About me

I'm a 27-year-old software developer living in Augusta, GA. I was born in Stuttgart, Germany. I grew up as an army brat in Georgia, North-Carolina, Berlin, and Milwaukee.

I am a condemned sinner, saved by the grace of God and blood of the savior Jesus Christ. There is nothing of value in my life except that which He redeems for His use. Most days I am a very bad Christian; nevertheless I look forward with hope to the coming resurrection, when this body of death is replaced with His perfection.

I'm an INTP personality ("Thinker"). My primary hobby is collecting hobbies. At various times in my life I will try picking up painting, wargaming, writing, music, foreign languages, sketching, poetry, etc. So far, the only ones that have stuck for any reasonable period of time are programming (which I now do for a living) and music (I play guitar).

I have quite a nerd pedigree. I've read Frank Herbet's Dune series six times, I've read Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time four times, and I have watched all the Star Trek and Star Wars movies umpteen-million times. I play Dungeons & Dragons, and one day I dream of being as good a Dungeon Master as J. R. R. Tolkien. For fun once (not as part of my CS curriculum), I wrote a virtual-machine for a theoretical stack-based processer. Then I wrote a C-compiler for it. Then I wrote a LISP interpreter for it. Speaking of LISP interpreters, I like writing those for fun, too. I keep rewriting them every time I learn a new language. To date, the only application I've rewritten more often are MUD's, which I have written in five languages now. None of them to completion, of course; I can't pay attention to anything long enough to finish it. About half-way through, I'll realize I don't have a server to host it on, so I stop and delete my code. This will inevitably later frustrate me when I have to rewrite the TCP code again. I swear next time I'll keep it. I promise.

The Gospel

In the beginning, God created the earth and everything in it, including man. He created man in His own image. This is not to say that God has two arms, two legs, and a head; rather, that we as men share, in a small measure, that quality which God possesses in perfection and infinity: the ability to reason and create. In fact, God's first task to man was to name each animal, thereby inviting man to take part in His own creation.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve (the first man and woman) were invited to sample everything the Garden had to offer save one: a tree from which they were forbidden to eat. Eve, tempted by the devil in the form of a snake, took and ate the fruit, and invited her husband Adam to do with same, and he did. Thus, man separated himself from God completely, earning for himself and all his descendents utter damnation. Now, most will say this is a severe over-reaction to a completely innocent act. Understand, though, that the first sin was not plucking in fruit from the tree and eating it. Rather, the first sin came before that, when Eve allowed herself to believe the serpent (Satan) when he claimed that God had lied to them, and that they ought to set themselves up in God's place ("Eat, and you shall be as gods yourselves"). The first sin, like all the sins of humanity thenceforth, come from two things: (1) an inate distrust of God and (2) a desire to take His place in our lives.

That all men share this deficiency should be obvious. If seven-thousand years of recorded history have taught us anything, it should be that mankind is unfit to govern himself. War, deprivation, rape, murder, and lies abound in this world. Evil men triumph and good men are led astray. Our "freedom of will" is a trap that ensnares us; it gets us relying on ourselves. We believe, everyday, the lie that we are our own saviors. If we can reason enough, talk enough, and pontificate enough, we can solve this world's ills. Unfortunately, earthly-minded intellectuals have been doing this for thousands of years to no avail. The world needs to be rescued; it needs a savior.

God, the same God who has condemned all sinners to hell, will not sit idly by and watch his creation unravel. Rather, he came to earth in the form of a man (Jesus Christ), subjecting Himself even to death for the sake of His creation, so that all who believe in Jesus and call on His name shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Each of us, as men, are responsible for the death of Christ, for it is for our sins He died. His grace is extended to all who will trust and repent.

What is trust and repentence? It is the exact opposite of the two things that got us in our fallen state in the first place: distrust of God's willingness or ability to provide for us and our desire to take His place as ruler in our lives. We must trust that all things, whether good or bad, are orchestrated by God for His glory and our benefit. We must trust that, if we have given our lives over to Him, then he is fully willing and able to give us that which He has promised us: everlasting life and joy. We must repent of our sin; our lusts and pride. We must sincerely hate our evil and cling to righteousness. We must also, above all, remember that we are, though saved, still sinners in need of God's grace every day.