John Burkholder

This psuedo-holiday has me a bit baffled. Most women expect something today as a token of love. This is the perceived meaning of Valentine's Day. Men on the other hand think of today as well, they day they forgot, and they need to run to CVS or Target and get something fast. But what do we really know about Saint Valentine and Valentine's Day? Valentine's Day (February 14) was created as a Roman Catholic feast for Valentine. The day was observed by the Roman Catholic church until 1969. Valentine was a martyr for the Romans. Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, we made a martyr's holiday into a holiday for love and gifts. Um...OK. As many of you are aware, Roman Catholics took holidays and converted them for their own. This is but another example. On the ancient Athens calendar, the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion, dedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera. In Ancient Rome, February 15 was Lupercalia. Lupercalia, o

I received an email today courtesy of Classmates.com. An old high school friend made contact with me after not hearing a word from him for about hanumuun years (can't give away too much). It was great to hear from him and discover that he is still alive. It was he that created one of the few good memories in my high school life. Personally, I was not a big fan of high school. I hated the social aspects of it all and I tended to hang out with the misfits more often than not. I had a car, so the friends I had tended to stay with me. I never got arrested, but it wasn't like there wasn't cause to arrest me. As a teenage male, I tended to do stupid things. I am sure my Mother knew about most of it, and never mentioned many. There were some cases where she had no idea. A good childhood friend (Red) and I were cruising around testing out the new camera flash I had while driving in my car (I said we did stupid things). On one of the main roads in our small town, the car we ended up

I just finished watching "The MC Hammer Story" on VH1 Classics. I think it was made quite a while back, but it definitely shows the essence and the lessons of life. I fully understand immersing oneself into your work and ignoring the things that are going on around you. I have and at times still do the same thing. It is that insatiable need to do your best and be the best. As my Queen constantly informs me, I am very competitive. For all of the nostalgic readers, I have had and continue to have a link to MC Hammer's blog. The blog actually delves into his personal life more than I expected which is actually quite refreshing for a celebrity. He touches on his spirituality, his family and his music. He often treats the blog as a photoblog and will post events such as birthdays, funerals, and Nascar racing (a recent discovery that Hammer seemed to like). The only thing I wonder about is he feels he is in his life. He doesn't often write about his struggles plans, and goa

For the past few weeks, I have been driving a truck without brakes. Basically, they have worn down to the point where when I depress the brakes, you can hear the worn metal rubbing on the worn metal. Luckily I have not had to stop with any required amount of force. I end up being the guy who starts slowing down about a mile before the stop light. To make things worse, I drive in the fast lane. Yes, I am one of those guys that is now driving in the fast lane and slowing down way before arriving at the stopped cars. I have not been honked at or given the finger, so I must make it look like no big deal. I don't have a spinner pin to tell me the brakes were going bad before they did, otherwise, I would have replaced the brakes already. For now, I will continue to drive without brakes much in the same way I have lived my life. I have made decisions in the past that are without brakes. I kept scanning the horizon and looking for other options rather than coming to a complete stop. I have

Nirek requested information about my experience with Windows Vista. I have been running Vista for about a month now. There is a commercial that raps it up pretty well. I have been working with bleeding edge technology for years. I worked as Beta tester for Windows 95 in 1993. I worked with Citrix Metaframe when it was still on AS-400 boxes. Fact is, my first actual PC was a Commodore 64 with the cassette tape storage option. The first hard drive I had the pleasure of working on was a 20MB platter drive that required 2 people to move it only after parking the drive. This may sound a bit like a dinosaur talking about the good ole days, but I have to say, things were actually easier. We didn't have any features, so of course it was easier. Everything was text. You actually had to type. The "mouse" was the squeek of the 5 1/4" floppy disk. There were drawbacks...pictures were non-existent. People often walked away from their computers and walked directly into walls becau

Well, well, well. This is indeed a deep subject. I checked in on iNina today to see her pictures from her trip to Greece. It looks like a great time. She mentioned one word in her blog entry about toiletseeing. Of course, this made my blood pump. Just the thought of toiletseeing sounded like something right down my alley. My first thought was to of course use the toilet. But after that, I was thinking of the travel industry and how an entire industry could be created with toiletseeing tours. Hundreds of people lined up in rows waiting to approach the toilet. Visitors leaving with the toilet paper firmly grasping on the shoes. You could have different kinds of tours. The men's tour. The women's tour. The walk into the other sex bathroom tour. The golden plunger tour (only the best toilets are featured). The photo opportunities are too numerous to mention. Women standing in front of urinals. Men using a bidet. Men looking at the tampon dispenser. Women looking at the condom vend

I am really not sure if it is due to my looks or my insatiable need for duct tape and toilet paper, but for some reason, I can't manage to get an Internet connection to work in my temp-a-house. So, today I "worked from home" to be here when the rent-a-cable-guy arrived at the door at 10:00. He came...he drilled a hole in my exterior wall...he blamed it not working on inside service...he left. I called inside service and the call went something like this: "Hello, the technician informed me I need to call you all to turn on my modem." I thought I stated clearly. "Have you plugged in your computer?" the technician asks. "Indeed I have. I have been assigned an IP address and I can see on the modem's web interface that it is not communicating with you. I have rebooted it and have the same result." "Can you go ahead and unplug the modem and turn off your computer?" the technician asks. "Not a problem." 45 seconds later, she

It is Super Bowl Monday and the game is over. First, I would like to thank the Chicago Bears for a great season. I personally feel the team as a whole played with skill and precision. Unfortunately, Indianapolis played better and won the game. Congrats to the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts simply out-played the Bears. Though the first quarter of the game definitely had the landmark Bears style of play with the special teams touchdown run off the kickoff. What a way to open a Super Bowl game. Honestly, I am just happy the Bears made it to the Super Bowl. As much criticism as Rex Grossman has had, he helped put the team in the Super Bowl, and he didn't receive any credit for it. Sportmanship is as important as the game itself. When Coach Lovie Smith was interviewed after the game, you could see he was disappointed from defeat, but he held his head up high and applauded his friend for a good game. That is honor among Warriors. This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). W

This is actually a post I started back in July that I decided to drag up since (once again) the issue has raised it's head. I have been mistaken for a celebrity. This doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. "Who" you ask? Paul Simon most commonly. Personally, I don't see the resemblance, but I guess that I am suppose to be a younger version of him. I guess it is possible that I am his illegitimate son. After all, I was adopted and I really don't know who my birth father was. But I seriously doubt it. I have also been mistaken for other local people. When I was in the Air Force, I attended a church. The first day of attending, EVERYBODY walked up to me and started talking to me asking when I came back. They all swore I was this other guy. The way I stood. The way I talked. Some people even argued with me about who I am. How frustrating do you think it would be to argue with someone about who you are? After showing military ID and drivers license to sever