Jim

I have one, but I don't like them. I don't like people driving while talking and I don't like people talking in public places on them.

As an Army vet, I have nothing but respect for The Old Guard. Incredible discipline and presence. Some Old Guard were picked directly out of basic training for the duty based on their natural talent for drill and ceremony. Anyone interested might enjoy the Vietnam era Frances Ford Coppola film Gardens of Stone. It was shot in and around the Old Guard unit and is, to my mind, a compelling movie.

It was worse than just his office, it was also the A/V room that was directly behind the piano in the BRC. After a SNS, the kitchen would send up some burgers for the A/V staff while we broke down our equipment and labeled tapes. Joe could still smell the burgers the next morning and it bugged him enough to forbid them anywhere near his office. I can't help but think it was sort of a copycat thing like VPW and garlic and Loy and onions. In any case it was just another little anal detail that made working on staff a pain.

I remember starting on staff at hq and learning a whole new huge set of rituals. There were very specific ways that the BRC had to be set up for SNS, weddings, Sunday morning staff meetings, ritual setups for the teacher's room, meals in the brc basement had lots of rituals, etc, etc... Even Joe Coulter's office had rituals. Check your shoes carefully for mud before entering, never eat a hamburger in his office, and my favorite, alway set the telephone receiver down in such a way that the cord comes out of the receiver on the same side as it goes into the telephone.

Gives a whole new meaning to the term "buttstock"

Extra pantyhose indeed. If I had extra pantyhose in my pocket, it would have been for a different reason than to avoid a blemish...

Exe, If there are any big cities near you, check for a free vet clinic.

TWI salvagable? What do you mean by salvagable? If you mean thousands going WOW and tens of thousands at the ROA, several twigs per town instead of 2 per state, um, no. Do you mean a 2 or 3 percent growth in abundant sharing so that Rosy and her cronies can continue to live in the luxury they are accustomed too, yes. Definitely possible. The internet is Eve's apple, the tree of knowledge about cults. I don't believe *any* cult can see the kind of growth that was possible before the internet.

What Dancing said then... Start > Run > ipconfig /release Start > Run > ipconfig /renew

The closest I get to "roughing it" is 4 hours at the flea market, though Belle's offer is tempting. I have a serious addiction to morning showers and clean hands.

I hope you brought enough green cards (jim ducks)....

VPW teaching to love people and use things. And seeing the opposite...

I never went through the corps, but I have worked closely with them from 1st to about 12th or 13th. In my opinion, there were at least 2 big changes. The early corps that trained primarily at HQ (probably 1-4, someone correct me if I'm wrong), generally had heart and dedication for the people. They weren't afraid to ask non-corps for advise and they tried to do the right thing. Corps 5 through 7 or 8 seemed to always try to play catch-up with the earlier corps and were more rigid in following orders from HQ. After Corps 8 or so, it seemed to get even worse, with the corps simply mouthing whatever the party line from HQ was. I apologize in advance for our ex-corps at GS. Again, this is only my opinion and it was a long, long time ago.

The one thing I'm getting from this thread is that in general, the women had it harder than the men. I'm amazed at what can only be justified as abuse and cruelty leveled at so many good women. And what about the women like the one Watered Garden babysitted for? What kind of seared conscience would that person have to treat another as she did WG? Is there any healing for that? I'm sorry. I really am sorry for what this sick cult did to so many fine people.

I've never seen anything like it, but I'd guess that it's what a ripe tomato is supposed to do if left to it's own resources...

Your point is well taken, Linda.

I think it's time for him to retire. Ever since seeing his stiff and totally unconvincing role in "The Patriot" I've had little interest in his performances. His comments were reprehensible. And so was gettin so drunk that he could make them. Not to mention driving 80+ in a 45 mph zone.

Subaru's and possibly other makes run the air conditioning on the defrost setting to help pull the moisture out of the air. BTW, air conditioning doesn't usually cost too much in fuel economy. At idle, the aircon puts a load on the engine which, believe it or not, improves it's efficiency. At highway speeds, the aircon losses pretty much balance out the aerodynamic losses of having the windows open. Around town, it's a loss though.

There's a reason the AT&T logo looks like the Deathstar... We just reupped with T-Mobile. Good prices, ok service. Learned our lesson with Cingular aka AT&T.

I am continually amazed at the intensity of this discussion. I can't understand why there would be such a dispute about what was or wasn't taught 30 years ago in a particular area. It was my experience that debt was seriously frowned on, giving time or money to another charitable group was seriously frowned on and that the only way to *prove* you were born again was to speak in tongues. Now how these thing were enforced varied widely depending on the zealousness of the local leadership. Many good-hearted leaders looked at their people's hearts or just looked away. Others, the brown-shirts of the Corps and potential Corps, enforced the rules and unwritten rules with an iron fist. It was the luck of the draw as to which one you had. I got out in '83 so I didn't see the walls closing in as many of you did. I would think that after all these years we could agree that each of our experiences was unique.

Rascal said... No doubt. I have no knowledge of this particular case, but in general, there's always a surcharge for customers who use a large amount of power over a short time. The reason is that the power company has to install lines, transformers and circuit breakers to accomodate the peak load. The equipment costs alot of money. Normally, this expense would be spread over 20-30 years of relatively even usage, but in this case, the power company only sees a return on it's investment for one week per year. So they have to get payment for both the kilowatts used and their capital expense over the one week period.

Zixar, There was an interesting editorial in this month's "Machine Design" magazine stating that curbside recycling is a net loss to the environment. The pollution and fuel costs of driving another garbage truck to each home once a week to pick up an average of 4 pounds of recyclables per household cannot be offset in recycling savings, either financially or environmentally.

Wowburgers were good, but probably no better than Nation's burgers in Northern California. I think that TWI used better than usual condiments and that might have enhanced the taste.

True, and a double standard at that. I heard VPW mention a couple of times that the secular business world could do things more efficiently than TWI, but God help the lowly believer that might say the same thing...

Sure. I'm gonna cut some corners because I'm not a nuclear physist and I don't want to type all night. Brand new nuclear fuel rods are essentially pure mixture of uranium 238 and uranium 235. The U238 is the common component of uranium ore. U235 the stuff bombs can be made out of and is separated at great cost from the U238. The fuel rod have about 96% U238 and 4% U235. The new fuel rods have very low levels of radioactivity. On a tour of a power reactor I actually walked up within 5 feet of a bundle of new fuel rods. Once the rods are placed into a reactor, the low numbers of neutrons naturally emitted by the rods becomes greatly multiplied. As a uranium atom emits a neutron, it is then reabsorbed by another atom, which can then emit more than one neutron. These additional neutrons go on to hit more U atoms and liberate more neutrons. In the case of a nuclear weapon, 60 or so generations of this multiplication happen in a very tiny fraction of a second, resulting in a horrific explosion. In a power reactor, the neutrons are slowed down by a moderator, resulting in a controllable climb of radioactivity and power. Neutron absorbing control rods can be moved in and out of the core to absorb neutrons and throttle the reaction. Anyway, as the neutron slams into uranium atom, the uranium atom doesn't remain a uranium atom. As it radiates energy and more neutrons it also splits into two or more lighter elements. The problem is the lighter elements. As the fuel "burns up", the lighter elements absorb the neutrons without emitting any. By the time 1 percent of the uranium is "burned up", there are too many of the lighter elements absorbing neutrons and the fuel rods must be replaced. So, reprocessing involves chemically processing the "spent" fuel rods to separate out the uranium and remanufacture it into fuel rods. Some of the problems are that in addition to the lighter elements and the unburned uranium, there is also heavy elements such as plutonium which could be separated and diverted. The plutonium can be blended back into the new fuel rods and burned again, but plutonium is a dirty word and it's not likely to happen. Another is that we are currently blending a large amount of U235 into our fuel from ex-soviet warheads, distorting the cost-savings benefits of fuel reprocessing. Another issue is the high radioactivity of the spent fuel rods, which creates some engineering challenges in the design of a reprocessing plant. These issues are not insurmountable, as the old guys at Hanford, Washington knew how to do it in the 40's. So, I've kinda glossed over an incredably difficult and complicated matter and probably oversimplified it.