It took 20 years

Strange how life works.

The first wave of Christmas is upon us, and although I feel like writing about some of the new items in my life that could impact some peoples lives in some sort of way, I\’d prefer to take this time to mention that the reason for this season is not so our parents can get us nice gifts.

It\’s not so that we can give other people nice gifts.

It is about Christ. As Pastor Ben put it today: Christmas comes from two words: Christ (meaning Jesus). Mas (meaning worship). Christ Worship. We are here to celebrate what our saviour has done for us as well as his original entrance into this world. I don\’t care what the origins of Christmas may tie back to in some way. What I do care about is the ideals it\’s supposed to stand for.

That said, all of those lawyers tryings to remove the term \"Merry Christmas\", Although I respect your right not to celebrate it, I don\’t respect your right to remove it from others. Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion.

That\’s my politics for tonight. Bush gave a nice talk to the American people tonight, but I don\’t feel I need to comment on it.

That said, I was having a rather bad day to start my morning off. Amber didn\’t come to church. The Vikings lost. Family left. I was missing a very important cable in my life (the power cable for my gamecube) as well as a backpack. I wasn\’t even in the mood to go to the MOA to spend lots and lots of money.

Turns outs. That last one was a lie and had the power to turn my day around.

I turn 21 in less than 2 weeks. In 21 years, I have been working on computers a lot. Most people would not argue with that statement. Most people know I\’ve worked with Linux, and I\’m pretty good at it. Many know I spend every day on 2 windows machines and know them pretty well. Many of you know that I even have some sort of skill on a Mac, but no one is sure why. Well, it\’s time to give them a reason why.

Let me prefix this: This was not a Christmas present. This was a purchase. A very large purchase.

Sitting to my right, is a large silver box. Some people know it as \"The Quad\". 4, 2.5 ghz cores. An operating system known as \"Tiger\" is on the screen in front of me, and a nice, white, CLEAN keyboard sits in front of me.

To quote my dad: \"We\’d never thought we\’d see the day when Justin brought home a Mac\".

That\’s write, Justin is now the proud owner of a Mac with Final Cut Studio 5. Video editting is his new thing, not to mention perhaps more terminal work, and if I can get enough money, perhaps some graphic art stuff.

What does this mean?

1) I can now test in all 3 environments pretty simply. No more calling Jon just to see if my site looks good on a Mac.

2) I can now make professional DVD\’s for all your needs. If you want me to convert your family videos to DVD, give me a call, I\’ll do it at a resonible rate, with some nice menus.

3) A top secret (ok not so secret) thing involving JR is involved, but for the time being, it remains top secret.

4) Within about 2 weeks or so, I\’ll be able to solve all Mac problems that you might have. Of course, this also means that for the next 2 weeks I will not have time to solve your windows problems because I\’ll be trying to break my mac.

Where do we go from here?

Well, first things first. I have a dentist appointment tomorrow, and therefore, on my way there, I will have to pick up my hard drive so that I can start doing the work from home instead of from Church. Won\’t that be nice. If only I had high speed.

One more thing: This does not, in any way, make me a \"mac freak\". I believe Mac\’s are good at 2 things. 1) Video/Graphic arts and 2) Really low end users.

That said: My laptop is still a PC. My primary desktop is still a PC. My Servers, are still Linux, and my next computer will most likely, not be a mac (unless it\’s both a mac and a pc ;-)).

One last thing: If any of you have any recommendations for must have free software for the mac… Now is the time to tell me. I already have all the expensive software I can handle :-). Did I mention the FCP books are in 4 volumes and combined take up about a foot of space… That box you see on their website, is not empty. It\’s full of book.

Ok, nuff said about the mac.

Amber got me a pretty good book about Google for Christmas. I\’m only two chapters in, and already very interested. I love Google. I love how they think. I love how they fell into making money. I love the idea of them. I\’d also love to do the same thing, just not with search. In other words, I love the gift.

My cousin got me nintendo games. Roughly 28 of them, 8 or so of which were duplicates. Apparently, finding games on that list is not always fully intuitive. Either way, I\’m pushing 300, and with a box that\’s in my room labled \"Happy Birthday\", I\’m sure I will break 300.

The gifts I gave my cousin were yet another success (for the most part). I have this tradition of giving him the same thing every year (he wants the same thing every year) and because of this, I have to get creative some other way. My best option: wrapping. Normally, this means using lots of 3M packaging tape, duct tape, development tape, and boxes. This year however, due to the fact we will be moving soon, I was not allowed to damage any of the boxes I would normally use for this sort of thing (we need them for the move).

So instead, I used a suitcase with a lock, and I made him go on a scavenger hunt to find the numbers to unlock it. Not bad, except I made him look in place(s) my mom didn\’t want him looking, and so she wasn\’t to happy with me, but besides that, the idea was a success.

I always seem to have a decent amount to write about this time of year. I hope that it\’s not just because I like to brag.

Amy got a Keyboard… I can\’t wait to plug it into the mac ;-).

Other than the nintendo games and the book, I don\’t really have much to mention. Like I said, I didn\’t get the Mac or the software for Christmas… Just good year end timing.

Crap.

Year End To Do List:

1) Call insurance company about 21st birthday and my Car

2) Call insurance company about Health Insurance

3) Call insurance company about Business insurance for 2005-2006

4) Get to the dentist

5) Get to MSA

Ok, that\’s everything. I\’m sure I will have more posts to put up here soon.. For now, I need to find a good AIM client for the mac (maybe gaim?)