It’s not just at home that things have been changing.  At work I got to make the transition from programmer to full-time sysadmin, and I’m absolutely loving it.  I knew I was getting tired of coding, and I had always enjoyed just taking care of servers, and now I get to do that all day long. When I initially started as a sysadmin, I didn’t think our small company would have enough work for me to do after a few months.  In actuality, I’m kept busy all the time.  The part I like the most is that part of my job is doing research, how to do things better, more efficiently, anything to make the workload easier.  It’s fun.

On top of all that, my school attendance is starting to ramp up more, and I’ve been consistently drifting to adding more classes to my workload.  All this stuff has basically booted Linux out of my life as a hobby, and so now I need things to “just work” without hassle, so I leave my installations alone.

One thing I’d been neglecting a little bit was my entire HTPC setup.  I hadn’t been using it much lately just because I would mostly stream some Netflix (yay, Doctor Who!).  My setup has been a beast though, normally running for months on end without the slightest hiccup.  What started to happen though is that I would come back to using it, switching my HDMI input over, and the box would be powered off for some reason.  Most of the time, I would either power it back on and go on with life or just ignore it.  Until one day it wouldn’t power on at all, and I just shrugged it off and determined to look at it later.

Well, later turned out to be finals week, when my brain has been working overtime, and I seriously needed a hobby.  I pulled out my main frontend and started looking at it to see what was going on.  It was plugged in properly and everything looked legit, but when I hit the power, the CPU fan would start up for a second and then everything would stop.  After fiddling with it for a bit, I started to notice that something was smelling burnt.  Once that happened, I abandoned my diagnosis.  Even if I did manage to get it working, I didn’t want it to catch everything on fire.

At the same time, my external USB drive enclosure died on me.  So even if I could have gotten it working, I still wouldn’t have had a way to watch my shows.  Them giving out on me hasn’t bothered me in the least — the entire setup has been running flawlessly for years, and I’d managed to get a lot of mileage out of them.

Now I had to decide what I was going to do.  I have a lot of hardware, but in pieces.  I have four mini-ITX boards altogether, two of them are VIA C7 chipsets, and the other two are Zotac boards both running low-powered Celeron CPUs (around 35W if I remember correctly).  The power supplies for the VIA boards use 20-pin connectors and only run at about 80W, and aren’t enough to handle the Zotac boards which use 24-pin connectors.  So I have this mix of hardware, and nothing powerful enough to act as a frontend.

There are some great packaged systems out there now where for between $200 to $300 you can get an entire package in one go that does exactly what I’m putting together myself. I considered the idea of just starting over, but I decided that it’d be cheaper to just salvage what I could.

So this week I ordered a new USB HDD enclosure, and I also ordered a new power supply for the main Zotac board.  I found a site that sells really small power supplies for mini-ITX boards, called picoPSU.  The design eliminates a lot of the hardware that I would normally need to get all the power to my box.  I was really skeptical about them when I first heard of it, but did some looking around and it looks like it’s exactly what I need.

In the meantime, I ripped out my motherboard out of my desktop, and put both Zotac boards in there to make sure they still work, and thankfully they do.  I got the old setup pieced together using my desktop case, and fired up the old system to play around with it.

I had started to forget how much time I put into this thing.  I forgot that I had put countless hours stitching this thing together, running a custom build of Gentoo suited to run on small environments.  On top of that I made hacks to mythvideo and got those working to polish off some rough edges.  It just started to come back to me how much I’d worked on this … and how much fun it was.

I played around with my frontend a little bit, and fired up a few movies just to try out the surround sound.  It was awesome.  I’d forgotten how nice it was to have that huge library on demand, too.

So I’m excited now to get things up and running.  It’s been a good little while.

Really, though, since I’m going to school to, you know, do this full-time, I thought it’d be cool to archive my old posts about working with them, and just post stuff to it whenever I feel like it. Like tonight, I just added another one, and I figured, “I should probably go to bed. And also write a blog post and my other blog!” And then my mind went blank after that.

In addition to the archives of stuff on here that you’ve already taken the time to memorize, I’ve added two new posts over there since then. You’ll notice that I’ve refrained from shamelessly using my blog to do some cross-posting mojo to do some self-promotion … at least until tonight. To make it seem like this blog post has actual content, I’ll throw in something slightly more interesting.

I found out recently that I really enjoy bowling. Me and my cousin have been going for a few weekends in a row. We’ve mastered the art of playing 4 games in a row for $10. That’s not bad, considering it’s late Saturday nights. Good times. I’m actually getting better at (since it’s impossible to be worse). The hardest part is getting people to ignore that I’m using an 8 pound ball because I’ll throw out my wrists if I use anything heavier.

Where was I going with all of this. I remember I was playing Skyrim tonight (level 60, yo!), and I was fighting a dragon and trying to eat cheesy nacho goodness at the same time. I kept having to pause my game so I could eat, and I thought to myself, “I can’t pause a nacho.” Words to live by.

In other entertainment, I present to you, the best picture on the internet:

It’s totally legit. They have their own domain and everything: http://thebestpictureontheinternet.com/

I think it’s time to go to bed.

A great example is that the other day, I was out with Kevin and I mentioned to him how I totally had a brain fart. I had driven to the grocery store, happened to forget my wallet at home, had to drive home and then back to the store to pick something up. After telling my story, Kevin, in turn, started telling about how he got stuck at work one time because he forgot his bus pass. In true adult fashion, I thought about it for a second, and my first response was, “so how did you get home?”

The second I said that, it dawned on me that adults are boring. My immediate reaction was to examine the logistics of solving the problem instead of enjoying the story for the humorous life experience. I’ll admit I felt slightly deflated that I would do that. I realized, though, that I was asking that because in my adult mind, problems like that are commonplace — achieving objectives as efficiently as possible. A teenager would approach the problem from a totally different perspective than an adult would, and while there’s nothing strange about that, it shows off my character a bit that I was interested in the details of the experience more than Kevin’s viewpoint and how he felt about the whole thing.

Another thing that I have noticed recently is that I absolutely *freak out* when teenagers start talking to me about things they want to do, because I see them as long-term decisions that they are jumping into. The reality is often that, for them, it is either just a short-term decision or some options they are exploring in their head.

I’ll use Kevin as an example again (poor kid … he sure gets the brunt of my learning experiences). One time he told me that he wanted to work at a fast food joint. My adult brain quickly translated this to mean, “I’m considering an exciting life-long career in becoming a hamburger whisperer.” I remember that I was so shell-shocked that my brain locked up and I started staring off into space. I felt myself going into insta-lecture mode, which, I knew, would not be the best course of action. After a few seconds I realized I hadn’t said anything, and I just kind of mumbled an inquisitive “Okay …”. Internally my mind was racing and wondering how in the world I can immediately reverse this dangerous line of thought.

The reality was much different from my hastily-constructed vision. He wanted to find somewhere close to work to his house so that his mom didn’t have to drive him there. My crazy adult instincts, though, just jumped to the worst-case scenario and prepared myself to drop a bomb of logic and a long talk on the glamour of working with fattening foods as a lifestyle.

I believe responding with a lecture after someone tells you what they think is not good, because it’s not creating an environment where they feel like they can talk to you. The best thing to do, I’ve found, is to listen to them and not offer feedback until it’s requested — and even then, be moderate and say things like, “have you considered … ?” It’s incredibly hard to hold my tongue sometimes, especially when I think someone could be cruising straight down Dead End Alley.

One principle that I try to adhere too is that if I feel so strongly about something that I think is important, then it’s going to take time to craft a proper response. Flipping out is not going to help, because my initial reaction is going to be emotionally charged.

When it comes to responsibilities, I’ve always thought that adults always focus too much on how important they are. What I have noticed in my life is that while they *are* important, they are not *everything*.

Too often I completely ignore the simple things in life that make it worth living. Things like pursuing dreams, making close friends, enjoying autonomy and having a purpose in life. Adults seem intent to make youth realize the effects of their life decisions in the major areas, but totally ignore the secondary ones. And naturally, I forget those things as well. Frankly, the last thing I want to be is boring by focusing only on a few of the big things.

I found this great book recently, titled “Befriending Your Teenager.” I rolled my eyes when I saw the cover, because I was like, “Oh my froof, this sounds like some pootsie pants who thinks if you give them a hug and a smile, they will come to you asking for apple pie or something.” It turns out that the author has been a youth pastor for years, and that this is the most awesome book I’ve read yet. I think a better title is in order though … something like, “This Is Why Teenagers Think Adults Suck.” Maybe I’ll write a book like that some day.

There is an excerpt that I want to quote verbatim, because it is exactly how I have always perceived things when I was a teenager:

“As adults we often appear to have failed at happiness. We walk through our lives with a shroud of stress over our shoulders, talking to one another as if the goal of life was to stay busy and serious. We wag a finger in the faces of adolescents, telling them of the perils of the real world. We seldom talk to teenagers of anything but grades, drugs, sex, SAT scores, and how the human condition and world are deteriorating at an alarming rate. Oh, sure, we try to compensate with an occasional pep talk about how these youths are the hope of the future, or how they can be anything they want to be, but both adolescents and adults fail to believe this tired little speech.

Today’s teenager probably does not need to hear any wornout pep talk or any cliche that simplifies the staggering complexity of modern living. What today’s teenager needs is to know that becoming an adult is not some bland, bleak experience of boredom, intermittently interrupted by storms of grief or showers of joy. Is it any wonder so many youth question the value of life when we adults make adulthood a rat race, an endurance test of back-breaking, heart-breaking, spirit-breaking difficulty? Think about it. When was the last time your teenager, or the youth you work with and care about, saw *you* really laugh, really look happy? I have come to realize that I owe it to these young people to share openly my happiness; more importantly, the greatest gift I can give them is a happier me. If we want them to choose life, which I know we deeply do, we must make adulthood–the bulk of every lifetime–more appealing, much happier. We do not need to hide our struggles from them, but we do need to let them see our joy, our delight in being alive.”

What I got from reading this was basically, it’s okay to let teenagers see that I have emotions too, that I struggle with things as well, and that my emotions are the same ones that they have. Then for me to share those experiences with them — not putting the burdens on them to help me solve them, but rather let them know that life continues to be both challenging and rewarding … just in different ways.

The idea of sharing my feelings about how things were going in *my* life never occurred to me at all before reading this book. My general attitude has been, “I am here to teach you and ask you how you are doing, and focus on your problems. My life is totally perfect, so I am in a great position here to make this a one-way relationship.” I think, though, that as youth see me as a human, that they will be both impressed that an adult would open up to them, and also see that it’s possible to trust someone with your emotions.

I can say that it is really hard to apply these principles in working with youth. It’s hard to know what the best approach is all the time, and it’s a real struggle for me as I search to find some good methods that bring positive results. Anytime that I come up against some advice like this, though, that is counterintuitive to how adults naturally approach things … that’s when I think I must really be onto a good idea.

This time I was surprised how much Handbrake changes stuff. However, I have never been one to argue with the results, because they are always gorgeous. The decombing and deinterlacing filters are what really sold me on using it, since so far it’s taken all but a few of my DVDs and managed them just fine. That had been a major pain in my side with all DVD rippers for years.

I’m thinking of putting together a small libav to x264 comparison for flags, and then adding the x264 command lines for all the presets as well. If anyone thinks of anything similar they’d like to see, let me know.

At work, I get to do all kinds of stuff, and working with video is one of them. I threw together an x264 reference guide on my devspace for what the settings of each preset covers, compared to the defaults. I’ve even translated it to spanish! Vamos, che!

The thing I like about this, is that it helps me see which areas to start tweaking to get higher quality gains, and which ones to stay away from. It kind of sheds light on where the best places to start tweaking are. For instance, the settings that are changed on the ultrafast preset should never be messed with at all, if you want a good outcome. And on the flipside, the ones under the placebo preset are going to slow down the encode greatly if you start beefing them up.

Generally speaking, though, it’s a best approach to use presets set by developers. Every now and then I get the idea in my head that I can somehow make things better just by tweaking a few of the variables. That never works out too well. I always end up spending like 60 minutes to encode a 5 minute video, and then I can’t tell a difference after that. Whoopsie fail.

Next, I want to put together a similar type guide for Handbrake presets, both to compare their presets to each other, and then how to duplicate the same x264 settings using both the x264 cli encoder, and libav. The reason being that, a lot of times I really like the output that Handbrake delivers, and I want to duplicate that using other encoders, but I’m not sure how. That’s what I’m planning to target.

I think I might be safe, actually. I’m eating Life cereal for dinner at 11p.m., spent most of my day at work drawing Christmas cards, then in the evening I was making dumb jokes with my little brother while we walked to the gas station to buy soda and Cheetos. There’s hope for me yet.

However, I have honestly noticed that there have been a few times recently, where my default mode has switched from listening to “Oh, since you’re talking to me, you must want my manly, adultly advice on everything.” Which really sucks. Because when someone confuses listening with asking for input, things are just going to go all sorts of wrong.

Listening takes work. Not because it’s hard, but because I have to be self-aware of how I’m talking. Essentially, it is real-time meta-talk analysis. Or, it can be, if I’m trying really, really hard to watch how I am paying attention.

I have noticed one thing that works for me, though. If I can just *realize* that someone is talking to me, and just wants me to listen, then I can kind of switch into this mode where I actually can do that, and politely extend an offer of giving feedback first. It’s a cognitive attitude shift. No watching myself with every single sentence, but just changing my mindset and then applying those principles of good communication.

The skills have to be already learned, though, and I’ve actually been working on that. I like that it doesn’t take a huge deal of effort to get into that mode, it just takes me having to notice that either the other person wants me to, or it’s a good idea to do it.

I read or heard this great quote the other day, or maybe I made it up, I don’t know. I don’t think I did, though. But it was “teenagers will gravitate to whoever takes them seriously.” If my life has been any indication, that is so true.

One thing I’ve noticed is that people love to talk about themselves. If you can get them talking about that subject, they likely won’t shut up. Which, if you’re trying to help out someone, that’s actually a good thing, since you want their perspective on stuff.

The trick is that your interest has to be genuine. Teenagers can smell someone being presumptuous like a donkey on waffle day. If your interest isn’t genuine to start with, then you’re heading down the wrong paths already.

So, my rude awakening of late has been that I don’t listen, naturally, all the time. In reviewing conversations from the past week, I’ve noticed that when some people are trying to collude with me, instead of saying “wow, that would [suck|be awesome|make me want to eat pez],” instead I jump into something like, “yah, you don’t wanna [do that|go there|drink mouthwash].” I’ve realized, with some horror as noted, that this is kind of just an adult instinct. And frankly, that drives me crazy. Not because it means an adult (something I’m struggling to accept anyway, because adults = boring), but that there is a natural drift that I was unaware of, that if unchecked, is only going to hamper my ability to serve. The whole thing has kind of put me on guard, wanting to review the past a bit more and see where else I could be putting people off when they are trying to open up.

To be honest, it’s hard. Imma keep watching out though.

I honestly have no idea how often I’ll be posting over there, I’m thinking maybe around once per month. I really like writing the posts, but I stress so much over them .. my last one took me like 20 minutes to write and 2 hours to stress over. Ah, well. I do enjoy it, though.

Anyway, yah, all my religious posts will end up over there now, though I may cross-post here occassionally. Or not. That could get annoying. Maybe. I dunno. Look, it’s Halloween soon!

Anyway, at Digital Trike, my current depriver of candy and animated features, I’m doing full time systems administration. It turns out I enjoy doing that quite a bit. One thing they’ve let me start doing, is writing blog posts that are howtos covering topics related to Linux. I’m going to be doing mostly Gentoo posts, and some stuff related to CentOS as well, since we use both of them in development and production (yay, Gentoo!).

I just posted my first entry on their blog, which covers setting up collectd on both distros. I’ll warn you, it’s a bit lengthy, but I tried to cover most of the bases as well as I could, while keeping the setup pretty generic. It’s designed to be a two-parter, this being the first one, and I’ll cover CGP, a PHP frontend to actually see the stats probably next week sometime.

Lemme know what you guys think, I’d totally be up for some feedback.

What made me think of this was the conflict in actions that the man was displaying. I remembered that he both fell down to worship, yet at the same time beckoned for some distance. The act seems interesting to me because I believe it represents some emotional conflict. A desire to serve and be righteous, with some degree of outward performance even performed, but internally a feeling of inadequacy, observant of his own weakness. For me, that feeling can be overwhelming. There are times when it is all I can do to kneel, or some similar act, something simple, and yet feel unworthy to press on or do more. I want to do good, yet I feel like I cannot approach the Lord because of the mistakes I have made.

I think Jesus’ reply is interesting as well. “Fear not,” is the first part of his reply. Why does the Lord say that? What is the effect of fear and how does diminishing it at this time help? I believe that, in this same scenario of mixed emotions, that the feeling of inadequacy and failure robs a person of courage and then causes them to fear moving forward. I know in my own life, in the midst of confusion, every option seems fearful, full of uncertainty.

I also love how the Lord pronounces a prophecy regarding him (and his companions). The Lord is directly contradicting the vision, direction, capability and mission that Peter has set for himself. The Lord knows what he can become, and shares in small measure, a glimpse of that future.

It occurs to me that there’s some significance to the fact that they were on the water, a place of unrest and uncertain surface. Before they could follow the master, they had to bring their ships to land (5:11). I have noticed in my own life, that when I am uncertain and unsteady, that if I return to doing the small things (reading a bit of scripture, for example), that it grounds me, and makes me able to do more. In contrast, a sense of despair and discouragement is often accompanied by a stage of apathy.

Finally, the efforts of following the Lord may seem sacrificial, but are really beneficial, for “they forsook all”. Not only their past possessions, but their past difficulties, to be replaced with anxiety and cares and the other feelings that come in the service of others — the yoke of the Lord — completely displacing their old woes. While the actions are first, the feelings will follow.

I got my paper back today though from the professor, and reading over it, I kind of liked it. It could stand some editing and cleanup, but I think the message itself is worth something. So I decided I’d post it up here, and just share some of my ideas I have about working with teens.

In working with teenagers I find that many of them at times have a hesitancy to open up and discuss their thoughts and feelings with mentors, adults or parents. I believe that in order for a teenager to be able to discuss things, some elements need to be in place. First, the teen must be willing to talk about something. Generally, if something is weighing on their mind, they are more open to the idea of discussing it. Also, it is very important for the mentors involved to be able and willing to talk candidly with the teen. There needs to be a willingness to listen, to listen closely, and to verify that they are getting the correct message. Communication can be difficult for teens, as they are developing new sets of social skills. It can be hard for them to identify their own emotional sensations, and so a close listener can be of vital importance.

As my personal style of working with teenagers evolves, I’ve found two analogies recently that have helped me to explain how you can facilitate communication. For the first one, I will use a scenario from my own life. When I was a teenager, there were a lot of good people that were willing to work with the youth from my church group. I would often spend time at their house, either because of activities or an impartial visit. In retrospect, I can see that these mentors were willing to discuss with me any agenda that was on my mind at the time. It seemed like I had to start the conversation though, which is something I was never comfortable with, and so I never got to really talk about things that were on my mind. An analogy I likened this to was spending time at someone else’s house. You got hungry, and asked if you could eat something. The host would be gracious, and would generally wave their hand towards the kitchen and warmly say, “Go ahead and eat anything you like.” I would go to the fridge, and opening it up, see lots of stuff that I would have liked to eat. Cake, cookies, soda, ice cream, pizza, etc. However, I would not want to be a poor guest, so I would choose something “safe,” like bread and cheese to make a sandwich. Even though the host probably intended that I could eat some of the more fun stuff, because they didn’t make that particularly clear, it was left to my judgement what was appropriate to eat and what was not, and I would err on the side of caution.

The same approach can happen with communication with adolescents. Well-intentioned mentors and adults will say to teenagers, “You can talk to me about anything,” then leaving it up to the teen to figure out what is safe and appropriate to bring up. Using my analogy of the kitchen, if a host would have said something like this, then I would have felt much more comfortable: “The kitchen is over there, please go eat anything you like. I know there is cake, pizza, and pie in there … please, feel free to help yourself and not to worry about it.” That invitation specifically addresses the areas that the teenager is probably most interested in, and instead of making the subjects taboo, lays them on the table for open discussion and acceptance.

It works in communication, as well. In chatting with adolescents, I will say, “We can talk about anything you’d like. I know teenagers are curious about a lot of things, such as sex, friends, school, the opposite sex, dating, social development, what they want to do with their life, maybe drugs, alcohol, or simpler things like music. We can even chat about stuff you’d like to tell your parents but aren’t sure how to bring up. It’s all fine with me, and I’d be happy to chat with you about anything that’s on your mind.” I’ve noticed that in doing that, that the teens will then relax quite a bit. They may not be willing to open up at that moment, but having put out the menu on display and calling them out on things that they themselves want to talk about, it lets them know that I’m willing to discuss it with them, and they don’t have to bring it up or feel awkward. It works well in creating a comfortable atmosphere.

Along those same lines, one thing that works well is to bring up the subjects myself. If it is something taboo, you can bring up questions yourself that they might have, and then simply ask them if they’ve ever wondered about that, or have had friends talk to them about it. This brings me to my second analogy. Once a topic has been selected to discuss, I like to do what I call setting the stage. The analogy is that I, as a mentor, will be a stagehand. I can dress the stage with the props, the backgrounds, and the lighting, but the teenager him or herself is going to be the main actor.

Setting the stage means bringing out as much information as you can possibly think of, without being presumptious or over-bearing. You can think back to your own life as a teenager and remember the things that you wondered about a lot, and start telling them how you imagine they might have heard or wondered things about that, and how it felt for you at that time. If it’s a difficult subject to work with, then the teenager might not do more than nod or agree with you. Getting teenagers to go into detail can be hard work, but it’s important not to press the issue. They need to come on stage when they are ready, and not before.

In my experience, and in asking follow-up questions with the teenagers I’ve been working with, they have said that it makes them feel much more comfortable and much less awkward if I am the one who broaches the subjects. They then like if I deliver as much as I know or think about the subject, and let them ask questions about specific things, letting me fill in the gaps with the answers I have or the ones I will have to look for.

I’d like to stress that it’s important to make sure there is a distinct difference between passing along objective information and delivering a lecture where your opinion on their situation and decisions should be based. I believe that as you provide them with the answers to the questions they have, and encourage them to make their own decisions, they will come to trust you and be able to talk to you about the hard questions they have.

Finally, as being a mentor, I have to tell myself often that just because someone doesn’t ask me all the things that I think they would like to approach, does not mean that I have failed in some fashion. From my own life, I have had mentors that were excellent with their communication skills where I could confide and ask them confidential questionsl. I didn’t exercise the opportunity much to open myself up, but the knowledge that someone was available and willing to explore the issues with me was far greater worth than the actual question and answer sessions themselves.