Testing 123

With the advent of actually going to a web posting environment, I might as well learn the tricks.

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On to the New Year

The Year End Wrap Up:

2005 What a year. I can only hope for better things to come in the New Year.

Let me sum up the good and the bad.

First the bad:

1. My Dad died on March 16^th


2. Work not only saw no bonus but also no raise


3. Work was still hard


4. Work, Home, Family did not take a break from being demanding

Now the good:

1. Work was at least challenging


2. This year my son turned on the academic gene he had been suppressing


3. I had the opportunity to perform for a really large public speaking engagement (Tony Robbins move over)


4. I had another year sharing the company of carpooling with my friend Sal


5. My Mother spent the Christmas holiday with us

All in all the year did have its own series of up and downs as will most years, but for the most part time has marched on, children got bigger, and time you spend telling people that you love them means more. So the bottom line of it is that life is not so bad, work does not really suck all that bad, and the family I have provides love and comfort at all the right times. Luck, Karma, practice who knows: It is however, my life and I like the way it has progressed.

Quotes - Words to bring new thoughts

"Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time." - Hebrew Proverb

"The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we live." Mortimer Adler

"You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough." -- Frank Crane

‘Tis Truly “The season”

I just read the best description of “Politically Correctness” crap I have seen in a long time.

The article was titled “Chrismahanukwanzakah”

Screw that! Your religion is just that YOUR religion. The PURCHASING season is a way to redistribute wealth (or at a minimum the ability to shift money from saved to spent); however, the best gift or the most sincere wish for the “The Season” is to just tell the people you love that you LOVE THEM! And incidentally, even the people that you don’t think to love need your love too, because that little gesture that did not take your all may be the all to them.

How This came to be - The Chi of Jaba B

The Chi of Jaba B

I was basically pushed into the blogsphere. Not unwillingly I might add:

My friend Don kept at the insistance of "man you need a blog" and as I get older the times to forget do seem to get more frequent - not that I want to forget times, just that the opportunity to really recall are just gone! So, with the insistance of Don and the fact that I like the idea of having the mental me in a place even I could find, here comes the stuff from my head to you as often as I have the time.

Thanks Don! http://rantd.blogspot.com/

The Chi of Jaba B: The Flood Gates Open

Since when did commuting become a shrine to connections?

It seems that the time I spend in a car now days is the time I use to connect to those that I have not seen in awhile. Albeit a good thing and a bad thing (damn that guy on the cell phone etc..). This time is starting to make sense that the shrine of connection is veiled in a cloak of technology. If I didn't work so far from home (I would not need a car). If I had closer friends (I would talk to them over the fence). The cell phone has facilitated a way to share the moment and thus share the life of others regardless of the distance. It is about the contact. AT&T really did have it right - "reach out and touch someone!"

The Flood Gates Open

1/1/06 - This is truly going to be a happier New Year. I started off the year with a great new coincidence. I was out walking my dog wearing a shirt with the SC state logo on it and met one of my neighbors. As we talked he asked if I was from SC. I said no but that I worked there on occasion and that my father was from a small town in SC. He said that his wife was from Anderson, SC. This is the next town from the town of Iva that my father was from. As we talked further my neighbor stated that his wife's grandfather still lived in Iva. Small World: Definitely interconnected:

Today the flood gates opened, and I begin the process of blissfully logging myself!

12/28/05 - I will never know when it is time to buy a lottery ticket, because those times better known as coincidences just seem to always happen - except the lottery ticket never hits!

Any way the most recent incident was from a conversation that I had with my friend and car pooling buddy on the idea that America has truly adopted the ideals that track the 7 deadly sins - you know them
Lust, Greed, Pride, Sloth, Gluttony, Envy, and Wrath: If you followed the recent fall of both Enron and MCI, you know that the American CEO has become the embodiment of these sins, or at least it sure looks that way when you look at the facts.

The second incident that screams coincident is that for the last couple of days (end of the year vacation 2005) I have been researching nerdy stuff, and was reading about mathematicians and specifically John Von Neumann. As I was reading http://www.linuxuser.co.uk it had an article about self replicating machines. I had read similar information in the Von Neumann research only days before. Time to buy that lottery ticket.