....to work in government.
Proof.
That explains a lot...
Eric
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
42
It is the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything according to Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".
It's also my age.
As of yesterday.
My wife asked me if I felt "old". I said no. (She's asked me that every year since I was about 35.) I don't feel old but I'm not as young as I used to be. In the morning I do feel old but that's just years of abuse to my body.
(NOTE TO SON: Abuse it while you're young and you'll pay for it when you're older!)
I did eat okra yesterday. It was in my chicken gumbo. That's a milestone. I hated okra as a kid because my Grandmother Lancaster used to fry it within an inch of its life or boil it until it oozed out on to the plate in a gelatinous mass. This okra wasn't bad but don't let my Mother hear me say that.
I also eat tomatoes. Not plain but I don't pick them out of my food anymore. I just eat them. It's not that I like them all of a sudden it's just around age 30 I got tired of picking them out of my food. More like being lazy than acquiring a taste.
My hair is thinning. I'll finally admit it. My Mom would tease me about my thinning hair as far back as age 30. Admittedly she would make the comment while looking at my newly shorn head (I wear a flat-top on occasion and the barber gets it down to less than a 1/4 of an inch!) But recently I've noticed it's thinning on top and up front. Sides and back are still good. Maybe I'll look like Patrick Stewart of ST:TNG fame in a few years! For now, I keep it cut pretty short.
The boy got me this card for my birthday.
OUTSIDE: So anyway, I'm standing in line to buy you a freakin' birthday card, and the line is like seventeen billion people long 'cause the only thing the dumb teenage boy at the register is thinking about is the dumb teenage girl at the other register, and some lady is turning her purse inside out to come up with "exact change", like she's gonna win some kind of "exact change trophy" or something, and some idiot starts up with his "This item was marked with the sale price" crap, and I just really hope you like this card...
INSIDE:
'cause I stole it.
Yes...he's 14 and he is his father's son. He was so proud to have found that card. He's at camp this week. Local bible camp up in the foothills of Mt. Lassen. I'm hoping he'll find other kids that will be a better influence on him than the ones he's picked over the last couple of years. It's not that they are bad kids it's just their values are different than ours. I really don't want to be the lecturing kind of Dad but I did ream him a new one last week. Just finally pissed me off and I gave him the what-for. He had it coming. He'll learn. Hopefully sooner than I did. He's a good kid. Good heart. Smart. I just want him to be a little more innocent a little longer.
I had some other great epiphanies on being 42 and half way through life but I seemed to have forgotten them. I have great thoughts as I'm trying to fall asleep but come morning I can't remember most of them. I guess I should just get up and write when the thoughts are pouring out of my head instead of waiting until later.
I remember...
I am reading "The Autobiography of Henry VIII" by Margaret George. Fascinating book. (If my research is somewhat correct, I am a great distant relative of Henry's. But then again, English lineage is somewhat difficult to follow.) Henry, in his later life, after he split with Rome, found himself in a bit of a conundrum. He knew the Pope's were just men and that Luther was partially correct but he couldn't bring himself to abandon the religion he'd grown up with. Being the 2nd son of a King he was destined never to rule so he was trained as a priest. His brother died so he got the job as King when his father passed away. He felt his marriage to Katherine of Aragon wasn't legal in the Lord's eyes and the Pope, politically influenced, saw otherwise. Henry's man Wolsey helped Henry split and the Church of England was born. Catholic light some call it as instead of a Pope, the ruling Monarch is the head of the Church. Not the spiritual head though.
So Henry is getting old and fat and sees this new generation coming up which he doesn't understand. They are mixing Lutheranism with is beloved English Catholicism and it's making him nervous. He misses the old structure.
I understand how he felt.
There are days I miss the assurance of my Baptist upbringing but know that the legalistic manner in which I was raised wasn't correct. They understood freedom in Christ but knew man's sin nature would take a mile if given an inch so life was regulated. The problem was, they didn't teach us how to deal with our freedom only how to regiment it. We weren't given the tools to live. We were given a rule book to abide by. And deviation from the rule book lead to disasters of biblical proportions...God would punish us with nasty consequences, striking us down in our prime. We always had a God of wrath and rarely a God of love. (Those who thought God was Love all the time were those long-hairs that hung out at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and played Jesus Rock...I go to a CC church now and listen to more than just Jesus rock. I'm a baaaddd boooyy!)
So seeing the freedom I have to worship God one on one instead of in the temple or in the hills I cringe at some of the lengths people go to in doing it. I think we aren't remembering our history well enough and are seeing old things new again. Contemplative prayer, incense, labyrinths, alternate worship services. Those things give me pause. I have to discern whether it's a knee-jerk reaction from my Baptist roots or if it's the Spirit poking me with the caution stick. Some days...it's hard to know which is which.
Besides...incense makes my nose run...
Eric
It's also my age.
As of yesterday.
My wife asked me if I felt "old". I said no. (She's asked me that every year since I was about 35.) I don't feel old but I'm not as young as I used to be. In the morning I do feel old but that's just years of abuse to my body.
(NOTE TO SON: Abuse it while you're young and you'll pay for it when you're older!)
I did eat okra yesterday. It was in my chicken gumbo. That's a milestone. I hated okra as a kid because my Grandmother Lancaster used to fry it within an inch of its life or boil it until it oozed out on to the plate in a gelatinous mass. This okra wasn't bad but don't let my Mother hear me say that.
I also eat tomatoes. Not plain but I don't pick them out of my food anymore. I just eat them. It's not that I like them all of a sudden it's just around age 30 I got tired of picking them out of my food. More like being lazy than acquiring a taste.
My hair is thinning. I'll finally admit it. My Mom would tease me about my thinning hair as far back as age 30. Admittedly she would make the comment while looking at my newly shorn head (I wear a flat-top on occasion and the barber gets it down to less than a 1/4 of an inch!) But recently I've noticed it's thinning on top and up front. Sides and back are still good. Maybe I'll look like Patrick Stewart of ST:TNG fame in a few years! For now, I keep it cut pretty short.
The boy got me this card for my birthday.
OUTSIDE: So anyway, I'm standing in line to buy you a freakin' birthday card, and the line is like seventeen billion people long 'cause the only thing the dumb teenage boy at the register is thinking about is the dumb teenage girl at the other register, and some lady is turning her purse inside out to come up with "exact change", like she's gonna win some kind of "exact change trophy" or something, and some idiot starts up with his "This item was marked with the sale price" crap, and I just really hope you like this card...
INSIDE:
'cause I stole it.
Yes...he's 14 and he is his father's son. He was so proud to have found that card. He's at camp this week. Local bible camp up in the foothills of Mt. Lassen. I'm hoping he'll find other kids that will be a better influence on him than the ones he's picked over the last couple of years. It's not that they are bad kids it's just their values are different than ours. I really don't want to be the lecturing kind of Dad but I did ream him a new one last week. Just finally pissed me off and I gave him the what-for. He had it coming. He'll learn. Hopefully sooner than I did. He's a good kid. Good heart. Smart. I just want him to be a little more innocent a little longer.
I had some other great epiphanies on being 42 and half way through life but I seemed to have forgotten them. I have great thoughts as I'm trying to fall asleep but come morning I can't remember most of them. I guess I should just get up and write when the thoughts are pouring out of my head instead of waiting until later.
I remember...
I am reading "The Autobiography of Henry VIII" by Margaret George. Fascinating book. (If my research is somewhat correct, I am a great distant relative of Henry's. But then again, English lineage is somewhat difficult to follow.) Henry, in his later life, after he split with Rome, found himself in a bit of a conundrum. He knew the Pope's were just men and that Luther was partially correct but he couldn't bring himself to abandon the religion he'd grown up with. Being the 2nd son of a King he was destined never to rule so he was trained as a priest. His brother died so he got the job as King when his father passed away. He felt his marriage to Katherine of Aragon wasn't legal in the Lord's eyes and the Pope, politically influenced, saw otherwise. Henry's man Wolsey helped Henry split and the Church of England was born. Catholic light some call it as instead of a Pope, the ruling Monarch is the head of the Church. Not the spiritual head though.
So Henry is getting old and fat and sees this new generation coming up which he doesn't understand. They are mixing Lutheranism with is beloved English Catholicism and it's making him nervous. He misses the old structure.
I understand how he felt.
There are days I miss the assurance of my Baptist upbringing but know that the legalistic manner in which I was raised wasn't correct. They understood freedom in Christ but knew man's sin nature would take a mile if given an inch so life was regulated. The problem was, they didn't teach us how to deal with our freedom only how to regiment it. We weren't given the tools to live. We were given a rule book to abide by. And deviation from the rule book lead to disasters of biblical proportions...God would punish us with nasty consequences, striking us down in our prime. We always had a God of wrath and rarely a God of love. (Those who thought God was Love all the time were those long-hairs that hung out at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and played Jesus Rock...I go to a CC church now and listen to more than just Jesus rock. I'm a baaaddd boooyy!)
So seeing the freedom I have to worship God one on one instead of in the temple or in the hills I cringe at some of the lengths people go to in doing it. I think we aren't remembering our history well enough and are seeing old things new again. Contemplative prayer, incense, labyrinths, alternate worship services. Those things give me pause. I have to discern whether it's a knee-jerk reaction from my Baptist roots or if it's the Spirit poking me with the caution stick. Some days...it's hard to know which is which.
Besides...incense makes my nose run...
Eric
Monday, July 16, 2007
Dating
(HT to Mikey's Funnies)
THINGS I WISH I'D KNOWN BEFORE I DATED
~ Never date anyone who is rude to the waiter/waitress.
~ Never date anyone who is rude to their mother.
~ If they have a tendency to be rude to you now, just wait.
~ If you date someone who doesn't share your standards, they'll lower yours.
~ The five most essential words for a healthy, vital relationship: "I apologize" and "You are right."
~ Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
~ If he/she says you're too good for him/her, believe it.
~ If they have a tough time apologizing now, just wait.
~ Never date anyone who spends more time gazing into the mirror, than they spend gazing into your eyes.
today'sTHOT============================
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused.
Eric
THINGS I WISH I'D KNOWN BEFORE I DATED
~ Never date anyone who is rude to the waiter/waitress.
~ Never date anyone who is rude to their mother.
~ If they have a tendency to be rude to you now, just wait.
~ If you date someone who doesn't share your standards, they'll lower yours.
~ The five most essential words for a healthy, vital relationship: "I apologize" and "You are right."
~ Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
~ If he/she says you're too good for him/her, believe it.
~ If they have a tough time apologizing now, just wait.
~ Never date anyone who spends more time gazing into the mirror, than they spend gazing into your eyes.
today'sTHOT============================
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused.
Eric
Sunday, July 08, 2007
But We Care...
Live Aid. Band Aid. Live 8. And now Live Earth.
Arctic Monkeys shiver at Live Earth - hypocrisy (HT to Thunderstruck)
Absolutely. Since when do movie stars and pop stars (or politicians for that matter!) know something we don't? I'm discounting those who truly do but I feel they are few and far between. I just recall Meryl Streep at the Alar hearings in the 80's screeching, "What are we doing to our children?!" (ALAR was a chemical put on apples to make them shinier and to delay rotting. Turns out...it wasn't that harmful at all. Kind of like DDT...)
We have the Georgy Clooney's of the world who make great movies and tell us our president is an evil man. The Ted Danson's, who make us laugh on TV and in the movies, telling us that our oceans only have 10 years left (That was nearly 15 years ago if remember correctly.) We have Al Gore telling us our world will end in 2015. (See Rush Limbaugh.com for a countdown...it's at the bottom of the page...we have little more than 8 years left...kind of like the ocean thing.)
Just because someone is in the public eye doesn't mean they are smarter than us. Yes, they have a platform from which to educate. But when the message they are delivering is suspect at best, where is the media? Right there pushing it along. Journalism, as a a means of disseminating information, has fewer and fewer practitioners these days. More people are concerned about making the facts fit their premise instead of having the facts prove or disprove their premise.
But does this give us carte blanche to pollute? To kill off species? To waste resources? No. We are stewards of this planet. We should take care of it as best we can with the understanding that man is the highest form of life on the planet and top of the food chain. Not dolphins. Not monkeys. Not fairey shrimp.
I say that if Al Gore and his ilk are really, truly into this Global Warming issue, then they need to be leading the way by example to stop it. (Which I find hard to do as the earth does what the earth was designed to do and man is extremely arrogant if he thinks he can destroy that which God hath created...good luck with that train of thought!) But I doubt that that will happen. Al Gore hasn't even answered the charges that he's more a of polluter than the president he despises. (Pres. Bush's ranch in Texas was considered more ecologically friendlier than Al Gore's place!)
[sarcasm]But I guess if I put on a concert and play bad versions of my most popular songs I guess it shows I care. And if I care then I can't be all that bad and must be part of the solution and not the problem.[/sarcasm] (BTW...Roger Waters did a great rendition of "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2" last night. UB40 did a mighty fine job on "Red, Red Wine". Bon Jovi, on the other hand, IMO, mangled "Dead or Alive" and called it our "national anthem". What a dork.)
That's my rant for now....
Eric
Roger Daltrey, singer from 1970s British rock band The Who, told British newspaper The Sun in May that "the last thing the planet needs is a rock concert."
And the singer from 80s pop sensations The Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant, attacked the arrogance of pop stars who put themselves forward as role-models.
"I've always been against the idea of rock stars lecturing people as if they know something the rest of us don't," he was reported as saying by British music magazine NME.
Arctic Monkeys shiver at Live Earth - hypocrisy (HT to Thunderstruck)
Absolutely. Since when do movie stars and pop stars (or politicians for that matter!) know something we don't? I'm discounting those who truly do but I feel they are few and far between. I just recall Meryl Streep at the Alar hearings in the 80's screeching, "What are we doing to our children?!" (ALAR was a chemical put on apples to make them shinier and to delay rotting. Turns out...it wasn't that harmful at all. Kind of like DDT...)
We have the Georgy Clooney's of the world who make great movies and tell us our president is an evil man. The Ted Danson's, who make us laugh on TV and in the movies, telling us that our oceans only have 10 years left (That was nearly 15 years ago if remember correctly.) We have Al Gore telling us our world will end in 2015. (See Rush Limbaugh.com for a countdown...it's at the bottom of the page...we have little more than 8 years left...kind of like the ocean thing.)
Just because someone is in the public eye doesn't mean they are smarter than us. Yes, they have a platform from which to educate. But when the message they are delivering is suspect at best, where is the media? Right there pushing it along. Journalism, as a a means of disseminating information, has fewer and fewer practitioners these days. More people are concerned about making the facts fit their premise instead of having the facts prove or disprove their premise.
But does this give us carte blanche to pollute? To kill off species? To waste resources? No. We are stewards of this planet. We should take care of it as best we can with the understanding that man is the highest form of life on the planet and top of the food chain. Not dolphins. Not monkeys. Not fairey shrimp.
I say that if Al Gore and his ilk are really, truly into this Global Warming issue, then they need to be leading the way by example to stop it. (Which I find hard to do as the earth does what the earth was designed to do and man is extremely arrogant if he thinks he can destroy that which God hath created...good luck with that train of thought!) But I doubt that that will happen. Al Gore hasn't even answered the charges that he's more a of polluter than the president he despises. (Pres. Bush's ranch in Texas was considered more ecologically friendlier than Al Gore's place!)
[sarcasm]But I guess if I put on a concert and play bad versions of my most popular songs I guess it shows I care. And if I care then I can't be all that bad and must be part of the solution and not the problem.[/sarcasm] (BTW...Roger Waters did a great rendition of "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2" last night. UB40 did a mighty fine job on "Red, Red Wine". Bon Jovi, on the other hand, IMO, mangled "Dead or Alive" and called it our "national anthem". What a dork.)
That's my rant for now....
Eric
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Audicity
Audacity: v -
President Clinton tried to draw a distinction between the pardons he granted, and Bush's decision to commute Libby's 30-month sentence in the CIA leak case.
"I think there are guidelines for what happens when somebody is convicted," Clinton told a radio interviewer Tuesday. "You've got to understand, this is consistent with their philosophy; they believe that they should be able to do what they want to do, and that the law is a minor obstacle."
White House Criticizes Clintons on Libby
Jumbo Coconut Balls!
Eric
President Clinton tried to draw a distinction between the pardons he granted, and Bush's decision to commute Libby's 30-month sentence in the CIA leak case.
"I think there are guidelines for what happens when somebody is convicted," Clinton told a radio interviewer Tuesday. "You've got to understand, this is consistent with their philosophy; they believe that they should be able to do what they want to do, and that the law is a minor obstacle."
White House Criticizes Clintons on Libby
Jumbo Coconut Balls!
Eric
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Crint Eastwood
Yes...Clint Eastwood visits my home airport on numerous occasions as he has property northeast of Redding. If you watch the opening sequence of the movie "Firefox" when Clint is running towards a cabin, that's his cabin on his property. I know where it is...I've flown over it countless times!
In the 17 years I've lived in Redding I've only heard stories and never happened to be at the airport when he came in. Last night I got lucky. I shot some pics from a distance not wanting to bother the man as he was on vacation.
This is Clint's plane...pretty nice G5!
Eric
In the 17 years I've lived in Redding I've only heard stories and never happened to be at the airport when he came in. Last night I got lucky. I shot some pics from a distance not wanting to bother the man as he was on vacation.
This is Clint's plane...pretty nice G5!
Eric
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Parental Guidance Suggested
(HT to BHT)
Apparently my blog is rated PG...hmmm...
Better get a few more "dead's" and "death's" in there! (J/K!)
Eric
Apparently my blog is rated PG...hmmm...
Mingle2 - Blog Rating
Better get a few more "dead's" and "death's" in there! (J/K!)
Eric
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