It is better to be a liberator than it is to be a conqueror.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
BEING BIPOLAR: Video Log 7 - God, Happiness, Yoda, ATLAS SHRUGGED, Weird Al, and Charlie Sheen
And I hope to have Part 6 of Being Bipolar up by the weekend :-)
Monday, March 07, 2011
Popcorn Sutton moonshine still for sale on eBay!
For $20,000 you could be the proud owner of this authentic moonshine still designed, built and no doubt USED by Popcorn Sutton for the brewing of his famous likker!
Here's the link to the item's eBay page. And here's the official description...
Up for sale is a genuine Copper Moonshine Still that was used by the legendary Popcorn Sutton of the appalachians. This item is being sold for historical purposes only, not for actual use. This still is 45-50 years old and has a 110 gallon pot!Rare and collectible, indeed!! I would love to own this... or anything that was the handiwork of Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton: a character who was truly an American original.Any additional questions please call about this rare and highly collectible item.
Tip o' the hat to Eric Smith for an awesome find!!
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Gasoline now $3.45 in most places here
"Here" being Reidsville, North Carolina and the surrounding area.
It will likely hit $4 per gallon or thereabouts by the end of the week. And this month might end with it averaging $5 a gallon, depending on how the situation in Libya goes.
I haven't said anything about Libya yet on this blog. But for those who are curious: I don't see any good outcome. Kadaffi (or however you spell his name and I've heard there are about a hundred English translations) is a nutcase and a half enforcing his private little fantasy world with lots of guns and missiles and probably chemical weapons... but if he goes down in what can only be called civil war at this point, look for the Muslim Brotherhood-type that we just saw running the show in the Egyptian revolt to take charge.
And then things start to get interesting.
(I would also - not to put too fine a point on it - advise keeping an eye on Saudi Arabia in the near future.)
Two other factors that are ramping-up the price of fuel: the official stance by the executive branch of the United States federal government to disprove of increased deep-water drilling. And, something that I've talked about a few times already on this blog: that this country needs more oil refineries. That is more a bottleneck than most people realize, but there haven't been any new refineries built in quite some time. Without that, whatever increased petroleum production we might have becomes a moot thing.
I'm due to take a trip early next month. It'll be a long drive. Here's hoping that the pumps between here and yonder won't be seven bucks and change. The way things are going now, I wouldn't doubt it.
Friday, March 04, 2011
What a night
In the six hours or so since that previous post...
...I feel like I have grown more as a person than, I probably have in, well... a very long time. Emphasis on "very".
And with the sun rising on this new day...
...I am finding myself thankful to God, that however He allowed my mind to be, that He did bless me with a wonderful mind.
And now I am going to keep on doing what I have always done: doing my best to make the most of it.
To put it in some perspective: it's been, ohhh... about twenty years since I've had a moment like this.
(And no, the previous post has nothing to do with it...)
Sources at this late hour...
...are telling me that this blog - yes, this one - is "about to bust wide open". Apparently, in a way that's not bad, for once.
That is all.
Guess I should dust off the welcome mat again, huh?
Thursday, March 03, 2011
E.T. phones home and dials down destruction on Earth!
Very, very disturbing (yet funny) trend I've caught lately happening on the Intertubes. Some clever chaps are taking 1982's beloved film E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and giving it the Frank Miller/The Dark Knight Returns treatment. Namely, producing faux trailers for grim, dark sequels to E.T.
And so far I've found two of these pieces of work!
This first one splices together footage from E.T. with another Steven Spielberg movie, War of the Worlds. Here is E.T. Returns...
Not bad! I like how it takes Tom Cruise's character from War of the Worlds and turns him into the older Elliot.
But the trailer for E.T.-X, made with overwhelmingly original footage, is so crazy insanely ludicrously... AHHHH just see for yourself! If E.T. didn't scare you at the theater before, it sure will now!
Michael Bay should team up with Spielberg and make that 'un after he finishes this next Transformers movie. I would pay just to see the bad E.T.'s crush the Jonas Brothers :-P
A church that requires faith to enter
This is an Orthodox chapel near the city of Chiatura in the former Soviet state of Georgia...
Oh yes, you can go in... but first you have the climb a rickety, rusty metal ladder up a 130-feet tall column of rock. The building atop the column was constructed sometime between the sixth and eighth centuries and is thought to have at first been a pagan temple (the rock being ummmm... symbolic of "fertility", parse that as you will).
The Orthodox churches credit their founding to the apostle Andrew, who journeyed to the region following the ascension of Christ. With the conversion of the pagans, the temple became a Christian chapel. Today it is being restored and is even the home of an Orthodox priest.
My brain feels staggered just looking at the photo of this thing. Just... wow.
Click here to learn more about the chapel at Chiatura, including a photo of the interior containing some beautiful icons.
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Three people have asked me about Charlie Sheen and bipolar disorder
Perhaps that's been prompted by (A) Charlie Sheen's out-of-control antics during the past 72 hours and (B) the "Being Bipolar" series that I recently started on this blog about my own experiences and struggles with bipolar.
And now it's being asked aloud by a lot of bigger news outlets.
I'm not too "hip" about things on the celebrity scene. In fact, the last thing that I would ever want to be called is a "celebrity". I am a character. My life is filled with lots of other characters (though more than a few are what pop culture would call "celebrities"). Charlie Sheen's behavior exemplifies why I don't want to be known as a celebrity.
But the more I've looked into his peculiar case, the more I am finding myself also wondering - not a professional psychiatrist, mind ya: I'm just a guy who has the condition himself - if Mr. Sheen might have this illness.
Because, I see a lot of myself during my worst manic episodes in Mr. Sheen's bizarre activity.
And if it's bipolar disorder, then I genuinely feel sorry for the man. Because I know what that's like. And as I've said before, it's not something that I would ever wish on someone else. Not even my worst enemies.
A person in this condition needs help. More than he or she could possibly realize it on their own. I certainly didn't understand how much I needed it. It took a hard crash to get me stabilized and even then, it was two years before I finally came to my senses enough to comprehend what bipolar did to me and my loved ones.
Mr. Sheen, I don't know if you'll ever read this. But if you do, from a person who does have bipolar disorder and is learning to live with it and have a much more productive life than I've ever been able to have before: Dude, you're in a bad place. And you can't get out of it on your own. You need help. If not for yourself then, think of your beautiful little twin boys. They need you to be the most you can be. Bipolar disorder robs a person of that. You don't deserve to have that stolen from you any more than anyone else does.
And if Mr. Sheen is still doing drugs, well... I can't express enough how much he needs to get off that crap. Heck, I don't drink and I've never done recreational drugs: there's been nothing to chemically multiply the effects of bipolar... but even so, without that bipolar is still hell to deal with.
Charlie, man, if you've got bipolar disorder, get help and get cleaned up. You got too much of a good life that God has blessed you with and you gotta start being appreciative of that.
Darn you Steve Jobs!
My plans have been thrown afoul... because now I'll have to be here next Friday afternoon to place my order for the iPad 2 on Apple's website.
(Mash here for one of Engadget's myriad of articles about the product's unveiling today.)
I didn't get an iPad last year, but I fell in love enough with the simplicity of the design that... I knew this was on my short-list of "things I never knew I needed" and ought to have. For more than a decade people have given me funny looks when I have to tell them that I've never had a laptop computer. I just don't like how they're made: too much that can get broken easily. The iPad is different. And iPad 2 has enough bells and whistles on it to have me break down to get one now.
'Course, word on the street is that iPad 3 might be coming out around September. Not feeling terribly obligated to wait to see what it may (or may not) have on it. I just care about what can help me be productive now... and since I'm looking at a fair bit of traveling coming soon, the iPad is gonna make a fine tool to that end.
Besides, if iPad 3 is lustworthy enough, I can just give my iPad 2 to my sister :-)
On another note, Steve Jobs looks great!! Glad to see that his health is apparently improving well :-)
EDIT 8:50 p.m. EST: So my sister has since told me "I don't see what's so great about them!" and that she doesn't care to have an iPad at all.
Well, phooey on her!! I'll tell you what I might do, gang: come September or October, if there is an iPad 3 out and I wind up getting that, we may just have a contest on this blog and give away the iPad 2.
Or I could get two iPad 2s soon and run a contest and give one of those away, brand-new.
Hey, you never know what is going to happen on this blog :-P
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
What I'm about to say has nothing at all to do with "religion"
Christ is the only path toward finding God.
But, there are many paths toward finding Christ.
Who am I, then, to say that how another another has found Christ is inadequate or even "wrong"? Who are any of us to demand that we have found the "one true" way of discovering Christ, to the exclusion of all others?
It would only seem to most matter that Christ is found at all. And He will be found, by those who seek Him... whether they are even conscious of their desire or not. In the end, God will know who belongs to Him. That is something that is not left to any of us in this temporal realm.
Seek after Christ, as best you understand Him, if you have found Him. For those who seek Him still, pray for them and for God's glory without regard to your own sake.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Frank Buckles, the last surviving United States veteran of World War I, has passed away
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
-- Lieutenant Colonel John McRae,Canadian Armywritten near Ypres, BelgiumMay 3, 1915
The dawn of this day will see the Great War has finally passed from any American's living memory...
Think about that: Buckles grew up talking with Civil War veterans. And those veterans in turn, did grow up hearing stories from those who fought in the American Revolution.
Frank Buckles was the last link to a past that belongs now only to history books and secondary source material.
I pray we have not forgotten what those who came before have done for us, what they have taught us, what they have given us.
Frank Buckles, 1917
Frank Buckles, the last living "doughboy" who volunteered to serve in the United States Army during World War I, has died.
Buckles was born in 1901. He turned 110 on the first of this month. He was 16 when he pestered his way (literally) into getting an Army recruiter to take him (Buckles also lied about his age and claimed to be 18).
He never saw combat, but he was proud of the fact that he tried to do his part on the front lines. And history wasn't done with him after the armistice was signed: during World War II Buckles was doing business in the Philippines when he was captured by the Japanese. He was a prisoner of war for three years.
Nearly 5 million people enlisted in the U.S. military from 1917 to 1918.
And now, as of this hour, they have all gone.
The last surviving Canadian soldier from World War I, John Babcock, passed away a year ago. Two British soldiers remain with us: Claude Choules and Florence Green. There are no surviving French or German soldiers.
Frank Buckles, 2010
Mr. Buckles, more people than you could have ever imagined, have held you in highest honor. This morning, they are none the fewer.
Rest in peace, and go with God. You have done well.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Be thankful
My dear readers,
I was told that Tim Scales was at a meeting of the school board on Friday night. Everyone that I've spoken to said that he was, as always, full of cheer and good humor and... just full of life.
And then, yesterday morning at the Food Lion that he worked at, he collapsed and died. One member of the board tonight said that everyone is still in deep shock about Tim's passing.
People, I have asked you for prayer recently. I thank you for that. But tonight, I want to ask something else of you...
Whatever you have, whoever you have in your life, whatever blessings God has given you: Please, be thankful for them.
Don't stop being thankful. And if you've never told a person that you are thankful for him or her being in your life... well, what are you waiting for?? DO IT!!
Tonight I am thankful for having come to know Tim Scales. I am thankful for Mom and Dad. I am thankful for Chad and Ed and Eric and Steven and Michelle and Ashton and Jenna and Ashley and James and Brian and Bethany and... well, a lot of people that I want to be given opportunity to look them in the eye and say:
"Hey, I'm thankful for you."
Life is too short. Too short to be anything but grateful and appreciate what God has blessed each of us with.
To those that I don't see much of anymore: I am thankful for you too. And, I pray that I can see you again and tell you that. Because you deserve to hear it if only from one person.
Thank you.
Tim Scales has passed away
This community has lost a respected and admired leader... and a friend to many.
The sad word came late last night that Tim Scales, Vice-Chairman of the Rockingham County Schools system here in North Carolina, passed away yesterday morning. He had served on the board since 2000, and had been representing District 6 in the western part of the county.
Can't express how torn up I'm feeling since yesterday.
Tim was... well, whenever I've thought of him, I've most especially remembered his exuberant smile and hearty disposition the very first time that we met. It was in August of 2006: the early days of that wacky school board election. I went to a meeting of the school board - figuring that if I was going to run for a seat on it that I'd better get watch and observe as much as I could.
Tim and I met after the meeting, and we had a terrific conversation on the steps outside the system's main office. Tim had this... this sparkle in his eyes, that bespoke his enthusiasm for education.
I decided that night that if I got elected, that this was a gentleman that I could learn a lot from.
Tim was an exceptional advocate for the schools. A few minutes with him were more than enough to convince you: this was a man who absolutely have the children's best interests at heart.
There were some issues that, we didn't see totally eye to eye on. But you know: Tim was a person you could definitely trust, that he cared for the students, the teachers, the schools, and the parents. His was an eager ear to listen and seek understanding from all.
I know of no finer compliment than to say this about my friend Tim Scales: he was a statesman, through and through.
Here's the story on WGHP Fox 8's website about Tim's passing. And the school system has put up a page on its website where friends can leave condolences and notes of remembrance.
Thoughts and prayers going out to Tim's family tonight. He will be missed.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
BEING BIPOLAR: Trying to make amends
I don't care what this looks like. This is something that I need to do.
I am coming to realize that, during the span of my life I did hurt a lot of people. And even though those were times when I was suffering episodes of my bipolar mania, I still have to own up to all of it.
I am counting on this blog being read by many who have been in my life over the years. No, I don't know who you are or where you are. But since two people from my past have contacted me in the past week, I am hoping that there are others out there also, who I have sadly lost contact with in one way or another.
So I plead with anyone reading this, who I have wronged even though I never meant to or wanted to...
Please write to me at theknightshift@gmail.com and tell me what I did wrong, and how I can make it right.
Thank you.
