igotout

I wonder if I grew a ZZ Top beard if it would be gray like that. I think so. Didn't shave for a few days and saw some silver. My kids made me shave.

Well Gary & Ann did get together but of recent years they apparently "got apart". Happens.

Shannon was a hoot! If you know how I may contact her let me know too. We were in the same Corps twig for a whole year. It was during the time when you did everyting in twig, even all the meals. These were some of the people you got to know real well. We laughed a lot. Others in that twig included Mark Graeser, John McCave, Laura Elam and...for the rest I have to dust off my mammary pegs.

One, run

Two, zoo

Three, tree

Four, door

Five, hive

Six, sick

Seven, heaven

Eight, gate

Nine, wine

Ten, den

And for anything past that I'll just use my Palm Pilot.

John R.

[This message was edited by igotout on May 17, 2003 at 12:28.]

Look. It's our Corps brother Mike Rood. Click here.

Damn! I remember when he was hawking car buffing franchises in residence. Interesting site.

I suppose we have all changed tremendoulsy in the last 23 years in one way or another.

Mike, if you are reading this I mean it as a compliment, really, but when I saw this pic I was reminded of a ZZ Top concert I went to. You're looking good brother.

[This message was edited by igotout on November 08, 2003 at 18:23.]

Look. It's our Corps brother Mike Rood. Click here.

Damn! I remember when he was hawking car buffing franchises in residence. Interesting site.

Excathedra, since you have put Sunesis on probation maybe you can ask Mike to be the coordinator. He probably knows more of the bible than all of us put together. (Sunesis, this reminds me of that guy from ZZ Top who is an exceptional guitar player?)

[This message was edited by igotout on December 08, 2002 at 23:50.]

Sorry, but I had to work this entire weekend practically non stop, putting together a small network from scratch including installing many programs, etc. Deadline was Monday Morning and I just finished.

You guys please keep posting here. That's cool. I had a very good friend Gary Matsuk, in the 8th Corps. He was later our Area leader here in Tampa along with his wife Anne Morningstar (6th Corps). He was very funny. In all the years we lived here (22 years and counting) they were the BEST leaders we have ever had.

Little Hawk, I am not sure about Dee Dee's where abouts. She was a very nice person. I liked her but have lost contact with lots of people. Especially because I was in TWI until 2000.

Sunesis. I'll keep looking for you by trying to find your "friends in trouble". One of my rebel friends was Frank Piluso from da Bronx but I am not sure he made it past his interim year.

Does anyone know how I can find him? He was one of a kind.

Lifted up, so you went down to the basement and BAM! You are trapped! Did they physically restrain you with ropes, etc? Or was it more of an intervention style meeting (like with Christopher on the Sopranos).

Man, I don't know, I think I would have tried to kill someone if given the chance.

John R.

I started a folder within my hundreds of music files called "Awesome Guitar Players". I have been wanting to ask some real guitar players or musicians advice on who I might put in that category.

Can you give me a few ideas Socks, Sunesis, Ted, and others who may know music? Yanagisawa, I will have to check out the ones you listed.

Or does this become a question of taste?

In my folder so far I have Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimmy Page, Pat Methaney, Johnny Winters (saw him in concert and liked it very much), Alvin Lee (Ten Years After), Carlos Santana, and a favorite Eddie Van Halen.

Who else should I add?

John R.

What's up with dial up modems these days. I have kinda lost touch. But I saw one at a store last week and it said V 92 or something like that. Have they come out with something in dial up that has bumped up the speed a little?

Overall, I think dial up has greatly improved compared to say 4 or 5 years ago hasn't it? Hasn't the internet iteslf become more efficient as well, what with more modern equipment and so forth or the opposite due to its growth?

Aww c'mon. Would love to hear about it. No one seems to post much on these Corps threads anyway except the 9th (who are all insane.) But a lot of folks read these. It's probably something you should commit to paper anyway and save it. It's pretty interesting to say the least.

In a way it is relevant here because it was in our years in the Corps that I believe deprogramming was at its peak. We had several in our group who were affected. In addition to Barrie Hill I remember Monty Pelto's dramatic experience in which he escaped. I think TWI brought a lawsuit against Ted Patrick after that.

David Letterman used to do a funny audience bit called "Brush with Greatness"

Ted, you appear to have had quite a few. Lucky guy.

My only two brushes with greatness were:

1.) I found myself standing in line at a McDonalds right behind Jethro Tull after one of their concerts.... 1971?? I think. They were funny as hell and hardly anyone knew who they were cuz it was a Mcdonalds several miles away from the arena. Dressed in casual clothes, they were holding hands, and hugging each other and other strange things wich drew attention from some parents with their kids. I was too "dizzy" at the time to ask for an autograph.

2.) 1984 I am cleaning windows at the Hyatt here in Tampa and there sat James Brown. Ughh! Good God, ya'll!! I went up and asked for his autograph, all I had was a window ticket so he signed it. "To John & Family, God Bless, James Brown"

Any others?

John R.

[This message was edited by igotout on December 03, 2002 at 20:39.]

That sounds like her. I wonder if she ever even realized how mean she was to people. Gawd! How selfish.

In my personal opinion, when former top leaders do this they are nothing more than cowards. It appears there are a lot of cowards out there.

WOW! I think back and find it amazing that deprogramming was so prevalent back then. I think I would have tried to seriously hurt one of my captors. I'm sure we all used to imagine what we would try to do if we were ever grabbed.

But my parents were probably glad to get rid of me and let The Way have me. I think they would have paid the Way to keep me if I went back home.

In todays litigious society I would think lawyers would jump all over a deprogrammer, with lawsuits on every hand.

So, were you a successfully deprogrammed detainee? Did they hurt you? How much did it set your family back? I heard $10k was the going figure. Hell, they should have just offered you the money to leave TWI, bypass the middleman.(I know I would have been tempted).

I think a book could be written about some of this. Maybe one has already been written.

I was a bit young to appreciate all of the 60's but I was thinking of the huge diversity of music the 60's contained. It ranged from groups like The Association, all the way to Pink Floyd, from The Monkees to Hendrix. From Sonny & Cher to 10 Years After.

Our country and its people, especially young people I believe, went through major transformations in that decade.

I thought it was interesting that George Harrison made the first post-Beatles solo in 1970 with his 3 album set called "All Things Must Pass". It was as if he was saying that an era had passed and that we were moving on.

For me at the age of 17 in 1970 I was just getting started. I had only been to one war protest and was only in one small riot. I wanted the party of the 60's to continue but it was already on the decline.

I'm John Richeson's 15 year old daughter. Most of the music I listen too is more of a punk sound. Fast paced. Not rap or heavy NIN or Tool or anything. Don't get me wrong,sometimes I'll listen too it but not too often. Alot of the stuff I listen too is considered unacceptable by adults today just as listening to The Beatles and Pink Floyd was in the 60's. But as the censores get less restraining the music starts trying to push the limits.

For most of my generation it is considered harmless and really it's just downright immature.

There is more than just the mind-numbing music out there today. It may just not be hitting the radio. Try listening to a great band called 'Saves the Day'. Or a band I'm seeing tonight 'Rufio'. Both have great catchy lyrics that teenagers seem to relate to well. I've seen both bands in concert along with many others that just aren't mainstream (on radio or tv). Some stuff even tries to bring back some of the old sound. For example, listen to a band called Belle and Sebastian. They sound a lot like Donavan from your generation in the 60's.

In summary don't worry so much about the music. Although one band you might want to stay away from is Cannibal Corpse. For some reason not being able to understand their lyrics then looking at they're titles, for instance: Raped with a knife; scares me...a lot. So go ahead and check out what your kids are listening too but don't take it too seriously.

Thanks

Sorry about that incident in the park, Ted.

It was my girlfriend at the time. After you left she slapped me and broke up with me.

After all we were not supposed to trust anyone over 30.

The Internet Explorer cache gets 2 to 3 percent of your hard drive by default. This small percentage adds up to 600MB on a 20GB hard drive and up to 3GB on a 100GB hard drive.

Lower this setting by opening the browser and going to Tools/Internet Options and clicking on the Settings button. 200 to 300MB is a recommended size.

By default the Recycle Bin eats 10 percent of your hard drive. That's a whopping 10GB on a 100GB hard drive. A recommended setting is to take either 500MB or 1 percent of your disk whichever is larger.

I read an interesing article in Money magazine about a community out in a rural area who created their own DSL connection. One guy led the way with the idea and took action to do it. The equipment was surprisingly small and when it was averaged out among all the people who tapped into it, the cost was affordable.

Apparently their biggest hurdle was getting approval or cooperation from the phone company.

You are not alone. Most people in this country are still on dial up. The whole broadband thing just didn't catch on like investors and now defunct dot coms thought would happen.

We are lucky in this Tampa Bay area. We have choice of Cable or DSL. I use both and they are both nice. Cost is $50. per month for each.

Are you saying you were deprogrammed? If so, tell me about it. Back then I know Ted Patrick was the deprogrammer of choice.

Who of us 7th Corps can ever forget Barrie Hill's dramatic entrance in the chapel after she was succesfully deprogrammed and then later reprogrammed herself and escaped, only to drive all the way back out to Emporia and pop in on us unexpectedly.

(It now appears she has deprogrammed herself back to the "dark side" again, even declaring VPW a charlatan.)

"May the force be with her."

John Richeson

Class, where's your fruit? Tuttle?

"In a moment you're going to speak again."

I am using 56k today due to working on a friend's brand new Dell computer. As usual, the weakest link on the whole configuration is his 56k dial up modem/

Damn! I forgot how slow a modem and phone line are. It feels like I am crawling and that's at 50k.

Give yourself an excellent Christmas present.

Spend a few bucks and get Cable or DSL. It will pay for itself in productivity in no time, especially if you have modern equipment to go along with it.

Once you taste, you will NEVER go back to using dial up.

Sunesis - I wish my 15 year old could talk to you. She is a guitar player and is beginning to appreciate good talent ranging from classical to Jimi Hendrix to Nirvana.

I am glad that you said you liked Metallica because I do too! When I saw them on an MTV award show years ago I was blown away by the power. And the guitar player was incredible. I kind of surpressed my appreciation for them because after all "I am too old for this aren't I? I also like James Taylor...why does Metallica appeal to me?"

Furthermore, I was still in TWI. God forbid Paul Giles or Bob Moynihan heard me blasting my downloaded Metallica songs. They would have thought I was posessed or something.

So in my car or when no one was home, the windows rattled to the sounds of Metallica (as well as Pink Floyd). It was always a strange feeling showing up at a lame twig fellowship and singing some dumbass song about the Prevailing Household right after a blast of Metallica on the way over there.

For the record, I thought your guitar playing was outstanding. We all knew you were up against a brick wall in TWI when it came to your creativity being allowed to flourish. It was obvious.

But I and many others were glad you were there. You were one of the cool ones and you brought a little joy into a lot of lives.

John R.

PS - Another great guitarist I have come to appreciate only last year is Stevie Ray Vaughn. WOW! Can you comment about his talents? (Seems I missed a lot while in TWI)

60's always make me think of Woodstock dammit!

I was 16 and was not allowed to go. I came very close to running away and hitchiking there but I didn't.

But a funny thing...when I asked all my friends who went "So, how was Woodstock?" Their reply was pretty much the same "Lousy, too many people, couldn't see the stage, could bearly hear the music, bad sound, rainy, muddy." They were glad to be back. They told me I didn't miss much.

Today when I ask them about it I am sure they would say,

"Oh, yeah! Part of a historic event, the atmosphere was awesome, peace & love and good things everywhere."

But I still wish I could have gone. I tried to make up for it by going to one 3 years later called "Bull Island Soda Pop Festival" in Indiana in September 1972. I am sure you have not heard of it, although the newspaper clipping states there were up to 275,000 people there. It turned out out be a scam. Very few groups showed. Food & water were almost non existent. It was an open drugstore. Riots ensued. 3 days of drugs, heat, and hunger. Since I lived only an hour away and slept in my car I decided to stay after to see what it looked like after everyone was gone. It reminded me of a pig sty. I believe it may have been the last big "open" style rock festival from that era.

The counterculture of the 60's was an abject failure it appeared.

Tommy & Dianne Whelen (sp) just above and to the right of Mrs Wierwille's hat.

They were cool.

Joseph & Paula right above CG's big asx white cowboy hat.

They are still in TWI to this very day.

(Yeah, I am puzzled by that too.)

I think they are LC's of NC.....if you can even call anything a Limb...... more like a branch.

Is that you Sunesis? This is the section of the picture, upper left quadrant below the large boulder.

Yeah but it is so slow... yeah it works but I swore off modems about three years ago. Got one but hate using it.

Even broadband to broadband is cumbersome but waaay better than dialup. Disadvantage is that IP address changes frequently on broadband. Modem is always the same phone number.

There are things that are faster but I have no experience with them. Maybe a T3 line or Terminal Server.

Yeah it's a little fuzzy. The original picture is not great quality to begin with.

I want to now who that is on the very top left standing all alone there by themselves. I can't make it out.

I also see Billy Britt on the far right on the very end, middle. We went out to dinner with him this year in New York City where he lives.

He started with another Corps and ended up graduating with 7th.