unforgiven under taker vs...?

No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.

                                                                     Lesson 131

Let me not seek for goals that cannot be achieved; let me not look for permanence in the impermanent, for love where there is none, for safety in the midst of danger, immortality within the darkness of the dream of death.

Let me choose a goal that lies beyond this world and every wordly thought, one that comes to me from an idea relinquished yet remembered, old yet new; an echo of a heritage forgotten, yet holding everything I really want.

Let me be glad that search I must. Let me be glad to learn I search for Heaven, and must find the goal I really want. No one can fail to want this goal and reach it in the end.

It is not possible to seek vainly, because I am God's Son. I may try to force delay, deceive myself and think that it is hell I seek. Let me find correction when I am wrong and let me be led back to my appointed task when I wander off. This is the reason I am here, for this I came and I will surely do the thing I came for. Everything I seek but this will fall away. Not because it has been taken from me, but because I do not really want it.

I will reach the goal I really want as certaintly as God created me in sinlessness.

Why wiat for Heaven?

Let me not hasten.

Let me not hold any value for this world that will hasten my journey Home.

I wish to express my sincerest thanks to all those who have kindly commented on my short stories, and encouraged me to continue writing. I have been writing short stories for over thirty years, but my efforts to get anything published were sporadic, and I had more or less given up. Your remarks spurred me to try afresh, and this morning I received an acceptance for my story entitled ‘Cornflake' from a literary magazine in Oxford. Thank you.

hola amigos espero que se  la pasen bien

A court in Havana, Cuba, has ordered a punk rock musician to pay a fine of $30 (£15) for public disorder for playing his band's music too loud.

He had faced a possible four year term in prison for the crime known in Cuba as social dangerousness. The controversial law allows the jailing of people who the authorities believe have been displaying behaviour that would indicate they could be on the verge of committing a crime. The lead singer of band Porno Para Ricardo is known for songs that ridicule Cuba's communist government.

I bet this lame-arsed government, of all the talentless, wishes it could jail most MyT bloggers for our   ceaseless criticsm of its mistakes and the harassment of "johnny boy"

Valerie Singleton's got a lot to answer for.

If she hadn't done that piece on Blue Peter about the real cost of owning a pony for a year, I might have had one of my own and been a whizz at the Pony Club.

Just a whiff of horse manure brings back powerful memories; nostalgic, happy and traumatic.

I was horse-mad for years. It started with donkey-rides on the beach at Ogmore, Porthcawl and Weston-super-Mare and progressed swiftly to ponies and horses. The photograph is of me, sulking, aged about 18 months and point-blank refusing to be helped or shifted from the saddle of an obviously-too-big horse on some beach.

I persisted with the “A Pony For Jan” campaign all through the years I lived in Wales. We were ideally situated. Older girls had ponies. They clopped along the lane in front of our house – the lane which petered out into fields which gave way to open moorland and unfenced roads over the top of the mountain.

Years later, mumsie confessed that she did get ground-down by my nagging (geddit?) and was on the very cusp of capitulation when bloody Blue Peter ran an item about the true cost of owning a pony. Valerie Singleton blabbed. Whatever the final total was (this was ages ago so it might have been 4s and 10d or something), it horrified my dad and stymied my chances completely.

I have never forgiven Valerie Singleton. If it wasn't for her, I would have had my own little Welsh mountain pony in the field down the lane from our house with it's own little stable and I could have gone on to gymkhanas and everything..erm in my dreams. Mum couldn't drive and Dad worked so there was very little likelihood of a horse box and meeting up with girls called Lucinda at weekends. The most I could have expected was to spend lots of time hacking over the hills and sleeping with my pony in warm clean straw in the stable. To a horse-mad girl, that in itself would have been heaven, though.

So there was no horse, there was no dog, there was no cat. Only a tortoise called Torty, a budgie called Bluey, a fish called Goldy and a rabbit called Bobby, who took exception to being pushed around in a dolls' pram and munched his way to freedom.

The only real horse involvement I had apart from feeding the ponies in the fields nearby was watching the Horse of the Year Show on television. Remember those? Hans Schockemöhle, David Broome and Marion Mould doing the business elegantly accompanied by Raymond Brooks-Ward's breathy, terribly middle-class excitement. The tension when Marion Mould and Stroller nearly clip the final fence and his evident relief in the hoarse declaration “AND IT'S A CLEAR ROUND!!!”

How I loved it. I was with Marion in spirit for every pace of the circuit. Holding my breath as I popped Stroller over the fences, gathering him and geeing him up for that tricky double. After several years, I was an expert.

So when the chance came to go for horse riding lessons, there was no hesitation. I was, after all, a natural.

There were six of us in the class at the riding stables – all friends at school. I was introduced to a bay called Jorrocks. He was a sturdy boy with a big bum but when he rolled his eyes, they were red-veined and expressed a malevolence I could only guess at. He wasn't just reluctant. He was completely pissed off with his life. He was, without doubt, a depressive who covertly hit the hard stuff alone in his stable every night and turned up for work at 7am stinking of booze.

His ears flicked flat back when he saw me approach.

It was hate at first sight.

“Hello lovely Jorrocks” I ventured gently, about to pat his neck.

He bared his teeth and went for me. I leapt back just in time. I wasn't expecting naked aggression. I loved horses. Why was Jorrocks not picking up my tender vibes?

From that point I was incapable of producing anything but nervous, on-edge whimpers and Jorrocks knew he had me at his mercy. I'd been bitten in the back by a horse when I was small so the possibility of Jorrocks' ugly orange teeth chomping down on any part of me was to be avoided.

“You've got to be a bit firm with him,” said the instructor.

The other girls were aboard their horses. My friend Ali was about 5' 2” compared to my 5' 6” so she got a real life fluffy-cream Thelwell pony – very broad of girth and jolly to look at. She looked nervous. Her mount was almost broader than he was high, so at least she didn't have very far to fall.

With a bit of a leg-up I was in place in the saddle. I didn't like it. Jorrocks was too high. More hands than I could imagine. At least four arms with a leg thrown in.

“Squeeze with the knees. Take the reins, twitch them – not roughly - tell them to “Walk On.”

I judiciously carried out points 1 – 3. Nothing. Jorrocks didn't move a muscle. The others were walking off in a sedate line, dropping fragrant pooh all over the stable yard as they went. Jorrocks remained obstinately static. Then, in what I realised later was a well-rehearsed manoeuvre, he suddenly tossed his head violently, shaking the reins from my hands and I sat impotent and helpless watching everyone else leave.

The instructor looked round in time and came back, uttering a weary sigh as she returned the reins to my shaking fingers.

“We don't take any nonsense from you, do we Jorrocks?” she said.

“Walk on!”

As she gave the command she dealt his backside a deafening thwack and he leapt into a kind of trot. I gripped the saddle, unprepared. Every bone in my body jarred. Nothing seemed joined up any more.

“Use your knees. Rise and fall with the pony's strides,” said the instructor. At least I think it was something like that. Whatever she said proved impossible. She might as well have said “Stretch both arms out and slowly soar into the sky.”

Fortunately after a minute or two of jumbling me about like several sacks of King Edwards, Jorrocks settled into a lazy amble, which was a relief. It turned out Jorrocks largely did his own thing. My stop and go commands were ignored. He was having none of it.

When I squeezed ineptly with my knees he'd whip his head round and try to bite my feet.

He recognised the helpless, fearful soul on his back and decided that if he could do far better than the instructor when it came to teaching me a lesson. It was very effective. I learned, quite rapidly, just how spiteful ponies can be.

With hindsight, you could tell his heart wasn't in it. Jorrocks was of an age where he'd suffered enough fools.

Anyway, we reached an uneasy truce where walking was concerned. I found the rolling motion quite pleasant. The trot was horrible. I began to resent Marion Mould for making it look so easy.

The canter didn't happen. Jorrocks either trotted or he galloped. The gallop, when it started, was terrifying. Forget the sodding reins, I was hanging on with one hand grasped tightly around a lump of mane and the other holding the front of the saddle as though my life depended on it, which it probably did.

It felt like we were going at 40mph and at any moment I was going to plummet to the ground, shattering all my bones. I couldn't see properly as my eyeballs were shaking violently but heard squeals and managed to make out the shape of Ali bouncing frantically as her Thelwell pony pounding ahead of us across the field.

As I watched it was evident that her saddle was steadily, inexorably, slipping down to the left. The last I saw of her before she hit the deck was her bouncing along, hanging on grimly, her body horizontal, yelling “Someone HELP!”

When she finally thumped to the ground, while I wished her no harm, I felt grateful. Her fall meant we all had to stop. When she got over the shock, she was persuaded to remount with reassurances that the strappy girth bit had been re-fixed and tightened properly.

Thelwell pony didn't look unhappy while adjustments were made and Jorrocks, sensing accurately that I was a slow learner, once again jerked the reins from my hands and piled on further embarrassment by wandering away, grazing in an unconcerned way while I sat out of control and waiting for aid once again.

I still love horses, the smell of them, their intelligent liquid eyes, their velvety warm noses, their sleek smooth necks, their grace and fluidity of movement. I have been riding a couple of times since those early lessons but I felt the horses I was given were supercilious. I didn't feel either confident or safe.

Thinking you can ride solely by watching the Horse of the Year Show is rather like imagining you can mountainbike after watching the Olympic mens' mountainbiking competition; lamentably unrealistic.

But you live and learn and on balance, I get on better with bikes. They aren't intelligent, they don't have moods and while they lack that wonderful horsey smell, the scent of a nice lube can be pleasantly intoxicating.

Just thinking about the economy and how peoples lives are so badly affected by this downturn. It is even more obvious to me that the pursuit of material possessions has not brought satisfaction over these past 20 years or so as there is such worry now that the spending spree has reversed.

I remember a conversation with John Major, my then MP, in a meeting many years ago when I asked him what the government was going to do about giving a moral lead to the country. He replied that such a lead was the responsibility of the bishops and all his other answers at that meeting were financial in nature - whatever the type of question. To my mind that is where the problem lies still. We all too often equate satisfaction and progress with financial prosperity and I'm sure that there is much more to it than that. I, like many, am still waiting for that moral lead from the bishops - or anyone come to that - that points us in the direction of a more selfless society where we think at least as much about others as we do about ourselves. Perhaps we might even allow God into the equation too.

I would like to take Bargani for West plus Sasha, because he has one more year for his contract, and a possibility that he's fit in the Cavs.

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And why did I want this? It is just because they need maybe a tough bench SG and an starting point guard.

They have got J-O'neal and Bosh at big man, and need to give up the 2005 1st overall pick italian "Andrea Bargani."

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West is a very young guy talented that plays the basketball selflessly.

He could make a play, could shoot, and could pass easily.

He played amazingly the past play-offs with remembrance, he had undoubtedly threw the ball at the three.

He is a real PG!

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Sasha's play is good for being on the bench, when he has off the bench, he does play well in the inside of court also, and as LeBron said that sasha is the only one at their practice who could guard him in easy way.

And It's because that many of you guys want sasha to be traded and to be oust from the town and the team.

As what I've observed to his play, he's not bad, he played like a real player, and played with heart not as all times as LeBron did.

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Why should they trade Barganai?

They gave up T.J. Ford, and now, they need a PG that plays as a real PG, and that's Delonte.

They have Jermaine O'neal at the team to play the starting C.

They' have Chris Bosh at the team to play the starting PF.

They have Jamario Moon at the team to play the SF.

They have Anthony Parker at the team to play the SG.

And they have Jose Calderon to off the bench for PG.

Surely Bargani will have wanted to be traded also, he wants to handle the C with LeBron at the court.

And if I was Bargani, I would love to be traded in Cleveland Cavaliers because they've owned the best player of the Nba league, not only in the Nba but also the whole world, and that's LeBron.

Bargani is a solid player, a young talented guy, and plays better than Big-Z, he can play the game like an allstar, and his defense isn't bad at all, and he will has been confident to play in all games with the Cavaliers, it is because there is LeBron at the team.

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Why should have Bargani landed in the Cavs town?

Because we need a real future Center in this team, and He's the only young big guy whose play is always greatly.

He will be a tough center for Cavs, and can develope fast his play more because of LeBron.

So why can he develope fast with cause LeBron in the team?

Players could develope fast their play with LeBron in the team.

Even everyone you'll ask, they would answer you as what I said.

Also for Bargani, he's a really great replacement for Big-Z in the future literally.

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If they wanted West and didn't want sasha as a package, let's give AV to them, but whenever AV hindered the trade.

I guess ferry must wait patiently until the trade deadline comes.

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It's not impossible if ever ferry tries to make a negotiation with them (The Toronto Raptors)..

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Blessings,

Lacai from Philippines

Just venting.

Why is it that everytime I clean my car from top to bottom, apply car wax, tire black and just basically clean it until every nook and cranny is gleaming, it starts raining?!?

in alberta....2 days from being picked up from Lance Storm. loosing my mind. all the botttom compartments of the bus were flooded other than my laptop everything i own is soaked, water damaged to the thousands. bet none of you have to deal with this. all my electronics i brought are messed up bad.

So we got tickets to Sundays race in Fontana, yeah. I am a big Tony Stewart Fan and Drew loves Dale. So everyone you have to watch the race and all the beginning stuff because you might see us. Cant wait!!!!!

“Capturing Alaska”
with Wayde Carroll






Aialik Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park


     Continuing on with images from this month’s photo safari….

     I guess I should put a quick plug in here for the company I lead these safaris for. Alaska Wildland Adventures, based in Girdwood, is one of our country’s top rated eco-tourism companies. They lead all kinds of Alaskan adventures. The photo safaris are unique in that they cater especially to those of us who want to be able to stop and capture the moment whenever we feel like it without getting the antsy hikers angry with us. These trips are all about photography. Throw in great lodges in stunning settings, add great gourmet food, and hey, you’ve got a great trip on your hands. The people, clients and staff, are great as well. They come from all over the country and make each trip a wonderful and unique experience.

     Ok, back to the (somewhat) regularly scheduled blog.

     On the second day of our photo safari we set out into the Kenai Fjords on AWA’s new boat that has the ability to land on shore.
     Kenai Fjords National Park is incredible in its’ diversity of wildlife and scenery. I’ll share more images from it later. This week I wanted to focus on the Aialk glacier ( pronounced: eye-al-ick), accessible by way of Aialik Bay. (pronounced: bay).
     Because we were able to land on shore not far from where this active glacier was calving I was able to get some awesome action images from shore. It was incredible to walk amongst giant pieces of ice freshly calved from the glacier and stranded on shore. It was more than a little unsettling at first to hear the loud cracking of ice and its’ tremendous plunging sound as it reached the frigid waters. On more than one occasion the calving ice was so large that the group had to scramble up the beach to avoid the large waves it created.
     It was agreed by all that the entire day could have been spent there photographing, and experiencing one of the most incredible forces of nature. Indeed, we overstayed our allotted time and it was difficult to get everyone back on the boat!

     When photographing ice it’s helpful to remember that your cameras meter is always trying to expose for an 18% gray, which is an average tone of your average scene. So in essence your camera is trying to make your most dominant tone a mid-gray tone. If your viewfinder is filled with bright white objects, such as large chunks of ice, your camera will expose to make them large GRAY chunks of ice. What you need to do, if your scene is predominantly white, is add more exposure than your meter is asking for. You need to fool your camera and with exposure compensation. Usually you can add about one and a half stops of exposure to bring your whites back up to white. Your histogram is a great resource for this!
     It’s true that you can always “brighten “your exposures on the computer later, but if your original exposure is more than one stop underexposed ( your whites are gray ) you really start to get grain and color aliasing ( weird colors in your shadow areas ) when you do. In these situations I always set my camera to plus 1 1/2 exposure compensation.
     I kept my ISO at 400 so I could make sure I had a fast shutter speed that allowed me to “freeze” (no pun intended) the action of the falling ice. You had to be ready because you had no warning of when a huge chunk would fall. Once you could hear it, it was too late!
     It was fun to experiment with wide angles but I also had my 200mm on a separate camera to capture the falling ice.
     I can’t wait to get out there again.

     One other worthy note: AWA is currently building a new lodge right near the Aialik Glacier. They were asked to do so by the Native group who controls the land there. They are the only company with such access and starting next year safaris will be based right out there on the Fjords. It’s only accessible by water or float plane.  There is a lagoon and a glacier right out the front doors!

Given a choice, I'd rather watch Ms Palin strutting her stuff on the world stage than any of Barack, Chip or Joe.

She may not have Maggie's brain power but when was that ever a condition of becoming President?

According to the morbid accounts of Chip's health and life expectancy, she has a fighting chance of getting into the White House during the next four years - assuming of course that the gun-totin', oil-grabbin' Republicans get in again.

Would the gumbint change other than cosmetically? No.

Would she get in again in four years' time when Hillary runs for the other side? Perhaps.

Is she really anti-corruption? Yes and no. The word is she hates it at arm's length but isn't so pernickety when her own relatives are involved.

Trust a woman, eh?

Taker slowly came for Vickie's soul tonight? but what has happened to her?

Has her soul gone to Hell to join Edge?

Did Taker just torture her to get back her?

He is playing mind games?

Is she in some dark little corner of the boiler room begging for Eddie's soul to come and save her?

Is the Champ next?

Triple-H and have a history. But who will be the champ after Unforgiven?

Out of about 25,000.  Please someone, tell me why I shoud care.  I would place a wager that the seals, those darling little seals, are cheering at this news.