"The Strangest Christmas Eve's Eve"

The Strangest Christmas Eve's Eve

It’s 7:30pm and I am already in my bed. There’s no one here to talk to, except myself and my roommate’s cactus named Hugo. Today I awoke, drank some coffee and wrote a story, ran around the cold, trashy neighborhood, and made lunch. After lunch, I—Well, I’m not really sure. I read, I think. Then I watched my Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer film alone and laughed very hard at Yukon Cornelius whenever he licked his pickax. I had some cereal for dinner and a date (the fruit).

The fog is my only company, besides Jesus, but he’s busy getting ready to get born from a virgin’s womb. I’m packed already, for I am traveling to Ireland tomorrow to see my father. I am more lonely than I expected. I think about people with no family, no home. In the house next to mine, the burglar alarm has been going off since this morning. I called the University Security, who knocked on my door and told me they can do nothing since it is a privately owned house. They asked me if I had knocked on the house’s door…to do what? Get their attention? “Um, excuse me, your alarm is going off. I guess you didn’t hear it.”

I asked one of the officers what the number for the real police was.

He said, “It’s five five five five five. You can remember that, can’t you, Cowboy?”

“I’ll try,” I replied. They left, and though they mocked me for being a concerned American, I still appreciated the company. I changed socks twice, just for excitement. It is possible that I might have cut my hair this morning, though that could very well have been yesterday. Who can tell? I also tried dancing in my room since no one else is around. It was less than graceful.

There is so much bad news in the world. I watch sentimental Christmas movies and they mean something to me, they really do. And yet I have this weight, this burden of evil which passes through my mind like the steaming buses outside my front door. There goes another. People are hurting—so badly. And I remember why Christmas came in the first place. Salt on the wounds of a bleeding earth.

Who will stand up and say this world is not in need of something very big, very powerful? Who will do it? Go ahead, stand up. Who will continue to convince themselves that they can do this all on their own? Just make it through, comrade. Just live one more day, that’s all there is. Really. Really?

Really?

Or we can follow the star in the sky to the manger and give rich, gifts, fit for a king to a little baby. Think about the awesome humility of God. Just think about it for one minute. Trusting himself to the womb of a teenager sleeping in a stable. Listen to the incredible message in this miracle. God is in the loneliest, darkest, dirtiest places, on his way to redeem the world.

And I may be in a lonely, dark, dirty place right now, but this is right where he has placed me. “Merry Christmas Eve's Eve, Dylan.” I’m okay with that.

December 23, 2006

Welcome Mr. and Mrs. Ostini

I have the pleasure of hosting the infamous Mr. and Mrs. Ostini in my Sacramento house this week. We will be carrying on and cornholing all over this, God's favorite city. Look out Northern California!

You have Jury Duty

Note to self: You have Jury Duty Wednesday, January 23.

Dylan

1337

I wrote a History final this evening, in spite of the soft breeze and the unseasonal sound of crickets throbbing in the bushes outside my classroom. I entered the fluorescent lights, and I wrote the final.

Raise your hand if you have academic integrity. Raise your hand if you appreciate any part of the work your professors pour into your life. Raise your hand if you care...

I wrote for almost two hours tracing the level of freedom in the development of network technology.

My thesis: Though it would appear that with the development of network technology has come a steadily increasing level of freedom, I believe that in fact the contemporary Internet is less free than its early ancestors such as SAGE and ARPANET. However, the liberality of the technology itself does not necessarily coincide with the freedom of the user.

The Internet began as an entirely open technology. But somewhere along the way it became closed.

So there are the Open Source Movement dudes who bemoan this diminution of liberality. And there are the corporates who still claim that the technology is essentially "free."

But my architecture friend Ryan recently told me a maxim that has not left my mind: "Design comes from Constraint".

When an architect is asked to build a museum, he is essentially paralyzed unless some constraints are placed upon him. These include: climate, geography, population, historical setting, urbanity, etc. When once she determines these constraints, she can then design. Design comes from constraint.

The Law is Freedom?

Gravity literally makes the world go 'round, I think.

So in my Final I argue that though the technology itself is less free today than it was in its early stages, this diminution of liberality has actually benefited the average user. Network Technology cannot have its anarchistic cake and eat it too. If the universality of the Internet depends on the steepness of its learning curve, which itself depends on its illiberality, then the network architects must choose between these two ideals, or at least strike a balance.

As for me:

"For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again." 2 Corinthians 5:14

F.I.N.A.L.S.

Fun
Is
Not
Always
Literary
Speculation

Imlac on the Pyramids

"But for the pyramids, no reason has ever been given adequate to the cost and labor of the work. The narrowness of the chambers proves that it could afford no retreat from enemies, and treasures might have been reposited at far less expense with equal security. It seems to have been erected only in compliance with that hunger of imagination which preys incessantly upon life, and must be always appeased by some employment. Those who have already all that they can enjoy must enlarge their desires. He that has built for use till use is supplied, must begin to build for vanity, and extend his plan to the utmost power of human performance, that he may not be soon reduced to form another wish.

I consider this mighty structure as a monument of the insufficiency of human enjoyments. A king, whose power is unlimited, and whose treasure surmount all real and imaginary wants, is compelled to solace, by the erection of a pyramid, the satiety of dominion and tastelessness of pleasures, and to amuse the tediousness of declining life by seeing thousands laboring without end, and one stone, for no purpose, laid upon another.

Whoever thou art, that, not content with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or riches can feed the appetite of novelty with perpetual gratifications, survey the pyramids, and confess thy folly!"

- Samuel Johnson's Rasselas

The Difference Between Me and You

Is if I could count the sand
on a thousand seashores,
I still could not hold the scores
of music’s heart in my hand.

And if I could wake the sun
with one word from my mouth,
I still could not ask the clouds
to dance for a lonely someone.

And if I could feed sparrows
with bags of store-bought grain,
I still could not explain
their song through darkened windows.

And if I could trace the feet
of every human pace
I still could not name the place
where walking and dancing meet.

And if I could heal disease
with microwaves and knives,
I still could not save the life
taken by love’s reckless need.

But you can.