Are People Open-Minded about Abortion?

I've recently been exposed to new information and ideas about Abortion that have reinforced my stance on the issue.

The first is the 33-minute movie called 180 Movie, which you can watch below. The most powerful thing about the movie was not necessarily the information itself, but the fact that people's minds can be changed. Which my goal is not to simply change people's minds just for the sake of it, but to save innocent lives.

The second resource that has really impressed me even more is the book, Why Pro-Life; Caring for the Unborn and Their Mothers, by Randy Alcorn. I had ordered some DVD copies of the 180 Movie to give away and they sent me this book for free. Once I picked it up, I could not put it down. It offers scientific reasons for not aborting a child that simply amazed me. It's a book not only to reinforce the stance for those that are pro-life, but also for those that are pro-choice / pro-abortion, it gives reasons for being pro-life, ones that most likely are arguments they have never been presented before. One example he gives is a true story, in which Mr. Alcorn once gave a pro-life presentation to a class and the 50+ year old teacher admitted he had never heard the pro-life argument.

So even if you are pro-choice, I would highly recommend it, even if it's just so you can learn the arguments that pro-lifers use. I purchased 50 of these books, so if you happen to be reading this and would like a free copy, I will send one to you for free. It's a very easy read. It only took me a couple of hours to read and the chapters are very short.




http://www.180movie.com

How Big is Houston?

About six years ago I was in Phoenix visiting a friend when her dad casually mentioned that Phoenix was bigger than Houston. I kindly corrected him only to recieve a reply of disbelief.

Fast forward to this past weekend and I was spending time with this man's son, again in Phoenix. We were discussing Carmelo Anthony possibly being traded to the Houston Rockets. He was somewhat astonished that I'd think Carmelo would want to go to a smaller market than Denver. I had to kindly correct him as well.

So I am not sure if this perception that Houston is small is just from this family, Phoenix or even nation wide.

Have any of you run into this?

Wiki Link Showing Population Rankings

Pick Six: Lottery or Football?

Has anyone else noticed every sports tv and radio personality using the term "pick-six" this year? It's used when a defensive player intercepts a pass and runs it back for a touchdown.

Maybe it was used sparingly in my football watching years or even before I was born, but I never remember hearing it until this year.

And guess what, it's annoying the heck out of me.

In the past, announcers would normally just say exactly what the player did, "he picked it off and ran it back for a touchdown."

It's not annoying because of anything inherent in the term. I don't care that as far as I know it originated as a lottery game. It's annoying because it's a fad, and every sports personality is catching onto it like H1N1.

You know, people study this kind of stuff, it's called etymology. If they were to study this term if it's still used 20 years from now (I sure hope not), they'll look back and say, "well, it was initially used as a name for a lottery game and then somewhere in the year 2009, it blew up out of nowhere after some mysterious announcer used it in one of his telecasts."

Even sports talk guys I respect have caught on, sadly enough. I hope that some of these guys would get some backbone and stop using it, but I guess by the time they do, it'll be the end of the fad anyway.

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This kid scares me:

The Wooden Bowl

I usually delete forwards upon recieving them, but this one some how got past that point. I think it's worth a read.


The Wooden Bowl
I guarantee you will remember the tale of the Wooden Bowl tomorrow, a week from now, a month from now, a year from now.


A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year-old grandson.

The old man's hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred, and his step faltered.

The family ate together at the table. But the elderly grandfather's shaky hands and failing sight made eating difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor. When he grasped the glass, milk spilled on the tablecloth.

The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess. 'We must do something about father,' said the son. 'I've had enough of his spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the floor.' So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner.

There, Grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner. Since Grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl. When the family glanced in Grandfather's direction, sometimes he had a tear in his eye as he sat alone. Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled food.

The four-year-old watched it all in silence.

One evening before supper, the father noticed his son playing with wood scraps on the floor. He asked the child sweetly, 'What are you making?'

Just as sweetly, the boy responded, 'Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and Mama to eat your food in when I grow up. ' The four-year-old smiled and went back to work.

The words so struck the parents so that they were speechless. Then tears started to stream down their cheeks. Though no word was spoken, both knew what must be done. That evening the husband took Grandfather's hand and gently led him back to the family table. For the remainder of his days he ate every meal with the family. And for some reason, neither husband nor wife seemed to care any longer when a fork was dropped, milk spilled, or the tablecloth soiled.

On a positive note, I've learned that, no matter what happens, how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles four things:
a rainy day;
the elderly;
lost luggage; and,
tangled Christmas tree lights.

I've learned that, regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life.

I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as making a life.'

I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.

I've learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you. But, if you focus on your family, your friends, the needs of others, your work and doing the very best you can, happiness will find you.

I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.

I've learned that every day, you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch -- holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.



I need to work on my patience with the Christmas lights :)

The Frustration of Oil Under Our Noses

It's not news.

We've known we have plenty of oil under American soil and just off our coasts for decades.Yet people still choose to blame the oil companies for rising oil prices. Blame the stupidity and selfishness of our own government. And at years end, we'll be able to blame our future president, whichever candidate it may be, because they're both against drilling locally.

Try to grasp some of these quotes...

"...the U.S. remains one of the only countries in the world that chooses as a matter of policy to lock up its natural resources. The Chinese think we're insane and self-destructive, while the Saudis laugh all the way to the bank."

"Engineers recently perfected refining solid shale rock into diesel or gas, which may amount to the largest oil supply in the world – perhaps as much as 1.8 trillion barrels in the American West. That's enough to meet current U.S. oil demand for more than two centuries. Yet as late as 2007, Democrats attached a rider to the energy bill that prohibits leasing the federal interior lands that contain at least 80% of America's oil shale."

"This has led to the believe-it-or-not situation in which the Chinese are prepping to drill in Cuban waters less than 60 miles off the Florida coast. American companies are banned from drilling in American waters nearby."

"California won't drill for the estimated 1.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil off its coast because of bad memories of the Santa Barbara oil spill – in 1969. We won't drill for the estimated 5.6 billion to 16 billion barrels of oil in the moonscape known as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) because of – the caribou."

"Our waters may hold 60 trillion untapped cubic feet of natural gas. As in Brazil, these are surely conservative estimates."

"As for anticarbon theology, oil will be indispensable over the next half-century and probably longer, like it or not. Airplanes will never fly on woodchips, and you won't be able to charge your car with a windmill for some time, if ever."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121322599645166029.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121322872046666269.html?mod=todays_columnists

Words Only Used in the World of Sports

You never hear, read or say them except when you're watching sports. It's jargon used by athlete wanna-bes, has-beens and junior varsity journalists who sit inside our tv screens. You may or may not recognize the words I'm talking about. Once I write down a few, I think you'll agree.

I actually can't think of all of them right now, but I intend to add to this list. If someone ever stumbles across this blog and actually reads it and has something to add or even disagree on, I'll submit changes to it.

Not all of these words annoy me, I just find it odd and a little cliche-ish for them never to use it in real life, but when talking on tv about sports, their vocabulary suddenly increases. It's almost like talking to someone who's really smart and is speaking way over your head. You nod your head in conversation but run to google when you get home to crack the code of their message.

It's almost as if these commentators feel like these words somehow legitimize their takes and validates what they're saying. It doesn't. Actually, makes them sound silly to me. And I'd even bet they don't even know what the words mean half the time. They just remember the context in which they're usually said and they parrot them back when it sounds right. Heck, I don't even know what they mean. Basically, I get the gist of what they're saying and move on.

Enough of my writing. Here's the very very short list as of now. I thought of two today. Actually, I heard one on the radio and the other is one I despise. If you think I'm wrong and you actually hear or use these words used more than two times a year outside of sports, I'd love to hear about it.

1. Ill-advised
2. Perennial

EDIT: So I may be halfway wrong on these so far. I googled news with these words, and this is what I found:

(1) http://news.google.com/news?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS270&q=ill-advised&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tab=wn&sa=N&start=0
So maybe I need to read more?

(2) http://news.google.com/news?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS270&q=perennial&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tab=wn&sa=N&start=0
Notice the word is almost exclusively used for sports or botany. How they stole this one I don't know.

What a typical American Eats

The main events of the last ten mintues for me: Walk in the door from work, check my mail, grab a snack to eat, sit on the couch.

Then I thought to myself, "I wonder what a typical meal is for an Italian."

I think the reason I thought that was because I was wanting variety in my meals. Why I thought that, I don't know. But I figured that if I knew a handful of real typical meals from different cultures around the world, I'd always have something different and interesting for each meal.

The problem is finding that information. An American Google search will bring results, but they'll be produced by an American born Italian, and most likely it won't be authentic in some way. I could be wrong.

But take my experience with a gyro for example. In Greece they put french fries inside the sandwich. Here they put the fries on the side.

I'm not a full believer in the thought that only natives can make their own food well. Non-natives can too, it's just that in the process of transferring information, something was lost, misinterpreted or wrongly substituted. Take my gyro example again. In the simplest way, we Americans could put the fries in the sandwhich. Simple as that. (Although I won't get into other ways we probably make it wrong. Well...briefly; they soak the bread in olive oil, and everytime I ordered one they asked me if I wanted pork or chicken, not lamb.)

So anyway. I want to be a source of information. I am going to share my meals in hope that some Euro, Asian or African will search the words, "typical american cuisine," and find my blog. While I'm only a "typical" American in the sense that I'm American, I know that my next door neighbor might have completely different eating habits. But hey, if we all do this, we can help transcend the cutlture of food and bring everyone on this planet to a happy tummy! K, not really.

Anyway, here it goes.

Breakfast: Whisked two eggs. Tore a slice of ham into pieces and mixed it with the eggs. Scrambled the eggs and ham. Toasted an english muffin. Used half a slice of american cheese to put inside the sandwich. Drank a glass of milk.

Lunch: Ate quesadillas. Grilled chicken. Cut the chicken into slices. Placed chicken slices onto a corn tortilla. Sprinkled mozarella cheese on top. Put another tortilla on top. Put on a frying pan until cheese was melted.

Dinner: Ate "Weta's Sphagetti." Boil pasta. Simmer tomatoe sauce. Add pasta to sauce. Add chopped onion. Enjoy. Oh yeah, ate freshed baby leaf spinach with homemade ranch dressing.