Tech

I think a lot about technology. It probably consumes me and I shouldn't let it. I enjoy it, though. I always have. I got my first computer when I was in the 10th or 11th grade. It was a Windows 95 machine with a 56k modem. I had Netzero internet and I checked music websites, chatted with my friends in chatrooms and I downloaded music from Audiogalaxy. My computer was too slow to play any video games, but a flame was lit there. A flame was lit even before that, but that was the first computer that was mine. I enjoyed the heck out of it.

I've never been exceptionally smart about hardware or software. I mean, I can build a computer from a kit if I really wanted to. I can navigate software with ease, but I would never dream of writing code. I just enjoy computers.

Today, I interact with two computers all the time: my Motorola Droid Turbo and my Moto 360. Less frequently, I have an Acer C710 Chromebook that I am typing on right now. I'm a basic user. I don't use my computers for anything specialized, like recording music, or video and audio editing. I mean, I'll use some apps like VSCO cam and Snapseed to edit photos, but nothing intense. The Google products work for me. I use Google Music All Access for music, I use Netflix and Hulu... Pretty boring stuff. I really don't know why I'm writing about this right now. I guess I have a little more time on my hands today than I thought...

I enjoy my Turbo a lot. The build and the design isn't excellent. I think I would prefer an iPhone in that area. iPhone always wins beauty pageant in my opinion. But, the turbo is okay. I have the "ballistic nylon" model. The front face is all glass and the back is just a nylon material. It's not super thin, but it does have a huge battery and I imagine it is challenging to make a thin phone and finding where to put the battery. Screen quality is amazing. It's bright and crisp. One of my favorite features of the phone is the camera, however. It takes great pictures. I probably use the camera more than any other feature on the phone. So, it's been a good phone.

The Moto 360 has been fun. I've always worn watches, usually a Timex or Casio, so when Android Wear came out, I knew I wanted a smartwatch. I started out with the LG G Watch. I then moved on to the 360. I've been pleased and displeased with the device. The circular design is great. The entire circle isn't illuminated. There's a little edge on the bottom of the display that is just black. I imagine it's just connections... I don't know. It has a leather band and a button on the side. Android Wear is okay. It basically just shows my notifications on my wrist. I can reply to text messages via a voice response. I can't really reply to facebook, twitter or any other social media. I can compose an email. I can control Google Music, Netflix and Hulu. It's convenient, I guess. I wouldn't say it's needed by any means, but it's cool. Everything is voice opperated... So if I'm cooking and I need to set a timer, I can say, "okay, google. Set a timer for 25 minutes.". Or if I'm riding my bike and I have my ear buds in, I can place a call by saying "okay, google. call so and so". Or "..text so and so". You get the point. It's cool, but not a necessity for my life.

I do have to charge the darn thing every day and sometimes twice a day. But there are more important things in life. This is a luxury item and my life doesn't end if my smartwatch battery dies. I don't die if my technology dies. haha!

Then there's my Chromebook. This is the least expensive of all my devices. I think it was like $180 or whatever. It has a small display for laptops, and it's not supper high resolution... (gasp) I can see pixels. Battery is okay, it'll last half a day with heavy use. It's not the lightest, or best built. It's built of plastic. Typing is okay. I don't feel hindered when I type. So, it's good. What's really cool is that it's built on the cloud. A lot of people don't quite get the idea. It has a very small hard disk, like 8 or 16 GB. When you save something, it's on Google Drive. I think when Lindsey bought this chromebook for me it came with 100 GB for free for a year. All your stuff is on Drive. This is awesome because if I lose my Chrombook I'm out $180, but all my data is safe on Drive. So, that's cool.

There's not much in the way of apps, or programs. Any sort of app would be found in the Chrome Web Store. Most of the apps are browser based apps, and are just links to websites. There are some apps that can be run on the computer itself and there are even two or three Android apps you can install on it.

Word processing is great. Google Docs has really made some improvements. I can write a paper or compose something and it's always saved and accessible from my phone or other computers. If I need to send a document to someone and they have Windows or Mac, I can save the document as a .docx and send it that way. Docs is always improving too.

Chromebook has been great. My next computer will probably be a Chromebook. I'm thinking about Pixel, but I'll probably never pull the trigger. It's too expensive. I've also considered the new Macbook but I'll probably not get that for the same reason.

If you're still with me, you're just as bored as I am right now. This has been a waste of time for me, I hope it's wasted your time too.

Merry Christmas!

Matthew 1-2

Merry Christmas! That's what I think about when I read the opening chapters of Matthew. I thought it would be good to get into the Gospels. I haven't read them in a long while. I really don't read much of the Bible... at least I don't think I do. I try to find a book of the Bible and dig as much as I can into it. Life throws a ton at me though and I am terrible at time management. I really don't think I read the Bible that much.

Anyway, I hope to change that. I want to study the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I was reminded of the Gospels last night while I was listening to The Bad Christian Podcast. It was a theological debate of the inerrancy of the Bible. They spoke a bit of the last chapter of Mark and how it's likely that it was added after the original book was written. The podcast was really interesting, I think it was episode 102 if you want to check it out.

But yeah, Christmas. Chapter 1 begins with genealogy, which is fantastically captivating. I'm being sarcastic. A real snooze-fest. This time it was a little more interesting than the last time I read it. First, I listened to this chapter in the form of audio book on my way to work one day, so I had a better understanding on pronunciation of names. Second, Ruth caught my attention this time. Only because I read through Ruth and studied it a bit a few months back. I even wrote a blog. Surprise. Ruth was a beggar but she found herself in the lineage of royalty with King David, and eventually Jesus. It's so cool to me that God uses people who are in the lower end of societies.

I also noticed that the linage follows males here and it leads to Joseph, who was only the husband of Mary who had Jesus. But, Joseph and Mary didn't conceive Jesus. Mary conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Okay, there's a lot of weirdness here. Why is it important that the lineage ends with Joseph when Joseph didn't have any biological relation to Jesus? Then there's Mary conceiving by the Holy Spirit. Let's talk birds and bees. When a man and a woman love each other, they buy a bottle of champagne, they rent a cabin in the woods, they start a fire, have a nice candlelit dinner, they skip dinner, drink the champagne and go at it.

Mary was different. She conceived by the Holy Spirit. This makes no sense to me. It was a miracle. There was no father's sperm to fertilize her egg. There was just a baby. And his name was Jesus.

I don't see miracles today. Some people say that having a baby is a miracle. I disagree. All mammals mate. There's sperm, there's an egg and there's a birth. The baby develops in its mother's womb and is born. This is how it works with mammals. (Except for the weird-ass mammals in Australia where mothers give birth to an egg, or an underdeveloped fetus that crawls into a pouch to continue development.) So, a miracle. I can't believe it. I mean, I do. But I can't. According to the commentary in my Bible, Matthew was written between 50 - 70 A.D. So, Matthew wasn't with Mary when she felt like she was pregnant. He wasn't a reporter Tweeting his experiences, following Mary around. I wonder how Matthew knew what he did. Did he interview Mary later on? Who knows. But, he wrote down that she was a virgin and she was pregnant. Impossible. That's what it says, though. This is where faith takes over.

Natural laws are just that. Laws. They can't be broken. But, I look into the sky at night and I think about the Universe. There's gravity and matter and anti matter, and black holes and stars and planets, and the Universe is made of galaxies and there are countless galaxies and there's light, and light has a limit as to how fast it travels. The Universe follows these rules. Why?! Why are there rules?! I think that God has wisdom and abilities that are so much higher than mine. I believe that God sparked the Big Bang. I believe that the creation and evolution of the Universe was set in motion by a planner with infinite skill and with love. I believe God created life on Earth with single cell organisms. Those organisms began to adapt more effectively to their environments and several millions of years later, here we are. Humans. I believe we are here because the Universe has laws that it has to follow. But what if the Creator wants to bend or break a rule? He made the rule. It's there because he wanted it there. Far be it from me to deny the Creator to break a rule that he made in the first place.

The natural was then supernatural. Jesus was born. Because of love.

Then there's more. Wise men from the east came to worship Jesus. Where were these guys from? I think it would be cool if they traveled from China. I'm sure there's some evidence of where they really were from. Persia? India? Nashville? Who knows? They traveled a long distance, and they went to Jerusalem first where they asked Herod the king where they could find Jesus. Herod the king didn't know, but wanted them to report to him once they did find him so that he could kill this "King of the Jews". Herod didn't want any part of this Jesus. He was the king of the Jews. The wise men found Jesus in Belen (Bethlehem in English). They went into his house and they brought gifts and they worshiped.

Here, I imagine what a 1st century house was like. The wise men didn't perfectly time their journey to the exact moment that he was born in a manger like nativity scenes will suggest. Jesus was already born. It sounds like he was still a baby, less than 2 years old. Maybe he was already walking around. I don't know, but the wise men found him. They were then warned in a dream not to go back to Herod the king with news, and they went back to their country.

Herod found out that the wise men didn't report the news and he became angry and ordered that all boys two and younger should be killed. I couldn't even imagine what this scene must have been like.

Joseph, Mary and Jesus skipped town though because of a dream that Joseph had. They went to Egypt for a bit until Joseph was alerted again in a dream that it was okay to go back, but to go to Nazareth instead. So, Jesus was a Nazarene. Nazerenes where shunned, they were looked down upon and Jesus was from here. He wasn't born in a palace. He was basically part of a homeless family for the first part of his life, and when he found his home, it was a place that was considered dirty and unimportant.

Are these stories valid? Is it historical? How reliable is Matthew's writings? Who was interviewed to compile the story? Was it Mary herself. Interesting things for me to ponder...

Love is...

1 Corinthians 13

What is love? This chapter gives me a good idea of what love is and what love does. The chapter begins with telling me what my life is without love. It lists all these great accomplishments, and then reminds me that if I don't have love that they mean nothing. I can apply this to my own life. Humans need love. I think just as much as food, air and water. Love is needed for survival. If you don't have love you can continue to exist, but will die in a way. I think that our creator loves and love starts with Him, and we need to love and be loved based off of His example.

I hate when I read something in the Bible that I've heard a thousand times before. It has no meaning to me just because I've heard it so many times. This morning, I tried to look closer. Think about what is being said, and how it applies to my life. I take love for granted. I love my wife. I love my sons. I love my God. I feel that they love me back. I can try to imagine what I would be if I didn't have that love. I imagine an incredible feeling of emptiness. I wouldn't like that. I'm glad I have love in my life.

So, the beginning of the chapter tells me that my accomplishments mean nothing without love. It goes on to talk about what love is. Love is...patient, kind; does not envy or boast, is not arrogant or rude, does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

I can see that this is true. When I feel love, or when I feel that I am loving, all these things are in place. The last part of this phrase confuses me a bit. "...believes all things..." Not sure what that means, but the rest makes sense to me. Good thing I have some commentary in my Bible. I guess it refers to relationships with people and not faith in God. I believe in my son, for example, and I hope the best for him. I will pour out my love to my son in believing in him and hoping in him and enduring with him. I guess that's what it manes. The same can be applied to my wife and other people I love.

It's not easy to love. I'm freaking selfish! I want to love myself so much. I have a sick tendency to do this. I want to put myself first over my son, over my wife, over God. Even while I'm enjoying my quiet time this morning. I'm drinking my coffee, reading about love in the Bible, listening to Mumford & Son's...just enjoying the morning--my son comes up to me and whines for chocolate milk, and my other son whimpers and cries to be held. I get frustrated because it's all about ME. I wasn't patient, or kind. I was rude, I insisted on my own way. I did that--while reading about what love is. Yeah.

Last week, I hiked to the top of the tallest peak in New Mexico. Wheeler Peak has been on my mind since I remember my dad telling me about it when I was a boy. I remember hiking to the top and feeling an overwhelming feeling of love. I got a little emotional. It might have been the fatigue, and the thin air, but I was almost brought to tears. The natural beauty made me feel like I was loved. I wasn't thinking about God, I was mostly feeling pain in my lungs and legs. But once I got to the top, I forgot about the fact that I am grossly out of shape, and the feeling of pain was replaced with a huge nature-hug. I looked at the distant snow covered peaks, the clouds caressing my face, the alpine grasses and flowers. Nature was awesome, and I felt love. WTF?! I'm not the first to feel this. Many people before me, in different cultures and in different time periods have experienced nature and felt like they needed to worship. I felt it. I felt like God wanted to love me.

Love is powerful. I uploaded some images. These images remind me that I have love.