A daily dose of Sue

Homemade Suede Wrap Watch

2011-05-26T16:54:00.001-07:00

Browsing through a magazine, I discovered this really hot watch that uses black suede cord to wrap around the wrist.

I instantly fell in love, but being cheap, and crafty, I thought I could make one for half the price. I went to the craft store and picked up 6m of black suede cord for $3.99, and then ordered a similarly styled watch face from eBay for about $10 with shipping. I cut six long pieces of the suede, tied half of them onto each side of the watch, and voila - quick and easy suede wrap watch!

Can I train myself to accomplish anything in a year?

2011-04-26T17:03:00.001-07:00

As summer slowly approaches, I keep telling myself that soon I will have to start eating better and exercising regularly to become "beach ready" again. I'm not there yet, and though people will always tell me I look great and don't have to lose weight, I know that it's because I wear my clothes well and can conceal the flab. But just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there, and doesn't mean I have to live with it any longer. So, I continue to tell myself that soon I'll do something about it.

Browsing iBooks today, I came across 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferriss. Intrigued by the description, I downloaded the free sample (38 pages!), and after becoming engrossed, purchased the full book. I rarely pay full price for ANY book, preferring to pick up second-hand reads from yard sales or from friends or family. But after reading that sample, I was pumped to finally get started on my own "body remodeling" plan.

I'm about 100 pages in, and after reading a throwaway sentence about meeting a book writing goal by writing just 2 pages a day, I thought, what if I did that? I've always wanted to write a book. Two pages a day times 365 days is 730 pages. I could write a book in a year. I could do that.

What else could I apply that model to? Money? I've never learned to save money. It's damn near impossible, at least that's how it seems. Money burns a hole in my pocket, and I've never been able to exert discipline over my finances. I just always make a little more than I need to pay my bills. Anything extra is gone before it can gather dust. So, what if I save just $10 a week? In one year, that's $520. It's not like I'd miss that $10 every week. I could do that.

I've also been thinking about learning to run. Ok, I know HOW to run. I run pretty well actually. For about 30 seconds until I feel like my chest is going to burst into flames. Anything longer seems physically impossible. But what if I plan on running everyday, starting with 30 seconds at a time, after which I can just walk leisurely. And maybe everyday I increase that running time by just 5 seconds? By the end of a week, I'd be up to a full minute. By the end of a month, I could be up to five minutes. In a year, it could be a marathon. Is it possible? It's not impossible. I could do that too.

I guess the tricky part of reaching any goal is sticking to it. But I know I can do that. I've done it before with other goals, so why not now?

What else could I accomplish in one year?

Custom iPad Sleeve

2011-04-12T17:29:00.001-07:00

I have a confession to make. I cheated on my Sleeve 360 iPad case. I never thought I would need another case (and I don't), but I guess I have a wandering eye for iPad accessories. Browsing the web, I came across this article about a homemade iPad case, made simply out of felt and metal eyelets. I loved it. I wanted to make my own, only prettier.

This is what I came up with:

Like the iPad sleeve in the other article, this was surprisingly inexpensive to make. Five bucks for the felt, four for the brass eyelets, and two for the satin ribbon. Of course, putting the eyelets in turned out to be no easy feat. I'm pretty sure I have now ruined any relationship I may have had with my surrounding neighbors. Hammering those eyelets was tedious and LOUD. But look how pretty!

Front and Back views

Using iPad in the Kitchen

2011-04-09T17:44:00.001-07:00

In October of 2009 I posted that all I wanted for Christmas was an ebook reader. Well that didn't happen, mainly because I wasn't sold on the Kindle or the Nook. A lot has changed in 18 months! Two Apple tablets have been unleashed on the world, and as it turns out, it wasn't an ebook reader that I wanted at all. Yes, my iPad does serve as one, and I do use it to read books and magazines now and then, but it is so much more than that for me!

One of the places I most enjoy using the iPad is in the kitchen. Sometimes I use it to display recipes - from cooking apps, from the web, from magazine photos, from my own collection - and sometimes I use it as a portable tv for distraction while washing dishes and cleaning up post-dinner. Here are some great accessories and tips for iPad kitchen use.

1. The "handiest" iPad case ever

After buying my iPad, the first accessory I had to get was a decent case. I needed one that was going to be durable and versatile for the many uses I knew I would have. I scoured the web and found not only the best and most adaptable case for me, but for only $35 with free shipping. Anyone who has searched for iPad cases can attest that most good cases cost upwards of $50. So what makes the Sleeve 360 such an awesome iPad holder?

The sturdy, adjustable handstrap! Just slide your hand in, adjust the velcro strap as needed, and you have a comfortable way to carry your iPad. The strap connector also rotates so it's easy to swivel iPad around to portrait mode from landscape without removing your hand. It also has a built-in stand so you can stand your iPad on the counter vertically or horizontally while you cook:

In addition, you can slide the strap connector off altogether and flip out two little feet for typing on a slightly raised angle. Perfect for editing a recipe on the fly, or for typing up a blog post like this one.

2. Towel bar and hanging metal basket

I bought this towel bar/basket combo from Ikea last fall, never realizing just how much it would improve my dishwashing experience until I bought my iPad and Sleeve 360 case. Remember that handy strap I mentioned before? When it's time to wash a large load of dishes, I set my iPad in this metal basket, and hook the Velcro strap of the case securely around the towel bar. Now I can watch a tv show or podcast while I scrub and doing dishes isn't such a chore anymore.

3. Apps for cooking

There are a ton of great recipe apps out there - Epicurious, Betty Crocker, AllRecipes, and Big Oven, to name a few - but there are also some other-use apps that work great as recipe savers as well. As a compulsive recipe hoarder, I have recipes everywhere: in magazines and physical cookbooks, scribbled on index cards, saved from the web to Google Reader, in my iOS notes, and on my cooking blog. I use one versatile app for saving any of these to my iPad and cataloguing them in one place: Evernote.

Evernote has become the catch-all for my recipes for a number of reasons: the ability to save text or photos as notes, the ability to group notes into "Notebooks" (I call them "Cookbooks"), tagging to sort recipes by ingredients, and syncing across multiple devices. If I'm using a dead-tree cookbook, I can snap a photo of the page and upload it as a note to Evernote, tag it, and save it to the appropriate cookbook. Next time I need that recipe, I can search by ingredients in Evernote and view it on my iPad instead of hunting through my 30 cookbooks, trying to remember which one is hiding it! If I'm reading the latest issue of Good Housekeeping on my Zinio app and I see a great recipe to try later, I just snap a screenshot and add to Evernote. If I'm searching the web and find a recipe, I can hit the Evernote button on my browser window and save it quickly that way. No matter where I find the recipe, there's a quick and easy way to add it to my digital cookbook library, and it's always with me.

4. Clear plastic wrap

I've been reading about the many ways people are finding to protect their iPads from kitchen spills and splashes, and of them I find clear plastic wrap to be the best choice for me. It's inexpensive, thin enough for effective swiping and scrolling, and doesn't soak through. Great for cooking or dishwash-video-viewing!

Well that's about it for my iPad kitchen tips. If I remember any more, I'll be sure to add them, and if you have any of your own, I'd love to hear them!

Why I loved and hated the Lost finale

2010-05-24T12:46:00.001-07:00

Warning: This blog post contains spoilers on the final season of Lost.

I don't have a lot to say about the Lost finale - surprising after having so much to say about the show during the six year duration - so I'll keep this brief. Mainly I just want to vent without spoiling people on Twitter or Facebook.

I loved, loved, loved the first two hours of the Lost finale. It was so great seeing my favorite Losties reunite with their loved ones in the sideways world. It was both gut-wrenching and uplifting, and the anticipation of what lie ahead was thrilling.

The final scenes were beautiful and poignant, with Jack finding out that they were dead, and were brought together in that moment to help each other move on. It really was lovely.

Now to explain why at that moment I yelled obscenities at my television and burst into tears of frustration -

Six years.

It's been six years of smoke monsters, dead people walking, horses, polar bears, hurley birds, numbers, hatches, orientation films with numbered bunnies, immortality, statue feet, kidnapped kids, mothers dying during birth, time travel, donkey wheels, magic-mirrored lighthouses, and oodles more of ridiculous mysteries that remain ridiculous mysteries. I took each new easter egg or supernatural occurrence as they came, expecting that this would ultimately make some kind of sense because the writers stated that they had a plan, and no, this isn't purgatory.

I love the idea of the Losties finding each other in death, and Hurley giving them this gift as the new protector of the island. If the point of the show is the characters, then why the hell all of the mysteries? Do you not think your show is capable of retaining viewers with just well-written characters, with interesting flashbacks and beautifully interwoven stories?

The fact is Lost could have been a wonderful drama without all of that nonsense, on its true merits: the characters, the desert-island-crash, and the interesting connections. They could have even kept this beautiful death-limbo-scenario, and it would have worked.

So, yes, I feel cheated. I guess if you're tuning in to a show that is set up to be this fascinating series of mysteries, then yes, you're going to feel cheated if none of those are paid off. If you're tuning in for a show about fascinating characters stranded on a deserted island, last night's finale would have been absolutely phenomenal and satisfying. I'm sure that's why the writers continued to stress that Lost was more than anything about the characters. If that were true, they wouldn't have had to throw in all of that extraneous supernatural mystery and easter egg stuff.

In my humble opinion, as an ardent Lost fan and former Lost apologist, they would have done better to either leave all that other stuff out, or attempt to actually explain it. Some might say not doing so is an example of lazy writing.

Now that I got that off my chest, I'm going to go watch the finale for a second time, desperately looking for any reason to prove that I'm entirely wrong about all of this. Namaste.

All I Want for Christmas is an Ebook Reader

2009-10-17T05:33:00.000-07:00

With details and photos leaked of Barnes and Nobles' upcoming ebook reader and rumors of Apple's greatly anticipated tablet still aflame, I'm getting really excited about the possibility of an affordable but feature-packed ebook reader. I'm not holding my breath that Apple's tablet, which many say will be formiddable in the e-reader market, will be the inexpensive model that I'm hoping for, but I do think it will increase competition and result in lower priced models from competitors.

Now that the dominant e-book reader on the market, Amazon's Kindle is now as low as $249, I'm starting to think more seriously about purchasing an ebook reader. The Kindle has many of the features that I am looking for: wireless connectivity, wide selection (although DRM'ed), and ability to read magazines and blogs. The downside to the Kindle is that it is still a bit pricey for me - I'd like to pay $199 at the most - and that it is limited to only books purchased through Amazon.com.

The Sony ebook reader is definitely closer to my price range, and has a more open selection since it allows you to read ebooks published in the widely used, open e-pub format, but there's no wireless connectivity.

This new reader coming from Barnes and Noble, is rumored to be comparable to the Kindle in quality with a wireless connection, and (here's the kicker) running Google's open-source Android operating system, hopefully with the ability to run Android apps as well. If the price of this reader is kept to $200 or below, that will seal the deal for me. Since it's set to debut sometime in the next month, maybe, just maybe, my dream e-book reader will be under my Christmas tree this year.

Life after Death

2009-10-07T15:38:00.000-07:00

I almost drowned as a child. I was about five years old, maybe a little younger, and was swimming with my family at Milton Town Beach in Milton, NH. My sister and a couple of older girls were swimming out to an isolated dock in the water. My sister warned me there was a drop-off, and though she was a much better swimmer than me, I ignored her. I thought she just didn't want me joining them on the dock. I remember her telling me about the drop-off, and I remember trying to swim out there. I didn't know how to swim. The next thing I remember I was deep in the water, on my back. I had the toes of my right foot on the rocky edge of the drop-off, but the rest of me was well below that point. I remember the green water, and the light above me, but I don't remember how I got back up. I remember that when I did reach the surface, I was gasping for air, suddenly frantic. I remember choking on the water as I made my way to the shore.

I wonder now if that experience is why I am convinced by NDE's or near-death-experiences. Many people recount leaving their bodies and traveling towards the light after death, and I feel deep in my soul that is accurate. I wish I could remember if that is what happened to me that day. I do know that I was alone in that time in the water, and something helped me to realize that I could make it to the surface with only my toes on the edge of that rock.

I also know that I have lived before. I don't remember past lives, but I remember feeling as if I had a life before my infancy. I know I have soulmates - people that I know in this life that I've known from past lives. I can't explain how I can recognize some people as soulmates and not others, except that when I met them, I already felt like I knew them. The strongest of these connections for me was my high school boyfriend. It is a very comforting feeling to know that this person will always be with me, even if I don't see him for years, or even until the next life.

I love reading others' accounts of near-death-experiences and past life experiences. One of my clients, a very socially-conservative and remarkably sane Republican social worker, told me about some of her own out-of-body experiences. I've read that these can be willfully experienced, with a little practice. I've tried once, and got pretty freaked out by the intense vibrations that I felt while attempting the OBE.

I've always been fascinated with imagining what may lie beyond the limits of our physical bodies, what our consciousness or minds are capable of. I believe that our physical bodies are temporary, merely vessels that allow our conscious minds to experience the physical realm, and even to complete lessons here on Earth that our souls must accomplish. I wonder how far along I am; if I am doing well; if I am learning, or just repeating the same mistakes over and over. I wonder how different my next life will be, and whom I will encounter again. I wonder if I will recognize them next time, or if I will forget.

It's so odd for me to admit to myself that I accept this as my faith after being atheist or agnostic for most of my life. But I'm glad I do. My faith is a very comforting one.

So long, San Diego!

2009-08-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

What a magical place San Diego is! For those who don't know, last week I flew to San Diego for Comic-Con (a massive convention dedicated to fans of comic books, sci-fi, and pop-culture). And while I had a blast at the convention itself, my favorite moments were spent with friends - podcasters and podcast listeners, many of whom I was meeting for the first time.

Me, Alirio, Laurie, and Kirk

Of course, several outings were spent with my hostel roommates Desiree', Alirio, Chris, and Rob, as well as the usual suspects Chris(inBoston), Adam the Rando, Colleen, and Jay. I also had fun getting to know Ben (from The Dharmalars), his girlfriend Harmonie, and cute couple Kirk and Laurie - who, as it turns out, live only 20 minutes from my hometown of South Berwick, Maine. Camping out for the Lost panel, I met Jana, Michael ("Friendly Communist"), Ralph (from The Dharmalars), and Jim W.

Alirio, Jim, Chris, and Me (sitting)

One of the highlights of my trip was when I went to see Doug Benson and Brian Posehn at the Balboa with Gabe from The Top 5 Podcast. I had Gabe on Trivia War a handful of times, but was quite shocked when I met him. I totally was expecting a quiet, stoner type, but Gabe showed up relatively sober, quite talkative, and cool as shit. The comedy show featured four additional comedians: Chris Hardwick, Graham Elwood, Patton Oswalt (!), and another equally funny comic, whose name eludes me. Gabe and I stuck around after the show to score some pics and autographs, then headed over to Fred's Mexican Cafe for drinks. We were surprised to see Brian Posehn chilling out with his buddies, including Anthrax's Scott Ian.

Brian Posehn and Me

Another night a bunch of us met up with a bunch of Heroes fans, including 10th Wonder hosts Derek Russell and Graham Hancock, as well as fans Kim (KKJordan) and Chris Griffin. Randomly, we met Ron Jeremy and James Purefoy on the streets of San Diego.

Me, Ron Jeremy, Colleen, and Kim

But probably the best night of the trip for me was my last night in San Diego, when I got to meet Mike, from the Top 5 Podcast and Chain of Fools, and hang out with him and Gabe. We had such a blast hanging out at the rooftop bar at Hotel Solomar, then bar-hopping around the Gaslamp.

Me, Mike, and Gabe

Of course, I can't forget trying to play Balderdash with Rob while we were both inebriated, walking past Felicia Day on Fifth Ave, kicking Chris's ass at pool (even if it was on a technicality), bursting into song with everyone at the Blarney Stone, or the countless margaritas at Fred's.

Lost fans at The Blarney Stone

And remember when I said San Diego is magical? It is! It's a magical world where skylights need no glass or barrier between the room and the sky; where you can walk down the street and run into a movie star; and when you can find yourself seated on a random connection flight next to the same random passenger you flew next to on a previous flight. It's a place where it's perpetually 74 degrees and sunny, and home to one of the largest geek fests in the world. San Diego, I love you!

Videos from San Diego

2009-07-31T05:03:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of videos recorded on my Mac from San Diego. The first is after arriving, meeting Desiree' from Pensacola, and checking into our room.

And here I am in Hall H at Comic-Con, waiting for the Lost panel to start.

The Future of Trivia War

2009-02-11T13:12:00.000-08:00

Well people following me on Twitter have probably wondered why I posted that I don't want to produce Trivia War anymore. I'm just tired of the work. Each episode usually takes me somewhere between 7 and 12 hours to edit, depending on how long the shows last, how many guests are on, and how clean the audio is. I think about the podcasters who are able to record, edit, and publish an episode the same day or the next day, and do it well, and I'm sure the difference is that they are all podcasts who record everyone on one track (like Jay and Jack and Dharmalars). Robin and I have to record over Skype because of separate locations, and to keep the audio quality good, we have to record double-enders. This means that we each record our own audio, and it gets edited together. Well podcasters who record this way know that this usually results in an echo of the other person's audio on your track. You can either publish it that way, which is unacceptable to me, or spend hours silencing out the echo. When guests are involved, then I have to silence any echo on their tracks as well. Add in the music, and normal editing cuts of extraneous content and bloopers, and the hours add up quickly. Or not quickly, I guess.

Anyway, I'm at the point now where there are other projects I'd like to have time for - especially my web design business - that I just haven't been able to get to. I still love the show, love my co-host, love recording, love the trivia, games, and feedback, but I don't want to do the production anymore. So what can I do about it? Obviously, we can't record in the same room, so the next option is to lighten the work load. Robin and I tried to have him silence echo on his audio before sending it to me, but I wasn't satisfied with the finished product, and there were still several hours of work left for me anyway. Ideally, I would hire someone to produce the show for us, but I don't think that's financially feasible. Ideally, I would continue to produce the show if I could get it down to two or three hours of post-production, but I've already explained how that's not possible with our set-up. I also considered going down to releasing shows every other week but it's still a ton of work that I don't want to do.

I always thought that if it ever came time for me to move on from Trivia War, I'd like to pass it on to someone else. I'd love for it to keep going without me. I would be surprised if Robin wanted to take over production, though, because I doubt he has the time to do it either. So I guess what I'm saying is that if someone wants to take over for me, I'd consider it. I love this show, and I'd want to leave it in good hands, but I don't want it to end.

Right now, I'm looking at the next several episodes we have planned, and at the very least, I want to see it through to Pop Quiz 5 and the next Listeners' Choice. I realize we have guests lined up for March as well, so if there isn't another alternative by then, I'll proceed with those commitments as well, but that will probably be it for me.

I LOVE podcasting, as many of you know, and I'm sure this won't be the end for me. I might consider doing a one-woman show in the future, which would be short and occasional, but on what I don't know. Right now, I'm just tired.

Trivia, Contests, and Entertainment... Oh, my!

2008-11-09T19:25:00.000-08:00

It's the Trivia War Podcast.

Trivia quizzes on a different tv show or movie every week!
Weekly and monthly prizes available for listener challenge winners!
Lots of fantastic guest spots by your favorite podcasters!
Listener choice shows where you can help choose the next movie for trivia!

Past shows include:

Lost, Seinfeld, The Big Lebowski, The Office, Star Wars, Old School, Mallrats, Buffy, 30 Rock, and many, many more!

Check out our infamous Pop Quiz editions for random entertainment trivia, and all of the awful singing you can handle.

Find out why Edgy Reviews by That Podcast Show says: "We were pleasantly surprised by the creativity and persona of this well produced podcast."

Subscribe in iTunes: http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite...t?id=274483905

What's next for W?

2008-11-07T17:14:00.000-08:00

I was thinking today about the two months that Bush has left in office, and wondering what he will do next. Honestly, I don't really care. He won't be president anymore, and that's good enough for me. But, what do presidents do after leaving the White House? If you think about it, they work in politics, initially under the guise of being public servants to upload the laws of our great nation, in various political offices- Governor, Senator, Representative, etc. I guess if all you're doing is working your way up the ladder, you wouldn't want to go back to being a Governor after being President. Theoretically, that should be enough though, if what you want to do is to look out for the people in your country, or in that case, state. Not that Bush would have much of a chance getting elected to anything now.

But I wonder what have other presidents done? Have any continued to seek public office? I believe Clinton became an ambassador of sorts. Is that the norm? Is it below them to seek a Congressional position after being the leader of the free world?

I might have to look into this. I think it really shows what that leader's motivations truly are to see what they choose to do after holding the highest position in our country.

Thank You

2008-11-05T12:44:00.000-08:00

I am completely blown away by the results of yesterday's election. Putting aside party politics here, regardless of who was the better candidate, the majority of Americans voted for a black man to be president, clearly demonstrating that race simply doesn't matter to most of us anymore. And I firmly believe that the majority that did vote for McCain did so out of belief that he was the better choice, and not out of racism. Sure, there are still probably a few random, ignorant Americans for whom that was the deciding issue, but I think they are few and far between.

I have never felt like racism was an issue at all during my life. I'm not prejudiced and I don't know anyone personally who is. Of course, I haven't known many black people throughout my life either. It just hasn't been a factor in my life, and didn't see why it should be to anyone voting. The bottom line is the color of your skin has nothing to do with the kind of person you are, and anyone with any common sense at all has to know this.

While racism hasn't been an issue in my life, or those close to me, I am familiar with our nation's history, and am so proud to be an American today, to know that for most people, bigotry is demonstratively a thing of the past. To say that I'm proud to be an American today makes me so overwhelmed because the last several years, I have felt anything but proud of my country.

So thank you to Barack Obama, for having the courage and perserverance to pursue this position. You weren't my first choice for President, or even my second (for the record, neither was McCain or Hillary), but I am happy and proud that you will be our Commander in Chief.

Also, thank you to everyone who took the time to vote as well. Yesterday will be a day that goes down in history as a monumental achievement for our nation, and in my opinion, they happen much too rarely. Here's to many more ahead!

I mean, who does that?

2008-11-03T05:10:00.001-08:00

I was meeting a date last night at a local bar, and got there early so I could have dinner first. So I sat at the bar to watch the game and eat. A bunch of guys came in, and sat next to me. The closest one, started chatting with me about beer and work and whatnot. Pretty soon we were engrossed in conversation when my date finally arrived. We stayed at the bar and had a great time talking and getting to know each other.

Well at one point, my date went to the bathroom, and the second he left, the guy on my right said to me, "Listen I can see you're probably on a date here, and I don't know how well it's going, but I'd really like to talk to you more. Can I get your number so we can hang out again?"

So I said, "I don't think so. I am on a date. Maybe I'll see you around here again."

Of course, everyone at the bar - his friends, the bartender we'd been chatting with, everyone but my date heard this, and he came back, and I was just like, "Where were we?"

I was amused of course. It's so rare that a stranger just asks me out like that, and it happens when I'm on a date with someone else.

In retrospect, I'd say that other guy had some balls to do that. I mean, who asks someone out when they're clearly on a date with someone else?

Another skeptic turned believer

2008-11-02T13:05:00.000-08:00

From Thomas Huxley's Science and Morals:

"I understand the main tenet of Materialism to be that there is nothing in the universe but matter and force; and that all the phenomena of nature are explicable by deduction from the properties assignable to these two primitive factors. That great champion of Materialism whom Mr. Lilly appears to consider to be an authority in physical science, Dr. Büchner, embodies this article of faith on his title-page. Kraft und Stoff–force and matter–are paraded as the Alpha and Omega of existence. This I apprehend is the fundamental article of the faith materialistic; and whosoever does not hold it is condemned by the more zealous of the persuasion (as I have some reason to know) to the Inferno appointed for fools or hypocrites. But all this I heartily disbelieve; and at the risk of being charged with [130] wearisome repetition of an old story, I will briefly give my reasons for persisting in my infidelity. In the first place, as I have already hinted, it seems to me pretty plain that there is a third thing in the universe, to wit, consciousness, which, in the hardness of my heart or head, I cannot see to be matter, or force, or any conceivable modification of either, however intimately the manifestations of the phenomena of consciousness may be connected with the phenomena known as matter and force. In the second place, the arguments used by Descartes and Berkeley to show that our certain knowledge does not extend beyond our states of consciousness, appear to me to be as irrefragable now as they did when I first became acquainted with them some half-century ago. All the materialistic writers I know of who have tried to bite that file have simply broken their teeth. But, if this is true, our one certainty is the existence of the mental world, and that of Kraft und Stoff falls into the rank of, at best, a highly probable hypothesis...

...The student of nature, who starts from the axiom of the universality of the law of causation, cannot refuse to admit an eternal existence; if he admits the conservation of energy, he cannot deny the possibility of an eternal energy; if he admits the existence of immaterial phenomena in the form of consciousness, he must admit the possibility, at any rate, of an eternal series of such phenomena; and, if his studies have not been barren of the best fruit of the investigation of nature, he will have enough sense to see that when Spinoza says, "Per Deum intelligo ens absolute infinitum, hoc est substantiam constantem infinitis attributis," the God so conceived is one that only a very great fool would deny, even in his heart. Physical science is as little Atheistic as it is Materialistic."

A skeptic turned believer

2008-11-02T10:22:00.000-08:00

Probably the most fundamental question in my life is, and has always been, what is it all about?

Raised "Christian", not of a specific denomination but under the belief that there is one God and that he sent his only son to die for our sins, I became "Atheist" in my teen years - Atheist in title only as I couldn't believe there could be a God who was so cruel as to allow me to continue to live my miserable life but still praying to that God, just in case - and admitting, after becoming a mother, that there had to be something more out there. I have only in the past two or three years, found faith that I can identify with. Still, not with any specific religion, but more in line with Eastern thoughts and practices and thus identifying myself as "Buddhish", if it must be labeled.

I believe in life after death. I believe that we have "souls". Why? Because we are conscious. Consciousness is probably the most fascinating aspect of life to me. Where does it come from? How are we aware? Where does it go after death? In death, does consciousness cease, or is it just moving from our physical bodies to somewhere else? A friend of mine once said that he believes consciousness continues for the sole reason that he can't comprehend it not being anymore. To me, that's as easy an excuse as saying that consciousness ceases because you can't conceive of it continuing without the body. Easy excuses don't work for me. If they did, I'd probably still consider myself "Christian", because it's easier to believe what your parents tell you to, than to make up your own mind about it.

I believe in reincarnation. It actually took me a long time to come to that belief, considering that I desperately wanted to believe in reincarnation as a teenager, but could find no basis for that. So what basis do I have now? The easiest explanation is that I agree with the things that make the most sense to me, but the truth is I need to have some kind of proof. I'm not talking about cold, hard scientific facts, because I don't think we are capable of finding 100% scientific proof of an afterlife, but the kind of proof where my experiences, intuition, and certain scientific studies lend credence to the belief.

What studies am I referring to? I think the most illuminating insight we have into the afterlife comes from those who have approached the brink of death, and lived to tell about it. There are numerous accounts of near death experiences- people who have clinically died, whose brains ceased to function, but came back to report experiencing consciousness during that period, and with fascinating descriptions of being out of their bodies, life reviews and analysis, and of deciding what to do next.

But even that doesn't lend enough to the idea of having multiple lives in various physical bodies. Furthering the prospect of reincarnation are the accounts of people who somehow manage to remember past lives, and are able to correlate their knowledge with the written history of those lives, and even by the surviving members of those families.

I've learned recently to give credence to my intuition, which is a very hard thing to do for someone who grew up believing that logic and scientific method should rule belief. But in learning to embrace my intuition, I have found amazing personal proof of how the soul travels past the physical world. While I can't prove anything to anyone else, I know the truth for myself, at least the small amount of truth that doesn't even compare with everything there is to know about the unknown.

Hello all!

2008-11-02T09:40:00.000-08:00

Let's see. I'm a few years late to starting a personal blog, although I had been using my Myspace profile as a blog for a couple of years. I haven't been on Myspace much lately, and although I can't really figure out why, haven't been interested in using Myspace anymore. So I decided to start an official blog here.

I'm not sure how often I'll be posting. Doubtful that it actually will be a "daily dose of Sue", but I had to call it something, right?

Here's what you can expect from me: the occasional random observation about the world around me, lots of posts about things in my life that excite me, and even the sporadic glimpse into my own theology and philosophy.

Thanks for taking the time to humor me as I indulge in my ego's need to share myself with others.