The Origins of Schlange

(Post 16)

(Note: Somehow my post editor is having issues. Most of my whitespace (Blanklines between paragraphs, 5 spaces in front of a new paragraph, or anything else that I've tried to use to make my paragraphs look nice) is disapearing every time I save. Sorry, but you'll have to bear with me.)

As part of giving my blog a facelift I'm changing my profile. I'm putting the old contents of what was in my profile here and editing it:

Schlange A. Taube nearly sounds like a real name doesn't it? Why did I pick it to post under? I've got a buddy Schmetterling who got me interested in blogging (his blog is The Eccentric Sage). He's got a unique pen-name and I was jealous.

He told me that his came about because of an experiance with a fellow who was a great fan of Tolkien. Apparently, Tolkien has an insignia that places his initials (JRRT) over the top of one another in a cool way. This fellow wanted something cool like that for himself, so he worked one out with his initials. Schmetterling subsequently made one that looked like a butterfly and thus created an alias (Schemtterling is German for butterfly).

We explored using the same method for me. We started superimposing the letters in my name over the top of each other to see what we could get in the way of a picture. We came up with several possibilities, one of note being the dollar sign ($). The one we went with looked something like an "A" hooked into the back end of a snake. That made me "A snake." Because everything sounds cooler in German we looked up the German translation of snake: "Shlange." That has pizzazz so I kept it. However, I didn't want to feel like an evil villain all the time so we started looking for something to go with it. Somehow I remembered Matthew 10:16, and that gave us a dove to go with my serpent. It also gave me a good name for my blog. Dove in German is "Taube." Stick an "A" that looks like a snake into the center of a German SnakeDove and what do you get? Schlange A. Taube, at your service.

-Schlange

Appendix for “Inviting Yet Fruitless”

(post 15.A)

I've linked this post to my last post. If you haven't read it yet this one won't make any sense. It's likely more enjoyable reading anyways, so go there now. I originally wrote what follows underneath the original post but then decided I'd prefer to keep them separate. This accounts for all the references to "this post." I was too lazy to fix the wording. If you want to, you can pretend that this post is at the end of the last post.

~

I've decided to append a little something to this post for the following reason: I have a good friend, Schmetterling, who told me he has linked this post to one of his posts. He told me a little about it, but I haven't read it yet. I don't intent to read it until this is written because I'd like to sum up the deeper feelings I was having when I wrote the above post BEFORE I read what someone else says that I was saying. "Get it? Got it. Good."

This little pastry story really sums up my feelings about most things in life. There are a lot of things in this universe that look incredibly good. Some of them "taste" just like they look. Others are hollow. Some are filled with poison. Sadly it can often be difficult to differentiate between the three, especially when just looking on their outward appearances. (Note: in my original post I said that sin is like a hollow pastry - at this point I'm making a redefinition. "Hollow" means lacking in substance and "poisoned" means dangerous to the body, mind or spirit. I suppose that both of those conditions could exist in the same pastry at the same time.) Now, I'll be the first to admit that I eat copious amounts of hollow pastries - and half the time this blog may be fairly hollow, for which I am truly sorry - but I really do believe that we all need things of substance to survive in this world or to gain any semblance of joy. Hollow things -pastries that is - consume time and resources. Feasting on them and them alone leads to malnutrition.

Consider Isaiah 25:6

“And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.”

God wants us to have (infact, he wants to GIVE to us) things of substance: fat things, things full of marrow, and I told you before – His magnificently crafted grapes. (if you aren't yet sold on the grapes, just ask Schmetterling. He'll set you straight.)

Now consider Isaiah 24:16

"From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous. But I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me! the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously.”

Besides the bolded bit there sounding like it could be an awesome start to a classic piece of poetry, it's got me thinking about the peddlers of the world selling us that which is without substance. We waste away for lack of nourishment, and we pay for the privilege! Enter Isaiah 55:2

“Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”

It's all about getting fat my friends. "Eat that which is good." Stop paying physical and spritual curency (including resources like time or talents; and "bread" we already have, like peace of mind or joy) for that which isn't meeting needs. In media, and activities, and everything else in life we ought to be seeking substance for ourselves and offering substance to others. Whatever we choose to do, we had better get substance out of it, and when we find that what we are investing our "money" or "labour" in isn't yielding substance or satisfaction, then maybe it's time to look for new stocks. At least, that's what I had better do, and if I don't then I may find myself going to the same tables over and over just to find that the proffered pastries still deliver absolutely nothing that I'm looking for.

-Schlange

Something that is a part of this topic, yet that is apart from it is the concept of Becoming Something. I really want discuss that at a later date and when I do I'll create a hyper link here.

If you're interested, here is a talk by Elder Oaks (an apostle for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) that speaks about getting the best out of the good things in life:

Good, Better, Best (Ensign, Nov 2007, 104–8)

Inviting Yet Fruitless

(Post 15)

I just had a hollow experience. I attended an activity where food was provided (likely as an incentive to improve attendance). Amongst the table's insentivery chief weaponry were gourmet crackers with ranch dip, grapes of two varieties, orange juice, and a twinkling gem: pastries of some wonderful nature or another, glazed with gleaming sugar, and most temptingly oozing apple or raspberry filling from every crevice. I excitedly took one of each kind, found a corner free of distractions that might take from the experience, and lovingly lifted the apple pastry to my salivating taste tester. I placed the treat delicately between my teeth and applied pressure slowly, so as to extend the sensation of watering my tongue with sugary fruit goodness.

The expected flavor bomb never arrived. I began to chew vigorously and discovered that what should have been a masterfully crafted vehicle packed full of natural (but chemically enhanced for preservation) gifts for the nerve-endings in my tongue was nothing more than a thinly breaded carpool of the gasses that make up air. It was as a fig tree full of leaves but barren of fruit. (Fig tree's produce fruit before leaves… seeing leaves on a fig tree means you can expect ripe fruit).

After the crash of disappointment I looked at my raspberry pastry. "Little raspberry manna-cake," I thought to the sister of the sinful apple hypocrite, "your counterpart must have surely been a dud. You most certainly will not fail me. Not with such beauty in your figure and promise in your eyes… or icing in their absence." So I popped the raspberry pastry into my mouth. More disappointing than the first, this air pocket gave a hint and promise of forthcoming flavor that vanished with the breeze generated by the air escaping it.

I was crushed. But I yet could not believe that what I had sampled was the standard for all the beckoning desserts upon the table, so I ate four more. Whited sepulchers, all of them. It was like watching the food channel, but worse. Everything you see looks amazing and you wish that you could reach into the screen and pull out a sample. Well in this case you can, but when you bite into it you find that cable can't broadcast substance (which may be true in more senses than this one).

I'm fairly certain that the heinous company that made these tempting little heart breakers isn't going to make it through Armageddon. Particularly considering that the amount of residue that the filling on the OUTSIDE of the pastry left on the box they came in was greater than the filling occupying the centers of these great and spacious baked buildings.

So, I have some parallels to draw and re-reference; morals to extend; and lists to number:

• One: Don't be like a Pharisee… you don't want to end up like the cursed fig tree.
  
• Two: Sin is like a bad pastry. It tempts one with much, and leaves him with no fruit fillings. The more one places it in his mouth because he thinks it'll be better this time, the fewer flavors he'll have in life, along with a continued longing for the realization of never to be fulfilled promises.
  
• Three: A handful of God's own good grapes can make the world right when all joy has vanished.
  

-Schlange

~ Sunday, February 24, 2008 ~

The meaning beyond the satire.
(Stop here if you just wanted to read a rant about pastries. If you're looking for more substance click here. Also Schmetterling's post on The Eccentric Sage links this post to another fellow's post for the sake of making an interesting point. I recomend that you check it out.)

Minute Man

(post 14)

So, I have this Java Professor. He's a pretty cool guy, and I like him. He also works very much like a clock. He starts speaking at precisely the moment the bell rings and stops at exactly 12:50. Once I got to class 10 minutes early and slipped in the back while he was still teaching a different class. Just for fun I took a glance at the clock and took note of what he was saying. When he reached that point in the lecture in my class the clock said exactly the same time (one hour later) as it had in the previous class. The man is some sort of machine. Today, he had something important he wanted to add at the end of class. It was 12:50 and people were starting to leave. He said, "I'm sorry for keeping you, but I need one more minute of your time." He taught what he needed and then turned to the class and said, "thank you for the extra 58 seconds of your time. I hope you got something out of it." I've never been anywhere when someone actualy ment one minute when they said one minute.

I wonder what the world would be like if everyone could accurately estimate and stick to a time frame. What if "just a second" ment just a second, instead of "just 5 minutes", or if "just a minute" ment 58 seconds rather than "sometime between now and an hour."

A few years ago I saw segments of an 8 hour show from 1989, "Around the World in 80 Days," staring Pierce Brosnan as Phileas Fogg, with Eric Idle as his butler. In it, Phileas is the most punctual and predictable person in the universe. He arives at exactly the time he says and does what he's always done at that time and place, to the point that resturants know when he's coming and what he's eating and have it prepared and set before him as he's entering the doors. He bathes at exactly the same time and expects his water to be precisely 83 degrees.

If life was like that would things be easier or harder? I'd have all my assignments completed and on time. That'd be nice. Aside from that, I'm glad that things are the way they are - though I probably ought to work at making what I say be what I mean...

-Schlange

At A Later Date

(post 13)

Sadness.

I haven't been on a date in somewhere between two and three years. Much of that has to do with me volenteering two years of my life to teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I've been back from my mission for 6 months and just haven't got the guts up to ask anybody to go with me. So, I finaly did. I worked myself up to asking a pretty, nice, and funny girl to go ice-skating with me over the period of about 2 months.(That is to say, it took me 2 months to ask, rather than asking her to go ice-skating for 2 months.) I called her today and asked if she'd like to go. She said, "If you mean Friday or Saturday, I can't. My family is coming into town and I'm going to spend the weekend with them."

OUCH - not so much because she had other plans (and if I were her I would have said exactly the same thing), it's just that I spent so much time freeking out about it for nothing. Now I feel a little ackward about asking again - the same casual invitation, if repeated next weekend would now be not so casual by way of the repetition. How long are you supposed to wait before asking again? Maybe I need to ask someone else to go with me. Maybe then I wouldn't feel so akward asking later. (for those of you who are laughing at me, remember that this is a big thing for me right now... I'm soooooo out of touch with how to deal with women). *Sigh*

If anybody who lives close to me reads this I'd appriciate it if you'd keep this to yourself. If you're a woman who lives close to me reading this, then forget you read it. Think of me as suave and debonair. =)

-Schlange

“You Never Win”

(post 12)

I just had a unique opportunity. It came about because I've been up so late blogging. (I always forget what I want to blog about, and tonight I kept thinking of things, so I kept going… it's now 3:17 am and I'm exhausted – by the way, if my parents ever read this it's ok. It's a 3 day weekend and I just wired myself by programming for several hours. – These kinds of things are important to parents of college students who are suspected of staying up way later than is healthy.) Anyhow I had just finished the last post and published it to the web; I about to power down (I had an update threatening to turn off the computer in 3 minutes anyways) when my roommate started talking in his sleep. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get it down and remember it… when I ever do wake up to the noise other wake up in their sleep I can never remember what was said or done. So, here it is:

Sympathetically: "I'm sorry."

*Pause*

*Soft laugh – the type reserved for the humor of cruel irony*

*Pause*

With humor in voice: "You never win."

*Pause*

Trailing: "You never win…"

Here's the best part. I'd forgotten about that update. I never told it to wait. I was just about to post something similar to the above (what he said is accurate, what I said is different), when everything turned off without asking me to save or anything. I had to wait for the power up to retype this because I was determined to win. Today is the same day that I posted "Pain" and "Redemption?" as the result of losing everything I'd written for the last half hour; and "Pretzels" in the which I note that the program I spent 30 hours on over the last week was 2 hours too late to be on time. Everything I posted today was the epitome of " You never win."

*Much Laughter*

Word just crashed on me again (the first time I was writing "Pretzels") and then came back with a message that said something along the lines of "We've noticed that office has crashed on you frequently lately. We recommend that you run our office diagnostic tool." Fortunately, I'd just saved and Word has a good auto save…. I hadn't saved on "Pretzels" and it gave me most of it back. It crashed two times after that and I lost this post both times (I wasn't very far in either time). May I repeat: "You never win." Thanks for the hilarious timing Schmetterling. By the way, office has never crashed before on me, so I'm attributing it to the power of today.

Pretzels

(Post 11)

So, I learned the key to a woman's' heart. (No, not pretzels, that's just a tongue in cheek reference to a talk about the "Soul Kiss" by President Spencer W. Kimball.) Homework. Really. I'm not even talking about 1967 slang, in which the term "homework" is innuendo. What I am talking about is what I witnessed today in the Computer Science programming lab.

So that you'll understand, let me explain the circumstance that today's (today being today, not "this age") programmers faced in room 1119 of the Talmage building:

It's Friday, February 15, 2008. Valentine's day has come and gone. Lab 3 is due for pass off at 6:00 pm. I'm in the lab at 4:05, I ran there the second I got off work. I'm hungry and tired but I've got to put the final touches on a program that's already consumed 30 hours of my valuable time. Suddenly, Armageddon arrives – or I wish it would. My program freezes any time I push a button. I can't do anything but use the Task Manager to kill it and try again. After 50 such crashes it's 5:20, and I still don't know where I messed up. Tension in the room is building. 20 or so other students are in the room and it's silent except for the rainstorm pounding of fingers on keyboards and a few TA's or private tutors talking the mortally wounded through the valley of death. It's 5:42 and every so often someone screams or pounds something or curses the heavens – the resounding "Why?!?" reverberating off the aching eyes of everybody else in the room. A student jumps out of his chair and thrusts his hands in the air like he's on a rollercoaster and its headed to heaven. He runs up and down the aisle and out the door, all the time laughing and shouting "It works! It works! It FINALY works!" We watch him run past the door three times before he dances back in so he can pass off the lab. It's moments like this that make you understand how things like the word "Eureka" were invented. Every couple of minutes somebody repeats this rendezvous with victory until it's down to me, a girl to my right, two Indians in front of her (from India – or so I guess based on the frantic foreign dialogue shooting from their direction that says, in a voice that defies language barriers, that they are as stumped as I am), and a girl with a guy who is helping her work through her code.

It's 5:49; my program is running now and I only have one more basic feature to add. I do it in three minutes and run the program again. -- *BLUG-RA-GOOP!* -- That's the sensation that runs through my body when even though everything else is working, my output is somehow completely wrong. That means I've got to debug – run through my over one thousand lines of code and look for whatever weird glitch I created. My lungs won't move for a second. This project is not going to make it on time, even though I'll still do my darndest to try (I actualy didn't get done till 7:40 or so). I need a minute to breathe and collect myself so I can decide on the smartest way to tackle my newest problem. So I stand up and stretch and look around. Looks like the girl in front of me is having the same kind of problem. She's pale and looks weary. Her buddy is staring intently at her screen. He suddenly gets a bright look on his faces and says "Look! It's right there! You just have to change that ONE word!" She gets excited as she figures out what's going on. With a few quick strokes on the keyboard, her error is gone. I watch them stop breathing while they compile the program and run it. It executes perfectly.

I wait for the victory dance. It doesn't happen. Instead, she grabs the back of the guy's head with both hands and pulls him in for a kiss… she starts with a quick peck and then dives in for the big one. I look away (PDA's embarrass me – I don't know if that makes me moral or jealous or both). I look back up and they're still at it. I try to focus on my screen but they're right behind it. They'll stop soon, I'm sure. I feel grateful as he pulls back, but my relief is short lived. A split second for a breath is all the time she gives him before she's sucking the life out of him again. I think they would have had a full blown make out session right there in the lab if she didn't have less than five minutes to grab a TA and pass off the program. She turns back to her computer so she can add her name to the help/pass-off queue. He's got a glassy look in his eyes. He's obviously oblivious to everything in existence. Neither his head nor his eyes move and his mouth is half way open. That look didn't leave until he took it with him.

Conclusion: If you celebrated the 14^th of this month as "Singles Awareness Day" maybe you ought to learn to debug.

-Schlange

Redemption?

(post 10)

So the point of this post is to attempt to recapture what I lost (see post 9 – "Pain").

Let's see, my main point was that when I participate in different kinds of media I get in different moods. Today that means calm, relaxed, thoughtful. I explored the way that media may have the effect of Pavlov's fabled bell. I figured I ought to start dinging my own bells every so often so that I can salivate on command. (If you're confused by the metaphor its ok… just try reading this post late at night, then you too will likely salivate – more like drool with fatigue and boredom.)

I also explored the way media might act like progressive muscle relaxation on the brain– tightening and relaxing emotions, brain juices, and something-something (my English teacher told me lists of three are always good). Anyhow, the time is 0-100 hours. My brain is tightening but not relaxing. Good luck getting anything beneficial out of this second rate rendition.

By the way… I'm typing this in word and using word to publish it to the blog site. It's an experiment, and a protection against, well, pain. Huzzah for spellcheckers.

-Schlange

Pain

(post 9)

I wrote on this space for 30 min just a minute(or thirty) ago. The title of the blog was "Calm." It was a decent post. Not spectacular, but decent. Somehow I deleted it when I was trying to copy it and spellcheck it. That was ok because the awesome autosave feature kicked in right before I killed it. I only lost my signing out line. Easy to reproduce, no big deal. I felt elated. So I proceeded to copy it to spellcheck it and guess what, I mysteriously killed it again (and it still didn't make it to my clipboard). "So what?" says I, "I'll just go back to the saved draft and grab it again right?" As I think this the autosave does it's job again, only a half second before I could tap the appropriate button. *Deathknell* I'm thinking that the cruel irony is worse than the original pain of loosing it. Besides that, my stupidity is being rubbed in my face.

by the way. no spahellerChecking for this one. ever.

-Schlange

Write Good[sic]

(Post 8)

This post is a response to another blog by Schmetterling (which I recommend to those who are interested in thinking about what makes writing powerful, and which might need to be read to fully understand this post) I'm not going to say anything really different, I just wanted to examine one of the points that stood out to me as having extrodinary value.

So that readers understand that “writing good” is not a grammatically smelly phrase, here is an important and defining segment from Schmetterling's post: “[T]hat a person may write or speak well does not necessarily mean that they write or speak good, and this is the distinction I wish to emphasize.”

Having placed that, this last part of the last paragraph of that post is what I’m basing the majority of this post on because it really struck a chord with me.

"To communicate truth with such clarity and power is a feat of Soul that I can no more than aspire to achieve, but I believe that to do so ought to be the quintessential desire of any person inclined to speak or write."

This was for me the most important thing schmetterling said. I think there is a large difference amongst the categories of writing well (using words in a way that is correct and sometimes pleasing - writing with the mind, as Schmetterling says), writing compellingly (writing in a way that makes people love what you are saying - writing with the heart), and writing powerfully (writing about the things that are a major part of you, that you can thus convey with the power of your soul). All of these things are individual characteristics of "writing good" as laid out by Schmetterling. Additionaly, I believe that these are gradiations of writing... some might take them seperately, but they really do build on each other. Writing with the heart is so much more effective if one can write with the mind - using it to find the words that say what is ment. Writing with the soul can't be accepted or even understood by anyone unless it is written with the heart.

These things are all methods to an end. I wish to aproach the same topic in the reverse. Let us now concentrate on the end. I believe that understanding and seeking the end to which one writes with mind, heart and soul is what causes the development of all three. The heart of writing that which is good is centered in the word truth.

The difference between compelling writing and "writing good" is whether or not the idea being communicated is true. In fact, writing good may not be compelling, and is thus set aside by the average reader because though one wrote good he did not make use of good writing. The result of writing good should possess three qualities that you mentioned: TRUTH conveyed with POWER, and CLARITY. If all words (written or spoken) were designed with this end in mind, then the mind, the heart, and the soul would work themselves out with help from God. Provided that those who wrote and spoke possessed truth, and wanted so much for it to be understood that they learned clarity, and loved it so much that they shared it with power, perfect communication would be the result: those that read and heard would always be compelled to believe truth and to use it. I suppose then that writing good requires an action – the seeking of truth.

What marks the difference between good writers and writers who write good? Good writers are motivated by self-centered objectives – status, pats on the back, great sales, etc. (and generally lack what Schmetterling called soul, because they cater to a soulless popular sentiment). The writers of good seek the edification of their readers. (Schmetterling pegged this one: "Without meaning, without the honest intention to uplift or improve, without Soul, a work is utterly worthless. If a person has nothing to say, they should not speak.") The writers of good want others to understand what truth is, but they know that they can’t teach others about what is without finding it for themselves.

As a general rule, truth can’t be discovered until other known truths are applied. Generally speaking, writing good is the province of good men.

There it is: Write good. Do it with mind, heart, and soul. Learn how by seeking for truth, clarity, and power; especialy truth. Love the truth. Live the truth. Write about the truths you are gathering about you, and become the epitomy of what you write.

-Schlange

It's the Simple Things

(Post 7)

So, sometimes being a janitor at a dorm full of Freshman sometimes isn't all it's cut out to be... and most don't cut out very much of it. However, there are many many benefits to being a janitor... one of which is the associated Janitorial Zen that can be achieved by select Janitorial Zen Masters. Today I experienced two of those benefits, and I want to tell about them: 1.) There is something sadistically comic about a phenomenon that I as a janitor experience on a nearly daily basis. It usually presents itself in this way: I go to the closet, get out the yellow "closed" sign and set it up in the hallway. I lock the bathroom doors and hook up the hose so I can spray down the showers. Inevitably, before I get a chance to turn the water on I hear a set of sounds that make me as jolly as the Grinch would have been if he'd heard " all the Whos down in Who-ville [...] all cry BOO-HOO!" First the door handle to the left jiggles; then it rattles. Next, the door thumps back and forth on the doorframe. Fists pound the door while someone screams "NOOO!" or "Awe-Man!" or "#$@!" or my favorite, "Not AGAIN!" This is then repeated on the right door. Sometimes I hear one final kick at the door's footplate before I hear frantic running in the direction of the next bathroom. I really start to glow by this time, and my whole day just seems to go much better. Call me cruel, but cruel is as cruel does, or something like that... 2.) You meet interesting people as a janitor - like the guy that dances up the stairwell while his iPod is blasting. Today I met a coworker from one of the other buildings. He's from some Hispanic or Latino country. He makes me feel like I'm living "The Mummy" because he sounds almost exactly like Benny - you know, the guy who says "What friend? You are my only friend." and "It is better to be on the Devil's left hand than in his path." So anyhow... it's the little things that make life good.

-Schlange