Just ‘cuz I’m such a rebel, I’m linking to this site. I’m not making this up. See for yourself.

“Hyperlinking to this site, is not permitted without the express prior permission of Sellotape®.”

http://www.sellotape.co.uk/copyright.htm

My nephew, Sgt. Dustin Ladd, is on his way home from Iraq. He is coming home injured, but, thank God, not as a casualty of war. He’s got a serious back problem that could not be diagnosed in the field. He’ll spend some time at Ft. Bliss in El Paso, and, most likely, head back home to the Panhandle after that.

Please continue to pray for the other 128,000 brave American men and women protecting freedom in Iraq.

<Game Geek Post Advisory>
If you’re not familiar with Ultima Online or other, similar MMP RP games, this won’t make any sense to you.
</Game Geek Post Advisory>
*Names changed to protect the guilty*
My guild on Montis Draconis has been the sole Order guild for months now. There are several Chaos guilds that have had a heyday beating up on the [GoodGuys], since we are only just learning to do PvP. All our characters have been designed for PvM and are really good at it, but when the Chaos guys started playing rough, we had to adapt. The other Order guilds changed to Neutral and ran off to Trammel (where PvP is a no-no).

It’s taken many weeks to tweak our characters for PvP and to train up new characters, but we are finally seeing some fruit. Last night, after drafting in yet another experienced, former PvM player into the guild, we had our first fairly successful raid and killed two of the “big boys” on the Chaos side.

[ToughtBadGuy1] (a.k.a. McButtHead) is one of those annoying, mouthy characters constantly sending messages about how everyone is a sissy and he “pwns” the Order guilds. Last night, McButtHead was beheaded and, just as we all predicted, he instantly logged off and spent the rest of the night pouting off-line. We know this because his cohort, [ToughtBadGuy2] , who is much cooler and a nice role-player, is his roommate and he laughed at [ToughtBadGuy1] right along with the rest of us. [ToughtBadGuy2] was also taken down, but was much more gracious about it. We’ll have lots of fun reminding [ToughtBadGuy1] that he’s not the king-of-the-world he thinks he is.

Yaaay [GoodGuys]!

Tammy has adapted well to being one-legged. She’s frustrated with life in a cast, tired of it, but learning to cope.

We’ve found the easiest way for her to get up and down the two flights of stairs to our apartment is to ride piggy-back on yours truly. She’s learned how to get in and out of the tub on her own, get herself dressed, carry paperwork around the office, and drive left-footed. I still drive her to work most mornings, just to be safe, but on rare occasions when our work schedules don’t jive, she drives herself. We’ve got a nice, safe, rounded-tip hanger that she can use to attack the occasional itch. She still can’t carry most stuff from room to room, but that’s what I’m here for.

We’ve also found a remedy for the deep bruising on her hands from using the crutches. Water Noodles, those long, brightly colored, foam pool toys are very easy to cut into short sections, and the hole in the middle perfectly fits the plastic handles on her crutches. They look kinda funny, bright yellow handles that are twice the diameter of the originals, but if they alleviate the pain, who cares. The first set lasted a week before the foam broke down and collapsed. I think we have enough noodle to last until she’s done with the aluminum torture devices.

In two more weeks she goes in to get a “velcro soft cast”. We’re hoping that she’ll be able to walk on it, but that’s all up to the doc.

I’ve been asked before where the name Light-Spark came from. I spent a great deal of time thinking about the perfect domain name and finding out that all the perfect ones are already taken.

Since my site would cover web development, graphic art, and photography, I wanted something that could apply to all three. My logic was as follows. All computer graphics and programming are, in the end, nothing more than tiny electric charges bouncing between different pieces of silicon and copper that eventually produce light in a cathode ray tube (that’s what your monitor is). Photography is capturing light to film. (Photo – light, graphy – writing.) So I ran the gamut of domain names that related to light and electricity. Light-Spark was the winner. (In fact, lightspark.com was already taken too, so I had to hyphenate.)

Wow. This is news worthy. John Kerry actually showed up to vote on a bill in the Senate. This makes 14 votes he’s cast this session… out of 132!! So, if this were you or me, working an 8 hour day, we would only actually be in the office for 51 minutes. I’m pretty sure if we tried that, we’d get fired.

And Kerry BRAGS about it!

“It’s a particular issue that’s been very critical to me,” Kerry told reporters as he walked into the Capitol. “It’s central to something I want to get done.”

So I guess the normal, daily, boring business of running America is not very critical to him; not something he wants to get done.

God bless America and God save our troops.

My nephew, Sgt. Dustin Ladd, has been serving in Iraq. Nothing glamorous, mind you, as he is in a reserve unit in the Quarter Master Corps. That means they get to do all the dirty work that Active Army doesn’t want to do. Cleaning, loading and unloading trucks, heaving boxes from here to there and back again. It’s not much to write home about. But, if it weren’t for Sgt. Ladd and tens of thousands like him, what would Iraq look like right now? Who would be out there restoring electricity and water to thousands? Who would bring ammunition and arms to the brave men and women keeping peace on the streets?

I’ve been corresponding with my Uncle Robert who served two tours in Viet Nam. He possess that wealth of wisdom that no civilian can understand; that strange and mysterious wisdom that comes from watching death swoop down on the guy standing next you and leave you standing unscathed. I read a great quote that very well explains the awkward relationship between veterans and civilians.

We are all fascinated with war and war heroes. Whenever we talk to one, we want to hear all about their experience. But the irony is that war heroes want to talk about ANYTHING BUT war. We all wish we could have been there, and they all are thankful that we were not.

Robert opened up to me a little after I sent him that quote. He didn’t tell me about his experience, but instead sent me a letter he’d written years ago. I read it with the same fascination mentioned above, but when I was done reading, I almost wished I hadn’t. The mental images I got where pretty disturbing. I can’t imagine having to live with the actual, visual memories.

You hear phrases in the media, like “putting a human face” on some tragedy. That doesn’t really capture it though. We’re so desensitized to violence on movies and TV. My mom took me to see RoboCop when I was 14 because the R rating was “only for violence”. It was cool to see all the special effects were bad guys are shot to pieces. But when someone’s son, someone’s dad, someone’s husband, someone with aspirations, dreams, big plans for life after the war; when someone like that gets shot to pieces, it’s not cool. It’s not even bearable.

I was watching Band of Brothers on the History Channel. It’s a great movie. Very well done. But it occurred to me, during one of the battle scenes that to me this is a great movie, but to someone this is the nightmare that’s been waking them up in cold sweats for 50 years.

Once that sinks in, try reading today’s news again. Then, say a prayer for Sgt. Dustin Ladd and all his comrades. And show your support for our troops.

I’m not sure, but I think this 404 error page has caused my retinas to detach.

Please, if you have any love for humanity, never ever publish a web page that looks like this.

*Eyes twitching*

*The colors…*

*So… painful…*

This weekend I experienced something life changing. No, really!

In a meeting with Bill Bray, Glenview Baptist’s Youth Minister, he gave an account of last week’s Youth Camp. The week was uneventful, but good. The kids seemed to grow in their walk with God, but nothing out of the ordinary, right up until the last night. Bill planned one more worship and teaching session before the kids all headed home. He said he wasn’t even sure what he was going to talk about. But then, God stepped in.

The kids were gathered in an open air pavilion that serves as the snack bar. It just happened that one of the girls had a video camera and she decided to start filming. A kid named Scott, a chronic stutterer, was sitting with a few friends. They were asking each other what they’d learned during the week. Then, Scott started talking. He was saying things that were truly profound. He was filled with a joy that he did not understand. His face was glowing with a smile that’s hard to describe. Once in a while, he would look at the growing number of kids who’d gathered to listen, and grin, and shout, “I love Jesus!” He talked about having a bold faith, loving other’s, living for Christ. He talked about self image, the boundless, personal love that Jesus has for each of us, the joy that we should feel when we live IN Christ. Some girls started crying. He praised them for their tears and said, “You’re crying because you’re happy. Jesus loves that!” Then he began talking to individuals in the group now standing on tables around him. He pointed to kids and gave very personal prophecies. To a girl sitting across from him: “When you look in the mirror, you think you’re ugly. But, guess what? It doesn’t matter what you think! Jesus thinks your beautiful.” To an older boy standing on a table: “You can’t be proud anymore, because you know, now, that Jesus makes you everything you are. When you go to school, tell everyone about this. Tell them that Jesus loves them. You WILL be persecuted, but it won’t matter, because you know it’s true.”

I sat, literally, with my mouth agape, watching this video. For the first time, I had a perfect picture was what it was like to sit on a hillside outside of Jerusalem and listen to a simple-looking man speak directly into the heart of everyone present. Scott went on for over an hour and never stuttered once. By the time he was finished every kid in that pavilion had been touched by the words of God spoken through this normally timid young man. Bill told us that he had asked Scott and his parents to come watch the video. Scott confessed that he could not remember most of what he had said. “It wasn’t me talking.”

On the way home, God was talking to me too. I am ashamed of how I’ve wasted so much time on frivolity. I know that I’m human, and I can’t be perfect, but I can strive to be better. I can spend less time gaming and watching TV and more time reading and growing. I can spend less time arming myself to kill trolls or drive my truck over bigger rocks, and spend more time arming myself to do battle for God.

Jesus loves you and the only way that you can really love Him back is to make Him your number one priority. No two people have the same job to do in God’s kingdom. That means that if you don’t do the task God has put in front of you, no one else will.

That’s all I have to say about that.

I was just sitting down to enjoy some time on Ultima Online (If you don’t know what that is, let’s just say it’s a computer game.) after helping Tammy out of the bath. Then comes the call to arms that causes husbands across the world to sigh and roll their eyes. “Honey! Spider!”

I went to the bedroom where Tammy was trying to get into her night clothes while balancing on crutches. She pointed out a small 8-legger on the window sill. Eh. The window sill. No biggie. Just leave it be. There’s enough death in the world.

“But it’ll get in the bed.”

*Incredulous stare* “Why would it get into our bed?”

“Because it’s so cumfy?”

Now, I don’t care who yeh are, that thar’s funny.