Time for a good rant

It's been a while since I've been off on a good long rant. I think it's about time, don't you?

What's going on with you? you might ask. Well, not a whole lot. My daily routine mostly involves dealing with my pain, keeping the toddlers from destroying the house (most days I fail), trying to do some laundry now and then (most days I fail), counting my calories, eating right, and working out in the afternoons.

School is in full swing for the adults and kids in the house. Which means there's a lot going on. Especially my son, who is a senior. He's in JROTC and band and there is always something going on after school and on Saturdays. I videoed one of the band's routines. I've been trying to get it online, but I can't get YouTube to accept it. I think I'm going to have to find a way to serve it directly from the website.

Oh, yea, I built and manage the website for the school band. bhsbobcatband.org That was a lot of fun to put together. The director has been really great about giving me what I need. I'm also kind of their unofficial photographer. We're trying to make it kind of a social hub for the kids, so we'll see how it goes.

Speaking of websites, I also built and manage one for my church. sunrisechristiannm.org Which I am also the unofficial photographer for. I wish I had more strength and energy to turn both these sites into really great things, but I do what I can when I'm able and it's all volunteer work, so there's no money to be put into them except mine. (Which I'm glad to do, I just don't have very much to give.)

I've ranted at great length on this blog about my trials with health care and my views on what should happen as far as any legislation and so forth. Well, I'm still very opinionated about that, but my opinions don't mean a whole lot unless I act on them. We have an election coming up in a about a month or so and this is the time to stop all the whining and blogging and rallying and put your beliefs down on paper and make it known what should happen.

My health care woes are mostly over. If you haven't heard, my social security disability was approved. The biggest best part of it is that I now have health insurance including, and especially, prescription coverage. If you want to get into a debate about accepting public assistance, we can, but honestly, this is a huge blessing to my family and it takes a huge financial burden off of us. We have many back bills that aren't covered, so maybe now we can start working on those. I'd like to believe we could be out of debt within the next 10 years.

I really am not fond of the state the political arena is in for this upcoming election. So many people are extremely angry about a lot of things that they really have no concept of what it is they are angry about. The so called "ground zero mosque" for example.

Now, really, come on people. This country was founded on freedom. Freedom of religion being one of the cornerstones of that belief. Many people came to this country so they could be free to worship as they chose. Why on earth would anyone in politics be thinking in any way shape for form of using the government to put rules and restrictions on any religious group of any kind? The moment you open that door, you'll be sorry. First it's Muslims. Then Jews. How long before they come knocking on the doors of your church? Or, more likely, barging through them before locking them forever? If you are going to blame a religion for the choices of a few that happen to follow that belief system, then you better be prepared for all religions to be judged the same way, including yours.

One thing I really hate hearing is that this is a "Christian country". That's like saying you have a Christian car. A true Christian nation would be a theocracy. The nation of Israel, as described in what we call the Old Testament, was a theocracy. God was the head. All decisions and choices were brought to God and God told them how to do thing. America is not a theocracy. It never was. And it shouldn't be. It was set up as a democracy. The rule of the people, right or wrong, is the rule of the land. We need to elect people to office that will serve the best interests of the people they represent, regardless of what they believe. As a Christian myself, ideally, I would like all my elected officials to believe as I do and act according to their belief. But that's a slippery slope. Maybe my life as a Christian isn't the same as the life they lead as a Christian. This could turn into a very long rant, but my point is, just because someone claims to be of this group or that does not mean that they believe and follow everything that group represents, or should represent. The real judge of a politician is how are they representing the people who didn't vote for them? How are they representing the people who didn't vote at all? Using that as the ruler, how many of your current politicians should stay in office?

No more politics, because, frankly, I hate it. Politics in any situation is just f'ed up. The system is upside down and it can't be fixed. But it's the world we live in, so make the best of it. Vote. That's all I'm going to say.

What else is going on? I don't follow the news much other than a bit here or there that I get off the 'net. I try really hard to avoid TV news because it's become so opinionated that it's hard to find the facts in all the editorials. To be honest, unless it's something that is going to affect me or my family directly, I don't much care. Maybe that's wrong, and it's not an opinion that I have always held, or will probably always hold, but right now that's how I feel. I just want to live a simple quiet life. I already have so much pain and stress with my health and my kids that anything going on "out there" is just too much to deal with right now. I just want peace and quiet.

Peace. That's all I really want. Even in my "online" life. I don't have the strength or the energy for vampires and leeches that suck away my quietness; for anything that brings anger and frustration. I'm connected to a lot of people in multiple ways. Facebook, Twitter, various instant messaging programs, blogs, Skype, email,... lots of ways. But some people are just a drain on my sanity and peace.

Facebook, for example, has these annoying games. Farmville, Fish World, Mafia Land, and hundreds, if not thousands of others. I've blocked many of them, but every day there's a new one. I've tried to reconnect with old friends from high school and people I've known throughout the years. But many of them use Facebook only to play those games. And while I've blocked the game, their status updates and links and pictures are never about their life, they're about those stupid games. I don't have the energy to deal with a lot of updates and crap about those games, so I have removed those people from my friends list. I'm sorry if that seems harsh, but if you don't want to talk to me, if you really don't want to connect with me, don't ask me to help you build your virtual barn. I want to talk to people, not hear about fake animals.

Simplify. That's my motto. One word. Simplify. If it complicates your life, whether it's a thing, or a person or a group, or whatever it is. If it takes away from your peace, remove it from your life. Simple as that. Don't worry about being kind or respectful or anything like that. You have to be ruthless. It's for your own health and sanity. Cut it out like cancer.

My own health has improved considerably. My stress level is way down, as is my weight. I've made some hard choices, many might call me un-Christ-like in the decisions I've made, but honestly, I think Christ wants me to live a quiet simple life following and serving Him and not being distracted by the minutia we have come to call life in America. I Thessalonians 4:11 - "...aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs..." Was the Apostle Paul's advice to the church of the Thessalonians, and I think it's great advice for today.

I've talked about it before. The worst thing about whatever it is that is wrong with me is the up and down nature of it. It goes in cycles where I will have less pain and be more productive for a week or two, then I'll go down. Often way down where I am simply miserable for weeks or months. It's been a good summer. Probably the most up time I've had in the last 3 or 4 years or however long this has been going on. I think a lot of that has had to do with exercising and changing my diet. I'd been hoping that the downs wouldn't be so far down any more. But I'm afraid that now I am headed into a bad time. I am trying to stay positive and keep moving and not let my spirit go down with my health, but it's getting hard to keep moving. It's hard to ignore the pain. But no one seems to get that. They're like " well, you looked fine the last I saw you". And I just want to say "Thank you for the compliment to my acting ability, but I can't act through it now, ok? So let me be in pain for a while. It will pass. Thanks for your non-concern."

The other day I had a good friend tell me that he appreciates how "real" I am in my blog posts, status updates, and generally my online life. It's true, I am more real online than I am in person. Why? I don't know. I guess I need to take my own advice and stop worrying about hurting other people's feeling. I am what I am, to quote Popeye. And why should I pretend to be what I'm not? Why should I put on a Pollyanna face and pretend that I'm happy and joyous in the Lord? Which I am, but that's a general state of being and not related to my mood. My mood is crappy. I feel crappy. So I should just be crappy, right?

I've said often that I hate people. I do. I would rather connect with some device between us rather than face to face in the real world. No offense, that's just the way I'm wired. The first time I talked to the girl that would be my wife was on a type writer. Much of the discussion in our early relationship took place on a chat program (long before AIM or anything else). And except for her, I really don't want to go out in public with anyone. I don't want to BE in public, or at least in a public setting where I have to talk to people. Some people tell me that's wrong, that I'm not really a Christian if I don't want to connect with "The Family". Well, it's not that I don't want to connect, I just don't want to connect in the real world. I'm not good at it. My fingers talk better than my mouth. My personality is only real in a virtual world. Is that weird and wrong? I don't care, that's just who I am.

And with that, I think I've ranted long enough. I'm way over due for a "hobby" post. I haven't found anything new and exciting that I'm interested in lately. My interests drift all around. I'm still into the techy stuff I've written about before, I just don't want to write about it again. When I find something new, I'll spew about it. Ok?

End of rant. Hailing frequencies closed.