"Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?" -- Jeremiah 32:27

"In that day you shall not be shamed for any of your deeds In which you transgress against Me;" -- Zephaniah 3:11a

"But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid." -- Matthew 14:27


Throughout season's change, God continues to prove His faithfulness.

When I see pictures of me taken one year ago, I am always amazed at how young I look. Other people have commented simmilarily, and I have observed the same in others.

When I look back over my previous posts here on PhuseBox, I thought the same exact thing, "Wow! Who is this kid that bothers himself with things that don't matter, is tossed in every direction by waves of emotion and passing life, and lacks a maturity of which he thought he had more?"

My, how things have changed over the past year. Facets of life that seemed so important were not. Challenges jousted as worthy adversaries in the valient journey of the living turned out to be trivial in magnitude.

I would be lying if I said I looked back and saw a rock. It kinda makes me wonder what I will be saying about myself one year from now. Will I sit and chuckle as I do now and think, "Did I know this kid, lacking maturity, ill-prepared for the grown-up life?"

Who knows? I suppose it's all a necessary part of the expedition set before us. Would I go back and repeat the last year if given the opportunity? Not a chance. Despite what appears to be a precarious and awkward kid, I would not be who I am today without what I've passed through and hopefully learned valuable lessons from.

Someone hosed the server my stuff was hosted on. Until I work out the kinks (and maybe longer), I may be reached by email at tallmann@gmail.com.

The top scorers both at MTSU and overall in Facebook's basketball tournament bracket contest were girls. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I think it's pretty interesting.


photo from tallmann

To clarify, only one power supply went bad. It had about 17,000 hours on it. The most it was off in the past two years, was for about 16 hours while I moved. Two weeks ago when the power supply bit the dust, it took the mobo and proc. I finally bought a new mb and proc today. I upgraded to Socket 939 which gives me the option for dual core *drool*. Due to cost concerns, I have opted for a single core Athlon 64 3000. I also spent the money for a better power supply this time.

I would love to do the mac thing. Give me that 64 bit desktop environment and I'd be a happy man. However, as I mentioned earlier, cost is a concern. Looking at cost/power, I can't justify spending the $$. Believe it or not, with the proper research, one can build an extremely stable 64bit desktop for a decent price.

Maybe I'll post the specs for my new*ish box later.

...Speaking of things blowing up.

My power supply blew up last Sunday. It took the mobo and proc with it.

See you when the money comes in to order new parts.

Ladies and gentlemen, I, Nate Tallman, have had my submitted story on the front page of Digg! This is uber-exciting for me. Not only was it the first story I've ever submitted, but it made it to the front page and currently has 1216 diggs!

Here is the link to Digg. I am Livewired. How exhilerating!

I consider myself to have a pretty high pain tolerance. That being said, I try not to take pain killers unless I absolutely have to. Well, my tooth has been killing me today. It was giving me a splitting headache so I dugg out the mepergan fortis (a strong painkiller with anti-nausea additive). Now my stomach is upset, which could be attributed to the Mexican food I had for dinner.

Ultimately, I need to get this broken tooth fixed. The problem is, dental work is expensive. I know that if I go to the dentist, he will want to do an examination first. He'll find that my teeth aren't in the best condition. Then I will have to schedule a second appointment to actually get the tooth fixed. I'm also afraid that it is going to require a root canal.

This tooth had a filling many moons ago. That filling fell out last August (I think), then the tooth broke on September 28th (my birthday). It hasn't bothered me too much until now.

Dentists don't scare me. Dentist's bills scare me.

I went to a friends house last night to help with an English paper. When I left at 4:00am, I was faced with a little obstacle.

I looked down this stretch of road, realizing that there was not a salt truck anywhere near here. Snow isn't too bad. If you take it easy and don't take curves too fast, you'll be alright.

Here come the problems though:

I decided to take Rutherford Blvd., thinking that it would've been one of the first roads the salt trucks got to. I was very wrong. Under the snow was a solid layer of ice.


Well, as long as there's snow on top of the ice, I'll have a little bit of traction. As you can see here though, the trucks and cars before me blew the snow off the ice. I was forced to ride on the shoulder for most of my trek home. 20mph in 2nd gear was the fastest I went. A few morons blew past at about 40mph as I prayed that they wouldn't lose control behind me and clobber me. There was also a few tense moments when I ran out of snow and had to ride on the ice.

When you're on two wheels on ice, there is nothing you can do to keep the rubber side down. Several times, I had to put my feet out like skis to keep from wiping out.



Thankfully, I made it home. She's a trusty bike.

The trip was not without some repercussions.

Despite my cold weather attire, I was very cold when I got home. The 27 F left my fingers numb and hurting as the feeling came back. Hopefully I won't have to ride in too much of this stuff this season.

My apologies to Elizabeth Duncan for the five pictures in my post :)

So apparently, this is what I will look like in about 20 years. I wonder if we'll find out.

So last Saturday night, I stayed up all night. It's not usually a big deal, but this time was different. I went to church Sunday morning, went to lunch with Amy and Jennifer, then went home and took a nice 4.5 hour nap. That night, I wasn't able to go to sleep so I ended up falling asleep at about 7:00am.
That's the way this whole week has been! Go to sleep sometime between 7:00am-10:00am, then wake up between 1:00pm-2:00pm to go to work or whatever. I've seen several sunrises this week so I thought I'd finally document it:

Isn't it, "red sky in morning, sailor's warning"?


I love contrails. The morning and evening sun light them up like they are on fire.


Me at sunrise. I'll probably go to bed soon for a few hours. Today is laundry day!

You have no right to say - "O Lord, I am so exhausted." He saved and sanctified you in order to exhaust you. Be exhausted for God, but remember that your supply comes from Him.

Then those who sing as well as those who play the flutes shall say, "All my springs of joy are in you." --Psalm 87:7

I've started putting pictures from China on my personal website. There's about 80 right now, but that number will go up considerably in the next few days. I'm not using phusebox for this particular album because I needed to be able to transfer a large number of images and transferring five at a time via http wasn't going to be good for my health. I also had some greater flexibility with StuffedCouch as I have ssh/scp access. Anyways enjoy!

StuffedCouch.com

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no-one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.
-- C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

I miss China. Last night, I went to bed before midnight (shocking, I know). I don't usually remember dreams, but last night, I vividly remember dreaming about China. When I woke up, I had a few emails from some Chinese friends in my inbox.

I'm ready to go back.
Here's what I'm missing:

So for the past few days, when I took off my shoes, I noticed that my right foot is partially numb. I thought it was just from being on my feet, in my boots all day. Now I'm beginning to wonder, though. I've been sitting here and noticed that it is tingly.

The right side, including the three right toes are definately going numb. I can still move them and have no problems walking, but it's starting to get on my nerves. It kind of feels like my foot is asleep and not waking up.

It's probably not serious.

"Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails;" -- I Corinthians 13:4-8a

Had an epiphany tonight sitting at dinner. I think I caught a glimpse of why love is such a crazy concept for humans (including myself).
I Corinthians 13 is a very popular passage of scripture, and not without reason. It describes the attributes of a concept that humans live for, dream about, hope for, die for, and sometimes do evil for. This... concept, for lack of a better term, plays a huge role in our lives and has massive weight in our decision making process, but is so confusing for so many of us.
 Look at the attributes of love: Patience, kindness, not jealous, doesn't brag, isn't arrogent, isn't rude, isn't self seeking, isn't easily angered, forgives, doesn't find pleasure in evil, rejoices in truth, bears, believes, hopes, endures, it never fails.
To sum it up, love is everything that depraved man is not. This idea of love is an extreme polar opposite to man! I'm definately not patient (ask my friends), I get jealous, as much as I fight it, I'm arrogent and prideful, I seek out what's best for me, I get angry, then fight to forgive, every single day I find pleasure in some sort of evil, then it burns me up when the truth comes and convicts. I FAIL every single day of my life. Sometimes, it seems kind of hopeless. How can I have something such as love, which is so foreign to my character?

I thank God that I'm not myself. Oh, straggling pieces of my former self may linger and irritate like a splinter under the skin, but those are gradually being pulled out. Romans says I'm being conformed to an image. The image is of the One who fits every description given in this chapter and more. He is the beginning and end of all things, including this crazy idea with a four letter name. God is love.

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." -- I John 4:7-10

Yeah, I'm in deep and coming up too fast.

I'm back in America... kind of.

In about 79 hours, I'll be somewhere in Canadian airspace. I'm psyched.

In other news, I'm totally obessesed with my new camera. I've been taking pictures galore. I've taken about 650 pictures but only kept 175 of them. Of those, only a few made it here.

P.S. Matt Beard is in the 48! Woo Hoo!

So I've taken lots of pictures with my new camera. My apologies if you fall victim to its eye.

Distance home... 3.6 miles
Avg. speed... 50 mph
Temperature...  21 F

If I could grow a beard, I would. The wind goes between my helmet and coat and makes my chin numb. But, who cares about the cold ride home? Grilled cheese, mindless TV, and 7161923201 made it worth it.

Gotta get up in five hours so I can go to work early. Why? Cause I'm going to see Chronicles tomorrow night (read: tonight)!

What am I going to do with nine days?

I'm uberexcited! I leave in 13 days. It will be a little tough while I'm gone, but He's with me.

I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight. I'm bursting at the seams with excitement. In my anticipation, may I not to forget to live today while it's here.

"Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph! For the Lord Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth. He will subdue the peoples under us, and the nations under our feet. He will choose our inheritance for us,..." Psalm 47:1-4