Dartax Lives

The Unpopular Political Statement

2011-09-09T07:38:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted here in a while. This morning I was thinking of doing my usual, just the short status updates on Facebook / Twitter. However, sometimes what you need to say, or want to say, just cannot be written in 144 characters or less. Some people may be very skilled at that, and many things are adaptable to that. Today, I want to share something I read, and my thinking behind my reaction to it.

As you may guess, I gave my email address to a couple of the campaigns so I get emails occasionally from a couple of the so-called Tea Party candidates. No, not Rick Perry. I don't know of many calling Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman (both Mormon's and thus share my religious faith) Tea Party candidates. And while I have read many call Rick Perry a Tea Party candidate, I am quite leery. I realize that the Tea Party movement is a potential voting block that many might try to appeal to win votes without really believing in or wanting to implement our philosophy. How often do politicians talk limited government but once in office someone all that campaign rhetoric disappears? All too often. So I have become used to hearing the words of politicians and then thinking for myself what they might mean. What the implications might be. Or how practical what they offer is. This is why I did not vote for President Obama. He was popular with his words, but when I pondered what those words really would mean I either found them impractical or in reality quite undesirable. Unfortunately, if one truly listened to McCain back then, he was no better, offering quite often the very same ideas just in different words. The only difference I saw was in how they both proposed for government to alter health care. I figured both methods would destroy health care. McCain's would do it faster. Obama's plan (which we now have) would simply takes a decade or more to accomplish the same end. The other difference was that McCain's plan had a chance (albeit slim) that after the destruction of health care that perhaps something truly healthy for the future of the nation would rise from the ashes, while what has been nicknamed Obamacare is a slow process that will leave is thinking and living in a system that few nations have escaped with far reaching consequences across potentially many industries over time.

Okay, so I don't always see the popular political statements as good things for America. Just because it sounds good, does not make it right. The opposite can be said of some of the right things to say. They can be very unpopular. For example, I have been following the Tea Party candidates seeing if one will say or hint at something I happen to believe is important, but very unpopular, even within the Tea Party. We want the easy fixes in life all too often.

"At yesterday’s debate at the Reagan Library, Governors Perry and Romney spoke of using executive orders as a quick fix to Obamacare, which is simply not legal. Obamacare is federal law and cannot be overturned by issuing an executive order. We need to stop looking for temporary fixes and start working towards permanent solutions, and as President, I am ready to get to work, starting with repealing Obamacare — plainly and simply."

Those words were written in an email I received from the Michelle Bachmann campaign. Of all I have heard so far, or read, this is the closest I have heard to what I have been looking for. See, the couple sentences referring to the Rick Perry and Mitt Romney is what I expected from candidates trying to court the Tea Party vote. They would promise the quick and easy fix to something that many of us that claim to be with the Tea Party want changed, Obamacare. However, those of us who believe that to save America we need to return to a Constitutional government, a limited government, may also believe that executive order and regulatory fiat is part of the very system that we believe is overturning the Constitutional separation of powers. So in essence, the easy fix will only accelerate the path away from a limited, Constitutional government. And probably will actually in the end never fix the problems of Obamacare but rather hide and/or set them up for becoming worse. Is not common for Democrats talk about limiting government violations against our freedoms when a Republican is in office? And when they take office, government just gets bigger and more intrusive? And the reverse is true with Republicans, that they'll promise less government but once in office all that rhetoric is just an illusion. So I have been leery of the Tea Party candidates saying they are for limited government and a return to a Constitutional government (with separation of powers). So when I hear words that imply one might just use executive orders, I think of what that means.

See, the correct answer in my mind is actually found in the latter sentences of the quote. Instead of using executive order, turn to the legislative branch of government to do their job. This would probably be a very politically incorrect statement to make. Many in the Tea Party want limited government so badly that I am worried that we would throw the very principles of limited government into the trash bin of history in our efforts. I may want Obamacare gone, but if I look to a candidate that will use executive order to do it, then I might as well live in Cuba or China, or wherever else that a dictatorship has been extolled as a good thing. Because that is what I would be choosing as our path, consolidating all power in the executive branch of government. It wouldn't have to be the President I voted for, it could be the next one or the one after that. So when I read that Bachmann claims that she'll use the correct process instead of executive fiat, I wanted to rejoice. I would rather live with the consequences of Obamacare and make a fundamental change away from eventual dictatorship in America. Because I happen to believe that if we start changing away from the concept that government needs to do everything for us, that in the end many of the things I don't think government should be messing with will be fixed in the end. For if we give the President the power to unilaterally overturn the law of the land (which Obamacare is--unless overturned by the Supreme Court or canceled by new legislation), if we give that power to the executive branch of government, would we not also be giving the executive branch the power to create the law of the land in other aspects as well? Would we not be completing the foundation necessary for a dictatorship?

So while abolishing Obamacare might be popular with the Tea Party, I happen to think Michelle Bachmann's campaign said the right thing in this email I received. It is the politically unpopular thing to say that you cannot fix a problem through the powers of the Presidency, but in this case, I think it is the right thing to say.

Mixing Radio Programs

2011-04-27T00:04:00.000-05:00

For those that may not know, I listen to two radio programs. What I really do is record them and then take those recordings with me to work and listen as I have time. Being the hardware tech does have its advantage. While I working on belt printers (for printing those little price tags on the shelf), portable computers (barcode scanners), and actual computers at the workbench, there is a lot of time that I can listen while I work.

So why did I choose these two?

Being conservative, you can be fairly certain that I was going to go with Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity for a radio program. I was introduced a local personality through my recording, but I only have so much time to listen and it isn't a whole lot of time. So, Rod Arquette got dropped for balance with Dave Ramsey.

Rush comes off very conservative, but after listening to him a bit I would have to agree with some of his critics on his treatment of some of the callers. Some of his guest hosts I actually like better than Rush, but as I mentioned, my time each day is limited and it is better to just go with a show that I was a bit more comfortable with. As for Sean Hannity, well, my exposure to him was his television program and it just didn't sell me. In fact, he came across as too Republican to me, even though I tend to favor Republican candidates.

Now Glenn Beck is bit into the doom and gloom. While I suspect he's right on many things, I have two things where I strongly feel I must balance my choice with. One, I disagree on what determines who will survive a potential collapse situation as he continually foretells with his doom and gloom. Two, focusing on doom and gloom and you will get what you focus on. If I want a happy future, then I need something that motivates and moves me towards a brighter future that I can believe in.

Dave Ramsey promotes a debt free lifestyle. Many of us have had a culture of debt so thoroughly ingrained into us that we don't realize what freedom it is to not owe money. Having been both debt free and in debt, I have experienced a taste of that freedom. Imagine being able to say, "I don't need the money." Not to pay your bills, not to put food on your table, or to provide yourself with entertainment. When I was debt free, I was even poorer with money than I am now. I did not save. I spent it all. Yet, I had a freedom that only now am I struggling to rediscover. For back then, I once had three or four paychecks in my wallet that I had not yet deposited in my account. I did not desperately need that money. There was no collectors that were going to haunt me, no debt and I bought all my entertainment with cash. I would later convince myself that I should establish my credit, and took on credit for a purchase that I could have paid cash for. Since then, I learned to regret that choice and it wasn't long before I was living paycheck to paycheck like everyone else. I want that freedom back. That is why I feel a strong connection when I listen to Dave Ramsey.

So I listen to Glenn Beck and Dave Ramsey because Glenn sees a problem and Dave has the best solution. Not gold and silver like Glenn Beck often advertises, but rather the skills to financial freedom is the key such as is taught by Dave Ramsey!

Glenn Beck has often danced around the old adage that if you want to change the world that the only thing you can really change is yourself. Once you change yourself, the impact of your change will spread from there. If I really want to be part of movement to keep freedom alive, then I must find my freedom for myself. If I am bound by debt, am I truly free? No. So I seek to become debt free. Yet even before I achieve true financial freedom, I am very aware that by choosing to take a different financial course in life that I have set myself up to value my freedoms even now. I was already committed to becoming debt free, but listening to the Dave Ramsey show does do at least two things for me. One, it reaffirms and provides insight into achieving my financial goals. Two, listening to the Dave Ramsey gives me some potential skills that I can use to share a means to help others achieve financial freedom for themselves. I have done some things that are consistent with the baby steps, but I would have never known they are part of process that one can use to get debt free. In an interesting contrast that helps keep me thinking, not only does Dave Ramsey state that economy is not going to collapse, Dave generally advises callers and listeners to steer clear of precious metals. While I don't agree with all his views on precious metals, one thing I do know that buying precious metals does not teach you financial freedom or money management. And without those skills, no matter of precious metals, or money, will keep you out of financial disaster.

Adding to Whiteboard

2011-02-22T19:57:00.000-06:00

Added these today:

Action without vision is like unto hiking without a compass.

Investing in yourself is not the toys and frills.
Investing in yourself is the sacrifice of time and/or money to make yourself better tomorrow than you are today.

- Daniel P Burke

Whiteboard

2011-02-19T20:01:00.001-06:00

These are things I wrote on the whiteboard in my cubicle at work.

Work hard = good
Work smart = better
Work hard doing smart work = best

Optimist - Yes, I can!
Pessimist - No, I cannot.
An optimist may achieve!!!

Dreamer, has a vision but lacks reality or action.
Achiever, has a vision with reality and positive action.

- Daniel P Burke

Keeping myself busy

2010-09-23T14:21:00.000-05:00

I realize that I have not posted anything on here in a while. That is all my own fault.

For a while there, I was playing World of Warcraft part time. So when I wasn't working, or tending to my family, I was having a virtual character run around swinging a sword. I was mostly a casual player, so that wasn't all I was doing. Now that the WoW account has expired, it seems like things have actually gotten busier for me.

My routine includes reading various conservative news sources. Yeah, I know how I lean. Besides, I occasionally do a little research on their claims which may take me to more liberal news media too. There are two major factors leading me to read conservative news online. One, I am concerned about the freedoms we will leave to my children and the future. Two, I have decided that I will take a risk and try and start my own business. Bank credit seems to be as dry as the Sahara Desert, so this presents all sorts of wonderful challenges. I just know that I cannot let those challenges stop me.

I work during the day at Sportsman's Warehouse as the hardware tech. In the morning and evening, I spend time with family, read news, and try to put together my desired business. I suppose I could browse my past posts and see if I ever mentioned Burke Computers. With the holidays coming around the corner, I am hoping to be ready to try and sell something. So many challenges. Putting together some sort of website (I am using a blog for now because I have no money for anything fancy). Trying to catch up on information and follow computer related news. So that also dominates some of my time. While not selling one computer would be disappointing, I think my greatest fear is going from none to tons of sales. I am planning to post some online, local advertisements on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but I am hoping that the following three practical factors will keep things reasonable for such a small, home-based startup (especially since I live in an apartment and don't even have a garage to do this out of--which I think the city code doesn't allow anyways--the take over the garage with a business bit).

1. Payment in full up front. As a no-name, this should hurt me. And since I don't have a large scale facility, I am perfectly fine with that. That and bank credit is dry, so I really don't have much choice on this. I cannot get parts without money. And when I went to the bank asking if I could get some sort of credit, the officer didn't even take a glance or consideration before they told me that credit just isn't being offered to small businesses right now. I wanted to run a debt free business. Initially, I was planning to wait until orders to buy the parts because I cannot afford any unacceptable debts, but this forced me to adapt my plans.....

2. I am an unknown. Counting on this to keep sales down.

I did sit down and estimate how many computers I can build in x amount of time. Using that I worked out how much I might need to charge for labor alone because the risk in all this is a conflict with my day job at Sportsman's Warehouse. So I needed to know how much time a computer would take to build, how to much labor I ought to charge, and then make a personal decision about how much sales would become a conflict of interest. Of course, with all the government regulation and taxes that seem to be in the pipeline, well, you might understand why I read so much conservative news lately as well. I am banking my family future on having some business provide for my well-being, especially seeing as how so many liberals seem to have some sort of problem with hunting or fishing, or guns or something else that might be connected to Sportsman's Warehouse. So while I think the bailouts that government does is bad, I am fairly confident that those bailing out the auto makers and the banks will NOT bailout the company I work for. In fact, even though Sportsman's Warehouse is profitable again, and looking very up right now, I anticipate that there are many in government who would like to see us out of business.

Well, past time to get back to the day job. It is nice having lunch at home because we live about a mile from there.

My inadequate thoughts on illegal immigration.

2010-06-30T08:28:00.000-05:00

First. Illegal is illegal. No matter how you cry about the suffering of the people. A law was broken. Unfortunately, we have not been enforcing it because it gives politicians power to be reelected. Who is paying the price for our failure to enforce our own laws? Everyone. Both legal and illegal immigrants suffer for our failure to enforce a law that most other nations enforce with far more strict laws. So also do we pay for this short sighted oversight. We think we are helping them, but I don't think we are. What do we teach them by example? Our laws do not need to be enforced. This lesson apparently is well received and crime rates in many of our "sanctuary" cities is on the rise. Wait! Crime is rising? So who are the victims of this. Well, not only do citizens fall into the line of fire, our law enforcement, but what of those illegals we believe we are helping? Are they not then caught in the very center of these rising crime rates?

Second. Yes, many of the would be "honest" illegals who actually are fleeing hostile countries, are we protecting them from harm or are we lowering the safety and standards of our country to perhaps that of their own. If the sanctuary cities and tracts of land that are now marked as dangerous to Americans along the border are any indication, the problems they fled are following them here. Our failure to secure our border might make it easier for them to escape, but it also allows the very problems they fled to become our problems too. If nothing is done, there will be a day that it will be just as dangerous to live in the United States as it is in Mexico where the drug cartels seem to be out of control. Note: some of those tracts of land marked as too dangerous for Americans are patrolled by scouts and militias of drug cartels, apparently as far as 80 miles across our defined "border" with Mexico. By the way, the signs I have seen pictures of where in English, so I don't think we were trying to warn illegal immigrants away from these dangerous territories. Maybe I am wrong, and the signs were in both languages and I just failed to notice.

Third. If we don't enforce one law, then what is stop us from enforcing any laws according to the dictates of what is popular? Could we end up with legal concentration camps killing off anyone who fails to deny a faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God because the society has decided that such religions zealots are a danger to the future enlightenment of the America people? We already seem to be far from obeying the limitations set in the Constitution of the United States. That central document set limits for a reason, to protect us from tyranny by the governing body and now we have all sorts of laws defining what we can eat or not (New York is good example), laws to dictate what we must buy (Health Care bill recently passed), and it looks like in the near future we might have government control of free speech (redefining free to be paid for by taxes instead of to mean no government intervention), control of the credit to be had in the private sector, and government controls on the internet (just like China but supposedly more benevolent....). It doesn't seem to me that we are doing a great job of living as a lawful society. It seems to me that we are becoming a classic democracy, one ruled by the whims of the mob and destined to follow the path of past democracies, happily and gladly into tyranny of a dictatorship. If we cannot abide to live by the Rule of Law, then what are we offering these illegal immigrants? The opportunity to wait for America to become like the tyranny they may have fled? The corruption? We want lawful peace in our land, but apparently we want to pick and choose the laws we enforce.

Her's an idea. If you really don't want to enforce illegal immigration, then make any and all immigration legal. Sure, that will make it even harder to track terrorists. Welfare will be out of money in no time with the rapid influx. Crime rates would probably go up across America as criminals would flow into this country like they already seem to be doing illegally. Imagine the hassle of renewing your driver's license. Since anyone could be a legal immigrant, the lines at the DMV would be crazy with every visiting foreigner applying as long as it gave them some legal protections when they went home against their local laws. Plus, what a headache all that extra red tape would create as you try to document all those immigrants. That would surely require a lot more staffing issues for the local, state, and federal government. More expenses that we would have to pay for. Imagine all the extra IRS agents you would need. And how would they go after taxes for "citizens" in Germany, Australia, England, China, etc.? And if everyone could be a US citizen, would that mean our welfare dollars would be going to all sorts of other nations because their citizens traveled here and got their US citizenship (or would that even be necessary)? Oh, I am sure someone could come up with a clever idea on how you do away with the immigration laws. Here's a real simple idea: a New World Order. There are a lot of us who fear a New World Order and for good reason. Most of the world does not enjoy the freedoms we do in America. Sure, some have a better free market. Some have more freedom of speech. But as a whole, it is hard to say that freedom is common. China has suppressed freedom of information, religion, and many other things we take for granted. They have a large population. Some countries are dictatorships. Some are quite corrupt. Some are communist. Some are marxist. You would dreaming to expect that a New World Order wouldn't include some, if not many, of these things that are in varying degrees opposed to freedom of the people. So, I am opposed to a New World Order, which actually sounds a lot like the prophesied empire of man that will fight against God's people.

See, I am actually for enforcing the existing law. It won't be pretty. There will need to be laws or rules created to handle situations such as "anchor babies." Do we just send the parents back and make the child a ward of the state? Do we send the child back with them? If we allow them to stay with the child, do we have any reason to expect them to raise a law abiding child? What if they break the law while we are considering their statues and what to do with such parents, do we deport them with or without the child? When I think of legislatures writing laws for our federal government, this is what I think of. Not of them violating the Constitution to force Americans to buy healthcare that probably will bankrupt the nation and destroy our healthcare system. Perhaps creating laws that actually worked with Arizona's law, which I really suspect isn't quite right, but that is another thought.... What would I like? Borrowing from Arizona's law, I don't think we should start by just seeking out and exporting every illegal we find. We start with those breaking the law, anchor babies or not, I think illegal those immigrants should be deported. They've already broken two laws of the land. There should probably be an option for an exception, but I think it should be tight and include the maximum sentence for the law broken that got them caught in the first place. Then you tighten the laws on businesses and other services for illegals, including welfare (which I know would be unpopular). The idea is to make being illegal status more, um, difficult while providing incentive to become legal. I am not sure how you work out the incentive, but I think if you tightened down on the employment of illegal immigrants and got government out of the private sector then I think the private sector could create the rewarding jobs for legal immigration (I don't hold up much hope for this because of two things. Those in government who think they need to protect us from the private businesses, and those in government who believe that government can do better managing the economy than free markets to make things fair--equality of results is an illusion and when applied seems to create only equal failure. Caught between these two thoughts, I just don't see the market being let go free because politics seeks to control risk or gain power while freedom means allowing risk of failure and surrendering control--we seem to prefer the known of control and its failures than the unknown with freedom that allows to succeed or fail miserably). I really don't think we'll see any real immigration reform.

Four. Do the states really have the power to enforce immigration? See, in Arizona, and I think we see this in that their law should be turning over detained illegals to federal authorities. So while they can catch the illegal immigrants they cannot actually enforce the federal law itself. Okay, I have no problem with that so far. But that is also why the law falls flat. There are not only lawsuits being brought against Arizona to challenge this law, the federal authorities are threatening to essentially turn any illegal caught by Arizona law enforcement loose, back onto the streets. Not only does this defeat the enforcement of illegal immigration, but this will be turning loose people who have already violated other laws of this land. While I sure hope they wouldn't turn a kidnapper, rapist, or killer free in their efforts to oppose Arizona's law, I hope by using these three crimes as reference you might get the idea that we are talking those other laws meant to protect us from drunk driving and so forth. So what of Utah? Should the state be considering giving out work visas to illegal immigrants? I did a quick search online, and it looks like visas are something that falls under the federal government, the State Department, or was it the Department of State. I really should have left those webpages open.... Anyways, I don't suspect Utah really has the right to grant immigration status. I could be wrong, and from an article my wife found about what Utah is trying to do, I suspect they aren't trying to do that. But then I still object to the Utah plan. Here's why now. The government is doing what the private sector can and should be doing itself. In other words, if private employers really need these immigrant workers, there already is a system for them to assist immigrant workers to get their work visas. I looked it back up this morning, and it was easy to find with travel.state.gov, a website for the US Department of State. I am a newcomer to all things politic as in the past I really despised politics (and probably still do to a large degree). Do I think the federal government would stop Utah? No. Why? Because I read that the Presidency is already looking for ways to legally grant amnesty and possibly citizenship to the illegal immigrant population--perhaps to bolster apparently falling Democrat numbers going into this midterm election. So Utah taking a step to make legal status to illegal immigrants easy is going his way. Plus, having government do what the private sector can and should is also very much progressive politics, so doing this ensures that Utah stays somewhat aligned with progressive thinking. Which by the way does nothing to stop illegal immigrants from crossing into the United States, has a high probability of encouraging more illegal immigration and not less, as well as making Utah a sanctuary state where you could come, get your papers, and go back to wherever you are dodging the illegal immigration laws as a legal US visa holder. They talked about testing for job placement in America, but I had some serious questions about that. Is that the expense of returning them to Mexico to be tested and then come back to Utah to work (in an economy that governments are running out of money and spending money they don't have, it sounds financially unsound, plus it returns to the stepping on the idea that if the private markets really have a need for these immigrant workers that the private markets would reward them for being legal immigrant workers). So we have the expense of transportation, but if we aren't shipping them back to Mexico as a polite deportation, then are we setting up testing centers in Utah. Again, who is paying for the testing and aren't we also putting these immigrants into direct competition with the unemployed and the agencies who supposedly are trying to help US citizens find employment in these tough times. In addition to the basic opportunities for problems, and even if you thought things out, there will be activists who push illegals to abuse the system. Again, I go back to the idea that government should enforce the law and let the private sector bring the immigrants in legally. If government is making it difficult to bring in the legal immigrants, then perhaps we fix the system (which I really think would correct much of itself if we stopped growing a larger and larger government taking over the free market and the private sector--not to mention that if we actually shrunk government then many of those employed by government would end up needing jobs in the private sector...).

http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1275.html

Five. Illegal immigration is being used by politicians for power. I am sorry to say, but the reason none of the politicians want to deport the illegal immigrants is because they are using the illegals for political power. No more. No less. We are quick and willing to have our media point out that businesses pay these people cheap, under the table, and it is essentially modern slavery. This picture works well for politicians. They create sympathy for these people, win reelection bids off the sympathy ticket, and get legislation passed that all looks good for helping these illegals. Coincidentally, this problem has been going on for a long time now. Politicians have been campaigning for years on helping the illegal immigrants. As a result we created sanctuary cities were illegal immigration is not enforced practically religiously (those same cities that have rising crime rates and are going broke). So this actually creates more problems for government solve. You would think that government would actually be motivated to fix the problems. We have to look to history and then we learn that government by its nature does not seek a free people but rather power over the people. Illegal immigration then actually helps politicians gain power and keep that power. It creates an environment where it is acceptable to consider taking away the gun rights of Americans, or to criminalize the opposition as those who don't care about the plight of the illegal immigrant. I know that there are those who might now my views and will think me cold, heartless, and mean to illegal immigrants. Yes, I am. Why? Because I know they are being used. Used by businesses and used by politicians. The businesses I will give a pass on this because we've created the controlled economy that encourages and rewards this no less. The politicians though, we are losing our freedoms as citizens, and our nation.... Many have good intentions and really do want to help but the fruits of laws that take away our rights aren't going to help. For example, there are those of us who argued that the Health Care bill was in part to give more free health care to illegal immigrants. We were told time and time again that our concerns were not justified, that there was specific language in the bill to prevent this. Then a bit after the bill has passed and become law, then there is a study that says the Health Care bill will do just what those of us who opposed it claimed it would do to spend our taxes on illegal immigrants. And why did we think the bill would do this, among a wide range of reasons why, many of which are humanitarian, we believed that it was always in the personal interest of the politicians to be sure that the Health Care bill covered the illegals to increase their odds of being reelected. Which is sort of ironic that those who are not citizens of our nation are deciding our political processes. Decisions that seem to be leading our nation piece by piece to become like the nations they fled. That is another reason I staunchly prefer legal immigration over illegal. How can we show them mercy if we are willing to become just as crime ridden as the places they left because we don't have the time or energy to enforce our own laws and are allowing both their good and bad to cross our borders freely? It is like we are a computer wide open to not only all the benefits of the internet, the freedom of information, but our protections are turned off so we are also open to viruses, malware, and all sorts of attacks. As a computer gets infected, it slows down and may stop working as intended with constant popup messages trying to get us to buy false antivirus software (which is false because it is the malware advertising this and once you pay the money they won't fix anything, might actually take over your computer more, or just simply keep trying to extort money from you) that prevent you from doing anything productive with your computer until hire an expert to wipe the system clean. So it seems to be happening with our government, we are turning a blind eye to all the crime and problems coming with illegal immigration. We are ceding our border to them.

I seem to recall once reading prophesy that if we do not live and follow God, then God will give even this country that the United States resides upon to another people and we will be conquered. I could be totally wrong on this but it sure feels like we, as a nation, have become such that we almost actively seek out that which undesirable in the sight of God. Pornography in our movies and television. Marriage under attack. Government intrusion into our freedoms. Even making mentioning God an offense. I don't know but it sure feels sometimes like it is only a matter of time before we are "ripe for destruction." So as we concede our land and our governance to illegal immigration, I wonder if we are not starting on the path to creating the very conditions to fulfill prophesy about the potential overthrow of our nation. I don't think clamping down on illegal immigration will fix the problem. As I mentioned a few of "sins" of our nation, I think they really have nothing to do with illegal immigration. However, I do think illegal immigration is tied indirectly to these issues because as we look to move away from God's laws, it is easy to start ignoring some of the laws of the land with smaller apparent consequences. You don't just jump straight from law abiding to a society that murdering your wife is perfectly legal (which is legal in other parts of the world, and I understand one of those nations is actually part of the United Nations council on women's right, thus leading back to my statement earlier that a New World Order wouldn't be as clean or freedom loving as some may delude themselves to believe).

Well, that is a way longer rant than I was first thinking to do, and now I am late in my preparations for work. Got to run.

Hard Swing Lessons

2010-06-18T19:13:00.001-05:00

At the park today, Jennilyn was hit about four times by the swing. #1, she ran behind me as I was giving Ruth a swing in my lap. Jennilyn was layed out on the ground. #2, I was telling Jennilyn that it was safe to "push" from where Dillon was standing. I guess she thought closer was better and she got laid flat again. #3 was a repeat of #2 but she wasn't laid out on the ground. #4 was actually a hit running behind Irene in a toddler swing and it knocked Jennilyn down once more.

Ruth only got knocked down once.

Reading instead of listening to the President

2010-06-15T23:09:00.002-05:00

Well, I read online what was supposed to be the text of the President's speech. I really didn't want to listen to our President. My tolerance for America's stupidity only can go so far at times. Was the speech any better than I expected? Actually, yes, from what I read, it was. I was expected something worse, but as long as the President stayed “on prompter” (as a teleprompter-in-chief as he's been jokingly called) then if what I read was really his speech for tonight then it should not been so bad as I feared it would be. Then again, maybe what was printed by The New York Times online was just an earlier and friendlier version. It still did setup a lot of the stuff I was afraid of having to listen to. Here are couple things that struck me more than others.

“... oil is a finite resource.” I can agree with that. “We consume more than 20 percent of the world's oil, but have less than 2 percent of the world's oil reserves.” I laugh at this part. If we only count what we allow to be drilled, this might be right. However, we have vast tracts of land that is federally protected and no drilling is allowed. In other words, there is oil reserves that aren't even part of our economic equation. “And that's part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean -- because we're running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water.” Ha ha ha. The President is a comedian. They are drilling so far off shore because it costs too much to drill in shallower water or land. Not because there isn't any oil in closer. But, we are sheep to be led by our stupidity so the American people will buy that without doing their homework. Take for example, I live in Utah. I have a cousin that works in Wyoming maintaining oil caps because although they were prepared for oil, we don't actually use these potential oil wells. Why? Because environmental activists make it so much trouble that it costs too much. So why was the drilling done and then capped? Well, we were going to legally make it easier to drill and then Obama was elected. Oil execs were evaluating the costs going into the election as I understand it and judged that it would be cheaper to cap and maintain those caps then to actually recover the oil. So, in other words, it is cheaper to pay someone to maintain a cap on a potential oil well far inland where we could have capped it a lot easier and to drill and pump up oil from something down so deep underwater that has introduced all sorts of new challenges that we struggle to contain the leak when things go wrong. Get it? Cheaper to pay someone to keep a well from producing so we can drill deep offshore.

“Countries like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be right here in America.” Again, I had to laugh. China is investing in clean energy jobs? There were all sorts of reasons why gas prices have gone up. One of them I read about back just a few years ago when gas was climbing up to two dollars a gallon here in Utah, and I was then working as an assistant manager at a gas station, guess what it was? China was industrializing. Got that? Industrializing. Let me put this in words you can understand. More cars. More trucks. More factories. More electricity. And what did this mean? China was buying more oil in the international market. More oil going to China. Less oil for America and other countries. To get the gas we were so addicted to, we had to pay more to compete with China paying more for what they needed for their industrial growth. So why should China invest in green technology? Two things. China is HUGE. They would only have to invest a small, small percentage to have a strong public image. China has a history of controlling the media, so they only need some smaller communities to showcase to the world and everyone will happily buy the propaganda. The politicians have to. Everyone is looking for China to fund their debt so they have to make China look good. Second, if the rest of the world is willing to pay more to go green, why shouldn't China make and sell the world the technology? They can do it cheaper with cheap labor. Thus, it builds China's influence in the world while they can use the cheaper oil, and since they produce the green tech then if it ever becomes cheaper to be green then how easy it should be to convert as the source and industry leader. If green is the new oil industry of the future, China gains control of the energy production of the world much like the middle east is considered to be in control of things now.

Here is a little thought for you to go with that. Some of the latest buzz words are a smart energy grid. How do you have a smart energy grid? Computer chips to control the flow of electricity. Now, not too long ago there were internet attacks against several American “targets” that were traced back to China. While the Chinese government claimed to not be behind the attacks, I then wonder why we want China to be building our smart grid electronics. Even if the Chinese government did not launch or sponsor the internet attacks, then someone else there must have had a connection to them. And, internet warfare is becoming a part of even our military strategy.... Imagine the Chinese waging war in the future, with everyone using their green technology. With a simple command over the internet, massive portions if not all of a nation's electrical grid goes offline. No airport lights, beacons, or whatever else planes might use to safely take off and land. No power for the air traffic control systems. Everyone running electric cars with no recharge if you plug them in because the electricity has been cut off. Your home is dark. No television, radio, or internet without power. They could invade and news might not even reach you before their tanks and military marched down the streets outside your door. We depend on electricity for so very much. It is to their advantage to control the electricity of the future. Even though they cannot stop the sun from shining, the wind from blowing, and water from flowing, infiltrating through the smart grid would given them control of our energy in a future war.

Changing my profile a little

2010-06-11T00:43:00.000-05:00

It was just a minor change, but now that I have registered Burke Computers with the city, it is just a matter of waiting to get my license from the city (I hope) and I can then go ahead and open those virtual "doors" online. While I know placing ads in the write place will be very helpful, I figured that I would make a minor update to my profile as well as the Burke Computers blog site. White makes for a more professional background in my opinion. So I changed the blog to a white background and adjusted some of the text colors to match. Then, while I generally would advise against giving too much personal information online and have often applied this in part by using Dartax as a pseudonym, I knew that using my real name would again appear more professional if someone visited the blog. There are a few who know where Dartax comes from. In part it comes from the movie, The Never Ending Story. Just a twist on Artax, which I think was the horse's name. However, it actually has a second reference that may yet become reality some day, a reference where Dedrizen also comes from. Dedrizen also has another reference. It is a word play. A bad spelling of dead risen, taken from resurrection.

Earning Cottage Cheese

2010-06-04T15:13:00.000-05:00

I had set a goal that when I registered Burke Computers with the city of Murray that I would have earned the right for us to buy some cottage cheese for me to eat. That time has come. Of course, we have not got a response from Murray yet. That should be about seven to ten business days from now. I was so excited driving back from the Murray offices after submitting the paperwork, I actually caught myself speeding a little. Oops! I am so looking forward to having cottage cheese tonight. It feels so good to not only follow through with registering Burke Computers, it also feels great to have kept to my commitment to not have the cottage cheese I so love until that goal was accomplished. Unfortunately, all that excitement probably isn't going to help me eat the cottage cheese any slower or help me moderate how much I eat of it.

Logical broken

2010-06-03T14:20:00.001-05:00

We live in world of logical fallacies. Here's an example. If x condition then we have y symptom. Now we assume the reverse is true. Take mouth breathing as a symptom, then we assume that the airway is obstructed. By the way, I am a mouth breather. Maybe at some time in the past something happened that I learned this and never unlearned it. Or maybe some of us are just wired this way. Or perhaps my airway isn't absolutely perfect. Maybe when they start breeding the perfect human race, I should be shot and eliminated for my imperfections....

One side is giving up their secrets?

2010-05-22T14:50:00.000-05:00

What is the purpose of secrets if you cannot keep them? Let's see, how would explain this article. Revealing our secrets like this could be the result of two possible trains of thought. If you are an arrogant warmonger, you might reveal your secret "testing" so you can attempt to put fear in your enemies. A declaration, "I can kick your buttocks from here to.... " The other possibility, which seems more consistent with our government, a complete lack of understanding of what the power of secrets can do. Revealing your secrets actually takes from your power base and gives it to your enemy. For example, now that we are telling our enemies when and where we are performing our "secret" work, now they can observe. No big deal, except if I was the enemy, then I would ask myself a few questions. Oh... like is this something we weren't already monitoring? If it was, then just keep our mouth shut about it and smile like you just showed us something new, then look harder to see if there is something else they are hiding with this show. Or who knows, maybe hang out a carrot of appreciation for the effort and see if you can get other "secrets" leaked. On the other hand, if it wasn't something we were already on top of, then I would watch closely and see if it revealed any patterns we could use to look for other secrets missed by an intelligence arm. In other words, if our government is really giving away true military secrets, they might either be absolute believers in American military superiority or they are basically handing America over to its enemies in the long run. Once our enemies learn our secrets, it isn't something you can just toss back under a veil of secrecy. All you can at that point is to try and create new secrets.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/05/obama-missile-launches-secrecy.html

Financial Freedoms Fade Into History

2010-05-21T08:41:00.000-05:00

I just read that sweeping financial regulatory bill just passed yesterday. Oh, my! The fools are in control. Of course, it still needs to be reconciled with a prior bill from the other side of the legislative branch of the United States government.

Let me see, a government that has out of control spending, cannot balance their budget, is clueless why revenue drops as taxes go up, and chock full of corruption it seems is now going to tell the financial industry what they can and cannot do to the American consumer/investor. What sweet irony! And didn't government laws and regulations, along with "public" efforts, pressure banks into making the risky and unsound mortgages of recent history creating a recent market crash (which disrupted industry actually still is leaking tons of money through Fannie and Freddie--now on the government tab so we don't see it in the news....)? So now government is going to "go in and straighten up" the financial industry? What a joke.

I am not a financial adviser. All I can share is my opinions. I don't trust wall street anymore, nor the banks. Not the institutions themselves, but all the government intervention makes them very risky in my view. Government by its nature seeks more control over the citizens, and it is not in the politicians' interest to make people independent. Dependent people must vote for a certain politicians. Independent individuals can vote for anyone they darn well feel like. I expect our financial system to take a deep dive. The only investments sure to hold value is our debts. This is why my goal is pay off all our debts. My gut tells me that it might be not far off that if I want freedom to live the way I want, then I must be out of debt so the government has no power over me except the ability to take away my food, shelter, and clothing.

Wishing more incumbents fail

2010-05-12T00:13:00.000-05:00

Now I do not know if we will see more incumbents not make it past the primaries, but I am somewhat elated. I keep reading all the "tea party" postings where people are claiming that we will take back Washington in November. My attitude is that November is too far away. They have to start seeing incumbents lose now. There are a few possible outcomes if incumbents don't make it past the primaries in both the Republican and Democrat parties, at least that I see.

One, current politicians whip into shape and listen to the American public instead of the experts that seem to be writing our laws (which seem to be doing more harm than good, or selling our freedoms for promises that are empty no matter how wonderful their intentions). In other words, they stop passing laws without reading them, or considering the feedback they get from their constituents. We got a health care bill that was opposed by the majority of the people (though I think the people actually deserve that bit because they voted into office this government without considering about the consequences until the legislation was being drafted--and not until then did we consider that it might do little if anything to improve care or lower costs, or that it might lower costs by denying or reducing care to those who need it most). Perhaps we can get the politicians to realize that they are accountable to the American people and not the special interests and lobbyists before we lose our country.

Of course, if the politicians in power panic, it is possible that they will reveal their true colors. Some of us fear that they are just shy of being communists or marxists, just holding off just enough not to believe they have sold their souls to philosophies that have dragged countries throughout history through the gutter, whether economic collapse or overt genocide and war. In a state of panic, we could have them sellout to tyranny in the hopes that they can keep their agenda moving forward. Some of these people really believe they are doing the best thing for America. While there are those who may wish to avoid this move by the politicians, my view on the matter is two-fold. First, if they do move to tyranny in the fear of losing their power, they have revealed their true nature and we can easily identify them as who they really are. Second, if we do not take this risk, we will lose our country anyways because we lack the gumption to stand up for ourselves in time. We may already be waiting to the very end to "reclaim" our nation, and I already believe that we won't make the sacrifices necessary. In some ways, I actually do hope they swing wildly in panic because it might wake us up to the sacrifices we need to make. Or, in other words, they collapse things so thoroughly in their thrashing that we cannot "recover" what we "believe" we are entitled to and are forced to accept that which has been lost and cannot be reclaimed. If all we do is wait for November, then it possible for the politicians to work with the unspent stimulus bill, legalizing the illegal aliens, and any number of means to sway the vote. But if they lose now, it also sends a message to those running to fill their seats. If those running realize that they got their position because the American people are holding the previous representative responsible for their actions, then these new candidates are going to be motivated to listen to the people. And if the politicians are truly motivated by the people instead of their political party once more, than perhaps we will see more bipartisan politics.

So what has me encouraged right now?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/11/rep-mollohan-loss-signals-potential-trouble-dems/

I forget the link for the Republican incumbent who failed in their primary in Utah. I wasn't too thrilled about because it was only one, and only a Republican. To see both parties have some of this going on, now that is good news to me. That way, enough of this happens, both parties will be forced to wake up and listen to the American people instead of simply believing their political platform is what made them the winner.

If incumbents were just shoo-ins for their party, then they might go back to Washington believing that no matter how the Tea Party has grown, or Fox News supposedly exposes their policies, the American people will ultimately keep them in power because we are apathetic. They need to be reminded that they represent the American people instead of being designated rulers over us.

Grounding the economy

2010-05-07T14:05:00.000-05:00

The stock market does a dive and we panic. When we started the bailouts, we started down a path that eventually leads to a total lack of tolerance for any chance in our life.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/07/obama-authorities-investigating-wild-market-swing/

When I read the news piece about our president ordering an investigation into the stock market down swing, I had the following thought I think relates.

How do you prevent airplanes from falling from the sky? Ground it. If it isn't in the sky, it plainly cannot fall. Will this prevent the airplane from falling? No. An airplane usually sits on wheels, or perhaps pontoons. Either way, if you want to keep the airplane from even falling, you must take it down even further. It won't be long before you go from an airplane that is not flying to an airplane that cannot fly.

So it will be with our economy. If you are so afraid of the turbulence, you might find that you have grounded the plane. The economy isn't like an airplane that we can tell by looking when its wheels are on the ground or if it is flying in the air. And, also, unlike an airplane, it might just be possible to dismantle the economy while it is still flying with good intentions and render it unable to fly. Top it off with the fact that while you take a skilled mechanic and possibly put an airplane back together, who among us even knows how to build a working economy anymore? See, the key to a flying economy is minimal intervention, but we filled to overflowing with experts who have taught us to accept government intervention regulation, and we've taught ourselves to fear turbulence in our economy. We will sell our freedom to succeed for the belief we can make everything perfectly steady. Take the airplane example, if the plane isn't moving, just sitting on the tarmac, isn't that perfectly steady? It also won't take you anywhere, nor would you be flying. So our fear will rule us, we'll take no chances, and we'll have no freedom. No freedom to succeed. No freedom to fail. They go hand in hand.

2010-04-06T08:07:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it seems like the science of global warming is grabbing at straws. Do I believe the following disproves global warming? No. I used to believe man was polluting the earth and causing global warming. I still believe man is polluting the earth. However, I have extreme doubts about man-caused global warming, or man-caused climate change. We are so very arrogant that we assume everything has to do with man.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1263207/Increase-Arctic-ice-confounds-doomsayers.html

Now here's my little thought. If this does not prove global warming is false, then does not that also apply to some of the evidence given of global warming. So if one year of record ice does not disprove global warming, then perhaps a few years of less ice doesn't prove global warming either. It seems to me that our perspective is wrong. The story used to be man-caused global cooling. Then it was man-caused global warming. Now it is man-caused climate change. All this apparent confusion makes me wonder if they aren't letting their pride get in their way, or according to conspiracy theories that there is another motivation for this science. I don't know if it is really a motivation or a matter of education and belief structure. If you are grow up seeing man pollute the earth and destroy local ecosystems, and even ruin beaches, perhaps you begin to believe that man is destroying it all. You essentially go into your experiments expecting to prove that man is destroying another thing. I don't doubt that we are doing far more damage than we realize. But it seems like we are taking things way out of hand and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised that there are those who would prove that we are destroying the sun with our pollution if they could just figure out how that might be possible.

Personally, I would rather we kept a cool head, acknowledge what efforts and success we have made to live cleaner. It was not long ago that our rivers were far more foul than they are today. We burn coal cleaner. The emissions on our cars have improved. Sure, we now have vastly more cars, trains, planes, etc. It is far too easy for us to focus on the negative in life and ignore what we do get right. However, I am not a fan of government regulation either. We want everything now instead of getting things right. Not long ago, I was excited to read about a new technology for displays that would use less electricity even then your standard LCD. So why am I not buying such a monitor? Because it costs too much to produce. Does that mean it has gone away and we should regulate it? No. Free enterprise actually found a use for the technology, cell phone displays. If it survives long enough, perhaps someday it will be cheaper and actually affordable as a full 19" computer display or television set.

Aren't we full of irony?

2010-04-06T00:16:00.002-05:00

I am amazed by the efforts we go to defend our world views and yet ignore the irony of what we do. We think modern medicine is god and then argue the evils of genetically engineered crops or athletes on steroids. And, no, that is not a mistake. I really do think some people treat medicine as some sort of deity that they worship. So I find it ironic that we then go after athletes as evil, or ignore doctor recommendations to not use medications such as penicillin because it tips the balance in favor of “super” bugs. Oh, by the way, we seem to be having a problem with those super viruses we were warned about in our hospitals. We seem to be fine with feeding our chickens and cows growth hormones and then wonder why our kids our maturing early after eating from these food sources.

So how do I stand on some of these subjects? I rank God above medicine. I believe God gave us the ability and much of the inspiration that has led to our advances in medicine. I also believe that we are still prone to the ancient problem of worshiping everything but God. The ancient Isrealites worshiped a graven image not long after being freed by grand miracle from the Egyptians. So when God gave us the inspiration and opportunity to make these advances in medicine, it is easy for us to forget the Grand Creator and focus on His gift instead. Sort of like those who worship the earth, trees, oceans, or any number of other things.

So how do I stand on medicine in my life? Let me make my own choice! If you think I am evil for choosing not to have the yearly flu vaccine, then get over it. Take the flu vaccine, while they are good at predicting the probable flu strains for the next year, I find it really ironic that the side effects for the flu vaccine are almost line for line the symptoms for the flu. And if they happen to get their predictions wrong, well, then you just got a vaccine for the wrong flu. In reality, the number of possible flu strains is so vast that the odds of curing the flu is ridiculous. Personally, I feel we should actually learn something from medicine, like symptoms to watch for, do not intentionally expose ourselves to the flu, and something we take all the medicine we can so we can ignore the most common and probably most important advice we usually receive... get lots of rest. Ironic that we take all the medicine to feel good so we can go about our lives to ignore the most important advice we get from our doctors. So when I refuse to take medicine often, what am I thinking? Perhaps I don't trust our dependence on medicine. True. It doesn't end there. When we are sick, how do we feel? Miserable. What do we want to do when we feel miserable? Nothing. What should we often do when we are sick? As little as possible, or nothing. In other words, God was infinitely wise is designing our immune system to encourage us to “shutdown” when we get sick. We still need to watch for warning signs, extreme fever or lengthy fever and a multitude of other things, like bleeding.... And if you don't believe in God, then think about millions of years of evolution creating an immune system designed to preserve the species.... Either way, medicine is great and allows us to save lives from injuries and illness that our bodies could not survive on their own. We just all too often ignore what a wonderful design our bodies really are. We stop believing that we can survive without medicine. It is hard to explain. I believe in the balance. I just don't know where it is. Medicine is not god, nor is it the devil.

As for athletes and steroids, I think it is terrible the pressure we put on them to perform that they take steroids. Steroids can be used to help various infirmities. So steroids are not evil. If athletes were not exploited as role models for our youth as well, then I probably wouldn't care if they took the risks that come with the abuse of steroids. My issue is that athletes on steroids, or anorexic super models, are being setup as the examples of great health and beauty for my children. In other words, they are taught unrealistic standards that are best achieved through unhealthy choices. Ironic, yes? So how do I feel about athletes using steroids? I am against it and they deserve to experience consequences for the choice, even the loss of their medals. I realize that some will falsely test positive. Some may actually have those medical conditions that I mentioned steroids are useful for. It is unfortunate that a few rotten eggs ruin it for the rest of us. Really. But I don't want those rotten eggs glorified as the examples for my kids.

How about genetically engineered crops? I believe we have the ability to feed far more than we currently do. In other words, the limits we set on the earth supporting human life is really because we set the limit. Whether through war or our vast supposed intelligence, we often do the very things that limit the earth's ability to support us. For example, we destroy crops because our farmers over produce so we can keep prices up with the hopes that this will help keep business thriving and then wonder why there are food shortages in the world (never mind that some countries would put heavy tariffs on our food to protect their local farmers). Amazing that we survive when we consider all we do to make it difficult. I know I haven't scratched the surface on what we do to hinder ourselves because there is very, very much I do not know.

Well, it is getting past time I get to bed. Ironic that I write this rant when I know the odds are that very few will read it. In essence, I am treating this like a journal entry. For a moment in time, I capture my thoughts so that months or years later I can come back and compare how my thoughts have grown, adapted, stayed the same, or changed.

Global warming

2010-02-16T20:41:00.001-06:00

I am finding the “media” entertaining right now. The contradictions to prop up global warming are making great humor for talk show hosts. For example, one talk show host who I suspect does not believe in man-caused global warming is having a great time with all the contradictions. He pretends to be completely confused by it all. One year they claim lack of snow is proof of global warming and this year they claim the massive snow fall on the East Coast is proof of global warming. Earthquakes and tsunamis are proof of global warming. As he points out, to those that believe in global warming, everything is fit into their world view. Everything is global warming. Another bit he had fun with is recent statements by science that there has been no significant global warming since 1995 and perhaps even cooling. The study quoted that showed shrinking glaciers wasn't a scientific study and not “peer reviewed” as we had been led to believe. And even admissions that some of the data used for comparison to history might be inaccurate, and that we actually may have had greater “global warming” in the past before CO2 levels we see today. Plus, even a study he found that shows CO2 levels rise after global warming instead of before global warming. Then a recent statement by a scientist prominent in the defense of man-caused global warming that there might actually be a vast disagreement on the whole subject. So what does the media do? Their anchors defend global warming as a pressing reality, even calling those of us who doubt it as foolish, ignorant, or possibly unpatriotic. Sounds more to me like they've got the narrow minds. I don't believe in man-caused global warming as being the extreme danger being shouted out, but I am smart enough to know that I could be wrong. And I am smart enough to know that just because someone jumps up and says that they've found a way to cure global warming and then everyone jumps up and follows them, I am smart enough to know that I might want to ask questions and doubt their solution. It is entirely possible that everyone is just running off a cliff like a bunch of lemmings without even asking if there is a better solution or if the proposed solution will even work.

So if I don't believe in man-caused global warming, why am I building low TDP computers? Because I do believe in learning to better manage our resources. Regulating it isn't the way to do it in my mind. Finding a way to better manage our resources and creating wealth at the same time would be the best way to do it. If there is a profit in it, then surely there will be those that move the economy that way without government intervention.

Government conflict of interest regarding Toyota

2010-02-16T20:28:00.000-06:00

I see headlines lately for Toyota recalls, and other Toyota car troubles. Personally, I then go right ahead and read something else. The one time I did read past the headline, I read “government data” and “government” something else. I was disgusted. Let me try and put it to you simply.

Investor A has ownership in business B. Business C competes with business B. In theory, investor A should want business B to offer the best product or service for the consumer so that it will be most profitable and they will get the greatest return on their investment. So if business C has some issues, no matter what the scale is, wouldn't investor A actually have an invested interest in pointing out any issues with business C if it might possibly drive business to business B, where investor A has an invested interest.

Confusing?

Our government is now in the auto business. We jokingly call it “Government Motors.” Our politicians used our money, or our future earnings-taxes, to pay for the purchase. Government now has an invested interest in GM doing well. While I would wish that they were your normal investor, they are not. Our government is a political body, not a competitive enterprise skilled in making money. Their skill is taking it, called taxes, and spending it. So if they are not skilled in running a profitable business, what are they skilled at? Attack campaigning. Smear campaigning. Mud slinging. You might ask why I say that. Well, just wait for the campaigns for elections come around. Won't they spend a lot of time telling you we should vote for them and not for their competitor? Sometimes it is pleasant. Frequently it gets ugly. And even if stays pleasant, sometimes they are just politely pulling out the right statistics get you to question voting for the opposition. So when I read the statistics that Toyota had “x” complaints, I ask myself the following question. If Toyota had “x” complaints, how many Toyota cars have been sold and are running on the road? It could be absolutely insignificant if taken in perspective, but by dropping the perspective it now becomes sensational (great political and news spin if so). I have no idea. For example, one “government” static shows about nine times the complaints against Toyota cars as opposed to Ford cars. Great, but it still doesn't give me perspective. It creates sensational news. Now if you were to tell me that there are as many of this model of Toyota car with complaints as there is of the competing Ford car, then it becomes possibly note worthy (remember we could still be talking about less than 0.01 % of the total cars and I have no idea because those stats are not included). However, if I were to learn that there was more than ten times as many Toyotas in service as there Fords that were being reported on for this static, than actually the Fords come out worse because the Toyotas had a smaller percentage. Again, the article did not offer true perspective. It highlighted the statics that mattered to make the sensational story. It is entirely possible that even in perspective, the results would be similar but not necessarily so bad (or who knows, maybe even worse). But, as I know all too well, by choosing your statistics wisely, you can state a truth without offering the full truth and thus sell your point of view instead of giving the truth.

And why don't I trust the news to offer perspective on this? Simple. Much of media went along with the bailout of GM as being necessary. They often only sold us this side of the story. All the dreaded costs of what would happen if we didn't bail them out. Very few even considered the costs of what happens when we do bail them out. What happens if they don't start making a profit? How much will it cost us then? What freedoms are we giving up? What can the government do next without asking our permission? When does this all stop? It was all about the benefits we get from bailing out big business, “too big to fail.” Even if they haven't invested money into the bailouts themselves, they have invested their pride, their reputations. What would happen if the American people began believing that the news organizations that “sold” them the bailouts skipped the whole truth to favor one point of view? And what if turns out that we made a very, very bad “purchase?” (which I happen to believe) For example, if the news had covered that England bailed out an auto manufacturer of their own a while back when it went bankrupt, it lost them tons of money in years following, and then the company quietly disappeared anyways? How do you think Americans would have responded? Perhaps we would have been calling our senators, picketing their offices, and generally making a ruckus that we did not want the bailouts. Oh wait, I am talking about Americans. We are so proud we believe we can do everything like the rest of the world and not have the same results other nations have experienced. We repeat history and somehow are so arrogant as to believe it won't turn out the same again and again and again, like it has done so in the past again and again and again. So what if we started believing that the news is biased? That the media is trying to selling us only one point of view? If we believed that, how would we treat the media? Would we start shopping among the media to find the viewpoint we most like? Oh wait, Fox News claims to have a rather extreme viewership currently. If they are telling the truth, then perhaps something like that is happening. Maybe that is why the President claims that Fox News is not a real news station, because they sell the viewpoint that opposes his and the Americans are listening. Then again, perhaps Fox News isn't really a news organization. What I can tell you is that many who claim to have no viewpoint actually are selling a viewpoint, they've just become so sold on the idea themselves that their viewpoint is correct or that is not an actual viewpoint (which sort of confuses me because how can view the world in a certain manner and somehow not have that be a viewpoint—aren't you “viewing” the world?).

Cost of Health Care to Go Up

2009-12-08T22:02:00.002-06:00

From what I read in the news, sounds like the health care bill I dread is closer to passing. While I commend the advocates for their concern for those in tough situations, including denial of coverage because of preexisting conditions, in my meager estimates they will not achieve their goals. In fact, I suspect that coverage will worsen. Fewer covered, and much much higher costs. Don't they realize that if insurance companies must cover preexisting conditions that means their costs will go up. They deny it to keep costs down. So if their costs go up, who pays for it? We, the common American worker, will pay for what we once didn't have to. Plus, this is a huge bill. Why is it so huge? Probably a few new rules and regulations that insurance companies and the medical industry will have to comply with. That means more paperwork to complicate our care, more wages for those new health care employees to fill out the new paperwork, and increased costs for medical care. Which the increased costs will be passed on to those who pay such as insurance companies and so forth on to us, the common worker. Plus, don't forget that there is supposed to be new committees, or agencies, to overlook the insurance industry. Not only complicating things for the medical profession as well as the insurers, it will also require tax dollars to pay for the operation and staffing of these new agencies. And as I understand it, it gets better yet.... The short of it, the part of the bill we will be left with is the part that will do the damage to the private health industry, wrapping it all in government bureaucracy with us all blaming the industry for their waste and profits instead of looking at the invisible threads behind the curtain controlling their actions (oh wait, then we might have to admit that some of these threads already exist and have done nothing to prevent increases in our cost and in fact may be contributing factors to why our health insurance is so dang expensive already).

Destroying the Opposition

2009-12-07T22:15:00.002-06:00

Sometimes I wonder if we aren't stepping into Nazi Germany, slipping through time and rewrapping the package with a new face, a new name, and new agenda. Didn't Germany go after the opponents of Hitler and his agenda?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/07/liberal-group-offers-reward-information-chamber-boss/

I know in this case, I am just pulling an exaggeration off this. I don't think President Obama and his administration pushed for this. Still, when we find that we must attack the opposition by seeking to throw them in jail, then we must wonder if we the people are by chance pursuing a slippery slope that leads to tyranny the likes of which hasn't attacked the globe on quite the scale of Hitler and his followers since that fateful world war just a couple generations ago. I don't agree with everyone but that doesn't mean that they should be going to jail or that I will seek when and where they violated the law. Although, I think I am actually among what seems a minority and suspect that if such policies that existed in Hitler's Germany crop up here in America then I might be among those tossed in jail because I believe that America is headed into self-destruction. Something along the lines of the adage, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I think some of politicians might actually be seeking the destruction of America, but I believe most of them actually believe they are doing the right thing though some of us believe that history proves time and again that what they are doing will do damage ultimately even in the areas that they are seeking to do good by the people.

And while I know there are regimes that exercise exceeding control over their citizens, I don't think we, the people of The United States of America, should become one of them. Even if it should be that the American people support the plan going forward, when they seek legal action against the opposition then the people have become their own tyrants. As we take away the rights of people to oppose us, we also take away our own right to have an opinion. The rights we deny others, we inevitably have given up ourselves. For example, let's say that someone who supports this effort to discredit the opposition changes their mind and seeks to become an advocate for the opposition that they once discredited. They are now subject to all the loss of rights that they took away from the first opposition. In other words, they have no right to any other opinion than that which they first made dominant. Or, perhaps they never change position but the public opinion shifts and becomes that of the opposition. Now they have set precedent. As they took away the right of what once the minority, even as they have become the minority so is their right lost to what they took away from the first opposition.

Amazing days

2009-10-09T21:27:00.004-05:00

My wife and I are now settling into our new place. I actually got to eat lunch with my wife and kids a couple times this past week. That gives me something positive to be amazed by. I would have never guessed when we got married that someday I would be the breadwinner for our family, that I would be working as the hardware guy for a company. When we got married, my wife was (and still is) the one who actually has a degree. I only have some college, and a hobby with computers. Mostly, I played computer games and put together my own systems a couple times, upgraded them, and maintained them. Sure, I had studied computer science for a bit when I did go to college. I even followed some developments in computers from time to time. Quite a change. I am grateful that I was willing to take a chance on the job in Wisconsin-Minnesota. It changed my path. From there I took another chance on the CompTIA A+ and Network+ certification. Spent a year as a contract worker doing computer installations. Now I actually have a full-time job as a hardware technician. An amazing change in life because I was willing to take some chances and trusted that God would see us through the hardships.

So what else might I find amazing today? That our President was awarded a nobel prize for the hope of the peace he might bring the world. He hasn't brought peace. He has charisma and played the world. In fact, if I were to look at his efforts lately, I would guess that he's already running for world president, a position that doesn't exist. His policies are expected to destroy the dollar, and when that happens our economy may crash again. Right now, many countries are already making moves to stop using the dollar (our currency) as the standard of exchange. Obama has been trying to make peace with dictators that are not known for protecting human rights. And our allies that tend to top the list of those who actually do protect human rights have been getting the short end of Obama's attention. He proposes that we give up our rights to medical care and instead of it being a right, to make healthcare another branch of the government. He has nationalized a car company, shafting those who invested money and lent the company money in favor of unions and government. He seems to support a wage cap, and coincidently there was a wage cap that federal government imposed before the "Great Depression." To top it off, he surrounds himself with radicals as his advisors, radicals with such beliefs as sterilizing the people through such means as our water supply. Oh wait! Those who run the Nobel Peace Prize thing probably also follow some of the same policies, a belief that we need a strong world government to force population control, restructure how we do things, and how we think. Oh wait, isn't this the sort of thinking that brought us Hitler and Stalin? How appropriate that they appoint Obama. While I hope that America didn't vote for by overwhelming measure the next "evil," I personally don't think we are headed down the right path. When people voted for the black man just because it would make history, it told me that Americans have their heads improperly attached. I didn't like either candidate, McCain or Obama, but McCain may not have been given the free pass Obama has received because another white guy as president wouldn't have been such exciting history to tell about. It would be one thing to award Obama after a successful presidency when you could say, oh my, he did awesome. But, to award him now when the only impact he's had is a bunch of excited crowds internationally.... Oh my! And he went on an America Apology Tour, telling the world how bad and villainous America is. Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, only on the villainous part though.

Yes, I don't like Obama. I don't like the Democratic party. I don't like the Republican party. They are both progressive party, just different flavors. They don't even read their legislation because all their trust is in a few experts believing that the minority knows whats best for the majority and the majority should just be convinced that it is in their best interest. This takes away our freedoms. And when you take away freedoms, you lose the ability to truly take the best course. You instead setup some experts as infallible, and if they are wrong, well, no politician want to seem like they messed up because their job depends on appearing to be right... so they'll stick by their foolishness until they can convince us that it is right. Take global warming. We end up with some record cold weather and we still hear tons about how we need to combat global warming. There is even now science that proves this warming cycle is natural and about where we should be. Any variation due to our intervention is negligible. And a real irony that I read about is that concerns about the hole in the ozone prompted changes that now has us using and pumping out chemicals that actually potentially create more "global warming" than all car emissions. So, should we stop "patching" the ozone?

I am independent, politically. Ironic that Republicans are having trouble getting votes because they are too liberal, and what does the political community tell the Republican to do? Become more liberal to appeal to the majority. Wait?! This doesn't make sense to me. And the sad part, the American people buy this whole political idea that Republicans are too conservative. Don't they know that Republicans have not been truly conservative in a long time. I didn't like study politics in college because I got some hint of the idea that you put a few "experts" in essential control instead, and that was attending BYU that I became hostile to politics.

Until recently, I didn't like conspiracy theories. I still don't. But, I become far more suspicious lately. Obama's ratings are falling lately, and he gets the Nobel Peace Prize. H1N1, the much feared swine flu, has a death ratio comparable or perhaps slightly lower than the regular flu. And what is all over the news? The swine flu epidemic. If I didn't know better, it would be easy for me to believe that there is a conspiracy to convince us that we need to be part of a world totalitarian government and give up our rights and freedoms for something that will make the few, the elite, powerful and the rest of us just pawns of the world empire.

Busy Week Ahead

2009-09-28T07:44:00.001-05:00

For those who don't know, I got a new job. First job I've applied to outside the state of Washington in roughly the past year. Now I have been working in Utah for the past two weeks, staying at my in-laws. I had looked at a few apartments, but after what seemed like a long time we were approved for my first choice, about a mile and a half from work in Midvale, Utah. Yes, I am back in Utah.

This week, not only do I have to work Monday through Friday, I need to hope that the brethren from our ward in Spokane actually show up and successfully pack our stuff into my parents' horse trailer. Meanwhile, I will sign the lease and turn it in, get the keys, and move into our new place. It will be empty! All I have with me is the laptop, two suitcases, and one duffel bag of my clothes. I do have our air mattress with pump too. Anyways, on Friday, my wife and kids should be arriving sometime in the valley after three weeks trying to pack everything up by herself. Sure, I packed up a little before I left to come down here ahead of my family, but it really wasn't much compared to what still needed to be done.

Saturday morning, at nine o'clock, we are hoping to unload the horse trailer so my parents can start their journey home. I don't think they are planning to get home until Monday morning, with a stop by Marsha's place in Idaho on the way back up to Spokane.

I need to remember to do laundry here at the in-laws on Tuesday, because I won't have such easy access to a washer and dryer until after my wife gets there and we make sure we can connect our own washer and dryer. The place has hookups, but I am nervous. It does have a bigger space for the washer and dryer among some of the apartments I saw. The one with the best space for washer and dryer though, was unfortunately a small apartment that we would have had to rent storage or give up even more of our stuff than my wife unfortunately has already had to part with.

This move, I ended up giving up a nice bookshelf stereo I've had for years, plus a bunch of books. While my wife has actually taken the harder hit with many of her precious porcelains.

Well, time for me to get ready for work today. The biggest advantage of the new job is probably the schedule. I can actually anticipate seeing my family every night for a while now. A lot different than the contract work I was doing just prior to this where I didn't know if I would be gone a week, two, or even more at a time.

My thoughts on the public plan

2009-08-10T18:22:00.002-05:00

I was just looking at http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/. Do I agree with their arguments? No.

Reform will stop “rationing” – not increase it

I disagree. While I am well aware that insurance companies do attempt several different forms of rationing, these are attempts at cost reduction. In other words, the insurance companies actually are trying to keep your insurance costs down so you are not paying for excessive and unnecessary treatments. Sure, they don't get everything right. They are human after all.

Should government step in and prevent this rationing? No. First, government tends to get more in corruption and other human failings than the private industries. Plus, if insurance companies are rationing to keep costs down, then stopping the rationing is not a cost saving measure. It will increase costs. So if insurance companies now having their costs going up, how will they compete against a government, or public, plan? They cannot. They have to raise their rates or go out of business, while government agencies are not known for being fiscally responsible.

Will government intervention actually increase rationing? Yes. It may not happen immediately. It could take ten years or more. Medicare and Medicaid are supposed to be running out of money even as they are now. To cut costs, part of the plan to “save” money to pay for this government healthcare plan is to actually cut expenses in Medicare/Medicaid. How do you do that? Even if you don't institute rationing, if you cut payments to doctors, hospitals, or pharmaceuticals then you will get rationing without calling it so. There will be longer waits, less doctors accepting these patients, or more paperwork to get the care or medicine you need. It will be rationing by another name. Government has wasted money in Social Security and these existing government medical programs and essentially bankrupted them. Why should a government medical program on this scale be any different? They will have to ration on a scale even greater than our private insurance companies if they have any real prospect of keeping costs lower.

The euthanasia distortion on help for families

Here they try and sell Americans that this isn't true. While I believe there is some truth in their argument against the paranoias of the American people, here's where I turn to the argument above. The government program will run short of money. Government has shown it is dependable in this regard. Government is very good at mismanaging tax payers' money. They don't have to encourage euthanasia directly to create support of euthanasia. The examples given from other countries on end of life services boils down to this simple point. Denial, or rationing, of services to the elderly and terminally ill. There are currently state systems that actually reflect some of this and those that are paranoid point out how this seems to increase the number of people who agree to euthanasia instead of struggling to stay alive. The alternative is to live in agony and suffering as they are denied the medicines that would make their existence more tolerable. Let me see, I was reading some similar arguments not long ago as the State of Washington had a similar thing on their ballot during the elections in 2008. I voted against it, by the way though I expected it to pass. To be honest, I didn't follow it after that. As for the state the opposition compared the measure to, I seem to recall Oregon already having something cited as an example by the opponents where this very sort of euthanasia was supposed to be taking place.

Vets' healthcare is safe and sound

Really? Isn't the reason vets are concerned actually a matter of the first part, rationing? In fact, it is the issue of limited resources that creates rationing in the current health care specifically for vets that makes some question the current care we give them. An existing government health care program, no less. So, instead of being able to escape the government system to receive care, which some vets do right now, they will now find everything turned into government care.

Reform will benefit small business – not burden it

Are you sure? Small businesses small enough not be burdened probably couldn't afford health care costs as they are, and we are going to penalize any of these businesses that don't provide health care? And the ones that could afford health care already, they may be owned and operated by many of those rich people that will be taxed to pay for the big government plan. The government plan is supposed to be paid for in part by new taxes on those that make more than X amount of dollars. Guess what? From what I've been reading, a lot of those small business owners that achieve success fall right into this tax bracket. So if the small business didn't provide it originally because they couldn't afford it, now we'll force them to cover their employees. And those that could and may already be, well, they'll get hit too. They'll still have to cover their employees but now they'll get an additional tax on their earnings/income. And if you say that there are those will experience no cost on the public plan? What happens to the motivation to achieve success? If they increase their profits and grow their business they will then go from having a free ride to becoming part of the group that picks up the tab for everyone else. In other words, it becomes more desirable to never achieve success for the simple purpose of staying below the government tax “radar.”

Your medicare is safe, and stronger with reform

Hey, I thought they were paying for part of this healthcare bill by cutting the money going into healthcare? Something doesn't add up here. So, what will they do? Perhaps they'll stick those of us on medicare on the government's public plan and then charge our employers the difference. My employer does not provide me healthcare. I am a contract worker. When the contract is done, so is my employment. Now government will cut into my employer's profit margin (and ability to employ me and others like me) by making my employer pay a healthcare bill they had avoided by making me a contract employee. I really am expecting that government healthcare will either cost me my job or future employment with the company by making my employer's profit margin drop, or it will drop the healthcare I receive.

Personally, I would rather receive private medical assistance as opposed to government care. Of course, if government was less involved in our medical care, would I pay less taxes out of my wages? Would health care possibly cost less? And so, although I wouldn't be able to afford fancy stuff, would it be possible that I could provide some basic care for my family without assistance? Did you know that some computers that hospitals purchase are not much different than the ones you buy from HP or Dell yet may cost 5 times as much because of FDA requirements that medical equipment must adhere to? Or did you not know that government already has several “cost saving” measures already in place?

My perception is that this reform will buy medicare some time before it fails. Instead of failing in a few years, it will thrive for a few additional years but that won't change the problem. We'll just wrap everyone up in the eventual failure. So why do I not like the public plan? Because this government system is virtually inescapable. Once you've got it, if it fails economically then rationing must come and the people will be unable to return to a private care plan.

You can keep your own insurance

True and false. A free market keeps insurance costs down because the industry must compete for customers. Enter the government plan. Some government official/panel will decide what is a good competitive rate which will have nothing to do with actual free market principals. Think GM. They sold cars for less than it cost them to make the cars and they ended up bankrupt. They could not compete. Well, in this case, since government will decide what is a good price instead, they will be default set their price below market. Why? Because our politicians need to get our votes. To get our votes, they need to be able to tell us that they are keeping our insurance costs down. The easy way to do this is to set the government plan as the cheapest option. Your private plans will have to keep their rates down in order to remain competitive. You might say this is a good thing. Really? If they are charging rates less than they are giving out in coverage for medical care, how do they stay in business? The business thinking of taking in less than you spend is what bankrupted GM. So, they must go out of business by default. And, government will swallow the entire market as none can compete.

If government swallows up all the insurance industry, it must have done it because it was the cheapest option? Not one bit. It simply charged rates lower than anyone else. By default, it becomes a conflict of interest to compete fairly. Government controls so much of our money anyways and has so many programs that tracking the actually cost versus what the rates they charge in specific fees for this program. Even if they don't want to drive private insurance out of business, it will be hard for them to come up with a true competitive rate as opposed to the simple idea of trying to keep insurance rates down by simply listing the cheapest rate.

Did you know the original plan for social security was supposed to be optional? Is it still optional? Oh, how I wish it was. If it was, I would say, “Count me out.” As it is, I am expecting the money to not be there anyways when it is time for me retire despite the government continues to take my money. Experts for years have been saying that money will be gone from Social Security possibly within the next decade. So why should I believe that a public health care plan will be any different.

10,000 Years?

2009-08-05T21:46:00.002-05:00

I am not surprised by what I just read. Does it change my view on Creation? No. In reality, what it does do is confirm my belief that a lot of science is assumptions taken for granted. Evolution sets up a number of beliefs that science takes for granted. Creation scientists then get carried away with trying to prove a young earth and if we are not careful, we can then assume something that may not be true is truth. Creation science sometimes gets their accusations right.

So what did I learn? I learned that there is evidences that magnetic decay is not constant and may have actually been stronger and weaker in the past. This sheds doubt on the theory that 10,000 years ago that the earth's magnetic field would have been too strong for life. Does that change my Creation beliefs? Not one bit. I believed in Creation before I looked at the contrast in the science. Do I still enjoy the creation science websites? Yes. Why? Because they have taught me more about the science behind evolution than I learned anywhere else. How many of our youth would doubt c14 dating if they knew all the variables going into its creation are not constant, nor is absorption of c14 constant, and of course that in the last decade we've been learning that even radioactive decay isn't as free of variables as once assumed? And that last bit, doesn't that suddenly start putting all radioactive dating as suspect until proven otherwise? Ah, isn't science wonderful? So many assumptions all around. Some assume that it takes millions of years to form rocks, then come along others who prove it can happen far quicker and show patterns that match what you find in nature.

Does that change who believes in an old earth and who believes in a young earth? No. That is what I would have expected. If believing in creation versus evolution was simply a matter of the right scientific evidence then either I wouldn't given up evolution or everyone would believe in creation. I didn't give up my belief in evolution based on science. It was a matter of faith. After my faith adjusted, I began to see the other side of science that questions evolution as valid. So I would expect that those who believe in evolution would be more likely to see and accept the science that questions the creation science. Isn't science wonderful? We have a ton to learn no matter what we believe in, creation or evolution.

Learning with creation science

2009-08-05T12:11:00.004-05:00

Sometimes I feel like I have learned more science reading creation websites than I did in high school. Why? Because creation science websites regularly use science knowledge to show the flaws in evolutionary thought. My own belief in the creation of the earth by God does make these sites more comfortable for me to read. Even still, sometimes I read stuff on the creation websites that just feels as if they are pushing just as hard to prove their point of view as evolutionary science that it just doesn't come off as quite complete to me either. So what have I learned recently that was of interest? I am no scientist so I will keep it to terms that I understood.

Radioactive decay is not constant. I think I mentioned this already. The distance from the sun is supposed to be one possible variable with neutrinos being the agent for altering decay rates. Another was vibrations in water. What I did not know until recently was the cause for those water vibrations. It is the collapse of bubbles formed by fast moving water that create the vibrations. Again I wonder, if we've found two variables, how many unknown variables might there be yet.

Granite formation assisted by water. Really. I had to read this one and it really did lose me at points referring to theories I had no idea about. Sure, they did explain some of the stuff so I will try and put the key points into words I could understand. Granite is believed to form from bubbles of molten rock ascending through the layers of the earth until it cools in the crust. Okay. The original scientific thought is that it takes millions of years for the rock to ascend and cool. If we add water to the equation, it is proven that water in rock actually lowers the temperature needed to liquefy the rock. Interesting. In addition, increasing pressure not only lowers the temperature needed to melt rock, it also increases the amount of water that rock can hold in solution. That was weird to read. I usually think of stuff being in solution when I think of salt or sugars dissolving in water, not the other way around. So where does the water come from. Saturated ocean rocked pushed into the mantle where the plates collide and the surrounding rock layers. There was also some material in granite that is hydrous but they believed this only played a minor role. In addition to lower the point to liquefy the rock, the water is believed to be a mechanism in helping granite penetrate the rock layers of the earth's crust and cool too, dropping the cooling time significantly from millions of years to perhaps a thousand years or so. Again, it was some major science reading so I am sure my head is still spinning trying to soak it all in. Anyways, as the liquid rock bubble ascends, it cannot hold as much water and the escaping water helps break up the rock layers around it, giving the granite more opportunities to push into and displace rock. The escaping water also helps heat the surrounding rock, making it more pliable. In short, granite is formed from bubbles of liquid rock pushing up from below the earth's crust and water may help it form at far more accelerated rate than the millions of years originally postulated.

DNA and RNA even less likely to form in a primordial soup than we are led to believe. I already knew that our genetic code was designed to control chemical reactions so that specific structures would created as part of a complex engine to drive the cells which we are made up of. What I didn't know was that certain chemicals in our cells would actually cancel each other out in the random soup setting proposed by evolution. In addition to this added wrinkle, I didn't know that the longer the chain, the less likely it is for it to remain in solution. I always just thought of our genetic code as just in solution in the water of our cells, but it seems that may not be true. Supposedly, genetic code is a far longer chain than those chains that remain in solution. Plus, they went on how certain chemicals react at certain rates that only under laboratory conditions are they able to control them so that you even come up with the conditions for the much claimed primordial soup. To top all this off, we often neglect the need for sugars in this much vaunted soup. Sugars play an important role in working cells. While all this argument doesn't make the primordial soup an absolute impossibility, it does help illustrate the case for divine intervention.

Cells have genetic redundancy against possible failure. I knew about backups for computers networks, some so sophisticated that you actually have another set of computers ready to go live with all the current data should the primary computers fail. All you would need is change which computers were running the show. Well, it seems that cells have something similar for key genetic code. Some scientists destroyed key genes in an experiment only to find that the cells still functioned, replicated, and everything else you would expected from healthy cells. Along comes another scientists who postulates that perhaps some of that extra code scientists thought was just junk in the genes and fodder for evolution might actually be a backup for the key code they had destroyed in the first set of experiments. Very cool. Makes me wonder more about how cancer works.... Anyways, they then repeated the first set of experiments except this time they destroyed both the key genes as well as this redundant genetic code science had once thought lacked purpose. Now they started seeing all the aberrations they had expected in the first place. Now that was cool to learn. And here high school science had taught me that all those extra genes were just junk code.

Something I saw through the Glenn Beck newsletter

2009-08-03T23:10:00.002-05:00

It was a link in the Glenn Beck newsletter that led me to this. I've been spending some time today reading various bits of news. Political sort of stuff. Computer stuff. I need to go to sleep so I can work in the morning. Ah, the wonders of being employed. At least I am currently employed. Anyways, here's the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSzhtxtH8cY

On the homefront

2009-07-19T18:57:00.000-05:00

I can't wait to get home again. I have been spending the last two weeks in New Mexico and Texas, right around the El Paso area. With training of the new guy taking place this next week, I should be able to get home no later than next Sunday. I am grateful that my employer was able to find someone fairly quick after the first guy I was scheduled to train failed their background check shortly before I arrived, as I didn't find out until I was at the first site and asked my manager why I didn't have a trainee there.

Anyways, there has been very positive things going on these part two weeks. And I am not referring to politics. Lately, I have only been getting more and more disgusted with politicians and even the American people for what sheep they have become. Strangely, it was hearing about these unfaithful politicians that got me thinking some about the relationship I have with my wife. Believing that I might have some skill with the written word, I took the chance to write my wife several love letters. Don't worry, I won't quote any of them here. I was just wondering how many of these unfaithful spouses might have had a different outcome if they had devoted the time, money, and romance into their own marriage instead of outside the home. I figured I ought to take some more time, romance, and invest into my own wife. Since I don't have money and I am several states removed until my flight home, I figured an extra dose of romance and some more time on the phone wouldn't hurt. I think I wrote over four letters. Some very spiritual in content, some steamy, and all of them just for my wife. The only reason I am writing this is because someday, someone who is married might read this and realize that if one guy already married takes time to romance his wife, perhaps it is okay if they do the same. Maybe instead of men and women looking elsewhere for a soul mate, perhaps we will learn instead to invest the time, money, and effort to become soul mates with our chosen spouses.

Getting off the romance front, I am excited to go home and see my beautiful children at the end of the week. Annette, my wife, has told me that the twins are getting better at crawling. Apparently they now love chewing on any paper they find. Dillon might be showing signs of finally being interested in potty training at three and a half, and Jennilyn has decided that she's grown enough that she needs to sit in a normal chair instead of a booster—even though she has to kneel on those chairs in order to eat at the table like the rest of us. Dillon started a prayer while I have been gone too. My wife said he started, “Heavenly Father,” and then went into his children banter which we usually don't understand. I so wish I had been there. It would have been cool to let him finish and then all say, “Amen.” We actually let him do something similar a couple years ago it seems, but he couldn't even say “Heavenly Father” back then. It was cool experience then and I would have loved to have been there for this time. At least I got to hear about it.

Another interesting story I got to hear involved one of the twins. I forget which one, but I was told by Annette that our little daughter had crawled over to one of the foam chairs we have for the kids, Dillon and Jennilyn are the only ones old enough to actually sit in them so far. Well, our little baby girl was trying to pull herself up into the chair. The seat bottom actually sits on the floor, so it probably seemed reasonable to her. I didn't get to see it. Oh, it would have been a sight to see. Because the whole chair is foam with just a light fabric cover, her efforts to pull herself up into the chair was only tipping the chair over on top of herself. My wife told me that it was frustrating the little girl even though it was a precious site to behold.

Some of my religious views

2009-07-19T18:17:00.002-05:00

While I was sitting in church today, I had the thought that I should write my testimony out for others to read. A testimony of my faith in Christ and The Book of Mormon. So, where should I start? Probably with my faith in Christ.

When did I first really believe in Christ? I am not sure. The first real affirmation I can recall is an experience in my early youth that I sometimes wonder if it really happened or if it was a dream. If it was a dream, it must have been a dream similar to what you sometimes read about in scriptures. I remember seeing the Christus in the visitor center for the Salt Lake Temple. Surrounding the Christus is a panorama of the universe. Pointing to the Christus and referring to Christ instead, I remember asking, “Did He create all this?” I remember being told, “yes,” and the power of the statement went far beyond words. Now I would describe it as the power of the Holy Spirit confirming what I heard as truth. At the time, I knew as surely as I breathed that it was true without knowing what I had experienced had come from God. All I knew was that the sensation overpowered me so that I actually collapsed as my strength fled me. This memory is probably one of several witnesses that would later take me as well from accepting evolution back to a firm faith in the creation of the earth by God and the forces of heaven. While I have had affirmations of this belief in the divinity of Christ and his role as our Savior since then, this memory is the first that I can recall. What makes it special in part is that the Christus in the visitor center depicted is actually supposed to make us think of the resurrected Christ. There is no cross, only marks in the hands and the feet. I don't recall if the artist included anything in the side as well. Historical accuracy isn't always the point of these things. Also of interest to me about this experience is that though the statue is used to make us think of Christ, the actual Christus actually only holds any value for me as I recall Christ or contemplate the Savior, the Son of God. The statue itself is just a beautiful work of art to me. I am not converted to the Christus. My faith and conversion is to Christ whom I have not yet met in this life that I know of, which I believe to be a true statement as well. Perhaps someday I will meet Christ. I really do believe in Christ, it is more a part of me than I often publicly announce. When I share my faith in Christ, I often feel a resurgence of that strong witness that He is real and that He loves us very much. That doesn't mean our experiences will blissfully perfect. Sometimes, I rest upon my faith and trust in Christ when times are difficult that everything will be for the best even though I do not understand things at the moment. So far, I have never been let down when I have down this and I know I never will be.

I spent a whole long paragraph saying I believe in Christ. Perhaps it is really more than one paragraph, even still I need to move along. To understand why my faith in Christ is as firm as it is, I need to get to the next part of my testimony that I hinted at, The Book of Mormon. Ironic that a book so many Christian faiths teach as false is actually a key component of my belief that Christ is our Savior no matter what the world would like to teach as doctrine instead. It wouldn't be until after I spent two years as a missionary for my church that I would find any written record of my testimony from my youth, probably middle school or high school. Don't worry. I didn't go around as a missionary for my faith without a testimony of a key component of what we teach. Just before I made my decision to serve God for two years, I heard someone give a lecture where they taught a key principle. If you believe The Book of Mormon is true and that we have a living prophet, then you will do all in your means to serve a mission as a young man because that is the counsel our prophet has given. At the time I heard that, my faith regarding The Book of Mormon was a bit shaky to say the least. While I never questioned my faith in Christ, I wasn't so sure about the book. After some time, I decided to kneel, pray, and ask God. In my prayer, I told God I wasn't moving from my room until I knew for sure. I also told God that I would read scriptures until I got an answer. I believed God would answer my prayer, even if it took a long, long time. Well, I was tested for a period, though not as long as I was prepared to wait. So knowing me very well, God gave me my wait to show respect for my determination, then it came upon me as surely as if God were inscribing the words upon my very heart. I knew then that The Book of Mormon was the true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. Not only was I then sure of these things, I was filled with extreme love for my fellow man. When my roommate returned, I embraced him in a fierce hug and exclaimed with joy. I was just overflowing with joy, comfort, peace, compassion, and love. It was a feeling like no other that I have experienced.

So, why does a testimony of The Book of Mormon make solid my faith in Christ? Because The Book of Mormon testifies of Christ. From the first book contained therein to the very last, it testifies of Christ. The Book of Mormon is a record of a Christian people who lived here on the American continent during the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ. According the words contained therein, it actually got so bad here for the Christians at the time of Christ's birth that the non-believers actually threatened to kill all Christians if the sign promised was not given of Christ's birth. I cannot imagine what it would have been like. And I fear that we will recreate such a condition anew in relation to the Second Coming of Christ where we might see the believers threatened in a similar manner. Also, what would it have been like to have your local prophet tell you that Christ will be born, live, and die, all on another shore far, far away? The Book of Mormon teaches that Christ did appear on this continent after His ascension over in Jerusalem. For nearly three hundred years after that, the Christians flourished in America. Only as they began to be filled with pride and seek after sin did they fall. The last writers in The Book of Mormon tell us that the people in general had become so wicked that they sacrificed women and children and many other atrocities that made them worse then the non-believers. It was so bad, they declared that God actually forbade them from preaching the gospel and those they tried to teach were unrepentant. In the end, the Christians were destroyed and only those that would deny Christ were allowed to live. The last writer, Moroni, wrote that he hid from the people that he might live for he would not deny Christ.

Also, there is something else that I think of as I am testifying of The Book of Mormon and that I know it is true. The Book of Mormon does testify that The Bible is the word of God inasmuch as man has not altered it, that when The Bible proceeded forth from the mouth of the Jews in its purity it was true and correct.

Now this testimony of The Book of Mormon does alter my point of view. Not only does it make my position on Christ firm because I believe that He was testified of by not only two continents but also by a living prophet and living apostles today, this belief also alters my interest and views of ancient American history. For example, The Book of Mormon described an event where a righteous king got up and gave a sermon to his entire people as they were gathered together in such a large crowd that they pitched their tents all around a tall tower the king had erected so they could all hear him. A bit far fetched it seemed to me as I read it. I always just attributed it to being a miracle I would never understand. More recently, I went on a cruise my father paid for as a special wedding anniversary gift for my mom. It was on that trip that we got to see some ancient American ruins in Mexico and the Caribbean. There were two ruins of interest to me, one was a large structure then when you stood on top of it, people down in the plains below could hear your voice as if you were there next to them. It was a large stone structure and I have no idea how the acoustics worked, but they did work. I am not sure the people studying the ruins knew why, or if they did know how there was nothing there to educate us tourists. Suddenly, something I don't understand became something far more practical than I realized even if I still have no clue how that worked.

Another ruin that stood out and helped me understand that a lot of what we interpret evidence as meaning depends greatly on our point of view. See, there was another ruin that they took us to that was by the ocean. The guide showing us the site explained how the small city would have had its own fresh water supply against siege and was extremely defensible by sea due to a natural reef. Yet, as we looked at the wall surrounding the city, the guide said that they didn't know what purpose the wall served except that some of the doors and openings matched cycles in the stars above. When we proposed, as tourists might, that the walls were actually defensive structures, he argued quickly and forcefully against that saying that they had found bones and altars in the structures you could see at each of the two corners away from the sea. These structures were like stone huts atop the walls with slits for windows facing out, one to each side facing away from the city. There were steps along the inside of the wall that you could easily ascend and from the top of the wall you could see a trench running the length of the wall in the middle of it. Outside the seemingly short wall, you could see that the ground around the city sloped down with the wall and the city essentially appeared to sit on top of a mound of earth, making the walls actually appear defensible taking in the steeply sloped ground as part of the whole picture. Other than the main entrance to the city, the other entrances were narrow such that no more than one man could enter at a time, another convenient potential defense to our tourist eyes. So, while well-educated archaeologists and their tour guides are adamant that the wall was not defensive, I believed otherwise. What does The Book of Mormon have to do with that city I saw and how I interpreted the evidence before me? Well, The Book of Mormon describes wars in America, one of which included descriptions of advances they made in defending their cities. Defenses that included a stone wall with a breastwork of wood atop it, complete with digging around the wall. My thoughts were that just because a structure had bones and an altar does not meant that always was, or only was, a place for sacrifice.

The same thing happens when many of us look at the evidences for creation verses evolution. We try to fit the evidence into the model we believe is most correct. Creation science correctly points out that most modern science has bought into the evolution model so completely that they will completely disregard any evidence that shows inherit flaws in the model. Then again, I find the Creation science just as interesting although I believe in the Creation because they will sometimes make similar assumptions. For example, they attack evolutionists as being dependent on radiation dating methods that depend on so many assumptions to be valid that it can seem ridiculous. Among the assumptions is how long it takes rocks to form (there is evidence that it can and does happen significantly faster), or that radiation decay is a constant (I have recently learned that they've found seasonal patterns in radiation decay—as in it varies according to spring, summer, fall, winter). Then Creation scientists go and make assumptions of their own. For example, by reading some of the arguments, I learned that science has measured a decay in the earth's magnetic field as well as other planetary bodies. Then the scientists who seem to be accusing the evolutionists of making risky assumptions go and assume that the decay of our magnetic field has been constant as well. Using this assumption, they can then determine that only 10,000 years ago that the earth would have such a strong magnetic field that life as we know it would have been impossible, shortening the possible age for life on earth to a mere 10,000 years as opposed to millions. The other assumption I recently read from Creation science had to do with radioactive decay. I am too lazy to look up what it was, but it was something that decayed pretty fast naturally. Apparently when they subjected it to some sort of sonic water treatment, the decay was radically accelerated. Okay, interesting fact. There might be more variables to radioactive decay than the rotation of the earth around the sun (the possible reason given for seasonal variances). Well, next they go on to hypothesize that perhaps there was sonic wave stuff going on during the great flood that may have altered radioactive decay. Really? Aren't we making more assumptions here? Shouldn't we test first if this also effects other radioactive elements, or does it only effect the one because its fast decay makes it susceptible? That doesn't mean that there couldn't be other factors to alter radioactive decay, but this sonic flood vibration does seem to stretch things. Not impossible but you would have an extreme amount of work to prove it as viable, not too mention you would have to find a natural occurring incidence of these vibrations plus prove these conditions effect a large range of radioactive decay rates....

Wow, amazing how I have detoured from talking about my testimony of Christ and The Book of Mormon. Not what I would hope to do up at the pulpit when given the chance to share my testimony. When standing in front of people, or individuals, I would hope to keep it short and to the point. As a written document, I don't think I mind. For you see, I know that my religious views alter my perception of the world. That very same book, The Book of Mormon, taught me how important it is that God gives us the freedom to choose for ourselves. While I might share this testimony for all to see and read should they so choose, it is for them to decide how they will view it. It will not alter my belief in Christ if someone else chooses not to believe likewise. It will not alter my belief in The Book of Mormon if someone else thinks I have been deceived. These beliefs, this testimony, is between me and God. God knows I believe these things. I have told God these things many times in prayer over the years. I should hope that I have enough respect for everyone's belief that I will not get offended or upset if they do not like my beliefs, whether they accept it or not, or perhaps they are violently opposed to it. Granted, I might not want to listen to someone who is violently opposed to me. I am not perfect, and if I was.... Well, I am actually glad I am not. It is in the adventure of life and learning to become perfected through Christ that I will probably learn the most. It is not by having everything think alike that I learn to respect God's infinite wisdom giving us choices. It by learning to love those around me and near me no matter what our differences that helps me grow.

Future of innovation in America

2009-07-16T22:11:00.001-05:00

Why will America fail to remain a leader in innovation? Really, do you want the simple truth? Profits. We have been moving away from capitalism for many years and are making even greater steps that way. Sure, some innovation happens under fascism, socialism, and other government managed economies. Profit potential motivates innovation in a free market, so you actually harness greed for the greater good of the people. America stood as a land were you could go from poor to becoming rich.

If you want to talk about greed and corruption, don't we make leaders of corrupt people and then wonder why future generations grow up and show signs of uncontrolled greed, lack of ethics, and even greater corruption? Personally, I don't understand why corrupt politicians get reelected. Usually the excuse we use is that, despite how corrupt they are, they support programs or bring government money that we want. And it isn't just our political leaders, our media finds it very profitable to sell movies about greed, lust, corruption, murder, and a general lack of personal ethics? If we didn't buy it, they couldn't continue creating and selling it because there would be no profit. So we are to blame for destroying the personal integrity necessary for capitalism to work to its fullest.

Does AMD and Intel innovate and compete because of altruism? No. They compete for market share and profits. So you can find all sorts of reasons for why innovation may be slowing in America, but the more we take away the money of the rich, especially of those attempting to transition from poor to rich, the more we'll see America lose its place as a leader in innovation. We used to be the best place for innovation because someone with a great idea could build a big business essentially from the ground up. Now, it seems that companies too big to fail according to some government dictate get benefit while we up the taxes on the rich to pay for that failure. I think of them as taxes against success. For when you take away failure and make those that succeed pay for those that fail, you also take away success by the very nature of what you are doing.

Think of it this way. If everyone got the same score on a test whether you studied or not, would you study? I am sure that most of us will say yes at first. But what if that were true for this test, the next test, and every test after that? How many would stop studying because their score would never differ them from those that never even looked at the material? You could never say how wonderful it is on your resume that you got XYZ certification because no person or institution would know if you learned anything that improved your skills. The same thing happens when you take away the profit motive. Whether you believe it or not, profits need to exist and government really needs to stay out of the details of our economy.

GM planning to lose more money?

2009-07-07T18:58:00.000-05:00

I just read the headline for an online article with teaser that stated that GM will continue down the path to producing hydrogen cars. In the teaser it mentioned that there is pressure to reduce the cost. As soon as read that, I decided to stop reading. Why? Because GM already got into economic disaster, for among other things, selling their cars for less than it cost to make them. So when I read lower cost, I read that as lower cost to consumers. Or, in other words, continuing and perhaps expanding on a policy of selling cars below cost. With government controlling GM, the profit motive is secondary to politics. It is company that will pushed and pulled by special interests. There will be many who say that we need to focus on what's best for the people and not on profits. Let me put this in words everyone might understand. If GM spends less than it takes in then the money lost must come from somewhere else. You cannot keep paying wages, buying metals or plastic to build the car with, and the energy to run the equipment the workers use without money. The missing money will come from us, the people. You, the taxpayer, will pay for that car. The payment might come in taxes directly. It might come in the printing of more money, and thus the money we have becomes worth less than it is worth today. Sure, inflation is happening right now. People call this good. Just imagine if we just continue the process (or even accelerate it) until it takes wheelbarrows full of cash just to buy bread. Oh, I am sure that the government will start offering incentives for people to buy these “green” cars that are primarily produced by GM. It will look great. You will be able to get a “green” car real cheap and feel great about how you are helping the environment. You'll ignore the fact that the incentive will be paid by you anyways. The business you work for, your neighbor, and the whole nation's economy will pay for it. I wonder how soon government monopolies will officially be legalized. It is only a matter of time if we continue down this path. By the way, I just read something that helped me put President “Teddy” Roosevelt into perspective. I have heard that he was very progressive, yet I couldn't think of him as a real nasty progressive trying to destroy the free market. Apparently after his presidency, he become a the sort of progressive I believe would have destroyed our free market if given the chance. He went from breaking up monopolies to believing that it hadn't worked and that it would have better for government to work as a controlling partner with big business. And since our current administration seems to be very proud to be a revival of that earlier progressive movement, the czars begin to make far more scary sense. It seems to me that we are moving into the government controlled era of business. Remember government doesn't care about profits. They don't care if your boss runs out of money to pay you. And when they soak up all the businesses they'll drive out of profits, they'll be forced to either cut our wages and benefits themselves or to print all the money they don't have to pay us. Who knows, maybe they'll follow the example of California and just print us all IOUs.

Unlearning Savings

2009-06-23T19:03:00.003-05:00

Sometimes watching the news is terrible. Today, I was watching Fox News when I heard something that I had to stick around and listen to before I resumed channel surfing at the hotel. Apparently, there is a bit in some of the new president's economic policy that would allow government to take a portion of our paychecks and invest it on our behalf. Oh my! It isn't as if my family budget is tight enough as is. Oh, I am sure that this government savings plan will gain great favor with many Americans. We are all so much sheep that it begins to absolutely amaze me. We are so very stupid. Government has already proven that it cannot manage a retirement account as social security money has been flirting with bankruptcy for a long time and is expected to get worse. Similar story with Medicaid I believe it is. So, why, oh why, do I want government getting involved even more with my money. If I already know that my retirement “savings” is mismanaged, why do I want the same irresponsible people managing my savings directly? So, my advice to everyone when considering this new government savings plan? Count that money as g... o... n... e. Gone. Wasted. Lost. Unrecoverable. Plan for it now, so that you can have something saved up for real because whatever the government saved for you probably will be gone by the time you need it. Or, it could just end up locked away and unavailable to you except through some means of getting in debt to the government. Government has proven that it cannot manage money. Do not expect a government savings plan to be any better than their already proven track record of social security. So, if my wife reads this, I hope she understands that I will want us to plan our budget and future as if all of the government stolen money will never return to us. It is gone. Wasted. Lost. Unreliable.

Personally, I think there is a couple significant moves involved with this. One, it creates an environment where the American people think less for themselves and rely more on government. Two, it gives more government control over the American people. By having the authority to control our savings, they are one step closer to total control of our individual finances. And, that isn't really for our own good. When government controls what we can have, when we can have it, and what we have to do to receive it, it means that we have no freedom to eat what we want, live where we want, and very likely even think what we want. If we stop thinking and managing our own finances, then we won't know how to save for ourselves. We won't know how to get by with little to no money because we will have forgotten how to. We already have a problem with people not living within their means, or spending more than they can afford. By having government come in and force us to save under their rules, and their control, does not teach anyone to save or live responsibly. While many may claim that this is for our own good, it really only serves the purpose to make us more dependent on government to do for us what we really should be able to do for ourselves.

I know enough to know that I could not make money in the stock market. I do not know how. I also know that paying someone else to do it for me still does not teach me how to earn money in the stock market. All I learned from having someone else do it is to chose someone who can do it for me. If they don't succeed, I lose money and may choose to either stop investing in the stock market or find someone else.... Either way, up to that point, I only really learned about trusting someone else with my money in the stock market. Not how to do it myself. It will be the same with government managing our savings for us. We don't learn to save. We only have someone doing it for us. You might say that at least there is a savings, yes. On the other hand, if we continue to spend more than we make like we do as a nation, then the savings is merely an illusion. Debt has guaranteed interest rates. Debt doesn't care if the market crashes. And where will our money be invested? Savings accounts which typically earn less than inflation rates, so your money is being stored but losing value? Or perhaps in companies that government cannot get the investors on wall street to back up? Or maybe in all those bonds they've been selling to raise capital for all our debt our government is racking up? And were does the cost of having government manage our money get paid? High taxes? Fees and charges against the investments themselves?

Government wants us to be bound to it, not to be free. That is another reason our money won't be there. If government isn't bad enough on managing social security, think about it this way. So many are now dependent on government for their retirement that they don't dare vote for anyone or anything that jeopardizes social security even though we've been told for years that it is, or will be, totally bankrupt. Even if the money isn't completely squandered, and I would expect some to be lost just in government administration expenses for the program, you do have to realize that it may be invested in a manner that either promotes government controls directly such as stocks and bonds with government strings attached or perhaps strict government regulations on how or why you can access your supposed funds. Perhaps you'll take out loans from the government under the guise of accessing your savings, sort of like taking out a loan against your 401k. No matter which way it goes, you will not vote against anyone or anything that will jeopardize your savings. You are now a slave to government because you cannot give up your money.

When will people realize that if they really value America, they have to be willing to sacrifice? As long as social security and other promises dangle out there like carrots, we are bound by our unwillingness to surrender them. How quickly would government lose control over us if we actually sat down as a people and said that we vote to give up social security, medicare, and many other government programs? That instead we were willing to our chances that the people themselves would stand together and help each other? We don't learn to be charitable by taking from someone else. We learn to be charitable by giving from our pockets. Too many have determined that since they don't have enough to give that they'll simply take a little from everyone and more from those with money to give to those without. No one learns charity from that redistribution of wealth. Involuntary, it is not charity. Charity is when you chose to give what you can yourself to people or causes of your choice and consent.

Following California's Example

2009-05-18T10:38:00.002-05:00

I have heard quoted on the news, “As goes California, so goes the nation.” Usually this seems to be presented just prior to someone presenting something about California's current economic situation. If only we could learn from California's mistake. We probably wouldn't have been so quick to spend so much and let government get so involved in our economy if we looked to California and saw bankruptcy. With California going bankrupt and actually having to make extreme spending cuts from programs ranging far and wide such as education and law enforcement, why are we looking at increasing national spending and national programs? Can't we see from this example of where it leads? I begin to suspect that, yes, there are those in government that are aware that this leads to bankruptcy. Some may intentionally betting on it. Others might be betting that somehow we will dodge the bankruptcy bullet on a national level. Some probably don't care, living in the here and now with power, money, and influence that their positions afford them today. And, yes, I think there are many that simply don't acknowledge the connection, probably with some logical explanation on how that doesn't apply on the federal level.

When America goes bankrupt, who will “bail” us out? Another nation? Historically, other nations don't bail out nations. They conquer. When our economy fails and we render our debt to other nations absolutely worthless, where are they going to turn for repayment? The United Nations? I don't think the United Nations is backing our debt. In fact, it would be many of their members who would be clamoring to get some sort of reparation from America. As such, I am sure the United Nations may act as the mediator in carving up America to repay the debts we owe. Then again, maybe if California starts selling some of their assets, maybe this foretells the nation doing similar. Maybe parts of Alaska will be sold to China or the Middle East, or I suppose the oil fields in Texas or Wyoming could be sold. There is even some territory off our coasts which could be sold to foreign countries for the oil there. Of course, if we sold any of these territories and then interfered with them actually drilling or mining the resources, it could start an international conflict. So I am sure that any wise prospective buyer would make sure that they would have full rights, possibly including rights over local government on the resource(s) we sell/lease them.

Right now, California is hoping to pass some initiative for temporary, extreme tax measures to settle their budget. If the polls are any indication, these initiatives will fail. Which is good, I think. If they do severely hike the taxes on everyone, then you would probably see a mass migration of people and business over the next few years. While a mass migration will be blamed on the poor local economy and not the taxes because we seem to be in constant denial, it will surely guarantee that any economic recovery for California is long and arduous. Businesses and residences leaving will ensure that the less taxes are generated and collected, thus perpetuating the problem with their budget.

A real solution for California, and our nation, is a change of economic policy. You can talk about balanced budgets and reducing debt all you want. Rhetoric is just rhetoric until action is put behind those words. And, quite often those who talk balanced budgets and reducing debt only do exactly the same money management that created the problems in the first place. In other words, a temporary tax hike will need to be permanent if no permanent change is present to fix the problem(s).

ABCs

2009-05-15T06:04:00.001-05:00

My wife and several others I know having been doing this ABCs thing. I guess sitting up this morning without a job to rush off to today, I find I don't have anything else to do right now. Or, it could be that I have been writing various responses to what I have been seeing in the media I watch and read that has got me in general mood for writing right now. Now if I could just brainstorm up a great idea for a short story.... Maybe if I write enough of this other stuff, then something might occur to me.

A - Age: 36

B - Bed size: Queen. If I owned my own home, the master bedroom was big enough, and we had the cash (cash—no credit), then I would choose a king size bed. Not that I would need it. It would be a want, which is why I don't have one.

C - Chore you hate: Paperwork. I heard that our jobs pay us to do what we don't want to do, so I must be paid to do the paperwork.

D - Dog's name: No dog.

E - Essential start your day: Good cheer. Smile. Breakfast. Prayer.

F - Favorite color: Blue, Green, Black, Red, Turquoise, and Light Brown. Depends on my mood and usually some sort of blend of these colors. Example: When I was painting some figures for Warhammer 40,000 I chose a scheme of Blue, Green, and Light Brown.

G - Gold or Silver: As a color – Silver. For its properties – Gold, great electrical conductor.

H - Height: 5'10"

I - Instruments you play(ed): Computer

J - Job title: I forget the new title. It used to be Installation Technician.

K - Kid(s): Dillon, Jennilyn, Ruth, and Irene.

L - Living arrangements: Unemployment sent us into my parents' basement. Employment is allowing us to move back out onto our own. I should have a new address by the end of today (5-15-2009). Too bad I am away in another state as a traveling technician earning the money for this move but not there to actually help my wife move. Church and family will be helping her move our family and stuff.

M - Mom's name: Nova

N - Number of times you have stayed overnight at the hospital besides birth: I never kept a record of this. I do know that I stayed at the hospital overnight when my wife Annette was giving birth to our first child and son Dillon.

P - Pet Peeve: I know I have some pet peeves, but they must not be as important as I once thought they were. I cannot think of them as I try to answer the question. And that isn't because I am trying to be polite. I really have forgotten them right now.

Q - Quote from a movie: “You will be. You will be.”

R - Right or left handed: Right dominant. Some left.

S - Siblings: Brian, Jennifer, Annette (we call my wife “Netty” to distinguish the two), Marsha, Shawnda, Stephanie, and David.

T - Time you wake up: Currently? 6 AM Eastern. After I get home, probably 6 – 7 AM Pacific.

U - Unknown fact about me: I dream of writing fiction. Of course, some actually know this. I even have a basic outline of a storyline that would span about twelve books, give or take.

V - Vegetable you dislike: Tomatoes, but a BLT sandwich isn't a BLT without tomatoes. I eat tomatoes in my salad first because I dislike them. That way I can try and enjoy the rest of the salad without them.

W - Ways you run late: I get distracted easily. Just ask my wife.

X - X-rays you've had: Um... Dental. Shoulder. Probably others that I cannot recall. Never kept a record of this.

Y - Yummy food you make: Homemade pizza with sourdough, wheat crust. I really think that makes a great pizza crust.

Z - Zoo favorite: Wolves.

As a disappointed fan

2009-05-14T19:54:00.002-05:00

Have you ever been a fan of a program and been disappointed? Now I have only become a fan of the Glenn Beck program over the past few months. As far I can determine, his show has the most comfortable fit to my own viewpoints. He goes after both Republicans and Democrats.

There was recently on the show the rep for Acorn where Glenn Beck and the rep got into a childish argument. I forget the fellow's name. The real shortfall for the Glenn Beck program was they didn't have a camera rolling during the commercial break. Apparently, it got worse and would have made great television. Anyways, despite whatever else Glenn Beck might say about it, I think the argument motivated Glenn Beck to dip more into Acorn and as a result he put on some people from Acorn that I could respect, even if politically I might have a very different viewpoint. They feel their organization has been hijacked and they want it back, free of corruption. I am getting a little tired of Glenn Beck showing that clip of his childish fight with the rep. I don't think he showed it today. If he did, I must have just tuned it out. Really, this didn't turn out that bad. You could have expected something like this with an organization trying heavily to cover its rear. They certainly don't want to say anything that be construed as incriminating on national television when they have so many states filing cases. In fact, I think they said that Acorn only has chapters in 40 states? And 14 had cases filed against Acorn just this year regarding the recent election? That is over a third of their territory. In that argument, I would have agreed with Glenn Beck alone, even if it was a “rogue employees” like the rep claimed. If I ran a company and we had such a prevalent problem, it wouldn't be just employees that would be tossed “to the wolves.” There would be managers out on the street even if they did nothing illegal themselves.

What turned out bad so far was his interviews on today's television show. His first was with the government appointed CEO of General Motors. That alone should have told you something about the CEO would answer any questions that might put the presidency in a bad light. CEO's don't get paid to go around bad-mouthing the people who gave them the job. I knew that. I really felt Glenn Beck had all the wrong questions. He should have let the CEO tell positive statements and then let the viewer decide that we were getting fed government propaganda. Instead, it seemed like Glenn Beck was trying to get the CEO to admit that there was fears of government intervention and union legacy costs creating problems for a future GM. While I was disappointed with Glenn Beck for his end of the interview, I really do think the CEO did his job with great diplomacy. I suspect some of his truthful answers were actually quite misleading, making things sound better in relation to whatever question Glenn Beck had asked. Questions I suspect that if they had been answered straightforward and truthfully would have been seen as terrible answers in the eyes of the Glenn Beck audience. Instead, the CEO navigated skillfully in answering questions with great diplomacy. I still think we should have let GM fail. And I still think GM may in the end regret their deal with government. Plus, I think we will too, perhaps when our government has fallen the way of many past tyrannies.

That actually brings me to the second interview where I think the Glenn Beck show failed. He had the two authors of “Animal Spirits” on the show. I got the distinct impression that Glenn Beck was not prepared for their answers to his questions. Now I could be misinterpreting things, but it seems to me that he was expecting a different viewpoint on the use of their book's principles in application to what we see government doing today to move the economy forward. In fact, they practically endorsed the administration's move to vigorously control the economy. A real let down on the interview, since Glenn Beck has often been proclaiming that the government spending/control is taking us down a path we should not choose to travel. I think they really failed to verify the viewpoints of their prospective guests before they had them on the air. Just because Glenn finds that their book has some great truth about capitalism doesn't mean the writers really believe in free markets, and they apparently did not.

Here is where I have a significant problem with their view that government should step in and push the economy when it is in a recession. Government rarely, if ever, steps back out. And, if they do, such as under President Ronald Reagan, it is rarely as far back out as they stepped in. It is said that power corrupts, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. In short, we shouldn't be letting government have so terribly much power over us. It corrupts government. I don't care what great intentions they had. They cannot back out. That is why I say that by the time we realize that we should have stayed with private health care, it is too late. Because it is too late. Tyranny doesn't relinquish its power without a struggle, usually by the collapse of the government. Complete and absolute reset by setting up a new government from scratch. To keep our government once we've strayed down the path to tyranny so far will require that we be willing to pay the price as if we totally lost our government in order to keep it. I could be wrong on that.... But that is why I don't see our government paying the necessary price to fix education, health care, welfare, and all the other broken systems. No one is willing to pay the price. Officials want to be reelected. We want our government assistance. We don't want to see our elderly pay a severe price. I hate to break it to people. Our elderly will pay a severe price. The only difference is that we will lose the freedom to help them. We will lose the freedom to help ourselves.

The pessimist in me has spoken. Now stop sitting there and being another duck in a row waiting for government help and the chains that come with it. Stand up and declare that you will succeed and no one better get in your way. I don't care if the skies are gray. We can find the sunshine. It is there. People. I can believe in people. No matter what our situation. Employed. Unemployed. Rich. Poor. Whatever. Everyone has value. Everyone has potential for greatness. It doesn't mean that we'll all be rich. Wealth for me might be a roof over my wife and children and a warm dinner at night. Wealth for someone else might be sharing their roof with someone who lost their home. And for another, it might be giving financially to those in need. And for others, wealth might be taking a cruise in the Caribbean. The best compliment I've had in a while was one I got yesterday morning. The person in the drive-thru window said that I've been cheerful every morning I have been there. I said that it was the best way I could think to start my day, and then genuinely wished them a great day too. They smiled and said, “thank you.” It may not seem like much, but it made my day a little better right then. That was true wealth for me at that moment, and it didn't cost a penny to invest.

Oh, in case whoever is reading this didn't already know, I have been spending the past month doing work in Ohio. I will be missing my wife's birthday while earning money so we can move into our own apartment. Another thing I will miss while I am away. Annette has been longing to move out of my parents' basement for a while now. I didn't want her to put it off just so I could be there. I figure I might have to do some setting up of the stereo, television, and such when I get home at the end of the month. Probably setup the computer and printer too for my wife. At least I am employed and earning money so we can move back out on our own.

An email that will be lost

2009-05-06T18:15:00.000-05:00

I've become a bit of a fan of the Glenn Beck television program, in case you hadn't picked up on that already. After watching today's show, I decided to go www.glennbeck.com and browsed to find a link to send an email. I don't expect any response to my email. By spell checking this, it seems that I made two spelling errors. One I knew of because I could not remember how to spell it. Anyways, I thought I would post on my blog the email I sent. Here it is:

“I always thought the real push behind the Nazis burning books was to control the education of their youth. We saw some books (Fahrenheit 451) that took this theme and expanded on it.

So why do I fear the grab of our education system by a progressive government? If the government controls the loans, then they may also begin leveraging the schools as well. Not just the students. That is what I would like to know. Can the government controlling the money going into the schools then control the curriculum and thus the thinking of our youth? Not just simply the debt they'll have to the government. So would the government begin dictating to private colleges that their curriculum has to meet certain standards (progressive)?

These are my thoughts. As a father, this is a fear I have, that the government will dictate that my children be taught to think almost as if we lived in Nazi Germany, just without the big bonfires of book burning we all think of. Just because they aren't burning books doesn't mean that they won't attempt to control the books being read. It certainly would make it easier to shutdown voices like yours if the people were taught that your point of view was invalid and obsolete.”

Some thoughts on recent news

2009-05-01T22:51:00.001-05:00

Sometimes it feels refreshing to just let out your frustrations instead of keeping them bottled up. Here's a few thoughts I had lately regarding some of the news I've been exposed too.

Runner up for Miss USA, Miss California. I respect her for standing up for marriage. I do agree that her statement could be offensive. Personally, I don't think just saying, “No offense,” really means no offense. Anyways, I am getting tired of the media coverage. Let her advocate traditional heterosexual marriage. If the California pageant wants to take away her title as Miss California for breach of her agreement with them, then let them. It is their right. As for myself, I oppose gay marriage.

Are we becoming socialist? Yes. We claim that we are only using these ideologies to save our economy and will step back to a free market. Stop the self-deception. Some of us were against the very early bailouts under President Bush because we saw them setting up a cascade of bailouts many claimed weren't going to be necessary after we saved the first. Now we have a vast number of bailouts, and the government has their fingers in several sectors while claiming to not want to control our businesses (while firing execs). Everyone wake up and face it for what it is. Government cannot stop this journey, even if they claim they want to. The path they are walking can only be escaped if they are willing to accept the pain necessary that we will go through as a country (including that those “hurt” will probably not reelect them). Let me put this in terms that might be understood. As long as we use the logic that got us into all this government control and intervention, we will continue the path to its ultimate end. Maybe not today or next year, but we will take the next step at the next decision point unless we change the logic behind the first decisions. In this case, since we are using socialize, fascism, or some blend of these economic models to attempt to solve our economic troubles, then the end result of this path cannot be a free market. It will be socialism, fascism, or whatever blend of these economic policies we are using.

On torture, I am beginning to believe the American people have a weak stomach. In “The Book of Mormon” there was a military leader by the name of Moroni. Now this Captain Moroni covered his bases well. He believed the words of the prophet of God and sought religious counsel even in his military efforts. The narrator of the account points out that if we were all like this Captain Moroni then the devil would have no power over the hearts of men. It was this same Captain Moroni who did not think it a sin to use stratagem to protect his people in their defense. He used spies to monitor the enemy army. He even went among the people when they refused to defend their liberty and threatened them with their lives if they didn't take up arms to their defense. In know this answer is vague regarding something so horrendous as torture. I don't think we should just go out and conduct torture. As for the war on terrorism, I think the intensive interrogation techniques were appropriate. Were they used in all the right ways and times? I have no idea. I suspect that the details that would make this clear are probably being withheld for political purposes (since we've already blown much of our secrecy with the details of how far we apparently aren't going to go to anymore).

On the tea parties on April 15th, Tax Day, I am getting tired of some of the media coverage. I watch Fox News, which was friendly to the tea parties. So why am I getting tired of the coverage? Well, it seems like they keep battering the competing media outlets because some media portrayed the tea parties as just a small group of anti-government radicals. Like we are all fools. Okay. I got that part. So why do I keep hearing the bit about the mainstream media treating people like me as radical idiots? I suppose if the mainstream media is still pounding out stories that we are radicals, then it would make sense to me. Only problem is, if the mainstream media is still attacking us, I am not listening so I am not hearing it. Since I am not hearing the attacks on people like me, then why do I want to keep hearing about mainstream media thinking we are idiots? I would rather hear about plans to make these tea party demonstrations something of value rather than just hearing a bunch of media bashing. In short, if all the focus ends on how we were attacked by mainstream media, then perhaps we were a bunch of idiots. Idiots because we banded together for a brief demonstration and then became silent again, content to believe that a one time stunt will change the world. If that's all we are good for, then we deserve to have our concerns ignored by the government. I am totally new to being involved in anything like this. I write this in my blog in part just to remind myself that going back and sitting on my couch and doing nothing would be stupid.

One last one for today. The former Republican in federal government who switched to the Democrats this week. It doesn't take a genius to realize that they are being politicians and it has nothing to do with what is for the good of America. He switched after a poll that showed he would lose the Republican nomination when he was up for reelection. I know that he gave some grand reasoning on why he switched parties. He is being a politician. It has nothing to with right versus left or how the Republican party has changed (I think both parties are left—progressive, appropriations, and big government). He's covering his bases for reelection. It's that simple. Both the Republican and Democratic parties are getting out of this deal just what they deserve. As for how it effects our government, I think we are just getting what we deserve. We voted for such progressivism, so we shouldn't be surprised if we reap the consequences of our decisions.

Hoping for quick destruction of America

2009-04-28T20:12:00.004-05:00

If I didn't believe in God, Christ, and the revelations surrending what is known as the Second Coming,... then I would be tempted to say, "Bring on the destruction of America! Americans want it! Bring it on faster so we can get it over with!" The path our nation is headed down, large government with massive wealth redistribution and economic control, is not shown by history to be a government that lasts. So, if for a moment I ignore my belief in God and the potential good in man, I hope we finish our march to tyranny in short order. Get it over with. Perhaps by the time I am an old man, we could then see it collapse. Sooner I could only hope for. Unfortunately, we should then see things swing from tyranny (read The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen that tyranny comes in many more forms than dictatorships) to anarchy. I can only hope that someone along the way will realize that the "Founding Fathers" of America really were on to something great. A government with enough authority to function and keep us from anarchy and yet not too much power so as to prevent the opposite, or tyranny. Oh well, we who cannot learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. We'll probably have eugenics again, probably under a new name and given some new reasoning that people will be taught it is for the best interest of mankind. Did you know that before eugenics got a bad name during World War II, America had eugenics here? Really, we did. That wasn't the only thing in America that turned sour because of World War II. We had a political movement that took on a new name and is seeing a renewed vigor of late even though it was cousin to movements in Europe which got very bad reputations in the end.

We are fools to think that when we remove failure as an option that it won't impact success. As our nation moves down a path to extreme government control, I see so many Americans justifying why it should be so, or why it will work this time. Really??? I am beginning to believe that it would be best to just get it over with. Socialize the whole thing. Wait a few years. If I am reading, listening, and trusting in sound material, then history should repeat itself quick enough and success will die a horrible and agonizing death. Not just success for the wealthy few, success for the common man and the success of the nation. And since we seem to be headed for a global government without checks and balances, perhaps that could be taken to a whole new level. The first actual world empire. And to top it all off, they could already have in place all the practices and policies that preceeded the destruction of so many empires before them. Maybe that will also make it survive a shorter period because time won't have to pass before that new global empire has acquired all the bad practices of the past that some believe led to the collapse of so many small and great empires of ages gone by.

As it so happens, I do believe in Christ. I do believe in those prophesies of the Second Coming. As I see it, America is currently on a path that puts it among the nations that will oppose Isreal. That league of nations that prophesy fortells that the God of Isreal will strike down. The same God who sent Christ to save those who would repent and follow him. Because of my particular faith, I also believe there are prophesies concerning America.

It feels to me like several things are happening.

1. As a nation, we have been and continue to turn bit by bit from God, or any belief in a Higher Authority. Atheists would say this is for the best. I would disagree. I think we are giving up a lot more than this without realizing it.
2. We are attacking success. In other words, if any of us dares to succeed, then they must expect that someone else will steal the fruits of success from them, dictate to them how to create future success without regards to whether it would work or not, and possibly incriminate them on top of it all. And how does this encourage success?
3. We are giving up our rights to govern ourselves.

As I heard someone else put it, "If a man cannot govern himself, how can he govern someone else?" I'll need to talk to my wife, but I am really thinking that I want to sign up as a part of the912project.com. Why? Simple. Their core messages is one of principles by which we should govern ourselves. Not a message of looking to government to govern us, often run by people who seem to not even govern themselves any better than we are. Sometimes it seems like our chosen leaders do worse on average than we do. More corruption. More failure to balance budgets. More spending with money we don't have as a nation (we do it too as individuals). So, if I really want to emphasize a government that governs itself before it governs the people, than I better associate myself with people working on governing themselves (because we all probably need improvement--don't forget we voted for those guys in government so we must first take responsibility for our actions or lack thereof). Sure, there is far more to the the912project.com than just governing ourselves. I just hope it can produce some people I can believe in because it sure seems hard to find quality people in our current two-party system. I know they are there. I even believe that there are some elected in office. I just cannot point them out as it seems like the parties themselves have become so tainted that it becomes hard to tell the good from the ugly.

If America really is determined to head for destruction, I wonder why it cannot happen sooner so the destruction can happen with all its pain and suffering which I believe we are only postponing and making worse with current policies. That way, with America destroyed by our own negligence, greed, and education, perhaps our future generations can get to the task of finding balance again. The balance between tyranny and anarchy. A balance we've lost as we continue to hand our freedoms over to the select few, who ironically we voted for because it seems we wanted to give up our freedoms. Freedom must be a bad disease. A pandemic?

Family Photos

2009-04-26T08:02:00.001-05:00

Just before I took off for another two weeks out of town, Annette and I got some family photos taken by a professional photographer. Here's a link to the photographer's website. Click on galleries and then family. My family is under Dan, Annette, and Family. If you go under Children, you can find Ruth and Irene - Twins. I have no idea how long she'll have those galleries available online.

http://www.heatherstokesphoto.com/

Well, by this time next week, I will be home with my wife and kids. I gather I will be spending some time in May away in Idaho. Other than a general location, I don't have the actual schedule yet. I don't even know if I am going into an area that is "closed" and just catching a few late computer conversions, or if it is active area with too much at once for the local tech to do like I am doing here in Ohio.

Union Stupidity

2009-03-14T10:43:00.001-05:00

While I am not a fan of unions, I think they had their place. And many even still have a place. Unfortunately, I really think a good number of unions have become seperated from the real needs of their people or the businesses that provide their people a job. That is a whole different issue than what stupidity I listened to on television today.

One member of a panel discussing the end of the secret ballot on television stated that a union for Walmart (the example they used) would mean higher employee wages and thus more money for those employees to spend. I wanted to scream out in my hotel room. Are these people stupid? Don't they know were the money for those employee wages come from? I guess the wages we all receive just come out of thin air. I wanted to scream that don't they realize that a unionized Walmart means higher wages for their employees and all of us paying for it in higher prices. So, do those employees really have more money to spend? The dollar number would be higher, but if you use the costs of items sold in Walmart as a reference than probably no real gain (and maybe even a loss adding some union fees in there too) because all those wages would be reflected in the cost of the merchandise they would purchase. Of course, my example is based on this hitting all industries as opposed to simply driving some businesses into difficult economic situations because they have issues competing with other companies--think American "Big 3 Auto Makers."

United Socialist States of America

2009-02-18T00:17:00.001-06:00

While as a people I would like to think that we are not socialists, still today isn't a day I anticipate being a great day in the history of America. If the stimulus package isn't scary enough, I was just listening to the news and they were talking about a second stimulus package being discussed. The show I am listening to while I type this also brings up the issue of a universal health care package coming soon. And the automakers are looking for more billions of our money to stay afloat? When will we stop throwing money away? Oh, well, the American people seem to want this. If I were rich, I would probably leave America. I am not rich, so that option is not available to me. I know that my family isn't in the greatest position. Doing contract work doesn't offer health benefits currently. You might expect some of things might sound great, but I am very upset by this legislation. I see a cost that should not be paid. While I would rather be the giver than the receiver, I see freedoms being given up. Freedoms that cannot be regained without extreme pain and suffering. Freedoms that I want my kids to have.

Celebrating Twins

2009-01-26T20:22:00.004-06:00

Well, I am now the father of twin girls. Ruth and Irene were born January 20, 2009. So while the world watched some historical inauguration, I focused on my twin girls. America voted for who I thought was the worst of the candidates, so I guess my consolation prize for the day was to celebrate something positive. In fact, two adorable little positive reasons to celebrate January 20, 2009.

Ruth Lois was removed from her mom by c-section at 4:17 PM (Pacific) and Irene Marlyn three minutes later. While Netty had been hoping to have our twins naturally, the doctors and hospital would not because Ruth was breach at the end of week 38. Yes, week 38. My wife has had a very healthy pregnancy with no bed rest.

Netty's real discomfort came from the difficulty walking with over 11 pounds of baby in there. Ruth was 5 lbs 13 oz at birth and Irene was 6 lbs 4 oz. Yes, I believe that actually adds up to over twelve pounds. Netty's has been experiencing increasing pain for a couple weeks prior, so twelve pounds probably wasn't the magic number for her troubles.

They are believed to be fraternal twins. Seperate placentas and all that. While extremely difficult so far to tell them apart, Ruth has a shorter rounder face, while Irene has a narrower, longer face. It took their Grandma to notice and point it out to us. Once shown, I could see exactly what my mom meant. I just don't think I would have ever noticed that on my own.

Wrong Planner

2009-01-05T20:55:00.001-06:00

I forgot that I had bought a new planner recently. So, when I think to call some friends I haven't talked to in a while during my brief business trip to Utah, I find that I don't have their phone numbers with me. And, who do I have to blame? Only myself. The old planner is sitting on a shelf at home waiting for me to copy down addresses and phone numbers.

So, tonight, instead of calling and visiting with friends while I have nothing to do, I am typing a quick entry before I head out the door to see if The Belgian Waffle is still there. I think that their food is within the meager budget I am allowed for dinner by the company. My wife wanted me to call and arrange dinner with her family while I am down these couple days, except her sisters mostly live in and around Provo/Orem. Close, but not that close. A little alarm goes off in my head saying that if there is a car wreck driving that far from my assignments just to find a meal might mean that the damages would be payable by me and not the company. Still, to keep my wife happy I'll have to call and see about the possibility for tomorrow night. It makes me laugh though, my job tomorrow is a short drive North of SLC and not South (opposite direction) with no guarantee that I will get done by two o'clock like I did today.

As for the Holidays, my wife's Grandmother was a bit disappointed that our twins were not born over the New Years. She really wanted one on December 31 just before midnight and the other on January 1, 2009 just after. Well, my wife is still having a healthy pregnancy. The early, or practice, contractions have started and she has been getting quite a case of nesting syndrome. Maybe they are coming soon. I hope they turn soon, as sideways in the womb does not work for natural birth.

On another note, I guess I offended Grandma and Grandpa Alcorn when I asked about the minivan they bought before simply agreeing to buy it. I know they were trying to help us find a minivan, and I know that the budget we are working with means one really used minivan with all that goes with it. Still, when I didn't say, "oh, yes. Let's go and register the car in our name right now," it seemed to upset them. I asked questions about if it worked? Did they know how much that part would cost? I really didn't want to buy a minivan with a known bad transmission unless I knew that replacing it was still within our budget. Anyways, it turns out that the quirks of the new minivan are standard to that year and model with no known relation to a transmission about to fail. I love my wife, but the only way we are affording the minivan is to sell her car. So, if they had just gone ahead ignoring my caution, I would have had her pay them as agreed (selling her car) and made her live with it even if it didn't work. As it is, there shouldn't be any serious issue with the minivan, still I have offended her grandparents in the process. I am beginning to feel that her family is a bit easily offended....

On to the next project

2008-10-23T09:54:00.001-05:00

I am excited. Today and tomorrow will be my last days on my current contract job. The project was expected to last until November 6th. So, why am I excited? Simple. Just as the title for this entry suggests, I am moving on to the next project. My territory will actually be finished up by other technicians as the new project desperately needs someone to start now. They even changed my on-the-job training from Seattle with another tech to Spokane as they scheduled some jobs this next week in my territory. My manager figured that if they already had to fly someone in to cover those sites, they might as well have me stay there and train with this tech instead. This new project is expected to last until nearly the end of April. That might buy me some time. Time to find a full-time regular job. More time to build experience on my resume (plus this project is bit more open-ended so it will be fun!). And, to top it off, I am not swapping companies so that will be easier. What I've told my wife, but not my parents, is that apparently I was ranked as the number one tech on my project at least once so far. Here's hoping I can nail a high score again, even if it isn't number one.

Twins

2008-09-14T23:29:00.001-05:00

Yes, my wife and I are expecting twins. The first ultrasound done a while back revealed what could be two sacks, so the doctor suggested we get another ultrasound when the embryos were more detectable. Well, as soon as they first started showing the picture on the monitor this last time, there was two distinct heads. As the nurse did all her measurements, you occasionally got the foot of one kid pushing into the picture of the other. Since there are two seperate placentas, they are fraternal and not identical twins. That gets a sigh of relief from me. I didn't want the trouble of telling my own kids apart.

As for work, I don't have a permanent job with benefits. Right now, I have a contract job replacing laptops for an insurance company that is projected to last until the beginning of November. My assigned territory centers around Spokane. The whole thing is scripted out and if anything goes wrong we are to call the help desk no matter what our skill level may be.

Still need to register our own business for the city of Spokane, though we should be licensed by the State of Washington and for the neighboring city of Spokane Valley.

Jennilyn is starting to say words, while Dillon has started to repeat what we say on occasion. I am hoping that he'll start really talking soon. He has enunciated his words quite clearly for the past couple years. He just doesn't say much at all. Most of the time he babbles. My biggest fear is that they'll assess him as deficient, stick him in with a bunch of kids that can hardly say anything clearly, and he'll end up sounding just like the children they tossed him in with (slurred speech, mumble, and so forth) and they'll tell us that he needs more speech therapy for all those problems they just "gave" him.

Of course, another bit I am loving is how my wife keeps telling me that Dillon needs to know his ABCs and 123s, plus spell his own name before he goes to Kindergarten. What happened to learning that in school like I did? Plus, our education system seems to have a problem teaching kids to read, write, and do math. So what do they teach in our schools if our kids need to know before they start on the first day the only thing they will be learning in school? And I was beginning to wonder if our school system was failing.... Oh, well, one of Dillon's favorite movies is an education DVD for his alphabet so I've been joking that he'll know his ABCs before he's talking instead of babbling.

Slight Change of Plan

2008-08-05T13:12:00.001-05:00

Qualifying for the unemployment extension was nice. Having a job would be better. With this long unemployment, my father had a suggestion that surprised me. Not that I doubt whether I could learn and do what is necessary, but it is quite a change from his usual hype of finding a good job with a big company, great benefits, and everything else associated with this sort of thinking.

We went ahead and paid for a small placement in Dex for a computer service business, and now this morning I got a call from a temp agency saying that they have a job here in Spokane for about 3 months installing new computers and printers for one of their clients. If I get that job, it could help me fund this new business. I think it may be about $200 to register and then $59 a year to renew the business license after that. Plus, there is paying for the Dex listing, tools, equipment, and supplies. I still have to decide on a fee for the services too. We already invested in a regular cell phone plan in preparation. Something with a local number as my prepaid cell phone still has a MN area code to accommodate my resume with some companies from even before my move. I started downloading some utilities that I can have on hand. I think I will want to download SP1 for Vista plus SP3 for XP. Plus, I will probably want my own copy of Vista too if doing service on Vista machines.... That will cost money as well.

Moving

2008-06-23T07:55:00.001-05:00

The long period of unemployment has come down to a terrible decision. Netty and I must move. My father will be helping us financially until I can get employ, so I expect he'll make sure I job hunt like it was a full-time job in itself complete with overtime, minus the overtime pay though. Anyways, our lease is up the end of this month and our landlord has someone else interested in renting the place. We've known this was happening so we got most of the stuff packed up already. Today, we'll finish packing up and get the rental truck. Tomorrow, we'll load the truck and on Wednesday we'll start the drive to my parents' home in Spokane, Washington. My dad figures it will quickly be cheaper than supporting our rent too by having us relocate there. Still, I was hoping to get one of the jobs I had an interview with so I would have been scrambling to find a place locally or in Iowa and going for perhaps a cheaper truck rental.

Thinking of the moving truck rental, ugh! Just three years ago we moved out here from Utah. We rented a moving truck for about eight hundred, not counting gas. I was expecting some inflation and the increased gas prices to hurt especially. Turns out that the cheapest rental truck we could find for the one-way trip is about thirteen hundred, not counting taxes or gas. Ouch! We had some saved up in anticipation of a move with all this job hunting, we just had no idea that it had gotten quite so expensive.

Jennilyn loves practicing her stair climbing. She has gotten good enough that she even climbed up the first step of a step ladder while we weren't paying attention. We had just looked away for a bit thinking nothing of her playing there. We knew Dillon could climb ladders so we had been careful watching him around any ladder, but now we know Jennilyn is upgrading her skills to ladders too. Maybe soon we'll be converting her crib (after we move) to a toddler bed.

Another surprise this past month is learning that Netty is pregnant again. That was not planned. I know what it takes to make a baby.... The details of our planning would probably qualify as too much information. Anyways, Netty had her first ultrasound to make sure it wasn't another tubal pregnancy. The doctor told us that she should get a second ultrasound this next month to confirm whether it is twins or not. I guess I could leap into the lead for kids among my siblings.

Still job hunting

2008-04-22T13:40:00.001-05:00

I don't like unemployment. My wife is stressed. She is worried about paying the bills, food, shelter, and clothing. Plus, the lack of money means that she doesn't even have much to spend on gas to visit friends. Not to mention wondering if we'll be able to afford having her visit family and friends in other states this summer. When she wants to spend time with me, or have me help with the kids, I often searching online for jobs that I just might qualify for. If I had a job, my time away from family would have a paycheck associated with it. Right now, it is just more applications. Financially, she's trapped here with me, and even spending so little, she's been watching our savings dwindle.

On the positive, Jennilyn has started climbing stairs. So far it is only to reach someone she wants currently on the stairs. Considering that she loves to explore on her own, it is only a matter of time before she heads for the stairs for an adventure of her own. Jennilyn also stood unsupported for the first time last week.

Dillon still doesn't say a whole lot. Coming down the stairs today, he said, “two.” We've been counting the stairs frequently for Dillon. I have heard him say several of the numbers before along with Netty or myself. Netty told me that one day he said, “two,” a lot while holding up one finger. I would have loved to have seen that. It was probably one of those times I was down here in the basement doing my job search.

There are times I take a break from my job searching. Staring at job descriptions does get a bit tiring. Not necessarily physically, but the eyes begin to hurt and the brain seems to start missing gears. This Thursday I plan to drive to Iowa for a job fair. That should help shake things up from all this online stuff.

LEGOs

2008-02-10T23:51:00.000-06:00

To unwind while job searching, I downloaded the LEGO Digital Designer. When I read that the latest version has a ton of bricks, I was excited. What a great opportunity to record some of my own LEGO creations. Turns out that they probably count each different brick by color as well as shape. Brick colors are restricted. I am guessing it is limited in total to the LEGO sets you can sort them by. So not only could I not find the colors to match my creations, there was a lot of bricks not represented. Fortunately, I think I worked out some decent substitions had fun learning the simple program. I have had a couple creations I wanted to retire but not before creating some sort of record of them. I was thinking of just taking some pictures and hoping that details weren't totally lost in the medicore quality. Now, I have at the click of a button a guide to put something together fairly close to the original.

Saturday, we went to a job fair sponsored by North Dakota. I took five copies of my resume, gave them all out as well as got the email address of a sixth person to send a copy. Most of the people represented several companies or organizations. At least one rep told me that they would send me an email of all the companies they sent my resume to as well as contact information so I can follow up on those. Well, time to get myself to bed so I can resume the grind of job hunting tomorrow.

Still hunting for a job

2008-02-06T21:55:00.000-06:00

It was nice to see my parents last month. Got to put together part of one of my old lego sets while I was there. I used to collect model team sets, and I forgot just how much there could be to one of those sets. I got the helicopter put together and I only had to fill in for a couple missing parts. The truck was partly finished. I didn't even get to the trailer to put the helicopter on. My little brother (who's not so little anymore) was amazed that the steering worked. Apparently he's never really done much of the technic stuff. Anyways, I didn't get the job. It was nice to have made the top five applicants....

Because of the job interview, I began to look into Linux a little more seriously. I had a book or two with me on the flight. Guess it first caught my attention back when I went to Training Camp for the CompTIA A+/Network+ exams. Anyways, having learned a little more since then, my wife says I can take a portion of our tax refund and build a new PC. This will replace her Pentium 4 that totally died last year. Either it destroyed the power supply or the mainboard is dead, either way I am not feeding it another power supply. A second internet capable machine will mean that I don't have to fight for time on the laptop to job search/play games.

We'll be putting a vast chunk of the refund aside if we can to prepare for the possibility of moving. This should allow me to expand my search a bit beyond Minnesota, Utah, and Washington, all places where I have friends or family. As I continue the job hunt, I thought of my friend Joe today as I applied for an IT job with the Sheriff's department. Probably a bit of stretch because they were looking for a certification I couldn't even find out about through the online search engines.

Out of State Interview

2007-12-29T09:43:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I got a call to go to an interview in Spokane, WA. They'll reimburse a reasonable airfare (economy). I am nervous right now. They told me that the interview time is for one hour. I've never had a one hour interview. My mom is excited. I know she hopes that I get the job so I move two of her grandchildren to within a few minutes drive. I already booked the flight, now I just need to tell my parents the times as I have already called and told them I am coming out there. Netty also told me yesterday that her thoughts have been dwelling a lot on Spokane recently. We'll have to wait and see if that is forecast of what is to come. One thing we did decide is that if I do get the job, we will move the family sometime around spring while I would see if my parents would let me stay with them until that time.... With this initial plan in place, I think I will continue to get the minimum of two jobs apps per week in for unemployment while studying up on Unix and networking (even though I passed CompTIA's Network+) to prepare for the interview and possible job.

Job Interview?

2007-12-17T18:19:00.001-06:00

Today I got a call about my online resume. The job isn't too far away. They were looking for someone with CompTIA A+ certification. I went ahead and did a couple online tests to verify some of my competencies. I didn't do too well on the A+ verification. Seemed like it was harder than the A+ exam itself asking moot questions about stuff relating to Windows 98 a lot. (DING!) A light bulb just went off in my head. I first read a book for the 2003 edition of the CompTIA A+ exam just to try and catch up on some basics before studying for the 2006 objectives. It could be that the reason so much didn't seem like stuff I covered in studying for the A+ exam is that it wasn't stuff I covered for the exam. Probably hasn't been updated for the 2006 objectives.... Anyways, I nearly aced the test for phone calls plus got decent scores on both the Windows XP tests I was asked to take before tomorrow's interview.

A job I had found and was going to apply for seemed to disappear just before my eyes. It was for technical support at a nearby school district. Last day to apply for the job was today. An online application process. I had everything uploaded except my cover letter. I took a few minutes to make some changes to the cover letter and clicked to upload that too. Poof! Job was gone from the listings. They had a spot to check jobs currently applied for and it wasn't there either. Gone. Gone. Gone. Oh well, as I told my wife, I like the new cover letter much better than the original version I drafted up last week.

Well, here's hoping that tomorrow's job interview goes well. It sounds like it won't pay as well as my recent employ, but better than unemployment pays. Ah, the joys of being the provider for the family. Netty also got a call today, but they were offering her a job that paid very little with a modest commute attached. She said no, but they are keeping her name for later next year when they are looking for people to take the tax preparation class for 2008 taxes instead of the customer service job they just offered. We'll see how things are going then

Network+

2007-12-04T21:53:00.000-06:00

Mom and dad decided that were willing to help out with my going to training camp for a week towards the Network+/A+ Certifications. This will be coming out of the pool of Christmas money my dad had planned for all my brothers and sisters since he only has a certain amount of money not tied up in investments and so forth. Well, I really do appreciate their help in getting me certified so I have something to put on my resume for job searching.

As it happened, there was a training camp within driving distance. The next one scheduled this close just happened to start this Monday (the next time being in February), with Sunday night for checking in to the hotel. So, in a mad dash to the future, my dad and I got it arranged and I began some cram studying as soon as I got the links to some suggested pre-reading. I was cruising through documents at times suggested for experts when I was actually a beginner at most of this stuff. I simply didn't have the time to spare. I would still be reading at least into Sunday if not Monday if I had take the time suggested.

Sunday, I drove down to Chicago after going to sacrament meeting and checking in with Elder's Quorum President to get some information and let him know that I need access to any employment service available when I get back. Netty and the kids would get a ride home with my brother and his family while I drove off to this.

Monday was a day full of study, study, study. The instructor taught us all day. Mostly just what we needed to know to pass the test and a little bit extra. Not much though. He suggested we save the reading of the book we got as part of the class (as well as any others) until after the class was done. Just focus on the study guide and read it at least five times. I would read it during breaks, trying to mark where I left off to continue from there in the next break. While class went all day until 9 PM, it was full of little breaks as well as ones for lunch and dinner. I would end up giving a couple of the guys a ride from the training center back to the hotel. As for myself, I stayed up until almost midnight reading the study guide. One time reading it out loud. This made for two and a half times total.

This morning started with the Book of Mormon before going over to start class again. We were lectured until about noon. I had been working on reading it again during breaks, and the instructor concluded the lectures by going over the study guide bullets in class as a quick review. Then it was lunch and self-study until six. I took my study guide and walked around the halls of the third and second floors. During this time, I read the study guide two more times. Oh my! I had woken up with a headache. Information overload. By the end of my three hour walk, I settled back into the chair of the classroom and focused on memorizing the suggested ports and matching protocols. It felt like I was taking in so much in just roughly four days. Well, at six, we took the test. I passed. Oh, I was so excited that I wanted to call my wife right away. The phone was busy! I ended up getting through after I had called and told my mom the good news. Of course, this was only the Network+ exam. Tomorrow morning we begin study for the A+ and I gather we'll take the exams on Saturday with a retake possible on Sunday.

Granted, before I called my wife, I first knelt down and prayed to God. I thanked God for the peace of mind that calmed me and helped me study. I also told God how excited I was to have passed on the first try with oh so little prep time.

While I am more prepared for the A+, I cannot afford to slack off. So, the hotel room television remains unplugged as suggested by our instructor. His warning was that we'll process the last thing we put into our brain when we fall asleep. If it was what we learned for the day, then our retention will be better in the morning. If it was a TV show, then that is what we'll remember most clearly the next day.

Time for bed. I am not sure I'll have the chance to get to bed before midnight the rest of the week. Good night.

Lay Off

2007-11-26T20:03:00.000-06:00

It has been a while since I last wrote in here. In the meantime I have gotten a bit more serious about studying for the A+ certification. Work has been a bit slow lately and I still haven't gotten that on the job training I have been waiting for so long. And now I have to get really serious about it. This afternoon I was called and told that tomorrow I will have my exit interview for the job. I am getting layed off. They said that if a bunch of work comes in, they'll keep my number handy and see if I am interested in work again with them.... Well, I find out the details in the morning.

What fun timing. My wife's car has the starter go out. If it had been my car, the starter would cost half as much and we probably would've replaced it already. So, we have one car that doesn't work. The pentium 4 my wife bought the summer before our marriage died too. I pulled my old pentium MMX out of "storage" and fired it up. I decided to try and trouble shoot the problem I was having with the 3D accelerator. Turns out the board must have slipped loose in one of our recent moves. Now I just wish it had a USB port. I don't even know if the motherboard or OS could handle it. It is an old PC and I am mostly grateful that it at least works. After getting excited about fixing my graphics problem, I found a couple websites that sell a serial port mouse and old joysticks. I haven't played Rogue Squadron 3D in so very long because my joystick broke after years of use....

First priority is to get a new job. Then I can think about accessories for an old PC. Plus, I confessed to my wife that I would like to someday build two newer PCs. One basic one for the family. Nice motherboard, decent graphics card, solid processor that is somewhat energy efficient, and LCD display and so forth. The second PC would then be my dream PC, a gaming machine with 3D hardware acceleration, 5.1 surround sound, and such as I might choose. While learning for the A+ certification has awakened these somewhat neglected desires, I must look to the needs of my family first. So, first get a new job. Second, pay off debts. Only after these goals are being met can I look at tinkering to build these two different dream PCs. I would love it if I found a job that paid sufficient that I could do all three of things at once.

A Daughter

2007-08-18T08:39:00.000-05:00

After nine months of not knowing, we found out that we have a healthy little girl. I had some work to do in Fargo, North Dakota. Not that far away, but far enough when you stay in hotel with bad cellphone reception and your daughter is born fairly quickly after your wife goes into the hospital before midnight. Our little girl was born around four o'clock in the morning weighing nine pounds and an ounce. For gaining less weight this time around, our little secret keeper surprised us by being bigger than her brother at birth. I guess this is in keeping with her concealing her gender from the ultrasound earlier. My wife tells me that the birthing room was a real riot with all the women joking and my wife laughing between contractions. I hope to update this later with a picture of our daughter since I left the camera at the hospital last night. I am excited to be bringing Netty home with our daughter Jennylin today.

Financial IQ

2007-07-28T21:30:00.000-05:00

Today I read the teaser for an online article that says intelligence is not connected to wealth. I already knew that. I have several friends that are quite bright. To the best of my knowledge, most of them are not rich. What they did say in that teaser is that those with IQ may make more in wages on average but they end up with the same money as anyone else in the end.

What I have been reading in books written by some rich people, wealth isn't really a matter of how much you make doing a job. A good definition of wealth is a measure of time. How long you can go without working to earn money? I gather that the average might be two months before bankruptcy, whether making thirty thousand or a couple hundred thousand a year. Since many that make more money make the same financial decisions as those with less money, they just incur higher debts with nicer cars, bigger homes, and fancier stuff. What have I read about the difference between those that have wealth and those that do not? Financial intelligence. Not determined by IQ. The purpose of Cash Flow 101 which my wife and I have played is to improve financial intelligence. By teaching us to fill out a balance sheet, the idea is to help us learn the initial foundation of financial intelligence. I learned that homes are not an assett. They are an expense. They do not generate cash flow but you pour out money for a mortgage and utilities. I gather that many people get into homes that the world claims that they can afford but really are more than they should get into until they can build some true wealth. So I guess that means that those with a higher IQ get caught in the same traps as the rest of us. Traps that my wife and I are trying to get out of. By the time we get to financial freedom, I wonder how long of a list we'll have of friends and family thinking we've lost our marbles along the way. The price to pay will require that we live our lives differently with different goals than generally accepted financially.

A Good Kid

2007-06-01T18:40:00.000-05:00

I called and talked to Joe today. It has been a while. I found out a little about how things are going back in Utah. It was good to hear that his brother is doing better. I also learned that his computer is getting restored. Some developments were a bit of a surprise. One bit of news was totally unexpected. It explained a comment I read not too long ago on livejournal, but it was still a total surprise to me. I had suspected that something had happened to change the attitude of someone I know. The scale of it just caught me completely off guard.

While I was talking to Joe, Dillon unplugged one computer mouse from the family laptop and plugged it back in. Then Dillon took the other computer mouse I have been using with company laptop and tried plugging it into the other computer. It was cute, even if he was getting it upside down. Dillon has shutoff the computer several times on Netty now. Both the desktop machine and the laptop. We put a password on our accounts to keep Dillon from turning on the computers and just doing random things from the administrator accounts. For a little boy with barely any electronic toys he sure is taking a liking to computers. And I don't think he will take a substitute either. For example, he loves to play with the home phone and my company cellphone. The toy phones get a little attention but make poor distractions. He has long appeared to know the difference and has a preference for the real things.

Like many kids his age, he doesn't always listen or appreciate it when we tell him "no." Dillon is a good kid still. Most of the time he holds our hand when we ask him to, such as going outside for a walk or in a store. I am hoping that a willingness to pay attention to him when he's behaving and doing right will help him find good behaviour more rewarding than seeking conflict with mom, dad, and those we meet. Of course, something we've already decided we are going to watch out for is Dillon trying to feed his first sibling stuff without supervision. He pays such good attention that I am afraid that he'll try to "help" feed a sibling stuff that they are not ready for, such as raw carrots while they have no teeth.

We do not know the gender of the child we are expecting this August. When Netty got her ultrasound, the little one had their little legs covering that telling region. Quite different than Dillon's sprawling out during the ultrasound which allowed us to clearly know his gender before his birth.

Thinking of Dillon, he got up from his nap and has come out looking for comfort. Got to go.

Rat Race

2007-03-30T09:39:00.001-05:00

Last night, Netty and I played our third game of Cashflow 101. We didn't finish the game, but I managed to get out of the rat race for the third time. Once again before Netty did. In fact, I don't think she's gotten out of the rat race yet in any of our games, even though she has started building her assets and residual income. Although, just playing it with two players probably doesn't help too much. What was interesting for me was that I still did this after getting downsized twice and the total expenses of three children. Netty attributed it to luck. While I hope to get some people together so we can start playing it in a group setting, I hope it more than just luck.

Possible Flood Mechanic?

2007-03-23T19:26:00.000-05:00

Today, I read something else interesting from the viewpoint of my faith and beliefs. I wrote more indepth about it in my personal journal, but I thought it might deserve a brief mention in my online stuff. Apparently someone made one of the more accurate models of plate tectonics and then used it to show how a catastrophic tectonic event may have occurred and what would be the impact of such an event. In other words, what if the plates of the earth hadn't always moved at their current speed? How could it have happened? I didn't even go into those details in my personal journal. What was interesting was the results. You would have had massive amounts of ocean floor created fast. This would have in turn created a vast area where water would've been sent into the atmosphere to rain down on the earth. Even the level of the ocean floor would have raised substantially, pushing the waters up onto the land and depositing all that ocean life and tons of sediment on the land as well. Topping this all off, they showed that if the opening event for all this happened at the right place off the coast of the ancient super-continent we generally acknowledge as the source of our current continents, the whole event could've accelerated to incredible speeds (feets per second of crust slipping into the core of the earth). The idea was that this could have been the source of the biblical flood. In addition, it would also explain all the fossils of ocean life on the land that we find, which could be a big wrench in much of evolution theory if this is so.

I think I am alive

2007-03-21T22:33:00.001-05:00

I was just looking online and realized that it has been a while since I posted anything in my blog or livejournal. What would I say? I still draw breath. The heart still pumps blood, at least I think it is blood. It is still red at least.

Work is a little slow. Not as slow as it was a few weeks ago. Today I got a call letting me know that I will have to go back and replace some parts on a machine I had been asked earlier to do just a software reload on before. The mainboard, printer board, cable harness, and a USB cable to the patient module.

Guess this is another short entry. Netty needs me to put Dillon to sleep. I will just let him scream himself to sleep, so I don't always get that much screaming. Sometimes a lot, but not all too often it seems so far. While Netty has trouble getting him to sleep. Then again, she has a low tolerance for the screaming and it breaks her heart. So, she ends up letting him stay up and tries to get him to go to sleep by holding him in her arms. This does work for her. However it can take a very long time. Tonight she has asked me to put him to sleep. I think she's been trying the go-to-sleep-in-mommy's-arms technique for over an hour and is giving up for today.

Prince Caspian

2007-02-26T13:38:00.000-06:00

While I haven't posted online everyday since last, I have been faithful so far to my off-line journal. That's not why I am posting today.

Today, I decided to go search on the Disney website to see what I could about the Chronicles of Narnia. Following the links, I then started reading through the little bit of news. With various casting announcements for Prince Caspian, I was excited. I didn't think I would find any better news, but I went on searching anyways. In the end, I found a projected release date of May 16, 2008. When I showed my wife, she was very excited. That is her birthday next year. When she asked if I knew what we would do on her birthday next year, I replied that we would be swimming in the great lakes. I had to amend that. I will be swimming in the great lakes all alone and as punishment if I don't take my wife to the movie on her birthday. My sister said I will need to order my tickets in advance.

http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/narnia/

From My Journal

2007-02-23T23:36:00.000-06:00

As I was flying back from a job in St. Louis, Missouri, I read that writing a journal has many benefits. It will help you learn faster. It will help you manage your time. It can even improve your finances. There was several other things in there as well. While I will probably post this entry online as well for others to read, I thought I would take that counsel to heart and start now. Perhaps with some effort I can restore this long forgotten habit.

Well, that isn't the only thing I have been learning lately as I read the books I have been getting monthly and listening to talks on CD. There is no way I am going to try and cover all of it tonight. Maybe as I make a practice of this, I will put all sorts of bits and pieces into my journal.

One other thing I learned this week was that the truth isn't relevant. It was sort of an adaptation of the line from Star Wars were we learn that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. What the speaker said was that the truth is often the truth no matter how we see it. We usually see it relative to our own point of view, or we see the truth we want to see. It wasn't that there is no truth out there. His point was that when people make choices and declare what they see as the truth, it is according to their point of view and has little to do with the truth. So, where was he going with this? Well, it might help to realize that much of what I have been reading and listening to are motivational materials. So, he was getting at the point that we will do what we want and then justify it with logic. If we want to succeed, it helps to understand this and then work to create a condition where we make the choice we know we should to succeed and then support this with our logic instead. The short of it is that we need to take control of thoughts to get past the false pains we perceive in our struggles to succeed.

Some lessons from reading

2007-01-18T22:08:00.001-06:00

As I was flying home today, I read a book that was teaching me about financial intelligence. Along with all I was learning about money and how it works, I learned a couple other things.

No matter how much you pay, you will never own your house. This may not make sense to most. While you pay on your mortgage, the bank owns your home. Default on the loan and you'll find that the bank owns your home. However, that is not the only institution that owns your home. Default on your property taxes and the government will take it from you. What a wonderful insight!

It gets better. Bankers are only telling you a part of the truth when they tell you that your home is an asset. Yes, that is only part of the truth. It is an asset. They just didn't tell you who's asset it was. It is the bank's asset. Your home makes the bank money and thus is the banks asset. Things really get humorous when you remember that when you default to pay the bank on their asset that they will take it from you and find another way to make money with it. Depending on your point of view, it isn't that humorous.... Anyways, as I learned about a financial statement, I learned from the author that a home is a liability. He doesn't say that homes are bad things. The author just wanted to open the readers mind to what a home really means on a financial statement.

Did you know that banks don't want us to have tax breaks for savings and checking accounts? Those same banks want us to have tax breaks for interest payed on home loans. Why? Simple. So simple that most of us who are not financially literate don't even see it. If we get a tax break for interest payed, then we will go for the biggest tax break we can. This means mortgages earning them money. And this is good for the government too. Tax breaks on interest means larger homes and more property taxes collected. However, savings and checking accounts are a liability for banks. What makes them money with our savings and checking is the money they can legally lend people based on that amount, which is far greater than they money we gave them.

Now, the book never stated this next bit. While the book mentioned that social security will fail, I began to suspect there is more to the whole picture than just that. After getting fed all this unusual insight into taxes and misleading financial advice, I wondered if perhaps government would benefit by having social security fail. Here was my quick and simple thoughts on this. Social security will begin to fail. Taxes are raised under the idea that this will save social security. This is more taxes from this alone. Next step is when social security fails despite supposed intervention. Without social security to support all those who had retired, a vast pool of individuals is forced back into the labor pool to work and pay taxes once more. More taxes for big government when social security fails. We lose. Government wins.

Chili Cookoff 2006

2006-10-23T08:18:00.000-05:00

Saturday, our local church had a chili cookoff. Although I had never made chili before, I decided to go ahead and make some. Being my first time, and a simple home cook, I chose to not experiment at all. Well, not quite true. Just making chili was an experiment in my skills to make something by simply following a recipe I had never tried before. I think it turned out alright. I didn't win anything, didn't really expect to either. My wife had entered pumpkin bars in the desert competition. No, she didn't win either. Still, it was nice to go and hang out with everyone.

I also got in a couple games of Magi-Nation. That was fun. I lost the first miserably, and then I won the second game by snowball effect.

Well, I better get started on my day. Dillon got me up, so sleepy me is slowly waking up today. I hope it is a good day to go with the good morning. But, a good day is up to me, I think.

New Kid On The Block

2006-09-01T09:42:00.000-05:00

Stephanie and Josh (the couple my wife and I have been roleplaying with) had their new little boy a couple days early. I wouldn't be surprised that if they hadn't gotten her to the hospital as soon as they did, that he would've been born naturally instead of via a c-section. No, I don't have any pictures of the neighbors' new little boy. We haven't been over to see them much in the past week since Dillon, my wife, and I have all been in various stages of being sick or getting well. We've been passing a cold around amongst ourselves.

As for right now, I am sitting in a hotel waiting for parts to be delivered to the customer site. Why is it that I find these unusual problems? Things that no one seems to have encountered before? Stuff not covered in my training or service manual? In this case, we've been doing a recent software upgrade on a certain machine that goes into a standby mode after a preset time of inactivity. Well, when the customer described printer grinding noises and a hot monitor for the machine plus a general lockup of the system that happened when it had been left unused, I became a little suspicious. I could think of normal lockup issues that I would know which parts to order and replace, or if I just needed to try reloading the software. But, those cases all involved times when the machine should be on. Anyways, on a hunch, I tried to recreate the problem by leaving the machine unattended. I didn't get their lockup, but I did find that the machine wasn't going into standby. I readjusted the time settings and tried again. Still, it didn't go into standby. Reloaded the software too, and it still wouldn't go into standby. Hmm, not the lockup they were having, but it could be connected. And, this problem is something not covered in the service manual or training. I think I was even confusing the response center people a little when I described the issue. Partly because there is a power save mode that triggers first which only shuts down the monitor. I had to explain after they told me the standby mode was similar to the power save mode that I knew the difference and similarity, and it wasn't even going into standby mode like it should have. Power save, yes. Standby, no. Anyways, we ordered a new mainboard for the unit and I will install that today. After that, I get to go home. Good thing my wife packed me a suitcase for overnight just in case I had to stay here like I just did.

Roleplaying Togoth

2006-08-02T21:21:00.000-05:00

In my last blog, I think I mentioned playing in a Star Wars roleplaying game. My character is the non-combat member of the team. Josh had us dropped out of hyperspace after our little escape from Mon Calamari by an interdictor cruiser. Well, after a couple of our warriors decided to take on some destroyer droids, my character spent a week in bacta according to Josh. Hey, they got me shot despite sticking up my hands to surrender. However, my character isn't stupid, so he knew he couldn't escape alone.

Josh actually cleverly had different challenges prepared for each of us for our escapes. Our two warriors (my wife and his wife) were in seperate cells in seperate cell banks. So, they both were provided with the same little panel they could try and rig to blow up. His wife, Stephanie, had her Jane Doe character rig up her panel and then called out to guard to come to her cell. She rolled a 20 when she went to actually blow up her panel. With a natural 20, she not only knocked down her cell's force field, she got that guard. This gave her a weapon to duke it out with two more guards.

Our characters heard this explosion. The next person to roleplay their escape was my wife. Her character chose to just disable her force field. She got a real good roll, but not a natural twenty. She started to sneak out of her cell, but she failed her third stealth roll and the droid heard her and turned around to fight. She ended up charging the droid. Knocked him over. Then, she blasted it with a weapon from the weapon rack from the end of the hall.

My character had the unique challenge of fighting the medical droid sent to take him to his cell now that he was out of the bacta tank. Thanks, Josh. My character isn't the warrior and wouldn't have even tried to take on basic battle droids. He would've expected to lose. Of course, just before they had clambered out of the shuttle, he had put on simple tools on his person. He didn't even try to hide them. With his clothes conveniently on a table nearby in the medical room, he easily let himself out of the room, reprogrammed the medical droid (I rolled my 20 on this), and headed out for the computer room (information taken from the medical droid). It was here that my character started messing around in the computer system. He found himself in control of one of several droid control centers, but only two of the droids on this controller survive so far. He slaved both of them, fused a few doors and used the ship's own systems to kill the rest of the guards on this level. Bringing his kill count up from zero to seven for the game so far. Not too shabby for someone who walks around with a stun pistol....

The game ended roughly at this point. Two little boys were quite wound up and needed to go to bed. Our boy and their boy.

A Good Night's Rest

2006-07-22T09:02:00.000-05:00

Well, I have been able to sleep in bed for the past couple weeks. The work with the chiropractor seems to finally doing some good. My wife has started seeing him for her lower back and foot problems. She has something called a heel spur. I am not sure if I spelled that right. Oh well.

Next to me is a game of Magi-Nation in mid-game. My wife and I started playing it last night. She's playing the Naroom deck she has been learning with, and I decided to play Kybar's Teeth. So far, we've beaten each other's first magi. Celebrated Hero made a good start as my second magi. Kazm had left him a Cragnoc and Thoughtful Baldar. Of course, I did give my wife a little advice here and there, but she's getting to be fair with that Naroom deck on her own.

As for other gaming, our neighbors Stephanie and Josh have started a roleplaying game up. Josh is the GM. Stephanie is playing a bounty hunter she had in a previous campaign. Her character is supposed to be the same species as Darth Maul was, however her character suffered some sort of strange incident that has rendered her a Jane Doe. No name. No history. At least as far the galaxy is concerned. So, her challenge is to get her history back. My wife is playing a scout. This allowed her to make a warrior that is a little bit of a jack-of-all-trades. Her character is creating some sort of autobiography. As for my character, he's named Togoth Owen. He's an outlaw tech. This doesn't mean he's an actual outlaw. His back story is that he just got fired from Research and Development at AeroTech. He had to leave behind his droid because his personal modifications prevented the removal of company secrets contained in the droid's memory core. Josh had the men in black pick Togoth up right as he was walking out the front door of AeroTech. And, now we've been to Mon Calamari in our first mission for Republic Central Intelligence, or some agency like that.

Poor Sleep

2006-06-26T14:44:00.000-05:00

It has been almost two weeks, I think, since I last slept in bed. My shoulder is still bothering me and this is getting a bit old. While I can sleep in the La-Z-Boy recliner, it has gotten to be rather light sleep the past week. I am now playing movies to help me relax and get past the discomfort. Last night, I don't think I slept more than two hours at a time. We got the number for a chiropractor and setup an appointment. We hope it helps.

The massage we paid for on Thursday seemed to help some. It was extremely painful to lay down for the massage. I couldn't even manage it at first. That night, I was able to hold my wife for a few minutes in bed before the pain appeared. Also, I have been able to give her hugs since then too. The hugging alone is a positive improvement.

What is a bit frustrating is that for work, I have a few jobs I need to schedule for out of state. This would involve hotel stays. While the company would pay for my travel expenses that way, the fact that I cannot even lay down to sleep would be a serious issue.

I told my wife that if the visit to the chiropractor does allow to lay down once more, I will go lay down and get some rest when we get back. I used to sleep so soundly. Well, I still sleep soundly, but discomfort is forcing me to wake up every now and then during the night.

All Alone Longer Than Planned

2006-05-09T12:51:00.000-05:00

I have been very busy with work over the past few weeks. Last week and this have been the first two in a while that I haven't put in at least forty hours plus, once you add in travel time which is paid for as well in my line of employ. At the same time, my wife was away visiting family. She spent two weeks with my parents and my youngest two siblings. While there, my mom and her made my wife a nice new dress for her sister's wedding. Then, it was supposed to be two weeks with her family and a wedding to see.

From reading what I just wrote, you may suspect something happened. It did.

While with my parents, my wife had some bleeding and a lot of discharge. We had found out about a month ago that she was pregnant again, so she was taken into a clinic and they diagnosed it as a miscarriage.

The excitement of a second child ended there, but we were in for some more grief. It seems it may not have been the miscarriage it was diagnosed as. I am now wishing they had seriously checked her tubes despite the fact that she wasn't showing any symptoms of a tubal pregnancy.

Oh yes. It was a tubal pregnancy. My wife would end up missing her sister's wedding when the tube burst and she was bleeding internally on the day of the wedding. What a stressful day it must have been for her parents. A wedding and a daughter rushed into emergency surgery.

I was in Andover, MA. The warehouse I was working in did not have good cell-phone reception. It would end up being my brother who works for Philips Medical Systems that got a hold of me. He didn't give me any details except that my wife was being rushed into emergency surgery and I needed to call quick. She was already in surgery when I finally got the hospital phone number from my parents. It seems that all of my wife's family and friends were at the wedding during the surgery, so I had to get shuffled around a few departments before I got a doctor who could tell me what was happening with my wife.

With this stress, it was hard for me to focus and work. Even though the doctor assured me that she was in good hands and had been looking better by the time they had got into surgery (they had to treat her for the blood loss), I knew that internal bleeding is rarely a good thing. I told my co_worker about my situation and we called our local contact to let them know I would be leaving early that day for a family emergency. I wouldn't fly home, though. My scheduled flight was for the next morning, and we don't have the budget for me to fly at the last minute to Utah where my wife was. On top of that, I was expecting to possibly be busy for work during the next week and didn't think I would have time for a trip to Utah and back. However, leaving early did allow me to call the hospital shortly after my wife's surgery. I talked probably for an hour on the phone despite her drugged state.

With my wife recovering from surgery, we began to consider rescheduling her flight home. Since I was expected to be traveling a lot over the next few weeks, I wouldn't be here to care for her here and we needed my income to even try and pay these hospital bills. So, we ended up choosing to delay her return by two weeks. Otherwise, she would have returned last night.

Well, it feels good to write this out.

You might think that with all these difficulties it could be hard to see some blessings in this. As for myself, I see it as a wakeup call from the Lord on a couple things. One, how precious my wife is to me. Two, what a blessing it is to have children and that we cannot take it for granted. With how easy my wife and I were conceiving children with only a little more than a year of marriage, I may have been taking that for granted. Three, although hindsight is 20/20, it taught me that I cannot take for granted whatever happens with future pregnancies. My wife must see the doctor sooner to check for tubal pregnancies. There is no question of that. The one tube was a total loss. She only has one tube left and we cannot afford to lose it if we want more than one child in our family.

I really don't want to go through that again. Still, I don't think I would've learned these little life's lessons so easily without it. If I could have done this differently, I wish we had insisted on them checking for a tubal pregnancy with the miscarriage issue. As it is, we don't have it to do over. What we can do is try and learn from this and move on into the future, hopefully as better prospective parents.

Working In The USA

2006-04-25T20:57:00.000-05:00

The past few weeks have been busy for me. After a couple slow months of work, it was nice to get some overtime again.

A couple weeks ago, I went to sunny California were it rained for fair amount of my stay. Since most of my days were spent deep inside a hospital, I didn't see much sun even if I did come out during the day. It was a busy week of upgrading hardware on a good number of defibrilators. There was three of us pulled together to get the project done quickly. While there was still ten or so units left to be done the next week, the local techs figured that would be easy enough for them to do without my return.

I think it was over that weekend that my wife packed up and we would both be gone the next Monday evening. While she went to visit family for a month in preparation for her sister's wedding, I took off for Texas to do upgrades on ECG machines. That trip wasn't as enjoyable at first. They even tried to have someone else stay in my hotel room while I was still there. That was a little embarrassing. I won't be staying at that hotel again if I can help it. Anyways, the end of the week went better.

The weekend back here was boring by lonesome. I did read a chapter of Harry Potter to my wife over the phone. I don't think I could've come up with stuff to say for a whole hour, and she was a bit homesick. It made for a great way to let her keep hearing my voice. Plus, it let me progress in reading the story as this is my first time through the Harry Potter books.

Then, this past week, I was back on a plane and out to Oregon this time. This time for a special defibrilator upgrade as part of a study. There was three of us again, and the firemen shuttled us around to the various stations where the units were. The real bottleneck on our efforts was the single set of calibration equipment between us. So, two of us did upgrades while the third did calibration. Another set was worked up by the last day, so I did calibrate a couple units too.

With another lonely weekend under my belt, and two more chapters of Harry Potter with my wife, I spent Monday doing paperwork and cleaning. I got my laundry done so I can set off again. Today I had a service call for Wisconsin, and Wednesday morning I should be flying to Massachusetts (I had to look that spelling up). There I will be going to a warehouse to do more upgrades on defibrilators. I gather that project might be more than a week of work.... Oh yeah, I almost forgot that there is some local work for the next week that I need to keep some time open for. Gotta keep the locals happy!

Well, I guess I just might be a little busy....

Sleeping And Baby Crying

2006-03-31T07:47:00.000-06:00

Last night, or this morning, I woke up to Dillon crying. I thought, I should get up and comfort Dillon. It was a good thought. The only problem was that I then fell back asleep with Dillon still crying. My wife got up and fed him instead.

I could make some excuse that he really need to be fed and so everything is fine. Well, yes, he did need to be fed. However, I still fell back asleep without getting up. I did not know that bit until after I woke up this morning and found out that my wife got up and fed him. I didn't even know what time it was when I woke up and fell back asleep to his crying. I failed to react.

Sort of interesting how my reaction to Dillon crying has changed over just these past few months. When we first brought him home, I awoke somewhat easily. I didn't always get up, though. Mostly, I would pay attention to whether Netty would get up and feed Dillon, since that was his common need. It was a matter of concern since she had the hearing impairment and I did not. But, this was short-lived. Very short-lived. His crying was a joyous sound to me. It meant I was a dad, a thought that filled my heart with joy. So, knowing that Netty's maternal instincts actually surpassed any hearing impairment she might experience, I began to return to my normal habit in short time. I sleep like a rock. I don't wake up for much, and when I do, I am usually so out of it that I am glad no real disasters have been going on when I woke up in the middle of the night.

Now, I am reading books that talk about achieving personal success. These books not give instruction on developing yourself to achieve financial success, but emphasize how these principles only can truly work if applied at home as well. Without application at home, these principles can be but shallow imitations of their true form. One such book talked about being true to ourselves. It talked about how we will lower our view of others (including wives and children) because we fail to act upon our own impressions. Rather than take the blame for our short comings, we project it into those around us. This book is changing the way I look at the expression of "think outside the box." When we think outside the box that we put ourselves into, we can find much more success even as we do things wrong.

So, as I look at my failure to get up last night, I don't want to excuse myself that Dillon was really hungry and my wife better fit his need. The simple reality is that I had the impression that I should get up to tend to Dillon and I fell back asleep. I need to work on correcting this.

Interesting that my wife should look over my shoulder for a bit with Dillon as I wrote this.

My eBay Fear

2006-02-28T15:34:00.000-06:00

If I were just considering buying stuff off of eBay, it probably wouldn't be so bad. However, I am considering selling some of my extra CCG stuff there. Not any of my Magi-Nation cards, though if I did it would probably only be my trades/extras.

The other day, my wife actually was surprised to see that I had three large boxes full of games. Almost one entire box of the DBZ CCG. Another box of Magi-Nation. The third box was of Magic the Gathering. Some smaller (800 count) boxes were filled with a number of miscellaneous CCGs that I've dabbled in here and there. A lot of dead games.

I spent a bit of time browsing eBay to see what the action for a couple games looks like. It doesn't look too promising. My wife and I anticipated we wouldn't get hardly anything compared to what I spent on these games. However, I beginning to wonder if the cards will even sell in the first place. Just tossing them in the dumpster doesn't sound like a good plan to me, but I really don't want to pay a fee to list the sale and to not have anything happen.

Oh, well. I will probably take a chance soon. I still have a bunch of the DBZ CCG to go through and decide whether I am keeping it or not. If I trim it down enough, I think I might be able to get a good number of smaller games into the box with the collection I will keep.

The Chronicles of Narnia

2006-02-18T10:07:00.000-06:00

With the recent movie, my wife and I decided to rent the video game. She's looking for something other than just Lego StarWars to play on our console. While I do have a few other games, none of them are appealing to her.

After she got a bit into The Chronicles of Narnia, she reached a point where she couldn't seem to get any further. Wolves kept coming while she was trying to put out some burning stuff with snowballs thrown by Susan.

Last night, I was home and we had some time to play together. While I might've liked to see the game from the beginning, and my wife offered, we chose to continue where she had gotten stuck. It turns out that we did get through the difficult part with some teamwork, but we found that overwhelming numbers of wolves became a problem at this point. Solving some of the puzzles wasn't so much of an issue as the sheer number of wolves tossed at us for no apparent good reason to make solving the problem at hand difficult.

The part I did love was the integration of movie scenes to the game. While I felt that it added unnecessary and unrelated stuff to the story, it was interesting to see how they took a scene straight from the movie and blended it into the telling of the video game. While the transition in graphics to movie images was a little odd, it was still cool to see it done.

While my views on video games are not a copy of my wife's, I do agree that we need a selection of games she does approve of too. Such games will be the ones she can play with Dillon when he's old enough. It would also allow us to build a collection of games we are not worried about him playing on his own either.

As for myself, I wish we had a little extra cash to get a copy of X-Com: UFO Defense for our console. I loved that game for the PC.... The hard part will be when we have the spare cash is convincing my wife that it might be worth the cost since I've only seen it on ebay, and it wasn't exactly selling cheaply that day.

Sending In Paperwork

2006-02-06T09:27:00.000-06:00

This morning is a bit interesting. I am sending in my paperwork to reflect hours worked. If I want to get paid, this is important. Sometimes I wonder if a more traditional job with a regular time clock wouldn't be nice. Just that little one less bit of paperwork. Still, the flexibility of this job is wonderful. I have been able to enjoy some simple pleasures that others might wish to have. To spend an hour or so holding my little boy early in the morning when it's possible. Sleeping in now and then when there's no job demanding my attention. Doing the job more when I feel like it when it was shipped to me and is sitting on the dining table waiting for me to do it (we eat more on the coffee table in the small living room anyways). Ah, the simple joys in life. Plus, I have a job where I can take things apart and put them back together without impressive winches, jacks, or other stuff for working on heavy equipment.

Well, some of my thoughts today turn to commentary I've read on occassion. I wonder sometimes what people really see of me. You could say the pessimist in me gets carried away at times. I know I go through depression from time to time. Fortunately, this doesn't feel like one of them. Just a little down in some respects, but not depressed. Sometimes I wonder why I see the world so differently than others that I think might be experiencing something similar. Why can I have a completely different memory of yesterday's events than someone else? Faulty memory it seems, and on my part too. I have tried to learn to work around and with some of my flaws.

I think my memory has gotten better since I've tried to exercise it by writing game reports for Magi-Nation. Do you realize that I will remember details of a game much better if it has some reference to something I've written? For example, I can recall a game with a young lady who was a very good Naroom player even though I cannot remember her name. And, I can vaguely recall her face too. This is a vast improvement for me considering the game was years ago. Normally, I would completely forget her name and face, such as some of the girls I've dated.

[edit: Her name was Heather, if I remember correctly. I didn't even look that up. It just popped in there. How cool! However, Heather turned out in the end to be a person of questionable character. Sort of sad in that respect. I prefer very much to believe the best of others. I am not the best at applying this attitude of mine, but I do try as much as I can.]

Ryan Reymont. I remember his name and face easily. I wrote about him a little in a deck strategy I submitted on DeckTech a few years ago. Matthew Jensen. I met two of them. Both in Utah. Both get mention somewhere on DeckTech, I think. And, I think I can remember both faces too. Well, I at least Matthew from near Salt Lake City, who's brother Luke I could hardly recognize last time I saw him (amazing how young boys change in our perception as they grow up).

Well, after three tries, my paperwork finally got sent off to work. Time to go and earn some more. Another week I start off in Rochester, Minnesota at the Mayo Clinic (or a branch thereof). May everyone else have a good week too.

Drafting Naroom Cards

2006-01-03T13:34:00.000-06:00

A little while ago, although it almost seems like ages ago at times, I agreed to draft some card ideas for fan created expansion of Magi-Nation for gatlingEngine and online play. So far my ideas for Forest Well have failed to make the initial cut via email with Novelty. In the recent email I got back from Novelty, it was pointed out that interaction with Warrada, Simulacrum would be good for this card.

Upon looking at the simulacrum again, I realized that her energy savings only refer to the creatures and not relics. When I look at the Forest creatures, I have Forest Hyren, Forest Wudge, and Forest Jile.

Forest Hyren. An effect to gain extra energy when added to and a power to add energy to another creature.

Forest Wudge. Can draw a card if opposing magi Naroom or Naroom Shadow. Mostly has an effect to gain energy when opposing creatures are played.

Forest Jile. Power to add energy to Naroom creatures that attacked this turn. Of course, that does require that the Naroom creatures survived attacking first.

I was told that the simulacrum was initially designed for a Forest Hyren deck. This didn't work for me. Although, I did manage to run a good Naroom deck around the other two Forest creatures. If I could pin down a mechanic that made the first two work so well together, perhaps I could enhance that.

There were several mechanics I was using in that deck to compliment the simulacrum. Most of them were centered around making the creatures work well together along with a selection of spells and relics.

The major themes of the deck were first draw and recycle, second adding energy through effects, and third was adding energy through powers.

Tiller was the source of card draw. He started with Vortex of Knowledge and the deck was stacked with eleven relics for his power. Knowing that Salafy could recycle creatures under the right conditions, he could even sacrifice creatures for more card draw. The idea was to setup Salafy. With the appropriate hand of creatures and sufficient resources in the discard pile, Salafy could run a solid theme of recycle allowing creatures to stack up in the hand over a period of turns. This is not a mechanic I would wish to strenthen with Forest Well.

Adding energy with effects was heavily used in that deck. Alpine Xamf, Robe of Vines, Forest Wudge, and even the Furok providing energy to the magi through effects. It was a deck that should have felt little or no effect should the powers cost more, frozen or otherwise. This was the heart of the deck.

On the side was plenty of nice combos for adding energy using spells. I think the only powers that added any energy to the field was the Forest Jile and Evu's Bookworm. Although, the relic was used mostly to create a creature for Bythan's Gift. Sort of like using Warrior's Boots to place out something cheap without having to actually use Warrior's Boots.

Naroom already has a lot to compliment powers that add energy. I've already even suggested a few cards for this expansion that should add to just such a theme. It is already strong and should be getting stronger. I don't think I want to go this way with Forest Well.

The two ideas I have right now to add to a Forest theme is adding energy via an effect or giving Forest creatures an energize rate while Forest Well is in play.

Forest Well (possibility #1 via effect)
<2>
Effect – Fetch a Pail of Water: At the end of your turn, choose a Forest creature in play and add three energy to the chosen creature.
“I think I've been away from Naroom long enough.” - Tryn

Explanation: This borrows from Orwin's Ring and can stack with it. Not a new mechanic for Naroom but could work with a deck built on Forest creatures.

Forest Well (possibility #2 via effect)
<2>
Effect – Fetch a Pail of Water: Add three energy to the first Forest creature you play each turn.
“I think I've been away from Naroom long enough.” - Tryn

Explanation: To make it worth playing out for that first creature, it has to add more than the relic costs. Over several turns, it could be a bit strong.

Forest Well (possibility #3 via energize)
<2>
Effect – Fetch a Pail of Water: All Forest creatures in play gain Energize: (2).
“I think I've been away from Naroom long enough.” - Tryn

Explanation: While this has nothing to do with Forest creatures as they are, it would create an environment where Flood of Energy may be more useful. Warrada Simulacrum even has a nice energize of six that could prove complimentary to a Flood of Energy deck too.
I will probably ponder this for a little bit yet.

As for the spell Summon, Novelty suggested that the spell be on the power level of Hyren's Call since it costs the same. If it did something new that broke Naroom's standard mold, that could be a very good thing.

While I was writing my initial response to Novelty, this little idea just popped into my head. Ah, the glory of interaction! It can accelerate creativity. Not sure this little gem will be appropriate though.

Summon
{6}
Choose an opposing player. That player reveals their hand to you. Choose a creature from their hand and play it with its starting energy under your control ignoring regional restrictions. The chosen creature becomes a Naroom creature. Play Summon only after the attack step.
“The dream that blooms in adversity is the most beautiful of all.”

Explanation: To do something different with Naroom, looking at the opponent's hand is definitely uncommon. Or, so I believe. While Naroom has a little hand protection in the Gilded Cage, it doesn't have anything to actually reveal another player's hand. This is probably a bit radical for Naroom. It wouldn't allow Naroom to steal a Cawh, but it swipe a Mist Hyren, a Tunnel Hyren, an Ormagon, or even a Dark Breed Hyren. As worded, it can also be a big gamble. Creatureless decks would not have anything there to summon this way. A bit divergent from my idea on waging war against creatureless via speed. Then again, Naroom already has a bunch of that with two different Wasperines, the Elder's Legacy relic, and borrowing from Universal with Warrior's Boots.

Well, I will think on these ideas a bit more. Perhaps after a week of work, I might be able to come up with something more. As for anyone reading this, remember that this is just me brainstorming things out a bit where it can be openly seen. Actual negotiations are between Novelty and myself, and I am not even sure these are even to my own liking quite yet.

Unpacking and Packing

2005-12-27T11:17:00.000-06:00

My wife and I are almost unpacked in our new apartment. So, to our surprise, we were called Thursday about four o'clock and told that Philips Medical is restructuring their third-party work. My employer is one of those....

On the positive side, I will still have a job. They've suggested a pay raise and possible team leader position. This is all good. For only having been with Customer Service Associates (CSA) for three months, and what seemed like not much contact with my own company, I was pleased to hear that they want to keep me around and even are willing to challenge me with a new position.

On the other hand, CSA is going to have to pull out of this region. I had my choice of going West or East in the United States, or taking my chances and hoping that the company that won the bid to service this area would hire me.

As mentioned previously, I have only been with the company three months. I don't have the normal bio-medical or electronics background of many employees for CSA. While it might be possible to stay and get a job with the new company, I don't think I could survive a paycut or even be eligible for a team leader position right at the start.

Being somewhat religious, I asked my manager if I could have a little time to think about it and discuss it with my wife. He already knew a bit about my beliefs, so he agreed. The next day, after having discussed and prayed about it, I called him back to let him know that I would prefer to go East and Raleigh, North Carolina would be great if possible. We let him know we had looked online a little to get a feel for the cost of apartments comparable to what we currently are in as well.

My company has a floating holiday each year that they keep available to smooth out the year. Since there wasn't any need for it earlier, they added it to Christmas, and I actually have this Tuesday off as well. So, tomorrow, I will need to get back with my manager and see if they've gotten a time schedule of when they need me to move. I gather it will probably be quick, maybe January or February. Not much time to get packed back up, this time with a little baby too. Oh, what fun!

Custom Calendars

2005-12-21T10:35:00.000-06:00

Last year for Christmas, my wife made these neat and craftsy plates with pictures glued to them for our parents. This year, I wanted to do something I believed I could. So, using a bunch of pictures we have on our computer, we've made a calendar for 2006. We had to buy a basic one for ourselves since I am not the greatest at knowing when the holidays are.

In my personal planner, we had almost all the birthdays and anniversaries recorded. Annette looked it over and added a few missing bits of information so we could customize the calendar nicely. Unfortunately, we also learned the hard way that this can also eat up the color ink quite thoroughly.

We did a pair for her parents, and we'll pick some other pictures and do the same for my parents. Some pictures will work well for either family, of course, such as the one above we chose for the cover. Since we don't have any pictures of future events yet, we are using what we have from since our marriage.

For November, there was a picture of Annette and Dillon from the hospital that I thought just had to be there to mark his birthday. My frustration came in printing the picture. While I had used some white boxes in Illustrator to cover part of the top and bottom of the picture, the printed picture had some smaller white boxes in the middle of the picture. This was frustrating. I tried printing it again, but the same boxes appeared. They weren't in the art file, and since the next picture printed without flaw, I am not sure where they came from. If the printer ink was out, or low, there should've been signs of it (perhaps rough edges on the boxes instead of the sharp edges they actually had). In the end, I kept the flawed printings. How could I put all these custom pictures in the calendar and not have that one from the hospital?

First Child

2005-11-26T08:07:00.000-06:00

I am pleased to announce that on November 18, 2005 at 7:28 PM Central Time (United States) that my wife and I became parents of our first child, Dillon Archibald Burke. He weighed in at 7 lbs 8 oz with a length of 20 inches. My wife and I have already started another blog for family specific stuff. This picture is from the following Tuesday, when we finally went home with our new little boy.

To make it easier to for us to post pictures in our blogs, I downloaded Picasa using my brother’s computer. He has a high speed internet connection. We burned the file onto a CD and then I installed it here once I got home. We also burned a copy of OpenOffice while I was at it, since my wife wants a more current word processor and we don’t have the budget to go out and buy a new program at this time.

Well, this new dad is going to take a moment to write something for the joint blog with his wife. I’ll probably post this first, though. Sort of see how long it takes to upload a picture using a dial-up connection and Picasa.

Oh, one last tidbit.... My wife and I had a quiet little Thanksgiving together. We had been invited to go about a three hour drive North of here for Thanksgiving with some of my aunts and uncles. Having just recently returned from the Hospital, we both just wanted to take things easy. We went with a ham dinner and I prepared both our private Thanksgiving feast and a pancake breakfast for my wife Thanksgiving day.

DnA Family Files

2005-11-02T20:47:00.000-06:00

My wife has been wanting to sign up for our own website. One such site was something reasonable in price but didn't offer much space. The idea was to have a place to put up pictures and video on the internet.

As I listened to her a bit more, she mentioned wanting to add to the website on a regular basis. This sounded more permanent to me, and almost like a blog. So, we signed her up with an account and started the DnA Family Files. The link has been added to this blog already.

Although we are giving up the stuff with videos on the internet, this is more like a journal where you can write about significant events or other such stuff. It is still online where family and friends can read it. Plus, you can add pictures in.

This will allow to make available online pictures of our little boy, once he actually comes. So far, it looks like "Netty" will make it the full term before giving birth. Right now, we could end up going to the hospital almost any time. Just because she wasn't dilated at all at her doctor's visit the beginning of this week doesn't really mean much. We probably will be waiting a bit longer. Although this is not necessarily what my wife wants to hear. She's getting a little tired of carrying the extra weight in her belly. It's making her life a little difficult. This doesn't stop her from wanting to be a mother. It just means she would like the baby to rush his schedule a little.

As for the picture, I thought I would try and upload a picture. Since this computer isn't our own computer, it doesn't have the convenient slot where I could insert the camera's memory card and use a picture I might have had in mind.

This picture was taken back at the opening of Episode III, if I recall correctly. One of the individuals is my sister, Jennifer. I am not sure who the other is. If I still have that email around I might be able to look that up. Anyways, the full-size cutout in the background fits in well. My sisters Annette and Shawnda decided that the picture just wasn't quite complete. Not too long ago, they modified the picture and emailed it out to the family. If you could get your hands on a real and working lightsaber, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Jennifer would try to get her hands on one.

As for Magi-Nation related stuff, I am looking forward to the November tournament. I will have to create a deck for it. I don't usually use a deck with five Core cards splashed in. Usually, I might use three copies of just one. Fortunately, this shouldn't be a big stretch for me since means I can get away with just two different cards as long as it totals five of my forty card deck. The real hard part of this tournament is that I must use the same region for the entire tournament. So far, I have some ideas for Arderial, Bograth, Cald, d'Resh, Naroom, Orothe, Underneath, and Weave. All three magi have to be from the same region, so I think that sort of tosses out Arderial-Orothe. Currently, I am leaning towards Naroom or d'Resh. It's hard to decide and I might end up drafting a deck for each of the listed regions.

A Little East of Minnesota

2005-10-11T17:51:00.000-05:00

So far the move has gone smoothly, just different than planned.

The day before I was to leave my wife behind for a couple weeks, she stopped by where I was working and told me that the midwife was okay with her moving if she moved now. If she waited two weeks, then the midwife would not grant leave for my wife to travel. As my wife told me this, I asked what she wanted to do. It took a little careful probing with my questions. Once I found a direction that she tipped, I pushed that way. We didn't have time to deliberate. So, now I sit here in Wisconsin, one state over but within a half hour drive to my assigned office, with my wife and two suitcases of our clothing plus a little extra.

On the way out, my wife and I stayed just ahead of a storm front. It started on top of us, but we managed to slowly gain a lead on it until it was a constant view in the rearview mirror. I suppose we could've put a bigger lead on the storm if we didn't stop every two hours to make my wife get up out of the car and use the bathroom. With her well-being in the balance, I didn't want to do anything that would endanger the pregnancy. So, after a good night in a hotel, we could see the trailing clouds of the storm overhead and covering the entire horizon in front of us on the second day.

Where I had originally planned to go back and get my wife and our stuff on the fifteenth of October, I will only be going back to get our stuff. I wasn't going to stress with just half a day of notice to try and get some people together and somehow transport my wife in an uncomfortable truck for two long days of travel. My original plan had been to take four days to get my wife from Utah to Minnesota and only do the more intense two day drive by myself to get there on time for my orientation. Now I won't have to make such a leisurely trip back with the rental truck. Another two day trip, and then our stuff will be nearby in storage until we can find a place and move in to it.

Right now our big stress is finding a place to stay. So much of what we are looking at with a baby just around the corner is out of the range of what we want to pay in rent. I have my fingers crossed, though. We just looked up some listings online that might be almost perfect. Budget that I can handle. Washer and dryer facilities that my wife wants. And, surprisingly, even closer to the office than my brother's house. It almost sounds too good to be true after all the listings we've been looking at. The catch so far? It isn't next to the freeway. That's probably why the cheaper rate and yet still lists all the extras we want. We'll have to go check it out to be sure. There might be something else that might make it less appealing. Don't know what yet.... From looking up driving directions online with Yahoo, I certainly don't think it will be a problem to get to the office. Now, if all my work was actually at that office... which it won't be.

Speaking of the new job, so far I have been spending a lot of time reading as a part of self-paced training. The document I have found extremely tedious so far is over six hundred pages of material designed for a class presentation. Slides, diagrams, and bulleted notes. The real give away is the reference to lab work. This was a bit frustrating since the notes didn't always provide actual references to specific acronyms when it would've been most helpful. It seemed like I would read twenty or more pages before I would run into another presentation that related to that specific acronym and it would actually be written out for reference.

I did get to do some "real" work already. It wasn't the normal. I gather what I did was normally done by the hospital staff, specifically the bio-meds. However, I guess the sales rep was feeling generous having sold over a hundred defibrilators. We put them together, did an operations check, transfered the configuration to all the units, and performed a safety test. If we had done the job a bit faster I might've gotten in some actual training on taking apart and fixing the machine since the trainer was among those of us putting the units together. However, we took too long and my flight back to Minneapolis from Detroit kept from me hanging out any longer if I wanted to get back here to my wife.

I am grateful that my brother and his wife have been generous enough to let my wife and I stay here for the moment.

Well, time for me to get back to work. Um, training. The sooner I get this done, the more I might be ready to really learn something on the job. And, the more I can do, the more work I can get. Who knows, I might find myself putting together another large order of defibs. I hope not. I really didn't mind. It's just not exactly what I really want to pursue within this career path.

Going North and East

2005-09-13T22:59:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't posted very frequently in this personal blog. I keep thinking that someday I will make a habit of it. So far, it hasn't happened. With current plans in my life changing at the moment, it doesn't look like it will happen yet. In fact, a bunch of plans will probably be put on hold. For how long, I don't know.

Among the things I will be putting on hold will be playing regular games of Magi-Nation on gatlingEngine. Playing quite a number of games lately has been a lot of fun. I had just finished doing a bit of reorganizing of my decks so I could quickly and easily choose a deck to play with according to region, restricted or open, contrusted of commons, and of course my groupings of decks made with the custom expansions. That last group was already easily sorted from the rest of my decks because I put TG or EL in front of the deck name or region.

I still hope to find some time to write the two articles I had in mind. That might be all I do as for Magi-Nation over the next bit.

So, why the sudden change in plan and scheduling? Simple. New job. Another state.

I applied for a job with Customer Service Associates (CSA) for a position with some technical name that almost sounds like I would work at a hospital. In reality, I will installing equipment in hospitals in conjunction with a team of people from Phillips. My brother works for Phillips doing these installations and is how I heard of the job opening. While I am a bit underqualified, somehow I managed to impress them with my resume and just two phone interviews. So, despite their reservations about having brothers work together like this, they've notified me that the job begins practically as soon as I can get out there. I asked for two weeks and two days. This allows me to give my current job two weeks of notice, which I did today as well, and two extra days to get from Utah to Minnesota.

From the sounds of things, the employee that CSA had brought in a few months ago for this position got homesick and was reassigned to the west coast where they were from. This left the people in Phillips a bit frustrated and they wanted the next applicant for the CSA position to be a local. My brother informed me of the job and passed on to his managers that although I am living in Utah currently, I am from Minnesota and have fair amount of family in that area. To be honest, I was hoping to eventually work my way there.

My original gameplan was to work at this job for a year or more and then start applying for comparable jobs within the larger group of companies owned by Larry H. Miller (own's the dealership I work at and several across Utah, Idaho, and Arizona at least). Ideally, I would've been looking for a job outside Utah to begin with. Although the Larry H. Miller group of companies doesn't stretch as far as Minnesota, I figured that getting out of Utah would look good on a resume when I started trying to make the stretch out there and send companies out that way an application or two. This willingness to move could also look good within this group of companies, so it could've had extra benefits.

When I applied, I actually didn't know that they would offer me a starting wage double what I currently make. This will help. A lot. However, I will travel a lot and be away from home much of the time as well. This will be hard on my wife, and will probably be hard on me as I will miss many events in the early years of my child's life. And, unless I can manage get out of this position at the bottom of the totem pole, I will miss much of my child's life altogether. Granted, getting out of the bottom position with a company doesn't always earn you more free time.... Sometimes it only adds more time to your work load. On the positive side, getting double my current wages and probably even more overtime hours with time and half pay will probably go a long way to paying off the debts that hang over the heads of my wife and myself. We have been trying to take an aggressive approach to our debts because we believe we can live a better life if we just don't owe anyone any money. Granted, it's the student loans from my wife's education that scare me the most. I am hoping that this job will help me get some certification that will not only apply to the job but also beyond it so that I can get something better in education without racking up more debts that we cannot afford, especially expecting our first child shortly.

Thinking of our first child, there are two major things about the timing of getting the job.

First, our one year contract for this apartment ends in October. The timing couldn't be better.

Second, our child is due early November. This makes things tough. How soon will the new job have insurance coverage for my family? Currently, our insurance is through my wife's employer. If we have to wait for coverage, she may have to keep her job and remain with family here until after the birth. If we don't have to wait, how soon before the baby is due can she move out to Minnesota? Will the doctor even approve of her taking such a trip? If not approved, what sort of coverage would there be for her out here? Much of this also effects whether or not I have the opportunity to be there for the birth of the baby. My wife and I have very little, if any, money to spare right now. We cannot afford to fly me home at the last minute in hopes of being there for the birth, or even shortly after. If I have to miss the birth of my first child, all we can afford is to have me fly home at some preset time, probably three weeks after the due date, and hope that I can drive mother and child to Minnesota at that time. Of course, doctor approval will still be a concern.... So, on this second issue, the timing is far from ideal. I'll have to ask some questions and my wife and I will make plans from there.

Among things being impacted, I will be spending much of the next two weeks packing. I do not know when I might find time to play Magi-Nation online again. I don't even know when I will find time to post another blog. I can only hope I find some time to at least post one blog after I make the initial move.

The only reason I am posting a blog tonight is because it seemed like the thing to do and the only time I might get to do this before I move. So, it is entirely possible that the next time I post anything here I will have moved back to the land of the frozen and the insane. Ah, the place where I belong....

Gaming and Writing

2005-08-20T23:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, my wife and I played a game of Magic the Gathering. It was her first time and I was trying to teach her a little how to play. It was amusing to note that although it has been some time since I taught her and we last played Magi-Nation, a lot of questions she was asking had definite origins in the other game. For example, when I played a powerful creature, she asked if she should then attack that creature. I had to remind her that in Magic she could declare a general attack and then I would declare blocking. This prevented her from specifically attacking a creature like can be done in Magi-Nation.

In contrast, today, we played Magi-Nation. Although it has probably been almost a year since we played together last, she showed vast improvements despite the lag in time over the previous games. For a start, she actually began to remember her effects, such as the Robe of Vines and Alpine Xamf. She actually got the two extra energy for Pruitt’s use of her robe without prompting, I just missed that because I was off getting my dinner or some other such thing. While the actual strategy may be more a matter of practice and familiarity, I was very pleased to see these small improvements. I can only hope that sometime in the future she has some more confidence and just might be willing to play games with others as well instead of in private with her husband like this.

Well, part of the reason I am writing a blog tonight is because I have an idea for an article that I might write and I wanted to make a record of the idea. While I could just write this down in WordPerfect and not post a blog, I figured I could post it up in my blog. This might just create a little more personal responsibility to actually write the article out completely since I have no idea who might just happen to the read the blog.

Really, I have two ideas. The first idea is one that has been floating in my head from a little while ago. I had almost forgotten about it until I was writing this blog. As such, I think this shows a bit of how important it can be to write things done and set deadlines, or goals, to accomplish them.

Recently, I read a book or two on success. One that stood out to me was a book by Napoleon Hill with references to a master mind. This isn’t the sort of master mind I would’ve originally thought of before this. Originally, I would’ve thought of brilliant individuals when in actuality the master mind the author taught me about is the result of a collection of people working together towards a common end. What struck me is how he expressed the impact this can have on individuals creativity. So, I thought the closest example from my own life I could think of a master mind in this sense of master mind was the Magi-Nation community. I thought I could compose an article that presented this form of master mind and then game examples on three or so different levels of how we can begin to experience a master mind. The first level would be the community effort to help new players and how this can help them excel faster than on their own. This could cover from playing against good players and observing them to such things as deck doctors and trading cards. The second level would be the online community, articles to browse and learn from, and decks that have been posted. While the first level is great, the online community taps into a much larger pool, allowing us to gain from knowledge and experience outside our local network of players. The third level would be an actual deck design that I know of that resulted from the interaction from two players. While I might not know how many other decks have their origins in this manner, I do know that Ryan Reymont and I created a Sands of d’Resh deck that has performed quite well for us. So much so that even though we never got together and built any other decks, we’ve both treated the deck like I once heard suggested for the Makoor Bomb decks. Use sparingly. What interested me was that it got such a poor review when I posted the deck on DeckTech. It helped me realize that one of us sees as a great deck, the rest of the community sees as flawed. This wouldn’t invalidate the second level, but might be a great way to show the potential of the third level to exceed it, keeping in mind that both individuals involved in this had some sort of connection to the first two levels as well. I think if I worded it right, this could be a great article to suggest that others offer more feedback to the online community whether through writing articles, reviewing decks submitted by others, or presenting their own decks ideas.

The idea that occurred to me today was for an article relating a few of the things I could hope to teach my children through playing a collectible card game like Magi-Nation. This might be fleshed out a bit more with further brainstorming, but for now I can think of at least a couple things. Math. Some other games have math too, but I really like Magi-Nation for addition and subtraction. The fact that the creatures retain the appropriate damage and so forth should help a bit, I hope. Also, my wife seems to feel that it would be great if our children learned some strategy. While I might disagree with her on her own strength in using strategies as I think she shows skill with the games she’s much more familiar with, I do agree that I would like our children to be able to create plans and execute them. Playing games might help them do so because the activity can achieve a reward and conclusion in a relatively short amount of time. Other games might be faster than Magi-Nation, but I really like the available depth to the game with a relatively simple game on the surface. Since I also want my children to learn that its acceptable and desirable that they develop and use their imaginations, it couldn’t hurt that the game their dad loves to play is named in such a way to be a wordplay on just that.

Now, I realize that it’s entirely possible that none of our children will love playing games like this. That is their right and privilege. I don’t have to restrict myself on writing articles because of a whole lot of unknowns. If I want to be the father I hope to be, then I need to practice what I want to share with my children and step out and take some risks of my own, even simple little ones like writing a couple articles in relation to a collectible card game I enjoy while it is in a state of limbo as Magi-Nation is currently.

Fixing Cars

2005-07-30T16:45:00.000-05:00

Today, one of the salesmen from Ace Hardware fixed the ignition switch in my car. I suppose I could have done it myself, except I didn't know what size bolt I needed. After showing the salesman my car with the missing bolts, he grabbed a couple boxes of bolts off their shelf and a screwdriver. With some trial and error, he was able to reattach the ignition switch to the steering column. What a relief! No more using the annoying screwdriver.

You might be wondering what in the world I was just writing about. Perhaps I should provide a beginning to this little story.

About a month ago or so now, someone stole my car. It's a little 1994 Honda Civic. Having never had this experience before, I had remained oblivious to the fact that my car falls into a group of very desirable targets for theives. At the parts warehouse I work at, my co-workers were guessing that my car had gone to a chop-shop and was history. My father told me that it was popular for thieves to steal my type of car because it was easily modified. All around, I was prepared to never see my car again.

The police actually found my car the same week. It was about a mile or two away in another apartment complex. The perpetrators had put on plates from another stolen Honda Civic on my car. My plates were handy and the police had restored the correct plates to the car by the time I got there. Of course, this was at 4:30 in the morning, so I was having a little trouble finding my way there in the dark and being sleepy. The police asked about the contents of the car. All my garbage was gone, as well as the stock stereo from the car. Instead, there was a three-piece stereo system powering several large speakers and a subwoofer in the trunk. I would've loved to keep all that stuff and sold it. The police took all that stuff with them, probably stolen from someone else. Too bad. I could've sold it, put a new stereo in where I now have a big hole, and used the difference to replace the missing cover for the steering column and the timing belt I had on the passenger seat that they threw out with all my garbage.

So, for the past few weeks, I have been using a screwdriver to start my car and turn it off. It is one of the things the police did leave in my car although it was not mine. It is how the thieves were using my car.

Part of the reason my make and model of car is so easy to steal is because the ignition switch sits opposite the lock cylinder in the steering column. Simply tear off the cover, which it is obvious they did since pieces of it remained behind with the bolts that held that on. Once the cover is off, the ignition switch can be removed by removing the two bolts that hold it to the steering column. Although the lock cylinder is attached with breakaway bolts, the ignition switch is not. Now, all you need is a screwdriver to turn the mechanism inside the ignition switch.

Too bad the perps cleaned out all the garbage. If they had left it there, then they probably would've left the bolts in the car too. The dealership was only too happy to sell me a whole assembly when all I needed was those two bolts.

While I have finally gotten tired of using a screwdriver to start my own car, I did have some fun a couple weeks ago and changed the brake pads in my wife's car. Even after breaking one of the bolts, getting a book on brakes, and so forth, it still cost us less than taking it in to a shop to do. A lot easier than I thought it would be, once I turned the bolts the correct direction for removal.

As for the timing belt on my car, I will buy a new one this Monday and will let my wife's grandfather do the job for us. I would like to take Wednesday off and work with him on that, but I think I need to save my one or two days of vacation left for something else that might be coming up soon. And, I was so looking forward to tinkering with my car....

Cursed car thieves. If only they could've left the bolts and the timing belt. Then again, they had the necessary philips screwdriver in the car (in addition to the flathead one to start the car) so they could've unfastened the cover for the steering column and everything could've been real neat and easy to put back together. Then again, thieves aren't considering these sorts of things. It's not the point of stealing stuff....

What surprised myself and others more is that I wasn't really angry about it. The most frustrating part was the idea that I wouldn't have the chance anymore to realize one of my dreams. I want to take my car apart someday. Now that I have it back, I will fix it up some. I am not ready to do it yet. But someday. Maybe someday. I will take that car apart. Completely. After that, if someone really wants the parts, or the car, they can have it. Until then, I would like to use the car some more.

Practicing Card Creation

2005-07-10T22:21:00.000-05:00

Really, I don't know what the design of Magi-Nation cards has to do with dreams for the future and making them reality. It seems like I just can't get it right. So, why do it? My friends created custom cards for the DBZ CCG and I never really took part. I offered positive feedback, maybe even made some suggestions. I never took a real interest in designing any fan cards of my own.

In the case of Magi-Nation, Novelty has been running a few card design contests. I made a few entries for a few of a special set called Keeper's Quest. I even contributed some ideas with a section for fan cards. Now, there is another fan set being created called Double Jeopardy with a contest that we can enter some ideas in the hopes of winning some tokens for play on gatlingEngine, and the possibility that some variant of our idea might become the card text should they be imported into the online engine.

This started my mind cranking again. This time, I felt a slightly different need to submit some entries. It wasn't just some fancy notion that perhaps I could design a card. Rather, it was the notion that I need to exercise my imagination. The more I use it to design fictional cards for the game I enjoy, the more my imagination just might learn to think creatively using the knowledge stored in my brain and stimuli from around me. While this might possibily help me design a card that is desirable and acceptable for such a competition, it just might have practical application in my normal life as I seek to find ways to deal with the problems life will toss at me.

I can't help but think of a LiveJournal I just browsed a little of. The individual mentions that they've been writing various short stories and submitting them places. It seems that they are gathering a vast collection of rejection letters. From reading some books of late, I have come to realize that their efforts may be doing far more than just getting them rejection letters. This process can strength their skills and train their imagination. The more they learn to control and actively use their imagination, the better off they can be and the better their odds for success.

Now, I just wish I knew where Novelty wanted the regions to go and develop. I sat at work the other day and made quick notes whenever business was slow. With a collection of ideas brainstormed out, I could conceivably try to design text for an Arderial-Orothe magi. Still, I don't know what direction Novelty is looking for either of those regions to go in the collection of fan sets. As it is, I probably just design a couple ideas from the small list of ideas and just hope that it can stir things up a bit. Maybe it could lead to some more entries by other people and create a small "master mind" in the effort to create some more card ideas.

A Quickie?

2005-07-07T00:12:00.000-05:00

I seem to have a little problem when I write. I don't stop easily. This is sometimes a problem, especially since I don't type that fast. Good enough for my purposes, but not fast.

Tonight, I got in my first game of Magi-Nation on the gatlingEngine for the past few months. It has been a long time. The other two players in three-way free-for-all were malovis and ultradoug. Afterwards, I looked at the MND on gEngine blog before posting there myself. Novelty mentioned that activity is down and that neither of the other two participants in that blog have been very active. I felt sort of, um, sad to read that. I am one of those two other's being mentioned.

Hopefully, I will get in some more games of Magi-Nation. I am hoping to get in four or so a month if I can. My new work schedule gives plenty of overtime pay, but that does cut quite a bit into what free time I had once enjoyed. Then there was the issue of downloading gEngine. I have my fingers crossed that it will start doing the update downloads in the near future. It should, but it hasn't for me. Someone mentioned that it could be something to do with the browser.... While I am not a fan of Microsoft, I am not sure why it wouldn't work with theirs. Oh well. First, pay off debts, and then I can dream dreams of a real gaming computer with fast internet connection. Until then, I can be grateful that my wife's computer has Windows XP and I am even able to play on gatlingEngine.

If I stay up this late into the night tomorrow, I think it ought to be doing something such as preparing and printing more of my own custom planner pages. I have enjoyed it thus far. The actual weekly pages are a bit of a breeze now that the file has been created for that. Simply copy the file and adjust the month and dates on the pages. Since I've been using one column next to Sunday's date for whatever I chose to write there, that's the only part that really takes any major sort of work there. Reading books to learn a bit of how I might become more successful as an individual has helped there, whether recording notes there for later review or writing out personal goals and plans to help motivate myself to do them. Still, I really ought to do something about a monthly calendar. I guess I am just a bit afraid of getting started on that. Once it's done, it should be easy to make more. It's just the initial setup of the pages that scares me, such as leaving some extra space for the paper to be punched with the seven holes in the center of the page so that it will fit into my planner which takes 5 1/2 by 4 1/4 inch pages (half sheet of letter size paper).

Been Too Long

2005-06-21T07:29:00.000-05:00

I am not even sure I really want to think of how long since I have last posted any sort of blog. I suppose I really should think at this point of the journal I have neglected far more than this.

What have I been up to lately?

Reading books, both fiction and non-fiction. The fiction books are ones I already have in my collection. I've been rereading books such as the Sword of Truth series. As for the non-fiction, these are a bunch of books intended to help motivate people such as myself to define and achieve personal success, books recommended by a millionaire.

Also, my wife and I are looking at beginning a natural childbirth class at the end of July. The class lasts about twelve weeks and covers a lot more than just breathing techniques. I suppose the basic sort of class that most take would be a lot cheaper, but it is my hope that we might have better odds of a more pleasant experience at the hospital come November if we went ahead and got a better education now. So far, we've read half of a book together on natural childbirth while my wife occasionally tells me about some of the facts she's read about it online.

I have also been using Adobe Illustrator a little more this year. The copy I have is an older version, but that doesn't mean that it can't do the job. For Mother's Day, I asked my wife to draw some of the flowers I've seen her doodle in church. Those were scanned in and I used the pen tool to create the shapes in Illustrator. Using the gradient tool to fill in the shapes and adding some text, we made our first personalized cards. We did something very similar for Father's Day. In the future, when we have children old enough to create their own doodles, we will probably use our childrens' drawings as the basis for the cards we create.

As for my playing Magi-Nation on gEngine, I have been spending my time on other things lately. I would like to play a few games again, but I seem to be having problems with gEngine updating itself. So far, it looks like I might have to reload the entire engine every time they do an update. When I log in with gEngine at those times, it says that there is an update and is closing to automatically download it. However, my internet connection promptly becomes inactive and I've had to go to their website and try and do a download there. They used to include a patch for the updates that you could download from there, but I have only seen the complete engine listed there lately. When I am up to it again, I will re-download gEngine. Knowing my luck, they'll create a new update a few days later and I will once again be dreading downloading the whole engine.

Well, time for me to get ready for work. Hopefully, I will blog here a little often than I've done of late.

Past, Present, and Future

2005-03-27T14:38:00.000-06:00

I sit here at my computer wondering what to write in my blog. It has been a little while since I last wrote here. During that time, I have been to my grandfather's funeral. Played five of eight games for a Magi-Nation tournament for March. And, on Monday, I will start a new job.
This seems like a good time to look at some of my past, present, and future.

Past.

Finished about three years of college. Introduced to card games and with that Magi-Nation. Almost eight years working at a gas station. Yes, a gas station. I really enjoyed meeting the people that would come through the place. I also learned a lot about myself. I learned that perhaps I might really like to get into management. I also learned that my view on management may not be the norm. I have long felt like an outsider on not just that, but many aspects of my life. I studied programming for a couple years, and I didn't feel like I belonged there. I studied graphic design for another couple years, and I found that my view on art and design didn't fit in nicely. I even tried to learn to draw like I was told to. I could not. It would take being late on an assignment for another professor at another college to begin to fix my problem. And, the answer wasn't to learn to fit in. He actually told me that a few pieces I had put together on very limited time such that I actually resorted to my old and forgotten style were better than the stuff I had been doing for the past six weeks in his class. Too bad that shortly after that I actually flunked out of college. Not the best part of my past. I would get the first hint that my grandfather was right about me. He told me that I had much of the same potential and possibility of my own father. Something I had long been avoiding. I had seen what my father had gone through as an executive building a company up into something bigger. I knew that though many of us might complain about the higher wages paid to management, there are those that very well deserve that pay. What they do may not seem like much work, but it really can be tough on them and is often things that not many really can do. I had great respect for my father. It was sort of a testament to his abilities that when he and his brother sold the company, it took about three people to replace my dad. And, yes, the buyer did try to make a real sweet deal to keep my dad on the team. For his own health, my dad had to quit. My grandfather once told me that my dad was the key to the success my uncle and my dad had achieved building that business up to that point.

Present.

After beginning to believe that I would never get married, I finally met Annette Dillon who is now Annette Rokochan Burke. With the marriage, we went through the process of adding a middle name that had been her unofficial middle name for some time. Both my grandfather's have now passed away. I am expecting to be a father some time around the beginning of November. Annette and I are also starting our own part-time business. Tomorrow, this Monday, I will transfer from the gas station to the parts warehouse for an affiliated dealership. This has the advantage of allowing me to keep my benefits and much of my accrued time with the Larry H. Miller Group. He only built and owned the one gas station and after almost eight years of being in service, it was quite apparent that there was no plans to expand upon it. As for Magi-Nation, it looks so far like this month will end like last month–3 games short of qualifying.

Future.

Annette and I hope to eventually build the part-time business into something that will take me away from the regular work force. This will give me time to pursue some of my dreams. Among those would be actually retiring my current car and taking it apart. Yes, I would love to take apart a car. I have no desire or dream of becoming a mechanic. No matter what my mechanical skills may be, I just want to take something as complex as a car apart without worrying about putting it back together. I will definitely want any future vehicle of my own to be a manual transmission as much as it may be feasible. I also want to learn to play Go. The basic rules and game play is one thing. It takes a lifetime to master the game, so I don’t expect to master the game quite. Still, it would be nice to be something better than a novice player. Other goals would be to be debt-free, spend some time to writing short stories, and maybe a novel too. I would also love to create a few companies of my own to see if I can achieve a few of my other dreams. First, I see in the near future a real need to spend some serious time building that part-time business with my wife. Oh yes, there will be children in my future too. That’s another reason for building this part-time business. It has the definite potential to improve our finances substantially to the point that I could have some time with my wife and children. She didn’t marry me for a paycheck. I think we got married so we could have some time together. May the future be kind enough to us that we can achieve this dream and others. Would it surprise you if one of my dreams would be to finish college without going into debt or worrying about what job I’ll get with the degree? That would be a dream. I used to enjoy school. When I was young, I didn’t worry about what job I would get after school. It would really be nice to experience that again. I really did like learning.

Not So Fun Travel

2005-03-15T23:34:00.000-06:00

I will be missing the first few days of the gEngine tournament this month to go to my grandfather's funeral. This is going to leave my wife and I next to broke. Not quite broke, but too close for comfort if you ask me. My father is tossing in a bunch of his frequent flyer miles to ease the financial burden. That's going to help. He'll take an equivalent out of my gifts from him for the next year for Christmas and birthday.

Oh, yeah. Today is my birthday. Making arrangements to attend a funeral is not what I had in mind for today. What a way to spend March 15th, 2005 as I turn 32 years of age. I don't feel that old though.

As for gifts, I got three books and one DVD from my wife. My parents sent a card I understand, but it didn't get here yet. I spent a bit of the afternoon with my wife watching "The Incredibles." I loved that movie. Although I never was a collector of any significant comics, I did enjoy a lot of the references to different superheroes. I think I got more of those little jokes than my wife did.

So, am I sad that my grandfather passed away? No. I guess I need to clarify that for any who might read this. That is not a statement of my relationship with my grandfather. It is a statement of my religious beliefs. I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in life after death. I believe that Christ rose again from the grave on the third day. While my grandfather and I were of different religions, he was Catholic, I knew him as a great and honest man. I believe that one of the best ways I can honor him is to go out and live up to my potential, which is something I have not been doing thus far. He saw greatness in me and once told me so. It is going to take a lot of work to get from where I am to where I know I could be, to become who my grandfather knew I can be. May he have peace in the world of spirits as we both await the resurrection made possible by the Son of God, even Jesus Christ the Lord.

I know I sort of waxed a bit religious there. If I am not careful, I could get carried away. Fortunately, I do not believe going out on some religious crusade will help carry the gospel I believe in to the world. I don't really understand why others feel this way. I do, however, understand that there are those out there that see killing others that are not of their faith as just and righteous. We see this with even today. I believe part of September 11th is attributed to this.

I guess I can thank God that grandpa Burke who passed away did not actually disown my father for joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He came close to it, I am told. Ironic that years later, my mother's family still tries to convince her that she joined some corrupt faith and my father's family came to realize and accept us as a people who still love and worship Jesus Christ. I loved Grandpa Burke. I do not mourn his loss. I am proud to have had him as my grandfather. I will not forget that grandpa took me to a country club for dinner to celebrate my call as a missionary for my church. I will not forget talking to him after my return as well. As the oldest grandchild on my dad's side, I will be honored to be a pallbearer.

I guess I will be feeling a little urgency to play Magi-Nation when I get back to make a solid effort at honoring the commitment I made to the tournament this month. On the plus side, two of the three books I got from my wife are about playing the game of Go. I will be studying that on the plane there and back most likely.

Creating Spells

2005-03-10T03:50:00.000-06:00

For the month of March, Novelty has posted a real puzzle of a contest. We are invited to come up with a universal spell for the game of Magi-Nation. The name is already given as Slumber. It must cost x energy. This might seem like an open door, and it is. However, the spell must be consistent with the game. It has been bothering me for a little while. The name implies rest or sleep. The cost creates the real problem.

To start with, I suppose I ought to consider some existing spells that cost x energy.

Thunderquake. Costs x and discards that x energy in any manner of your choosing from creatures in play up to a total of ten energy.

Syphon Vortex. This isn’t a straight cost of x energy, but it probably should be thrown into the basket for consideration. Spend x + 4 energy to discard x energy from a creature and add x energy back to your magi. In the end, the spell will only cost four energy, but you have to have the extra energy to do the damage in the first place.

Burrow. Protects a creature for x turns.

Unmake. Direct discard for a creature with x energy.

Sorreah’s Dream. Can copy a power on a card in play and so cost will vary accordingly.

Maelstrom. Discard x energy from all opposing magi.

Sandswirl. Attach to an opposing creature or magi for x turns to eliminate all powers/effects on that card while this spell is attached.

Looking at this list of cards might help me draft up something. I am allowed two entries for the contest, which must include flavor text. That part will be easier compared to coming up with the card ideas, I think.

Possible entry #1
Slumber
universal spell
cost: x
Attach Slumber to an opposing creature in play. For the next x turns, the chosen creature cannot attack. This creature removes one less energy from your creatures in attacks while Slumber is attached.
"Now is not a good time for a nap."
Zzzzz.
- Jaela to Tony Jones

That probably isn’t going to win the contest. I really don’t care about that. Some of the card ideas have been far in left field it seems. Perhaps this can bring them back around to something more consistent with what already exists in the game.

Possible entry #2
Slumber
universal spell
cost: x
Search your deck for a creature with a starting energy of x. Put that creature into play with x + 1 energy. That creature cannot attack or use any of its powers or effects until the beginning of your next turn.
"That’s a master dreamer. They’re so good that they’re fast asleep."
"It just sounds like snoring to me."
- Orlon and Mobis

That is probably the best I will come up with for now. I suppose I could try some more ideas, but I think I will stick with these two and post them to Novelty’s Custom Cards forum.

I know this isn’t much of a blog. I figured that I would never solve the problem of what I might submit as card ideas if I didn’t write it out. By starting with existing cards that cost x energy, it helped me come up with these two ideas. For the first, I knew that cards like Burrow and Crystalize existed. By mixing it with a little of Sandswirl, I came up with the idea of sort of Crystalizing an opposing creature for x turns to reflect the slumber theme. The second idea is more of an adaptation of Nocturne and O’qua’s power. You could also compare it to Hyren’s Call and Trulb. Except instead of searching for a hyren and sticking it into play with its starting energy for a simple cost of six or seven energy, this spell was modified from that to have it cost x energy equal to the starting energy of the creature. By making it so you couldn’t use the powers or effects of that creature this turn, my hope was to prevent someone from easily using this spell to meta-game. For example, a Pylofuf summoned by this would not be burrowed until the beginning of your next turn. Allowing the creature to attack that turn just didn’t seem consistent with the name of the spell either.

Motivating Weekend

2005-03-06T11:04:00.000-06:00

This weekend was great! It was great listening to motivational speakers. I’ve heard some of it before. Sometimes, some people can deliver the same material with just more enthusiasm and energy, getting you caught up in all of it.

While they were talking about building our businesses, it was interesting how I related to some of their statements. For a comparison, in Magi-Nation, I’ve always respected the players who stuck things out and continued to play the game despite frequently losing. I had a special love and respect for them. I believe they could be great players of the game. Even I was once someone who lost frequently, and I still lose from time to time. What marks the difference is often whether we get over it and continue forward. In the recent tournament for February, I have Novelty to thank for my winning streak even if I failed to get the required seven games. Because I lost miserably to Novelty, I found a major weakness in my Naroom Simulacrum deck. I know that at the end of the game, I didn’t play anything more out. It might be somewhat sad that I did that, but I already knew by then where the deck needed its major repairs. I knew that the deck without fixing wouldn’t recover from where it was. Plus, I think there was only two creatures left in my hand at that point, and they weren’t even something that would even dent the opposition. I took my loss. I rebuilt the deck. I then won with the deck. I moved forward. That isn’t to say that I will forget the loss to Novelty. Rather, that loss, and others, have helped me learn what does and does not work for me. It makes me think of what one local said once. They said that didn’t like playing my new, test decks twice. The first time they stood a chance. I would go home and fix the problem now that I knew what it was and come back with a new and improved deck that would crush them in a game. Problem fixed. If I hadn’t played Novelty, would I have later played a game and wrote about defeating a Cawh in a single turn? I don’t think so. Cawh would have ruled the day.

It really builds you up to have people believe in you, to tell you that you can and will succeed. This is part of what they tried to do during the business meetings. They pulled people up on stage and showed us people much like us who had made changes in their lives to move onto better things and a better way of life. It was really cute to see a couple that was speaking to us actually pass each other a love letter. The wife snuck back out onto stage while her husband was speaking to give him the letter she had written back stage. He said he was tempted to read it, but he never did. I think that showed respect and love between them. It was cool.

They had fun. We had fun. They were excited. We were excited. Now, my wife and I need to take what we learned and build our business so that we can afford to keep going to motivational meetings like this to get our regular dose of encouragement and instruction. Maybe, just maybe, someday we can help others get motivated and succeed in life. Who knows, maybe someday, my wife and I can be like some of the older people they had speak as well. It was cool to see eighty-year-old folks up on stage with lots of energy and excitement. In another fifty years, it would be cool to be the old man on stage claiming he doesn’t fit in the retirement communities because he doesn’t think like them. He thinks much younger than they do. Not that he’s younger, but because they talk a lot about the past and he’s still thinking of the future. He’s excited about the future. That was cool. I can only hope that I can be even a little like that. Excited about the future in my old age, that’s a good goal.

Not Asleep

2005-03-03T00:08:00.000-06:00

I was supposed to be in bed asleep right now. After an hour or so of lying there in bed, I just opted to get up. It didn't help to have my mind racing along either.

One thought that popped into my head was a name for a character. I mentioned that I had an idea bouncing around in my head for a Magi-Nation fan fiction. Well, the name for the main character may well end up being Kahryll. He's supposed to be a Weave magi who admires Kesia and her mastery of energy weaving. Kahryll will have traveled beyond the Weave in his youth and actually has a Tillant as one of his creature rings. I am not sure of all the details I will use for his background stuff, but the actual story will be set with him as a young adult. That much I am sure of.

If I were to create a card for this magi without actually writing any of the story yet, it would something like this:

Kahryll
Weave Magi
Starting Energy: 13
Energize: 6
Starting Cards: Tillant, Vuryip, Kesia's Flute (the story would have him using his own recreation of her flute)
Effect - Energy Training: Your naroom creatures gain the effect - weave: whenever this creature is in an attack, you may move one energy to or from this creature and one of your other Naroom or Weave creatures in play.
Effect - Combat Training: Once per turn, when one of your Weave creatures attacks a creature, add one energy at the beginning of the attack. If your Weave creature is attacking a Core creature, add one additional energy.

I realize that this exercise is relatively futile. However, it does help me define the abilities of the character. By sculpting this out, I now know he has a Naroom creature and has some skill with them, but not necessarily a strong affinity for the region as a whole. I had always figured that he would be right out of one of my aggressive Weave decks. This is part of why I knew he would admire Kesia. Defensive she is impressive. Offensive she is very impressive. She can play Naroom creatures, just not Naroom spells. I want him to be different though. An admirer, yes. His own person, both in character and abilities.

And, yes, a somewhat complete outline of the story is bouncing around in my head. I am not giving that away here. First, I write the story. Submit it. Then, maybe after it's all done, I will submit the overview here so that people might see how the story changed from what I first envisioned to whatever it might become. Yet, even before all this conjecture is worth anything, I must write it. That hasn't been done yet. And, I don't anticipate any time to do that this weekend. It will be a busy weekend for me with little to no time for Magi-Nation. Oh, what was I thinking when I signed up for a weekend of business meetings?

The First Step

2005-03-01T23:56:00.000-06:00

This is like the first step of a whole new adventure for me. I have never done a blog before. This is quite a change from what I thought I would be doing by now.

Some time ago, I started playing a game called Magi-Nation (MND). Love the game. As I started to develop a passion for the game, I began to read some of the various forums I could find. Over time, I settled on InsIIder and DeckTech. I would faithfully read these two websites for articles, decks, and other news.

It was actually some time before I would begin participating in either website. Some one, I forget who, told me that I should do more than just take from the information there and contribute some of my own. It was then that I started by posting a Cald deck to DeckTech. Not sure where to post it, I posted it as a fun deck. And while it was fun to play and play against, the reviewers were correct. It was a competition deck. It should've been posted as an intermediate or advanced deck. From there, I would later post a number of decks, tournament reports, and articles to DeckTech. I even began to post on InsIIder, and later even posted some on Fusion Magi.

The Roleplaying that could be found on InsIIder and Fusion Magi never really interested me. I tended to avoid the fiction stories as well, although I would read the fiction on the Magi-Nation website as if it were candy.

As I wrote more, I found myself writing more and more. It became a passion. This was a habit I had neglected and abandoned under the rug. Reading and writing are like addictions for me. If I am not careful, I could read or write through the night. This is why I had secretly been avoiding writing. I knew my addiction. This may have been part of why I avoided most of the fan fiction for Magi-Nation. I was afraid that I would be dragged into writing something of my own. It may be too late for that. There already has been an idea bouncing around in my head for the past half a year or more just begging me to put it to paper or computer.

With Magi-Nation no longer being published, I turned to other sources to play the game I had grown to love so much. It just so happened that I got married about the time I could no longer pickup a game at the local store. While dating and marriage has made a far less frequent sight at that store overall, it also introduced a new computer. I actually had two PCs. One still works but it is old and runs Windows 95. I use it for many of my old PC games that I still like. Plus, it has sentimental value. You can't hate a machine that continues to do its job, even if it is behind the times. I suppose you could, but its not in me to do so. My own, newer PC at the time crashed. I still have it though and call it "parts." If my wife's PC was compatible, I would take out the parts I do want to keep and put it into her PC. Basically, there is some story ideas I stored on that hard drive that I want to retrieve some day. Plus, a few deck notes on some of my past Magi-Nation decks.

Oh, yes. I have kept a record of a vast majority of the Magi-Nation decks I've built and used. Some part of me loves to build new things. I guess this is part of why I love the lego building blocks as well. When I tire of something, or a new idea grabs me, I take apart the old and build the new from the parts available. I once tried to start a record of my lego creations. It was daunting and I gave up. Keeping a record of my Magi-Nation decks was a lot easier. No diagrams. Just a list of cards. Although I had another incomplete copy of that file on my older, faithful PC, the story ideas were not copied onto the old PC before the newer one up and died. I did confirm that the data was still intact with the help of a friend and their PC, but I wasn't expecting my wife's prebuilt machine to have no internal connections or slots to accomodate an extra hard drive. And, the old PC is just too old to even recognize that hard drive--I tried.

Well, I mentioned that I can get caught up in writing. This is an excellent example. However, I do admit that I wanted this sort of introduction for what will later be filled with whatever else I choose to write here. As for why I created this, it is simple. I am going to participate with someone I mostly know as Novelty to create a MND blog in relation to the activity that still exists online through gatling Engine (gEngine). This meant I had to create an account, and thus I have written this blog.