The Life and Times of Jim
Hi, there. I'm Jim. Welcome to my phlog!
This site was written for Las Vegas, then LouisVille. Now, it seems to be about anywhere. In these phlogs, you'll see a lot of my personal notes and pictures. I like to post my observations here to remember life and celebrate it. I'm not religious. I don't pray for good fortune. I'm ecstatically grateful for the gift of life and I think our time should be remembered and not taken for granted. I'm not a writer. I think pictures tell stories so much better than words. I love just about everything in this life, and, I guess that would have to include you. So, if you've seen me, don't be surprised if your picture is in here somewhere. Of all the critters, people are absolutely the most interesting. 
<< 03/2006 < 02/2007 Calendar 04/2007 > 03/2008 >>Sign InView Other Logs
Sat 
03/17/2007 19:00:00
 Jim  St Patricks in Henderson
Dustin, Jennifer, Sonny, Becky and I all went to Henderson.
I'd dropped them off because it looked like there was going to be absolutely no place to park.
I was right. I had to park about a mile away.
ANYWAYS, Becky's cellphone somehow got set to vibrate mode, so I had to hunt them down.
I found them by walking with the parade! That was pretty cool.
The parade was, soso. Zelzah was there.
Later, we smoked some shiskabobs. They were pretty good.
Tue 
03/13/2007 23:38:25
 jim  Great minds share the same question
Why does the universe exist at all?
Its obvious the universe has a purpose. Everything seems to have a purpose. God does not roll the dice.
The universe has reason. Nothing is random.
They all seem to believe in god, but they shun people who define god in their own image, as I do.
I have these few quotations of my own.
- A blade of grass has more technology than anything man has created.
- When someone tells you the saw one of god's miracles, they almost right.
   The miracle was that they can see. 
- Walking on water is no more of a miracle than building the pyramids, and less of a miracle than giving birth.
   But if that is what it takes to get someone one to do good, let them be.
- Preachers and politians have much in common.
   Except for the true believers, their true agenda is pleasure, power, or property.
- A truly intelligent person will question everything they hear and read.
- The least technologically capable, talk the most technical talk.
- By feeding people who are starving because their they've let their population exceed their food supply,
   you may save 100 people just to doom the next 1,000 babies.
- Of all human behaviors, eating meat is probably the most disgusting.
- We owe water for tommorrow, we owe food for the month, we owe plants for the century,
   we owe the earth for our everything. We are here because it wants us to be here.
- The fertilized egg that created us, is more intelligent than its creation.
Tue 
03/13/2007 19:16:11
 jim  Aristotle One Liners
  • Friends
  • A friend to all is a friend to none.
  • A man who has many friends, probably has none.
  • Love is when two bodies share the same soul.
  • Friendship is essentially a partnership.
  • Hope is the dream of a waking man.
  • A great city and a big city, are two different things.
  • Man's Nature
  • Man is by nature a political animal.
  • Great men always surface from depression.
  • All men, by nature, desire to know.
  • Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.
  • Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.
  • Bad men are full of repentance.
  • Man may be the noblest of all animals, but without law and justice he is the worst.
  • God and Religion
  • Men create gods in their own image, in their own form, and in their own mode of life.
  • Politics
  • Tyrants usually claim an uncommon devotion to religion.
  • People will suffer illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing.
  • People are not likely to move against a ruler if they believe god is on his side.
  • Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
  • Democracy is the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects.
  • Democracy believes that because men are equally free, they are equal.
  • Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
  • Democracy gives the poor more power than the rich, because they will always be the majority.
  • Liberty and equality will be best attained when all people share in government.
  • One should do without being commanded, what others do only from fear of the law.
  • Republics decline into democracies. Democracies decline into tyranny.
  • Nature
  • All actions are caused by one or more of these: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
  • Great ideas make their appearance in the world many times.
  • Change in all things is sweet.
  • If one way is better than another, it is nature's way.
  • There is something marvelous in all of nature creations.
  • Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
    Work
  • Beauty is always better than a letter of reference.
  • All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
  • Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
  • All virtue is summed up by dealing justly.
  • Anybody can become angry - that is easy.
  • Quality is not an act, it is a habit.
  • Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit.
  • Youth
  • Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.
  • Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.
    Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
  • Education
  • Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
  • Education is the best provision for old age.
  • It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
  • Emotions
  • Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.
  • Fear is anticipation of pain before it exists.
  • Happiness depends on ones point of view.
  • With beauty and poverty, comes suffering.
  • Fighting
  • A man who conquers his desires is braver than a man who conquers his enemies.
  • The hardest victories are fought within one's self.
  • Women are almost always better off showing more affection than she feels.
  • In poverty, old age and misfortune, true friends are the surest refuge.
  • Misfortune shows us who our true friends.
  • It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.
  • It is unbecoming for the young to speak of truth.
  • We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
  • Most people would rather get than get affection.
  • Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
  • My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
  • Nature does nothing uselessly.
  • Nobody is exempt from some mixture of madness.
  • No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
  • No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.
  • It is not possible to love someone you fear.
  • No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world.
  • Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.
  • Beauty is always better than a letter of reference.
  • Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.
  • Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
  • Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself.
  • A Politicians nature is to seek power, glory, or happiness.
  • Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
  • That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing.
  • The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
  • The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.
  • The appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls and thirty-seven for men.
  • The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
  • The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
  • The end of labor is to gain leisure.
  • The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
  • The gods too are fond of a joke.
  • The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
  • The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.
  • The law is reason, free from passion.
  • The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
  • The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.
  • The more thou dost advance, the more thy feet pitfalls will meet. The Path that leadeth on is lighted by one fire- the light of daring burning in the heart. The more one dares, the more he shall obtain. The more he fears, the more that light shall pale - and that alone can guide.
  • The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.
  • The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
  • The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
  • The secret to humor is surprise.
  • The soul never thinks without a picture.
  • The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.
  • The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
  • The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
  • The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.
  • The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
  • There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.
  • There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
  • Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.
  • This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that they are their own.
  • Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.
  • Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.
  • Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.
  • Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.
  • To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.
  • To the query, ''What is a friend?'' his reply was ''A single soul dwelling in two bodies.''
  • Tragedy is thus a representation of an action that is worth serious attention, complete in itself and of some amplitude... by means of pity and fear bringing about the purgation of such emotions.
  • We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action. We make war that we may live in peace.
  • We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.
  • We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.
  • Well begun is half done.
  • What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
  • What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.
  • Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
  • Wit is educated insolence.
  • Tue 
    03/13/2007 14:18:44
     jim  One Liners from Stephen Hawking
  • My goal is simple: to understand the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
  • I haven't known any mathematicians who could reason
  • Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?
  • I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.
  • Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
  • It is not clear if intelligence has any long-term survival value.
  • Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.
  • Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would half the sales.
  • Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?
  • Events do not happen in an arbitrary manner. They seem to reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.
  • There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end of the search for the ultimate laws of nature.
  • To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.
  • We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.
  • Tue 
    03/13/2007 08:44:20
     jim  The One Liners from Einstein
  • I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.
  • Few are those who see with their own eyes, and feel with their own hearts.
  • Genius has always encountered violent opposition from idiots.
  • Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
  • Equations live forever. Politics live for the moment.
  • I do not know what weapons World War 3 will be fought with, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.
  • Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18
  • Ethical behavior should not be governed by the fear of punishment or hope of reward after death. It should be based on sympathy, education, and social ties.
  • Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
  • God does not play dice with the universe
  • When the solution is simple, God is answering.
  • When we face the world as free beings; admiring, asking and observing, we enter the realm of Art and Science.
  • Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love.
  • Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour.
    Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That is relativity.
  • Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.  
  • Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
  • Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.
  • Peace is achieved through understanding, not by violence.
  • Mon 
    03/12/2007 16:30:52
     jim  Corporate Taxes
    Ry Smith 5pm
    Mon 
    03/12/2007 12:25:22
     jim  Rocky XXXIV?
    Is Sylvester Stallone on HGH?
    SYDNEY (AFP) - Hollywood muscleman Sylvester Stallone will be charged by customs in Australia on Tuesday.At the time, customs officers said banned items -- reportedly bodybuilding drugs or human growth hormones -- were found in the Stallone party's luggage. Stallone is now 60.
    I've read about Human Growth Hormones over the last decade.
    A lot of people believe HGH is the fountain of youth. I've been wondering who is taking them, how they look and if they work. Maybe our great grandchildren we'll know for sure after Stallone turns 180 after starring in Rocky XXXIV.
    Mon 
    03/12/2007 11:48:16
     jim  Our fruitless mulberry trees are exploding
    About twice every minute, a bud seems to explode into a puff of smoke in our back yard.
    This is going to be one heck of a sneezy season.
    YYYYAAAAAACHHHOOOOOO!!!
    Mon 
    03/12/2007 11:11:13
     jim  Death is too profitable.
    The cost of the Iraq war is expected to top $2,000,000,000,000 (two trillion dollars).
    That would add up to $250 for every human being alive on this planet today.
    Two trillion is a lot to spend on Iraq. The whole country that is smaller than Texas.
    They are estimating 32,000 Americans have died in Iraq.
    The way I understand it, we blow up the hospitals, then hire our buddies to rebuild them.
    If that wasn't the intent, it is the result. Speaking of Texas, that is where a lot of the money ends up.
    With the (mis?)information on the internet, that is more than easy to figure out.
    Death and profits, thats the worst kind of business!
    I would believe that fuel emissions will choke the life out of this planet in 20 years, anyway.
    I've been across the country several times in the last decade. THE AIR IS WORSE! You can see it.
    Gas engine technology is ancient.
    The first self-powered vehicles ran on water.
    There is little interest in actually improving resource conservation.
    The governor of Nevada wants to burn coal! yikesssss!
    Our new governor described coal as a non fossil fuel and he wants to truck it in and process it here. Why?
    But this state has an abundance of solar power.
    In a second, I would reason that harnessing steam power of underwater volcanos would be extremely efficient.
    But we are not going to use solar power.
    We are going to burn fossil fuels even if it kills us, and it will.
    The world won't be a better place, until we totally eliminate inheritance.
    Everyone should contribute to improving the quality of life as a whole.
    No one should be born into a life barking out commands to adults born on the wrong side of the tracks.
    We need to learn to share.
    The kings and slaves of the past are still here, we just call them the rich and the middle class.
    Once we get past the master / slave mentality, we'll stand a chance to coexist with nature.
    There is a great need for greed.
    But I don't believe one child should kill another because he wants their toys.
    Our society's greed is based on personal possessions.
    To our kind, it is the quality of our life, and damn everyone else.
    Mon 
    03/12/2007 10:46:28
     jim  My Last Will
    I am giving Sonny the properties and the truck. I'm giving Becky some money, and the car.
    In the event, Sonny is not around, I would like Paul Spurling to be my executor, it should be extremely simple. 
    If he declines, Becky will be my executor.
    I would like for my body to be donated to science. I do not want to be cremated. Thats would be a complete waste.
    I have had several wills. This last one, of course will supercede them all. They are stored in my files under legal.
    Time is running short for all of us.
    I am not a doomsayer. But, we have had two world wars last century. Our weapons technology hopefully will never surpass our wisdom. However, waging war seems to be more of a business decision than a moral one to the powers that be. I would be surprised if civilization makes it through this century. It is a matter of time before some incredible bomb, bioweapon, or toxic substance is unleashed. The world has no shortage of stupidity.
    I won't live to see it the end of this civilization..
    At least, I hope not. My ex-wife, I would have thought , should have lived into her 70s. She's got months. I know my fuse is running short.
    I know the technology for artificial lungs, and artificial bodies (body closets) was created in the 1950's.
    The details should have been ironed out in 50 years. High school students should have been able to figure it out by now.
    - If you supply the head with what it needs, it should live 100s of years. It has been done.
    - If you bubble air through the blood, the blood will oxygenate. It has been done.
    But for greed, power, or presevation of the endowed, we'll probably never know who has access to it, or if it even exist.
    For whatever reason, preservation of life, any life, is not a priority to mankind. Life is easier to take than it is to preserve.
    Mon 
    03/12/2007 08:39:33
     jim  Dreaming of Absolute Zero...lol
    The ancient Romans envisioned the atom long before modern technology. How?
    In their dreams
    Most guys dream about girls, money and cars. For some reason, I dream about life. So here goes...
    I was dreaming about absolute zero, as if I were part of the substance being chilled.
    In my dream, everything was flying past me, starting slow at first, then speeding up until it reached blurring speeds.
    Time was happening so fast for everything, but me. Everything was glowing white and I was shrinking.
    On waking, I realized that, to everything in normal time, this matter appear to be falling apart and disappearing.
    In essence, it would become an unchanging substance. It would be another form of matter.
    Then I saw that this form of matter is everywhere.
    Its a form of matter that wants to attach itself to other matter, but can't.
    All other forms of matter are already in balance with energy. This matter would have no energy.
    And this is the interesting thing...this form of matter would remain stable throughout eternity.
    So, I began reading about absolute zero this morning.
    It lead to theories about zero-point energy. hmmm. That lead me to read about Albert Einstein's theories.
    It is nice to know these dreams and thoughts of mine aren't crazy. They are, in fact, incredibly sane.
    QUOTE-The slowing of atoms by use of cooling apparatuses produces a singular quantum state known as a Bose condensate or Bose–Einstein condensate. This phenomenon was predicted in 1925 by Albert Einstein, by generalizing Satyendra Nath Bose's work on the statistical mechanics of (massless) photons to (massive) atoms (The Einstein manuscript, believed to be lost, was found in a library at Leiden University in 2005). The result of the efforts of Bose and Einstein is the concept of a Bose gas, governed by the Bose–Einstein statistics, which describes the statistical distribution of identical particles with integer spin, now known as bosons. Bosonic particles, which include the photon as well as atoms such as helium-4, are allowed to share quantum states with each other. Einstein speculated that cooling bosonic atoms to a very low temperature would cause them to fall (or "condense") into the lowest accessible quantum state, resulting in a new form of matter
    Mon 
    03/12/2007 06:10:45
     jim  I’ve created a lot of interesting things.
    I've earned the right to be CrAzY...bwahahahah!
    - I'd came up with a system that I've proven will save 25% off the summer electric bill.
    That invention alone could save Las Vegans $75,000,000 A MONTH
    75,000,000=($300 utility bill x 1,000,000 Vegas homes * 25%).
    What's annoying is, I've told many people about it, and it doesn't even raise an eyebrow.
    THAT'S SO ANNOYING! That leads me to believe that I don't know the right people.
    The latest shift in daylight savings time was supposed to save an as yet, unquantified amount of energy.
    My device costs $60.
    Meanwhile, our new governer wants Nevada to burn Coal, which he claims is not a fossil fuel, which is insane.
    So, I'll go on creating things, in the dark.
    What have I done so far that was ahead of its time?
    In the 70's
    - I designed and created a big screen TV which consisted of a 40 inch lens in front of a color TV.
    It had a remote on and off switch. I hadn't seen anybody do that before.
    - My room lights would come on when you'd break an infrared beam by openning the door or stepping out of bed.
    - I built my first A/C unit in 1975.
    - I own a Cadillac and a Chrysler with a 007 style trunk in it. It had an air bed, stereo, tv, and a wine cooler.
    In the 80's
    - I finally could afford to go to college.
    - I'd made a paint stirrer that fits on a drill that's still better than anything you can buy.
    I made it from a coffee can, and I still have it.
    - Sonny and I came up with a design for a light that comes on when you walk into the room.
    That was 5 years before anything hit the shelves. It beat the heck out of Clap On, Clap Off.
    - I'd written systems that allowed clerks to do ALL of the operational procedures on main frames.
    It had intelligent menus for maintaining those systems. (I used a language called Exec).
    - I'd written 2 sports book systems from scratch, on a NCR mini, and a Tandy 2000 PC. Both, were doomed hardware.
    - I'd written systems to monitor Point-of-Sale machines, and ATM's at Bank of America (then Valley Bank).
    My programs did all of the INN switch routing for Valley Bank of Nevada.
    - Chris Fahey and I wrote a fee system for Valley Bank. It was the first of its kind in the US. We charged a fee to the customers at the ATM (you've seen our screen before). The bank got very rich, very quick. Bank of America bought them.
    In the 90's
    I just worked a lot!
    - I'd written probably the first interface between a Tandem and a CD player (for online Zip+4 address corrections).
    - I'd written probably the first interface on the Tandem to scan and display .JPGs from a pathway screen.
    - I've written programs that actually write other programs. I believe they are still in use for the Mirage properties.
    - I'd written program generators for 13 other consultants at Mgm.
    With them, what would normally take two days to code, took 10 minutes to generate.
    In the 2000's.
    - Sonny and I know how to build extremely cheap replacement lights for incandescent bulbs.
    - I built and tested a working Air Conditioner energy savings device. It worked great, but I don't know what to do with it.
    - I wrote LVDude. A web newspaper, where people could enter their own articles, and ads. It never took off.
    - I've written a Notary system in the last two months that just may be he best available in this country. I'm hoping I can handle the marketting myself. If not, it will be my last project.
    - I am going to build a boat that moves without rockets, or propellers. It will use inertia. It should cost $50 to build.
    What I fail miserably at is marketting.
    - Lvdude has the same stuff Craigs List has. It has the same stuff My Space has. I LVDude working first though.
    So I don't know what I'm doing. I create things in the dark. It seems nobody sees them. 
    I dropped development on it. I've never had the desire to spam people,  :( , so I lost.
    I still think the calculater under the Info drop down is one of the best around. It took one day to write.
    So, when I babble, its not BS. I have made my mark.
    But my marks are like all trees falling in a forest with noone around to hear them :)
    ** Smiles **
    Mon 
    03/12/2007 02:23:49
     jim  Opposites attract, don’t they?
    The theory is, as matter approaches the speed of light, almost an infinite amount of energy is required and time slows down.
    So, the opposite must be true for a complete absence of energy, eg: time speeds up, (or passed by) at an infinite rate.
    It could be surmised that if something were brought to a temperature of absolute zero, it would be frozen through an infinite period of time. I'd think it would be lost to our realm.
    My question is, if something were brought to absoulte zero, what would cause it to absorb energy again?
    I'm still stuck on my little theory that everything, everywhere is expanding at the same rate, and some kind of stationary fabric works in what appears to be the opposite direction.
    I'll have to read up on absolute zero experiments again.
    For anyone reading my thoughts, please just know, I realize how crazy I sound.
    But, I have created systems, and had ideas, years ahead of their time. Many Las Vegas systems have me written all over them. My computer systems have been rewritten to run on different platforms, but the originals are always the most difficult to write.
    Fri 
    03/09/2007 12:47:27
     Jim  Famous Quotes
    Darwin: "It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follows from the advance of science."
    Voltaire: "If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities."
    Einstein: "I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism."
    Nietzsche: "Faith means not wanting to know what is true."
    Edison: "I cannot believe in the immortality of the soul.... No, all this talk of an existence for us, as individuals, beyond the grave is wrong. It is born of our tenacity of life – our desire to go on living … our dread of coming to an end."
     Lincoln:"The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."
    Arthur C. Clarke: "Religion is a byproduct of fear. For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?"
    Thomas Jefferson: "Religions are all alike – founded upon fables and mythologies."
     Kurt Vonnegut: "Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile."
    Bertrand Russell: "Religion is based . . . mainly on fear . . . fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. . . . My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race."
    Fri 
    03/09/2007 01:19:59
     jim  Our first notary order came in tonight
    It was 7pm, and it only took about 40 minutes.
    I charged $20 since Becky and I are both (embaressingly) new to the notary field.
    They must have found us in the yellow pages, somehow...
    Whatever, I liked it A LOT!!!
    The signer were a little crabby...they expected us to actually instruct them on how to fill out a Pensylvania Power of Attorney form. Wow..I could barely read it...haha.
    I told them, as notary agents, our job was to simply verify, and optionally take an oath of a person signing a documents identity. That we weren't even supposed to read the document, and above all, we could not give legal advice.
    Still, though, I gave my idea of what the form wanted. They thoroughly botched it. I think she may have typed it in!
    Normally, whenever we get there, we would have charged $70 for the notary after 7pm.
    Wed 
    03/07/2007 16:10:12
     jim  I just LOVE having STRANGE THOUGHTS
    One of my favorite television shows used to be Outer Limits.
    Here's the thought of the day. It's 180 degrees from my previous thoughts, but I like the feel of it...
    Rethinking that time travel isn't probable
    - I'd think it isn't reasonable simply because we haven't seen any time travellers.
    - If there was some rule that we couldn't change the past, someone in the future would have broken it.
    - People break rules all the time!
    Rethinking that UFOs probably don't exists. My reasoning was:
    - Why would an alien fly across the universe to live near us (and hide from us)?
    - Why would they hang out in something smaller than an RV? That would be crazy, right?
    I should say, my best friend, Rob, said he had seen UFOs when he lived near Area 51, at Alamo, Nevada.
    The new thoughts on UFOs  and time travel is:
    - The people in UFO's are time travellers from our future, IE - They are us, two hundred years from now!
    - That would explain why they pop in and out, the size of their craft, why they have arms and legs, and why they don't interact with us.
    Aliens don't want to ruin our/their future.
    My thinking has been for a long time, that after several of our generations are born in space:
     Mutations would be created that would be more adapted to their environment.
    - I'd think they wouldn't need strong legs.
    - They would develop better eyesite
    - Their smell would be pretty unimportant.
    - Their bodys wouldn't need strength.
    - In short, we would mutate to look like this.
    Cheers to the future!!!
    Tue 
    03/06/2007 13:38:57
     jim  Apologies to Everyone
    1and1 who hosts this site, appearantly doesn't back up everything once a day.
    So, we lost Jennifer's story, and several other extras that have been added since.
    Shucks!!!
    I guess thats what I get for $20 a month...lol
    Fri 
    02/23/2007 05:20:21
     jim  I’m a tormented soul when it comes to memory
    I've been asking the question "What is life?" for as long as I can remember.
    I know, buried deep down in my subconscious, I have all the answers.
    However, I still can't remember what I was before I was born.
    They theorize that nature created memory as a tool for survival.
    When a prehistoric creature needed water, it had to remember where to find it.
    Logistics, and other basics in the locational related sciences were given to creatures.
    However, our great thinkers do not believe memory was ever necessary for basic life.
    I have to ask this question then, what is the purpose of life.
    We hold on to momentos and keepsakes because they jog memories from the past
    I have a few myself. I have a Sunday newspaper comics collection that spans the entire 1990's decade.
    The first one that I saved on January 1st, 1990, remembers that I ripped the top right hand corner of it.
    Its got a better memory than I do.
    Now, Ruth is dying
    I kept her around, mainly because she remembered my past.
    I was so busy either obsessively working, or partying trying to clear my thoughts of coding, that life flew by too fast.
    My diary and her memory was all I had to remember those times by.
    Her memory WAS a little bit more colorful than my dairy, but it worked fine for me.
    Now she's the last one left from a time when antics were everywhere in my life.
    She remembered the fun we had with Mom, Rob, Chris, and all those people that have faded away into the darkness.
    Now she's fading into the darkness too.
    My torment comes from this thought
    If even we don't remember our lives, if what we've done doesn't matter even to ourselves,
    then is the end result of our lives simply what we accomplished.
    Our independant thoughts would be like that of an ant, carrying a grain of sand to an ant hill.
    - If the ends does justify the means
      Then whatever the ant did to get that grain of sand to the hill was justified, and the journey to the hill doesn't matter.
      In other words, our lives are pointless to remember. Its what we accomplished that will count in the end.
    - If, however, the means justifies the ends
      Then the journey to the ant hill would be what counts.
      I just don't see that happening in nature though.
    - I think what we accomplish counts and what we did to get there doesn't.
    If life's purpose was the means, and not the end, then there would be a heaven, keeping track of the means, and not the ends. But that seems backwards from everything I've seen.
    The concept of the ends justifying the means implies horrible things
    Hitler would have been doing natures bidding by thinning out the human population.
    If the human population continues to croud this planet, then murderers are doing natures bidding too,
    by restoring the balance of nature.
    It boggles the mind.
    The saying comes to mind: If you kill one person, your a murderer. If you kill thousands, your a king.
    Thu 
    02/22/2007 17:50:28
     jim  Check out your childs school
    Be it home school or private, check it out yourself.
    Do not take the word of the school, or the word of a parent associated with that school.
    Take the word of someone else, outside of the school. See if its real!!!
    A diploma isn't worth anything if noone recognizes it.
    The following happened to a friend recently.
    We had started talking about home schools.
    I mentioned how I got into Odysseys site under Becky's sons name. I did this to check on his progress, and to help him with one of his classes.
    My friend mentioned he had gotten into his daughter's site using her account number (with no password).
    That sounded fishy, so I asked for one of his statements.
    The statement looked like it was done by a beginner in Microsoft Office Word.
    He had been sending his $175 checks every month to a school call "The Learning Source".
    - True, they are a business in Clark County.
    - True, they will take your check.
    - And True, they're credits transfer to nowhere.
    In other words, his daughter, who should be in the 11th grade, has not started the 9th grade yet!
    We went to the location listed on the business license...it was vacant.
    We went to another location listed on the statement...it was a PO BOX.
    The girl at the Post Office Box place, said a lady came in once a month to pick up her checks.
    WOW!
    What I'd like to say is, one of Becky's daughters attended a home school in Los Angeles, and she is still, technically a 9th grader, simply because, the school wasn't a school at all. It was business with no accreditation.
    In other words, the chances for Becky's daughter to be successful, had been ruined early in life.
    Don't waste your child's academic life!
    Take 10 minutes out of your life to get a REAL reference from another school, about the school you want to enroll your child in. YOU MIGHT JUST BE SURPRISED!!!
    As a note, when I went to CCSC in 1982
    I found out credits from the community college would be cut in half if I had them transferred to UNLV.
    However, if I transferred them to UCLA, and then to UNLV, they would not be cut.
    Politics seems to be problem in the educational systems.
    Wed 
    02/21/2007 15:23:01
     jim  Vegas,NV-Becky
    Wed 
    02/21/2007 10:44:38
     jim  The Frontier is Going Away Forever
    The New Frontier has been call a lot of names:

    The Pair-O-Dice (1930), Ambassador Club (1936), 91 Club (1939), Last Frontier (1942), The New Frontier (1955), The Frontier (1967), The New Frontier (1999).

    Sometime in July 2007, the Frontier will become The Lost Frontier.

    The doors will close forever, and with them will go the last of the Howard Hughe's Casino icons.

    Phil Ruffin, the Frontier's current owner, sold the New Frontier in May 2007 for $1.2 billion.

    Please feel free to post your comments about the Frontier.
    Tue 
    02/20/2007 00:00:00
     Jim  Presidents Day
    See if you get this day off.
    Sun 
    02/18/2007 12:19:37
     jim  Ode to the dying

    Smile for me before you say goodbye. We were together for eleven years. We toured the land in a travel trailer. We shared memories no else will ever know. We saw the glistening waters of Lake Tahoe, and the frosty shores of Crater Lake. We collected agates off the big sur, saw seal cave and camped in San Diego. We explored California, Nevada, Utah and Oregon for almost four months. We bought a house in Summerlin with a heated pool and spa, and it had a spectular view Las Vegas. We knew Rob, Chris, Mom, Otis, John, Tex, Jim. We raised Little Girl, Little Man, Muffin and two chicks that fell from a tree. You were my soul mate, and now its your time to go. I'll always love you. As the sun light fades to darkness, know I'll be waiting with a smile on the other side. And I will always remember you well, Ruth (Cutlar), my Mississippi Queen.
    I'm sorry you have to go.
    Thu 
    02/15/2007 21:50:45
     jim  Talked to an old friend today.
    He was babbling on about Bush, Cheney, and the Tri-State commission.
    According to him, Al Kaida has been at Camp David.
    Also, the Tri-State commission is planning on blowing up nukes in 5 major cities with the next year.
    The goal would be to call a Marshall Law in for a minimum of 6 months, bring in the international police, and kill over 80% of the US population.
    The point would be to free the world from the ignorant, lazy and freeloading populations.
    All I can say is...WOW!!!
    I heard the same thing from a bum in Denver last year.
    Now, if all this were the case, I suppose I would go to Florida, walk 10' off of the highway in any direction and get lost, then eat fruits, berries, and crocidile eggs. Of course, the World Police might gas the swamps, but at least I'd stand a chance. LOL.
    All I know is, we Americans are obviously being lied to by the press. Why, well, I wouldn't even try to guess.
    If we can't take over a country the size of Arizona, with billions of dollars and high technology in our favor, our military people suck. I know Bush's buddies made out to the tune of billions. AND THAT, I believe is treason.
    And Clinton got impeached for a blow job, while Bush is a mass murderer for hire.
    When I mentioned this to Sonny, he asked me,
    Jim, doesn't this guy have any nice things to talk about....
    hahahahah.

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