Archive for July 10th, 2005


To give you some general structure of the work we do. With great power comes great responsibilities. You really just can’t swoop down from the heavens with no warning, bap someone on the head and say, “Today you are a Minerval”… Well, at least I can’t.

These rituals are done under the auspices of established bodies of the order. They are scheduled ahead of time and then paperwork is filed on applicants. There are other details, but they really aren’t appropriate for open forum.

Many bodies tend to actually calendar and schedule these rituals months in advance. Enough months between say, the decision to do them and the decision to quit work, leave work, move out of state, and then host them. Such was my case. I was scheduled in the L.A. area before I’d even planned to leave my old company. When I made the announcement to my body that we were moving, I promised to keep the commitment to that responsibility.

We flew out Friday morning, did our preparations throughout the day, then Saturday did our ritual work. We also got to spend some time with the people who’d become family one last time as we transition up North.

I wanted to write this because I made the post earlier today about having done Minervals. Later I found out that several people in the Pacific Northwest were trying to figure out where I’d set up shop without telling anyone. *heh* None were scheduled up in Oreington this weekend. I am really looking forward to doing work in my new area. There are some really cool bodies with some absolutely incredible people. Everybody has been so warm and welcoming to me. I guess I must begin to acknowledge that I’m not really going to be as active with WRC, BSO, LFC, WBO, BHO in the future. In a way I will love and always be a part of every body I have ever worked with. But every day is a new day, and there are always changes and transitions.

3 Minervals down last night. And my last responsibility in L.A. for a while. (Yeah right… I have three BHO events already calendared: Puja, November Mass, and Massathon in March)…. No really I can quit anytime.

Watch what shape I’m in once I let: VC, SML, and of course HO schedule me 🙂

Initiation last night

Performed Minervals last night. Minervals could be considered the gateway drug to an initiatory path in the OTO. It sorta lets people try on the order before making a full time life-long commitment.

This ritual always means a lot to me regardless of my own involvement in the ritual as it always reminds me of my own Minerval, now over 7 years ago.

Due to the open forum I of course will not go into many details, but it is a wonderful experience that I actually recommend to just about anyone regardless of beliefs. It is definitely an experience to remember. 🙂

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MacTel? A good idea?

Recently, on of all places a poker forum for mac users, the question was asked if this whole Mac on Intel thing is a good idea. So I responded:

Apple is now at a point where they can afford to jump on the Intel bandwagon. And it’s not because of the chip or the speed. It’s because they are positioned to fend off two possible problems with the move. 1) a drying up of hardware sales during the conversion. 2) MIcrosoft strong-arming Intel to make decisions that are not beneficial or even harmful to Apple.

Does the change really matter? The Apple OS is clearly superior to the Microsoft OS. And one doesn’t have to be a pundit to see that. The OS will run just as well on Intel as it does on the IBM series.

The consumer on the other hand (relatively uneducated) will hear “Intel” and believe that now, Apple is playing in Microsoft’s world so there’s more reason to switch. The truth is that the applications will be little changed. Sure, any application that is trying to do cross microchip emulation will be great. This consists primarily of Virtual PC.

The most important issue will be lost. Apple has an OS that can run on any microchip. They can change that out almost as easily as they can swap out the video card. The real question becomes…. once this change occurs… what happens if Microsoft decides they can move to IBM’s PPC series?