Month: April 2008

Categories
Driving Hoaxes Internet Travel

Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame

BUYCOTT – BUY ALL of your gas from Citgo.

BOYCOTT – DON’T BUY ANY of your gas from Citgo.

Dueling E-Mails have been in constant circulation over the past couple of years urging you to buy all of your gasoline from Citgo – or urging you to do the complete opposite. There are many different E-Mail variations of both sides of this issue, and in all cases the myriad of reasons given are untrue, exaggerated, or just plain fabricated.

Here’s what we know is true. Citgo is owned by the national oil company of Venezuela. Hugo Chavez is the President of Venezuela. Lots of different oil companies buy their crude oil from Venezuela – including the gas station that you would probably spend your money at in lieu of Citgo – which incidentally has its world headquarters right here in the U.S. – in Houston Texas. Citgo employs some 4,000 people, and they supply some 14,000 independent retailers with gasoline. Boycotting any particular gas station or gas brand only serves to possibly put a tiny economic ding towards the local neighbourhood franchise owner and his or her personal staff of that gas station or gas brand – fellow Americans like you and me – only if you had previously frequented that station or brand on a regular basis. If you don’t want to support the oil companies – both domestic and international – then walk, run, or pedal a bicycle. If you want to buy less gas then drive more responsibly. The fact of the matter is that boycotts (of anything) are virtually irrelevant and produce little to no results – positive or negative. When was the last successful boycott of anything here in the U.S. in our history ?

Read how Snopes explains both sides of this issue.

Categories
Blogging Driving God Home Internet Travel

Thursday Morning In Orlando

Good Morning Everyone !  It’s Thursday morning, and it’s the final (half) day of the 2008 New Church Conference – Exponential ’08 here in Orlando, and I’ve got so many handwritten notes written down that it appears that I’ll be blogging all weekend long – once I return home to the comfort and convenience of my living room and (most importantly) the technology of my high-speed cable Internet connection. Here in Orlando I’ve been sputtering along at roughly 50.6 Kbps (via an old dial-up connection). That’s right. I’m cruising the Internet like it’s 1998 !  My next laptop will have that fancy schmancy new wireless innovation included within it !

OK friends here’s the plan. I’ll be back at home in Homestead later today (early tonight). I’ll post this week’s ‘Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame’ first and foremost, and then if I’m still wide awake and have some energy left over I’ll post the first of three ‘Exponential Conference Orlando Tossed Salads’. I’m devoted to posting a single edition for each day of the conference, so you’ll see all of my highlights / takeaways summarized in a way that is most worthy of the coveted (nearly legendary) ‘Tossed Salad’ brand name. I’ve also got to do the ‘Friday Night Blogroll Review’ on Friday night or else a whole bunch of you will begin going through withdrawals. I know that a lot of you regular bloggers post some of your best award-winning material on Thursdays in a dire effort to make it onto the ‘Friday Night Blogroll Review’, so get to it and I’ll get to it as well. Look for that shortly after 4 PM on Friday night.

So that’s what I’ve got for you on this Thursday morning in Orlando. Don’t forget – the regular Thursday night and Friday night features on here plus 3 days – 3 editions of the ‘Tossed Salad’ from the Exponential Conference. It’s all right here on ‘The Major’s Life Blog’ over the next 60 hours. Don’t miss the excitement. You won’t regret it pal. Cool beans.

Categories
Blogging Driving Internet Travel

Wednesday Morning In Orlando

I woke up this morning a couple of times during the four-o-clock hour, and then once and for all at 5:30 AM. It’s a beautiful Wednesday morning right here in Orlando Florida !

It’s going to be a  l o n g  day today – so long that I may not even be able to post another blog entry for today, so here it is if that indeed turns out to be the crazy case of the missing blogger.

I’ll make it all up to you later this week on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I’ll probably be blogging so much that you’ll have to check back about every two hours or so for continuing blog updates as they occur.

Incidentally I’ve got the perfect ‘Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame’ to present to you. This week my dear friend of the past 11 months – Paul H. – provided the impetus. It’s got to do with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Citgo gas stations. Be there as I set the records straight like only I can !

Until then – Keep it real dudes and dudettes !

Categories
Career Driving Food God Internet Life People Travel

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

1.  I drove from Homestead to Orlando this morning with a crew of about 16 (including kids) from Life Pointe Church. We took 4 vehicles with us (including mine). This is the longest one-day road-trip my car has been on since the first couple of weeks of March 2007 when I drove all the way up to the northwestern suburbs of Atlanta Georgia for a work-related conference.

2.  I paid a record-shattering $3.799 per gallon for gas along Florida’s Turnpike. 10.660 gallons of it went into my car, so that came out to a mind-boggling $40.50. I never thought that it would cost over $40 to fill up my fuel-efficient Saturn with less than 11 gallons of gas !

3.  Venus pointed out to me several times that perhaps my driving is just a wee-bit on the conservative side for her personal tastes. In fact she hinted that I drive like an old retired Floridian. She stated that she likes to hang out on the road with her ‘speeding buddies’. I inquired as to why she’s always late for everything if she’s always speeding. I also suggested that she leave much earlier to get to her destinations so that she wouldn’t have to speed, and she would arrive alive on-time. 

4.  To ‘rubberneck’ is to unnaturally turn your head at pretty much a 90° right angle and essentially stretch your neck so that it looks like it’s made out of rubber. When you’re driving along and everyone drives real slow so that they can examine the aftermath of a bad accident along the side of the road most people stretch their neck and hence ‘rubberneck’. Venus and I discussed that for a few minutes as Anne J. took a well-deserved nap.

5.  This is the first time since November 2006 that I’ve been here in Orlando. Once upon a time in a previous life not quite so far away I used to visit this city 3 or 4 or 5 or more times per year. Orlando used to be my playground – my home away from home – my South Beach – my Panama City Beach – my Cancun.

6.  Actual proof that it’s been awhile since I’ve been here in Orlando is the fact that I’ve made the wrong turn on at least 3 or 4 separate occasions right along the north end of International Drive – a road that I used to roll on quite frequently during a decade of fun.

7.  I’m attending the 2008 National New Church Conference here in Orlando. It’s also known as the ‘Exponential’ Conference – subtitled ‘The DNA Of Reproducing Churches’. I took a whole bunch of notes ‘chicken-scratch’ style during the first afternoon of sessions. Eventually I will decipher my notes and then transpose them into a separate blog entry that is most worthy to be included within the prestigious ‘Tossed Salad’ brand name here on this blog. Judging by how many raw notes I took this afternoon alone this may turn out to be a multi-part mini-series of ‘Tossed Salad’ editions rather than one big one. It’s all good. There’s a lot of learnin’ goin’ on here, and the funnest part of learnin’ is sharin’ the knowledge. Knowledge Is Power !  Power Is Fame !

8.  Pastor Travis and Pastor Paul are recording their notes from the conference via the new and modern way – directly onto their laptops on-site – and in Travis’s case – directly onto his blog and-or his Twitter. Believe it or not in the specific breakout session that I personally attended on blogging we spent a good 10 minutes talking about Twitter. That word – ‘Twitter’ – must have been uttered at least 50 times. Before P.J. introduced the entire Twittering concept to me and his tens of fans via his blog I had never heard that word spoken before in my entire Life.

9.  Our entire crew met up at Giordano’s for dinner over in Lake Buena Vista (very near the far-eastern entrance to Walt Disney World). We ate a bunch of their ‘World Famous Stuffed Pizza’, and in no time flat we were pretty much stuffed, walking funny, and making wacky sounds with our bodies. I took my Lipitor a good 5 hours later than normal. Better late than never – especially after this potentially heart-damaging meal !  Paul – Remind me to give you my Doctor’s business card upon our return back home to Homestead.  🙂

10.  I couldn’t possibly have more genuine fun here in Orlando than I did today, or on any other day that I’ve spent here in Orlando over the past 15 years. I am so totally humbled and blessed to be able to participate in this wonderful experience along God’s fantastic journey.