Thanks for your prayers -- and a call for donations.

A few days in prayer have helped a lot. Milady is feeling better now, and the neighborhood seems to be more under control. Now, I just have to convince the family that riding to Mississippi in a passenger van for a junior high mission trip is just as good as riding in a tour bus. NOT! ;)

Our church still has to raise $800 (out of $1000) to fund our gas bill, or the kids will have to pay for the gas themselves (they're already paying $250 each for food and lodging). The Church is accepting Shell gas cards or cash to pay for the gift cards. If you'd like to donate, let me know by Email, and I'll let you know how you can donate on-line so that the money goes straight to the Church and to the Gas fund.

Please pray for us

It's been a rough couple of days at the Packrat household. Please pray for us, especially Milady, as we work through a couple of decisions.

Overheard at the Shriner's Circus Last Night

"Noble Lumpkin, this is the Illustrious Potentate". No, wait, that was another event. ;)

My brother-in-law is a Shriner, and he buys us tickets to the Shriners Circus every year. This year, we packed ourselves and the next door neighbors, and went to see the show.

About halfway through, one of the clowns came by, selling "Clown of the Year" pins as a fundraiser for the local Shriner's Hospital. I would have bought one myself, but I was down to 2 dollars from all of the Cokes, Nachos, and cotton candy I bought for myself the kids. While he's turned to me, Little Miss sneaks up on his other side.

Clown: "Would you like to buy a Clown of the Year pin? It's only 4 dollars."

Me: "No thank you"

*clown turns, face to face with Little Miss*

Little Miss: "I'd like 4 dollars."

Clown: *dramatic pause* She doesn't miss much, does she?

It took me 5 minutes to quit laughing.

I had a really good post yesterday, but it's gone now

And there's nothing anyone can say to prove me wrong... :)

Give me a while, and I'll have something good up.

I watched the Republican debates last night

Really, Milady watched the debates and I sat with her. Ron Paul has my support, not that it'll do him a lot of good. Mr. Huckabee surprised me with being such a state's rights guy, so I guess he would do.

Otherwise, I stand by my earlier ideas that it's just way too early for me to care.

Dreaming of trains

My great-uncle called me Saturday. Appearantly, he had just read the article about Peak Oil off of the Internet. As I've mentioned sometimes before on this blog, my whole family has a strong pessimistic streak running through their psyche. I have to fight it some myself.

The last couple of nights have had some rough sleep. Tuesday, I remember waking up around 1AM and going to the computer, and very little else. The rest of the night, I dreamed of trainyards.

I've found myself growing more optimistic in general as I've gotten older. I've seen the predictions of the false End Times prophets ("this means we have to be in the last couple of years, because X is about to happen") fail to pan out. I lived through the end of Cold War and the Clinton Administration. God willing, I'll even survive GWB.

As I've told Number 1 Son, Iran isn't going to nuke Israel. The Bible says it won't happen. We aren't going to starve in the cold when oil runs out, because God said not to worry about food and water, that He would provide everything we need. And if He doesn't protect us from something, we still win by losing.

I'm not afraid of what comes up, even if what is coming up is bad. "Cheer up, the worst is yet to come!" And then He is coming.

Give this man a Nobel Prize for Economics

Not really, but kcbrown on Slashdot wrote a comment, "Expand or Die?" that summarizes my own thoughts on expansion at all costs:

It used to be that you could keep a company going simply by consistenly producing good products for a good price and a reasonable profit. As long as the products and the price both remained good, people would buy the products and the profits would keep coming in. Obviously the products would have to be refined over time as the needs of the customer base changed, but this fundamental approach is sound.

Back before the world reinvented fiat paper money, companies didn't go up a lot. Unless you could help start a new company that would make a new market (like AT&T or IBM), you got money when that company made a good dividend and gave it back to you, the stockholder.

The concept that HP, the company that made good computers and excellent printers is better off than HP, the maker of junk computers and worse inkjets, is rediculous.

There is nothing wrong with Good Enough.

Are you still able to cry?

I've heard the Blue Man Group's Exhibit 13 several times while listening to my CD The Complex. However, I just found the link to the video. Sometime life and The Enemy conspire to make one's heart hard, but occasionally things peak back in.

Can you still cry over it? Should you?

I can't vote for my prefered candidate

I didn't realize that Kentucky law required that people switch parties before Dec. 31st. to vote in a given Primary. I would like to see Gatewood Galbraith elected governor of Kentucky. Gatewood is the author of a book I wish I could have published: The Last Free Man in America

While I certainly don't agree with every position he has, I respect that Gatewood is certainly the most honest man in the election for Kentucky Governor, and the least "buyable". If I had any spare money, I'd certainly donate to the cause.

I'm still sick of Politics, but one thing is for sure

Bush has an undisputed ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Mr. Gonzales is a perfect example. All the bloke had to do was cruise for 4 years, and things would be fine. But no, a few US Attorneys have to be fired for political reasons, and then he can't even explain what his subordinates did.

Gonzales needs to resign, and a reasonable replacement named.

UK Benefits -- Milady is Disappointed

Milady isn't disappointed about the fact that UK is extending "partner" benefits to live ins (i.e. same-sex committed pairs and non-married opposite sex pairs). If anything, both Milady and I would prefer that employers simply say "You'll pay all costs, but we will insure anyone who lives in the house with you". This would take sexual preference out of it, and instead cover family members or friends who live together for non-sexual purposes (i.e. two sisters live together as old maids, etc.).

No, Milady wanted to get her degree. UK employees get 6 hours a semester free, and there were high hopes that they'd extend those benefits to spouses and children. Instead, the UK employee can either get the 6 hours, or the spouse or child may get 50% off tuition and fees. Very useful for kids, but where Milady wanted to take 1 or 2 classes for free, that won't work.

Oh, well....

Good, cheesy science fiction

As one of my guilty pleasures, I've been watching The House Between. It's an excellent low-budget science fiction show similar to the Twilight Zone.

Star Trek: Of Gods and Men is behind schedule, so they only have the first 3 minutes of Act One on-line. It's still a really good three minutes.

Hidden Frontier (a Star Trek fan fiction follow-on) is wrapping up its final season soon. The first couple of seasons are very painful to watch, but they have matured into a cast capable of rivaling any series put forth by Paramount.

Finally, New Voyages will be releasing "World Enough And Time" any day now. I'm not quite over what they did to Chekov in "To Serve All of My Days", but they may fix it in the Special Edition later....

If you know of a show that should appear here, leave a comment or Email me and I'll add it.

The Song of the Day

"Bad Moon Rising" by CCR.

Why? All kinds of bad moon magic being used here at work. I can't say much more, but fortunately it's not my manure pile to shovel....

The Sounds Of Wretched Silence

Thanks to The Captain (of Captain's Quarters), I've read about one of the silliest ideas I've heard about since campaigning for the 2008 election in March 2007: One Day of Blog Silence. We bloggers are supposed to be quiet tomorrow as a show of solidarity for Virginia Tech's victims.

I have been praying for the families of the people who died at VT. I've cried over the incident. But in this case, I have little sympathy for the victims, because (with few exceptions) they chose to be victims. Cho surprised the people in the first room. OK, I can see where the people in that room had little room to act. However, every other room had ample warning. Why didn't they fight back?

People are victims all over the world because they are denied the fundamental right to defend themselves. In the US, we teach our kids to never, ever fight (which 99% of th e time is right, but not 100%). In the rest of the world, we deny repressed groups access to arms to defend themselves.

I think Darfur is a shame. That said, every argument I used to oppose our trip into the Balkins and Milady used to oppose Iraq also apply there. It's a terrible problem trying to be a consistent libertarian...

Bloggers do little good when silent. Christians do little good when silent. That's why I won't be silent.

Why women avoid IT -- and possibly should

Slashdot had an article last night titled Women Are Fleeing IT Jobs. Appearantly, women are figuring out that Information Technology isn't a place to work if you want a lot of nights and weekends free. Imagine that. Milady and I discussed me living the blue-colored outsourcer for almost 2 years before I went to the current job, and one of the reasons I left was that my only advancement paths involved working more hours and traveling more. I ended up having a little less take-home pay and fewer methods of advancement, but a lot less overtime and much fewer nights and weekends.

In the comments to the article, Natomui said:

It really frightens me that the tone of the article depicts all IT related women as doting career moms who are only waiting for an easy out to go home and take care of Father Jr. This backslide into 1950s pre-feminist movement status scares me. Why can't the IT dad have to worry about day-care and being on call 24 hours a day because he has to take care of his children too? Why have we set up yet another situation for detached parenting that falls prey to the same social normality that we've been trying to eradicate for decades to pave the way for something far more beneficial - a well rounded parental structure that depicts both parties as nurturing.

1960s feminism has failed the children. The Baby Boomers may not have realized it, and even their kids, but the current generation is, because they've lived it. Feminism is "I want it my way" for women. OTOH, having kids is all about their needs and growth. If a kid needs Mom to stay home, then Mom stays home. Period. If the family needs Dad to skip the promotion to $150k manager so that he can be at every ballgame and play, then you don't advance.

Once you have kids, it's about duty and responsibility, not rights and privilages.

Be careful Michael

One of my worst guilty vices is listening to Michael Savage. We didn't hear that Cho sent a package to NBC News, but Michael was raving about needing a lot of new mental hospital/jails, and using them.

Mr. Savage needs to be careful. Too many frothing-mouth rants like tonight, and the powers that be might put him to the front of the line for one... ;)

Built Lord Tough

Some people are just positive thinkers. Now, most of my crew isn't. Number 1 Son, Milady, and I all have that "ray of sunshine" missing. As my mother-in-law once said to her husband, "you'd pick up a free puppy and look at its hindend".

Not Jeff. Jeff looks at things from the sunny side of life. It took us almost a year of going to our church before we realized that he wasn't the children's minister. Jeff has run the 3-5th grade ministry at our church for at least 9 years now, on top of his day job owning his own contracting business and his "night job" as a husband and father of 6 kids.

A couple of weeks ago, Jeff had some form of seizure or attack on the way home from work, and lost control of his Ford truck. He doesn't remember the truck entering one end of a house, and exiting the other end. Now, Jeff vaguely remembers the firefighters saying that he must be dead when they were getting him out of that Ford truck. At the time, he woke up asking why he was in the parade.

The doctors of course ruled out drugs or alcohol, and found that Jeff had broken several bones in his back. They also had to restrict his pain medicine, since there was a fear it could cause another seizure.

Sunday, Jeff was at church. He was in a plastic brace, and you could tell he hurt, but he was smiling and talking to everyone. When Milady and I tried to be gentle and shake hands, he pulled each of us into a strong hug. He was talking about how he knew it was the Lord who saved him, and that he's already talked to Ford about using "Built Lord Tough" as a theme for wristbands and a speaking tour. He's going to talk about "The Lord, Me, and a Ford", and how the Lord and his Ford pickup saved his life.

It takes a truly Godly man to feel that way about such a tragedy. Instead of kicking back, he's turned to God and is going right on. I for one am humbled.

If you'd like for Jeff to come talk to you and your church, Email me, and I'll pass the request along.

Prayer Request: Jeff still wants and needs a lot of prayer, because he's facing the possibility of other surgeries to his back, and months of healing and rehabilitation. His family also is going to need a lot of help getting past this.

We MUST Understand -- Or It Will Happen Again

When I heard of the Virginia Tech shootings, I couldn't help but cry over both the victims and the killer, Cho Seung-Hui. A couple of months ago, I read Mark Ames' book, Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond. Mr. Ames describes the nihilism and complete and utter bleakness to which a person who is pushed beyond hope.

We have created a society of people without hope, either in God (whom they either don't believe in or don't know) or in man. Their parents don't raise them, foisting them instead into car seat pens (early daycare) and child holding areas (later daycare). They get to school and have absolutely no structure or discipline. If they can't sit down or quit acting like a kid for 5 minutes, they get pumped full of speed and labeled a problem child. There is no right, no wrong, and the kid who causes the problem gets the attention. Through a lack of discipline or being sympathetic to the abusers, school administrations will not take the picked-on kid's side. Is it any wonder that we have angry children who are so narcissistic and nihilistic that they are ready to die and want to take their attackers (real and imagined) with them?

As Christians, it's time for us to say that enough is enough. We must raise our children, even if it means living on one income for some time. Like The Anchoress has raised Buster, we must teach our children that living boldly is more important than just living. We must push the rest of society to raise theirs, and give what aid we can. Public schools need to be a place of limits and of love, or we must ALL force them to change, even if only by leaving them and driving them broke.

Most of all, we Christians need to throw this Purpose Driven, Prosperity asserting, touchy-feely pseudo-Gospel junk out the window. We must get back to the business of loving people and telling them that there is a God in Heaven who loves them, and who wants them with Him for all eternity.

These people need hope, real hope, and we are the ones who haven't been telling them where it is.

This is the old blog

I've decided to restart blogging from scratch. I'm turning off all comments here, and keep these old posts as an archive.

A few notes from the week past...

1> Plumbing hurts. Our master bedroom's bathroom was desperately needing redoing, so I started. Of course, the medicine cabinet had rusted, so a new vanity was needed. Then the sink won't match the new mirror, so let's just put in a pedistal sink (makes the room look much less cluttered). And the linoleum was warn out. And.. well, you get the picture.

To put in a pedistal sink, I had to undo the twisty plumbing that was put in for the last sink. I started learning how to sweat (i.e. soldier) copper a couple of weeks ago, and after throwing my first couple of creations away, I thought I was ready.

Of course, I bought the wrong size drywall AGAIN. Sitting on the floor for 6 hours straight hurts. But I have pipes that aren't (yet) leaking, a wall that's mostly solid, and one step closer to the master bathroom of my dreams (or at least not my nightmares). And only two superficial burns. (Don't touch the hot pipe.)

2> Writing is hard. I've had three posts bouncing around in my head this week, but I've not been posting or writing in so long that I couldn't get started. Therefore, I'm just starting now. I think you'll get more posts this week. But that's not a promise. :)

3> I'm really really sick of politics. I should be more interested, but I get this deep, retching feeling every time I think of either group of bozos in Washington. I don't know if I'll be able to do much political commentary this year.