?! wHAT bOX

Vacation in Southern Europe: Rome

2011-10-24T11:32:00.000-07:00

Ssssoooo, Rome was a bit different from Venice and was much like any other major city. Big, alive, lots of lights and sounds (ah, I wax poetic, eh?). Several items of note.....there are hundreds of buses and quite a few trains...do yourself a favor and remember the stop of your hotel...slightly important....jjjuuussttt slightly.

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Vacation in Southern Europe: Venice

2011-10-20T13:03:00.000-07:00

So, I dragged my wife out on another trip, but this time there was no snow. Yeah, someone with fewer brain cells than I planned our last vacation - in the dead middle of winter in New York City....but let's not be the type to find out who that was and hunt them down for some version of retribution and whatnot....I'm all about forgiveness and all that happy sun-shiny stuff.

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What it's like to own an Apple product

2011-02-18T07:04:00.000-08:00

Heh, heh...this was shown to me yesterday and of course I must post it....www.theoatmeal.com is the creator of this, not me.

New Yawk, New Yawk

2011-01-12T09:00:00.000-08:00

So, if it isn't obvious yet, my father's travel and photography bug has really caught on with myself and my sisters and if I'm in one state too long then little green people start talking to me and telling me about China and the United Arab Emirates and Peru and every other country I've not been to for which I need to visit before I've expired.

We had plans to visit several countries in Europe at the end of last year, but because of terrorist threats (actually not the threats, really the fact that people shut down tourist attractions!!!! how do you shut down the Eiffel Tower?! - anyway....) we had to cancel that idea. Next was a cruise down the Eastern Seaboard, but life apparently had other ideas for our family.

So! We resorted to a trip to the North East and I dragged Madame Bekki all around the place just after and before another blizzard which kept the temperatures in the low 30's and 20's, but sadly no manly stories of frostbite or missing limbs to make myself feel much more macho and manly and aide in growing my ego to the point of popping (that's what being a man is about, you know :) ) and I only have pictures to tell the story.

Ahem....take that Kait....:p

Liberty Island, New York City, NY

Subway, Queens, New York City, NY

Kennedy Memorial, Arlington National Cemetary, Arlington, VA

Liberty Bell, Philidelphia, PA

Iwo Jima Memorial, Arlington National Cemetary, Arlington, VA

The White House, Washington, DC

Newport Beach, CA

2010-12-28T14:09:00.000-08:00

Ok, so this is the first winter that I've been in while living here in Southern Cali and uuuhhhhh, something is very wrong with these pictures...please that they were taken several days before January first. Let's play where is Waldo....who can find the missing item....SNOW!!!!???

Not Enough Underwear Explosives

2010-11-18T19:44:00.000-08:00

So, for those of you who've known about this and have already had your hearty laugh at this dangerous criminal, please bare with me...and for the others of you who've not had that fearfully terrifying moment of shaking in your little pink mittens, here is a story sure to strike fear into your...undergarments???

That terrifying day, Christmas day of 2009, a powerful and noble man of the African country of Nigeria (for those of you who thought that Africa was a country...well, never mind, go back to playing Wii and don't mind the fact that the country of Brittan was named so in honor of the great Brittany Spears), boarded a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. The gentleman in question was known to have spent 20 minutes in the restroom before seating himself in his assigned seat, then covering himself with a blanket.

The lives of hundreds of passengers were saved by the attentive and extremely alert fellow passengers on board the long flight. Wikipedia was quoted as stating other passengers to notice popping noises, smell a foul odor, then see Mr. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's pant leg ablaze with the glorious revenge of Allah against the Infidels!! Unbeknownst to the other patrons of the flight, brilliantly stitched into the protective undergarments of this fine, proud solider of Allah was a 15 cc packet of a chemical bomb.

Abdulmutallab's father, one of the richest men in the African continent was condemned by his son as being "immoral" for his charging interest at the bank of which his father was the chairman. However, one wonders where the funding for Abdulmutallab's college tuition in London came from which allowed him to earn a mechanical engineering degree. He legally applied for, and received, a visa to the US and so on that fateful, fearful day....the foul odors began, signaling the entrance of a new era, the dawning of a new day.

Not quite, Bozo.

Either way, at least we now know that anytime a foul odor is noticed in the air be aware that something is afoot. The backside of revenge is fortified with the fist of power - aka, a fire-staring pair of Fruit of the Looms. For the record, this intelligent MBA-holding mastermind, is now incarcerated in a prison in Michigan, following his release from the hospital and his treatment of the first and second degree burns to his hands and other more sensitive areas in the locale of the "explosion" which tore apart the noses of those on board.

Several comments immediately come to mind:
1. He was charged charged and indited on 6 criminals counts, including the attempted murder of 289 people, a large charge indeed....though how does one NOT crack up laughing at the proceedings in the courtroom after reading the charges? I wonder what the conversation sounded like when the lawyer got the call!

2. I hereby request of the US government, the implementation of a new code for the Homeland security-color-coding-system-of-which-no one-knows-what-the-colors-mean-anyway. Let's add the heightened alert status of the color "brown" so that all will know immediately, that someone, somewhere, lurking on your flight to Florida for winter, may be packing Bob Sponges' square pants with the evil intention of emitting noxious odors and setting themselves on fire, but really attempting to blow your flight to kingdom come!

Beware of other such bombers, keep alert, and always watch for underwear bombs.

...Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything...

2010-03-17T06:13:00.005-07:00

Heh....yyeahhhh, I'm finally updating this thing....I remembered my password....or some other lame and fully untrue excuse.

Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. - Zhuangzi

    All the world's a stage,
    And all the men and women merely players:
    They have their exits and their entrances;
    And one man in his time plays many parts,
    His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
    Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
    And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
    And shining morning face, creeping like snail
    Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
    Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
    Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
    Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
    Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
    Seeking the bubble reputation
    Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
    In fair round belly with good capon lined,
    With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
    Full of wise saws and modern instances;
    And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
    Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
    With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
    His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
    For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
    Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
    And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
    That ends this strange eventful history,
    Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
    Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. - William Shakespeare

One thing that I have trouble dealing with is the perpetuated and tumultuously disconcerting issue of the amorphous nature of human beings. And perhaps it truly isn't the ever-changing state that disturbs me nearly as much as the fact that one can seldom track those changes, be prepared for them. It would surprise many to learn just how quickly a person can snap, lose their mind.

Can we really and truly know if we are the butterfly or the man? In the end perception is reality to the mind, so then to us as a whole being. Is pain real? Is psychosis valid? Do we truly exist in a world that we think that we exist in?

Or is it all just a big stage that we, the players, the actors, fill our own little performances that may last a year, 70, or maybe 150??

One can run so far and fast with the philosophy of existentialism that one can completely obliterate the idea that any other man or butterfly, perhaps, can exist. We run our race, through our labyrinth, our lives, all the while hoping to find the way out.

"Alice in Wonderland", a child's story...or so we attribute it. Carroll's writing, I think, is one of the most involving and relevant stories that exists. All through the book he builds characters of his making from real people, but at the same time weaving a story so fantastical that it cannot be real....or can it??

Just how close are we to hysteria? Where is the edge for each "butterfly" to fall over that precipice into the crevasse of neurosis, into the crazy world of Wonderland. Or perhaps, in each and every version of each man/butterfly's world, in each of our private little stages, our show...our little world is a Wonderland. maybe it is just a fantastical and mythological as a battle of the Greek gods or a belief in little green men or a rabbit running around in a strange world or a person believing that some really large being way out there flips tiny little levers and makes everything around us work or an idea that tiny little balls called atoms make up our bodies and all matter around us or that you can get cancer from looking into a microwave....

And yet, regardless of how and where....we do exist....or do we?? Can one prove empirically that we do exist? Can one prove, outside of the system that we are in, to show that we actually do live? Or perhaps aren't a butterfly as Zhuangzi suggests? Often we're asked to prove the viability of an existence of a concept or person of God, or aliens.....but what if we are to question our own existence?? Butterfly? Man? Or maybe just an idea.....maybe just a thought....who are we anyway?

Where does "crazy" start and normalcy end? Or is there a distinction at all? Or maybe in each little butterfly mind, on each little butterfly stage, with each little butterfly mask, with each little butterfly change.....and assuming that we DO exist, in the end, regardless of perception, we will then exist "...sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

The World Really Is Flat....Right?!

2009-12-05T19:35:00.002-08:00

Its funny how that life seems to be nothing more than a rhetoric statement, and sarcastic label, and joke, a game and yet in the slightest of movements perspective can change and everything is seen differently. Its sad just how little has changed in such a long time. Since the 6th century BC, some Greeks held that the world was a globe, a sphere. Then some picked up the idea that the world had to be flat. And yet Columbus sailed to the other side of it. People argued for centuries that man could not fly. And yet science proved all of these wrong, empirically.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand why people would choose a more ignorant view of anything and knowingly so. I certainly don't claim to have answers, but when someone can show you something to be true, prove it so...well, I simply can't process a person's willingness to ignore that truth.

We all think that we know best. And yet even the slightest bit of perspective can change everything.

The Hidden Tiger
“Groar!” This tiger is calling his mate. Yes, there is an extra tiger hidden somewhere in this artwork. It is not easy to find, but once found, is hard to ignore! A wildlife painting involving an optical illusion theme by the American artist Rusty Rust.

Change is good? Not always...not in its iteration of regression. Not when its backwards. And yet there are always groups and individuals who would like to ram bad information down the mouths of the masses.

Perhaps there are some that can accept bad information or ignore things all together, but there are some who cannot. There are some who can't scarf down the repeated mentions that the "world is flat". That doctors are witches. That scientists are evil.

And yet its a scientists research that makes that car you drive work. Its the doctor that you denigrate so often that performs that surgery that saves your life. And then perspective changes.

Yes...pigs can fly...and the Earth is round...and just maybe you're wrong - go figure!

By the way...no one said that the second tiger was an image...look at the strips on the single tiger and READ the stripes....perspective.

West Coast Roam

2009-11-13T22:00:00.001-08:00

Uh, yeah, so I went on vacation...a real one finally - at least, I think it was, heh. I got snap-happy and took over 1500 pictures, so no complaints because I did get it down to only 80 shots and to quote a pretty cool friend [as loathed as I am to admit it:)] "Just sayin'".

Also, to be fair to Boise, Portland, Sacramento, Fresno, and a bunch of other cities that I blew through - um, I was about to throw my camera out of the window from taking so many shots and there were things to be seen in each of those, but gettig shots of state capitols at 3 in the morning kinda spooked the cops so, I skipped a lot of night stuff after a while since I really didn't want to go to jail for taking recon shots and using a fake accent...lol

Link to all photos in this set

Los Angeles -> Las Vegas, NV

Las Vegas, NV -> Salt Lake City, UT

Salt Lake City, UT -> Seattle, WA

Seattle, WA -> Mount St. Helens

Mount St. Helens -> Los Angeles

A Treatise On America's Color War (as I see it, at least)

2009-08-26T04:24:00.005-07:00

I recently posted an image to a popular social exchange website and got some rather pointed responses. No one took offense to the image (it was a political suggestive image) nor did anyone respond negatively, but still, points did arise that we hardly my intention so I respond to them here. I thank all for the good humor that was consistent in all of the comments, but at the same time, I would still like to address my own stance on the issue.

First of all, I am no political scientist, find politics appealing, but amusing. I have little to speak of in the way of an opinion when it comes to politics, so I state little there. This, however, is not the case for what I do hold as an opinion of the views expressed by the people who view the politics themselves - the psychology of the people, as it were, not an interpretation of the politics directly.

Let me state my background and why I am taking up your time to do so: I simply and making a point as to why I am not taking a prejudicial stance on anything as the issue of "color" has been mentioned by myself and several others. A larger concern is actually race, not color, but most people will smaller exposure the other cultures and peoples fail to recognize the distinction - so let me use myself as an example. I am generally passed off as being African American, and yet nothing could be further from the truth. Certainly and obviously, I do have more melanin in my skin than many Europeans, but this is no direct distinction of race. How so? My ancestry, through all of my relatives can prove me to be all of the following: Scott's Irish (grandfather), Asian Indian and part African (grandmother), South American Mayan Indian (other grandmother), Honduran and possibly German because of name (other grandfather). To cap things off, I was borne in a country in Central/South America which technically makes me Latin American / Hispanic. My parents speak English and Spanish as does much of the rest of my family. The US Census terms me a "Non-White Hispanic".

I still carry a green card, I am technically not an American though I've lived here nearly all my life. I pay the same amount of taxes as the next guy (maybe more, I need kids for a tax break :) ), I'm registered with the military just like anyone else, I have a social security number, just like any one else, and I worry about the neighbors' gangly looking grass and fluctuating gas prices, just like anyone else. The point is that I do not have the background that most people do. I have no dog in the color/race struggle of America; I have no chips to cash in on who wins or loses - I simply do not care all that much. I do not run around with signs screaming "viva la raza" or any other variation. I do not sign up with LULAC or other such organizations - I have no affiliations. This makes me the least biased and most objective viewer in the situation.

This is not to say that I don't understand that struggles of the different peoples of this country - I do, but understand that this country has seen virtually nothing as compared to the rest of the world. Stalin, Hitler, Chairman Mua, ideas from Lenin and Marx have dug mass graves which make the problems of American tiny in comparison. The lives lost by leader ship in Bosnia, Croatia, the Middle East, South Africa; children without parents and whole families wiped out from the face of the earth based on their last name being Lipschitz or because of the physical location of their homes. I understand the struggles of America, but in light of the rest of the planet who can't get in line for food stamps or demand of their presidents and leaders better support for the poor while they tear open their unemployment checks and turn up the AC while the remains of others lie unknown in graves with numbers etched into their arms or with bullet-riddled chests.

And yet what is news to this country is Twitter.com going down for 10 minutes...

...Back to the picture...
The color of the President makes no difference to me, his leadership abilities do. I do not think that the leadership of this country is an appointment light enough to make a political stance regarding race. I walk around my office and see posters and calendars up where none was before simply because of the color of the President's skin. I understand that this may be a step forward for this nation and a particular people specifically, but is the leadership of one of the world's most powerful countries the best place to play those games? If he ends up not being the best choice, then at least the voice of that particular community was heard, huh? Perhaps while the country is being flushed, at least a community of people were noticed, eh? I'm not being rude, but there is more to consider than just race and the race war of this country.

I do no side with nor defend white supremacists nor do I support "black power". In fact, most of my friends have to defend their statements, much as I do, in order not to offend people. Some times I think that the majority peoples have it harder than the minorities! They have to PC everything in order not to be sued by a single mother with darker skin based on a silly comment!

I have no right to be prejudiced in the least. I am mixed with nearly every continent of people (all except North American, ironically). If there is anyone more confused as to the race, I'd like to meet them :). I generally get lumped in with Indians in class and Mexicans at lunch. One of my closest friends is part Sri Lankan and part African American, and yet he was borne in Germany. I have known family in between 4 to 6 countries right now and all over the US. I have no right to be judgmental to any particular people and I am not. I do have preferences to culture yes, which is evident when I speak, lol, but none to race.

My point regarding the voting and the color of the President is hardly to refer to the actual numbers of the vote based on race - I have no idea if that affected the numbers at all. I am simply saying that I cannot see a less wise way of voting - forget the issues and base your vote on the candidates color? Its just as ignorant as basing the vote on the fact that your family has always voted a single way because of....well the fact that they always have voted that way!! Ignore the stances of the party and vote along party lines because you always have voted that way? Let's all throw caution to the wind and vote not based on reason, but on whim? Maybe we have the "lesser of the evils" as it has been stated, in the current President - but maybe we don't.

I'm not knocking neither the current President for his abilities, nor the former one. I'm simply looking for humor in it all; cynics have to, least they take a overly negative stance on things. I have to laugh or else I'll a less than happy view of things. My actions are to keep from being offensive, not the other way around.

...how does a bumblebee fly??

2009-08-10T05:12:00.003-07:00

The Butterfly Effect: Chaos at Work

So I know that most people won't care but I'm posting this anyway...ha!

So, I read Jurassic Park 2...again. I recommend it for all to read as an introduction to Preschool...helps to open the mind to a ridiculous amount of vaguely related theoretical rambles of a mathematician and biologists.

From wikipedia:

Chaos theory is that branch of mathematics which studies the behavior of certain dynamical systems that may be highly sensitive to initial conditions. This sensitivity is popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of error, the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random. That is, tiny differences in the starting state of the system can lead to enormous differences in the final state of the system even over fairly small timescales. This gives the impression that the system is behaving randomly. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully determined by their initial conditions with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos.

Chaotic behavior is also observed in natural systems, such as weather. This may be explained by analysis of a chaotic mathematical model which represents such a system. Quantum chaos investigates the relationship between chaos and quantum mechanics.

So the mathematician rants on about the meaning of the universe - really that there is not meaning and but complexity theory explains the more the "how" of a thing, if not the why. Scientist generally reject the idea of a "how" as it means that a "higher power" or some sort of extraterrestrial being was involved in the creation of and determinative reasoning (e.g. god(s), aliens). Complexity theory is a subset of the original chaos theory as finds order in complex systems (e.g. the universe, animal societies, sand on the beach). He rambles in a drug induced stupor about how questionable an anatomical stance to evolution would be, but evolution can not simply be of a physical concept but of a behavioral one as well.

This I accept. We evolve everyday in our behavior. We learn to stop at red lights, we learn not to touch the iron, we learn what is takes to survive in the corporate world. Human intelligence is the one thing that defines us from most other animals though I don't have the highest respect for homo sepian.

The mathematician continues with the following thoughts: Who says that we're sentient? Who says that we are self aware? The one defining characteristic equaled to our intelligence is our inability to use it. Most people do not think for themselves. They follow the leader, the look for the alpha dog, they do as they are told. Understanding that to a point, one must do what they are told in order to keep at least a small semblance of social order, but not to the extend that one cannot think for themselves. Most people swallow the dogma that is shoved down their mouths. Most cannot process ideas or concepts for themselves and rely on others to spoon feed concepts to them.

Certainly this is a very cynical view of humanity, but perhaps true. And yet this does nothing to prove complexity theory wrong. The problem is that science can deduce the how, where, when, what, but seldom the why of many complex systems.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. - Albert Einstein

Enter religion - the science of man's attempt to understand God. Many try to avoid this box by using the term "this is not religion, this is salvation" - only that completely voids the definition of the word religion, so to keep a level of accuracy, we'll stick to Webster's word instead of the dogmatic view and expulsion of generally used words at the whim of a someone who can't figure out how to explain them.

Religion attempts to explain the why of things. Tries to give meaning to all, tries to provide a reason for the rhyme. This then requires the creation of the "God Concept". Again, the higher power, man upstairs, supreme being or multiples of these. This is a far easier concept to create rather than believing that the universe created all that we know today. The argument is that something had to create what we see today. Something cannot come from nothing.

Well, I'm still not sure what "nothing" is. So speak about "nothing" or "no thing" you are defining that the opposite can exist (thing). So that makes no sense. However, it seems more accurate to say that the universe has always existed as a "thing" because it is simply a concept that does not expend on time. Big bang theorist can escape their problem of answering for the creation of the original "whatever" that "big-banged" into what we see today by saying that the "whatever" was energy and not matter. The problem with matter is that it is spatially defined. To have the matter in the 3rd dimension, we are forced to also have dimensions 1, 2, and 4 (4 is time). So, if the universe contained no elements that extended into the 4th dimension, then the universe had nothing that had to do with time, which escapes that argument altogether, giving the Big Bang Theory more credibility and minimizing that of the Creationism Theory.

And yet, complexity theory screams for notice to be given to a simple example. The building of a building. The architect, the buyer, the bank, the construction company, all the contracting companies, the city inspector, the electrical engineer, the mechanical engineer, and many others working together to make a building that is hardly perfect. Corrections and modifications made to fix the many mistakes and structural tests made to make sure that the building stands. Thousands of hours and millions of dollars going into it with hundreds of thousands of working parts all fitting together to make it all happen even with all its faults and imperfections, its fixes and corrections....

....and yet the fly that lands on the workman's lunch is perfect. Its millions of millions of interactions within each cell. Each cell becoming one of hundreds and fitting just when the development of that fly requires it. And in the end that disgusting maggot, becomes a revolting fly. A revolting fly whose intricacies we cannot replicate...a fly whose beauty we can only dream about.

We little humans think that we can understand or know the God(s) that created this all or define the evolutionary process that brought it all to be. We are a funny, arrogant bunch. Backward, non-thinking, and yet determined to believe that we do. We building a pyramid and marvel at it. Go into space and think highly of it. Cure a disease and applaud ourselves for it...

...and still can't figure out how a bumblebee can fly :)

So what does everything all mean? What's the point of it all? Great question...so, what's for lunch?

Belize

2009-07-04T07:11:00.004-07:00

Yeah, so i'm just a little late...heh heh. Uh, it was hot, a bit hot, and just a little hot. I 'exfoliated' more pores, which I think is 'spa-speak' for sweating in a steamy room for an hour while trying not to pass out. Mine was just the sweat part, but all day.

I took the long way to belize from dallas because some very nice people had to knock me off the flight. I ended up flying to fort lauderdale , fl -> driving to miami, fl -> sleeping in miami over night and leaving the next morning. my little homeless shelter :) sleeping with one eye one my bag and another on the dude behind me was a bit weird tho.

when i finally did get there we had blast with bro. white's young people. besides laughing out my appendix and eating 10 pounds a day and having to drag my grandmother off of the bus, ahem, i had fun. did i mention that it was hot?? yeah, there was that. click on the pictures to see all of them.

Graduation de Elizerbeth

2009-05-31T20:00:00.003-07:00

So people grow up, it appears. My cousin decided to graduate from high school and I had the fun of shooting it. This was the night after the grad when we took her to eat at some fancy Italian place, the pain is still fresh from the bill, and running around downtown in a bus of a limo. Um, also, this was my first time using a speed light and I over exposed everything trying to compensate..sniff sniff. Oh, the pain...

Nashville

2009-05-08T14:32:00.006-07:00

I had to fly to Nashville, Friday to sing one song that night and then fly back out the next morning at 6 for work after staying up most of the night! Ahem, some of my more ... anti-albert-whining friends tell me to make the best of this trip, so here's my attempt.

My cereal! And enormous bowl, ha! From Nashville

Relative to a normal-sized bowl. That joker took 30 minutes to eat. I was sick of the mushy...um, whatever it was by then. From Nashville

Very high quality shaking, you know. From the stage at AMC, held at...um...lemme check...aha! Opryland Hotel in Nashville. From Nashville

I'm not sure what Joel's thinking right now, but its not about the song. Might be lunch...From Nashville

Dallas: Urban Life

2009-03-24T04:14:00.010-07:00

Sssoo, its been a while, ha! You know you're in trouble when people actually tell you to update, ahem! :) j/k

Anyway, I spent about 3.5 hours traipsing around Downtown Dallas yesterday with my camera - hopefully it wasn't completely wasted...

I found some funky looking churches that I didn't know were downtown and kept myself from getting abducted my homeless people and robbed by lawyers so I am in one piece still, though the whole sanity business gives me pause. Either way, it was fun - least not too hot. Let me know what you think...

Click on the sideshow below for the full size images.

brit and steve's wedding

2009-02-22T15:07:00.009-08:00

Ok, so, I didn't get as many pix as I'd have liked to because the wedding photographer asked everyone not to take pictures so we'll have to wait for the "official" ones. He was actually a genius so mine will look like finger painting next to the Mona Lisa, but we all try right? :)

Anyway, I don't know much about weddings, but I think it was a really nice one. Great chapel with perfect lighting (probably not the most normal comments for a wedding!). Either way, it was good. Oh, and as soon as my sis decides to be nice an share her pics I can share the rest. Brit looked stunning and Stephen was bawling so it all worked out, lol. That and I got to ride in a Porsche...

Finally added my sisters pictures - some strange ones there...

Ok, so I'm back...

2009-02-16T19:18:00.005-08:00

Welp, I've returned and neither any of the plane flights crashed nor did the boat sink, so my karma is good - me hopes. Um...it was a long week, to say the least, but I've survived and am here to tell the tale...only I'll save everyone the sob stories and just show some pics. So anyway, we went to the Cayman Islands and Cozumel for a week. It was stupid hot and sandy...I just want to curl up in a ball and weep because of the sand - never again, never again....

practice....supposedly

2009-02-05T05:36:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I think that this is the first time that anything like this has ever gotten out...we have a tape that is insanely old, but I can't find it so this will have to do. Half of this is our group practicing a few days ago...I don't think that one second if it was serious, lol. If you have a bunch of goof balls staying up too late with work the next morning then we tend to lose it....Tim - remember that days...O and yes, I know that "someone" is going to kill me for this, but its funny anyway. ha! We're doing our very best to remain pitchy and keep our bad timing. Should I die, this blog is to be updated by my sisters until I say otherwise.

here ya go - the Real Apostolic Boys
(and for plugging purposes, the website is www.apboys.com)

If you can't see the little media player deally...um, sry :) Nah, you may need to click on more at the bottom right of this box to open the full blog.

Yeah, so I'll need you to slide into work today...

2009-01-29T05:10:00.005-08:00

Sssooo, yesterday was fun :D In Dallas, we don't get much snow, but we do get ice! The roads below don't look too bad, but they have easily at least 1/8 to 1/4 inch of ice on them. Simply put, I was the only retard flying into work at 7 in the morning while it was 22 degrees, doing 70 mph. Lol, needless to say everyone got out of my way so I actually did better time than on normal days. O and I stole some of the pictures below from NBC so hopefully I don't get in too much trouble by mentioning that little fact. O, and six people died so far....from a little ice!!! I'd hate to see what people do when they open their freezers...

Um, and also...I'm doing my best to figure out the physics including necessary speed, angles, and required lack of brain power to end up with a car in a tree like that, lolol. How does this happen!!?? Texas has a strange bunch, I tell ya!

am I in trouble?

2009-01-23T04:42:00.004-08:00

*Let me preface all of this by saying that I am not denying my own belief system, only posing questions, only questioning history. Please do not read unless you can think independently and pragmatically outside of your belief structure without allowing this to modify your own ideas. My wish here is not to 'convert' anyone to or dissuade anyone from any particular concept. I am only typing what's in my head. Good luck :) *

Hope — it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness.
* The Architect The Matrix Reloaded

Every religion, as far as reason will help them, makes use of it gladly - and where it fails them, they cry out: "It is a matter of faith, and above reason!" ~ John Locke

Faith is a wondrous thing; it is not only capable of moving mountains, but also of making you believe that a herring is a race horse. ~ Arthur Koestler

Ok, so here's a serious post for once :)

Religion would have us to believe that hope is a requirement for human life and that faith is a requirement to see God. Humanism would tell us to believe that man is, at his root, good and therefore hope is inherently existent in him. Psychology would demand of us to agree that the human psyche is fragile enough to require certain things of which one is hope - that a mind cannot survive without a reason to. Optimism begs us to know that hope is an acceptance of yesterday, a willingness to live for today, and yet a dream that tomorrow can be better. Faith is not so different, but where hope is a wish, a dream, faith is a believe that a thing is or can be.

But as mentioned by both Locke and Koestler, there is a point where faith becomes an excuse to believe a thing. How can one know that there is a God? One cannot prove it, yet many believe while others do not...enter the age old argument of the confrontation of the 'Big Bang' theory as well as the 'Creation' theory and including any and all hybridized versions of the two. How can one prove the existence of an after life? Religions spanning from Judaism to Roman and Greek mythology to Christianity to Buddhism and Taoism and more modern religions of Scientology and other like sects hold that either there is a heaven or paradise or underworld. Many hold that there is a 'crossing over'. Christians quote that crossing over Jordan is a figurative meaning for entering heaven whereas ancient Greek held the same belief, but substituted River Styx for the River Jordan. Most religions have some sort of semblance of another. Judaism, Greek and Roman mythology fed into Christianity - the latter two because of the timeline of the emergence of the religion and the former as the base of the belief system.

So in light of the slight blending that each religion appears to possess with another, should all be abandoned? The fact that one possess faith in a thing or hope in a future does not make it true...if so, every religion in the world must be accepted as valid and workable and yet each claims that it is the 'one true religion'. Each leads inexorably to a point where it must assume a dogmatic approach to any opposing region. Some flavors of Christianity slam others withing their own religion, particularly at the 'Church' of the middle ages causing a revolt and a spin off of the religion spawning into quite a few sub-regions (denominations) and yet most Christians hold a Bible that was developed on the political whims of this split off.

Unfortunately, despite its popularity - particularly among conservative Christians - the King James Version is one of the most error-prone translations available in English. The texts used by the translators are known and have been known almost since the time of the translation to have been inferior and full of scribal mistakes. source

True?

The problem again remains and the question still stands...what does one do in light of the possible errors in region or perhaps that fact that your particular flavor of region or specific coloration of the concept of God is entirely incorrect? Should all become willing to disassociate one's self entirely from a theo-centric belief structure? Should we all become agnostic or atheistic? Or can one truly be an atheist anyway? Perhaps it is its own belief system with its own concept of 'God' which then proves a disillusion of the term 'atheist' in the first place and denies its possible existence outside of a conceptual level?

or.....

Or should we continue to have faith, the kind that moves mountains and feeds thousands and commits genocide as a holy war. (Please note that Islam does not actually allow Jihad as some extremist elements have used it, but also know that the Christian faith in the Middle Ages headed one of the largest Holy Wars in history - the Crusades. So before one starts nailing Islam for region-based terrorism, one must check ones own history. I've found quotes that estimate that the Christian wars left between 150,000 to 9 million dead. Kind of makes the deaths of Islam pale in comparison, doesn't it?) Should we continue to believe in God? (Everyone does is same shape or form.) Should we continue to pray and visit our holy buildings? (Muslims pray more like the Old Testament 'church' than Christians do currently...so at least their manner of prayer can be viewed as somewhat more 'Biblical' than that of the modern Christian.)

Though all of the questions above and many more rage on spurring hatred and violence, spilling the blood of many, messages of peace that deteriorate into the destruction of buildings by planes. Claims of a fervor for God that hangs a man on a cross.

Yet we still believe. We continue to retain hope. We demand of ourselves to retain our faith.

I'm still confused...

2009-01-20T04:30:00.001-08:00

Okey dokey...as long as we're are all aware that I have absolutely no idea of what I'm doing...um, I can't think of any terms to provide a more clear picture as to the discomfort of my sharing a very private moment with just myself and my computer and the >7 billion people on the planet as well as any little green men who suff our web from mars...hello to you, by the way (that's to the martians, not the earth people....hi to you earth people).

ok...um, I bought a new lens! That's very cool, I think. Super wide angled 17 - 30 mm. It touched my heart and warmed my liver....also it hurt my backside....well, my wallet at least. Oh the pain, but hey, anything to support the arts.

I'm trying to include some photos that I shot of my cousins a few weeks back and ran through photoshop...only I can't get them online here *scratching head*. Ssooo, maybe I'll get luck....later!

2008-11-26T05:07:00.000-08:00