Yay. Three days now of rain. Finally. I have been doing visualizations that August will be a month full of rain. Here's hoping the trend continues. (Even if it means that I never get to go check out that cool pool surrounded by pine trees one fine evening in the near future...) My whole yard has been just parched this summer. Yes, after I finally got the best lawn care guy in the world -- I haven't needed him for most of the summer. Well, if we could bring down the cost of using water, then I could run my sprinkler... however. Maybe next summer.

Okay.

My first birthday gift arrived yesterday, gang! (Who knows, maybe it will be my only birthday gift this year? It is too soon to tell!!) (If you're worried, though, there is still time to FedEx me something before Sunday. Oh -- and I love flowers!!)

Anyway, the gift came from a long-time friend -- a 24-lecture DVD series on the Hysterical Jesus. Oops -- I meant the HISTORICAL Jesus. ha ha. I watched two of the lectures last night. Just fascinating stuff. You know, when you examine the misleading "facts" of the New Testament, along with the various interpretations of who Jesus was before "Christianity" -- basically he is believed to have been just a Jewish guy, an apocalyptic believer, who wandered around, encouraging all people -- men, women, old, young, freemen, and slaves -- to know themselves and to keep the covenant of the "One (Jewish) God" -- it is kind of a miracle that Christianity became what it did to Western Civilization. (That is both good and not so good.)

That said, though -- it is "a miracle" that an estimated 1 billion people in the world today consider themselves Christians. And they have an estimated 1 billion different ways of believing in Christ. All of this, based on stuff that 99.9% can't be proved one way or the other. That really is, in and of itself, a miracle. And miracles fascinate me, folks.

The control of information also fascinates me. How information is used. (I'm using it right now, in fact!) How the courses of history are grooved. How and why.

And what is faith; and isn't it interesting how we always find what we believe we will find if we look for it.

On that note... my transcripts from Fordham University in New York City, arrived at my humble Christian college here yesterday. So it is official!! That's right: I do not have to take the dreaded English Comp 101 again!!!! Yay. And when I saw those transcripts, I thought to myself: Wow, how cool: I was getting a 3.85 GPA... But then I remembered vividly how pissed off I was when my grades arrived, back in New York in 1993, and I hadn't gotten a 4.0. (I had problems with my English Comp professor in those days. We always locked horns because he felt I wasn't applying myself; that I could to lots better than just "phoning it in." Which was true. However, I was also taking Physics at the time and it totally fascinated me; I studied it 24/7 and every once in a while managed to scribble down an assignment for the boring-beyond-belief English Comp class...)

Anyway. So it is official. School starts in about 12 days. And in 12 days and 36 months, I will be able to assume a position of ministry in a local church. (Although I don't intend to stop there.) Whether or not a church will have me remains to be seen!! Okay , I gotta scoot gang. My sister just walked in the door! (Sorry for any typos!!)