I recently read a book called Raising a Modern Day Knight . This book pretty much said that ceremony is a great way to mark the passage of boys to men, and throughout the long transition. For example, when a boy is hitting puberty, it is a natural right of passage. However, adding a meaningful ceremony, during which the passage to manhood is explained, and the expectations of being a man are laid out to him. An example ceremony was simply taking the son out to dinner, with the following ...

Matthew and Luke both point out that Joseph was from the House of David. But the Messiah was to be born of the house of David, and Joseph was not exactly involved in the whole conception thing. So, how is Mary related to David, or, if we don't know that, how do we know that she is related to David? Luke 1:27 does not answer this, as far as I can tell - it simply says Joseph is of the house of David. So, biblical scholars, please tell me - was Mary related to David? Unlike some people...

54 million dollars. The amount of money sued for over a lost pair of pants. Normally, this would not be a big deal, because normal people don't really know what the hell the law is there for. I'm here to hopefully correct that. The law is there to put right what has gone wrong. Was the pair of pants worth $54 million? I doubt that. I very much doubt that. How was this number arrived at? I believe that this person who sued calculated the amount based on some frivilous per diem...

I want to be as general as possible in this, as it's hard to talk about this movie without giving things away. Firstly, after movies such as Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and Eragon coming out, I expected Bridge to Terabithia to be a fantasy movie. It is not. It is a movie about imagination, friendship, and living through elementary school. Despite the trailers for the movie not discussing any of that, (when do they ever show what a movie is really about?) I still enjoyed Bri...

At one point, I had friends who also played video games, and did in fact do so with me. These days are long gone. However, I feel like reminiscing, because I should be working. I love the even matches, the Epic Battles as they should be called, that would sometimes occur between us. I was involved with two of them. A friend of mine owned Virtua Fighter 4, and so did I. So, we both tend to be about the same in skill when it came to it. This made it one of my favorite games to play a...

In 1000 Barrels per day 1999 - 725 2000 - 620 2001 - 795 2002 - 459 2003 - 481 2004 - 655 2005 - 527 2006 - 553 (average of 12 months, not weighted) 2007 - 485 (average of 4 months, not weighted) So, where's all the extra oil Bush went in to Iraq for? That is why he went in, right? To get me more oil so I can drive my 5 SUVs and fly my private jet around? Where is it? I only want to pay a buck a gallon. I knew we didn't go in for oil. The whole oil thing was about the...

To summarize Wings of War does not take long. Wings of War is a game about World War 1, specifically the planes of World War 1. The game is primarily played with cards, representing planes, maneuvers of the planes, and cards representing hits, misses, and damage. The brilliance of this game is clear as soon as you see the maneuver cards. Each plane card has an arrow the bottom, and a line on the top. The maneuver cards have a line clearly showing the maneuver, and an arrow where it ends....

So, I was looking through a bunch of financial statements today. The statements appeared to not be in any order. It would have 2003, then 2004, then 2005, but within it the months were all scattered. Finally, it hit me - they were ordered alphabetically. April, August, December, February, January, July, June, March, May, November, October, September. It makes no sense, yet that's the way it is. Since I'm crosschecking it vs. something else, I'm working backword - November, October, th...

I love writing these The people who read them say It was worse than death. Once upon a time there was a haiku challenge I think I just lost. Haiku gland failing Syllables are hard to count I must stop writing.

Boredom: I've done many things I stare blankly into space What should I do now? Political: What have you done, sir? The mission was completed. Why can't they come home? Ego: A thousand women Line up at my door each night They can't all be wrong.

So I found a recipe at cooks.com for chicken parmesan. I think I could've figured most of it out without the recipe, except the baking times. I suck at baking times. But besides that, I'm a pretty good cook. I normally just avoid baking, but how can you with chicken parmesan? I used store-bought marinara sauce, and wal-mart frozen chicken breast product. I ignored the quantities for everything, so that it would feel more home-done. I only had plain breadcrumbs, so I sprinkled in some...

In the 2004 elections, I did not vote. I did vote in 2006 though, and plan to for the rest of my life, so don't get all "Hey, he didn't vote!" on me. However, when I look at the system for voting for president, and I look at my state, I realize that my vote would not have carried any weight regardless. The person I would have voted for already won my state, therefore my vote would not have helped him. The electoral college has outlived it's usefulness. If I remember correctly, it was s...

Disclaimer: I am not an insurance agent, and if you are buying insurance, you should use one, not my blog. My blog is to give you an idea of what you might need to know, and what could happen if you buy the wrong amount. [/Disclaimer] When buying business interruption insurance, you need to know how much to buy. An agent can help you, but you still need to know your business well enough to answer a couple questions about it. Basically, you want to cover the worst possible scenario. So...

In the world of insurance accounting, there are few things that annoy me more than a fraudulent claim. All it does is waste time and effort that could better be spent evaluating claims with merit. The biggest problem with submitting a claim that has no merit is that, in order for the insurance company to pay you, you have to prove you had a loss. In my office, there are specific things we ask for to prove that loss, such as financial statements and tax returns. If you fail to provide th...

First, I want to address what I think of LW's problem with the new bill, which actually has little to do with the Visa's themselves, but with the treatment of legal immigrants - it sucks. I think the regulations regarding legal immigration needs to be changed, and make it easier for people to stay and become citizens. Especially from countries where we have Visa waivers. The next problem with the immigration legislation is that it lets everyone in, even gang members and known criminals, ...