And so begins a new blog...

Hey everybody...which, to my knowledge, includes about 6 people...I have decided to, at least temporarily, change the structure of this blog. I have varied reasons for this, but the main one is that everything in my life seems to eventually sacrifice itself for my studies and this blog is no exception. I intend to get back to it as soon as feasible, though I cannot guarantee that it will look the same as before. A secondary point is that I, like all of you it seems, have decided to attempt to write a novel in November.

Let me, however, be clear about this. I make no commitment to finishing and I have absolutely no illusions about my ability to do anything beyond typing occasionally coherent sentences. I am doing this for exactly one reason: because my friend asked me to do so. As far as I can tell, my only purpose will be to serve as the perennial "at least I'm not as far behind as Mike" example for this exercise. And I'm happy to oblige.

At all events, I will make every effort to maintain the requisite pace and I will dutifully post my word count here in order to serve my purpose effectively. Good luck to all of you. I sincerely hope that everyone gets out of this what they want...or at least what they need. Don't be surprised if you see a lot of matrices and differential equations swimming around in my first draft.

Mike 2

Post 5.7

For a while, at least, this will be the last entry dealing with quotes as the previous entries have done so. I hope I've done the words I've so shamelessly used here some justice. But, in all likelihood, nothing I do could compare with them. I guess that's why I used them.

1. Theme: Angels in film, Films: City of Angels, The Prophecy, The Prophecy II, It's A Wonderful Life, Defending Your Life, Heaven Can Wait
2. Theme: Winning, Authors: Vince Lombardi, Diane de Pointiers, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Arthur Ashe, Leo Durocher, Arnold Schwarzenegger
3. Author: Stephen King
4. Author: Ernest Hemingway
5. Author: President George W. Bush

Any surprises?

Post 5.6

Sorry about being so late this weekend. I'm in Colorado...traveled by train and so slept late and didn't have internet access until now. I'm headed back this evening, arriving tomorrow...so I might be late again. I think I'll take care of revealing the authors/themes tomorrow (Monday) if necessary. Here's your daily dose:

1. Angels have no philosophy but love.
2. Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.
3. Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.
4. I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?
5. A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it.

Discuss.

Post 5.5

Sorry about the lateness of this post. I covered someone's class this morning after sleeping in. I'm preparing for my trip to Denver tomorrow. The train departs Lincoln at 12:30 am and arrives at 8:00am or so...not sure whether I'll be able to sleep, so I'm giving myself the option by sleeping in and putting myself in a position to stay up late. Luckily, the game helps with that. See you all tonight...or most of you, at any rate. Anyway, here's your daily dose:

1. For someone so extraordinary, you seem very interested in the ordinary, you know?
2. I never did say that you can't be a nice guy and win. I said that if I was playing third base and my mother rounded third with the winning run, I'd trip her up.
3. The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.
4. The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.
5. Security is the essential roadblock to achieving the road map to peace.

Discuss.

Post 5.4

Here's your daily dose:

1. Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.
2. Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.
3. You can't deny laughter. When it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.
4. Wars are caused by undefended wealth.
5. You never know what your history is going to be like until long after you're gone.

Discuss.

Post 5.3

Here's your daily dose:

1. I never learned to drive.
2. Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.
3. Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.
4. Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
5. And my concern, David, is several.

Discuss.

Post 5.2

Here's your daily dose:

1. I'm so tired of this war. It doesn't matter who's right or who's wrong. Sometimes, you just have to do what you're told.
2. Courage is as often the outcome of despair as of hope; in the one case, we have nothing to lose, in the other, everything to gain.
3. God is cruel. Sometimes, he makes you live.
4. All things truly wicked start from innocence.
5. More seldom than not, the movies gives us exquisite sex and wholesome violence, that underscores are values. Every two child did. I will.

Discuss.

Post 5.1

Haven't seen any comments about my posting my own quote. Shameless, I know. I'd probably do it more if I had anything important to say. Heck, even the important stuff I say isn't worthy of Posterity. Anyway, thanks for sticking around through yet another week. I fully intend to annotate the previous weeks, but I'll not promise you anymore...I'm trying to cut down on broken promises, and not making them in the first place seems a great way to start. Here's your daily dose:

1. Some things are true whether you believe them or not.
2. Winning is not a sometime thing. You don't win once in a while. You don't do things right once in a while. You do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
3. When the night has come, and the land is dark, and the moon is the only light we'll see, no I won't be afraid just as long as you stand by me.
4. Courage is grace under pressure.
5. More than two decades later, it's hard to imagine the Revolutionary War coming out any other way.

Discuss.

Post 4.7

Sorry about being a little late today. Been watching a lot of football. Still am, actually. Anyway, here are the credits.

1. Theme: Parenting, Author: Michael Gunderson, Clarence Budinton Kelland, Bill Cosby, Laurence J Peter, Ed Asner, Thomas Bray
2. Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
3. Author: C. S. Lewis
4. Theme: U. S. Presidents named John, Author: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, John Tyler, John F. Kennedy, Andrew Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson
5. Author: Bruce Campbell, as Ash in Army of Darkness

Any surprises?

Post 4.6

Here's your daily dose:

1. Never fear spoiling children by making them too happy. Happiness is the atmosphere in which all good affections grow.
2. Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
3. That is why Christians are told not to judge. We judge others by their external actions; God judges them by their moral choices.
4. I don't believe I'll ever get credit for anything I do in foreign affairs, no matter how successful it is, because I didn't go to Harvard.
5. Come get some.

Discuss.

Post 4.5

Here's your daily dose:

1. Raising kids is part joy and part guerrilla warfare.
2. Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
3. The name Christians was first given at Antioch (Acts 11:26) to those who accept the teachings of Christ. There is no question of its being restricted to those who profited by the teaching as much as they should have. There is no question of its being extended to those who, in some refined inward fashion, were far closer to the spirit of Christ than the less satisfactory of the disciples. The question is not a theological or moral one. It is only a question of using words so that we can all understand what is being said. When a man who accepts the common doctrines of Christianity lives unworthily of them, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say that he is not a Christian.
4. If I am shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet.
5. Baby...you got real ugly.

Discuss.

Post 4.4

Tags for previous weeks should be up later today. Here's your daily dose:

1. Television has changed the American child from an irresistible force to an immovable object.
2. I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He couldn't lie. I can, but I won't.
3. One man may be so placed that his anger sheds the blood of thousands, and another so placed that, however angry he gets, he will only be laughed at. But the little mark on the soul may be much the same in both. Each has done something to himself which, unless he repents, will make it harder for him to keep out of the rage the next time he is tempted, and will make the rage worse when he does fall into it.
4. A revolution is coming - a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough - but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character, we cannot alter its inevitability.
5. Klaatu verata nuhuhuhuhu...(cough)

Discuss.

Post 4.3

My apologies on the lateness of this post. I was interviewing today at the Engineering Career Fair...if you want to call it that. I'll talk with some of you about it later, if you're interested. Here's your daily dose:

1. Human beings are the only creatures on the planet that allow their children to come back home.
2. Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
3. If you are a nice person - if virtue comes easily to you-beware! Much is expected from those to whom much is given. If you mistake for your own merits what are really God's gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee.
4. Let it, then, be henceforth proclaimed to the world, that man's conscience was created free; that he is no longer accountable to his fellow man for his religious opinions, being responsible therefore only to his God.
5. This is my BOOMSTICK!! 12-gauge, double-barrel Remington...S-Mart's top of the line. You'll find it in the sporting goods department. That's right. This baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for $109.95. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right. Shop smart...shop S-Mart. YOU GOT THAT?

Discuss.

Post 4.2

As requested by Dave, I will tag each old post as I did those of the first week. Today---or at least this morning---is a bit hectic. Hopefully I'll get to it by this evening. Here's your daily dose:

1. My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.
2. Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
3. There is no need to be worried about facetious people who try the make the Christian hope of heaven seem ridiculous by saying that they do not want to, 'spend eternity playing harps.' The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they ought not talk about them.
4. Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
5. First you want to kill me, now you want to kiss me. Blow.

Discuss.

Post 4.1

Frankly, I can't believe I'm still at this. But I feel compelled to give the public what they want...or at least what they've never said they don't want. Silence equals consent under the law :) Here's your daily dose:

1. All parents make mistakes. Good parents are those who choose their mistakes carefully.
2. Man is the only animal that blushes.
3. Do I think well of myself...think myself a nice chap? Well, I'm afraid I sometimes do, and those are no doubt my worst moments.
4. I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
5. Good...bad...I'm the guy with the gun.

Discuss.