i could say more

Sunshine streams

2009-06-19T17:05:00.001-07:00

Sunshine streams, originally uploaded by rafta.

Maps, Coffee and "the norm"

2009-05-18T23:33:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I drove out to Long Beach to meet up with a German friend (Fabian) who was in port for just a day or so. He works with a merchant ship line as a navigator. We had a great visit and were mutually encouraged. God has been working in amazing ways in his life, bringing people for him to fellowship with onboard his ships, as well as a good "home church". But all of that isn't really why I'm putting up this post.

With that backstory, I just found myself surprised this evening at how integrated my life is with technology these days. E-mails back and forth to coordinate with Fabian about if/when we'd meet. Then text messages giving some clarifications as to where to meet. On top of all this, I looked up the pier on maps.google.com and then sent the link to my phone so I could use my gps and built-in maps to get there. But before that, I looked up potential coffee shops in Long Beach where we could hang out after I picked him up. Sent those to my phone as well, (though it wasn't really necessary 'cause I can look up the same info on the phone). And all went as smoothly as can be.

I could drive right up to where I pick him up, drive straight to the coffee shop where I'd never been before, and drive home without concern that I'd get lost. Strange times we live in. And yet, they aren't strange at all, because it feels so natural and "the way we do it." I do feel like something is lost though... the mystery or adventure of discovery.. but it isn't mystery or discovery that a person wants when they just want to sit down and catch up. I'm thankful for the tech, but much more thankful for the fellowship and encouragement shared over the electronically discovered and navigated coffee.

He sent a nice text message blessing as his ship pulled away from the habor, a few hours after I dropped him off for his shift.

Parkour in Pasadena on the 17th (of Jan '08)

2009-01-22T18:12:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. Like one of my brothers said, "I guess facebook put an end to blogging." Not an end! It's just less frequent now. dc:

So I went up to Pasadena to do parkour with the LA Parkour Meetup group. I had a blast and everyone there seemed to have a lot of fun as well. There's nothing quite like being with a group of people who share a common active interest. Lots of smiles, laughs and people helping each other out. This coming Saturday they're meeting at UCLA and I hope to make it to that one as well.

Here are a couple pictures from the event:

Here a guy is performing a "tick tack". He's using the wall on the right to launch himself up to the left. It's a fun move and takes some practice to get the force and angles right.

Here's a picture of me running up a wall. There are a lot better pictures out there of parkour, and even great ones from the meetup on Saturday. I included these two because they have me in them, 'cause hey, this is my blog, right? The second photo I got from this guy's picasa web set.

One interesting thing about the group that met on Saturday was just how many people came to the meetup. Usually there's... about 16-25 people.. but for some reason 60+ showed up! Weird, but still doable and it went great (and no serious injuries, though I mildly sprained my wrist).

so much to write!!

2008-12-10T12:06:00.000-08:00

Alright. There is so much to write that I'll try and keep it short, and probably miss a lot.

First up is things in the astronomical realm. Yesterday there was a -4.0 magnitude brightness (very bright!) passing of the ISS (International Space Station). It went straight overhead. If you're interested in finding out about future passes and when you can see them, let me know and I'll send you the link. It gives you the times based on your zip-code. (works internationally as well).

Also happening in the sky is a HUGE full-moon on Friday. It'll be the biggest full-moon of the year 2008 as it is a "perigee moon". Spaceweather.com says it is at least 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser full-moons this past year. Last night I got home quite late from work, about 12:30am, and even without a full-moon it was very bright. It may have been so bright that my complex's lights didn't come on!

Other news... Thanksgiving week was so much fun! I went out to Michigan to spend time with the mid-west Shack brothers and there respective families. Here's a link to the photos on flickr. Those photos are almost all pictures of people. Other pictures are on the flickr site, but I know those aren't nearly so interesting, especially to you readers of this blog. (c:

Well, I might have been wanting to write more, but got called in to work early, so I'd better wrap this up! I fully intend to write again between now and the 20th! Take care all fam's and fren's.

Today's Flat-tire Adventure

2008-11-19T13:29:00.000-08:00

I woke up really early, 4:30am or so... mostly because I had a coffee late in the evening which kept me waking up through the night. The goal of the trip was to visit Timothy on his last day working at Starbucks. Success! It was a fun adventure, though I did have to cancel a breakfast I'd scheduled with a friend (which would have been MILES in the opposite direction, and a fun challenge as well). Bike is holding up well. Glad to be back on the bike again. The portion of the map where the line is violet or red (it's red, but overlaps blue) is the part where I walked my bike.

Total journey: 17 miles
Walking distance: A little over 4.5 miles.
Gas saved.. about.. 3/4 of a gallon. Which is.. about $1.70
Hrm. Seems less amazing when you put it in that perspective. The trip really was a blast though. (c:

View Larger Map

moralism...

2008-11-12T09:35:00.000-08:00

modern proverbs (a group project)

2008-11-10T12:41:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about modern day proverbs that would be good for passing on to your children. This thought came to me while I was chatting with Lem and said, "There is certainly no backspace button with words from the mouth." Does that sound too tech/computer centric? A lot of the proverbs in the book of Proverbs are that simple and "obvious". But the author still thought they were worth saying. What are some other modern proverbs or modern translations of ancient proverbs which would be valuable to have?

depth perception

2008-11-07T20:25:00.000-08:00

A post I wrote in April of '06, but never posted
---
Sometimes I feel claustrophobic to this world, like I can't see far enough.

Imagine a dark, misty day, where there is fog everywhere. Actually, you don't know that there is fog everywhere, you just know it's all around you. It's all you know. That feeling for me is that it's all just too close. No room to breathe. I feel that way even when it is open, blue skies above. Even night time, with the infinity of blackness, it's just too close, I need more room. Room to breathe.

I need to see past the horizon, because it's holding me in.

virtual telepathy

2008-11-07T20:20:00.000-08:00

A post from March of '07 (unfinished)
---
I was just thinking about how people used to wish for/dream about telepathy. I think there are a lot of people who still do.. but, really, cell-phones are basically the same thing. Just a bit more vocal. (c: I used to think about telepathy quite a bit and what it'd be like. I don't think about it any more. I think mobile phones do well enough.

Do you ever get those nagging doubts about technology? Those thoughts that maybe life isn't really better for all the "improvements" we make? Cities pack people in, jobs keep massive economic empires running, systems efficiently coordinate food distribution, it's all grand and amazing, but is it better? We create more complexity, more masters to serve, material to aggregate, rules to abide by, and ways to break them. I'm not certain that it is a better life than say, the Masai, who work about ten hours a week, and spend the rest of the time telling stories and simply being with ones neighbors. True, a drought could come and kill many....

the future of interface?

2008-11-07T16:11:00.000-08:00

Ok, time for a really geeky/nerdy post. I was reading one of my usual tech sites and saw this new technology which enables a person to use hand gestures to control their computer. The system they have set up looks pretty sweet, though a little slow on the response time (something which isn't really a problem for "the future").

So the problem next is typing, because typing really is a very fast way of inputting information into a computer. Gesturing may be good for general mouse-like controls and short-cuts, but typing.. is pretty much necessary for written stuff. Unless!! (and here is where sci-fi comes into play) We should develop some form of subvocalization (or more accurately "subvocal recognition"). This would cover both forms of user interfacing with a computer and be better than what we have going now. What an exciting future! While we're at it, where's my jetpack?

What're your thoughts on this?

verses for the day

2008-11-03T10:25:00.000-08:00

I was re-reading over a quick study I did in Proverbs 15, the two verses that stood out to me at the time were verse 15 which says,

"All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast."

and verse 30 which goes as follows,

"The light of the eyes rejoices the heart, and good news refreshes the bones."

My internalization of that was as follows:

Do not be as the afflicted who always feel the days are evil, rather, have a cheerful heart and every meal will seem as a feast. Be aware if your countenance is darkened, that you do not say, "the days are evil," seek to be free from the spirit of the afflicted. God is the ultimate deliverer and has already proclaimed freedom.
Be a bringer of good news to the world, not simply the gospel but also day-to-day blessings. For you will strengthen the bones of those who hear and they will bless the Lord. Let your heart rejoice when you see light in one's eyes, for there is hope and peace.

I thought this was particularly apt as the election day is tomorrow and many around me are "afflicted" and calling these days evil. Hope in the Lord and consider how He directs the hearts of the leaders like a stream. May this good news refresh your bones, bring light to your eyes, rejoice your heart so that it may be as though you have a continual feast set before you.

Magic words

2008-10-25T01:08:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is kinda goofy, but I couldn't help writing it down while I had it in my head. I was talking with Philip earlier on the phone and he remarked a little sheepishly that he started reading the Harry Potter series and is surprised by how much he's enjoying it. That's the preface to my thought (as I lay in bed getting ready to fall asleep). The thought:

In the movie (which is, so far, the only way I've interacted with the Harry Potter tales) Harry waved his wand around quite a bit pronouncing latin sounding words with such conviction that I think magical things actually felt obligated to happen. I think that is kind of funny, how they take latin-ish words and use them as "magical" words. So I wondered if they used those words in the book.. and thought how next time I see Philip I'll point at a car and declare "PETROLEUM!" (the endings of the words seem to be the critical characteristic. -leum, -eous, etc.. Point to the floor and say with climactic conviction, "LINOLEUM!" (c: A silly thought, I know, but it made me laugh.
And the last "magical" word, when someone makes a stupid statement point directly in their face and pronounce emphatically, "ERRONEOUS!"

I'm not working for UPS

2008-10-21T17:44:00.000-07:00

So.. there seems to be a misunderstanding going around from an earlier post that I am working for UPS. No... that's not the case. I went to the UPS to take an exam for Traffic-School which I did online to eliminate a ticket I received. That is all.

Also! I went up north this past weekend to Portland and Eugene and had an awesome time. Got to spend time with sisters and their respective families (too short a time, i know..) and spend the weekend with Wilrah Krzy. There's a photoset from the trip .

Here's a fav:

prep for take-off

2008-10-04T21:36:00.001-07:00

prep for take-off, originally uploaded by rafta.

Today's Ride!

2008-09-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

Woo! Today was something of a time-trial, because this week and the next couple weeks following I will be starting work at 1pm instead of 2pm. My class at Cypress gets out at noon, so that leaves just an hour to bike from Cypress to my work. I actually made it in good time, and still had time to go through in-n-out on the way! (grabbed a burger to-go). Here's a map of the overall route (for those of you who are interested in such). All told, (not including my pending ride home from work) it's about 17 miles. (c: That doesn't sound like very much anymore.

View Larger Map

Dinner Bike Ride

2008-09-09T19:56:00.000-07:00

So I had to get to UPS to take the exam for traffic school work I'd done online, the closest UPS seems to be at the Imperial and Beach intersection. Here's the route I took from work with a few markers. (oh, and I got to the place about 20 minutes after they closed, but managed to talk to the clerk and we're scheduled for tomorrow a.m.). The ride itself wouldn't be so remarkable except that I wanted to stay off the major roads (Beach and Imperial) so I took Hillsborough... and Nicklaus and those are STEEP! I felt the burn. I also walked at the steepest portions.

Oh, and total distance of ride: 9.18 miles.

View Larger Map

the bike, ohoho! (nasal french laugh)

2008-08-27T18:28:00.001-07:00

First day biking to work!

2008-08-27T11:54:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I live really close to work and it's kind-of embarrassing that I've been driving to work this whole time since I've lived at my new place. But no longer! Yesterday I brought home my bike from being stored at my grandparents, and after looking it over and inflating the tires, it looks good to use, so will head in to work on it today.

For those of you curious about such things, it is a Peugeot branded bike with sweet shimano gearing. It has those narrow curved handle-bars which make the rider crouch, and super narrow "road only" tires. I feel like I'm perched on top of it, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I took a picture of me and the bike, and will upload it and post it when I can. (c:

Weirdest comment ever...

2008-07-21T13:22:00.001-07:00

Weirdest comment ever..., originally uploaded by rafta.

Any of you get strange group requests? What's special about papasans?

Some more photo sets

2008-07-20T12:56:00.000-07:00

I uploaded a LOT more pictures up to flickr last night so feel free to go have a look at them. There's two new sets, and on the actual photostream there are more pictures than in the sets. The sets are Macro shots, and Abstract shots. I can guarantee some good pictures in both sets. (c: Thanks for taking the time to have a look!

Here's three of my favorites:

A wedding weekend

2008-07-17T08:02:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I went up north to Seattle to be witness and celebrate David and Maria Elliott's wedding. I had a fantastic time, and the wedding was beautiful. I just loaded pictures of it up on flickr last night so go on and have a look! There are many more photos that I'll eventually get around to loading up, but the ones that are in this set are the most wedding related. Sorry I haven't titled the photos properly yet. 60 photos is a lot of titles.

How to Survive Working the Swing-Shift in a Powerplant #2

2008-07-11T00:37:00.000-07:00

Music, Singing and Dance (plus books and sermons)

I think my co-workers would heartily agree that having a portable music device is a very nifty thing indeed while working. Work often involves the hands and not the mind, this lends itself to time for listening to one's own internal dialog. My own internal dialog is wonderful and entertaining at times, but I also appreciate the occasional break from it.

I listen to a pretty broad assortment of things while working. Recently the music of choice has been Blind Guardian, the three albums: A Twist in the Myth, Nightfall on Middle Earth, and A Night at the Opera. Blind Guardian is definitely an acquired taste. It is metal, most songs have a chorus part, and most songs are based on well known tales. "Fly" is a song about Neverland, death, and Wendy. The whole album "Nightfall on Middle Earth" is based from tales in Tolkien's Silmarillion.

Lots of progress in Les Miserables and will finish sometime in the next week. It is definitely a romance novel, as well as a social commentary, and and and.. much more. Marius is at a point of being less dejected. (c: That's my obtuse way of saying where I am without giving anything away. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to complete the book if I was reading it. Time at work when I'm mopping, vacuuming or dusting has been perfect for listening to the amazing tale Victor Hugo weaves in the book.

Sermons are starting up again and my usual fare is John Piper. Recently have listened to "Let No One Despise You for Your Youth," "The New Birth Produces Love" and "Why I Trust the Scriptures." I recommend all of them, and if you were to pick just one of them... the first two I mentioned are about equally good. "Let No one.." is a very strong exhortation to both parents and children to NOT conform to the world/culture's norms for youth. We expect so little from our youth and they are definitely living to those expectations. He also makes a fantastic statement about not teaching moralism to our children. Really critical stuff. Just writing about it makes me want to listen to it again. "The New Birth.." is from a series he is doing/did in 1st John and is about how God being Love and believers having love from God for one another go together. I can always do with more exhortation and scripture on love for my brothers in Christ. Maybe you can too!

After Les Miserables I'll be listening to the Brothers K and I'm excited about that. It isn't as long, is a very different author, and is very well recommended.

I went to a parkour meetup a few weeks ago and had a really great time! I felt like I was "with my people" which is really nice! I'm looking forward to going to Huntington Beach on the 19th to meetup with the same group. They're Parkour LA and practice all over, from Pasadena, to downtown LA, to Huntington Beach, to CSUF and UCLA. It's great having all the variety of locations and a very chill, all-levels group. (c: More to be heard on this. Why do I mention it in my post about surviving the Swing-Shift in the PP? Because I also practice (in safe ways) jumps and balance while I'm moving around checking on equipment. It's easy to take a second to grab some convenient handhold and make a movement that'd help in doing pakour. What is parkour?

That leads into dance and singing. It's loud in the Engine Room and I can sing really loud and not be heard, and it's great! Also, I'm the only one in the plant after 5pm-ish, so I can sing wherever I like as loud or strangely as I like without a care for who may be listening. This is ideal time for me to try different variations of throat-singing, range-tests and a whole assortment of exploratory singing that I'm much too timid to try around people. (c: Dance is at a minimum for now as that takes focus and it's hard to do other stuff while moving around. I think I pretty much am terrible at it. Am trying to figure out how to do the crazy foot-slide thingy (slide glide?) which is like a sideways moonwalk, right now I only have a clue as to how I can't do it.

Well, I have about an hour to pack and leave for the airport for this weekend's events. I'll let you know about them when I have them documented and sorted through (or if a there's a pause in all the events and I feel compelled to post).

a grandpa special?

2008-07-01T19:39:00.001-07:00

grandpa special?, originally uploaded by rafta.

grandpa used the grapefruit as a staging area for his avocado prior to slapping it onto a hot, buttered piece of toast. mmmmm. myself and some of my siblings have said that it is one of our favorite foods.

How to Survive Working the Swing-Shift in a Powerplant #1

2008-07-01T19:22:00.000-07:00

This is the first of, hopefully, many posts relating to my work. I'm sure many of you readers will find overarching meaningfulness in these posts in relation to your own work environments and lives in general.

One of the primary ways to ensure survival while working in a Power Plant is "listen to your nose". Your nose is an incredible gift, often endowed with phenomenal talent of "knowing" something is amiss before any other sense. Not only can one's nose deduce that there is a problem, it also the number one means of finding the problem. Which brings me to relating yesterday's pertinent events.

I often wander through the Plant (subject for a future post) and last night as I wandered I smelled acid. My brain said, "Well, of course there's acid.. there's a heat exchanger in the acid bath right now, that's a normal matter." My nose said, "No wait, that smell is too strong. There's trouble. Go look and see if I'm right." And so I went and looked, and there was the acid bath, and there was a broken plastic tube spraying as happily as any venetian fountain all across the cement surrounding the area. Aha!

Some other times when the nose alerted me of danger are 1) when there were too many carts plugged in to be charged and the cable couldn't handle the current draw and got quite hot... and smelled terrible. Finding the culprit was only possible through "directional sniffing". 2) numerous times when an expansion joint had burst hurling near boiling water through the engine room, the smell of glycol-rich water was the first notifier of the disaster.

Sometimes your nose can merely let you know what is going on during normal operation. I know another operator has started purging the air out of one of our absorption chillers if there is a chemically banana smell in the air (the smell of lithium bromide).

Listen to your nose.

farewell fontine

2008-05-23T01:09:00.000-07:00

I'm currently in the first quarter of the unabridged English version of Les Miserables. I had an account with audible.com for a few months, and I got the book during that time. The reader is very good, the writing, better still.

As when I started on the book about a year ago, I again find myself in humble awe at the godly character of the bishop who is introduced at great length at the beginning of the story. Perhaps it was because I was feeling tired or some other excuse, but during that portion of the book I had a number of occasions where I had a definite tightness in the throat and tears in the eyes. I guess I'm a sucker for benevolence, grace, humility and kindness.

The entire length of the story is about 60 hrs of listening time, and I finished 12 within the last couple days. That makes for being a fifth of the way through.

I'm frequently amazed at how descriptive Victor Hugo is (or possibly the translator). I feel keenly aware of how gifted he is, like a great artist or sculptor creating with skill and ease that confounds the average person. I wonder why it is we don't have writers like him these days? Or do we and I'm unaware of it? There is a great deal I'm unaware of.

Key aspects of the story that I've enjoyed are how descriptive he is of the emotions which key characters experience. He describes them in ways that include the external and inward landscapes, sounds, dialogs, and intensities. The high points are exultantly high and low points are abysmally low. Dilemmas are real and complex and fully laid out with many nuances, all having a direct reflection on the Virtues and the character of the perplexed.

I'm enjoying it immensely.

Here's a random picture (to keep up with my running trend).