SixFeetOver

6Jun/091

Twitter and Flickr

I've finally gotten around to getting a Twitter and a Flickr account. See: http://www.twitter.com/6feetoverandhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/jafraser/

Filed under: Web 1 Comment

4Mar/095

It's amazing how sin creates difficulties in software development. I (and my coworkers) constantly have to deal with various cases in our code that would not exist apart from sin. For example, our database used to only support someone having two parents. Sadly in our world today that is not enough, so now someone can have four parents. In a few cases, even that has not been enough, but we've put our foot down and said that that is not a data issue, that is a personal issue and an extreme edge case that we will not cater to. We also run data integrity checks to make sure our data makes sense - for example "Mrs. John" wouldn't make sense because "John" is a male name, and "Mrs." is a female prefix. We also check to make sure someone doesn't have more than one father or mother. Sadly, we can't run that particular check in Massachusetts. (Admit it - even if you support gay marriage, when you read "more than one father", you subconciously agreed that should not happen.)Now I'm dealing with another issue where I need to consider not pairing certain people together for certain events. How much easier this programming would be without having to worry about whether Person A likes Person B.So, it can just be crazy to consider how sin affects even this. Of course, maybe there would be no such thing as "programming" if there were no sin...but I'm not so sure about that.

Filed under: christianity, programming 5 Comments

18Feb/091

Okay, okay

So, Mike eloquently pointed out to me that I've had a blog for nearly a decade. That's quite something. Of course, over those 10 years, I've posted less than some people post in a month or two, which is also quite something, but in a negative way. Not only that, but after decided to finally post yesterday, I was unable to access my site, and today as I wrote this, Verizon (internet by Satan, Inc.) decided to disconnect me again.When last we met, I had posted about my immentent EoB (End of Bacherlorhood). Our wedding was fantastic. It went exactly like we hoped it would. The only downside to the whole thing was that it was in 110% humidity, which makes wearing a tux a bit uncomfortable. Nate was able to be a groomsman, which was awesome. Mike was the best-best man-man one could hope for. And of course, my bride was the most beautiful bride that ever has been. I mean that in the most objective way possible.Our honeymoon was great, too. We went on a cruise in the Carribean, hung out with hurricaine Ike a bit (which resulted in us missing one stop, but getting some awesome thunderstorms), and caught up on tons of sleep.We've settled nicely in to our apartment, which is in a great location, right near routes 95, 1, and 62. We had a huge fiasco getting our second car, but that's all settled now and we're finally able to start going full force against the Evil Student Loan Demon.Alice is now working at Breuer with me as a project manager, which is great. We save lots on gas by driving together to work. It's been an interesting adjustment in some ways, because Alice used to get out of work a couple hours before me and was able to do wonderful things like getting groceries, which we now have to do at odd times because we usually work till 5:30-6:00 ish (sometimes til past 7:00, but that's rare). It's definitely interesting for me to now be getting support tickets and programming projects assigned to me by my wife!Anyway, that's all for now. I'm actually home sick and working from home today (which is great that I can do that when needed!). Sorry Mike, no pictures this time. Maybe soon though!

Filed under: personal 1 Comment

5Sep/08Off

Down to the Wire

Currently, it is 10:15AM on Friday, September 5th. In 25 hours - tomorrow at 11:00 or so - my wedding ceremony will commence. These are my final hours as a bachelor. It's been a wild ride planning and getting ready for a wedding - not to mention getting ready for a marriage. But Alice, my bride, is so wonderful, and I am so excited to spend my life with her. I can't imagine anyone else for me.

It's exciting, and scary, and fun, and every possible emotion rolled in to one. But primarily it is exciting, and I am very much looking forward to being married to my beautiful bride.

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3Jun/08Off

Busy Year

Wow, this has been / will continue to be quite a year.

This year, 2008, I graduated with honors from Gordon College, was inducted in to the Phi Alpha Chi honors society, got engaged, will get married, will become officially moved out of my house in New Hampshire (although I haven't really lived there in awhile, except over last Christmas break), was accepted into two PhD. graduate programs for mathematics, deferred for one of them, got a job as a software/database developer, and will eventually purchase my second car.

Not only that, but I have been out to Minnesota once already this year (where I proposed), am flying to Colorado tomorrow, will be taking a honeymoon somewhere in September, and then will be going back to Minnesota for a second wedding reception for all of Alice's friends and family who could not make it out here.

I don't think I've ever done so many things in any one year of my life before...or even any five years!

I'm so thankful for how blessed Alice and I have been this year - blessed by God and our families. Alice and I are even going to be working close to each other (just a town or two apart), which will make our living situation very manageable. And, since Mike is PhD'ing himself in Amherst, we'll still be able to get together semi-regularly. And we'll be living a whole 20ish minutes closer! w00t!

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19Apr/08Off

Higher Mathematics

You know you've reached an upper level math class when statements like

$lub_{p}L_{p}(f) \leq glb_{p}U_{p}(f)$

make sense.

Filed under: college, math Comments Off

10Apr/084

Engaged

This post is a little late, but on March 14th I proposed to Alice, and we are now engaged! We went out to Minnesota for spring break to visit her family, and I popped the question while we were out there. Her parents were in on the plot, which added to the fun. We of course called quite a few people that afternoon to share the news, and it turns out that her grandparents got engaged 55 years and 1 day before we did. Interestingly, we hope to get married in September, which would potentially mean we would also get married 55 years and 1 day after her grandparents did!

Now we are kind of scrambling to find a church to have the ceremony in, and a place to do the reception. Most places are extremely expensive. Google informs me that the average cost of a wedding these days is $15,000-$30,000 - ridiculous. We are going to spend only a fraction of that, and it will still be nice. If you have any ideas for venues to look in to, please tell us - we'd love to hear it. We're going for rustic but elegant, like a big lodge or something.

In other news, I was accepted with a full ride and stipend to Colorado State University for the PhD program in math; however, I am now planning on taking the year off so Alice and I can get married. That means I'm now in the job market, something I despise - I hate applying for things. Hopefully I'll find a technical job though - something to do with math and programming would be great.

I'm not sure if anyone still checks this site, but if so - thanks. I foresee myself keeping it more up to date in the near future, especially after graduation. I'll have to document all my photo trips with Alice, Mike, and Amy.

Filed under: personal 4 Comments

30Oct/07Off

Last Semester

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24Sep/072

Tom Howard

Tom Howard, a Catholic scholar, author, and teacher, spoke today in chapel. Unsurprisingly, he was spot on about everything he said. Also unsurprisingly, I think 75% of the people in attendance missed the whole thing because they weren't paying attention. More about that later.
One of the main points he made is that worship need not be (perhaps he went so far as to say "should not be") an emotional event, but rather something more intellectual - an action performed, not an emotional response. At this statement, my intellect (ironically) leaped with joy. It's something I've believed for quite some time, but unfortunately, when I've expressed my opinion to fellow Protestants, I'm usually given one of two reactions: 1) I'm put down being told that I must feel my personal relationship with Christ for it to be authentic; or 2) I'm given looks of the utmost concern, as if my very soul is at stake on this point, and am told something vague like 'don't worry, it will come'. A combination of these two reactions is also possible. Unfortunately for me, articulating my thoughts on the spot is not my biggest strength, so the debate is usually not very long or fruitful for either party. I think those same people would have had a problem with the liturgy we said in chapel today. We said the phrase "Christ have mercy" or "Have mercy on us, O Jesus" dozens of times in response to small statements, usually of the form "Jesus, the Redeemer of sins" or "Jesus, lover of Chastity", for example. Now, I am not used to liturgical readings at all, but it occurred to me during the liturgy that the repetition served to really drive home our need of Christ's mercy and a reminder of all the things Christ is. As Howard said (paraphrased), "If someone asked you to describe Jesus in 25 lines, what would you say? 'Jesus is like, wow, awesome'? The liturgy gives you the words you could not come up with yourself." It is not spontaneous or emotional, and it strikes me as a truer form of worship than jumping around waving your hands in the air. Not that that is bad, necessarily.

He wasn't able to touch on it much, but I think the Catholics have the right idea about Communion too. We Protestants have much to often just an assembly line form of communion: We distribute the elements as efficiently as possible, and say "Here, take your saltine and your fruit punch, and think about Jesus!" Yes, this is an exaggeration, but if you have to rise from you seat, solemnly approach the Priest, and take real bread and wine, I think the experience will be much more humbling and genuine.

Unfortunately, as I said, I think a lot of people missed the whole thing, and it was probably those who needed to hear it the most. I was surrounded by people reading (bad) or sending text messages (worse) or just chatting with their neighbors (awful). There were two girls behind me who I think were much more concerned with how fashionable they looked than learning anything. They even talked to each other during the hymn we sang. Now, not even they would dare speak during a prayer. I think anyone at Gordon would blush at the thought of talking or making noise while someone was praying in chapel. What they don't understand is that singing a hymn, reciting a liturgy, and paying attention when someone is teaching about God are all just as important, and are all in their own rights acts of worship. I wanted to smack them in the head and tell them to grow up and listen up, but I'm afraid the results would not be positive. Actually, the results could probably be the impetus for Tom Howard's next book, Blunt Force Trauma to the Head is Not Enough.

Howard said a lot more, and I could not disagree with a single point he made. I might write more on it later after it stews in my mind for a bit. For now, these were my initial reactions.

Filed under: christianity, college 2 Comments

8Sep/070