A heavy heart greeted me this morning, a sad and lonely heart, along with a few words from a song. "Sweet, sweet, sweet, you used to be so sweet to me", sang the sweet voice of Tori Amos in my head. Some sorting through some music, and a lyrics search, showed me that the line was from "Muhammad my Friend". Near the end of the song, Tori chants one word for a while, "Ashre, Ashre, Ashre, Ashre". Not familiar with that word, I've done a little research, and learned a little something that helps to ease that heavy heart of mine. There, in the lyrics to an appropriately title song put down by Tori, is a message from God, a bit of solace, a part of His wonderful plan. Ashre is a signpost, a guide, a reminder that God's path is full of joy and blessings.

During a summer of elections, war, earthquakes, floods, and volcanic activity, a little miracle has been quietly growing. What used to be a pile of blue tarp and roofing material, has become a breeding ground for nature. All poetics aside, I dug, composted, planted, weeded, and watered my very first garden. Being a big fan of life, nature, and God; this experience has brought me closer to the rythm of the planet. The handful of seeds, donated by Kim, and the small area of backyard, donated by Tom, have yielded a summer of excitment and beauty, and a fall of harvest and gratitude. As the flowers begin to bear seeds, I find myself looking forward to next spring's sowing.

Have you ever looked for free stuff online ?  Was that your first search ever ?  I think mine was, and I found that free things were hard to find.  I gave up my search for free things online, and have come to understand that you have to pay for the good content.  Well, that was until I recently ran across The Free Site. This is a directory of free stuff, and not just jokes and graphics, but real stuff too.  I found free razors, and advil, and software and even those Iraqi's most wanted cards from Operation enduring freedom.

So I've been playing with some new fun software, like Audacity and Buzz, and a little Berhinger Eurorack mx 602a to record some music and mix it and add effects.  This is a hot combination.  So I thought I'd put together a song - my song of choice "You are my sunshine", since it is simple and I'm no master music genius (like Bill, who showed me a how to do this stuff with his cool equipment).  And since I love to share, I've put up the mp3 for a free download.  It's me on the violin, guitar, bass, and vocals - and I'm just tickled pink at would I could rig together.

A popular bar had a new robotic bartender installed.
A fellow came in for a drink and the robot asked him,
'What's your IQ?'

The man replied, '150.'
So the robot proceeded to make conversation about
Quantum physics, string theory, atomic chemistry, and so on.

This is a little note I wrote myself, to help remind me.  I put it up on my wall, and now I'm putting it up here.  Its' just a little thought about desperation and faith.

"Desperation is a dangerous condition  It is the brother of fear.  It is the absence of not hope, but faith.  When one has no hope, he will fight to survive.  When one has no faith, he will surrender.  Whan all hope is lost, then miracles happen, but only if faith is still in the heart. 

I ran across a crazy peice of software that I'm digging on. It's called DesktopX and it is the best use for Active Desktop that I've run across. It lets you create super cool desktops with active components that are animated and can have sounds and do things when you click on them. It even uses Visual Basic for a scripting language. And I'm just using the free version. And there are themes.

My mother recently came down from the frozen wasteland that is Canada and visitted me. It was Mom's day, and her birthday, so I wanted to do something a little special. So I hooked up the pickup on my violin (handy little thing) to my computer, pulled up some free software (I highly recommend Audacity - it's free and available for nearly every platform), and recorded a CD full of violin solos for my her. I thought I'd put one up here for download.

I'm chatting with Kim about laws and that lady that advocated the removal of all sorts of historic stuff from courts and schools because it was religious in nature. I've always been under the assumption that most of America's laws are based on biblical laws, particularly those in the Tora (the first 5 books of the old testament). That's when Kim, the webmistress of Kim's Backyard, told schooled me about Hammurabi. This guy got sick of the peasants and visitors breaking the laws, that he finally had the laws of the land carved in stone obelisks. The laws were carved in several languages, and everybody in the land was expected to be familiar this them. This is where the term "It's not like it's written in stone" originates.

I was chatting with Armin, the webmaster of ArminHammer.Com, and he brought up a new concept, at least to me. The word he used was Stoic, and since we were talking about philosophy, I had no idea what he was talking about. So I had him explain it to me a bit. Aparently Stoisism originated in 508 BC, founded by Zeno, the greek philosopher. It's a "Que Cera" mentality, focusing on the presept that God has created all and it is for the good.