Thoughts

Finding myself more and more

Imagine this: you’re born with a desire to relate to others, to spend time talking and laughing with good friends who respect you and want to relate to you. But as you grow up, you find your confidence betrayed by false friends, derided by immature ones, or worse, you find yourself fending off unwanted advances from homosexuals who confuse your wish to socialize and relate to them as one human being to another for something else, something disgusting to you.

What do you do? You put up a wall. You become a loner. You choose to call yourself non-social. You make yourself believe you don’t need friends and you don’t need others. Alone, in the dark, you even start getting doubts about your sanity and sexuality, though you know better.

But then, after much prayer, you meet a girl who loves you for who you are. She respects you. She inspires you. She wants to be with you. She becomes your closest confidant, your best friend, the one you always go to for advice, and then, your wife. A dark, brooding veil begins to lift. You start seeing life through a different light. You meet her friends — decent, sociable people who enjoy good company the way God intended it, with laughter and talk and jokes and more laughter and help when you need it.

You begin to grow as a person. You start to make friends on your own now. People begin to discover you for who you really are, and the honest ones tell you that you’re a likable guy after all, that their first impression of you was wrong. All of a sudden, life is better. There’s more hope and joy in it. Friendship starts to take on the meaning you’ve always dreamed about. You find yourself.

This happened to me. I tell you, it feels like a long, dark night is giving way to breaking light. I doubt I’m alone in this. So what I want to say is, don’t lose hope. Hang in there. Pick your friends carefully. Don’t doubt who you really are for a minute. If you persist, you will succeed.

Thank you, Ligia, for making me see the light. It was through you that I grew and found myself. Thank you, and, though you already know it, I love you.

My wife Ligia

Thoughts

What should your superpower be?

Blogthings is running a quiz on this, and I went through it. The questions were a bit loaded, and I wasn’t sure about a couple of the answers, but even after I went back and changed them, I still got the same result. That short fuse of mine shows through again… For the record, I don’t think I’m terrifying, and neither does my wife. And I’m not keen on that whole “world belongs to you” business either. But, I’ve got a short fuse, I’ll admit that. And I’m definitely intense, driven, passionate and obsessed — sometimes to my detriment.

Your Superpower Should Be Manipulating Fire

You are intense, internally driven, and passionate. Your emotions are unpredictable – and they often get the better of you. Both radiant and terrifying, people are drawn to you. At your most powerful, you feel like the world belongs to you.

Why you would be a good superhero: You are obsessive enough to give it your all.

Your biggest problem as a superhero: Your moodiness would make it difficult to control your powers.

What Should Your Superpower Be?

Reviews

The music of Franz von Suppé

By coincidence, I heard two pieces written by Franz von Suppé within the last 24 hours, and realized he’s always been one of my favorite composers, although I never knew his name. If you’ve watched cartoons, then you’ve definitely heard his Light Cavalry Overture, and chances are you’ve also heard his Jolly Robbers Overture. They’re both popular pieces, both are fast-paced, and both will make you smile when you hear them.

Franz von Suppé had to have been an optimistic, contented man to have written such beautiful music. There was no mistake in his choice of career. After all, he turned down both law and medicine for music. His father wanted him to study law in Padua, and his mother wanted him to study medicine in Vienna. I heard this on WETA yesterday, as they introduced his Light Cavalry Overture.

If you aren’t a fan of his music already, try it out. You’ll likely become a fan. And if you’re in the area, tune in to WETA. They have some pretty cool music, and the little biographic capsules they offer about composers are pretty nice as well.

Lists

Condensed knowledge for 2007-05-14

Today’s calorie-free serving:

Clive Thompson from the NYT has a detailed write-up of what’s involved if small bands want to get their name out there these days. The almost-requisite MySpace page is a given… But while the web makes it easy for them to get their names out there, keeping up with the fans becomes a full-time computer job — just what they were trying to avoid when they became musicians. And at some point, the relationship reaches a plateau. A single human being can only keep up with a limited number of fans before they are overwhelmed. But the fans don’t care, they each want personal interaction. Sounds like a very non-fun experience for the musician.
Mandy Sellars in England suffers from a very rare condition called Proteus Syndrome. She will likely lose her legs. The article talks about her desire to experience life, and daily struggles.
This is good reading for us IT geeks: Top 7 things system administrators forget to do.
The NYT has a great profile of Walt Mossberg. The article not only talks about his career, but also about where things are going in terms of journalism when you factor in this “new media” we keep hearing about…
Mental_floss talks about the world’s most wanted (and expensive) poo. It’s ambergris. Yuck.
Look At This has posted a full-length movie called “When the Wind Blows“. It’s about an elderly couple who build a bomb shelter. When nuclear war breaks out, they survive, but unfortunately succumb to the fallout radiation while waiting for the government to help them. Here’s a direct link to the video.
According to this article, Bill O’Reilly uses old propaganda techniques to bias his listeners toward those he doesn’t agree with. Interesting stuff.
A pair of falcons has made their nest in the building of the San Jose City Hall, and they’ve installed a falcon cam for us web visitors. Neat!
Some charlatan who claims he’s Jesus Christ incarnate is fooling plenty of people down in Orlando. Don’t these people bother to read the Bible?
A brave little terrier saved 5 New Zealand kids from being torn up by violent pit bulls. Unfortunately it ended up so injured they needed to put him to sleep, but the children weren’t hurt.
Apparently ceiling height can affect how people think and act. A taller ceiling can make you more creative and artistic. Very interesting stuff!
Weirdomatic has a post with examples of old, creepy ads. I don’t know, Max Factor’s beauty micrometer seems reasonable enough, given the need to look fairly perfect on screen. Have a look and decide for yourselves.

Thoughts

Saying goodbye to fall

Autumn is always a bitter-sweet season for me. I still remember it as the time school starts. When I was a child, I dreaded September, because I knew school was coming. Those feelings lingered through college, and they tinge my thoughts even now. Autumn also meant harvest with all its bounty: apples, grapes, corn, potatoes, and so on. How I’d love to help my grandfather pick them from his garden! Maybe I was just happy to get away from homework, but I loved it. His delicious Concord grapes, crisp from the vine, were just the ticket for me on a cold autumn day. My grandmother would beg me in vain to wash them as I wolfed them down in sheer delight. Ah, youth, it’s wasted on children…

Then there are the colors of autumn. Is there a season more colorful than it? Winter isn’t it. Spring may be colorful, but only so in concentrated spots, like gardens with flowers or flowering trees. It’s mostly brown and green and blue. Summer is constantly and mostly green and blue. Winter is just dull. It alternates between the brown of mud and the white of snow, bespeckled here and there with an occasional cardinal bird and some evergreens, to speak nothing of the mostly dreary sky. Now autumn, that’s the ticket for color! Where else will you find different colors everywhere, even in lowly trees you wouldn’t otherwise notice?

I’ve been taking photos of fall colors for a few years now. I probably got some of my best shots this year, and I wanted to share a few with you. Join me in saying goodbye to autumn. In memoriam…