Ok, I'm going to bump my blog by cross-posting some messages I have been posting on a Christian discussion forum. There is a semi-popular forum on the internet called "Christian Church Today". Someone started a thread there that was very anti-Masonic. Then, many more people piled in and posted a lot more of the same. I have been amazed by the extent and degree of missinformation and hostility in some of these messages. I realize I am walking a very, very, thin line, but I have been attempting to respond to the messages posted there with a great deal of calm and reason. There are some people who become unbelievably incensed if all you do is say that Freemasonry is something 'good'. The thread may degenerate fairly soon and I won't be able to stay involved in it any longer. However, it has been more or less positive to date. I certainly feel like is serves as a form of 'Freemason FAQ' since, apparently, these are the kind of questions that some Christian...
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I am having a relatively quiet and uneventful Christmas. I figure I will make a brief blog entry but, seriously, there isn't much to say. On Wednesday our lodge put on a 3rd degree. I acted as senior steward during the first section. Right now I am focusing on learning all of opening and closing for all parts so I can help out at Naphtali lodge where needed. On Thursday evening we attended the DeMolay meeting and began work on our program for the year. On Friday, well, not much happened. On Saturday, Christmas Eve, we went to my parents house in Jefferson City and exchanged gifts. On Sunday we went to my wife's family for Christmas Day; again, uneventful. On Monday I took Alex to see "King Kong". This film has, without a doubt, the greatest special effects sequences ever created on film. That said, if they had cut about an hour out of the film I think it would have been twice as good. I enjoyed it, but could have done without 'Bowling for Brontosauruses'. On M...
A brief, and boring, blog update. However, I might as well record what I did this weekend. Sadly, it will have to be in words and not pictures since I didn't take any. (Actually, though I didn't take any pictures, apparently one of the guests did. He uploaded some, so here is the link. ) On Friday night my daughter had her first big gift exchange Christmas party. She had about 25 people show up. They all played Texas Hold 'Em to decide the order of gift opening. They arrived about 6pm and we wrapped up the poker game promptly at 9:15. The poker games ran really smoothly. we had three packed tables running at the start. The gift exchange was a great deal of fun and when one guest showed up very late wearing her cheerleading outfit, and without a gift, I forced her to perform a 'cheer' to earn a free present. This turned out to be a lot of fun as well. The 'big gift' was a giant pimped out remote control car that was about the size of a sawed off Miata. Ok, ...
My nephew Charlie sitting in the Senior Warden's chair in the West. It's a shame it came out a little bit blurry because it would have been a nice shot. Right Worshipful Brother Chris Newbold sitting in the Worshipful Master's chair in the east. Some interesting paraphanalia over a century old. A view of the main lodge room. A view of the altar and the worshipful master's chair inside the main lodge room. My daughter Lauren playing the piano at her last party. Ok, now that I have a web counter on my site and realize I am getting 80 hits a day, I figure I better feed the monkey with a new post every now and then. Even if the post is just trivia. And pictures too, let's not forget the pictures. This Saturday I took my nephew Charlie to attend the Sword of Bunker Hill at the incredible Freemason lodge in Louisianna, Missouri. It was the first time I got to go inside the main lodge room and it one of the most impressive I have ever seen. The pillars at each end ar...
Well, a few days ago I set up a webcounter on my site. I was curious who, if anyone, actually visits this site besides Adam, John, John, Rob, and a few of my other friends. Typically I don't even update my weblog very frequently, though I have been updating more of late. I was rather shocked to find out that over a several day trend this weblog is getting something like 80 hits a day, which seems remarkably high to me. I get the bulk of my visitors from the United States, with a substantial number more from Canada. Then there are some from Switzerland and Sweden, where we have offices, so I guess that makes sense. But, for the life of me, I'm not sure where the bulk of the traffic is coming from. I do know that Google owns Blogger and probably has a perference for website rankings. I know that the number one hit on Google for my name has been this site for quite some time. Perhaps a lot of the traffic comes from people who are just doing websearches. I know I have been involved...
Well, I had a nice weekend and I'm pretty sure I'm ready to get back to work tomorrow morning. Both my wife and myself came down a little bit sick this weekend, but it was one of those things where you don't feel all that well but you can still function. We had a big fancy black-tie affair at the Shriner's Christmas Ball last evening. We didn't know exactly what to expect, but we were looking forward to the experience. In the past we have spent a lot of money attending Christmas events and have been generally disappointed with the quality of the dinner and entertainment for our money. Well, all I can say, is that the Shiner's sure know how to do it right! The cost was only $65 a person, which seemed fairly reasonable considering all that the evening entailed. We knew right away that it was going to be a special event when we pulled into the parking lot and we were greeted by a stunning horse drawn carriage to bring us from the parking area to the front door. Now...
I have returned safely from Paris. The trip was remarkably uneventful, which was a relief. I read two books along the way, "Angels & Demons" and "The DaVinci Code" by Dan Brown. I waited as long as I could before reading them but, eventually, I felt compelled to know what crazy ideas this man was putting into everybody's head. "The DaVinci Code" was just stupid; while "Angels & Demon's" was both offensive and stupid. It is understandable why people have read the books. No matter how stupid an action movie is, so long as something keeps happening every sixty seconds, you find you end up watching the entire thing. After all, we accept comic books on their own terms and both of these books offer up excellent examples of comic book logic. The "DaVinci Code" is relatively harmless, if not ridiculous. The central character is faced with one stupid and pointless 'puzzle' or 'riddle' to solve after another, all t...