2008-08-08

We enjoyed heavenly weather today, breezy and cool, barely leaving the 70s F. And the humidity was way down as well. It is good to remember days like this in the midst of Kentucky’s usual sweltering summer weather! After Morning Offering Mick and Gary enjoyed the weather as they worked their way through the bumper crop of Friday mowing jobs.

I started my day by reading through the proposed rules for our forums on B4. They are patterned after the ones Jeremy W created for David W’s site, asc2k, and they seemed all right to me. Such rules always seem officious and fussy, but in times of difficulty on a forum it is good to have them structured into the site. I changed a couple of words to make them less extreme and OK’d them.

Bob R sent me the good news that his new site, http://www.thehomeplanetnetwork.com/index.html, is up. He only has the event page working so far, but his mind is full of marvelous plans! The event which he is advertising is a weekend with William Henry in Williamsburg, Virginia in October. We wish you well with that, Bob!

He also said that he will be able to attend Homecoming 2008 after all – and that he will bring his own chair this time! Bob has a bad back and it needs special care. I certainly sympathize with that!

I fiddled around with the UPI Religion and Spirituality site, trying to log on and see just how the users are set up to work with the site when they post to their blogs, but was unable to get anywhere. I sent a request for help to the head of their tech department. I intend to go back to writing articles in September and would like to know how to post them before then.

Mel and I went out to get white paint for my bedroom and to do my monthly labs at LabCorp at lunchtime and came back with burgers. She had spent the morning, among other things, sewing on the leatherette cover of my wheelchair’s shin pad, which had torn loose of its padding because of being closed incorrectly. In doing so she found that the length of the leg portion of the machine was wrong, and she got the leg supports lengthened and evened, which will make the chair much better for when I want to put my legs up in the chair.

We played for the rest of the afternoon with a hanging tomato plant kit, starting three Best Boy tomatoes from seeds. Supposedly you can grow these tomatoes indoors or outdoors and all year round. We’ll see. Anyway it was fun to get the kit opened and start the seeds.

Mick and I had a date after our bath and I slept for a while in the afterglow. He woke me to go downstairs and enjoy the opening ceremony at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. I know that China has many human rights issues, especially with regards to Nepal, and is holding on to Taiwan for dear life when those of that island want to be independent. But I also know that the oneness of the human tribe is a theme not to be destroyed because of politics.

I thought it was very interesting that in the ceremony, the stunning visual effects were created by people in great masses. China is very populous, and the organizers used thousands of people and incredibly intricate choreography to create vast patterns that swirled and flowed from one image to another. The individual dancers were more like pixels than independent agents. Their value lay strictly in performing their part in the gigantic overall pattern. The whole show was evocative to me of their political stance, communism, in which the workers are not independent agents but instead all work for the state.

The sheer size of the “bird’s nest” arena built for this event is amazing. I believe they said that the building is about a quarter-mile long! And the seats were packed! It was a sold-out crowd. Mick will be in heaven watching the track and field events this coming week. He was a pole vaulter and sprinter in high school and college.

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.