wingedbard

I'm leaving this journal. It's just not who I am anymore. I don't really know know what happened to that guy, other than he got older, and hopefully a little more rational, but he doesn't live here anymore and he didn't leave a forwarding address.

Oh, and to stem the tide of concerned emails - nothing is wrong, nothing has happened, everything is good, Lana and I are great, etc. I'm just done here, and it's time to move on.

Maybe I'll see you around. I'm going to start a new journal eventually; look for me when you see me.

But there are 515 words of it.

This is 2009, and I'm hitting the ground running.

I'm anticipating this being a big year for me personally and professionally. I have a number of goals for this year, and this is the year I'll actually accomplish them, by gum.

1. This year I will lose 120 pounds. I will do this through a combination of diet and exercise. I will end the year in better shape than I've been in since high school.
2. This year I will write. A lot. I will write no less than 500 words per day, not counting LJ and Facebook. I will participate in NanoWrimo. And I will have at bare minimum one published thing by the end of the year. I am not choosy about what that thing is (at the moment).
3. I will speak gaelige conversationaly by the end of the year.
4. I will get the storage unit cleared.
5. I will be a non-smoker. Very soon, that one.
6. I will participate in the SCA.

That's all for now, I still have a bunch of things I'd like to accomplish today. I hope everyone is having a great year!

I don't know how many of you have seen today's Something Positive, or the bizarre storyline that led up to it, but let me be the first that I know of to suggest that with that much of Pepito left, you could probably grow a zombie Pepito.

Just sayin'.

Oh, and it's a good bizarre. It's even got Wil Wheaton!

First, I've dropped a couple of groups that I had been in. I no longer feel that I contribute much to them nor they to me; nothing against the operators of the coms or those who post there. If you're on one of those coms and want to know more, feel free to contact me privately.

Second, I am consistently astounded by people I've known in the past whose lives have taken far different and arguably better turns than I ever expected them to, even if I don't agree with some of their philosophical choices.

I'm regrouping a bit at the moment, and considering some of my choices, and some of my associations. I have a thing I might like to try, but I'm going to hold off on discussing it here for while until I've really had time to roll the potential pros and cons over in my head. The Samhain season is a good time for introspection; I'm going to make good use of it this year.

And that's it at the moment.

It has been said that for evil to triumph requires only that good men do nothing.

Yesterday the good people of this nation did something.

Yes we did.

Congratulations, Mr. President-elect. And good riddance, Mr. President.

For a change, we won.

1. Stop talking about politics for a moment or two.
2. Post a reasonably-sized picture in your LJ, NOT under a cut tag, of something pleasant, such as an adorable kitten, or a fluffy white cloud, or a bottle of booze. Something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS.
3. Include these instructions, and share the love.




Navarre Beach, about half a mile from our old place in Florida.

Tonight I'm going to make something, or at least start making something. I was inspired by this entry at the wondrous Steampunk Workshop, and now have in mind my own take on what I would like for a travel journal/sketchbook of mine very own.

Pictures, of course, will follow.

I can't wait to see how this comes out!

Except I know it's not. NY sends out ballots printed with Barak Osama.

They say it was a typo. I'm frankly flabbergasted that anyone could possibly believe that. I'm looking at a keyboard right now. A hunt and peck typist could not make this mistake, and it's very hard to imagine someone who actually knows how to type making it, since they're on different rows hit by different fingers.

A typo my pale pink hinie. This was every bit of a deliberate act.

These jokers will try gorram anything.

Now I've done it. Here I go starting things again...

steamynashville, The Steampunk Society of Nashville is now open for business, and also on MySpace.

Heroes starts now!

Rick Wright has died.

This is not a funny post.

I've been, up to last week, fairly ambivalent about this election. Thus far the choices between the candidates of the major parties have left me pretty completely underwhelmed. I didn't vote in the primaries - the guy I liked more than the rest was out by the Tennessee primary, so I figured I'd see how they turned out and decide from there what candidate in the general I wanted to support from across the range of major and third parties. By the time the primary elections were over, I was, like the country, fairly evenly divided between McCain and Obama for the general election, though McCain's sudden interest in pandering to the Christian conservative wing of the party concerned me a bit, and the utter mishandling of this nation's emergencies by the Republican party over the last eight years was pushing me a little to the side of the Dems.

I'll make the note here that I am not a Democrat or a Republican by nature or temperament. My default position is small scale participatory democracy and not much beyond that. I like weapons (guns are ok, just not my cuppa, but I should be allowed to walk down the street with my mucking huge knife on my hip if I feel like it, just as you ought to be allowed to carry your pistol or rifle.) I'm not fond of abortion, there again, I can't have one and therefore don't have a vote unless it's my kid with my wife. I don't much the idea of a big national government I have almost no control over having the authority to pick my pocket every time somebody in an Armani suit decides it's time for another war, health care program, or study of bovine flatulence. By the same token, I think national defense should be completely voluntary, to include paying for it. I believe that we as a species are having a huge and worrisome effect on the biosphere, and that science backs that up. I think the war in Iraq is a misguided attempt to control oil resources, and that it has been a miserable failure. I think that no government anywhere has anything legitimate to say about whether I get married to a man, a woman, or both or neither. Most importantly, no government has any legitimate authority to say in which religion I trust and which God I serve, and this is non-negotiable.

Which brings me back to this election. I have been, as I said, underwhelmed with both parties' candidates, and was really just about to start looking at third party candidates. I watched Obama's speech, and while he is a great orator, I still had not fully decided who would get my vote. The next day though, my decision was made, though I didn't know it yet, when Sarah Palin was selected for McCain's Vice-President. This candidate, selected both for her eye appeal to the unthinking demographic and also for her appeal to Christian conservative base, has solidly pushed me to the Obama camp.

Because Sarah Palin frankly terrifies me, and she will be one heart flutter away from the most powerful office in this nation, and I cannot, given her record, expect her to do anything better than abuse that power. Moreover, as she is a dominionist, I cannot abide the possibility that her directives will have influence over my life.

I have come from believing that this election would not much matter to believing this election is going to have a huge impact on the lives of the American people. Sarah Palin is in no wise prepared to be vice-president, and even less so president, and I fear that should she further ascend the rungs of power it would have a negative impact on all of our lives. I would encourage all of my friends, and most especially those of my friends who have told me that they don't vote because it doesn't matter, to vote for Obama this November.

This time, it does matter.

This is one of he most factually inaccurate pieces on Asatru I think I've ever seen.

Let's all write Fox and tell them.

So over on Colbert Nation they offered a great picture of McCain standing in front of the green lawn of Walter Reed (Middle School), and I couldn't stand to not play at least a bit with this...

McCain for President...of Mars


And of course, he does have military, political, and negotiating experience, so if he doesn't win he could always be put in charge of...



The Stargate program.

I might muck around with this a little more and actually think of something funny.

My response from another list, discussing the ancestors, so I'll remember it later:

I can certainly understand that point of view, as I've had my share of poor family relations and less than stellar ancestors. However, without those ancestors I wouldn't be here, and moreover, my ancestors are a huge part of who I am, good and bad. I've learned to take the point of view that on  the whole my ancestors, even the less noble of them, were doing the best the could under their particular circumstances, and hold the hope that in the worlds after Midgard they've maybe gotten better information. So even knowing that some of my ancestors were hardly noble thanes, I can honor them in the hope of living up to name of the best of them and redeeming the honor of the worst.

Vice-president of the United States....

or President of the Colonial Fleet.




I feel safer already.

This is something I posted on a list that I thought worth keeping a copy of.

You're right, I think, to question the concept of perfection. The concept of perfection, as expressed in the OED, and I think as philosophers generally perceive it, is that of the thing which is completely formed, upon which no improvement can be made. The God of the Bible is considered perfect because he is one being in the universe who has no flaw or defect, and is completely formed with no further possible improvement. To put this another way, God is the best possible entity in this or any universe because he cannot be improved upon, and if he could be improved upon, he would not be God.

This would be a time to note that I don't agree with the above statement. This is not to say that I don't believe in the existence of the Christian god; on the contrary, as a polytheist I am forced to the position that any god you present me is at the minimum possibly real, and as many people have reported interaction with YHVH I must concede that in all likelihood he is an existing entity. That being said, I am not forced to accept that everything he or his followers says is true, and in fact the evidence at hand suggests that very little of what that God says is actually the case.

As to Odhin, or any of our Gods, I think the concept of perfection is probably not even the right concept to consider when discussing our Gods, as none of them can be considered to be without the ability to improve. If Odhin could not be improved upon, his quest for knowledge throughout the nine worlds would be a pointless dalliance, as he would already have all the knowledge that he could possibly have. Thor could not have whetstone in his head, because that would be a removable defect, besides, had he had perfect aim, the whetstone could not have been dislodged to hit his head in the first place. Balder could not have been killed, Hel could not be half-corpse, usw.

I think a better concept, and one more consistent with the world-view of our ancestors, is the of the "best of". Balder is best of warriors, Odhin best of Gods, Bragi best of poets, usw. This is not to say that even the best of Gods could not be improved, but in fact puts forward the notion that to remain "best of" anything, one must constantly improve to best all those other guys out there that are striving to take that "best" spot. Constant striving is in the nature of our people and our Gods, and one might even say that our Gods are the best strivers of all.

I had to go to Hobby Lobby and pick up pens to finish it, but here it is.



Hail Odhin allfather!