My Weekend

I keep my life online. Ever since I set up my internet based calendar it has been so convenient. I lead such a busy life that trying to avoid scheduling conflicts has been a big issue. I don't allow my wife to make any scheduling decisions unless she has 'checked' the online calendar which I keep on Yahoo. This upcoming month is particuarily busy since I have VIP season tickets to the Saint Louis Aces professional tennis matches.

To recap, here is what I have already scheduled just in the new few weeks and I'm quite sure a lot of other stuff is going to pile on there soon.

Monday, July 10th. There are two First Degree's being conferred at Troy Lodge and I will be delivering the charge.

Tuesday, July 11th. Is the Major League All Star Baseball Game. I sure can't miss that!

Wednesday, July 12th: Wentzville Lodge #46 will be conferring two second degrees. I will most likely be a senior steward for both.

Thursday, July 13th: There will be a meeting of Troy DeMolay where my son is a member and I am the Chapter Dad.

Friday, July 14th: I have to get prepared for the party on Saturday.

Saturday, July 15th: I am hosting the summer party for my company, Ageia Technologies as I have done for the past three years. I have pool toys for the kids and great prizes for the families. I will take people for rides on my boat, everyone will use the swimming pool, and I will cook great food. A good time is always had by all.

Sunday, July 16th: I will be playing in a Pro-Am tennis tournament with the Saint Louis Aces. I have done this for the past couple of years and it is great, great, fun. It is so cool to be on the court hitting with a professional tennis player. There is always a great buffet dinner as well. This is the main reason I get VIP season tickets each year.

Monday, July 17th. I will be attending a Saint Louis Aces tennis match with my friend Mike Reiter. We will be watching Anna Kornakova play. There is supposed to be an Anna Kornakova look-alike contest that evening which should be very enteraining. My wife and son are going out of town to Bull Shoals with our friends the Solomons.

Wednesday, July 19th, I will attend a tennis match with the Saint Louis Aces where I get to see the Bryan Brothers. I will take my older son John.

Friday, July 21st: I will be closing on the farm property. I hope it goes smoothly, I need the cash! In the evening I will be attending the second meeting of my new 'metaphysical discussion group'. More on that later..

Saturday, July 22nd: Troy Lodge will be having its installation of officers and Troy DeMolay will be performing the flag ceremony. In the evening I will be attending the Saint Louis Aces to see Victoria Azenko play.

Sunday, July 23rd: I will be attending the Saint Louis Aces match where I get the great honor of watching Pete Sampras play.

Monday, July 24th: Troy Lodge will be performing degree work.

Tuesday, July 25th: Completely open!!

Wednesday, July 26th: The Saint Louis Aces will be playing the Kansas City Explorers, featuring Corina Moraiu!

Thursday, July 27th: Troy DeMolay chapter will hold its meeting; Alex and I will attend.

Friday, July 28th: I will be taking my wife and kids to a 'drum circle' at some New Age spiritual center in the area.

Saturday, July 29th: My wife and I will be going to the community association center to enjoy the band "Assorted Nuts"

Things calm down in August, and besides degree work and DeMolay meetings, my major events are as follows:

August 13th: My nephew is getting married to his lovely fiance Emily!!!

Agust 14th: I will leave for Seattle to attend GameFest sponsored by Microsoft.

August 15th: I will be in Seattle to give a talk about automatic generation of dynamics data with a focus on approximate convex decomposition and constraint generation.

August 16th: I will meet with my friends and business partners at Rad Game Tools. I look forward to spending time with John Miles, Jeff Roberts, Mitch Soule, Tom Forsyth, David Moore, Michael Sartain, and Mike Abrash.

August 17th: I will return from Seattle.

August 19th: I will attend the installation of officers at Wentzville Lodge #46 where I expect to be installed as Junior Deacon.

So, now onto the weekend. On Friday I attended a 'metaphysical discussion group'. Yep, you heard that right!

I live in a very ultra religious, ultra conservative religious community of about 10,000 people. A lot of the people are Catholic and the rest are Mormons, Baptists, Lutherans, and a smattering of other flavors of relatively fundamentalist Christianity.

We have a local news rag that gets thrown on our doorstep each week. And, each week, it contains pages and pages devoted to fundamentalist rants and includes advertisements on the backpage such as 'Christian Handyman'. Yep, I'm not kidding you. Lord help you if your handyman was Jewish or something. Feel safe that your Handyman is a God fearing Christian who will fix your toilet with religious zeal and furvor.

Needless to say, in this climate, I found it a rather odd when I saw an ad in the back of 'Newstime' that said 'Metaphysical discussion group forming. Call this number...'

I called about four weeks ago and the guy on the phone said that he used to live in the city and attend such a group but now that he lived out here he wanted to start one locally. He told me he planned to run the ad for four weeks before starting the first meeting.

I finally got a call this past week and the first meeting was to be this Friday.

Out of curiosity, and on principle, I decided to attend at least one meeting. I figured anybody who was trying to do something like this in our community deserved my support in spirit at least.

My wife decided to come along and we arrived at a quaint old storefront in the town of Foristell Missouri. The man organizing the discussion group was an extraordinarily talented artist and his work covered all of the walls. In addition to our host there were two other members that evening for the group.

In total it was just five people. In the course of our discussions I found it interesting that the other three noted how there was a 'great change in spirituality' happening across the country. In my own mind, I thought, hmmm......, you ran an advertisement for four weeks in a community of ten thousand highly religious people and only got one person to show up! The other people were personal friends of the host and did not come from the ad he placed.

The simplest way I can describe the evening would be 'a bible study group without the bible.' These are religious people who have turned away from the guilt inducing techniques of conventional organized religions and I, for one, say good for them!

I actually do hold some fairly 'New Age' beliefs even though I still act as a staunch skeptic in most affairs. I completely support the scientific method, I just don't believe the scientific method must be limited to any particular arena. The scientific method is just that, a *method*. There is no such thing as something which is 'scientific' or 'unscientific'. Any field of study can have the scientific method applied to it. Any 'new age' ideas I happen to hold have evolved *from* my study of science, not in conflict with it. This is a particular reason why I plan to learn the second degree lecture as my next substantial piece of ritual.

The small group found it quite interesting that I was a 'Freemason' as they had never met one. I did like that I could talk about religious concepts since we are not allowed to do so in a Freemason lodge. In fact, I'm pretty sure I will go back to another meeting if I can.

I am especially looking forward to attending the drum-circle at the end of the month. I plan to take my wife and kids and, hopefully, will take a few pictures.

On Saturday I spent the bulk of the day working on my presentation about the building of the New Masonic Temple that I plan to give this October.

On Saturday evening I attended a Saint Louis Aces tennis event and today, this Sunday, I did some shopping for our company party and did some boating with friends.

Thus ends my record of this weekend. Not that exciting, but at least it has entered the akashic record of the Internet.