God Bless America!

I thought you were dead…Not hardly

via Geekologie

Ant mega-colony takes over world

A single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world, scientists have discovered.
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In Europe, one vast colony of Argentine ants is thought to stretch for 6,000km (3,700 miles) along the Mediterranean coast, while another in the US, known as the ‘Californian large’, extends over 900km (560 miles) along the coast of California. A third huge colony exists on the west coast of Japan

We are so doomed…

To borrow from another “ants taking over the world” post:

Ladies and gentlemen, er, we’ve just lost the picture, but, uh, what we’ve seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has been taken over — ‘conquered’, if you will — by a master race of giant space ants. It’s difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain, there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to…toil in their underground sugar caves.

The immortal words of Kent Brockman from [1F13] Deep Space Homer

Well, well, well, I can’t believe it’s July already.

That means only one more month till school starts back *groan* That means getting up early, homework and studying. Just think we only have 16 more years of this…

I have found that we have been way to busy this summer. It seems like we’ve had something going on every weekend. This makes it difficult to keep up with my yard. Luckily, it didn’t rain much after the first week in June. But still, I could bale hay in the back and side yards.

My garden is doing well. My regular tomato plants died due to a fungal disease. Man, I hope that isn’t how I go out…Mr. WunderKraut died from a strange fungal disease. It would be like dying from athlete’s foot. Anyway. I spent a good part of the day Saturday working in the garden. I pulled EVERY SINGLE weed in the entire garden. I mean, I pulled them, roots and all. Then I put down a good thick layer of wheat straw mulch. So you can imagine my surprise when the next morning I found weeds growing in the garden. It took 24 hours, but there they were, standing about 2 inches high. How is that possible?

I am due for a new cell phone. We are with Verizon and have been very happy with them, but I want an iPhone…but AT&T service stinks down here. It really does. Plus all my friends and family are on Verizon, so free calls. Since no iPhone, I’ve been looking at various other smart phones. I don’t know, I may just end up getting one of the new Blackberry’s and be done with it. Do you have an opinion?

And lastly, I really like Heinz ketchup. All other ketchups taste nasty to me.

Sunday our pastor, John, gave a message on the presence of God.

He made the distinction between the omnipresent presence of God and the manifest presence of God.

The omnipresent presence is that He is everywhere all the time. In any circumstance, He is there. No matter what you do or where you go, He is there. That is always a comforting thought because in reality you are never alone.

The manifest presence of God is something entirely different. It is born out of an intimate relationship with God. As examples John pointed to Moses, David, Mary and Paul. Each one of these people had a personal encounter with the manifest presence of God and it changed their lives.

Moses had his face changed. He glowed after encountering God on the mountain. It glowed so much that is frightened the people so Moses had to where a veil. Moses came to want nothing but the manifest presence of God. This is demonstrated in this passage from Exodus 33:11-17:

The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.

Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’

If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”

The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.

How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

To know how much David valued the Lord’s presence, just read Psalms. He was a man ahead of time. He understood things that were for a later age and he gained a place in God’s heart.

Mary lived for the presence of Jesus. In the Gospel of John she pours expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet. When Judas gets upset, Jesus rebukes him and says that what she did was good. John 12:3

Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

The clearest example of Mary cherishing the presence of Jesus comes from Luke 10:39-42

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.

She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.

But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,

but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

That one thing that is needed is the presence of Jesus.

Paul was knocked off his donkey by the manifest presence of the Jesus and has this to say in Philippians 3:8-12

What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ

and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

Seek the presence of the Lord. Every day, all day, in everything you do.

I am in the midst of reading two books right now. It isn’t like me to read multiple books at the same time, but my reading of choice has forced it on me.

First off I am reading the Federalist Papers:

Wow. I am only 100 pages into it, but wow. I tell you what the framers of our Constitution understood what they were doing. They thought it all out. Oddly enough, they didn’t mention all the super secret “rights” that modern day judges read into the thing.

*sigh*

Anyway, it is an amazing book, but it is hard reading. Very intellectual stuff and I want to really understand what they are trying to say.

So….when my brain hurts, I turn to my Father’s Day present:

Those of you that know me already know I love history and World War 2 in particular, so this book will come as no surprise. However, you probably don’t know the odd fascination I have with all things mundane and routine.

What I mean is that I do enjoy reading about battles, massive campaigns, amazing Generals, and strategic planning, but there is something that interests me even more than that.

I have an odd fascination for the day to day lives of soldiers in war. How did they eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, etc. When they fought, how did they fight. I don’t mean that Division A or Regiment X or Company B took such and such objective. I want to know HOW they fought. How did the move in combat? What formations did they use? How did they adjust to meet the enemy? How did a tank unit deploy for battle? What did it look like? How do you aim a mortar? How did the men stay supplied? What did the average soldier carry into battle?

You get the point.

When I find books that deal with the minute details of combat, I buy it. So far this book is just what I was looking for.

My Dad probably notices this because when I ask about his service in Vietnam, I ask questions like: What was your first day in country like? When did they put you in the helicopter on an actual mission? How did you learn to shoot from the helicopter? Did you learn by “walking” your tracers or were there other ways? When you say you were shot down, what did that look like? What was going through your mind?

I guess it goes back to how I enjoy history. I enjoy the broad knowledge, but I really enjoy the personal stories.

So, if you have other books that deal in this subject, please point them out to me.

I bought the kids the Wii game LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga a few months ago. Since it’s an older game, it was only $20. At the register (Toys R Us), the lady asked if I wanted to buy the protection plan for the game. I automatically gave her my standard answer of no. But then I hesitated and asked about it. She explained that it covered the game for a year. If anything happened, even scratches, I would get a new game.

Wow! What a bargain!

Kids are rough on DVD’s, CD’s and video games. I love DVD’s and CD’s but let me tell you, VHS and cassette tapes could go through hell and back and still work. I’ve even cut a VHS tape and spliced it back together. Not so with DVD’s and CD’s. One bad scratch and it’s over!

So, as expected, the Star Wars game (very fun BTW) got a big old scratch and wouldn’t work in the Wii.

No problemo, I have my $3.99 protection plan!

I ran by Toys R Us and they explained that since it had been over 30 days since I purchased the game, I had to deal with the protection plan people and handed me a pamphlet on the coverage.

Looking back, that is where I went wrong. Should’ve asked for the pamphlet prior to purchasing the protection plan.

Why?

You guessed it, damages due to accidental handling (i.e. scratches) are not covered.

The lady lied to me. Well that is a strong word. She mislead me.

I am left to call Toys R Us to complain about how I was mislead.

But ultimately, it is my fault on two levels. The first is because I let the kids handle the game themselves and the second because I didn’t ask to see details on the plan.

Oh well, one born every minute.

While looking into my question about text editors and word processors in my previous post, I ran across this awesome quote:

A text editor is to a word processor what a scalpel is to a giant heavy complicated sword which crashes constantly, uses a proprietary file format, and costs $300.

Heh.

I am thinking about writing again. Something bigger than this blog.

However, I have a slight problem….

Here’s the deal, Word sucks. Oh sure I use it everyday for work. I write letters and reports all the time with it and it works wonderfully. But I can’t imagine writing a book with Word.

Ever notice strange symbols in some blog posts, especially old ones? Yeah, well, I tend to write a post here in the WordPress post editor thing, then I cut and paste it to Word to check for spelling issues. Shocking I know. Then I cut/paste it back to the editor and hit publish.

That process works fine as long as I dont use ‘, ” or … because those seem to be special Microsoft Word encoded or something, in Word anyway…WordPress doesn’t know what it’s looking at and turns them into:

they’re
that’s
“moderates”

The odd thing is that WordPress doesn’t turn them into those odd characters until some time later. Not sure why it takes time. So, I am very careful to only change spelling errors in Word. Any punctuation changes I make in the WordPress editor.

Here’s my question: If I am going to be writing a 400 page book, or even just archiving my best posts, what should I use? I want something that is stripped down enough that it can be opened by anything in the future. So, I guess I need something a step above Notepad.

Any thoughts?

Going on right now!

More kids to come.

Nothing says South Georgia like the heat….

Going to be hotter tomorrow…