trip home

in right around one day, i am flying back to my hometown: carl junction, missouri. and don't start with the comments like, "where? coal junction?" or "do they have cars there?", cause i've already heard them. i heard them from you last time i told you the name of my hometown. :)

i am heading back for my nephew's first birthday party. this saturday at 10:30am (i know cause i got my invitation in the mail), we are celebrating Jonathan Lane Needham's first year on earth. all of my family will be there, and this will be one of the very rare times all 10 current family members will be together (that's 2 parents, 4 siblings, 3 spouses, and a partride in a pear tree. i mean a nephew. in a diaper. a poopy one). it should be a lot of fun. the last time this was possible was my sister's wedding last august in jamaica.

as you can tell, i am very excited. i will also get to hang with several childhood friends, namely travis chase. he is probably the person from back home i have best kept in contact with over the past several years, mainly because we are both such techies. heh. he is jealous of me, because i am a single techie, which means i don't have to ask the wifey wife before buying anything. not that there is anything wrong with a wifey wife. i hear they can be great.

imagine segue here.

can i just say, there is something wrong with the city in which i live? boston weather stinks. this past week it has gone from dank and dreary to hot and humid. nothing in between. we get a 9 month winter, then this. we have had maybe 3 nice days this whole year. maybe one day i will be blessed to move back to california.

i think the image i am going to use to occupy the front page will be soho stairs. or maybe no spitting. thoughts?

Entry posted by byscuits at 10:11 AM | Comments (3)

hysterical laughter

i have had requests from my working friends to update this on a daily basis. apparently, they get bored at work, and need something to keep them busy. :)

on monday, apple released the powermac g5. the high end machine has dual 2 ghz processors, and you can fit up to 8 gb of ram in the all-aluminum enclosure. these beasts are pretty slick. apple also announced the next revision of macosx, called panther. it is optimized for the new 64-bit g5 chips, and has several usability enhancements. looks like a good deal.

one of the secretaries here occasionally starts laughing hysterically. and loud. for a really long time. it's a great laugh, really full with no self-consciousness.

i don't know how funny what she is laughing at is, but it's making me smile. since we just have cubicles here, the sound does not dampen. it carries all over the seventh floor. i wonder if other floors can hear it too.

there are some small updates to this site with regards to the user interface, so i hope things are a little clearer now. now there is a menubar up top, and some of "dave's daily distractions." also, i'm not very happy with the colors on the front page, as they look pretty gloomy on my machine here at work. i gotta pick a new image to put up. any votes for which image in the pixelbox i should use? leave some comments.

Entry posted by byscuits at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)

updates galore

In case you guys didn't know (and that is the gender inspecific 'guys'), this site is full of content. To see photos, hit up the pixelbox. If poetry is your thing, then check out dave's writings. Looking for some short film comedy goodness? Then head over to audience of 1 pictures (link depreciated).

I did not realize it, but I had built up several updates or entirely new poems to add to my site.

a piece of the past
happy
dove blue eyes
words never written
the slide (updated)

This updated version of the slide provides a bit of coherence to the original, and I think it gives it a bit more direction, rather than just being a spewing of emotions.

The pixelbox also has been updated, with lots of new photos.

closure
the boys
Erika and Rachel

I always love feedback on this stuff, so please leave comments.

---

I found out last week that my brother's wife is having a baby! I had no idea this was even possibly happening any time soon, and I expected it to be at least another year or two. My mind is drifting in some weird ways about it. Like the fact that Matt and I used to share a room. He shares one with someone else now. Like the possibility that one day I might be blessed to be married and even expecting a child. Boggles my mind.

Anyways, I am rambling. It is bed time. Hope all is well with you.

Entry posted by byscuits at 02:10 AM | Comments (0)

beautiful

Bless the day this restoration is complete
Dirty, dusty, something must be underneath
So I scrape and I scuff
Though it's never quite enough
I am starting to see me, finally

But You called me beautiful
When You saw my shame
And You placed me on the wall
Anyway

You, who have begun this work, will someday see
A portrait of the holiness You meant for me
So I polish and shine
Till it's easier to find
Even an outline of mine

-Nichole Nordeman, Anyway

Sometimes God calls us to give things up. When it occupies too much of our thoughts, out time, or our emotions -- anything we put before our relationship with Him. This is the substance of an idol. Anything other than God that we try to get value out of. I am slowly beginning to Understand just how much of an idolater I am. My mind darts from thing to thing, and for me it takes careful dilligence to make sure that in my zeal to absorb new things I do not put them before my relationship with God. A year ago, I did not even know how to tell what that looked like. Now I can identify what my idols are, but am still very much struggling to let God take away their power in my life. Paul says it better than I can in Romans 7:21-:

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - Through Jesus Christ our Lord!

I cannot do anything alone and by myself. It takes Christ to bring me out of my sin. It is something He gives to me.

I used to know so much in my head - just a big vat of facts. But I did not understand the inner workings. I wanted the shortcut to the "right answer", without ever really understanding why. I knew what my life should look like, but didn't really know how to get there.

God reveals to us what we need to know when the time is right. I have recently begun to understand why spending time with God on a daily basis is so vital in my pursuit of God. It is because I need to bend my will every day to what God wants to do through me. I need to meditate on His truth and how it applies to every situation in my life.

So that brings me back to giving things up. God sometimes calls us to give things up that are very important to us. Things that are idols in our lives. Some people at this point might see this as a vindictive thing for a "loving God" to do. He is taking away the very things we love! Luckily, the story is not over yet, the end has not yet been told. Once we have surrendered that idol to God, very often He gives it right back. And now, our love for that thing can be directed through God. It is so much more beautiful to go for a long run, smash a ball over the net, or bang out a computer program, when we do it for for One that created us! When we do all things through Christ, He gives us strength and insight that we never would have on our own! I finally understand how that can look in my own life.

But I do often fail. Right at the peak of that joy, temptation hits the hardest. And I will admit, I am weak. I fall. That sin that once entagled me gets me down again. But I must not wallow in that sin. I must shake it off, get right back up, and find where my north is once again.

I am grateful that He continues to chip away at my flesh, so my will can slowly become His. Because He wants to take away my sin and make me into something infinitely more beautiful.

Entry posted by byscuits at 01:01 PM | Comments (1)

the pixelbox photojournal

today is the launch of a new feature here on byscuits.com. i collected a few of my favorite digital photos that i have taken, and compiled them together to create the pixelbox. more photos to be added soon, but there should be enough there to whet your eyes. check it out, leave comments, suggestions, critiques, whatever you think or feel.

-the byscuits.com admin (ie dave)

Entry posted by byscuits at 01:45 PM | Comments (0)

the perfect snack food?

today is a good day. i believe i have found my snack food nirvana. on a recent road trip to a wedding in michigan and back through niagara falls, i bought an 8 oz. package of assorted jelly bellies. upon closer inspection, i found that they had a dr. pepper jelly belly. when not confused with the identical looking chocolate pudding bean of questionable flavor, this dr. pepper jelly belly provides a party for my tastebuds, only rivaled by the flavor of imperial cane sugar glass bottled dr. pepper from dublin, tx, itself.

upon reaching this pinacle, i soon came to the conclusion that those few beans in the assortment would not satisfy me. directly following the roadtrip, i went straight to jellybelly.com, where i found i could order these perfect beans in 2.2 pound bags. i also found that the reason for such sublime flavor contained in these beans is because jelly belly uses syrup directly from the prestigious dr. pepper bottling company. i promptly placed an order, and received said beans 2 days ago.

last night, while contemplating and pondering these beans, i came to a thought. i believed that there was a good possibility that these dr. pepper jelly bellies could conceivable contain caffeine! with the dire need to sustain my body with this drug on a daily basis, this was a staggering possibility. today i went back to jellybelly.com, and submitted a question: do dr pepper jelly bellies indeed contain caffeine?!? 3 hours later, i received this response:

Thank you for writing. Yes, our Dr. Pepper(R) Jelly Belly jelly beans do contain caffeine.

Here is a list of our Jelly Belly jelly beans that do contain caffeine:
Chocolate Pudding
Chocolate Cherry Cake
Cafe Latte
Cappuccino

Thank you for writing and have a delightfully sweet day.

caffeine and dr. pepper in a little reddish-brown bean. indeed today is a sweet day. a day so sweet, two teeth have already fallen out.

Entry posted by byscuits at 01:27 PM | Comments (4)

the moose

It can be a little unsettling when presented with someone you have not seen in years. When the past jumps out and bites you.

Tonight I am attending the wedding of Meagan Anderson and James Pate. The semester I flunked out of MIT (the first time :) ), I was a part of a Bible study in my dorm, East Campus. It was one of the best Bible studies I have ever been a part of. At the time, Meagan and James were freshmen, and had just met. Now, four years later, they are getting married.

This past weekend, I was in my room in the Wilson House, and I hear a voice say, "Daaaaaviiiiid!" You know. In that sing-songy way. I turn around, and there before me is another member of that Bible study, Jamie Beckham. She gives me a big hug, and we chat for a bit. She is married. Got married in March. I had no idea.

I started thinking. It happens all the time these days -- someone I know is getting married. It made me think about my stage in life, and that one day, God willing, I might be getting married myself. But it is a part of being young -- people exchanging rings and vows all around you.

It made me think back to a poem I read in the poetry class I took at MIT. It was called "The Moose" by Elizabeth Bishop. In the poem, the main character is listening to the conversations around him during a bus trip in the northeast. At one point, he overhears the words of a pair of women in their sixties. They are chatting about who they know that was either very sick, or had recently died. I am in a distinctly different place in life.

It is odd to be young. Life is on the upswing. So much to see, so much to learn, so much to understand. Stages in life are like the different places you might live -- enjoy each place for what it has. If the city is sunny and on the beach, then enjoy that. If you live near a lake or the mountains, enjoy that. If live is quiet and serene or fast paced and high speed, be content with it. Find the good, and appreciate it. Because one day, things will be different. Before you know it, you will look up because your body just make some noise you never knew it could. For a moment you start to worry about it, then forget it and go play with your grandkids. After all, death and removal from this world is just the beginning.

Entry posted by byscuits at 04:59 PM | Comments (0)

short update

Short update today. I finished up the freshman mailer for mitccC last night, and managed to get 2 hours of sleep before heading to work. So even if I did write much, it wouldn't make any sense.

Saw Natalie Portman on the walk home yesterday from the T. Not really a big deal, just worth mentioning. I saw Ice Cube in LAX a few years ago, so I have pretty limited sightings of supposedly famous people.

I cannot wait to sleep until I get home. Literally. I'm falling asleep right now...

Entry posted by byscuits at 12:56 PM | Comments (2)

the purpose of this blog

I am unsure how to begin writing this blog again. Before, for some reason, I felt I had something to say. Felt I had some wisdom or ideas that others needed to hear. I now understand a bit more of my own immaturity, and lack of understanding of a great deal of this life. This blog now functions as it did before, as a public journal of sorts.

I will make no apologies for the content of this blog. I am attempting to keep this an honest extension of who I am, the events of my life, and what I am thinking. I will, at times in this blog, look back into my life at both painful and enjoyable memories.

There will be no sugar coating.

This is my life, and at times I will be illogical, misinformed, and just plain wrong (among worse things). But it is who I am, and it will be ugly at times. I believe that God has a story to tell in my life. It is when I am at my worst, my most selfish, and my most self-gratifying, that I am shown weak. When I choose to look directly into my weakness, to meditate on it, to see the root, I can only come to one conclusion: I can do very little on my own, and I desparately need the One that is strong to pick me up, and be my source of Strength. I hope that you may come to know more of this Strength because of what you read here.

Entry posted by byscuits at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)