Simple America

Trinity made me aware of a couple of folks over in Indonesia that need our help. You can read about these folks right here. Just give them a moment in your prayers or thoughts.

Thanks!

My daughter worked hard on the feast. Though she started a bit late. We had planned on a 6:30 dinner and it did not happen until 8:00. Made some phone calls to relatives to let them know of the delay so they would not rush. She managed to pull off one heck of a meal. The only thing she ruined was the corn bread, so there was no stuffing. Oh well. Christmas then.

Little MissChef making scones.

Fresh from the oven.

And the feast looked like this:

The pigs brought their own blanket. Cranberry sauce as I demand it. And sweet potato casserole with apples and cinnamon.

Greenbean casserole does not look near as good as it tasted. My neice from #3 BIL loved it. This dish had no leftovers. This is the third year my girl has made zuccini squares and I vote for a fourth. Scones have been raided already. Have to be a quick photographer as these were gone quickly. And they were the best she ever made. She used more cream than the recipe calls for. Perhaps that is the trick.

We served shrimp coctail. The chef made a salmon pasta bake for the first time. It’s invited next year. #3 brought a lovely ham. Yum!

And then the star of the show. Front and back. What did she put in the bird’s butt? And the chef gets to sit next to the carver while he does what he does. And that drumstick is for Titoki.

And we had a nice Australian wine. And look at that little drunk. All passed out in his chair. I’ll fix him with my Vulcan head crush.

And we pigged out as you can see. I cannot believe I ate all of that. No room for pie. Tomorrow. And the missus looks good no matter how much she pigged out.

Hope everyone that celebrated Thanksgiving had a great day.

Many bloggers have mentioned how they long for world peace. As a former soldier I would very much like to see peace all over the world. Soldiers suffer a great deal in their profession. In my country they do so freely and with the knowledge that they may be sacriced. But they are willing to offer their blood in exchange for freedom.

While it would be easy to pray for world peace I find that it would be a prayer unanswered. As a Christian I recall Jesus on the Mount of Olives where he is quoted in Matthew 24:6 to have said, “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.” This tells me that man is not capable of peace on his own terms. War will be with us always.

Rather than pray in futility and frustration for that which cannot be, I choose to pray in a different way. My prayers are for the safety of my country’s military. I ask God the Father to provide them with the best tools to do their job, the sustenance to keep them healthy and capable in the field and the energy to carry out their mission and desire to obey the lawful orders of their commanding officers. As long as there are men, that choose violence to promote their ideals a strong military is required. Without a wall of bayonets to secure freedom there is nothing to insure any measurable or lasting peace. 

A right thinking country with a strong military deters tyrants and inspires them to remain quaking behind their walls. In the fourth verse of the Star Spangled Banner Francis Scott Key wrote, “Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just”. Hard words, but a doctrine that must be followed if freedom is to be secured. That is what should have been cited before going into Iraq, rather than the hunt for WMDs. Much easier to rally round that thought and not have the lack of WMDs hurt the American image down the road.

But there was no choice but  to go to Iraq. When America hides behind its shore or appears weak, great wars start. Appeasement has never led to peace. I challenge anyone to show me a time in history where a dictator respected the peace of a nation or people he considered weak. I am always eager to learn something new.

I hate the thought of war. But a loss of freedom instills a greater fear. May my brothers-in-arms be safe, complete their mission, and return home to their families whole and happy. I hope those that would attack freedom are killed or repent their vile intentions and find peaceful pursuits. Until they change or die there can be no peace. A peace the world would find most welcome.

Okay the big movie of 2006 is showing on the silver screen. I have read the book, but have yet to see the movie. I will view the film because I consider it entertainment and nothing more. I warn you there may be spoilers in this writing. Avoid this post if it might diminish your enjoyment from the flick or the book. But come back when you are done with the film and/or book.

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A lot of Christians have been offended by Dan Brown’s book. Being a Christian myself I do not care for the blasphemy that suggests Jesus married Mary Magdelene and fathered children. This blasphemy denies the resurrection of Christ. Already there are those that take Brown’s fiction as fact by promoting his story as a possibility. Christians should be able to recognize these folk. These same people take every effort to deny the efforts and results of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross and in his ressurrection.

The problem many of us face is how do we present the resurrection of Christ in a way that supports the truth? More importantly how do we communicate this information to people that are considering salvation, but have been confused by this attack on Christianity? This is my suggestion.

The Sanhedrin hoped they would hear no more of Christ after they convinced the Romans to crucify him. But this did not occur and soon the word of resurrection reached them. The reappearance of Jesus gave the early Church hope and its numbers swelled because of this. This forced the Sanhedrin to act against the Christians. An example of this being Saul of Tarsus, the youngest member of the Sanhedrin ever, who was determeined to suppress the new church.

The Romans were not pleased at the news of the resurrection either. They found the Jews were a difficult people to rule. Awareness of this new religion following the Christ moved them to fear an uprising. When they heard of the resurrection, it intensified this concern.

What would have been the most effective way to debunk Christ’s resurrection? Produce a body. The Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate would have gladly displayed the dead body of Christ in Jerusalem. They had no concerns regarding human rights or civil liberties in that day. Why did they not display Jesus’ corpse?

Because they had no body to display. They must have been tearing their hair out. The easiest proof to debunk Christ’s resurrection would have been to produce Christ’s corpse. They did not because they could not. If the corpse of Christ had been presented this would have been recorded in history. The opponents of the church would have made a concerted effort to record this and see the news spread in future histories.

When you watch DaVinci Code remember it is just a piece of fiction. When you hear people speak out and have doubts because of the misinformation regarding Christ and Mary Magdalene. Hold on to this fact and keep your faith strong. Spread the truth where and when it needs to be heard.

The kids and I have been just rocking along since I returned from San Antonio. My son’s school let out early Thursday with no extended day program which I depend on. Being out of town I could not make any suitable arrangements, so I took a vacation day. Actually it was a half day too as the College closed at one, so I did not lose too many hours.

Wednesday I had a crushing bit of news so I stayed up until two in the morning to do something I had wanted to do for this friend. Then I slept for four hours and woke up to take the kids to school. Went back home and slept until it was time to pick up the boy.

I decided we would have a boy’s day out. We went home so he could change out of his uniform and then we went to Chili’s for lunch. It was a surprise treat for him. His school work has been sub par lately and it seems like I all I do is punish him. So I wanted to show him he was still my son and loved. I had two free tickets for Ice Age 2 and we took advantage of that. Very cute movie. Though I find kid movies make more sexual references and curse or push the border of cursing more in recent films. Can we allow our children to be innocent a bit longer and just entertain them with good language?

We picked up his sister who had called during the movie. Whoops! Good thing there was only two other people in the theater. We went home and chilled.

Friday I took the kids to see a movie called The Benchwarmers. This is packaged as a kids baseball movie, though I found it to be a vulgar comedy at best. Since when does farting and projectile vomiting become so humorous. This is what I would call locker room humor. There was a decent story here and there. But some of it is just gross and other bits was just vulgar. Again there were a lot of topics I would not young kids to encounter. Again a cry out for innocence.

Went home and the money to pay the taxes arrived. Yay. First I needed to get some more work done on Fire in the Hole. I used the wrong stat block formatting, and I needed to fix it so editing could proceed. I worked on this til the wee hours.

Saturday I woke up and declared it final tax day for me. I needed to get my deposit ready. Then I had to cut the checks for the US Treasury, state of Michigan, and city of Detroit. Yeah I live in Texas, but my missus travels to Detroit often enough that we pay them taxes. What a fucking racket? The mob could not do it better. Checks written I stuffed the envelopes with all the required documentation.

Once I had that done I drove out and deposited the check. I was concerned about the check, since my wife was not there to endorse it. They let me do instead. Phew!!! Don’t know what I would do if they had blocked my deposit. Would have been on a street corner with a cardboard sign with the words written, “need to pay taxes.” The post office was not too bad of a line either. Monday is the deadline for most folks and I expect there to be quite a line then.

Then I went to the Chinese grocery. In Sugar Land there is a road called Highway 6 and it has a dedicated middle lane for cars that turn left. I had my left turn signal blinking and was sitting in wait for the traffic to pass by and allow me to turn. This guy pulls in front of me to turn left. The first thing that comes to mind is kiasu. He pissed me off and he has his family in the car doing this dumb shit. The traffic lets up and he goes. I honked at his dumb ass and was tempted to follow him and tell him what I though of his driving ability. I did not though. He turned left in the parking lot and for the sake of his kids I turned right.

I kind of enjoy going to the Chinese grocery store by myself. Obviously, I stick out like a sore thumb. Inside the store I am the minority. Then I freak people out by buying the Chinese stuff and asking for it in Cantonese. Always get a kick out of watching their facial expressions. I bought some dim sum for lunch and half a roast duck for dinner. Spent 17 bucks on that. Next I went to the Chinese baker and got some of those toasted char siew bao and egg tarts for 6 dollars. So that took care of lunch, dinner and Sunday’s lunch as well.

I have a few pics of the dim sum here:

After lunch I went back to Fire in the Hole. Then I fixed the final creature stats and uploaded the file. After that I tried to catch up my blogging. Really been an off week for me. Supper time came and we watched Narnia while eating roast duck and yams. You can see our dinner here:

My daughter baked some cookies. You can see them. A demonstration on the proper way to eat ice cream is also proviced:

After dinner I finished the second episode of a Liter of Tears. This is a Japanese story and it is very sad. If you go to J’s blog you can watch for yourself. I will not spoil it. Bring lots of tissue and someone you can hug. At least a stuffed animal.

Woke up early this morning. Why? Because I have a free movie ticket and it is the last day before it expires. I used it to see V is for Vendetta. Great flick. I am going to buy the DVD. Though I think Natalie Portman’s attempt to mimic an English accent is horrid at best. Puh-leez. It is a very stirring flick. I walked out wanting to start the revolution. And I recalled someone else saying the same thing to me in a chat. Really that is a dangerous thought in the wrong mind.

As I drove away from the theater and through the mall I was surprised to see the parking lot empty. People actually closed their shops for Easter. That cheered me up. I felt a natural high the entire drive to a hardware store. I noticed Target and Best Buy were closed. I walked into the mall and it seemed like half the people I saw were Chinese or Viet Namese. I kind of drew some comfort from that, though it made me feel lonely as well. I bought my light bulbs and toilet repair kit and went to pay. I almost wiped out this poor woman while I was at the register. She was walking around me and I moved suddenly, totally unaware of her. She was itty bitty and if she had not caught a hold of me she would have been knocked done. She worked for the store and she was apologizing though I was more concerned about her.

Then I got home where I proceeded to kick myself in the butt. I left my phone at home the entire time I was gone. What if the kids had needed me. Jeez. So much for being considered a great Dad. They have been having Easter egg hunts all day and eating some candy. I warmed up our bao and did a few home repairs before writing this.

Tonight I am going to cook some organic whole grain noodles. There will be meatballs and spagetti sauce too. Nuthin much. But the kids will like. Just hope those noodles work out.