Since I got in trouble earlier this month for responding to a forwarded email, I decided to do this in my own space.

Almost every day I receive a handful of emails from someone in my address book. It is someone I know that I have known for several years. The emails that I receive are varied. Sometimes they contain jokes, sometimes they contain inspiring stories, sometimes they contain interesting pictures. But these emails are consistently forwards that the sender feels the need to pass on.

I enjoy jokes, inspiring stories, and interesting pictures. However, what it obvious is that the person who consistently sends these to me is doing so with no thought about recipients. She does not edit or even consider to whom she is sending these things. So I will get several emails containing penis jokes, followed by several telling me to pass God's love to my friends. Then I will receive a slideshow of the most beautiful churches in the world, followed by a warning about eating chicken wings. (By the way, I used Snopes to look up that story about chicken wings, and the story is a hoax.)

I have forwarded emails in the past. I admit that I have made mistakes when it comes to forwarded emails. But I have learned from my mistakes. I forward emails to people who will enjoy or gain some benefit from what I am sending them. I use my mind and my discernment rather than just filling up my contacts' mailboxes with a bunch of junk.

I may end up having to report my "friend" as a professional spammer if she can't figure out how to self-edit. *sigh*

Here's your last chance to donate to our team for the Revlon Run/Walk. Donations are due by 5pm on Tuesday, June 30th. Here's the link.

Thanks to those of you who donated and supported in other ways. :)

I visited the Griffith Observatory yesterday (Saturday, June 27th, 2009) with my sister, brother-in-law, and niece. I guess I should have thought this through beforehand. It was the first official weekend of the summer, and the place was packed. The road to the observatory was blocked, and we had to park halfway down the hill. I was NOT happy to have to hike for what seemed forever to get to the observatory. We passed A LOT of empty parking spaces on our way up, too, and that was pretty annoying.

If you haven't been to the Griffith Observatory since the renovation, you are in for a treat. The exhibits have been updated, but it still feels like the old place. There is a whole lot more room, too. There is a new second floor (under the original building). Annie ran from one place to another, trying to absorb as much as possible.

Despite the crowds, we were pretty much able to see everything. We didn't bother with the planetarium, though. That was much too crowded. Maybe some other time.

And we did not get to visit the gift shop. Boo!

I'm a member of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), so I get to visit the museum whenever I want. Theoretically, at least. I hardly ever go, but I like to option of being able to. In addition to the "free" admission, I also get tickets to certain special exhibitions.

The current special exhibition right now at LACMA is called "Pompeii and the Roman Villa." Stephen and I decided to check it out on Tuesday, June 16, 2009.

First, we stopped at the museum restaurant, Pentimento. It's very overpriced, but that's typical of museum restaurants. The menu is pretty limited, but the choices we made were delicious.

After lunch we stopped in to see the artwork. The special collection is pretty nice, though probably not worth $25. Good thing my tickets were theoretically free (though I did have to pay a lot for the membership). There's a lot of sculpture recovered from Pompeii and its environs. There are also several later depictions of what life would have been like in the days before Vesuvius erupted. Overall, it's a very good exhibition, and I would recommend it if you can afford it.

July's field trip is actually a trip to LACMA, but we're just going general admission; it's much cheaper. Let me know if you're interested in joining us.

We visited the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific on Tuesday, June 23, 2009. By "we," I mean my parents, my sister, my brother-in-law, my niece, and I. We were able to buy the tickets online (with a $5 per ticket discount) and planned to arrive in Long Beach at around 1:40pm. We actually managed to estimate the getting-ready and the driving times appropriately.

It's hard to believe that the Long Beach Aquarium has been here for over 10 years, and I had never been there. It is quite wonderful. They have several galleries with huge tanks of fish and other creatures from different areas of the Pacific Ocean. Fish and creepy-crawlies are interesting, but my favorites are the mammals. They had gorgeous sea lions and really cool otters. (We even managed to catch some sea lions mating, but I'd rather not think about that.) There are many touching pools outside--rays, tide pools, sharks. The aquarium also has a lorikeet forest, which is a lot of fun, if birds don't freak you out. You can purchase nectar to feed the birds, but we didn't do that.

We had lunch in the restaurant, which was terribly overpriced but wasn't too bad. There was a nice variety, at least, so we all found something to eat. We had a nice view of a seagull family (very large babies!) while we had our lunch.

Annie loved the aquarium. She couldn't get enough of each exhibit while wondering what was in the next one. She had a great time and even came home with a stuffed puffin toy to show for it.

I really liked the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific. If I didn't have to brave the 5 and the 710, I might have thought about becoming a member. But I will definitely be sure to visit more often from now on.

I left home kind-of early (well, early for me) on Saturday, June 13th, to get to Stephen's house at a decent hour. He then drove for the rest of the trip. (Yay!) We headed to Ventura to pick up Shana at her place. Then we were soon on the road to Santa Barbara.

We arrived at the Santa Barbara Zoo just in time to have lunch. (Even fast food in Santa Barbara is good.) While we were sitting there, Kelly arrived, and our little group was complete. We had a delightful time looking at the animals and enjoying each others' company. We took a ride on the little train that goes around the perimeter of the zoo but doesn't pass by any actual animals. The zoo itself is a lot different than I had remembered, but in a good way. AND the zoo has capybaras! :) Also, Stephen made me buy some food so that I could feed the goats. It was kind-of disgusting, but they were cute enough (as long as I didn't look at their eyes). We saw the entire zoo (except for the reptile house, which no one was eager to visit) and even had some time to sit and talk.





Kelly had to leave us for an appointment, but Stephen, Shana, and I were ready for dinner. We headed to the Beachside Bar Cafe at Goleta Beach. Nestor was off of work, so he met us there, too. The three of us got there a little early for dinner, so we took a walk on the pier before dinner. We finally were able to be seated on the patio, where we had a lovely view of the beach, the pier, and UCSB. We were a little disappointed by the abbreviated menu. I had forgotten that the restaurants in Santa Barbara do that for UCSB graduation weekend. Nevertheless, the food was delicious, and we had a very nice time.

The July field trip is to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, tentatively scheduled for July 18th in the afternoon. Feel like joining us?

If you are reading my actual blog and not the Facebook feed, then you are seeing the new look. I found this template online; I'm not talented enough to do that myself. Other than the template, the most fun I had was adding the stuff about me. Hope you like it, too. :) (Yes, you. The five of you who read this.)

I'm in the process of reworking my blog. I managed to do something weird when I changed the look, and I lost my blogroll again. This time I was smart enough to keep track of who was on my list to begin with, but it will still take some time to reconstruct. Anyway, if you have a blog and you'd like to be included in my blogroll, respond to this and let me know the site. :)

My friend Chris wrote a book for children. You can learn all about it here. Pretty cool, right?

So, today I got an email from someone I consider an old friend. I've actually known him for most of my life. I first got the email on my phone, but it had been forwarded so many times that I couldn't get through the headers before my phone decided the email was too big. The subject of the email made me think that some pastor had been fired, so I immediately had to boot up my computer to read the email. I became very upset when I finally got to the text, only to learn that it was a message claiming that some bill in Congress is going to restrict religious programming on TV. I was upset because I recognized the email as an update of one I had read many years ago. The older one claimed that the bill was being pushed through by famed atheist Madelyn Murray O'Hair, despite the fact that she had died many years earlier. To verify my thoughts, I did a quite internet search and found that I was, in fact, correct. The bill does not exist, and the email is a hoax.

I responded to my friend with a link to the article on Snopes.com and wrote "You don't really believe this crap, do you?" Unfortunately, I hit "reply all," and that is when the shit hit the fan. Frankly, my response was much tamer than what I wanted to say. What I really wanted to respond was, "You don't really believe this bull shit, do you? And don't even get me started on those hatemongers Dr. James Dobson and Joel Osteen. I'd be happy if those assholes were off of the air." (I know that some of you like them, but I do not happen to agree with the way in which they treat people.)

Well, you should have seen the hate mail that I got. One person told me that Ellen G. White prophesied that "this" would happen, so it must be true. Gee, if Ellen White foretold that TV shows would be banned and rulings by the FCC before TV and the FCC even existed, then she was sure an amazing prophet! I'd love to see those prophecies. Another person was so offended by my use of the word crap that he said I am not fit to "call myself" a pastor. Both were sure that I am going straight to hell and told me to get my own crap together. Wow, and some of you wonder why I don't go to church regularly anymore?

I don't always respond to these forwarded emails, but I really hate the thought off someone propagating something so untrue. But apparently, as I was told many years ago (by the person who sent me the Madelyn Murray O'Hair lie), you have to follow your beliefs (even if they are proven untrue). So, since it is clear that my attempts to inject some truth into the situation will result in condemnation, I offer these hints before you hit "forward."

1) If you are forwarding a supposed news story to me, then please take the minute it takes to verify it from a real news source. Sending a link to a real news story from a valid news source is good form; sending a suppposed story in the text of an email is not. (By the way, taking the time to send me many, many, many jokes--several of which are off-color--but not having the time to READ my email about eradicating cancer is really, really shitty form.)

2) Use the mind God gave you. Do you really think that adding your name to the bottom of an email is a valid method of signing a petition? Unless every person only sends the email to one other person, there are hundreds of copies of the supposed petition with the same signatures on it. Who is going to go through all of those signatures and cross out the duplicates? Most of these emails have no instructions as to where to send the petition either, so the email just gets sent from person to person. Unless there is some valid website for the petition signatures, the email is useless and just JUNK!

3) If you do have a valid cause, the way to get the news to lawmakers is to write a letter to your congressman or senator. It's not hard to do; I've done it many times. And it will actually get to the person who can make a difference.

4) Don't you dare question my Christianity, spirituality, morality, or anything else just because I disagree with you. One thing I heard from more than one of the hate mailers was that I shouldn't be surprised that "the government" wants to persecute Christians. WAKE UP, PEOPLE! Christians aren't persecuted because of what we believe. Christians in the United States are persecuted because they act superior, call people names, and tell people they are going to hell.

Something just came into my inbox. I wonder if it's another person damning me to eternal fire. Great . . .

Please vote for your favorite name for my blog. :D

Thanks!

Found this website today . . . Walk Score

You put in any address, and the site will tell you how walk-friendly the neighborhood is. It's good if you're looking for a new place to live (which I'm not doing at the moment). My neighborhood scored a 34 out of 100, which translates to "car dependent." Yeah, I kinda knew that.

Anyway, it's a fun distraction.