For years now, I have been choosing to not sleep, choosing rather to procrastinate on doing homework and more recently, reading Wikipedia articles and surfing facebook photo albums. A stead over dose of caffeine guaranteed smooth sailing through out the University years, but now that I am working and "crash naps" are frowned upon all that bodily harm manifested in bits of rage. So yes, rage... not really a fruit of the spirit. To make matters worse, I am so completely surrounded with wonderful people that I could only just raging at every inefficiency I personally put out there.... So a couple of months of self depreciating seshes (driving in rush hour is great for that) lead to a shot confidence level and a final fork in the road.  I could either just chill out a bit, or I could let all this bubble out and start really affecting everything I did. FORTUNATELY, I picked option A.  But how do you just choose to feel better when you are kind of empty on the inside. Well, 4 simple things worked for me.

1) I started to actively think about other people.... depression is really quite selfish at its core, so fight that at the core!
2) Obey the speed limit - just try this for a week or so. Especially for us young bucks who drive anywhere in North America.... Speed limits are WAY to slow.... so Driving at these ridiculously slow speeds mandates relaxing
3) As you can guess for my situation, sleeping more then 5 hours a night
4) Hanging out with God, he really has some good things to say, not to mention he sets a good precedent for item 1.

So this kind of leads towards my title of this entry a bit more. But I will tell you about one more story, this one regarding Heros. I have two references fro this. The first is that radio broadcast with Focus on the Family (Canada) in which they interview Mr. Jim Ryun, Author of  "Heros among us".
http://listen.family.org/daily/A000001920.cfm

Second is a TED talk on "what is a Hero"
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html

Both of these sourse are very interesting for a number of reasons, but for the purpose of this blog entery... Jim Ryun summarizes it all so well with his deffinision of a Hero:

"[A hero is] some one who has enough personal character to make the right choice at the right time" and essentially stating that how we deal with all the little issues, is really the most important perparation we could ever have for what ever epic or LASTING VALUE we could have on the world and people around us.

So There you have it, an explosion of everything I have on my mind, this evening in which I am once again, doing anything possible (blogging) to keep from sleeping...oh well :)
-Andy

I have been doing some research/procrastinating as of late regarding wave power. In my mind, this source of power always seemed to be not only unpredictable (variation Day to Day), but so very complicated to harness. Waves, seemed to go up and down, slowly - translating this into the rotationally power needed to turn the generator - seem to be both difficult and not worth the effort.

I mentioned earlier the Pelamis project, a really creative new wave power design which not only managed to by pass the whole rotational issue, but is also already producing electricity! It did this by using wave power to drive a pump; the pump then creates a more "conventional" flow (in a pipe) which drives a traditional turbine.

Well I have found another pumping based idea, one which over comes yet one more issue, power storage. When waves are not strong enough, or to strong for power production, what are we to do? Optimal waves do not necessarily come in at the same time that we need electricity. Well some people in California have taken the idea of a wave pump, to pump water into a reservoir (located on land). Once the water is in this reservoir, it can be used, or stored as long as needed - used only when electricity is in demand. From this reservoir, as with conventional hydroelectric power, falling water can be used to make power. Simple, tested and true technology, minimal start up costs - this is a good idea.
(you can read more here)
http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/2004/Wave-Power-Trinidad4aug04.htm

It has been a busy week - to begin with, I absolutely botched a job interview. Great people, Fantastic company, even better location - Not so great Andy. One of those "I would hire me, but not that guy in the interview" moments. What ever... Life goes on, but that certainly lead me to one of those "reflective" weeks and hence where I am today, well yesterday --> Small groups

So what is the purpose of small groups? I think that intimacy plays a big part. Running all of lifes' stresses through just your head is rather selfish - but even more likely to make you go crazy. Particularly for the singles out there, we need to talk and talk deeply to others. To those with experience, and those currently experiencing.

I don't know about many of you, but I really struggle with my image; essentially a pride thing. Which brings me to perhaps the most important bit about a tight small group: They know you well enough, that you can't run and hide behind your comfortable image. You have to face the group with all you short comings. I thing is what paul was talking about when he stressed how critical it was to "confess" (an old but fitting word) to "one another". It brings people together, builds people up and likely involves coffee and dounuts.

But enough of the emmo --> Todays thoughts

So but what about the rest of the week - well in one of my classes we started to talk about the "virtual self". This is the image(s) which we put up about ourselves through the ever dissociated institution of the internet (i.e through our facebook photo essays of our trips, our gaming styles , or even out blogs). So I must say really good timing and so good that I think I will try to do my class paper (or video) on it.

P.S. anyone have some good types on video making - just simple graphics based youtube type

But this virtual self concept, though I have heard of it before (I am sure many of you two), it did get me thinking. Is this even a new thing? Did we just call it "small talk" before? or is this a new or newly-facilitated concept, which will really have side effects on are next few generations? I don't know.

--Cool technology insert---

So one last things, a rather cool one too - so far this is the most creative and solid design I have found regarding wave power. (Wave Power Goodness) This is a worm-inspired design, build by a Scotish company. The basic concept is: you make a 3 or 4 bar linkage. This linkage is then floating in the waves and each link is allowed to bend as a wave passes by. Much like an air bellow(s?) (that thing used to blow air on fires), as each link bends back and forth, fluid is pumped around an internal pipe network. The moving fluid has a turbine attached to it - and hence power can be generated. It doesn't make a heck of allot of power, but it is darn creative. It is kind of like the Art of Engineering :)

But enough of me, have a great day.