Boom!

The news said it was going to happen at 1:15 this afternoon. It was going to happen because the weather in Florida is lousy right now. I was so excited about it. I remember it happening when I was living in Loma Linda it was incredible when it happened.
So I started waiting outside at about 1:00 because I didn't want to miss it. So out there I sat, waiting, waiting, waiting. I did start to notice all the different kinds of aircraft that fly into LAX. Sometimes the make of the aircraft were easy to identify like the Korean 747 that made a big lazy loop over L.A. before going in for a landing. Other times they were not identifiable to me such as the little private jet that looked like it was a flying jack. Yeah, LAX is right down the 105 from my house, so planes pretty much line up to take turns flying over it. I did notice that Southwest Airlines seemed to have more flights into LAX than anyone else. I guess that means that they are doing better than the other airlines.
It didn't happen at 1:15 like it was supposed to. In fact, it was almost 1:25 when it happened, just before I gave up and came inside. Suddenly there was a big double boom that set off car alarms up and down the street. Oso suddenly decided that it was not the perfect time to rest in the shade and that it was instead time to find somewhere safer to wait out the booms. The space shuttle had finally made it into the atmosphere and was heading in for a landing at Edwards Air Force Base in Lancaster. It doesn't happen very often because it costs NASA $1.8 to fly the shuttle to Florida piggy backed on a modified 747 over the course of a week. It is however cool for those of us who live here in southern California when it does happen.

Giving Thanks

One of the truly great things about this country is our Thanksgiving holiday. I'm not saying this as an "America is the greatest country in the world!" statement. No, this is saying that it is a fantastic thing that we have a holiday set aside for the giving of thanks. Even if you are an atheist you have to recognize that taking a day to pause and think about the things that you are thankful for is worth while. It isn't just about gorging yourself before going and spending a whole bunch of money on all the great deals tomorrow.
So what am I thankful for? First of all I'm thankful for family. I have a family that is pretty amazing even when I might not think that they are pretty amazing. I never have to worry about whether or not they love me. I never have to worry about whether or not they will listen to me as I go through ups and downs and in betweens. I know that there are doors that will always be open. You have to admit, that is pretty amazing. I'm also thankful for a job. My job might be pretty sketchy right now and I might be a little concerned how I'm going to meet my bills but hey, I have a job. There are an awful lot of other people out there who would love to have that job. I'm thankful for a place to live. We can always think about what kind of place we would live in if we had our druthers but when it really comes down to it the most important thing is that we have a place to live! Hey, it has hot water coming out of the shower, what more can I really ask for, right? I'm thankful that I live in a country where I don't have to worry about what I say on this blog. I can get away with saying all kinds of things on here. As long as I don't threaten anyone, brag about crimes, plan crimes or anything like that I'm good to go. Do you know how many people in the world would love to have that same opportunity? I should be incredibly thankful for this whole free speech thing!
There are all kinds of other things I'm thankful for as well including friends, the food I eat, the truck I drive, the dog that was so unhappy with the bath I gave him yesterday. Of course I'm also thankful for the ultimate sacrifice and the guarantee that it bought.
When it really comes down to it I have a lot in this life. So often it is easy to sit around and look at things I wish were different. To be honest though wishing for differences in my life isn't the key to happiness. Of course I will do what I can to move towards those goals but at the same time I need to take life one day at a time. After all, I only have one shot at each day. By living each day one day at a time and pausing to be thankful for each and every day and each and every opportunity that each day brings I can be so much happier with life.
See what putting aside a national day of thanksgiving can do?

Rain

Last night it rained. Here in southern California it doesn't rain nearly as often as we need it to so it was an amazing thing for it to rain through the night. In fact it happens so rarely that I opened my window a crack just so that I could listen to it rain. It was awesome! I would recommend that everyone find out what trains, airplanes, sirens and freeway traffic sounds like when accompanied by the sound of rain. For some reason things seem just a little bit more peaceful. The noises that I hear all night long don't seem nearly as loud.
Beyond the fact that I sleep better with the rain, rain brings the moisture that we need so badly. In case you don't live in southern California, we had some pretty big fires her a couple of weekends ago. Big enough and close enough that the clothes that I washed at my sister's house smelled more than just a little smokey when I got home. Oh well, I figure that they could have smelled like any number of things other than a camp fire. I like camp fires so I guess I was ok with it. But seriously, we need rain. Driving around southern California is like driving through a brown painting. The ground is brown, the grass is brown, the air is brown, everything is brown. It is no wonder that we have the fires that we have.
So anyways, it was great to have rain. It was wonderful that we continued to have sprinkles throughout the day. Gray was such a nice change from brown! Hopefully someday soon we can even get to...green!

D'oh!

I'm taking an intro to psychology class as part of my effort to eventually get into nursing school. To be completely honest, it hasn't been my favorite class. As I read through the book there are some things that are pretty much set in stone. Things having to do with the way the human body works make sense to me. The stuff is measurable and they can run tests that demonstrate the same results over and over again. The problem is that so much of psychology is purely theoretical. So basically I'm learning stuff right now that might be considered outdated by the time the next edition of the textbook comes out. I have to learn about Freud because he contributed so much to getting the ball going but most of his theories have been tossed by now. It is frustrating.
One of the nice things about this class is that it is a hybrid class. That means that I only have to go to class once a week. It also means that I have to read the text. Normally I skip the text and just listen to the lectures. So while I'm not thrilled about all the reading it is nice to be able to read on my own time as long as I hit the deadlines.
Speaking of meeting the deadlines, last night I dutifully read the chapter so that I would be ready to take the quiz today. Traffic was really light so I got to class early. I figured that I would use the extra time to go over the chapter once again before the quiz. You see, I got a B on my last exam and really wanted to make sure I got a good score. So there I sat studying away when one of the students I share the table with walked in. She looked at my book and said "I thought we were supposed to read chapter 16." I told her that it was 15 and she could look it up. Turns out she was right. The prof flipped the two chapters. There I was with just a few minutes before class started with a quiz for a chapter I hadn't read. Fortunately the chapter was on some pretty basic stuff so I don't think I tanked to badly. We will see though. The prof didn't give us a chance to see our scores because he had a lot of stuff he wanted to do today. I'll find out next week though.
We had an exam last week that I didn't feel to good about. Remember how I said that this isn't my favorite class in the world? The prof promised to not only send around a bar graph with all of our scores on it around the class at the end of class but also promised to give us a progress report so we can see how we are doing. So we all sat through the video he wanted us to watch anxiously waiting for the grades. I got my progress report first. The good news is that I'm actually pulling a 96% in the class. I then glanced at the exam scores. I couldn't believe my eyes. I scored 40 points on the exam! I was pretty sure that 40 points equaled 100%. Sure enough when the bar graph came around 40 points got me 100%! The prof adds a couple of extra credit questions to every exam so I missed a couple of questions somewhere. Still, 100%! I glanced over the other scores and saw that I was the only one. Happy Day!
Oh, and the prof drops the lowest exam score. If I can get an A on the last exam the B exam goes the way of the dodo.

Right now there is a lot of buzz on the news about the separation of Church and State. Some of the flak is just a continuation of stuff that has been going on for quite a while. It seems that there are some folks in this country who don't like the fact that most people in this country identify with one faith or another. Actually most folks in this country identify themselves as being Christian even if they have more fingers than the number of times they have been in a church...on one hand. So the number of people who think they are smart because they have done everything they can to remove God from their life are bitter that people not as smart as they are don't share their views.
What has really brought the buzz though was the recent election here in California. The biggest hot button on the ballot was Prop 8. Basically the question was whether or not homosexual couples would be allowed to marry in California. In spite of a massive advertising campaign linking the homosexual community's efforts to legalize homosexual marriage to civil rights struggles of the past the prop was passed by about 52% of the popular vote. Both sides of the issue drew a massive amount of funding from out of state. One of the biggest contributing groups was the Mormon church. Most of the funding did not come from the church itself but from Mormons all over the country. Evangelical churches were also involved in campaigning on a traditional family values platform. When the prop passed religion and the Mormon church in particular drew the wrath of the homosexual community and their allies.
No we are seeing more and more debate on the separation of Church and State. The argument is that people's religious views have no place on politics. By voting according to their religious views they are imposing religion on the rest of the country.
Actually, Church and State are indeed separated in the United States. The government of the United States does not endorse any religion. Instead the government subscribes to a concept of religion that resembles the Judeo-Christian religion but is inclusive of all religious views. The government recognizes the right of the citizens and residents of the country to practice their religions as long as they do not violate the law of the land.
So here is the thing. As a person of faith my faith affects the way I see the world. It affects my political views. Divorcing my political views from my faith would create a hypocrisy that would go beyond the hypocrisies that we are often accused of because we would be asked to deliberately vote against some of the things that we hold to be important. When I vote as a person of faith I am not voting to impose my religion on the people around me. I am not telling everyone that by law they have to espouse my religious views. No, what I am doing is voting according to what I believe in, which ironically is exactly the way the people who are telling not to vote according to my beliefs are voting.
So I guess what we see is that there are people out there who do not like my belief system. Rather than respecting that we all vote according to our belief system they expect me to suspend my belief system when I'm at the polls. Supposedly if I can suspend my belief system my values will align with theirs.
This is a representative democracy. No one tells us how we are to vote. That is the way democracies are supposed to work. This is why we are allowed to write in candidates. This is why we are not required to vote.
Please, stop pestering people about their religion and their vote. It is the freedom of any American or member of any democracy to vote however they wish. While we may not always agree with the way the majority vote we should respect their votes. That is the price we pay for living in a democracy.
Enough said.

Diving

Tonight I arrived at the gym just before Mexico and Honduras started their World Cup qualifier. Honestly, I was pretty excited about this. Growing up in the Philippines we didn't have a football team, so soccer was our biggest field sport. I grew up playing soccer in intramurals and every chance we got in P.E. I honestly enjoy the game. My enjoyment of the game doesn't match my sister's enjoyment, but that is only because I spend more time watching the game than I spend watching the men playing the game.
There was another reason why I was excited. I get on the elliptical machine for an hour. A soccer half lasts for 45 minutes plus any injury stoppage time. I figured that if I started before the game actually started I would have a few minutes head start. By the time the half ended I would be close to being done with my work out. It was the best of both worlds. I got to watch half of a World Cup soccer qualifier and had something to keep me occupied for the better part of my work out.
Then the game started.
To be honest with you there was more diving in this game than in the Olympic synchronized diving event. Mexico was playing dirty but they probably did not deserve the two red cards and the plethora of yellow cards they received. My guess is that the weather played a part in the fouls that were happening. It was raining pretty hard and there was a lot of water on the field. Still though, one would think that the refs would have taken this into account.
From what I saw it looked like Honduras had a singular approach to the game. If a Honduras player had the ball and a Mexican player had any chance of stealing the ball the Honduras player would simply fall down and start rolling in agony. They would then look around and see what the ref was doing. If the ref blew his whistle and walked toward the player he would continue rolling in agony until the foul had been awarded. Then he would get up an have an instantaneous recovery, playing as if he hadn't been severely injured, rolling on the ground just a few moments before. If on the other hand the ref didn't stop the game the player would have an expression on his face that read something like "Oh (expletive of your choice, I choose 'darnit'), the ref didn't stop the game!" He would then jump up and get back in the game like nothing had happened. The best was when a player from both teams would be rolling on the ground clutching at their knees. When the ref awarded the foul the player charged with the foul would jump up and start arguing that he was the one fouled and now cheated by the ref. Yeah, nice one there buddy!
Soccer is a fantastic game to go watch and to play. The fans of most countries not called the United States are amazing. Diving takes a lot of the joy out of the game though. Who wants to watch a team wimp it's way to a victory? If there is a clean tackle try to steal the ball back, don't stop the game by rolling on the ground so that you can get the ball back the dirty way. Honestly, who enjoys that? If I want to watch grown men get knocked over by a stiff breeze I'll watch the NBA. At least the NBA refs are just as likely to charge the person who flops as the person who might have knocked them over!
Perhaps we need to take these players and have them watch a high school girls game. You want to see players play hard and take the hits? These girls will deliver. It is more fun. I respect the players more. I am more likely to blame the ref for a bad call than get mad at a player for trying to cheat by ref.
Oh, there was a news article about a new strategy coming out of the top Italian league. Here is the link.
http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=ap-italy-shortsdown&prov=ap&type=lgns

Naive

Sometimes it is refreshing to find out that I are more naive than I think I am. Sometimes, not always. Normally I like to think of myself as someone who is fairly aware of what is going on around me. It doesn't always look this way because I find it convenient to pretend sometimes that I am clueless. Sometimes though I am honestly clueless about what is going on.
I'm sure that you know what I'm talking about when I say that sometimes it is nice to find out that you are more naive than you thought you were. Say for instance someone has to take the time to explain a dirty joke to you. It is a nice feeling to know that your mind hasn't sunk to that level yet. Or another example is that you didn't realize that the word or term you have been using has a naughty meaning. Sure you are embarrassed about it but it sure feels good to know that the other meaning isn't at all what you meant by it.
So to get to the point last night I was walking Oso around the park. I have been slacking a bit recently in my exercise and he was making it clear that he could use the walk as well. Our local park is just down the street. There is a paved trail around the park that is about a half mile from start to finish. We do this about 8 times, starting out slowly and building up to a decent clip. By decent clip I mean that we are passing everyone else. At the corner where I start walking laps there is a handball court that is popular with a lot of the local men. Any given night there will be a group of them with their shirts off swinging, missing and cussing with equal vigor. On the other side of the sidewalk is the parking lot and a cinder block storage pen for the dumpster.
We had finished 5 laps and were starting our 6th when I noticed a really strong smell. It sort of smelled like a skunk but at the same time didn't smell like a skunk. As I walked past the people gathered there I was able to figure out that there was a vegetable smell to it. It honestly smelled like someone had taken the stench of a skunk, put it into plant form and was now burning it. It took me several more steps before I figured out what was going on.
I had to chuckle as I continued on my way. First of all I had to chuckle that people were bold enough to do that in public with so many people around. It was a real testimony to the neighborhood. The second reason I had to chuckle was because every time I smell someone smoking pot I have to pause for a minute and think about what that smell is before I finally place it. As you can probably gather my exposure to pot is infrequent and second hand by nature.
Yup, sometimes it is down right pleasant to be naive!

Same Blogger, Different Place

Blogging has always been a great way for me to let off steam. There is something about putting my thoughts down on the internet for everyone to read that allows me to relax. Sometimes it is stuff that I find to be funny. Other times it is observations on life, my faith or on rare occasions my political beliefs. Most of the time blogging serves as a very public diary.
The ironic thing about my joy in blogging is that I have never been any good at keeping a journal. I don't know how many times I tried to keep one growing up. Some people have this intimate relationship with their journals. They tell their journals all their secrets of joy, despair, love and guilt. These journals are guarded as if life depended on it. While I have never been able to get into that aspect of keeping a journal I have had no problem keeping a blog. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that blogs are public and therefore are exhibitionist in nature. I love to see how many people read my blog. Comments are always welcome! If anything keeps me going with a blog it is the excitement of seeing that people read my blog and the hope that they are either entertained or given something to think about with their day.
So what kind of blogging background do I have?
My experience with blogging actually started in college. We didn't call it blogging back then though. The school I attended had an electronic bulletin board service that had an area called a resume where each user could post any information that they wanted about themselves. Most of the student body took it as an opportunity to put out a personal ad. Some used it to tell the rest of the student body about where they came from, what they got their degree in, and where they hoped to go. Some people used it just for one liners mocking whoever was foolish enough to waste their time on said user's resume. I decided to use it to post mildly shocking but funny stories, thoughts and observations. As time moved on I included more serious rants. Slowly but surely comments began to trickle into my mailbox. Most people loved it, so I kept going with it. I continued with this "resume" for a few years after college until I got tired of all the Nigerian scams that were flooding my email box. My inner blogger went into dormancy for several years.
A couple of years ago I decided to open a Myspace account. The purpose for doing this was so that I could look at the profiles of people who were applying to the camp jobs I supervised. A coworker had shown me some of the comments that current and former employees had posted and I was amazed that these people were either still employed or were eligible for rehire. Soon after signing up though I started to post blogs. The inner blogger roared to life with a vengeance!
So here we are. Same blogger, new blog. Welcome to my life. Welcome to Inherent Extant!