TORPIC TRAVEL?

I'm not really seeing the innovation as this idea has been around for an extremely long time.

Perhaps the article writer is referring to the specific techniques that would be involved. However there is no guarantee that torpor will either be universally effective or universally safe. Plus there will be the danger of a difficult and untimely revival.

And obviously you can't put everyone in torpor, that's far too dangerous.

NASA Eyes Crew Deep Sleep Option for Mars Mission

Oct 3, 2014 12:00 PM ET // by Irene Klotz

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During interplanetary transit, the crew would receive low-level electrical impulses to key muscle groups to prevent muscular atrophy.

SpaceWorks

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NASA'sSpacesuitsThroughtheYears:Photos

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SpaceX: Mars Mission 'Insurance' Against Disaster

How a Mission to Mars Could Kill You

Mars Radiation Risk 'Manageable' for Human Missions

 

A NASA-backed study explores an innovative way to dramatically cut the cost of a human expedition to Mars -- put the crew in stasis.

Play Video

Can We Grow Plants on Mars?

 

Last year, NASA announced the discovery of water on Mars. This posed a question to scientists: Could we grow plants in the soil of Mars? Trace explains what is necessary to grow crops on Earth, and if Mars is able to sustain life. 

 

The deep sleep, called torpor, would reduce astronauts’ metabolic functions with existing medical procedures. Torpor also can occur naturally in cases of hypothermia.

ANALYSIS: Private Mars Mission in 2018?

“Therapeutic torpor has been around in theory since the 1980s and really since 2003 has been a staple for critical care trauma patients in hospitals," aerospace engineer Mark Schaffer, with SpaceWorks Enterprises in Atlanta, said at the International Astronomical Congress in Toronto this week. "Protocols exist in most major medical centers for inducing therapeutic hypothermia on patients to essentially keep them alive until they can get the kind of treatment that they need.”

AND STILL MORE...

What God has forgotten about nothing is still far more than I'll ever know about anything.

AMERICA from POLITICAL CAUSE

America, late to every war that will ever matter, and determined to lose every war that will ever count…

EPIGENETIC MEMORY

I have been studying the field of epigenetics for about ten years or so now? Something like that. Since the field of genetics has been a personal interest of mine for decades. But I only relatively recently became of aware of modern epigenetics and began studying it in depth.

I see it as being directly related (as a manipulation mechanism) to my theory of the Renaissance Man and the polymath.

Anyway I thought this was a rather good but very basic summary of some of the recent research advances and studies in the field.

Study shows how epigenetic memory is passed across generations

18 hours ago

This image shows inheritance and transmission of the epigenetic mark H3K27me3 in C. elegans. The 1-cell embryo (left) shows the mark (green) inherited on sperm chromosomes but not on the oocyte chromosomes (pink) contributed by a mutant mother lacking the methylation enzyme PRC2. The 2-cell embryo (right) shows transmission of the mark on the sperm-derived chromosomes in each daughter nucleus. Credit: Laura J. Gaydos

A growing body of evidence suggests that environmental stresses can cause changes in gene expression that are transmitted from parents to their offspring, making "epigenetics" a hot topic. Epigenetic modifications do not affect the DNA sequence of genes, but change how the DNA is packaged and how genes are expressed. Now, a study by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows how epigenetic memory can be passed across generations and from cell to cell during development...

Study shows how epigenetic memory is passed across generations

17 hours ago

This image shows inheritance and transmission of the epigenetic mark H3K27me3 in C. elegans. The 1-cell embryo (left) shows the mark (green) inherited on sperm chromosomes but not on the oocyte chromosomes (pink) contributed by a mutant …more

A growing body of evidence suggests that environmental stresses can cause changes in gene expression that are transmitted from parents to their offspring, making "epigenetics" a hot topic. Epigenetic modifications do not affect the DNA sequence of genes, but change how the DNA is packaged and how genes are expressed. Now, a study by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows how epigenetic memory can be passed across generations and from cell to cell during development.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-09-epigenetic-memory.html#jCp

Study shows how epigenetic memory is passed across generations

17 hours ago

This image shows inheritance and transmission of the epigenetic mark H3K27me3 in C. elegans. The 1-cell embryo (left) shows the mark (green) inherited on sperm chromosomes but not on the oocyte chromosomes (pink) contributed by a mutant …more

A growing body of evidence suggests that environmental stresses can cause changes in gene expression that are transmitted from parents to their offspring, making "epigenetics" a hot topic. Epigenetic modifications do not affect the DNA sequence of genes, but change how the DNA is packaged and how genes are expressed. Now, a study by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows how epigenetic memory can be passed across generations and from cell to cell during development.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-09-epigenetic-memory.html#jCp

THE DEATH OF EVERYTHING ELSE

I completely agree. Modern liberalism is obsessed with turning everything else into modern liberalism. To the death and detriment of everything else.

Liberals Are Killing Art How the Left became obsessed with ideology over beauty

By Jed Perl Photo: Whitney Museum

Do more and more liberals find the emotions unleashed by the arts—I mean all of the arts, from poetry to painting to dance—something of an embarrassment? Are the liberal-spirited people who support a rational public policy—a social safety net, consistency and efficiency in foreign affairs, steps to reverse global warming—reluctant to embrace art’s celebration of unfettered metaphor and mystery and magic? If you had asked me ten years ago, I would have said the answer was no. Now I am inclined to say the opposite. What is certain is that in our data- and metrics-obsessed era the imaginative ground without which art cannot exist is losing ground. Instead of art-as-art we have art as a comrade-in-arms to some more supposedly stable or substantial or readily comprehensible aspect of our world. Now art is always hyphenated. We have art-and-society, art-and-money, art-and-education, art-and-tourism, art-and-politics, art-and-fun. Art itself, with its ardor, its emotionalism, and its unabashed assertion of the imagination, has become an outlier, its tendency to celebrate a purposeful purposelessness found to be intimidating, if not downright frightening.

The erosion of art’s imaginative ground, often blamed on demagogues of the left and the right, is taking place in the very heart of the liberal, educated, cultivated audience—the audience that arts professionals always imagined they could count on. The whole question is so painful and so difficult that I have frankly hesitated to tackle it. It is relatively easy to point to the deformations of art at the hands of politically correct left-wingers and cheap-shot moralists on the right, as the late Robert Hughes did in the fast-paced, witty series of lectures that he published as Culture of Complaint in 1993. It is far more difficult to explain why people who pride themselves on their carefully reasoned view of the world want to argue that art is not a value in and of itself, but rather a vehicle or a medium or a vessel through which some other human value or values are expressed. That these thoughts are often voiced indirectly makes them no less significant. Indeed, such thoughts may be all the more significant because they are being expressed by critics and scholars who would deny that they are in any way discomfited by the unique powers of the arts. An illiberal view of art is gaining ground, even among the liberal audience. This is one of the essential if largely hidden factors that is undermining faith in our museums, our libraries, our publishing houses, our concert halls, symphony orchestras, and theater and dance troupes.

A Novelization of the Past and a Framework for Future-Efforts

The Exchange - A Novelization of the Past and a Framework for Future-Efforts


For some time now, years actually, my family and friends have been trying to get me to write fictional stories for publication. For a long time I resisted that notion because I write non-fiction and to tell you the truth I haven’t really considered fiction to be nearly as important an effort as non-fiction since I was a kid. But they’ve kept at me, and to tell you the truth I ain’t as opposed as I used to be to the idea, and in some sense I’ve even warmed to the proposal. The idea doesn’t automatically revolt me like it used to. So I’ve started working on some fiction. And to that end I’ve had a series of ideas about some stories for some time now about which I’d like to get some opinion and feedback.

No. 1 - Basically this idea involves a series of fictional stories that take place mainly in the Byzantine Empire, in and around Constantinople, circa the eras between 790 up to about 1254 Anno Domini.

These stories mostly concern events within and around the Byzantine Empire but occasionally involve people, places, and events in Europe, the Middle East, Northern and Eastern Africa and parts of Asia. The point of the stories will involve both historical and religious/mystical/mythical events that take place during that time frame. The stories will involve an ancient Byzantine Force or Special Team (what today might be considered a Special Forces Unit), which consists of military men, ambassadors, intelligence agents and spies, and clergymen. This team will be composed of a wide variety of individuals with unique backgrounds from many parts of the Empire, including Latins, Greeks, Africans, a man from the British Isles, a Frank, an Italian, a Russian, and a former Viking who has become a convert and a monk.

This team travels throughout the Empire on a wide variety of missions including, but not limited to, military and security assignments, law enforcement, investigation of bizarre events, investigation of miracles, espionage, scouting and reconnaissance, and diplomatic and religious delegations.

The stories will also involve another world, which is geographically exactly like our world during this era, but is inhabited by different types of creatures and beings, and is the home of the Realm of Prester John. This other world, home of Prester John and his people, occasionally overlaps our world and therefore the Special Team of Byzantine Agents will encounter Prester John and his world from time to time.

The purpose of these encounters will allow the stories to explore a host of mystical, mythological, spiritual, and religious subject matter as the Christians of Byzantium encounter this other world, which the Christians at first mistake for a heavenly or paradisiacal Kingdom of God overlapping our world.

The stories will also all involve real events, characters, and places and will be as historically accurate as possible all other elements considered. The stories will explore the possibility that lying underneath apparent historical events in our world is an invisible “underworld” or “otherworld” of spiritual forces at play which men do not fully grasp, comprehend, or understand. This otherworld effects historical progress, the development of science, the course of religion and spiritual affairs, and even the products of art and technology. God technology, of various kinds and at various stages of development will be important components of these stories. I intend to develop these stories into a novel of the same basic set of materials. This will not however be alternative historical fiction. The outcome of real world historical events will not be altered, but the understanding of these events will perhaps be modified for the reader depending on what invisible or otherworldly elements are exposed in the development of the stories.

So I ask you a question. Do you as a reader think you might find such stories interesting (as a general premise) and what do you think the market might be for such a novel based upon this set of ideas?


No. 2 - As a follow-up to this idea I have for some number of years now been developing a Role playing game which is similar in some ways to Dungeons and Dragons but is set in the Byzantine Empire along the same general milieu as the idea for the novel which I sketched out above. This RPG is both an historical and Christian version of a Medieval Role Playing Game, but rather than proving just a background for personal character adventure it also explores historical events, and most especially religious and spiritual matters as related to the Christian religion, Christian morals, and the historical development of Christianity as a religion over time. In other words the idea behind it is not just the development of a “character” but through game and mission scenarios to promote "character-development" through the solving of, conquering of, or overcoming of various spiritual, moral, religious, political, cultural, and personal dilemmas.

Would you as a player or potential player of such a game find such a setting interesting and do you think a market exists for such a game to be profitable?


No. 3 - This last idea is a sort of corollary of sorts to the previous two ideas. It also involves a role-playing game that I have been developing for some time now. It involves a multi-branch, multi-service, multi-agency team of operatives drawn from US and Allied military forces (US, British, and NATO forces), various Intelligence Services, and some civilian governmental agencies such as the DEA and FBI, as well as detectives and undercover operatives from US big city police forces and international law enforcement organizations such as Interpol. This Team, which is a modern version of the Byzantine Team spoken of above travels the world engaged in anti-terrorism, counter-intelligence, intelligence, anti-criminal/anti-smuggling, law-enforcement, scouting, undercover, reconnaissance, and espionage missions.

The Team itself is actually a set of smaller three man sub-component teams that can be assembled into a larger team depending upon need, circumstance, and particular mission parameters. The Team is a fictional unit but many of the members and many of the missions are based upon my own personal experiences or based upon the experiences of friends and associates of mine. Many of the stories involving this team will explore the religious, spiritual, and moral dilemmas faced by US and allied personnel and agents when engaged in modern combat, espionage, clandestine, undercover, and law enforcement activities.

Would you as a player or potential player find such a game of interest and do you think a profitable market might exist for such a game?


Well, that’s it. Thanks for your help and Happy Easter.
Be seeing ya.


© JWG, Jr. 2007



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What's Happening?

Pesharim - What's Happening?

I'd like to apologize to my readers for not posting and contributing much to the Missal lately.
I've had an awful lot of things going on and an awful lot to do lately.

My tax structure has changed what with the house and estate and me owning more land now. So doing the taxes was no easy chore and required quite a bit of research, not only by me, but also by the people helping do my taxes. But that's all straightened out now and the taxes are all done and tucked away. Thank God, and I'm in no way being facetious.

Other than that there has been a lot of work with training and growing the puppies to kill my spare time, I've had several consulting projects keeping me hopping, I've been trying to sketch a little and also work on drawing some of the renovation plans for the house, there have been financial matters to attend to, and negotiations which will hopefully bring me some new clients and projects. I've been getting very little sleep so that has slowed me down some in addition to the extra work.

I've also got that murder case where the boy was killed by a round to the neck. I'm working some angles but so far nothing. Still I'm trying to see if I can't flush something, or somebody, out.

My wife is getting ready to go on a Mission trip for several days meaning I've also had to get things prepared for that, as it is on the week in which my oldest daughter competes at the Guild to play Beethoven's Fifth. I've been trying to make arrangements for everything from someone to house sit and to watch the puppies, to helping out with the wife's transportation and stay during her trip, and for travel to and from the competition. So it's been a real series of distractions.

I'm also getting a story about one of my cases ready to present to a Carnival this weekend (I'll be working on that tonight, and more about that later - the story will be posted to the Grapharium - I'll let you know when) and by the end of next week I plan on making my very first submission ever for one of my fictional stories. If all goes well then maybe in a few months I'll be a published fiction author. I still have a few mixed feelings about this but I'm finally ready to publish some of my fiction, and I feel pretty good about it.

I've even tried to squeeze in a little time to compose, but not on my opera or any of my symphonic works, just smaller pieces and light stuff mostly. But overall I've got both my drafting board and my work desk stacked with work, both old and new, to keep me on the slow plow and tied down. Hopefully though by this weekend I will have everything arranged and organized and some of it completed. Then by the end of February I hope to have out the latest copy of Dante's Ninth, and by mid to late March the latest copies of both The Difference Engine and Opus Magnus on-line.

And by next week I plan to get back to bogging on a regular basis.
At that time I'll be making some more improvements to the Missal and hopefully can also get out a satire piece or two.

Till then,

See ya.




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A Bit of News

Pesharim - A Bit of News

I've been invited to enter into a cooperative writing/blogging arrangement with Stingray (Michael McCullough's blog), which I intend to accept.
Actually I applied to an online invitation and was graciously accepted. Therefore I intend to make this my public declaration of acceptance. I am grateful to Michael for the invitation and appreciate the new opportunity. I feel that we have much in common personally and as he says we share an interest in mystical matters as well, so I'm looking forward to this relationship.

I've been visiting Stingray since I discovered it, enjoy it, and will gladly contribute articles and even act as a guest writer there on occasion if and when Michael needs me to do so. I am also adding Stingray to my list of Endorsements, to my Blogroll and it will be my featured Recommendation for this month.

So on Wednesdays when I normally blog on Religious matters I will be cross linking some of my Original and Personal Writings to Stingray, maybe some of my Wednesday Religious Assessment Research (I'll have to discuss that with him first), and maybe a few other related posts.

In addition I plan on Wednesdays to cross-link some of Michael's Posts on Stingray to the Missal.

I have also joined Christian Bloggers on a similar invitation and will be posting some of my articles there on Wednesdays as well as cross-linking interesting articles from that site here on the Missal.

I will continue to blog on my other subject matters of interest on the appropriate days, unless something particularly important takes precedence. I also intend to eventually accept initiations from other blog writers and blogsites (I've received a couple already) to contribute to Defense and Military and Law Enforcement blogs, and possibly to occasionally contribute to Political and Science/Technology blogs and sites as well, in addition to my normal freelance writing schedule, time and work permitting of course.

Now that I have about four to five months experience as a blogger I am coming more and more to understand the process and how best to work as a blogger. In addition as I learn more about the process of successful blogging I am making changes to my site to make it a better experience for my readers and hopefully far more useful to them as a location they might like to visit. I am also learning how to adjust my normal freelance writing style to better fit formats that are easier and more convenient for the blog reader to use and digest.

I still expect a steep learning curve over the next year or so, and I still have a lot of research to do on all aspects of blogging, but I expect to continue to improve with experience.

If any of my readers have any suggestions as to how to improve the site then of course I'll be happy to entertain your suggestions. Leave the suggestions here on site or email me as many of you normally do.


Now for something completely different. Moving into the Christmas season this is the time of year I normally rearrange things like my Goals and Objectives for the upcoming year, make resolutions, and change my prayer targets for the New Year as well. Last Sunday afternoon I had a little spare time so I went ahead and completed my Prayer Target list for 2007.

As some of you know my last grandmother died a few months back and the she is off my normal list and has instead been added to my Prayer List for Souls of the Dead, though I suspect given her life she needs my prayers for her about as much as she needs a suntan right now. Truth is, it's the other way around that would have the most beneficial effect. Still, it is my duty to her and she was my grandmother and a great woman. She doesn't need them but I owe her.

I've also added the following individuals to my personal prayer list: Michael, Drew, Bradley Stalker, Steve, Kevin (actually he's been on it awhile), Captain Thompson, Major Egland, Craig, Abby, and Cheri and her family. And Pope Benedict.

I'll also be praying for the following nations and peoples:

For the full liberty of, and for an end to oppression, war, and murder in: Iraq, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, India, China, Eastern Europe, and Russia.

For these nations to proper and be secure: Colombia (I have a foster son there), England, Italy, Germany, Canada, Kenya, and Australia.

For the United States to prosper and to be a beacon of Liberty, Virtue, Greatness, Heroism, Sacrifice, Success, Honor, Justice and Brotherhood to the rest of the world.

For my own state to proper, and for my city to continue to enjoy success and to be free of crime, corruption, and violence.


That's it for now,

Jack.

The Grapharium

Pesharim - The Grapharium

I've finally mustered an opportunity to post some of my Work Samples and Clips to my new On-Line Writing Portfolio.

It's still far from completed, but if I get a clip or sample up every day then in 20 to thirty days I can have every category filled.

Now all I have to do is get my On-Line Resume properly formatted and on-site and post the last of my recent samples and clips from previously published works.

I've been so busy lately with work, various projects, case files, internet writings, setting up my blogs and websites, church activities, and personal affairs that it has taken me much longer to complete my On-Line Writing Portfolio than I had originally anticipated. Still, it is coming together, little by little. I know the wife will be glad to see it finished.

Let me know what you think of it.
The appearance of the blog is starting to grow on me.

The Grapharium

Jack

Pesharim - Organization and Structure

Pesharim - Organization and Structure

Since I was a young fella, an early teen as a matter of fact, I've kept notebooks and sketch books of my notes, observations, ideas, experiments, sketches, designs, plans, dreams, travels, vads, cases, etc. These notebooks now house a lot of material and take up a good deal of space though recently I have compressed many of these old notes and files and matched them to my computer files on my primary system so that my notebooks and computer files all match.
No matter the subject.

But in reorganizing and collating my old notebooks it came to my attention that my notes and sketches on a myriad of subjects were all tangled and confused into huge collections without any real system of ordering or cataloguing or proper book-keeping. I was ruminating on this problem the other day and suddenly I was struck by a very simple idea. So simple that I'm amazed it has taken me so many years to think of it. The idea was this: I would divide all my efforts into separate notebooks devoted to single subjects, or to a very narrow spectrum of subject matter. That way whenever I want to consult my notebooks on the subject of my mathematical equations I can simply go to my math notebook, and if I'm looking for a poem I wrote or an idea for a non-lethal weapon then I can go to these separate notebooks and find what I want. I don't have to waste time and effort searching through a huge stack of old general notebooks to find what I want or to try to remember which particular notebook I stored a particular idea in.

I'm still keeping a General Idea Notebook to take with me everywhere but whenever I develop an idea and write it in my General Notebook I then transfer it to another notebook dedicated to the subject matter at hand, or if I'm home then I just make notes in the appropriate notebook in the first place. It's taken me months now with everything else going on to arrange this correctly but now all of my system files on all my systems, including my laptop is correlated to all of my physical files and all of my physical files are now correlated to the proper notebook on that subject. It will be almost impossible for me to waste much time now on searches or trying to remember where notes might be stored.

Finally the project is finished and this is the final result. I now have 26 separate note and sketchbooks, divided by subject matter, catalogued by type, and for use as I need them.


NOTEBOOKS, SKETCHBOOKS, JOURNALS, LOGUES and PLANBOOKS.

The following is a list of the Notebooks, Sketchbooks, Journals, Logues and Planbooks, which should be kept, and a brief description of the functions of each and what should be contained within them.

1 General Idea Book – (a sketch notebook – carried at all times in Notepack when out, otherwise kept at home) Covering all general subjects not included in or dedicated towards the specific subject matter of the notebooks below, such as general ideas on politics, chemistry, medicine, genetics, internet and web, film, photography, blog materials, newsletter(s) materials, general observations, etc. or to make notes in when ideas strike me away from home which I can then transfer to the appropriate notebook later on.

2 Writing – (a notebook) Covering all Writings, both Non-Fictional and Fictional except poetry, and also containing research and ideas pertaining to my writings.

3 Experiment’s Composition Book – (a Scientific composition notebook) Covering all aspects of my scientific experiments

4 Games Journal – (a notebook journal) Covering all invented Hard Games and Hard Game related matter and for Hard Game Transferable Skill Simulations.

5 War-Logue – (a notebook logue) Covering Anti-Criminal affairs, military affairs, intelligence and counter intelligence, cryptology, infiltration, camouflage, stealth, terrorism and counter-terrorism, espionage, psychological operations, case-work, investigations, interrogations, interviews, surveillance, weapons and non-lethal weapons design, suit design, related theories, related experiments, anticipation and prevention, law, communications, search and rescue, disaster relief, fire-fighting, research, and Justice.

6 Pocket Notebook – (a portable mini-notebook and memo pad, 3” X 5” – carried at all times in Daypack) Kept for interview, interrogation and article notations and for the making of emergency and fast notes when no other writing material is available.

7 Business Journal – (a notebook journal) Concerning Business Projects, Ventures, Enterprises, due diligence, entrepreneurism, contacts, etc.

8 Education and Homeschooling – (a notebook) Concerning subjects to study and master, general education, ideas about improving education, Personal Education Plan and Portfolio, The Renaissance Academy and homeschooling.

9 Poetry – (a notebook) Concerning poetic works, projects, experiments, forms, epic and heroic poetry, poetic sketches and proesy.

10 Investment and Capital – (a notebook) Covering investments, due diligence, venture capital, capital sources, funding projects, international investment, credit, investment and financial goals, contacts, etc.

11 Mathematics – (a composition notebook) Covering mathematical studies, formulae, equations, experiments and equations and formulae developed by myself for both mathematical and scientific projects of all kinds.

12 Music Composition – (a staff-ruled composition notebook) For the sketching of themes, melodies, harmonies, composition projects, scores, opera, song music, etc.

13 Lyrics, Librettos, Songs, Musical Projects – (a note and sketchbook) For the developing of song lyrics, librettos, and complex multi-part musical compositions.

14 Architecture and Design – (an art sketchbook) For the development of Design and Architectural projects.

15 Architectural Planbook – (a finished planbook) For completed architectural plans of all kinds.

16 Art – (an art sketchbook) For completed art drawings and final sketches.

17 General Art Sketchbook – (an art sketchbook) For the making of basic and preliminary sketches and drawings.

18 Sketch, Composition, and Design – (an art and design sketchbook) For the sketching of complex compositions and artistic designs.

19 Portable Art Sketchbook – (an art sketchbook) A portable art sketchbook for the making of sketches and drawings in the filed. Carried at all times in Notepack.

20 Comic and Graphic Novel Sketchbook – (an art sketchbook) For the making of sketches and designs and notes related to Comic Works and Graphic Novels.

21 Video Games Journal – (an art journal) An art journal and sketchbook for ideas, sketches, artwork, plots, writings and the overall design of video, computer, internet, and electronic games and Transferable Skill Simulations.

22 Religious Sketchbook – (an art sketchbook) Covering sacred art, music, liturgies, poetry, writings, materials and building designs, sermons, morals, theology, prayers, meditations, Missions Work, Ministry Projects, and Aesic Materials and Experiments.

23 Inventions Sketch Journal – (an art and note sketchbook) Concerning all inventions and invention related matters except for those inventions covered in the War-Logue.

24 Natural Science and Physics Journal – (an art and note sketch book) Concerning natural science, physics, and general science.

25 Discovery and Travel Journal – (an art and note sketchbook) Covering travels over land, fresh water, and sea, and by air, and the notes and sketches made as a result of these travels.

26 Vadding and Exploration Journal – (an art and note sketchbook) Concerning all Vadding, Rudding (Vadding in the country or wilderness), infrastructure studies, Urban Exploration and Urban Archaeology Expeditions. Notes and sketches made during these expeditions. Sometimes includes shared notes and sketches with War-Logue.

Tape Recorders and Digital Recorders – kept in the appropriate Pack (Day, Note, Vadding, Operational, etc.) or in my Offices.

Pesharim - An Update on Operations

Pesharim - An Update on Operations

First of all I would like to express my gratitude to some of those friends, among others, who encouraged me to start blogging; mousestealth, the Brothers Aggresso (both the Major and the birdman), K, and the goddess, to mention a few. I'd also like to thank my wife who encouraged me to seek greater exposure and a larger audience for my writings and other works. Let me also not forget to mention those people, like Big Al, who gave me technical advice and assisted me with research in redesigning my websites and it getting started as a blogger. Your advice and expertise was most appreciated. And lastly I'd like to thank all of those other people who shall remain anonymous because they wish to remain so who have nevertheless encouraged me to put my work and writings on the web. I have come to realize in the past couple of months that not only has blogging been of immense value to my various business projects and endeavors, it has also assisted me with personal projects, current operations, experiments and exposure for my public writings. Of course my private writings will necessarily remain uncirculated except by those who need to see them but otherwise blogging has proven itself to me as a very valuable medium in less than three months time. Combined with my other communications experiments I suspect that blogging will continue to grow as an informational tool for me. I don't know why I didn't start earlier as has been suggested to me numerous times by numerous people, but I guess in the press of other work, and I guess because of my own fears of being unable to control my products I suspected that the effort would lead nowhere good. But I am coming to realize that I was very wrong in my previous assumptions and prejudices.

Secondly I'd like to thank those people who are now reading my various public works on the web with some regularity. My readership is growing, slowly but steadily, and I appreciate it. There would be little to no purpose in presenting and posting my writings and other work without readers. So I appreciate the fact that you are there, visit and view my pages, even when you make no comment. I hope I have put some interesting stuff up so far and hope to greatly increase the variety of interesting material I present as I become more fluent with this method of presentation. I also appreciate those readers who come to my various sites and blogs with the intention of gathering information but have no intention of commenting. To me you are equally important as an invisible and unspoken audience.

Nevertheless I invite any reader to visit this or any of my other sites as they wish, comment on anything they wish if they feel like doing so and feel free to contact me regarding any current, future, or past project which might be of personal interest. Also feel free to link to any of my sites anytime you wish and if you want then send me some information about your site and if you wish I'll be glad to add your link to my List of Other Blogs which appears in the sidebar of nearly all of my blogs and websites.

In the sidebar of all of my sites you will now see that all of my sites, blogs, portfolios, and newsletters are now cross linked. All of the links should be in working order and will navigate you to any place you choose. Email and disseminated newsletters will be similarly cross-linked.

I have developed a modus operandi of how I intend to blog and operate on the web. This method will work in the following way. My on-line portfolios and business sites will be updated when new information is available or as necessary due to on-going projects. Newsletter sites will be updated every time they are published and disseminated in original form, or as corrections or additions are needed. My three newsletters are published ordinarily once a month or so, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, depending upon what is needed and necessary. My writing sites will be updated as soon as new material becomes available and can be presented in a form I feel is edited properly and refined enough for posting. Overall few of my sites and blogs are completed or in anything like a final form I am satisfied with so I will be working as quickly and as hard as possible to put them in a form with which I am satisfied. Also I will be adding new content as soon as possible and other work and circumstances permit.

However this site, The Missal, will be updated two to four times a week or more as time and work permits. Also whenever I update my other sites or run across something of real interest it will be posted here first. So, in effect, the Missal will be the Gateway through which my other sites and work pass in order to become public.

I am therefore looking to blogging as being very helpful in several different but interrelated ways.

It will be helpful with:

Information and Intelligence Gathering
Contacts and Networking: in establishing new contacts, in forming new networks, and in maintaining my old contacts and networks
Business Projects
Personal Projects and Experiments, as well as Political Projects
Gaining Exposure for my Public Writings.

There will be other unmentioned benefits too I suspect. But we'll see how that goes as time passes.

In the near future I plan on finishing some of the posts I've already started here, the multi-part ones, that I have yet to complete.

Also I plan on posting writings on the following subjects:

The Duties and Education of the Renaissance Man - probably to be posted as a multi-part essay in the Opus Magnus.
The Human Suit - probably to be posted as a theory paper in the Opus Magnus.
Individual Education Accounts - to be posted on the Renaissance Academy
Grand Political Strategy - undecided as to where I will post this

I will also be posting some accounts of various criminal cases I have worked in the past and am currently working. But since these will not be modified fictional accounts I will probably just be posting synopses minus real names and place details.

I also intend, now that I'm up and going with this site in posting summaries of some of my Vadding and Rudding Expeditions. (For those of you who do not know, Vadding is a very old hacking term for physical hacking, or what is nowadays termed Urban Exploration. Rudding is a term for Rural Hacking/Exploration. By hacking of course I do not mean cracking.)

I may also establish a public blog whose purpose is to act as a Contact and Information Gateway for people on the internet who would like to establish electronic communications with people in different parts of the world in a more detailed fashion. When I was a teenager I had pen-pals from many different parts of the world, Asia, the Soviet Union, China, Europe, South and Central America, Australia, South Africa, and other parts of Africa. I found these contacts immensely helpful and interesting in many different ways. So if I establish this site it will allow people to establish in-depth communications with people throughout the world, but it will especially be targeted in assisting young people, military personnel, and missionaries in establishing communications, contacts and friends throughout the world. I don't know, I'm gonna have to research this project a little bit and see if such a site is really needed and if so how I might structure and operate it.


In other news I saw JC today at church. He was back from his latest duty station in the Air Force. I got to meet his wife today too, and she is pretty and very nice. JC did well for himself and I'm glad to see he prospers.

My nephew Sean has also finished his Air Force tech training and has shipped out to his tour of duty in Asia. He married before shipping out and I like his wife. She seems like a fine young woman. Sean looks like he is doing very well indeed though I think he lost way too much weight in basic. He was able to attend my grandmother's (his great-grandmother) funeral before shipping out. He and Bear were both pall bearers at the funeral and personally I greatly appreciated this. He was supposed to drop by before bugging out but either he cut out without the drop by or I missed him. But I guess with the packing and everything that has been going on I can't blame him for shipping before seeing me. Anyway because of his duties prayers for his service and safety are greatly appreciated.

One last thing I'd like to mention. Rhys from New Zealand listed some of my blogs in his sidebar section of Friends of a World of Bloggers. I returned the favor by listing his blog in my Links to Other Blogs. His blog is a very interesting site with a very unusual project underway. I think he has one of the more interesting blogging projects on the web along with the Bestest Blog site. Rhys site is called A World of Bloggers. The link is: http://aworldofbloggers.blogspot.com/

As I sit here writing this I'm listening to Handel's Messiah. The music matches my elevated mood at this moment, of how I feel about these recent developments.

So I guess I'm gonna knock off while I'm at the top of my game and go watch The Wild with my daughters. They both swear it's funny.