One Story Two Perspectives

Posted on January 31, 2010 by venagozar

Does a story have two versions? Does a story have one version with two viewpoints? I have a story to share of a recent turn of events. A story with two perspectives, and I am not sure at the moment which view, if either, is the real one. They both may be true and they are both may be false. Depending on how you look.

This story is told two ways, is one way is a string of coincidences, and the other way is an intended series of events. Is this story a chain of random events, or is this story an intended course of coincidences which are too disparate not to have divine intervention manipulating events to a desired outcome?

I will start with the version which started some weeks ago.

I have a family member who works at a school which happens to have an apartment complex across and some distance down the street. This apartment complex of has many children which go to the school, a Vista Worker who is working to improve the lives of people in the neighborhood, an elderly woman.

The Vista worker somehow meets my relative. They are at least, two professionals with a similar dream for the neighborhood. A third person is already present in the story. The third person is the retired individual who has put in a request to the Vista volunteer worker for a computer tutoring class.

However the conversation came up, the family member mentioned I did computer tutoring as a volunteer in the past. The Vista worker asked the family member if I would volunteer to hold computer classes for the apartment complex families. The request was passed on to me, and I agreed to volunteer a few hours a week for computer tutoring sessions.

My first volunteer session brings one person to class. The retired person, who also owns a computer, but does not know how to use it. Unknown to me, they have a burning desire to accomplish a singular task, and they need my help. The retired person is a licensed Minister who has something very important to share with the world beyond everyday ministry. They want to share their vision using a computer, as that is the easiest way to reach the most people.

Here is the second version which is a little different.

A retired person who is a licensed Minister, who is also is a self proclaimed Prophet of God, receives direct albeit sporadic communications from God, was once given a visit to heaven. Afterward, acting on direction from God, they wrote down their experience, and some additional things they were shown or told. It was rewritten a few times, and sent off to one or more publishers for publication. The result to date is poor at best with very few copies sold.

Seeing this dismal result, God sets into play a string of events which brings the retired person cum Prophet and myself together via a computer tutoring session. In the course of the first session the Prophet sends their first ever email to a Christian broadcasting network. A strongly worded expectation, the network needs to read the Prophet’s book.

The second computing class hour with the Prophet, and the rest becomes clear. This Prophet of God in the clothing of a computer illiterate retired person, wishes to get their story into the hands of as many people as possible via the internet having only the vaguest idea of what the internet is and how the internet works.

It appears to be my duty in the process to assist the Prophet to help get their story out.

End of chapter one. Seen from one perspective there is this string of joined coincidences that benefits a retired person cum Gods Prophet.

From a second perspective, God arranged a number of seemingly unrelated life events so the possibility of a certain outcome could occur. God rolled the dice. My bit part is, I have a blog, some understanding of the internet, and how it works, and have some time to spare each week to help an aging Prophet complete their God given directive.

So now, I am unsettled about this situation. Was there indeed divine intervention, and is this the result? Or is this only a string of unrelated events, and the outcome is simply a coincidence, and no more?

I wish to know, what do you think? What in your opinion is real. What you would do if you were me?

Simple Gestures Make Someone Happy

Posted on January 27, 2010 by venagozar

I was at the grocery store, and a most interesting thing happened. It is January and cold, yet one little girl of (I think) five years old turned it into June for a minute or two. I had finished collecting the few items I wanted, and made my way up front to check out.

In front of me was a young woman with two little girls, the five year old and a younger girl of perhaps four. The three of them were ahead of me, standing around the cart, waiting for their turn to check out. Suddenly the girls, in a flash of impulse saw the flowers for sale display a few feet away.

The flower stand was circular perhaps and eight foot circle, and composed of four tiers with the fourth tier a circle large enough for a single container holding three small bunches of flowers. The stand was filled with flowers, either no one could afford them, or it had recently been restocked.

The little girls kind of skipped and hopped over to the flower stand. The youngest girl was content to stare at one section, admiring the colors and moving a few feet to repeat her observations. The older girl however had a completely different approach.

The older little girl was looking at all the flowers, re-arranging the their positions in a sequence that appealed to her sense of where they should be. After she finished moving the flowers around she started taking out loud to individual flower bunches and telling her mom to look at how pretty each bunch was. Almost laughing, she would pick up a bunch of flowers, say something to each bunch of flowers, and put them back in the container they came from.

The younger girl bored of the flowers, and went back to the cart, and sat on the bottom. Her shoes were worn, and a few sizes too big for her tiny feet. She didn’t seem to notice though, so I think she was used to hand me downs, fitting correctly or not. I then noticed that no one in the small family of three were dressed very well. All their clothes were well used and more than a little worn.

The older girl, was absolutely bubbling by now, flitting about the flowers, taking them off the stand, hugging them, saying something to them and putting them back. She reminded me of a honey bee collecting pollen, or a humming bird sucking up nectar. She was lost in a her own little world she had created with nothing more than a stand of cut flowers in a grocery store.

The magic of her enthusiasm over the flowers pulled me in, and I asked the Mom if it was okay to give the little girl money to buy a single bunch of flowers to bring home. The Mom was not sure how to respond and mumbled something that did not sound like a firm no.

I gave the little girl five dollars and some change to make the tax on the flowers at four dollars and ninety-nine cents a bunch. I was called to another register and it was time for me to check out. I paid my bill, and left the store, wondering if the little girl had bought her Mom, her Sister, and herself fresh flowers to take home, or did she decide to save the money and use it for something more important like proper fitting shoes for her sister.

I would like to think her Mom told her to pick one bunch of flowers for herself. If so, when they wake up tomorrow morning, the flowers will be there there to bring a little sunshine into their lives. It does not take a lot of time, effort, or money to make a positive change in a life.

Facebook And Not Me

Posted on January 24, 2010 by venagozar

Sometimes I feel like the last person in the world who is not on some social networking site. Every now and then I get offers or invitations to join a social networking site. I think about it, kick it around in my head for a few days and decide I really do not care to share my whole life with the world.

I now remember that is not completely true. I did open and account on one site. They did not seem to be overly concerned with who I really was, so I made up some information for the site and created an account.

I kept it active for about six weeks, and then let it die a slow lingering death due to inactivity. I am sure by now it has passed into the great data collection point in the sky and made it into a non important database.

It is not that my life is anything more special than anyone else’s life, or I am a fugitive from justice trying to evade capture and incarceration. I prefer to have my life be my own as much as possible.

Sharing information or pictures about what I am doing or have been doing is a fun idea, but I find I can do it quite well using email, or a phone call. Both of them to me are a little more personable, than posting on a site and checking back to see who if anyone has visited and looked at what I put up there.

This week, the subject came up again, I had an invite from a long time friend to join him on facebook. This time I actually thought about it, and did a little checking on the net to see what I could find. I had heard all these wonderful stories about meeting old friends, catching up with schoolmates, etc.

I went to facebook’s site to check it out, that seemed the most logical. At first glance it looks like an official government site, conservative and blue. I was surprised that there were no sample accounts to see – unless I signed up for an account. If you are like most people, that did not slow you down. For me it sent up red flags of caution and fireworks of concern.

I decided to check out some facebook pages, and could not look at any. To even have the opportunity to look at a facebook page, I have to have a facebook account. Hmmm. I found that interesting. I did find these bits of information clicking on the policy link at the bottom of the web page:

Consent to Collection and Processing in the United States. By using Facebook, you consent to having your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States.

and under statement of rights page, number 13. Amendments…

“We can make changes for legal or administrative reasons upon notice without opportunity to comment.”

You also may want to read the second to last paragraph of the about page. The paragraph starts with:

“Examples of the types of information”

Still on the fence about whether to join or not, I thought about facebook videos. It seemed logical that someone made a video of, on, or about facebook. I googled facebook, clicked on videos, and found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

It was not quite the pot of gold I expected though. Here are a few youtube links I watched. I have no idea whether they are accurate or not, nor do I know anything about them other than I watched them.

Facebook and other social networking sites may be wonderful, and I may be too cautious and overly concerned with my private information. It is one thing to know there is a lot of publicly available information on anyone. It is quite another to put so much information in one place.

In facebook’s, and other social networking sites defense, I imagine they are trying to provide a service, and make a few dollars along the way. Who can fault that? The policies they have in place are the most responsible policies reasonably possible, I am guessing.

You, of course will have to decide for yourself, as always, what is right for you and your use. My opinion on this matter is obvious, I choose no thankyou.

Option Of Changing The World

Posted on January 20, 2010 by venagozar

Are you going to do it, or not? What will your choice be? Every day when we are actually awake and paying attention, there are available options. Because you are reading this, you have many more options than half the people in the world. You more than half the population of the world can take and option that may change the world forever in ways never imagined.

As we go through our day most of us are not aware of making any choices. The way we tend to think about our day is everything is pretty much planned out. We know what we are going wear, what we are going to do, when we are going to eat, and what we will do with our free time.

In the course of thinking what we are going to do we will have made a number of decisions. The simple act of waking and deciding what we are going to do with our day involves any number of decisions we are not even aware we are making.

Do we really have to wear the clothes we picked out, spend our day doing what we know or decided we need to do, and end our day in the manner we determined we would when we woke? For the most part we do have to do what we have planned because we are on autopilot. If we do not do what we planned, it is possible we will have made some choices that take us down avenues of life we never thought possible.

When paying attention to how the day unfolds, there are small decisions that need to be made depending on circumstance. These are the options that pop up every day. Subtle small choices that really seem to have no impact on anything we are doing or are likely to do. Big things sometimes come in packages so small we never even notice they exist.

For example, it is not uncommon in these times to have people at intersections holding out their hands, a can, or a hat, asking for money. Some hold signs, some stand dejectedly looking at nothing in particular. It is so common most people hardly notice any more.

Someone you see everyday looks like they are having a really bad day even though you were not told about it. Maybe you are the only person to notice, or maybe you are the last person to notice that something is wrong in their life. Do you pretend you do not see their pain and suffering like everyone else has today?

The phone rings and it is someone asking for donations for some charity. They spend whatever seconds you give them trying to convince you that the situation is desperate and it is practically your civic duty to part with some hard earned dollars for their cause. Maybe it is important, and maybe it is a scam to part the unsuspecting from their money.

These are options that enter life almost each and every day. Some are so small and slippery they enter and leave without being noticed. Others are larger, and demand not only attention, but possibly time or money.

There are the few and far between well disguised big options. Everything in your life has happened for this very moment. The chaos of life has collaborated to create a sequence of events to put you into a position where you are the only person who can take the option to act on something that needs to be done.

It may not be an option of epic proportions such as Jason and the Golden Fleece, Sacajawea, or Marie Currie, but it may be as big, or bigger. When everything falls into place at the right, or wrong time, you may well be the only person in the world with the totally unique qualifications to accept this particular option and follow it to its end.

Of course there is always the option of passing. Saying no, or doing nothing. That is the most painless way away from the situation. In doing that the world will go on as it always has, and the option of doing something meaningful and making a difference will slip into the future somewhere, to appear again in another form. Waiting until the time is right for you to be given an option.

Life options such as these can be though of as entrances to a building you have never entered before, and know nothing about. WIthout realizing, you have the option of going through the door – or not. If you do nothing, nothing will change. If you choose the option to go through the door, you may change the world in ways you never imagined.

It doesn’t take courage to take an option. It doesn’t take strength, stamina, or athletic ability. It does take an awareness to know the seriousness of the option you are presented with and wisdom to make the correct decision. Will you take the option?

Leopard Email Comcast SMTP Server Fix

Posted on January 18, 2010 by venagozar

In this post from August 2008, I made some harsh comments about Comcast customer service. At that time they were true in my opinion. Recently I upgraded my (not as flashy and new as these) Intel Mac to the newer Leopard operating system.

Everything went better than smooth except for my email. I was not able to send email from my imac to Comcast SMTP server. Leopard’s email ‘Connection Doctor’ and the ‘Preferences’ section kept reporting the Comcast Smtp server was offline.

I made two calls to Comcast this evening trying to find a solution. My experience tonight was with a new and improved Comcast customer service. I spoke with two different service people who were both experienced enough we did not need to start with, “Is your computer connected to the internet?”

Although Comcast customer service was not able to provide a good fix, the second person I spoke with gave me enough options I was able to resolve the problem myself.

Comcast tells me a lot of users are having the same issue with Leopard’s email, so I decided to post a fix. I was told that Comcast is experiencing some undefined server issues around the country at the moment, so be aware this may not be a problem you are having right now.

Here is the Leopard email fix:

Problem: I could not send mail from my mac to the Comcast SMTP server.

Fix:

Under Preferences -> Accounts -> Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) -> Edit SMTP server list -> advanced use the following settings

Click the radio button: Use default ports (25, 465, 587)

or: Use custom port and enter 587

Uncheck: Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

Authentication: None

Haiti’s Ecological Unbalance

Posted on January 16, 2010 by venagozar

When a disaster such as Haiti is experiencing during and in the aftermath of a terrible earthquake, it makes me wonder why we allow nations and their peoples to remain in the state they are in. This fiasco started with the European quest to discover new worlds. Other than the taking of wealth for the home country, it was not recognized anything was being discovered. Those daring sea captains of old were finding places that only few dreamt they existed.

Once discovered, new findings were exploited as quickly as possible. Natural balances that had been in place as long as the people were living there were ignored, and the european life style was instituted as being superior.

From first discovery of new lands to the present, we have totally destroyed the ecology of these lands and their peoples, that they can not maintain a sustainable life style where they live. Yet they are viewed as if they were physically a part of Europe or the Americas.

In lands that could support a healthy population much smaller than what is there, Haiti is terribly overpopulated, and almost totally dependent on the generosity of prosperous nations to supplement agricultural production.

Haiti and many other places around the globe have been artificially turned into lands that have something more common with Las Vegas, Nevada than their neighbors. Las Vegas can not on its own sustain the population that lives there. Nor can Las Vegas on its own sustain the transient population of visitors that descend upon the city to forget about real life for a few days.

Las Vegas, like Haiti can not survive without a steady flow of food, clothing and materials from outside its boundaries. While this is fine for Las Vegas as the economy is built this way, it is not good for poor countries such as Haiti, which is generally seen as the poorest country in the Americas.

In the aftermath of the earthquake, Haitians are not only hurt, sick, and hungry, there is no infrastructure to improve their lot. They are dependent on the stodgy good will and charity of wealthier nations to provide for their needs.

Aid to Haiti is of course terminally slow, as is the case with a major catastrophe anywhere in the world. Wealthy countries for different reason have supply chains to provide Haiti and countries like her with enough food and material to sustain a population many times larger than the natural ecosystem could sustain. These supply lines have been in place for many years and they work exceedingly well. Until a disaster such as the earthquake in Haiti, then the world once again sees what we have wrought upon innocent peoples.

Suddenly, the system falls flat on its face. There is not a country who makes it their duty to provide immediate aid and support for these step child countries. Major powers in the world fill the media with unending rhetoric of how they are trying to do the right thing, bringing needed aid to those that need it, such as Haiti.

When does the time come when we admit that our policies set forth hundreds of years ago are wrong, and it is our responsibility to make them right. It should be obvious that artificially sustaining too large a population in any country with surplus commodities is not in that countries best interest.

Perhaps we have arrived at that time in history, but we are not willing to voice it. Whenever catastrophe hits, new services from all over the world are there in hours reporting on the devastation. Leaders from the the largest help groups in the worlds arrive and pleading starts for donations for supplies.

We are one on this earth, and in many respects each of us is our brothers keeper. Is treating our brothers who are alive only through our misdirected generosity, and only when that generosity suits us, really looking to the welfare of our brothers and sisters around the world?

When is it time to admit that we are inept helping peoples and lands that are not our own. Maybe it is time we take what we know and produce reasonable alternatives going into the future about reasonable care of the world we live in. We can not prevent natural disaster from happening, but we can reduce the amount of human suffering as a result of a natural disaster.

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