So what's everyone think of the Patriot Act?

Something that bothers me is when professors assume that what they're teaching is very simple and elementary and obvious. The thing is, it may be but if a student is not understanding something and missing one or two key concepts, the material can seem utterly incomprehensible.

We're two weeks away from having some "Purpose" product.

I didn't realize that a professor's job was so insecure, but apparently, until you receive tenure, you could be let go at the end of any year. I was talking to Dr. Jensen, and he's almost to that time in his career at Oregon State, that he could be up for tenure. Until then, he has to defend himself every year, tell them why they should keep him on.

Worse yet, if you go up for tenure and don't make it, the University says you've got a year to find another job. But if you don't get tenure, other universities probably won't hire you.

In that case, you find a job in industry.

If you do make tenure, you're set. The University will keep you basically as long as you want to be there.

There's strategy too, if you don't think you're going to make tenure, you don't have to go up for it. If you don't go up for tenure because you don't think you'll make it, you'll have a better chance of being hired on at another university.

The problem with Dr. Jensen, from a tenure standpoint, is that he's all teaching and no (or little) research. Research is what brings in the money that pays the professors. No one's ever been tenured as an instructor (like Dr. Jensen is) before, though there's a chemistry teacher up for it now. Dr. Jensen says that if this chem instructor doesn't make it, there's not way he will.

So the OSU Committee" said go ahead and pursue the Marshall Scholarship, which is encouraging. That'll be another thing on the list of things to do this summer, collect all the stuff that's needed to apply for that thing. Lots of "stuff," an essay, letters of recommendation, I think some other stuff too that I'm not able to think of right now. Sort of exciting. I think the deadline is October 1st, and if a person is accepted through that initial process, initial interviews with the Marshall committee is in November.

BMS had their graduation/closing program on Tuesday night. The school had one graduate, so the choirs weren't the main show. The younger set sang songs from Patch the Pirate to an old Gaither kid's tune to a medley of 'adult' songs.

The older ones sang Moses Hogan's "Lord I Want to Be a Christian", a Ken Young arranged "Arise My Love" and a clap-less version of Larry Nickel's Working With Joy. Four of the older girls also sang "The King of Who I Am" and the older guys sang a Relient K song, Less is More.

Tom, you wanted a run-down.

My music students did a really nice job, there is a lot of talent in those groups.

Was God the cause of the Holocaust? If yes, how can we believe in a God who would allow it? If no, are you saying He just stood by and let it happen? He could've but didn't stop it?

What about free will? God couldn't violate His free will, so that's why He stood by and didn't intervene? Well, does God, or doesn't God sometimes intervene with humanity? And if He does, why of all times did He not during the Holocaust?

I'll say from the outset of this post that I don't want sympathy.

Randy is my brother's name. He is 20 years old, he owns a nice BMW, has a beautiful girlfriend, a good job, and few worries. Well, I'll let him speak for himself on that. He's got time, money, and now he's embarrassed.

Byran is my name. I'm 21 years old, have a decent, though deteriorating, '95 Thunderbird, no girlfriend, and many school-related stresses. I'm taking 16 credits, and working 9-12 hours a week. I'm tired most of the time, and I don't have hardly any of it.

My, my, my, let's all pity Byran. Naw, don't. I'm living for the weekend this week, but it will be worth it. It is worth it, what I'm doing, all the little hardships that I stress out about.

God is here, with me. He wants me here. I have more divine appointments than I do anything with. (Like today, I don't get angry very often, but this conversation was testing me sorely; I wanted to study, but instead had a conversation, in which my co-conversor said conspiratorial things about American government and wrong things about the Bible) Even though it's 10:39 p.m. and I'm still at school and I have 35 minutes to drive home only to go to bed and come back here at 8 a.m., God's with me. Yep, that's sure, He's with me, and Saturday's coming, and after that Sunday, and then Memorial day.

I can't wait.

People really like to talk about themselves.

You, my dear boy/girl, like to talk about yourself, or at least about things that you're doing, or about things that directly involve you. I do too. There's something special about sharing with another person something you're excited about. It's even more special if the person that you have decided to share with really listens and is genuinely excited with you and is not trying to hurry you through your story so they can tell you what THEY did, or what THEY'RE excited about.

A 'loop' is block of code that executes and iterates. In other words, the code does what it is programmed to do, comes to the end of the block and returns to the top and executes again, this time with something changed in the code, a variable incremented, one value added to another value, something. The reason something has to change is because loops can't go on forever, they have to have some sort of termination criterion, and when that criteria is met, the the loop is broken and the program continues on.

So what happens if there is a loop that has a termination criterion that is never met? In that case, you have an infinite loop, one that keeps iterating on and on and doesn't stop.

Brent and I use this really powerful server called Mordor to do our research work on. In the process of our coding we make many mistakes. As we code, we test, and when we test and have made errors, that could result in (yay) an infinite loop.

This is how fast our computer is: in one second, the computer speeds through enough code to fill a file with 3 megabytes worth of TEXT! If you let the infinite loop go for more than a few seconds, you can't even open up the notepad file because it is so large.

I remember coming out of a Physics test once completely fired up because of the intense intellectual stimulation.

Well, I just had another one of those moments, when I went to a "pre-interview" for the Marshall Scholarship. They asked me lots of questions, mostly about my religious beliefs and how I saw them in relation to politics and society.

I've never considered myself a very good on-the-spot thinker, but I was pleased with the way I answered a couple of the questions that I was a little iffy on. It was cool. These three guys, all accomplished scholars I'm sure (since they're on the committee), asking me questions about Mennonites, news sources I read, George W. Bush religiosity as it relates to his job, etc. It was cool. Yeah!

This meeting was just to see if I am qualified to be recommended by OSU. This recommendation by the University is required in the Marshall, and it far from guarantees me anything. Not even close. I was looking through the profiles of this years winners, though, and I saw one person that sort of seemed to have qualifications that I maybe, perhaps, on a good day, could possibly have sort of matched up to.

It's a no-lose situation, though. Well, the one losing part of it is that it will require quite a bit of time, which I don't have much of. But it's a good experience for me, just to go in before a panel and practice answering tough questions. If I can do that, I can do most job interviews.

I feel that my creativity in things outside school is just really low right now. It's like the intellectual demands of classes squelch my creativity.

Which reminds me, Mark Lowry used to say that these days some people say you shouldn't spank your kids because you could "squelch their personality." Then he'd say, "Well, my moma used to squelch my personality all over the house." Ha ha.

I played football, basketball, and softball today at our school's picnic, and lost in each. Sort of fries me, especially the loss in basketball. I played for the school team since I am the music teacher. I don't like to lose, but even more than that, I don't like to perform poorly myself. Not sure what that says about me, probably that I'm sort of selfish.

My brother Randy has a blog called randes_bloggage. Go there. He'll have some brilliant insights, I'm sure, and I'm also sure he will profess often his considerable "like" of his girlfriend.

I was thinking today, if/when I reach the point in my life that I myself have a girlfriend, should I make a phone message that refers to said girl?? Or should I just say, "Hey, this is Byran call me back"? Hmm...dilemma.

Which reminds me, my cell phone voice message box is full, and it won't let people leave messages. I wonder which is more annoying: not being able to leave a message, or me not answering my phone in the first place. At any rate, I've got to go in and delete some messages.

I'm tired, and I need to think. Will I get all my work done before the end of term? Should I have watched "Gladiator" tonight? Is Statistics what I really want to do?

When you come to the end of your life and look back on it, you'll want to know, more than anything else, the purpose of what you spent your life doing. Was what I did important?

That's what I got out of Gladiator. There were some other things too.