Proof of concept

The break has fallen upon the back of time itself!  It seems almost too ideal for the one to come at the same time as the other, as if just to limit the available break time to the already overworked crowds of students.
Then again, it might well be more inappropriate if it was the night before a test.  Who thought this whole thing through anyway?

Now there's a rather leading question.  It's almost as if I were going to answer if for you!  Don't ask me to think it through too much.  Just because somebody decided that the longer days of summer meant that sunlight was being wasted and people should get up earlier to accomplish more... oh right.
If anybody was interested, a research into the matter of energy consumption found that DST in California doesn't help energy costs, it instead drives costs up because of people getting home earlier and needing the AC on earlier.
(By the way, the concept was spoken by Ben Franklin, proposed in detail by George Hudson, and first implemented during WWI)
Now I've gone and thought it through, despite my objections.  So now we're both just a bit more informed, if not more intelligent or wise.  Those two require a bit more than just reading my words, I'm afraid.

Food for thought:  Why are you here?  Right where you are, right now, reading this as if it were an everyday matter?
Take it how you like.  My personal thoughts revolve firstly around how I got to eventually sitting down and typing up something to post on ye olde blog, and then more general -- what is my purpose for writing this?  Why bother?  Does it fit in with what I claim is the ultimate goal for existence?
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My dear readers, thus began another rambling post that I embarked boldly upon, intending to see through to fruition.  Admittedly, it was mere minutes ago that it was written, and so you will find little changed in the manner of my writing, except to perhaps be more obfuscatory.
What has changed is that I went outside.  More accurately, I went and chilled in the front yard staring up at the newly clear skies above my house, full of stars, and pondered such things as deliberate belittling.  As easily as several constellations are to be identified and pointed out, so is it easy to relieve one's mind of any feeling of being overwhelmed.  Surely that wasn't the purpose though!  Familiarity doesn't, and shouldn't, make the heavens any less majestic.
Every star you can see with your eyes is an unthinkably large sphere of burning mass, and the distances between them are equally unthinkable in comparison.  Even more so, quite often what you see is not one star, but an entire galaxy -- with an unthinkable number of stars, many times as unthinkably large across, and quite precisely located to look like each particular constellation.

"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?" A Psalm of David, Psalm 8:3-4

And with all the effort required for each one, isn't it something that you personally took a lot more care and effort? Those are the works of fingertips. Almost an afterthought, certainly not the big event. That's your job. They're there to let you know how much God cares for you, how much effort you were worth. It's said of humans that we are a body with a soul. Try the other way around: you are a soul bound for unending time, with a body granted to you for a bit, separated from you for a while, and then rejoined for all of eternity.

I'll admit it, I'm echoing Dr. Sinclair Ferguson and a couple others here.  And I didn't even take notes.  He's been blessed with some amazing insight that doesn't occur in my life.

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=229121120461

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Obfuscation is done.  That seems to be a particular talent of mine.  In fact, that break was probably one of the most straightforward things I've said all day.

Never give your mind a break, don't take the day off, don't stop thinking, and don't blink...

Wrong reference.  AnyWho, the more breaks you take, the harder it is to get back into a solid habit of having much to think about, and life gradually becomes too simple to tolerate.

One should be very glad that proof-reading is not gone out of practice completely...

So with these many numerous disjointed and possibly distracting and self-contradictory thoughts, I leave you to return to spending life in another manner.

What is your confidence in life and death?

God bless!

-Petr

Motivated yet?

Nay, surely not!  I refuse to continue this whilst the world carries on!  Yet do they need me?  Need I say a word and benefit a person other than myself, reserving these monologues for some long sleepless night?
Are these monologues even meaningful?  Perhaps thought only occurs to me when I wish to speak out, and the rest of the time my mind is content to lie as fallow ground.  But then surely I shall speak out more often, lest that mind remain fallow ground until it can no longer bring forth any value, much less that of its own former self-imagined glory!
Background for this thought: didn't I last month say something to the effect of I'm done not writing?  Well golly, every time I say this sort of thing, the length of time only extends itself.  Plus its extremely redundant.  I'm tired of saying such things, as you surely are tired of reading it, because you and I both know how long it has been but are both rather glad to be hearing from this keyboard again. (Oh yeah, and I might be typing on it...)


Perfection is a hard thing to strive for, and takes up way too much time.  I sometimes wonder, how can somebody be back from an event for a mere 15 minutes and already have their entire collection of photos easily accessible to the public?  Did they skip the important editing process?  Was the editing process merely deemed valueless, to be relegated to those pictures that might have some slight chance of being printed?
Background for this thought (though it hardly seems important enough to italicize): I've got about 140 pictures from the past few months chilling on my hard drive, waiting for me to sort through them and find something to do with them.  Yet a lot of the time, it seems I'm the only who will get value of them at any later time.  When was the last time you said to somebody, "Can I see the massive collection of pictures on your hard drive?  I'm sure there's something there that will mean something to me."
How that one does go on and on.  It takes a special kind of person to handle these sorts of thoughts -- specifically one with time to go and do what I have committed to and still deal with their normal life! (Engineering, how thy pursuits do test the limits of a wakening day!  What shall be done with thee?)

Knowing that all this can only defer to a higher power, I must protest!  Why are you still reading, anyway?  Anna has written a wonderful piece reflecting on Psalm 23 -- go read both of them! (the poem and the psalm)
John Bunyan, I have recently found, is well known for his well known book, The Pilgrims Progress, and not without reason.  I realize I just stated the obvious; Yet is it not the place of such as I to state the obvious, knowing that somebody may not have realized or heard the obvious!
If you desire recent news -- well, for goodness sakes, are you not reading this on your browser?  Get thee hence, remove thy eyes from my page and catch up with the rest of the world out there.  I can hardly claim to be up to date, this place keeps me about a week behind everything except for big news, and I am content to dwell in peace for now.

But, say you, I wanted to hear how your life is going!  Mine?  You desire news of my poor existence?  It's definitely not an entirely unique fact that I live where I live, nor that I carry out normal operations of a day such as many others, but the way I respond to those normal operations and anything that falls outside these norms may be classified as relevant to my appearance as an individual.
Remember, individuality is sourced in the fact that one is made as in the image of his one and only Creator.  Ehwhat, what ho?

There are many countless little changes that seem to have little effect on the long term, on the outcome of the "eventual", though those countless little things add up.  I had not previous to this moment realized how radically different the room I currently sit in is from what I had imagined or seen previously of my life.  I have been blessed with a guitar to play should I so desire and it currently resides a mere 3 feet from my seat, while a wonderful keyboard that my roommate purchased (James!  Oh how I could go on about him, and perhaps I should...) resides another 2 feet in the same direction.  Man how I do love that particular combination.
Being the first thing that came into my mind as I was writing this, the significance of my access to musical instruments and the ability to practice regularly (or lack thereof because of engineering again) can't hold much to the significance of other things.  But I digress.

Perhaps I should mention my "Air Force motivated" tendencies?  Due to some circumstances this semester that I had not foreseen, it has become more possible that I'll be able to fly in said AF with some of the most incredible pilots and aircraft in the world!  How great would that be??

Composure regained


This brings me to the end of a previously allotted time for me to sit down and write.  I must leave you now, perhaps to focus strongly on another predetermined goal such as homework.

God bless!
-Petr

Of Yore

In days of old, one named Petr did write upon these pages.

Then came the days.  Yes, you know them well, the days that touch lightly upon one's soul, doing their very best to become mere memories in as short a time as possible.  Soon these days were overrunning Petr's life, and the empty pages remained empty, unexplored opportunities, while 'real life' was to be valued.

But perhaps those days are themselves only passing.

Even so, this person has always had an obsession with updates, the lack thereof, or the continuity of time between said updates.  Curious.

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THE ARCHIVE HIGHLIGHTS:

"This is going to be a week with more sleep than normal. I'm out in the middle of nowhere (a small place called Douglass :)"

"Where to begin? How about with the carpet killing."

"Infinity over infinity is equal to Hillary Clinton."

"But then, why not just "leave that question to the philosophers"?"

"What is this thing we call trust? Can it be defined by what we know? Google won't help here. Nor wikipedia. Believe me, I've tried."

"Wisdom from the rabbit: "If you don't know what it is, it will probably kill you.""

"One of them introduced himself as Philos, inviting Petros to come and play a game of cards."(Coincidentally, Annie, I have since discovered that my cousins really were right.  Petra is the proper usage. I apologize for the misleading.)

"Now if anybody understood all of the above, please mention it and I will gladly buy you ice cream"

"Individuals -- what a concept!"

"Well hey, I guess I'll have to learn to be perfect huh?"(As a point of interest, we are now in the midst of a drought that may take until 2020 to recover from)

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And so we find ourselves on the evening of October 8, 2011.  My past is full of references as to how time desires to speed along hastily.  I need not refer to them anymore, perhaps?
But maybe my approach these days is different.  I can remember writing some of that stuff, and others now that I'm looking at them wonder where in the world did that come from?  I'm not sure it came from the world.  And the world isn't where I'm going.

So here's what I'm saying -- why lament the speed with which time passes?  Does it not bring us closer to God, be it death or judgement day?  I'm ready for that day.  How many will not?


Sobering or uplifting?  A bit of perspective is extremely helpful, and perhaps that little bit of perspective is so often lacking, even in my own life.  Writing things down has apparently helped clear my mind.

Then again -- perhaps "things" are such as the best way to implement (xy' + yz + x'z)z' in which case it'll only leave me befuddled (not this particular problem mind you, I'm pretty sure that simplifies down to x' + y + z').

Any stories you wish to hear about?  Perhaps one you have that must be shared?

God bless!
-Petr

Well now folks

"109 Posts, last published on Dec 18, 2010"

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Well now folks... here I am.

Howdy and a very good day to ye :)

For those amongst you who happen to have RSS feeds -- thank you for subscribing, I would imagine this sort of long silence followed by a solitary (or maybe not) post is just what it was designed for.  Long is, of course, completely relative, and solitary isn't very well defined, so it might be possible to leave this behind!

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One of the easiest things to do at this point would be of course to post pictures and leave it there.  That would be something, wouldn't it?  All this leadup, just to leave it hanging again...

Come to think of it, there's an awful lot to look through if you haven't seen them.  A&M is a good place for taking random pictures:

2011 Spring College Station

And of course there was the skiing trip over the Christmas break!  It's hard to beat an annual ski trip with family. (it's rather difficult to remember the camera on the mountain...)

Vail11

If you're the type to keep up with all the speech/debate escapades from what is now my past, there was a rather enjoyable New Year's party with ICOM...

ICOM New Year 2011

And of course more recent than all that, Reformed University Fellowship Summer Conference in Panama City, Florida.
From Monday 'til Saturday, we did naught more than go to conferences (i.e. prolonged studies on God's word and the application thereof in our tiny often misguided lives) in the morning and chill on the beach in the afternoon.  Evenings were a mix of large group and hanging out with friends from Texas A&M RUF and other places around the nation, with the exception of Wednesday evening when we all took the evening and went for dinner as a campus group. (it's difficult getting a place for 60 people to eat!  We probably severely strained the supplies of the ice cream/gelato place next door as well)

It's hard to beat living yards from the beach!  I don't normally take more than about 150 pictures when I go somewhere unless I'm really trying; this time around, there were nearly 130 -- and I wasn't even trying.
Of course in the interest of upload space I'm sticking with a good deal less than that.

RUF Sumer Conference 2011

Wonderful times, y'all, I'll have to go back there -- physically and mentally, of course.

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Texas A&M does put one in a state of mind that reflects "howdy".  Or is that just me?

God bless!
-Petr

Adventures of a tool

Day one:
#1 I subconsciously reach up and touch my hair, then think (2 weeks after the last haircut) "Wow, my hair is really long!!"
freshmen have to have "white walls", basically shave our heads, to be qualified as good looking in uniform.

#2 (to be repeated, no doubt) Talk about my roommate, only to receive blank stares. Oh yes, I must have said "Old Lady."
It's not a blackbelt (freshmen/sophomore) privilege to have rooms, so we don't have roommates either. We have an old lady, that we have to take care of very carefully.

#3 Free time! What do I do? Sleep? Well, polishing shoes may be more important this time.... Oh yeah, I don't have to have them two-barred tomorrow.
Our black shoes need to be so reflective that under fluorescent lighting you can see the individual bars. Basically mirror-finished polish. It looks good, but it takes a lot of work.

This in the space of about 3 hours. We'll see how things continue in the near future.

Day two:
#4 Realize that I haven't explained yet what a 'tool' is.
Tools are those people that just can't give up the Corps games, even when they're not really in the Corps at the moment. These games are often excessive and seem completely out of the normal for any normal person. We're not exactly normal people, you know. Not even after just a semester. It gets worse if the sophomores, juniors, or seniors are tools.

#5 Realize that for some odd reason, I'm not using many abbreviations, or those I do use I want to know exactly what they mean.
Corps games you know. Freshmen aren't allowed to use acronyms, so we get along just fine either knowing and saying exactly what they mean, or else just not using them.

Day three:
#6 At the tournament, find out that somebody knows what the haircut (long as it is) implies, and unfortunately tell them some of the silly things we tools do, not knowing that they would be treating it like an inside joke from then on.
The game in question -- if somebody whacks me with a garrison cap, I have to thank them and ask for another. These things are far less common as an upperclassmen, so I'm looking forward to that.

Lost track of time:
#7 Show off how much I can... or rather, want to physically train myself. It may be excessive.
We're supposed to stay in shape over the break. I'm mentally preparing myself for said staying in shape. It's high time I actually started to do so.

Note that there's probably a dozen examples of each, along with many unmentioned. You know, when they said we would get tool training, I think they meant training on how not to be one. It didn't work very well. O_o

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This tournament I mentioned -- I'm a judge this time. First time ever. Alumni get food paid for and provided, as long as they judge some. I rather think judges get the sweet end of this deal this time :)

Pictures so far, if you look again later on I'll have more up. (as of 6:30 12/18/2010)

Brenham Meltdown 12/10

More to come later? Who knows. I got one post in last month, maybe it'll be one more this month.

Thoughtfulness... well, I'm afraid I haven't any for the moment. You see, it's so hard to find thinking time sometimes, when all is on the go. But I suppose this is worth thinking about -- how much time does it take? Just because you spend a long time thinking about something doesn't mean you were thorough, and just because you were done thinking fairly quickly doesn't mean you were not!

God bless!
-Petr

Through the months

September -- 1 post
October -- 1 post
November -- well, let's see :)

'Time flies when you're having fun, and fun flies when you're waiting for time'
paraphrased, from Mom

In case anybody was wondering, I have been thoroughly enjoying life in A&M, in the Corps -- every once in a while, that is. Sure, fish (freshmen) sort of get the bad end of the deal. But that's the best way to learn and become part of the traditions at A&M. Bonfire is personal for all the men of Falcon 16. The twelfth man is the most important player. Buddies are made for life, and never let down. Respect is given until it is lost. Privileges and responsibilities are earned.

This is the life of a Corpsmen, at least summed up in ideals.

For something more 'realistic', take a look at these :) (yes that's right, I do like to take pictures)

2010 Fall College Station

Here concludes this short update. My laptop battery is dying and I'm getting ready to crash.
Farewell, dear readers, and God bless.
-Petr

A new day dawns

That is, tomorrow morning. I'm kinda guessing it's a little late to dawn at the moment.

For those who like pictures, look here!
(Pictures on the other side of this link, fyi)

Corps trip #1 tomorrow, we're heading out to Arlington. Yippee! (kind of)

Can't wait to see what happens.

God bless! Even my short life is enough to demonstrate that He can and does.
-Petr

Take shelter

Or so says the Maroon code warning. Tornado headed your way, ACK!

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Okay y'all, I'm sitting in the Evan's library at TAMU, somewhat wet, and probably late for a class or something. Bummer.

But hey, I'm surviving :)

For y'all on facebook, look up my mother's pictures. For those who aren't:



That was last weekend, first real Corps stuff for me. FOW is over, the buffer week for getting used to classes is over, now the real work begins, and the upperclassmen have decided to crack down on fish that aren't perfect. Well hey, I guess I'll have to learn to be perfect huh?

Not here I won't. Only by God's grace can I see any improvement -- and there's been a lot of grace around here. Never far from sight, anywhere and everywhere. Amazing to see.
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Why did nobody say it would take half an hour just to get to classes? :P

-Petr

For real

First, an update.

June 28 through July 10: Stillwater, Oklahoma. Ooooklahoma how the... (it's a song, it keeps going, and that one particular phrase gets very old pretty quickly)

OK&VBS2010

The original plan, and the one that was carried out, was to visit family for as long as a week, and then head home. This in and of itself creates such an occasion for joy and mirthful days that it's worth mention by itself! Hey N's, y'all sure know how to have a good time and make family feel at home :)

That encompasses about the first 6 pictures in the previous album, the first week spent in Oklahoma -- one of family going on small adventures hither and thither, staying cool inside, long hours of dialogues on world peace and small furry creatures. (the board's official report has yet to be filed, much less published)

That week went by fairly rapidly... as has much of this summer. My immediate family left that Saturday, and that's where the first plan and the second plan diverge.

See, a week later, the Stillwater VBS was going to start. I like to go out of my way to be at this particular VBS (my past records should show this). So I stayed at the N's for another two weeks! Take the first week of incredibleness and extend it into two weeks, only plus a few more people... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Saturday Aunt Liz took Stephen and I out to the Alabaster Caverns for most of the day. It turned out to be more of a long drive with good music, a history lesson or two, followed by a lot of hiking and gaping at scenery, followed by the drive back home that had the same as the first. Field trip officially, unofficially a really good reason to go hiking and wandering through a cave.

Monday and Tuesday were quiet, cleaning up days. And also a bit of Calculus review.
Wednesday was to be another quiet day, except that one of the VBS official team members arrived early. The house wasn't very quiet until after the sun went down! Thursday the rest of the team arrived, and all tallied up accounted for one from Ohio, one from Kansas, two from California, one from Scotland, and one from Northern Ireland. Add my person and two of my cousins to that lot, and then extend it to the rest of the Stillwater crowd, and VBS had a lot of workers.

I have to add in a spot of something here. Stephen and Megan, a Northern Irelander and a Scot respectively, certainly added a lot of flavor to this particular week. And they sang Oklahoma some. You can never tell!
A shout out to those who came across the pond to help out! :)

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday went by smoothly, Friday being the day that the entire VBS team went on the OSU ropes course, both high and low (things such as the human knot). Fun fun. (feel free to gape at the pictures again)

Monday the 5th of July was the first real day of VBS work -- and it wasn't properly working really hard. We set up the field that was intended to be used for VBS, ran through our rough plan, all without the kids. July 4th was the day before and the rest of Stillwater was still taking a break.
Okay, make that Tuesday as the first real day of work, but even then we got rained out and only about a third of the total people who would have shown up could actually stay out with us in the rain.
Evenings were either really tough or really fun, depending on how you look at it -- basically the VBS team went to some populated area of town and started knocking on doors talking to people. Some confrontations on spiritual matters ensued.

Wednesday and following VBS was held at the YMCA, just in case the rain came again. I could (and would) go on about the details... but how time flies by! (or something)

July 10: Departure. Aunt Liz drove to Dallas, while Mrs. S. and I came along for the ride (Mrs. S. was visiting with Rachel, who is in fact staying there with my grandparents. Funny how things work out like that!)
For the sake of not rehashing too much of my melancholy, I'll avoid the part where I say it was sad to leave -- ask my cousins and family, they will most likely clue you in.

July 12: Enid VBS begins, only without me. I was in Nacogdoches, getting ready for Calculus 2! That's the reason for random review during this long trip. Summer II semester dual credit at SFA -- a packed month. However I'm very happy to report a final GPA at SFA (this is merely coincidental information, it doesn't transfer) of 4.0! That gives me hope yet for this coming semester.

Skip forward to August 14, when I had my official graduation and Eagle Court of Honor. Yep, big ceremony, lots of hullabaloo. I honestly didn't hope to make it a big deal -- it just makes things official. And is a good source of barbecue (thanks Mom!)

Grad/CoH (mine)

The major upside being that I get to see all sorts of people from all over that I hadn't seen in forever :)


On a completely unrelated note, I am now in possession of copies of:
Newsboys In the Hands Of God
Tenth Avenue North The Light Meets the Dark, Over And Underneath
Fireflight Unbreakable
Coldplay X&Y, Viva la Vida
Jars of Clay Long Fall Back to Earth

All of which I would offhandedly recommend. Again, I think the advocation is best left to somebody else, mostly because I won't be here, or have the privileges to listen to these in public...

This semester has become the future that I both looked forward to and dreaded. Now it's here! All packed up, moving out tomorrow, how odd.
My life is about to become very inaccessible in all sorts of ways, one of those being that I am now cutting contact in many fashions, save only gmail and this blog (if I'm doing well). For those who are yet unaware, I'm going to Texas A&M and be in the Corps of Cadets (I hope you have heard of the latter if you have heard of the former). Fish Orientation Week starts tomorrow, and if you are currently reading this, I am most likely unreachable until... ?
I don't know much of the matter, except that it's going to be a major trial.

That in mind, this is Petr, Amigo de la Sombra, your friendly neighbourhood... (okay I'm not digging that deep) signing off until further notice. You'll know when I'm reaching through insurmountable odds to get here. Your prayers are much appreciated.
Until we meet again, take care and God bless!
-Petr

Out to lunch?

Double post! These titles went together too well to be one :)
And there's so many pictures to look at I figured I'd better post them separately. It helps to have an appreciation for one's camera!

Regionals 2010

ICOM Graduates/Galveston

Nationals 2010

Enjoy