Like I said before, I have read my Bible from front to cover so many times that I have lost count. The only Book of the Bible that I did not read like a book was Psalms, you have to feel a certain way to read Psalms, but you are not( at least I am not) reading Psalms for knowledge but a connection to God or a feeling of understanding that which is outside myself. My favorite Psalms by the way was always Psalms 37, I always felt those words, they have resonated with my spirit over the years. Anyways I really was not intending to write about Psalms, I wanted to write about the first 5 books of the Bible.

I always looked forward to reading Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. I am not sure why, but reading through all the laws was invigorating and I know when people talked about reading those books that it was described by them as dry reading, but not to me. I have had some problems though with some of the laws because they are from "God" and they just did not seem fair and enlighted as I thought they should be because they are from God after all. For example how slaves were treated. If a person was a slave and as a slave was married, and then gained his freedom he could not stay with his wife or childern. His only option was to get his ear pierced by an awl and then remain a slave the rest of this life, so that he was able the remain with his wife and childern if there were any. I always was disturbed by this, why would God allow this? Why would God allow the family to be broken apart like this? God hates divorce-- "right?" This just never made any sense to me everytime I read it. It just seems wrong. The man should be able to take his family and be free, thus making a more stable society. The other thing was how a priest was to judge sickness and sores on people. A lot of it sounded like if you had a pimple you could be outcasted or your house could be burnt down. Then this whole thing with a woman's period. God created it, it is a natural function of a woman so why did God deem it as unclean? God is the one that made our bodies function the way they do, sooooooo, I do not understand. Some of these laws just do not make any sense to me since because they originated with God but are unfair and lack understanding of the human condition.

What the Superman movie should be like.

This is the front of my desk, this is from a Star Trek tear of calander.

This is my world at Hillsborough Community College. The first picture is my office, my office is inside a computer lab. The second picture is the lab. The third picture are the toys that I have in my office that I have collected. I go to computer shows to see new inovative computer stuff, and I also get toys there to. Fun for me :) and my techs like them too. See the fuzzy thing on the coffee mug? That is a "Tribble" (from Star Trek) that Lily gave me from when she took her Tutoring staff to Las Vegas a few years ago. The next picture is my 19 inch monitor on my desk, I could have bought myself a bigger one, but I didn't. The last picture is my server room, I have 5 servers, one of servers I am planning on rebuilding and turning it into a Linux server.

Mmabatho what do you think about this?

So what did you eat tonight?, I made:

1. Mushroom and Red Pepper Pilaf
2. Easy Cheesy Broccoli
3. Herbed Beef Patties
4. Chocolate pudding /w Whipped Cream

I did not realize that turtles and aligators sex is determined by temperture. With turtles if the temperature is at the cool end of the spectrum then the offspring will be male, at the hot end females will develope. With aligators it is just opposite, but the problem is that the egges can only develope in a narrow temperature range, if it to hot or cold then the egges die.

It is amazing how many discoveries have been made with accidents in some laboratory. It was always difficult to count chromosomes and for some 30 years it was always thought that we had 48 chromosomes, everytime chromosomes were counted they were always ontop of each other, or scatterd and crowded about so there was no way to determine an exact count(they thought that they exact count was 48). Chromosomes could not be spread out flat to be counted with a microscope until an accident in the lab at the University of Texas. They were creating all kinds of cultures in various solutions, and not getting the resultes that they were desiring, and just by accident they created a salt solution that a techniction had mixed wrong, the result was that it spread the chromosomes over the slide flat so that they could be counted. Amazing. It it is amazing how many discoveries have been made in the world on accidents of this nature.

This is from the present book I am reading, "Adam's Curse" -- the book has nothing to do with Adam; for those inquiring minds. It is just a reference to the Y-chromosome. We have 46 chromosomes, 23 from the mother, and 23 from the father.

You Are 72% Gentleman

You are definitely a gentleman. You're very considerate and you have excellent manners. Occasionally, you slip and do something foolish... but usually no one notices!

Are You A Gentleman?

Let me get this straight, God creates Adam, God sees that Adam is lonely, so God in his wisdom then creates Eve from Adam's rib so that Adam will not be alone. Then God creates the snake which inturn deceives Eve, then Eve causes Adam to sin so that forever mankind is dammed. In retospect all God had to was not create the snake and everything would be fine. God's solution to the problem is to make the man and woman suffer( curse the ground so people starve to death, and make childbirth painful so that some women die from it), and thus forever doom mankind to mindless suffering of innocent people( mainly women and childern) through out history, and as an added bonus many people will be killed in "God's" name by the church and other various organizations. What a plan! What a wonderful life here on planet Earth.

In case you are wondering what has gotten me all riled up I just found out tonight one of my techs died. That is not the story. The story is that his wife left him so she could sleep around, that in it's self is painful, but he found out that the person who was tattooing him was sleeping with his wife, which was his best friend. So that everytime he looks at his arm, will you get the picture. O by the way, there is a little girl in the equation. Then he had new car and in the space of 2 weeks was in 4 accidents, 1 he caused and 3 that he did not cause. Then found out that his wife was not paying her share of the cell phone bill, which turned out to be a great amount of money. He came to me one day and said that he would understand if I fired him because he had to take off alot of time from the lab. I told him that I would not do, but that I would try to help him all that I could and work his schedule so that he could accomplish what he needed to do to put his life back together. I was not going to create a financial burden for him by denying him a job . I can understand the stress and pain he must have been enduring, because, will just trust me on that. So he dies in his sleep by a bleeding ulcer and leaves a little girl behind to be cared by the mother. Boy, God has a great plan. That little girl is going to have great life. Life makes no sense to me.

If there are facts which are in conflict with what I believe then I have a choice. I can evaluate what I believe and modify my belief, or choose to believe and ignore the conflict. Since I am the kind of person that can not ignore facts when they are revealed I have to reavaluate my position, then synthesize and if need to I will modifiy what I believe. I really did not intend to get into a theological debate. One of the reasons that I have changed what I believe is that one day I asked myself, "Self, why do I believe what I believe? Do I believe because I really believe that or do I believe because I have told to believe that?" I came to the conlusion that what I believed was because I had been told what to believe with no real thought on my part of what I believe. So I started to reavaluate and figure why I believe what I believe about God and life. Plus, this has been a jouney that me and Lily have been walking together because we both look at the world, and the stuff that has happened in our life together, and what we had been taught, and what we believed just did not make any sense anymore. So we/I started looking for anwsers.

If you are content and fullilled with what know and believe then I am happy for you. Me personally am not content with cookie cut or clichés answers to the world or life, or the way things are. I know that we have not had much contact with each other, that is one reason why I started blogging. I thought that this was a medium in which we all could communicate with each other, and get to know each other. I am quite happy to write and talk about what ever you guys want to talk about, yes even you "Hogrider" are invited. Auto Tuner 1 I will help you find your Indian family, just let me know what I can do for you.

Live Long and Prosper.

The Oilers lost. The last 1:30 Edmonton pulled the goalie at about 1:13 the Hurricanes put the puck in the empty net. The final score was 3 to 1.

It's Christmas, I recieved my new link runner today. :)

I am reading a new book, "Adam's Curse." Lily bought this book a while back. I was looking for some thing to read and I remembered this book that she had read some time ago. When Lily was reading this book she talked to me about what the author was stating and it sparked my interest at the time, but I was reading another book. It book is about DNA, and how the Y chromosome could destroy men and other stuff that DNA controls.

I still do not really understand why the population of the world is so large. We have recorded history for about 5000 to 6000 years, so man has been on the earth for some time now. Is it that because of the modern world that we are able to produce excess food and then ship it to other countries which then equalls population growth? I know that people are starving in other countries, but what is driving the population growth of the world? India has 1.1 billion people, China 1.3 billion people. I know that I blogged about population growth about China, but I am not satisfied with my answer. Here in the US we have no population control yet the population does not seemed to be overwelming problem as China is facing. Why from the 1800's to the present has the population increased to 7.1 billion people? Why was there not this population growth 4000 years ago? Man has been on the earth for a long time, what has made the difference between population growth now and then? I guess one difference is medicine, we have inoculations for various diseases, maybe understanding how to combat situations like the plague has driven up the worlds population. Just thinking.

I just finish reading "Collapse -- How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" by Jared Diamond. The book was filled with interesting facts concerning past societies and how they managed their natural resources or mismanaged them. I thought the last 3 or 4 chapters of the book were the most enjoyable, and from those last chapters I expanded my knowledge about Australia and China.

I had no idea that Australia had such an airade, inhospitable climate that covered most of the continent to the extend that most of the population is living in 5 major cities on the coast. Another amazing fact is that Australia has trees that are 400 feet tall; I always thought that the tallest trees were here in North America. The land in Australia can only support farming in a specific area of Western Australia, but the nutrients in the land are being depleted because of over farming. The land does not regenerate itself like in other parts of the world. Even though Australia has such a hostile environment it is amazing the Aborigines had been surviving off the land for 45,000 years.

Go Oilers!!! They dominated tonight -- 4 to 0. A shutout. Back to Carolina where the Oilers will take it all. I watched a few NHL games a few years ago and all they were doing was hooking, whoever had the puck was hooked right away. I guess the NHL put stop to that, because these have been great hockey games. The action has been quick with both teams taking the puck up and down the rink. It makes me want to play again. I really loved playing hockey.

There is no way that Spiderman would take off his mask. He knows that if people (enemies) know who he is, then the people who he loves and the people who love him would not be safe. His days of fighting crime would be over. I do not understand how the comic world can do THIS. Spidy has just died.

What a game, Edmonton won 4 to 3 in overtime. They are going back to Edmonton for game 6. Go Oilers !!!!!

Not looking good for the home team, Oilers lost last night they are down 3 games to 1.

This just not seem right, too many secrets.

Lord Stanley's Cup

The Edmonton goalie won the game for Oiliers the other night. The 4th game is tonight. Edmonton is down 1 game to 2. Go Oilers!!

Who are they to discuss public policy in private?

Chapter 12 of “Collapse” deals with China and the different environmental problems that China has to contend with as the country try’s to become a 1st world economy. I have always thought that the reason that the rainforest in Brazil were being cut down was because Brazil wanted, desired more land for economical development and farming. That is not the case, as China develops an environmental conscience to save its own ecosystems from destruction; China is plundering Brazil and other tropical countries for wood because wood provides 40% of the energy for rural areas. Aside from the energy that China consumes as I was reading this chapter I started wondering why China has such a large population. What are the factors that caused China to have 1.1 billion people? And what effect will China have on the world as China becomes a 1st world nation.

So I decided to do some research and see what I could discover to answer my question. As I yahooed and goggled I started to discover some interesting facts about China. In 1949 the population of China was 118 million people, and Mao in his great wisdom decided that China needed a bigger population because he thought it would bring wealth to the country. Mao also thought that by a larger population China could produce more food, have a better military, and develop better communication systems for the country.

“Large birth rates was also considered a sign of recovery from war and hardships that China had to endure.”


“During the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) pro-natalism was again espoused as the only possible socialist policy and most counseling and dispensaries of contraceptives were closed down. The party line was ‘the more people there are, the more, faster, better, and thriftier can we build socialism”.(Scharping) Mao announced a desire for over a billion people and argued that the China’s greatest problem in the future would not be overpopulation, but lack of manpower. 1962-66 saw a renewal of birth-control programs but these continued on a very small scale and with significant opposition.“


China’s population increase from 118 million to 540 million in the 1960’s then increased again to 712 million by the 1970’s. In 1982 a census was taken and the population was 1,008,180,738 people which are considered accurate by officials. It is estimated that in 2002 there are 1.28 billion people in China. From these facts one can ascertain that government mandate is one reason for the population crisis that China finds its self in. Rural birth rates are higher then urban areas (36% of the population, which means rural birth rates account for 64% of the population) because you need children to help work the farm, and to help in selling produce, and to take care of the parents in old age.
Another factor in China’s population numbers is that in 1949 a universal health care system was implemented resulting in people living longer. At present time China’s births outnumber deaths by 9 million.
The effect that China has on the world is being felt now as China vies for energy, and other natural resources. Last year in the Tampa Tribune there was an article that stated that China had bought up ¼ of the world supply of concrete for that year. I know that China desires to become a superpower, but they want to take short cuts.

Scharping, Thomas. Birth Control in China 1949-2000: Population Policy and Demographic Development. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.

I am going to be working hard in July, I will be spending 2 days at Saddlebrook. They are hosting a computer/ audio visual exposition and I will be attending a few seminars and free breakfast and lunch. Somebody has to do it, and I get free toys.

I listen to the The Bear a lot at work, and even though I have not lived in Edmonton for some years now when the radio station starts talking about Sherwood Park I find myself thinking that I still live there. Just for a second or two, and then I realize that I am in Florida. The radio station will start giving traffic reports, or just start talking about places that are familiar to me and for a few seconds I am transported back -- it is a strange but familiar feeling. Growing up I think that Edmonton was one of my best times in my life. It was fun, and I loved it and I knew how good of time it was. I love my room, and my cat. There were a lot of times that I stayed up all night reading, or watching movies with my cat. Hanging out with Randy was great fun, since he had the car; we were gone a lot to Edmonton hanging around with some girls that we knew from another church. When I would take off for the weekend I used to ask dad for $2.00; that was all I needed for a Big Mac, fries, and a strawberry milkshake. I have been working out so I do not eat as many big Mac’s as I used too, but I still love big Mac’s.

I was active duty Army for 8 years and National Guard for 4 years, I still go through times were I miss the military, it’s in my blood. I miss the Army more then then the National Guard, being in the Army was a cool experience. Even though I took crap in the Army, I am glad I served in the Army, me and my wife move from Shreveport La, to Ft. Riley then to Ft. Wainwright AK.; I served in 1st ID (Ft. Riley KS, The Big Red One) and 6th ID (Ft. Wainwright Alaska). In 1st ID I as assigned to the 1st Engineer Bn (they were combat engineers ), working in the S-3 shop. One of my duties was to operated and maintain a Armored Command Post Carrier M577A2, I loved operating that machine in the field, it was great fun to drive on the tank trails. I had one scary event though, it was January or February and I was bring my track down an inclined slope what I did not realize was that the ground was frozen at the time, my track started to slipe and slide, but once I realized what was happening I was able to get control of track and get my track to the bottom of the hill safely.

We really like were we lived on Ft Riley, once they added on the living room we were quite comfortable in our house.

I then was assigned to 47th Engineer Company, Ft Wainwright and I had some interesting experiences there. Since I was the only draftsman on the post I was assigned to measure all the landing zones (LZ's) in the Ft. Wainwright area, which meant that I had to go physically to the LZ's and measure them. So for a few days I had a helicopter assigned to me to fly me around Alaska to the different LZ's. It was also 47th Engineer's job to clear the MSR's (main supply routs) during the winter field exercises, and since I was the CO's driver I really saw the raw Alaska, things that the normal person does not see. 47th Engineer Company also did ice bridging during the winter. There is nothing like driving across an ice bridge with 2 feet of water on top of the ice bridge. Another thing that was really cools was the northern lights. When you are in the middle of nowhere, no lights and it is 40 below 0, the northern lights are totally awesome. The colors, the way the lights dance, it can not really be described by words or pictures, it has to be experienced.

You serve with all your heart and serenity of being...


Laelith


She is the Tilirreh of Violet.
Laelith symbolizes spiritual and divine Love. She is the Lady of the Way Things Are.

Violet light is the most subtle in the spectrum and represents delicate receptivity. Violet contains in it the mystery and strength of unconditional love in perfect silence.

If you have a Laelith-guided personality then you are a loyal friend and a faithful lover, capable of great self-sacrifice and transcendent in your humility. Taken to extremes this may evolve into a self-effacing tendency and low self-esteem, so remember that to be fair and true to the spirit of Laelith you need to honor and love yourself as well as you love others.

A force of tradition in the best sense of the word, you never forsake anyone and you preserve what is best in all things. History is what you hold together, with a delicate thread of consistency and hope — be it the history of a single being or the whole world.

Caregivers, healers and doctors, antiquarians and historians, psychologists and sociologists, restorers and museum curators are often guided by the gentle merciful light of Laelith.

Laelith-guided, you are the seemingly quiet and gentle yet indomitable force of support, compassion, and understanding to those around you. You are the shoulder to cry on and the mother who consoles, the father who protects, the sister who shares, the brother who stands nearby, the friend who will always be there, and the lover who will cherish and honor.

You are like a warm blanket of love and caring that never fails, never gives up, and that can withstand all conflict and requires no reciprocation. You are the last bastion when all else fails. You grant merciful forgiveness despite rejection and misunderstanding. You are the voice that will answer despite confusion and darkness.

Gentle and yielding, yet steadfast and unshakable, you are what many of us have been seeking all our lives. And yet, we often pass you by. We miss what is right before our eyes, miss seeing you and your truth and your glory, because of your undemanding humility.

We take you for granted and we are diminished because of it. But in your wisdom you do not begrudge our blindness, and you continue to give your love.

Dear heart, in the name of Laelith, thank you.

More so than all the other Tilirr Personalities, you offer unconditional love and strength even in your own moments of weakness. For you have fathomed the Violet Mystery of Laelith that love simply is.

As well you should, for you are the most fully human of us all.

Which of the Lords of Rainbow do you serve?

http://www.lordsofrainbow.com/