The Chris Morgan

One AWESOME new development.  A company has already sent me through 2 interviews.  I am supposed to do some research and then call them when I’m ready to do my third interview.  The research I’m supposed to be doing is on a program called Adobe Flex.  It uses a lot of Flash stuff to basically make programs.  Flash is more for web sites while Flex is more for programs.  I have spent two days working through Adobe’s “Learn Flex in a Week” training sessions (I’ve made it through 2 of 5 days).  Here’s what I’ve done so far.

http://chrism.biz/flex/

Today I’m wanting to get through days 3 and 4.

When I finish all 5 days (hopefully Monday morning-ish) I will let my contact know that I am ready.  He basically said that if I can prove myself that I will very likely have a job.  So I’m busting my butt to show that I can do something.  I guess we’ll see.

I’m loving Flex.  I know it will be incredibly beneficial if I do any sort of programming in the future.  It will be especially helpful if I’m working in Flash.  (Flex sort of goes on top of Flash.)  And I’m REALLY enjoying actual programming.

-Chris

So Obama won.  Congrats to him.  I hope he makes an amazing president.

Interesting story.  I went bouldering last night with some friends.  One friend brought another friend with him.  She was…  unique.  On the way back she stated that she thought Obama was “lying through his teeth” about everything he said during his campaign.  I asked her where she got that idea.  She said that he was “part Arab.”  Well, that didn’t seem like a very solid argument to me, so I asked her how his race made him a liar.  She started talking about how he was pro-abortion and gay marriage.  Still not seeing a connection, I pressed her for a reason she thought he was a liar.  Her argument went something like this:  “Well…  …  what do you think of when you think of Arabs?  …  Terrorists.”  I kept insisting that this was not a logical argument.  She never disagreed with me, but kept saying that his mission in becoming president was to set up abortion clinics and gay marriage centers all over the country.

Right.  Someone spends billions of dollars campaigning to be the president of the US simply to set up abortion clinics.  I ended up practically yelling at the girl that she was using ad-hominem logic fallacies (a phrase I’m fairly certain she didn’t understand) and not presenting any argument to substantiate her claim.

Anyone in the car would have sworn that I was pro-Obamma.  The fact is that I voted for McCain.  I do not like Obama’s policies or his political history or his dirty laundry.  Yet this girl infuriated me.  She was 24 years old and she was taking what was obviously being fed to her probably from her parents (who she still lives with).

If you want to say that he’s a liar, do it on his past voting records or something.  Don’t do it based on race.  That’s idiocy.  If you vote against him do it for his policies or those with whom he is affiliated, not because of stupid propaganda.

Anyway, I’m going to bed…  eventually.

-Chris

This deserves reposting.

How’s that for dodging the questions?
Thanks Ken

-Chris

Google defines mundane as “everyday: found in the ordinary course of events; a placid everyday scene.”  I was talking to a friend of mine today and I came to the conclusion that my life could be considered quite mundane.  These days my life is filled with going to class, looking for jobs, applying for insurance, etc.  I go climbing once a week or so.  About once a month I go dancing.  It’s not that I’m bored with my life.  I’m happy with it.  The problem is that I can predict it.  I know basically what I’m doing the next day before I go to sleep.  There is little spontaneity.

The jobs I’m looking for are very practical.  I’ll make enough money to fill my budget and save for a rainy day.  I’ll be working doing something I honestly enjoy (Web Design).  I will be learning constantly, always improving myself and my web design.  But there will be little to make me feel like I lead a dynamic, invigorating life.   Herein lies the problem.  I need to feel alive.

Right now my life is safe.  I’ll be secure financially, stable in my love life, and predictable.  When I was in South Africa I felt so alive.  I woke up having very little idea what I would be doing.  Plans changed all the time.  When I had planned to go out, I waited through the hour-long window when our friend would come to pick us up.  I had no clue where I was going, or with whom I would be, or what we’d be doing.  It was so exciting for me to live spontaneously.

Screw Safety.

I’m tired of it.  I don’t want just another desk job.  I want to strike out, going in faith where nobody knows where I’ll end up.  I will feel alive.  I refuse to take an easy, stable, predictable job.  I need something dynamic, scary, unpredictable and inspiring.

-Chris

p.s. Sorry to those of you who are offended by the word “Screw.”  I’m really excited now and “forget” just doesn’t cut it.

so finally i am out from under my pile of books.  i finished history of christianity last monday.  it’s my first C in all of college.  and you now what?  i don’t feel bad about it.  a C for Bowdle is an A for anyone else.  add to that the fact that it was independent study and i’m really quite proud of myself.  I made a 74% on the first test and an 83% on the final.  average is a 78.5%  a very high C.  actually…  if i had gotten two more questions right, i would have had a B.  but whatever.  i gave it my absolute best and i got what i got.  no reason to complain now.

i spent 4 consecutive days working on a single one-page paper.  it is, without a doubt, the hardest one-page paper i’ve ever written.  i spent 4 days doing VERY little else other than work on that paper.  i finished my work around 2 AM monday night (7 hours before it was due).  i was leading a group, so i had some extra responsibility on me.  before the thing was due, 2 of my 8 group members dropped the class…  that was a bit of extra stress too.  but other than that i think we had a really successful group.

i started doing yellows (I’s) in bouldering.  so far i’ve gotten 3 and can get most of the way up several others.  i’m getting notably better every week i go.  i’m really excited about it.  plus i get to write a paper on bouldering…  part of my research is sure to be participant observation.  i’m not complaining

so i finally uploaded more pics of us bungee jumping in SA. you can find them at thechrismorgan.com/gallery. if you want to download all the pics in the album (so it’s nice and easy), you can get them at files.thechrismorgan.com/bungee.zip.

dr. bowdle…  he makes my life so difficult.  history of chrisianity is known campus-wide as one of those classes.  people fail this class twice and give up.  they take it in the summer just to get away from taking it with bowdle.  i decided that they must all have just been low-intelligence people.  i was wrong.  i went through all the chapters up to my midterm (12 chapters, 3 units).  each unit has a pre-test.  i knew 0 answers to the questions on the pretest after just reading the chapters.

so now i’m done with the initial read-through of the chapters.  i’ve started going back through the chapters and typing out the answers to the questions.  yesterday i spent all day doing the first four chapters.  i just finished my second chapter for today.  it took nearly 3 hours.  i have 6 more chapters to go back through before i can even start cramming for the midterm.  and i only have until august 31 to finish the class.

dr. bowdle…  you win.

i’m gong to take a break…  then back to work.  i need to get two more chapters done tonight…  then 4 more tomorrow…  then cram for 2 days…  then the midterm monday.  then i start all over again working towards the final.

prayer is appreciated.

it hits them hard!

so the night between saturday and sunday i didn’t sleep…  i was really really tired when i left stacy’s, but by the time i got home and got my bed cleaned off i wasn’t tired any more.  so i stayed up…  i went to church sunday morning and was up and not too tired through service.  i realized that i’d be getting tired early afternoon but in order to combat jet lag i decided to stay up…  so i planned a couple of things for the afternoon.  i was planning on cleaning and emailing people to let them know i’m safe and all…  then 2:30 came.

i hit an incredible wall.  i slept 16 hours.  i woke up at 7 AM.  so if you’ve been expecting an email and haven’t gotten it that’s the reason.  i feel pretty bad about it as well as having skipped out on all the stuff i had planned.  but what do you do?

anyway, we got back safe and sound.

love,

chris

this is my final post from SA.  it is now wednesday night.  our flight leaves friday afternoon, but my internet access is going to be limited between now and then.  i’ll be arriving saturday afternoon in TN, so there may be a quick arrival blog but i’m sure i’ll be swamped with things to do when i get there.

love,

chris

what a rush.  i have today (monday) and tomorrow to finish 18 computers.  seeing as it’s the end of monday already (6:20 pm) i’m in trouble…  i have basically committed to one last ditch effort to getting these things done.  i have 3 that i have now deemed garbage.  two more that i probably will not have time to figure out what’s their problem.  that leaves me with 13 boxes.  4 getting Windows XP, 9 getting 2000 Pro.  my last ditch effort is getting one of each done and then imaging their hard drives to then copy to the other boxes.  the problem is that i only have 1 (maybe 2 if i can force it to work) hard drive that i can use to transfer the images around.  either way it’s going to be a long night.  both the xp and 2k boxes are defragging right now.  that’s the last step before i make the images.  oh, and after i image them all i’ll still have to install SP4 and Office 2003 on all the Win2k boxes tomorrow…  or wednesday.  either way it’s going to be a huge pain in the butt.  not to mention that i have a ton of stuff to do before we leave on wednesday afternoon.  luckily most of my laundry is done.

i’m close…  ish.

prayers are much appreciated.

love,

chris