hey dudes

Sometime ago I developed an interest in Mormonism. I am open-minded but my interest was and is more a scholarly pursuit than an attempt to find religion. I am interested in why anyone does anything. Thinking about religion makes the brainbaby kick, especially in the area of motivation. It seems to me the great motivators are religion, biology and money, in no particular order. Sometimes those run together. Sometimes I put biology at the top and consider religion and money as products of our flawed genes. However, most reasons given for one’s behavior can often be traced to these three general headings. I am consistently amazed and horrified at the behavior of the faithful.

My interest in Mormonism either began or was fueled by three things. (Isn’t three such a nice religious number?) The three things were Mitt Romney’s (now unsuccessful) bid for the presidency, the book Under The Banner of Heaven and the television series Big Love. I don’t remember which of the three came first. Depending on who you listen to, Mormonism is one of the fastest growing religions in the United States. I have heard a similar claim about Islam. It seems Mormonism, Islam and atheism are claiming the defectors from other religions. By the way, I highly recommend Big Love and Under the Banner of Heaven. I can not, however, recommend Mitt Romney for the highest post in the land.

The future…on wheels?

I have known for a while that I need a change. Work, after 6+ years, has become a rut. I have never lived outside of Texas. I’ve visited fewer than 10 of these United States.

The answer may be on the horizon in the form of…an RV.

The problem—or at least, our problem—with trying to buy an RV is too many choices. Do we get a truck and trailer? Or maybe it would be more convenient to get a Class C motorhome? And it’s a lot of work determining which manufacturers are worth a damn and which ones build shoddy, rolling time bombs.

So far, we’re looking at anything and everything and quickly becoming overwhelmed with information. We know we need: a permanent bed (I don’t want to sleep on a fold-out sofa), space for our dogs, a decent shower, and decor that falls into the category of “not-godawful.”

If money was no object, we’d just go buy a diesel pusher and pretend we’re country music stars:

Since money IS an object, we’ll be looking at something much smaller.

—Bellapoison

feast on the goodness

http://www.youtube.com/user/boburnham

Be sure to sho’.

Elijah

Of eels & ID theft

Our Internet is finally back, after being out for more than a week. Hooray! Of course, life cannot be in perfect harmony, so now our DirecTV is on the fritz.

Other matters have been occupying me though. My fire eel, who I had for almost two years, fled his aquarium and dried out on a windowsill. He was normally quite reclusive, only coming out of his plastic tree stump at feeding time, when he would give hell to a cube of frozen bloodworms. So I’m not sure why he chose to squeeze out of a small hole in the aquarium lid; because he could, I suppose.

He was difficult to photograph, but I was successful a couple of times.

I decided to replace him in the 55-gallon community tank with a trio of German blue rams, which I will take some pictures of in the next few days.

Over the next few days, I will also need to spend some time sorting out the matter of $1,998 that someone tried to pay from my Paypal account. What’s even better is that my bank charged me a $27 insufficient funds fee because I didn’t have the $2K for the fraudulent charge!