Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Im not dead

Sorry to all who have responded to posts, emailed me or posted to me in other places. I have been so busy this week I am not even getting much sleep. I have even fallen behind on my Flickr 365.

 

I will get back into it this weekend.

 

Hope all are doing well

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Last post

No this won't be my last I still have shit to say

I am referring to the last post I made. I was panicked because of a stressful day at work and mad at god. I would like to have closeness to god again just not dure what that would look like now
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Where is Gods Will?

I feel so far from God right now. My wife seems to think we are in God’s will (whatever that means anymore) but I cant buy it. I thought God gave us this place to live. Now I realize we are living in a neighborhood that is like a demilitarized zone. Well maybe not a demilitarized zone but one person has been killed in this subdivision. I thought he gave me my job. But all I live for at work is making money for the company. What I do doesnt make any difference Its all about kissing the asses of the rich. What is that about? Why would God allow such madness.

I thought he provided for us but we live paycheck to paycheck from a thread being dangled by greedy white men with power. Is that God?

I feel like if we were in Gods will things would at least appear to make sense or have some point. My wife is going to college. She may amount to something. I don’t think I have much of a chance to do anything meaningful anymore. I am too corporatized and too many are financially dependent on me staying that way. I have to do whatever I have to do to make money. I dont even know what I would do if I could do whatever I want. What I want to do has never been an option and I dont foresee that changing anytime soon. I make money. Thats what I am good for and thats fscked up.

Where is God in this? My faith is weakening right now. When I was active in ministry, I felt life had some kind of purpose. Now I feel like what the hell is it about. When I was in Churchianity I justified these times in the past as well I just wasn’t in Gods will at that time but now that I am things are better. There was a sense of false pride in how crappy things used to be and now how great they are because of living for God. Now I must be out of Gods will again because its like it was in the days of the stories or testimonies as they call them.

I also realize that compared to life in third world countries, things are great. So why do people in third world countries seem so damn happy with what little they have.

I guess I have everything I need. I just wish I knew if my faith was in God or in some corporate CEO who could destroy our very life if profits happen to be down. Would God allow this to happen if I were really in his will. Would he even let me feel the fear. Would he allow me to be working for someone who could do that. People who love money. Would it ever be Gods will for his child to help people to make money and get richer.

I sound depressed and I guess I am but moreso just burned out and don’t give a shit anymore. Dont worry about me. I will be fine as always. Maybe that is God at work. I dont know. Does he get some sick satisfaction is screwing with people?

God if you read this blog, please explain why the hell I am working so hard to sustain this f8cked up situation afloat instead of saying the hell with it and starting over like I used to. God where are you?

I dont even have a legitimate reason to feel this way. Maybe I just need a vacation.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

What am I listening to?

This site is probably an invasion of privacy and probably gonna sell me out to the man but for now I think its interesting I can share my weird musical tastes with blog readers. It tells you what I have played. At least on my work PC. I don’t condone it but go ahead and watch me. Whats next? Freaking reality TV.

 

http://www.mystrands.com/spiritbear928/music

 

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Eating Sacred Cows

Just the title of this free ebook got my attention. Someone once posted that sacred cows make the best hamburger. I think it was comment on this blog but I don’t feel like looking for it. Whoever said it, you know who you are.

 

Back to reality, (see my ADD mind wander all over again), this ebook is about tithing and why we don’t need to do it. Many who have been reading this blog for a while know I like tithing as much as I like mandatory health insurance.

 

This is from an assumed fundamentalist Christian background (which I have some issue with at this point) but its an interesting read if you ever need to refute someone who preaches tithing and speak in fundise instead of English

 

http://www.tithingdebate.com/EatingSacredCowsDownload.pdf

 

I think I am going to cook up some sacred bocaburgers tonight and serve them up on some locarb pita bread.

 

I am sensing the need to blow off the diet and have lunch at McDonalds. Though it would probably kill me now.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Scary yet cool

This is street level view on Google maps. The link will take you to a photo of the home in Minnesota that I spent part of my early childhood in. My parents moved in when I was 7 months old.

 

Anyway, the detail is great but at the same time very frightening. Surveillance society here we come. Check it out

 

 

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=44.898231,-93.249893&spn=0.021705,0.053988&z=15&layer=c&cbll=44.887688,-93.252907&cbp=2,107.00760116867124,,0,-0.02697855294114447>

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Credit Counseling Ripoff

OK so back in 03 we ran into a snag similar to what we are in now only then there was no obvious light. This time there is.

 

I was freaked out by the calls and just wanted them to stop so we signed up with Intellidebt. One of those debt counselors that you see on TV. Here is what it did for us and what it did not do for us:

 

The incompetent:

 

1)       The whole first $450 payment went to “admin costs” so the calls continued and dragged on for another month not to mention that what was slight lateness (about 30 days) turned into major credit damaging lateness (over 60 some reaching 90 before these morons sent them money)

2)       They charged us $77 a month for admin fees on top of what they paid the creditors

3)       They cant ever seem to get the due date right so occasional slightly late payments happened and cards dropped out from time to time

4)       The outrageous amount of the monthly payment (way more than the minimum) caused us to have to go more in debt and get more credit cards to pay for it

5)       We finally have it almost paid off and when we call to drop the program, nobody will talk to us. They promised callbacks and didn’t do it.

 

The Good:

 

 

1)       After 3 months, the calls stopped and one big payment is all we owed for the cards we put in the program.

2)       By giving up the cards, they did EVENTUALLY get paid off

3)       The interest rates were SLIGHTLY lowered

4)       It improved our credit rating after their incompetence damaged it.

 

 

This time we wont go for this. These supposed “non-profits” rip people off and don’t know how to run a business.

 

There is light at the end of this. Light from the IRS of all places. In a month, it will all be current and we will get out with fairly unscathed credit. Just a couple of over 30 days late.

 

I worked too damn hard to improve our credit and these dickheads didn’t help much. Just a warning to those stuck in debt. Debt counselors cant do anything you cant do yourself if you have the time and a thick skin. Neither of which do I have when it comes to creditors. Therefore changing my phone number and paying them a bit late works for me

 

 

 

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

I found this over at Landover Baptist and its true in many ways

To be a Republican you need to believe:

 

1. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary

Clinton.

 

2. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush’s

Daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him,

and a bad guy when Bush needed a “we can’t find Bin Laden” diversion.

 

3. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but

trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international

harmony.

 

4. The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our

highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

 

5. A woman can’t be trusted with decisions about her own body, but

multinational drug corporations can make decisions affecting all

mankind without regulation.

 

6. The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in

speeches, while slashing veterans’ benefits and combat pay.

 

7. If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won’t have sex.

 

8. A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our longtime allies,

then demand their cooperation and money.

 

9. Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing

health care to all Americans is socialism. HMO’s and insurance

companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

 

10. Global warming and tobacco’s link to cancer are junk science , but

creationism should be taught in schools.

 

11. A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable

offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which

thousands die is solid defense policy.

 

12. Government should limit itself to the powers named in the

Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the

Internet.

 

13. The public has a right to know about Hillary’s cattle trades, but

George Bush’s driving record is none of our business.

 

14. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you’re

a conservative radio host. Then it’s an illness and you need our

prayers for your recovery.

 

15. Supporting “Executive Privilege” for every Republican ever born,

who will be born or who might be born (in perpetuity.)

 

16. What Bill Clinton did in the 1960’s is of vital national

interest, but what Bush did in the ’80’s is irrelevant.

 

17. Support for hunters who shoot their friends and blame them for

wearing orange vests similar to those worn by the quail.

 

If you don’t send this to at least 10 other people, we’re likely to

be stuck with more Republicans in ‘08.

The test below

I stole that from Shelly at Demiurgiclust. THe interesting thing is I live near one of the mentioned cities (Portland/Salem) and I was born just outside one of them (Washington DC) and lived in another for a couple years (Denver) and pondered seriously living in two of them (Albuquerque and Kansas City).

Though my hometown (based on amount of meaningful years spent there. Not on being born there) is not on the list. Nor is the big city nearest it.

Interesting though

Interesting since I have lived in a couple of these cities

#################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### ####################################################
Your personality type is RLUAI
You are moderately reserved, moderately moody, unstructured, accommodating, and intellectual, and may prefer a city which matches those traits.

The largest representation of your personality type can be found in the these U.S. cities: Washington DC, Portland/Salem, Richmond, New Orleans, Norfolk, Denver, Albuquerque/Santa Fe, Kansas City, St. Louis, New York City, Indianapolis, San Antonio and these international countries/regions Slovenia, Croatia, Caribbean, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Belgium, Guam, Ukraine, Argentina, Greece, Brazil, Israel, Wales, Finland, Germany, Poland

What Places In The World Match Your Personality?
City Reviews at CityCulture.org

Annoyance of the Day

Todays annoyance goes to:

 

People who talk to you in the bathroom while you are taking a leak.

 

I realize that it may be acceptable for women to do this. I don’t know. Never been a woman or in a ladies room (well once accidentally when I was very drunk but we wont go there). Anyway, in the mans world, it is not cool to carry on conversations with people while using the facilities. It is not cool to ask about your day or your computer while peeing. You are supposed to silently stare at that imaginary spot on the wall and do your business. When you make a man uneasy while in the bathroom it becomes difficult and awkward both physically and mentally.

 

I will talk to you but please don’t talk to me when I am in the bathroom. It freaks me out man.

 

 

Monday, March 03, 2008

Here is the Story about the Anthrax Scare from the Albany Democrat Herald

http://www.democratherald.com/articles/2008/03/03/news/top_story/7aaa02_courthouse.txt

Anthrax Scare Closes Albany Courthouse

A friend of mine from the Coast emailed me and told me. Since I am at work and work is not in Albany, I didn’t know. Here is the article from KVAL in Eugene

 

ALBANY, Ore. (AP) - Linn County officials have closed the courthouse in downtown Albany for the day, saying they have had an ''anthrax threat''.

Commissioner Roger Nyquist (NEYE'-quist) says a county employee found writing on a courthouse door and some packages inside early Monday morning that indicated a threat.

He says the Linn County Sheriff's Department and Albany Fire Department have been conducting a HAZMAT inspection and the package will be taken to a lab for analysis.

The results are expected to come sometime Monday. Nyquist said a decision will be made Monday afternoon on whether or not the courthouse will reopen Tuesday.

Words we may all die by

If you are innocent, you have nothing to hide and need not fear. This is often said, Mostly be Republicans when discussing homeland security, RFID, police state, etc. Those who say that may end up being the first to find out it is not true.

 

If you are innocent, you have everything to fear. Do you trust the government to decide if you are innocent or suspicious.

 

We aren’t there yet but I don’t like the way things are going.

 

May God help us all if we really are heading for 1984.

 

I gotta quit listening to Coast to Coast and reading articles on the Internet. Being an ostrich with head buried in the sand was so much easier. I think I should go back to Church, stop thinking and do what they tell me. If big brother says 2+2=5 it’s a lot easier to believe it than to get all your teeth pulled out with pliers and branded as a thought criminal like that dude on 1984.

 

This post is full of sarcasm. A bit of conspiracy theory and an element of reality. I may sound like a paranoid idiot and no I am not ready to move to Idaho and start talking about the black choppers taking me away to an internment camp. I just think a bit of vigilance would be smart. Why should we trust the government that brought us, nuclear weapons, the iraq war, fake elections, and homeland security. Lets ask the children at Waco, Randy Weaver, the residents of Iraq, Muammar Khadafi’s children, and a series of random innocent death row inmates what they think about this.

 

All I am really saying here is don’t be an ostrich. Watch the signs. Be prepared and be afraid but only slightly afraid.

 

Actually if you want to be an ostrich, go ahead. I am not telling anyone what to believe. If you want to believe the sky is purple you have that right.

New stressors I must conquer before they become phobias

There are a few things that I have noticed make me uneasy. Borderline crazy or make me feel crazy.

 

1)       I haven’t flown for a long time and deep down I have a mild fear of flying but that isn’t what keeps me away from the airport. I am scared shitless of airport security and any interaction with the dept of homeland security. Many would say, I am not doing anything wrong, I need not worry. I worry though. I expect to be wrongfully accused. I don’t trust them. The same fear makes crossing the US Canadian border a fearful experience though I have done that once post 9/11. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t that bad. They didn’t do much but it left me with that I hope they had rubber gloves on feeling. I also have amorbid fear of being kept on a plane on the tarmac for many hours without a working bathroom

 

2)       Redlight cameras. Ever since my wife got a ticket from one, I look up at those things and my heartrate increases. Everything starts moving slowly and I am obsessed with getting out of that intersection. I also get haunted with fear of who is watching and what are they doing with it. I get that same feeling when I see a cop following me on the road. Innocent until proven guilty. YEAH RIGHT.

 

3)       Telephones. Spending years working in a help desk. Now avoiding creditor calls have caused me to jump out of my skin when the phone rings. Once I see who it is, I calm down. But I don’t answer the phone in most cases without caller ID. The feeling I get when it rings is what scares me.

 

I don’t want to be a slave to these things and with the exception of the airport one, they haven’t been crippling fears. Just more of an internal panic until I calm down.

 

Maybe I am losing my mind. Maybe the thought of a surveillance society is too much for me. Maybe I am normal and everyone feels this way about something inside.

 

 

From Boing Boing. Funny RFID Story

Dog swallows RFID, starts car

 | PERMALINK

A woman in Surrey, England couldn't figure out why her car wouldn't start. An Automobile Association patrolman arrived on the scene and the two realized that the woman's dog had swallowed the car's immobilizer chip fob. The immobilizer contains an RFID chip that must be within a certain proximity of the steering column for the key to work. According to a BBC News report, the patrolman put the dog in the front seat, turned the key, and the car started right up. Link (Thanks, Paul Saffo!)

 

Perhaps I should drop full coverage on my wifes car

I just read a disturbing article on wired that said that cars that have RFID implanted keys are stolen and insurance companies are denying the claims saying the cars are theft proof.

 

I remember three years ago the top of my key to this car broke and it cost me over $100 to get a damn working copy. Not to mention several trips to different places. All the dealer had to do was run the VIN and magically program a new key to work. So we now trust all car dealer employees. I would think they could make some extra dough on the side by selling keys. They have your personal info so they know where to find the car and how to make it work. But if they steal it the insurance company can accuse you of fraud and there are real people out there paying for cars that don’t exist because of this.

 

Our car is paid off and I only keep full coverage on it because in our neighborhood I worry about car theft. What’s the point?. Maybe I will drop it today. Since it CANNOT BE STOLEN.

 

The real stupidity is I have to keep full coverage on my 21 year old pickup that nobody would steal (but would be easy if they wanted to) because it is collateralized in a loan.

 

 

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Gods Parking Space?

cascade%20lake.jpg

Right now

I am sitting in the car with my dog. I am at a college. My wife is playing capture the flag. I came along to support her but its not a spectator sport. Now I get two hours to just sit. Its actually peaceful

Today we attempted to go to opal creek wilderness but only made it to the first unpaved bridge and the road was buried with snow. It was nice out there.

We will make it to jawbone flats and opal creel when the snow melts.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Satan Device

OK so we had liquid satan now we have the satan device. The company I work for decided to buy the CEO a Zune music player to bring him into the digital world. This is Micro$ofts knock off of the Ipod. I was tasked with setting it up and ripping  about 10 CDs and copying them to it.

 

I have officially declared the Zune the satan device. This thing is from the bowels of hell. I plug it into my laptop. You cannot use it without downloading software. OK. Maybe that’s fine. I download the shitware (I mean software) and it proceeds to without asking UPDATE THE FIRMWARE on the Zune. Now as a tech I know that Firmware updates can go very bad and toast your device. At least an option would have been nice but this just did it.

 

Now my laptop is a 1.8Mhz core Duo with 2GB of RAM and XP. Not bad really. Well it took 45 minutes for this satanware to install. That seemed excessive. No progress indicators. Nothing. Then once installed it starts puking out random error messages which researching it tells me are TO BE EXPECTED. This will be great for a technophobe CEO. Finally I get the damn satanware to work and then had to figure out how to copy music to it. You would think Micro$uck product would use Media Player. NOT.. Forget about drag and drop like a normal MP3 Player. Nope you have to use the Zune satanware to copy files to it. And its about as user friendly as a nuclear power plant in meltdown.

 

Ok so I get it all figured out. All is well right. WRONG. Now every time I turn on the laptop its noticeably slower and has errors on the Zune bus enumerator. Sure I can probably disable the services or worst case reformat my laptop. But CEO with his slower system is going to expect this piece of shit to actually work and call me when it doesn’t.

 

We haven’t presented the satan device to him yet. I am going to try and talk the people who bought this into returning the damn thing and buying him an ipod.

 

Somehow I know I will get called on a weekend sometime and will be treated as if I wrote this satanware.

 

ZUNE SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. It looks cool but the software makes Vista look like something good. What a piece of shit.