Steve Swenton

I was busy gettin' my daughter married off. That's the only reason I couldn't make it this year. They got married September 27th and all went very well. So, when and where's the next one? Steve. ¥

Kevlar, I went to someone else's fellowship twice after you moved to Annapolis. Problem is, I don't remember who they were. I DO remember that they had just graduated Way Corps that year, and Glen Burnie was their first assignment. Things started getting really weird, so I stopped going altogether. I lost contact with you and everyone else after that. I ran into Steve S. a few months later. He told me he and family were moving to the northern mid-west, but he didn't say if it was his decision or a Corps assignment. Ann and I moved to Wheeling, WV in September 1990 (where I made the mistake of contacting TWI again - Super Dumb move), bought a house, and have been living here ever since, 'till last year anyway. Jessica graduated college in 2000, a BA in theater arts. She has 2 boys, and is living just north of Wheeling with her husband. Just catchin' up... Steve. ¥

Any Mountaineers out there? I currently live in Wheeling up in the northern panhandle. I never fellowshipped with TWI here, but I've talked to 'em a time or two. Steve. ¥

I was a Marine stationed in Twentynine Palms, CA where I became involved with TWI in April of 1984. Steve. ¥

Just for the record, I am originally from the Bladensburg/Hyattsville area near DC. My daughter and I did most of our fellow shipping with TWI in the Baltimore area in Glen Burnie, circa 1985-1988. We lived in Glen Burnie about 6 years before moving to West Virginia. Hi Kevlar! How's it been lately? Just a thought... Steve. ¥

Vegetarian might be ok, but Vegan can have some deleterious effects in the long run. My sister was raised on "meat & potatoes" the same as I and our other siblings. In the late '80s, she and her first husband divorced, and she met a guy who was into a "new age" religion. This religion mimiced the Hindu religion in that they are strict vegetarians that won't eat ANYTHING from an animal. Not even chicken stock or boulion of any kind. Cutting to the chase, after 14 years of this, my sister and her second husband developed some medical problems because of their vegetarian diet. To solve those problems, they started on dairy products, and eggs, but nothing that would cause an animal to die. They finally ended up having to eat fish to make up for what their diet was otherwise lacking. They're OK now, but still won't touch red or white meat except fish. To each his own, I say. Because of what happened to my sister, I still eat meat when the mood hits me. Not just any kind of meat either. I have always had a problem with pork, and because of that, I've begun to shun pork. I've been "off" pork for the last year now, and I've seen a great improvement in my health. Don't get me wrong, I still have an occasional bacon strip, or sausage patty now and then, but it's not the every to every other day thing it used to be. I still love beef, lamb, and chicken, and eat those quite regularly with no ill effects except, of course, the weight I gain if I eat too much. :D--> I've also stopped using margerine because most margerines are made from purified pork fat - more commonly known as LARD. I get sick when I eat it, so I use butter instead, which doesn't make me sick. Among margerines, 100% corn oil types and Benecol are the only ones that don't make me sick - but they don't taste all that good either. Something that my sister did manage to teach me about vegetables is to eat them raw, or steamed, whenever possible to maximize both flavor and nutritional effect. Also, vegetable and fruit juices are a big plus over soda and cool-aid. :)--> Just some thoughts to help you along... Steve. ¥

...but not THAT much faster. I'm on a T1 connection at work, and under IE it's noticably faster both at initial entry into the site, and between threads. On Netscape 4.79, it's still a crawler - maybe a second or two faster than before, but it's not that noticable. I havent tried Netscape 7.0 yet. If I get around to it, I'll let you know. :)--> That's it for now... Steve. ¥

About dieting, that is. I say this not knowing who you are or what kind of health you're in. If I'm off base, please forgive me. My wife, Anna, had a disease called Cushing's Syndrome. We didn't know about it until we were married about 15 years. Turns out she had this ailment since her early 20s. For years, she would gain pounds VERY quickly, and diet them off, almost starvation style, V E R Y s l o w l y. It didn't matter what diet she tried, what foods she ate (she always had a craving for oranges), or even diet and exercise together. Nothing seemed to work, or if it did work, the weight came back in 1/4 the time it took to get rid of it. When she was diagnosed with Cushings Syndrome, the Doctor explained that this disease causes rapid, trunkal (only in the middle of the body, not in the arms and legs) weight gain and prevents the body from loosing weight. I'm not sure what causes it, but the symptoms include the trunkal weight gain, and the person's face is bright red (almost like rosatia, only without the scaring) most all of the time. Body wide acne is another symptom (by body wide, I mean you get zits all over, including places you don't want to hear about). Once the problem was identified, the Doctor removed a small beneign growth from one of her adrenal glands, and she was able loose weight through dieting, and lived out her life normally. BTW, she dropped from 425lbs to 298lbs before she died (of something else) last year. All of that said, there are other ailments that can cause folks to gain weight as well, but I don't know what they are. My point? If you know you're in good health, all of the above advice should help you flatten those ABS, and shrink those thieghs, and all of that stuff. However, if you're in that category where normal dieting doesn't seem to work (2 to 3 pounds loss per week is a good sign), I recommend you see your Doctor to see if there may be other problems. Just a thought... Steve.

Sun spots and solar flares aside, there is another source to be considered when dealing with those mysterious glitches. That source; Lightning. Cloud to cloud and earth to cloud lightning can cause tremendous damage in an electrical circuit. A lot of folks don't realize that induced electrical pulses are what cause most damage. Zixar explained that very well when he spoke of the relationship between the Earth's magnetic field and moving solar particles (they generate a momentary electrical current as they enter the earth's atmosphere). When lightning strikes, the same thing happens, only in reverse. All of those moving electrons produce a whopper of a magnetic pulse which causes electron flow in every thing it passes through, including the human body. That's how people are said to be stunned by lightning where no one saw lightning actually strike, but they heard the thunder very nearby. The people weren't actually struck by the lightning, but they were close enough to it that the magnetic pulse generated by the lightning induced a momentary electrical current in their bodies which stunned them. In other words, because of the interrelationship between electricity and magnetism, lightning does not have to strike an electrical circuit (or human being) directly to cause damage. Induced lightning also affects computer circuits, such as the EEPROM, UV erasable EEPROM, CMOS circuits, and Flash RAM, among others. Like Zixar said, "A few flipped bits is all it takes to glitch a program or crash a computer." Just try inducing a couple thousand volts into one of these devices. If it doesn't burn it up, it'll definitely erase anything stored in it. Just a thought... Steve.