RichRock : Running Free

I’ll admit I’m a total bloke when it comes to Christmas. I haven’t done any shopping. Yet. I’ve got to get it done this week for two reasons:

1 - It’s Christmas next week.
2 - I’m off to the girlfriend’s on Saturday.

So, with that in mind, I have to get a list of things for Christmas that can be purchased locally. At least I don’t have to worry about parents until after Christmas, as they’re away Christmas week.

Of course, there should be something special for the babe, as the first thing she said when I asked ages ago was ‘Dressing Gown’. How awfully practical dear… At least it was a suggestion, which is better than ‘I don’t know darling, why don’t you surprise me?’ Words like these must strike dread in the minds of many blokes. This can be interpreted as ‘Whatever you get me won’t fit/be the right colour/completely useless/the third one I’ve had this year….

It misses the point of Christmas. Sure gifts are good, and the adage ‘Tis better to give than to receive’ rings true. Our gift-giving should be a reflection of the gift God gave us. (If you’re thinking life, well close, but no cigar). Christmas is a remembrance of Jesus, God’s gift of salvation to mankind. He came to earth human as you or I, and lived among us until that fateful day when He paid the price for our sin. Jesus did not appear out of thin air (well, except the immaculate conception bit) and suddenly just go ‘Right - sin. Paid for. I’m off on holiday.’ No. He lived as we did, sharing our lives, as now He still does, resurrected. But I’ll come to that at easter.

So Christmas, giving of gifts with love, not with the value and size, is more important. I’ve noticed that when my folks give me my Christmas presents, occasionally the smallest gift is the most awesome.

If I don’t blog before the day, merry Christmas y’all.

As you can imagine, yes. I am slightly (!) stressed. When I was at my girlfriend’s over the weekend, I found out my blood pressure had gone up, now at 140/100!! To me, that’s alarmingly high. I an anxious, feeling some effects of depression, and agitated a lot. Is it my job? My circumstances? My life? Probably a combination of all three. With the recent events of my girlfriend’s hospital visit, some high-pressure web dev jobs, and home pressures, no wonder things are through the roof.

I haven’t even thought about christmas yet. And I was supposed to be serving at the Christmas Carol Concert at church, but I’m working. I hate working Sundays. I hate working weekends full stop. Occasionally, I somtetimes wish I was back in retail. I know this doesn’t post a rosy picture of being a web developer, and I am sorry for that. But I just have the feeling at the moment that I am sinking fast. I entered this profession not actually being trained, so I was already on the slow starter then. My experience of web design was modding a few templates, let alone developing an e-commerce site using database driven Content Management Systems.

What to do? I’m uploading an incomplete site to use for a training day tomorrow. Do I feel happy about that? No. Do I have enough time to finish it. No, not unless I don’t sleep. But I have enough difficulty with sleep. 3pm this afternoon felt like 11pm at night to me. At the moment I feel like I’m in quicksand. I need to find a way out.

And I’m not sure which way *is* out…

BTW - this is in no way a slur - it’s a comment on my personal state of mind. I am aware that things are tough, and there is the prospect of improvement.

Hi all. As you can tell from the title, it’s a few new things going on. New life, for my girlfriend, as she’ll hopefully be out of hospital in the next couple of days. I’m not going into any specifics, but the op she’s just had will remove a long-term hindrance to her having a fuller life. She says shell be more annoying to me. Also, she reckons I won’t know what to do with her. I do. And I’m not saying here. (To those who thought something rude - wash your mouth out with soapy water.)
New diet indicates that I have to change my dietary habits. I have been having dietary problems for many years, and now I’m in a job where I sit a lot more, it’s harder to be comfortable. It’s not piles. It’s only the start, and I’m told I may probably have to be on this for life, which in some respects is no bad thing. I refer you to my previous posting about God and healing here. This explains something about why I haven’t sought physical healing, but I really felt God had led me to discover a reason for the problems, and to solve those, as that would be more beneficial for my life.
New Year - soon. This new year will culminate all the new things that have happened this year :

• New job - a web developer
• New girlfriend - patience has bought me the best woman I could have hoped for: Godly, beautiful, honest and true
• New computer - (sort of) new parts, such as a Geforce 8 series, 2gb Corsair RAM, Antec 900 case have gotten me my modded pc. Just a quad-core and watercooling kit to go, and that’ll keep me happy for a few years.
• New friends - well, online friends in Halo, but there’s mutual friendship in the game. 1AV is the server, I’m there frequently. GG

And the new year promises more. Who knows, maybe marriage may be on the cards? With whats happened to my girlfriend, we have already had to seriously look at each others commitment in our relationship. This has bought us closer, and hopefully God will bless us further. Theres many other things which could be new next year, but I’m keeping those card close to my chest, and not revealing to you, my readers.

Well, it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster this week. My girlfriend’s in hospital, she’s just ha d a major op, and pretty rough at the mo. I’m hoping some of it is just needing sleeping off, and we’ll see about that tomorrow. I’ve been getting new treatment for a bowel problem I’ve had for many many years, and that’s been hard too.

Also - still reading Lord Of The Rings. I’m on The Two Towers, at the point where Gollum is leading Frodo and Sam through the Dead Marshes. It’s quite gripping. Compared to the film, the workings of Helms Deep doesn’t quite seem the same, and the last march of the Ents ended differently. If you want to understand more, read the book. Then watch the film. They’re both rather good. I also picked up Unfinished Tales, which I’ll get round to reading somepoint soon. I’ve also got the Silmarillion to read too. Eventually.

Well, that’s a little update. I’ll have some joomla tips coming next week. Work’s been hectic, juggling 3 projects at once. There is too much going on in my life.

This should have been posted Friday evening. Some idiot (richrock) clicked the save button, and not the publish button. Silly billy.

Well, I would do if I wasn’t going to visit my girlfriend. She’s not been well. Ended up in hospital after the weekend, but that got sorted quickly. It was hard to see her like the way she was on monday, doped up with painkillers, in agony. Glad she slept ok. It’s hard having to work, when you know you’re loved one’s in hospital having a scan, and you don’t know anything about the results until the evening at visiting time. It was tough. Anyway, she’d come back home, but already getting similar pains to before. I’ll have to make sure she doesn’t overdo it.

Got some RAM for my PC today, plus a new power supply. The RAM is 2gb matched pair of Corsair DDR2 PC5400 667mhz XMS2, awesome RAM. Didn’t do much for Crysis, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R. boosted from 25fps average to over 30! It even hits around 80fps in certain places. Halo varies, and can be up to 200fps.

Going to the farm. Not the funny farm, mind you. Going to get all this Joomla and E-Commerce out of my head. Enjoy your weekend people.

To relax in the evenings (when I get the chance) I like nothing better to listen to a few tunes from Emusic - I recently purchased (I subscribe - it’s a technicality) Tiesto’s ‘Parade Of The Athletes’ which is an awesome tune selection. Also obtained an excellent album called ‘Exploring The Tributaries’ by Vibrasphere. A fine mixture of ambient and trance which is at moments beautiful, other moments have you wishing you were on a dancefloor. A great album I’ve played pretty much solid since yesterday. Also, they have another album called ‘Archipelago’ which is probably more in the ambient vein, but these are two great albums worth a download from emusic.com.

I’m currently in the process of completing a site for another client, can’t really give details, but the deadline is tight. So that’s eaten a lot of personal time too. Again. Still it gets money into the business, and keeps me in a job.

My girlfriend’s gone through some troubles recently, requiring a hospital visit or two. It’s a delicate situation, and although we are looking at a drastic resolution to matters, we are also expectant of a God who heals. I myself am a testimony to this, as I was diagnosed with an infection in the ears which would have now left me deaf nearly 6 years ago. The fact I love music and can still listen to it is testimony enough to that same God. So, in one mind we are praying that God will heal, but if He decides not, then that is also a realistic viewpoint. I think that people can become misguided when prayers are offered for healing and none is received. I sincerely wished for healing during my severe headache phase (I used to get severe cluster headaches), and none was forthcoming. Was this a problem? No. Did it mean God doesn’t exist or that He didn’t care? No. To the contrary, God does care, and He did pull me through. Without healing the illness, but then if it was that easy, everyone would jump on the bandwagon.
God has plans and purposes beyond our reckoning. That much we know. I know this: God has me here, enduring my trials, enjoying life, and still feeling that this is the right place and right time for me.

Sorry about that, just a little rant about stuff. Anyway, I’ll post again soon.

BTW - All that about changing to Joomla. Not yet. Still working on it. However, Wordpress works fine for me. It also has a relatively small webserver footprint too.