Posts by roybatty

79

What's the most DANGEROUS thing you ever did?

by JH in

jw
friends

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anybody ever bungee jump or do anything quite dangerous?.

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roybatty

Jeez, I wouldn't even know where to begin. Near the house I grew up in, there was a forest with a qwarry near by. Summer time activities always included fireworks, home made cannons, dirt bikes, gasoline, bb guns, jumping off cliffs, aresol flame throwers, etc,,,etc,,.. Sometimes the activity included all of these items. Once another boy, and I do mean boy, from the kingdom hall somehow manged to drive an old car back there and we spent the day flying around the woods and hanging out of the car windows. Looking back I am amazed that no one was seriously hurt. My parents had no idea what we were doing in the woods. I still remember my mom once my mom going downstairs to the pantry and couldn't understand why all the cans of soup were gone. She must have thought her two Beavis and Butthead sons just loved soup. Little did she realize that her Campbell soup collection was turned into artillary.

Well, at least all of that made me a more understanding father. Whenever my teenage son gets in trouble and his mom is ready to strangle him, I think to myself "sheesh, that's ALL that he did".

4

Contact after DF'ed or DA'ed

by karen96 in

jw
friends

a different thread made me wonder:.

did anyone from the kh try to contact you even after your df/da was announced?.

so many tried to call me, or wrote me letters, i couldn't believe it at the time.

roybatty

Funny thing, I was just thinking about this. An elder (20 years my senior) who basically "groomed" me to be his little protegee spent last week painting the outside of my neighbor's house. Now this is a man I spent a LOT of time with (years). We pioneered together, he conducted my wedding ceremony, led my appointment as both a MS and elder. We served together as elders on the same body. He was the veteran PO, I was the up and coming rookie. Years later, he was also the one who called and visited when my marriage fell apart and later he chaired my judicial committee when I dissassociated myself.

Part of me was a little surprised that he didn't stop by to say hello (esp. since elders can visit ex-JWs w/o being questioned). Another part of me wasn't surprised since it has been over 5 years since my leaving (and I have been active in other community activities). Maybe it's just that, maybe they don't want to be reminded that people can leave the congregation, be happy and raise good kids. JWs are so conditioned that if you leave the organization, doom and gloom will fill your life.

This little experience again confirmed for me that even with the nice ones (and he is a good guy) it's a conditional friendship. If there is one thing I don't need in my life, is another one of those.

On the other hand my 14-year old son (who's dragged to the KH by my ex) passed along a "funny" story. The other day we were sitting down eating dinner and he asked if I remembered sister "so & so." He said that she approachd him the other day after the meeting and told him "I remember your father....he was a very handsome man." Of course, my son and daughter teased me because this woman is 80 years old and nearly blind! Oh well, I'll take the compliment.

35

Jehovah's Witnesses: How Their Subculture is Fading Away.

by metatron in

jw
friends

i am old enough to remember the days when conventions lasted many long days and large.

numbers of brothers were employed in preparing hot meals served on trays, army-style.

also recall how good these steam cooked meals tasted - and how policemen, assigned to.

roybatty

Sooooo what are they up to?

BTW - I do remember those days when hot meals were served at the DC. I remember working with my father in the food department cooking all that chicken, watching armies of people preparing meals that were actually pretty good. You're right, it was a good way to meet new people, someting to look forward to.

Do the boys in Crooklyn just not get it? That what keeps many / most JWs going are those certain things we use to look forward to?

41

Halloween - Are you celebrating?

by Nellie in

jw
friends

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of all the holidays that witnesses shun, this was the one i could understand most.

but after leaving the organization, how do you feel about it now?

roybatty

nice pic Buttlight. Hope to see you at my door next Halloween.

41

Halloween - Are you celebrating?

by Nellie in

jw
friends

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of all the holidays that witnesses shun, this was the one i could understand most.

but after leaving the organization, how do you feel about it now?

roybatty

I always loved Halloween. Even as a kid, when I wasn't allowed to celebrate it. The idea of dressing up in a costume, and eating candy. What's not to like?

Same here. As a kid, I would peek out the window and look at all my friends dressed up. I loved the whole "spooky"-ness about it. My kids love it, even my "wanna be a JW like her mom" daughter. There's always that one house in the neighborhood that goes completely nuts with Halloween decorations that we always love passing by. This past year, the home owner hanged himself from a noose in front of his house. Maybe that was over the top but dam, it scared those kids. lol!

My kids fav. holidays....

1. Halloween (stay out very late and cause trouble w/o getting in trouble)

2. Fourth of July (stay out very late and get to blow things up w/o getting in trouble)

3. X-mas (presents...duh)

6

The end of cheap oil = the end of "business as usual"?

by Nicolas in

jw
friends

the subject of peak oil has been talked a couple of time here.

you'll find a lot of infos about it on google but i want to do know your opinion... will the end of cheap oil will mean the end of the world (death) for a large portion of the humanity or we will just adapt to the new reality?

personnaly, i think that we will have to live in a post-technological world if we put no more energy to find something to replace petrol.

roybatty

Also, there's thousand of objects (plastic) that we use everyday and they are made from petrol.

For better or for worse, plastics will be around for a long time. In most cases, it's still a much cheaper material to make items from compared to steel or wood.

27

Rude car dealerships

by Simon in

jw
friends

don't you just hate them ?.

i mean the ones that think they are too good to serve you (or you are not good enough to deal with).. as i posted previously, my last contract ended a few weeks ago and i got another that will involve a bit more travel than normal so am looking to get a better car to eat up the mileage and provide a bit more safety.

contract hire just to get me to and from work safely and efficiently.

roybatty

I hate going to dealerships. You drive up to the dealership and there you see standing outside - the car salesmen like a pack of hungry wolves. I'm sure they're not all like that but this has been my experience - with one exception. A year ago I went and tried a new place - CarMax. I liked the fact that I was able to go onto their web site, browse their selection of used cars and see exactly the price I was going to pay. No dealing. I also liked being able to go to one place and drive several differnt makes and models. I bought a 2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I was in and out within an hour and a half. This included them arranging a car loan, inspecting and taking my trade in, a Volvo S40, and prepping the car I bought.

But I'm just not sure if they have any cars with the steering wheel on the wrong side.

35

Terrorist backlash - and so it starts

by katiekitten in

my mum lives next door to a little newsagents shop run by an asian family.

i used to live there, and i had the phone number of mr badat because sometimes people used to try and break in.

mr badat died last year and a younger moslem family took over.

roybatty

It isn't about Iraqis thinking for themselves. Of course they abhor the suicide bombers. I'm certain a large percentage of them abhor who allowed them to come, and who appears incapable of stopping them once the door was opened.

Ironic that almost all of these suicide bombers aren't from Iraq. Of course, no country likes being occupied but I believe that the people of Iraq know who the real enemy is and who is and who isn't killing their children.

You'd be hard-pressed to find any news stories about Muslims being beaten or abused like they are now in London.

The Washington Post differs with your statement:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/11/AR2005051101901.html

Many of these crimes don't receive widespread coverage because the media is basically controlled by the same idiots who run our country currently.

Let's see, who created this report....."He said the Council on American-Islamic Relations received about 1,900 complaints of alleged abuses last year and found it could substantiate 1,522 of them."

And what did the FBI find (as noted in the same report) "The FBI has not yet published statistics on hate crimes for 2004, but tallied 149 such incidents allegedly targeted at American Muslims in 2003. It had many more reports of hate crimes against Jews that year -- 927."
But I guess you'd probably say that the FBI is monkeying around with the numbers because their also controlled by the Bush administration.

You and I don't even need to look at these news reports, just tell me what you observed in your area right after 911. How many Muslim families had their homes vandalized or their shops burned down? Here in the Chicago-land area we have a large Muslim community. After 911, you could almost feel it in the air, the news channels just waiting for some huge anti-Muslim backlash. It didn't happen. Nothing. FINALLY there was a story. In one of the suburbs of Chicago a rock was thrown through the window of a local mosque. The news stations swooped down on it like vultures on a dead animal. It was the lead story on every station. Muslims were outraged and braced themselves for this huge wave of anti-muslim hate. Well, a couple of days later the police caught the guilty party. It was a couple of teenagers who threw the rock as they were walking by. They weren't expressing any anti-muslim feelings, instead they were just being stupid.

My point is, the way we as Americans reacted (or didn't react) to 911 is IMO differnt then the reaction of most europeans. Look at the Dutch reaction to the murder of Van Gough, the London bombings, anti-muslim laws in France, etc. I'm just tired of being told that Americans are anti-Muslim when we showed restraint after 911, whereas western europe has reacted differntly toward the muslim communities living inside their borders.

War is always horrible and history will tell us if it was the right decision or not. However, I believe the people of Iraq are smart enough to know how Americans feel about muslims. They observed our character (which I'm proud of) in the post-911 America.

35

Terrorist backlash - and so it starts

by katiekitten in

my mum lives next door to a little newsagents shop run by an asian family.

i used to live there, and i had the phone number of mr badat because sometimes people used to try and break in.

mr badat died last year and a younger moslem family took over.

roybatty

We bombed the bee-jesus out of their country, masses of civilian casualties ... opened up their land to terrorist-types from all over, itching to perform unsavory acts on any and all .... Now we read daily 10s, 20s, 30s, etc and more killed by bombs and such ...
who do you think looks the bigger terrorist in their eyes?? we (US) have had .. what ? 1700 - 1800 casualties? Iraq has had what?? 100,000 casualties?
I also heard reported that there have already been more than 100 backlash attacks in UK since the initial bombings.

Instead of painting us again as the bad guy, why not give the people of Iraq credit to think for themselves? Don't you believe that they have enough smarts to figure out who's the bad guy when they witness for themselves a suicide bomber blowing himself up and killing innocent children?

Right after 9/11, don't you think the people of Iraq and other Muslim nations were just waiting for mosques in the U.S. to be burned to the ground or at least read about Muslims being beaten or killed? None of that happened. You'd be hard-pressed to find any news stories about Muslims being beaten or abused like they are now in London. Don't you think Muslims around the world spoke with their friends and relaitves back in the U.S. and were surprised to learn nothing like that happened in the U.S.?

Give the people of Iraq a little more credit and know that they are just as smart as you and I.

121

Daughters Prom Pic

by Legolas in

jw
friends

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here is a picture of my daughter on prom night last month.

you have to adjust it i can't figure out how to put it in small

roybatty

LOL! Nice work.