Liberate Te Ex Inferis

Yes, I admit…I am a child of the ’80s.  I remember very well in the 5th and 6th grade when the Transformers was the hottest cartoon on TV and that was all the guys my age talked about.   So when the movie was announced a few months ago, I was totally stoked.

We went to see this movie tonight, several of my friends and myself from work and WOW!!  This was a REALLY GREAT movie.  Storyline was awesome, special effects totally rocked and the action kept you glued to your seat fo the whole 2 hours and 20 minutes.

If you liked the Transformers cartoon, go see this movie.  If you like action flics, go see this movie.  If you like good CGI flics with great comic relief, go see this movie.  In short…. go see this movie.  I  can’t wait to see it again.

I’ve spent the last week working in Norwich, CT. We were sent up here, a few people from my job, to learn a new account that is being transitioned from this site back to Dallas. So we can up to each learn our seperate parts of the account to take back and train others to get ready for the Dallas roll-out, some time in last July.

Last night we went to a local micro-brewery and had some chicken wings. It was a nice little town, about 30 min from where we stayed. I wish I had known about this place earlier in the week and I would have taken some photos. Next time I come back, I might try and do that.

The brewery we ate at is www.willibrew.com

Norwich is a nice place, but I am ready to come home. The weather here is weird…middle of June and the past 2 days it has been around 60 degrees each morning. And I didn’t bring any long-sleeve shirts, LOL. Next month some of the folks up here are coming to Texas for some other training. I am gonna be amused to see how they like Texas weather.

Right now I am reading Pop Goes The Weasel by James Patterson, it is quite good.  I’ve seen the Alex Cross movies and liked them, but I wanted to read the books too.  Turns out that I should have started before the one I chose.  But I will go to Half Price Books and pickup the rest of the series.

Alex Cross

Timeline of Cases Solved

CROSS

Among the villains Alex Cross has faced–Gary Soneji, Casanova, Kyle Craig, The Wolf–one psychopath tops them all. Alex knows him as his wife’s killer. Alex may have a chance to catch his wife’s murderer after all these years. Is this a chance for justice at long last? Or the culminating scene in his own deadly obsession?

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MARY, MARY

Hollywood’s most famous stars are being murdered one by one. The killer is known only as Mary Smith. Is Mary really a woman? Or just someone playing the part? With the LAPD and FBI clueless, it’s up to Alex Cross to track down the truth…

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LONDON BRIDGES

Geoffrey Shafer, the Weasel, is found and abducted from Salvador, Brazil. The notorious Wolf then sends him on a mission. His first job is to completely wipe out an American town-Sunrise Valley, Nevada. And once again, that is just the beginning.

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THE BIG BAD WOLF

Zamochit means “the breaking of bones.” It is part of a murder ritual practiced by members of the Red Mafiya. The “impossible” murder of an Italian godfather in the high-security, supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, is just the beginning.

FOUR BLIND MICE

The Bluelady Murders occur at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Army wives are killed and their bodies painted blue. John Sampson asks Cross to talk to his friend and mentor, Sergeant Ellis Cooper, who has been convicted of the murders but swears he is innocent..”

VIOLETS ARE BLUE

A string of gruesome murders points to a vampire subculture in the United States. Cross flies to San Francisco to meet with Inspector Jamilla Hughes, Homicide. They compile a list of unsolved vampire murders going back at least eleven years.

ROSES ARE RED

Meet The Mastermind. He’s the man behind bank robberies and the murder of bank employees committed in Virginia and Maryland. Then a tour bus is hijacked in D.C. and a $30 million ransom demanded. Cross and an FBI team have less than two hours to deliver.

POP GOES THE WEASEL

Geoffrey Shafer, the Weasel, works in Intelligence in the British Embassy in D.C. He and three twisted friends play a Game of Death that involves unsuspecting women around the world.

CAT & MOUSE

A killer named Mr. Smith begins his murder spree in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and then starts terrorizing Europe. Bodies are found “gutted.” At the same time Gary Soneji taunts Cross with murders in train stations.

JACK & JILL

A game of Life and Death. Sam Harrison (Jack) and Sara Rosen (Jill) delight in their board game that has photos of famous people; a simple roll of the dice determines their destiny.
When sixty-four-year-old Senator Daniel Fitzpatrick is found murdered, the FBI makes a formal request for Cross. The FBI is stymied. The code name for President Thomas Byrnes is Jack. The First Lady’s is Jill.

KISS THE GIRLS

Alex Cross matches wits with Casanova and The Gentlemen Caller. This time it is personal. Naomi Cross, twenty-two-year-old daughter of Cross’s deceased brother Aaron, is reported missing. She is a law student at Duke University. Cross goes to North Carolina, fearing the worst.

ALONG CAME A SPIDER

Life changes for Deputy Chief of Detectives Alex Cross when he is drawn into a high-profile case. Two nine-year-old children are kidnapped by a teacher, Gary Soneji, from the prestigious Washington Day School. Maggie Rose Dunne is the daughter of an actress, and Michael “Shrimpie” Goldberg is the son of the Secretary of Treasury. A ransom of $10 million is demanded.

So I applied to get onto the Miami Ink show, to get a tattoo on TV.  They make you fill out an application, tell them about yourself and the tat you want and why you want it.  Then they make you send a video tape to them to see your personality when you tell them the tattoo you want and why you want it.

http://application-miami-ink.com/_mi.php

When I get a reply I will post in here again….

We went to NO over the weekend, my main purpose was to go down to the 9th Ward and shoot some photos of the Katrina devistation down there, which hasn’t really been cleaned up yet. I should be uploading my photos tonight or tomorrow, you can find them on www.deepellumphotos.com

Most of the damage to the 9th Ward area looks just like torn-down houses that haven’t been kept up…except that it is extire streets of them. You can’t really tell that it was flood damage much at all except for the metal and chain link fences that are all rusted out. Other than that, it could have been any rural area in Tornado Alley from Texas to Kansas.

Friday night we went to dinner at this cool new place in the city. Cochan was the name, I couldn’t find a website for them, but here is an article on the exact dish I ordered, LOL. Afterwards we walked over to Pat O’Briens and took in some Piano Bar action, but it was pretty full and we didn’t stay long. It is a nice scene though, second time I have been there, and I still wanna go back again.

On Saturday we went down to the French Quarter and walked around for a while. We ate lunch at Central Grocery and had Muffalettas. They were quite tasty, though I doubt they are “the original” as they claim to be. However, it was definately lunch-money well spent. Check this link for more details.

Next time I go to NO, I plan to take about a day and just walk the streets of the city, Bourbon Street, the French Quarter, all of it, just taking photos. It is a great place with a very scenic view.

Yes, I admit, Spider-man was a bit EMO.  Ok, I have said it and now that is done.  So what?  Is EMO so wrong?  Do Super-heroes not get to have a musical style?  Would you have rather seen a metal-head?  Or purple-heaired Spidey Punk?  EMO was fine with me.  Besides, it was the darn Venom Suit.

Now that my rant is done, and Koobie can shut-up about the EMO thing, I will talk about the movie itself.

Without giving any spoilers, let me say that the movie is about forgiveness and was a very good -hearted movie.  I thought that it moved rather slow at 2 hours 20 min, but that is ok, and extra long Spidey movie is better than a 90 minute chick-flick any day of the week.

Sam Raimi stayed true to his first 2 movies, that is all that really matters.  Everyone is saying that there were too many bad guys in this movie, that he had to fight too many villians, and at first I thought the same thing.  I was hoping it wouldn’t be another Batman & Robin movie and it certainly wasn’t.  In the end, I think that 3 villians was the exact number.  Go watch the movie to see why I say that.

The action scenes were intense, but I felt there were too many slower scenes in between.  Perhaps “too many” is an inaccurate description.  I just thought that it moved slower than the first 2 movies.  So compared to those, it was not as fast moving.  But I didn’t think this took away from the story at all.  In fact it helped to enhance the ending of the movie with a fitting conclusion.  So many times I have seen good movies only to have the ending be a disappointment.  (Anyone see HULK?)

So yes, Spider-man 3?  A good flick.  Accurate to the story line of both comicbook and previous movies and a great addition to the franchise.  I  will go see it again and take my wife this time, she will like it I know.  And I will be purchasing this one on DVD when it comes up.

Everyone ripped the first movie when it came out and it made more money than most movies out there and got rave reviews.  So the 3rd movie is the same thing.  Go see Spider-man 3.  You will like it.

This is something that I wrote in my Chat Forum on April 17, 2006.

http://faithchatter.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=624

I always hear stories about angels being here to help us or protect us from our own stupidity, and I always like to think that if I ever saw one, I would try and recognize him if I could, which I realize is probably futile, but the thought of trying appeals to me.

So this morning I am driving to work and before I get more than 5 miles from my house I hear a loud POP come from my truck and smell something burning, the kind of smell that comes from an electrical burn. At the same time the truck died, so I though it had backfired or something happened to my distributor.

I pull over to the side of the highway, behind a white car that was already sitting there, apparently also broke down. This is all happening at the beginning of rush hour traffic, about 6:45am. The burn smell starts to get stronger and I notice smoke coming from under the hood, so I pop the hood, get out of the truck and open the hood and see flames coming from my carb.

I tried to find something to smother the flames with in my cab, but all I could come up with was a backpack, so I emptied it and started hitting the fire with it, which had begun to grow. The small pack didn’t do much to the fire except maybe slow it down a bit, so I honestly thought that my truck was history at this point. I went back to the cab and started gathering all the items I could to take out of the truck before it became an engulfed inferno, which is when I had the thought to call the Fire Dept, but in rush hour traffic, I doubted they would get there in time to make much difference in saving my truck.

Just as I was dialing, I saw a figure walk up to my truck and douse it with a fire extinguisher. I couldn’t see from the cab to the front of the truck beause the open hood was obstructing my view, so I moved back to the front and found the guy who had been in the white car broken down in front of me. He successfully killed the fire and told me that he had 2 fire extinguishers and that I could have the one he was using now. I thanked him as he handed me the extinguisher and walked back to his car.

Now at this point in time, I was honestly more focused on the fact that my truck was safe and wasn’t a ticking time-bomb on the side of the highway next to me. Paying more attention to the engine than the stranger, I didn’t get a chance to say anything further to him because he walked back to his car, got in and drove away.

I called my wife, asked her to come get me; then called a tow truck and scheduled them to come get the truck and take it to my home. I had to get back into the cab to make these calls due to the highway noise. After making these calls and taking a deep breath, my mind wandered back to the stranger with the fire extinguisher.

Why was he stopped on the side of the road? He didn’t need help because he got right back in his car and drove away.

Who carries 2 fire extinguishers with them in their car?

I wish that I would have had a better chance to thank him. Maybe some day I will.

Today we attended the funeral for my wife’s Great Uncle, Fleek Fortner. He passed away quite suddenly at 92 years old and was in almost perfect health up until only a few months ago.

Fleek was the kind of guy that would always come up and talk to you, even though he might not know you well. He always made an effort to greet me and ask about current events when we got together each year at the family reunion. He was always happy and had a great sense of humor.

I am glad that I had the chance to meet Fleek and to speak with him on multiple occasions and I look forward to seeing him again some day.

I haven’t blogged anything in a while and I wanted to write something, so I thought that I would write about what I should write about.

I changed the format of this Blog site today to this new look. Post a comment and let me know what you think, anyone.

I’d like to start writing more in this Blog so I will think about what more I can write about and what I feel passionate about. If I can be inspired, upset or convicted about a certain subject, I can usually sit down and let my fingers run over the keyboard to produce something that is considered insightful, given my IQ level. So I will need to find something to inspire me this week.

Today, at work, we learned that one of our co-workers had passed away recently. This is someone that we all knew and worked with on a daily basis, someone that was still employeed with the company, someone that in your situation you might miss tomorrow if he didn’t show up to work. This was someone in a position of not much authority, someone that worked right along side us lowly personelle in an environment that was fun and real-to-life. Not someone that you ” heard about” but someone that you knew.

I had misgivings…I had doubts about if I would be able to write this. I can’t write if I am not motivated or inspired and since I have been mulling this over and over today in my head, I wasn’t sure if it would pour from my fingertips as it is now. Even still, I have doubts as to whether I am doing these feelings and thoughts justice, nonetheless this is something that I must write, not because I feel obliged to, not because I want another entry in my blog, but rather because I feel that if I don’t write down the thoughts in my head, I feel they will be lost and never found again. Hence, I do not have a choice at this moment, but to write the thoughts racing through my skull.

How many hours do we have left in this world? How many minutes? Who can say? I meet people every day that don’t believe in God, or even a higher power, people that both ridicule me and think my beliefs ridiculous because they are either scared of the truth or because they don’t the responsibility of their own actions so it is better to deby the truth rather than face the fact that one day, at some point in time, they will have to answer for things they have said and done.

My friend was not one of these people. My friend was someone that I both laughed with and argued with, when the circumstances at work required it. He was someone that I respected and also someone that I believed in. Yet somehow I feel that I failed him. Not because I didn’t sit him down and present the gospel to him, which I never did. Not because I didn’t tell him that I was a believer in Jesus, which I might have done, but do not remember. Had he ever asked me my beliefs, I would have gladely shared them with him. I do not withhold my beliefs, but I feel sometimes that someone needs to ask before I speak up. Was I created this way?

I think back on the time that I had with my friend…someone who I wasn’t as close to as I would have preferred. Someone who I invited to spend time with me after hours at worked, but due to circumstances, never came to pass. Not because either of us weren’t willing, but because life gets in the way.

“Of my friend I can only say this. Of all the beings I have encountered, in all the worlds, his was the most….human.”

Sadly what I cannot tell you is if my friend knew Jesus or not. Now, what I should say is that this friend and I were not really close, although I would have liked to have been. But as I said, life gets in the way. Anyone who knows me knows my beliefs, I do not conceal them from anyone who asks, but sometimes I feel that I should be more open with them. I don’t care about offending anyone, their offense isn’t my problem. But I do not want to alienate anyone either, I don’t think that is our purpose here. What I will say is that I hope to see him again some day. And what I will say is that I have learned from this experience, as with all of life’s teachings, that I will be more open and more willing to share from this point forward. He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it. Sometimes I wish that I would simply allow Him to.

While I will always remember this moment as I look back on this posting in the future and while I do not think that I will ever be the same, I will say that anyone who reads this should know that I am not just babbling, but I am speaking from the heart and I am expressing true belief, true emotion (which I hate, to be honest) and true beliefs. We do not make our own truth, truth is not something that we make up as we go along. Truth doesn’t become truth because we believe it, rather we believe truth because it is true. Nothing else matters.

Would someone who has never heard the gospel, upon death, which is only really the beginning, stand before God and be presented with a choice of Christ or a choice of Eternal damnation? I don’t know that the Bible clearly defines this situation. However, maybe our focus should be for no one who ever crosses our path to be faced with such a burdened decision. Maybe our goal and focus should be to be voices crying in the wilderness, the wilderness that is this messed up world, for truth that is unmoveable and static, not dynamic.

May no one ever say that my stance on God and who He is wasn’t clear. Especially not me.

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