The Rending of the Veil

July 17th, 2011

Matthew 27:51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

This is my favorite image in all of scripture.

The veil of the temple separated the Holy Place–containing the shewbread, incense and candlestick–from the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant. The Holy of Holies represented the presence of God (The Bible Dictionary has good descriptions of the Tabernacle and Temple of Solomon).

The veil of the temple was not torn by men, armies or machinery, but rather an earthquake (such things are still referred to in legal documents as “acts of God”). It also wasn’t just a small tear or hole–it was ripped from top to bottom.

What does this mean? Consider what has just been accomplished: the Atonement. Christ’s body was rent, giving mankind the ability to repent of their sins through Him. Through His blood we can be made clean and return to His presence. The veil separating man from God has been removed.

As the stone being rolled away from the tomb represents the triumph over physical death, the rending of the temple veil represents the triumph over spiritual death.

Helaman 14:15-19:

15 For behold, he surely must die that salvation may come; yea, it behooveth him and becometh expedient that he dieth, to bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, that thereby men may be brought into the presence of the Lord.

16 Yea, behold, this death bringeth to pass the resurrection, and redeemeth all mankind from the first death—that spiritual death; for all mankind, by the fall of Adam being cut off from the presence of the Lord, are considered as dead, both as to things temporal and to things spiritual.

17 But behold, the resurrection of Christ redeemeth mankind, yea, even all mankind, and bringeth them back into the presence of the Lord.

18 Yea, and it bringeth to pass the condition of repentance, that whosoever repenteth the same is not hewn down and cast into the fire; but whosoever repenteth not is hewn down and cast into the fire; and there cometh upon them again a spiritual death, yea, a second death, for they are cut off again as to things pertaining to righteousness.

19 Therefore repent ye, repent ye, lest by knowing these things and not doing them ye shall suffer yourselves to come under condemnation, and ye are brought down unto this second death. (Helaman 14:15-19:15-19)

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NFJS 2011

July 13th, 2011

My company sent me to this year’s No Fluff Just Stuff conference, and I really enjoyed it. I haven’t been to a lot of conferences, so I don’t have much to compare on, but I learned a lot of interesting things. There was a very nice range of applicability–I attended a couple classes that were theoretical pie-in-the sky kinds of topics, a number of topics that dealt with my current line of work (services) that I could start researching and using in the next few months, and a few talks that were programming techniques and tools that I started using the next time I went in to work.

It’s Just Who We Are

A coworker told me how he explained a little bit of programming culture to his wife: “I told her how we attended this software conference where the presenters–the gurus and experts… well, one of them was wearing dockers and a faded Flash Gordon T-Shirt, and another wore a black T-Shirt that said simply GEEK with a fishing vest over that.”

Bottle Opener Flash Drive

Another thing that I thought was kind of funny was the USB drive that we were given (containing presentation notes etc). Now I don’t want to be one to look a gift horse in the mouth…

The size certainly made it harder to lose, but I confess it’s not something I plan on putting on my key chain anytime soon. It does hold 4GB, which is decent. The bag and binder they handed out were both pretty nice though…

Is Java dying?

One of the major focuses of the conference was on JVM languages. While no one out right said, “Java sucks” (that I’m aware of), that was rather the impression that I got. The topic even came up during the Experts Panel, and the response was along the lines of, “No, we don’t hate java at all… the JVM is really cool, and there are a lot of neat languages built on it besides Java.”

Java does seem to be losing popularity. I’m not sure if there is any real merit to that, or if it is simply the fact that Java is rather old at this point and/or the fact that it is now owned by Oracle. It’s not exciting anymore, so we naturally want to find the next really neat thing.

For Further Reading

This conference also got me rather excited to learn more about my profession. Here are the books that were suggested in the classes I attended:

  • Restful Web Services
  • Restful Web Services Cookbook
  • Rest in Practice
  • Refactoring to Patterns
  • Clean Code
  • Working Effectively with Legacy Code
  • Lean Software Development
  • Pragmatic Programmer
  • Continuous Integration
  • Domain-Driven Design

And there were lots and lots of websites and blogs…

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Evelyn

June 2nd, 2011

So baby #3 arrived the other day. I’m still surprised at how small they are (Mommy is very glad they aren’t any bigger, thank you very much…).

She is a beautiful baby, and had her eyes open and looking around at everyone. Other than a very long labor, everything went pretty well (and long labors are par for the course, unfortunately…).

Here’s my private post with lots more pictures: http://jergal.blogspot.com/2011/06/evelyn-joy-robertson.html

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Evil Site. Ingenious. But Evil.

May 5th, 2011

QuiBids is ostensibly a bidding site. Each bid increment is one cent. The auction ends when 15 seconds goes by without someone bidding on it. Many items are sold at far less than retail price.

Here’s where it gets fun: Placing a bid costs 60 cents.

A co-worker came up with an example: lets say an IPad sells for $50.00. Someone got a really good deal, assuming that person didn’t bid very often. How did the site do? Well, since each bid increments only one cent, and each bid costs 60 cents, so that’s a simple .60 times 5000 bids plus the $50 for the sale, so the gross proceeds for the auction are $3050.00

Wow.

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Old Hobby Renewed

January 19th, 2011

When I was a teenager I got into model trains. My dad loves model trains as well, so he helped my build a layout that took up half of my room. Then I grew up, got married, and fell in love with computers.

Well, my Dad and I recently got back into model trains! I had kind-of started it up again (put up a fairly simple oval track in my room). Then at Christmas time we both got model trains, and that was the end. We spent the vast majority of the holidays clearing out dad’s storage room and putting up a new train table (my teenage one has long since been destroyed).

Here is the result:

Dad is still working on tweaks to make it run better–it’s amazing how easy it is to get bumps and dips in the track, or to get it uneven. For example, the bottom-right corner (in the picture) leaned rather severely to the outside, so that we were rather concerned that a train going to fast would tip right off the table….

(Oh… yeah, that is Thomas on the track… We got that for the grand-kids and were showing it to them when these pictures were taken).

In addition to track, I’ve been working on the trains and cars. The train I got at Christmas was actually a very old kit that I got on E-Bay. It is a model of The General (made by Mantua, FYI), which was the train that Union spies commandeered in the Great Locomotive Chase during the Civil War.

As you can see, it’s a fairly classy train. I still have a ways to go. It does run, but not as well as it could–the motor is actually in the tender, and a rubber tube connects the motor in the tender with the gears and wheels in the engine. The rubber was too stiff, so I replaced it with a piece of silicon tubing, but there are some more tweaks to be made.. I want to get that done before I add the headlight, bell, whistle, and handrails. I’ll also need to touch up the gold trim, as I was too impatient to get it put together to let it dry thoroughly…

Here is what it looked like when I got it:

And my awesome Old-Timer freight set (particularly the Hershey’s box car)…

The other train that I am exceptionally proud of is The Challenger, which I got as a birthday present as a teenager. We got that up and running as well:

Fortunately, this one wasn’t a kit…

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CHOCOLATE! (not quite moderation in all things…)

December 18th, 2010

Last year both my dad and I were unemployed, so we were unable to do our supposed-to-be annual chocolate dipping party. This is not a fondue party as much as it is making truffles and stuff like that (although a little fondue-style dipping is not unusual…).

So this year since we are both gainfully employed again, it may be understandable if we got a little carried away…

Lots of chocolate!

So here’s the breakdown:

  • The big bag is actually not for the party. We use enough cocoa powder that we find it better to buy in bulk (5o lbs–that’s the kind of bulk that even Costco hasn’t thought of). We will split it between us and other family members; it lasts a couple years or so…
  • The blocks are fairly decent quality dipping chocolate. Each block there is 10 lbs. We have 1 white (Peter’s Original), 4 milk (3 Merckens Marquis and 1 Guittard Signature), and 3 dark (2 Guittard French Vanilla and 1 Merckens Yucatan). The Guittard French Vanilla is a really striking chocolate…

Just as an FYI, I’ve recently learned that white chocolate often is not really chocolate… It’s a bunch of various flavorings. A good white chocolate (honestly I debate the existence of such a thing, but for the sake of argument…) is made from cocoa butter. Myself, I prefer a good semi-sweet chocolate (55-65% cocoa).

In all fairness, we are planning to do two parties this year: one for friends, and one for family, but maybe that’s just another sign of getting carried away… When I do the invites, I also invite people to bring something to dip. One of the oddest things I saw brought (with a fair bit of excitement, I might add) were twizzlers… I wasn’t brave enough to try the result, but they apparently enjoyed them quite a bit.

I’m especially looking forward to the following:

  • Dark chocolate haystacks (chocolate and toasted coconut)
  • Dark chocolate mint truffles
  • Dark chocolate-dipped graham crackers

Oooohhh, I’m a happy boy…

So, what chocolate dipped item/truffle would you enjoy the most?

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Chilean Miners Rescued

October 13th, 2010

Just wanted to put a note out about the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners. What an extraordinary achievement!

This comment from the New York Times seems appropriate:

“In what seems almost like an inverse of the horror of Sept. 11, 2001, it is clear from the comments posted on our Web site and other news sites from readers in countries around the world that much of the planet is riveted today by the images of a single, joyous, news event.” (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/latest-updates-on-the-rescue-of-the-chilean-miners/?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig)

I hope and pray that all the miners will have a full recovery from their ordeal. May God’s blessings be with them and with all those who helped to rescue them.

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St. George Marathon Oct 2, 2010

October 4th, 2010

St. George Marathon 2010OK, so Emily kicked my butt. Seriously. However, the marathon was hard enough that I didn’t really care very much–I was just glad to have survived!

This is the biggest marathon I’ve done–this year they had over 7000 people running (all US states except Vermont, as the announcer regularly reminded us)… but I get ahead of myself. I must lay out the whole, long epic:

I took Friday off so Rosanne and I could get down in time to get my race packet (racing bib, etc). My parents took the kids for us, so the trip down there was MUCH quieter than our other trips. However, we both noticed that we missed the kids more than usual, and throughout the whole trip we both kept finding ourselves saying things like, “Oh, the kids would have loved that!”

We got into town and got my packet and wandered the expo. There were some fairly clever shirts–Our favorite was the picture of the turtle captioned “I AM running!”; Another one had text on the back of the shirt: “Dear God, please let there be someone behind me reading this.” I found (and bought) the only geek-running shirt I have ever seen: “May the course be with you.” It was simply too cheesy to pass up…

So after that we went to the St. George LDS Temple, then to Brick Oven for a huge plate-o-pasta, and finally to bed…

…not sure why I rushed to bed, as I was so hyped up I couldn’t go to sleep for almost two hours. On top of that the air conditioner in our room sounded rather like a lawn mower, so whenever it started up during the night, so did I.

I met Emily at the bus pickup at 4:00 (yes… AM), and we headed up to the starting point. There we chatted with each other and other runners while standing around a pile of wood that someone was supposed to be lighting… soon. Although I was cold, it was not nearly as cold as the other marathons I’ve run, which worried me.

…And I should have been worried. I was sweating pretty good before the first mile marker. Not a good sign. for most of the race, I didn’t feel like I had the energy I was used to (due to the heat), and my legs weren’t as strong as they should have been (due to not training enough). I ended up taking a few walking breaks to help my get through it (about 2 miles total, I think).

It was a pretty well organized race. In addition to having the usual stuff at the aid stations, starting from around the mid-point I noticed that each aid station included a couple people with Icy-Hot. You just went up to one of them and they asked you where you needed it. I ended up needing that, as my knees were starting to hurt around mile 17–it helped a lot!

It was also very pretty–especially the second half. around mile 14 you go around this bend and find yourself looking at Snow Canyon, and you run along side of that for quite a ways.

I finally dragged myself to the finish line (and yes, it really felt like dragging) at 4:11:06. While that is certainly my worst time, all things considered, I’m glad to have gotten what I did. Rosanne gathered up what was left of me and we headed home.

On the other hand, Emily did amazing! Her time was 3:49–which is even more amazing considering the hot weather. seriously, the shuttles and even ambulances were pretty common on this race. She was going for a Boston-qualifying time, but was smart enough to rest for a bit when she almost blacked out. Way to go Em! (About the race time, not the blacking-out thing…)

Now, here is the secret to why we semi-crazy people run marathons. The accomplishment of something that really is borderline-impossible is not the only reason (although that is part of it). Another part of it is the next day. We ended up staying the night at my parents’ house. Rosanne let me sleep in and took the kids in the morning. Dad made a superb hot cocoa (one of my weaknesses), and then they made us the most wonderful breakfast-for-lunch EVER! Thanks a ton!

Would I do it again? For a breakfast like that, absolutely!

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St. George

September 8th, 2010

My sister and I made it into the St. George marathon. She’s been training like crazy and I… have been running occasionally…

So while I don’t think I’ll be setting any records, I do think my sister has a really good chance of qualifying for the Boston. We both want to run that one someday, and I think she’s going to do it really soon.

(She’s also been grumbling about how I will probably still beat her even though she has been training herself to death and I’ve only been putting in a half-hearted effort… she’s probably right…)

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