Unplugged

A thought hit me the other day: what if I completely unplugged myself from society and lived on 100 wooded acres in Alaska, and just lived off the land and the work of my own two hands?  And I mean truly disconnect from the world, to the point of recycling all the water on the property (I have a plan drawn up for a toilet-to-tap water distillation system) and plating the house with solar cells - nothing would connect me to society and I could live free from the weight of corrupt governments and extractive, exploitative economies. Oh, the dream... the Mrs isn't too fond of the toilet-to-tap idea, though.

In fact, the whole thing is a ludicrous idea. Not because it's impossible or the costs outweigh the benefits, but because when the end of the world actually DOES come, me and a handful of other weirdos would be left drinking our own water and fueling our own stoves. The rest of the world would be clamoring for help because the infrastructure on which they have come to rely would be demolished and they would be left to feed themselves, not knowing that wheat comes from seeds and beef comes from cows.  It would be so sad, but I wouldn't be in a position to help because I would be hundreds of miles away and wouldn't have a car. I probably wouldn't even know the end of the world came because I wouldn't have Facebook.

We all have our callings, and mine is to serve. I can't move away from that, though when times get rough I sometimes want to. As joyful as it would be for me to uninstall myself from the machine, God wants me to be on the ground serving his children and he will cleanse me from this generation if I am faithful. He's not calling Noahs right now (Jonahs still beware), but he is calling Almas to stay where they are and lift where they stand. So that's that. No unplugging for me. Though I do think I'm going to install toilet-to-tap when my wife's not looking.

ps, I unplugged my blog from Facebook today. Let's see if I blog more regularly now.

Another scam - Weekly Health USA: Tip of a Flat Belly

Last year, I made a somewhat lengthy analysis of an internet scam ("Google Money Masters"), so I won't go into those details here (plus, I'm at work).  But I thought this was too fun to pass up.  I was looking for a grunge font for work at urbanfonts.com and when I clicked on the category name, my browser opened another window to "Weekly Health News" showing an article on the "1 Tip of a Flat Belly: A Surprising New Way to Burn Fat Quickly."   I have to say, this is a pretty good looking scam.
The first thing that made me wonder is the picture of the supposed reporter lady person.  I've seen her all over the web, in suspicious-looking ads.  The second indicator was that the article supposedly originated in (guess where?) the city where I work, as well as the example of the woman losing 46 pounds.  Try it out - go to the article and I'm sure you'll find that the article magically originated in the city in which you are currently sitting, too!  My third source of suspicion came from the comments section.  They were all from the last two days.  Fantastic. Then last but not least, all of the links on the page lead to an advertisement for AcaiMax.  Scroll to the bottom and want to read about football? Too bad, it's AcaiMax.  How about Travel, or Racing (which is interestingly enough accompanied by an image of a mountain scape... I guess "mountain racing?")? Nope, AcaiMax again.  Then I pulled up the source code and had a good laugh.
The article purports to have been published on July 13, 2010, two days ago.  So I look at the code and find a little (messy!) bit of javascript that ends with this:

mydate.setDate(mydate.getDate()-2)

See the "-2" at the end?  Yeah, that says to set the date to two days before the current date and show it on the page.  This happens several times throughout the page, and is obviously dishonestly reporting the date to make it appear as though the article (and comment section) is recent.  Want to post a comment?  Too bad, because based on the source code and script, there's nothing actually submitting your comment anywhere!
There's more, but I'll stop.  I just find it incredibly entertaining to see how the "scam" continues to evolve.  This one looks pretty real, if you ask me.  But that's the idea - looks are deceiving, and now that we, the Web 2.0 generation, have such short attention spans, the marketers now that we look at the page for 5 seconds and then act.  Try to make it 10 and I think you'll see a lot more than they're showing you.
PS To the authors of this page, may I suggest a faster way to build an array, since it looks like you were in a hurry:

var month = [
  'January',
  'February',
  'March',
  'April',
  'June',
  'July',
  'August',
  'September',
  'October',
  'November',
  'December'
];

2009 - A lesson in expectations

I felt an anticipation for 2009 right as Tết rolled around last year.  My wife felt it, too - it was a tangible expectation, like the thick, humid air before a storm - and we both were convinced that great things would happen in the following months.
Then... nothing.
I started school, then had to drop out, then started again.  Mai Vi started working a little more so our income rose a little.  I got a new bike.  She improved in managing all those little roudy Primary kids on Sundays.  Very mundane events, or long-time plans finally starting to materialize, but nothing that fit that strong anticipation we felt last spring.  I was slightly disappointed as Tết came and went this year and I did not feel the same anxious expectation, nor did I have anything to show for last year's.  Expectations have a way of skewing our view of the present, but I was honestly trying to determine why my anticipation had been so far off.
One night after an especially-introspective bike ride home from work I was struck with a prompting, an idea formulating that felt important but evasively vague.  It all started with wondering what to do with this blog, since I don't blog much anymore, but my thoughts lead me into much deeper issues.  Like smoke from the camp fire, every time I grasped too hard - or even looked too directly to get a glimpse of the actual shape and form - it vanished and I was left wanting.  Mai Vi went to bed, I stayed up doing homework and coding a project for a friend, while the ideas in my head slowly settled and finally grew silent.  I brushed my teeth, turned out the lights and knelt at my bed to pray.  Before my knees hit the floor I was back on my feet, head racing.
Lights on, pen lid off, old printout from last semester as my canvas, I scratched out the ephemeral thoughts even as they flitted away, no longer grasping for meaning but scrambling to manage the overflow of mental data.  They were neatly processed now, folded and starched and ready for consumption after my evening activities allowed them room to self-organize.  The past year made sense now, in the dim glow of my desk lamp, but it soon would not so I urgently disregarded spelling and grammar and any sense of order just to let these thoughts make their way to the paper before disappearing into a million ethereal pieces.
See, I grew up last year, and I'm still getting used to the rest of my life.
Here's my thoughts, as they are on the back of an old school printout:

Year of maturing - the prevailing theme - I felt it would be a big year but didn't have much to show for it except school - but I see now it's more of an internal progression, a growing up - xanghe represents the care free, blissful days of perpetual honeymoons - that phase has passed and it's now on with adult life - on the way home from work, I realized I'm approaching 30, which is not old, but it's too old to claim ignorance or innonence as I have been doing - recently I told my younger brother to be a man, but was I projecting? - over the years, xanghe has transformed from a silly nickname to a symbol of my continual search for meaning, depicted by the ubiquitous bee - time has passed for me to claim xanghe as my alias, but it will remain a reminder of my search - it's time to be a man

xanghe redesign! (yes, again)

It started out as a sketch. I was bored at the fair so I scribbled up a little scene I had in my mind. That night I scanned it and played around with it in Inkscape and then the GIMP. That was last Wednesday. The 6 following days have been pretty much wasted with me in front of the computer, but I have to say, this is my favorite design yet.

Enjoy. I promised my wife I this one would last at least a year.

Google Money Master: The art of designing web scams

"Google Money Master" - sounds cool, huh? And $5000 a month from home (working only 10 hours a week!) doesn't sound bad either. Oh, and this author is from Orange County, too! Great, where do I sign up? Obviously these underlined, blue words are links, so I'll click on one of these. Uh oh, this new page looks like a scam... but Mike Richardson from Orange County said it's legit!

Haha, that's what went through my mind this morning when I hopped on the article from the "Los Angeles Tribune" about a way to make $5000 a month. After sheepishly collecting my wits upon realizing that I had been scammed (no I didn't sign up), I turned back to the page to find out how I was so easily deceived. I looks like scammers (yes, those people capitalizing on unemployed people) are listening in web design class. Here are some ridiculously true principals that I should have caught off the bat, but that seem to catch me (us?) every time:

• 

  Localization

  First and foremost, the scammers localize the content. The page was created in PHP, which means everytime it's served from the host, it can look at your whereabouts and figure out where you're located at the time of viewing. Mine says "Orange , CA" (notice the extra space after "Orange" - a sign of hasty coding) in two places. And the "Los Angeles Tribune" is not a real newspaper... I'm sure if you're in Houston it will say the "Houston Tribune." We are prone to believe something if it's happening in our back yard.



• Content

  They employed typical hoax content, using a fictitious name, realistic circumstances and a reputable entity (usually a media outlet or law enforcer, this time it's Google). It gives us a creditable source, or at least uses words that seem creditable. It even gives his email: "Tom Chilton@www.Financial-Weekly.com" - It's the first time I've seen "www." in an email's domain. lol This scam even holds true to form in its grammar - poor.



• Layout

  photo from Web Style Guide
  Here's my favorite part. We as web surfers behave very differently in many situations, but in some ways we act exactly the same. Like how we scan documents. As the images above illustrate, our eyes spend a lot of time at the top-left area of the page, and the scammers capitalize on that. The bold, alluring title, the photo of a young work-at-home millionaire... look at the little social networking icons! Looks just like the real thing.



• Reader Feeback

  At the bottom of the page, as all news articles or blogs should, we see a bunch of user comments. Some are skeptical, some affirm our hope that Google will truly send us a check within 48 hours of signing up. What better way to include non-obtrusive peer pressure! Notice the date of the comments happen to be before the "Created At" date, and they all were posted at the same time. And "Created At?" Is that English?



• Functionality

  No no, this is actually my favorite part. Click on the news tabs at the top. Go ahead and login, or post a comment. Or reply to a comment or favorite it, or hover over anything that we web surfers know so well to be links or functional buttons. No little pointy hand, no subtle animation. Not a single link on the entire page, except the handful they want you to click that lead to their trap homepage. Ha! This should have been the first warning that this was a fishy site, but just like a skilled magician, they distract you from what they're really doing by directing your attention to a little trick.

And so it goes. The hoaxes are still hoaxing people. Especially when we are in a financial rut. Hopefully we can take a look at this page and laugh, then take a deeper look at what other imitations are designed specifically to deceive us. When designed well enough, we may just scan our way into a trap without even knowing.

Google Money Master: a bona fide folk tale. Pass it on. ;)

For All Who Care - Viet Speaking Mission Website is Down

Every now and then, I like to pay my respects to an old website dedicated to Vietnamese Speaking LDS Missions around the world. It dates back to the 1999's and is very much so a 1990's website, complete with an animated Kokopelli tooting away on his flute (why Kokopelli, I do not know). The site contains a curious mixture of former missionary contacts, messages, games, articles and "Java-enabled" VietChat. I actually used some of the articles on the site for a project I did back in school, but that was the last time I had visited... until tonight.

The website is located here: http://members.aol.com/nomhawj/viet/mission.html Go ahead, click on it. See the circular logo and the totally rad sidebar and Mr Kokopelli tooting away? Probably not. You probably see a nasty dark page with some smokey header informing you that blah blah blah we shut down this page forever we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Thanks for the apology, but you shut down my page!

Well, it wasn't my page, per se. In fact, I don't know whose page it was, or is, or else I'd let them know that they've been shut down forever and request that they migrate the site to another host. Fortunately for all of us, there's a nifty web service called WaybackMachine, located at archive.org, which allows you to see webpages that aren't there anymore, like ones that have been "shut down forever" for example. Using this service, we still have a vestige of our wonderful Viet Speaking Mission site, a snapshot from 2006 which seems to be the last time the webmaster made a major update. Here it is (no nasty smokey header this time):

Viet Speaking Mission

Take a look through the Mailing List which provides a smattering of former missionaries' contact info reaching all the way to 1981. Or my personal favorite, the Missionary Corner, where you can find some Gospel-related Vietnamese-language materials, and make sure to follow the "Vietnam and the Church" link which leads to several articles about, you guessed it, Vietnam and the Church.

Now, we don't know when archive.org will decide to dẹp tiệm (which they probably won't but anyway), but in preparing for the worst, I would recommend taking a look through the archived site and extracting what info you want/need right now. Just in case.

Small print:I am toying with the idea of setting up a new site for former Vietnamese-speaking elders, but don't know when/where it will take place. Feedback?

Change of Direction

I've been MIA for the last little while. Work is picking up, and after my last blog redesign I've kind of pulled away from the computer at home to make way for some other things (ie. planting blueberries!). Actually, I've turned more towards Facebook and Twitter and Flickr as vehicles to keep in touch with friends and stuff, because it's so quick and easy and I'm lazy. Anyway, I am going to start a new topic on this blog, namely Tips and Tricks for computer stuff. Just a series of short posts regarding things I've found to speed up my workflow. Today is the first article and it pertains to inputing Vietnamese characters.

Graphic Design - My 2009 Hobby

I've always loved art. I remember painting landscapes for my friends one year for Christmas. I remember listening to Hints, Allegations and Things Left Unsaid and furiously drawing
characters from Final Fantasy or Metroid, or whatever Nintendo Power was highlighting at the time. I remember sitting for hours in my room carefully studying each page of my Michael Whelan or Alan Lee books, wondering how in the world did he get so much detail on that spaceship wall, or how did his stroke void of any detail at all still capture exactly the form of the dragon. I remember sitting in the basement at the computer for days on end, scrupulously writing and rewriting POV-Ray code and patiently watching as the the rays were traced one by one and my screen became a three-dimensional parallel universe. I loved it, but over the years other priorities have taken - well - priority, and I've lost a lot of the experience I built up as a child and a younger-than-I-am-now person.

I've lost so much ground in my technical drawing skills so I get easily frustrated when I'm trying to draw or paint freehand anymore. Luckily, over the last several months and because of my deepening passion for web development and design, I've been re-introduced into the world of art. Art infused with information and seamlessly presented on a canvas of HTML and CSS. Moll's clean vintage look with just enough texture to make you feel like you're reading a book; Spooner's mixture of bold vectors and calm browns; Inman's striking minimal mathematical approach; Nick La's explosion of motion and flow and contrast - it's all amazing and delightful to me, from the markup to the stylesheets to the javascript to the polished, shiny finished product it's all beautiful to me. So, I'm re-applying myself to art, this time in the form of graphic design which allows me to be creative without getting stuck on the fact that I still can't draw an anatomically-correct tree (so I borrow someone else's).

Want to see my new favorite site? This changes by the day, but at least for yesterday and today I'm submitting Viget Inspire as the most visually appealing blog in the whole world wide web (or "WWWW" for short). Isn't it nice? Well, it was this blog and a tutorial based on that blog that pushed me over the edge last night. After an hour of homework and a handful of Dove Blackberry Carmel Dark Chocolates, I plugged in my wacom and downloaded some watercolors and trees and GIMPed up a painting (the one at the top). It turned out ok, but more importantly, it's my start. From today until 11:59pm December 31^st 2009, I am officially... ummm... doing more art stuff. I'll post it to my flickr so stop by occasionally and take a gander.

Thanks to mom and dad and Morgy and Jennie and Harmony for being my inspiration.

I Heart Google Chrome

One of the things I love most about Chrome is that the dialogs and alerts are, well, almost funny. Like this:

My favorite is the secret agents part. I ran into a new one today:

I still love Firefox, though, for more reasons than I can name. I'm just glad to have two tools now for traversing and dissecting the web.

LDS Maps = Pretty Sweet

This was awhile ago, but the Church released a new map app for finding your closest meetinghouse (aka "church"). I remember the old text-based one that they used to have, it reminded me of Oregon Trail. "You've been bit by a snake. You've found your closest meetinghouse." Actually, it was nothing like that but for some reason it makes me think of it. Either way, this app blows the old one out of the water. Link: maps.lds.org

It's exciting to me to see how much the Church has opened it's doors technologically. Open source projects and profitable freelancing have skyrocketed the number of professional programmers and web developers with excellent skills, and the Church is reaching out to that community to built its online presence. I remember when the Church revamped its homepage (not too long ago) and I thought "Woo hoo, it will be awhile before we see another change around here." Not! The newsroom, a new media player for watching conference, and the tech site - and that's just the beginning! It looks like they've got a Home Teaching/Visiting Teaching web app in the works, which is still in the draft draft draft stage and pending approval before it can even move beyond a prototype, but that's still cool! It was funny because I stumbled on that piece of news right as I was finishing up my home teaching web app for the branch. Don't know if I'll ever roll it out, but it could be useful for the younger home teachers, anyway. That, of course, includes President. :)

One last thing: Church discussions on Twitter. I just joined Twitter so I'm still figuring out what a tweet and a hashtag are, but I caught the vision while reading the article of what this could mean in the future. My twitter feed can be found here (please no stalkers please), or it can be accessed directly from this blog (the bottom sidebar tab).

Tonight I told my wife that I'm getting in touch with my geeky side as we gorged ourselves on Korean banchan and bulgogi and tofu soup. She nonchalantly replied, "That's ok, as long as you don't cheat on me." What? I didn't see that one coming. Where did that come from? Did she hear what I said? I guess she meant spending more time with the computer than with her. That could be a form of infidelity. Man, I love that woman.

Christmas Tradition!

Some individuals have incredibly elaborate traditions to celebrate Christmas. As you can see, I am one of those individuals:

My Grinch tie on the Sunday before Christmas.

Presents for our friends at church (hey, when you're mass producing you've got to be a little creative!).

The Turtle is Real!

Ever wondered about the stories we hear about Hồ Hoàn Kiếm, the lake in the middle of Hà Nội that supposedly harbors the magic turtle who returned King Lê Lợi's sword to the gods? Yeah, well here's his brother, who apparently didn't hold on tight enough during the recent flooding in Northern Vietnam and got swept away into a hungry fisherman's hands. I'm glad the turtle was saved (it is now back home) because it is believed that he is one of only four of his kind (rafetus swinhoei) left on the entire earth. I say that's a pretty good number seeing that they're magic turtles.

By the way, the turtle in Hồ Hoàn Kiếm is not a legend. My mother in law saw it.

Streamlining the Blog

Well, I'm working on the blog again. It should load up faster, but no changing and background and draggable things... for now. I kept getting a message that my blog was infected and stuff because I was pulling scripts from freewebtown.com, which is a "Reported Attack Site!" Oh well

At the bottom, you'll see some links called "version backtrack" - it's my first attempt at implementing the magic of jquery on the blog.

More to come.

Dreams

the only thing now that can get to me, now i've found my dreams
is when I look in her eyes and see that i don't meet what she needs in me
first come the smarts and then come the skills, i finally got my degree
but what happens when the rice comes to an end?
the skills make the heroes and smarts become dead

i'm looking forward but can't see

the books on the shelf are collecting dust, i've consumed them all
but now and again i hear words in my head that
all of this theory still can't meet the ends

i'm looking forward but can't see

sometimes i dream of my children, all so pure and naive
they love unconditional, illuminating
all of the things I've been taught from the start
reminding me of the angels they are
but when they ask for bread
how can i give stones instead?

i'm looking forward but can't see

i know I have more, i scream to the sky
endowed with all things that i need in this life
but can i give more? can't I give more?

i watch them asleep on a bed of dreams as i make my night call
wondering what all their wishes mean and if i can meet them all

i'm looking forward but can't see

i'm looking forward but can't see

Walk

Yesterday I had to walk so much
After biking to and fro from work
Like any normal day
I took a new bus route to school
Fell asleep
Passed Chapman
Went all the way to Katella
Before I figured out Chapman
Was 5 minutes ago
Jumped off the bus
Can't miss class
Ran the mile in my office clothes
And 5-year-old Sketchers
With too many holes and not enough tread
Fell upon the bus stop
"The bus broke down, we'll have to wait for the next one"
Great.
2 hours of class and back to the bus
Caught the early one
Might get some homework done tonight
Off the bus, to the next stop
Bus not scheduled for 34 minutes
Great.
I'll be home by then
If I walk
And I did.

Today while riding my bike to and fro from work
I saw a man a-crossing the street
Pink pack, shorter than most
Behind the rest
One leg longer
Than the other
Never corrected
Limping in back
Knee over-extended
Foot under-curved in a painful arch
Limping in back
Across the street
Through the parking lot
Into the way station
Red light to Green
Go

Thank you, Lord, for letting me walk so much

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.

2007 in Pictures

I know this is a little late, but we finally got our pictures from last year organized. Come take a look at our 2007 in pictures!

Happy Birthday to me! and the New Blog

Ok, it's not my birthday, but we are approaching this blog's one-year anniversary. So it must be my blog singing that song.

Let's take a quick look back at the past year. The first blog I created got only two posts. That was before I found "blogger" and found out it worked with a google account. Click on the picture for a "sneak peek" of my blog - from last year.

Next came this blog, which has transformed in the last year from somewhat relevant to completely superfluous, but I love it anyway. Take a trip back into the past - take a look at the first post here.

Now, I've done it again. I've started another blog project, but this time my aim is a little different than blowing off steam or trying to be funny. This time I felt a pull to aim at building something of a community, something that reaches a larger audience than just my friends and family (I think this blog's readership may be up to 10 by now). As this idea sprouted in my mind, my wife pointed out an article on the Church's homepage: Apostle Urges Students to Use New Media by Elder M Russell Ballard. The transcript is here. After reading this great address, I realized that I could use a principle of the Gospel to form my idea into a tangible blog. So here it is - a sneak peek at what may become a thriving community of faith or just another failed attempt at innovation in a saturated market.

Chinese Chess - never play after a 3-hour, late-afternoon nap

It was a beautiful day today, but we didn't take advantage of it because my cold from last week somehow made its way to my wife and she was in bed all day. However, after napping for several hours this afternoon, we decided to try a rematch at chinese chess, our new "thing to do" at home. Last time she whipped me two matches to one, but this time I put up a better fight. The only problem is that we got down to a few pieces and we're both too stubborn to surrender, so we just played and played until we were blue in the face. Literally. We both went a little wacko at that point, pushing the pieces extraordinarily long distances and capturing three pieces (including the general) in one swoop. Click here to see what happened next:

We both sacrificed an elephant (and me a mandarin!) because thought it would move the game along. It just prolonged the pain... we both felt so restless and ready to explode. Then I saw my wife's hand raise to make her move... (click for next):

... but instead of moving the her knight, she yanked the board! (or "sheet" in our poor case). That was that: wife wins.

November Rain (and Decemeber, too!)

It rained last Friday and it rained again today. I love it.

I believe my blog has now fallen into the "Boringest Blogs in the World" category, if it ever left that category in the first place. No pictures, no thought-provoking thoughts, just me blabbing. And not even very often. Pitiful.

It is election season, which makes it difficult for me to blog at work (don't tell my boss) and homework is adding up (finals are coming soon) so I don't have a lot of time. I've been busier, but I'm getting old so I can't hack it like I used to. And I just got sick, so anytime I move too fast I feel like my head is caving in. Let's see... anymore lame excuses...??? Nope, that's it.

So much has happened in the last few weeks, I can't fit it all in here. I've sworn off drawing (oh yeah, that's another lame excuse for not blogging) because it takes me too long and then I either get discouraged and quit or I think it's a work of art and drool over it when really it looks like crap. I've finally written out the text for my storybook (by the way, I've been trying to write a storybook) and my original intention was to illustrate it myself but that's gone down the drain. By the time I'm talented enough to do that I'll be 50. Plus, I'm trying to pick up an extra income somewhere (and praying for a promotion!) to recharge our monetary reserves, so I don't have time to practice. I'm looking for someone to illustrate and I think I've found an artist whose style I've really taken a liking to, but I don't know how to get in touch with her. So that's that.

I have started playing the piano again. I try to get a little bit in each day so that I might be able to play the hymns when our regular organist is not at church. My fingers are starting to remember how to jump from key to key without me prodding them too much. It will take awhile but I hope in a year I'll have several songs down. My wife enjoys the background music much more than the click click click of my laptop or the scratch scratch scratch of my pencils on paper so I think I'll stick to this hobby. Mutually beneficial. That's what marriage is all about.

I was talking with my friend on Sunday about "the fire." You know, that massive force deep within your soul that moves you to action, the feeling that something inside you is bursting with light and you can almost see it coming out of your fingertips, the burning desire to be perfect and pure. The feeling that is followed by focused, poignant faith and vision that opens all doors and clears all obstacles in your path. The power that radiates from your eyes, that demands attention and belief from bystanders, that crushes opposition and invites success. The sense that whatever goal you're aiming at has already been accomplished and you just have to go claim it, the result so tangible that you can almost feel it before you even see it. That's the fire. At times, it's all-encompassing and exhausting and absolutely perfect. At other times, it's gone. Like, all gone. That's when depression sets in. We came up with some good stuff on how to get it back, how to rekindle the fire, but you had to be at our joint FHE last week to get it. :) The most important thing is to keep on going and never give in, to not stop dancing just because the music is gone, and to remember that before and after any great moment the opposition will mount almost to the point of collapse (please read this great address from which we find the oft-quoted line "...beware the temptation to retreat from a good thing. If it was right when you prayed about it and trusted it and lived for it, it is right now.").

Thôi, viết tới đây đã dài quá rồi đấy, ngừng nhe. I'm stopping here, this is way too long.