LJ USERS SHOULD HAVE ADDED blog_alch0405 TO THEIR BUDDY LIST ALREADY!

(This message is xposted so that LJ'ers who are slow to add the blog_alch0405 feed to their buddy list will still get this message.)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

My Uncle Karl is in the MD Anderson Cancer Hospital here in Houston, and while he is in isolation someone is letting him borrow a laptop. Now he is not very good with computers but he has managed to learn how to check his e-mail.

He really gets a kick out of recieving mail.

What I am asking for, is for my friends back home and at/from Harding to send him a "Get well soon" e-mail. It doesn't have to be long - or even personalized - just so long as it is encouraging and polite.

Keep in mind that he is VERY new to computers and don't ask anything too complicated of him... :-P

Please send messages to XXXXXXXX@hotmail.com. (This address will be blanked out in a week to avoid spiders sending him spam.) Be sure to say that you are a friend of Cameron too!

(xposted to livejournal to get more exposure)

I changed my mind about the address of my new weblog. This new one should be better.

CHECK IT IN YOUR BROWSER:

http://blog.alchemist0405.com



ADD IT TO YOUR FRIENDS LIST:

blog_alch0405

I think I am going to give Movable Type a try as my main posting service. I really do like the idea that I can run this right off my own server. LJ users will be able to keep me on their friends list (but it will be like every entry has been lj-cut), and I will still be able to keep my LJ account for reading friends-only stuff. With a bit of effort, I might even be able to write a friends page for MT.

If I change my mind after the switch, then I will just move my MT posts back over here, back-date them, and move along as if nothing happened. I am not going to move all my LJ posts over to MT though. I don't have anything set up to hide the friends-posts. :-P

(LJ users: you may syndicate mt_alch0405 if you would like my MT entries delivered to your friend's page.)

Well, as you can see- I made a movable type journal on my web host. I am not really sure what I am gonna do with it though. I am toying with the idea of making this my main journal and just asking my friends on LJ to syndicate it. LJ is all about the community - but I also like the freedom of hosting my own stuff. I have 3 years left one this free plan and so I am hoping that my design decision here will be compatible with the technology available to me once this plan expires.

Until I make a decision, I will be cross-posting http://lj.alchemist0405.com and http://mt.alchemist0405.com

From: Cameron King <cameron@alchemist0405.com>  (Harding University)
To:   Frank McCown <fmccown@harding.edu>
Date: Today 12:53:06 pm


On Monday 15 December 2003 06:48 pm, Frank McCown said something like...
> I have not received a printout of your code.  It was due Fri at 5:00
> pm. Please bring it by my office ASAP.
>
> FM

argh, i forgot about the printout!  i'll print it out and have it in there 
within the hour.

my apologies.

-- 
|  ()  Cameron King <cameron@alchemist0405.com>
|  /\  Student, Harding University (CompSci&Bible Major)
|
+== [ ASCII Ribbon Campaign ] === <>< === [ GPG 0xC60354AC ] ==+

That's not a good way to secure a good grade for your final! You mean I needed to TURN IN my final project? My bad.

Wow, finals time already. I think I did ok on the Honors Life of Christ final. But I suppose I won't know for sure until next weekend (when grades are due). At 2:40 I am gonna have to suffer through my American History (early) final. I am NOT looking forward to that one.

Tomorrow at 8 I have Speech. I really don't know what to expect there. That teacher is just so bizarre....

Then on Wed. I am gonna have OT at 8, Psych at 12, and Inet. Dev. at 2:40. What a day. But then I will be done for the semester.

On a lighter note, I re-wrote my website last night and today. I figured that if I am gonna be doing scripting, then I would need clean code to do it. But now the A_x database and poetry database are online and working fine behind a PHP frontend. I am gonna start using Emacs again for editing because Quanta (which I have been using) randomly decides to remove the spaces between my words. That's just plain annoying.

Oh well. I suppose I should study for a bit during lunch if I ever plan to pass this thing. I hate history...

Enough said.

Golden, pristine,
Pure, so clean.
This cross we wear
Around our necks,
wrists, our shirts.

We have reduced
Our savior, our God
To a piece of jewelry
On sale, half off.

The cross which bore
Our loving savior
Was ugly, disgusting,
Offensive, obscene.

Men were beaten to within
An inch of their lives.
Flesh ripped, bones showing,
Blood gushing out of veins
Ripped open.

Forced to carry the
Top part of the cross,
Most feinted. Blood loss
Causes near fatal shock.

The heart races
To pump blood
Which is no longer there.
The harder is pumps,
The faster one bleeds.

The nails were driven
Through critical nerves.
The pain, overwhelming,
You would die to feel relief.

The wrists were crushed,
The feet were as well,
As the nails crush the
Body suspended from wood.

Hanging, no breath.
Always exhaled.
Push up against the pain
To breathe one last time.

The heart, now irregular
Beats out of sync.
Death comes quick.
Breathing stops,
The heart fails.

Trained soldiers,
Killing machines,
Pierce the side.
Two fluids flow.

This symbol represents
Death, pain, and murder.
Would you wear a guillotine,
An electric machine, a gun?

They are all the same,
Grotesque and despicable.
Wear the cross if you like,
That symbol of death.

The cross stands for sacrifice,
Loss, the most powerful love.
But understand what you wear
And what it means to me.

Cf. "Κιςς me baby one more time!"

Well, I just got back from working on the κιςς (not κισς as I mentioned earlier... the curly sigmas look better) cards with blondie0382. They look really cool. So far, they have a blue stripe across the top with κιςς in big letters. The guys' cards say "κιςς License" while the queens' say "κιςς Queen." It's spiffy. We are also shooting to have a photo on each member's card. aloneintherainx, blondie0382, and I don't have any positions yet - but it's not like we don't see each other enough to make that up later! Well, now it's time for me to get back to work. I still have a lot to do.

[Κιςς is transliterated to "kiss" for users without unicode capable computers. -- XP should be able to see this fine. I know my Linux notebook can. Windows ME and earlier will not be able to read unicode though without downloaded addons.]

Yes, it's true - my DormNet access has been restored.

Also, I just met macphile and lkemp IRL! They seem like really cool people. If I saw them more often, they seem like the people I would want to spend more time with.

I also fought the wild beasts today for my paycheck. $40 never looked so appealing before....

Well, I need to do a bunch of work for Life of Christ tonight. My goal is to be done with actual homework before curfue and then spend an hour or so with aloneintherainx and blondie0382 making κισς (kappa iota sigma sigma) cards. Κισς is going to be our new counter-club for the VLC (Virgin Lips Club). [I hope LJ can handle the Greek there....]

Well, I am gonna get back to work. Catch ya later!

This is an odd concept. Mexico wanted to keep Texas as a "buffer zone" between America and themselves so what do they do? They invite Americans to settle there. Yes! I know what we should do! Let's invite our enemies to live here in America! That way they can attack us from the inside.... Whoever in Mexico made that decision should have been fired the day after that decision was announced.

... Back on to my main topic ...

I have been spending the last two class periods reading over my friends page as far back as it will go (about 170 posts) and as I read, I notice that many people find that Harding is killing them, their freedoms, their spirits. I can only speak for myself - but I disagree. It has defenitly not had that effect on me.

Harding has it's issues. But what were you expecting? No place is perfect. As much as I disagree with some of the rules which Harding sets forth, I see that they have had some positive effects on the overall feel of the University. Dress code: despite the overly-strict rules, the dress code is still broken and when contrasted with the norm back home - women are much more appropriately dressed in general. No coed-swimming: annoying, but I can deal with it. The last thing I wanna see is couples making out... in skimpy swimsuits. All dancing banned (on and off campus): *pfft* This rule is ignored anyways. No visitation across dorms: This is the most annoying one for me because all my good friends are girls. I am so used to just dropping by a friend's house and hanging out. Now I have to go to the SC; HOWEVER, I have seen what happens when girls sneak into Siberia (read: Harbin) and I can now understand why the activity is banned.

The bubble is obviously here, but I like it. I find comfort in the fact that the things which tempt me most are not as easily accessable here. Oh, it's all here and I know it - but I don't see it as often. I contrast this in my mind with D/FW, surrounded by clubs, drugs, alcohol, loose women, and raves. I never got in to the raving scene big time, but I can thank my church family for that. If it weren't for South Arlington (esp. Kris), there is no telling what I might have done. My willpower in high school was not all that great.

This has also been a time of slight spiritual growth for me. I have been missing my regular meetings with Craig, and I miss that. But I have also started reading more, and am doing more independently to persure a better understanding of God.

Socially, I have grown very little. About the only thing that has significantly changed is that I am no longer asking permission and fighting with my parents. All my activities are about the same, but I don't fight with my parents anymore. (High fences make good neighbors.) Over Christmas break, I need to find a way to open up the doors with my parents. I will have almost a month to try and start a new relationship with them. Hopefully, a semester will be enough time to reboot our relationship. We have tried to start over before, but we always fail.

Academically, I have grown some. Except for my Bible classes, I have not really run across anything significant which I believe will be of use to me. But the Bible classes have been GREAT!

... New train of thought ...

It is such a beautiful day outside. I just opened my window and turned on the fan and - wow - I love it. The sun is bright, birds are chirping, Michael W. Smith is flowing soothing out of my speakers, Jake the Confused Turtle and Cat the Dog are loyally looking up at me, and I am surrounded by reminders of what is good in the world. I just wanna cry out in thanks, because I feel like God made this afternoon just for me. I think I am gonna sit here and read for a while.

Speaking of reading... my new website is online. Check it out. I am working on getting content up there. I got my LJ poetry up there today and at least one of my papers have been posted. Most of my essays thus far are simply analyzing the works of others. I need to write up some orignal content for myself. I have some ideas which I can write about, common misconceptions, that sort of thing. Hmm, if I do one in the next few days I can use it for Life of Christ.... Now there's an idea! I'll look into that after reading.

It works. I can actually see my own website now. :)

I'll type up something more meaningful later. Adios.

Well, it's about 8:35 and I just realized that I have spent the past two hours
working on the initial posting of personal website (which I started and
finished tonight). I need to to a huge amount of work still in Life of
Christ, so I am giving the next three hours over to that persuit. I am now
in the habit of being in bed no later than midnight - and I love it!

This posting will be delayed until Internet access is available... as usual.

The NS records for my domain
finally made it to Harding's DNS cache! Which means, that once the net comes
back online - people will be able to see my website from on-campus.

( irony for the tech-types )

Well, I guess the true test will be whether or not the page actually displays.
I just get frustrated when my friends back home can view my page just fine
and I can't!

Last week I uploaded my GPG key to LiveJournal. I'm not sure what all can be
done from within LJ with this key - but I think I can send signed
messages to the system. This message is gonna test how LJ handles signed
messages.

Just for kicks, I am also going to post an encrypted message which is going to
be encrypted to the key I uploaded. If LJ is being super-spiffy, they will
decode the message from within the server and post it. But probably not.
(I'll sign the encrypted message as well.) The contents of that message will
be insignificant - something like "hello this is a test" or something like
that.

-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux)

hQEOA3q4+GF6m6baEAQA8vx4UXlI8HEb53U5KnZVaYbZNAzfRN2apcSnZDpkEoLa
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=VvY+
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

Well I am all happy and moved in now. The room is really bigger than I expected it to be (because there is almost no furniture). I don't have any kind of dresser or anything - but I can put shelves in my closet to get that same effect. I don't have DormNet access yet, but I expect to some time this week.

I am gonna have to download my friends page or something because I haven't read up on everyone's journals since the week before thanksgiving break. Sorry!

Time to finish eating lunch!

This is a post that only a few people back home will appreciate... Just to give you a fair warning.

Man, I have been waiting for the name server records to make it here to Arkansas for my new domain. Back home this change happened at the next noon/midnight switch and never longer than 24 hours. Here I have been waiting forever and the NS records still haven't made it.

The weird thing is, Arlington and Arkansas see two differant versions of my website! Isn't that something?

Well, maybe noon today the change will happen here and I will get to see my own website for myself.

Apologies to those who tried to view my site last night and this morning. Whenever the change hit, it happened while I had my name misspelled in the settings- so LiveJournal had a hard time serving up a website for alcemhist0405!

Hmm, when was the last time I posted... never.

I had a great Thanksgiving - I guess after waiting this long i can only say, "ask me if you want to know the details!" I got to see Dani H, both my families, Charlton, and the LAN Crew.

But moving on to new news - today was a OEGE function. I went with l8nitewriter and aloneintherainx went with Micaela. I had a great time and l8nitewriter got me penguin stuff and kid's toys! It was greatness.

Also, last night undeadpoet showed me the greatest deal ever. Three years of professionsal web hosting for free as a promotion and $5 domain names. Check it out! No credit card needed for the first three years. I have mine set up and haven't even entered my card number.

I got in the gentoo-user mailing list and I have been a bit more active on irc.freednode.net [alchemist0405: #gentoo, #linuxhelp] than usual. I really like Gentoo - but for some reason a bunch of the emerges won't download. I wonder if it's a Harding thing, personal thing, or global in nature. Who knows - maybe I should ask one of the ops.... Now there's a good idea.

Also, my housing situation is changing dramatically. I have my name plastered on a reservation for a Grad Single! No more cowboy/indian shows. No more naked slip & slide. No more psycho-Siberia feuds. I'll really miss it... (yeah right). Actually, I think this will be really nice. I will know other guys in the dorm and the few hours I spend in my room I will want to be focused anyways. I am never in anyways from 8:45a-11p anyhow.

As a side note - my domain alchemist0405.com may endure some downtime (hopefully not) as my NS records are updating. I especially hope that I don't go past the re-mailing period on any e-mails. I hate to lose e-mails.

I should have set it up to skip the downtime - but just in case: Do not fret. I will have things back to normal soon!

Time for me to go and watch some movie in teh Benson. mammadee, Kris, Janice, and I are all going together. Fun stuff.

It's good being back from the dead.

Adios!