John Ratcliff's Weblog

Ever since the 'metaphysical' discussion group I was in dissolved I have really been missing it. It was such a great group of people and everyone provided so much support. I have theories as to why the group dissolved, and mostly I believe it is because we didn't have a fixed date for a meeting each month nor did we have a specific social agenda. I also feel like the label 'metaphysical' made it seem a bit to restrictive and we quickly found that even those who share metaphysical beliefs vary quite widely in their personal expression of them. This time I am focusing exclusively on the social aspect of the evening, sharing food and drink in a safe and relaxing setting. I have already heard from a few of the old members that they are anxious to get a new group started again. I will have to report how things go after the first meeting.

(My daughter Lauren and the sign I make her stand next to whenever boys are around.) Last Saturday evening my daughter Lauren and her friends threw a huge Halloween party. It was hosted by her friends Eric and Kelly. An enormous amount of work went into the decorations. The theme of the party was some sort of mix of techno-hippie-dance. The evening was chaperoned by a number of parents and proved, yet once again, that young people can still have a lot of fun, even when supervised and without alcohol present. My wife took all of the pictures and, unfortunately, forgot to check her lens. There was a large smear right in the middle of the lens and pretty much messed up almost all of the photographs. Many of the ones I have posted here were actually cropped from the edges of a group of people to avoid the big smear in the middle. This evening I will probably be attending the Lake Saint Louis community association Halloween party with entertainment by the band Max Thrust. Last year

Sitting on a one legged table. Sitting on a one legged table. The main reason I am making this blog post is to draw traffic to my website. The reason I am drawing traffic to my website is to make Google Adsense impressions. The reason I want to make Google Adsense impressions is so that people will click on hosted advertising on my website. The reason I want people to click on hosted advertising on my website is to generate revenue. The reason I want to generate revenue is so that I can buy myself a six pack of beer with my Google Adsense dollars. All that said, the reason you are here is because you want to learn the great levitation secret of the Yogi Magician Guru dude named Ramana. Now, this one is pretty simple. Just follow this link to watch a video of the this guy putting on a sideshow in front of the Whitehouse the other day. Here is the link . It is interesting to note the similarities between the photograph the other day of 'Ramana' and the old black and white p

Over the past month I have been using 'Play.Blogger.com' as a slide show program to pass the time. In doing so I have come across some absolutely incredible photographs, images, and artwork. I have created this Blog to showcase the collection that I have put together. I expect that I will, from time to time, make updates to this site with new content that I have discovered. Be sure to click on the images as many of them have high-resolution versions. I have organized the collection into some a set of general categories. They are: Water Pets General photographs of people Landscape and Scenery Photographs Illustrations, Drawings, Sketches, and Paintings Flora and Fauna Outer Space and Cosmology Birds Artistic and Stylistic Photographs of People Animals Vehicles, Machines, Aircraft Sculpture Interesting locales or landmarks Insects Food and Drinks Fashion, Costumes, Fabric, Makeup Close-up images Computer Generated Images Atmospheric, Clouds, Weather, Sky Architecturally inter

I have never been big on these 'personality' tests; mostly because they ask Yes/No, True/False questions and I cannot answer anything accurately in such a binary fashion. I am virtually never 100% one way or another, life it a bit more subtle than that. However, I saw on a weblog that I now frequent, a link to one of these tests and I followed it. Almost all of the questions have sliders on them to indicate how much or how little you agree with something. I thought it was a fun test to take and I enjoyed the results it gave as well. I found the test on the weblog of Charlotte Rose . Charlotte is a lovely young lady who has had the incredible fortune of traveling and even living in exotic parts of the world. Her recent series of photographs from her trip to Egypt and Jordan; where she got to see the ancient city of Petra, are simply amazing. Charlotte is another person I found using 'play.blogger.com' According to her test Charlotte was given the personality profil

Under the category of 'How cool is that?' comes this portrait drawn by artist Rodrigo Alves It appears that Rodrigo worked from a photograph taken at my recent installation as Worshipful Master of Naphtali lodge. I have never had anyone draw my portrait before, though I have drawn my own a few times. Viewing Rodrigo's work and writing about it has inspired me to think about my own artwork. I haven't drawn anything in years but, the last time I tried to get back into it I took a figure drawing course at the local community college and was pleased to see that not only had I not lost my skills I was able to improve on them. One of these days, and I'm not quite sure when, I am going to get back into my artwork. I do have my art portfolio posted online here . This portfolio ranges from my best detailed pieces to doodles drawn in class. It also includes a couple of my best sketches from figure drawing class. Here are a few examples: Here is a self-portrait I did in

I'm sick and tired of that last blog post I have at the top of my queue. So, today, I wanted to post something else. Lately I have become rather addicted to ' play.blogger.com '. As I said before, I have lots of time during my normal work day where I am waiting for my machine to finish a task. These waits are anywhere from two minutes to sometimes as long as six. That isn't enough time to do a whole lot of productive work so, instead, I watch the play.blogger.com slideshow in high-speed mode. It is without question the coolest way to find new blog sites to visit. As the images whiz by it seems every sixty seconds or so, you will see something that really catches your eye. For me it is artwork, high fashion, amazing photography, and incredible vacation photos. When I see a photograph that really catches my attention, I click on it, which immediately takes me to that persons blog. It is natural to assume that if a person's weblog has one interesting picture th

Today I had a conversation with a friend about the blog post I made last evening. In this conversation I brought up an idea that has bugged me from time to time. It has to do with the concept of competing eschatological points of views in various religious cultures; i.e. the end of the world. Now, here I speak in the sense of the end of the world as on an individual basis. Since, after all, that is all we can each really experience; our own personal end of the world. Now, there are a few competing models about this particular scenario and I will try to make this point in some very broad brush strokes. I find it interesting that in the 'Left Behind Series' which, apparently, is a very popular fictional series that is based on the notion that all of the good Christian's get 'raptured up' one day, and the rest of us sinners are left behind to live in a Mad-Max post-apocalyptic hell. It turns out that small bands of devout Christians do remain behind, mercenary warr