Ooops, left out a couple of words... that should be: "When is Talking About Sex
Outside of Marriage OK?
Odd news for the day:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/30/jets_kill_rudolph/
I had a great rant all worked out in my head the other day while I was on the way into work, but by the time I got in I had forgotten what I was going to write about. In fact, I still don’t remember what I was going to write about. It is a shame too; it would have been earth shattering. Nobody’s life would have been the same once they read what I wrote. Oh well.
Life has been busy for the mo… oh who am I kidding? I have been bored out of my mind for the last couple of days because I have been home from work with a bad back. I am not certain how I hurt it, but bowling might have had something to do with it. I woke up Sunday and could barely move it hurt so badly. It has only been today that the pain has reached a level where I think I am actually starting to get better. When my back hurts it really messes with my concentration so anything involving deep thinking is pretty much out of the picture. That basically left me with watching TV all day, and looking up lame stuff on the internet. Now that I am feeling better I have a ton of homework to do; including a 20 page paper that I have to have done by next week.
House stuff is going well. We are still set to close on October 31st. Word to the wise: even when you are buying a new house, make sure that you bring a realtor with you to help you with contract stuff. There were a couple of things on our contract that we forgot to check on that could potentially cause us problems. There will probably be no problems, but I am annoyed that I didn’t catch them at first.
--------------------Married Person Stuff below this point (Fair Warning)---------
I have been thinking… How much does Christianity’s obsession with not talking about sex effect Christian youth and young married couples? How many of you remember being taught about sex while at church? I have memories about being taught about abstinence and purity, and saving yourself for marriage and all that, but that is all. The general feeling was that sex is wrong, and heaven forbid that you should actually talk about it. How many sermons have you heard about the importance of sex once you get to marriage? It is true that sex is taboo as far as the general church population is concerned. The majority of churches that I have seen offer some sort of marriage class that involves some sex talk, but those are usually targeted towards older couples that are having issues with their marriage, or who need to “bring the romance back”. Pre-marital counseling is always offered, and presumably you would talk about sex there, but if you have grown up in a church where sex is taboo, why would you want to talk to your pastor about it? Talk about feeling dirty. I believe that the average Christian grows up in the church being told that sex is bad, and that you have to wait till you are married before you can have sex. Then they are never exposed to anything else till it is time to get married at which point some well meaning married couple will go out and buy them the first Christian sex book that they find at the Christian book store (you wouldn’t want to get caught looking in that section for too long) and give it to the new couple. The new couple will read the book, and learn the importance “of treating your wife like a delicate flower and gently awakening her so that her petals will bloom and release her delicate aroma” (yes, I actually have read that in a sex book before). They digest this new information, get married, and go to have sex, and realize that they have absolute no idea what they are doing. The physical mechanics of sex are pretty obvious and were probably explained at some point in some sex ed class, or by your parents, but what about the roles of the husband and wife in the marriage?
How often is an appropriate amount of times to have sex in the first week of marriage, or the first month, or the first year, or the first decade? What if 5 years down the road the wife feels that all that the husband is interested in is sex, and the husband is incapable of showing interest in other aspects of the wife’s life because he is frustrated at the lack of sex? What if you have a husband who is not interested in sex more than twice a month? How do you deal with these issues? The Christian sponsored appropriate response would be to talk to some one of the same sex that you trust so that you could get advice. How is that person going to give you the correct advice though? They aren’t going to understand the other sex any better that you do. They might not be having the same problem in their life, but it is more likely due to luck than a perfect understanding. Supposedly you should talk to your pastor about stuff like this. First off, that assumes that you have a pastor that you are close enough with to trust, and secondly, it assumes that they even have any experience in the matter (how many pastors are single?). The next most likely answer is that you should talk to a Christian therapist. Again, this assumes a level of trust that most people are not comfortable with. For some people it is perfectly OK to sit down with a perfect stranger and dive into their sex life. For others that is a little over the top.
These issues would become a mute point if our culture allowed for bringing up children and young adults with a better understand of what sex inside of marriage means, and to allow them to feel comfortable with talking about it. We need to help people to see the emotional side of sex. We must remove the Christian social stigma that surrounds sex before our culture gets any worse. We need pastors who can stand up and preach on the excitement of marriage, and what it means to have that emotional bound cemented by the physical act of sex. I believe that this would also serve to help kids abstain from sex, as they would better understand that the thing that they think they (7 Ts) are doing for fun is actually emotionally scaring them and their future spouse for life.
There is a great story of how one day there was a Torrey class that was covering the Songs of Solomon. There was a huge uproar from the students because they thought that it was inappropriate to be discussing it in public. Several of the students even stormed out of the classroom in tears. How sad is it that one the most beautiful examples of what God wants sex to be would be considered unfit for the Christian classroom? People need to understand it, and to see how wonderful it is to love another person.
Going back to the topic of talking about sex with other people; it seams like the favorite thing for married people to talk about with their close friends of both sexes is sex. It is all well and good to talk about it with your spouse, but people want to be able to discuss it, learn about it, compare notes, and figure out if what they are doing is wrong or right. If their sex life is great, then they want to share and help others to have a great one too. If their sex life is bad then they want to fix it. If this is considered as taboo as Christian culture wants to dictate, then where is there left to turn to? How many of you read this and thought “it is wrong for a guy to talk to a girl that he is not married to about sex”? Now think… why did you think that? Why do you think it is wrong? Where in the Bible can you show me that it is wrong? Ok sure, it can potentially invite temptation in. Why? Because we as a culture find the very act of talking about sex to be taboo, and thus find it exciting and “dangerous”. Of course it is very easy to just be careful to not allow yourself to become interested in the other person; just like you have to be careful not to become interested in the other person based on a million other traits. I can guarantee that the very sound of a woman’s voice is just as likely to excite a guy as talking about sex is. Every person has their own foibles. “Wow, I’m having coffee in public with a person I am not married to. Sexy. Take me now!”
Friday, September 30, 2005
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Monday, September 19, 2005
Out nerding the nerdiest nerds
I got really excited yesterday when I discovered that the version of Visual Studio that I have installed at home includes a binary file viewer.
And in other news that might actually be interesting to somebody...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050916/od_nm/australia_electricity_dc
And in other news that might actually be interesting to somebody...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050916/od_nm/australia_electricity_dc
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Director Level
I was looking at Northrop Grumman jobs to see if I could find a position that would allow me to work from home. I found several jobs that could potentially be good bets, and I e-mailed the managers that were listed on each req. to ask them what they would recommend. Then I pulled up the org charts to see if there were any other managers at the same level that I could e-mail. It turned out that the people I e-mailed were directors directly under the VP of the sector. Oops.
The nice thing is that they returned my e-mails quickly and told me which jobs to apply for. So today I spent several hours making sure my resume was pretty (It was already up to date, but I just re-did it from scratch), and submitted it to 10 different job positions. Hopefully something will turn out OK.
I heard back from another company that I applied for in Visalia today as well. I have an interview scheduled on Tuesday. I am thinking about canceling it though because the pay they are offering is not high enough. Also, I would really prefer to stay with Northrop at this point.
Sigh....
The nice thing is that they returned my e-mails quickly and told me which jobs to apply for. So today I spent several hours making sure my resume was pretty (It was already up to date, but I just re-did it from scratch), and submitted it to 10 different job positions. Hopefully something will turn out OK.
I heard back from another company that I applied for in Visalia today as well. I have an interview scheduled on Tuesday. I am thinking about canceling it though because the pay they are offering is not high enough. Also, I would really prefer to stay with Northrop at this point.
Sigh....
Monday, September 12, 2005
It is Welfare's fault.
An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State
by Robert Tracinski
Sep 02, 2005
by Robert Tracinski
It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.
If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.
Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.
But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.
The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.
The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.
The man-made disaster is the welfare state.
For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.
When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).
So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?
To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:
"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.
"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....
"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.
" 'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,' she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.' "
The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.
What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?
Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?
My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)
What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.
There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.
All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.
No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.
What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.
But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.
The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.
Source: TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005
by Robert Tracinski
Sep 02, 2005
by Robert Tracinski
It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.
If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.
Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.
But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.
The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.
The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.
The man-made disaster is the welfare state.
For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.
When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).
So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?
To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:
"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.
"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....
"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.
" 'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,' she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.' "
The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.
What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?
Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?
My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)
What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.
There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.
All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.
No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.
What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.
But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.
The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.
Source: TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Spiritual Gifts
Since Deb brought it up, I figured I'd take the spiritual gift tests too:
This first one is from http://www.elca.org/evangelism/assessments/spiritgifts.html
I don't like it as much as others.
Update:
Sigh, I suppose I should explain why I don't like it.
Discernment should be higher
Hospitality should be way higher (don't know how it got that result)
Music isn't a spiritual gift
Pastoral should be lower.
Wisdom should be higher.
Writing??????? Guess what Mom, one of my strongest gifts is writing.
Come to think of it there are a bunch on there that I don't consider spiritual gifts. I prefer to stick with the ones listed in the Bible.
My "core" gifts are:
Discernment
Giving
Healing (why isn't healing on that list?)
Faith
My "weaker" gifts are:
Prophecy (in the preachy sense of the word, although there have been times that I have seen visions of the future)
Wisdom
Leadership
I will do the other one tomorrow. I don't have the time to answer 125 questions in the 2 minutes before I leave work. The test that I am going to do tomorrow is a better test. We will see what it says.
This first one is from http://www.elca.org/evangelism/assessments/spiritgifts.html
I don't like it as much as others.
Update:
Sigh, I suppose I should explain why I don't like it.
Discernment should be higher
Hospitality should be way higher (don't know how it got that result)
Music isn't a spiritual gift
Pastoral should be lower.
Wisdom should be higher.
Writing??????? Guess what Mom, one of my strongest gifts is writing.
Come to think of it there are a bunch on there that I don't consider spiritual gifts. I prefer to stick with the ones listed in the Bible.
My "core" gifts are:
Discernment
Giving
Healing (why isn't healing on that list?)
Faith
My "weaker" gifts are:
Prophecy (in the preachy sense of the word, although there have been times that I have seen visions of the future)
Wisdom
Leadership
I will do the other one tomorrow. I don't have the time to answer 125 questions in the 2 minutes before I leave work. The test that I am going to do tomorrow is a better test. We will see what it says.
Friday, September 02, 2005
Sigh...
TCOE called me this morning. They said that they did screen me, and that while they were very impressed with the effort that I put into making sure that they screened me they already had 5 people to interview that were more experienced than me.
Oh well. I know this is God's will. I'll just keep trying and see what happens.
Oh well. I know this is God's will. I'll just keep trying and see what happens.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Incomplete (UPDATE)
I just got an e-mail from TCOE saying that my application was incomplete. What the heck? I worked my tail off making sure that they had all the information that they requested. I am still trying to get a hold of them again to find out what is going on.
GRRRRRR.....
---------------------
Ok,
I sort of have things straightend out now. Apperently the lady never received my original e-mail. So I just sent her a copy of the original showing that I had sent it in time. She is going to talk to her supervisor and see if it can get submitted even though they are done with the pre-screening process. I will know later today or tomorrow.
GRRRRRR.....
---------------------
Ok,
I sort of have things straightend out now. Apperently the lady never received my original e-mail. So I just sent her a copy of the original showing that I had sent it in time. She is going to talk to her supervisor and see if it can get submitted even though they are done with the pre-screening process. I will know later today or tomorrow.
Blogalicious
Still Pending... Forever pending...
Yesterday I took half a day off to go hang out with Laurel in the afternoon. She came and got me around 11am, and we went to the Downey court house so that she could do some paperwork. After that we headed off to the beach (surfside) to float in the ocean and talk. We had a great time and it was very relaxing. I really need to get to the beach more often.
School started back up for me this week and it looks like I will be having as much, if not more, work as I did last semester. On the upside both of my classes (software engineering and networking) should be quite a bit more fun than my other classes. I will have several programming projects due, which should be fun. I am starting out with 160+ pages of reading this week.
I suppose that I don't really have much to say. I just wanted to make sure and get something posted for all your poor readers who haven't had much from me.
Oh, and I am a bad son. I forgot to call my mother yesterday for her birthday. Although in my defence I thought that yesterday was the 30th.
I guess it sounds like Keiko might not want to rent a room from us now because her parents told her that it was a good idea to rent a room from us. She doesn't want to have another set of parents. I need to talk to her I suppose and let her know that we have no intention of playing the role of a parent for anybody that rents from us. We are of course happy to provide guidence and help if someone requests it, but we are not going to force it on anyone. We just thought it would be really cool to have her live with us because we like her.
...I may or may not be going to Dallas in the near future. One of our facilities was destroyed in the Hurricane, and they are recreating it in Dallas so they need all the help they can get in rebuilding it. I am hoping that they will give me enough time to be able to go home and pack before they send me off.
I have not gained any weight in the past year. This is the first year I've ever gone with out gaining weight. I really want to lose about 50 pounds now, so I am going to start working on it. I am just not sure how I am going to work on it. I really need someone to work out with that can keep me motivated. Deb is just as wishy washy as I am about working out consistently, and doesn't like doing what I like to do anyway. Christina used to help me quite a bit, but doesn't have the time to stoop to my puny little 2 mile workouts since she needs to be running 10+ miles right now (training for marathon). Josh does martial arts every night, but I don't think that is something I want to do. He tends to get hurt a lot. Ben and I have been working out every night for the past two years, but we have never actually done anything for over a year (we only even hang out once a week). Laurel said that she would work out with me, but we don't know how that would work out (haha get it?) since she lives 30 minutes away(although that is just as close as Ben). She is probably my best bet at the moment though, so I will have to see what we can figure out. She does like doing the same stuff as me so that is a plus side.
Sigh, that really is all I can think of now. Till later...
Yesterday I took half a day off to go hang out with Laurel in the afternoon. She came and got me around 11am, and we went to the Downey court house so that she could do some paperwork. After that we headed off to the beach (surfside) to float in the ocean and talk. We had a great time and it was very relaxing. I really need to get to the beach more often.
School started back up for me this week and it looks like I will be having as much, if not more, work as I did last semester. On the upside both of my classes (software engineering and networking) should be quite a bit more fun than my other classes. I will have several programming projects due, which should be fun. I am starting out with 160+ pages of reading this week.
I suppose that I don't really have much to say. I just wanted to make sure and get something posted for all your poor readers who haven't had much from me.
Oh, and I am a bad son. I forgot to call my mother yesterday for her birthday. Although in my defence I thought that yesterday was the 30th.
I guess it sounds like Keiko might not want to rent a room from us now because her parents told her that it was a good idea to rent a room from us. She doesn't want to have another set of parents. I need to talk to her I suppose and let her know that we have no intention of playing the role of a parent for anybody that rents from us. We are of course happy to provide guidence and help if someone requests it, but we are not going to force it on anyone. We just thought it would be really cool to have her live with us because we like her.
...I may or may not be going to Dallas in the near future. One of our facilities was destroyed in the Hurricane, and they are recreating it in Dallas so they need all the help they can get in rebuilding it. I am hoping that they will give me enough time to be able to go home and pack before they send me off.
I have not gained any weight in the past year. This is the first year I've ever gone with out gaining weight. I really want to lose about 50 pounds now, so I am going to start working on it. I am just not sure how I am going to work on it. I really need someone to work out with that can keep me motivated. Deb is just as wishy washy as I am about working out consistently, and doesn't like doing what I like to do anyway. Christina used to help me quite a bit, but doesn't have the time to stoop to my puny little 2 mile workouts since she needs to be running 10+ miles right now (training for marathon). Josh does martial arts every night, but I don't think that is something I want to do. He tends to get hurt a lot. Ben and I have been working out every night for the past two years, but we have never actually done anything for over a year (we only even hang out once a week). Laurel said that she would work out with me, but we don't know how that would work out (haha get it?) since she lives 30 minutes away(although that is just as close as Ben). She is probably my best bet at the moment though, so I will have to see what we can figure out. She does like doing the same stuff as me so that is a plus side.
Sigh, that really is all I can think of now. Till later...
More Stuff from NOLA
http://pointfiveblog.com/index.php/2005/08/286
http://news.com.com/Key+Web+links+for+tracking+Katrinas+aftermath/2100-1025_3-5845076.html?tag=nl
http://www.webshots.com/collections/hurricane/hurricane_0.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/hurricanekatrina
http://www.truthlaidbear.com/topicpage.php?topic=Katrina
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/8/30/224011/855
http://www.supload.com/free/evac.184.1.650.jpg/view/
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/
Desperation, death on road to safety
Wednesday, 11:09 p.m.
By Keith Spera
Staff writer
At 91 years old, Booker Harris ended his days propped on a lawn chair, covered by a yellow quilt and abandoned, dead, in front of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
Mr. Harris died in the back of a Ryder panel truck Wednesday afternoon, as he and his 93-year-old wife, Allie, were evacuated from eastern New Orleans. The truck's driver deposited Allie and her husband's body on the Convention Center Boulevard neutral ground.
And there it remained.
With 3,000 or more evacuees stranded at the convention center -- and with no apparent contingency plan or authority to deal with them -- collecting a body was no one's priority. It was just another casualty in Hurricane Katrina's wake.
A steady stream of often angry or despondent people, many from flooded Central City, trickled first toward Lee Circle and then to the convention center, hoping to be saved from increasingly desperate straits. Food, water and options had dwindled across Uptown and Central City, where looters seemed to rage almost at will, clearing out boutique clothing shops and drug stores alike. Hospitals would no longer accept emergencies, as staffers prepared to evacuate with patients.
"If you get shot," said a security guard at Touro Infirmary, "you’ve got to go somewhere else."
As a blazing sun and stifling humidity took their toll, 65-year-old Faye Taplin rested alone on the steps of the Christ Cathedral in the 2900 block of St. Charles Avenue. Rising water had finally chased her from her Central City home. She clutched two plastic bags containing bedding, a little food and water and insulin to treat her diabetes.
She needed help but was unsure where to find it. She wanted to walk more than 15 blocks to a rumored evacuation pickup point beneath the Pontchartrain Expressway, but she doubted that was possible.
"I'm tired," she said. "My feet have swollen up on me. I can't walk that far."
The church custodian, Ken Elder, hoped to free his car from the parking lot behind the church as soon as the water went down. He rode out Katrina on the Episcopal church’s altar steps and was well stocked with food. But he feared the marauding looters that roamed St. Charles Avenue after dark.
"I lived in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots," Elder said. "That was a piece of cake compared to this."
Clara Wallace pushed her brother in a wheelchair down St. Charles from Fourth Street to the Pontchartrain Expressway. Suffering from diabetes and the after-effects of a stroke, he wore only a hospital robe and endured part of the journey through standing water.
"Nobody has a bathroom he can use," Wallace, 59, said of her brother. "Nobody would even stop to tell us if we were at the right place. What are we supposed to do?"
A man in a passing pickup truck from the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries finally directed Wallace and the 50 other evacuees under the overpass to the convention center.
But they would find little relief there.
New evacuees were being dropped off after being pulled from inundated eastern New Orleans and Carrollton, pooling with those who arrived on foot. Some had been at the convention center since Tuesday morning but had received no food, water or instructions. They waited both inside and outside the cavernous building.
The influx overwhelmed the few staffers and Louisiana National Guardsmen on hand.
With so much need and so few resources, the weakest and frailest were bound to suffer the most. Seated next to her husband's body on the neutral ground beneath the St. Joseph Street sign, Allie Harris munched on crackers, seemingly unaware of all the tragedy unfolding around her. Eventually, guardsmen loaded her into a truck and hauled her off with other elderly evacuees.
Mr. Harris' body was left behind.
Such a breakdown did not bode well for other evacuees. As the afternoon wore on, hope faded, replaced by anger.
"This is 2005," John Murray shouted, standing in the street near Mr. Harris' body. "It should not be like this for no catastrophe. This is pathetic."
http://news.com.com/Key+Web+links+for+tracking+Katrinas+aftermath/2100-1025_3-5845076.html?tag=nl
http://www.webshots.com/collections/hurricane/hurricane_0.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/hurricanekatrina
http://www.truthlaidbear.com/topicpage.php?topic=Katrina
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/8/30/224011/855
http://www.supload.com/free/evac.184.1.650.jpg/view/
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/
Desperation, death on road to safety
Wednesday, 11:09 p.m.
By Keith Spera
Staff writer
At 91 years old, Booker Harris ended his days propped on a lawn chair, covered by a yellow quilt and abandoned, dead, in front of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
Mr. Harris died in the back of a Ryder panel truck Wednesday afternoon, as he and his 93-year-old wife, Allie, were evacuated from eastern New Orleans. The truck's driver deposited Allie and her husband's body on the Convention Center Boulevard neutral ground.
And there it remained.
With 3,000 or more evacuees stranded at the convention center -- and with no apparent contingency plan or authority to deal with them -- collecting a body was no one's priority. It was just another casualty in Hurricane Katrina's wake.
A steady stream of often angry or despondent people, many from flooded Central City, trickled first toward Lee Circle and then to the convention center, hoping to be saved from increasingly desperate straits. Food, water and options had dwindled across Uptown and Central City, where looters seemed to rage almost at will, clearing out boutique clothing shops and drug stores alike. Hospitals would no longer accept emergencies, as staffers prepared to evacuate with patients.
"If you get shot," said a security guard at Touro Infirmary, "you’ve got to go somewhere else."
As a blazing sun and stifling humidity took their toll, 65-year-old Faye Taplin rested alone on the steps of the Christ Cathedral in the 2900 block of St. Charles Avenue. Rising water had finally chased her from her Central City home. She clutched two plastic bags containing bedding, a little food and water and insulin to treat her diabetes.
She needed help but was unsure where to find it. She wanted to walk more than 15 blocks to a rumored evacuation pickup point beneath the Pontchartrain Expressway, but she doubted that was possible.
"I'm tired," she said. "My feet have swollen up on me. I can't walk that far."
The church custodian, Ken Elder, hoped to free his car from the parking lot behind the church as soon as the water went down. He rode out Katrina on the Episcopal church’s altar steps and was well stocked with food. But he feared the marauding looters that roamed St. Charles Avenue after dark.
"I lived in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots," Elder said. "That was a piece of cake compared to this."
Clara Wallace pushed her brother in a wheelchair down St. Charles from Fourth Street to the Pontchartrain Expressway. Suffering from diabetes and the after-effects of a stroke, he wore only a hospital robe and endured part of the journey through standing water.
"Nobody has a bathroom he can use," Wallace, 59, said of her brother. "Nobody would even stop to tell us if we were at the right place. What are we supposed to do?"
A man in a passing pickup truck from the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries finally directed Wallace and the 50 other evacuees under the overpass to the convention center.
But they would find little relief there.
New evacuees were being dropped off after being pulled from inundated eastern New Orleans and Carrollton, pooling with those who arrived on foot. Some had been at the convention center since Tuesday morning but had received no food, water or instructions. They waited both inside and outside the cavernous building.
The influx overwhelmed the few staffers and Louisiana National Guardsmen on hand.
With so much need and so few resources, the weakest and frailest were bound to suffer the most. Seated next to her husband's body on the neutral ground beneath the St. Joseph Street sign, Allie Harris munched on crackers, seemingly unaware of all the tragedy unfolding around her. Eventually, guardsmen loaded her into a truck and hauled her off with other elderly evacuees.
Mr. Harris' body was left behind.
Such a breakdown did not bode well for other evacuees. As the afternoon wore on, hope faded, replaced by anger.
"This is 2005," John Murray shouted, standing in the street near Mr. Harris' body. "It should not be like this for no catastrophe. This is pathetic."
Part of the real story
This post is taken from http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=1174992&forum_id=26. Please do not read further if you are sensitive.
First off I wanted to post what REALLY is going on in this city. Please don't get this thread locked people. The news stations are only showing a minuscule of reality. This post may offend some people but I will post what I saw, like it or not it is REALITY.
.
.
.
.
.
Well last night I was watching the 6pm news when they announced the 17th street canal pumps failed as well as another break in the levee. My house is right off St. Charles Ave. and up to 6pm yesterday is was the only part of the city that was dry. Since the pumps failed and the new break St. Charles Ave. would be under 9ft of water in the next 12-15hrs. My brother and I felt if we wanted to save anything we had to leave NOW. We loaded up flashlights, rope, our medical ID's, both our .45 Glocks, 2 shotguns and rode out. En-route we listened to the radio which broad casted all the news about the looters and what not, in hindsight it was a mistake. My mother didn't want us to go by dad who is a Vietnam vet told to be safe and "shoot to kill" if it ever comes to that.
One the way we had to pass 5-6 checkpoints to allow entry into the city. We stated we were medical personnel who were activated, showed our ID and off we went. On the radio reports were coming in about the officer who was shot in the head, the 2 gunman who opened fired on the NOPD station, and how looters were carjacking cars to get out of the city. This started making my brother nervous and giving seconds thoughts.
Anyway we get to the city and it looks like a freaking war zone. The best visual I can give is the movie "Blackhawk Down" when all the Somalians are rushing the city. They are people EVERYWHERE, they are pissed off, and all have weapons, 2X4's, Axes, and guns. If this wasn't bad enough we are 2 white boys in a truck in a sea several hundred armed pissed off blacks. There wasn't a white person to be found. I couldn't get over the little 8-10yr old kids with weapons, I ever saw one carry a claw hammer!
These people were absolutely nuts rammed trucks(stolen I'm sure) in to jewelry stores stealing items, they were tearing apart Wal-Mart carrying out TV's, Playstations, DVD players, etc. One lady was wheeling out an entire rack of merchandise, not sure what it was but sure wasn't clothes for food. They were all laughing and carrying on like it's freaking Christmas.
We got stuck in traffic when we see the group of guys walking down the street w/ AK-47's, at that point the "pucker factor" kicked in, a couple Glocks and shotguns were no match for that. We haul azz trying to get to Uptown when we see these people chopping down the front door w/ an axe of this $4-5 million dollar mansion on ST. Charles Ave. I was just in total awe because it was so surreal. Making matters worse it's 11pm at night there is no electricity and you really can see anything or anyone until they are right up on you.
Our plan was to be in and out in 30min, this included putting his Harley on the trailer. It would have taken me 5-10min tops to get my stuff, all I wanted was my pictures from college, my clothes/shoes, and my computer tower. Well he got scared saying we are going to get jumped while putting the bike on the trailer. Keep in mind this is the only area in the city that is dry. So just like rats who move to higher ground these people were doing the same. Word must have gotten out that Uptown was dry so there started to be a large influx of people.
Needless to say he wanted to go home rather than take our chances. While it was the smart thing to do I was beyond infuriated w/ him because we made it this far. He just kept saying our lives aren't worth it. So we turned around, our next challenge was getting out of the city while not getting jacked. Reports came out that people were jumping in the back of truck holding the drivers at gunpoint. Traffic started to slow so I just nailed it got out as fast as I could.
Even though he was the voice of reason I'm still pissed. All I have is my life and the clothes on my back. I lost my house(which is now 9ft underwater) ALL my clothes, TV, computer, furniture, and photo albums and videos from childhood and college. What makes this worse is my brother owned the house and I was a tenant and I didn't have renters insurance, hindsight is 20/20.
I also hope everyone of the F*(king looters get Tetanus, E-Coli and F*(KING drown. I'm serious I really hope the all die for what they were doing to the city, killing people, and destroying homes. Never in my life have I ever seen people act live savages, it was truly sicking.
First off I wanted to post what REALLY is going on in this city. Please don't get this thread locked people. The news stations are only showing a minuscule of reality. This post may offend some people but I will post what I saw, like it or not it is REALITY.
.
.
.
.
.
Well last night I was watching the 6pm news when they announced the 17th street canal pumps failed as well as another break in the levee. My house is right off St. Charles Ave. and up to 6pm yesterday is was the only part of the city that was dry. Since the pumps failed and the new break St. Charles Ave. would be under 9ft of water in the next 12-15hrs. My brother and I felt if we wanted to save anything we had to leave NOW. We loaded up flashlights, rope, our medical ID's, both our .45 Glocks, 2 shotguns and rode out. En-route we listened to the radio which broad casted all the news about the looters and what not, in hindsight it was a mistake. My mother didn't want us to go by dad who is a Vietnam vet told to be safe and "shoot to kill" if it ever comes to that.
One the way we had to pass 5-6 checkpoints to allow entry into the city. We stated we were medical personnel who were activated, showed our ID and off we went. On the radio reports were coming in about the officer who was shot in the head, the 2 gunman who opened fired on the NOPD station, and how looters were carjacking cars to get out of the city. This started making my brother nervous and giving seconds thoughts.
Anyway we get to the city and it looks like a freaking war zone. The best visual I can give is the movie "Blackhawk Down" when all the Somalians are rushing the city. They are people EVERYWHERE, they are pissed off, and all have weapons, 2X4's, Axes, and guns. If this wasn't bad enough we are 2 white boys in a truck in a sea several hundred armed pissed off blacks. There wasn't a white person to be found. I couldn't get over the little 8-10yr old kids with weapons, I ever saw one carry a claw hammer!
These people were absolutely nuts rammed trucks(stolen I'm sure) in to jewelry stores stealing items, they were tearing apart Wal-Mart carrying out TV's, Playstations, DVD players, etc. One lady was wheeling out an entire rack of merchandise, not sure what it was but sure wasn't clothes for food. They were all laughing and carrying on like it's freaking Christmas.
We got stuck in traffic when we see the group of guys walking down the street w/ AK-47's, at that point the "pucker factor" kicked in, a couple Glocks and shotguns were no match for that. We haul azz trying to get to Uptown when we see these people chopping down the front door w/ an axe of this $4-5 million dollar mansion on ST. Charles Ave. I was just in total awe because it was so surreal. Making matters worse it's 11pm at night there is no electricity and you really can see anything or anyone until they are right up on you.
Our plan was to be in and out in 30min, this included putting his Harley on the trailer. It would have taken me 5-10min tops to get my stuff, all I wanted was my pictures from college, my clothes/shoes, and my computer tower. Well he got scared saying we are going to get jumped while putting the bike on the trailer. Keep in mind this is the only area in the city that is dry. So just like rats who move to higher ground these people were doing the same. Word must have gotten out that Uptown was dry so there started to be a large influx of people.
Needless to say he wanted to go home rather than take our chances. While it was the smart thing to do I was beyond infuriated w/ him because we made it this far. He just kept saying our lives aren't worth it. So we turned around, our next challenge was getting out of the city while not getting jacked. Reports came out that people were jumping in the back of truck holding the drivers at gunpoint. Traffic started to slow so I just nailed it got out as fast as I could.
Even though he was the voice of reason I'm still pissed. All I have is my life and the clothes on my back. I lost my house(which is now 9ft underwater) ALL my clothes, TV, computer, furniture, and photo albums and videos from childhood and college. What makes this worse is my brother owned the house and I was a tenant and I didn't have renters insurance, hindsight is 20/20.
I also hope everyone of the F*(king looters get Tetanus, E-Coli and F*(KING drown. I'm serious I really hope the all die for what they were doing to the city, killing people, and destroying homes. Never in my life have I ever seen people act live savages, it was truly sicking.
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