Never Too Late

Lyrics of the Week:

This world will never be
What I expected
And if I don't belong
Who would have guessed it
I will not leave alone
Everything that I own
To make you feel like
It's not too late
It's never too late

Even if I say
It'll be all right
Still I hear you say
You want to end your life
Now and again we try
To just stay alive
Maybe we'll turn it all around
'Cause it's not too late
It's never too late

No one will ever see
This side reflected
And if there's something wrong
Who would have guessed it
And I have left alone
Everything that I own
To make you feel like
It's not too late
It's never too late

Even if I say
It'll be all right
Still I hear you say
You want to end your life
Now and again we try
To just stay alive
Maybe we'll turn it all around
'Cause it's not too late
It's never too late

The world we knew
Won't come back
The time we've lost
Can't get back
The life we had
Won't be ours again

This world will never be
What I expected
And if I don't belong

Even if I say
It'll be all right
Still I hear you say
You want to end your life
Now and again we try
To just stay alive
Maybe we'll turn it all around
'Cause it's not too late
It's never too late
Maybe we'll turn it all around
'Cause it's not too late
It's never too late
It's not too late
It's never too late

-Three Days Grace

Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil

1am probably isn't the best time to be writing, as I have nothing in particular to write about, and strange things could come out of my mind at a time like this. Take the title for instance: I needed the most random thing I could think of so I picked one of the ingredients in the peanut butter I have sitting here on my desk. Go figure.

Recently got back from Payne's. (Don't worry, I didn't get any coffee.) I was able to scare Ryan by reciting the time and date of a previous Payne's visit that we both went on last year. For some reason, dates stick inside my head like that. I remember the dates of big events and remember the relative number of days between events, so it's fairly easy to pick out the month and day and/or day of week that particular things happened on. I wonder if I could make a living off this skill...

My hair is still black. I kinda want to keep it for a while, but I also want to shave it for Airband. I think I will, especially if my roommate does it too. Mandy I. buzzed her head yesterday, as I watched on in horror. I thought she was shaving it all the way, but she ended up stopping at 1/4". I had been telling her for weeks that she should keep her beautiful hair the way it was, but is she really going to listen to me? Of course not. Fortunately, my horror was unfounded...it actually looks really good (although the process was still quite shocking to watch).

I watched Dr. Horrible again today. It made me very happy. If you haven't seen it yet, you are missing out on possibly the greatest genius ever to come from the great mind of Joss Whedon. And that's saying a lot, because Firefly is pure genius. All three acts are on hulu.com, or you can buy them from iTunes for $4. Without question, the best $4 I ever spent. Watch it. This is the one. Tell your friends. ...sorry, that was a quote from Act I. One thing I love about it is that it's so quotable. Not to mention the amazing singing and hilarious plot line. Nathan Fillion and Neil Patrick Harris singing-how can you pass that up? After doing a little Wikipedia-ing, I just found out that Joss Whedon co-wrote Titan A.E. I loved that movie as a kid, and now I understand why! I hope to see future episodes of Dr. Horrible in the future.

I also need people to play Settlers with who won't necessarily kick my butt every time. I've been brushing up on my strategy and am eager to try out a few things. But I can still count the number of times I've played, and this needs to change. I got the game for my birthday, so if anyone wants to play, I'm all for it! (Presumably someone around Taylor, unless you feel like driving several hours to play a board game. But hey, it sounds like as good an excuse as any!)

I'm so glad that I have another day before school starts again. It seems like so much happened yesterday that it should have been Saturday and today Sunday, but lucky for me I get another day! Speaking of which, today is now technically Sunday, so I should probly think about getting to bed. How bout I do that.....now.

Journey

Birthing, breathing, growing.
Developing.
Seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling.
Experiencing.
Knowing, growing, enjoying, living, rebirthing.
Changing, being, wondering, observing, differentiating, fitting, planning, finding, discovering.
Realizing, separating.
Drawing, thinking, secluding, wishing, wondering, burning.
Hating, loving, hating, questioning, dying.
Dying, surviving, breathing.
Recovering, stagnating, reducing, moving, beginning.
Refreshing, learning, coping, sensing, hoping, refining, finding, missing.
Waiting, worshiping, breaking, deciding, working, tiring, building, sleeping, gaining.
Greeting, meeting, listening, longing, living, loving, falling.
Falling, falling, smiling, feeling, falling, abandoning, hoping, desiring, crashing.
Crying, asking, pondering.
Changing, planning.
Reading, rising, soaring.
Suffocating, telling, breathing, missing, wanting, rushing, lying, deceiving.
Receiving, regretting, despairing, losing.
Asking, thinking, finishing, surviving, living, hating.
Seeking, praying.
Observing, liking, talking, wondering, asking, regretting.
Playing, talking, moving, thanking.
Trying, failing, retrying.
Contemplating, trusting, searching.
Arrived.


I'm not sure if you can even call this a poem, and it was not necessarily inspired by anything except my desire to write a poem using only verbs-each one of which is particularly placed and has significant meaning.

Collision

Lyrics of the Week:

Can you understand my meaning
Hidden in the roses, around my eyes
I want you to know how much it means to have you in my life
Your love brings me close again
In this instance-this single moment when our worlds collide.
The wire of eternity twists around us
I can feel this river rising, moving up my back
Some things never change, some things never go away
I could never forget you, and I will never be the same

-As I Lay Dying

20

So I doing homework the other night until about 1am. I still needed to shower for the day (where "day" is a very loose term), so I took a shower, during which my thought process went something like this: "Woah. I just realized that I have been 20 for about an hour. Weird. I'm officially no longer a teenager. Has anything changed that would cause this? Am I a different person now? Does this mean I no longer have the same problems that I had as a teenager?"

I think the answer to all those questions is a resounding "No." One way to look at it is that I am only an hour older than I was an hour ago, and a day older than I was yesterday. This was true yesterday, the day before that, and the day before that, and it will still be true tomorrow. No matter that today just happens to be the 7305th day I am alive. Is there really anything so special about that number? Well I guess next year it'll be a bit more special since that grants certain legal privileges that might be nice to have. But seriously, the cells in my body are still decaying at roughly the same rate that they were before, and my neurons are still firing in the same general pattern as they were before. I'm not really any different, and my problems are not magically gone because I'm now 20. That stinks.

LOLcat break! http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/funny-pictures-kitten-looks-for-bugs-in-your-computer.jpg

hehehe. I put the link in instead of a picture because I know some people have adverse reactions to lolcats. What was I saying? Something about me being 20 and it not really changing my life. I guess I haven't given it a fair enough chance. After all, it's only been less than 24 hours. Maybe in a few days it'll turn out that all kinds of cool things happen to people 20 and older that somehow don't happen to anyone else. Ha, who am I kidding? "Who am I kidding..." I said that to myself a lot yesterday...

In other news, family is visiting tomorrow. That'll be cool. My register file assignment got moved to Monday so I have the weekend to finish building it. Without a doubt I would say that class (Computer Architecture) is by far my favorite. It's a small class and we're doing some pretty cool stuff in it. Today we looked at the division and modulus aspect of the ALU. Hmmm, another LOLcat break! http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/funny-pictures-your-cat-asks-you-what-you-are-doing.jpg

That one reminds me of Ceiling Cat. Which reminds me again that I need to figure out what Ceiling Cat wants with me, and that I need to watch Dr. Horrible again because I have multiple songs stuck in my head. I sang some of them at lunch today with Hannah Chupp. People thought I was drunk. It was pretty great.

Anyways, last LOLcat for the day: http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/funny-pictures-kitten-gives-his-friend-a-cheeseburger.jpg
aawwwwwwww! I <3. Well that's about all I guess. It's about time for dinner and then more and more homework and trying to finish updating my ~amd64 system.

Orion Skyquest XT8 Classic Dobsonian

The time for a review of my new telescope has finally come. First of all, here is an overview of everything I purchased:

Orion Skyquest XT8 Classic Dobsonian

• Optical tube assembly (OTA), 8" aperture, 1500mm focal length


• Disassembled mount


• Various tools for assembling the mount


• 25mm Sirius Plossl Eyepiece


• EZ Finder II viewfinder


• Collimation cap and dust cap

Padded carrying case for the OTA

Celestron 1.25" eyepiece and filter kit

• 4mm, 6mm, 9mm, 15mm, 32mm Plossl eyepieces


• 6 colored lunar and planetary filters


• moon filter


• 2X barlow lens

I already had a green laser pointer (generally useful for everything) and various star charts. So how does everything hold up? Let's see...

Assembly of the mount: They say that assembly of the mount takes about 30 minutes. Working by myself, it took me more like an hour to put it together, but I didn't have all the correct tools readily available and I was a tad bit distracted by SBCGFAP (Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People), which was just released that day. Nevertheless, the directions were very clear and I generally had no trouble with the assembly, except for improvising the tools I didn't have.

Number of observations: So far I have used the telescope three times. The first time was the night I assembled it, in an extremely light-polluted back yard, on a really hazy night. I saw Jupiter and that was about it. The second time I took it out in the Gerig backyard, which is moderately light-polluted but not all that bad. I was able to see Jupiter in better detail, a couple stars (including a double star), and a star cluster or two. The last time was a couple nights ago, and this time I drove about 5 minutes out and parked on the side of the road where there were no lights at all and the sky was clear. This time the moon was in its waxing gibbous phase so it was difficult to find some things that I wanted to see.

Sturdiness of mount: Being a dobs, the telescope is very sturdy. An equatorial mount would have been nicer to have than an alt-az, but the sturdiness of dobsonians plus their relative cheapness per inch of aperture made it worth it. (All dobsonians are alt-azimuth.) However, the mount was very steady and never wobbled.

Size/weight: Both the OTA and the mount are fairly sizable. I can easily sling the OTA in its padded case over my shoulder and carry the mount and the eyepiece kit in either hand, but I wouldn't want to carry it more than half a mile if I can help it. When the telescope is assembled, it can be carried as a unit, but it's awfully heavy and requires both hands.

Assembly: Attaching the OTA to the mount is a breeze. Just set it down (doesn't matter which direction as long as the open end is up, obviously), pull down on the springs and hook the springs over the pegs on the sides of the mount and you're ready to roll. Seriously, taking it out of the case is harder than setting it up.

Eyepieces: The telescope is advertised as being able to switch eyepieces without losing the object you were centered on, and this is true as long as you're careful not to bump it. I mostly switch between the 32mm, 15mm, and 9mm. The field of view in the 32mm is really nice. The 4mm is practically useless; it magnifies like you think it should but it's impossible to focus so everything is terribly blurry. The 2X Barlow lens is nice to have, but I haven't used it much so far. The eyepiece that comes with the telescope (a 25mm) is nice, but if you are going to do any serious observing you need to purchase a wider range of eyepieces. It accepts both 1.25" and 2" eyepieces, which would be nice if I actually had any 2" eyepieces to use.

Filters: I tried out a couple filters during my second observing time. They're pretty nice, but I don't yet have a sensitive enough eye to be able to fully appreciate them. The moon filter is really nice for lunar viewing, as I practically blinded my right eye without it when observing the moon. It's about 18% transmission. Although I haven't quite figured out how to attach it to an eyepiece yet...maybe I'm just stupid.

Eyepiece carrying case: It's nice and sturdy. I think I'm going to try to etch out a piece of the foam so I can stick my laser pointer in there too. It has ready-made slots for two extra eyepieces, and I was able to put a couple printouts of star charts in it and still shut the lid. It also locks, but the lock is akin to using an MD5 sum for transmitting password hashes-it'll keep out people who are just poking around, but if someone really wants your eyepieces they will be able to get at them.

Carrying case: I would call the carrying case as necessary as the extra eyepieces. Storing it in the case keeps it safe from bumps and nicks, and carrying the OTA is so much easier. I don't think I could live without it. It's freaking expensive though! It's about $75 just for the case, but it's worth it. The insert that came with it says that it can take lots of abuse, and I believe this is true. It seems very sturdy and well worth the money.

As an added bonus, the carrying case is ideal for sneaking several bouquets of flowers from a car to the fourth floor of some particular building without anyone noticing.

Viewing comfort: I basically have to kneel down on the ground when looking through the eyepiece, unless it's pointed relatively near the zenith, and then I can get away with bending over and not killing my back. It might be worthwhile to invest in a kneeling pad, depending on how tall your upper body is.

Collimation: Haven't done it yet. Hopefully I won't need to for some time, although I have bumped it around a little already. If I had purchased it just a couple weeks sooner I could have gotten a laser collimator for free, but alas I waited, and the deal went away. A collimation cap is included, but I'm afraid to mess with the mirror alignment for fear of making it worse. Maybe later...

Storage: I keep the mount in my trunk so I don't have to carry it everywhere. It's made of wood so it should be fine there. I keep my eyepiece kit and the OTA in my room. Even when the OTA is in its case, it can be stood upright in the corner so it really doesn't take that much space. Maybe about 1.5 ft^2 by 5 feet vertically. I'm not worried about it tipping over-it seems steady...as long as it is stored upright (with the opening up, the primary mirror on the ground). When storing it I take the viewfinder off so it doesn't accidentally get loosened and fall off in the case, which has happened once. (I don't think I tightened it enough.)

Astrophotography: Not possible. Don't even ask.

Ok, so I suppose it might be possible. Long exposures are out due to the alt-azimuth design of the mount and the inability to add motorized tracking. I read about a trick, though, where you take a cheap webcam and hook it up to a laptop and take a couple minutes worth of video through the eyepiece, equaling several hundred low-quality frames. Then you send it through a program like Registax, which picks out the best frames and stacks them together to produce a nice image. In theory it should work, but I have no webcam to try it with. Not to mention my 1+ hour laptop battery life...

Goto functionality: I purposefully bought the classic version because 1) it was much cheaper and 2) it doesn't have any automated goto features. To me, punching numbers in a pad and having the scope automatically find what you want takes all the fun out of it, and you don't really learn the sky the way you would if you found everything yourself.

And we all know how much I hate GOTO's...



Well, that's the basics of it. Is it worth every penny? It probably is, but I haven't utilized it to the fullest extent possible yet. The quality of the scope in general seems excellent, and I'm glad I made the investment. I hope to keep it around for several years and see many exciting things with it. As with just about any scope you purchase nowadays, you will definitely need to buy extra eyepieces and other accessories, and be sure you do your research before deciding on one particular type. I was dead set on buying a Meade equatorial reflector until I talked to some people and decided that a dobs was the way to go for me. At any rate, I love my telescope and am very glad I made the decision to buy it. Now I just wait for the weather to clear...

Between You And Me

Lyrics of the Week:

Sorrow is a lonely feeling
Unsettled is a painful place
I've lived with both
For far too long now
Since we've parted ways

I've been wrestling
With my conscience
And I found myself to blame
If there's to be any resolution
I've got to peel my pride away

Just between you and me
I've got something to say
Wanna get it straight
Before the sun goes down

Just between you and me
Confession needs to be made
Recompense is my way to freedom

Just between you and me
I've got something to say...

If confession is the road to healing
Forgiveness is the promised land
I'm reaching out in my conviction
I'm longing to make amends, yeah

So I'm sorry for
The words I've spoken
For I've betrayed a friend
We've got a love
That's worth preserving
And a bond I will defend

Just between you and me
I've got something to say
Wanna get it straight
Before the sun goes down

Just between you and me
Confession needs to be made
Recompense is my way to freedom

Just between you and me
I've got something to say...

In my pursuit of God
I thirst for holiness
As I approach the Son
I must consider this:

Offenses unresolved
Will keep me from the throne
Before I go to Him
My wrong must be atoned

If there's to be any resolution
I've got to peel this pride away

Just between you and me
I've got something to say
Wanna get it straight
Before the sun goes down

Just between you and me
Confession needs to be made
Recompense is my way to freedom

It's my way to freedom...
I've got something to say
So let me say it today

It's my way to freedom...
I've got something to say
Confession needs to be made

It's my way to freedom...
I've got something to say
Confession needs to be made

It's my way to freedom...
I've got something to say

-dc Talk

Ode to Wengatz

Wengatz,
O how I love your tantalizing beauty, hidden,
Your walls grand and majestic.
Your non-curvaceous corners
Extrude in painful remorse
Of times long swept away
By those undeserving of feeling.
O how I desire to run to you one hundred footfalls far,
Gently caressing your ungentled brick.
Then turning, swiftly,
Eager to leave you standing as before
With evanescent fingerprints soon to be
Washed away by the ocean's farthest reaches.
O Wengatz,
May you ne'er see the day that
Your fine walls crumble.
May you ne'er see your spirit emptied
Or regrets of a youthful self
Caught up in frisbees and undefinable behavior.
Always will your exterior live in my heart
As a place of brief respite
From the terrifying memories that
Await me in the Gerig lounge.
Live long and prosper.


Inspired by the first Wengatz run of the year, in pouring rain, on 8 September 2008.

Of Emicized and Roliting Manicorpoids

A couple days ago I saw Gladiator for the first time, and I was amazed. It's a really good movie, and yes it did make me cry (which, to me, is the mark of a really good movie). That wonderful experience saddened me, though, because I thought I might have to make it the best movie I had ever seen, displacing The Last Samurai from it's lofty position on my all-time favorite movies list. However, I have a rule that a movie cannot be my favorite movie unless I've seen it at the very least twice. (This is to prevent premature rankings and to ensure that the movie stays good through multiple viewings.) Fortunately last night I was able to watch The Last Samurai at Casablanca, so I had a rare opportunity to compare the two films almost side-by-side. Somewhere in the midst of watching it, I realized that there is no way that Gladiator, as amazing as it is or ever could be, will ever strip the auspicious title away from The Last Samurai. I've seen it at least 5 or 6 times now, and it just keeps getting better every time. So, not to fear! My favorite movie still stands strong, although I may have a new second favorite, which I need to see again soon.

P.S. Still waiting for another clear night that I'm not sick or extremely tired or that precedes a day with my 8:00 class. By this weekend the moon will be nearly full so I might give my moon filter a go, then see about writing up what I think of my scope.

Gavels From Gun Barrels

Lyrics of the Week:

I felt my heart beating faster and I never saw it coming!
Gavels from gun barrels expose me as far less than what I need to be.
The sentencing will be dealt swiftly
It's too late to mend my treachery

Shots ring out as my last milliseconds unwind...
Time bloats with fresh gun smoke forcing me to review what I've done with my life-
Too late to change, too soon to die.

Life is still warm on my lips.
What can I expect from all of this?
I'm trembling at the mighty feet of mercy...
Guilty, it's true, but no less sorry.
Too late to change, useless to weep for years of sin weighed on scales accurately.
Interrogate, assassinate, take the lead for justice' sake.
Change of heart/repentant faith only count in mercy's wake...

Shots ring out as my last milliseconds unwind...
Time bloats with fresh gun smoke forcing me to review what I've done with my life-
Too late to change, too soon to die.

I've debauched and deceived, and destroyed families...
I've taken all, given none, and received judgment from the objective eye of a gun.
I'm guilty, it's true, but remorseful no less. I'm sorry!
What becomes of me but death deserved, received?
What of a crooked man's desperate plea seeking The Good Judge's mercy?
He loved the lovable and the unlovely, the decadent and the holy.
He made a way for the pope and he made a way for me...

FALLEN FROM HELL AND INTO YOUR ARMS...
BLESSED MYSTERY THAT YOU HELD ON...
FALLING FROM DEATH, LANDING AT YOUR FEET...
AMAZING GRACE SO SWEET!

Shots ring out as my last milliseconds unwind...
Time bloats with fresh gun smoke forcing me to review what I've done with my life-
Too late to change, too soon to die.
I'm finding out what it truly means to die - too late to change, too soon to die.

-Staple

Theorem of Pants

I think pretty much everyone who reads my blog would also have read Anthony's Theorem of Pants that he posted on Facebook. But just in case you haven't seen it, it's the most beautiful theorem I have seen in a while. It goes something like this:

----------------------------------------------------------
During our open house-less time up on FOSO (the floor in my dorm that i live on) us math/physics/engineering folks got a little restless. I started the original theory of pants, and with the help of other restless mathematically inclined people, finished it, making it actually pretty good. I now present you with "Anthony's Theory of Pants" (with special accompaniment by peanut gallery quotes and Special Pants Relativity)!!


This is the board the theory was developed on...its in our hallway...
*It must be noted that while this board is pretty to look at, there are some errors on it. These errors are fixed in this note.*


ANTHONY'S THEORY OF PANTS

The amount of pants being worn is inversely proportional to the amount of pants that SHOULD be worn.

(Pants proper) = x / [(pants worn) +2]

where (Pants proper) is defined as the proper number of pants that should be worn
(pants worn) is the number of pants worn
and x is a number that reflects the appropriate level of pant-lessness.

Now we must further define x, as it is clearly ambiguous at the moment. The thing to notice is that x is a variable, not a constant. x varies according to the situation. For example: during open house, it is a very large number, meaning pants MUST be worn.

x(g) = (g + q) / q

where g is the number of girls allowed on the floor
and q is the quantized charge on an elementary particle.

Therefore, if we evaluate x only using units (in order to discover the units of (pants proper) we get

x(g) = (girls + coulombs) / coulomb
x(g) = girls/coulomb + coulombs/coulomb
therefore:
x(g) = girls/coulomb

if we then plug x(g) back into our original equation, we get

(Pants proper) = x / [(pants worn) +2]
(Pants proper) = [girls / coulomb] / [pants]
(Pants proper) = [girls / coulomb] * [1 / pants]
therefore:
(Pants proper) = girls / (coulomb * pants)

We can now use this formula to properly define the proper number of pants to be worn at any time on our floor.

pants values:
pants=1
shorts=1/2
boxers=1/4
these values can be added and manipulated any way you want (example: a proper pants rating of 1 means it is possible to just wear four pairs of boxers...its just not recommended...)
----------------------------------------------------------

What's beautiful about this theorem (to me) is the pantslessness function x(g). If there are no girls allowed on the floor (g=0), then x(0)=1. Thus, (pants proper)=1/(pants worn+2), meaning that if you are wearing any pants at all, pants should be removed to satisfy the relationship.

However, if even one girl is allowed on the floor, x(g) instantly becomes immensely large (as g is constrained to the set of non-negative integers). Thus, when girls are allowed on the floor, many pants must be worn by all pants-wearing-capable members. It's so beautiful. Nice job Anthony.

Nemesis

Star Trek: Voyager episode of the...er, year...

...is S4E04, "Nemesis". (Sorry there's some Trekkie nerdage here, and if you don't want any theological propaganda you may want to skip this post. You have been warned.)

I've been thinking about this episode lately, even though I haven't seen it in some time. Therefore, I should go back and watch it.

(45 min later...)

Ah that was good. Same as all the other three dozen times I've seen it, but still very good. Basically the plot of the whole episode revolves around Commander Chakotay, whose shuttle got shot down in the middle of an intense war zone between bitter enemies-the Vori and the Kradin. He is captured by Vori soldiers but they decide he's not a "Krady beast" and give him food and help locate the remains of his shuttle. He spends several days bonding with the Vori platoon as they describe all the horrible atrocities that their "nemesis"-the Kradin-commit against their people. After he gets separated from them during an ambush, he sees the war horrors first hand as the Kradin attack an innocent, defenseless village, exterminate the old people, enslave the young, burn the village to the ground, and blatantly disregard the religious customs of the Vori's dead.

Meanwhile back on the starship, the captain is negotiating with an ambassador from the planet in an effort to locate Chakotay and return him safely to the ship. In a stunning plot twist that only Star Trek can deliver, it is revealed that the ambassador to Voyager is Kradin and that the "enemy" is really the Vori. The Kradin cooperate with the captain and they coordinate to rescue Chakotay from the Vori. It turns out that everything Chakotay experienced about the war was an illusion and that nothing he saw was real. The Vori captured him and brainwashed him into thinking that the Kradin were these awful beasts with no moral conscience, when in fact it was the other way around. (It's the Vori's way of enlisting soldiers into their army to fight their war.)

Safely back on the ship, the Kradin commander approaches Chakotay and offers a sincere apology for what's happened and explains how grateful he is that he made it out safely. Chakotay has developed such an immense hatred for the Kradin during his time on the planet that he says nothing and storms out of the room. In the hallway, the captain asks him what's wrong. He simply states (in the best part of the episode), "I wish it were as easy to stop hating as it was to start."

It's very good, and my little description doesn't do the episode justice. The reason why I like it so much is because of the truth portrayed in the very end. The Kradin saved his life while the Vori knowingly lied to his face, but Chakotay's hatred is so strong that no knowledge of the way things really happened can shake it. Maybe not everyone can identify with that, but I certainly can. It's so easy to start hating someone for what they did to you...or for what you thought they did to you, and that hate is so hard to get rid of. Sure, there's plenty of Bible verses that tell you to love your enemies, bless those that curse you, and so on, but reading those again and again isn't really going to change how I feel. I don't know about anyone else, but my feelings are something that I have no control over. Perhaps that needs to change.

I don't pretend to have any answers, so I guess that leaves this post with a cliffhanger ending. But at least it's something to think about.