Wednesday, October 18, 2006

General Bitchiness

Blah... okay... so what is it that's keeping me from making the full fledged lead to .NET anyway? I spent the better part of the day today trying to get the Vb6 version of the ListView control to do what .NET can make it do. Why can't the VB6 version do it? Because it's a superclassed encapsulated subset of what the full thing can do... which .NET users get... but VB6 peeps don't. Blah... I just need to bite the bullet and start learning the damned architecture.

By the way... I hate money... please don't let me spend any anymore... it just gets me in trouble. It truly is the root of all evil. Just give me some good tunes to groove to and batteries to run my MP3 player and I'll be good. In fact, if anyone's interested, I got a ton of stuff to sell. :-P

I'm probably going to take some of my music equipment to SamAsh and see if they'll buy it... or I'll put on EBay. Haven't decided yet. Whichever works best. It sucks... and it hurts to see it go... but I have other priorities that are more important and so I gotta do what I gotta do.

Something else that sucks... jobs. What sucks about this one is the fact that the people here are so awesome and I love working with them. I've become VERY fond of Jose (and his family), Naddim, Kevin, Eric and a few others there that I've just really been able to bond with and I'm looking at getting a job in Orlando. If the house was sold, I could probably afford to still work down here. But... until that miracle of life happens, I'm stuck throwing pennies in the toll booths. wheee!

Yes, financially, status-wise, and all that clap-trap... I've fallen so far. And yet, I'm still happier than I've ever been... even though all this aggravation is killing me with added stress and worry and work... I have something far better than I've ever had before... family. I forgot how much I missed it until I screwed up so badly that I almost lost it all. Fuck that.

I wear Twink's bracelet on my left arm to always act as a reminder to me about what's important in my life. Sometimes I make stupid choices based on what I think is going to work best in the long run but ends up cutting us to the quick on the short run... but my heart is in the right place... just gotta figure out a way to get my head and heart synchronized.

Anyway, that's enough for now... more later.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Recombination

Everyone makes stupid moves from time to time. Turned left when they should've turned right, bought something they didn't need and now can't get rid of, trusted someone who wasn't trustworthy, shagged someone that wasn't shagworthy, lots and lots mistakes made day in and day out. We beat ourselves up for these mistakes a lot too. But the question I have is why. This is a natural thing in life to make stupid, foolish mistakes. This is how we learn. Some people learn at a much slower rate than others. Some people pick up some subjects quickly and other subjects slowly and some subjects... maybe not at all.

Sometimes people like to point out what someone else does and call it a mistake. This creates problems especially when there's the hope and desire for love, trust and acceptance between the two. When you just want the other person to know that you're happy with who you are, you're happy with who they are and that you want to share your life with them in whatever way makes sense.

I made a stupid move not too long ago. I allowed doubt and fear to take control of my life again. I worked very hard to get myself to the point where I was okay with who I was and then once I got there I discovered something new... that what I was before wasn't bad... it was just uncontrolled. I'll try to explain.

The best way to describe it is to use an old story about the Lion and the Lamb. Growing up, I had balanced the Lion and the Lamb within me. They were both young and did not have the knowledge of good and evil. But at some point, I became unbalanced and the Lion began to take over, pushing the Lamb away. This, I'm fairly certain, was puberty. Perhaps being cast from Eden is a euphamism for puberty. I began to feel wrong about myself and my feelings and started on a journey to destroy the Lion. But the Lion can never be destroyed. The Lion must be soothed by the Lamb and the Lamb must be empowered by the Lion.

The Lion represents the harder side while the Lamb represents softer side. You can't have one without the other. The trick is to blend the two into something beautiful rather than focus on one or the other. It is a trick that is not easily learned and I think that once it is 100% learned we move on to the next level. There are many things that appeal to the Lion and many things that appeal to the Lamb. We must deal with each of these and teach the Lamb and the Lion to share and appreciate all things before achieving that center.

Every day I grow closer to the recombination of the Lion and the Lamb. Teaching each to appreciate the other and accept the other. To let the Lion handle what it's meant to handle, but guided by the Lamb. To let the Lamb handle what it's meant to handle, but empowered by the Lion.

Peace,
Jenna

A New Interpretation

Okay, this is going to be a long one (yeah, I know, they're all long) but this one is inspired and I just gotta write it all down now before I forget it. It's a new interpretation I have of the story of Genesis. I believe it describes the process of our lives and that hidden in there is the key to the understanding of life. Provided you can get past the mythos and see the truths therein.

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth;
2 and the earth being without form and empty, and darkness on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moving gently on the face of the waters,

I believe these first two verses to be a decpition of conception and growth within the womb. That God is the representation of man and woman together producing life... the earth is the child and the deep is the womb. The Spirit of God is the lifeforce created within the child and becoming God for the rest of the story.

3 then God said, Let light be! And there was light.

Birth!

4 And God saw the light, that it was good, and God separated between the light and darkness.

At this point, the child sees the light and is able to distinguish between light and dark. The first lesson we learn. Now read the rest of this without regard to considering a day as a unit of time measurement where the earth rotates one revolution but rather as the building blocks for learning about the world around us.

5 And God called the light, Day. And He called the darkness, Night. And there was evening, and there was morning the first day.
6 And God said, Let an expanse be in the midst of the waters, and let it be dividing between the waters and the waters.
7 And God made the expanse, and He separated between the waters which were under the expanse and the waters which were above the expanse. And it was so.
8 And God called the expanse, Heavens. And there was evening, and there was morning the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be collected to one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so.
10 And God called the dry land, Earth. And He called the collection of the waters, Seas. And God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth sprout tender sprouts, the plant seeding seed, the fruit tree producing fruit according to its kind, whichever seed is in it on the earth. And it was so.
12 And the earth bore tender sprouts, the plant seeding seed according to its kind, and the fruit tree producing fruit according to its kind, whichever seed is in it. And God saw that it was good.
13 And there was evening, and there was morning the third day.
14 And God said, Let luminaries be in the expanse of the heavens, to divide between the day and the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years.
15 And let them be for luminaries in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the earth. And it was so.
16 And God made the two great luminaries: the great luminary to rule the day, and the small luminary and the stars to rule the night.
17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the earth,
18 and to rule over the day and over the night; and to divide between the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
19 And there was evening, and there was morning the fourth day.
20 And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarmers having a soul of life; and let the birds fly over the earth, on the face of the expanse of the heavens.
21 And God created the great sea animals, and all that creeps, having a living soul, which swarmed the waters, according to its kind; and every bird with wing according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas; and let the birds multiply in the earth.
23 And there was evening, and there was morning the fifth day.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the soul of life according to its kind: cattle, and creepers, and its beasts of the earth, according to its kind. And it was so.
25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to its kind, and cattle according to its kind, and all creepers of the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Now we start to learn about men and women, the physical nature of the body we're in.

26 And God said, let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth.
27 And God created the man in His own image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female.

The parents provided the children with the ability to continue the process of life and renew themselves. This is innate to everyone and can either be accepted or rejected. I also believe that with forgiveness, the ability to continue the process, even if rejected, can be restored.

28 And God blessed them; and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the seas, and over birds of the heavens, and over all beasts creeping on the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant seeding seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree seeding seed; it shall be food for you.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to all birds of the heavens, and to every creeper on the earth which has in it a living soul, every green plant is for food. And it was so.
31 And God saw everything that He had made and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning the sixth day.

And this is where it ends. This represents death. Once the work is complete and life has been completed, the "seventh day" is when God achieves a rest.

1 And the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their host.
2 And on the seventh day God completed His work which He had made. And He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made.
3 And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because He rested from all His work on it, which God had created to make.

I think this is pretty much it in a nutshell. I think that if we continue to read the story in this context, it will accurately blueprint the lives of all of us. Some of us are called to be more than we are. Some of us are called to experience great pain and suffering while others seem to be given great gifts of joy and happiness. Some of us are called to do great things that will change the world... while others are only here for a short time. Some will reject, become unbalanced and die. Others may catch themselves before totally losing their balance. It's all making some sort of sense to me now which is why I had to write it all down. I hope that whoever's reading this gets this from it too.

Peace,
Jenna

Saturday, October 7, 2006

Here we go again...

Okay,

So, I've talked a little bit about my life here (just a tad) and the various twists and turns it has taken. From Boy to Girl, to Girl with Boy, to Girl without Boy, to uhm... Gorl? Biry? Whatever. To that with Girl+Boy with other combinations in and around the bend to confuse pretty much everyone including myself. I'm kinda hard to nail down, actually.

Well, it would seem that the law of genetics has caught up with me and has been writing me several citations of late. Of course, certain circumstances have created a physical situation that preclude any of the original concepts that the law of genetics would prefer to work out with me... so we seem to be at the negotiations table regarding all that.

Until then, I've decided to create a new definition... Code Monkey. Human being are, after all, descended from various species... the odds of me being descended from a monkey are pretty good. I love writing code, reading code, fixing code, and my own code is in question and in flux anyway so it seemed to strike true.

I updated my myspace page with a code-monkey picture (which you see here too) and also updated the song that plays to "Code Monkey" by Jonathan Coulton. This seems to be a good direction for me at the moment and so why not. Where I'll end up after this... who knows... maybe Musical Manatee or Artistic Antelope. Maybe I'll transtition through all the various species ... ehh... probably not. I know where things are going and this is just a waypoint... but I'll always be a code-monkey.

Anyway, I made it through another birthday somehow. Not sure why these things keep succeeding. The more I try to destroy, change, modify, revamp, re-invent it just keeps going. What's the point? Yes, typical male behavior in a "Rage Against The Machine" type of way as opposed to a Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb sort of way (which I must admit is preferable).

It's good to be home but I do miss the friends I've made in PSL as well. It's tough and I knew it would be. In PSL the code monkey truly comes out and flings digital poo at the monitors of the managers while here in Orlando, it just sits there and relaxes and enjoys the rest from all the fun poo flinging.

I had a good week this last week tho. I think I'm getting the VP of Software Development in my corner, finally. I explained some of the work I had done that my manager didn't understand and couldn't explain and he picked up what I was laying down straight away. He was also irritated that they're not letting me use the back door.... bonus. :) It doesn't make sense that they would let me putter around in sensitive client data and not let me in the friggin back door. But... hey, what do I know about security?

It is raining like no-body's business tonite. I mean NASTY rain. Big ole' red spot right on the top of us. So I'm gonna close this for now to hopefully avoid the possibility of losing connection completely, blah blah blah.

Peace,
Jenna