When Online Meets Reality

For the past few months, I have been going through an online course about expository preaching. I have completed my three book quizzes and observations of the assigned text, but it is now crunch time. I need to write my sermon manuscript and get it evaluated so I can preach it on September 1 for my final assignment and hopefully complete the course successfully.

The weeks have gone by quickly and I am feeling much more stress than usual in preparing this message and covering all the required points. Therefore, for breaks while I'm flat, I have been watching someone who goes by the name "FarmerCurt95." Curt plays various games on the Twitch platform and provides some humor, as well as occasional annoyances. If he or his friends get out of line in their speech, I'm usually the one to point it out and correct them. I have watched Curt, and co-horts, for a few years and we somewhat know each other.

Curt lives in South Dakota, but comes to my area of Iowa for a few days every year to watch sprint-car racing. Last year, we concluded that we should try to meet in person sometime when he came back. Well, that happened on Thursday at a local coffee shop.

Meeting with someone you've only previously known virtually is somewhat fun and awkward at the same time. Most conversations relate to whatever game is being played and offering helpful hints, like slowing down and not running vehicles into objects. Other topics do arise though and the group knows I'm a Christian and quadriplegic with extra standards and challenges.

I was somewhat concerned about what we could discuss in person, but I talked more about my history and heard what Curt and his girlfriend do in their area. I was not silent about faith and gave them a few comical gospel tracts that also present the need for repentance and trusting in God alone. I was prepared for an in-depth conversation, but they took everything well. As this blog comes out, Curt and his group of seven should be heading home.

Living the quad life often means few friends or social interaction. However, utilizing various forms of social media have expanded possibilities. I pray I can continue to be a Christian influence in any circumstance and share enjoyment in some activities. Now, it's time to return to sermon preparations.

Traveling in One Location

I like to travel and see different areas of the country, even though it doesn't always go well. If I wasn't living the quad life, I've wondered what I would have done as a career. The two options that keep coming to me are railroad engineer or truck driver. For the past few weeks, I've been experiencing one option.

During my flat time, I have been watching an excessive amount of YouTube. I came across a channel called Big Rig Travels that follows a truck driver, Steve, on his travels. It's simply a camera mounted on the truck's dash with live video as he drives and sometimes offers commentary. Through this, I've been through a few southern states over to South Carolina then through the mountains to the Midwest and Wisconsin.

Office with a view

A three-day trip ended in central Washington state and as of this writing, heading toward Salt Lake City. Instead of just laying for multiple hours, I've been able to see many miles of travel and a variety of scenery and terrain. However, it's also ten or more hours of Steve driving alone with just a GPS talking back.

As my nickname implies, I'm very into trains and the railroad. As an engineer, a person works in one route, or section, going from point A to B and back again. Depending on the route, it could be very scenic or rather plain, especially after 40 years or more.

Over-the-road trucking allows a driver to see multiple areas of the country, but you never know when you will be home. For me, I could see it being a hard decision and could do a few years of both. However, that is not what God had planned for the life He gave me.

I'm thankful I can see God's creation through technology He has given us. Serving in the life I have has challenges, but I'm thankful for all I've been enabled to do and see. I will see where this week brings me both in real life and following along with others.

Outdated

I am 35 years old. Depending on what age group you talk to, that's either young, old, or just right. After this week, I'm feeling on the old and outdated side.

In early 2003, I graduated with my Associate's degree in Information Technology (IT) from a local business school. A few years later, I noticed that the degree was no longer an option. Last year, the entire school was bought out by a state university and was closed. So not only did my college feel they could offer my degree anymore, the entire school went away. It really feels weird to say your degree no longer exists and then to give an explanation to what the school was.

The unofficial slogan for an IT degree is "I can Google that for you." I unfortunately agree with the statement and lived it last week. My mom's computer started having problems, so I used Google to find potential solutions. After finding a few possibilities, none of them worked. In order to try to make faster progress, I had her call a computer help person in town. It turns out her computer should have never upgraded to Windows 10 and therefore it was only a matter of time until it died.

You can read all you want for education, but for me the best teacher is working with your hands (or mouth stick in my case). With being down so much these last few years, I don't get much time to do anything, let alone learn something new. I'm even feeling it with web related technology in not having opportunity to work with more options. It feels like I'm back to being a kid just playing computer games and watching TV (Netflix or YouTube actually).

Hopefully the latest trouble with one of my client's sites will at least allow an opportunity to try something new. In the mean time, I think I'll try to increase my school talks and work from my experience of living the quad life. Whatever God has planned, I'll be along for the ride another week.

Entertainment

It's nearing the end of Monday, the best part of the day for me. The end of the day means I can do what I want without having a nurse in the same room with me and can be somewhat alone. However, my parents are in the next room, and I'm writing this for the world to see, not exactly all that private.

The entertainment industry does not get a lot of funding from me. I have absolutely no interest in sports, I can't remember the last time I was in a movie theater, and once I start a computer game, I tend to stick with it for a while. One example is a game called Starcraft, by Blizzard Entertainment. My best friend and I started playing it when we were in high school. Thirteen years later when Starcraft 2 came out, we were still playing it. We had both graduated from high school, gone through and graduated from college, started careers, and he had gotten married and lived in four different states. In late 2012 though, our interest shifted to a new game.

Harvesting canola in Farming Simulator

Farming Simulator 2013 is just what the name implies, a game that simulates farming. You plant and harvest crops, take care of livestock, buy and sell equipment, and watch your bank account grow, and shrink. In the eleven months I have had this game, I have easily spent nearly 1000 hours playing it. I do not see it lasting 14 years like Starcraft, but it is a good hiatus.

This past Saturday, the night nurse called in sick and a replacement could not be found. Therefore, I stayed awake by playing Farming Simulator and helped mom stay up. It's a game that can go as fast or as slow as you want, just change the speed of time with a key stroke. In fact, I have it running as I type this evening's entry. During the next two days though, I won't be farming, I have church activities for both nights. When Thursday night comes though, I'll be back to my crops again.

Living in rural Iowa, as the son of two people that grew up on farms, and having several family members in the farming industry, you get to know the job as a farmer well. I don't know that I would have been a farmer if I wasn't in the quad life, but it's possible. At least through the role of simulation, I can preteen what it's like for those around me.

Posting weekly is starting to become a habit, but I did almost forget tonight. We shall see what the next week's plans have in store.

Research

If you can't guess by this blog's address and my photo, I'm a rail fan. Just like you might describe a sports fan, I like pretty well everything railroad related. As I've said on here before, I love getting out and sitting by the tracks on a summer day watching trains go by. Unfortunately, Iowa has been extremely hot this summer, so I haven't been able to go and enjoy my outdoor activities. Therefore, I'm doing indoor entertainment, which generally means something on the computer.

As you might expect, one of my computer programs is a train simulator. Since rail fans aren't always of the younger generation, rail simulators aren't widely available. My version was made by Microsoft around 2001 and hasn't been updated since. When I upgraded my computer last year, it meant I now had a system that wouldn't easily run my simulator. Despite going through detailed instructions, I couldn't get it to run. Since I haven't looked into other options yet, I'm down to my other simulator for entertainment, my flight simulator.

It may be a conflict of interest, but there are several Sunday afternoons that I can be found flying a plane on autopilot while reading the latest Trains magazine. I almost get an adrenaline rush landing a jumbo jet perfectly in the center of the runway, on the glide path, and doing it like a "real" pilot would. Like every simulator I touch though, I want it to be as accurate to life as possible. The scenery downright stinks, but it doesn't change easily; therefore, I program real world flights to fly the skies with me.

Since 2008, I have been a member at flightaware.com. It gives live flight tracking pretty well all around the globe. I wouldn't want to guess how many days, or more likely weeks, I have spent documenting which aircraft, from which airline, go from airport to airport. The time of departure, arrival, and how many trips one plane can make between points. It's an unusual research project, but one that I have come to enjoy. Each weekend, I will program my new findings into my simulator, and off I go in some aircraft to a destination somewhere far away, or nearby. Probably my biggest frustration and not having every aircraft and airline to add to my simulated world. However, I have added a multitude of aircraft types than the default three by Boeing that are included.

The next time you see, or travel in, a plane, know that odds are good that a rail fan has seen your flight virtually and have it flying on a simulator some weekend.