Simmering Hope

A few days ago I was thinking how much we need positive changes into our lives.
I know the change must happen first within me, only that it’s easier said than done. But I took the first step and made a small video: My first Vision Board.

The Law of Attraction- My Powerful Vision Board

It was fun to make it. The whole process went smoothly, like it was supposed to happen, you know what I mean?

Now that I found this new toy probably I am going to make more vision boards. Something inspirational, motivational and beautiful.

Well, we started our home renovation and a few days ago we found out that the original estimated cost is going to be way much more because of ‘unexpected’ things.
Like the need to replace all the windows. We sort of expected extra expenses but not in the $5000 range (at least!!)
So, it’s time to tap into the Universe resources and pray for some money windfall.

Lots of people swear by ‘The Secret’ but I do have something personal against this book and the person who wrote it and apparently I have to work to change this negative feeling and turn it into a positive experience. What the heck! I don’t have anything to lose.

Because I knew that the book is basically based on the ‘Law of Attraction’ I googled it and found out that the whole idea of manifesting desires mushroomed into a huge movement and now you can even go on You Tube and get hypnotized to attract money.

So, my action plan is to find out more about how to properly manifest my desire for a dream life. I will do baby steps and start with lots and lots of money.

First step was already taken yesterday. I read lots of things I had no clue about before, like the messages sent by the entity dubbed ‘Abraham’ via Esther Hicks. I even watched some workshops found on You Tube. Listening to Esther, I realized why ‘The Secret’ was a huge success compared to her books, even if the final goal was the same: getting something. Attracting prosperity, happiness, etc.
Do you want to know why?
Because Esther Hicks is transmitting the info allegedly received from an entity. She is a wonderful motivational speaker, very articulate and it’s quite interesting to hear what she is saying. But again, she basically communicates to us what the group of beings called ‘Abraham’ is saying. And she is saying things that the majority of people is not ready to accept or can’t comprehend. Namely that we are energy, we are vibration.

On the other hand, Rhonda Byrne- the author of ‘The Secret’ found a much approachable way to convince people to buy her book: you can do it if you think long enough about it and are positive enough. There are no ETs, no channeling, not anything people would have trouble understanding.
My problem with this particular lady is the following abstract from The Secret’s website:
“Rhonda Byrne’s discovery of The Secret began with a glimpse of the truth through a 100 year old book. She went back through centuries, tracing and uncovering a common truth that lay at the core of the most powerful philosophies, teachings and religions in the world.”

No, she did not discover anything else other than how to milk the suckers. And we have to give her credit for that. The book is still on the Best Seller lists.

But let’s get back to my action plan. Seriously, we really need money.

1. Get lots of info on the Law of Attraction without spending too much money
2. Listen to as much Hypno pooh-pooh I can find on You Tube – hey, it’s free!
3. Investigating that ‘Vision Board’ thing I have read about
4. Try to find out which of the conflicting info I found is the real one: asking the Universe for a specific course of action or just expressing the desire and leave the rest to the power that be (as in not imposing the course of action)
5. Maybe I am going to bite the bullet and spend $15 to purchase the DVD called “Money, and the Law of Attraction DVD: Learning to Attract Wealth, Health, and Happiness” by Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks. I mean, in order to combat something you must have knowledge about it, right? At least this is what common mortals are doing, not the politicians.

If you want to get an idea what the DVD ‘The Secret’ is about, take a look at the first 24 minutes

Now that you have seen the first part of the movie, you got hooked and you want to know how to use the Law of Attraction, right?
Well, apparently this movie or the book won’t give you really straight answers or methods so don’t bother buying the DVD or the book, but according to some people, Abraham teachings are much clearer.

I know, I break my own record and post twice on the same day, but I can’t help it.
From the cycle ” Idiots among us” I am bringing you two examples:

First example : From the projects in Brooklyn to a mansion in Atlanta, introducing the Harper family

By the Associated Press LAKE CITY, Ga. - More than 1,800 people showed up to help ABC’s “Extreme Makeover” team demolish a family’s decrepit home and replace it with a sparkling, four-bedroom mini-mansion in 2005.
After the Harper family used the two-storey home as collateral for a $450,000 loan, it’s set to go to auction on the steps of the Clayton County Courthouse Aug. 5. The couple did not return phone calls Monday, but told WSB-TV they received the loan for a construction business that failed.
The house was built in January 2005, after Atlanta-based Beazer Homes USA and ABC’s “Extreme Makeover” demolished their old home and its faulty septic system. Within six days, construction crews and hoards of volunteers had completed work on the largest home that the television program had yet built.
The finished product was a four-bedroom house with decorative rock walls and a three-car garage that towered over ranch and split-level homes in their Clayton County neighbourhood. The home’s door opened into a lobby that featured four fireplaces, a solarium, a music room and a plush new office.

Materials and labour were donated for the home, which would have cost about $450,000 to build. Beazer Homes’ employees and company partners also raised $250,000 in contributions for the family, including scholarships for the couple’s three children and a home maintenance fund.

Now the house is in foreclosure and the idiots should go and work as volunteers on other Extreme Makeover projects. To gain experience construction related if nothing else.

Second example: Winner of $3.6 million jackpot kept the secret for almost a year
We have to be proud with our local celebrities, so, drum roll please: introducing the young realtor who won $3.6 million on 6/49 and kept it secret for 49 weeks…. Ladies and gentlemen… here is Peter Dushop.

Seriously, what was in his freaking mind? He signed the winning ticket and left it in safe deposit box at the bank because he could not make up his mind about what to do with the money. Duh!!!!! This guy does not seem to be very bright if it took him almost a year to figure out something. And the supreme ‘duh moment’: he decided to leave the money in the bank!!!

That mucho intelligent idea needed almost a year to navigate through the emptiness of his skull. In the mean time he lost about $100,000 in interest.

I found as well some pretty disturbing comments congratulating the guys for not making his mind for almost a year.
Seriously? Congratulating him for being an idiot? Definitely the idiots outnumber us.

I am getting dizzy already rolling my eyes and shaking my head.

I am so tired of all the brouhaha surrounding the green movement.
Why? Because I live in Canada, because we are overtaxed for every little thing and now we got the ‘carbon tax’ to help the government fight the global warming caused allegedly by our bad habit of driving too much instead of walking 30 km to work!! Idiots.

My beef with our government politics is a double whammy so to speak:
- Outsourcing to India and China- that causes loss of jobs in Canada, decrease of quality of life, increase of cost of living. In the mean time their economies are booming, increasing the demand for fuel. So we are fucked in every possible way: no jobs for us, increase in fuel cost making commuting (when we have a freaking job) more and more expensive, along with the fuel increase all the other essential things become more and more expensive. In my opinion, the government should penalize the companies which are outsourcing jobs to India, China and Pakistan. I don’t want cheap stuff from China; I want good quality, reasonable priced stuff from Canada. Yep, that means the dead of the freaking unions negotiating ridiculously high incomes. But that’s a different subject.
- Pollution in China and India goes unregulated
What about imposing sanctions and forcing India and China to follow Kyoto protocol or any other good-for-nothing- protocols that will make them reduce their pollution? What about the level of pollution in China, where Beijing is always wrapped in huge smog, they can’t even see the light. He, he… they can’t anyway.

A fast analysis – data from CIA World Factbook- shows a clear picture:

Country -Surface[million square km]- Population
China- 9.5- 1.3 billion
India- 3 -1.1 billion
EU- 4- 493 million
Russia- 17 -140 million
USA -9.8 -303 million
Canada- 9.9 -33 million

How ridiculous is that? Canada has the lowest population, spread over a territory bigger than China, and still has to accept Kyoto?
What the heck could be such a big pollutant in Canada, to make our government squeeze the last penny from us?

Ah, I forgot!! China and India won’t give a shit about global warming. We are left to clean their mess. Companies in Canada go tits up because they can’t afford extra money spent on making everything ‘green’. The heck, they can hardly stay afloat even without all the ridiculous ‘targets’ established by irresponsible politicians, too busy to kiss our neighbour ass, to take a closer look at our lives.

So, based on the above data, I would say that China, India, EU and USA should nicely work together on reducing the pollution, because to me, they are responsible, not Canada. I know, I know… we are blamed for loving big cars, the so called ‘gas-guzzlers’ and the Chinese and the Indians are using (for how long??) bicycles, ricsas, tuk-tuk and some other transportation gizmos.

But they eat. In the past fifty years, global meat consumption has increased fivefold and is still on the rise. Why does it matter? One word: methane.

Methane is twenty-five times more potent than carbon dioxide and although not as abundant as carbon dioxide, is better at trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Almost half of all global methane emissions come from belching livestock.
Did you know that a single cow can belch out anywhere from 25 to 130 gallons of methane a day?
There are around 1.5 billion cattle on our planet, over a billion sheep and some 800 million goats, meaning that the methane emissions must be pretty high.
Actually, according to the U.N. livestock are responsible for 18% of greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide, more than all the planes, trains and automobiles on the planet.

True, the Indians won’t eat beef but they consume dairy products, and the Chinese and other emerging nations eat anything with four legs (except probably the table)

In conclusion: the booming economies in China and India will increase the need for fuel and food, because people will have money to buy both of them. And we are screwed, unless some dramatic changes happen.

Fresh news: WTO talks collapse over farm trade between the USA and emerging powers including China, India and Indonesia. China and India have been acused for not opening their market to imports (is it such a big surprise, seriously?)

Once in a while I dream about going on a well deserved vacation.
For a few hours I mobilize myself into finding info on a sunny spot. Sometimes it is Cancun, sometimes Malta or Tenerife, depending on the mood of the day.
Almost every time it boils down to how expensive it would be and suddenly my enthusiasm is gone.
At one point I put in balance an all-inclusive (flight included) offered by one travel agency vs. contact the hotel and book the plane ticket on your own.
Searching for a non stop flight to Cancun, I found an offer with AirTransat. Non stop flight from Vancouver to Cancun for about $970 round trip.
Nothing wrong with that, only that the listed price did not include all the other hidden costs, which when added to the original offer, brought the price up to about $1200.
As a rule, here in Canada and for that matter, in the U.S as well, advertised airfares won’t include taxes, fuel surcharges and other fees.
Other fees include: Canada Airport improvements, Canada Security charge, Canada Goods and Services Tax (GST); if you fly into the U.S. you pay U.S. Security charge, if you fly into U.K. you must add U.K.Passenger Service Charge.
Very often an advertised price of $699 ends up as being $1,100.

At this point you may think that the cheapest way around would be to choose a not very expensive airline. With that it comes other hidden dangers.
Like the following case, circulated via emails… hoax or not? it’s hard to say, but definitely it raises suspicions.
So here we are:

For anybody who is not familiar with a jet engine, a jet fan blade should be perfectly smooth.
A pilot for a Chinese carrier requested permission and landed at FRA (Frankfurt, Germany) for an unscheduled refuelling stop. The reason became soon apparent to the ground crew: The Number 3 engine had been shutdown previously because of excessive vibration, and because it didn’t look too good. It had apparently been no problem for the tough guys back in China: as they took some sturdy straps and wrapped them around two of the fan blades and the structures behind, thus stopping any unwanted wind-milling (engine spinning by itself due to airflow passing through the blades during flight) and associated uncomfortable vibration caused by the sub optimal fan.

Note that the straps are seat belts….how resourceful! After making the ‘repairs’, off they went into the wild blue yonder with another revenue-making flight on only three engines! With the increased fuel consumption, they got a bit low on fuel, and just set it down at the closest airport (FRA-Frankfurt) for a quick refill.
That’s when the problems started: The Germans, who are kind of picky about this stuff, inspected the malfunctioning engine and immediately grounded the aircraft. (Besides the seat belts, notice the appalling condition of the fan blades.) The airline operator had to send a chunk of money to get the first engine replaced (took about 10 days). The repair contractor decided to do some impromptu inspection work on the other engines, none of which looked all that great either. The result: a total of 3 engines were eventually changed on this plane before it was permitted to fly again.