After a bit of a hiatus, this blog and I are back!
I thought it might be good to bring up some of my favorite movies, a few which are what I consider to be "perfect movies", which I seem to recall blogging about in the past. Of course, as a person of Jewish ancestry, I can help but love "Fiddler on the Roof"! I am a bit like Motel but the older I get the more I channel Tevya. Nothing brings out a desire to think about my heritage than the premiere Jewish play/movie!
So, I am back and this is a really easy thing to do while I am constantly called to the door by cute little trick-or-treaters!
09 July 2012
Flickers of Light, Enclaves of Righteousness
It is my thought that this world and circumstance must be among the lowest in the domain of our Heavenly Father. There has always been stories of how this world was the only one in which the Christ would be crucified, but as I read scripture and view the expanse of history, I can come to the conclusion that righteousness is a very rare commodity here on Earth and often taken away from this place to find its promised thriving elsewhere.
I think of the people of the city of Enoch, who built a Zion Society that lasted for perhaps 400 years and then "fled", literally taken off of the Earth. We also have a little reference to a group that was assembled at Salem, led by the great high priest Melchizedek, who are mentioned once and never heard of in scripture again, perhaps also removed from this sphere. We also have the case of the "lost" ten tribes of Israel, who legend says repented whole-heartedly of the behavior that led to their capture by the Assyrians and were eventually also taken from the Earth, perhaps. We have amazing satellite technology that has eliminated the thought that these people are hiding on some island or hitherto unknown place, so where did the larger part of Israel get to? It seems that when the righteous come together, they are taken from the Earth by the hand of God, presumably to somewhere distant, maybe off the sphere entirely, no matter how fanciful that might seem.
In the time of this planet, the surface of the Earth has been changed, separating one land mass into different continents. God says that he did this and proclaimed the land that we call North and South America as a chosen land for the righteous to dwell. The miraculous "bringing" of the Jaredite, Nephite, and Mulekite nations to this chosen land are documented to varying degrees in the Book of Mormon, adding credence to the idea that God regularly separates the righteous from others, often by divinely inspired migrations. It is no less telling that the seventeenth and eighteenth century Protestants braved the seas to come to the "New World" to practice a more biblical way of life and the nineteenth century Mormons fled Europe and the United States in order to pursue the restored Gospel in the Rocky Mountains.
Wherever the righteous are found, there always seems to be a migration and "gathering" involved, bringing them together. Righteousness in concentration seems to increase it, so-much-so that it seems the only thing for the Lord to do is to ultimately take it away from this telestial world altogether and let its righteousness continue elsewhere for a time. In our own time, instead of gathering to one locality or two, we are instructed by God to remain physically dispersed as we can gather together through technology. This time might be referred to as the Last Gathering, where the message of the Gospel will flood the whole earth and ultimately in no place will the words of God be inaccessible. Further, in no location will the authorized servants of God and the saving ordinances they provide be unavailable. It is an incredible time to live and to participate!
In the not-too-distant future, the chosen land of the Americas will be cleansed of unrighteous people, this time by plagues, famines, and such rather than a great flood, and the righteous of the Earth will be invited to migrate a "chosen land" once again, yet another enclave of righteousness. All of the "fled" righteous people, those of Enoch and Melchizedek and Israel and perhaps others that we have no record of, will return to this place of gathering and endure the final destruction of the wicked when the entire Earth and all its people are cleansed and promoted to a terrestrial status and the millennium beyond.
I look forward to such things and I hope you do as well.
I think of the people of the city of Enoch, who built a Zion Society that lasted for perhaps 400 years and then "fled", literally taken off of the Earth. We also have a little reference to a group that was assembled at Salem, led by the great high priest Melchizedek, who are mentioned once and never heard of in scripture again, perhaps also removed from this sphere. We also have the case of the "lost" ten tribes of Israel, who legend says repented whole-heartedly of the behavior that led to their capture by the Assyrians and were eventually also taken from the Earth, perhaps. We have amazing satellite technology that has eliminated the thought that these people are hiding on some island or hitherto unknown place, so where did the larger part of Israel get to? It seems that when the righteous come together, they are taken from the Earth by the hand of God, presumably to somewhere distant, maybe off the sphere entirely, no matter how fanciful that might seem.
In the time of this planet, the surface of the Earth has been changed, separating one land mass into different continents. God says that he did this and proclaimed the land that we call North and South America as a chosen land for the righteous to dwell. The miraculous "bringing" of the Jaredite, Nephite, and Mulekite nations to this chosen land are documented to varying degrees in the Book of Mormon, adding credence to the idea that God regularly separates the righteous from others, often by divinely inspired migrations. It is no less telling that the seventeenth and eighteenth century Protestants braved the seas to come to the "New World" to practice a more biblical way of life and the nineteenth century Mormons fled Europe and the United States in order to pursue the restored Gospel in the Rocky Mountains.
Wherever the righteous are found, there always seems to be a migration and "gathering" involved, bringing them together. Righteousness in concentration seems to increase it, so-much-so that it seems the only thing for the Lord to do is to ultimately take it away from this telestial world altogether and let its righteousness continue elsewhere for a time. In our own time, instead of gathering to one locality or two, we are instructed by God to remain physically dispersed as we can gather together through technology. This time might be referred to as the Last Gathering, where the message of the Gospel will flood the whole earth and ultimately in no place will the words of God be inaccessible. Further, in no location will the authorized servants of God and the saving ordinances they provide be unavailable. It is an incredible time to live and to participate!
In the not-too-distant future, the chosen land of the Americas will be cleansed of unrighteous people, this time by plagues, famines, and such rather than a great flood, and the righteous of the Earth will be invited to migrate a "chosen land" once again, yet another enclave of righteousness. All of the "fled" righteous people, those of Enoch and Melchizedek and Israel and perhaps others that we have no record of, will return to this place of gathering and endure the final destruction of the wicked when the entire Earth and all its people are cleansed and promoted to a terrestrial status and the millennium beyond.
I look forward to such things and I hope you do as well.
06 July 2012
Home Server Reborn!
I actually reactivated this blog as a bit of a replacement to the old web/gopher server I used at home. I was using an old POS board that used old laptop hard drives that are very very fragile and everything that was transferred to them was ultimately lost to little stuff. I have upgraded that system to be totally solid state, but I haven't put it back into service for now.
Instead, I am now using an old consumer minitower with a software RAID in it, which should solve my worries about losing data again (at least for a while). For now, I am populating the server with some very, very old data that was backed up eons ago, some of which was on the previous server and some that never was, so things are a bit different. Explore away!
So, I expect to continue the blog for a bit as a replacement, but with some interesting stuff on the home server that are probably unique due to their age.
Instead, I am now using an old consumer minitower with a software RAID in it, which should solve my worries about losing data again (at least for a while). For now, I am populating the server with some very, very old data that was backed up eons ago, some of which was on the previous server and some that never was, so things are a bit different. Explore away!
So, I expect to continue the blog for a bit as a replacement, but with some interesting stuff on the home server that are probably unique due to their age.
11 June 2012
The Great (Yet Premature) Down-sizing
It was almost a week ago when some spare hard drives, disturbed by my shuffling about in preparation for our upcoming move, dropped from a cabinet onto the open-faced motherboard that served as my web and gopher server for the past year. The debris dislodged the sound card and jarred the hard drive enough to gouge the surface and totally ruin the drive. I typically have a none-too-recent backup of the drive, but I have had to shuffle around the backup drives to put my daughter Shayna back into service, so the backup drive had been recently formatted and EVERYTHING is now lost!!
Fortunately, I had been slowly moving most of my core documents to cloud servers, so all of what I would consider to be the really important stuff has weathered this storm. The server itself is back in service and there is a web and gopher server running, but they are both quite empty for now. Both the old podcasts are totally gone, which is a bit sad, but it would probably be just as well that I render most of the information that went into the podcasts into far more concise text, probably for posting in the future on this blog.
Frankly, there were likely some very dangerous recordings and essays on the server that probably were very outdated and really needed to be removed. It isn't good to have too much of your uncensored self out on the public web anyway. It was okay when no one really looked at the site, but with job changes, moving, and graduate school in the offing, there was a good chance that something damning that I have said/wrote in the past could come back to haunt me! I am quite prepared to attribute the falling hard drives event to a fortuitous act of God and be grateful for the happening...
If you go clicking on links to the old QuIX properties, I hope you are not too disappointed at the lack of objects to browse. Life happens!
Fortunately, I had been slowly moving most of my core documents to cloud servers, so all of what I would consider to be the really important stuff has weathered this storm. The server itself is back in service and there is a web and gopher server running, but they are both quite empty for now. Both the old podcasts are totally gone, which is a bit sad, but it would probably be just as well that I render most of the information that went into the podcasts into far more concise text, probably for posting in the future on this blog.
Frankly, there were likely some very dangerous recordings and essays on the server that probably were very outdated and really needed to be removed. It isn't good to have too much of your uncensored self out on the public web anyway. It was okay when no one really looked at the site, but with job changes, moving, and graduate school in the offing, there was a good chance that something damning that I have said/wrote in the past could come back to haunt me! I am quite prepared to attribute the falling hard drives event to a fortuitous act of God and be grateful for the happening...
If you go clicking on links to the old QuIX properties, I hope you are not too disappointed at the lack of objects to browse. Life happens!
05 June 2012
Navigiary Begins
After years of effort and trying to walk away from the thing, the first book of the Navigiary series: Escape, is finally out and available on the Kindle store.
There is also another blog that I have just for Navigiary. Surprisingly, I also allow commenting on that blog as well!
See what I have been working on all these years but know that Escape is but an introduction - the meat of the story is yet to come!
17 January 2012
More than a New Year's Resolution
I am tired. I find myself bored with my present life and the person I am right now. I have a fine, fine job and I work alongside wonderful people, but I need to be doing more. I need to become more and I am reasonably sure that this is also what God expects from me. I hope you readers don't consider this a "cocky" statement as I consider it an indictment of my lack of activity in the area of rising to my potential. I have no idea what that potential is, but I have not be making much of an effort toward discovering it. I want to begin to rectify that, starting right now.
Every Sunday, we hold a family council and a bit of a "home evening" with whatever family members are available. During the council, each family member has an opportunity to ask a question, present a concern, or make a comment. Last Sunday, during my time to do "questions, concerns, or comments", something popped into my head and, after only a moment or two of thought, I commented that I wanted to share a personal goal. With all the insight of a minute or two, I said:
"I want to celebrate my fiftieth birthday in London."
That may sound silly and totally unrealistic, especially given our family finances, but that is because you are likely not aware of the context of my statement. Please allow me to tell a little about what almost unconsciously informed this goal.
Ever since my children were small, I have thought and spoke "internationally", which is to say that I dreamed of far-away places and things. What would it be like to live in one foreign country or another? What places would be most possible for us to go? What different cultures or languages would we have to understand to function well there? Coupled with a total inability not to keep my thoughts to myself, I shared these questions and my research toward answering them with my family. Over time, I began to see that some of my children were being affected. My older daughter took it upon herself to teach herself Hebrew and to look forward to visiting and perhaps living in Israel which is not an inconsistent thing to do as both she and I share a Jewish heritage. My younger daughter dreams of someday living in Italy and enjoying the beauty and art of that place. Though my other children have so far expressed no desire to travel or live internationally, I would not be surprised if they quietly dream of such things or, at the very least, are familiar enough with locations outside of the USA to be far above the local average in a world geography exams.
When I was a younger man, I left a wonderful yet boring job and went to sea, getting a position as a seismic navigator hunting for oil. It was an interesting two years, floating in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of west Africa. Although I became familiar with various airports in exotic places, I took little opportunity to explore past being an airline passenger in the international terminal. Although such travels whetted my appetite, it did nothing to address my hunger.
Unfortunately, outside of dreaming and flying a bit, I had not yet really taken my own advice. I was encouraging my chlidren, but I was not being an example of someone who works toward the goal and accomplishes it.
I need to do a better job.
So, I don't know exactly how I will get myself working in London and in what capacity, but I have taken the first step to making it happen. I have my passport updated and all my credentials in as much order as I can. I am already interviewing with the company I worked for internationally over a decade ago and I hope they hire me and get my foot back into door of foreign travel. It really helps to be there even occasionally when you want to live and work there. It is also far easier to get transferred to London with a company than to get a job there as a non-resident non-citizen. If I want help, especially from God, I will need to show everyone that I am willing to do as much as I can to make it happen myself.
I will likely keep you readers informed on how it goes.
Every Sunday, we hold a family council and a bit of a "home evening" with whatever family members are available. During the council, each family member has an opportunity to ask a question, present a concern, or make a comment. Last Sunday, during my time to do "questions, concerns, or comments", something popped into my head and, after only a moment or two of thought, I commented that I wanted to share a personal goal. With all the insight of a minute or two, I said:
"I want to celebrate my fiftieth birthday in London."
That may sound silly and totally unrealistic, especially given our family finances, but that is because you are likely not aware of the context of my statement. Please allow me to tell a little about what almost unconsciously informed this goal.
Ever since my children were small, I have thought and spoke "internationally", which is to say that I dreamed of far-away places and things. What would it be like to live in one foreign country or another? What places would be most possible for us to go? What different cultures or languages would we have to understand to function well there? Coupled with a total inability not to keep my thoughts to myself, I shared these questions and my research toward answering them with my family. Over time, I began to see that some of my children were being affected. My older daughter took it upon herself to teach herself Hebrew and to look forward to visiting and perhaps living in Israel which is not an inconsistent thing to do as both she and I share a Jewish heritage. My younger daughter dreams of someday living in Italy and enjoying the beauty and art of that place. Though my other children have so far expressed no desire to travel or live internationally, I would not be surprised if they quietly dream of such things or, at the very least, are familiar enough with locations outside of the USA to be far above the local average in a world geography exams.
When I was a younger man, I left a wonderful yet boring job and went to sea, getting a position as a seismic navigator hunting for oil. It was an interesting two years, floating in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of west Africa. Although I became familiar with various airports in exotic places, I took little opportunity to explore past being an airline passenger in the international terminal. Although such travels whetted my appetite, it did nothing to address my hunger.
Unfortunately, outside of dreaming and flying a bit, I had not yet really taken my own advice. I was encouraging my chlidren, but I was not being an example of someone who works toward the goal and accomplishes it.
I need to do a better job.
So, I don't know exactly how I will get myself working in London and in what capacity, but I have taken the first step to making it happen. I have my passport updated and all my credentials in as much order as I can. I am already interviewing with the company I worked for internationally over a decade ago and I hope they hire me and get my foot back into door of foreign travel. It really helps to be there even occasionally when you want to live and work there. It is also far easier to get transferred to London with a company than to get a job there as a non-resident non-citizen. If I want help, especially from God, I will need to show everyone that I am willing to do as much as I can to make it happen myself.
I will likely keep you readers informed on how it goes.
24 December 2011
The Asocial Unetwork
[Update: I do have a facebook account now, but that is only to advertise blog posts and such to the world. I rarely look at what others post there. Like me and be my friend knowing that I probably am not reading your stuff.]
I have just been regaled by the utterly thoughtless postings of several of my talkative extended family members on a "service" called "facebook". My oldest daughter is an on-and-off member of this chronic exhibitionist collective, which is how I know anything about such things at all. At the ripe age of 44, I am one of those "old farts" that avoids "texting", much less its more evolved cousins like twitter and a procession of social yammering spots. I just never got interested.
The larger problem is that I decided long before this technology existed that it was far smarter and safer to keep your thoughts to yourself. I can't say that I do a marvelous job of this, but I seemingly do far, far better than the typical youngish person. In the distant past, people wanted their lives to be private and even went to far as to say that such a "right to privacy" existed or needed to be codified. In our modern times, it seems no one even bothers to use the word "private", much less exercise privacy themselves.
I know all the tawdry gossip about the people around me because it is broadcasted to practically everyone through some social network. The saddest thing of all is that these tidbits are not really gossip at all, these missives are actually posted by the person themselves. Once upon a time, something unsavory such as an out-of-wedlock pregnancy was whispered around for weeks until the person finally admitted that the circumstances were true. These days, the "mommy-to-be" uses something like twitter or facebook (does no one capitalize names anymore?) to inform everyone before the old-fashioned rumor mill even has a chance to warm up. This must make "news agencies" infuriated as there seems to be very little "dirt" to dig about these days as starlets and CEOs just let their totally uncensored private parts "hang out" from moment to moment. So much for "scooping" a story!
I only have a cell phone because my job requires it and I don't pay for a "texting" add-on, no matter how inexpensive it is. I immediately saw that I would have what little concentration I can muster constantly interrupted by little non-sequitirs. To think that I would invite further interruptions by signing up for a text message aggregator like twitter and the much more expansive social networks is just no where near my interests. I have nothing to say at a moment's notice that would be proper and I doubt anyone else has useful things to say without some thought that an email would not improve. I purposefully disabled commenting on my blog, which is the closest I will likely get to becoming electronically social - if you really want to say something to me, I prefer either an email or that you keep comments to yourself. Rude, but true.
If you want to know what I do from minute to minute, I will say this: I tend to breathe (and much more so now that I have discovered the Aveo TSD), I read various obscure texts, I ponder about life, talk incessantly at no one in particular, and write occasionally. I blather on-and-on courtesy the podcast and I place the odd essay on my gopher server. That is about all the "social networking" you are going to get from me!
I have just been regaled by the utterly thoughtless postings of several of my talkative extended family members on a "service" called "facebook". My oldest daughter is an on-and-off member of this chronic exhibitionist collective, which is how I know anything about such things at all. At the ripe age of 44, I am one of those "old farts" that avoids "texting", much less its more evolved cousins like twitter and a procession of social yammering spots. I just never got interested.
The larger problem is that I decided long before this technology existed that it was far smarter and safer to keep your thoughts to yourself. I can't say that I do a marvelous job of this, but I seemingly do far, far better than the typical youngish person. In the distant past, people wanted their lives to be private and even went to far as to say that such a "right to privacy" existed or needed to be codified. In our modern times, it seems no one even bothers to use the word "private", much less exercise privacy themselves.
I know all the tawdry gossip about the people around me because it is broadcasted to practically everyone through some social network. The saddest thing of all is that these tidbits are not really gossip at all, these missives are actually posted by the person themselves. Once upon a time, something unsavory such as an out-of-wedlock pregnancy was whispered around for weeks until the person finally admitted that the circumstances were true. These days, the "mommy-to-be" uses something like twitter or facebook (does no one capitalize names anymore?) to inform everyone before the old-fashioned rumor mill even has a chance to warm up. This must make "news agencies" infuriated as there seems to be very little "dirt" to dig about these days as starlets and CEOs just let their totally uncensored private parts "hang out" from moment to moment. So much for "scooping" a story!
I only have a cell phone because my job requires it and I don't pay for a "texting" add-on, no matter how inexpensive it is. I immediately saw that I would have what little concentration I can muster constantly interrupted by little non-sequitirs. To think that I would invite further interruptions by signing up for a text message aggregator like twitter and the much more expansive social networks is just no where near my interests. I have nothing to say at a moment's notice that would be proper and I doubt anyone else has useful things to say without some thought that an email would not improve. I purposefully disabled commenting on my blog, which is the closest I will likely get to becoming electronically social - if you really want to say something to me, I prefer either an email or that you keep comments to yourself. Rude, but true.
If you want to know what I do from minute to minute, I will say this: I tend to breathe (and much more so now that I have discovered the Aveo TSD), I read various obscure texts, I ponder about life, talk incessantly at no one in particular, and write occasionally. I blather on-and-on courtesy the podcast and I place the odd essay on my gopher server. That is about all the "social networking" you are going to get from me!
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