Chopper Trike Done
Finished rebuilding the Chopper Trike for a friend… here it is! Only have to put the basket back on once the paint dries.
Closeup of the brake bridge we added:
Emo Poetry for Corporate Lackeys
Flummoxed by the emptiness, Raging into the corporate abyss
Only to be answered by a complete lack of an answer
Urged to continue on by an unseen taskmaster,
Which is my own mind forcing me to comply
I take a swig of coffee, bittersweet as life
And I smile to myself
As my spirit slowly withers
Only to be answered by a complete lack of an answer
Urged to continue on by an unseen taskmaster,
Which is my own mind forcing me to comply
I take a swig of coffee, bittersweet as life
And I smile to myself
As my spirit slowly withers
Let’s Do the (Next Big Thing) Blog Hop!
Much thanks to Deborah B. for inviting me to the Blog Hop party! I’d love for you to check out her work at DeborahBaudoin.com. So you’re asking, “What’s a blog hop?” and of course, I will give you an answer. It’s a cool way to find out new authors, read a few cool articles, and generally keep you from wasting too much time on Facebook.
As part of this exercise (yes, there’s exercise involved) we were asked ten questions about our upcoming works. For me, the best part of watching a DVD is the behind-the-scenes special features, because I love to get to know the cast and crew behind the movie. This is the literary equivalent, more or less. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it as much as I do!
1. What is the working title of your book? Ummm…… heh. I’m working on that.
2. Where did the idea come from for the book? I’ve been a fan of techno-thrillers since I was a young teenager. I can remember the first time I saw the Matrix, and I knew I was sucked in. It’s sort of a combination of Hackers and Swordfish and The Matrix… to name just a few! My ideas of Cyberpunk are also heavily influenced by the tabletop role-playing game Shadowrun. As in The Matrix, there will be plenty of social, philosophical, and spiritual ramifications for our protagonists.
3. What genre does your book come under? Action Adventure for people who like to think.
4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? I wouldn’t pick Keanu Reeves, simply because he’s so closely associated with the character Neo. Maybe Jesse Eisenberg as the main protagonist, or maybe Wil Wheaton, or Shia LeBouf. Somebody who seems naive at first, but has a bit of a crazy streak under the surface. The main character’s girlfriend could be someone like Olivia Wilde, or Gwen Stefani… as in the book, she actually fronts a punk-rock band. I wouldn’t want an actress to have to do that scene with voice-overs. That’s lame!
5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? Boy lives a carefree hacker life, gets framed for a crime he didn’t commit, and has to decide whether to turn in his friends and get whacked by the mob, or turn himself in and never see his life (or girlfriend) again.
6. Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency? I self-published my first book, and it was a great learning experience. I’m planning on self-publishing my books until I can devote enough time to properly have them edited. Or unless somebody offers to publish it for me… yeah, I’d consider that.
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? First draft of my last book took 30 days (yes, it was for NaNoWriMo). The first re-write added another 10 months, so overall, it took about a year to have a usable manuscript. This was on top of a full-time job. I know professional authors who only write a book a year, and that’s their job!
8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? As I said, the main characters are similar to The Matrix‘s but that’s where the similarity ends. I can’t say I’ve even read any books like it, but movies like The Net, Swordfish, Hackers, and a little bit of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Yeah… all that’s inside my brain.
9. Who or what inspired you to write this book? I was encouraged to write what I know, so I wrote about a young, naive computer programmer (who plays music at night) who gets caught up in the wrong crowd. I know a lot about that kind of thing.
10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? Well, besides the action and drama, there’s this really great scene where they try to escape from the FBI… I guess that counts as action? I don’t know, it’s just good. I tend to write weird characters, and as random as my brain is, you never know what’s on the next page. There’s always something interesting that grabs you when you least expect it. That’s just my ADD kicking in!
Who’s next on the NEXT BIG THING BLOG HOP?
You should check out my good friend (and excellent comedy writer) Blake M. Petit. I love his stories!
I’m a Supervillain
Yes, it’s true… I’m secretly a Supervillain. This video explains why.
Lessons Learned From Google Reader
You may have seen Youtube’s prank about shutting down on April Fool’s day. If you’re one of the users of Google Reader, you probably have heard that they’re really planning on pulling Reader down soon. Yup, they just decided one day that it wasn’t worth the effort to work on it… much less keep it going for the thousands upon thousands of users who rely on it (but they can afford to hire actors to pull an April Fools’ prank…) and thus we have people scrambling to find alternative ways to get the same things done.
As I got thinking about this (disclaimer: I had just started using Reader about a week before its demise was announced) a single thought popped into my mind:
What’s to stop them from pulling any of their other services for real? Or any other web service provider, for that matter?
Untangle Firewall/Filter Server
Update: Untangle recently released a very affordable “home” complete package. I’m going to reevaluate it, and update as necessary.
Sometimes, you take a good long look at the internet, and think “I could really do without it.” There’s a lot of nasty stuff out there, and if you have kids, there are some things they just don’t need to see. However, we know kids are curious, and more and more websites are pushing inappropriate ads to younger and younger demographics. I could go on and on about the depravity in commercialism today, but that’s for another post.
Specifically, I decided to build a Firewall computer to filter what comes into my home’s internet. For my sake, and the kids’! Most of our computers don’t run Windows (and therefore don’t need antivirus) but there are worse things to let in than viruses. So I went to Newegg, picked up a cheap barebones computer (only needed a hard drive and memory) and in a matter of an hour, I had a complete, functional mini computer for well under $200.
Evernote with Autofill in Ubuntu
UPDATE: I no longer use Evernote. My account was compromised multiple times from overseas IPs, with no notifications from Evernote. It wasn’t until someone tried to sync a phone to my account that I was notified. I checked the logs, and discovered it had been accessed several times without my knowing. I cannot recommend using it any more. If you are interested in similar tools, check out NixNote instead. Plus, it runs in Linux or Windows. I’ve left this article up for reference only. Continue reading “Evernote with Autofill in Ubuntu”
How Far Do You Go?
There are days when you wake up and dread getting out of bed. Do you know what I’m talking about? Those days, when you wish you could just pretend you weren’t a Christian, and didn’t have to be nice to anybody for a few days.
I’m just being honest. If you’ve never experienced this, then you’re not human. Everybody has bad days, and I’m no exception, even though I’m cheerier than most. There are some days (and more specifically, some people) that just make me wish I could move to a deserted island. There are people that suck so much energy out of you, it hurts to be in their presence.
How do you deal with people that suck all your joy out? Killjoys, pessimists, cynics, nagging, criticizing, and so on. After hours with them, you want to end the misery with blunt force trauma to the head (yours or theirs, doesn’t matter which).
We see Jesus (in Luke 6) as he’s teaching a crowd. He offers the Beatitudes, and then he follows them with some warnings:
27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Sounds easy, but it’s not. Now, for the real question: How far would Jesus love them? Would he allow them to drive him crazy, or would he look into their souls, see what they needed, and free them from it? At what point did he cut them loose?
Well, contrary to popular belief, there were plenty of times when Jesus cut people loose… let them go, pushed them further than they were willing to go. He didn’t always suck it up and put up with it. He told people what they needed to hear, and if they couldn’t handle it, he moved on. The Apostle Paul was the same way. In Matthew 11 and Luke 10, we even see Jesus denouncing entire cities that refused his message.
So, okay, maybe we don’t have the power to look into people’s souls, but we can pretty much figure out what they need (I mean really need, not just what we want to *ahem* give them). And let’s assume that you’ve given them truth as best you can, like Jesus would have.
So then what? Let’s see what Jesus did with people that tried his patience.
In Luke 4, Jesus was teaching in his home town, and the people wanted to know why he didn’t do more miracles there. He tells them the truth, and they responded with:
29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
He just slipped through and left them alone. He ignored their accusations, and left the situation. In Luke 19, Jesus enters the temple and begins throwing over tables, telling the sellers to get out! He then proceeds to do what He did best, which is tell people the truth, and this was the outcome:
47 Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him. 48 Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his words.
He spoke truth, and didn’t allow himself to be caught in lies. Everywhere He turned, people asked him inappropriate questions, and He always gave an answer, though not what they were looking for…
People asked Jesus who should take care of their estate. Jesus told them He wasn’t an arbiter of wills.
They asked if they should pay taxes. Jesus told them to give the government its due.
They asked how many times they could remarry, and who’s wife would she be in Heaven. Jesus told them they didn’t have a clue about what Heaven was like.
The focus isn’t going to be on who’s married to whom in heaven… our focus will be on worshipping the God of the universe.
So what do we do?
- Know when not to say anything
- Speak the truth in love
- If you retaliate at all, kill them with kindness
- If they reject the truth, smile and walk away.
Always remember: We can’t control other people’s actions, but we can control our own reactions. Take a deep breath, smile, and walk away.
Simplicity Undefined
I thought I’d do something different today, and post up a link to an excellent article written by a friend, Stephanie Stevens. In my quest to simplify my life, I’ve come across a lot of challenges, and she addresses some of them in her blog post, What Simplicity Isn’t: 4 Things. I highly recommend reading it, as I hope it will make you stop and think about what we’ve come to think of as “simplifying” in today’s world.
I personally have had difficulty separating “simplicity” from “frugality” and “minimalism.” They aren’t the same. I’ve caught myself using these words interchangeably, but the truth is simplicity doesn’t always mean the least amount of stuff.
In the past, I was forced to be frugal out of necessity. I fixed my own car, built my own computers, put together my own bikes out of spare parts, used every trick I could to save money. This isn’t simplicity! I was always stressed about these jobs, because I couldn’t afford to just get it fixed.
Years later I still do most of these things, but I’ve come to realize it’s out of habit, not because I need to any more. God has blessed me to where I can call up a mechanic and have them fix my car without worrying about how we’re going to get groceries. I can just pop on Amazon and get a tool I need to make a job easier and faster. I don’t have to buy the cheapest washing machine, and deal with the fact that it’ll break down constantly. I’m slowly coming to grips with the fact that cheaper isn’t always simpler or easier.
Now before you can spit your gourmet coffee, yell “DUH!” and slap yourself in the forehead, let me explain. My wife and I both came from relatively poor families. I was taught (and rightly so) that you shouldn’t waste money. But as I’ve grown, I’ve come to realize the benefits of using money as a tool to get things done to simplify life and save time. I’m past the point where I feel the need to build and fix everything. It just takes too long, causes too much stress, and isn’t worth the time if I can spend a bit more to get it done quickly.
I still enjoy building bikes and computers, though I haven’t built a computer in a few years. I’m only going to do those things if I enjoy them, though. Why would I stress over it? Either I can do it myself, or I can’t… and if I can’t, and I can have somebody else do it much more efficiently, then why not?
Simplicity. What does it cost you? Is it worth it? Do you enjoy it?
Is Minimalism really the answer to simplifying your life? They are not always one and the same.
Is it your surroundings or your mental effort that needs to be simplified?
Where do you draw the line between a “life of ease” and “simplicity?” Where do you need to be?