Site went down in early January. I think the old Raspberry Pi is giving up the wind in some way, but I have 4
additional I want to install as a 5-node compute cluster. For the time being this site has been moved to
Github Pages, with all the links updated, so just don't try to use the subdomains again. After my experiment
running 1 site raw with Nginx, I decided it is cool but unnecessary. Lot of resources to serve some files.
Rather just use that same load to maintain a
git backup mirror on the pi, and leave my MANY websites
on Github Pages, where they get near 100% reliability and CDN caching.
A lot has happened since I was last on here. Donald Trump was inaugurated, the economy has crashed, and I have been living like Alex Jones watching the news daily to stay up-to-date in such times. On top of that, I am ideating on various technology product ideas, rounding out the missing pieces of my POSIX knowledge with these Master's projects (like shm and mq), and at work I am writing a manifesto of sorts about how we should improve and build the internal platform at Pure.
Learning about shm and mq has been staggering as I come across yet more evidence that Ecclesiastes 1 is true. Accepting these divine truths helps prepare me for the future: one full of vanity. Am I stuck to loop in vain? I think not. God loves to answer our sincere questions, for a good Father wants to be known by His children, and we get an answer from Ecclesiastes 3:11-13
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom the work that God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and do good while they live, and also that every man should eat and drink and find satisfaction in all his labor-this is the gift of God.So I should really just be asking how I can do good and find satisfaction. I can approach, and generally have approached, everything from this perspective. For example, this site is written in Guile Scheme. Why is that relevant? Well the site can still be fully static, not wasting your time and CPU cycles (good), and it brings me joy to code it (satisfaction).
I think that we often forget to treat our craft as something worthy of creative thought and care to be given. Not only is programming one of the most innately creative activities humans do (a longer discourse on this is in the works), but we are compensated well, often work quite loose schedules, and your daily decisions will directly affect the lives of billions, millions, or, at minimum, thousands of people. Whether you work on Google, or your local government's county water page, your decisions have great opportunity for good that God desires you to consider and be satisfied in doing the good work.
Sunshine is sitting next to me as I type this. She signed "turtle" at me, smiled and laughed when I got it correct, and lay her curly mop of a head on my chest. I love being a father. She laughs at my beard, touches it, saying, "Heh, your beaaard. My hairrrrr." She is pointing out her "Bluey shirt" and my "ABC shirt", because she doesn't know how to read it. I told her it says "Give up and go be", with her sweetly mimicking me back. She loves to watch me type and seems to know there is some significance here. This is for you Sunshine. Everything Mama and I do is for you and Harmony, as we raise you to know and love the Lord. We hear Harmony waking now, and Sunshine has started to whisper, "I see Beebee wake". I ask, "Do you wanna eat?" and she says yes, and begins repeating "my mommy...my mommy" until it morphs into a song "Dada Mama Dada Mama how are you? Here I am, Here I am, How do you do?" to the tune of Baby Shark. She now got up and says she wants to sleep with mama, and has begun making her way to our bedroom.
I am in the middle of a semester, and just returned home from Cedarville University homecoming, It was our 5th anniversary this year, which meant a load of the people we knew had started having kids as well. It was a joyful experience to see these other people having found parenthood rooted in God. I am deeply encouraged after this week to utilize all of my excess energy to the works laid before me. Those for my home, family, church, and community. Also, for the internet and my entrepenurial hunger.
I believe I want to pursue a few goals, some I can do short-term, and others are a long-term target. I want to register an LLC, likely for ExoKomodo. Then I can start to actually work in a serious sense on these projects in my mind, they need TLC in the order presented below:
Other goals in mind are focused more on my body and getting me to a healthy weight. I am starting to think this is a gut health/microbiome issue more than anything, so I will potentially start a carnivore diet or the GAPS diet.
Sunshine woke up sort of wack today. I eventually got her to calm down and I believe she was directly apologetic, and she sat on my lap for a while in a deep hug to express that. Today is sort of slow. Rearranging the hall closet and I probably need to fix the SSL certificate for this site as well.
It's been almost two weeks. I have lost 15 pounds in the last 3 days. I quit a personal vice a few days back and the results have been dramatically beneficial to my weight and health. I praise the Lord for this change and for the many years my life will increase. I have started to just naturally eat less and am basically only eating fruits, vegetables, and lean meats. I am also weightlifting 6 days a week, mostly performing pyramid sets. Today I figured out deadlift for the first time. My issue was I was treating it more like a squat, rather than as a 2-part hip hinge. No more shin scraping!
I also spent loads of time with Sunshine. I started my day at 2:45am. Played some games, watched some programming content, then felt sleepy again and joined my family in the bed. This made Sunshine's morning as she LOVES waking to me there. I then made her sad by leaving for workout, but once I returned it was some much needed hangout time with the whole family. I was going to skip storytime, but she knew on her own that it was coming up and directed me to the stroller. We were running late, so I told her we needed to take the car instead, and she nodded in affirmation. We went to the library storytime, then I asked her at one point, "Would you like to see Hailie?" Her response was to IMMEDIATELY rise, walk away from the storytime, and waved bye to the kids. She got distracted by ABC Mouse on the exit, also checking out a kid's magazine for the week. We then went off to the barn, with her falling asleep in the car seat on the way. I watched One Piece while waiting for her to wake. Once woken, we went to see Hailie the horse and Sunshine got to ride her and we talked about some interesting things. I asked her if she thought it was going to rain, as I had a primal feeling about it. She nodded and said "da", her form of yes right now. We talked about where the horse's go when it rains, under the sheds and under the "tree" (which she taught me the sign for). We returned home, attempting a Chick-fil-a stop, but the line was insane at only 2:30pm. Our 20 minute drive instead took 40-45, but she did not mind. We got home and since then have spent a good bit of time reading books, watching Signing Time, some Daniel Tiger, and even some more outdoor play with her beach kit. Now it's about time for bed and she is enthralled with what I am up to.
Mama spent most of her time today figuring out how to get her free birth story shared online with the Free Birth Society. I will discuss in a later blog the shenanigans surrounding Harmony's birth certificate.
Keyboard gift from Sunshine: ˇcvgTC4 46b 7cc4 44 67C 464 64)
Harmony is born!
I don't feel valuable. I work 12 hour days, waking up at 4:30am to drive to work and workout. I find myself obese at 275lbs, even as I work out 5 days a week. I am a software engineer, but I don't feel like I am good at it and especially not as good as others seem to feel, while I watch anything joyous about my work disintegrate in front of me. I am a husband, but I don't feel like I am good at it, as I find myself feeling eternally guilty for asking anything more than what is already being given by my household.
I have so many ideas, yet never follow through. I want to start things, like streaming programming, but I let myself feel guilty for having anything that takes time away specifically for me. I finish my work, and then I see the noise of my home clutter, see it is 5pm or so, and have no clue how to proceed.
God values me enough to send His son, His own self incarnate, for my sins. I am not worthy of this gift, but to reject my worth is to reject the work of Christ. Christ is kind and He died for me, resurrected from the grave, and promises resurrection to those who accept His free gift.