Kasperian Moving Parts

So, here I sit in SFO, fighting the urge to pay $6 for an hour of WIFI. Note to self: figure out how to use Treo 650 in Linux with Sprint as a PPP connection! Oh yeah, also buy a bluetooth usb dongle like Seb’s.

I had an absolutely amazing last couple of days, despite having the most obnoxious sinus/head cold evar. I cannot tell you how totally cool both Seb and Thiago are. I wish I had a few more days to spend with them, as well as all the rest of my fellow FOSS geek brethren. The Google summer of code mentor’s summit was just plain awesome (thanks Chris, Leslie, and all the other Googlers who made this possible!!!), and it was like meeting up with old friends that you’ve never met before, all day long. We got to hang out a bit with the 3 Gnomies during the day and on into the evening, and we got some really great photos with Seb’s camera that I’ll shortly upload to Flickr once I get back home and catch some sleep.

Seb and Thiago: you guys rock. Google: you guys rock. VMware: you guys rock too. 🙂

* This post courtesy of Plogit and my 2 thumbs. *

[UPDATE] Okay, Plogit sucks.  When you enter a title that’s longer than its text field, it 
doesn’t  scroll or expand to let you see what you’re entering.  For example, say you’re in SFO, blogging on the fly, and you enter “… SOC SUMMUT”, and you can’t see it, so you don’t realize it until you look when you land in Pittsburg to find that for the last 5 hours, the world has been snickering at you.  =:/  Anyway… pictures and more depth coming… some time not near to now….  Oh, also, Pittsburg’s free WIFI access is teh cool, and seriously, SFO (and all the rest) should REALLY take notice and follow suit….

KDE Computer Case Badges

Originally uploaded by vanRijn

Ordered some awesome computer case badges from an overseas .nl guy and just got them in the mail yesterday. I must say, I’m very impressed–with the quality of the product, the price, the shipping cost, and the shipping time. I highly recommend him, even though I can’t understand the majority of his site and e-mails…. =:D

It was a really interesting week, this last, punctuated by some things that I can not yet talk about yet and also by some things that I can and should.

Pertaining to the former, I had the unique opportunity to take some time away from the norm, see some things I’ve not seen before, and think.  (Un?)Fortunately, I didn’t have the presence of mind to bring much to do along the way, so I didn’t have the chance to watch some of the movies that have been gathering dust, waiting to be returned to ye olde Blockbuster.  But that provided the opportunity to dwell a bit on where I am in life’s journey and forced me to find center again, and that’s always a good thing.

As to the latter, I went to church with my family on Sunday and it was an awesome time of reflection, worship, humility, perspective, and insight–accentuated because of the aforementioned solitude/thinking, as well as the fact that the last few months have been crazy-stressful, gut-wrenching, hectic, and frustrating.  Times of peace and reflection are just flat out needed, especially in today’s world.  This is something that doesn’t come naturally to me, being a hacker, geek, over-achiever, self-motivating, ever-pushing, type-A personality, etc., and I am thankful to find myself with a bit of peace and perspective today after the rough ride as of late.

Two thoughts I woke up with this morning:

1. I will see the hand of the Almighty God move in my life in the next couple of days, one way or another.  I have the privilege of seeing it not because of anything that I have done to deserve it nor because I am something special.  On the contrary, I will see it because God is good.  That is to say, God is, by nature, good.  I have asked a specific question, and I have peace about the outcome (which is very atypical for me).
2. Life is too short to overly-worry about not speaking the truth about what you feel.  It is just as unhealthy to tear up your innards by squelching what you would otherwise feel compelled to say as it is to worry about the future.  Neither things are meant to be.  I am not talking about intruding on anyone’s rights, nor about religious (or any other sort of) zealotry, but merely about being true to yourself–not for the purpose of being mean, hurtful, spiteful, acting out of anger or negative emotion, but rather to make peace.  Granted, there must be a balance with this, as with everything else in life.  True peace (that we’re supposed to be making) is not merely the absence of conflict.  It is the presence of good.

And with those two controversial thoughts, I wish you, world, a good Monday.

I know, I’m 3 years late, but I just now found this interesting interview with Creed’s lead singer.  One snippit that caught my eye was this:

So, are you now a “Christian artist,” or an artist who happens to be a Christian?

Stapp: I’m an artist who’s a Christian, because I don’t write music to be evangelical. Now, if that happens, it happens. My dad’s a dentist, and he’s a Christian. Now, does he put in Christian fillings? No, that’s just part of his three-dimensional life. Now, there are people that are Christian artists, because they have a purpose to be evangelical for Christ. I don’t feel I’ve been called to that yet. Now, that could change. There’s no telling what kind of call God will put on my life.

I can definitely identify with that.  Now don’t get me wrong… I don’t honestly know the first thing about Scott Stapp as a person, and after having googled for a few minutes, I’m not honestly sure what to make of him.  But being that he is human, he falls into the same category that we all do, which is “by nature, screwed up”….  Glass houses and throwing stones and what-not….  I do like his comment about his dad being a dentist and a Christian even though he doesn’t use “Christian fillings”.  He’s right, of course: we’re all three-dimensional, and what we are goes much deeper than what we do.  I’m going to go right out, though, and start looking for some Christian C++ code….  =;)