THANKSGIVING

For the first time in my life I have shared Thanksgiving Dinner with both of my parents. It was rather strange to say the least. In fact the only occasion I can recall ever spending time with both of my parents (not counting custody battles) was at my wedding.

It was a good Thanksgiving though. My mother seemed out of place at times (I don't think she is accustomed to hanging around non-mormons). A little boring at times. For some reason the usual jovialness seemed to be lacking.

Maybe it's cuz I was too mentally preoccupied to really engage the occasion. Anyhow, I enjoyed the break from life.

Now back to reality.

Headline News (unless you live in America)

I ran accross this article online. It's aphalling and grotesque and apparently completely overlooked by US News Media, who never fail to catch a US soldier in a compromising situation.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20726085-2703,00.html

Apparently the brutal beheading of three young Christian girls is less newsworthy than Abu Grabi and congressman Foley.

What would you eat for 2.7 Million Dollars?

An LA fireman was recently awarded 2.7 Million Dollars in a settlement. What horrible crime was committed against him that warrented such a large settlement. His fellow fire fighteres as a prank, put dog food in his spaghetti sauce. He ate two whole bites of it before his fellow fire fighter (who were of course laughing) let him in on the joke.

But why did we give him millions of dollars? Well apparently, according to his lawyers, this was a humiliating event racially based (he was black of course) to imply he was a slave dog.

If you aren't shaking your head yet, it gets better. Apparently this 22 year veteran was well know as a prankster himself. This very large man was also know for calling himself "BIG DOG" and for screaming out sayings like "feed the Big Dog" at LAFD volleyball games.

But since he is black and his pranksters are white and hispanic, their prank was obviously race based and deserving of 2.7 million dollars.

Now lets just assume for two seconds that this prank had anything to do with racial degredation. Even if that were true (which I think the fact show it to be completely false) why do the taxpayers of LA have to fork over 2.7 Mil? Why do we have to pay anything? Why am I and my fellow taxpayers responsible for the individual action of a few men? IF they are truly guilty of some crime, should not any retribution be made by the offending parties. Would that not be just. But why does all of LA County have to pay because someone was offended at a joke?

How many more cops or firefighters could we put on the streets for 2.7 Mil? How many roads could we fix? How many streets could we light?

I think this man a total disgrace to the spirit of firefighters (to help those in need). He instead has chosen to rob LA's citizen of their hard earned money, because someone played a prank on Mr Prankster and it offended him.

Only one city council member spoke out saying how ridiculous this settlement was. He was apparently laughed off the stage while they signed away my hard earned money.

So, what would you eat for 2.7 Million Dollars?

Drum Roll Please

So after much debate (not really) I succumbed to the will of the wife and we went to get the ultra-sound (I wanted to be surprised). It was cool. The little bugger sure does move a lot. Kept shifting around. Oh and as Patty says, "KIDS GOT A BIG HEAD". I guess you'd have to be a mother to notice that. I thought the coolest part was watching the heart beat and seeing the spine. It's not everyday I get to watch a heart beating and get to see a living skeleton moving. Patty says it has my big nose (poor kid) and likes the God given pacifier known as a thumb.

Anyway, thanks to the wonders of modern technology I can with relative surety declare what few parents (relatively) in the history of humanity have been able to declare; We are having a.............

BABY


oh yeah, you already knew that....

ok, without further adoo...












































It's a BOY

Which Darrien is very excited about. I believe his word were "WE WON!".. out of the mouths of babes...

Brian Rohrbough-who's son was slain at Columbine

October 2nd, on the freespeech portion of a CBS news program, Brian Rohrbough, the father of a boy slain at Columbine, offered an opinion.


"I am saddened and shaken by the shooting at an Amish school today, and last week's school murders. When my son Dan was murdered on the sidewalk at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, I hoped that would be the last school shooting. Since that day, I've tried to answer the question, 'Why did this happen?'

This country is in a moral free-fall. For over two generations, the public school system has taught in a moral vacuum, expelling God from the school and from the government, replacing him with evolution, where the strong kill the weak, without moral consequences and life has no inherent value.

We teach there are no absolutes, no right or wrong. And I assure you the murder of innocent children is always wrong, inclucing by abortion. Abortion has diminished the value of children.

Suicide has become an acceptable action and has further emboldened these criminals. And we are seeing an epiemic increase in murder-suicide attacks on our children.

Sadly, our schools are not safe. In fact, we now witness that within our shcools. Our children have become a target of terrorists from within the United States."

Now this seems like a pretty accurate depiction of the current state of our education system to me. But viewers thought differently. Here are some of thier responses......

"Brian Rohrbough lost a son.. apparently he also lost his grip on reality."

"It's amazing over the last 24 hours all the Christian fanatic fundies who normally don't watch CBS News have flooded this site with praise for Brian Rohrbough. News sure travels fast in the fascist-wing blogosphere."

"CBS is pandering to right-wing-nuts.."

I guess I just find it disturbing when people can be so biased as to refuse to see the truth which stares them in the face.

On a different note, I finished reading Job today.

"Who then is able to stand against Me?
Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him?
Everything under heaven is MINE!"

Just a reminder in case you had forgotten.

Just more Rambling....

Toy Soldiers brave away those tears
toy soldiers hope for better years
today I strike out on my own
the dog is dead, the kids have grown

ay didly oh, didn't you know
you fade once you glow
didn't you know child
after the rhyme high time
didly oh didn't you know
you fade once you glow
didn't you know child
after the rhyme high time.

CARBON LEAF on the brain. Just spent a few days down in San Diego. I was in school while the fam got to play at Old Town San Diego. I think I got the short end of the stick in that deal. They had a good time though and I learned alot. Now all I have to do is take it back to work and apply it.

Patty is starting to feel the baby. It's cool. She's big for four months. I keep telling her it's twins. we'll find out on Wednsday.

My Dad came to town with my Mustang. Now I have to figure out what to do with her. Poor girl needs a home which I don't have right now. I certainly can't afford to fix her yet. HMMM. I'll worry about that tomorrow.

off to bed. goodnight.

Quotes from Albert Einstein

The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest

What does a fish know about the water in which it swims all its life?

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible.

The physicists say that I am a mathematician, and the mathematicians say that I am a physicist. I am a completely isolated man and though everybody knows me, there are very few people who really know me.

The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax

Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.

I don't believe in mathematics

Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

Before God we are all equally wise — and equally foolish.

The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality

To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate has made me an authority myself.

LIFE OF A DEMOCRACY

Not sure how accurate these conclusions and statistics are, but it's an interesting read....

LIFE OF A DEMOCRACY

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage"

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Population of counties won by: Gore: 127 million; Bush: 143 million
Square miles of land won by: Gore: 580,000; Bush: 2,427,000
States won by: Gore: 19; Bush: 29
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Gore: 13.2; Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

THE LIE THAT DESERVED ANOTHER

A man returned home after traveling abroad, eager to brag about his adventures.

"I've seen things you've never imagined, not even in your dreams," he told his friends. "Once I saw the longest ship afloat. The captain was standing at the stern, and he gave the cabin boy a message to take to the first mate, who stood at the bow. The lad was only ten when he started; his white beard swabbed the deck by the time he'd reached the mast. I didn't wait to see if he lived long enough to make it the rest of the way."

His friends looked at each other. One said:

"That's nothing. You didn't need to leave home to find sights like that. Why, in the forest just over that ridge, I've seen a tree so tall it poked a hole in the sky. Once a bird tried to fly over the top, but by the time it reached just the third branch from the bottom, it was too old to go any further. So it stopped and laid and egg, and told its chick to continue the journey. Seven generations of birds have been flying towards the top, and they're not halfway yet."

"That's ridiculous," the traveller scoffed. "I've never heard such a lie in my life."

"If that's the case," asked his friend, "where did you get the tree to make the mast for your ship?"

Just me Rambling as usual

Wow, I haven't been here in a month. That's Criminal. I guess I'm just too busy to express myself lately. It's seems everyday I have a whole list of things to do, not counting work for 9-11 hours. Yes, that is now my average day. Some might call me crazy, but I rather enjoy my job. The time goes by rather quickly. Buy, research, input data, negotiate with people we need to pay, argue with accounting, go to meetings, ect. It's a very busy job after 8am. The first 1.5 hours I reserve for myself. My coffee, time to check my messages and plan my day and input any left over data into the computer. It's also a great time to contact my East Coast contacts. By 8am, the mass is here and then it's one phone call after another of crisis. I become a reed in the wind returning to my desk to clear the paperwork whenever I get the chance.

Yesterday I received the strangest request yet. The production manager calls me, "Sean, I need you to get me a high powered BB Gun". You need what? Apparently he wants to use the gun to shoot the birds out of the rafters. "So, you want to shoot a high powered air rifle INSIDE the building?" YES! So I called the VP and he was all for it. I think their both crazy. They wanted it NOW. I escaped out of the escapade by declaring that the only way to do so would be to go to the store in person, and since my name isn't on any company credit cards, I wouldn't be able to purchase it. My boss, Sal, and I got a good laugh out of it though.

It's kinda strange calling Sal Boss. He's more like a friend who lets me do whatever I want. All I really have to do is be willing to jump through hoops when he needs me. The rest of the time I'm on my own.

My home life is good. Darrien is doing well in homeschool. He is excelling in math and doing about what we expected in everything else. Patty is starting to show. You can tell where the little whipper snapper is by the hard spot on her stomach. I like to move him/her around. She is still protesting the buying of maternity cloths.

We joined a Bible study group much like the Gel Groups of Forefront. Unfortunately we are going to have to leave before we get much of a start. We reallized after the whole group agreed to meet Wednesday that Darrien's AWANA (His bible study) meets on Wedneday. But how could you not have reallized this you ask? Well, it was still middle of summer when we chose and AWANA works on a normal school year schedule. It was the farthest thing from our mind.

The good news is the Dave, our Associate Pastor and great all around guy, is thinking of starting another group. Apparently Mic, his group leader, thinks he's crazy for driving as far as he does and keeps telling him to get lost. He's the black sheep of his group. Dave lives much closer to us and hopefully we all can come up with some arrangement.

Well I must be going. I have to finish an on-going project I'm helping my friend, Nova with. She is repainting her room. Normally this is a simple project. But her grandparents decided that the room should be painted with this high gloss paint long ago. The problem with high gloss paint is you can't paint over it, it won't stick. So I've had to spend a whole day just sanding the ceiling (last Saturday). That in itself was enough to wipe me out. Spent another evening laying down primer on the ceiling (only got one and a half coats down or up). Today, her uncle is going to join us and hopefully we will finish. Wish me luck.