Why do I exist?

Westminster Catechism put the answer to this for question number 1: "Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever." It was good that the divines put this as number one, because it seems so easy to forget at times, and having it first brings it back to memory quickest, as we usually end up needing it.

By remembering this one quickly, we don't need to actually ask the question aloud -- we remember the answer before we could even ask it.

Also, we end up needing to remember it when we're mired down in the details of quotidian existence. We need to be reminded of the bigger picture in those circumstances, that is, to get a proper perspective of all the little shit so we'll see how little it is.

I keep saying "we" but I'm really only referring to myself. I don't know that very many people see life the way I do. This is just how I work.

Poser

Pose

a question

Pose

for a picture

Posse

to catch a thief

Posy

a flower

Possess

my mind

Aghetyblarg

Interesting word, not on Google. Will be soon!

Names I wouldn't ever want to see

Pam Schrute
Kelly Halpert
Andy Martinez
Pam Malone
Pam Howard
Meredith Halpert

Try to keep your <3 positive

And zero doesn't count.

Random thoughts

The system is broken. Wall Street is not working anymore. The bull market and bear market systems are not working.

We need to introduce new systems for Wall Street. Perhaps a lion market. Or an elephant market. Bull vs. bear are not working together anymore. But if we add other animals -- not throw the bull and the bear away -- then we can get Wall Street working again. That will help main street ... or should I say mane street?

Bad Co-Branding Ideas

Turbo-Tax Craftsman Tools Edition
Mary Kay Omaha Steaks Collection
Podiatrist Convention sponsored by All State Insurance
Any advertising on automobile air bags

Thank you to the police at Virginia Tech

I'd like to take this moment to thank the Blacksburg Police (or whatever law enforcement) for putting an end to the killings on Monday. They stepped in and prompted the murderer to kill himself. If they hadn't done that, nothing would have stopped him from killing more people.

Two Months Until Christmas!

Or Ten months since Christmas, if you prefer.

Mixed Metaphors

Here are three that I have encountered the last couple of days:

... is paving the foundation for ...

... should put all of their carrots on the table.

They need to lower their yardstick.

Questions for June

Does Wal-Mart have a return policy on boomerangs?

What is the downside to a baby duck?

One of those days ... no, it's not

Friday, 6:59 pm. I walk out of the office, get in the elevator, and get out a little over an hour later. No, it wasn't a time warp, it was because the elevator stopped somewhere between the lobby and the garage 1 level. (I don't know if it was because I was jumping or not.)

Once I got off of the elevator, I got about 5 to 10 minutes away, when the traffic on the Dulles tollway stopped. This is something traffic on the tollway never does on a Friday night after 8 o'clock. Traffic crawled for the next HOUR.

It turned out there was some sort of accident. Even though the cars were off on the shoulder, the emergency professionals had everyone getting through single file because there was a body in the middle of the road. It was obviously dead because there was a white sheet covering it. The bright side must be that at least it wasn't just a fender-bender that delayed me for that second hour.

Then, I had another 50-plus miles to drive to get home.

~10:00 pm. I entered the door at home.

Thought for the year:

Love is about not getting what you want, whether you get what you want or not.

"Snagged by balloon ropes, woman soars, falls"

By Joe McDonald Tribune Newspapers: The Morning Call
Fri Nov 4, 9:40 AM ET

Standing by the hot-air balloon as it rose, Kathleen Long was warning others to watch out for the vent ropes when two of them caught her ankle and hoisted her into the air.

Her husband, John, who was the pilot with two passengers, heard a commotion below. He looked over the side of the balloon and saw his wife dangling upside down, 60 feet above the ground.

He saw the bottom of her sneaker, yelled and heard her calmly say, "I'm OK," as people on the ground screamed, "No, no, no" and the balloon swept Kathleen Long away.

John Long described Sunday's mishap in Hunterdon County, N.J., during a news conference Wednesday in St. Luke's Hospital in Fountain Hill, Pa., where his wife is recovering.

As his wife hung in the air, Long, a steam-fitter from Warren County, N.J., said he remembered the balloon safety tapes showing how "it's always bad" when accidents like this happen and kept thinking, "I have to get her closer to the ground."

There were big trees and one smaller tree looming. Long said he "got lucky" and his wife, 58, a former teacher who works at a Lowe's store in Phillipsburg, N.J., hit the smaller one.

Long, 55, hoped "Toady," as he affectionately calls his wife, would catch onto something, maybe a limb.

He later learned she crashed through the tin roof of an old barn and landed head first on rotting floorboards.

If she had sailed through the barn at any other spot, Long said, she could have hit old machinery or bracing that probably would have killed her.

He said the part of the roof where she fell through, leaving a 4-foot hole, was at a seam with no underlying supports.

"If she landed anywhere else, we wouldn't be having this conversation," Long said. "Everything was rotted and soft."

The Longs were working their side business, The Flight Fantastic, which takes people on balloon rides.

He was taking a couple for a ride that was supposed to include a proposal.

After the balloon was filled with hot air, Long told four people holding it down to let go, and as it began to lift, his wife's ankle got snagged.

At the speed the balloon was rising, it would have reached 500 to 600 feet in a minute.

"Toady, are you OK?" Long said he yelled over the side of the basket. "She said, `I'm OK."'

After his wife fell from the ropes, the balloon gained altitude, Long said, and he began looking for a place to land, but there were no good spots.

He got on his two-way radio and told his ground crew he needed help and called his daughter, Jess, at her home in Frederick, Md., telling her there had been an accident and her mother was hurt.

"I need you home now," Long told his daughter.

Long spent about 45 minutes searching for a place to land, and along the way asked the couple to do him a favor and get engaged. They said "no."

"We're going to pray for your wife," he said they told him.

Long said he finally found a place to land, a cornfield near the Mountainview Youth Correctional Facility near Annandale, N.J.

He told his passengers, "It's going to be a little rough." The rectangular basket hit the ground on one of its narrow sides.

After landing, he said, "I just started to cry and said, `I made it."'

Neither he nor his passengers were hurt.

Long said his wife spent 25 hours in the hospital's intensive care unit and her condition has been upgraded to fair. Doctors have said Kathleen Long, who suffered broken bones and bruises, will be "back to normal" in two or three months.

"Your wife is one lucky lady," he quoted doctors as saying. "I told them `No kidding."'

Long said he has not decided whether he will return to the skies after the balloon is repaired, or whether he will sell it.

Thanks to painkillers, Kathleen Long thinks she's in the hospital to have a baby. At least for now, her husband said, she doesn't remember the real reason.

Copyright © 2005 Chicago Tribune

Question of the day

Do balloon manufacturers adjust for inflation?

Bring Back the Breakfast Drink

Bring Back the Breakfast Drink by Jeffrey A. Tucker. "Don't waste your youth: it is up to you to bring back the breakfast drink!"

Interesting Blogs re U2 from a Christian Perspective

To read later:

http://u2sermons.blogspot.com/
http://www.livejournal.com/community/u2christians/

Collusion by Comic Writers -- 9/14/05

Non Sequitur from 9/14/05
Pearls Before Swine from 9/14/05

As should readily be apparent (as long as the photos are available), the authors have used the same joke on the same day, to wit: birds being denied bail because they pose a flight risk.

While I grant that the joke itself is funny, I think the authors must have the same Far Side calendar or something which triggered the same thought processes which resulted in the same joke being published on the same day (obviously filtered through the mind of the artist).

Maybe it's just oddly coincidental.

Another Namesake

The Deige recently entered a contest at a local unique hand-crafts store, Impulsive. These are not just your run-of-the-mill hand crafts like quilted pot-holders. The contest involved suggesting a name for the store's mascot, a large, brass frog. The frog, when the store is open, is setting on a bench in front of the store, reading a book. The prize, to the person whose suggested name is selected, is a $100 gift certificate from the store.

The day The Deige was there last month turned out to be the last day of the contest. The Deige, always resourceful, especially in the way of frog-naming, suggested my name (Jeremiah). As it turned out, the owner narrowed the names down to either five or 10, then ran them by the employees. Each time my name was mentioned, the staff broke into the lovely strains of "Joy to the World" (Three Dog Night version, obviously). Eventually, there was no option except to name the frog Jeremiah.

The gift certificate was used in short order.

Texas Suffering in the Hurricane Katrina Aftermath

As reported everywhere, but this specifically from the Chicago Tribune:

Mrs. Bush, after touring the Astrodome complex in Houston on Monday, said: "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." She commented during a radio interview with the American Public Media program "Marketplace."

I understand Mrs. Bush's plight. I'm just grateful that the refugees aren't coming to Virginia.