Wow, has it been that long.

Used to be this was where I posted a lot of the flotsam and jetsam that flowed through my mind.  As I became more involved in Facebook, that is where a lot of my thoughts wound up going and I realized the other day that I had not blogged for a while.
Logging in tonight I realized it has been a year an a half.  And before that it was spotty.
So, here I am again. let's see if I can be a little bit more regular here.

Happy new years....

A New Look at an Old Story

We changed churches recently.  While I still love the people at Grace Church in Tulsa, I did not feel like I was part of the fellowship anymore.  I honestly felt that it was time to move.  I looked at a few, but I kind of felt that I should be at Lifechurch.TV South Tulsa campus.  Last week Pastor Craig started a sermon series on "The Christian Atheist".  Very good series.  I was encouraged to try a reading plan that they had called

Home Again: A Study Of The Prodigal Son.  I would encourage all to read it.

I have read the story of the prodigal son for years, even facilitated a group that discussed the The Father Heart of God: Experiencing the Depths of His Love for You , a book devoted to that same story.  So for me, I did not think that I could learn anything new from it.  You know, God has a habit of grabbing you by the neck sometime and just politely tell you, shut up and listen.  I did for this one.

It is an old story, I am sure that you know it well if you grow up in church.  One son wants his inheritance while dad is still living.  Takes the money and spends it all, then, when he has nothing less, he tries to return home to be a servant.  Dad rushes to him, forgives him, kills the fatted calf and has a party for him.  The older son gets mad because he did not get a party the whole time he stayed.  The question that this devotional tried to bring out was, "which son was the better one?"  (that is my version of it).

I always though that the older son was the better one.  He stayed with the father through all the problems of life that were thrown at them, there he was, right by the dad's side.  If the younger had not run away, then he would have been blessed just like the older one did.  Sure, the younger son was forgiven, that says something, but the older one was smarter. Or was he?  His actions, that I had not really looked at closer before, showed he was just as bad as his younger brother.

In reality, one brother is living by faith, the other living by works.  Both are elements that God wants in our lives, and like the father loved both of his sons, God loves both sides equally.  Both of these, however, are ditches on the side of the road.  You get off on one you or the other, you are out of the will of God.  God will gently prod you to get out of the ditch and get back up to center ground so that you can move on with what He has planned for your life.

Take some time to do the reading plan, I am sure you will get something else out of it.  If nothing else take some time to take a look at the YouTube presentation of the story.

From the "If I drank I could win a bar bet with" department

Helping my son with homework tonight and the question was name the three largest cities in Oklahoma by population and land mass. We looked up population and it was Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Norman. By land mass it is Oklahoma City, Norman and Tulsa. He wants one answer not two so I look up population per square mile.  That muddles things up even more as it is Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Norman.

So if you ever need the answer to the largest city in Oklahoma, you can give one of three answers and be right!

U.S., Israel developed Flame computer virus: newspaper - Yahoo! News

U.S., Israel developed Flame computer virus: newspaper - Yahoo! News

So they are trying to blame something on us from un-named sources.  What is funny is the following quote:

Since Flame was an intelligence "collection" virus rather than a cyberwarfare program to sabotage computer systems, it required less-stringent U.S. legal and policy review than any U.S. involvement in offensive cyberwarfare efforts, experts told Reuters.
The CIA, NSA, Pentagon, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

Um, yes, the USA and the various departments are just going to admit to something like this?  If they were not involved and said so, would the average person believe them.  

Problems with conspiracies, is once they start, they are hard to kill....

Do people really think about what they are saying when they get their 15 minutes of fame?

News from The Associated Press

So, in Georgia, there is a little girl throwing a tantrum in school and the police get called in:

Salecia Johnson, 6, was accused of tearing items off the walls and throwing books and toys in an outburst Friday at Creekside Elementary School in Milledgeville, according to a police report.
Police said a small shelf thrown by the child struck the principal in the leg during the fracas. The child also jumped on a paper shredder and tried to break a glass frame, the police report states.

So, she was really traumatizing all the students all around her, would you agree?  So what do the cops do?

The school called police. When an officer tried to calm the child in the principal's office, she resisted, police say. She "was restrained by placing her hands behind her back and handcuffed," a police report states.

 Why did they call the cops and not the parents is a good question. In one version of the story that I read, the parents were unavailable for contact. If you contact everyone on the list in most schools, the next step in most cases in the police.  So far I think the police or the school did not wrong what so ever, though the cuffs might have been overkill, I understand that it was for her safety in the police car.

But here is the kicker:

The girl's aunt, Candace Ruff, went with the child's mother to pick her up from the police station. She said Salecia had been in a holding cell and complained about the handcuffs.

"She said they were really tight. She said they really hurt her wrists," Ruff said. "She was so shaken up when we went there to pick her up."

And:

"We would not like to see this happen to another child, because it's horrifying. It's devastating," her aunt told The Associated Press.

So let me translate what she said in what it means to me.  It was totally OK for her niece  to terrorize the school, give her classmates nightmares about her actions, and be totally impossible to work with. What is not OK is for her niece is to have handcuffs put on her because they hurt her wrist and she was so shaken up about it, to the point of being devastated.

Am I missing something here.  She got her 15 minutes of fame I guess. I do not think I would have been calling the police if my child had been acting like that...

From the "Whoops, I spoke to soon department"

Read this today and got a chuckle....

Only good driver 'on the planet' ruins car

NEW YORK, April 3 (UPI) -- A car that hit a guardrail on a New York road was photographed with a bumper sticker proclaiming the motorist is the only good driver "on the planet."

The car, which was smashed on its front end and flipped over after colliding with the guardrail in a northbound lane of the FDR Drive at 9 a.m. Sunday, was photographed bearing a bumper sticker reading, "Why am I the only one on the planet who knows how to drive?" the New York Post reported Monday.

Police said the male driver, who was alone in the car, was taken to Weill Cornell Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2012/04/03/Jockstrip-The-world-as-we-know-it/UPI-48681333447200/#ixzz1r08dNNR6

Obama Warns 'unelected' Supreme Court Against Striking Down Health Law | Fox News

Obama Warns 'unelected' Supreme Court Against Striking Down Health Law | Fox News

President Obama, employing his strongest language to date on the Supreme Court review of the federal health care overhaul, cautioned the court Monday against overturning the law -- while repeatedly saying he's "confident" it will be upheld. 

The president spoke at length about the case at a joint press conference with the leaders of Mexico and Canada. The president, adopting what he described as the language of conservatives who fret about judicial activism, questioned how an "unelected group of people" could overturn a law approved by

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/02/obama-confident-supreme-court-will-uphold-health-care-law/#ixzz1qv0zymJd

So I want to make sure that I get this straight. When the conservatives complained that the unelected court was making rules from the bench that  flew against what the people wanted, that was OK because it fit the liberal agenda, that was OK.  When the unelected court makes rules that support the conservative agenda and go against the liberal agenda, then a stern warning comes from the president and elected officials happen.

Am I the only one who does not see the logic in this.  If it is wrong one want, is it not wrong the other way as well?

Or have I drank too much of the conservative Kool-aide....?

Working with my kid...

Last night and tonight have been interesting. You have to understand that up till a few years ago I was always very active in working with my children. Even though I worked nights, most of that time I worked from home.
That changed a few years ago. My job was airline related, I did technical assistance for technicians fixing airline ticketing equipment. When 9/11 happened my office go downsized a few people at a time . I was lucky and held on longer than others, but in the end I was let go.
I took a job at a community college fixing computers but I worked nights. Eventuality I went to days but along with my part time job of teaching them, I had to take on a job at a major retail store. So I was basically home maybe one a week.
This not good because my youngest son has Asburgers, a high functioning form of Autism. He has really needed a dad and I have not been emotionally or physically there. We were loosening connection.
In school he was needing to write a narrative essay, but he was drawing a blank on how to do it. It was passed the due date but they would take it if we could get it done soon. Now I am not the best writer but I have learned how to write bettthan many so even though I was tired, as he was to, I got to help him write his paper.
The result I do not care if he gets a good grade on. We had connected again in ways we haven't done in years. I think he enjoyed it as well. He was relaxed as he climbed into bed as if he once again knew he had a dad who loved him.
In my Wednesday night co-dependency group, I am a facilitator of a group going over the book, The Father Heart of God. I have learned in the past two days just what a joy it is for me to be part of my sons life again. How much more does it mean to the Father God to be part of my life if I will just let Him be a part of it? 

Retail workers sign petition to “Save Thanksgiving” | SFGate Blog | an SFGate.com blog

Retail workers sign petition to “Save Thanksgiving” | SFGate Blog | an SFGate.com blog

So let me see if I understand this correctly.

More and more stores, from Target to Best Buy, are pledging to start the Black Friday shopping extravaganza’s early — like after dinner on Thanksgiving night. And they’ll stay open all night long.

That upsets a lot of workers, including Anthony Hardwick of Omaha, Neb., who says he’d rather be at home with his family than stocking shelves or working a register at Target. Plus to make it though the night he’ll have to sleep most of the day, he told CNNMoney.com.

Hardwick started an online petition called “Tell Target to Save Thanksgiving” calling for Target to open later that quickly attracted 157,000 signatures.

Here is a guy who has a job in an economy that is not doing very well so he starts a protest so he does not have to work on Thanksgiving. I would think that the man would be thankful that he has a job and can work on that day. I would think that he would be thankful that he is not in a soup kitchen with his family. Nope, the protest is there, and he is upset he has to work. While I do not care to work on the day, someone has to and the Walmart that I work at will take care of the people that work there. We will have some food set out for us to eat during breaks. We will get holiday pay based on the average hours we worked. And more important, my family will have 8 hours more of pay from my part time job, maybe being able to get some presents for each other.

Get your priorities correct people.

Church tweets protest of Steve Jobs funeral via iPhone | News To Me with George Mathis

Church tweets protest of Steve Jobs funeral via iPhone | News To Me with George Mathis

This has got to be what I consider the ultimate in irrational behavior. If you look up irony in the dictionary, this news article should be found there.

Westboro Baptist, those of the protest the military funereals because America is going to Hades in a hand-basket fame, have decided to protest the funereal of Steve Jobs. Why, because he did not use technology for God...

Religious leader Margie J. Phelps, in responding to an Associated Press headline on Twitter concerning Jobs’ death, said the group would picket the funeral because Jobs had “a huge platform; gave God no glory and taught sin.”

I never knew he taught sin... must have been one of those things I missed because I am not an Apple fanboy. (and I am not putting down Apple or Jobs, just the religious fanatics that the fanboys are). What is ironic is how they put this message up on Twitter:

Yes, that is right, they protested Jobs, and his lifestyle, on a phone that he helped to create. I am a Christian. I can honestly say that if I thought that Jobs represented Satan and all that stand with him, I would not be using the tools he created to talk about how I would protest his lifestyle.

School Surveys 7th-Graders on Oral Sex - FoxNews.com

School Surveys 7th-Graders on Oral Sex - FoxNews.com

Was this really necessary?

Tessitore said her daughters, both students at Memorial Middle School, were told they had to complete a Youth Risk Behavior Study.

“Kids were actually told to sit down and take them,” said John Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “The parents here are very upset.”

Whitehead said the girls were deeply disturbed by the subject matter of the study – including questions about suicide, drug use and sexual behavior.

“One of the questions is, ‘have you ever had oral sex,’” Whitehead said. “You’re talking about kids who probably don’t even know what oral sex is.”

But in stead of accepting responsibility the principal passes the buck:

Principal Fran Thomas told Fox News Radio that students were indeed given the survey – and admits it was graphic. But Thomas said the school has nothing to do with the content and they were required to administer the survey to fulfill a grant requirement.

“I can take no responsibility for what’s on that survey,” Thomas said. “It’s not generated by the school system.”

So in stead of saying that I could have stopped this if I had not applied for the grant, he says that it was mandated by the grant and I had no control over it. Then they wonder why the kids do not take responsibility for their own actions!

Travel Time

Will have to be going to another campus for the next few weeks.  Could be interesting, it is one of the ones that I used to work at.  Not sure why they need me, call load does not look too bad.  I was told that we have a number of projects that need to be done, so I will be up there for a little bit.  It is between semesters so I will not have the commute between the two campuses to teach.

Now, if I could only get to the point that I did not have to work the third job.  I enjoy Walmart, but 3 jobs is a bit too much.  Each weekend drains me so much.

Well, here goes .....

Osama, who? Ask clueless teenagers - Hindustan Times

Osama, who? Ask clueless teenagers - Hindustan Times

My daughter was four years old when 9/11 happened. She kind of remembers me watching TV for hours trying to make sense of it all. She kind of remembers seeing a big plane crashing into tall buildings in New York. But while she may remember those things and we have talked about them over the years, I do not think that something that we talked about who was who was responsible for doing it. It does not surprise me these facts:

According to Yahoo!, 40% of searches on Sunday for 'who killed Osama bin laden' were from people aged 13-20.

But teenagers aged 13-17 made up 66% of searches for the question 'who is Osama bin Laden?'

Why would't this be the truth. We teach our children all sorts of things, but then do not teach them about others. And then call them clueless when they do not know about something? I can understand the questions they asked desperately, flooding internet, confused and clueless as they were about the man who ran the world's largest terrorist network and whose manhunt of 10 years had finally culminated in his killing in a Pakistani city, the Daily Mail reported.

Scores more turned to Twitter to pose the question and get the answer, before they were quickly embarrassed by other users for their lack of knowledge.

One youngster wrote: 'Who is Osama Bin Laden and why should I care?'. Another asked: 'Is he famous?'

A young Twitter user wrote: 'Who is Osama? And why is it so good he died?'. Another poster referred to the terrorist leader as 'Ben' Laden.

What bothers me is that they did not ask their parents. We as a culture have grown cold to what our kids need and let them surf the web for answers. And then we wonder why they are messed up.

When I get time to visit with my kids tonight, I think I have to ask them if they understand exactly what happened Sunday night, and why they should care.

An American family in London watches and worries | Commentary | Minnesota Public Radio News

An American family in London watches and worries | Commentary | Minnesota Public Radio News

I wrote to my friend what I said to my daughter. "Christians do not celebrate the death of anyone."

As a Christian I value all life. Jesus taught us to pray for our enemies. Proverbs 24:17 teaches, "Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble." It's not easy, but that's what Jesus has asked me to do.

I guess this sums up what I felt last night as I typed those words. I cannot celebrate the death of anyone. I wish he could have come to know Jesus. On the other hand, a moral evil is gone and we no longer have to put up with it. In that respect, the world is a little safer. But my life will still go on.

Bin Laden Dead

As I sit here and watch the talking heads talk about the death of Bin Laden I feel nothing. Has anything really changed? I got up this morning and went to one of my jobs. My relationships have not changed and my income has not increased.

So what has changed? Nothing! God still is in control, at least what I let Him. 

Time to get on with life. 

Palin caught in crosshairs map controversy after Tucson shootings

I really am getting tired of this. The guy did not have right leaning motives, if anything they were to the left, but some how Palin is responsible for him killing all these people. What connection am I missing here?

Palin caught in crosshairs map controversy after Tucson shootings: "He said Palin needs allies who can 'point out repeatedly that the cross hairs are irrelevant. The only thing that's relevant is what Jared Loughner was influenced by, and according to his posting and his videos, there's not an iota of evidence that he was even aware of these things. So you need allies out there saying that.'"

Could Sarah Palin be right about Michelle Obama?! - CSMonitor.com

Could Sarah Palin be right about Michelle Obama?! - CSMonitor.com:

"In an editorial the Wall Street Journal criticizes Sarah Palin for criticizing Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign. The point seems to be that such talk from the Ms. Bully Pulpit is innocuous or benign. The writer makes an analogy with Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign.

Now if Michelle Obama were just a Chicago-based community activist who was organizing a nation-wide propaganda campaign to urge people to eat healthily I would have no objection."

Interesting thoughts. Does Ms. Obama speak for herself or her government when she speaks? If she is good enough to meet heads of states without her husband, can she not represent her government in other things. If the president can be held responsible for what he says as being government beliefs, then her words would be as well.

Yes she has the right to free speech, we all do. But free speech gets lost when you are an official government person. It can not go both way.

When the government steps in and tries to educate us, we must remember that other than public schools, that is not their job.

Yes I think obesity is a problem in America. A simple trip to a Wal-mart on any weekend will show you that. But when the government steps in and tries to use its bully pulpit, then maybe we should talk back.

Spam Campaign May Mark Comeback for Storm, Waledac Operators - Security - News & Reviews - eWeek.com

Spam Campaign May Mark Comeback for Storm, Waledac Operators - Security - News & Reviews - eWeek.com:

Interesting new worm out there. While the mass emails that told you go to some link had for the most part died down, they seem to be back again. This one has you download a fake Acrobat reader update to infect you. What gets to me is the staggering numbers it seems to be generating.

"'The overall volume is hard to estimate as it depends on many factors,' Tillmann Werner, malware analyst at Kaspersky Lab, told eWEEK. 'We observed one successfully delivered mail per second on average—that means 3,600 spam mails per hour or 86,400 per day for each bot. The botnet is still very young and constantly growing. We counted about 2,500 different IP addresses that participate in the fast-flux service network which is used to hide the C&C [command and control] infrastructure. The total number of infected machines is probably magnitudes higher, but there is currently no way to measure it."

What really gets to me is that these people could be real successful in a real job and yet they do this.

FOXNews.com - World's Strongest Beer Launches at $762 a Bottle

Just what you need to take to your local PETA meeting!

FOXNews.com - World's Strongest Beer Launches at $762 a Bottle: "The blond Belgian ale, named The End of History, is an astonishing 55 percent alcohol by volume (ABV) and is presented in a case made from stuffed animals, including stoats and squirrels."

A long day

Time seems to go by slowly on some days.  Yesterday and today seem to be a pair of ones.  I tried to tell my daughter that it was a long day yesterday and she looked at me strange.  I could see the cogs going in her head and before she could say anything I said, 'well technically it has been 24 hours, but it feels longer'.

Yesterday and today have been convocation days at the college that I work at. As part of the team that takes care of the multimedia and the computers I get to put in long days to make sure things go right when these events take place, and this semester it was on my campus. Rooms had to be set up, projectors made sure to be running, etc.  You get the idea.

I did get one blessing though.  I changed jobs abruptly in the college and because of that had to change shifts that I was working. That meant that I lost the two classes that I was going to teach.  Teaching brings in the extra $ that I need.  I thought that nothing could be done. But a little faith and prayer and a little putting out of feelers that I was available (the Bible does say 'faith works'), helped me get one class to teach out of the two. While it would have been better to have the two, I am sure that God will provide.