peacefuljeffrey

My little Subaru hits highs and lows that way. At the moment, it's relatively clean and orderly, but it's at the dealership getting some minor body work done. I had cleaned it out thoroughly, including exterior wash, interior vacuum and wipe, while my dad was in town visiting a few weeks ago. Felt GOOD to get that done! It had been a mess! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Hahahaha! What is "Motron"? Is that a painkiller that, when you put five of them together they form a giant robot that kills evildoers with a huge blazing sword? LOL! Oh, wait, that's "Voltron." But I think the painkiller is "Motrin." -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I just think that if someone is nothing but sweetness and sugar-kind-comments online, they are the ones who are likely hiding the nastiness that everyone feels occasionally but only some are willing to come out and vent. And look, I'm not talking about coming here and just name-calling and being bitchy and mean. I don't do that. You all may confuse what I do -- which is be brazenly opinionated and sometimes arrogant as a result of thinking I know better than people a good portion of the time -- with being a mean-spirited jerk, but there is a difference whether you recognize it or not. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

The reason I ask is, I have seen those little red string bracelets and I was wondering what the significance and meaning of them is. If I wanted to, say, make red bracelets and sell them as "Kabbalah bracelets," do they have to be of a special material, or have to be "blessed"? As far as marketing them goes, I have a good idea for a design using paracord, but I don't know if the untraditional-ness of them would invalidate them for interest from Kabbalah practitioners. I would like to have something to say about them but I really don't know what the Kabbalah bracelet is all about. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

"Iiiiis heeee live or dead? Has he thoughts within his head?!" Youuuu arrrrrre IRON MAN!! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I had a few pretty good math teachers in high school. I also have a very analytical/methodical mind, so that helped me. Plus, I had a willingness to actually stay for extra help after school to pick up what I couldn't "get" during class. That helped a lot. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

It pains me that I cannot give blood anymore, since I spent 3+ months in England in 1992. The rule is only a few years old, here. From 1988 until just a couple of years ago, I was a steady and regular blood donor. I went from giving whole blood regularly to giving platelets (via plateletpheresis) regularly, and did so all through college and afterward. Then the bloodmobile came to my work and during the questionnaire I informed them about my stay in England, and they told me I could no longer donate. Damn! Now, I don't understand: they won't let Brits or tourists who've stayed in Britain give blood here in the U.S... wouldn't you think that Brits would not be allowed to give blood IN BRITAIN, if there's a risk that blood carries vCJD? I mean, take a healthy Brit who needs blood -- he's not going to get blood that was imported from the U.S., right? He's gonna get British donor blood, I imagine! So if that's safe for him, why isn't it safe for me to give in the U.S.? They're always running at a deficit for blood... I have to imagine that this makes it seriously hard to keep a good supply up. They need to develop a test to see if blood can carry this disease, and a test for vCJD in general, so they can start getting their donor base back up from so low. They must have lost a shitload of eligible donors with this rule. And because I know it costs them MILLIONS of dollars, I have to imagine that the blood centers would not have let this rule come to pass without a fight if there was not a legitimate worry about transmission of vCJD from blood. That's what scares me. Not a word of opposition made it 'round to me about it. I haven't read a news article about the blood centers protesting that there's no need to cut the donor base by fully one-third! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I answered "Physics." I took AP Physics in 11th grade, and struggled like mad with it. I even got depressed about it, and a close friend of mine actually worried that I was contemplating suicide! (I wasn't, but his concern was appreciated.) You didn't list "Science" in the general sense, but I always liked science class a lot. I liked Physics because it dealt with real stuff that really takes place, and wasn't about boring things like people and events (history). It also used Math, which was another subject I had to work a bit to be good in, but really took to; once I got it, I got it! In fact, in the three years of "Sequential Math" in New York regents high school classes, I scored 98%, 100% and 98% respectively on the New York State Regents Final Exams I took in Math! I knew that stuff cold! (at the time!) I really think that I should have been an engineer -- but now I'm 33 and it's not looking likely that I'll go back to school and do all the academic stuff to do so. I lean toward being very detail-oriented, exacting, and perfectionist: I think these are good engineer qualities. I had aspirations toward aerospace engineering at one time, but was a bit too lazy to take school seriously enough to go forward with it. That, and the degree to which I had to struggle to "get" physics deterred me. I also liked English, but I like literature and poetry now more than I ever did when I had a chance to actually study and discuss them in an academic setting. More's the pity, we seem to never appreciate things when it would make the most sense. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

unfortanatly in this sport i think we have known or know of someone who has passed. I personally this year have had six people i know pass....its been a rough year. Never gets any easier, but life goes on. Just makes me feel better knowing that they are now skydiving their asses off and never have to pull. Man! You're in the sport only 4 years and that many people you know have died at it?! I'm sorry not only for Dave but for you as well! I keep wondering why I've been -- and for how long I'll be -- so lucky as to not even have friends get severely hurt at skydiving, let alone killed. So many people write here about having held friends as they died of skydiving injuries. That blows my mind, and the more so because I have not had to suffer that. Granted, I've been at it only a year and a third, but still! I consider myself very lucky. Dave, my condolences. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I meant to add, and forgot to, that I have a tendency to use a forum like dropzone.com as a VENT, to blow off steam and frustration. Some people have said, "Jeff, you're not 'peaceful'; you're angry." Yeah, sometimes I am angry. Sometimes the world gets to me; I'm aware of too much, see a lot of the crappy side of things, the side of things that is not as it should be, and it gets on my nerves and I have to talk it out. People see that here and think it must be the overwhelming defining aspect of my personality, but it's not. If it seems like that's the concentrated essence of what I do here (I do have my pleasant posts, you know), well, it just might be because places like Speakers Corner are cut out for that, and that's exactly what I use(d) them for! I hope I can be forgiven for having human foibles. But I really think it's unfair the way some have tarred me with being an asshole or whatever just because they don't want to do the work of imagining that I might be a good guy overall. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Holy Moly. Good thing ya'll found out early, I guess. I have to love early detection, man. My mom died of undetected (til too late) colon cancer, so even at the tender age of 31 (two years ago) I went in and demanded a colonoscopy, during which the doctor found and removed three polyps, which over time could have turned cancerous. (You never know.) So I am a firm believer in vigilance and early detection. Good on you for getting tested. How is your brother's health, otherwise? Are there any implications about health complications from hemochromatosis? What causes it? Good luck to both of you. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I should start off right now by saying I can't help but suspect that I, and things I've said in another thread, might have engendered this thread. If I'm wrong, forgive me. I feel pretty confident when I say that I am not entirely like "how I come across" on dropzone.com. I am aware that I get disputatious, argumentative, abrasive, cantankerous, even offensive, here. But as a counterpoint, I have also been friendly, affectionate, generous, supportive, compassionate, encouraging... No one seems to hold that in mind when judging me here these days. You indicate that you think the "freedom" to be what one truly wants to be is what causes us to be our "truest" selves online. I don't really agree that this is what is happening. Yes, the anonymity of online interaction enables us to be as in-your-face as we feel like being, but that is not necessarily one's "true self." What IS a "true self"? How can the way we act when we are not face-to-face with people be our true selves when our REAL interactions are so much more germain to our lives? How I deal with people at work, or in my family, or at the dropzone -- that's real, and that's my truer self, because I'm dealing with real people in the standard venue of living! And what I was saying in another thread is that the people who know me in those settings find me a lot more agreeable than those who try to study my persona (inasmuch as it can be studied here) in a thread about the utility of the assault weapons ban, for example. YES, in such a thread, I GO OFF on things I think are stupid, and you're treated to an undiluted dose of how pissed off or frustrated I can get. But I don't live in that mode 24/7/365. See me on a day of skydiving, and I may have brought out some homemade food, or I may spend part of the day custom-making closing pin necklaces for friends. Which is the real me? Why would you think that the measure of a person's real persona is to be found in a cyber-environment just because there are "no restraints" (I find that to be a fallacy) as opposed to the real dealings the person has with real people in the real world? I think that's like saying a Cessna's "real performance" should not be judged in the sky, but in a wind tunnel, and that only once winds and weather are stripped away you will see how the plane can really be. My argument is, "But the plane spends most of its time IN the wind, IN the weather... that's the truer measure of the plane than when it doesn't have to contend with those things." Look, people are free to think whatever they want of each other when they're on something like this. I notice some people took some potshots at me in this very thread, but I'm not taking the bait. Maybe in time I'll have a chance to demonstrate to some of my detractors on dropzone.com that, in person, I can be a friendly, likable guy. I look forward to the opportunity, if it comes to pass. I have a tendency to bring food, and babysit/entertain people's kids at the dropzone, and buy beer for others for the silliest of reasons (like the mild collision I had with this Canadian guy Dan on a tracking dive two weeks ago, or for packer Earl for teaching me to make closing loops). I offer to jump with lonely low-timers on a regular basis. I go out to fetch lunch when I could be jumping. I share rides to the DZ. I take skydiver friends flying on my own dime... If these things don't count toward comprising the "real me," but all my rants about guns and other bullshit here DO... well, I think that's backward. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Of course I do. But you aren't around to see the parts of my life that make it extremely apt. Fair enough? I've also posted in the past about the derivation of my use of this nickname. I guess you prefer to disregard that. That's okay, it's your choice. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

It was part of an overall attitude.. and was actually coming from a wish for more people in this country to put something back into the country.. instead of take .. take...take.. which seems to be the me me me you were talking about before and must know intimately.. an entitlement mentality. Some of us serve in the military. others have served in the Peace Corp and others have served in other ways such as President Carter out ther actually working on a Habitat for Humanity house. Funny I aint never seen him out clearing brush.. I guess that is left to the "other Guys". But with the attitude you have shown in so many threads.. I would expect absolutely nothing from you or many of your fellow cohorts. You started out seeming as though you were getting more level-headed about this discussion, and then you went and made cracks about me like how you expect nothing from me (as a person/citizen/whatever) ... and what is this about my "fellow cohorts"? You really are the one out of line, making all sorts of insinuations about what you think you know of me. I can't figure out where you get the cajones to make all these judgments about me! You don't know me from Adam! This country is at war.. and since you love guns.. I would think you would want to serve your country to preserve those freedoms you are taking for granted. Plus.. the military has some reallly kewl guns and stuff that goes boom...Come on.. you would love it Just because you think it doesn't make it so. Maybe I "love guns" from a technological/engineering standpoint. Maybe I "love guns" for the personal protection benefits. Maybe I don't just love the idea of killing human beings enough to want to go to war. Maybe I don't find this particular war worth my fighting and dying in. That would make me like a LOT of other people -- servicepeople included (or did you think you speak for ALL of them?). The fact is, if I saw our country in true jeopardy from without, I would take up arms. But I am not willing to sign away major chunks of my personal freedom and autonomy to have the government tell me what I may do with my life, where and when I may do it; to stick unapproved "vaccines" into my bloodstream; to expose me to chemicals and agents that cause mysterious ailments that the government will then deny exist... I've seen the way our government treats people. No thanks. I was just speaking with someone who has served in the military, recently, and she was telling me that there is even military penalty for certain types of consentual sex between a man and a woman. Again, no thanks. What the fuck business is that of the military's? If I eat pussy, does that make me unfit to serve? You don't want to credit me with knowing a bit more than the romanticized image of serving in the military, fine. But I have been a fuck of a lot more circumspect about whether to join than you think I have, and reasoned out that it would not be the life for me, "stuff that goes boom" notwithstanding. Nice to condescend to me yet again as though I am just a simpleton who needs to explode things to be gratified. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

True, but no one has yet sent me one, and I hate to invite myself. Speakers Corner is also great for it, but they won't let me in there anymore. So you're catching the spillover of all my pent-up angst at the world, I guess. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Never said I was. I hated Kerry and voted Bush for the gun issue alone. Couldn't give much of a shit about "this administration" elsewise. ( oh wait.. all the people who serve are on a fools errand is what you said above, That should endear you to an awful lot of DIZZIE DOT COMMERS who are out there serving this country and an awful lot of us who actually have served as well.) Some people serve our country... others will always only serve themselves... but so many of those are oh so ultra patriotic??? I did not say that all who serve are fools. Those are words you put in my mouth. I view the idea of the individual being secondary and subservient to the state as being foolish, and serving under such a false impression as being a fool's errand. Some serve to serve their fellow citizens, or the ideals of the American way. That's noble. Serving because you think that you OWE the State is stupid. And that's what's embodied in your little pet quote. Now, the fallacy under which you are laboring is that I do not "serve" anyone but myself, just because I have not served in the military. How did you get so misguided about this? How can you fail to see that there are other ways of being a good, worthwhile person? Must you be so haughty about your military service? Does it truly make you better than anyone who has not served?? -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I have no doubt you acutally believe that. Who the fuck asked you, and why on earth would you think I give a shit what you say, Keith? ...I never have before... -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

You could always just go boil about three dozen eggs, place them on your bathroom floor, stomp them with galoshes on, and leave them around for a few days... -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

You don't know me in real life, and you know exactly jack-shit about my "soul." (The more so given what you exhibit that you think you know about it.) Despite what I write here sometimes, and my penchant for verbal sparring, I have one of the gentlest souls you'll probably never meet. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Pot Kettle With attitudes being continueously posted in a vulgar abrasive manner why would anyone ever want to meet such a person. I avoid people who are not civil in real life.. and the postings give a very insightful look into the soul. It must be nice to never be wrong. The more you indicate that your mind is closed to the possibility that I am not, "IRL," the person you think you see here, the less I would be inclined to wish to meet you, either. Do you even realize that as you call me abrasive, or "pot," you have been revealing yourself to be incredibly pompous, arrogant and condescending? Is it okay to be that way just because you dislike me? I already realize you have a superiority complex, but it's getting more and more laughable to me how you are able to engage in hypocrisy while at the same time calling me out for it. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

P.S. I can't. I am banned from Speakers Corner (Did you miss that? It was in my first post here.) for making reference in SYNTAX ONLY to a "forbidden topic." In my view, it was a bogus reason for a ban, but I don't make the rules, nor am I the one in charge of flexing and stretching them to catch me out. That's someone else's pencha...er, "job." -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Did I deny that I've posted stuff that could have annoyed people? Nope. But that's what you can run into when you post about controversial subjects in a free (more or less) exchange of ideas. I don't go out of my way to offend anyone here. It has never been and still is not my goal just to yank people's cranks. I say what I feel. At least you know what you're getting. But the fallacy I think people fall into here is thinking that the way a person is on here is at all similar to the way they may be in real life, in person. Who knows, in person I may even like you or Amazon? There's no telling. The difference is, though, that I have learned not to presume to know a person's true nature based on his/her dropzone.com posts or "persona." I've posted compassionate, friendly things too. I'm not one-dimensional, by any measure. But I think that some people's views are so fragile, their personalities so brittle, that when I post an emphatic opinion, they feel it threatens their constructs and so they take to disliking me for what I have said. Well, what can I do about that? Change my views to suit what other people want of me? Sorry, won't do that. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Pretty sure I said, "...the average person." That sure as fuck doesn't mean the hypocrites here. See me in person and you get a different impression. Not that I imagine you'd give me a fair shake and an open mind, after knowing me here first. But oh well. Like I need to care. Whatever floats your boat. I'm gonna care what someone who has never met me thinks of me? I doubt it. Especially not someone who thinks she's superior because she "asked not what her country could do for her." It's pretty clear that you think you're superior to me on that count alone. Such an attitude is far from becoming. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Well lucky lucky you -- you now have the moral superiority to look down your nose at anyone who hasn't. Let me tell you something, I serve my country daily by being a GOOD CITIZEN. Someone who doesn't rob, steal, rape, kill, or even act rudely toward the average person. I saved an elderly couple from losing the husband's eyeglasses today. I could have been the typical jerk who said nothing and let it happen. Being a good guy is more than a fuck of a lot of people do these days. I just read in the paper today about two guys and two girls who used a stolen credit card to buy $5,000 worth of stuff within hours of the card going missing from its owner. I can't think of a single person I know who would join me if I said, "Hey, I have this stolen credit card, let's go max it out for our own gratification." Yet this kind of piece of shit scumbag is becoming more and more common, it seems. Everyone is "me me me" and goodness be damned. When did that become Constitutional law? It's part of a speech, nothing more, and is certainly not binding upon citizens. More to the point, it is the ANTITHESIS of what this country stands for. OUR GOVERNMENT, CONTRARY TO YOUR EVIDENT OPINION, EXISTS TO SERVE [B]US[/B]. We do not exist to please the state. And I grew up feeling it was a fool's errand, and an abhorrent way to view one's own life. The purpose of my being here is certainly not to serve the State. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

The one that scared me was Being John Malkovitch. It just seemed really creepy-sinister-macabre that there was this whole society of people who plotted to steal a man's being -- Malkovitch, if I recall correctly, would be like trapped inside his own body, his soul powerless, while they used him to live in. It kept happening temporarily while Cusack did it, but then I forget what they said would happen to Malkovitch when they finally did it permanently... I can't remember how the movie ended, but I was creeped out by it. I also got scared a bit by Pet Sematary, with that scene of the sister with "meningitis" who was hidden away in a bedroom. VERY creepy. And of course, those two little girls in The Shining are always scary as hell. All you have to do to send shivers through me is put on that monotone voice with the british accent and talk like them... "Come play with us, Danny... Forever... and ever... and ever..." I think that the scariest thing is the prospect that someone could hold a power over you to put you through torment, but death could not provide escape, because they could recall your soul, bring you to life over and over, and never let you go... But I can't think of a movie that really has done a treatment of that. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"