Yesterday's business trip (no trouble with time)

For the first time in a long time, the pace of time seemed to allow me to hit my day’s schedule perfectly. Everything went smoothly yesterday. I had a business trip to a vendor convention. I got up early for my flight. I got to the airport on time, as usual. My wait was maybe about 1/2hr. The flight to Santa Ana passed by quickly enough. I passively watched the sun rise during our ascent, as I took in the beauty of its light play off of the thin layer of clouds just below us. I imaged what it would be like if we could walk on the clouds. I know it’s a bit silly, but the clouds looked like a large mattress floating over the ground. Taking off on a morning like this is my favorite daylight flight experience.
I got my car quickly from Hertz and made it to the convention center about 1 hour before the doors opened. The wait allowed me to explore the nearby Disneyland based Hilton, to make a few phone calls to friends and family, and to just relax in the morning sun at some tables set up outside in the front of the convention entrance.
The convention was huge, with thousands of vendor booths, all trying to get my attention. Some booths have cool gimmicks, aggressive promoters, flashy backdrops, demonstrations, examples, etc. A few had Booth Babes (relatively hot chicks). Many booths where plan, uninteresting or didn’t have a clear message as to the service offered by the vendor. I walked down every aisle, and talked to many vendors that I need now, or may have some interest in later. I was able to get through the whole place within 5 hours. There was like 10 really hot chicks in the whole place, and 8 of them where in working in booths.
I took one of my co-workers to the airport at around 3:30. I then headed off to find a nearby beach with restaurants. I don’t know the L.A./Orange County area well, but I do have a general sense of the area. I found Huntington Beach around 4:45 and settled down at the bar in Dunes. I was aware that I needed to take off by 6pm to give myself time to get to the airport, but I didn’t worry about it. I had a drink and a tasty battered fish taco as I passively watched the sun set over the Pacific horizon. This was exactly what I planned to restfully close my long day. After I finished dinner, I walked down the pier to watch the surfers. On the walk back, I stopped in a little shop to pick up a Huntington t-shirt (cuz that’s just what I do), then headed back to the car. I left the beach parking lot at exactly 6pm. Not bad considering I wasn’t trying to keep my schedule.
After dropping off the car, I made it to my gate at about 6:45. My flight was scheduled for boarding at 7:50, but another flight was heading back to San Jose earlier. I was able to get on the earlier flight.
Allie had planned to pick me up at 9:30. She left her phone off, so I had to get a hold of her through her brother, who called their dad’s cell in order to get through, cuz the house phone was busy. So, I did do a little waiting after the flight, but we left the airport around 9:25. Not too bad. Allie and I spent a little time at her place before I headed home.
Time wasn’t an issue for me yesterday. It’s been a long time since I had that feeling. Normally I watch the clock and see the minutes tick away like seconds. But yesterday moved as a pace that allowed me to get everything I wanted to without the worry or rush. Now, if only every day was like that.

I'm not so annoyed today

The president of the U.S. is likely to use the term "We are addicted to oil" or some form of that statement in the State of the Union tonight. Umm, well, it's a nice thought, but I know the words are hollow and the sentiment a bit late in the game. However, it is good that it is being said. Oil dependency is leading us down a path of collapse. The more money we unnecessarily send over seas, the more we weaken our nation when we don't have it come back in return. Foreign powers have used oil money to invest in the U.S. economy, but it's not in a way that can provide long term benefit to us. We need them to buy U.S. goods, not to U.S. companies. lol
Well, maybe the words will lead to some improvement of the situation. We get rid of oil dependancy (not just foreign oil), we strike a massive blow to terrorist, long term economic decline, and foreign powers seeking advantage over us.

Ok, so these weeks of busyness ...

Ok, so these weeks of busy-ness for me might start winding down after next week. I don't mind the busy-ness, but if it keeps up too long, I have trouble keeping up on my daily needs.
Chinese New Year's eve was spent with Allie's family with a very well cooked meal by her mom. Today, I'm not sure what I wanna do. It's already 1pm and Allie and I are barely getting out of bed. lol We watched my Snatch DVD just a bit ago. Right now, she's taking a shower. Exciting stuff, but all part of the busy-ness. :)
My new apartment has come together nicely. It just needs a bit of cleaning up now. Everything is in order. I like what I was able to do with the living areas and the bedroom. The only thang left is for the landlord to fix a couple of items with the bathroom. Once that is done, I'll pretty much feel 100% settled in.
I'm hungry.

Future talking points

I grew up in a protestant fundamentalist home. The thing about protestant fundamentalism is that followers are told they have the answer for everything right directly from the bible. From my observations, each individual protestant fundamentalist group tends to take a core set of scriptures and ideas and build their beliefs around those; then they go through the bible picking and choosing other scriptures to support their conclusions. Normally they are able to form some grand harmonious scheme that convinces the group’s followers that they are the only ones on the right track in figuring out the bible, the universe and everything.

There are plenty of protestant fundamentalist groups in existence. Each one has convinced itself they are the only true path to fulfilling God’s will. Of course, the question comes up, if God was so interested in saving lives in this manner, why would he give his word to so few at such a later period in time?

Anyways, as I was growing up, I was taught that the bible says all modern supernatural phenomena are the work of the Devil or his demons who are trying their damnedest to pull people away from the word of God. Of course, this belief did nothing but reinforce the notion that Satan was succeeding because so many did not accept our version of God’s Word. I was taught that ghosts were demons pretending to be the deceased, psychic powers came from conjuring demon influence, and other supernatural events were the efforts to turn people away from God or at least distract us from doing his will. So, much of my life, I had both a fear of the supernatural and an unnatural arrogance about having the ability to know what it is and how to eliminate it.

This led me to completely misinterpret what was really going on around me. This led me to not understand my place in this world. I treated events around me too matter of factly (natural, human, and supernatural), almost with arrogance because I so strongly believed myself to be immune to them. Looking back now, I can say I was pretty ignorant, but that my heart was in the right place.

I'm now far more skeptic, but I'm also skeptical of skepticism. 

UFO Grade School

When I was in grade school, my teacher brought up the topic of UFO’s in a class lecture and discussion. I forget which grade and teacher. Either way, it was an unusual discussion for grade school. The one thing that stuck with me from that discussion is a frank consideration as to the possible origins of UFO’s. There are 4 possibilities.

Extraterrestrial (commonly called ET) – This is normally the first thing people think of when they consider the possible origin of UFO’s. From what I’ve see, most people that believe in UFO's pretty much assume they are occupied by intelligent creatures from other planets. In abduction cases, the victim normally associates their experience with beings from other planets doing experiments on us lowly humans.

Also see the articles about what life on other planets may be like

Terrestrial – People who view themselves as more practical tend to consider UFO’s as something common and terrestrial. Normally they associate sightings as misinterpretations of common Earth objects (natural or human-made). If you see an unusual craft in the sky doing incredible maneuvers, then it’s a new government spy plane or similar device. Many times, sightings are shoe-horned into preconceived notions about what the sighting could be. I’ve often seen a person trying to give “practical” explanation for a UFO sighting that sounds as ridiculous as they imagine UFO believers to be. It’s practical to try to rule out other possibilities when analyzing and observing something, but it’s just goofy to try too hard. Sometimes a sighting really is unexplained until further evidence can be found.

Ultraterrestrials (can be known as UT, not because they live in Utah) – This is one idea that is much less commonly known or considered. An ultraterrestrial would be an advanced being that is from Earth, but is generally hidden from view. This means that there are beings on our world that are so far advanced beyond humans, they are able to hide their existence from us, only popping out once in awhile in UFO’s for reasons only known to them. Since humans occupy so much of our planet, and have such a firm grip on our 3 dimensional perceptions, it is generally considered very unlikely anyone could be hiding from us right under our own noises. However, as far as evidence goes, there’s not much difference between this concept and that of extraterrestrials.

Fake – Of course, these previous ideas are all based on the idea that UFO’s are real in one way or another. It is not hard to completely discredit most UFO encounters (real, imagined or misinterpreted) as simple overstatements or outright fakes. Certainly, a lot of 20th Century mythologies are being revealed as hoaxes these days. Loc Ness Monster and Bigfoot are the two biggest examples of that. Pretty heavy discussion for grade school, huh?

If this discussion occurred today, it may have been a bit longer, as new possibilities have been considered.

Metaterrestrial – This New Age style notion is similar to that of ultraterrestrial. The belief is that UFO’s are from higher forms of beings or spiritual beings from Earth, but that they exist on some other plane of existence, astral plane or other dimensions. For reasons only known to them, they pop into our plane of existence in the form of UFO’s once in awhile. This is slightly easier to believe than ultraterrestrials because it offers an explanation on how these higher beings can generally hide from us.

My own contribution to this discussion is a bit more bizarre than the other 5 possibilities I just laid out.

Future Evolved Terrestrial Tourist and Scientists (or FETTS for short) – Far in the future, humans will eventually evolve into some higher form of ourselves. The new future human species is starting to send tourists and scientist back in time to both enjoy and study their species’ past (that’s us), much in the same way our modern tourists visit ancient ruins or our modern scientist study prehistoric hominid bones. They fly around in their UFO’s over our cities to take in the sites of a world that must surely be nearly prehistoric to them. Their scientists conduct the occasional abduction to make comparisons between modern DNA and their future DNA to determine our evolutionary course, and to do psychological tests to figure out how they evolved their superior mega-brain and thinking ability from our puny primitive ape brain and mind. Every once in awhile, they get bored and fry a cow or activate a crop circle.

Despite the fact that I’ve come up with this crazy alternate scenario, I don’t really have a strong opinion about the UFO phenomenon. I do think of a lot of encounters are misinterpretations of what really is going on, but this doesn’t account for many instances that are well documented and don’t have any explanations; and I’m not talking about the mythological accounts of Roswell. There are sensible unexplained events that are often abducted by the UFO mythos believers.

So what are UFO’s? Eh, don’t really care. I just think it’s strange that I had this kind of discussion in grade school.

Right to Die

I’m not quite sure where to stand on the Right to Die (euthanasia) issue. Should a severally suffering individual be allowed to commit suicide with their doctor’s assistance? Should there be a ban on medically assisted suicides?
I was first exposed to the debate about euthanasia in discussions about such matters with my mother when I was growing up. Later in a high school class where the topic came up, I believed that suicide itself was wrong, but I believed in the right of an individual choose for themself. One thang I’m not sure I was clear on was whether euthanasia is the same as suicide.
These days, my opinion is still pretty much the same in context, but the reasoning is much clearer. Of course, this makes it harder to know where to stand exactly on the issue. In principle, I believe that the individual has the right to determine their own life. But morally, I know that killing one’s self is wrong. Violence is allowed to defend one’s own life or the lives of loved ones, but it is not allowed to take one’s own life. Whether in mercy or in despair or in cruelty, one should not act in such a way against themself.
However, under rule of law, the right of the individual to any choices about themself is important to keeping the government from intruding in the lives of its citizens. The principle of keeping the government out of our lives is just as important because so many other morally correct doctrines can be threatened with too much control given to the authorities. If the government is given the right to tell an individual they cannot control when they die, the door may be opened to forcing unnatural methods to keeping people alive well beyond what nature intended.
Does the Right to Die only mean euthanasia, or does it include the right to refuse medical care that may or may not prevent the onset of a life threatening condition? That creates a pretty damn big gray area that brings the whole question of Right to Die into a state of confusion.
Then there’s the biggest problem with euthanasia. How can the government protect its citizens from being victimized by impatient relatives that may have motives for pursuing euthanasia upon their “loved one”? Even with the concept of keeping an intrusive government out of our lives in mind, it’s hard to justify allowing the possibility of such a scenario.
So, for me, right now, I think the best course of action is to not allow euthanasia. However, I think allowing the person to control what treatments they receive (or not) should be protected. This means a person (or that person’s immediate family, with the spouse having the second say, then if no spouse, the parents to have the third say) has the right to determine whether or not to be kept alive by machine, drugs or other treatment, but that the person may not choose to take the actual action to kill themself. Removing life support is OK because it is letting nature take its course. Euthanasia is not OK because it is a violent unnatural action that ends a life before its time.