3 Ways You can Be an Effective Philosopher Now!

Jason uses a few marketing gems to help you become the amazing philosopher you always wanted to be! Here is how the "master" does it!

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Being Slow and Late

I am the tortoise and I don't know if there is any virtue in it...

I am realizing that I am a slow person and that, when it comes to life's accomplishments, I am typically running a bit late.  As the years pass, I notice my colleagues and my supervisors are getting younger and younger in comparison to myself. They seem certainly to have accomplished far more and moved up the "ladder of success" earlier in life than I did and it is a little depressing.  In this break-neck-paced world, I can't even begin to keep up!

I take consolation in the fact that, in the eternal scheme of things, it really doesn't matter how long your personal development takes as long as you are on the right road, you are faced in the right direction, and you are moving forward. To be early about things is an advantage surely, but the reward it still the same - if you continue on, you will reach the destination of God's exaltation.

Back to Prison

In 1999, I had just left my off-shore job and I was able to find work at a prison about 60 miles from our home as a computer technician. I only worked there for a few months, but I met some inmates that were Mormons like I am. One of them hooked me up with the prison chaplain and asked that I start a "sunday school" class for the Latter-Day Saint inmates. I decided to do it and a friend of mine, who had spare time and income on his hands, got involved with it as well.  Many Saturdays, we would make the drive to the prison in my friend truck, spend some time with a handful of inmates, and drive back, which took up the bulk of the day.

It was a marvelous experience and I can say that some of my most enduring spiritual experiences happened in a tiny, cinder-block room in the bowels of the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility (GCCF)!

Sadly, as the years passed, I guess my friend got burned out and dispirited as our favorite prison chaplain died of cancer and the cost of travel and time was taking a toll on my family and causing a few problems, so our prison visits came to an end.

I don't remember when we stopped visiting at the prison, so I don't know how long it has been since I did it, but it has been a long while.  A few months ago, I got the impression to look up what the Church (of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) had on its website about prison services and was quite impressed with the progress made. When we started fifteen years ago, there was very little guidance and we were basically on our own.  I said something to my wife, looked up what prisons were nearby, and dropped the subject.

Then, one of our high councilors came and spoke at our ward and I had an impression to ask him what the stake was doing for prison services.  He surprised me by saying that they were just getting something pulled together and that they would love to have someone who had some experience or even interest in doing this! I was hooked up with another man who the stake had identified and finally got on the phone with him last night.

So, I am getting back involved with LDS Prison Services after a bit of a hiatus and it seems to be motivated by the Lord. Perhaps there will be more on this in future posts.

I am the Master, Not the Doctor

Lest you think me cocky with the title, it was not not me that proclaimed myself a Master.  After nearly eighteen months of effort and lack of sleep, Western Governors University has proclaimed me a Master of Science.  I am told I have mastered Information Technology and have a specialization in Network Management, so who am I to argue with that?

Now that this is done, I will likely take a bit of a break and then get back to my more philosophical writing, if I can muster such.

The Quasi-Indefatigable Xenolith Server Returns

After a wrestling match with AT&T U-verse, the long stretch of server-less-ness has finally come to an end. If you thought http://qix.me, http://quix.us, gopher://qix.me, http://shetlandic.info, and all the rest had disappeared into the fading purple of the World-Wide-Web sunset, you were wrong. It lives on!

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

We have a house under contract in Oklahoma City and the plan is to close on it and move in by the end of February. Not too long thereafter in March 2014, I hope to have the server back on-line (likely with far better bandwidth than previously) and resume regular operations.

Extended Downtime

If you have noticed that http://qix.me and gopher://qix.me have been off-line, that is because my family has relocated to Oklahoma and our situation is too fluid for now to allow for a decent internet connection for the home server.  I have no idea when this will be remedied.