This will be short and sweet.
When Capital One says "No Hassle', don't believe a word of it. They are one of several companies who have outsourced their customer service somewhere in Asia (meaning you can't communicate with the representatives). Getting anything done or any queston answered is a HUGE hassle. All the English speaking people are in the fraud department, and even they are challenged to get it right.
Don't be fooled, those bumfuddeling Vikings ARE Capital One.
9.22.2006
9.16.2006
Royal Thoughts
It's crossed my mind several times since studying the biology and social structure of bees that something I heard from my dear sister, Cookie, is very true. She had told me that every plot, every character, every story line Hollywood or Bollywood or "whoever" comes up with is in the Bible. It wasn't long after that ABC started showing Desperate Housewives. Yes, I watched a few episodes, more out of curiousity about the murder mystery than anything, and no, I don't watch it now. All that to say this - a Martha wannabe, Potiphar's Wife, the silly woman and Eli's wife were all there. Split them up into their respective years, put robes on them and viola! Bible characters. I think Potiphar's wife was probably the most blatantly obvious of the four original main characters.
But back to bees. Leaning more toward biology than Bible, it's crossed my mind on more than one occasion that si-fi has borrowed heavily from bees. Yes, I watch a bit of si-fi too, mostly Star Trek and Stargate. A lot of the other stuff that poses as si-fi is geeky occult not worth the trash can it needs to go in.
Queen bees have long held a particular reputation as the she-boss of the hive that everything centers around. There is some truth to that, but we'll skip the particulars for now. The important thing to understand for this discussion is that she's the key to hive cohesiveness. It is her pheremone spread throughout the hive from her to one bee, then another, then another as they go about their business, that signals "all is ok." This pheremone determines the "personaility", if you will, of the hive. I had a particularily cantankerous hive once. Replacing the queen caused it to become gentle within a few short weeks. Changes in pheremone tell a hive to prepare to swarm. Absence of pheremone causes a hive to become agitated and worrysome. You can actually hear the difference in a hive when no queen is present.
Relating this to si-fi, it's been interesting to see this concept applied to super villan races in both series mentioned. In Star Trek it was the Borg. Of course they explained it as low frequency sub space transmissions or something like that, but the concept of all within the ship or species being connected via "something" was not new. Same thing for the Raith in Stargate Atlantis. Their ships are called hive ships. Could it be more obvious?
The good part is as believers in Christ, we have such a bond. It's, He's, called the Holy Spirit. His presence in our lives is very precious as He gently (and sometimes not so gently as the need calls for) works to perfect us in Christ. One of my most striking memories is of an event that happened deep in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in the early 80's. Baby Doc was still in power and the country was much safer for Americans then. My dh and our 3 month old were visiting his parents (missionaries) at the time. Dad H drove us into slums that looked worse than anything we had ever seen in Chicago. I was scared to be there. He stopped the jeep in front of what looked like a hole in a wall and we were greeted by a dark skinned man who didn't speak a word of English. We recognized him immediatly though. No, we didn't know his name or his job or anything, but we recognized a brother who loved the same God we love. We visited in his home a while and it was an amazing oasis of peace. Of course Dad H spoke Creole so they conversed, and we never got past "hello", but the bond was there non-the-less.
It's happened many times since then. Deep fellowship with someone you strike converstation with in a tire store in a strange city. (Could that be the reason for that blowout?) Finding someone with a need greater than a clump of bees in their yard who gave you the encouragement your heart desperatly needed? We are after all part of the same body. And Spirit is life.
Ok, so maybe God did that queen pheremone thing as an image of one aspect of Himself. Cool, very cool nontheless.
It's crossed my mind several times since studying the biology and social structure of bees that something I heard from my dear sister, Cookie, is very true. She had told me that every plot, every character, every story line Hollywood or Bollywood or "whoever" comes up with is in the Bible. It wasn't long after that ABC started showing Desperate Housewives. Yes, I watched a few episodes, more out of curiousity about the murder mystery than anything, and no, I don't watch it now. All that to say this - a Martha wannabe, Potiphar's Wife, the silly woman and Eli's wife were all there. Split them up into their respective years, put robes on them and viola! Bible characters. I think Potiphar's wife was probably the most blatantly obvious of the four original main characters.
But back to bees. Leaning more toward biology than Bible, it's crossed my mind on more than one occasion that si-fi has borrowed heavily from bees. Yes, I watch a bit of si-fi too, mostly Star Trek and Stargate. A lot of the other stuff that poses as si-fi is geeky occult not worth the trash can it needs to go in.
Queen bees have long held a particular reputation as the she-boss of the hive that everything centers around. There is some truth to that, but we'll skip the particulars for now. The important thing to understand for this discussion is that she's the key to hive cohesiveness. It is her pheremone spread throughout the hive from her to one bee, then another, then another as they go about their business, that signals "all is ok." This pheremone determines the "personaility", if you will, of the hive. I had a particularily cantankerous hive once. Replacing the queen caused it to become gentle within a few short weeks. Changes in pheremone tell a hive to prepare to swarm. Absence of pheremone causes a hive to become agitated and worrysome. You can actually hear the difference in a hive when no queen is present.
Relating this to si-fi, it's been interesting to see this concept applied to super villan races in both series mentioned. In Star Trek it was the Borg. Of course they explained it as low frequency sub space transmissions or something like that, but the concept of all within the ship or species being connected via "something" was not new. Same thing for the Raith in Stargate Atlantis. Their ships are called hive ships. Could it be more obvious?
The good part is as believers in Christ, we have such a bond. It's, He's, called the Holy Spirit. His presence in our lives is very precious as He gently (and sometimes not so gently as the need calls for) works to perfect us in Christ. One of my most striking memories is of an event that happened deep in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in the early 80's. Baby Doc was still in power and the country was much safer for Americans then. My dh and our 3 month old were visiting his parents (missionaries) at the time. Dad H drove us into slums that looked worse than anything we had ever seen in Chicago. I was scared to be there. He stopped the jeep in front of what looked like a hole in a wall and we were greeted by a dark skinned man who didn't speak a word of English. We recognized him immediatly though. No, we didn't know his name or his job or anything, but we recognized a brother who loved the same God we love. We visited in his home a while and it was an amazing oasis of peace. Of course Dad H spoke Creole so they conversed, and we never got past "hello", but the bond was there non-the-less.
It's happened many times since then. Deep fellowship with someone you strike converstation with in a tire store in a strange city. (Could that be the reason for that blowout?) Finding someone with a need greater than a clump of bees in their yard who gave you the encouragement your heart desperatly needed? We are after all part of the same body. And Spirit is life.
Ok, so maybe God did that queen pheremone thing as an image of one aspect of Himself. Cool, very cool nontheless.
9.13.2006
Wow - bee opportunities have abounded lately. I think I wrote that a reporter from the Eagle spent part of last Thursday with me. The article came out this morning. It's online here.
I had to turn down Camp Victory's request for a workshop due to a schedule conflict. Our church ladies are going to Spring Hill, TN for a ladies retreat the end of this month and Mina has asked me to share a little about honey and health. That should be fun. For anyone who's not heard her sing or speak, you're missing out. She truly sings from the heart and is a hoot to boot.
Yesterday was the first of the kids bee workday's at Landmark Park. It was windy and two kids and two teachers got stung. Fortunatly Dr. Mom (moi) had her handy dandy first aid kit and treated the boo-boos. I had to hand to to J.B. who also taught, he gave the young victims the choice jobs of the group. Our club volunteers carried out the entire program as the state and extension guys had schedule conflicts. I like teaching the home school and Christian school kids especially as you can include God's hand in all the wonders of bees and honey.
I had to turn down Camp Victory's request for a workshop due to a schedule conflict. Our church ladies are going to Spring Hill, TN for a ladies retreat the end of this month and Mina has asked me to share a little about honey and health. That should be fun. For anyone who's not heard her sing or speak, you're missing out. She truly sings from the heart and is a hoot to boot.
Yesterday was the first of the kids bee workday's at Landmark Park. It was windy and two kids and two teachers got stung. Fortunatly Dr. Mom (moi) had her handy dandy first aid kit and treated the boo-boos. I had to hand to to J.B. who also taught, he gave the young victims the choice jobs of the group. Our club volunteers carried out the entire program as the state and extension guys had schedule conflicts. I like teaching the home school and Christian school kids especially as you can include God's hand in all the wonders of bees and honey.
9.07.2006
It's Thursday afternoon and I'M HOME!!! (This is where Chicken Little would start running and yelling) It feels good. Actually, it feels great. I just said bye to a nice reporter who had lunch with me. The weather is overcast and not nearly as humid. The lack of pressure is almost intoxicating. I need more days like this. A nap sounds good.
Soooo - it looks like the Eagle is featuring our little bee operation in the food section next Wednesday. The reporter is a sweet young mother freelancing on the side. It was kind of uncanny having someone who already knew my website inside out ask a ton of thought provoking questions. The nice part was that it left the door wide open to speak to her about some of the things God has shown me through all this. Hopefully she and her husband will take us up on the invitation to visit our church.
It seems every time I find myself in a rut thinking "this is going nowhere" the Lord either sends me down a particular path or in this case, put something/someone in my path. I'd have never in my wildest dreams imagined a feature article, but that's what's fixin' to happen. He gets the credit. All I've done is keep His little critters, and enjoy their produce! :-)
Soooo - it looks like the Eagle is featuring our little bee operation in the food section next Wednesday. The reporter is a sweet young mother freelancing on the side. It was kind of uncanny having someone who already knew my website inside out ask a ton of thought provoking questions. The nice part was that it left the door wide open to speak to her about some of the things God has shown me through all this. Hopefully she and her husband will take us up on the invitation to visit our church.
It seems every time I find myself in a rut thinking "this is going nowhere" the Lord either sends me down a particular path or in this case, put something/someone in my path. I'd have never in my wildest dreams imagined a feature article, but that's what's fixin' to happen. He gets the credit. All I've done is keep His little critters, and enjoy their produce! :-)
9.06.2006
For what it's worth (which isn't much exept to myself) I'm switching everything to a url with the correct spelling of this blog. This blogspot stuff is relativly new to me so I'm still getting the hang of everything. All in time, all in time.
Previous posts may be viewed at www.bemusement101.blogspot.com
Previous posts may be viewed at www.bemusement101.blogspot.com
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