its about time

I'm a convert to the church i go to now. it was not the greatest bit of news for my parents, who are long time members of the church i grew up in. my grandfather on my dads side was bishop of the congregation for 20+ years and they used the pool at my grandmother on my moms side as a baptismal font. the reason i give the family history is to try to explain the extent of how bad the news was for them that i left the church. long story short, they did not take it well but, being as cool as my family is it went over as well as it could for such a big deal. my family rocks. every other family sucks in comparison. well any way, after some time, my dad, mom too, but it seems mostly dad started to find out all he could about the LDS church. after about a two year study he told me he wanted to start asking me some questions, that has been about two years ago. now at long last he has started to study with me. he has also invited me to ask any one who cares to to respond to his questions. so i will give you the first.

Does the President of the church have a direct link with God? Are his teachings inspired as the original 12 apostles? How is his selection made known; in other words, how do you know that he is the one that has been chosen by God?

Well there it is. I hope I can give answers that will at least make him stop and think.

let's take a walk, shall we?

Dana said something that got me to thinking and I realized that the war the Indians fought and the current one the Christian world is in now have some striking similarities. I asked why the Indians lost(like a lawyer, I knew the answer before I asked).The answers I got back where both what I expected and correct. They were out manned (not at first), the guns and the artillery gave the white man the technological advantage, they thought of war fair in battles not campaigns, they were divided amongst them selves, and Mary added that they did not love the Lord (they had spiritual beliefs but not Christ).

Lets look at it point by point.

First, out manned.

Indians- This was only true after years of conflict. when the white man first arrived there were not even close to enough to stand up to the native Americans. they (the whites) asked for acceptance and a chance to make a place for themselves. then their movement grew and their desire for more space and power grew. at first the Indian gave way and tried to keep peace but that could not last and some fighting broke out. by this time there were a lot more whites around.

Christians- this country has always been a Christian nation. you can hear it in the language they used in the framing documents "that all men are created equal and are imbued by their creator". I believe the percentage is as high as 93% of people claim some sort of religious beliefs. even if its not nearly that high, say its 75% (it is way more) that is still an overwhelming majority. at first the homosexual, pro-choice, pornography, socialist groups asked for acceptance. "all we ask is to be left alone to live our lives." but there movement grew, and now they are everywhere.

superior technology

Indians- the Indians had many weapons at there disposal and where very good with them. not only where they experts with bow and arrow, stick and stone, but they where masters of living off the land and could use it for shelter, nourishment, and as a means of stealth to ambush there enemy. but the white man had the means of sending supplies with wagon trains, the guns and other artillery gave them a major range advantage. they where able to shoot down the Indians with out getting to close in open battle.

Christians- in today’s world most technology outlets are controlled by some leftist organization. the news reports things in such a way that make conservatives look like some sort of throw backs. I remember when some tongans went and started tearing down signs that protesters (besiegers) had put on a temple. they where made out to be hateful homo-phobes. the left has most newspapers, television stations, and the movies. they are able to skew the information any way they want to put their views into the best light possible and make their ideas seem like they are the norm and mainstream. like the majority is not the majority. they attack us from every angle.

thought in terms of battle instead of a campaign

Indians- the Indians style and idea of warfare was limited to one battle at the time. if they had an argument they would go have a fight, whoever won got to be right and everyone went home to hunt and tend their crops, or move away in order to not have to fight more. the white man would loose, retreat and come back for more. they would do this until their resources where gone or their losses where to heavy and leave....but only until they had reinforcements and then come back for more. the Indians could not sustain such a fight.

Christians- we have seen over the years that Christianity seems to think in terms of right and wrong. once we establish what is right we can stop thinking about it and move on to something else. we concentrate on one issue at a time. we go have a fight (get prop 8 passed) and go home to "hunt and tend our crops". liberals seem to always find a way to regroup and find another way in. I heard a man talking about gay marriage the other day who said "we need to just keep getting the propositions out there. it used to be about 85% against but not the margins are narrowing. some places are down to around 55%." essentiality they are wearing us down. we don’t seem to be able to "sustain such a fight."

They were divided amongst themselves.

Indians- this may have been they biggest problem for the Indians. until very close to the end of the war they were still squabbling against other Indians. some experts believe that if they would have put aside there differences early on they would have whipped the white man right off into the ocean, out gunned or not. they were not able to set aside old arguments to work together and it resulted in there destruction. if they would have worked together against their common enemy they could have gone back to there way of life and to fighting each other happily.

Christians- Christians in the past have allowed other religious groups to be persecuted because we don’t like them anyway. what we need to realize is that if it is happening to another group, if we are not next, we are at least on the list. the only way to avoid being on the list is to join the opposition, but in doing so we have walked complicity into the destruction of our belief system. some spend a lot of time trying to put down other believers (they don’t have to believe the same way you do to believe). if we could remember that we have a common enemy we could join together, whip them and go back to happily fighting each other.

conclusion-

right now they have the technological advantage, but we are not out gunned. teaching and talking with the Spirit is the strongest ammunition there is. we are not out manned. we still have a 90% or greater majority, it’s high time we remembered that and used it. we can not think in terms of one battle. it is a life time campaign. a leader of the church I belong to said every member a missionary. I will alter it to say every member a soldier. we are all in this fight - if we want to be or not (rush song- if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice). while we have differences we need to be united when it comes to fighting our common enemy. being divided will only lead to the destruction (temporarily until the Lord returns) of our way of life. we must do what we can to spread the word of the Lord and sometimes that means standing up for people we don’t exactly agree with. like I said before, lets work together to destroy our common enemy and then we can go back to happily fighting each other.

holy crap! that is a lot.

Obama signed another spending bill to day. so in the first 50 days his administration has spent approximately 1 "B"illion dollars every hour on average.

yes this is leading to something

Why did the Indians (sorry(not really)native Americans) fail to beat the invading whites? At first there where more of them, they knew they land better, they where more mobile, and in general better fighters. with such a set up it should have been an easy victory. What did they do wrong?

am i missing some thing

ok, so this FOCA(freedom of choice act) thing. from what i have heard, its bad bad bad. i sounds like it lifts any and all restriction on abortion. any thing with no restriction is bad. for example, prescription drugs are usually a good thing(at least they used to be), but with no restriction you would have massive(way more than now) abuse. i have also caught wind of the government planning to lift the morality/conscience clause for abortion. so doctors that work at a hospital that performs abortions that think its wrong will be essentially forced to do the procedure any way. what is kinda(more than kinda) nuts about that is that the oath they take to become a doctor says "do no harm". the government will be forcing people to break the oath they made them take. it sounds to me like we(we, as in some liberal segments of our society) are trying to increase the number of abortions being preformed in stead of finding ways to prevent it. i was just wandering what you all had heard. like i said it sounds bad to me.

AND THE WINNER IS......

thats right, ross's car won the derby. he was very excited. so was i. i had never been part of one of these things and wasnt sure i knew how to build a fast car. ross's first race was against one of his good friends and the kid didnt take it very well. ross thought that now the kid dosnt like him any more and he lost a friend because race. after the official race was over some of the adults raced cars and the winner put his car against ross. this is the photo finish of ross beating the adult. they only stupid thing about the night was that all the kids got some sort of ribbon and ross did not git any thing that said he won 1st place. they said who won, but no special award, just the same as thing every one else. he was still excited when we left and wanted to call renaes parents and mine.

well, at least it looks fast

topside

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Its time for the pine wood derby. this will be both ross and my first one. i have found that its as much for the dads as it is for the kids. we had a lot of fun building the car. some one accused me of doing all the work my self. you would be surprised how much work the 9 year old did. he made the original design(i redrew it), he cut out the drawing and put it on the block of wood. i took him out to the garage and he used the radial arm saw(under VERY close supervision). he filed it down and did a lot of sanding both with a power sander and just using a peace of sandpaper in his hand. i did some of the final shaping and some carving on the fins(didn't trust him with carving knives). we did the paint together(5 layers of red, 2 layers of clear coat). i did do the clear coat for him. when he sanded the red paint it made it look pink. he was all worried we had ruined his car and he was going to have to bring a pink car to the race, so i did the clear after he went to bed so he could see it first thing when he got up. the hot wheals sign was his idea. ill take it to work with me today to weigh it. i have a scale that will show me the weight out to .00001 so i can make it perfect(the only worry is that there scale wont be as good as mine and might put the car over the limit). i think it looks relay cool. i think it will be fast but we wont know till we race it. the race is tomorrow night. the give awards for the coolest looking car and the fastest car. i don't think you can get both but if you could i think we would have a chance. ross and i have had a great time doing this together which im pretty sure is actually the point.

why are you messing with me

As some of you know, we have been trying to refinance our house. it is going to help us a lot because we are going to be able to drop our interest rate 1 hole point. works out to a substantial savings. the problem is that the bank keeps finding ways to mess with us. we started out trying to get a cash out refinance, but sense the housing market has crashed our house isn't worth enough to get any money out of it. so then they say, oh we forgot and you need to pay us $400 for sldkkjfiuvnsdvasdv! there has been one delay after another and our locked in interest rate is about to expire. then on Friday, we were told we might need an additional check for $380 to cover some outstanding closing cost that cant be covered by the lone. it all depends on what our final mortgage pay off ends up being. finally after all that we got every thing ready and set a closing date(today). called this morning to be sure every thing was ready and to get some final numbers, only to find out that there has been a hold put on closing because they are waiting for a VOE(verification of employment) to come back from my employer. so i called the HR department to find out what the deal was. i spoke to the person who does these things. she told me that this very important peace of paperwork, that has to be done so we can close today did not get delivered to her until yesterday. and i came by fax not through the regular mail. she was out sick yesterday, and she doesn't usually do the VOE's until Tuesday or Wednesday any way. i told her my situation and asked her to please please please try to expedite it as i am supposed to close at 2:00 this afternoon. she said she would. that has been over an hour now and i still haven't heard any thing. i hope no news is good news, but with the way this thing is going i some how doubt it. why do they have to mess with me. i just want this over with.

when you need that little some thing extra

Sunday Renae made a very tasty dinner. we had venison roast with potatoes and carrots. but as i was not feeling well and our three older kids were gone for the day to grandmas house, there was a lot left over. so, i got to have left over roast for lunch on monday... and Tuesday. well i was happily eating tuesday when all of the sudden i felt some thing stab me on my tong. i thought "well, some how a bone fragment got into the meat." i spit it out and realized that it was not a bone fragment but a peace of metal. on further inspection i figured out it was a BULLET! sense i work at a ammunition manufacturer i asked around and found out that it was a 40 caliber pistol round. now what is interesting about that is that no one in the deer camp i was in was shooting a pistol. we all shot 12 gauges. this is a 40 cal, metal jacketed hollow point. what is more interesting is that i helped skin and butcher all the deer that were killed in our camp and there were no extra wounds. all the wounds were ones that we caused. which means that this bullet had to have come from a wound that had had the time to heal, which means it happened at least a year ago. im glad i got it and not one of my kids or if we had had company over. or if i would have taken to big a bite and swallowed it would have been bad too. i wander if this is god telling me i need more iron in my diet. so this is what a bullet looks like after it has been shot into a deer. this is the view from back to front. sense it was a hollow point the front smashed back making the jagged points.

timing is every thing

last night we had a nice family night where well all got along well, had a good lesson, had a good snack and then we read stories after. i am reading the original version of peter pan and Wendy to the kids. when we got done lid fell asleep in my bed and i just rolled over and went to sleep to. i was getting to bed early for once with the intention of getting up early to ride my bike and get a workout in before work to day. i was just getting good and asleep when my phone rang. it was about 10:00. i had to get up, find all my stuff and go into work. it sucked because i it was a very technical problem that i had to use my brain (that was still half asleep) to figure out. it turned out that i had to find 3 separate records that where saved wrong in a file that had about 20,000 files in it. i got it figured out and went home. missed about 3-4 hours of sleep. it would not have been so bad if i had been awake already, but i was just out. i mean ill take the overtime money but how bout catching me before i go to bed next time please.