I am now two thirds of the way through Becoming Enlightened by the Dalai Lama.

In short, he has taken 2,600 years of documents, read most of them, meditated more than most people, is the Buddha incarnate and has condensed all of these teachings and experience into 250 pages.

My short interpretation is this:

The first step is making the choice that you want to improve yourself and your life. That is the most important step of all. Once you do this, changes flow in as quickly as you are willing to let them assuming your dedication is sincere.

( Read more... )

A good friend and colleague of mine sent me a wonderful gift. She knows my love of English tea and my infatuation with the propriety and ritual of English meals.

She sent me the gift of proper English loose leaf tea. It is a 250gram bag of Yorkshire Tea by Taylors of Harrogate (The official supplier of beverages to The Price of Whales) along with some Yorkshire biscuits and some Harrogate Toffees. She is Welsh which is very close to Yorkshire (or perhaps part of it, I am not certain). She is very proud of her area and heritage.

I am now sitting down to a late cup o' tea just to try it. I have poured the suggested amount of leaves into the teapot-shaped infuser she sent in the package. It has just finished steeping so I set the infuser onto the little chrome saucer. It smells great. The Assam & African tea blend is so tasty. I did not add any white sugar to this cup as I am enjoying the flavour (go English spelling) of the tea.

On my last trip to the UK I was taught proper procedure for how to treat my teas. Herbal (pronounce the H or you will be ridiculed) gets nothing. You could add honey but you wouldn't usually do that. With ordinary teas (I guess ordinary is anything other than herbal) you could add white sugar. Turbinado sugar is reserved for coffee. They say the best way to make tea is the way you like it but they really mean to do it according to these rules. The consequence is I would be quietly noticed as an eccentric American who does not know tea.

I do love the exchange of culture to and from anywhere. We have a date to have tea latter this week via Skype video conference. We'll probably double up and make it a work conference since she is doing a talk for us later and we have a few things left to sort out.

Have a great evening everyone.

I spent 90 minutes on the website.
I will spend 1 hour taking notes for a class we are teaching today.
I will spend the rest of the afternoon/evening writing.

I had gone wrong in that I had been trying to work full time on the website. This ruined my focus and I had little clarity on what to do. I wanted to do everything. Now, spending a little time on it each day, I have a clear list of what I want to accomplish and work much more efficiently.

This is much better.

On Saturday I went for a 10.2 mile hike on segment 3 of the Colorado Trail. It was mostly snow-covered but warmer than freezing. I carried my canvas bag with only about 20lbs of equipment. I am packing more and more things just to carry the weight, not because I need it.

The whole thing took about 5 hours and that was not bad considering the trail. The snow had some footprints in it for the first couple of miles. After about mile 3 there was only one set of partially-melted snowshoe prints. They were ovals about 2 feet long with not detail left. I followed those until mile 5.1 which happened to match one of the landmarks in the guidebook I brought. I stopped where I stopped because the prints suddenly stopped. They did not turn around. They did not go off into the woods. They did not change into little boot prints. They just stopped.

I took this as a sign and turned back. It turns out it was exactly the right time. I was just worn out enough by the time I got to the car that if it were any longer I would not have been having fun. As it was it was the perfect length.

It feels like things are right on track and as long as I keep getting out every other weekend I'll be in shape for the trip this summer.

All classes are back on. Vikki is teaching three sections on Wednesdays. One on Tuesdays and a combined class of everyone on Thursdays.

I have been taking notes on all of these.

The 1st 6 weeks of classes make up the course intro. The next 144 classes make up the rest of the course. The intro has been written and tested. The three sections are all at different places in the 144 and all started at different places. I will have heard enough to write the rough draft in 1/3rd the time. So far so good. Each class lasts an hour so there is a ton of info. I'm not certain what will be done once we have this but I know it will be good for a lot.

Off to take notes.

Alex turned 7 just before Xmas. He lost his first tooth yesterday at school. It is a very exciting time for him. He is acting older and older all the time and that is a nice change. It is important to nurture childrens' senses of independence. He only seems to get that here so we do as much of that as we can.

He felt so cool last night putting his tooth in an envelope and writing a note to the tooth fairy on the front. He loves to write, too. He thinks it is great fun. He has a hard time with the imaginative part of it but he loves the handwriting. I have been practicing calligraphy for the past year or so. He has an interest but rather than encouraging cursive before he can print well may be a disservice. I have given him one of my pens and a nib along with his own well of ink that he uses only under my direct supervision. He thinks it is the coolest thing in the world, almost as cool as the wax seal we use on occasion.

He is enjoying his Nintendo DS (the new successor to the Gameboy for those of us who didn't know) and catching Pokemon on the car rides home from school. He has not learned how to follow the adventure or plot yet but he will when he gets bored enough of the same area that he cannot pass without "collecting the coupons from the clowns and giving them to the president of PokeCorp."

He is fun and a pleasure to have around. I wish he were here more.

I have been doing tons of web stuff. I have been reading bits and meditating regularly. Today I reorganized my office again. I like it now. We went through all of our 2009 papers and filed what needed filing and boxed up what we are now finished with.

I am tired and am taking a break tonight. I don't feel like doing much but going to bed early.

Another 10 minutes and I think we will both be ready.

Good night.

I used to post a whole lot more about book reviews. I have not done this in a long time. I'll go back just a few.

Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (http://www.amazon.com/Year-Flood-Novel-Margaret-Atwood/dp/0385528779/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262656440&sr=8-1)

This is the simulquil to Oryx & Crake (her word). It takes place at the same time and in the same place but tells the story from the point of view of a group of characters that were on the fringes of Oryx & Crake.

I felt it lacked the original punch of the O&C. The characters were different for me to identify with. I must state that that may be my own personal bias. It may be more difficult for me to relate to the environmental zealots than to the brainy outcast so this is purely personal opinion. Officially, the characters have just as much depth. The backgrounds of the characters I loved from the other story were even explained a bit and I liked that, too.

When Crake, from the last book, makes his appearance I felt like cheering. That was both good and bad. It showed me how much I loved him and, in contrast, how I cared less for the new batch.

The book has a great setting and Atwood does some amazing things with her abilities within the realm of speculative fiction. She has great ideas for technology that are plausible even today, though not widely accepted.

The mood of the book is great and many of the scenes are quite engrossing. I bought it the day I found out that it came out. I nearly cried when I found out that my local bookstore had hosted her as a speaker less than a week before. That was tough.

I'd suggest you get it. Read it before reading O&C and let me know what you think. I'd be curious to know if that makes a difference.


Next I read The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway

I loved this. The descriptions of the physical fatigue and the mental victories and anguish that the character experiences over his 80 pages or so were so well done.

I read it in two or three sittings and it was just the right length to get me through that weekend.

Just after reading it I found out that they were making kids read it in highschool and that the kids hated it. I suppose the themes are mature in their subtlety. The complexity of character comes in the nuances and the fact that it is a philosophical allegory for the struggle that is life. 16 year olds don't have the experience on which to draw to really understand the profundity of the story. It goes back to the concept that youth is wasted on the young.


I then read a discourse on Dharma by Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba (http://www.sssbpt.info/vahinis/dharma/dharma.pdf)

I found many parts of it to inspire some meaningful trains of thought through meditation. I found some of it to be too culturally specific to parts of India to be of much use, especially the roles of gender. The essence of those parts had some value but it felt, to me, that they were added in as more of an afterthought than as a proper and complete concept.

All the same, I found it when I needed it and it was one of those stepping stones that helped me learn what I needed to in order to be open to my latest lessons.


Now I am reading Becoming Enlightened by the Dalai Lama (http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Enlightened-Holiness-Dalai-Lama/dp/1416565841/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262657783&sr=1-1)

It describes the concepts of Buddhism in an amazingly compact and intense book. He holds nothing back and jumps right into the high concepts after only what is absolutely necessary. I am only a fifth of the way through. It is one of those books where it is best to read one heading in a chapter and put it down to think for a while. I love it.

As I put on my writing and solo working hats I feel more like posting than I have in the past.

I spent today and the two days preceding it learning website design and extremely basic html. I have learned things that any accomplished designer could do in their sleep but still, I learned them. I am in the process of redesigning our website. It is coming along well now that a couple major educational blocks have been overcome.

It is good and it will be better.

It is daytime. Vikki is scrapbooking with a friend. Alex is playing with a friend a couple of houses down. Sam is going to a party tonight. Jackie is going to a friend's house. I am sitting in my office, looking north through Vikki's office and the dining room and out the window. I spent the morning driving Jackie's friend home, drinking my coffee, researching how to get published, and contemplating the new year.

I just closed the blinds on one of the three windows behind me; the sun was encroaching my my screen making it difficult to see though it felt pleasant and warm on my back.

Cinnamon is sleeping in the sun on the loveseat in my office.

This year all of my resolutions are spiritual. "Resolution" has s connotation of doing something with resolve. One thing I have learned is that what I decide I will do today may or may not have value three months from now so I will write a list rather than a list of ___.

I would like to put these in context. I have learned a lot over the last year. I have taken interest in the Vedas and have been studying the Hindu philosophy. I meditate regularly enough to have had some amazing insight. I have witnessed several small miracles. I have probably witnessed several large ones though they were outside my scope of perception and I have not yet realized it.

I am secure enough in my journey that, for the first time, I am writing things about my inner thoughts in a public forum (though it still only has maybe two active readers).

I have made the commitment to serving Good in any way I can. This is very ambiguous.

1. Thoughts are the impetus behind words and ideas. As we learn the power of our words, it makes it easier for us to guide and control our thoughts. The more focused and controlled our very thoughts are, the more power we have and the more we are open to divine guidance. Divine guidance, when we listen, is far more valuable than anything I would devise on my own. I am working to focus my thoughts more than I ever have before. I recognize that this is a simple concept and that there is no such thing as mastery. Improvement will be constant and ongoing as long as I keep this dedication in my consciousness.

2. Every action I take is a manifestation of my thoughts. I will do all I am able to to make sure that every action has the greatest positive impact possible. That is to say, everything I do will be to serve what is Good.

3. If every action serves Good, every action is meaningful. The benefits, to me and to others, are too great to list here.

My resolutions this year are nothing short of committing to thinking and doing Good at every moment of every day and night.

This year has been a busy one and a wonderful one.

I have accomplished more than I could have put on any list. I have learned more and have more perspective about my path and the direction of my live and the value of my actions to me and to others.

Last year I wrote this: http://www.livejournal.com/editjournal.bml?itemid=89479

I'll begin by addressing my desires for 2009.

1. To live a balanced life.

I believe I am balancing work and time with the kids very well now. I have time for both and don't feel like either are suffering at the hand of the other. I am very happy with the balance of my life at this time.

2. To be a _______. I'll know what I mean.

This one had to do with money. I came short. I learned a lot in the interim that showed me that financial goals put all the emphasis on the prize rather than putting due emphasis on the journey. In always seeking a goal, a person ceases to enjoy the present. Working for a financial goal is not nearly as rewarding as working for the purpose of helping others or working on something I love for the sake of working on something I love. I am happy with the path of contemplation that this particular desire led though I did not make the goal according to simple terms.

3. To have a rewarding and nurturing relationship with my kids.

Done!

4. To be open to the best ideas and to be open to taking the best actions.

I am more open, now, than I ever have been. Judgment and expectations are the BIGGEST obstacles people have to being open to all possibilities. When a person has the judgment that certain actions or outcomes are bad that cuts out nearly half of all possibilities. When a person has an expectation that things must work a certain way or that success looks a certain way, they cut out nearly the entire other half of all possibilities. What they are left with is a tiny array of things they think are both good and look exactly like they want them to.

If my goal was to make a million dollars (and it was), but the economy crashes, the exchange rate drops, our revenue drops by 70%, and the rental home we are in is going to foreclosure, is it not a success that we are still here, paying discounted rent, and have a lease that extends through August (and thanks to the President will be honored until that time), and that we now have time to organize finances go buy the house? Is it not a small miracle that we can still feed a family of 5 and heat our home? Is it not a success that I can still do what I love and work from home and make enough to juggle the bills? It's not like I could go out and get a different job right now. All of these things seem very fortuitous to me.

These things are all successes to me. They certainly don't look like my expectations of success could look but, all things considered, I still have a house and food. 10-15+% of the population is unemployed, who knows how many are underemployed, many, many have undergone pay cuts and hiring freezes meaning they are working harder for less. The foreclosure rate is still increasing. Homelessness is a growing concern, unemployment benefits are running out across the nation and I still have a warm home and food and a business that is a lot of fun and a wonderful wife that I love spending every minute with. In plain English (not American), "I can't be bovvered."

5. To have genuine friends of great quality in my life.

I am still open to this. We have a wonderful man who is working our business with us. We each have a couple of friends we see on occasion or talk to regularly. The best friends we have are each other. I have never known anyone who could be more accepting and supportive than my wife, Vikki.

I'll post about 2010 next. I am going to go make coffee.

Some thoughts:

We were watching a movie where someone had the opportunity to go back to when they were 21 and marry the one she let get away and not take the job she hated at the beginning of the movie.

She tried to convince her friend to get the nerve to ask out the guy she liked because in the future she would pine after him forever.

She asks the guy out and everything remains the same and it fails for other reasons.

The thoughts:

Humans are aware of only one moment at a time. We have the ability to perceive our now. We can guess at or see bits of the future but we are seeing them from the present. We can remember the past but we remember it from the present.

If we travel through time we perceive whatever time it may be from our one point of view, our own now. We are not capable, as beings, of comprehending more than one moment at a time.

If we go back in time and make a different decision would it change our future or is our future predetermined?

There is no way to know.

There is no way for us to make a comparison between two possibilities. We cannot comprehend it. It is beyond what we have the senses to perceive.

If we change something in the past, it affects today's present. If we leave today's present to change the past, today's present has already been affected by the past so it will seem like predestination or that it was inevitable.

Today's present, whether affected by revising the past or not is the only thing we comprehend. Therefore, changing the past affects today's present and since we can have no awareness of any other possible present, the change will always result in today's present seeming unaffected.

Being unaffected by all of our efforts in the past, all of the revisions we could possibly think of will always result in today's present seeming like it has always been.

So, is change free will? Is change predestination? There is no way for us to comprehend this difference. We cannot see what differences we can make since we are allowed only singular awareness.

It will seem as predestination and it will seem like free will. We do not have the ability to differentiate.

Today I finished editing the teacher's edition of our training manual. We have a class of two that is going to start next week. Vikki will have a teacher's aid making notes and corrections. He will also be going through the course again in order to be better prepared to teach it in the future.

The Practitioner Manual was sent to the printers a couple of weeks ago and should be arriving any day. After we approve it, it will be sent to our trained practitioners. It is the master list of all of the sessions we do. It is a major accomplishment. I am anxious to see it.

We have begun a new tangent with the business. Actually, it is a very old tangent. Vikki is an extremely gifted psychic. She used to do readings. She has not for the last two years as she put all of her energy toward building the foundation of this business and revising and testing the manual. Now that a lot of that is done she is getting back into it. We are hosting weekly conference calls and will move to an online radio format once we have too many people to make the conference call fun.

Topics may include psychic development, general readings, intuitive counseling, working as a medium, past life information, meeting your guides, animal communication, and more.

Last week we discussed guides for a while. This week we touched on them again and did a little past life reading. I say "we" because I help with the setup and the moral support but Vikki is the real talent.

Next week we will be hosting a call on Wednesday at Noon MST (7:00PM UK).  We will be doing this every week for the foreseeable future.

The conference call numbers are: UK 0844 581 9102 and US (712) 432-1600. You may call either number you like. The access code is 395972#.

Let's see. . .There are always a dozen projects underway on any given day. I am just happy to have finished what I have recently. I'll post more as they roll out.

Hello,

I will be hiking the Colorado trail next year. The dates are official.

Every year we have up to 30 of our closest friends stay with us. Almost all of them are from the UK. They come for this event: http://www.karunamayi.org/tour/Tour-Schedule.html

We will leave on Wednesday June 9th.

Anyone who is interested in this hike is invited to come. Bring your friends. It is an open invitation. It should take about a month and it is about 500 miles. We will walk from Denver to Durango along the continental divide through several mountain ranges.

http://www.coloradotrail.org/

If it looks like fun please let me know. If you would like to come stay with us for a few days for the other event that would be amazing, too. We always stay up late and have amazing conversation about the nature of humanity, God, time, human potential, and everything else. We wake up every morning and make fresh juice for 30.

It is a lot of fun.

Speak to you soon.

Dinner with Vikki's semi-estranged but not really family last weekend. Peace was made with some, not with others.

Jackie's birthday Saturday. Money is extremely tight.

Beginning another approach to business. This is first written mention.

Coming into my own in so many ways. Foregoing meditation for a short while. Confusion over nuances of faith & belief and their roles in my past and reorganizing the present. It is coming together.

Had a great walk tonight, 6 miles in 2 hours. Bike paths. Great answers to current finances, business direction, my role, Vikki's role, the roles of our practitioners, the role of our marketing person, and more.

Personally feeling quite at peace for the first time in a long time with some of the current lessons around money. Some things are comedic, some seem tragic; all are insignificant given a long enough view of it all.

Learning to cut personal attachment to outcomes and becoming more open to the best outcomes.

Understand Alex and my situation with him and the progression with his biological mother. Have patience.

Have insight for new fun projects. (things to write)

Everything crosses the borders between work and pleasure anymore. I love what I do so it is fun to do it.

I have a new job with my company. I got very good at my old one and it began to bore me. I am moving along. I am still doing all I did but it does not take the time and effort it once did.

I am at the struggling beginning where I do not yet know all of my job responsibilities and have little real experience doing what I am doing. I have never been a promoter before. I am now.

I will get better. I had forgotten the challenge to this kind of thing. I feel great pride in what we have created over the last two years. Now it is time to begin another tangent. Good luck to me.

Love to all of you.

Me

We recently went to London for the funeral of a dear friend. He was studying to be a practitioner of our methods. He was a kind and caring friend and the kind of person that could bring out what a person wanted to say most. He was a person where you would feel close to him after knowing him for 10 minutes. He was 36 and in great health. He worked out 5 times a week and ate only the healthiest food he could find. He had just finished his ebook and had many other great things in the works. The passion with which he lived his life was inspiring to me and to everyone who knew him.

We went to Halifax as quickly as we could once we found out. We got to see his family. He died in Greece while on vacation so it took a while to get him back to England. The funeral was scheduled for after we had to return to Colorado.

We were there for five days and five nights. We were around people the entire time. We were surrounded by all sorts of wonderful friends and clients and strangers. The last night we were there we hosted our own informal service. 32 people were crammed into our hosts' English living room. We shared stories of him, we chanted for him, and we cried, and we told more stories. We were reminded of the friendships we had and all of the people that are alive and important to us. It was very healing for everyone in attendance.

We also have some things going on with the house. We also have new jobs. I no longer schedule much and the phones are just an old job. The novelty is gone. The kinks have been sorted out and the next expansion has been planned. Now it is time to find funding. We have both promoted ourselves to different forms of sales positions. I am also writing. It is good.

There are other things going on as there always are but I am very happy with the direction things are taking. I am learning faith and it has some real implications that I never would have comprehended before this undertaking. Life is funny sometimes.

Hello Friends.

Things are the same as they have been for a while. It is nice to be home. It is nice that it is summer. It is nice that I am busy.

I am posting this more to post than to say much. It has been 8 weeks after all.

I am alive and doing very well. I hope you are, too.

For the last 4 or 5 years I have posted a 1st of the year contemplation.

Journaling what I have experienced this past year is a novel in itself. Writing what I have learned would be a work of non-fiction that would be impractical to read because of its length. Writing the contemplations I have had the fortune to contemplate would be more like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance than an LJ post (Not that the quality would be anything like Robert M. Pirsig's).

I'll try to note some of the major aspects of my development, mostly for my benefit since this journal is nearly completely unread since I have completely neglected my lj friends over this last year.

Growth in the Factual: this has primarily focused on business, writing, raising children, the legal system, a little alternative medicine, and a bit of metaphysics. I'll address the business in a later section. In regards to writing: I have always wanted to write. I never figured my first work would be an uncirculated work of nonfiction. It is a 300-page-long manual summarizing Vikki's life work into a form that a small but exclusive group of people training to be our Practitioners study in order to practice what Vikki does.

I have had many lessons in raising children. I have learned a lot from my amazing family. My two step-daughters are more accepting and loving and wonderful than I ever knew a person of that age (or any age, really) could be. They have taken me in as their own and the experience has been amazing. I learn from them on a daily basis when I am paying attention. They are both old beyond their years. I have learned a lot from my son as well. It is difficult to watch his struggle but, I suppose, he has to go through it. It is hard because I know how he is treated when he is now with us here. I know what he is going through because I went through it for so long. At least I was an adult and had different tools to cope. Maybe, instead, I should look at it as though he is learning lessons as a child that it took me the first portion of my adult life to learn.

The legal education I have absorbed was all divorce-related. I am pleased to announce that I will not be going through that ever again and it is mostly over this time. Anything she does over the next 13 years cannot be as bad as what she has done already.

I have learned a basic foundation of acupressure, chi work, energy work, kenisiology, and a bit of nutrition. Most of these areas of study will continue to be a casual education through exposure. At present, my real study is through introspection.

Developmental Growth: This last year I have learned a lot about patience. I am learning what to say and when not to say it. I am learning to quiet my mind even further. I am learning focus. I am learning the power of my words and my thoughts. I am learning about the power each of us have if only we acknowledge it and learn to use it. I am learning how easy everything can be when you let go of trying to control the details. I am learning love and how to express it. I am learning how to feel it for others in whatever capacity I know them. I am learning to balance my life and to have fun. I still have room for improvement on that one.

I will now list my resolutions for 2008. Please remember that of my resolutions for 2007, all of them but one came 100% true. It was the same for the year before that.

1. I desire to learn more about intimacy and love than I have ever known.

This has happened. I am a different person than I have ever been before. Anything I ever did before was. . .a good start. The biggest part of this is focus.

2. I desire to write and publish at least one book with Vikki.

Done. We wrote "The Lotus Seed Process Practitioner's Manual; Master Edition"

3. I desire to grow our business a lot.

We have done this very well. More will follow this year.

4. I desire to continue my personal path of spiritual growth.

I have been steady in my dedication to this. It is not the kind of thing that can be rushed. It kind of takes as long as it takes. Regular meditation has had wonderful benefits.

5. I desire to make a lot more money.

By the standards I have known this one is a success. I'll phrase it better this year because I also have had more expenses this last year than I have ever had and have still struggled to do things like pay phone bills and to do my best with child support.

6. I desire to learn and learn and learn and to apply what I have learned.

I do this every single day of my life.

7. I desire to live only in the moment.

I am better about this than I have been. I realize this is the core of nearly everything in life and I may still be getting better at this for the next many decades.

8. I desire to appreciate what I have so much that what I do not have does not matter.

It is easy to appreciate what you have when you have so much. I suppose this one has also come to fruition.


This year I am changing terms from resolutions to wishes. Resolution is a negative word and lends itself easily to failure. Wishes are generally positive and help things to be empowered.

1. To live a balanced life.
2. To be a _______. I'll know what I mean.
3. To have a rewarding and nurturing relationship with my kids.
4. To be open to the best ideas and to be open to taking the best actions.
5. To have genuine friends of great quality in my life.

(Trevor, if you read the last one the "in my life" part is the part that encourages your move.)
(If anyone else should read this that is interested in developing a distant friendship, I am open.)

Hello. I am still alive. I have been too busy to post for a very long time and that is a good kind of busy.

Business is growing. My relationship feels great. Life is moving along in a great direction.

I suppose the big thing is that I am thinking so much and learning so much that it does not seem to be the kinds of things readers can relate to without a tremendous amount of back story and explanation. The personal discoveries I am making don't translate well to the forum of blogging. They also take too long to type. In the time it will take me to type this I will have passed many, many thoughts. There will be time, at some point, to document the greater learnings of this path but that time is not now.

The last two books I recall finishing are:

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. This is a great story that is well written. The movie is loosely based on the book but the book makes even more sense. The details of living alone and surviving with limited urban resources were very well described. There were enough twists that I found nothing predictable. I would suggest this book to anyone who has any interest in the zombie or survival genres. If you buy the book, I Am Legend only takes up the first half. The second half is dedicated to short stories by Richard Matheson. They are curious to read but do not compare to I Am Legend.

I am now 90% finished with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles. I am finding it very pleasurable. The language is that of the very early 20th century. I like the cultural references to technology and the way things were then. The characters are not the roundest I have read but there are enough clues to lead an astute reader to conclusions just before they are revealed. Being engaged with the story and the events more than makes up for the lack of depth in the characters. It is a fun read.

These do not count the other studying and non-fiction I have been reading for the last while but that seems to be a different side of my life than I casually post about. If anyone is more interested in kenisiology, vedic home design, meditation techniques, the French language, or the nature of God please send me an email as those are my areas of study right now.

Three weeks since my last post. Wow, does the time fly.

In the last three weeks I have written a business plan, installed a phone board that supports six lines including a London phone number, found free international long distance, finished the manual (12,000 individual statements), and a pile of personal and house things.

I am working on creating a business presence on MySpace and Facebook so if anyone has suggestions for doing that well I'd like to know it.

We now have business cards and brochures. We are registered in the list of support companies for the Olympics in London in 2012 so we will see what that brings.


I got a second-hand laptop for $100! I installed Ubuntu on it and am very happy. I figured out how to network my PC and my Mac so now I have a little office network.

Also, I will be hiking the Colorado Trail in summer of 2010 so if you would like to come please let me know. It will take about 28 days and cover about 400 miles between Denver and Durango. Here is more info: http://www.coloradotrail.org/

That is all I have time for today. Best of luck to everyone.