I originally wrote this post on July 3rd, 2004, on my original blog. The area between the horizontal breaks was added today.

This week has been wild. First, Bethany’s car died. I spent until 9 pm fixing it, after I had worked a long day. The next day, Bethany’s power dims, and none of her plugs work. I have a computer I’m about to work on, and I have to tell this nice older man at church that I can’t fix it just yet… That same night, my truck dies… horribly. Blew a head gasket. Bethany’s had a psychotic week at work, she’s sick, I’m exhausted… So, I figure this is appropriate.

I used to HATE it when this didn’t go my way. It’d get me down, depressed, and oh, so pissed off.

Praise the Lord, I’m no longer bound to the emotional savagery that washes over you when it seems everything in life is conspiring to drown you, and crush you.

See, I live by a different paradigm, now. My goal is NOT to advance myself, and to make sure I’m #1 on everyone’s list. It’s to advance the cause of Christ! So, like my friends from Skillet,

 Quote:

I’m a beep, I’m a vapor
I’m just a blinking light
I’m a beep, I’m a vapor
And I’m about to evaporate

And the future’s robbing my soul
I’m face to face with my futility
And my life is slipping away
Inhaling my mortality

And I feel my skin’s just a shell
Underneath is my reality
I breathe dimensions unknown
It conquers my mortality

It’s a mad world will it ever stop?
Will the madness end?
While my body decays my soul does not
Death is just the beginning

And the future is robbing my soul
Inhaling my mortality

‘Vanity of vanities – all is vanity”, says the preacher – and I’m inclined to agree with him. Everything I’ve ever set my heart on, save God, has been systematically dismantled, bit by bit. I know why, too – I still claim ownership over my own life, in many respects, and count my worthiness in other’s esteem, much too often.

God’s solution, as usual, is to pare my life down to it’s essence – He asks me, like Peter:

 Quote:

15 So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My lambs.” 16 He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Shepherd My sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Tend My sheep.

– John 21:15-19

That’s all that matters, folks.

Not job, not significant other, not children, not hobbies, not skill, not esteem – just read this.

 Quote:

23 And Jesus, looking around, said to His disciples, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 They were even more astonished and said to Him, “Then who can be saved?” 27 Looking at them, Jesus said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.” 28 Peter began to say to Him, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You.” 29 Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, 30 but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. 31 “But many who are first will be last, and the last, first.”

Yeah, I’m some religious nut. You betcha, kids. I stand on the promises of God. I don’t need man’s affirmation, I need God’s. “Whom God loves, He chastens”, though, is also something that comes to mind for a Believer. God destroys you, in order to build you up. Doesn’t sound
like fun?

Oh, it isn’t. You Jesus was kidding, above, when He says “Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God”? Heck no. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, though.

Cause despite the “refining” I’m going through right now – like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – I’m FIREPROOF

Job 13:15 – “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”

I get periodical updates from Apologetics Press about articles they’ve added.

The three for this update are as follows:

Theism or Atheism: Whose Fruit is Sweeter

Deism, Atheism, and the Founders

Myth and the Claims of Bible Writers

If you’d like to get these yourself: Go to the very bottom left of their website.

Enjoy!

So, while I was gone, my splash page gets hacked, right? I know how it happened, and I don’t really care. It’s a part of my site I rarely use, and it’s easy to fix – in fact, I usually monitor it regularly when I have my typical access to the internet. See, though, this guy was persistent. He did it 3-4 times running, after I had fixed it. This guy is getting on my nerves, actually.

He calls himself “Interex”, and runs a little website called “virtualaddiction.net“. See, what got me was that his site is full of 90’s spinning gifs, a chain lightning footer, and has 1337sp33k all over it. I’m still trying to stop laughing, and hit his photo gallery. (He had left his email address, proud of the fact that he’s a 1337 h4xx0r, evidently, which is how I found his website…) Well… he has pictures of him going to a drag strip, he (including his first name!) and his girlfriend (her first name…), his dog (and his dog’s name) … and he SAYS WHERE THE DRAGSTRIP IS LOCATED. Southern Illinois. I had idly gone through the “h4xx0r3d” files earlier, looking for ips – and an ISP entry came up.

Netwitz. Which services southern Illinois! How about that. The dragstrip was located in Benton, IL, which is located just northwest of Netwitz’s service area. Also, he has pictures of a Jefferson County sheriff’s car, which is also in that area. Wow, how ’bout that math.

So, suffice it to say, both his ISP, and his DNS masking service got an email from me today. He was nice enough to leave a log of his connections to his lil script kiddie program (the program’s actually pretty cool, but the way he used it is script-kiddie-ish). He used something else to get access, but I’m not telling what that is. I’ve already used too many h4ck3r comments in this post, and I don’t want to tell a script kiddie how to hack a site, y’know?

But anyway, it was also a useful tool, misused. So, I sent him a nice email, too.

Hi Rob.

How’s Kathryn?

Hopefully, Spike’s doing well, also.

Things going well in Illinois? How do you like Netwitz’s internet service? Do well by you?

FreeDNS does a good job re-routing you packets for you. I complimented them on an (almost) good job hiding you completely. Unfortunately, you left your home website address, containing your personal photo album.

Your site is a bit plain, incidentally. Might want to do less of the mid-90’s spinning gifs, lightning effect, etc. It’s 2005, man.

2005 means that whois lookups and reverse DNS are old school, man. I was doing it way back in ’98, when I opped for Cyberangels.

I would have had this mail back to you sooner, but I just went through a hurricane recently, and got my internet back today. Surprise, how are ya?

Took me all of two hours after church to collect the stuff to send to your ISP and FreeDNS.

*program name deleted* , huh? That’s an old-school program. Saw an IRC client in there too. Too bad you left your bnc.log connection info on the site. I may never have linked the Illinois dragstrip on your photo album with Netwitz’s southern Illinois service area otherwise. You so kindly left me a log of when you connected. bnc.log. Thanks.

Quit being a script kiddie. Yes, programs have holes in them. It’s part of the business.

Your “hack” was temporary, limited, and pretty amateur, dude.

1. Don’t leave an email I can look up your info with.
2. Don’t leave personal info on the site for your email.
3. Don’t use a DNS masker. It just annoys me and makes me look harder.
4. They don’t work anyway.

Do something more useful with your time.

~ RK

H4xx0rs are annoying. But at least I had some fun today. I used to love doing this stuff. Oh well. it’s fun occasionally, but it gets tiring after a while.

So, how’s your day, folks? Have a good Sunday morning worship service?

Yeah, so.

Main splash page gets hacked within a week of Katrina.

( https://razorskiss.net/ )

Now it points to yahoo.

Bleh. I haven’t had time to fix it.

Main site goes down.

Blog goes down.

I don’t have intarwebs.

Yay.

Still don’t, but I got fed up with seeing a dead site. So i borrowed somne intarwebs, and fixed it.

Somewhat.

News:

Katrina sucked, people here were cool for a while, but now they’re back to their normal, irritable selves. Katrina still sucks. The gulf coast is getting back to normal, slowly.

Mumon is still a windbag 😀

(But we love him anyway…)

But, most importantly…

I’m now officially engaged!

Envy, all of you.

I have the coolest soon-to-be-wife ever.

Yesh, I do.

So, anyway. Post something else soon. I have to get up in like 6 hours, and I’m very tired. I worked 10 1/2 hours today, but it’s all good. Putting the coast back together takes work, you know?

Thank you for the prayers, emails, and etc. They were/are appreciated.

I’m still wading through several thousands of emails I received while I was out, so forgive any tardiness in replying. I have to separate the 2/3 spam out of it (AFTER my spam filter works on some of it).

See you soon.

~ RK