Hey Ric, I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!

Mark 2:16-17

When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, "Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?" And hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

Matthew 5:40-42

If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to Him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.

Matthew 11:18-19

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He has a demon!" The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say "Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!" Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.

Luke 6:34-38

If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure - pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return.

Acts 4:32-35

And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them. And with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all. For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles' feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need.

Per capital income in Kalkaska County: $9,526
Conservative estimate of average Sunday attendance at a certain Baptist church: 100
Total annual congregational income: $952,600
Approximate annual budget of said Baptist church: $100,000

Huh.

Guess What?!

Yesterday Nestina went to work with Ric to hang out so they could take care of some things after he got out. And guess what that ended up to be? A lip piercing! (Not Ric!) This should be interesting now for her to try to find a job before she goes on her trip in mid May. I'm not sure how she expects to get money to pay for gas/etc to drive to North Carolina, plus the fee to get her real drivers license back, plus Dr's appt(s), counseling appts, and going out with friends, etc. This money tree at the Frost is getting pretty bare!

Happy March

Happy March to you all. I can't believe it is March already, this year is flying by so far.

This past Saturday, after working til 2pm, I came home and we all headed over to find Shanty Creek/Schuss to watch the slush cup. It was a great day out ... cold, but the sun was shining. We got there just before things began, so we didn't have great spots to watch. Ric, being the tallest could see part of the water at first. Near the end, some of the crowds left and we had better viewing. This is the first time we went to see the slush cup. For those who have never heard of it ... basically you snowboard or ski (without poles) down the hill to a long pool of water (warmed to a nice 65 they said) and try to get all away across the water "hazard". It was fun to watch the ones that took a nose dive or sank near the end (not enough speed coming in) It was great to see somebody make it all the way across. Quite a few made it across without too much mishap. The clothes/and props were kinda cute too.

Sunday after I got home from church we finally moved the desk I bought from work that has been sitting in the kitchen/dining area to it's new place. Ric gets the new desk .. lots of space for the lap top and a place to work. I also decided to rearrange the living area downstairs while we were moving other things. We found a problem ... hopefully not major. The corner where we had the TV cabinet has mold/discoloration on the cement block near the floor. It affected about 3 or 4 rows high. We scrubbed it with bleach water and turned a fan on it for a few hours to get it really dry. That corner will now be open (until I move things again!) and we can keep an eye on it. We are really hoping we don't have mold problems with our new house!!!! (Especially with all of Ric's allergies)

Today I'm off since I worked Saturday. Getting some things done around the house. I offered to take Nestina to Kalkaska to pick up/turn in applications, but she said she isn't feeling too well. She really needs to get a job. It really bothers me that she won't go get a job, but until it hurts her monetarily, it may not happen. We will see. She is suppose to moving down to North Carolina the end of May/first of June. She will be moving in with her two brothers and her Mom. She has an European Contiki Vacations trip planned (graduation gift) for May 12-22 and then planning on getting things together to move. Her brother Adam is suppose to be taking a bus up to help her with packing and driving down. It will be nice to see him again ... he will be staying here until they leave....much easier to help with the packing and such at all hours of the day.

Time to find some lunch. Thanks for listening to a bit of our life/and grumblings.

Plowed snow, shoveled snow, dug the truck out of snow when it got stuck, plowed snow, plowed snow, shoveled snow, plowed snow.

There, now you are all caught up.

Anybody want a house? Cheap? I'll even throw in a plow truck.

Anyway, here is a perfect example of the difference between religion and science (and why science works and religion... well, not so much). See, there was a theory. It exactly matched what was observed on earth. Then we got better instruments and were able to watch the same process in the far more extreme environment of space. The theory said what was happening was impossible. That leads to one of two responses: either ignore the data or modify the theory. This being science, the theory was modified, tested, modified some more, tested some more, etc. until the theory could account for all the data.

Religion? Well, lets see, shall we?

Religion: There is strong evidence of a world-wide flood.
Science: No, there is evidence of repeated localized flooding that can be perfectly explained by processes we see active today. There is zero evidence (and a great deal of counter-evidence) for a global-wide flood.
Religion: Um, er, uh, goddidit, then hid the evidence to test our faith.

Religion: The Bible accurately describes the locations of ancient, Palestinian cities.
Science: Yes, several ancient cities are where the Bible locates them. However, the oldest levels of many of them are a century or more too young for Joshua to have conquered them. Several others existed as a collection of a half-dozen mud houses, not the walled cities conquered in glorious combat between armies of hundreds of thousands as described in Joshua.
Religion: Um, er, uh, all archaeologists are in league with Satan and only exist to test our faith.

Religion: The universe is six thousand years old.
Science: Whole libraries could be filled with the evidence against this, but here is one data point: Joshua is described as conquering a city called Jericho. Unlike the other cities Joshua was supposed to have conquered, Jericho actually existed as a walled city at the time. The problem for you is that Jericho is too old; a thousand years older than the six-thousand-year-old earth it is sitting on.
Religion: Um, er, uh all dating methods are flawed. We know this because they don't agree with the three-thousand-year-old scribblings of nomadic shepherds. It's all just a test of our faith.

I could continue, but it's just too easy.

It's Debbie time

Good Morning Everyone!
I know I very rarely blog here, but figured I would put my two cents in once in awhile. Alot of stuff is happening in our lives -- it would take forever to catch you all up. (Those that care about us) My biggest thing lately is my jealousy is taking over once again. I can't seem to help it when it rears it ugly head again and again. I"m not one to do much personal talking, so that is part of my problem....the other part is Ric doesn't like to to much personal talking either. Great couple, aren't we?! I really love him, but can't seem to do anything right when it comes to showing him that.

Ric, I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, the dryer is beeping at me, so gotta wrap up. I will try to post more often. Comments are appreciated if you have any helpful suggestions.

Happy Valentines Day!!

“You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.” --Al Capone

I haven't been posting much lately, because there just doesn't seem to be anything going on at home or on the world scene. Other than the vice president spraying a lawyer with bird shot. That's damn funny. Unfortunately, it made Sarah Brady so happy she pissed herself. As much as I respect the necessity of shooting lawyers at every chance, Cheney should have saved a couple rounds of buckshot for Sarah and her fake-cripple husband.

It snowed.

I got my truck back and my wallet is $1,500 lighter.

I will be in my truck until 10pm plowing after work today.

Yay.

That's it. Sorry. I'll try to have a more exciting life.

I ended up taking Tuesday off work because I felt like I had been hit by a truck. But instead of staying home and taking it easy, I ended up spending the entire day plowing snow. While I was doing that, I noticed an odd sound coming from the front of the truck. Wednesday, it became a persistent hammering on the way to work. I managed to make it to the garage without the front wheels falling off. They just called me: Left front wheel bearing, left upper ball joint, left and right lower ball joints, and left and right tie rod ends. Total cost: $1,500.

We simply can't afford to live here anymore.

And just to keep things interesting, the generator shut off last night for no apparent reason. I'll try it again tonight, but I don't hold out much hope for it. We will be running on the spare generator only from the way it looks.

This sucks. I hate winter and I hate where I live.

Time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin'....

Winter is back with a vengeance. We were hammered with snow Saturday night with more snow and drifting Sunday. I spent seven hours in the plow truck yesterday. This morning, one of the seasonal roads we use was nearly drifted shut again. I have no place to put the snow and may have to abandon that section of road. There are other routes, but in means driving out of my way every morning to go to work. Of course, the other route is county-maintained, and they haven't done anything all weekend. Who knows when they will bother to clear it or how long it will stay cleared with all the wind we've been getting.

Tonight looks like more snow plowing. Woo hoo.

And I ask again; are we sure we want democracy everywhere? Really sure? In case you are curious, the destruction and chaos are because of these. Maybe we should only kill our soldiers establishing democracy for people with IQ over 60? This is pretty tame stuff given the anti-Semitic cartoons out there, yet I don't see Jews running around setting things on fire.

And just in time, yet another excuse to be fat. It's not just genetic, it's spreads just like the flu. Of course it doesn't, and the actual scientific work says no such thing, but I guarantee that it is just a matter of time before some side of bacon on Oprah claims she would be a size 2 super model, except she caught fat while eating at Burger King.

There are a lot of bloggers out there getting book deals. I don't think this guy is one of them, but he should be. Reading his blog almost makes me want to get back into food service. Almost.

And I need to get going.

We are back to 40 degree temps and rain on top of all the snow and ice. Fun, fun.

Microsoft is getting desperate to force people to upgrade. This is a joke, but it isn't far from the truth. Microsoft has lobbied Congress to allow it to disable all prior versions of Windows via the automatic update feature and force everyone to buy Vista. The justification is "copyright protection," otherwise known as taking ownership of your data. So far, our Congress has resisted in spite of all the money Microsoft spends on free food, free booze, and free whores for our civic-minded congress-critters. Best representatives money can buy indeed.

I finally got around to some plowing last night. I was going to do it Saturday afternoon, but my truck burned up the bearings in one of the center u-joints. This is fairly routine on a plow truck, but the timing sucked dead bunnies. Luckily, the garage was able to fix it by Monday afternoon, so I picked it up, put on the plow, and spent five hours or so moving snow around. This stuff stopped being fun a long time ago.

The up side was that I never left the house from Saturday afternoon until I drove into work Monday morning. It was sweet. I got a lot of work done, including our and Nestina's taxes, and another batch of books on E-Bay. (Hint, hint: lots of really cheap books!!!)

I also started working on another project: collecting up all the stray data I have laying around on diskettes and CD-ROM's and dumping them all into an archive on my Western Digital Passport. I only have the 60G model, but even putting all my MP3's, digital photos, a backup of every piece of data, and pretty much anything I can get my hands on into it, I haven't even filled it half-way. So far, I love this thing. I don't generally have any use for Western Digital drives; every single one I have owned has failed early in life. But I have beat this thing pretty hard and it hasn't lost one byte of data so far. Of course I have at least two other copies of every file on it, because I still don't trust Western Digital hardware. The only thing I need to make this perfect is USB 2.0 ports. My laptop only has USB 1.1, which are much slower. I can add four 2.0 ports for around a hundred bucks, which would not just make the Passport run faster, but would also give me high-speed ports for other neat-o things like a DVD burner.

Well, that's all I have for now.

I need to get some plowing done, but I don't know when I can get to it. I hate plowing in the dark, so either I have to wait until Saturday, or take time off work. I'm trying to save up time off, if at all possible, so I can take some serious time off this spring or summer. Our place isn't too bad, but my parents have a couple feet of snow in their driveway. Eh, whatever. It will wait. If nothing else, it will melt once spring rolls around.

If anyone is interested, and I'm pretty sure that no one is, here is what we should be doing with the hundreds of billions of dollars, not to mention 2,000 lives, we have poured into the sands of Iraq. Within a decade, no one would care about oil, and the Middle East countries would have to either produce something useful, or starve. We won't do it, because we prefer to meddle in the affairs of others. Every branch of government is busy telling all the other branches what to do, the state department tells other nations how to govern themselves and uses our military to enforce their will, they all tell us what to do, and so on. It's the new American way. (shrug)

And speaking of neo-con wet dreams, are we really sure we want democracy everywhere?

Whatever.

This weekend, I was able to get our drives, our road, another seasonal road I use to get to work, and my parents driveway all nice and cleaned up. Then it got up in the forties Saturday and Sunday, which almost had everything back to bare ground. It didn't last, of course, so now it looks like I will have to take a day off work to plow again. We got a good six inches yesterday and last night, and enough wind to drift things up pretty good. Is it May yet? At least it looks like we will again get rid of most of it this weekend; the weather liars claim it will be back in the forties again.

Other than that, not a lot going on. We are just hunkered down waiting for winter to be over.

This looks cool. Right now, the graphics are pretty crude compared to what the professionals turn out, but think about the progression in video cameras. Today's $1,000 "pro-sumer" cameras are better than professional cameras costing ten times as much just a few years ago. Same thing has happened in sound equipment: a Mac with iLife can do more than room full of professional equipment could ten or fifteen years ago. I would expect the same thing here. The big studios won't go away, if for no other reason than they own the traditional distribution channel. But the internet is quickly becoming the channel of choice for many people looking for news, music, and literature. There is no reason why video would be any different. Bits is bits.

And I post this without comment. I have nothing to add other than to ask people to think about what you believe, and why.

That's it. Other than to tell everyone to go buy stuff here and here. Please. Our children are starving.

I know I need to stop with the education thing, but this is just too good. In the February 2006 edition of National Geographic, there is an article called "Heartbreak on the Serengeti." The main point of the article is the increases in poaching inside and immediately adjacent to the parks and preserves. However, page 17 has a picture of a new public school in the village of Iharara in Tanzania. The last sentence of the caption reads, "Adult literacy stands at a relatively high 78 percent in Tanzania, where education ends for most after primary school." Contrast this with the sub-50% literacy rate in Detroit after twice the schooling. Our politicians tell us that the Detroit schools suck ass because the district lacks funds and the families are poor. I'm just pulling this out of my ass, but I think I'm on pretty solid ground when I say the average Tanzanian would view a "poor" Detroit family as unimaginably wealthy. And I doubt the teacher in that photo has credentials from one of our esteemed teaching universities. In fact, I am fairly sure that he wouldn't be qualified to even substitute teach in a Detroit school. And you call that a classroom? Several students are sitting on the floor! There are no desks; just backless benches and tables that look like an ergonomic nightmare! No PC's, no air conditioning, not even electric lights! And yet they learn to read at a rate 50% higher than Detroit can manage.

Tell me again how all our educational woes are the result of a lack of money.

Another post under the beating-the-grass-where-a-dead-horse-used-to-be category:

Still think your schools don't completely suck? Still think the problem is every other school system in the country, except yours? Really? Go read this, and this. Still think your schools are ok? Still think your kids are learning anything useful? Then check yourself into a psych ward, because you are a danger to yourself and your children.

"The American boy who got the highest score told me: 'I'm shocked, 'cause it just shows how advanced they [Belgian high school students] are compared to us.'"

Yea, dude, I'm sure it is "shocking" to realize you have wasted the last twelve years of your life because you just got beat down by someone that you've been told your whole life was inferior to you. I'd start working on those rickshaw-pulling skills.

In more boring news, our internet connection is a dead stick. It doesn't matter if I dial into work or either of my two ISP's, either you can't connect at all, the connection runs 28K or slower, or you get a 50K+ connection which drops after a few minutes. People we talk to on the phone complain about static and low volume. Last time, I said I was done with Verizon; I should have stuck with that. I know I can get high-speed service through Alltel. I will need an external antenna for the cell phone, and I will have to move my computer upstairs, but right now, my options are somewhat limited. Rural Mexico has high-speed internet, and I have to put up with this crap.

Later.

Not much to report. Friday, Debbie and I went to a fancy restaurant here in Traverse City then saw Last Holiday. I wasn't expecting much from the movie, but it wasn't half bad for a chick flick. Guys, if you owe the wife a chick flick because she sat through a guy movie with you, this one won't kill you and you may even enjoy it.

Saturday we watched a couple indoor soccer games in Traverse City, then dinner at Ruby Tuesday's. Sunday, Debbie's mom came up and took us all out for lunch at The Big Easy for our birthdays (mine back in November, Debbie's a few days ago, and Nestina's in a couple weeks). That was pretty much the weekend.

That's all I have. Tonight I need to do some serious data entry for Back Woods Book Exchange on Half.com.

A Million Little Pieces becomes A Million Little Lies. This article is long, but what it reveals is as disturbing as it is damning to the author, James Frey. I'm not expert on human psychology or anything, but this guy just sounds like the classic nobody. He was unspectacular in high school, college, and adult life, so he fabricates this whole-world-is-out-to-get-me-'cause-I'm-such-a-bad-ass back story that has no basis in fact. Now if he wants to fictionalize his own life to fool a publisher and a few million people and make a fast buck, he would just be another mediocre fiction writer. The creepy part is his insertion of himself into the tragic deaths of two teenage girls. Sorry, but that's just over-the-line. Some people have tragic lives. Frey isn't one of them. His life was just insignificant, then slid into pathetic.

What surprises me is that Oprah is clinging to this sinking ship. As long as she has been in the Business, you would think that a) she would have better instincts than to hitch her wagon to such a loser; and b) that she would have good enough PR instincts to cut Frey's lifeline the instant the accusations started. There is no upside for her in any of this; only downside.

Other than that, I have nothing. Such a life of glamour I lead....

I don't usually plug things on this site, but I noticed from my stats that about a quarter of my readers use Firefox 1.0, but less than 2% use Firefox 1.5. I would encourage everyone using anything other than the current version to get the latest version now! Whatever it is about Firefox that you love/like/enjoy, there is more of it in version 1.5.

Not much else going on, other than just surviving the "brutal" winter weather: 40 degrees and even little sun today. Our road is a sheet of ice with water standing on it, so that makes getting in and out of the property a lot of fun. Yesterday on the way to work, I nearly killed myself and Nestina when the truck started sliding sideways down a steep hill with a curve at the bottom.

I heard of another author who was recently caught lying. He made a statement that his memoir is essentially true even if he did change some stories. A large, clear garbage bag full of bear fat that may have been Oprah (who made this clown's book a best-seller by shilling it on that abortion she calls a talk-show) claimed that his heart-warming story made people feel good, so it doesn't really matter that it was made up and everyone just needs to shut up about it. Nasty things, those facts. They make insecure people feel all icky about their pointless lives. Awwww. I'm getting all choked up. Quick! Let's make up some stories that are "essentially true" before they realize they really don't have anything to offer the world and blow their brains out! Aside: Is there a human on the planet with an IQ north of 80 that doesn't think Oprah is getting massive kick-backs on her "book club" picks? That her picks seems to be books that don't seem to be making as big a splash as the publisher had hoped? Yea, you're probably right. I'm just being cynical again.

A while back, I posted about how all government schools suck. Now we have this. Any questions? Note the money quote: "McKeesport officials have hired a lawyer to investigate whether the school district should fire two fourth-grade teachers who had sex in a classroom several years ago while other teachers stood watch at the door, officials said Thursday." The school is spending money on a lawyer to determine whether these jerks should be fired? Here is a little thought experiment. What would happen if everyone involved in this were students. Do you think the school district would have to hire a lawyer to investigate whether the students would be expelled? Exactly. Yet another data point in favor of my theory that the average IQ of the adults in any school system is a standard deviation below that of the students they are "teaching."

I gotta go.

Nothing to really report today. I worked late last night installing the updates for the 2005 1099 forms at work. When I got home, Nestina called from Kalkaska and asked if I could pick up her and a friend so the other friend she was with wouldn't have to drive on our nasty road at night. By the time all that was done, it was close to midnight. Of course that meant that I wasn't tired, so I sat up for a bit, then fell in bed around 1:30AM or so.

I also did some reorganization of this sight. I had previously had several pages of off-site links that were hold-over's from my old web site. A lot of the links were dead or sites I hadn't visited in years. After some sorting, I had whittled them down to a list that would fit on the side bar of this page, which makes them easier to maintain as well as more convenient.

The big news is that Back Woods Book Exchange is back on line at half.com. Hop on over and take a look. I only have a dozen books set up so far, but there will eventually be over a thousand titles. The data entry is a bit slow, so don't expect to see everything there all at once, but I hope to get a big chunk up this weekend, then slow, steady progress on the rest. I will also be tossing stuff up on our ebay account as well. The two sites are both ebay sites, but half.com doesn't allow me to list old books without ISBN's or multi-book sets as a single item. Those will go on ebay, along with a lot of non-book odds and ends.

Tonight, I'm hoping for an early night in bed, and not much else.

I'm starting to think that the presidential two-term limit is unnecessary. Every two-term president in my lifetime has crashed and burned at some point in their second term. Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and now Bush. But even Bush's wiretap problem seems to be taking a back seat to a very big wrecking-ball; namely, The Abramoff Affair, which seems on-course to make wiretapping seem quaint and semen-stained dresses downright provincial. I say that not because the idea of politicians being bought and sold like cattle is in any way stunning. That's been going on so long and so openly, you would have to be incredibly naive to be surprised. What I think will shock people is the realization by Joe Sixpack that what happens in the voting booth makes no difference at the Federal level. The same group of people from both major parties floats in and out of elected office, political appointments, lobbying firms, advisory committees, etc., working an agenda that is provably not in the interest of the average voter.

It's looking more and more like it will be Hillary in 2008. It looks to get interesting, as in the Chinese curse.