A recent forwarded message

A friend forwarded this on, and I thought this was interesting... it made me think enough atleast to think it might be interesting to other people.

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The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?" (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"

In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably,if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in. My Best Regards.


Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

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What I have learned about owning a home so far...

So, I have been a home owner for almost a month. So far, so good. I have learned a few things:

• The roof will always leak. If its not leaking where your looking now, its leaking somewhere else.
• Plaster is a pain to repair... and the holes get bigger so easily.
• Appliance shopping makes you feel incredibly domestic... and almost sick to your stomach.
• Any project can not be solved with a single trip to Lowes... you must make several trips before you even start.
• A case of beer does not last a whole weekend of "working on the house".
• You will never put a shopvac filter on correctly the first time, and you will shoot dust all over the house.
• Bulbs in the basement always burn out when your trying to catch a bug, carrying something heavy, trying to avoid the water overflowing from the washer.

There will be more... this is all I can think of from a foggy Monday morning.

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Designers are idiots too.

So I bought a house... yeah, yeah... shoulda done it a while ago. Now I have a house and a boat... still no car. Because its getting cold, and Maria has blood circulation problems, and I love fire... I am looking at a fireplace for the back. I kinda dig this one, but there's an issue with it. Can you see a possible problem? I don't know if people sometimes design these things, and never test them out... because some things are just stupid.

I guess the process works like this... you pull the lid off, stick some logs in, light a fire... put lid back on so sparks and stuff don't burn your friends. Everything is cozy for about 30 minutes, then the fire starts to die down a little, so you want to add more wood. First thing you have to do is grab the metal handle thats been sitting over a hot fire for about 30 minutes! Now you have a nice logo of the manufacturer burned into your hand... and you have managed to toss the hot screen onto one of your friends, ruining their night. Surely someone must have noticed this.


Nope... guess they all think that is a good idea.

Box to live in?

Today is the 29th and I have to be out of my apartment by the end of
the day Wednesday! I have been working on buying a duplex near
downtown, but we were supposed to close last Friday and move over the
weekend. I didn't close an we didn't move.

Theoretically I will be closing tomorrow and then having a midnight
moving party Tuesday night. But if not, I guess we'll be testing out
those cold weather sleeping bags, and insulated cardboard boxes.

Always lastminute.

Climb-a-thon

Maria and I just finished a climb-a-thon charity event for the Red
Cross. It was held at the Urban Krag. We climbed 2025 feet combined,
Maria climbed 15 more feet than I did, and harder climbs too. We
raised $257 for the Red Cross.

Here's a photo of our friends Kansas and Eric.

Now I need a car... and a dog.

I am being booted from the apartment... so I needed to find a place to live. My buddy Paul is wanting to sell his RV, and I came real close to buying it and living... anywhere. My biggest worry was coming home one day and finding my house towed. I imagine the tow-fee's are huge with that. And... where does the pizza guy come to deliver the pizzas? As you can see, there were just too many issues with that.

I could find an apartment downtown somewhere... but then I sign a lease, and just keep handing someone my money all the time. I am sick to my stomach with the amount of money I have given to the Lofts where I live now, only to have them kick me out when ever they feel like it. I guess when someone has power over your living situation, history doesn't matter... only what they feel at that moment. If I had to sign a lease, I might puke.

If I was to sign a lease, it'd be for a year... and the chances of getting out of that are slim. So, my options came down to puke on some nice landlord, or buy a house. I chose... buy a house... and be the landlord, running the risk of someone puking on me.

There's a nice little historic area called Southpark near to Downtown... not quite walking distance, but there's a pub on the way. There's a main street on it, with some really nice houses, and a grocery store not far away. Its an up-and-coming area... with a home-a-trauma on it next week which usually boosts property values. Basically, a nice little area.

Instead of just a house... I bought a duplex, with one side already rented. In the end, I will only be out of pocket about $150 a month to live there... and will own property in one of the areas seeing the most rise in property value in the county. Closing is in 2 weeks... if everything goes well.

In the last 6 months, I went from owning just a couch, TV, bed, and a table... to owning a sailboat, and a house... narrowly avoiding an RV. Anybody know of a nice car I can buy... if I am going to do the "I'm American, and I am in debt to everyone" I might as well get a car. A dog would be a nice companion too.

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State of the apartment

So... its been a little while since I have made a post to the blog, haven't been sailing in a while... have been trying to deal with a few other things lately.

About a month ago, I noticed that the apartment building took down some doors I believed were there for fire-protection, or smoke barriers. These doors sit at the bottom of the main fire-egress path for the entire 5 story apartment building. I have lived in this place since I have been in Dayton... otherwise known as "too long". I mentioned it to the landlord lady, a insert-bad-word-here woman named Carol. She argued with me about it, saying a fireman had told her it was ok to remove the door. Not to say that fireman don't know what they are doing, but its not their place to authorize the removal of fire-doors. Not that its my place either, but I was pretty sure the doors were at least smoke-barriers.

I came to work that day, a bit perturbed that the landlord of the building would be so frivolous with life-safety. I grabbed our code-book, and spent some time going through it to find the pertinent passages of code which would tell me that door was likely there for fire protection, or a smoke barrier. Yup... found them, basically, the fire stairs need a 2-hour enclosure all the way to the outside. Removing those doors would violate that. NFPA 80 states that fire-doors shall be marked with the ratings and things, and that tag should not be painted over... if the tags had not been painted over, then the fireman would have known that these doors are needed for life-safety.

I gave Carol copies of the codes, showing her the likelihood that these are protective doors. Her response, "this is incomplete." Anybody that knows anything about building code knows that it references its other parts everywhere. Carol in essence wanted me to give her an entire copy of the code, with all the research needed to prove these are fire-doors. I offered to do it, for a fee. The original architects already did this, and they got paid for it... I should be paid too.

I gave Carol's boss a call, to inform him that she had done this, and that she was being non-responsive to my pointing this out... and she was down-right rude, and condescending. He was not there, so I left him a voicemail.

Lets say that there's a fire while these doors aren't there. These doors protect the main path people would try to use to evacuate the building. Removing these doors may lead to a tragic situation, and at the very least much more property damage, and loss. If someone did die, there would surely be an investigation, which would lead to the discovery of the removal of these doors, and to the discovery that the landlord was made aware of the nature of these doors, and yet didn't do anything to restore the building to a safe condition. I am sure the insurance company for this place would have an interesting response, and all survivors would have a pretty simple case to sue the owners for their losses.

So, perhaps me pointing this out to the lofts helped avert a tragic situation, save them a huge hassle, and helped their parent company from facing a massive financial burden. You'd think they would be a little thankful that I helped avoid some of this for them. Instead of being thankful, they have decided to kick me out!

A few days after calling Carol's boss, she left me a nice little note on my door, giving me till the end of October to pack up and leave. I mean... why would they want me around, I am a trouble maker... who wants to live in a building that follows building code, thats just crazy.

Right now, I am in a search for a new place to live. There are alot of things to consider, so who knows where I will end up. When I find a suitable place to rest my head, this blog will know.

Starbucks... on your iPod!!!

Starbucks just opened a store... in my pants!!!

iPod touch features.

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Mystic Venture trip report - 2007-08-18

Last weekend, Maria and I headed to the boat for our first time sailing with just the two of us. We arrive Friday evening, and got the boat ready to set out in the morning. Saturday we left around 10 or so in the morning... nice and casual. We only needed to make about 20 or so miles, so we had time to be lazy.

Saturday was the kind of day that makes everything worth while. The sun was out, the weather was amazing, the wind was decent... everything was awesome. We had an amazing sail from Salt Ponds to New Point Comfort. We anchored in a sheltered cove, hiding from the north eastern winds. We inflated the dive-yak... and went for its maiden voyage. Turns out, this thing is huge... and stable... and slow. It was like paddling a barge. Good work-out, but didn't get far. Maria saw phosphorescence for the first time... and it was pretty bright. It was an awesome evening.

For as awesome as the day was, the night, and next day was the opposite. Around midnight, the wind shifted to the south, and picked up to 15 or 20 knots or so. Our sweet little sheltered cove became a bumpy, un-sheltered, windy cove. I didn't really sleep that much, as I don't fully trust the anchor on the boat... but she held, without a slip. I was pretty impressed... but I did have allot of line out, I think I was 10:1 at that point.

Sunday we left the anchorage around 8 or so, and headed back. Because the wind was coming from right where we wanted to go, we decided to motor. I did some calculating based on the fuel gauge, and the distance and hours needed to motor and figured we had enough fuel. Turns out I was wrong... whoops. We bumped against wind and waves for hours, and were about a mile from the harbor entrance when the engine started to cut out. We shut her down, and raised a sail. I figured that with the boat rocking like it was, it cut the engine a little early and we would have enough fuel to get to the dock... this time, I was right... barely.

We cleaned her up, and headed home. The 9 hour drive home was not fun... and was made less fun by me completely missing our exit, and thus driving by Lexington KY on the way... only adding a few hours to the drive.

Saturday though... made it all worth it. What an amazing day.


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Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch - New York Times

"there’s a 20 percent chance we’re living in a computer simulation.”

Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch - New York Times


I just started play World of Warcraft... and I played it while watching the Matrix the other day... did our opperator laugh at that? Or are they too smart for humor anymore.

"David J. Chalmers, a philosopher at the Australian National University, says Dr. Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis isn’t a cause for skepticism, but simply a different metaphysical explanation of our world. Whatever you’re touching now — a sheet of paper, a keyboard, a coffee mug — is real to you even if it’s created on a computer circuit rather than fashioned out of wood, plastic or clay."

There's nothing to see here folks... move along.

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