JFlah's Blunders

So a few weeks ago my brother in law loaned me his copies of the books by S. Collins. Being an avid fan of Ted Dekker's Circle Trilogy and having heard from a friend that she couldn't read these books fast enough, I started reading the first book. I barely slept or ate. I was so enthralled... well, that's probably too strong a word because the books scared me. With the themes, the bloodshed and such the books would easily rate at the R level in my book. There was no open promiscuity, but the gory nature of the hunger games and the ages of the children involved in them... appalling, spellbinding. Several of the themes purported in the books made me pause to examine them closer simply because I know them to be wrong views of the world, but I can tell you this, I had a very hard time putting those books down. It's like when you come upon a gruesome car wreck and your eyes are glued to what's going on even though you know you'll have nightmares later about what yo...

I heard something I suspected was going on in the government yesterday on Point of View and it disturbed me and I have been thinking about it. Here's what I found out: The government spends $10 billion each day ($4 billion of which is borrowed every day ). That means the government adds billions to the national debt each day. Obama's plan plans to cut/save $2 billion per year . Beiner's plan would cut/save $7 billion per year. Unfortunately, he didn't mention his source, but I'm not the least bit surprised at those staggering figures. Both of those figures the tabled plans propose saving are less than what they're spending per day (one is less than what we're adding to the national debt each day) and yet President Obama is saying that he'll veto anything that comes across his desk (anything but his own rotten plan, of course). And his own plan would force us into a deeper, darker recession than what we're already in and make jobs even ha...

“He who wait for perfect horse have mighty long walk” - Cameron I thought for sure I’d abandoned even the idea of finding anyone, let alone a perfect someone to share my life with, but when I read that line, I laughed and identified. I’ve been reading a book that challenges me not to mope about being single, but to embrace this period of my life in such a way as to make it interesting enough to look forward to. In reading some of the passages, I’ve realized that I’ve put my life on hold and that I’ve not tried to figure out who I am, what I like and such. Generally speaking, I don’t like to focus on those kinds of things just because it seems selfish of me, but there isn’t anyone else in my life that will be hurt if I focus on figuring those things out. And there may never be someone and in more ways than one, I’m starting to get used to that idea. I mean, if I were married, the hair in the drain wouldn’t be just mine, and I’d have to worry about whether or not he’d be ok with each...

I just stumbled across Lost & Taken , a great free texture site - probably the best free texture site anywhere online today. For those of us who can't make our own textures, and or just simply need to find our "tools" online, that site is one to visit.

I didn’t mention this before, but last month when they were doing evaluations and such, John gave me a stellar report and they told me that they were going to give me a small one time raise. It won’t kick in till January, but I’m very glad to know that it’s on the table. When it started to sink in that God had handled it for me again, I really got tear-ed up. It’s so hard making ends meet. I’ve been staying with my parents some to keep my costs down, but I need my independence more now than ever, so things are tough. I’m looking forward to January so that maybe I’ll be able to breathe when I go to the grocery store, or when I want to give a little extra for this charity or that charity. He is not afraid of bad news; His heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. Psalm 112:7 (ESV)

David Gainous preached a sermon a few weeks ago with something he called 10.7.3.1 - it's the four things you need to know. Stanley Mearse, our Children's Minister, latched onto it and now we're in full blown 10.7.3.1 mode. I'm enjoying it. We've made little die-cut brochures, Andrew Macker, our new media guy, helped with a video and Stanley just finished the bulletin board. Stanley's 10.7.3.1 Bulletin Board 10 Commandments 7 Days of Creation 3 Letters of Salvation (ABC) 1 God I thought it was ingenious and was surprised that no one in the Christian community had put it together like that before. It's very edgy - Andrew chose the font we're using for it all ( Octin Prison Free from dafont.com ). I've really enjoyed working on the imagery. Stanley sent me a few stills from the video and I photoshop-ed in the prison photo height marks before bringing them into the brochure document. His bulletin board looks great. He's got some of those...

   You know, I got this nice new computer – it runs the best of what the PC community has to offer, but the office Xerox isn’t playing nice. I’ve wasted so much time researching, sending Xerox inquiries and wasted lots of paper and energy trying to figure out why this PC is not working well with the Xerox. It works fine with every other printer in the office, but not with the one I need the most.   I’m running Windows 7 on a 64-bit machine. I’m using publisher, photoshop and other such programs. I had our computer tech guys install the drivers I needed when the new computer got here and then last week I had a Xerox guy come and install another driver to fix something, but I’m still having troubles – different troubles than before.   At this moment, the jobs I’m sending are simply not getting to the printer. I have network and internet access, so I’m not sure why my job isn’t showing up over there. And on top of that, somehow it’s coding a job that would normal...

I'm so tired of hearing about how politicians need to "compromise" and do what that particular politician wants them to do. I'm tired of those same politicians saying that there needs to be tolerance when they're the most intolerant people in the universe. This debt problem that our government has is a ridiculous problem. Anyone in his or her right mind wouldn't purposely spend more than they took in OR pay $1400 for a hammer that cost $8.50 at the hardware store OR award billions of dollars (they'd have to borrow from a foreign country) to someone to study the effects of methane on ants or some other foolish thing. If I could speak with the leaders in congress and the house right now, and knew that what I said would make a dent in their stiff-necked stances, I'd let them know in no uncertain terms that they were all fired and that we're starting over. Pay off the debt we have so we won't be in such a bind, get rid of welfare (cause since t...

I've been seriously considering putting some effort into finding freelance jobs. In researching and looking for basic contracts and such I happend upon an article on the AIGA website about copyright. The author, Brad Holland, wrote the article in 2005 but it felt like it could've been written yesterday since the statements he made were so spot on for today. The article was super intersting and I agreed whole-heartedly with it's statements. Here's a snip from the end of it that really brought things home: The principles of building construction are a collective body of wisdom accumulated over the ages. This information is available to everyone, as are building supplies to anyone who can afford them. Yet, the house you build or buy is yours and your heirs. Your debt to the fair use of public information does not obligate you to inhabit your home under a limited government grant, then surrender it back to the public at the end of that term. Let the Copy Left expla...

Passed out last night - always wondered what that would feel like. I never want to do that again. It wasn't much fun. My parents came and picked me up - took me to the "ER". I got my first EKG and now am toting around one of those annoying ECG machines. Thankfully, I only have to wear it for 24 hours. The doctor told me to take it super easy for the next three days. I'm glad that most of the crazy busy stuff at work happened last week. While we were there, I sent a text to my boss that told him I was in the "er". My parents and I laughed about it. It's like the land of Ur but... not. Guess you had to be there, huh? I've got a few bruises but I think things are fine. I'm finally starting to feel like myself again. I still have no idea what happened or what caused that spell and pray that I never have another. It really took it out of me. After it kinda passed and I managed to get back into the bed, I thought how rough that would be on my fam...

You know, for years I’ve prayed that God would increase my faith and help me trust Him more each day. I just realized He’s doing it! When I moved back here from Vidalia and through everything – my heart getting broken for the first time, losing that job I moved back for, breaking my leg, being unemployed, all that struggle to make ends meet while continuing to work as if God was my “boss”… Well, quite often in the last several months I have been noticing more and more how much God’s been taking care of me in “little” ways. Like, I will have absolutely nothing edible in the house and someone will ask me to dinner, pick up the tab for lunch or whatever. And when I thought the clothes I had were about to absolutely fall apart, God sent some nice hand-me-down clothes that have a lot of wear left in them. He’s been encouraging me through it all. No matter how lonely I feel, I know that He is with me no matter what and somehow knowing that helps me endure. And, this last week God granted m...

I’ve been reading a lot and noticing some stuff here lately. You’re probably wondering what kind of “stuff” I’m talking about. Well, I’m writing about how eastern philosophy has infiltrated American society. Hollywood is full of movies that tout that humans are basically good and that if they try hard enough they can do anything they want, even be their own god. It’s the idea that nearly every Disney movie I’ve seen is saturated with and is why those movies bother me. What’ve I been reading that’s stirred me up? It’s a few books by Ray Yungen. The one I’m reading now is called A Time of Departing . And I read Warren Smith’s autobiography, The Light that was Dark in conjunction with the Yungen books. They’re all quick reads – maybe because they’re so interesting. But I’ve been noticing the “New Age” themes in movies and such for years, but now that stuff has a name and I know exactly what it is and where it is coming from. It’s more than a little disturbing when I start considering a...

I don't get to hang around too many designers... well, actually, I don't get to hang around any designers, but for those of you who are designers, have you noticed that when you're stressed and pressed for time that you come up with your best (and worst) work? Last week one of the million bosses around work asked if I'd help layout a 30-something page brochure for the centennial celebration. They didn't have everything together at that time, but I said I would help because I knew that they needed it and I want to keep my design muscles moving. I was already prepping for three weeks in advance because my immediate supervisor was getting ready to leave the country at the end of the week so I knew it was going to be stressful. Well, I got a peek at the basic "this is what I want" stuff on Tuesday, but didn't get any real details till Thursday afternoon. I worked as hard and as fast as I could, attempting to keep up with my regular duties and get that ...

I took a few days off at the beginning of the year, painted my kitchen cabinets and soaked myself in Louis L'Amour books. I listened to some of his books in audio form as I painted, and then I read several of them before going back to work. One that really stuck with me was "Riley's Luck". It was difficult to get settled into the story because of the names. Two characters at the very beginning had three letter names that began with "V". The main character was "Val" and the other character's name was "Van". Yeah - so one letter difference wasn't enough for me, but a few pages in, I got used to it and the story started to flesh out. When I got done reading, I felt like writing again. It's been so long since I wrote anything new. Last year I edited and added to CoR, let a few people read it and give me ideas. It was nice to get some constructive feedback, but after all of that, and all the thinking and planning for that story...