JohnnyBGamer

Stargazing

Sundays are always long days for some reason. This past Sunday was no different from any other, except I took my son on an adventure.

The sun had long set when I asked my 3 year old if he wanted to go outside. He had been sitting on the couch playing Learning with the PooYoos on the PS3. He quickly said yes and scrambled to get his shoes on. Wanting to know what we were going to be doing, I told him that we were going on an adventure. So we grabbed our flashlights and headed out into the dark backyard.

Trees transformed into monsters; shadows danced along with the flashlights. We walked around the backyard on our adventure, checking out different nooks and crannies. It was then that I had an idea, so I ran back inside the house and grabbed the iPad.

3912461996_13fdf843e3 — *Photo by HubbleColor {Zolt}, Creative Commons

Coming back outside, I set a chair out in the middle of the yard and we sat and stared at the sky. I showed him where different planets were thanks to the Star Walk app. The entire time you could almost see the gears in his brain working overtime. He kept asking questions, wanting to know if we could breathe on Mars. He asked me if there were robots on Mars. I told him yes. He grew very concerned when I told him that we had left a robot or two on Mars due to their batteries dying. Later on, when we went back into the house, he asked his Mom how we could get batteries to the robots. Apparently robots are cooler than planets. I should know that.

Failure is OKAY

A few weeks into a job, I came across a situation that was very foreign to me, verbal abuse. I don’t remember exactly what the task was, but my boss repeatedly told me that I had failed.

“This task is so easy that a third grader could do this.”

Then pointing out the window, “Do you see the Fedex person walking by? This is so easy that they could do this.”

Any sense of college optimism I had jumped out the window in that moment. Sadly, I began to let small repeated moments like those define who I am. Lies from the very pit of Hell itself.

Past failure, if we let it, can quickly become a part of our identity.

Failure is okay. I think that we have to grant ourselves the slack to fail from time-to-time. As long as we are learning from those failures, we are golden. Lies can only be exposed by truth. It is okay to fail because you will.

Shift+Enter and WordPress

Lately I have been working on redoing some staff bio pages for the church project I am working on. One of the problems I have come across is the way WordPress drops to a new line when you press the enter key.

3275758192_7e3927d553_n — *Photo by Peter Løvstrøm, Creative Commons

For example, I wanted to put my pastor’s name and then his title below his name:

John Smith

Pastor

Notice that when I press enter it creates a space. This formatting issue has greatly troubled me. Made me think that I was going to have to go into the HTML coding and individually code lines or something. Instead, my good friend that is web design, Scotto, told me to press shift + enter to do single line spacing. Guess what, it works!

John Smith
Pastor

Thanks Scotto!

Assassin’s Creed III: Shifting Emotional Gears

Note: The following contains spoilers regarding Assassin’s Creed III. Turn back now if you have yet to play this game. You will thank me. I promise.

Three hours into my Assassin’s Creed III play-through, I finally came across the emotional meat needed to sustain my gaming appetite. Up until this point, I had been playing through what I now know was a three sequence long prologue. Using Haytham Kenway as the player’s gateway into the world of ACIII was genius if not jarring. After months of seeing the protagonist Connor’s face splashed across multiple web sites and magazines, my initial reaction to Haytham was a resounding, “huh”. Why am I not playing as the awesome looking assassin on the front cover of the game? Who is “Haytham Kenway”? Time certainly did reveal that all along I was playing as both Connor’s father and as a much hated Templar–plot twist!–.

I was excited to finally play as Connor last night. His story seems to be fueled by revenge, much like Ezio’s story in ACII. How this The Patriot meets Pocahontas/The Last of the Mohicans mash-up plays out remains to be seen. I will be back.

Assassin’s Creed III Impressions

The adventures of Haytham Kenway continued last night as I dove back into Assassin’s Creed III. During my hour play time I:

Accidentally fired my pistol at a British officer walking by (this did not go over well)
Recruited some men sympathetic to my cause
Killed a slave trader
Freed a group of Mohawk Indians
Met Pocahontas–I tease! Pocahontas was not a Mohawk Indian–.

Overall, the game’s story has not been as compelling/coherent as Assassin’s Creed II so far. I am hoping that the story line soon picks up and that my $60 purchase is justified.