Anthrocide

You should give a listen to the song “You Gave” on this music site. It’s the fourth song down and my son Scott was not only the composer but truly a one-man band. I was listening my way down the songs on the site and enjoying them while reading something else when, about halfway through “You Gave” I stopped and listened more closely. When it finished I went back and re-listened to the whole song again and have many times since. The simple but profound lyrics along with the hauntingly beautiful vocal and instrumental arrangement still grab me even after repeated playings. It’s 5+ minutes long but stay with it to the end. I think you’ll really like it.

Click the Books link in the upper right section of this page. There you will find 5 full-length novels, 2 of which were not previously available, and 4 of which you can download for free! They download as PDF’s which almost all computers can open. When you open one, you can then save it on your computer and read it at your leisure or even print it out if you’ve got plenty of paper.

I’m actually quite pleased with each and every one. I especially like the book-and-sequel combination Hidden in a Field and The Way of Escape. Take a look at the synopses and excerpts you can see by clicking the books’ titles. If one sounds even mildly interesting, go ahead and download it and give it a try. It costs you nothing and if I haven’t hooked you by the second chapter, you can always delete your downloaded copy.

There is nothing more frustrating than doing what I love, writing, and not being able to convince people to even try reading it. Like the proverbial tree falling alone in the forest, a book unread is meaningless. A more apt comparison is a singer alone on an island with no one to hear. I really don’t mind so much if someone says, “Meh, tried it but not my cup of tea.” It’s when people won’t even give one a try that drives me nuts.

Although they are all fiction, each one has something to say. So how ’bout it? Take the plunge, help out a fledgling author and, who knows? You might be entertained and perhaps given some food for thought! Thanks and God Bless!

I shall be brief. To handle software development projects for the State of Missouri where I work, one must have completed a Missouri certification course in project management. A few years ago I went through the course and am Missouri-certified. During and since that training many have alluded to the more prestigious–and more difficult to attain–international credential from the Project Management Institute. The certification is as a Project Management Professional or PMP. I have shrugged at the PMP since I had achieved enough to do my job and saw no need to go through the grueling process required to get the more noteworthy credential. Then, a few months ago, a co-worker told my boss that there was a special lower-cost opportunity to take a “boot camp” preparatory course designed to help one pass the PMP exam, all paid-for by the State. So my boss enthusiastically signed-up and strongly urged me to do so. When I balked he insisted that this was something I really, really needed to do. Since he was the boss and it was free, I caved-in and signed-up. Not long after, my boss resigned!

I went ahead and took the course (and so did he). But naturally, there’s no value in taking an Exam Prep course and investing 4 full days of my life in it and not taking the exam. So, I also arranged to take it Saturday, June 23. The course instructor was a PhD meaning he had taken plenty of tests in his life and he said this was the toughest he’d ever taken. As it turned out, what the course taught was only directly applicable to about a third of the 200 questions on the exam. The rest was part deduction and part guesswork.

Bottom line: I did not ace the test, but I did pass it. So now I am a credentialed Project Management Professional. That means that, if I want, I can put the letters PMP after my name. However, that looks too much like a word for a very different occupation so I won’t be doing that.

If you’re one of those people who cannot resist forwarding those 12th-generation forwarded emails because of the amazing things they reveal that you never knew, here are my

TEN TIPS FOR PEOPLE WHO FORWARD EMAILS WITH SHOCKING NEWS, SAD TALES, PETITIONS, OR MEDICAL CLAIMS FROM SOME AUTHORITATIVE-SOUNDING PERSON:

1 - Assume it is a lie. This assumption will be correct 99.999999% of the time.

2 - Realize that the truthfulness of the email has nothing to do with the trustworthiness of the person who sent it to you. You may receive it from your most trusted friend, but the question is not your friend’s character, it is the character of the person who ORIGINATED the email. Since virtually all of them are lies, hoaxes, and misrepresentations these originators are lying con-artists. I, personally, have no use for people like that and refuse to be one of their patsies who spread their lies to others. Anyone who creates a phony email like “the American Cancer Society will donate money to help sick little Jimmy every time an email is forwarded” is nothing but a liar and a sleazeball. If he will lie and make a fool out of people over something like this he is probably a greasy, egotistical, child-abusing creep. Why in heaven’s name would I want to forward something created by a slimeball like that to others just because his idiot email tells me to?

3 - Assume it is a hoax. If you have a means to check whether it is true, do so before you forward it. If you cannot positively confirm it as true or if you do not have any way to confirm it, do not forward it. Of the thousands of these types of emails I’ve seen, I found one (yes, exactly one) that appears to be actually true via this technique. Apparently they really did find chariots from the time of Pharaoh at the bottom of the Red Sea. Anyway, if you do not have access to do verifications or don’t seem to have much success with them, ask someone who does before forwarding such emails.

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Since probably any readers of this will have already heard most of this story I will make it extremely brief. Our musical-drama, More Than Just a Man, was everything we were praying for. I did indeed have a coworker go on and on about the production. Several have asked for DVD’s of it. Becki’s coworker was moved to tears by the touching drama. The fellow who played Joseph of Arimathea in the production also works where I do. He later told me that a woman stopped him in a fastfood parking lot the Monday after the production and said, “It is Joseph, isn’t it?” These are the exact words Mary Magdalene says to J of A just before the play’s finale. The choir and drama directors talked about it on local radio and it got a huge picture feature in the paper. People were touched by Jesus’ love and power through the performance. God was praised by the performance. I grew closer to many, many members of our church through the rehearsals and performances. But I must say, rather selfishly, that best of all I grew so very much closer to my Lord through the rehearsals and performances. It has reawakened in me the realization of what an incredible privilege it is to belong to Christ; to have a vital relationship with the God of all creation, the God of unlimited power, the God of unlimited love. I look back amazed at how easily I allowed myself to neglect this marvelous treasure and get bogged-down in the world of the profane, the mundane, and the meaningless. How my heart aches for those who, by ignoring the free gift of glorious salvation that waits unopened, live every day in that same tired, hopeless, lifeless world. For to know Christ is to really live.

This weekend we are doing 4 performances (including the videoed dress rehearsal) of a musical drama about Jesus from the perspective of the two Sanhedrin members who believed in Him: Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. It is a marvelous play with excellent and effective music. So much so that I have been inviting people at work, etc., and offering to buy lunch (or dinner in one case) if they attend a performance and are not emotionally moved. Several have said they plan to come. I seriously doubt I’ll be buying any meals. There are scenes and songs that still give me goosebumps and this is the second year I’ve been in it. In one particular scene, last year I could hear audience members sniffling into Kleenexes.

While all of that is well and good, I’ve been pondering the question: What is my goal in being in this production?

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My first exposure to American Idol was 3 seasons ago (when, I believe, Fantasia won) when I was visiting my sister Linda. I watched and laughed at those who thought they could sing but could not and found the good singers entertaining. As they began to cull down contestants I missed some episodes and lost interest. The next season, though, Becki and I never missed an episode, all the way from the wannabes to Carrie Underwood’s victory. Last season we did the same.

But this year the luster is gone. I’m watching but something is bothering me about it. I feel like I’m being had.
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Here are some things I have learned by watching 5 seasons worth of DVD’s of the series 24:

THE COUNTER-TERRORIST UNIT IN LOS ANGELES:

• Is far less physically secure than your neighborhood Baskin-Robbins, allowing captured terrorists to escape at will and kidnappers, assassins, and bomb-/lethal-gas-toting terrorists to enter its nerve center without any problems.

• Apparently screens potential employees by checking their library cards since they have one or more covert terrorist henchmen on staff at all times. These are allowed to provide the terrorist leaders a running commentary on CTU’s actions via cell phone and even to install surveillance cameras anywhere they wish.

• Cannot get through a single crisis day without changing its Director at least three times, often due to terrorist-influenced death.

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College Team Names

Okay, since my sons (Paul and Scott) and I are on the good/bad/marginal team name kick, I thought I’d take a shot at College team names. The rules for quality team names still apply the same as for the NFL/MLB/NHL/NBA names except that these are of course not sport-specific. Here we will just have to use the idea of ferocity, speed, agility, courage, or, if all else fails, something with a valid local connection as long as it does not run directly counter to the above attributes, is not offensive, and is not hopelessly lame—local connection notwithstanding.

I’d like to suggest that we each choose various regional conferences’ teams to examine. Since I’m located in the middle of the country I’ll start off with some middle of the country colleges: the Big 12 and the Big 10. Since the teams making up these conferences might not come readily to mind, here is a list of them for starters:
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Team names should have one of two characteristics. Either they should be evocative of something that would be an asset in football (courage, power, ferocity, speed, etc.) or something unique to the area in which they reside, so long as that unique entity is not a liability in football. For example, the California State University, Santa Cruz has as their team name the “banana slugs.” Banana slugs are, indeed, native to the Santa Cruz area but are one of the dorkiest team names ever since nothing about the repulsive banana slug is in any way an asset to any sports endeavor. That is, unless at some point they come up with a competition for disintegrating into a mucous glob when salt is poured on you.

Meeting the first criteria, a name suggesting ferocity, for example, generally negates the second. In other words, for Detroit to use the name Lions is fine given the characteristics of a lion, regardless of the fact that there have never been any actual lions in Detroit (unless in a zoo or circus).

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