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Marcelle Shriver is sending an unusual care package to her son in Iraq. She is collecting Silly String to ship to her son. The troops over there have discovered Silly String is a good way to find tripwires in hostile areas. They just shoot the stuff into a room and it will hang on any wires.

While this is completely ingenious, I have to wonder who the heck came up with this. What soldier decided to pack Silly String when he was getting ready to ship out? Which guy wrote his girlfriend and told her he had this great idea and she should send him a can of the stuff?

I just can’t imagine your local Baghdad 7-11 has Silly String on the shelves - somebody had to get this idea and get some from home.

I bet the next step is Just for Kicks Inc., maker of Silly String, will become a military contracter. That just sounds like a bad movie plot to me.

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I recently posted a story about my 1976 Cutlass, so I thought I’d write about my other near brush with death in that car (that actually precedes the other story). It’s the only other notable Cutlass story I can think of (unless I want to write about the all-you-can-eat-ribmobile).

It was the winter of ‘96 and it was snowing. I had bought a new CD, Actual Miles: Henley’s Greatest Hits. I was coming back into town on the main road off the Interstate. This highway comes down a hill and there is a small bridge over a creek at the bottom. Just a slab of concrete with a guardrail on the top. On the way down the hill I was looking at my new CD and not paying much attention to the road. All of the sudden I look up and the car is headed in a very bad direction. I was pointed toward that creek.

In a moment of quick thining I managed to crank the wheel over and get mostly on the road, but my right front tire managed to hit the bridge. I got the car stopped, but it was completely undrivable. The front wheel was seriously flat and the wheel taco’ed. My only choice was to get out and walk the mile or so into town and get back to the house, not a relishing thought on a cold Colorado winter blizzard. It wasn’t long before a nice couple in a Forerunner headed out of town had pity on me, actually turned around and picked me up.

When I got back to the house, of course my roomates were all home and gave me a seriously hard time when they found out. One of my good friends lived in the next town over, being a mechanical type he had a wheel for my car. I gave him a call and he drove out and we put a new wheel on my old Cutlass and made it back into town.

I got it fixed and drove it for a while after that. Not sure what it was about that car, but it sure caused me some trouble.

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Rescuers found the body of James Kim this afternoon in the Oregon wilderness.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the Kim family.

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It’s amazing to me how the Internet, blogs in particular, can bring out the arrogance in us all. Somehow we all think we are smarter than everyone else and anyone who doesn’t fit into our social group must be ’stupid’. Now, I am not pointing any fingers - everyone who knows me will gladly testify that I do more than my share of finger pointing and mocking, but a person must be careful.

Found this post today where a woman was making fun of a ‘redneck’ who wanted to inform her about a problem with the brake lights on her car.

Now I’m not going to give my opinion of who the ’stupid’ one was in this situation. I’m not going to make any kind of value judgement about the well meaning gentleman who kindly attempted to help out a stranger. Nor am I going to criticize a person who would make snap stereotypical judgements about a person based solely on the vehicle they drive and their manner of dress while said person is operating an unsafe automobile. Instead I’m going to share an anecdote about my experience with broken brake lights.

About 10 years ago I was living with four friends. I was young, between jobs, and working for my Dad on the farm. Needless to say I wasn’t exactly swimming with cash, so my choice of automobile was a 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass. Now it just so happened that the brake lights didn’t work in this car. Taillights were fine, but there were NO brake lights. I tried to fix it a couple times, but couldn’t ever figure out what was wrong. Not having the money to get it fixed by a professional, I’m ashamed to say, I just drove it that way. The best I could do was try to pull the headlights on when I was coming to a stop to give the drivers behind some warning.

This was all well and good until one fateful sunday morning. I was on my way to church and headed out of town on the main two lane highway. There was a dirt road shortcut I could take a left on, so when I got to the intersection I stopped to wait for traffic to clear. Now this road was busy then (and is even busier now - not that it matters for this story. It was in a semi-rural area at the time and there was a large drop off of 6-10 feet on the right side of the road down into an irrigation ditch, kind of a gully.

While I innocently sat waiting for traffic I failed to notice the car behind me. As I made my left turn I glanced in the rearview mirror. To my horror I watched the top half of a car dissappear in a cloud of dust of the opposite side of the road. Some innocent driver had not seen my car stopped, probably due to my lack of brake lights, and at the last second drove his car off the shoulder and into the chasm beyond.

With a snap judgement I determined that there were other cars around who would stop to help and I would probably go to jail for causing an accident if I turned around, so I proceeded on my merry way. Again, not a decision I am proud of. I spent the next hour or so sitting in the back of the church, waiting for uniformed law enforcement officers to appear and cart me away. Fortunately for me this never happened. In fact I never even found out what happened. Nothing ever made the papers, so I assume that the people in the car were OK.

As I was thinking about sharing this story this afternoon a thought occured to me. While I didn’t think about it at the time, in retrospect the driver’s decision to, literally, ditch the car could be the only reason I’m here right now. Being rearended at 50 mph probably would not have been good for my health. I did learn a lesson from this incident and shortly thereafter found another means of transportation.

The moral of this story is, if you are driving around without brake lights, get them fixed. The life you save may be your own.

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Appearantly many people have Bulimia and don’t know it because they don’t puke.

Bulimia is widely known as a “binge-purge” eating disorder, in which a person goes through cycles of excessive eating followed by purging — through either vomiting or abusing laxatives and diuretics.

But there are also non-purging forms of bulimia, where tactics like excessive exercise or strict dieting are used to counter binge-eating episodes.

Now the LAST thing I want to do is diminish the dangers of eating disorders, but where do you draw the line? Does this mean that when I have a big Sunday dinner and spend the rest of the week watching my diet and putting time in at the gym I have an eating disorder?

There are fitness experts that actually promote this type of lifestyle as a healthy means of weightloss. I have done this myself and had good success, but now this article says these are symptoms of an eating disorder. I am so confused.

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Massachusets beer importer, Shelton Brothers, is getting heat for importing Santa’s Butt beer from England. The Blue State liberals in Maine have banned the holiday brew because “The label with Santa might appeal to children”.

Shelton Brothers have a great blog with several very interesting posts about the violations of their 1st Amendment rights and their reasons for fighting the ban.

The thing that just floors me about this issue is the groups who are fighting the ban. These aren’t fundamental Christians from the Bible Belt fighting the exploitation of Christmas. No, this stems for the liberal New Englanders who constantly deride the conservatives in this country for their ‘think of the children’ approach to politics. Turns out the liberals are no better than the conservatives - everyone wants to trample the 1st Amendment at the earliest possible opportunity.

What is with this country? Seems like every time you turn around somebody is banning something - next thing you know we’ll be having book burnings in the town square.

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As a Christian myself it is often very bothersome to me when other fundamentalist Christians go off on completely un-christianlike tangents. One of these tangents is the attack on how people celebrate holidays like Halloween or Christmas.

I’ve been meaning to write something in my own words that disucsses this, but I received an email recently that explains my feelings on Christmas extremely well.

Dear children,

It has come to my attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking My name out of the season. Maybe you’ve forgotten that I wasn’t actually born during this time of the year and that it was some of your predecessors who decided to celebrate My birthday on what was actually a time of pagan festival. Although I do appreciate being remembered anytime.

How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don’t care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate My birth just, GET ALONG AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER. Now, having said that let Me go on.

If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn’t allow a scene depicting My birth, then just get rid of a couple of Santas and snowmen and put in a small Nativity scene on your own front lawn. If all My followers did that there wouldn’t be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.

Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree, instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all trees. You can and may remember Me anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish: I actually spoke of that one in a teaching explaining who I am in relation to you and what each of our tasks were. If you have forgot that one, look up John 15: 1 - 8. If you want to give Me a present in remembrance of My birth here is my wish list. Choose something from it.

1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way My birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of year. I know, they tell Me all the time.

2. Visit someone in a assisted living home. You don’t have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3. Instead of writing George complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sent out this year, why don’t you write and tell him that you’ll be praying for him and his family this year. Then follow up. It will be nice hearing from you again.

4. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can’t afford and they don’t need, spend time with them. Tell them the story of My birth, and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind them that I love them.

5. Pick someone that has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.

6. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don’t know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile it could make the difference. Also, you might consider supporting the local Hot-Line: they talk with people like that every day.

7 Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren’t allowed to wish you a “Merry Christmas” that doesn’t keep you from wishing them one. Then stop shopping there on Sunday. If the store didn’t make so much money on that day they’d close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families.

8 If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary, especially one who takes My love and Good News to those who have never heard My name. You may already know someone like that.

9. Here’s a good one. There are individuals and whole families in your town who not only will have no “Christmas” tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. If you don’t know them (and I suspect you don’t) buy some food and a few gifts and give them to the Marines, the Salvation Army or some other charity which believes in Me and they will make the delivery for you.

10. Finally if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to Me, then behave like a Christian. Don’t do things in secret that you wouldn’t do in My presence. Let people know by your actions that you are one of mine.

P.S ~ Don’t forget; I am God and can take care of Myself. Just love Me and do what I have told you to do. I’ll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above and get to work; time is short. I’ll help you, but the ball is now in your court. And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those whom you love and remember.

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Now I’m not what I would call a Kernel Newbie. I’ve been compiling and installing custom Linux Kernels for about eight years now. What I am not (and don’t intend to ever be) is a Linux Kernel developer. As such, I have difficulty when it comes to reading the changelogs for the latest Kernel revisions. Sure, I understand most of the terminology and I can get a good handle on what areas have changed, but it’s difficult for anyone who isn’t actually contributing to the development process to translate the changes into an overview of new and exciting features.

Amazingly enough, there is a site out there that does just they. kernelnewbies.org provides, among other things, a synopsis of the current Kernel’s changelog rewritten in understandable terms. How cool is that?

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Haven’t done a Music Pick of the Week lately. Honestly, much of the music I’ve been listening to hasn’t been something I really wanted to share. They might have a song or two that were good, but some of the other lyrics and band names were borderline offensive. Since I have some family and friends that read this blog I decided not to endorse some of these bands.

The Bees (U.S) are a different story. Their strong songwriting and largely acoustic harmonies should be palatable to nearly everyone.

The Bees (U.S) have a great mellow rock sound. Perfect as a backdrop for your holiday party or while sitting by the fire with a glass of wine.

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Just read about this. CNET senior editor James Kim and his family are missing.

Kim and his family were taking a trip from their home in San Fransisco to the Pacific Northwest. Their last known destination was Gold Beach Oregon.

This guy is a blogger that lives in Oregon and seems to know the area well. He had some interesting notes about contact with the police.

It is unbelievable to me that here in the 21st century a family could go missing for 4 days and no one can find them. It’s kinda scary if you think about it. I pray everyone is OK.

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