Action Figure Daniel

Category: Life

  • I feel rich

    What seems like forever ago (2 years) I changed hosting accounts for my domains, including evanko.net, to consolidate my various websites into a single hosting location. The move was swift and brought with it the current layout and added a photo gallery to the mix. The photo gallery made me happy. There was but one problem, I only had 5 GB for all of my sites. That may seem like a lot but some of my sites are pretty big. So for two years I have been making sure to not go over my capacity.

    Today I logged into my hosting site and notice a different number in my disk space. It didn’t make since, and still doesn’t, so I called and asked. Apparently I have 150 GB for my sites. Suddenly I feel rich with web space!

  • A Quiet Moment

    I have decided, after years of trying to capture the majesty and beauty of sunsets, that it can’t be done. Well, not so much that it can’t be done but that it’s not supposed to be done. You’re not supposed to be able to look at a picture and get the same peace, calm and tranquility as if you were standing atop a hill watching the great blazing sun surrender to the pale, piercing moon; as the world shifts from its vibrant, lively colors to the sharp, silvery hues of night. Sunsets, as with sunrises, would turn into something of cheap experiences not worth having if we could just flip through a book that had capture the same richness as if we had seen it with our own eyes.
    There is also the matter of timing. Being at the right place at the right time to watch the sun or moon rise requires careful attention to their timing. It is a reminder that no matter how important you are, no matter how well you calendar, no matter how many alarms you have, the sun will set whether you are there or not. It is a reminder that no matter how small you feel, no matter how insignificant you see yourself, no matter how desperately you want more in life, the sun will rise whether you are there or not. It is one of only a few events that the time is completely arbitrary and completely out of our control.
    Sunsets are not tied to a precise hour and minute but rather to a precise moment, a quiet moment, a solitary moment, a moment that we can let our souls revel in the beautiful and decisive timing of the universe. The moment is so unlike any other we have in our lives. That moment serves to remind us that we are both the grand and absent. We can see it, experience it and enjoy it but it would happen just the same without. Seeing the moment reminds us that God has definite precision though we are sometimes too small to see it. But it is there as surely as we watch as the sun lowers itself over the edge of the world.

  • Non-predictable analytics

    Each of us builds a matrix of predicted outcomes based on specific incomes. We use these to guess how early we should leave for an event, what time we should go to bed, when we should eat lunch, what the weather will be like. Key to build a good predictive matrix is getting good data, reliable data through a process called indexing. I have noticed that some things that should be simple to index and prove nearly impossible to index.

    First example, the traffic patterns for the section of the city my parents live in. One morning I can leave at 9:45am and face nothing but solid traffic. The next morning, still a weekday, I can leave at the exact same time and face nothing but open roads. This varying of traffic seems to have no tie in to the day of the week or even hour of the day. Though I am sure that if one set far enough back to look at enough data one could find enough of a pattern to build an acceptable matrix. Such is, however, beyond my skill.

    Second example, perhaps even more unpredictable is my sisters’ wakeup time. They seem to go to bed at nearly the same time each night. But come morning, the wake up times vary by hours, which I am grateful for. Sometimes my sisters wake up at 7:30am and sometimes they don’t wake up until after 9:30am. Sometimes they wake up at the same for a whole week. Other times they wake up at different times each morning.

    As a whole I have realized that some things are really easy index and thus predict, some things are not.

  • Wondering what a non-two-wheel bicycle is

    I went to the Library Saturday to get a book to read. Because I had no quarters to pay to park in the parkade I parked on the street a little ways past the library and enjoyed a nice sunny walk. From the place I parked to the Library I walked past City Hall and the following sign:

    My first thought was “oh, they don’t want anyone getting ran over, this makes sense.” Then I stopped and walked back to the sign to reread it. My second thought was “what kind of BIcycle has more than TWO-wheels?” If it has three wheels we call it a TRIcycle (tri meaning three) and if it has four it is fondly known as a ‘quad’ and is usually motorized. Further, it has just one wheel it is a unicycle and a bicycle with training wheels is exempt as it has four wheels.
    My third and last thought on this sign was “why, exactly, did they (meaning whomever had the sign made) clearly and precisely distinguish between BIcycles in general and TWO-wheel BIcycles?”
    As I was wondering this I got my camera and took a picutre.

  • The Lessons I Never Was Taught

    I was thinking the other day of all the things that my parents and the world they came. It was a very different world. A world that was a lot harder than the one that I grew up in. Not in the sense of the peer pressure and the bad things all around but in the sense of the personal tradegy and lessons that one goes through as a child. When I grew up it was towards the end on the time when a child could actual injure themselves on toys.

    As I have gotten older I have realized that my parents have given me a lot, they have also taught me a lot of extremely valuable life lessons. I am grateful for these.
    Perhaps equally importantly, I am grateful for the lessons they didn’t teach me. The lessons that hurt so much they clip your wings and make you not want to fly any more. The lessons that take an incredibly strong person, like my parents, to survive. My parents didn’t just survive, they carefully kept their child from having to go through the same painful experiences.
    This is not to say that I have led a sheltered life. It has been somewhat sheltered, enough to keep me safe but not to much that I can’t stand on my own. But the dark, bitter moments of life, the ones that are so easy to pass on, those haven’t been passed on. They were carefully hidden so that only as an adult, with my eyes opened to the world, can I even see hints of such moments from their lives.
    I am forever grateful for the lessons my parents taught me. I am also forever grateful for the lessons my parents didn’t teach me.