Matt Ebert

Just a boy with a dream….of pirates and moon ships

Michael J. Fox on 'This Week'

Stephanopoulos: You know, in your book, "Lucky Man," you
really are unsparing in your description of the horrors of this
disease. But you also make it seem almost like a gift. Do you still
feel that way?

Fox: That’s unique to me. I’ve
been so incredibly blessed in my life. So lucky. So gifted with amazing
things — my family and my wife; my career; the things I’ve seen; the
people that I’ve met. And I found myself in this unique
position of although I’m facing this, and I’m dealing with it, and
it’s, and it’s not what one would pick out of a catalogue. It does
provide me an opportunity to make a difference and to do positive
things. And for that I have to be grateful and humbled by that
circumstance.

Character is so rarely found today in
public life these days that when someone has it he shines forth more
brilliantly than diamonds and more valuable.

Take this lesson to heart. Life is about the "opportunity to make a difference and to do positive things" and if your life is not about that then you need to re-evaluate your life.

Found here.

Small World?

I just stumbled across these photos taken from the International Space Station during the last Space Shuttle launch.

Thinking to myself I cannot quite decide if this makes the world feel any smaller…or maybe a little bigger.

 

As a kid I had an over-sized poster of a diagram of the Space Shuttle hanging on my wall.  If I remember correctly it was an insert from a National Geographic magazine.(1)  I would stare at this poster for hours, going over ever inch of the diagram/schematic.  I can still remember it vividly.(2) 

I am all for space exploration, yet I prefer to keep my feet on the ground.  The great openness scares the pickles out of me.  Kind of the similar fear I have when flying at a cruising altitude of 30,000 feet and all I see out the window is the clouds below me.  Yet I have no real fear of flying.  Just a fear of the nothingness between the plane and the ground.  Luckily, over the years I have been able to teach myself how to not be bothered by these fears during flight.(3)

If I have not lost you so far…I guess what I am getting at is that diagram/schematic helped to ignite my desire for how things work.(4)


(1) My google-foo is weak tonight, or else I would be eating up more of your precious bandwidth of a photo of it.

(2) Which is funny, cause I cannot remember what I had for breakfast this morning…seriously.

(3) 1 Xanax + vodka tonic w/lime = Matt the Happy Traveler®

(4) Also that Looney Tunes cartoon where the two squirrels get stuck in the canning factory and spend the entire 4mins 32 seconds scampering around the conveyor belts.

"National Security"

Here’s a 2 part brain teaser for you…

Part One: the most common food
colorings used in the most widely eaten foods and candies, have been
proven to cause ADD in children and even adults.

Part Two: the effects
of excessive television watching generally include lack of motivation,
and overall conformity. Most people desire what they see on TV. The
majority of people will wear the same fashions, drive the same cars,
and attempt to live the same lifestyles that they observe on TV.

The
main effect of excessive television consumption is…short attention
span. So….combine the TV induced short attention span with the chemical
based ADD from the food we eat, and we end up a society that can’t
concentrate long enough to figure out that our basic rights are being
stripped from us. And even if someone laid it all out for us….we
probably couldn’t muster up the motivation to do anything about it.

A couple hundred years ago, a group of men got together and held
secret meetings to discuss the future of our country. They figured out
what was wrong with the current corrupt government, and wrote their own
set of laws that would provide the foundation for a successfully
democratic society, unlike any that came before it. They concentrated their efforts with other like minded individuals, and started a
revolution. Had they not succeeded…they would have been executed for
treason…but the risk was well worth it. Today, there are similar groups
of men having meetings in private. They are also deciding the future of
this country, but these men have a different motivation, different
methods, and a different goal. These men feel that a successful country
is not enough…they want total control over the worlds economy and
military, and they have proven over and over that they will do anything
to stick to their plan. They change laws to suit their needs, and
create laws to ensure their control can’t be taken away. They start out
as business men, and buy their way into government. They are greedy,and
crave power as much as money. They are not concerned with you or your
rights. They feel that they can decide what is right for this country
better than you can, and they will prey on your emotions and instincts, until you conform.

The new anti-terror laws being passed right now, prohibit the type
of meetings that started this country. If our founding fathers were
around today, every member from Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Franklin,
would have been taken away by federal agents, and placed in a foreign
prison with no chance for a public trial to defend themselves, after their discussions were monitored by the NSA. The ideas they had would
be deemed a threat to national security, and they would have basically
disappeared off the face of the earth. This government, or more accurately, the people that pull our governments strings, are gradually
cutting off all avenues of pubic intervention. This government was
designed to serve the public, but a very slick group of people have now
made the government impenetrable. Whether you like it or not, these
people will use our military to conquer the rest of the world. This
will of course make even more people aim their hatred our way, creating
more terrorism. You can rest assured it does not matter which party you
vote for, the outcome will be the same.          Our democratic society
has turned into a dramatic theatrical event, in which we, the public,
act out our parts by casting ballots, writing congressmen, and
protesting…all the while the people in the directors chairs make the
final edits. Whats best for “national security” may not be whats best
for us. History only repeats itself if you let it…     – David Rice