9/11/01 - 9/11/11 Lessons learned

So what have we as a nation learned in the ten years since 9/11/01?

I submit the primary lessons have focused on fear and hate.

Had we been attacked by radical Christian fundamentalists, like those who kill doctors who perform abortions or encourage the suicides of their followers, we would have been assured that these killers did not represent the goals and attitudes of the vast majority of Christians. We wouldn't have protested the building of Christian churches in this country, we wouldn't look nervously at everyone who wears a crucifix or worships the Christian god. We would not have been tempted to consider every Christian a potential mass murderer.

But those who flew the planes on 9/11 were Muslims, and Americans don't understand Islam or Muslims. We fear what we don't understand, especially when we believe it can hurt us. That's human nature. Fear, in some cases, can preserve our lives. And fear, nurtured over time, becomes hate. We hate that which makes us afraid.

Those who attacked us ten years ago hated us then and hate us now. They hate us because they fear us. They fear our religious beliefs, they fear our Western attitudes, they fear our motivations for being in their countries.

There's a solution to the cycle of fear and hate; knowledge. The more we understand something the less reason we have to fear it. The less we fear it the less reason we have to hate it.

It should be obvious by now that terrorism will never be defeated with guns and bombs. A militaristic approach simply provides more fuel to the fire of fear and hatred. We need to fight fear and hate with education and enlightenment. We need to encourage people to learn about each other, to meet and exchange their thoughts and opinions. They may never agree on much of what they believe, but in gaining understanding they will be less likely to fear and hate each other.

Besides coming to fear and hate Muslims, what did the events of 9/11/01 teach us?

It's Friday!

The power has been restored here in San Diego and I'm off for my last day of work at Cartridge World.

In 3 weeks Cleo, Liz-Beth, Sara and I will be headed for Virginia.

What will you do to remember 9/11?

Here are some ideas.

Please join the 9/11 Tribute Movement by briefly describing what you will do this year, a good deed, charitable activity, or other plans, to honor the 9/11 victims, survivors and those that rose in service in response to the attacks.

I will, will you?

911day.org 

The "smaller government" argument deconstructed

One of the most popular catch-phrases in politics these days is "smaller government". People from every party acknowledge the expensive and often useless bloat in the American government. The fix appears to be simple, reduce the size of government which will in turn reduce spending and, as many predict, lead to a stronger economy.


However, like in the case of most political catch-phrases, looking at the details behind the simple idea exposes the difficulty of implementing this apparently simple plan.


"Government" is people, folks like you and me, sitting at desks, at their computers, doing basic office work. Reducing the size of government inevitably means closing departments and agencies and turning their employees into more unemployed workers. 


According to the July employment report from the Department of Labor, "The number of unemployed persons (13.9 million) and the unemployment rate (9.1 percent) changed little in July. Since April, the unemployment rate has shown little definitive movement. The labor force, at 153.2 million, was little changed in July. Job gains occurred in health care, retail trade, manufacturing, and mining. [B]Government employment continued to trend down[/B]." (emphasis added)


We already have at least 13.9 million people without a job, and government employment is already slowing. Admittedly many of those government job reductions are taking place at the local and state level. "Government employment continued to trend down over the month (-37,000). Employment in state government decreased by 23,000, almost entirely due to a partial shutdown of the Minnesota state government. Employment in local government continued to wane over the month."


Evidently the "job creators", those who have benefited most from tax exemptions and bail-outs, are failing to fulfill their roles as providers of increased employment. New industries are not being established, new opportunities are not being provided for the unemployed. What we have seen is an increase in profits to shareholders, money which could theoretically benefit the economy if it was spent on commodities produced in the U.S. or paid to employees. Looking at our economic state it appears neither of these are occurring. Instead big oil subsidies (amounting to about $4.4 billion), for example, produced first-quarter profits totaling more than $35 billion on the back of sky-high crude prices. How and where is this money finding its way back into the economy?


So it seems the country wants to eliminate jobs and at the same time not require those who have benefited most from low taxation and subsidies to create new jobs or industries. This lack of accountability coupled with a lack of foresight bodes ill for the future of our country. I have yet to hear any politician present a plan that acknowledges the fact that decreasing the size of government will result in higher unemployment and provide a means to deal with that.

Scientists don't understand everything

Lately I've been encountering a number of posts by theists claiming that evolution and cosmology are seriously flawed but that scientists will never concede that fact.

The theists claim that this is because those researching and experimenting physics and biology all toe the scientific line, that dissent and disagreement are not allowed. They claim that funding would be withheld from any scientist who presented conclusions or interpretations that differed from the mainstream dogma.

In other words theists want us to believe that scientists are just as "religious" in their adherence to doctrine as any god-believer.

To those theists I offer this in rebuttal.

Newly released observations of the top quark — the heaviest of all known fundamental particles — could topple the standard model of particle physics. Data from collisions at the Tevatron particle accelerator at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, hint that some of the top quark's interactions are governed by an as-yet unknown force, communicated by a hypothetical particle called the top gluon. The standard model does not allow for such a force or particle.

The results, presented¹ today at the Europhysics Conference on High-Energy Physics in Grenoble, France, could help researchers to understand the origins of mass. According to one theoretical interpretation, a top quark bound by to its anti-matter partner, the antitop, would act as a version of the elusive Higgs boson, conferring mass on other particles.

Regina Demina, a physicist at the University of Rochester in New York, and her colleagues sifted through eight years' worth of particle-collision data recorded by one of the Tevatron's two detectors, known as DZero. Top quarks produced during collisions can fly off in the direction of the accelerator's proton beam or its antiproton beam; Demina and her team discovered that more travel towards the proton beam than is predicted in the standard model of physics. A different model would seem to be needed to explain the discrepancy. 

Dan Hooper, a theoretical physicist at Fermilab, notes that the top-quark asymmetry is just one of many cracks in the standard model of particle physics. And although Schwartz agrees that it is unlikely that any one theory will explain all the defects, he says that accounting for the odd behaviour of the top quark would be a promising start. (Source)

Join me on Google+

If reading this blog has piqued your interest in Google+, I have quite a few invitations to share with you.

Click on the "Email Me" link in the sidebar and send me the email address you'd like the invitation sent to. I will not retain your address or use it for any other purpose than to send you the invitation.

As you may have read, Google+ isn't like Facebook or Twitter. I would compare it more with Friendfeed, if you're familiar with that site.

Once you've joined Google+, you might want to read this link. It's a "how-to" guide for the site.

Would you like an even easier alternative? The first 150 people clicking this link can get an invitation.
https://plus.google.com/_/notifications/ngemlink?path=%2F%3Fgpinv%3DJif0A0QlOy4%3AI7jqa81J-fc

Will liberals support Obama in 2012?

If Obama fails to secure a second term as president, and I think it's quite likely he will be a one-term president, it will be largely because he's lost the support of his liberal base.

He's not likely to win over any Republicans, conservatives or members of the tea party. They despise him as a person and president; that has been evident since he was sworn in. So extreme is their disdain that they have not even attempted to disguise their hostile rhetoric in the cloak of patriotism.

And he can't rely on support from progressives. They don't even have a party to represent their opinions. They are dedicated more to an ideology than any particular candidate. If the Republican candidate offers a more progressive agenda than Obama they'll back him/her over the Democratic incumbent.

Obama has lost the good faith and trust of the American liberal. His campaign promises appealed to the goals of the liberals. He envisioned an America where everyone would be welcome to share in our prosperity and freedom. He promised greater governmental transparency. He pledged to undo most of the damage done to our image and economy during the Bush years.

Once elected, he failed to follow through on those promises and pledges. He didn't close Gitmo, he didn't immediately end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", he didn't put an end to tax loopholes enjoyed by the wealthiest of our citizens. Transparency in government never saw the light of day. Federal powers to snoop and spy on American citizens weren't curtailed, they were expanded. In many ways he became more "Bush" than Bush himself had been.

If Obama can't win back the hearts, and more importantly the minds, of liberals before the campaign gets well underway, where are liberals to turn? Certainly not to any Republican, conservative or tea party candidate.

The Republican party and their followers in the conservative and tea party clans have shown that they don't share the same vision for America that liberals do. They are beholden to and do the bidding of corporations and the wealthiest among us. They support big business because big business supports them. When was the last time a middle-class person dropped a check for a million dollars into a Republican's campaign chest?

It most likely won't be another Democratic candidate. Who else besides Obama can the Democrats hope to put into place before the 2012 election season kicks off? Not to mention how much credibility the Democratic party has lost in the recent debt debates. The only way they could have capitulated even more would have been to offer Obama's resignation on the spot. The Democratic party has been effectively neutered, primarily by their own inaction and inability to stand up to the opposition.

We could be seeing the end of a liberal perspective in American politics. In the near future we may no longer have a counter opinion to those voiced by the more conservative elements in our government. We may well be witnessing the end of governmental checks-and-balances. And where there is but a single party, a single ideology, a single candidate with any real hope of being elected, we no longer have a representative democracy.

I'm not saying liberal ideals are always the most beneficial for our country. The liberal ideals of caring for even the most destitute citizen and trying to ensure that no one goes unfed, unclothed and uncared for have to be paid for, and yet Democrats are loath to suggest an increase in taxes even for the wealthiest among us. The Democrats are as afraid of pissing off the money merchants as the Republicans are, and for many of the same reasons. Yet taxes are how we Americans pay for the services we receive from the government, from the local level to the federal. To suggest that we can receive benefits without having to pay for them is the height of folly.

So where do liberals turn for a champion for their liberal ideals and goals? I honestly don't know. But I do know this country needs at least two parties in power. We need opposing opinions and debates over proposed spending. We cannot afford to become a one-party country, not unless we're willing to scrap the Constitution and invent a new corporate-sponsored image for the nation.

Readin' and writin'

A friend of mine made me realize yesterday that as hard as it is to keep up with reading all the blogs of interesting people I know, the real challenge is creating the content, writing the posts, for the blogs I own.

Honestly I much prefer to read other people's ideas than to write down my own. My own ruminations don't surprise me or cause me to think of things in a new light. Other people's ideas often make me pause and reconsider my own opinions.

I one of those people who think more than speak, and when I do speak, I try to say something thoughtful and considered. I value words and interpersonal communications. I dislike idle talk and babbling. Foolish though it may be, I tend to waste money and time more than words. In the past I've usually only posted something after I've thought about it a good deal and have a conclusion I can defend. As a result I tend to keep most of my random thoughts to myself.

Yet I realize that if I keep my own thoughts to myself my blogs will get really boring really fast.

Until Google sees fit to allow me to import my postings to Google+ into this blog, I'll make every effort to post a little something more often than has been my past practice. Some days it may read more like Twitter postings. I may only post seeds of ideas, stray thoughts that haven't fully been considered. Perhaps they'll serve as a means to a broader conversation.

Googlfied

(Reposted from October 2007)

In the next few years, after Google buys up Microsoft and Intel, and owns a controlling amount of stock of the internet, they'll want their piece of the real world. Real estate, literally. So somewhere in the mid-West will blossom Googleville, a beta community. I, of course, will be among the first in line to apply for residence. Landscaping be damned, we'll all be in our lovely Googlehomes, sitting in front of our GoogleMachines computers with broadband access via our Google ISP, 24 hours a day. Blooging this, gmailing that, searching for even more entertainment. Once a week I'll trek down to GoogleMart for my supplies, maintaining my net connection with my Googleberry device. On the way back I'll stop to fill the tank of my Googlemobile at GoogleGas, then hurry back home to surf/blog/email/search some more.


Soon I'll be at Mecca, Google headquarters, heaven on Earth. I shall bathe in Googloodness. I shall feast on Googlisms. I shall share my dream of the future and secure my place in it. I will be reborn as BetaBoy©, a registered Google property.


Behold, I am Googlfied.

10th Anniversary

Ten years ago I joined Blogger.

That doesn't make it my oldest blog, but it is a milestone for my affiliation with the Google empire.

There isn't one of the services shown in this image I haven't at least tried during the last decade. Many I still use on a daily basis.

Google has become the AOL of the 21st century and web 2.0. But to be fair, it's AOL done right, or at least better for productivity.

Someday soon I expect Blogger entries to automatically show up as posts to Google+. Eventually all of Google's widespread services will interconnect. I'll be able to link to videos at YouTube, pictures at Picassa, documents from Google Docs and you'll be able to find them all using blog search. While the current debate is centered around Google+ versus Facebook, the larger debate will be over a Google identity versus a Facebook profile and which will become a more ubiquitous passport to every website and service. And the biggest winners in that debate will be the advertisers.

Jeber's is dead, long live Jeber's

After many years of posting to my blog at jebers.com and evidently far too many updates to the WordPress framework, that site is totally broken. Years of posts have been lost, site functionality is completely borked (a technical term meaning damaged beyond repair) and I have run out of ideas as to how to restore it to its former self.

For now and possibly well into the future I'm redirecting jebers.com to this blog, one I've been using almost as long as the former jeber's site. It doesn't appear that I can import any of the posts to the other site into here, they're just gone.

I went through this with another blog not long ago, one that was pretty popular if my host's stats can be trusted. It was a traumatic loss at the time but I've gotten over it. No doubt I'll get over the loss of jebers.com as well.

I've also lost a lot of trust in the WordPress platform and my host, 1and1. Since Google owns Blogger I doubt I'll encounter the same problems here I'm experiencing on my 1and1 site. I may even move my tech blog over here. Why not. I've pretty much become a commodity of Google's anyway. It almost feels like I'm back in the 1990's and Google is AOL.

For a blog, content is king. When my content disappears I get irritated. If Google can offer the kind of stability others cannot, then I'll put my trust in them and divorce myself from WordPress and 1and1.

So let me welcome those of you who have bookmarked jebers.com and are wondering how you wound up on jackcarlson.net. I appreciate your interest and support. I welcome your comments and feedback.

Jebers.com may be down for the count, but Jeber will survive.

Dear readers

Just a quick note.

In the next day or two this blog will have a new URL: www.jackcarlson.net.

As soon as the DNS records update the old URL will redirect to the new one. You will want to update your bookmark for this blog.

Thank you for continuing to read and respond to my blog.

Jack (Jeber)

I'm still alive, I think

I've just been a bit distracted.

There's this new service called Google+ and since I joined up a couple of weeks ago I've managed to log out of it for several minutes at a time.

Realizing that real-time conversations beat the heck out of blog posting (then waiting sometimes forever for a comment or reaction), I've cut down dramatically on the number of blogs I maintain, from more than 8 to just four. Now when something comes up on a social network that I want to expand on I can blog about it in whichever blog is most appropriate. And since it's highly likely that Google will at some point incorporate Blogger into the Google+ family of related sites, this blog is the most obvious one in which to expound on topics first raised in Google+.

So this blog will cease being my "everything that interests me" blog. That honor is bestowed upon jebers.com, my primary personal blog. I also will begin keeping jebersblog.com updated more frequently with tech tips and discussions, especially about Macintosh, since my MacBook and iPad have become my primary computing devices. I'm keeping my jeberjabber.typepad blog for purely sentimental reasons. While not the first blog I started, it was the first blog I started (in 2004) that still exists.

Stick with me, folks. I think the year ahead is going to be one wild ride for social networking and the ever growing Google empire.

Introducing the Google Small Business Blog - Google Small Business

Introducing the Google Small Business Blog - Google Small Business

Another good resource small and home businesses.

A new presidential tactic

Let's all close our eyes and pretend nothing bad is happening anywhere in the world.

New Wi-Fi Standard Promises Blazing Fast Data Speeds | Gadget Lab

via wired.com

After nearly five years in draft, the next-generation Wi-Fi standard is set to be finalized in September. Officially known as 802.11n and often referred to as “Wireless N,” the new standard paves the way for blazing fast high definition video and data at home.

Posted via web from jeber's found items

Where the web shines

When Tim Berners-Lee first conceived of the world wide web and pondered the potential for such a thing, he made the hyperlink the center of the online universe. It was only able to be a web due to hyperlinks.

True to his vision the web has evolved into a vast, link connected source of information on a scale and impacting our everyday lives like no technology before it. The telegraph, telephone and television (Tim, thanks for not calling it the teleweb or telenetwork. "Tele" has been beaten to death) all pointed the way for technology to progress, but the web was a quantum leap forward in its immediacy and reach.

Discounting for the moment porn and games, the web really shines when it comes to making us aware of important and relevant information when we need to know it. Built-in to the structure of the web is a means to find out more, to explore a topic further and deeper. We can link to images and websites that broaden our understanding of those things we need to know.

When there's a tragic situation, the web allows us to link to details and inform others. In the case of missing persons, having more sites spread the word increases the odds that the situation will have a definitive outcome. We always hope for a positive one.

If you live in the following areas, please help by being observant and aware.

(images courtesy of LostNMissing)

Don't screw with me

Between 250 and 350 monkeys

I'm just sayin'...

No Snickering: That Road Sign Means Something Else

In the scale of embarrassing place names, Crapstone ranks pretty high.

But Britain is full of them. Some are mostly amusing, like Ugley, Essex; East Breast, in western Scotland; North Piddle, in Worcestershire; and Spanker Lane, in Derbyshire.

Others evoke images that may conflict with residents’ efforts to appear dignified when, for example, applying for jobs.

These include Crotch Crescent, Oxford; Titty Ho, Northamptonshire; Wetwang, East Yorkshire; Slutshole Lane, Norfolk; and Thong, Kent. And, in a country that delights in lavatory humor, particularly if the word “bottom” is involved, there is Pratts Bottom, in Kent, doubly cursed because “prat” is slang for buffoon.

As for Penistone, a thriving South Yorkshire town, just stop that sophomoric snickering.

“Sniggering at double entendres is a loved and time-honored tradition in this country,” Carol Midgley wrote in The Times of London. Ed Hurst, a co-author, with Rob Bailey, of “Rude Britain” and “Rude UK,” which list arguably offensive place names — some so arguably offensive that, unfortunately, they cannot be printed here — said that many such communities were established hundreds of years ago and that their names were not rude at the time.

“Place names and street names are full of history and culture, and it’s only because language has evolved over the centuries that they’ve wound up sounding rude,” Mr. Hurst said in an interview.

25 things about me you may not know/care about/want to read

I wrote this on January 19th, 2009. 

It's still accurate.

I miss FriendFeed, even though it was like CoSo but less secure. 

 

OK, here's the deal.

Over at FriendFeed, there are these things called memes. This time it's a list, arbitrarily 25 items long, on "25 things you may not know about me".

This latest meme raises some issues for me. I've read some lists that were very revealing and some that were quite facile. Nearly all gave me insight into my fellow FriendFeeders, those I follow anyway, that I didn't have before.So I'd like to contribute to this one, since it actually achieves a worthwhile end.

But I question my own participation, partly because I don't make a habit of getting caught up in these all that often anyway, and partly because I'm not sure just how candid I want to be with this particular crowd. It is a social group, one of several I belong to. Not many of them overlap, there are only around 15 people I know on FriendFeed who I also know in other venues. Still, if I choose not to be totally candid to this group, just how selective should I be? Most of the people who follow me in FriendFeed don't know me from Adam (he's the one on the left)

On the other hand, those who read this blog are mostly a whole other group, people I know through Lockergnome or Scot's forum. That's the tech and comedic side of me. In FriendFeed I expose the more social and psychological me. I'm not sure these two worlds should interact. It could be like matter and anti-matter, you know? Like peanut butter and jelly.

So I decided to post an honest list (meaning that everything on the list is true, but not everything that's true is on the list). Nothing on the list should shock the sensibilities of anyone in either group. Those things about me that would I just won't mention. None of you need to know me that well.

I do take solice in knowing that in less than 5 minutes after reading this, most people will forget all or nearly all I post. This is a very transient medium, populated by far more people with ADD than any group should have to deal with.

In no particular chronology:

1. I'm usually about twice the age of most people interact with daily online. The same situation exists at work. I'm older than my boss's father.
2. I'm still surprised, every time I think about it, that I'm as old as I am. In two weeks I'll be 55. I have a pretty firm mental image, have had the same image for nearly 55 years now, of 55 as being the beginning of old-manhood. People that age have always been girlfriend's fathers, not my peers. Crap, I've always disliked old people. Now I are one.
3. I still smoke de' erb, mon. But other than the occasional toke and an addiction to cigarettes I'm much cleaner now than I was years ago.
4. I spent 13 years in Idaho. I went there to get a bit of money to travel on to Alaska. Stayed way too long and never got further North. Never regretted missing the chance. Froze my ass off well enough in Idaho to convince me that freezing my ass off was not the best life had to offer. After all, I'm a San Diego native, I've lived here for all but 17 years of my life. 
5. The San Diego (a.k.a. The Padre or the KGB) Chicken is the only famous person in my high school graduating class. 
6. For a decade I was a cocaine addict with a full time job living on my own. I can't even recall much about that time. Actually it screwed up my memory which is why... I quit cold turkey and haven't looked back. That was over 10 years ago.
7. I'm very reluctant to discuss gayness with my tech friends but not at all reluctant to mention it in FriendFeed or on other blogs. It has to do with being bisexual. Those who are exclusively gay or exclusively straight both look down, or at least sideways, at bisexuals. Because they aren't, they don't appreciate how anyone could be. If totally gay and totally straight are the extremes, I'm about 65% gay/35% straight, and that percentage can fluctuate by the hour some days. 
8. Speaking of my social handicaps, I'm also blonde (well, was), left-handed, an Aquarian, an atheist and a moderate in nearly everything. 
9. I went to the Regionals in (roller)skate dancing as a ten year old. 
10. In high school I was a wrestler and gymnast, performing both with stunning mediocrity. My passion was my position as news photographer for the school paper, later the yearbook and as the official campus radical. 
11. In high school I published an underground campus paper, called The Crotch, and ran off each issue on the mimeograph machine in the teacher's lounge. I had great circulation until I got nabbed and threatened with expulsion. But I could still write for the legit campus paper. 
12. I went into the Army because the girl I was dating then went in first. I had a great job but the company folded and she'd just enlisted. I figured, "what the hell, I need a job". 
13. My job in the Army was the best job I've ever had, the kind of job that fits your own interests and skills perfectly. I was a fool not to re-enlist. Most of my time was spent at NSA at Ft. Meade, Md. I was working with computers and sound systems in 1975. I was involved in cool secret work, much like working at Apple is today. Our outfit, the Army Security Agency, was a small unit within the Army, with our own command structure and our own rules. We rarely wore uniforms. Did I mention we got to play with computers? Oh, to still be there. I miss that job. 
14. My second favorite job was as a manager for Sam Goody (retail music chain-store). For two out of my 8 years I held the position of official greeter and man-servant for any celebrity who came into the store. We were Southern Cali's newest and biggest store at the time. We were also right under Planet Hollywood. I met hundreds of artists I would never have had the chance to chat with (man-servant = green room attendant as well) otherwise. But yeah, only 2nd best job. I'll take a computer over a celebrity any day.
15. My favorite physical activity used to be free rock climbing. I've always loved climbing things. I am the transitional form between great apes and humans. Or was, before I got a belly and started working jobs that required me to sit too much.
16. That belly is my biggest physical embarrassment. I used to be skinny, or thin as everyone used to say...with a forced smile. I had a 32" waist until I was in my mid-40s. In my late 30s my favorite pair of jeans were ones I'd worn in high school.
17. My last real relationship with a woman ended 24 years ago. We broke up, a couple of weeks later I moved to Idaho, a couple of months later I got a call from a mutual friend letting me know that Susan had quickly married a man she barely knew within a couple of weeks of my leaving. The day before his call her husband shot Susan to death at her workplace (Motorola) in a jealous rage. I'm still blown away when I think of the terrible mistake that all was. My feelings for her got sort of cemented in place that day, and I still remember her fondly. 
18. I was a city cop for two years. I was a terrible cop. Good job though for a person who can't stand routine. And I despise routine. Working in an assembly plant would kill me quickly. 
19. I was a motorcycle driving instructor for the local safety council and sponsored by Yamaha. Got some nice schwag but also got run over a time or two. Even had a hot exhaust pipe run into my arm. I said some very unkind things to that lady. I regret none of them.
20. I have a bunch of books and a few keepsakes of George Catlin, early American painter of Indians. He's in my mom's family. I idolized him as a kid. He got to do all the cool things I wished I'd done. I adopted his journal style of notekeeping, but I can't paint for shit.
21. My last vote for president was in 1972. For a variety of reasons I voted for Richard Nixon that year. I was at the height of my anti-establishment ferver and I voted for Nixon. I knew it was wrong, I knew I'd regret it and I regretted it. If on the first day you take driver's training and you manage to crash the car into a tree causing mild injuries to everyone inside and killing a neighborhood dog tied to the tree, you should perhaps dedicate yourself to memorizing the bus schedules and swear off driving yourself. Voting for Nixon was my collision with the reality I was a crappy voter. Best I just take the path wide of a voting booth. Best for all of us. 
22. I had the opportunity while in Idaho to raise a gray wolf. She was part of the reintroduction program. She was a breeder, pretty much humanized but not completely. Still, I could sit next to her while she ate an entire chicken and not worry. I had a young silver-colored male huskey that became her boyfriend. He was neutered, so no problem there.
23. I sang tenor in choirs from preschool through college. I love classical music but really love Gregorian chant and polyphonic motets. I have all the Anonymous4 CDs. I'm an atheist who loves early church music. So? They got one thing right. 
24. I'm an ordained minister. Yes, it was an online ordination, but I (and the state of California) take it seriously. I do appreciate the mystical. I just don't get carried away.
25. While living in Idaho I was surprised to discover that I could easily have been a cowboy. The Western rural lifestyle really appealed to me.

I'm only reposting for those who may be curious. 

But it's my life, no one else's. At no point has it gone as planned.