A lot has happened since I last posted anything.  Mainly, it's been a while because I've been busier than a soccer mom on black Friday.  My dad and I put a new engine, transmission, and front end in the DeSoto; then I graduated, took a 2 month backpacking tour through Europe, moved to Florida, and started "working" for the real Air Force.

I'm taking a comparative religion class which requires me to visit religious services from different faith backgrounds than my own.  For my first visit, I went to a Jewish service.  For my second visit, I went to an Islamic ceremony.  I figured I'd post my experience here for all to see:

            With all the media attention focused on Islam since 2001, I started to feel like I should learn more about it.  A few months ago I finished reading the Qur’an, but I still did not understand how Islam was much different from Judaism.  Both claim the same deity and the same biblical history laid out in the Christian “Old Testament”.  The only textual basis I could find for a potential theological conflict was the prophet Muhammad claimed by Islam.  The Qur’an states that Muhammad passed on the word of God.  While Jews might disagree with the source of Muhammad’s inspiration, I could never find anything he said that would conflict with Jewish teachings.  I was left wondering why there is so much conflict between Judaism and Islam when this passage from the Qur’an even claims the Torah and the Gospel as moral guides sent down by God:

“Step by step, He has sent the Scripture down to you [Prophet] with the Truth, confirming what went before: He sent down the Torah and the Gospel earlier as a guide for people…” (Qur’an, book of “The Family of ‘Imran” verse 3)

It became my hope that I would understand the differences between Judaism and Islam more by visiting each of their services.

            The first thing I noticed when I entered the room dedicated for Islamic services was that I was asked to remove my shoes.  This was just to show respect for the sacred space of the chapel area.  Throughout the day, your shoes get dragged through the dirt and mud so removing them before you enter the chapel is a way of not defiling it.  Islam is built around a very deep respect for God.  Taking your shoes off before entering a place devoted to his worship is just one of the many ways Muslims show that respect.

            The word “Islam” literally means devotion to God.  I felt that the name accurately describes the religion.  Muslims are required by Sharia (Islamic law) to face Mecca and pray five times daily.  Sharia law also requires Muslims to attend a formal service for the noon prayer on Fridays.  By comparison, Islam seems to mandate a closer relationship with God than the other Abrahamic religions.  Before the prayer, there was a formal call to worship sung by one of the attendants.  During this call to worship everybody would stand, bow, and sit in unison while only one person sang.  Afterward, everybody knelt with their forehead on the ground for a few minutes to pray.

            I asked about some of the motions during the call to worship.  I was told it is just a way to consecrate the prayer time and open up a direct channel to God.  At one point, everybody made a waving motion behind their head.  It was explained to me that this was to represent pushing everything else out of your mind so the prayer would be completely undistracted.  The kneeling stance taken during prayer also symbolizes submission to God.

            After the prayer came a few readings from the Qur’an and a brief sermon on Sharia law vs. Muslim law.  All of the readings were in Arabic, and most were also in English.  I don’t know why the readings were in Arabic, but I assume it was because Arabic is the original language of the Qur’an.  Presumably, maintaining the use of the original language assures that congregants will always have access to the original message passed down by Muhammad.  The part I found really interesting though was the sermon.  One thing that really struck me is that it was formatted like a persuasive essay, and constructed around the thesis that Muslim law is a dilution of Sharia law. 

He argued that the guidance passed down in the Qur’an is unambiguous and clearly explains that Muslims should not do things such as drink alcohol or have extra-marital sex.   He said that Muslim law would also prohibit these things if it maintained the true spirit of Islam; however, he argued that Muslim law did not maintain the spirit of Islam and was obviously an inferior version of Sharia law.  This argument also made it clear that Islam does not distinguish between religious law and state law.

As the name suggests, Islam is intensive on devotion and submission to God.  It is most important to follow the laws laid out by God through Muhammad.  Understanding the law is important, but even if you don’t understand, it is vital to follow the law.  Like many other religions, the importance of tradition is emphasized over its meaning.  The meaning of the traditions and laws offered to me when I asked was generally something to the effect of “because God said so.” 

I find it surprising that Judaism and Islam can claim the same God and even many of the same books, but still evolve as such diverse methods of practice.  Both religions orient themselves around devotion and obedience to God.  Both religions even contain strict dietary restrictions and mandate circumcision without a clear explanation for why God mandates it.  Islam seems to be more focused on prayer while Judaism is heavily focused on reciting biblical readings.  Based solely on observing the practices of Muslims as compared to Jews, conflict would seem reasonable because the ways they devote themselves to God look very different.  After visiting a service from each tradition though, I feel like understanding the persistent Islam-Judaism conflict is farther out of my reach.  It seems to me that the real conflict might lie in the obvious cultural differences instead of the theological ones.

Finally, the much anticipated tale of bodily harm.

The Thumb:
So there I was, standing in the hallway.  I was hanging out with a girl named Storm from my squad.  I had only really gotten to know her a few days earlier, but we were getting along really well.  Lo and behold, she found out that I was ticklish and that it's really funny to watch me squirm when you poke me in the ribs.  She proceeded to do so, and an onslaught of tickling commenced.  At one point, she jabbed me with her left hand and I jammed her forefinger.  At another point, I smacked away her hand before it made contact forcefully enough to leave a bruise.  I want to make it clear that I'm not normally so abusive.  It's just that my sister always used to tickle me and still does.  You could say that over the years, I've been conditioned to react a bit forcefully at the threat of involuntary laughter. 

The most significant thrust of the evening was next.  She successfully penetrated my defenses and poked me in the ribs.  The squirm that followed was a fast one.  I twisted back and accidentally caught her thumb between my elbow and hip bone.  I heard a loud popping noise which I thought was just her knuckle popping.  She said it really hurt and I thought I had jammed another finger.  At this point we agreed that the tickling should stop.  But apparently Storm is a slow learner because she started up a few minutes later.  With much restraint, I managed to overcome years of conditioning and calm the degree of my reflexes.  She kept complaining about how bad her thumb hurt all evening.

The next morning, it still hurt pretty bad and her roommate talked her into going to the hospital to have it checked out.  She got X-rays and hilarity ensued.  The doctor came back and told her two things.  First: that her thumb was broken.  Second: that she should "milk it for all it's worth."  When she learned this, she told me, and she told her mother.  Now to illustrate my gift for impeccable timing, it's important to explain that she learned her thumb was broken on the Friday of parents' weekend.

Within a few hours, I had the privilege of meeting Storm's mom and little sister.  It's without a doubt, the most interesting way I've ever introduced myself.  "Hello, my name is Casey.  I'm really sorry I broke your daughter's thumb."  Her mom forgave me, but her little sister didn't.  All day I had a cute little 9-year old shaking her fist at me and telling me "You better stay away from my sister!"

It's probably the strangest way I've ever started off a friendship, but it's working pretty well so far.  Storm's mom loves me because I've been spending every waking moment nursing her daughter back to health.  Soon I'll post photographic evidence of my selfless commitment to her recovery.

            The other day, I decided to go to a Jewish service.  I did this partly because I’m in a comparative religion class which requires its students to visit services of faiths they’re not familiar with.  I also did this partly because I’m just curious.  A lot of the Jewish people I’ve met seem really friendly, and I’ve always gotten the impression that Judaism was a very devoted religion.  I guess it may have helped that I knew the Rabbi fairly well, and he seems like a really nice person.

            I had always thought that I knew what Judaism was all about.  I was raised Catholic and we dealt with the Old Testament every service.  I always just figured that Catholicism grew as an offshoot of Judaism so they should be pretty similar.  I expected that the Jewish service would be pretty similar to a Catholic mass, except for the readings from the New Testament and communion.  I was in for quite a surprise.

            As I walked up to the synagogue, a couple greeted me with “Shabbat Shalom.”  I was caught a bit off guard because I’m not used to hearing Hebrew.  After I told them that it was my first time attending a Jewish service, they explained that Shabbat Shalom simply means “Peaceful Sabbath” and that it’s a traditional Jewish greeting.  While we were talking, I took the opportunity to ask the couple if there was anything special I needed to know so I wouldn’t offend anybody.  They told me that I should put on a yamaka, but that I didn’t really need to know anything else.

            I was surprised that the Rabbi didn’t seem to perform a very active role in the service.  He mainly handled introductions and told people what was coming next.  Most of the readings were led by ordinary people who regularly attended the service.  I was also surprised to see that all of the readings were in Hebrew.  Since I don’t know any Hebrew, I followed along using the English translation in the prayer book.

            I noticed that all of the prayers seemed to have a very calm tone.  Rather than asking God for what you want, the theology seemed to focus on praising God and trusting him to take care of you.  The difference is a subtle one, but sets a hugely different attitude.  The impression that I got of the Jewish mindset is one of selflessness.  The Christian prayers that I’ve said and heard over the years have usually focused on asking God for support, while the Jewish prayers that I saw that night focused on complete devotion to God and gratitude for his work.

            Another thing that I noticed was the strong sense of community.  When the Rabbi spoke to the congregation, he emphasized the unity amongst all Jews.  After the service, we all shared dinner and I took the opportunity to listen to what a few of the congregants had to say about their practice:

            “There’s an important difference between Christian families and Jewish families.  In a Christian family, when the kids hit 18, their mother says ‘I think it’s time for you to get your own place.’  In a Jewish family, when the kids are 25 they say ‘I think it’s time I for me to get my own place.’ and their mother asks why her house isn’t good enough anymore.”  That was probably the most memorable thing that I heard all night.  While the Jewish woman who said it was joking, it still emphasized the unity and sense of community that I noticed.  I think the purpose of holding the service in Hebrew was partly to express their ties to the other Jewish communities all over the world.

            While I don’t think one can really understand a religion without practicing it for a while, I feel like I understand Judaism a lot better than I did before.  I no longer think of it as a truncated version of Christianity, and I think I’ve begun to understand the very giving attitude that I notice from Jewish people I know.  I’m very glad that I attended this service, and in a way I feel closer to everyone else who was at the service that evening.

***Coming Soon:  Broken thumbs and drug barons.

I've been thinking about the whole religion thing a lot lately.  Right now I consider myself a Buddhist.  I've been practicing Buddhism for a little over a year now and it feels right for me.  When I first stumbled on it, I realized that it was just a religion that matched up with what I already believed.  I've maintained a curiosity about religion for quite some time now and I've learned quite a bit in my research.  I've gotten into quite a few religious debates and I've gotten to the point where I don't really enjoy them anymore.  I think I've heard the major points on each side of the argument and people tend not to listen when you're disagreeing with them on the foundation of their life and belief system.  I still enjoy religious discussions, where both parties are just legitimately interested in the other person's viewpoint and neither is trying to convert or "save" the other.  That's not what I want to write about right now though.  I'd like to talk about my slow digression from Christianity.

I was raised Catholic.  I did the whole first communion, first confession thing.  When I was really young I loved the faith and was about as devout as it gets.  At the time I thought it was perfectly amazing and I was really happy with it.  I also had a basic idea that everything was interconnected and we were all part of some greater whole than the sum of its individual parts.  I was confused that other people didn't seem to agree with my unity idea because it seemed like such common sense to me.  Nobody had ever taught me that, I just knew it was true for as long as I could remember.  This kind of idea caused me to start asking questions.

I stuck with the devout Catholicism thing up through early high school (~14 years) and eventually I started to feel dissatisfied.  I had so many questions and nobody could give me answers that I thought made sense.  I started with the basic questions about how to understand the Bible, because it didn't make much sense if you took it literally.  Earth, made in 6 days?  What about dinosaurs?  I'm pretty sure that's where it started, then the more complex ideas of whether it's ever moral to break the commandments.  During this time in my life, I would get into religious debates and adamantly defend the belief in God and the other teachings of Christianity.  When I encountered people who were atheists, I thought they were ignorant and obviously just didn't have the same knowledge that I did.  So to answer my questions and learn better how to convert others, I started reading the Bible.  I started with one of those little ones that people hand out by high schools, so that meant starting with the gospels.  A little way into the gospels, I felt like I needed more background to fully understand so I decided to get a full-blown Bible and start reading the old testament first.

As I started with reading the Bible cover-to-cover, I got involved with the New-Life type of evangelical Christianity.  Catholicism didn't have the burning passion that I wanted from my faith, but I found that passion and devotion with the YoungLife program and the local evangelical church.  I got involved with an evangelizing program, reaching out to local middle schoolers.  After a year or so of that though, I realized that I had no right to push my religion on others.  By this time, I had realized that there was no scientific proof for my beliefs and as such, I didn't feel right pushing others to accept it.  I still though it was fine to gently persuade people when they came to me with questions, but evangelizing didn't seem moral to me.  Around the same time I began to realize that there are good atheists.  That's right, these godless heathens could be upstanding, moral, ethical, valuable members of society.

About the same time I fell away from the evangelist lifestyle, I began questioning other things.  There were some teachings in the Bible that just didn't make sense and seemed flat out wrong.  Of course if I just understood a little better, everything would fall into place and I would feel better right...  So I prayed more and more.  Every night, without exception, I would read from the Bible and pray.  Most of the time I prayed to God to help me understand, answer my questions, and eventually, I prayed that he would help me regain my lost faith.  I was terrified, because as I lost my faith, I knew I was more and more likely to go to Hell and burn for eternity.  I think this is one reason, I was so hesitant to leave the Christian faith.  I was literally terrified of going to Hell.

Over the years this praying for understanding and help in maintaining my faith, it still faded.  The teachings of the Bible as the word of God made less and less sense, my belief that the head honcho existed faded, in short the Bible killed my faith.  I eventually realized that the Bible only made sense if it was interpreted as something written by and for mankind.  About this time, I left for college. 

This was actually a great thing for my religious strength.  Since I came to the Air Force Academy, I started off with basic training.  For those who have been through basic training, you know that it can be a rough time.  Many people have their faith strengthened during this time because it can be very helpful to turn to a god for emotional and spiritual support.  I’d like to clarify here: nobody at the academy pushed religion on me.  Basic training was just a rough time and I felt personally like I needed God’s help.  Unfortunately, that effect began fading even before the end of basic training.

During my freshmen year, I continued to struggle to keep my faith.  I kept praying for better understanding, stronger faith, and all that jazz.  I don’t think I gave up on God until some time around the end of my freshman year.  It was terrifying for me to take that giant leap from faith, but I basically figured that there was one of three possibilities.  The first possibility was that God didn’t exist.  I felt that the evidence leaned this way.  The second possibility was that God did exist and being the benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent being that he was, he would understand not believing in him considering the evidence.  The last possibility was that God would not forgive a lack of faith.  If this was the case, that meant that God would condemn many people who I thought were “good” people.  If God was so egocentric that he would damn people just for not having blind faith, he didn’t seem like someone I’d want to spend eternity with.  So now I was left with three possible explanations of God, none of which inclined me to believe in him.

So around the beginning of my sophomore year, I felt essentially atheistic or agnostic.  Releasing my futile clinging to a dead faith, I actually felt a lot better.  It was incredibly freeing to let go of this.  Now despite having lost my religion, I kept reading the Bible because I still wanted to finish it.  I finished it right around the end of my sophomore year.  Since this shift, my belief in God has not changed.  I don’t deny other people’s right to believe in something that I’ve fallen away from.  However, if they try to convert me after I’ve asked them to stop, I’m going to get pissed.

There are still some funny things though.  Even though I don’t believe there would be any “sin” associated with “taking God’s name in vain” or colloquially, “dropping the GD” I don’t feel comfortable saying it.  In my life, I have never said it…ever.  It seems strange to me that as an atheist/agnostic I don’t say GD while some of my very devout Christian friends aren’t bothered by its use enough to stop themselves.  I’m not trying to say that I’m a better person, but it’s interesting to point out.

I just posted some info at desoto.org about woodgraining so I figured I'd post a picture of the final product here.

http://desoto.org/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=2363&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

for the discussion on woodgraining

I'll start with the important stuff.  My car handled a highway trip just fine.  Last Sunday, I decided to drive my car up to school from Pueblo.  I think my parents and I were all pretty nervous because my car had never endured highway speeds for longer than 5 minutes before.  One thing that I did before the trip, was change the oil.  I'm really glad that I did.  I wasn't too concerned about it because the guy who I bought it from said that he changed the oil when he got it.  I didn't think that he had driven it very much so I didn't expect it to need an oil change, but I figured that I didn't know exactly how much he had driven it, so I'd err on the side of caution.

When I yoinked the plug on the crankcase, the oil that came out was black as night, but that wasn't much of a surprise.  I also thought that I saw a few flecks of metal or something in it.  Bad signs, but not surprises.  The surprise came when I went to change the oil filter.  It's a different style of filter than most modern cars have now; it's a cartridge that sits inside a permanent metal can.  Well, the metal can was stuck shut because it had been left closed for far too long.  And the filter cartridge was a rusted chunk of crap.  Yeah, that's right, rusted.  Iron doesn't rust when it's sitting in oil, so obviously this filter had been in there from the time when this car was sitting in someone's barn or field with the oil slowly leaking out of it for years on end.  This filter was probably older than me.  That was disappointing because the guy I bought the car from seemed to know better than to change the oil and leave the old filter.

After removing the filter I found years and years worth of engine sludge and metal shavings inside the canister.  Again, a bad sign but not a surprise.  I did some extensive cleanup work and tracked down a new oil filter (I love NAPA), then filled the green machine with fresh oil.  When I started her up, she seemed to run a little smoother, a little quieter, and produce a bit more power.  I even gained about 20 psi of oil pressure.  It just goes to show that a little maintenance will pay off big time.

The car held its own pretty darn well on the drive up here, even though it was working against a big time altitude change and a pretty constant 75 mph it did a great job.  I'm proud of my car.  At first I stopped every ten minutes or so to do a quick walk-around and make sure that nothing was blatantly wrong.  But after doing that 3 times without finding anything, I decided to plug along and did just fine for the next 50 miles or so.  Thank you car.

Now on the issue of spirituality.  I've had a few people mention to me lately that they believe Buddhists are pacifists, and that there seems to be a conflict between that and a military life.  I can't claim to speak for anybody except myself, but this issue has come up quite a bit during our discussions at services.  Now while I'm sure there are some Buddhists who undertake a pacifist lifestyle, that's not generally a necessity for Buddhism as I understand it.  I don't think there are many people who would argue that you don't have a right to defend yourself and others.

Nonetheless, one of the grave precepts of Buddhism (similar to the commandments) is the vow of not killing.  Obviously, a military profession is not the most effective way to prevent yourself from killing others.  But as a Buddhist, you take responsibility for the well-being of every sentient being.  So if I allow somebody to be killed, I still hold myself responsible for that death.  Now is the rough part.  By taking responsibility for that death, I take away any chance I have of making "the right" decision in that situation.  If I have the choice of killing one person, or letting him kill other people, I will be a killer no matter what I do.  My choices are to do a wrong thing by letting him kill, or do a wrong thing by killing him.  I'm left to choose the lesser of two evils, or the best mistake.

If I sit back and absolve yourself of guilt by not taking action, I am being selfish. I am removing my guilt by shirking responsibility just so I can feel better about myself.  How can I justify killing as a Buddhist?  I can't.  Like it or not, ethics are complex.  To believe that there will always be a clear right and wrong is naive.  Sometimes, people will just have to bite the bullet and make the best of a bad situation.

I just got back from Christmas break and I had a great time let me tell ya.  I had three weeks off for winter leave.  I spent most of those tinkering with my car and laying around the house.  The car is working well and my dad tinkered with it a bit so now all four gears work.  The only remaining problem is that there's no kickdown control for the transmission.  This is just a throttle-activated switch that will drop the transmission down in gear if you push the gas in while you're in a high gear.  As is, my car is driveable and I can take it on the road just fine, but that kickdown switch will allow me to accelerate a lot quicker while I'm merging and stuff like that.  My dad also built an adapter plate to let me mount a CD player in the dash using the space where the old AM radio's speaker went.  Since we changed over the whole electrical system (6 volt positive ground to 12 volt negative ground) I can't think of any way to hook up the old AM radio/speaker anyway.

Now I've got a CD player with four speakers which will be very nice.  I didn't go with anything too fancy because it's such an old car that it would probably be easy to break into.  It also didn't seem right to put a monster system in such a classy old car.  I'm sure you can visualize a 1952 DeSoto cruising along with throbbing subwoofers shaking the car apart.  Yeah, it just isn't right. 

My neighbor also came by and installed the headliner.  Or tried to.  It turns out that the headliner he made is a bit too big.  One section specifically seems to be the culprit.  I'm thinking that he'll just have to trim a few inches out of that one section, re-sew it, and it'll fit like a glove.  So I'm frustrated that the upholstery still isn't done.  Originally he told me that it should take about 5 or 6 weeks.  He's been working on it now for over four months.  I think that he's frustrated that he's not done too.  Alas, it shouldn't be a surprise really because he's a beginner to interior work and he's doing the work for less than I would pay a regular upholstery shop.  I guess those shops take a long time too so looking at the big picture I think I'm coming out pretty even.  I was going to drive my car back from break but he told me that if I leave my car there, he can finish it this week.  I would really love to go back home this weekend and find my car totally upholstered, with seats, carpet, headliner and all.  On the upside, I put in the doorpanels that he made for me and they look really good.  The tan color of the cloth works really well with the brown and woodgrain color of the dash and trim pieces.

I've also been working on repairing my steering wheel.  It's a metal core that was originally covered with a sort of plastic resin.  Well over 56 years, a lot of the plastic broke off and what's left is cracked and brittle.  I was going to try covering it with polymer clay, which I think would look really neat.  Sadly, when I tested some of the steering wheel resin, I found out that I can't bake it, so the clay option is out.  What I'm trying now is some body filler.  Traditionally it's used to help smooth out small dings and scratches in the body of a car.  I figured it might work pretty well for building a steering wheel so I've applied a few coats and sanded and shaped it until it's got the shape I think I want for the spokes.  Then I'm going to try to use some rubber hose to get the right thickness for the wheel part.  Next, I'm either going to use fiberglass to cover the rubber hose and paint it, or just get a steering wheel cover.  I'll have to think on that for a while  I guess.

Over break my parents also decided to send my sister and I to Cancun for a few days.  They said that it's getting hard to shop for us so they decided to get us a trip.  We didn't actually stay in Cancun, we stayed on Isla Mujeres which is a little island off the coast of Cancun.  It was a nice opportunity to lounge around on some beaches.  There's not a whole lot to do there, which is fine by me because I'm more of a beach bum anyway.  When I did travel through the island's city area, it was like a small tropical version of Pueblo.  I had a good time, but if I was going to do it again, I wouldn't bother checking out any of the island's attractions, I'd just hang out on the beach a lot.

So there's an update for those of you that I haven't talked to lately.  Here are a few pictures of my car's progress.  Hopefully, I'll be able to post some final pictures within a week.

Thought you might like to know that I have gotten my car running and driving.  In fact, I spent most of yesterday afternoon driving it around town.  Between fiddling with the clutch, choke, brake, gas, steering wheel, and shifter all at once it stalled on me a few times and it's going to need some work.  I felt kinda like I was learning to drive stick all over again, but this time was a lot harder.  Imagine learning to drive stick, but you have to double clutch when you shift.  Now imagine that along with the fact that reverse, 1st, and 2nd are all in the same place.  Yeah, you have to shift out of first, then back into the same place for second.  Throw in some uncooperative blinkers and an engine that doesn't want to idle at the right speed and you've got a recipe for fun.

It'll need some work before I can drive up to springs and keep it at school.  For example, it will be nice if we can get it to shift into fourth gear so I can go over 50 mph.  It's nice though to be at a point where I can actually drive my project.  I love the way it looks even though I still have a few pieces of chrome to put on and all of the upholstery left to install.  We'll see how it goes.  Here are a few pictures for you.

I'm totally psyched (pardon the 90's throwback) because I finally have the grille mounted on my car.  And in the case of a 1952 DeSoto, the grille is the defining trait of the car.  A lot of Mercury guys like to buy DeSoto grilles to mount on their "leadsleds" because it's just that awesome of a grille.  It has all of it's shiny teeth that just look amazing and if you can't tell I'm really excited to finally see it on my car after being replated.  Bit by bit, the car seems to be coming together and I'm pumped to finally drive it.

Now to completely break up any sort of continuity I figured I'd go on about something that's been on my mind a bit lately.  Since I've been at this school, I've literally trusted people with my life quite a few times.  These people were other cadets.  During basic training, one of the obstacles on one of the courses we did was called the "Tiltin Hilton" and it can be rather spooky if you're afraid of heights.  Beyond being spooky, it can also be very dangerous if you do it wrong.  The obstacle is basically a bunch of platforms stacked on top of each other.  You have to get to the top by throwing your team mates up to the next level, then they throw you and so on.  If someone does it wrong, you could end up plummeting a few stories to either death or significant injury.  It's strange to think that I did this with a bunch of people that I had only known for about a month.  I was responsible for their lives as they were for mine.  It's even crazier when you think that the whole thing was organized, briefed, and monitored by other cadets.  I still haven't heard of anyone ever getting hurt on that obstacle.

Another time that comes to mind is when I did the parachuting program after my freshman year.  I met a few other people in my class and we were all taught by a cadet how to jump out of planes and live.  If that junior on the parachuting team didn't know her stuff down pat, I could easily have ended up getting tangled in my parachute's lines and falling a few thousand feet to become a pancake.  But she knew her stuff, and she knew how to teach it.  She taught us how to stay stable in the air so that our parachute would deploy properly to save our lives.  Because she taught us so well, I wasn't even nervous my first time up.  I had complete confidence in the capabilities of the USAFA parachuting team.  I trusted them with my life and it rocked.

The final example that's fresh in my mind is the glider program here.  You hop into a tiny little glider with no parachute and a tow plane takes you up a few thousand feet in the air and lets you go.  There are plenty of things that can go wrong, rope breaks, stalls, glider malfunctions, and if your instructor doesn't know how to handle those issues you can both die.  Add to that the fact that the student doesn't know what they're doing at first and that means that the instructor has to know exactly what you're likely to screw up.  Not only do they have to know what's going wrong and how to fix it, they have to know which approach to take depending on altitude and the plane's orientation.

It's kinda like doing trust falls, except that instead of a half dozen people ready to catch you, there's one.  And instead of falling a few feet over some grass, you jump out of a building over a spike pit.  Trusting my life to my peers is almost commonplace to me now.  I don't expect that most people around here think about that very much, but having that kind of trust in the people around you and their abilities really says something about this school.  It's one of those subtle, yet significant things that makes me love it here.

I know this might seem kinda random but last Saturday, I had quite an amazing experience.  I got to ride Elanore's grand-daughter.  That's not as dirty as it sounds though.  By Elanore, I mean the Shelby GT 500 from Gone in 60 Seconds and her grand-daughter is a brand new 2008 Shelby GT 500 with 500 horses under the hood.  Believe it or not, a friend of mine recently got one and I got to tag along with him while he took it out for a spin.  He didn't do anything too crazy because he had just gotten it and the roads were wet.  If I had that car, I'd definitely get myself into trouble, so I guess it's a good thing that it's his car instead.  I'll just have to bum rides off of him a lot so I can spend some quality time with his car.

I guess that pretty much sums it up.  It's starting to look like I'll have it done around Thanksgiving break.

Last weekend, I finally got some paint on my car.  My dad and I painted the roof and it came out awesomely.  I got a really light creamy green color for the top and I'm going with a medium tone of green for the bottom.  I painted the base coat, or the color on the top.  Then my dad put the clear coat on top of that to make it really nice and shiny.  There are a few spots in the paint where a spec of dust or a gnat landed in it, but we didn't have many.  My dad says that whenever you paint a car, you always get a few specs in the finish and this paintjob doesn't have very many.  Also on the up side, neither of us put any runs in it.  When I painted the inside, there are a few spots where I put the paint on too thick and got some drizzles, but most of the paint on the inside will be covered up anyway so it's no biggie.

Hopefully next weekend I can finish up some sanding and finally spray the rest of the car with the final color!  Maybe, I can even start hooking up the new wiring and re-assembling the rest of the car.  After that I'll just get it upholstered and slap some tires on it, then drive the beauty around.  I'm even starting to think about dropping a V-8 in it next summer but I guess we'll see how that goes.

School's also been going pretty well.  Pretty busy, but pretty well nonetheless.  I'm an element leader which means that I'm responsible for keeping track of 8 other people.  So far it doesn't seem too bad, but I've got to make sure that  my freshmen stay up to speed on their military knowledge.  Depending on what other stuff we're doing, I'm sometimes responsible for organizing exercises and making sure that everyone completes whatever training they need to do.  I also signed up to work a program called reconditioning or Recondo for short.  I basically keep track of people on athletic probation and run them through workouts to help them get in better shape.  It's a pretty time consuming job because we meet three times a week for about 2 hours each day.  I like it though because it's got a very tangible purpose and outcome.  My third job is standardization/evaluation NCO, which means I'm partly responsible for grading knowledge tests and inspecting rooms.  I didn't expect that job to be much of a time commitment but last night it surprised me with a couple hours of grading.

I think I'm going to drop stan/eval because 3 jobs on top of being a physics major is taking a lot of time.  This is the first significant chunk of free time that I've had during the week since the semester started.  I guess it's my fault anyway because I also go to two religious groups each week.  I go to the Buddhist group because I've noticed that it helps me calm down, and approach situations more appropriately.  It also helps me understand myself and others better.  New this year, I've been going to a Neo-Pagan meeting each week too.  They had a stand set up at a barbecue a few weeks ago and I checked it out because it was the only religion I didn't know anything about.  I don't particularly subscribe to any of it, but it's very interesting to learn about unfamiliar religions.  I'm not sure how long I'll keep going, maybe until they've told me everything they've got to say or maybe it'll just stick like the Buddhist group did.  Right now I'm the only cadet who shows up so I get one-on-one edification which is nice, but I almost feel like I'm wasting their time.  I guess they want to run the group and having one person show up each time justifies running the group long enough for other folks to come. 

It's funny after being raised in a church that taught the trinity as the only way to salvation, to learn that most other religions are pretty much the same.  For the most part, they all seem to have pretty much the same ideas about morality.  They all just have different stories and ideas for where morality originated from.  The Bible paints non-Jews and non-Christians as a bunch of murderous evil-doers.  Now I'm learning that they really aren't that bad, and in most cases are more tolerant of different people, lifestyles, cultures, and belief systems.  It's really funny to find out how common virgin birth stories, flood stories, and creation stories are between the different religions.  It's really too bad that my psychology of religion class got canceled this semester.

Until next time: Peace, love, respect, and whatever gets you there.

Well I finished up my third summer here at the grand ol' Air Force Academy.  In the last few days of Ops AF, I managed to tag along on a tanker mission to Hawaii.  We started with a straight shot from New Jersey to Oahu island Hawaii.  The flight was ten hours long and I am pretty sure that I slept for at least nine of them.  We spent just over a day in Hawaii which gave me a chance to see the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor, spend a few hours on the beach, and drive along the coast with a couple other cadets.  Early the next morning I helped load a few tons of cargo onto our jet until we were just 4,000 lbs short of max takeoff weight (max is 590,000 lbs).  When that was done we flew six hours to Luke AFB in Arizona acting as a mobile gas station for 6 F-16's (fighter jets).  It was pretty cool to watch them fly so close to us while our plane extended a boom (it's a big pole that connects to the receiver to pass gas) right into a receiver on their plane.  We stayed about three days in Arizona because of a minor electrical problem then went back to New Jersey.  Two nights later I was back at the academy again.  I still don't think my body knows which timezone it's in.

Last night, there was a big dinner for every junior at the Air Force Academy to celebrate a special occasion.  For me that occasion will occur in one hour.  The first class I go to today will kick off my junior academic year.  By going to that class, I will be legally agreeing with the Air Force that I will spend two more years at the academy, graduate, and serve at least five years as an officer afterward.  I expected to be a bit nervous about the fact that I am making such a hefty commitment, but that has not been the case.  Instead I feel a calm sort of happy confidence that I made the right choice.

Coming in, I wasn't sure that I would mesh with the military lifestyle and the fact that one day I might be personally responsible for killing somebody, or many sombodies for that matter.  In the past few years, I've been trying to figure out where I stand spiritually and religiously and part of that was wondering whether I could agree with killing somebody who --just like me-- will believe that they are doing the right thing.  I've thought about it long and hard and I know it won't be easy if/when I'm ever in that situation.  I know it sounds too simple, but in the words of General T. Michael Moseley (Chief of Staff USAF) "Some folks just need killin'."

I'm excited about the next two years I have here at the academy, and I'm looking forward to working in "the real Air Force" after that.  I think I've figured out the morality of killing, for myself anyway.  I figure that it's most important to have a damn good reason for killing.  Killing should never be the goal, but only the means.  I also believe that you shouldn't kill for anything that you wouldn't be willing to die for.  So if you look at Iraq right now, we're killing a few people because it will keep thousands others safe.  Hopefully, it will also allow those people to live freely.  You might believe that the war in Iraq is just for oil.  You might believe that it's a conspiracy since they never found WMD's.  You might believe that it's a total waste of money, and more importantly, lives.  But the fact is that most Iraqis are damn happy that we're there.  We are doing great things for entire nations.  To do those things it is necessary to kill bad guys, but I believe that if we do it right, we can help it become a more peaceful area.

People at the academy give me a hard time for wearing a bracelet with a peace sign on it.  They call me a hippie because I tell them that I love everybody.  And that's fine.  I think it's important to remember why we're killing people.  We shouldn't want to kill, but we should accept that sometimes it is a necessary step.  We don't help the good guys to kill the bad ones.  It's the other way around.  I came to the academy because freedom is the most important thing to me.  It's so important to me that I'm willing to give mine up to make sure that other people can keep theirs.  I salute the flag so others can burn it.  I guess I'll wrap it up with a quote because whatever you say, someone else has usually said it better.

"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
-Voltaire

My 3 weeks of summer have come to a close.  Right now I am back at school waiting to get shipped over to New Jersey.  Before I left home, my dad and I managed to get the entire car stripped down to its bare bones.  We pounded out dents, removed all of the old wiring, sanded off a ton of rust, replaced some worn out parts, patched some holes, sanded, primered, sanded, primered, sanded some more, and primered for (hopefully) the last time.  My dad sprayed a bunch of black streaks all over the last coat of primer as a guide coat.  It will help show any remaining high and low spots when we sand it for (hopefully) the last time.  When we're done it will be smooth as a baby's butt.

After all that primering, we shot a bit of paint on it too.  We got some single stage auto paint to cover all of the minor areas of the car that won't be very visible.  Single stage paint is mixed so that after you paint it once, the finish will already be glossy.  Normal paint has two stages: a base coat and a clear coat, which makes it shine more and makes it more durable.  If you're just painting the trunk or door jams, that's not really necessary though so that's why we went with the single stage.  At first, the paint was a bit more "whoa crap green" than I was going for so I took it back and had them darken it a bit for me.  I took a shot of the "whoa crap green" hood but in the pictures it's pretty hard to tell how loud the first color was.  After we painted all of the inside of everything, we put the wiring in.  None of it is hooked up yet, but it's in so that I can have someone do the interior while I'm gone.  There are still a few small black things like the horns and the radiator holder that need to be sanded down and repainted.

While I'm gone my dad said he's going to try to strip the interior trim and the dash down and repaint the woodgrain finish on them.  Hopefully, the guy I've been talking to about doing my interior can get started while I'm gone so that when I get back at the beginning of the school year I just need to finish some sanding and painting, then pick up my chrome and drive.  There's a lot of hopefully in that so we'll see how it goes.  But after working on my car for almost every waking moment over 3 weeks I'm ready for a break.  Hello New Jersey.

I just finished the Bible.  A couple years ago, I got tired of everyone telling me what the Bible said and never knowing who was full of crap.  I decided that the only way to figure it out for sure would be to read it myself and figure it out.  I picked a pace that I knew I could keep, and that would give me time to think about what I had read: a chapter a day.  I started with one of those tiny pocket sized ones that people hand out on sidewalks all the time.  Since it just had the New Testament in it, I started there.  But soon I realized that I didn't agree with it.  I figured that was because I didn't have enough background information to really understand it, so after reading up through Romans I decided that I needed to start at the beginning.  I got a Catholic Bible from my mom and began reading Genesis.  I think that I got my current Bible while I was on Deuteronomy.  My current one has a lot of questions in the margin and answers from theologians.  For big questions they'll have a short article providing explanation.  If you're interested, it's called the Quest Study Bible.

I am very glad that I decided to read it straight through in order.  It really shows how things change and develop over time.  At first God was always getting pissed at his chosen ones.  Things would be going fine, then they'd get into the idol worship and he'd smite them.  Some kingdom would conquer the Jews and enslave them for a few hundred years until they repented.  Then God would help them overcome and kill all of their oppressors and things would be fine again.  I lost count of how many times this cycle repeated itself in the old testament.  Eventually the new testament comes along and the Gospels portray Jesus as a really cool dude who got along with everybody and preached love and forgiveness.  That works for me.  John seems to go on a lot more about Jesus' divinity than the other gospels.  It was surprising to me that the earliest gospel was written no earlier than 55 AD and Jesus was supposed to have died and risen in 30 AD.

After the gospels, the apostle Paul wrote most of the New Testament.  I don't like Paul.  Personally, I feel that he missed the point.  Instead of sticking to Jesus' message of love, Paul writes letters to fellow believers and new churches preaching separation.  He was all for excommunication people when they screwed up.  He also preached that God commanded women to remain silent in church, and remain as submissive to their husbands as the church is to God.  He not only says this but follows it immediately with "what I am writing to you is the Lord's command."  (1 Tim 2:11 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-37).  Personally, I think that the most important passage in the Bible is when Jesus says to love your neighbor as yourself.  (Sorry I which passage that is).

That leads me into my next topic.  There are some parts of the Bible that I flat out don't like.  Take the book of Job for example.  Basically, the devil walks up to God and bets that God's believers aren't that faithful.  God essentially says, go screw that guy Job over and you'll see that he's still loyal to me.  The devil does loads of horrible things to Job from destroying all of his possessions, to killing his family, to getting him excommunicated and scorned by other believers.  Job remains loyal, but at one point asks for an explanation which really pisses God off.  To me, this comes across as a pissing contest between God and the devil where Job loses big time for being a good guy.  Another part that I don't like is the fact that God tells the Jews to go wherever they want and kill everybody in their way because they're his chosen people and they've been promised a land of milk and honey.  I'm sorry but I can't favor any religion that gave it's people a blanket pass to kill everybody outside of their group in the name of their Deity.

I apologize if I come across as cynical about the Bible.  I think it has some very good ideals in it.  My main problem is that when a religion emphasizes how wrong everybody else is, it tends to damn more people than it can ever save.  If you ever read the gospel of Thomas, which is not in modern Bibles, it present Jesus in a much different light.  It presents him as more of a wise man who explained a very deep understanding of morality.  It also presents the idea of divinity differently, suggesting that Jesus expected other people to understand his teachings even better than him and that divinity is a much more universal characteristic.  In fact, the gospel of Thomas is very Buddhist feeling.

The long and short of it is that I think the important stuff from the Bible, is just the idea of loving everybody and treating them well.  I think the resurrection, like many other parts of the Bible, is best understood in a figurative sense rather than literal.  I think that when Jesus called himself the "son of man" a lot, he was trying to emphasize that he was just an ordinary guy.  I think Christianity is great as long as people can realize that not everyone else wants to share their religion.  If we can all just get along, I don't think it's important what your name or perception of Divinity is.

I'm also reading the Nag Hammadi Library which is a bunch of literature that the early orthodox church declared heresy.  I'm about a third through it so far and it's interesting to say the least.  After that, I think I'll start on the Quran, and I'm not sure where I'll go from there.  Maybe if I'm feeling really crazy, I'll read the Book of Mormon.

I guess I should close by saying that I've been in quite a few religious debates.  If you want to convert me, please leave me alone.  Your conviction is great, but if you believe that your religion is undeniably true, I'm sure that in my research I will see that too.  If I find that to be the case, I'll jump on the bandwagon.  Heck, the Bible even warns against silly religious debates.  2 Tim 2:23-24 (yeah, I know it's written by Paul) says "Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.  And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone..."

I spent last weekend working on my car again.  I'm really happy that I got the headliner out because that was intimidating me and having it out now will make it a lot easier to do some body work and redo the wiring.  I now have my car stripped of all fabric innards.  I've also stripped out most of the trim from the inside.  The trim has a nifty woodgrain pattern painted on it, but it's pretty sorry looking after 55 years so I'm stripping it off and my dad's working on figuring out how to redo it.  Now I just need someone to start reupholstering my seats and whatnot while I continue working on the mechanical and body stuff.  The new thing that's intimidating me is the wiring.  There are just so many wires in a car that I don't know what to do with myself.  I've also decided to complicate that for myself by switching everything over to 12 volt instead of 6 volt. 

In working on my car, I also learned how to mix up bondo (body filler), spread it, shape it, and sand it.  At least, I think I did.  My dad was gone for the weekend and I just kinda gave it a shot.  I guess that I'll find out how well I did when I have him check it over for me.  I went on to start cleaning up the floor a bit so I can put new undercoating on it, which will give me a really durable finish.  In cleaning up the floor though, I found some new rust holes that will need attention.  I think I might be chopping another piece out of my floor and doing some more welding.  I got the hole in the driver side patched up and it came out pretty well.  I don't have any pictures because of my most recent work because I forgot my camera last weekend.  I do have some pictures from last weekend that I haven't loaded yet because I've been lazy.  There are some shots of the trim with the woodgrain pattern and with the pattern sanded off.  There's also a shot of the instrument panel, which I have now dismantled and some of the body work.  Enjoy.

Part of my ongoing car project is to pretty much replace the entire electrical system.  I'd like to do this for a few reasons.  Since the car was made in the 50's, all of the wires have cloth insulation instead of rubber.  And since this wiring is about 55 years old, some of the cloth is rotting and falling off of the wires.  This presents the rather unpleasant circumstance of many bare wires throughout my vehicle.  To be frank, the electrical system scares me because it would be way too easy for a couple of these bare wires to cross resulting in some very unpredictable behavior.

    I would also like to switch the electrical system from 6 volts to 12 volts.  This will be handy because if I ever need to buy parts such as light bulbs, they'll be a lot easier to find.  If I ever want to put a cd player or something in my car, I'll need a 12 volt power source.  The electrical system right now doesn't have any fuses, so a short anywhere in the car could be VERY VERY BAD.  A 12 volt battery will make the starter turn over faster so I won't have to crank the ignition for as long.  And lastly, if I ever needed a jump start in a 6 volt car, I'd be pretty screwed.  I read an account of a guy who tried to jump start his old Desoto (6 volts) with his 12 volt truck and fried the whole electrical system.

    Anyway, in switching the system from 6 to 12 volts, I need to figure out the resistance of each of my electrical gages, and put the same resistance in series with them to cut the voltage in half.  Last weekend I was trying to pull out the gages to measure them and I saw a few wisps of smoke.  I saw that the light I was using was leaned up against the gas pedal and figured that it was starting to melt the plastic so I moved it.  A few seconds later I caught a big wiff of smoke and looked over to see clouds of it billowing out from behind the dash.  I also heard a faint crackle like something was on fire.  I ran up to the battery and disconnected the cables, because I figured it was an electrical fire and I needed to stop it from getting worse.  Luckily, disconnecting the battery kept anything from catching on fire.  I still don't know quite what happened but I'm sure I'll figure it out when I replace all that old crappy wiring.

      Over the weekend I also continued the ongoing task of removing all of the chrome from my car.  I tackled the hood and got it stripped down.  I think the front of my car looks like a whale feeding on plankton now because it's got a big gaping air intake that looks like a mouth and the headlights look like eyes.  Well that's enough about my car for now.  I've posted a picture of the front end whale mouth of an intake and some of the old and new electrical stuff.

      The 30th was graduation.  It was interesting to see so many people I know throw their hats in the air and pin on officer rank.  It's pretty weird to think that I'm a junior in college now.  I'm half way through the Air Force Academy.  I'm now officially allowed to own and maintain a car at school.  I'm now responsible (in part) for running the show in the cadet wing.  And in under two years, I'll get to throw my white hat in the air as 6 F-16's rocket past overhead especially for my classmates and me.  I'll get to shake hands with the vice president when he hands me my diploma.  I'll go on to a 60 day paid vacation to wherever I feel like going (I'll probably tour Europe with a few friend).  I'll be a United States Air Force Academy graduate.  I don't think that I can ever come close to telling you how great it feels just to realize that.

    I'm also looking forward to this summer.  I'll start out by working summer seminar.  It's like a week long camp for kids who want to come to the academy so they can see what it's like.  I'm excited because as much as this place gets to me sometimes, I love it here.  It'll be nice to show people around who dream of coming to my school, especially since they are pretty close to making that dream happen.  I know a few of the folks I'll be working with and I'm sure it'll be a great experience.

Well, my dad and I have been playing with my new car.  So far we've cleaned out the gas tank and fuel lines, pulled the seats and most of the dash out, cut a rust spot out of the floor, replaced the brakes, replaced the shocks, pulled most of the chrome and emblems off, and started doing some body work.  If I can just get some grease seals for my front wheels, I can put it back together and drive it, although it would be illegal because I don't think most of the lights work.  Originally, I was hoping to finish all of the mechanical stuff by the end of may.  I think we've pretty much done that.  There's still all of the electrical stuff to work out though.

I ordered a wiring harness for my car just now so I can replace all of the old, scary wiring in that beast.  There are so many bare wires in that car right now that I'm surprised nothing has shorted out.  It's all original wiring right now so it's got cloth insulation instead of rubber.  All the cloth has started rotting and falling off since it's so old.  It's probably for the best though because I want to re-work the electrical system anyway.  Right now it's a 6 volt system with positive ground.  Most modern vehicles are 12 volt with negative ground.  So if I ever wanted to put a cd player in my car, get a jump start, or replace any electrical parts, it will be a lot easier to have a 12 volt negative ground system. 

After we finish all of the mechanical and electrical stuff, I'll probably rip out what's left of the interior and my dad and I will start pounding away at the dents.  We've already gotten the chrome and emblems off in all the spots where we need to do body work, and we've even started straightening the passenger side rear fender.  I'm hoping to get the body work and painting done by mid July so I can drop it off somewhere to get the interior done while I go to Mcguire Air Force base in New Jersey.  So far I'm having a good time with my car and it's cooperated for the most part.  There's a lot of chrome on that car, which on one hand will look really cool; but on the other hand, it could be expensive to get it all replated.

I guess that I also have to figure out what color(s) I want to paint it.  It's got a chrome border between the roof and the rest of the body, so a two-tone paint-job seems fitting.  I want to go with something that won't show dirt too readily, won't get too hot, and won't fade out too quickly.  I was thinking of a cream color on the top because that fits all of those and looks very classic too.  I don't know, I guess I've got a while to figure it out so it's not a big deal.  Here are some pictures of the work in progress.