Back From Vacation

Hello everyone,

I am finally back from my latest excursion. I went to visit my family and see my new baby neice. She is the most beautiful baby. Of course I am biased. But maybe she isn't as beautiful as my son was.

I was gone almost 2 weeks this time. We went to St. Louis and then Kentucky. My sis and mom live in St. Louis and the rest of my family is in Kentucky. So we all went there so the whole family could meet the new little one. It was short in Kentucky but beautiful as always. I love how green it always is there. But that is what I give up when I give up the humidity. And I hate the humidity. Springtime isn't so bad though.

We stayed at my uncle's house and he has about 14 acres with lots of trees and a pond filled with catfish. My son loves to go on rides on the mule. Not the animal variety, the mechanical one. For those of you who don't know, it is a cross between a golf cart and an ATV. So it has seat belts and a windshield,but it drives in rough terrain. We got to eat our breakfasts on the back porch with the beautiful scenery and see a deer eating the grass too.

We spent most of the time at my grandparents house though. They have about 21 acres to play around on. But it is mostly grown over these days. They are too old to mow all of their property. They still have a large personal garden too. So we went on a lot of nature walks together. We even took the baby. There is this little dirt road off to the side of the property and it goes far back in the woods. There are only 4 houses that far back with small farms attached to each. One house looks like fairies live there. It is set back off the road with all of these ferns and flowers around it. It has a little front porch. It even had a small kitty that kept following us. Anyway the little dirt road winds around to this little creek we use to go to as kids. We used to play there with sand toys and shovels and stuff. We used to play with the tadpoles and minnows. So I showed my son the beauties of my childhood and took photos of him there too. Later that night we built a fire in the back yard and made s'mores and talked. He got to play with the fireflies too.

The unfortunate part is that my grandparents are getting pretty old now. They have lots of little ailments and they don't ever like getting out of the house. So I worry that my son will miss out on all of the fun things there that I had as a child. That is one of the reasons that I have been trying to visit them at least twice a year.

Then we went back to St. Louis for the rest of the trip. But for some reason on all of my recent trips we have been getting sick. This time it was the new baby's fault. Well actually my brother in law's fault. He was sick the week before we got there. And then he got his baby sick. And of course it was passed onto the rest of the family. So I am still getting over yet another cold.

That didn't really stop us though. My son was a little more clingy and wanting extra naps, but that is about it. We still got to see St. Charles historic district and the river. We saw some old cabooses to trains. My son loves trains. And we went to the Science center. And I took care of my little neice a lot. My sis had to work one day and had some appointments that were easier than taking that baby with her. So I had my son, the 2 month old baby that doesn't like bottles, and their huge dog to take care of all while we were sick. So needless to say, I am not having more children any time soon.

But the trip was good. I had a good time and so did my son. And I liked seeing all of my family. I even got to talk to a good friend of mine from highschool. But she has a new baby too and we didn't want to get him sick.

Brightest Blessings.

Dear Bluegoddess,

This number:

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

Which is a hexadecimal integer, is claimed to be owned by a company called AACS.

Basically, this is a number that a significantly technical person could use to decrypt Blue Ray disks.

The story is that the AACS came up with the encryption algorithms, and are saying that they own this number.

That's right, the claim to own this number, a integer, it's supposedly copyrighted by them. That is this number, plus hundreds of others that no one knows about.

That's like saying "I own the number 124" and anyone caught using the number 124 must pay me a usage fee. Lets make it an even 100 dollars if the number is being used personally, or 1,250.56$ if it is going to be used commercially.

The number got posted to a bunch of websites, and the company sent cease / desist letters and has taken many of them to court.

This is totally outrageous, and completely un-American.

So the appropriate response is of course to post this number to every single website, forum, blog, email, and where ever you can. That way when the people who got sued go to court, they can claim that this "copyrighted" information is in public use and then get out of the lawsuit. And of course, hopefully the judge will see that copy righting integers is like, I don't know, stupid beyond all belief.


Love ya,
Your Husband

My Rant

I have been annoyed. I left Christianity because of the dogma and the foul tempered fundamentalists. I found Wicca and became enraptured with the idea of an all embracing faith. One that doesn't denounce other ways of thinking. I was looking for community, comraderie and friendship. Instead I found people spouting lethal putrification in the misguided hope that it made them seem more important.

Now of course I do not believe all Pagans or Wiccans to be like this. In fact most I have had the pleasure of knowing are quite wonderful.

But for some reason the internet breeds selfishness, detachment, and extremely rude behavior. Just because you are not eye to eye with someone deosn't give you the right to belittle them or their views.

We are all meant to coexixt Peacefully on our Wonderous Planet Earth. So what the hell happened? Why can we not agree to disagree with some people? Instead we have become bullies and try to convert others to our way of thinking. Isn't that the very reason that so many of us have come to the Craft, to escape such persecution?

"Become the change you wish to see in the world." (Ghandi) I take this statement to heart. I see lots of others stating this on their websites. It seems beautiful and a good idea. So why don't more people practice what they preach? I know it is easier said than done. (Excuse the cliches) But anyone on a spiritual path should be working on their inner selves as to be above such ridicule of others. Embrace other opinions. Or at least respect the differences.

Conflict on the internet should be quite easy to walk away from. There is no person directly in your face. You should have the self restraint not to type nasty things to one another. It should be much easeir to actually think it through and decide on an action that could solve or temper the problem. Hate should not even get a second glance. When we don't respond to it, it disipates much more quickly. Respond as you would to a child-- reward only good behavior and ignore the rest. When the behavior becomes hurtful, there are ways to dicipline that still holds true to ones values.

In short treat others as you wish to be treated!!