define: Jared Barden
the ramblings of a Web Geek
When Up is Down
May 10th
After reading Aunt Lori’s blog the other day, I figured maybe it would help to get my thoughts/feeling out “on paper”.
Let me start by saying that my space bar is dying, but I digress.
“Up is Down” is how I feel right now. Right is Left, however you want to say it. Everything that I thought made sense, doesn’t seem to any more.
I feel like when we first found out about the miscarriage, yes, we were devastated, but we put on a pretty good face, and I felt “OK” about things. As time goes on, I feel this confidence rapidly fading.
Since I have no one to blame, I tend to blame God. It’s easy since He’s unseen, and can’t defend Himself (although He could if He so chose). I blame Him for not stopping this miscarriage. I blame Him for not letting me have a healthy baby. I blame Him for crushing Danielle’s heart’s desire.
Don’t get me wrong, I know He’s not to blame, but since there is no one else right now, He has become that target. And, you know what? I think He’s OK with that. If he can’t handle my hissy fit, then I would question His Godhood.
It’s the little day by day things that just seem to pile on top of each other. It’s like the Universe is just playing some cosmic hoax on us.
Miscarriage. iPod dies. Car needs to be fixed (again). And the list goes on and on.
I know that most of the things that are bothering me are not big things, certainly not when compared to a human life, but, taken together, they just add to the pile of emotions.
I feel like my heart has a gaping hole in it, and all the kind words and “just have faith”, “God knows what He’s doing”, etc. won’t fill that hole. I know that God is the only one who can fill that hole and heal that hurt, but quite frankly, I don’t trust Him all that much at the moment. I can’t tell you how much I prayed for my little guy, that he would grow up healthy, that he would be blessed, that he would know God, that he would develop the way he was supposed to, and so on.
I feel like those prayers fell on deaf ears. I know in my heart of hearts that they didn’t, but that is how I feel.
I need time to grieve. I need time to process. I wish that people would allow me that time. Allow me to be angry at the moment. Allow me to hurt. Just be there for me. You don’t even need to say anything. In fact, it probably would be better if you didn’t. Don’t act weird. Don’t feel like you have to have all the answers, because, let’s face it, you don’t. Just be a friend. Just go through this with me.
Just let me figure out how to get back to where Up is Up and Down is Down again…
Natalie Stovall at Penn Tech
May 1st
Today we drove down to Penn Tech to hear Natalie Stovall play. Natalie put on an awesome show at Mansfield earlier this year, opening for Josh Gracin, and we’ve stayed in touch with her through Facebook and her blog.
Natalie and her husband, James, are the coolest. James chatted with us for a while after Natalie’s set, and we got to hang out with Natalie for a while also. Although, it’s pretty hard to carry on a conversation once the next band goes on stage.
Danielle took, oh, about 250 photos. And I took my “Dinner Party” script from The Office for the band to sign. I would have taken my iPod, but it’s still out in Utah…that’s another story.
I shot a couple more videos on my Cybershot. The first is a “Pop Culture” medley near the end of Natalie’s set. The second is the solo part of Freebird.
Natalie, James, Miguel and Joe, you guys are amazing, and have been a huge bright spot in what’s been a fairly dark period for us. We’re bummed you didn’t get to make it to Mansfield again tonight, but we hope to get to see one of your shows again soon. Look us up when your in our neck of the woods!
Invisible Shield Damage
Apr 12th
After viewing my friend Dave’s iPhone 3G, I was very impressed with his Zagg Invisible Shield, and I decided that once I got my iPod Touch, I would have to get one.
I believe the Shield actually came before my iPod did, and I was excited to apply it right away. For starters, the front side of the Shield DID NOT cover the entire front of the Touch. But it covered enough, and that was OK with me. The Shield is incredibly challenging to install, and installation requires quite a bit of patience. Long story short, I was able to get a replacement Shield after I had some problems with my original.
I installed the replacement Shield this past Wednesday. On Thursday I noticed some problems with the installation, so I decided to remove it and give it a last shot. I got everything lined up perfectly, and then my Touch decided to turn on for some reason. I turned it off, and didn’t think any more about it.
When I attempted to turn the Touch back on Thursday night, it refused. In fact, it refused all the way until Saturday evening.
On our way home from Toronto yesterday I stopped by the Apple Store at the Walden Galleria in Buffalo, where I was told I would have to wait almost 3 hours to see a Genius, but I was desperate, so I agreed. The Genius took about two looks at it and said, “your iPod got water on it, there’s nothing I can do.” Apparently this came from the installation of the Shield. The Touch has a water sensor inside the earbud connection. If ANY water gets in there, the little sensor turns half red. If this happens, you’re completely out of luck. Get caught in a rain storm? Out of luck. Live in an incredibly humid climate? Out of luck. Even if you buy the Apple Care plan for the Touch, you’re out of luck.
Piled on with all the other events of the last couple months, this was about the last straw. I even got so mad on the way out of the store that I slammed the Touch on the ground. I wish now that I hadn’t.
When we got home I tried one last ditch effort. I plugged it in to my PowerBook, and sure enough, it came back on! I couldn’t believe it!
However…
There is a huge “stain” on the screen from the application of the shield. Water must have seeped inside somehow. I figured I could live with that…
And now the sound is all garbled. It pretty much sounds like the worst radio connection ever. I’m hoping this goes away with time, since that is sort of the main purpose of the iPod.
Long story short….very upset with Zagg, and disappointed in Apple. I take incredibly good care of my products, and they wouldn’t even help at all with this $300+ products I’ve had for less than two months. I still love Apple, but it’s left an incredibly bad taste in my mouth.
Some pictures of the screen issues…
Natalie Stovall and Josh Gracin at M.U.
Apr 4th
This past Thursday was the Josh Gracin concert at M.U. Since Danielle is a diehard country fan, we HAD to go.
Let me just say that the opening act, Natalie Stovall, was AMAZING! She sings and plays a mean fiddle to boot.
This first video is of her and her guitarist playing a sweet riff during one of the songs.
Natalie also played Devil Went Down to Georgia, a favorite of ours from our many Emerson Drive concerts.
Josh Gracin was great also.
The Jedi Web Geek in me has to mention the amazing connectivity of this whole situation. Natalie has a Facebook page, as well as a Twitter account and a blog, which SHE updates. It’s so amazing how connected you can be to someone in this Facebook/Twitter era. The cool thing was that Natalie accepted both of our friend requests on Facebook, and she picked one of Danielle’s pictures as her profile pic! Plus she wrote a really sweet note to Danielle on her wall.
Natalie is an amazing artist, and seems like a really cool person as well. Hopefully she can make it back to Mansfield again really soon!
David Cook Concert at Mansfield University
Mar 21st
Thanks to my Dad’s waiting in line last week early in the morning, this past Thursday we got to see David Cook, last season’s American Idol winner, live in concert at Straughn Hall at Mansfield University.
David seems like a very down to Earth guy. He and his crew played a prank on the opening act, Ryan Star, with an inflatable cow that emerged from the pit in front of the stage at the end of Ryan’s set. See the first embedded video for more.
Cook’s performance was great. He seemed to interact with the audience really well, and, like I said before, seemed like a nice, down to Earth guy. I shot his performance of Light On with my Sony Cybershot, and I think it turned out pretty well. It’s already gotten almost 1,500 views on YouTube, and it hasn’t even been up 2 whole days!
Irony
Mar 17th
Does anyone else find it funny that President Obama is echoing John McCain’s September 2008 claims that, “the fundamentals of our economy our strong”?
See, back then, Obama wanted the economy to not be strong, to help him get elected. Now that he’s in, and the economy is in the tank, he needs to convince everyone that everything is just hunky dory.
Ironic…
Removing the [Gmail] folder
Mar 17th
If you use Gmail, and like me, you have an iPod Touch or an iPhone, then this trick might be useful for you.
Gmail on the iPod Touch uses the IMAP protocol. Fancy name. Basically boils down to the fact that you can sync your read and deleted messages across locations (delete it on your iPod, it’s deleted on the Gmail web interface). However, with IMAP Gmail adds this pesky [Gmail] folder which you can’t click to your list of folders. Any folders that show up on your iPod correspond to labels in your Gmail account, except, of course, for Inbox, Sent, Trash, etc.
To get rid of this [Gmail] folder, do the following.
1.) Rename all of your labels to “[Gmail]/LabelName” (i.e. [Gmail]/Danielle) MAKE SURE you put the “/” in between [Gmail] and the label name
2.) On your iPod go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Gmail Account -> Advanced. At the bottom of this screen, change the IMAP Path Prefix to “[Gmail]“.
3.) Reload your Account. I usually just turn it off in Settings and then turn it on again.
Voila! That pesky [Gmail] folder is gone! I know it’s not optimal, since in the web interface all your labels show up with longer names than normal, but for me it was worth it. If it helps someone else out, that’s cool too.
Emotional Roller Coaster
Mar 17th
Now that things are settling down a bit, I figured I share with everyone the emotional roller coaster I’ve been on lately.
Earlier this year (or perhaps it was late last year) I was asked by one of my best friends, Zack, to be one of the best men in his wedding. I was honored he asked me, and super psyched since the wedding would be near Daytona Beach in the beginning of February. Needless to say, I was pretty excited.
The night before we left for Florida, Danielle decided to take a home pregnancy test, just to clear up any questions, since we had been trying for a couple of months. Surprise, Surprise! It came back positive…and the next one…and the next one! We were shocked at first, but so excited! What a great way to start our trip!
Our flight down was great, and we got to fly with Zack’s Mom & Dad as well as his Sister, Brother-in-Law, and their two kids. It was definitely nice to fly with friends.
The weekend of the wedding was some of the most fun I’ve ever had. It was so nice to be with Dave, Dan, and Zack…dear friends who I consider brothers, but I don’t get to see all too often since they’ve all relocated to Florida.
Fast forward to last week.
Danielle went to Sayre for her first Dr. appointment to see how everything was progressing. After some hemming and hawing, the Dr. informed Danielle that either the baby had stopped developing or the pregnancy was tubal. You can imagine the shock and grief that Danielle felt when learning the news. Danielle called me around 4:55 to let me know, and I don’t think I have ever been more devastated in my life.
This past week has been a series of emotions…anger, frustration, incredible sadness, comfort, questioning…and just about any other emotion you can throw in that list.
It’s funny, I tend to usually get mad at God first. I guess He’s an easy target, since he’s not “here” (at least in physical form). The great thing about God is that He can handle us being mad at Him. He can handle the outbursts. He can handle the questions. If He couldn’t…He wouldn’t be God.
This whole ordeal has really made me think about eternity also. It’s funny, I’ve always believed in Heaven and knew that I was going to Heaven, but now it HAS to exist…not so much for me, but for my son. I know He’s in the arms of the Father now.
Which brings me to another point. Even though I know Enoch (we named him Enoch because that is what Jared in the Bible names his son and because Enoch was taken by God) is in Heaven, that doesn’t fill this gaping hole in my heart. Yes it helps, but it doesn’t bring him back. I know that God works things together for our good, and that helps, but that doesn’t fix the hurt.
Also, please don’t tell me that a fetus is not a person. Tell that to my hurting wife. Tell that to the would be Grandma and Grandpas who now don’t have a grandson. Please don’t tell me that at all. How anyone can believe that is beyond me. I know that’s not very P.C. of me, but that’s how I feel.
I feel like I’ll never be the same, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I know that I need to move on, and that, yes, things will work out for good. For now I just want to work through these emotions and grieve the loss of my son, and get to moving on eventually.
Stimulus Breakdown
Feb 24th
If you care where your “stimulus” money is being spent – and you should – you can check out my Google Spreadsheet.
Ped Egg
Feb 23rd
I don’t usually put too much stock in infomercial products, but I used one this weekend that really works as advertised.
During the winter, my feet get cracked like crazy (nasty, I know). They were especially bad this weekend, so my sister-in-law suggested I use her Ped Egg. The one part of the Ped Egg is basically a miniaturized cheese grader for your foot. It did it’s job, but it definitely didn’t feel that great.
The part that really helped was the buffer. It basically sanded the rough spots off my foot. I just took a look at my feet tonight, and all the cracked skin is completely gone.
Ped Egg definitely has my endorsement.