Nate True's Weblog: Posts tagged with birdy

25 things about me

Posted by natetrue 38 weeks ago

(I'm going to start posting more things non-iPhone related. If you only subscribe for iPhone stuff, follow my iPhone tag. I'd love you to stick around though. )

There's been this "25 things" trend on Facebook where people post 25 things about themselves and let all their friends learn a little more. I decided to post my 25 things here because not all of you follow me on Facebook.

I've been meaning to do my 25 things for a while. As a somewhat private person it's generally quite difficult for me to open up. But here goes.

1. My full name is Nathaniel Paul True. Nathaniel means “God has given” and Paul means “small”.

2. As I was growing up I was fascinated with how my toys worked and would take them apart all the time. I soon became interested in assembling my own electronics and dove into that.

3. I also took up programming early on (about age 8) with QBASIC on our old 8088 PC running MS-DOS 6. 22. Oh, the fun I had with that. . .

4. I became ashamed of my external nerd look early on in high school and changed my hair, clothes, got contacts, etc. By the end of high school I stopped caring about all that.

5. I interned at Microsoft as a Program Manager right before my senior year in college and really disliked it. I had so little work to do in the 8 hour days that I couldn't stand it.

6. I have a green-cheek conure (a small, quiet, very friendly parrot) named Erythema. The name means a reddening of the skin due to capillary dilation. I call her Birdy though.

7. Before Erythema I had a maroon-belly conure named Pistachio. I accidentally killed him in my sleep when I rolled on top of him. I don't let birds sleep in my bed anymore.

8. As I write this Erythema is sticking her head up my sleeve and grooming herself. It's very cute.

9. In high school and college I took a number of classes that taught evolution. It seemed so simple before but now I realize that there are a large number of things wrong with it, and that we could not possibly have arisen from the slime, and that has been proven to me far beyond a reasonable doubt.

10. I work at Tapulous, on my iPhone music game Tap Tap Revenge. Have you played it?

11. Believing that evolution could happen did not block me from believing in God; for a long time I believed that God invented evolution and brought us about that way.

12. I love to cook, and my favorite dish to make (and eat) is Orange Sesame Tofu. I posted a recipe for it on cre. ations. net!

13. A search for God brought me into the Mormon church in September of 2006. I fully believed in it as the true church, but never really dug into it, and never really felt a communion with God while a member. I felt like if I did my assigned duties that was enough.

14. I'm a vegetarian, and I love it. I am not categorically against killing animals (it's our right to do so as rulers of this planet, and for a long time meat was necessary to get a balanced diet) but if I can feed myself without having to kill animals, all the better.

15. My good friends Brenda, Jesse, Andru, Monica, and Roland started showing me what the Bible said about various doctrines that contradict the teachings of the Mormon church. It was proven to me that the Bible contradicted Mormon teachings, but I was stubborn.

16. I made my own watch from parts, and it displays the time in binary. People always ask me about it and want me to show off its cool writing-time-in-the-air feature but I'm not such a fan of the attention.

17. I stuck with the Mormon church for 9 months until I left in May of 2007. I left because I was convinced that it couldn't be the one true church, and thus has none of the powers it claims to have.

18. Yes, the sleeves in my jacket light up like flashlights. I do enjoy attention from that. And my watch can also double as a flashlight. Do not look directly into either when they are pointed at you. They are spectacularly bright.

19. I now believe God is not some mystical mysterious force that requires all sorts of rituals to be done to the letter. I believe He seeks to connect on a personal level, and detests useless rituals done in his name again and again (see Amos 5:21-26).

20. I enjoy making cool things and founded a modest business with it where people can buy kits to make the cool things that I made.

21. I am a Christian now, a Seventh-Day Adventist. I believe that the human consciousness is implemented entirely in the brain, and dies when the body dies; but God can resurrect the body and the mind, and He will do so as He has promised.

22. I believe the human race as it stands right now is degrading, both morally and physically. As more and more generations separate us from the Creation, our hope in our own power increases and our genome gets corrupted with more and more destructive mutations. Nothing can save us but God.

23. I made adapters for my iPhone earbuds that make them sound like they're expensive $100 in-ear headphones.

24. Only in the last few weeks have I really discovered what it means to have a relationship with God. I spend time morning and evening in prayer and communing with Him.

25. I always chew gum after eating, and feel odd if I don't. I chew it for about 5 minutes and spit it out. I can't stand chewing gum for longer.

Thanks for reading. If you publish your 25 things, make sure to link to it in a comment here!