socks

"I can lick any man in town!" "I can lick any woman in town!" I keep saying them both, back and forth, back and forth, trying to get a fix on them. If forced, I'd choose the second, hands down. Metaphorically speaking. I think. :D--> It offers the most options.

Uh... Ok. I won't go there. :D-->

I seem to remember Ren and Stimpy had something about a circus midget episode.... Perhaps a CD of favorite music. Make a CD cover for it and title it "The Best of The Amazing Circus Midgets". Use one of the photos from the above sites. Custom T-shirts with silly sayings, like: "Are We Out of Circus Midgets Again?" "OK, who ordered the Circus Midget On Rye?" "NO! NO Circus Midgets for you!!" "I see .... Circus Midgets..." "Are you happy to see me or is that a circus midget in your pocket?" "Shrink Rap" (front side) "DJ Circus and the Midgitzle ShanizTle" (back side)

You can never go wrong with Amazing Sea Monkeys! Valentine's Day....circus midgets....hmmmmmmm......thinking......

:D--> :D--> :D--> Aaaaaah. Sweet! #5 I once met Tom Waits at a Flea Market in Sebastopol, CA. He was with a boy, his son I think, looking at some cheap watches on a table. I said "Tom?" and he said "Yeah" in a voice 2 octaves below deep that I felt more than I heard. He mumbled something and I acted like I understood him. We looked at cheap gadgets and stuff and finally he looked at me and nodded and walked off.

Thanks herbiejuan. :)-->

Well, as long as we're armchair quarterbacking, I'll take a stab at a point you brought up R. G. I think it bears on your original question UH - Craig may or may not have a gift ministry, but let's say if he does, it doesn't mean he needs to start up his own ministry or church, whether it be an offshoot splinter group or otherwise. In fact it might be better if he didn't and if so inspired, worked with other people, perhaps in a different capacity than administration. In fact if he does have a 'calling' of sorts, it may not have anything to do with his being president of the Way Ministry or any other ministry, now or then. We had a lot of information about the gift ministries in the Way. A lot was taught about them to the Way Corps, and there were ordinations and all of that. But as far as any practical understanding of them in the Way's population, we were all pretty young, VPW included. From the time he first ordained anyone from the 1st Corps to his death was less then 20 years. How many before that? Mal George? Maybe a few others? My point is that I feel whatever we knew from the bible was more of a "what if" kind of thing. For me it was like having a map describing how to get somewhere with some basic directions. Being cut off from the rest of the Christian world we had no real examples, other than VPW of course. No history or tradition to experiment with or emulate other than what we read in the bible. In that way it was all very new. We thought we had it all in the teaching, but we had the barest of experience or wisdom. I guess my own examination of the topic and it's possibilities leads me to believe that someone like Craig Martindale has a whole life to live and life has it's seasons, changes, growth, etc. etc. At one time his life was completely contained in the Way Ministry. So was mine. But there's nothing to say that it would have to be for the rest of his life, or mine or anyone's for that matter. It might be in his future to do something completely different and that would be fine. Maybe work with others who could help him learn more, learn different things. Who knows?

Sigh...the time has come I guess. #6 - I teared up in "Beavis and Butthead Do America" at the part when they finally meet their parents. :(--> :)--> :D-->

Jim, I don't actually watch it. Some episodes are funny. My two kids, who are otherwise intelligent and caring individuals, love it and watch it occasionally. I've watched it with my son and we end up laughing hysterically and repeating selected lines for a few days. Don't know what that means. May be bad. :D--> Right now we're coming off a Shrek2 jag. "I most certainly am not! and "It's a THONG!"

WW sed: etc. etc. Here here! Not the Mike part, although that's fine too, but that really covers the seemingly incredible spread of perspectives that we all see in our own lives and the lives of others that have been involved with the Way over the years. Each person makes their own decisions when faced with good and bad, right and wrong. VPW's spin on 'rewards' for faithfulness and how each person in essence can create their own 'heaven' certainly led some people to seek the 'riches' of the kingdom of God first because it was considered 'godly' to do so....if that's what God wants then you're totally legitmate running with an athletic fervor towards building a future 'position' in the kingdom to come. VPW once said, 'there's nothing I won't do to earn those eternal rewards". But that's the contradition right there - if a person seeks to be 'first' he'll be last. If a person is self serving in the here and now Jesus taught he'll have his reward, here and now, whatever it is. So there's a basic problem if all a person seeks is to 'rise up' to a ministry, position of leadership and 'service' simply so that they can have greater opportunity to build their 'future rewards'. The won't get their 'reward' later, they get whatever's coming to them now. In that kind of environment competition is desirable. But Jesus didn't really present a model of a corporately competitive group of followers with His '12' disciples. On His 'team', the last would be first. There was no greater position than the one who served. The poor, the meek, the stupid, the bumbling geeks, the ones that had nothing but even tried to do right with what they had would be given at least the same consideration if not more, as the smart-as-a-tack do-gooders. Why? Because they didn't have anything to start with. Maybe the lesson is that it's possible to try to be so dammed 'good' we're just not good to anyone anymore and since we become dead weight, we're relieved of duty.

Oldies - "I sometimes hope he makes a genuine Godly comeback, like Darth Vader." "You already have, Luke. You were right. You were right about me. Tell your sister...you were right!"

George, dang! I hoped someone would recognize it. I am glad to see at least a couple others who dig Beavis and Butthead. he he he he he he he he...I said 'butt'....he he he he he.

Taking sack lunch and backing slooooowly away..... :D-->

Special Today - Steve's Liver! It's Lip Smackin' Good! Get it with the onions while supplies last! :D--> 10 things... -I have no tatoos. -I've never had a body part pierced. By choice. -I sleep on my side, never on my back. -I'm the only person I know of who ever read "Cosmo the Merry Martian" comic books.

Yeah, that's a drag. You might try searching in different ways through artist and track and genre, I've come across some songs in collections that way. But there are some that aren't in. Rhapsody increases as they increase their licensing deals. Like the Beach Boys - they were on, then off, now they've been back for quite awhile. I was trying to find "Groove is in the Heart" by Deelite, and although they had Bootsy Collins and Q-Tip, that particular song and artist isn't licensed. I hope you get more, I have found most of my searches though. Recently got Gerry Leonard's "Spellbound" and that's been hard to locate.

Here's their site John - LightScribe Hey, nice site. Like the look. Good job. Isn't it crazy? Here you go and get this site up and have all this potential for communication and information and recreation and it's great. It's really a world wide outreach mechanism, the internet. I really can't understand how the Way can drag it's heels so when it comes to using the internet. If we'd had it years ago, don't you think it would have been used extensively? Dunno. Basically, they're selfish and stupid, but that's not news. We've got some old photos you'd get a kick out of. Have to get to it and scan some of those puppies in and shoot them to you. We've seen Rodger and Terry a couple times out here over the last few years. Great folks, glad they're still doing so wonderfully. No surprise there. I think you're right. As all of the various technologies grow and develop we'll have simpler and more options to choose from. Thankfully there's more compatibility being figured in. That's the key I think - everything ultimately working with everything else. I'm probably still good for some portable media forms. CD's work well. I like the idea of having a couple forms of storing and transporting stuff. I'm narrowing everything down to CD and/or IPod or other portable storage devices. I've tried printing labels but it's a little clunky. LightScribe will, apparently, print right to an "enabled" CD so you burn the CD, flip it over and print your label index, etc. right then. It sounds cool, but I'm just starting to look at it. Let me know what you think if you check it out.

...for CD labelling? What do you think? Is it as slick as it sounds?

Thanks Technobyte. Hey, we're giving them some valuable input here! Right there, income streams for days! It's so weird. Here's the internet with this incredible capability to pull people together from all over the world. Information of all types being distributed. I mean, at one time little packs of WOW families had to march all over their city within a 20 mile radius distributing brochures and cards to Laundromats and college campus cafeterias and trying to get Way books in Christian bookstores where the clerks would turn 3 shades of purple when they'd see "Jesus Christ Is Not God!", and in the 25 plus years this went on there was nary a consistent relationship set up with any commercial distributor or educational facility anywhere in the freakin' world that still stands today. The only place Way Books are selling at a fast clip is E Bay or Amazon dot com and that's only because Wayfers are realizing they've got to make room somehow for their new DVD collections and they definitely don't need 5 unopened copies of the Board of Trustees Holiday photo from 1981 anymore. Fast forward to today and the internet and the fact that right now you can bet there's people racing to be the first one to get photos of Paris Hilton's last bowel movement on the internet and will probably make a small fortune selling downloads of the unedited photos for 9.95 a pop to pimply teenagers and emotionally impaired, coffee cranked old men and.......you really have to wonder. Why don't they use the technology for good? And you know that no one knows Good like the Way, right? They're good is gooder than good, it's so good it makes great smell bad, it's the gawdarned BEST! It's sad. Way Bosses are long of tooth and large of butt, I guess. Once young bucks that were takin' it to the streets, but no more. Although........if they would at least put online a USA map with little gavel icons that would designate cities where lawsuits are currently active....THAT would be cool. Or an online game, "Who's on the BOT This Year?" -->

Aaaah! Sooooo... It's the Twinkies!

Word on the street is that this is Tom's 78th birthday. He's amazingly well preserved. In fact, I've heard that his secret to the Fountain of Youth is a diet of Sno Cones, Spaghetti, Tofu Snack Bars and Orange Crush soda. Can this be confirmed?

Excie asks the 29 dollar question - wouldn't you think that the Way would have a nice map of the world, with spots to select and get cool layouts of the countries...select a cute little green tree icon and get pop outs with names, and stuff? Like as if they were a real uh...business, church, meanistry, organization, place that wanted people to contact them? Why doesn't every region, limb and branch have it's own website? :)--> "Welcome to the Northeastern Region! We're glad you're here. Check our Calendar for upcoming events! Browse our Resources pages for valuable biblical teaching and information! The Way Tree page contains contact information for our locations worldwide. Please feel free to email us with your comments and questions. We'd love to hear from you! God bless you!" I'm dreaming - I know. :P--> Better to leave their people clammering over the Way Magazine or Sunday Night Service tapes to get their information from, tied to the Root's boot...disjointed and separated and reliant on the Local Liedership to feed them the nuggets of Truth as they become available. Maybe. If they're good and we know they ain't that good so they can stop asking questions! :D-->

I also have to say I don't think it's unnatural for men to have interest in the 'caregiver' role, at all. When my son was born I really found it hard to return to work after a couple days. I so enjoyed the time with him. I have a friend who's recently become a father and had some time for a couple months to be with him. He said it was the hardest thing for him to 'go back to work', knowing all the moments he was going to miss not being with him. The idea of men having a strong interest in being with and working with children of all ages is very common. Scouting, sports, mentoring, traing and teaching situations for crafts, trades, etc. "Big Brothers". Many many men have a strong desire to participate and contribute in the growth of young people of all ages and that involves more than just showing up and reading to them. Do a lot of men view involvement, 'caregiving' with children about as enjoyable as a stick in they eye? Sure. But not all, by any means. Either way, the preferences and interests are valid. Those that do, will. Those that don't, won't. It seems very simple.

I've been reading up on this some more, trying to get a handle on some of the information. What the Hay, I think the numbers point to different reasoning than what you're following. This is from the site: " target="_blank">http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/jjbul2001_5_1/contents.html] ]http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/jjbul2001_5_1/contents.html://http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/jjb...ntents.html The information is gathered by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice.The following is from one of the pages on 'Caretaker' Offenders. Types of Caretaker Offenders Within the parent and other caretaker offender category defined in this Bulletin, parents are responsible for 60 percent of all crimes. Stepparents and parents’ boyfriends and girlfriends account for another 19 percent. Males are considerably more likely than females (73 percent versus 27 percent) to be perpetrators. This gender difference holds true even among babysitter offenders, although males are much less likely than females to be babysitters. Biological fathers account for two-fifths (41 percent) of all offenders, and stepfathers and parents’ boyfriends account for nearly one-fifth (18 percent) (figure 4). Men account for 92 percent of caretaker sex assault, 67 percent of aggravated assault, 68 percent of simple assault, and 58 percent of kidnaping offenders. --- Unfortunately it looks like the high numbers - 92% of 'caretaker' sex assault and 67% of aggravated assaults - speak to why the media coverage and interest would be greater for male cases than female cases as you stated (and I'm still not convinced they are)... simply because there are more cases to be covered for male perpatrators. The number of spouses, ex-spouses, relatives, etc. that are male is more than female. They also note that, as you state, even though men are less likely to be in a 'babysitter' caretaker role, their %'s of incidents seem to remain the same. And men account for 3/5ths of the total number of offenders. I don't know, I can't read your mind. I know other people voice the same perception as you are, it's seemed like that to me at times too. But I'm starting to think that it's more perception than fact. We might want to THINK that there's a public fascination with male offenders and seeing them get what's coming to them, but it looks more like that's a natural response to the number and types of incidents that occur. Overall though, as a parent myself who's raised children and had them in many different family, school and private care situations my own interest is to the overall RISK at any time and how to handle it as much as the whether males or females are involved. There's evil in the world and evil wears many faces.

There once was a boy from the range. His name it was said, was Strange. Not sounding, no way. Nor looking (they say) But faintly yet cheerily Deranged. Happy Birthday!!!! :)-->

Likewise, Paw. I've also tied this together with my Rhapsody.com subscription and am finally getting a hold on the high cost of music, legally. (they're 9.95 a month, .79 a download and they have nearly a million tunes catalogued). Mark, I'm happy with the sound quality. It's stereo, 44,100 khz, 128 kbs. Pretty much like a cd to the ear, and through headphones or a car system, downright pleasing.