Fidelacchius, Esperacchius, Amoracchius.

Archive for the ‘Strength’ Category

Ever Feel Like This…..

SinFest Comic by Tatsuya Ishida

I know I have, and my guess is you have too if you’ve ever tried building your relationship with god.  Though me thinks that most of this part of the conversation has more to do with the internal struggle that all us sinners deal with.  For me personally, I really have to struggle to stop listening to my self, and break on through to the other side.  Then the true conversation can begin.  Short thought of the moment, but it just made me think.

Kevin.

Image by Tatsuya Ishida

Comic by Tatsuya Ishida

With the devastation of Ike, there is a lot that runs through your head.  included in the hardships of day to day life, is the inevitable question, “Is god out there?”.  Why would he allow this?  Or, Why would he do this to people?

I wonder if….  God is love.  That’s what they say isn’t it.  From the mortal experience, we seem to have all sorts of perspective on Love.  I believe we are allowed to have as much control over Nature as he does.  We forget though that both we and he have to play by the rules.  It’s funny but you can think of the Holy Ghost as a referree and all you have to do is ask, “Am I gonna win this one?  Is it worth losing the game?  What do I do?”. 

See,  existance has rules, and even God “walks the razors edge of necessity” (Skousen, Cleon) in what he can and cannot reveal to us without taking away our free will.  So, Heavenly Father is more aware of the rules, loopholes, and damage than we are.  But he doesn’t keep that hidden on purpose, we just have to faithfully ask.  As well as asking we are required to have faith that the “Universe is the great Equalizer” (Isani Cayetano).  We may not win this round, we may not understand God’s nature, but we must maintain faith that he is a fair and just God.  God will restore what is ours to us in time.

I have a testimony that God is just with us and that he allows us to have strife, temptation, and challenges.  He also promises to be with us when we ask of him.  He will return to us our righteousness, justice, mercy, goodness, kindness, injustices, intolerance, and all our doings.  God lives by the Golden Rule.  I think I’ll close this post with the words of Alma to Corianton, the son he loved so much he gave these great words of wisdom. (pulled from http://scriptures.lds.org)

12 And now behold, is the meaning of the word restoration to take a thing of a natural state and place it in an unnatural state, or to place it in a state opposite to its nature?

SO it’s finally time to reveal why my title is what it is.  The Three words are a form of Quasi-Latin used as the name of three Mythical swords.  These swords have been passed down through the ages each one owned and cared for a by a Knight of the Cross.  The Knights, with the swords, “serve the righteous for a just cause”.  Each sword carries one of three nails from the cross built into the hilt.  The swords names , meaning, and connections are listed below.

Fidelacchius

• Hebrews 11:6

•  

  Katana

• Shiro Yoshimo
• Faith

Esperacchius

• Hebrews 7:19

• 

  Saber

• Sanya
• Hope

Amoracchius

• 1st Corinthians 13:4-8

• 

  Broadsword

• Michael Carpenter
• Love/Charity

 So…. Literally the title of my Blog translates into Faith, Hope, and Charity.  I think that it is a great reminder to me to have a personal reminder of the virtues of god on my home and my blog.

The names, owners and backgrounds of the swords are part of a fictional fantasy series called “The Dresden Files” and are authored by Jim Butcher.  They are his, not my Original Creation.

I finished my Portfolio and turned it in for grading.  My Portfolio was made of…

• Two Cover Sheets
• Employer Authorization form (Because my portfolio covered a Baylor Project)
• Table of Contents
• 8 Page Essay covering any trend in IT. I came up with…
  “Open Source Software as a Communication Bridge in IT Project Management”
• Reference Page with a list of APA formatted Citations for all references used
• Competency Matrix with 16 listed competencies relating to the Essay.
• Exhibit 1: MySQL Open Source Database used in project as Web Site data storage.
• Exhibit 2: PDF and iCal files of Project Schedule made as an addition to the website for offline schedule verifications
• Exhibit 3: XHTML Source code showing both PHP and hand created code instructing users on how to setup IP printers on OS X
• Exhibit 4: WordPress Theme developed to maintain look and feel of other internal Baylor websites.  Included Text from the CSS file for the presentational layout, as well as the whole theme file zipped up for review by the grader.

Looking back on it now, it seems like a long list.  But I enjoyed getting all the parts together.  Lucky for me I had a past project that I lead and had intimate experience with.  Using that project, I built my portfolio files and data during July and August and then finished the Essay in 2 days. 

The class has twelve grading rubrics ranging from 1.0-4.0 and an overall 3.0 is the minimum passing standard.  Overall, I was happy with what I had submitted, and while I wasn’t expecting a 4.0 on this grade, I felt confident that I wouldn’t have to resubmit.  Of the small concerns I had about the submission, Dr. Teston gave me some good viewpoints so I felt better as I waited to find out my grade.  

So I checked Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, waiting to see my grade.  Nothing showed up and I went home after work, ready for the weekend.  Late Friday Night I was surfing around and ran out of interesting places to look at on the internet (Funny huh).  I decided to look one last time at the TaskStream website where my portfolio was being graded.  The Class came up with a lock on it, and I clicked on the Submission Tab.  And there, at 7:15 PM, my Grader had posted my grade.  Dun Dun Dun Dun!!!!!

3.92...
Wait... What...

!!!3.92!!!

3.92 out of 4.0 Roughly equal to a 98%.  Santa Vaca!!! Not only did I pass, I passed right up at the top.  I let out a whoop of triumph and scared Kaylene.  Luckily Joey didn’t wake up so she didn’t automatically kick me.  What a Triumph.  As you can tell, I’m proud of myself.

So I have till the end of October to finish some more classes.  Since I’ve been focusing on Non Tech Classes at the beginning of the term, I’m thinking of finishing the Web Tecnologies and Client Systems Certification. 

Classes Finished:
Term 1:

• Education without Boundaries
• Leadership and Professionalism
• Quantitative Literacy

Term 2:

• Foundations of Language and Communication
• Quantitative Reasoning and Communication
• IT Fundamentals I
• Rhetorical and Critical Writing
• IT Fundamentals II
• IT Fundamentals III
• Programming Fundamentals

Term 3:

• Networks I
• Ethics Part I
• Ethics Part II
• Social Science Part II: American History & Government, World History and Geography

Term 4:

• Natural Science Part II:Concepts & Theories-Life, Earth, Space, and Physical Sciences
• Project Management
• IT Portfolio

Classes still to pass:

Classes with Technical Certifications:

• Client Systems
• Web Technologies
• Programming Fundamentals II
• Database I
• Security I

Non-Technical Classes:

• Research, Writing and Oral Presentation
• Reasoning & Problem Solving in the Context of the Humanities Part I
• Reasoning & Problem Solving in the Context of the Humanities Part II
• Technical Writing
• IT Capstone Project

Kevin Steele

 Rodney was the nickname that my family gave to the raccoon who so huggingly gave me rabies.  I was a teenager in Aiken South Carolina and was weeding the bushes at the side of the house.  Afton was asleep on the couch and Mom was out doing errands.    I heard a strangling gurgled noise and turned around to see a raccoon standing at the end of the row.  Literally, standing on 2 feet, swaying like a drunkard.  I didn’t know what to do.  It was a short stalemate with me standing on one side not knowing what to do and him staring me down through a haze.

Quick as a flash, he closed the 10 foot distance, jumped, wrapped his legs around my leg, and started going to town on my knee with his little raccoon teeth.  It took me a second for shock to wear off, and then I kicked him across the yard.  I should have followed him to figure out where he was going, but instead, I ran inside yelling about how I had been bit by a raccoon.  Afton woke up long enough to look at me, say yeah right, and then role back around back to sleep. 

I waited until my mom came home, and told her that I’d been bit by a raccoon.  She didn’t believe me either, until I showed her the hole in my pants and said, why would I do this.  So we went to the Doctor and I had a Bazillion shots and had to come back for 5 more weeks while they rotated more shots on my body.  By the time I was half way finished with the shot treatment, I found out that the neighbor lady had also been bitten.  She had then dragged the raccon scratching, biting and hissing all the way from their Blueberry patch to the front steps of her house.  At this point her husband brought a baseball bat and beat the raccoon to death.  They sent it off for testing and sure enough….  It did have Rabies.

 BTW, I despise raccoons.  To quote Kaylene….

“They’re oversized cockroaches”.

Dedicated to the memory of Rodney the Rabid Raccoon. 

Comic owned by Mitch Clem at www.mitchclem.com