On Faith - A new leaf?

I've noticed a few trends in myself. 1. I'm in a rut. 2. I don't write about faith. 3. I focus on things that don't matter in the long run. 4. Writing helps.

So I'm going to write things on this blog. No promises. No delusions of grandeur, but I hope it helps me and others.
Here's my thought of the moment, which began as a joke:

Those who pray to God and those who pray to Allah are trying to connect with the same entity. They just think He has a different e-mail address. Other faiths try to connect with entirely different protocols, but I think the body of their message is very similar.

vs. self Warhammer 40K trial

I don't have real Warhammer models yet, but I will! I used Heroclix as stand-ins (don't ask what I used for the Devilfish). Played this out this morning against myself. Had to check the manuals every 30 seconds so it took a couple hours. Check it out:
Tau List – 500
XV8 Shas'el
PLasma Rifle, Missile Pod
Targeting array (BS 5)
Multi Tracker (can fire two weapons in one turn)
9 fire warriors: 90
1 devilfish: 80
1 shas'vre broadside with twin-linked rail rifles: 80
1 broadside with twin-linked plasma rifles:80
10 kroot

Necron List – 500
Necron Lord w/ Solar Pulse and Gaze of Flame – 140
10 Warriors – 180
10 Warriors – 180

Let’s roll for a mission: 4, Capture and Control. Each of us will have a base to defend. I think in my previous simulations I have defaulted to the Annihilation mission.
Roll for deployment: 3, Spearhead. We roll to see who chooses the first player, 1-3 Tau, 4-6 Necron: 5, Necron chooses to go first. They must deploy in one quarter more than 12” from the center. The Tau chooses a quarter on the opposite long edge. Do the Tau units have any special rules, like Infiltrate or Scouts?

Yes, the Kroot have Infiltrate but I didn’t think of it during deployment. It wouldn’t have made much difference.

I didn’t have a full-size table (6x8) so I used what I had, 2x4. Since it was 1/3 the size, I used 1/3 the terrain. I only had 2 not 6 pieces. I made one impassable terrain and the other difficult. Since the Necrons went first, they deployed behind the difficult (swamp). The Tau deployed behind the impassable. The Tau’s Shas’El Commander and Broadsides fired plenty of shots, but the Necron casualties were negligible, and the did well on their We’ll Be Back rolls.

One unit of Necrons fired several volleys at the Devilfish before it dropped the Kroot in their faces. They only got one glance though and I don’t think the destroyed weapon result had any effect. The Kroot assaulted them but didn’t score any wounds. The Necrons retaliated and dropped two Kroot. The Kroot failed their Morale test and routed; the Necrons gunned them all down the next turn. The Devilfish turned sideways and completely blocked the pass on that side of the table, forcing all Necrons to pass the Commander and both Broadsides before engaging the Fire Warriors at the objective.

The Fire Warriors never fired a shot because, although the Necron Lord meleed the Commander for a couple turns and dropped him and the Warriors knocked out both Broadsides with Rapid Fire bursts, the Fire Warriors held their objective and the Necrons never got back to theirs. The game ended after turn 6. Tau win.

Vs. Self Heroclix tournament

I'm trying to decide which Heroclix pieces I will play at the From My Shelf/Woolverine Games Heroclix tournament Friday night 6 to 9 p.m. To that end, I divided up my pieces into eight 300-point teams and I'm playing them against each other in my free time. I'll post some pictures of the teams later in case people don't know what Heroclix look like.
Elimination Round 1 - Team Metropolis (rookie Bizarro and veteran Batman) beat The Darkseids (two rookies)
Elimination Round 2 - The Dark Knights (assorted Batmans and a Robin with two Blackfires) beat Team Gotham City (Batman enemies and a rebel Robin led by two Jokers)
For Semi-Final Round 1, The Dark Knights will take on Team Metropolis to determine who will proceed to Semi-Final Round 1.
There are four other teams I am assembling which include pieces I just bought (cheaply) on eBay. More on those later.

Reading list

I'm reading Wild At Heart, the book about how to become the adventurous man God apparently intends me to be. I thought the next step, because I'm pacing myself through the excellent but short book while I attend a monthly men's group, would be to get an instruction manual for adventure: The Dangerous Book for Boys. I hope to soon own both books, and judging by the reviews I'll want to move on to Eldredge's sequel, Way of the Wild Heart. I found a reading list which combines all of these, with a few things I want to read. I'm posting it here for my own memory as much as anything, but the list was posted by a Christian counselor here: http://www.hopeforyourfamily.com/recommended-reading/what-ive-read-recently/
The guy has good taste. His reading list started off with a writing how-to by Stephen King. I like King more than he does, and I want ot publish a novel about adventure. How can I go wrong?
There are a lot of selling points to the way of life proposed in Wild at Heart. Here's the most important part, and the truest to me: Every man spend his life thinking he is in over his head, and about to be outed by the big boys. That fear is unfounded, because all men share it even though all men are successful if they consider their most heartfelt definition of success. I don't feel adequate sometimes as a husband, father, worker, Christian, etc., yet I have stronger relationships and more to be thankful for in all those areas than many men.
I'm not too far into the book, but I know he's leading up to the idea that I, and all men, feel something is lacking in their lives. They want to fight for something worth fighting for, take risks, get bloodied, and win anyway. What would Jesus do? Exactly that. If you aren't out adventuring in life, whether it's on a dude ranch or in the office, something will always be missing because you aren't living up to the image God made you in. I don't believe all that religiously yet, but I'm starting to. I think I have a lot to gain, and then I will have a lot to pass on.

जोब्स फॉर the future

If unemployment is partly due to the fact that people aren't trained for the job market, meaning most people need more training rather than there just aren't enough jobs, then why don't we make sure everyone gets post-secondary training? Everyone gets to go to college. Then we don't have a bunch of unskilled, unemployed blue collar workers who can't handle a manufacturing slowdown. It seems like there are still plenty of jobs out there, if only our country cared enough to prepare people for them. The state and federal labor analysts have a pretty good idea what's going on with the economy, where workers are needed and what training they need.
Let the market take care of itself like it always has? Look, people don't know what jobs they need unless someone who knows can tell them. We have fully public education through high school which may not be preparing people for work, so why not have fully public education beyond that which guides people into career paths which are appropriate to them and the economy? Smart? Yes. Socialist? So what.

We need a better presidential candidate

The last NY Times article I forwarded to someone demonstrated quite well that they are not liberally biased. They counted money from some lobbyists, and said McCain is the only Senator who takes more money than Obama. Not exactly the "Captain Change" story, though I know they both spout changeisms now. "Mr. and Mrs. Maverick" have been taking all kinds of PAC money, and she campaigned on the Bridge to Nowhere initially in her first gubernatorial bid. I think Hillary, the "Woman Wonder," got out-shined in the primaries because of that word "change." It didn't stick to her, but now it's not sticking to either of the official candidates.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/us/politics/10fannie.html
On the other hand, I have a friend, a registered Democrat, who is more impressed by McCain more than Obama, simply because Obama talks more about change than his actual plan to do anything once he gets in office. Obama is losing in the specific plans department with people like my friend, and can see why.
I support Mark McCracken for Congress, and president. He says we can't fix anything domestic until we stop spending so much money overseas, cancel the Bush tax cuts, and start balancing the checkbook. I still stand by Obama, but I wish he had the power to excite me like that. The only thing my Democrat McCain-supporting friend and I can agree on unconditionally is this: the next president must balance the budget at all costs.

Republican convention comments

She came fom the pole north,
to help McCain poles headed south.
She'd polarized the election mayor,
and taken farms while running on prayer.
McCain elected and dead she'd be pharoah,
her good friends just call her Sarah.

If you don't know what I mean, read this NY Times article: Palin’s Start in Alaska: Not Politics as Usual

At the Republcan convention, Giuliani is recycling his "never run anything" lack of executive experience argument against McCain to use it against Obama and Biden. Palin is recycling the "guns and religion" argument from the primary against Obama.
A nonprofit with ties to McCain recycled the Weathermen argument against Obama. I think I've even heard a reference to Rev. Wright recently used against Obama. I hate Republicans. It's too bad they have such a solid, polarized platform and there are only two parties. Otherwise my hate would be spread out across a lot more people. I can hate you all the same if you're all the same. A diverse group moves around too much to aim at.