Prince of Peace

Does the world ever seem like a nightmare
Some suffer but the other ones don't care
It doesn't matter if it's going on elsewhere
Like it doesn't happen if it's not happening here

There's a girl with only a mother
And a dad who won't seem to bother
No love, so she finds a lover
Now she has a child who doesn't have a father

I hope the Prince of peace is coming soon.
Yeah, I hope the Prince of peace is coming soon.
We'll learn to make a plowshare from a gun
'Cause we won't need them when the kingdom comes.

When the Communists turn into the Terrorists
But the Axis came before the Soviets
And before that came the Confederates
We'll always have a war to fight, you can count on this.

With every cure there comes another sickness
The earth dies with every bit of progress
We've gone deaf to the cries of the oppressed
What we need is Jesus to redeem us

I hope the Prince of peace is coming soon.
Yeah, I hope the Prince of peace is coming soon.
We'll learn to make a plowshare from a gun
'Cause we won't need them when the kingdom comes.

Now the world doesn't work 'cause we've broken it
And we need dope and Prozac just to cope with it
Now the Beast speaks his peace to the Congress,
Plans to propagate Proposition 666

Hitler's still alive in the knives of abortionists
And the news twists the truth like contortionists
And I wonder what happened to humanity
We say peace but we're heading for calamity

I hope the Prince of peace is coming soon.
Yeah, I hope the Prince of peace is coming soon.
We'll learn to make a plowshare from a gun
'Cause we won't need them when the kingdom comes.

We long for the day when we shall see the heavens and the earth as they should be.

- O.C. Supertones

Ever been to Los Angeles? It's the city of the Stars: big, dazzling, fast. Also dirty, smelly, and ugly (in my opinion). That's where I've spent the last week, in fact I'm on the plane flying home while I'm writing this. My internship took me to the Discovery Science Center, in the heart of LA (Or at least I assume it's the heart, the city is so massive it's kind of hard to tell). My boss was hired to implement the electronics for a new interactive Dinosaur exhibit. The exhibit is a huge outdoor game, where the kids come in and get a wireless “wand,” and they use the wand to find items on a complex scavenger hunt, looking for certain “fossils.” It's a pretty sweet deal. My job was to basically to help my boss get everything to work, so I was programming the boards, setting up the computer network, tweaking effects, troubleshooting the different missions, etc. Nothing particularly hard, and no real “engineering,” but some solid practical experience. I've been given the advice by a couple people to get some “real field experience” before I do actual design work, so I suppose this stuff counts. Plus it's only my second trip to the West coast, so that's kinda cool.

The guys I worked with were pretty cool guys. My boss, who's an electrical and mechanical engineer that spends most of his time programming, is actually a Quaker. Not quite the traditional Quaker you'd think of from Quaker oatmeal, he's more of a nominal Quaker. But he definitely still has some Quaker characteristics, such as being very big on doing good deeds (not because he thinks it will get him saved, but just because it's the right thing to do, and what Christ would have done), protecting the environment (he was a vegetarian for 10 years until his wife made him eat meat), hardcore pro-life, strong sense of ethics, etc. Overall, a really good guy. Also very smart, and definitely a thinker (I've discovered in the last couple years the two are not necessarily mutual). He asked me more questions about what I think than I've ever been asked by a single individual. Everything from homosexual rights to gun control to whether God's fair to evolution to politics to ethics to the military to the cannon of the Scriptures to just about anything else he could think of. It's been a while since I've really had someone force me to articulate what I think on so many issues, so it was quite nice. He seemed to like most of my answers, didn't agree with many of them, but that was ok. Honestly, I couldn't have asked for a better experience with my boss. Jehovan jirah.

LA itself is an interesting city, lots of dazzle and flash, not much substance. This was my second visit (I was out there with my family when I was in high school), and this time we visited just a couple sites—namely La Brea tar pits and Venice beach. La Brea tar pits were fascinating, over a million fossils have been recovered from all sorts of prehistoric animals, including mastodons, mammoths, camels, lions, and saber toothed cats (yeah, it's not saber toothed tiger, that's a misnomer). Some pretty crazy fossils, if you get the chance it's probably the place I'd most highly recommend in LA. Venice beach had a much different crowd of people, a very diverse crowd. Everything from musclemen to beach artists to vendors to hippies to skaters to Goths to whatever else. The best part of the place was the people, just a fascinating crowd. The beach itself was ok I suppose, I didn't really think it was all that special though. If I lived in LA, I think I would get a couple people from my church and grab a spot along the boardwalk, play some bass, talk to people about God. The crowd is so diverse, it's a great chance to talk to just about every walk of life. I'd be curious to see the reaction of people.

Anyway, my next stop is the Poconos. I'll be basically doing the same work, but now giving the attraction a Harry Potter theme instead of a dinosaur theme. Should be fun.

And I just realized that my last post is messed up in internet explorer.  Oh well, you shouldn't be using IE anyway. 

Looking at the year in review, what a crazy year it’s been…just like my first two years of college.  Some things that stick out:

1)      Pulling Bri’s car out of the mud.  Getting together six Palmer guys and pushing her car out of the mud at 11:45 PM was honestly the highlight of the year.  I really just can’t describe how much fun that was for me.  To be able to help out a friend, and have a bunch of other friends to do it with.  Just sort of the year in a microcosm. 

2)      Helping out in Louisiana.  Both trips were incredible, the kinds of things you never forget.  Helping out people who couldn’t be more powerless…or grateful.  I’ve come to the conclusion that being the hands and feet of Christ is intoxicating.  Great side benefit of serving was really getting to know a couple awesome people.  I love the galvanizing effect working together has on friendships.  I was also inspired by the picture of the Church that Faith Bible Fellowship and Samaritan’s Purse are demonstrating—the Church as it should be. 

3)      Charissa graduating.  Aww, my big sister is all grown up.  Doesn’t really change anything for me, she’s still the same as always.  That’s the great thing about family, family is a constant, even as life changes and circumstances change and friends change, family doesn’t, each individual is the same person you grew up with.  Maybe different opinions, different attitudes, a different look, but still the same person (This probably shows how young and naïve I am, but whatever).   

4)      Camping at Tar Hollow.  For fall break and then again after finals, camping was fun and relaxing, a great way to just enjoy friends without all of the distractions of school and the modern world.  And wow, we had Shannon sing us to sleep this weekend—that was amazing.  What a voice… 

5)      Took some incredible classes.  Old Testament, New Testament, Postmodern Seminar, Advanced Digital Logic Design, Electronics.  The things I’ve learned in the past year…I actually feel like I would be competent on an engineering job.  I honestly feel that I’ve had a solid, and well rounded education.  Touché Cedarville University. 

6)      Speaking of competent engineering…building two robots, one from the ground up.  For engineers, out of class projects such as robotic competitions cannot be overvalued.  The experience, the learning, the quality time with fellow engineering nerds.  And seeing your final project finding its way through the maze, or running around the lawn, it’s like being a mother watching your child walk…or something. 

7)      On the other side of things, 18 credits of technical engineering courses is hard.  Really hard.  I’m not really sure how all of it got done this semester.  And for the second semester in a row I miss a 4.0 by a single A-.  I guess I can’t complain, but that’s severely disappointing. 

8)      Being elected to Tau Beta Pi.  It’s pretty cool to be a part of an org like TBP, it’s not one that is just open to everyone—you have to earn the right.  I guess there’s a certain pride to being in TBP.   

9)      Being a junior class officer.  Honestly, not very enjoyable, I didn’t feel like I actually did anything worth doing, it was mostly just cutting through CU’s red tape and trying to do some things which weren’t lame.  I’m not sure how successful that was, but whatever.  I think it was a useful experience; I got to learn how ridiculous bureaucracy is, and how apathetic our class is.  Cheers. 

10)  Not going to Church.  Not necessarily a good or bad thing, but it’s the first time in my life I haven’t gone every week.  It’s certainly a lot different having that Sunday morning without anything to do.  This year, I think it was good for me, I needed the time to be alone and relax and just do nothing, because I certainly didn’t get much of that the rest of the week.  However, I do miss church, and it’ll be nice to go home and get involved in my home church again.  And hopefully next year I’ll be involved in a church at CU, two semesters without church is enough. 

11) Late night soccer games.  Great way to have some fun, forget about school, and blow off some stress.  Plus it's hilarious to see one of the guys repeatedly stripped by Sarah.  

12)  Learning that I’ll be RA of Palmer next year.  This was totally unexpected for me.  I really thought Petey would be RA, I’m not sure why I was chosen, but I trust God has good things in store for Palmer next year.

13) Speaking of Palmer, I am once again hit by how great the Palmer guys and my other friends are.  As much as I pride myself on being independent, I already miss many of my friends that have left for the summer.  Without my friends this year would have been unbearable, and so I think them for instead making it so enjoyable.

14)   God is good.  Sometimes it’s so easy to forget, until God does something big like in New Orleans.  But even when it’s unnoticeable to my fast paced life, God is good. 

Absurd