One of my all time favorite pieces put to a very nice anime fantasy art picture set......

This just had to be posted. A couple of cute German girls who realized they had a thing for bicycles....

So you're a senior citizen and the government says no health care for you, what do you do?

Our plan gives anyone 65 years or older a gun and 4 bullets. Your are allowed to shoot 2 senators and 2 representatives of your choice. Of Course, this means you will be sent to prison where you will get 3 meals a day, a roof over your head, and all the health care you need! New teeth, no problem. Need glasses, great. New hip, knees, kidney, lungs, heart? All covered.


And who will be paying for all of this? The same government that just told you that you are too old for health care. Plus, because you are a prisoner, you don't have to pay any income taxes anymore.




IS THIS A GREAT COUNTRY OR WHAT?!

We on the church music staff have decided to expand our music books a bit. Our standard songs are still fabulous, but we are always on the lookout for something to add. After a little discussion we decided to add We Will Dance.



This past summer we added Mighty to Save which has turned into one of our most popular songs.

I haven't ranted in a long time, so this one is probably overdue...Which of the following business practices bug you the most?


If you have any to add, feel free.

A. Robocalls -- a computer calls you and places you on hold. To me this is insulting. If you have business with me, then you had darn well better call me personally.

B. Can't take "no" for an answer -- After you tell them you are not interested, they keep pushing. I love to ask them "what part of 'no' didn't they understand".

C. Callers who don't know your name -- Either they can't pronounce your name or they have such a thick accent that they can't say it correctly. Last night, got a call. The caller was from India or one of those places where they couldn't properly pronounce our last name. They asked for Jon Keen (probably Jan O'Quinn). I told them that nobody by that name lived here. If I am important enough that they can bug me at night, they had better know who I am.

D. Callers who don't speak your language -- They don't speak your language well enough to communicate effectively. Jan was in the back of the house when a call came in. I had to ask the guy three or four times within a span of half a minute what he was saying. Finally Jan heard me tell the caller to call back when they could speak English. She started laughing. Let's face it, if you want to do business with a customer, you had better be able to talk in a way they can understand you.

E. Mechanical answering service -- You get caught in a seemingly endless loop of "press 1 for xxx, press 3 for yyy....". This one bugs me a lot because until I can get out of the loop, I really don't have anyone to scold or vent at. Usually pressing 0 or * or # gets you out of the loop, but not always. And nothing is worse than navigating your way through one of these things and then it hangs up on you.

F. Being recorded -- They want to claim it is for training and quality, but what do they really want to record you for?" Try this: next time one says that the call will be recorded, stop them and tell them that you will gladly do business with them but deny them permission to record you. See what they do. If they tell you that it is their policy to record calls, tell them that it is your policy not to be recorded and if they want your money, they have to cater to you.

G. Restricted or no caller ID -- If they are for real, why do they want to hide who they are? No caller ID...I don't answer unless I recognize the number.

H. Calling your cell phone -- Hello? These are MY minutes. I don't want you to use them begging me to donate for the local policeman's ball. I had a lot of fun sending a message to someone telling them that I was going to charge them each time they called on my business use cell phone. Haven't heard from them since.

Nice if you like special effects.
Significant scientific errors were made at the beginning, but if you look past that, the story had a good plot, plenty of action and was overall very entertaining.

The story begins with a doomsday scenario which scientists see coming and the governments cover up while they attempt to build a series of "arks". The earth is about to undergo another great flood and the hero stumbles onto the cover-up and tries to save his family by getting them on one of the arks (seats are selling at 1 billion per seat)

If you have the time, it is worth the matinee price and a little more than 2 1/2 hours of sitting.

No, really.
Over the last few days, as Veteran's Day approached, several people have expressed their thanks to me for my service. 
To be honest, I felt a little guilty about accepting their thanks.  After all, those 6 years were some of the best years of my life.  I was truly happy and had the best friends ever.  So when I say it was "my pleasure" I really mean it!

For six years I was in Strategic Air Command on nuclear alert.  Most of my time was spent just being ready to do something that I never had to do.  There was some time spent in training and other things, but for the most part I was getting paid good money to do nothing but be ready to do something that (quite frankly) if I messed up, nobody would be around to give me grief about it anyway.

So I suppose if anything, I should say thanks to America for allowing me to do what I did. 

But if you folks really want to thank me, I will be plenty happy if you will just keep banks, post offices and such open instead of closed when I need to make use of them.

New guy at work.
The company hired a new person.  He enters training now and has been sitting with me a little to observe. 
So now I am not the lowest man on the totem pole...on the other hand, he is still in the NUG (new useless guy) stage and is not expected to actually know anything.  So I am still the guy who gets crapped on for the crummy tasks.  No biggie.

Got the month's scheduling forecast.  It looks like over the Thanksgiving week I will be pulling 60 hours.  I am scheduled to hold down five twelve-hour shifts.  The two days off and back for one more week of day shifts.  Then we rotate shifts and I will go to working 4 days a week (2 twelve-hour weekend shifts and 2 eight-hour weekday shifts.  The weekdays will be swing shifts (3pm to 11pm) and the weekends will be night shifts (7pm to 7am).

Silver lining?  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning off.  Plenty of time to take care of personal business and maybe even a little geocaching...if I can get Steve and William to come out during the week.  Also allows be to be able to attend church on Wednesday nights to help with the youth group.

Down side?

No church at all on Sunday.  :(    ....render unto Caesar....

I have only written one poem which people seem to like....

Ode to Algebra

 

Algebra is a word with an ominous sound,

Like the name of a place where demons abound.

In completing the square to form quadratics

One encounters the Hell of advanced mathematics.

 

Many are the terms that confound and confuse,

In the language that all mathematicians use.

Why not use plain English for a change?

Why call X and Y the Domain and Range?

 

Mantissa and Matrix—if not enough of a scare,

Imagine getting a circle by adding two squares!

Logarithms sound like some odd country band,

And I think of a politician when I hear the word Radicand.

 

A Series which goes to infinity--it's true,

Can actually have a sum--not easy to do.

Irrational Numbers are absurd and lack reason;

I hope I don’t need to understand them this season!

 

Lines and curves on a graph we do plot.

And give funny names to the collection of dots.

Hyperbola, ellipsi, parabola and more,

But just what the heck are they used for?

 

Imaginary numbers, now there’s an odd thought.

If the thing isn’t real, how can it help but effect naught.

We take these classes to learn to work with these digits,

If we see more letters than numbers, should we get English credits?

 

In this Ode to Algebra I record a semester's strife,

And fret at how math has ruined my social life.

I seal closed my text and bid "Good riddance to thee”,

And look forward to the simplicity of Trigonometry.

 

Kevin O’Quinn

Not the best, but a real hit with teachers.

This is Tinkerbell.  She was made by a dear friend and I get to be the daddy.



Just like Holly, Tinkerbell is modeled after a real person.  Her mom's niece. 
Tinkerbell's mom is Georgia (used to be) McQuaig, a sweet lady who I went to school with, grew up with and always thought of as cute and fun.

It will be fun to see what kind of personality Georgia gives her new daughter.

I've been in class for two days and now am sitting in for the third. 
Had a rough day yesterday.  Accidentally left the lights on in the Jeep and it ran the battery down.   Had to get a jump, and all the way home the jeep seemed like it was about to shut off on me.  Turns out that it just seems to want to idle very low, lower than normal, but doesn't actually shut off.

Also found out that work is looking to postpone the shift rotation until December.  That irks me because I went though a lot of effort to rearrange my life and schedule to accommodate it.  I was looking forward to the 3 to 11 shift.  It would have given me lots of free time at night to study for the FCC liscense (which shouldn't be an issue, just need the quiet time to actually sit down and work on it).

Jan has been feeling pretty low lately.  I miss the old Jan.

I am going to see if any local businesses down here are going to be hiring for the holidays.  The extra pocket money would be helpful.

I just hope people don't blow me off because I can't tell ahead of time what my schedule is going to be.

Once more, my virtual kids have grown

They have also gotten dressed for the cooler weather.

Holly is now in 5th Grade,  Morgan is in 1st Grade and Corey is in Kindergarten.  And a 4th kid is on the way.

                   
      Holly-Anna                       Morgan                                  Corey

Corey and Holly are ready to grow up to the next stage.  Morgan is only a little behind, and will probably be ready tomorrow.





                                   
          Holly-Anna                                              Morgan                                         Corey

Well I haven't really been neglecting the postings as much as I have been holding back this post awaiting the completion of the time period for the question. 

A few weeks ago I answered a question regarding the divinity of Christ.  The question was posted by a Muslim who closed the question with a comment that Islam was the one true religion and that the Quran contained proof, not just fancy talk, but logical proof.
Well it was not the first time I had heard that claim by Muslims, so I decided to call them out on it.

I posted the following question:

Where is the proof of Islam?

OK  I admit, I was baiting the atheists and the muslims to go at each other.  It worked a little bit, but not as much as I would have liked.

The responses:

Samian posted
They're going to say "the miracle of the holy Qur'an IS the proof!"
Just watch.

sjp posted
You can say that to all theists.
Still waiting for the proof everyone.
Derek, Eric, Keri...etc

sara f posted
just to clarify
islam means to submit peacefully to the god ,Allah is Arabic word means the god (even Arab Christians use this word in their prays)
if you like to see Allah (the god)`s miracles by your own eyes come and see
http://www.miraclesofislam.com/
if you like to understand Allah (the god)`s miracles by your own mind ,come and read
http://www.55a.net/
if you want to know the greatest miracle of the god read the quran
http://www.quran.net/
then come and say your shahada (converting to Islam)

the Buddhist posted
They always talk about the "scientific miracles" of the Qu'ran.
However, if they are going to use science to judge the Qu'ran, this means that the Qu'ran hypothesis must be rejected if a mistake is discovered. Unfortunately for muslims, the Qu'ran explicitly states a couple of times that the sun revolves around the earth. It also repeats the silly Adam and Eve creation story (this is why so many muslims are creationists by the way).

wazgud II posted
he who requires proof obviously has faith in proof -__-
anyways, everything's been analyzed and presented already
it only takes a bit of google-ing to find your answer
the truth is in the Qur'an and the proof is in Science and History
there're no contradictions
What it comes down to is how you understand it...
if you have any specific questions, i'd be willing to try and explain it for your understanding and/or look it up for you
[specific, meaning about verses, application, practice, etc...]

the cool muslim posted
peace be upon those who follow the truth
first of all thank you brother for asking about my religion islam
what about a since proof that the Quran form god ?
like the big bang , the shape of the earth , moon light etc in quran since 1400 years a go
watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2s14T6x5…
peace be with you

John posted

Naturally there were a few posts that I felt obliged to challenge:


Now wazgud II was feeling his oats so he decided to come back...

dude, read my answer
I said, the proof exists and all YOU need to do is google it to find it
if there is something YOU find which you don't understand or don't believe, i can try to explain it to you (if i believe in it)
I'm not going to copy-paste a bazillion links or verses just for you
you can check out what the others have posted instead

So I took the lad to task.

Wazgud II
WRONG
You make the claim here. I put the onus on you to back it up here. All you are trying to do is deflect. Bring it here to this discussion or admit you don't have the proof.

So as the question phase came to a close, I enlightened the misguided.

To Sara f:
Miracles of Allah? Dear, the Catholics see the same miracles every time the image of the Madonna shows up on a piece of toast or in a wisp of cloud. It proves nothing.
Everything in those links are nothing but conjecture and opinion. There was nothing-repeat-NOTHING that was exclusive to Islam. There are numerous other belief systems that are every bit as accurate with regard to science.

Sorry Cool Muslim.
Dr. Naik's arguments are full of fallacies and errors. The big bang is also mentioned in the Bible. It's just not called the "big bang". Nor was it called that in the Quran. Eratosthenes proved over 300 years before Christ that the earth was a sphere. Aristotle originally suggested that the earth revolved around the sun.
All this long before the Quran came along.
And the list goes on.
So was Muhammad a plagiarist?

I then selected what I considered to be the best answer by Invisible Talker:

I've heard plenty in my time. They generally go into several categories:

1) Stuff that simply isn't true:
- "Even today there is a huge scar going all across the moon right where Mohammed once split it apart" yet when you look at the images they provide, they're rather minor scratches that don't actually go around at all
- "There are no contradictions in the Qur'an" when it's easy to point out some like ask 'what was man made of, clay or a clot?'. Or 'when does Allah send down angels? Only to do destruction or also otherwise?'

2) Arguments ridden with logical fallacies:
- "I can feel god, therefore he exists"
- "I can't think of any other way for the Universe to have come about, therefore god made it"
- "The Qur'an must be true because Islam is the largest faith in the world"
- "He must exist. I want him to."
- "I have personal experience X that I cannot explain. There cannot be an explanation that eludes me. Therefore it must be god!"
- "Nobody knows, therefore god exists"
- "To not believe in god one must be able to categorically disprove him, but to not believe in Unicorns one doesn't have to be able to disprove them"

3) Things that under certain circumstances could perhaps considered evidence for a deistic god that is then confused as evidence for not only a theistic god, but a specific one at that. Things like:
- "The Universe is fine-tuned"
- "Why is there something rather than nothing? Surely it must be god!"

4) Post hoc interpretations of vague pieces of text or arguments from coincidence:
- Scientific 'miracles' in the Qur'an, like "It says here that when you go upwards, it's harder to breathe. Surely that can't be anything else but divinely revealed"
- "The Sun is 70% hydrogen and 25% helium. This one text among thousands in the Qur'an contains the letters that correspond to those elements in about that proportion. That means the Qur'an is true!!!1111oneoneone"
- "Mohammed said X would win war Y. Mohammed was right in this, therefore everything else he said is also right"

I then closed the question with the parting thoughts:

And once AGAIN, a lot of claims of proof, but not one person actually showed any. Just a lot of links to opinions, propaganda and conjecture.
Muslims, you can't say you have proof if you can't actually prove something. You claim to be enlightened. Well, prove it.

In reading the links and watching the videos, I am convinced that there is no proof that the Quran or Islam is true.
I am further convinced that Muslims don't really know what the words "proof" or "logic" actually mean.

He he he.  Let the hate mailings begin!

Well there were some nice points of the week.  The most exciting thing was Jan's job interview.  She it is for a temp-to-perm position and pays a decent wage.  I hope she gets it.  I think she will feel much better once she has something to focus on and gets out and about more.

For me it was nice to learn that we are about to go through a shift rotation.  I'm kinda looking forward to it.  It will mean some weekend work, but weekday off time, and of course it will mean no more leaving the house at 4am on Mondays or getting up at 5am every morning.  It will be a shift that goes in at 3pm and gets off at 11pm.  I'll be hitting the sack around midnight and sleeping as long as I want.

I have decided to change my email address.  It just doesn't make any sense to pay $9 a month for a business email when there are so many people who will give me one for free.  So the new business email will be BlueRidgeATS@gmail.com.  BRATS@pipeline.com will be canceled.

OK....time to pay some bills.

Nothing spectacular and quite a few followers of this blog would probably just twirl a finger and say "whoop te doo.  Bit deal."  But to me it really is a big deal as it has taken me quite a few months to get it done.  I finally got all my LM writing on a blog site for anyone to enjoy. 

Darkwind is here: loganmizar.blogspot.com/2008/09/chapter-1-part-1.html
Darwkind is a 5 book saga.  The first part is the actual Darkwind trilogy:  The Oracle and the Well, The Lord of the Wood, and The Price of Power.  In addition there is a short novelette called The Chime of Twin-Klear which was written by Glen Lawson.  And finally bringing up the rear is An Apprentice's Tale, which more or less ends the saga.  I say it ends the saga, but there is plenty of openings for more storyline.  It just closes the tale of the adventures of Armegon, Avery and Ultrecht.  It does leave plenty of potential for stories about Coran (the last of the Blackheart bloodline), Gage, Calista, Crystal, Ruk, Rathe, Cindy and of course, Dylan. 

Trojan Cannon is here:  drewblake.blogspot.com/2009/04/preface.html
Trojan Cannon was written some time ago.  Glen Lawson made some contributions and even wrote some short excerpts which he wanted to use to write a sequel based on TC. 

I have been considering posting what parts of Engineer's Gambit that I have finished, and may yet do that.  I haven't worked on that piece for over a year now...other things having higher priorites.

You all met Holly a few weeks ago.  Since that time, we adopted Morgan (someone didn't want her and it is not allowed to just delete a kid once it has been made....maybe the pro choice crowd should play this game).  And finally there is Corey.  We are going to try to keep one kid of each age range. 

Holly in Lower Elementary School




Morgan in Kindergaten



Corey in Preschool

There is really nothing special about this post.  It is not even very interesting with the exception that it represents an example of what Trolls are online.  I may have mentioned this before, but Trolls are people who post a question, not really looking for an answer, but to stir up discord and to be insulting or incite anger.  They seem to take pleasure if someone gets offended by what they post.  So I, in return, take some satisfaction in subverting their efforts.  This is an example of a completely irrelevant post made for the sole purpose of angering people.  I pulled the rug out from under the guy by being polite, to the point and not falling for his trap while still answering the question. 

Chris C asked:

Is or was there ever a relic of the Holy after-birth?

My response:

A curious question.
I would imagine that there was afterbirth (placenta). I believe it was tradition to bury it in those days. It would certainly have not been given to animals to eat as it was considered that an animal which ate human flesh was "unclean" and that was a big deal back then.


I can just imagine the guy seething that his efforts had been rendered impotent.