefit of the woman's health. After a few other judges with rather similar conclusions, the Supreme Court has agreed to consider the constituionality of a law with no protection of a woman's health (never mind the baby's!)

Though there's no statistical info on when this type of abortion is performed, but Ron Fitzsimmons, director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, estimates that the partial-birth abortion is usually performed on a perfectly healthy mother and a healthy child that is at least 20 weeks old.

Partial-birth abortions use a process called "dilation & extration" aka D&E. The procedure involves dilating the pregnant woman's cervix and delivering the child feet-first through the birth canal. However, while the head is still inside the mother's body, it is punctured with sharp scissors and the skull squeezed, allowing it to follow the body through the dilated cervix. (Try this on a dog, and you'd most likely be nailed by the animal rights activists.)

Fortunately, this procedure is easier on the mother than the previous methods, which for those interested involved inserting forceps into the womb and pulling the baby to part and removing the body piece by piece. However, either method reduces the chance the woman will be able to have children at a later date, increases the risk of breast cancer, and often leaves her emotionally scarred.

If you've had an abortion or are considering one, you might check out the Crisis Pregancy Center (http://www.pregnancycenters.org/). Whatever you are going through, they will love you, listen if you just need to talk, answer any questions, and help you find whatever help you need. And its completely free and confidential.

LivePlasma

2006-01-26T10:08:00.000-08:00

LivePlasma:
Enter an artist, band, movie, director, or actor, and it draws out a map showing that "item" relationship to others. Nodes in the graph are color coded as to whether they are related by content/subject, artist or director. Very cool for finding new music or movies to try.
Posted by Picasa

Colr Pickr

2006-01-26T10:07:00.000-08:00

Ok, this is just cool. As you hover over a color or adjust the saturation, it pulls a dozen pictures from Flckr. URL: http://krazydad.com/colrpickr/

Cool Site - Colr Pickr

2006-01-26T09:54:00.000-08:00

Ok, this is just cool. As you hover over a color or adjust the saturation, it pulls a dozen pictures from Flckr. URL: http://krazydad.com/colrpickr/

Stock Research - Florida Rock Industries

2006-01-25T10:02:00.000-08:00

Purely for the selfish motives of tracking my stock research, here's some articles which sparked my interest in FRK:

17 Stocks that Always Go Up - Wallstreet Journal

Florida Rocks On - Motley Fool

Annual Report for FRK

Summary: Construction. Quarries sand & gravel, processes concrete & cement, currently in short supply world-wide. Has 30yrs of rock reserves and $70mil cash. Still run by its founders, pays 1.7% dividend and earnings have grown 20% annually for past 20yrs.

Concerns: 50% of sales are residential, housing market expected to slow in coming years. Mostly does business in Florida, more risky than more diversified construction companies.

Current price: 53.57
P/E: 21.43
EPS: 2.50
Market cap: 3.51bil
52wk high & low: 67.98 - 36.00
Avg vol: 691k

Not buying yet, but mulling it over...

Who needs a hybrid...

2006-01-24T18:16:00.000-08:00

...when your car might already be able to run on ethanol, a fuel that can be created from agricultural by-products such as corn husks or grass. In Brazil, the majority of cars can run on either fossil fuels or ethanol, and according to this CNN article, there's already some five million cars on the road with engines able to switch between such biofuels and your regular gas.

Might even prove to be a better solution to our oil dependency than convincing our fellow countrymen to trade in their SUV's for a Smart Car.

Finding God's Purpose

2006-01-23T12:41:00.000-08:00

As I have yet to find a timeline with the rest of my life laid out in detail, I'm often trying to figure out what exactly God had in mind when He created me. So when I got this article by John Thomas in my email, I decided to post about it here as the author makes some very sound points of which I need frequent reminding:

In the same way that a hiker must orient himself to true north before he can begin his journey, so we must orient (and continue re-orienting) ourselves to the absolute truth that life is not to be driven by what makes us happy, but by what brings God glory. That is life's "true north." Only by doing so will we ever begin to experience the fulfillment and adventure of life. So, the better way to ask your question is this, "How could I live my life in such a way that brings God the most glory?"

Thomas perceives God's purpose for our lives as a combination of three separate but inter-related questions:
1. What is God's will for me as a human being?
2. What is God's Will for me as a female?
3. And lastly, what is His Will for me as a unique individual?

The answers to the first two seem fairly clear to me from Scripture, so while I would like (or at least think I would like) to know where I'll be twenty years from now, I suppose I'll have to keep working on the first two until God shows me what's next. :-)

E12 Beta

2005-12-15T10:50:00.000-08:00

We just shipped the first beta of Exchange 12 this week, as covered in this brief article. Using Monad to setup stuff on the server is one of the areas I own. Well, technically, those areas where Monad and Store overlap, and Store is the database that's used to store new users, storage groups, mailboxes, and a bunch of other stuff that probably is not making much sense.

Thanksgiving, lil Sis & a new phone

2005-12-13T10:38:00.000-08:00

Ok, it's been several weeks since I've posted, but it's been such a fun and busy few weeks haven't had much time for blogging. For Thanksgiving, Neal and I took the bus over the mountain pass to stay with his family a few days. We had a great time, and even got to see some snow! Quite a bit of it too. The ride back over Stevens Pass was beautiful; it was snowing pretty hard at the top, and the trees were just covered! Yeah, we didn't get much snow in Texas. :)

This past weekend Jennifer flew up to stay with me a few weeks, it's been a ton of fun taking her dancing and staying up all night chatting. We went with Neal to see the Narnia movie opening weekend, and (unlike certain other fantasy movies based off well-loved books) I thouroughly approve. There were very few differences from the book that I noticed, and they kept the overall storyline and message very clear. I do admit however that it's been several years since I last read it, whereas I read the LOTR books the month before the movies came out. My biggest complaint so far is the White Witch's dress, something just didn't look quite right there.

I also got a new phone last week. As Exchange has some new features for accessing your email/calendar/tasks/etc. from a Pocket PC, they gave us PDA phones to test it. It has a pretty nice lil camera (for a phone that is), and I just came across this photo my sis took of herself with it. And now I'll see how often she reads my blog based on how long it takes till she kills me. :) It's definitely the coolest phone I've ever had, as it's a full-fledged PDA, a 1.3 megapixel camera that can take short video clips, and with the built-in wireless I can check my email from anywhere at work or my apartment. Though after the novelty wears off, not quite sure why I would want to do that. But for now, I'm still having fun checking my email from the cafeteria. Gadgets are such fun!

Paying people to search?

2005-12-13T10:25:00.000-08:00

Ok, I hadn't heard anything about this one, but just ran across a Motley Fool article about Gates' considering rewarding regular users of search.msn.com with free software, money or other goodies. Curious marketing indeed!

Legalization of Drugs and Prohibition

2005-11-22T14:21:00.000-08:00

This article confronts the idea that the legalization of drugs would be better for society by refuting the oft repeated myth that Prohibition was a failure in decreasing alcohol consumption. And as this is one argument I've used myself while playing Devil's Advocate with the drug issue, I was rather suprised to learn that in 1914, before Prohibtion, the average person consumed 22.8 gallons of alcohol, compared to 8.96 the year after Prohibition ended.

Contrary to myth, there is no evidence that Prohibition caused any big increases in crime. The real facts are these: As a result of Prohibition, 180,000 saloons were shut down, and 1,800 breweries went out of business. In ten years of Prohibition, the death rate due to alcohol decreased 42 percent, the death rate due to cirrhosis of the liver decreased by 70 percent, crime decreased by 54 percent, and insanity decreased by 66 percent." -Rev. Mark H. Creech, Prohibition and the Legalization of Drugs

In light of which it seems almost as foolish to suppose that doing away with speed limits would lead to safer roads. ;-)

What famous leader do you identify with?

2005-11-16T16:42:00.000-08:00

Ran across this quiz on Abigail's blog awhile back, and couldn't help but take it. Apparently Einstein was as scatterbrained an introvert as me; now I just need to work on that bedhead look.

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

First TV Channel in Esperanto

2005-11-16T16:18:00.000-08:00

Esperanto is fairly low on the list of languages I intend to learn, which means at my current rate of achieving fluency I shall reach this one around the year 3013. But when I do, I'll have one more TV channel I could watch!

URL: First Worldwide Internet TV

Virtual Real Estate Investing

2005-11-11T11:10:00.000-08:00

This guy just paid out $100,000 for a piece of property that exists only on a harddrive:

Jacobs, an independent film director, recently invested six figures in a virtual space station in the online game "Project Entropia." He theorizes that the fertile hunting grounds, night clubs and housing on his new property will far more than repay his hefty outlay.

And while some might question the sanity of putting Ferrari money into an investment that would have no value if "Project Entropia" ever folded, Jacobs feels he is on safe ground.

It's been interesting watching the development of trade of online goods, but the idea of investing in imaginary goods seems to go against the grain of common sense. Though I guess it's not much different than making a living off the stock market without actually producing anything tangible for the good of society.

States I've Seen

2005-11-08T10:03:00.000-08:00

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Laura's News Commentary

2005-10-31T10:31:00.000-08:00

A reverse sort of babelfish
One of several on-the-fly language translator prototypes from Carnegie Mellon consists of implanting electrodes in a person's cheeks converts facial muscle movements into speech. So while you're babbling away in English, your listeners might be hearing you in Spanish, Cantonese and Esperanto simultaneously.

School keeps students from See You at the Pole
A New Jersey school barred students from holding a See You at the Pole rally last month. Students were ordered to cease praying and stand out of site of arrive school buses as they were "mixing church and state". After the Alliance Defense Fund lawyer Jeremy Tedesco intervened to educate the school as to the First Amendment rights of their students to pray on campus, the students were allowed a do-over event. Tedesco notes that "the student-led prayer assembly ended up being a huge success, garnering more attention and participation than it would have had the students been allowed to proceed with their original plans."

ACLU Exposed on Fox News
Bill O'Reilly of Fox News recently exposed the ACLU for it's attempts at imposing totalitarianism on America in their attemps to bypass public voter's choice on public policy by judicial activism. In particular, the ACLU filed a brief in support of Oregon's Supreme Court ruling in favor of live sex shows, on the basis of freedom of expression, a ruling that would have been defeated if left to the voter's who recently voted down gay marriage. The ACLU also supports the North American Man Boy Love Association and endorses virtual child pornography, all under the claim of freedom of expression.

Top 10 Best and Worst Prime-time TV for Family Viewing
I'm not much of a TV fan, but it's interesting to watch the changing trends of what's popular in our general culture. Unfortunately, the Parents Television Council's yearly review could find only 9 shows to add to their Best for Family Viewing list. Fox gets the award for the worst shows, most of which are advertized as "family friendly". The worst ones included The Family Guy, CSI, The O.C., Desparate Housewives, That 70's Show. On the good side, there's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Dancing With the Stars, Three Wishes, American Idol, Reba, 7th Heaven and several new ones I've never heard of. For a full list of shows and a review of each, check out the linked article.

How much is your savings account earning?
Ok, ok, this is another shameless plug for my online bank, but I've had such a great experience with them that I can't help but want to recommend them to everyone I know. When I opened my account with them, they were paying interest rates of 2.9% and have continuosly gone up from there so they now pay 3.4% as opposed to the .5% my First Tech savings generates. Might not sound like much, but a few percentage points difference really starts to add up. Not ideal for all situations as transfers are not immediate, but makes a great savings account for money you won't need for a while. If interested, let me know and I'll send you a referral email; you get $25 for opening a new account and I get $10. Though in all honesty, I'd recommend them even if I didn't get a bonus. :)

Exchange 2003 SP2

2005-10-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

Part of what I've been working on in my first 7 months at Microsoft; I started here just in time to participate in the final testing efforts before releasing the service pack.

JibJab's Big Box Mart

2005-10-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

Big Box Mart is JibJab's latest satirical take on American consumerism and outsourcing. Of curious side-note, they're now being distributed via MSN as opposed to Yahoo.

Why Women Live Longer Than Men

2005-10-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

I especially love the last two. And I must say there's some most creative uses for ladders here. :)

http://www.robeagar.com/pages/page.asp?page_id=2963

Iraqi Christians Aid New Orleans Church

2005-10-06T14:38:00.000-07:00

The members of Kurdzman Church in Iraq saw footage of the devastation from Hurricane Katrina and contacted World Compassion to see how they could help. The church's 300 members sent a $1,000 check to Adullam Christian Fellowship in New Orleans.

Millett (Pastor of Adullum Christian Fellowship) was surprised to learn that a congregation in Iraq was helping out his church members in their time of need. "I know that they can understand what it's like to be devastated since, of course, they just went through that," he says. "St. Bernard Parish looks like it has been bombed and then flooded, and so I have a kindred spirit now with my brothers in Iraq."

With all that Christians in Iraq are going through, I thought this was an incredible example of sacrificial giving.

Vacationing at the... Monastery?

2005-09-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

I get several daily newsletters, most of which get a very short skim over before going straight to the trash. Every once in awhile something will grab my attention, and every once in a long while I think it might be itneresting enough to someone else I figure I'll post about it. (Which by the number of my posts that derive from such articles, you might correctly deduce I get quite a large number of such daily mailings.)

This article
offers up monasteries as an alternative to youth hostels for a European vacation on a tight budget. Eileen Barish has put together several travel books on finding monasteries open to traveling visitors, regardless of religious background, with an average cost of $20 or 30 a night. Apparently Europeans have been vacationing in this manner for years, and I must admit I'm rather intrigued by the idea.

Wind Storm in Dallas

2005-09-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hurrican Rita brought a nice wind storm up to Dallas; my dad snapped this photo this morning of a house down the street from where my parents live. Lost electricity last night, and the temperature went from 101 yesterday to 64 today.

Guess now's a good time to be thankful we had to cut down our big tree a few years back; tree limbs were down all over our neighborhood. Thankfully, doesn't appear anyone lost much more than this poor guy's truck.

Economics of Courtship

2005-09-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

In this article The Dating Game: The Dangers of Cash-based Courtship, Anne Morse provides an interesting take on that ever present question of who should pay on dates. I had long held to the idea that "old-fashioned" dating meant the girl should let the guy pick up the tab when he insists, but couldn't help wondering what he gets for all his money. I've been told "the pleasure of her company" and such, but I should certainly hope the girl enjoys his company as well or that would be a sad state of affairs indeed.

In the olden days (think Jane Austen era), mothers would give men permission to call upon their daughters, and the courtship took place primarily under the parents' eyes, all at no cost to the gentleman. Furthermore, it was considered highly inappropriate for a girl to accept gifts from a man, as she would then be seen as "owing" him. Consider in Gone With the Wind when Rhett Butler offers Scarlett a hat she knows she should refuse, but decides to keep even if she must allow him to "take liberties". Or when Rhett informs her, "I am tempting you with bonnets and bangles and leading you into a pit. Always remember I never do anything without reason and I never give anything without expecting something in return. I always get paid."

I remember reading that in elementary school and wondering what the big deal was in accepting a gift from a guy, but having experienced the imbalance and sense of debt our so-called "old-fashioned" dating system creates in a relationship, I've since restructured my views on dating. Not that I believe any of the Christian gentlemen I know would entertain such thoughts as Scarlett's infamous beau, but there is something to be said for keeping money out of a relationship as much as possible.

So to any such gentlemen who've ever had a girl refuse to let them pay and wondered if the girl has fallen in with the droves of independent feminists, I'd like to offer up the alternative that perhaps she is merely holding to the more old-fashioned idea of courtship our great-great-grandparents enjoyed.

Email Overload

2005-09-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

When I got into work this morning, I had 1280 (oh wait, make that 1282!) unread messages sitting in my inbox. Thankfully, 99% of them were due to a crashing process on a test machine from a topology that went awry. Unfortunately, every one of them had a different timestamp in the subject line so I couldn't just group by subject and bulk delete. That also means my test machines need to be dumped and rebuilt before I can get back to debugging my test code.

Then a new email pops up in my personal inbox after I'd just cleaned it out, and even though I know chances are it's spam or one of several news alerts I subscribe too, I still get excited that perhaps it'll be something interesting. Turns out it was an email telling me I posted a comment on my own blog. Ah well.

After a few months at Microsoft, I've had to turn off all Outlook email notifications; I find it impossible to concentrate on my code when there's a little icon down there reminding me that something is sitting in my inbox just waiting to be opened. In case anyone else has been losing the battle with the email checking urge, you can turn off these notifications under Tools -> Options -> Prefrences tab -> Email options -> Advanced Email Options -> When New Emails Arrive.

It's been awhile

2005-09-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

..since my last post, but then so much has happened in the past month that I intended to blog about, I never had time to write it all up. So instead I decided to go for the semi-brief summary version for those faithful few who might favor my blog with a quick perusal. (Ok, I admit it, I just wanted to use the word perusal in there. It's almost as much fun as ellipses!)

In the past month I...
1. Flew back to Dallas for a week and a half vacation with my family. (Ok, technically this was back in the first part of August, but who's being technical?)

2. Moved to a condo up in Kirkland and had great fun exploring the waterfront area. That was my first move without having family around to help with everything, but thanks to the kindness of new friends willing to spend their evening carrying heavy boxes and furniture, I made it! I've decided I definitely need to get rid of about half my stuff before I move again though. :)

3. Spent a lovely Labor Day rowing on Lake Washington, trying my first sushi, and exploring Snoqualmie Falls.

4. Did the Puyallup Fair with Jenny & Jill (my original roommies up here), and had a great time trying scones and elephant ears and all the other great fair food of the Northwest.

5. Participated in my first dance performance, after spending several dozen hours practicing the vienneze waltz over the last coupla weeks. Performing is definitely not my thing; but it was a lot of fun still.

6. Attended a behind the scenes tour of the Seattle Opera; I've never yet seen an opera (ok, other than one on VHS my mom rented from the library years ago), but it was fascinating seeing the costuming area and hearing about the voice coaching and how they work with supers (the opera version of Hollywood extras) to fill in the minor characters.

6. My mom flew up from Dallas to see the performance and stay for a week; we've had a great time so far trying new foods and lots of mom-daughter talks. I've really enjoyed getting to introduce her to friends up here as well as seeing the church I've been attending up here, Crossroads Bible Church.

7. Which brings me to my last blurb for today - I've decided it's time to commit to a church family up here and went through the new members class last weekend. Still miss my church back in Richardson, but once again God has answered my prayers and given much more than I asked.

A rather lengthy post this has turned out to be, and yet still covers such a small fraction of what I would tell, but now at least I can return to posting on random bits of interest without feeling guilty for skipping all the in betweens. :)

Modern Magic

2005-09-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

The weekly newsletter for the Exchange team usually includes a coupla just because items; today's issue features an Invisibility Cloak (though not quite so cool as Harry's) developed by the U of Tokyo.

Check out the video of this thing then read over the article and if you can explain to me how it works, you get 5 coolnitude points.

Keyboard

2005-08-19T18:46:00.000-07:00

Isn't she a darling? After my last trip back home and several hours going over my favorite pieces, I decided it was time to start investigating keyboards. Then I found this Roland HP 3000 on Craigslist; the musician selling it was more interested in finding it a good home than making a profit, and I was more than happy to fill spot. Unfortunately, I was so excited to finally be practicing again I could hardly sleep last night. But at least if I want to play at 7 in the morning, I can turn the volume down. :-)
Posted by Picasa

2005-08-02T17:32:00.000-07:00

I think I just found a new home page. Still in the Microsoft sandbox, but I actually think I prefer the interface to google for a change. The minimize feature for each block's pretty sweet.
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Poor Man's Mocha

2005-07-28T00:05:00.000-07:00

My poor man's mocha (so dubbed by some nameless soul, and I rather liked it). I decided in order to be a true Seattlite I needed to learn to like coffee, so I developed this concoction consisting of sugar-free hot chocolate mix made with 3/4 a cup of coffee, topped off with chocolate milk and covered in light whipped cream. With the help of these darlin's I'm developing quite an affinity for that morning coffee. :-)
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Candy Collection

2005-07-27T23:56:00.000-07:00

My candy collection was recently enhanced from coworkers bringing more to try, so I hadta document 'em before I ate 'em all. I believe that's a Russian chocolate at the top left, a coupla Korean plum and strawberry candies, a Japanese hard candy, and a coupla Mexican candies, all surrounding a lovely smelling lavendar chocolate (that was edible and quite delicious!)
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Now this is a high-tech fire alarm...

2005-07-27T23:33:00.000-07:00

I love it! Can't help but wonder what makes the bell ring...
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An Unfortunate Legacy of Spam

2005-07-26T09:54:00.000-07:00

Vardan Kushnir was found dead in his home this week after being smashed in the head with a blunt object. Kushnir, the head of the American Language Center, was infamous for sending out millions of emails to Russian internet users with ads for his language courses. And from MosNews.com, the headlines covering the event are nearly as brutal:

Russian-language media, both online and offline, has made little effort to conceal one central thought when dealing with the spammer’s demise: that somehow the late Mr. Kushnir got what he deserved. “The Spammer Had it Coming”, one headline reads. “Spam is Deadly”, “Ignoble Death Becomes Russia’s Top Spammer”, “An Ultimate Solution to the Spam Problem” - 84 Russian-language news captions on Kushnir’s murder, retrieved by the Yandex News search engine within a day of the event, seem to share the general feeling.
[...]
It’s little wonder, then, that Vardan Kushnir became as popular a character among Russian-speaking Internet users, as Lord Voldemort must be among Hogwarts’ fans. And a tale of some anonymous ’Harry Potter’ paying him a private visit on a warm July morning produces quite a predictable sensation among the audience.

How depressing to think of leaving such a legacy behind that an entire country rejoices at your death.

2005-07-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

Who'da thunk it?
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Not enough desk space for all those flatscreens?

2005-07-15T16:38:00.000-07:00

For the price of two LCD monitors, Sony'll be offering this darling screen later this month that projects two images simultaneously at different viewing angles. Perfect solution for when Mom wants to play solitaire in the midst of Dad's flight sim venture to Seattle. Only now you might find yourself trying to hook up two computers to the same monitor instead of the other way around...

URL: Sharp develops 'two-way viewing-angle' LCD

2005-07-11T14:02:00.000-07:00

This is why investing can be so much fun... I managed to buy SIRI for 5.85 a few weeks ago, and today it's up to 7.11. Great way to start off the week (even if it's not rainy!) =)
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Why can't they make up their minds?

2005-07-07T11:27:00.000-07:00

The Supreme Court's recent rulings on the 10 Commandments cases appears to muddle the path for future rulings on these public displays. They've declared it's unconstitutional for the Decalogue to be allowed in Kentucky courthouses, while allowing Texas to keep it's monument.

Kerby Anderson's commentary on the subject points out that Texas places their Ten Commandments amidst a 22-acre display of a number of other historical monuments, where as in Kentucky it is hung alongside the Bill of Rights, American flag and a Congressional declaration of 1983 as the "year of the Bible". At least in the past the Court made clear it's position against the Commandments.

In his dissenting opinion on the Texas ruling Justice Stevens wrote, “The monument is not a work of art and does not refer to any event in the history of the state.” Funny, considering that 12 of the 13 original colonies included the full text of the Commandments in their civil and criminal codes (David Barton) and that the American Bible Society was formed by an act of Congress (Ears to Hear).

Ironically, the Ten Commadments remain engraved in stone in the Supreme Court's own courthouse.

Schedule Chicken

2005-06-30T16:11:00.000-07:00

I came across this article in the MSDN Library, written in April 1999 concerning Microsoft's latest reorganization. What particularly caught my attention was this phenomenon dubbed "Schedule Chicken" after that famous scene in Rebel Without a Cause in which one unfortunate lad goes careening over a cliff during a game of chicken when his coat hangs on the car door. From the article:

The software project equivalence happens when two or more areas of a product claim they can deliver their features at a ridiculously early date because each assumes the other feature area team is lying even worse about how long it will take them to deliver their features. This charade marches forward past one psychedelic checkpoint after another until just before the goods are actually due. A more seasoned team lead will delay copping to what is painfully obvious for as long as humanly possible, hoping someone else will break first and jump out of their car. The ceremony where the team lead has to admit the emperor isn't wearing any clothes results in a tribal ritual that rivals Inca sacrifices, except that the virgin probably felt better about her fate. It is very difficult for the offending feature team to recover from being the furthest out on the schedule—because now that the truth is known, all everyone else has to do to look good is to finish just before that late team. Even if the schedule chickens end up beating the deadline, it is nearly impossible for the people on that team to beat the stigma of being unable to stay on a schedule.

Prior to this reorg, Steve Ballmer apparently spent some time studying company culture, and decided this and several other such practices had to go. For instance:

Distinctively unique ideas are no longer killed simply because they are distinctively unique. Specifically, "If this is such a big problem, how come you are the only one who has ever thought of it?" is no longer a valid reason to kill a feature or product.

Distinctively stupid ideas, unique or otherwise, are shot on sight by the newly created Stupidity Discipline Task Force, whose main mission is to walk around campus with rolled up back issues of Dr. Dobbs ready, able and willing to use them on the noses of program managers.

Whoever thought browsing the MSDN Library could be so, er, educational?

Don't light that match!

2005-06-29T19:42:00.000-07:00

Was just playing around with Picasa and BloggerBot, and came across this photo I took a couple of weeks ago at Tiger Mountain State Park. Makes you wonder what's at the top of that mountain. ;-)
Posted by Hello

Akiyoshi's illusions

2005-06-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, horribly geeky yes, but I thought it was cool. Makes a great wallpaper for annoying your coworkers. :-)

Hmm... just occurred to me I forgot to post the URL where I found this.

Weekend Plans and Hi to Mom & Dad :-)

2005-06-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

As usual, my weekend plans turned out nothing like I'd expected, but were rather more enjoyable than I'd planned. I'd made up my mind to do absolutely nothing on Saturday. Well, nothing other than getting my oil changed, apartment hunting, and a long walk with a book at least. Instead I spent a fun afternoon in downtown Seattle trying out French pastries, taking the Underground Tour, and meeting some new friends. I figure my car's waited a month for that oil change, it can surely take one more week. :)

Then on Sunday the young adult group at my church had a bbq at a park on Lake Sammamish. It was a little chilly out, and it still seems really odd to me to be wearing a jacket in the middle of June, but it was a beautiful day to spend outside. A number of people were out of town this weekend, but we had a great time tossing a frisbee around and knocking it out of trees.

On another note, my mom just told me that she and my dad, my aunt and a few friends have been reading my blog/website, so I just wanted to say hi to all of them and feel free to leave comments. (Click the comments link after a post, write something in the text box, select Anonymous and click Publish.) Blogs work as a sort of conversation over the web, and can be a fun way to keep in touch with people. :)

Microsoft, Pho and Me

2005-06-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

I feel like a true Microsoftie now; put in a nearly 12 hours today and was strongly considering driving back up after salsa to check on my test cases. Ok, I did have a kinda long lunch in there; tried my first Vietnamese food, a dish called pho. It's this soup with lots of noodles, meat and tendons (which were suprisingly pretty good) that you eat with chopsticks. Was a little messy, but alot of fun. Now what would be even more fun would be to show up at work tomorrow and find that all my test cases passed. Wishful thinking.

Jonah as a Type of Christ

2005-06-22T00:16:00.000-07:00

As I was reading Jonah last night, it struck me that both Jonah and Christ were found sleeping through pretty bad storms and woken by annoyed shipmates before the storm was calmed by God's power. Now I know Jonah's three days in the fish correlate to the Messiah's three days in the grave, but I'd never paid attention to these further similarites, though they now seem rather obvious.

Odd News of the Day and Other Stuff

2005-06-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'd already posted my allotment of strange/odd/interesting news of the day, but this one's so odd I just can't help it! Officials from a rural town in China racked up a $24,000 bill at a restraunt, and can only afford around $600 a year to pay off their debt to the now bankrupt restraunt. You hafta wonder what the rest of the story might be...

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8285273/?GT1=6657

It's been a fun evening, went to work out with Abigail after work and I'm hoping to be nice and sore tomorrow. I'm afraid I often don't push myself hard enough to really be much good, but it gets so boring just shuffling weights around. Mariya usually joins us, but she skipped tonight and cooked up a delicious Russian meal for us and a coupla other Microsofties. She made tons of food - borscht, vinaigrette, and three or four other dishes I don't know the names of. I don't remember ever eating beets growing up, but they're actually quite tasty. At least, they were after she got done with them.

But now I'm thoroughly exhausted and full, and think I shall head off to read another couple chapters of a Greg Bear book on loan from a coworker. I had never read him before, and so far he reminds me a lot of Asimov. But then again, I've only raed one of his stories so far, so I haven't been able to decide if I like him or not yet.

A Big Woops for U of KA and the McD of the Future

2005-06-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

Seems the University of Kansas got itself into a little trouble when someone sent a group email to all those students on financial aid who were failing all their classes. An easy but rather embarrassing mistake to make. I've seen this happen several times with mailing lists I've been on or service I'd bought when someone fails to understand the purpose of BCC. And then you've got the rash of spam as everyone replies all to complain about their email being visible.

Another news clip that got my attention this morning was on the McDonald's of the future. New ideas being played with at the flagship restraunt include WiFi internet access, plasma TV's and kiosks for burning CDs and downloading ring tones. And if that's not enough to attract today's techie crowd, how about a latte with that Big Mac?

Peanut Butter

2005-06-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

Just made the nice discovery that I actually prefer Peter Pan's reduced fat peanut butter over the real stuff. It's got a nice texture to it, goes perfect with my caramel rice cakes and not-quite-ripe bananas.

Mutual Funds or Indexes?

2005-06-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

I've read so many articles pressing index funds over mutual funds, it was a nice break to come across Motley Fool's recently commentary on what a mutual fund with a good manager can do for your money. True, most mutual funds fall short of the returns you can get off an index, but there's a few outstanding ones that could be a good investment tool if you're not up for investigating individual stocks.

Of particular interest to me was the difference a couple percentage points can make over the years. For instance, if you invest $10,000 for 30 years with an index earning 10.2% (which was the avg return for VFINX over the past 10 years) you'd have $184,267. If you'd invested the same money with a fund with an avg annualized return of 12.2% (such as VWNFX), you'd end up with 316,072. If you up the rate to 14.8% (TAVFX), you'd be sitting with a nice $623,522.

Unfortunately, it's just as impossible to predict the future results of mutual funds (and their managers!) as stocks or even indexes. So if you're like me and lack the time, interest or ability to research funds on your own, I strongly recommend Austin Pryor's newsletter, Sound Mind Investing. I checked them out after hearing Larry Burkett recommend his site numerous times; there's a number of articles on finances, investing and stewardship from a Biblical perspective available for free.

Monad Gets Slashdotted

2005-06-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite Windows projects, Monad will be replacing the old Windows command prompt. Lots of fun functionality and completely object oriented, piping through objects instead of text. Nice scripting capabilities, and query results are returned as .NET objects for easy manipulation. What really caught my attention when I attended a demo several weeks back was the ability to map anything, such as the registery, to a drive which you can browse just like any old directory.

URL: http://it.slashdot.org/it/05/06/09/1219213.shtml?tid=201&tid=218

Other Monad links:
Instructions for getting the Monad beta
Jason Nadal's Blog on Monad
Chat Trascript with Monad Devs

Midnight Rambles

2005-06-11T01:59:00.000-07:00

Just got home from a fun evening of dancing, and I'm still a bit too wired for sleep so I thought I'd make another post. Well technically, we finished dancing two and a half hours ago, but several of us went to Denny's afterwards. Not being up for a full dinner as I'd tried a terriyaki place right before the dance, I had a nutritious midnight snack of hashbrowns and gravy. And two cups of hot chocolate. (The nice waitress kept bringing out refills!) Was good stuff though, I hadn't had hashbrowns and gravy since before all the Shoney's in Dallas closed some years back.

Anyways... tonight's dance was a lot of fun as more guys than girls showed up for a change, but my feet will be paying for it the next few days. They had an open merengue lesson right before the dance, and as I'd shown up a little early and they were short a girl, I got a free dance lesson. I'd been talking to a lady and hadn't been paying much attention to the lesson until the instructor decided to use me for a demo; great way to learn a new step. It's fun being a follower. :-)

I learned a bit more WC Swing in my private lesson before the dance party, so tried out a bit of that tonight and discovered my feet haven't quite learned their place. It's a rather confusing dance though... most figures are done to six counts, but a few switch to eight counts just to throw you off. That's my excuse anyways. :) I'm going to a couple WC Swing workshops tomorrow afternoon in Kirkland, so I figured it'd be good to try out the basics beforehand at least. I'm probably getting in over my head, but several of us from the studio are going, so I figured it'll be fun anyways.

Hmm... this is entirely too lengthy and I'm still not tired, so I think it's time for another couple chapters of Harry Potter.

Microsoft Antispyware Beta

2005-06-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

Works suprisingly well for a beta... I'm especially curious about the "peer-based exploit-detection data-sharing mechanism" (wording stolen from Scot's Review as I couldn't put it better myself) which aims to stop new exploits in their tracks. In this same review, MS's AntiSpyware utility compares favorably to AdAware and Spybot.

There's not much in the way of spyware to find on my dev machine at work, but I'll hafta run my own tests on my laptop later on and see for myself how we hold up.

URL: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

My Kind of English

2005-06-10T12:37:00.000-07:00

This has been around for awhile now, but it still amused me so I figured I'd go ahead and post 'em. I guess I'm a true Southener after all, even if I am missin' that Texan drall.

Your Linguistic Profile:

60% General American English

25% Dixie

10% Yankee

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Making money off your savings

2005-06-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for a better place to save money than your local bank, bankrate.com offers a rather useful comparison rate table of the highest interest rates on savings accounts, money market accounts and money market funds. And if you're not sure what the difference between these is, Austin Pryor's latest newsletter has an article on Why You Usually Get Your Best Savings Deals from Money Funds.

While the difference between 1% and 3% doesn't sound like much, it adds up. Even if you only have $5000 in an account with a 3% APY, that's an extra $150 per year in your pocket with no risk of losing your hard earned dough.

On a not so random side note... if you decide to open an account with ING Direct, let me know and if you list me as a referrer, they'll start you off with $25 in your account and I get a $10 referral bonus. They're offering 3% APY now, but with interest rates on the rise, you can probably find better rates with a money market fund.

Tabs for IE6

2005-06-09T10:39:00.000-07:00

Microsoft offers tabbed browsing for IE6 through the latest update for the MSN toolbar. I'm not quite sure this is enough to entice me to use the toolbar, but it's worth a try at least. :)

URL: http://toolbar.msn.com/

Inside Out Reeses

2005-06-03T09:39:00.000-07:00

When I saw these at Fred Meyer's, I had to try them. If you haven't seen them yet, these little guys are just like the normal peanut butter cups but with the peanut butter on the outside and a chocolate center. I'm a big fan of peanut butter, so I thought this sounded like a neat idea. Unfortunately, the whole thing is just a little too dry for my taste, and even less healthy than the original with a nice 240 calories and 15g of fat for the normal pack of two. Next up - extra creamy Reese peanut butter cups.

Linux Cartoon

2005-06-01T09:44:00.000-07:00

Daniel sent me this in an email this morning, and I liked it so much I hadta post it... :)

URL: http://www.pvponline.com/archive.php3?archive=19990818

Cool Site of the Day - Google Translator

2005-05-31T10:32:00.000-07:00

Interesting piece on Google's research in translating texts. Basically, their system "learns" a language by comparing various translations of a text. A fairly simple concept, but I'm impressed.

Url: http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2005-05-22-n83.html

Financial State of the Church

2005-05-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

Statistics put together by Randy Alcorn on the amount of wealth passing through the hands of American Christians, and where the money goes. I found it particularly interesting that per-member giving is lower now than in the Great Depression.

URL: http://www.epm.org/articles/generous_giving.html

2005-05-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

Well my plans for today didn't turn out like I'd originally designed, so I decided to have a restful day of it and do absolutely nothing. Well, not quite nothing, but nothing planned at least. I still couldn't manage to sleep late, which kind of stinks since I didn't go to bed till after 2 again, but I had fun catching up on some cleaning and laundry this morning. I'm very rarely motivated to clean, but it feels really good not having that stack of junk mail on my desk anymore.

After some delicious leftovers from our "morale lunch" at work yesterday, I thought I'd traverse some more of Redmond's parks. I'd seen some delightful views driving up W Lake Sammamish right in the middle of the city that I'd been wanting to explore for some time. Marymoor's great, but it's more of an athletic field, doggie park than an enjoy-the-solitude park. I found a pretty bike trail that goes right along the river I followed for quite a ways. It was a little too crowded and civilized for my tastes though, so I thought I'd cross over and venture back down on the other side. It was definitely a bit more wild, if not quite as pretty.

After some time of tramping through grasses that were somewhat taller than me and thoroughly mudding my shoes, I neared the end of the little trail to find a three inch deep puddle between me and civilization. Oddly enough, there was a nice log crossing it, and as I decided that would be preferable over venturing back the way I'd come, I proceeded to spend a very long five minutes inching my way across the rather wobbly bridge. I'm afraid a good sense of balance is not one of my strong points, and I was most certain I would have very damp feet before I reached the other side, but somehow I made it. I've always read wobbly legs, but don't remember ever having experienced them until I got out on that log. Rather embarrassing when I remind myself it was only a puddle, even if it was a somewhat deep one. (And yes, I do realize I used wobbly twice in the same paragraph, but not even thesaurus.com could come up with a better alternative. Thankfully, the log and my knees were wobblying at the same frequency...)

Anyway, once across, I took this photo to commemorate my grand feat then celebrated with a smoothie and a book I bought for my mom and have to read before I take it to her next weekend.

Cool Site of the Day - Coding4Fun

2005-05-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

Pretty nifty site Microsoft created to build a community of hobbyist programmers. It's fairly new, so not an overwelming about of content yet, but some interesting looking tutorials and webcasts on topics such as game dev or writing a tool to monitor your system. Haven't had time to look through it yet, but I like the idea behind it.

URL: http://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/

Applications from Dancing

2005-05-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist...

1. When you get so busy doing your own thing, you can't feel God's lead any more.

2. You must trust Him each step of the way, knowing He'll make it all work out in the end.

3. You can't focus on past mistakes or what the future holds or you'll miss what He's leading you to do right now.

4. You must keep your focus on Him in the midst of all life's spins.

5. You can't anticipate what He's doing in your life and go off and do it yourself, but wait for His leading with each step.

Life is a song we must sing with our days
A poem with meaning more than words can say
A painting with colors no rainbow can tell
A lyric that rhymes either heaven or hell
We are living letters that doubt desecrates
We're the notes of the song of the chorus of faith
God shapes every second of our little lives
And minds every minute as the universe waits by.

- Michael Card

Rainy Day Thoughts

2005-05-20T15:45:00.000-07:00

The windows at the top of the stairwell in the building where I work have a perfect rainy day view. On clear days, you can see Lake Sammamish and what I've been told is Mt. Baker, but on rainy days you just see the ghosts of tree tops peeking out through the fog.

Then there's this row of trees right beside my building that appear permanently bent under the wind. At least, they look much more windblown than they should have given the mild weather. Anyways, I love watching them as they remind me of watching thunderstorms when we stayed in a house on the beach in Mexico several years ago -
watching the sky turn yellow-green, the dark clouds rolling in with the low rumblings of thunder and the winds blowing so strong the palm trees flip wrong-side out. And then the rain coming down in such torrents you couldn't hear your own voice over the sound.

I think I'm suffering from thunderstorm withdrawal, but I'm praying for a good one when I fly back to Texas next weekend. Well, after my plane lands that is. :)

My Google

2005-05-20T10:04:00.000-07:00

Suprise, suprise... google is developing a personalized homepage. I've been waiting for this one for awhile.

URL: http://www.google.com/ig

BBC Radio

2005-05-19T22:42:00.000-07:00

I didn't realize the BBC has so many stations you can listen to online... now I can get my Celtic fix while I work. :) There's a number of their radio dramas available online as well, but I'm afraid listening to the latest episodes of Hitchhikers would not be conducive to a productive workday.

URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/

Salsa Lessons Part 2

2005-05-19T20:09:00.000-07:00

Just got back from my first private lesson in salsa, and have a couple points to work on this week.

For turns:
1. Practice spotting - keep your focus on your partner while you turn. This helps you stop when you're facing forwards again, as well as not getting quite so dizzy.
2. Keep arm at 90 degree angle, don't need to lift it over your head.
3. Use your shoulder to get momentum for the turn.
4. You can drag your trailing foot to slow down the turn prior to stopping.
5. I sure thought there was a fifth one, but it's already slipped my mind...

For style & latin rhythym:
1. For each step, put down the ball of your foot followed by the heel.
2. Practice hip movement by shifting weight - bend & straigten leg
3. Small steps!

Salsa Lessons

2005-05-18T23:24:00.000-07:00

Having just returned from my second salsa dance party, I thought I would make note of several lessons I learned tonight in hopes of improving in these areas for next week.

1. Glide, don't bounce!
2. Don't anticipate moves, relax and follow the guy's lead.
3. Listen to the music and step in time with the little cow bell. Unfortunately, I still have a difficult time hearing the cow bell thing, but I'll work on that.
4. Keep elbows in, unless you want to give the guy a bloody nose.
5. Wearing extra layers of socks helps if your shoes are too big, even if it does look a little tacky.
6. It's better to look tacky than to deal with blisters.
7. Dancing in socks is not a good option if you hope to stay on your feet after a series of quick spins.
8. Long hair should be tied back while dancing salsa, preferably in a bun.
9. When a hand is free, keep it about hip height out to the side so the guy can find it when needed.
10. Don't extend arms any more than needed. The closer you keep them in, the quicker you can follow the guys lead. Arms should never be straight, unless you enjoy shoulder injuries.

It's amazing how many good dancers are willing to take the time to work with a beginner; I feel like I just had two hours of private lessons with half a dozen different teachers for $5. I'm afraid my knees are going to be hurting tomorrow though...

Hot Chocolate

2005-05-18T14:43:00.000-07:00

To my great distress, the kitchen on my half of the fourth floor was out of Swiss Miss hot cocoa mix this morning; all that's left is some yucky-tasting sugar free stuff. Ergo to get my hot chocolate fix I went exploring through the kitchens one floor down where, to my great delight, I found a stash of International Coffee packets.

If you've never tried these, they are a rather expensive brand of very good coffee mixes that taste much more like flavored hot cocoa than coffee. I've only tried the Swiss Mocha version before, so I sampled the Swiss White Chocolate this morning. Not bad, but not nearly so good as the Swiss Mocha one...

Rainy Mornings

2005-05-16T09:18:00.000-07:00

...are such a delightful way to start the week! Even though I have no window in my office, it's comforting to know it's raining outside.

My Greatest Fear

2005-05-16T08:23:00.000-07:00

This is a more personal post than I would normally choose to write, but it's important enough I thought I should that I might hold myself accountable for what I learn.

As I was reading a couple of David's psalms last night, the thought occurred to me that Christ could return right now. This is not a new thought of course, but one of those things I don't think about often enough. But what really struck me this time were my initial feelings about it. I'm ashamed to think that if he were to return right now I would feel a measure of regret and embarrasment over what I've done (and not done) with my life.

And after those feelings, it occurred to me that my greatest fear is not being alone as I've always assumed, but that Christ would return and I would not be ready for Him. I mean, I am ready in the sense that I've accepted Him as Lord of my life, and I know where I'll be when I die, but I know I've wasted so much time and efforts on stuff that really doesn't matter.

We'd been discussing this same topic at a small group I attended last night - how passionate and driven an athlete is in pursuit of their goal, and how we should have that same passion and drive in following after Christ. While it's ok to enjoy life, it's essential to keep an eternal perspective.

I remember the days of old.
I ponder all your great works.
I think about what you have done.
I reach out for you.
I thirst for you as parched land thirsts for rain.
Come quickly Lord and answer me,
for my depression deepens.
Don't turn away from me,
or I will die.
Let me hear of your unfailing love to me in the morning,
for I am trusting you.
Show me where to walk,
for I have come to in prayer.
Psalm 143:5-8

Initial thoughts on dancing

2005-05-15T23:02:00.000-07:00

This past Friday I had the last of my "introductory special" dance lessons. This was basically a very cheap package of four private lessons, a group lesson, and admittance to a weekly dance party that offers just enough to entice you into shelling out the big bucks for further instruction. I now know the fundamentals of the waltz, foxtrot, tango, rumba, cha-cha, salsa, west coast swing, east coast swing, nightclub two-step, and the lindy hop. That might sound impressive, but it really isn't once you realize each dance has essentially the same basic steps with different timings.

The hardest part for me so far is figuring out which dance my partner is doing without staring at his feet. Well, that and not bouncing. I've practiced walking with a pretend book balanced on my head, but once I start listening to the music my dance partners must continually remind me not to bounce up and down with each step. And in most dances, you're not supposed to pick your feet up off the floor, but gracefully glide. (Yet another reason dance shoes help!)

I recently added up that since my first lesson a week ago, I have danced for 9 hours, give or take 15 minutes. Much more fun than a stationary bike! :-)

Seattle Puzzle Hunt

2005-05-13T17:21:00.000-07:00

Well, just returned from my first morale event since starting at Microsoft, with a Starbucks gift card and a nifty little Sherlock Holmes action figure to show for my team's winning efforts. (Ok, I couldn't resist a little bragging... :-)

We started off the afternoon with a (free!) pizza lunch, after which the entire mailbox team was carried off in ten stretch limos to flex our mental muscles as we raced around downtown Seattle solving clues. I think my favorite involved finding what the location of four books at the Seattle Central Library had in common. And yeah, that sounds like an easy enough puzzle when you're reading it, but this is one big library (some ten stories, not counting the administrative floor), so we sent a couple people to locate each book, then pooled our findings. We actually missed the answer they were looking for (all the books were in opposite corners) but our answer (the books were each on the end of the shelf) worked as well, so we got full points anyways (parenthesis are such fun!).

Altogether, it made for a most enjoyable afternoon, and it was really nice meeting some coworkers, as well as putting faces to some of the names I recognized from all the email flowing around here.

What I learned today...

2005-05-12T16:20:00.000-07:00

1. The chocolate pudding from the Microsoft cafeteria has a fridge life of about three days.
2. Lots of whipped cream or cool whip can be used to make soured pudding taste better.
3. It is not a good idea to eat soured pudding, even if it doesn't taste that bad.

Adventures in Shoe Shopping

2005-05-11T10:13:00.000-07:00

After work yesterday, I went shoe shopping by myself, for possibly the first time in my life. All the shoes I currently own where either gifts, hand me downs, or picked out by a friend. Well, nearly all... I have one pair of rather ugly brown shoes I bought because they reminded me of moccasins. (Ok, I'm sure there are probably other exceptions, but none I can think of at the moment.) And even so, most of my new shoes remain new perpetually as I generally prefer wearing the old ones and never get around to breaking them in.

But after my first two dance lessons, I found that if I'm actually going to learn this stuff, I need some real dance shoes. You know, ones that actually let your feet turn when the rest of you tries to. (I never understood those songs about blue suede shoes and putting your dancing shoes on until now, but apparently the composition of the sole actually does make a difference. Imagine that.)

Never having spent much time looking for shoes, the idea of buying a pair was naturally intimidating. Fortunately for me, I only found one store on this side of the lake that carries dance shoes, and they only have one style and color of dance shoe for beginning ballroom. (The cheaper ballroom shoes have leather soles, while the more expensive are suede.) It was still a little scary approaching a salesman and admitting to be looking for shoes, but at least I was spared any other decision besides shoe size and height of heel.

There was still the ordeal of actually trying on the shoes, something I find as pleasant as scrubbing those plates that go under the grills on the stove. New shoes never feel comfortable, and for me, it's all about the comfort. (Which is largely why I wear my favorite shoes until they are literally falling apart and well-meaning friends convince me into tossing them. Well, that and my fear of shoe salespeople.) But with such a limited selection and a strong determination to purchase a pair since I had made it thus far, I felt it only necessary to be somewhat convinced I had the right size, and hope the comfort will come after I've managed to break them in. (Unlike most of the other new shoes I've had, the dance lessons will force me to wear these enough to break them in, I hope.)

All this goes to say I am now the proud owner of a new (and rather expensive) pair of dance shoes.

The Meaning Behind It All

2005-05-10T14:05:00.000-07:00

...is really quite uninteresting. That is, the meaning of this blog. Life itself finds meaning from and in our Creator, and apart from that would be quite meaningless as well. But I digress. As this will forever remain (until deleted, of course) my first attempt at blogging, I thought it should contain some insight into the why of my effort.

Blogs have been growing in popularity of late, so my natural tendency was to avoid them due to an ingrained fear of following the crowd. (I can thank my dad for that one.) But it's been a few years now, and blogs don't appear to be going away, so after some long-winded debates with myself I resolved to make use of the technology regardless of its widespread use.

I tend to think through issues by debating them with friends, and when no ears are available I'll argue them with myself. Afterall, I've spent enough time talking them over with my closest friends I can often guess how they would broach certain topics. I'm not sure why I think in this way, except I know I love playing devil's advocate and jumping from one side to the other, so ideally I eventually end up somewhere near the middle. (Depending on the issue of course, there are several exceptions where I intend to keep my rather strong views.)

Unfortunately, in moving to Washington I left my debating buddies behind. And now I've got so many thoughts running through my head with nobody to test them on, that it leaves me quite the confused chatterbox when I find a willing audience. I thought a blog might prove an interesting remedy; once I write down a thought, I can leave it there and only come back to it as I choose, allowing endless room for more thoughts to develop. Or so my theory goes...

I'm sure I'll think of more reasons as I go along, but this will give me enough of an excuse to get started. :-)