Four Months Later

Well, things have definitely been eventful over the last four months.  We have moved to a new town.  We have a new house (much smaller).  I have sold my corporation.  We own all our vehicles. I was made the Elgin Ward Mission Leader.  I have finished two plays - all seven of us were in A Christmas Carol.   I have 10 new board games.  (Go Grik and RFTG.)  I have started two new businesses- www.futurepositive.freelife.com, and Sam the Computer Medic. Rachel is getting really happy and healthy.  I am the proud owner of a Blackberry Storm and will never mind getting voice mails again.  The kids have become four months cuter, and we finished the Book of Mormon as a family last night.

Congrats to all those who took place in the Great-unjudged-limerick-contest; you are all winners. 

Super-Limerick Contest

These must be written in the same day the blog was read to qualify. Contest will run until September, 30th. Judging will be done by a board of qualified limerick professionals. The winner will have his or her limerick posted as the Blog-of-the-day on a nationally syndicated blog. Following is a sample limerick. All posts must be better than this shabby limerick if posters don't want them deleted by the uber-moderator. *Keep these PG or G.

There once was a contest for bloggers,
who wanted to all become loggers.
they went into the trees,
they came out begging please,
and ran straight back home to compuggers.

Standing There Buck-Naked.

A friend told me about a blogger that makes $40,000/month. It wasn't too difficult to track her down. (With the help of Google.) I've followed it the last two weeks in my Reader, and I've discovered why it's so successful - she has sold herself and bares it all to the world. Today she talked about her daughter saying whatever she wants in public. The blogger...

*Side Note: I just bested THE FLY. Over these last three weeks, we've had a solitary fly doing kamikaze attacks to our heads, hands, and faces at all hours. Protected by a mithril shield and armor and blessed by Norse gods with lightning speed, THE FLY has prevailed. However, while writing this blog I just caught him one-handed, alive. I decided that being such a worthy opponent he should live (after all, how many flies are blessed by mythic gods and wear armor?). I took him outside and let him go. (Okay, I did give him a slight victory shake - kind of like playing a single bean maraca.)

So on with the blogger person. She said that life would be so easy if people could say whatever they wanted in public, and how difficult it is having to hold in all the bad thoughts in her head while in public. Yet she gets home and blogs to millions about the same thoughts she wanted to but couldn't say in public. Is there a difference?

She speaks her mind. She is cross, foul-mouthed, and calloused. But she sells. I guess as a blogger I have to find the place between talking over the wall and standing in public buck-naked.

Not Complete Alone

Well, I started blogging and I have realized an important discovery. I work better with an audience. (Okay, not an earth-shaking discovery.) While writing these past few days, I searched for things to talk/write about and found it difficult to really be myself. Then something magic happened: I received a comment. Immediately the dormant part of my brain woke up and I voiced my opinion in a tone that I didn't have to force. So, now I just have to write about things that people want to talk about so that I can gain an audience and can be myself. Kind of cart-before-the-horse thinking.

On our drive north to the matinee performance of "The Sound of Music," my wife and I were discussing this phenomenon. She expresses herself best in a closet. I need an audience. I feel people consider me an extrovert, but at the end of the day I am not. I try to think that I don't need the acceptance of others, but really I do. Where Rachel, who openly waits for others before she does her thing, is completely complete alone. I, like everyone, just need to belong, and I take far more stock in others' opinions, high or low, than I probably should.

The Rub.

Not having an audience is only the first half of the equation. I have read blogs, forums, message boards and the like since I first got on the internet in 1996. I have written maybe 20 posts in that time. I think that makes me an uber-lurker! I consider myself a writer, but it is hard for me to bear myself to the collective. Here it is, twelve years later and I have written my first three blog topics and feel I am already on the wrong proverbial road; and for someone whose site is based on proverbial proverbs, that's not good. Don't misunderstand me. I do realize that I don't have people reading my blog, but a person knows when they are not singing their own song. I have only ever written a couple of journal pages for this same reason: I think too much about the people who might read it. I fear the disapproval of others. My first three posts have been safe topics - politics and philosophy.

The Verdict.

I need to write about things that are meaningful and personal and not worry what others think. That sure is easier to type than to do.

Interview with God

"She's never let us down, doing things when she strives to do it," says Chuck Heath, father of Gov. Sarah Palin. My readings today took me to our current political landscape, a landscape strewn with verbal landmines. Both sides are guilty, and both sides hope the verbal claymores will tear their opponents' masks away to reveal monsters. The more I read about the faults of Sarah Palin, the more inspired I feel.

It's been a long time since I was inspired by anyone in our current media, but there is one scenario that gets me every time - the person who, through perseverance and opposition, becomes great. Learning about Palin, I have found that she is just ordinary, with extraordinary drive. I think that all of us can sympathize with ordinary, and all of us have the desire to be great - at something. Heath said, "If she didn't have a certain ability, she worked and worked and worked until she obtained that ability or skill." That's what I want from a leader. Someone who can teach me how to be better. I don't care so much about all the ever-shifting tides of change. There will always be money swinging back and forth. There will always be people trying to figure out the most efficient ways to tax, spend, earn, kill, defend, etc. But I want someone who can show me how to become the greatest version of myself, someone who takes the hard road. An ordinary person, who chooses to learn greatness and hopefully to teach greatness.

When we die, our interview with God will be who we are and the choices we made to get there. Not how much money we made or what car we drove. If having Palin as a vice president reminds me that I can be a better version of myself, then I immediately see the changes that can be made over the next four years - a better me.

All Democrats Hate Women

The Large Hadron Collider was built to try and prove that 'god particles' exist and the scientists working on the project are trying to recreate the moments just prior to the Big Bang. Since when did the Big Bang become hard science? They spent seven billion dollars (so far) and they are trying to prove a theory with the data they collect. Here we are, at the most advanced state of our existence and we think that we can collide sub-nuclear particles at each other and see what they are doing? Come on, we can't even count a hanging chad accurately. We can't find Osama. Men can't see when a girl likes them. How can they tell what a quark is doing? Oh yeah, they are trying to determine if those exist with this experiment. We have over 50 different versions of the English Bible. People constantly take the same data and get thousands of different opinions or results. Now don't get me wrong, I am all about the scientific process. I love the advances that happen when people ask the impossible questions and get the wrong answers and then have to figure out what the question to the answer should have been. That's progress. Science would like to call it evolution. A religious person can say they have faith and the world calls them fanatical. A person of science can say they have a theory and their ideas are printed into our public schools as fact. I don't mind people having their opinion. I have mine (plenty o' 'em), but let me have them. Don't tell me that because you have an idea, it becomes truth. And don't call me closed-minded when I think you're wrong.

It reminds me of our current election. I watched with my own one eye a news channel talking about Obama. They were quoting a NewsWeek article stating "if America doesn't vote for Obama then we are all racist and it's a step backwards." (paraphrased) That "when handed a perfect opportunity to put the worst part of our history behind us, we chose not to." Come on. That's absurd. I guess then that by their own logic, all Democrats hate women! After all, they picked a black man over a white woman, so it's their choice; they either hate women or they picked him because he is black. If that is the case, Democrats hate whites. Which one is it? They can't have it both ways, but they sure try hard to. I read lots of articles, voiced by angry people all saying the same thing.

The other part of this statement that really bothers me is that the Democrats and the media are actually asserting that we should vote Obama to show that America is done with hating blacks. Come on, some of my closest friends growing up were black, and my wife has baby-sat black kids for years and years. I don't think that I should have to vote for a token black man to prove that I don't hate. I think the actions that I take every day, the associations that I choose to make and the values that I bear show that. I think this election should be reserved for who will lead our country the best. This election is to vote for our new leader. If looks are first on your list - stick to pageants.

Since ballads are historically based on religion and politics (and other important ideas), I guess you know now where that part of the blog's title came from. (It didn't hurt any that it rhymes with 'salad.') I intend to use this blog as a voice to herald to the nations. The more people that read this blog, I hope people's eyes will be opened, and if not opened then reminded of things that we should care about. The imbalance in the world is huge. The media is ruled by the left, but the internet is still free. Right now the squeaky wheel is getting all the attention. Instead of just watching and looking, maybe we can start to all squeak together so that the left's incredible drone and ridiculous din will be overpowered by music. For now I will start to play this single harp and hope it's heard.

Word Salad

Good style and technique practice trying the surface seemed tales. Ever qualified they all the work learned with general the used inducing time.

I have been reading some case histories of Milton Erickson and one of the cases inspired me to use the name Word Salad. That name being taken, I tried Salad Word Salad for a while. I originally posted this there, but then changed to the already famous blog title: Word Salad Ballad. I will reveal through the course of this blog more of the why and share some of the exciting things on the horizon. Both my horizon and the worlds. Let's start first with our eminent demise. Doodle Scoot.

Three words, that sound like word salad: Large Hadron Collider. After reading about it I received an email from my brother with this article.

I love where "Rees calculated that the probability of the Large Hadron Collider to produce a global catastrophe or black hole is 1 in 50 million." That's amazing. We have better odds of all being sucked into a man made black hole than we do of winning the US or Australian Power Ball.

I don't know whether to buy a ticket or build a black-hole-impervious-bunker. Either way the protons are ramping up to the speed-of-light and we should all hold our breath until Oct 21st (when the first protons collide). After all, with odds that good, even Captain Kirk would worry.