Friday, August 22, 2008
You can't always choose the most entertaining option, but you can always try to make something boring into something a lot more interesting. All it takes is a positive attitude and a little creativity. Stuck in a boring meeting? Imagine the speaker dressed up like a clown. Still working on that tedious project? Pretend it's all part of an international plan to thwart evil spies. Spin an interesting tale in your head to keep yourself engaged when reality just isn't cutting it. Trust me, it works! ;-D
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Counting Down to the DNC!
It's nerve racking really! It's going to be the "secret service" haven, don't you think? A large segment of a major highway being "shut down", helicopters flying low, security on my roof and front doors, you name it, it's going to be big! Let's hope for the best.
To learn more: http://www.demconvention.com/
To learn more: http://www.demconvention.com/
Sunday, August 17, 2008
And God Said, "Just Do It."
Before you read any further, my disclaimer is:
I am bloging this for the sake of content and not religion!
By DAVID VAN BIEMA
Genesis, chapter 2 verse 24, says a man "shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." But how liberally to define cleave? That was the very special Bible query the Rev. Stacy Spencer and his wife Rhonda took up last month with 252 married people at their New Direction Christian Church in Memphis, Tenn. And the Spencers' answer was ... encouraging. Does frequent sex have a place in marriage? Yep. Oral sex? Read the Song of Solomon 2: 3 for assurance. How about role-playing? One participant expressed a yearning to see her husband dressed as a police officer. The Good Book offers no specifics on that, so Stacy Spencer allowed that it was up to the woman, "as long as you're not lusting after a particular officer. Jesus talked about spiritual adultery, and that could be spiritual adultery. But if it's just a generic cop, go for it."
Superior sex can be difficult for some couples to discuss with each other, let alone with their pastor. But having taken on almost every other aspect of their congregants' lives, churches oriented toward young adults and Gen Xers have begun promoting not just better sex, but more of it. Well, not just promoting it but penciling it in. When New Direction launched its "40 Nights of Grrreat Sex" program, the Spencers gave participants daily planners. A typical week is marked "Sun: Worship together"; "Mon: Give your wife a full body massage"; "Tues: Quickie in any room besides the bedroom"; "Wed: Pleasure your partner"; "Thurs: Read 1 Corinthians 7--How can I please you more?"; and so on.
New Direction is not the only church promoting a frequent-sex regimen. In February, Paul Wirth, pastor of the Relevant Church in Tampa, Fla., issued what he called "The 30-Day Sex Challenge." The program featured an extensive questionnaire, a Bible verse a day and the assumption that participants would engage in some kind of sex each night. Wirth says he has received calls from eight pastors asking about his program's guidelines. A megachurch in Texas, the Fellowship of the Woodlands, holds semiannual Sacred Sex Weekends ("Learn how you can experience a fulfilling sex life with God's blessing").
Scheduling time for sex appears to be in vogue, and not just among believers. In June, couples in Colorado and North Carolina published books detailing their postnuptial attempts to have sex 101 and 365 days in a row, respectively. But the issue takes on added urgency among conservative Christians, who have just as high a divorce rate as the country at large but theoretically take the till-death-do-us-part aspect of marriage as a faith obligation. When it comes to sex, Wirth contends, many are thinking, "If this doesn't get better, it's gonna be a really sucky life."
"My own marriage was in trouble 10 years ago," he says, but it was reinvigorated with the help of His Needs, Her Needs by clinical psychologist Willard Harley. Wirth eventually contacted Harley and got permission to use the book for his church program. Meanwhile, at New Direction, Spencer discovered John Gray's Mars and Venus in the Bedroom and Getting the Sex You Want by Tammy Nelson.
Their congregations differ in some ways--New Direction, a Disciples of Christ church, is mostly African--American; Relevant is nondenominational and mostly white--but both flocks fall into the 20-to-40 age group, as do their pastors. Along with their wives, the preachers developed programs involving large-scale, coed seminars and a save-that-month schedule; the Spencers also set up a blog so users can post questions anonymously. Both couples emphasized the spiritual, emotional and, yes, practical aspects of having better sex more often. For instance, a husband can expect smoother sailing at night if he helps his wife clear her "to do" list that evening, Spencer said in a conference call with his wife, who added, "Otherwise he's just another thing on that list."
Protestant history has included periods of enthusiastic talk about sex, as well as chilly silence. A famous 1623 Puritan sermon made the case for "mutual [conjugal] dalliances for pleasure's sake," presumably as a distinction from Roman Catholicism's procreation-only rule. In the 1970s, several conservative Christian leaders responded to the popularity of Alex Comfort's classic how-to The Joy of Sex by reminding their flocks that whoopee for whoopee's sake was not doctrinally prohibited; Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and Left Behind co-author Tim LaHaye each put out manuals for married couples.
Still, these new calendrical sexhortations have their critics. Lauren Sandler, feminist and author of Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement, suspects they are "another way of becoming the best Christian wife--to have tons of orgasms so their husbands can go to church the next day and tell people how they really made Jesus proud in the sack." Todd Friel, host of the syndicated radio show Way of the Master, says sexual intimacy was created as a taste of what it's like to be in a "right relationship" with God. "That's amazing, and it's a little different than 'Come and improve your sex life in a 30-day challenge,'" he says. But some participants find meaning in the programs. "After more than 20 yrs of marriage, this has been 'a shot in the arm,'" one New Direction congregant wrote on the Spencers' blog. "In the past month we have been to Victoria's Secret 4 times (the secret is out!!). Thanks Pastor and 1st Lady for your openness, and obediences to God."
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Denver Democratic Convention
Gearing up to the event! Not sure what to expect, but I'll be in the midst of it all...
Allergic reaction to the Louis Vuitton leather...
Imagibe that! Carrying my Louis Vuitton hand bag on the inside of my forearm on a hot day, perhaps a bad combination, I broke-up in a rash! Perhaps a sign? Any comments?
Worrying invasive snail found in Lake Michigan
By DAVID MERCER, Associated Press Writer
Scientists worry that a rapidly reproducing, tiny invasive snail recently found in Lake Michigan could hurt the lake's ecosystem.
The New Zealand mud snail joins a long and growing list of nonnative species moving into the Great Lakes, threatening to disrupt the food chain and change the local environment.
Scientists checking Lake Michigan water samples earlier this summer found a population of the New Zealand mud snail, the Illinois Natural History Survey said. They grow to only a few millimeters — several dozen could sit on the surface of a dime — making them hard to spot.
The snails reproduce asexually and in large numbers, and have no natural predators in North America, Kevin Cummings, a scientist who works for the Natural History Survey, said Thursday.
That means they could quickly spread, at high enough densities to out-compete native invertebrates for food and living space, he and other scientists say.
"It's hard enough to contain a species once it makes its way into nonnative waters," Cummings said in a statement. "When each mud snail has the ability to produce large quantities of embryos without a partner, you've really got a problem."
Scientists won't know for some time how well the mud snail will do in Lake Michigan, but it has been in Lake Ontario since the early 1990s and lives in high numbers there and in Lakes Superior and Erie, said Rochelle Sturtevant, an ecologist with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich.
The snail is native to New Zealand but is now found in several western states and all the Great Lakes except Lake Huron. It is carried in ships' ballast water and, once in lakes and streams, hitches a ride on boats and even the clothes worn by human waders.
"Where they've gotten into streams in the western part of the country, they've caused a lot of problems," said Sturtevant. "They're taking over space that should have other native species living in it."
Plenty of invasive species have made homes for themselves in the Great Lakes. Zebra and quagga mussels are a threat to the region's $4 billion-a-year fishery, eating up algae that is the lowest link in the lakes' food chain.
And some invasive species make it possible for others to follow, Sturtevant said. The round goby, an aggressive fish native to Eurasia, now thrives in the Great Lakes because it eats zebra mussels.
Those are just a handful of what Sturtevant says are now at least 186 invasive species in the lakes.
Environmental groups are particularly critical of the role oceangoing ships play in introducing species like mussels to the lakes.
Ships that aren't loaded down with cargo fill their ballast tanks with water for better stability when they're on the ocean, then empty the tanks when they arrive in port. That ballast water often contains any number of species, from microscopic organisms to mussels and fish.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency introduced a plan earlier this summer that would require ships to dump ballast water at least 200 miles from shore. But the plan, called a permit, includes an exemption for loaded ships.
Environmental groups are particularly critical of the EPA's plan.
"I could sum it up in one word: nothing. The permit doesn't change a thing," said Joel Brammeier, vice president for policy at The Alliance for the Great Lakes.
The shipping industry, including the U.S. Great Lakes Shipping Association, has said it supports the idea of treating ballast tanks to kill potentially invasive species. But industry officials say that while treatment is being researched, so far there isn't a feasible way to do it.
Scientists worry that a rapidly reproducing, tiny invasive snail recently found in Lake Michigan could hurt the lake's ecosystem.
The New Zealand mud snail joins a long and growing list of nonnative species moving into the Great Lakes, threatening to disrupt the food chain and change the local environment.
Scientists checking Lake Michigan water samples earlier this summer found a population of the New Zealand mud snail, the Illinois Natural History Survey said. They grow to only a few millimeters — several dozen could sit on the surface of a dime — making them hard to spot.
The snails reproduce asexually and in large numbers, and have no natural predators in North America, Kevin Cummings, a scientist who works for the Natural History Survey, said Thursday.
That means they could quickly spread, at high enough densities to out-compete native invertebrates for food and living space, he and other scientists say.
"It's hard enough to contain a species once it makes its way into nonnative waters," Cummings said in a statement. "When each mud snail has the ability to produce large quantities of embryos without a partner, you've really got a problem."
Scientists won't know for some time how well the mud snail will do in Lake Michigan, but it has been in Lake Ontario since the early 1990s and lives in high numbers there and in Lakes Superior and Erie, said Rochelle Sturtevant, an ecologist with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich.
The snail is native to New Zealand but is now found in several western states and all the Great Lakes except Lake Huron. It is carried in ships' ballast water and, once in lakes and streams, hitches a ride on boats and even the clothes worn by human waders.
"Where they've gotten into streams in the western part of the country, they've caused a lot of problems," said Sturtevant. "They're taking over space that should have other native species living in it."
Plenty of invasive species have made homes for themselves in the Great Lakes. Zebra and quagga mussels are a threat to the region's $4 billion-a-year fishery, eating up algae that is the lowest link in the lakes' food chain.
And some invasive species make it possible for others to follow, Sturtevant said. The round goby, an aggressive fish native to Eurasia, now thrives in the Great Lakes because it eats zebra mussels.
Those are just a handful of what Sturtevant says are now at least 186 invasive species in the lakes.
Environmental groups are particularly critical of the role oceangoing ships play in introducing species like mussels to the lakes.
Ships that aren't loaded down with cargo fill their ballast tanks with water for better stability when they're on the ocean, then empty the tanks when they arrive in port. That ballast water often contains any number of species, from microscopic organisms to mussels and fish.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency introduced a plan earlier this summer that would require ships to dump ballast water at least 200 miles from shore. But the plan, called a permit, includes an exemption for loaded ships.
Environmental groups are particularly critical of the EPA's plan.
"I could sum it up in one word: nothing. The permit doesn't change a thing," said Joel Brammeier, vice president for policy at The Alliance for the Great Lakes.
The shipping industry, including the U.S. Great Lakes Shipping Association, has said it supports the idea of treating ballast tanks to kill potentially invasive species. But industry officials say that while treatment is being researched, so far there isn't a feasible way to do it.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Forgot their 3-year old daughter at the airport
Today's top travel story
An Israeli couple going on a European vacation remembered to take their duty-free shopping and their 18 suitcases, but forgot their 3-year-old daughter at the airport, police said today.
Couple's 18 suitcases make plane, but child doesn't
via www.chron.com
JERUSALEM — An Israeli couple going on a European vacation remembered to take their duty-free shopping and their 18 suitcases, but forgot their 3-year-old daughter at the airport, police said today.
The couple and their five children were late for a charter flight to Paris Sunday and made a mad dash to the gate. In the confusion, their daughter got lost.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said a policeman found her wandering in the duty-free area at Ben-Gurion airport, Israel's bustling main international air portal. He said the officer alerted airline staff, but the flight had already taken off.
Israeli media said the parents were an ultra-Orthodox Jewish couple but did not give their names.
Rosenfeld said the parents were unaware they had boarded the aircraft with only four children instead of five until they were informed by cabin staff after 40 minutes in the air.
The child, accompanied by an airline staffer, took the next flight to Paris where she was safely reunited with her parents.
Rosenfeld said police would question the couple when they return from vacation, on suspicion of parental negligence.
An Israeli couple going on a European vacation remembered to take their duty-free shopping and their 18 suitcases, but forgot their 3-year-old daughter at the airport, police said today.
Couple's 18 suitcases make plane, but child doesn't
via www.chron.com
JERUSALEM — An Israeli couple going on a European vacation remembered to take their duty-free shopping and their 18 suitcases, but forgot their 3-year-old daughter at the airport, police said today.
The couple and their five children were late for a charter flight to Paris Sunday and made a mad dash to the gate. In the confusion, their daughter got lost.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said a policeman found her wandering in the duty-free area at Ben-Gurion airport, Israel's bustling main international air portal. He said the officer alerted airline staff, but the flight had already taken off.
Israeli media said the parents were an ultra-Orthodox Jewish couple but did not give their names.
Rosenfeld said the parents were unaware they had boarded the aircraft with only four children instead of five until they were informed by cabin staff after 40 minutes in the air.
The child, accompanied by an airline staffer, took the next flight to Paris where she was safely reunited with her parents.
Rosenfeld said police would question the couple when they return from vacation, on suspicion of parental negligence.
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