Thursday

well the weather said today would be 68 degrees, so me liking nice weather and liking my motorcycle i decided to ride to work.
so on my way to work this morning in temperatures in the low 30s i decided i need to move to the south.

work has been going pretty well... going through the training program to become a QC (quality control) technician right now. plus i also offered my name to join a completely new team here at work to be expanding on what we currently do. it's nifty. except our chairs. the chairs suck. they bought me a brand new one... but it was so cheap the padding was flat within a week. nice, huh? anyway... sitting on this chair is really causing problems for my back. today it's hurting so much i can barely use my left arm and i am in constant, throbbing, stabbing, shooting pain every time i twitch any part of my body. ... so today i decided i need a better chair or a job where i can lay down.

the only thing that has been keeping me from just going home, taking pain pills, and laying down the rest of the day is that i'm listening to a really cool cd that is helping to keep my mind off the pain. i'm borrowing it from beth. it's pleasure by 'malcolm dalglish and the oolites' ... they're kinda weird. it's folk music, but they do everything from traditional scottish songs with bagpipe accompaniment, nonsensical songs about staring and clouds and the types of tails various animals have, to spirituals that used to instruct slaves on how to escape to freedom on the underground railroad, to hymns, to ragtime. it's weird. they're all over the place and some of them don't even sing all that well but it's still really good. anyway... this made me realise how much i miss singing every day. so i've decided i need to become a mormon and join the MTC. it'd be totally awesome... well... except for the being a mormon part.

so overall this is being a really sucky day...

but the music is good.

a long-expected update:

we had todd and mark over sunday night to hang out and watch movies. during this time, squiggle got up to get a drink and just happened to glance at the fish tank on the way back. lo and behold there were little tiny mollies in there! yay! they looked like day-glo orange tadpoles the size of pinheads. really small. so we did what we could to help protect them from the bigger fish by giving them ground up food away from the others and keeping an eye out for them. sadly though, by today i think they're all dead. we haven't seen any since last night. could be wrong though.

and apparently either the same molly who gave birth, or the other one must have gotten into a fight with the new betta we bought saturday, cuz it had a hunk of flesh missing behind its dorsal fin. tsk tsk. i tried to chastise the betta but he just said "i'm betta than you, i don't need to listen." and swam off as if i wasn't there. at least he seems to be behaving himself since then and getting along quite well in the tank (we were a little worried that there would be too much of a current for him to breathe) (since bettas breathe air instead of using gills to breathe from the water) (they come from areas of the world with rice patties and stuff like that so they're used to really calm, still water) (and so they go to the surface to breathe) (but it has to be still enough so they don't swallow water) (kinda like when people go swimming) (except they're smaller so they need much calmer water)

i still don't have any fish pictures, sorry.

oh but work seems to be going fairly well except for the upgrade to the new version of our software. talk about bugs. honestly, esri really needs to invest in software testers. it's atrocious. oh and my boss wants to promote me soon, which is good.

sorry, not gonna talk about dresden right now cuz i haven't really come up with all the supporting evidence i need.

squiggle is happy though. therefore i am happy. oh and still hoping i'll get my computer sunday *crosses fingers* but not sure.

Another Tract...

soo...
beth came home from work today with another tract someone had left her at work. it reads (the parts in curly braces {} are my comments, they're not actually printed):

Thank You! {then it opens to say} Thank You! We say it so often...{gives examples} Sometimes we show as well as say our thanks...{gives examples - and one of them is "when we leave a small tip" - remember this later} I'd like to show my appreciation to you by telling you something that is of far greater value. It is simply that the greatest gift in the world can be yours for the asking. That give is the friendship of my best friend -- Jesus Christ. He took away my sin and guilt and gives me joy and peace. I serve him with loving obedience and find in Him my life, my hope, my everything!

and then it has a bible verse and another line or two about how this is the best thing the person who left the tract can do to say thank you to the one receiving it.

at first glance this one seems much nicer than the last one. none of that fire and brimstone type of outreach. (that's soo 1600's) but look a little deeper - the person straight up says that a 'small' tip is a great way to say thanks. so they think a larger tip isn't? or just that less money means they liked your service more? (remember, beth is a waitress...) honestly i think most people would disagree. a 'small' tip generally means they DIDN'T like the service you gave and are just leaving a tip cuz it's the right thing to do, not that they want to say thank you. a tip of 15% or more is what is generally considered a 'thank you.' especially since the VAST majority of a waitress' salary is made up of tips, n'est pas?
it also says that leaving this tract is the best way the person could say thank you. OK...show of hands: who out there really thinks a single sheet of paper 5" square saying basically "Jesus loves you" is the penultimate way to say thank you? even the tract AND a tip would be better. or if you don't want to leave a tip at all, what about actually TALKING to the person you're trying to outreach to? be interested in people. ska albums notwithstanding, quality really is job one - not quantity. and even if quantity really is job one, what good is it to tell someone Jesus loves them without giving them any help getting to know him? the closest comparison to handing out a tract is:

~you're walking down the sidewalk in town and someone with out of state plates drives up and asks you how to get to a store in town. you reply "go to the library. they have maps" and walk away.~

now, yes your response was slightly better than ignoring the person. and there very well may be maps at the library... but how can they even find that? telling a person to become a christian does no good without AT LEAST pointing them in the right direction to make that happen. it's much better to actually walk with them and HELP them on the way.

oh did you also notice that in the tract, when 'he' and 'him' referred to Jesus, sometimes it was in caps and sometimes not? inconsistency is dumb. just like misspelling. grr.

Because This is What I Do When I Get Bored...

yeah, exactly. i got bored so i made a blog.

well today at work i was outside moving a bench. a lady came up to where i was (at a door that is OBVIOUSLY closed off, even has a sign saying "use our new entrance" and has an arrow) trying to get into the store. i of course cordially told her she would have to use the main entrance and told her where it was. she looked affronted and told me that "this door says new entrance on it!" i really couldn't help myself and just looked at her and said "yes, it also has a big arrow pointing that way." why is it that people feel they absolutely must be as stupid as they can whenever they are in public? honestly, this wasn't nearly the worst i've seen at work. not even the worst this week. shouldn't this be a concern of the government? there's a war on terror, a war on drugs, a war on poverty, and probably quite a few more i can't think of but why not a war on stupidity? think about it... wouldn't it solve all the others as well?