Long time coming

Coke's (should be anyway) new ad campaign, and spokesman.

(I added another one in my bordum today.)

O Thou Lying Girgashite!

While doing a little surfing, I stumbled upon a Biblical Curse Generator. It says that it takes it is loaded with "blistering put-downs as delivered by Elijah, Jeremiah and other monumentally angry saints," but I'm pretty sure most of them are made up.

Whether it is actual scripture or not, it is pretty stinking funny.

Here's a few of my favorites:

"Harken, O ye discourager of the brethren, for you will go on a diet of crunchy,
unsweetened locusts!"

"May you be as welcome as a fart in the queen's bedchamber, thou irritating inhabitant of Gath!"

"Behold, thou shalt be pursued into the mountains by sex-mad baboons, O thou babbling Assyrian!"

"Thou shalt become as popular as a boil on the king's backside, O thou whose name is but dung!"

$10 and my faith in humanity

So my general faith in the world at large isn’t what it should be and I’ll easily admit that. This morning while I was showing Isaac how to pump gas, the kid likes to be helpful what can I say, some guy asks me for a couple of bucks so he can get these two girls to work and then back home.

I look around at the other cars and see that they have this less than approving look on their face.

I think,” this is a test” amid everything else in the world I’m being tested by this schlep that needs gas. I get $10 and hand it to him he give me a couple of “God bless you” lies and the usual stuff and then starts to get in his car. I yell at the guy and tell him “Now, get the gas now!” “Oh, yeah”. The woman in the drivers seat, the whole time is mouthing “sorry, sorry” and while the guy goes in, I imagine he’s prepaying for the gas, the bitch in the back seat gets out and gives me this sob story. I tell her that I’ll get paid again in a couple of days and as long as he’s not buying smokes and junk food I don’t mind helping someone out.

When Isaac and I finish we walk in and considering this is one of my two places I get fuel I ask Carl how much gas the guy on one got. “The first time he spent two bucks, just then he spent $1.50”.

What a shit heap. By the end of the day I hope I won’t be pissed about this but there is a good chance I’ll not be able to reconnect to the forgiveness post of yesterday. This is insignificant and won’t matter in the great scheme of things but it’s a shitty way to start the day.

The art of forgiveness.

The Bible is a wonderful book; it’s a collection of writings that truly span the existence of man on this earth.

For as much guidance it gives me it is a conundrum for application. What I’ve found is that the Bible tends to share the spotlight in the phrase “easier said than done”. Then again…

Some recent events which bare no further explanation (so don’t ask) have tested this hypothesis. What I’ve found is that the less significant the situation the harder it has been for me to follow the seventy times seven example of forgiveness.

I’ve always questioned the application over the ability of being able to forgive someone no matter the situation because there should be no way I can hold some something over anyone else’s head when my example for forgiveness life has forgiven me for everything I’ve done.

It’s most practical application to me comes in the parable of the king who forgave his slaves debts. One slave then forgave those who owed him and the other slave refused to forgive his friends debt, reaping punishment upon himself.

This should be my example for living. I’ve encountered dozens of situations in my life since I sort of reexamined things about two years ago and have had no desire or means to apply this teaching because I’ve always been right in my assessment of the situation, no matter what.

What would stick out to me was the idea that I was wronged and there should be some sort of residual retribution made to me before I forgive anyone. My point must be made and accepted, then and only then will I bestow upon you the gift of my forgiveness. This is not how it should work.

What I’ve figured out is that when the pressure is on and you’re really digging deep for some sort of divine guidance application is a matter of asking. Humility and pride must be adjusted into submission and your heart must be placed in a sort of cruise control beyond active thought. After that everything else is easy.

I think the key to things like this is to actually and completely believe that’s what God wants to help you do. When you sincerely ask you shall completely receive.

frilled functioning fossil shark

I thought is would be nice to throw out this little reminder about how much of the world we know about. Recently some Japanese fishermen saw a strange fish and called most marine biologists to check it out. It ends up to be a very rare frilled shark that’s thought to be extinct or very near to it living at crushing depths.

I know that I can sound a bit like a whack job when I begin talking about animals and the Bible but when there are fossils found with this creature and then you find this creature something automatically doesn’t add up with the evolutionary explanation of things.

I thank God for my faith and his ability to show up people who think they are far smarter than I because of some old bones.

First Day

Well, I'll start by saying that my new work environment will not allow me to blog from work. It's all for the best, of course, but I'll miss having the amount of interaction I used to have.

On the other hand, I LOVE where I work thus far. I went in this morning and did some paperwork in the very building I used to work in. Then it was off to Gunter Air Force Base to see my boss and meet everyone.

When we finally got to the building, it looked like any other government building I've ever seen. But, inside it was a different story.

My boss, Bernie, took me to the "watch floor" first. It looked like something right out of NASA or some sci-fi flick that portrays a military watch floor. Everyone sat on tiers at lined-up workstations and looked on as information scrolled across huge, flatscreen TVs mounted to the walls. There were several different clocks to tell them what time it was in Japan, Germany, etc. It reminded me very much of where I worked up in Georgia, just way cooler.

After I met some folks and filled out paperwork, Bernie took me to my workspace. I was equally amazed, but in a different sort of way. The room struck me as serene. The carpet was a dark, calming green color, flecked with complimentary tones, the cubicle walls were sage with hints of black and there was a huge accent wall at the end that was the same, calming green color. Not only was the space colored perfectly, the lights, instead of beaming down garrishly on my head, were pointed toward the ceiling, causing a beautiful, dappled feel. On top of all that, I have a huge workspace with a large, L-shaped desk, 3, yes 3 separate computers, and an ergonomic chair my boss said cost over $350 (of course, everyone there has one!).

Everyone has been very nice and helpful and interested in my ideas for how to change their training environment. I'm looking forward to really digging in and getting started! I think I'm going to really enjoy this job.

Ice Storm In Oklahoma

Taken by my father in Choteau, Oklahoma, a few miles from where he lives. They have been covered in a sheet of ice for the last several days. He says the neighbor's kids have been ice skating on their yards. Luckily, they have kept their power on, while many in the area have been without.

just the facts ma'am, never mind...

Knoxville is typically not a city where grisly murders take place. Recently the city was rocked by the double murder of a young white couple. Last week one of the suspects was apprehended in KY, later in the week the other was captured by KPD SWAT in a house locally. WBIR was first on the scene to tape the last guy being apprehended. It’s very exciting in the news room when something like this happens, we’ve got people in the mix and reporters trying break the story and everyone gets in a tizzy trying to make sure they get their stories out first.

Anyway one of the reporters had gotten the scoop on how the couple was found. What wasn’t common knowledge until recently was that the guy was badly burned, possibly alive and then shot several times. There is also the idea that since the girl lived for several days after she a) witnessed his murder and b) he witnessed her repeated rape. When the girl was found, she was found bent over, face down in a large trash can. KPD took her to the coroner’s office as she was found. There were signs, from the scene alone that she was subjected to horrible acts of violence prior to her demise. The coroners report confirmed the crime scene.

The subject of this is two fold. First, when something happens all the details are cycled through the newsroom. Part of me loves knowing more that others and then I feel wretched for confirming the despicable facts of some people’s existence. Secondly, I’m glad this place doesn’t release every last detail to the masses.
I don’t know what these guys were on to commit such horrible acts but there are those times when I think it’s just pure evil.

Shut Up Sea Cow

Most of you will remember this bit from Dr. Katz. I've never actually seen the guy in person, so it's funny to see him out of squigglevision. Still. Hilarious.

Dream: Baseball With The Mob

I was playing baseall with against the mob. Actually, I was the son of a mob guy, and was part of the business, I just wasn’t made yet. And that’s the way it was, the sons and underlings of the made guys against the real deal.

It was a tough game too. We were neck and neck the whole time.

For some reason, the made guys had a little kid as their catcher. He was like 13 years old, and not very good. So, I was enlisted to stand behind him and make sure the game ran smoothly – catch anything he missed, keep the ball rolling quickly so the game would keep going, but since I was on the opposite team, it was understood I would not be making any fast throw to get somebody out.

Bottom of the ninth, we were up by one. The made guys are up, this time I’m really catcher. There’s the pitch and somebody tries to steal third. I grab the ball and throw it fast to third and….whoof…it just keeps going. There isn’t a third baseman. I look around and see all of my players not doing anything.

It is then I realize we are making the made guys win. They are in the mob you know, and if they lose, they might get made. Mob guys mad is bad. Very bad.

Game over and we’re all headed out t a meeting. My real dad walks by, and he is one of the top mob gus. He’s helping all these really old mob guys into their cars and asking the “boss” if he wants to go with him.

At this point I think I begin to wake up, so the dream sort of swirls and moves quickly. I remember there was a moment where I was explaining to dad that I didn’t want to be in the mob. And another one talking with my fellow sons of the mob about not being willing to kill.

Don't Know Much About History

As part of my New Years Resolutions, I have decided to start studying history. I'd like to say I've always loved history but that's far from the truth. I mean I paid attention to history in high school and found some of it to be interesting, but never enough to make me read about it on my own.

In college, well I know Jamison will remember how boring the Hick's classes were. The only thing I remember from those classes are that history can actually be interpreted many different ways, and that Jamison remembers all the lyrics to Neil Young's "Unknown Legend."

Perhaps it is the advent of the History channel, or maybe it is my need to watch Band Of Brothers over and over again, but I've recently become much more fascinated by not only our own history, but the worlds. Actually in a sense, it all boils down to wanting to have a wider education. Jamison's recent Boston Tea Party post illustrates my point beautifully. I had no idea it was the anniversary of the Party and I honestly barely remembered what the hub-ub was. I'd like to fix that.

Initially I thought I'd take one subject at a time and read about it for a month before moving on. I had hoped to start early with the Greeks before moving onto the Romans and then, perhaps to the Chinese, but a quick visit to the old bookstore today made me give up such hope. Oh, they had lots of books about the Greeks, but with just a thumb-through I couldn't tell whether they were worth the sticker price.

I'm a beginner, you see, and I don't want a massive, boring tome that will kill this knowledge gaining before it even starts. I did pick up the general history book, which my title comes from, and it is proving to be a fun read, but it's very basic covering subjects in but a few paragraphs and I'd like to dig a little deeper.

Ah, and now we reach the point. I would like some suggestions from ye, my well read friends on some good history books to read. Jamison, I'm looking directly at you.

It's alive. It's alive... It's Alive!!!

Well it seems all I needed was a little time away and to reread Brews amazingly simple instructions, again… Luckily I was able to let Isaac walk me through the steps and here I am.

It’s been a while and I hope everyone is doing great. The blog has been a bit slow so perhaps we should do some catching up.

I guess I’ll start. WBIR is a lot of fun and I’m really enjoying the new gig. I was talking to an old pal at Scripps and telling him that I’ve gotten to experience the weather (one of my simple joys) shoot, edit, create content, and provide for the show. I’m trying to line up shoots at the Grove Park Inn, a monster truck show, an awesome local restaurant, a family therapist and what ever else I think could be interesting.

The wife is wonderful and the kids are too. Caleb has given us a little scare recently and begun stuttering. This happens all the time but when two and two were connected that this began after a small dresser fell and hit him on the head while staying the night at his aunts I went into quiet panic mode. He’s fine and the stuttering will pass on its own in time.

We have cable back in our home and I can tell you I really don’t care. I spent over an hour last night flipping channels simple because I haven’t in such a long time. I was bored stiff in the process. In the past I’d watch a DVD or something or do something called reading. I should have opened a book, eventually I went up stairs and did some editing and felt productive again.
There’s the Readers Digest version of my world over the past little while. What are you guy sup to? Sip, how’s the new gig? Brew, anything? Jamison, have you found any more nasty arithmetic? I know that I just came off the MIA list but are Chuck and Stubbs still out there?

Bathroom Math

I was taking a leak at work in the boys bathroom, and instead of seeing the typical bathroom graffiti, I found a puzzling mathmatical conundrum. Maybe KellieJ can shed light on it, being that she was a math major.

As best I can tell, it is "D = (The Square Root of) (x2 - X1) to the power of 2, + y2 - y1) to the power of 2."

Perhaps it was a formula for a test...?

Happy New Year

Amy and I are headed to her folks for New Years. We'll actually be having a bit of a Christmas celebration with her family as well. Ten adults, six children, one small house. Should be fun!

Hope everyone has a very happy new year!

Semi-Secret Agent Trainer Man

So, the interview was today. They hired me on the spot and said I'll get to negotiate my salary later. I have a few more papers to fill out, but Bernie the task lead and Bobby the DB guru said they are looking forward to working with me.

The job itself hearkens back to what I used to do in the Air Force and for Lockheed Martin. Of course, I had a Top Secret/SCI/SSBI clearance back then, but I'll have at least a Secret this time because of the nature of the work.

First off, I'll be the lead trainer in charge of all the training development, standards, evaluations, education, etc. I have never been as excited about a job.

I just typed what I'll be doing, then I deleted it. I'm a little reluctant to post it, but let's say we'll be handling some matters of national security.

Thanks for all the prayers and support my friends. We are ever thankful for you all and our Father even more.

Say a prayer of thanks to God!

The Brewster's Enter the 21st Century.

Amy has recently taken a teaching position at DePauw University in beautiful Greencastle Indiana. Unfortunately her pay grade is not nearly enough for us to afford a move to beautiful Greencastle Indiana which means my wonderful wife will have to commute. It is about an hours drive and as such we have decided to join the 21st century and get a mobile phone.

That's right, the Brewsters are getting a cell phone.

I despise the idea, but I despise the though of my wife being stranded on Indiana highway even more.

The thing is, we know absolutely nothing about mobile phones. We're pretty much tried to ignore there obnoxious existence until now. So, I'm calling on you, my cellular friends to give me some run downs. The main things I'm curious about are:

Brands: Any opinions on which services are better? Cingular? Sprint? T-Mobile?
Types: Flip phones? The chocolate thingy?
Plans: What plans have you found the best?

We shouldn't need too many minutes as we don't really use the phone all that much. My understanding is pretty much all plans now have the free long distance nation wide, but that's more of a guess than actual knowledge. But if this is not true, then we'd definitely want a plan that included free nation wide calling. Actually we'd want cheap international calls too.

We don't really need all the fancy doohickeys, but I'm totally for camera phones and .mp3 players. But I'm guessing that all has to do with the actual phone and not so much the plans.

Texting I can live without, but I'd definitely like some kind of internet options.

I'm probably sounding like such a doofus with this information as it is probably all self-explanatory, but again I've completely ignored all cell info to this point. All info is absolutely asked for.

Boston Tea Party... Celebrate it this Saturday...

History has always been a bit of a passion for me, particularly the history of the United States... Sure we pretty much screwed the natives later on, and had a horrible civil war (essentially because of what we now call "the Feds"), but thinking of the gutsy nature of the colonists who thumbed their noses at the King of England is really very inspiring... And at the same time very sad that we Americans today take a tax increase with a shrug and a rolling of the eyes... Colonists literally died to keep the money they worked for.

On December the 16th of 1773, what we now call "The Boston Tea Party" occurred. Many people think of this event and can only come up with " A bunch of trick or treaters dressed as Indians tossed a bunch of tea into the harbor." I am blogging this to tell you why, and to help you appreciate it and our history.

You've heard the phrase "Taxation without representation." What's that mean? Okay, when these dudes left England to colonize "America", they were really still part of England. England had parliament (Kindda like our Congress). Everyone had a "representative", except the colonists. No one in parliament represented the colonists, so they kind of felt like they weren't subject to being taxed. I mean, how could people vote to tax them when no one represented them to argue for or against it? The biggest issue these colonist dudes had was the Stamp Act. Anything printed on paper was taxed. Here is the rub; the colonies were taxed 5 times the amount the folks in England were taxed for paper goods... Essentially, this pissed them off.

England loved tea. It was imported from China to the rich folks there. You and I pay 5 to 10% sales tax on things we buy. Tea was taxed 119%. England eventually lowered the tax and everyone was able to afford tea... So they "allowed" China to import to the colonies... And in turn, get some tax money from the colonies.

So the night came that 3 ships packed with tea arrived in Boston. This rag-tag group of dudes called "The Sons of Liberty" met in a pub, drank a few pints, damned the King to hell a few times, then decided to dress as native Americans (to avoid punishment from someone identifying them) and snuck onto these ships. They were not going to let England get any tax money from the sell of this tea by golly! By 9 p.m., they had opened 342 crates of tea in all three ships and had thrown them into the harbor. They took off their shoes, swept the decks, and made each ship's first mate agree to say "The Sons of Liberty had destroyed only the tea", they were met with almost no resistance except for the first mate of one ship who fought valiantly taking out the eyes of several of the residents. The next day, they sent someone around to fix the one padlock they had broken.

England reacted by closing the port of Boston. Some copy-cat groups burned other ships carrying taxable goods in other harbors... As far as tea drinking itself was concerned, many colonists, in Boston and elsewhere in the country, pledged to keep from the drink as a protest. May be why we drink iced tea more often in America...

So this Saturday, make some tea and think about what a luxury it once was in England and the colonies... or, grab a tea bag and throw it into the trash can as a "nod" to some of the framers of this country. And next time the price of stamps go up, or your senator votes to raise your taxes, notice the difference in your reaction and how the "Sons of Liberty" would have reacted. This ain't America the Free anymore.

Jamie Toons

I would appreciate if all would visit this site and find mispellings and such. And even offer advice as to the look and feel of the site. Am willing to change most of it if need be.

http://www.jamietoons.com/

Blockbuster VS Netflix

I have been a member of the online DVD rental community off and on now for several years. For the longest time I went with Netflix because, well at first they were the only ones around, but even later because they had the greatest selection and seemed to treat their customer’s with a well pleasing service.

A few months back I switched to Blockbuster, and I don’t see myself turning back.

Here’s the rundown.

Blockbuster has essentially stolen Netflix’s game plan from them so both services are nearly identical. You choose a plan which consists of how many movies you want out at a time. For example I am on the 2 at a time plan which means at any given time I have two movies “out” (this doesn’t necessarily mean I have them in hand for this count also involves mail time. For this it costs me about $17 a month.

Both services have similar queues wherein who select the movies you want to watch and then as returned movies are turned in, the next movies in your queue are mailed out. Due to popularity of certain titles, an item in your queue may not be available when it hits the front of the line. Both services make not of this on their queues and will then send out the next available flick. I have noticed that Blockbuster has a tendency to send the movies in my top ten a little out of order even though none of them are listed as unavailable. Though I’m not sure why this is, it really isn’t too bothersome to me since I’m not that particular.

From my location and my calculations both services are comparable in terms of how quickly they process returns and send movies out. On average I receive a new movie five days from the time I have returned it.

In terms of selection Netflix gets the prize. They, by far, beat Blockbuster with number of movies in their archives. They also do not place any restrictions on ratings (Blockbuster doesn’t allow NC-17 or X rated films.) Neither company supplies pornography or “Adult” films.

So, why did I choose Blockbuster? Because they give you free in-store rentals. Before a few weeks ago they gave me 1 coupon per week to rent a movie from their physical stores. With my normal online rentals averaging out to two movies a week added with the 1 coupon per week I was receiving approximately 12 movies per month. At less than $20 per month this was already a big bargain.

Blockbuster has recently changed their terms and now instead of mailing the movies back to them you can simply return the DVDs to any Blockbuster store. Once turned in they automatically send out the next movie in my queue thus upping the amount of movies sent to me per month. Also each time you turn in a movie, you may rent one from the store. Thus, even with my old average of two movies per week I’m now doubling the amount of movies I rent from the store, and with the improved mailing times this may even triple. That’s 16-20 movies a month!

Well worth it in my book. I will probably even drop my selection to one movie at a time for $10 which will still see me receiving 12-16 movies per month.

It is a no brainer for me. Now I know most of you are probably now thinking to yourselves that there is no way you could watch that many movies in a month. The reality of the situation is that you don’t have to. With the online rentals there are no due dates or late fees. You can keep the movies as long as you want. With my DVD burner I tend to maximize my movie gathering and money saving potential by turning them in the day after, but you can certainly be more leisurely about it. Even if you take the $10 one at a time option and only watch 4 movies, you’ve still saved yourself money over watching those same movies with regular rental prices.

The HOLY COW Jumped Over the Moon

I'm sorry, Brew, but I had to blog this:

I was outside hanging Christmas lights after Wed night class tonight after the boys had gone to bed, when my wife sticks her head out the back door and says, "Josh, NASA just emailed and they want you to work for them..."

I asked her to repeat what she'd just said. She said it again and I asked if it was a joke or SP@M or something...

"Nope, this guy emailed you for real."

I finished up the lights and walked in, still not sure about how real this email was. When I got to the computer, there it was:

Joshua,

I came across your resume in our database and wanted to reach out to you to see if you are open to relocation to Huntsville, AL. We have a position working with NASA as an instructional design consultant that I thought you might be an excellent fit for based on your background. If you are interested please let me know and I will give you a call to discuss in more detail.

Ummmm, what the heck!?!?

This is NOT a joke. This guy is serious. He works for a company called Booz Allen Hamilton who contracts to NASA among other government entities. I told him to call me to discuss it tomorrow afternoon. Only thing is, we'd have to move to Huntsville. I called my Mom and she said that if it were her, she'd HAVE to check it out. Rachel and her folks agree.

And, after all, just because I check it out doesn't mean I have to take it. Right?