Original ExistDifferently.com Weblog of David, a Christian Network and Systems Manager, with topics ranging from Apologetics to Worldview, and some crypto, open source, programming, opinion, and daily life thrown in between.

Sun, 2006-07-09 (Jul 09)

Back from Holland, then moved, then…

Well, we went back to Holland the first two weeks of June on a missions trip with the choir from our church. Then, four days after we got back, we moved!

Ruth and I both went to Holland on the first musical missions trip with our church two years ago, but we didn’t know each other then! We still only remember talking to each other a couple of times on that trip. But here we are, two years later, married, and we got to go on the next trip they planned back to Holland! It was an awesome trip!

We moved to an apartment closer to Ruth’s job, and farther from mine compared to where we were. My drive isn’t too much farther, and hers is a lot closer, so it’s worth it. Plus, we moved from a one bedroom to a two bedroom (for just $10 more per month!) which will be great once the baby arrives! Actually, it’s great now since it means we have an office to put the computer and other assorted “novelties” in, other than the bedroom. And we’re on the first floor now (of two) instead of the second (of three), making the move-in easier. Ruth also has a much easier time, not having to climb stairs constantly while pregnant!

We went to church early this morning to make sure the nursery check-in system my family and I spent 16 hours moving on Friday (including two hours on Saturday) was working properly (it was!), so we got home around 11:15 am which is early for us, since we usually go to the 11 am service! Ruth’s already napping since we got around 5 hours of sleep last night, and I think I’ll join her now, then eat while we watch the new episode of Monk I’m recording now.
The past hour or so I’ve been customizing my preferences over at TitanTV’s TV listings, which are very useful since we don’t have digital cable with the on-screen guide anymore (and it has fewer ads than the now-horrid tvguide.com), and also experimenting with a great service that I really like called Spam Gourmet, which is a “disposable email” service to let you register for sites without getting spam, but they have a lot of really flexible advanced options that make me think I might actually make some good use of this service!

Sat, 2006-07-01 (Jul 01)

BABY COMING!

Filed under: Blog,General,Kids,Marriage,Parenting,Personal,Pregnancy — David @ 13:56

Just wanted to announce…Ruth and I are having a baby! It’s due the end of December, and we’re going to find out the sex but the ultrasound isn’t until July 25th.

Oh yeah, and we moved in June to a new apartment, closer to Ruth’s job, and not terribly far away from mine!

Canned some Spam!

Filed under: Blog,General,Internet,Spam — David @ 13:54

Well, I’ve been spending some time deleting spam comments from this blog, which have piled up over the last year. I was doing it 20 at a time from the admin area, then I edited the .php file and told it to show me 500 at a time and did a few that way. Then I just went into the database and found the date of the last real comment, looked at the ID of that, and mass-deleted all comments newer than that comment. I’d already deleted a couple thousand manually at least, but the automatic cleanup deleted another 11,839 comments!!

There shouldn’t be a single spam comment left now, but they keep trying to post more ever minute or less so some will probably get through even though I have a ton blacklisted. I’m working on upgrading to WordPress 2.0.3 (this is 1.2.1) and we’ll see if it has better anti-spam built in. If not, I’m going to implement a Captcha solution where you type a number from an image to post a comment and see if that stops the spam, but it will be stopped, someway, somehow!

I’ll probably be doing the upgrade over the next few days, not sure when specifically (have in-laws coming over tonight though Tuesday), but this site will probably go down for a while while I complete the upgrade. Don’t worry…I’ll be back!! :-)

Married life is good, by the way…since I haven’t posted since my marriage announcement :-)

Sat, 2005-10-29 (Oct 29)

I’M MARRIED!

Filed under: Blog,General,Marriage,Personal,Wedding — David @ 12:30

As of October 15th, I’m married! It was great…more to come when I have the time :-) I finally got access to my blog here after forgetting the password for a while, hence the reason it’s been so long since I’ve updated :-)

Tue, 2005-06-14 (Jun 14)

It’s a date!

Filed under: Blog,Engagement,General,Marriage,Personal,Wedding — David @ 11:54

Unless something drastic happens, we’ve set a wedding date! It’s this fall, a bit earlier than we first thought, and a bit later than we tried at one point, but it looks like all the schedules finally work out! It’s in mid-October! I don’t know if I’ll get more specific here in public or not, but you’ll know it when I’m married! Well, I may post-date an entry so I can concentrate on the honeymoon at that point ;-) Don’t worry, I’ll probably Flickr some pictures for you to check out after-the-fact (I’ve added more pics recently as it is). Maybe even some (emphasis on some :-> ) honeymoon pictures to go with wedding pictures, but you won’t even know where we’re going until afterwards of course :-)

Sun, 2005-05-29 (May 29)

The Ring! Favorite Shot

Filed under: Blog,Engagement,Flickr,General,Marriage,Personal,Photography — David @ 13:10



The Ring! Favorite Shot

Originally uploaded by ExistDifferently.

In case you were wondering what the ring looks like, here it is :-)

You can see more pictures on Flickr in this set!

I’m Engaged!

Filed under: Blog,Engagement,General,In The News,Marriage,Personal — David @ 00:00

Yep, it’s something at times I thought I’d never get to say except on April Fool’s day, but it’s definitely real this time!

I’m engaged to be married!

I proposed to my now-fiancรฉe Ruth on Friday evening, May 27th, close to 4:35 pm local time. I won’t bore you with details of the proposal at this time, because if you know her, she probably wants to tell you herself, and will do a much better job of it than I will! Plus, if I’m there when she tells you, I get to see how excited she gets and it about kills me every time! :-)

I’d also prefer to not tell you date predictions (we have an idea but we haven’t locked things down yet) here. But, I will say that we think 12 months for an engagement is too long! :-) But I will almost definitely be over 21 when we get married, which if you know me, narrows it down a tiny bit :-)

YAY YAY YAY!!! :-D

Sat, 2005-05-28 (May 28)

News!

Filed under: Blog,General,Personal — David @ 00:58

Well, I’d like to tell you something. But I won’t yet. Don’t worry, it’s not a death (it’s good news), but as when one occurs, certain people must be informed first. After which time, you will be allowed to know :-)

Wed, 2005-05-25 (May 25)

So that’s why people don’t get me!

Filed under: Blog,Funny,General,In The News — David @ 00:59

Forbes.com says “Researchers Pinpoint Brain’s Sarcasm Sensor”:http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2005/05/23/hscout525874.html. No wonder! I run into way too many brain-damaged folks day-to-day. Kill them all! (In case that part of your brain is malfunctioning…that was sarcasm ;-)

Found that article through “Robert Accettura’s blog”:http://robert.accettura.com/archives/2005/05/23/sarcasm-found/ in case you’re interested :-)

Thu, 2005-05-12 (May 12)

I like his thinking

Filed under: Apologetics,Blog,Christianity,General,Worldviews — David @ 11:43

Over at “GodBlog.com”:http://www.godblog.com/ there’s a post on the “Plausibility in scientific explanations“:http://www.godblog.com/archives/2005/05/11/plausibility_in_scientifi.php for the origin of life. I like how it’s put, so short and sweet (well, short and sweet for what it is…or maybe my monitor’s just so wide it makes it look short :-) but definitely well thought out! I wish I could’ve said it that well myself!

Wed, 2005-05-11 (May 11)

Visual Verbal Math

Filed under: Blog,Entertainment,Funny,General,Personal — David @ 16:00

Heh…just glad I didn’t get over 200% in math :-) Not that most of you need to worry about that anyway… ;-)

Your brain: 0% interpersonal, 100% visual, 100% verbal, and 200% mathematical!
Congratulations on being 400% smart! Actually, on my test, everyone is. The above score breaks down what kind of thinking you most enjoy
doing. A score above 100% means you use that kind of thinking more than
average, and a score below 100% means you use it less. It says nothing
about how good you are at any one, just how interested you are in each, relatively. A substantial difference in scores between two people means, conclusively, that they are different kinds of thinkers.

Matching Summary: Each of us has different tastes. Still, I offer the following advice, which I think is obvious:

  1. Don’t date someone if your interpersonal percentages differ by more than 80%.
  2. Don’t be friends with someone if your verbal percentages differ by more than 100%.
  3. Don’t have sex with someone if their math percentage is over 200%.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

free online dating free online dating
You scored higher than 0% on interpersonal
free online dating free online dating
You scored higher than 67% on visual
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You scored higher than 82% on verbal
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You scored higher than 91% on mathematical

Link: The 4-Variable IQ Test written by chriscoyne on OkCupid Free Online Dating

Tue, 2005-05-10 (May 10)

Prey that the disc works!

Filed under: Blog,Books,Entertainment,General — David @ 00:59

So I was listening to Michael Crichton’s “Prey”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060536977/davidsworldva-20/002-2086300-3510456?%5Fencoding=UTF8&camp=1789&link%5Fcode=xm2 tonight, on disc 11, the last disc. It’s a book on CD in case you didn’t figure that out :-) I have it out from the library, and it’s really good. All 10 of the first discs were perfect in audio quality, no noises or other imperfections. However, this last disc, nearly halfway through, in the middle of one of the most suspensful parts…locks up. Starts skipping and freezing over and over, from at least track 6 to track 8, where I finally quit. I was home, so I came in, and tried some moist lens-cleaning cloths I picked up from a local warehouse club cheap a while back…then I tried ripping it into iTunes. It works! So I’ll try listening to it again, if that doesn’t work I’ll burn myself a temp. copy to get me through it. I may return it to the library with a note saying there might be an issue with disc 11! Fortunately I have a backup though….the hardcover version of the book from the library as well! So if nothing else, I could’ve read the end. But I’m tired and I think I’ll go listen to it right before I fall asleep :-)

This is the end :-)

Thu, 2005-04-28 (Apr 28)

Adults and Debates

Filed under: Blog,General,Personal,Politics,Worldviews — David @ 11:48

There was a really good quotation from someone in “this post at WorldMagBlog”:http://www.worldmagblog.com/blog/archives/014355.html that I like a lot (the post was made by someone with my first name, but it wasn’t me! The comment was made at 9:29am yesterday.):

The quotation is from Dorothy Sayers’ “The Lost Tools of Learning”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=davidsworldva-20&creative=9325&camp=1789&link_code=ur2&path=tg/detail/-/B0007FRAVK/qid=1114706741/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1?v=glance%26s=books (which unfortunately appears to be out of print):

Have you ever, in listening to a debate among adult and presumably responsible people, been fretted by the extraordinary inability of the average debater to speak to the question, or to meet and refute the arguments of speakers on the other side? Or have you ever pondered upon the extremely high incidence of irrelevant matter which crops up at committee meetings, and upon the very great rarity of persons capable of acting as chairmen of committees? And when you think of this, and think that most of our public affairs are settled by debates and committees, have you ever felt a certain sinking of the heart?

I see this in politics at all levels all the time, it’s one of the reasons I got annoyed with politics and stopped paying much attention. I get annoyed with immaturity at this level. On the other hand, it makes good speakers all that much more easy to appreciate!

Sat, 2005-04-23 (Apr 23)

Glad to be home!

Vegas was great, but it’s so good to be home! I love lots of things that are in my life, and people that are in my life. It’s a good time to be alive, and God is good. And sometime, I’ll be able to share a bit more of it. For now, you get to read whatever I feel like putting here (well, you’ll always get that, it just might not be as interesting as my life actually is :-)

I got my camera, and it’s really cool. Haven’t had much time to play with it yet! Also they didn’t send me an adapter ring that I need to use the lenses I got, but they’re sending me one for free that will hopefully be here next week (never depend on specific timing from the USPS!). So I haven’t been able to play with the macro lens that I was looking foward to…not like I’ve had time anyway, so I suppose it’s all working out :-)

I have two friends that have actually uploaded a significant amount of stuff to “Flickr”:http://www.flickr.com/ now! Takes time, but eventually I bring people around to the latest and greatest I’ve found :-) Sometimes ;-)

Also…I didn’t know until I read one of the blogs I keep up with that “Adobe bought Macromedia”:http://robert.accettura.com/archives/2005/04/18/adobe-buys-macromedia/! Very interesting, but makes sense. I’m sure we’ll hear more soon!

Thu, 2005-04-21 (Apr 21)

Home!

Filed under: Blog,General,Las Vegas/NAB2005,Personal,Travel/Trips — David @ 10:09

I’m home! Whew! More when I wake up…maybe. Or maybe later :-)

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