This psuedo-holiday has me a bit baffled. Most women expect something today as a token of love. This is the perceived meaning of Valentine's Day. Men on the other hand think of today as well, they day they forgot, and they need to run to CVS or Target and get something fast.

But what do we really know about Saint Valentine and Valentine's Day? Valentine's Day (February 14) was created as a Roman Catholic feast for Valentine. The day was observed by the Roman Catholic church until 1969. Valentine was a martyr for the Romans.

Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, we made a martyr's holiday into a holiday for love and gifts. Um...OK.

As many of you are aware, Roman Catholics took holidays and converted them for their own. This is but another example.

On the ancient Athens calendar, the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion, dedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera.

In Ancient Rome, February 15 was Lupercalia. Lupercalia, of which many write that it was anciently celebrated by shepherds, and has also some connection with the Arcadian Lycaea. Many noble youths of the magistrates run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet with shaggy thongs. And many women of rank also purposely get in their way, and like children at school present their hands to be struck, believing that the pregnant will thus be helped in delivery, and the barren to pregnancy.

The word Lupercalia comes from lupus, or wolf, so the holiday may be connected with the legendary wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus. Priests of this cult, luperci would travel to the lupercal, the cave where the she-wolf who reared Romulus and Remus allegedly lived, and sacrifice animals (two goats and a dog). The blood would then be scattered in the streets, to bring fertility and keep the wolves away from the fields. [4] Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome. The more general Festival of Juno Februa, meaning "Juno the purifier "or "the chaste Juno," was celebrated on February 13-14. Pope Gelasius I (492-496) abolished Lupercalia.

Some historians argue that Candlemas (then held on February 14, later moved to February 2) was promoted as its replacement, but this feast was already being celebrated in Jerusalem by AD 381. The pope also declared in 496 that the feast of St. Valentine would be on February 14.

And how did Cupid get into the mix? Throughout ancient mythological writing, there appear to be either two Cupids or two sides to the figure of Cupid. One is the son of Jupiter (Zeus) and Venus. He is a lively youth who delights in pranks and spreading love. The other is a son of Nyx and Erebus, known for riotous debauchery. Son of Zeus! Marriage of Zeus. Coincidence?

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Happy Lupercalia's day my Queen! As much as I wish to run down the street naked, I will pass as the snow plows in Northern Virginia really have no idea how to clear a road.

Did you know...

A Hallmark holiday is a predominantly American disparaging term used to describe a holiday that exists primarily for commercial purposes, rather than to commemorate a truly significant religious or secular event. The name comes from Hallmark cards, a privately owned American company based in Kansas City, Missouri, that presumably benefits from such manufactured events.

Examples of holidays that are called "Hallmark holidays" include Secretary's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Sweetest Day, and Valentine's Day (though it does have a longer historic legacy than most).

I received an email today courtesy of Classmates.com. An old high school friend made contact with me after not hearing a word from him for about hanumuun years (can't give away too much). It was great to hear from him and discover that he is still alive. It was he that created one of the few good memories in my high school life.

Personally, I was not a big fan of high school. I hated the social aspects of it all and I tended to hang out with the misfits more often than not. I had a car, so the friends I had tended to stay with me. I never got arrested, but it wasn't like there wasn't cause to arrest me. As a teenage male, I tended to do stupid things.

I am sure my Mother knew about most of it, and never mentioned many. There were some cases where she had no idea. A good childhood friend (Red) and I were cruising around testing out the new camera flash I had while driving in my car (I said we did stupid things). On one of the main roads in our small town, the car we ended up flashing was a policeman. After we realized it, I hit the gas. We drove around a corner and using only my parking brake and after turning off the lights, I pulled into someone's driveway.

The cops flew by in both directions, and after ducking down in the car for about 30 minutes and having a serious need to pee, we pulled out and drove home. Looking back, there are a LOT of stupid things I did in my childhood.

I am sure a good majority of the people have either gone to a party or had a party in their parents house when they were away. With the friend who just looked me up, this is where his story is held in my memory.

My friend, we will call Streak, came to a party I had at my house. There were a significant amount of people at the party (about 20) and the amount of alcohol available to us was far beyond what we as high schoolers could intake. After drinking way more than we should have, Streak said he needed to make a phone call...across the street...at the gas station. Did I mention we were young and stupid?

Streak decides that he needs to perform this action totally naked. His strips down, and runs through the snow across the street and places a phone call to who knows who he called. I can only imagine what he had to say being drink, naked, and cold. Within a minute he ran back to our house.

Within a couple minutes, we were visited by the police once again. Everybody turned off the lights and layed on the floor, trying to hide from being spotted and the cops breaking down the door. The following morning, there were people laid out all over the house, the house was a disaster, and we were lacking a huge amount of alcohol from my parents stash.

Streak was ill with a hangover, but he among all of the people stayed to help clean up the mess.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Do I think that we could possibly get that childish and stupid if Streak and I met again? Probably. There something about living dangerously with a childhood friend.

When Red and I got together some years back, we went over the avoiding police scenarios with my Mom in the room. Her first expression was "WHAT!?" Then she informed us that she knew about the party we had while they were away.

All that time, I thought we got away with it. She informed us that the alcohol had to be thrown away because it was thinned out, and that she found food in the couch cushions.

Did you know...

According to a national survey, nearly one third (31.5%) of all high school students reported hazardous drinking (5+ drinks in one setting) during the 30 days preceding the survey.

I just finished watching "The MC Hammer Story" on VH1 Classics. I think it was made quite a while back, but it definitely shows the essence and the lessons of life.

I fully understand immersing oneself into your work and ignoring the things that are going on around you. I have and at times still do the same thing. It is that insatiable need to do your best and be the best. As my Queen constantly informs me, I am very competitive.

For all of the nostalgic readers, I have had and continue to have a link to MC Hammer's blog. The blog actually delves into his personal life more than I expected which is actually quite refreshing for a celebrity. He touches on his spirituality, his family and his music. He often treats the blog as a photoblog and will post events such as birthdays, funerals, and Nascar racing (a recent discovery that Hammer seemed to like).

The only thing I wonder about is he feels he is in his life. He doesn't often write about his struggles plans, and goals as many bloggers do. The movie I watched depicted some of his struggles, but all of us are still trying to overcome difficulties.

Does he feel that his style of music has gone stale? Does he feel that he has a certain expectation of him? Or is it just music and he just wants to sing and dance? Does he worry about running out of toilet paper? Does he panic when he is recognized in the movie theater? Does he even watch movies?

I can appreciate that celebrities indeed do have these problems, but when a celebrity opens up about this type of thing, it makes him human...not an icon. I think that if Hammer really wants to bring in the readers, he may want to express himself in something other than music, simular to how my other blog links are.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). How come I never have enough money to buy the cool things? VH1 Classics has an auction to benefit Autism. What are they auctioning? A custom motorcyle signed by two rock icons: Neal Schon from Journey (which I was a big fan) and Joe Elliott from Def Leppard (which the Queen was a big fan).

But does anyone really have enough money? I know that as many people as Hammer tried to help, he still ended up in the same boat as many of us. Just like him, we pull ourselves out.
I fully understand that I would probably kill myself or have it stolen, but just for that one moment, it would be so cool. Maybe the Queen would hop on the back.

Did you know...

"U Can't Touch This" is considered one of the most used songs in commercial TV, and movie spots.

For the past few weeks, I have been driving a truck without brakes. Basically, they have worn down to the point where when I depress the brakes, you can hear the worn metal rubbing on the worn metal. Luckily I have not had to stop with any required amount of force. I end up being the guy who starts slowing down about a mile before the stop light.

To make things worse, I drive in the fast lane. Yes, I am one of those guys that is now driving in the fast lane and slowing down way before arriving at the stopped cars. I have not been honked at or given the finger, so I must make it look like no big deal.

I don't have a spinner pin to tell me the brakes were going bad before they did, otherwise, I would have replaced the brakes already. For now, I will continue to drive without brakes much in the same way I have lived my life.

I have made decisions in the past that are without brakes. I kept scanning the horizon and looking for other options rather than coming to a complete stop. I have stopped before, but that was only because I was overloaded with all of the obstacles in my life and how to deal with them. When I stop, I tend to go to my cave.

In my early years, this meant taking a trip somewhere I have never been and getting in my own head. I would work through all of my options, goals, and issues and finally discover the next path. I called it "visiting my spirit guide." This has always worked well for me.

As I grew older, the trip somewhere usually ended up me being in my house depressed. Then during a dream of some sort, I would again discover my path.

Today, I am basically on visiting my spirit guide all the time. I am always in my head because I have basically two things happening in my life: work and time alone. I am discovering who and what I am.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). When you have a defined path, take it without brakes. But living without brakes all the time can be quite dangerous. Right now, my truck is without brakes, and I am not. This is a good thing to me.

Did you know...

Spirit Guides are spirits of like spiritual age to ourselves, working on the principle of "like attracts like". They are usually not with us all the time. They come when we are "receptive", or when they feel that their attempt at guiding us might help.

The Spirit Guide (depending on culture) can be an ancestor, a close relative or an animal.

Nirek requested information about my experience with Windows Vista.

I have been running Vista for about a month now. There is a commercial that raps it up pretty well.

I have been working with bleeding edge technology for years. I worked as Beta tester for Windows 95 in 1993. I worked with Citrix Metaframe when it was still on AS-400 boxes. Fact is, my first actual PC was a Commodore 64 with the cassette tape storage option. The first hard drive I had the pleasure of working on was a 20MB platter drive that required 2 people to move it only after parking the drive.

This may sound a bit like a dinosaur talking about the good ole days, but I have to say, things were actually easier. We didn't have any features, so of course it was easier. Everything was text. You actually had to type. The "mouse" was the squeek of the 5 1/4" floppy disk.


There were drawbacks...pictures were non-existent. People often walked away from their computers and walked directly into walls because the screens were not very condusive to keeping your eyesight. Music was often a bunch of high pitched squeels and burps. Wireless meant that it was unplugged.


What do I think about Windows Vista? I think we may have gone too far to make things better. I can't find a thing in the new interface. To add to that, simple things like "ipconfig /renew" that used to be able to be run from the command line, can't. The security settings won't allow for it anymore without going into advance physics and superstrings. The commercial is dead on.


My answer to Nirek's question is: RUN! Run for your life! Then...buy a Mac.


This brings me to my point (as I almost always hove one). With the amount of horsepower included in my state-of-the-art PC, and the advanced theories used to create my operating system and office suite (Office Enterprise 2007), someone needs to explain to me why my old Commodore 64, with 64K of total storage pulled up calculator faster.


I realize that I was ONLY allowed to use calculator with my Commodore. But honestly, I can only see one screen with my two eyes. Do I really need the other 42 programs that are running on my laptop right now to be running? I am only using the calculator.


Did you know...


Bill Gates is quoted as saying "To create a new standard, it takes something that's not just a little bit different; it takes something that's really new and really captures people's imagination — and the Macintosh, of all the machines I've ever seen, is the only one that meets that standard."

Well, well, well. This is indeed a deep subject. I checked in on iNina today to see her pictures from her trip to Greece. It looks like a great time. She mentioned one word in her blog entry about toiletseeing. Of course, this made my blood pump. Just the thought of toiletseeing sounded like something right down my alley.









The fish-n-flush is an actual aquarium in the tank of a toilet.

I am really not sure if it is due to my looks or my insatiable need for duct tape and toilet paper, but for some reason, I can't manage to get an Internet connection to work in my temp-a-house.

So, today I "worked from home" to be here when the rent-a-cable-guy arrived at the door at 10:00. He came...he drilled a hole in my exterior wall...he blamed it not working on inside service...he left.

I called inside service and the call went something like this:

"Hello, the technician informed me I need to call you all to turn on my modem." I thought I stated clearly.

"Have you plugged in your computer?" the technician asks.

"Indeed I have. I have been assigned an IP address and I can see on the modem's web interface that it is not communicating with you. I have rebooted it and have the same result."

"Can you go ahead and unplug the modem and turn off your computer?" the technician asks.

"Not a problem."

45 seconds later, she asks me to plug it back in and start my PC. Once I have confirmed everything is up and running with the same result, I hear "I need you to go to start, run and type 'cmd.'

For all of you who haven't been reading me, I have been in information technology for over 22 years. My response really threw her off. "I can't do that. First, "run" doesn't exist in that location. Second, I can't run ipconfig from the command line with the security settings."

"What operating system are you running?"

"Windows Vista Business" Suddenly there is a long pause on the other end of the line. "Hello?"

"Can you hold on sir?" She informed me later that I was her first customer running Vista...which I have had for a month.

Before I get a chance to say sure I hear the elevator music on the phone. Why is it they only play standards for music on hold? Why can't they play some U2 or Sting? Would you like to hear a song while you are on hold about "Shorty like mine"? Oh, she is back, she navigates me to the network settings to reset my IP address. I was already there, and just said "uh-huh" every time she told me a step.

After troubleshooting for 30 minutes, she informed me she needs to send out a technician. "The next available time is Thursday."

"What? Are you telling me I need to take another day off from work because it wasn't set up right the first time? I don't think so. Have whats-his-name come back."

"I am sorry. We have Saturday available. Anytime Saturday."

After agreeing on Saturday, I turned on the TV, hopped on the neighbor's unsecure wireless network and got to work. The Travel channel has been airing the "best" pizza, hot dogs, barbecue, and big eats today.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Why in the world would ANYONE want to eat a 76oz steak with sides in an hour? Can you imagine the calories in that meal? Why would anyone want to eat six chicken wings that you have to sign a waiver before you start?

What kills me is Eagle's Deli in Boston. A 3 1/2 pound cheeseburger and 5 pounds of fries for a meal is just a bit too much. One more thing, if you can eat all of that and another 1/2 pound burger, they will name the NEXT burger in your name.

OK, need to go consume the entire contents of my fridge.

Did you know...

Without the soda to wash it down, 3 1/2 pound cheeseburger and 5 pounds of fries have 8,109 calories, 659g carbs, 341g fat and 595g protein. For a man, that is 5 days worth of calories, 3 days of carbs, 7 days of fat, 5 days of protein.

It is Super Bowl Monday and the game is over. First, I would like to thank the Chicago Bears for a great season. I personally feel the team as a whole played with skill and precision. Unfortunately, Indianapolis played better and won the game.

Congrats to the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts simply out-played the Bears. Though the first quarter of the game definitely had the landmark Bears style of play with the special teams touchdown run off the kickoff. What a way to open a Super Bowl game.

Honestly, I am just happy the Bears made it to the Super Bowl. As much criticism as Rex Grossman has had, he helped put the team in the Super Bowl, and he didn't receive any credit for it.

Sportmanship is as important as the game itself. When Coach Lovie Smith was interviewed after the game, you could see he was disappointed from defeat, but he held his head up high and applauded his friend for a good game. That is honor among Warriors.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Why doesn't America just make the Monday after the Super Bowl a holiday? Super Bowl Monday has the highest "sick" day rate the entire year. Productivity for today is the lowest due to hangovers and sore throats from yelling at the TV. You all realize, they can't hear you right?

If they can make Columbus Day a National holiday, why can't they do the same for Super Bowl Monday? After all, Columbus never even made it to America...The Super Bowl was actually created in America.

Did you know...

Over 100 Million Americans watched the Super Bowl for either the game or the commercials. Approximately 1.4 Million will call in "sick."

This is actually a post I started back in July that I decided to drag up since (once again) the issue has raised it's head. I have been mistaken for a celebrity. This doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. "Who" you ask? Paul Simon most commonly. Personally, I don't see the resemblance, but I guess that I am suppose to be a younger version of him.

I guess it is possible that I am his illegitimate son. After all, I was adopted and I really don't know who my birth father was. But I seriously doubt it.

I have also been mistaken for other local people. When I was in the Air Force, I attended a church. The first day of attending, EVERYBODY walked up to me and started talking to me asking when I came back. They all swore I was this other guy. The way I stood. The way I talked.

Some people even argued with me about who I am. How frustrating do you think it would be to argue with someone about who you are? After showing military ID and drivers license to several people, I guess they finally figured out that I am who I am.

Back to celebrities...I have met or come upon many celebrities. Not that I am name dropping, but if you have ever heard of a group called LFO (I haven't but my kids had), I almost walked over the lead singer.

I met Ginuwine in a Seven-Eleven. I didn't know it was him until I walked out of the store and his picture was plastered on the side of the bus.

I recognized Michelle Branch coming out of a gas station bathroom. The kids were oblivious. I had to tell them she was wearing a wig.

Other celebrities names I have met: I worked with Steve Martin. I worked with Bryan White. I work for James Bond.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). When you have a name like James Bond, do you really have to uphold the image? Do you have to have the smart house? Do you have to have the toy cars? Do you have to have a different woman every time you leave town (we call them hookers)? He has every toy a guy could have.

Yesterday, 007 took me and a co-worker to lunch at Mortons (mmmmmmmmm). James has a very fully loaded Cadillac Escalade complete with ejector seat and rocket launcher. As I was playing with the DVD player with THX surround sound, his radar was alerting him of impending dangers behind the vehicle (backup sensors with a camera).

After parking and exiting the vehicle, my co-worker stated "Man, that is like riding in James Bond's car. WAIT! I WAS riding in James Bond's car!"

Too funny.

Did you know...

There have been 6 James Bonds. The order went like this: Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig.

Personally, I think they should do another one with Sean Connery.