Topics: Bio

I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, home to more trees than you can "shake a stick at", near constant rain (which I love), and greenery everywhere. Okay, so that's a bit of a misnomer, for I only described the land west of the Cascade mountain range, to the east is dry, arid land. I have but one brother, two parents (who have managed to defy the odds and remain married after three decades), a wife, and friends.

I graduated college with a degree in "Biblical Studies" and some assume that makes me an expert on theological matters. Truth is I am still learning, for there is much I do not know. I may choose to comment on theological issues, for such is my passion and my bent. I am a Christian, baptistic in my theology, and conservative in my nature. I enjoy a good (read: friendly) debate about nearly any topic, but especially in matters of faith and practice. You'll find I have much to say on ethics, morality, and biblical interpretation.

Beyond my training in the Bible I have spent many years working with computers, holding jobs from Web Developer, to Software Engineer, to the almighty System Administrator. I do comment on issues in computing from time-to-time, airing out a gripe or a wish, usually from some theoretical standpoint, and maybe from something actually practical.

While I enjoy the nature of pragmatism I am your basic idealist. I will fight for the pure application of my dream and vision, rarely wanting to compromise (but still compromising when it is prudent). Thus, most of my thought patterns are not focused on "how" but on "why". In fact I nearly always ask "why" first, and often forget to ask "how".

I hold my opinions, and defend them, with zeal, sometimes quite fiercely. I am not arrogant enough to think I am always right, but unless someone can take the time to prove me wrong I will not change my mind. I heartily welcome and invite challenges to my thinking, but leave emotions out of it. I choose not to debate with people who allow emotions to run their arguments, for they rarely stick to the issue, choosing to attack the person and not the idea. Engage with me in a battle of ideas, and I think you'll find a man who is willing to listen, willing to change his mind, and will offer you a good argument!

It took us over a year to get our own, brand new, functional lawn mower. It took us over a week waiting for the weather so we could actually use it. Saturday came and went, soggy as a used sponge. Sunday was not looking much better, but after some prodding on the part of my wife I decided to go forth despite the slightly swampy texture of our lawn. I'm a terrible neighbor; in our neighborhood our yard is the worst. Weeds are sprouting up all over the place, and the grass routinely goes uncut for weeks (sometimes even months) at a time. I'm not a gardner; I don't have a green thumb; [as a general rule] I don't like the Great Outdoors; worst of all, I have no pride.

Quite possibly hate is too strong a word for what I feel toward large cities. I've sat and pondered words that I could use to describe it; terrified fails, phobic isn't quite right, loathe is too bitter, detest . . . maybe that is it: I detest metropolises. I grew up in a city populated somewhere under and around 100,000 people. Mathematically that is quite a large number of people and would seem staggering if you had to meet them all at once. At the tender age of ten we moved out to the country, where we lived quite comfortably on two acres and had a half-hour drive into said city. The country life is not idyllic, but it is far more relaxing and freeing than any city dwelling I have experienced.

I like my “elbow room”. I like to keep my neighbors at a distance so great that I cannot hear them, and to have enough foliage in between us that I cannot see them and they cannot see me. I am a creature of privacy, more apt to keep my curtains drawn at all hours of the day and sometimes refuse to answer the door even when I am home. If I had things my way I would choose to inhabit a castle, with a deep water filled moat and a retractible drawbridge. Continuing with the motif people would be my enemies and I would work to keep them at bay.

"And here we come to the infamous and insufferable Morning Person," the Bestiary Instructor intoned. "It takes its name by waking up early in the morning, and is quite cheerful about it. The Morning Person has its most productive period in the morning, and is usually seen to be admiring the sunrise. Consider the eyes, for the eyes will give them away. They are wide open; they sparkle with anticipation; they betray no hint of slumber or lethargy.

"Be not confused by its impostor, the Caffeine Fiend, who pretends to be a Morning Person but must first partake of a particularly nasty drug. The Caffeine Fiend's eyes will be dull and barely open after just awaking, but he will otherwise be up at the same time as the Morning Person. After the drug has taken hold of their body they too will seem cheery, but 'tis a mask, for many who have attempted to charm a Caffeine Fiend discovered a short temper when kept from their drug.

"Take note my precious Night Owls, for both will entice and tempt you to become one of them. The Morning Person is insidious, wishing everyone to join their numbers and be just like them. But they are short sighted. They can never create a Morning Person, all they ever achieve is the tortured Caffeine Fiend. Yes my little ones, the Caffeine Fiend is a twisted creation of the Morning Person. Drawn into the Siren song of the Morning Person many a Night Owl has succumbed to the drug and now lives a half-life.

"Be warned my pupils. Know thyself."

If there is one thing I have come to dislike it is competitive game players. I suppose I should add a disclaimer because only the obsessively competitive players are the ones I would like to avoid. I'm talking about those people who cannot lose, the ones who will do all they can to defeat the reining champion, at all times. They are the kine of people that make a person defend their title, and they are also the kind of people who will win that title from sheer persistence. These kind of people take all the fun out of games . . . at least for me.

I have been in and around web development for more years than I can remember. I do not recall where HTML was at when I started, but I do remember that your choice of browser was Netscape or Mosaic. I had fun laying out the pages, and playing with certain elements. The web has grown since then, and the complexity of the documents has increased. I still manage to have some fun, but writing web pages now is more challenging than it used to be. Not only do I have more I can do with my pages, but I also have to be aware of which browsers support what features. This has been the bane of my web work for quite some time, as invariably my designs have to be scaled back, disabled, or put on indefinite hold. Through these times I have developed a rather narrow philosophy of web design, one that clashes with my professional work in the area.

A little while ago I started reading a story in which the main character was forced into switching careers (due to some injury caused by thieves). This caused me to reflect upon my own situation, and I took great interest in how the story progressed. Sadly the character was able to spend two years re-training in the space of a paragraph, and had a horde of money at her disposal, nothing I could apply to my own life. Nonetheless I have already been considering a possible career change. While I have been considering this strange ideas for employment have been creeping in on me.

We finally spent one of our graduation gifts today: we went to the movie theatre. I was amazed and am still perplexed at the amount of people who wanted to watch the particular movie we chose. This movie is not new, but has been out for over two weeks yet the next two showings were sold out when we purchased our tickets and when we finally got our seats, a half-hour early, we had to sit down in front! This was a movie most people had probably already seen and were watching again for the second, third, or n^th time. Mind you, this particular movie was showing on three screens, thus many, many people were watching it, and have been.

During my unemployment I have spent some time reading through various programming practices, concepts, designs, and projects. This has had many effects on me, only two of which I will talk about here. I have long since considered myself to be a computer geek and in many circles I have also earned that title. For quite some time that title has played a role in my identity, now I am not so sure how much of a geek I truly am, something I should have been pondering when I was getting a Bible (and not a Computer Science) degree.

Years back the college group at the church I was attending discussed the topic of the original curses. Eve, and all women, were cursed with a [more] painful childbirth, and they would desire their husbands who would rule over them. Men in turn were cursed with weeds in the fields. All humans were cursed with eternal death and damnation. It was put forth that a more generalized understanding of man's (as in menfolk) curse would be "workaholism". At the time I fought and rejected this premise because I in no way suffered from anything approaching being a workaholic. Even after a year of marriage I would still deny it, for I have never enjoyed my job enough to want to work on it when I was home, opting to spend time on hobbies, relaxing, and just being with my wife. Now I see that has changed and I too am afflicted with a curse.

I have not been the first, nor do I think I shall be the last, to look at the field of computer programming as an art form instead of a pure science. There is science to programming, and I daresay the better the science the better the program, but there are those of us that also consider it an art, and when done right the code can be a thing of beauty. I fear for this attitude of mine, for I have already encountered it in other areas of my life, to my pain, and now I can clearly see it in yet another area. Art is subjective, art is personal, art may even be selfish, and good artists seem to live poor and destitute lives.

Philosophers will tell you that no idea is created in a vacuum, indicating that in some sense we draw upon the works of others in our creative efforts. I must confess I have pondered this idea long and hard, and still ponder it. I'm not nearly omniscient enough to know if it is in fact true, but I know it is descriptive of many things. Most ideas, most inventions, most stories, pay homage to a previous idea, invention, or story. Some might take this and decide not to attempt to be original, and just copy or rehash other work. I have seen this in many areas, most notably my time in academia; students cared more for passing their classes than for actually learning.

Ever since I entered into Holy Matrimony I have come to realize something. Ever since I was let go from my job I have realized something. Without acknowledging or even knowing, I am not the picture of the typical American; I am a far cry from the example set by the pioneers of the West. I am not an independent person; I am quite dependent upon those around me whom I love.

Nothing will get me steamed faster than ignorance; not innocent ignorance but ignorance where people ought to know better. I get really angry when someone is supposed to know something, and their role depends on that knowledge, and I find out they are ignorant. It is one thing to admit one does not know, in fact I love it when people are honest about their extent of knowledge. Ignorance is not a bad thing, but it is when it's in an area people are depending on you upon. I daresay I am not alone in this. Still, I find no excuse, no reason for it, yet it persists. I don't want to have to put up with it anymore, but I suppose I will always run into from time-to-time. Either I need to have the authority to depose the people, or the patience to educate them; personally I hope for the former, that's more gratifying.

The quiet afternoon was interrupted by the sudden din of a lawn mower springing to life. Were it possible, the individual blades of grass would have added to it with their screams of fear, or the lawn it's eager anticipation for what would amount to its hair cut. The added duties of a home owner were slung upon my back as my wife shattered my hopes and dreams of a relaxing Saturday by requesting the simple chore of mowing the lawn, and as all husbands know a wife can be hard to resist.

Up until this day I have been contemplating yet another application of a long-ago learned truth: I am not my father. As I have come to know there are many aspects of application to this simple fact. My first active recollection of this realization came over a decade ago, when I finally realized what it meant to not rely upon my parent's faith: I needed to believe for myself, and to know why I believed, apart from believing because my parents believe. I credit that day as the start of a larger maturation process, a process I find is still active.