Posts by Little Drummer Boy

11

He asked..."Is this for Christmas?" I said," Yes."..oops he is a Witness!!!

by Lady Liberty in

jw
friends

hi again.... well as you can imagine, celebrating christmas for the very first time ever is quite exciting!!

i got out all my christmas cards, have most of my shopping done and baked my brains out!!

oh but what fun times we are having!!

Little Drummer Boy

Lady Liberty,

It is so liberating to be able to do what we want and not be worrying about pleasing someone else's sense of right and wrong. To finally be allowed to listen to our own inner voice and decide for ourselves what is right/wrong, how to treat others, how to view things, etc. I am so happy for you that you are breaking free and starting to live again! Wife and I DAd in September. We have never felt better. Anyway, Merry Christmas!

also, off topic, but...

he would need time to box it up since I was buying the floor model. ......The guy said.."How soon do you need it..is it for Christmas?" I said " Yes." He said,"Oh OK"
Very strange how the jw mind works - are they allowed to sell guns if they don't use them themselves ?

Huh? Ofcourse dubs can sell firearms. The entire 14 years we were in I still had my firearms from before the dubs ever came into my life. Towards the middle of my being in, I even started to build up my collection of both long and short guns, began reloading my own ammunition, and to took up target shooting as a hobby. Many elders in the 3 congregations mutually sharing the KH in my town knew it. Many of the brothers have firearms and archery equipment. Some hunt, some varmint exterminate, some target shoot for a hobby. We have a large farming community here. We all talked about firearms openly. Very typical 16th birthday present is a .22 rifle around here for farm-boys. BB guns are given around 12th birthday many times. Firearms are just tools. Just like hammers, saws, or anything else. Any elder or other uppity witness who ever forgot that around me always got put in their place quiclky and easily with the scripture about Jesus asking the disciples if they had swords. Since Jesus was OK with weapons (and even prompted the disciples) for use against animals, then it is fine for us to have weapons as well. We just shouldn't shoot people. The last two sentences are WT interpretation, not my personal belief, and I'm not going there right now. Speaking of which, I need to make some time to get back out to the range and perforate some paper targets. Merry Christmas everybody! LDB

17

My first birthday celebration since I was little!

by kitten whiskers in

jw
friends

just had to share!

today is my birthday.

don't really know how i am supposed feel.

Little Drummer Boy

Happpppy Birthday!!!!!!!

44

What XMas Present Would You Like This Year???

by minimus in

jw
friends

one thing that jws do, whether they were "strong in the truth" or not is accept presents.

even if they don't "celebrate" thanksgiving, they'd still take the turkey from the employer.

if someone sent out a birthday gift or christmas present, a witness would still take but never givein return.

Little Drummer Boy

and my older son will be having his Cisco test paid for.

Hey Restangled, wish him luck from me. I aced my Cisco II practical exam today. I go for my CCNA at the end of the upcoming Spring semester.

As a side note, if he doesn't know this, Cisco Academy is currently selling a very cool router/access point/managed switch for only $300. I believe it is an 800 series (if memory serves -I'm too beat to look it up right now). He'll know were to look and find it if he is interested (cisco.netacad). The thing retails for about $800 I think. Nice hardware and should be good for practice if, as it seems from my brief look at it, it is indeed running both a web interface, and more importantly the standard Cisco IOS command interface. Ya just can't ever get enough router time. Don't know if you know what any of that means, but he will.

Have a great Christmas!

58

DOES ANYONE STILL NOT CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS???

by chuckyy in

jw
friends

just wondering if anyone still does not celebrate xmas since leaving jws.....or like me do you think"to hell with it", and join in the festivities.

if you do celebrate it, do you still have pangs of guilt for celebrating this "pagan" festival???.

chukky.

Little Drummer Boy

This is our first Christmas opportunity since leaving the borg. To be honest it has gotten a little out of hand so far. We have spent more than we intended to, and bought and put up more decorations than we planned. And for all the nay-sayers, Grinches, and Scrooges on the this thread, I don't care. I think it is just our excitement at being able to take part in everything again. Next year we will cut it back to a more reasonable level. BTW, AK-Jeff's post reflects our feelings well.

Neither my wife (exwitless) nor I were raised as dubs. We haven't had Christmas for about 14 years, and never since being married until now. She has always missed celebrating because of all of the happy family memories from before being a dub. For me, Christmas was the ONLY time as a kid when I remember peace in the household. Any other time of the year, all I ever heard was my Mom screaming at my Dad hysterically because of her mental disorders. But Christmas time...that was different. As a young kid I could sneak down the stairs and see the tall tree, lit up at night, casting the beautiful glow. I always felt a sense of peace and wonder when I saw it. Some strange beacon of hope in my stormy sea. That may sound stupid - I don't care. It wasn't about the toys - although like any kid I liked to get them. It was about family and fun, and because my Mom was too busy with preparations to yell at my Dad, for one brief moment every year feeling safe.

Our son is 8. This is his first Chirsmas ever. If I had any doubts about whether celebrating it or not would be a good idea, those doubts were erased instantly when I was able to see how eager and involved he has become. From helping to pick out the tree and decorations, to putting everything together, he is right there every step of the way, loving every minute of it. He is so excited to see what is hidden inside all of those wrapped boxes. Not in a greedy way, he is excited for all of us. He really touched my heart when of his own initiative, he used is own hard saved money to buy a present for me. He is learning the joy of giving, the secret to keeping secrets (even when you really, really want to tell), and that there can be special memories and traditions made that can be cherished.

Is Christmas commercialized? I don't care. That isn't the point.

To see our first tree, click here http://www.mintel.net/~fdfoley/

Hoping our tree gives you a smile and some peaceful thoughts like it does for my family,

LDB

9

Texans! Tell me about your brisket!

by JWdaughter in

jw
friends

i have had brisket that would melt in your mouth.

i followed the recipe.

mine did not melt in anyones mouth.

Little Drummer Boy

I'm not from Texas, I'm from Indiana, so can I tell you about my basket instead of my brisket?

Just kidding.

Whether it is a high quality Texas brisket or a good old fashioned Indiana pot roast (which isn't made in a pot btw - it's made best in a dutch oven - but I digress)...

The secret of cooking any roast type of meat so that it is tender is to cook it on low heat, sloooooowly, and keep it moist. This will let the proteins and connective tissue disolve while keeping the roast from drying out.

Dang it. Now I'm hungry.

9

The Perils of Television

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

the perils of television .

looking back in retrospect to the time in which a chapter of my.

life was consumed by the watchtower society, revealed another.

Little Drummer Boy

And heaven forbid that someone might actually watch PBS and see a documentary about evolution, the fossil record, or animals demonstrating qualities which might indicate that they have souls.

I really wasn't aware of any of the scandals, etc. surrounding the org until I got out. What got me to really thinking about what I believed though were shows about bible history, evolution, and so forth on The History Channel and the different science channels. Whether these shows are accurate or not is now a moot point - they did get me to think for myself. It wasn't until I had pretty much made up my mind to leave the org that I allowed myself to look on the internet for anything related to jws. Without our trusty satellite dish, I might still be a dub. So for me, from a WT perspective, the TV was "deadly". LDB (of the "I've learned more about history from The History Channel than I ever did in school" class)

41

Apology to all

by wozadummy in

jw
friends

this is an apology to all for my recent posts, i did'nt mean to upset anyone .

just coping with leaving the org ,and the past ,and trying to support my wife who, as some know from my prevoius posts has tried to deal with her pedophile elder(past) father for many years now thru the org ,and then being badly treated by them and her large extended family (most are witnesses and are trying to silence her), made me hit rock bottom.

we are now taking action via the police and court system and she is barely coping ,and me being bi-polar does'nt help matters much and i fell into to an unreal state for a while as we don't have much support of any kind.

Little Drummer Boy

Sucks to be bi-polar, don't it?

I hate it when I'm going through some stress and lose it on somebody. I know I don't want to lose it, but I can't stop it. It doesn't happen too often anymore, but without the meds that I take giving me some marginal bit of normalcy, life is hell for me and everybody around me.

But, life goes on and all we can do is try to own the illness, don't let it own us, get the help we need, and try our best to be cool to everybody, and apologize when we screw up.

Hang in there, and I hope you and your family get through your difficulties soon.

LDB

25

Laptop Advice

by Mysterious in

jw
friends

i was hoping to get some feedback from those of you that have laptops.

i know what i need primarily in terms of system specs so i am more interested in feedback regarding brands.

if you have a laptop i would be interested to know the brand, whether you bought it new or used, how long the warranty was, if you had any issues with it during or after the warranty (and whether these resulted in you having to take it in or send it away for repairs), if you would buy it again, if you recommend the brand on the whole.. i am currently leaning towards toshiba having met a few people that had bad experiences with dell.

Little Drummer Boy

I have both a Dell Inspiron 8200 and a Toshiba Satellite A105.

The Dell gave me about 4 years or so of fairly good service, until the memory on the pricey video card burned out. This model has an actual video card - it isn't built on the motherboard. It would cost about $300 to get a new one.

The Dell always ran very hot, the optical drive was noisy, and the built in wireless card had to be replaced (even then it still never worked correctly). I finally purchased a Linsys PC Card wireless card to solve the problem

The few times I needed to call Dell tech. support, I was transfered to India or somewhere like that.

My worst impression of the Dell though, is that it just simply has always felt "clunky". I worked for many years in an auto manufacturing plant. In describing cars, there is a term called "Fit and Finish". It is a measurment of how well the body panels fit together, how well panels are gapped, defects in the paint, etc. The same kind of idea can apply to computers. Every Dell I have ever seen I would consider to have average to poor fit and finish. The physical layout seems to be poorly designed, they are heavy for no real resaon - extra sturdiness is not the reason. They have random extra plastic panels that have no purpose and they just feel "cheap".

My new Toshiba on the other hand, shows all the signs of excellent engineering. Plastic seams are tight. There is no un-needed flexing in the case. It runs absolutely silently. It is one damn sexy laptop. The LCD is goreous. Battery life is 3 times what the Dell ever had, and the Toshiba weighs half as much. My only grip is that since I don't have a higher end model Satellite, I have cheap speakers and the integrated Intel 950 graphics. However, I would buy this again in a heart beat.

Toshiba specics:

Intel Centrino Core Duo (Dual Core CPU) 1.73Ghz per core

1.5Gb RAM

120Gb hard drive

Intel 950 video (will use up to 256Mb RAM) This is the worst part of the system I would rather have discreet graphics.

DVD burner

PC Card slot

Express Card slot (this is very good- Express Card will be replacing PC Card)

Multiformat media card reader

Firewaire, USB 2.0

Built in wireless 802.11b/g(with on off switch)

Blue Tooth

Lots more

Best part of all...Actual restore discs that I didn't have to create myself. Most manufacturers aren't including these.

Price: $1,000

Edit to say:

- I would also add that anything you buy now that is pc will not be compatible for the new vista operating system from Windows coming out in 07.

Um, my Toshiba has a cute little sticker right on the arm rest that I'm looking at that says: "Windows Vista Capable".

69

Why do women love religion?

by Kaethra in

jw
friends

i've pondered this so much.

most religions, even though they are male-dominated, boast a predominately female population.

i've tried and tried to understand why otherwise independent women would give up their autonomy to a man-led faith and just recently i think i understand why...women, much more so than men, are in need of protection.

Little Drummer Boy

Little Drummer Boy - I'm pretty sure I already answered your concerns above...but come on back if you're feeling insecure. har! *just kidding! 'k?!! I'm very sarcastic in real life.*

See, that is what I mean (see the edit to my first post). This real time thread stuff goes waaaaaayyyy too fast for me to keep up with my crap typing skills. You replied between my edit and me hitting reply. I'm gone on this this thread before I get misunderstood again. Sorry everybody.

69

Why do women love religion?

by Kaethra in

jw
friends

i've pondered this so much.

most religions, even though they are male-dominated, boast a predominately female population.

i've tried and tried to understand why otherwise independent women would give up their autonomy to a man-led faith and just recently i think i understand why...women, much more so than men, are in need of protection.

Little Drummer Boy

wow! I can't imagine why this topic is making men feel threatened...weird!!

First off, I only counted one guy posting so far that had a problem with your post, so I'm not sure where the plural "men" is coming from. I can see his point though.
And, I don't know that he's feeling threatened - I'm not feeling threatened - I'm just confused about women in general. I had a big reply typed, but realized it was soooo off topic, that I'm gonna start a new thread instead.

I'm sorry if you've been around guys that are bastards. Most aren't. I don't really have anything to add to the original question, sorry. Off to start that thread now.... Edited to say: Holy Crap Batman! About 23,000 posts got put on this thread before I could hit reply. Sheesh, I have got to learn to type faster.