Humidity... Nature's cruel torture device for the asthmatic.

And to think that at one point I was actually looking forward to summer.

I've gotta get out of this climate. Either desert or tundra for me.

Love,
David

Alright! =D

Well, Spanish may be going a little worse than I had hoped, but at least my BLS 305 class is going great. Here is the result from e-mailing my first assignment to the prof:

David,

Exceptionally written. Very appropriate use of person first language, great insights into both the individuals and the conceptual basis of the film itself. 30/25.

Pat

30 out of 25! =D Alright! Better than 100%! I can't remember the last time I've done that well on an assignment!

I wish I had to take more classes in the Blindness/Low-Vision Studies area...

Well, time to get studying... I have my Spanish midterm on Wednesday and my BLS midterm on Thursday.

Take care!

Love,
David

Science and religion...

"Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand."

Just a quote from Dan Brown's first Robert Langdon thriller entitled Angels and Demons. And it is quite a quote. One could ponder on this for the remainder of their lives, devote their lives to trying to prove or disprove such a thought... such a deeply profound notion.

Or, one could simply look around themselves to see the truth in such a statement.

Are science and religion polar opposites? If so, why are so many monks, nuns, priests, and pastors also involved in the field of natural sciences? Despite Galileo's persecution by the Roman Catholic Church, he was a devout Christian while also being an avid scientist in search of the truth.

Is it possible to simultaneously explore things both observable and unobservable? Can the "truth" of the universe and all of creation be explored in the things we can see, hear, taste, smell, and feel? Is the beauty of God observable all around us?

I sure think so. =)



Love,
David

Tag! You're it, Squirrely!

Yes, I have tagged another squirrel. I am the master tagger of the beloved fluffy-tailed beast! The poor thing was trapped on our porch, since I was blocking its only exit. It ran and jumped onto the edge of the porch, but I had already caught up to it before it could leap to safety. That, my friends, was its fatal error - hesitation. Here's an update on the score, in case you are just joining in.

SQUIRREL TAG SCORES

SQUIRRELS          DAVID
  0                2

Eat that, you cute little fuzzballs!

Now, time to go do an observation for CLST... after I get a CARMEL MARVEL from my favorite coffee shop on the planet (and current place of employment of my future brother-in-law)... BEANERS!

Hasta luego.

Love,
David

P.S. I think I'm going to see X-Men 3 tonight at 12:01. Anyone else want to go, give me a call on my cell. =)

Hope...

“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.”

-Thich Nhat Hanh

• Liz was gone for three weeks... then I saw her for a few mere hours before she had to leave me yet again.
  
• My best friend talked to me... but seems to have little hope that we can work things out.
  
• I'm nearly halfway through this semester already. It's so hard to believe, but it's true.
  
• I am feeling more depressed lately than I have in a while... I try to keep my hopes up, but every little thing gets me down lately. I feel like I'm just sitting idly by watching my life pass me by... and I don't even care.
  

Hope... sometimes it is a raging fire, yet more often hope is like a candle fighting for survival against the blustery gusts of life; against the thunderous tidal waves of emotions; against the darkness of lonely solitude. Yet, it is when we combine our candles of hope that we create a fire that can withstand the waves of time. That is how faith works. It all starts with one person and goes from there... spreading like a fire. A fire of faith, love, and hope.

Love isn't all you need...

...but hope is.

I'm trying so hard to hope. But, alas, sometimes you can't make it on your own.

Love,
David

Eres mi mejor amigo del mundo...

I got to talk to him last night. It was great. =) I just hope we'll be able to work this out. Really, it is such a trivial thing when you put it into perspective. Let's not let this ruin our friendship...

In other happy news, Liz is back home from Hungary. =) I even got to see her for a couple of hours! =D Maybe I'll get to see her this weekend, too... One can only hope.

I think I did well on my Spanish quiz today, too. =D Things are looking up in David's world. There is light at the end of the tunnel... to lead the way on.

...all I require is the persistence to see this through - and the inner peace to keep it from eating me alive.

And right now, I require some lunch.

¡Adiós, muchachos!

Love,
David

Quotes of brilliance...

You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

Human subtelty will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does Nature, because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.

From what mouth did these phrases of wisdom flow? These are the words of none other than Leonardo Da Vinci himself.

Is it wrong of me to be so excited to be skipping work? I've been excited to see Liz for weeks, but I now know that part of my anticipation is that of skipping out on a job where my supervisors and coworkers are constantly skipping out on me. I have covered several 8 hour shifts for people in the last few weeks and been lied to by my supervisor... by finally sticking it to them, I feel a morbid sense of relief.

Peace in, everybody. =) Next time I report to you, it will be after holding my dear fiance in my arms again...

Love,
David

P.S. This one is for Liz...

2-2-3-4-5-8-8-8 = 0-1-4-6-8
In the place where the sun dost depart in the night,
Where the river is grand and flows with great might,
Beneath the knot of crimson is where I find
The greatest treasure in all humankind.

One step at a time.

Three strikes against the weekend that I've been looking forward to for so long...

1. I won't get to see my fiance for another week now...
   
2. My best friend thinks I hate him...
   
3. The company I work for has deceived me yet again into working an overnight shift to cover their lack of competency in scheduling.
   

Maybe Mr. Eager will still come to the west side of Michigan today. I would love to hang out with him for a while. However, if Liz won't be here, there's really no point.

I have been looking forward to this day from the moment I stepped foot in the Grand Rapids International Airport three weeks ago... and now I wish I could just rewind time and try this over again. I could ask mother nature to provide tail winds to help the plane carrying Liz arrive at it's destination on time. I could have set aside a weekend to go talk with my friend instead of letting our thoughts dwell on everything. I could have turned down the request to work the overnight shift at the Parchment respite house.

But, alas... I cannot do that. All I can do is live with the consequences of my actions and the actions of others.

In the socialist LiveJournal community, a poster blamed socialists as blaming others for their problems. "If you blame others for your own situation," he said, "that is a problem. You fail to see that you are accountable for your own life. That is a problem.

To a certain degree, of course, he is correct. What he fails to realize is that some things are indeed out of our control. Such things as the rising/setting of the sun, the weather (although, some bad weather is of our own doing), or the speed of the winds helping to propel an airplane back home. Such things are out of our control. That is why humanity created gods. Gods were to explain what could not be explained.

What God can explain this to me?

I've about had it with this world. What do I do next? What is my life leading up to?

Lunch.

My life is leading to lunch.

One step at a time, David. One step at a time.

-David

"No day but today..."

The DaVinci Code?

Ron Howard's take on The DaVinci Code... A remarkably great film.

However, this is not the story of the DaVinci code.

[ Warning Moviegoers: My Post May Contain Spoilers ]

So much is left out... far too much when telling such a tale as this. The story has gone from being so fluid as to rival that of the Harry Potter series to being as torn and choppy as a Terantino film. The characters are far too black and white. My two favorite characters in the story, Silas and Teabing, were portrayed as crazed lunatics with no apparent sense of remorse (or, at least a plausible one, anyway).

SILAS
Sure, observing Silas' self-flagellation may seem odd... but in the novel, I felt pity for this character. I longed to see his tears after the flogging, because in the story I felt that I could relate to those tears having shed so many of my own in different yet similar circumstances. We all do things that harm ourselves in the moment so that we may thrive in the future. In fact, our culture praises such acts. Putting away money for investments, eating healthy foods now to be in better health later, the act of fasting... Hell, even the thought of Lent itself should seem so peculiar. I felt so close to Silas in the book. His depiction in the film, however, was so less desirable. The camera left him shortly after he reapplied his cilice to the opposite thigh and began his self-flagellation. I however, stuck in the room with him. Even when the story flashed back to his youth, it was simply of him murdering his abusive father and being put in prison, only to be rescued by Father Aringosa. The one redeeming scene for Silas was when Silas rescued Aringosa and was called an angel. However, the conflict within Silas of being either a "ghost" or an "angel" was hardly touched on and his eventual death was so sudden and anticlimactic that I had seriously thought it had not occurred at all. When Fache reported to Aringosa that his servant had indeed died, I was floored that Howard would dispose of such a character in such a way.

Sir Leigh Teabing
This was perhaps the worst travesty of all. Teabing's character was distorted SO badly throughout the story that he was unrecognizable by the end as the Teabing from the novel. The film's version of Teabing is no longer the lively, quirky, portly old man in search of the truth. No, the film decided to instead turn Teabing into a man looking to destroy the church. And, thus, Langdon's character has turned into the spokesman for Christian faith. While I applaud an open dialogue between the two apparent "chasms" of thought - science and religion - I cannot help but question why they must be made separate. Even in the film, Langdon suggests that Jesus could still be the savior of mankind while the father of a girl named Sarah who's bloodline continues from that of the Merovingians. Why, then, must the filmmakers fail to do justice to that very line from the story and make such divisive characters as Langdon and Teabing?

Summary
Read the novel. It is cheaper than most movie tickets, the story is much more fluid and complete, and the characters are much more rich and lively. If you do decide to see a film this year, might I suggest instead spending your money on the brilliant heartwarming tale of love, courage, and the strength of family found in the quirky tale "Over the Hedge."

That's all for tonight.

Wait. No, that's not all for tonight.

Liz, this is for you...

"Til Kingdom Come"

Steal my heart and hold my tongue.
I feel my time, my time has come.
Let me in, unlock the door.
I've never felt this way before.

The wheels just keep on turning,
The drummer begins to drum,
I don't know which way I'm going,
I don't know which way I've come.

Hold my hand inside your hands,
I need someone who understands.
I need someone, someone who hears,
For you, I've waited all these years.

For you, I'd wait 'til kingdom come.
Until my day, my day is done.
And say you'll come, and set me free,
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me.

In your tears and in your blood,
In your fire and in your flood,
I hear you laugh, I heard you sing,
"I wouldn't change a single thing."

The wheels just keep on turning,
The drummers begin to drum,
I don't know which way I'm going,
I don't know what I've become.

For you, I'd wait 'til kingdom come,
Until my days, my days are done.
Say you'll come and set me free,
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me.
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me.
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me.

I love you, Liz.

I'll be coming to get you shortly...

Love,
David

P.S. Are the Universalists the only ones who really understand what Dan Brown is trying to do here? It sure seems that way. See this sermon for an interesting Christian take on the Da Vinci code.

1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21

Leonardo Fibonacci... creator of arguably the most brilliantly simple yet elusive of numerical sequences. At first glance, the numbers appear to have no correlation, they look quite random. Especially confusing are the two 1s beginning the sequence. Glance at it for a while, I'm certain that if you don't figure out the pattern soon, it will come to you in time. After all, it is so very simple...

I wonder if this Fibonacci character had the vaguest idea that his sequence of numbers, commonly referred to as the Fibonacci Sequence, would become as popular among mathematicians as it is today. Did he realize the implications of what he had observed?

When you apply the numbers in the series in a more geometrical manner, a fascinating thing occurs. Take the first number in the sequence: 1. Create a square with sides a length of one unit. Then, continue to create squares with sides equal to the value of each number in the series. Place them in a spiraling design, and you end up with an perfectly packed design of a spiral as in the following diagram (courtesy of http://www.mathacademy.com):



This is a fascinating thing. Not because we just packed a bunch of boxes into a tight fitting quadrilateral by way of numbers in the Fibonacci Sequence, but that nature itself uses this sequence constantly. Whether trying to fit as many seeds possible in a sunflower by putting them in a spiral design with the precise number of the seeds being a number from the sequence. The sequence is also used to predict rabbit breeding, but encountering problems only when forgetting to take into consideration that, unlike numbers, rabbits do not live forever.

Arguably the most amazing aspect addressed by the Fibonacci Sequence is what is often referred to as the Golden Ratio. If we take all of the numbers of the Fibonacci Sequence and arrange them in a series of never-ending proportions to the previous number in the series, as seen in the next image (also courtesy of http://www.mathacademy.com), you begin to arrive at a number.



The ratio that is approached when all proportions are considered is so famous that it even has its own name and symbol.

Φ (PHI) = 1.6180339887
This number is found in countless places in our lives... I won't get into the specifics behind them, but it can be found in the proportions of the human body, the proportions of many other animals, plants, DNA, the solar system, art and architecture, music, population growth, the stock market, and the Bible and in theology.

This sequence also has a starring role in the #1 worldwide bestseller by Dan Brown - The DaVinci Code and the upcoming film opening in theaters tomorrow. A phenomenal work not only of great technical writing skills and the ability to create deep, honest, and engaging characters with superb dialogue... Brown also displays something else. An ability to offer codes and puzzles throughout the story. Even the books themselves offer codes and puzzles for the reader. The cover of the hardcover edition has seemingly randomly bolded letters within the story summary. However, when you take those letters and sort them out, you come to realize they are an anagram with a deeper message hidden within... And that is where Dan Brown's talent lies. Not in showing us what is deep underneath all of this, but engaging us as we journey with him in an effort to peel off the layers. He begs us not to ask the question "What is underneath?", but instead "What is this layer, why is it here, and how can we delve into what it is hiding?"

And for that reason, Dan Brown is on the top of my list as my new favorite author.

That's all for tonight, folks. I'm picking up Liz from the airport on Sunday and I'm utterly excited for that! I have a lot of work to do before then, however, so I had better get to that.

Have a PHIne evening, everyone.

Love,
David

P.S. A bad ship's sin! I blame this size.

[Hint: Those two sentences are each separate anagrams for two other phrases. I doubt anyone will try to figure it out, but the first person to get it gets a Caramel Macchiato via Starbucks on me.]

He's back...

So I have returned... can you believe it? It's been over two years since I have last updated this. So, the prodigal son is back. I'll still be using LJ for comments and checking in on my friends, but I love the look here. For some reason, I simply like the feel of it better.

Hang on, Joel's nagging me to proof-read his paper... back in a bit.

[ Time elapsed: 8 minutes ]

That wasn't too bad... but I'll be willing to bet he calls me back in there when it's time to post his paper on WebCT. So, I will enjoy the free time I have until then.

Liz will be returning on Sunday afternoon. Well, in theory, anyway. 4:04 pm, supposedly. Her father and I will be there to pick her up. Maybe we'll go...

Sorry, got called back into Sam's room. Let me regain my train of thought.

Ah, yes, maybe the three of us can go out to dinner or something. That would be nice. La Cantina sounds ESPECIALLY wonderful. =)

Well, it's about time for me to get cracking on my studying. And I should get to sleep soon. I have had trouble sleeping lately and I'm not certain why.

Goodnight everyone. And Liz... I'll see you soon, sweetie...

Love,
David