The Election of 2008

Well we are only a few days away from electing the next president of the United States of America and either way it goes it will be historic. We will either have a bi-racial president or a female Vice President. I'll get the big question out of the way early in this post and tell you that I am going to be voting for McCain/Palin. Not necessarily because I think they are the best people to be leading the country but because I fear the socialist government we would have under Barack Obama and a Democratic majority in the House and Senate. Although there are a lot of things I could say that cause me to disagree with Obama the biggest issue for me is money. I believe his record is clear that he means to use the power of the government to take money away from those who have it and give it to those who are too lazy to get it for themselves. Can you say wealth redistribution? I thought you could. Are there legitimate needy people who need some help? Absolutely, but there are also way too many people in this country who could and should be working but who are using my money to pay their bills. And Obama wants to give them more of it. I personally would like to keep more of the money I spend my blood, sweat, and tears on. Obviously there are many more components to this election and to both sets of candidates and I am not a political analyst nor do I want to be one. My conscience tells me that the best vote I can cast this election is for McCain/Palin. I wish there were other choices but Neal Boortz and Shawn Hannity aren't running. Dang.

Outer Banks Vacation

Well we've been here in Duck, NC since this time last week and I have to say it has been a great vacation. We have traveled all the way from up above Corolla all the way to Ocracoke. To get to the are above Corolla you need a 4 wheel drive. We went on one of the wild horse tours of the area and it was well worth the money. I could not believe how many people live in that area past the paved roads. I'm sure many of them are semi-retired folk who don't have to drive it every day, but some of them commute to work from there every day, which means having to drive on the beach for a period of time to get to the paved road access. Some as far as 10/12 miles. Of course that is a much better traffic jam than the ones I have to deal with near Atlanta. And we got to see a lot of wild horse activity while up there so that is a great area. To get to Ocracoke you have to go to the end of Hatteras and take the ferry over. It is about a 40 minute trip then a 13 mile drive into town. I really like Ocracoke and hope they can keep the authentic fishing village feel of the area with all of the big corporations trying to move in and demolish the old homes to build condo's and rental properties. I'm not sure what the total mileage is between Corolla and Ocracoke but there is lots to see between the two and it really is not a one day trip. It can be done in a day but you would miss so much. From Corolla you have the Currituck Lighthouse. Then you pass by the Bodie Island lighthouse on Highway 12 on the way. Coquina Beach is just across the road from the lighthouse and is an interesting beach. You cross the Pea Island bridge and there is an old abandoned life saving station there that is interesting to look at. Then you travel on through Rodanthe and other villages to Hatteras where of course the Hatteras lighthouse is located. Then a ferry ride and a short drive puts you in Ocracoke. That way you could actually see 4 of the 5 lighthouses stationed up and down the barrier islands off the coast of NC. I think I like the Ocracoke one the best but I'm not sure why.

Currituck Lighthouse

Well yesterday we climbed up Currituck Lighthouse in Currituck, NC. I wish I could give you the historical facts but I didn't take time to jot them down. It is an old lighthouse that is on the historical register now I do believe. It is a pretty good climb up to the top. I was here 3 years ago and we would not even attempt it but we have been working on getting in better shape lately and made it with relative ease. I could have done it several times. That was after walking a 5K in the morning so we are in much better shape now than then. Still have a lot of work to do though. The view was phenomenal. You could see for miles out over the ocean and Currituck Sound. This is a beautiful place and if you ever get the chance to come you should do so. I won't post a long one today, the golf course is calling and it will be fishing from the pier tomorrow so it will be short also.

Having fun in the sun.

Ron

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

Well we finally arrived in Duck. What a great place to take a vacation. It was really windy last night but this morning it seems to be calmer. It is a little cooler now than I like it but it is nice. I am sitting up on the third floor having my morning coffee and looking at the surf crashing in on the ocean side of the island. There is a high surf warning out so the waves are hitting pretty hard. High tide happens about 12:30 today so I think I'll take a walk out about then and check it out. Then I'll go back afterward to shell hunt. Ah what a vacation. I have a few good books, my bible to read, some things I need to study for a class I taking, and lots to pray about. And I may actually do some of those things at some point in time. But right now it is coffee and the surf. I love the ocean.

Vacation Time

My wife and I have not been on a true vacation for about three years now so we have decided to take one. A group of our family members takes a vacation together on the Outer Banks or NC each year, and we are always invited to that but have not been able to in recent years. So this year we are going. Hallelujah, and it is just 4 days around the corner. The vacation lasts from Saturday to Saturday and is in a small town called Duck, NC. Duck is on the barrier islands off the coast of NC and is a beautiful place to vacation. There are not a lot of neon signs and carnival rides in or near Duck but there are lots of beautiful beaches and lighthouses up and down the coast line there. There is also the Wright Brothers museum in nearby Kitty Hawk to visit. If you haven't been there I recommend it. It is a neat view of some of the history that was made off the coast of NC in years past. The Wright brothers apparently chose that location due to the constant winds that blow. This time of year it is very economical to vacation there. Rental prices drop by two-thirds in some cases making it very affordable. We rent a large house and divide the cost between family members and that really makes it nice. Duck is a great place to relax, read, recharge, and get ready to head back to the real world and work again. There are ferries to some of the other islands and locations nearby if you want to take them over. There are neat towns up and down the island itself that all have history of their own to explore, and I love the lighthouses. But the main thing I plan to do is sit and read. There is a nice little reading area on the third floor of the house we are staying. You can see both coast lines of the island from that viewpoint and there are some comfortable reading chairs there. I plan to read some, look some, examine the inside of my eyeballs some, and generally rest for about 7 days before returning back to the grind. I will post updates and images to my Facebook page during that time but I don't know if I will blog very much at all. Too much sand, surf, food, and fun to be had to be spending too much time on a computer. 4 more days to go. YeeHaw.

Blogging kills me

Well here it is October 10th and I haven't blogged since the 2nd. I am not really against blogging, I just don't know how you find time and material to blog daily unless you are getting paid to do it. Obviously since no one else is reading this material I am not interesting enough for anyone to pay me to do it, so I am not sure why there is such a huge amount of blogging going on. Perhaps I need to read more about blogging before attempting to do one. Or maybe blogging is really just a way to replace the old method of pen and paper journaling. Lot of folks used to keep journals and diaries on a daily basis. I guess a journal differs from a diary in some respects, mostly that a journal is recording things you are probably OK with someone else reading and a diary is a more personal, private means of keeping up with what is going on in your life. You might not be too disturbed if your parents found your journal (depending on what you are keeping up with in it) but you definitely didn't want them to find your diary. Your diary contained all of your secrets that you didn't want anyone to find out about. I wonder if anyone has done a study on why, if you didn't want anyone to find out about it, did you write it down in the first place. It's not like you really weren't intelligent enough to know that anyone who really wanted to could pick that little cheap lock and get in your diary.
Anyway, I am beginning to think that I a failure at blogging since I don't really write anything here everyday. I could make all kinds of excuses as to why. I am very busy doing things in the real world that don't leave me a great deal of time to spend in the cyber world, but that probably sounds cliche' so maybe I won't use that excuse. Maybe it is that there are other things that have priority for my time over blogging. Yeah, that's the ticket, I think I'll use that one. Oops, the real world is calling, gotta get back to it. Can you write more than one post to a blog in a day? Maybe I'll find out later. Seeya.

Ethiopian Food

Last night I went to an Ethiopian restaurant with about 15/20 other folks to have a cross-cultural experience. Basically you sit in groups of 5 or 6 around this small circular table at which your food will be served. It looked like a woven basket type of table. We opted to order from an Ethiopian menu that had no English on it so that we would experience what it was like to be in a foreign country with no help from others. We instructed the waitresses not to speak English to us until after we received our orders. It was quite an experience and we all managed to communicate with clucks, moo's, baaa's, and other noises and hand signs so that none of us ordered goat entrails or the like. (In fairness to the restaurant I don't believe they were a menu item, but we weren't sure as we ordered) When they bring your food out they set a larger circular serving platter on top of the woven basket table and place all the food on it so that you share with your neighbor what you are eating. Oh yeah, one other thing. There were no utensils. No safe knife and fork and spoon to use for eating. They had this really thin, spongy bread that you picked everything up with. It was a great experience and the food was awesome as well. We had beef, chicken, lamb, and salmon at my table and all of it was fantastic. I did get one really hot jalapeno in my beef which lit me up pretty good but that was fine. We also had a genuine Ethiopian coffee ceremony afterwards that was great too. Overall it was a very good experience and I look forward to doing it again with other friends soon. Anybody want to come along? Here is a link to the one we ate at in Atlanta.

http://www.qsheba.com/Welcome.html

Christian Response

I belong to one of the EDG's on Yahoo. (For those of you who might be acronymally challenged that is an Email Discussion Group) I won't say which one it is since my purpose is not to expose or bring them up as a topic, but we had a new member join recently. Let me explain further about this EDG that it is of a religious nature and invites members of a particular denomination to join and discuss usually matters of a theological kind although the occasional football discussion crops up and anything is fodder for the till. Anyway, this new member who joined was an American woman who had married a Muslim man and moved to his country to live but had continued to be a believer in Christ. Her husband seemed to be a Muslim by cultural identity more so than religious identity and she was looking for some fellowship from like minded believers. One of the female members of the EDG, IMO (In My Opinion) attacked her for selling out and "being unequally yoked" to an unbeliever, and questioned her intent for joining the group and sharing her testimony. I personally did not agree with her statements against this individual and thought she was WAAAAYYYY out of line, but wanted to think through that thought line. How should we respond to people who have obviously not followed a certain biblical principle yet are believers by their testimony. To me the Bible does give clear instructions against marrying non believers and perhaps even how we conduct our business dealings with non believers yet it doesn't state that it is a sin, just something that will cause us problems if we do. Shouldn't love be the rule? Not a wink of the eye to the indiscretion but a receiving of a person as they are? I need to talk about this more later but I have to leave to go visit a Hindu temple. Guess I better not share that with the group.