October 20, 2006 at 10:06 · Filed under Personal
Where do I draw the line? I think back to the past month of my life and wonder what it is I am fighting for. Lets just review very quickly what it is I am going through. I would do this only for the sake of my horrible memory. I want to make sure when the dust has settled that is my words alone that prop up the life altering decision I will be forced to make. My wife is leaving me. I am not sure why I can type that without the waterfall of emotions pouring on to this keyboard I click away at. If you would have told me a month ago that this was in the works of happening, I would have cried. I know I would have because even then I knew my Wife never truly understood what it meant to have a Christian husband. I blame myself for that more than anything. Ephesians 5:22-27 calls me to be head of the household and ensure the wellbeing of my family. That means spiritual as well as actual substance. I dropped that ball. I was on the plate swinging at every pitch that flew by never actually making the contact I so desperately needed. In that sense I let my Wife down. I let her down on levels that endanger her salvation and overall life with Jesus. What a horrible thing for someone to have resting on their shoulders. I feel like Barnabas, able to lift up the many heavy stones of everyone else’s life but unable to rescue my own.
I moved down to Biloxi MS for a job. Most wonder why I would give up my life of working from home and doing youth ministry all day long while my wife put on a uniform for our country. It was very easy; my Wife hated her job. Imagine how hard it is for a husband to watch his Wife come home and see her cry because of the day she just had. To top it off imagine she isn’t even doing the job she hates. Her current work is actually the pinnacle of all she will be able to do in the military. I remember the first time I suggested to her that maybe I could get a job and she could go to school. I will be honest, I wanted to get back into the grind of enterprise computers, but not a 9-5 type job. Part-time wherever my Wife got orders to would have been just peachy to me. Yet I knew the one time she was happy was with a book in hand. She loves college. She loves learning. I can’t explain why she loves it so but she really is awesome at it. I knew in my heart she needed the chance to do that and by me taking a job in Biloxi I knew I could give her that chance. So as she left for Iraq, I left for Biloxi. Now I want you guys to know that I didn’t choose Biloxi as the first place I wanted us to go. I actually tried for jobs across America in every stretch of the frontier to find it. I was turned down over and over again. Know that I didn’t want to move back to the town I graduated from. I actually really despise being back here because I feel there is more to this. But here I am working hard…why? So my wife can pursue her dreams. Imagine my broken heart when the decision we both talked about and decided on was thrown back at me…”I didn’t tell you to take the job” was what I received. It was thrown back at me as a selfish decision I made for the better of me. That was the first dagger thrust into my heart.
I think the next dagger would be when my wife told me she only called from Iraq out of feeling of obligation. It wasn’t that she actually wanted to talk to me or felt that yearn I did to run to the phone when each other called. No, this was a check box on her daily list of things to do. I always wondered where exactly I fell on that list. Was I above getting the General his coffee or below sharpening pencils? Either way I was hurt. I was hurt on a level that I knew would scar my deepest internal soul. I knew that I ran to that phone and carried it around the house JUST IN CASE she called. I didn’t want to miss it. I didn’t want to hear her voice on an answering machine knowing I could have been the one to hear it for real. “So by the way, I feel obligated to call you.” I can’t describe with the unlimited pages this computer can hold how much that hurt, but nothing like my next land mine.
She took sometime to talk to a priest and came back to relay what newfound information she had discovered. I had hoped that because the Priest was a levelheaded guy that she could find guidance through his acceptance of the Holy Spirit. “I figured out why we have intimacy issues, I love you like a friend but not as a lover.” This was a flashback to my junior high school years when the girl would tell me I was like a brother, but not a boyfriend. As if being a brother was higher on the list. I didn’t want to be her brother. When my wife told me this I think I almost dropped the phone. I didn’t know how to take it. This explained so much with our lack of intimacy or sensual time together but in the end was the biggest sword to pierce the flesh of my being. I wondered how I could have been so stupid as to dismiss the fact that my wife put me in the same category as her buds from work. I had spent the last year of my life thinking we were truly becoming one body, one spirit, one soul. Instead what we were becoming were good roommates. I tried everything to counteract this statement she threw at me. I tried to shower her with the undying love my heart posed for her. Each day I felt like I was fighting for us…fighting against the perils of life to save everything I held dear. I didn’t really realize that this was a one sided fight.
What changed my frame of mind was the last email I received this week. She wrote “Life is about living it up. I don’t want someone to tell me how to live or follow some rule book.” I read the Bible a lot and what jumped out at me from this was 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 where God spells out for us that we must fight for the nonbeliever in a marriage, but if they want to go we must let them. “But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace.” My next phone call to her was just to say that. I told her that as a Christian man and a strong devout Catholic; I could morally and objectively let her go if that is what she wanted. I hate the fact that she assumes I am a cop. Pedro the Lion has a song called Of Minor Prophets And Their Prostitute Wives that really rings in my head. Part of the lyrics say:
i treated you as if you were a princess
you treated me like a cop
i gave you boundaries to save you from certain death
dangling from the end of the rope
She saw me as a cop…I would eternally be the bad guy of this marriage because of the boundaries God gave me to live my life. I can’t imagine how she complains to her friends. I just don’t think following up the story from your friend about her husband going to titty bars and sleeping around with “My Husband is such a bastard! He spent last night doing youth ministry!” rings well. I wonder if she wants me to be that guy. Maybe if I drank and watched some porn she would love me. Maybe then it wouldn’t be her loving my life a friend. But I told her, I will never compromise on my soul. To do these things would take away from the covenant I made with the Lord.
So here I stand. 2 years ago when I met my Wife, the thing that brought us together was our faith. I was a youth minister and she was a practicing Catholic. I thought my search was finally over. Little did I know that her fly by the seats of your pants lifestyle was at that moment in time bring her towards Church. In my naïve mind I thought that like me, once you accepted Christ into your heart there was no going back. Instead the wind changed directions and I am watching my Wife blow away like the autumn leaves blanketing the ground. I wonder if I can continue the journey, if the Lord can provide me enough strength to make it. I guess I will continue my prayer life and stay true to the words the Lord has laid out for me. The scope of this entry doesn’t fully cover everything. The jist of it stands…I spent a year of marriage not being the whole Christian man she deserved and she spent the year falling away from me. Here we are. I just wonder how long I will have “we” on emails and Christmas cards. How long will my check’s have that extra line?
October 20, 2006 at 07:06 · Filed under Techie Stuff
Having now spent the better part of a day with the device I wanted to post a few thoughts:
- The device is very solid. My past smart phones I babied because I knew one drop meant destruction. This is very much a Nokia phone, able to take some beatings. I really like the metal they used to line the case with. I do worry about the build of the joystick as it seems to be the weakest link. I thought the same thing with my Nokia 3250 and to this day it still works so I will hold strong.
- Symbian Series 60 v3 is a beautiful OS. I always wanted a Psion when I was growing up because everyone told me Epoch was a great environment to work in. Having been through the revisions of Series 40/60/80 phones I agree. The load (and reload) times I became so accustom to are gone. When I click on email, the email comes up. When I click on Web, Opera comes up. I have yet to lock up the system and have to do the hard reset. Coming from a Treo it is so refreshing to get rid of the “Remove battery, insert stylus, replace battery cover, turn phone on, wash, rinse, repeat.”
- I always wondered what the point of Wifi in a phone was. The few times I have played with these devices (here is looking at you Cingular 8125) the processor was so limiting that it made no difference in speed. With the E61 this has all changed. The best function of this Wifi feature is the SIP VOIP Client. I punched in my Sipphone (more to come on this) settings and was able to make calls using the wifi. Can’t wait to live in a city blanketed with Wifi to kick the Cingular bill all together.
- Browser on this device…AMAZING…The browser is mean and lean with all the features I have come to expect in desktop browsers. Heck up until yesterday even Internet Explorer couldn’t touch these functions such as integrated RSS Reader, Popup Blocker, Expose-ish Tab Things, Flash and Java integrated. I have become so used to on Treos and WM5 machines using the wap version of pages that I accepted that mobile internet sucked. No more! I just visit the full HTML version of sites and all is well. Nokia made a smart move by teaming up with the OSS KHTML crowd as Apple did. The browser is unlike any other to grace a handheld device. Awesome job Nokia and the KHTML developers.
- Voice and Signal quality as with all Nokia devices – Top Notch
- The next pro will be something only a Catholic Theologian type could appreciate. With the inclusion of Realplayer and an OS that can actually run it full screen, I am now able to watch EWTN streaming live on my phone. I am sure it would stream other live feeds but this is the one I watch. Nokia also ships this device with Real bookmarks for most of the BBC streams and Reuters. I can see myself stuck in an airport using this a lot.
- Battery life?! What is this!? I haven’t had to charge it after heavy bluetooth and wifi use. My past smart phones needed to travel with their chargers. Not the E61.
With all devices there are some bads:
- The email client is horrible. Maybe I am just a big idiot and haven’t figured it out yet, but so far I am not impressed. Versamail and Pocket Outlook are both decent and easy to understand. This is not. I should not have to read a manual for something as simple as email.
- Like I spoke about earlier, the joystick makes me nervous. I will think twice before chucking some emulators on the machine and using it for games. I will be babying this control till I get a feel for how sturdy it is.
- Software is slowly coming out for the device but not quick enough. Having come from the world of Series 60 v1/2, I am used to a extensive software library. I know that the devices are new and that this will fix itself in time, but all the same, try running Series 60 software on this device is hit or miss. Honestly this device seems more like Series 70 than something sharing in the same codebase as my older nokias. Thankfully Putty SSH Client works or I may have just returned the phone :)
- NOKIA STOP USING YOUR OWN SPECIAL CONNECTORS. I hate the nokia port on the bottom! My treo and other smart phones took a standard hands-free or stereo headset. Not this guy. I just really hate when companies don’t use already established standards. It hurts everyone long term.
- I will be purchasing a bluetooth GPS to negate this but with so many connection options, you think they could throw in GPS. The 6715 and 6915 from HP are similar in size and stature and were able. I am betting the E63 will include this. This is almost a moot point with the awesome Google Mobile Maps software.
- Keyboard is a little mushy. Maybe I am still just used to the treo, but there is very little tactile feedback. It has not hurt my speed as of yet but it is not comfy like the keyboards Palm ships. Check back in a few weeks to see if this even matters.
So there you have it, my short Nokia E61 overview. I will with time be posting more tips and software reviews. I hope you enjoyed and I recommend running out and buying one of these guys. By far the best smart phone I have owned yet.
October 11, 2006 at 09:10 · Filed under Personal, Techie Stuff
The Treo 650 is a great phone. I purchased it after a horrible experince with Windows Mobile and decided to go the Palm route for the excellent Linux support. Excellent was an over statement. The experince is only excellent if your palm is older than 3 years. USB and new Device IDs seem to be the bane of syncing. The final straw was my new work location doesn’t allow phones with cameras in the building. My Dad is more than welcome to carry such things so to him went the treo. I have battled with the next smart phone with a 3 way tie between the Nokia E61 (not E62), Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard), and the Blackberry 8700C. What finally pushed me over was the fond memories of my Nokia 3250 and the power of Symbian OS. With the Nokia E61 coming in with Wifi and a SIP VOIP Client that sealed the deal. I will be able to walk around my house in dual-mode making free calls when I am in range of the wifi. Keep checking back for tips-n-tricks with this great little device.
October 3, 2006 at 06:43 · Filed under Techie Stuff
sudo apt-get install nmap tcpdump ngrep etherape ethereal ettercap kismet aircrack john airsnort dsniff hping3 fragroute arpwatch nessus nessusd openssh-server netcat whois perl python ruby airsnort ntop iptraf nbtscan tor privoxy nikto cheops-ng stunnel fping tcptraceroute firestarter socat vncviewer wordlist anon-proxy network-manager network-manager-gnome
After that you should have a workstation capable of being used for GOOD in the hands of a security admin.
October 1, 2006 at 20:41 · Filed under Personal
I had an interesting topic come up tonight that sparked a need for this post. Someone pointed out to me that it was very tough to have Contemporary Christian music in Mass because it is an direct odds with the Liturgy. Catholic Liturgy is very community driven with things like the Eucharist, Creed, Peace, Our Father, etc. As you can imagine I was very put back by such a line. I have always told people that the Catholic Church could do well to include more of this music in the Liturgy to relate more to the teens. His explanation was that most older hymns and psalms always are sung with words like we, us, ours, and other nouns that describe the communion. If we look at modern Christian music we notice that the community is taken out of it or downplayed. Here are some examples of modern Praise and Worship:
I could sing of your love forever
I can only imagine
Here I am to Worship
Lord I lift your name
This is just a small sample of the many thousands of praise and worship song sung around the world. What became apparent here is what the songs are relaying our relationship with Christ is very personal and internal. Now this is totally in contradiction with scripture. Maybe this is some of the fault of modern Christianity, that instead of focusing on the Church of Believers, we ask about the relationship. The personal relationship is important but not as important as the communion of Believers. Christ didn’t tell us to simply bottle that faith up and share it with no one. Our faith is to be spread and shared with anyone and everyone. When we sin, we not only harm our relationship with God, but with our fellow Brothers and Sisters. There are very few things we do that are simply between God and ourselves, almost always it pertains to the community. My suggestions would be to look at these songs and wonder if “We Could Sing of Your Love Forever” or “Here we are to worship” would really be such an atrocity. For the Catholics reading, imagine praying the Creed using the personal version “I Believe” rather than the “We Believe” we use at mass. I will leave you with this:
