Volunteer Ministers Help Villagers in Botswana

Great video about Scientology VM's helping out in Botswana.

Johannesburg - Dianetics & Scientology Basics Book-a-Thon

Johannesburg - Dianetics & Scientology Basics Book-a-Thon
Originally uploaded by scientologytoday.

This is from the 2007 Scientology & Dianetics Basics Books Book-a-thon! See http://bookathon.wordpress.com for more information!

Dianetics Book-a-Thon in L.A.!

Someplace in Wyoming

Someplace in Wyoming
Originally uploaded by jetteroheller.

I just found this one, taken by my old buddy, Amy, somewhere in Wyoming (see my Flickr map).

I need to go camping.

Cappy's Chowder House in Camden, ME

Cappy's Chowder House in Camden, ME
Originally uploaded by jetteroheller.

This place has positively the best Clam Chowder of any place on the planet. Including Boston. Including the west coast. Most certainly including New York City.

I took a trip back there to ensure my childhood memory wasn't failing me, and it wasn't. Their chowder is out of control.

This one made me cry

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Enhance my download experience? Another symbol of moral decay.

I just got the following message when downloading a new Windows Media Encoder:

"Some downloads are made available only after users have validated their versions of Microsoft Windows. Firefox and Netscape Navigator browser users may install a helper program, the Windows Genuine Advantage plug-in, to enhance their download experience."

I'm not sure precisely what this means.  I think that the inference is that when you can download the software, it enhances the experience - more so than if you're prevented from doing so.

Personally, I think the whole WGA ("Windows Genuine Advantage") issue is a enormous framework and hassle trying to solve the absolutely wrong problem.  It's the same thing as DRM and all of the woes that befall anyone trying to live with DRM-based music.  It ends up being more hassle than it's worth.

Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard had a much more simple solution.  He wrote it in The Way to Happiness, and it's called "Seek to Live with the Truth" and "Don't Do Anything Illegal". 

 

Click here to view other Public Service Announcements

If you've really bought something, just be truthful about it, and don't tell harmful lies.  The simplicity of just having and following a moral code like this is more powerful than any DRM solution there could be. 

 

Click here to view other Public Service Announcements

Likewise, it just doesn't pay to steal.  You can tell people that, or you can educate them on it using an easy text like The Way to Happiness. 

This is the reason why you have big banks, insurance companies, hospitals, credit card companies, etc all getting and distributing TWTH to all of their customers.  You can harp at someone to be good, you can make it really uncomfortable and inconvenient for them to be bad, but in the end -- if you target the actual problem, which is declining moral values in society, you'll have ended up making a positive change.  As opposed to more digital rights management, more restrictions, more whack solutions to try to make it more and more difficult to pirate software, etc.  All you end up getting there, in Microsoft's case, is people moving over to Linux because they can't stand the hassle.

It's the same in the music industry, and look what's happening with the DRM trend.  People are fed up with it.

So, let's try to buck the trend a bit and actually attack the heart of the problem.  Sure, it's way bigger of a subject to tackle (the international decline in moral values) but in the end it will end up solving way more than just my download of Windows Media 9 encoder.  That's for sure.

Maiden's Cliff, Camden, Maine

Maiden's Cliff, Camden
Originally uploaded by jetteroheller.

When most people ask, I tell them "I'm from the United States". Mostly because I am, and have lived on every corner of the U.S.

But to friends, I'll tell them where I'm really from, and that's from Maine.

Despite mosquitoes large enough to carry small children away, I still consider Maine one of the most beautiful places on earth.

I look at places like this photo (which I took while on a hike along Maiden's Cliff in Camden, Maine) and remember why it is that I'm involved in Scientology, and why it is that this planet is worth doing something about. There are a lot of real beautiful places left, and a lot of genuinely good people around.

Glenfinnan Scotland 2nd October 2007

Glenfinnan Scotland 2nd October 2007
Originally uploaded by loose_grip_99.

Whoa - that's another one taken with my model of camera -- a Konica Dimage Z2.

My photos were all with the wide-angle attachment, but this fellow doesn't look like he needed it with that expanse of country.

That's Scotland. If you're a Scientologist in Scotland, or want to get involved, there's a Church of Scientology in Edinburgh.

They Said Half a Hit of Ecstasy Would be Fun....

After seeing this Anti-ecstasy PSA on I was just over at a pro-ecstasy forum to see if this is really the case.  Its actually ridiculous to me.  In the same sentence people were saying how the xtc made them feel all fantastic or whatever, and at the same time were saying that it makes them soil themselves and vomit all over the place.

I really don't get it.  Can someone enlighten me?

Note on Flickr Photos in Search Results

Just noted this, and figured it'd be worth mentioning - even if just as a note to self.  I posted a few days ago about the anti-psychiatry photo that I posted on Flickr, which was - the next day - the number  1 result on Google when searching for "anti-psychiatry".   By the end of the day, it was at #2, and days later it was at #4. 

Now, I just checked for the same thing, and found it back down on the 3rd page of search results.

So, for blog-type content, it appears that freshness is a bit of a factor in where it appears in the results. 

Hmmm....curious.

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Wife Swing Dancing at the IAS Christmas Ball

Wife Swing Dancing at the IAS Christmas Ball
Originally uploaded by jetteroheller.

My wife is a whupass swing dancer. At the Christmas Ball of the International Association of Scientologists in DC, swing phenom and instructor Tom Koerner showed up, and started dancing with my wife. She took classes with him years before. When he said, "Damn, you're good - who taught you to dance?", she replied, "YOU DID!" :) And yes, those are the Swing greats, the Jive Aces playing in the background.

It's Blog Action Day: Safeguard and Improve your Environment

Click here to view other Public Service Announcements

As a part of Blog Action Day, make sure that you apply the above precept from The Way to Happiness, and do your part to Safeguard and Improve your Environment!  Obviously this means different things for different people, but if that means riding your bike in to work, not throwing your lead-acid battery into the ocean, recycling your paper, cutting down on your trash output, helping push through legislation, or whatever - everyone can help make the planet a cleaner place!

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Are Flickr Photos Well-Indexed in Google?

Something I wondered a bit ago, was that with the billions of photos that have been uploaded to Flickr and Photobucket, whether or not all of these photos and their content would actually be indexed in Google.  I had read in a little SEO Best-practices article that someone wrote that utilizing Flickr images could possibly be a good source of inbound traffic for your site. 

But I was then left to wonder whether or not these photos actually get indexed, and whether or not they're used at all. 

So, I just now Googled for "Anti-Psychiatry Demonstration", the title of a Flickr photo on my anti-psych demonstration in DC which I uploaded not too long ago.  And what do you know - the photo in Flickr is right now the number one result for that!  Wouldn't have thought it would be the case, what with so many anti-psych demonstrations happening around the world, but it proved an interesting point on whether or not Flickr content is indexed!

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At the Delphi Soccer Jamboree '93

At the Delphi Soccer Jamboree '93
Originally uploaded by jetteroheller.

After blogging about the school Tom Cruise sent his kids to in Oregon, I found this little one from the photo archives. This was soccer jamboree at Delphi in Oregon that I played in back in '93. This was back when I played sweeper on the team and had a 39bpm resting heart rate. Oh, for the old days!

What if you debugged a computer like a psychiatrist?

Anti-Psychiatry Demonstration in Washington, D.C.
Originally uploaded by jetteroheller.

At the APA convention that was held in Washington, D.C., my wife and I joined a ton of other people (I think the count was a few thousand by the time the event was in full swing) to protest the big pharma drones and their yearly vote-in of psychiatric disorders.

I wish that debugging computers could be done in the same method as psychiatry uses for debugging people. It'd be great! Check this out - instead of having to actually dig around and find out the root cause for something (the 'Why', if you've studied Scientology Data Series tech), all you'd have to do is state the phenomena that you were running into, and develop an excellent term for it that you and the other engineers in the room could agree on. The name of the term would be key - otherwise nobody would believe you. If someone was complaining about a slow Internet connection, you could just let them know about the reverse-transductive route congestion disorder his line was experiencing. When asking for a handling, you could just act like a psychiatrist and bring over a portable rack of 10 12-volt car batteries hooked together, and then just take both leads and touch them to the network card int he back of the computer.

Then, afterwards, when the stinky black smoke clears, you'd ask him if he was still experiencing the same network lag. I'll bet you that same behaviour he was experiencing would no longer be present! Validation of therapy!

Unfortunately, their debugging methodology for people is about the same as I describe above, thus you see outraged people like my wife and I out in protest when they go to vote their next disease into the DSM.

Harper's Ferry West Virginia at Christmas

Harper's Ferry West Virginia at Christmas
Originally uploaded by jetteroheller.

This was another one I just dug up from the archives, when looking through my photos for something else. It's my wife & I on a bitterly cold Christmas morning, taking a drive out to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, for a little space.

She was just my fiancee back then, though - our wedding ceremony (which we used a Scientology wedding service for, quite similar to the one Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes used when they were married).

I'd have to say that it worked. That photo was taken close to 8 years ago, and I'm still rather married.

How about those hills, too!?

RX7 in a Snowy Driveway in Bloomington, IL

RX7 in a Snowy Driveway in Bloomington, IL
Originally uploaded by jetteroheller.

I just happened to find this photo, and it reminded me of when I was back in Illinois. It was terrible, actually. Though the projects I was working on were fun, I was 2 1/2 hours away from my closest Scientology Organization. The Church of Scientology of Saint Louis was over 2 hours to the south, and the Church of Scientology of Chicago was close to 3 hours to the north. And there I was stuck in a cornfield!

First try at posting a Photobucket Slideshow

We'll see how this comes out!

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Rocking old Honeywell E-Mail Ad

Mmm....just like back in college.  :) 

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