Time for a tech update...

 In the past, I turned to a PC seller who gave me good deals, which I then paid off in installments. I am thinking about returning to that setup, but I need to clear up some issues I have had with one poor product he wanted to sell me. It is good because I can get completed built systems at a good second-hand rate. It can be a poor option due to the risk of getting a dead system. I actually think he knew that the laptop had major issues. 

I have another option that is better in so many ways. It is Carrot Market. This is an internet-based second-hand shop accessible through its own app. This is the best option as many people know the true value of what they have, OR they give the right prices for second-hand goods. 

For example, a "PC hardware expert" will price a system at a higher price because they know what said system can do. For example, the i7 7700k with 16gb ddr4 ram and a gtx 1060 3gb vram GPU will sell for 450000 won. But on carrot people just mainly see an older PC that is collecting dust that while it is good, it isn't great will sell it for 250000 won, and they will be willing to go lower to say 230k. 

Also, these sellers are right in the area you live in. No ordering old of PC room hardware from China like I did before.

Also, I do not have to deal with the "experts". The reality is that there are loads of cheap PCs and components on the market. 

For our family, I am thinking of killing 3 birds with one stone. One rig that can take care of my vram needs, Yogita's stability, and a more powerful GPU for George along with a better CPU. Jeyo will get a better GPU and a better more spacious case with new case fans 

This is phase one, phase two will be tablets. As cheap as I can get of course!

/tata

updates!

 Finally, the heat wave is over and we are nearing the one-year mark since the boys dedicated their lives to Jehovah. We have had some attacks against us but we were able to weather them with Jehovah's help. I can more signs of this system ending. 

One thing that sticks in my mind is women's dressing habits. In the USA you can see over time how modesty went right out of the window. It is the same here now. Women wear things that would have caused an uproar 20 years ago. You can see body shapes as if you are in the United States! It really is shocking! Also the age range of women who do this ranges from teens to women in their 60s. Years ago it would have been the 20s to early 30s. 

For men things have not gotten better, rather they are far worse. Pornography is EVERYWHERE despite it being illegal. People often share their own private collections among friends. The age range starts as soon as a young person gets a smartphone. This is not just limited to boys and men, girls and women of all ages are digesting this disgusting material as well. 

I am not innocent in this. I too was addicted to pornography for years. The result? The stain of that horrible sin hurt my wife and my children. So seeing these things I can truly see we are getting close.

Smartphones are everywhere today! Another sign things are going from bad to worse is sexting, cyberbullying, phishing, and other frauds that use smartphones. 

It is like this awesome device sitting in your pocket is a live grenade that can take your life and hurt others near you at any moment. 

So, for this update, I can see that this world is getting uglier and uglier. Teenagers on our date night looked like they were casing our car!

Also, underage drinking, and over drinking in general is getting worse.

Ugh, I pray for patience to wait on Jehovah!

/tata

Smartphones another thing we need to be careful about...

 In this system of things, there is never any peace that results from the things in it. One of them is the smartphone. When I was kid having your best friend's phone number was a big deal! Calling them on the phone was fun. If they went on a trip getting a postcard was so memorable. Often times we would keep them for years. It was like having a collage of our lives. Now? So much has changed!

I remember things changing when everyone had a PC or a laptop and email was king. I remember the ecards replacing physical cards. Just send an email and someone could print it up if they wanted to. I never did. 

Today, people do not even use email like before. Now, we use instant messaging, video chat, and finally phone calls. Mainly we use instant messaging. So when walking on the street you might see people hunched over their phones, or talking into the air because they are using Bluetooth-capable earbuds. 

Smartphones have come a long way. In the past, they were PDA phones. These devices were large and bulky with very slow but expensive data plans. Few people had them. I remember thinking pda phones are needed as I have my cell phone, a PDA, and my laptop (PC at home). 

Today, smartphones are as powerful as desktop computers in terms of performance. They do this on smaller screens and with tiny hardware but they can do the same things PC's can do. 

So being able to talk to whoever one wants to, go to any webpage, play games, and use social media there are many dangers. Some of them are so subtle. While others are quite blatant. 

Some people use social media to show a lifestyle that seems perfect. beautiful bodies, loads of money, nice cars and homes. Others, show sexually suggestive material that if you keep viewing it sin is waiting right around the corner. Then there are the politically charged messages. If you do not take care you might end up siding against Jehovah's chosen King by becoming embroiled in conflicts here on Earth. 

So I need to take action. Set up a monitoring program where all family members can see each other's usage and make changes. These changes will reduce our time on certain apps if we can see dangerous trends. 

We need to be clear, Satan knows he has little time left. Now, he uses even more tactics some of which might seem innocent fun. I think it will bring us closer together, and aid us in keeping in the race of life!

/tata

Chusok another holiday season

Last week I got into an accident in a parking lot. For the first time, I was handled in a very fair way. In the past medical and car repairs were done properly but not the rental. 

I drove cars that were in the top end and always got a mid-range car. I know they did it because I am not Korean but at the time I was just happy to be able to go around. This time they wanted to do the same. I said no, and asked for a car at the same level as the Chairman W. I got the Genisis G80.

I hated the look of the car from the start. I do not like the new knob shifter although getting experience with it has been helpful. I loved the extra power it had. I think I had the turbocharged 2.5 liter inline 4 motor that puts out 300hp. Yeah, that is 50hp more than my 3.6l inline 6. But, I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I might. First, the basic drive mode really feels sluggish. So I needed to put it in sports mode to access the engine's power. It performed very well. But it was too distracting with dings and stupid alerts. If I needed those alerts it would mean that I have a serious mental deficiency and should not be driving. I enjoyed the 360-degree parking camera...very useful! If I could install that on my Chairman I would. 

Other than that it was ok to drive but seriously not worth 20 million on the secondhand market.  If I were in the market for another car I would opt for the Chairman W 5liter v8. It has the added bells and whistles I like at a cheaper price due to Koreans looking down on what they consider to be low-brand power cars. I love this because you get really nice cars very cheaply. Also, many Koreans think like I do. Don't show off get something that you can afford to care of. Actually, this reminds me of my friends in our congregation just get what you like and can afford then move on. 

So this Chusok I was a bit worried because I thought maybe the car might get junked, or repairs would take too long. I got our car back and wow it looks great! New bumper, and headlight, and they cleaned the other headlight. 

I am so happy to have our car. That  G80 had too many cameras that actually function while the car is in motion. It isn't needed. I know most drivers DO NOT USE most of the safety options. If you were to use them you would get into more accidents. 

Ok, time to finish the work part of this Friday!

/tata

Reels Shorts and tiktok another dangerous snare from Satan

 All over the world in homes EVERYWHERE people are resting and looking down at some device. I saw my oldest son looking down, I was doing the same, my wife rolled on to her side was doing the same. This is the picture of my bedroom I share with my wife: We are "watching" some program, yet we are both propped up in a way to support our device which is in our hands ensnaring us. 

How did this start? Well at first it was just a minor thing Yogita enjoyed. It was truly not an addiction at that time. I would say hey lets do so and so, she would drop her device and we would join in that activity. 

It started with me! I was the one that got hooked. My wife told me that she didn't like it. She gave good reasons as to why. I did not listen. I kept watching responding gruffly to her not paying attention, or ignoring her altogether. The end result? She started doing it too! Then our sons followed suit. Jeyo trolls youtube videos and comments, while George does something similar like me and his mother. 

Now, I am at a point where I must do something. I must lead my family, not by making dogmatic statements like "Just because I do it doesn't mean you can do it" or " Do as I am telling you or else!" implying that some fun activity or hobby time will be taken away.  

No, I am going to stop using my device. I will not look at reels when we are watching a movie or documentary. Then I will start some other activities that my wife and I can enjoy and then expand that to our sons. When we watch movies we often talk, especially documentaries, we see why we need Jehovah's tent spread all over the world, over all of mankind. 

This expansion will eventually include us all perhaps Scrabble (where up to four people can play), or some other family game. It could include cooking together everyone is involved in preparing the meal. 

On some holidays I know George will love this, we can play some online game together. What that is we will need to figure out. 

Reels and these short bursts of dopamine are something that Satan uses to undermine the family bond. 

I will pray more on this matter and take action. I will not let something else pull the wool over my eyes.

/tata

A very nice Thursday

 So here I am at work. I never thought I would be in the situation I am now. 

You see last year we were having regular weekly bible studies as we had been inactive for a long time. 

So field service was to drop the boys off (if our bible study was on Thursday) have the study drive Yogita to work, and then I would go to work.

Fast forward one year later things have changed A LOT. Yogita wanted to expand her ministry. So she prayed to Jehovah about it earnestly. At the time a change was needed at her workplace. That change gave her the opportunity to cut back on work hours (earnings dropped then stabilized) and expand her preaching work. Well, what about me? I too prayed and thought what about my Thursday? I was very nervous because the place where I work teachers have to do far more than in "normal" academies. I was just sort of getting the hang of it. As my Boss's husband smugly told me one day last year "You are making fewer mistakes'. This was true. But I still just wasn't confident enough to go into service yet. About three months ago I decided to auxiliary pioneer for 15 hours a month. Going on Thursdays, and Sundays to preach about the coming kingdom meant that it could work out well. Also, my library of apps has grown a lot. 

So it started to get easier to prep for classes. See which grammar area they are in pull up a worksheet related to it, and make modifications if needed. I practiced doing it on Wednesday evenings. I would pretend I would go out in field service the next day. So I would prepare all of my worksheets so that all I would have to do was check, edit, and print. This takes about 15 to 20 minutes. 

So yesterday I was able to get my work prepped very quickly, and then make it to field service. 

This change has given me so much satisfaction as I know I am doing what Jesus told us to do!

Now it is Friday and I am finishing this post. I never want to go back to the way things were before, NEVER. Now, I have more peace happiness, and contentment. I still make many mistakes, but I know I should pray read my bible daily, and work on my shortcomings. Staying away from the old crowd I would hang out with also help. I know that if I go back to the old way it will be even worse than it was before.

/tata

Still the heat wave is with us.

 This summer has been yet again an unprecedented one. We have had this heat wave for over a month. Twenty-one people have died (which was reported) due to this heat. In our congregation still many are sickened by the heat. 

I am happy to say that I am still doing ok, and Yogita and the boys are weathering this heat wave well enough. Yogita needs more rest, and I have curtailed our walks as it is just too hot even at night. 

Last week was a vacation and we enjoyed it but we stayed home. I really enjoyed that time. I have been chatting with my twin brother and it has been really encouraging to me. Also, we chatted with our sister-in-law Wendy it was really nice to hear her voice! 

Jeyo now has a job and is putting his skills to work. This is a blessing from Jehovah, and it will be amazing to see what he will do with his talents in the new world. It is funny how we say "new" world or kingdom. Actually, it will become the norm as it will last forever, and years of this system of things will be dwarfed, and then forgotten when the new kingdom is established on Earth. 

Tomorrow is a holiday, so we will enjoy it very much! 

This was written on August 14th, and posted today.

/tata