ERIC'S RULES FOR HOLIDAY LIGHTING

1. 1. Nativity scenes shall only include the following characters: baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, magi, shepherds, angels, various barnyard animals, and the popular "with a tale as big as a kite" star. Santa Claus was NOT present at the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ! Neither was Ms. Claus, the Grinch, Frosty the Snowman, or Rudolph.


2. 2. Many people seem to believe that simply lighting a character makes it suitable for holiday decoration - this is not so. The lighted lawn flamingo, gnome, college mascot, football player, or frog is just an amusement for your other times of year.


3. 3. A lighted Santa head suspended from a flag pole outside your door is NOT festive. It's just creepy.


4. 4. Inflatable characters seem to be popular these days, and it is important to make sure they are fully pressurized and completely weighted down. Otherwise you may have scenes of "Santa on his back after a hangover," "Frosty contemplating joining Jenny Craig after staring at his stomach," or "the Grinch doing something completely inappropriate to the Holiday Polar Bear."


5. 5. Look at your neighbor's house. Then look at the other houses on your street. If they ALL have the EXACT same holiday stick-in-the-ground Santa/Christmas tree/"We Wish You A Merry Christmas," that you got from the kids in the high school band that wanted to make money off a few pieces of plywood, then maybe it's a good idea to sit this year out and use this piece for 2005.


6. 6. If your entire house is lit in blue, then it is NOT festive. It is Superman's Fortress of Solitude


7. 7. One Christmas train is neat. Two Christmas trains are fun. TEN is over the limit - your house is not brought to us by Burlington Northern Santa Fe.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you!!

ENOUGH

I'm not smart enough. I'm not good looking enough, not strong enough, fast enough, coordinated enough. I'm not smooth enough, charming enough, or tactful enough. I don't exercise enough. I don't give enough. I don't love enough. I don't resist enough, and I don't give in enough. I don't sing well enough, speak well enough, write well enough, draw well enough, think well enough.

I don't succeed enough. I haven't used enough of what's been given to me. I've fallen to the same temptations over and over again enough to make any of you wonder if I'm Christian enough. I don't preach enough, pray enough, witness enough, or study enough. I don't discipline myself enough. I haven't got enough to do enough to make enough of a difference to think I'm worth enough.


But thanks be to God.

Through Him, I AM ENOUGH.

CROCHETED CHAOS

My mom is an avid crocheter (crochetist?), so I felt inspired to post this:
BBC NEWS | Mathematicians crochet chaos

The idea for the "Lorenz manifold" model came to the couple during the Christmas break two years ago.

Dr Osinga, who learnt to crochet when she was seven, was relaxing by crocheting some hexagonal lace motifs.

Prof Krauskopf asked her: "Why don't you crochet something useful?"

Eighty-five hours of work and some supporting steel wire later, they had something almost a metre across which looks not unlike a big Christmas decoration - which is what they are using it as.

I GOT ME A NEW TOY

A couple actually:

• Toy Numero Uno: Get you some Firefox. If you haven't yet, you're really missing out and exposing yourself to all sorts of internet diseases and maladies.


• Toy Numero Dos: Proceed to download the Mouse Gestures extension. Wave your mouse around and conduct your browser like Beethoven at his 9th Symphony (albeit you won't be deaf when you do it).


• Toy Numero... oh, dangit, what's "three" in Spanish again?? I should know this...: Assuming you already have a blog, go download the BlogThis extension. Makes creating quick blog entries faster than a... um... fast...thing...by incorporating a new item into your right-click context menus.

And while I'm at it, an interesting quote from Patagonia's manifesto on ChangeThis:

Gerald Amos, a member (and of the Haisla Nation in Kitamaat, northwest Canada, recalls a friend of his father who would leave home in the dark to paddle to his trapline four miles by water. He would spend the day walking the lines, checking and resetting the traps. "Along the way back to the boat,during the late fall and early winter, the coho salmon would be still in the creeks that they passed, so they would stop at one of these creeks and take a couple of coho, which they would clean and pack home in their backpack together with what-ever animals they had taken in their traps. The fish provided them with their supper later that night."
Such lives are often called subsistence, which brings to mind the barest, hardscrabble survival. But there is another way to look at them. At Patagonia we choose to call them “economies of abundance.” In an economy of abundance is enough. Not too much. Not too little. Enough. Most important, there is enough time for the things that matter: relationships, delicious food, art, games and rest.
-- Yvon Chouinard (owner of Patagonia)

CAN I HAVE A MOMENT HERE?

"For loving God is keeping his laws: and his laws are not hard."

- I John 5:3, Bible In Basic English

It's the holidays, so sorry about the long gap between posts. Look at me, always apologizing - I'm such a people pleaser.

I'm not going to make it a habit of delving deep into religious issues, but I think I get an exemption on this one, because it has more to do with faith. I came across this passage recently as I was reading the Bible on my PDA (an excellent idea, by the way. I've got 5 different versions available all in the same place - that's another post sometime.) and I just stopped down on it. I couldn't help but think "are you sure?" I think most of the time I see the walk I have as a Christian as hard, not easy. Of course, then I remember that this was written by a man who spent the last part of his life in exile on a remote island, denied access to his family and most of his friends.

So here's my question for you - whatever your belief, do you think keeping its laws is hard? Even if you're a hedonist and you seek only to pleasure yourself, 24 hours a day, is that hard?

Just a thought that came to mind. Thanks for listenin'.