• Get 400-500 pts worth of Uruk-Hai ready for my first LOTR game at the end of February. Play is to be at the Northern Knights games club in Thornleigh. - This isn’t going to happen I don’t think. On the other hand, I’ve been spending a lot of time painting in general, getting a space marine chapter together.
• Finish agro-dive-imports.com.au. This is a client project that’s been going on for some time, it’s time to wrap it up. I got a really good go on this last night, and hope to have most of it completed end of the week, with client feedback and minor style tweaks. This is making good progress, should definitely be finished with minor tweaks this month.
• Get registrations completed on mymodelcase dev site. I am yet to touch on this, but plan to hit it this weekend.
• Find a place to move into with P. This is well on it’s way to success, we’ve been looking and found a few really nice places, fingers crossed!
• Start yoga classes - Unfortunately my surgery has put this off, so am pushing this back to mid-march.

Overall, I’m not too pleased with my efforts, even though it’s quite a bit better than my previous attempts. If I can get ADI done, I will be one happy person!

As a result, I’ve decided to write down my goals for the year, and this month. Beyond that, long-term goals will also be added.

So, for my yearly goals:

• Get battlerig.net to a point where players can actually play the game.
• Complete mymodelcase.com. I really love working on this project, there is absolutely no reason I can’t finish it.
• Begin playing in tournaments for LOTR (The lord of the rings tabletop game)
• Pay off at least $10k off my car.
• Improve my memory and commitment to projects.
• Take up at least three physical activities on a weekly basis (like yoga, kickboxing and… i dunno, something else)

• Get 400-500 pts worth of Uruk-Hai ready for my first LOTR game at the end of February. Play is to be at the Northern Knights games club in Thornleigh.
• Finish agro-dive-imports.com.au. This is a client project that’s been going on for some time, it’s time to wrap it up. I got a really good go on this last night, and hope to have most of it completed end of the week, with client feedback and minor style tweaks.
• Get registrations completed on mymodelcase dev site.
• Find a place to move into with P
• Start yoga classes

Long-term goals:

• Pay off the car
• Buy a house
• Take P somewhere beautiful, either Fiji, or Thailand.

That’s it for now. I plan to start documenting my monthly goals, maybe as a separate area of the blog, so I have a single place to document it all. Looking forward to my progress this year

My good friend Orion some time ago spoke about a point during his meditation where he was approached by a bright, white light. From the sounds of it, this is very similar to what people experience when they die, or at least pass over for a few moments. I too have now experienced this briefly, but not as part of a meditative practise (which is why to me this is so interesting).

I was at my desk a few days ago and was very heavy in thought, trying to figure out how best to attack the current problem I was handling. My thoughts settled on a particular plan of attack but seemed to get stuck on one particular aspect of the solution. As I focused more intently on what the solution could be I seemed to “space out”, and completely lost track of my train of thought. However, rather than try to bring myself back I simply let go and stared off into nothingness. Moments later, I was greeted by a white spot in front of me which grew brighter, and seemed to be nearing before dissipating again, as quickly as it came. As soon as it was gone, I strangely felt excited, my heart was racing and yet I was perplexed… What was that?

Will talk to my friend Orion shortly regarding this, as well as a few others.

• It has issues with secure websites (sometimes they don’t even load)
• It seems a little anal when it comes to security
• I’ve had some bizarre render issues with bank admins (for transferring cash.etc.)
• Bookmarks! Apart from adding to your bar (which is a rather convoluted process)

namespace :deploy do
# Create custom mount
task :mount do
run "ln -s target directory"
end
end


In order to have this run, earlier in your deploy.rb script, simply add:

after :deploy, "deploy:mount"

Done!

Holding you in my arms, your eyes playfully sparkle
The universe unveils it’s magic, the result is remarkable
Existence just stands by as time stops on a dial
And all creation marvels at the beauty of your smile.

- René Descartes

Each time I made a request via an AJAX POST request, without the token - Rails would give me a funky little error, something like “you fail at making AJAX requests”. To get around the issue, I asked for some help at the Railsforum er… forums, and got a prompt reply- I needed to add the authenticity token to my requests. This is how I did it:

First and foremost, we need the authenticity token available for javascripts, so, added to my _javascripts.html.erb partial, was this piece of code:

<%= javascript_tag “var AUTH_TOKEN = ‘#{form_authenticity_token}’;” if protect_against_forgery %>

We’re only adding it if the security feature is enabled.

Next, we take a look at the Lightbox Gone Wild code, and from line 124, we see this:

var myAjax = new Ajax.Request(
this.content, {
method: ‘post’,
parameters: ”,
onComplete: this.processInfo.bindAsEventListener(this)
}
);

We need to update this to reflect our new auth token. To do this, update it so that it looks like below:

params = (AUTH_TOKEN) ? ‘authenticity_token=’ + encodeURIComponent(AUTH_TOKEN) : ”;
var myAjax = new Ajax.Request(
this.content, {
method: ‘post’,
parameters: params,
onComplete: this.processInfo.bindAsEventListener(this)
}
);

Note the additional params variable. We add this to ensure the authenticity_token variable is added to all outgoing requests if it’s been enabled. So go ahead, start making those AJAX POST requests via lightbox!

I think we’re beginning to see a shift in meditative practise, (well for me anyways), particularly with meditation techniques such as tonglen which focuses on the suffering we experience in the paranormal world, but ultimately striving to turn that suffering into love. I don’t know if it’s this practise alone that has made me change the way I view things, but something is changing. I for one, feel… almost a need to make people’s lives easier. This was not present more than a year ago and has probably only surfaced within the last 6 months. I’m not sure if this is just my brain growing and my ego feeling as though it needs to deliver love more openly and completely, or if it’s a direct effect of tonglen. In any case, I’m quite enjoying this new view of life, but at the same time it creates conflicts. For example, until having met my missus - I thought I was quite a generous person. Note to those of you - generous does not mean selfless! This has been a hard and lengthy lesson not only for me, but my partner as well.

With this new turn of awareness, I find myself battling between selflessness and doing things I like doing. Which is more “right”? Or, perhaps more accurately - how can I perceive that which is more present? How do I connect more accurately with that “isness”? I guess that’s the next phase - to find that balance without feeling guilty. Time will tell, and I will post here soon as I know.

Elsewhere looking, the past is gone
Why should I stick with what I’ve done?
Continually moving, this progression it seems
Always eternal, forever it gleams.

Turn over and over, always a new leaf
It beckons to me, “leave behind the grief,
the torture of experience, the bliss of divine,
Can you truly label this experience as ‘mine’? ”

So I turn it over, this leaf that talks
Once so peaceful upon it’s homely stalks
But now it resides, within the palm of my hand
Sharing with me it’s wisdom, ages ago planned.

Why does it torture me so, is there a better day?
Will I turn over the leaf of tomorrow and not be led astray?
Why does it do this, teaching me ways of living?
“To discover new horizons”, it states to me, giggling.

This began a rather depressing and downhill pattern that got me wondering why I even need to have beliefs, or why there has to be anything that matters. This became quite an energy drain and after two days of this chain of thought (which I realised wasn’t very healthy), I began to search for answers through my meditation and so last night, I meditated…

I figured out a few things, but the most important was to stop looking for meaning in everything I do, as nothing will come of it, no matter how successful. I need to stop trying to fit the universe into neat little boxes of meaning and to let it go. I’ve realised that I’m dying in a way, but not in a way that would simulate negativity, but rather a founding of newness, a fresh way of experiencing existence and the only way I’ll be happy in life is to just ride the wave of novelty.

This was quite possibly the most profound meditation session I’ve ever had and it meant a lot to me, because it answered almost directly exactly what I was going through and through it I found a calm, a reassurance despite what I was going through was being questioned. It doesn’t really matter in hindsight, as I think it’s all just part of the path of learning that I have set myself upon and continue to experience. I’m looking forward now, as this new revelation makes me happier, which is ironic really, because I’m happy about nothing =)

Reality is the byproduct of consciousness. Our view of existence and what we deem “real”, is the result of consciousness’ desire to be other than itself. Before existence, consciousness could be described as only one - unconscious. Existence was created when consciousness split itself into three separate planes: Conscious, Subconscious and Unconscious. It is the Conscious where spend approximately two thirds of our living existence, and approximately one third of that is spent in the Subconscious. This is a plane that joins the other two together. It is due to our subconscious that our view of reality is questioned. Without this, we would live without beliefs, merely another creature not aware of itself. The unconscious plane is the plane of the dead. This is where we return when we die. Judgement is a term given to this day because everything we know and have experienced is shown to all, the Unconscious. We return from whence we came, and thus repeats the cycle of Consciousness.