John Ratcliff's Weblog

I finally got around to performing a small task have been meaning to take care of. Over the past few years of running this blog I have posted a number of photo galleries. However, I never bothered to index them. With this post I am going to list all of the previously published photo galleries. In the future I will keep them on the side bar in my blog template so that I can always find them. Dedicated Album Pages [Famous Places] Here is a small photo-gallery showing the contestants in a small photo-contest I ran. [Ageia Summer Party 2005] Here is the art gallery with photographs from the Ageia Summer BBQ I threw back in 2005. [Portfolio] This is my personal 2d art portfolio. [Sony Online Entertainment Christmas Party 2003] My last hurrah with SOE. I took many pictures of this fun evening. [Photo-Album 2003-2005] This is my personal photo-album spanning two or three years total. [The Lake Saint Louis Halloween Party 2006] Lots of fun pictures of the neighbors all dressed up for Hal...

Yesterday I found time to finish up the latest issue of the Troy DeMolay newsletter. I really wanted to showcase a lot of photographs depicting the many activities our group has been involved in lately. Here is a link to the PDF file .

My daughter Lauren and her friends attended prom on Saturday night. Before they went out for the evening we took photographs at the local park.

Yesterday someone left a comment to one of my previous posts. In the classic tone of questions like 'So how often do you beat your mother?' I was asked how I felt about belonging to a cult not unlike Scientology. The term 'cult' is often bandied about, usually by people who belong to a cult. To me the term 'cult' implies a few things. First, it implies a charismatic leader who engenders deep devotion by his followers (ex: The Pope). The second major characteristic of a cult is that it practices time worn practices of brainwashing through the exercise of intense mind control. This often takes the form of an 'educational' process where spiritual threats of extortion are applied. (ex: Sunday School replete with threats of hell). Finally, I feel like something meets a cult status when it attempts to control the behavior of its followers impinging on their free will. (ex. Pretty much all Christian churches). There is one more criteria that people use to defin...

I spent yesterday afternoon, for a relatively short period of time, as a beggar outside of Walmart . I have to be honest, I didn't particularly care for it much. I did the best I could and kept a bright smile; acknowledging each person as they came and went. I just found standing there, with cup in hand, a bit uncomfortable. There were many pleasant encounters to be sure. Especially with the families and their children. I was pleased to see so many parents hand a folded dollar to their youngster to bring up to me and drop into the cup. It was very gratifying to see parents try to instill a duty to charity at such a young age. Many others dropped off loose change and one lady wanted to stop at chat about the Lions club. So, don't get me wrong. There were some positive elements. It was just all of the time in-between I had difficulty with. When you surround yourself with nothing but great friends who are themselves filled with charitable thoughts you kind of lose sight of how ...

I've been tagged by a young lady who appears to have wandered away from the local renaissance festival and become lost in the blog-o-sphere . Her name is Adele Caelia . I don't really know who she is. Apparently young Adele loves MMO computer games and she figured out that I am working on one that she is hoping to play some day. I'm pretty sure Adele thought this was going to be my development diary about the product. I'm pretty sure of this because when she asked, in a comment section, "What is a Freemason ?" I knew that she knew that she wasn't in Kansas anymore. Dear Adele, I have sad news for you. I have a long standing tradition of not discussing my work on the Internet for a number of reasons. First, because work is what I do for a living, to earn a paycheck, and this blog is devoted more to 'who I am', or at least 'who I want to become'. I try not to let my job define me or my life in general. I've told this story before, and I...

How interesting.. I just read this morning that the European Union is about to criminalize certain types of thought and speech. In this article you can read the story about how anyone who trivializes or denies in any way the holocaust can be sent to jail for their thought crime. Now, personally, I don't deny the holocaust. After all , I am not a particularily stupid, uninformed, or generally ignorant person. However, a lot of people in this world are. This got me thinking.. What if we criminalize similarly ignorant thought and speech? Remember when Galileo was sent to prison for his heretical ideas? Maybe now it is finally time for a little turn-about fair play. I recommend some of the following. Why not send to jail anyone who believes the entire Universe was created 6,000 years ago? Or, how about we jail anyone who denies the basic facts about evolution? What if we criminalize speech that attempts to damn the majority of the population to hell? Why not criminalize books which s...

This is not going to be a very significant post; I just like to update my blog from time to time for my own personal needs. Since I use this blog as a substitute for a memory, allowing me to go back in time and recall 'oh yeah..that's what I did back then', if I don't make entries on a semi-regular basis the events leave my consciousness like a quickly fading fog. Last week was fairly uneventful, it was just one of those rare occasions where I didn't have anything in particular scheduled. The weather continued to be miserable the entire week my wife was on her spring break; certainly not much of a vacation for her to be sure. Over the weekend Terry and Lauren, with a car load of other teenage girls, drove all of the way down to Joplin, Missouri to participate in an improvisational sketch competition. Even with the ten hours of driving they still all had a great time. The most exciting part was when they got a phone call on the way back home informing them that they ...

Right Worshipful Brother Christopher Hodapp has written an instant classic in his new book 'Solomon's Builders' . The book is clearly designed to leverage against the next Dan Brown novel that is supposed to be titled 'Solomon's Key' . Dan Brown's novel will be a work of fiction and is sure to allude to all manner of conspiracy theories and astronomical mumbo -jumbo. In contrast the non-fiction book 'Solomon's Builders' is impeccably well researched, referenced, and with a detailed bibliography. Brother Hodapp is able to cover a broad range of material in a smooth and flowing way that ultimately produces a compelling narrative; one that keeps the reader turning each page wanting to know 'what comes next'. I believe this book will be a requirement on the bookshelf of every Freemason or person interested in Freemasonry. One of the things that Brother Hodapp does so very well is to lay the record straight on just how influential Freemason...

There's not a whole lot blog-worthy going on in my life these days. I'm just doing my job and keeping up with things that need to be kept up with. We continue to have amazing weather for March. This has got to be the warmest March I can remember in my entire life. It does make me nervous about how hot it might be later this year though! I have been doing a number of activities with DeMolay and today we just finished up our regular meeting. I did find a bit of time to send out our latest newsletter, which you can view here. It includes some nice pictures from our recent obligatory day celebration. If you go to the last page and read the treasurers report you will see that our chapter is in dire need of an infusion of funds. We are going to be doing two fundraisers on May 12th. In the morning we are going to hold a pancake and sausage breakfast fundraiser and in the evening we are putting on a talent competition. The talent competition has me especially worried as I have ...