Birthday and Fray

Happy birthday, Kathy Katherine! (decided to be nice since it’s your birthday =)

Went to see The Fray with a bunch of people yesterday and it was enjoyable. I passed out while the opening band was playing, but it was a really nice nap. =) A few songs after The Fray started, I realized I really wanted to take pictures of the lights and stage, so I ran out of the Erwin Center to grab my 5D. I think I got some pretty good shots, but I’ll have to go through them later today or tomorrow or something (along with David Crowder and Wes pics).

I also subjected Oriana to really loud Celine Dion in the car with the windows down while waiting to get out of the parking lot. I think she enjoyed it immensely. >=)

Okay, that is all. Pics to follow… eventually.

Doh, I just realized I need to process the pics from Sean’s wedding too!

Aye

It’s been a while. I’m pretty busy nowadays. =) I had a good long fulfilling week at work this past week. It’s a really nice feeling to enjoy what you do and end the day not dreading returning the next day. =)

This weekend, we go to Sean’s wedding. Congrats, Ruyle. =)

I also uploaded a few more pics from the retreat:

Angell

Chase!

OMan vs Angell

CUBE

IMG_5667

Vox Veniae Retreat 2007

Just got back from Vox’s first retreat and it was pretty good besides the horrible time estimates. =) Though, that wasn’t entirely the planner’s fault because the speakers went over their time limits, but I don’t think anyone minded, so it was all good. =)

I’m just going to post some pics here and more are on my flickr.

OMAN

Funny Joanne

Judy

Ew

Race

Ready...

Sing Sing

Dancing

Pound

Jason vs OMan

Arrggh!!

Noah GRRRR

Pointing Noah

Gid

Kiddoes

SHADOW!

Oh that SoCo

Fun Shot

Today

Everyone always has good things to say about my mom when they find out I’m her son or after they meet her. I always smile, nod, and agree. Thanks for everything, mommy. =) Happy birthday. =)

iPhone

So it’s been determined that Apple is going to have tight control of applications that will run on the iPhone and third-party applications will not be supported, or at best, extremely limited to ones Apple “contracts” out. That’s pretty disappointing to me as even though OS X is pretty cool on its own, productivity is increased a lot by third-party applications (Quicksilver, for example) and I could see that happening on the iPhone too. One of the cool things about smartphones is that they support other applications and they have a community of developers that let you customize your phone to suit your needs.

And this B.S. about Cingular not wanting applications to run rampant on their networks is pretty stupid when many many many other smartphones are capable of running third-party software. Sounds to me like Apple just wants to shift some of the blame to Cingular.

That being said, the iPhone is still one snazzy piece of gadgetry.

Whatever Makes You Happy

A lot of times people will say something like “so-and-so did this and that, yadda yadda yadda” and end it with “but ya know, whatever makes you/them happy.” Or sometimes, it’s “well, if it makes you happy, then it’s okay.” I know I’m probably guilty of saying/thinking/doing it at some points or another in the past, but that phrase always strikes me as dangerous.

If you think about it, what it means is that you’re basing right/wrong decisions on whether or not your selfish desires are met. Or, accepting another person’s action and excusing them because they did it to make themselves happy, so it makes it alright. Does making yourself happy justify doing something you believe is wrong? Does making yourself happy justify lying, cheating, stealing, etc.? Does making yourself happy justify making someone else unhappy?

Another thing is that I think many (all?) people have a flawed sense of happiness. Many times, it’s based on quick-satisfactions that will carry you on another day or so, but leave you wanting more deep inside. Live a life of quick-satisfactions and you’ll likely find yourself a very unhappy person in the future.

Perhaps the right way of going about things is to figure out that following God’s plan is the way to make you happy. And that’s not to say that’s an easy and happy-go-lucky path to take. It’s often a very difficult, tiring, and often times unhappy one, rather. I’m kinda thinking that God never intended us to always feel “happy,” but he wants us to always feel love. And love is most definitely not always “happy.”

Maybe someday I’ll say “I did this and that and yadda yadda yadda, but ya know, whatever makes God happy makes me happy.” Mmmm, though hopefully in a not as cheesy/cliche-ish manner. ;)

Yays!

So at Bazaarvoice, I’ve been under contract-to-hire (instead of a “real employee”) for the beginning month or two I’ve been there. Well, I got my offer from them today to transition from contract to… hire, and the offer was more than I was expecting, so I’m quite pleased. =) It’s still a pay hit from when I was at Freescale, but not nearly as much as I thought it would be, so I’m pretty confident I made the right decision to move as I’m enjoying my work a lot more and the money isn’t really as much of an issue any more. =)

In other news, I discovered that the Safari crash bug I found a a while back is now finally fixed. =)