Posts by Xander

21

I have arrived! (Bend, Oregon)

by Xander in

jw
friends

well, folks, finally here!

actually, got here in february, but things have been insane trying to get the house finished.. we flew out in january, looked around, found a house we liked, bought it, flew back.. then, had to get here.

again, insanity!

Xander

Amazingly beautiful, Xander! Such wonderful pics....thanks for sharing. Glad yall made it!

Californai and Oregon are my home area (Beaverton-Portalns last) ... these pictures make me miss it. Thanks for sharing ... its good that you are getting settled, and I greatly enjoyed seeing these pictures.

Well, hopefully I'll get some pictures of Oregon up soon. Since the 'day' we arrived (at, like, 11pm) we've been running non-stop. I really haven't had a chance to do much 'sight-seeing'. Been over to Salem 4 times, though (no local Best Buy or Lowe's - the closest of either, for now, is in our state capital 3 hours away. Good thing it's a GORGEOUS drive!) and Portland once (since I've been here, I've been in Portland before - gorgeous....for a city, anyway.)

Gotta remember to take the camera out for the next trip out.

Or any of the local events! Town is FULL of stuff going on. First Friday of every month is an 'art walk' through the downtown area. Every Wednesday is a farmer's market. TONS of music coming this summer. Lots of plays always going on. It's just incredible!

HI DESERT HERE ALSO BUT ONLY ABOUT 1 OR 2 HR DRIVE TO 8 TO 10 THOUSAND FOOT HIGH MOUNTAINS.
THE SNAKE RIVER IS THE ORE/IDAHO BORDER IN THIS AREA. IT FLOWS THROUGH HELL'S CANYON. THE DEEPEST GORGE IN THE US, INCLUDING ARIZONA AND THE COLORADO RIVER. LARGE RIVER AND HUGE RESERVOIRS SOME 50 PLUS MILES LONG.

Oh, I dunno, I like our mountains.

My view west is dominated by Mt. Bachelor. A modest 9,062 ft high. And that's only 30 minutes from town. Heh.

And the Deschutes river literally runs through the center of town (Drake Park is built around a lake fed by the river), so we have LOTS of rivers in the area. It's a good (and very dangerous) place for whitewater rafting/kayaking. Plus, the mountains around Bachelor have TONS of very serious lakes in them (high-altitude lakes. Yummy. Cold, crystal clear water ALL YEAR.) perfect for lake kayaking.

Great golf courses and river rafting.

Yeah, it's very much a tourist area in spots. LOTS of *very* nice golf courses. And development is staying up-scale. They say if you own any property in Bend you make about $800 a month in property value appreciation (which is more than our mortgage is, so we are HAPPY). A LOT of Californians have second or third homes up here as investments.

21

I have arrived! (Bend, Oregon)

by Xander in

jw
friends

well, folks, finally here!

actually, got here in february, but things have been insane trying to get the house finished.. we flew out in january, looked around, found a house we liked, bought it, flew back.. then, had to get here.

again, insanity!

Xander

Well, folks, finally here! Actually, got here in February, but things have been INSANE trying to get the house finished.

We flew out in January, looked around, found a house we liked, bought it, flew back.

Then, had to GET here. Again, insanity! In-laws actually had a *moment* of kindness and let us borrow the trailer they used for hauling nursery stock all over Ohio and Michigan (used to be for hauling horses, so it was fairly big sized). We got *almost* everything we needed in it. My truck couldn't haul it, nor could my wife's Subaru. We ended up buying trading in both our old vehicles and buying a new car - Jeep Liberty 4x4 (2004 Renegade model - *drool* - it's COOL). Actually worked out alright, as we still had another year and a half of payments to go on the Subi, and interests rates are WAY down now - monthly payments are a little over HALF what they were for the Subi! Granted, a lot more than a year to go now, anyway, but....

Put most of our stuff in the trailer, our cats in the back of the jeep in rather large cages with my computers and travelling supplies and clothes...

Anyway, so we set of to drive across the country! MANY days across, as we went the southern route to avoid any inclimate weather and crappy roads. Cats slept during the day, but got REAL unhappy about 10 or 11 at night (and, of course, were unhappy in the morning - but they liked running around the hotel rooms!), essentially adding another whole DAY onto the trip.

New Mexico and Arizona (stayed the night in Flagstaff) are just as beautiful as I remember, by the way! Picture of us stopped in New Mexico:

(Wife won't let me posts pics of her on the 'net, so MOST of the pics on the way I can't show).

Also, idiot detour around Nevada. The straight shot through New Mexico to Oregon would require crossing the Hoover Damn....which we found out once we GOT there that we weren't allowed to cross. Police checkpoint. They required to be able to completely inspect the trailer to let us cross. Which took us 2 days to load. SO....had to drive ALL the way down to the last road that branched off the highway and went around the damn. THAT'S only 4 hours one way, so we wasted 8 hours total!! VERY irritating!!!

We were suitably impressed by Northern California, though:

Arrived to find plenty of snow still around! And, got to check out the town a LOT more. VERY, VERY beautiful area. Works cannot express.

It's a bustling town of 55,000 - so, it has almost all the conveniences of a major city suburb.....only, there is no major city nearby!

Seriously, we have, like, 4 brewpubs in town. 2 theaters - one concentrating a little more on artistic films (and a new one just opened that concentrates EXCLUSIVELY on artistic performances). About 6 community theaters for plays and music. An outdoor mall, with another under construction (no indoor malls). So many places to eat it's silly! I mean, 55,000 people and we have FOUR sushi restaurants!

It's just crazy how cool the town is!

And, better, drive 20 minutes away from 'downtown' in any direction? In the middle of WILDERNESS. Especially going east - you better fuel up before heading out, as the next gas station out of town is a good 2 hour drive! (There *are* a couple mom-and-pop convenience stores on the way. Literally. Two. They *might* be able to sell you a can of gas if they have one laying around. But, other than that, you outta luck!)

And, it's nature gone wild. The area is called "High Desert", you wouldn't normally associate that with so many trees! (And, of course, heading east, there AREN'T any). But, I understand it used to be a logging town....there are a LOT of trees around. Standing on top of Pilot Butte, you can see nothing but a carpet of forest in every direction (well, only so far - there are mountains to the north, south, and west and the forest just goes up to the timberline on them, obviously). Heading east is....well, desert. Still, the mountains are fairly far away, and little more than buttes to the south and *those* are REALLY far away.

It's just amazing.

60

The moon as a possible energy source?

by Big Tex in

i saw this article and what i found intriguing was the brief mention of moon-based helium 3 as a source for energy.

is this different from helium found on the earth?

has anyone heard or read a discussion on this?

Xander

IE., your goal of preserving the Earth is laudable, but cannot be allowed to take precedence over technological progression.

Earth is a fine home for now, but it will not be so forever. Assuming technology progresses as it has - our species (and those we choose to take with us) WILL survive our planet.

Why are you so opposed to that?

60

The moon as a possible energy source?

by Big Tex in

i saw this article and what i found intriguing was the brief mention of moon-based helium 3 as a source for energy.

is this different from helium found on the earth?

has anyone heard or read a discussion on this?

Xander

we are willing to spend billions on this stuff, going to the moon, Mars, etc., and yet, here we have rampant hunger and unemployment here on Earth, and other issues that this money could be spent on.

And, as I pointed out but you don't seem to want to believe...well, let me tie this in again...

There will ALWAYS be 'other problems'.

Yet, someday, the Earth WILL be destroyed. It is quiet inevitable. The sun WILL explode, but Earth's core will have cooled long before then shutting off tectonic activity and the greenhouse effect causing a massive ice-age that won't end (you see what Mars looks like now? That's what the Earth will look like when tectonic activity ends. IOW, the JW's claim of volcanoes and earthquakes being a 'sign of the end' is ludicrous in the extreme - volcanoes and earthquakes STOPPING is a 'sign of the end'!!)

If we keep putting space exploration off, and putting it off, and putting it off....eventually....we all become extinct ('we' meaning every species of plant and animal on the planet).

60

The moon as a possible energy source?

by Big Tex in

i saw this article and what i found intriguing was the brief mention of moon-based helium 3 as a source for energy.

is this different from helium found on the earth?

has anyone heard or read a discussion on this?

Xander

When I first heard that Bush was pushing to have a station set up there and had his eyes on Mars too, it just made me sick! It's not bad enough that man has raped and plundered and poisoned Earth, now they want to start in on the other planets!

You want humans to be extict?

You do realize that, someday, the Earth WILL be destroyed by a natural disaster? Granted, the soonest one we KNOW of (Sol going nova) won't be for another 5 bil years or so...but it's a sure thing. And I don't think the resulting red giant it becomes (with a surface expanded out to about....oh....Earth's orbit) will be very friendly for whatever life survives the nova itself (that would be 'none').

That's not counting meteor strikes (seen the surface of the moon lately?), nearby critical stellar phenomena (supernova, etc), environmental changes do to orbit drift, etc....

Earth WILL be completely inhospitable to any life 'soon enough' on the cosmic scale, and, while I am completely behind preserving it as much as is possible for now, I would never do so at the expense of a space program. We NEED to get off the planet, and we NEED to do so soon if we plan on continuing as a species.

(Remember, we don't even know if faster-than-light travel is actually possible - without it, it may be literally thousands of years to get to another star system with workable planets - for one trip. To move even a small percentage of Earth's population that far? We ARE talking about millions of years of work....how long do you want to put off space exploration, now?)

1

That's not Tarot....

by Xander in

.

one of the latest at worth1000 is funny:.

not quiet tarot cards

Xander

One of the latest at Worth1000 is funny:

Not Quiet Tarot Cards

16

Do you sometimes wish you could believe?

by Xander in

jw
friends

idle thought for the moment.

i consider myself pagan - mostly because of the earth-friendly orientation of the 'religion'.

i tend to feel some forces guide us, but not in a christian way - to no real purpose or divine goal.

Xander

Exactly.

But, I mean, don't you wish you COULD know?

16

Do you sometimes wish you could believe?

by Xander in

jw
friends

idle thought for the moment.

i consider myself pagan - mostly because of the earth-friendly orientation of the 'religion'.

i tend to feel some forces guide us, but not in a christian way - to no real purpose or divine goal.

Xander

Because I realize that these people, despite all of their conviction, really do not know, they believe. No, I don't wish I could believe, but I would still like to know.

Interesting.

I suppose you are correct, and the problem was with the phrasing of my question - see my above post.

Okay, I don't wish to believe. In fact, I never have. I don't want to 'just believe'.

But - and, maybe I differ from you on this - I do wish to NOT HAVE TO believe. I have not dismissed the supernatural, and probably won't. But I want to see something more of it. I don't want to do a spell or say a prayer and have to *just believe* it will work. I want to KNOW it will because I've seen it happen before.

16

Do you sometimes wish you could believe?

by Xander in

jw
friends

idle thought for the moment.

i consider myself pagan - mostly because of the earth-friendly orientation of the 'religion'.

i tend to feel some forces guide us, but not in a christian way - to no real purpose or divine goal.

Xander

Yes I'm one of the ones you label "witch".

First off, I was not intending to offend, here. All witches I know call themselves 'witches', or (if appropriate), Wiccans. I was not using the term derogatively, but descriptively.

However, I do believe that spellcraft can also yield results.

See, that's just it, though.

I have, on occasion, seen things happen that didn't make logical sense. One I posted here that sticks with me is a music box that would always start playing - even when not wound up - when the lights went off. Turn them on, it stopped. Turn them off, back on again. Freaked the hell out of me as a JW. Now, it wouldn't alarm me in the least (don't believe in demons), but I would be curious.

I don't doubt that their is a spirit element to the world - I'm quite sure of it. Hence, why I call myself 'pagan' rather than 'atheist'. I KNOW there are things beyond our experience in the world.

I guess what I was fishing for is the thoughts of people who believe we can interact with them in a meaningful way. The JWs taught that it was possible, but for entirely wrong reasons and with entirely wrong understanding of what was happening (they believed you were talking to demons, whose sole purpose was to lead you away from their religion. Well, that's obviously wrong....). Witches believe it is possible, but with entirely opposite meaning (and varied - many teachings site the power coming from different sources).

I see all the prayers I did growing up, and realize that they had no effect at all! Not through some internal focus allowing me to accomplish things, or some divine intervention - but prayer really had absolutely no effect at all of any kind. I mean, the only prayers I made that 'worked' were things like "Please guide me to being baptized" or "Please let me have the courage to do this talk good" (oh, c'mon, you all have done that one! And tried to make it all holy and 'for the good of the congregation' instead of just selfish 'LET ME SURVIVE'). And every one NOT in those veins failed. So, what conclusion can one draw from this?

At Samhain I saw a little girl in spirit. She was holding onto her mothers arm....

And that's the point of my original post.

As a JW, I would always hear tales of prayers that WORKED. Oh, they happened on the time. Somebody prayed for a donation from a stranger to get through the month, and sure enough, it appeared on their doorstep - EXACTLY what they needed! Or, someone is in the market for a new car, and they pray that if they find one of this exact value, they'll buy it! And, sure enough, the next day they go shopping and a car is on the lot - having JUST been marked down that morning to the exact value they prayed for - TO THE PENNY!

Etc.

It sounds silly, but I really wanted (as a JW) to have the success with prayer these people did. I'd even go so far as to ask elders who had these experiences to pray FOR me and WITH me so I could see the results of their prayers!

Needless to say, any such experience I was a part of always yielded nothing. No deals that were, to the penny, what I prayed for. No help from mysterious sources when it was needed.

That's kind of the thought I was submitting for discussion with my post. I WANT to believe, but, because of the experience with JWs, I just can't.

Your experience is a good example - I've heard things like that before! Several times, from several people. My mother (a witch before she became a JW) even claimed similar things happened. (She claimed, retrospectively, of course, that it was demons she was seeing). Problem is, maybe just because of my negative experiences with JWs, I can't believe anything like that.

I want to, certainly. But I just can't bring myself to believe anybody else's experiences any more. I NEED to see something for myself.

In short, *I* do wish I could believe.

Anyway, I thought it would be an interesting point of discussion.

16

Do you sometimes wish you could believe?

by Xander in

jw
friends

idle thought for the moment.

i consider myself pagan - mostly because of the earth-friendly orientation of the 'religion'.

i tend to feel some forces guide us, but not in a christian way - to no real purpose or divine goal.

Xander

You know, a good cure for those feelings is to watch a movie based on a real life person who ,by their own determination and "power" make things happen for good. I think prayer was really just a form of meditation at times, but I did feel ashamed if I fell asleep while saying mine, hehe.

Problem with all such movies I've seen to date are either:

1) There are heavy religious undertones. IE., this person accomplished something great for themselves, but god and jesus were there with them.

2) The amount of dumb luck involved is too staggering to believe. I understand much is generally added for 'dramatic' purposes - but it just makes it seem fake.

3) Finally, the person is portrayed as 'bigger than life'. Again, this is the 'dramatic license' thing, but it tends to present bigger than life issue that the person keeps beating - problems that a 'normal' person, regardless of motivation, would fail at, but the hero of the movie always succeeeds brilliantly.

Honestly, I feel movies based on this topic are rarely tolerable - it's probably just that it's a bad media to tell these kind of tales in. Movies tend to feel compelled to exhaggerate events - to try and 'tell an interesting story'.

I often ask myself if I was better off as a JW, living with all those untruths, maybe more secure, and I always come back to the same answer

Well, of course not. I know THAT. I'm quite convinced the JWs are completely wrong on their interpretation of...well...everything.

But does that mean that just because their interpretation of supernatural events was wrong, that nothing supernatural exists? Witches would disagree with that, and my own experience would incline me to agree with them.

But, still....I haven't seen anybody demonstrate conclusive CONTROL over anything supernatural as much they proclaim they can.