Ok, one more random thought for today...

What's the deal with mullets? How did anyone ever think that was attractive? I think the best description I ever heard of a mullet was "business up front, party in the back!". I think a better description of a mullet would be, "straight face up front, I'm laughing at you behind your back!". And not that it's bad enough that men do it, but it's even worse when you see a woman with one. Why????? There are so many feminine hairstyles, why choose the androgynous one!!!!???? Oh, and if you don't know what a mullet is, check this out.

I'm just full of random thoughts today. So here's another one...

I understand that over time fashions come and go, but one fashion I think is really cool that just isn't done anymore is the Fedora and other similar hats. Back in the 50s, it was common for men to always wear hats with their suits and it looked cool. Why is it out of all the fashions they bring back, it's like bell-bottoms or those nasty colors from the 70s. I don't want the hats to come back and be called retro. I don't want the hats to come back with ugly 70s colors for a "cool" retro spin on and old style. I want the hats to come back and it's considered back to normal. Although, this was the same time in history that men also wore there pants up past their belly button. Ok, that is not cool, just bring the hats back, leave the pants behind. Now that I'm on this subject, capes were really cool, too. Capes and cloaks were the way to go back in medieval times. That would be cool if those came back. I once saw a guy wearing a cape and he looked really weird, but if everybody did it, it would be normal and then all would be well. Capes and Fedora hats...paradise.

I saw Shrek 2 this past weekend. The first one was pretty awesome and this one is pretty good, too. Alot of critic reviews are hyping it up quite alot which I wish they would stop. Hasn't anyone figured out by now that hype kills a movie (Matrix 2 and 3 being the best example)? Anyways, the hype is saying it's better than the first one. Without saying that, I will say that Shrek 2 definitely stands alone as a movie. The jokes are new with the same characters which is rare for sequels. Usually it's the same characters saying the same jokes with a spin on it. Without all the hype, I'll just say that the movie is fun and I laughed out loud. It's pretty smart and it's just as good for adults. In fact, I'm not sure that kids would even get some of the jokes.

Anyways, here's something that is just burning inside me that I just have to let out. What is the deal with cell phone voice mail messages??? What I mean is, you call and you get that lady that says, "Your call is being answered by an automated voice message system." You think that "leave a message at the beep" has been soaked into our culture by now, but she continues on "So and so is not here. At the tone, please leave your voice message." Ok, surely by now, anyone should know what to do, but no, she keeps talking! "When you're finished recording, hang up, or to hear more options, press the pound key." What am I an idiot? What other options could there be? Marking a voice mail as urgent is completely useless cuz I don't know it's urgent until I listen to my voicemail anyway. Am I not smart enough to decide if the content of the message is urgent regardless if the sender thought so? And that's just the minimum. Some automated voicemail messages are so verbose that I can't even leave a message until I've sat there listening to the obvious for 30 seconds. Anyways, I think I know why they do this. I have never successfully left a message in under a minute. I'm always 2 or 3 seconds over. So instead of costing me one minute, it costs two minutes. The phone company has to know this, so if they are gleaning off an extra minute from every caller, they are probably making alot of bank off of it. So how do you beat them? Leave a personal message on your cell phone instead of opting for the default automated message, and then you stick it to the man! Message...beep...talk...done, you just saved a minute, moo ha ha!

Lack of time is the ultimate enemy of all things fun and because of that this blog has been delayed and so begins this next blog entry...

Last weekend I saw Envy and Troy. I know! Two in one weekend...crazy. Anyways, Envy is a pretty fun movie if you have the right sense of humor. It's definitely not for everyone, but I was grinning the entire time. When did Christopher Walken become such a silly guy? He used to be this creepy guy in every movie or this really mean scary guy. Now he's just hilarious in everything he does. I've decided that from now on, I must see every movie that he does from here on out, so I guess that means I'm going to see The Stepford Wives.

Troy was definitely a well done film. I would say that my only gripes with the movie are the very story itself, but I guess I can't blame the filmmakers for that. I think the hardest thing to reconcile in the movie is which side to root for because both sides have guys you hate and both sides have guys you like. Also it just seems to me that if a man steals another man's wife and she willfully leaves her husband and both full well know that it will start a war that will kill lots of their people, it is just the most selfish act worthy of no praise. It's totally shameful yet the film never really addresses this. Instead they make it out to a fight for true love. Yeah, I'm sure all those people who died in that war were really on board for the fight for true love. Anyways, there are some other things about the movie I want to gripe about, but in fairness to people who still want to see the movie, I won't mention it. I will say that both Eric Bana and Brad Pitt were way cool in this movie. The fighting is awesome and the visual effects are awesome.

Last week on Friday, I also paid a visit to the Mecca of Mormons, the Temple of Salt Lake City. No, I didn't get to go inside, it was quite sealed. If you didn't know, non-Mormons are not allowed in the temple because they consider you unclean and therefore your presence would defile it. Your only chance to see inside is when they open a new one. Then after the tour, they rip out all the carpets and replace them. I wonder, if you ever needed new carpet, could you just hang out and take it from the trash. After all, it is brand new carpet. I sure don't care if it's defiled, ha ha. Anyways, I went there to see the architecture since the Mormons have made some crazy looking buildings. I walked in the Temple Square where the visitor center is to see the temple best. I knew if I stopped for a bit someone would talk to me, so I kept walking around, but then there was some stuff I wanted to read and I thought to myself, "what do I have to fear of them? I know the Truth and I should welcome an opportunity to share it!" So I stopped to read, heh heh. It only took a minute before this attractive woman asked me if I wanted a tour. (Sidenote: I noticed that they only had hot chicks doing visitor detail. I didn't see any guys anywhere. Pretty shifty tactic on the side of the Mormons. After all, a guy will talk to a pretty girl about anything and it would be very nonconfrontational.)

I learned alot through my witnessing experience. Even though I had many Mormon friends when I was growing up, I never outright confronted them. They always wanted me to think that they were like me and that we believed the same thing. This girl's tactic was the same, but I didn't let it happen. These were the questions I asked her:

Do you believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God?
She said she did as long as it was translated accurately. This is actually stated in their doctrinal statement (or the 13 Articles of Faith). I kept probing trying to find out what versions of the Bible she felt were inaccurate, but I couldn't get a straight answer out of her. She told me she read the King James Version, however I suspect that she reads a Mormified version of the KJV since the wording of her Scripture references didn't match mine.

If someone believed the Bible and was a follower of Christ, but didn't believe the Book of Mormon, would he still go to heaven?

Basically I was told that the angels will instruct me in my error and I will attain a higher level once that purgatory is completed. I asked her if she believed in Hell, but I didn't get a straight answer from her. My guess is that the Mormon view of Hell is all relative. Mormons believe in many levels of Heaven and Hell and I can still move up in the ranks so to speak. They use 2 Corinthians 12:1-3 to support this. It doesn't hold up though. If only they read the previous chapter they would have read this and this. Which brings me to the next question I asked her.

Do you have 100% assurance in your salvation?
She said of course not, it would depend on her works. Wow, really? Have you read Ephesians 2:8-9? Her reply to that was that the Bible also says "faith without works is dead". Yeah, it sure does say that and I told her what it really meant. Clearly she was taking it out of context. Read the passage. Obviously someone can't profess Christ and not show any fruit of it. Works are the product of faith. If Abraham didn't believe that God is in control, then he wouldn't have attempted to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Clearly, his faith showed that he did trust God and that's why he performed the work of obeying God by attempting to sacrifice his son. Still not convinced? Read this in Hebrews. Or better yet, read Hebrews 11. Clearly good works are the product of faith otherwise Hebrews 11 is a lie. If there are no good works present in someone who claims to have faith, what good is his faith?? Of course his faith is dead! She didn't get it though. Not that I was able to share all that from Hebrews to her, but I did share with her the concept, but she still didn't get it.

I told her at this point (if she couldn't guess), that I was a Christian and that I believe the Bible as the true Word of God and that alone. She told me that their church has recorded that there are 80,000 Christian religions. What??? No there isn't! There is only one! She replied, "yes, you're right." But I wasn't thinking the Mormons were the "one" while I think she was. I told her there is only one Christ so obviously there can only be one faith behind it. Romans 10:9-10 is probably the most basic way the Bible can explain how a person can be saved, how a person can be a Christian. Only one Christian religion, not 80,000! I'm guessing they got that number from the number of churches in the world that have some relation to Christ. So I guess they think every church is its own religion?

How can Mormons believe the Bible and the Book of Mormon when there are clear contradictions between the two?
She said there were no contradictions. I didn't have to go deep there. All I said was clearly there are contradictions otherwise we wouldn't keep disagreeing! I don't need to read the Book of Mormon to know that.

If the need for Mormon prophets is to give us new information from God for our changing world then why did He give John (the true last prophet) a revelation of the end of the world?
She didn't know. God is everlasting and unchanging. The problems of the world are there because they don't obey God's word. We don't need more revelation to confront sin. The world only needs the gospel.

What happened to all the Christians between the time of Christ's ascension and when Joseph Smith found the gold tablets with the new prophecy?
She didn't know, but she did tell me that the tablets were written in 600, not in 1800 to which I retorted, "yeah, but nobody found them until around 1800, right?" She agreed.

Many times she would change the subject asking if I would like to receive a video or a Book of Mormon or a copy of their 13 Articles of Faith. She would show me verses in the Book of Mormon to satisfy her claims, but I told her that I didn't even believe in the Book of Mormon. I don't believe it's true, so how can you convince me in the Bible? I can show a Jewish person who only believes the Old Testament that Jesus is Messiah using only Old Testament verses. Why can't she back up what she is saying in the Bible? She explained to me she knows she is right because she can feel it. I told her you can't trust a feeling. A feeling can cause you to love a person one moment and hate them with the most bitter rage the next. The only way to know if any feeling is of the Spirit is by comparing it to Scripture. She disagreed. She would rather be led by her feelings than the Bible, I guess.

Are you familiar with the verse in Revelation that says if anyone adds to this book, let him be accursed?
She did know it. So I asked her then how could she believe the Book of Mormon in spite of that to where she replied, "it's not an addition." Really? Having seen her book a couple times now as she showed me verses, I pointed out to her what it said on the cover. Underneath "Book of Mormon" was "An ADDITIONAL Testament of Jesus Christ"!!! (emphasis mine) She emphatically reiterated that it wasn't an addition.

Well, at the end I tried to be as firm and compassionate as possible and told her that she was in a cult and was deceived and she needs to leave it and only trust the Bible and know the true God. I told her I would pray for her. She told me because I never read the Book of Mormon and since I don't want to read it, then I obviously don't know what I'm talking about. I guess I'm so clueless, that's why I stumped her on the most fundamental Biblical truths of salvation. She was not an American. She was a convert from somewhere in Europe that was there for her mission. I felt I had to be firm with her because I suspected she was not trapped in the family traditionalism of being a Mormon like most Mormons are. She was probably someone who was really seeking the way of salvation and met the wrong person. This is why I believe there is no greater enemy than the Mormons in the mission field. Their message sends people to Hell. She had to be told that she was being deceived. I tried to show her the love of Christ in doing that. I'm not sure if I succeeded in that though. Near the end of our 25 minute conversation, I noticed that there were some older men in suits hovering just outside my field of vision. It seemed I had attracted some attention from the elders. Just as well, I needed to catch my plane so she thrust out her hand and thanked me for my time. I could tell she was upset. I don't take pleasure in making Mormons look like fools. I really pity them because they don't know everything about their church since it has been shielded from them. They live in fear because their salvation is not secure. I do hate their church and what it represents and how it misguides people. I pray for God to destroy it. I don't want God's wrath on those people, but I want them to see how false it is. I pray for all Mormons just to walk away from that church and never return and know the true God, that's what I mean when I say I want God to destroy it.

Anyways, to sum up, this is what I learned:
- Mormons don't have 100% security in salvation (this boggles my mind since Christianity is the only one that does offer 100% assurance yet people still go for the works thing, it would seem if you were comparing every religion, you could easily decide for the guarantee).
- Mormons base their beliefs on a feeling or emotional experience.
- You don't need to know the Book of Mormon to confront a Mormon, you only need to know the Bible. You don't need to study error to know truth. If you are trying to convince someone of the truth, then you should know the truth as best as you can. Besides, if you learn some of the crazy things about their church or in their church's history, it is more than likely that they will never have heard of what you tell them. It doesn't add any credibility to what you say and it only convinces them that you're against their church and not for Christ.

I was a bit frustrated when I left there. She was so deceived and no matter what truth I showed her, she did not believe it, but always went back to her Book of Mormon. I do rejoice that God was glorified that day. Even though I may not see the fruits of that discussion, I know that God had preordained that appointment even though I was not even prepared to witness. Praise God for using a sinner like me for His purpose! If you have time, say a prayer for Miss Hauck so that she will no longer be blinded and God would open her eyes. Also if you have some interest in the truth about Mormons or are frustrated that Mormons don't see the truth (like me), there is a great resource online at www.exmormon.com. It's a ministry started by a guy who was high up in the Mormon church and saw the light and became a true believer. There is hope for them.

(Now I'm probably going to have Google ads for the Mormons on the top of my blog, ha ha.)

Wireless networks are pretty cool things. The hotel I was staying at had wireless network access to the internet, but now since I checked out, I can't access the internet from my room. However, one of the "features" of wireless networks is you can't limit the distance of where they can talk (unless your building is shielded). So I had this idea, what if I park my car outside the hotel. Can I access the internet from there? This blog entry is proof that I can. I get a pretty strong signal from here. So, yeah, wireless networks are cool, but not very secure.

This morning I had to be at work at 5:30am. Needless to say, I was quite dizzy when I woke up this morning. I don't think it matters when I go to sleep, that will always be too early. Anyways, the reason was we had to do some sunrise tests with the cameras. Anyways, the sunrise was cool, but I never saw the sun. There were some dark clouds on the horizon and a deep red sky. It looked like Mordor was behind that mountain. Red in the morning, sailors warning! It's true, it hailed tonight. I think it only hailed once in all the years I've lived in California. Me and my brother tried to see who could stand longest in the hail. We didn't last more than a few seconds. It was brutal. Tonight it looked brutal too. It wasn't like the wet California hail though, this stuff bounced when it hit the ground. I resisted the urge to go out and see how long I could last though.

This weekend I saw Van Helsing. Me and Ray are totally into vampire movies so we have to see them when they come out...well, most of them. Anyways, we were discussing whether we should be ashamed or not of this desire to see vampire movies so to continue with that theme, we wore something to the movie that we had but were ashamed of having. Ray wore his MTV gear and I wore my Metallica concert T-shirt. Anyways, I enjoyed the movie. I felt it was a good start for the summer blockbusters. It's a fun action movie with monsters.

Anyways, I'm back in Mormonia this week. What a difference this week was from last week. I arrived and the winds were at 45 mph. Not only that, but the temperature was around 90 degrees last week. It's dropped below 50 this week. I'm glad I brought a jacket, but I'm wondering if it will be enough. There are also supposed to be some crazy thunderstorms while I'm here. I'm glad I packed my poncho, but I have no rubber boots. Hopefully, I won't need any cuz I sure don't want to pack muddy boots in my luggage for the way home. Last week, this place was infested with gnats. There were piles of them it was so bad. This is indeed the land of ten plagues.

On an encouraging note, I got to share Christ with a man from New Zealand on the plane. It was really cool cuz he just kept asking me questions and the answers just kept leading to my experiences on my missions trips. He asked if I was a Mormon, and I said, "No, I'm a Christian." He asked some interesting questions like, "Do you go to a strong church?" and "Are the people in your church of the same mind politically?" He said he was in the church when he was young, but he said he made a choice not to live his life that way anymore. It was kind of sad, but I asked him if he would let me send him some information of some Bible teaching churches in his area. He said he would and he gave me his info. I got to tell him some good stuff like if you're guilty of one sin, you're guilty of breaking the entire law and moralism isn't the path to heaven, but only Christ can cover your sins no matter how good you may think you are. I also told him that only the Bible is the true authority and it really doesn't matter what man thinks about how to be saved or what is right. I told him I would rather be on God's side and against the entire world than to be with the world and go to hell. His name is Simon. Now I just hope I can find a Bible teaching church for him in Auckland. He also told me of some cool ways to work as an expatriate engineer in the South Pacific. I'll have to look into that, but I have a feeling I'm not experienced enough yet.

Of all the things I do, it's only evangelism that is truly the only worthwhile thing cuz that's the only thing I can't do in heaven and it's the only reason that God keeps me here on Earth since I could easily glorify Him more in heaven. I always feel burdened that I should be witnessing more. I'm not very good with bold random evangelism. The event today happened because he struck up a conversation with me. I just was never very good with talking to strangers. It's funny though that whenever a stranger talks to me, I usually end up telling them about Jesus. I still wish I had more opportunities though. The people I see daily are pretty hard to the gospel. They will listen for as long as I want to talk, but I can tell that they don't believe. They just want to be polite by listening. Sometimes it's hard, but I try not to lose hope. I know that God has placed these people in my life so that they can hear about Him. Nothing happens by chance.

Well, just as we were starting to make progress, beaurocracy struck again. It turns out, you can only have tools that are etched indicating their owner in the test area. So we got an etcher, but nobody told us what we were actually supposed to etch in our tools to make them legit which means we can't use tools in the test area until this happens, but nobody can tell us what to etch, so we just sit and wait basically. So our cameras were mounted on these cherry pickers so I had this idea. I asked the guy, so can we just move the cherry picker outside of the test area (literally like 10 feet) and then I can use any tool I want? "Well...sure, I guess." So that's what we did. We drove that thing 10 feet and then I could use any tool I wanted. Ha ha! Beaurocracy may be a huge beast at times, but it sure doesn't move very fast. It was really easy to get around that one. I get to go home tomorrow, yes!

It was pretty hot and dry in Utah today. Today we were wiring up our cameras and stuff in the test area. Not too unusual a thing, but I had like 6 guys looking over my shoulder the entire time. You know you're working on a government project when there is one person working and 6 people watching. What was a bit unnerving though was I was making cable that required some skill I didn't have. No worries though since I could tell pretty quickly that none of the other people did either, ha ha. Anyways, I was just glad when we fired up the power, the stuff worked. Man, that never happens! You have to at least run through the diagram two or three times to find what you did wrong. So I got much congrats from my audience. I'm just glad it was a good day. I sure don't like doing this long term travel stuff. I'm such a wimp cuz I've only been here three days. I also have to come back next week, too (sigh). I think what helps when you do travel is if you have coworkers you like to hang out with. I don't have that this time. Not that I dislike my coworkers that I'm here with, but they just seem to want to do their own thing. That's probably ok since I think they would just talk about work the whole time anyways. I think the most difficult thing about travel for work is that it's like you're at work for 24 hours a day. There really isn't any closure until you fly home. I know I could always tell my boss that I don't want to do it anymore, but I feel like this is something I should learn to deal with. Maybe it won't be a big deal after some time. I could be in worse places after all. Anyways, I wish life in Utah was more intersting to write about, but there really isn't much to say. Next week, I'll have to venture into Salt Lake City a bit.

This week was one of those weeks where I was just in constant hurry mode. I had to put a system together and then ship it by Friday afternoon so I could build it again in Mormonia. Doesn't sound too hard except, I didn't get all the pieces so it was priority overnight this and that all week. Rush paper work, etc., always running back and forth. And then between all those times, I had to run to Home Depot and Radio Shack a few times to buy tools cuz being a new project, we don't have any tools!

Anyways, while in Home Depot, I needed to get a wire stripper from the electronics aisle, but the wire cutters were in this gated area and it was locked. I guess they lock most of the small items to keep them from getting stolen. Anyways, it was a bit annoying waiting for the guy to come and unlock the cabinet so I could get what I needed. So I while I was waiting I thought alot and I discovered the futility of locking anything within Home Depot. What's to stop me from just walking over to Aisle 7 and picking up a lock cutter, and then on the way back, stop at Aisle 8 to get another padlock. So not only could one cut the lock off and get what they wanted, they could put an identical lock in its place and no one would be the wiser, moo ha ha. Well, I withheld the urge, but it seemed so simple to do. It's not like carrying a lock cutter in Home Depot would attract any attention.

I don't know why I think this way. I actually never have any desires to steal. I just like to think of ways to beat the system not so much to gain from it, but I just wonder if I'm smart enough to get away with it. But the only way to really know is to test your theories. I'm not going to do that so I guess I'll put the energy into some book one day. Of course then there will be mass hysteria of controversy as my book supposedly gives people ideas on how to beat the system. Hey, it's only fiction!

I also think the same stuff about airport security. It isn't perfect you know. I still think it can be beaten. These guys are so intent about killing themselves. Why don't they just put the bomb inside them? I once saw a guy bring a cat in a bag as a carry-on. He couldn't have put the cat through X-ray so he carried it through the screener with him. Why can't you just put the bomb in the cat? The cat would even have staples from the surgery that would also set off the medal detector. You tell them the cat got fixed or had some medal pins put in its legs because of surgery or something. Or because you're carrying the cat, you could say the medal is on you. You have a metal plate in your head. These guys have access to lots of money. Just put a real metal plate in their head and get all the documentation needed to prove it and then do it. Why wouldn't that work? Obviously, I wouldn't want this to happen, but it seems feasible to me. The only thing is maybe the bomb is too big to fit in a body cavity, but things get smaller over time.

Anyways, you probably think I'm totally nuts for thinking stuff up like this, but that's exactly the kind of people that create these security precautions. You gotta think like a terrorist to stop a terrorist. It's kinda like hackers make the best computer security professionals cuz they know where all the weaknesses are so they can strengthen them.

Anyways, if you want to hear a really scary post 9/11 security breach story then keep reading. When I went to Belarus two years ago, we were waiting for our connection flight to Germany in Washington, D.C. We're in the terminal and we see a woman kiss her husband goodbye and then proceed to leave the terminal! What's weird about that? How did she get into the terminal to kiss her husband goodbye? Well, Hal saw it and asked her and she said, "I just scanned his itinerary in my computer and printed my own copy." Yep, she forged an itinerary that easily and got past security. She probably couldn't get on a flight with that, but she got pretty far and that could do alot of damage. So why didn't someone report her? The enemy is within unfortunately. Everybody has got an agenda and they don't want the airport shut down over a breach in security. So it becomes a personal decision on whether the individual that witnessed the breach thinks it's a threat or not. She didn't seem threatening. Would you delay your trip to Europe for a day on a technicality? I think most people wouldn't. Some of you may not want to hear this, but it's the truth.

On that note, have a great trip to Europe, Amy! Heh heh.