Ravings of a BiPolar Gothic Witch
     Occasional commentary, observations and tidbits as well as other random thoughts

It’s Denver. It’s supposed to be cold here in the winter. I know that. But it isn’t supposed to be so cold you freeze in your own condo on the bloody second floor! I work a job online at home. Because of that I am tied to the computer for hours at a time, sitting on my butt. I love being at home, the job is ok, but I FREEZE. If someone looked in my window they’d think there was a bag lady in my house.

I wear at least 2 heavy shirts, sometimes with a sweater, flannel pants, socks and slippers, a blanket in my lap, and gloves with the fingers cut out so I can type. Not to mention since I’m not going into an office and there is no one peeking in to my window (and if they are they deserve to see the lovely vision I am like this anyway) so I don’t “dress” for the occasion. Meaning if I’ve got an early shift (say, oh half past the crack of dawn) then I usually haven’t brushed my hair or teeth before stumbling to the keyboard, coffee in hand (or sometimes tea).

Of course, in the summer I complained because the windows were open and it was noisy.

Guess a girl just is never satisfied…

Ok,

While I was out reading stuff about the McCain legislation, there was a tiny reference regarding this very serious (and very strange) hobby that some people engage in. Not dangerous, nothing in order to make it something to even write about (well except the juicy little bit about them helping the CIA which of course is why I found it in the first place) but to me the whole thing is just, well, a little strange.

Planespotters go out for a day of watching airplanes at the airport. When they see one they haven’t seen before they dutifully write it’s serial number down in their little grey notebooks (ok, so maybe someone has pink - I’ve never been to a planespotter’s party before), and some even take a picture. I found myself imagining walking into the home of some planespotter. You know, you walk into someone’s house, and they have something they collect highlighted in their living room, or pictures of something they like hanging on the walls - people who walk into my house know I love wolves (well duh!) and that I was in theatre. Anyway, you walk into a planespotter’s living room, and there are like 100 pictures of the same plane on the wall, and well you think to yourself, scratching your head… what the hell? So being the oaf you are you actually ask the host, “gee, Joe, how come you’ve got like a hundred pictures of that same jet on the wall?”. At which point Joe looks at you like you are dumber than dirt, and says “Those aren’t the same plane. Can’t you see? The serial numbers are all different!” And finally, still scratching your head you think (planes have serial numbers? that you can see?!?).

Yeah so anyway, that is my weird entry for the week.

And just in case any of you readers think I’m making things up (yeah I do do that on a regular basis) here is a link. And no I didn’t spend my time working on a bogus website to fool everyone. Do a search on google… Gee if I could do that though - maybe the government would hire me… (slaps self across the face)

I’ve been doing reading over the past few days. Today’s started with Mark Morford’s column on Torture. First off, let me say that I find the notion that we actually have to put into LEGISLATION that as a country we won’t torture people is past understanding. I mean, people think I’m really out there, a total flake, one nut short (and yeah well I probably am), but I think partially it has to do with the fact that sometimes I just don’t even get other people or their thoughts and actions. Why is it necessary that we would have to make a law to keep our government from torturing people?

There are really 2 ironies to this whole bit. The first is that (at least to me) it is fairly obvious that any person with any kind of morals, scrupples, ethics, any belief system at all, should see that torturing another living breathing being (I’m pagan - I’m outraged by the treatment of animals as well, but understand that not everyone holds that belief even if it is wrong) is absolutely abhorent on any scale.

You’d have to be a rat to think that torture ever leads to anything useful, but beyond that, what kind of monster could ever bring themselves to do those types of things to another person? I guess the same ones that blow up villages during war, shoot unarmed civilians, and generally do horrible things. That is what war does to people. Soldiers are brainwashed into killing machines and disconnect from their centers of morality. Please do not take this wrong. I totally respect the individuals of the military. Some of my best friends have put their life on the line, and I am truly admiring of their self sacrifice and the choices that they made. But in order to be able to do the required things as a soldier, there has to be a disconnect somewhere that turns off your sensitivity to the nature of another’s plight.

In a recent article in UU World (a magazine for Unitarian Universalist church members) there was an article about the death of a quiet member, who unbeknownst to most of his congregation had written a book on WWII, and what happened in the death camps when the German soldiers guarding the inmates were interogated and released. There was a section in his book that talked about a General speaking to our troops and working them into a frenzy to be killing machines. I’m sure that is part of the whole disconnect process and that the whole “kill, kill, kill thing” is pretty much necessary. But if we were simply defending ourselves, that sort of rev up would be unnecessary. I’m anything but a pacifist. Trust me. If someone were to hurt one of my kids, they would have a hard time leaving with their head still on their shoulders. But going to another country, and going after people who have never done anything personally to you must be really hard to do unless you’ve been put through a few “praise jesus and pass the amunition” sessions. But I digress.

Beat me with a stupid stick if you want, but why is it we are trying to pass a bill in congress that says that we shouldn’t do something that any one who went through kindergarten with sharing cookies and nap time should know is wrong???

And here’s the second irony. What on earth makes Senator McCain think that the evil people doing the torture (with the blessings of our fearful money grubbing leaders) will even look at that law? Oh sure, it’ll probably make conversation around the water cooler a bit more fun for them but give me a break. The fact is, the nature of what they do is kept secret for a reason. They aren’t worried about tipping off the enemy. Face it, the rest of the world is already pretty aware of the horrors the US does in the name of “world safety”. It is the American public these shadowy figures fear. If Joe American hears that those people in W’s pocket have been pulling fingernails and using the rack on 17 and 18 year old kids because they happen to live in the Middle East and were in the wrong place at the wrong time (”oops - oh, so sorry about that, let me pick up your fingernails, here - we got a surgeon over here in Texas who can put those back on just like new and we’ll even pay a cool mil, oh and btw, say anything about this and die!”) they might be out of a job, or worse, maybe even have to stop doing such evil horrible shadowy things. His neighbors might look at him funny, or his car might get egged. God Forbid, someone might actually arrest him for doing his god given duty to W and country, or then again maybe just W. And Cheney, oh and Condaleeeeza baby.

How have we gotten so low on the food chain to think that not only do we have to put into writing something we should have learned with our mother’s milk, but that we think that the scum who do this sort of thing with the blessing of our government will even listen? Those folks are the “ciggarette smoking man” from the X Files. Plausible deniability man… plausible deniability. You’d have to be something other than human to be able to do or condone those things… oh right. That would be the problem I guess.

And after all that, I am apparently the unpatriotic, crazy bitch from hell who wishes every day for a terrorist blast to kill off half the nation? Well, ok, yeah I kind of do, if they are the stupid people who actually want to ignore this sort of thing… but that is beside the point!

Thanks Mark for yet another wonderful topic -

McCain’s Torture Legislation commentary by Mark Morford

Rant off

So yesterday I got another big chunk of the work done for needing to move from UCD to Metro. Talked to my advisor, and he’s really nice. It’s cool because the metro physics department is much more organized and personable. I never had an advisor for UCD. Dr. Sahami on the other hand talked about my options, how I can navigate my courses to get my BS as soon as possible and my plans after that. He was great. And he will be my Physics teacher so that will be great as well. I will miss the online teaching that Jim Dove did but oh well. Left on my list is finishing the accuplacer transfer to be able to register for calc, finalizing what will be accepted from my old transcripts as credit at metro towards my degree, and financial aid. Financial Aid is a biggie, and I need to get that done asap.

Have also been tired and cranky these last few days. The mood is catching since Mark is picking it up. Last night I let him watch a movie before homework to be nice - BAD idea. I couldn’t get him to do his homework at all. He kept being distracted. I’m starting to wonder about ADD in him. He has a hard time focusing sometimes. But not all the time so I’ll just keep an eye on it.

I have a take home final and a presentation due in cosmology on Thursday. Have worked through maybe a third of the final, have the presentation done. I’ve actually had a couple of really cool conversations at church with people involved in the sciences regarding it and astrophysics in general. It’s very nice when I get to actually talk about the field with people not in it, but still have them understand. At the church Holiday party I talked for almost an hour with a retired man who had done tremendous work in the science field, and was writing a book on WWII. I loved talking to someone who actually understood the concepts. Too bad he’s so much older than me and married. Oh well.

No political rants today. Guess I’m just too tired to get worked up right now. Although one interesting note. I did get an email from the guy I went to coffee with. Wondering now if maybe I just misinterpreted… It was just a link (and a funny one at that) with nothing else - but he tends to be quite brief anyway. Here is the link:
Tech Support Horror Stories It’s worth a read or two.

I didn’t want to do this one - but hey I have UNDEAD as my superpower! How cool is that!

Your Superhero Profile

Your Superhero Name is The Admiral Carrot Your Superpower is Undead Your Weakness is Tummy Rubs Your Weapon is Your Thunder Bow Your Mode of Transportation is Pegasus

I’ve wanted to start working on my photography again. What I’d like to do is take my work that I’ve done so far, make sure it’s how I want it, print it out on canvas, and do a showing somewhere. I realized last night though if I really want to work on it, it means I need to start keeping my camera in hand, or with me so that I take more pictures. So last night I took a bunch of pictures of my friend Melissa while she worked on her gingerbread house. This is my first work on one of those. I like how it turned out.

Wow two posts a day for a while. Guess a lot has been on my mind. A lot of it is just blathering… but I hope that some of it makes people think. Even if their thoughts have to do with the strange twisted person sitting on the other side of this keyboard.

My previous post was actually supposed to be about how people live in the US and avoid feeling responsible for the terrible poverty all around them, the homeless, the brilliant children who can’t think in school because they haven’t eaten for a couple days or maybe their brother just got shot in a gang war, the women struggling to raise children by themselves and provide good homes for them, work, and make sure that they do their homework, not to mention maybe get to play and cuddle a little. That was where the whole “dreamed reality” thing was coming in and then I totally went off in another direction. But I come back to it now.

People who are in middle income brackets, who own homes, go to work each day, do their duty of Sunday church without examining their thoughts or feelings, are the sheep I refer to. They blindly do whatever it is they are taught is supposed to be done. This goes across all societal income levels I know but I pick on the middle class because it is comfortable enough to live, yet sees no bounty in what it has.

The upper class people that I have met, at least those in New Orleans, (I didn’t know any in politics so I don’t know about them), they were taught from the cradle to have a responsibility to do good with their money. No that doesn’t mean they didn’t sneer at the poor, or feel that it was somehow their fault, or close their eyes or turn their heads at the beggar on the street. But it does mean that to some extent, they were taught that as a part of their priviledge they had a “noblesse oblige” to do good work.

I worked at the most prestigous prep school in New Orleans for a while. All of the very priviledged kids went there. And there were two lessons about money I took away. The first was that their families did take it very seriously. One particular money family (there were several cousins of this family in the school) made each child responsible for some project in which they were expected to oversee and participate each week. It was a big responsibility, and taken very seriously.

The second was that money wasn’t any cure for unhappiness. Of the two families I’m talking about, there were two brothers decended from the line. Both had married women from old money families. And both married women had jumped off the Huey P Long within a few years of each other leaving their children and lives behind. Sort of like Princess Diana, although not really, unless they’d been pushed.

Of course, that didn’t stop these high school kids from being the Paris Hilton type either. One day a girl sat at my lunch table and complained about the Bugatti her father had given her for her birthday. Don’t know what that is? Neither did I. I went home and asked my husband. Here one is.

But the upper class does seem to feel that there is something important about trying to improve things, even if it is considered a duty and not a true passion.

The lower class, well they are the ones we’re talking about here. The people who live one paycheck from disaster, the ones who’ve hit the wall and live the disaster, and those who have mental illness and can’t help themselves, and their parents couldn’t help them because they didn’t have the millions of $$ for treatment. The children who see violence by their homes every day. The gang members who might have been engineers except for where they were born. The starving people with nothing to eat and no where warm to go.

It’s the middle class that I’m talking about. Yes you. The ones who have money in the bank, and solid jobs, and go drink a beer with the boys on Saturday nights. You are coddled into your beliefs that everything is safe and warm, and your perception doesn’t see the connection between you and those children. But there is. There is a tether between the entire web of humans. It is my belief that those sheep who are so wrapped up in their blanket of fuzzy perception, willing to give up each right we were given as humans to pursue life and liberty and the joy of living, willing to hand over what is precious and a birthright of each human living on the planet, it is those sheep who under examination validate my statement that life is perception. In truth, I don’t believe that the data of people standing on street corners, or the sound of the news about poverty, and violence, and those thousands of people stranded in New Orleans without food, water or even a way to take care of the dead and dying, and certainly not any feelings regarding anything that might damage their own cocoons of safety, that data is filtered out as noise. They just never consciously receive it. Those neuron receptors were turned off some where along the way. And that is how people sanction such horrible continuance of a great number of things that plague us here on this insignificant ball of water.

It isn’t that people are genuinely mean, or intentionally attempt to keep people down or poor or unhealthy. (Well some do, but that is a different rant). It’s that they just don’t see/hear/feel it. They are not capable of perceiving it. Again proving that perception shapes reality for all of us.

I write a lot about outrage of the various exploits and idiocies of our leaders, something that is pretty easy to go given how stupid and meglomaniac those leaders are. I also commonly refer to most people as sheep, willing to be led around by their genitals just to allow themselves the illusion that all is well. They live in a dream where they work, eat and sleep, and sometimes find time to play stupid games with others in their own dream of reality.

And afterall, my core belief that my spirituality and my scientific mind wrap around is that reality is a shared perception. Our brains, being physically based beings are limited to what we see and feel and hear. But it is a paradox. Our brains are also that which controls what we SHOULD see, feel and hear. If the brain doesn’t recognize the input, we never process it. Scientists have found that human beings actually take in a great deal more with eyes and ears than we really ever allow to become conscious. In other words, data from our universe is streaming into our brains at 10 x or so the rate that we can be aware of. So if all of that data is coming in, and our brains only process 10%, what determines which 10%?

Obviously a great deal is decided by what our brain perceives is reality. The things around us are “solid”. The ground is more solid than the air. Each person has characteristics that we perceive to be human (2 eyes, 2 ears, a mouth, 4 limbs, and one of 2 sex types, etc etc). However, given the brain’s we have and their control over us, would we be able to see, hear or feel ANYTHING that is out of the given shared reality of humans? Maybe if something were so outside what we perceive to be our reality, our brain would file it away as “noise” and we would never consciously access it. It would be there as data, but we wouldn’t ever see, hear or feel it.

That opens up huge realms of possibilities. A science fiction possibility would be that there could be aliens all around us, and because they are so out of our ability to comprehend we just don’t see them. That would be a fun story. Maybe I’ll work on that. But another is the concept of teaching the mind to process ALL of the data without the prejudice of our reality to hamper us. See this cool definition of perception! Gotta love wikipedia!

I was about to write that since we only use 10% of our brains, and that the rest could be where all that “noise” is stored. That took me to wikipedia (trying to find the exact percent) and I LEARNED today, that the notion of using only part of our brains is a MYTH!!! Cool huh? I can learn, and then incorporate that learning into an article that was about to use the opposite of what I learned. Because even though we use all of our brains (in other words each part of the brain has been identified as having some very neccesary function) it also said that more intelligent people use their brain LESS than others. Meaning less neurons fire for intelligent thought processes than for people who have to think about things harder. And that if ALL the neurons fire at the same time, it’s called an epilipetic seizure. (Has any one checked to see if “W” is epileptic?).

Seriously though, doesn’t that also imply that if intelligent people use their brains less, there is the capability to simultaneously use their brains more on many different levels? But all of that is just side talk to the real meat of this writing. I propose that our brains can only process what is understood by them in some context, and while the wikipedia failed me in the whole percentage of brain use argument, it did uphold that concept.

That my friends, is why I’m in physics. It is not our universe that holds us back from unimaginable new theories and ways of seeing it or traveling through it, but our perception of our universe as something completely concrete and defined by the laws which those who have gone before us have discovered. Without leaps in intuitive perception it is doubtful that Einstein, or Newton, or Galileo, or Aristotle could have come up with the theories/laws that we now believe to be scientific. If they had listened to the scientists of the time, and their reality had made up of those perceptions as being completely real, they could not have gone outside of them to find new reality.

How far does it go? I don’t know. How deep does the rabbit hole go? But I pursue my life’s dream to find out.

Well, I have transferred to metro, and set up advising as soon as i could with my new advisor, and poof in one day, the classes I needed disappeared. I am waitlisted for my physics class, I can’t get into the calc I class since it requires dept approval (you have to have passed the placement exam which I have). I had a very difficult time deciding whether I should kill myself trying to take Physics & Calc II having had them 20 years ago and a 1/2 semester this fall. I think the physics would be ok but I don’t know about calc. The calc one class I wanted is full. No waiting list for that one. My schedule stinks because I won’t get to work as much as I’d like, but with our appointments all sort of wrapping up, I’m hoping that it won’t be such a big deal since my schedule can be pretty regular.

I didn’t get the job at church. That was a drag. But oh well. What is meant to work out will. I just need to be very extra careful with money, but I’ve learned a lot about that this fall. Having the insurance will help alot cuz I won’t have to worry so much about doctors, and losing medicaid etc etc. And maybe my consulting will pick up. That would be good too.

Blah. I’m tired and going to bed.

Tonight I had a coffee thing (I don’t think I’d call it a date, because I don’t think the guy I went with thought of it that way even if I hoped he did). He and I have some things in common, and he’s funny and I was hoping we could get together and maybe have some fun.

It was a complete and utter flop. I’m sure he thinks I’m a flake. And he doesn’t talk much, so in my nervousness I rattled on and on. But it’s hard to carry a one sided conversation. I don’t know maybe he thought I was a flake already and was just going for coffee to confirm it. I know he’s really nice, but we didn’t really see eye-to-eye on anything. I have a tattoo, he doesn’t even wear jewelry. I am spiritual, he is an atheist. I really hate stupid people, which seemed to offend him, since he offered up that everyone is stupid somehow. We did agree on the fact that we both feel we don’t teach well. But he does and I don’t (at least not yet). He thinks dancing is stupid, it is a pretty big part of my life. He seemed to be fatalistic about how the world is and runs, and I want to change it. He believes in concrete evidence, I see infinite possibilites. The only thing that might have been worse is if we’d resorted to talking about the weather. Which we did, at least a bit.

He did share a little about himself. He really does have a soft spot for animals, and cares about the planet. But most of it was me asking questions and him giving a few word answers. Nothing really engaged a conversation. And there was a couple of those sort of uncomfortable pauses. Uggg. This whole dating thing is awful. And at the end he was looking around for a clock and when I told him the time, it was like he was thinking I’ve stayed for a cup of tea, it’s been long enough to be polite, I’m outta here… And he practically ran out. So much for that.

Maybe I’m totally misinterpretting. But I’m betting he doesn’t reciprocate and ask me out to coffee…

One neat thing that came out of the experience is a phrase that I’d never heard before but does fit me quite well. He called me a social darwinist. Apparently it is a term from the mid 20th century and I really like it. To be honest, I was relieved to see that in his own way, Einstein too had something to say about the continuing stupidity of humans:

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe. More of his quotes

I know for me it fits. I do think that there is something wrong with human beings, and that by separating ourselves so dramatically from nature that we no longer move with the earth’s rhythms. Therefore, for example we don’t live by the rules of nature that the best adapted survive.

I don’t know. Maybe white rednecks living in trailers are perfectly adapted to their environment. And I say that having lived in a trailer. But it’s the environment there that I guess I object to, and somehow feel that the people who adapt to it are defective. Yeah that is harsh… so is the world.

I am an equal opportunity kind of gal, however. I’m not too hot on the environment of the “have it alls” either. I don’t think they are exactly adapted well to the world either. They live in their own world, separate from the rest of us lifeforms. It’s just hard to find decent human beings, who have enough intelligence and caring to be of benefit to others. We don’t cull the herd. Instead we ruin the earth, ruin each other and generally just live out of touch with everything.

Granted, Gaia is working her ways toward culling us with more and more determination. She’s made bacteria more dangerous, invented diseases (even if they were “thought up” by really evil scientists) that cause horrible death and are extremely contagious, made the earth have more and more natural disasters, and helped us to create more and more violence. She will eventually win. She always does. Even if she gets help from outside her realm, like an asteroid. Eventually she will either tame the beast of humanity where we can live in harmony with the rest of her, or rid herself entirely of the whole human plague. As I’ve stated before, I’m rooting for her. I’d rather see a world where we live more in harmony, but if humankind can’t learn to control it’s greed, gluttony, hatred and utter chaos, then perhaps she should start over from scratch.

If all that makes me a social darwinist, then so be it. I take it as a compliment, although I don’t think he meant it that way.

Christmas Lights. Lights in the trees, on bushes, edging houses. The beauty of this has always captivated me. When I was growing up I don’t remember it being a big thing, at least not in small town Iowa. Maybe a few lights around a window, or maybe a small display in front, but nothing like people do today.

I love the lights. Even when I have hated the holiday season. Even when I’ve felt like the grinch, without the ending. Even when I felt the loss of my birth family so keenly that I cannot move. Seeing the lights always made me feel some small joy. Whether in New Orleans or Denver, snow covered or bare, colored or the stark beauty of clear or white. My particular favorite is seeing white lights on a large tree, covered in snow. There is something magical about that. My son asked me the other night why the snow doesn’t melt. I don’t know, but I am glad it doesn’t.

The only thing I really hate about lights, is the same thing I hate about the rest of the season. The excess. People constantly having to do more, buy more, eat more, spend more. It’s a never ending season of to dos. But I have usually avoided the whole debt thing. I read somewhere that the average family goes into debt $5k for the holidays. That to me, is just incomprehensible. We have never done that. We felt priviledged spending $200 a kid one year. We’re just not into spoiling them in that way. US kids have so much compared to other kids around the world. I don’t want to teach them that the world is about things. As a nation we’re so focused on being consumers already I don’t want to contribute to that.

But the thing I think that always bugs me the most, cuz I control the rest by staying out of stores as much as possible and keeping my head down and not looking around. The thing that bothers me the most is the utter evidence of this by people who put up the huge and overwhelming lights displays. You know the ones. The Tim Taylor displays. The electricity generated for a month probably costs as much as it would cost to sponsor at least one, if not many families to have a Christmas. It makes me furious that they waste so much money, and heedlessly waste energy. Yes the whole lights thing does to some extent, but the Tim Taylors of the country are an example of going way too far. And there are children for whom there is no Santa because of it.

UGGG.

I have to start out by saying I really love holiday lights. They’re one of those things that regardless of how I’m personally feeling about the whole mad commericialized holiday BS I still love seeing beautiful lights in the trees, on the houses, and at events, like the lights at the zoo here in Denver, or Festival of Lights, sadly not happening this year, in New Orleans City Park.

I actually read a few days ago that they are using a section of the park there for a dump. It made me cry. I always felt that City Park must have put Central Park to shame. Not that I’d ever been to the Big Apple, but City Park in New Orleans was big, beautiful, and in some places kind of wild and unknown. Trees from the time of the civil war existed there. There was a tree known as the “Dueling Oaks” because that was where young men came to duel and die. There was a part of the park, back behind a sports field that was rarely even visited, and all the grass had grown up around it, and blackberry brambles had totally taken a circle that surrounded a beautiful grove of trees. They had clearly been planted together and with purpose. They were a circle, and in that circle you could actually feel the magic and energy of the place. The blackberries that grew there were the biggest I’d ever seen, and I have found memories of that place. It was like a hidden spot in the middle of the city that was special.

There were what seemed to be ruins in other places. Stone buildings of some nature, with columns that had been open to the sky, that had partially fallen down, not nearly as old of course, as ruins anywhere else, but still beautiful. And it was a big park. I forget exactly how big, but it was the 2nd biggest in the country (if not the biggest) beaten only by Central Park. It had a miniture amusement park with a carousel that had horses that had been restored from some time long ago with hand painted eyes and tails. It had an entire themed nursery story land with a ship from Peter Pan, and whale that you could walk into. It had a huge botanical garden full of all kinds of flowers and plants that thrived in the south.

And all of it gone. All of it. Dead and dying. Hundreds of years old trees, beautiful live oaks, standing like skeletons over the brown dirt. And worst of all, this beautiful place that I loved, being used for a dump of all the refuse and garbage from all the destroyed homes and buildings. More than anything I’ve read, that makes me so sad.

I took a religion course in college back in the day. Hell I needed an elective, and it was on the deeper meanings of religion and society (or something like that). I truly believe I was born Wiccan, and there are lots of reasons for that. The main one being that nothing about the methodist faith I was reared in starting at age 10 made any damn sense. The minister of our small town church probably hated me because not only did I not fit in, I didn’t hide myself in a closet and make believe that Jesus was the answer to all my problems. No, instead I engaged him in philosophical and religous debate, much, I am sure to his utter horror. I probably am still remembered in my home town high school (yes it was a very small town) for the paper I wrote for persuasive writing that upheld reincarnation. And the truth is, in the research I did, there was just too much documented evidence that couldn’t be explained to NOT believe it. Science that fit my core beliefs.

Of course, this neglects the tiny amount of time when an evangelistic high school group came to our church sometime around the same time (gee I never thought about it but I wonder if they came because my minister was so afraid for my soul… what a guy!). For a short of amount of time, I found myself carried away in the whole ecstatic charismatic (that used to be such an awesome word) thing when I found Jesus and sang gospel songs and thought the whole Christian rock scene was just soooo cool. Shudder. I think it lasted about a month. Then all those really hip kids who looked kind of glassy eyed most of the time disappear and their spell wore off.

Anyway, the religion class really helped me understand the need for the average human’s brain to have religion. It is inherent in our nature to look everywhere but ourselves to blame. What better mechanism than an all knowing, all forgiving god This way people can do anything without thinking about it (murder, rape, pillage, cheat, steal, lie) and somewhere in the back of their head they know that they can be “forgiven”. It also put so much into perspective for me regarding the way most Christians treat the earth and other people. It’s an attitude of superiority and not needing to worry about this life. This is where we are supposed to suffer to gain that great reward in heaven. Basically those two things give the sheep of the world (and there are a lot of em) the permission they need to do whatever they want with no conscience at all.

This brings me to Mark Morford’s latest. Just one more aspect of our wonderful society’s plunge toward the abyss of complete anhilation. I love my kids, and I love life, but I have to admit, that in the war between Gaia, and the rash that has become a pain in her ass (humans), I’m rooting for Gaia. We are supposedly the most intelligent creatures on earth (yeah ok) yet we act more stupidly then most animal species. Even ants don’t foul their nests, but we heap garbage up at a rate so fast that it will exceed our capacity to hold it - they have even considered plans to shoot it into space, and goddess knows we’re already dumping the most toxic of it underground or in the ocean. It’s that same attitude that keeps us from treating our bodies any better. They are disposable. One use only - and that one just as a temporary shell.

While I believe in the whole shell idea (I like the term “skinsuit” better - which I shamelessly stole from Debra Addington ) I still regard the body as sacred as a vessel for the soul. That said, I still find it consoling to dive into some chocolate. I am admittedly a chocoholic and have been for a very long time. But I have weaned myself from smoking, drinking, and even caffeine ( I very rarely imbibe in the last two) and feel that given the choices it is a minor vice, and one that I will continue to work on as I get older. But I am aware that gross obesity is an issue. It horrifies me to see the millions of TV generation kids who sit in front of video games until their eyes get blurry and their butts flatten. Luckily mine aren’t like that for the most part. Their own particular vice is computers (inherited I think), but I still find that they have time and actually prefer active things like skateboarding, and imagination like the tremendous constructions my 8 year old does with Connectx. The TV was rarely on this summer. I certainly don’t turn it on much except perhaps in the evening for some cool down time before bed (drains my brain - makes me sleepy). Guess that is the biggest sign to me of it being the opiate of the masses. And here I could start into another tirade… but I’ll leave that for another day.

Ok, so I live in Denver, and most of the country thinks Denver is this really really cold place in the winter (including me when I moved here). But the truth is, it is one of the sunniest cities in North America, and it actually warms up most of the time even in the winter. So while you may wake up and it’s somewhere in the 20s, most of the time you can go out into the midday with not much more than a jacket cuz it’s somewhere in the 40s. The last couple days - it’s been, well colder than it’s been in a long freakin time. I found the little weather pixie (on the right) - and she’s reading -6 degrees farenheit!!! That is without the windchill. I’m really glad I don’t have to go out today. Making sure the kids are bundled up for the walks to school. Good grief! It’s so cold in my house that I actually just put gloves on with the ends cut out so I could type (and a long sleeve shirt AND a hoody AND a big heavy sweater AND a blanket in my lap). Typing is interesting with gloves on, even with the tips cut off. And I have the furnace on. Just too cold for me thank you very much! I like my pixie tho - she is pretty neat.

I’ve done a lot of work on my blog in the last few days. I have a friend who says that on her computer they type shows way too small. I’m a little concerned about that. If I would have had time yesterday I would have gone to the computer lab at school and pulled it up to see what it looked like there. Looks fine on my computer, but if most people can’t read it that will not do me much good. I mean what’s the point of having a blog if no one can read it!

I think I pretty much finished my Christmas shopping last night. I’m out of money and that pretty much signals the end. I just have a last present to get for a friend of mine. And I need to start writing Christmas cards. I had them out, and now I can’t find them. Wanted to do that in the times when I don’t have a call. I like to multi task while I’m working (I work from home on the computer/phone) so that I don’t get bored between calls. I work at a company called alpine access. They hire all the people who answer phones for 1800Flowers, Vermont Teddy Bear, GE Finance, NTI (IRS forms - they get busy this time of year) and about a million other programs… Anyway - no I don’t take calls for orders (thank god). I actually do help desk support for the agents who do answer the phones. It can be either boring (someone has a really easy problem) or really tough, like an agent with windows ME (god knows Bill really screwed the masses with that stupid bloat of coding) who can’t open IE and went into MSConfig and “did some things” and her antivirus didn’t work and yadayadayada.

So I try to do other things around the calls. Sometimes I study, sometimes I work on my website or blog, and sometimes I do other things. Today it would be nice to do holiday cards, but I guess I have to find them first.

My best friend wrote about me in her blog yesterday and it was really sweet. I felt kind of strange that she sees me as so nice. I feel the same about her, but it still felt weird since I don’t see myself as very nice.

Will write more later. There is a nice juicy post by Mark Morford I’ll probably comment on.

Yesterday I spent almost all my time online redoing my blog and how it looks. Added it to a bunch of “ad” sites to get more traffic. Also I noticed that I had more hits to my web too, and I can only assume that it’s because of my email. Well ok, not assume. I looked at who went to it and saw where they came from and they just happened to be people who I know who I’d sent email to. Oh yeah -and I guess you should know - if you are reading this I’m watching you too!!!

I also found some new interesting things on the net. I did a quiz about what house I’d be at Hogwarts. It put me in Raven claw. Personally I would have thought I’d be in Slytherin. Not because I’m evil (well maybe) but because I do tend to be attracted to the dark side of things. I mean I love Gothic stuff, am fascinated more than the average bear with death, and I am just not that nice of a person. I love my friends and family and would do anything for them, but like I said to a friend (who ended up in Ravenclaw too) - we just have no tolerance for stupid people. And we aren’t always nice about it. I like to tease her from a time when we were all in the “waiting to get out the door and to the next class” push and shove congestion. We had just had a 30 minute discussion of the order of the planets (YES this is a COLLEGE class) and she loudly said, “I can’t help it if people are too stupid to be in this class”.

Ok, she’s right. First of all it was a BASIC astronomy class. It’s not like it’s really hard or anything. Secondly, almost anyone above 6th grade should be able to name all the planets and place them in order. But the point is, we tend to feel that way about things that aren’t really even very basic. It’s just not all the time that we express that to the entire herd of cattle standing around us.

Anyway. I have to go to class. And there are stupid people in this one too - even though it’s a Junior level Cosmology class. We’ve only covered 1/2 the material because people just can’t get it… Uggg.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about the Holidays this year. This has been an incredible year for my family as we’ve gone through some tremendous life altering changes. I’ve gone back to school instead of being a full time worker. Both Mark and Spence and grown tons, and have stablized more. I have learned about taking care of myself, taking care of finances, and have made some friends who I consider to be the closest I’ve ever had.

And as I move into this season I feel, as I have so often written, tremendous gratitude. Gratitude at the health of myself and my family, gratitude for the landlord for having faith in me, gratitude to my friends who are helping to make sure that we have things under the tree for children.

Today Kirk spoke in church about reaching for the divine in everything. For seeing it all around us, because it is us. We are made from the stars. Today was a very personal sermon as it said so eloquently why I am in astrophysics. I suppose I could swing just as easily into quantum physics. But truly it is the nature of the universe that lies at the center of my seeking for what lies at the center of me. The 2 are intricately twined. And as I continue to live and grow, and I look around me, I continue to open up to the true bounty and beauty of life, instead of crumpling in on myself and feeling like life is so miserable and hard.

He quoted Einstein in his sermon, and as I searched for quote (which I couldn’t remember well enough to find) I did find so many that have made me even more convinced of the dual nature of a scientist who makes great leaps, such as those that Einstein did. They did not keep themselves confined by the evidence at hand, and did not take the wonder and spiritual nature of science out of the equation. Instead they made great leaps by opening themselves to the possibilities of all. Something that I have held as a belief for as long as I’ve lived leaped out of the page of quotes:

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Somehow more each day I am more and more content in a life rich with so much that money can’t buy, and it’s a good thing since we live on the budget of a starving student!

Today was again a busy busy day. And sometimes I feel so torn about everything I want to learn and do and have fun with. I had class today, and a fellow student asked if working on figuring out how big/old the universe is would be something that a person with a doctorate in astrophysics would do. I almost laughed out loud. I used to think that tech had so many areas and possibilities, but it just doesn’t compare with the study of the universe. I mean, it’s huge. Working on the information for my presentation on LIGO gave me an inkling of a way I could work in an area that Einstein worked on, the study of gravitational waves in space. Discovering them, or the evidence of the gravity fluctuations in the universe because of huge events in space could be cool.

I also worked on some stuff again for the web and am learning more each day as I enjoy figuring out how to make things better and better here. I’ve changed the format and done some reading in the forums to improve it and make it more like I want it. Like putting up other pages behind it and linking in a bigger way to my own website.

I played with video creation some too. Have more to do but I did find a way to import video from a DVD and work on it in a video editing software such as windows movie player etc. So now I have one of my favorite scenes on video on my computer, the dance scene in Queen of the Damned.

And I’m tired so I’m going to bed now.

Wow! I was looking at sample blogs and I just learned how to do some really cool things. Like linking to quizzes, posting answers to quizzes, linking to movies, and some other stuff. While I was doing it I was looking at other blogs on blogsome (this site) and found out for example why one of the options is to write pages (so you can have links off your blog pages for other stuff!) and it was just so much fun. For example here is something I found referenced on another blog that was just too funny to be believed. And educational too!

In general I guess I just kind of screwed around. But while I was looking for things to alter my blog, make it unique and in general make it cooler, I did find awesome site for movies. Check out the one made from 24 clips - some very nice work that.

And then to be a complete show off I found a site that does blog “things” that you can take quizzes and then post them to your blog. Here’s what my brain pattern says about me:

Your Brain’s Pattern

You have a dreamy mind, full of fancy and fantasy. You have the ability to stay forever entertained with your thoughts. People may say you’re hard to read, but that’s because you’re so internally focused. But when you do share what you’re thinking, people are impressed with your imagination.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

And in case any one is interested, here is the one on what the keys to my heart are:

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free. In love, you feel the most alive when your lover is creative and never lets you feel bored. You’d like to your lover to think you are stylish and alluring. You would be forced to break up with someone who was ruthless, cold-blooded, and sarcastic. Your ideal relationship is open. Both of you can talk about everything… no secrets. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment. You think of marriage something you’ve always wanted… though you haven’t really thought about it. In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You’ll do anything for love, but you won’t fall for it easily.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

That is enough geeky stuff for today - but be sure I’ll be playing around more. I’d really like to be able to make the movies like that are on that site, plus I have friends that do similar things where they take clips and combine them and set them to music. I’ll have to find sometime (oh yeah - ok) to try my hand at that because it is very very creative and cool.