OK, I just got done reading the open letter to Americans from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran.

In that he quotes the Qur'an

"But those who repent, have faith and do good may receive Salvation. Your Lord, alone, creates and chooses as He will, and others have no part in His choice; Glorified is God and Exalted above any partners they ascribe to Him." (28:67-68)

I had no idea that Islam was a cross between Catholism and Calvinism.

OK, this doesn't make sense...

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=243356>1=7701

I personally consider it a tragedy that the man who helped create the X-Men 2.0 died in *Superman* pajamas, under a *Batman* blanket, and wanted to be cremated in a *Green Lantern* shirt. All of these are DC properties, and X-Men is a Marvel property.

That, of course, is tongue-in-cheek. The real tradegy is that he died at the age of 63. It's particularly poignant to me, as my wife also suffers from diebetes. I don't want to think about the possibility of facing my retirement years without my wife.

I'm too old for this... So, night before last I stayed up all night. I had to re-design a network diagram for a proposal that we are sending out this week, and it had to be done. Unfortunately, I am an unregenerate procrastinator. I didn't start it until after midnight. I guess I treasure the time that I spend with my wife too much. Anyway, I didn't get done until close to 4:30 AM. At that point, any reasonable person would get whatever sleep they could. So, of course, I played PS2 for 2 hours. I had a good reason. Or at least, it seemed like a good one to my sleep-deprived mind. You see, I am a sound sleeper. A very sound sleeper. I pray that Jesus does not return between 2-6 AM, because I can't be sure the trumpet will actually wake me up. Because of this, sleeping for a short time, say 2 hours, when my body is actually tired makes me feel worse than just staying up.

At least it did when I was 20. Now at 32, I'm not so sure.

By last night, on about hour 37 of wakedness, my eyesight started to go. It was like that effect you see in the movies when the director wants to convey that the character has been drugged. Some things seem to move closer, others further way, and then back again. It was really kinda fun. On top of that, my heart was racing. I was running strictly on a 60/40 blend of adreniline and caffiene. And because of that particular cocktail, I couldn't fall asleep until after midnight. Oh, well. I will probably take me at least a few days to recover.

In the immortal words of Larry Miller, "When you're 21 and you stay up all night, it's like victory, like you beat the night. When you're 35, that rising sun is like God's flashlight."

If I only had a brain...

So the other day at work, the company decided that they needed to update our marketing material with our collective years of experience. This was an interesting experience. My boss, the manager of the sales engineers, sent a spreadsheet with columns for the info that they wanted to one of the engineers, he filled it out and forwarded to another and so until the last person forwarded back to the manager. Process took about 4 hours of bouncing an e-mmail around 6 people. The manager of the sales people, however, had to schedule time on each of the salespeople's calendars, sit down with each one of them and ask them all the questions. Took him a week to get 10 people and he spent that week running around.

But that isn't why I'm posting this. What I noticed, to my chagrin, is that I am the only sales engineer who lacks a college degree. A couple of my co-workers even have master's degrees. Now, I consider myself an intelligent person, and I work in a field that does not *require* an advanced degree, but I felt a little inferior. I have industry certifications and experience and even about 2-3 years of college education, but no degree. (I am, to be exact, one Ph Ed credit away from an Associate's degree.) So I have made an "executive decision" to complete my degree. I will follow the Yellow Brick road, leaving a trail of straw behind me, and ask the Big Green Man for a brain. Or at least a peice of sheep skin. I'll probably enjoy it. The problem, of course, is affording it. And taking the time away from wife and children to get it done.

So. Wow. I created this Blogger account over a year ago and haven't rouched it since. Huh. Well, maybe this time I might keep it updated more than once every 18 months.

So it's come to my attention recently that I am a much more social person than I have let myself believe. At least, some people whose opinions I trust have told me so. So in the interests to expressing myself, I'm going to start updating my blog with my thoughts and rantings.

On that note, I love my Lyra. I just got a little MP3 player that supports Microsoft's Play-for-Sure: Subscription service and it rocks. So far, at least. With Play-for-Sure, I can download music from my Rhapsody subscription service and take it with me. I love Rhapsody; all the music I want for less than the price of 1 CD per month. The problem is that it's just on my PC. Now, I can d/l songs or entire albums to my Lyra and take it with me. And's it's 100% legal. Now, if I can just convince myself to use the Lyra and go running ;)

So, now I want to figure out a way to create a list on this Blog of what's on my Lyra at any give time. It's only got 512MB of space, so it won't be an iPod-like huge list. But I thought it's be cool to share what I'm listening to and offer a place for others to suggest music for me.

Also, I'm working my way, slowly, through a Dataline article on Ted Haggard, the former head of the National Evangelical Asccociation, that was written a couple months ago, before the scandal was revealed. I had some immediate reactions, which I will share here in good time. But for now, the article can be found here.

So THIS got me thinking. And not about Woody Allen, either. (Thank Goodness!)

In the Grand Scheme of Things (TM), where does 9/11 fit? When historians look back from 100 years from now, how will they see that event, especially when compared to other watershed moments in history?

In terms of loss of life, the Twin Towers is barely a speck on the map; 3000 dead, 2400 injured? Compare that to 15 million during World War 2, or even 240,000 in the 2004 tsumani that hit India.

But then loss of life isn't the biggest factor. The death of one Autrian man is credited for sparking the First World War.

So perhaps the legacy of 9/11 will be told in the wars that resulted; Afghanistan and Iraq. And the final verdict on the success of those wars will not be decided for years, probably decades. And it doesn't depend on how long US troops remain, or how much money was spent, or even, in the macro sense, how many lives were lost. The success of theses wars will be determined by how long these new nations stand and what they stand for. It's the same reason I consider World War 1 a failed war and World War 2 a successful war.

Painting in such broad sweeps sounds harsh, even to me. 'Failed war' and 'Successful war' sound too much like 'Bad war' and 'Good war'. On the other hand, war at times is inevitable. And isn't a war that does not lead to further war better than a war that does. A war in which good wins and evil loses, and everyone lives happily ever after. That is until the ring is found and Sauron's eye scans the world once more. But do wars like that actually happen? It happened in World War 2. Who can agrue that the Nazis were not evil? And again in the Cold War. I'm not saying the Russian Communists were evil. But the Cold War had been waged for 35 years before Ronald Reagan took office and it was over 10 years later, and a great deal of that is because Ronald Reagan put the Cold War in those terms. Russia was the Evil Empire. It wasn't the Star Wars Defense System that ended the Cold War, it was the Star Wars Offense Metaphor. (Yes, that's right. George Lucas won the Cold War.)

So 9/11, and the ensuing rhetoric, is the catalyst for this generation, then? The 'Axis of Evil' is the 'Evil Empire' remade for the 21st century?

Boy, I need an editor, don't I? I rambled all over the place. More (and less, after editing) later.