Nobody asked me........?
Nobody asked me......, is my way of sharing with you my opinion about a variety of subjects. The opinions expressed are my own, not my wife's, my family's or my employer's! I express these opinions based on my 50 plus years of life on this planet, my 30+ years of service to my employer and for the most part on the fact that I usually don't expressed them publicly as I usually keep my opinions to myself! However, in this instance, on this page, here they are!
I believe in God from a Christian perspective. I was raised in a Christian home and went to church sponsored schools, for grades 1 to 12. Because of this, my beliefs, moral character and who I am were greatly influenced by these environments. As I have grown older, the knowledge that I was taught has continued to be an important part of my life and I have grown in my relationship with God to have a more open-minded view of spiritual things and of my fellow man. I was raised in a very conservative, protestant Christian home. A lot of the things of this world were foreign to me as I was sheltered from them. Now that I am mature, I realize that the things I was sheltered from were things that I didn't need and don't need today to have a fulfilling life.
Our world is constantly changing. The millennial change in 2000 and then the acts of terror since have caused great uneasiness (updated Oct 2008). The world is a very stressful place to be. It seems as though wickedness is running rampant…and it is! It is getting worse constantly and will continue to do so. Does that mean I should give up, that it is hopeless here and there is no reason to live? No! A Christian's purpose is to share God's love.
The love that God has is is a gentle love. When God says, "love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) I believe it that it is true. Some may ask, what about those who would do evil to us? How can we love or show love to the likes of Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein? Though I understand that doing so can be difficult, it is the right thing to do. We must do good to those that would harm us to show the world the true character of these individuals. The true character of evil, will result in those that believe in justice to see the true character of those that choose evil.
That is the reason for this theater of the universe that we live in. It is a play, a play that reveals the Character of God versus the character of the devil. This is our choice, to believe in the love of God or or not.
Sharing His love does not mean
everyone will accept it, many won't. It is hard not to get discouraged
when others don't accept the love you give them that God has given you. My
advice, don't look to them, look to God. Tell him you are discouraged and
he will comfort you through the Holy Spirit (Read this chapter John 14).
In this chapter, He is talking to you and to me. All we have to do is accept His
gift. Ask Him what He wants you to do with your life and he will show you!
I would caution you though to beware of a False Christ (the Anti-christ), someone impersonating the true God, performing miracles (in God’s name) someone who wants and appears “worthy” of our worship, but is a counterfeit. This false Christ will come and setup a earthy kingdom, will look similar the true God, but will not be the true God. The majority of the world will follow this god. That god will want to destroy those who do not believe in him and that is the key difference, because the true God is not a "destroyer".
Addendum-August 2005:
Terrorism, wars, rumors of wars, fuel prices, employment, and many other issues add to the everyday stress we currently have to deal with. It is comforting to know that having a relationship with God allows us to be free from this stress if we choose to trust in God. Though easily said, the actual trusting in God can be very tough because, being human, we tend to want to trust in ourselves. Trusting in God removes US from the equation and that is hard. Trusting God means that regardless of what happens, God knows what is best for us. What is best for us may or may not be what we think it is. Being a Seventh-Day Adventist Christian, one of our defining beliefs is that death is a sleep. Knowing this, dying is not something to be feared.
I worked for my employer for over 34 years. I was thankful for that job. For the most part it has been a blessing far beyond my expectations, hopes or dreams. I enjoy helping people use software on computers. Unfortunately, "using software on a computer" though sometimes very enjoyable, can also be very frustrating. The reason is that just like us, computers are only perfect when their programming is perfect and believe it or not, programming isn't perfect. Yep you heard me right, software isn't perfect. Oh, it is good, sometime real good, but it is still something put together by imperfect humans and therefore, subject to imperfection. I have been dealing with these imperfections since August 1990 when I started supporting the Email function. A lot of you who will read this have talked to me on the phone or by email regarding a problem related to using your computer. Fortunately, for most of you I have been able to help you with the problem you were having, though sometimes not the way you would have liked me to help you. To you, thank you for your patience. For those of you that weren't happy with my help, I'm sorry, I was just trying to do the best I could do.
Update Oct 2008: In October of 2007, the company I worked at for 34 years, was sold to a company named Danaher Corporation. The deal was finalized in November of 2007. In January, an offer was made to employees with 29 or more years of service, to voluntarily leave the company with a year's salary. After much consideration I decided to accept that offer. My last day was February 29 and my official last day was March 17 2008. It was good for me to leave as it gave me an opportunity to enjoy a summer which I have. I also had time to spend with my parents, helping them get to Doctor or Lab appointments and doing other errands. Of course, looking back, it may have been better to stay with the downturn in the economy but hindsight is always better than foresight. That said, because I prayed about it, I believe my choice to leave was the correct choice. I also believe that God will provide what I need when it is in His time for me to have something. I do appreciate your prayers in this matter!
I have been a sports fan for a long time. To me supporting the local team, the team representing my community has always been a great enjoyment. Unfortunately, that reason for sport, got lost is a mire of how much players can make and if they can't make enough on one team they can go to the team of their choice and make it there. Sports is a business, it is not sport any more. I am a sports fan. I enjoy basketball, football and soccer. But because of the greed of the players and owners I can no longer support sports. Fortunately there are many other things in life and now I can discover them.
Maybe someday the fans will figure this out and enough of them will make a stand that this greedy spiral will end and again we can enjoy the sport for the action and the pride of the community. We shall see!
Update March 24 2006: In today's Oregonian there was a "opinion" letter written by Harry Glickman, the man that brought the Portland Trailblazers team to Portland in 1970. Mr Glickman has stayed quiet for some time on the state of the Team he founded and managed from 1970 till 1993 when he retired. He has kept his silence till now as he is a man of character and dignity. However even men with character eventually have to say something when being quiet can no longer be tolerated. Here is a link to what he wrote today on the state of the Blazers with a little historical prospective. Thank you Mr. Glickman. Click here to read his opinion.
My opinion on his opinion. I have tremendous respect for Harry Glickman. A man of passion and character. During his tenure the Trailblazer organization was the model for sports franchises around the United States and the world. The relationship with the community was tremendous. We supported the team during the thin times and when the times were good, 1977 and 1989 through 1994, the fans of the Northwest gave their all to support the best, most exciting team in Trailblazer history. The support of that time is still available. The team and team management just need to ownership that understands what makes a great basketball team. It is a combination of great and good athletes that have great character, respect and honor the gift that has been granted to them from their hard work. To represent the community that has chosen to support them with dignity and honor. That is the winning combination.
Update Oct 3 2008: Since I added the note above, written by Harry Glickman, there have been amazing changes to our beloved Portland Trailblazers. Shortly after that letter was written, Kevin Pritchard was hired as the Trailblazers General Manager. He engineered trades for LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy. The next year, Portland won the first pick in the draft and picked Greg Oden. Basically the entire team has changed to players that are not only very good players, but more importantly, they are respected members of our community. It will be fun watching he team again this year, seeing them develop into a great team. Congratulations to the Portland Trailblazer organization and especially, the owner Paul Allen, for sticking with the team, making a commitment to bring quality players and individuals to our team and to the city of Portland and the State of Oregon. GO BLAZERS 2008-2009!
Update Jan 1 2009: The Blazers have had a great start to the season and as of today are 20 Wins, 12 Losses. Two nights ago, Tuesday Dec 30 2008, the team beat Boston, the current World Champion without our star player, Brandon Roy. It was a huge win for our team. Hope they continue to be healthy and grow as a team.
I have lived in the western suburbs of Portland Oregon my whole life. I had wanted to work for the company I work for since my school days, watching my neighbor leave at 9 or 10am to go work for that company (I didn't know that only certain jobs allowed that freedom). The area I lived in was country...until about 8 years ago. Since that time there has been an economic boom in the area. Though that is generally good, it has resulted in a traffic nightmare. Though all the conveniences one could want are now almost at my doorstep (a Old Spaghetti Factory just a few miles from my home) I yearn for a slower pace, fresh air, and the peacefulness of the country. Hopefully someday soon, I will have the opportunity to find that again!
Trains:
Since I haven't had sports to take up my time, I have found other things that are just as much fun if not more fun. While visiting Disney World in September 96, my wife and I found the world of Garden Railroading. Garden railroading consists of taking a "G" Scale (1:22) model train and incorporating it into a garden setting, outdoors. We continually working on ours. My wife likes fish ponds so we combined both our interests into our backyard landscape.
Movies or Videos
I would like to share with you some information about movies or videos. Most videos available today include a statement at the beginning of the movie that says "This movie has been formatted to fit your screen". What this means is that when you are watching the video on your television, you are only seeing portion of the original movie. What has happened is that to make the movie fill the entire television screen, the movie has had to be edited to that you only see part of the original picture. That is because the the TV screen is a 4:3 ration of image, where as the move is commonly 16:9 ratio. It's called "Pan and Scan". To fill the TV screen the editor will move closer to whatever the "action" is, making a 4:3 image instead of the 16:9 original image. When watching a widescreen movie on television a viewer might believe they are seeing less of the movie, because of the black bars at the top and bottom of the picture. In reality they are actually seeing the entire movie as it was originally made.
Politics:
I am a registered Independent in the State of Oregon. I have had the registration for most of my adult life. The reason I choose independent is because both parties, have planks in their platform that I do not agree with. I am a fiscal conservative and believe there is much to much waste in government spending. I personally would like to see a simpler tax system. The current tax system is so complicated and there are so many loopholes. I would prefer that there be flat tiered tax rates for the various income levels with a maximum level of maybe 25%. Lower income levels would have lower percentages. However, there would not be any deductions. That means everyone would pay their fair share of taxes. I realize chances of a system like this being enacted are pretty much nil, but non the less that is what I would like to see.