It was on this day, 23 years ago, that I entered this world, screaming and crying, and probably trying to figure out a way to escape into the wilderness, where I really belong.  Heh.  I remember 2 years ago when I turned 21.  That's when I (stupidly) started drinking because I became legal.  [Note to self:  just because something's legal doesn't mean it's a good thing to do.]  Then there was the time Wendy gave me a travel journal when I turned 20.  Before that, I remember turning 17 and going to the DMV to get my driver's license.  I think the only other birthday I remember before that was when I turned 10 or 11 and my parents and sisters jumped out of the barn after I got home from baseball practice and surprised me and carried me on their shoulders and spanked me like 10 or 11 times.  That was a good one.  Ooh wait:  last year, I took the FE exam the day before my birthday, and so I was recovering on the actual day of my birthday.  I think when I turned 15, I worked at this place called Cerbo's Hampton Nursery all day and then went to Ian's house for some bad stuff.

In my online travels, I came across a "hack" that enables a link to close a window without that little warning that says, "The Web page you are viewing is trying to close the window.  Do you want to close this window?"  Here's an example of that with the warning:  close, done by using javascript:self.close().  Now here's a link to close the window without the warning: close, done by using javascript:this.focus(); self.opener = this; self.close();.  This code basically tells the window to say, "Hey, this window was opened by another window, which is actually this same window.  So I don't have to warn anybody about closing the window because somebody else opened it."

One thing that always gets me is how mean I act towards homeless and poor people.  I guess I have this general distrust of anyone who asks me for money or anything.  I figure they'll use it for drugs or alcohol, and I shouldn't help them out.  That's why I'm always amazed at how this guy Jeremy freely gives things away to poor people.  The most recent time was on March 5.  We were walking out of the McDonald's after a long day of snowboarding and more recently, waiting in long lines for sub-par food.  A guy asked us if we could spare some food.  I looked the other way, or said something stupid like, "Sorry, I don't have any," while I was holding a bag that said "McDonald's" on the side.  But Jeremy gave the guy one of his two orders of 10-piece chicken nuggets, and without even thinking.  I was amazed.  Why don't I do stuff like that?  Why am I so selfish that I couldn't have even given one of my little hamburgers to some poor person on the street?  And this isn't the first time.  Jeremy said that he used to go into a deli in Hoboken for lunch when he was on co-op.  He'd buy two sandwiches:  one for himself, and one for the poor guy at the door.  He didn't even consider not doing it.  It's things like this that just amaze me.  Little things that help people out or simple professions of faith.

After watching Napoleon Dynamite for the third time, I realized what it is that makes this movie so appealing to so many people:  It's the idea that the underdog, or in this case the geeks, will prevail.  Bullies never succeed.  Chances are that the people watching this movie have been the victims of bullies and ridicule.  The people who were once bullies are most likely drug addicts and homeless.  But anyway, it inspires all of us geeks to persevere, despite the obstacles we encounter:  being underpaid and overworked, being turned down by hot girls, having our family mess up our personal lives, getting made fun of for dressing and acting a certain way, etc.  It's like Revenge of the Nerds:  nobody likes jocks and cool people; nerds always win in the end.  It's an inspiration to us all...especially me, because I'm a geek.

I have all the files from my website on my computer so that I can edit them whenever I want, and I immediately see the changes.  Then I eventually upload to the webhost.  I just stumbled across an interesting thing the other day:  you can use a leading slash when referring to links (a href="/link.html") to point to the root of your host directory.  This works great when you have files in different folders and you need to refer to files in the root folder or files based off of the root folder.  A problem occurs when you try to do this with files on your own computer.  The links with leading slashes then point to the root of your computer (file:///C:/link.html).  So here's a solution:  mount a virtual drive that contains all the files for your website.  There are a few different ways to do this.  One is to map a network drive and point it to your own computer and your website folder (\ip address or computer name\c$\website folder\).  Another way is to use a DOS (yes, like MS-DOS) command called "subst".  The problem is that this only works for the current login.  When you logoff or reset, the virtual drive goes away.  A third way to do this is with a program called MountVD.  It's a simple little thing that sets it all up for you, and it can even be set up to mount the drive each time the computer is started.  Good deal.  And now all your links that point to the root directory actually work.

I rule.  I found a way (not on my own) to show your Outlook calendar on a fullscreen webpage, without opening a new window.  The code is here.

I'm fully convinced that Christianity is completely true.  I think the problem lies in the fact that we as little tiny humans can't fully understand it all.  I really have no proof of this or no way to back this up, but it's what I believe.  I think that any apparent errors in the Bible or any ideas we have trouble explaining are there because we don't have the mental capacity to get past them.  Like the idea of the trinity.  Even when we explain it, it still doesn't quite add up.  I think this is because we don't fully understand it, and we can't.  But I think it'll all make sense when we meet God face-to-face, and he says, "Yo, here's how it is..."  Or there's the idea of being saved by faith or good works (which I've already proven in a previous post).  When we explain it, it might not completely answer all questions.  But I think God will answer any questions we have when we get to heaven.  Or how about our thoughts on when the world will end and how many more popes there will be?  We have our guesses about things and some of them might even be true.  But I think God will say, "Yeah almost.  You were close on this one.  But on this other thing, you didn't quite have it right."

The more I think about it and the more I pray about things, the more I realize that everything happens for one reason:  the same reason, which is to bring all people to a realization of their need for God and a savior.  I wrote about this before concerning sickness.  But even more than that, everything else in life happens for this same reason.  Death, for example, occurs in order to show us that we won't be here forever.  When people die and we're unhappy, it's normal; it's showing us that we don't want to die either and that we wish that person was still around.  This is saying two things:  we wish people could be around forever so we could enjoy them as we always did, and we're afraid of dying because we don't know what happens afterwards.  God's solution:  we go to heaven after death if we put our faith in God and his savior, and we don't need to worry about other people because our level of enjoyment in heaven will far surpass any amount of enjoyment had during this life.  But this is just death.  What about everything else?  We get sick to show us that we won't be around forever and we need to put our faith in something eternal.  We experience unhappiness to lead us to God's joy.  We go through tough times with money to make us not depend on it, but to depend on God.  We're put in uncomfortable situations to make us stronger so that we can stand for God.  Some people enter our lives to teach us to react in such a way that would be contrary to how we're tempted to act, so that we can love God's people.  This is a short list of things that happen all the time.  I noticed this every time I pray because I say things like, "God, please use this situation to bring people to You."  I've said that on so many occasions, that it made me realize that everything happens for the sole purpose of bringing people to God.

I'm really not a big fan of errors in books.  I'm so painstakingly anal retentive that whenever I read anything, whether it's a book or a magazine or a presentation at work, I always find mistakes.  Always.  It would be good if my job was as an editor, which I actually do occasionally at work.  So it really makes me mad when I find errors in the most important book on earth, the book that my whole life is based on:  the Bible.  I've never found an error in the actual physical Bible (the one with a cover and with pages and stuff).  But I've found errors in two other Bibles:  the online Bible and the Bible on CD.  The errors I've found are tiny; they don't change any meaning or hurt the reader in any way.  The thing I don't like is that the Bible is meant to be a reliable book.  The ancient Jewish scribes used to make copies of it, and they didn't take it lightly.  That's why there have been so many manuscripts found that are all identical:  no mistakes were allowed.  So that's what really gets me.  Not only this, but when I point out these mistakes to the people who run/own these sites/products, they don't even respond.  It kills me.  Here's an example:  Galatians 5:23 says: "gentleness and selfcontrol. Against such things there is no law."  Any idiot can look at that and realize that "selfcontrol" is spelled wrong:  it needs a hyphen.  Also, any idiot can type that into Microsoft Word and the automatic spell checker will tell you it's wrong.  So when I filled out the "Typographical Errors" form on their website on March 1, I was hoping they would quickly and easily fix the problem.  But now that it's quite a while later and they still haven't fixed it or responded to me, I doubt they'll ever do anything.  That makes me mad.  Now there's Zondervan, who makes the NIV Audio Bible Voice Only CD.  It's a great product.  I listen to it all the time now because I can't stand the radio.  But the problem is that I found an error in Titus 3:5, which is supposed to say, "he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit."  On the CD, it says "washings" instead of "washing."  That might not sound like a big deal, and it's really not.  But think about it:  the only reason I noticed this error was because I happen to have this verse memorized.  What about the tens of thousands of other verses in the Bible that I don't have memorized?  This is exactly what I wrote to Zondervan on 3 separate occasions:  February 3, March 10, and today.  I would just like a response from them; something to at least acknowledge that they received my email, and maybe that they'll look into it.

I was talking to a very devout Catholic the other day about the differences between Catholicism and "Evangelical Protestantism," also known as Christianity.  He was saying that he (and the church) disagrees with the idea of salvation solely by faith because a person can claim to be saved and even accept Christ as savior, but the person may then continue to lead their previous way of life, thereby showing no commitment or change.  I agree with this to a certain point.  If a person is truely saved, the Holy Spirit will work through them and they will eventually become more like Jesus Christ.  But the problem is this:  how many good deeds must a person do to prove that their salvation is sincere?  The Catholic would answer that a person doesn't need to prove their salvation through deeds, but that the deeds would naturally follow if the person was sincere.  So I ask this:  would the Catholic say that a person who accepts Christ as their personal savior is not actually saved until their faith is shown through their deeds?  If this is the case, then it sounds to me like a person isn't saved until they do something to prove it (or verify it), which is a deed.  In other words, faith and deeds save a person.  The Catholic person I talked to was very careful about his wording; he would find a way to contradict what I've just said.  So this brings up another point:  isn't a person acting out of faith by accepting Christ as their personal savior?  Does this not count as an action performed out of faith?  This would satisfy the requirements for the Catholic (faith accompanied by a deed) and the Christian (faith alone).