“The Reason for the Season”

It’s strangely interesting to watch Christmas evolve into something nearly unrecognizable. Each year, we as a society seem to take one more step away from the true meaning towards the politically correct atheistic/ agnostic “holiday season”. It has grown to the point where people feel self-conscious about saying “Merry Christmas” to others for fear of offending them. How long will it be until our calendars say “Festive Holiday” on December 25? Many people already refer to it as ‘Xmas’ (which drives me nuts).

Christmas is first and foremost the celebration and remembrance of the birth of Jesus Christ. That’s where it starts and ends.

Personally, I really don’t care that December 25th was once a Roman holiday celebrating the winter solstice and the Festival of Saturnalia. It could’ve been the Buldavian festival of the Holy Hippopotamus for all I care. What is important to me is what it is now, not what it was nearly 1700 years ago (it became Christmas sometime before 336 AD). We get to take one day to stop and think about Christ and what He did for us.

Whether or not you believe in Christ as the Son of God, a prophet, or just a wise teacher is up to you. I don’t believe that celebrating Christmas, or even calling it Christmas, detracts from anyone else’s experience or imposes a set of beliefs on anyone. I don’t feel threatened or that that I am being pressured into changing my beliefs when someone celebrates Hanukka. I’m secure enough in my own faith that I can respect and admire the beliefs and traditions of others.

In remembering the birth of Christ, we also remember His life, teachings, and example. But most of all we remember the sacrifice He made on our behalf in Gethsemane and on the cross. We remember how death is no longer the end, the resurrection of Christ means that we too will live again.

“Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise.” (2 Nephi 2:8)

Do you remember when Christmas used to bring a feeling of goodwill to others? When people would give service to others just because it was Christmas? People wonder why “goodwill to men” is on the decline as the focus of the season moves further away from Christ. . .

Rampant Stupidity

As you probably picked up from my previous posts, I have a "thing" against email hoaxes that get mindlessly forwarded and thrust upon everyone in cyberspace. Now these hoaxes are encroaching into Facebook territory in the form of FunWall posts that can be just as easily forwarded. Great.

Lately, I have taken it upon myself to see what I can do about combating these pesky hoaxes. I started by posting the debunk information on the walls of friends & family who had been hit by the hoaxes (since I can't post to people not on my friends list), hoping the truth would get circulated as far and fast as the hoax. Then I started thinking that I'm just cluttering up the wall of an innocent victim, and it could seem that I was taking it out on them rather than the proliferater of the hoax (there is a point to all of this, try to keep up).

Then I realized that I could send a message to the original poster of the hoax. Sure, they can see my limited profile for a month, but it's a small price to pay. So I started sending information on the hoaxes to whoever had the audacity to put the hoax on my friends'/ family's walls.

I got one reply that reaffirmed my belief in the stupidity of the general public. And I quote:

"Thanks for the heads-up, however, I did figure it was not true. To me it was the thought that counted."

Seriously!?! You pass on a bogus message about some super-articulate 7-year-old with a brain tumor from supposed regular beatings who will get $0.07 from the Make-a-Wish foundation every time someone forwards the message, and it's the thought that counts?!?

Which thought would that be, exactly? The one that involves perpetuating useless and completely fabricated information? Or the thought that creates additional work for people who could otherwise be doing real good? From the Make-a-Wish foundation website:

"The time and expense required to respond to these inquiries distracts the Foundation from its efforts on behalf of children with life-threatening medical conditions, and more importantly, can divulge information that is potentially harmful to a child and his or her family."

I sometimes hold back, trying to give these people the benefit of the doubt. They can't all be maliciously trying to spread junk. I figure many people are well-intentioned and under-informed. But good grief!! You know a story is false but you pass it on anyway, trying to justify your actions with well-meaning intentions?? It's a good thing many of the vital processes in the human body such as breathing and circulation are autonomic (that means your body does them and you don't have to think about it), because some of these people would be wondering why they are turning blue and getting dizzy.

Missing Child Hoax emails

Dawn received an email today asking for help in locating a missing child by the name of Ashley Flores. The email says she has been missing for 2 weeks from Philedalphia, PA and is feared she may be in South America, Canada, or even overseas and asks that the email be forwarded to everyone in your address book. "If it was your child, you would want all the help you could get."

Who could say no to a heart-wrenching plea like that?

I, for one.

A lengthy and exhaustive search on Google returns about 17,600 pages on this hoax. Try it for yourself, go to http://www.google.com/, enter "Ashley Flores" (with the quotes), hit enter, and voila! After 0.23 seconds of processing time, your top results are:

www.snopes.com

urbanlegends.about.com

www.hoax-slayer.com

www.breakthechain.org

There are now variations that say Ashley (same photo) is missing from Mandurah in Australia. The original version was first reported in May 2006 and is almost word-for-word identical to the Penny Brown hoax that has been in circulation since 2001. Other variations based on the same "template" include searches for children named Michael Hunt and Evan Trembley.

While there is an Ashley Flores, she is not missing. Her friend(s) thought it would be funny to put her name and picture into the Penny Brown email. We're all laughing buddy...

The problem with hoaxes like this is that when a legitimate email comes along (like for Matthew Leveson), we dismiss it as a hoax. My world would be a much happier place if people would learn to take a few seconds to research before forwarding on the email.

Internet pranksters learned long ago that hoax emails are often more effective than viruses at filling up inboxes and being annoying. I'm often reminded of the "Amish Virus" when I see these emails that ask you to pass it on to everyone you know:

"As we haveth no technology nor programming experience, this virus worketh on the honour system. Please delete all the files from thy hard drive and manually forward this virus to all on thy mailing list.

"We thank thee for thy cooperation,

"— The Amish Computer Engineering Dept"

Tagged from Krista...

Apparently, I'm supposed to fill this out now. You know I'm not going to take this seriously, right? I assume that's a given by this point.

A- Attached or single: Are we talking conjoined twins sort of attached? Then no, I am not.

B- Best Friend: Yes, I do...

C- Cake or Pie: Yes. Why do people insist on making these into either/or questions? It is not a binary decision, both can exist at the same time.

D- Day of choice: as in day of the week? holiday?

E- Essential Item: my head

F- Favorite Color: Red

G- Gummi Bears or Worms: Bears. Worms don't really wrestle very well.

H- Hometown: Raymond, Alberta

I- Indulgence(s): Ice cream.

J- January or July: Where? If I was in NZ, I'd say January...

K- Kids: Trevor (8), Terina (6), Rhys (4), Alaina (3)

L- Life is Incomplete Without: Oxygen. Water would probably be a close second.

M- Marriage Date: 20 January 1996

N- Number of Siblings: 1 of each

O- Oranges or Apples: Oranges

P- Phobias or Fears: I don't particularly want either of them, thank you.

Q- Quote(s): "Give a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

R- Reason To Smile: They say that gas makes babies smile, but I don't believe them. I've had gas before and it never made me smile, but I can't discount it as a reason for other people...

S- Season: Again, where? I could winter in Florida or NZ and enjoy it just fine.

T- Tag Three: No. You can't make me.

U- Unknown Fact About Me: If I tell you, then it's not unknown anymore, is it.

V- Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animals: There's room for all of God's creatures... right next to the mashed potatoes! If we weren't supposed to eat animals, they wouldn't taste so good.

W- Worst Habit: Probably sarcasm

X- X-Rays or Ultrasounds: I'll leave that to the doctor's discretion. After all, he's the one who went to school for that sort of thing.

Y- Your Favorite Food: Umm... just one? I can't think of my single favorite food... mashed potatoes & gravy, steak, really good hamburgers, Dawn's BBQ ribs, shrimp-fest @ Red Lobster, good Chinese food (not spicy), fried chicken, pizza, desserts too numerous to mention...

Z- Zodiac: Leo

Still proud...

Dad & Sandy took Trevor & Terina to Home Depot on Saturday to pick up a few things. On their way in, Trevor "used the Force" to open the automatic doors... (the Obiwan slide-your-two-fingers-through-the-air-causing-the-doors-to-slide-open trick). Grandma Sandy and Rina headed off to look at something, so Grandpa Kim tells Trevor to go with him. Trevor's response? "Roger that, Rogue leader! We're going in..."

Dawn was hunched over the counter crying after we heard the story. Something about, "why me?" It was hard to make out what she was saying amidst the tears and uncontrolled sobbing. Truth be told, my eyes were a little moist too, but for an entirely different reason...

Makes me proud...

This week would not have been possible without the help of Dad & Sandy and Michael & Jenie watching our kids while Dawn & I have been in Edmonton. There's no way we could have done it without their help, and we are very grateful for the way they jumped in when we needed them. So here's the story (it may not be word-for-word, but the idea is there)...

Grandma Sandy was helping Terina, the 6-yr-old, get her school bag together and asked her what her mom usually gives her for snack. Terina replied, "Banana peels."

"So, I can eat the banana and give you the peel?"

Terina said, "Yes. Sometimes Mom just picks through the garbage and gives me whatever is in there."

So Sandy had an idea, "I could feed the cat and just give you the empty cans."

"Oh, that's good! Mom never thought of doing that!"

There are times when a parent wonders if a child is going to grow up to be normal and well-adjusted. Will they grasp the intricacies of social interaction, or will they end up on the "special" bus to school? And then there are heart-warming experiences like this when personality shines through and you know your little girl is going to do just fine. I just wonder where she gets this from...

I may be a geek, but...

...not this bad. I was wandering through Best Buy in Edmonton on Monday and saw this line-up forming outside.

It was about 6:00 PM, and I started to wonder if there was a big sale or something coming up. When I got to the door, I saw the cause of the awaiting masses along the building. HALO 3 for XBox 360 was being released between Midnight & 4:00 AM that night.

I've stood in line for many things: Star Wars Episode III on opening day, Splash Mountain at Disneyworld (both of which I would've gladly gone back in line again if time had permitted), the checkout line at Costco (desperately wishing there was an express lane), but standing in line for a computer, sorry, console game is outside my realm of desired experience.

HALO 3 is the muchly-anticipated conclusion to the HALO trilogy. the first of which was released in November of 2001. The first-person shooter is tbe best-selling XBox title to date. Three years later, HALO 2 was released and made available to the Windows platform as well.

Not only can you buy the game for $60, there is a limited-edition version that comes in a special tin case for $70, and die-hard fans can even buy a replica of Master Chief's helmet for $130. $400 will get you the special HALO 3 edition of the XBox 360 console with the HALO paint job (you still have to buy the game separately).

HALO 2 grossed $125 million in sales within the first 24 hours. and while sales figures for 3 aren't out yet, it was expected to clear $200 million. Hollywood boxoffices pray for opening weekend figures like that. Speaking of which, I'm starting to wonder how long it will be until we get to see HALO on the big screen.

Even if game consoles were allowed in our house, I can't see myself rushing to wait in line for over 6 hours to be one of the first to get a copy. Now, if it was Star Wars Battlefront III, that might be a different story...

Email Hoaxes: Continued

After my little rant on email hoaxes, I received a good one on my work account. I'll post it and see if anyone else can pick up on it:

"Things You Never Knew Your Cell Phone Could Do

"Have you locked your keys in the car?

"Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday.Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk). Editor's Note: 'It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a cell phone!'"

Before I tell you who sent that to me, let's review the science behind phones and remote keyless entry.

First, like every other microphone in the world, the one in your cell phone works by translating the vibrations from sound into electrical impulses which are then sent to a speaker to be translated back into vibrations we perceive as sound. Pretty cool.

Second, I had long wondered how each key remote could be specific to an individual vehicle. It turns out that they all use the same radio frequency, but they transmit an encrypted "signature" that is unique to each vehicle.

So, pressing your key remote next to a phone (cellular or otherwise) would transmit only the sound of the button being pressed, which is not very helpful at all. For those technically inclined, cell phones operate in the 300MHz range while key remotes use the 800MHz range (which means your phone can't "hear" the signal). Save yourself the embarrassment of holding your phone up to your car the next time you lock your keys inside. I have to wonder if that would be any more or less embarrassing than phoning home to ask someone to press the unlock button into the phone for you... I'm pretty sure the only sound I'd hear would be Dawn's hysterical laughter ("I'd love to help you, but I just can't fix stupid!").

I promised to reveal the sender of this priceless gem, and so I shall. He ranked #242 on Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans (2006) with an estimated net worth of $1.5 Billion (yes, with a 'B'). He has nearly 30,000 franchise locations around the world. That's right, I received this from none other than Mr. Fred Deluca, founder & chief mucky-muck of Subway Restaurants. Who were the lucky receipients of this little pearl? Only every Development Agent and Field Consultant in the Subway system ('every' is a lot...). You'd think that he could allocate some of that $1.5 Billion to get someone to proof-read his emails before they go out...

Related reading:

Snopes article

Hoaxbusters article

Pet Peeve: Email Hoaxes

Heroin needles and rattlesnakes in restaurant ball pits? Deep coughing to survive a heart-attack? Microsoft will send you money for forwarding this email to everyone in your address book (I know this works because I received a cheque for $X)? Canada/US Post is instituting an 'email tax' because of the declining amount of postal mail? What do these all have in common? They are hoaxes, urban legends, and for some reason otherwise reasonably intelligent people feel compelled to forward them to everyone they've ever met since they were in preschool as if they were on commission.

Why do people feel their lives will not be complete without pressing the Forward button? What goes through their heads as they pass on to their friends and family that using an optical mouse will give you cancer, or that some friend of a friend ate a hamburger that had cockroach/ spider eggs in it at _____ (insert restaurant name here), and soon had cockroaches/ spiders hatching from inside his mouth? What makes us so prone to believe something just because it shows up in our inbox?

Seriously, if some child had been injured by a hidden hypodermic needle while playing in a ballpit at a restaurant, do you really think you'd hear about it through an email before the media grabbed it? A couple of months ago, a fast food restaurant in New York was closed by the health department because of rats and it was all over the news, even all the way up in Calgary. I don't know which would have smaller odds, getting a rattlesnake into the ballpit unnoticed and having it survive long enough to bite someone, or that it didn't get any media coverage and you're only hearing about it through a series of email forwards.

Are you a bad parent for not thoroughly inspecting every restaurant play area for venomous reptiles and discarded needles? While you're in there, why not check for broken beer bottles or alien tracking devices? If someone read you the same story word-for-word over the phone or in person, you would most likely laugh at them or at least find a few points in the story which make you question the account's credibility. Is it the string of '>>'s from being forwarded from 37 other people that makes it sound convincing? Or the fact that you have to scroll down for 18 pages of email headers (To: everyone I know, From: ________) that makes us think at one point this story could have been plausible (two more peeves, but that'll wait for another time)?

I have yet to find one of these email hoaxes that has taken me longer than 1 minute to debunk. What's my secret? I use an obscure website called Google, type in a summary of the hoax (usually the subject line from the email), and hit 'Search'. I then am given a number of websites that address the hoax, some of them even tell me how long the hoax has been in circulation as well as different variations on the same theme (one of my favorite sites is Hoax-Slayer ).

As you may have guessed from my rambling, this is a touchy topic for me. Fortunately, if you reply back to the sender(s) with the debunk information, sooner or later they stop sending these emails to you. They don't stop their forwarding compulsion, they just take you off their distribution list.

So here's your homework, the next time you receive an email saying that your friend's coworker's roommate's uncle once saw Bigfoot, before you even think of hitting the "Forward" button you:

1. Stop. Ask yourself just how realistic the message is.
2. Look it up. Use Google, Hoax-Slayer, or any number of myth-busting websites out there heroically trying to curb the spread of these virulent messages
3. Once you have found it to be a hoax, why not hit "Reply All" and send the debunk out to everyone and hope they'll forward the truth as quickly as they forwarded the junk.

Cartoons

One of my good friends from high school tracked me down on Facebook and asked me if I am still into cartooning (I had done a couple of little drawings for him back in the day). I scanned in a couple of drawings and sent them to him. Then I figured, since they're already scanned in, maybe I should post them. After all, what's the point of having a blog if you can't inflict stuff like this on others?
(You can click on the picture to see it full-size)

This one came to me while I was working on a Sunday School lesson a couple of years ago...

This one struck me as funny as I was reading...

Because I'm warped, this is what came to mind when we sing the hymn...

Click here for PDF file (637 KB)

This was one that I was working on for a while then put together for my brother before he went on his mission...

Inner Redneck...

Yesterday was the annual branding party out at the grandparents'. It's too bad most of you would not appreciate how much better this year was than last year. And I'm not just talking about the 4 applications of SPF 45 sunscreen that kept me from turning into Lobster Man this year. It was actually organized! No, that's not the heatstroke talking. The calves were actually calves and not small cows. Apparently regulating conjugal visits can help prevent 1-yr old calves at branding time. The biggest shock was walking over to the arena and seeing the new sorting pens with fully functional metal bi-directional swing gates. Slap me and call me Bessie... that made life so much easier.

For those more intimately acquainted with the proceeding of previous years, here's a quick overview of the layout... click here for the video (approx. 1.4 MB)

Gone were the shouts from Grandpa, "Get the big one.... No! The big one! The big calf!"... The calves with horns as long as my arm were but a memory (which was a good thing because Grandpa didn't have a de-horner)... No more calves big enough to force their way out of the squeeze, sideways. Just 120 calves, started at 10 AM, finished at 3:30 PM.

Mom was a little disappointed that we didn't get any video of her roping, but we did get a picture of it...

(click for full-size image)

The highlight of the day had to be as we were heading back to the house after it was all over. Grandpa said, "This is the only way to do branding." Really?? So, we're keeping track?... starting... now?

The other beneficial side effect is that- thanks to my sister's apparent fixation- we have a lot of footage of the bull calves getting their "preventative maintenance" (including a couple of extreme close-ups thanks to the 50x zoom on the video camera). I am going to put those together on video (maybe to music) so when Terina and Alaina start dating, I can play it for the young gentlemen as they wait for my daughters to get ready. Before they leave the house for the date, I will simply tell the young men, "You mess with my girls, and I'll mess with your boys..." I think that'll get my point across.

"Hello kettle, this is Gary...you're black!"

Since venturing out into the world of blogging I've taken a little flack for it, and rightly so. In the past I have been somewhat vocal about how silly this whole blogging "fad" is. It amused me to see how people seemed to go through the day looking for the next thing to blog... taking pictures for the express purpose of blogging... that sort of thing. Even as I did my first entry, I was still telling myself that would never be me.

Yesterday as I was driving home from Edmonton, I think it was somewhere near Red Deer when I caught myself thinking, "I haven't posted for a few days, I'd better think of something." Shortly thereafter was when the "Neener Neener" fairy smacked me upside the head with the realization that I had become what I had mocked so hard in the past.

There's just something about this silly blog system that is illogically compelling. Maybe it's the idea that people actually read what I write, but if that were truly the case then I could get the same "buzz" from email (you read my emails, right?). Whatever it is, I feel like an addict still in self-denial, "I'm not doing this because I have to, I could walk away any time I want."

Were it not for Facebook, this entry would've been about turning the Lego Jedi Starfighter acquired from eBay into the way cool Sith Starfighter (along with all the photos). Let the mocking begin (or continue, for some of you)... I blog, and I like it. It could be worse, just be grateful I don't know how to turn this into a Podcast.

Edit: May 21

I didn't want to use up a post just for this, so I thought I'd add it on here... My new breakfast of champions: SlimFast with chocolate milk (ice cream optional, but still recommended). Doesn't get much better than that :)

Now what do I do with it...

Originally, I was going to make a blog to mock people who blog (which still may happen periodically)... Apparently I am sometimes prone to the use of sarcasm and I have it on good authority (aka my father-in-law) that I am often a smart... *mouth* (edited for family-friendly viewing).

Michael's blog got me thinking that I might be able to use this space for something other than a daily summary of my events. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against those blogs, it's a nice way to feel connected with family & friends who decide to do silly things like live in Texas or Whitecourt (for someone who is so anti-winter, you're knee-deep in it). If I tried to keep a blog like that, it would look something like this:

Got up, had breakfast (SlimFast & Ice Cream), went to work (in my pj's), made some calls, did some email...

I'd get thrown off the 'net as waves of boredom spread like an epidemic. Of course, I could just be flattering myself in thinking that people would actually read this...