Jim

It's something of a trick question, don't you think? We all have our reason for leaving TWI. Fair enough. We who question the fundamentlist view of Christianity might very well have a whole nuther set of reasons for that. I myself question lots of things. Like whether or not Paul's words were God-breathed, etc, etc. I think, for many of us, the act of walking away from TWI opened our eyes to question many theological and leadership issues unrelated to the err of TWI.

Had to wear a hat at HQ? Did that go for the males as well? I worked on staff at HQ and got reproved for climbing the antenna without a safety belt, and I got reproved for having vibrum soles on my work boots that tracked mud into the BRC, but never for not wearing a hat. Of course, back then I had enough hair that I didn't need one. Back to the original topic. I can't even remember who the limb leader was when I left. It might have been Howie Y, but I don't know. In any case, my moment of clarity was when I couldn't get a TWI minister to do my wedding. It was game over. Now on the other hand, I would have walked through fire for either Del Duncan or Johnny Townsend, but then neither of them were in California when I left.

Yet another leader standing firm and stiffening his resolve....

If I can take us back on-topic for a minute. I think that the pivital change was from the late 70's to the mid 80's. Before that time, about the only corps in the field were way corps 1 - 4 grads working as limb leaders. All the branch and twig leaders were pfal-advanced class grads. During that time, there was a lot of love for God and each other, lots of fun, lots of good Word taught and lived. As the Way Corps machine cranked out more and more grads, they had to have jobs and they gradually infilled the twig and branch leader positions. The majority of these new corps grads were sent to locations where they had no roots. This stole the heart out of many twigs and caused a hollowness that was never filled. Percentagewise many of the later corps didn't have the heart or understanding for people that the early corps did. Many were simply brownshirts following orders to progress up the ranks. I heard VPW hint about this problem and I think he understood it and was concerned about it. Probably there was so much momentum that he couldn't change it. LCM taking over was just the final scene in the drama. After killing WOW and ROA, his only source of power was the remaining faithful corps. No heart, no love, no motivated volunteers, just a lot of hate and anger.

So what's OR's track record for accurate prophesy?

Anyone else fall asleep and drop their bible on the floor?

Sounds a little too much like "listening with a purpose" to me...

Here's my guess, appreciation. Not the appreciation of the hard-working believers that made it possible. Nope, the filthy lucre money appreciation of its real estate value. Given it's location and beauty, its value will appreciate at a greater rate than any paper investment. Justify it to the IRS by putting the troublesome corpse out there and you've got it all figured out. Remember the first 3-4 corps. Boys and girls trailers behind the antenna. Classes in the brc or basement. It would work fine now, except why would they need Gunnison?

Here's an interesting example. When my daughter was little, I'd read to her every night. After a while, I learned to read a few words ahead of what I was speaking. This would give me a chance to phrase and dramatize the text. Then after that, I found myself thinking about other things while I did the reading and speaking. I also spent some time with a tv camera on my shoulder. I'd learn to keep the subject framed with my viewfinder eye and at the same time be aware of the big picture with my other eye. Then try walking, zooming and following focus all at the same time.

Good question. I've thought about this a lot and I really don't know. I was explaining to my wife why I love Bach. His music often has 4, 5, 6 or more different melodic lines flowing at the same time and the real beauty and challenge is to be able to follow more than one of them at a time. I can sometimes, but I'm never sure whether I'm following them in parallel or whether I'm task-switching between the different lines quickly. Likewise, writing computer programs. Many times you sit there visualizing what's happening in the computer, with several different register values in your head so that you've got this picture of what should happen next. I can do it, but like a juggler, if I'm interrupted, everything falls on the floor and it takes a good while to build the picture again. I have heard that in general, people can't hold more than three "contexts" in their head at one time. I suspect that the number varies greatly from person to person.

Yeah but I suppose, spiritually, they could handle it....

And I almost forgot. Anyone remember the collapsed dairy tanker truck out in the back 40?

Great story about the gazebo. I heard rumors about the OSB roof but never the whole story. Speaking of spray-on, when I worked in the OSB, around 1980, there was a guy whose job was to spray a foam insulation on the beams and the underside of the roof. That poor guy had to have the worst job of anyone at HQ. He had to work up high in the heat, humidity and still air and spray this incredibly obnoxious foam goo, which he got all over himself. Anyone remember what I'm talking about. What about Joe Coulter's "white noise in the EOB" project. He started this project that entailed installing speakers, lots of speakers, over the heads of the workers in the EOB. The plan was to play white noise over the speakers to mask out conversations and machine noises and make the workers more productive. After the A/V department spent hours crawling around over the heads of the workers installing speakers and running wires, VPW snarled at a staff meeting "Joe, it doesn't work, take it out!"

I always got the impression that it was the command structure and the arrogance of leadership rather than individual swiftness. There were some very smart people working at HQ, and most of the people tried very hard to do the right thing and worked very hard to do their job. As others pointed out, there was a lot of attitude amoungst the upper and middle leadership that "we are doing the right thing and everyone else is screwed up" Here's an example that still burns in my mind. The A/V shop was in the OSC building right next to the children's fellowship area. In the hallway next to us was a large power distribution panel. The cover to the panel had been off for months, exposing the live conductors inside the panel. I walked over to Way Builders, found the head electrician and politely asked if the panel could be covered (a 5 minute job as the cover was leaning against the wall next to the panel). I was informed in no uncertain terms that they knew the cover was not installed, and it was none of my concern that the cover was off, and that they would put the cover back on when they thought is was time to put it back on. These days, I'd just pick up a screwdriver and put it on myself. That would have guaranteed me a reproof session back then for mucking with something outside my department.

My first clue that something was dreadfully wrong at HQ was when I found out there wasn't a master nor an interneg to the PFAL film. At the time, an apprentice corps person was trying to splice together bits and pieces of old PFAL films to create a new "master" for film-to-tape transfer. PFAL was the "crown jewels" of TWI and they didn't even bother to keep the master or the interneg in a safe.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant to say that he wouldn't get fired for the decision, not that he was right. I fixed both VHS and Beta machines. I thought that the VHS transport was a much nicer mechanical design, plus VHS always had substantially more recording time. Joe (and HQ) was wrong about Beta. No doubt in my mind. Just trying to add some background to the discussion.

I am both amazed and amused that the Betamax thing still irritates people. I was not involved in the decisionmaking, but I did work for Joe C shortly before the decision was made. I owned a portable VHS recorder and camera, one of the very first available and I tried hard to convince Joe that VHS was the way to go. In my humble opinion, I think that it was nothing more than a 5-senses decision by Joe to go with a Sony solution. Joe loved Sony equipment and was comfortable with it. Sony catered to the industrial/institutional market with a more rugged machine than was readily available in VHS at the time. Knowing Joe, the issue of believers being stuck with an unsupported format probably didn't even enter his mind. Believers were supposed to be praying, witnessing, and studying, not watching worldly videotapes. Joe, more than most at HQ, realized the consequences of making a big, bad financial decision and probably felt that "no one would ever be fired for buying Sony". In retrospect, he was right.

Damn.

No problem, Steve. Another reason that the distinction between the two are blurred is from the way that Microsoft and BSA have busted government and corporations. If you're a large user of Microsoft product, you generally negotiate a site license. This is a pen-and-ink document that gives you a reduced price for your bulk purchase of their software. But it also gives Microsoft or their representitive the right to enter your business and conduct an audit. What happens is that a disgruntled employee notices that you're running more software than you're licensed for, drops a dime to Microsoft, Microsoft sends out the audit boys and you're in the news. Otherwise they'd have persuade a DA to persuade a judge to issue a search warrant to check compliance, something that they've pretty much reserved for blatant criminal violations.

Got a cite? I'd like to look at it. I know people have been busted for copyright violations, but I've never heard of a clear cut license violation case. Just so we're on the same track, a copyright violation is where you're running software that you did not pay for and that you or someone else made an illegal copy of. Yes, people have been busted for that. Now a license violation is using software that was legally purchased, but in a way that is not in agreement with the shrinkwrap license. There's a big difference. A copyright violation is breaking a law that the government enforces. A license violation is a civil dispute, and must be resolved in court or by negotiations between the 2 parties. Note that it is to the advantage of Big Software and Big Media to confuse the two issues in the minds of consumers so that they will tend to comply with licensing agreements as if they were law. Adobe tried to ban unbundling and reselling of it's software from packages by a clause in the shrinkwrap license. The courts ruled that this violated the "doctrine of first sale" and was not enforceable. The ruling also decreed that software purchases be treated as sales transactions, rather than explicit license agreeements. http://www.fact-index.com/f/fi/first_sale_doctrine.html Again, "I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice"

Manditory "I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice" disclaimer. I'm pretty sure that the shrinkwrap license agreement concept has never been tested in court and at this point, I'm not so sure Big Software would want to risk testing it. I'm doing my best to keep everything legal copyrightwise. A little sliding here or there on the licensing "agreement" is another matter.

I wished it was, but probably not. I was in A/V and most of my time in the bookstore was spent trying to keep the tape duplicating equipment running. Minie, r.i.p. was my sweetheart. I also had a great time with Mike G. and all the intrim and apprentice corps that worked tape duplication. They were all great people. We had a couple of really nice trips when HQ was looking at new tape duplication equipment. Once to look at possible systems, which included a tour of the K-Tel duplication facility and another to learn how to maintain the equipment that they ended up purchasing. We got to fly in the little Cessna, Acts 2 I think it was called, and stay at believers houses. It was a blast.

I've heard of that and it's cool. Another cool deal I heard of was a college that would sell you an educational copy of Adobe Creative Suite, enroll you in the college and give you a web course on it. The cost was about $600 vs around $3000 for the full-up business license. When I was installing Win2003, I was confused about how the client licenses were tracked, as I had to pay for a fixed number of them. Searching usenet I learned that the client license tracking process was essentially broke and should be left turned off and you were on the honor system for the number of clients you served. I'm convinced that you should never have to pay full pop for software.

Even the full-of-himself Joe Coulter would roll over on his back in front of her. I've seen it happen.

As I posted before, I'm in the middle of doing a software upgrade at my company. I had budgeted several thousand dollars to buy legal copies of Microsoft software for everyone that needed it. Then I discovered the Microsoft Partners Program. If your company sells software that runs under Windows, or hardware that runs Windows, you are eligible to become a Microsoft Partner. And once you're a parter, you can get all of this: Product Title, # of Licenses, # of Client Access Licenses Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition 1,10 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition 1,10 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services Not Applicable,10 Microsoft Exchange 2003 Enterprise Server 1,10 Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Developer Edition 1,10 Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 1,10 Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000 Enterprise Edition 1,Not Applicable Microsoft Mobile Information Server 2002 Enterprise Edition 1,Not Applicable Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001 1,10 Microsoft Windows XP Professional 10,Not Applicable Microsoft Office Professional 2003 10,Not Applicable Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 10,Not Applicable Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 10,Not Applicable Microsoft Office MapPoint 2003 10,Not Applicable Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2003 10,Not Applicable Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 10,Not Applicable Microsoft Office Publisher 2003 10,Not Applicable Microsoft Business Solutions CRM Standard Edition 1,5 For the grand total of $299 That's right, 10 copies of XP pro, 10 copies of Office, Publisher and Frontpage, plus Enterprise server for $299. I joined, I didn't have to lie on the application and my software is on the way. If you're interested, here's the link: http://members.microsoft.com/partner/progr...ult.aspx?nav=ln If you want to do it, first set up a passport account then join as a "registered member". Takes about 15 minutes. Disclaimer: Read all the fine print. It worked for me, but it's up to you to read the Microsoft verbage and to decide for yourself whether it's right for you.