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I talked to my priest friend last night about this post, and as always he explained everything to me in a way even I can understand!
Regarding the Saint Faustina bit, he cautioned me to remember that she was being asked to do extraordinary things-- and that the diary was a private writing: she was most likely telling herself what she needed, in that moment, to feel closer to God. His suggestion was that I not generalize too much from it beyond that.
About St. Paul, he said that Paul uses "works" in three different ways through his writings-- so each time you encounter that word, you need to very carefully deduce which "works" he's referring to. Generally speaking, he talks a lot about how blind adherence to the law does not obtain for you salvation-- that you need to believe in and love God for salvation. So in the passage I quoted, this is most likely what Paul was talking about.
As for the James portion, it's kind of "what you see is what you get"-- his point is very clear, and there isn't anything present which Paul would necessarily disagree with.
Mega Drive Appreciation
My dad bought a Sega Genesis for us in early spring, 1990-- so we were early adopters for sure! Only a handful of games were out. As you can see, a huge chunk of my favorite games of all time list is from that platform. I loved it as a kid, and still love the Genesis today! After the 3DO, it's my second favorite game system of all time.
I like a lot of NES and Super NES games too, but for me from a subjective standpoint the Genesis library is the best of all time. Every single genre is amply accounted for with some of the best games in those genres ever made. And any time Sega went out to "clone" a genre leader, they wound up producing some of the most atmospheric, dark, moody video games material ever made.
Just to name one genre example, I will absolutely take the Genesis RPG library over any other platform. When I'm exploring a dungeon in "Sword of Vermilion", or watching the opening to "Phantasy Star II", or entering the maze in "Shining in the Darkness", everything from the way the artwork is drawn to the insane music gives me goosebumps, in a way that the "Final Fantasy" games or something simply don't.
In the Clear
I've finally got the insurance questions all answered, and are ready to hop right into my new job on October 13! It has felt like a full-time job trying to get all of this figured out, but I'm finally there! This will free up a lot of time for me over the next couple of weeks, thank the Lord! Now I can get back to scripture again.
The wife and I met with my new employer's health insurance broker, and it turns out that the health co-op is going to save us an astronomical amount of money. How it works is that instead of paying for health insurance for the employees all of the time, it's actually cheaper for them to cover catastrophic events if and when they happen! Then if one does occur, they open up a policy for that individual and use what's called and ICHRA to pay the deductible.
The only use case where it results in potentially net-negative for the company is when people have pre-existing conditions. So in my wife's case, we are going to get a policy just for her, to cover the prescriptions and procedures she needs to routinely have done. And then, my employer picks up part of the monthly premium for that policy-- while the kids and I will use the co-op for catastrophic scenarios instead.
On the car insurance side, we're shifting to State Farm-- they gave us a super low rate, and my wife's friend who worked there for many years, said that they are wonderful to deal with both from price and service standpoints. So I think we'll be in good shape!
Regarding the Saint Faustina bit, he cautioned me to remember that she was being asked to do extraordinary things-- and that the diary was a private writing: she was most likely telling herself what she needed, in that moment, to feel closer to God. His suggestion was that I not generalize too much from it beyond that.
About St. Paul, he said that Paul uses "works" in three different ways through his writings-- so each time you encounter that word, you need to very carefully deduce which "works" he's referring to. Generally speaking, he talks a lot about how blind adherence to the law does not obtain for you salvation-- that you need to believe in and love God for salvation. So in the passage I quoted, this is most likely what Paul was talking about.
As for the James portion, it's kind of "what you see is what you get"-- his point is very clear, and there isn't anything present which Paul would necessarily disagree with.
Mega Drive Appreciation
My dad bought a Sega Genesis for us in early spring, 1990-- so we were early adopters for sure! Only a handful of games were out. As you can see, a huge chunk of my favorite games of all time list is from that platform. I loved it as a kid, and still love the Genesis today! After the 3DO, it's my second favorite game system of all time.
- The VDP: Sega's engineers from that era were incredible at making VDPs. Compare the graphics capabilities of the Master System to the NES, for example-- not even close. In the case of the Mega Drive, that sucker can do parallax scrolling like nobody's business, and the output is so unbelievably smooth compared to the PC Engine or Super NES that even when comparing 60 fps titles across them, somehow the Genesis games move like butter in comparison. It's hard to even describe.
- The CPU: I don't know how Sega managed to fit this into the bill of materials for a $200 video game system, but they crammed a freaking Motorola 68000 into the design. Just a few years prior the 68k was reserved only for very expensive (by comparison) computers, like the Atari ST or Amiga. Or for military use. Having one of these monsters in a cheap games console continues to blow my mind to this day.
- The Audio: With all due respect to people who prefer DSP music, for my money absolutely nothing is better than FM synthesis. The flexibility of being able to bend, merge, and deform waveforms is unparalleled, as it can produce any sound the programmer can dream of, in a warping, flexing, analog kind of way. The Yamaha YM2612 in the Genesis is the little brother to sound chips in almost every arcade machine from the 80s-- a match made in heaven for the VDP and CPU in terms of bringing the arcade experience home!
I like a lot of NES and Super NES games too, but for me from a subjective standpoint the Genesis library is the best of all time. Every single genre is amply accounted for with some of the best games in those genres ever made. And any time Sega went out to "clone" a genre leader, they wound up producing some of the most atmospheric, dark, moody video games material ever made.
Just to name one genre example, I will absolutely take the Genesis RPG library over any other platform. When I'm exploring a dungeon in "Sword of Vermilion", or watching the opening to "Phantasy Star II", or entering the maze in "Shining in the Darkness", everything from the way the artwork is drawn to the insane music gives me goosebumps, in a way that the "Final Fantasy" games or something simply don't.
In the Clear
I've finally got the insurance questions all answered, and are ready to hop right into my new job on October 13! It has felt like a full-time job trying to get all of this figured out, but I'm finally there! This will free up a lot of time for me over the next couple of weeks, thank the Lord! Now I can get back to scripture again.
The wife and I met with my new employer's health insurance broker, and it turns out that the health co-op is going to save us an astronomical amount of money. How it works is that instead of paying for health insurance for the employees all of the time, it's actually cheaper for them to cover catastrophic events if and when they happen! Then if one does occur, they open up a policy for that individual and use what's called and ICHRA to pay the deductible.
The only use case where it results in potentially net-negative for the company is when people have pre-existing conditions. So in my wife's case, we are going to get a policy just for her, to cover the prescriptions and procedures she needs to routinely have done. And then, my employer picks up part of the monthly premium for that policy-- while the kids and I will use the co-op for catastrophic scenarios instead.
On the car insurance side, we're shifting to State Farm-- they gave us a super low rate, and my wife's friend who worked there for many years, said that they are wonderful to deal with both from price and service standpoints. So I think we'll be in good shape!