It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Here’s what I’m up to:
- CAP – I’m in the process of joining the Civil Air Patrol. They’d say I’m a member already, but there are still things I need to do before I can excercise the priviledges of membership. I haven’t flown since before Jude was born (last Wednesday was his first birthday), and being in CAP should provide me with ample opportunity to fly and do so at much lower cost than by other means.
- Îχω ζωη – An ongoing project of mine is to update my main website, echozoe.com. Nothing is up yet, but I am working on some more formal writing (articles), theological in nature, as well as developing a new podcast. For those asking “what’s a podcast?” It’s basically a radio show that is produced for web download only. In other words, I’ll record episodes and publish them in mp3 format for people to download and listen to at their leisure. Right now the plan is one or two episodes per month, probably one to begin with. Tentatively I’m planning on them being about a half hour long, but the nice thing about the podcasting format is that they can be as long as I want them to be, they aren’t bound by traditional radio timeslots.
- Miscellaneous Web Projects – I’m currently helping my pastor-friend with his website, Signet Ring Ministries. He’s starting out as a new ministry, I’m helping with the site itself, and am also looking forward to writing articles for it too, which I’ll cross post at echozoe.
I’ve also volunteered to get a new forum up for our church’s website. There are people all over the world that don’t have local churches that use ours to get weekly sermons, etc. Be it bad churches or persecution, they have no local church to count on. We are hoping that a forum can provide them with some interaction with other Christians that they can’t otherwise get. I’m not sure how much I’ll participate in the forum once it’s up, but I am going to help get it running for them.
- Republican Politics
– On February 5th Jessica and I went to the Republican Caucuses to support our candidate, Ron Paul. At the caucuses, we both got elected as Alternates to the next level, the Basic Political Operating Unit (BPOU) Convention. At that level, I was elected as a full Delegate to two higher conventions, the 5th Congressional District and the State of Minnesota. These are roughly parallel conventions, as both send delegates on to the National Convention.
I’ve been working with other Ron Paul supporters to help move each other up each level. On Saturday, we succeeded in getting three Ron Paul delegates elected to the National Convention, as well as two Alternates.
Yeah, he’s not going to get the Republican nomination, but at this point we’re still trying to get whatever we can. The goal at this point is to get him a chance to speak at the National Convention.
Why did I do this? I’m very Conservative, and have been unhappy with the candidates that have been getting nominations for various offices for a long time. I tend to vote third party for President rather than take the poor candidates the Republicans give us. Other Republicans have been upset with me, and have been saying that if I don’t like the candidates they choose, I should get involved earlier on and work to get the candidates I do like nominated. So that’s what I did this time around.
I also think that the whole process is a real joke, and by participating in it, I am getting a much better picture of just how right I am. For instance, a lot of people showed up on February 5th (Super Tuesday) to vote for their candidate and then went home. However, that was just a straw poll, it has no bearing at all on who will be nominated. It’s no more accurate than when the newspaper calls a bunch of people and asks who they like. In addition, the delegates (who do control the nominations) get elected with little or no information available to the people voting. It is very rare at any point for a candidate for Delegate (at any level) to share with the crowd who they support for President. This created some problems this weekend in the 6th Congressional District, where the party tried to intimidate anyone not supporting McCain and ruin their chances at getting elected to the National Convention. When one Ron Paul supporter skirted their efforts (arguably dishonestly, but no more dishonestly than the intimidation used in the first place), an hour long argument erupted, ending in the Convention attempting to bind him to support McCain. Fortunately that binding may be illegal, so he may not be bound at all (besides, there is no recourse available to them if he violates their wishes.)
The other major business at conventions is to pass resolutions. What these resolutions are is changes to the party platform. It all seems like a waste of time to me because the candidates that end up winning political positions often disregard the platform. In other words, what’s the point?
This is probably a one-time thing for me. I’ve enjoyed being part of an organized grass-roots movement to get Ron Paul as many Delegates as possible, but it’s probably not something I’ll do again.
Jude is a year old now! We had a birthday party for him on March 29th, the Saturday before his birthday – April 2nd. He’s doing very well. He is practicing his walking, and we expect him to be on his feet very soon (too soon really 🙂 ) He’s also starting to demonstrate that he understands some words. He waves and says “Buh-Buh” (bye-bye) when someone is leaving. He also seems to understand “Pop” (probably his Grandma’s doing there.)
Other big news: Last night he slept the whole night for the first time ever!! He woke up 8 minutes before the alarm went off. We are hoping this is the beginning of a regular occurrence, and not a fluke.