Right off the bat, the analogy and parallels in The Rings of Power, to the theology and stories in the Bible had me really excited for this show. I watched the show because I'm a Lord of the Rings fan. I didn't expect to find a great discussion between good and evil sprinkled throughout the show. There is theology in here hidden in a high fantasy story.

It must be noted that there is a lot of hate for this show online. I'm not quite sure why though. Yeah there were some head-scratching moments, but none that were enough to deter me from finishing the whole season. My wife who is not a big Lord of the Rings fan like me, actually liked it and keeps asking when Season 2 is going to come out. So there's that.

Anyway, below are some of my thoughts and notes on the pilot episode. Maybe it will sway you one way or another to give the show a chance.

A ship does not look down, but looks up to the light that guides her. It is always fighting off the darkness from the water/sea that is wanting to pull her under. ~ Finrod

This reminds me of Bishop Barron saying that bodies of water are a symbol of danger, fear or darkness in the Bible.

The ship here represents us humans. Darkness and evil, represented by water/sea, is always trying to pull us under. And so we must look up to the source of light (God) to guide us and keep us afloat.

You can take this analogy even further. While I'm not a Bible scholar, I remember a few stories that shows God's mastery over bodies of water.

• In the start of the book of Genesis, in the story of creation, you read of God “hovering above the waters” after he created Heaven and Earth.
• In the book of Exodus, you read about Moses parting the red sea with God's help.
• In the Gospel stories, you read of Jesus walking on water.

All of these examples are meant to show that God is above darkness and evil. And that is why I find that quote about the ship looking up to the light that guides her, so satisfying.

The beginning of the story in The Rings of Power, is like the beginning of the story of man in the Bible. The Elves joyfully roamed their own version of paradise, just like how Adam and Eve were free to walk alongside God in Eden. However, corruption snaked its way in and the Elves fell, just like Adam and Eve fell when they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The discussion on good and evil in the pilot episode is so riveting.

Where there is love, it can never truly be dark. ~ Elrond

Since God is love, you can re-write the quote above to say, “Where there is God it can never truly be dark.” And that is such an apt analogy, because God is love, and God is light. And so where God is, darkness cannot prevail.

Tags: #TheRingsOfPower #LordOfTheRings #Theology #Christianity #TVShow

In this show, you get to see what Jesus was like in the eyes of Simon Peter, James and John (sons of Zebedee), Matthew the tax collector, even from the eyes of Mary Magdala.

In fact, the first episode of Season 1 revolves around Mary Magdala. And it is a beautiful, heart-warming episode. If you've ever felt lost, alone, abandoned, with nowhere else to go, Episode 1 might resonate with you very deeply. Episode 1 is what got me hooked on this show. The ending brought tears to my eyes.

On Episode 2, I learned how important Shabbat is to the Jewish people. They focus intently on it. They celebrate it with family and friends. It made me rethink how me and my family should be spending our own Sundays; and that is with family and friends. Our focus every Sunday should be family, people and God.

Episode 3 shows you what Jesus' life must have been like. What he did. Where he slept. How he slept. How he ate. How he prayed — yes he prayed to his Father before going to sleep! You even see him brushing his teeth. If you've ever wondered what brushing your teeth looked like 2,000 years ago, well then this is your episode. It was an awesome episode where you get to see him be human. He even dresses his own wounds; because as much as he is divine, he is also human.

Episode 4 was a powerful episode. I love their interpretation of how Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John would have met Jesus. I've always wondered why James and John (sons of Zebedee), would just abandon their father and follow Jesus. This episode gives a beautiful interpretation of that scene. I also love how they included Matthew in the background — and how that event quite possibly made him a Gospel writer. I love the scene where Simon Peter finally acknowledges Jesus. It brought tears to my eyes. The words he said, seemed like words I would say if I were to encounter Jesus today. Beautiful episode and a wonderful show.

Now it must be mentioned that this show is not a word for word rendition of the story in the Bible. What the creators have done, is take some liberty in telling the story based on what was plausible during that time. I honestly have no problem with that, as it makes the story more relatable, more personal.

There's so much more wonderful scenes to talk about: Jesus' reaction to an approaching leper, Thomas doubting Jesus could do anything at the wedding at Cana, Matthew leaving his tax collection booth to follow Jesus, Simon Peter's relationship with his wife (yes I've forgotten that he had a wife!), Jesus' healing of Simon Peter's mother in law, Nicodemus finally meeting Jesus, Jesus' conversation with a Samaritan woman, etc... I could probably go on and on about this show, but my time is limited so I'll try to wrap this up.

You don't need to be a Christian to enjoy it. This show is definitely worth watching, whether you believe in the Good News or not. And to make it even better, the show creators have made it free to watch. I'll say that again, it is free to watch! So, let's not waste any more time, go watch it when you can. I'll leave you with the trailer for Season 1. Enjoy and peace be with you.

Tags: #TVShow #TheChosen #Spirituality

Got back my Mazdaspeed3 last Saturday. I'm glad to have it back. But I also have to say that I was so spoiled by that CX-5 turbo loaner car. It was a really good car!

Anyway, cost to repair the leak in the Mazdaspeed3 transmission was $1,071. It was actually the transmission shifting mechanism that was leaking, not the transmission itself. Thankfully it was an affordable repair bill. And that's thanks to an emergency fund set up for times like this.

So, no need to trade in my car then. Though that CX-5 turbo did make me think twice about trading in... Is still making me think twice LOL!

Started reading the Lord Of The Rings 50th Anniversary Edition book. This was a much appreciated Christmas gift from my brother.

There's apparently a way to forward/send emails into OneNote. Got this idea after reading Tiago Forte's One-Touch to Inbox Zero: How I Spend 17 Minutes Per Day on Email, which is a great read by the way.

Here's some good parenting advice from an Instagram post on how to handle your kids when they lie to you.

Up to Episode 6 now of Vincenzo and man, what a good show! There were a couple of interesting things in Episode 6 that caught my eye, most notably the interaction between a Buddhist and Catholic character.

There's this scene where a Buddhist monk was carrying a huge wooden cross, like Jesus was on his way to crucifixion. The monk was carrying the abandoned cross to donate to a nearby church. It struck me as a beautiful scene, where people can cast aside their differences and just be kind to one another.

That scene then led to a conversation between Vincenzo and a Buddhist monk regarding enlightenment.

Vincenzo: “If I go live somewhere far away, like in the middle of the ocean, will the anger inside me disappear?”

Buddhist monk: “It doesn’t matter where you live. What matters is whether you still have the anger inside you or not.”

Vincenzo: “Does that mean that I need to achieve enlightenment?”

Buddhist monk: “The only way to get rid of your anger is by fighting it. Stand your ground and fight back. Enlightenment is what you get when you win that battle.”

Tags: #Weeknotes #Cars #Mazda #CX5 #Mazdaspeed3 #LordOfTheRings #Productivity #Parenting #TVShow #Vincenzo

After two days...

We got our 1st dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine. I thought it was going to be a drive-through setup, but it was not. And so we had to bring Davin and Caleb along with us, as we fell in line with other people. Had I known it wasn't a drive-through, we would have left Davin and Caleb at the babysitter.

Thankfully, once we got into the vaccination center, we found it to be a very organized event.

I started to feel some side-effects from the vaccine, 3-5 hours after getting it. I'm not sure how to describe it, other than I didn't feel 100%. My eyes felt like it wanted to close. I felt more tired than usual. I was already sleepy at only 6pm.

After a few more hours, I noticed that I was getting a little lightheaded every once in awhile. I felt better after laying down on the bed for a bit. But I was generally tired the whole night.

Next day, I was up and felt pretty good, minus the sore shoulder. I was able to go to work and didn't really feel any more side-effects then.

But that was just the first dose. For the second dose, I actually plan on taking the next day off. The side-effects for the second dose supposedly hit you harder than the first one.

Instead of sharing photos online, how about printing them and sticking them inside a family photo album? This will allow me to print photos of Davin and Caleb but not have to share it online. This idea actually feeds into my desire to take more photos of them since they are growing up so fast. But at the same time, it avoids the urge to post said photos on social media.

This idea was inspired by Olli Thomson's post that I found via Colin Devroe's post.

I mentioned on my previous Weeknotes post that I was taking a break from watching TV shows. But after some constant coaxing by the wife, I decided to follow the “Happy wife, happy life” adage and started watching Vincenzo on Netflix. And I'm glad I did because it's a really good show!

It has this great balance between being serious and hilarious at the same time. The main character is a very serious guy. But he's surrounded by all these wacky and funny characters. It makes for an entertaining show. The plot-twist at the end of Episode 4 was awesome! I was already hooked before then, but now I'm definitely looking forward to watching more episodes of it.

Here's the trailer to the show in case you're interested:

Almost to the end of The Light of All That Falls. I'm relieved and sad that it's almost done.

I'm relieved because it's a very long book. Finishing it means I get to read something else. But at the same time, I'm sad because it feels like I'll be saying goodbye to the book's characters pretty soon. What a journey it has been, for the characters in the book and for me as the reader.

A day passed and...

Finally finished the book. What an ending! One big takeaway from the book is this idea that I translated into my own words:

To be angry at God because he took away a loved one as part of his “Grand Plan”, means to acknowledge that as part of his “Grand Plan”, God gave you that loved one in the first place.

If a repair bill cost more than half the value of your car, it's probably time to consider replacing it.

I've spent some time doing the calculations on trading in my aging Mazdaspeed3 for a new car. Why? Because it's back at the shop for what looks like a transmission leak. And just to give some more context, last year I spent a lot of money to get the suspension replaced. The year before that, spent money on a new clutch. And before that, brakes and other maintenance items. So yeah, trading in my car has crossed my mind lately.

But anyway, I've come to the conclusion that I just don't want to spend over $300 a month on a car payment anymore. I think it's too much. I could use that money to pay off some other debt. This also means that I'm leaning towards just paying for the repairs, instead of trying to trade it in for a new car. I'll get a new car when we're out of debt.

I have forgotten how to post on Instagram. I have an account for my Speed3 that I created to try and maintain some interest in the car. Like other than sharing a photo, what do I say? Do I have to say anything? Most people seem to come up with these cool quotes or captions. I have nothing nowadays. Just a picture of my car. Sometimes it feels like every post is a performance for the Instagram crowd. And this is one reason why every once in awhile, I get this urge to create an Instagram replacement photo-blog.

I was able to watch some parts of the NBA 2021 All Star event. Couldn't really focus on it because of daddy duties, but what I was able to watch was entertaining.

Amazing to see the range that Damian Lillard and Steph Curry have nowadays. They can shoot from the half-court no problem. And I enjoyed the alley-oop plays they ran for themselves. First was an alley-oop to Damian Lillard. Then the next play was an alley-oop to Steph Curry. And the third play was an alley-oop to Chris Paul! I was ecstatic when I saw that haha.

I'm also not sure what happened, but Team Lebron was stacked. Their starters were Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Steph Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Lebron James. I mean that's like a modern day international dream team right there.

Took Davin and Caleb to a park over the weekend. We intended to just do laps around the trails — with Davin on his balance bike, me and Coney on foot, and Caleb on the stroller. But Davin wanted to go to the nearby playground, so we did.

Most of the parents and the kids at the playground weren't wearing masks. That was highly disappointing. Thankfully, the playground sort of opened up when Davin started playing. But still...

Anyway, Davin can ride his balance bike at a faster pace now. Simply walking behind him is not good enough to keep up. I think the next time we do the same thing, I have to bring my own bike. And since Caleb is at an age where he can now ride on a front-mount child bike seat, we should be able to go on family bike rides soon. Exciting!

Tags: #Weeknotes #Basketball #DigitalMinimalism #PersonalFinance #PublicHealth #TheLightOfAllThatFalls #TVShow #Vaccine

Figured out how to convert the “Published” date in Wyam into the GMT equivalent of my local time. You can find my solution here.

Side-note: I am liking the new “discussion” feature on Github.

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Moved to my new team at work last week. It was hectic. Between trying to keep up with multiple chat threads, emails, meetings, I was playing catch-up the whole day. That said, they are a fun bunch. And I've found myself laughing a lot during our meetings.

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I was listening to the Guild Wars 2 OST, while doing Production support. At one point, it felt like I was fighting a world boss while trying to fix an issue. 😀

The particular song I was listening to was Shadow of the Dragon. Try to listen to it while working on a bug or issue, it will be fun haha.

Tags: #Weeknotes #GuildWars2 #TVShow

I am not even sure how they filmed this. It looks like a movie, like a fictional movie, but it is not. They managed to take real life footage and make it look like a movie. The part in the episode where they were building up to the start of the race was very cool.

I'm used to watching races live. You have the commentators talking with each other, you have the race data on the screen and you see the drivers racing. You never get to see what happens behind the scenes though. And that's what you get to watch in this show.

You get to see that there are human beings behind all this, that they have dreams and ambitions just like the rest of us. And you get to see what it looks like when all those come crashing down. It is crazy to say this, but I actually got a little teary eyed when the episode showed the Haas team losing both their cars. (That is not a spoiler by the way, because that's what happened in the first race during the 2018 season.) Getting emotional like that would have never happened to me had I been watching the live race.

If you're a fan of racing or motorsport in general, I think you should definitely try to watch the first few episodes. I'm glad I did.

Tags: #TVShow #Formula1DriveToSurvive #FirstImpressions