Happy Mothers Day!

Dedication:
To my Mom, who never forsook me and was always there for me.

Although I had already been alive for almost nine months, I didn’t know there was more to life than doing what I was doing, or wasn’t doing. I was perfectly content there, getting fed somehow, and not having to worry about when or what to eat. I also didn’t have to worry about clothes; their look, their size, or even the absence of them! I was stress-free, although I did notice things were getting increasingly crowded day by day…nothing to worry about now though. I was warm and relaxed, and undisturbed most of the time.
But sometimes I had suspicions. I had suspicions that everything does not and can not revolve around me. This would not have occurred to me, if it weren’t for the faint voices pulsating around me. I realized that there was a bigger picture, and if I wanted to see it, I would somehow need to “burst the bubble”, as it were, that I was in. I was comfortable, but I was restless and bored. I was warm, but I was helpless and lonely. I was in bondage and would somehow need to be set free. But before long, one, nonnegotiable truth became sure to me; that I had no strength on my own to accomplish this task, none at all.

Then one day, as I was swimming in my uncertainties, I felt a squeeze. It hurt, but I shrugged it off. Until another one came, and another, greater every time. Now they were coming at increasingly smaller intervals, pressing me, each time, against the walls of my preset standards. They forced me to submit to a larger veracity. I was then pressed into and immensely tight situation. Which hurt greatly, and I thank God I don’t remember it.

Then suddenly, as I was about to give up, something seemed to snap. I was liberated. I saw. I opened my mouth in astonished wonder, when unexpectedly, a gust of unrestrained nitrogen and oxygen poured into my tiny lungs. I felt like choking on this foreign substance, but when I tried to, another blast came gushing in. It seemed to permeate me, circulating deeper into me. I was enthralled by this and almost didn’t realize the reality of what now had to happen.

Before I could protest I was brought underneath a flowing mass of transparent matter. This was similar to what I had been used to, except that it refreshed itself constantly, it was alive. It felt so good to be underneath this flood when suddenly I was disturbed once again. I was flipped, squeezed, jolted, and jostled until every bit of me was as pure and clean as the water that washed me.

Then I heard. I heard a voice I recognized. It was clearer now than ever before. I wept as I fell into her arms. I cried because I couldn’t survive by myself.

The Peterbilt (Part 2)

In Part 2 here, I'll share with you the process of getting this from packaged parts to a working, usable machine. I see that not all of you are interested in this sort of thing and that's okay. But for those of you who are, I hope you enjoy it. I may even post a Part 3 to this, telling you about my first project and how it actually performed.

Putting our DIY system together was actually pretty foolproof. We mostly followed the instructions and manuals that came with the various hardware, especially the motherboard. I also printed a small article I found online about putting a system together. Here's a summary of how it went.

The case we got was somewhat toolless but not totally. We first screwed down the Mobo (standard ATX). Then we tackled the processor. Of course, being our first time ever installing a processor, it kind of felt like we were going to break it. It's such a small piece, yet it's likely the most expensive...so you know if you break it, that would be like really bad. The heatsink that came with the Core 2 already had a thermal compound applied to it, but I was advised not to use that and get a better product. So we scraped it off and cleaned it with rubbing alcohol. Then applied a bit of the Arctic Silver compound that I picked up at Fry's directly to the top of the processor. Putting the heatsink on the processor was another challenge, but we got it on there (they say if you didn't set the heatsink on properly, your processor could fry within ten seconds...so far, were okay).

The Ram was easy and so was the Video card. We only plugged in one of the Hard drives (the boot one) because the power supply didn't come with enough SATA power connectors. The Sony DVD drive went in smoothly.

As you can see, our case has some front ports, so we had to hook those up to the onboard connections. Everything found a place except a cable labeled "speaker", which is probably for the little beeps and warning messages (I think I hear those out the speakers in the monitor anyway). With the monitor hooked up, what's left to do but push the button. Woohu! Actually, I think we pushed the button even before we had monitor on just to make sure that.....well.....just to make sure.

Now turning the computer on with the monitor we were having some trouble getting into the bios. Oh, plug in the keyboard. Minor technicality. Having the keyboard plugged in helped and we entered the bios with the delete key. We did some minor changes and exited. If I remember correctly, we weren't able to get to the Windows installation screen because the drive configuration in the bios was set to "RAID" mode. Then switching to "IDE" mode seemed to get us going in the right direction. At the first screen it was telling us if we were going to install third party Raid drivers to press the F6 key. We knew we wanted to do Raid but didn't have power to the other drives yet, so we skipped that step, thinking there would be some way to get the Raid going later (there was an "Intel Matrix Storage Manager" Raid Driver floppy disc that came with our Mobo). Although I think installing the driver then to just have it ready wouldn't have hurt. Later we had to do a repair install of XP in order to install the Raid Driver floppy and get the Raid going (that seemed to be our only choice because we still weren't able to boot in "RAID" mode).

Anyway, we got the OS installed and were able to start using the computer. After the newegg order came, we got power to the drives. Things started to get a bit cramped in our mid tower when I was installing and plugging in the other items that came...but it works.

Setting up the Raid in the "Matrix Storage Manager" bios was supper easy after the driver was installed and the drives were formatted. I now have over 100GB of avi video on drive "R" (a 745GB Raid 0 drive labeled "VideoRaid"). Sweet.

Apr: French Baguettes

Really I'm not much of a baker, but I can make a thing or two, including these wonderful loaves. I hope you enjoy them. I think it is very important to do the glaze. It not only adds visual appeal, but also gives it a nice salty bite on the crust.

Makes 2 loafs

for the bread:
5-51/2 cups unbleached white flour
2 tsp salt
21/4 tsp yeast
2 cups warm water

for the glaze:
1 egg white, beaten
11/2 tsp sea salt

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer or Bosch, combine the water and salt. Then add 3 cups of flour and mix to combine. Now add the yeast and mix. With the mixer running, add the remaining flour. If the dough hasn't pulled away from the sides of the bowl after 2 minutes of kneading, add a little bit of flour until it does. Knead for another 6 minutes until the dough is elastic.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and form into a nice ball. Oil the inside of a glass bowl, put the dough in it, and cover it with plastic wrap. Set in a warm place and let rise until doubled, 45-60 minutes.

Turn the risen dough onto a floured surface and knead for a few seconds. Pull dough apart into two equal sized pieces. Begin to roll each piece out using a back and forth motion, with your hands parallel to each other, starting in the middle and working your way to the edges (come close to the edge but don't roll your hands over them).

Spay a baguette pan or sheet pan with a little oil and sprinkle some cornmeal on them. Place loaves on the pan. Cover with a towel and let rise for 20-30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 450ºF.

Beat the egg white with a fork until it smoothly and evenly slips through the tongs of the fork when lifted up. Mix in the salt.

With a sharp, non-serrated knife make three shallow diagonal cuts on each loaf. Brush the loaves with the glaze once and put in the oven. Bake 20-25 minutes until brown. Halfway through the baking, brush again with the glaze.

When loaves are done, transfer them to a wire rack, and let them cool off for a little while (at least five minutes). Cut diagonally and serve warm or at room temperature.

Click here for a printer friendly version of this recipe

Ravi Shankar: India's master musicain

This is truly a whole other world of music. It may be a little strange to our ears, but it is wonderful. And don't you just love the guy's expressions with the Tabla. Me thinks he's having fun.

GANDHI: The Man & The Movie

With my Dad’s recent trip to India, he has become more interested in its history and especially about this particular individual. This film on Gandhi’s life had been recommended to him by a couple people, so he picked it up. And after watching it, I would like to pass on the recommendation* (see below) to you.

This was a character that I really knew nothing about prior to watching the movie, which is rather a shame. I found the movie, which is three hours long, not only a Magnificent production, but also quite educational. A couple things that may strike you from watching it is the incredible performance of Ben Kingsley (who played Gandhi), and the enormous crowds. Another aspect that may not be quite so evident is the extraordinary script written by John Briley.

Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in 1869 and was assassinated by radical Hindus on January 30, 1948 at age 78. The fact that approximately 300,000 extras showed up for the film’s reenactment of his funeral procession 33 years later shows the extraordinary position this man held in his country. Also, an interesting note on the production of this funeral sequence, is, being as it would be very difficult to shoot these massive scenes twice, they would have to capture the whole procession the first time. There were 11 crews who shot 20,000 feet of film, which was then edited down to only 125 seconds for the final release. That’s impressive.

I believe one of Gandhi’s main messages was nonviolence in order to achieve political and social progress. He was very strong on the fact that the British rule of India was evil, that he wanted no part of it, and that it must stop. But not by violence! By non-cooperation with injustice. His own words in the movie— “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” And, “Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always.” With many circumstances leading up to it India eventually became a free nation.

He also spoke out for unity; “I am a Muslim and a Hindu and a Christian and a Jew and so are all of you.” Here is Gandhi’s view of religion and here is Gandhi’s religion. Also if your interested…his philosophy. As far as I can tell from the movie and his own writings, Gandhi unfortunately never became a born-again Christian. From what I gather, he believed that doing good and being good alone would secure your salvation in the age to come. It would seem sad to me that a man like this would stand up for such laws and Christ-like principles and yet deny the law-giver as the one and only savior for man. Without the redeeming work of the Lord in our hearts and His forgiveness, we can never be good enough for God. Gandhi knew he was sinful and that sin was wrong, but it was a life-long struggle for him to try and find it within himself to overcome it. A Christian in Gandhi’s shoes could have been such a testimony! Or maybe a Christian would not have fit in Gandhi’s shoes. God knows.

One of my favorite parts in the movie is near the end where Gandhi is fasting because he was not pleased with how the Hindus and Muslims where treating each other (there were killings, riots, and hatred). Although Gandhi had achieved many of his aims, the India he imagined was still not quite present. A couple days into his fast, his body was rapidly shutting down (he was already quite old), but he was still wanting to see proof that the violence was over before he would eat. There were measures taken for peace when word got out that Gandhi was fasting until death unless the rioting was resolved, but Gandhi, being a stubborn man, wouldn’t settle for just signs that it was stopping or actions taken here and there hinting at peace, he wanted it to be definite. Everywhere.

Not wanting to see Gandhi die because of their madness, the violent people approached him themselves, laying down there swords before him, and trying to convince him that the fighting was truly over. It would have been a rather uncomfortable and eerie sequence but it is balanced marvelously with Gandhi’s gentleness. A Hindu man comes to him with a piece of food and tells him to eat. He says to Gandhi, “I am going to Hell, but not with your death on my soul.” He said he killed a Muslim child because they (the Muslims) killed his child. Then Gandhi responds to him in these words:

“I know a way out of Hell. Find a child, a child whose mother and father have been killed…..a little boy about this high [indicates height], and raise him as your own. Only be sure that he is a Muslim…..and that you raise him as one.”

I’m not sure how accurate that plan of salvation is, but they’re riveting words nonetheless. They’re words that pretty much wrap up the message of his later life, and they are a good picture of what he lived and died for.

1936

Gandhi and Nehru (who was the first prime minister of India)

Spinning in Delhi

The funeral procession, New Delhi, Jan. 31, 1948

"If I am to die by the bullet of a mad man, I must do so smiling.
There must be no anger within me.
God must be in my heart and on my lips.."

—Mohandas K. Gandhi, on January 28, 1948, two days prior to his assassination.

For more information on Gandhi, check out this site.

*Please use caution showing this film to children because there is a fair amount of violence in the film, hence the PG rating. A number of sequences were not suitable for most in my family to view.