December 2005 Archives
Jason went camping yesterday so I was at home alone all night. So how do I take advantage of that? Obvious! I play WoW til 1am! I actually did not intend to stay up that late - but I ended up with a really good group running BRD. Finally I'd died so many times (we started with 2 priests, but one bailed, so our remaining priest was having a hard time healing the tanks as well as me all the time) that by 12:50am my armor was red, and I could barely keep my eyes open anyway.
Needless to say, after waking up at 7am, I'm draggin' today. I only have a couple things to do at the office thankfully (for those who haven't been keeping up, the office is closed, but I'm here with work crews, working on various build-out tasks). To keep myself awake I rode the motorcycle in today. Well, plus it's Friday, it's not too cold, and Fri afternoon traffic is a PITA; bike makes it a little easier (and the traffic has been pretty heinous lately!)
Watched a couple movies tonight. Neither which I've seen in a long while - both with strong religious tones. A line from the first "The Kingdom of God is within us all..." Something that I still fear much of organized churches (the establishments) fear. I recall the struggle with my mother over the last few years over my being gay. Her religious stance. I have even spent a good deal of time lately pondering the things God gave to us on this earth. The greatest of which is free will. And forgive me if my thoughts are a bit disjoint - I hope to do them justice by the end of this. God gave us the freedom, and responsibility, to chose. Chose Him, or not. Certainly it was and is within His power to demand our loyalty, our obedience, our worship. But that is not what He wanted from us. He trusted in us so much that He let us have the power to chose to believe and worship Him, or not. I still maintain that so many organized churches struggle to maintain control by growing their populations - which feed the coffers, keep staff employeed, and in the end breed power struggles.
Even so, we have the power, the duty, the obligation to decide what we believe. Jesus is love, and love is personal. I don't want to launch into the on-going paper/debate/whatever-you-call-it (currently at 12 pages I believe). But the point I'm trying to circle in towards is that I see too many religious people be closed minded. They've decided that they cannot question their faith, their beliefs. I say that you MUST question them. It's much like that saying, "if you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?" If your faith is not strong enough to stand up to questioning - do you really have faith, or are you just blindly following someone else? I question what I believe all the time. And yet through everything I've been through, my faith remains strong. I know what I believe in, and I'm always willing to debate and discuss it, without fear. Subtlies may change over time (for example my stance on churches) - but my faith in the Lord, my faith that I'm doing what God wants me to do, does not waiver. My fear is that those who still cling to Old Testament structure for select criteria are blinded. They've been told over the years that homosexuality is wrong, it's a sin, period end of story. And, like my mother, cannot see beyond that, cannot question that, cannot even consider the arguments. But, as I said, I'm not going to re-write my disseration here.
The second movie I watched this evening, I have not been able to watch since I saw it in the theatre (on opening day) - Later Day. It pulls such a strong emotional response from me I cried (again!) at the end. It is, perhaps, the worst possible outcome of what my family could attempt - though they're not mormon, so would not go to that extreme - but just the general turning of their backs - it would be crushing. That's what I fear. Tho I have to admit I sometimes wonder if my mom's resurrgence into Bible study and the chuch is not because of finding out about me. The timing is, shall we say, strangely ironic. My brother still has not offered an opinion (even when I've passively prompted for it)-- which leaves me inconclusive there. My mother's feelings are quite strong - which means that part of my life (no matter the extreme joys or the depths of heartache) will remain closed to her. And that hurts. It really does mean I cannot depend on my family in those regards - and those regards are perhaps the most difficult (emotions, heartache, joy, happiness) the most difficult for me to deal with in life. I never have been good at 'em.
It's been a strong night. I almost said "rough" - but you know, that would imply a negative reaction. My life has improved ten-fold over the last 18 months. Soon it will be 2 yrs - and then 3, and then 5. My future is strong, my faith is strong. I have to be willing to recognize when I am stepping beyond my means, beyond where I should be going - and in keeping with God's plan, with doing what's right, my happiness will continue to grow in ways I could never imagine - already I say almost every day that I never thought it would be this good!
That last week or so I've been working on a project. How do I setup an Asterisk PBX server to talk to the Avaya Definity (G3csi) I have (at my office). I've been watching VoIP (Voice over IP) for several years, looking for it to mature, be "production ready." I think the tech is there. Asterisk, as a VoIP PBX server/switch, has gone a long way to making it happen!
Bottom line - I got it working! I needed a little help on the Definity side (thanks to NetCentra (our telecom vendor @ work). That Asterisk side was actually incredibly simple! So I've documented, step-by-step, what I did. Two reasons: 1) I can do it again if need be (Diaster Recovery, anyone?) - and 2) so others may find this, and I hope it helps them out! Needless to say that the docs on the web about Definity+Asterisk are light & weak.
It's that time of year. Winter. Which, of course, is quite relative. But it means it's time for our heating system to go on the fritz! :) Waking up with stiff jaw, stiff shoulders, aching back - because I've been cold at night, tensing up, trying to keep warm. Eh. The cool thing is that the repair guy is coming in an hour to fix it. They've already been out once or twice, thinking it was something simple, or inside the apartment - nope. It's apparently something a bit more "major" and the manager has had to call in a full-on repair guy (apparently). Warmth will be coming soon! :) Til then I have my sweats and my hush-puppy slippers (which as "loud" red as they are (UNLV colors) are amazingly warm!!)
After that, then I need to get a new PC Microphone (my old one isn't working), and find somewhere to find boxes of Christmas cards. Why can't I figure out where to get them? I think in the past I'd just goto a mall (eg back in TX) and find a hallmark store. Here there are just mostly shopping centers, and not the frequency or availability of Hallmark stores. The nearest full-on mall from here is the big mall in Santa Anita.
Enough rambling for now. Cheers!
