Jars of Clay
Jars of Clay is probably my favorite band … ever. The vocals are just perfect, and so real. Too many bands these days suck live because they synthesize every part of their “sound” … Jars of Clay, on the other hand, sounds just about the same live as they do on their CD 
Two of my favorite (or currently favorite) songs would probably be Sunny Days and Lonely People. The lyrics are just as nice as the vocals … so read and figure it out 
Happy (belated) Birthday to Me!
So while I was cleaning out my “living room” yesterday I went through this big ole box that I’d just left sitting there for … oh I dunno, 4 months? I found a bunch of things that just got me reminiscing about quite a bit of things, but I found a load of birthday cards I had, for some reason, saved (i think i found cards as far back as my first birthday…) and ran across one that looked like it had my mom’s writing on the envelope. So, of course, I open it and remember it’s one that she had written for my 20th birthday (we found a whole box full of cards that she had prepared for everyone in the family, a full year before their birthdays) and got a little teary eyed just reading the message again. For some reason, every time I read something of hers … it’s almost like I was meant to (if that makes sense?). Like it’s exactly what I need to hear at that moment to keep me happy and not fall back into the horribly sad state I used to be in. Even though she wrote it many months before my birthday, the message was still special.
Wishing you the best of everything today and everyday!
‘Take time to enjoy the special things in life.’
You deserve to enjoy life. I am so very proud of you.
Love, Mom.
The bold portion was the stuff already printed on the card. At times I find myself dwelling on … everything … which in turn makes me pretty unhappy. And for lack of a better way to put this, sometimes dwelling on all that happened with her tends to keep a fog over my life … although I dwell to remember … dwelling is probably the worst way to deal with it. I also find myself grabbing hidden meanings (whether originally intended on being there or not) from life in general. Those words … I felt like it was her reminding me to not worry about her anymore. That she’s finally got the ultimate happiness and that I should no longer focus on the sadness and pain she lived in and realize it was all for the best, for everyone. Me being happy used to bring her such great joy. I’d like to think that it still can.
Sometimes I do find myself wondering how long she knew she wasn’t going to get better … how long she consciously knew that she was actually going to die from this … that she wouldn’t ever meet her grandchildren or see either one of her children get married or graduate college. I wonder if she had a choice in it. Like if you’ve ever seen The Exorcism of Emily Rose (warning: spoiler ahead 
) … near the end they show her having a dream and meeting Mary. Mary tells her that she has the choice to stay on this Earth and continue to endure great pain and be an amazing witness the world … or she could go ahead and leave with Mary to heaven and end the pain immediately. She chose to stay. My mind can’t help but wonder if something like that happened … to some degree. That whole concept might just sound ridiculous to some people … in fact it all may … but a (big) part of me feels it could be a reality … in every sense.
She chose to stay.
Here’s to happiness,
-josh
PS. I found a picture of my baby cousin from when she was only a year old (she’s three now) … and then I thought, “hey, that looks really familiar…” So I checked my other pics and matched it up.
and here’s the one from a couple of weeks ago…
i love how amazingly similar the pictures are! she makes me smile 
PPS. My sister’s boyfriend got her a new bunny … teehee
Life and Love and Why
It’s been a year to date now since my mom died. For some reason I thought it’d be some amazingly difficult day or that something really memorable was going to happen. I guess I’m glad it hasn’t turned out that way so far. Honestly a part of me would almost like to really broken up about all of it and just have it on my mind more clearly. But that’s really silly to say, let alone think.
I still haven’t gone to see her grave. It’s been a year and I’ve managed to avoid making the trip somehow. It’s actually sad to think about how I’ve not gone. But I’m honestly not sure if my sister has either. We just don’t talk about it. It’s a three hour drive … and many times I’ve just thought about getting up and going randomly. Other times I’ve tried to hint that I’d like a friend to go with me to make it a little easier. But I wouldn’t want to be that friend if the situation was reversed, so I’m not at all surprised that hasn’t happened either.
I sent myself a letter on FutureMe.org that’ll be sent on May 5, 2010. To remind myself who I am now and hoping I’ve stayed true to myself and hopefully accomplished something by then
Dear FutureMe,
Have you changed any yet? Have you decided that it’s okay to get drunk all of the time and go against every thing you used to believe in? Have you managed to still be happy and yet keep your virginity?
Are you in a relationship? Is she nice?
Please tell me you’re going to church once again. Please.
Have you finally taken it upon yourself to visit mom’s grave? You really need to. Seriously. She’d feel a little sad if you haven’t by now.
I hope you’re something that would make her happy, but at the same token I hope you’re something that you can be happy being.
How’s school going? I’m hoping you’ve graduated college by now. If not I hope there’s not much more left to take. Mom would want you to be productive in life and not depressed because of everything that’s happened. Don’t do that to yourself, not anymore.
Do you ever talk to Dad anymore? What about Carolyn or Dillon? (your used to be step-family) Have you finally forgiven him for … being him?
Do you talk to Christina very much? You really should talk to her more. Because when you’re (even) older, you’re going to wish you had.
I hope two years has helped clear things up and make life a little more clear. Most importantly I hope you’re happy. And not just acting like you are. Move on, be excited to wake up again. Remember everything that you love and that there are genuinely good people out there to make it all worthwhile.
Stay strong, live happy, be yourself.
-the sophomore in college, You
I have some fun stories I could tell right now … but they’re too funny to even post here … lol, just trust me
Remembering the good ole days,
-josh
Decrypt nested eval gzinflate str_rot13 base64_decode
So I went ahead and wrote a script to undo massively nested eval(gzinflate(str_rot13(base64_decode(‘STRING’)))); and eval(gzinflate(base64_decode(‘STRING’))); “encryptions” with a multitude of both of them inside it. The string from the original footer here had to go through 67 different iterations before it got to the real source code (talk about overkill).
If you have strings that aren’t nested, you can probably just do this:
$string = htmlentities($string, ENT_NOQUOTES);
echo $string;
If you have a string from that fits that description you can decrypt it here
Or if you just want to test it here’s the original string from the footer of this one of my old themes: