When Debbie and I broke up - she told me to listen to a song by Garth Brooks, called Unanswered Prayers. I revisited those lyrics today and I just wanted to put them up for thought:

Just the other night a hometown football game My wife nd I ran into my old high school flame And as I introduced them the past came back to me And I couldn't help but think of the way things used to be She was the one that I'd wanted for all times And each night I'd spend prayin' that God would make her mine And if he'd only grant me this wish I wished back then I'd never ask for anything again Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers Remember when you're talkin' to the man upstairs That just because he doesn't answer doesn't mean he don't care Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers She wasn't quite the angel that I remembered in my dreams And I could tell that time had changed me Inn her eyes too it seemed We tried to talk about the old days There wasn't much we could recall I guess the Lord knows what he's doin' after all And as she walked away and I looked at my wife And then and there I thanked the good Lord For the gifts in my life Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers Remember when you're talkin' to the man upstairs That just because he may not answer doesn't mean he don't care Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers Some of God's greatest gifts are all too often unanswered... Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers

This isn't a deeply expressive song about the way I feel right now, or anything profound like that. Just something interesting. Emotions are squirrelly and psycotic. Lots of people have that thing in their info: "Love like you've never been hurt before." Pshaw. I think hurt can be a necessary part of life - through it, we learn how to not be so reckless and to guard our hearts (when it comes to romantic relationships). Because I believe pursuing a romantic relationship with just anyone can be quite dangerous. Of course, there are the days of old when people got married when they were, what, 13 years old? Perhaps that's the way to go. Get hitched while you're uber-young, then you're in for the long haul. It seems perhaps people didn't do so much "shopping." List of requirements kind of crap. OK, since this is my blogspot, I'll rant if I want to. What makes me ill is people who say, "oh my future husband (or wife) must be funny, successful, nice, rich, etc etc etc." Hello, you're setting yourself up for failure. To pin your hopes on and to place expectations on other people is just ... I dunno. Not cool.

The last two days, I've been getting my feet wet with some JavaScript/DHTML stuff. Wow, the web standards have progressed very far. I'm so impressed with the amount of things that can be done with JS, CSS, DHTML, etc. Lots of acronyms. Really amazing, almost anything is possible now, as far as a UI standpoint.

Observation: Quite often, on a three lane freeway, the slowest people are also in the middle lane. Why? I'm not trying to play psychologist here or anything (well actually I am) and perhaps there's some very simple traffic related explanation for this behavior, but this is what occured to me when I noticed this phenomenon. The middle lane represents a source of comfort. Although there's cars all around - to the left - to the right - still, the middle lane has the least risk of falling off course. The opposite phenomenon is driving on a freeway in which there is no shoulder in the left lane - only a concrete barrier (a la I-10 in the past). That is really unnerving, one wrong move and its smash city. Consistent with the security and comfort of the middle lane is the speed by which the drivers drive - a cautious safe speed. On the other hand, the left lane is for bookin it, and the rightmost lane is for those people who think the left lane is moving too slow. That's all I have to say about this. Bye.

Vincent, your uncle has an excellent grasp of the substance of faith in his newsletter, the Elijah Challenge. Let me post it here for you: DO YOU TALK TO TREES? (Jesus did.) In last week's Herald we saw that Jesus spoke in some anger to a tree, something that most of us would not normally do. The question we pose is: did Jesus actually expect the tree to "hear" and obey Him? The answer every believer knows is yes. But most of us do not know the great ramifications this has for us as followers of Christ, for Scripture says that His followers will do the works that He did. We invite you to read on... JESUS’ SECRET Mark 11:14 Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it. …20 In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Indeed, the fig tree “heard” his words, and obeyed him as it withered from the roots. Due to this incident we see that “speaking to a mountain” might not be quite as metaphoric as it first appears to be. 21 Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!” Peter’s response was likely due to curiosity as much as it was due to amazement at the miracle. Inasmuch as he had a tendency to imitate Jesus---for example, he tried to walk on water---he may have wanted to understand how Jesus accomplished such a feat. Perhaps Peter could learn to do the same. 22 “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. According to the original Greek, Jesus literally said, “have the faith of God.” Let us assume that this strange choice of wording was not because of Mark’s lack of facility in the Greek language, but rather because this is exactly what Jesus wanted to teach. (This assumption, however, is not crucial to the teaching.) What exactly is the “faith of God?” Does God indeed have faith? To answer this, let’s continue with Jesus’ teaching. 23 “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Jesus proceeds to teach about speaking to a mountain. What follows is evidently a teaching about none other than mountain-moving faith: if someone commands a mountain to move, and has absolutely no doubt that the mountain will obey him and fully believes that his command will be obeyed, it will be done for him. This is the operational definition of mountain-moving faith. This is functionally equivalent to the “faith of God.” For example, can God move a mountain? Yes, of course. How might He accomplish it? He might do it by natural or human means (for example by detonation of powerful explosives), or He might do it supernaturally. If supernaturally, how might He move the mountain? Most believers would agree that He could speak to the mountain and command it to move, and of course the mountain would obey the command and move. Now, how would God speak to the mountain? When He speaks, would he entertain some doubt that the mountain would move? Might He wonder, if even momentarily, whether the mountain would actually move? Conversely, would he be completely confident and one hundred percent assured that what He said to the mountain would come to pass? The answers are of course obvious. No, God does not doubt or wonder when He gives a command. He knows who He is. As God Almighty, He has all authority, and therefore, whatsoever He commands must be done. This is the “faith of God.” When God said, “Let there be light,” he had no doubt whatsoever as to the outcome. He was God, and the light would obey, and appear. This is the “faith of God,” this is mountain-moving faith. When Jesus spoke, whether to a fig tree or a dead Lazarus or a demon or a disease, he also spoke with the “faith of God,” not doubting that what he spoke would be obeyed. Because His Father had given him all authority, he spoke and commanded with complete assurance and confidence. Authority from the Father combined with mountain-moving faith produced the miracles in the ministry of Jesus Christ. The disciples had also received a measure of authority over demons and disease from Jesus. But they failed to combine their authority with mountain-moving faith when they confronted the demon, so it did not budge. This is the faith the disciples lacked as they commanded the demon. They wavered, they were not confident the demon had to come out. The bottom line is they did not believe they had authority from Jesus over demons. If they did, they would not have doubted. We must have mountain-moving faith (the ‘faith of God’) if we are going to minister healing to the sick and cast out demons for the advancement of the Kingdom of God---for souls to receive the gospel. This ‘faith of God’ is based on the word of God which tells us that Christ has given us a measure of authority for the sake of the gospel. This is not “faith in our faith.” We speak with authority over demons that oppress people because Scripture says we have been given that authority. God does not doubt when He issues a command, for He knows His authority as God; all things must obey Him. This is the “faith of God.” We also have a measure of authority over disease and demons given to us by Jesus, and we must not doubt that they will obey us when we command them to leave. This is the “faith of God” that releases the power and anointing to accomplish the miracle for the sake of the gospel. If we want to see miraculous healings as ministers of the gospel, we must understand what authority we have in Christ, and then speak forth with that authority. It is one thing to know we have some authority over demons and disease, it is another thing to actually speak to them with that authority. Christ has given us a measure of his authority for the sake of the gospel. But for the power to be manifest, we must speak to demons and disease with the ”faith of God,” without doubting that they will obey our command in Jesus’ name. What is the difference between "faith in God" and the "faith of God?" In the next issue of the Elijah Challenge Herald, we will answer this important question.

A quick update: 1) Ordered an 80gig harddrive from, of all places, Dell. Yeah, I feel like I'm sleeping with the enemy. 2) Ordered a handful of books from Amazon. Wild at Heart, and some books about spiritual disciplines and devotions. Looking forward to reading these. 3) Went to glitter karaoke for the first time today. Quite an interesting night. Many of my friends are getting well into their twenties. I just wanted to post the lyrics to an old song by mr Lionel Richie I heard this evening:

Hello, is it me you're looking for? 'Cause I wonder where you are And I wonder what you do Are you somewhere feeling lonely, or is someone loving you? Tell me how to win your heart For I haven't got a clue But let me start by saying .... I love you

4) Life ... is pretty interesting. ta ta.

It's one of those days. Work feels like school all over again. Sitting in class .. bored to the point of tears. Wishing and hoping for some sort of deliverance. Not wanting to live if the rest of life is like this. Well. Maybe not that bad. Yeah. That bad. I discovered that I have an installation of Blackbox on my Linux machine, and I fired it up. Man, I'm afraid of what's happening to me. I'm becoming one of those weird Linux people. This is fun. Their (Blackbox) philosophy is based on minimalism. You say, what in the world could be fun about minimalism? Yeah, I'd like a slice of bread and a glass of water, GOSH THIS IS UNRESTRAINED LEAKING OUT OF PORES FUN HELP ME. Well it is fun. Not in the bread and water way, but in the sense of - this is like a purebred sports car, ready to be tweaked, sleek like a cheetah, 0.2% body fat, whoa mama get me behind the wheel. What have I become?? Goodbye Internet Explorer. Goodbye Windows. It was nice while it lasted, but I think we should just be friends, k thx bye.

Oh gosh, I really love stories. So, I'm gonna share two that I read at the Ars Technica forums. These are by a guy named Jesus (haysoos, from Argentina). A True Story Of Cowardice: Me and my 3 best friends. We were 12-13 years old, all of us. Sometimes, when his schedule permitted it, my dad used to take us all on saturdays to go do something fun, somewhere. Maybe one day it was to the movies, another to the arcade, etc... That saturday, however, we went to a park to just hang around, do the stuff that we did and play the games that we played. There was *nobody* around. Just us 4. We were just walking around, when after a turn on the path we were walking, like 50 feet away from us we see 3 guys walking towards us. Older than us, but not much. Probably 15-16. We keep walking. They keep walking. Turns out that they were not walking towards us, they were walking to us, and we didn't realize that until they were on our faces (we were caught in our conversation or something). We we forming a line, they were forming a line. Once they got close enough, they proceed with the classical "grab by the lapels", and they "asked" for our jackets and pretty much whatever of value we had on ourselves. However, they were 3 and we were 4. Which means, there was one of that wasn't covered nor grabbed. That'd be me. When the two lines met, I was completely clear. My first instinct was to turn around and run like hell... and I never had a second instinct. I turned around and ran. I pretty much ran till the other end of the park (probably a distance of 3-4 city blocks). And I left my friends there. Without having any other thought than saving my ass, I just left them there and ran. When I stopped running, and after catching my breath, I started walking back trying to find them. Eventually I did. They were completely unharmed... the other guys just took their jackets and that was it. No fights, no nothing. My friends all understood what I did, and they told me that If they were in my place, probably they would've ran away like I did. But, to this day, I still keep kicking myself in the ass (figuratively) for not staying with them. cowardly, trying to save my own neck, I left them there. And to this day, I can't forgive myself. Maybe it's stupid. You could say that I was still very young and my reaction was understandable. And I agree somewhat. I understand my reaction, but I don't approve it. That day, I was a coward. Even for 2 or 3 minutes, but I was. That taught me a lesson allright... never, ever, leave your friends hanging again. And in the future, I'm proud to say that I never did. No matter what. A Fun True Story: Same group of friends (needless to say, you realize at this point that we did everything together). I can't remember if we were younger or older than in the previous story, but what I can remember is that all four of us were crazy, deranged, ultimate fanboys of Robotech (the anime, for the uninitiated). We "role played" Robotech at school, at home, when we met... it was our game and our source of fun. So when in one of these "boys' afternoons out" that my dad used to organize, of course, we were roleplaying Robotech too. We ended up that day going to eat pizza at one of those crummy, run down places that my dad used to know... that happened to serve one of the cheapest, best pizzas in town (those places that fathers know of... ). It was a pretty crummy place... so crummy, that the restrooms didn't have toilet bowls. The men's room in that place was a couple of urinals and the divided compartments, for when you had to go do #2. But, without toilet bowls. It was just the compartments... and a hole in the floor. So, we were role playing Robotech, and apparently the RDF High Command decided to charge our squad with a mission of utmost importance for the future of humanity: To assault and retake the men's room, that was overtaken by Zentraedi forces. Our squad, never to be seen fleeing in the face of danger, accepted gladly. The men's room was in a kinda secluded part of the pizza place, away from the activity of waiters and tables, so that gave us enough room to 'perform'. And 'perform' we did... The squad leader (my friend Cristian) kicked the men's room door, with his 'weapon' ready in his hand. Then we followed him promptly. The men's room was as silent as a derelict space ship. Not a sound could be heard (but many aromas could be smelled). Upon arrival, we discovered that all the doors to the compartments were closed. Obviously, the Zentraedi treachery knew no bounds. So we decided to 'liberate' the prisoners trapped inside the deadly Zentraedi 'compartments'. I was #2, so it was my turn to act. Not to be overshadowed by my squad leader, I faced the compartment door and kicked it open..... *BLAMMM*... it was empty. Our #3, Gonzalo, imitated the procedure to perfection (we were a very tight squad after all).... kicking the door... *BLAMMM*. And it was empty too. Finally, our friend Mats (a talented Veritech pilot, but sort of a hothead), had his turn to show his prowess. And he did. With sheer determination in his face, he turned to the door and yelled to the top of his lungs "FOR EARTH!!!!!". And then he kicked it open... *BLAMMM* *THUDD* *SPLOSH*... Why so many noises? I explain... The compartment wasn't empty. Apparently one of the 'prisoners' was in there, relieving himself. When suddenly, the door was kicked (*BLAMMM*), hitting him in the back (*THUDD*) and destabilizing him enough so he had to put a foot forward to avoid falling down (*SPLOSH*... and I leave to your imagination to come up with the picture that results from the equation 'hole on the floor' + 'foot' + '*SPLOSH*'... ) Needless to say, we evacuated promptly the Zentraedi trap and returned to our Base/Table. A couple of minutes later, the prisoner emerged from the men's room, looking none too pleased, and with a gigantic wet stain on his pants that went from the shoe of his right leg, up until the middle of his thigh. And smelling like shit. Literally. After that, we decided to 'tone down' our assaults. I can almost see the poor guy in my head, peeing there... minding his own business when suddenly, from the inside of his compartment, he hears a loud kick in the door... the sound of a lot of steps... then a louder kick in a compartment door... , then the sound of a much closer kick... then somebody yelling VERY LOUDLY "FOR EARTH!!!!", followed by the final, fateful kick. If that doesn't break a man, nothing will.(*) Peace... (*): Well, maybe getting hit on your back in mid-urination by a swinging door that's been kicked open and lodging your leg into a hole full of urine and feces will break ya too...

Last week, I upgraded my Linux box (at work) from KDE 2.2 to 3.0. I'm very impressed. I must say, Linux is really getting ready for prime-time as far as competing in the Windows space. I mean, for most of the Linux purists, all this KDE/Gnome stuff is too "bloated." But personally, that's what I like about where Linux has come - it has something for (almost) everyone. Don't need a GUI? Fine, don't load one. Need a GUI, but a nice slim one? Fine, use BlackBox or whatever. It's great. ;-) Unfortunately I don't have enough hard drive space at home, but I'm thinkin about getting another HD to dual boot the machine at home. Using Linux makes me feel l33t.

(entry not written by me. comments made do not reflect some sort of hidden agenda. this is just something of interest. k thx bye) This is a indie-flavah film currently released in theatres across the country. Not in Houston apparently. Better Luck Tomorrow

Better Luck Tomorrow is a visually frenetic, stylish and intellectually driven drama about a group of overzealous Asian American youth whose lives intertwine as they transform from school nerds to sociopaths. Better Luck Tomorrow explores the psyches of young Asian American youth of the Post Generation X era who seek to carve their own identities in communities that prefer to compartmentalize them. The representations of Asian Americans in film as well as stereotypes in reality have always polarized Asian Americans as model minority or violent gangster. These suffocating roles have left no choices in between for young Asian Americans to aspire to while holding onto their shifting and ever-changing cultural identity. Better Luck Tomorrow is neither restrained nor quiet, but very much loud, rude, controversial and non-apologetic. It will outrage many and prompt audiences to think. The film aggressively resists and defies all definitions and stereotypes of the Asian American film genre. The story of Better Luck Tomorrow is extremely relevant as we increasingly hear about violent eruptions by teenagers in quiet, suburban communities. It examines one specific instance of angst turned to violence, but exemplifies the larger issue of teen violence plaguing the country. This story is timely, important and must be told now.

only a novice diving into immense depths a guide to haiku vincent do you know about the wonders of haiku its the bomb fo sho cong leaves work early going to hit some golf balls with seven iron form of poetry so insanely addictive try it never stop lord you have my heart nailed to a tree king of jews love flows down to me my God i hope you like my haiku may it be pleasing in your sight web log web log blog with hyperlinks and haiku? thats just crazy stuff seven o'clock test bad bad bad bad don't like test but Jesus will help ninety nine pounds strong oh gosh stomach is so full of crawfish must puke

jason yeh is thin funny spiky hair stands tall likes to watch the rock entertaining thing to write haiku all day long feel like a poet just wanted to share haiku fun with you jason hope you enjoy it

haiku is so fun can't contain my excitement you don't understand man people don't know haiku rocks the universe they go on with life have you tried before haiku that is this great thing its better than steak charles wants to know how do people write software i said c++

claire is a riot her name is five letters long just one syllable there was a girl named claire a strange one indeedy but funny and smart peggy woke early a phone call from teresa had great time with God asian chucky sent a wicked webpage to me closed my aim down fast aim transparency mys'try of the universe strange perplexing wow C++ is cool functions polymorphism inheritance yeah!

ninjas kicking butt flying killing machines, yes slicing fools in half

What a great idea! Today, I'm going to write haiku. mailbox standing tall majestic royal noble car flattens you flat

Today is one of them crazy days. Per a conversation last night, I had an idea this morning randomly. Check out the email I sent to my group: From: Chu, Eric Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 9:24 AM Subject: If this whole HP thing messes up I have a backup plan. This is my Plan™: I'm gonna take over the world, and this is how I'm gonna do it. Shhh, it's a secret plan, so don't tell anyone. I'm going to open up a coffee shop. And even though coffee costs, oh, 2¢ to brew, I'll charge three dollars and fifty seven cents per cup, yes, and people will buy it. Then, I'll systematically go through the malls across America, and close every single store in the mall to make them into coffee shops. So people will go to the mall so they can choose from my coffee shop or my coffee shop. And gas stations - after the malls will be the gas stations because gas is getting too expensive these days anyways. $1.50 a gallon (or 3.785 litres), pshaw, i'd rather have 15 gallons (or 56.775 litres) of coffee for three fifty seven (or $3.57) a gallon (or 3.785 litres) thank you very much, or if you're Jason Junkin you'll probably need closer to forty gallons (or 151.4 litres) but I digress. Anyways, the donut fund is a bit short on money, in fact, we have exactly fifty one cents (51¢ or $0.51), which is not even enough to buy a cup of my coffee, if this whole HP thing messes up. Question: are you guys satisfied, I mean really satisfied, not just a polite smile on your face satisfied, but to the very depths and recesses of your soul? About the donuts I mean. The formula is one dozen kolaches (half jala), one dozen donuts (assorted). But you know what they say about formulas. If you didn't know, the donuts are from my friend's donut shop (entrepreneurial spirit, that boy). They do have other food products available, and if you guys want to work some variety (at a foodservice level) into our Monday morning meetings (wonderful questions by the way, Bruce! ;-) Thanks for the trivia entertainment). I think that can be accommodated. Take a look at the website: (or if you want to get straight to it, here's their menu ) and then let me know if you wanna keep with the current formula, stop The Donut Flow™ altogether, or spice things up a bit (or add some variety). I need some feedback, ladies and gents who partake of the donuts in the morning, don't leave me hanging or I'll really regret writing something this ludicrous (or dumb) and then the silence is deafening, except for the chirping of the crickets, which makes me really nervous (or self-conscious). Maybe we can go with the fruit kolaches one morning? Or perhaps the fruit turnovers? How about croissants (mmm croissants)?? Thanks, Eric (nervously awaiting feedback, oh and money) Disclaimer: No refunds will be given for time wasted reading this drivel. May you guys code like crazy men (and woman) today and audit and manage like never before. Peace out.