Thoughts

Couch Gag - Zoom Out Galaxy

2010-03-29T21:33:00.004-05:00

Couch Gag - Homer Evolution

2010-03-29T21:12:00.002-05:00

Homer Hijacks Ice Cream Truck

2010-02-17T12:38:00.003-06:00

Built a New Computer for $250

2010-02-02T11:07:00.003-06:00

I just finished putting together a new computer for myself, since I don't have one. I've been hurting really bad to get a new one, since the laptop I use is only so powerful. I put together the parts on newegg and will list them below, in case anyone wants to build their own computer.

I'm getting every new except hard drives which I already have. So if you don't have any hard drives it will cost you more.

TOWER - $24.99

POWER SUPPLY - $34.99

MOTHERBOARD - $49.99

CPU - $64.50

RAM - $49.99

CD/DVD DRIVE - $24.99

Total: $249.45

Exploding Appendix

2010-01-18T16:35:00.003-06:00

Homer Klown Hallucination

2010-01-14T16:40:00.005-06:00

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Leader

2010-01-09T12:48:00.002-06:00

Where do bowling pins go when they're knocked down?

2010-01-09T12:27:00.003-06:00

Homer Cola PopRock Bomb

2010-01-07T17:05:00.001-06:00

Bart Testing MegaHorn

2010-01-04T15:00:00.003-06:00

Long Long Weekend

2009-12-07T16:08:00.004-06:00

So I've taken a break from writing about the spiritual books I've been reading. Almost done reading one called The Journey of Souls. I've spent the past four days moving. We started on Thursday and Friday moving all the smalls things with our cars. I was able to move most of my room. We learned Thursday night that there is a flaw with the new house. The way the stairway is made doesn't allow you to get a queen size box spring up it. So far we all only have mattresses in our rooms, which is fine with me. I've been known to just sleep with a mattress on the floor. Saturday we got a truck and moved all the big stuff. This was a long and rough day. You never realize how much stuff you have and how heavy it all is until you have to move it all. My mind never got tired but I did feel my body get tired, even though I didn't feel tired. I'm sure all the endorphins contributed to it too. Sunday was mostly spent unpacking and settling in. It felt like the longs four days of my life, and man was it exhausting. Here are some pictures of the house and my room.

Getting the Conscious and Subconscious in Sync

2009-11-17T15:29:00.002-06:00

"For anything to be really effective, including goal achievement, self-discipline, or ideals, the conscious and subconscious minds must work together. Many times a person makes major conscious mind decisions, but the programming of the subconscious mind is in conflict with those, and keeps working at counter-purpose to the conscious goal. Since so much of what we think and do comes from the subconscious, this can totally nullify your conscious desires, and in fact, make things happen that are opposite to what you want. Properly setting your ideal will have an effect on both the conscious and subconscious realms of your being.

For instance, a person may have decided they want a successful career, and they do all the right conscious things to make it happen. They get training, apply for work, etc.. But if the subconscious is programmed for failure, the person will do things that counteract, and defeat the conscious goal. They may be stupid little things, like the slip of a word at the wrong time, or being late for an appointment, or even little physical 'screw-ups'. It can defeat you in many ways."

Cool Brain/Body Pics

2009-11-15T22:05:00.005-06:00

Some time ago I had an idea for my website front page but I never followed through with it. It involved using pictures of the human brain or body (similar to the ones below) as links to certain places on my website. I was previously searching with google images but today I found a new site and found the following images:

Here is the link to the website: SciencePhoto

Maybe you'll find images that are interesting to you.

Consciousness: The Way Out of Pain (1of5)

2009-11-08T14:13:00.003-06:00

Time for some more Now. There are some good sections I want to get to, so I need to get this one out of the way. This previous week has been a pretty good one, a lot better than most weeks that I've had. My progress has been going well and I recently made another mini-breakthrough. It relates to something I've talked about before, how I am usually harsh on myself, give myself high expectations, and my acceptance for my own actions. I had an idea of what I needed to do, but I realized I was wrong. I felt like there were people out there I needed to make peace with, but really what I really needed to do was make peace with myself.

Create No More Pain in the Present

Not accepting what is can be a source of a lot of suffering.

The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. Or you may put it like this: the more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering - and free of the egoic mind.

Accepting the now is a very difficult thing to do, especially for me, since my mind likes to dwell in the past and dream of the future. I used to spend little time in the now. As I learn to accept things for what they are, I can feel myself become free of that pain I was once prisoner too.

Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable.

It's weird to think of the now as timeless, at least it was weird for me. The concept of time is in itself a interesting topic to talk about. Our lives are so ingrained with this idea of time. Time is always moving, we are always getting older, etc. This in a way can hinder us, since when we look at time we really only see the past or the future, since the now is technically just an infinitely small piece of time existing at this very moment. My calculus knowledge makes me want to define the now as dt, just a joke. Here we learn that the mind needs time. Without time, the mind has nothing, no past of future, to identify with. If it only has the now, and the now is always changing, what does the mind identify with?

Yes, we need the mind as well as time to function in this world, but there comes a point where they take over our lives, and this is where dysfunction, pain, and sorrow set in.

The mind, to ensure that it remains in control, seeks continuously to cover up the present moment with past and future, and so, as the vitality and infinite creative potential of Being, which is inseparable from the Now, become covered up by time, your true nature becomes obscured by the mind. An increasingly heavy burden of time has been accumulating in the human mind. All individuals are suffering under this burden, but they also keep adding to it every moment whenever they ignore or deny that precious moment or reduce it to a means of getting to some future moment, which only exists in the mind, never in actuality. The accumulation of time in the collective and individual human mind also holds a vast amount of residual pain from the past.

The minds obsession with the past and the future covers up the now. It leads us to believing that you are who you are based on your past. The accumulations of things I have done in the past is me, thats what I identify with. Looking at my life in the past, this is what I must do in the future. Your mind is always stuck in the past so it has an identity, and its always projecting itself into the future so that it can stay alive, obscuring the now. Sometimes the now may be something unpleasant, so you would want your mind to cover it up. This really does nothing to get rid of the pain. You are just adding to it.

It is as it is. Observe how the mind labels it and how this labeling process, this continuous sitting in judgment, creates pain and unhappiness. By watching the mechanics of the mind, you step out of its resistance patterns, and you can then allow the present moment to be. This will give you a taste of the state of inner freedom from external conditions, the state of true inner peace. Then see what happens, and take action if necessary or possible.

Accepting the present moment is the best thing that you can do. Accept what is, then act. That sounds like the best way to act on something. My feeling that I needed to make peace out there was still my mind living in the past. I needed to look deep down inside and accept what has happened. Only after that can I take proper action. I was going about it the wrong way. I was trying to take an action first before I did any accepting. I already know from experience that this is true. I already did take some actions, and I did not get the results I had expected. My pain and suffering did not go away like I thought they would. Now I am focusing on my inner self and looking to accept what has happened, and then take the best action necessary.

Sushi Making Time

2009-11-07T13:11:00.005-06:00

I've been on a sushi kick for some time now and have been itching to learn how to make it myself. Well, after a week of having nothing better to do, I spent some time researching it online. The process is not to difficult, it's actually pretty straightforward. I did realize how much of an art this really is, and I can appreciate more what the sushi chefs are doing. Here are some pictures of my sushi making.

The Nori, or seaweed paper, that you put the rice on.

Crab meat.

Avocado and cucumber.

Rice!

Crab, avocado, and cucumber.

Crab, tuna, avocado, and cucumber.

This was a lot of fun and my sushi came out pretty good for my first try. It is pretty difficult to get everything to come out perfect. I am no where near opening up my own restaurant...

You Are Not Your Mind (4of4)

2009-11-01T15:00:00.001-06:00

Finally, I am at the last section of the first chapter. There is still a long way to go. I'm beginning to think maybe I bit off more than I can chew, but I feel its going well so far. It's interesting because as I am writing about the book, I am able to integrate my current life experiences. Just feels like a coincidence, or my mind seeing what it wants to see. So the past week has been good and bad. I'm beginning to see that life is never going to be always good. There is always going to be good and bad. What I am learning is how to not let the bad effect me, or get to me. In my last therapy session, I brought up that maybe the reason I focus on the bad is because my mind likes conflict. I was expecting to talk about that specifically, but my therapist took it a step further, something I didn't think to do. She asked, why is that my mind is so focused on conflict in the first place. It was good she did that, because it leads me to the root of the actual problem, which we spent most of the session talking about. After eight sessions I'm getting a good idea of where most of my problems are coming from, or why my mind is functioning the way it is, which helps me work on truly changing. It felt good when I recognized my problems with conflict, but when I became aware of the problems that led to my problems with conflict, I felt even better.

Emotion: The Body's Reaction to Your Mind

There has been a lot of talk about the mind and suffering, but what about our emotions. If you haven't already started asking where they fit in, you might want to think about it now. What do our emotions mean?

Mind, in the way I use the word, is not just thought. It includes your emotions as well as all unconscious mental-emotional reactive patterns. Emotions arise at the place where mind and body meet. It is the body's reaction to your mind - or you might say, a reflection of your mind in the body. For example, an attack thought or a hostile thought will create a buildup of energy in the body that we call anger. The body is getting ready to fight. The thought that you are being threatened, physically, or psychologically, causes the body to contract, and this is the physical side of what we call fear. Research has shown that strong emotions even cause changes in the biochemistry of the body. These biochemical changes represent the physical or material aspect of the emotion. Of course, you are not usually conscious of all your thought patterns, and it is often only through watching your emotions that you can bring them into awareness.

I have had lots of problems with my emotions. Sometimes I am too emotional and sometimes I don't feel any emotions at all. I have always viewed emotions as just the way you feel. This is just how I feel, I can't help it, these are just my emotions. My view on emotions is changing. I am looking at them as a result of what the mind produces. Emotions are the physical aspect of my thoughts. This is how my body perceives my thoughts.

The more you are identified with your thinking, your likes and dislikes, judgments and interpretations, which is to say, the less present you are as the watching consciousness, the stronger the emotional energy charge will be, whether you are aware of it or not. If you cannot feel your emotions, if you are cut off from them, you will eventually experience them on a purely physical level, as a physical problem or symptom. A great deal has been written about this in recent years, so we don't need to go into it here. A strong unconscious emotional pattern may even manifest as an external event that appears to just happen to you. For example, I have observed that people who carry a lot of anger inside without being aware of it and without expressing it are more likely to be attacked, verbally or even physically, by other angry people, and often for no apparent reason. They have a strong emanation of anger that certain people pick up subliminally and that triggers their own latent anger.

This paragraph rings so many things in my head. When I said earlier that I feel either super emotional, or cold, I now see why. I was always reserved in my emotions and expressing how I feel. I would just keep things inside and bottled up. I was cold. After time it would all just come out and I would explode. I would become super emotional. I began repeating this pattern for years. Each time the cycle repeated, things would be worse, and I was full of more and more problems. I finally realized enough was enough; here I am now.

So, what about when the mind says no and emotions say yes or the other way around. We all know this and have experienced it. I am thinking one thing and I feel another. This is another concept I have struggled with personally over the years. My mind constantly battled with how I felt and I never knew what the true my actually wanted or felt.

If you really want to know your mind, the body will always give you a truthful reflection, so look at the emotion, or rather feel it in your body. If there is an apparent conflict between them, the thought will be the lie, the emotion will be the truth. Not the ultimate truth of who you are, but the relative truth of your state of mind at that time.

This paragraph is powerful to me. When you're not sure, always look at your emotions. Some of you may have already learned this from your own experiences. I am learning it now, and I'm not just talking about your gut feeling, or listening to your gut. The important thing to understand is that your emotions may not ultimately represent the truth inside of you. As the author says, it is only a reflection of your true state of mind. This opens up the door for another way to 'watch the thinker'. If our ego isn't letting us 'watch the thinker', because it is sending us false thoughts, we will always see the true thinker by watching our emotions.

Yes. Make it a habit to ask yourself: What's going on inside me at this moment? That question will point you in the right direction. But don't analyze, just watch. Focus your attention within. Feel the energy of the emotion. If there is no emotion present, take your attention more deeply into the inner energy field of your body. It is the doorway into Being.

I have started doing this. It sounds weird but you have too look out for yourself too. It's ironic to me because I am such a caring person, I am always asking how everyone else is doing, or feeling. I never thought to turn around and I ask myself. It can be very insightful and you may actually be surprised. Most important, it makes you present on what's going on inside of you. Ignoring yourself is no way to get better.

An emotion usually represent an amplified and energized thought pattern, and because of its often overpowering energetic charge, it is not easy initially to stay present enough to be able to watch it. It wants to take you over, and it usually succeeds - unless there is enough presence in you. If you are pulled into unconscious identification with the emotion through lack of presence, which is normal, the motion temporarily becomes 'you.' Often a vicious circle builds up between your thinking and the emotions: they feed each other. The thought pattern creates a magnified reflection of itself in the form of an emotion, and the vibrational frequency of the emotion keeps feeding the original thought pattern. By dwelling mentally on the situation, event, or person that is the perceived cause of the emotion, the thought feeds energy to the emotion, which in turn energizes the thought pattern, and so on.

I know this circle all too well. The thought comes, then the emotion, then I am feeling the emotion, then I start thinking about it, then its amplified, etc. It is a vicious cycle indeed. I try to find a distraction but that doesn't actually solve anything. At most it provides temporary relief. This is a problem I am learning to overcome and its going really slow, I'll be honest there, but at least I'm making progress.

Basically, all emotions are modifications of one primordial undifferentiated emotion that has its origin in the loss of awareness of who you are beyond name and form. Because of its undifferentiated nature, it is hard to find a name that precisely describes this emotion. 'Fear' comes close, but apart from a continuous sense of threat, it also includes a deep sense of abandonment and incompleteness. It may be best to use a term that is as undifferentiated as that basic emotion and simply call it 'pain.' One of the main tasks of the mind is to fight or remove that emotional pain, which is one of the reasons for its incessant activity, but all it can ever achieve is to cover it up temporarily. In fact, that harder the mind struggles to get rid of the pain, the greater the pain. The mind can never find the solution, nor can it allow you to find the solution, because it is itself an intrinsic part of the 'problem.' Imagine a chief of police trying to find an arsonist when the arsonist is the chief of police. You will not be free of that pain until you cease to derive your sense of self from identification with the mind, which is to say from ego. The mind is then toppled from its place of power and Being reveals itself as your true nature.

This is a very powerful paragraph. I would read this again several times very slowly. I am still reading it over and over trying to truly grasp the big picture. I honestly don't feel I truly understand what he is saying here. I do feel like I am close to seeing it. Its like that feeling you know what is being said is right, you just don't completely comprehend it yet. The last part explains my mind perfectly, how it will never find the solution because it is part of the problem. It also reminds me a little bit of the movie Donnie Darko, specifically the character played by Patrick Swayze. He comes to the school to provide education on getting rid of your troubles in life, obesity, being bullied, or not knowing what you want to be in life. He believes that ever problem we have is a product of fear. I don't think the character played by Patrick Swayze saw it the way as the author of this book, but maybe he was on to something. Just something to think about.

So here I am talking about emotions, and I am making it seem like there is only negative emotions. What about the good emotions? What about love and joy? Where do those emotions fit in? At this point I am thinking, emotions are a result of our thoughts. It is best to be in a state of no-mind. If we are in no-mind, where do the thoughts that create good emotions come from?

Love, joy, and peace are deep states of Being, or rather three aspects of the state of inner connectedness with Being. As such, they have no opposite. This is because they arise from beyond the mind. Emotions, on the other hand, being part of the dualistic mind, are subject to the law of opposites. This simply means that you cannot have good without bad. So in the unenlightened, mind-identified condition, what is sometimes wrongly called joy is usually the short-lived pleasure side of the continuously alternating pain/pleasure cycle. Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within. The very thing that gives you pleasure today will give you pain tomorrow, or it will leave you, so its absence will give you pain. And what is often referred to as love may be pleasurable and exciting for a while, but it is an addictive clinging, an extremely needy condition that can turn into its opposite at the flick of switch. Many 'love' relationships, after the initial euphoria has passed, actually oscillate between 'love' and hate, attraction and attack.

This idea gives me a whole new understand on love. We often find it necessary in order to understand or define something, that we know the opposite of what it is. I don't know what love is but I know what it's not. Can we truly understand love by thinking that way? I also like the idea that these states have no opposite. To me that perfectly explains love. This entices me to becoming above the mind, so I can experience these deep inner states.

Real love doesn't make you suffer. How could it? It doesn't suddenly turn into hate, nor does real joy turn into pain. As I said, even before you are enlightened - before you have freed yourself from your mind - you may get glimpses of true joy, true love, or of a deep inner peace, still but vibrantly alive. These are aspects of your true nature, which is usually obscured by the mind. Even within a 'normal' addictive relationship, there can be moments when the presence of something more genuine, something incorruptible, can be felt. But they will only be glimpses, soon to be covered up again through mind interference. It may then seem that you had something very precious and lost it, or your mind may convince you that it was all an illusion anyway. The truth is that it wasn't an illusion, and you cannot lose it. It is part of your natural state, which can be obscured but can never be destroyed by the mind. Even when the sky is heavily overcast, the sun hasn't disappeared. It's still there on on the other side of the clouds.

This increases my understanding of true love, and now I know how to understand the feelings inside me that relate to it. I know I have more than short moments and fleeting glimpses of true love. I remember reading this for the first time and the realizations I had, the memories that came back to me. The realization of my true inner being, that deep down I am a truly loving person, and there were many times when I was feeling this for more than a mere moment. If anything, this realization has kept me going and has been motivating me to change. I know what is inside of me. I am aware of it now. Many of my struggles as you may read often deal with the simple fact that I just wasn't aware. I am becoming aware of so many things now. Many memories I thought were not there are coming back. I am seeing myself, my past, my life in a new light now.

Internet Out and New House

2009-10-27T17:51:00.002-05:00

So Comcast is out, which means no internet or cable. I'm glad that I figured out how to use my phone as a proxy, because that's my main access to the internet. I spent some time today moving my website to another server. Because of that, not everything on my website will be working. The good thing is my blog is part of Google, so that will never go away.

My parents did more house searching today and found one that they liked. They talked to the owner today and worked out a deal, so now we will be renting it starting in December. We'll probably be moving in mid-November. For those who don't know, we are renting the house we live in right now, but the lease is up and the owner is being foreclosed on, so we gotta get out. Just a year ago we were foreclosed out of our own house. Here are some pictures of the new place from Craigslist.

I haven't seen it myself it but it seems really nice. The place we are at now has a stream going through the backyard. This new place has the Des Plaines River going through the backyard. We are also closer to the expressway now, literally right off of Rand road near the Des Plaines River.

You Are Not Your Mind (3of4)

2009-10-25T13:21:00.006-05:00

In therapy when there isn't something specifically that I bring up to talk about I'm asked about my week. When I tried to think of the past week, I went backwards day by day, trying to think about Tuesday, then Monday, then Sunday, etc. There were two days that I couldn't remember what I did. I had to think about it. Eventually I remembered what I did, and it was funny, cause those two days were really good days, days that I had a lot of fun. My therapist made an observation: it seems that I was having trouble remembering my happy times. This really boggled me. Why was it so it easy to recall my bad/sad days and hard to remember my good/happy days. It was clear at this point that my mind was playing some tricks on me.

Enlightenment: Rising Above Thought

You might be thinking to yourself that thinking is important to do, and that how can it be a good thing to stop thinking. You might say that thinking is essential in order to survive in this world.

Your mind is an instrument, a tool. It is there to be used for a specific task, and when the task is completed, you lay it down. As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people's thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful. Observe your mind and you will find this to be true. It cause a serious leakage of vital energy.

This kinda goes with my previous tool analogy. The mind is useful only for certain tasks, and most of the time it is being used for everything. Me being an introvert, I spend a lot of time in my mind thinking to myself, this would be my 80 to 90 percent of useless and repetitive thinking. I want to be without that repetitive thinking because most of the time it does cause me harm, dwelling on things I would rather not dwell on.

This kind of compulsive thinking is actually an addiction. What characterizes an addiction? Quite simply this: you no longer feel that you have the choice to stop. It seems stronger than you. It also gives you a false sense of pleasure, pleasure that invariably turns into pain.

There have been times in my life, usually when something bad has happened to me, that I seriously lose control of my mind and it goes to places that I don't want it to go to. The only thing I can relate it to is a flashback. Anything such as a sound, a smell, or a sight can trigger it for me. Once the compulsive thinking starts for me, it becomes painful, and as much as I want it to stop, it just needs to run it's course. Luckily, this doesn't happen too often for me. I know it doesn't sound like an addiction, and I don't feel like I'm addicted, but my mind is. So then how am I addicted?

Because you are identified with it, which means that you derive your sense of self from the content and activity of your mind. Because you believe that you would cease to be if you stopped thinking. As you grow up, you form a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and cultural conditioning. We may call this phantom self the ego. It consists of mind activity and can only be kept going through constant thinking. The term ego means different things to different people, but when I use it here it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind.

Since I believe I am my mind, and my mind is addicted, I am addicted, sounds weird. The author defines what he means when he uses the word ego, so when he talks about ego, he refers to false self you are identified with because of your mind. I never thought I had ego issues because of my own definition I formed, but when I look at his definition, I see I have some serious ego issues.

To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important. This total reversal of the truth accounts for the fact that in the ego mode the mind is so dysfunctional. It is always concerned with keeping the past alive, because without it - who are you? It constantly projects itself into the future to ensure its continued survival and to seek some kind of release or fulfillment there. It says: 'One day, when this, that, or the other happens, I am going to be okay, happy, at peace.' Even when the ego seems to be concerned with the present, it is not the present that it sees: It misperceives it completely because it looks at it through the eyes of the past. Or it reduces the present to a means to an end, an end that always lies in the mind-projected future. Observe your mind and you'll see that this is how it works.

After reading this, I became aware of how my ego was controlling me. It is true for me that I spend a lot of time in my past. I also became aware that I was not really in the now, just the now that my ego creates based on my past. Even recently when I try to look back and ask myself, who I am, what kind of person am I, I always end up defining myself based on my past. I must be this person based on my past. That was my ego controlling me, trying to stay alive, trying to stay the same as it was in the past. This may be why I have a fear of change, or a hard time accepting change, because my ego doesn't want things to change. This may also be why I don't remember my good days. My ego has its roots in negativity, so it only wants to see negativity in the past and in the now.

Enlightenment means rising above thought, not falling back to a level below thought, the level of an animal or a plant. In the enlightened state, you still use your thinking mind when needed, but in a much more focused and effective way than before. You use it mostly for practical purposes, but you are free of the involuntary internal dialogue, and there is inner stillness. When you do use your mind, and particularly when a creative solution is needed, you oscillate ever few minutes or so between thought and stillness, between mind and no-mind. No-mind is consciousness without thought. Only in that way is it possible to think creatively, because only in that way does thought have any real power. Thought alone, when it is no longer connected with the much vaster realm of consciousness, quickly becomes barren, insane, destructive.

I like this paragraph because it talks about creativity. I see myself as a creativity person, or at least as someone who has the ability to be creativity. The way the author describes how to the mind should be used is appealing to me, and this is something I want to achieve. No more destructive thinking!

The mind is essentially a survival machine. Attack and defense against other minds, gathering, storing, and analyzing information - this is what it is good at, but it is not at all creative. All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness. The mind then gives form to the creative impulse or insight. Even the great scientists have reported that their creative breakthroughs came at a time of mental quietude. The surprising result of a nationwide inquiry among America's most eminent mathematicians, including Einstein, to find out their working methods, was thinking 'plays only a subordinate part in the brief, decisive phase of the creative act itself.' So I would say that the simple reason why the majority of scientists are not creative is not because they don't know how to think but because they don't know to stop thinking!

I really like this paragraph too. I have a lot of friends who are artists and I feel they would agree. Their art doesn't come from a place of mind, but a place of no-mind. Deep down I feel like I am truly an artist, even though I went to school and became an engineer. This blog is a piece of my art that I am creating. I like the last part of the paragraph too. I can be of the scientist type, since I'm an engineer. In school all you do is think, problem solve, think more, and think. I believe that six years of school contributed to my compulsive thinking, it's what engineers need to do, but I also believe a good engineer needs to be creative. Many times we have our great thoughts not when we are focusing hard in thinking, but usually when we are not thinking. These moments can come when we're driving, or on the train, or in the shower. It's funny how it happens that way. Just stop thinking about it, and the solution may come.

Actually, it's funny because I was thinking about why I don't remember my good days so well, and an idea about why came to me when I wasn't even thinking about. It came to me at a time when I was clearing my mind before bed so I could sleep. I realized that maybe my ego craves conflict. This may be due to my engineering conditioned mind, which likes to solve problems. It occurred to me that my ego may like to focus on conflict, this is why I see only conflict in my past. When my mind isn't hard at work solving engineering conflicts, my ego creates conflict in the now, in my life, to give it something to solve. The issue here is that these problems that get created in my life have no solution. They are not like the engineering problems I like to solve. These problems involve other people, emotions, feelings etc. For some reason my ego wants to create conflict so that it has something to solve. I'm keeping this on my mind now as I "watch the thinker". I'll know in time how right I am.

You Are Not Your Mind (2of4)

2009-10-21T17:31:00.002-05:00

Just got home from therapy and thought I should work on the next part to help keep my energy up. I learned some interesting things about myself today. Today kinda started off bad for me, I felt like I was starting to slip back into the 'You are your Mind' way of thinking again. I learned today that I am really harsh on myself when it comes to judging and forgiving. I realized I am so nice to the outside world, yet I am very harsh on myself. I am learning about the different parts of my mind, like ego, id, and super ego. I was stuck talking about all these things I thought I should be doing. I kept saying "I should". That was my super ego talking though, not me, which I wasn't aware of before. Anyway, here is the next section:

Freeing Yourself From Your Mind

When someone goes to the doctor and says. 'I hear a voice in my head,' he or she will most likely be sent to a psychiatrist. The fact that, in a very similar way, virtually everyone hears a voice, several voices, in their head all the time: the involuntary thought processes that you don't realize you have the power to stop. Continuous monologues or dialogues.

This is very true for me. I have a very busy and anxious mind. I am learning that when I don't keep my mind busy, it starts to wander off and think about things it shouldn't. That's when I get into trouble and my suffering begins.

You have probably come across 'mad' people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that's not much different from what you and other 'normal' people do, except that you don't do it out loud. The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn't necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry. Sometimes this soundtrack is accompanied by visual images or 'mental movies.' Even if the voice is relevant to the situation at hand, it will interpret it in terms of the past. This is because the voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which is a result of all your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you inherited. So you see and judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view of it. It is not uncommon for the voice to be a person's own worst enemy. Many people live with a tormentor in their head that continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy. It is the cause of untold misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease.

Oh man, where to begin here, there is so much that sticks out to me here. Here he mentions how the voice may not be talking about the relevant or current situation. I often find my self thinking about the past; what could I have done different, or better, or what was I supposed to see and learn. Or, I am thinking about the future, trying to visualize it and prepare, mostly worrying or dreading something. For me, these experiences are very visual. I do not have a perfect photographic memory, but my visual memory is very dominate in me. My mental movies are a very real experience for me, maybe comparable to being in a day dream. These are my tormentors. It's funny cause these became apparent to me from reading harry potter. They have something called dementors, they will suck everything happy out of you and only leave the unhappy memories. There have been times when I feel like there's a dementor/tormentor living in my head. Also, I judge my present based on my past, but we all do right? I think the important thing here is to understand and become aware that literally our perception of the present is distorted. So we are already telling ourselves what we want to see in the present based on the past. The author talks more about this later in the book.

When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say, do not judge. Do not judge or condemn what you hear, for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in again through the back door. You'll soon realize: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond your mind.

Here the authors gives the first steps on "watching the thinker". I'll admit it's easier said than done. I am still trying to listen in on myself. It's not easy.

When a thought subsides, you experience a discontinuity in the mental steam - a gap of 'no-mind.' At first, the gaps will be short, a few seconds perhaps, but gradually they will become longer. When these gaps occur, you feel a certain natural state of felt oneness with Being, which is usually obscured by the mind. With practice, the sense of stillness and peace will deepen. In fact, there is no end to its depth. you will also feel a subtle emanation of joy arising from deep within: the joy of Being.

As soon as I read this a movie popped into my mind. I Heart Huckabees. If you haven't seen it, it's about a man who is having a crisis with what appears to him to be a coincidence. There is another character in the movie who is having an existential crisis. There is a part of the movie where a woman is trying to show them what "no-mind" is. She has them hit themselves in the face with a giant rubber ball a couple times until they experience it, which they do, but it doesn't last long. I have had my own experiences but they are short lived. If you practice though, they will become longer.

Instead of 'watching the thinker,' you can also create a gap in the mind stream simply by directing the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way, you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of meditation.

This is something that I have done a lot and I know many can relate to. Think about when you are working really hard on something that you enjoy doing. Think about when you are having a really good conversation with your best friend. Think about when you are watching a show that you really enjoy, or a book. Usually all of your attention is focused on just that one thing. Most of the time you are also really enjoying yourself. I find this experience to be the strongest when I am really into a good conversation with a friend, I kinda get a high sometimes. Even writing this blog takes a lot of my attention and focus, which helps to keep me in the now.

In your everyday life, you can practice this by taking any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and living it your fullest attention, so that it becomes an end in itself. For example, every time you walk up and down the stairs in your house or place of work, pay close attention to every step, every movement, even your breathing. Be totally present. Or when you wash you hands, pay attention to all the sense perceptions associated with the activity: the sound and feel of the water, the movement of your hands, the scent of the soap, and so on. Or when you get into your car, after you close the door, pause for a few seconds and observe the flow of your breathe. Become aware of a silent but powerful sense of presence. There is one certain criterion by which you can measure the success in this practice: the degree of peace that you feel within.

I have been trying to practice this as much as I can. You don't realize how much is going on unless you stop and look around and just devote some time to the now. I know some people that are really good about noticing things. I often wonder how they can be paying so much attention to the surroundings. My car is the place that I am best at being in the now. I like to blast the radio and find some songs that I can sing to. I often end up playing my air guitar or air drums. I noticed that driving started to make me feel relaxed and happy, even when I was sitting in traffic. I was no longer concerned with getting to my location. I knew I would get there when I get there. In the mean time, all I have is me, my radio, and my surroundings. Like the author says, try it and see how you feel.

So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream if mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger.

I have been getting better at creating gaps in my thinking. Its only been a short time for me but I am noticing small improvements in the way I feel already. It's reinforcing for me to know that the more of these gaps you create, the stronger your conscious will grow. I know that as long as I keep to it, one day my conscious will be noticeably stronger. I'm not expecting it to happen any time soon, but to know that it will come one day makes me happy.

You Are Not Your Mind (1of4)

2009-10-19T15:23:00.001-05:00

All right, so I started a draft of this last week and I realized this is going to be a lot harder than I thought. I wrote down quotes from the first chapter and after getting through half of it, I noticed I had almost copied everything out of the book. I know after doing more chapters I will find better ways of quoting and explaining things. Here I go:

The Greatest Obstacle to Enlightenment

I love the Buddha's simple definition of enlightenment as 'the end of suffering.' There is nothing superhuman in that, is there? Of course, as a definition, it is incomplete. It only tells you what enlightenment is not: no suffering. But what's left when there is no more suffering? The Buddha is silent on that, and his silence implies that you'll have to find out for yourself. He uses a negative definition so that the mind cannot make it into something to believe in or into a superhuman accomplishment, a goal that is impossible for you to attain. Despite the precaution, the majority of Buddhists still believe that enlightenment is for the Buddha, not for them, at least not in this lifetime.

I like this explanation of enlightenment. I think that when we try to label it as being at peace, being happy, being one with yourself, etc. we start to identify too much with those qualities and in general we miss the point. So in a way, we can each define what it is and find out our own way to achieving it. And as far as the Buddha being the only one to achieve enlightenment, I believe we all have the ability to do it.

The word Being explains nothing, but nor does God. Being, however, has the advantage that it is an open concept. It does not reduce the infinite invisible to a finite entity. It is impossible to form a mental image of it. It is your very essence, and it is immediately accessible to you as the feeling of your own presence, the realization I am that is prior to I am this or I am that. So it is only a small step from the word Being to the experience of Being.

I included this passage so that its clear when I quote later what the author means when he talks about Being or God. Being is a more open concept that our mind does not immediately identify with. In the last sentence when he says, "So it is only a small step from the word Being to the experience of Being." Its more meaningful when I replace Being with God and try to understand the statement in the same way. When I use the word God the statement does almost mean something different, something less. Something for you to think about.

After thinking about what enlightenment or Being is, we can ask what is holding us back from it.

Identification with your mind, which causes thought to become compulsive. Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. The incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable for Being. It also creates a false mind-made self that casts a shadow of fear and suffering. We will look at all that in more detail later.

The philosopher Descartes believed that he found the most fundamental truth when he made his famous statement: 'I think, therefore I am.' He had, in fact, given expression to the most basic error: to equate thinking with Being and identity with thinking. The compulsive thinker, which means almost everyone, lives in a state of apparent separateness, in an insanely complex world of continuous problems and conflict, a world that reflects the ever-increasing fragmentation of the mind. Enlightenment is a state of wholeness, of being 'at one' and therefore at peace. At one with life in its manifested aspect, the world, as well as with your deepest self and life unmanifested - at one with Being. Enlightenment is not only the end of suffering and of continuous conflict within and without, but also the end of dreadful enslavement to incessant thinking. What an incredible liberation this is!

After reading this part, I began to understand. I always liked the statement 'I think, therefore I am.' but I never realized it was part of what was holding me back. I know I think a lot and I always viewed myself as being my mind. I am the way I think. Most of my day, I know somewhere in my mind I am thinking.

The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly - you usually don't use it at all. It uses you. This is the disease. You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over.

Many people may read this and not agree at all. I know from my own experience that my powerful mind has taken control of me. I was a true believer in I am my mind, which probably made it easier for my mind to control me. He writes in the book some answers to questions the reader may have due to their criticisms of his statements.

I don't quite agree. It is true that I do a lot of aimless thinking, like most people, but I can still choose to use my mind to get and accomplish things, and I do that all the time.

Just because you can solve a crossword puzzle or build an atom bomb doesn't mean you use your mind. Just as dogs love to chew bones, the mind loves to get its teeth into problems. That's why it does crossword puzzles and builds atom bombs. You have no interest in either. Let me ask you this: can you be free of your mind whenever you want to? Have you found the 'off' button?

I like what he says at the end here. I wish there was a 'physical' off button to my mind sometimes. Maybe before bed, or when I am trying to concentrate on certain things. There are always tons of thoughts going on in my mind, and its very rare that I may be just purely focusing on one of them.

Then the mind is using you. You are unconsciously identified with it, so you don't even know that you are its slave. It's almost as if you were possessed without knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself. The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity - the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of the intelligence, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.

This is a powerful paragraph too. This is when I began to see what I needed to do. I was looking at myself as just a thinker, me, myself, my brain, was just a thinker. Now I see that the thinker in me is only part of me, one tool of mine in my head that I have to use. I am guilty of thinking that thinking was my only tool, and I depended entirely on it. I guess its like building a house with only a hammer, or with just a screw driver. You may get a lot done, but it's not going to do everything. I realize now I have other tools in my head that I could be using, as he explains. This is also when I began to start watching the thinker. Here is an exercise I did. I started by making it quiet and dark in my room and by staring at the flame of a candle. I tried to just focus on the flame. Quickly did I see how busy my mind was and how lots of thoughts would jump in and distract me from just focusing on the flame. It gives you great insight on what your mind is trying to do. You can also do this exercise by closing your eyes and focusing on your breathing.

Actually I think I'll stop here. This covers one section of the first chapter. This way the posts stay somewhat short and focused.

The Power of Now

2009-10-14T16:29:00.003-05:00

Wow, I don 't even know where to begin. I started this book not even a week ago, last Friday to be exact, and I got through it faster than any other book I have read. Under the title of the book it says, "A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment". It may be misleading to you, but this book has opened up a whole new way of thinking and seeing the world.

I don't know what to say exactly about the book since the high from reading it is still bubbling in my head. I know I won't do it justice. It explains everything about me, the ways I have acted, the ways I have felt, everything. My whole life is now clear to me. I am not talking about purpose or anything like that, but for some time now I have not been ok. Not to say I was depressed or anything, well, I guess the way I try to explain is that I wasn't necessarily feeling sad, but on the other side, I wasn't feeling happy. That is not to say I didn't have happy times or bad times, but in general I was feeling a neutralness to life. I was beginning to tell/convince myself that the way I was feeling was normal, or that was part of growing up. Well now that I have been in therapy and now that I have read this book, I can see I was wrong. There is a whole new perspective on life unfolding inside of me as we speak.

That's as much as I can say right now. My plan is to read the book again, and write a post on each chapter. I'll be putting up parts that I like, parts that I think may relate to people I know, and then I might be putting a little bit about me to see how I relate to it. I'm not sure how its gonna go so we'll see. I want to share this knowledge with others and provide some help. I know that I might have gotten better with out this book, but the way this book explains it all made it easy for me to see and understand the truth inside of me. I'll try not to sound like a preacher, but this book has me so excited and happy. Learning to live in the now was something I felt I always knew how to do when I was younger, but I somehow fell out of it. I feel that now I am getting back to the myself that I always was, always wanted to be, and always should be.

Rain Phone Wiki Life

2009-10-01T16:30:00.002-05:00

Just got back from Tony's, was keeping his cats company. Had a good time myself. Played with the cats for a little, made a pizza, watching a movie and some shows. I also brought my laptop over so I could surf. The bad part was that I took my skateboard to get there, which wasn't a problem on the way there, but I didn't realize it started to rain. I really didn't care so I skated back in the rain, even though its bad for the bearings.

It was interesting on the way back. I take the bike path there, since its easy for a skateboard. The path runs along the power lines which usually buzz like power lines do. Only this time, in the rain, the buzzing sounded louder, like the rain effecting the buzzing. I never heard this before and I thought it was interesting. I didn't get too wet, the path only takes like 7 minutes to get home.

I have also been playing around with phone some more. I was getting fed up with it being slow, I thought it should be running faster, and I was having memory issues when I would try to use google maps. I decided the other day to try out some other operating systems for it. I tried to other ones with now luck. I think I actually installed one that was for another phone, it was cool but in the end more a pain. I realized there was something I didn't do the first time I reformatted my phone that may have improved the performance, using the SD to store some memory for the system. So I set that up and installed the first OS I tried. Well, everything is working fine now, and it seems quite fast and responsive. I think I am gonna stick with this version unless I'm really aching to try something new. Its kind of a pain to mess around with it, since it is a phone, and each time I reformat it, I have to setup the settings, and ring tones, and etc...

I also updated my wiki to explain how to reinstall the phone. I just put a basic outline with some links. Its the links that really tell you what to do. I also added a new page that I have to fill in. Its kind of a motivator for now. The new page is for rocketry. I decided to pick up that hobby again. Its been a long time, maybe since sophomore or junior year of high school since I last launched a rocket, so lets say 8 years. I started hte hobby when I was in 6th grade and really in space and NASA. I know why I stopped, I hit a road block. At that age and time, I could only take it so far, or I only had the energy to take it so far. There is high power rocketry which is what I want to get into. It requires three levels of certification, and you can play with some big rockets. I'm gonna start from the beginning though of course, and start with the small ones, just to kinda, whats the word, I don't know, to reminisce. I don't know, but yeh. So once I get a job and some extra money, I plan on getting that going, especially now that I have a background in engineering. I still have the suitcase that I kept all my stuff in. I still have some stuff I save, can't wait to open it and go through it. Look forward to some invites to my rocket launches.

Well, I guess I should wrap up this post. I felt like posting this on Facebook but I wasn't sure. I figured I should post it here, either where people who care about me come to read about me, or maybe where total strangers come to read about me or stalk me, who knows. Well, if anyone would like to know, I'm in therapy. I've been goin for at least a month now, once a week. I think most people think thats a bad thing, but I'm not ashamed at all, and I am writing about it now to share with you. It has acutally being going really well. I am working on the things I need to in order to make my life better for myself. I have already realized a lot and have started to work on make the neccessary changes that I see fit. Just to let you know if you don't, the therapist doesn't really tell you what to do, they just listen, and out of that they make comments or give you things to think about, and out of that, there is the self realization of what is wrong or what needs to be changed. This is good because no one should be telling you what to do or how to change, you should be telling yourself. Or I guess another way to put is you should do things cause others tell you to, you should do them for youself.

Well that is all for now, waiting to get some more pay from Szabi so I can get the car legal. Thats the next step in the Nick Novak upgrade. Then get my job, then my apartment, and hobbies and everything. Well off I go.

Life Quote

2009-09-30T10:53:00.000-05:00

To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

Wedding

2009-09-27T11:27:00.003-05:00

So I'm eating some biscuits right now, my mom kept telling me to eat some, I eventually did. My head only hurts a little bit, nothing I can't tolerate. I shoulda drank a little bit more water in the middle of the night. It seems that I wake up in the middle of the night to chug bottles of water if I was drinking before going to bed, haven't had any bad hangovers lateley because of that.

Last night was Fernando's and Natalia's wedding. It was defenietly interesting and was a lot of fun. I was pretty much a home run wedding, I donated a microphone. The wedding was in Fernando's backyard in Addison, they had chairs and tables setup and some other decorations, I thought it was nice. The wedding was pretty small too. A handful of his family was there, and also a handful of friends. The usually EDT group was there for the most part, never a dull moment with those guys. The ceremony was funny. I wouldn't call this a professional wedding, but I wouldn't call it a boot-leg one either, but from time to time we would all bust out laughing. We were following Fernando. Our friend Robert was the one who married Fernando and Natalia, I really like that. It made me happy to see them up there exchanging vows and getting married.

After the ceremony we ate, which oh man, the food was amazing, chicken, steak, plantines, rice, etc. I ate to much and had to take a walk to feel better. Fernando kept bring all the good alcohol over too, so I indulged. The rest of the night include pictures, more eating, and lots of socializing. We started a fire in his fire part, it started to get cool. Som good and funny converstaion went down. Now that I think about it, that was wierd stuff we talked about at a wedding; relationships, poop in a sink, and other things.

The best part was the piñata. Dan was the second one in line, as he pushed the kids out of the way, he waited though. So the kids had there chance to hit it and then everyone else got a chance. The rules were to do two shots of alcohol, spin, and then to swing, and you were blindfolded of course. I evenutally tried after most people went, and I got in some good whacks, I tired to bust out some techniques, but I failed. I made it easier for the next guy, who knocked it down after my turn, so I guess I did my part. Fernando dumped the candy on the ground and all the kids ran for it. I thought I saw Dan in there, which I thought was unfair to the kids, so I went to go tackel him. Little did I know I was tackling Fernandos cousin, it was all good though.

The night went on and people slowly started leaving, but the socializing continued. The end of night involved about 6 of us talking with Fernandos dad, who seemed to really happy and he was really expressing himself last night. I think he was happy for a lot of things. To see that Fernando had such good friends and that they were here, to see his son being married and happy, and some others. He kept telling us we are good people and we are welcomg here whenever we want, and to come by again. It was just that feeling of everyone getting along and being happy, it was like the whole world was at peace that moment. It was a good night. Eventually everyone left and I got my ride home.

Two Pics and a Link

2009-09-24T10:06:00.004-05:00

Nothing really on my mind right now that I feel like writing, but I was on Digg and decided to save these two images. The first picture is interesting. It looks like one of the satellite images of the U.S. showing all the light pollution. This pictures shows the location of every McDonalds in the U.S., I guess you can still consider that pollution.

The next images is one of many that I was looking at. Art with food. I'll let the picture speak for itself. I'll post the link to where I saw them too.

Art You Can Eat

Enjoi!

Time to write more thoughts

2009-09-21T10:01:00.002-05:00

So I realized its been a while since I wrote. I have been meaning to post some new things, actually several new things, but I guess I just never made the time to do so.

Lets see where to start. Well Kitty has been missing now for a week maybe. No one knows exactly when she got out, just speculations. So I am kinda worried. In the past she was never gone that long. It might be taking her longer than expected to find a male friend. Or maybe she learned not to come and just stay with that other cat. It's just scary to think what can happen to her out there. She wasn't the best cat in the world and at times was annoying, but she's still an animal and is in danger out there. I'm keeping faith that she'll be alright. She is smart.

A new job may be coming soon. I am actually really excited, have been really excited about since I was considering applying for the job. Its a controls engineering position at Sargent and Lundy. They do engineering work for power plants. This job would be in the nuclear group so I would be designing control systems for nuclear power plants. Thats about all I know so far. I am really excited cause I think this would be a good engineering job for me. It will allow me to use both degrees. My friend Dan works there and informed me of the opening. He works in the fossil group, and he was going to try to get me a job there, but they won't be hiring anytime soon. I am looking forward to working again, doing engineering work. I think my brain needs it now. My brain needs to work. Also, I don't won't to forget everything I learned in those 6 years.

It's wierd how I just wanted to get this job. I was working with my friend Szabi, helping him start up his company. Thats was fun and enough for me to do. But I guess I had several realizations. Starting this company is something he wants to do. I don't know if you could call it his dream, but this is the way he wants to survive right now, or get income. As a friend I just wanted to help him, not do it to make money. Also I don't think I was being true to myself. I know I am too selfless sometimes. It was eventually getting to me whether I was doing what I wanted to do for myself, which is something I have been learning a lot about recently. Learning what my needs are and doing what I need to do for myself to take care of myself. Putting myself first is something I'm working more on. Asking myself what I want in life. When I look at it this way, the engineering job sounds like the right answer and sounds like a lot of fun. I was so excited when I updated my resume, I guess that sounds kinda nerdy. I was lucky cause I just had to add one little thing, since I just recently updated it.

Dan said I have a high chance of getting this job. I sent him my resume and I guess he is going to make sure it falls into the right hands. Another thing I like is that Sargent and Lundy are downtown. Yeh, crazy crowds of downtown working people is gonna suck, but at least its in Chicago and near lots of public transportation. This makes it easier when more of plans becomes reality. I am talking about when I move out. This job helps with a lot of things. I'll have a nice steady income, I'll have a good salary, and benefits, and I'll get to travel around the country to other power plants. So when I'm in the city, it will be easy for me to get to work. I plan to use the public transportation and bike more when I live in the city. I'll have a car but I'm gonna try not to use it for everything. I want to experience biking around in the city and see what that is like. Part of me wants to be more green but sometimes you just get lazy.

What else is there to talk about. I have been playing around with the phone every now and then. Trying not to get addicted so I take breaks in between playing around. Last week I was able to unlock the phone and install a new operating system on there. Its nice if you want special programs, but in the end its nothing crazy. My phone is still pretty much the same. I'd say I hack it for the experience of doing it and learning how. I also did something yesterday with my phone that I have been waiting to do. Since the phone can access the the 3G internet network, I was able to connect the laptop and phone via USB and access the internet on my laptop through the phone. Thats nice cause now I can have internet anywhere. I guess I've just been trying to find as many uses for my phone as possible.

Oh, I know, I want to talk about my sleeping. So its maybe been the past 4 or 5 days now, I've been having trouble sleeping. I don't know if I'm having nightmares or if my brain is just too active, but I've been waking up in the middle night kinda like freaking out about stuff. Its not really anxiety but that's the word I think of. Its like my mind is racing and I want to stop thinking, and I try to lay down and go back to bed, but I can't, and then I toss and turn and become frustrated. I usually do that for maybe 30-60 minutes and eventually fall back asleep. The same thing repeats in the morning, thats when I end up just staying up cause its daylight out and I never fall back asleep at that point. Its just been weird that its happening and has been happening so many days in a row. I guess they are nightmares, or stuff my brain thinks about when I am sleeping that freaks me out.

Wow, I think this was suppossed to be like 3 or 4 blog posts, thats what I get for not keeping up on it. Well enjoy the nice long story I wrote.

I'm hoping to get some pay from Szabi and the car legal. Then I can be more mobile and be out and about living life. I smell lots of little driving trips coming up.

Testing a new app

2009-09-14T19:45:00.002-05:00

Laying in bed right now testing out a new app for my phone. It connects to my blogger account and allows me to view and post to my blog. Makes it easy to post blogs from this phone rather than through the phones internet browser. Not sure if it saves me much time. One thing I don't like is I can't post pictures, which hopefully an update might fix.

Hello Android

2009-09-13T11:55:00.002-05:00

My recent attempts to start programming my phone were unsuccessful. I decided to reinstall the software and try again. I thought maybe I downloaded the wrong version of something, so I decided to try a different version. I wrote an app for the phone the would print Hello, Android to screen, and this time it worked.

The software has an emulator that simulates the actual phone on your computer, that way you don't accidentally screw up your phone. I have a screenshot.

I'm so excited that I got this working. It's very simple but for me its the start of a long road of learning. My goal is to be able to control all the hardware on the phone to create some crazy cool programs.

Weekend is Here

2009-09-12T09:55:00.002-05:00

So I am making a cup of tea right now, time to jump start this day. Seeing what there is to do today, for some one who has very little pocket money right now. I have worked a lot and made a lot of money but there has been this huge delay in cash flow in my direction, and Szabi's too. We are both poor right now. Just gotta be patient.

Yes was an up and down day. Started off on a low note cause of the money thing, and then working sorta added to it. Me and Szabi were finishing up cleaning this house but it was just depressing. Squatters had taken it over and were probably using it as a crack whore house. The part that suck is that they used the toilets, which didn'yt flush, it smelled horribly. I don't mind cleaning up people garage, of people who were recently foreclosed, but after some bum who shit every where, ugghhhhhh.

Well, Szabi and I started discussions of life and I think that lifted our spirits. We decided that after that house that was all we were gonna do. We had to pick up Samantha and then the kids from school. I spent the rest of the afternoon playing with her kids until it was time to be picked up from the train. They tired me out.

So I got my tea right now, did some internet surfing already. I have this light box I am trying to fix. I fixed one problem, but then I realized there are other problems to fix. I guess I'll see. I need to get started on developing software for my phone, I have been hitting road blocks. Maybe today is that day.

Train turnstyles

2009-09-10T11:14:00.003-05:00

I was leaving the train station when the hole in my jeans caught the end of the turnstyle. Needless to say, it ripped my whole pant leg open. See the pic below.

Buses and Potter

2009-09-09T16:39:00.001-05:00

So I'm waiting for the bus right now at rosemont. This bus is nice, the 221, takes me literally to my doorstep, well almost.

I also have the next harry book, the fourth one, which I look forward to starting on the bus. The third book was really good, my imagination had a lot of fun with it. In general I think I'm starting to enjoy the fictional world, I'm on vacation fron the non-fiction world.

Well the bus is here, time to get on.

Android and Ampache

2009-09-09T00:04:00.002-05:00

So I found an app that I really like for my phone. It's called Amdroid. It allows me to connect to Ampache, which streams my entire music collection on my website.

Now I can access my music from home on my phone, at least when there is an internet connection. This makes up for the 4GB SD card that only holds so many songs.

Website and Phone

2009-09-07T22:20:00.001-05:00

So I figured I would change my website. I have always been meaning to do it and have had many thoughts about how I wanted to do it. I decided right now to change it to something simple and slowly just make it how I want. I always wanted to use the site to express myself, but felt that there has always been something holding me back. Maybe it would just take too much time to code my expression into a website. I also thought I should steer away from black, maybe some happier colors.

I also started setting up my development for my phone. I'm going to learn how to write apps for it. Eventually I like to do crazy things with it. I has a lot of nice hardware that you have access to, gps, compass, internet, camera. I thought it would also be cool to try to use the phone to control a robot. Just some thoughts though.