I have decided to lay low on blogging for a while. Most of my entries have come from my personal time with God, and to renew that, I have stopped keeping my journal on my laptop and started writing it in an actual paper journal again. And I don't feel like typing those up just yet. So... this blog will be sporadic, maybe a couple of quick thoughts a week. I'll be more current on facebook since I tend to keep in touch with a lot of folks there. You can reach my public profile from the link to the left. If you are on facebook, feel free to send me a friend request and be sure to mention journalhome or I probably won't add you. Other than that, there are archives of this blog. At some point (maybe in the Fall) I will switch back to a digital journal and things will pick up around here.
I'll start putting up new entries this week. Here is a quick update from recent Colorado vacation. A herd of elk feeding in a high mountain meadow (about 12,000 ft up) on trailridge road in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Ok, so we have moved to the new server and I still need to make a few minor fixes. I must thank the people of eukhost.com they helped me a lot to move all the data from the old server to the new one. The actual move was fairly uneventful but the new nameserver took much longer than usual, (and we had some small databases glitches as well).
Some of you will also noticed that I have also removed all the adverts on the front page, this is because the revenue from those ads was really negligible, (if not laughable). Those of you that still use advert on their page will not be removed. You are still welcome to put adverts on your site.
I will spend some time designing a new page, not that I think there is anything wrong with this page but the problem is that there are many HTML errors in it and in the long run they are causing us a lot of problems. Finally I will spend some time trying to upgrade the blog software but that is not for the near future
Please let me know if you notice anything that is broken, the old server is still up and running in case we need to get something off it. but I will close it in the next 10 days or so.
This is a story I heard that I really liked and wanted to share.
I do not know how many of you know, but this year has been really bad for fires in California. And in the latest fire outbreak the firemen were starting mandatory exvacuations, and apperently up in the area where the fire is, there is a monostary of Zen Monks I think it was, and they refused to evacuate. They said that is goes against what they belive in and what they are all about, and instead they are going to stay and fight. So a few of the firemen actually stayed with the monks to start and train them on how they could combat against the fires.
Blood begins to drop bit by bit slow at first but gaining a flood a river each dark reflective without explanation without purpose but a moment passage in time gentle rising up to the crescendo climax thunder bolt drum beat faltering fading twisting dying but for a moment breath intake inhale than gone a mist released exhale
The server move is now back on track and we should be moving to a new server, (in the UK), in the next few days.
In the past few days we had some problems with the current provider and/or some sustained IP attack. I am investigating things on my side just to make sure. But nothing has really changed on our side so I doubt there is really a new problem.
I have reverted about 50 spam accounts a day so it is not impossible that they somehow found a way in or that they felt the urge to 'teach us a lesson'.
A while back I posted a list of books called My Personal Reading List, which was a collection of books gathered from the recomendations of others on Non-American/English liteature. So I thought I would post ratings and prehaps breif reviews about each of the books I have read from that list.
Anna Karnine ~ Tolstoy
Rating: * * * *
I found this to be a rather charming, though not nessciarly happy, and interesting book upon love and relationships, it is the story that looks at several different relationships, and how each individual previces there loves, and thier ideas about relationships, from the devoted faithful young couple struggling through marraige, to the adultress, and a devoted loving wife, with the womanizing husband. This book is very passionate and moving, but it also gives a rather realistic glimpse into life and love.
Madame Bovary ~ Flaubert
Rating: * * *
It starts out a bit slow and kind of dry, in the begining I did not find that the main characters really grabbed my attention. But the second part of the book it does begin to get intersting and the story picks up more. You are introduced to a new set of characters that I find to be all rather entertaining in someways even comical. It is a tragic love story of a young woman Emma who is discontent with her husband, a not very ambitious doctor who is content where he is, and spends most his time away working leaving his wife alone to day dream of a more exciting life.
The Metamorphosis ~ Kafka
Rating: * * * *
This is a bazzar story that is touched by both humur and sadness. It starts out in a rather comical fashion but as the story progresses it becomes more emotional, and yet still a thread of comody prevades throughout. The story is about a pool family who is being supported by thier son, Gregor. When one day Gregor wakes up to discover he had over night metamorphed into a giant insect. Not knowing what to do about him his family at first keeps him locked within his room and with his condition they begin to gradullay decline.
Death in Venice ~ Mann
Rating: * * *
The story is a bit tedious to read, particularly at the beginning, though it does pick up more as it goes along. It is a fairly slow moving story of a more physiological nature. The majority of the story revolves around the mind/thoughts/philosophies of Gustave, the main character. There is not a lot that actually happens in the story as far as physical movement goes. Gustave, who seems to be a man coming to his middle ages, is suddenly struck with the desire and need to travel, and so he goes to Venice, while there staying at his hotel is a Polish family, with a young lad with whom Gustave falls in love. Though he never actually directly approaches the boy, but becomes obsessed and fascinated with the lad and spends his days watching the boy from a distance. I thought that the ending of the story was very beautiful though sad.
In the US there is this Adopt A Highway program in which groups and organizations can sponsor a section of the highway, donating money in order to help pay for its good repair and than they get a sign by the side of the road that says "The section of the highway sponsored by such and such"
Apparently one of these signs has stirred up quite the controversy, as hard as that might be to believe.
But well there was one of these signs up which said "Sponsored by Atheists and Other Freethinkers" and some people claim that the sign is meant to be a slight against religion, and that it is suggesting that people who are religious are not freethinkers. But personally I really do not think this sign is making any sort of anti-religion statement at all, I do not think it is about religion.
The way I see it, it is one of those things were if you are offended by it, it is because it does apply to you. If someone sees this sign and is offended by it, it is because they know they really are not free thinkers or that they belong to an organization that does not support free thinking, and they just do not want to accept or acknowledge that truth.
A true Atheists would not agree with or support my beliefs any more than they would that of anyone else, but I know that even though I hold a certain faith I am also a free thinker, so I do not find that this sign is insulting to me in anyway, and I am not offended by it or find anything insulting by it, though I am a spiritual-religious person. And there was one other person that called into the radio station where I first heard about the story supporting what I said. He said that he was a Christian but he also knew he was a free thinker, and so he really did not find that the sign was anti-religious, because it did not apply to him.
So I think that anyone who comes forward against this sign, is just admitting that indeed they are not free thinkers. And the guy hosting the radio show was really adamant that the sign was a slight against all religion and was a claim that all religious people are not free thinkers like they are. And so I could not help but to wonder, what that said about him.
I think trying to say that the sign is against religion in general is just a way for people to veil the fact that actually the sign is really only a slight against them personally.
I have been in Africa for a little over 2 years now and I am amazed at the so called democratic process that is going on here. I know that what we do in Europe is not always pretty, but at least people don't die for voting one way or another.
First there was a sham election in Kenya, where the result was nowhere near free nor fair, but rather than re-doing the election, (and/or sending someone to jail for it), they chose to have a government of 'national unity'. In other word, 'we don't care who you voted for, we will choose your leaders for you'.
Now the elections in Zimbabwe are also a sham, the whole world knows that it is a sham, yet African leaders at the AU summit in Egypt are still patting Robert Mugabe on the back and telling him well done and even applauding him for his abuses.
The South African president Thabo Mbeki would rather be seen dancing, (yes, dancing!), with the Zimbabwean dictator rather than actually doing what 90% of the people that voted him in office are telling him to do. Because Mugabe was his buddy during the apartheid years he his more than happy to excuse the murder and beating of hundreds of Zimbabweans. He would rather excuse the blatant crimes of his friend rather than saving hundreds of lives and doing what is right, it makes you think, how little does life matter to African governments and African leaders?
Mbeki is happy to close his eyes to the very oppression he claimed he was against. It also makes you think really, what was the ANC really fighting for all this time? To defend the rights of the African people'? because if it is then they are failing the African people miserably over and over again, (how many people must die in Sudan before someone calls Omar Hassan al Bashir and politely asks him to stop doing what he is doing?).
And when the Zimbabwean dictatorship falls, (because all dictatorships eventually collapse), he will probably be welcomed with open arms by many African leaders.
As I said, European governments are not always much better, but at least we can vote them out of office fairly quickly and we have no one to blame than ourselves.
I was bored so I decided to put together a list of short stories I have read, and than becasue I have nothing better to do at the moment, I decided to post it up here.
Edgar Allan Poe
The Black Cat
A Tell-tale Heart
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Gold-Bug
Ligeia
A Decent into the Maelstrom
The Purloined Letter
MS. Found in a Bottle
William Wilson
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Cask Amontillado
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Masque of the Red Death
The Premature Burial
The Imp of the Perverse
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
Hop-Frog
The Angel of the Odd
The Devil in the Belfy
Loss of Breath
Chekhov Anton
Sleepy
The Black Monk
Gooseberries
The Man in the Case
About Love
The Student
Rothchild’s Fiddle
D.H. Lawrence
Sun
The Man Who Loved Islands
Two Bluebirds
The Shadow in the Rose Garden
The Blind Man
Witch A la Mode
The Old Adam
Stephen Crane
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
The Blue Hotel
Bride Comes to Yellow Sky
The Open Boat
The Monster
Henry James
The Altar of the Dead
The Beast of the Jungle
The Jolly Corner
An International Episode
Daisy Miller
The Turn of the Screw
The Aspern Papers
Herman Melville
Bartleby
The Piazza
The Encantadas
The Bell-Tower
Benito Cereno
The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids
I flipped on the TV to find that a tennis match was on instead of the show I usually watch. Now I do not watch tennis and I have no real interest in tennis, and yet tennis is evil. In that whenever I happen to find it on I always get sucked into watching it, even as I am sitting there thinking that I do not want to watch and have no real interest in what is going on, I cannot look away, at least for the first few minitues before I come back to my senses.
But anway, it was a womans tennis match, and one of the players was wearing earing on the court while she was playing, and they were these like fancy tear drop earings not just like a stud. But dangling earings. And it just lookesd stupid. What was she thinking, presumbly when she got up in the morning she knew ahead of time that she was going to have a tennis match today and so when she dressed it was with that in mind. So what in the world made her decide, you know, what I really need is to where these earings to spend the majority of my day running around back and forth upon the court.
