Belated and Unfinished Xanghe Version 1.0

Well, it's done. For now. I've been working on this little blog since January and now it's time to stop. I'm not done with everything I was planning to do, but life has a way of pulling in different directions quite suddenly and I've just been yanked. So no more blog design. For now.

Here's a condensed list of the release notes, accessible from the link in the top corner:

• 02.04.08 - v0.6 LAUNCH




• main components (blog body, sidebar, header, etc) designed and implemented


• styling for font, links, drop caps, etc. finished




• 02.07.08 - v0.8 LAUNCH




• image style to imitate polariod


• moveability - post-it notes and static clings can be repositioned by drag and drop


• release notes styled and written




• 02.26.08 - v0.9 LAUNCH




• travel log seems to be working, so I'll keep it


• lightbox also seems to have passed the test, so it's a keeper


• some credits/info added to bottom (will expand)


• keeping old Viet terms in archive for future viewing




• 03.18.08 - v1.0 LAUNCH




• installation and testing of time-sensitive background completed (for now)

Now that time-sensitive background is supposed to be much more than it now is. So far, I've only got a day, night and sunrise background, and it's all in winter. I had big plans, like having spring, summer and fall seasons and even attach some script to an rss weather feed and have the background change with the actual weather. Big plans. But sometimes big plans never materialize, as is the case with my now perpetual-winter-mountain-town background.

I had dinner with some good friends tonight, and the discussion turned to a project that I participated in several years ago. I need to reinvolve myself in working with people. Blogging is nice, but there's magic in the touch of a human being, physical or otherwise. The Magic of Touch - that may make a nice post someday. Perhaps after I post on The Magic of the Khổ Qua - How the Most Bitter Melon on Earth Can Actually Cure All Your Problems.

Ok or Cancel - The Dialogs in Life

For the last 2 weeks I've been engrossed in a web project at work trying to migrate a recruitment database from Access forms to web-based forms. It is actually workable right now (big surprise to me!) and the recruitment process is moving along smoothly. However, I'm enduring some serious after effects. I used VBScript to connect all the pages and being a novice at even VB in general, I've spent a lot of time trying to get things to work. I'm now thinking in "if...then" statements (which is not totally effective in a marriage) and I'm under the impression any mistake I make can be fixed with a simple click of the "Undo." Everything around me seems to be framed in procedures and sub procedures, which for one, lead to an interesting thought today.

The common interface between a user and his or her machine is the dialog box. It's small, to the point and in most cases directs the machine what to do next. Although some just inform, the majority of dialog boxes ask the user a question, or rather an ultimatum which requires an answer of yes or no, Ok or Cancel. Some contain a simple question, others an entire copyright. Some dialogs have evolved into incredibly complex windows with lots of information and a series of questions we must answer before clicking Ok or Cancel. No matter how many answers we come up with, it always comes down to one choice - Ok or Cancel. (Actually, there's the little close box at the top which technically counts as a null click, I think, but for all intents and purposes we'll count that a Cancel click. Man, what a geek) No matter what we chose in the interim, our click on one of the two buttons is what decides the next action the machine will take. I realized riding my scooter home today that life is like that in many ways.

How many times do we get hit with promptings from above that leave us with a choice? "Help that old lady across the street. Ok or Cancel" How often do we click Cancel too quickly, or perhaps ponder and mull over the prospect of acting on that prompting... and then click no? Some choices are quick and painless, like "Shall I eat breakfast this morning?" Others are incredibly complex, multi-faceted decisions impacting multiple people and setting the direction for the rest of your life. We can come up with our own answers, we can beat around the bush until the cows come home trying to figure out what to do, but it all comes down to one choice: Ok or Cancel

Theorize, analyze, rationalize it away, but it still distills down to one choice.

Visit the elderly at a nursing home even though they can't move and they drool and stink and might be gone soon anyway.

Ok or Cancel

Take a moment to reflect on your blessings even though a loved just passed away and you lost your job and your brother is in jail.

Ok or Cancel

Hold your tongue even though he or she has offended you so many times before and you're hurt and they're rude and you're so tired of it.

Ok or Cancel

Surprise a loved one even though you're so busy and your work day was hard and they see you 24/7 and already know you love them.

Ok or Cancel

Apologize to someone even though they deserve your grudge.

Ok or Cancel

Make the change in your life that you've needed for so long even though you're not ready and you're a little afraid and it might hurt.

Ok or Cancel

Help that old lady across the street even though you don't know her and it's cliché.

Ok or Cancel

Oh, how life is like an internet of its own. So many distractions and entertainments, enticements and allurements, inventions and deceptions - all swirling around a handful of worthwhile destinations. Each decision moves us closer to a destination. What kind of destination? It's not the balance of Ok's and Cancel's, but the sequence and frequency of our choices and the pattern set by such that determine what destination we ultimately receive. We will be lead finally to meet our Maker in the infinite worlds to come who will ask if we are prepared to move forward into glory and peace, a far better world of promise instead of continuing in the pain and sorrow of this life. At that moment, faced with the ultimate decision and final dialog box, the answer will make its way out of our heart, already determined by thousands of previous answers, before we can even stop it.

Ok

or

Cancel

A Fairy Tale for Unwitting Adults, Part 2

My idea going into this study of the Book of Mormon, especially the section dealing with evidence for and against its historicity, was if the Book of Mormon is true, then it has to stand up to the most rigorous assaults and critiques that skeptics and nonbelievers can make. So I made every effort to honestly, fully investigate every criticism, every objection that's ever been made to the historicity of the Book of Mormon. One has to suspend judgment in a number of cases, because it's hard to say when the evidence will all be in, but at the present there are still a number of unresolved anachronisms and problems and ambiguities in the text.

But I felt satisfied that there was in every case a corresponding weight on the other side of the equation, which actually led me to, I think, some very important insights into the nature of faith and how faith works. I came to the conclusion, in large part through my study of the Book of Mormon, that for faith to operate, and for faith to have moral significance in our lives, then it has to at some level be a choice. It can't be urged upon us by an irresistible, overwhelming body of evidence, or what merit is there in the espousing of faith? And it can't be something that we embrace in spite of overwhelming logical rational evidence to the contrary, because I don't believe that God expects us to hold in disregard that faculty of reason that he gave us.

But I do believe that the materials are always there of which one can fashion a life of belief or a life of denial. I believe that faith is a revelation of what we love, what we choose to embrace, and therefore I think [it] is the purest reflection of the values that we hold dear and the kind of universe that we aspire to be a part of. And so it comes ultimately as no surprise to me that the evidence will never be conclusive on one way or the other. I think that there's a purpose behind the balance that one attains in the universe of belief. ...

This quote from Terryl Givens (taken from an interview for the PBS FRONTLINE "The Mormons" found here) presents an interesting view of faith. Givens distills faith down to a choice - a choice to believe in something that has not been proven nor is based on any tangible evidence; or in Alma's words, the choice to "hope for things which are not seen, which are true." The crux of spirituality is being able to reach beyond this human body which demands proof, and attain a higher level through positive thinking. This is the emphasized by Christ himself: "Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." (John 20:29)

Religions are based on faith. If it were not so, religions would be no more than service organizations or social clubs. Yet it seems that in our attempt to prove the "only true church," some may lose sight of this principle. Those against the LDS Church claim that we are "unwitting" for following a religion that has so little evidence - the fact that religion is founded on faith (not requiring evidence) is somehow disregarded. Those Latter-day Saints who take up arms against other religions claim that those religions are the "whore of all the earth" - the fact that only those who "fight against Zion" are considered such is somehow shoved to the side. The point of my other post (which I didn't portray very well) was that the two above parties represent two extremes on the spectrum - those who actively engage in discrediting the Church and those who actively engage in discrediting those who discredit the Church. I mentioned a "delineation" in my last post - I meant the delineation in question which, to me, is the invisible line that is constructed by these two extremes, when really there's more common ground than not.

I love the idea of faith because it's so all-encompassing; I can have faith in Jesus Christ as my Redeemer just as much as I can faith that the sun will rise this morning. One I've seen everyday of my life and one I haven't seen even once, but that's the beautiful of faith - seeing is not necessarily believing. When it comes to evidence, well, say what you may but I have my evidence for everything I've ever believed to be true. That evidence is in my heart.