According to Chinese Astrology me and Lily are:

Pig & Dog

You are a good match, a spiritual union, and a much stronger couple than you are individually. Your relationship is filled with laughter, passion, flirtation, and vivid expression of feeling. You share a delicate approach, a subtle sense of tact in your rare moments of disagreement. The two of you, in concert, are capable of turning dreams into realities. You score high marks financially.

Differential equations is elegant math, there is no other way to express the feeling that I feel when I solve a DE equation. I am amazed at how all the math classes that I have taken has cumulated with DE. I can remember being in some of my math classes and I was wonder what was the purpose of particular math process or formula, and now I know, the purpose is so a person can solve a DE equation. I can look back and see the purpose all the different math classes. By taking DE a person can understand all the math classes and why you learned math in the order that the classes were offered, they were building blocks.

After DE I am planning on taking Linear Algebra.

Fly away little birdies, fly. Fly birdie fly.

In the HCC Fantasy Football League I am 5 and 0, in the Missionary Fantasy Football League I am 2 and 3.

I guess you want to talk about God's will, implying that people who are not living by your defination of "God's will" are not living to the full potential of life here on planet earth. So what is God's will? God's will in the Old Testament involved the slaughter of women and children, and the genocide of whole populations of people. If you look in all the laws in Deuteronomy( God's will) if a person had a pimple and the priest deemed the pimple unclean( because the priest had no understanding of what the difference between a disease and a pimple) it was God's will to burn your house down. How can a woman's period make a woman unclean? That is the way God made women, so how could women be deemed unclean, but according to the laws which came from God, a women was unclean. That was God's will.

Let's look at other examples of God's will. If God reveals to you (MM) that your wife is to die, but you can not grieve about it, and then you need to just wear a loin cloth, then bury it and then dig it up in three years, and put it on. Are you going to do it? That's God's will.

Look at when Israel was rebuilding the wall, and the prophet told all the men that they had to divorce their cannanite wives. Those wifes had children, and you know how hard it was for a women to survive in the ancient world, owell. I thought divorce was only acceptable if someone in the marrage cheated or maybe God's will changed between to old and new testament?, but God is the same as yesterday and tomorrow. How come it was alright for Judah to have sex with a suposive prostitute? because they were going to kill Tamar for prostituting her self, but when they found out that Judah had sex outside of marrage, nothing is said of him. I guess God's will is different for different situations and people?

Look at churchs or God's will today. I guess God will for one person to drive a Lexus, and then God will's another person to drive a Ford? or a broken down Ford? and they are both in the same church!! I have seen people on the religious station explain that God blessed them with millions of dollars and that they are in God's will, what about all the other Christians who are in God's will? Look at football games. I have seen football players declare that God helped then win the football game, but what about the Christains on the losing team? I guess God's will for them was for them to lose the football game. I guess it is God's will for some churchs to be poor, and God's will for some churchs to be rich? Are they not all worshipping the same God? I do not understand God's will.

They will not let me blow anything up in the chemistry lab. :(

Shadowpaint you asked about an asteroid called Apophis and why it would do so much damage to the earth, this is this why. There are two types of energy:

1 poteintial energy
2 kinetic energy

Potiential energy is stored energy, like a boulder at the top of a hill, then if the boulder is pushed off the hill then energy that is stored energy is then changed into kinetic energy, it is the kinetic that does the damage.

The asteroid has a mass of 5 x 10^10 kilograms, it's velocity = 12590 meters/second (approx).

Energy kinetic = 1/2 x mass x velocity^2 so

= 1/2 x (5.0 x 10^10 kilograms) x (12590 m/s)^2
= 3.9627 x 10^18 joules

To convert this to 1 atomic bomb = 500,000 tons of tnt

3.9672 x 10^18 x 2.38095 x 10^-10(conversion factor for tons of tnt)
= 943,499,056.5 tons of tnt

= 1886.998 atomic bombs

Does this anwser you question?

Soooooo you never seen the movie "The Matrix." I am surprised that Auto Tuner never saw the movie, the movie buff that he is. Here is a link that will explain everything.

MIT has put there courses online, with teacher's notes and everthing. This is really cool.

The universe has been expanding for about 12 to 15 billion years, some think 14.5 billion years. I was thinking about time travel, and according to the Theory of Relativity time slows down as you approach the speed of light or C. Tme is relative though. What this means is that if you were on the Star Ship Enterprise and accelerated to the speed of light, time would seem normal to you, and on the earth time would seem normal too.

Let's say you are gone for one year traveling at the speed of light( or close to the speed of light) and then you come back to the earth. Time on the Star Ship = 1 year, but time on the earth would = (I am just guessing) 1000 years, so time is relative to your position and speed, but the thing is that you can not travel into the future, only backwards, or what seems backwards in time.

Time started at the Big Bang( even that is in contention by some scientist, but the universe is expanding so time had a starting point; time = 0) so in a way time is also linear( even though space-time can be warped by gravity), as the universe expanded, time marched on so to speak from the center of the singularity( that is the term that physicist use to discribe the infinitely small and dense matter before the big explosion) . My point is that you can not have time beyond the expansion of the universe, so there is no travelling into the future, because the future is not there to travel too. So all those Scifi movies were the people travel into the future 1000's of years just can not happen.

Free telephone calls with Skype. Or pay a nominal fee.

I am reading a book about the middle ages, and I came accross this passage:

"...Genghis Khan (1167 - 1227), the greatest conqueror and butcher in all human history ... The Mongol Empire was the largest land empire in history."

That started me thinking about Daniel and the story of the statue that Nebuchadnezzar has a dream about, and how the statue represented world history, or the nations of the world. From all the preachers, books and stuff on the religious TV networks when I heard about Daniel preach as prophecy, the statue was always interpreted the following way:

1. the head was Babylon -- gold
2. the breast and arms silver -- Alexander the Great
3. belly and thighs brass -- the 4 generals that took over after Alexander kicked the bucket
4. legs of iron -- the Roman Empire
5. feet of iron and clay-- waaalaaaa we jump to the 21st century and that is the loose confederation of the European nations that we have to day.

Plus, the statue represents the kings, rulers, or people in power, and the changing the form of power from absolute power to demrocacy or people that have power but it is not total power that they yield I guess ( that's how it was explain to me). So in this grand scheme of nations in the world that the statue represents where are the following nations:

1. the Inca nation
2. the Mongal nation-- the greatest land nation in the history of the world. You would think that it would be part of the statue. Plus, Genghis had total, absolute power. Maybe he was not important enough?
3. the Egyptain Nation? Ancient Egypt was a nation that rule the world of and on for 3000 years you would think there would be a place in the statue for Egypt.

Just thinking and wondering.

I am always amazed when I see people in the Middle East celebrating or protesting whatever. How are they celebrating you asked, -- I say: "by firing automatic weapons into the air, do they not understand that what goes up, has to come back down!! " From what I have seen on TV they fire many rounds up into the air in the crowds of people , plus there always seems to be 4 or 5 people who are firing automatic weapons at the same time, but I am sure there are many more people shooting automatic weapons that are not shown on the TV. I just do not understand how the leaders and police of these nations let this stuff happen, I am sure people are killed from all the rounds that are falling back to the earth at 9.8 meters per sec^2. Why does this happen?

I have been thinking about this for some time. Cancer is a business, a 800 billion dollars a year business. Some of these cancer treatments cost 100's and 1000's of dollars, sometimes people lose all their savings or their house or other worldly possessions because the cancer treatments cost so much. Just for your information 1500 people a week die from cancer. We or American interest, companies and government agencies have been doing cancer research 30 or 40 years maybe? I am not sure how long cancer research have been conducted but research has been going a long time. Big Business controls the world to a certain extent, it is Big Business that does the drug research and decides what drugs they will bring to the market in concert with the FDA. On Lily's blog there is a link to Biloblog( he is a doctor and his blog does not seem to be working, not sure why) and he has a blog about the FDA and how their interest are not necessary what is best for America even though they are a government entity and their duty is to protect the American people.

What if a cure for cancer has been discovered, what are the implications or ramifications of such a discovery? Are the drug companies going to give up 800 billion dollars a year? What if a pill has been developed and it is just sitting on the shelf somewhere? Look at the jobs that are related the cancer business, maybe one pill could make all the research and related jobs disappear. Would "Big Business" let that happen? Would all the research universities let that happen? If cancer was cured, all these research institutions would lose federal grant money. There is a vested interest in keeping cancer from not being cured no matter these Drug Companies or research insitutions declare as their stated purpose in seeking a cure for cancer.

I remember reading books 15 or 20 years ago that were of a controversial nature in the sceintific world. The present book that I am reading now the author writes about the meterite that collided with the earth about 65 million years ago which resulted the destruction of the dinasours, and changing the earth's climate. The author anaylsis of all the evidence (geological and fossil ) that has been gathered over the last 20 years and now the theory is not so controversial anymore, but it is still debated by sceintist. I first read about this theory when we were in Alaska, I bought the book through the Quality Paperback Book Club which me and Lily had joined.

The "Continental Drift Theory" was another subject that I read about and at the time the sceintist were debating if the earth( plate tectonics) really existed, and were the continents really joined together in the distance past of the earth. Now a person can read about the theory and it is treated like a fact. I remember reading these books and feeling like I was on verge of some scientific discovery because I was reading the newest theories being but forth by the scientific community.

I still feel that way when I read books on new theories, like the newest books on "string theory" which deals with the basic building blocks of matter(atoms). There was a great program on PBS called "The Elegant Universe", the material is presented in such a way that a person does not need to be a scientist to understand, you only need to be curious of the universe and how it operates to be able to watch this show. I can hardly waite until until I take a quantum theory/ mechanics class at USF, that will be cool.

Boy, I sure could go for some Oreo's and milk. I think that I will go the store and buy some, and think about Africa while I dip the Oreo's in cold glass of milk--- scrumptious.

Why is 2/3's of the earth cover by water that man can not drink or use for agriculture?

I have always loved reading Physics books, I bought my first physic book when I was 16( I think), anyways it was a book on particle physics, and I remember how fascinated and amazed I was after I had read this book. The book was all about bombarding elementry particles with other elementry particles and when they broke apart you then could discover what the different particles were composed off. Ever since I read that book, physics has always been passion of mine beside computers. When I look at pictures from the Hubble, or I look at picture on Space.com I am always amazed. I am always thinking of the physical forces (gravitational, or what ever force that is needed to form the celestial object), or I am amazed at the simple things like watch water drops, drop and understanding the physics of what is involved for the water to drop.

I am taking Differential Equations this semister. Remember taking Algerbra and wondering why I am taking this, or what good is this going to do for me? Really you say that almost about any math class, anyways it all comes together with DE. Everything you learnt in Trig, Algerbra, Calc I, II, III all comes together in DE. DE it's self is not hard, it is remembering how solve the equations from all the previous math classes that is hard, I am glad that I kept all my math notes.

So what book or books are you reading? I am reading "The Prophet and the Astronomer", "A History of the Middle Ages" and "In Search of Deep Time."

Free e-books. thousands and thousands of books. I am reading 4 now, what am I going to do?

I read a book that stated that Osama bin Laden was basically fighting the Crusades, and that the United States( we are the current superpower in the world) had replaced the Imperial Nations (England and France, and the Catholic Church) that fought in the Crusades during the 11th through the 15th centuries. The author stated that because we (America, Bush Administration) did not understand that concept that the "war on terror" would never be won by the West. I am not sure that if that is true, I just think that bin Laden is fighting for his own political gain, and popularity in the Muslim world. I know that there are different Muslim sects, and they differ on the interpertation of the Koran, and how they view each other. I guess it is probably like the Catholics and Protestants killing each other, and differ on how the Bible is interperated, plus the Catholics have more books in the Catholic Bible, than the Protestant's bible. Anyways I am just related the conflicts in the Muslim world with the conflicts in the Protestant world trying to understand how, or why Muslims seem to kill each other so easily and without reguard to the collateral damage that these car bombs and other explosions caused by bin Laden and his crew.

If the Crusades are the cause for bin Laden's actions againest the West, particularly the United States in Iraq than my question is what was the cause of the Crusades ( who started what), and why have the Crusades left this indelible mark in the Muslim world that people ( particular young people) with there whole life ahead of them are willing so easily give up their lives. The Crusades were orginally started because Jerusalem was captured by the Muslims, and Pope Urban ( the pope at the time) deceided that Jerusalem need to be free from the Muslim infidels because people could not make a pilgrimages to Jerusalem in the same manner before when Jerusalem was under the control of the Byzantine Empire. Plus, "The Church of the Holy Sepulchure" was distroyed by the Muslims, this also added to the cause of the Crusades. As a side note I am reading,"A History of the Middle Ages," so I have been reading about the Crusades but one particular passage caught my eye:

"Five days later, on the night of July 13-14 the Christians attacked from there moveable towers and in the morning entered and captured the city(Jerusalem). In their frenzied exhileration the Crusaders showed no mercy but massacured all the Jews and Moslems they could find. Some ten thousand of them, according to one chroniclar, were beheaded in Soloman's Temple alone, and "had you been there, your feet would have been stained up to the ankles with the blood of the slain."" Another chroniclar described the massacure by saying that blood of the victims was up to the horse's bridals. This passage just stuck me because the brutality done by Christians in the name of God. It just did not seem right, and in my opinion leaves a dark mark on the history of the church.

Anyways, there were other Crusades with vairing degrees of sucess that the European nations had, but it seems to me that the Muslims came out on top after it was all over. I think that the Crusades are a convient excuse for bin Laden, because to my understanding the Crusades were started by the Muslims by destroying a Christian shrine that could have been left alone, I am sure that when the shine was destroyed they knew the impact it would cause in the Western Christendom. I am not a expert on the Crusades my knowlege is limited by what I have read online, and the book that I am reading of the Crusades. If bin Laden is fighting because of what happened in the first Crusade then I guess we should also be fighting the Jews too, but the slaughter was by the European nations, sooooo I just do not know if the Crusades are a valid reason.

Do this:
Grab the nearest book. *Open the book to page 123.Find the fifth sentence.Post that text and the following three sentences, along with the stuff below on your blog, along with the instructions

[*] ‘nearest’ means you can’t rummage around for a ‘cool’ or ‘intellectual’ book. Really, whatever your hand falls on first.

To freeze a sprinter, the shutter must open and close before the image of the runner perceptibly changes position on the camera’s image plane. Therefore, the faster the subject runs, the faster the shutter speed you will need to stop the action and avoid a blurred image.

A second factor affecting the final image is the camera-to-subject distance.
One elevator door was half-open on an empty shaft, from which drifted hissing wind. The door was coated to look like wood, but a dent at kneel level showed it was black metal. While he squatted, fingering the edge of the depression, something clicked: a second elevator door beside him rolled open.

“Hey, good-lookin’!” the blond driver yells, her hair flapping in the wind. “Don’t go! I think I love you!” Laughing, her friends pull her hat off.
Several people put their arms around me and said keep coming back!
Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794), the revolutionary leader, was himself executed in July 1794. This destruction came not from outside the system; it was produced by the system. As in the later Russian Revolution the revolutionaries on their humanist base had only two options–anarchy or repression.

In a large skillet brown meat, half at a time, in hot oil. Drain off fat. In a 3 1/2- to 4-quart slow cooker combine undrained tomatoes, beef broth, onion, jalapeno or serrano peppers, garlic, cornmeal, chili power, brown sugar, oregano, cumin, and black pepper.

Let anyone who will not believe it, go thither and inquire for himself. There was once an ass whose master had made him carry sacks to the mill for many a long year, but whose strength began at last to fail, so that each day as it came, found him less capable of work. Then his master began to think of turning him out, but the ass, guessing that something was in the wind that boded him no good, ran away, taking the road to Bremen; for there he thought he might get an engagement as town musician.

The bus company? They got another one. Line coach Douglas Fowlkes recalled that the media wrote about the losing streak so much that it was always at the forefront of the players’ minds: “When are they going to win?”

There are also V-shaped dividers that are smaller than the frames; these go in front, to allow a deeper decolletage. In 1958, with the sexual revolution only a few years off, some of the customs inherited from the nineteenth century still survived. Despite the fact that most women now wore girdles, there were still corsets being worn — and not simply by a few elderly ladies, since Mademoiselle Etienne;s handbook contains instructions for making children’s corsets.

Roxane: Les roseaux fournissaient le bois pour vos épées…
Cyrano: Et les maïs, les cheveux blonds pour vos poupées!
Roxane: C’était le temps des jeux…
Cyrano: Des mûrons aigrelets…

Darwin's ideas are so much a part of our world view that we take them for granted, so much that we actually read the Origin, it does not seem fresh and iconaclastic, but dreary and derivative.

I tag arkadianriver

They said on the radio (The Bear) that 90,000 people a year are moving to Alberta. If you move to Alberta housing is in short supple that you need to buy a house or rent a apartment before you move to Alberta. I guess with the price of oil, the tar sands are booming? Other than that, I am not sure what is driving the econmy in Alberta.

Birthday boy, I answer your math question, but something happen so it only shows 0 comments on your blog, but the anwers is there.

Where is Auto Tuner 1?

I have never been much a Metallica fan, but I love their rendition of Bob Seger's Turn the Page.

Why is this existance (life) defined by it's opposite? What I mean is that evil defines good, evil defines the parameters of "what is good." Can we know good, without evil? or is "good" intrinsic in it's nature? God is good so we say, but for God to be "God" is not God an infinite being? What is the nature of a infinite being? is there a intrinsic nature to God? Is not an infinite being composed of infinite realities? It has always bother me that the Bible defines God and the parameters of God, but God is a infinite being. How can God be defined by finite beings in nature and understanding? Is it that because God is composed of infinite realities that good and evil exist at all? What started me thinking about this is that quantum mechanics states that there are infinite realites, and I was just thinking of the ramifcations of this statement?

Can religion exist with out evil being present? If everthing here in the world was "good," would we have all these different religions trying to explain the world and the way it is? I have always wonder if good and evil where composed of the same medium. By this I mean, take for instance light. The color of the light is "white", but shine light through a prizm, waaalu, you have a spectrum-- light is broken into different colors, the colors of the rainbow. This existance ( present reality) is the prizm that is dividing good and evil into it's seperate entities that we percieve?

What a kiss!!!!! I am sure glad that lips never wear out. Infinite kisses. YEA :) I could never find those submarines?!!##*

Jurassic Park is on it's way. See you there.

Well I am back home from all my travels, only had one day fishing( that was a bummer, I was looking forward to 2 or 3 days, but at least I went fishing), it was just fun casting, and contemplating my life. I had read a theoretical physics book a few years ago, and the author started out comparing how a fish's reality observing a human through the water compares to human observing the cosmos from the earth. So every time I look at a fish or water I am always reminded about how I observe reality and precieve my surroundings in this vast universe.

I was watching VH1 classics and I saw a Heart concert on TV. I have always liked a number of Heart songs, but there is one song in particular that seems to speak to my spirit, I am not sure why but I feel the music and the lyrics of the song "Alone." If I was not going to be a Astrophysicists, I would be a rock star.:)

Alone
Lyrics by Heart

I hear the ticking of the clock
I'm lying here the room's pitch dark
I wonder where you are tonight
No answer on the telephone
And the night goes by so very slow
Oh I hope that it won't end though
Alone

CHORUS:
Till now I always got by on my own
I never really cared until I met you
And now it chills me to the bone
How do I get you alone
How do I get you alone
You don't know how long I have wanted
To touch your lips and hold you tight
You don't know how long I have waited
You don't know how long I have waited
And I was gonna tell you tonight
But the secret is still my own
And my love for you is still unknown
Alone

CHORUS
How do I get you alone
How do I get you alone
Alone, alone

Scratch & Sniff

Good cookie, good cookie. There is no way to describe just how scrumptious those double stuffed oreo's are. It's great to live in America.

Pictures from my trip. The Miner's picture "One of the best hamburgers that I have ever eaten." The last picture is Mt. St. Helens.

Well I am back the vast fruit, and beer bearing land(Washington State) that mom calls home. I am only home for 3 days and then I am off again. I am going to visit my father-in-law, we will have a hectic schedule when I get up there. We have planed to watch some John Wayne movies, watch some more John Wayne movies, watch some more John Wayne movies, and do some fishing. It will be a real taxing situation with my father-in-law, hope I can keep up with him.

I must say that Blackwolf made some of the best rolls that I have ever eaten, and the barbecue chicken that he made was better then what I could ever hope to make, I just do not know what he did(something about a secret spices or something like that). Man!! that was great eating at the condo, and Mrs. Blackwolf-- well just let me say that women can cook. I do not think that Blackwolf will ever have to worry about losing weight being married to Mrs. Blackwolf. O and welcome to the family Mrs. Blackwolf :)

Well, I am home on the range so to speak, suffering from internet withdrawal. I did not realize how much time I spent online between work and home, just let me say alot. I do not understand the way the airports have their internet access set up. They want you to pay $8.00 to $10.00 for access at the airports and this is for 12 to 24 hours of internet access; you are only for a hour or two, so why would you pay? I would not mind paying a few dollars for a hour or two, but I guess they do not want that. Anyways.

There is no junk food here, but there are some Paul Newman I want to be "oreo cookies." I am sorry there is no such thing as fake oreo's, and Paul Newman's cookies, just let me say that they are all moms. It is nice being in the mountains and hills, I like the feeling that accompanies being in them. I am always soooooooo glad that me and Lily spent 4 years in Alaska. We went camping in the mountains and Lily made fresh blueberry pancakes with the bluebarries that we picked at the campsite. Me and my boys would throw rocks into the streams, and skip rocks across the water. We would also bring our cat with us and the cat acted like a dog. The cat would follow us when went hiking on the trails, or the cat would just be around us like a dog. Alaska was a cool place to live.

I have been reading history books for the last 6 or 8 months, I seem to have this driving need to understand the history of the world, the evolution of man, why the world evolved in the way that it did. I have always enjoyed history, I even took more history classes then I needed for my degree, but there is a sad part to knowing and understanding the history of the world that that has been seeping into my conscious. All the sensless death and suffering that has occured; for what? Why? I just do not understand why history is framed by so many innocent people dieing, and suffering all these 1000's of years. I know that some people try to explain the world's events by religious mindset and overtones, but that explanation falls short, it does not explain the world or the suffering that people have had to indure.

I was reading about the Byzantine Empire and how the empirer decided that the nation that they just conquered he needed to make a statement about his power, so what did he do? he blinded 14,000 people, but only blinded in one eye every 100th person so that way some of the people could guide the totaly blind people home. 14,000 people blinded for what? along with the blinded people are children that are suffering now too.

During the days in China when the different warlords of the various clans ruled, what would happen this that warlord would send out his person to collect tax money, if the people did not have any money what would happen to the people? The warlord in his wisdom would bring the "man of the house back" to his compound and then string the different people together by wire through there calves, just like fish, until somehow the families could pay the tax.

So I have a love, hate relationship with history. I have this desire to read history and study it, I love reading and understanding the battles of the WWII, the History Channel has some great documentaries on WWII ( my favorite move is "The Great Escape") , and it is ironic that because of WWII we have space program, but so many people died because of WWII and Hiltler's quest for power.

What does it mean?

Well, I am leaving on a jet plane
Don't know when I well be back again.

I have researched this microwave oven / food controversy and I do not find any evidence to change my mind, in other words I am not disposing of my microwave oven anytime soon. I have personally talked to an engineer, two physicists, one nutritionist, and one biologist and asked them the question if a microwave oven will destroy or change the molecular structure of food to rendure the food not viable to the body. The consensus was that the microwave oven was not damaging the food molecules any worse then a conventional oven will. What the microwave heats up is the water molecules in the food, some nutritional nutrients are destroyed just like conventional heating of food. I read one study from Australia were the microwave oven actually enhanced the vitamin C and E content in the food being heated up. The nutritionist that I talked too knew about the study that Shadowpaint referred too, but she did not agree with the findings. So this carbon based unit will continue bombarding food with microwaves until the food glows in the dark.

I was thinking about a name for the little female package on the way in Africa, and "Lo-Ruhamah" is a female Biblical name inspired by the Holy Spirit.

We had a new friend this morning, Lily was looking out the back yard and saw him/her and then called me and this is what we saw on our fence.

I have always wonder what gave the "Church" so much political power during roughly 1500's AD to about 1800's AD and I think I have my answer. I am presently reading the history of the middle ages, I just finnished reading how the monasteries became the dispositers of knowlege during the Dark Ages, I knew this, but I have never considered this fact before until now. The book never said that this was the reason but I came to my own conclusion based on the concept, "knowledge is power", and since the Church had all the knowlege at the time I think that this is one reason the Church was able to amass such political power in the time frame that I have been thinking about. It is sad though that the Church used this power in unworthy persuits of it's own agenda; money and more political power.

You Are an Emo Rocker!

Expressive and deep, lyrics are really your thing. That doesn't mean you don't rock out... You just rock out with meaning. For you, rock is more about connecting than grandstanding.

What Kind of Rocker Are You?

Nothing better then rolling down the highway with the volume all the way to the right.

When I was about 12 years old (I think), I made a promise to myself that I would never stop watching cartoons, and I have kept that promise to myself. I still love watching cartoons ( watched Batman this morning), and as my kids grew up I watched cartoons with them and loved every minute of it. I used to watch "He Man", "Nija Turtles", "Transformers", "Bugs Bunny", "Spiderman", and "X-Men", all the cool cartoons with my kids, not anymore(they are older now), I watch them by myself now. What started me thinking about cartoons and how I have always felt about them is that last night we went to the move,"Pirates of the Caribbean" and there had a preview for the new Transformer movie, I can hardly waite for the movie. I have always love the Transformers; Autobots, and Decepticons, my favorite Autobot was always Optimus Prime, he as always wise , patient, and concerned about the innocent people that were always caught in the middle of the conflict between the Autobots and Decepticons. I remember one year for Christmas we bought the oldest son "Optimus Prime," I am not sure who was more excited, if I was more excited buying it for him, and showing him how you transformed from a robot to 18 wheeler, or my son unwrapping it on Christmas and seeing the excited look on his face that he had a Transformer.

I do not think that is right that to watch the old cartoons like "Bugs" that a person needs cable TV, because the cartoons that are on Saturday morning are really sad. I miss watching Bugs, watching Bugs is like watching the old Star Trek shows, I never get tired of watching the reruns.

There is another concert that me and Lily went to that I surprised her with. Lily really likes Yanni, so for her birthday one year I took her to a Yanni concert, but that is not the story. The story is that the night before there was a Yanni concert on PBS and we watched the concert on TV. During the concert I made comments like, "Since we are seeing Yanni on TV we really do not see him in person, this is better to see him on TV" or "I really do not think that he is that great of a musician", or "He does not play his music loud enough for me so I would not really like to see him in person." I made some more cemments then I just let it die. The next morning when we were getting ready for work, I gave her a birthday card with 2 tickets for Yanni, I surprised her :), we went out to eat and then the concert, it was an enjoyable night.

Back in the year 2000 there was a radio station that played what they thought was the best 100 songs of the milianium, and boy were they wrong. Anybody knows that "Stairway to Heaven" (by Led Zepplin) is 10 times better then "Satisfaction"(by the Rolling Stones). I am bias though, I am not a fan of the Rolling Stones. I like 2 songs by the Stones, for the most part I really do understand why people think that the Stones are so great. Mick Jagger has smoke(pot), drank liquar, and indulged in drugs so much that just by looking at him you can see that his brain is fried. He is not exactly coherent during interviews, I just do not see what the attraction is. There is one rock band that I really think is the greatest and my kids can tell who they are--- BOSTON; Lily even came with to the concert with me when they were here in Tampa. I like Boston because they have their own sound, and that the leader of the group graduated from MIT. MIT is cool, I wish I could take classes there and graduate from MIT. Anyways, I am still erked that they the "radio station" placed the Stones over Zepplin.

This summer was to be about working(at HCC) and lifting weights at Bally's, just let me say that a father's job is never done, no matter how old your childern are.

This is cool.

I finished the book, "Adam's Curse." Basically the Y-chromosome has mutated over the years and is becomming inert, men are going to die out in 125,000 to 130,000 years, soooo party on men. At least with the current understanding that we have now about genetics men are on a downward spirial path, but I am sure we will figure something out and cure the genetic defect so that Y-chromosome will survive, and produce more Dallas Cowboy football players.

Well, on to other things; went to Barns and Nobles the other day with Lily and found this book, "A History of the Middle Ages," by Joseph Dahmus. The Middle Ages are defined from the Fall of the Roman Empire to about 1500 AD, I have read alot of Ancient History and Modern History, but not much Middle History, so this will be enjoyable.

I am attending a audio visual/computer comference next week. I love my job, yea!! more toys :)

The day that I was hatched; found this on Lily's blog.

Your date of conception was on or about 9 September 1958 which was a Tuesday.
You were born on a Tuesday under the astrological sign Gemini.
Your Life path number is 5.
Life Path Compatibility:You are most compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 1, 5 & 7.
You should get along well with those with the Life Path numbers 3 & 9.
You may or may not get along well with those with the Life Path number 8.
You are least compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 2, 4, 6, 11 & 22.

The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2436721.5.
The golden number for 1959 is 3.
The epact number for 1959 is 21.
The year 1959 was not a leap year.
Your birthday falls into the Chinese year beginning 2/8/1959 and ending 1/27/1960.You were born in the Chinese year of the Pig.

Your Native American Zodiac sign is Elk; your plant is Mullein.

You were born in the Egyptian month of Mesore, the fourth month of the season of Shomu (Harvest).

As of 7/7/2006 2:00:55 PM EDT You are 47 years old.
You are 565 months old.
You are 2,457 weeks old.
You are 17,202 days old.
You are 412,862 hours old.
You are 24,771,720 minutes old.
You are 1,486,303,255 seconds old.
Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 6.73268101761252 years old. (You're still chasing cats!) I would rather be a cat.


Your birthstone is Alexandrite
The Mystical properties of Alexandrite: Alexandrite can assist one in centering the self, reinforcing self-esteem, and augmenting ones ability to experience joy. Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. (Birthstone lists come from Jewelers, Tibet, Ayurvedic Indian medicine, and other sources) Pearl, Moonstone, Opal

Your birth tree is Ash Tree, the Ambition
Uncommonly attractive, vivacious, impulsive, demanding, does not care for criticism, ambitious, intelligent, talented, likes to play with its fate, can be egoistic, very reliable and trustworthy, faithful and prudent lover, sometimes brains rule over heart, but takes partnership very serious.

The Life Path 5 suggests that you entered this plane with a highly progressive mindset, with the attitude and skills to make the world a better place. The key word for your Life Path is freedom. In the pursuit of freedom, you are naturally versatile, adventurous, and advanced in your thinking. You are one of those people who is always striving to find answers to the many questions that life poses. The byword for the positive Life Path 5 is constant change and improvement. You want to be totally unrestrained, as this is the number most often associated with the productive use of freedom.

You may be one of the most compassionate of people as the 5 is surely the most freedom-loving and compassionate Life Path. Your love of freedom extends to humanity at large, and concern for your fellow man, his freedom and his welfare, may be foremost in your mind. A great Life Path 5 American President, Abraham Lincoln, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and ended slavery in America. As the ultimate progressive thinker type, your potential in government, the law, and other positions of authority is unlimited.

You are a good communicator, and you know how to motivate people around you. This may be your strongest and most valuable trait. Because of this skill, and your amazing wit, you are a truly natural born salesman. This ability to sell and motivate extends to any sort of physical product all the way through to whatever ideas or concepts you may embrace.

You abhor routine and boring work, and you are not very good at staying with everyday tasks that must be finished on time. On the average, the number 5 personality is rather happy-go-lucky; living for today, and not worrying too much about tomorrow. It is also important for you to find a job that provides thought-provoking tasks rather than routine and redundant responsibilities. You do best dealing with people, but the important thing is that you have the flexibility to express yourself at all times. You have an innate ability to think through complex matters and analyze them quickly, but then be off to something new.

A love of adventure may dominate your life. This may take the form of mental or physical manifestation, but in either case, you thrill to the chance for exploration and blazing new trails. Surely you belong to a group considered the most worldly and traveled. Clearly you are not one to pass up a good venture. You have quite a lot of the risk-taker in your makeup. If you aren't putting your money at stake, you are surely open to a wide variety of risks in your everyday life. Taking the conservative approach is just not in your nature.

In romance, you hate to be tied down and restricted. This doesn't necessarily mean that you are unfaithful or promiscuous, but it does mean that a good partner for you needs to understand your nature. A relationship based on jealousy and having tight reigns is not going to work at all for you. A partner who understands your need to be free and trusted will find you trustworthy, even if you aren't constantly available and totally dutiful. It is important for you to mix with people of a like mind, and to try to avoid those that are too serious and demanding.

If you are living on the negative side of the Life Path 5, you are apt to be multitalented, but suffering from some lack of direction, and there is confusion surrounding your ambition. Restless, discontent, and impulsive, you may bounce from one job to the next without accomplishing much at all. A negative Life Path 5 can become very irresponsible in tasks and decisions concerning the home and business life. The total pursuit of sensation and adventure can result in your becoming self-indulgent and totally unaware of the feelings of those around you.

Hey, Auto Tuner 1, and Mmabatho do you want to play Fantasy Football this fall?

Global Warming is being driven by political hype and not sceince. I remember 20 years ago that news reports stated that because of global warming the earth should be destroyed by now, but the human race is still here, o well.

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/

I am presently reading "Collapse" by Jarod Diamond, and he states that there are 5 factors why past societies collapsed:

1 Environmental Damage
2 Climate Change
3 Hostile Neighbors
4 Loss of Trade, or difficult trade relations with other societies
5 A society’s response to environmental factors

The past collapsed civilizations which Diamond wrote about were Easter Island, Pitcairn Island, Henderson Island, the Anasazi, the classic Lowland Maya, and the Greenland Norse.

Easter Island is interesting because here was a civilization that used intelligent engineering techniques (that we are not sure of) to move 50 to 80 ton pieces of stone and then hosted them by I guess some kind of pulley system into an upright position. But in the process of creating all the statues on the island, the people cut down all the trees, creating irreparable environmental damage to the island. The people used all the trees to move the statues from the quarries to where they wanted then to be, and used trees to create the pulleys systems and rope to stand the statues upright. My question is if these people were smart enough to move 80 ton rocks, why could they not understand that by cutting down all the trees they were harming their way of life? Why did they have to make so many statues in the first place? Why was not 1 sufficient? If they only made 1 or 2 statues the people might still be there and the trees would have protected the island from erosion, they would not have had to use stones to try to protect the fields from wind and erosion.

The other interesting thing was how cannibalism played a part at the end of the Easter Island civilization. Here is an intelligent civilization reverting to cannibalism because of deforestation and other human environmental impacts to the island. If something happen here in America ( a natural disaster of some kind) creating a massive societal and food disruption would we as a society revert to cannibalism to survive and justify it?

Teacher: It has been said, "Life is not fair," who can give me a classic example of that.

Teacher: Yes Johnny.

Johnny: You buy cheese that has been aged 6 years, and it turns green in a week.

BC

I grew up reading comics, my favorite comic was "The Amazing Spiderman", and he was and is my hero. I always identified with him, Spidy was a loner, people did not always understand him, and he had a difficult time with the girls. I also like it that Spidy was always wise cracking when he was fighting the "villains" or J. Jonah Jamison. I am a first born so my personality is reflected in that fact, I do not mind being alone or on my own, and I desire solitude at times. That is one reason why I run; I am totally alone when I run. I also liked that Peter was a scientist or nerd; I thought it was cool that he could understand complex scientific concepts. I have always been interested in science and the thought of being a scientist has always appealed to me.

When I ETS’s out of the Army and I started to take classes not really knowing what I wanted to do with my life( even though I have always love computers) I remember seeing some math classes Calc I, Calc II, and Calc III. I did not understand really what kind of math classes they were, just that I had this instinctive desire to take them, and since then I have developed great love for math. Math is cool; thru math the universe is understandable and definable. Force = mass x acceleration. Even though I am older, I am still that kid that could hardly wait for the next month Spiderman comic book. I have decided to become an astrophysicist, that feels right.

I am always amazed every time I see this picture. The universe is wonderful, and terrifying at the same time.

Just who in the hell do these people think that they are? I thought Republican's stood for less government, less government intrusions in people's lives, more freedom from government, "NOT BIG BROTHER." It makes me not want to be a Repulican any more. Yea, that is what this country needs a DNA database to track law abiding citizens -- NOT!!!! Idiots.

Which country should you REALLY be living in? Australia G'day Mate! You're a yokker. A true Aussie. You love the beach and barbies, as well as sport and sex. Life couldn't get any simpler, and thats the way it should be. C'mon Aussie, C'mon!

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

The one who I love asked me the other day, "Why is it when get around other people and you are talking about Monty Python and the Holy Grail , everbody starts acting out the movie?" I do not know, but it is fun. "Come back here, it is only a flesh wound." I am saying this in a English accent. "What is your favorite color?" "Red, blue, green." Ahhhhhhhhhh. "We are the riders on Nee." "I'll gum you to death." I am going to have watch this movie again. See you later.

If it was not for WWII the America space program (NASA) might not be what is today, even though NASA seems to be without a vision and that sense of purpose that Apollo space missions gave NASA. It was during the closing of the WWII with the Americans closing from one side, and the Russians closing from the Eastern Front that Wernher von Braun had to make a decision for his rocket team. They decided that their future would be best with the Americans, so they buried all of their research notes, von Braun then set out to find the Americans while the rest of the team went underground so not to be discovered by the Russian Military. Braun then hooked up with the Americans, and once the US Military Intelligence understood who Braun was, they were brought back to the States where they continued their research in rocket flight. What I find fascinating is that the book that I read said that the Germans back in the 30's were planning a Mars mission, and here we are (2006) still debating a Mars trip even though Bush gave the mandate for NASA to go to Mars and return to the Moon.

If the Germans had won WWII, I wonder if Germany would have kept their initial plans and developed a rocket capable of making a trip to Mars, and then back to the Earth? What would NASA be like if after the Apollo missions they would have started research to develop a space ship to make the Mars trip, and what technologies would have been developed as a direct result of the Mars mission trip? I think that the space shuttles were necessary step in the evolution of space flight but we seemed to have stopped there. The shuttles are 20 to 30 years old and we should be developing new ships and new engines. I am sure that NASA has stuff on the drawing board (antimatter engines), but there seems to be no excitement in the news or the public at large for space flight. When the United States stopped the Apollo missions, I think a part of NASA died even though NASA continues space research and exploration.

"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." - Ronald Reagan

April Wine (myles goodwyn)Published by slalom publishing co. - bmi If you want to hear the song just scroll through till you see "Victim for your Love." I always thought this was the best song on the "Stand Back" album, even though the whole album is great.

So many times I’ve loved you
And now I don’t even know you
I’m just a victim for your love
And having my whole world fall down
And finding the strength to go on Cause
I’m just a victim for your love
And I’m not the one you’re thinkin’ of
I’m just a victim for your love

I thought our love was growin’ strong
Growing each day, well I was wrong
Then having my whole world fall down
And finding the strength to go on
Cause I’m just a victim for your love
And I’m not the one you’re thinkin’ of
I’m just a victim for your love
And I’m not the one you’re thinkin’ of, no

I’m just a man with a broken heart, oh no
I’m just a man with no place to start, oh yeah
I was a victim for your love

Don’t break my heart, don’t cause me pain
Comfort me love, hold back the rain, oh no
I’m just a man with a broken heart, oh no
I’m just a man with no place to start, oh yeah
I was a victim for your love, ooh
And I’m not the one you’re thinkin’ of
I’m just a victim for your love
And I’m not the one you’re thinkin’ of
I’m just a victim for your love

It still irritates me that they ( Hollywood ) took the book “Starship Troopers” and made a despicable movie out of it. I remember when I went to the movie theater with great anticipation to watch the movie, and then the let down feeling I had after the movie. The movie was just popcorn; it was watered down for the think less movie goers I guess. The book covers a wide range of topics like philosophy, and civic duty to one’s country, while being a great sci-fi story. Every time that I have read the book, I have always enjoyed reading it. That is one DVD that will NOT be in my collection.

I passed Calc III, and in the fall I will be taking Differential Equations. Yea me.

I have always been interested in words and their origins, and more particularly the origin of swear words. I have always wondered who decided which words were appropriate and which words were vulgar, and how did the meaning of the words travel the world. There is a book called "Dictionary of Word Origins" that explains how the words were derived, but does not explain why it was decided that the word was “bad.” I know that some words refer to bodily functions and it is that is what makes the word undesirable in public. I was surfing the web for the history of swearing and I came across an example what was considered swearing in 1914. There was a play in England and the phrase “Not bloody likely” was uttered, and this caused a national sensation across the nation. It was reported in news papers, “a few seconds of stunned disbelieving silence, and then hysterical laughter for at least a minute and a quarter," and other news papers had the headlines, “'THREATS BY DECENCY LEAGUE” and 'THEATER TO BE BOYCOTTED.” The Bishop of Woolwich state publicly that "The Word should be banned.” In today’s world speaking the phrase “not bloody likely” anywhere would not cause any commotion no matter where you where. So here it seems like the newspapers and the church became offended and created a swearing sensation across the nation. I am guessing 1000 years from now, all the words that we consider vulgar will be forgotten and replace with words that someone has decided that these words can not be spoken in public because they are swear words. Feldercarb.

Yo ho ho on a deadman's chest.

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions. You're the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl... or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

What European City Do You Belong In?

Well if looks like Operation Mindcrime II is a dud. After reading all the reviews, and listening to the song bits on Amazon I will not be buying this cd. I was really looking forward to the new cd, because I though it was going be like Operation Mindcrime I, but better. Alas, it is not so, I will be staying with OM I.

I found this blog the other day Naked Villainyand discovered it was quite humorous. So I put it under my blog links.

Lift off from Sweden for space tourists.

I want to go:) I have always thought that I was born 100 or 200 years too early. If I was in the world of Star Trek, I would be an Astrophysicist( in Starfleet), travelling the universe.

NASA's newest space shuttle.

I am not a big fan of Sen. Bird, but I am less of a fan of Big Brother.

Your Five Variable Love Profile

Propensity for Monogamy: Your propensity for monogamy is medium. In general, you prefer to have only one love interest. But it's hard for you to stay devoted for too long! There's too much eye candy to keep you from wandering. Experience Level: Your experience level is medium. You probably have had a couple significant loves. And you may have even had your heart broken. But you haven't really dated a wide variety of people. Dominance: Your dominance is low. This doesn't mean you're a doormat, just balanced. You know a relationship is not about getting your way. And you love to give your sweetie a lot of freedom. Cynicism: Your cynicism is low. You are an eternal optimist when it comes to love and romance. No matter how many times you've been hurt - you're never bitter. You believe in one true love, your perfect soulmate. And if you haven't found true love yet, you know you will soon. Independence: Your independence is medium. In relationships, you need both "me time" and "we time." You usually find it easy to be part of a couple. But occasionally you start to feel a little smothered.

The Five Variable Love Test

I watched the movie "The Nuremberg Trials" the other day on PBS, and I was struck with the parallel between what happen in Germany with the loss of civil rights for a certain segment of people and the Patriot Act taking away civil rights from people who we consider enemy combatants or other people who we consider enemies of the state. It seems to me that once the government starts down this road of denying civil rights to who ever in the name of national security, where does it stop, and who stops it. I am not willing to exchange my civil rights, and my right to freedom granted by the constitution, for security, because once you have lost your freedom to whatever government, you will not get it back, you will be living in a police state. I know that here in America we have the Separation of Powers that is to save guard our rights as Americans, but with the recent ruling by the Supreme Court that if a local city government can make money by redeveloping your property, thus making tax revenue go up, then it is all right. To me this ruling is in direct conflict with the 4th Amendment which states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

To my simple understanding of the 4th amendment, monetary gain for some city government is unreasonable, and should not be seized, but the great legal minds of the Supreme Court decided money for government and business was more important then my house and my happiness of where I decide to live. My point is that sometimes it seems like this separation of powers does not always protect my right as a citizen granted by the constitution.

So if our rights as citizens can be eroded in one area, where does it stop. We are a nation of laws, and our laws apply to whoever is in our sphere of influence even the enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay. Guantanamo Bay is the starting point by the federal government of eroding civil rights to who they deem as enemies foreign and domestic in the name of national security. Take for instance the case that was in Sacamento, California. In the end the government had no case and no evidence, so my question why were they arrested, and why were they convicted? why did the judge let this trial proceed? I believe this is just an example of the government overstepping and infringing on people's civil rights when there was no proof just, an assumption on the government’s part that they might do something even though the government does not know how to define that something. This is a slippery slope, our freedom and the Bill of Rights is suppose to protect us from our government , and like I said before I am not willing to trade my freedom and civil rights for security because if we do, then become our worst enemy.