Gentlemen, I propose we elevate the "what are you ___ right now" theme to something befitting this forum's clientele.

Seems an appropriate topic for this hour of the morning...

Not exactly a crisis, but I think alot about what will become of my former step-children, now 25, 19, and 17. I have spent over a third of my life with them and still see them weekly.

Existential. Befitting.

If God can do anything, can He/She create a rock so big that He/She cannot lift it?

A 13-month old baby who constantly wants to explore and learn to a degree that rivals "Number 5 is alive!".

That I fucking HATE writing research grant applications.

I've got two on the boil right now and its making me cranky, argumentative and is disturbing my sleep.

If God can do anything, can He/She create a rock so big that He/She cannot lift it?

Yep, but only if he allows himself too.

~~

No crisis here other than I'm going to die like everyone else.

After reading some posts here. I think this may be appropriate:

Existential crisis, derived from existentialism, is a stage of development at which an individual questions the very foundations of their life

Was my latest batch of homemade peach cobbler (15 minutes ago) touched by the hand of God, or am I just that good?

Was my latest batch of homemade peach cobbler (15 minutes ago) touched by the hand of God, or am I just that good?

I demand a recipe!

Yep, but only if he allows himself too.

~~

No crisis here other than I'm going to die like everyone else.

I demand a recipe!

PEACH COBBLER

4 Cups sliced, peeled peach wedges. (frozen work just fine)

2 Cups sugar

1 stick butter

1

On a more serious note and to the point of your question.

How is it possible for a father to murder his seven and twelve year old children? What can possibly drive a person, let alone a parent, to do such a monstrous act? I believe that there is this very thin line between sanity and insanity; we all tread that line at some point in our lives but for some they just cross over without any warning to themselves or anyone else. I spent most of Wednesday afternoon pondering this at the funeral for these two kids all the while trying not to tear up in front of my wife and son.

For a while there I thought I had most of life figured out, but boy was I wrong.

Why not tear up in front of them?

That just shows you have feelings in my book. I saw my Dad cry once in my life, and it only made me feel that much closer to him.

For the record I tear up at sad TV commercials, and I'm not the least ashamed of it.

Steve you are right, but it dosen't mean I can do what I know is right.

PEACH COBBLER

Brilliant!

What can possibly drive a person, let alone a parent, to do such a monstrous act?

Not enough peach cobbler.

Sorry that I can't give you a serious answer...... I just don't have one.

As for the tearing up...... well sometimes you have to be human, sometimes you have to be strong so that those who look up to you know that everything will be okay.

Here's one mans explanation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/science/03conv.html

I'm good though my DIY spirit is a bit rattled after creative wiring today resulted in live mains shorting out with the resulting kaboom and lights out. Should be back to normal in the morning.

Chicken or fish? Chicken or fish? Chicken or fish?

Spam....... with beans!

I'm good though my DIY spirit is a bit rattled after creative wiring today resulted in live mains shorting out with the resulting kaboom and lights out. Should be back to normal in the morning.

X2.

Hope everythings OK.

Dolts who insist on touching my computer monitor screens to point to what they're talking about on our websites.

Small "misunderstanding" when wiring up the delay line in the BH PSU. I really should know better then to be working on this stuff after a long day at work but... Luckily the heater transformer and the delay board were the only things connected so no harm done.

One of my hobbies is writing. A friend of mine is also a very good story teller. I wanted to share the following with you because it is a damn good short read and would like to dedicate it to all the DIY'ers here. The following was written by Stan as a result of a conversation we had about another forum member who enjoys woodworking:

When i was eleven, my mother packed us up and we took a U-haul from my childhood home in Oregon to Oil City, Pennsylvania, to care for my grandparents in their waning years. It was this rural area that taught me the truth about death, but that's a conversation for another time.

My grandfather was a dogfighter in the Pacific theater of WWII. He was the kind of guy who had a room full of medals and war memorabilia that he never entered, and told his stories, only on his deathbed, and only to my stepfather for fear of how the stories would effect the gentler, female side of his progeny. When i moved into his decrepit house he was old and arthritic, bloated with inaction and diabetes, hardly able to push out of his chair to walk to the kitchen and yet incapable of entertaining the thought of letting the farm go overrun. I was too young to understand why at the time, but he somehow found the strength in his aching bones to get out on the tractor, clean up the branches from the orchard, and check the array of birdhouses he had planted on the old farm, once an airstrip but now chest-high grass.

Behind the house were three buildings. There was a garage where he parked the lawn mower and stored tons of planed wooden planks. There was the toolshed, full of rusty implements untouched in decades, reflecting the inability of the farm to function anymore from the age of its owners, the age of its heart. And there was the woodshop where my grandfather spent most of his remaining time. His hands were weak, but steady, and I provided the strength needed to haul the wood from the shed to the shop. So he stayed in the shop most of the day, every day, building things. He built chairs and bed boxes, toy horses and birdhouses. I watched him build a lot of things, but was too young to get why. He showed me how to build a bird house, and we built one together, and then he died.

We never got along too well, since by that point I was already a nerd, a bastard raised by his mother on the weekends and by the school system during the week. I'm pretty sure the entire family is shocked that I didn't turn out gay. I could never shoot any of his guns, I'm not fit, nor military, nor did I understand why a man would spend the end of his life building bird houses. But now I know. And now his house sits abandoned, molding, and condemned, and I'm sure the orchard has overgrown the place where the trailer sits. His tools have all been stolen by a neighbor and we're having a hell of a time coming up with an impetus to get them back. The lawnmower's shed has collapsed, and the toolshed's windows are all broken, the kudzu growing inside. John's even told me a few of Bud's war stories. My memories of that sad, dying place have faded, but in my backyard are a windchime that rings with the breath of the wind, reminding me of the birdhouse on the back fence and why a man can do nothing but continue to build, until he's taken apart.

I liked that very much. Your friend is indeed a wordsmith.