Category: high school

Ducks with chapstick. Really.

“A quotation, like a pun, should come unsought, and then be welcomed only for some propriety of felicity justifying the intrusion.”
– Robert Chapman

I thought the irony here would be enough to justify posting that. I truly do love Google’s homepage doodle. It warms my heart.

I have spent the last days before school playing WoW, and doing nothing else. Work ended Friday, I got my paycheck, and once Dad gets back, the parts are coming. He gets back next Sunday, while Mom and Jonothan get back the Sunday after that. This leaves me semi-home alone, with just Emily who is here periodically to make it seem as if the house weren’t occupied by a single hermit.

I overslept for Church today (second time in a row), and I shall blame my faulty alarm clock, that doth not ring when I ask it to. This leaves me concerned for my braces removal appointment tomorrow at 8:15. I can only hope that they will remove the darned things and ignore the fact that I’ve never worn those silly rubber bands. The same day, I also visit the journeyman Opthomaligast to figure out how my eyes are doing. This also means new glasses, which I am rather excited about, as I will be choosing a more stylish and fashionable pair that ever before. No, I will not be getting contacts. The idea of sticking things in your eye is wrong, and cannot be justified.

And now, I go to sleep, or at least the place where sleep occurs, so that I might not shoot myself in the morning.

EDIT:

Despite Microsoft’s horrible price gouging, Sony is worse.

EDIT EDIT:

EDIT EDIT EDIT:

[01:16] tim: alrighty
[01:16] TheMysteriousMrZ: ?
[01:16] tim: i should hopefully get my braces off tomorrow morning
[01:17] tim: which i have to get up at 7:30 for
[01:17] tim: so, i’m out
[01:17] TheMysteriousMrZ: woaaah, that’s gonna be weird
[01:17] tim: you bet
[01:17] tim: plus, i’m getting new glasses this week
[01:17] tim: my face is going to melt
[01:17] TheMysteriousMrZ: OMG
[01:17] TheMysteriousMrZ: it’s like tim PRIME
[01:17] tim: or
[01:17] tim: like tim 2.0!
[01:18] TheMysteriousMrZ: gentlemen, we can rebuild him
[01:18] tim: “first, we’ll remove his braces”
[01:18] tim: “then we’ll extract his liver, and replace it with high voltage batteries”
[01:19] TheMysteriousMrZ: “how will he digest food?’ “ELECTRICITY”
[01:19] tim: “and if he survives that, maybe a nose job is in order”
[01:19] tim: “his new nose will contain razor sharp needles instead of hairs”
[01:20] TheMysteriousMrZ: that would be like the the suckiest six million dollar man ever
[01:20] tim: are you kidding?
[01:20] tim: imagine him sneezing
[01:20] tim: that’s his superpower
[01:20] tim: activated by snuff powder
[01:20] TheMysteriousMrZ: lol like poetry in motion

EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT:

As Daniel noted, this is approximately the second anniversary of this blog, with me at around 370 posts, Daniel at 460. I choose to note that most of my posts are more flavorful and filled with words. And for some reason Blogger does not have my stats on posts/week and words/post. Teh lose.

Delicious Delicacies

EDIT:

I forgot to mention this, but I hope you’ve all seen what Katrina’s done, it’s really amazing. You hear about floods all the time, but this really is on the scale of the damage the tsunami did. Obviously not on such a huge scale, but considering how few natural disasters damage the U.S., excepting Florida, this really is noteworthy. I know God is working through this, despite all the death and destruction we see. That’s my two cents.

As you can see, changes are in progress. Things are happening. It’s basically reverting back to the old template, but, it should look marginally better, if nothing else. If I just get too frustrated, the old template is coming back. I’m not keen on redoing all the JS I had integrated into this.

Last day of work is tomorrow. I slept in today, on purpose. The nice thing about being payed by the hour is you recieve your own punishment for being late, so I don’t mind too much. All it means is I have to work a little harder for the parts. Which reminds me. Let me tell you about them parts.

[geek]

So, the parts I put in the day the HDD broke (which I didn’t back up) were these:

The PSU, CD-RW and DVD-R are all black, fitting the theme of my computer. This racked up a tidy total of 155 bucks (including shipping). That puts us at a total of about 225 bucks, thanks to mister case.

The next round of parts will be:

Bringing that to a total of 715 dollars. With shipping, about 720. The motherboard is black, too, and quite an awesome price. I don’t want SLI since there’s no way I’m spending money on two 7800GTs. The gravity of this video card is immense. I hope you all understand that. That card is the second best thing you can buy. It’s quite a good price considering the free BF2, which I was going to buy anyways. It’s gonna be hot. That will bring the total under 1000 dollars, which was the goal. There’s a bunch of other things I’d like to get if possible (maybe for Christmas or birthday) that add up to about 300, speakers, a sound card, new headphones, that kinda stuff. A new HDD is definitely in order, I don’t know what that will be on the budget, but before all the extra goodies for sure.

I’ll order that once Mom and Dad get back from picking up Jonothan (the paycheck won’t arrive until after they leave, and they’re the ones with teh monay), at which point the metamorphosis will be complete. I’m excited, to say the least.

[/geek]

So, that’s about it. I’ll keep doing improvements on the template and such, it will regain its former glory with time.

You no take candle!

This so, so so isn’t ready, but I desperately want to post. I’ve been dreaming about it. I kid you not. This blog is wonderful to me. I love it dearly.

We’ll backtrack from here to then.

I’ve spent the past 3 days pretty much just playing World of Warcraft. I caved in and used Paul’s 10-day free trial, after which I will continue playing. At the moment, I’m a level 13 priest, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. Very good game. But none of you have waited a month to hear about that.

Work has improved marginally. At this point, I’m basically getting paid to learn/do AutoCAD, which I shouldn’t be complaining about at all. It’s actually been a really good learning experience – I’ve learned how to mail all kinds of packages (I only knew how to mail letters before), stain wood, do stuff at the bank, lots of random things that are kind of useful for every day doings. It has a lot of boring moments though, mostly when I don’t have enough variety in my work. This last project in AutoCAD I’ve been doing has just shot my nerves – every day, something new changes or happens and I have to redo a lot of work. Frustrating, let me tell you. Thankfully, I’m not under any deadline, so nothings going to fail because of me. Actually, the project I’m working on right now is for a building that will be going up where Dominoe’s (that don’t look right O.o) used to be, next to the Gateway Center. It’s a pretty spiffy building. Maybe there’s an NDA on it or something, so I should probably be hush hush….

The only other significant thing in my daily life (e.g. that consumes time) is Jen, whom I still don’t like. She’s mostly house trained, but she’s still a puppy, and thus retains puppy-ness. How quaint.

In important news, Jonothan gets back from Iraq September 15th. He actually arrives back on the 5th (this Saturday), but has to stick around for a many number of days for whatever reason. I’m really looking forward to seeing him. I won’t be able to go down and meet him because it’s 10 days, but, whatev, I’ll see him soon. Before I got WoW, I was playing lots of Zelda (the gamecube version, which I will get to, and OoT), which brought back some great memories from our first Christmas here. We’d get up in the morning over break, grab some hot chocolate and all the blankets we could find, plop down in front of our little monitor and play for many hours. I can’t remember how we worked it out, we probably took turns or something, I dunno.

No word has come in on Christopher’s discharge (still). I’m hoping he’ll be here before Thanksgiving, at this point.

Let’s see….I’ve acquired a job with a cool old Russian dude. He’s a retired professor from Cornell, like 80 years old, so I help him out with gardening and stuff. It lasts basically indefinitely, which is how I’m going to be paying for WoW.

Zach lent me this CD from a band called Bloc Party – it is growing more, and more, and more on me. The lyrics SUCK, basically the same phrase (which was good the first time he said it) over and over (not so good the 8th time). However, the music is excellent, and my constant techno-listening (6 hours a day minimum, thanks to work), I can phase it out and listen to the good stuff.

And now, for the rants that have been brewing for a month.

I.D.

I can’t stand it.

I can tolerate a literal interpretation of Genesis, but the ID mindset has gone too far. For once, Bush has really ticked me off. As most of you know, I was once a big fan of him, but he’s servicing the “religious” right, giving them everything they want while he has time. I can’t stand it. Whether I’m a part of the people he’s blowing kisses towards or not, I don’t want the tax dollars I am now spending (I pay income tax now! Huzzah!) to go towards a movement to stick a “science” like ID in schools. A Slashdotter put it perfectly: Once the ID crowd are willing to say that the Intelligent Designer (God) is falsifiable, then and only then can ID be considered as a possibility. And I know well enough that it’s impossible for that to happen. Faith is the hope in things that cannot be seen, proven, or denied. As with most things that are written in the midst of emotion, I will probably regret a specific phrase or sentence which does not reflect what I mean. But we’ll see. Open fire.

The Gamecube Zelda.

It sucks.

It sucks majorly.

I could live with cell-shading. I could almost live with playing a child, with child-like characters in a child-like work. I could just about live with the sailing. But not. It sucks. I want the next version, which has been delayed until 2006.

Nintendo, if it isn’t good, I sincerely hope you go down in flames.

I wish you all well on this night. I will slowly improve the blog as I desire, but it’s readable, and that’s what matters at this point.

Huzz

Tomorrow, I’m off for camp. Getting up at 7 AM is going to be a huge challenge, but, as always, it should be quite fun. A break from the nonsense of boredom, at least. Work hasn’t improved much, I spent all of today basically waiting for more information so I could do my task. Fun.

Last night was good. There was a study of sorts which occured in my attic (which Greg lead), and lots of people showed up. I finally got to sit down and talk to Greg for a few hours (few, as in like 3), and that was really, really good. I managed to get a lot of stuff off of my mind and all that jazz.

I could complain about how bored I’ve been, but that is not the purpose of blogging. If I wanted to do that, I’d go get a xanga. Oh! Burn! I just don’t have the spark to write well or in large quantity, so I am afraid I must leave you with this poor offering. I’ll get back into it eventually, no worries.

Wait just a minute. I had a thought-provoking thought. Bear with my philosophisms.

In my boredom I’ve had plenty of time to think, and one such thing I’ve pondered is how people will often long for the simplicity of childhood. In pulling out my N64 recently, it’s unlocked a lot of memories I had of what I felt like as a little kid. And honestly, I don’t think I want that back. A good example is cars. Most teenagers want cars, they want to drive them, they want to own one, they want the freedom of going where they please. And yet, after two or threes of car ownership, most owners become entirely unenthused with their car. It’s a burden to drive, it becomes only a means to an end. And when the car is gone for repairs, (and this is based of my observations of others) few recognize what exactly they are missing. They never say “I am frustrated by my lack of easy transportation, and thereby freedom of mobility.”, many will say “My stupid car is retarded, it never works, I deserve a working car.”. There’s an obvious lack of recognition about what a car is, and the fact that it is a privelage, and not a right. It’s the same way, as I recall, as a kid, compared to now. I act the same way with such privelages that I earned throughout time.

Ideally, going back to being 5 would be “more simplistic” and “easier”, but that is assuming you would know about life then what you know now. Life only becomes more complex as you gain in knowledge, so the simplicity lies only in ignorance. In a sense, by saying that being a child again would be nice is saying that ignorance is bliss. And there you have…

…my profound statement. Why I felt the need to state this or what this accomplishes is irrelevant. I’ve succesfully wasted time that would have gone towards packing. Thank you, my faithful readers.

EDIT: Also, the new Coldplay CD is very nice.

That’s what they make flowers for…

Lacking the inspiration to literate but the desire to post, I provide you with the latest survey that has been traveling the copper lately.

1. Legal first name? Timothy
2. Were you named after anyone? Tim Hume, family friend who is quite awesome.
3. Do you wish on stars? Looking on stars at night is definitely really high on the list, but that doesn’t answer the question, now does it?
4. When did you last cry? Last night, at the end of 24. Actually, I didn’t really, but it was close enough. If you don’t want to count that, there’s Monday night, when I was making the post about Daisy.
5. What is your favorite lunch meat? Turkey. Always.
6. What is your birth date? March 31, 1989
7. What is your most embarrassing CD? ….what? No, really, what?
8. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you? I would assume so, unless I (the other person) was really, really dumb and lacked the capacity for rational thought.
9. Do you use sarcasm a lot? No, never, absolutely not. My predictable sarcastic response should explain it all.
10. What are your nicknames? I used to have a lot, but they’ve died down over time. Froehlich is the only other thing people call me.
11. Would you bungee jump? Not a clue. If I had a good reason beyond “why not?”, probably.
12. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Nope.
13. Do you think that you are strong? I think so, but I am not the one to judge that.
14. What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Cookies ‘n Cream, or Mint Chocolate Chip
15. Shoe Size? Somewhere between 10.5 and 11.5. Depends on the shoe.
16. Red or pink? Red.
17. What is your least favorite thing about yourself? Absolutist judgementalism.
18. Who do you miss most? Jonothan…and the Ohioans.
19. Do you want everyone you send this to, to send it back? I’ll take it this was supposed to be in an email.
20. What color pants and shoes are you wearing? White khaki (surprise, it’s all I have), and none.
21. What are you listening to right now? Aireline
22. What did you eat for breakfast? A bowl of Capn’ Crunch, which I spilled all over me and the couch while watching the news.
23. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Silver.
24. What is the weather like right now? Cloudy and very, very sticky.
25. Last person you talked to on the phone? Daniel.
26. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex? Disposition and hair.
27. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Sure.
28. Favorite drink? No idea, really.
29. Hair color? Blond, a little dirty.
30. Do you wear contacts? Nay.
31. Favorite food? Calzones, probably.
32. Last movie you Watched? Ocean’s 12….again…
33. Favorite day Of The Year? Full moons in Autumn are pretty awesome, I suppose.
34. Scary movies Or happy endings? I’m a sap. A cynical sap, but still a sap.
35. Summer or Winter? Winter. Even though school is on, I enjoy summer less and less each year.
36. Hugs or kisses? Wouldn’t know, really.
37. What’s your favorite dessert? Chocolate roll…..oooooh…
38. Who’s most likely To respond? I don’t think anybody will be ‘responding’, as it were.
39. Who’s least likely To respond? …
40. Living arrangements? I live in my parent’s basement. Huzz.
41. What books are you reading? “The Knight”, can’t remember who the author is, not reading it very regularly though.
42. What’s on Your mouse pad? The color “teal”, also known as “aquamarine”.
43. What did you watch last night on TV? 24, except it wasn’t on my TV, and it wasn’t on cable.
44. Favorite smells? Wildflowers, nightime.
45. Favorite junk food? Nerds rope!
46. Rolling Stones or Beatles? I hate both with a passion.
47. What’s the farthest you’ve been from home? Hawaii, in February of 1st grade.

Tacos

This week has generally not been great, though mostly circumstantially. I’m pretty much over Daisy, and Jen is as annoying as ever. It’s life.

Work has been highly mundane, thanks to the task I’ve currently been assigned to. I’m supposed to be updating their entire inventory, recording everything and making sure the resources list is updated. This includes all their catalogs. As energy auditers, they need to know the cheapest and most efficient items of just about all housing materials – plumbing, lighting, electricity, HVAC (heating-ventilation-A/C), architecture, blah blah blah. So they have a big wall of catalogs from tons of companies on all of this stuff. Whenever they last logged their inventory of this stuff, they didn’t record the date of the catalog and the website. So, my job is to go through all 150+ of these things and find a date and website. I have like 1/3 of the wall left to do. Thank heavens.

I had a lot more to write, but I can’t articulate well right now, and I don’t want to rewrite this later. For now, watch this, see the aftermath.

J. Johnson, Resident Pakistani

I have honestly not had time to post, and that is a promise. But this will be a good one, I assure you. It comes with many pictures.

So, the trip to Virginia.

We left on Wednesday as planned, with Daisy in tow. We took her to prevent her from being alone another week straight. She doesn’t do well alone. Plus, if she really, really didn’t get along with Jen, then it would be good to know. On the topic of Daisy, we took her to the vet today. She has, at best, another month. She has a respiratory cancer, half a dozen tumors, a lung infection, and fleas. You’ll understand about the fleas in just a minute, though.

So, after an 8 hour drive, we get to Madeline’s (that isn’t spelled right) house. Only, it’s not a house, it’s a college student’s house. That is to say, half a dozen college students live(d) there. The level of order and cleanliness was at a level I did not know existed in normal humans. As we walked in, we were promptly informed that the cat had fleas and that some measures had been taken to kill them. Queue Daisy’s fleas.

We hung around there, Christopher and I spent most of our time driving around, he gave me a little driving lesson, and boredom was abound. We did not have much to do.

The anniversary party was on Saturday, which was completely uneventful. The food was really nasty, although the punch was quite good. I’ll take that punch any day. The party was in a Presbyterian church. Therefore, rich. The youth room had 2 27″ TVs, an air hockey table, a pool table, and 2 foosball tables. The cafe (a full cafe) had 3 27″ TVs, and a piano. This, my friends, is what the churches of the South spend their money on. I am fairly sure that the money used on 5 27″ TVs could almost feed an average man for a year. Anywho. The piano was manned by all 4 of my cousins and my aunt Lynn, who contributed their lovely cello, violin, dulcimer, and flute muzak. I spent most of the time drinking punch and playing pool, or nervously standing around looking at people I’ve never met, and still have not. The very nervewracking thing about family reunions is that you’re looking at people you don’t know, and if you glance at a girl and begin to think “Hmmm, she is mildly attractive.” your blood curdles as you remind yourself as she is your (n)th cousin. This mind game wears down on you fast, and I retreated to playing pool and slurping punch for this reason as well.

Brooke is in the middle there, I have no clue who anyone else is.
[2012 edit: lost forever]

There was cake. There’s always cake.
[2012 edit: lost forever]

Madeline is on the left, Eliza is on the right. I don’t know why my dad found this moment special, but Eliza appears to be enjoying her camera.
[2012 edit: lost forever]

They all look exactly the same. One of them is my grandma. Four of them are not.
[2012 edit: lost forever]

The rest of the week was highly uneventful. We didn’t do anything really. The most fun I had was playing putt-putt with Christopher and Dad, I spent most of my time at the condo watching the Discovery Channel, which was highly appealing to my tastes, but not exactly an exciting way to spend vacation. The phone in the condo was restricted from outside calls, and you had to pay a fee to unrestrict it. Apparantly the fee for talking was also quite high, so calls were out. That was my wonderfully spent 7 days.

The trip home was a very long 8 hours. Oy. Two dogs in the car made for a very hard time. As cute as Jen is, she is a puppy, and puppies are innately handfuls. I had practically no room, so sleep was not an option. Oh well.

These were taken at home, but hey, it works.
[2012 edit: lost forever]

Tuesday night was also a rough night. I spent a lot of time setting things up for Jen and getting a strategy ready for how to train her. Along with the unpacking, I was also figuring out how to spend some time with the Ohio-ans (pronounced O-hwA-nzz). I also seccuesfully doles out 24 GB of Season 4 of 24 while I was gone, so I felt rather good about my contribution to the community. Season 4 has been good so far (I’ve watched 4 episodes), we’ll see if it keeps things up.

On Wednesday, I had barely enough time to wake up and shower before Amanda, Daniel, Kylie, and Patrick showed up at my door to wisk me away to Benjamin’s house, where Maria and Jessica did await. I daresay (i declare that to be one word) I have not had such a good time in many a month, I truly do love you Ohio-ans. We spent some time at Benjamin’s house, playing cards, poking eachother, and just sitting around. We toddled off to Emma’s house, and did more of the same; poking eachother, playing cards, and sitting around. We decided to camp out in the great wild that is Emma’s property, so Emma’s mom took us out with out stuff in the truck to their little camp site.

Things were grim at first. Very grim indeed. There were loads of bugs, the grass was long and pokey, so we couldn’t sit in the tents, and we only had one match to make our camp fire. Things picked up once we got a lawn mower from the house and mowed everything down, and at the same time, Benjamin, Patrick and I got the fire going. The fire kept the bugs away, so tending the fire was a rather pleasant job. Somewhere in there Rachel and Robbie (they go to school with Emma) showed up, which added to the awesome. I don’t remember what we did after that, because I spent the rest of the night talking with Amanda and Maria (and sort of Nolan, although he mostly provided comic relief for us), after which we played Mafia (i totally owned as both the narrator and the mafia). We sat around the fire for a few hours, and eventually wandered to bed. But not, of course, before doing the complete hokey-pokey. I can proudly say I put my butt in and shook it all about. Not many can do that. LEEROOOYY JENKINS!

We got to sleep about 4:00 AM, woke up about 7, and headed back to the house. After eating some delicious coffee cake, we marched off to the mall, which I did not choose to do. It was a little weird, as I was not there to buy anything, and everyone else was just kind of running off and…yeah, it was weird. I don’t particularly enjoy traveling in groups of 8. We went to the theatre, only to find everything started at 6, except for Madagascar, so we went and watched that. I didn’t think it was all that funny, but Jessica couldn’t stop laughing, which made it marginally funnier. It had its moments.

After the movie, we went and ate at the CTB in Triphammer Mall, and said our goodbyes. We’ll be seeing eachother again in two weeks (WoL), so it wasn’t exactly emotional, but I can guarantee, whatever emotion that was lacking there will be made up for on the Saturday morning WoL ends. When I got home, I got a letter from Jonothan and Elizabeth, which was most excellent. Jonothan sounded pretty exhausted in general. It was good to hear from him, though. Showering was quite excellent, as I’d been wearing the same clothes for 2 days, after camping and stuff.

And here we are Today. I woke up at 11, (and at 8:30 too, Jen was yipping to go out) went to work from 12:30 to 4 PM. Work was basically what I expected. Minor work like testing equipment and calling stores about stock constituted my day. It’s air conditioned, so it’s not uncomfortable or anything. The people are nice. It’s work.

I biked home (ugh, 2 miles uphill sapped all my energy), which took like 45 minutes. My dad got back from the vet with the news about Daisy, and also informed me that a baby bunny was outside. I took Jen out thinking she would just ignore it, but she kept jumping around it in circles, so I took her inside, got the camera, and came back outside. Jen managed to squeeze out the door as I went out, and continued jumping around the poor baby bunny, so I figured I’d get a picture of it. Jen then proceeded to bite the baby bunny, it squealed really loudly, and sprinted towards our grill, and stayed there for a good 4 hours. According to Benjamin, bunnies only squeal when they think they’re going to die. Thus, I felt pretty bad about traumatizing this poor thing. The bunnies around our house are really tame – they’ll stick around when we’re outside. We don’t give them anything, but they just kinda mope around. Bunnies are cool as long as I don’t have to take care of them.

A classic battle.
[2012 edit: lost forever]

The poor thing was hidden behind the grill after Jen bit it…
[2012 edit: lost forever]

Kerry came over, and we walked with Zach downtown and got some subs. We went back to Zach’s house and layed about as we tried out Battlefield 2. Looks pretty cool, but I don’t have the money for it. Work only pays once a month, so I won’t get any money until at least August. I got home, and here we are. I may have pictures of the Ohio-ans later, I don’t have any since I didn’t bring the camera.

You now have my post. I am allowed to pose one question to you.

[2012 edit: lost forever]

Packing is not Okay

I’m off to the gargantiomous family reunion tomorrow. The timing is unfortunate as the lawns will not be happy once I get back, and I’ll also probably miss a letter or two. On the bright side, we’re coming back with another dog, Season 4 of 24 will be done, and I’ll get to see Christopher. So, we’ll see.

[geek]

Those new maps came out for Halo 2 – I was quite disappointed. Gemini and Backwash are poorly designed, especially with the sword. It often turns into a game of “scramble for a nearby weapon in hopes that a combo-er or sword-er doesn’t see you in time. Backwash is just hard to see in, so you’re always surprised by the sword, and the one shotgun is impossible to find, since everything is leaned against trees, and there are trees everywhere. As such, I do not like those two levels. Relic, Terminal, and Elongation are good, especially Terminal.

[/geek]

Paul got me the absolute coolest song, ever. Amazingly enough, it’s French, a techno of sorts, it has the style of techno, at least. If you’ve seen Ocean’s 12, it’s from the scene with the laser field where Tolour is jumping around. Ocean’s 12, by the way, is possibly one of my favorite movies. Something about it, I can’t put my finger on it, is really, really awesome. I don’t know what it is, but I watched it 3 times yesterday, something about it really intruiges me.

I won’t be back till Tuesday night, so until then, farewell.

The One Redeeming Quality

Something I’d forgotten over the past few years is something about Ithaca that redeems most of the liberal extremists, leftist tree-huggers, and drugged up hippies.

During my daily checking of Slashdot, I came across an article about video game violence, written by a student who went to Columbine during the shootings, and was friends with the shooters and the shot. I’m always on the hunt for good backup for the day when I’ll have to defend myself against someone who doesn’t understand what I do for a hobby, so I checked it out, and also read the comments on the article on /..

The sole blessing of Ithaca is the fact that as a high school student, I can be who I am, and I am not going to suffer in any way for that. Seeing stories about ignorant parents who take away their child’s computer permanently and news about geeks like myself having their only defense against the sucky world that is high school taken away, really strikes home. God has blessed me with parents that know and understand me enough to see that the tube I sit in front of all day is not a handicap or an escape. Knowing that other parents are foolish enough to give into the public hysteria that is the mainstream media pains me.

I am comforted to know I don’t have to deal with real rednecks and jocks.

Not that I’m stereotyping or anything.

But it’s not like they’ll find out anyways, being rednecks and jocks.

That wasn’t a stereotype either.

The Joy of Geckos

VBS was surprisingly fun. It got better as the week went on. I got kind of attached to a few of the kids, they were pretty cute. It was really, really obvious which kids had solid homes, though. It was fun sitting behind the wall after the puppet shows goofing around, too. And then there was Mr. Missirian’s class…which was not so fun. I’m glad I did it though.

I’m officially signed up for Word of Life, which, was kind of late, but whatever works. I’m supposedly paying for 100 dollars of it, a big chunk out of my upgrades, because my parents don’t have enough to pay for it themselves. Admittedly, they are paying for me, but….

Moving on, those new Halo 2 maps come out Tuesday, and I’ve been playing rather much recently. The new maps look fairly sweet, especially Terminal and Gemini, and Relic might be fun. We shall see.

EDIT: Ithaca, the only place where fireworks are secinctly followed by a chorus of “O, Canada!”.

EDIT2: That’s just funny.

“Back, in a Color Roughly Akin to Black”

By the time this post is done, the DNS address should have resolved, and the blog will be back online. Not that any of you will notice. You all deserve many apologies from myself for having ignored all of you and stood on the sideline in a dark-colored pancho daydreaming. Metaphorically speaking. I am, however, back, and in a good mood, with loud music again, and with good speakers. First on the list: landmarks in geekdom.

Suspended Animation: 1, 2, 3, 4 (watch this one, very funny).

Intel sued by AMD: 1, 2.

American (IT) Economy Sucks, the EU sucks: 1, 2, 3.

Anyways, I’ve been at Daniel’s house since the 17th. I was there a total of 11 days, which, when you think about spending time with any one group of people, is a long time. It was overall pretty fun, I spent a lot of time helping out at Daniel’s church (which, I maintain, is identical to mine). Ben got me convinced to get Star Wars Galaxies after watching him play and learning the level system. I had been set on Guild Wars, but I then learned the level limit is 20, which kind of defeats the fun I hope for in these games. I didn’t do much at Daniel’s house in particular beyond watch Babylon 5, 24, and play Gladius with them. I was also not able to blast my techno without my large speakers. What can one do?

I was not a complete bum, though. I helped out at their VBS (Vacation Bible School), which was more interesting than expected. Daniel and I got the four and five-year-olds, and while they aren’t exactly aware of their surroundings at that point, they manage to be a handful. It’s hard to teach anything complex or meaningful to kids that young, and some of you would have laughed heartily at what they were doing.

Example: “God Loves You”
A non-competitive version of musical chairs, four hoola-hoops are placed on the ground. The kids run around in a circle while the leader sings some tune, and jump into the nearest hoola-hoop when the music stops. Upon jumping into the hoola-hoop, kids say “God loves you!” to eachother. Remove one hoola-hoop, rinse and repeat.

Events such as this and a puppet show, with one puppet commandeered by myself, are to be found at VBS. The unfortunate side-effect of VBS is the teen study, in which a highly aged and experienced engineer (whom I admire for his personal quality and ability) gives us a sort of “look at me as an example” lesson. On top of the style of teaching, it is a low-discussion class, which does not fly smoothly with me. My style of “saying something against the grain, and then backing it up with experience or references” does not work, as I usually get stopped at “saying something against the grain”, making me look like some kind of “bad” Christian. Anyways.

Beyond helping out at the church, I also attempted to bike around the lake with some of my Scout troop. This is a 100 mile trip, which, contrary to what I was thinking, is not just a 50 miles trip that goes for 50 more miles. No, this is much harder than that. Factors that did not help: I forgot an essential tube to my camelback, the route was very badly planned, and I forgot sunscreen. I made it 70 miles before Daniel, K2, and I all quit. It gets hard after 65 miles. Oh well.

EDIT: Pictures, stolen from Benjamin.

At the first grocery stop, nice and healthy. 15 miles.

[2012 edit: lost forever]

At the lunch stop, fairly healthy. 50 miles.

[2012 edit: lost forever]

At a shaded area, not very healthy. 65 miles.

[2012 edit: lost forever]

My mom and dad had some interesting stories about their bike trip, which may or may not come later. At the moment, I need to grab a coke, mow some lawns, and relax for the wonderful 10 days I have before running off to see my grandparent’s 50th anniversary, instead of getting to see Ben and Gemma’s wedding.

Strangely Akin to a Boy (O.o)

That’s right. It’s time for me to summarize and complain about all my classes. I will finish this quickly, so I can return to my game of Rome.

    • German 3H: Oh, we all know how I feel about Mary. My feelings towards her softened a little towards the end of the year, mostly due to the extreme feeling of ‘I don’t have to do anything to please this woman.’. At least I’m done with her.
    • Math 10H: Ms. House turned out to actually be a pretty good teacher. She started to warm up a little bit more towards the end of the year, but I still can’t get past the fact the she looks exactly like a chipmunk. And I’m not even joking. She was nice though. Hopefully my Math teachers next year won’t be among the sucky ones.
    • Principles of Engineering: Mr. Peters tried so hard to teach our class something about engineering, and I dare say he failed. I can’t really blame him, but he just didn’t know the material enough to teach it. He’s a nice guy, and would be a great teacher, if he only knew what he was teaching. Fun class, though, making mousetrap cars, the machine-contrapto thingies, and bridges. Which is basically all we did the entire year.
    • Global 2H: Mrs. Rumney left me really, really unsatisfied most of the year. She’s a really, really good teacher, but she didn’t really challenge us at all. Admittedly, most of the class wouldn’t want the challenge, but the class was really, really easy. The lowest grade I ever got on a test/quiz in there, iirc, was a 78. Most of them were 100’s. I didn’t really learn anything, although i kind of knew a lot of history beforehand anyways.
    • Programming: Mrs. Teukolsky is probably my best teacher, and she taught my favorite subject, so it was kind of automatically my best class. I need not say more.
    • English 10H: Mr. Asklar is probably one of my not-so-favorite English teachers. He was really impersonal, really forgetful, and seemed like he was only here to pay the bills. He missed school more often than I did – think about that for a moment. We didn’t really do much writing or anything, just kind of….I dunno. Hard to describe.
    • Physical Chemistry: Ms. (b) Smith is a horrible, horrible teacher. Horrible. She doesn’t know it, she just kind of drones on and on about whatnot, but she does not know how to teach. Chemistry could have been a cool subject, but it was mad boring with her. Some stuff was cool – making ice cream with liquid nitrogen, cooking marshmallows with liquid nitrogen, cooking cheez-its with liquid nitrogen, spilling liquid nitrogen on my arms, throwing moles in liquid nitrogen, throwing balloons in liquid nitrogen, throwing bananas in liquid nitrogen, and, of course, pouring liquid nitrogen into cups. That’s actually suprisingly difficult – there’s so much water vapor everywhere you can’t see when you’re pouring the liquid nitrogen. Ahem.
    • PE: Uh….

 

And there you have…

…my year.

Another Quickie…(O.o)

[geek]

Happy, Gwen?

New case is wonderful – far quieter and sexier than before. I’ve set my next goal on what to buy – 150 dollars is the required amount this time. CD-RW, DVD/CD-ROM, Arctic Silver, HSF, PSU. Should have that before the end of the month – this is aesthetically the biggest upgrade – the drives will be black, the computer will run slightly faster and cooler, all that jazz, which will be rather nice.

[/geek]

I had the interview with Sho’s dad on Friday, which went rather well – I didn’t actually know it was an interview until Sho scolded my Army shirt near the end of school. It went well either way – it’s exactly what I’d hoped for. That, plus the 7 bucks an hour makes for a very good job.

[geek]

When I got home I promptly ripped apart my computer as Karel watched in laughing horror as I recklessly constructed the beast. My mistake in the building process was in not putting the seperators (my mind blanked on the actual term…) between the mobo and the case. Thankfully my ‘Power Supply’ brand PSU was smart enough to stop before frying me and my hardware. I didn’t know this at the time, and the squealing noise emitting from the PSU scared me witless. After spending the entire night laboring over the mess, I gave up assuming the power surge that day had shorted the PSU, which fried the motherboard and processor.

The next day I was severely distressed – I’d gone a full 18 hours without a computer, and I was beginning to crack. I retreated to my dad’s computer, when available, to sort out which parts to order, which added to 600 dollars. I obviously don’t have 600 dollars on me – I was set on loaning it from either Karel or Christopher. Dad was DEAD set against me borrowing from Karel, and spent all of Sunday arguing with him over the phone and bargaining with Christopher to get him to loan me the money. The other choice was to wait 12 days (actually more than that – about 20) for my Dad to get home to order them for me. Truly, a stressful situation.

[/geek]

In between all this, Paul, Ben, and Zach spent the night Saturday, after randomly appearing as I was going out to mow lawns (at the time Kerry and Julia were there too). Thoroughly mocking my biking gloves, they felt absolutely no mercy for my ego. I didn’t go to church the following morning even though I was ready by 9:15 – Mom didn’t get back from dropping Dad at the airport until almost 10:00, and Paul was still around, so I decided to stay home.

Today, I got myself a grand olde haircut (which I rather like, as per usual). I think I like this one enough to replace my :-O picture. Ye shall see.

I also watched Gladiator two or three times over the weekend. Possibly my favorite movie.

Quickly…(O.o)

A few quick things. The case arrived today, but mom and dad weren’t home when it came, so we’re dropping by to pick it up from the FedEx office after my interview-thingo with Mr. Shapiro. If the interview goes well, I’ll be working 4 hours a day for two months, probably doing paperwork, but that is yet to be seen. I’ll also be working with Greg at the greenhouses 4 hours a week for the summer, and with the added mowing, I’ll have plenty of money to complete this computer before the end of summer.

I selected a PSU today during Programming (she was doing review, and offered to let whoever didn’t want to review for the final could go in the lab, which was really nice. I might have enough from mowing all tomorrow, depending on how much is left over from the case. We’ll see.

And now, away I go.

All YOUR FACE are Belong to Us (O.o)

Close runner-ups for the title of this post: “Armed with Honor” “Gravity is a Harsh Mistress” “Divorce Court” “All YOUR MOM are Belong to Us”

I’ve begun the process of upgrading all the components in my computer. Starting with this case. The specs will be along these lines, minimum:

  • ~425W PSU – $50 or $60

  • 6600 GT (subject to change) – $180 or $120

  • AMD Athlon 64 3400+ (newcastle, subject to change) – $180 or $240

  • 64-bit, dual channel, hyper-transport, raid 0/1/0+1, etc. mobo (subject to change) – $150 – $225

  • ~768MB PC3700 (subject to change)- $200 or $300

  • black DVD/CD-ROM, and CD/RW, and floppy – $75

  • RAPTOR! – $160

adds to approximately 1095 dollars – about 750 of that is subject to change, because of new technology that may be coming out – it’s why I’m buying the case, then PSU, then ROMs first. After that, comes the mobo/proc, then the RAM, the GPU, and finally the new hardrives. We ordered the case tonight, so it should arrive Friday. I’ll order the PSU as soon as I have the money (basically whenever I mow again). The mobo/proc have to come together, so it will take basically all summer to get that collected (unless I get hired by Mr. Shapiro, or find another available job). I’m excited, anyways.

I stayed home to do lots of things today – find this case and PSU and ROMs, prepare the lesson I taught at Bible Study (which went okay, I thought – definitely could have been better, but nobody responds to anything I say, making it harder to adjust), do English work, Math, and study for my Chemistry and Math finals. I also watched Best in Show last night, which was quite hilarious. I still have Time Bandits, the Star Wars commentaries (I’m curious to see what George has to say..), and Bandits on the current pile of things to watch. The pile’s a lot smaller than it used to be, that’s for sure. I don’t think I mentioned this before – I watched the Tick (a single season comedy that was canceled by FOX a while back), which was also very, very funny. It was only 9 episodes, since it got cut, and it was really low budget, but it was really funny. In the stupid kind of way, that some may not be able to appreciate. And now…a shower.

Part 11-13 of X

Does the Bible condemn astrology?

Yes:

Is.47:13-14
“Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it.”

No:

Lk.21:25
“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars.”

The Bible condemns living by the stars – planning your days, seeing the future, and living by what you see in the stars. There are signs in the stars – the star over Nazareth is a good example.

Should we believe everything?

Yes:

1 Cor.13:7
“Believeth all things.”

No:

Pr.14:15
“The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going.”

1 Th.5:21
“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”

Hmm….that first quote looks a little short. Context! Here’s the NIV version, because the SAB version would require me to quote the entire chapter to make sense.

1 Cor.13:4-7
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Now, it doesn’t say believe in there, but instead says trusts – this is obviously talking about what love does, not what wisdom or caution does. Ahem.

Does the blood of animal sacrifices take away sin?

Yes:

Lev.17:11
“I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”

No:

Heb.10:4
“For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.”

In the Old Testament, God asked the Israelites to present sacrifices to atone for their sins. These sacrifices were not actually doing anything; they were symbolic of where their sin was going.

These Fries Sure are Loaded…(O.o)

I’ve had a rather interesting weekend, of sorts. Friday was rather enjoyable – Paul came over, we went downtown, expecting a horde of girls to greet us with unmeasurable joy, and were instead greeted with a capella and greasy pizza. I don’t like spelling a capella, it is most unnatural, suggesting something about the genre itself. Ahem.

We came back (he spent the night), watched the Royal Tenenbaums (good movie, not quite as hilarious as I had expected, but good), and Paul still can’t beat me in soccer. I was Cameroon. CAMEROON. I spent the rest of the day basically doing nothing – I rather badly wanted to get Jesse, Benjamin, and Daniel over, but Jesse had no transportation, Daniel was at his last day of classes, and Benjamin did come over, but we had nothing to do. I sat up in the attic reminiscing, listening to music, for about an hour, doing absolutely nothing. It was actually quite nice, in some respects. I cleaned up the attic some more, moved some signs, and, randomly enough, two couches appeared up there. Dad said Louie (Young Life director-majig) left them here, though it’s not known whether we’re keeping them. Either way, they’re here for a while, and it really rounds off the attic nicely – no weird empty spaces.

The 7 days between now and the end of school seem very, very long. I’m not actually looking forward to the end all that much, I just want to be in a place of regularity, so I can sit down and plan things out. It doesn’t help that I still haven’t gotten an answer from Sho’s dad – that decides a lot of what I’ll be doing over the summer. I really hope I get it, I’m really eager for a new computer, moreso than the repairs on the car. Speaking of which, I’m getting the permit Tuesday.

I’ve begun to appreciate some of Jonothan’s massive 1000+ CD collection in the back room – I’ve dug out his Built to Spill and Sunny Day Real Estate stuff, but it’s hard to find anything in a collection that massive. Admittedly, it doesn’t compare to Christopher’s 100GB library, but his is sorted into folders, which you can scroll down. Flipping through books of CDs is a little slower.

And to end, a fitting quote to my anti-SAB series.

Hebrews 4:2 (NIV)
“For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.”

I wasn’t always a Christian, you know.

Parts 8-10 of X

You want answers? (2, 3) You got answers.

8: Is it okay to drink alcohol?

Rom.14:21
“It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.”

Gal.5:21
“Drunkenness … and such like … they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Eph.5:18
“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess.”

There are dozens there, but I chose these three, because they sum up what the Bible says. As with most things, the Bible warns against excess – some alcohol is okay, but drinking to be drunk is wrong. It’s common knowledge that your judgment is impaired while drunk, and that can easily lead you down the “garden parth” (as Mrs. Teukolsky would say).

Jg.9:13
“Wine, which cheereth God and man.”

Ps.104:15
“Wine that maketh glad the heart of man.”

Pr.31:6-9
“Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.”

Again, it’s not that it’s wrong, only in excess. Proverbs is a book of true sayings, basically quotes that sound pretty and are true. Proverbs isn’t a guide for life, it’s just stating fact.

9: Does God want some to go to Hell?

1 Tim.2:3-4
“God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved.”

2 Pet.3:9
“The Lord is … not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

This, my friends, is the hardest question of Christianity, although poorly phrased. Here’s a short explanation. God loves everyone, but he cannot ignore our impurities. We’re all equally sinful before his eyes. We all deserve Hell. We don’t all get it. Any person that believes in Jesus won’t go there. In more basic terms, the question is asking if God decides who believes in Jesus or not. Short answer: kind of. God made us unique, knowing what choices we would make. He knew what choice we would make when it came to Him. Take with that what you will; this question has no comforting answer. The Lord COULD make everyone go to Heaven, but many of us would not do so willingly, it would be forced. God wants willing hearts. He wants all of us to believe in Him, but He is not going to force us all to believe. This is a paradox – He wants us to choose Him, and yet our destiny is chosen for us. I have not found a satisfactory answer yet.

Rom.9:18
“Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.”

This sums it all up; it’s all up to Him.

10: How long does God’s anger last?

Mic.7:18
“He retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy.”

This pretty much sums up the other 2. This goes back to Romans 9:18, which is just above. He has mercy on those of which He will have mercy on. He’s never said His anger is not everlasting. Most of these verses are just contextual – in some cases, it is temporary.

Ps.30:5
“For his anger endureth but a moment.”

These are the Psalms – they’re like a diary of his walk with God. He’s cursed the Lord in some Psalms, in others, he is delighting in Him. It is his experience.

Jer.17:4
“Ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn for ever.”

The other three actually aren’t relevant – punishment is not anger. You may deserve everlasting punishment, but that doesn’t mean His anger is punishment. He deems that some deserve His everlasting anger. That’s as best an answer as I can give.

Many to go.

Part 7 of X

You want answers? You got answers.

Ex.20:14, Dt.5:18
“Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

Heb.13:4
“Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.”

Correct. Adultery is a sin.

Num.31:18
“But all the women children that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”

Wait, what? I do believe SAB has some stupidity issues to solve. This is telling them to save those who have not had sex. That’s what “have not known man” means. Duh?

Hos.1:2
“And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms….”

Not only is this not approving of adultery, it’s not even close to relevant. God commanded Hosea to marry a prostitute, and be faithful to her until death. Even though she ran off dozens of times with other men, he stayed true, and in the end, she was turned.

Hos.3:1
“Then said the Lord unto me, God yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress.”

I’m impressed by the lack of context they give. See above.

Many to go.

Personifying Mr. Dandelion (O.o)

EDIT: Ah, yes…

As much as I would like to write, this is going to be fairly short. I haven’t gotten to do much of anything beyond do 4 hours of mowing. Admittedly, I did make 45 bucks doing it, but if I’m walking 3 mph (which is about what I was walking at), that’s 12 miles of walking, with a mower. Running in gym will be a blast, although, I suspect having new (or, were new, until today) shoes will improve running greatly. In case I hadn’t complained about it to you before, my heel had worn through the sole and padding, down the the rubber frame on the bottom. The shoe itself was actually detaching completely from the bottom frame. That was one crappy shoe.

I’ve got my English portfolio due Friday, which I have not yet started. I’m willing to bet I can do everything in one day. As in, get home from school, work until it’s done, go to school the next day. I’m up for the challenge, anyways. My dad and I dropped by the DMV today, but there were some pretty long lines, so we chickened out. I’m hoping there’ll be time before the end of the week to get that permit, as time’s a-wasting. He seemed rather eager to “get ‘er done”, as it were.

Busy, busy days.

Part 6 of X

Having thoroughly owned 5 minor detail “contradictions”, I’m now going to skip through to general questions. It’s simply not worth anyone’s time to have to go through all of them. I suspect this will entail about 45 more questions, so it doesn’t end this any time soon. If you find one worth considering, tell me.

You want answers? You got answers.

In reality, I shouldn’t dignify this one with a response, but, I know that some want more than logic to disprove these things.

Gen.1:25-27
(Humans were created after the other animals.)
And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image…. So God created man in his own image.

Chapter 1 of Genesis is the chronological account of God creating the world. This is correct.

Gen.2:18-22
(The man was created first, then the animals, then the woman from the man’s rib.)

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them…. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

Easy. God created more animals for Adam to see, instead of taking from what was already there. Or, if you don’t like that, consider this: just because God created more animals doesn’t mean he didn’t create them before. Common sense.

Part 5 of 339

You want answers? You got answers.

1 Sam.22:20
“And one of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar.”
1 Sam.23:6
“Abiathar the son of Ahimelech.”

Yep. These two references refer to one Abiathar.

2 Sam.8:17, 1 Chr.18:16, 1 Chr.24:6
“Ahimelech the son of Abiathar.”

2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles overlap as far as the timeline goes – Abiathar had sons, and named one of them after his father, Ahimelech. Simple.

334 to go!

I Need a Haircut (O.o)

Today was quite fun. I spent it at Jesse’s house pretty much from after church till an hour ago. We shot targets with his .22, built an extension for the chicken coup, helped his mom with her stone walkway, it was nice to get out and do some work. They got some chickens recently (within the past few days), and I must say, chickens are ridiculously hilarious. GOBBLEZ!!

Yesterday, I pretty much spent the entire day staring at my programming books and improving this ever-complexifying program I’m making. I’ve almost created my own sorting algorithm, which, with my complete inexperience, will just be a copy of an algorithm that was developed 50 years ago, but, I’ll still have made it on my own. *nod*

I watched Full Metal Jacket the other night. That, my friends, is a really weird movie. I was expecting a bright, comedic war film, but the humor was very dark, and really thrown off by the people constantly dying. I also watched the “new and improved AGAIN” DVD version of Episode IV. I swear…you think they’d have the technology to remove the red and green boxes from around the TIE fighters, and the horrific lightsaber effect (where the actor stands still as the next frame pops in the saber itself). Strangely enough, I’ve never actually watched any of the 3 movies in one sitting. I’ve seen all of them in bits and pieces, but I’ve never seen any of them from front to back. I’m gonna watch V tonight, which is supposedly the best of all of them. Not having any recollection of which scenes go with which movie, I can’t say whether I agree.

My hair is everywhere. I need a haircut.

Part 4 of 339

You want answers? You got answers.

Heb.11:17
“By faith Abraham when he was tried, offered up Isaac, … his only begotten son.”

Gen.22:2
“Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, … and offer him there for a burnt offering.”

These both refer to when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son. This, for Abraham, was the ultimate test of faith. Isaac was considered his only true, loved son. While Abraham did have other sons, Isaac was his only begotten son. Ishmael, who was born before Isaac, was not his true son, as he was not born of Abraham’s real wife, Sarah. Isaac, who was born of Sarah when she was about 80-90 years old, was God’s gift to Abraham.

Gen.16:15
“And Hagar bare Abraham a son: and Abram called his son’s name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael.”

Yep.

Gen.21:2-3
“For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son is his old age …. And Abraham called him Isaac.”

Yep.

Gen.25:1-2
“Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah. And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah.

Again, yep.

Gal.4:22
“Abraham had two sons; the one by a bond-woman, and the other by a free woman.”

This is hardly relevant. This isn’t saying he had only two sons – if you look at the context, it was comparing the origins of Isaac and Ishmael.

335 to go!