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Saturday, January 28, 2012 05:13am

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On My Book Shelf

  • Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus — Spangler & Taverberg
  • The Misunderstood Jew
    — Amy-Jill Levine
  • More than Conquerors
    — William Hendriksen
  • Where Is God When It Hurts
    — Philip Yancy
  • The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot
    — Herbert Krosney
  • The Gospel of Judas
    — Kasser, Meyer, and Wurst
  • A New Kind of Christian
    — Brian McLaren
  • The Parables of Jesus
    — Joachim Jeremias
  • God Was Here and I was Out to Lunch — James Moore
  • The Way for all Seasons
    — William Tuck
  • The Romance of the Word
    — Robert Capon
  • A Philosopher's Way
    — Elton Trueblood
  • Some Folks Feel the Rain Others Just Get wet — James Moore
  • Night
    — Elie Wiesel
  • To See a World in a Grain of Sand — Caesar Johnson
  • Who Moved My Cheese?
    — Spencer Johnson, MD
  • The Language of God
    — Francis Collins
  • Fingerprints of God
    — Barbara Hagerty
  • Only A Theory
    — Kenneth Miller
  • Founding Brothers
    — Joseph Ellis
  • Six Thousand Years of Bread
    — H. E. Jacob
  • 1421 The Year China Discovered America — Gavin Menzies
  • Cold Friday
    — Whittaker Chambers
  • Die Broke
    — Pollan & Levine
  • One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko — Mike Royko
  • The Constitution of the United States — James Mussatti
  • April 1865
    — Jay Wink
  • Children of Alcoholism
    — Seixas & Youcha
  • Why New Orleans Matters
    — Tom Piazza
  • Connections
    — James Burke
  • The Civil War
    — Ward, Burns & Burns
  • The Great Inventions
    — Ralph Stein
  • All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
    — Robert Fulghum
  • Cheap — the High Cost of Discount Culture
    — Ellen Shell
  • Indian Givers
    — Jack Weatherford






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"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit."
Albert Schweitzer


"Love is a symbol of eternity.  It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end."
Author Unknown


"A bell is no bell
'til you ring it,
A song is no song
'til you sing it,
And love in your heart
Wasnít put there to stay –
Love isn't love
'Til you give it away."
Oscar Hammerstein
Sound of Music


"Love has no desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving. "
Kahlil Gibran


"Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence."
Eric Fromm


"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."
Victor Hugo

Welcome to My Site



The Earth From 4 Billion Miles Away
A Pale Blue Dot
Really makes you stop and think.

But You Don't Look Sick to Me If you have a friend with a debilitating disease, but looks healthy in all other aspects, go to this site to read one person's explaination about having a debilitating, incurable disease which she calls the "The Spoon Theory."


It's been awhile since I last updated my site, not because I didn't want to, but simply because I had too many other things going on and I have so little energy to accomplish them. My Inclusion Body Myositis continues to destroy the muscles in my body making everything I do very exhausting. That coupled with my COPD and diabetes really makes things pretty tough sometime. Often I'm greeted with, "Bill, you're looking good." Thanks for the compliment, but as former president Dwight Eisenhower once commented, "There are three stages in life, youth, maturity, and 'Damn your looking good'". I'm definitely in that "Damn your looking good" stage.

But in spite of all that, I felt I had to do something. So here I am. I was never much of a typist, about 35 words a minute or so on a real good day, but now I'm lucky to get 10 words a minute with 4 or 5 mistakes. I never realized that our strength, to a very large extent, is what determines our dexterity. My hands are so weak I can no longer make a fist and picking up some things is almost impossible. As you have probably guessed from this it's taking a long time in getting things typed and posted. Add the fact that I have completely redesigned my site and I'm sure you can see why it has taken so long. But, be that as it may, I hope you like the changes.

I especially hope you will take a look at the new photo pages. With the help of Stu Nichols of www.cssplay.co.uk I have completely redisigned the format of the photo displays.


Ralph Waldo Emerson defined success in a simple life well lived as:

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to learn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a little bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

I think I have lived the simple life and the laugh often parts pretty well, but some of the others, maybe not as well. I used to think that the defining thing of a successful life was some great act or accomplishment known far and wide; that it it would be long remembered after one's passing. I learned years ago that my idea of success was a very narrow one and would not happen that way for most of us. Certainly not for me. And knowing what I know now I don't think I would have wanted my life to be any different than the one I have lived.

I think sometimes we are so caught up in the busyness of life we forget to live life. I think the following story of a Meican fisherman, even though it's apocryphal I'm sure, illustrates success in a simple life well lived of which Emerson speaks.

An American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican fisherman replied,"Only a little while." The American then asked, "Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?" The Mexican said," Because I have enough to support my family’s immediate needs." The American then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?" The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos; I have a full and busy life, senor."

The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. Then, with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats; eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But senor, how long will this all take?" To which the American replied, "15–20 years."

"But what then, senor?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

The fisherman, still smiling, looked up and said, "Isn't that what I'm doing right now?"

Author Unknown

We all could learn something about life from this Mexican Fisherman.