Morning Pages

The last letter talked about love. God loves you because you exist. I love you because you exist. You still exist, so I still love you. Nice, clean logic there. Now it's time to tell you about a fun technique called morning pages. I learned about morning pages from the book The Artists Way by Julia Cameron.

How do morning pages work? Easy. Sit down and write 3 pages. It works best in the morning - surprise, surprise. When school starts, though, you might experiment a little with the time. The time of day isn't nearly as important as writing. So if evenings work better, write in the evenings. Call them goodnight pages instead. But sit down and write. The only rule is that you write at least 3 pages. 1 side of paper equals 1 page. Front and back counts as 2 pages.

Write down whatever pops into your head. Do not filter or discard thoughts. Write them down. Not relevant? Totally different topic? Write it down. The writing doesn't have to make sense. No one is going to read it. This is completely private. It stays between you and God. Angry? Thoughts of revenge? Write it down. Excited and what to share it? Write it down. Sad? Write it down. Hear the rain on the roof? Write it down. Whatever pops into your head - write it down.

Ignore spelling and grammar. Don't go back and "fix" stuff. I ramble a lot while writing. Actually, I drift into my head and forget to write. I'm trying to say that there is no wrong way of doing this - as long as you write 3 pages.

This is called stream of consciousness writing. The topic doesn't matter. Don't bother with paragraphs. Start writing and go until you fill 3 pages. Personally, I prefer typing. So I use a web site called 750 words. Try it for a month and see if you like it.

Three pages engages your subconscious mind. It engages your spirit. You know, the spirit that God created in His image? It's where your deepest desires live. It's your heart. It's in your spirit that you connect with God.

The Holy Spirit lives inside you. See that Spirit again? Guess where He is. Yep, in your spirit. When you connect with your spirit - your heart, you connect with the Holy Spirit. He connects you with God. Know what? That's what God wants.

Morning pages are just one way of connecting with God. He enjoys your company, just like I do. And for the same reason - He loves you because you exist. The Bible talks about casting all our cares on Jesus. Morning pages are a great way to start. Let it all out. God already knows about the sadness, happiness, anger, fear, and love inside of you. Even with all of that, you exist. And the only reason He loves you is because you exist. So tell Him all of those feelings.

You and I hold our feelings in. We hide away the ones that hurt. That hurt, the pain, it stops us from connecting with God. When you let it out, when you yell at Him and put all of that anger on Him, He takes it. He takes it and moves it out of the way. And what's left is Him. When the voice in your head stops talking, you can hear His voice. I want you to hear that voice. Because I can never love you as much as He does. And I want you to know that you're loved.

The Artists Way describes morning pages as a way of jump starting creativity. You are way creative. That is a quality that God has definitely given you in abundance. He is a creator. He created this entire universe. All of those cool laws of mathematics - He wrote them. You are made in His image. When you connect with God, He brings out that wonderful quality in You. His creativity flows through you. And that makes you happy. I like it when you're happy. God likes it when you're happy.

I love you.

The Condition on Love

This conversation is more of a monologue for one of my daughters. God teaches us things in ways that we understand. My geeky logical brain simply can't comprehend things without reason. That's what unconditional always meant to me - for no reason. So God explained it a different way. And I desperately wanted to share it with someone special...

The Letter

You know, it’s kind of weird how much of myself that I see in you. That’s not all bad. Well, from my point of view it’s not all bad. You may think differently :) I can see that you get frustrated with school. I’m guessing that you feel lonely a lot. Don’t know how to tell anyone. And feel like no one would understand. You feel good around your friends. But it fades quickly when you get home. You want that good feeling all of the time. I felt the same way at your age. I see you doing the same things I did. Honestly, I still don’t have the answers. I have no idea how to talk to you about this. So I wrote a letter instead. All I can tell you is that I love you. You probably don’t believe me. That’s okay. We kid around that I have to love you, I’m your dad. Being serious for a moment, that’s not why I love you. Being your father was a good opportunity to know you. I get to spend a lot of time around you. I watched you grow up. Being your dad provided those opportunities. In church, they talk a lot about God’s unconditional love. I never really understood that. Your parents love you because they’re your parents. Your friends because you share common interests. To get married, you have to date - which is pretty much just tryouts. Someone marries you because of how you act while dating. There aren’t any real models of unconditional love. I realized recently that there is one condition on God’s love - He loves us because we exist. In the Old Testament, God tells Moses that His name is “I am”. God declared His existence. God is God because “I am”. He exists. He is real, He is a person, “I am”. God created us in His image. He sees Himself as “I am”. He sees you as “you are”. He exists. You exist. And that is enough for Him to love you. At the end of Romans 8, Paul says “I am convinced that nothing can separate us from the love of God - height, depth, the government, demons, nothing.” Paul can say that because he understood why God loves us - we exist. Nothing can change the fact that we exist. Nothing, no one. You exist, so God loves you. I love you for the same reason. I love you because you exist. And until that changes, well, I love you.

Brainstorming

Yes, I'm starting with the second step in the development/debug process. The process starts with identifying the problem. Let's assume we have the problem well in hand. Now we have to fix it.

Brainstorming has one rule - no judgement. We don't filter. We don't analyse. We don't organize. Throw out any and every idea that comes into your head. Okay, maybe one filter - only ideas relevant to the problem. Suggesting a vacation in Aruba probably doesn't qualify. And yes, you will get some crazy or stupid suggestions. Keep going anyway. Get those creative juices flowing.

As the ideas start coming, excitement sets in. At this point remember, do not explore any of the ideas. Ask questions to understand what someone said. But do not consider feasibility. We don't care if something sounds impractical. That comes later.

Eventually, ideas slow down and start getting ridiculous. It's time to stop. Next we organize the ideas. Again, don't throw out any of them. We're looking for patterns - similarities, dependencies, costs, and duplicates. How you organize the ideas depends on the problem. There is no right answer. The action matters more than the result.

Now comes the good part - what you wanted to do all along. Analyse the ideas and pick one (or how ever many you need). Weed out the bad ideas, the impractical ones, or the ones that cost too much.

Quick and Dirty

So this goes through my head every time I encounter a problem. List ideas, organize, analyse, and pick one. Except no one else can see what's in my head. In a team scenario, it pays to do this out loud, together. Business people call it buy in. We become emotionally invested in our ideas. That's the heart of creativity. Give everyone a voice. Let them choose the solution instead of feeding it to them. Let them connect with it emotionally.

Pulse VPN Client

I got to do something new today - setup a VPN connection with work. Okay, that's not entirely new. For the longest time, I used Network Connect for the VPN. It worked great up until a couple of months ago. The VPN was upgraded and Network Connect wen the way of the dodo.

The new VPN uses Pulse Secure. There exists a Windows client and a Mac client. And I must say, they're pretty nice. Nothing for Linux though. A little Google searching and I came across OpenConnect. So I set about installing OpenConnect.

First, I checked the Ubuntu repositories for a pre-built package. The OpenConnect web site says that Juniper support starts in version 7.05. The Ubuntu package topped out at version 6.0. Note: This was Ubuntu 15.04. I found a PPA testing a 7.06 package for the next Ubuntu release. One more release and my success reverts to the dustbin of history.

Next I installed from source. It promptly crashed looking for a script named vpnc-script. On Ubuntu, that script comes from the vpnc package. Then the program crashed looking for a library. The library was built from the same source as the client program. It was loaded into one of the standard library directories. Ugh.

I tried several things. The ultimate solution - run ldconfig. ldconfig added the new library into its index. Ta-da! The client program ran perfectly.

It still, however, would not connect to the VPN. I used the -v option to see what was happening. The client failed parsing the login form. Just before termination, I saw two fields being ignored. Our VPN displays a confirmation dialog box asking you to proceed or cancel. I actually started digging into the source code for this one.

A quick grep found the warning message about ignored fields. The code compared the control names with a string for the submit button. The submit button name comes from the calling code. Nope, wait, it comes from the code that calls the calling code.

I changed the string to match our Proceed button. Compile, run, and Bob's your uncle! The VPN connected. I logged into the internal app server just to be sure.

So to recap...

1. Install the vpnc package first.
2. Change the submit button name in the source code.

Water, water, water

Imaginary Lunch Companion: I'm thinking about buying one those water filter systems.

Me: Yeah? I looked at some a few months ago.

Imaginary Lunch Companion: Which on did you buy?

Me: I bought a pitcher/filter from a company named Santevia.

Imaginary Lunch Companion: Huh. Why that one?

Me: Well, I was looking more at what the filter added to the water than what it took out. This particular filter uses minerals like calcium and magnesium to change the water's pH level. I wanted the minerals.

A Google search for mineralized alkaline water led me to Santevia. Santevia has pitchers, water bottles, and under the sink filters. While looking for reviews of Santevia, I came across Berkey Water Filters.

Berkey really caught my eye. They sell water purification systems - not just filters. I really liked the idea of using any old water source.

The final decision came down to cost. Santevia costs less over the next 3 years than Berkey.

Official Disclaimer

I am not recommending alkaline water in any way, shape, or form. I am not a doctor. This is not an advertisement. I am just recording my thought process - good or bad. Use your own judgement.

This whole pursuit of a water filter started because of Vania. Vania has a horrible diaper rash. She gets open sores on her bottom. We tried creams, ointments, different diapers, different wipes, and diet changes. The rash goes away for a little bit and returns. The poor girl was miserable.

A poop test showed high uric acid levels. Maybe it's not a rash, but a burn? I learned that there is no single cause of high uric acid. Combatting it involves changing the pH balance in your body. In Vania's case, alkaline water had the best chance.

Foods are also alkaline or acidic. Eating alkaline foods also changes your pH balance. Making an OCD 3 year old try new foods did not sound like fun. Getting my wife to actually plan a menu sounded like even less fun.

Not Created Equal

A lot of companies advertise alkaline water. We started with a 30 day trial from a local water company. This was enough to tell us if the plan even had a chance of working. During those 30 days, I did more Googling.

A lot of people tout benefits of alkaline water. And marketers picked up on the keywords. I ran across two different ways of obtaining alkaline water: ionized or mineralized. I wanted the mineralized water. The health benefits come from the minerals - not the alkaline pH.

That is how I wound up looking at Berkey Water Filters and Santevia.

Comparisons

Both Berkey and Santevia met my first criteria - they can help Vania. Both companies mineralize the water. Both systems rely on gravity (no broken parts). The final decision came down to price.

Right now, my main financial goals are the rainy day fund and buying a house. So I set my time horizon at 3 years. I want a filtering system that gets us through the next 3 years at a reasonable cost. Both systems use replaceable filters. I calculated the cost of filters plus the initial outlay. With such a short time frame, Santevia came in for less.

Sounds easy? That one little paragraph represents several days of me waffling back and forth. I really wanted the Berkey water filter: bigger tank, longer lasting filter, and it filters more out. On the downside, I need somewhere to put it and an easy way of getting water into the multi-gallon tank. Both of those increased the cost. Over the next 3 years, Santevia gave the most bang for the buck.

Results

We've been using the Santevia water pitcher for about 3 months now. Vania's rash is gone. The rash came back briefly while Vania was sick. Otherwise, not even a hint. I assume that the alkaline water neutralizes the excessive uric acid, stopping the burns. For what we needed - clearing away the diaper rash, the mineralized alkaline water worked.

'Tis the Season

Last Christmas, my wife sent me an article about gift giving. Specifically, the article calls for banning out of control gift giving. Being the nerd that I am, I asked myself why is gift giving out of control? Martin Lewis, the author, points out how gifts create an obligation for the receiver. This is a symptom of pride. We have lost the skill of being a grateful recipient. Gifts are given without any expectation of return. That's the very definition of gift. Gifts that expect something in return are called bribes. A gift is given whether you do what the giver wants or not. This is why the Bible describes salvation as a gift. God sacrificed His Son without any expectation of a return. Nowhere is salvation linked with any behavior. The Bible describes behaviors that come naturally as a result of the gift. God's gift changes who we are. When we change, our behavior changes. The Bible never commands us to do something or risk losing the gift. Our pride doesn't like that. It means that our happiness relies entirely on someone else, outside of our control. A grateful recipient accepts the outside control and trusts that the giver upholds their promise of not wanting something in return. We're created in God's image. If His gifts change the recipient, it stands to reason that our gifts also change the recipient. Along the same line, God's gift reflects who He is (God is love - 1 John something). Our gifts reflect who we are. Now imagine millions of people in open rebellion to God. If they're evil, doesn't that mean their gifts reflect that evil? And so you get what happens today - bribes. Gifts have become a way of showing off. We brag about how we feel, instead of expressing appreciation for the other person. So I guess it involves selfishness too. Appreciation should be appropriate. Send Vania's teacher a hand made card. Mrs. G invests time in Vania. A hand made card reflects that (you took time to make it). It is appropriate. Stuff is a poor reflection of what you value in the other person. That's why Lucy prefers spending time with us. Granted, an occasional Nerf gun is fun. It just doesn't shape her character as much the experience of being singled out for some special time with Mom.

Loving to Hate GNOME 3

You're going to hate GNOME. Really, trust me on this. You will absolutely despise it. The dumb thing starts up with an empty screen. There is no menu. The intrepid among you will stumble across that "Activities" thing in the upper left. You might even click and see... another empty screen. Seriously! What is up with these empty screens. How do I actually get at my *stuff*? Try it. Go ahead, give it a try right now. See what I mean? Let it out - a nice primal scream of frustration. Good. Now take a deep breath and let's explore why I'm wrong. Huh? Put on your thinking caps. Let's look at the computer like it's your personal secretary. No, not Bill Clinton's secretary. Get your mind out of the gutter. Your secretary. You're sitting at your desk. Papers spread out in front of you. A nice leather chair. A picture of the wife and kids in the corner. Wham! It hits you. The idea of the century. This will catapult your entire company onto the world stage. You mumble an order to take notes and start blabbering away. Your secretary simply carries on whatever you had her doing before. Why? Because she's in the other room, dummy. You didn't get her attention. And she has no idea you wanted her to do something else. Now no rational human being would do this. You would immediately yell her name, get her attention, give the order, _then_ start dictating. So why do you expect the computer to be any different? The computer is an electronic secretary. And when you want it to do something new, you have to get its attention first. That is what the Activities button does - tells the computer that you want something. The computer starts paying attention. So tell it what you want. Start typing the command. Whoa! A bunch of icons pop up onto the screen. Those icons match what you type. The more you type, the more the computer narrows down what you want. Sounds a lot like a human secretary. It learns your habits, putting the most likely choices up front. Click an icon to finish the command. And the computer obeys. You would never expect a human secretary to list all of her job functions every time you grab her attention. That's silly. Yet this is exactly what a menu does. Menus are the computer's list of job functions. Menus make a very poor secretary. We have been spoiled by decades of poor user interfaces. We think of the computer like a hammer - a tool to wield. And that's wrong. The computer is a secretary. Change your expectations, and that crazy GNOME interface makes a lot more sense.