A wedding weekend

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

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?

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

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

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).

"origins of articles"

origins of articles, originally uploaded by rafta.

My friend Mike H. got a beautiful typewriter made in the early 1950's. It's remarkably compact and made for reporters to use while flying.. and is named accordingly as the "Skyflyer". It is fully mechanical and superbly crafted.

weekend pictures up

Some pictures are up from the weekend. Here's a link to the set.

Was a fun time surfing with some of my friends. Here's a sample picture (the only good one of me sort of on a wave):

early riser

Went to bed kinda late last night (1:40-ish), but didn't set my alarm clock or anything and woke up and felt ready to go at 6:15am. Maybe the fact that I knew that I didn't set my alarm clock encouraged my body to wake itself up at an appropriate moment. As a result, so far I'm having a fantastic day which means exercising a bit, reading the Word (much proverbs, much wisdom), having breakfast, making good tea, putting away dishes, making tea for sleeping roommate, and posting on my blog (right now). Am also looking through a random assortment of parkour photos on flickr, which is inspiring. Here's a great photo.

I wanted to give a shout-out thank you to the people who commented on my ethics post. I read the comments as they went up and have mulled over and internalized their content. It was really helpful getting those perspectives on something I was a bit confused about. If you, dear reader, missed those comments, I _highly_ recommend you go back and read them as they're very insightful. I'll even make it easy for you by giving you a link: HERE.

I'll finish off with a picture from my collection.

random favorite photo

DSC01820, originally uploaded by rafta.

Here's a photo I like. I'll start going through my collection and doing this once in a while. (c:

the little right things

Alright people, let's talk some ethics!

My current class in the program is basically the start of a two-part series on Ethics. From the reading in class it was really surprising to me to realize how right "right" is. I know I said that kind of weird, but bear with me. In class we talked quite a bit about that lady who lied to the governing authorities to protect some of God's people. (ok, that actually is two different instances, Rahab and that lady-who's-name-i-can't-remember). There was a hierarchy of virtue/values which both based their correct decisions off of. Lying (which is wrong.. right?) was acceptable for the good of saving lives from evil intentioned people.

Here's the part where I kinda surprised myself. I didn't even consider the fact that they lied to be remarkable. I suppose I thought that there's always going to be little "gives" in life and that we can't possibly live just lives. But.... I think we can. At least we can live much more "rightly" than we do. For sure I can. So as one of the results, I've become a lot more sensitive to civic uprightness, the strongest examples being: 1) Fully stopping at stop signs. and the second is similar 2) Driving close to the speed limit (i consider 5 miles over to be what is the desired maximum of a city, is that not reasonable?). I can't slide through a stop sign (i.e. california stop) without a sense of conviction, which I think is a good thing. I've started fully stopping. (c:


I think we need to be really careful with how much flexing of the rules we allow in our lives. Every time we die to our inward rebellion against rules, we build character and integrity. I think character/integrity is illustrated when we do what is right when it doesn't seem to matter. Our culture in general doesn't have a very friendly attitude toward consistent right behavior, and I think part of that anger comes from people's own conviction of wrong-doing.

There's more to this, relating to Christianity and such, but I'll put up those thoughts in the comments. I'll finish by saying that legalism does not mean righteousness, but as people made righteous, we should go above and beyond the legal codes set up by our society. Righteous behavior is not just abstaining from doing wrong, but rather it is actively doing what is very good and right.

sample cloud

Cloud1, originally uploaded by rafta.

This goes with the previous post, reflecting on the interesting weather. (irregular cloud formations are very unusual here, and we don't see them very often. lol)

Lovely.

The weather has been great. I think I have more of a tolerance for really hot weather than I thought, which means I'm pretty much able to do well in any weather (since I love cold weather, rain, fog, windy-ness, etc).. and hot is here. It'll only be a matter of time before summer _really_ comes here with the full fierceness of Southern California. When that happens, I know I'll be tired of summer. Today we had temperatures of about 97°F (36°C). Tomorrow's forecast: 81°F (27°C) and Wednesday: 65°F (18°C). Great change, eh? That's 32 degrees change in just 48 hours. I guess I'm easily impressed.

Managed to go wall-climbing and surfing Saturday, which made for a fantastic day of activities, and Sunday sat through the same sermon twice at Grace, because I car pooled with Erik and Ryan who have youth activities during the second service (so they attend the third). Was a good sermon about prayer and how the Holy Spirit helps us to pray and, while understanding us fully, conveys our prayers to God in accordance to His will.

"In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." -Romans 8:26-27.

What I gained from the sermon is a freedom to pray as I'm able.. without the strain of trying to say things the right way, be in "just the right mindset", or leave room for God not to answer the prayer, etc..
I'm surprised at how infrequently the average Christian prays (average by my understanding), and that includes myself.

Links to summary photos

Pictures are worth thousands of words, right? I think the person who said that didn't have the internet. (c: Here's a few reasons why words are better:

1) Words help us search the internet. If you're looking for something, you can't draw a picture of it, you can't click on a picture to say, "It is like this." Words are great.

2) Words often express more clearly and briefly than a picture. (I said _often_.)

3) Words are cool and allow for creative structure, whereas a picture is exactly that.. and to make it more would require "artistic ability". Yay for the lay persons!

I kinda just thought up that third point. Anyway, here are some links to various events that have occured in the past month or two:

Grandma's 80th and Mom's surprise visit for the occasion!
D & H visit with the kids!
Joe's 26th!

I also put up pictures from a number of other things.. which can all be seen on my flickr account.

The two pictures in this post are scanned photos from in high school photo class.

the nameless guy

I saw a guy on the private university street as I drove in to work today. He was kinda walking slowly down the hill and I thought he probably wasn't quite right in the head.

Later on I saw him again after doing some work and he was walking the opposite direction to when I saw him earlier. He still didn't look so great and I thought I should talk to him, the conversation went as follows:

"You ok?"
-"Alright, just out of breath. On my way to my car. I just went swimming which is pretty much the only thing I can do now... I have cancer."
"I'm sorry. ... You going to be alright ?" (with regards to making it to his car ok)
-"I hope so."

I felt terrible walking away, like there was more I could have or should have said. The man was elderly and is quite possibly terminal. I wish I asked him his name. I wish I could share a moment and tell him, "I'll remember you." But I didn't. I didn't give any sort of comfort or express any interest in even who he was as a person.

the little funny things

I was driving home for dinner yesterday and noticed that the guy in front of me started drumming on the steering wheel. That's not too unusual and I'd do the same thing if there were good musics in my car as well. But what IS unusual is that I looked in my rear view mirror and saw the guy behind me ALSO drumming on his steering wheel... with drumsticks! Strange and even stranger for the timing. (c:

Two events I should have posted about and will try to:

Highschool reunion in Chicago weekend before last.

Grandma's 80th birthday event (much fun!) and my mom's surprise visit for the occasion.

Great Speech

I read over Obama's speech and was really happy with what was there. The issue of racism has kept cropping up here and there and very recently became a very heated topic. Obama gives this speech in answer to all the talk that has been happening. As for Democrats.. he's definitely my choice. McCain hasn't really distinguished himself yet (to me), though I ought to find out more about him.

I heartily exhort you to read the actual speech rather than take the summaries which all the news sites and commentators are giving. The context of everything is crucial and the speech is a pretty coherent unit. Breaking up speeches into summaries and pieces is bad for understanding.

If you have some time to read Obama's speech, you can find it written out here below the video of the speech.

nrG's

I'm toying with the idea of having a 'net free day of the week, either Saturday or Sunday, but a work day would do as well. Once I get one regular day a week down, I just might expand from there. You see, the internet is a definite time sink. If it simply isn't an option, then I'll look elsewhere to exercise my creative/explorative energies. There's lots I want to do, read, make, see, eat, etc.. which I'm not, simply because of the mild mental buzz I get from exploring the webweb. Tsk!

On a similar note, I finished the Research Project class. It was pretty stressful for me. I passed. I also learned quite a bit. I also re-read through the Belgariad series (in two parts) the past couple of weeks. I read fast and really enjoy good fiction. It took me three days to finish the last two books of the series. I suppose next birthday or Christmas it'd be great to get the Mallorean set (in two parts) (which continues the story in the Belgariad).

Now that the stress of the project is over and my imagination is satiated for a while, I think I can get back into all that exercising I mentioned in the last post. (c:

I'm way overdue on pictures for this blog as well as for my flickr account. Apologies to those who care. It's on my list of "things to do" and will probably happen one of these days. Maybe.

Bro Peter's birthday is today. It is also St. Patrick's day. I celebrated by having cold leftover pasta during my dinner break (right now). Aight, time to head back to work.