Random Quote

"I no longer need to punish, deceive or compromise myself. Unless, of course, I want to stay employed." -The man known as "Jim" who posts in the comment sections of this blog. Not to be confused with me.

Only for the geeks out there...

Oh... I just realized that I should mention this, as it is some of the biggest news in Apple history. Apple has announced that it will be transitioning to Intel Pentium processors over the next few years. This will be the third "major" transition for the company since its founding in the seventies. The first was the switch to the power pc processor in the mid nineties, the second was the "brain transplant" that was the switch from OS9 to OSX. If I were to say anything at Apple has been "dragging" the past few years, it would be the speed and availability of their processors. But the whole processor industry has slowed down dramatically in the past few years, so I've been excusing it. This however looks to turn that around. Apple hopes to have Intel using machines on the market by next June, and a complete changeover of their lineup by the end of 2007. The idea of this happening was so incredibly remote, that many thought it impossible. For Apple to switch their Operating System to work on a different processor would require a complete re-tooling of the entire system. The feeling out there the past few weeks in response to the rumors of an Apple/Intel partnership was "there's no way that Apple can do this... for that to happen, they would have had to have built it to be processor independant over the past 5 years... they would have had to have been planning this since OSX debuted!" Well... uh.... they did. Apple has dedicated an entire division of their company to making OSX work on Intel processors for the past 5-6 years. The switch is going to be easy. For most developers, they will be able to adapt their products to run on the new system in literally, a matter of weeks, and in some cases, days. Not that they'll need it for a year, but they have the time. In the case of applications that aren't ready or don't try to get ready by the release of the Intel run mac, Apple has created an algorythm called "Rosetta" that, get this... LIVE TRANSLATES from power pc to intel. I watched Jobs run Word, Excel, Powerpoint and a few other apps on an Intel mac, these are programs as they are today... with no tweaking, and they ran at a speed that was an almost unnoticeable difference from the norm. This is going to allow every application to be used on the new macs that was on the old, until they adapt their apps to run on the Intels themselves! Very cool. In other news, the next big cat is going to be "Leopard" and it will come out about the same time that Windows is promising to have Longhorn out by. I would not want to be that cow.

Well, that's it for the geek-fest, Ladies and Germs...

See ya.

Woodridge

Hey all.
It's been awhile, so I'll catch you up.

I'll be heading back to Woodridge this week as far as work's concerned. I've learned alot during my time in Hinsdale, and quite frankly, I've been pretty wiped and that's why posts to the blog have slowed to a standstill. As I head back, I anticipate stepping up what I was doing at my home store before I left. I think that in the last two months I've really tightened up the shifts I'm on. No more guesswork, I know what needs to be done, and I feel much more confident getting things done.

We had our small group from church over to our apartment on Sunday. It was a really good time, and we even gave a little tour of our area... When you attend a church of thousands, it's sometimes hard to feel that "personal" touch, not to mention that there's no accountability.
We've really been blessed by the support and friendship of these folks.

Sarah is working full time now. She will be cranking out resumes soon. I look forward to seeing what kind of career she will get into. She's so smart and sincere, and I really anticipate a great job for her. One where she can truly help others, and take home some fulfillment for herself. I remember the feeling of pride in my work that I had at the newspaper, and the idea that "I did that" with different ads in the newspaper. It's something that you don't get in many jobs, but is a definite plus. I get that feeling to a certain degree at Starbucks as I continue to build relationships with customers, and people within the company. I'm sure that if I continue down this path, that "I did that" feeling will increase when I can see places I've helped make better. But for now, I'm praying that Sarah finds a job that she can be challenged at, and be proud of a job well done.

My parents found a new house in Ohia. They are moving soon, and hopefully this will be a great place to live. I've always liked the town they're moving to. The boys seem to be doing well, and while my Dad's health is a little shaky at times, I'm really happy for them at this point in their life. You can really see God's hand on their lives, and I feel that they will be able to look back and say "We didn't waste our lives, fiddling around, trying to make ourselves happy..." That's really what I want, when I think about it. I want to be able to look back on my life and see people I was able to help, sacrifices I was able to make, unselfishness... of course, every day I see evidence of the opposite in my life. I see the decisions made for me, manipulations of loved ones, and things I'll regret. Ah, regret. We love to dodge it here in America. Act like it doesn't exist... say you don't have them... Bull... You have them, as do I.
Regret is the wonderful device that tells us to NEVER DO THAT AGAIN. If faced with similar circumstances "I will do the right thing" next time. My advice, regret's not going to go away any more than gravity, and so next time it rears its head, listen to what it says, and make the decision to do what's right if that situation ever happens again. Pretending that regret doesn't exist is unfortunately something that few people are able to do at the end of their lives, and had they listened to its voice of warning earlier, they'd have alot less to regret. Period. For details, watch Magnolia.

Well, that's enough for now.
I hope this wasn't too heavy, but I'm so tired of people happily skipping off of cliffs in their lives. WAKE UP! Life is fragile and short! Live it right!

Peace and thank you,
Jim

Keanu = Wisdom

I know I haven't written alot lately... and here's an unlikely post at that...

I heard a quote tonight worth repeating, and it comes to you thanks to Keanu Reeves.

"Pain heals, chicks dig scars, and glory lasts forever." - K.R. in The Replacements